Back in January we noted the MPAA's double standard, when it came to unauthorized copies of movies. The same MPAA that goes around telling schoolchildren if you haven't paid for it, you've stolen it and once said that fair use doesn't exist. Well, it turns out (of course) they meant for other people. That's why they made unauthorized copies of the movie "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" -- a documentary about (aha!) the MPAA itself.

The movie also discovered that the MPAA's "appeals board" is made up a combination of movie execs and two representatives from religious groups. For a group so powerful, you would think they'd have a bit more accountability. Unfortunately, as the review points out, there are some weaknesses and somewhat dishonest parts to the movie as well -- which take away from its overall credibility. However, it still sounds like it sheds a lot of light on how the MPAA goes about its movie ratings business.

Computer experts from the University of Cambridge claim not only to have breached the Great Firewall of China, but have found a way to use the firewall to launch denial-of-service attacks against specific Internet Protocol addresses in the country.

The Cambridge research group tested the firewall by firing data packets containing the word "Falun" at it, a reference to the Falun Gong religious group, which is banned in China.

"The machines in China allow data packets in and out, but send a burst of resets to shut connections if they spot particular keywords," explained Richard Clayton of the University of Cambridge computer laboratory. "If you drop all the reset packets at both ends of the connection, which is relatively trivial to do, the Web page is transferred just fine."

The IDS uses a stateless server, which examines each data packet both going in and out of the firewall individually, unrelated to any previous request. By forging the source address of a packet containing a "sensitive" keyword, people could trigger the firewall to block access between source and destination addresses for up to an hour at a time.

Even though this technique would block communication between only two particular points on the Internet, the researchers calculated that a lone attacker using a single dial-up connection could still generate a "reasonably effective" denial-of-service attack.

Athletics Director Laing Kennedy recently told student-athletes they have until Aug. 1 to remove their Facebook profiles, citing a need to protect both their identities and the university's image.

If student-athletes don't remove their profiles by the deadline, they risk losing their scholarships, he said. Coaches and athletics counselors will monitor the site for violators.

Student-athletes are representatives of the university, Kennedy said, and anything embarrassing on a student's profile can be embarrassing for the university as well.

By posting their addresses, class schedules and what bars they go to, they put themselves at risk, he said.

Search engine outfit, Yahoo! is more ruthless at censoring its content in China than the locals, a media watch dog has barked.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said their tests showed that Yahoo.cn blocked a higher percentage of politically sensitive results than Google.cn or the beta version of msn.cn.

A spokesman for the group said that Google.cn is censored, but it’s far less than what Yahoo. Even Baidu didn't restrict access to some of the sites that Yahoo did.

Yahoo.cn and Baidu block access to the search engines for an hour in half the cases after a search was conducted using the sensitive keywords.

Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites, monitor online communications, and persecute citizens who express dissent in blogs, emails, or chat-rooms. The website, Irrepressible.info contains a web-based petition (to be presented at a UN conference in November 2006) and also a downloadable web gadget which displays random excerpts of censored material on your own website.

"The Washington Post is carrying an article about a disturbing Senate bill that could make it illegal to publicly disclose even the existence of US domestic spying programs (i.e. NSA wiretaps)." An aide to the bill's author assures us it's not aimed at reporters, but the language is ambiguous at best. From the article: "Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the measure is broader than any existing laws. She said, for example, the language does not specify that the information has to be harmful to national security or classified. 'The bill would make it a crime to tell the American people that the president is breaking the law, and the bill could make it a crime for the newspapers to publish that fact,' said Martin, a civil liberties advocate."

US marines stationed in Iraq are complaining that the US government is restricting access their access to websites too much.

Along with porn sites, on the Army's list of banned sites include mail sites such as Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail. The censors are also blocking blogs and sites that do not agree with the current administration.

One marine wrote to a site called Wonkette to tell them that it was on the banned list. He said he didn't mind The Army blocking access to porn sites, because it was a government network but he and the troops were getting miffed that access to email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites was a bit much.

The New York Times is reporting that the CIA is secretly reclassfying documents. How did we catch on? Historians have some of the documents. From the article: "eight [of the] reclassified documents had been previously published in the State Department's history series, 'Foreign Relations of the United States.'" Are our intelligence agencies rewriting history, stupidly paranoid, or both? We do know that they are ignoring a 2003 law that requires formal reclassifications. It puts that whole Google censorship thing in a whole new light. (Americans aren't allowed to see that video.)

The top climate scientist at NASA, James E. Hansen, says that the Bush Administration tried to silence him after he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth 'a different planet.' The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

According to the new E3 2006 exhibitor's handbook, "nudity, partial nudity and bathing suit bottoms" are this year banned from the annual gaming fest in Los Angeles.

And any babes wandering about in anything less than regulation kit will earn their sponsor a $5000 on the spot fine, the document sent to exhibitors - a copy of which we have seen - reveals.

Show director Mary Dolaher told Reuters the "update and clarification of the enforcement policies" is designed to "ensure that exhibitors are familiar with the policy and how it will be enforced."

Here's the pertinent passage from the re-written rule-book: "Materials, including live models, conduct that is sexually explicit or sexually provocative, including, but not limited to, nudity, partial-nudity and bathing suit bottoms, are prohibited on the Show floor, all common areas and at any access points to the Show. ESA, in its sole discretion, will determine whether material is acceptable."