Archive for the ‘government’ Category

Chinese Death Vans – Tech Gone Bad

Latest Mobile Phones 2010

Chinese Mobile Death Van

Chinese Mobile Death Van

People use technology in really screwed up ways sometimes, the Chinese government being one example. Let’s start with some history. 

Starting in 1940 and going until the end of World War II, the Nazis would make use of death vans – large busses that fit up to 50 people inside, the back of which was hermetically sealed so that Jews and convicts could be executed instantly by pumping carbon monoxide gas  into the back of the van. The vans were originally tested on children at a Polish psychiatric hospital and as the prisoners screamed inside the vans and pounded on the walls these vans were being driven to graves which were in the process of being dug.

Now, China is proud to be using a similar system to execute its prisoners. Mobile death vans were invented by an automobile company, the spokesperson of which was quick to offer these execution vans to other countries. Apparently many death vans have already been purchased by various prisons. Instead of using poison gas to execute criminals on death row (some of which have been put on death row for crimes like tax evasion and fraud), these deathmobiles use lethal injection. The prisoner goes into the execution van, is killed by lethal injection, and driven straight to the crematorium. Not only that, but his organs are quickly removed in the van straight after death and sold on the black market to the rich who are willing to pay for them. Apparently out of over 10,000 Chinese kidney transplants each year less than 300 come from voluntary donations. 

China is proud of these death vans - they save time and money and get them some illegal cash from the organ market at the same time. The number of deaths is expected to rise to 10,000 this year – compared to the still substantial 1,715 convicts being executed last year. Then again, even on death, in my opinion, is substantial. 

Pirate Party Membership Soars

Pirate Party Girl

Pirate Party Girl

After the verdict of the case of The Pirate Bay Four was announced (receiving one year in jail and fines totaling over $3,000,000) the Swedish Pirate Party membership (a party whose goal it is to reform copyright and patent laws) has soared.

The Pirate Party membership rose to 18,000 people from just 15,000 in a matter of hours.

Over half of males under 30 in Sweden are now considering voting for the Pirate Party in the next European Parliament election. In just a few hours after the verdict was announced, more than 3000 people applied to join the Pirate Party. They overtook the Greens and are now the 5th largest Swedish party.

The Pirate Party requires 100,000 votes in the European Parliament election to get a seat in the Parliament.

Arrr, Matey, we be getting close to that sunken treasure of copyright reform.

Wikileaks Inaccessible from Australia

Wikileaks is currently inaccessible from Australia. Could this have anything to do with the leaked ACMA blacklist? Seems extremely suss.

Web Filter Debate Turns Ugly

The web filtering debate just got ugly. Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of Child Wise, made some pretty harsh accusations at a technology conference regarding the opponents of the web filter. It went something like this:

Yes, there’s been an awful lot of vitriol, there’s been an awful lot of misinformation, and certainly I think there’s been an awful lot of hysteria, and most of that hysteria is not coming from the child protection advocates, but it’s coming from all these anonymous bloggers…

I think there’s probably only a few hundred of you in this country, you’re vigorous, you’re loud…

Then, ISP expert Mark Newton strikes back with the following:

I think we all agree it won’t work, and the blacklist will become public once this thing goes into production, if not earlier. If its contents are as bad as the Minister (of Communications) says, we’ll have an anonymously-published official list of child pornography sites and no official means of preventing people from exploiting it. Does that sound like a good idea Bernadette, does that sound like something you want your name to be associated with?

A journalist then piped up with:

(Senator Stephen) Conroy himself said that anyone who disagrees with this policy is a supporter of child molestation.

I wish they would just let the darn thing fail and be done with it already.

Source

Refusing to Sell Violent Games to Kids is Unconstitutional

Californian law regarding restricting the sales of violent games to children has been deemed as unconstitutional – a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel agreed that it was violating free speech and that previous ruling stated that there was no evidence that violent games cause psychological harm to children. Makes me wish Australia took a few pages out of California’s book. Read more about this ruling at Gaming Vixen.

Rally to Legalize R18+ Games in Australia

Gaming Vixen has made a post about a rally for R18+ games being organized to take place in Adelaide this March. Gametraders is running the show with this and have presented participants with one…strange…catch. Read more here…

Darnit. I Don’t Wanna be Filtered :[

This Australian filtering experiment is getting me worried and on-edge. Said to be beginning in March, six Internet Service Proviers (ISPs) will participate in a government-organized experiment involving filtering out illegal websites. The blacklist of these sites will be controlled by – you guessed it – the government. Thankfully, Australia’s biggest ISPs – Telstra, Optus, and iiNet, are rejecting the filter and not participating in the experiment.

Apparently the filter was in the works before Labor was in government, but before the election the filter was meant to be an optional, opt-in service as opposed to a mandatory control over what Internet users can view.

Originally suggested for the purpose of hindering child pornography, I’m not sure it’ll do much at all. Those trafficking child porn will simply better protect the content via encryption and anonymisers. Why don’t we just ban the Internet while we’re at it?

The saddest thing of all for me is – my ISP is iPrimus, one of the ones that are actually participating in the trial.

Please, guys, let’s not let us turn into China.

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