Aussie police to gain access to stored messages

Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock has introduced amendments to federal parliament that would ease police access in the country to stored voice mails, e-mails and text messages.

Ruddock said the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment (Stored Communications) Bill would allow police to gain access to stored communications without a telecommunications interception warrant, as well as allowing access under "other forms of lawful authority such as a search warrant."

He said existing legislation was designed only to cover voice telephony and did not encompass additional technologies.

The bill is designed as a temporary solution while Ruddock's department conducts a more full investigation of interception laws.

He said new communication technologies that may involve storage, but which are similar to standard voice telephony, remain protected in the same way as telephone calls under the new legislation. Voice over Internet Protocol and comparable communications are specifically excluded from the amendments.

< The Aussies have always been ahead (behind) us in this kind of thing, right up until 9-11. Suddenly we're ahead and they're playing catch-up >

Is violent poetry criminal?

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The California Supreme Court is deciding whether to throw out the conviction of a 15-year-old boy who served 100 days in juvenile hall for writing a poem that included a threat to kill his fellow students.

The case weighs free speech rights against the government's responsibility to provide safety in schools after campus shootings nationwide.

Attorneys for the San Jose boy, identified as George T. in court records, described the poem Thursday as youthful artistic expression. One passage says: "For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school." Another reads: "For I am Dark, Destructive & Dangerous."

"This is a classic case of a person expressing himself and trying to communicate his feelings through a poem," attorney Michael Kresser told the court, which gave no clear indication what it would do. A ruling is expected within 90 days.

Chief Justice Ronald George and other justices wondered aloud whether George T.'s statements were protected speech because they were presented as verses in a poem.

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Laurence replied: "The First Amendment doesn't protect against criminal conduct."

The law in question, usually invoked in domestic violence cases, carries a maximum one-year term for criminal threats that convey an "immediate prospect of execution." The lower courts found that this threat met that definition, a decision the boy's attorney argued was unfounded.

Civil rights and free-speech groups were closely following the dispute.

"At the heart of this case is the First Amendment right of any young person to explore the whole range of his emotions and experiences, and write about disturbing subject matter without fear that he will be punished should his work be misinterpreted," said Ann Brick, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney.

A student frightened by the poem notified a teacher, who called police. The boy, now 18, was arrested the next day and expelled from Santa Teresa High in San Jose.

Justice Marvin Baxter was unsure whether the justices could second-guess the lower courts. "How can we conclude that the threat was unequivocal?"

Justice Joyce Kennard suggested there was no immediacy to the threat and therefore no crime was committed. "The poem doesn't say 'I will be the next kid to bring guns to school.' It says, 'I can."'

Justice Janice Rogers Brown said the First Amendment doesn't shield works of art with unlawful intentions. She asked whether a bank robber could be immune from charges for giving a bank teller this note:

"Roses are red. Violets are blue. Give me the money or I'll shoot you."

Speaking for the state, Laurence said the boy's poem cannot be analyzed in a vacuum. The boy passed the poem to a girl in his English class 11 days after a student killed two classmates and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee on March 5, 2001.

"You have to look at it all in context," Laurence said.

Kresser said after the hourlong hearing that the boy's prosecution was an exaggerated response to Santee as well as the 1999 Columbine High student shooting that left 15 dead, and other student attacks.

Outside of court, Laurence said the case might have been harder to prove if the poem was written in a poetry class, or the events at Santee had not just occurred.

In one of California's first attempts to prosecute a schoolchild under the criminal threats statute in 2002, a Sacramento-based appeals court overturned a boy's conviction for drawing a picture of a police officer being shot in the head.

That boy was previously arrested by the officer on drug-related charges, and he submitted the work to his art class. An appeals court ultimately reversed that conviction, saying there was no immediate threat of harm.

Prosecutions of students under the statute are rare, but continue: on Wednesday, a 14-year-old boy was arrested at a middle school in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek after posting a cartoon on the Internet with a caption that referred to a teacher, reading: "Maybe I should kill him and urinate on his remains."

< Everyone involved in the prosecution of this kid needs to be shot in the back of the head. I Will be the one to do it (and notice, this doesn't rhyme) >

Chatroom Suicide Bid

A teenage boy posed as a spy in an Internet chatroom to persuade an older boy to kill him in an "extraordinary suicide attempt," a court heard.

Fifteen-year-old Boy A pleaded guilty to attempted murder at Manchester Crown Court, while the younger Boy B pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder.

Following chatroom conversations Boy A believed he would be recruited as a British secret service agent if he followed the orders of Boy B to kill him.

Boy A also thought he would be rewarded with a sexual relationship with the spy he thought was a middle-aged woman.

But the spy 'ringmaster' was 14-year-old Boy B who had developed a crush on Boy A.

Boy B groomed Boy A with an "elaborate matrix of deceit" involving a series of fictional identities in the chatroom.

He tricked him into performing sex acts on a webcam and conned him into stabbing him twice in Altrincham in June, 2003.

Posing as the spy and promising sex and money, boy B sent messages to boy A ordering him to stab his friend to death but Boy B survived.

Judge David Maddison said to Boy A: "I accept that fantastic though it seems when looked at now in the cold light of day that such a plot was presented to you, so convincingly were the characters presented to you that you really did believe you had been recruited by the Secret Service to kill your co-accused and face the consequences if you did not do so.

"You were the subject of a degree of exploitation and manipulation and found yourself in a position of conflict in your perceived public duty having been recruited by the state and your real friendship with the co-accused."

To Boy B, he said: "Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here."

Boy A was given a two-year supervision order and banned from any contact with Boy B.

Boy B was given a three-year supervision order, banned from any contact with Boy A and was told he must only access the internet under adult supervision and must not enter chatrooms under any circumstances.

California Senate approves anti-Gmail bill

The California state Senate on Thursday approved a bill that takes aim at Google's new Gmail service, placing strict limits on e-mail providers seeking to scan customer messages for advertising and other purposes.

The bill passed after revisions that removed a key provision that would have required e-mail providers to win the consent of anyone sending messages to their service before scanning messages.

"My legislation guarantees that our most private communications will remain just that--private," said Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Fremont, the bill's author, according to a statement.

In a statement, Google said that it is taking a neutral position on the bill as it continues to work with Figueroa on the measure.

"Google has worked in good faith with Senator Figueroa and her staff to address her concerns about privacy and online communications," the company wrote. "We believe we have reached conceptual agreement on most of the key points, but we have not yet reached agreement on all the details. As is the norm in the legislative process, work still remains on the specific language of the bill."

The Senate action comes as Google is seeking to fend off an unexpected backlash against Gmail, a Web-based e-mail service that turned heads when it was unveiled in late March with an offer of 1GB of free storage.

Google touted the service as a reinvention of e-mail, one based on a searchable database archive, rather than traditional folder systems. Still, some critics raised concerns that Gmail could subject consumers to unwarranted privacy risks.

First, the amount of storage offered means that customers might never again have to delete e-mail, eventually creating a vast repository of personal correspondence that could be subject to review by police and other outsiders. Second, Google proposed placing ads in messages based on the mail's content, requiring customers to agree to let the company scan their correspondence for keywords.

Figueroa's bill would explicitly allow e-mail and instant-messaging providers to scan the content of messages to deliver advertisements, as long as the providers meet certain restrictions on how the data is used. Information gleaned from e-mails cannot be retained, shared with a third party, or shown to any employee or other "natural person," according to the bill. In addition, messaging providers must permanently delete messages at the request of customers.

The bill carves out some exceptions for antispam and virus filtering.

Technology groups opposing the bill noted this week that limits on e-mail scanning would appear to affect a large number of widely used industry practices that have not sparked any privacy concerns to date.

"We are unaware of any instances in which a consumer has been harmed as a result of the computer scanning that takes place today. In fact, we believe that the scanning technology is evolving largely in the pursuit of protecting consumers' interest," the American Electronics Association wrote in a letter to Figueroa on Wednesday. "Examples include spam and virus filtering, searching, spellchecking, auto-responding, managing mailing lists, flagging urgent messages, converting incoming e-mail to cell phone text messages, automatic saving and sorting into folders, converting text URLs to clickable links, converting date stamps to local time zones, building automatic address books, and so forth."

< They make a good point, that such usage has thus far been to help the consumer, but they're missing something. First of all, that's not always the case. In general that is true, and the rate at which there are exceptions could probably be shown as part of the similar things that would happen even if this sort of system were not in place. However! There's no way that these sort of tracking and privacy invading technologies will not be used against people. There's no way it won't be abused by government and big businss. The larger it gets, the greater the potential for abuse. This is exactly why such technologies need to be either stopped entirely, which is undoable, or have serious scrutiny placed upon them and put into a system of checks and balances which is what the anti-Google types are trying to do with this. >

Oral sex lessons to cut rates of teenage pregnancy

Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.

Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.

Britain's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe. In 2002 there were 39,286 teen pregnancies recorded. The government has spent more than £60 million to tackle the problem but so far failed to halt the rise.

A sex education course developed by Exeter University trains teachers to talk to teenagers about 'stopping points' before full sex.

Now an unpublished government-backed report reveals that a trial of the course has been a success. Schoolchildren, particularly girls, who received such training developed a 'more mature' response to sex.

The study by the National Foundation for Educational Research found youngsters were 'less likely to be sexually active' than peers who received traditional forms of sex education, dispelling the fears of family campaigners who believe such methods actually arouse the sexual interest of teenagers.

Now the government will recommend the scheme, called A Pause, to schools throughout England and Wales following the success of the trial in 104 schools where sexual intercourse among 16-year-olds fell by up to 20 per cent, according to Dr John Tripp of the Department of Child Health at the University of Exeter, who helped to design the course.

Teachers who sign up to the course are primed to deal with queries from pupils on all kinds of sexual experience. Those behind the course stress the scheme does not suggest teenagers experiment with oral sex. Instead they say A Pause promotes the message that other forms of physical intimacy are safer than full intercourse.

'It teaches people assertiveness skills and that they should be only as intimate as they feel comfortable with,' said Tripp.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said the report's verdict would be made available to all schools. 'All teachers respect peer-reviewed material, and this will help influence their decision,' he said.

Human rights climate 'worst in 50 years'

Amnesty International today claimed that governments and armed groups such as al-Qaida were putting human rights and international humanitarian law under the greatest pressure for more than 50 years.
From long-running conflicts in countries such as Chechnya and Sudan to the Madrid train bombings, it said global insecurity was combining with increasing human rights violations by powerful governments to create a world of "mistrust, fear and division".

The 2004 annual report documents human rights abuses in 155 countries including execution, detention without judicial process, hostage taking and "disappearances" by state agents.

It condemns attacks by al-Qaida and others as "sometimes amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity" but says principles of international law that could prevent such attacks were being undermined and marginalised by powerful countries such as the US.

"Governments are losing their moral compass, sacrificing the global values of human rights in a blind pursuit of security. This failure of leadership is a dangerous concession to armed groups," said Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty International.

"The global security agenda promoted by the US administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating human rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place."

Amnesty reports that allegations of torture were made against the security forces and police of 132 countries, and that 58 countries - including Britain - arrested and detained people without charge or trial.

It says armed groups committed violent acts and killings in 34 countries and took hostages in 16, including Nepal, Peru and Algeria.

Ms Khan said the war in Iraq had led to a new wave of abuses but diverted attention from many "old" problem areas of the world. She said: "While governments have been obsessed with Iraq they have allowed the real weapons of mass destruction - injustice and impunity, poverty, discrimination and racism, the uncontrolled trade in small arms, violence against women and children - to go unaddressed."

Continuing violence in Northern Ireland, one of the "old" troublespots, accounts for the UK's ignominious inclusion among the 47 countries where Amnesty says extrajudicial executions were carried out last year.

Eight such killings were attributed to loyalist paramilitaries and two to Republican dissident paramilitaries.

Inevitably, Iraq also features in the Amnesty report. It repeats some of the content of Amnesty's recent critical reports about the behaviour of British troops in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence has said it is investigating 33 cases of the death or injury of Iraqi civilians; six Iraqis have died in British military custody over the past year.

Among those deaths in custody cited in the report is that of Baha Mousa, 27, a hotel receptionist and father of two, who died after being arrested by members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment in Basra last September. A number of other Iraqis were also allegedly assaulted during a raid by troops.

The annual report also lists conflicts in Chechnya, Colombia, Sudan and Nepal as breeding grounds of some of the worst atrocities. It said that violence in Israel and the occupied territories had deepened while many other government were pursuing repressive agendas.

Amnesty said reports of the torture and ill-treatment of US detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at jails in Iraq had further underlined the vulnerability of prisoners. "By failing to protect the rights of those who may be guilty, governments endanger the rights of those who are innocent, and put us all at risk," the report says.

Plea to Game Makers to Act Responsibly

I remember the first time I played the grandpappy of all violent PC games. It was on an old DOS box the keyboard player in my band used to run his sound software, and the machine itself couldn?t possibly have been more alien to me at the time. I can recall the rush of adrenaline the first time I heard the solid thud of the shotgun, followed by the plaintive wail of the demon-possessed trooper who?d just taken a gutload full of buckshot. I was instantly hooked, and my thirst for ever-increasing gore hasn?t lessened with time. However, the longer I indulge my love of virtual carnage, the more acute my sense of awareness becomes. Recently, I had an epiphany of sorts, one that even a year ago I probably would?ve scoffed at: something needs to be done about the violence in video games.

I realize the above statement is one of the most loaded one can say when discussing our beloved pastime, but please bear with me. I?m not being flippant for the sake of mere controversy. If it isn?t already patently obvious from the opening salvo of this column, I?m all for the advancement of realistic blood and guts in the pixel-shaded realms. Want to assure that I?ll sit up and pay attention to a title? Offer as wide a plethora of different ways to die painfully as possible, and wrap the entire affair in darkly surreal environments for good measure. As far as I?m concerned, offerings like American McGee?s Alice, Clive Barker?s Undying and Painkiller are full of chewy nougat (metaphorically speaking, of course), so utterly alluring that I can?t help but be taken in by them. So let?s be clear: I?m not an advocate for peace, love and happy puppies with watery eyes. Give me gleeful excoriation, please.

However, I?m 29 years of age. My love of digital maiming is tempered by the fact that, at this stage of my life, I can tell right from wrong. I have a fully developed set of ethics. I wouldn?t say my nine-year-old nephew has quite had the time to develop these tools. Imagine my reaction when I discovered that he was fervently beseeching his mother to purchase Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for him, and that he wanted it because he?d already played it extensively at a friend?s house. Great, one parent?s lack of attention means my own blood wants in on a game that boasts virtual rape. That?s a warm fuzzy feeling. It?s with that in mind that I began to seriously start thinking about the issue of game gore. What can be done? How can this problem (and it is a serious one) be addressed without spilling over into censorship? I?d rather fold my arms the wrong way than walk down the path of what can and can?t be done. There?s no such thing as friendly fascism. Is there a subtle approach, or are we faced with an all or nothing situation? I think there are many things that need to be done, but I only want to talk about what I believe the first step should be. Publishers and developers take heed; I?m looking in your direction.

What exactly is the problem with young people and violence? Is there a problem? After all, I was raised on media that was saturated with guns, explosions and death. Yet I?m a (fairly) respectable member of society; I don?t believe it?s right to solve conflict with a curb stomp and a witty catchphrase. Many of my friends from my childhood years cut their teeth on the same high calibre entertainment, yet none of them are inherently vicious, either. The line that separates the entertainment of my past and that of today is an important one. Simply put, somewhere along the line, context has fallen into disuse. Please forgive me as I slip into Old Man Durocher mode (?You kids get off my lawn!?), but in my day, there was always a very clear line between the good guy and the bad guy. That line seems to be missing now. The search for the ever cooler anti-hero has produced a slew of central characters so willing to stoop to the level of their opponents that there really isn?t any difference anymore. Is it so surprising that ?shoot first, ask questions later? seems to be the way to resolve problems any longer, no matter how small? I don?t think it?s the violence that?s the problem, it?s that there?s no real reason for it to be happening.

Who among us hasn?t heard all about the supposed evils of Grand Theft Auto? Rockstar Games? flagship release is roughly analogous to Dungeons & Dragons for notoriety by now, thanks to a reactionary media. The stunning amount of negative press generated by this title has created a hulking monster of precedent. It?s nominally ironic that the louder anti-game violence groups get in their vitriolic attempts to suppress this release, the more they lend strength to its longevity. The sequel, Vice City, has thus far been icing on the cake of controversy, fueling the lawsuits and headlines. You know that old adage, ?There?s no such thing as bad press?? Say hello to the poster child of that phrase. Hysterical conservatives want to see it eliminated, but instead squawk so loudly that it sometimes seems like the whole world knows about it. What?s the end result? Publishers and developers brainstorming like mad, trying to rework future offerings to meet or exceed the extremities that are proving to be so lucrative. One of the first examples of this new standard is Manhunt. Apparently, the formula is working. Shock is all that matters now, everything else is secondary. While that?s great news for us jaded old folks who need to be ham-fisted upside the skull to elicit a reaction, it doesn?t bode so well for the impressionable thought-meats of kids being exposed to simulated rape and murder.

Grand Theft Auto isn?t the only excessively, and formlessly, violent game available, it?s just the best known example. There are many companies that seem to have latched onto an ideal of ?attention is attention, no matter if it?s good or bad.? Postal 2 is a perfect example of this; it?s one of the most violent games on the market today, but once you look past the blood, there?s really nothing else to it. Running With Scissors are quite proud of their gunfest, but its lack of substance made me think of a lone meatloaf on the table, devoid of fixings. It?s what it is, though; few titles in recent memory can boast its level of sheer brutality. There?s also Gangland, a game that isn?t quite as explicit as these other examples, but is certainly no slouch when it comes to glorifying bad guys. Extortion, murder and racketeering, oh my! It doesn?t look as if the immediate future offers much hope, either; Midway?s upcoming remake of the classic arcade hit, NARC, will feature the option to become a crack smoking, drug dealing cop along the lines of Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. I could go on, but that?s not the issue. I?m not trying to point fingers, nor am I trying to pass judgment on these titles as the root of all evil. What I?m trying to do is proclaim my opinion that a loss of focus in the entertainment young people are absorbing is a small part of a much larger problem - a small part that can easily be fixed.

Certain things need to be taken as given before my point is allowed form. One I?ve already mentioned is the parent who blindly dismisses all video games as ?kids? stuff? and doesn?t bother looking into what it is their kids are (virtually) doing. My own sister had absolutely no clue that her son was playing a game that featured rape, murder, theft and high-speed destruction as part of the deal. However, parental responsibility is another (extremely important) topic entirely. We need to look at where the process breaks down even earlier than inattentive mothers and fathers. Where does it all begin? That?s simple, it starts with developers and publishers.

The coding wizards who come up with the products themselves are the first tier of the issue. It?s from this group that we hear the tired excuse, ?These aren?t meant for kids.? That doesn?t fly, and ties directly into the problem. Ultra-violent titles might not be designed with kids in mind, but there comes a point when a reality check is in order. Children are playing these games. Publishers and developers can bury their head in the sand for only so long, parroting the freedom of expression mantra.

This is a complex, convoluted Gordian knot of different angles. Cause and effect gets positively fractal when we look at the overall problem of violence in media, specifically games. However, the very first step toward achieving balance is also the first step in the creation of the titles themselves. Developers and publishers, hear my plea: start injecting a strong sense of right and wrong into your stories. I don?t want you to pull back on the gibs, I don?t want anything more than a stronger sense of ethics and perhaps a small dose of moral fiber. Take into account the fact that kids are playing, no matter that they shouldn?t be. Weave into your bullet ballets more than just excessive machismo, make sure that by the end of the day, everyone knows that there was a good reason they?ve been caving in skulls with crowbars. It might seem like the tiniest goal to reach toward, but it?s my belief that the ripple effects, over time, will be tremendous. You have the power to be the beginning of the solution; all it takes is some foresight and willingness to inject a little responsibility into your creations.

< Despite how it seems and what you've heard, kids aren't any more violent today than they were X years ago. There are games that are violent and bloody, and games that are happy and fuzzy, exactly as it should be. Each child has a gardian, and it is that person's sole resposibility to determine what is acceptable for that child. When we let society push it's views in on anyone and everyone, there is no longer the little thing called freedom. Kids should be rasied a million different ways. Some should play lots of violent video-games, some should be banned from them, depending on the particular circumstances of that particular child. Trying to take action against a whole set of something that's not a problem in and of itself, is a problem. Aside from influencing some kids who may or may not need that removal, you also target everyone for whome those games were perfectly suited. Don't do that. The answer to the problem lies in first admitting that the problem isn't across the board. Tons of kids play these games with no harm to their lives or psyche. Then you can go target the specific areas where there IS a problem and find a specific solution to them, not make everyone do what only suits a few. >

A quick self-Google once a day to guard your reputation

It used to be a clandestine act carried out at the computer when no one else was watching, but "self-Googling" - searching for your own name on the internet - has gained social acceptance, with academics and legal experts saying the practice is healthy and fast becoming indispensable.

American researcher Alexander Halavais last month urged all internet users to keep tabs on what was being posted about them on the net, saying it was a 21st-century form of brand management.

The comments sparked an instant fad in the US, with people who consulted search engines surprised to discover they were mentioned on websites ranging from sporting team homepages to business directories.

An Australian internet legal expert last week urged Australians to follow suit, saying it was important for people to keep track of their web presence and know what others were learning about them.

"It's becoming common and if you're not using it you're missing out," John Swinson of Mallesons Stephen Jaques said.

Professor Halavais, a communications professor at Buffalo University, attracted media attention with his call in April for universal self-Googling.

While Googling refers to a specific search engine - Google - it has taken on a popular generic meaning of searching the internet.

"Given that everyone from potential employers to potential mates is likely to be Googling you, you should have a good idea of what they will find," Professor Halavais said.

He said people who conducted searches on their names sometimes uncovered unpleasant surprises.

One university graduate was forced to remove online criticism he had made of a company when he landed a job with another firm with links to it.

In the past, net users have discovered their names on hate sites operated by former partners.

Mr Swinson said self-Googling was becoming more popular as the internet emerged as a way of screening potential love and business partners.

He said his company had recently unearthed an unsavoury side to a potential business partner using search engines and there were similar benefits for people seeking romance.

"If you are using an internet dating service to find your dates you may as well use the internet to find the dirt on the people you're dating," he said.

Mr Swinson said people who discovered they had been slandered on a website in Australia had a right to demand the material be removed.

"But if it's not defamation - breach of privacy or just something you find offensive - then the law in Australia is very uncertain there."

Open Borders Rant

(thanks Pistoliero)
> TRY THIS -
>
> Go Ahead................I Dare You!
>
>
> Enter Mexico illegally.
> Never mind immigration quotas, visas,
> international law, or any of that nonsense.
>
> Once there, demand that the local government provide
> free medical care for you and your entire family.
> Demand bilingual nurses and doctors.
>
> Demand free bilingual local government forms,
> bulletins, etc. Procreate abundantly. Deflect any
> criticism of this allegedly irresponsible
> reproductive behavior with, "It is a cultural United
> States thing. You would not understand, pal."
>
> Keep your American identity strong. Fly Old Glory
> from your rooftop, or proudly display it in your
> front window or on your car bumper.
>
> Speak only English at home, and in public,
> and insist that your children do likewise.
>
> Demand classes on American culture in the
> Mexican school system.
>
> Demand a local Mexican driver license. This will
> afford other legal rights and will go far to
> legitimize your unauthorized, illegal,
> presence in Mexico.
>
> Insist that local Mexican law enforcement teach
> English to all its officers.
>
> Good luck! You'll be demanding for the rest of time.
> Because it will never happen.
> In Mexico or any other country in the world...
> Except right here.
> Land of the Naive.

Drugs come to online game worlds

Drug use and abuse has come to Achaea
The Achaea text-based multi-user game has introduced an addictive drug into its virtual world.
Called Gleam, it occasionally gives characters a boost to dexterity but, as with many real world drugs, too much use can lead to addiction and death.

Other side effects include muscle twitches and hallucinations. Withdrawal can take 25 days of playing time.

Gleam has already been banned by some game cities and many players have objected in discussion forums too.

XXXchurch Wants No More XXX

He recently befriended several other Christian men who share his belief that masturbation is sinful, and together they've pledged not to "defile themselves" for 40 days -- the same amount of time the Bible says Satan tempted Jesus in the desert. They encourage each other to remain steadfast by e-mail and instant messages.

"I'm only a few days into it, but I'm really seeing how used to it that my body really is, and how I am addicted to it," Rick writes in a blog chronicling his quest. "As difficult as it is, I'm contending not only for myself, but the men that are on this fast with me, to be strong, and beat this addiction. Let's do it guys! We can be holy."

The men were inspired by XXXchurch, whose mission is to help people overcome the twin temptations of pornography and onanism and bring them to God.

Started by two young pastors from the porn capital of the world -- Southern California -- the ministry is aggressively fighting carnal sin on the porn medium of choice, the Internet. It's an uphill battle. There are millions of XXX sites, but only one XXXchurch.

"(We) saw the church really doing nothing about the issue of porn, so we decided to step up and do something," said Craig Gross, 28, who started the XXXchurch with Mike Foster, 32, in 2002. "We wanted to do it outside the context of a normal church so we could attract both secular and church people."

The site -- which advertises itself as the No. 1 Christian porn site -- features downloadable bible studies, a virtual prayer wall and free software that records sites visited by Internet users and sends the log to a third party. There is also plenty of practical advice. Here's what the pastors recommend instead of self-gratification:

"Remain calm and tell yourself, 'You don't own me, masturbation! I'm taking my life back!' (or something of that nature). If that doesn't work, you can pursue alternatives like chewing gum, blasting John Lennon's song 'Cold Turkey,' eating chocolate or whatever helps you best (not masturbation)."

The ministry is based on Matthew 5:27-30, which condemns lust and recommends amputating body parts that cause a believer to sin, "for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."

First they capitalized on an existing spoof -- the "Save the Kittens" e-mail campaign -- which featured a photoshopped picture of a kitten being chased by two snarling red monsters and the phrase "Every time you masturbate....God kills a kitten." Gross said the euphemism "killing kittens" made it easier for people to talk about masturbation. Although the e-mail was widely disseminated, some people were offended by a video spin-off of the campaign, which showed a cat being thrown across a room.

Next there was a television commercial featuring a dwarf and the tag line, "Porn stunts your growth." The ad ran on MTV and on television shows targeting young people, but was pulled after a dwarf-empowerment group called Little People of America found it offensive.

The XXXchurch recently wrapped its second commercial, which has been no less controversial. It was shot by veteran porn director James DiGiorgio, whose filmography includes Nutjob Nurses and The Anal Life. "Jimmy D," as he's known in the porn biz, met the two pastors during their yearly trek to the Adult Video News Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, where the duo open a booth and hand out Bibles and "Jesus loves porn stars" stickers.

DiGiorgio offered to direct the new commercial -- which features simulated puppet sex and an admonition to keep porn away from children -- for free after hearing about the dwarf debacle. He has not publicly stated his motivations for shooting the anti-porn ad, and did not respond to an interview request.

The pastors have raised the hackles of conservative Christians, who accuse them of fraternizing with pornographers and find their irreverent style unbecoming to ministers.

"The main reason we do not support them is because their method is not biblical, nor are they fruitful as a ministry," wrote Mike Cleveland, the founder of a competing anti-porn group in a letter found in the site's hate mail section. When contacted for an interview, Cleveland refused to elaborate on this criticism.

But others have praised the duo's approach, including Steve Gallagher, the president of Pure Life Ministries, which operates a treatment center for Christian sex addicts in Kentucky. Gallagher said he was skeptical of the ministry when he heard it was called XXXchurch, but changed his mind after the pastors flew out to visit him.

"Their simple message, 'There's something better than porn, and His name is Jesus,' delivered nonjudgmentally with an edge, and a witty sense of humor, is building a bridge into a subculture that will someday be crossed by those who find themselves at the end of their rope, discarded by an industry that they thought was their friend," Gallagher said.

Gross said he could care less what people think of his ministry.

"Jesus was a controversial figure so (we) are fine if people don't like us," he said. "The sad thing is that most of the hate comes from Christians, same as in Jesus' day. The so-called religious people were always pissed at him."

Meanwhile, the pastors are busy with speaking tours and developing an Internet reality show that will document their "adventures in the world of porn," and will feature a real-life porn star and a young man recovering from porn addiction. The name of the show? Missionary Positions.

Net users find validation for socially unacceptable behavior

Pedophiles use Internet chat rooms, news groups and Web sites as a source of discovery and validation, say some psychologists and law enforcement officials.

Technology itself does not create pedophiles. However, the Internet reinforces negative behavior and negative arousal patterns and gives these sex offenders a place to express themselves, says FBI Special Agent Ken Lanning, basing his comments on 20 years of investigative experience and the agency's nationwide investigation of computer-related child pornography and sexual exploitation cases--the Innocent Images National Initiative.

"They convince themselves that they are not evil people," says Lanning of pedophiles. "They are able to interact with groups anonymously and seek support from other people who have the same ideas."

Lanning believes pedophiles may not necessarily commit crimes online--examples of crimes are posting or downloading pornographic pictures of children or luring children to meet them in person--but the Internet provides the ease and anonymity to do so.

"A serious federal felony is now only a few mouse clicks away," Lanning says.

Yet at the same time that the Internet reinforces pedophiles' behavior, it also makes them more visible and traceable. The FBI is able to track these sex offenders from the Web sites, newsgroups and chat rooms they frequent, making it somewhat easier to gather evidence to convict them.

Still, pedophiles persist in using the Internet because it offers the benefits of access, affordability and perceived anonymity, says Alvin Cooper, PhD, of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre. Computers are becoming less expensive and easier to use.

But probably the most attractive feature of the Internet to pedophiles, says Cooper, is its feel of anonymity. The Internet allows them to talk openly about their sex lives, share fantasies and consort with others who share their interests and hide their behavior from society.

The FBI has found that most computer sex offenders are white, professional, upper-middle-class men. They fit no stereotype. They are often doctors and lawyers--successful professionals. They feel comfortable expressing themselves online and would likely be more reclusive if the Internet were not available.

Lanning says, "The sex offender who uses the computer is not a new type of criminal. It's just a matter of modern technology catching up with long-known, well-documented behavioral 'needs.'"

Child Porn Probe Uses Live Internet Wiretap

The video game nudity trend

Summer vacation is creeping up, and that means children will have all kinds of free time on their hands. For many boys, that means almost non-stop video game action, leaving them a pasty shade of white as they battle away the summer in the basement. Parents must wonder if their children don't get button-finger callouses, or carpal-tunnel syndrome, or "controller elbow" or something.

So what will all that playing accomplish? A parent can only hope the boys will spend a large chunk of the summer role-playing as heroic knights, dashing spies or glamorous power-hitters. But video-game manufacturers wouldn't mind if our kids imagined themselves as role-playing ultra-violent killers -- and now pornographers.

"Playboy: The Mansion" could be in stores before the kids crack a book again. You, too, can be a sleazy pornographer like Hugh Hefner, who in this game's vision is about 30 years younger and resembles Superman more than the dirty old man he is. The electronic "playmates" strip for you to photograph. (They're considering putting real Playboy photographs into the software, too.) Who says pornography isn't for children?

The decadent sex-game makers are frantically lobbying the industry's toothless ratings regulator, the Electronic Software Ratings Board, to go easy on handing out the "adults only" rating, which means you can't buy them at Wal-Mart and other more parent-friendly mass retailers. "We've been working really closely with the ESRB from day one," says the marketing director at Cyberlore, makers of the Playboy game. "Everyone knows what the limits are for violence because everyone has pushed that envelope. But no one knows where the limits are for sex and nudity."

Doesn't that sum up the manufacturer mentality perfectly? We don't know where the limits are, and we won't assume any responsibility for locating them on our own. We're going as far off the deep end as they'll let us. Right and wrong are irrelevant.

Beyond reasonable limits is the game "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life," a naughty version of "The Sims," in which you run little cyber-people's lives. The game-makers at Eidos went all out, with graphically sophisticated male and female full frontal nudity. Players set up characters as roommates and run their daily routines until they've successfully got the roommates, well, mating -- and then the player gets to watch all the steamy action. Character couplings can be homosexual if the player chooses.

After the ESRB gave this game an "adults only" title, Eidos decided to go around the retailers and sell the sex game starting this summer through Internet downloads for $30, as much as $20 cheaper than new video games at retailers.

How many teenagers with their own computers are going to get around Mom and Dad to download that salacious content? How obvious is it that Eidos wants to circumnavigate parental consent, and teach the kids to lie and cheat on their way to the smutty payoff?

Eidos even complained about the rating, with a spokesman saying it should be seen like an R-rated movie: "there's full frontal nudity in movies. I don't really think someone is going to get the same feeling of attraction in seeing a full frontal digital game character as they would from seeing that in an actor or actress." That doesn't pass the laugh test, sex-game salesmen asserting we don't think teenage boys will get genuine thrills out of full-frontal cyber-nudity and simulated intercourse.

Kids who want less graphic thrills will still have "The Sims 2," a personal-computer game which will be rated T for teenagers when it's released in August. The characters you manipulate can have intercourse, but AP reports that "onscreen coitus resembles giggly horseplay and tickling, not nudity or penetration." Will parents be aware of this, or will they just take comfort in the T rating, thinking there's nothing "adult" in the content?

Parents are already nervous about what their children can catch on television. But they better start worrying about video games, and now easily downloadable PC porno games. Even if it's kept out of your house, how about the playmate down the street? Industry self-regulators, retailers and the media need to stay on top of these scandalmongering companies, since it's obvious they're spreading cultural contamination, not social responsibility.

Database Nation

"In a February 2003 Harris poll, 69 percent of those surveyed agreed that 'consumers have lost all control over how personal information is collected and used by companies.'"

From Declan McCullagh's Article 'Database Nation'

May 4, 2004 -- As subscribers pull the June Reason magazine out of their mailbox, something about the issue should look familiar. The magazine published 40,000 individualized covers displaying an aerial photo of the subscriber's home and the surrounding neighborhood.

Inside, the personalization continues. Subscribers can find out how many of their neighbors are college educated and what percentage of kids in their zip code are being raised by their grandparents. An ad for the Institute for Justice shows the number of eminent domain cases in their state where private property was seized and given to private developers. And an ad for the Marijuana Policy Project tells subscribers whether their congressman voted to stop federal raids on medical marijuana clubs in states where they're legal, says Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie.

"Living in a database nation raises innumerable privacy concerns," writes Gillespie in the June issue. "But it also makes life easier and more prosperous. We may have kissed privacy goodbye -- and good riddance, too."

Study: Breast Baring Popular in 1600s

May 17, 2004 ? Women of the 1600s, from queens to prostitutes, commonly exposed one or both breasts in public and in the popular media of the day, according to a study of fashion, portraits, prints, and thousands of woodcuts from 17th-century ballads.

The finding suggests breast exposure by women in England and in the Netherlands during the 17th century was more accepted than it is in most countries today. Researchers, for example, say Janet Jackson's Super Bowl baring would not even have raised eyebrows in the 17th century.

Angela McShane Jones, a lecturer in history at University of Warwick in Coventry, England, became interested in the subject while studying the nearly 2,000 woodcut ballads housed in the Samuel Pepys collection at Cambridge University. Additional ballad sheets located at the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, Harvard University, and other institutions fuelled her study.

Ballad sheets served as the pop music and pulp fiction of their time. With a cost between half a penny and a penny, they were affordable, and could be purchased from street hawkers, and at fairs and markets. Most featured a woodcut that illustrated 10 to 14 verses of song.

Many of these woodcuts showed women with breasts bared.

Jones told Discovery News that the ballad depictions of women coincided with popular fashion. At the time, women often wore low-cut dresses that exposed the chest and breast.

In paintings, breast exposure could have symbolic meaning, particularly when only one breast was shown. Jones explained that high court ladies often were painted in allegories as classical figures or as female saints, whose martyrdom usually involved breast removal.

Far from being a sign of tawdriness, Jones said breast exposure during the 1600s could indicate a woman's virtue.

"The exposure of the breast was a display of the classical and youthful beauty of the woman ? she was showing her 'apple like' unused Venus breasts," Jones said. "This was a display of her virtue, her beauty, and her youth. Upper class women maintained the quality of their breasts by not breast feeding their children and passing them on to wet nurses."

She added, "Though women outside the upper circles may well have taken to this style, it began as a very high-class fashion which demonstrated high class and classical ideals of female beauty. The husband of a woman dressed like this would be proud to have his classical beauty on display, and for a woman it was part of her honor that she could display her virtue in this way."

Jones believes the trend probably started with Agnes Sorel, who was a mistress in the French court during the 1400s. The fashion spread, and was popularized in England by Queen Mary II and Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I. In fact, the famous British architect Inigo Jones designed a dress for Henrietta Maria that fully revealed her breasts.

Bernard Capp, professor of history at the University of Warwick, agrees that breast exposure was prevalent, and not scandalous, during certain periods of British history.

Capp said during these times, "Revealing attire ? worn in the right social spaces ? could be fully compatible with virtue and honor."

He added that some conservatives and court outsiders, such as the 17th-century Puritan lawyer William Prynne, objected to the popular clothing, which female actresses often wore.

Capp said Prynne once criticized Henrietta Maria after she performed in a court masque, and in 1633 wrote, "... women actors (are) notorious whores."

The government responded by having his ears chopped off.

Breast-displaying fashion had a number of comebacks in the 18th and 19th century, including during the Victorian era. Jones said during many of these bust-baring periods it would have been shocking for a woman to show her shoulders or legs, which were more associated with male sexuality.

"I think that parts of the body are sexualized and desexualized for a whole range of reasons," she said. "The breasts have become a part of the body which is seen as entirely sexual, but that could change again."

Airline to give free tickets for being nice

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Airlines have offered more legroom, televisions and even martinis on flights to draw customers in a highly competitive market. In the latest unusual effort, Delta's low-fare carrier, Song, will give free tickets to passengers who are nice to one another.

Help another passenger carry a bag, stay upbeat during a difficult situation or assist a flight attendant and you could earn one of 5,000 roundtrip tickets Song will give away in June for redemption between September and November.

Song hopes the program will build customer loyalty and generate more revenue for Delta Air Lines, which has lost more than $3 billion in three years and recently warned about the possibility of bankruptcy.

"We always give away products when people have a problem," Song chief executive John Selvaggio said in an interview. "I'd love to see what happens when you give away a ticket for somebody doing something good."

With profits hard to come by for the major airlines since the 2001 terrorist attacks and several having to raise ticket prices recently because of high fuel costs, some have been trying a few tricks to attract customers.

AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, said recently that it would keep its expanded legroom instead of adding more seats in many of its jets and will provide more passengers power ports to plug in their entertainment devices.

In January, New York-based JetBlue Airways, which has TVs in every seatback, said it would enhance its in-flight entertainment with about 100 channels of free digital satellite radio and two pay-per-view movie channels. Song has martini bars on its flights and Atlanta-based Delta has experimented with premium food for sale and is having fashion designer Richard Tyler update employee uniforms.

In the latest Song promotion, each flight attendant will get four tickets to give away to passengers at his or her discretion. The tickets will be good for travel between September 7 and November 10 in any of the 12 cities Song flies.

Song would not say how much the initiative will cost, though it noted that the seats being given away are only a small fraction of the 1 million a month it has available and the fall period is usually a slow time in the airline industry. A marketing tour to promote the program begins Thursday in Boston.

As he got off a Song flight Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, John Murphy, a 34-year-old financial consultant from New York, said he was intrigued by the promotion. "Perhaps it will put people in a better mood on airplanes," said Murphy, who was traveling Song for the first time.

Some analysts, however, are skeptical of Song's plan.

Ray Neidl, an airline analyst with Blaylock & Partners in New York, said he doesn't believe the promotion will generate much new business for Song or Delta.

"Next thing you know, they'll be paying you to fly," Neidl said. "I just hope there are not that many people that are nice. Yields are bad enough already."

QuietBuy.com

(Thanks Pistoliero)

The war on drugs

(Thanks Pistoleiro) We spend so many billions on this "war" per year, and the total reduction in drug use? 0. So, let's take the money and spend it on something worthwhile, and while we're at it, let's stop punishing people who are doing no harm to anyone. That'll still leave a few to have a war against, if we aren't too busy preventing homelessness or hunger or something else which is actually important.

Illuminating Blacked-Out Words

European researchers at a security conference in Switzerland last week demonstrated computer-based techniques that can identify blacked-out words and phrases in confidential documents.

The researchers showed their software at the conference, the Eurocrypt, by analyzing a presidential briefing memorandum released in April to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. After analyzing the document, they said they had high confidence the word "Egyptian" had been blacked out in a passage describing the source of an intelligence report stating that Osama Bin Ladin was planning an attack in the United States.

The researchers, David Naccache, the director of an information security lab for Gemplus S.A., a Luxembourg-based maker of banking and security cards, and Claire Whelan, a computer science graduate student at Dublin City University in Ireland, also applied the technique to a confidential Defense Department memorandum on Iraqi military use of Hughes helicopters.

They said that although the name of a country had been blacked out in that memorandum, their software showed that it was highly likely the document named South Korea as having helped the Iraqis.

The challenge of identifying blacked-out words came to Mr. Naccache as he watched television news on Easter weekend, he said in a telephone interview last Friday.

"The pictures of the blacked-out words appeared on my screen, and it piqued my interest as a cryptographer," he said. He then discussed possible solutions to the problem with Ms. Whelan, whom he is supervising as a graduate adviser, and she quickly designed a series of software programs to use in analyzing the documents.

Although Mr. Naccache is the director of Gemplus, a large information security laboratory, he said that the research was done independently from his work there.

The technique he and Ms. Whelan developed involves first using a program to realign the document, which had been placed on a copying machine at a slight angle. They determined that the document had been tilted by about half a degree.

By realigning the document it was possible to use another program Ms. Whelan had written to determine that it had been formatted in the Arial font. Next, they found the number of pixels that had been blacked out in the sentence: "An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike." They then used a computer to determine the pixel length of words in the dictionary when written in the Arial font.

The program rejected all of the words that were not within three pixels of the length of the word that was probably under the blackened-out area in the document.

The software then reduced the number of possible words to just 7 from 1,530 by using semantic guidelines, including the grammatical context. The researchers selected the word "Egyptian" from the seven possible words, rejecting "Ukrainian" and "Ugandan," because those countries would be less likely to have such information.

After the presentation at Eurocrypt, the researchers discussed possible measures that government agencies could take to make identifying blacked-out words more difficult, Mr. Naccache said in the phone interview. One possibility, he said, would be for agencies to use optical character recognition technology to rescan documents and alter fonts.

In January, the State Department required that its documents use a more modern font, Times New Roman, instead of Courier, Mr. Naccache said. Because Courier is a monospace font, in which all letters are of the same width, it is harder to decipher with the computer technique. There is no indication that the State Department knew that.

Experts on the Freedom of Information Act said they feared the computer technique might be used as an excuse by government agencies to release even more restricted versions of documents.

"They have exposed a technique that may now become less and less useful as a result," said Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, of the research project. "We care because there are all kinds of things withheld by government agencies improperly."

Is it Legal to be Nude on a Nude Beach in Hawaii?

US army could teach POW treatment with video game

LOS ANGELES - As graphic images of abuses of detained Iraqis by American military personnel shock the world, the US army may turn to an unusual tool to teach soldiers how to treat prisoners humanely -- video games.

The army already uses a video game called America's Army to train and recruit soldiers and distributes a free version of that software.

The military officer overseeing the game's development, Col Casey Wardynski, told Reuters on Wednesday that America's Army could also be modified to include lessons on prisoner treatment.

Saying that even though the game already demonstrates the consequences of negative behaviour for players, Wardynski added that it could be changed to more directly address the current scandal.

"If we don't get asked, we'll do something anyway ... If we get asked, of course we'll do it," he said.

In recent days, the public has been confronted with a steady stream of images of US soldiers abusing and humiliating captive Iraqis at facilities like the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, leading to questions about how much they were told they could do to gather information from the prisoners.

While many video game players have played the consumer version of America's Army, the military maintains multiple development teams, one to produce the public version and another that counts the US government as its client.

The government team, Wardynski said, can turn out new elements for the game in a few months, whether for an application to train military policemen or to train soldiers how to drive and operate the latest assault vehicles.

One training system being demonstrated at the E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles incorporates the controls of a robotic device into a large briefcase, allowing soldiers to practice disposing of explosives.

Another version, available only to the military and law enforcement, is a US$13,000 ($21,764) system to teach people how to shoot a range of weapons.

"Northrop Gruman and Lockheed have approached us about a way to embed America's Army in a new weapons system," Wardynski said.

The PC-based game, which the army recently licensed to French games maker Ubi Soft Entertainment to make a console version, is frequently updated with new missions.

Another project in the works is Overmatch, where players playing as the US army will have to deal with a superior force.

Wardynski, who also teaches economics at West Point and conceived of the army's video game as a way to more efficiently train and recruit, said it was likely that forces hostile to the United States, like al Qaeda, had seen and played the game. But he added that would not matter on the battlefield.

"Part of beating an enemy is beating them in their own mind," he said. "If they know what we're bringing to the table, that's not such a bad thing."

Smoking Soldiers Ignited Ammo Disaster

KIEV (Reuters) - Two smoking soldiers set off tons of ammunition that killed five people, caused $725 million in damage and sent debris showering across southern Ukraine last week, the emergencies minister said on Tuesday.

A series of blasts hurled debris as far as 25 miles after fire broke out last Thursday at a warehouse complex where 92,000 tons of artillery ammunition was stored.

Blasts were still heard on Tuesday, emergencies minister Hryhory Reva told parliament.

"At about 12 o'clock on Thursday, two servicemen, who were stocking military ammunition, began smoking at their working site. It caused the fire and set off the explosions," he said.

The blasts caused some $725 million in damage to the defense ministry and population in the Zaporizhya region, he said. They destroyed buildings in a two-mile radius, including a local railway station.

A minor gas pipeline was also damaged. Metal fragments and other debris were thrown 40 km, causing fires in nearby towns.

Authorities evacuated some 7,000 people from the surrounding area. People started to return home on Tuesday, five days after the initial blasts.

Some parliamentary deputies have demanded Defense Minister Evhen Marchuk resign because of his inability to turn around the ex-Soviet state's struggling armed forces.

The Ukrainian army has seen its reputation battered in recent years following a series of disasters.

< It's got implications folks... >

Video games get raunchy

LOS ANGELES (CNN/Money) - It's one thing to see Lara Croft's hot-shorts clad posterior while you play "Tomb Raider." It's another thing entirely to see the sagging, slightly lumpy and entirely unclothed buttocks of Larry Lovage streak across your screen.

Nekkid people are coming to a video game near you. Some will be funny. Some will be sexy. And some will be just plain raunchy. At least three games on display at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (better known as E3, the annual trade show of the gaming industry) feature characters frolicking au naturale ? with two of those introducing sexual elements.

Where you'd expect to see this, of course, is "Playboy: The Mansion." The first game built around the Playboy license is due out this fall from developer Cyberlore and co-publishers Arush Entertainment and Groove Games. But what might surprise you is "Playboy" is the tamest of the nudity-enhanced games.

Sure, polygonal Playmates will strip down to their birthday suit for your character to photograph ? and you may even be able to access the actual Playboy photo archives (Cyberlore hasn't yet decided). As far as sexual content goes, though, it's pretty tame.

The racier stuff will come from publishers Eidos and Vivendi Universal Games (V: Research, Estimates). Each plans to take a different approach to including mature content in their games.

While "Singles: Flirt Up your Life" (which Eidos is publishing in the U.S.) bills itself as a reality simulation of the single life, "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude" sticks closer to the "Animal House"/"American Pie" formula.

Both are likely to push the Electronic Software Ratings Board's limits on what it allows in a M-rated game. (The M rating is the gaming equivalent of the film industry's R.) The next step up the ratings ladder is AO (essentially, an NC-17 or worse). Most retailers will not sell a game with that rating.

"We've been working really closely with the ESRB from day one," said Jay Adan, marketing director at Cyberlore. "Everyone knows what the limits are for violence because everyone has pushed that envelope. But no one knows where the limits are for sex and nudity."

Naughty simulations
"Singles" is best described as a naughty version of "The Sims." It doesn't shy away from male or female full frontal nudity ? and the graphics are rather sophisticated. You'll play matchmaker for two characters, setting them up as roommates and running their daily lives, with a particular focus on dating and relationships.

Once one character has successfully wooed the other, the game goes into a voyeuristic mode, letting you watch the ensuing... um, action. Character couplings can be same-sex if the player so chooses.

The ESRB slapped "Singles" with an AO rating, but Eidos (EIDSY: Research, Estimates) has found a way to skirt the aforementioned distribution problem. Instead of using traditional retail channels, the company plans to release the game only via online download (though it's possible a toned down version may be released via retail down the road). Due early this summer, "Singles" will cost $30, which is less than a retail version of the game would likely cost

"I was a little disappointed [with the AO rating] because I feel the M rating should be very similar to an R rating in the movie industry," said Tom Marx, Eidos' project manager for Singles. "Granted there's full frontal nudity in 'Singles,' but there's full frontal nudity in movies. I don't really think someone is going to get the same feeling of attraction in seeing a full frontal digital game character as they would from seeing that in an actor or actress."

"Leisure Suit Larry" has been dormant since 1996. The revived series changes the lead character (you'll play as Larry's college-aged nephew ? the aforementioned Larry Lovage - this time around), but the general plot is still the same: Try to score with hot chicks.

"Larry" games have always had a playful, adolescent feel to them ? but have also pushed the sexual envelope. As such, it shouldn't come as a surprise that this one will test boundaries as well. Publisher Sierra and developer High Voltage Software said they have been working closely with the ESRB ? and have already been advised that they will have to tone down some of the game's content.

It's not like the video game industry hasn't tried to use sex as a selling point before. Acclaim (AKLM: Research, Estimates) tried to stir things up two years ago with "BMX XXX," a biking game that featured DVD footage of topless dancers. While it received lots of press attention, the game was a flop, with critics roasting it and gamers ignoring it.

The bigger question is what the retail reaction to these games will be. Wal-Mart (WMT: Research, Estimates), the nation's largest distributor of video games, reiterated its policy of selling no games with an AO rating, but would not say whether it is considering selling M rated games that feature character nudity and sexual situations.

"Business is a series of judgment calls and we offer what we think our customers want to buy," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk. "They will let us know if we've hit the mark. It's really that simple."

In Greece, a Torch Relay to Suppress Electronic Games

THE ringleader, Theodore Konstantinou, and his associates - a crew of chain-smoking good-for-nothings in scruffy T-shirts - set up shop last year in plain sight, smack in the middle of Panormou Street, one of Athens's main commercial strips.

The storefront was soon luring flocks of impressionable young people from nearby colleges, not to mention the occasional tourist eager to sample what the locals had to offer. So brazen were the perpetrators that they even posted a large sign outside: "Internet 24-7 Room."

The vice squad would not stand for it. Four times in recent months, it has swooped down on Mr. Konstantinou's business, which anywhere else might be considered an unremarkable Internet cafe with rows of computers, and arrested him for violating a two-year-old Greek anti-gambling law.

The last time, a dozen plainclothes officers arrived on a busy Saturday night and ordered everyone in the crowded cafe to leave. The officers carted off 49 computer terminals and rendered the video monitors connected to them unusable by attaching copies of legal complaints to the screens with hot red wax. Mr. Konstantinou was handcuffed and spent the night in jail with pickpockets and other undesirables before being taken to court.

He was acquitted, just as he was the previous three times.

Such is the life of the Internet cafe owner in Greece, where the police are using the anti-gambling law to go after businesses that offer any kind of electronic game on a public computer, including chess or checkers.

While Greece hopes to bask in the spotlight as host of the Summer Olympic Games in August, the crackdown has led some Internet users here to argue that the birthplace of democracy is acting as though it were an authoritarian state. Internet message boards for online game aficionados have posted warnings to travelers headed for Greece to avoid Internet cafes.

The crackdown suggests how the intersection of the law and the Internet can have unintended consequences even in a place like Greece, a European Union member ostensibly committed to free speech and other liberties, as demonstrated in March when the long-ruling Socialist Party was peacefully voted out of office.

"In the gaming world, when they find out that you are from Greece, they laugh at you and say, 'How can you live in a place like that?' '' said Christos Veves, 28, a Web designer who was playing the online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot at Mr. Konstantinou's cafe the other day. "The rest of the world must think that we live in caves."

The law was adopted after a scandal in 2002 in which a Socialist Party lawmaker was filmed using a video gambling machine at an unlicensed parlor. (Gambling in Greece is allowed only in licensed casinos.) The politician, Alekos Chrisanthakopoulos, happened to be the head of a parliamentary committee on gambling.

Seeking to regain the moral high ground, the Socialist-led government approved a measure banning what was loosely described as public gaming. Some government and police officials subsequently interpreted the law as banning the public use of computers for any electronic games, whether they involved gambling or not.

The country's Internet cafe owners association says that so far this year, the authorities have raided more than 35 Internet cafes across the country, confiscating a total of 300 terminals. Judges have invariably acquitted the cafe owners, but the vice squads have not backed off, the association said.

In Mr. Konstantinou's case, the judge ruled that no one was gambling illegally at the Internet 24-7 Room. As always, the patrons were mostly young men paying $3 an hour for high-speed Internet access so they could play online games like Counter-Strike or Warcraft. Others had been checking e-mail or writing résumés or tinkering with spreadsheets - the humdrum commerce of Internet cafes everywhere.

"I told the officers that this was not illegal, that it was mad what they were doing, but it didn't matter," said Mr. Konstantinou, 28. "They said they didn't care. They treated us like criminals."

Although judges in Greece have repeatedly characterized the law as unduly broad, none have overturned it. But this spring the European Commission told the Greek government that the law must be overhauled because it essentially restricts the free trade of legitimate electronic games.

Still, it remains on the books, despite vague promises by the new government to modify or repeal it.

"We do not know yet at this point what we are going to do," the new minister of public order, George A. Voulgarakis, said in an interview.

Senior police officials who enforce the law have shown little interest in mulling over the distinction between video solitaire played for amusement and video poker played for money.

"So long as the law stands - and it does - we will continue making busts and confiscating computers," said Nikos Sgouros, a vice squad officer. "That Mr. Konstantinou was acquitted means nothing, given that the law is still in effect."

Although Mr. Konstantinou was cleared, his latest trip through the criminal justice system had its costs: he said he had to shut down for a month after the raid and spend $60,000 to replace the computer terminals and $4,200 on legal fees.

His old terminals have not been returned because the court's decision has not yet been made official. Meanwhile, the police are charging him $20 a day to store the terminals in what he suspects are less than ideal conditions.

The Internet cafe owners are also incensed by the arbitrary way in which the law has been enforced. Some owners, like Mr. Konstantinou, have been arrested. Others have not. (Some vice squads clearly approach their mission with gusto: Mr. Konstantinou was also charged with operating three coffee and snack vending machines without licenses.)

For now, owners and tourism officials are wondering how foreigners visiting during the Olympic Games will react when they try to check their e-mail at an Internet cafe and discover that it has been raided as if it were a drug den.

"They just play games here," said Orpheus Mavrommatis, 24, who works at Mr. Konstantinou's cafe. "This is not for money! There is no gambling here in any form. It just doesn't make any sense."

Gangs used Internet to plan street fight

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- In a computer-age version of "West Side Story," rival gang members battled it out in the street in a rumble organized over the Internet.

Nearly three dozen people, including 27 high school students, were arrested this week after being indicted in the March 3 brawl in Garland, a Dallas suburb. Several people were injured, including one person who suffered a broken arm.

"Gangs already have their own alphabet, their own language, their own hand signals, so why not use the Internet?" said Tod Burke, a criminal justice professor at Radford University in Virginia. "Is this case unusual? Yes. But what I'm afraid is going to happen, this is probably just the beginning of it."

Using their home computers, the gangs traded insults in a profanity-laced chat room, then decided to fight, setting the time and the place over the Internet, Garland police officer Joe Harn said.

In the skirmish, gang members battled with more old-fashioned weapons -- fists, baseball bats, shovels, authorities said.

Detectives used the chat room to help find suspects.

"For the most part, it's nothing but cursing on it. Some of them actually signed in with their true names, so that helped us identify people," Harn said.

A videotape made by one of the participants also helped investigators identify those in the brawl.

It is relatively common for gangs to use the Internet to threaten and challenge rivals, said Jared Lewis, director of Know Gangs, a Wisconsin-based organization that educates police and the public about gangs.

"This is the first time I've heard where you've had a fight result, where the gangs actually met," Lewis said. "It doesn't surprise me at all that it's happened. It's just the scale that does surprise me."

Lewis said that increased use of the Internet by gangs is fueled in part by chat rooms and bulletin boards on gangsta rap artists' Web sites.

Gang-intelligence officers in Garland, a suburb of more than 200,000, said they plan to pay more attention to Internet sites now.

Feds target P2P child porn

A coalition of federal law enforcement agencies announced a new push against child pornography on file-swapping networks, citing undercover operations ongoing since the fall of 2003.

More than 65 people have been arrested as a result of more than 350 searches of computers and computer equipment, the agencies said Friday. Popular file-swapping companies quickly chimed in, saying they had supported the investigation, which was code-named Operation Peer Pressure by the FBI.

"No one should be able to avoid prosecution for contributing to the abuse and exploitation of the nation's children," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement. "The Department of Justice stands side-by-side with our partners in the law enforcement community to pursue those who victimize our children under the perceived, but false, cloak of anonymity that the peer-to-peer networks provide."

The issue of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks has taken considerable prominence over the past year, much as it did in earlier years for the broader Internet.

A handful of lawmakers have criticized peer-to-peer software companies for failing to block the distribution of illegal materials including child pornography and copyrighted songs and movies. While testifying in front of Congress last year, Recording Industry Association of America executives--who have long sought to close file-swapping networks for copyright infringement--also began citing the dangers of child pornography on networks such as Kazaa.

Skeptics have noted that the danger from peer-to-peer networks is no more than the Internet at large, which also potentially exposes children to pornography and serves as a conduit for illicit material.

File-swapping companies and their representatives were quick to note they supported the law enforcement efforts.

We "unanimously praise the enforcement actions of the FBI, with whom we have worked cooperatively since October 2003," the Distributed Computing Industry Association, a group representing Kazaa parent Sharman Networks and joint venture partner Altnet, said in a statement. "DCIA members supported the covert operations, and the DCIA is working with the FBI to introduce deterrents and education programs in the coming months."

A recent law imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison for people convicted of distributing child pornography over the Net. Sentences could range as high as 20 years, or 40 years if the defendant has committed a prior sex offense.

The investigations have included work by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, state police and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, which include numerous federal and state agencies.

< Someone who, say, hits someone in the face with no provocation, will get much less than 5 years in prison. Someone who, say, steals something of immense sentimental value to you which destroys a big part of your life forever, will get much less than 5 years in prison. Someone who is an asshole all their life, resulting in a combined total of immense damage done, will get 0 years in prison. Someone who trades pictures of kids having sex will get a minimum of 5 years in prinson, and the law gues: "guilty until proven innocent" (not even counting society destroying their life for the question even being raised) >

Man angry at Verizon hurls phones

FARGO, North Dakota (AP) -- A man who said he was fed up with his cellular phone service went to a Fargo mall and started hurling phones across a store, striking an employee and causing more than $2,000 in damage, authorities said.

Jason Perala, 22, of Fargo, told The Forum newspaper that he planned only to yell at employees at Verizon Wireless.

"Then I just lost it," he said. "I just started grabbing computers and phones and throwing them. I just destroyed the place. ... I kind of regret that I did it, but I hope my message got across."

Police said Perala took off his shirt and put on safety glasses before throwing around computers, phones and other items.

One employee was struck in the shoulder by a phone before he and other workers dashed into an office, locked the door and called police, Sgt. Kevin Volrath said. Other businesses in the West Acres mall lowered their steel security gates during Thursday's incident.

Perala was arrested without incident and jailed on charges of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor simple assault.

< A good, simple example of how people do one thing wrong and get multiple charges. Total bullshit. Also, is Verizon (my phone company that I'm locked into a contract with and which has also screwed me) held liable in any way for driving someone to those lengths? Is it recorded or even noticed somewhere in the "justice system" that they do that daily and there's nothing we CAN do but get nuts? >

Lawmakers to examine smoking in film

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) -- Hollywood lobbyists will be busy this week as lawmakers examine smoking on film and legislation that could undo some key portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The hearings, one in the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday and one in the House Commerce Committee on Wednesday, make nice legislative bookends for the entertainment industry's current troubles in Washington as one focuses on content and the other on copyright.

The entertainment industry has been under considerable pressure to rein in indecent broadcasts on TV and radio, and now may face the same criticism for depictions of smoking.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, pushed for the hearing after several recent meetings between anti-smoking advocates and entertainment industry executives.

Hollywood's top lobbyist, Jack Valenti, is scheduled to testify along with LeVar Burton, co-chair of the Directors Guild of America's social responsibility task force, Madeline Dalton, associate professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, and Stan Glantz, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Dalton wrote a recent study claiming that smoking in movies entices young people to pick up the habit. Glantz is one of Hollywood's leading social critics who pushes for R ratings for movies in which the actors light up.

While Motion Picture Assn. of America chief Valenti has worked to get the anti-smoking message out, his trade group says it's a filmmaker's right to have the characters smoke or not.

Flammable issue
After tackling that issue Tuesday, Hollywood takes on a potentially more flammable one as the House Commerce Committee's consumer protection panel examines legislation that could weaken the copyright protections the motion picture and recording industries won in 1998.

The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act would undo the current law's provision that makes it illegal to crack copyright-protection regimes.

The bill would allow people to bypass copyright-protection measures for "fair use" purposes.

The bill also amends the DMCA provisions that prohibit the manufacturing, distribution or sale of technology that enables circumvention of the protection measures and would direct the Federal Trade Commission to require that "copy-protected CDs" be properly labeled.

The motion picture studios contend that once a copyright-protection regime has been compromised, then it has no protection from pirates.

While the bill, written by Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Virginia, and John Doolittle, R-California, has little chance of passage this year, the interest in it shown by Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is troubling to the industry.

"We'd rather not have a hearing," one Hollywood executive said. "But the potential of the Boucher bill is that it will gut the DMCA."

A Barton spokesperson said the chairman is interested in developing legislation along the lines put down by Boucher.

"While we haven't signed onto Mr. Boucher's bill, we're looking in that direction," Commerce Committee spokeswoman Samantha Jordan said. "I'm not saying we're going to re-open the DMCA, but it's going to be an issue the committee will be dealing with long term."

Browser Hijackers Ruining Lives

Browser hijackers are doing more than just changing homepages. They are also changing some peoples' lives for the worse.

Browser hijackers are malicious programs that change browser settings, usually altering designated default start and search pages. But some, such as CWS, also produce pop-up ads for pornography, add dozens of bookmarks -- some for extremely hard-core pornography websites -- to Internet Explorer's Favorites folder, and can redirect users to porn websites when they mistype URLs.

Traces of browsed sites can remain on computers, and it's difficult to tell from those traces whether a user willingly or mistakenly viewed a website. When those traces connect to borderline-criminal websites, people may have a hard time believing that their employee or significant other hasn't been spending an awful lot of time cruising adult sites.

In response to a recent Wired News story about the CWS browser hijacker, famed for peddling porn, several dozen readers sent e-mails in which they claimed to have lost or almost lost jobs, relationships and their good reputations when their computers were found to harbor traces of pornography that they insist were placed on their computers by a browser hijacker.

In one case a man claims that a browser hijacker sent him to jail after compromising images of children were found on his work computer by an employer, who then reported him to law enforcement authorities.

"The police raided my house on Sept. 17, 2002," said "Jack," who came to the United States from the former Soviet Union as a political refugee, and has requested that his name not be published. "Nobody gave me a chance to explain. I was told by judge and prosecutor that I will get years in prison if I go to trial. After negotiations through my lawyer I got 180 days in an adult correctional facility. I was imprisoned for 20 days and then released under the Electronic Home Monitoring scheme. I now have a felony sex-criminal record, and the court ordered me to register as a predatory sex offender for 10 years."

Jack originally believed that the images found on his computer were from a previous owner -- he'd bought the machine on an eBay auction. But he now thinks a browser hijacker may have been responsible.

"When I used search engines, sometimes I got a lot of porn pop-ups," Jack said. "Sometimes I was sent to illegal porn sites. When I tried to close one, another five would be opened without my will. They changed my start page, wrote a lot of illegal porn links in favorites. The only way to stop this was turn the (computer's) power off. But when I dialed up to my server again, I started with illegal site, then got the same pop-ups. There were illegal pictures in pop-ups."

Several of the URLs that CWS injects into Internet Explorer's favorites list also appear in the arrest warrant and other materials from Jack's hearing. CWS works as Jack described -- changing start pages, adding to favorites, popping up porn. But CWS was first spotted several months after Jack's arrest, so it seems unlikely that this particular hijacker is the cause of his problems.

Security experts who were asked to review Jack's claims said it is possible that a browser hijacker could have been the reason porn images were found on Jack's computer. But they also pointed out some discrepancies in the story.

Some of the images were found in unallocated file space, and would have to have been placed there deliberately since cached images from browsing sessions wouldn't have been stored in unallocated space.

Brian Rothery, a former IBM systems engineer who has been researching Jack's claims, pointed out that a significant portion of the images and URLs cited in the arrest papers are from fairly tame nudist sites, as well as adult sites that do not contain illegal materials.

He said that however the pornography arrived on Jack's computer, "the evidence wasn't handled properly, and his lawyer did not do his job."

Jack said he opted not to fight the charge because his lawyer told him he would probably receive a harsher sentence if he went to trial.

"They are very eager to get conviction," Jack said. "Nobody can fight those powers. I could hardly stay in jail two weeks. The cell is very small, the food is very bad. They let prisoners out only every other day for 3 hours. I do not know how people can stay in prison for years."

If the pornography was placed on Jack's machine by a browser hijacker, he's suffered far more than most victims of malicious software. Others who blame browser hijackers for placing porn on their computers have been luckier.

"I was almost fired after some sort of content-monitoring system that my ex-employer used on the network found several dozen dirty photos on my laptop," said Matthew Cortella, a sales representative based in Illinois. "I had no idea how that stuff got on my machine; I thought it'd been hacked.

"Eventually, thank God, IT found some program on there that they said could have caused the problem. But for eight days I was sure I'd be fired, and I was terrified. I have a family to support. Jobs aren't easy to come by these days."

"My wife and I separated for a time because she thought I was looking at porno," said Fred McFarlane, a store owner in Georgia. "We are religious people. She just couldn't be with me after she saw the pictures that were in our computer. I don't blame her. Even now, I know it's real hard for her to understand it was the computer that did it, not me."

Telling people that "the computer" is downloading pornography on its own often provokes smirks and disbelief.

"I have to say it's like insisting the dog ate your homework," said Jeff Bertram, a systems administrator in New York City. "Are you going to admit that you downloaded porn to your pissed-off spouse or employer? Or to a judge? Hell no, your honor, it wasn't me. The browser did it."

Jack said he would like to appeal his conviction, but knows it will be difficult to convince people that he didn't download the pornography found on his machine.

"The police found nothing in my house, you know, not even a Playboy magazine," he said. "Only in the computer. But most people do not understand that such a thing is possible, that the computer could have made this happen. Plus, with child pornography, people's reaction is only emotions and no thinking."

"I advise Internet users to be very, very careful," Jack added. "Committing a felony is very easy; it just takes one click."

< "Committing a felony is very easy; it just takes one click." In MY world, it takes doing harm to be punished. >

Permission Slips

Judge orders couple not to have children

ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -- A couple has been ordered not to conceive any more children until the ones they already have are no longer in foster care.

A civil liberties advocate said the court ruling unsealed Friday was "blatantly unconstitutional."

Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor ruled March 31 that both parents "should not have yet another child which must be cared for at public expense."

"The facts of this case and the reality of parenthood cry out for family planning education," she ruled. "This court believes the constitutional right to have children is overcome when society must bear the financial and everyday burden of care."

The judge is not forcing contraception on the couple nor is she requiring the mother to get an abortion should she become pregnant. The couple may choose to be sterilized at no cost to them, O'Connor ruled.

If the couple violates O'Connor's ruling, they could be jailed for contempt of court.

"I don't know of any precedent that would permit a judge to do this," Anna Schissel, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. "And even if there were a precedent, it would be blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the United States Constitution and the New York Constitution."

Neither parent attended the proceeding or secured legal representation. The mother waived her right to a lawyer, and the father never showed up in court.

The mother was found to have neglected her four children, ages 1, 2, 4 and 5. All three children who were tested for cocaine tested positive, according to court papers. Both parents had a history of drug abuse. It was not immediately clear if the father had other children.

A case worker testified that the parents ignored an order to get mental health treatment and attend parenting classes after the 1-year-old was born.

The mother was still in the hospital after giving birth to her fourth child in March 2003 when authorities took the infant, according to court papers. Investigators said the mother was unprepared to care for the infant.

Attempts to reach the youngest child's guardian were unsuccessful. Information on the other children's guardians was not immediately available.

Attorney Chris Affronti, who chairs the family law section of the Monroe County Bar Association, said he's not sure how the ruling could be enforced.

"I think what the judge is trying to do is kind of have a wake-up call for society," he said.

< We here at Elite Inc. believe in parental licensing but this is just blatently unconstitutional. In all, VERY interesting implications. >

U.S. blunders with keyword blacklist

The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations' notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites?

Soon afterward, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) invented a way to let people in China and Iran easily route around censorship by using a U.S.-based service to view banned sites such as BBC News, MIT and Amnesty International.

But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes "ass" (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), "breast" (breastcancer.com), "hot" (hotmail.com and hotels.com), "pic" (epic.noaa.gov) and "teen" (teens.drugabuse.gov).

"The minute you try to temper assistance with evading censorship with judgments about how that power should be used by citizens, you start down a path from which there's no clear endpoint," said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard University law professor and co-author of the report prepared by the OpenNet Initiative. The report was financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation and George Soros' Open Society Institute.

That's the sad irony in the OpenNet Initiative's findings: A government agency charged with fighting Internet censorship is quietly censoring the Web itself.

The list unintentionally reveals its author's views of what's appropriate and inappropriate.

The IBB has justified a filtered Internet connection by arguing that it's inappropriate for U.S. funds to help residents of China and Iran--both of which receive dismal ratings from human rights group Freedom House--view pornography.

In the abstract, the argument is a reasonable one. If the IBB's service had blocked only hard-core pornographic Web sites, few people would object.

Instead, the list unintentionally reveals its author's views of what's appropriate and inappropriate. The official naughty-keyword list displays a conservative bias that labels any Web address with "gay" in them as verboten--a decision that affects thousands of Web sites that deal with gay and lesbian issues, as well as DioceseOfGaylord.org, a Roman Catholic site.

More to the point, the U.S. government could have set a positive example to the world regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians--especially in Iran, which punishes homosexuality with death.

In order to reach the IBB censorship-evading service, people in China or Iran connect to contractor Anonymizer's Web site. Then they can use Anonymizer.com as a kind of jumping-off point, also called a proxy server, to visit Web sites banned by their governments.

Ken Berman, who oversees the China and Iran Internet projects at IBB, said Anonymizer came up with the list of dirty words. "We did not," Berman said. "Basically, we said, 'Implement a porn filter.' We were looking for serious, hard-core nasty stuff to block...I couldn't come up with a list (of off-limits words) if my life depended on it."

In an e-mail to the OpenNet Initiative on Monday morning, Berman defended the concept of filtering as a way to preserve bandwidth. "Since the U.S. taxpayers are financing this program...there are legitimate limits that may be imposed," his message said. "These limits are hardly restrictive in finding any and all human rights, pro-democracy, dissident and other sites, as well as intellectual, religious, governmental and commercial sites. The porn filtering is a trade-off we feel is a proper balance and that, as noted in your Web release, frees up bandwidth for other uses and users."

OpenNet Initiative did its research by connecting to the Anonymizer service from computers in Iran and evaluating which Google Web searches were blocked that theoretically should not be.

The report concludes: "For example, usembassy.state.gov is unavailable due to the presence of the letters 'ass' within the server's host name, and sussex.police.uk is unavailable for the same reason. In addition, the words 'my' and 'tv,' which are also domain suffixes, are filtered by IBB Anonymizer. As a consequence, all Web hosts registered within the domain name systems of Malaysia and Tuvalu are unavailable."

"For example, usembassy.state.gov is unavailable due to the presence of the letters 'ass' within the server's host name."

Harvard University's Berkman Center worked on the project, as did the University of Toronto's Nart Villeneuve and Michelle Levesque. They tested only connections from Iran, but Anonymizer said the same list of keywords was used for China.

The U.S. government "asked us to filter broadly based on keywords to generally restrict" Web sites, says Lance Cottrell, founder and president of San Diego-based Anonymizer. "What they didn't want to get into was something complex, fine-grained filtering which is going to try to remove all the porn. What they wanted was something that would generally remove most of the adult content while not blocking most of the information that these people need."

Cottrell said Anonymizer would manually unblock non-pornographic Web sites if requested by Chinese or Iranian Net surfers. "Literally, we have never been contacted with a complaint about overbroad blocking," he said.

Monday's report also takes a swipe at IBB and Anonymizer for not using the SSL encryption method to scramble the Web browsing behavior of Iranian citizens. "I would think that if the U.S. government is going to go through the trouble of funding and offering the service, they might offer the more secure one," Harvard's Zittrain said.

Anonymizer's Cottrell said he discontinued that feature because "it seemed to cause trouble for a lot of people. The utilization of the service went way down." Iran currently doesn't monitor the contents of Web pages downloaded. But if that changed, encryption would be turned back on, Cottrell said. (Because China does do that kind of monitoring, SSL is already enabled for Chinese users.)

This episode represents a temporary black eye for IBB, but it should also serve as a permanent lesson to the agency. When American taxpayers are paying the bill, any "anticensorship" scheme needs to be beyond reproach.

< Newspeak is coming... >