Photo (c) The Nashua Telegraph 2011
I wrote earlier about Nashua's Make It Labs being closed by the City of Nashua due to a number of code violations. Fortunately all issues have been resolved and Make It Labs is open once again. According to the lab's Facebook page, they are planning a re-opening party on Saturday February 18th. Congratulations!
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Two days ago I wrote a summary on pending anti-piracy legislation being brought before Congress. Yesterday many internet sites blacked out in protest and citizens were contacting their representatives to register their disapproval to the legislation.
Several New England politicians who had previously co-sponsored either SOPA or PIPA are now starting to say, via Twitter or their staff, that they now oppose the legislation as currently written, including New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte and Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal. According to OpenCongress the politicians above are still listed in congressional records as sponsors, but that may change as Congress comes back into session. New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen is reconsidering support, according to staff. We recommend continuing pressure on these representatives until their sponsorship is removed from the bill completely.
I wrote yesterday about legislation working its way through Congress that takes a heavy hand in combatting online piracy and could result in censorship of the internet by the US Government. Today has been named as a protest day to educate internet users about the implications of this legislation. As a result, many popular internet sites have blacked out some or all of their content, including Reddit, Google, Wikipedia, Flickr, Mozilla, Wired, Tumblr, Wordpress, and many others (the full list is here.) PIPA/SOPA sponsors have already been backpedaling, so we need to keep up the pressure until this legislation is formally cancelled.
Since late last year, Congress has been working on crafting legislation that would give U.S. law enforcement agency extraordinary powers to fight online piracy. The House version of the bill is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate version is called the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Under the guise of preventing piracy, the act wil have numerous unintended consequences that will ultimately change the basic nature of the Internet and restrict many of the freedoms we have come to enjoy on the Internet.
During World War II, British intelligence operated a codebreaking facility at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes about 40 miles outside of London. Due to the capture of an Enigma machine from a Nazi submarine, Allied forces were able to decrypt many Nazi communications and stay ahead of the enemy while not giving their intelligence away. The work of the Bletchley Park staff, particularly Alan Turing, set the foundation for many later developments in the Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence fields.
Regrettably Bletchley Park has fallen into disrepair since the end of World War II, and its restoration has not been a priority of the British government. Google, who had previously purchased Alan Turing's papers in order to preserve them and provide support for the restoration project, recently announced it was donating £550,000 (approximately $860,000 US) to help with the restoration efforts. The donation will help generate matching funds to trigger a £4.6 million donation from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
We're happy to see that Google takes a broader view on its corporate citizenship and is willing to help preserve this geek mecca.
Photo (c) Nashua Telegraph 2011
MakeIt Labs, the hackerspace set up in Nashua earlier this year, has been shut down by the City of Nashua due to various safety concerns.
According to the Nashua Telegraph, hackerspaces sometimes run into issues with city regulators who have difficulty understanding the open, varied nature of a space when compared with traditional manufacturing and service operations.
The lab's board of directors believe the City is working in good faith with them and hope to eventually reopen. During their closure, MakeIt Labs will not collect membership dues, but still have rent and utilities obligations, so if you believe in these types of facilities, consider making a donation to the labs to help defray their operating costs.
Earlier this month I wrote an article about Bloomberg’s report that AT&T is spending 30% more in lobbying costs compared to 2010. In fact, AT&T is the third highest spender in lobbying funds after the ActBlue Democratic PAC and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers.
CNET is reporting that a group of 15 Democratic House Representatives sent an open letter to President Obama, urging him to direct the Department of Justice to allow the purchase of T-Mobile by AT&T. The representatives, led by North Carolina’s Heath Shuler, claims that the merger will create “somewhere between 55,000 and 96,000 new jobs” and “will engender new private investment to deploy wireless high speed Internet access to 97 percent of the U.S. population.” This neatly echoes AT&T’s claims that the merger will create jobs, even though the de facto result of a merger is job loss through consolidation of functions between the two companies’ operations. AT&T’s largesse is confusing considering that as recently as 2008 it cut 4% of its workforce and wasn’t even in the process of acquiring another wireless provider.
Bloomberg is reporting that AT&T's lobbying expenditures have increased 30% over 2010 as it attempts to curry favor in Washington for its intended purchase of T-Mobile.
Highlights included $1000 a person dinners and PAC donations to leading Senators, Congressmen, and families of FCC members.
Unfortunately for AT&T the spending spree hasn't resulted in smooth sailing for its bid, but it may turn out that the DOJ's move is ceremonial and will be followed by approval by the FCC.
Last week Anonymous threatened to hack the website of BART, the San Francisco area transit authority in conjunction with planned protests over a shooting of a civilian by BART police. In order to head off protests, BART authorities blocked cell phone service within a number of stations. With news stories flying about how London rioters used SMS to coordinate/track looting, officials may have been concerned a protest would devolve rapidly.
Anonymous simply delayed their activity and defaced the BART site Sunday, as well as releasing BART user information from an insecure database. They followed that up with a defacement on a website operated by the California Office of Traffic Safety. Wheras previous efforts have resulted in outright shutdown due to DDOS attacks, these actions were marked only by (rather subtle for Anon's standards) defacements.
London has been plunged into chaos as rioting erupted in the wake of the shooting of a civilian by police. Opportunistic looting soon followed as police resources were stretched to the limit.
The British press, always the model of journalistic restraint, took this opportunity to claim that young looters were inspired by Grand Theft Auto to embark on their looting spree. The Standard quoted a police officer and one Enfield resident.
We've been here before, many times. The well of blaming society's ills on video games, in spite of their vast usage by normal everyday law-abiding citizens, never seems to run dry.
UPDATE: Apparently the Standard changed its mind and video games aren't to blame now.
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