The Blast Shack

The WikiLeaks Cablegate scandal is the most exciting and interesting hacker scandal ever. I rather commonly write about such things, and I’m surrounded by online acquaintances who take a burning interest in every little jot and tittle of this ongoing saga. So it’s going to take me a while to explain why this highly newsworthy event fills me with such a chilly, deadening sense of Edgar Allen Poe melancholia.

But it sure does.

Part of this dull, icy feeling, I think, must be the agonizing slowness with which this has happened. At last — at long last — the homemade nitroglycerin in the old cypherpunks blast shack has gone off. Those cypherpunks, of all people — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Le gouvernement autorisé à filtrer Internet [The government is allowed to filter the Internet]

Les échanges ont été tendus à l’Assemblée, mercredi soir, où l’atmosphère rappelait celle entourant l’adoption de la loi antipiratage Hadopi. Dans un hémicycle peu garni, quelques députés technophiles de tous bords se battaient contre une machine législative qui leur semble s’être quelque peu emballée. L’article 4 du projet de loi Loppsi 2, texte fourre-tout sur la sécurité intérieure, a finalement été adopté. Il permettra au gouvernement de filtrer Internet au moyen d’une liste noire établie par le ministère de l’Intérieur, sans intervention du pouvoir judiciaire. Une mesure que le gouvernement justifie par la nécessité de mieux lutter contre les sites pédophiles et la cybercriminalité en général.

via Google Translate: The exchanges were stretched to the Assembly on Wednesday night, where the atmosphere was reminiscent surrounding the adoption of anti-piracy law Hadopi. In a packed chamber just a few technophiles MPs from all sides were fighting against a legislative machine that seems to have somewhat excited. Section 4 of the Bill Loppsi 2, text tote on Homeland Security, was finally adopted. It will allow the government to filter the Internet using a blacklist issued by the Ministry of Interior, without the intervention of the judiciary. A measure that the government justify the need to better fight against child pornography sites and cybercrime in general — via redwolf.newsvine.com

All internet porn will be blocked to protect children, under UK government plan

The UK Government is to combat the early sexualization of children by blocking internet pornography unless parents request it, it was revealed today.

The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet. It follows warnings about the hidden damage being done to children by sex sites — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Media chiefs throw support behind WikiLeaks

Some of Australia’s most senior media professionals, including bosses of major newspapers, television networks and websites, have written to Prime Minister Julia Gillard to express their support for WikiLeaks.

The letter was initiated by the board of the Walkley Foundation, Australia’s professional journalism organisation — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Cyberattackers Focus on Enemies of WikiLeaks’s Assange

A small army of activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyberattacks on Wednesday in support of the beleaguered antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks, which has drawn governmental criticism from around the globe for its release of classified American documents and whose founder, Julian Assange, is being held in Britain on accusations of sex offenses.

Targets included Mastercard.com, which stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks; Amazon.com, which revoked server space from the group; the online payment service PayPal, which cut off its commercial cooperation; the lawyer representing the two Swedish women who have accused Mr Assange in the sex case; and PostFinance, the Swiss postal system’s financial arm, which closed Mr Assange’s account after saying he provided false information by saying that he resided in Switzerland — via redwolf.newsvine.com

They Lock Up Journalists, Don’t They?

Picture the scene: An intelligent young American reporter and her able cameraman are on assignment deep the heart of the old Cold War super power. Their story: Ten thousand protestors, led by a priest, outside a military school that has been proven to train death squads, rapists and high ranking war criminals. Each year some of the protesters deliberately cross into the base and are arrested, in an effort to draw attention to the plight of those killed and have the school closed.

This year, however, the police are more aggressive than usual, and they arrest protestors who remained outside. The journalists are arrested too. They are held for 32 hours then released after paying a fine.

It’s the kind of story that you’d expect to see in the hourly headlines on CNN — and every other western 24 hour news channel for each of those 32 hours. Afterward, there would have been extended exclusive interviews, maybe even on Oprah or Larry King.

And it might well have been — if it weren’t for the fact that the old Cold War superpower in question wasn’t Russia but the US — via redwolf.newsvine.com