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Living Room / Re: Funny Animal Videos
« Last post by Renegade on December 30, 2015, 09:10 PM »Elsewhere in Toronto...
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The HTTP 451 Error Code for Censorship Is Now an Internet Standard
The 451 HTTP status code is now official in the eyes of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the independent organization responsible for many of the internet’s operating standards. Now, when an internet user hits a web page that has been blocked for legal reasons (read: censorship), they may be presented with a 451 error instead of the more generic 403 “forbidden” error. This is a win for transparency.
The 451 code has been on the table for two years now, having been first been put forth by software engineer Tim Bray in 2013, who was in turn inspired by a blog post by security thinker Terence Eden. Eden’s call for a censorship error code is clear enough:My ISP have recently been ordered to censor The Pirate Bay. They have done so unwillingly and, it would seem, have complied only with the letter of the ruling. Their block is, for now, trivial to circumvent. I am concerned that this censorship will become more prevalent. As network neutrality dies, we will see more sites ordered to be blocked by governments who fear what they cannot understand.
So, Eden proposed a code and Bray ran with it, using “451” in reference to Ray Bradbury’s censorship dystopia Farhenheit 451. Web standards are, however, not changed overnight.
In a post published on Friday, Mark Nottingham, chair of the IETF HTTP Working Group, explains a bit more. “Initially, I and some others pushed back,” he writes. “HTTP status codes are a constrained name space; once we use everything from 400 to 499, for example, we're out of luck. Furthermore, while 451 met many of the guidelines for new status codes (such as being potentially applicable to any resource), there wasn't any obvious way for machines to use it -- i.e., this was something you could do in a header or the message body of a 403, so it didn't seem to justify expending a status code.”
Sites began to use the code anyway on an experimental and unsanctioned basis, and Nottingham and co. received more and more feedback from administrators in favor of the code. Crucially, advocacy orgs Lumen and Article19 expressed interest in having a machine-readable flag that could be used to spider the web in the hunt of censored websites. That’s just what a new HTTP status code could offer.
Finally, the support was there. Some technical details still need attending to, but the code is ready to use immediately. What can it actually do?
“By its nature, you can't guarantee that all attempts to censor content will be conveniently labeled by the censor,” Nottingham explains. “Although 451 can be used both by network-based intermediaries (e.g., in a firewall) as well as on the origin Web server, I suspect it's going to be used far more in the latter case, as Web sites like Github, Twitter, Facebook and Google are forced to censor content against their will in certain jurisdictions.”
There’s still nothing stopping a government from forbidding the code’s usage, however, which is a serious but perhaps unavoidable limitation.
Or, if you're in no hurry the C.H.I.P. computer can handle audio input/output and is cheap.-4wd (December 29, 2015, 03:17 AM)
Yeah. I think the term for that is "speechless with rage."
-40hz (December 28, 2015, 06:01 PM)
A news reporter able to speak the truth? Shock horror.
Rather clever Jonathan Pie satire.
Reporter gets angry and tells us the REAL news - YouTube-IainB (December 27, 2015, 08:17 AM)
If you take the argument that "stories are just text" to the next level... then text is nothing but words...and words are nothing but letters...and letters nothing but geometric shapes and lines...and as such, have no meaning, or value.
On a certain level, everything becomes meaningless - if you allow yourself to fall for that deconstructionist nonsense. It might make you sound clever in certain faux-intellectual academic circles. But it leaves you with nothing if you embrace it without realizing the intellectual and spiritual cop-out it is.-40hz (December 27, 2015, 02:19 PM)
There is nothing like a White Christmas (tm)
Have a fun holiday season everyone.
[ Invalid Attachment ]-MilesAhead (December 25, 2015, 06:21 AM)
McAfee will run as Libertarian Party candidate for president
Imagine if the government went after corruption as hard as it goes after guys who run filesharing sites. Priorities.
Consumer groups, repair shops want open book on electronics
BOSTON -- Makers of electronic devices, from smart phones to coffeemakers, are keeping repair plans secret and limiting access to parts, a veil that forces many small repair shops out of business, consumer advocates say.
Electronics repair business and consumer groups now want lawmakers to intervene, forcing manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and Apple to openly sell parts and provide diagnostic manuals to independent repair shops.
Limiting access to plans and parts gives manufacturers reign over the secondary repair market, said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, based in New Jersey.
"Repair is a big profit for a lot of companies, and sometimes it's more profitable than selling hardware," he said.
Manufacturers are pushing back against the right-to-repair proposal, arguing that controlling repairs keeps their products working safely. In addition, they note, copyright law lets them protect their intellectual property against unscrupulous operators who might pirate it.
"This is the kind of thing that stifles innovation in the tech sector," said Matt Mincieli, Northeast region executive director for TechNet, which advocates for technology companies. "When you take away the ability of a high-technology company to control their products, you open up trade secrets and intellectual properties to potential infringement."
Mincieli said requiring device-makers to hand over sensitive diagnostic information would hurt Massachusetts' competitiveness at a time when it's compared to Silicon Valley as a hub for high-tech research and development.
"This is being driven by mostly people who want to get into the secondary repair market but don't want to pay the money to become a certified dealer - not consumers who are clamoring to get their devices fixed," he said.
To get certified to work on Apple computers, for example, technicians need to take college-level training courses online, pass several exams and pay a licensing fee of about $150, according to the company's website.
Hillary Clinton wants “Manhattan-like project” to break encryption
US should be able to bypass encryption—but only for terrorists, candidate says.
"I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project, something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners," Clinton continued. "It doesn't do anybody any good if terrorists can move toward encrypted communication that no law enforcement agency can break into before or after. There must be some way. I don't know enough about the technology, Martha, to be able to say what it is, but I have a lot of confidence in our tech experts."
And thus an ode to electricityode? or oh'd...-Renegade (December 16, 2015, 11:52 AM)
"In charge" and "shock" ??? I have to cast my volt against that.-MilesAhead (December 19, 2015, 07:16 AM)
Meh. To each their own. Some people get really amped up about it.-Renegade (December 19, 2015, 10:03 PM)
But we all know resistance is futile.-MilesAhead (December 20, 2015, 04:35 PM)
But capacitance has potential!-Edvard (December 20, 2015, 06:49 PM)
I just hope the discussion doesn't get too polarized. Mouser will ban us to the basement.-MilesAhead (December 20, 2015, 07:43 PM)
An ode will then be required.-4wd (December 20, 2015, 11:27 PM)?
-barney (December 20, 2015, 11:41 PM)