Science Addiction

A dormant blog by Devanshu Mehta
August 17, 2006

NSA Eavesdropping Ruled Unconstitutional (updated)

This is fantastic news- a federal judge ruled today that the “NSA eavesdropping program is unconstitutional”:http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/17/domesticspying.lawsuit.ap/index.html in the case that the ACLU brought against it. The government contended that it was within the President’s authority, and the details were state secrets but the judge did not buy it. The ACLU argument was that the President had already admitted the program and the publicly available information was sufficient for the judge to rule on.

The judge ordered an immediate halt to the program.

*UPDATE*:
* A “pdf of the judge’s ruling”:http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/08/17/nsa.lawsuit.pdf
* A quote from the judge:

Judge Taylor states that “[t]here are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” so all the president’s “inherent powers” must derive from the Constitution.

*UPDATE #2*
* Attorney General Gonzales “says he will appeal”:http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/17/domesticspying.lawsuit/index.html to a higher court. “Contribute to the ACLU”:http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FJ_donationhome to keep up the good fight.

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July 28, 2006

Awkward Answers to the Songwriter’s Guild

The “Songwriters Guild”:http://www.songwritersguild.com President Rick Carnes recently wrote to the EFF, seemingly in response to their “Frequently Awkward Questions for for the Entertainment Industry”:http://www.eff.org/IP/faq/.

Rick Carnes has a point- and for the most part I agree with him. The trouble is that for the most part, the EFF agrees with him too! It is unfortunate that his frustration is directed at the EFF. If EFF upholds free speech and someone slanders you, do you fault the EFF for allowing slander or do you go after the person who you believe has wronged you? Fred von Lohmann of the EFF has “posted a response”:http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004857.php which touches on the issues at hand without directly answering the questions. While Fred may not want to get in to an internet brawl over semantics, I have no such qualms.

In any case, I am not against a lot of what Rick Carnes has written.

Carnes’ questions are titled (the typo is his): Aways Awkward questions for the EFF

And here are my responses. I do not claim to speak for the EFF- in fact, in some cases, my opinions may not coincide with theirs. I will answer these as though they were addressed to me. Also- *I am not a lawyer*, never claimed to be one and I may not know what I am talking about. But this is what I believe. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 25, 2006

95 Theses: The Aftermath

That past 2 days have been fantastic. After my long and heartfelt article was picked by BoingBoing, I figured that would be as good as it would get. Boy was I wrong.

The article made its way to Del.icio.us popular, the Digg home page, the Metafilter home page, Der Spiegel and dozens of other blogs. And now, 33000 readers later, I am stunned. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 23, 2006

The Blogger’s Trifecta

In the past, this site has been slashdotted twice and digg homepaged once. Being slashdotted for the first time, last December, was great because it was the first time this blog got noticed any where outside my friends and family. Getting on the digg home page meant that an article had been accepted by the internet masses, which was uniquely satisfying- though that article was a jab at Microsoft, and so was easy to gain acceptance in certain communities!

Now we have been “boingboing’ed”– which is a different level of satisfaction, because it was accepted by Cory Doctorow. I’m a big fan of his- as I make it clear in the article– and appreciate the link from him a lot.

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July 23, 2006

95 Theses of Geek Activism

Geek activism has not taken off yet, but it should. With the gamers recognizing the need for a louder voice, EFF gaining momentum and Linux taking on the mainstream on the one hand and recent severe losses in privacy, freedom of speech and intellectual property rights on the other, now seems to be the best time to rally around the cause.

Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 13, 2006

To Bombay

Bombay. A most fascinating place.

We may be told- ad nauseum- that it was formerly called Bombay. It is still Bombay to me when I speak (or write) English, and Mumbai when I speak Gujarati or Hindi. It is what it is- official name changes change nothing.

And it has been bombed. Seven times within the half hour. Again.

“Amardeep Singh”:http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/07/bombay-blasts.html has some great links about that provide perspective and links to take action now.

“Suketu Mehta”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/07/11/DI2006071100620.html talks about the issues at hand at the Washington Post. He is the author of “Maximum City”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375703403/galaxyfaraway/ which is the second greatest book I have read on Bombay. The best, of course, is “Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140132708/galaxyfaraway/102-8769303-4742567.

And the Washington Post asks just the right question: “How Much can India Endure?”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/11/AR2006071101205.html

But — and here’s the crux of the matter — how long can India, Indians and the Singh government withstand the constant pressure from militant groups before they have to react? By any measure of international diplomacy, they’ve already been extraordinarily patient; compare their restraint with Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldier or to the U.S. and Japanese responses to North Korea’s missile tests.

My friend Rahul, at his blog writes in outrage, at the lack of anything but empty words from the people in power.

And I write this and quote poetry.

The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
“I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time.”

The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
“They buy me and sell me…it’s a game…sometime I’ll break loose…”

– *Carl Sandburg* from *The People, Yes*

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June 26, 2006

The Trouble with Diebold and Electronic Voting

First, take a look at this “graphic at Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.html sensationally titled *How to Steal an Election*. It compares Nevada laws regarding slot machines with state and federal laws regulating electronic voting machines. The comparison is stark and eye-opening. For example, the Nevada Gaming Commission has access to all software for gaming electronics but the voting machine code is a _trade secret_. Yes, and so are the inner government workings of China.

And then there is the most famous of the voting machine manufacturers, “Diebold”:http://www.diebold.com. In addition to being a closed system that even the government is not allowed to know about, it is a company that fundamentally misunderstands electronic voting in particular and security in general.

For example, “this came from a Diebold spokesman”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/us/12vote.html?ex=1305086400&en=5b3554a76aad524a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss [via Schneier]

“For there to be a problem here, you’re basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software,” he said. “I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.”

Ah yes, the head-in-the-sand form of security. I hear it is very popular in the real world and effective in utopian societies.

The fun and games do not end there. A “major vulnerability”:http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_3805089 was found in the voting machines:

This newspaper is withholding some details of the vulnerability at the request of several elections officials and scientists, partly because exploiting it is so simple and the tools for doing so are widely available.

Of course, the “report appeared later on”:http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf with parts redacted, and it is tremendous.

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June 23, 2006

DRM: Why Apple Has it Wrong

A few days ago, a Janet Meyer article on “Apple Matters”:http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/is-big-brother-on-your-ipod/ sparked a phenomenal discussion for and against Apple’s DRM policies. If you are not aware, Apple has a *Digital Rights Management* [DRM] system that “protects” the music it sells from the iTunes music store: it determines where you can play it, how you can play it, how many machines you can play it on and so on. It is proprietary, so if Apple controls the online music market, Apple also automatically controls how, where, why, when we listen to music we buy from them.

To cut a long story short, Janet was making the point that Apple may have a closed music format but as long as consumers have no trouble with it, consumers have a choice to buy CDs instead, the market will decide what is best.

Ah yes, the market. That all-knowing, all-seeing, all-singing, all-dancing market. It knows. In a _perfect_ society with fully informed consumers who have _true_ choices, the market knows. Elections would be marvellous with fully informed voters with _true_ choices as well Read the rest of this entry »

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June 9, 2006

GreenFuel: Algae That Eats Your Pollution

By way of “Radio Open Source”:http://www.radioopensource.org/global-warming-a-sputnik-moment/ I discovered this cool new company called “GreenFuel”:http://www.greenfuelonline.com/.

GreenFuel has algae that consumes CO2 and converts in to a biofuel. The idea is that their algae would consume emissions from smokestacks and become algae biomass. Algae biomass can be used as ethanol, biodiesel, and other stuff. The first bioreactor was attached at MIT and more have been installed elsewhere since. This one is being funded by a “VC”:http://www.polarisventures.com/ run by Robert Metcalfe, the guy who invented Ethernet at Xerox PARC. That’s right, Ethernet.

Profitable venture-capital backed companies that can spin the current system on its head- that is, making it cool and profitable to turn your emissions clean- are fantastic ideas to urge a transition from our present system to a better one. Of course, lower government mandated emissions standards or credits for lower emissions would make this technology a lot more lucrative.

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June 8, 2006

Etymology: What is This * You Speak Of?

_aka What is this * of which you speak?_

For many months or years or decades- I am not sure- I have used to the phrase “What is this * you speak of?” to great humorous (my opinion) effect. It has usually been greeted with chuckles and makes me feel all warm and superior on the inside.

Maybe you don’t understand the context in which you would use this phrase; let me illustrate. Let us say people are talking about the NSA wiretaps. Someone says that they think it might be legal to which someone else replies that it is not in-keeping with the constitution. At this point, I will interject with the classic line, “Constitution? What is this constitution you speak of?” and will be treated by chuckles all around. If you don’t get the joke- and I’m sure it loses some luster in written text- it means that people at the NSA or in government seem to not be aware of the existence of the constitution. Ha ha, funny, right?

Maybe not. I like to make myself laugh more than I do others, so I succeed. It is a low bar I set for myself.

The trouble, however, is that I do not like to use lines without knowing their roots. Where does this phrase come from? Surely, it is not my own creation- though I may admit as much in lesser company- so where does it come from? I hate using quotes or phrases that are in common use without knowing the source- you know those people who spout lines from Monty Python or SNL or Abe Lincoln without knowing where they came from? They irritate me. So what are the origins of my pet line? Off to the all-knowing search engines for that answer… Read the rest of this entry »

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