Month: February 2016

Freely Accessing Scientific Publications Behind A Paywall

On the one hand we’re told that pure science can only be performed under the “neutrality” of government funding while on the other hand we’re told the research we were forced to fund isn’t ours to access. Having to pay to access research papers that I was forced to fund has been a pet peeve of mine since college. Even though I enjoyed free access to most scientific papers in college the simple fact that I would lose that access as soon as I graduated really rubbed me the wrong way. Fortunately I’m not alone. A group of people have developed a service aimed at pirating scientific research papers:

Sci-Hub uses university networks to access subscription-only academic papers, generally without the knowledge of the academic institutions. When a user asks Sci-Hub to access a paid article, the service will download it from a university that subscribes to the database that owns it. As it delivers the user a pdf of the requested article, it also saves a copy on its own server, so that next time someone requests the paper, they can download the cached version.

Unsurprisingly, Elbakyan’s project has drawn the ire of publishers. Last year, Elsevier sued Sci-Hub and an associated website called Library Genesis for violating its copyright. The two websites “operate an international network of piracy and copyright infringement by circumventing legal and authorized means of access to the ScienceDirect database,” Elsevier’s lawyers wrote in a court filing, referring to the company’s subscription database.

[…]

But even if the new domain gets shut down, too, Sci-Hub will still be accessible on the dark web, a part of the Internet often associated with drugs, weapons, and child porn. Like its seedy dark-web neighbors, the Sci-Hub site is accessible only through Tor, a network of computers that passes web requests through a randomized series of servers in order to preserve visitors’ anonymity.

Sci-Hub can be accessed via the normal Internet here and via Tor here. That second link is important to have since Sci-Hub was already shutdown once. While it’s feasible for the State to censor the normal Internet it’s not feasible for it to censor Tor hidden services since there is no centralized name server to threaten.

I don’t hide my opposition to intellectual property in all forms but I especially detest copyright applying to criminally funded research. A thief should make reparations to right the wrong they have caused so the only way to right the wrong of the State stealing money to fund favored researchers it to make the findings of their research freely available to everybody.

Using Technology To Avoid The Morality Police

As with every other government on the planet, Iran has a body of law enforcers whose primary job is to exploit wealth from the general populace. Just as in the United States, many of the law in Iran are based around morality. For example, if your manner of dress is deemed inappropriate the law enforcers have an excuse to expropriate wealth from you. The natural tendency of an exploited people is to find a way to avoid as much exploitation as possible. To that end a group of Iranian developers have created an app to help their fellows avoid the morality police:

Ershad’s mobile checkpoints which usually consist of a van, a few bearded men and one or two women in black chadors, are deployed in towns across Iran and appear with no notice.

Ershad personnel have a very extensive list of powers ranging from issuing warnings and forcing those they accuse of violating Iran’s Islamic code of conduct, to make a written statement pledging to never do so again, to fines or even prosecuting offenders.

The new phone app which is called “Gershad” (probably meaning get around Ershad instead of facing them) however, will alert users to checkpoints and help them to avoid them by choosing a different route.

The data for the app is crowdsourced. It relies on users to point out the location of the Ershad vans on maps and when a sufficient number of users point out the same point, an alert will show up on the map for other users. When the number decreases, the alert will fade gradually from the map.

Gershad sounds a lot like Waze, which is a traffic app that lets you report, amongst other things, police. Both are amongst the family of applications that allow the people to fight back against the State. Through crowdsourcing the much larger population of exploited individuals can enjoy a major information advantage over the State. As they used to say at the end of each episode of G.I. Joe, knowing is half the batter.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing the State, because of its sheer power, is an undefeatable foe. In reality the State is greatly disadvantages by the fact it is massively outnumbered. Being a bureaucracy it is also much slower to adapt to changes than the general population. Those two facts combined means the State will always lose in the long run. By the time the Ershad adapt to this application a countermeasure to its adaptions will almost certainly already be in place.

We’re Closer To A Pony Based Economy And Time Travel Technology Than Ever Before

I try to avoid politics but I’m a sucker for free ponies and time travel technology, both of which are platforms for the only presidential candidate that matters, Vermin Supreme. It brings me great joy to say that we’re closer to free ponies and time travel than ever before! Vermin Supreme was in 4th place for the Democratic Party in New Hampshire!

While other politicians were looking for photo opportunities the future overlord of Earth was busy debating one of the lesser presidential candidates:

But that’s exactly what happened to Ted Cruz, whose pit stop was interrupted by his fellow presidential candidate Vermin Supreme, who had some choice words for Cruz that he delivered with a megaphone.

For starters Supreme, who has pledged to give every American a pony, grilled Cruz on whether waterboarding water should be fluoridated and demanded that the candidate come out with his “hands up” and his “pants down.”

Supreme also asked Cruz “Why do you hate America?” before posing perhaps the most salient question of all to prospective voters:

“Will Ted Cruz give you a pony?”

Here Vermin pointed out one of the things that annoys me about the lesser presidential candidates, their unwillingness to discuss important issues. Not one of the other candidates has stated their position on fluoridating water used in waterboarding. Do they believe prisoners have a right to strong teeth or not? We have no idea because none of them have stated their position on their critical matter.

Ted Cruz has also never stated a willingness to transition the United States to a pony based economy, which leads to wonder why he does hate America so much. Fortunately Vermin Supreme is willing to fight the good fight and address the matters that actually impact our everyday lives.

Rules Are Different For The King’s Men

When the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) breaks into 1,300 computers with a single, vaguely written warrant it’s labeled justice. But when somebody breaks into the FBI’s computers it’s labeled criminal:

A hacker, who wishes to remain anonymous, plans to dump the apparent names, job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of over 20,000 supposed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees, as well as over 9,000 alleged Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees, Motherboard has learned.

The hacker also claims to have downloaded hundreds of gigabytes of data from a Department of Justice (DOJ) computer, although that data has not been published.

This is something that fascinates me about statism. It’s relies on the belief that humans are inherently bad and that the only solution is to absolve a handful of those humans of any responsibilities for their actions so they can control the rest.

A lot of people are willing to give the FBI a pass in breaking into 1,300 computers because the operation was dealing with combating child pornography. While I detest child pornography I also detest throwing due process out the window whenever it becomes inconvenient. There’s no way the FBI could know that all 1,300 computers it broke into were involved in the child pornography site. Not every visitor to a site is a user. Sometimes people are tricked into visiting a site, sometimes they’re curious if a site is actually as terrible as people are claiming (and often report sites containing illegal content to law enforcers if they find those claims to be true), etc. Due process involves identifying suspects based on evidence and investigating them specifically.

Further compounding the issue is the fact the FBI was knowingly distributing child pornography from its own servers. The agency was quite literally doing the exact same thing it was supposedly trying to stop.

Yet many people are calling what the FBI did justice while labeling what the hacker did as criminal.

Ted Nuget Riding The Crazy Train

I offer this post in the hopes of being helpful to the gun rights community. As with any community the gun rights community has its good and bad members. While many of the old guard rub me the wrong way, specifically because of their socially conservative views, I don’t really hold them in ill regard. However, there are some positively vile members. One of those is Ted Nuget who not only involves himself in gun rights but is a member of the National Riffle Association’s (NRA) board.

Deciding he hasn’t been in the spotlight for saying vile shit for too long, Ted decided it would be a jolly good idea to post some anti-Semetic shit on his Facebook page. Here’s a screen shot in case the post is pulled:

ted-nuget-crazy-train

I feel it necessary to first point out that judaism and Israel aren’t synonymous. Unless Ted is implying Israel is behind the gun control movement, which would seem rather odd to me, he can’t even get his bigotry symbolism right.

Speaking of bigots, they really are my least favorite part of, well, pretty much any movement. My support for gun rights stems from my belief that everybody should enjoy a right to self-defense. I don’t care what your race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or any other defining characteristics are. Hell, I don’t even care what species you are. If you’re an organism you have a right to fight anything that attempts to kill you.

My advice is that individuals involved in the fight for gun rights should strongly consider disassociating themselves with Ted Nuget. He’s a vile piece of shit that contributes absolutely nothing of value.

Fascist France

France appears to have learned all the wrong lessons from World War II. Instead of recognizing fascism as a bad idea France seems to be adopting the idea that their conquerer must have had the right idea. No longer satisfied with merely having emergency powers as law the parliament of France has decided to make emergency powers part of the nation’s constitution:

Paris (AFP) – The lower house of the French parliament voted Monday in favour of enshrining in the constitution the process of declaring a state of national emergency, one of a series of controversial amendments the government proposed after November’s Paris attacks.

The measure — which gives the state increased security powers — was voted through by 103 to 26, although it met opposition from some leftwing lawmakers and some deputies from the right.

Truthfully this doesn’t change anything. Since emergency powers have already been declared and were being used it’s obvious the nation’s constitution did nothing to stop them. What this vote amounts to is the statist equivalent of a religious ritual. Within the religion of statism ritual is what determines whether a governmental decree is holy or heresy.

What What, In The Butt? Government.

What is the biggest concern facing Michigan? Some may say it’s the poisoned water in Flint. Others may say it’s the devastated economy in Detroit. The Michigan Senate has decided it’s butt sex:

Those who violate bans on anal sex in the US state of Michigan now face up to 15 years prison time, after the Michigan Senate passed a controversial bill last Thursday (February 4), and despite the US Supreme Court ruling the legislation to be unconstitutional.

I’m of the opinion that where one man sticks his dick is none of my concern so long as everybody involved has consented. That’s why the puritans’ fascination with male genitalia baffles me. But this doesn’t surprise me. Since humanity first developed the really bad idea of letting a handful of us rule everybody else the State has been very interested in what people do in their bedrooms. And bathrooms. And living rooms.

Basically the State is very interested in everything that happens in your home. That way it can tax, fine, or otherwise extort wealth from people. Do you want to remodel your a room? You need to buy a permit! Do you want to enjoy anal sex with your partner(s)? That’s a finable and jailable offense! Do you want to grow a plant that you use for medicinal properties? Excellent! Not only is that a finable and jailable offense but civil forfeiture can come into play as well!

The reason there are so many laws on the books is because the State wants a cut from every activity humanly possible. This is just another example of the State trying to get a piece of some action.

Detecting Wrongthink Early

1984 taking place in London was very appropriate. The United Kingdom (UK) has become the granddaddy of the surveillance state. Surveilling an entire nation isn’t easy, which is why the UK, like every other surveillance state, is desperately searching for new way to automate its activities. I’m sure that desperation is what lead to this idiocy:

London, United Kingdom – Schoolchildren in the UK who search for words such as “caliphate” and the names of Muslim political activists on classroom computers risk being flagged as potential supporters of terrorism by monitoring software being marketed to teachers to help them spot students at risk of radicalisation.

The “radicalisation keywords” library has been developed by the software company Impero as an add-on to its existing Education Pro digital classroom management tool to help schools comply with new duties requiring them to monitor children for “extremism”, as part of the government’s Prevent counterterrorism strategy.

[…]

The keywords list, which was developed in collaboration with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organisation that is closely aligned with the government, consists of more than 1,000 trigger terms including “apostate”, “jihadi” and “Islamism”, and accompanying definitions.

I’m not sure if schools in the UK have deteriorated as far as the schools here but if they haven’t then it’s quite plausible that many of the keywords being looked for would appear quite frequently in a history class. What’s more interesting is that they keywords don’t seem to so much be targeting terrorism as Islam.

It must be noted that using keywords to detect wrongthink is a fruitless endeavor. Because terrorism is currently the biggest target of the State’s propaganda it is a topic of general interest. A lot of people searching for keywords related to terrorism aren’t interested in becoming terrorists but merely want to learn about events related to terrorism. The number of false positives such a system will throw out are going to be far greater than any potentially useful information. Drowning out the signal in noise is counterproductive but it seems to be the strategy most automated surveillance systems rely on.