Web browsing behind closed doors.
Canadian developers will next month release a tool to bypass government-enforced restrictions on web browsing in countries like China, Syria and Iran.
[The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]
Audio captchas when visual images are unusable
From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see — tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed.
Wikipedia defines ‘captcha’ as an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” — a word which is trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University. Most web users think of captchas as those hard to read distorted letters or images that one often is confronted by when websites attempt to verify that they’re indeed talking to a live human. Google Accounts support captchas. Of course, bloggers (no matter which platform they use) can also use them to prevent comment spam.
Captchas were never intended to be purely visual — however, most initial implementations used fuzzy images, and in attempting to lock out automated agents also inadvertently locked out people unable to see the image. As an alternative to these, this past spring Google Services that require verification began to provide an audio alternative — people have the option of listening to a sequence of spoken digits that they then type into a form field to verify to the web application that there is indeed a live human at the other end.
To keep the audio captcha as challenging as the visual captcha when confronted by automated agents, we add some distortion to the spoken digits, and we’re still experimenting with different distortion techniques to ease the burden on the genuine human user while locking out automated agents. We welcome feedback on the effectiveness of these techniques from you (we automatically collect feedback from those evil automated agents pretending to be human) 
.
You can easily spot the availability of audio captchas by the presence of the well-recognized “wheelchair” icon for accessibility — the image is tagged with appropriate alt text to help blind users. Incidentally you donít have to be visually impaired to use the audio captcha; if you are in a situation where you find it hard to view the visual captcha — either because you’re at a non-graphical display, or because the specific visual challenge we offered you turned out to be unusable in a given situation, feel free to give the audio captcha a try. We’ve worked hard to ensure that the audio captchas work on different hardware/software combinations, and you do not need any special hardware (or software) other than a sound card to be able to use them. - A Googler [Official Google Blog]
Google Earth Boosts Social Activism in Bahrain.
A student (thanks, Gui!) pointed me to this Financial Times story about how Google Earth is fueling the push towards a more egalitarian society now that poorer citizens can spy on the massive and extravagant properties of the wealthier class:
The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom.
[sigma]activists claim that 80 per cent of the island has been carved up between royals and other private landlords, while much of the rest of the population faces an acute housing shortage.
[sigma][base ‘]ÄúSome of the palaces take up more space than three or four villages nearby and block access to the sea for fishermen. People knew this already. But they never saw it. All they saw were the surrounding walls,[base ‘]Äù said Mr Yousif, who is seen in Bahrain as the grandfather of its blogging community.
He and other activists believe creative use of the internet [base ‘]Äì connectivity in Bahrain is among the highest in the Arab world [base ‘]Äì is forcing the country to confront awkward realities and will speed the march towards a more egalitarian society.
In reaction, the ruling Bahrainian government has attempted to block access to Google Earth, but activists (as they usually do) have found a work-around:
[sigma]most subscribers in Bah¬[not equal]rain have downloaded free software [base ‘]Äì partly thanks to technical advice on his own site [base ‘]Äì enabling them to mask their location and access censored sites. Echoing that, Najeel Rajab, the director of the banned Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, says since his organisation[base ‘]Äôs site was blocked two weeks ago the number of visitors has trebled.
And even those with slower connections have found ways to participate:
For those with insufficient bandwidth to access Google Earth, a PDF file with dozens of downloaded images of royal estates has been circulated anonymously by e-mail. Mr Yousif, among others, initially encouraged web users to post images on photo-sharing websites.
More at Boing Boing and Ogle Earth.
Czech Supermodels & Czech Top Fashion Designers joined forces to provide vital support to disadvantaged children around the world. The first Czech Fashion Show in NYC Presenting its best Czech designers: Libena Rochova, Monika Drapalova, Denisa Nova, Hana Zarubova
Guest of Honor: Miss World 2006 Tatana Kucharova
Purchase tickets online by clicking here
or call +1.212.288.0830 ext. 100
Tickets: $500 - Primary Seating and Afterparty,
$200 - General seating, $100 - Standing room only
Cocktail Attire
Milk Studios (www.MilkStudios.com),
450 West 15th Street (Corner of 10th Ave), New York, NY 10011
Organized by the Czech Center New York,
info@CzechCenter.com, +1.212.288.0830 ext. 100
Work begins on merging Health and Social care records.
Work has begun on a social care equivalent of the care records guarantee for medical records, paving the way for merging health and social care records. The plans were disclosed as part of a debate at the annual Care Records Development Board meeting in London, yesterday.
[The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]
Care Records conference opens and closes debate.
The third annual Care Record Development Board get-together got underway yesterday (Thursday), bringing together “key stakeholders” in the government’s proposed digitising of the UK’s medical records.
[The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]
Antivirus Vendors Shift to Automatic Fees. Annual charges are typical and sometimes hard to sto. [PC World: Latest Technology News]
Groups Oppose Passage of New Surveillance Bill. A new bill that would weaken intelligence oversight should not pass in the few remaining days of the 109th Congress, a coalition of groups said Monday. CDT joined with several other public interest groups in urging Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to end his effort to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Oversight and Resource Enhancement Act of 2006 (S. 4051). Instead of pushing for rushed passage of a legislation that could undercut the security and privacy of innocent Americans, the groups urged Specter to work with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to more fully address the issues relating to warrantless domestic spying when the new Congress convenes next year. [Center for Democracy and Technology]
The Copyright Office/Library of Congress today issued its determination in the latest triennial DMCA exemption rule-making. Six exemptions were granted, the largest number so far.
Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years.
1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university[base ‘]s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book[base ‘]s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.
6. Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately, just as we predicted, all the proposed exemptions that would benefit consumers were denied (space-shifting, region coding, backing up DVDs). So, while we’re pleased that film professors, archivists, cellphone recyclers, and security researchers were able to successfully navigate the exemption process, it appears that digital consumers still have no choice but to get Congress to amend the DMCA. We look forward to Rep. Rick Boucher reintroducing his DMCA reform bill, H.R. 1201, in the new Congress next year.