Tech Policy Girl

I don't even know what to say about this one so I won't say much. Remember the brewhaha over Cisco's technology selling technology to China for use in creating the Great Firewall of China? Wired reports that Congressman Chris Smith has proposed HR275, known as the 'Global Online Freedom Act of 2007'. Among other things it prevents US companies from participating in the censorship of citizens' internet activities. Unless it's the US doing the censorship I suppose...

The issue of a national biometric authentication program is brought up in The Industry Standard. The authors suggest that such a scheme would be useful for "maintaining and defending our control of our own identity and personal data".

Which brings to mind an interesting point: our fingerprint, iris scan, or what have you becomes yet another piece of personal data that we have to worry about maintaining control of. Presumably this piece of data would be managed by a government agency or contractor, and one would question how well this data would be protected.

An article in the Press Democrat reports high emotions at the Sebastopol City Council meeting last week when the offer of free Wi-Fi was debated. At issue was the potential negative health effects of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the Wi-Fi network that would be created in the downtown area. The city council voted unanimously to rescind an agreement with Sonic.net. Given the abundance of Wi-Fi networks it's hard to avoid being within range, particularly in a business district so I'm trying to imagine how the electric-sensitive are coping as it is. Do they avoid Starbucks altogether or do they just go in long enough to pick up their coffee and not stick around to drink it?

My only experience with free Wi-Fi is the network available in San Francisco's Marina District. Hopefully Sonic.net is offering better service, but if the network they had planned for Sebastopol was similar, the town isn't missing anything.

I was reading last week that Mississippi's state congress is considering legislation to prevent the installation of traffic enforcement cameras in the state. There is almost no opposition to the bill amendment.

Enforcement cameras are a hotly debated issue. Some reports claim that they save lives and decrease the number of traffic accidents. Other reports claim that they make no difference and are an invasion of privacy.

What's interesting about the debate in Mississippi is that the legislators' concern is about keeping money out of the pockets of the camera system vendors and not about the privacy or safety of their constituents (or even the income the cameras could generate for their municipalities!)

Simon Hunt has created a (very cool) Google Map of international cryptography laws and regulations by location. It also pinpoints related laws in many US states.

Where was this map before the US declassified crypto algorithms as munitions? Folks with RSA algorithm tattoos could have used this to see when and where they were a national security threat.

My Grandmother is convinced that the world has been destroyed by computers. While she has always been an early adopter of every new kitchen or household gadget that hit the market, she is vehemently against anything that could be described as digital. When she heard that television would eventually change to digital format she swore that the day television switched over to digital would be the day her TV would go into the garbage. When I asked her why the idea of digital television upset her so much she didn't have an answer. Her reaction was purely emotional and, to me, completely illogical. To some, my own negative reaction to touch-screen voting is also illogical, mostly because I live in an area that uses an optical scan voting system and thus people wonder why I even care.

So I was happy to read the New York Times Magazine's article on electronic voting in yesterday's edition. It's comprehensive, interesting, and an appropriate read to ring-in this new (election) year.