The Creativity and Conspiracy blog

Escape the Riaa's tyranny

2007-01-11T09:16:00.000-05:00

Amazingly enough the RIAA still tosses around lawsuits and makes life miserable for the average person as a result. But what exactly could I possibly have to comment on this week thats new and fresh... well its actually much more interesting then you think.

Recently the RIAA have been exploiting a facet of the civil court system, and once again its in a little 'gray area' of the law thats JUST legal, but still makes them look really ...well I'll let you pick the adjective.

Source-p2p weblog
Starting with the quote "RIAA now has dropped several copyright infringement lawsuits against suspected P2P file sharers, including Warner v. Pidgeon and Interscope v. Leadbetter and Elektra v. Santangelo . Generally this is so RIAA can amend or refile the claim against a related person. ".

Basically what the above could be easily summed up as is the RIAA's exploitation of the civil court system's not having a double jeopardy law the way the criminal court system does. This exploitation could in the future lead to a 'blanket' effect of the Riaa suing LITERALLY EVERY American and having to prove our innocence. Civil court, unlike criminal court does not function under the context of 'innocent until proven guilty'. Thousands of dollars in court costs later you MAY be awarded with a settlement in your favor for court costs and attorney fee's... there has been 1 case so far where this has been the case. With records of ISP's being seized and collected how can anyone be safe?

I have decided to do the only thing that I can to save each of you from the onslaught of the RIAA, educate you all on how to get music legally, or illegally (but being smart about it). So without further adieu I think I should show all of you some great ideas on how to get around the RIAA's watchful eye.

1. radio. We all know about internet radio is out there and its a pretty good, free, legal, viable way to use your bandwith to get and discover more music that you like a few good sources of online radio are....

Legal

Winamp Shoutcast
Winamps shoutcast service is one of the largest, albeit best communities of radio stations out there, you can find ALMOST anything, from 80's rock, to japanese techno, to german underground industrial... its all on there.

Pandora.com
Pandora.com must be one of the coolest websites that i have ever stumbled across. The basic idea of it is you make your own radio station based off of a song that you like. For instance one of my stations is based off of J-pop pheonominon Ayumi Hamasaki. It plays one of her songs every hour or 2. Aside from that it selects other music in the same genre (based off of lyrical tone, background instruments, tempo, and a load of other aspects) and plays it for me. I can give it the thumbs up or the thumbs down and it will / will not play more music like that song. The website is pretty amazing and requires a simple, validation free signup.

Di.FM (digitally imported radio)
Digitally imported is really only for us techno lovers, with about a dozen stations and 40k+ listeners and really good audio fidelity, their a great place to listen to all your (techno)music.

Soma.Fm
Soma.fm is a california based chain of net-radio stations. I have NO idea how i came across this site, but im sort of glad that i did. They play a lot of music that you would expect to hear on a 'college' radio station. it, like pandora, is a GREAT way to find new music.

The NOT so legal way

Before i begin I will tell you a few things that your going to need to have ANY luck in evading ANYONE on the net.

Things you will need to preserve your privacy / computers stability.
1. A knowledge of proxies and how they work (if your not sure what a proxy is / where to get them or how they work jump over to this url for help Link- Stay Invisable)
2. A good Spyware util (spyware doctor, ad-aware, and spybot work well in conjunction with one another (google them) )
3. A good antivirus utility (just in case you end up getting something fishy while your downloading.
4. A good 'cleaner' (I recommend CCleaner for every day deletes and and http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ For drive wipes (7 times is the DOD(department of defense) standard.)
5. A good Dc++ client. (at present Dc++ and MIRC are the easiest ways to pirate music, I will go over MIRC in a follow up.... maybe)
Dc++ Client is found Here.

As far as how to work with Dc++, its pretty self-explanatory / well documented, so i leave that to you.

things to avoid

just a small list of things to avoid because their spam / easily tracable / etc.
Kazaa / limewire / bearshare / usenext / imesh (most all direct p2p clients ).

Good luck and if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Xero- Back at last.

Today in the news.

2006-12-29T23:50:00.000-05:00

I'd like to start this post with a riddle I heard when i was in 3rd or 4th grade.

'Whats greater then god,
worse then Satan
Poor people have it
Rich people want it
and if you eat it you'll die.'

The answer to this riddle is 'Nothing', or it was until today. Recently In a Poll conducted by the AP (Associated Press)and AOL, President Bush was rated the most evil person in the world (with 25% of the people poled saying it was him). Beating the recently assassinated... I mean condemned, Saddam Hussein by over 400% and the illustrious Osama Bin Laden by over 300%. The reason my riddle was smashed is because apparently President Bush is 25 times more evil then the devil.

From watching the news I have heard a lot of things about Bush lately that have really made me wonder about if he is more evil then the devil himself. His policy in Iraq is the most foolish, stupid...Asinine plan I have ever laid eyes upon. Think of how the American public (namely Boston) acted during the American revolution. We tarred and feathered people, we slaughtered the British and drove them out of our country... yet when crazy 'Iraqui's' do it to us, we scratch our heads and wonder why they don't like living under martial law imposed by another country. Call me unpatriotic but I just don't foresee us EVER winning the 'war' in Iraq, because frankly there is no war. Its soldiers enforcing martial law against a broken nation. The soldiers are just following orders from our very own tyrannical leader, President Bush.

In my humble opinion this 'war on terror' is just our very own home brew of terrorism. What are we doing other then 'scaring off other nations from doing what they did' at this point?

Content link
President Bush recently asked congress for an additional 99 BILLION dollars in military spending. I wonder what the people who have already lost their children think about his remaining zeal towards the situation in Iraq? If I recall JFK was assassinated for FAR less then what Bush is doing now. . . A link to back my feelings on this matter.

Iraq Death toll exceeds 9/11 death toll

Need I say more?

Discuss.
Happy weekend. Drink responsibly, and happy new year.
Xero.

As I lie awake

2006-12-29T01:58:00.001-05:00

As I lie awake

these questions i ask myself when i should be asleep
quietly dreaming of love and sheep
Gently i lay and close my eyes,
creeping darkness paralyze.
Forgotten sadness crept back in
Forgotten days forgotten sins
Forgotten agony and forgotten tears
I forgot about you, and its been years.

I forgot your smile and i forgot your tone,
i forgot the way you'd pull my hair, i forgot how you moaned.
I forgot the curve of you body, i forgot the way you smelled.
The only thing i want to forget is that you put me through hell.
For all the things i never knew and all the things i'd missed
maybe i could've better understood you had I not gone amiss.
The blood satined the sheets, days had already gone by
How could this happen.the life has left your eyes
A squeeze of a trigger and a violent burst.
So much for lies; and so much for my being coerced.

I've forgotten everything now, all thats left is a name
that gun was your narcotic. it took away your pain.

Damien Jay Bell

Copyright ©2006 Damien Jay Bell

Writing / tips: Driving traffic to your site with 5 practical tips

2006-12-28T03:15:00.000-05:00

Over the past 6-7 years I have written a number of successful tutorial sites that have gotten on average 1k unique hits a day; and over this period, I have learned a few things that may help you drive MUCH more traffic to your site. This is in no particular order, so you have to decide which elements to keep, and which to discard.

By understanding the needs of people and what drives traffic you can dramaticly BOOST the traffic to your existing sites, or new ones that you are developing.

Challenge: By giving your readers something that they really need to think about (riddles, games, logic, etc) they will find themselves on your site for longer / more often. I spend about 20-30 minutes gaming a day, however there was a game posted on digg not too long ago that kept me busy for about 5 hours (in 1 sitting). The name of the game was 'gridlock' for the record. Why did i play so much? The author of the article said he had made it to level 40, naturally i HAD to make it to 41.

Intrigue: By making your readers both curious and intrigued by your content you will find yourself innundated with traffic. In the case of blogs, it will be your shear sense of creativity that will generate this 'buzz'.

Novelty: Just because something is corny doesn't mean that its not going to be great for a few days. Novelty is ever changing and if you can stay ahead / keep up with it you will find your traffic increasing exponentially. Think of social bookmarking sites as an example, a few years ago when digg.com first launched, there were a mere 1000 or so users, now there are MULTI millions of users. Anything you can do to give your website a 'fresh' or 'new' edge, will help you greatly in the long run.

Repetition: Repeating yourself (with different phrasing of course) is essential for your readers to learn / understand what your trying to get across. This should be considered ESSENTIAL in complex tutorials or walkthroughs. providing pictures MAY alleviate the necessity, however always 'sum things up' at the end.

Suspense: In mass media suspense is what keeps us watching through commercials, it keeps our eyes glued to the screen and butts firmly in our seat. If you provide daily content, do not be afraid to put off til tomorrow what can be finished today if in the process you can create suspense. I've seen this used VERY effectively in works in progress and 'ongoing' stories, or even in 'developing stories'.

Lets review: Challenge your readers minds, Make them think their seeing something truly unique, Repeat yourself when necessary to better convey your point, keep up with the times and provide a sense of 'novelty', and remember: keep them glued to their seats if you can.

Good luck.

Xero.

Most memorable Events of '06: People / torrent site owner Vs Riaa/Mpaa.

2006-12-27T02:56:00.000-05:00

I would like to preface the following by saying a few things: I have used a VARIETY of sources to compile this article, mainly found through digg... I will be linking to ALL the articles i reference at the end of this post. If i cite information from your article please feel free to leave me a comment and i will clarify where i go the content from and or add you to the credits.

Let me begin by saying that I am not proud to be an American on Wednesdays when i have to write about the Mpaa / Riaa. Nowhere else in the world are people up tight enough to control the data that you keep on your computer by hiring renegade hackers to subvert US laws for the sake of sticking it to the 'little people'. In the past we have seen cases against semi-celebrities disappear, cases against people with high class lawyers disappear, but for us... The lower - middle class, we have no means to fight the tyrannical media giants, and as a result, we always lose.

In a country where the judges of these civil cases would allow in 'evidence' that was obtained through ill gotten means, I hang my head in shame and whisper I'm an American. Land of the free, freedom enough for me to post this... but not freedom enough for any of us to do anything about it. Freedom to be censored, Freedom to be sued because of the soundwaves that pass through your ears, freedom to be sued by denziens of a faceless 'evil' corperation who cannot, and will not be stopped. When will too much really be too much? Read the following and you can decide for yourself.

Story link apr 4th
"...the RIAA has been known to suggest that students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements.” That basicly sums up this article in a nutshell. The Riaa is so hellbent on collecting money that they told this MIT (a very prestigious Technology school In Cambridge Ma.) that she should drop out, or go to community college to repay her debt to the Riaa. When i read this I was at a loss for words... I still am, and for those of you who know me.... thats rare.

Story link
Back in February there was a form submitted by the Riaa that basicly said that 'format / phase shifting' your media was infringing on the artists rights (aka ripping a cd to your Mp3 player). They also flip flopped on their established '1 personal copy' for a CD and said that in 'certain circumstances' that infringes on the artists rights. It truly amazes me that one organization could throw a net wide enough to catch basically anyone for any / no reason. Soon enough we will see legislation limiting the number of times we can listen to media that we have rightfully purchased / downloaded. This article is undoubtedly worth a read.

Story link
One of the more amusing stories that i have seen in the past year is chronicled in the article above. For the mere cost of 19$usd a year (140 sek) you can buy 'Riaa lawsuit insurance' In the event that the Riaa ever sues you they cover the entirety of the cost of the settlement, as well as sending you a cool 'i got sued by the Riaa T-Shirt'. As funny as it sounds.... Is it not sad that such a thing can exist? Music lawsuit protection....

Story Link
Back in July the Riaa Lost a case against a woman by the name of 'Debbie Foster', after the Riaa sued her for illeagel downloads they later dropped the case against her when her attorney demanded the specifics of the case. The case was decided in her favor and she was awarded attorney fee's (though the Riaa fought this) because the judge said 'because this Court finds that the plaintiffs' voluntary dismissal with prejudice services as a complete adjudication of the issues set forth in their complaint and acts as a bar to further action on their claims, the court concludes the matter has been finally adjudicated in the defendant's favor... [which] represents a judicially sanctioned material alteration in the legal relationship between Deborah Foster and the plaintiffs. Ms. Foster is therefore the prevailing party for purposes of the Copyright Act'. I find this to be significant because it just shows how full of ^%&$ the Riaa is, when they get asked for proof they will back down.

Story link
This is another clear case of the Riaa being fought against by an everyday Joe...errr ....Jill. The Riaa sued her for Illegal downloading and distribution of copywritten material, she filed a counterclaim comparing the methods of attaining and presenting the case to the likes of extortion. The Riaa dropped the case the following day and it caused a pretty big media blitz. Once again proving that when you stand up to a bully they back down

Story link
Less then a week ago The Riaa (in cooperation with EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music) decided to sue the russian website allofmp3.com. Allofmp3.com being the best know music 'sale' site out of russia (also note: in full compliance with Russian copyright laws) is being sued for a cumulative sum of 1.65 trillion dollars, or 150,000$(usd) for each of its 11million downloads between august and October 2006. Major credit card providers Have joined in with the Riaa and are preventing U.S. based customers from purchasing music from this site (which violates MANY cardholder agreements, check yours for further clarification). Mind you when you put this lawsuit next to German war debts circa 1920 (+ rate of inflation to match modern day) it would be roughly 10 times as much.... thus the atrocities of these Russian music 'pirates' is 10 times worse then Germany's war debts post WW1. Makes perfect sense to me. Next time i see a starving music artist, I'll let you know.

Story link
This February the Mpaa / Riaa announced lawsuits against multiple torrent indexing sites, amongst them Torrentspy, Torrentbox and Isohunt (google them) and all 3 of them have decided to fight back saying that their sites have other uses then the clandestine ones that the Mpaa / Riaa are suing over. They also argue that the lawsuits are casting a VERY wide net in hopes to catch them committing a crime, a response from an attorney stated: "Everything alleged about defendants’ website (Torrentspy) is true about Google, and even more so, because Google outperforms the allegations in the complaint. Plaintiffs’ (MPAA) factually empty and broadbrush categorical accusations are like mud that covers all distinctions,". Upon reading this, one can see that the Mpaa have entered into a fight that will not be easily won or settled. My personal prediction is that you will see this case dropped very soon.

Story link
Also quoted in the article above, the Riaa/Mpaa have decided it was a good idea to have the creator / owner of thepiratebay.org stalked. The pirate bay (herein known as TPB) was illeagally shut down by the Riaa / Mpaa earlier this year. The website was down for a matter of a week and it was found (int the favor of TPB) that he was not in violation of ANY Swedish copyright laws (the 'made available' clause that is prominantly used against US based torrent sites is not included in the law over there). After he got his site back up and running he found himself being followed and stalked by a private eye. Amazingly enough this is 'allowed' and aknowledged by the Mpaa.... Movie sharing makes stalking okay....

Story link
At the beginning of this month the Mpaa did something that was nearly unspeakably 'shady'... they blocked a law from being passed because it would intercede with their ability to 'collect evidence' for file sharing cases. Amazingly enough the rights of the Movie association were favored over the rights of the people and the law did not pass. Have things gone too far when laws that protect people don't get passed because a organization of people reserve the right to stalk and obtain information through clandestine means? Stop buying DVD's and start supporting the uprising.

In closing... After a long winded 3 hours of typing (with some assistance proofreading from a student at a leading english university) I want to leave the conclusion of this up to you. I want you to tell me how and why this is okay or not okay. My personal spin on all of this is as follows: In the land of the free we have a group of renegades... a Mass media militia that is acting as a puppeteer... its strings are firmly attached to congress, the house, judges, and even local law enforcement. How can anyone protect themselves from someone who is above the law, from a group of people above blame; the answer, in short, you can't. The only way to stop this (pardon my language) Fucking Bullshit is to stop it at the source. send letters to your local selectmen and other members of congress. Stop buying Cd's and Dvd's and listen to internet radio (pandora.com or winamp's shoutcast are both great legal ways to listen to all sorts of music). Youtube is a great way to lay off the dvd's, as is atomfilms, animeepisodes, and Gh.ffshrine.org . In closing, The Riaa / Mpaa have gone too far: On new years day I'm vowing NOT to go to the movies or to buy a commercial CD from any major distributer in 2007. I ask that you do the same.

Xero, and CCP.
Articles cited / quoted:
Mit.edu
Eff.org
Boing-boing
Arstechnica
Riaa Vs people
CybernetNews
Torrent Freak
Tech Dirt

The spin: Beauty is a Biiitch

2006-12-25T23:23:00.000-05:00

In the age where everything in life is about politics, where everything we see and hear is decided by some person who has (insert pointy noun here) shoved a few feet up their ass I have recently decided that things have gone a *smidgen* too far. I came to this conclusion recently after the Miss Usa titles were handed out. Miss Nevada had her title stripped because of some photos (links to the juicier ones as :sources: at the bottom) of her 'partaking in underaged drinking' and 'inappropriate conduct' have surfaced.

In an age where even our beauty is judged on the content of our character, how can anyone be a 'judge' for anything? Especially when their character must be just as tainted at some core level to 'judge' a competition thats 99% about looks and 1% about content of character, and then relinquish said title solely based off amoral actions. Shouldn't the pageant then be filled with people hugging puppies with giant buck teeth and pimply faces; oh wait, they could never win because they don't have the depth of character that the HOT girls with the big boobs and defined curves have.

How do we as a country continue to feed into this bullshit? What in the name of god do we stand to gain by being the 'hottest' the 'smartest' or otherwise the 'best'? There are plenty of modest people who don't care to compete who outweigh your looks and character without effort, so in your attempts to be the best your filling yourself with lies and are destined to fail. Strive to be a good person, strive to love people and strive to make others happy, and if you end up less the average at the end of the day you can be happy that your not just a superficial person trying to impress a 'panel' who will never know you.

In the case of the lovely Miss Nevada there was no doubt that she was just being 'who she was' and celebrating her recent win in a way that may have been subverting U.S. laws. However which of the judges NEVER drank before 21.... thinking of my circle of friends alone I am the ONLY person who didn't drink pre-21 (never drak at all to be honest). So; how can anyone in their right mind, take away a title when they did the same thing but when someone else does it, its despicable and just plain wrong.

I ask you all to follow me in my example here, next year when you see the pageant on t.v. Change the channel. I know that I will.

Discuss.

Merry post Xmas hangover

Xero

Source: Source images
link fixes at 1257A est.

Monday already? MERRY XMAS

2006-12-25T14:13:00.000-05:00

Wow.... Its a little sad that I didn't think to prepare. So rather then going balls to the walls (like i will in coming weeks), I'm going to touch on some of the more basic elements that I'm going to be covering.

My style of art is photomanipulation, so most of my tutorials will focus around ones abilities to 'play' with pictures.

The following are things that I ask you to familiarize yourself with, with little tips for each that I have found helped me over the years

We'll start with the Magnetic Lasso tool...this is amongst the most important tools to be used to if you plan on doing anything but touchups. Your goal will be to google and image then to copy the focus of the image (I find that still life is great for beginners).

Also Familiarize yourself with the 'Crop' Tool. Much of the time when working with 'stock' photos, your going to be resizing the photo to 50% right off the bat just to make it more workable.. Once you get the model / image extracted, crop it and turn your zoom way up so you can see the finer details of JUST your manip target. Later on when you go and do some layer masks / etc you can worry about resizing / blending the image back in.

Get yourself used to the Image ->Adjustments menu. get Very familiar with auto color, auto contrast, and auto level. Many times these 3 will save you the task of re-lighting your or dodging / burning it to suit your needs. Also notice that you can 'desaturate' and also 'gradient map' both of these are indispensable tools that you CANNOT make a good manip without.

Now jump over to your 'filter' menu, again this is another menu that you CANNOT do without. Unless your a photoshop pro, don't mess around with the 'liquify' option too much it will make about 99.9% of your images look $%!77y. Skip down to your 'artistic' ones. Play around with 'cutout' a little bit, you can make some cool effects with that. also familiarize yourself with the 'blurs' since thats are HIGHLY useful as well. When using the 'distort' menu, be sure to know what your doing and to understand how to use your history palette. A lot of these options are useful... namely displace, its especially good for textures (its actually what im teaching next week).

Play around a bit with dodge / burn / blur / sharpen / smudge (side not, for hair smudging (since someone asked me) 70% strength to extend hair 25-40% to texture said hair)

Eraser is your best friend, play around with the size a bit, and get used to the opacity settings on the eraser, it can add a great 'fade' effect if you get it just right.

Well thats all for today, sadly I cannot write more, or even include images (as I will in the coming weeks, promise) because i have some family obligations to attend to. I hope i have given SOMEONE an idea on how to work with the tools and concepts a little better.

Good luck and merry Xmas to all.

Xero.

Tis the season: for video games.

2006-12-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

I think for the first time in history I can say that the I am honestly disgusted with both this season, and the videogamers.... let me elaborate. I want to start by saying that I am not a nintendo fanboy... they really lost me to other consoles during the past 10 years. Their inability to make a good system from the time when they retired to SNES until now really effected my view on their ability to upkeep and maintain a system even now. Xbox... I can't take seriously, There was just such a lack of vision as far as games went. EVERY game was either a war sim, and / or a sports game. As for the ps3... Im not really sold on it because of the obviously high price tag...Aside from that... where are the downsides? Look no further then digg.

Over the past few weeks I have been keeping an eye on Digg.com, I can honestly say that i have never seen people more insane, overzealous, and overbearing (to the point of sheer annoyance) then the Wii fanboys/girls. Every half respectable writer who can form coherent sentences becomes a net celeb by hitting the front page of digg by saying OMG I LOVE MY WII!.

Before I continue I think its only fair to say: I own a Wii, as well as a 360... both of which I'm not overly impressed with...but for the sake of arguement lets say i favor my Wii. (A sidenote, how tired am I of having Vg parties at my house, let alone being beaten at Wii bowling by my girlfriends grandmother?). My Issue with the Wii is not in the execution, nor is it with the graphics, or the sound.... thats all fine. No I honestly think its because I'm feeling a little too old: The Wii controller makes me feel retarded when im playing an FPS. I standing in front of my T.V. at 2 am twisting my body and shouting profanities about communism. The problem with the Wii is that it FORCES you to be excited about playing video games, theres no way to use their controller if your sick / tired without making your condition worse.

Video games are a past time of lazy, uninspired people... I just cannot see eye to eye with a system where i have to fight my friends, their friends, and my grandparents to play a game. Also lets take a look at the news behind the Wii.

The most recent news that I came across when I was compiling this article yesterday is just disturbing: What people are willing to do for a wii. This article details how a mother with 2 children offers to give 250$ and a blowjob to a man who posted his Wii for sale... she sent over pornographic images and convinced the man that she was legit. . .Allow me to use this time to segway into a flashback.... The year is somewhere in the mid 1990's and tickle me elmo isn't JUST a craze, its worth killing for. I saw a Tv show (some news thing or other....maybe 'Today'), Where they had a group of women crawling on their knees "rat race" style with a TME at the end. . . I thought of how far people are willing to go to impress and appease their children... but giving a blowjob to a man you don't know it just taking this a LITTLE too far.

Ps3 is Also getting a LOT of bad press, jump over to 'digg' and just type in ps3 and you'll see what i mean. However last night everyone was shocked and amazed when Gran Tourismo HD was released as a FREE addon. The system that has 'suffered' 'terrible' sales had its servers crashed due to excessive downloads of the said gran tourismo games managed to crash Sony servers... seems a little odd to me (Source: kotaku)

To wrap this up in a manner where I don't start rambling about the days of Secret of Mana, and or Secret of Evermore I will tie this post up by saying this. Its Xmas time again and we have fanboys foaming at the mouth yelling like neonatal children screaming "pwned" at everyone who decided to buy a PS3, or to side with the ps3. Yet they disregard future games for the Ps3 like FF13, FF13 versus, DMC 4, MGS 4, Assassins Creed and other games that look simply amazing. The moms of said fanboys are willing to suck off men they don't even know just so they can BUY a Wii.

Crazy day and age we live in.... isn't it?

Happy holidays, New post tomorrow, I'll be looking for a few hours away from my family.
-Xero-

Todd Shriber: Shoots himself in the foot.

2006-12-23T14:54:00.000-05:00

Naturally when things happen in popular news and media its always 'blown out of proportion' or they 'make someone out to be a bad guy'. However under the Patriot act (Passed shortly after 9/11) the act of 'Hacking' was deemed to be an act of terrorism, and many forms of hacking / CC fraud had their minimum sentence raised from a mere slap on the wrist / probation, (see Mafia_Boy for example) to a Stunning 10 year mandatory sentence, with no chance of parole. Since 'hacking' into a educational database is considered an act of terrorism against a public institution, wouldn't conspiring to do so also be a federal crime? Wouldn't hiring someone to do such things make the party guilty of conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism against a public university?

Well not if your in the republican party. An amazing prank has been pulled against republican press aide Todd Shriber by the folks at attrition.org. The Prank is summed up as follows; Todd Shriber most likely did a 'blind Google-ing' for a 'hacking website' and came across 'attrition.org'. Attrition.org is one of the more popular websites in the 'hacking underground'; their claim to fame was from years ago when they used to host mirrors of defaced websites, which if i recall they discontinued doing in early - mid 2003. However the website remained a popular hub for the 'dark' security discussion that most people brand as 'hacking'. After finding this website Todd Shriber sends an email to one of the Administrators of the site, asking over the course of many emails if he could hire a hacker to alter his G.P.A. Jericho, One of the administrators at attrition.org had him answer a variety of questions (i.e. are there pigeons at the campus?) most of which were outlandish and would have sent most people on their way, and eventually got him to send over his student I.D. his SSN, and his full name. Rather then doing the clandestine act of stealing the gullible guys identity and running amok with it, they took the highroad and claimed to get caught and published the whole thing (sub the ssn/ student i.d.) on their website.
( mirrored here )

If you or i were to be caught doing this you can say; with a relative level of certainty that you would be charged with a crime (conspiring to commit an act of terrorism? ). But not in this case, it seems as though the only punishment that Todd will be getting is the loss of his job.(source: ). Is it really okay for the man NOT to get charged with a crime in this instance, he has admitted his guilt and lost his job.

I ask you, the people of the world at large, should the republicans harbor this 'terrorist' (by President bush's own words, this man is a terrorist), and protect him from legal process. Or; conversely should this man have to pay the price for his actions.

Discuss.

sources used:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/9999 - news article
http://www.googlethedamnthing.com/mirror/idiot_hack/ - mirror of events that had transpired at attrition.rog
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/10015 - Shriber fired

First post

2006-12-23T14:41:00.001-05:00

Naturally I am new here, hence the obvious title. Some basic ground rules for posting comments in my blog / about me as a person.

1. Personal shots will be answered with personal shots. Discuss the issues on hand, or else the gloves come off.
2.Intelligent comments only: Replying to my posts with "lawl, ur so stuipd" will just make me crack up and call you cranially challenged.
3. If i leave something out or you feel like informing me of something I overlooked I will not only appreciate it but I will thank you for it... I love to read, and i love to learn; but in the event of you correcting me, please cite your source if its 'factual' information.
4. No post and run. If you have something to say, stick around to back it up.
5. If you want to contribute something (be it an idea for an article, a writing / photoshop / photography tip, a good discussion topic, etc) then please let me know.

The schedule as it is right now is as follows.
Monday- Photoshop tips day
Tuesday- Celebrity Focus Day
Wednesday- Riaa Blast day
Thursday- Writing (tips or excerpts)
Friday- Poetry
Saturday- Government 'fuckup' day
Sunday- Vg discussion say.
This is subject to change based on a few factors; not limited to, Availability of material, time 'crucial' material, or just some extremely hot topic.

There will be days when i 'forget' about my blog. This could be because i have family / friends.... okay realisticly its because i slept for too long and just didn't have time... but nonetheless I will compensate for missed days in the days following them.

Thanks for taking the time to drop by and read the rules before you embarass yourself by not doing so ><.