IMS_Blog

Sometimes the internet strikes me as a very strange place, a little like a library full of books which would have been published (if they’d ever seen the light of day) as thick hardbacks put on a shelf to gather dust. Only a few would have been sold, probably to libraries, and there would be no second edition for corrections and updates. On the internet however there’s no such dust. Hence the Lighthouse Directory, which I’ve filed alongside Windmill World (random fact: As part of EngDesign I’m currently involved in the restoration of Ashby’s [AKA Brixton] Windmill). Of course, speaking of libraries, Wikipedia has a list of lighthouses and lightvessels and a list of windmills.

This is more a note to myself than anything else, but just to say commenting on the photo galleries has been disabled for the time being. It was receiving a stupid amount of spam of late (and unlike this blog has little in the way of spam capture so was publishing said spam). Enabling CAPTCHA didn’t seem to help so comments are off until I look into it further.

I got bored of how the front page of norcimo.com looks, so I gave it a quick refresh, because I can. Look, whizziness!

China, land of governmental blocking of the internet to “protect” the populous. Right? Or the UK.

(comic by WellingtonGrey, Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial License). Currently the page in question returns a supposed 404 page not found error. Which is interesting because a) I’ve never seen Wikipedia return such a thing. It offers to let you create the page if it doesn’t exist. b) The link from the Scorpions page clearly shows that page to be existing (by default non-existing or broken links are indicated as such) c) Connecting through a non-UK proxy gets me that page.

The complete stupidity is the aforementioned Wikinews page carries the very image being objected to, and is accessible. Oh, and a quick Google Search. And the Google Cache of the blocked page, in case you’re unfortunate enough to live in a totalitarian state. I’m sure there are probably copies of this album floating around with that cover too—is anyone owning such, or a shop selling such, really in need of being locked off from public view?

This is of course obviously the tip of a very large iceberg (particularly, I must say, the dishonest attempt at portraying the page as returning a 404 error). Stand up, while you’re still allowed.

Update: The BBC report that the IWF have withdrawn the page from the blacklist. How very kind of them. The point is that it is not the place of a wholly unelected, unaccountable charity (not even a governmental organisation) with a manifesto and agenda set and overseen by no one but themselves to police what may be illegal. It is for courts of law to decide legality, nothing else. It is also very disturbing that at least one (Be—owned by O2) ISP, and I believe others, chose to return a fake 404 page not found error message rather than at least 403 forbidden or even better redirecting to an explanatory page. Of course, the whole concept of ISP filtering at all is uncomfortable, and it is an interesting point what this does to their justification of merely being a “provider” most often cited in illegal file sharing activities.

One can’t help believe that the IWF have backed down simply because of the publicity caused (and maybe the fact that even lowly Wikipedia were considering legal action; they certainly wouldn’t want to face Amazon or Google). IWF would rather quietly get on with there “work” out of the public eye, in the shadows, unseen, the way secret police normally operate. The scary thought is that there is no obviously simple way to continually discover what their latest addition to their watch list is. What if they’d blacklisted all the pages carrying negative coverage of themselves?

And we haven’t even touched on the obvious futility of attempting to censor such a widely disseminatedimage.

There is undoubtedly more to be said here, but this was supposed to be a quick update. The coming reactions will be interesting.

qxyvzFNUH408PCHY9h7FKLnEa/YsJzm9/lu7A9oO
HXeAqq6U5buz66byLnWWW99kQouLg+Dv69oFMHHQ
IxwU7xFK73uuE0pYTY7N1bkkWXRmbQAh2VqxiGLm
C7WRYLVfNWbWn4vQ/bYmCJiWq0ZQADIRIJuLbZjV
jA/+vpPkltyJvqafW/N7QmrEPyOGO90jqWLWVzO8
hchwvsfoh5dFYkvaAcCBjSHmDsvFCjEszVY31IW9
Uq0yPP77WzdDvpX3fpFUfSjzkRHv3SgOG2YXGoKn
9xLCTS2cwyvRB5b1Yge+kzLDZ/a4QRPwtEX6sY+Y
rszT7gTxcnC8O8yoWnBHG1NleuN2SDFzaVcVft5R
346PXENfgTsJQSCVvby2bVDAENUGytHWty82hwgQ
IizUCbLwmwE9JcDshOLC4FUGhO/Xt6ck1ILQKlMa
bjXLHCNQDHb/LTylPjNsehI201aSjmKqHw135mfi
luqfad50USyfQBajEaUIGNnOJgKSJGhLK6rLiKRL
MA9fy7gASpBODf90dJ7ycosfUvBelIKRFNuUvMnv
t+c327ef0lnbpDwG/rRgTtzTKDOsFI3wBjyqTFJT
2cpQcGZ/NFb/+LiHuicE6JRaQauHVP/1LpRfGlkY
rXUAYXGFyZg3fzxcS4Xikmow64ELlFYLg/FJAlJI
UjlzpUgusiAIy1MeKTDN4IoBU5rdUrJLuKJPS9b7
1P3t+y+lDqnevPxkkhe81ISS7W/tdtf6j22B3+fE
kQPcECgqLj/TzIPOcqUZy7bmlvTN2mWuU0ez7/wq
mpJIH8rHpS5QSVnzsyYRPZjV4b2LnaIv

Rt3QpfvI7sVg+4YvDF6ALcOzE0b3K902K1tysIML
vxcjWvo9bX470ckkRK4PAcJzpaGD47fo8WswfXi8
zbXzp7B8D2wfuMw+O558rPf0f/J3leKkyNSslk8r
RfWQfqZZivniw99kW6BLXMJobJpuDeK4bKK+2aNc
LfxWWSiAAeO7YxJSBBEHVa1Csm2vGcKcKt92fLdM
RnCfv040jhZiSpS506AtE5MUK5FtlG9faiqoq9a5
c36h8uvkEf0whsvMzZgIArebQQob8vElsey0uVzO
OkpHX3CHx4OIg5ZKNe/JEdH/SofDBh5WuVga1gIV
rLDYSkRlV3AF1pZNneAo8Xk3TaRMe793JT5F4/Cl
89jKUOc5JlJIKvbR4kmCWzTqPb3h0XE6dJNqouH9
tSwfkz3bR7xN9dEeNs+dZathFArv/Jn4ZzmxQPzF
C4zG//ZyI6TLRgxuSXl9zX4J8Ev7fV/BYmJwyaZW
Vtl6nZuRWQgdJT1IJniwh1OX+YR0b5/iP/DBebgK
cc29otUSAdtDJ4ebT+UK30J2gMndfBQGBBFWN8gl
2thiHxQk8xq8ZUMCOsWqI6TtcREe2yxWTaDCf7sp
KInT9ByrVaz2kU0W9QJF8uwCG7NMRe1OJdYRwWjg
Uq3pK8JHDnlCWOpYNtdkKwacI1VJu2F2rsZjpFwS
2Zs6eOuJU8JI0zoOdg5py/9iHtRAM3h38TJcalkM
2A68Eiv7a3EftZHb9QboEgcy1e233RmofHQfe03L
GK20sgzF19DzfjaDIMojlCUi6wrIEXlwa42Mi2H+
V/4um3s5XnCN+WSvn2JbJaSdcAvpBOhN

Decrypt Text (If you're: Friends or Family)