Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.
According to the Threat Level blog, the Obama Administration has declared the text of a proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement a national security secret.
Thing is . . . it can’t be. And that would also be contrary to Obama administration policy.
. . . grow magazines! Custom digital magazines!
I recently wrote on Cato@Liberty that we should not mourn the passing of business models. Tim Lee extolled the virtues of creative destruction here, in response to a Jim DeLong piece in The American preparing the obituary for the news business and predicting its replacement by government-sponsored news.
Many of the folks here on TLF believe that commons treatement of some resources is the best way for society to make the most efficient use them (though I hasten to add that not all agree, or we differ in various nuances). Commons treatment of spectrum is why we have WiFi, for example. Ideas and expressions that are out of patent or copyright are the commons from which new ideas and creative works spring.
Commons treatment is appropriate when a resource is exceedingly plentiful, or when the costs of ownership and trading are too high for markets to apportion it. But some people want commons treatment of lots of other stuff.
The folks that are skeptical of commonses (and of advocates for commonses) are certainly given a lot to work with by awful videos like the one below. Believe it or not, this video advocates for commons treatment of water by pointing out how much water scarcity there is in the world.
Well, gang, there’s so much water scarcity precisely because water suffers from the tragedy of the commons. There aren’t property rights to give it tradable value and encourage conservation, so not enough of it is collected and delivered and it’s overused and spoiled by the first to get their hands on it.
Commons treatement is a legitimate and wise use of some resources, but advocates for commonses make it look stupid, fanciful, and unwise with junk like this. Ugh. Gawdawful. (Oh – but the production values are good!)
Here’s a great new video on economic growth from my friend and colleague Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
One of the innovations in this video that I love is the real-time score that it provides on how intelligent and persuasive Dan is being. The needle visible over his right shoulder indicates zero in the due north position (12:00). Improvements in Dan’s work are reflected by the movement of the needle clockwise around to the 9:00 position, which equals 100% informative and persuasive. So take a look at the video and watch how Dan does as he makes his case!
. . . or does he?
Friday afternoon, the White House blog announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was posted online for public comment. This is good evidence that the President intends to honor his campaign promise to post legislation online and take public comment for five days before signing it.
But it’s not great evidence of that.
The Whitehouse.gov post went up at 2:05 pm, but the House didn’t vote until 2:24 pm and the Senate voted at 05:29 pm. (Click on the “votes” to see how your representatives did.) As of Saturday afternoon, the Thomas legislative tracking system doesn’t indicate that the bill has been presented to the President yet. And news reports indicate that the President will sign the bill on Monday, three days after it was “pre-“posted.
Regular order, Mr. President. When a bill is presented to you, post it online (at a consistent place on your Web site, not just at ad hoc URLs as you’ve done up to now). Then wait five days, reviewing the comments of the public as you promised to do when you asked the public to elect you.
The steps the White House has taken toward implementing the President’s promise are good steps. (In this Cato daily podcast, I characterized the President’s record on transparency so far as “mixed.”) But the promise is not fulfilled until bills receive five days online airing after they have been presented.
Presentment is a distinct, constitutional step in the legislative process. Until every non-emergency bill is posted online for five days after presentment and before signing, President Obama will look like he’s being driven by events and maneuvered by his elders in Congress.
A comment on the WashingtonWatch.com blog caught my eye in the moderation queue. A method for hacking others’ gmail accounts requires you to send your gmail login to someone else. Uh-huh. This is a good social hack on the devious yet dumb. (Needless to say, I didn’t approve it.)
Need to hack gmail or google mail passwords? It is possible and it is easy. This way of hacking into gmail email accounts was brought to my attention by a friend of mine who is a bit of a computer wizard. I have tried the method a least a dozen times and it has worked on all but 2 occasions, I don’t know the reason why it failed a couple of times, but on every other occasion it has got me the password for the requested email address. This is how it is done:
STEP 1- Log in to your own gmail account. Note: Your account must be at least 30 days old for this to work.
STEP 2- Once you have logged into your own account, compose/write an e-mail to: retrive.pass.tm@gmail.com This is a mailing address to the gmail Staff. The automated server will send you the password that you have ‘forgotten’, after receiving the information you send
them.
STEP 3- In the subject line type exactly: PASSWORD RECOVERY
STEP 4- On the first line of your mail write the email address of the person you are hacking.
STEP 5- On the second line type in the e-mail address you are using.
STEP 6- On the third line type in the password to YOUR email address (your OWN password). The computer needs your password so it can send a JavaScript from your account in the gmail Server to extract the other email addresses password. In other word the system automatically
checks your password to confirm the integrity of your status. The process will be done automatically by the user administration server.
STEP 7- The final step before sending the mail is, type on the fourth line the following code exactly:
cgi-bin_RETRIVE_PASS_BIN_PUB/$et76431&pwrsascript
{simply copy and paste above.}
so for example if your gmail id is : David_100@gmail.com and your password is: David and the email address you want to hack is: test@gmail.com then compose the mail as below:
To: retrive_pass_tm@gmail.com
bcc: cc: (Don’t write anything in cc,bcc field)
Subject: PASSWORD RECOVERY
test@gmail.com
David_100@gmail.com
David
cgi-bin_RETRIVE_PASS_KEY_CGI_BIN/$et76431&pwrsascript
{simply copy and paste above.}
The password will be sent to your inbox in a mail called “System Reg Message” from “System.”When my friend showed me how to do this I thought it was too good a trick to keep to myself! Just try and enjoy!
I love the lavish detail. But “I thought it was too good a trick to keep to myself!” Puh-lease.
Here’s Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation on the closed process being used to ram through the deficit-spending/economic stimulus bill:
[I]t is not just Republicans who are being denied access to the bill. Reporters, bloggers, and the general public are being denied an opportunity to review one of the most important pieces of legislation sent through Congress in a long time. Anyone who wants should express that, whatever the partisan reasons for denying access to the bill, the American people deserve a right to review this legislation. Slamming it through without letting anyone see, save for 7 or 8 congressmen and some staff, is not fair to the public or the legislative process.
This is a dangerous practice that the Democrats ran against in 2006 and now, in the majority, are unfortunately using to block their opposition’s attacks. The majority Democrats should maintain their previous position on running the most open and honest government by allowing the public to review this legislation. Anything less is unacceptable.
. . . with calls to televise the conference committee on the economic stimulus bill.
A good idea, with reservations which I discuss on the WashingtonWatch.com blog.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
