Tag Archives: human rights

North Korea

The conflict with North Korea is based on deception and fear.

North Korean leadership has deceived their population into believing that America started the Korean War and killed hundreds of thousands of Koreans. Based on this belief, North Koreans fear that Americans will attack and kill them. Their nuclear agenda may have started as part of their conflict with South Korea, but it has evolved into a defense against a perceived American attack.

To avoid war and encourage positive change, the US and the rest of the world should make an effort to integrate North Korea into the economic landscape. Companies and governments should offer to pay North Korea for exports — clothes, pots and pans, and basic manufactured goods to start. If the North Koreans can develop a growing economy, then greater employment will bring better education and reform.

With basic commercial trade, power is shifted slightly toward the economy and away from the state.

Healthcare for young Americans

If you take away one’s right to support themselves, you have an obligation to support them.

If children could work, they could presumably receive health care. For the sake of argument, let’s ignore the pay check, work experience, and other benefits – and focus on the healthcare. In many cases, parents can not or do not choose to pay for appropriate healthcare for a child. In these cases, the child might be better off quitting school and working to afford the medicines or treatments she desperately needs. But that child is restricted by law from doing so. The government, by placing this restriction, is morally responsible for providing at least that which the child could have achieved on her own. The government should provide health coverage for any persons restricted by law from the work force.

Truly Anonymous Surfing?

This article in Wired talks about a new method for masking online identities to provide ultra-anonymous Internet access. It was developed by Hacktivismo, an offshoot of the hacker collective Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), and is called “Six/Four”, named after the June 4, 1989 massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Six/Four combines peer-to-peer technologies with Virtual Private Networking (VPN) and “open proxy” connections, which allow one computer to establish direct, secure communications with another over the Internet. Traditional VPNs take the information along a single path from Point A to Point B. Six/Four’s route is more circuitous, sending its tunnel through a series of computers on its peer-to-peer network before heading to the public Internet. Data goes from Point A to Point K to Point Z to Point G, only eventually winding up at Point B. Each link in the chain only knows the link immediately before, not the final destination. Since every server along the way requires separate search warrant in order to view that computer’s logs (if they even still exist) to get your IP address, the approach adds layer after layer of anonymity between client and server. One developer says “It’s like a highway that’s redesigned for every Brinks truck that rides on it.”

Connecticut To Store Biometric Information

I just got word that when I renew my driver’s license, I will have to submit to allowing the CT DMV to store biometric information, as well as smile for facial recognition software from Viisage to be able to continue driving. With national law enforcement agencies opening up their databases to each other, survailance systems such as cameras in public places will be able to identify my face and build a general path of the places I’ve been. Recordings of sufficient quality can probably be analyzed to build the path retroactively. Hmmm.

W3C Approves Web Privacy Standard

The World Wide Web Consortium has approved the Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P, a standard that would allow browser software to automatically compare a user’s privacy preferences with the privacy policies of a visited web site.