Tag Archive for 'the intertubes'

The FBI Doesn’t Think People Are Allowed To Post Pictures of its Seal on the Internet, So Let’s All Do It

Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 4:33 PM on August 3, 2010 in Commentary. 0 Comments Tags: , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/ra

Wikipedia has an article on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, much like all things that a large amount of people might desire encyclopedic information on. Naturally, because it makes sense to do so, the Wikipedia community put a picture of the FBI’s official seal in the article, just in case, you know, someone might want to know what it looked like.

So the FBI decided to send the Wikimedia Foundation a letter in which they demanded this image of the seal be removed because apparently there’s some federal law against depicting the seal of a federal agency in 18 U.S.C. § 701. Except that there isn’t.

Wikimedia’s attorney Mike Godwin (yes, that Godwin) wrote back to the FBI, informing them that:

As the leading case interpreting Section 701 points out, “The enactment of § 701 was intended to protect the public against the use of a recognizable assertion of authority with the intent to deceive.”…Our inclusion of an image of the FBI seal is in no way any evidence of “intent to deceive,” nor is it an “assertion of authority,” recognizable or otherwise.

Entertainingly, in support of your argument, you included a version of 701 in which you removed the very phrases that [pertain to deception]. While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us.

Long story short, it is perfectly okay to post a picture of the FBI seal on the Internet, as long as you’re not doing it in order to claim that you are the FBI. So I’m going to exercise my right to do so, and I encourage everyone else on the Internet to join me.

Seriously, doesn’t the FBI have anything better to do?

    Unfriending The Internet: Confessions of an Antisocial Networker, and Why You Might Be One Too

    Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 5:24 AM on December 19, 2009 in Commentary. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/35

    CC Photo by heartbeaz on Flickr

    CC Photo by heartbeaz on Flickr


    As 2009 draws to a close, I will remember it as the end of my 5-year love affair of giving a crap what my friends are posting on the Internet.

    The idea of “social networking” exploded in the second half of this past decade, with MySpace becoming a household name, and everyone and their mother (quite literally) having a Facebook profile. It was extremely appealing: never stay out of touch with all of your friends, because they’re sharing their whole life with you, even if you can’t be there in person. I got caught up in the craze like all of us, but I soon discovered that, to me, at least, full-blown social networking was a passing fad. Perhaps I overestimated just how much I cared about every mundane detail of my friends’ lives. And considering all of the initial skepticism about Twitter, I’m probably not the only one.

    Let me tell you my story, and how I came to this conclusion:
    Continue reading ‘Unfriending The Internet: Confessions of an Antisocial Networker, and Why You Might Be One Too’

      Tweetdeck is a Piece of Shit, But I’m Stuck With It

      Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 7:38 PM on September 8, 2009 in Commentary. 1 Comment Tags: , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/ie

      It's funny because it looks like a 12-year-old did it.
      Fuck Tweetdeck. Fuck Tweetdeck sideways with a kerosene-coated pineapple.

      Fuck Tweetdeck so hard that I’m not even going to do that middle-of-word-capitalization thing that its creators insist on (It’s supposed to be “TweetDeck,” which is fucking stupid so fuck that, you fucking fuckers).

      Normally, I’d just switch to another Twitter client that doesn’t suck, like Nambu, except I switched away from Nambu because the one thing that did suck about it ended up driving me nuts: multiple account support. Tweetdeck, however, solves the problem with Nambu by being a piece of fucking shit.
      Continue reading ‘Tweetdeck is a Piece of Shit, But I’m Stuck With It’

        Furries and the Art of Surviving in a Post-Copyright World

        Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 9:09 PM on August 7, 2009 in Commentary. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/Rb

        That was originally an empty kumquat jar but it's such an appropriate picture otherwise that I just had to Photoshop it to this.
        Let’s be realistic here: copyright is dead. At least, it’s dead in the sense of “the right to make copies.” Once a piece of media is digitized — be it textual, visual, audible, or interactive — copying it costs exactly zero dollars (or -45,000 euros at the current exchange rate). Because of this, the perception of art not as a product but as information is rapidly reentering the collective human psyche after about 100 years of technical difficulties.

        So this means artists who hope to make a living will now have to rethink their business models, because basing your livelihood on the assumption that all people will pay you for the privilege of merely experiencing your work is on par with [wikipedia]Young Earth creationism[/wikipedia] in la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you factor. But never fear, artistic community, because a ton of niche nerd fandoms have come to terms with that assumption since the heyday of [wikipedia]Usenet[/wikipedia] (because many of them probably had a hand in inventing it). They all operate with similar conventions, but because everything is better with cartoon purple foxes, the example I will explain is the furry subculture.
        Continue reading ‘Furries and the Art of Surviving in a Post-Copyright World’

          Pedophile Government Worker Preys On Furries

          Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 5:42 PM on May 30, 2009 in Commentary. 6 Comments Tags: , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/HM

          The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that another one of those government workers fighting for laws to protect children has actually solicited sex from a 15-year-old boy. Particularly disturbing is that he found his target in the furry community:

          A legislative aide to Sen. Jane Orie, a former prosecutor who has championed state legislation to safeguard children, was fired Friday after the Attorney General’s Office charged him with sexually propositioning a child online and suggesting the two dress up as animals and have sex.

          Alan David Berlin, 40, who was paid $57,340 a year to do legislative services for Orie, used the Internet screen name “alan_panda_bear” and propositioned the 15-year-old boy several times this month, Attorney General Tom Corbett said.
          [...]
          In profiles posted on Internet sites used for networking among furries, or people who dress as animals, Berlin identified himself as Alan The Panda with interests in baking, board games, classical music, fine dining, movies, travel, wine — and diapers. The cartoon panda on his Pounced.org page wears a diaper.
          [...]
          Berlin proposed traveling to the boy’s home in Harrisburg to have sex with him in the backyard while his parents slept inside, Corbett said, and requested nude photos of the teen. He suggested a meeting between the child and another adult, and offered to secure a hotel room if he could take pictures of the sex acts, Corbett said.

          The boy’s parents became concerned when they discovered sexually graphic messages on their son’s computer and contacted investigators with the Child Predator Unit, which began an investigation on Tuesday.

          Well, this means a few things. First, the man is either sick or incredibly stupid not to know that sex with 15-year-olds is not a good idea. Probably both. Second, that kid is either sick or just incredibly desperate to not liberally apply his instant messenger’s “block” button as soon as a 40-year-old man asks him to take his pants off. Third, the requirement that Pounced members be 18 or older is obviously not doing anything, though it’s not like that wasn’t obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of teenagers on the Internet.

          It hits close to my heart when I see this kind of awful thing happen to the type of kid I can relate to. I was a 15-year-old furry once, and met the most fun and awesome people on the face of the earth through the furry community. One of the aspects I enjoyed is that, in general, sexuality isn’t taboo to furries like it inexplicably is to most of America. Should someone like Mr. Berlin exploit that sex-is-not-evil-and-actually-quite-nice sort of vibe and prey on inexperienced teenagers, the result can obviously be undesirable.

          Or perhaps Mr. Berlin genuinely is a furry, and isn’t just interested in anthropomorphism for sexual reasons. That does not change the fact that he asked a 15-year-old boy for sex. Whether they’d be wearing fursuits or vampire regalia or Star Trek costumes or nothing but cross pendants around their necks, the man is sick. And that kid should know better, but it’s mostly the pedophile’s fault.