DailyDirt: Spaceships On The Drawing Board

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Getting into space isn't cheap or easy. However, the technology to get into orbit is making some awesome progress and getting more reliable -- and getting a little cheaper, bit by bit. There are lots of designs for rockets and spaceships, and some are more like science fiction than anything that'll actually fly. Here are a few more spaceships that might have a shot at taking off.

• As an alternative propulsion technology, lasers could help boost payloads into space. The nice part is that such a system could be safer since there wouldn't necessarily need to be explosive fuels on board, but on the downside, it would be limited to cargo that weighs about 200 pounds. [url]
• NASA's Nautilus-X plans would create a re-usable deep-space vehicle with inflatable components. It would be constructed in space over about 5 years and cost at least $3.7 billion... and it was designed to be affordable. [url]
• The Russians are developing a re-usable space plane that might match the US Air Force's X-37B. Is there really a need for a nationalistic space race nowadays? [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: lasers, nasa, russia, space

How The 1991 'Usenet Revolution' In Moscow Predates The 'Twitter Revolution' Claims

from the technology-does-what-technology-does dept

With all the pointless talk about whether or not Twitter/Facebook were somehow instrumental in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, Shocklee points us to an interesting predecessor: the mostly forgotten news of how some geeks in Moscow used Usenet during a 1991 coup attempt to spread news around the world, even as the official media was totally cut off:

USSR, August 19 1991: While Mikhaïl Gorbatchev was on holiday in his datcha located in Crimea, Eight apparatchiks attempted to seize power over the state. Hostile to reforms, the “Gang of Eight” tried to prevent the Perestoika reforms and the loss of their satellite states. These eight orthodox Communists launched an attempted coup d’état by installing themselves as The State Committee of the State of Emergency. After Gobatchev returned he tried to restore order and save face, but it was clear that this episode would eventually lead to his downfall.

In this well documented event, there is an interesting historically episode which is often overlooked. During the two days of the coup the Russian media was shut down, and thus not covering Boris Yeltsin ranting on top of a tank for the crowd, nor the shock of the international community. All channels were blacked-out except for one; Usenet, which is the grandfather of chat-rooms and is capable or surviving without the Internet. For these precious 48 hours, a few dozen individuals contributed to this last means of communication with the outside world.

Obviously, it's not an identical situation to what's been going on today, but there is an interesting parallel, about how people gravitate to tools of communication in such events. And, no, I'm not serious about the "Usenet revolution" claims, but it is neat to see what was effectively an early version of the way that people in various countries have used today's online social networking tools to communicate with the outside world. At the very least, it's a fun historical read, that covers a story that many folks probably know nothing about.

Filed Under: russia, twitter, usenet

Russia Looking To Mimic China In 'Crowdsourcing' Internet Censorship

from the informants.ru dept

A few years back, we noted that part of the way that China's "Great Firewall" worked was by crowdsourcing censorship. Yes, China made it easy for Chinese internet surfers to spy on others and to also post pro-China propaganda on any forum where someone was negative. Part of the way this worked is that the government would pay people a tiny sum for each thing they did. Over time, the country has continued to expand the program. It sounds like China's neighbors up in Russia thought that was such a brilliant idea that they've decided to copy it. Yes, Russia has apparently launched a "new initiative" to get volunteers to sign up for "The League of Internet Safety." This is officially run by all of the big Russian telco firms and (not surprisingly) has extremely close ties to the government, including having Communications and Press Minister Igor Shchyogolev heading its "board of trustees."

Just as in China, the claim is that these volunteers will just be trying to figure out what "bad stuff" to censor -- starting with child pornography. Of course, that's always a good one to start with. It's when things go further that it gets questionable. And the organization has said that it intends to expand to the point of "policing other negative content." That seems like a pretty broad definition and it's not difficult to imagine how it will be abused to censor all sorts of content that is only "negative" to those in power.

Filed Under: censorship, china, crowdsourcing, russia

Russian Gov't Forced To Pay Newspaper Editor It Falsely Accused Of Piracy

from the government-sometimes-loses dept

We've noted in the past how the Russian government (as many others do) abuse copyright laws as a means of suppressing dissent among the media and activist groups. While this tactic got some additional attention last fall when it was discovered that Microsoft often played along, the Russian government still has been known to accuse anyone it dislikes of piracy, often creating charges based on the fact that someone couldn't find a receipt for a software package or couldn't prove they had legally bought that software package. This is copyright as pure censorship.

Thankfully, the Russian government isn't always succeeding with this strategy. Danny O'Brien was kind enough to send over the news that Sergei Kurt-Adzhiev, a local news editor in Samara, has finally been declared not guilty in his years-long fight against the Russian government in one of these trumped-up piracy lawsuits. Not only that, but in this case, the Russian Finance Ministry was ordered to pay him 450,000 rubles, or about $15,200 for the false charges that he'd used pirated software.

In response to the win, Sergei apparently said:

"I am pleased with the court's decision, though I believe it would have been fairer to collect my compensation from those law enforcement agents who illegally persecuted me. I am ready to identify those persons by name and to determine the monetary responsibility of each."

Should be interesting to see if he follows through on that threat...

Filed Under: copyright, free speech, oppression, russia

Upload 18 Songs In Russia... Face Six Years In Prison

from the punishment-not-fitting-the-crime dept

To hear the US entertainment industry talk, Russia is a horrible "haven for pirates." The US has been putting diplomatic pressure on Russia for yeas to improve its copyright laws and enforcement, with Russia regularly receiving a place on the "naughty or nice" Special 301 Report from the USTR. And yet... it certainly sounds like Russian copyright laws and enforcement are pretty damn draconian, with the news coming out that a guy, who is accused of uploading 18 songs to the social network Vkontakte, is now facing six years in prison. While it's true that Russia has (quite reasonably) argued that Vkontakte itself is not liable for uploads of others, just the fact that someone could be facing any jail time for simple uploading, let alone six years for basically an album's worth of materials seems way out of proportion to the "crime." It's things like this that make people respect copyright even less than they already do. When they see that someone is facing so much time in prison just for sharing less than 20 songs, it's the sort of thing that makes them realize the laws don't make any sense at all.

Filed Under: copyright, prison, russia, uploads
Companies: vkontakte

If Assange Were In China, US Politicians Would Be Cheering Him On

from the transparency-means-different-things-when-it's-about-you dept

We've pointed out the general hypocrisy of US politicians calling for an end to internet censorship, while threatening Wikileaks at the same time. If you want to see some real irony, check out the fact that Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been the loudest voice in pushing for censorship of Wikileaks and of others in the press, just so happens to be a member of the "Global Internet Freedom Caucus." Yeah, except here in the US.

Along those lines, Martin Varsavsky points out the obvious: if Julian Assange were a Chinese citizen, publishing Chinese government documents, the US would likely be cheering him on:

Lately I have a strong feeling that the Chinese must be rejoicing at all the "retroactive law invention" that is going on in the West to put one man in jail. Because if Assange had been a Chinese citizen promoting transparency in China we would be lining up to give him the Nobel Prize. We can't demand transparency from others and censorship for ourselves.

In fact, as Evgeny Morozov notes, Russia's Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin is already using the US's reaction to Wikileaks to say what a joke "freedom of the press" is in America. That tweet is in Russian, but the Google translation is:

In my opinion, the fate of Assange says the lack of media freedom in the West, the presence of political persecution and human rights violations.

What's really stunning, beyond just the sheer uselessness and impotence of the US government's response to Wikileaks, is the fact that it's inevitably destroying any moral high ground on claims of freedom and support of free speech we might have once had. In the end, I would expect that to have a much bigger impact than anything that's in the actual leaked cables.

Filed Under: china, free speech, governments, julian assange, russia, transparency, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Want To Know Why Visa & Mastercard Cut Off Wikileaks? Because Its Latest Leak Was About Them...

from the everywhere-you-want-to-be dept

Visa's slogan used to be "Everywhere you want to be," but apparently one place it did not want to be was on Wikileaks. We've already covered how both Visa and MasterCard cut off Wikileaks quite quickly, with MasterCard even going so far as to claim that it did so because of illegal activity by Wikileaks -- despite no charges or convictions for any actual illegal activity.

Just a day later, it seems, we may have some new insight into why this is. Chris Rhodes was the first of a bunch of you to send over the news that the latest cable leak shows that US diplomats worked hard on Visa and MasterCard's behalf in Russia, where the Russian government was working on a new national payment card system, that would likely deprive Visa and MasterCard of transaction fees in Russia. Convenient timing.

Filed Under: russia, wikileaks
Companies: mastercard, visa, wikileaks

Russian Press And Pakistani Courts Apparently Have More Respect For Free Speech Than Joe Lieberman

from the time-to-resign,-joe dept

We've already discussed how the US is, quite clearly, trying to censor various information despite its claims of being anti-censorship and it's efforts to pressure foreign countries to stop censorship of things like the internet. Yet here are two interesting stories, concerning the Wikileaks situation, suggesting that two countries, which are not exactly known for being bastions of free speech, appear to be a lot more open to it than certain US politicians.

The first, via Glyn Moody is a long and interesting opinion piece in Pravda, of all places, pointing out the hypocrisy of the US government's response to Wikileaks and comparing it to the government's response to the release of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent. It also runs through a nice history of the US's back-and-forth battle with free speech issues, such as with the Alien & Sedition Acts and the McCarthy era. It also highlights how the Wikileaks' release shows evidence of the US government covering up all sorts of politically motivated acts. The conclusion is dead on:

It is the American people who should be outraged that its government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.

It's pretty sad when Pravda is lecturing the US on free speech, tolerance and respect for human rights.

Then we move over to Pakistan, where the country's High Court has dismissed an attempt to get Wikileaks banned from that country. Someone had petitioned the court, saying that the latest leaks could "create a rift among Pakistan" and other countries. However, the court dismissed it with the judge saying: "We must bear the truth, no matter how harmful it is."

And yet, here in the US, we have Senator Joe Lieberman running around trying to shove truth back into the hole he in which wishes it were buried. A very sad statement on the state of US respect for free speech.

Filed Under: free speech, joe lieberman, pakistan, pravda, russia, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Russian Teacher Fired For Complaining About Having To Use Microsoft Software

from the it's-that-damn-paperclip dept

While there's been a lot of attention paid in the last couple of months to Russia's use of Microsoft to charge nonprofit groups they don't like with copyright infringement (something that Microsoft is now trying to reverse), there was also another controversy in Russia a few years back concerning Microsoft. You may remember that Russian prosecutors were threatening to send a Russian school headteacher to a Siberian prison camp due to "pirated" software on school machines. In that case, the school had bought what it thought was legitimate copies of the software that later turned out not to be. The guy was found guilty, and while the court did spare him from being sent to Siberia (which really was one of the options), they did fine him half his monthly salary.

In response to this high profile case, many Russian schools started to switch to Linux, and in response to that, Russia apparently declared that all schools should switch to Linux-based software by 2008.

However, apparently that didn't actually happen. Glyn Moody points us to the news that another Russian school teacher has been fired for complaining that his school still used Microsoft software. Even though the 2007 order required schools to switch to Linux, apparently a training system the government is making the school use requires Microsoft Office. So the teacher filed a complaint, pointing out the contradiction in orders... and for his efforts he was fired.

This seems like a fairly ridiculous response to someone simply pointing out a contradiction in the rules, doesn't it?

Filed Under: open source, russia
Companies: microsoft