Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

This is insanely clever, and I can't imagine the amount of work required to do it!

For those not in the know, there's a truly MASSIVE online shooter game called Counter Strike. Hugely popular, and you can play it on probably any console or PC. People run around shooting each other with abandon and have fun. One of the cool things about it is that you can build custom maps that people can download and play in different terrain than what the game provides.

We thought about doing this in Quake to model the basement of the police department that I worked at, but never got around to it.

ANYWAY, the newspaper creates a map. Names the city Voyna, Russian for War. Inside the city somewhere is a room, and in the room, the newspaper has direct news feeds of unfiltered information about the war in Ukraine! There are posters on the wall, apparently books or something on tables, and a voice reading out the news in Russian!

Currently Russia is not filtering computer games and preventing them from being played. It'll be interesting to see if they can block this source.

The Slashdot summary: "A Finnish newspaper is circumventing Russian media restrictions by hiding news reports about the war in Ukraine in an online game popular among Russian gamers. "While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media are blocked in Russia, online games have not been banned so far," said Antero Mukka, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat. The newspaper was bypassing Russia's censorship through the first-person shooter game Counter-Strike, where gamers battle against each other as terrorists and counter-terrorists in timed matches. While the majority of matches are played on about a dozen official levels or maps released by the publisher Valve, players can also create custom maps that anyone can download and use. The newspaper's initiative was unveiled on World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday. "To underline press freedom, [in the game] we have now built a Slavic city, called Voyna, meaning war in Russian," Mukka said.

In the basement of one of the apartment buildings that make up the Soviet-inspired cityscape, Helsingin Sanomat hid a room where players can find Russian-language reporting by the newspaper's war correspondents in Ukraine. "In the room, you will find our documentation of what the reality of the war in Ukraine is," Mukka said. The walls of the digital room, lit up by red lights, are plastered with news articles and pictures reporting on events such as the massacres in the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Irpin. On one of the walls, players can find a map of Ukraine that details reported attacks on the civilian population, while a Russian-language recording reading Helsingin Sanomat articles aloud plays in the background. This was "information that is not available from Russian state propaganda sources", Mukka said.
The map has been downloaded more than 2,000 times since its release on Monday. According to Mukka, an estimated 4 million Russians have played Counter-Strike."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/03/finnish-newspaper-hides-news-reports-for-russians-in-online-game

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/03/216218/finnish-newspaper-uses-secret-room-in-counter-strike-to-bypass-russian-censorship

In this case, her executor is her son, so he does have firsthand knowledge of some of her thinking.

It's an interesting essay on a very tough issue, with good points and bad points - IMO. We've seen Road Dahl's publisher back off on updating his books and they've split their printing stream, still issuing original books under a different imprint. Ian Fleming's James Bond books are being revised to remove offensive language.

I find the second and third paragraphs before the end to be quite good and worth contemplation.

https://lithub.com/why-i-decided-to-update-the-language-in-ursula-k-le-guins-childrens-books/

Or buy it from AliExpress for $120.

The maker claims it has a "special secure operating system" that won't report back your personal info to 'the mothership'. Except the phone runs Parlour, Signal, Facebook: all the standard Android apps, making it extremely unlikely it's a custom OS.

Meaning it's a cheap CHINESE phone that people are paying a 3x+ markup for.

But it's FREEDUMB!

The guy who released it is a 22 y/o self-proclaimed Bitcoin millionaire who says the app store is "uncensorable", which means it will be rife with malware and apps guaranteed to steal your personal information. The Wild West! YEEHAW! FREEDUMB! And for only $500!

https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/134539/freedom-phone-meant-for-trump-supporters-is-also-made-by-chinese-vendor


The description in this Slashdot post header by various articles from The Daily Beast and Gizmodo just highlight the scam aspect.

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/21/07/17/011226/right-wing-activists-500-freedom-phone-actually-cheap-rebranded-android-model-made-in-china

Kid gives a speech on how misguided religions can do bad things: the Crusades, 9/11, etc. Wins a blue ribbon, and a chance to compete at a higher level. And a school administrator thinks that the speech should be modified to remove references to religion.

*sigh*

Now, anyone under 18 doesn't have all of the rights and protections of the Constitution since they're minors. But this is just ridiculous.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/school_tries_to_silence_fifth_graders_speech_on_religion/

In an interesting article, David Cameron's proposed porn filter goes much farther afield than just filtering porn. ..."in addition to pornography, users will also be required to opt in for any content tagged as violent, extremist, terrorist, anorexia and eating disorders, suicide, alcohol, smoking, web forums, esoteric material and web-blocking circumvention tools. These will all be filtered by default, and the majority of users never change default settings with online services."

So if you are a home brewer who works for a newspaper with foreign correspondents who is writing a book about an anorexic suicidal violent extremist, you can pretty much forget about being able to do what you need to do. And I'm very curious about that block on web forums.

Another lovely detail is that one particular filter already in place, which was praised by Cameron, is run by Huwei, the Chinese firm with ties to the Chinese government and accused of espionage by both the UK and US governments.

Be warned: this page has auto-run ads video with sound. I didn't see a 'print' option for the article, my apologies.
http://www.ibtimes.com/uk-porn-filter-censorship-extends-beyond-pornography-one-isp-fighting-back-1361379

And a good web comics start to it:
http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2012/10/01

I'm kind of surprised that Unshelved isn't doing anything as it's made by ex-librarians.

I can't say that what I'm reading right now is banned, though I did read Hunger Games recently. How they can call it anti-family and anti-ethnic I do not understand, unless maybe those who wanted to ban it think the movie is 100% faithful representation of the book and couldn't be bothered to read it.

(I tried to post this Tuesday, and something went weird and it didn't post. But oddly, last night my wife and I were driving to the observatory and she was speculating about the living standard and contentment of the people living in the capital sector of the Hunger Games universe)

SOPA died when the House said they weren't going to hear it, and Sen. Reid said he won't be advancing PIPA, so maybe the blackout was effective. They seem to have listened to the people saying that the DNS filtering that they wanted to implement was both ineffective and would pretty much break the internet, but that doesn't mean they won't try something else.

Wil Weaton had an excellent writeup about this on his blog. Apparently Hollywood gave Congress as a whole $94 MILLION dollars. That's a lot of influence peddling. I think it guarantees that this legislation will be back in some form or another, some people think that they will try to sneak it through on a piece of "must pass" legislation that doesn't receive much attention that they can pass in the middle of the night. Since there is very little accountability to our elected officials, I can see this happening.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/pipa-vote-delayed/


Now here's a bit of fun: former Senator Chris Dodd went on Fox New and said basically that these Congresscritters had been bought and they should toe the line. So a petition was started on the White House web site through their We The People system stating the following:

"Investigate Chris Dodd and the MPAA for bribery after he publicly admited to bribing politicans to pass legislation.

Recently on FOX News former Senator Chris Dodd said (as quoted on news site TechDirt), "Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake," This is an open admission of bribery and a threat designed to provoke a specific policy goal. This is a brazen flouting of the "above the law" status people of Dodd's position and wealth enjoy.

We demand justice. Investigate this blatant bribery and indict every person, especially government officials and lawmakers, who is involved."

The petition needed to get 25,000 signatures by February 20 to be acted on. It got them in two days. So we'll see if the DOJ actually investigates this and if anything comes of it, and it will be interesting to see who in the DOJ starts sweating: there are a number of former MPAA/RIAA/Hollywood lawyers now working for the Feds in DC.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate-chris-dodd-and-mpaa-bribery-after-he-publicly-admited-bribing-politicans-pass/DffX0YQv?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml#comments

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/22/1945243/white-house-petition-to-investigate-dodd-for-bribery

It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed "inappropriate for government access."

The categories include:
Chat/Messaging
Controversial opinion
Criminal activity
Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content
Gaming

I don't really have too much of a problem with this. They're blocking websites from work computers, and employers have the right to filter web content from the computers their employees use. I find their definitions kind of nebulous in that they don't have solid standards, so this would have the potential to be extremely capricious.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20009642-10391695.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-to-block-websites-with-controversial-opinions.html

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/07/05/1943259/TSA-Internally-Blocking-Websites-With-Controversial-Opinions


After this news broke, the TSA has reversed their ruling and said they won't filter.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20009804-10391695.html


I did database work for Phoenix Police for nine years. Even though our internet connection came through the City, our line was unfiltered because investigators had to have unfettered access to the internet. For the most part, this was not abused, but there will always be people who abuse internet access.

According to the article, they were on tour, and when they got back, they "spanked the ears of their management" and are posting links to reviews.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/06/metallica-chang.html