Modest proposal

The government is attempting to force Google by subpoena to hand over "1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period" among other things. Not for any crime do they need the info; no, they want it for their court case to reinstate the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which "would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online".

Now maybe I'm wrong, here, but since when is it ok for the government to come along and steal research you've put your own time and money into doing? If they want to know what people are searching for, let them goddamn well pay for it.

It reminds me of one of my outre thoughts on abortion, which is more on my mind lately due to the upcoming protests Saturday in San Francisco. ( Odd pro-choice thought )

Games of the rebellion

I'm in the middle of reading through the transcription of the Penny Arcade talk at MIT, which is hilarious. I was taken by this section for a different reason, though:

Gabe: And then E-Front went out of business.

Tycho: And the management staff fled the nation, they went to another country, or perhaps the moon, to evade capture...

...

Audience: How did you get the intellectual property rights back?

Tycho: We didn’t.

Gabe: The company folded, and we just figured “They’re ours now.” They might not be... (crowd laughs and claps loudly).

Tycho: There was never any official transfer...

Gabe: That might be something to look into, I don’t know...

Tycho: Yeah, we just sort of kept doing it... I mean, maybe we’re just sort of keeping the throne warm for their return...

Gabe: Yeah, they may come back. If they do, don’t tell them where we are...

Tycho: Yeah, we’ll go out different doors...

That would be such a fun story to play! The noble rebel cartoonist, on the run from the Man, slipping his works up on the net through proxies... "The Fugitive" meets "Pump up the Volume"... Meeting coauthors and supporters in secret, has one of them sold out?