Jim Barter : Digital Imagination

This is a rant, forgive me…

…We’ve got one planet, and it’s not really ours - we’re just using it while we’re here…

But we are screwing it up, not just for us, but for the majority of the species currently alive…

…Directly, as individuals, we cannot do a lot about this - personal recycling will not have any lasting benefit; we are just too few and just too small…

Industry and Governments however can have a massive effect on the negative impact of the human race, should they choose to do so, but they don’t so choose…

why?

because they are more concerned with profit today than with profit tomorrow, dicking around while we burn our homes, but what they havn’t realised is that there will be no profit tomorrow if there is no-one around to buy their goods, and when tomorrow becomes today there will be no profit at all.

NO PROFIT AT ALL…

end rant…

…well it didn’t take long.

The Grauniad publish an article saying how two guys broke the security in the new ’secure’ British Passport…

…I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,1950226,00.html

I discovered music - long live punk.

BoingBoing post 9 great punk tracks, and I agree with 8 of ‘em - Not sure about Devo though…

And I don’t know what it is - do you?
Mrs Jones?

So sayeth Bob Dylan.

And he was right - “the times they are a changing” - for the better - watch this space.

We all know ‘captchas’ are bad…

We all know they are a necessary evil…

…but do we know what we actually use them for?

The assumption is we are using them to detect humans and allow them - not true, we are actually using them to try and detect bots and block them.

And this is the captcha’s flaw - because humans are flawed, captcha’s very often trip people up.

But there is something we seem to have forgotten - the browser. Bot’s don’t use Firefox, or IE, or Opera etc. They are custom browsing scripts.

…so here’s the good bit.

Rather than trying to detect the human in the system, could we use javascript to detect the browser, hunt through the DOM for some (and it could be variable) browser feature that the Bot’s don’t have? such as the ability to upload an image? or install a plugin?

If javascript is available - yes.

If javascript is not available, then we could still use an image and alt text - the ‘old fashioned’ way, but a real human user should never need to see the captcha, unless they can’t use javascript, and then there should be no need to scramble the image.

users of screenreaders with javascript enabled would be allowed in, users of screenreaders with javascript disabled would read the alt text of the image and be allowed in.

Bot’s would be detected as ‘not browsers’ and be blocked.

…well thats my theory anyway.

We are more and more observed by the state, our movements monitored by CCTV, our spending monitored by credit agencies and banks, our lives - watched daily by anybody with a claim to do so.

When I mention this to freinds and collegues - they often say “I’ve got nothing to hide, I do nothing wrong” or “Only criminals and terrorists try to hide - what are you hiding?” - well, they are kind of missing the point.

If I were to answer them by saying, “If you’ve nothing to hide you won’t mind if I come round and go through your bank statements then?” or perhaps “You won’t mind if I follow you around all day with a video camera”, then I’m betting there might be some objections.

Some of course might even say “go ahead!”, but I’m betting they’d change their tune if they new just how many organisations and public bodies I’d give that information to just for filling in a form or two and paying an admin fee.

We hear more and more frequently of organisations having data leaks, mix ups, loosing lists of names, bank details, medical records, it is obvious to any who care to open their eyes that the state is in no position to control the flow of this sort of information with the rigour and security it deserves.

Rememberence day is upon us once again, in two world wars brave men and women gave there lives to protect the freedoms we hold dear, don’t let the state take it away by the back door, your liberty is important, don’t lose it - and don’t let someone else lose it for you.

http://www.eff.org/
http://www.no2id.net/