…says the Australian government. They are accusing Microsoft of protecting child abusers by including powerful encryption in Windows 7. A member of the Australian government working with “cyber-safety” is outraged that Microsoft is including powerful encryption in Windows 7, better known for its touch screen support: If this new product gives paedophiles protection to keep harming children I would be extremely disappointed. I would expect the company to take moves to rectify this. They seem unaware Bitlocker, Microsofts’ file encryption application, is anything but new: It was actually introduced in Windows Vista which was released 3 years ago. Australian “cyber law experts” are now demanding laws which would allow the state to lock up evil encryption users who fail to share their keys with the state.

Australian police themselves can already obtain warrants to secretly install key loggers, but cannot jail people for refusing to reveal encryption keys – they seek laws emulating those of the UK, where refusal to decrypt information for police is a serious crime. Under the UK’s draconian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police potentially have the power to lock up people who refuse to hand over keys to data they believe to be encrypted, but just how this works when encrypted data is indistinguishable from random noise is something courts have yet to establish. Americans too find their Constitutional rights subverted when it comes to encryption – in 2009 a judge ordered a man to turn over his encryption keys, ruling after a lengthy series of appeals that this did not constitute self-incrimination, which is protected against by the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.

Thwarted snoopers will doubtless howl all the harder when stenography, where it is all but impossible to demonstrate that encrypted data is even present, becomes more accessible. Technology also exists which allows a any number of dummy keys to be given to authorities, capable of unlocking fake files in order to thwart such laws, whilst allowing the real encrypted file to go unmolested. Both of these technologies pose severe problems to such laws, although it seems unlikely this will discourage further attacks on civil liberties by those keen to extend their powers by appealing to child protection hysteria.

However, Microsoft has previously been caught hiding backdoors in its encryption for the benefit of government snoopers, so if you don’t wanna get trapped for viewing pictures of 17 year old shirtless boys (which are CP nowadays if the pose is just a bit too sexy) you should rely on Open Source products like TrueCrypt. [via Sankaku Complex]

Two twins who downloaded a variety of shota materials have been jailed for possessing “virtual child pornography,” with the judge condemning them for “victimising” imaginary children. The men, both 20 and residents of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, were reported to police by a sister-in-law after she came across “distressing” images on their computer. Police searches soon found a substantial collection of shotacon material on their computers, saying 90% were “cartoon drawings called Japanese Anime.” The pair, one of whom is said to be an active homosexual, were subsequently charged with possession of child pornography, both for the minority of real images and their manga collection, which under Canadian law is considered “virtual child pornography.” The state prosecutor insists that victimising fictional children is a very serious offence:

“Every one of these images involves the victimization of children. The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material.”

More details can be found here. So, looking at images of drawn boys is “victimising children”? Does that mean you can get child allowance for drawn kids too? No? Too bad. And children wouldn’t get raped if shota wouldn’t exist? That’s interesting because 1. I heard (just a rumour) that children were victims of sexual abuse before manga existed and 2. Japan – where all the shota manga come from and are legal – has one of the lowest sex crime rates of all industrialized countries.

• Anti-gay groups asked to prove how gay marriage threatens traditional unions
• Church of Sweden says yes to gay marriage meanwhile
• Europe paves way for Three-Strikes style ISP disconnection policy
• U.N. Human Rights Council endorses report of Israel’s war crimes
• US military data-mines America’s kids for war recruiting
• French soldiers killed after Italy bribed Taliban in Afghanistan
• Broadband internet for all citizens a legal right with new law in Finland
• US man made coffee in his own home while nude, facing 1 year prison
• Socialists and Greens best for business according to Swedish survey
• Leftist states of Latin America agree on new currency

• Verfassungsgericht behebt mal wieder Fehler der Politik: Diesmal Homoehe
• Auch deutscher Atommüll lagert tonnenweise in Russland
• UN zwingt Israel zur Untersuchung begangener Kriegsverbrechen
• FDP knickt ein, Union plant mehr Überwachung & Ausländerdatei
• Einigung über Internetzensur & VDS kein FDP-Erfolg
• CDU & FDP verharmlosen Nazigewalt und warum das so gefährlich ist
• 28.000 Betriebe verlieren Betriebsrat wenn FDP sich durchsetzt
• Richter: Forderung von FDP & Union nach härteren Jugendstrafen Populismus
• FDP & Union legalisieren Löhne 30% unter normalem Lohnniveau
• "Tricksen, tarnen, täuschen": FDP liebäugelt mit einem Schattenhaushalt
• Grüne lassen Linke Abgeordnete in Landtagen auspionieren
• Grünen Spitze kanzelt Parteijugend wegen Kritik an Jamaika-Koalition ab
• Grüne begrüßen das Mitführen von Maschinenpistolen von NRW-Polizisten

Markus was in Cologne, where I lived a few years, and made some nice photos :) But all the sightseeing aside I liked the shots below. The locks are left by (mostly gay) couples after throwing the key into the river. This symbolic act represents the endless love and relationship.

•  US House approves Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill against resistance of Republicans
• Gay hand-holding campaigner has been honoured with award by UK government
• Gay marriage bill will most likely pass in Washington DC in December by congress
• Catholic Church blames gays for child abuse, says there are no pedos in church
• Family values group says 500,000 to boycott Pepsi over its ‘homosexual advocacy’
• Poland as a role model: France considers castration of sex offenders too
• US Department of Justice admits that telco companies are part of the government
• Canadian government using lies to sell Internet wiretapping law
• FBI arrests social worker because he helped organising G20 protest via Twitter

Matthew Wayne Shepard (1976 – 1998) was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured & subsequently murdered.

• CDU in Hessen verhindert entgegen Wahlversprechen Gleichstellung homosexueller Beamter
• Internetzensur von Gericht gestoppt bis gesetzliche Basis geschaffen wurde
• Französische Innenministerin will Gesetz zur chemischen Kastration von Sexualstraftätern
• Schäuble gibt zu, dass Internetzensur vor allem Wahlkampfpopulismus war
• Grüne ermöglichen Mitte-Rechts-Bündnis im Saarland, Schuld sind die Anderen?
• Platzeck bweweist mal wieder, dass er der einzige SPDler mit Restverstand ist
• FDP verabschiedet sich rasant von Vor-Wahl-Idealen: PKW-Maut angeregt 
• CDU und FDP begraben Solarenergie und sagen Atomausstieg ab

Turkey’s two largest gay and lesbian Internet communities, hadigayri.com and gabile.com, have been shut down by the Turkish Telecom Directorate. The newly-created body is permitted to shut down websites without a court order if it believes they violate the Turkish law in any form. The web sites have more than 200,000 members combined. According to its administrators and members, the sites do not contain any criminal or even pornographic content. The directorate blocked the sites without providing any information to the owners or issuing a demand to take down certain content, site mangers said, calling the action unlawful and arbitrary. Read the full story at Pink News Those who get into a rant about censorship in Muslim countries should keep something in mind ‘tho: Many Western states are about to build a web censorship system right now and those who already have one do block mostly gay websites instead of Child Porn, while the latter is the alleged reason behind the whole enterprise. And in times where portraits of fully clothed teenagers are called “child porn” it won’t take long till sites like this will end up on such lists (we had the honour to be on the Australian “child porn” censor list with Count Candy for a while already).

The worst case, of course, is when some countries don’t even have to come up with such censorship laws – like the USA – because their local companies are so hysterical about everything that doesn’t fit into the norm that its gets deleted anyways. Blogger is a good example here, they started to delete hundreds of perfectly legal gay blogs in August and no, we’re not talking about blogs like milkboys but about blogs with buff 30 year olds.

US-based toy retailer Toys"R"Us has been reprimanded for gender discrimination following a complaint filed by a group of Swedish sixth graders about the store’s 2008 Christmas catalogue. According to the youngsters, the Toys"R"Us Christmas catalogue featured “outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive”. Thumbing through the catalogue, 13-year-old Hannes Psajd explained that he and his twin sister had always shared the same toys and that he was concerned about the message sent by the Toys"R"Us publication. “Small girls in princess stuff…and here are boys dressed as super heroes. It’s obvious that you get affected by this.” – Read the full article at The Local

Hey Koes, it’s a pony! ;) Photo made by Cheatara

I’m well aware of what kind of comments will be posted by some of our readers but I don’t really care. I’m so sick of these stupid gender clichés. You like boys to be “boyish”? Well, good for you but that doesn’t mean they want to be boyish just because you or the society expects them to be. We should get rid of the whole concept of acting masculine or feminine. The case above isn’t really special for Sweden but I’m glad to see that this Swedish attitude comes to Germany too (even if some Swedes might already be annoyed by all the political correctness ;p).

UPDATE: Boing Boing had a post about this too earlier today and the first 2 comments there made my day. Sorry America, you just got pwned ;o) On a more serious note: Stop thinking of teenagers as brainless mutants, kthx.

• Study finds no difference between children raised by gay or straight adoptive parents
• Poland’s lower house approves forcible chemical castration for sex offenders
• Amnesty calls for immediate repeal of new medieval anti-gay laws in Indonesia
• Germany obviously dumb: Gets Center-Right government of Christians & Capitalists  
• Germany mulls realities of first openly gay foreign minister in Europe but he’s a bitch
• Pirate Party and Socialists with strong results at German Federal Election (at least)
• Vatican doesn’t want that monopoly, says child abuse is rife in other religions too
• Wal-Mart employee reports mother to police over her kids’ bath time photos
• Apropos Wal-Mart: Short overview of the “values” of one of the biggest US companies
• UK  Border Agency wants DNA test to detect “true race” of asylum seekers
• 3 of 763 house searches under PATRIOT Act in US in 2008 were related to terrorism
• New law in France to cut off your internet if industry says you’re a pirate

• Weitere Studie bestätigt: Gleichgeschlechtliche Paare sind keine schlechteren Eltern
• ..in die Traufe: FDP würde gern in eimem Runumschlag den Sozialstaat abschaffen
• FDP als Bürgerrechtler? Haha. Erste Amtshandlung in Sachsen: Mehr Überwachung
• Dass ist also der Politikwechsel in Thüringen? SPD will mit CDU statt mit Linken regieren
• Rechtstaatlichkeit in Bayern: Zwei “Islamisten” werden grundlos “vorsorglich” festgenommen
• Potenzieller Außenminister Westerwelle spricht kaum Englisch, lässt BBC-Reporter abblitzen
• Studie des Bundesumweltamtes: Atomausstieg und Kohleverzicht keine Gefahr für Stromversorgung
• Verdammt in alle Ewigkeit: Amerikas Gesetze für Sexualdelikte erklären verliebte Teenies zu Verbrechern

Two boys – a 9 year old and a 12 year old — came back to school as girls after the summer break in the UK and caused quite a bit of drama. Parents say their kids were “shocked” and “traumatised” due to the sex change of their fellow pupils:

My son came home from school and asked why one of his friends had become a girl. I thought he was joking, but he kept asking – that’s when alarm bells began ringing. The pupil’s classmates were told he had left and that a new girl would be starting in his place this term. We have had to deal with the fall-out from all this. It’s not a situation I or other parents are comfortable with and we’ve not been given any help from the school about how to handle it. My son is too young to really understand the significance of what’s happening. It’s hard to explain to him. He doesn’t understand the differences between girls’ and boys’ bodies yet. I’m terrified he’ll ask me if he can become a girl as well.

Although the boys are doubtless on the fast track to a sex-change operation and hormonal treatment in order to turn them into girls, they must wait until they are legally an adult before any actual operation may take place in the UK which means German pop singer Kim Petras stays the youngest transgirl who underwent gender reassignment.