Have you ever broken the rules in the Terms of Service for a website?

If your answer is yes, you may be a hacker in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Yes -- rather than thinking "cyber-bullying is reprehensible, so let's make it illegal under reasonable circumstances", US authorities instead said "we'd like this person to be punished. Let's try to stretch the definition of an existing law to find a way to punish her." As a result, someone has now been convicted of (essentially) hacking for breaking MySpace's rules.

Anybody else think this is bad?

Back to intellectualism, the lack thereof, and American politics. This time, with a theme of elitism.

Once again, I do not understand.

One of the knocks that has been made against Obama is that he's an elitist. Literally speaking, this means that he believes that decision making should be left to a small group of people, of whom he is (naturally) a part. There is also an impression that others, George W Bush included (as well as McCain, the Clintons, and others), are not elitist.

The Washington Post has suggested that elitism is about demeanour and aloofness. It offers a defense of why Bush is not elitist, while Obama could be considered elitist.

I think they have it backwards. George W Bush, contrary to all appearances, is not a stupid man. Regardless of the advantages he was born into, one does not become president of the United States for eight years without being an intelligent person. You may notice that "Bushisms" -- the moronic mis-speakings for which he is famous -- dried up after his second election, and he could no longer be voted for again. That he sounds like an idiot appears to have been something which was calculated to be part of his public image.

That, my friends, is pandering. Pretending to be dumb so the dumb people like you -- well, there's nothing more elitist than participating in baby-speak for the masses. It underlines an assumption that the voting public is full of morons.

Obama, on the other hand, is elitist because he uses intelligent language and rational arguments. I disagree. That is populist -- it assumes that the average person can follow those arguments and understand that language. It's a sign of respect. Obama is speaking to equals.

Making the public gaffes that Bush has in order for people to "connect" with you, and then going off to make decisions on policy with a select group of your dad's friends while ignoring the population at large ... well, that's elitist. Maybe not to the folks at the Washington Post, but to me. And the dictionary writers.

Lately, I've been confused about something.

There's a popular statistic out there, that says something along the lines of "80% of people think they're smarter than the average person". I don't know if this is a true statistic or not, but (anecdotally speaking) it sounds pretty much right.

There's also a popular refrain in U.S. presidential politics, wherein presidential candidates are knocked for appearing to be better than average. The past couple of Democratic candidates were too intellectual, or not average enough (intellectually-speaking). This apparently turned millions of Americans off of voting for them. It is, apparently, also a danger with the new candidate.

I don't get it. People think they're smarter than average, but want someone they consider to be of 'average' intelligence (or less, apparently) leading their country.

The corollary, of course, is that people want someone they feel superior to as the President. Personally, I'd rather have someone smarter than me in the job. Perhaps I'm strange that way.

This odd requirement for the American Presidential job seems unique to the U.S. -- being intelligent or intellectual isn't a negative in the UK, and it wasn't a negative in Canada (at least, before I left). Why the American obsession with making sure that they're leader isn't too smart? How did this manage to become characterised as a negative?

Last week, while I was in Canada, there was a little sporting event going on -- it's continuing as I type -- called the Olympics. Maybe you have heard of it.

While not a marquee event at this sporting event, fencing is the piece of it that most interests me. Sure, the cameras like to watch the swimming -- which I don't understand. Why is there a back-stroke competition? Isn't that like having a 100m dash run backwards? Why breast-stroke? Track & Field doesn't have a "run with your shoes untied" competition. Swimming and walking competitions confuse me, because they involve having athletes race ineffectively ... "let's have a swimming race, but you have to swim using a method which is slow".

Sure.

But I have digressed -- back to the fencing.

Canada had a sizable team representing it in Beijing, but our only real medal hope was a woman named Sherraine Schalm, who competes in the Women's Epee event (this is perhaps unfair, seeing as our men's epee entry has the ability to win a medal, but he was more of a long shot). You probably recognize her name, even if you don't fence.

This is because, up until this past weekend, Canada hadn't won any medals. This made Sherraine the Canadian Olympic story of week one. For those of you who missed it: Sherraine lost 15-13 to a Hungarian. She also lost her temper, and (upon losing) turned to where the Hungarian team was watching and said "Fuck you all". It wasn't all that loud (from what I can glean - anything I've read by people who watched/were there seems to indicate it was rather quiet. Those who say she shouted are anonymous and/or clearlky reporting this second-hand), but it was loud enough to be picked up by TV microphones.

There aren't very many good sources for a full run-down -- the Canadian media reports are rather sanitized, and other media doesn't care so much. But some good ones are: The CBC, Sherraine's blog, fencing.net, and this decent blog entry which makes several assumptions and misrepresents a thing or two, but is the fullest account that I've seen.

Various people are making the usual comments that one would see online. Either she's a complete disgrace that should have her citizenship revoked, or they're proud that at least one of the athletes who failed to reach the podium during week one happened to be unhappy about the result. Both these commonly-held views are removed from reality. Swearing at your opponent (or their team/the audience) after a loss is clearly over-the-line unsportsmanlike behaviour. It's also normal to be emotional and upset in that situation, and many people swear in those circumstances. As such, I don't really have much to say on the matter. My views are curiously neutral.

So why am I blogging about it? Because of a curious aside to it all. Following the 2004 Olympics, Sherraine moved to Budapest to train full-time with the Hungarian national coach. That same coach kicked her out of the training program in the lead-up to the 2008 games. This is why she was so upset at the entire Hungarian team at the end of the bout. I'm not sure if it was at the start of 2008, or shortly before the Olympics themselves (I've seen things to suggest each possibility), but either way it had to have caused problems for her Olympic preparation while giving any Hungarian opponent she might face a psychological edge.

I've seen a few comments about this (on fencing.net and the comments on subversivewriter -- I only glanced at the CBC comments, which are far too extreme), all of which say the same thing: Sherraine should have expected this. Surely she couldn't train in Hungary in the run-up to the Olympics!

This ignores reality. Coventry (a Zimbabwe swimmer) trains in the U.S., and I saw her win several medals. The folks at NBC weren't up in arms, complaining that the US trained a swimmer that was now beating American swimmers. Simon Whitfield trained in Australia prior to the 2000 Olympics. Nobody cared. And Sherraine herself trained in Budapest leading up to many World Championships, without any problems whatsoever. There are countless instances of this -- world class athletes train where the coaching is. Anybody who asks "why would they allow her to keep training?" is ignoring that, in the huge majority of cases, world class athletes are trained by proud coaches and not removed from programs leading up to large events.

Moreover, there's no reason she should have expected this. One comment on fencing.net asks if the French didn't do the same thing in 2004. I don't know if they did or didn't, but either is actually a case against the Hungarian coach. If they did, it puts a bit of context in her choice to change coaches in 2005 - the Olympics is the goal, and she needed a coach who wouldn't abandon her just before the sport's marquee event. If they didn't, it takes a bit of wind out of the sails of those who say she should have expected it.

Sherraine was frustrated and angry, and acted out in an unsportsmanlike fashion. This is bad, but forgivable behaviour.

The Hungarian national coach took on one of the best women's epee fencers in the world for an Olympic cycle, and then abandoned her in the lead-up to the Olympic games -- the pinnacle that they had spent the better part of four years trying to reach. This is unprofessional and I don't see how this behaviour can be defended. He should be ashamed of himself.

As such, I'm amazed that the media is ignoring this unprofessional conduct towards one of Canada's best athletes, and instead is concentrating on emotional cursing by that athlete following a loss. Anybody who has participated in sports at a sufficiently high level should understand what drove Sherraine.

Canadian media, you should be ashamed of yourself too.

So, I'm reading a lot in the paper these days (thank you, Fitness First) about the whole Equitable Life thing.

It goes basically like this, for those of you who don't know the story. Which is likely most of you, since you're not in the UK:

In 1997, Equitable Life collapses. Policy holders are SOL. Pensions and stuff. Important to people.

Fast-forward to now, where an ombudsman's report (should that be ombudswoman? They don't use that in the press ..) says that the collapse of Equitable Life was due to a decade of regulatory failure (not that the regulatory framework was lacking, but lax enforcement caused it to be missed), and the government should offer compensation to these policy holders.

Commentary in the press is following these lines: This is a dilemma for the government, because if this is the case they can conceivably be blamed for not noticing any business's poor business plan, and have to compensate customers and/or shareholders. "People" (who are not really identified, individually) worry that it will mean over-regulation, to try to avoid these costs.

That last point sounds logical enough, but it actually makes no sense. Surely if not enforcing regulations properly makes one liable, the answer is not to introduce MORE regulations. After all, the more regulations you have, the easier it is to miss one -- and hence be liable.

No, the answer is to remove as much regulation as possible. If you have no job to do, you cannot be accused of not doing your job. Regulations that don't exist cannot be enforced, so the enforcing body cannot be blamed. Right?

So apparently my bank has lost a disc of customer information. This sort of thing will happen from time to time, but I am confused about one thing:

If a disc of confidential customer information was being sent by courier, why wasn't it encrypted?

Here's a simple security method that can be used:

When sending confidential information, put it on a disc. Encrypt the disc with a single-use encryption code. Then, send both the decryption key and disc by courier. Use a different courier company for each.

And there you go!! If the disc gets lost, you can re-send it without worrying (so long as the key made it) -- this type of encryption is unbreakable without the key, as there are no patterns that can be used to break it.

If the key gets lost, just re-send it once you know that the disc made it safe-and-sound. It's a one-use key, so there is no danger that it can be used if future data falls into the wrong hands.

Is this much security really that difficult to implement? Because, to me, it sounds really, really, really simple. Maybe this is because the method is several hundred years old and really damn obvious.

Nothing is foolproof, but a simple precaution (like the one above) could easily make things far more secure ...

There has been a particular story in the news here lately which has boggled my mind a little bit, concerning immigrants in Britain. (Yes, headline writers of the world, the number one way to get me to read a newpaper article is to have the word "immigration" or "immigrants" in the headline and to place it in the British press).

This particular article -- which I'm too lazy to link to -- was a report on a report which had been comissioned by the government on the immigration "problem". OK, I don't have any of the articles in front of me, so the word "problem" probably wasn't used, but that's the gist of it.

Since opening up its borders to Poland when it entered the EU (where most EU countries did not), the UK population (at large) has become increasingly Xenophobic due to a rise in the number of migrant workers. When the economy was looking rosy, this wasn't really an issue, per se, just grumblings. Of course, the economic forecast is no longer so rosy, and Xenophobic headlines (and government declarations) are becoming more common.

So the government, being a government, commissioned a report on immigrants -- essentially trying to measure the value they bring vs. the cost. The report showed that immigrants brought £6 billion to the economy last year. Despite this, it also suggested that immigration be capped in order to prevent the dilution of British values.

Happily enough, the Prime Minister has said that this is rubbish, so you're all free to join me in London in the near future.

But on to what really got my goat ... as with any news story, particularly on this subject, there are letters to the editor ... or "comments" in reply to the story on the web. One of the latter went as follows (paraphrased):

We really need to do something about this immigration problem. My nephew recently left high school at 16 after not doing very well, and has no work experience or certifications. He keeps on losing out on the skilled labour jobs he wants to immigrants who are better educated, better trained, and have work experience. This is unjust!

Seriously. That is the meat of the argument. And the guy had people agreeing with him. They are upset that skilled labour jobs are going to skilled labourers (wherever their origin) rather than untrained, unskilled labourers with no experience.