Month: March 2009

CFI On UN Resolution Condemning “Defamation of Religions”

Once again the The United Nations Human Rights Council has revealed itself to be anything but, passing a resolution in a 23-11 vote condemning the “defamation of religions” and urging nation states to pass laws to stifle criticism of religion. Yes, that’s right, in the 21st century the United Nations is onboard in support of the worst sort of anti-blasphemy laws.

The Center for Inquiry issued a press release denouncing the resolution, saying,

“The concept of ‘defamation of religions’ is both absurd and dangerous.” said Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI’s president and chief executive officer. “Legally speaking, it’s gibberish, and any ban on so-called ‘defamation’ would effectively prevent any critique of religious beliefs or practices.”

In the opinion of a broad range of civil society organizations, these pronouncements do nothing but lend legitimacy to the repression of political and religious dissent around the world, particularly in Islamic countries. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, for example, which carry mandatory sentences of death or life imprisonment, are frequently used against members of the Ahmaddiya community, a peaceful minority Muslim sect.

Through its UN representative, Dr. Austin Dacey, CFI participated in the negotiations over the resolution during the March session of the Council in Geneva, and delivered an oral statement before the plenary meeting on March 24. Most worrisome, according to CFI, is that the present language equates religiously insulting speech with “advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence,” a category of speech that is prohibited by existing treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which have the force of law.

“Now the argument becomes very awkward for Europe,” said Dacey, “since many European states have laws against hate speech, Holocaust denial, and even blasphemy (for example, in Austria) that have been upheld by their regional human rights courts. The Islamic states will say they simply want to extend the same protection to all beliefs.”

WoW Add-On Developers Go All John Galt

World of Warcraft LogoSome developers of add-ons for World of Warcraft were so angered by Blizzard’s new policy essentially forbidding the creation of add-ons that are commercial or feature in-game donation buttons that they have pulled their add-ons from public distribution. This includes some very popular add-ons, such as Outfitter, QuestHelper, and Group Calendar.

John Stephen, the developer of Outfitter, posted at WoWInsider on why he ended public distribution of Outfitter,

1) I’ve never charged for or advertised in my addons and I don’t want donations. I don’t care if this “must be free” policy has been around for years in the gaming community, it’s still wrong and it’s abusive of the time and energy it takes to develop and support a major addon. Even the open source community has accepted the “pay for support” model as a viable way to provide free software, but even that is forbidden by the new policies (can’t charge for addon-related services).

2) I’m not asking anybody to stop using their existing copies of my addons. Also, I’ve been on the PTR prior to this and Group Calendar and Outfitter both seemed to work just fine with 3.1 so far.

3) I’m not stopping development, I’m stopping public distribution. I still have my addons available on my site and I don’t mind if you want to re-distribute them to your friends and guildies via email or a private download section on your guild’s site.

4) I’m waiting to hear Blizzard’s response to all of this. If the developers who need or desire compensation for their time are happy with the outcome, then I’m happy. None of this policy change directly affects my work, but it does affect my sense of right and wrong.

Just more Blizzard heavy handedness toward the WoW community. In general, Blizzard has not had to pay any price for its past mistakes and errors because the game is so damn popular no single blunder has ever cost it any revenue. Only when game related policies — such as the brief ban on GLBT guilds — have percolated beyond the gaming press and into mainstream media has Blizzard had to reverse itself.

But in the case of add-on developers Blizzard has, to a large extent, relied on people essentially donating their time in non-commercial projects to create UIs for WoW that work for a wide variety of people. And now, Blizzard is turning around and giving the finger to those same folks who have been providing third party support and enhancements for WoW.

As usual, when Blizzard strays from actual game development its policies and pronouncements tend to be beyond stupid.

Murders of Albino Children in Burundi

Another disturbing story about the murder of albinos, this time in Burundi where police believe the albinos are murdered so their body parts can be smuggled into Tanzania where they are apparently used as part of religious/medical rituals,

An eight-year-old albino boy in Burundi was murdered and dismembered, an official said Monday, the latest victim in a string of grisly killings linked to witch-doctors’ use of body parts.

The boy was chopped up in Burundi’s northern Kayanza province, where another boy was reportedly dismembered alive last month.

. . .

The latest murder brings to at least nine the number of albinos killed in the small central Africa country in the past five months.

WTF.

Blizzard to Offer Authenticator App on Mobile Devices

World of Warcraft LogoLast year I mentioned Blizzard’s physical token authenticator, which was an effort to crack down on theft of World of Warcraft accounts. I actually ended up ordering one of these, but never actually enabled it because it would be another device I need to keep track of and I’d probably lose it the day after I enabled it.

So it’s good to hear that Blizzard has another approach planned for the authenticator — putting an authenticator on popular mobile devices such as the iPhone,

What is the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator?

The Battle.net Mobile Authenticator is an optional tool that offers Battle.net account users an additional layer of security to help prevent unauthorized account access. This includes World of Warcraft players who log in to the game using a Battle.net account.  The Authenticator application itself is a small program that you install and access on your cell phone or mobile device.

That’s a placeholder page and no app is available yet (in fact, Blizzard is still working on the transition to Battle.Net accounts for all their games), but that sounds a lot more usable than keeping track of the tiny authenticator.