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Cory's closing quote - Original and Link by giafly · 2007-02-03 22:20 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Cory Doctorow on Shrinkwrap Licenses

READ CAREFULLY. By [accepting this material|accepting this payment|accepting this business-card|viewing this t-shirt|reading this sticker] you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

Put this at the bottom of your emails; print it on your stationery...

The Small Print Project via Boing Boing

Re:Ayn Rand? The fan dancer? by LGagnon · 2007-01-30 11:38 · Score: 2, Informative · on Jimmy Wales's Open Source Collaboration Tips

You'd be surprised, but neuroscience is disproving Rand's pseudophilosophy:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/23/neuroscience_ of_altr.html

Re:Let's Commemorate Them Properly by Anonymous Coward · 2007-01-28 14:35 · Score: 0 · on NASA Commemorates Space Shuttle Tragedies

With safe, cheap access to Earth orbit.

With a permanent human presence on the Moon.

With human exploration of Mars.

With porn!

Avoid defective by design by kherr · 2007-01-28 07:30 · Score: 5, Informative · on Fight DRM While There's Still Time

I agree, people need to avoid buying bad products. For me that means not buying stuff from iTunes (I troll used CD stores instead) and avoiding one of the biggest DRM sneak-attacks going on, HDMI. People are getting snared by the HDMI trojan, because it's such a convenient way to interconnect devices. But as we're starting to see with HDMI implementations on TiVo Series 3 and Vista, HDMI is going to be used to screw everyone.

Note: I disagree that the iPod is defective by design, because it does not require DRM. It still works with the open formats of MP3, AAC and AIFF.

Called 'tying' by pacalis · 2007-01-25 17:56 · Score: 1 · on Norway Outlaws iTunes

It's called monopolistic tying. Apple is arguably using music DRM to enforce its monopoly position in another market (ipods). This is the same tactic that got MS into trouble - tying MS explorer to windows against Netscape. I don't know much in the way of details but the same thing may be a problem for apple in the US... http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/03/apple_sued_fo r_itune.html

Re:Google by daddymac · 2007-01-25 12:29 · Score: 2, Informative · on Diebold Security Foiled Again

boingboing has a copy of the pic here.

Be Worried About Taxes by cybermage · 2007-01-24 02:33 · Score: 1, Insightful · on Financial Analyst Calls Second Life a Pyramid Scheme

The pyramid scheme statement, in my opinion, would only be accurate if the game producers were using it as an enticement to get people to join the game, but they're not.

The press does seem to have some kind of fascination about people making money off it, as they should, but for the wrong reason.

What I think the industry should be more focused on is not the dashed dreams of people hoping to make money in these virtual universes and failing but those who succeed in making money.

If you can turn around and sell virtual items for real cash, there is an argument to be made that receipt of those virtual items could be a taxable event. Be very afraid about how close we are getting to having to spell out the magic items we've received in WoW and their disposition as part of our income taxes.

Sound nuts? Hardly!

Prior Art by Alien54 · 2007-01-23 04:59 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft's "Immortal Computing" Project

Looks like somebody may have indulged is some prior art. And I am sure they are not the only ones. I recall someone from a few years ago developing a project to laser enscribe data on a titanium disc for archive purposes. All you needed was a microscope to read the data. with many many thousands of pages on something smaller than your hand. Better than sheets of copper, for sure.

Not needed by DrYak · 2007-01-21 20:58 · Score: 1 · on Spam is Back With A Vengence

They don't need. They're already trading captchas for porn. ...Actually, I think all great problems of humanity could be solved if one found a way to throw porn in the solution...

Re:Obsession with Ohio by skymt · 2007-01-20 05:23 · Score: 5, Informative · on Ohio Recount Rigging Case Goes to Court

I was skeptical, so I did a web search. This Boing Boing post has links to coverage from CNN and CBS. I guess he really said it.

Here's the exact quote (from Wally O'Dell, Diebold CEO and former Republican fundraiser):

I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president.

Pretty but horribly crippled!!! by djjester · 2007-01-18 14:29 · Score: 1 · on Mossberg - Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting

Sure the interface may be attractive however with the DRM mess that is killing Vista I really struggle to see the appeal. There was a great article titled 'Vista "suicide note" researcher interview on Security Now' , see here: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/13/vista_suicide _note_r.html

Adding DRM to non-DRM'd files can be illegal by LKM · 2007-01-17 04:25 · Score: 1 · on Apple To Play Fairer With FairPlay?

That's just pure, Grade-A, USDA-Approved FUD. "Illegally"?

Haha. Okay. Thanks very much, now everyone is looking at me. Hey, guys, I'm working, I promise!

Anyway. I find it funny how people accuse others of spreading FUD when the issue is that they simply aren't informed about the things they think they are informed about.

The problem with adding DRM to non-DRM'd meterial is that it is illegal in some cases - depending on the rights the person adding the DRM has.

Some licenses allow you to give content to others, as long as you don't change the file and/or add DRM to it - some creatives commons licenses do that, for example.

In this specific case, it may not be illegal, since the current CC licenses only disallow changing of the file, and according to Microsoft, the Zune does not actually change the squirted files. Future CC licenses will probably remove this loophole.

you bought it... hook, line, and.... by User+956 · 2007-01-16 14:23 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Apple To Play Fairer With FairPlay?

The labels require it though (also to maintain control over your music unless you are living under a rock somewhere and wonder why about that too)... why not use it to your company's advantage when the people your licensing from require it anyway.

That's false, and Apple loves that you believe it. The license holders don't "require it". Case-in-point, eMusic, which sells DRM-free MP3's. A ton of them. Johnny Cash, Dashboard Confessional, Credence Clearwater, Moby, the list goes on for miles.

Those songs are DRM-free on eMusic, but on iTunes, those same songs are locked down with Apple's Fairplay. The only one making that decision is Apple, and the only reason they make that decision is to lock in marketshare.

Look who will argue, write and advocate the law. by Protonk · 2007-01-16 09:43 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Is It Illegal To Disclose a Web Vulnerability?

this is an issue that simply must not be decided by the people whom it has been entrusted to. In this case, the vested interests that will lobby congress, pay for legal teams, and write friend of the court briefs are not the whisleblowers and the security researchers. There are HUGE industries where the economic incentive is to ignore problems, rely on obscurity for security, and prosecute those who would expose vulnerabilities.

Each time an exploit comes out, the pattern is the same. the company doesn't announce it, anti-virus makers are either paid off (as in 'approved' spyware and/or rootkits) or not kept informed, and once the story breaks, the public relations machine starts. The researcher is vilified as a hacker, the problem is denied or minimized, and the prospect of a patch is left moot because this would require accepting that a huge problem exists. Most of us scream that this is ridiculous, companies should tell everyone when an exploit shows up, and patch it as soon as possible. More to the point, they should expose their source code to scrutiny in order to better provide services to their customers.

Are you sitting down? good. They won't and they don't care. The first rule in the PR handbook is to deny and put off realization. If the big front is that there isn't a problem, or that a crack of a voting machine can only be done in a lab, and months down the road, the company quietly sues the researcher or releases a patch, they win. People have a limited attention span and fatigue quickly in the face of fear and hysteria. As long as your company's admission of guilt comes well after the original problem, or not at all, people are happy.

With this in mind, let's look at the law. thankfully, whistleblowers have some protection, and some internal voices about code might not be silenced, especially if the review takes place within the judicial system, and not through a new law. Of course, corporate secrecy, as in the case of Apple and HP, is pretty extreme, and most employees wouldn't risk the civil consequences of voicing a problem that doesn't rise to the level of a public safety hazard.

Outside researchers are in more and more trouble, and this really only leads to problems for the customer base as a whole. We rely on sites like MOAB to shame companies into action. We also rely on OSS competition in order to make products like IE better--Firefox gives an economic incentive to Microsoft to improve their product, otherwise, security development would have languished.

Very few analogues exist in the places where this is critically important: commercial and banking software. CITIbank suffers a classbreak and doesn't bother informing their customers. Security conscious customers can voice their discontent and move to another bank, but we have to trust that the new bank is as averse to security breaches as we are. For the rest of the millions of customers, security will not improve. Since identity theft costs are largely borne by the customers, the banks don't care. because the banks don't care, it is much easier, and better in their eyes, to make publishing voulnerabilities like this one illegal and trust that their customers will never be the wiser.

check out this article:
[PDF] Why information security is hard

old news by rizzo420 · 2007-01-14 10:16 · Score: 0, Redundant · on Print Messages On Your Beer

this is old. i saw this back in october on boingboing.