Slashdot Mirror

hcetSJ writes "CNN.com has an article about a glove that reads sign language and can translate to spoken English. Although it's only one-handed now, and can only handle about 200 words, the inventor has further plans for a second hand and wider vocabulary. I wonder if this could be linked with the Rosetta Stone idea, to quickly expand the vocabulary. Also mentioned in the article is the possibility of military use...gaming control can't be far off." grvsmth points to a more detailed article on GWU's website.

scraggly codger writes "Slashdot readers might find it interesting to learn about the ongoing legal controversy over the role of federal judges as gatekeepers for scientific evidence in civil and criminal litigation in the US. Ten years ago the Supreme Court provided guidelines for admissibility of scientific evidence in the Daubert ruling. Readers might find it hard to believe from the text of the ruling, but the result has been a huge increase in the power of judges to exclude scientific evidence from presentation to juries, based on what many scientists and other observers consider an incredibly naive (or perhaps merely self-serving) model of science. There's been a spate of news stories covering the topic, perhaps the most prominent in the WSJ of Friday, 27 June, "'Junk Science' Ban Also Keeps Jurors From Sound Evidence" (regrettably not freely available online). I particularly recommend Daubert: The Most Influential Supreme Court Ruling You've Never Heard Of."

On Saturday night, Virgil and Acidus, two young security researchers, were scheduled to give a talk at Interz0ne II on security flaws they'd found in a popular ID card system for universities. It's run by Blackboard, formerly by AT&T, and you may know it as OneCard, CampusWide, or BuzzCard. On Saturday, instead of the talk, attendees got to hear an Interz0ne official read the Cease and Desist letter sent by corporate lawyers. The DMCA, among other federal laws including the Economic Espionage Act, were given as the reasons for shutting down the talk (but -- update -- see the P.P.S below). I spoke with Virgil this morning.

Virgil was there two years ago when Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and led away in handcuffs at Def Con 9. He's not in handcuffs now, but in speaking to me, he had to stop and think about everything he said, and every third answer was "I really shouldn't talk about that."

The DMCA is largely to thank for that. Section 1201 states that no one "shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work," and that no one "shall... offer to the public... any technology" to do so. Blackboard Inc., whose card system is called the Blackboard Transaction System and known to end users under various names, uses a network of card readers and a central server, and they communicate over RS-485 and Internet Protocol -- using, or so they apparently claim, measures that effectively control access.

For the record, none of what I learned about the Blackboard technology was from him or Acidus after the restraining order was sent. I spoke to other people, who have not been served with a restraining order. Google has a less enlightening mirror of the slide titles from this weekend's PowerPoint presentation and a more enlightening mirror of Acidus's "CampusWide FAQ" from last July. And, most enlightening of all, this mirror has an updated version with details on what they figured out how to do and what their talk was going to be about (click "CampusWide" for the text description, the PowerPoint slides, and Acidus's timeline of the last year).

At many schools, Blackboard's system is the ID: you swipe your card for your meal plan at the cafeteria, to get into your dorm, maybe even to get your final exam.

A swipe at a vending machine will get you a soda -- a money transaction from your campus debit account. When you use a swipe to do laundry and make copies, money has to be involved. Blackboard even notes that they can set up a merchant network on- and off-campus: "a cashless, safe, and secure way to transact on and around campus while offering parents the assurance that their funds will be spent within a university-approved network." (Emphasis added. Maybe readers who go to schools that use such a system can expand on how that system is used.)

The kicker, of course, is that this network is not very secure, or at least Blackboard doesn't think it's as secure as... well, as lawyers. One anonymous Slashdot submitter wrote that: "The authentication system is so weak that [Virgil and Acidus] have been able to create a drop in replacement for the CampusWide network debit card readers used on coke machines on campus."

Virgil couldn't provide me any details about what he had learned about the system. Based on the mirrors, it looks like a man-in-the-middle replay attack -- which is a pretty simple attack, repeating messages sniffed over the RS-485 protocol, or even over IP -- can have effects like convincing a Coke machine to dispense free product. Or, it's claimed, the attacker can create a temporary card, with no name attached, and free money in its account. Hmmmmm.

Or, more ominously, someone else's identification might be sniffed, and then replayed from a security terminal. If a thief gained entrance to a building by sending the message "open the door, my name is John Doe," the real John Doe might be sorely inconvenienced the next morning.

So, if you're a student at a school that uses Blackboard, do you feel more secure now that the DMCA has tried to stop you from learning about its security flaws?

If you're a parent putting money into a Blackboard-based debit account, do you feel more confident of its safety now that this information is ostensibly hidden?

This card system has been installed on many campuses and its roots go back almost twenty years. My guess is that replacing the card-reading hardware would be necessary to improve the security of these devices. Obviously, Blackboard would be hard-pressed to replace thousands of hardware devices at all its locations, even if they'd started in late 2001 when Acidus claims he called to tell them of the flaws he'd found (and "was blown off").

So, assuming that's not possible -- is the DMCA a viable tool to ensure security?

P.S. Virgil tells me that he has a good lawyer. They are scheduled to argue on Thursday that the restraining order not be made permanent. Slashdot will keep you apprised of what happens in our Slashback stories... stay tuned.

P.P.S. Update: 04/15 02:30 GMT by J : Now online are the restraining order, which just lists the six things that Acidus and Virgil are not to do, and the more detailed Complaint. Now that these are available, as Declan McCullagh points out, it turns out the DMCA was only in the lawyers' threatening letter and not considered as part of the Complaint itself. I'm not sure why it would be included in the letter -- some of the language of the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act is similar, and who knows, Section 1201 might be mentioned later on, as this case progresses. Maybe the lawyers are just keeping their options open. Meanwhile, I love this part of the Complaint:

"Mr. Hoffman openly acknowledges on his website that 'I am a hacker.' His website then defends the process of hacking. See Exhibit B."

prostoalex writes "Researchers from Humboldt University found a way to build self-assembling networks. By emulating the behavior of ants and insects the team, which is led by Frank Schweitzer, demonstrated a simulation where agent-based architecture was able to quickly assemble itself into a network and quickly react to a broken link or damages. Schweitzer's research papers are available off his personal Web site. The scientific paper referred in the original article, Self-Assembling of Networks in an Agent-Based Model is available off Cornell server."

Sabalon writes "Cornell University is planning on implementing a plan where if faculty, staff or students use more than 2GB of bandwidth a month, they will be charged for the additional bandwidth usage. The article mentions that last year over 100,000GB worth of files were sent from Cornell's network. I'm sure this is not the only school doing this or moving to this. I'm sure the conspiracy theory people will see this as a suggestion by Microsoft to stop students from getting those pesky Linux iso images. At least, according to the RIAA, CD sales around Cornell should now skyrocket :)" It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Since students often have accounts on several different university machines, I suspect the more rebellious ones will be running an assortment of proxies and redirections to get around the restrictions.

blackcoot asks: "I've just spent a couple very frustrating days trying to figure out what 'unexpected async reply' means and fixing it. The problem is a result of the fact that X11 simply isn't designed to handle events from more than one thread at a time. Why? Given that more and more often, people are writing multi-threaded GUI applications, are there fundamental design decisions in X11 that make dealing with receiving events from multiple threads simultaneously, impossible? Or was the protocol never designed to handle concurrent updates? More to the point, is there an easy way in Qt (short of deriving a new widget for every widget and overriding it's paintEvent to lock the library first, paint, then unlock as Trolltech's docs seem to suggest) to make this problem go away?" I'm not sure if things have been done in recent revisions of XFree to fix this problem, but this message, from February of last year, might help some of you out that are suffering from this problem. Any ideas if this problem has been fixed in recent versions of XFree?

SEWilco writes "A few years ago the life forms around deep-ocean thermal vents were a surprise. Now ancient bacteria alive in rock 2 miles down have been found. The story is in the San Francisco Chronicle. It is also at Nature.Com, but that server is already rejecting connects. Other bacteria survived frozen in the pressures of an ocean 100 miles deep. This increases the known limits of where life can exist on any planet. Thomas Gold undoubtedly is not surprised at hot, deep bacteria living on hydrogen."

SEWilco writes "A few years ago the life forms around deep-ocean thermal vents were a surprise. Now ancient bacteria alive in rock 2 miles down have been found. The story is in the San Francisco Chronicle. It is also at Nature.Com, but that server is already rejecting connects. Other bacteria survived frozen in the pressures of an ocean 100 miles deep. This increases the known limits of where life can exist on any planet. Thomas Gold undoubtedly is not surprised at hot, deep bacteria living on hydrogen."

mattjarvis asks: "Does anyone out there know of a software solution for batch manipulating MPEG file headers, ie. stripping the header and replacing it with another header, or editing the existing header. I've searched the usual places, and have come up with a few libraries that look like they are capable of doing this but I don't seem to be able to find anything already written to do this. Basically I have a client using a hardware MPEG audio recorder, who wishes to change one of the bits in the header ( the original/home bit ) which is causing some problems with other software they are using. Surely this should be relatively simple to achieve and it's possible that I am missing the obvious but there doesn't seem to be anything available open source or not to easily edit the header without reconverting the actual audio stream."

notestein writes "Working for DARPA, a couple of Cornell researchers (Amil Lal, Hui Li ) have developed a battery that uses decaying nickel-63 to drive a flexing MEMS cantilever to generate electricity. They expect a production version to produce useful energy for at least 50 years."

CBNobi asks: "Most large news distribution sites do not archive news articles after a certain period of time. Being a weblog 'author', I sometimes write editorials in response to the articles. It is difficult for my rants to stay relevant when I end up linking to a dead page. I've read the fair use laws, but is vague on digital storage. So, my question is - how do fair use laws apply to the digital setting, where it is non-profit, but can be seen by others? (Or alternatively - is there a public, digital archive of news stories?) I find it odd that it is [usually] fine to link to news stories, but it becomes copyright infringement once it becomes impossible."

EricMargel writes: "As published in Science, researchers at the Ohio State University claim to have discovered the 22nd known amino acid, pyrrolysine, the first discovered since 1986." I hope rice and beans are still sufficient to get all the needed amino acids.

An anonymous reader writes: "Fed up with increasingly obnoxious click-through "agreements" embedded in the retail software I buy, I've posted a very simple script to remove them before clicking "I agree". Without the EULA, I am free to use my software within the bounds of copyright law. Courts have been very inconsistent on the enforceability of EULAs, and I hope this will strengthen consumers' side of the battle. The script is a symbolic gesture as much as anything else, and I want to get people thinking about how ridiculous it is that software companies try to force these one-sided contracts on you after you have paid for something. Also worth a look is cexx.org's Software Vendor License Agreement, which reverses the typical EULA and puts the burden back on the software manufacturer where it belongs."

Misha writes "There have been a number of weeks/months in anyone's life that called for a better organization of your Inbox. filtering and folders work, but it'd be nice to have an text-mining tool running in the background that categorized incoming messages by topic as they arrive. It's nice to see that besides NLP research, there are some great algorithmic advances being done, as seen in this paper. Perhaps even one of them Perl monkeys will quickly hack such a background tool." Note: it's a PostScript file.

wiredog writes "The United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, has found the Child Pornography Prevention Act to be unconstitutionally vague and far-reaching." You might read the Act. There were a number of cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act; I believe three Appeals courts eventually upheld it, and one ruled it unconstitutional, guaranteeing that the Supreme Court would take one of the challenges for review. A summary of the decision is available, and see that pages for links to the majority opinion and dissenting opinions.

sunhou writes: "The AMS published a lecture by Donald Knuth called All Questions Answered (pdf), where Knuth simply responded to questions from the audience. Topics ranged from errors in software ('I think Microsoft should say, "You'll get a check from Bill Gates every time you find an error"') to how he gets distracted by fonts on restaurant menus, to software patents. There were some really good questions (and responses)."

Buran writes: "As a self-proclaimed geek and a relative (and fascinated!) newcomer to the world of birding, I found this article in the New York Times Science Tuesday about the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker to be rather interesting. The bird, which was listed as extinct in 1997, has not been definitively sighted since the 1950s, but a recent reported sighting (in 1999) has led to a redoubled effort to find it. The geek side is this: Since it would be impractical for a human to sift through 5,000 hours of recorded sound (two and a half years, they estmate) to listen for the bird's distinctive call, the Cornell researchers are working on algorithms that can pick out interesting sections of digitally recorded sound, taken from microphones placed throughout the study area, for a human (who can outdo a computer any day at making the final determination) to review. I am hopeful that the search will return a positive result."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "It turns out that the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't think Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a real disability. See here for details." Read the summary or the whole opinion. In a nutshell: just because a woman was sufficiently disabled that she couldn't perform her job due to carpal-tunnel, doesn't mean she was sufficiently disabled to be considered disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Everyone who has that nagging pain in your wrists should probably read this decision.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "It turns out that the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't think Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a real disability. See here for details." Read the summary or the whole opinion. In a nutshell: just because a woman was sufficiently disabled that she couldn't perform her job due to carpal-tunnel, doesn't mean she was sufficiently disabled to be considered disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Everyone who has that nagging pain in your wrists should probably read this decision.

Misha asks: "I have been following Transmeta's news briefs for a little while and besides the stock's constant decline, there seems to be some life to the Crusoe. This story indicates that a new Crusoe-based laptop is appearing in China. Does anyone actually own one or an equivalent from some other manufacturer? Could you please post a review? Pros and cons from anyone reading would be appreciated." Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have changed in the past year. Besides goods from specialty importers like dynamism.com (check out the Bluetooth camera!), the only Transmeta devices widely available in the U.S. seem to be the last few generations of Sony's Picturebook. I'd hoped for a tidal wave of them -- is there any hope of more widespread Crusoe laptop presence? Or are there good sources already?

pll asks: "My wife is getting a Masters in Human Factors and Information Design. Tonight she attended a session on Handicapped Accessibility in Technology. Evidently MS has spent years studying this area, and the options one has under Windows is supposedly quite impressive (provided you install the accessibility packages). According to the lecturer, there are over 50 million handicapped people in the United States alone, and obviously even more worldwide. This got me thinking...the Free/Open software communities pay an awful lot of attention to i18n, but other than Emacspeak, what kind of attention have we paid to handicapped accessibility? I'm not aware of anything, other than Emacspeak, and that doesn't do much to enable the use of Gnome or KDE to a handicapped person." While Emacspeak does have some uses in this area, it's primarily only useful for the blind. What about people without the use of their hands, or features for the deaf, and so on?

On Wednesday I attended a hearing in Felten vs. RIAA, the lawsuit filed by Professor Felten, other Princeton researchers, and USENIX against the RIAA, SDMI, Verance, and the Department of Justice. As you already know, the judge dismissed the case. But taking a look at the hearing might provide some insight into how the judicial system works.

An incredibly brief review of the case: SDMI created an open challenge to break various forms of technical restrictions they had designed to allow music publishers to control how people use legitimately purchased music. A team led by Felten participated and was mostly successful at breaking them. The team wrote a paper, intending to publish it at a scientific conference. The RIAA/SDMI sent a letter to Felten, his employer, and the conference threatening them with legal action. Private legal discussions and a very public flap broke out. Felten filed a pre-emptive lawsuit, seeking to have his right to publish vindicated without waiting for a suit from the RIAA or SDMI. Immediately afterward, the RIAA publicly and repeatedly withdrew their threat to sue. Eventually the paper was, in fact, published, but the suit has continued.

Or just read through the Slashdot stories.

On to yesterday's hearing. The judge has before him a request from the defense to dismiss the case - they state that there is no real issue since the threat has been withdrawn. The Plaintiffs oppose this - they feel the threat is real, even if the RIAA has now withdrawn it.

Each side is represented by a half-dozen attorneys. Felten and several of the other plaintiffs are present as well. There are four or five press representatives. Other than that, the courtroom is empty. The first thing the judge does is take care of some routine business - the plaintiffs have requested that a C program, tinywarp.c, be filed under judicial seal with the court. The judge accepts this. He then goes briefly over the case so far, saying that he feels fully briefed by the papers submitted by both sides. He invites the plaintiff's lawyer, Gino Scarselli, to speak and respond to the last set of papers filed by the defense, but cautions him to avoid repeating any of the arguments set forth already in the many papers filed.

Scarselli emphasizes that the plaintiffs are in court for more than just the single threatening letter - he notes that the threat of legal action was considered quite real by the universities, who assigned lawyers to deal with the threat. He notes that Felten's paper was described as a "recipe for circumvention" by the defendants. He says that Felten also fears criminal prosecution due to his desire to publish a paper on SDMI in Scientific American - since Scientific American pays for papers, unlike the conference, this makes publication of the paper a commercial enterprise which might be charged as a criminal violation of the DMCA.

The judge is rather skeptical. He states that the difference between Felten and Sklyarov is "night and day". Sklyarov's actions are clearly criminal to the judge - Felten's actions not at all.

Scarselli and the judge spar a bit over a possible amendment to the complaint, regarding what exactly the plaintiffs were seeking in the lawsuit, and Scarselli retires from battle. Next up is David Kendall for the RIAA, responding to Scarselli.

Kendall starts off by talking about a stipulation (an agreement on facts) that both parties were negotiating over. Apparently both sides had almost been able to reach an agreement, except that the RIAA wanted the agreement to include dismissing the lawsuit and the plaintiffs did not. Kendall moves on to emphasize the argument they are making - that the suit should be dismissed because there is no conflict between the RIAA/SDMI and Felten. There are three reasons why a suit might be dismissed in this fashion - for mootness, because the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit, or because the issue isn't ripe. The judge asks Kendall which of the three would apply to this case - Kendall disclaims mootness (because that implies there once was an issue, but no longer), and states that this could be dismissed under either of the other reasons.

Richard Phillips is called to speak for the Department of Justice. Phillips states that his argument has been covered by the papers submitted and sits back down.

At this point only 40 minutes or so has elapsed. Normally, the judge might now take the case for decision, then some time later issue a written decision - instead, he decides (obviously he planned to do this in advance, since he has notes prepared) to render his decision in the case orally and immediately. He notes that he's doing so to save both parties further time and trouble, which indicates that he agrees with the defense that the case should be dismissed.

The judge starts off with the basics, which must have been rather boring to the lawyers involved. Under the Constitution, courts are limited to deciding cases where there is an actual case or controversy. He states flat-out that he sees no case or controversy here, in case anyone in the courtroom missed the hint he's already given.

He now takes a deep breath and begins going through his notes. He recaps the case from the beginning. I'll spare you that, read the documents if you wish.

Finally we get to his analysis. There are two separate issues - is there a case against the private entities? Is there a case against the Federal Government? The judge looks at the private entities first.

Again he discusses the requirement that cases be limited to actual controversies, that judges can't rule on abstract, theoretical, or speculative cases. He uses the word "speculative" approximately 20 times during his opinion, always referring to the plaintiffs' case. He relates a rambling analogy about bank fraud, essentially saying that the plaintiffs were asking for blanket immunity against ever being sued or prosecuted, which was impossible. He covers in great detail the RIAA's retraction of their threatening letter, how they've plainly denied any desire to sue Felten or anyone else over Felten's original paper.

The judge now looks at the First Amendment considerations relating to the suit against the RIAA/SDMI. He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible. He also notes that according to case law on the subject, there must be a real and immediate threat, that must remain throughout litigation, in order for the courts to consider the Constitutional questions around a non-criminal law (that is, the part of the DMCA that doesn't involve criminal penalties, only the possibility of civil lawsuits). Since the threat has not remained throughout litigation, he sees no Constitutional questions relating to the non-criminal part of the DMCA. He also notes that Plaintiffs do not allege they intend to violate the statute [ed. note: I'm not sure which part of the DMCA the judge was talking about right now - he may have been getting ahead of himself and talking about the criminal penalties.] and thus proceeding further would be "pre-enforcement review", which is not permitted. He closes this section by saying that he finds the Step-Saver and Salvation Army cases (referred to in the briefs submitted by both parties) instructive.

Somewhere during this speech, one of the attorneys for SDMI starts grinning, hugely, as if his team has just won the Super Bowl. He continues grinning and looking over at the attorneys for the plaintiffs until the hearing is over. None of the other attorneys for either side show any particular reaction.

The judge now continues with the suit against the Federal Government for Constitutional violations. He notes that the plaintiffs have not been directly threatened by the Government, nor prosecuted. He contrasts Felten's situation with that of Dmitry Sklyarov - the plaintiffs don't sell their program to the public, they do it for scientific purposes. Again he mentions the Step-Saver case. He quotes from the DMCA extensively. He states that the Government and plaintiffs have no adverse legal interests - that is, there is no possible criminal threat to Felten for doing what he's doing, in the judge's opinion. He notes that in the Sklyarov case there is such an adverse legal interest - obviously, Sklyarov was imprisoned! - and suggests that the Sklyarov case is a better way to get any First Amendment consequences of the DMCA adjudicated by the courts. The plaintiffs are not "manufacturing", according to the judge; nor are they offering their code for sale. The judge segues to what he sees as deficiencies in the plaintiff's legal complaint - they did not assert they planned to fully violate the criminal sections of the DMCA, mainly their assertions were that the Act is unclear and vague. Finally he closes - the plaintiffs must have an "objectively reasonable fear" of prosecution in order for the required legal conflict to exist, and the judge sees no such objectively reasonable fear.

A few more sentences and he's done. He reminds everyone that he may revise his written/final opinion from what he just dictated. He doesn't provide a time-frame for when the written opinion might be expected.

And that's it. My impression is that the most important phrase in the decision is "night and day". Judge Brown saw Sklyarov as a pirate, well-deserving of a long imprisonment term, and Felten as a goodie-two-shoes scientist who didn't have a care in the world. The very factors that made Felten a "good" subject for a civil liberties case allowed the judge to rule that there wasn't a case at all. Both the Justice Department and the RIAA prefer to have their test cases with suitably unsavory defendants - Russian pirates and shady hacker magazines are much preferred over all-American Princeton professors. The RIAA won't make the mistake of sending threat letters to professors again - not until the DMCA issues have been well-settled in the courts, anyway. Some people have criticized the EFF for over-reaching - trying to make a case out of nothing. But to a great extent the civil liberties groups have to play with the hand they're dealt. Felten was legitimately threatened, and even if the RIAA saw their mistake and starting trying to weasel out of it, I can't fault the civil liberties groups for trying to pursue this. They plan to appeal, of course.

On Wednesday I attended a hearing in Felten vs. RIAA, the lawsuit filed by Professor Felten, other Princeton researchers, and USENIX against the RIAA, SDMI, Verance, and the Department of Justice. As you already know, the judge dismissed the case. But taking a look at the hearing might provide some insight into how the judicial system works.

An incredibly brief review of the case: SDMI created an open challenge to break various forms of technical restrictions they had designed to allow music publishers to control how people use legitimately purchased music. A team led by Felten participated and was mostly successful at breaking them. The team wrote a paper, intending to publish it at a scientific conference. The RIAA/SDMI sent a letter to Felten, his employer, and the conference threatening them with legal action. Private legal discussions and a very public flap broke out. Felten filed a pre-emptive lawsuit, seeking to have his right to publish vindicated without waiting for a suit from the RIAA or SDMI. Immediately afterward, the RIAA publicly and repeatedly withdrew their threat to sue. Eventually the paper was, in fact, published, but the suit has continued.

Or just read through the Slashdot stories.

On to yesterday's hearing. The judge has before him a request from the defense to dismiss the case - they state that there is no real issue since the threat has been withdrawn. The Plaintiffs oppose this - they feel the threat is real, even if the RIAA has now withdrawn it.

Each side is represented by a half-dozen attorneys. Felten and several of the other plaintiffs are present as well. There are four or five press representatives. Other than that, the courtroom is empty. The first thing the judge does is take care of some routine business - the plaintiffs have requested that a C program, tinywarp.c, be filed under judicial seal with the court. The judge accepts this. He then goes briefly over the case so far, saying that he feels fully briefed by the papers submitted by both sides. He invites the plaintiff's lawyer, Gino Scarselli, to speak and respond to the last set of papers filed by the defense, but cautions him to avoid repeating any of the arguments set forth already in the many papers filed.

Scarselli emphasizes that the plaintiffs are in court for more than just the single threatening letter - he notes that the threat of legal action was considered quite real by the universities, who assigned lawyers to deal with the threat. He notes that Felten's paper was described as a "recipe for circumvention" by the defendants. He says that Felten also fears criminal prosecution due to his desire to publish a paper on SDMI in Scientific American - since Scientific American pays for papers, unlike the conference, this makes publication of the paper a commercial enterprise which might be charged as a criminal violation of the DMCA.

The judge is rather skeptical. He states that the difference between Felten and Sklyarov is "night and day". Sklyarov's actions are clearly criminal to the judge - Felten's actions not at all.

Scarselli and the judge spar a bit over a possible amendment to the complaint, regarding what exactly the plaintiffs were seeking in the lawsuit, and Scarselli retires from battle. Next up is David Kendall for the RIAA, responding to Scarselli.

Kendall starts off by talking about a stipulation (an agreement on facts) that both parties were negotiating over. Apparently both sides had almost been able to reach an agreement, except that the RIAA wanted the agreement to include dismissing the lawsuit and the plaintiffs did not. Kendall moves on to emphasize the argument they are making - that the suit should be dismissed because there is no conflict between the RIAA/SDMI and Felten. There are three reasons why a suit might be dismissed in this fashion - for mootness, because the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit, or because the issue isn't ripe. The judge asks Kendall which of the three would apply to this case - Kendall disclaims mootness (because that implies there once was an issue, but no longer), and states that this could be dismissed under either of the other reasons.

Richard Phillips is called to speak for the Department of Justice. Phillips states that his argument has been covered by the papers submitted and sits back down.

At this point only 40 minutes or so has elapsed. Normally, the judge might now take the case for decision, then some time later issue a written decision - instead, he decides (obviously he planned to do this in advance, since he has notes prepared) to render his decision in the case orally and immediately. He notes that he's doing so to save both parties further time and trouble, which indicates that he agrees with the defense that the case should be dismissed.

The judge starts off with the basics, which must have been rather boring to the lawyers involved. Under the Constitution, courts are limited to deciding cases where there is an actual case or controversy. He states flat-out that he sees no case or controversy here, in case anyone in the courtroom missed the hint he's already given.

He now takes a deep breath and begins going through his notes. He recaps the case from the beginning. I'll spare you that, read the documents if you wish.

Finally we get to his analysis. There are two separate issues - is there a case against the private entities? Is there a case against the Federal Government? The judge looks at the private entities first.

Again he discusses the requirement that cases be limited to actual controversies, that judges can't rule on abstract, theoretical, or speculative cases. He uses the word "speculative" approximately 20 times during his opinion, always referring to the plaintiffs' case. He relates a rambling analogy about bank fraud, essentially saying that the plaintiffs were asking for blanket immunity against ever being sued or prosecuted, which was impossible. He covers in great detail the RIAA's retraction of their threatening letter, how they've plainly denied any desire to sue Felten or anyone else over Felten's original paper.

The judge now looks at the First Amendment considerations relating to the suit against the RIAA/SDMI. He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible. He also notes that according to case law on the subject, there must be a real and immediate threat, that must remain throughout litigation, in order for the courts to consider the Constitutional questions around a non-criminal law (that is, the part of the DMCA that doesn't involve criminal penalties, only the possibility of civil lawsuits). Since the threat has not remained throughout litigation, he sees no Constitutional questions relating to the non-criminal part of the DMCA. He also notes that Plaintiffs do not allege they intend to violate the statute [ed. note: I'm not sure which part of the DMCA the judge was talking about right now - he may have been getting ahead of himself and talking about the criminal penalties.] and thus proceeding further would be "pre-enforcement review", which is not permitted. He closes this section by saying that he finds the Step-Saver and Salvation Army cases (referred to in the briefs submitted by both parties) instructive.

Somewhere during this speech, one of the attorneys for SDMI starts grinning, hugely, as if his team has just won the Super Bowl. He continues grinning and looking over at the attorneys for the plaintiffs until the hearing is over. None of the other attorneys for either side show any particular reaction.

The judge now continues with the suit against the Federal Government for Constitutional violations. He notes that the plaintiffs have not been directly threatened by the Government, nor prosecuted. He contrasts Felten's situation with that of Dmitry Sklyarov - the plaintiffs don't sell their program to the public, they do it for scientific purposes. Again he mentions the Step-Saver case. He quotes from the DMCA extensively. He states that the Government and plaintiffs have no adverse legal interests - that is, there is no possible criminal threat to Felten for doing what he's doing, in the judge's opinion. He notes that in the Sklyarov case there is such an adverse legal interest - obviously, Sklyarov was imprisoned! - and suggests that the Sklyarov case is a better way to get any First Amendment consequences of the DMCA adjudicated by the courts. The plaintiffs are not "manufacturing", according to the judge; nor are they offering their code for sale. The judge segues to what he sees as deficiencies in the plaintiff's legal complaint - they did not assert they planned to fully violate the criminal sections of the DMCA, mainly their assertions were that the Act is unclear and vague. Finally he closes - the plaintiffs must have an "objectively reasonable fear" of prosecution in order for the required legal conflict to exist, and the judge sees no such objectively reasonable fear.

A few more sentences and he's done. He reminds everyone that he may revise his written/final opinion from what he just dictated. He doesn't provide a time-frame for when the written opinion might be expected.

And that's it. My impression is that the most important phrase in the decision is "night and day". Judge Brown saw Sklyarov as a pirate, well-deserving of a long imprisonment term, and Felten as a goodie-two-shoes scientist who didn't have a care in the world. The very factors that made Felten a "good" subject for a civil liberties case allowed the judge to rule that there wasn't a case at all. Both the Justice Department and the RIAA prefer to have their test cases with suitably unsavory defendants - Russian pirates and shady hacker magazines are much preferred over all-American Princeton professors. The RIAA won't make the mistake of sending threat letters to professors again - not until the DMCA issues have been well-settled in the courts, anyway. Some people have criticized the EFF for over-reaching - trying to make a case out of nothing. But to a great extent the civil liberties groups have to play with the hand they're dealt. Felten was legitimately threatened, and even if the RIAA saw their mistake and starting trying to weasel out of it, I can't fault the civil liberties groups for trying to pursue this. They plan to appeal, of course.

On Wednesday I attended a hearing in Felten vs. RIAA, the lawsuit filed by Professor Felten, other Princeton researchers, and USENIX against the RIAA, SDMI, Verance, and the Department of Justice. As you already know, the judge dismissed the case. But taking a look at the hearing might provide some insight into how the judicial system works.

An incredibly brief review of the case: SDMI created an open challenge to break various forms of technical restrictions they had designed to allow music publishers to control how people use legitimately purchased music. A team led by Felten participated and was mostly successful at breaking them. The team wrote a paper, intending to publish it at a scientific conference. The RIAA/SDMI sent a letter to Felten, his employer, and the conference threatening them with legal action. Private legal discussions and a very public flap broke out. Felten filed a pre-emptive lawsuit, seeking to have his right to publish vindicated without waiting for a suit from the RIAA or SDMI. Immediately afterward, the RIAA publicly and repeatedly withdrew their threat to sue. Eventually the paper was, in fact, published, but the suit has continued.

Or just read through the Slashdot stories.

On to yesterday's hearing. The judge has before him a request from the defense to dismiss the case - they state that there is no real issue since the threat has been withdrawn. The Plaintiffs oppose this - they feel the threat is real, even if the RIAA has now withdrawn it.

Each side is represented by a half-dozen attorneys. Felten and several of the other plaintiffs are present as well. There are four or five press representatives. Other than that, the courtroom is empty. The first thing the judge does is take care of some routine business - the plaintiffs have requested that a C program, tinywarp.c, be filed under judicial seal with the court. The judge accepts this. He then goes briefly over the case so far, saying that he feels fully briefed by the papers submitted by both sides. He invites the plaintiff's lawyer, Gino Scarselli, to speak and respond to the last set of papers filed by the defense, but cautions him to avoid repeating any of the arguments set forth already in the many papers filed.

Scarselli emphasizes that the plaintiffs are in court for more than just the single threatening letter - he notes that the threat of legal action was considered quite real by the universities, who assigned lawyers to deal with the threat. He notes that Felten's paper was described as a "recipe for circumvention" by the defendants. He says that Felten also fears criminal prosecution due to his desire to publish a paper on SDMI in Scientific American - since Scientific American pays for papers, unlike the conference, this makes publication of the paper a commercial enterprise which might be charged as a criminal violation of the DMCA.

The judge is rather skeptical. He states that the difference between Felten and Sklyarov is "night and day". Sklyarov's actions are clearly criminal to the judge - Felten's actions not at all.

Scarselli and the judge spar a bit over a possible amendment to the complaint, regarding what exactly the plaintiffs were seeking in the lawsuit, and Scarselli retires from battle. Next up is David Kendall for the RIAA, responding to Scarselli.

Kendall starts off by talking about a stipulation (an agreement on facts) that both parties were negotiating over. Apparently both sides had almost been able to reach an agreement, except that the RIAA wanted the agreement to include dismissing the lawsuit and the plaintiffs did not. Kendall moves on to emphasize the argument they are making - that the suit should be dismissed because there is no conflict between the RIAA/SDMI and Felten. There are three reasons why a suit might be dismissed in this fashion - for mootness, because the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit, or because the issue isn't ripe. The judge asks Kendall which of the three would apply to this case - Kendall disclaims mootness (because that implies there once was an issue, but no longer), and states that this could be dismissed under either of the other reasons.

Richard Phillips is called to speak for the Department of Justice. Phillips states that his argument has been covered by the papers submitted and sits back down.

At this point only 40 minutes or so has elapsed. Normally, the judge might now take the case for decision, then some time later issue a written decision - instead, he decides (obviously he planned to do this in advance, since he has notes prepared) to render his decision in the case orally and immediately. He notes that he's doing so to save both parties further time and trouble, which indicates that he agrees with the defense that the case should be dismissed.

The judge starts off with the basics, which must have been rather boring to the lawyers involved. Under the Constitution, courts are limited to deciding cases where there is an actual case or controversy. He states flat-out that he sees no case or controversy here, in case anyone in the courtroom missed the hint he's already given.

He now takes a deep breath and begins going through his notes. He recaps the case from the beginning. I'll spare you that, read the documents if you wish.

Finally we get to his analysis. There are two separate issues - is there a case against the private entities? Is there a case against the Federal Government? The judge looks at the private entities first.

Again he discusses the requirement that cases be limited to actual controversies, that judges can't rule on abstract, theoretical, or speculative cases. He uses the word "speculative" approximately 20 times during his opinion, always referring to the plaintiffs' case. He relates a rambling analogy about bank fraud, essentially saying that the plaintiffs were asking for blanket immunity against ever being sued or prosecuted, which was impossible. He covers in great detail the RIAA's retraction of their threatening letter, how they've plainly denied any desire to sue Felten or anyone else over Felten's original paper.

The judge now looks at the First Amendment considerations relating to the suit against the RIAA/SDMI. He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible. He also notes that according to case law on the subject, there must be a real and immediate threat, that must remain throughout litigation, in order for the courts to consider the Constitutional questions around a non-criminal law (that is, the part of the DMCA that doesn't involve criminal penalties, only the possibility of civil lawsuits). Since the threat has not remained throughout litigation, he sees no Constitutional questions relating to the non-criminal part of the DMCA. He also notes that Plaintiffs do not allege they intend to violate the statute [ed. note: I'm not sure which part of the DMCA the judge was talking about right now - he may have been getting ahead of himself and talking about the criminal penalties.] and thus proceeding further would be "pre-enforcement review", which is not permitted. He closes this section by saying that he finds the Step-Saver and Salvation Army cases (referred to in the briefs submitted by both parties) instructive.

Somewhere during this speech, one of the attorneys for SDMI starts grinning, hugely, as if his team has just won the Super Bowl. He continues grinning and looking over at the attorneys for the plaintiffs until the hearing is over. None of the other attorneys for either side show any particular reaction.

The judge now continues with the suit against the Federal Government for Constitutional violations. He notes that the plaintiffs have not been directly threatened by the Government, nor prosecuted. He contrasts Felten's situation with that of Dmitry Sklyarov - the plaintiffs don't sell their program to the public, they do it for scientific purposes. Again he mentions the Step-Saver case. He quotes from the DMCA extensively. He states that the Government and plaintiffs have no adverse legal interests - that is, there is no possible criminal threat to Felten for doing what he's doing, in the judge's opinion. He notes that in the Sklyarov case there is such an adverse legal interest - obviously, Sklyarov was imprisoned! - and suggests that the Sklyarov case is a better way to get any First Amendment consequences of the DMCA adjudicated by the courts. The plaintiffs are not "manufacturing", according to the judge; nor are they offering their code for sale. The judge segues to what he sees as deficiencies in the plaintiff's legal complaint - they did not assert they planned to fully violate the criminal sections of the DMCA, mainly their assertions were that the Act is unclear and vague. Finally he closes - the plaintiffs must have an "objectively reasonable fear" of prosecution in order for the required legal conflict to exist, and the judge sees no such objectively reasonable fear.

A few more sentences and he's done. He reminds everyone that he may revise his written/final opinion from what he just dictated. He doesn't provide a time-frame for when the written opinion might be expected.

And that's it. My impression is that the most important phrase in the decision is "night and day". Judge Brown saw Sklyarov as a pirate, well-deserving of a long imprisonment term, and Felten as a goodie-two-shoes scientist who didn't have a care in the world. The very factors that made Felten a "good" subject for a civil liberties case allowed the judge to rule that there wasn't a case at all. Both the Justice Department and the RIAA prefer to have their test cases with suitably unsavory defendants - Russian pirates and shady hacker magazines are much preferred over all-American Princeton professors. The RIAA won't make the mistake of sending threat letters to professors again - not until the DMCA issues have been well-settled in the courts, anyway. Some people have criticized the EFF for over-reaching - trying to make a case out of nothing. But to a great extent the civil liberties groups have to play with the hand they're dealt. Felten was legitimately threatened, and even if the RIAA saw their mistake and starting trying to weasel out of it, I can't fault the civil liberties groups for trying to pursue this. They plan to appeal, of course.

On Wednesday I attended a hearing in Felten vs. RIAA, the lawsuit filed by Professor Felten, other Princeton researchers, and USENIX against the RIAA, SDMI, Verance, and the Department of Justice. As you already know, the judge dismissed the case. But taking a look at the hearing might provide some insight into how the judicial system works.

An incredibly brief review of the case: SDMI created an open challenge to break various forms of technical restrictions they had designed to allow music publishers to control how people use legitimately purchased music. A team led by Felten participated and was mostly successful at breaking them. The team wrote a paper, intending to publish it at a scientific conference. The RIAA/SDMI sent a letter to Felten, his employer, and the conference threatening them with legal action. Private legal discussions and a very public flap broke out. Felten filed a pre-emptive lawsuit, seeking to have his right to publish vindicated without waiting for a suit from the RIAA or SDMI. Immediately afterward, the RIAA publicly and repeatedly withdrew their threat to sue. Eventually the paper was, in fact, published, but the suit has continued.

Or just read through the Slashdot stories.

On to yesterday's hearing. The judge has before him a request from the defense to dismiss the case - they state that there is no real issue since the threat has been withdrawn. The Plaintiffs oppose this - they feel the threat is real, even if the RIAA has now withdrawn it.

Each side is represented by a half-dozen attorneys. Felten and several of the other plaintiffs are present as well. There are four or five press representatives. Other than that, the courtroom is empty. The first thing the judge does is take care of some routine business - the plaintiffs have requested that a C program, tinywarp.c, be filed under judicial seal with the court. The judge accepts this. He then goes briefly over the case so far, saying that he feels fully briefed by the papers submitted by both sides. He invites the plaintiff's lawyer, Gino Scarselli, to speak and respond to the last set of papers filed by the defense, but cautions him to avoid repeating any of the arguments set forth already in the many papers filed.

Scarselli emphasizes that the plaintiffs are in court for more than just the single threatening letter - he notes that the threat of legal action was considered quite real by the universities, who assigned lawyers to deal with the threat. He notes that Felten's paper was described as a "recipe for circumvention" by the defendants. He says that Felten also fears criminal prosecution due to his desire to publish a paper on SDMI in Scientific American - since Scientific American pays for papers, unlike the conference, this makes publication of the paper a commercial enterprise which might be charged as a criminal violation of the DMCA.

The judge is rather skeptical. He states that the difference between Felten and Sklyarov is "night and day". Sklyarov's actions are clearly criminal to the judge - Felten's actions not at all.

Scarselli and the judge spar a bit over a possible amendment to the complaint, regarding what exactly the plaintiffs were seeking in the lawsuit, and Scarselli retires from battle. Next up is David Kendall for the RIAA, responding to Scarselli.

Kendall starts off by talking about a stipulation (an agreement on facts) that both parties were negotiating over. Apparently both sides had almost been able to reach an agreement, except that the RIAA wanted the agreement to include dismissing the lawsuit and the plaintiffs did not. Kendall moves on to emphasize the argument they are making - that the suit should be dismissed because there is no conflict between the RIAA/SDMI and Felten. There are three reasons why a suit might be dismissed in this fashion - for mootness, because the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit, or because the issue isn't ripe. The judge asks Kendall which of the three would apply to this case - Kendall disclaims mootness (because that implies there once was an issue, but no longer), and states that this could be dismissed under either of the other reasons.

Richard Phillips is called to speak for the Department of Justice. Phillips states that his argument has been covered by the papers submitted and sits back down.

At this point only 40 minutes or so has elapsed. Normally, the judge might now take the case for decision, then some time later issue a written decision - instead, he decides (obviously he planned to do this in advance, since he has notes prepared) to render his decision in the case orally and immediately. He notes that he's doing so to save both parties further time and trouble, which indicates that he agrees with the defense that the case should be dismissed.

The judge starts off with the basics, which must have been rather boring to the lawyers involved. Under the Constitution, courts are limited to deciding cases where there is an actual case or controversy. He states flat-out that he sees no case or controversy here, in case anyone in the courtroom missed the hint he's already given.

He now takes a deep breath and begins going through his notes. He recaps the case from the beginning. I'll spare you that, read the documents if you wish.

Finally we get to his analysis. There are two separate issues - is there a case against the private entities? Is there a case against the Federal Government? The judge looks at the private entities first.

Again he discusses the requirement that cases be limited to actual controversies, that judges can't rule on abstract, theoretical, or speculative cases. He uses the word "speculative" approximately 20 times during his opinion, always referring to the plaintiffs' case. He relates a rambling analogy about bank fraud, essentially saying that the plaintiffs were asking for blanket immunity against ever being sued or prosecuted, which was impossible. He covers in great detail the RIAA's retraction of their threatening letter, how they've plainly denied any desire to sue Felten or anyone else over Felten's original paper.

The judge now looks at the First Amendment considerations relating to the suit against the RIAA/SDMI. He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible. He also notes that according to case law on the subject, there must be a real and immediate threat, that must remain throughout litigation, in order for the courts to consider the Constitutional questions around a non-criminal law (that is, the part of the DMCA that doesn't involve criminal penalties, only the possibility of civil lawsuits). Since the threat has not remained throughout litigation, he sees no Constitutional questions relating to the non-criminal part of the DMCA. He also notes that Plaintiffs do not allege they intend to violate the statute [ed. note: I'm not sure which part of the DMCA the judge was talking about right now - he may have been getting ahead of himself and talking about the criminal penalties.] and thus proceeding further would be "pre-enforcement review", which is not permitted. He closes this section by saying that he finds the Step-Saver and Salvation Army cases (referred to in the briefs submitted by both parties) instructive.

Somewhere during this speech, one of the attorneys for SDMI starts grinning, hugely, as if his team has just won the Super Bowl. He continues grinning and looking over at the attorneys for the plaintiffs until the hearing is over. None of the other attorneys for either side show any particular reaction.

The judge now continues with the suit against the Federal Government for Constitutional violations. He notes that the plaintiffs have not been directly threatened by the Government, nor prosecuted. He contrasts Felten's situation with that of Dmitry Sklyarov - the plaintiffs don't sell their program to the public, they do it for scientific purposes. Again he mentions the Step-Saver case. He quotes from the DMCA extensively. He states that the Government and plaintiffs have no adverse legal interests - that is, there is no possible criminal threat to Felten for doing what he's doing, in the judge's opinion. He notes that in the Sklyarov case there is such an adverse legal interest - obviously, Sklyarov was imprisoned! - and suggests that the Sklyarov case is a better way to get any First Amendment consequences of the DMCA adjudicated by the courts. The plaintiffs are not "manufacturing", according to the judge; nor are they offering their code for sale. The judge segues to what he sees as deficiencies in the plaintiff's legal complaint - they did not assert they planned to fully violate the criminal sections of the DMCA, mainly their assertions were that the Act is unclear and vague. Finally he closes - the plaintiffs must have an "objectively reasonable fear" of prosecution in order for the required legal conflict to exist, and the judge sees no such objectively reasonable fear.

A few more sentences and he's done. He reminds everyone that he may revise his written/final opinion from what he just dictated. He doesn't provide a time-frame for when the written opinion might be expected.

And that's it. My impression is that the most important phrase in the decision is "night and day". Judge Brown saw Sklyarov as a pirate, well-deserving of a long imprisonment term, and Felten as a goodie-two-shoes scientist who didn't have a care in the world. The very factors that made Felten a "good" subject for a civil liberties case allowed the judge to rule that there wasn't a case at all. Both the Justice Department and the RIAA prefer to have their test cases with suitably unsavory defendants - Russian pirates and shady hacker magazines are much preferred over all-American Princeton professors. The RIAA won't make the mistake of sending threat letters to professors again - not until the DMCA issues have been well-settled in the courts, anyway. Some people have criticized the EFF for over-reaching - trying to make a case out of nothing. But to a great extent the civil liberties groups have to play with the hand they're dealt. Felten was legitimately threatened, and even if the RIAA saw their mistake and starting trying to weasel out of it, I can't fault the civil liberties groups for trying to pursue this. They plan to appeal, of course.

Remember Apple's "free, plus $19.95 shipping" updater CD for Mac OS X 10.1? Turns out it's actually a full version of the operating system (which helps explain why it's so large) but it adds an extra little package called "CheckForOSX." Remove that and you can install 10.1 on any disk -- or at least, that's the secondhand version I got of what used to be at MacFixIt's Nov. 20 report, which yesterday was taken down after a note from Apple's lawyers. Here's the cease-and-desist story. We've included Apple's letter, below.

Apple cites the Lanham Act (see below) and I have no idea what that covers. But Bill Innanen pointed out on a mailing list that the operating system might be said to violate its own access control rights under the DMCA:

...since the possession of the tools to violate a copyright has been criminalized, we have yet another case of circular legal "logic." The only tool necessary to violate this particular copyright is the very operating system that the copyrighted software (the updater/full-installer) installs (or an earlier version of same).

(Just pop open the installer package with the built-in "context sensitive menu" module, find the CheckForOSX module and drag it to the trash can. Voila!)

Is the possession of MacOS X v10.1 or its installer illegal because it can be used to violate its own copyright?

(Well, actually by the letter of the law in 1201(2) I think you'd have to argue that Mac OS X 10.0 was "primarily" designed to circumvent the access controls in the 10.1 update... but it's still pretty funny.)

Bill goes on to point out: "The problem that this converted updater fixed is that there are reported problems with 10.1.1, and with a 10.0.x and the updater you can't backtrack. With the 10.1 full installer you can."

Apple's lawyers write:

We represent Apple Computer, Inc. ("Apple") with respect to its intellectual property matters. Recently, it has come to our attention that you are providing unauthorized instructions concerning the modification of the Mac OS X 10.1 update software (the "Software") on your website. Specifically, it appears that you are providing instructions for converting Mac OS X 10.1 update Software to a full install version of Mac OS X from your web site in violation of the Copyright Act and in violation of your software license agreement with Apple.

You should be aware that Apple has never authorized you modify the Software. Moreover, by providing instructions on how to modify and circumvent restrictions within the Software, you are infringing Apple's copyrights in violation of the Copyright Act and engaging in acts of unfair competition in violation of the Lanham Act. Additionally, Apple's license agreement, which you accepted upon purchasing a copy of the Software, specifically prohibits you from copying, decompiling, reverse engineering, disassembling, modifying or creating derivative works of the Software.

Consequently, on behalf of our client, we demand that you cease and desist from publishing or distributing the above-referenced materials. We believe that this is a very serious matter, thus we ask that we receive confirmation in writing from you that you have removed the infringing material from your web site.

Thank you for your prompt cooperation on this matter.

Paul Smith writes: "New Scientist is carrying a story about a redesigned version of the programming language C called Cyclone from AT&T labs. "The Cyclone compiler identifies segments of code that could eventually cause such problems using a "type-checking engine". This does not just look for specific strings of code, but analyses the code's purpose and singles out conflicts known to be potentially dangerous.""

As the search for the perfect computer desk continues, singularity adds in another chapter: "I just bought a desk for my home computer. The problem that I have is that I have a dual monitor set-up, and I would like to be able to add on another computer to the set-up (laptop with full docking station with additional monitor). Most desks I have found tend to be set up exclusively for single monitor set-ups. The other two limitations were size and budget. As the desk was going to have to go into my (already crowded) bedroom, I did not want it to take over. In addition, I did not want to put down a grand on a computer desk. That is currently worth more than my main computer!" What solutions for multi-monitor desks have you found?

"I looked into Anthro Desks and Biomorph Desks and decided that they were out of my price range. I finally settled on Ikea's Jerker workstation (no picture available online that I have seen). Some of the things I like about it is that the height is adjustable (granted you have to take the desk apart to change that) and that I can add shelves on the side capable of holding up a 17" monitor.

I have had it a couple of weeks and like it, but wondered what solutions other people found.

In addition, what solution have Slashdot readers come up with for the hundreds of cables that currently reside under and behind computer desks everywhere?

I was also reading the article about quiet PCs and saw the reference to APC UPS's. I have been looking at them, and found that Tripp Lite UPS's tend to be cheaper and work better with the Mac OS. What experiences do Slashdot people have with different UPS's?"

hillct writes: "Yesterday the House Committee on Science received newly released cyber security recommendations from Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore, III of the Gilmore Commission. Most disturbing among these recommendations was a call for "Establishment of a special 'Cyber Court' patterned after the court established in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"." See also the Wired story. Do we really need another secret, unaccountable court?

Lagos writes "In July Darwin developers at Apple had a call for questions. Their answers were posted on Monday and may be found here. There is some discussion of Apple's place within the Open Source community, though most of the questions answered are more technical." Along the same Darwinian lines, this submission came in: Maktoo writes "Maccentral is reporting that SourceForge.net has added PowerMac G4 Servers running MacOS X 10.1 into their Compile Farm. Now any apps you have going on SourceForge, you can test to see if it'll run on OS X! Gotta love that BSD heritage... OS X is already going to benefit greatly from all the apps it can use in the UNIX/Linux space. This just makes life easier for developers to bring even more."

Phil Bewig writes: "Results of the 2001 ICFP Programming Contest (previously mentioned at SlashDot here and here) have been announced. First place is to a program in Haskell, second place is to a program in Dylan, and the judges' prize is to a program in Erlang. The judges also named third place (ocaml) and fourth place (C) entries that were not awarded prizes. ICFP Programming Contest pages for prior years are available: 2000, 1999, and 1998."

jeffredd writes: "Two researchers at Cornell are predicting high-temperature, nearly resistance free, superconducters made of an exotic combination of silver and fluorine. The main thrust of their theory seems to revolve around the fact that even though fluoroargentates have not been found to have superconducting properties, they are very similar to oxocuprates which set the high-temp record back in 1993. This is for the hard-core physics buffs. You can read the details here"

gdon writes: "So you are the best and fastest coder in town? Take a chance to exhibit your skills and maybe win a prize at the 4th ICFP programming contest at the International Conference on Functional Programming. The programming challenge task will be published on July 26, 2001 at 15:00 UTC and program submission ends 72 hours later." Check out the previous contests: 1998, 1999, or 2000.

capt.Hij submitted this interesting story about the growing amount of corporate-sponsored research at public universities. The Bayh-Dole Act (see here too), passed in 1980, allowed research performed with public money to be patented by private companies, so we're paying most of the bills, the companies are reaping all the profits and in the process, corrupting the research as well.

Arthur Phillip Dent writes: "News.com is running a story about IE6 being the first browser to implement the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) standard. Bad news for Doubleclick et. al., that is unless it's just /.ers using the features! This will get real interesting if lusers' using it with sites that do not post P3P policies (and thereby blocking sites from setting cookies, for example) creates any kind of unrest/discussion about the exchange of marketing data for content and functionality." One thing no one writing about IE6 seems to note: Microsoft has carefully arranged their MSN cookie setting technique to avoid being blocked by their own browser - they bounce people through msn.com to log in to any Microsoft property, so it's always a "first-party" cookie being sent/placed.

Ant writes "http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/98/2.5.98/an t.html The pheromone trail laid down by an Aphaenogaster rudis ant, to help the ant and its recruited nest mates find their way back to prey they plan to kill, contains a chemical now undergoing clinical trials as a possible Alzheimer's disease treatment, Cornell chemists report in the January 1998 issue of the German journal Naturwissenschaften. Anabaseine, whose chemical analog GTS-21 stimulates the nicotine receptor sites in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and helps reduce memory loss, is one of four components found by Cornell researchers in secretions from the poison glands of A. rudis ants, a common species in the Northeast United States."

satch89450 writes: "The Electronic Telegraph says here that President Bush has retired his electronic mail habit, citing FOIA access. As a point in fact, The New York Times reportedly obtained a copy of the farewell e-letter to 42 of Bush's friends. Just how bad can it get? Here is an old news report from The Associated Press via amarillonet of an auction of the 1992 e-mail to John Glenn. Privacy advocates should be scared ..." And an Anonymous Coward who points to the same article asks: "Whatever happened to the right of the people to be secure in their ... papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?" Good question -- what did happen to that?

Last Saturday a comment was posted here by an anonymous reader that contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. They have since followed the DMCA and demanded that we remove the comment. While Slashdot is an open forum and we encourage free discussion and sharing of ideas, our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down. Read on to understand what this means.

This is the first time since we instituted our moderation system that a comment has had to be removed because of its content, and believe me nobody is more broken hearted about it than me. It's a bad precedent, and a blow for the freedom of speech that we all share in this forum. But this simply doesn't look like a case we can win. Our lawyers tell us that it appears to be a violation of Copyright law, and under the terms of the DMCA, we must remove it. Else we risk legal action that would at best be expensive, and potentially cause Slashdot to go down temporarily or even permanently. At the worst, court orders could jeporadize your privacy, and we would be helpless to stop it.

We need to choose our battles and this isn't one we want to have. We want Slashdot to be a forum where you can say what's in your heart, but we simply can't defend an anonymous poster who violates copyright law. Keep that in mind when you post in both this discussion, and in others in the future. Post your ideas. Post your thoughts. And most of all, post your links. We need to play by the rules or it's game over.

Now there is the matter of this specific comment. It contained a text called "OT III", part of what is known as the Fishman Affidavit. This text is Copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. In compliance with the DMCA, we are removing it from Slashdot. In its place we are putting non-copyrighted text: Links to websites about the church of Scientology, as well as links to how you can contact your congressman about the DMCA. Thanks a lot to Jamie for putting this together.

First of all, we would like to point out that the text of OT III is available at many other places on the web. To many to list here in fact. Instead, try a Google search on "OT III" and "Fishman", which as of this writing (March 2001) returns over 250 pages. A broader search on AltaVista returns over 2,000 webpages.

Operating in the jurisdiction of the Dutch courts, Karin Spaink's Fishman Affidavit webpage has fended off two lawsuits from Scientology, one in 1996 and one in 1999. The latter suit, according to the page, is still being appealed. >From the link listed just above, you can click through to the Fishman Affidavit, which contains links to not only to an annotated copy of OT III, but to the documents on the other OT levels as well, number one through the disputed number eight.

If you would like a plain English explanation of OT III, see OT III Rewritten For Beginners, by Jon Atack. Its author is a former Scientologist who himself completed level OT III. The webpage contains nothing copyrighted by a Scientology organization. It is an explanation of what OT III says and what that means, along with commentary by the author. Jon Atack is also the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, which is a history of Scientology from before its founding to after L. Ron Hubbard's death. At the above link, you can either purchase it, or read it in its entirety online.

If you are interested in Scientology, you will want to visit Operation Clambake, at xenu.net. It seems to be the most important central resource for information on the organization.

You may also want to visit the Lisa McPherson Memorial Page, which claims that "Lisa died needlessly at the hands of Scientology." Her case is truly a tragic one and she deserves to be remembered. The site has a great deal of information on her death. Related is The Lisa McPherson Trust, which has not only information about Lisa, but a very large archive of interviews, court transcripts, news reports, testimonials, and videos about Scientology.

Here's a Slashdot story last year on eBay removing auctions for e-meters based on the Church of Scientology DMCA copyright allegations, which is odd because Copyright law doesn't cover a physical device.

If there's anything else about Scientology you want to know, you will want to see AltReligionScientology.org, which contains a huge list of links to all the sites I don't have room to list here.

The DMCA is actually five separate modifications to copyright law. Its Title I is known for providing legal protection for "technological measures" (typically encryption) which prevent copying; this is the part that empowered the MPAA to sue over DeCSS, to name the best-known example.

That's not the part that concerns us here; Title II is its other major modification of copyright law and that's what we're dealing with. Title II created 17 U.S.C. Section 512, and we're specifically looking at our liability under paragraphs (c)(1)(A), which says we have to act "expeditiously to remove or disable access to the [infringing] material." Here's the U.S. Copyright Office's 18-page summary of the DMCA as a whole. If 18 pages is too long for you, here's the American Library Association's much quicker summary

Here's a list of resources on the DMCA, including the DMCA itself in PDF format. The EFF page on the DCMA seems to relate mostly to Title I, the anti-encryption-circumvention portion, but it's too good not to mention anyway.

Don't know who your Congressperson or Senators are? That's OK, now's as good a time as any to learn. Finding your Senators is easy, just go to Senate.gov. To find your Representative, you just need your zip code. You can use the form on the website to write them if you're lazy, but if you want your message to have more impact, print it out and send it in a real envelope. Anything's better than nothing, though.

When you write, you'll want to write something they'll read. Here are the ACLU's tips for writing to your Congressperson or Senators.

Last Saturday a comment was posted here by an anonymous reader that contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. They have since followed the DMCA and demanded that we remove the comment. While Slashdot is an open forum and we encourage free discussion and sharing of ideas, our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down. Read on to understand what this means.

This is the first time since we instituted our moderation system that a comment has had to be removed because of its content, and believe me nobody is more broken hearted about it than me. It's a bad precedent, and a blow for the freedom of speech that we all share in this forum. But this simply doesn't look like a case we can win. Our lawyers tell us that it appears to be a violation of Copyright law, and under the terms of the DMCA, we must remove it. Else we risk legal action that would at best be expensive, and potentially cause Slashdot to go down temporarily or even permanently. At the worst, court orders could jeporadize your privacy, and we would be helpless to stop it.

We need to choose our battles and this isn't one we want to have. We want Slashdot to be a forum where you can say what's in your heart, but we simply can't defend an anonymous poster who violates copyright law. Keep that in mind when you post in both this discussion, and in others in the future. Post your ideas. Post your thoughts. And most of all, post your links. We need to play by the rules or it's game over.

Now there is the matter of this specific comment. It contained a text called "OT III", part of what is known as the Fishman Affidavit. This text is Copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. In compliance with the DMCA, we are removing it from Slashdot. In its place we are putting non-copyrighted text: Links to websites about the church of Scientology, as well as links to how you can contact your congressman about the DMCA. Thanks a lot to Jamie for putting this together.

First of all, we would like to point out that the text of OT III is available at many other places on the web. To many to list here in fact. Instead, try a Google search on "OT III" and "Fishman", which as of this writing (March 2001) returns over 250 pages. A broader search on AltaVista returns over 2,000 webpages.

Operating in the jurisdiction of the Dutch courts, Karin Spaink's Fishman Affidavit webpage has fended off two lawsuits from Scientology, one in 1996 and one in 1999. The latter suit, according to the page, is still being appealed. >From the link listed just above, you can click through to the Fishman Affidavit, which contains links to not only to an annotated copy of OT III, but to the documents on the other OT levels as well, number one through the disputed number eight.

If you would like a plain English explanation of OT III, see OT III Rewritten For Beginners, by Jon Atack. Its author is a former Scientologist who himself completed level OT III. The webpage contains nothing copyrighted by a Scientology organization. It is an explanation of what OT III says and what that means, along with commentary by the author. Jon Atack is also the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, which is a history of Scientology from before its founding to after L. Ron Hubbard's death. At the above link, you can either purchase it, or read it in its entirety online.

If you are interested in Scientology, you will want to visit Operation Clambake, at xenu.net. It seems to be the most important central resource for information on the organization.

You may also want to visit the Lisa McPherson Memorial Page, which claims that "Lisa died needlessly at the hands of Scientology." Her case is truly a tragic one and she deserves to be remembered. The site has a great deal of information on her death. Related is The Lisa McPherson Trust, which has not only information about Lisa, but a very large archive of interviews, court transcripts, news reports, testimonials, and videos about Scientology.

Here's a Slashdot story last year on eBay removing auctions for e-meters based on the Church of Scientology DMCA copyright allegations, which is odd because Copyright law doesn't cover a physical device.

If there's anything else about Scientology you want to know, you will want to see AltReligionScientology.org, which contains a huge list of links to all the sites I don't have room to list here.

The DMCA is actually five separate modifications to copyright law. Its Title I is known for providing legal protection for "technological measures" (typically encryption) which prevent copying; this is the part that empowered the MPAA to sue over DeCSS, to name the best-known example.

That's not the part that concerns us here; Title II is its other major modification of copyright law and that's what we're dealing with. Title II created 17 U.S.C. Section 512, and we're specifically looking at our liability under paragraphs (c)(1)(A), which says we have to act "expeditiously to remove or disable access to the [infringing] material." Here's the U.S. Copyright Office's 18-page summary of the DMCA as a whole. If 18 pages is too long for you, here's the American Library Association's much quicker summary

Here's a list of resources on the DMCA, including the DMCA itself in PDF format. The EFF page on the DCMA seems to relate mostly to Title I, the anti-encryption-circumvention portion, but it's too good not to mention anyway.

Don't know who your Congressperson or Senators are? That's OK, now's as good a time as any to learn. Finding your Senators is easy, just go to Senate.gov. To find your Representative, you just need your zip code. You can use the form on the website to write them if you're lazy, but if you want your message to have more impact, print it out and send it in a real envelope. Anything's better than nothing, though.

When you write, you'll want to write something they'll read. Here are the ACLU's tips for writing to your Congressperson or Senators.

darrint asks: "I'm about to write yet another application with parts on different boxes and OS's and languages. Some of my server apps need to be fault tolerant and/or support load balancing. I've worked so far with CORBA and have also looked at the features of XML-RPC and Ensemble. I see two different approaches: remote procedure calls and messaging. Can anyone enlighten me as to the less obvious consequences of choosing one approach over the other? I'm particularly interested in how the approaches support fault tolerance."

shyam writes: "An international team of eight "satellite hunters," astronomers who pluck tiny specks of light out of the distant solar system, has discovered four new outer moons of Saturn orbiting at least 15 million kilometers (more than 9 million miles) from the surface of the giant planet. The discovery gives Saturn a total of 22 known moons, surpassing the 21 orbiting Uranus. Nothing is known about the four new moons except for their brightness. Estimates of their size -- between 10 and 50 kilometers (6-30 miles) across -- are based on assumptions of their reflectivity. Observed from Earth-bound observatories, the moons appear as faint dots of light moving around the planet. ( [Full] article)."

kchayer writes "JWZ ^[?] 's current obsession includes an audio webcast. Recently he added to the site a description of what it takes to broadcast music over the Internet. Makes for an interesting read, and a good summary of the DPRA, DMCA, their relationship with the RIAA, and other issues involving music copyright and the recording industry in general. His summary at the end says it best: "What's going on here is that the music industry establishment are absolutely terrified of the internet...and are trying to ^[?] force things to continue to be done as if turn-of-the-century technology was all we had to work with.""

bl968 writes: "Zdnet has an article entitled "Why the world needs reverse engineers." The article covers among many things the Cuecat barcode scanner and some of the reason the hardware or software manufacturers dislike reverse engineering of their products. Privacy violating serial numbers anyone? Security problems and the DMCA are also touched upon."

bl968 writes "Wired has an excellent article entitled "Fear of a Pay-Per-Use World" on the upcoming Librarian of Congress decision on granting exceptions to the DMCA anti circumvention provisions. The DMCA, which was enacted in 1998, bans the circumvision of technical protection measures like encryption systems and other methods designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. When the DMCA was passed it contained, a delay to the date the anti-circumvention provisions take effect. This delay is about up and your comments are needed"

The European Union appears ready to shrug and say "OK" to the AOL / Time-Warner merger, while a reader brings us sad and totally unrelated news for game fans. A (plausible, but complete?) explanation of the upcoming PS/2 Crisis, if you view it as such. Also, didja ever wonder how big a trophy it takes to fit 15 syllables? Read on, read on -- it's Slashback.

"Heck, gentleman, what right have we got to approve anyhow?" WPL510 writes: "Just saw this article on Yahoo! about the AOL-TW merger. Apparently all the begging and pleading did something because the EU is about to approve their mega-merger. One concession they didn't mention was opening up AIM, of course. Great -- all we need is a bigger monopoly."

This too shall pass. Lord_Macblaster writes "The GameFan Network is no longer hosting sites. Many sites, including VoodooExtreme and my own site, Monolithic Illusions are nothing but dead links now. It's a real shame. Plenty of top notch sites were shut down. Not major news yet, but info is available here on PlanetCrap, and here on Lum The Mad."

This is the kind of thing that could get me into gaming. nomadic writes: " Electronic News reports that the PS2 shortage (mentioned before on Slashdot) may actually be DVD-related. Some analysts point to a shortage in DVD drive parts that has been affecting the notebook industry as well, but others suggest that it might be their lax CSS security.

Guess the MPAA leaning on them wouldn't be too implausible, but it's interesting if you consider that Sony's a member of that august body. Wonder how much flak they got from their brethren over the DVD copy protection workaround that Japanese gamers found earlier this year."

Another thing that could get me into gaming -- TheMyth writes: "It appears the Vivid Entertainment Group, is trying to release interactive adult movies for the Playstation 2. Read the article here that tells it all. -- I can't wait to see the field day that our government reps are gonna have with this one. Is this another "targeting adult content to kids case" or is it "targeting adult content to adults that play video games"? Censorship here we come ..."

Giving competition a good name again. An unnamed correspondent points to the results of the century's last ICFP programming contest. ICFP stands for a real mouthful: "International Conference on Functional Programming." "This year, functional languages take all the prizes; OCAML gets 1st and 2nd place, Haskell 3rd, Mercury 4th, and the judges' prize (for best image) goes to a SML/NJ team."

Battling giants has its rewards. GoldSkin writes: "The Digital Divas have reached an out-of-court settlement against Microsoft and their Digital Diva site. You may recall this article from way back in May." From their site: "In the simplest terms, Microsoft's Stacy Elliot will no longer be known as the 'Digital Diva' and Microsoft will no longer use digitaldiva.com in connection with content like that formerly available at that site. Also, in accordance with our settlement agreement, Microsoft has posted a notice at digitaldiva.com. Please visit and see for yourself."

Woody77 asks: "I'm somewhat familiar with the Magnussen-Moss Act of 1975, which is mainly about warranties, but also mentions that you can't link one product to another. The wording, in typical lawyer-fashion, is vague. But it boils down to stating that you can't tie one product/service to another. It was mainly put together to handle situations as aftermarket parts being added to a car, and a dealer trying to claim the warranty is void for doing so. Now the question is: How does the Magnussen-Moss Act pertain to DVDs? It seems to me they are trying to tie one product (DVD Players) with another (DVDs). They both use the same technology, and are a natural pair, but why can't I use my DVDs elsewhere?" This raises the point: are DVDs covered by the Magnussen-Moss Act, or was there some legal maneuvering performed to make them exempt? If they aren't exempt, then what law allows the MPAA to tie DVDs and DVD Players together?

jsarnat writes "A recent Ask Slashdot revealed revealed that there are indeed many programming language bigots (myself included) who read Slashdot. What better way to prove that your favorite language is the best one there is than to win the Third Annual ICFP Programming Contest? The contest doesn't start until August 26th, but they encourage you to register soon. Prizes include: `cash awards, famous texts on functional languages donated and autographed by the authors, and, of course, unlimited bragging rights.'"

jsarnat writes "A recent Ask Slashdot revealed revealed that there are indeed many programming language bigots (myself included) who read Slashdot. What better way to prove that your favorite language is the best one there is than to win the Third Annual ICFP Programming Contest? The contest doesn't start until August 26th, but they encourage you to register soon. Prizes include: `cash awards, famous texts on functional languages donated and autographed by the authors, and, of course, unlimited bragging rights.'"

b0nk3d asks: "Hi, I work at a computer lab and would like to set up a remote login cluster. I have 4 Pentium Pro and I'm running Storm Linux on them. Do you think it'd be efficient to do a load balancing schema or a process sharing cluster? Also are there any recommended distributed file systems that would work well with small 2-6 gig drives that these machines have so that I could create a virtual volume?"

SEWilco writes: "This Discovery.com item points out a new estimate of 900 asteroids in orbits closer than Mars. Cornell University's William Bottke did a new study of The Spacewatch Project's small-object search. This estimate says that we've found 40% of the nearby asteroids. Well, I'm glad that we've started looking before a disaster, unlike 'Rendezvous With Rama'." Or "Lucifer's Hammer."