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Stories and comments across the archive that link to davenjudy.org.
Stories · 9
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RIAA, Safenet Sued For Malicious Prosecution
DaveAtFraud writes "Tanya Anderson, the single mother from Oregon previously sued by the RIAA — which dropped the case just before losing a summary judgement — is now suing the RIAA and their hired snoop Safenet for malicious prosecution. (Safenet was formerly known as MediaSentry.) Anderson is asserting claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. A reader at Groklaw has already picked up that she is seeking to have the RIAA forfeit the copyrights in question as part of the settlement (search the page for '18.6-7')." -
Online Porn - The Technology Testbed?
DaveAtFraud writes "USA Today is running a only slightly tongue-in-cheek article pointing out that the on-line porn industry has become the technology testbed for innovative content delivery. On-line delivery of 'adult' content has been wrestling with issues such as digital rights management, video on-demand billing, wireless services, and geo-location software since long before these became issues for 'mainstream' content providers. Maybe having an adult content provider listed on your geek resume isn't so bad after all." -
DMA Disputes "Lost Taxes" Numbers
DaveAtFraud writes "The Direct Marketing association (DMA) has released a study (PDF only) showing that the amount of tax revenue supposedly 'lost' by the states due to on-line sales has been significantly overstated. Proponents of online taxes quote several University of Tennessee studies which found states missed out on $13.3 billion in 2001 collections. In contrast to UT's claim, the DMA's study says the figure was closer to $1.9 billion. And while UT finds states could be stiffed by $55 billion in 2011, the DMA claims it's more like $4.5 billion. You get the picture (I wonder where UT gets its funding? It wouldn't be the state of Tennessee by any chance would it?). The DMA study points out flawed growth assumptions and outright falsehoods (e.g., counting certain business-to-business transactions that actually did create tax revenue for the state in its count of missed taxes) in the UT studies that cast a shadow of doubt on the UT studies' validity." -
Red Hat Advanced Server Gets DoD COE Certification
DaveAtFraud writes "CNET is reporting that Red Hat Advanced server has been certified as a 'Common Operating Environment' (COE) when running on an IBM server by the U.S. Department of Defense. Red Hat Advanced Server is the first version of Linux to receive this certification. The certification clears the way for broader use of Linux in governement computer systems. Its interesting to note that the certification effort was made for the more proprietary (and costlier) Red Hat Advanced Server and not the basic Red Hat distribution." This despite the best efforts of certain lobbyists. -
Why The Dinosaurs Won't Die
DaveAtFraud writes "Ace's Hardware has a nice introductory article to the animal that will not die: The Mainframe. Ever wonder why these things are still around and what makes them different from a PC or UNIX box? The article is IBM-centric so there's no discussion of say the CDC Cyber series but when most people don't even believe that mainframes exist anymore, what the hay, let's disabuse them of that notion first. Hopefully, the author will follow up with the additional promised articles that go into more technical detail but this is a good place to start. I wonder if they still make card readers, too?" This guide came out last month, but it's worth looking through, even just for the pictures. -
Hearing on Hollywood Hacking Bill
DaveAtFraud writes "CNN says that Hilary Rosen and the RIAA are once again lobbying Congress for the right to sabotage P2P networks. Of course, Hilary says that the RIAA wouldn't abuse this capability. Luckily, some of the lawmakers are dubious. Also, Rep. Rick Boucher asked, 'What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?' and pointed out that overzealous attempts to enforce existing copyright law had all too often targetted legitimate postings." There's also a News.com story. -
Meet the Spammers
DaveAtFraud writes: "It took a little digging to find an on-line copy of this article that I first saw in my treeware daily newspaper. Thanks to the Salt Lake City Tribune for having it on-line. According to the Spamhaus project, a handful of people are responsible for 90% of the spam that clogs you in box. This is your chace to hear from them and what they have to say is quite interesting. If you don't think the filters and blacklists work, one spammer whines, "My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters." Stopping spam is simply a matter of economics. When its uneconomical to send spam, people will stop sending it." -
Kernel 2.5.22
DaveAtFraud writes "The latest experimental Linux kernel (2.5.22) is out. The somewhat massive changelog has the details. The patch file is here and the full source is here. If possible use a mirror. I never got 2.5.21 to get beyond single user mode on my dualie so hopefully 2.5.22 will fix that." -
Sunset Clauses in Software
DaveAtFraud writes: "Ed Foster over at InfoWorld has an interesting column on "sunset" clauses in commercial software. I don't have a problem with people who write, say, anti-virus software charging for a "subscription" to their virus signature update service. I am paying for something of value to me and it costs them something to maintain this data. I do have a problem with the same people extracting a little extra "squeeze" every couple of years and forcing me to learn yet another user interface just because they have decided that the old one looks little dated. Somehow, I don't buy (no pun intended) that their engine for scanning a byte stream has changed again."