Domain: digitalspeech.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to digitalspeech.org.
Stories · 10
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"Super-DMCA" Bills In Tennessee and Arkansas
David Turner writes "Tomorrow, Tennessee's Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on two nearly identical DMCA-like bills. These bills threaten personal privacy, anonymity, and security research. SB 213 and HB457 are similar to state laws introduced all over the country by the MPAA. Despite amendments, the bills still threaten digital freedom. Last month, twenty people showed up at the Massachusetts public hearing, and effectively opposed the one MPAA lobbyist. If you attend, speak from notes rather than simply reading a statement (but you may be able to submit written testimony). Please come to Legislative Plaza in Nashville, rooms 12 and 14 at 3:30pm." And Kraken137 writes "The House and Senate of the Arkansas state legislature have passed the MPAA's "Super-DMCA" Bill, and it is now sitting on the Governor's desk awaiting his signature. It's not too late to convince him to veto this bill! Arkansas residents are urged to contact the Governor's office to express their opposition to this violation of rights. The ever-vigilant EFF has a page where residents can send a fax to Governor Huckabee's office to let their voices be heard. Remember, paper and phone calls make more of a difference than emails!" -
Stanford Researchers Trying to Protect P2P Networks
dirvish writes "New Scientist has a story about efforts from researchers at Stanford to protect peer to peer networks from attacks that could be permitted by the proposed Berman Bill. Neil Daswani and Hector Garcia-Molina of the Database Research Department at Stanford University have mathematically modeled the Gnutella network to discriminate between nodes and supernodes. They then tested the nodes to find which rules could be applied to best avoid a malicious node on the network thus conserving bandwidth." -
RMS Urges Opposition to "Trusted Computing"
Andy Tai writes "In this Newsforge article, Richard Stallman analyzes the "Trusted Computing" initiative and Microsoft's Palladium, points out that such initiatives are really means to ensure your computer can be trusted by Microsoft and Hollywood (you can't do things they don't want), and urges computer users to organize, to support the Public Knowledge and the Digital Speech projects and to use their consumer power to block "Trusted Computing" in its tracks." -
BPDG Not Much Of A Threat?
Captn Pepe writes: "According to this article in the NY Times, the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group could be less dangerous to consumer freedoms than has been suggested, because they apparently can't agree on anything. As happened with SDMI and similar efforts by the content industry to cram restrictions into digital devices, 'the central stumbling block to arriving at a broad agreement on the proposal may simply have been a bid by the studios for too much control over carrying it out.'" Read below for a related but very different take on the state of the BPDG.DigForFiles writes "It seems that the media companies and the tech companies may be near an agreement concerning fair use of digital broadcasts. Apparently the basic plan is FOX's and is to have broadcast programs be digitally flagged by the media guys and the tech guys are responsible for building all home digital recorders so that they recognize the flags. Consumers would be able to record the broadcasts for home use and data transfers within their local LAN but the flags would prohibit the transfer of recorded data outside the household. Thus they hope to prevent P2P networks from trading the broadcasts online while allowing fair use within the household. Some of the presentation material can be found here. The guys in charge, Copy Protection Technical Working Group, meet on 5 June for further discussions. A list of attendees can be found here (it's in Excel format)."
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Slashback: Pricedrops, Honor, Games
Slashback (below) is chock full of updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot stories, including some good news for AMD fans, and a last drizzle of news from E3.Making your computer worth even less. Acid-F1ux writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has slashed prices of its desktop and mobile Athlon processors just days after a similar move by rival Intel. The cuts range from 17 percent to 52 percent for mobile Athlon XP chips and between 11 percent and 32 percent for desktop Athlon XP chips. On Sunday, Intel dropped prices of its Pentium 4 processors by as much as 53 percent."
Progressive Education strikes a blow. darnellmc writes: "According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution news article GA Tech had so many students violate the school's "honor code" that they have decided to change it.
"In the wake of the investigation, Tech officials have decided to allow students in introductory computer science courses to share information and collaborate on homework, previously prohibited under the school's academic honor code."
Of course code sharing also teaches the value of Open Source ;o) . Maybe now some young Computer Science student can spend more time on developing a good overall program, instead of spending a bunch of time writing simple things like their own sorting routine."
How many letters will the next big threat have? matthew writes: "LWN is carrying the notes from the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) conference (more info at the EFF). The BPDG is the body that will be suggesting future technological control measures; they make the DMCA and CBDTPA seem like trivial problems. The BPDG conference was last week and it was open to the public so anyone could call in. You can read about what the FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn digitalspeech.org's Jonathan Watterson thought of the conference. The basic summary is that we're screwed if people don't start fighting against this kind of injustice."
This is what's called taking license. infochuck writes "Back in January, this story on Slashdot focused on Borland's licensing PR fiasco, and how they promised to remedy the situation (in short, their license permitted them to search at any time any of your computers looking for stolen software). Well, here we are, five months later, and their license hasn't changed one bit - at least not the two most unreasonable clauses, 12 and 14.4, and not in the license included with the Windows version of the Personal Edition. Download for yourself to see, but be warned, you'll have to register, which involves many questions and no less than 5 checkboxes to uncheck, as well as at least a 25MB DL. I believe pr@borland.com is still the place to write..."
Playful is good. If the last month of pre-hype hype, pre-hype, actual hype and post-hype weren't enough, you'll be pleased to read that E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
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Slashback: Pricedrops, Honor, Games
Slashback (below) is chock full of updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot stories, including some good news for AMD fans, and a last drizzle of news from E3.Making your computer worth even less. Acid-F1ux writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has slashed prices of its desktop and mobile Athlon processors just days after a similar move by rival Intel. The cuts range from 17 percent to 52 percent for mobile Athlon XP chips and between 11 percent and 32 percent for desktop Athlon XP chips. On Sunday, Intel dropped prices of its Pentium 4 processors by as much as 53 percent."
Progressive Education strikes a blow. darnellmc writes: "According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution news article GA Tech had so many students violate the school's "honor code" that they have decided to change it.
"In the wake of the investigation, Tech officials have decided to allow students in introductory computer science courses to share information and collaborate on homework, previously prohibited under the school's academic honor code."
Of course code sharing also teaches the value of Open Source ;o) . Maybe now some young Computer Science student can spend more time on developing a good overall program, instead of spending a bunch of time writing simple things like their own sorting routine."
How many letters will the next big threat have? matthew writes: "LWN is carrying the notes from the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) conference (more info at the EFF). The BPDG is the body that will be suggesting future technological control measures; they make the DMCA and CBDTPA seem like trivial problems. The BPDG conference was last week and it was open to the public so anyone could call in. You can read about what the FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn digitalspeech.org's Jonathan Watterson thought of the conference. The basic summary is that we're screwed if people don't start fighting against this kind of injustice."
This is what's called taking license. infochuck writes "Back in January, this story on Slashdot focused on Borland's licensing PR fiasco, and how they promised to remedy the situation (in short, their license permitted them to search at any time any of your computers looking for stolen software). Well, here we are, five months later, and their license hasn't changed one bit - at least not the two most unreasonable clauses, 12 and 14.4, and not in the license included with the Windows version of the Personal Edition. Download for yourself to see, but be warned, you'll have to register, which involves many questions and no less than 5 checkboxes to uncheck, as well as at least a 25MB DL. I believe pr@borland.com is still the place to write..."
Playful is good. If the last month of pre-hype hype, pre-hype, actual hype and post-hype weren't enough, you'll be pleased to read that E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
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Slashback: Pricedrops, Honor, Games
Slashback (below) is chock full of updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot stories, including some good news for AMD fans, and a last drizzle of news from E3.Making your computer worth even less. Acid-F1ux writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has slashed prices of its desktop and mobile Athlon processors just days after a similar move by rival Intel. The cuts range from 17 percent to 52 percent for mobile Athlon XP chips and between 11 percent and 32 percent for desktop Athlon XP chips. On Sunday, Intel dropped prices of its Pentium 4 processors by as much as 53 percent."
Progressive Education strikes a blow. darnellmc writes: "According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution news article GA Tech had so many students violate the school's "honor code" that they have decided to change it.
"In the wake of the investigation, Tech officials have decided to allow students in introductory computer science courses to share information and collaborate on homework, previously prohibited under the school's academic honor code."
Of course code sharing also teaches the value of Open Source ;o) . Maybe now some young Computer Science student can spend more time on developing a good overall program, instead of spending a bunch of time writing simple things like their own sorting routine."
How many letters will the next big threat have? matthew writes: "LWN is carrying the notes from the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) conference (more info at the EFF). The BPDG is the body that will be suggesting future technological control measures; they make the DMCA and CBDTPA seem like trivial problems. The BPDG conference was last week and it was open to the public so anyone could call in. You can read about what the FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn digitalspeech.org's Jonathan Watterson thought of the conference. The basic summary is that we're screwed if people don't start fighting against this kind of injustice."
This is what's called taking license. infochuck writes "Back in January, this story on Slashdot focused on Borland's licensing PR fiasco, and how they promised to remedy the situation (in short, their license permitted them to search at any time any of your computers looking for stolen software). Well, here we are, five months later, and their license hasn't changed one bit - at least not the two most unreasonable clauses, 12 and 14.4, and not in the license included with the Windows version of the Personal Edition. Download for yourself to see, but be warned, you'll have to register, which involves many questions and no less than 5 checkboxes to uncheck, as well as at least a 25MB DL. I believe pr@borland.com is still the place to write..."
Playful is good. If the last month of pre-hype hype, pre-hype, actual hype and post-hype weren't enough, you'll be pleased to read that E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
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Slashback: Pricedrops, Honor, Games
Slashback (below) is chock full of updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot stories, including some good news for AMD fans, and a last drizzle of news from E3.Making your computer worth even less. Acid-F1ux writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has slashed prices of its desktop and mobile Athlon processors just days after a similar move by rival Intel. The cuts range from 17 percent to 52 percent for mobile Athlon XP chips and between 11 percent and 32 percent for desktop Athlon XP chips. On Sunday, Intel dropped prices of its Pentium 4 processors by as much as 53 percent."
Progressive Education strikes a blow. darnellmc writes: "According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution news article GA Tech had so many students violate the school's "honor code" that they have decided to change it.
"In the wake of the investigation, Tech officials have decided to allow students in introductory computer science courses to share information and collaborate on homework, previously prohibited under the school's academic honor code."
Of course code sharing also teaches the value of Open Source ;o) . Maybe now some young Computer Science student can spend more time on developing a good overall program, instead of spending a bunch of time writing simple things like their own sorting routine."
How many letters will the next big threat have? matthew writes: "LWN is carrying the notes from the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) conference (more info at the EFF). The BPDG is the body that will be suggesting future technological control measures; they make the DMCA and CBDTPA seem like trivial problems. The BPDG conference was last week and it was open to the public so anyone could call in. You can read about what the FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn digitalspeech.org's Jonathan Watterson thought of the conference. The basic summary is that we're screwed if people don't start fighting against this kind of injustice."
This is what's called taking license. infochuck writes "Back in January, this story on Slashdot focused on Borland's licensing PR fiasco, and how they promised to remedy the situation (in short, their license permitted them to search at any time any of your computers looking for stolen software). Well, here we are, five months later, and their license hasn't changed one bit - at least not the two most unreasonable clauses, 12 and 14.4, and not in the license included with the Windows version of the Personal Edition. Download for yourself to see, but be warned, you'll have to register, which involves many questions and no less than 5 checkboxes to uncheck, as well as at least a 25MB DL. I believe pr@borland.com is still the place to write..."
Playful is good. If the last month of pre-hype hype, pre-hype, actual hype and post-hype weren't enough, you'll be pleased to read that E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
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Senate Committee Holds Webcasting Hearing
jonathanjo writes "Yesterday (5/15/02) the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled: "Copyright Royalties: Where is the Right Spot On The Dial For Webcasting." This was a review of the work of CARP, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, the group formed by the DMCA that has closed down webstreaming for many independent radio stations with new high fees and exhaustive reporting requirements. Representatives from RIAA, Digital Media Association, Arbitron, Real Networks, and Yahoo gave testimony, as well as people representing two independent Vermont webcasters, and the American Federation Of Television and Radio Artists. Senator Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) testimony was surprisingly sympathetic to small webcasters (especially by inviting two from his state to speak). Orrin Hatch gave the expected pro-DMCA boilerplate." -
FSF Offers Resource to Digital Speech
Bradley M. Kuhn writes "The Free Software Foundation is offering resources, including an staff organizer, to the Digital Speech Project. This project seeks to organize people against technology control laws, like the DMCA and the proposed SSSCA. The Digital Speech Project has a website here."