Slashdot Mirror

bdolan writes: "Today's San Jose Mercury News is reporting that Intel is going to put a 64 bit architecture extension in upcoming Pentiums if it turns out the Itanium doesn't take off. Hmm. Apparently they intend to only turn this on if AMD's 64 bit processor make major inroads against the Itanium architecture. Aren't we glad that competition is keeping everyone on their toes."

SVDave writes "Yesterday, Slashdot reported that SONICblue was going to start negotiating patent licensing with TiVo. It appears that SONICblue has switched strategies: today they've decided to sue TiVo for patent infringement. Given TiVo's patents on PVR technology, I would expect a quick countersuit, though SONICblue claims that ReplayTV does not infringe on any of TiVo's patents."

An anonymous reader submitted a story about the 10th anniversary of QuickTime which might not seem like such a big deal unless you set your mental wayback machine to 1991 and remember what we didn't have back then. Bits from Brian Eno and others. Worth reading.

angkor writes: "AP is reporting that the Mars Global Surveyor snapped its 100,000th picture of Mars. The Viking orbiters took about 55,000 total. Even better is that over 78,000 of the images are online in the (MOC Gallery). You get to click on a map of Mars to zoom into a specific region. Wow."

flipper28 asks: "I remember reading about Microsoft's forthcoming Solo2 chip over a year ago. Does anyone know what happened to it? Did it end up in UltimateTV, Xbox, or did it take the route of Microsoft Bob?" I've honestly never heard of such a thing. Anyone have a clue as to whether the Solo2 has become the latest in Microsoft's line of vapourware?

fredbox writes: "A Mercury News article reports Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and John Ashcroft have been meeting to discuss creation of a national ID database including fingerprints, facial scans, etc. Other supporters include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy. They claim these cards would be 'voluntary', much as the act of leaving your home or purchasing groceries are voluntary activities." Update: 10/18 01:48 GMT by M : Hah! btempleton writes: "Here is a prototype of Larry Ellison's new national ID card."

Ames Cornish writes: "The non-profit SDForum's Internet Security and Privacy group is sponsoring a panel on National Security versus Individual Privacy on Wednesday evening, Oct 17th in Silicon Valley. It includes representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the California Office of Emergency Services, KPMG Israel, and the Technology Editor from the San Jose Mercury News. The panel will address both sides of controversial topics including the 'Patriot' Act, Carnivore, encryption back-doors, and questions from the audience. This event is an excellent way to participate in intelligent debate about the role of technology in Homeland Security and Civil Liberties. Get your issues heard, and watch the sparks fly!"

Doctor_D writes "Well it looks like Intel has done it again. They have absorbed more processor engineers, this time from HP. Alpha is gone, PA-RISC is going, what's going to be left? MIPS? SPARC? AMD? Crusoe? "

Are We Afraid writes "Apparently the RIAA isn't the only one looking to make money off of MP3.com. They have just been sued by a group of independent artists for, get this, "viral copyright infringement". What does that even mean???" They claim that people who downloaded MP3s from mp3.com contributed them to napster, so MP3.com owes them. It's really bizarre.

mr_don't writes: "I just saw that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has just posted an Action Alert entitled "What YOU Can Do To Help Set Dmitry Sklyarov Free" ... Around 11am on August 6, 2001, at the San Jose Federal Building, Dmitry is set to have another bail hearing in front of Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante. Protests are planned to coincide with the hearing. I hope as many people as possible can come to the demonstration... Help the EFF pack the courtroom during the hearing." A short article in the Mercury News mentions the hearing too, as well as the half-million dollar, five-year penalty that could be imposed.

cprael writes: "According to San Jose Mercury article, the California Public Utilities Commission has ordered Northpoint to relight their network and provide all California customers service for 30 days. The intent being to allow them time to migrate to a new service in an orderly manner. This is probably the tip of the iceberg in terms of court actions - personally, I expect to see a lot of lawsuits aimed at Northpoint, the ISPs, and anyone else within reach over Northpoint's abrupt shutdown." It will also probably strike at the heart of arguments about how regulated (and by whom) ISPs ought to be.

OdinHuntr writes: "Newsforge has an article detailing Eazel's layoff of over 50% of its workforce. Quite a day, eh?" And GrokSoup writes: "According to News.com, Eazel laid off 40 employees today -- or more than half of its staff. The company says it is trying to get its "... burn rate and business plan in line with the more sober economic environment," but we all know what that means. Don't we?" Update: 03/14 03:20 AM by T : And on a slightly more positive note, Dan Gillmor writes: "Hey, I stopped by Eazel today and Andy H showed me a nifty (but as yet unreleased) RSS viewer that's an intelligent icon on the Nautilus desktop ... I posted a screen shot in today's weblog."

Slashback, the semi-regular attempt to bring some new light to old stories, continues briskly tonight with just a few items: clarification about words from RMS, early vacation plan reminders for anyone up for a little Wanderungenmitpenguinenborkborkbierdrinkinundsoweiter, and more on Deja. Deja.

Which way to America, please? After word of Microsoft Honcho Jim Allchin's (somewhat bizarre) words on Free software (later "clarified" by MS), we linked to a (preliminary) response to Allchin from RMS. Now RMS has himself issued a final version of his statement, here for your edification, passed on by Dan Gillmore, technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.

Very eloquent.Thanks, Dan.

And if you're not yet out of sparklers, pie, bunting or RAM, matthew writes: "Bradley M. Kuhn, the new Vice President of the Free Software Foundation, has an essay published here. It's a more personal answer to Microsoft's attack against the GPL."

Start flossing that stein and pressing those Lederhosen! Jetzt! Alex writes: "I'm proud to announce that we finally got it managed. The date is fixed. The Linuxbierwanderung 2001 (1) will take place from 25th of August to the 1st of September in Bouillon (2), Belgium. As the hall we get the upper floor of the Archeoscope (3), a museum direct in town. It's warm, dry, nice, with enough electricity and has up to some 20 ISDN-lines. To get things easier for you we added a lot of phonenumbers and addresses of camping sites and hotels on the webpage. See (4) to look for your favorite place. So, now it's time to register ! To register yourself, your family, your pets, your computers and your lectures see (5). Thank you for your attention, Cheers, Alex.

(1) The Linuxbierwanderung 2001
(2) Bouillon on the Net
(3) The Archeoscope
(4) Hotel Overview
(5) Join the Linuxbierwanderung and register !"

I wish this didn't sound suspiciously close to LinuxWorld (San Francisco) 2001, because a lot of people would probably like to go to both. Lucky Europeans;) How about one of these in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee? I'll bring the fireworks, you bring the moonshine ...

I would have stopped at Pizza-Nizza afterward ... Google bought Deja. RallyDriver sends a report from the coolest six-letter city on I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio (gulp -- covered my bases?).

"On Thursday at the Omni hotel here in Austin ^[?] , we had the now familiar wake: the auction. While the public was overbidding on everything from furniture to laptops, dual P3 VA FullOn servers were going for as low as $275 a piece.

The show, however, goes on. Rumors of unemployment levels in Austin are greatly exaggerated, and it seems like most of the Deja people are already moving on to new opportunities. If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.

Most of the server equipment (they still had the previous generation of equipment and the one before that) was picked up by junk dealers and resellers according to its vintage, but ironically a number of the rackmount boxes will be going right back where they came from -- Exodus Austin, where Deja was hosting, is also our co-lo provider."

smirkleton writes "The San Jose Mercury News has a story about the current struggles of CueCat manufacturer DigitalConvergence. One of several interesting factoids within the article: CueCat is trying to procure product endorsements from Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Lisa Simpson. Mr. Groening, for the love of Flanders, don't do it! 'The Simpsons' once dissed on Apple's Newton (hilariously)- and it had an actual purpose and loyal following. Endorsing this utterly useless and universally despised advertising toy would constitute a sellout of Dilbertian proportions."

Rix writes "CNN has another story about NEAR. Apparently, they've extended the mission again - until Feb 28th - to gather even more data. They also have a simulation of NEAR's descent. Unfortunately in QT, so I can't comment on it." And a short update to the balloon story posted just few hours ago: it popped.

Thanks to Dan Gillmor for pointing out RMS' response to the commentary from Microsoft's Allchin recently. The comments are pretty normal for RMS - the delineation between Open Source and the Free Software Movement, and what the differences are, as well as his non-opinion of "intellectual property". I've been notified that this response was a draft of RMS' - we'll update it with the final when it's ready.

twivel writes "This Yahoo article clarifies their position. It is not "open source" software that "destroys intellectual property", but in fact it's the GNU General Public License that does. I can't wait for RMS' response. " What's interesting is their retroactive clarification that it's about taxpayer-supported software - a silly assurance, IMHO. Why? Because taxpayer software should be kept open - we paid for it, we should be able to use it. Locking it up into companies is not the answer - but Microsoft at least acknowledges other potentials, like the BSD license ^[?] . Check out Dan Gillmor's take on this - well done.

How to get a cheap, slick box that can run NetBSD; more on what went down under there, down under thanks to modern Rennaisance man Marc Merlin; and a note from the world of corporate English. Read on, soldier.

But are there any good submarine games for it? Tairan writes: "In an effort to sell off 2 million Dreamcasts before jumping out of the hardware business, Sega has lowered the prices of Dreamcasts to $99.00. If you don't already have one, better get down to your local gaming store now!"

Frankly, I'd really rather have an Aeron chair The tri-voweled reader nettdata writes: "Remember this old article that talked about a dot-commer including a Lego desk in his contract? Well, I think I've found the guy! Sun's Dot Com Builder page is doing a feature article on Blue Nile, and the picture in the article shows their CTO sitting at a Lego Desk.

Look here[1][, then look here[2] and tell me they aren't the same!"

Mr. Harshbarger's work continues to amaze, astound and befuddle. Where are all the Lincoln Log sculptures, and desks made of bright yellow Tonka truck metal?

Tell me again how sheep's bladders may be used to prevent earthquakes ... Geoffrey S. Zub of Vistaource passed on that company's Official Word on the Applix spinoff, which he says "can be attributed to Allison Antalek, Marketing Communications." It reads thus:

"In December 2000 the Company entered into discussions with several possible buyers and expects to consummate a divestiture or otherwise discontinue the business in the first quarter of 2001.

If you have consistently followed VistaSource through 2000, you will recall two key announcements:

• April 24th press release launching VistaSource as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Applix.
• October 19th press release announcing the engagement of FAC/Equities to explore strategic alternatives for VistaSource, including its possible divestiture.

VistaSource has been on a path to divest from Applix throughout the year 2000. In December, this culminated in discussions with possible buyers. The term 'discontinued operations' is a common legal and finance term used in these situations and should not raise concern about VistaSource's long term viability. Our Anyware offering is a leading technology from which we offer customizable, web-enabled, server centric, real-time solutions, and we will continue to focus our business to grow in this market segment. The exercises over the past twelve months have further focused our business on our key differentiators as we look to grow to prominence in 2001. We look forward to your continued support and to your business in the future.

Best Regards,
Allison Antalek
Marketing Communications
VistaSource, Inc."

Pop quiz, no cheating: Would you be likely to buy a new car from a company that had just "discontinued operations"?

Please don't throw another penguin on the barbie, 'K, mate? Last but not least, the indefatiguable Marc Merlin posted word of his newest wrap-up / conference report, with pictures, of the recent linux.conf.au 2001. Marc braved jetlag, the dangers of flying, and proximity to dangerous creatures like kangaroos and awful jellyfish to bring you these pictures and words, but he's dedicated. (Check out his license plate for proof.) As his report puts it, "If you noticed the absence of Showfloor pictures, it's simply because there was no Showfloor. This was a hacker's conference, not a tradeshow, and I'd say that it was just as well." Some great pix in here! Thanks, Marc.

Johnathan Swift writes "As one of the biggest of the big on the Internet, Yahoo! is hardly a favorite of those Slashdot folks who like their net small and personal. Yet among its competition as a mega-portal -- AOL and MSN -- Yahoo! is different, and not just because it relies on free software like FreeBSD and Linux. This article in the San Jose Mercury News claims that, unlike the others, it still serves as a portal to the greater Internet rather than the "walled gardens" of AOL or MSN that try to isolate people from the rest of the net. If Yahoo! should merge with or be acquired by a media company like Disney or Viacom, it, too, would become such a walled garden, and the Internet would be that much closer to control by a few large corporations."

Johnathan Swift writes "As one of the biggest of the big on the Internet, Yahoo! is hardly a favorite of those Slashdot folks who like their net small and personal. Yet among its competition as a mega-portal -- AOL and MSN -- Yahoo! is different, and not just because it relies on free software like FreeBSD and Linux. This article in the San Jose Mercury News claims that, unlike the others, it still serves as a portal to the greater Internet rather than the "walled gardens" of AOL or MSN that try to isolate people from the rest of the net. If Yahoo! should merge with or be acquired by a media company like Disney or Viacom, it, too, would become such a walled garden, and the Internet would be that much closer to control by a few large corporations."

acoopersmith writes: "In the San Jose Mercury News coverage of the recent Consumer Electronics Show was this article about the new Nokia "Media Terminal" - a device that's designed as a cross between a TiVo and a WebTV, but which is really a Linux PC, including USB& FireWire ports for attaching additional storage, scanners, and printers, and other expansion capabilities. Has the hacker-friendly "appliance" finally arrived?"

acoopersmith writes: "In the San Jose Mercury News coverage of the recent Consumer Electronics Show was this article about the new Nokia "Media Terminal" - a device that's designed as a cross between a TiVo and a WebTV, but which is really a Linux PC, including USB& FireWire ports for attaching additional storage, scanners, and printers, and other expansion capabilities. Has the hacker-friendly "appliance" finally arrived?"

ArghBlarg writes: "As reported on the Mercury News' siliconvalley.com website, the 4C group, consisting of IBM, Intel, Matsushita and Toshiba, responsible for the dreaded CPRM rights-management standard for PC storage media, may be backing down on mandatory implementation of the standard in PC hard disks. A Linux consultant by the name of Andre Hedrick, who sits on the T.13 protocol committee, apparently confronted them during a recent meeting and got them to consider making an 'opt-out' mechanism if the standard is ever implemented in hard disks. However, the EFF says that's not good enough, and says that CPRM should never besmirch a PC hard disk's firmware, in any form. The 4C group has been eerily silent about the issue, according to the article, so this isn't over yet. (According to the Mercury article, the 4C entity promised to release a formal statement here about the 'opt-out' possibility, but no new releases were up at the time of writing.)"

Cheshire Cat writes: "I came across an article at mercurycenter.com. It's about how the Roman Catholic Church is the largest ISP in the Philippines. While it is very low cost, it also filters out porn sites. An interesting quote from the article: '[A user] types in the Internet address for a Playboy Web site. Almost immediately, the computer displays this admonition: 'Thank God you were not able to enter that bad site. CBCPNet suggests that you access wholesome sites instead. God Bless You.'"

Cheshire Cat writes: "I came across an article at mercurycenter.com. It's about how the Roman Catholic Church is the largest ISP in the Philippines. While it is very low cost, it also filters out porn sites. An interesting quote from the article: '[A user] types in the Internet address for a Playboy Web site. Almost immediately, the computer displays this admonition: 'Thank God you were not able to enter that bad site. CBCPNet suggests that you access wholesome sites instead. God Bless You.'"

Ant writes: "This article talks about It talks about the famous hightech people's home's." Includes multimillion dollar home automation systems for folks like Larry Ellison, among others. I thought I was high-tech for having a couple of x10'd lights, and the ability to watch and control my TV from my kitchen or living room.

TK421 writes "From this week's ResearchBuzz: "Sometime over a year ago, Yahoo bought GeoCities and changed the user agreement to something that seemed to remove a lot of the GeoCities users' intellectual property rights. At the time, Yahoo assured everyone they wouldn't inappropriately use content from GeoCities, but changed the user agreement under pressure. Now Mercury Center is reporting that folks who belong to the MSN Web communities are susceptible to having their pictures copied from community sites and put on merchandise sold by Microsoft and its partners.""

XEpsilon writes: "According to this article, the current usage of fiber optics lines is only .5% of the capacity fiber optics lines offer. The internet is also slowed down by old copper lines that are still being used -- converting from light impulses to electric signals is the major slow-down. A certain company, Cogent Communications, is offering unshared 100Mbps internet access for $1000, which is $500 less than the price of a T1." Interesting to note that Cogent bought just two strands of pre-existing inter-city fiber to re-sell the bandwidth. I'd easily pay $100 a month for far less than a tenth of the bandwidth they're promising -- let's hear it for economies of scale!

A reader writes: " Following the third lawsuit against it in as many months, and in response to unsolicited donations having been "pouring in" (their words), MAPS yesterday announced that they've set up a MAPS Legal Defense Fund. Being as the prior two parties settled their differences with MAPS before the matters actually got to trial, maybe this will be the one MAPS says they've been waiting for in order to establish the legal righteousness of their position. Or not."

ICANN's At-Large Elections are now underway. If you were lucky enough to be able to get through during the registration process, and then lucky enough to actually receive your PIN in the mail, congratulations, you can vote. Click through for your FREE Slashdot voter's guide... :)

There is actually a great deal of information available about these elections and the candidates - it puts the U.S. presidential elections to shame, quite frankly.

Where to Vote: ICANN's online voting site

When to Vote: Now until midnight (GMT), Oct. 10.

Who to Vote For: That's a little less straightforward. Here's some resources to help you decide.

• CDT's Election Guide - CDT mailed a questionnaire to the candidates asking a variety of questions, their answers are online: North American thumbnail guide - North American detailed guide
• Internet Democracy Project - They also sent out a questionnaire, and the answers from all candidates have been posted. These are good questions.
• Association for Progressive Communications voting recommendations
• Berkman Center candidate forum - The Berkman Center sponsored a debate between all seven candidates (not just the ones with more than 15% of the vote, heh), Webcast it, and recorded it for your viewing pleasure. Archives are available here. While the discussion is lengthy, there's no better way to see the candidates in action.
• Dan Gillmor, columnist
• Brian Livingston, columnist - Livingston has a good summary of what is wrong with ICANN.

The groups above recommend a voting slate of Lessig first, followed by Simons, followed by Auerbach, for the North American seat (you get to rank all seven candidates in order of your preference). Here's my recommendation, slightly different from the above:

1. Auerbach - Auerbach understands DNS, and he understands the civil liberty issues, and he has paid a LOT of attention to ICANN, and he understands - right now - how to fix its main problems. The other recommended candidates (Simons and Lessig) have the potential to understand ICANN as well as he does, but he has already put in the study time! I picked Auerbach as my first choice.
2. Simons - Simons understands the civil liberty issues, and has spent a lot of time in this sort of political environment, and has the potential to understand ICANN inside and out, but she hasn't put the time in yet. I picked her second.
3. Lessig - Lessig is a smart guy. I don't think he comes with as solid a commitment to civil liberties as the others, and I don't think he has any special understanding of DNS issues. Of course he's bright enough to understand anything he puts his mind to, but why distract him from the 20 other things he's undertaking (such as joining EFF as a board member recently). Lessig gets my third choice.
4. Tiller - Tiller is sort of a wildcard. From what he says, he would be a civil-liberties oriented candidate, but I had never heard of him before the elections, so he's a bit of a dark horse to me. Still, he beats the remaining candidates hands-down.
5. Langenberg - Langenberg seems like he would be a fairly ineffective candidate, no civil liberties focus, not (obviously) captured by IP interests or anything else. But we don't need an ineffective candidate.
6. Chapin - Chapin earns the second-to-last spot. He works for Verizon and can be expected to promote policies that would benefit the major telcos, as if they didn't have enough representation already.
7. Miller - Miller is dead last. President of the ITAA, he represents all that is wrong with ICANN right now, and states flat out that he thinks they've done a great job to date and he would continue the path taken so far. If you think ICANN is right on track, vote for Miller. Bleh.

Vote!

trinitishwar writes "House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) has a site where you can vote to express your opinion on Carnivore: http://www.freedom.gov/vote/vote4.asp. Just let him know how you feel." The poorly-worded poll is for political purposes (TexasCowboy23 points out the House putting pressure on Reno at this exact moment) but it doesn't hurt to vote anyway. What I want to know is, where in RFC 2146 does it say a politician can own FREEDOM.GOV?! Complete with 468x60 banner ads promoting Deep Thoughts by Dick Armey ("Cloning is the way amoebas reproduce") and his other site FLATTAX.GOV. I guess this started when nobody made serious complaints about GOP.GOV (see Jim Warren's comments and an Armey staffer's response back in December) ... did someone change the rules when I wasn't looking?

trinitishwar writes "House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) has a site where you can vote to express your opinion on Carnivore: http://www.freedom.gov/vote/vote4.asp. Just let him know how you feel." The poorly-worded poll is for political purposes (TexasCowboy23 points out the House putting pressure on Reno at this exact moment) but it doesn't hurt to vote anyway. What I want to know is, where in RFC 2146 does it say a politician can own FREEDOM.GOV?! Complete with 468x60 banner ads promoting Deep Thoughts by Dick Armey ("Cloning is the way amoebas reproduce") and his other site FLATTAX.GOV. I guess this started when nobody made serious complaints about GOP.GOV (see Jim Warren's comments and an Armey staffer's response back in December) ... did someone change the rules when I wasn't looking?

fleener writes: "The BBC reports and SiliconValley.com comments on the Rosetta Disk, a 2" nickel nano-analog, optical storage disk that records text and images at densities up to 350,000 pages per disk, designed to last 10,000 years. It will be unveiled at the 10,000 year Library Conference, in a discussion of how to store our history and culture for the future, given that current digital storage formats degrade quickly and are platform dependent. The prototype contains the first three chapters of Genesis, in 1,000 languages. What information do you think is valuable and relevant to give future archaeologists?"

chrisd writes "I found this one the SJ Mercury news web site, go and read it. The article in essence says that excite expects to make a lot of money from content providers for giving them "special" access to their networks. This is a troubling problem in my mind because, in essence it means that the web will be better for some sites rather than others based on the ability/desire of sites to pay excite." (Read More)

" I am expecially troubled by this because it would mean that sites and companies that have gobs of cash could in essence pay excite to guarantee a better experience than a competitor. It's not clear from the article, but for excite to specifically give higher priority to one than that would by default reduce the priority of competitors.

The question then becomes, how long until someone can literally pay to make it impossible to reach a competitors site. Say how would cnn reader feel if they could no longer reach cnn , but msnbc always came up super fast?

It's a surprise that the same company that appears to be for open access for cable lines would take this approach to cash for network routing. Excite is definately doing the right thing through it's support of open access (imho), but a very wrong thing in pursuing this line of business. "

Puck3D writes: "The RIAA is the one being sued. Mp3board.com is suing the RIAA to keep them from shutting their site down for linking to sites that carry illegal MP3. " The article notes that nobody has ever been held liable for linkage. Sure seems like there sure are a lot of lawyers getting paid trying to take that right away.

Weyoun writes: "Mercury News has an interesting article up about age discrimination in the Valley. As a 23-year old software engineer, I'm doing great right now, but I'm terrified about what will happen when I hit 40 or 50. Software is the only industry I know of where one's marketability is highest right after college and decreases geometrically thereafter. Any ideas for a second career?" Better yet, is this only in Silicon Valley? Only in the United States? Talk amongst yourselves.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Have a look at this Businessweek article: a site was partly censored for 15 days because of a post uncomfortable to the Chinese government, and this Mercury Center article that proposes a more global view of the China/Taiwan issue. Surprisingly, both articles suggest that things are going better and better." Very topical; the U.S. vote on permanent normalized trade relations is scheduled for today.

Philip Greenspun, whose name you may recognize from photo.net or Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, is founding a tuition-free program in computer science that's intended to provide the equivalent of four years' worth of CompSci in a single, 6-day-a-week, 12-hour-a-day year. You heard it right: tuition-free. And they're accepting applications. There are a few catches: you'll need a bachelor's degree already, and you'll need to be so bright that people put on sunglasses when you walk into a room. But even the rest of us can eavesdrop with lectures and course notes to be made available online. See this column about the program, or visit ArsDigita University.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation gives out a set of awards annually to people who've made "a substantial contribution to the health, growth, accessibility, or freedom of computer-based communications". This year's awards went to: "Librarians Everywhere", which was accepted by Karen Schneider, a librarian who has opposed efforts to install censorware in libraries; Phil Agre, computer scientist and professor at UCLA; and Tim Berners-Lee of MIT, director of W3C. Dan Gillmor has a story, and sooner or later EFF will update their awards page with the text of this year's award.

akamil writes, "Cirrus Logic and Intertrust Technologies Corp. are developing a hardware solution to stop music piracy. Here's the San Jose Mercury News story on it. "

An anonymous reader writes "The San Jose Mercury News has an interesting article on conflicts between financial pressure and scientific integrity in genetic research. For-profit experimenters tend to advertise (loudly) positive results and forget about pesky side effects. "

mr was one of the folks who wrote about some IBM scientists who have discovered a way to transport information on the atomic scale that uses the wave nature of electrons instead of conventional wiring. The new phenomenon, called the "quantum mirage" effect, may enable data transfer within future nanoscale electronic circuits too small to use wires. Big Blue also unveiled some new chip technology, called "Interlocked Pipelined CMOS" that starts at 1 GHz, and will be able to deliver between 3.3 - 4.5 Ghz.

Anonymous Coward writes, "Read how the young and highly skilled engineers are being left angry, frustrated and perplexed. The delay in INS processing messes with lives of these people." One specifically mentioned in this Mercury Center story (published Sunday, Jan. 30) is a gentleman from Finland named Linus Torvalds.

??? writes "It would appear that the Mercury is retracting its earlier story posted here. In a recently posted story, both the Chinese government and Microsoft deny the veracity of the story. The interviewed Chinese government spokesperson did however indicate that they are encouraging the use of domestically produced software. " Some of the Reuters stories seem to indicate that China has banned Win2k in critical government/infrastructure situations - but I can't find confirmation.

??? writes "It would appear that the Mercury is retracting its earlier story posted here. In a recently posted story, both the Chinese government and Microsoft deny the veracity of the story. The interviewed Chinese government spokesperson did however indicate that they are encouraging the use of domestically produced software. " Some of the Reuters stories seem to indicate that China has banned Win2k in critical government/infrastructure situations - but I can't find confirmation.

Jon writes "California and Oregon residents can get out of the 3 yr commitment to MSN and keep the $400 rebate available at Best Buy, OfficeMax, Office Depot and Staples." If anyone can confirm that this actually works I'd like to hear it, but if nothing less, its pretty amusing.

You've almost certainly heard that the DVD CCA [Copyright Control Association] is trying to get a restraining order that would force hundreds of Web sites to remove all links to information about DeCSS. Slashdot is one of the named sites. The hearing is today, in San Jose, California. If you can get there, we urge you to go and help "show the flag." You won't be alone. If you can't make it in person, stay tuned. We'll have updates throughout the day. Meanwhile, click below now for news, opinions from various members of the Slashdot crew, and a long list of links to other resources and stories elsewhere about the DVD CCA's attempt to not only stop DeCSS, but to stifle anyone who publishes or links to information about DeCSS. Update at 1:20 p.m. EST. (Please see bottom of the story.)

Leading up to Today's Hearing
- by Emmett Plant
Emmett Plant is Slashdot's newest author.

Monday, DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. filed for a restraining order in a California court. The targets of this cease-and-desist order were individuals and organizations who had made DVD decryption source code freely available on the net, by hosting the code themselves or linking to a website that did. Commmunity response has been fast and furious, with a deluge of Slashdot comments and submissions, and the immediate organization of Open Source community members to attend the hearing this morning.

Technically, the argument boils down to the issue of reverse engineering. Ideologically, the argument challenges the ideals of free speech, freedom of information, and the ability to innovate on behalf of computer users, hardware engineers and software developers all over the planet.

On Monday night, I spoke to a gentleman who had received the order just minutes prior, and although he didn't want his name mentioned, he provided with me with his thoughts.

"It should be legal when you've got people reverse engineering this kind of stuff. But a small minority in the business community want to lock down the information, citing that it's a trade secret. It's sort of like being busted in math class for passing answers around. [The code] is basically a mathematical equation that decrypts poorly encrypted DVD data. I support the free human right to freedom of thought. That's how civilization has gotten to where it is today, without lawyers heading innovators off at the pass."

Would he be willing to go to court to defend himself?

"Probably not. There are a lot of sites that are mirroring [the code], and they'll keep the program alive. I'll sleep easy at night knowing I did my part."

In many ways, the cease-and-desist only made it easier for people to get their hands on the code. As soon as the community heard about the order, many people posted the code on their websites as a sign of protest. Many community members have made the code available on overseas servers that don't face the possible legal repercussions associated with sites located in the United States.

Another interesting point of this case is that anyone who linked to a site that contained the information is also being held liable in the case. This is particularly frightening. This means that in the spirit of the cease-and-desist order, almost everyone on the web with a site that links to anywhere else falls into the legal maelstrom, as long as it eventually leads to a site with the code posted on it.

The legal ramifications of the case are extremely influential. The DVD CCA lawyers are fighting a battle against reverse engineering, an engineering process that enables the computer industry to utilize powerful tools like the IBM-compatible personal computer and countless hardware device drivers.

The hearing will take place this morning at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California.

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Funny and Sad at the Same Time
- by Hemos

The particularly humorous section of the lawsuit, at least for me, is that what they are trying to do is make linking illegal. That's right. Linking. Is. Illegal. Once we cross the the bridge of dictating what can and cannot be linked to, than we open ourselves up to a world of people being able to sue whenever something they don't want linked is linked. Without linking, the Web is dead.

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Shaky Legal Grounds
- by Michael Sims

The legal standing for the DVD companies is so shaky it's not even funny. The danger is that they can effectively paint the opposition as a bunch of crooks and the judge will feel that *justice* requires a ruling in their favor despite the law - that can be averted if the defense makes a strong competent showing tomorrow, presumably. The second danger is that they will inflict sufficient costs on the defendants that others will be dissuaded from doing even perfectly legal things. That can't be prevented.

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Planning to Join the Protest in Person?

The best source of information on how to help out at the Santa Clara County Courthouse is this page from Chris DiBona's Web site. It tells you where and when to be, what to wear, and what to expect. Worth reading even if you can't make it. Nice to know that Chris and others, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are doing a great job for all of us on this!

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Update by Emmett @ 1:20 p.m. EST:

Chris DiBona called me at 8:30 a.m. PST from right outside the courtroom, letting me in on the scene. The Open Source community has about 25 people there, as well as a lawyer or two of their own. The community members present are busy distributing the DeCSS source code on floppy disk as well as leaflet hard copy. No pictures will be taken of the interior of the courtroom, and there wasn't enough time to apply for the permit to record what happens inside.

Chris will be calling me as soon as they let out with up-to-the-minute information and notes from the community members inside the courtroom.

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Links to Other DVD CCA Stories and Sites

Boston Globe
Washington Post
Wired News
ZDNet
siliconvalley.com
Chris DiBona's excellent page
PZ Communications DeCSS Resource Site
CNN.com
Lemuria.org DeCSS Defense page
Dan Gillmor (SV.com columnist)
Santa Clara County Superior Court info
OpenDVD.org
EFF to the Rescue!

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Please send additional links to roblimo@slashdot.org so we can add them to the list. Thanks.

A number of readers have written to us with a report from Reuters regarding the US Military and cyber-warfare. The context is that the reason the US military did not crack into any of the Serbian boxes because the rules of war are still so murky in that area. What do you folks think? Anything goes? Or should we have a special section added to the Geneva Conventions?Update: 11/08 09:33 by H :Thanks to spartan for a better story on the subject.

Mike writes "Ever wondered why, no matter how hard you work, you are not getting any further towards getting on one of those Forbes Billionaire lists? Mike Cassidy at Mercury Center has the answer to why you are not on any Forbes lists via a Q & A he has prepared for all us working stiffs."

Hapster writes "A company called Neurodynamics based in Cambridge, England is testing face recognition technology in shopping malls and at least one British airport. Another company taunts that their technology "cannot be fooled" by disguises and hats and they're testing it on the streets. " There are 'Big Brother' aspects to this story and 'Wow, thats cool' aspects to this story. I still want a head mounted camera/monitor that can recognize people and remind me who they are: it'd be great for conferences when you see 1000 faces that you only know as email addresses...