Slashdot Mirror

thue writes: "According to this story (reg. required) in the NY times "golden rice", ie genetically modified rice which contains beta carotene, could save a million children each year who would otherwise have died from malnutrition. The main reason golden rice is not yet in use is that the methods used in the creation was covered by patents, and getting a deal with the patent holders has delayed them one year (1,000,000 dead as a result!?). But the article also describes great resistance to everything GMO, even something as harmless and beneficial as this. Caution is understandable when dealing with powerful traits such as various kinds of resistance, but beta carotene...?" What I liked about it was that the developers hadn't crippled the strain's ability to reproduce. Genetically-engineered wheat is generally crippled, forcing farmers to buy new seed from the company year after year.

The New York Times has a story about new medical privacy rules being issued by the U.S. Government. For the first time, U.S. citizens will have a right to inspect and copy information in their medical files.

jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes (free reg. req.) has a short story about the craziest science since the story on decoding a cat's vision. A monkey at Duke has had its brain wired up to control a robot. However, the robot is at MIT and the signal goes over the Internet. The research offers some hope to paralyzed people."

jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes (free reg. req.) has a short story about the craziest science since the story on decoding a cat's vision. A monkey at Duke has had its brain wired up to control a robot. However, the robot is at MIT and the signal goes over the Internet. The research offers some hope to paralyzed people."

Logic Bomb writes "The New York Times has an extensive article (free reg req, of course) about how scientists are finally able to take advantage of genetic data to really trace human history. Tracing mutations in genes is allowing anthropologists to map humanity's migrations going back 50,000 years...far longer than the 3,500 or so that we've been keeping historical records for. It's quite an interesting read."

The NYT took a principled stand yesterday and urged President Clinton to veto any appropriations bill that makes censorware mandatory in schools and libraries. I hope he listens. It would take real guts for Clinton to make this a reason to veto an entire spending bill -- his opponents would probably say he was "shutting down the government to keep porn in schools." But if he's thinking about his legacy, he should remember that in 20 years everyone, not just geeks, librarians and high school students, will know how rotten censorware is.

jothenull writes: "A Florida judge ruled that a "Broward County ordinance requiring cable giant AT&T to allow rival Internet access to their systems violated the First Amendment."" Available wherever AP articles are found. Since cable systems get a monopoly from local municipalities, it only seems fair that they be required to fulfill certain requirements - carrying a diversity of programming, permitting access to a variety of ISPs - but the cable services are fighting their part of the bargain tooth and nail.

thehawk writes: "In what could be a landmark decision in the area of online privacy rights, a New Hampshire court granted the father of a public school student the right to obtain Internet usage records of all students who used computers and Web access supplied by the school district. The district was also ordered not to withhold records that may be requested in the future and was forced to pay plaintiff's attorney's fees...." The New York Times also has a story on this.

The records in question are log files created by the schools' proxy servers of what URLs are accessed by the student body. The school district in question isn't censoring Internet access with any sort of censorware product (they use teachers to monitor what students are accessing), and the parent would like to prove that the students are accessing porn sites. I do not believe it is an invasion of privacy to access these records; if there was an invasion of privacy, it occurred when the school district collected the records on their students, not when someone else requested to see them.

Some comments of mine that didn't make it into the Times article: I hope that this situation casts some light on Internet usage at public facilities. Many, many Internet services are set up to create detailed log files by default -- proxy servers, Web servers, various login mechanisms and authentication mechanisms, etc. These records are being collected, and they are just lying around on machines or tape backups here and there, and they are, if the entity that collected them is a public entity, public records accessible under FOI laws. If you want to prove that your local school/library shouldn't be censoring the Internet, request the records. (I'll help! E-mail me.) If you want to prove that your local school/library should be censoring the Internet, well, I won't help, but I still support your right to get access to public files.

And while this situation is about records collected by public entities, the same records are routinely collected by private entities as well. Is your Web access going through a proxy server at your ISP? (The answer is more likely to be "yes" than "no," by the way -- a proxy can be installed that is transparent to the end-user.) Then your ISP is collecting detailed records of every single URL you access through their service. How long are these records being retained? Who is the ISP selling them to? Do you know?

Last night, I read this New York Times article (free reg. req.) about Clinton's veto of what would have been a new law to prevent leaks of classified information. But I didn't understand its significance until I read this earlier Salon.com article by Daniel Ellsburg, who had leaked the Pentagon Papers so that U.S. citizens could learn how their government had lied to them about Vietnam. "If Congress were so scrupulous about the First Amendment, it wouldn't have passed this law," says Ellsburg. I'm gratified to see a politician refusing on principle to extend government's powers. Here's the President's statement; and here's the bill (sponsor: Rep. Goss, R-Fla.).

mwalker writes "The New York Times is reporting that ZapMe corporation is sending schools the bill for computers that they had given the schools for free. ZapMe's original business model of playing ads for students on the computers, and trading their personal information for "Zap points" towards prizes seems to have fallen afoul of a few privacy advocates."

On Friday, the Librarian of Congress published the results of the DMCA comments process, which we've mentioned here before. Starting on October 28, the remaining part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has gone into effect, except for the two minor exceptions which the Register of Copyrights recommended.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Let's start with a review of the law. The two sections we're most interested in are Title 17, Chapter 12, Section 1201(a) and Section 1201(b):

" 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
"(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES.-

"(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.
...
"(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-

"(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
"(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
"(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

"(3) As used in this subsection?

"(A) to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
"(B) a technological measure 'effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

...

"(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS.-

"(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that?

"(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
"(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
"(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.

"(2) As used in this subsection-

"(A) to 'circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure' means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and
"(B) a technological measure 'effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.

The law covers two related but distinct concepts. The first is the concept of "access controls," the second is the concept of "copy controls." The law covers these two items separately and treats them differently, so it's important to make the distinction. Copy controls can be thought of as measures which actually prevent copying. Access controls prevent usage, not copying. Copy controls: Macrovision, serial copy protection for digital works, old floppy protection schemes, etc. Access controls: encryption, passwords, usage restrictions, etc.

Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits anyone from circumventing access control measures, with exemptions to be determined by the Librarian of Congress. Section 1201(a)(2) prohibits anyone from building, importing, or distributing a device designed for circumventing access control measures -- no exemptions.

Section 1201(b) prohibits anyone from building, importing, or distributing a device designed for circumventing copy control measures. Note that there is no counterpart to 1201(a)(1), that is, you are not prohibited from USING such a device if you manage to obtain one without building it or obtaining it from anywhere else. (Achieving this is left as an exercise for the reader.) Using such a device would presumably fall under older copyright laws -- you're making a copy.

Only the very first section -- 1201(a)(1) -- had its implementation delayed. The other two -- the device-building sections -- took effect immediately upon passage of the law, October 28, 1998. That first section was the subject of a hearing and review process in which the Librarian of Congress had the option to exempt certain classes of copyrighted works from the prohibition. The public had a chance to comment and reply to others' comments.

The review process is now complete, and the ruling has been issued. Only two exemptions were issued:

• Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications;
• Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness

The Register of Copyrights considered and denied all of the other exemptions suggested. Commenters and speakers suggested a wide range of exemptions. Libraries, universities and individuals generally promoted exemptions; corporations owning vast amounts of copyrighted materials opposed them. There were several factors working against any exemptions being granted, though.

The first and largest factor was that the rule-making only applied to that single section of the law, regarding circumvention of access controls. The Register of Copyrights shot down a lot of comments because the commenter's focus seemed to be on copy controls rather than access controls. For example, if a work prohibited one from copying a section of the work in order to comment on it, that would be considered a copy control, not an access control, according to the copyright office.

Another factor was that the Register of Copyrights defined "classes of works" very narrowly, in a way that severely damaged many of the submissions -- they were too broad. Imagine, if you will, being asked to write an essay on why slaves should be free. You do so. The teacher hands it back with an "F" and say, "No, not slaves in general -- I wanted you to identify specific slaves and tell me why those particular slaves should be free as opposed to the others." Even though the libraries and universities made powerful arguments pertaining to large numbers of works, because they didn't break down their arguments into specific narrow categories -- even though it would be silly and wasteful of paper to do so -- the Register of Copyrights threw out their arguments. Even where specific classes of works were singled out by the commenters, unless they submitted a great deal of evidence, they weren't deemed to have met the burden necessary of proving that they were being harmed by the prohibition on circumvention of access controls. In particular, the Register of Copyrights noted that "individual cases" would not be sufficient to meet the burden of showing harm. And no exemptions were granted where there was a large company opposing the exemptions.

So what happened to DVDs? A section of the ruling was devoted to discussing the DVD situation -- if you've been following the DVD mess, this is a must-read. The Register of Copyrights declined to enact any sort of exemption for circumventing access controls on DVDs, citing a number of factors. Within the twisted logic of the rule-making, the factors are actually sensible -- if you accept his premises, even a madman is sane. They seem to have been thinking of the region-coding scheme as the primary "access control" worthy of note. The copyright office reasoned that since you could buy a Windows machine or a DVD player (or a DVD player from another region, if needed), or perhaps a VCR, that there was no reason for an exemption. (Keep in mind here that 2600 et al. are being sued under the other sections of the DMCA, so their plight is not an example of harm caused by this section.) The Register did consider that the blending of copy controls and access controls in CSS might be a problem, but decided that Congress, not the Library of Congress, should address it. As a result, the final word on DVD's is this: you can't make or distribute a device to circumvent either the access control function of CSS or the copy control function. However, you may circumvent the copy control function, subject to the limitations of normal copyright law, but you may not circumvent the access control function. Thus it is illegal to, for example, fast-forward past the advertisements at the beginning of a DVD that you purchased, since that would involve circumventing the access controls.

(As an aside, my cynical nature suggests that if any censorware vendors had commented on this rule-making and said something along the lines of, "Our company will utterly collapse if you grant an exemption here," like Sony, Time-Warner, the MPAA and other copyright-holders did with regard to DVDs, that exemption wouldn't have been granted either.)

Possible penalties you may face are both civil and criminal. The criminal penalties are a fine of up to $500,000 and five years in prison; civil penalties are the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff or up to $2,500 per act.

So where does this leave us? One area that wasn't discussed in the rule-making was how a user was supposed to exercise the right to circumvent access controls without being able to purchase or create a device for doing so. Typically "device" is interpreted very broadly -- it means "any combination of software and/or hardware." So let's say you decide to take advantage of the exemption for publishing the lists of sites blocked by censorware products. You can feel free to circumvent their encryption, as long as you don't use any devices to do it -- no software, no hardware, no tools whatsoever. Even a pencil and paper is a "device" for these purposes. Presumably you could print out the encrypted file and then decrypt it in your head.

The other exemption is similar. Libraries pointed out that companies often go out of business, perhaps leaving them no way to gain access to some of the works they've purchased. So for this purpose, libraries can circumvent the access controls on those works -- assuming they can do so without creating any sort of "device".

In other words, this whole exercise was futile. The prohibitions on actually circumventing access controls will never be enforced, or at least rarely. Far more common will be prosecutions and civil suits under the sections which deal with making and distributing devices, where there is no concern with exemptions. Copyright holders will concentrate on taking away the tools to circumvent rather than preventing people from circumventing, since it isn't possible to circumvent without tools and most people do not possess the ability to manufacture their own tools.

(I should point out that there are certain other narrow exemptions built into the DMCA -- read it in its entirety if you wish. They are very narrow indeed and have very specific requirements. Rely on them at your peril. For example, you are permitted to circumvent access controls if those controls violate your privacy by collecting or transmitting personal identifying information. But you still aren't permitted to create or obtain a device to perform that circumvention.)

Readers: I hope that this article can be a resource for answering the questions about the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA that come up time and time again. This is the law, as much information as is available. If a question is coming to your mind about a specific circumstance, the answer is: whatever a judge says it is. There is no more information, no firm answers. A device can be purely software, and in the same vein as encryption software, restrictions on publishing such software devices run squarely into the First Amendment. Will there be a case testing this? What will win, the DMCA or the 1st Amendment? In 2 or 3 years, the Librarian of Congress will conduct this same review process once again, looking at the restrictions on circumventing access controls. Perhaps the library and user communities will do a more convincing job the next time around. But keep in mind that the strongest parts of the law, the prohibitions on devices, are not subject to this exemption process.

-- Michael Sims, 2000-10-30

ephraim writes: "During the last year, I worked for dot-coms in NYC. About four months ago, I began to feel that a downturn in the industry was imminent, so I left to join a more traditional company. Far too many of the companies I consulted for seemed to have serious internal problems that appeared to preclude them from ever making any real money once their venture capital dried up. It turns out that I made the right move. This article from the NY Times Web site (free registration required) discusses the general trends in the industry, while another article on the site looks at the phenomenon through the eyes of one employee of a doomed company. What he says about people sitting around doing nothing is true for quite a few of these companies. While there are still plenty of jobs available for technology people in NY, those looking for work should begin to ask some more discerning questions about prospective employers."

ephraim writes: "During the last year, I worked for dot-coms in NYC. About four months ago, I began to feel that a downturn in the industry was imminent, so I left to join a more traditional company. Far too many of the companies I consulted for seemed to have serious internal problems that appeared to preclude them from ever making any real money once their venture capital dried up. It turns out that I made the right move. This article from the NY Times Web site (free registration required) discusses the general trends in the industry, while another article on the site looks at the phenomenon through the eyes of one employee of a doomed company. What he says about people sitting around doing nothing is true for quite a few of these companies. While there are still plenty of jobs available for technology people in NY, those looking for work should begin to ask some more discerning questions about prospective employers."

ephraim writes: "During the last year, I worked for dot-coms in NYC. About four months ago, I began to feel that a downturn in the industry was imminent, so I left to join a more traditional company. Far too many of the companies I consulted for seemed to have serious internal problems that appeared to preclude them from ever making any real money once their venture capital dried up. It turns out that I made the right move. This article from the NY Times Web site (free registration required) discusses the general trends in the industry, while another article on the site looks at the phenomenon through the eyes of one employee of a doomed company. What he says about people sitting around doing nothing is true for quite a few of these companies. While there are still plenty of jobs available for technology people in NY, those looking for work should begin to ask some more discerning questions about prospective employers."

"The Congressional Budget Office, with the surprising help of some Congressional Republicans, is angling to get its hands on Census Bureau files," reports the New York Times today (free reg. req.). Here's the interesting thing. A staffer for Rep. Dan Miller (R-Fla.) told the NYT that there is no problem with doing a little cross-correlating of your census, Social Security, and IRS files: "The Census Bureau is the government, and Congress is the government." Last April, that same Dan Miller was blaming the Clinton adminstration for making the American people distrust their government through mishandling of sensitive files.

JavaTenor writes "Xerox, with their stock currently at a 10-year low, is apparently shopping the Palo Alto Research Center (commonly known as PARC) to Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Anyone who's studied the history of computing will know how great a contribution PARC has had to the advancement of technology, and especially to GUI development. This should be an interesting story to follow. See the New York Times writeup here."

Bret writes: "According to the NY Times, a recent survey shows broad support for censorware in U.S. schools. Even scarier: "the survey did find that 74% of individuals said the government should ban online pornography altogether and 75% supported a government ban of online hate speech." Read all about it at http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/10/18/technology/18EDUCATION.html while you still can." This leaves me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

WillSeattle writes: "Well, what goes around comes around. According to a New York Times article (free registration required), 21st century electronics may be based on plastic and other carbon-based molecules, or organic chemicals. "

acomj writes: "In a blow to "anonymous cowards" everywhere the NYTimes has a story on a court ruling anonymous speech is not a protected right. I'm a big proponent of the "consider the source" when reading anonymous posts..." The Times story covers several related cases. The typical procedure for these cases seems to be to file a suit alleging defamation, use the legal powers granted by the court to discover the identity of the speaker, then simply drop the suit and fire the speaker - the lawsuit is only a pretense. This seems like an abuse of the judicial system to me.

leighton writes: "According to The New York Times (free registration required, for those who care about such things), a prominent judge recently wrote an article saying that the delete key should actually delete things, not just hide them away where lawyers and skilled computer geeks can get at them years later. Specifically, he proposes that a statute of limitations be imposed upon electronic messages--that, for example, an obnoxious email you send today could be held against you for six months and six months only." This is an astonishingly insightful idea - since electronic communication has changed the lifespan of casual conversations from ephemeral to permanent, it's possible for the law to change its standards to restore that ephemerality. The judge's original paper is linked off of The Green Bag.

SiliconRedox writes: "The New York Times has an article on the efforts of the Web3D Consortium to update and reinstate VRML as a viable language for Web-based 3D. As with other standards it faces a tough challenge: it isn't HTML. Not many people are keen on rewriting an entire site in a shakey language."

Davi Bock writes: "A couple conceived their son in vitro, no big deal -- but they chose that particular embryo because its tissue type would provide a match for their dying 6-year-old daughter. When their new baby was born, the umbilical cord's blood was transfused into the daughter immediately. This just blows me away. Not that it's right or wrong, but that it's happening. The story is at the NY Times, free registration required."

Davi Bock writes: "A couple conceived their son in vitro, no big deal -- but they chose that particular embryo because its tissue type would provide a match for their dying 6-year-old daughter. When their new baby was born, the umbilical cord's blood was transfused into the daughter immediately. This just blows me away. Not that it's right or wrong, but that it's happening. The story is at the NY Times, free registration required."

The Metahacker writes: " A Princeton professor and his former student have created a 'mouse' (really, a neural net) that recognizes the word 'one' as spoken by a variety of speakers. The interesting part? They're challenging the neurobiology community to discover the mechanism it uses, using only the tools available to analyze live patients - observation and experimentation. You can upload your own sound files to test the mouse, and view experiments other scientists have performed. Cash prizes will be awarded to those who explain the mouse's behavior or can train the same number of neurons to perform a new task. You can read the New York Times article about it (free registration), or go directly to the site."

AftanGustur writes: "Just a day after Microsoft proposed a lengthy appeal process, the government has responded. The article has a lot of info on how [such] things are normally carried out. Saying that the government is not at all happy with Microsoft's idea is an understatement."

The NYT tells us about Gore's latest campaign commercial, which tells us that Gore will "fight violence and pornography on the Internet, helping parents block out what children shouldn't see." zhensel comments: "I was aware of Lieberman's previous efforts at censoring, but this seems a little bit ridiculous. Should we expect a government provided net filter for families? A government requirement that sites rate their content? I don't see how a president could accomplish this." There are many ways; the problem is that most parents don't need censorware, and they especially don't need the government pushing it on them. The NYT today has an above-the-fold, front-page story in which parents say censorship of films, music, and the internet is Their Job, Not Politicians'.

The NYT tells us about Gore's latest campaign commercial, which tells us that Gore will "fight violence and pornography on the Internet, helping parents block out what children shouldn't see." zhensel comments: "I was aware of Lieberman's previous efforts at censoring, but this seems a little bit ridiculous. Should we expect a government provided net filter for families? A government requirement that sites rate their content? I don't see how a president could accomplish this." There are many ways; the problem is that most parents don't need censorware, and they especially don't need the government pushing it on them. The NYT today has an above-the-fold, front-page story in which parents say censorship of films, music, and the internet is Their Job, Not Politicians'.

You thought the ban on violent video games from public display was a little off-putting? Well, try it on for size in Lotusland, USA. If that's not taxing enough, consider working some more on an allegedly cracked Poe cipher (but which you can't see yet). And then, it's primary source time on the MP3 brouhaha with Esther Dyson, Hilary Rosen, Orrin Hatch, Kevin Smith and Some Guy. All in this episode of Slashback.

A 17-year-old can join the real army, remember ... If you thought that the Indianapolis ordinance restricting video games with violent content from storefront display was either an anomaly or a strictly Middle-American move, read on. An unnamed correspondent writes: "GameFan reports in an article that yet another city is creating an ordinance that '...would restrict minors from playing arcade games with graphic violence or sexually explicit content.' The ordinance also covers the positioning and clear marking of the 'bad' machines. 'Currently, the bill states that such violent arcade machines must be marked and situated more than 10 feet from non-violent video titles.'"

Yes, at this point, it's just the proposal of a city council member, not a done deal. The city is (gulp!) sunny San Diego. Bother anyone? Perhaps they'll move all the games with punching into buildings like NYC has for Off Track Betting?

A long long time ago, I can still remember ... And for those into games that with a bit less gore ("We didn't have gore when I was small -- we were too poor!"), Kevin writes " Futurelooks has started a new feature called Retrolooks, which looks back at technology of the past and puts it up against the technology of today." Go read 'Atari 2600 VCS VS. Sega Dreamcast: FIGHT!' and try not to weep with nostalgia, at least if you are -- errrrr -- mature enough to have developed nostalgia. Here's a sample:

"Ah Atari, the granddaddy of all gaming platforms, the editio princep, the grail upon which all future gaming developed. In 1976 the Saturday Night Fever crowd was tired of just Staying Alive and craved something new. One Nolan Bushnell gave them that new fix with the invention of the first Atari console. Bushnell created the first unit with $250 and a desire for something new. Within four years the company of one had grown considerably and was worth over $28 million."

Plus, the grail is in the Castle ... [Aaaaggghhhh ....] AssFace writes: "As previously covered there is/was a contest of which the main goal was to break a cipher that had stood 154 years. At least two people have now solved it (separately) and we are now waiting on word (from the Bokler site) as to what will come next - apparently once one part is broken there is more? - I had created a list a while back on which a group has been discussing the cipher and at least one of the members is one of the people that came up with a solution of sorts and he posted a note regarding it here.
Frustrating for me personally because the code I was writing was just starting to evolve pretty nicely - but it will be fun to see what is next."

Proof positive, though? No word yet on the contest Web site; I think Edgar is cackling merrily in his grave.

If I share some love with you, do I have less left afterward? StoryMan writes "There's an interesting (and long) article at the NYTimes about file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, and the future of digital music.

It merits a read, if only because its participants are both important and interestingly diverse. Participating the round-table were: Hilary "I Speak for Artists, Hear me Roar" Rosen (complete with a very scary picture), Kevin "Chasing Amy" Smith, Esther Dyson, David Boies, a software developer, and your average 17-year old dude."

So long as you label it accurately, OK, fellas? For all their possible nefarious uses, cookies on your hard drive simply don't track you as well as certain companies would prefer. That's why devices like the Cue Cat, which exchange some convenience for information on your buying habits, will only get more common.

For instance, jgilm writes: "A 'new' product/company called Qode (marketese for "code") (www.qode.com) has a device reminicent of the Cue:Cat. Informationweek had a brief on it with items like '... a small wireless device called a Qoder ... scan UPC bar codes ... to search for better deals online.' and 'The scanned data is then downloaded to a personalized Web site.... Companies will then offer special deals on the personalized sites.'

The Qode site, which has a penchant for Flash movies, has info for businesses like '...a new and far more efficient way to deliver promotions. Plus you get a real-time heads up on consumer product interests.'

They claim that they are a 'wall' and 'walls are strong. And silent.' No joke. This is in relation to their privacy policy. Their idea of privacy is that they don't give out personal information to their business partners.

One aspect they don't address is the fact the the company still keeps track of your buying habits. Another is the probable lack of Linux software for the device (though no mention is made anywhere of system requirements)."

OK, so the world will soon be (or is already?) awash in free barcode readers. However, that's not all -- japhar81 writes: "Saw this over at GeekNews: netcity is offering a free smart-card reader. I'm personally planning to use it for an unintended purpose, like a certain other freebie. Off the top of my head, perhaps using my creditcard as the key to my pc ... Hardware hackers go wild:)"

RSevrinsky writes "According to this article in the NYTimes, the non-profit IOC is scared stiff of losing its place as sole mouthpiece for the Games (which helped it get $705M from NBC for the TV rights). Now, even the athletes don't have the right to describe their own experiences for the outside world -- only Bob Costas can. " The IOC has never exactly been "nice" (actually, I would describe them more accurately as "Evil") but this is pretty dang stupid.

dannyp writes "The New York Times reports that Palm and Motorola are going to jointly develop a phone with embedded Palm functionality. The story requires free registration, as always." I've seen a PalmPilot III/combo phone before - just looked clunky and heavy. And some of the non-US phones do a better job, but I'd still like the ultimate combo phone.

dannyp writes "The New York Times reports that Palm and Motorola are going to jointly develop a phone with embedded Palm functionality. The story requires free registration, as always." I've seen a PalmPilot III/combo phone before - just looked clunky and heavy. And some of the non-US phones do a better job, but I'd still like the ultimate combo phone.

Private Essayist writes: "This article in the NY Times (free reg., etc.) tells about an ongoing mystery over who stole a copy of Altair Basic written by Bill Gates in 1975. More important, however, the article shows the beginnings of the debate over the concept of whether or not software should be free. The Homebrew Computer Club members interviewed in this article talk about the debate they had over this issue way back then. It's interesting to read."

Alex Bischoff writes: "According to this NY Times Article, 3Com will release Palm OS 3.5 in the fall, but for about $20. 'Mr. Cook said that he had already heard grumbling from some Palm users about the upgrading fee and that some future releases might still be free.' ObCredit: PalmStation." (Free registration, worth every penny.) I wonder if this is a way to sell more (new) Palms?

rkent writes: "In this NYTimes article, Microsoft makes a good point, the wrong way. They argue that their case was 'so technical and esoteric' that Judge Jackson couldn't understand it. However, the Business and Technology Division Task Force in Maryland is examining the viability of setting up special courts for tech cases. Which may or may not have helped Microsoft. But would it have helped 2600? And future Internet 'pirates?'"

Setting up special 'techno-courts' has the glossy sheen of futurism and hipness, but if the proposed high-tech courts are specialized by the content of their trials, what's to stop them from becoming self-perpetuating, invasive, and self-aggrandizing bodies within their particular fields of purported expertise, and using that expertise as a means of blocking criticism? Would such special courts be an improvement over better educating the existing judiciary?

peter303 writes: "Todays NYTimes reports (annoying free subscription required) how many young men are skipping formal college to pursue high paying IT jobs. Is this a wise move?" Every fall this debate comes back up. I enjoyed college, but I don't know how much of what it taught me will be relevant in my career. But should techies skip out?

spiel writes "There's a piece in today's NYT which points out the flaws in the arguments for increasing the number of H-1B visas. As one of those "older workers", this puts facts and figures behind what I have long believed." It's an interesing dicussion, although I suspect like most of things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

A few words from HP on the Linux-based but Linux-unfriendly print server (read gently, and be thankful for small blessings); happy news from the "the NSA secretly controls PGP and its creator" front; more detail on the sordid, awful things that the MPAA used to say about VCRs, and an online Linux magazine for those who like read in 5 languages at once. (phew!)

Sheesh! All the guy ever promised was pretty good security! :) zenith744 writes: " Now available here is PGP v6.5.8, which appearently "...corrects a security-related bug with Additional Decryption Keys (ADKs) that may allow sophisticated attackers to add unauthorized ADK key IDs to the unhashed areas of PGP public keys...". This bug was previously brought to light about a week ago and reported on slashdot. A little more security, a little less stress. A happily balanced equation."

And an unnamed reader points to a story on Network Fusion about Zimmerman's response to the hubbub. Paraphrased: "It was a bug. We're embarrassed about it. Now it's fixed." In an imperfect world, you gotta admit that PGP is one of the bright spots.

It's always "wait a minute," isn't it? Tjisana M. Lewis, Product Manager, Emerging Products World-wide Business Management at Hewlett Packard (and who hopefully doesn't have many middle names to remember) wrote in response to the article on Slashdot recently about HP's new print server which runs Linux internally but does not support LDP client printing: "I've read some of the responses and (understandably) there is much speculation on WHY we did not support LPD client printing in the product's first release." She sent the following response, which strongly hints at better Linux support in the future for this product.

"The JetDirect 4000 Print Appliance can send print jobs to any LPD enabled destination whether such destination is a Linux box, JetDirect print server, or any other vendor's print server. Currently the JetDirect 4000 does not receive LPD print jobs, however in a few months, this [and other features] will be available in a free firmware upgrade.

As a vendor with a Linux based product, HP is extremely committed to supporting the Open Source community. We support developers in the Samba team including Jeremy Allison and Andrew Tridgell by contracting with both VA Linux and Linuxcare to develop features for the print appliance. These features are part of the Samba project and will be available to everyone under the GPL. An example is NT Printing functionality that will enable the use of native NT tools and features such as "point and print." Point and print enables automatic downloading of a print driver to a Windows client when the client adds a printer.

Furthermore, HP, in working with SAMBA, adds testing resources during the development process of the release thereby increasing the final quality of the release."

Care for some salt with your wound, Mr. Valenti? Master of Kode Fu writes: "The New York Times has an article quoting MPAA President Jack Valenti saying this: "[it] is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone." He wasn't talking about DeCSS, Napster, Scour, FreeNet or Gnutella -- he said it in 1982 and he was talking about VCRs. He didn't see that VCRs would eventually become as important an income stream for films as box-office sales. Will the MPAA (and similarly, the RIAA) learn from historical precedent, or is file sharing over the 'Net a completely different case with different circumstances?"

Isn't it funny how the fight to prevent consumer taping went away when the companies involved realized that what VCRs really represented was a whole new way to make money? Hmmm. Extend, project, extrapolate ... I smell money here, too. Don't they?

Contribute to the death of excuses! The excuses not to at least try Free software keep dwindling, and it's nicer than strangling dodo birds. Remember when "But there aren't any books!" was a valid complaint about Linux? How about "I can hire MSCEs and know they have at least some knowledge of the systems they purport to administrate -- but there aren't Linux equivalents!"? That one's gone too, for better or for worse. And now, if your boss (or spouse) grouses that there aren't any free, multilingual Linux journals online, not only do you know their excuse barrel is near empty, but you can point them to ... well, let Atif Ghaffar explain:

"LinuxFocus (LF) is a multilingual magazine about the operating system Linux.

LF is managed and produced by Linux volunteers, fans and developers. There is no subscription necessary to read LF, it is freely available on the web with mirrors all over the world.

Lf is published almost every two months. The master website for Linuxfocus is at http://www.linuxfocus.org

Articles this month include pieces on Rebol, a presentation application for X Window, distro reviews, a book review and more. Get it while it's Free!

Kyobu writes: "There's an article by John Markoff in [Saturday's] New York Times about insecurities in Bluetooth. The defects allow eavesdropping and caller identification." Markus Jacobson and Susanne Wetzel, both of Bell Laboratories, discovered weaknesses in the key exchange protocol currently implememented by Bluetooth. From the article: "The researchers are suggesting that the Bluetooth standard be altered so that the identity numbers are masked by a constantly changing pseudonym when transmitted." Considering the ubiquity many people expect Bluetooth devices to achieve, perhaps it's a good thing that this kind of attention starts early rather than late. (Complete with gratuitous Bruce Schneier quote.)

A long outing this time -- a litany of updates and corrections for your edification and amusement. Microsoft apps that run on Free OSes? An art contest that you won't have to go through your high-strung middle-school art teacher for (and is judged by the family Johansen)? A titanium tank which could fall from the sky? All this and more, if you're willing to read on.

You want fries with that software? If the recent report of Microsoft porting apps to *nix, intrigued you, see Paul Thurrott's piece in Windows 2000 Magazine (yes, there is such a thing). Thurrott says, in part: "I can't tell you that the port is going to produce actual products. But I can tell you that Microsoft is looking into it. No, I don't think it's smart. No, it's not what I'd do. But yes, I believe it's true. So why would Microsoft try to port its desktop applications to a platform that has absolutely no desktop market share? I've no idea." Too bad for Microsoft Linux has "absolutely no desktop market share."

Silly! The sky isn't falling! It's just sinking a little each day ... Johann writes "Here is a follow up story to last week's NY Times article which was debated here on Slashdot. The article states that 'Open water at the top of the world isn't evidence that the North Pole is melting, as an article this month in The New York Times suggested.' There are numerous quotes in the article that do suggest that global warming is fact, not fiction."

To which the dapper and elegant Party Remover adds: "The Associated Press reports that a recent New York Times story about liquid water at the North Pole was rather overstating the seriousness of the situation. It seems that the Arctic Ocean is typically 10% ice-free during the summer." And the wording of the correction is amusing, for those of us easily amused.

Getcher doo-dads! Red-hot, computer-generated doo-dads! Get 'em while they're hot, ladies and gents ... ussphoenix writes: "Regarding the /. story about Computer Makes Robot Offspring, here is an article in the journal Nature describing the system. There are also mpegs of the virtual machines and the corresponding real machines moving!"

Next week we explain the buggy-whip makers' case, too. breillysf writes: "Eric Sinrod has condensed the complicated legal issues surrounding 2600's hyperlinking ruling. You can read the article here: Upside Counsel DeCSS article. The article is concise and not filled with legal jargon. A good contribution for those with little time to understand the fundamentals of the case."

And on the DeCSS note, Jim Tyre writes "Tom Vogt, a defendant in the California DeCSS lawsuit brought by DVD CCA, has started DeArt, the DeCSS Art Contest, to further explore the expressive aspects of DeCSS. Original creations only, obviously must be related to DeCSS. The contest runs through Dec. 31, and there will be prizes. Tom and Jon Johansen are the current judges, Emmanuel Goldstein has been asked to be an additional judge. Time for Slashdotters to express their creativity in a new way." I think the most strategic contest area would be performance art. Since it must be digitized, a video recorder would be necessary, I guess. Anyone here watched Roger and Me?[grin]

And if you're feeling less artistic, don't worry: Carpman writes, "I have set up a project to create a letter to congress about the DMCA and its effects. I'm running this like an open source project, you submit, it gets reviewed, and added. Also, you can submit stand alone letters to send allong with the big letter. The page is here." Of course, note the verb sense of "carp" and this makes perfect sense ...

Oh, no, you must have misunderstood. What we meant was something totally different. thebaron writes "Here is a interesting back-pedaling by Sony in this article. One should think before opening mouth and inserting [one's] own foot, even if you're a company exec." Or perhaps especially then. As roblimo pointed out recently, big companies have trouble tying their collective shoelaces sometimes, never mind effecting their own conspiracies.

Hit that high hat, swing that hook! PenguinRadio writes: "The Washington Post notes in Tuesday's paper that Motorola has begun the necessary reporting to certain government agencies so that they can burn up the $4 billion in Iridium satellites. Interesting in this announcements is the fact that their engineers feels certain pieces of the birds may actually reach the Earth and not burn up completely. Most notably a 2 foot by 3 foot titanium fuel tank may make it through the atmosphere. Wanna bet we see it on e-bay if it does fall to earth?"

msnomer writes: "The Cato Institute is going to publish a report this week disputing the claim that there are 70,000 Microsoft applications, according to a NY Times article. The author, economist Richard B. MacKenzie, says that the "70,000 figure might actually represent the number of applications that have been written during the entire history of the personal computer industry." The figure, however absurd, pits Microsoft marketing against the legal department, since the purported number of applications--a number not disputed by Microsoft, by the way--is a key factor in the decision to break up the company. Anyone else astonished that Microsoft marketing may have exaggerated a bit?"

Alternatively, is anyone astonished that a number so arbitrary (in either direction) is considered a serious point of evidence? Not that there's a great way to weight the importance of programs in isolation from each other, but [random shareware X, even if business related] doesn't match the importance of, say, a major word processor in the real world. Isn't the flexibility that a given OS offers to create new programs, and the rate of change in the number of available programs, more important than the existing number anyhow?

Updated 20:05 by timothy: PJ Doland, Webmaster of the Cato Institute writes: "The article on Microsoft that you mention is now online at http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-380es.html. I'm a slashdot addict. When I saw your link to the Institute's site, I convinced the higher-ups to let me post the report early for your readers. The full report is in PDF."

KOHb writes: "The NY Times has a front-Web page article on using Open Source to bridge the "Software Gap." Mentions Mozilla, Apache, and other friends." Well-researched piece, talks of potential changes in software development -- both positive and negative -- as the Open Source model spreads. (Free, reg. req. to read.)

Frog writes "The New York Times (reg. req'd) writes about a study by the Xerox PARC Internet Ecologies Area which shows that only a small percentage of Gnutella users actually share files -- the rest just take 'em. The researchers note it's 'hard to generate spontaneous cooperation in large anonymous groups.' As a consequence, the system has degraded performance, and is more vulnerable to censorship or legal action. Maybe the solution is to implement a market system for resource allocation, but how to prevent cheating?" Reminds me of the BBS days of file ratios - 'course then we'd just take an image, resize and upload it, so that idea didn't exactly work as intended.

Auckerman writes: "I wonder how much of this can be attributed to man or to normal weather cycles. Per usual, free login is required at the nytimes." This is a sobering dispatch, no matter how skeptical you are of the ability of homo sapiens to model or understand his role in weather patterns. Seems that what used to be a comfortable icefield at 90 degrees north latitude is now swimming in seawater. [Note: Not "0 degrees" as I'd carelessly typed originally; thanks to YU Nicks NE Way for pointing out the boo-boo.] This sentence from the article especially grabbed me: "Scientists at the Goddard Space Science Institute, a NASA research center in Manhattan, compared data from submarines in the 1950's and 60's with 90's observations, demonstrating that the ice cover over the entire Arctic basin has thinned by 45 percent. Satellite images have revealed that the extent of ice coverage has significantly shrunk in recent years."

A bankruptcy judge has refused to prohibit Toysmart.com's customer information from being sold as an asset against its debts. See the New York Times or the AP wire (CNET) version. Judge Kenner notes that objections may be raised later, and believes that in the absence of a buyer, any decision now would be premature. This case is key because, if the web's privacy policies are not guaranteed after a company goes belly-up, they're mostly toilet paper. But the lawyer for the now-bankrupt company argued that the privacy contract between TRUSTe and Toysmart, allegedly guaranteeing visitors' privacy, "like others in a bankruptcy proceeding, may have to be broken in order to realize the highest value for creditors in a sale."

That lawyer went on to say that the "adverse publicity" raised about the auctioning-off of your privacy made it hard to find a buyer for your personal information. A shame. "Now we're back where we started."

Why is he so worried about not finding a buyer? Because information about customers is valuable. Don't let corporations pretend otherwise. Selling who you are and what you buy can be a substantial source of revenue; as far as these companies are concerned, that's just one of their assets, like their cash in the bank or their real estate. Toysmart will continue to try to auction off those databases, probably after media attention dies down and it becomes easier to make the sale quietly.

And sadly, even if privacy prevails this time, it may not be important enough to set precedent, since the presence of childrens' information makes the Toysmart case "unique."

Update: 08/18 04:09 AM by J : For background info on the dot-com going-out-of-business process, check out this PlanetIT article. Note in particular that it can be hard for many dot-coms to find any tangible assets to sell, thus, customer data becomes more important.

In May, we ran a story on ten "math problems for the new age." ContinuousPark writes: "Last month, at the end of a conference on superstring theory at the University of Michigan, a group of physicists chose ten of the hardest problems in their field. They range from 'simple' ones like 'What is the lifetime of the proton and how do we understand it?' to obscure ones like 'Can we quantitatively understand quark and gluon confinement in quantum chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap?' Resolve one today, get a Nobel Prize tomorrow. This NY Times article has the details." And unfortunately, says the Times, "'Just because' is not considered an acceptable answer." Darn, there goes my Nobel.

kkkalen writes "Have you completed a Masters or PhD thesis in the last eight or so years? If so, it is probably for sale at http://www.contentville.com, a for-profit company which I understand I partially owned by NBC and Time. Mine is there and I never gave them permission to sell it. As far as I know, I am the sole owner of the copyright on my thesis. Even my ex-supervisor had to ask permission (he did) before he could make it available on a web site (for free, by the way)."

"I am shocked that that this company is engaging in what amount to piracy of my work. Actually, it's worse than that since they are offering it for sale. Imagine the lawsuits and jailtime I would get (a la FBI Warning) if I burned a few hundred CDs of the latest movie release and sold them on the Internet.

"I imagine a great deal of Slashdot readers have completed graduate work. I just wonder what they make of this?"

Well, we'll see. Contentville is funded by CBS, NBC, a huge book distributor and a database aggregator - it launched last month. These companies are in Congress right now lobbying for a law to protect databases - that is, to make re-using information from places such as Contentville illegal. Not just copying the information, but even using any of the data or facts from databases would be illegal. A number of database-protection bills are in Congress right now, and if one of them passes (very likely), the poster above won't be able to make use of his own thesis without paying Contentville - since Contentville went to the effort of compiling their database, and the law would protect that effort.

Steven Brill, so-called "media watchdog", is just in the process of settling with thousands of freelance writers whose work he also, uh, appropriated.

It looks to me like a crystal-clear violation of the No Electronic Theft Act, passed a few years ago. Will Steven Brill go to jail for not more than three years? No. He's a "media watchdog", and only "pirates" go to jail. (Aside to Steve: if the NYT or Washington Post start referring to you as a pirate, best flee the country - the FBI will take an interest in the case then.)

Contentville. We get our Content the old-fashioned way - by stealing it.

uqbar writes: "Sunday's New York Times Magazine had this short interview with David Boies (registation required). In it he explains how he has chosen his many high profile clients over the years. Pretty light on content, but he makes a pretty vivid point about just how well loved Napster is among the young. Still, he says nothing substantiative about why he believes in Napster's case."

uqbar writes: "Sunday's New York Times Magazine had this short interview with David Boies (registation required). In it he explains how he has chosen his many high profile clients over the years. Pretty light on content, but he makes a pretty vivid point about just how well loved Napster is among the young. Still, he says nothing substantiative about why he believes in Napster's case."

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has a piece today on an agreement reached among I.B.M., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and several other developers to create the Gnome Foundation, a developer consortium that will undertake, among other things, the creation of a standardized desktop interface for Linux, and a suite of productivity programs designed to compete with MS office. As the name might imply, their efforts will center around the Gnome desktop manager, with Sun moving to adopt Gnome as the GUI for Solaris. Looks like some big names are getting interested in putting Linux on the desktop."

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has a piece today on an agreement reached among I.B.M., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and several other developers to create the Gnome Foundation, a developer consortium that will undertake, among other things, the creation of a standardized desktop interface for Linux, and a suite of productivity programs designed to compete with MS office. As the name might imply, their efforts will center around the Gnome desktop manager, with Sun moving to adopt Gnome as the GUI for Solaris. Looks like some big names are getting interested in putting Linux on the desktop."