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The case law for online anonymity is currently unsettled (yes, I know some of those are incompatible jurisdictions.)

As much as we don't like Lori Drew and her despicable, possibly criminal behavior, this isn't the way to go about it (from the posts so far, seems most here agree that way.)

No anonymity would lead to a boring internet... people would begin to resort (more) to (ab)using open proxies to get the job done.

For UK/EU ppl out there, http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20022013.htm and http://www.out-law.com/page-431 for the safe harbour provisions.

Rest is my untested knowledge for which I accept no liability.

I believe it all hinges on third party liability to a breach tho - a question of fact and degree will not suffice in claims like this. Third party liability is only established through knowing participation (knowledgeable assistance if you will).

Actual knowledge is one piece constructive, and one piece subjective. Claimants often try to claim entirely on the constructive knowledge front (so they don't have to show the state of mind) and ignore actual knowledge, which requires a dishonest state of mind. and so the argument goes a dishonest mind is hard to prove when you don't know what's going across your tubes. but then there's also a grey area: wilful blindness/recklessness and the argument you can't be guilty of being reckless as to data exchanged when you don't monitor the data upon international standard that avoids actionable per se).

I think from a liability point of view, ISPs need to take a step back, and start offering unrestricted plans that don't acknowledge *anything* about the content they're handling.

I say that because I think safe harbour provisions are an all or nothing defence. Similar to automatism as a defence to homicide. Let me explain that one. Murder and manslaughter constitue homicide. Murder is a specific intent crime - that is, to be found guilty, a jury will be instructed that they must find the action of killing and the state of mind to kill (a specific intent to kill) coincide at the time of killing. In short that means the mens rea (the guity mind) and actus reus (actions) of a killing must coincide to commit a murder. Without either, you are not guilty of murder, but may be guilty of homicide.

The intent for murder must be specific - an actuak intent to kill someone or a virtual certainty as to that effect. A virtual certainty is best described if you think of a bomber on a plane - he has the intent to kill people around him when he sets off a bomb, yet it is a virtual certainty that he will kill the rest when the plane crashes, which establishes an indirect/oblique intent.

Automatons are not responsible for their actions since they lack intent. So... if you're intoxicated (either by prescription drugs, illicit drugs or alcohol) to the extent you cannot possibly form the intent to kill (mens rea), which is so far beyond being drunk it calls for an intoxicated person to be on the brink of death almost, then you can claim automatism.

(before someone goes off to kill someone, bare in mind that issues of public policy will defeat self-induced automatism)

Automatism is an all or nothing defence. In so-called "normal cases" of homicide where someone lacks the intent due to intoxication, or someone takes a reckless risk where it was unreasonable to do so in the circumstance and they jury can infer they should have reasonably appreciated that risk, then that person is found not guilty of murder as they lack specific intent, but can still be found guilty of manslaughter.

If we apply the principal to copyright infringement, and imagine that the safe habour provisions are like a person operating as an automatom, then we assume that should a person ever be proven to be capable for forming a state of mind, fulfilling any mens rea, then they destroy their lawful defence. With an all or nothing defence, there are no levels to mitigate liability. You are either innocent or guilty of an offence if you have or have not a defense.

When ISPs such as VM start to move beyond their role as providers of a service, they start to acknowledge intent, preventing them from relying on their safe harbour defence

At the moment we all have a contract with ISPs. Under contract, in which they are obliged to provide a service, as we are o

A lot of people I know have taken to the "if it's not free, I don't like it, i won't use it" realm of stupidity.

RMS isn't to blame for personal decisions, but I feel the aura surrounding modern IP protections, the perception of the laws that regulate and protect IP, combined with this Jesus-like figure who's opinions are compelling and often desirable, is automatically damning of anything restrictive.

Lessig's book, Free Culture, is a fantastic introduction to the law for a non-lawyer. It is rather repetitive in some instances, but it does stress the important diversity of protection we have, and protection that is beneficial.

For example, when I see someone say, "I don't like IP laws, they're not good", or "I love IP laws, they protect my job", I automatically begin to dismiss this person as ill-advised or out of their depth. My reasoning is simple: there is no such thing as "IP laws".

Intellectual Property is form of non-corporeal asset that we give good legal and equitable title to, because we believe it deserves recognition beyond a physical form - almost always because we can't represent the physical form as to control it (a patent), or the physical form has no established representation to make it distinguishable as to offer it protection (think one CD to another CD).

The legal definitions are more precise than this, but consider, for an instant "IP laws" don't exist. So what do we use to enforce IP? We use a collection of laws that protect IP - on the battle's front-line we have copyright and we have patent. There's nothing special about either copyright or patent. They're not there to represent IP and perpetually protect it like we would land. No, we instead offer "limited protection" (or a "limited monopoly") for a specified period.

Unfortunately some people are greedy and capitalism does as capitalism wants - because it can. We elect an "elective dictatorship" which take legislative queues from those in a position born out of their money. Those with the money ultimately strive to control their assets as to protect this money. We see big name companies push and push for longer extensions for their monopolies simply to protect their status rather than fall. It's the way the world works - it's not going to change any time soon, but we can limit the control.

Unfortunately more and more people seem to echo the same voice, "I don't want to reduce copyright/patent, i want to abolish it, I believe everything should be freeeee!11". You people are detrimental to the cause. Abolishing IP will destroy R&D. If IP was outlawed over night, companies would stop working with one another and stop producing new technologies that require immense resources and financial investment: why bother when you can copy something and resell that? Why bother when all the money you spend on some research is for naught when someone takes apart your product and copies and reproduces it at a fraction of the cost since they don't have to account for the financial cost of research?

The solution to the problems we face is actually to extend the breadth of copyright and patent. Preserve what we have now (arguably what we had in the 90s). This is not the same as extending protection periods - I'm largely against that. But we should focus on remedying individual legal issues while appling an element of proportionality.

Proportionality is a big thing in law (tm) - especially if you're an EU citizen. Proportionality and interpretative application allow issues that would normally be wrong doings a measure of beneficial application. Without confusing myself, it is to say that you don't have to find something utterly illegal because the law says it is in black and white - times change and and future developments are rarely well envisaged, and proportionality allows us to accept transitions in the law.

Lets look at an example: check out this recent Podcast on scraping. The problem is a grey area with Copyright. The remedy is not in "IP l

Actually, UK law says that if it's sent to you unsolicited, it's yours unconditionally from when you receive it, and it's an offence to demand any form of payment for it or to threaten legal action. I think that this only applies if it's sent to an individual though, the law may be different if it's sent to a business. http://www.out-law.com/page-430#Inertia

I should have put the links in there to begin with. I'll give you half-credit because I did have my locations mixed up. The European cases I was thinking of were in London, England and Mannheim, Germany, where Rambuses cases were dismissed when Rambus' patents were ruled invalid by the European Patent Office. The conviction of fraud in the JEDEC process was ruled by judge Robert Payne in federal court in the U.S.

There ya go, links, information, etc.

The Pirate Bay is under attack: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080131/tot-uk-piratebay-charge-b86c26b_1.html AT&T is talking of filtering file sharing: http://www.out-law.com/page-8804 There is some hope of sanity from the Swedish: http://sigfrid.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/decriminalize-file-sharing/ Mark Pesce (co-inventor of VRML) is talking sense too: http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html The momentum seams to be slowly building on both sides. Personally, I loved the AllOfMp3.com model. Cheap enough and good enough service I was prepared to pay, it wasn't worth copying. It had me spending money on music in what I thought was a legal way, for the first time in a long time. The existing model is to expensive and how can it be justified to charged what you would for a cd for something where the manufacture and distribution costs are pretty much zero? As long as we can record video and sound, we can copy and copy and copy and copy. Best work with the technology not against it. Make it cheap enough and good enough we can't be bothered to copy most of the time. What you would lose on individual sales, you gain on bulk, plus you can make money from advertising. If there is a big clamp down, what really worries me is the politics of it. International big business wins out over the people. Surely this is what governments are for? We vote a government in that fosters a society we want to live in. But, in the UK at least, I can't see any party picking up this issue. Which is crazy, because as more and more of the internet generation comes to voting age it's an issue close to their hearts! 10 years time could it be an election winner?

Just to echo this comment, this is a very good thing.

The legal definitions of "personal data" in the EU are quite clear - it's not the articles of data itself that counts, it's the usefulness is *identifying* a living individual from that data that makes the difference. For example, a name is a public identifier (and known to most people who browse a reasonable corporate intranet, let's say), and a residential or business address is clearly public information. You wear a name badge at a trade show or conference, big deal - and most people in a given area will know that 24 Acacia Avenue exists (from walking past it to the bus stop), in isolation these items are not noteworthy. It's when you can put the two together that an individual is identifiable (in the scope of directive 95/46/EC), and that personal data begins to need protection.

IP numbers in and of themselves are predictable (based on finite multiples of 4 numbers up to 255) and obvious, but when you put a name to an IP number, the state should provide some basic protection from the free dissemination of that couplet of information. Even more so when one includes - from the ISP, say - the subscriber's residential address, or employer's name and address.

That the EU is now extending this protection to IP addresses *in the context of identifying people and their actions* is a step forward - let's just wait for the UK government to accidentally cock it up --- http://www.out-law.com/page-4717, or just lose it --- http://www.out-law.com/page-8649.

Just to echo this comment, this is a very good thing.

The legal definitions of "personal data" in the EU are quite clear - it's not the articles of data itself that counts, it's the usefulness is *identifying* a living individual from that data that makes the difference. For example, a name is a public identifier (and known to most people who browse a reasonable corporate intranet, let's say), and a residential or business address is clearly public information. You wear a name badge at a trade show or conference, big deal - and most people in a given area will know that 24 Acacia Avenue exists (from walking past it to the bus stop), in isolation these items are not noteworthy. It's when you can put the two together that an individual is identifiable (in the scope of directive 95/46/EC), and that personal data begins to need protection.

IP numbers in and of themselves are predictable (based on finite multiples of 4 numbers up to 255) and obvious, but when you put a name to an IP number, the state should provide some basic protection from the free dissemination of that couplet of information. Even more so when one includes - from the ISP, say - the subscriber's residential address, or employer's name and address.

That the EU is now extending this protection to IP addresses *in the context of identifying people and their actions* is a step forward - let's just wait for the UK government to accidentally cock it up --- http://www.out-law.com/page-4717, or just lose it --- http://www.out-law.com/page-8649.

>>> "The same thing would go for selling hats that look like upended bowls of pasta and shout at random passers-by."

Sound novel to me!

I totally get where you're at, it may have been too subtle, but where I stated the argument that the ~appearance of novel features in a well-worked field implies inventiveness~ I tried to intimate that I don't buy the argument but can't readily refute it.

Moreover I'd agree that software is distinct from other areas of industry and have argued such myself - I'd like to have seen a separate system (part way between copyright and patents) for software but there would still be issues at the boundaries between these systems.

Your "polymer clay dog" is novel. The technical features of that clay dog are not and hence no patent. What constitutes "technical" is an open question in the worldwide patent system - it's axiomatic and difficult to clearly demarcate the boundaries of technicality (there have been several attempts by the EPO technical boards) ... here's an interesting report on Peter Prescott QC's comments (acting as Deputy Judge) in a UK business method patentability dispute: http://www.out-law.com/page-5970.

One point I will contradict you on is the active cursor feature being merely asthetic (http://v3.espacenet.com/eclasrch?ECLA=/espacenet/ecla/g06f/g06f3.htm?q=3-048a1c). It demonstrates that the computer has not hung and provides information about the current load - that information requires measurement and the development of new routines as to when to display the cursor: what priority it should have, when it should stop, when it should start, how to locate the sprite correctly, where in memory it should be loaded from ... if you do a search on "active wait cursor" you'll see there are still outstanding issues for this - the most basic of desktop GUI features. The styling of the cursor, merely asthetic, it's implementation is definitely technical. The earliest references from patent DB's appear to be 1989-ish - I'd have been playing lemmings on an Acorn Archimedes around that time.

To claify, in the UK copying of a CD is not fair dealing, but we won't get sued:

http://www.out-law.com/page-6986

"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties and make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format we will not pursue them." - British Phonographic Institute Chairman Peter Jamieson

If they were to sue you for this in the UK they would lose spectacularly.

Here are a few occasions instructing that using a wireless connection without payment, or without permission is illegal:

"Two people have been arrested in the UK for using another person's wireless internet access without permission. Neither was charged but both were cautioned for dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment." http://www.out-law.com/page-7969

Another according to BBC NEWS where he was arrested for "Dishonestly obtaining free internet access is an offence under the Communications Act 2003 and a potential breach of the Computer Misuse Act." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6958429.stm

Sounds a lot like the case when Virgin Mobile used a photo of a person from Flickr that was uploaded under "an Attribution Licence, which the Creative Commons website explains, will let others copy, distribute and display your photo and derivative works based upon it, provided they give credit the way you request."

http://www.out-law.com/page-8494

When an individual makes a statement like that, I suppose we can say they'd be right at home here in the UK, where copying a CD you own for personal use isn't legal. Of course nobody actually pays any attention to this law, and even the BPI (UK equivalent of the RIAA) thinks the legal situation is silly:

http://www.out-law.com/page-7463

"Whereas video surveillance appears to be somehow justified under certain circumstances, there are also cases in which protection is sought impulsively by means of video cameras without adequately considering the relevant prerequisites and arrangements.

"This is sometimes due to the economic benefits granted on a large scale by public bodies as well as to the offer of better insurance terms in connection with the use of video surveillance equipment."

Failing a massive turn in the EU (possible with another serious terrorist attack), I think the UK will be pressured into moving in Europe's direction, instead of the opposite. I don't think that pressure will work, though.

I agree with you, however, that this idea is unlikely to become law, as I said in my post.

Thanks for the info. Here is a site which goes into a bit more detail, including defending the judge as completely computer literate: http://www.out-law.com/page-8062

I think the original point still stands that some people (e.g. Ted Stevens) are hopelessly lost when it comes to understanding the internet and what it means. The wrong example (good correction!) but the right anecdote.

Why does the EU always seem to come down on US-based companies that control a large portion of specific markets?

Because

• US media, including /., rarely report on cartels involving no US-based companies: for example, for some reason people in the US don't seem to be well-informed about the beer, paper, banana, gas switchgear, and rubber cartels (from just the first two Google pages on 'european commission cartel').
• US-based companies sell lots of stuff in Europe, and therefore have plenty of opportunity to do illegal or suspect things: there is a reason North-Korean companies are rarely sued.

Online gambling is still not too legal here either. The link is dated, has been overturned twice by now, stay tuned to see how it ends.

Arbitrary arrests are rather rare (unless you happen to have the wrong skin color, of course, since all those nig... I mean black people sell drugs, that's common "knowledge" in certain parts of the police force), but if you're unemployed, it's quite likely that you'll be subject to forced labour sooner or later (or you lose your social welfare).

Mrs Bodil Lindqvist was an active member of her church in the parish of Alseda in Sweden. As part of a computer course Lindqvist had to set up an internet home page, and chose to create a site giving information to church parishioners. Unfortunately the pages included information about Mrs Lindqvist and 18 of her fellow church volunteers. This information included some full names, telephone numbers and references to hobbies and jobs held by her colleagues

"that the act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or by other means, for instance by giving their telephone number or information regarding their working conditions and hobbies, constitutes the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means within the meaning of [the Directive]."

a recent ruling in the uk stated that compensation should be paid on a patent that's been granted even if that patent is subsequently found to be invalid.

Now that sucks

Unless he's planning to travel there:
http://www.out-law.com/page-7118

Or unless his country seems to be complicit with others flouting the Geneva Convention:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1792271,00. html

Oops.

To the GP - I will feel able to criticise his lack of fluency in English the as soon as my Romanian is at a similar level. I can't even manage "I'd like a beer please" in Romanian. Can you?

Back in November 2004, Dan Ravicher complained to Steven Vaughan-Nichols that Ballmer had misread his patent study, so I'm not sure that this is 'new' news.

That Register link is dead (although even Google News indexed the article. wtf?) But many articles are repeating Ravicher's old remarks: Ravicher says his report proves the opposite of Microsoft's claims, The author of that report disowned Ballmer's remarks, etc.

From http://www.out-law.com/page-8052 "The author of a report used by Microsoft as evidence of open source patent infringement has said that his report means the opposite of what Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said it means." Tim S

A court in Dubai has ruled that a man can divorce his wife by sending her a text message. Abdel Salam Mohammad Darwash sent a message to his wife's mobile phone which simply read: "Why are you late? You are divorced."

Two hours after sending the message, Mr Darwash regretted his message and the couple went to court to determine whether or not they were in fact divorced.

Under Islamic Sharia law, a man can divorce his wife by a stating "I divorce thee" three times. If he makes the statement only twice, the husband can change his decision within three months. Women do not share this right. The Dubai court found that a text message is a valid means of communicating the statement.

http://www.out-law.com/page-1763

A spokesperson for Microsoft was quoted as saying :

        This is only an issue if you're downloading and watching porn. You should be watching only wholesome media, like "What About Bob", instead.

People are modding this as flamebait, but I've seen far, FAR too many IT professionals take that stance with Spyware / Malware. I've seen a system get all sorts of nasty winlogon-enabled Spyware within minutes of being hooked up to a network, with no action on the user's part. Not only that, in a world where banner ad companies can get infected with trojans the idea of people only getting infected if they're doing something "shady" on their machine is utterly absurd.

This was a decision on the filed amended claims from a lawsuit decided last July in Google's favor. I'm rather impressed with the KinderStart attorney, Gregory Yu, but it takes two citations to show it. First, an Out-Law dot com article, after describing how the judge pummelled the lawsuit for the second time, decided to pound a bit upon Mr. Yu too:

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California threw the case out, saying that KinderStart had been given a second chance to make its case and had still failed.

"The Court concluded in its July 13th Order that KinderStart had failed to allege facts sufficient to support each of the four elements of an attempted monopolization claim," said the judge. "The Court also noted that KinderStart had not sufficiently described the markets relevant to its claim. The SAC [second amended complaint] suffers from essentially the same defects."

[. . .]

KinderStart lawyer Gregory Yu of law firm Global Law Group was reprimanded by the judge for his unsupported claims that other companies had suffered unfair treatment at the hands of Google. "The Court concludes that the allegation that Google sells priority placement in its results should not have been made based upon the limited information identified by Yu," said Fogel. "As presented to the Court on this motion, Yu's purported evidence is either double hearsay or hearsay speculation as to the 'mysterious' causes of improvement in a website's position in Google's search results. The Court concludes that the allegations are sanctionable under Rule 11 because they are factually baseless and because Yu failed to perform an adequate investigation before filing them."

"It is true that Yu spoke with a number of people who believe that Google engages in religious or political discrimination, but a reasonable, competent investigation requires more than suspicions or belief. Yu had a professional responsibility to refrain from filing such allegations if he did not have appropriate supporting evidence," said Fogel.

Fogel said that he would take action against Yu. "Yu should have removed the allegations of sold search rankings and discrimination from the second amended complaint, and Google is entitled to reasonable compensation for having to defend against these claims," he said.

"Google search rank claim thrown out for second time", Out-Law dot com, March 23, 2007

Now return if you will to the time after a judgment had been entered last July, 2006 in Google's favor, but with a leave to amend, and we find Yu out pitching for potential clients:

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel for the Northern District in San Jose dismissed all nine claims, saying that KinderStart's claims were insufficient or failed to allege facts or conduct to support that the claims or were too vague.

Fogel specifically dismissed some of the claims against Google "with leave to amend," meaning that KinderStart can modify and refile the complaint.

[. . .]

...KinderStart attorney Gregory Yu also claimed victory, noting that the judge left the door open by allowing KinderStart to refile the claims. He said he plans to file an amended complaint before the next court date, which is scheduled for Sept. 29.

Yu also said he was encouraged by the judge's discussion pertaining to the defamation claim, and he urged other Web site publishers to contact him...

"The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a whole class of Web sites sacked with a '0' PageRank," he wrote in a statement. "If plaintiffs show Google manually tampered with even a single Web site's PageRank, Google's entire claim of 'objectivity' of search results and rankings could collapse."

Elinor Mills,"Judge dismisses suit over Google ranking, CNET News dot com, July 13, 2006

Ah, I see, but they're trying to weasel out of it, having come to the same conclusion I did. I'm also not clear on how many American companies had to pony up for new 3G spectrum vs. reuse spectrum they already had, etc. I'd want to look at the total amount spent buying cellular spectrum, not just 3G.

In the UK, BT (the formely state owned Telecom provider, now privatised) is obliged to provide competing operators with wholesale broadband access:

http://www.out-law.com/page-3519

I'm not sure how similarly this situation mimics that in the article, asides from with BT the EU wasn't involved in the decision.

The best analogy is not a fence, but a "no trespassing" sign. If you put up that "no trespassing" sign using the robots.txt file/Robot Exclusion Protocol, then you do expect people to honor that.

If you put a site up on the public internet, you would commonly expect people to visit it and do search-engine-like things to it (including saving a copy to disk).

My US version of Google News does NOT offer links to cached articles, as Google's traditional search engine does.

http://www.out-law.com/page-7759 has a good summary

Only in the absense of data protection laws. Try this in the EU and the fines will be a lot more than whatever you might have made by selling the list.

It's more than that Firstly (at least in the UK) it's a criminal offence, for which you get a record, and the fines are unlimited (for a large breach you can write off your company there and then). Plus they can serve you with an enforcement notice - preventing you from processing personal data (wave byebye to your customer database) and that's backed by criminal law too.

See the out-law summary

Needless to say here we take the DPA *very* seriously.

1) Apple's reliance on the "i" series of trade marks it already has. It will use this as a means of satisfying a test to determine the likelihood of confusion between the products. Some US legal experts have already claimed that this may not be a runner. We'll see (the area is heavily fact-specific so don't judge!)

2) Cisco's failure properly to defend its iphone trademark against usage by other third parties involved in a similar line of business. Can't really comment on that seeing as I don't know enough about it. what's funny however is that a google search for "iphone" gives you about 7 pages of results on the Apple product and diddly squat on any else.

There are two other factors which I can see, but which I think haven't necessarily been talked about much:

3) Cisco knows full well (but omits to mention) that Cingular will not allow Apple to "do VoIP" on its cells. An invitation to commit to interoperability between two companies looks on the surface like something both would want. After all, both are respected organisations with lots of R&D skills and a (generally well thought-of) reputation for execution. However, because the business plan could not yet allow that, Apple sensed a dangerous honey trap designed to lure it into an exclusive tie-in on VoIP on the iPhone platform. As we know, Apple partners with who it wants when it wants.

4) As this article http://www.out-law.com/page-7650 suggests, Cisco may lose its EU trade marks in "iPhone" shortly. Apple may have filed the revocation notice itself. If the filing succeeds, Cisco will almost certainly have to settle.

As you can see, it's a muddy one. I'm not hugely impressed with Cisco's line that "it was never about the money". It's always about money if you think that you're paying more than something is worth. Apple's probably seen that 4) is likely to succeed, and will stall until Cisco is forced back to the table with a lower price. My 0.2$

You've got it exactly backwards. If I have an agreement for a service that includes email, I have a right to expect that any email sent to me can reach my account. It is not the rights of the sender that are being infringed, it is the rights of the recipient.

You need to read before you click submit; go back and read my post again. Pay particular attention this time to where I mention the words "private contracts". Did you hear me talk about my private property? Please tell me what law requires that I accept e-mail from anyone barring a contract to do so.

Even then I still must disagree with you, and so have courts:

References:

"The University of Texas was within its rights to block spam sent by an internet dating agency, even though the unsolicited emails complied with the requirements of federal anti-spam laws, an Appeals Court has ruled."

http://www.out-law.com/page-5986

Yahoo said they'd bring back the rooms they deleted last year, except the pedo ones of course.

After a few months of no action I gave up on them.

From the U.K., but short and to the point:

Email content is treated in the same way as verbal and written expressions and statements and is admissible in a court of law. It is a common misconception that email messages carry less weight than letters on headed notepaper.

The problems are only likely to arise if your opponent disputes the authenticity of what you produce. The same applies to traditional letters - i.e. it is only when their authenticity is questioned that proof becomes a problem.

If the authenticity of an email produced in court is questioned, be prepared to provide evidence of the audit trail showing where the email originated and the route by which it was sent to your computer. The audit trail would show if there had been any opportunity for someone to interfere with the email as they are usually sent between several servers before they reach their destination.

Email have raised problems for the courts. In the past, evidence would invariably take the form of an original signed document and if that was not available then a copy of that signed document could be substituted. The signature would be the key to proving the authenticity of the document (of course, the argument can still be made that the signature is a fake). The difference with email is that there is no such thing as an 'original' since the print-out is the end result of a technological process. It is the audit trail showing that process which can be used to persuade the court of the print-out's authenticity if this is challenged by your opponent.

Forensic computing services can help if it becomes necessary to prove that a hard copy of an email produced in court is genuine.

Email as court evidence

According to [the prosecutions] lawyer, Jesse Markham Jr:

"ICANN has vacated its government-mandated obligation to maintain competition and prevent discrimination in markets related to internet domain names by succumbing to VeriSign's strong arm tactic and allowing it to leverage its limited-duration contractual control over .com and .net into a permanent control over those registries and over adjacent markets segments for various domain name services."

Where to start? Central medical record database, immigration, hyper-inflated property... No way back but there's still a way out.

Immigrants will be left to fund public sector pensions, everyone else will be long-gone.

Apologize for the two-post reply, had to look busy at work for few minutes.

Court overtuns levy:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2005/07/28/ipodlevy05 0728.html

Court refuses to require ISP's to turn over names:
http://www.out-law.com/page-5742

"All indications are that they're part of a massive campaign by corporate America and its allies to propagandise for tort 'reform' - limits on the legal rights of individuals to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable for causing death and injury."

As the article said, in part, "Although the word google is in the Oxford English Dictionary, the company is worried its brand will be diminished if it becomes jargon."

[snipped]

"Statistics show about 60 per cent of all Internet searches are done through Google. Struan Robertson, editor of legal website OUT-LAW.COM said the company was right to protect its name. "It's a problem for a lot of brands that don't want their brand to become a verb," he added. "What can happen is they loose the value of their name. For example, Escalator, Aspirin and Linoleum are all brand names that have passed into common useage. I think Google is doing the right thing."

Jo Steele, who wrote the article, says "Google is not the only company getting litigious, however. Xerox and Jacuzzi are both quick to police their name in dictionaries and the media."

And as for 'Portakabin' - don't spell it 'Portacabin' and don't describe any old shed as a Portakabin if they've not made it.

I wonder if PC is really going mad? :)

...what you can do once your in is where security comes in.

We've seen time and time again peoples opinions on enforcing password strength, but we all know that you can get someones password with a chocolate bar and a clip-board (http://www.out-law.com/page-4469)

The next part is what we have to concentrate on; make sure that your permissions adhere to the principle of least privilege.

Think of the firewall Deny All rule apply it to your users and grant only the permissions they actually need.

According to studies, Linux does infringe on a lot of patents. In a certain study infringement of 283 patents were found and out of these 27 belonged to Microsoft. Even Richard Stallman has been mentioning this in interviews as well as in talks, thus giving the claim some credibility in my eyes at least.

Since SCO is now in everyones seen as a Microsoft sock puppet, even the Redmond company realizes that it would look incredibly silly to continue using SCO as their megaphone for spreading Linux FUD.

Microsoft is at a crossroad right now. People, companies and governments have started demanding a lot more software freedoms in the last few years and it's clear that Microsoft can't tackle the "Linux threat" (i) in the same manner they've tackled all other competitors since their beginning. Since Microsoft's hand is more or less forced right now they seem to have no other option (at least given their current business model and unwillingness to become a service company) than to pull out the patent card. This might very well be a Pandora's Box, since there are a lot of big companies having a lot more patents than Microsoft who are betting a substantial part of their future on GNU/Linux. However Microsoft currently only has three options.

1) Sit back and watching their market share shrinking (due to many factors such as regulations of software freedoms in certain countries and general sway in corporate attitude towards freedom).
2) Become primarily a service company, backed by software which is still lacking in the OSS community (ii)
3) Start a legal battle to slow down the inevitable, allowing a few more years of enormous margins.

Now clearly option 1 is out of the question since it flies in the face of any Harvard MBA. Option two is not something Mr. Gates is very comfortable with and will likely not happen while he and Mr. Balmer still has significant influence over the company's direction. So They're left with option three...

i. Linux happens to be a manifistation of software freedom which looks tangible enough for Microsoft to grasp, since it can apply the typical corporate stratagem of having a "threat" and an "enemy". Tacking these labels to the real reason for their headache namely "freedom", would not play out very well as a media stunt, nor for their own employees I would guess.

ii. The future of proprietary software is in my view to fill whatever gaps exist in the OSS offerings at any given time or to invent (iii) new useful stuff. However the OSS community will catch up eventually if the applications are of enough use which means that the "software aspect" of a company who relies on proprietary stuff will have to raise the bar and / or find other gaps to focus on more quickly. It's all good in my view since it would likely accelerate the development pace in the industry.

iii. By invent I don't mean the buzzword / marketing term for "refinement" but real innovation.

Do you, GOP fans, want the NSA reading your email?

I don't think it's particuarly relevant exactly who does it, and it's already been ruled that looking at email doesn't violate laws against wire-tapping. IOW, from a legal viewpoint, your email is already fair game in any case.

If you honestly care, I'd consider something like PGP or gpg.

> After all, there haven't been any lawsuits in the video game industry, where every single FPS that ever existed is exactly the same as every other one other than the name...

But there have been lawsuits

Crazy Taxi v. Simpsons Road Rage

http://www.out-law.com/page-4155

There's even a Law/Business workshop based on it

http://www.cmpevents.com/GD06/a.asp?option=C&V=11& SessID=1555

I have lost no friends to "gaming addiction".

What about these guys?

my apologies for the ugly link. I should "Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!" Feel free to learn from my mistakes.

Trivial example, if you want to borrow money from a bank, then the bank would have good reason to query your PODS for information about your financial history.

I hate to tell you this, but they're trying...

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/0,2000 061791,39202379,00.htm
http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/so a/Music_industry_gains_discovery_win_in_Aussie_MP3 _site_case/0,39029154,40003501,00.htm
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/0,39023166,3 9177280,00.htm
http://www.out-law.com/page-5942
http://addict3d.org/index.php?page=viewarticle&typ e=news&ID=275

They're all stories about the Australian ISP being sued for hosting a site that contained links to copyrighted material.

Not good.

Breaking 20 year old contracts binding you not to get involved in music won't be good for the bottom line either

but hey lawsuits is what America likes doing !, the legal industry is the biggest cash contributers in the world to American politics so nothing is going to change until everyone is either dead or in court

see you in court or hell !

Sony has a long tradition in the EU of claiming the PS3 is not a game console, it is a computer. They went as far as including a basic interpreter to the PS2 and hiring a team of crooks in suits to argue a year or two with the European Governments, just to save a few percentage of customs duties. Just imagin what saving 4% on 25 million of units sold during the years means. That's about millions and millions for Sony. No wonder they are speaking Linux now.

Sony has lost an appeal over the classification of its PlayStation 2 for import tax purposes. It is officially a games console and not, as Sony had argued, a "digital processing unit" - a claim which, if successful, would have let Sony off the hook on import duty.

http://www.out-law.com/page-3953