Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "A federal judge has ruled that a number of a websites trafficking in counterfeit Chanel goods can have their domains seized and transferred to a new registrar. Astonishingly, the judge also ordered that the sites must be de-indexed from all search engines and all social media websites. Quoting the article: 'Missing from the ruling is any discussion of the Internet's global nature; the judge shows no awareness that the domains in question might not even be registered in this country, for instance, and his ban on search engine and social media indexing apparently extends to the entire world. (And, when applied to U.S.-based companies like Twitter, apparently compels them to censor the links globally rather than only when accessed by people in the U.S.) Indeed, a cursory search through the list of offending domains turns up poshmoda.ws, a site registered in Germany. The German registrar has not yet complied with the U.S. court order, though most other domain names on the list are .com or .net names and have been seized.'"

itwbennett writes "In a court filing, Oracle accused HP of secretly contracting with Intel to keep making Itanium processors so that it can continue to make money from its locked-in Itanium customers and take business away from Oracle's Sun servers. Oracle says that Intel would have long ago killed off Itanium if not for these payments from HP. For its part, HP called the filing a 'desperate delay tactic' in the lawsuit HP filed against Oracle over its decision to stop developing for Itanium."

bs0d3 writes "The U.S. House has drafted their version of Protect IP today. They have renamed the bill to 'the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act' or the E-PARASITE Act. The new house version of Protect IP is far worse than the Senate bill s.968 and it massively expands the sites that will be covered by the law. While the Senate bill limited its focus to sites that were 'dedicated to infringing activities,' the house bill targets 'foreign infringing sites' and 'has only limited purpose or use other than infringement.' They're also including an 'inducement' claim, any foreign site declared by the Attorney General to be 'inducing' infringement, can now be censored by the US. With no adversarial hearing. The bill can be read here."

suraj.sun sends this excerpt from MacRumors: "In a decision handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Apple has been denied an application for a trademark on Multi-Touch. ... For trademarks, 'the greater the degree of descriptiveness the term has, the heavier the burden to prove it has attained secondary meaning.' The trademark attorney pointed out that the term 'multitouch' has taken on generic meaning, being used by a wide variety of publications to describe the touchscreen technology on Android phones, tablets, and notebooks."

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist has used the Canadian freedom of information act to obtain a secret ministerial document on Canadian copyright reform that provides the government position on virtually every controversial issue from last year's Bill C-32. The government has no good explanation for its DMCA approach and calls provisions requiring the destruction of course materials part of an 'essential balance.' On the U.S. piracy watch list, it says 'Canada does not recognize the validity of the Special 301 process and considers it to be flawed. The Report does not employ a clear methodology in its country ranking, as it relies on industry allegations rather than empirical evidence and analysis.'"

arglebargle_xiv writes "At the risk of burning people out on the topic of PKI fail, someone claiming to be the Diginotar hacker has come forward to claim responsibility: It's the ComodoGate hacker. He also claims to 0wn four more 'high-profile' CAs, and still has the ability to issue new rogue certificates, presumably from other CAs that he 0wns." Whether this claim turns out to be truthful or not, what led to the breach in the first place? Reader Dr La points to an interim report commissioned by the Dutch government (PDF), according to which "a) No antivirus software was present on Diginotar's servers; b) 'the most critical servers' had malicious software infections; c) The software installed on the public web servers was outdated and not patched; and d) all servers were accessible by one user/password combination, which was 'not very strong and could easily be brute-forced.'"

www.sorehands.com writes "Back in 2006, e360Insight and David Linhardt obtained an $11.7M judgment against Spamhaus, an international anti-spam organization. The judgment was subsequently appealed and reduced to $27,002. That judgment was appealed yet again, and the appeals court has now vacated the earlier number and entered a judgment against Spamhaus in the amount of $3. (Yes, three dollars.) As you may recall, e360's oral arguments for the latest appeal were not well received by the court." The ruling itself is a fairly entertaining diatribe about how e360 shot itself in the foot repeatedly and with enthusiasm throughout the case, and contains gems like this: "By failing to comply with its basic discovery obligations, a party can snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory."

itwbennett writes "Environmental watchdog groups in China on Wednesday released a report detailing a 5-month investigation on electronic suppliers that they believe are used by Apple. According to the report, accessory manufacturer Kaedar Electronics and printed circuit board maker Unimicron have allegedly been discharging waste water and harmful gas from their plants in the Chinese city of Kunshan. The report claims that over a 10-year period, 'many people have fallen sick, with a sharp increase in the village's cancer rates.' Since 2007, more than nine people have suffered or died from cancer in the village, which has a population of fewer than 60. Apple declined to say if the companies named were in fact its suppliers, but company spokeswoman Carolyn Wu, responding to the report, said, 'Apple is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base.'"

vanstinator writes "Today Dropbox has released a revised Terms of Service agreement due to the controversy caused by their recent update. This new version clarifies their position on data ownership and makes it very clear that you, and only you, have a right to your data. This is welcome news to any serious Dropbox user." On the downside, though, NorbMan writes that a company called FilesAnywhere.com is "suing Dropbox, Inc. for trademark infringement. The complaint alleges that FilesAnywhere has been using the term 'DROPBOX' since 2004 as part of its service, and that Dropbox, Inc. has also closely duplicated one of its logo designs."

Hugh Pickens writes "On June 20 District Court Judge Philip Pro found that Kentucky resident Wayne Hoehn was protected by fair use in posting a Las Vegas Review-Journal column on a sports website. Now Hoehn's attorneys have submitted a $34,000 bill and asked that Judge Pro require Righthaven to pay it. The $34,000 could be just the tip of the iceberg for Righthaven, should the Democratic Underground prevail in what likely will be a far larger fee demand."

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a story at Torrentfreak: "Entertainment industry lobby groups often describe file-sharers as thieves who refuse to pay for any type of digital content. But not everyone agrees with this view. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson sees copyright abuse as the underlying cause of the piracy problem. In a brilliant article, Rene Summer, Director of Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson, explains how copyright holders themselves actually breed pirates by clinging to outdated business methods. The most vocal rightsholder groups would ideally turn the Internet into a virtual police state, and at the other end of the spectrum there are groups that want to abolish copyright entirely.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A day after Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys's lawsuit against seven app developers (EFF comments), Lodsys has filed its third lawsuit this year. The latest complaint targets ten companies including Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western, Black and Decker. Lodsys sues them over two patents, one of which it also asserts against app developers in court as well as its now famous letters (an example of which has meanwhile been published as a result of Apple's intervention). The ten new assertions relate to web surveys, feedback-soliciting FAQs, and live interactive chat."

Hugh Pickens writes "Cnet reports that the advocacy group Free Press has filed a complaint with the FCC that argues Verizon Wireless shouldn't be allowed to block tethering apps that let people connect their computers to the Internet through their phones' 4G wireless data network. 'This practice restricts consumer choice and hinders innovation regardless of which carrier adopts such policies, but when Verizon Wireless employs these restrictions in connection with its LTE network, it also violates the Federal Communications Commission's rules,' says the group. Those rules say Verizon 'shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice.' Google has made tethering apps unavailable through the Android Market for some phones that use wireless services from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, saying in May it did so at the behest of carriers."

Dachannien writes "Patently-O and Ars Technica report that Lodsys has filed suit [here's the complaint] in the Eastern District of Texas against seven iPhone developers, asserting that the defendants are infringing two patents. Apple had previously indicated their belief that all iPhone developers are protected by a licensing agreement that Apple had made with the patents' former assignee, Intellectual Ventures. But Lodsys insists that the defendants are nonetheless liable for infringement. Still an open question is whether Apple will go beyond the mailing of strongly worded letters in defending third-party iPhone devs."

An anonymous reader writes "37 lawsuits have been filed against Android in a little more than a year, the latest one of them being Microsoft's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. ReadWriteWeb says 'the number of patent lawsuits related to the Android operating system is unprecedented' and shows an infographic that is also available on Twitpic and as a PDF file, on Scribd. The first two suits were filed in March 2010 by Apple and MobileMedia against HTC. The original source of the chart, the FOSS Patents blog, says that Android's market share is only one factor, other reasons being that Google's patent portfolio is 'far too weak for what's undertaken in connection with Android'; that Google doesn't do 'inbound licensing' from trolls; and that Google tends to ignore patent issues because Google itself is rarely sued: in most of these cases, Android device makers are under attack."

FlorianMueller writes "Microsoft and Google have teamed up against a company that holds a geotagging patent and sued 397 companies last year in Texas, most of them in mid December. ... Now the two tech giants have entered the fray together and want the patent declared invalid and seek an injunction to prevent further lawsuits over it. Since the patent holder has already filed for an initial public offering, this intervention may come at just the right time to prevent the worst. Google and Microsoft say that there was prior art when the patent on an 'Internet organizer for accessing geographically and topically based information' was applied for in 1996."

FlorianMueller writes "On Friday LG filed a complaint against Sony with the US International Trade Commission, claiming the PlayStation 3 infringes four Blu-ray Disc patents and demanding a permanent ban of the PS3 (and possibly other products) from the US market. LG, which boasts that it owns 90,000 patents worldwide, appears to take this step in retaliation for a previous Sony complaint about various LG smartphones, which the ITC is already investigating. This is reminiscent of Motorola's infringement action against the Xbox 360 that is part of its wider dispute with Microsoft. In other words, you touch my smartphones and I bomb your game consoles."

FlorianMueller writes "Patent suits are the IT industry's new Christmas cards: Microsoft and Motorola just added new accusations to their row. Motorola filed another suit in the Western District of Wisconsin, for the first time also attacking the Kinect. Microsoft threw in seven patents in Southern Florida. Two of them cover touchscreen technologies and two allegedly read on Motorola's DVRs. At this stage of the game, 35 patents are in suit between the companies. Afraid to lose track of so much peace and harmony? There's a visualization available (detailed reference material included)."

FlorianMueller writes "The US International Trade Commission, which is increasingly popular as a patent enforcement agency, voted to investigate a complaint filed by Motorola against Microsoft last month. Motorola claims that the Xbox infringes five of its patents. In October, Microsoft complained against Motorola, alleging patent infringement by its Android-based smartphones. Apple, Nokia and HTC are also involved with ITC investigations as complainants and respondents. A new one-page overview document shows the ongoing ITC investigations related to smartphones and the products that the complainants would like to have banned from entry into the US market. The good news is that any import bans won't be ordered until long after Christmas. The ITC is faster than courts, but not that fast."

An anonymous reader writes "While Rapidshare defends itself around the world from lawsuits by media companies for copyright infringement, new evidence was revealed that UK-based major label EMI is putting music on Rapidshare and directing people to download it in the hopes that it spreads 'virally.' This came to light in the ongoing copyright battle EMI v. MP3tunes over personal cloud media storage and the Sideload.com music search engine. EMI accuses MP3tunes of enabling piracy by linking to Rapidshare, but since EMI is using Rapidshare, this would seem to weaken their argument considerably. You can read the legal brief online."

angry tapir writes "The US Federal Communications Commission should allow for an open Internet separate from specialized services that may prioritize IP traffic, a group of Internet and technology pioneers has recommended. The document, filed in response to an FCC request for public comments on proposed network neutrality rules, steers clear of recommending what rules should apply to the open Internet. Among the tech experts signing the document are Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Bruce Perens, founder of the open-source software movement; Clay Shirky, an author and lecturer at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program; and David Reed, a contributor to the development of TCP/IP and an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab."

An anonymous reader writes "Late last week, Google sued the US government for putting out a Request For Quotation for the messaging needs of the Department of the Interior that specified only Microsoft solutions would be considered. Google apparently had spent plenty of time talking to DOI officials to understand their needs and make sure they had a solution ready to go — and were promised that there wasn't a deal already in place with Microsoft. And then the RFQ came out. Google protested, but the protest was dismissed, with the claim that Google was 'not an interested party.'"

An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."

An anonymous reader submits news of the conviction of two Norwegian day traders, Svend Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby, who were on Wednesday fined and given suspended sentences (Norwegian court, Norwegian document) for cleverly working out — and cashing in on — the way the computerized trading system of Interactive Brokers subsidiary Timber Hill would respond to certain trades. They used the system's predictable responses to manipulate the value of low-priced stocks. The pair have gotten some sympathetic reactions from around the world, and promise to appeal.

An anonymous reader writes "The manifesto of the man holding the Discovery Channel hostage with a bomb has been released. He has fired shots and taken hostages. His main complaints are about overpopulation, religion and civilization. He wants them to avoid encouraging people to produce more 'disgusting human babies,' to get people to accept 'Malthus-Darwin science,' reject civilization and its 'disgusting religious-cultural roots,' and to stop 'ALL immigration pollution.'" The man has now been shot by police, and the hostages have been freed.

robo45h writes "The late night infomercial VoIP company magicJack is moving into the smartphone space. The competition there is really going to be interesting. We have the likes of Skype and other VoIP companies competing against the wireless carriers still selling over-priced voice calls. It's such a big battle that the recent Verizon / Google Proposal specifically excludes (provides a loophole for) wireless. This has been brewing since cell phones added data capabilities, but it's coming to a head now." Free calls sounds nice, but it's worth noting that not everyone's happy with MagicJack's EULA.

Bruce Perens writes "Oracle has brought a lawsuit against Google claiming that Google has infringed patents on the Java platform in Android. Scribd has a copy of the complaint. But there's a patent grant that should allow Google to use Java royalty-free. Has Google failed to meet the terms of the grant?"

langelgjm writes "Announced this afternoon in a joint conference call held by CEOs Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Google and Verizon have released a joint net neutrality proposal in the form of a 'suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers.' This comes on the heels of last week's assertion (and subsequent denial) that Google and Verizon were close to concluding talks that would permit Verizon to prioritize certain content in exchange for pay. A look at the actual text of the framework shows some positive net neutrality principles, but there is also some more curious content: 'Wireless broadband' is singled out for exclusion from most of the agreement, and providers would be permitted to prioritize 'additional online services... distinguishable in scope and purpose.' Public Knowledge, a watchdog group based in Washington, has criticized the agreement for these provisions."

morsch writes "Researcher Vinay Deolalikar from HP Labs claims proof that P != NP. The 100-page paper has apparently not been peer-reviewed yet, so feel free to dig in and find some flaws. However, the attempt seems to be quite genuine, and Deolalikar has published papers in the same field in the past. So this may be the real thing. Given that $1M from the Millennium Prize is involved, it will certainly get enough scrutiny. Greg Baker broke the story on his blog, including the email Deolalikar sent around."

pdcull writes "We all read on Slashdot about the investment banks using their massive computer power and clever modeling techniques to predict the FIFA World Cup outcome. Now that Goldman Sachs's, UBS's and Danske Bank's favorite, Brazil, has been eliminated, and with JP Morgan's England long gone, the question that begs to be asked is: can we really trust these guys to predict the financial markets any better than they did World Cup?"

pdcull writes "We all read on Slashdot about the investment banks using their massive computer power and clever modeling techniques to predict the FIFA World Cup outcome. Now that Goldman Sachs's, UBS's and Danske Bank's favorite, Brazil, has been eliminated, and with JP Morgan's England long gone, the question that begs to be asked is: can we really trust these guys to predict the financial markets any better than they did World Cup?"

databuff writes "As a break from projecting the strength of subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other obscure financial instruments, quantitative analysts at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, and Danske Bank have modeled the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Now Kaggle has set up a forecasting competition, allowing statisticians to go head-to-head with these corporate giants. The challenge is to predict how far each country will progress in the tournament."

databuff writes "As a break from projecting the strength of subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other obscure financial instruments, quantitative analysts at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, and Danske Bank have modeled the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Now Kaggle has set up a forecasting competition, allowing statisticians to go head-to-head with these corporate giants. The challenge is to predict how far each country will progress in the tournament."

sbrubblesman writes "The Tetris Company, LLC has notified Google to remove all Tetris clones from Android Market. I am one of the developers of FallingBlocks, a game with the same gameplay concepts as Tetris. I have received an email warning that my game was suspended from Android Market due to a violation of the Developer Content Policy. When I received the email, I already imagined that it had something to do with it being a Tetris clone, but besides having the same gameplay as Tetris, which I believe cannot be copyrighted, the game uses its own name, graphics and sounds. There's no reference to 'Tetris' in our game. I have emailed Google asking what is the reason for the application removal. Google promptly answered that The Tetris Company, LLC notified them under the DMCA (PDF) to remove various Tetris clones from Android Market. My app was removed together with 35 other Tetris clones. I checked online at various sources, and all of them say that there's no copyright on gameplay. There could be some sort of patent. But even if they had one, it would last 20 years, so it would have been over in 2005. It's a shame that The Tetris Company, LLC uses its power to stop developers from creating good and free games for Android users. Without resources for a legal fight, our application and many others will cease to exist, even knowing that they are legit. Users will be forced to buy the paid, official version, which is worse than many of the ones available for free on the market. Users from other countries, such as Brazil in my case, won't even be able to play the official Tetris, since Google Checkout doesn't exist in Brazil; you can't buy paid applications from Android Market in these countries."

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from NewTeeVee: "Judge Stephen Wilson of the US District Court of California, Southern District, issued a permanent injunction (PDF) against the popular torrent site Isohunt yesterday, forcing the site and its owner Garry Fung to immediately prevent access to virtually all Hollywood movies. The injunction theoretically leaves the door open for the site to deploy a strict filtering system, but its terms are so broad that Isohunt has little choice but to shut down or at the very least block all US visitors. ... The verdict states that they have to cease 'hosting, indexing, linking to, or otherwise providing access to any (torrent) or similar files' that can be used to download the studios' movies and TV shows. Studios have to supply Isohunt with a list of titles of works they own, and Isohunt has to start blocking those torrents within 24 hours."

drfreak writes "This story from OSNews describes Scribd, a site for uploading and reading documents, switching from Flash to HTML5. The major reason for the decision was that HTML5 supports all the major points of the site's previous functionality, so they saw no point in using Flash any more. The big improvement in the rollout is that documents are now first-class citizens of HTML and no longer need to sit in a Flash 'window.'"

miller60 writes "Saying 1,100 data centers is too many, the federal government has begun what looms as the largest IT consolidation in history. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has directed federal agencies to inventory their assets by April 30 and prepare a plan to reduce the number of servers and data centers, with a focus on slashing energy costs (full memo). Kundra says some applications may be shifted to cloud computing platforms customized for government use."

Frequent Slashdot Contributor Bennett Haselton writes in "A federal judge rules that a student can seek attorney's fees against a high school principal who suspended her for a Facebook page she made at home. Good news, but how could the school have thought they had the right to punish her for that in the first place? Posing the question not rhetorically but seriously. What is the source of society's attitudes toward the free-speech rights of 17-year-olds?"

Well, you knew this post was coming when you read the news. A federal judge has ruled that Katie Evans, who had been suspended from high school for creating a Facebook group calling one of her teachers "the worst teacher I've ever met," can proceed with her suit seeking attorney's fees from her principal for violating her First Amendment rights. Evans, now a journalism student at the University of Florida, is represented in her suit by the ACLU of Florida.

If any of the recent student online free-speech cases should have been adjudicated in the student's favor, this would most clearly be the one. As Judge Barry Garber wrote in his ruling, Evans's page did not contain threats of violence (if it had, it would have been a matter for the police, not for a school punishment), and the principal didn't even find out about the page until two months after she took it down. It's hard to believe that the principal's lawyers, if he consulted with them, would have gone along with a recommendation to suspend the student. And once the Florida ACLU contacted the principal, wouldn't he have realized that the longer he fought the case, the more legal bills the ACLU would amass, along with the possibility that the principal could be ordered to pay them? Even if he had estimated that there would only be a 5% chance that he could end up being ordered to pay legal fees, was it worth the risk, if the fees could come to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars? Well, now he knows.

When a different judge ruled that a student had no right to challenge his suspension for making a vulgar Myspace page about his principal, I said that there was no more objective basis for saying that the ruling was legally "right" than it was "wrong," because if you put 10 judges in separate rooms and ask them how they would rule on the case, you could get 10 different, mutually contradictory answers. Well, fair is fair — even though I support Judge Garber's ruling 100%, I have to concede that it did not necessarily follow inevitably from the facts and the law, and there's no objective basis for calling it "the" right ruling. Judges are not like doctors who look at a mammogram, and draw on experience that the general public does not have, in order to see something that would be hidden from the rest of us. In cases like these, judges simply have multiple plausible interpretations in front of them, and they pick one. As such they're acting more like referees (who make a decision so that the game — or, in this case, society — can move on) than true "experts."

There is a temptation to think that there is some consistent reasoning behind the different courts' rulings — say, that the student who created a vulgar page mocking his principal (the student was identified in papers only as "J.S.") went too far and crossed a line, while Katie Evans's page complaining about her teacher was clean enough to stay on the safe side of the line, and make her eligible for damages in a First Amendment suit. This, I think, is nonsense, an attempt to put a consistent theory on top of a legal system that does not follow consistent rules from one court ruling to the next. If different judges had been randomly assigned to J.S.'s case and Evans's case, then it might have been J.S. who won and Evans who lost. After all, it was a federal judge who once ruled that a Utah high school had the right to suspend a student for wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with "Vegan" and "Vegans Have First Amendment Rights." (The judge and the principal had apparently confused veganism with eco-terrorism.) How do you reconcile that with any of the recent rulings? (No prizes for guessing how that judge would have ruled if the shirts had said "Christian.")

But even if it's still a roll of the dice how a court would rule in a particular student free-speech case, what matters from the point of view of a principal in a future case, are the potential payoffs. What if you're thinking about suspending a student for a non-threatening, non-libelous Facebook page? If the case ends up in court and you win, then you get the satisfaction of being "vindicated." But if you lose, you could be ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the student's attorneys. So even a small number of victories for students in free-speech cases, even if mixed in with an equal or greater number of victories for the schools, still create an enormous incentive for a principal not to risk the case at all, when the potential gain is so small and the potential loss so huge. Even if you think there's only a 5% chance of being ordered to pay the student's $10,000 legal bill, that means you'd still have to decide if it's worth (on average) about $500 to get the satisfaction of suspending them.

(On the other hand, if a student created a page that was so threatening or libelous towards a staff member, that the school would run the risk of being sued if the principal didn't suspend the student, then the school and the principal are taking some legal risk either way, but the risk involved in suspending the student is much smaller. Fine — there's nothing wrong with suspending a student for threats of violence.)

So the ruling is a much more significant victory for student speech than many of the parties involved probably realize. Even though Judge Garber didn't actually award Evans her attorney's fees (yet?) — he only said that she could proceed to seek them against the principal — just the fact that it's coming dangerously close to that, means that principals in future cases now know what the risks are.

But why was all this necessary? How did the legal and societal climate of attitudes toward people under 18, lead to a principal thinking that he could punish a 17-year-old for comments that she made about a teacher, on her own time, to a third-party audience? If the students in the school had been comprised, not of minors, but of adults from some other minority group — African Americans, immigrant women, native Spanish speakers — there's no question that the principal never would have thought he could get away with suspending the student for criticizing a teacher.

Similarly, students at Harriton High School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania just discovered that school officials had given laptops to students to take home with remotely-activated webcams, that could be used to take photos in student's homes and transmit them back to school officials. Incredibly, this was discovered not by students or their parents examining the laptops, but because school officials used the feature to take a photo of a student in his bedroom, and then confronted him about "inappropriate" behavior, not considering that the students and their parents might consider it "inappropriate" that the school snuck spy cams into their bedrooms. (The school has issued a denial claiming, "At no time did any high school administrator have the ability or actually access the security-tracking software" — which doesn't seem to make sense, since the lawsuit was filed in the first place because the student was told by the assistant principal that the webcam had caught him engaging in "inappropriate behavior.") What was the school thinking? Probably, they were thinking, "These are minors, we can do what we want." If their student clientele had been comprised of adults, they never would have dreamed that they could confront a student about behavior in their room that they captured with a hidden camera. (Ironically, the school may end up in more trouble for spying on minors, as this editorial argues, since the school officials may now be guilty of recording and possessing child porn, depending on what the cameras "captured" in the students' rooms!)

So no matter how much ink is spilled analyzing the legal technicalities of suspending a 17-year-old student for off-campus speech, that's not what the case is really about. The case is really about attitudes. Change society's attitudes to think of 17-year-olds the way we currently think of 25-year-olds, and no judge is going to deny them their right to criticize their school on their own time, any more than a judge in today's society would deny that right to a 25-year-old.

And where does this attitude towards minors come from? I suspect that most people who believe that we have to draw the line somewhere around age 18, believe it for no better reason than because they were raised in a society where most other people believe it too. If you think that setting the cutoff age at 18 is just "common sense," then I would bet my house that if you had been raised in a society where the cutoff age was set at 13, that would seem like "just common sense" to you as well, and similarly if you had been raised in a society where the cutoff had been set at 22. This may seem like an unremarkable observation, but my belief in minors' rights has always been motivated by a more fundamental belief that you should not believe things merely because most people in your society believe them. If that sounds like a trite platitude, consider how few people in the US seem to question the rule that you can show a man's chest on television but not a woman's chest. In more liberal Denmark, supermarkets can stock tabloids at toddler-eye-level with photos of topless women on the cover, while in Saudi Arabia, adult women can't leave the house without covering their faces, and in all three societies, the majority thinks these regulations are just plain "common sense." Is the age of majority just another arbitrary illusion caused by the power of consensus?

When I said this on The David Lawrence Show, the host made the thoughtful observation that most countries all over the world set the age of majority for most purposes at 18. Close, I said, but it doesn't quite prove what it seems to prove, because those globally diverse societies did not reach that conclusion independently — they move in similar directions because of cross-cultural influences. (The voting age was set at 21 in many democracies before many of them lowered it to 18 in the 1970's within a few years of each other.) To get a better sense of whether there is any merit to the idea, we'd have to do something like the "putting the 10 judges in 10 separate rooms" test — put 10 different societies in mutual isolation from each other, let them develop and debate things on their own, and see if all or most of them reach the conclusion that 18 us a good cutoff age for adulthood.

The idea that actual children — under the age of, say, 11 — are qualitatively different from adults, has in fact been re-discovered by civilizations that developed independently at different points in history, all over the world. So there's probably something to it. The idea that teenagers are qualitatively different from adults, is something particular to recent history, and a wise person transported forward in time from the 1500's to the present day might scratch their heads and wonder why we think that 18-year-olds should be allowed to criticize their teachers but 17-year-olds cannot. I suspect the artificial extension of childhood grew out of the fact that because modern jobs are more complicated than they used to be, we need more years of schooling before we can go out and compete in the workforce. The fallacy there, though, is that just because we need more years of schooling, doesn't mean that the natural age of "human maturity" has gone up. So we end up with 17-year-olds having to go to court to establish their right to criticize their teachers on their own time.

Judge Garber wouldn't have been in a position to make this argument in his ruling even if he agreed with it. But even if his ruling was based on logic that has nothing to do with the underlying case for minors' rights, it was still a step in the right direction.

eldavojohn writes "A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with 'razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll calls each day.' The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include 'Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.' and a complaint under the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which abolished slavery. Members of the group Anonymous praised the summons."

reifman writes "For tax purposes, Microsoft reports that it's earned its estimated $143 billion in software licensing revenue in Nevada, where there is no licensing tax, as we discussed a few weeks ago. However, for legal purposes, Microsoft relies on Washington law and its underfunded courts to defend its contracts as it did in Microsoft Licensing GP vs. TSR Silicon. Application of common legal doctrines such as nexus, the step doctrine, and alter ego theory may lead to findings that Microsoft owes the state more than $1 billion in taxes, interest, and penalties."

We've recently been following the FCC's inquiry into Apple's rejection of the Google Voice app. Apple, Google, and AT&T have all officially responded to the FCC's questions: Apple says they haven't actually rejected the app, they're just continuing to "study it," and that it may "alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging, and voicemail." The interesting bits of Google's response seem to have been redacted, but they talk a little about the approval process for the Android platform. AT&T claims it had "no role" in the app's rejection and notes that there are no contractual provisions between the two companies for the consideration of individual apps. Reader ZuchinniOne points out a report in The Consumerist analyzing some of the statements made in these filings, as well as TechCrunch's look into the veracity of their claims.

We've recently been following the FCC's inquiry into Apple's rejection of the Google Voice app. Apple, Google, and AT&T have all officially responded to the FCC's questions: Apple says they haven't actually rejected the app, they're just continuing to "study it," and that it may "alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging, and voicemail." The interesting bits of Google's response seem to have been redacted, but they talk a little about the approval process for the Android platform. AT&T claims it had "no role" in the app's rejection and notes that there are no contractual provisions between the two companies for the consideration of individual apps. Reader ZuchinniOne points out a report in The Consumerist analyzing some of the statements made in these filings, as well as TechCrunch's look into the veracity of their claims.

Death Metal points out a CNet report saying that the Justice Department has come out in favor of the $1.92 million verdict awarded to the RIAA in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case. Their support came in the form of a legal brief filed on Friday, which notes, "Congress took into account the need to deter the millions of users of new media from infringing copyrights in an environment where many violators believe that they will go unnoticed." It also says, "The Copyright Act's statutory damages provision serves both to compensate and deter. Congress established a scheme to allow copyright holders to elect to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement instead of actual damages and profits because of the difficulty of calculating and proving actual damages."

Arguendo writes "A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Blackboard Inc.'s patent on a learning management system is invalid in light of the inventors' own prior software product. We have previously discussed the patent and Blackboard's trial court victory against Desire2Learn. It's not completely over, but this is almost certainly the death knell for Blackboard's patent. If so inclined, you may read the appellate court's decision here (PDF) or on scribd."

An anonymous reader writes "Net speculation has swirled about the DOJ being stacked with media company-friendly attorneys who will throw the consumer under the bus, but in one of the first rulings, the Solicitor General defended network DVRs, mentioned cloud computing and a music locker — which has to be a first for a Supreme Court brief. Michael Robertson chronicles the latest developments and you can read the brief for yourself."

SpuriousLogic writes "Drinking water which contains lithium may reduce the risk of suicide, a Japanese study suggests. Researchers compared levels of lithium in drinking water to suicide rates in the prefecture of Oita, which has a population of more than one million. The suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of lithium, they wrote in the British Journal of Psychiatry. And I was only worried about fluoridation affecting my precious bodily fluids before ..."

Jamyang (Greg Walton) writes "I am editor of the Infowar Monitor and co-author of the recent report, Tracking Ghostnet. I have been asked by the Office of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) and the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE) to offer some policy recommendations in light of the ongoing targeted malware attacks directed at the Tibetan community worldwide. Some of the recommendations are relatively straightforward. For example, I will suggest that OHHDL convene an international Board of Advisers, bringing together some of the brightest minds in computer and international security to advise the Tibetans, and that the new Tibetan university stands up a Certified Ethical Hacking course. However, one of the more controversial moves being actively debated by Tibetans on the Dharamsala IT Group [DITG] list, is a mass migration of the exile community (including the government) to Linux, particularly since all of the samples of targeted malware collected exploit vulnerabilities in Windows. I would be very interested to hear Slashdot readers opinions on this debate here." (More below.) Jamyang continues: "Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment here: in the short term, moving to a platform that is perhaps less familiar to the attacker provides considerable relief, but it is essentially less difficult to write exploits for Mac OS/Linux than it is for Windows, given the many anti-exploitation mechanisms Microsoft has embedded in the last years, so in the long run, if the attackers want your data, the entire move is moot. People should choose a platform based on their productivity requirements instead of purely security. Furthermore, most of the web servers broken into during these attacks (to be used as command and control servers) were not Windows, but Linux. What do you think?

(While I have the floor I'd also like to take this opportunity to plug two initiatives where Slashdot readers can directly help the Tibetan tech community, either through sharing your expertise or your cash! Firstly, one of the obstacles to migrating to Linux for a Tibetan speaker is the lack of decent Tibetan font — can you help? Secondly, Avaaz is raising funds for projects that will help End The Blackout in Tibet, including a proposal to support the deployment of Psiphon's circumvention network. Thanks, or in Tibetan, thuk.je.che!"

thefickler writes "Microsoft is opposing an industry plan, the Open Cloud Manifesto, to promote cloud computing interoperability. Officially, Microsoft says the plan is unnecessarily secretive and that cloud computing is still in an early stage of development, but there are allegations that Microsoft feels threatened by the plan because it could boost Linux-based systems. The goal of the group behind the manifesto, the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF), is to minimize the barriers between different technologies used in cloud computing. And this is where the problem seems to lie, with the group stating that 'whenever possible the CCIF will emphasize the use of open, patent-free and/or vendor-neutral technical solutions.' Some speculate that Microsoft is actually worried that this will allow open source systems, such as Linux, to flourish, at the expense of Microsoft technology." Amazon is also declining to support the plan, saying, "the best way to illustrate openness and customer flexibility is by what you actually provide and deliver for them." Reader smack.addict contributes a link to an O'Reilly piece asking what openness really means for cloud computing.

narramissic writes "A report released Friday by a group of cyber-security experts from greylogic finds it is very likely that the Foreign Military Intelligence agency (the GRU) and Federal Security Service (the FSB) directed cyber attacks on Georgian government servers in July and August of 2008. 'Following a complex web of connections, the report claims that an Internet service provider connected with the Stopgeorgia.ru web site, which coordinated the Georgian attacks, is located next door to a Russian Ministry of Defense Research Institute called the Center for Research of Military Strength of Foreign Countries, and a few doors down from GRU headquarters.' But Paul Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro who has reviewed the report, says it's a 'bit of a stretch' to conclude that the Georgia attacks were state-sponsored. 'You can connect dots to infer things, but inferring things does not make them so,' he said. One other interesting allegation in the report is that a member of the Whackerz Pakistan hacking group, which claimed responsibility for defacing the Indian Eastern Railway Web site on Dec. 24, 2008, is employed by a North American wireless communications company and presents an 'insider threat' for his employer."

Barence writes "Dell has issued court papers in the US, accusing Psion of fraudulently laying claim to the term netbook. Psion sent out warning letters late last year to PC manufacturers, retailers and bloggers alike, asking them to stop using the term netbook, which the company registered as a trademark in the late 1990s. But in a Petition for Cancellation of Psion's trademark, the PC manufacturer accuses Psion of abandoning the term and fraudulently claiming it was still in use. 'Psion is not currently offering laptop computers under the Netbook trademark,' Dell's petition claims. The petition also claims that Psion made false statements about its use of the term Netbook in a sworn declaration to the US Trademark Office."