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The Industry Standard had an article on this a couple months ago: http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,26784,00 .html.

For me (and a lot of others in the anti-spam community), Mr. Lessig lost all credibility when he wrote The Spam Wars. In it, he describes a group of vigilantes looking to change the nature of commerce on the net. What he fails to mention is that it's just a bunch of network admins using a self-compiled and maintained list to drop packets from open relays and known spammers from hitting their own networks.

I find it both amusing and disturbing that he can be so strongly in favor of fair-use, reverse engineering, and against the DMCA, among other hot button /. issues, all the while decrying network operators dropping traffic they don't want on their network.

Cheese, a linux worm did this.
Read This

If there has ever been a good time to send a letter/make a call/make a visit to your congressman/woman / senator about the DMCA, this is probably it. I'm sure Boucher would be more than delighted to put the bill on the floor if he had our undivided support for it.

They really need to read 'Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure' by Jerry Kaplin and read how the first real PDA, the Go! was royally screwed (well, according to Kaplin) by Apple's 'assistance' pre-Newton and by Microsoft's Pen Computing libraries which seem to have been invented to be a spoiler for Go! and its successor the GRiD - I don't think they ever got used in a PDA and have very little relation to Windows CE. I read 'Startup' when I was trying to do a dotcom myself and it put me off completely. It's required reading for anyone who even thinks of taking on the big boys, even with things they haven't thought of yet.

Microsoft Breakup Decision Overturned by the Court of Appeals

Judge Jackson had compared Microsoft to "drug traffickers".

by Michael Jennings

(Thursday, June 28, 2001) Today the Court of Appeals handling the Microsoft anti-trust case overturned the lower court's decision to split Microsoft into two or more companies. The breakup would have placed the Microsoft Windows operating system in one company and created a second business for everything else.

This decision of the Court of Appeals has been widely recognized as fair because of the behaviour of the judge of the lower court, in which he had not given the required appearance of impartiality. Judge Jackson had, for example, compared Microsoft to "drug traffickers", and Bill Gates to Napoleon. (See page 111 of the Court's decision [PDF format]).

The Court of Appeals found that Judge Jackson's 206-page Findings of Fact, in which Microsoft was found to have engaged in illegal conduct, was entirely acceptable. It was his conduct outside the courtroom that was a violation of the code of conduct for United States judges. (For more about this, see pages 111 to 115 of the decision.)

Earlier, many people had praised Judge Jackson's skill in handling the case inside the courtroom. Technically oriented observers considered the Findings of Fact to be very well informed.

However, the penalty that Judge Jackson recommended for Microsoft was voided because of his public misconduct. The Court of Appeals directed that a new district judge examine the case, using the Findings of Fact as a starting point.

The story is very widely reported. For examples, see: ABC, AP, BBC, Washington Post, Seattle Times, CNet, The Industry Standard, Reuters, Guardian, Motley Fool, and MSNBC. The NY Times article requires that you register. Registration is free.

Silicon Valley.com said "[Microsoft] can continue its brutal practices for a while longer..."

There were two parts to the anti-trust case, 1) the Findings of Fact, in which Microsoft was found to have engaged in illegal activity, and 2) the remedy, which is what would happen as a result of the court finding illegal activity. Judge Jackson had ordered that Microsoft be broken into two companies. It is only this second part, the remedy, that has been voided (vacated) by the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals wrote, "We vacate the judgment on remedies, because the trial judge engaged in impermissible ex parte [outside the court] contacts by holding secret interviews with members of the media and made numerous offensive comments about Microsoft officials in public statements outside of the courtroom, giving rise to an appearance of partiality."

The Court of Appeals added, "Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process."

The ruling of the Court of Appeals was unanimous, by a 7-0 vote.

More links:

Open Secrets.org report on Microsoft soft money donations

Common Cause report on Microsoft political contributions

Antitrust Law and Economics Review

Older Articles:

Microsoft Unfazed by Threat of New Antitrust Suits (Thursday, June 21, 2001)

What, me worry? Microsoft's Ballmer stays cool, confident, composed. (PC World, June 17, 1998)

Michael Jennings
Futurepower®
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.

Tel: (503) 233-7820
Fax: (419) 781-4606
E-Mail: jennings_michael @ hotmail.com (remove spaces)

Futurepower is a registered trademark.
Copyright 2001

In my hometown of Huntsville, AL the local-boys-made-good company of Intergraph (noted for their innovative CAD/CAM terminals 10 years ago) tried to get out of hardware and focus on software to cut losses but it didn't help. They've lost over a quarter billion dollars in the last five years and haven't had a profitable year since 1992. They're still saying they'll be profitable someday... Good luck Compaq - it was nice knowing you....

The portal approach to aggregating real estate listings is doomed. It doesn't work the way the web works.

There is a technical description with a nice animation showing how we think it will evolve.

Organized real estate in the US is something over a half million people scrambling to protect a franchise they see threatened from all sides. Three years ago we thought we'd provide a solution with dynamic web sites running off a database of listings, but most real estate business are too small and too technophobic to host their own site. The regional boards have a decision making process that can be counted on to make the worst possible technical choices. The big success in real estate portals is HomeStore, but look at a Weekly Standard article for a view on that.

Eventually we matched our solution to the way the real estate business works; highly distributed, yet providing for aggregation; local origination and control, but integration with national players (e.g., for mortgage and other financial services); document oriented, with access provided using search engine technology. Essentially, we mapped the WWW onto real estate and embedded its business rules in XML.

We are driving this vision forward by pushing for industry acceptance of open XML schema standards and by letting the world know that portals are not the only way.

...as long as everybody get equal search access.

The article mentions peer-to-peer uses similar to Napster. Well, as long as all the computers on the network are peers I don't see anything wrong with this. What I'm getting at is that, as long as the Junior Graphic Designer has the same searching privledges as the Senior Vice President (or higher), then I think this new search application could be useful in finding files on a corporate network.

However, we all know it won't be the case. Management will be the ones with the access and the worker drones will be the ones with their privacies invaded. Is this really a big change from what could already be happening in the workplace? There is enough corporate "spyware" programs available that a new search application shouldn't be the wakeup call for a change in office privacy laws. Check out this link: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/ 0,aid,32863,00.asp. Most interesting are the charts that show the increase in employers monitoring employees.

Here's to wishful thinking. Maybe companies will implement this new Altavista corporate search but give everyone equal access. Could help keep things kosher in the office and discourage incidents like this: http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,9375,00. html?printer_friendly=.

redking

You have options, they are deep in the money, but you are restricted from selling. You think the stock may fall, or hell, you just want to diversify.

But you're locked.

So buy some out-of-the-money puts, and sell some at-the-money calls (to pay for the puts), and poof, with the zen of the spread, you have locked yourself into a tidy little profit.

When your options mature, you'll have the stock in hand to make your options position whole, and you're out.

The beauty of the costless collar.

Wish I had this problem to deal with ;-). The moral of the story is to talk with a financial professional though. They have an astonishingly large bag of tricks.

Ever wonder WHY California is running out of power NOW? Guess what - it ain't environmentalists and it ain't oil shortages. It's a staggering increase in demand due to the increased number of electronic devices, in particular air conditioners and computers. Server farms are especially a problem. But instead of investing in more efficient chip designs like PowerPCs or Transmeta Crusoe processors, they run them off of hot, inefficient Pentium 3s, 4s, and so on. And now they're overclocking and water cooling them? For crying out loud, does your mp3 program really need that much?

Yeah, lots of dot.gones, the commute's not so bad, but might be more related to Spring Break than cuts and closures. Still, the word was 8,500 going from Cisco, yet they still want to build some massive tech campus in Coyote Creek.

Puts me in mind of a spinner we used to have for an NT server for Notes. The server is:

Up | Down | Up | Down | Up | Down ...

Would have been nice if they had given the address, here's a link in The Standard along with some other amusing stuff.

Address is: 3316 26th, San Francisco, CA
www.lairoftheminotaur.org

--

See the gallery and the (bay area) artists themselves. ('ware Flash!)

Actually, this was all in The Standard a couple of months ago...

Customers really had no way to know this would happen. See - NorthPoint's Bankruptcy Burns Customers: After Verizon scuttled a pending merger, the DSL provider strong-armed customers to keep them from leaving - but now it's leaving them high and dry. Northpoint lied to ISPs and threatened legal action if they tried to switch customers. Most end customers probably had no idea this was going on since their contracts were with their ISP not Northpoint. Those that did know of Northpoint's problems had a reasonable expectation that their service would continue in some form when Northpoint was sold. The original poster's attitude is reflective of much of the Ayn Rand-ish liberatarian capitalist drivel seen all too often on Slashdot. Northpoint applied for and obtained licenses from state PUCs around the country that allowed them to operate what is legally considered a utility. It definitely does have legal obligations to it's customers, including the obligation of notice of termination. Now if Northpoint had simply run out of cash and had no buyer at all, those obligations would be moot for all practical purposes. That is not what happened here. AT&Ts purchase of Northpoint was conducted under the auspices of a bankruptcy court which apparently chose to disregard Northpoint's legal obligations to it's customers. I am sure that the court felt is was correct in doing so as bankruptcy courts generally only consider the interests of creditors, but this does point to a serious disconnect public utility licensing and bankruptcy laws. The court should have factored in the cost of giving customers proper notice into the overall settlement with Northpoints creditors. DSL customers did not deserve what they got. If anyone did it was the investors and banks who poured millions into what was apparently a very poorly run business.

Anyway, here's the link (as provided by one of the stories below):

http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 18919,00.html

And here's the link to Liberty Media:

http://www.thestandard.com/companies/display/0,206 3,51395,00.html

And, yes, I see that Barton's foundation "shills for no corporate interest," but if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'll sell ya, real cheap. It's not possible these days to claim that you "shill for no corporate interest." Take away the corporations and what's left? Well, America's Christian right, of course. :) (LOL -- just kidding. Well, not really. The fundamentalists are as manipulative as the corporate stooges.)

Now, maybe Barton is really good guy and grew to, ya know (wink wink), "despise the role of corporations in the current media" and that's why he "had to go it alone and start up the privacy foundation." (I'm making these quotes up, but they sound like something a former corporate talking head might say in order to funnel donations and startup capital into his new -- and, of course! -- morally "just" enterprise. "Dammit, Jim, privacy is key! All our children will be destroyed! I must do something about it! I must take my, er, platinum parachute from this evil corporation and, um, do something for the common good! Now, um, where is that common good? Who do I talk to?")

I'm no journalist. Just an angry critic of media -- and corporate -- manipulation.

Anyway, here's the link (as provided by one of the stories below):

http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 18919,00.html

And here's the link to Liberty Media:

http://www.thestandard.com/companies/display/0,206 3,51395,00.html

And, yes, I see that Barton's foundation "shills for no corporate interest," but if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'll sell ya, real cheap. It's not possible these days to claim that you "shill for no corporate interest." Take away the corporations and what's left? Well, America's Christian right, of course. :) (LOL -- just kidding. Well, not really. The fundamentalists are as manipulative as the corporate stooges.)

Now, maybe Barton is really good guy and grew to, ya know (wink wink), "despise the role of corporations in the current media" and that's why he "had to go it alone and start up the privacy foundation." (I'm making these quotes up, but they sound like something a former corporate talking head might say in order to funnel donations and startup capital into his new -- and, of course! -- morally "just" enterprise. "Dammit, Jim, privacy is key! All our children will be destroyed! I must do something about it! I must take my, er, platinum parachute from this evil corporation and, um, do something for the common good! Now, um, where is that common good? Who do I talk to?")

I'm no journalist. Just an angry critic of media -- and corporate -- manipulation.

peter barton: A Private Man's Privacy Campaign

The article brings up some interesting points but I believe privacy foundation has *failed* in meeting Peters goals which was to stop data mining abuse of minors, and instead he has a couple of hackers finding abuses where there are none.

Sorry guys but you get a c+ for effort. I could have written that report in a couple of hours

The irony here is that Napster's LYING about the jtechnical challenges of MD5 sum blocking is what led to this. They've maintained MANY, MANY times (in sworn declarations, even) that MD5 sum blocking is impossible. The above link has their VP of Engineering, Eddie Kessler, stating "Given the large universe of MD5 checksums, it is impossible for Napster to monitor the checksums when we process thousands of new files a second. Napster's service would be rendered unusable under such conditions." But now, it's suddenly possible to block based on a TEXT SEARCH, which is much more computationally intensive than an MD5 sum compare? Can you say "perjury," boys and girls?

Anyway, I'm just amused by the fact that they're being hoist on their own petard. If they hadn't protested overmuch that MD5 was impossible, and just done it, they might've been able to keep it going for the indies. But text compares are gonna kill the service - once they get 50,000 bands in there (and millions of track names), EVERY file you try to share will match SOMETHING.

Your stock options vested, and you exercised 10,000 shares at a strike price of $1/share, and held those shares rather than sell them immediately.

Now, for purposes of the AMT, your income from the option exercise is defined as the difference between the price you paid ($1 in this case) and the price of the stock on the day you exercised the options. So if the stock was, say, AMZN trading at $50/share a year ago, your AMT income from those 10,000 options was $490,000. Your tax on that amount will be maybe $150,000. Note, however, that you never actually made any money. Remember, I said you held the shares. And they are now worth $10 -- or about $90,000 more than you paid for them. Substantially less than your tax liability. Oops. What happened is you got taxed on paper gains that you never actually realized.

Yes, the tax law really does work this way. Here is a story The Standard did on a variation of this problem.

"The top 1% in this country pay 23% of the federal tax bill." Which is neat trick considering that the top 1% of the country control 38% of the wealth. (Other sources cite similar or larger numbers, it's admittedly a hard number to measure.) So, when are the rich going to pay their fair share?

Specifically, AdCops started by targeting people from advertising-driven companies who are running scripts and bots to click-through ad banners millions of times to drive up their advertising revenues. Now, it appears that they're databasing people using credit card generators and other scams as well. It's not a museum, but a database for admins to correllate to try and get information on people scamming them out of money through those bogus click-throughs or generated cards.

I dunno, but if I were paying to put up banners or accepting credit cards online, $99 for access to that kind of database would seem quite worthwhile...

Eschatfische.

as noted by the article, this appeared in the standard linked here:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 22315,00.html.

What I find most funny about this article is the following quote:

And the CCS servers are frequent targets of attack; on Christmas Eve Powell opened Outlook Express to find he'd been mail-bombed with 15,000 messages

Uhm. Outlook Express? What, are you kidding me?

[/rant]

Think I'm trolling? Just look at some of the absolutely lame excuses people use to avoid being accountable. Don't give me any of this freedom of speech rhetoric either, because everyone with an ounce of sense knows that utter freedom is a disaster within a group of people as accustomed to lying, cheating and stealing without pennance as the first world countries of this planet have become. In this world, you give anyone from a snot-nosed kid to snot-nosed adult an inch and they will be most sure to take it ten miles.

What it boils down to is that things are reaching a point where overly restrictive and intrusive snooping mechanism is a borderline necessity as a way of yanking the chain of those who screw everyone else endlessly without repercussions because the mashed potato legal system in any developed nation allows it to happen time and time and time again. Considering the choir I'm currently preaching to, I have no doubt that any responses to this will contain the words "Nazi", "Orwellian" or "fascist", but I'm so fucking sick of having my house and car vandalized (as an example) by people who know goddamn well that being caught red-handed carries absolutely no penalty that I'm willing to sacrifice a certain measure of freedom in the short term in order to get a good night's sleep. If you want someone to blame for the repeated attempts to compromise small pieces of your supposed freedom, I encourage you to look directly in the mirror.

---

Meanwhile, eToys has plunged 55 percent, to $12.50, as the company effectively announced its demise. The company stated it is laying off all 293 of its remaining employees, effective April 6. The company reiterated that it anticipates its current cash - cash equivalents and cash that may be generated from operations - will be sufficient to meet its anticipated cash needs until approximately March 31. But, the company says, "there can be no assurance in this regard." In order to continue operations in 2001, the company said it would require an additional, substantial capital infusion. EToys said it does not believe additional capital will become available to the company.

Of course, I must wonder what that $12.50 buys!

Demonstrably inefficient and irrational, it has nonetheless left the realm of old-economy dinosaurs like the U.S. Postal Service and become the billing method of choice for most Internet service providers.

Ebay's problems: EBay Crashes for Nearly 11 Hours - January 4, 2001, 5:19 AM PST .

-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

While it is troubling that the closed source OS (some flavors/pieces, anyway) may have been exposed to an 3l33t3 few and chances are their motives are nefarious, that security snowball has enough momentum to keep it from attaining it's .NET Web ubiquity.

Much more concerning is the simplicity the Linux/UNIX vendors have put into their installations. From CD-ROM to *N*X system in less than 30 minutes for anyone. The one who most disturbs me is RedHat with the ServerInstall option. Every service, none secured. Since these boxes are usually put on public IP's to perform some service(s), they usually have the most potential for causing problems to servers that have been locked down. It would be nice to see a firewall script installed and enacted in any distribution, with instructions on how to unfirewall certain things post-install. This might help cut down on the DDOS agents out there. The hundreds of compromised hosts they're talking about are most likely not Micro$oft systems. The vulnerability was on port 111.

The RPC vulnerabilities have been around forever, along with the WU-FTPD problems, but, they have been around for ages and fixes, or at least host access and firewall techniques have been around just as long. For some reason, the patches just don't get applied, and, the systems get taken over. I just hope with all this newfound popularity, the Open Source OSes don't earn the same bad security wrap Windows has earned. And, I do mean earned. Because we can do something to secure our systems, if we think security is important. It is and we should.


Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

This is old news. I can't recall where I read it first exactly, but it was probably here at The Standard, where it appeared almost a month ago.

As the article says, the threat of litigation is enough to scare would-be hardware and software and content providers away.

I'm not so sure. The economics of Music and the Internet make it such that you have to pay through the asshole to Real Media, Microsoft, Apple, or Fraunhofer under the current scheme. It makes it impossible to make a profit, especially when you really need at least two of these to not suck; I've done the numbers many times. But iCast realized that for a much smaller investment, they could leave this Gang of Four behind. These four each have their carrotstick to get you in line; market share, platform, monopoly power, free beer. In order to get a carrot of their own, iCast understood that they had to use the only one really left; free speech, free to use, free to go.

You might find this article at The Standard interesting. Any one of the companies mentioned in it - or the alliance they are creating - could find Ogg a useful starting point. What's more, they have the power to do it. And the motive; saving megabucks in licensing to the Gang of Four is a good motive to tell Thomson where to stick it and commit legal resources to it.

"This is what hardball is like" is what their representative said. Essentially, it's plutocracy as normal.

Exactly. Let's emulate corrupt third world economies because it sounds macho! We can pretend to be free marketeers and no one will notice that we could care less, as long as the powerful win and keep making us money!

Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

I think both the Justice department and the NSA have both said they use OpenBSD. I'm a little less certin on the NSA having said so. I do remember a story about the Justice Department using OpenBSD for it's sensitive data.

Here is another story which talks of Musicbank, a net startup, which signed up with Sony Music allowing users to stream Sony music that is part of their personal collection over the Internet as long as they can prove they own the CDs.

Sony has made a huge, risky investment. They need to get a good return on it to survive, and there is nothing evil in this. Or do you just not like business?

And that wireless earpiece towards the end looks like the Bluetooth headset that Ericsson already has out.

That's the most obvious use of this, and it appears that in this case, even a pathetically crude and transparent fraud managed to cause significant damage, though it appears they caught the perp.

Even a teenager has been able to pull off a scam of this sort. This article in The Standard has the story of a teenager caught manipulating stock prices, who was ordered to pay back his illegal profits after he got caught.

Now this is an inexperienced kid, and another idiot who apparently made his transactions transparently obvious and got caught. We only hear about the ones who get caught, and I highly doubt these guys are the only ones doing it. They're just the only ones dumb enough to make it so transparent.

That's the most obvious use of this, and it appears that in this case, even a pathetically crude and transparent fraud managed to cause significant damage, though it appears they caught the perp.

Even a teenager has been able to pull off a scam of this sort. This article in The Standard has the story of a teenager caught manipulating stock prices, who was ordered to pay back his illegal profits after he got caught.

Now this is an inexperienced kid, and another idiot who apparently made his transactions transparently obvious and got caught. We only hear about the ones who get caught, and I highly doubt these guys are the only ones doing it. They're just the only ones dumb enough to make it so transparent.

Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that.

I have not seen anything about any aplication that allows DVD's to be played under Linux. I know someone was working on a LinDVD, but I thought that was still under devlopment.

U.S. TV networks, among others, sued iCraveTV in federal court in Pittsburgh (where its domain name was registered), and Canadian producers and TV stations filed suit in Canada. The court's swift response was a temporary restraining order, which commanded the Web site to close pending a trial. Chief Judge Ziegler of the western district of Pennsylvania made it clear the site was violating copyright law.

I did a whois and found that yes the domain is registered to someone in PA, but the Administrative contact is listed in Toronto.

The Internet ranks alongside Gutenberg's movable type and the invention of television as one of the three great inventions of human society. But it cannot reach its potential if partisans insist on following Lessig's tattered counsel. Or if closed minded people like you try to tear it down claiming IP and copyright laws. You've been lucky this far... but I'd be willing to bet if this went on long enough you're going to find a court that doesn't agree with you.

----------------------------

References taken from http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 10885,00.html

No doubt "thieves" should be punished and content should not be "stolen." But "theft" is defined relative to the law and the First Amendment, not to an ideal of perfect control. And when the law grants a right to speech, that right is ordinarily defended even if control over that speech is not perfect. But according to the MPAA, until iCraveTV can "guarantee" that no hacker can crack its security system, iCraveTV should be enjoined from giving Canadians access to desktop TV. The principle is extraordinary. Does a movie theater lose the right to show R-rated movies if local moralists can produce a ticket sold to a 15-year-old? Should Amazon.com (AMZN) be barred from selling Mein Kampf anywhere if a German court finds that some Germans succeeded in buying the illegal (in Germany) book? Can Congress ban porn on the Net if it is shown that kids might be exposed?

A very frightening thought indeed. Ask yourself is this the type of world you want to live in??

Actually there are some lawyers that are going after the porno right now. There is a lawyer that wants Valve to patch half-life so that color spraypaint can't be used anymore. Aparently people are using the spraypaint to traffic porn to minors. I don't remember the link offhand... it may be at halflife.net

Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that.

I have not seen anything about any aplication that allows DVD's to be played under Linux. I know someone was working on a LinDVD, but I thought that was still under devlopment.

U.S. TV networks, among others, sued iCraveTV in federal court in Pittsburgh (where its domain name was registered), and Canadian producers and TV stations filed suit in Canada. The court's swift response was a temporary restraining order, which commanded the Web site to close pending a trial. Chief Judge Ziegler of the western district of Pennsylvania made it clear the site was violating copyright law.

I did a whois and found that yes the domain is registered to someone in PA, but the Administrative contact is listed in Toronto.

The Internet ranks alongside Gutenberg's movable type and the invention of television as one of the three great inventions of human society. But it cannot reach its potential if partisans insist on following Lessig's tattered counsel. Or if closed minded people like you try to tear it down claiming IP and copyright laws. You've been lucky this far... but I'd be willing to bet if this went on long enough you're going to find a court that doesn't agree with you.

----------------------------

References taken from http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151, 10885,00.html

No doubt "thieves" should be punished and content should not be "stolen." But "theft" is defined relative to the law and the First Amendment, not to an ideal of perfect control. And when the law grants a right to speech, that right is ordinarily defended even if control over that speech is not perfect. But according to the MPAA, until iCraveTV can "guarantee" that no hacker can crack its security system, iCraveTV should be enjoined from giving Canadians access to desktop TV. The principle is extraordinary. Does a movie theater lose the right to show R-rated movies if local moralists can produce a ticket sold to a 15-year-old? Should Amazon.com (AMZN) be barred from selling Mein Kampf anywhere if a German court finds that some Germans succeeded in buying the illegal (in Germany) book? Can Congress ban porn on the Net if it is shown that kids might be exposed?

A very frightening thought indeed. Ask yourself is this the type of world you want to live in??

Actually there are some lawyers that are going after the porno right now. There is a lawyer that wants Valve to patch half-life so that color spraypaint can't be used anymore. Aparently people are using the spraypaint to traffic porn to minors. I don't remember the link offhand... it may be at halflife.net

You have the best snow on Earth!
And Utah's unique workforce will made it the next High-Tech Heaven. Don't you know? Nothing to worry about.
(It's irony. I am on the same boat)

That didn't stop the USOC for going after anyone and everyone with Olympic (or misspellings) in the domain name before. (article in TheStandard).
--

Hello
Theres an article in TheStandard detailing Dr. David Anderson's (of seti@home fame) new start up: United Devices. Its would seem from the spiel on their web page that they plan on using a set@home model to provide computer muscle specifically for research.
Not a great deal on their web page at the moment, but it looks interesting.

Hello
Theres an article in TheStandard detailing Dr. David Anderson's (of seti@home fame) new start up: United Devices. Its would seem from the spiel on their web page that they plan on using a set@home model to provide computer muscle specifically for research.
Not a great deal on their web page at the moment, but it looks interesting.

Well, the NFL Players Association said that Gridiron.com can't use players' names on their web site. Additionally, a site called NFLToday.com (and .net, and .org) was slapped down by the NFL. And the New York Yankees didn't like a man who had newyorkyankees.com.

These and more from Domain Diaries, brought to my attention through Google.

They are selectively choosing the copyright holders and corporate web entities for their discussions.

What they missed were people who've done research on the history and meaning of copyright law in the US. People like RMS writing or Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. It is critical that the Congress hear from people who actually consider the intent of copyright law (hint - it is not only about making money from one's authorship).

Copyright is intended to pass into public domain after a limited period of monopolism of SOME rights. It is entirely unclear that we SHOULD or CAN enforce draconian copyright laws in cyberspace.

This article at The Industry Standard nicely dispells the many myths floating around UCITA. Contrary to the many claims made, no, UCITA doesn't require software warranties or anything of the sort.

Check out his letter to Bill Gates (If this has been linked to on /. before I am not surprised- but I have not seen it yet...) Letter to Bill

• eWeek: FCC wants more from AOL about work on IM standard
  
• ZDNet: Berst Alert: FTC to AOL: IM Watching You
  
• The Standard: AOL Will Offer IM-Sharing Plan

I recently heard a great interview on Larry Mantel's Air Talk of Jeremy Rifkin. He has just written a new book, titled The Age of Access, which delves into this very topic.

The point which strikes a cord with me is that the ultimate model that corporations strive for is to remove any material ownership from the consumer so the consumer always has to pay over and over again for the 'experience'. This model effectively strips the consumer from creating or fostering their own culture. The internet like any other medium or tool can be used by the corporations to continue this erosion, ala ASP, UCITA, etc. or it can be used to combat this erosion, ala slashdot, usenet, wiki wiki web, rre, etc.

It is probably no coincidence that this ask slashdot comes on the same day as the Scott Reents interview. They are in the same vein both prompting you to think about your freedom outside in the big blue room and how the internet effects it.

There is no doubt in my mind that we as a people should actively work to ingrain our culture into the internet and constantly strive to make life as tangible as possible. The internet should serve as our glue to keep our culture together not be the solvent that rips it apart.

Sigma Designs has plans to release a dvd player for linux. you can find info on the product here

i found this after seeing a posting from Jack Valenti at TheStandard.com in which he said:

Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that.

hope this helps.
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"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."

Jack Velenti also referred to this mystery "licensed player" here:

He says, in part:

"Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that."

I believe the "licesned player" he mentions is also known as ... Microsoft Windows.

timothy