Microsoft's Passport service: No Marylanders allowed? UCITA4/26/2001; 11:46:24 PM 'It also appears that Microsoft is attempting to bar residents of Maryland and, potentially, other states considering the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act from using Passport with this sentence in the terms-of-use agreement: "Use of the Passport Web Site and service is unauthorized in any jurisdiction that does not give effect to all provisions of these terms and conditions, including without limitation this paragraph.

Watermark Crackers Back Away DMCA 4/26/2001; 9:22:34 PM '"We, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers, and the conference organizers to litigation at this time," Ed Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton, told a crowd of reporters who gathered in the lobby of the Holiday Inn where the Fourth International Information Hiding Workshop was taking place.' That's officially, of course. Unofficially, some of us have already read the paper.

Punching Holes in Internet Walls Censorship 4/26/2001; 1:04:52 PM 'In the Middle East, for example, anti- Islamic sites and gay sites are often off- limits. In China, the prohibition includes the sites of Western publications, human rights organizations and Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. And Saudi Arabia also blocks sites for financial reasons: its ban on Internet telephony favors its own state-run telephone monopoly.' 'Countering such government restrictions are services, some free, that are provided by companies like SafeWeb (www.

iMotors shutters site Personal Commentary4/26/2001; 12:11:30 AM 'iMotors shut down its operations because it didn't have enough cash to grow its business, according to the note. The company, which sold used cars over the Internet after refurbishing them, said it would refund deposits placed with it and honor car warranties on vehicles it had already sold.'If I can just hold out long enough, iRights be the last site on the net with a name of the form "

Libertarian, or Just Bizarro? Misc.4/25/2001; 12:48:06 PM 'What if you could take all the haters and the perverts and the spammers and stick them on their own private Internet?'That way, they could do whatever they want without bothering the rest of us, and we wouldn't have to spend our money or time regulating them.'If it sounds too simple, it probably is.'Bah. This isn't worthy of top billing on Wired.com. The most telling quote:'Though the idea may have appeal among some of the special-interest groups above as well as Web anarchists and dyed-in-the-wool libertarians, nobody seems clear on what exactly splinternets are, how they would work, or what Crews is really talking about.

Dancing Glossary 4/23/2001; 7:23:49 PM Dancing: ''Dancing'' is a term I made up to describe a method of argument I encounter far too often, wherein the arguer continually changes what proposition they are proposing/defending in order to avoid the counter-arguments being made. The mental image is a proverbial Wild West outlaw shooting at someone's feet, demanding the person being shot at ''dance for them''. See full definition.

Inescapably Connected: Life in the Wireless Age Technology & Sociology4/22/2001; 2:17:23 PM 'The network knows where we are. The network is there, all around us, a ghostly electromagnetic presence, pervasive and salient, a global infrastructure taking shape many times faster than the Interstate highway or the world's railroads. This is different from the radio-spectrum Babel that defined the 20th century: the broadcast era. We aren't expected merely to tune in and listen.

Industry Wants to Opt Out of “Opt-In” Privacy from Companies4/22/2001; 1:37:29 PM An extremely level-headed and well-written article about opt-in versus opt-out.'Ultimately, however, the scales are likely to be tipped not by economic arguments, but by structural ones about the nature of privacy. Under a regime of “opt-out” over-disclosure, it will take a longer time before the market manages to reach equilibrium, ... A regime of “opt-in” under-disclosure, on the other hand, will bring market forces swiftly to bear to bring about a “correct” equilibrium.

Technical & Legal Approaches to Unsolicited Electronic Mail Spam & E-Mail4/21/2001; 4:55:42 PM A paper. Abstract follows:Unsolicited electronic mail, also called "spam," is both a nuisance to Internet users and a threat to network security. Spam imposes substantial costs on Internet users and providers, who have undertaken a variety of actions in response--many of which have been counterproductive. Informal responses such as social pressure and industry self-regulation have been almost entirely ineffectual in battling spam.

SDMI Challenge Participants May Face DMCA DMCA4/21/2001; 11:25:48 AM "Everyone has probably forgotten the SDMI challenge to hackers to try to break a handful of proposed watermarking and "other" protection mechanisms? Well, it was recognised that a group of researchers at Princeton University broke all of the protection mechanisms and were due to publish a paper on at the 4th International Information Hiding Workshop (25-29 April) but have been threatened with the DMCA if they publish the results.