Tag - You're Hit
Administrative
3/7/2001; 5:31:28 PM

'An estimated one-third of all shopping cart applications at Internet retailing sites have software holes that make them vulnerable to the price switching scam, said Peggy Weigle, chief executive of Sanctum, a security software company in Santa Clara, Calif....

'Here's how it works: After choosing a product and receiving pricing information, a hacker can use a standard browser's "edit page" feature to show the hidden HTML code on the page. The thief then saves the page to his computer, alters the price information and then hits the "publish" key on the browser. In many cases, that page is then accepted by the shopping cart software - and that $999 watch becomes a $3 special.'

Napster Judge Issues Injunction
Music & MP3
3/6/2001; 2:22:12 PM 'Napster has a three-day window to remove copyrighted music from its file-sharing system every time it is notified that a copyrighted song appears on its network, if it accepts the terms of an injunction issued by a federal court judge late Monday night.

'According to District Judge Marilyn Patel's injunction, Napster now has five days to outline its plans to begin policing its network. Somewhat surprisingly, the injunction also calls for splitting the responsibilities of monitoring the system between Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America.'

Napster Fallout: Privacy Loses?
Privacy from Companies
3/6/2001; 2:10:49 PM

'If Napster is ultimately ruled to be liable for copyright infringement, the frontlines of the intellectual property battle could shift to ISPs and end users. Experts say that could be bad news for online privacy....

'The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) already exempts ISPs from any obligation to monitor their networks for copyright violations, and absolves them of liability for transient files.

Random House Sues for Rights
General IP Issues
3/6/2001; 2:03:47 PM

'Did authors sign away rights to electronic books before e-books were even invented? Random House believes so, which is why it's suing e-book publisher RosettaBooks over ownership of digital rights for eight previously published works.'

Interesting discussion, but I would anticipate Random House will win. While one cannot sign a contract without being aware of what the contract says, since the authors signed away "all rights" in all likelihood, its a bummer for the authors, but it's pretty clear what that means. (Now if they didn't sign "all rights" away, then maybe there's cause to argue, but this is really a contract case, not an electronic/Internet issue.

The Internet's public enema No. 1
Free Speech
3/5/2001; 10:47:57 PM

'Rotten.com's sole purpose is to "present the viewer with a truly unpleasant experience," and its proprietor is doing a dandy job of that.... It's horrible. And yet, the Net is fascinated. About 200,000 visitors come to Rotten.com every day. We are voyeurs at heart, drawn to the macabre and horrific like rubberneckers at a car crash, and even though we can't bear to look we are compelled to click on that headline: "A gallery of severed hands and whatnot." Yuck.

Trace who is linking to your site
Free Speech
3/5/2001; 10:40:28 PM

From Hack the Planet:  'The Register: Trace who is linking to your site. "A British company has come up with what it claims to be the first true map of the Web. The LinkMap will let site owners track inbound links to their sites, and is aimed at deep linking." And all this time I was using obsolete stuff like Google and referer logs...'

Stomp the identity thieves
Privacy from Companies
3/5/2001; 8:55:38 PM

'Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country, and there's no doubt that the Internet makes it easier. But while some argue that sequestering personal information from the Web is the only solution, I have seen the future of identity theft, and I believe that approach would prove a complete disaster....

'Regardless of motives, what makes all this thievery possible is the system by which people are issued identification documents, and the practices of verifying identity. The perpetrator only needs to learn a few personal details about his or her target. The credit industry accepts a certain level of risk in doing business, and creditors are more than willing to service anyone who can "verify" personal information against the details already on file with major credit-reporting agencies.'

LinkBack woes: The Ultimate Woe
LinkBack
3/4/2001; 10:25:26 PM

Well... I've got a confession. I toasted a 20 GB hard drive, with many unique copies of many things that I have now lost forever, including several tens of personal, irreplacable music files that I wrote and tons of other things. A quick slip of the finger was all it took, and now it's all gone, despite several days of frantic attempts at recovery.

Napster Clone's Curious Terms
DMCA
3/4/2001; 9:19:12 PM

'Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.

'This leaves copyright owners such as the music and movie industries unable to access the network to monitor the traffic without first breaking the very law they helped get pushed through Congress in 1998.'

The real Slim Shady
General IP Issues
3/3/2001; 11:26:14 PM

'But here's the Internet, which at a very fundamental level is all about copying. Consider email, the single most-used application on the Net. You don't ever really "send" a message when you use email. Instead, you make a chain of copies. When you hit the Send button, your ISP's or company's mail server makes a copy of the message. Another mail server, somewhat closer to your message's destination, gets yet another copy, and then another server, then another, and so on until a copy arrives at the recipient's mail server. When that person downloads their message, they make one final copy on their own hard drive, and there it is -- the message has "arrived." Except, unlike a letter, the email message hasn't really traveled, it's merely spawned a handful of copies....'