Privacy hits the fan in N.H. Surveillance and Privacy from Government 12/29/2000; 5:54:26 PM 'The citizens of this sleepy bedroom community hit the proverbial ceiling when they learned that their property assessment data -- including homeowners' names, color photographs of their houses and diagrams showing exterior dimensions -- had been made available on the town's website, www.ci.merrimack.nh.us. 'In a town meeting that resembled the peasants-storming-the-castle scene from a Frankenstein movie, 650 residents demanded to be removed from the site, complaining that the information would prove to be a godsend for burglars.

New Patent Image Patents 12/28/2000; 4:58:59 PM The US patent office image was quite informative, but I was probably violating some regulation or other by using it.  The new patent icon is an image from Patent #1, which appears to be a tractor tire.  This image should be deeply into the public domain.

Free Links, Only $50 Apiece Free Speech 12/28/2000; 4:08:36 PM 'Online news sites are turning to a novel way to make some extra cash: requiring fees for links. 'The Albuquerque Journal charges $50 for the right to link to each of its articles. Localbusiness.com and Latino.com are more generous, and permit one to five links without payment.' I know!  Let's do everything we can to make sure nobody ever visits our site!

I'm Moving (again) Personal Notes 12/20/2000; 10:58:33 PM I'm moving, and I don't know the internet connectivity story, so this site may continue to suffer from a lack of news.  LinkBack's been provided for, though, so it should keep working. I hope this is the last one for a couple of years.  Moving every six/nine months gets old after a few years.

Napster urged to block Nazis Free Speech 12/20/2000; 2:28:19 PM 'Germany's internal security agency called on media giant Bertelsmann Tuesday to help stop its online song swap partner Napster from being used to exchange music by extreme right-wing bands.... 'Andreas Schmidt, head of the Bertelsmann eCommerce Group, the unit that handles the German media giant's alliance with Napster, condemned the use of the platform for the exchange of Nazi music but said the company was powerless to prevent it.

Scary, Sneaky HR 46 Misc. 12/20/2000; 1:57:07 PM 'Congress may adjourn today — but not before inflicting a series of blows on civil liberties and federalism. As is usual for end-of-the-session assaults on civil liberties, the plan is to speed the new laws through as attachments to some innocuous law, before most people in Congress have time to notice.' Note the addition to the National Review Online story: "Late on December 15, the sponsors of H.

Censorware to be Mandatory in Schools, Libraries Free Speech 12/20/2000; 11:30:40 AM 'Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime proponent of censorware, introduced the amendment.... Essentially it says that any school or library which receives federal funds to build its network must install censorware. Since these funds are the chief way that poor and middle-income areas bring the internet into public institutions, effectively this means that only rich counties will have the option of an uncensored internet.

Against Intellectual Property and an update Personal Commentary 12/20/2000; 11:05:46 AM I've been unwell the past couple of days, hence the lack of updates.  I'm going to catch up, so the next few links may seem a bit out of date I read this essay a while ago, before I started this site, but I came across it again and want to link to it. Against Intellectual Property is an essay on why there should be no intellectual property.

Prodigy to fight BT's 'shameless' hyperlinks patent lawsuit Patents 12/15/2000; 8:46:14 PM 'Prodigy Communications Corp has reacted angrily to BT's hypertext links lawsuit branding it "blatant and shameless".... It intends to fight its case and expects other companies to band together to take on BT.... Yikes! I'm rooting for Prodigy! I never thought that day would come. 'It could take years before this matter is resolved.' By which time the patent will nearly have expired.

German Hate Law: No Denying It Free Speech 12/15/2000; 2:42:15 PM 'The court, called the Bundesgerichtshof, issued a ruling on Tuesday that overturned a lower court ruling, and found that German law applies even to foreigners who post content on the Web in other countries -- so long as that content can be accessed by people inside of Germany.' This is unlike the French Yahoo! ruling; the French have some claim to jurisdiction because there is a Yahoo!