Coalition makes concession on anti-piracy technology Misc.1/9/2001; 2:36:30 PM 'After an outcry from privacy advocates, a group of leading computer hardware makers has agreed to give consumers the right to turn off a controversial new copy-protection feature on computer hard drives.'The technology, developed by an IBM-lead consortium called 4C, would prevent consumers from making copies of music or movies without the permission of the record label or studio that holds the rights. The copy-protection feature could start appearing as early as this spring in portable devices, such as MP3 players, digital cameras and handheld organizers. But fears that it would reach computer hard drives prompted fierce backlash -- and an agreement Thursday from the consortium to set curbs on the technology....'Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the furor over the 4C copy-protection plan reveals a basic misunderstanding of the technology. It is intended solely for removable storage, such as flash and compact memory cards that can be swapped from device to device. The technology effectively locks a music track or video clip to the memory card, preventing the consumer from making duplicates or from uploading it to the Internet.'Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy's comments reveal a basic misunderstanding about why people were upset. First, why should we be less upset that only our removable media is being bastardized that way? And second, we can hardly be expected to complacently believe any large company's promises about what it will or will not do in the future. The "outcry" was fully justified, and it's completely reasonable to assume that once the technology was deployed in removable media, some interests would have wanted to have it deployed on static media as well.
Supreme Court Lets Stand Computer Anti-porn Law Free Speech1/9/2001; 12:30:28 PM 'The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge by six university professors to a Virginia law that bars public employees from using state computers to access sexually explicit material on the Internet....''The professors argued the law violated the constitutional First Amendment-based academic freedom rights of university scholars and the rights of other public employees engaged in legitimate, work-related, intellectual inquiry....''Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley defended the law.... He said state employees did not have a First Amendment right to disregard the law and decide for themselves whether sexually explicit material was required for their professional, employment-related research and writing needs.'This is really the old employee-employer issue, not necessarily a "first amendment" issue. That said, it is disturbing that AG Mark Early believed that this was about "disregarding" the law. This was about whether the law was Constitutional, which is a perfectly acceptable concern, not merely "disregarding" the law. I refuse to simply accept that a law is consitutional because an AG or a legislature says it is; they have no right to say that.
Pirates Beware: We're Watching
General IP Issues
1/3/2001; 9:31:53 PM
'Content companies are slowly coming to realize that digital rights management solutions can't stop the file-trading frenzy that has gripped the Internet.
'So while continuing to work with encryption companies like Liquid Audio and Supertracks to come up with a solution that will protect their content, music and movie companies are doing what they can. New monitoring applications allow them to attack piracy not at the user level, but by going directly to the service provider.'
Yahoo To Reject Hate Items, Charge For Auctions
Free Speech
1/3/2001; 5:14:57 PM 'Human rights activists on Wednesday hailed a decision by Yahoo to stamp out online auctions of Nazi artifacts following a lengthy legal battle.
'Yahoo Inc. (stock: YHOO) on Tuesday announced two big changes to its auction service: a first-ever listing fee and a much tougher policy against the sale of hate material.
'After vigorously defending a policy under which it allowed the sale of Nazi memorabilia deemed to have some historic value, Yahoo will now ban more of these items, and will add a monitoring program that automatically screens new listings for offensive content and will kick back potentially banned material for closer review. Although the stricter listing policy encompasses a broad range of items associated with groups that promote or glorify hatred and violence, Yahoo specified Nazi militaria and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia as items that would now be banned.'
The Last Great LinkBack Feature: Implemented!
LinkBack
1/3/2001; 12:45:04 AM
I've finally implemented the Last Great LinkBack Feature: The Top (N) List of 'Logs. (N is currently set to 5, I hope to move it up to 10 later.) The 5 weblogs with the most current links to them are now displayed on both the main weblog page, and iRights.
Unlike many "Top N" lists of 'logs floating around, automatically generated or otherwise, anybody can be on the top of this list. There have been a number of other popularity measures for the weblog community, but I believe that none of them are as fluid and current as this one. Many of the other measures have a very static top, where the same 10-20 'logs are always the highest, and will be for the forseeable future. With this measure, anybody can be on top, and those on top will truly be the most interesting blogs, not just the most popular. (Everybody may give perma-links to the standard "top" 'logs, but you actually have to be linked to on a daily basis to win this measure.)
Happy New Millenium!
Personal Notes
12/31/2000; 9:52:22 PM
Happy New Millenium from iRights! May it be a great one for humanity!
(FYI, I'm of the "party every chance you get!" "The Real New Millenium" and "Three Zeros" are both great reasons to party!)
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. Despite the fact that the information on the site was public record, the powers-that-be in Merrimack concluded that discretion was the better part of valor and pulled the data from the site.'
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! First we'll start by charging for links. Then after people get used to that, we'll charge people to follow those links. Then we'll see about charging people to see those links on all of those other nasty third-party sites.
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.