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! branch in France. I wouldn't call it enough, along with a lot of other people, but at least there's basis for argument. This story appears to be a ban on content from anywhere in the world. I'll skip belaboring the obvious implications, but I would like to point out one thing about the people who support this ruling:

BT sues Prodigy over U.S. hyperlink patent
Patents
12/15/2000; 2:15:48 PM

'BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS (BT), which earlier in the year said it had discovered that it owns the U.S. patent for the invention of the hyperlink technology used on the Internet, has sued Prodigy Communications for copyright infringement....

'Early in the year, after discovering in a routine check that it owned the patent for the hyperlink, BT wrote to 17 U.S. ISPs, including Prodigy, asking them to pay for the privilege of using the technology through licensing agreements. The suit filed against Prodigy, which claims to be largest consumer DSL (digital subscriber line) ISP in the United States, is the first suit BT has filed to protect its hyperlink patent, according to Orr.'

Final Carnivore Report Offers No New Answers
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
12/15/2000; 2:08:17 PM

'House Majority Leader Dick Armey made the following comments about the newly released, final report on the Carnivore cybersnooping system:

'This superficial review doesn't get to the heart of the matter. It does nothing to restore the confidence that Americans should have in the confidentiality of their online transactions.

'Why should average Internet users have to wonder whether a rogue agent could snoop through their emails and other online transactions?

Port scanning other networks legal
Hacking & Cracking
12/15/2000; 1:25:35 PM

A United States District Court in Georgia has ruled that port scanning is legal, because it causes no damage to the target computers. Here's the full court report.

I tried to find a decent explanation of port scanning on the net, but I couldn't find a level-headed definition, so I wrote my own definition.

Port Scanning
Glossary
12/15/2000; 1:24:26 PM

I tried to find a decent definition of port scanning on the web, but I can't find one to my satisfaction. They either resort to ill-advised metaphors or panicky ohmigoshHACKERS!-style definitions. So here's my take on it:

The "port" in "port scanning" refers to TCP/IP ports. The internet protocol that we all use defines about 60,000 "ports" on each computer, which a program can "listen" to in order to recieve communication on the Internet. For instance, web servers typically listen on "port 80". There are some other accepted port numbers, but any program can listen on any port.

it has begun - from Hack the Planet
Free Speech
12/14/2000; 5:15:56 PM

'Richard Stallman, The Right to Read (1997): "Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger."

'Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader: "If you are a software programmer, you should note that the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader's security implementation does not allow program debuggers to be executed on the machine while the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader is running."'

Slashdot - MAPS RBL Is Now Censorware
Censorship
12/14/2000; 3:00:33 PM

'I don't like spam any more than the next person. But I also don't like censorship, and I take a content-neutral view of these things. If someone delivers a product to be used by Alice to block Bob from seeing website because she doesn't like its content, that product is censorware.'

Hey, somebody at Slashdot took off the rose-colored glasses. Of course MAPS is censorware! It's a pity they had to wait until one of their pet sites (Peacefire.org, a site full of useful info but exudes a bit too much teenaged-angst sometimes) was hit to see that. There may yet be hope for Slashdot...

Anti-WalMart domain win falsely claimed as sea-change
Free Speech
12/14/2000; 2:52:44 PM

'WIPO has ruled against a huge conglomerate! We know, unbelievable as it may seem, it's true. Kenneth J. Harvey is officially entitled not to have his www.wallmartcanadasucks.com taken off him and given to a faceless organisation.... This decision was immediately claimed as an enormous victory... Unfortunately, it is nothing of the sort.

'You'll note that Ken kept the URL www.wallmartcanadasucks.com - that's "wall" with two "l"s - i.e. it has nothing whatsoever to do with Wal-Mart's trademark.... The reason why even WIPO couldn't decide in Wal-Mart's favour is because if it had, it would effectively be saying that any site that criticised any trademark company should be handed over to the company in question.'

Banned Artists Move Online
Free Speech
12/13/2000; 1:27:52 PM

'Literature and artworks snipped and banned by Singapore's censors may soon be archived online in their full glory by a group of local artists....

'Singapore typically censors publications, films and art work deemed to have excessive amounts of sex and violence, references to drug use and subjects which could cause religious or racial intolerance between the Chinese, Malay and Indian communities.

Records of toysrus.com subpoenaed in privacy probe
Privacy from Companies
12/13/2000; 11:40:49 AM 'Records from Toys ''R'' Us Inc.'s Internet division have been subpoenaed in an investigation of its privacy practices, a spokeswoman for the toy retailer said yesterday.

'The inquiry by New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs, which is overseen by the state attorney general's office, partially stems from lawsuits that accuse toysrus.com of illegally sharing personal information about its Internet customers with market researchers, spokeswoman Jeanne Meyer said.'