Spam Analogy
Humor/Amusing
11/5/2000; 8:11:32 PM User Friendly cartoon.

VoteAuction.com Deregistered From DNS Servers Political Speech11/4/2000; 6:36:29 PM VoteAuction.com has been de-registered from DNS servers; that link should not work. To visit the site, you can use the IP address: http://62.116.31.68/index00.htm (this bypasses a splash-screen). Of particular interest is their legal documents section.From what I can gather from the web-law list at egroups.com, which one of the "makers" of voteauction.com mailed (his word, not mine), a Missouri Attorney-General or court ordered, via e-mail, a Switzerland "meta-registry" (corenic.org) to de-register the domain. (CORE is also apparently a defendent in the civil action in Missouri.) A Missouri restraining order taking effect on a Swiss entity. Isn't the Internet fun?According to the source on the list, voteauction.com is threatening to sue CORE if they don't re-instate the entry. Wierd stuff, man.The message is here but you have to be a member to read it.

LinkBack Back Up (I Hope)
LinkBack
11/2/2000; 5:53:49 PM

LinkBack is functional again, after the computer has undergone extensive repairs. One 'returning' user, after dropping his class site, is Duncan's Jotter. We also have a new user, YooZoo. Thanks for (re-)joining. Also, array has changed to dangerousmeta.

Let's hope it'll stay up a while this time.

Can Napster Secure SDMI?
Music & MP3
11/2/2000; 2:52:38 PM 'The new file-trading service that Napster and Bertelsmann are developing will need digital-rights-management technology and could be the key to resuscitating the recording industry's initiative.

'Napster's yet-to-be-developed service might be just the place for the largely theoretical Secure Digital Music Initiative to get its test run.'

This is a great example of even a "with-it" news organization failing to take advantage of the strength of the web. These two paragraphs are the entire article. The rest of the standard-length one-page Wired Online article is nothing but a re-cap of the Napster agreement and the SDMI initiative, including a lengthy explanation of the Hack SDMI contest.

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Web Enters Privacy 'Safe Harbor'
Privacy from Companies
11/2/2000; 2:48:14 PM 'A kind of data-privacy wall has popped up on the Web, and like the world's better-known walls, it is geographical in nature.

'Safe Harbor, an international privacy agreement approved earlier this year, took effect Wednesday and marked the line between acceptable privacy practices in Europe and the United States.

'The program, the result of an agreement between the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission, governs the transatlantic flow of data -- both online and off. The agreement set up a framework for certifying companies collecting data under privacy protection standards that satisfy the stricter standards of the European directive.'

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The Incredible Shrinking Internet
Misc.
11/2/2000; 2:24:45 PM

'The really scary scenario for advocates of open access to broadband is that cable companies have the power not just to slow info, but to block it completely. If Time Warner should hook up with a big search engine, posits Rosen, the company could close the gate to others.

'Already some search engines are accepting money to rank paying companies higher than others, so a query about running shoes will result in a list of products from the advertiser. For regular consumers, it's not always apparent which search engines have paid placement and which don't. Now, with the rise of cable monopolies, search engines may be forced to bring up the names of businesses the broadband providers have arrangements with. "As it is," Rosen adds, "pure search engines like Google are getting rarer."

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