Study of Average Error Rates for Censorware Programs
Free Speech
10/23/2000; 5:45:21 PM

'Using "zone files" from Network Solutions (which list all .com domains in existence), we obtained a list of the first 1,000 active .com domains on the Internet as of June 14, 2000. We tested this list of 1,000 domains using five popular blocking programs: Cyber Patrol, SurfWatch, Bess, AOL Parental Controls, and SafeServer, to see how many sites each program blocked as "pornography", and of those sites, how many were actually pornographic.'

Universal tests Napster-style music service
Music & MP3
10/23/2000; 5:33:54 PM

'Big five' recording company Universal Music Group has begun secret trials of an unlimited access, subscription-based digital music distribution service....

'The trial apparently provides unlimited access to some 20,000 tracks via a streamed media connection over the Internet. Subscribers, of whom, Reuters reckons there are 5000 - seems a lot to us - can't download and keep the songs they choose to listen to....

UK e-snooping rules conflict
Country Watch: Britain
10/23/2000; 5:32:15 PM

'The UK government bodies regulating employers' snooping on staff e-mails and phone calls have given conflicting explanations of how two overlapping sets of new rules will interact.

'The Department of Trade and Industry's surveillance rules, which come into force next week, give employers a largely free hand to snoop. The main proviso is that staff are warned their personal e-mails and calls may be monitored.

Privacy under attack (again) on Capitol Hill
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
10/23/2000; 5:31:44 PM

'One of the most bizarre items currently proceeding under the CR has to be the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, sponsored by House Subcommittee on Crime Chairman Bill McCollum (Republican, Florida), which was ostensibly designed to provide better protection to former Presidents from violent lunatics "and for other purposes." Incredibly, the measure passed the Senate, but a rider McCollum wants tacked onto it called the Fugitive Apprehension Act has since raised hackles because it would authorise the Feds to read e-mail and other ISP records on a mere administrative subpoena, which does not require a warrant approved by a judge.

'"The bottom line is, the so-called 'administrative subpoenas' allowed in [the rider] are not necessary for effective law enforcement, and seriously trample on privacy rights....these subpoenas can be obtained for information pertaining to a person who has only 'allegedly' committed a crime," US Representative Bob Barr (Republican, Georgia) said in a tersely-worded letter to colleagues. Nice to see someone on Capitol Hill using his head for a change.'

Senator Hatch's Napster Epiphany
Music & MP3
10/23/2000; 11:32:16 AM

'The kinks and twists and political intrigues attaching to this story [Napster vs. DMCA vs. DMCA author] are only beginning to show, and one can only delight in contemplating what might come next. What we have thus far is a stiff-collared conservative Senator renouncing his own, industry-accommodating legislation on behalf of some punk Internet start-up venture; a pseudo-hip and nominally Democratic White House desperately trying to enforce the Draconian provisions of the stiff-collared conservative Senator's original, industry-accommodating legislation; and an extraordinarily talented lawyer with, until now, respectable Establishment credentials suddenly disdaining the political machine for which he had recently done battle, and cheered by, you guessed it, the stiff-collared conservative Senator whose crummy legislation failed to protect Napster from recording-industry abuse in the first place.

'Ultimately, it all makes perfect sense: only Washington could actually be more ridiculous than Hollywood.'

Who ya gonna call? Patent busters!
Patents
10/23/2000; 11:26:16 AM 'Charles Cella used to help start-ups like ARTISTdirect apply for Internet business method patents. Now the attorney-turned-CEO plans to make money busting them.

'Why the change of heart? "Because there are a lot of bad patents out there, and there are a lot of valid patents too," he says. "What needs fixing is the system of 'prior art.'"

'"Prior art," says Cella, referring to a legal term used to describe inventions that invalidate patents by proving that they aren't new ideas, "is just too hard to find."'

Another crack in the SDMI wall
Music & MP3
10/23/2000; 11:22:44 AM

'A coalition of cryptography and watermarking researchers from Princeton University, Xerox PARC and Rice University claims to have successfully defeated a music protection system proposed by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).'

This has a lot of credibility if you ask me. Be sure to check out their site, particularly their Frequently asked questions.

Blurring the Lines of Digital Art
Free Speech
10/23/2000; 11:20:43 AM

'In 1994, the Whitney was the first major institution to collect a work of Net art, Douglas Davis' "The World's First Collaborative Sentence." Earlier this year, the museum included Net art in its prestigious biennial exhibition, considered a barometer of what's hot in contemporary art.

'And now, digital art is so hot that it deserves its own show. Two shows, in fact.

Keep the Customer Dissatisfied
Misc.
10/23/2000; 11:16:35 AM

'Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, doesn't want us to buy wine on the Net. His argument is that minors are using online ordering to get their hands on booze. Maybe so. Or maybe the wholesale distributors of alcoholic beverages would rather not deal with online competition, and have found some friends in high legislative places....

'Personally, I think it's absurd that I won't be able to order my favorite boutique pinot noir or microbrew from out of state just because the government can't figure out how to stop a 16-year-old using a parent's credit card from doing the same thing. But my inconvenience is trivial compared with the larger lesson here: Clearly, it's time to abandon any lingering notion you might have that the Internet is somehow a free-market paradise, in which buyers and sellers connect with one another beyond the reach of existing (and sometimes arbitrary) social and political restraints.'

Uncovering the Dark Side of the world wide web
Misc.
10/22/2000; 12:42:09 PM

'In an achievement that is almost the equivalent of the Human Genome project for the internet, a new Scottish software company has not only succeeded in plotting a map of the world wide web but has also uncovered its Dark Side....

'A team member replied: "Well, you'll first need to map all that's good and bad - an awesome challenge - and keep adding to it on a daily basis. Only then will you be able to trace, log and map what's bad in it."