VoteAuction closes down Political Speech10/21/2000; 1:26:49 PM 'Most important, he said, neither he nor Austrian owner Hans Bernhard -- who declined comment when contacted Friday -- ever intended to go through with actually trafficking the votes bought and sold. '"It was never my intent to sell votes," Baumgartner said. "And it was clear when I was setting it up with Hans that he and I had the same principles in mind.

Where Did They Go: Third Voice Website Annotation10/21/2000; 11:50:09 AM Fortune is running a Where Did They Go? piece on Third Voice.'Last year, a Silicon Valley company called Third Voice made a sudden and very loud splash in the technology press with an application that let Web surfers annotate Web pages with "sticky notes." Third Voice (the name of the application as well as the company) was supposed to turn static Web pages into interactive forums.

SDMI Beat Goes On Music & MP3 10/19/2000; 4:27:20 PM Cracked or not? The SDMI saga continues. from Salon and a back-up article from The Register: SDMI hack: the 'golden ears' ride to the rescue. The Salon article contains further quote from one of the original sources and The Register has some backup info. The Register seems confused about what a "golden ears" is. A "golden ears" is a person with highly trained hearing.

Congressional panel says no to filters Free Speech 10/19/2000; 3:53:17 PM 'A commission created by Congress to study ways to protect children online will advise against requiring public schools and libraries to use filtering software, even as lawmakers in the waning days of the legislative session consider mandating the use of such tools.' What does this mean? I think it means that if you sit down with rational people and explain the state-of-the-art in filter software, rational people do not find it acceptable.

Letter on Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-Crime Misc. 10/18/2000; 2:59:45 PM Link from Privacy Digest. The letter criticizes many aspects of the cyber-crime treaty. I think the key objection is summed up in this objection to the extreme criminalization of copyright infringement: 'New criminal penalties should not be established by international convention in an area where national law is so unsettled.' It's about five years too early (number pulled from the air) for this sort of comprehensive treaty.

Recording industry launches project to develop sound ID Music & MP3 10/18/2000; 9:09:44 AM 'The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Thursday announced a project to develop a worldwide, standardized system for identifying digital music files so that the owner of a recording's copyright can easily track its use and collect royalties.... 'Sherman likened the system to the bar codes on merchandise bought in stores, but instead of appearing in print on the package, the code would be embedded in the digital content.

BountyQuest.com Patents 10/18/2000; 9:05:36 AM 'BountyQuest is the world's first high-stakes knowledge marketplace, on a mission to strengthen the patent system.   We pay large cash rewards to people who can help find evidence critical to issues of patent validity.... 'Simply put, BountyQuest offers monetary rewards for hard-to-find information.  We support an on-line community of scientists, engineers, and professional researchers who have valuable knowledge that can help their field, their industry, and the world community.

Privacy Treaty a Global Invasion? Surveillance and Privacy from Government 10/18/2000; 9:00:53 AM 'Civil liberty groups are vexed over a proposed treaty that would grant more surveillance powers to U.S. and European police agencies, and expand copyright crimes. 'Thirty groups -- from North America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe -- said this week that the treaty "improperly extends the police authority of national governments" and places the privacy of Internet users and the freedom of computer programmers at risk.

SDMI Cracked! Probably! (The Register) Music & MP3 10/17/2000; 6:04:26 PM 'The Salon story as a whole however provides one of the two main indicators that SDMI's efforts may all be toast - it has too much detail in it for it to be plausible that someone, somewhere had just made the claims up. The other indicator, of course, is Chiariglione's bizarre insistence that nobody can possibly know until after November 10th - if he believes this, and is sure nothing will leak out beforehand, he's been around recording industry PRs for way too long.

Court: Unsigned Net postings unprotected Free Speech 10/17/2000; 9:58:15 AM 'In a ruling that challenges online anonymity, a Florida appeals court declared Monday that Internet service providers must divulge the identities of people who post defamatory messages on the Internet.... 'The ACLU had wanted the court first to rule on whether Hyde had actually been defamed before identifying the defendants, named in court papers only as John Doe. If there was no showing of defamation, the ACLU reasoned, the critics should remain anonymous.