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.'

LinkBack Computer is Broken LinkBack10/17/2000; 9:43:38 AM The computer the linkback program was running on has had a hard drive failure. The system will be down indefinately, I don't really have the money to replace the drive.My apologies to everybody who was using it.The good news is that I've backed the database up and haven't lost anything. That computer's been giving me trouble for a while. It's been making odd beeping noises. I guess now I know why.

New Story: What is iRights?
Administrative
10/16/2000; 5:54:08 PM

As a result of looking at why people are coming here, I see the need for a What is iRights page?  If you are also on editthispage.com or weblogs.com, and your site is large enough and interesting enough that it might attract search engine hits, I'd recommend doing something similar for your site.

I'll let you know if people actually visit it after search requests or not

Congress weighing Internet filtering for schools, libraries
Free Speech
10/16/2000; 2:12:31 PM

'Four Republicans are promoting legislation that would force schools and libraries to use Internet filtering software or lose federal dollars intended to help buy Web access. The effort is alienating civil liberties groups, conservatives and industry executives....'

'Introduced in the Senate by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the plan is attached to an appropriations bill that could get a final vote this week. Reps. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., and Charles Pickering, R-Miss., are behind the effort in the House.

Read more…

New radio software: the legal Napster?
Music & MP3
10/16/2000; 9:21:10 AM

'Some new fancy software from SongCatcher.com may mean you'll never have to pay for your favourite songs again. And the good thing is that it's perfectly legal....

'Tracks are recognised by referring to a station's playlist and using some digital sound recognition software. From that point you'll have a list of artists' tracks and song titles which can be jiggled around as you fancy. Save or delete them or put a ban on artists you want nothing to do with. Logan is also working on a find feature - only trouble is you'll have to wait until that song is broadcast before you can get it.'

Read more…

SDMI Not Hacked! Maybe!
Music & MP3
10/16/2000; 9:11:37 AM

'''When a publication makes such a completely wrong, unfounded, anonymous slander, I think it deserves a very strong answer,'' Chariglione told Inside, referring to a report appearing on Salon.com Thursday citing anonymous sources that claimed each of the six technologies offered up for hacking by the SDMI had been compromised. ''It's simply not true, because we, ourselves, don't have that information. We have about 450 files, with 450 descriptions of methods -- you know, our testing managing committee started working on this Wednesday morning, and it's simply impossible to say whether this is true or this is false. Nobody knows! And when I say nobody, I mean nobody, because it's 450 music files that have yet to be tested.'''

Read more…

Answers from Carnivore Reviewer Henry H. Perrit, Jr.
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
10/13/2000; 4:38:46 PM One of the people who will be reviewing Carnivore has replied to questions in a Slashdot interview, which, as you may expect, boils down to a defense of the review. Unfortunately, most of the questions are redundant.

The one technical question was not answered in a way that would inspire confidence in me or this slashdot poster.

Amazon Tastes Its Own Patent-Pending Medicine Patents10/13/2000; 4:14:03 PM 'In late September OpenTV applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to broaden the scope of a patent originally awarded to the company in 1998 so it includes "one-click" shopping. This tool lets repeat customers make purchases without having to re-enter address and credit card information each time. Amazon first made one-click shopping available on its site in September 1997 and was awarded the patent for it in September 1999. 'Should the Patent Office decide in OpenTV's favor, Amazon could be forced to either pay licensing fees for one-click shopping or abandon it altogether. Ironically, that's the same position Amazon has been trying to put Barnesandnoble.com into for the past year.'Could you ask for any better proof that patents have become too broad? What could these two systems, Amazon's and OpenTV's, possibly have in common, except a vague resemblence (and I do mean vague) in functionality?This is fortuitous timing for me... I was just writing this section of the essay.

Senate Passes Net Liquor Ban
Misc.
10/13/2000; 9:59:48 AM

'The U.S. Senate voted 95-0 on Wednesday to slap strict rules on Internet purchases of intoxicating beverages by prohibiting wineries, breweries or virtually anyone else from selling and shipping alcohol directly to consumers.'

Interesting because it's a case of a Internet jurisdiction issue being settled, which there haven't been too many of.

Amusing: 'The restriction was included in an unrelated bill dealing with trafficking in sex slaves.'