Spam blacklist battle goes to court Spam & E-Mail 10/12/2000; 3:54:23 PM 'In a case with a host of free speech and e-commerce-related legal implications, a San Jose judge today is scheduled to consider arguments in a lawsuit involving the conduct of Mail Abuse Prevention System, or MAPS, a widely used Peninsula company set up to help companies screen junk e-mail. 'Under attack from companies that have wound up on its so-called ``Blackhole List'' of junk e-mailers, MAPS filed suit this spring seeking a definitive ruling from a California court that its practices do not violate any laws.

SDMI cracked! Maybe! Music & MP3 10/12/2000; 3:19:31 PM 'Watch out -- recording industry executives are about to start running for cover. All of the Secure Digital Music Initiative's watermarks -- its much ballyhooed music protection scheme -- have been broken. A spokesperson for SDMI has denied the reports, but according to three off-the-record sources, the results of the Hack SDMI contest are in and not one single watermark resisted attack.

Full Disclosure Administrative 10/11/2000; 2:43:08 PM I've wanted to have the ability to look into the web server log for this site for a while but haven't been able to, because that info is not available through EditThisPage.com. Several people around ETP.com have been using SiteTracker, but I do not want to farm this out to a third party. Thus, I've tacked something on the end of my pages that will ask for an image from another web site I have possession of and the ability to read the logs of.

When to Make the Link Free Speech 10/11/2000; 2:27:37 PM 'It's an illustration of potential pitfalls as news organizations direct readers into cyberspace. And it raises the question: If these news organizations have an obligation to stand behind the content of their stories, should they also be responsible for the material on the sites to which they send their readers?' Well, that depends. When the news announces that there will be a Klu Klux Klan rally at the capitol steps tommorow at 5:30 p.

Why the world needs reverse engineers Privacy from Companies 10/10/2000; 2:22:28 PM 'Many of the privacy risks we face today such as the unique computer identification numbers in Microsoft Office documents, the sneaky collection of data by Real Jukebox, or the use of Web bugs and cookies to track users were only discovered by opening up the hood and seeing how things really work. Companies do not publish this kind of information publicly.

Center for Democracy and Tech: Bills Before Congress 106 Misc. 10/10/2000; 1:23:18 PM Update: Hey, the links actually work now! (Sorry, I was using the new WYSIWIG entry controls and they fooled me into thinking the stuff was linked.) Bills before the 106th Congress, broken out by type: Encryption Digital Signitures Free Speech Domain Names Privacy Junk E-Mail Wiretaps and Cyber-Security Access Bandwidth

It Doesn’t Take Much To Make You Stand Out Privacy from Companies 10/10/2000; 10:33:33 AM '“EIGHTY-SEVEN PERCENT of the population of the U.S. can be uniquely identified [only] by their date of birth, gender and five-digit ZIP code,” says Latanya Sweeney, assistant professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Web sites often ask for such seemingly innocuous information and people provide it, thinking that they will remain unknown.

F.B.I. Calls For Cyber Ethics Education Misc. 10/10/2000; 10:25:20 AM 'FBI agents are spreading a new gospel to parents and teachers, hoping they'll better educate youths that vandalism in cyberspace can be economically costly and just as criminal as mailbox bashing and graffiti spraying. 'The Justice Department and the Information Technology Association of America, a trade group, has launched the Cybercitizen Partnership to encourage educators and parents to talk to children in ways that equate computer crimes with old-fashioned wrongdoing.

Ransom: Customer Data Privacy from Companies 10/10/2000; 9:57:37 AM 'Jules Neuringer never intended to become a martyr. But that was before Motorola tried to co-opt his customers. Now, the man who spent 30 years minding his own business selling two-way radios in Brooklyn, N.Y., finds himself the unofficial spokesman for a small but growing band of independent dealers in a catch-22 nightmare they say was crafted by one of the communications industry's biggest players.

Cybervandal 'Edits' Orange County Register's Web Site Content Integrity 10/10/2000; 9:56:39 AM 'Visitors to the Orange County Register's Web site were rewarded with an incredible scoop Sept. 29. Bill Gates, the geek who coded Microsoft (MSFT) from the ground up and became a multibillionaire in the process, had been arrested for hacking into "hundreds, maybe thousands" of computers, including those of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., and Stanford University.