FBI defends email scanner to House probe Surveillance and Privacy from Government7/25/2000; 7:50:26 AM 'Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., called yesterday's hearings amid concerns from privacy groups about an ordinary computer filled with special software that the FBI calls a "reasonable balance" between privacy and law enforcement in an age where crime has gone online.'"Carnivore raises the question as to whether existing statutes protecting citizens from 'unreasonable searches and seizures' under the Fourth Amendment appropriately balance the concerns of law enforcement and privacy," said Canady, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Constitution panel. Rep. Melvin L. Watt, D-N.C., said, "There seems to me to be a growing level of generalized concern about Big Brotherism that I suspect is being fed by the increasing electronic world."...''FBI officials said Carnivore has been used 25 times, including 16 times this year. None of those cases has yet gone to trial, so the FBI would not disclose detailed information about them.'

Yahoo in court over Nazi auctions Country Watch: France7/24/2000; 1:47:01 PM 'A ruling last month gave Yahoo's French site until 24 June to make it impossible for people in France to gain access to the auctions - describing them as an "offence to the collective memory" of French people.'Yahoo's French language site, fr.yahoo.com, has already blocked access to the pages auctioning Nazi memorabilia. 'But surfers can browse the same pages, which routinely offer hundreds of real or imitation Nazi artefacts every day, on the global site yahoo.com. 'If the High Court rules against Yahoo, it will make material in a foreign language and not specifically aimed at the French population actionable under French law just because it is possible to access that material in France.'Making French lawyers very rich.

Links to Der Schockwellenreiter
LinkBack
7/24/2000; 1:40:20 PM Der Shockwellenreiter joins the LinkBack program.

Desc: "It's a weblog about, politics, culture, scripting languages (Perl, Frontier, Python), the Mac and me ;o) And yes, this weblog is named after the famous novel from John Brunner."

BBspot - Metallica's New Album is Napster-Proof
Humor/Amusing
7/24/2000; 12:44:55 PM 'Metallica released their long awaited "Download This" CD today, and the band declared it Napster-proof. The 74 minute CD contains one 55 minute song, "Napster Begone" and a 19 minute, one-question interview with drummer Lars Ulrich.

'"We wanted to make an album that those bastards on Napster wouldn't steal and I think we succeeded," said Lars. "We realized that we couldn't stop the Napster movement, so we decided to make a Napster-proof album. The 'Napster Begone' track is so long and so horrible that no one in their right mind would take the time to download it. Our loyal fans will buy it though, because most have spent so much money on our merchandise that they can't afford a computer."'

DeCSS Trial Day 5
DVD & DeCSS
7/24/2000; 12:43:07 PM 'EFF's defense team landed a surprising blow to the MPAA in Court on Friday when it revealed that the Livid Project has built an open source DVD player for Linux machines using DeCSS.... Pavlovich [who led the project to develop the player] stated the Livid Project's DVD player was created by lawful reverse engineering under the open source development model, which relies upon dozens to thousands of programmers around the globe working collaboratively. DVD players such as Livid's, manufactured independently from DVD-CCA and the MPAA, are not legally required to restrict consumer player features because they are not subject to a CSS license. Through this litigation the studios were hoping to ban DeCSS before independent groups used the code to create consumer-friendly DVD players that could compete with DVD-CCA's monopoly on players.'

Slashdot has collected a lot of links on the topic.

Microsoft becomes cookie defender, privacy hero
Privacy from Companies
7/24/2000; 10:43:23 AM 'Microsoft got quite a bit of mileage out of its announcement earlier this week that it would be building cookie management features into Internet Explorer. ... What a difference a day makes, indeed. Wasn't it just Wednesday that Microsoft was the slipshod, careless perpetrator of practically every security hole and privacy infringement enabler in the Galaxy? Haven't Messrs Catlett and Smith spent years compiling long lists of offences perpetrated by the Great Satan of the Security Hole? Indeed they have (links [in article]), but nevertheless from the way Microsoft tells it, the company is now leading the privacy charge, and is the consumer's friend.'

Microsoft has finally gotten around to adding the ability to block third-party cookies in their latest "technology beta", features Netscape has had for years. While nice, the gains are mostly in having Microsoft treat the issue of privacy seriously, as the article goes on to point out. On a technical level, these are long overdue features, not the incredible breakthroughs the marketing division of Microsoft would like to claim.

The Trouble With Regulating Hate Free Speech7/24/2000; 10:37:31 AM 'While some would like to see new laws to deal with these sites – wherever they are and as many as there may be – the U.S. constitutional right to free speech protects most of them. Some European nations, however, lack the same free-speech standards. So, like other Internet policy issues such as data privacy and encryption, Europe's standards on hate speech clash with American ones. It's another instance where there's little or no consensus on how to govern this global medium.''National laws used to be buttressed by geographic barriers, customs inspectors and the like. But innovation has been eroding national barriers for decades, and the Internet has eroded them even further.... For now, Europe hopes to make do with a filtering system being developed by the Internet Content Rating Association, a nonprofit British group that's partnered with AOL Europe and the Bertelsmann Foundation, among others. But ICRA's system hinges on the voluntary adoption of a ratings system by content providers. It's hard to imagine hate sites agreeing to rate themselves.'Heh heh heh... can't you see it now? You're browsing around and suddenly a warning dialog comes up: Warning! The site you are now viewing has been rated as the following by the owner: Hateful to Minorities, Hateful to Government, Hateful to Pinko Liberals. Do you wish to continue (Yes/No)?I don't know what the solution is, but I doubt self-labelling will be it.

The Napster Weblog
Music & MP3
7/24/2000; 9:54:02 AM Dave Winer has started a Napster Weblog. It's got a lot of the essays, comments, and pointers to postings on various message boards that I'm not pointing to. He's also looking for someone or someones to help run it, if you find that interesting.

Blow up the Internet! Technology & Sociology7/24/2000; 9:37:52 AM '"Los Cybrids proposes that the Internet SHOULD NOT EXIST!" '"--SHOULD NOT EXIST," echoes Cybridputo #2 in an ominous undertone, as he looms behind Cybridputo #1.' ...'"You have 1,500 e-mails," Cybridputo #1 murmurs archly. "You have 15,000 E-MAILS!" Oh, yeah, the Net's not just eating up the globe in its consumerist maw, it's destroying your very own quality of life, and then there's what computers do to the environment and to your personal privacy to consider, too, the Los Cybrids rail in choreographed staccato.'Just read it; any description I give to the piece would not do it justice. I wish I had witnessed the performance.

Australia Decides Streaming Isn't Broadcasting Country Watch: Australia7/24/2000; 9:35:30 AM But the Internet Industry Association was not ready to celebrate its win until the Government made its decision law.'"We are encouraged, but are we satisfied? No," association executive director Peter Coroneos said last night.''"Until the decision has been given legal effect, the position of our members will remain uncertain," he said. "The review has been concluded in the time frame that we considered appropriate. However, until the decision has been given legal effect, the position of our members will remain uncertain."'There are some odd issues with the article and repeating text segments... beats me what the problem is but it seems to be on their end.