P3P Already Out Of Date? Privacy from Companies7/7/2000; 2:01:37 PM Nothing much is happening today... that's generally good news I wanted to point out something about the Platform for Privacy Preferences. In light of the news laws concerning electronic signatures, is P3P already out of date? If you load the P3P standard, the word "signature" appears a grand total of zero times.Considering the ease with which you can now sign away your privacy rights, this is a big hole in the P3P specs.

Electronic Vs. Digital Signatures Glossary7/7/2000; 11:55:55 AM It's been pointed out to me a couple of times, so it's worth explaining to everybody. There is a huge difference between "electronic" and "digital" signatures, even though many people (including me sometimes) have used the terms interchangably.Electronic signatures are the things recently given legal force by the US Federal Government. Essentially, they are the electronic equivalent of a signature on a conventional contract, capable of joining two parties into a legally binding agreement.

Copyright Groups Knock Heads Music & MP3 7/6/2000; 10:02:46 AM "On Wednesday, five composer and songwriter organizations -- BMI of the United States, GEMA of Germany, SACEM of France, SGAE of Spain, and SIAE of Italy -- announced an alliance to develop a technology infrastructure to track music use across international borders. ''The BMI alliance hopes to speed international compensation for composers, but there remains a slight complication. Last April, ASCAP (the other United States copyright organization) formed the International Music Joint Venture (IMJV), with Dutch and English licensing agents, with the intention of doing the same job.

A Fight to Ban Cell Phone Spam Spam & E-Mail7/6/2000; 9:35:26 AM A fight to ban cell phone spam... before we can even manage to ban e-mail spam."Although members of the wireless industry say advertising in the wireless future is inevitable and will help subsidize cell-phone use, Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) is currently drafting a bill similar to a law prohibiting unsolicited junk mail on fax machines."Also interesting from that article, an update on the e-mail Spam ban:This isn't Holt's first campaign to combat spam.

How many LoC/sec? Personal Commentary 7/5/2000; 3:29:55 PM I don't know why, but I love this commercial. "How many libraries of Congress per second can your software handle?" just sings to me for some reason. "One thousand billion trillion bytes."

Europe Investigating Echelon Surveillance and Privacy from Government7/5/2000; 10:50:56 AM "The EU committee has one year to establish whether the Echelon system really exists and whether European industry has been damaged by global interception of communications. It will also consider whether the privacy of individuals can be protected from spying and how this can be done."In a seperate development, the French are opening their own investigation. Dintilhac's office began the preliminary investigation in response to a letter by a French center-right member of the European parliament, Thierry Jean-Pierre, who alleged Echelon was potentially prejudicial to French nationals and to France's economic interests.

Napster Leaps To Its Own Defense Music & MP37/5/2000; 8:11:14 AM "Laying out a defense that sets the stage for a legal showdown at the end of the year, attorneys representing Napster responded Monday to the recording industry's request that the song-swap service be immediately shut down."A few comments:'"As long as the consumer is engaged in non-commercial activity, that is something that the Audio Home Recording Act immunizes," Boies says.

The Napster library Misc. 7/5/2000; 7:50:36 AM "But imagine if your public library eventually became a kind of Napster for the literary set -- offering free, downloadable versions of all the hottest book releases, which you could trade with your friends, and carry around on your PDA."

Failed dot-coms may be selling your private information Privacy from Companies 6/30/2000; 12:05:06 PM "At least three companies that have recently failed, Boo.com, Toysmart and CraftShop.com, have either sold or are trying to sell highly sought-after customer data that could include information such as phone and credit card numbers, home addresses, and even statistics on shopping habits." '"It is inappropriate and potentially illegal to sell customer information when it was collected under the assumption that it wouldn't be shared,"

Electronic Signatures Yield Unpleasant Surprises Misc.6/29/2000; 8:45:05 AM "Knowledgeable Internet users might think that the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" -- passed overwhelmingly by the US Congress last week -- would provide virtual world commerce with the same protections expected in the physical world."Surprise! No, that would be "digital signatures", never mentioned in the Act. Digital signatures are designed to detect changes in digital content, and computationally irreversible functions ensure that the signature belongs to a particular entity.