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."An excellent discussion of why electronic signatures, as implemented by Congress, should be avoided at all costs.

Net Election: Hiding Behind the Web Political Speech6/29/2000; 8:24:35 AM "The Center for Better Medicare's TV ads are well-crafted, but their agenda is transparent. The group's Web site is more cunning. It takes the Web's strengths – interactivity, depth of information and the ability to link to other sites – and turns them to the purposes of political spin. The site might rely on tricks, but at least they're new ones."The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill to force psuedo-grassroots organizations like the Center for Better Medicare to reveal their funding sources. Looking at how the Center for Better Medicare does business, as this article examines, I think it's plain to see that this is a vital step to making sure that people know the source of political statements, and certainly not an unacceptable limitation of political free speech.

DoubleClick, referral URLs and why The Reg is wrong Privacy from Companies6/29/2000; 8:08:18 AM "Recently we [The Register] wrote a story about Web form 'leakage', under the headline Another day, another Doubleclick privacy PR disaster."DoubleClick thought the piece was inaccurate and harsh, particularly because it was singled out for "an Internet problem" - the leakage of personal information through referral URLs."We offered the company the right to reply, and here it is, unedited, from the pen of Jules Polonetsky, chief privacy officer, DoubleClick Inc."Worth reading. As near as I can figure it, this is damage control on the part of Doubleclick, but what they say in the letter is true; they did not have control over what other sites use for forms.For the record, the GET mechanism the letter talks about it what Google or most other search engines use, where your query can be seen in the URL. POST is what Userland sites use, where you can't see stuff you typed in forms in the URL. By using GET, sites were accidentally passing information to Doubleclick, which is what caused the PR problem.

U.K. looks to eavesdrop on Net Country Watch: Britain6/29/2000; 7:54:43 AM "The British government is seeking expansive powers to eavesdrop on Internet traffic in a move that critics say jeopardizes the country's ambition to become a global e-commerce leader."If successful, the initiative also might affect Net privacy debates in the USA and elsewhere in Europe, analysts say. "It sets a dangerous international precedent ...to create a global standard of (Internet) wiretapping," says David Banisar of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington.I think we've seen this before, and USA Today just discovered it or something, but it is news to me that this bill will probably pass or fail next month.

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights General IP Issues6/28/2000; 3:20:24 PM This is sort of the flip side of the intellectual property debates taking place in the western world, which is whether or not IP protections are too strong. This story from the Moscow Times illustrates a part of the world so far on the other side (basically no protections whatsoever) that people are actually being harmed, possibly even dying, from the lack of intellectual property protection."Adulterated food, poison spirits, fake toothpaste and knock-off drugs are a lethal combination. Readily available in neighborhood stores and kiosks, very few people could handle so many unsafe products at once and come out alive.... The stakes are higher still for consumers. Shoppers rely on certain quality and health standards associated with famous trademarks and brand names. Trademark piracy and counterfeits defraud consumers and can cause substantial health risks, even death.I dislike IP being used offensively as much as the next guy, but we still need IP in some form in the future so we can use it defensively. When I see a Crest logo on that toothpaste, I want to know it's from Crest. It's not just a "brand" thing for the owners of Crest, it's also a promise from the manufacturor that it is indeed Crest toothpaste and not some cheap knock-off. Similarly, when I expose content over the internet to the outside world, I expect that people can get it, in the original format (or some other format I approve of), without arbitrary modifications along the way from whoever sees fit to toy with my bits (the government? AOL? Does it matter?).Intellectual property protection exists on a continuum. While we may far into the "too protective" side, the solution is not to run to the "no protection" extreme, as some have advocated. We need IP for our society to function, and this is a real-world example of why.PS: It's a challenge to think of this story as real-world, isn't it? It must just be made up, right? This flaw in our human minds, the lack of ability to truly imagine anything except what we are currently experiencing as a real possibility really hampers our planning for the future. I think the issues raised in this weblog (and many other issues as well) would receive more attention if people really, deeply realized how different the world will be and how directly those differences will be determined by the decisions we make today.Our country can become a dictatorship, China can become a free country, or more realistically, you might not be able to register disapproval of the government on the 'net without the 'net censoring that disapproval before anybody else can see it. All it takes is enough people making the right (or wrong) decisions. There's nothing impossible about it.(It's worth remembering this and chewing on it every once in a while. What decisions are you making?)

McCain (and many others) Renews Porn-Filter Push Censorship6/28/2000; 8:31:44 AM "On Tuesday, the Arizona Republican and erstwhile presidential candidate introduced a sex-filtering amendment to a spending bill being debated on the Senate floor."'The amendment includes the same language as the Childrens' Internet Protection Act, which McCain introduced in January 1999. It requires any library or school receiving federal "e-rate" funds to tell the FCC it has selected "a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access.'But wait, there's more!"Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, proposed an alternative scheme... Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said his own plan was best and suggested it as a replacement to McCain's amendment...."Looks like the Senate fully intends to pass some more stuff for the courts to strike down.

AOL's Digital Rights Dilemma General IP Issues6/28/2000; 8:15:17 AM "AOL is about to become the world's largest content company. Along with its more than 22 million subscribers, merger partner Time Warner has well over 120 million combined subscribers for its magazines and cable services. Also on the consolidation train is Warner Music, a division of Time Warner, and EMI, a major music label." ''On Tuesday, AOL said that it would add InterTrust's InterRights Point security client to future versions of AOL's promotional CDs.''It's scary that AOL can jam this down 22 million subscriber's throats, 21 million of which will have no idea what's going on.

Oops
Administrative
6/27/2000; 9:04:27 PM I botched the link earlier. The execution discussion David Carter-Tod started is here. It forked, too, and someone posted this message.

U.S.-EU Net Privacy Proposal in Jeopardy
Privacy from Companies
6/27/2000; 9:47:53 AM "A controversial data-privacy protocol hammered out by the Commerce Department and the European Commission earlier this year could get derailed at the last minute by opponents who say it doesn't go far enough to protect European personal privacy from U.S. companies." - referring to the "safe harbor" proposal by the US, wherein the US companies promise to be really good little boys and girls, cross their hearts and hope to die.

Good for you, Europe.

Major Music Labels Sue MP3Board on Copyrights
Music & MP3
6/26/2000; 9:31:18 AM ''Major record labels, including BMG Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, on Friday sued MP3Board Inc., seeking to prevent its Web site from linking users to "pirated" music on the Internet.''

It's the same old story... linking to something constitutes distributing it. If you want to shut down MP3Board, you need to shut down all the internet search engines, too. They are just as guilty of exactly the same thing.