Smut Filter Blocks All But Smut Censorship6/20/2000; 7:30:18 AM "When Exotrope Inc. introduced its BAIR smut-blocking software last year, everyone seemed wowed by the company's claims of intelligent filtering." ..."In tests of hundreds of images, BAIR incorrectly blocked dozens of photographs including portraits, landscapes, animals, and street scenes. It banned readers from viewing news photos at time.com and newsweek.com, but rated images of oral sex, group sex, and masturbation as acceptable for youngsters.

Cybercrime scares Americans Misc.6/20/2000; 7:16:40 AM "Two thirds of Americans - that must be, oh, around 180 million people - feel threatened, or are concerned, by cybercrime."And more than 60 per cent reckon that Internet consumers are not protected enough from cybercrime, and around the same number say they are less likely to do business on the Internet as a result of cybercrime."Boy, that means there must be more American cybercrime scaredy cats than there are Americans actually connected to the Internet.

British Telecommunications claims ownership of hyperlinks Patents6/19/2000; 12:26:01 PM "British Telecommunications (BT) claims it owns the patent to hyperlinks and wants ISPs in the US to cough up hard cash for the privilege of using them. "The monster telco believes a patent filed in 1976 - and granted in 1989 - proves it owns the intellectual property rights to those natty little devices that link Web content together."Read the Patent, filed April 1980.

Digital signature bill move to White House Misc.6/16/2000; 11:23:40 AM "The Senate on Friday unanimously approved a bill that gives digital signatures the same legal recognition as written signatures. The House approved the bill Wednesday. The measures moves to the White House, where President Clinton has said he will sign the bill into law."History: Digital signatures a threat to privacy?I don't know if they've fixed the liability issues I mentioned then or not.

Yahoo! refuses to remove Nazi memorabilia Country Watch: France6/16/2000; 11:18:50 AM "PARIS -- The co-founder of Yahoo! Inc, Jerry Yang, has rejected a French court order to stop web surfers in France gaining access to sales of Nazi memorabilia which appear on one of the web sites it hosts."(Historical: French Group Takes Yahoo to Court Over Nazi Site)I doubt this is over.

Is Linking Illegal? Free Speech6/16/2000; 9:36:41 AM "But suppose one of those [newspaper sites] contains material alleged to be illegal--a pirated copy of an author’s book, perhaps, or an unlawful software program. Is the publisher who did the linking in hot water?" ... "The court’s decision, which is expected in the next week or two, will set an important precedent in the fast-moving area of linking law, according to legal experts.

Design Vision Technology & Sociology 6/15/2000; 3:18:41 PM "As software becomes a bigger and bigger element of even the most "hard" products ( aircraft, bridges, buildings ), human beings have a capacity to "melt" those products -- that is, to customize and connect them in ways that meet our needs more directly. But delivering on that capacity means inviting people to help shape products that they need. Don't create products for customers -- cocreate with them.

Courtney Love does the math Music & MP36/15/2000; 10:48:14 AM "Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software."I'm talking about major label recording contracts."This is a brilliant declaration of war on the RIAA... from one of the artists the RIAA milks for money. Or at least used to milk for money.

Napster In La-La Land Music & MP36/15/2000; 10:27:51 AM Apparently Napster is now speaking out about the lawsuit with the following: 'But Tuesday, Mr. Barry, himself an attorney, went much further, saying that music listeners are "confused about their rights" owing to various lawsuits against Napster. He added that people have a right to use various digital and computer technologies, some of which he said companies in the music industry helped fund.

Napster Vs. RIAA Administrative 6/15/2000; 10:16:36 AM Wesley Felter starts a conversation on whether or not the RIAA really could control Napster. "The centralized Napster servers (which are owned by Napster-the-company) keep an index of all the MP3s that users are sharing. (Otherwise, how would searching work efficiently?) Thus, the Napster server software could be modified to omit all MP3s matching certain keywords from the index."