Online game backs away from privacy threat Privacy from Companies6/5/2000; 7:12:47 AM April 6, 2000: "Game developers Verant Interactive, worried about tools which allow people to cheat or disrupt the online game, wanted to examine players' personal computers for 'hacking tools' as a part of a new software upgrade. As recently as last night, executives said they would bar people from the game who didn't agree to open their systems to the digital bloodhounds' inspection."

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ACLU Appeal for cphack DVD & DeCSS6/5/2000; 7:12:43 AM April 6, 2000: The ACLU has appealed the injunction against posting cphack.

"What these guys were posting was not copyright-protected material," said Sarah Wunsch, an ACLU attorney in Boston. "We don't believe the judge has authority to issue a restraining order at all."
That's actually two seperate arguments. First, why does what a judge in Boston has ruled matter to me? And more interestingly, how does it matter to someone in France? Second, how is posting cphack a violation of copyright when they are perfectly free to do so according to the GPL?

Can hyperlinks be outlawed?
General IP Issues
6/5/2000; 7:12:41 AM April 6, 2000: Salon asks Can hyperlinks be outlawed?, relating the Ticketmaster case where "deep links" were found legal and the MPAA's attempt to make it illegal to link to sites containing the DeCSS program. I wanted to look at that issue myself but couldn't find a copy of the Ticketmaster ruling.

The Gilmore Patent License
Patents
6/5/2000; 7:12:36 AM April 6, 2000: "Gilmore wants create what amounst to a pool of patents where the ideas are freely shared, and to do it under terms that mimic the GNU GPL."

This is the only practical answer. Reform can and should be made to the system itself, but the tech industry can't wait that many years. Setting up something like this is a Good Idea.

The liberating power of the Internet at work Personal Commentary6/5/2000; 7:12:34 AM April 5, 2000: The liberating power of the Internet at work: On today's Scripting News, Dave critiques Conxion for their advertising 99.999% uptime. Then,

Conxion CEO Antonio Salerno had a problem with the statement above.
Userland experiences ~10% outage rates, and sends 50+ e-mails? Conxion ignores them. Userland tells world that Conxion can't boast about their uptime? Suddenly Conxion is annoyed and apparently exerted pressure on Userland to not say that. That is not clueful behavior.

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Student spams sex email by mistake Humor/Amusing6/5/2000; 7:11:34 AM April 3, 2000: More Reasons Not To Have Children. "An electronics student who emailed a pornographic picture to his friend accidentally sent it to everyone at his college whose surname began with 'C'."

Now, I know this was a college student, but suppose your 15-year-old did it. Now guess who's responsible?

Carla Virga over Terminix Free Speech6/5/2000; 7:11:32 AM April 3, 2000: Carla Virga, previously talked about March 13th, has won another victory in her fight against Terminix, according to Overlawyered.com (look for the 'March 31-April 2 -- Terminix vs. consumer critic's website' entry; I don't know how to permanently link to it).

Pest control company Terminix retreats from courtroom efforts to swat dissatisfied consumer Carla Virga, who put up a website to publicize her unhappiness with its services. After its defamation suit was dismissed, the company tried again on the theory that Ms. Virga was infringing its rights by using the word Terminix itself in "metatags" directed at search engine listings. This succeeded in infuriating many in the Web community, and now the company has backed off that second action as well.

Ficus 2000
Humor/Amusing
6/5/2000; 7:11:29 AM March 27, 2000: Sick of congressional candidates that are willing to eliminate your freedoms at the drop of a hat? Want a candidate who would never vote for the DMCA? How about a candidate who is absolutely immune to We Must Do It For The Children?

Sound like a dream? It isn't anymore! Vote Ficus 2000 and vote for a candidate who stands for growth, a candidate who does their part to clean up the local environment by making air easier to breath for you and me, and a candidate with an IQ that's right off the scale! (How many Congresspersons can claim that, huh?) Ficus 2000!