Slashdot interview with Jordan Pollack General IP Issues6/5/2000; 7:14:05 AM April 12, 2000: Wow! You must read the last two questions of this Slashdot interview with Jordan Pollack!

I am simply saying that permanent use and resale licenses to changeable information (software, art, literature, music, movies) which can be traded securely, without loss or duplication, in a public market, is a form of currency.

Interesting thought!

China conducting 'pre-war recon' on line Misc.6/5/2000; 7:14:02 AM April 11, 2000: China conducting 'pre-war recon' on line: "'China has the biggest [information warfare] programme from the standpoint of being able to attack our infrastructure,' Chinese military specialist William Triplett said during an interview on the CBS News programme 60 Minutes this weekend."

Good plan for China. Not so good for us.

The Pentagon is worried. If an attack were carried out, even just a test attack, it's likely that it would go undetected and might well be attributed to equipment failure or some natural event, US Joint Task Force on Computer Network Defence Director General John Campbell pointed out.

The Clinton Administration, too, is very worried about cyber-warfare, but inexplicably not at all worried about the People's Liberation Army.

Anti-censorship site censored Censorship6/5/2000; 7:13:59 AM April 11, 2000: "The director of the Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain has challenged Dr Laurence Godfrey to sue him following claims by CACIB that it was gagged over the publication of a story on its Web site."

"Hutty, who wrote the story, said: 'What I've written is not an actionable libel. If he wants to sue it's up to him,' he said. 'We stand behind our comments, but the ISP is naturally neither willing nor able to get involved. The result is that we are presumed guilty, and censored, because our ISP does not want to pay the legal fees to defend us.'"

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."

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.

DoubleClick wins an award for its losing nature
Privacy from Companies
6/5/2000; 7:12:38 AM April 6, 2000: Also, They Fight for Citizen's Privacy: "Privacy commissioners from every country but the United States convene on a panel to discuss their respective issues. Why not the United States? It doesn't have a commissioner."

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.

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!