Cyber Patrol ban list published on the Web Censorship6/5/2000; 7:12:29 AM April 5, 2000: Cyber Patrol ban list published on the Web: Wanna go see it? Feel free.

Some highlights: Marshall University Personal Web Pages (Violence Nudity, Sexual Acts/Text) Beats me what this got whacked for.

Toast.net, an ISP provider.

And some local to me: An attempted block of all MSU web pages, except that they list off a string of servers no longer serving web pages! (I guess maybe I am on the block list, in a way.) byers.egr.msu.edu. I don't know why this one is blocked in particular.

Battling Censorware
Censorship
6/5/2000; 7:12:26 AM April 4, 2000: "If there is a fair-use right under copyright law, then as professor Peter Jaszi and others have argued, there should be a fair-use right under the anticircumvention provision of the DMCA. Just as free-speech rights get balanced under copyright law, so too should they be balanced under the copyright act.

"But balance is unlikely when district courts believe they are protecting the morals of America's children. And balance has not yet been the norm when courts have been confronted with circumventing code. Instead, control has been the judicial norm - control built into code, backed up by a law that reaches further than copyright law itself may constitutionally reach. A law that circumvents, one might say, the protections the First Amendment was to provide."

Cisco tells spam victims to reply with abusive emails Humor/Amusing6/5/2000; 7:11:48 AM April 4, 2000: At first I thought this might be some sort of late April Fool's joke.

"Spam is usually harmless, but it can be a nuisance, taking up time and storage space. The solution is to flame the perpetrators by sending them abusive messages, or to reply by dumping a very large and useless file on their Web server."

Then I realized... of COURSE Cisco wants you to retaliate by sending as much data as possible. Then you'll need to buy more and faster routers. Sometimes I can be so dense!

New Third Voice Version Website Annotation6/5/2000; 7:11:45 AM April 4, 2000: There is a new version of Third Voice out now. I don't have time to do a full analysis of it today, but you can take a look at their online tour.

My objections remain unchanged, neither added to nor subtracted from. I still object to the attaching (and therefore modification) of content to arbitrary webpages from arbitrary people. I still object to the systematic modification and profiting from copyrighted material that does not belong to Third Voice. I still think they'd lose a lawsuit if anybody sued them.

First Amendment lawyers take on DVD cracking case Free Speech6/5/2000; 7:11:43 AM April 4, 2000: "'The battleground over the First Amendment is now in cyberspace,' Jim Wheaton, senior counsel for nonprofit, public-interest law firm the First Amendment Project, said in a statement. 'Old media is lumbering into the new era and wants to knock down our civil liberties in a clumsy attempt to maintain the old paradigm.'"

I think the most distrubing thing is how readily the courts throw these arguments out as soon somebody with lots of money is involved. In a conflict between the laws concerning theft of intellectual property and the exercise of free speech... free speech wins, no matter how much it may cost some company, because free speech is constitutionally guaranteed and IP is not.

Junger v. Daley Patents6/5/2000; 7:11:40 AM April 4, 2000: A very interesting court opinion here... in the case of Junger v. Daley, the court has issued some stunning pronouncements!

Because computer source code is an expressive means for the exchange of information and ideas about computer programming, we hold that it is protected by the First Amendment.

The Wired story puts a spin on the story as a victory for privacy advocates (and of course the professor involved in the lawsuit "smile"), but I'd like to look at this from another point of view.

NSA Balancing Security, Privacy
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
6/5/2000; 7:11:38 AM April 3, 2000: I'd have sworn this was an April Fool's gag, but you'd think Wired would have retracted it by now in that case...?

Mattel looks to sell software unit
Censorship
6/5/2000; 7:11:35 AM April 3, 2000: Interesting note: Mattel looks to sell software unit... The software unit is called "The Learning Company". Now, go to the CyberPatrol webpage, and guess what unit of Mattel makes CyberPatrol?

Connecting the recent events surrounding CyberPatrol and this desire to sell is pure speculation of course, but ... who knows?

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.