Judge: Yahoo not bound by French Nazi ban - Tech News - CNET.com Country Watch- France, Free Speech 'A U.S. federal judge ruled Wednesday that Yahoo was not bound to comply with French laws governing Internet content, a decision which could have broad implications for international free speech rights in the Internet age.' Sanity! Sweet, sweet sanity! Enjoy it while you can, it may be a while before you see any more.

Which America Will We Be Now? Misc. 'While firemen and police were racing into the fires of hell in downtown New York, and now, while our soldiers and airmen and Marines are putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan, the Administration and its Congressional allies are allowing multinational companies to make their most concerted effort in twenty years to roll back clean-air measures, exploit public lands and stuff the pockets of their executives and shareholders with undeserved cash.

File-swapping case may break new ground - Tech News - CNET.com Free Speech, Music & MP3, Programmer's Rights 'The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has represented hackers, cryptographers and computer scientists in its push for digital rights, agreed to defend MusicCity against copyright infringement charges by movie studios and record labels. It's helping build a high-powered team of lawyers to show that this case is different from Napster's.' '"This case shows more clearly (than Napster) that what the plaintiffs are most concerned about is control of technology,"

Monsters, Inc. Personal Commentary As a Computer Science major, it is required that I immediately rush out and see all computer animated films the day they are released. (At least the good ones.) So, a few hours ago you could have seen me in the local theater for one showing of the newly-released movie from Pixar, Monsters, Inc. Here's the complete list of reasons not to see it: [this space left deliberately blank]

Stealing MS Passport's Wallet Hacking & Cracking 'By cobbling together a handful of browser-based bugs with flaws in Passport's authentication system, Slemko developed a technique to steal a person's Microsoft Passport, credit card numbers -- and all, simply by getting the victim to open a Hotmail message.' Were it not for the discouraging effects of the DMCA, I would find it enjoyable to try to crack .Net, in the effort to improve the system for the users.

News: States granted right to fight spam Spam & E-Mail 'On Monday, the high court declined to hear a constitutional challenge to a tough Washington state anti-spam law, one of the nation's first measures that sets standards for junk e-mailers and levies stiff fines for violators. Enacted in 1998, the law bans "deceptive" e-mail and has drawn immediate attention as a test case for the role of states in regulating the Internet.

Victory for DVD Code Cracking Free Speech 'A California State Appeals Court ruled on Thursday that computer code used to "descramble" DVDs is "pure speech," and citing the First Amendment, the court reversed a trial court's order to block the code from appearing on the Web.' Another entry in the continuing "Code is Speech" saga.  

The Age: Video stores, Warner at war Country Watch- Australia, DVD & DeCSS, Free Speech 'Warner simultaneously releases DVDs to the retail and rental market. They are color coded - silver for retail at a wholesale price of $24, and blue for rental, wholesaling at $55. When Warner threatened to sue video shops caught renting the retail-designated DVD, the association - representing 55 per cent of Australian video shops - took the offensive.

Europe Goes After the Cookie Privacy from Companies 'The "cookie," a simplistic identification tag that most Internet users unknowingly carry when surfing the Web, runs the risk of being outlawed under a proposed privacy directive from the European Commission.' "Ban the Tool" fallacy again. There are other ways to violate privacy. Clearly they don't understand what cookies are.  

AlterNet -- TECHSPLOITATION: I'm a Terrorist Now Hacking & Cracking, Internet-Weblog Culture, Polical Speech 'Now that the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act has passed, I am officially a terrorist. Yes, it's true. Going by the various and sundry definitions of terrorist in this bill, you might be a terrorist too. If you have broken into and "damaged" any Internet-connected computer within the last eight years, you are now deemed a terrorist.