Reading your mouse movements
Privacy from Companies
'A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, US, say they have developed a way to record mouse movements on a page and learn how people behave when they are on the internet.'

If I was at MIT now, and a prof had asked me to work on this, I think I'd have actually refused. Certainly there's a lot of neutral technology, like facial recognition, that can be used in positive ways or negative ways (privacy invasion, computerized psuedo-justice), but there's just no neutrality about this. There's virtually no academic value to this research I can see. The only conceivable use is privacy invasion.

Congress Plans DMCA Sequel: The SSSCA
DMCA
From Slashdot:

"If you thought the DMCA was a nightmare, wait 'til you find out what Congress is planning this fall. The sequel is called the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act," and it requires PCs and consumer electronic devices to support "certified security technologies" to be approved by the Commerce Department. Backers of the SSSCA include Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), who heads the powerful Senate Commerce committee, and, reportedly, Disney. Wired News has a report, and I've placed the SSSCA draft text (new! more criminal penalties!) online here.

Arguments Against [Arguments Against] Privacy
Privacy from Companies

'For the past couple of years, I have been collecting arguments against privacy. Periodically I have gathered these arguments in a newsletter I edit, The Network Observer, together with rebuttals.'

This document is a gem among gems. Absolutely amazing. Read it. Memorize the URL. Spread it. Wow.

 

Your Face Is Not a Bar Code
Human Justice

'Face recognition systems in public places, however, are a matter for serious concern. The issue recently came to broad public attention when it emerged that fans attending the Super Bowl had unknowingly been matched against a database of alleged criminals, and when the city of Tampa deployed a face-recognition system in the nightlife district of Ybor City. But current and proposed uses of face recognition are much more widespread, as the resources at the end of this article demonstrate in detail. The time to consider the acceptability of face recognition in public places is now, before the practice becomes entrenched and people start getting hurt.'

Fuel cell system could help nab drunk drivers
Human Justice
'Developed by engineering students working under Kolesar, the technique is totally unobtrusive and does not require drivers to blow into a tube or respond to visual prompts. Instead, it uses a tiny ethyl alcohol fuel cell sensor manufactured by PAS Systems International (Fredericksburg, Va.) to monitor air in the vehicle cabin for the presence of ethanol vapor concentrations.

Quicken.com - News

'EBay Inc. won what it called a precedent-setting court victory Thursday when a federal judge ruled that the Internet auction company was not liable for copyright infringement because bootleg copies of a Charles Manson documentary were sold on the site.'

'The judge in the eBay case said it was the first to test whether a Web site has a "safe harbor" if people use the site to sell items that infringe on copyrights.'

The Simpsons get toasted
Personal Commentary
Any illusions you may have that copyright is about profit should be dispensed with. The control freak stuff is really starting to torque me, and it is ever so slowly, but ever so surely, starting to encroach on my actual, every day life, rather then me looking for it like I normally do.

What prompted this? Well, on my local cable channel 15, broadcast channel 50, from 6:00pm through 6:30pm, all there is is a scrolling white message on a blue screen babbling about how some other channel has exclusive rights to the show (which happens to be the Simpsons)... except that the Simpsons are not shown anywhere else on my cable system at the time.

Do Search Engines Expedite the Theft of Digital Images?
Misc.
'But to make such gawking possible, search engines are taking a controversial step. Their technology, which uses Web searching tools called spiders, now makes copies of every image they come across, whether the search engines have permission to do so or not. Those images, many of which are reduced to thumbnail size, are then displayed in the search engine's results listings, again without explicit approval from the artists who created the images in the first place.'

Lost Personal Commentary I'm watch ''Lost'' with my reality-TV addicted wife. So far, the players have completely failed to impress me.

Bear in mind I'm not an outdoors person by any means. This is what I would study if I was expected to compete.

None of the six players seems to have taken the time to study the stars. By the first night, they should have known at a minimum which hemisphere they were in, for both North/South and East/West hemispheres. With a bit of work, you should be able to do significantly better. (Conceivably, the contestents could have narrowed down what country they were in to only three possibilities, which I won't share since people on the West Coast haven't seen the show yet :-) ) I suppose it would have ruined the suspense of stage one if somebody nailed the country on day one.Also note that in both hemispheres, the stars give you true north (Polaris) or south (Southern Cross). Compare that with true Magnetic North, and you can place yourself within +/- 5 degrees longitude without much work in much of the world. For instance, in much of South America, true and magnetic north pretty much match.

Big Brother To Watch Judges?
Misc.
Lots of good linkage on the Judge's workplace monitoring on Slashdot. Looks like the issue's heating up.