Ooops...
Personal Commentary
My wife has learned of the perils of living with a computer nutcase. In her particular case, the perils manifest themselves as a periodic cleansing of her e-mail archives. Oops.

I was trying to move the contents of one laptop drive to another laptop drive, and could only hook up one at a time. Of course I tell my wife that this won't affect her e-mail, since that's on the computer's permenent drive, and I'll only be affecting the two laptop drives. Of course she snorts and looks disbelieving. She's heard this before.

US Copyright Office Releases DMCA Advisory Report
DMCA
From Slashdot:

snogwozzle writes: "The US Copyright Office's congressionally-mandated advisory report on the effect of the DMCA is in, and at first glance it doesn't look too good. They're against undoing the definition of temporary RAM buffer copies as possibly infringing (which Jessica Litman in Digital Copyright pegged as perhaps the central dirty trick in the DMCA as it opens the door to technical access control by publishers) is turned down, so is a first sale doctrine for digitally distributed works, and the DMCA's effect on fair use is called out of scope for the report. On the other hand, they think everyone should have a backup right for media bought in digital form, like we have for software." Keep in mind that this is only looking at the DMCA's effect on the "first sale doctrine" (once a work is sold to you, the copyright holder can't stop you from re-selling it) and on the legal right to make backup copies ofa computer program.

[humorix] Finally, A Solution To The DMCA!
Humor-Amusing
'The mission of the church is to make digital copies of every music CD, every movie DVD, and every printed book and then grep the digital version for any tell-tale signs of 'The Meaning Of Life'."'

 

This is a Radio Userland weblog post, made from within Jabber.

It looks bad because I've set my site up to expect titles and departments and stuff, not flat text. (That's actually why I created CustomWeblogPost.) But it worked, and on most blogs, this content would be indistinguishable from the rest of the content.

Excite\@Home snoops on user downloads
Privacy from Companies
'Excite\@Home Australia users are up in arms over the telco's random raids on their broadband accounts in search of pirate activity, with many saying it's an invasion of their privacy.'

'The ISP informed users of its Optus\@Home broadband service that it would terminate customer accounts found to be downloading pirate software or copyright material. A message posted on a public newsgroup service from Cable & Wireless Optus, which half-owns Excite\@Home, said its network security team would investigate claims into activities such as downloading protected movies and "immediately terminate" a subscriber's account without any prior warning. It is not clear whether the policy extends to the company's other international operations.'

Lobbyists Tied to Microsoft Wrote Citizens' Letters
Humor-Amusing
'Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff earlier this year, imploring him to go easy on Microsoft Corp. for its conduct as a monopoly....'

'The campaign, orchestrated by a group partly funded by Microsoft, goes to great lengths so that the letters appear to be spontaneous expressions from ordinary citizens. Letters sent in the last month are printed on personalized stationery using different wording, color and typefaces--details that distinguish those efforts from common lobbying tactics that go on in politics every day. Experts said there's little precedent for such an effort supported by a company defending itself against government accusations of illegal behavior.'

Fingered by the movie cops
DMCA
'This article does have a point, but it's not about piracy. It's about a flawed piece of legislation that allows a person to be penalized for an alleged action before he has the chance to defend himself. The moral of the story is that the DMCA allows you to be tried and judged guilty before you even know what has happened. The MPAA could have my account shut down immediately -- or yours -- and there's nothing any of us could do to stop it.'

MP3.com blamed for `viral' copyright infringement
Music & MP3
'A new lawsuit filed against MP3.com seeks to hold the San Diego music-locker service liable not only for songs it improperly copied and distributed, but also for every bootleg track exchanged through Napster and other underground file-swapping services.'

We just crossed the line into absurdity. Regardless of how I and others felt about the Napster case, there was some merit in it. There is none here.

Cyber Citizen lands Felony Charges?
Witch Hunts
'A good deed may lead to prosecution for Brian K. West, a 24 year old sales and support employee for an internet service provider in SE Oklahoma. Mr. West has become a statistic for the Computer Analysis Response Team because he alerted a local business to a serious security flaw in their website.'

'On February 1, 2000, one of West's co-workers created a banner advertisement to be placed on the Poteau Daily News website as part of a legitimate advertising campaign for his employer. To test how how the finished ad would look on the site, West clicked the 'Edit' button on Microsoft's Internet Explorer. This action brought up Microsoft FrontPage and should have created a local copy of the web page, allowing West to do a mock-up of the site on his own computer.'

Censorship in action: why I don't publish my HDCP results
DMCA
'I have written a paper detailing security weaknesses in the HDCP content protection system. I have decided to censor myself and not publish this paper for fear of prosecution and/or liability under the US DMCA law.'

'My name is Niels Ferguson. I'm a professional cryptographer. My job is to design, analyse, and attack cryptographic security systems, a bit like a digital locksmith. I work to make computer systems and the Internet more secure. You would think that people would be in favour of that, right?'