Software Double Bind
DMCA
'The law of which Mr. Sklyarov ran afoul makes it illegal to manufacture or distribute a device designed to bypass technology that protects copyright material. His offense was to develop software that can disable the safeguards that are supposed to prevent electronic books from being distributed en masse over the Internet.'

'The law also makes it illegal for individuals to use such a program -- even to make a back-up copy of a book or movie or song for themselves, the type of copies traditionally allowed under copyright law. That is where the double bind comes in. Actually making such copies for personal use is not illegal. But it is against the law to break through the copy-protection measure to make the legal copies.'

A Warhol Worm: An Internet plague in 15 minutes!
Misc.
'...by simply changing the infection pattern, it is possible for a malicious programmer to build a "Warhol Worm", able to attack all vulnerable machines, worldwide, in 15 minutes. A reactive, human defense would fail before such an onslaught. It is an important exercise to realize just how vulnerable we are.'

Believable. Very believable.

 

The Code Red Hype Hall Of Shame
Misc.
'We've had no end of entertainment these past weeks with the Code Red and Code Red Junior IIS worms. Vast battalions of 'security experts' paraded themselves eagerly before the press, trotting out their finest doomsday quotes for a shot at fifteen minutes of fame. Meanwhile, legions of well-groomed, academically-inclined twinkies armed with tape recorders and Masters' Degrees in journalism greedily sucked them up, and obediently generated the most laughable headlines predicting that Code Red would break the Internet.'

Risking All to Expose the Taliban
Polical Speech
'The seemingly endless list of activities banned by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban includes taking pictures of people and animals, using the Internet, educating girls and badmouthing the government.'

'The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan does all of the above.'

'The organization of social activists risks incarceration and worse to expose atrocities committed by one of the world's most repressive regimes. RAWA was founded in 1977, but only garnered international fame in 1997 after it launched a website documenting the bizarre and tragic details of life under the Taliban.'

Economist.com
Misc.
'It is certainly a pity that the Internet has not turned out to be quite the force for freedom that it once promised to be. But in many ways, the imposition of local rules may be better than the alternatives: no regulation at all, or a single set of rules for the whole world. A complete lack of regulation gives a free hand to cheats and criminals, and expecting countries with different cultural values to agree upon even a set of lowest-common-denominator rules is unrealistic. In some areas, maybe, such as extradition and consumer protection, some countries or groups of countries may be able to agree on common rules. But more controversial matters such as free speech, pornography and gambling are best regulated locally, even if that means some countries imposing laws that cyber-libertarians object to.'

Perfect Fear Factor Stunt
Personal Commentary
My wife has gotten addicted to NBC's "Fear Factor", and in a one-bedroom apartment where I'm currently home nearly all the time, that means by extension, so have I. A lot of people think it's a clear contender for the trashiest show on television, but I think that's only true from the "voyeur" point of view. From another point of view, the show also offer psychological insights into the contestants, though the insights aren't as profound as I think the Weakest Link may offer.

Revisiting isolation and its link to the Internet
Technology & Sociology
'The Internet has grown from an alpha-geek subculture to a near-ubiquitous presence and as it has grown, so have the challenges in assessing its impact on society. Attempting to distill any broad conclusions about its ultimate impact is an exercise akin to asking ``What is the impact of automotive technology on our lives?'' That question might have been useful in 1920, but today the answer would be so diffuse as to be meaningless. It is tougher still to point to the Net as the cause of any particular behavior.'

freedom in fiction Patents 'The general public often wrongly attributes inspiration. It comes from individuals without any company input. But big companies work hard to imply the reverse is so. A premise is employees as zombies running programs. Big companies lay claim to the mythical smart fountain.'

'Something went very wrong somewhere. What to do? Now megacorps herd the intellectual property parade. Every idea has to belong to some corp, never all of us. A bright man is always suspected of being Prometheus. You must have stolen it from the gods. Not your idea!'

Judges: Don't Monitor Our PCs
Misc.
'Some federal judges are protesting the monitoring of their computers by Washington managers concerned about personal Internet use.'

'The judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco claim the practice is illegal. They are pressing to get it stopped, and the Supreme Court chief justice and other judges will consider the request next month.'

'To demonstrate their discontent, judges of the 9th Circuit ordered staff to disable monitoring software in May. The weeklong shutdown affected 10,000 court employees in the Circuit, which covers nine western states and two territories, and two other court districts.'

Slashdot | Pavlovich Jurisdictional Challenge Denied
DVD & DeCSS
From Slashdot: 'The Sixth District Court of Appeals has denied Matt Pavlovich's challenge to being sued in California for the act of posting DeCSS on an internet web site.'

Don't miss this comment (#224), which provides a nice counterbalance.