Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Joe Conason's Journal. The night the lights went on in Georgia: Voters wake up, and kick Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney to the curb. [Salon Headlines] Andrew comments: If I remember correctly, there's one area that I've actually liked Bob Barr - crypto. Assuming my memory is not failing me, Barr is one of the few gun-nuts to realize that hard crypto rights are the next logical step for them to take. I'm far from being a gun-nut - in fact, I believe that a strict reading of the Second Amendment bans guns from everyone but the National Guard, the Michigan Militia, and maybe the police - are they an organized militia? But by the standard reading of the 'right to bear arms', the average individual has the right to own a weapon with which to defend themselves and their families. Now remember that the government has, in the past, legislated against crypto and handled it in import/export rules as...weaponry. So the Second Amendment seems to suggest that we, as American citizens, have the right to bear crypto. Hmm... I note that, of course, John Ashcroft, while a Senator looking for a hook, was strongly pro-crypto, too. And now? [Andrew Bayer Is Dreaming of China] 1:47:19 PM    comment []

Summer reading: . . . among others . . . 1:26:19 PM    comment []

Hacking Las Vegas: The inside story of the MIT Blackjack Team's multimillion-dollar conquest of the casinos. By Ben Mezrich, Wired Magazine. I know the chips will show up on the X-ray machine, but even if the guard makes me open the backpack, he won't realize how much money the yellow hunks of plastic represent. The $100 bills are another matter. This is an airport; they can drag me to a windowless room in the basement and handcuff me to a chair. They can confiscate my stash, call in the DEA, FBI, and IRS. It will be up to me to prove that I'm not a drug dealer. To customs agents, $100 bills smell like cocaine. In reality, I'm a writer, with six pulpy thrillers under my belt, but today I'm on the scent of a real life story even more high-octane than any of my fictional jaunts. I'm ferrying money for Kevin Lewis, one of the best card counters alive. He's taking me back to his glory days when he ran a card team that hit Vegas for millions. 10:41:00 AM    comment []

Born Digital: Children of the Revolution (A Wired Special Report) We learned to crawl alongside the PC. We came of age with the Internet. Early-adopting, hyperconnected, always on: Call us Children of the Revolution, the first teens and tweens to grow up with the network. It takes a generation to unlock the potential of a transformative technology – we are that generation. From IM to MP3 to P2P, we lab-test tomorrow’s culture. While others marvel at the digital future, we take it for granted. Think of it as the difference between a second language and a first. And imagine the impact when full fluency hits the workplace, the shopping mall, the living room. In the past, you put away childish things when you grew up. But our tools are taking over the adult world. Check it out: The technology is trickling up. 10:38:20 AM    comment []

Proud to be doing my part . . . Media giant decries Net's "moral-free zone": The president of News Corp. warns that the Internet's future is threatened by porn, spam and rampant piracy and condemns the medium's "enormous amount" of worthless content. [CNET News.com] 10:35:48 AM    comment []

Opera casts off legacy code for speed, by Paul Festa, CNET News.com. 10:34:34 AM    comment []

Eight from BNA's Internet Law News COURT RULES WEB BUGS DO NOT VIOLATE FEDERAL PRIVACY LAWS BNA's E-commerce Law Daily reports that a federal court in Massachusetts has ruled that use of cookies and web bugs to collect personal information about visitors to a pharmaceutical company Web site does not violate federal wiretap and computer privacy laws. Case name is Re Pharmatrack Inc. Privacy Litigation. Decision at http://makeashorterlink.com/?U24F22291 [D. Mass.] STATEWATCH WARNS OF COLOSSAL EU SURVEILLANCE Statewatch - a UK-based Internet organization that monitors threats to civil liberties within Europe - claims that the EU plans to make sweeping changes to laws that govern communications-related data retention and privacy. The new laws would require European telephone carriers, mobile network operators and ISPs to store details of their customers' Web use, emails and phone calls for up to two years. Collected data would then be made available to governments and law enforcement agencies. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954487.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/netprivacy/article/0,2763,777574,00.html KOREA LAUNCHES NATIONAL SPAM OPT-OUT SYSTEM Korea's Fair Trade Commission has launched a new national opt-out system for spam. Starting today, users can register their phone numbers and email addresses with the system and marketers will be barred from sending them spam. Failure to abide by the opt-out will reportedly result in the possibility of heavy fines and liability for damages to individual users. http://www.koreaherald.com/SITE/data/html_dir/2002/08/22/200208220054.asp WEBSITE OPERATOR TO SUE NEUSTAR OVER CENSORSHIP POLICY Synergy Global Networks, which operates several controversial Web sites, has announced plans to sue Neustar and the Department of Commerce over Neustar's "seven dirty words" censorship policy for the dot-us domain. The company had one of its domains cancelled by Neustar which was used to post critical information about the Bush Administration. Release at http://www.synergyglobalnetworks.com/newsroom/neustar.pdf Coverage at http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=906 DOJ WARNS P2P USERS TO BEWARE The US Department of Justice yesterday announced that is prepared to begin prosecuting P2P file swappers. John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, called the Internet "the world's largest copy machine" and said criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders were necessary to preserve the viability of America's content industries. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954591.html ISP FIGHTS BACK AGAINST HOLLYWOOD TACTICS A small ISP has decided to fight back against RIAA and MPAA tactics that include placing fake files on the file sharing systems. Information Wave Technologies plans to block files coming from those organizations and will even block access to the RIAA site. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3904316.htm QUIET DURING THE SHOW AND DON'T SWAP MOVIES ONLINE A leading theater chain has announced that it plans to run warnings against copyright infringement prior to showing its movies. The move is apparently an attempt to take the war against online swapping of movies to the movies. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Online-Piracy.html COURT RULINGS HELP ONLINE WINE INDUSTRY The WSJ also reports on the boost enjoyed by the online wine industry by a spate of new court rulings. The cases have struck down several state laws that sought to bar online wine sales. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1029872409907823115,00.html 10:34:32 AM    comment []

Lawrence Lessig, In Reponse to Dave Winer. [Scripting News.] My point is that if this community does not begin to spend at least as much time as it spends watching Hollywood movies fighting Hollywood, or to spend at least as much money as it gives DSL providers on those who fight broad based control, then this extraordinary space that you, Dave, (and I trust you'll agree, some others as well) built will be taken away. Not by superior blogs, and not by witty /. postings. But in the old-fashioned way: through regulators who have been bent by the forces of those who can and do buy Washington 8:41:49 AM    comment []