Thursday, August 22, 2002

Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping Present: The International Inside Starbucks Theater Festival EVERYONE IN THIS CAFÉ KNOWS WHAT A GRANDE REALLY FEELS LIKE. Do you think we were born yesterday? 3:55:57 PM    comment []

Charles C. Mann's clear Primer on Public-key Encryption is a Web-only accompaniment to his profile of Bruce Schneier, Homeland Insecurity: A top expert says America's approach to protecting itself will only make matters worse. Forget "foolproof" technology—we need systems designed to fail smartly, in The Atlantic. 3:55:56 PM    comment []

Agreement between defendants the Rainbow People and plaintiff the State of North Carolina entered as a consent judgment in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina by Judge Dave [Green Bag] 3:55:55 PM    comment []

Recordings of Basque settlers being made available on Net (AP). 12:55:27 PM    comment []

A year ago, on ''t'other blog'': We're back to school covered Witness unleashes an arsenal of video cameras, computers, imaging and editing software, satellite phones and email in the struggle for justice. The trouble with Hotmail: Microsoft can't seem to get its free e-mail act together. So what does that mean for the company's plans for total Net domination? Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action, and Change. I'm doing all this to get to music blinked Lynda Barry is auctioning original comic art on eBay. Roll Over, Khomeini! Iran Cultivates A Local Rock Scene, Within Limits Fingered by the movie cops: Under today's copyright laws, you are guilty until proven innocent. I know -- it happened to me. Computers in the schools: It's Not the Computer; It's How (and Where) You Use It Helping kids become readers: the "Reading with Rover" program in King County, Washington Silence of a code cracker. Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten spilled the beans last night, revealing his method for breaking into supposedly unbreakable digital music recordings. And the good news is, Felten didn't even have to post bail. Confessions of a Would-Be Hypertext Novelist The Web is dead... long live netnews! More on Majestic (the game): Game Designer Who Breaks the Mold This term, I'm teaching Philosophical Problems in Technology: An Internet course, along with Ethics for Cyberspace, and a history of philosophy seminar on Thomas Kuhn An Online Course from Cornell U. Explains the Science and Skill of Grafting. 12:55:26 PM    comment []

According to Bracing for the Digital Crackdown, by Brad King, in Wired News: The government is preparing a national crackdown on file traders that would crush the rogue swapping networks in the same manner hackers were pushed underground 12 years ago. 12:55:24 PM    comment []

Q&A: Janis Ian vs. the recording industry on file sharing, by Dawn C. Chmielewski, Mercury News. Q: In your column, ``The Internet Debacle -- an Alternate View,'' you disagree with the recording industry's assertions that Internet downloading is ``destroying sales'' and ``ruining the industry.'' How can 1.8 billion songs -- downloaded every month for free -- be good for the industry and the artists? A: First of all, you have to argue the 1.8 billion figure. I don't think there's a whole lot of evidence that shows 1.8 billion songs are being downloaded each month. There aren't enough T1 and T3 lines in the country to do that. I think that a lot of the songs that are being downloaded -- I haven't seen a single study on this -- are songs that are currently out of print. You separate out the amount of songs somebody had downloaded because they heard about an artist and wanted to see if they like it, you end up with a much smaller number. You're not going to be able to stop downloading. You're not going to stop peer-to-peer. Why not work with it? To my mind, the RIAA's strategy is to take on a bunch of court cases that they know they can't win and drive enough fear into everyone and it will go away. They've sort of dug themselves too deep to remove themselves gracefully. [See also the July 23 version of this weblog, which blinked Ian's "The Internet Debacle - an alternative view."] 11:55:14 AM    comment []