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Friday, July 11, 2003 |
A hearty Salon Blogs welcome to
6:08:53 PM 
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How literate my city? Jack Miller
of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, now presents results of a
study, "America's Most Literate Cities."
St. Louis makes the Top Twenty, three spots behind Boston. It scores ahead
of Austin and Sacramento, and well ahead of New York, Chicago, New Orleans,
San Jose, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Bottom five (255,000 minimum
population)? San Antonio, Detroit, Long Beach, Corpus Christi, and El Paso.
The
Full Paper is
available (pdf) if you want to puzzle out What It All Means.
11:07:43 AM
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DVD
'ripper' pre-empts DMCA ruling, by Munir Kotadia,
ZDNet (UK).
Studio 321 is awaiting a ruling over its DVD X Copy software,
which includes a facility that allows users to rip backups of movie DVDs.
If the ruling goes against Studio 321, the company says this new version of
the copying software will ship without the "ripper" module, which decrypts
DVDs and allows them to be copied.
Other products in the new line-up include a DVD editing and authoring
application that allows conversions to and from standard DV video, MPEG-2
and MPEG-1 formats. The company is also creating an add-in that converts
Microsoft PowerPoint, as well as a CD/CDRW/DVD utility that enables data to
be recovered from damaged or defective discs.
The expansion of the product range is effectively an insurance policy in
case the ruling goes against the company; if the ruling does go against
Studio 321, the company's main business will sustain "a hit" because it
will have to make fundamental changes to its DVD X Copy and DVD Copy Plus
software, said chief executive Rob Semaan.
. . .
Semaan explained that Studio 321's DVD X Copy software contains four
anti-piracy measures that are explicitly designed to stop people using it
for producing pirate movies.
Before the copy process begins, users are asked if the source DVD is a
rental or borrowed copy. If the user answers yes, the software will shut
down. Although this is easily bypassed-- by lying--the second anti-piracy
measure ensures that all copies produced with the software contain a
disclaimer--similar to the FBI warning at the beginning of DVDs--that
inform the viewer that they are watching a back-up copy. The disclaimer
lasts for eight seconds and cannot be fast forwarded or deleted, according
to Semaan.
Another deterrent is that DVD X Copy will not allow a copy to be made from
a copy. Only original DVDs can be copied. But Semaan believes the most
interesting deterrent is the unique 'watermark' that is embedded into each
copied disk. The watermark, or fingerprint, is created from encrypting user
information such as IP address and email address (both are required to
activate the software and acquire the fingerprint), which means that all
copied disks can be traced back to their original owner.
10:07:35 AM
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Dave reports that Donna Wentworth says she has accepted an offer from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to become an EFF Webwriter/ Activist. Great choice, say I. For both of 'em. Dave sez, Congrats Donna, we'll miss you!
7:10:46 AM
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Outsider Blogs Paint Bosnian Life. Interns working in Bosnia are using their blog journals to call attention to Bosnian families with stories of everyday experiences. The interns are with Bosfam, an advocacy organization supporting displaced Bosnian women and refugees. By Katie Dean. [Wired News]
6:58:53 AM
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I promised pictures earlier. Here's a slide show of images of the
Book Chain that
passed the last 200 books from the Luhr Library to Webster University's new
Emerson Library.
And here's one picture, if you're just not in a link-following mood:
(Video still to come . . . .)
3:05:57 AM
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