Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Iran Reopens Uranium Processing Plant as U.N. Agency Meets. Iran removed U.N. seals on uranium processing equipment at its Isfahan nuclear site, making the plant fully operational. By NAZILA FATHI and THOMAS FULLER. [NYT > International] 9:54:47 PM    comment []

GPL upgrade due in 2007. SAN FRANCISCO -- The planned upgrade to the GNU General Public License (GPL) will be ready by 2007, according to an industry official involved with the project. Presenting at the LinuxWorld conference on Wednesday, Eben Moglen, president and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center and a key participant in the planned Version 3.0 of GPL, cited issues expected to be covered in the upgrade. These include resolving patent conflicts, accommodating Web services, and resolving incompatibilities with other licenses. Dealing with wikis in the GPL also has been pondered. The Free Software Foundation, which has jurisdiction over the GPL, seeks compatibility with the Apache Software license, said Moglen, who serves on the foundation's board of directors.  . . . Moglen did not mince words when speaking on what the foundation thinks about patents. "Its position is that the application of patent law to software is dangerous and unproductive," he said. "All we're saying is the disastrous, 15-year American experiment with patenting software ought to be terminated." [InfoWorld: Top News] 9:54:35 PM    comment []

NerdTV on PBS. On Sept.6th,PBS Launches NerdTV.Viewers are "encouraged to download and copy the shows,share them with friends and even post them on their own Web sites - all legally",because of the Creative Commons License.Some of the first NerdTV guests are PayPal co-founder Max Levchin;original Macintosh programmer Andy Hertzfeld;and Sun Microsystems co-founder and the father of Berkeley UNIX,Bill Joy. PBS to release NerdTV under a Creative Commons License [Smart Mobs] 9:52:46 PM    comment []

M.B.A. Students Bypassing Wall Street for a Summer in India. Graduate students from some of the top business schools in the U.S. are vying for internships at India's biggest private companies. By SARITHA RAI. [NYT > Business] 9:48:06 PM    comment []

Friends like these.... Some of my friends are up to good things.  . . . Greg Costikyan, who I knew long before there was a Web, has posted the slides to a recent talk he gave titled "Death to the Games Industry. (Long Live Games.)" It's a tour of the debased state of game development in an era of ballooning production budgets and distribution chokeholds, along with a call for a new model for developing games and a new "Indie Gaming" aesthetic. I have zilch time these days to keep up with the world of gaming, but reading Greg keeps me feeling at least a little clued in.  . . . [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] 9:45:28 PM    comment []

Kutztown 13 Face Felony Charges. Exasperated educators call in the cops after Pennsylvania high school students sidestep filtering software and use school-issued laptops to get their hands on iChat and other banned downloads. Does the punishment fit the crime? [Wired News] 8:54:20 PM    comment []

When it comes to French business, the accent is on English. In a recent survey of 26 of France's largest companies, 16 gave English as their official working language. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 8:52:57 PM    comment []

Iran Removes Seals at Nuclear Site. Iran said today that seals had been removed from uranium-converting equipment at its plant in Isfahan, and that activities there would resume. By THOMAS FULLER. [NYT > International] 8:52:50 PM    comment []

X-Box Security. Interesting article: "The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox, or How to fit three bugs in 512 bytes of security code." Microsoft wanted to lock out both pirated games and unofficial games, so they built a chain of trust on the X-Box from the hardware to the execution of the game code. Only code authorized by Microsoft could run on the X-box. The link between hardware and software in this chain of trust is the hidden "MCPX" boot ROM. The article discusses that ROM. Lots of kindergarten security mistakes. [Schneier on Security] 8:50:28 PM    comment []

Who Are You Calling a Thief? (Donna Wentworth). Derek Slater has the scoop on a new counter-propaganda campaign tailor-made for copyfighters: Never afraid to reach new heights on the unintentional comedy scale, Microsoft UK debuted its Thought Thieves film competition in May. Microsoft called for original videos "about people stealing the ideas in your head" [PDF] and "intellectual property theft." To counter this misleading campaign, a few good souls "stole" the idea and started the Thought Thieve$ film competition "about big companies stealing and profiting from the knowledge commons." "Think about it: how would you feel if you saw your cultural traditions, collective creativity, thousands-year-old seed strains, indigenous medicinal knowledge, or even your very genetic code being passed off as the property of some multinational corporation? What would you do? More information on the competition is available here. As Derek says, feel free to "steal" the info and pass it along. [Copyfight] 8:50:18 PM    comment []

UK Hacking Suspect Located in Greece. Police on the island of Crete have searched the home of a British computer scientist who allegedly hacked into the site of a British insurance company to extort money from the firm, authorities say. . . . The suspect has not been arrested because the alleged crimes are not covered by the country's fast-track prosecution system. . . . Greek police, who seized computers and hard disks from the man's home on Monday, said in a statement that he allegedly cancelled dozens of insurance contracts and changed the firm's share price listed on the company's website. He also posted false statements, claiming company executives had been involved in fraud, and alleging that the firm adopted discriminatory policies against Muslims following the July 7 terrorist bombings in London. The suspect moved to the town of Sitia on Crete a year ago and was active in the local real estate market. 7:44:50 AM    comment []