Monday, September 12, 2005

Two BNA News items of interest: TAIWANESE P2P EXECS RECEIVE JAIL SENTENCES Three executives of Kuro, Taiwan's largest music file-swapping Internet site, have each been sentenced to two to three years in jail and each fined NT$3 million. The prosecutors had asked the court to sentence CEO Chen to between four and seven years in jail and fined NT$500 million for violating the copyrights of music producers. They said they will appeal the verdict, believing the NT$3 million fine imposed by the court was far too low. GERMAN CT REJECTS COMPLAINT ABOUT CD AND DVD COPY PROTECTION The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany has rejected a complaint by a consumer about copy protection measures on CDs and DVDs. The consumer had complained about provision 95a German Copyright Law that allows rightsholders to use copy protection measures and prohobits their circumvention. [Constitutional Code] 11:02:39 PM    comment []

Benton Headline: WHY LEVEE BREACHES IN NEW ORLEANS WERE LATE-BREAKING NEWS The levee failures that resulted in the flooding of New Orleans apparently happened Monday August 29, before Hurricane Katrina hit land. Yet it wasn't until Tuesday that most people across the country realized that any levees at all had been breached. Did media outlets get it wrong? A look at news reports of the events of Aug. 29 paints a picture of confusion, miscommunication and conflicting information among some government officials and news media. Several major news outlets, including Viacom Inc.'s CBS network and National Public Radio reported the breaking of the Industrial Canal and flooding on Monday, although not all of the reports acknowledged the extent of the devastation. The Wall Street Journal reported the Industrial Canal breach but no others. Many reporters, working on foot, isolated in higher, drier sections and focused on the survival of the city's tourist districts, were unaware of the unfolding disaster in poor neighborhoods of New Orleans. It wasn't until Monday evening that a private helicopter company, Helinet Helicopter Services of Los Angeles, began feeding the first aerial images of New Orleans to Fox News, ABC, NBC, CNN and CBS. By early Tuesday morning, most major media had become aware of the awful extent of the destruction. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joe Hagan joe.hagan@wsj.com and Joseph T. Hallinan joe.hallinan@wsj.com] (requires subscription) 11:02:27 PM    comment []

Don't you hate my poor HTML proofing? I do. What it should have said in the earlier post: MSFT keeping a list of approved sites, tied to the browser? That's an issue beyond privacy, and it harkens back to some of the worries expressed in my 1998 essay on Microsoft, antitrust, and WebTV, Tailoring the Web for Profit. 8:21:45 AM    comment []

Microsoft to track Internet use (theage.com.au). Microsoft Corp will soon release a security tool for its internet browser that privacy advocates say could allow the company to track the surfing habits of computer users. Microsoft officials say the company has no intention of doing so. The new feature, which Microsoft will make available as a free download within the next few weeks, is prompting some controversy, as it will inform the company of websites that users are visiting. . . . In an effort to protect internet users, Microsoft's anti-phishing tool is designed to verify the safety of every website, and to issue warnings if users encounter a suspected or known phishing site. It will use a three-step process. First, the browser will automatically compare the address of every website a user visits to a list of sites Microsoft has verified to be legitimate. This list will be kept on users' computers. If no match is found, the Phishing Filter will send the address to Microsoft where it will be compared to a list of known phishing sites that the company intends to update every 20 minutes. A match will trigger a warning that will pop up within the browser. Finally, if no match is found at Microsoft, a sophisticated filter built into the browser will compare characteristics of the suspect website to characteristics common to phishing sites. Under some circumstances, this too could trigger an alert to appear. Privacy advocates were surprised to learn that Microsoft would be using this method in an effort to protect its customers. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer and internet privacy expert with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, worries that this is potentially a wholesale handing over of one's privacy to Microsoft. I would say, right now, definitely don't use this. If you're careful, you don't need this. MSFT keeping a list of approved sites, tied to the browser? That's an issue beyond privacy, and it harkens back to some of the worries expressed in my 1998 essay on Microsoft, antitrust, and WebTV, 6:19:21 AM    comment []

Navy: Don't access personal e-mail at work, by Frank Tiboni, Federal Computer Week. Navy employees can no longer access personal e-mail accounts, including Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Hotmail, from the service’s networks without approval. That is one of six rules in the Navy's new acceptable use of information technology policy issued in July. The "Effective Use of Department of Navy IT Resources," states that the service's military, civilian and contractor users cannot: * Automatically forward official Navy e-mail to a commercial account or use a commercial account for official government business without approval. * Install or modify computer hardware or software without approval. * Circumvent or disable security measures, countermeasures or safeguards, such as firewalls, content filters and antivirus programs. * Participate in or contribute to activity that causes a disruption or denial of service. * Write, code, compile, store, transmit, transfer or introduce malicious software, programs or code. * Use peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications, such as Kazaa, Shareaza and OpenP2P without approval and only in support of Navy missions. "This policy is intended to promote effective and secure use of IT resources within the Department of the Navy and is an integral part of the department's information assurance efforts," according to the policy released by the Navy Department's Chief Information Officer's Office. The policy especially called attention to the dangers of P2P applications, software that permits users to share files including music and pictures with other users without centralized security controls or oversight. "Unauthorized use of P2P file-sharing can result in significant vulnerabilities to Department of the Navy information systems including unauthorized access to information, compromise of network configurations and denial-of-service," according to the policy. 6:19:07 AM    comment []