Music-file swappers get warning
The Recording Industry Association of America has apparently begun a campaign of hacking into various flavors of peer-to-peer (music copying) software and leaving a copyright infringement deterrent message to the tune[NPI] of about a million users a week.
I remain ambivalent about this issue. If I had to choose sides I'd probably go with the copyright holders while realizing that there is probably not a whole hell of a lot you can do to prevent people from copying files between computers. I mean, that's kind of what computers do.
But that isn't what interests me here. I'm certainly no lawyer but don't the actions of the RIAA fly straight in the face of federal anti-hacking laws? Not to mention the soon to come anti-spam brigade. If I pulled the same stunt targeting, say, government installations I'd have guys in shiny black shoes knocking down my door inside of half an hour. Sheesh! Apparently these laws only apply to government or commercial facilities and not to little long-haired pot smoking rubber people. (With apologies, of course, to any of my long-haired pot smoking readers.)
Also in the piece was a blurb about the four college students who did get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Yep, they're being sued for the million songs they had on their server (I didn't know there were a million songs). Each song is fined $150,000. If my math is correct that amounts to a whopping 150 billion dollars. Take a check?
Didn't catch this piece in any U.S. paper today.
So off we go to the BBC which explains the funny spelling.
Diplomatic warfare has broken out in Nato after a call by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg for the creation of headquarters and planning staff from which a purely European Union based defence might emerge.
Some European diplomats sympathetic to Nato fear that, unless this trend is stopped, we might already be witnessing the last years of the transatlantic alliance.
So NATO's circling the bowl. Is the U.N. next?
Home early today thanks to my newest best friend Col. S and something the military affectionately calls the "59 minute rule". If your work day normally ends at 5:00 pm, then you're expected to answer your phone at 4:00 pm but not at 4:01. This is an example of one military custom that a non-military guy like me can embrace and adhere to quite militaristically.
2:00:20 PM 
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