] "Shove it," she barked at a reporter from the
] conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, who had been
] pressing for an explanation of remarks she made about
] "un-American" political tactics.
]
] "If Cheney can tell a senator to go f-himself on the
] Senate floor, I don't see what the problem is with this,"
] Sharpton said.

I... agree with Al Sharpton? [head explodes!]

Fed-up Heinz-Kerry: 'shove it'

I'm fairly sure that if they took all the porn off the Internet, there'd only be 1 website left, and it would be called "Bring Back The Porn".
-Scrubs

] However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of
] their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen
] to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam
] was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI
] raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and
] seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment.
] Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in
] support of the search warrant, and was shocked to
] discover that this document, prepared by the FBI,
] contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading
] information. For example, two social security numbers
] were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References
] were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA
] to an email address that did not exist. His online
] friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was
] portrayed as an international conspiracy against the
] MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later
] revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA
] Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The
] FBI's abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they
] seized Adam's computer equipment, he was given written
] documentation stating that it would be returned within 60
] days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive
] until more than 8 months later, and only then after much
] prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond
] repair - one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty
] tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent
] reason, his fiancee's iBook was badly damaged when it was
] pried apart with a screwdriver.

1. Welcome to the new world of criminal copyright prosecutions. This reminds me of operation Sun Devil. The FBI is usually far more professional then this. Apparently they've assigned a bunch of idiots to their copyright sqaud, which is reasonable at first glance in that its not very important, but ultimately a mistake because this issue is too controversial and too visible to be handled by thugs. These guys aren't going to stop behaving this way until a judge throws the book at them (as occured to the Chicago Secret Service agents who raided Steve Jackson Games). Therefore, I suggesting holding on to your seats. There will be a bunch more stories where this came from, and as the net is a hell of a lot louder then it was in 1991 you can expect the FBI to feel some very serious pressure over the issue as the horrors mount up.

2. The seizure of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, the destruction of said equipment, and then the choice of legal venue meant to maximize the financial costs associated with trial... This has all the earmarks of an investigation that is intended to be punative in and of itself. Punative investigations are unconstitutional.

3. This is why copyright issues need to remain in civil courts and not criminal courts. We don't need our security forces out smashing computers for the MPAA. There is absolutely no reason why the MPAA couldn't have filed a civil motion in this case in the jurisdiction the actual website was in.

It seems clear that a properly delivered cease and desist letter would have solved the problem here. No fuss, no muss. Handling crimes like this in this manner is extremely expensive for taxpayers and tends to disrupt and destroy innocent people's lives when they accidentally become the target of it.

Moving copyright cases into the criminal justice system was bad, bad, bad law. It seems like we're going to get a stiff lesson in why.

Stargate Information Archive - Federal Charges Filed Against SG-1 Archive

The CVS tree and nightly build of Stripe Snoop now includes support for keyboard based magstripe readers, such as those made by Cherry Keyboard.
http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/advanced-line/keyboard-magnetic-stripe-card-read-series-g81-7000-8000.htm

While support is still primitive, you no longer need to build your own reader from parts to capture raw bitstreams. Futhermore, the cost of a Cherry keyboard is about 1/2 of what it costs to get the parts! A Force Mode has also been added to parse damaged and nonstandard cards.

Stripe Snoop builds for Linux and Windows, with BSD/Mac support in the near future.

] Harmony also will automatically change songs into an
] iPod-compatible format. But because Apple has not
] licensed its FairPlay copy-protection software to anyone,
] RealNetworks executives said its engineers had to
] re-create their own version in their labs in order to
] make the device play them back.
]
] Although the company said this action wasn't technically
] "reverse engineering," the software could trigger intense
] legal scrutiny.
]
] The license accompanying Apple's iPod says purchasers
] cannot "copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble,
] (or) attempt to derive the source code of" the software.

Go Real!

RealNetworks breaks Apple's hold on iPod

Like the heads in a VCR, the ones in card readers can wear out. After all, they are reading cards at an extraordinary rate. The busiest turnstile in the subway system, turnstile No. 10 in the middle array by the escalators in the main entrance to the subway below Grand Central Terminal, reads a whopping 236,000 cards a month.

I thought that was a neat factoid. I can imagine New Yorkers saying to themselves, "I know that turnstile!"

The article is rich in trivia about heavy-duty magnetic card readers and the millions of people who (ab)use them.

Mastering the Art of the Swipe

Good times in the NYC

Good times [JPG]

] (RUF = Rapid Urban Flexible)
] RUF combines the best of cars
] with the best of trains
] Invented by Palle R Jensen

Why don't more people use rail systems? Because people hate walking to a train station. The solution, A car that drives to the station, and gets on the rail. Cool idea.

RUF Dual Mode Transport System

Somewhere, someone failed because they needed yesterday what you only finished today.

Don't wait. Go.

] Unless we have a climate that will allow more independent
] media companies to survive, a dangerously high percentage
] of what we see--and what we don't see--will be shaped by
] the profit motives and political interests of large,
] publicly traded conglomerates. The economy will suffer,
] and so will the quality of our public life. Let me be
] clear: As a business proposition, consolidation makes
] sense. The moguls behind the mergers are acting in their
] corporate interests and playing by the rules. We just
] shouldn't have those rules. They make sense for a
] corporation. But for a society, it's like over-fishing
] the oceans. When the independent businesses are gone,
] where will the new ideas come from? We have to do more
] than keep media giants from growing larger; they're
] already too big. We need a new set of rules that will
] break these huge companies to pieces.

Read this. All of this. Every last word. Ted Turner is discussing how bloated companies are using lobbying the FCC and using unfair/crazy laws to enforce a business model that does not work, and would not work in a truly Free Market Economy.

Jason, the core of the arguement that Ted makes is the same argument that I was making to you at the Vortex that day regarding the MPAA/RIAA and the DMCA.

'My Beef With Big Media' by Ted Turner