]
]
] BEIJING (AP) -- China has blocked 127 spam servers around
] the world in its latest battle against junk mail on the
] Internet, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.

Wow ... China's getting on board.

InformationWeek : Spam : China Launches Anti-Spam Attack : September 9, 2003

] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A deal between television
] manufacturers and cable operators to replace digital
] signal converter boxes with a small card that slots into
] new televisions won approval from U.S. regulators on
] Wednesday.

I thought they should do this a long time ago ... finally!

Click here to find out more! FCC OKs Digital Cable Accord on TV Cards

] After more than 20 years at Sun Microsystems Inc.,
] cofounder and Chief Scientist Bill Joy is leaving the
] company, Sun announced Tuesday.

Hmmmm....

ITworld.com - Bill Joy to leave Sun

Please keep in mind that these are static jpgs...
Hold onto your seat...

Freak out man!!!

] The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to
] compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider
] to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that
] keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal.

Scientology is an EVIL CULT. Its good to see them lose in court for once ....

Scientology looses one

] A team of Israeli scientists have uncovered a possible means of
] cracking the GSM mobile phone network encryption code, opening the
] door to attacks that could enable eavesdroppers to listen into
] calls.

It baffles me that they still can't get this right!

Israeli Scients hack GSM

] About a dozen universities -- no California participants
] currently are known -- are discussing ways to pay legal
] online music providers themselves and pass the cost onto
] students in fees.
]
] The move would allow students to download, mix, burn and
] share music just as millions already are doing -- but
] lawfully.

I don't necessarily think that this is the right answer but its certainly better than RIAA suing everyone.

L.A. Daily News - Business

] So, between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets,
] never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines,
] bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear
] that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I
] would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more
] fragmented network - one in which only "approved"
] end-to-end communications will be permitted.

I agree that this seems to be happening now but I don't think it is by any means a foregone conclusion. Rather than throwing up our hands and giving up, we should try to squelch the sources of this noise traffic.

The end of the open internet...

Decius wrote:
] ] So, between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets,
] ] never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines,
] ] bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear
] ] that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I
] ] would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more
] ] fragmented network - one in which only "approved"
] ] end-to-end communications will be permitted.
]
] I happen to think this is true. Who is doing the approval is
] the question. The fact is that if anyone can decide how things
] are approved, then everything is fine. I cut my whack account
] over to a challenge response system. Bang, its useable again.
] I get no spam there at all, and all the people I talk to are
] getting through just fine. I'm happy. I think it will work
] just fine... In fact, if the internet had more close knit
] communities I think it would be better off.
]
] Moving to the country side to escape the noise is not the same
] as censorship.

At CMU, my friend's boss has started talking about fixing spam via PGP; if your mail to me isn't signed with a key I know, you get a mail back saying it will be queued for a day or something before I'll look at it. If you reply to that mail, its sent on through immediately. We're talking about implementing it both in MTAs and also mail servers.

I will try to blog more about this as it develops.

RE: The end of the open internet...

] What's next?
]
] Might other Linux distributions and smaller Linux IT
] consultants join in the Red Hat lawsuit against SCO?
]
] Will Linux kernel developers mount a class action lawsuit
] for copyright violations against SCO?
]
] Could the Free Software Foundation be crafting a lawsuit
] against SCO for violating the GPL?
]
] Are US SEC and FTC lawyers' Inboxes are filling up with
] complaints, such that they might launch investigations
] based upon allegations of insider trading and commercial
] fraud against SCO?
]
] All of these are possible.

I wonder how long it is before SEC/FTC get involved ...

SCO backlash grows