Computers inside pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's network are spamming the internet with e-mails touting the company's flagship erectile-enhancement drug Viagra, along with ads for knockoff Rolexes and shady junk stocks.

Zombie Pfizer Computers Spew Viagra Spam, Security Company Reports

In the past month, however, two new court rulings suggest that judges are developing a more sophisticated sense of how corporations conduct online and technology transactions with their customers.

Courts Turn Against Abusive Clickwrap Contracts

The bottom line: I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues. Why and what are explained in the extended entry below.

In Code Lessig makes a statement very early on that I found shocking, coming from a lawyer, particularly one of his stature, and particularly given that the statement was unexplained and unqualified. Unfortunately I don't have the book with me, but it was something to the effect that our government is completely unprepared to face the challenges ahead, that it is completely incapable of reaching the right policy answers. I highlighted the passage and had intended to write him about it at some point. Now I don't have to.

Lessig blog: Required Reading: the next 10 years

The vote on a resolution of no confidence, to be sponsored by Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, could come as early as next week, Democrats said. Such votes of censure or condemnation are uncommon, although a handful were held in the 19th century, Congressional historians say. In 1886, the Senate adopted such a resolution against President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general, A. H. Garland, because he had refused to provide documents concerning the firing of a federal prosecutor.

The researcher who dug this up gets a cookie!

Senate Democrats Plan a Resolution on Gonzales - New York Times

Well, obviously, I can't say much about this new SCO filing [PDF] at this time. It's all about moi. A bit more here and here.

Why is anyone still doing business with SCO?

Groklaw - My Very Own Motion, Tra La

My mailbox is being filled with IETF announcements for the upcoming meeting in Prague. I see internet draft after internet draft making proposals that are going to cause implementation errors, security holes, and ultimately service outages.

Take for example the prime candidate protocol for VOIP - SIP... SIP is far too complex.

Consider how long it has taken to deploy IPv6 - a technology that celebrated its 10th anniversary a few years ago. And IPv6 has the luxury of being an alternative to IPv4 rather than a transparently compatible upgrade. Consider how much longer it will take to deploy VOIP protocol redesigns when the old protocol is embedded in telephones around the world?

I have great concern that our approach to the internet resembles a high pillar of round stones piled on top of other round stones - we should not be surprised when it begins to wobble and then falls to the ground.

Are We Slowly Losing Control of the Internet?

“Radical” changes in Washington always have this Charlie Brown/Lucy-like character (remember Lucy holding the football?): it doesn’t take long before you realize how little really ever changes in DC. The latest example is the Dems and IP issues as they affect the Net. Message to the Net from the newly Democratic House? Go to hell.

This is a followon to Lessig's talk at 23C3 which I haven't found time to watch yet. His apparent anger suggests surprise. I'm not surprised. In this country there is no such thing as the individual as a political force. Political force only happens in numbers. Those numbers can be grass roots "special interest/single issue" voters who are organized and have communicated to representatives that they will vote on their specific issue, or they can be dollars and cents that said representatives can use to market themselves to everyone who isn't an organized special interest voter. The future, with regards to the intellectual renaissance we have the potential to create with our recent advances in communications technology, has neither money nor organized voters, and so it is politically non-existant, regardless of what really smart people might have to say about it. The establishment media industry, on the other hand, has a lot of money. Glenn Reynolds wrote a sharp analysis of their interests here.

On the whole the Republicans aren't better than the Democrats on these issues, but they have a different set of interests they serve, and so they tend to do different kinds of damage. The march toward tyranny has both left and right steps. The shoe is now on the other foot. Don't expect that foot to hurt any less when it is stepping on you.

Dems to the Net: Go to hell

After two stalled attempts, NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis rolled out to its Florida launch pad Wednesday as workers ready the space plane for a planned liftoff later this month.

SPACE.com -- After Weather Delays, Space Shuttle Atlantis Reaches Launch Pad

The space shuttle Discovery split a nearly cloudless sky with thunder and fire at 2:38 this afternoon, and roared safely into orbit on schedule.

And Memestreams user Palindrome and I were there along with a number of friends of ours! A perfect way to celebrate the 4th of July! Certainly the biggest rocket I've ever seen and one that truely inspires on many levels. I've got lots of links to post, but access is limited from my cellphone. More to follow.

Shuttle Roars Safely Into Orbit on Schedule - New York Times

It has taken almost three years—by some counts, more than 6 years—but ICANN’s domain name policy making organization has finally taken a stand on Whois and privacy. And the results were a decisive defeat for the copyright and trademark interests and the US government, and a stunning victory for advocates of the rights of individual domain name registrants.

In Historic Vote on WHOIS Purpose, Reformers Win by 2/3 Majority