Rattle wrote:
] ] This is the current cover of the New Yorker... a great
] ] expression of the RIAA's litigious persecution of the
] ] young folk. (Note: I don't actually have the money or the
] ] time to subscribe to the New Yorker... but one can
] ] borrow. Please don't sue!)
]
] found via Lisa Rein's blog.. http://onlisareinsradar.com/

Thats fairly cool, but my favorite New Yorker Cover is the one linked here...

Will Hack For Food

] The typo-catching wildcard is a fundamentally broken
] idea. It cannot be fixed; it is impossible to patch it to the
] point of acceptability.
]
] The technique should be eschewed in all contexts. The
] best that can be done with it is to hold it up as an
] example of how things go wrong when protocols are abused.

Hrm. This view is probably too radical, and so this is unlikely to be adopted, but it is interesting.

Best conspiracy theory I've heard so far:

Verisign can break the security of any https connection. Typos to https sites get redirected to Verisign. Verisign can MITM.

Internet Draft against typo catching wildcards

] Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday ordered federal
] prosecutors to come down harder on criminal defendants,
] instructing them to seek maximum penalties and to limit
] the use of plea bargains.

I can't beleive I didn't hear about this for a week!

Federal prosecutors to seek maximum penalties

Fukuyama argues that the United States, like Japan and Germany, has been a high-trust society historically but that this status has eroded in recent years. This well-researched book provides a fresh, new perspective on how economic prosperity is grounded in social life.

Trust: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order

] On its own, Allen's experience seems easy to dismiss, but
] it's part of a pattern, the voting activists say, that
] reveals the voting industry's desire to keep people off.
] The worst transgression, one that almost everyone
] interviewed pointed to, occurred in a conference call on
] Sept. 16. The agenda for that meeting was sent to
] participants before the call, and it clearly states that
] the first order of business would be to approve new
] members, after which the committee would decide whether
] or not the draft standard was ready to be approved. The
] new members up for approval that day were Jim Adler,
] Alice Allen, Chuck Corry, David Dill, G.D. Miller, Ted
] Selker and Barbara Simons -- many of whom are in favor of
] verifiable audit trails in voting machines.
]
] But when people got on the phone that day, Vern Williams,
] a voting security expert at SAIC, an information
] technology consulting firm, suggested that the agenda be
] switched so that new members were approved after the
] committee voted on the draft standard -- a move that
] would ensure that the new members would have no say on
] the proposed standard. Williams' motion passed. Then the
] committee decided to open the draft standard for voting.
] And after that, the new members were approved.
]
] The activists were outraged at this maneuver. "I kept
] saying, 'We've been disenfranchised!'" says Simons, a
] computer scientist who worries about the security of
] electronic voting systems. Simons and others tried to
] reopen the vote on the standard, but one of the committee
] leaders then proposed a motion to adjourn the meeting.
] According to Roberts Rules of Order, an adjournment
] motion takes precedence over other motions. The motion
] won by one vote, and the meeting was adjourned.

More stupid voting tricks from those who would have to significantly alter their software to make it secure. I have to wonder, though, if the systems are this insecure, how hard could it have been to put it in place initially? Come on, even webcam girls have polls on their websites.

Anyway, it's another good look at how the good ol' boys club is trying to keep the status quo.

Details of the IEEE Voting scandal...

] "One would hope that something of this magnitude would be
] properly covered in the contracts," Cerf said. It would
] be in nobody's interest to take control of .com away from
] VeriSign, Cerf said, but ICANN may face an all-or-nothing
] choice of whether to revoke VeriSign's contract.

OK, Is this Cerf making a comment in the Post that they might cancel Verisign's contract, or is this a journalist putting his opinion intentionally close to Cerf's name to generate drama?

VeriSign Ignores Request To Suspend New Service (TechNews.com)

] VeriSign, Inc. , the leading provider of critical
] infrastructure services for the Internet and
] telecommunications networks, today announced that it has
] been selected by Accenture to provide hosting, security
] consulting, authentication services and Managed Public
] Key Infrastructure (MPKI) services for the Department of
] Defense's Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
] Experiment (SERVE.) Upon full deployment, SERVE will
] enable absentee uniformed services members and overseas
] United States citizens from eight participating states to
] cast absentee ballots via the Internet for the 2004
] primary and general elections.

Now THAT is a perfect storm...

VeriSign Selected by Accenture to Secure Department of Defense E-Voting System

inignoct wrote:
] interesting concept. viable?

Clueless AND Dangerous.

An iPod IS a hard drive. You cannot enforce your digital expiration date. This will not stop piracy.

However, the reason this author doesn't "get" that is that he sees the ipod as a closed device that you can't tamper with. That is what he is advocating, and you are going to see more and more of that, for TV as well...

The idea is to replace all these pesky personal computers that people can program and control for their own purposes with devices that are closed and which only serve the purposes of the media industries. The "mini-DMCA" laws that are making the rounds in the state legislatures are an attempt to ban all personal electronics that do no obey the edicts of the media industry from being attached to the networks in your house. This is the direction that things are moving.

This will not prevent piracy, this will prevent innovation. In order to deploy a new service you will have to get buy in from the companies that control these devices. If you innovate in a way that threatens established industries, they aren't going to let you in. This isn't an end run around "file swapping pirates" so much as it is an end run around the personal computing revolution.

The only reason this guy's article makes all of this sound cool is that he says things like "And trying to capture such music would be about as easy as trapping mist in a jar." Sounds neat. Unfortunately what he is presenting is an extremely dark, dystopian future in which all of this new technology does not serve to better inform or better communicate, but only to better push products.

RE: A Wireless iPod Can Torpedo the Pirates

] A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the
] investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the
] number of terrorism investigations at the Justice
] Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent
] of the convictions that the department classified as
] "international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many
] dealt with more common crimes like document forgery.

U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling

The Fall/Winter 2003 issue of CIO Magazine is a special issue that focuses on "technology's impact on everything."

They've assembled quite the team of contributors for this issue, including Ray Kurzweil, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Bjorn Lomborg, Robert Reich, Howard Gardner, Jonathan Zittrain, Paul Saffo, Newt Gingrich, The Dalai Lama, Howard Rheingold, Robert Ballard, Barry Steinhardt, and more.

Here's how the Barry Steinhardt piece begins:

PICTURE THIS: You're attending a trade show in Las Vegas.

Strolling around the city one evening, you happen upon a sex shop and pause for a moment to snicker at the curious items in the store's window. Then you continue on your way.

However, unbeknownst to you, the store's Customer Identification System has detected a radio identification signal emitted by a computer chip in one of your credit cards, and is recording your identity and the date and time of your brief stop. A few weeks later, your spouse is surprised to find in the mail a lurid solicitation from the store mentioning your visit.

You've got some explaining to do.

Technology's Impact on Everything | CIO Magazine