As they are attempting to screw with our freedom of speech, lets take a molment to single out the people and organizations behind Blackboard.

Senior Management:

* Matthew Serbin Pittinsky, Chairman
* Michael L. Chasen, CEO & Director
* Stephen Hoffman, President & COO
* Peter Repetti, CFO
* Andrew H. Rosen, Esq, EVP, Corporate Development & General Counsel, General Manager, International
* Ken Krushel, EVP, Business Development
* Todd Gibby, General Manager, Course & Portal Solutions
* Jim Hermens, General Manager, Commerce & Access Solutions
* Susan Katz, Senior Vice President, Sales

Board of Directors:

* Doug Alexander, Internet Capital Group
* Robert E. Grady, The Carlyle Group
* Dr. Arthur Levine, Teachers College, Columbia University
* Roger Novak, Novak Biddle
* William L. Jacobs, The New Power Company
* Mark L. Walsh, VerticalNet Inc.

Alliance Partners:

* AOL Time Warner Inc.
* Datatel
* Dell Computer
* Harcourt College Publishers
* Houghton Mifflin
* McGraw-Hill
* Microsoft
* NextEd
* Oracle
* Pearson Education
* PeopleSoft
* Sun Microsystems
* Thomson Learning

Anyone have any background info on any of their senior management or board that may be of interest? What other companies share board members with Blackboard, etc..

Blackboard Facts

] A Hong Kong mobile phone company is launching a service
] that lets customers know which nearby buildings have
] housed carriers of the deadly SARS virus.
]
] "With the dial of a few digits, subscribers can quickly
] get the peace of mind the need to go about their everyday
] lives," said Bruce Hicks, managing director of Sunday
] Communicatons Ltd, among the smaller of Hong Kong's six
] fiercely competitive cellular carriers.

Yahoo! News (AP) - Mobile Carrier Launches SARS Location Service

Rattle wrote:

] Who? What is the string you are holding on to in order to
] keep calling this commercial speech..

Apparently there was something in their timeline about a consulting position at a competitor. However, it was dated in 2004, so its not clear what the nature of the relationship is and when it began, or even if it exists or if its a joke.

] ] It is this harm, coupled with the safety of these
] ] academic institutions and their constituents (primarily,
] ] students and faculty) that mandated Blackboard take a
] ] very careful and measured stance. Recognizing that
] ] this is a crime with potentially very harmful results,
] ] we took a position to protect our clients.
]
] Careful and measured, eh?

So, was the section of your complaint that intentionally confused computer source code with long distance access codes the careful part, or the measured part?

] ] Blackboard recognizes that the Hacker Community plays
] ] an integral role in assisting technology companies in
] ] improving their offerings, most notably around security.
] ] I thought the user community might find this
] ] clarification of value.

Backpedal, Backpedal, Backpedal, as fast as we can. Gosh we didn't think anyone cared about that silly little amendment.

RE: politechbot.com: Blackboard responds to criticism of Interz0ne lawsuit

] The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) strongly opposes
] these state "super-DMCA" bills as unnecessary and
] overbroad. The proposed bills represent the worst kind of
] special interest legislation, sacrificing the public
] interest in favor of the self-serving interests of one
] industry.

EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, Fred von Lohmann, on the "Super-DMCA" bills.

Sections:

* Resources
* Background
* These Bills are Unnecessary
* All Things Not Expressly Permitted are Forbidden
* Bolting on the "Intent to Defraud"
* Attacking Anonymity
* A Chill on Computer Security Research
* A Threat to Innovation and Competition
* Transferring law enforcement from public to private hands
* Dangerous Remedies
* * Remote Downgrades
* * One-Sided Attorneys' Fees
* * Automatic Injunctions
* * Abusive damages
* What You Can Do

EFF: State 'Super-DMCA' Legislation: MPAA's Stealth Attack on Your Living Room

] The complaint is constructed, as the lawyers say,
] "artfully". They vilify one of the defendants, without
] saying much about the other defendant; but they ask for
] an injunction against both. They gleefully quote one
] defendant calling himself a "hacker", apparently unaware
] that "hacker" is still a legitimate term of respect in
] some circles. They quote a law against distributing
] "access codes" and then trumpet a defendant's
] distribution of "code". And so on.
]
] There is no mention in these documents of the enormous
] free speech issue here. The injunction is a prior
] restraint on speech, which prevented the defendants from
] speaking to an specific audience that had gathered to
] hear them. Yet somehow neither Blackboard nor the court
] indicates that any consideration of the First Amendment
] was even necessary.

Felten takes notice..

Freedom to Tinker: Security Research Muzzled in Georgia

In English, this meant that anyone who intentionally let people do drugs at their events could be held liable. It also expanded the crack-house statute in two significant ways: Now the law could be applied to one-night events -- concerts, raves, parties, festivals -- as well as permanent locales like nightclubs, and it added civil penalties for violations, lowering the burden of proof from "beyond reasonable doubt" to a "preponderance of evidence."

Civil liberties are crumbling around us...this is very disturbing to me. -Nano

Your glow stick could land you in jail

] Fifty years after the discovery of the double helix
] structure of DNA, the genome community is celebrating the
] elucidation of the human DNA reference sequence. Sequence
] data are available for downloading now. Annotation of
] genes and other genomic features is still under
] development and will be available for browsing when
] complete.

Human Reference Sequence

] This time it is the real thing, scientists promise - the
] complete sequence of human DNA, as perfectly rendered as
] it ever will be.

New Scientist - Final human genome sequence released

] Two DNA techniques could be used to identify the former
] Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, says experts. One offers
] relative ease, in that the DNA samples required should be
] available, but the other offers far more certainty.
]
] The US-led invasion of Iraq is now almost complete, and
] military forces are now searching for the leaders of the
] deposed regime. Identifying Saddam - dead or alive - will
] not be easy, as he is believed to have used many doubles.

New Scientist - Double DNA chance of identifying Saddam

] Threats of DMCA-inspired lawsuits have been used to gag a
] pair of security researchers due to give a talk on the
] shortcomings of smartcard technology at the Interz0ne.com
] conference last weekend.
]
] Blackboard Inc. found out security researchers Billy
] Hoffman (AKA Acidus) and Virgil Griffith (Virgil) were
] about to present a paper on security flaws involving its
] popular university ID card system, and called in its
] lawyers.

The Register - DMCA threats gag security researchers