] Heads up, sharers of music, video and software files: If
] a prominent Michigan lawmaker has his way on Capitol
] Hill, you will soon be a felon.
]
] U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, is the
] sponsor of the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner
] Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003, which
] declares sharing a single copyrighted file online to be a
] felony.
]
] Because the bill doesn't specifically name the type of
] file, you could theoretically become a felon by copying
] and posting this very column on your Web site. (We frown
] on that sort of thing anyway, but webmasters, be warned.)
]
] Giving fake information to the folks who register domain
] names, the basic Internet Web addresses (such as
] freep.com), would be punishable by up to five years in
] prison and a fine. Using a camcorder to record a movie in
] a theater -- whether you share it or not -- would be a
] federal criminal offense.

HEATHER NEWMAN: 60 million file sharers could face prison, fine

] The short of it is, their DMCAbot(TM) found
] /distfiles/INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip, picked out the
] words "Pac" and "Man", and is now threatening us under
] the DMCA for distributing a pirated version of Pacman.

In this case they simply asked that the material be taken down, but this is all that it takes to get someone's personal contact information.

A good example of a bad DMCA subpoena

] FCC Chairman Michael Powell has indicated that he would
] like to move more Internet access services into the
] category of "information services," which have fewer
] regulations and likely would not be subject to CALEA.
] That alarms DSL providers such as EarthLink, which fear
] that deregulation means that former Baby Bells such as
] Verizon and BellSouth will raise their rates for access
] to the copper wire that runs to telephone subscribers'
] homes.

(Comments from Decius)

As CALEA was originally written, it would have required anyone building any kind of network to provide the FBI with access at the location of the FBI's choice. I.E. run a cable between two computers in your house, and you'll have to run a third cable to Kansas for the FBI. And, as originally written, you pick up the tab for it.

Well, the phone companies managed to get the feds to agree to pick up the tab, and the EFF managed to get the law to only apply to telecom services and not information services. Of, course, the EFF did this by agreeing to support the law if it only applied to telecom. This was the endorsement the FBI needed to get the law passed, and the internet community was very unhappy with this compromise. The result was that the EFF split in two. Part of it (the anti-compromise piece) retained the name EFF and moved to San Francisco (it was felt that actually living in Washington had corrupted them), the other part (pro-compromise) stayed in Washington and became known as the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).

Now, the impracticalities of connecting small computer networks to some sort of central monitoring center aside, when I, and I think most people, read the resulting compromise, it was clear that CALEA applied to POTS telephone service and that is all.

While it was inevitable that this would come up again, additional Congressional action is required. The way that they are attempting to avoid this oversight by confusing the issue with that of telecom competition is clearly dishonest, and I am very disappointed to see Earthlink, of all companies, gleefully jumping on the bandwagon.

The FBI's insidious CALEA strategy

] An even greater risk is putting this subpoena power in
] the hands of anyone willing to pretend to have a copyright
] claim. These fraudulent requests will be impossible to
] distinguish from legitimate ones.

(Comments from Decius)

The EFF spoke of this at Defcon... That as these subpoenas become an established proceedure, which is almost the case now, they will be a powerfull tool for stalkers, batterers, and other kinds of predators. You don't really care about being in contempt of court if you are planning to assault someone. Predators will use these subpoenas to track down their victims. The internet will really become a very unsafe place unless you use an anonymizing proxy network.

Whether its the elminiation of judicial oversite for subpoenas or the approval of vigilanti computer hacking, Congress seems to be absolutely committed to the erosion of critical, fundamental pillars that underlie the very rule of law in the United States in an attempt to give their friends in the media industries what they want. Enabling predators is obviously far far worse then any amount of copyright infringement that might be going on, but thats just the beginning. If they continue down this road, Congress must eventually must conceed that by picking away at the rule of law they are in fact picking away at their own authority and their own reasons for existance. Do it here, and establish that its legal here, and it will pop up somewhere else, and then again, and again, until there are very serious threats to the stability of this system of goverment.

Of all possible ways to address this problem, these people have chosen a path that is dumber then any I had imagined... Between these actions, and the pressures they exert which will naturally lead to the development of extremely strong anonymizing proxy technology, Congress is breaking ground, at this moment, on a very, very ugly future for all of this. And they have absolutely, positively, no fucking clue about the implications of their actions. Tim May might just turn out to have been right all along.

The implications of DMCA subpoenas on privacy/stalking

] MANCHESTER, New Hampshire -- A security flaw at a website
] operated by the purveyors of penis-enlargement pills has
] provided the world with a depressing answer to the
] question: Who in their right mind would buy something
] from a spammer?

Wired News: Swollen Orders Show Spam's Allure

] A software engineer from Oregon pleaded guilty Wednesday
] to aiding the Taleban and now faces the likelihood of
] seven to 10 years in jail.
]
] The Justice Department says Maher Hawash, a naturalized
] American citizen of Palestinian descent, pleaded guilty
] to a charge of conspiring to supply services to the
] Taleban following the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York
] and Washington.

Hawash was guilty

] A widely publicized project to transform a man-made
] platform off the coast of England into a haven for
] controversial Web businesses has failed due to political,
] technical and management problems, one of the project's
] founders said.

Has 'haven' for questionable sites sunk? | CNET News.com

"It is totally unauthorized as far as we are concerned. It's really a serious mistake on the part of DARPA."

Sound familiar?

This meme just in: DARPA is the new AOL Time Warner, and John Poindexter is the new Justin Frankel.

Terror Trading Site Goes Bust

Comments from Decius:

The MemeStreams bookmarklets now fully support Safari. You can select text in a window, hit the recommend bookmarklet, and that text will be quoted in your Meme!

In order for this to work you have to upgrade your bookmarklet. You'll find the latest bookmarklets by clicking on "help" in the navigation menu.

Now that I can actually use Safari with my website, I'm going to cut over to it for a while and see what I think. I hope the anti-aliasing doesn't give me headaches.

Now a short rant:

There is one correct way to implement text selections in JavaScript: document.getSelection. Thats how everyone does it. Thats the STANDARD. Everyone, that is, but Microsoft, who decided to implement a text selection object instead of a method. Very annoying. I have no idea why they did this; as far as I can tell there is no technical benefit. Then you've got Apple, who decided to make getSelection a method of windows instead of documents. So now there are three ways to do this.

I understand what Apple was thinking. By putting this under window you don't run into problems with frames.

Then again, I don't understand what Apple was thinking. Safari is not the only browser on the planet! I still have to support the other methods for other browers, I still have to do step through all the frames on a page, so you really haven't helped me at all. My code is more complex, not less complex. More importantly, almost nobody who uses this stuff knows how to make this work effectively. The result is that bloggers can't, and in general, don't use your browser.

In general, and in particular on the internet, being standards compliant is better then being more efficient. It doesn't matter how well your stuff works if no one can use it!

MemeStreams Safari support complete!

] WireTap is a free product for that allows you to record
] any audio playing on your Mac, saving it to a file for
] later listening or processing.

Get this before they ban it...

WireTap 1.0.0 for Macintosh OS X