] It has been stated by your office that this is "a bump in
] the road" between the RIAA and Michigan Tech, and that we
] will move on from here. It is unfortunate that you choose
] to trivialize the problem in this manner. It is not a
] bump in the road for Joe Nievelt or Michigan
] Technological University.
]
] Taking all of this into consideration, we realize the
] seriousness of the allegations against Mr. Nievelt and
] will cooperate fully in resolving this matter.

(Decius's Comments)

This is from a day ago, but I think its really important.

1. The RIAA must be laughing its ass off about this letter. He says "this is not a bump in the road" and then he agrees to cooperate fully. Obviously MTU is either unable or unwilling to create any real pain for the RIAA. I would have provided my legal department for the defense and stopped all the measures that I had taken on their behest.

2. The RIAA has no moral character. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. (People seem have forgotten much of this in the past few years, but trust is the basis of business, and strong moral character is a pre-requisite for trust.) These are not good people, do not trust them.

3. What the RIAA is sueing here are campus SEARCH ENGINES. They are not just for MP3s. They weren't built with MP3s in mind. These are for anyfile. There are lots and lots of non-infringing uses. With the proper legal defense, the RIAA will loose these cases. Much like Felton, they may have stepped on another grenade. (Without proper legal defense it will be ILLEGAL to run a search engine on a campus, which is an intolerable result, frankly.)

Michigan Tech Media Relations Story#95 - President Responds to RIAA Suit

] Asif Iqbal, a Rochester, New York, management consultant,
] must get FBI clearance every Monday and Thursday when he
] flies to and from Syracuse for business. Iqbal can't get
] off a government watch list because he shares the same
] name as a suspected terrorist.
]
] What's more, the suspected terrorist Iqbal has been in
] U.S. custody at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
] since January 2002 when he was captured in Afghanistan.

Transportation Security Administration = Totally Stupid Assholes?

If you haven't read about it yet, you should follow the link through to CAPS II... Think all this added anti-terror security is temporary? Think again. Of course, they are promising that the institutionalized revision will actually include a way to remove yourself from the list ( :-O, these people are absolutely BRILLIANT). How one gets on the list will, of course, remain secret. So, basically, if everyone flies, and they need to get rid of someone they don't like, its really easy, and its impossible for anyone to ever find out what occured. You can bet your ass a hell of a lot more then "due process" will be "vanishing" under this system (Mike Hawash anyone?). Look for it to eventually get applied to every single mode of transportation in the country. Look for the Supreme Court to "interpret" that this is "legal." I'm sure that one or two of the justices will agree to "take one for the team" and write a dissent, if that makes you feel any better.

Wired News: Due Process Vanishes in Thin Air

What if Fox News reported various famous moments in history. Mildy entertaining, and bi-partisan!

Fark vs. Fox News

] In the case of physical property, we take it for granted
] that the ownership right should have the potential of
] persisting as long as the physical object itself. In the
] case of an idea, however, we have chosen to strike a
] different balance in recognition of the chaos that could
] follow from having to trace back all the thoughts
] implicit in one's current undertaking and pay a royalty
] to the originator of each one. So rather than adopting
] that obviously principled but unworkable approach, we
] have chosen instead to follow the lead of British common
] law and place time limits on intellectual property
] rights.

I'm rerecommending this. I've read it now. Greenspan explains the changing nature of the situation just as I have in the past, and this talk offers itself as a good reference for such an explanation, as people usually don't want to take my word for it. :)

Intellectual Property is broken. You heard it here from the guy that runs the economy. So don't tell me I'm being silly.

Of course, Greenspans perspective on how to fix it is probably 180 degrees from mine.

FRB: Speech, Greenspan-Market economies--April 4, 2003

This is a complete Super-DMCA page with the text of the laws in various states and detailed information. Who can fight this in Tennessee??

Freedom to Tinker: Status of State Super-DMCA Bills

] Whether we protect intellectual property as an
] inalienable right or as a privilege vouchsafed by the
] sovereign, such protection inevitably entails making some
] choices that have crucial implications for the balance we
] strike between the interests of those who innovate and
] those who would benefit from innovation.

This is a worrysome and cryptic comment.

1. He raises the specter of Intellectual Property as an inalienable right. With respect to the Constitution that is an extremely radical position. It has gained ground in recent years because of careful marketing efforts by the media industries. His comment is too vauge to know what he really wants, only that he thinks IP should be strengthened.

2. The separation of "those who innovate" and "those who would benefit from innovation" into two separate and exclusive groups is crusty industrial age thinking.

3. Finance people often do not understand the economic importance of activity which occurs outside of the market. I didn't figure Greenspan to be one of those people. Your strong protections for innovators aren't going to do you much good if you can't innovate because all of your citizens are stupid. If you create a world where culture only exists for entertainment purposes and comment, criticisms, and derivative works are all impossible to produce your culture will stagnate and your people will become dull.

4. If you have to rebuild the entire operating system from scratch in order to make a small improvement to a particular feature, you aren't going to do it. IP maximalism hurts innovation.

Greenspan: Secure intellectual property

] Employees at Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said
] they were frustrated by the decision, though not entirely
] surprised. "It has nothing to do with technical issues,"
] said Joanne Tucker, the managing editor of the
] English-language site. "It's nonstop political pressure
] on these companies not to deal with us."

Its not clear to me how much actions like this are driven by irrational thinking. Both the NYSE and Akamai took personal losses in 911. If for any reason they preceive Al'J as an enemy they are going to cut them out.

If its really external political pressure then thats something else, and in that case I oppose it. They are an ARAB news network. Their perspective is going to be different then yours (duh). If all you can do in response to that is to try to prevent people from having access to their content then this is almost PROOF that you are in the WRONG. The righeous don't NEED censorship.

Akamai Cancels a Contract for Al Jazeera's Site

] Sturgis police arrested seven Sturgis men for placing
] more than 20 threatening letters on various businesses,
] schools, banks and at the post office. At least 12 signs
] were posted Monday morning. Another 20 were put up
] Tuesday evening, according to Sturgis police.
]
] The letters all read "All your base are belong to us and
] you have no chance to survive, make your time."

The bar for committing a "terrorist act" is pretty damn low these days.

Ahh.. This will remind the world of the whole "all your base" thing, and within a week we will have an "all your base" take on the Iraq war.. I know it..

'All Your Base' Signs Land Seven in Court

] On Thursday, March 20, 2003, our friend and colleague
] Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested ("detained") as a
] "material witness" by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism
] Task Force in the parking lot of Intel Corp's Hawthorne
] Farms parking lot.

(Comments Decius)

This case is interesting on a number of levels.

1. The obvious ... the government can spirit you away without charging you with a crime. They can hold you arbitrarily. We ought to demand that when the government takes people they explain why and for how long. "Material Witness" rules were not meant to be a loophole in the requirement that the government have reasons for holding people. If this is the Patriot act at work then this is definately not acceptable.

2. The fact that you know about this. Over the course of two weeks this website has gotten a lot of coverage in blogistan. This story has not really been covered in the mainstream press (do a google news search).

I'm posting this because I want to see more information.

Free Mike Hawash

] Firewalls, packet filters, intrusion detection systems,
] and the like often have difficulty distinguishing between
] packets that have malicious intent and those that are
] merely unusual. We define a security flag in the IPv4
] header as a means of distinguishing the two cases.

:)

Who knows the evil that lurks in the buffers of men? The Stack knows!