The FBI's Carnivore online surveillance technology is again in the spotlight this week, as representatives from the law enforcement agency join a wide range of witnesses gathered to testify before Congress on issues relating to Internet privacy.

Both House and Senate committees today held hearings on the topic, where politicians voiced a bipartisan desire to restrain online privacy violations by both employers and the government.

"America's Internet users are legitimately concerned that surfing the Internet is like walking in a big city at night--the enjoyment is tempered by a fear of what's lurking unnoticed in the dark alleys," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, at his committee's hearing.

Slashdot | GPG vs. PGP?.

Upside Counsel - To link or not to link? Lately there has been quite a bit of commotion in the legal world about whether linking between websites is permissible, and more and more cases are preventing links and related activities.

Computerworld - Maryland's UCITA May Have National Reach. In less than a month, the controversial software licensing measure UCITA will become law for the first time, in Maryland. And it's an event with potential national implications for all end-user companies.

CNET.com - News - E-Business - IKEA exposes customer information on catalog site. Home furnishings retailer IKEA closed its online catalog order site last night after a privacy breach made the personal information of tens of thousands of its customers available online.

The Register(UK) -Amazon's new privacy regs may backfire. Amazon's new privacy notice is a masterpiece of full disclosure, albeit one founded on the presumption that Web users are delighted to sacrifice their privacy so long as they have a detailed account of the clever methods by which they are tricked into doing so. This blithe presumption pervades the New Economy, but it appears to be little more than a vast exercise in wishful thinking.

Press Release - RSA Security Releases RSA Encryption Algorithm into Public Domain .

BEDFORD, Mass., September 6, 2000 -- RSA® Security Inc. (NASDAQ: RSAS) today announced it has released the RSA public key encryption algorithm into the public domain, allowing anyone to create products that incorporate their own implementation of the algorithm. This means that RSA Security has waived its rights to enforce the patent for any development activities that include the RSA algorithm occurring after September 6, 2000.

Represented by the equation "c = m^e mod n," the RSA algorithm is widely considered the standard for encryption and the core technology that secures the vast majority of the e-business conducted on the Internet. The U.S. patent for the RSA algorithm (# 4,405,829, "Cryptographic Communications System And Method") was issued to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on September 20, 1983, licensed exclusively to RSA Security and expires on September 20, 2000.

Slashdot | RSA Released Into The Public Domain.

USA TODAY - 'Carnivore' unlikely to be validated.

Five groups of researchers have bowed out of the competition to evaluate the so-called Carnivore Internet surveillance system. And that likely will dash Justice Department hopes that a major university would validate its controversial eavesdropping device, participants said Tuesday.

Attorney General Janet Reno seemed confident Aug. 10 that one of several then-unnamed schools would take up the challenge of verifying that Carnivore, when properly used, would not violate the civil rights of individuals subject to its workings.

But rules for the review published Aug. 24 have encountered stiff opposition from researchers approached for the job by the Justice Department. The Department, they say now, is effectively asking for a meaningless examination of a device whose potential for abuse may well outstrip its usefulness.

"This is not a request for an independent report," says Jeffrey Schiller, a computer network manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who was asked to work on the review. "They want a rubber stamp." (ed. emphasis added)

Slashdot | Carnivore Comes Up Hungry.

ZDNet: InterActive Week: FCC To Rule On Copy Protection Technology Dispute.

The Federal Communications Commission could rule as early as Sept. 14 in a dispute over the home recording of digital television programs.

The movie industry has been at loggerheads for months with makers of high-definition television (HDTV) sets, VCRs and cable set-top boxes over how copy protection technology will be implemented in digital cable systems. For consumers, the FCC's ruling will decide which digital programs they can and can't record.

Led by the Motion Picture Association of America, copyright holders want the FCC to require that circuitry be built into nearly every digital TV device - receivers, VCRs and set-top boxes - that will prevent recording programs carrying copy protection information set by the program's owner.

Negotiations between the MPAA and electronics manufacturers broke down early this year, and on April 14 the FCC, which had hoped the two parties could reach an agreement, said it "reluctantly" would make the decision. With a Sept. 7 deadline for public input, the group representing the electronics makers launched an advertising and public relations campaign Aug. 31 to tip the proceedings in its favor.

Slashdot | FCC to Rule on Request to Limit Recording From TV.

Slashdot | Book Review - Sovereign Individual (Part One).

First in a series of columns inspired by the The Sovereign Individual: Mastering The Transition To the Information Age, by authors James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. As the Information Revolution picks up steam and supplants the Industrial Age for good, will it undermine the great civic myths of the 20th century? This book argues that individuals are going to be liberated at the expense of the increasingly fatigued nation-states that have governed for centuries. (Part two upcoming: Virtual Merchant-States).