CNN.com - Sci-Tech - a href="http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/03/20/internet.filtering.reut/index.html">Libraries to take on anti-smut Internet law.

Opponents of law are expected to ask a federal judge to prevent it from coming into force on April 20, claiming the measure restricts lawful access to information guaranteed by the constitution.

"Congress has delegated decision-making to the makers of Internet filtering software," charged Nancy Kranich, president of the American Library Association, which represents 61,000 U.S. public, academic, special and school libraries.

"These companies will not say what sites they block. And they have been known to block the Democratic Party but not the Republican Party, and groups like Handgun Control but not the National Rifle Association," she added.

American Library Association Press Release - Children's Internet Protection Act. American Library Association files lawsuit challenging Children's Internet Protection Act

The American Library Association (ALA) today has filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia to overturn the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which mandates the use of blocking technology on computers in public libraries. The ALA believes this legislation is unconstitutional because it restricts access to constitutionally protected information available on the Internet at public libraries.

The legislation, introduced by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), was included in a major spending bill (HR 4577) approved by Congress on December 15. The bill requires libraries to adopt acceptable-use policies accompanied by a 'safety technology' that would block access to material deemed 'harmful for minors.' CIPA becomes effective April 20.

ACLU Feature: 03-20-01 -- ACLU Files Challenge to Library Internet Censorship In Case Fast-Tracked for Supreme Court Review.

Acting on behalf of public libraries, library patrons and website authors nationwide, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a major legal challenge to a federal law that forces libraries to censor constitutionally protected speech online.

"The government is choking off the free flow of information on the Internet to the library patrons who need it the most," said Ann Beeson, a member of the ACLU legal team that filed the challenge today in a U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

Slashdot | ACLU And Libraries Challenge CIPA.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Websites forced to reveal user identity.

A High Court judge has told two UK websites to reveal which user was behind defamatory messages placed in discussion groups.

Legal action launched by net company Totalise has ended with the financial websites the Motley Fool and Interactive Investor International being forced to hand over the identity of the user who was only known online by a nickname.

The ruling could have implications for any website that lets people post messages

Political News from Wired News - Libraries: Filter Out Filters. Librarians and free speech activists are trying to reverse a new federal law that could cost libraries public money if they don't install filtering software.

The Register (UK) - All your base are belong to us. Just a little background for the curious.

Hack the Planet Prime: Restating HailStorm (bespoke).

At this point in time, at the very beginning, inoculation against the worst is a reasonable strategy. After the public assumes too many of the ideas as fact, it's much harder to falsify the concepts. Most of the concepts are not falsifiable in any case, which is why the offering amounts to Microsoft gospel more anything else. If hype infects a populace, it's not very easy dissuade many folks from the mania.

Next I'd like to address at least one main concept from each of the sections in the HailStorm white paper (at the URL cited above). Only I'll use different words to characterize positions, and the words I use probably won't be liked by Microsoft marketing. But simple denial tends to work for them, so this won't help unless it refines the tack other folks use later.

Hack the Planet Prime: Trusting Microsoft.

Why is it that when a company gets a bad enough record for their screw-ups they can start using the "We're being persecuted!" defense?

If HailStorm succeeds, and it undoubtedly will, it will be the refutation of everything that Cluetrain preaches.

So Microsoft has announced something nebulous designed mainly to head off any potential customers while they have a chance to figure out just what it is and actually implement it. While not releasing any technical details, the company that's put so many security holes in their products they're giving gauze a good run claims that personal info will only go to people you authorize it.

New York Times - free registration required Virginia Court's Decision in Online 'John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech Advocates.

In what was apparently the first Internet defamation case to involve both an anonymous plaintiff and anonymous defendants, the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to grant an unidentified company access to America Online's confidential subscriber information unless the firm agreed to reveal its identity.

The plaintiff in the case, named in court documents only as "Anonymous Publicly Traded Company," dropped its efforts to subpoena AOL after agreeing on Wednesday to the dismissal of a related case in Indiana. Douglas M. Palais, the lawyer for the plaintiff company, declined to explain why his client had dropped its case.

While the litigation is no longer pending, the ruling handed down in Virginia could set a precedent for similar lawsuits across the country. In its decision, the Virginia court said that an anonymous plaintiff could be given subpoena power only if it would suffer exceptional harm, such as a social stigma or extraordinary economic retaliation, as a result of revealing its identity.

Slashdot | Post Anonymous, Stay Anonymous. The intersting thing about this case is that the company was trying to stay anonymous while they attacked the poster's anonymity!

Slashdot | Earthlink's Extra HTTP Header. If you use Earthlink's customized browser/email/chat/kitchen sink application, which Earthlink recommends for all of its new customers, you are sending an extra HTTP header called HTTP_ELNSB50 with every HTTP request (every download of a file or image), and the data for this header is a lengthy alphanumeric string, which readers took to be a unique ID of some sort. This does not appear to be the case.

Joel on Software (Joel is an ex-softie from the Excel team )- Does Issuing Passports Make Microsoft a Country?.

Am I the only one who is terrified about Microsoft Passport? It seems to me like a fairly blatant attempt to build the world's largest, richest consumer database, and then make fabulous profits mining it. It's a terrifying threat to everyone's personal privacy and it will make today's "cookies" seem positively tame by comparison. The scariest thing is that Microsoft is advertising Passport as if it were a benefit to consumers, and people seem to be falling for it! By the time you've read this article, I can guarantee that I'll scare you into turning off your Hotmail account and staying away from MSN web sites.

This article has two parts. First, I'll present a brief technical overview of how Passport works and why it eliminates the last line of defense protecting your privacy. Second, I'll talk about how Microsoft plans to develop Passport to create a massive consumer information database and link all your private information together, and how they plan to profit fantastically from it.

But before I get started, let me say that I'm not just writing this to bash Microsoft. That's not my goal here. Microsoft is a large, diverse company with many smart people and many ethical people; they have many great products and some pathetic products, too. I spent 3 years working at Microsoft, many of my friends are still there, and I'm a Microsoft shareholder. I'm writing this article because I think the Microsoft Passport story is fascinating from a privacy perspective and from a business strategy perspective, and because nobody else seems to be covering it.

New York Times - free registration required Suit Planned Against Filtering Law. Civil liberties groups and libraries plan to file suit to stop a recently passed law that would require schools and libraries to install Internet filters on public computers.

ZDNet: Story: .Net demystified: What you must know about MS's software scheme. This is Hailstorm he's talking about.

Suppose, for a moment, that everything could talk to everything else. Your calendar could get information from and supply data to your documents, or your cell phone, or someone else's calendar and cell phone. Your computer's desktop could tell you that your dry cleaning is ready or your bank account is overdrawn.

Those notifications could be sent to your pager or the computer where you happened to be sitting today--based on where the network knew you to be at the time. That's the basic premise of .Net, Microsoft's new software-as-a-service strategy.

To do this, Microsoft wants to know everything: the information in your user profile, address, and application settings; what devices you use; what's in all your documents; your favorite Web sites; where you are at any given moment; your credit card numbers and payment information; the contents of your personal calendar, contact list, and e-mail inbox; and probably a few things I've left out.

BUT NOT TO WORRY: Microsoft promises all your information will be perfectly safe from hackers and only given out with your express permission.

Of course, this is the same company that keeps sending me "critical updates" to fix security holes and couldn't protect its own data center during a denial-of-service attack.

New York Times - free registration required Microsoft Confronts Privacy Fears. This article primarily has Microsoft's spin on the subject.

Microsoft officials today tried to defuse privacy and security concerns about its new .Net Internet strategy by saying the new technology would let computer users control how much personal information they make available for commercial use.

Questions about the privacy and security implications of a system that would collect virtually all personal information within a vast, unified computing system have increasingly plagued the Internet computing industry and e-commerce worlds in recent years, as embarrassing flaws have permitted computer vandals to routinely exploit weaknesses in supposedly secure systems.

Now Microsoft executives said they believe that despite giving computer users unheard-of freedom -- at a price -- to use their personal data or perform commercial transactions wherever they are, the new system will be more difficult to undermine than today's networks.

iRights - March 20,2001. Some interesting commentary on Hailstorm

The article discusses the possibility that somebody will hack this datastore because it's a tempting target. Do the basic analysis: "How hard is it to get into?" and "How tempting is the target?" Remember, security is never perfect, so this analysis is based on the idea that you need enough to make what's being protected not worth breaking the protection.

The answers aren't encouraging.

"How hard is it to get into?" Not to bash Microsoft, but security has never been on their priority list. ...

ZDNet: Interactive Week: Corporate Privacy: Disunited Front.

Even as corporate foes of federal privacy regulation champion the release of new data detailing the lofty cost of such rules to businesses and consumers, behind the scenes the industry remains as fractured as ever on the issue.

The divisions are apparent even within the Online Privacy Alliance, a coalition of 80 leading corporations aimed at promoting privacy sensitivity within industry and encouraging self-regulation. The organization has not taken a position about whether Congress should write privacy regulations - but many of its members have.

America Online, Hewlett-Packard and Intel advocate baseline privacy rules; others, like database giant Experian Information Solutions, oppose federal legislation. Microsoft is calling for Congress to at least put on the brakes and examine the issue closely before acting. All of these companies, except HP, belong to the OPA.

Daily News Los Angeles - Privacy on Net.

Dozens of other privacy protection products exist, including Privada, Anonymizer, IDzap and Somebody. Typically, they offer anonymous surfing and multiple aliases as well as management of the so-called cookies. Some cookies are desirable, like the one from a bank or online broker that remembers a password.

About a half-dozen privacy products block banner ads and some are effective against Web bugs, says Richard Smith, chief technologist of the Denver-based Privacy Foundation.

Web bugs can be fairly innocuous, providing advertisers with data on who is visiting a Web site. Or they can be intrusive, passing information that surfers enter into online registration forms to advertisers or marketers, Smith said.

Chicago Tribune | Print Edition -- Police Taking Look At Facial Scans.

Cameras are prevalent at sports arenas to allow security and police to watch for trouble. At the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, the home of the Mighty Ducks and a popular concert venue, closed-circuit cameras are in use 24 hours a day. General manager Tim Ryan said virtually every new arena includes such cameras.

Indeed, at the Rose Bowl, "we did use some sophisticated counterintelligence for the [women's 1999] World Cup," said Bruce Linsenmayer, Pasadena police commander for the unit that handles security. "We wouldn't talk about it then, and we can't talk about it now."

CNET NEWS.COM - Suits expected to fight Net filtering law.

Civil liberties groups and libraries plan to file suit Tuesday to stop a recently passed law that would require schools and libraries to install Internet filters on public computers.

Critics say the law--which had strong bipartisan support in Congress--pushes a bad technology on schools, removes community control, and fails to provide money to pay for the software. Its supporters are rallying for a battle that's expected to reach the Supreme Court.

Unless a judge grants an injunction, schools and libraries will have to install filters next month or lose their federal funds earmarked for Internet access.

San Jose Mercury News / Dan Gillmor's eJournal  (News, Views and a Redmond Diary) - The Giant Roars. Dan talks about Microsofts new initiative Hailstorm.

You see, the other critical mass Microsoft plans to capture, beyond its Windows desktop monopoly, is you and me in new and different ways. Now we're getting into a matter of trust. Microsoft hasn't earned it.

Microsoft wants us to essentially move our lives onto its computers -- financial transactions, calendars, address books, documents, you name it. This is the ultimate in centralization. Leaving aside the unreliability of the big computer systems the company now runs -- think of the outages and problems with Hotmail, MSN and even Microsoft.com -- the idea of confiding in Microsoft with my most personal information is, well, nutty.

Oh, the company is saying all the right things about privacy and security. It insists it will treat our most personal information as inviolate -- that Microsoft will never mine, sell, trade or otherwise misuse that data -- but I doubt that these promises are worth the PowerPoint slide they were printed on.

Here's a challenge to Microsoft. Guarantee the sanctity of this data in a way that persuades me. How about agreeing, in writing, to a fine of a year's revenue if the company breaks this promise?

Yahoo! Groups : ms-hailstorm Messages (membership required) : By: Jacob Levy - Microsoft Passport & HailStorm. All users of the various Win32 OSes will automatically plug in to their HailStorm scheme. Scoble said something about WinMX users not being able to get on the 'net without first signing in. Of course as a side benefit this will also stop software piracy cold.. Great!

[ ... ]

The most telling part of this is that none of the protocols are currently open. Of course they've sprinkled some magic fairy dust on the whole business by repeatedly saying the XML and SOAP buzzwords. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Microsoft to publish the protocol they're implementing between the PassPort server and the American Express payment clearance server, for example. Doesn't matter what its written in, XML and SOAP or ancient greek on papyrus, it's not going to be open.

Methinks its time to move on beyond this venting and think what we're going to do about this. As I said in the start of this thread today, we don't need Microsoft to implement any of this.

Microsoft: "All your data is belong to us.". (Ed. Ummm... I added the link)

MS-NBC - Microsoft to charge for 'Hailstorm'. Microsoft Corp. revealed the grand scheme for its .NET corporate strategy Monday, as the software giant unveiled its new "Hailstorm" platform. In a briefing for developers and Web site operators, Chairman Bill Gates outlined a far-reaching plan that he hopes will put Microsoft software at the heart of each consumers' "personal network" of Internet-enabled appliances. More important, Gates says he thinks people will pay for the ability to access their data any time, anywhere. BTW, based on their history. Is there anyone who thinks that Microsoft is worthy of this trust?

BBC News | HEALTH | Behavioural genetics to get public scrutiny.

It admits there is a big difference between collating genetic information about illness and disease and getting genetic information about behavioural traits.

In their public document they raise the spectre that if there are genetic breakthroughs the research could then be misused and manipulated.

The document says: "The central precept of eugenics is the idea that the physical, mental and behavioural qualities of the human race can be improved by selective breeding.

"This means encouraging people who have 'desirable traits' to have children and discouraging, or preventing, those who do not.

"This belief was at least partially responsible for the appalling events of the 20th century in Nazi Germany, and the compulsory sterilisation programmes for mentally handicapped people in North America and Northern Europe."

The report said that memories of these human rights abuses still "casts a shadow" over today's research - particularly in the area of behavioural genetics where there is a chance of social prejudice and racism.