Seth_Finkelstein writes "There's just a little time left to submit comments regarding the DMCA "Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works"

The deadline is 5:00 P.M. EST on February 19, 2003. Operators are standing by now (or at least there are handy forms and submissions guides below): "EFF is helping individuals fight for DMCA exemptions."
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/2003-DMCA-1201-comments.php

"How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy"
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca.html

"Winning (DMCA) Exemptions, The Next Round"
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca2.php"

Come on people ... If you're going to say anything now is the time to do it.

New York Times - free registration required Electronic Tracking System Monitors Foreign Students.

Mandated after terrorists first bombed the World Trade Center a decade ago and financed after they destroyed it, a vast new electronic tracking system became the central element on Saturday in the government's effort to keep tabs on nearly a million foreign students and scholars in this country.

Through the system, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or Sevis, schools, colleges and universities will send the federal government the names, addresses, courses and majors of foreign students, as well as information on any disciplinary actions against them.

Institutions that the government has not yet certified to log on to the system may no longer enroll foreign students.

"This is part of a national strategy for the national security of the United States -- not the end-all and be-all, but a part of that," said Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

[ ... ]

Given Sevis's instant nature, "there's no room to correct the record for errors," said Robert J. Locke of the University of North Carolina. "That's our biggest fear in the implementation of this, that students and scholars may unwittingly fall between the cracks and become illegal."

LawMeme (Yale) - NYT takes another look at SEViS.

Lithorn writes "Today's New York Times has an article on SEViS, the INS program that tracks foreign students.

Describing the program bluntly as one in which "schools, colleges and universities will send the federal government the names, addresses, courses and majors of foreign students, as well as information on any disciplinary actions against them," the article points out several major problems. For example:

[ ... ]

Skimming SEViS's web site, there appears to have been no attempt to provide a mechanism for correcting errors in data entry since this issue was raised last fall."

Privacy News from Wired News - ACLU Challenges Wire-Tap Decision.

The ACLU wants the Supreme Court to review a decision by a secret U.S. court that makes it easier for the federal government to conduct clandestine surveillance in national security matters.

[ ... ]

Subjects of foreign intelligence wiretaps do not have to be told that they are being wire-tapped, even if the evidence is used against them in court. Moreover, the government does not need to establish "probable cause" that a crime has been or will be committed. The surveillance can last anywhere from 90 days to a year before reauthorization.

In contrast, domestic wiretaps must be re-authorized after 30 days, must be justified by "probable cause" and must have a narrowly defined scope. Subjects of domestic wiretaps are eventually told of the surveillance, even if they are never prosecuted.

Jameel Jaffer, lead attorney for the ACLU, said his organization's petition seeks to bring public scrutiny back to the system of government surveillance. "When Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 after the abuses of surveillance in the '60s and '70s, they originally believed that these wiretaps would be a minimal percentage of all wiretaps," said Jaffer. "Now they are swallowing regular searches."

CNET NEWS.COM - Microsoft going after Hotmail spammers.

Microsoft is turning up the heat on spam, filing a lawsuit to go after people it suspects of having harvested e-mail addresses from its Hotmail servers to spam subscribers.

Microsoft on Thursday filed a so-called John Doe suit in the federal court for the northern district of California in San Jose. The suit doesn't name defendants, but allows the plaintiff the power to issue subpoenas as part of the investigative phase of the trial.

The defendants are accused of using a "dictionary attack" to discover active Hotmail accounts. A dictionary attack is one in which a computer program goes through every entry in a dictionary in an attempt to guess passwords. In this case, the program guessed millions of random e-mail addresses to see which ones were active, Microsoft alleged.

Slashdot | Microsoft Going After Hotmail Spammers.

Mirkon writes "Quoth The Register: "Microsoft has targeted spammers with a lawsuit aimed at bulk mailers who harvest email addresses of Hotmail subscribers in order to bombard them with junk." Details are apparently sketchy at this point, but it's nice to see America's favorite monopoly putting its power to good use." --- The original news.com.com story is slightly more informative.