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Wednesday, March 7, 2007
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Heise online reports on a very interesting action Microsoft is taking during the installation of WGA.
When you start WGA setup and get to the license agreement page but decided NOT
to install the highly controversial WGA component and cancel the
installation, the setup program will send your info and the fact that
you choose not to install WGA back to their servers.
In addition to that it seems that the setup program send some
information stored in your registry to http://genuine.microsoft.com/.
While it does not specifically identify the user, it looks like it does
send some identification of your computer and Windows version (see
picture) to Microsoft servers.
1:06:01 PM 
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U.S. Senators Pressure Canada on Canadian DMCA.
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. copyright lobby brought out some heavy artillery last week as
it continued to pressure Canada to introduce a Canadian DMCA. U.S.
Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins gave a public
talk in which he described Canadian copyright law as the weakest in
the G7, while Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Cornyn wrote to
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to urge him to bring in movie piracy
legislation." [Slashdot]
12:49:09 PM
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'30s Hollywood Cartoon Censorship. Cartoon Brew highlights how the Hayes Code impacted cartoons in 1939 -- male characters couldn't be effeminate, kids had to behave and Flossie the cow's sexy udders had to be clothed. At Table of Malcontents. [Wired News: Top Stories]
12:45:23 PM
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Radio listeners weary of hearing the same songs over and over may
have something to cheer about: Broadcasters have tentatively agreed to
anti-payola settlements that could shake up music playlists at some of
the nation's largest radio chains.
Four major broadcast
companies would pay the government $12.5 million and provide 8,400
half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and
local artists, The Associated Press has learned.
The
agreement is aimed at curbing payola -- generally defined as radio
stations accepting cash or other consideration from record companies in
exchange for airplay. The practice has been around as long as the radio
industry and was made illegal after scandals in the late 1950s.
Two
Federal Communications Commission officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because final language has not been approved by the full
commission, said the monetary settlement is part of a consent decree
between the FCC and Clear Channel Communications Inc., CBS Radio,
Entercom Communications Corp. and Citadel Broadcasting Corp.
The
settlement was reached at the same time as a separate deal designed to
lead to more airtime for smaller record companies and their
lesser-known artists as well as local musicians.
12:17:54 PM
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The Health and Human Services Department has received mixed reviews for
its decision to insist that the next iteration of the Nationwide Health
Information Network (NHIN) allow patients to control who sees their
electronic health records on the network.
Dr. Robert Kolodner,
interim national coordinator of health information technology, said
March 1 that trial networks funded by his office should give "people
the capability to decide how they view, store and control access to
their own information. A person could say how that information flows to
specific entities or completely block the flow of information."
"If
they do what they say, it's a tremendous thing for privacy," said Dr.
Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation. "It's
exactly what we've been talking about for a long time."
Peel
said she talked with Kolodner and learned that he wants to give
patients the ability to control what happens to their health
information, "down to the data field level." "I think his intentions
are fantastic," she said.
Asked whether such a network would be
technically feasible, Peel said the existing technology would support
that degree of granularity in controlling the flow of EHR data.
But
Mark Rothstein, director of the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy
and Law at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, said he
doubts the HHS move will make a difference. "I don't really have a lot
of confidence that it would really have any effect whatsoever," said
Rothstein, a member of the official National Committee on Vital and
Health Statistics.
The reason Rothstein was less than
enthusiastic about the HHS move: Privacy problems are primarily policy
and legal issues in his view, not technology-based. Rothstein recently
testified before a Senate subcommittee, criticizing HHS for failing to
tackle privacy and other policy issues associated with development of
the NHIN. Kolodner's announcement doesn't address many of the policy
questions, he said.
Kolodner's office "has indicated no prior
interest in this concept," Rothstein said, suggesting that there is no
way to know how committed HHS is to its plans. Others have pointed out
it is one of the first HHS health IT initiatives that deviates from
plans outlined by Kolodner's predecessor, Dr. David Brailer.
11:56:32 AM
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March 05, 2007 (Reuters)
-- CHICAGO - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said today it fired a systems
technician for intercepting text messages of people who were not
Wal-Mart employees and for recording telephone conversations with a New York Times reporter without authorization.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said an internal
investigation found the technician had monitored and recorded phone
calls between Wal-Mart public relations employees and a New York Times
Co. reporter between September and January.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer also said the technician, who
worked in its information systems division, intercepted and stored text
messages that contained certain key words, including those sent by
people in the Bentonville area who were not Wal-Mart employees.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said on a call with reporters that the technician "did this on his own."
While interviews with the technician gave the retailer an idea as to
why he recorded the calls, Williams said she could not disclose the
reasons because the case has been turned over to federal investigators.
11:52:20 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick.
Last update: 3/18/07; 10:12:25 PM.
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