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Senators Ask FBI to Explain Flawed 'National Security Letter' to Internet Archive - Via Threat Level:
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is asking FBI head Robert Mueller to explain why the feds sought records from the Internet Archive, a digital library, using a controversial administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which is intended for a communications service providers.
The Internet Archive, a digital library of the web and media, beat the November 26 NSL with the help of attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. In April, the FBI agreed to withdraw the request for records on a Internet Archive user and lift the gag order that typically attaches to such requests.
The six senators sent Mueller a letter Thursday, asking him to explain what happened and to find out if the FBI reported the incident to an oversight board as a possible violation of federal law. read more »
Entertainment Industry Leaned On Los Angeles Politicos to Declare Piracy a 'Public Nuisance' - Via Threat Level:
A Los Angeles County ordinance adopted last week giving authorities the legal muscle to shutter property used to produce counterfeit DVDs and CDs was the result of intense pressure from Hollywood and the recording industry.
Additionally, the so-called nuisance abatement ordinance was based, in part, on exaggerated piracy figures provided by the entertainment industry, which also gave the measure's key political backer thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, according to an examination by THREAT LEVEL.
The ordinance, similar to a New York City regulation, expands the definition of a nuisance property from those infested with drugs, gangs, gambling and prostitution to include a property producing, selling or storing counterfeited content. The entertainment industry is calling it an important milestone in combating piracy, though the measure's phrasing is focused primarily on professional pirates who produce DVDs and CDs that resemble authentic disks, and not downloaders. read more »
NBC-Vista copy-protection snafu reminds us why DRM stinks - Via Ars Technica :
Handfuls of Windows Vista Media Center users found themselves blocked from making recordings of their favorite TV shows this week when a broadcast flag triggered the software's built-in copy protection measures. The flag affected users trying to record prime-time NBC shows on Monday evening, using both over-the-air broadcasts and cable. Although the problem is being "looked into" by both NBC and Microsoft, the incident serves as another reminder that DRM gives content providers full control, even if by accident.
Vista MCE users began reporting problems on Monday evening, starting with posts on the popular DVR-enthusiast forum on The Green Button. While trying to record shows like American Gladiator and Medium, Vista users were presented with an error that read, "Recording cancelled. [TV show] cannot be recorded. Restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator of the content prohibit recording of this program." The Green Button user justinjas posted a screenshot of the error on his blog. read more »
NBC Activates Broadcast Flag - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "NBC activated the 'broadcast flag' on a number of shows this week, ranging from American Gladiator to Medium, which prevented compliant programs like Windows Media Center from recording them. The matter is being 'looked into,' but that doesn't tell us whether it was an accident or a ploy to see how outraged viewers would be at being stripped of the time-shifting rights they've enjoyed ever since Sony v. Universal. Just in case it's the latter, it wouldn't hurt to let them know what you think."
Arlen Specter Demanding Probe Of 'Spygate' - Via Threat Level:
Arlen Specter, the Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday demanded an independent investigation into "Spygate."
The announcement came three years after it was first disclosed President Bush had authorized a secret electronic eavesdropping program on Americans without warrants in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.
But Specter wasn't referring to that.
Instead, the Pennsylvania senator is demanding an inquiry into the New England Patriots' secret videotaping of opposing NFL coaches' signals on the sidelines -- an affair sports writers have dubbed "Spygate."
We are not making this up. Specter said such behavior, a violation of NFL rules, is damaging to the sport. Call it Specter's own Patriot Act. read more »
Health Data Systems Need A Comprehensive Privacy and Security Framework - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
CDT's Health Privacy Project today released a paper urging policymakers and the private sector to develop and implement a comprehensive privacy and security framework to govern the wide range of computer and Internet-based systems being created to share sensitive health information. The paper examines the key issues confronting the adoption of information technology in the health care field and offers suggestions on policies and business practices that will protect patient rights while facilitating the kinds of information sharing that can reduce costs and improve care.
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
Sony BMG Sends YouTube Ads Instead of Takedown - Via Wendy's Blog: Legal Tags:
As reported on Valleywag and picked up by Slashdot, Sony BMG has been testing an alternative to copyright takedowns of unauthorized music videos on YouTube: inserting a link to the band’s official page instead.
An eagle-eyed Valleywag tipster with a taste for Modest Mouse spotted an interesting new feature on YouTube. Uploads of music videos from the band by non-official sources now carry a link reading “Contains content from Sony BMG,” which leads users to the official Modest Mouse page on the site.
Commenter Mr. E discovers that the “claim” link is added automatically, by Google’s YouTube Video ID Tool, when a matching video is spotted on upload. read more »
Charter to Insert Ads into Web Pages Its Broadband Customers Visit - Via Threat Level:
Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest ISPs, plans to track the web surfing habits of its customers in order to insert its own ads into web pages being visited by its customers, making it the first large American ISP to inject content into traffic its customers pay them to deliver.
In letters being sent to its 2.7 million high speed internet customers, Charter is billing its new ad insertion program as an 'enhancement' for customers' web surfing experience. The letters were first reported by BroadbandReports.com user on Sunday.
Browsing the web can become more like flipping through your favorite magazine, where you see ads that are appealing to you and enhance your enjoyment and the utility of the experience.
Users can opt out of the system, but have to give their full name and address to get an opt-out cookie. The process would have to be repeated for every browser on every computer in a home to block the service, and would have to be reset if cookies are ever deleted.
Charter is entering tricky legal and political territory. The company claims that the program won't show users more ads than they saw before – which means that Charter plans to overwrite the ads from sites like Wired.com. Such a move could easily lead to lawsuits. read more »
Shamos on paper trails - Via Freedom to Tinker:
In an interview today with CNet, Michael Shamos talks about paper trails. Shamos is a professor at CMU who has served as a voting system analyst for the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. In this article, a transcript of an interview conducted by Declan McCullagh, he spends a fair bit of time trashing paper trails, and by that, he’s referring to the “toilet paper roll” thermal printer attachments that are sold by the major U.S. voting system vendors.
He’s correct, to a limited extent. He discusses a “20%” failure rate, which he probably gets from some problems in Ohio. It’s certainly the case that these things are poorly engineered. The ostensible reason for the continuous paper roll, as opposed to cutting the sheets individually, is that you’d have better reliability. However, having the votes recorded in the order they were cast is a clear violation of voter privacy. read more »
Counterfeits, Trojan Horses, and shady distributors - Via Freedom to Tinker:
Last Friday, the New York Times published an article about counterfeit Cisco products that have been sold as if they were genuine and are widely used throughout the U.S. government. The article also raised the concern that these counterfeits could well be engineered with malicious intent, but that this appears not to have been the case. There was an immediate Slashdot thread as well, but a number of issues are still worth commenting on.
First things first: the facts, as best we understand them. The New York Times reports that approximately 3500 counterfeit Cisco components (worth $3.5M) have been discovered as a result of a two-year FBI investigation. A Cisco spokesman is quoted saying that they found “no evidence of re-engineering.” In other words, we’re talking about faithful knock-offs of legitimate products.
If you go to the FBI’s unclassified PowerPoint presentation (dated January 11, 2008), you’ll see all the actual information. This is a fascinating read. read more »
Voluntary Collective Licensing and Extortion - Via Freedom to Tinker:
Reihan Salam has a new piece at Slate about voluntary collective licensing of music (which was also the topic of an online symposium organized by our center at Princeton). I’m generally a fan of Reihan’s work, but this time I think he got it wrong. His piece starts like this:
What would you do if a bully—let’s call him “Joey Giggles”—kept snatching your ice-cream cone? OK, now what if Joey Giggles then told you, “If you pay me five bucks a month, I’ll stop snatching your ice cream.” Depending on how much you hate getting beaten up, and how much you love ice-cream cones, you might decide that caving in is the way to go. This is what’s called a protection racket. It’s also potentially the new model for how we’ll buy and listen to music.
[…]
Now Big Music is mulling the Joey Giggles approach. Warner Music Group is trying to rally the rest of the industry behind a plan to charge Internet service providers $5 per customer per month, an amount that would be added to your Internet bill. In exchange, music lovers would get all the online tunes they want, meaning that anyone who spends more than $60 a year on music will come out way ahead. Download whatever you want and pay nothing! No more DRM! Swap files to your heart’s content—we promise, we won’t sue you (or snatch your ice-cream cone)!
This idea, that collective licenses amount to extortion — pay us or we’ll sue you — is often heard, but I don’t think it’s a valid criticism of collective licenses. read more »
London Lawyers Demand £600 For One Game - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
Barence writes "A PC Pro reader has received a demand for a £600 out-of-court settlement from lawyers claiming to have forensic evidence that he illegally downloaded a PC game on BitTorrent. The law firm, Davenport Lyons, is acting on the behalf of German games distributor Zuxxez, creator of the game in question, Two Worlds. The PC Pro reader was given no prior warning to stop file sharing, unlike the usual 'three strikes and you're out' approach adopted by the music industry. The reader says, 'To add insult to injury it [Davenport Lyons] didn't pay enough postage on the letter and I had to collect it from the sorting office at a cost of £1.30. This also used up most of the two weeks that it allowed for a response.'"
Senate Votes to Prevent Genetic Discrimination in the Workplace - Via NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS:
As research of preventative genetic testing increases, many fear the impact this information can have on employment and health-insurance practices -- leading the Senate to vote Thursday to ban genetic-based discrimination. An expert on genetics examines the issue.
(Read Original Article - Via NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS.)
Knitwit BBC Goes After Dr Who Fans - Via EFF: Deep Links:
Here's a fascinating UK legal analysis of an incident we see occurring all over the world: an over-eager rightsholder undermining Internet goodwill by pursuing their own fans for supposed IP infringements.
Andre Guadamuz, is a lecturer at the Edinburgh University school of law, and organizes the fantastic British conference on "geek law", Gikii. He was recently put in contact by the Open Rights Group with Mazzmatazz, a Dr Who fansite which posts knitting patterns of the current batch of Dr Who monsters, including those obedient servants of man, the Ood (see above). read more »
Diebold Admits ATMs Are More Robust Than Voting Machines - Via Slashdot:
An anonymous reader points out a story in the Huffington Post about the status of funding for election voting systems. It contains an interesting section in which Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier (formerly Diebold) acknowledged that less money is spent making an electronic voting machine than on a typical ATM. The ironically named Riggall also notes that security could indeed be improved, but at a higher price than most election administrators would care to pay. Also quoted in the article is Ed Felten, who has recently found some inconsistencies in New Jersey voting machines. From the Post: read more »
Do You Own Your Software? WoW Glider Case Not Just About Getting to Level 70. - Via EFF: Deep Links:
Unbeknownst to most software users, a lawsuit now at a critical stage could drastically expand the ability of software vendors to restrict how their customers can use their software.
Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes the hugely popular massive multi-player online role-playing game World of Warcraft, sued Michael Donnelly, the developer of Glider, a program that helps WoW users raise their character level to 70 by “playing” for the user while the user goes to get a cup of coffee, read the paper, etc. The WoW licensing agreement ostensibly forbids using programs like Glider. Blizzard says that Donnelly illegally interfered with that agreement by selling Glider and, therefore, encouraging users to breach the license agreement by using the program. read more »
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