Archive for November, 2005

How to Invent a Commercial Holiday

Monday, November 28th, 2005

Have you heard of Cyber Monday? It's like Black Friday, only for online shopping, and on Monday. Also, it was created out of thin air by some industry group with surprisingly effective PR. Slacktivist has a good writeup (and makes sure to address the insidiousness of online marketers cutting in ...

P2Pnet: DoJ should take stance on Sony

Monday, November 21st, 2005

Good (if not great) piece arguing that the Department of Justice should prosecute--or publicly decide not to prosecute--Sony over the rootkit scandal.

Minilink: Blackboard e-surveillance by NYU

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

In its efforts to bust the grad student employees' union strike, NYU has resorted to unannounced internet eavesdropping. Hundreds of faculty back the strike, and the same folks (not to mention the graduate teaching assistants) are hopping mad over this latest dirty trick. Props to Siva for his signature.

Minilink: DRM horror story

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

Click here to learn about one man's problems hacking Apple's DRM. All he wanted was a good night's sleep.

Sony, embarrassed, retreats

Friday, November 11th, 2005

After taking a huge beating in the public's eye for selling CDs that install spyware on users' computers, Sony has halted production of the CDs. Of course, they still haven't released the full list of affected CDs or told the public how to uninstall the junk. At least one trojan has ...

GOP Urges Investigation of “Secret” Prison Leak

Friday, November 11th, 2005

The Washington Post reports:Congress's top Republican leaders yesterday demanded an immediate joint House and Senate investigation into the disclosure of classified information to The Washington Post that detailed a web of secret prisons being used to house and interrogate terrorism suspects.Notice that there's no suggestion of investigation of the actual ...

Lessig on UN Internet Control

Thursday, November 10th, 2005

Lawrence Lessig on a recent debate: should the UN control the Internet?

DMCA article accepted

Tuesday, November 8th, 2005

The Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal has agreed to publish a paper I wrote with Oscar Gandy. The paper, Catch 1201: A Legislative History and Content Analysis of the DMCA Exemption Proceedings, argues that the triennial rulemaking to determine exemptions to the ban against hacking technological protection measures is ...

Unexpected Effects of Copy Protection

Monday, November 7th, 2005

Some players of the multiplayer online game World of Warcraft have figured out how to use Sony's CD copy protection software to elude cheater-detection software (which is another controversy altogether, as the game publisher's efforts to keep the game cheater-free involve some invasion of privacy). I figured this was worth posting, ...

Endangered species: Your right to record

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

Check out this EFF Action Alert. NOW. The RIAA and MPAA are trying to radically cripple your right to record anything without their permission. Read more about it here. Then, contact your congresspersons.