CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Year: 2003

  • Here We Go Again

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    Rep. John Conyers has introduced the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003 in the House of Representatives. The oddest provision of the bill is this one: (a) Whoever knowingly offers enabling software for download over the Internet and does not– (1) clearly and conspicuously warn any person downloading that…

  • Back in the Saddle

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    I haven’t been posting much lately, due to a high-intensity project that has sucked up all of my time. But now that’s over, so I should return to normal posting pace soon.

  • Why Aren't Virus Attacks Worse?

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    Dan Simon notes a scary NYT op-ed, “Terrorism and the Biology Lab,” by Henry C. Kelly. Kelly argues convincingly that ordinary molecular biology students will soon be able to make evil bio-weapons. Simon points out the analogy to computer viruses, which are easily made and easily released. If serious bio-weapons become as common as computer…

  • Aimster Loses

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    As expected, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s temporary injunction against the Aimster file-sharing service. The Court’s opinion was written by Judge Richard Posner. I noted three interesting things in the opinion. First, the court seemed unimpressed with Aimster’s legal representation. At several points the opinion notes arguments that Aimster…

  • P2P Evolution to Accelerate

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    The Washington Post online has a nice summary/directory of articles on the RIAA’s upcoming crackdown on peer-to-peer file sharers. The crackdown seems like a risky move, but it seems the industry can’t think of anything else to do about their P2P problem. When the industry sued Napster into oblivion, Napster was replaced, hydra-like, by a…

  • A Modest Proposal

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    Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can condition Federal funding for libraries on the libraries’ use of censorware (i.e., that a law called CIPA is consistent with the constitution), it’s time to take a serious look at the deficiencies of censorware, and what can be done about them. Suppose you’re a librarian…

  • Hatch "Clarifies" His Position

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    Senator Orrin Hatch issued a short press release yesterday, backtracking from his previous (mis-)statement about remedies for copyright infringement. There are some interesting tidbits in the release, which I quote here in full, with the surprising bits italicized: HATCH COMMENTS ON COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT Washington – Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary…

  • Layers

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    Lawrence Solum and Minn Chung have a new paper, “The Layers Principle: Internet Architecture and the Law,” in which they argue that layering is an essential part of the Internet’s architecture and that Internet regulation should therefore respect the Internet’s layered nature. It’s a long paper, so no short commentary can do it justice, but…

  • DRM and Black Boxes

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    Lisa Rein has posted (with permission) a video of my short presentation at the Berkeley DRM conference. I talked about the push to turn technologies into “black boxes” that the public is not allowed to study, understand, or discuss, and how that paralyzes public debate on important issues such as electronic voting.

  • RIAA/Student Suits Back in the News

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    Jesse Jordan, one of the students sued by the RIAA, is back in the news. It’s not that anything new has happened; it’s just that Jordan and his father are complaining about the unfairness of the suit and of the $12,000 settlement. It’s true, as Seth Finkelstein observes, that continuing to fight the suit was…