Month: April 2004
-
Industry to Sue Supernode Operators?
Rumor has it that the recording industry is considering yet another tactic in their war on peer-to-peer filesharing: lawsuits against people whose computers act as supernodes. Supernodes are a feature of some P2P networks, such as the FastTrack network used by Kazaa and Grokster. Supernodes act as hubs for the P2P network, helping people find…
-
Cyber-Security Research Undersupported
Improving cybersecurity is supposedly a national priority in the U.S., but after reading Peter Harsha’s report on a recent meeting of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), it’s clear that cybersecurity research is severely underfunded. Here’s a summary: The National Science Foundation has very little security research money, enough to fund 40% or less…
-
A Perfectly Compatible Form of Incompatibility
Scientific American has published an interview with Leonardo Chiariglione, the creator of the MP3 music format and formerly head of the disastrous Secure Digital Music Initiative. (SDMI tried to devise a standard for audio content protection. The group suffered from serious internal disagreements, and it finally dissolved after a failed attempt to use DMCA lawsuit…
-
Thoughts on the Gmail Privacy Flap
I have to admit I’m surprised at the magnitude of the recent controversy about Gmail, Google’s new webmail service. Gmail is a free webmail service, giving you up to one gigabyte of storage for email. The service shows you text ads alongside your messages, and provides various search features for your mail. The service has…
-
Grimmelmann on the Digital Cops Conference
James Grimmelmann reports on the recent Digital Cops conference at Yale. It’s a typically Grimmel-rific effort, both entertaining and insightful.
-
Voting Machine Inspection
Yesterday, I had a chance, with some colleagues, to look over the new e-voting machines that will be used in the future here in Mercer County, New Jersey. They’re AVC Advantage machines, made by Sequoia. The machines were available for public inspection at Princeton Borough Hall. (They’re available today too, at the Suzanne Patterson Center,…
-
A Grand Unified Theory of Filesharing
Recently we’ve seen several studies of the impact of filesharing on CD sales. We have enough data now to draw some (very) preliminary conclusions, assuming the studies are correct. Despite the apparent contradictions between the various studies, I think there is a plausible theory that can explain them all – a Grand Unified Theory of…
-
New Study of the Net
Eric Boorstin, a senior at Princeton, just filed his senior thesis, Music Sales in the Age of File Sharing. The thesis includes a clever study of the impact of Internet usage on CD sales. This is a twist on previous studies, which have tried to correlate CD sales to usage of filesharing. The tradeoff here…
-
Princeton Proposes Quotas to Control Grade Inflation
Princeton is considering putting a cap on the number of A’s that professors could award to students, as a way of fighting grade inflation. Details are in Alyson Zureick’s story in today’s Daily Princetonian. To my knowledge, Princeton would be the first major university to take such a step. The proposal would have to be…
-
WIPO Considering a Ban on Computers
Ernest Miller points to a draft treaty being considered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It’s a truly remarkable document. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Here’s the most amazing part, from Article 16, Alternative V: 2. In particular, effective legal remedies shall be provided against those who: … (iii) participate in…