CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Month: July 2004

  • In Search of Cool Stuff

    – by

    Comments

    In mid-August I’m going to a small technical workshop that has a “cool stuff” session, where everybody is invited to demonstrate or explain to the group something cool. It doesn’t have to be useful or technological; the only requirement is that a group of uber-geeks will think it is cool. Perhaps you can help me…

  • Inducing You to Read Ernest Miller

    – by

    Comments

    Ernest Miller is on a roll lately, especially on the topic of the INCUDE/IICA Act. I would be saying more about this dangerous bill, but Ernie is saying most of what needs to be said. James Grimmelmann at LawMeme made a nice index of Ernie’s INDUCE/IICA writings. Ernie has instituted Hatch’s Hit List, a list…

  • Audible Magic, Revealed

    – by

    Comments

    Chris Palmer at the EFF published a piece this week debunking the Audible Magic technology. He focuses on the CopySense technology. Audible Magic’s CopySense

  • Industries to Form Yet Another DRM Consortium

    – by

    Comments

    A group of large movie and technology companies is about to form yet another consortium to solve the digital copyright problem, according to a John Borland story at news.com. This looks like one more entry in the alphabet soup (SDMI, CPTWG, ARDG) of fruitless efforts to standardize on an effective anti-copying technology. The new entity…

  • Velvet Revolver Album Not DRMed in Japan

    – by

    Comments

    I wrote recently about the Velvet Revolver album that is “protected” by SunnComm ‘s ineffectual CD anti-copying technology. The technology was doomed to fail – and has in fact failed – to keep the music off the popular P2P filesharing systems. It turns out that things are even weirder than I had thought: the very…

  • Computer Ate My Vote Day

    – by

    Comments

    Tomorrow, July 13, is “Computer Ate My Vote Day”. Rallies will be held in many states across the U.S, to ask state officials to use safe and reliable voting technologies. I’ll be speaking at the New Jersey rally, at noon on the steps of the State House in Trenton.

  • Security Theater

    – by

    Comments

    Lots of people are telling airport-security stories these days. Thus far I have refrained from doing so, even though I travel a lot, because I think the TSA security screeners generally do a good job. But last week I saw something so dumb that I just have to share it. I’m in the security-checkpoint line…

  • WSJ Political Diary on INDUCE Act

    – by

    Comments

    Yesterday’s “Political Diary” at the Wall Street Journal’s online OpinionJournal had a nice little piece on Sen. Hatch’s IICA (a.k.a. INDUCE Act). (Access to subscribers only, unfortunately.) The piece, written by David Robinson, notes that Sen. Hatch, who had previously urged vigorous action against music downloaders, even suggesting “destroying their machines,” has now changed his…

  • Fancy DRM For Academy Screeners?

    – by

    Comments

    Movie studios are considering an elaborate DRM scheme to limit copying of promotional “screener” videos distributed to Academy Award voters, according to an AP story by Gary Gentile. The article’s description of the scheme is a bit confusing, but I think I can reconstruct how it works. The studios would distribute a special new DVD…

  • Monoculture Debate: Geer vs. Charney

    – by

    Comments

    Yesterday the USENIX Conference featured a debate between Dan Geer and Scott Charney about whether operating-system monoculture is a threat to computer security. (Dan Geer is a prominent security expert who co-wrote last year’s CCIA report on the monoculture program, and was famously fired by @Stake for doing so. Scott Charney was previously a cybercrime…