CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Month: August 2004

  • SHA-1 Break Rumored

    – by

    Comments

    There’s a rumor circulating at the Crypto conference, which is being held this week in Santa Barbara, that somebody is about to announce a partial break of the SHA-1 cryptographic hashfunction. If true, this will have a big impact, as I’ll describe below. And if it’s not true, it will have helped me trick you…

  • DVD Jon Strikes Again

    – by

    Comments

    Jon Johansen, known widely as “DVD Jon” for his work on DVD decryption utilities, has released a tool that lets anyone stream music to the Apple Airport Express. The Airport Express is a slick little gizmo that plugs into any electrical outlet, and can receive content wirelessly and output it on standard connectors to a…

  • MS To Offer Crippled Windows in Asia

    – by

    Comments

    Microsoft plans to offer a reduced-functionality version of Windows XP to customers in a few Asian countries, according to an AP story by Alisa Tang. The “XP Starter Edition” software will lack support for high-res graphic (beyond 800×600), home networking and printer sharing, and other features. It will also be able to run at most…

  • FCC Tome on Net Wiretapping

    – by

    Comments

    The FCC has released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Internet wiretapping. (Backstory here.) The NPRM outlines a set of rules that the FCC is likely to issue, requiring certain online service providers to facilitate (properly authorized) government wiretapping of their customers. The document is a dense 100 pages, and it touches on issues…

  • WSJ Opposes Induce Act

    – by

    Comments

    The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial today, has come out against the Induce Act. (Sorry, I don’t have an online pointer to the editorial, since I’m not a subscriber.)

  • Online Principles

    – by

    Comments

    Susan Crawford recently proposed a list of “online principles” to guide development of the online world. Seth Finkelstein comments, “Been there, done that, doesn’t work”; but John Palfrey counters that Susan’s effort is worthwhile. Surely it’s worthwhile for almost any group to spend at least a tiny fraction of its time talking about its overall…

  • State AGs Warn P2P Vendors

    – by

    Comments

    Yesterday, the National Association of [state] Attorneys General sent a letter to P2P United, a trade association of peer-to-peer vendors, chiding the P2P industry for fostering porn, spyware, and copyright infringement. Though the letter does make a few good points, overall it’s an embarrassment to the attorneys general. For starters, the letter contains some real…

  • Lawprofs Predict Future of Copyright Law

    – by

    Comments

    Tim Wu, guest-blogging over at Larry Lessig’s site, reports: So today copyright scholar Joe Liu at Boston College asked a room full of law professors an interesting question. What did we think copyright would look like in 8 years? Here were some of the main categories of predictions (some contradict): 1. Primarily a criminal regime…

  • Kerry and Copyright

    – by

    Comments

    Tim Wu, guest-blogging on Larry Lessig’s site, asks hypothetically whether President Kerry would veto the Induce Act. Tim, quoting some vague pro-technology language from Kerry’s website, suggests that Kerry might veto the Act. This is wishful thinking. The fact is that the record of Kerry, and the Democrats in general, on the copyright/innovation issue is…