Year: 2010
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Burn Notice, season 4, and the abuse of the MacGuffin
One of my favorite TV shows is Burn Notice. It’s something of a spy show, with a certain amount of gadgets but generally no James Bond-esque Q to supply equipment that’s certainly beyond the reach of real-world spycraft. Burn Notice instead focuses on the value of teamwork, advance planning, and clever subterfuge to pull off…
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The Flawed Legal Architecture of the Certificate Authority Trust Model
Researchers have recently criticized the Certificate Authority Trust Model — which involves the issuance and use of digital certificates to authenticate the identity of websites to end-users — because of an array of technical and institutional problems. The criticism is significant not only because of the systemic nature of the noted problems, but also because…
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Ninth Circuit Ruling in MDY v. Blizzard
The Ninth Circuit has ruled on the MDY v. Blizzard case, which involves contract, copyright, and DMCA claims. As with the district court ruling, I’ll withhold comment due to my involvement as an expert in the case, but the decision may be of interest to FTT readers. [Editor: The EFF has initial reactions here. Techdirt…
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Court Rules Email Protected by Fourth Amendment
Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the contents of the messages in an email inbox hosted on a provider’s servers are protected by the Fourth Amendment, even though the messages are accessible to an email provider. As the court puts it, “[t]he government may not compel a commercial…
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Two Stories about the Comcast/Level 3 Dispute (Part 2)
In my last post I told a story about the Level 3/Comcast dispute that portrays Comcast in a favorable light. Now here’s another story that casts Comcast as the villain. Story 2: Comcast Abuses Its Market Power As Steve explained, Level 3 is an “Internet Backbone Provider.” Level 3 has traditionally been considered a tier…
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Two Stories about the Comcast/Level 3 Dispute (Part 1)
Like Steve and a lot of other people in the tech policy world, I’ve been trying to understand the dispute between Level 3 and Comcast. The combination of technical complexity and commercial secrecy has made the controversy almost impenetrable for anyone outside of the companies themselves. And of course, those who are at the center…
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Smart electrical meters and their smart peripherals
When I was a college undergraduate, I lived in a 1920’s duplex and I recall my roommate and I trying to figure out where our electrical bill was going. He was standing outside by the electrical meter, I was turning things on and off, and we were yelling back and forth so we could sort…
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Unpeeling the mystique of tamper-indicating seals
As computer scientists have studied the trustworthiness of different voting technologies over the past decade, we notice that “security seals” are often used by election officials. It’s natural to wonder whether they really provide any real security, or whether they are just for show. When Professor Avi Rubin volunteered as an election judge (Marylandese for…
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Trying to Make Sense of the Comcast / Level 3 Dispute
[Update: I gave a brief interview to Marketplace Tech Report] The last 48 hours has given rise to a fascinating dispute between Level 3 (a major internet backbone provider) and Comcast (a major internet service retailer). The dispute involves both technical principles and fuzzy facts, so I am writing this post more as an attempt…
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CITP Seeks Visitors for 2011-2012
The Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) seeks candidates for positions as visiting faculty members or researchers, or postdoctoral research associates for one year appointments for the 2011-2012 academic year. Please see our website for additional information and requirements at http://citp.princeton.edu/call-for-visitors/. If you are interested, please submit a CV and cover letter, stating background, intended…