Category: Uncategorized
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Lexmark Opinion Available
The Court’s opinion in the Lexmark case is now available. Here’s a summary. (Caveat: I’m inferring some of the technical details, since all I have is the Court’s summary of what the expert witnesses said; but I’m fairly confident that my inferences are correct.) Toner cartridges for certain Lexmark printers contain small computer programs that…
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Static Control Countersues Lexmark
Static Control, a maker of replacement toner cartridge supplies for Lexmark-brand printers, has added antitrust claims to a lawsuit against Lexmark, reports an AP story by Paul Nowell. Lexmark had sued Static Control for copyright infringement and DMCA violations, after Static Control sold chips that allow non-Lexmark toner cartridges to work in Lexmark printers. Recently…
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Broadcast Flag Blues
The FCC recently accepted reply comments on its broadcast flag proposal. I submitted a written comment, pointing out that some technical claims made by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) in their comments were spectacularly wrong. [Background: The FCC, which regulates television broadcasting, asked for public comments on whether to issue “broadcast flag” regulations.…
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Who Uses Peer-to-Peer?
If you listen to the rhetoric about peer-to-peer copyright infringement, you might conclude that most of that infringement takes place at universities. But at this week’s House hearings on “Peer-to-Peer Piracy on University Campuses,” committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith reportedly cited statistics showing that 10% of P2P users are at educational institutions. That’s surprisingly low.…
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Berkeley DRM Workshop
It’s the second day of the Berkeley DRM Workshop, a wonderful conference. Donna points to live commentary from several bloggers. I was on a panel with David Wagner, Hal Abelson, John Erickson, Joe Liu, and Larry Lessig. My quick presentation (here, in PowerPoint format) was about the (negative) impact of DRM and its companion regulations…
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Lexmark Gets Preliminary Injunction
A news.com story by David Becker reports that a Federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction against Static Control in the DMCA lawsuit brought by Lexmark. To review, Lexmark makes printers, and Static Control makes replacement toner cartridges for Lexmark printers. Lexmark’s printers do a cryptographic handshake with Lexmark-brand toner cartridges, and Static Control cartridges…
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Congressmen Tell Universities to Stop P2P
Declan McCullagh at CNet news.com reports on a congressional committee hearing today about P2P copyright infringement at universities. Some in Congress are turning up the rhetorical heat on universities, urging them to react to copyright infringement as energetically as they react to the most serious crimes. Members of the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees…
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Berman Bill May Not Return
According to an article by Jon Healey in Friday’s Los Angeles Times, Rep. Howard Berman may not reintroduce his “peer-to-peer hacking” bill in the new Congress. The bill, you may recall, would authorize copyright owners to launch some types of targeted denial of service attacks against people who are offering infringing files via peer-to-peer systems…
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E-Voting Victory (Probably)
Santa Clara County, California, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, has decided that their new electronic voting machines must offer voter-checkable audit records. An AP story at the New York Times reports that the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, will add paper receipt printers to their machines to accomodate the county. This looks like a…
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Another Attempted Suppression of Security Research
Researchers at Cambridge University published information on a flaw in banks’ procedures that rogue bank employees may have been using to learn the PINs from many customers’ ATM cards. It has always been easy to forge ATM cards, so knowing the PIN allows criminals to steal money easily from customers’ accounts. Now some banks are…