CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

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  • New $2B Dutch Transport Card is Insecure

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    The new Dutch transit card system, on which $2 billion has been spent, was recently shown by researchers to be insecure. Three attacks have been announced by separate research groups. Let’s look at what went wrong and why. The system, known as OV-chipkaart, uses contactless smart cards, a technology that allows small digital cards to…

  • Clinton's Digital Policy

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    This is the second in our promised series summing up where the 2008 presidential candidates stand on digital technology issues. (See our first post, about Obama). This time,we’ll take a look at Hillary Clinton Hillary has a platform plank on innovation. Much of it will be welcome news to the research community: She wants to…

  • Second Life Welcomes Bank Regulators

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    Linden Lab, the company that runs the popular virtual world Second Life, announced Tuesday that all in-world “banks” must now be registered with real-world banking regulators: As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such…

  • Scoble/Facebook Incident: It's Not About Data Ownership

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    Last week Facebook canceled, and then reinstated, Robert Scoble’s account because he was using an automated script to export information about his Facebook friends to another service. The incident triggered a vigorous debate about who was in the right. Should Scoble be allowed to export this data from Facebook in the way he did? Should…

  • 2008 Predictions

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    Here are the official Freedom to Tinker predictions for 2008, based on input by Alex Halderman, David Robinson, Dan Wallach, and me. (1) DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly. (2) Copyright issues will still be gridlocked in Congress. (3) No patent reform…

  • 2007 Predictions Scorecard

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    As usual, we’ll start the new year by reviewing the predictions we made for the previous year. Here now, our 2007 predictions, in italics, with hindsight in ordinary type. (1) DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly. We predict this every year, and…

  • Three Down, One to Go: Warner Music to Sell MP3s

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    Warner Music will sell music through Amazon’s online store without DRM (copy protection) technology, according to a New York Times story by Jeff Leeds. This is a big step for Warner, given that earlier this year Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman said that selling MP3s would be “completely without logic or merit.” The next question is…

  • Obama's Digital Policy

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    The Iowa caucuses, less than a week away, will kick off the briefest and most intense series of presidential primaries in recent history. That makes it a good time to check in on what the candidates are saying about digital technologies. Between now and February 5th (the 23-state tsunami of primaries that may well resolve…

  • The Return of 3-D Movies

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    [Today’s guest post is by longtime reader and commenter Mitch Golden. Thanks, Mitch! If you’re a Freedom to Tinker reader and have a great idea for a guest post, please let me know. – Ed] Last Friday I was at a movie preview for a concert movie called U23D, which, as you will correctly surmise,…

  • The "…and Technology" Debate

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    When an invitation to the facebook group came along, I was happy to sign up as an advocate of ScienceDebate 2008, a grassroots effort to get the Presidential candidates together for a group grilling on, as the web site puts it, “what may be the most important social issue of our time: Science and Technology.”…