CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Category: Uncategorized

  • DRM Wars: Property Rights Management

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    In the first part of my invited talk at Usenix Security, I argued that as the inability of DRM technology to stop peer-to-peer infringement becomes increasingly obvious to everybody, the rationale for DRM is shifting. The new argument for DRM-bolstering laws is that DRM enables price discrimination and platform lock-in, which are almost always good…

  • DRM Wars: The Next Generation

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    Last week at the Usenix Security Symposium, I gave an invited talk, with the same title as this post. The gist of the talk was that the debate about DRM (copy protection) technologies, which has been stalemated for years now, will soon enter a new phase. I’ll spend this post, and one or two more,…

  • Blocked by Barracuda

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    Reader Jason Green reports that this site is blocked by Barracuda Spyware Firewall version 210. They say it’s a hacking site. Here’s a screenshot. UPDATE (August 4): Barracuda has acknowledged its error and says it is propagating an update to customers to fix it.

  • Bill Gates: Is he an IP Maximalist, or an Open Access Advocate?

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    Maybe both. On July 20, the Wall Street Journal reported: Frustrated that over two decades of research have failed to produce an AIDS vaccine, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is tying his foundation’s latest, biggest AIDS-vaccine grants to a radical concept: Those who get the money must first agree to share the results of their…

  • The New Yorker Covers Wikipedia

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    Writing in this week’s New Yorker, Stacy Schiff takes a look at the Wikipedia phenomenon. One sign that she did well: The inevitable response page at Wikipedia is almost entirely positive. Schiff’s writing is typical of what makes the New Yorker great. It has rich historical context, apt portrayals of the key characters involved in…

  • More on Meta-Freedom

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    Tim Lee comments: The fact that you can waive your free speech rights via contract doesn’t mean that it would be a good idea to enact special laws backing up those contracts with criminal penalties. I think you’re missing an important middle ground here. The choice isn’t between no tinkering rights and constitutionally mandated tinkering…

  • The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?

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    Doug Lay, commenting on my last post, pointed out that the Zune buyout would help make a world of DRM-enabled music services more attractive. “Where,” he asked, “does this leave the freedom to tinker?” Anti-DMCA activism has tended to focus on worst-case, scary scenarios that can spur people to action. It’s a standard move in…

  • Rethinking DRM Dystopia

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    Thanks to Ed for the flattering introduction – now if only I can live up to it! It’s an honor (and a little intimidating) to be guest blogging on FTT after several years as an avid reader. I’ve never blogged before, but I am looking forward to the thoughtful, user-driven exchanges and high transparency that…

  • Guest Blogger: David Robinson

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    I’m thrilled to welcome David Robinson as a guest blogger. David was a star student in my InfoTech and the Law course at Princeton a few years ago. He received a philosophy degree from Princeton and proceeded to Oxford, studying philosophy and political economy on a Rhodes Scholarship. A budding journalist, he was opinion editor…

  • Banner Ads Launch Security Attacks

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    An online banner advertisement that ran on MySpace.com and other sites over the past week used a Windows security flaw to infect more than a million users with spyware when people merely browsed the sites with unpatched versions of Windows … So says Brian Krebs at the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog. The ads, he…