Category: Uncategorized
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Acoustic Snooping on Typed Information
Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, and Doug Tygar have an interesting new paper showing that if you have an audio recording of somebody typing on an ordinary computer keyboard for fifteen minutes or so, you can figure out everything they typed. The idea is that different keys tend to make slightly different sounds, and although you…
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Aussie Judge Tweaks Kazaa Design
A judge in Australia has found Kazaa and associated parties liable for indirect copyright infringement, and has tentatively imposed a partial remedy that requires Kazaa to institute keyword-based filtering. The liability finding is based on a conclusion that Kazaa improperly “authorized” infringement. This is roughly equivalent to a finding of indirect (i.e. contributory or vicarious)…
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Back in the Saddle
Hi, all. I’m back from a lovely vacation, which included a stint camping in Sequoia / King’s Canyon National Park, beyond the reach of Internet technology. In transit, I walked right by Jack Valenti in the LA airport. He looked as healthy as ever, and more relaxed than in his MPAA days. Blogging will resume…
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Recommended Reading: The Success of Open Source
It’s easy to construct arguments that open source software can’t succeed. Why would people work for free to make something that they could get paid for? Who will do the dirty work? Who will do tech support? How can customers trust a “vendor” that is so diffuse and loosely organized? And yet, open source has…
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Recommended Reading: Crime-Facilitating Speech
Eugene Volokh has an interesting new paper about Crime-Facilitating Speech (abridged version): “speech [that] provides information that makes it easier to commit crimes, torts, or other harms”. He argues convincingly that many free-speech cases pertain to crime-facilitating speech. Somebody wants to prevent speech because it may facilitate crime, but others argue that the speech has…
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ICANN Challenged on .xxx Domain
The U.S. government has joined other governments and groups in asking ICANN to delay implementation of a new “.xxx” top-level domain, according to a BBC story. Adding a .xxx domain would make little difference in web users’ experiences. Those who want to find porn can easily find it already; and those who want to avoid…
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DMCA, and Disrupting the Darknet
Fred von Lohmann’s paper argues that the DMCA has failed to keep infringing copies of copyrighted works from reaching the masses. Fred argues that the DMCA has not prevented “protected” files from being ripped, and that once those files are ripped they appear on the darknet where they are available to everyone. I think Fred…
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DMCA: An Avoidable Failure
In his new paper, Fred von Lohmann argues that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, when evaluated on its own terms, is a failure. Its advocates said it would prevent widespread online copyright infringement; and it has not done so. Fred is right on target in diagnosing the DMCA’s failure to do what its…
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Measuring the DMCA Against the Darknet
Next week I’ll be participating in a group discussion of Fred von Lohmann’s new paper, “Measuring the DMCA Against the Darknet”, over at the Picker MobBlog. Other participants will include Julie Cohen, Wendy Gordon, Doug Lichtman, Jessica Litman, Bill Patry, Bill Rosenblatt, Larry Solum, Jim Speta, Rebecca Tushnet, and Tim Wu. I’m looking forward to…
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HD-DVD Camp Disses Blu-Ray DRM
Proponents of HD-DVD, one of the two competing next-gen DVD standards, have harsh words for the newly announced DRM technologies adopted by the competing Blu-Ray standard, according to a Consumer Electronics Daily article quoted by an AVS Forum commenter. [Fox engineering head Andy] Setos confirmed BD+ [one of the newly announced Blu-Ray technologies] was based…