CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Tag: Technology and Freedom

  • Tinkering with American History

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    In the latest Newsweek, Malcolm Jones reports on the hot new American History textbook, “Inventing America,” by Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Daniel Kevles and Alexander Keyssar. As soon as you start reading the new college textbook “Inventing America,” you wonder just how far the authors are going to go. They promise to tell the…

  • McGee on Magical Thinking

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    Jim McGee has some interesting thoughts on the problem of magical thinking, especially as manifested in policy discussions. (He also says some kind things about me. Thanks!)

  • Register: Massive P2P Worm

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    Here’s one from the Don’t Believe Everything You Read Department. The Register credulously reports that an anonymous group called “Gobbles” was hired by the RIAA to create and release a worm that infects peer-to-peer networks. The story says that 95% of peer-to-peer connected hosts are infected, and that the worm reports back the contents of…

  • RIAA, Tech Leaders Agree on Status Quo

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    Ted Bridis at AP reports that the RIAA and at least one big tech-industry trade group will announce today that they have reached a “landmark consensus” on lobbying strategy. Essentially, both groups agree to support the legal status quo. The tech industries will join the RIAA in lobbying against consumer fair use measures like the…

  • Google Responds to SearchKing Suit

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    Google has filed a response to SearchKing’s lawsuit against it. James Grimmelmann at LawMeme has the definitive analysis of this lawsuit.

  • Hot Legislative Action

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    Declan McCullagh at news.com gives a rundown of the tech-regulation bills that are likely to be on the table in the new congressional session. Many familiar bills will be back. At least one anticopying technology mandate like the Hollings CBDTPA is likely to be proposed. Changes in committee membership may make a CBDTPA-like bill more…

  • DVD-Jon Acquitted

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    A Norwegian court has found Jon “DVD-Jon” Johansen not guilty of criminal charges relating to the creation of the DeCSS program for reading encrypted DVDs. CNN has the story.

  • Apparent Overblocking by CyberPatrol

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    Today, while visiting a large company, I tried to visit some of the websites on this site’s link-list. I found that three of them were blocked due to “possibly inappropriate content.” The three blocked sites were Eszter Hargittai’s blog, Arnold Kling’s “The Bottom Line”, and Donna Wentworth’s “CopyFight”. (The whole Corante site, which hosts several…

  • More On Elcomsoft's Acquittal

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    Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy explains why ElcomSoft’s ignorance of the law was an excuse in this instance. Also, some are suggesting that jury nullification may have played a role in ElcomSoft’s acquittal. (“Jury nullification” refers to a jury’s refusal to find guilt under a law because they consider that law unjust.) An AP…

  • ElcomSoft Acquitted

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    Lisa Bowman at news.com reports that the jury has found ElcomSoft not guilty of criminally violating the DMCA. It will be interesting to watch the reaction to this. Some people may try to read a lot into the verdict, but this is probably a mistake. Apparently, the verdict relied not on the drawbacks of the…