Tag: Technology and Freedom

Mobile phone networks in the U.S. are developing a rating and filtering system to apply to content on their networks, according to a Reuters story by Antony Bruno. The Federal Communications Commission oversees the distribution of wireless spectrum to U.S. operators, and wireless carriers do not want the [FCC’s] indecency campaign against radio, TV and…

A bill (HB 3245) introduced in the Texas state legislature would exempt meetings discussing “matters relating to computer security or the security of other information resources technologies” from the state’s Open Meetings Act. This seems like a bad idea. Meetings can already be closed if sufficient cause is shown. The mere fact that computer security,…

Yesterday a House subcommittee on “Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property” held hearings on interoperability of music formats. (The National Journal Tech Daily has a good story, unfortunately behind a paywall.) Witnesses spoke unanimously against any government action in this area. According to the NJTD story, [Subcommittee chair Rep. Lamar] Smith and other lawmakers who…

A bill in the California state senate (SB 96), previously dubbed the “Cal-Induce Act,” has now morphed via amendment into a requirement that copyright and porn filters be included in many network software programs. Here’s the heart of the bill: Any person or entity that [sells, advertises, or distributes] peer-to-peer file sharing software that enables…

Cameron Wilson, Director of the ACM Public Policy Office in Washington, looks at changes (made already or widely reported) in the new Congress and what they tell us about likely legislative action. (He co-writes the ACM U.S. Public Policy Blog, which is quite good.) He mentions four hot areas. The first is regulation of peer-to-peer…

A while back I wrote about a method (well known to cryptography nerds) to frustrate network monitoring. It works by breaking up a file into several shares, in such a way that any individual share, and indeed any partial subset of the shares, looks entirely random, but if you have all of the shares then…

First thing this morning, I’m sitting in my bathrobe, scanning my inbox, when I’m jolted awake by the headline on a TechDirt story: California Senator Wants to Throw Ed Felten in Jail I guess I’ll take the time to read that story! Kevin Murray, a California legislator, has introduced a bill that would fine, or…

Regular readers know that I am often skeptical about whether technology regulations can really be enforced. Often, a regulation that would make sense if it were (magically) enforceable, turns out to be a bad idea when coupled with a realistic enforcement strategy. A good illustrative example of this issue arises in Major League Baseball’s new…

Last week, in response to the MPAA lawsuits against BitTorrent trackers, I wrote that it’s impossible to sue BitTorrent itself, because it is nothing but a communications protocol. Michael Madison was skeptical, which was a fair response given what little I had written on the subject. Let me say a bit more, to clarify. Opponents…