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Submission + - Legal motion: hyperlinks are protected by the First Amendment (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lawyers acting for Barrett Brown, the activist-journalist facing more than 100 years in prison for having posted a hyperlink to hacked material, have called for his case to be dismissed on grounds that it violates his First Amendment rights to free speech and would chill the internet. The main allegation against him – spanning 12 counts — is that he posted a hyperlink on an internet chat room to a website containing material hacked from the private intelligence firm Stratfor. The hack included email addresses of 860,000 Stratfor subscribers as well as 60,000 credit card details.

In a legal motion lodged with a federal court in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, Brown’s lawyers argued that the charges against him should be dropped ahead of trial because they were too vague and were in breach of his constitutional right to free speech. By hyperlinking to the hacked material, Brown did not “transfer” the stolen information as he arguably would have done had he embedded the link on his web page, but merely created a path to files that had already been published elsewhere that were in the public domain. Brown’s case is being closely watched by First Amendment lawyers, publishers and activists who fear that a conviction could set a precedent that would criminalise the very act of linking on the internet.

Comment Re:Isn't it kind of obvious? (Score 1) 937

by Smerta (#45913743) Attached to: Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?
Not to nitpick, but I believe it was the throttle, not the pedal, which was stuck open in the recent court cases.

The whole point of the evidence provided was that the throttle position could become decoupled from the commanded throttle (i.e., pedal position) due to defects in Toyota's Electronic Throttle Control.

Submission + - Is exception safe code truly possible? (mortoray.com)

Submitted by mortoraytech
mortoraytech writes: It is important to write exception-safe code. A truly exception-safe function produces no side-effects when an error occurs. It returns to the caller with the exact state of the system as prior to the call. Not upholding this guarantee leaves the caller wondering about the state of the system. But can we really accomplish this?

Submission + - NSA Employee Won't Be Removed As Co-Chair of IRTF Crypto Group

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: An NSA employee who is the co-chairman of a cryptography working group affiliated with the IETF will remain in that position despite calls from members to have him removed. The chairman of the Internet Research Task Force, the body that oversees the research group, rejected requests for the removal of Kevin Igoe of the NSA, saying that his position gave him little real power over the development of cryptographic standards and his removal would set a dangerous precedent.

On Jan. 5, Lars Eggert, chairman of the IRTF, formally rejected the request to remove Igoe, saying that his employment by the NSA should not disqualify him out of hand, and that his actions in the Dragonfly development process could have been seen as mistakes, but were not enough to support the idea that he was purposely subverting the process.

“However, would removing Kevin Igoe as a co-chair address this issue? Co-chairs do not wield more power over the content of the ongoing work than other research group participants. Should we then eliminate all individuals affiliated with the NSA from participating? We may be able to identify those that choose to participate openly under that affiliation, but what about consultants or academics that fund their participation partially or fully through NSA contracts, now or in the past? What about participants from or funded by intelligence agencies in other countries that may or may not have collaborated with the NSA?,” Eggert said.

Submission + - Multi-Protocol SoftEther VPN Becomes Open Source

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Source code for SoftEther VPN, one of the world's most powerful and easy-to-use multi-protocol VPN software, has been released under the GPLv2 license, which means that anyone can modify it, re-compile it and release a derivative of it.

The released source code will allow developers to design and implement a VPN protocol-engine able to achieve high-performance, multi-protocol support VPN communication with high-level penetrating-ability against firewalls. It will also allow them to study the know-how to implement kernel-mode device drivers which access to low-level Ethernet packet processing fabric on modern operating systems.

Submission + - No Question: Snowden was 2013's Most Influential Tech Figure (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Lots of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and developers made headlines in 2013—but in hindsight, Edward Snowden will likely stand as this year’s most influential figure in technology. In June, Snowden began feeding top-secret documents detailing the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs to The Guardian and other newspapers. Much of that information, downloaded by Snowden while he served as a system administrator at an NSA outpost in Hawaii, suggested that the U.S. government swept up massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans as part of its broader operations. Whatever one’s feelings on the debate over privacy and security, it’s undeniable that Snowden’s documents have increased general awareness of online vulnerability; but whether that’s sparked an increased use of countermeasures—including encryption tools—is another matter entirely. On the developer side of things, when you consider the sheer amount of money, time, and code that’ll be invested over the next few years in encryption and encryption-breaking, it’s clear that Snowden’s influence will be felt for quite some time to come—even if the man himself is trapped in Russian exile.

Submission + - The 47 dumbest moments of 2013 (time.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: Over at TIME.com, I rounded up the year's dumbest moments in technology. Yes, the launch of Healthcare.gov is included, as are Edward Snowden's revelations. But so are a bunch of people embarrassing themselves on Twitter, both BlackBerry and Lenovo hiring celebrities to (supposedly) design products, the release of glitchy products ranging from OS X 10.9 Mavericks to the new Yahoo Mail, and much more.

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