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The Internet

Survey Finds Canadians Support Net Neutrality Law 201

Posted by kdawson from the hands-off-our-packets-eh dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A new public opinion survey conducted in Canada finds overwhelming public support in that country for net neutrality legislation. Three-quarters of Canadians believe the government should pass a law to confirm the right of Internet consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice — even though most of those surveyed did not know the term 'net neutrality.' The survey was commissioned by eBay." Of course the devil is in the wording. Given the survey's sponsorship, it's unlikely that respondents were presented with examples of the value that ISPs say packet shaping can bring, or asked to weigh such against net neutrality.
Communications

Verizon, Copper, Fiber, and the Truth 367

Posted by kdawson from the got-a-story-to-tell dept.
Alexander Graham Cracker writes "Starting last spring, reports began surfacing of Verizon routinely disabling copper as it installed its fiber-based FiOS service. We discussed the issue here a couple of times. In my experience, every time Verizon has installed FiOS at a friend's house, they have insisted they have to cut off the copper and move the POTS to the fiber. By doing so, they block anyone else such as COVAD or Cavalier from renting the copper for competitive access. Sources report that today, at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Verizon executive VP Thomas Tauke denied ever doing that. (The transcript should be up in a day or so. The AP coverage does not mention this detail.) I wonder if Rep. Markey's staff is interested in hearing from people who experienced Verizon disabling copper, and without notice?"
Microsoft

Groklaw Guts the Novell/Microsoft Deal 267

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-read dept.
walterbyrd writes "Pamala Jones, at groklaw, totally rips apart the Novell/Deal patent protection deal. From the article: 'Justin Steinman reveals that to market their SUSE Linux Enterprise Server against Red Hat they ask, "Do you want the Linux that works with Windows? Or the one that doesn't?" It's just appalling. Let me ask you developers who are kernel guys a question: When you contributed code to the kernel, was it your intent that it be used against Red Hat? How about the rest of you developers? Is that all right with you, that your code is being marketed by Novell like that? I also have questions about antitrust issues, with Microsoft being Novell's partner in such deals and sales pitches. Nothing speaks louder about Microsoft's true determination never to be actually interoperable than this conference.'"
The Courts

Submission + - Johnson & Johnson Sues Red Cross Over Symbol (nytimes.com)

Submitted by MarkAyen
MarkAyen writes: Johnson & Johnson is suing the American Red Cross over use of the red cross symbol. Johnson & Johnson argues that the red cross symbol has been its exclusive trademark for commercial products for over 100 years.

This is ironic given the Red Cross' harassment of the video game industry over use of the red cross emblem in video games.
Security

A Foolproof Way To End Bank Account Phishing? 436

Posted by kdawson from the worth-a-try dept.
tcd004 writes "F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen proposes an elegant solution to the problem of bank account phishing in the latest Foreign Policy magazine. Hypponen thinks banks should have exclusive use of a new top-level domain: .bank. 'Registering new domains under such a top-level domain could then be restricted to bona fide financial organizations. And the price for the domain wouldn't be just a few dollars: it could be something like $50,000 — making it prohibitively expensive to most copycats. Banks would love this. They would move their existing online banks under a more secure domain in no time."
Movies

Jack Valenti, Dead at 85 650

Posted by CowboyNeal from the man-behind-the-ratings dept.
saforrest writes "Jack Valenti, a man whose influence in both Washington and Hollywood was profound, died today at age 85. He first became famous as special assistant to Lyndon Johnson: he can even be seen in the famous photo aboard Air Force One. In 1966, he quit this job to become president of the MPAA, from 1966 to 2004."
Movies

MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents 579

Posted by CowboyNeal from the old-bait-and-switch dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs have been caught trapping people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. The battle between P2P networks and copyright holders seems to be a never ending battle. It will be interesting to see how much the anti-piracy groups practices change once they begin begin selling movies and TV shows legally on bittorrent.com."

EA Announces Open-Ended RPG 96

Posted by Zonk from the nice-idea-now-its-mine dept.
With the success of Bethesda's Oblivion featuring so prominently in the headlines of late, EA's announcement of 'Project Gray Company' comes as little surprise. From the Gamespot blurb: "The action takes place in a massive open world where you can go anywhere you want, and the characters in this world are powered by an incredible simulation [artificial intelligence] based on the same technology used by the makers of The Sims 2. The story of the game is built around a series of Story Quests. You can choose to follow specific Story Quests, embark on a range of other types of quests, or set off on your own adventures in the massive open world environment."

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