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Games

Submission + - Games Workshop Evil Recap (boingboing.net)

Submitted by
mark.leaman
mark.leaman writes: "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. "Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games..." As a life long hobby gamer, of table, board, card and miniature games I view this as pure heresy. And made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. Here's the a recap...Games Workshop Forbids Warhammer Fan Films, Games Workshop Shuts Down Vassal Modules, Games Workshop Order Boardgamegeek.com File Purge, Games Workshop Shuts Down Internet Retailing for retailers that use their IP to solicit purchases. What gives GW? What ever happened to fair use?"
Privacy

Submission + - E-mail Not Protected by 4th Amendment (volokh.com) 3

Submitted by DustyShadow
DustyShadow writes: In the case In re United States, Judge Mosman ruled that there is no constitutional requirement of notice to the account holder because the Fourth Amendment does not apply to e-mails under the third-party doctrine. "When a person uses the Internet, the user’s actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, “private” information is actually being held by third-party private companies."
Privacy

Demo of EU's Planned "INDECT" Hints At Massive Data Mining, Little Privacy 122

Posted by timothy from the greater-good-strikes-back dept.
Ronald Dumsfeld writes "Wikinews puts together some of the details around the EU's five-year-plan called Project INDECT, and brings attention to a leaked 'sales-pitch' video: 'An unreleased promotional video for INDECT located on YouTube is shown to the right. The simplified example of the system in operation shows a file of documents with a visible INDECT-titled cover stolen from an office and exchanged in a car park. How the police are alerted to the document theft is unclear in the video; as a "threat," it would be the INDECT system's job to predict it. Throughout the video use of CCTV equipment, facial recognition, number plate reading, and aerial surveillance give friend-or-foe information with an overlaid map to authorities. The police proactively use this information to coordinate locating, pursing, and capturing the document recipient. The file of documents is retrieved, and the recipient roughly detained.'"

Submission + - FCC To Introduce Net Neutrality Rule

Submitted by
wiredog
wiredog writes: "From The Washington Post comes the news that thee FCC is preparing to propose net neutrality rules.

the proposal will be for an additional guideline that network operators can't discriminate, or act as gatekeepers, of Web content. That proposal will be reviewed across platforms, including wireless networks which have come under scrutiny for allegations of blocking competing voice services offered by carriers.

"
Government

Congress Mulls Research Into a Vehicle Mileage Tax 792

Posted by kdawson from the just-get-on-the-bike dept.
BJ_Covert_Action writes to let us know that an Oregon congressman has filed legislation to spend $154.5M for a research project into tracking per-vehicle mileage in the US, and asks: "Do we really want the government to track our movement and driving habits on a regular basis?" "US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system... Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee... the [Oregon] report urged a mandate for all drivers to install GPS tracking devices that would report driving habits to roadside RFID scanning devices." Here is the bill (PDF). The article notes that the congressman's major corporate donors would likely benefit with contracts if such a program were begun.
Hardware

Submission + - Congress Considers Funding for Vehicle Mileage Tra (thetruthaboutcars.com) 3

Submitted by BJ_Covert_Action
BJ_Covert_Action writes: According to thetruthaboutcars website, the House of Representatives is looking into legislation to divert $154,500,000 in tax dollars for a research project that involves tracking per vehicle mileage in the U.S. From the article:

US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system

The article goes on to describe how Oregon already has done some research and testing of of such a tracking system. Tracking the mileage per vehicle in the United States via a GPS-RFID reader technology combination would allow the federal government to accurately tax motorists based on how far they actually drive. Currently, motorist taxes are levied at the gas pump. The bill being discussed would invest nearly $155 million in developing a system that tracks vehicles based on a unique GPS unit installed in each car. The GPS unit would communicate the data it gathers to RFID readers placed along roadsides at a particular interval. The U.S. Treasury Department would be in charge of the research program and would, thus, receive the appropriated tax money for research.

Like all fun government surveillance legislation, this funding and, if implemented, the program itself raises more questions about American's right to privacy. Do we really want the government, or any other agency for that matter, to track our movement and driving habits on a regular basis?

There is a pdf of the bill available for download on the article page.

Submission + - SPAM: IEEE stamps "approved" on 802.11n Wi-Fi standard

Submitted by
alphadogg
alphadogg writes: "The IEEE has finally approved the 802.11n high-throughput wireless LAN standard. Bruce Kraemer, the long-time chairman of the 802.11n Task Group (part of the 802.11 Working Group, which oversees the WLAN standards), has sent out a notification [spam URL stripped] to a listserv for task group members, which includes a wide range of Wi-Fi chip makers, software developers, and equipment vendors."
Link to Original Source
The Internet

Submission + - Geist on Copyright As Canada Consult Nears End

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Canadian law professor Michael Geist, who has been leading the charge on the national copyright consultation with his SpeakOutOnCopyright.ca site, has posted his submission to the consultation. Geist focuses on issues such as fair use and warns against a Canadian DMCA, copyright term extension, and three strikes and you're out. There are only three days left for Canadians to send in their submissions.
Privacy

Submission + - Would you trust an insurance company's "drive- (teensafedriver.com)

Submitted by ramen99
ramen99 writes: Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for our teenage driver if we agree to install a "drive-cam" that records driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a "neutral driving coach" for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The insurance company claims that they would NEVER use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough? Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view mirror, but something seems fishy about this...

Comment Extralegal IP enforcement? (Score 1) 174

by carrus85 (#23829055) Attached to: UCITA By the Back Door
It makes one wonder all of the potential abuses of this law. Since Patents are considered "Intellectual Property", would it be much of a stretch to assume that this law would grant "self help" to those looking to squash patent violators? Microsoft, for example, could probably argue that they can "help" themselves squash patent violators by attacking users of Linux, or OpenOffice (Not that I know of any specific violations in either of these two, but that's the danger of extralegal enforcement; it's shoot first, ask questions later. Only if they are caught are there any problems.), or any number of other technologies. Makes me wonder if the RIAA/MPAA would try to get anything under the radar in this bill. (By trying to argue that extralegal attacks on various networks are legal because they stunt "other illegal activities" performed by software.)
Patents

MP3's Loss, Open Source's Gain 331

Posted by kdawson from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.
nadamsieee refers us to a piece up at Wired on the fallout from Microsoft's recent courtroom loss to Alcatel-Lucent over MP3 patents. From the article: "Alcatel-Lucent isn't the only winner in a federal jury's $1.52 billion patent infringement award against Microsoft this week. Other beneficiaries are the many rivals to the MP3 audio-compression format... Now, with a cloud over the de facto industry standard, companies that rely on MP3 may finally have sufficient motivation to move on. And that raises some tantalizing possibilities, including a real long shot: Open-source, royalty-free formats win."

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