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Privacy

Privacy Commissioner Criticizes Canadian DMCA 72

Posted by kdawson from the opting-out-is-not-circumventing dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has criticized the proposed Canadian DMCA in a public letter to Jim Prentice, the Canadian Minister of Industry. Specifically, she's asking them not to protect any DRM from circumvention that gathers and transmits personal data, because that would give abusive DRM makers a legal cudgel to use against anyone who exposes them. The proposed bill, which was recently delayed due to heavy opposition, is thought to contain DMCA-style anti-circumvention provisions that would make it illegal to investigate or remove intrusive DRM, even if that DRM was violating Canadian privacy laws."
Businesses

Corporate Email Etiquette - Dead or Alive? 504

Posted by Zonk from the on-a-steel-horse-i-ooops dept.
mbravo writes "I work in a largish company, heavily into IT, and in a complex and quickly changing market. Employees are predominantly in the 30 or younger age-bracket, and as you might expect we rely on a lot of internal e-mail. Despite that, lately I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated by a complete lack of e-mail etiquette in the company. A typical thread might look like a hundred-message-long chain of one-line replies, with full quoting and hundreds of recipients in the 'To:' field. It feels like it is happening more and more often. I don't seem to be seeing much success in explaining to my co-workers what the problem is here. How do you deal with this at your place of business, and does your company care? Does the company take any policing or educating measures?"
Patents

Yahoo Patents 'Smart' Drag and Drop 128

Posted by Zonk from the will-wonders-never-cease dept.
Unequivocal writes "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo has filed a patent for 'smart' drag and drop. From the article: 'A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising: providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface; and in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.' How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all, but it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent. If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors."

Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year? 561

Posted by Zonk from the that's-mighty-fast dept.
KrispySausage writes "A recently-released roadmap for the next major Window release — Windows 7 — indicates that Microsoft is planning to release the new operating system in the second half of 2009, rather than the anticipated release date of some time in 2010. This quickly-approaching release date would seem to be at least partially verified by news of a milestone build available for review by an anonymous third party." We've previously discussed the upcoming new OS version, as well as its danger to Vista.
The Courts

Groklaw Explains the Cyberlaw "Trademark" 37

Posted by kdawson from the black-letter dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "PJ of Groklaw has written in more detail about the lawyer trying to get a servicemark on the term 'cyberlaw'. (We discussed this here a few days back.) First, she notes that it's only a trademark application at this point. Furthermore, 'cyberlaw' is a generic term with 300,000+ hits on Google and an entry in some dictionaries and reference sites. In other words, while it's silly for a law firm that should know better to file a trademark application, it shouldn't and probably won't be granted if the law is followed. The article is interesting because it spells out the difference between trademarks and servicemarks, as well as explaining the law surrounding them — a law that differs significantly from copyright law."
Microsoft

Microsoft Unveils Virtualization Strategy 141

Posted by kdawson from the getting-all-hyper dept.
billstewart writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will be announcing a virtualization strategy on Tuesday. Of course there's plenty of focus on the competition with VMware, including the obligatory reference to Microsoft's entry into the browser wars prior to cutting off Netscape's air supply. The pieces of the picture will include: an alliance with Citrix Systems, owners of XenSource; acquisition of privately held Calista Technologies of San Jose, which has software that speeds up the performance of applications running in a virtualized environment; and lower price for Windows Vista used on virtualized computers. Microsoft also reversed its earlier position and will now allow the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista to run under virtualization. The company confirmed its plans to deliver its Hyper-V hypervisor within six months of the launch of Windows Server 2008 (betas available now), which is expected this quarter."

Comment rob pike said this too (Score 1) 676

by mjsottile77 (#21859286) Attached to: Long Live Closed-Source Software?
After reading the article, I do think he has a point to some degree. I've seen comments on here that refer to Unix as like the wheel - Linux is simply polishing an already near-perfect idea. This can't be further from the truth. Look at what the article said -- he was disappointed that Stallman chose to pursue an open source version of an OS that was already at the time recognized as being not only old, but flawed. Age isn't the issue - it's idiotic to toss out an idea simply because of age. But flaws and technical reasons are definitely a cause to reconsider things, such as Unix. It would have been nice if he had chosen to open up a more revolutionary idea and push the field ahead instead of stalling it somewhere in the early 1970s. This isn't a unique sentiment. Rob Pike said a similar thing a few years ago at a talk in Utah (http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf) where he lamented that the fixation on Linux/Unix was leading many people to have blinders restricting them to thinking about the world in a very limited, closed-minded way. Rob happens to come from Bell labs where the original Unix creators realized that more was possible than what the Unix model provided, and they created Plan9 and Inferno. The open source model, while good for code freedom, seems to breed more than anything an irrational devotion to specific technologies simply because implementations of them exist for free. Why are people unwilling to consider that there could be better ways to do something, and that Unix/Linux is not the pinnacle of perfection in operating systems and software? I use Linux every day and enjoy it, but wouldn't blink an eye if something better came along and Linux got tossed off my machine.
GNU is Not Unix

Tech Writers Spreading FUD About GPLv3 411

Posted by CmdrTaco from the spreading-something-but-it-sure-ain't-fud dept.
Tookis writes "Tech writers are spreading FUD about GPLv3 because they fear its take up will slow the adoption of Linux, according to this open source writer. "A large number of tech writers — I wouldn't call them journalists and sully my own profession — are fearful that the license will slow adoption of Linux in the workplace. And that would lead to a lessening of their own importance and influence."" So by posting this, am I spreading fud about spreading fud? I think I broke my brain.
Software

Submission + - MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility

Submitted by RulerOf
RulerOf writes: The AACS Decryption utility released this past December known as BackupHDDVD originally authored by Muslix64 of the Doom9 forums has received its first official DMCA Takedown Notice. It has been widely speculated that the utility itself was not an infringing piece of software due to the fact that it is merely "a textbook implementation of AACS," written with the help of documents publicly available at the AACS LA's website, and that the AACS Volume Unique Keys that the end user isn't supposed to have access to are in fact the infringing content, but it appears that such is not the case. From the thread:

"...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work, ... without the authority of the copyright owner." If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that.
Music

Submission + - The Recording Industry's Failed Digital Strategy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Toronto Star has a terrific article by Michael Geist on the recording industry's failed digital strategy. The article links together the misplaced reliance on DRM and the advocacy for copyright levies to demonstrate how the record labels got the Internet completely wrong.
User Journal

Journal Journal: [Cellular Automata] EXTREME geekiness 1

Journal by Le Marteau

(For the reader who does not know what it is, a quick description: 'cellular automatons' use a grid (typically represented as a two-dimensional array when programmatically done) where each cell has a state (typically, alive or dead, or in some automatons, somewhere in between). In successive generations, the states of cells influence the states of neighboring cells. The most famous example of cellular automaton scheme is Conways G
User Journal

Journal Journal: French WoW player reaches level 70 in 28 hours

Journal by Alien54
A die-hard World of Warcraft player has reached level 70 within 28 hours of The Burning Crusade's release. Gullerbone, a 24-year-old French WoW player, reached level 70 at 4:04 am (CET) on January 17, 2007. He is believed to be the world's first. The fact that a player has managed to reach level 70 so fast will not please developers Blizzard, who had hoped to see th
Censorship

Political Bloggers May Be Forced to Register 658

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the papers-please dept.
Thebes writes "Under Senate Bill S.1, political bloggers with a readership of over 500 who comment on policy matters or hope to incite 'grassroots' action amongst their readers would be forced to register with the Federal Government as lobbyists."

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