Lessig "the world's most important pessimist" is quasi-optimistic about Microsoft? - yeah, that's what this article in Red Herring suggests, believe it or not. The article is about Palladium, M-soft's DRM initiative. Lessig seems to say that Palladium is better because it respects peer-to-peer better than other DRM concepts. Um, okay. I'm thinking about this. But, I've got to be honest: I don't really understand why this is "better DRM." And since it's an optimistic statement from Lessig about Microsoft I really, really want to understand. This passage in particular seems important, but not sufficiently clear, to me:
"Peer-to-peer systems, for example, depend upon many copies of the same content living in many different places across the Net. Copy-protection systems defeat this design; token systems that respect the network's end-to-end design need not."
Anyone understand what his argument is? Later (9-12): Well, obviously Lessig understands his own argument and here's his response. Okay, not optimistic. Got that. But I'm still confused about other stuff, and so I'll have to educate myself on what Palladium is and read the comments that people like Will Cox et al. are adding to this post. Clearly this is a topic worth studying, and I intend to do so as soon as I finish preparing for an upcoming trial and completing the move of my house (which I'm embroiled in this week).
10:52:50 PM
Law Blogger abroad - Maximillian Dornseif is at the University of Bonn, Germany. His blog is called disLEXia, and is about "lies, law ...the Internet" and other cool stuff. Check it out.
10:11:12 PM
Wired Mag does "tired" piece on wireless - Glenn Fleishmann of 80211b News analyzes the flaw in this article. At one point he asks one question I was wondering about. The writer went into a couple of hotel lobbies that were supposed to have wireless in the lobby and asked if they had wireless, and they said no. So he basically says "well they claim they have it and they don't." Glenn asks the obvious question:
"Did the writer turn his laptop on in these hotels to see if Wi-Fi existed? No. Did he call the partners who run the Wi-Fi in these hotels to find out what the story is? No. He basically relies on the lack of information provided, even to the extent that he's told he can't log on and doesn't try. (Most of us are willing to slip into a hotel lobby or bar and check for Wi-Fi, aren't we?)"
If you haven't read the article go read it. It's a nice little puff piece. But then (especially if you routinely use wireless Internet) go read Glenn's piece. The above quote is it's own form of puff piece; the important points are in Glenn's analysis. Note to Wired magazine: next time you do an article on Wi-Fi have Glenn write it for you.
3:14:45 PM
