Friday, September 20, 2002

Now this is an area that is getting my attention.  What, in four more years I have to buy all new TVs?  I can't time shift a program to suit my personal schedule?  Come on give me a break. Wired News - New Bill: More Digital TV Limits. After spending a year in closed-door sessions with industry leaders, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana) released a draft of his long-awaited DTV bill. The controversial measure calls for the adoption of a broadcast flag, an end to analog television compatibility and increased cable interoperability. "The lack of progress in private, inter-industry negotiations and the number of outstanding FCC rulemakings has led to uncertainty in the marketplace, and makes it very difficult for businesses to make solid plans for the future," Tauzin said. However, some groups believe that in his effort to jump-start the digital television industry, Tauzin has given Hollywood the keys to control what American viewers do in their living rooms. [ ... ] "The bill asserts that fair use will be protected at the same time as providing content providers with bulletproof piracy protection," said a statement released by DigitalConsumer.org. "But no such technology exists to meet both of these goals." The group worries that movie studios and television networks will force people to pay premium prices so they can record and transfer shows between devices -- something they have traditionally been able to do with their VCRs for free. Cable companies, which deliver television to more than 73 million U.S. homes, have insisted that consumers won't be charged for such services. However, those promises rang a bit hollow after it was reported this week that Cablevision inadvertently blocked 3 million subscribers from recording its shows because of a technological snafu. [ ... ] An addition to the bill also requires that analog ports no longer be added to digital televisions. That would render VCRs and other analog media obsolete, a concern for those who believe emerging technology restricts consumers' fair use of digital content. With analog devices legislated out of existence, Electronic Frontier Foundation technologist Seth Schoen said Tauzin's bill would allow the government to control the next crop of consumer electronics. "This bill is a bit narrower than Holling's bill, but it's still being made along the same lines," said Schoen. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 3:49:25 PM      New York Times - free registration required Who says paranoia doesn't pay off? China thinks Microsoft software contains secretly embedded code that the United States government can manipulate at will. So, in case of war between the two countries, a Pentagon official can hit a switch and--presto!--cripple China's computing infrastructure. A senior Microsoft executive, who often confers with the Chinese (sorry, no names), told me this tale. I thought he was joking. First I have no knowledge about this specific idea. But while the author may be trying to play this off as completely impossible, similar ideas have been implemented in the past. First even with involving the NSA or other government security agencies, if the UCITA ever gets off the ground that type of code (for the remote disabling of computer systems) may be in more products than you expect. Also our government has put backdoors in code before. CAQ - Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore? Would you trust your private key to this agency? Since 1956, the NSA has had a secret deal with the Swiss company that supplies the world with crypto Once the cipher machines were rigged to include the secret decryption key, the BND and NSA codebreakers could use the transmitted key to read any message sent by Crypto AG's 120 country customers. From our archive April 1998. They seem to have lost their domain name (Korean Squatter has it) and the new site I found doesn't seem to have old comntent online ... sigh ... After a little more digging I found a mirror of the original content ... Yeah! New York Times - free registration required Researchers Crack Code in Cell Phones. In successfully cracking a widely used encryption method designed to prevent the cloning of digital cellular phones, a group of University of California computer researchers believe they have stumbled across evidence that the system was deliberately weakened to permit government surveillance. Hmmm ... very interesting!!! Especially in light of yesterdays mention of an article from Covert Action Quarterly mentioning the same thing having been done once before in Switzerland for the NSA. Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore? [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 3:45:32 PM          Ohh, sounds a little invasive to me. I'll be checking in periodically with the debate over at Slashdot about the Effects of the Patriot Act on Librarians. "Quaryon writes "The Patriot Act apears to have some chilling effects with respect to libraries and booksellers. An FBI agent can get a warrant, without any evidence, in order to compel a librarian to reveal lending details on a suspect. The librarian cannot tell anyone about the search, including the target of the search, and the details of how many such searches are done are not made public. Articles at SFGate News and Common Dreams give more details." We had a related Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago." [The Shifted Librarian]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 3:28:15 PM          You go Tara Sue. "It's not about music, it's our privacy stupid!"  [Scripting News]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 1:28:24 PM      dennisRadio...     Now I get the whole 'it sure would be neat' thing about single sign on, but I'm not sure how receptive the marketplace is. We are talking about a single location that has loads of information about me. That means a single point of focus for an attacker to try and get their hands on my personal info. Most people are not that hindered by having to 'log in' to multiple apps. Likewise what responsibilities does the party holding that information have to me? Ok, they have an online agreement that says they won't share it with any on else, that the online agreement can be changed at any time, that they will always inform me when it does... but what happens when the company gets sold. Now who do I have an agreement with? What is the agreement? Does the buyer have to 'negotiate' a whole new agreement with me, or I with them? Too many questions! Joe Unsophisticated user is not interested in that kind of hassle, or lose of privacy, for the minimal payoff.  Whoever comes to play in this area had better be able to earn/win the trust.  It is only through trust that the idea will gain any ground.  For right now, all the signs I see say the market is short on trust.  Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong (apologies to Dennis Miller). Slashdot | Passport vs. Plan 9. netphilter writes "LinuxWorld is carrying an article about how Apache and Plan 9 are going to defeat Microsoft's Passport. I hate Passport's integration with XP (although that might be because I hate XP). An Open Source single-sign on would be a real blessing. Will we ever get a good single sign-on solution?" [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 1:25:19 PM      Slashdot | Your Rights Online - How The DMCA Is Enforced. Hank Scorpio writes "Bob Cringley's latest column talks about a company, BayTSP, that performs most of the enforcement of the DMCA on the Internet. This is the company that collects data about who is sharing music or movies online, and this is the company to go after when you get busted! They claim to "go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public." Interesting." [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 12:58:55 AM      Matt Croydon::postneo - A Cato Institute Panel Debate - Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age. Bear with me, as this will be the first time that I attempt to transcribe pen and paper notes into a weblog entry.  A few weeks ago Ed Cone asked if any bloggers out there would attend the Cato panel debate that you are currently reading about.  I'm just outside of DC, and I blog, so I said heck yeah.  Ed lives in Howard Coble's district in North Carolina, and Coble is the co-author of the bill being debated in Congress that fuled this debate. After taking the long way around several closed sidewalks, I found the Cato Institute at 10th and M streets NW.  The building looked really nice without being too over the top.  After finding my registration card, I sat down to read some articles that were set out.  Here's a quick breakdown of the articles that I read: Let Hollywood Hack by James Miller Compulsory Entertainment by Wayne Crews Musical Mandates by Wayne Crews When Rights Collide by Wayne Crews and Adam Thierer The Digital Dirty Dozen by Wayne Crews and Adam Thierer Berman was unable to attend, but he sent an aide in his place.  The panel as it sat was (from left to right): James Miller from Smith College.  He's an economist and the same guy who wrote Let Hollywood Hack. Troy Dow, MPAA. Mr. French, Berman's aide.  I'm sure he said his name, but I didn't catch it. Phil Corwin from Butera & Andrews.  He's a lawyer who has represented Sharman Networks (think: KaZaA), mp3.com and others. Ed Black from the Computer & Communications Industry Association John Mitchell from Public Knowledge. [ ... ] Adam Thierer, Director of Telecommunications Studies at Cato, was the moderator.  He plugged the book that he and Crews have recently written called, amazingly, Copy Fights.  There is a hardcover and paperback version available at Amazon.  The panel debate was streamed over the web in both audio and video form.  The streams are in Real Audio and Real Video formats.  If you end up listening to the audio version of the debate, the speaking order is French, Dow, Miller, Corwin, Black, and Mitchell. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 12:57:32 AM

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