Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, September 20, 2002

Showdown: Lawrence Lessig -- Comment()
Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown: "Lawrence Lessig helped mount the case against Microsoft. He wrote the book on creative rights in the digital age. Now the cyberlaw star is about to tell the Supreme Court to smash apart the copyright machine." [( blogdex : recent )]

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Scientology silences critics at Internet Archive's Wayback Machine: "The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has been forced to censor its collection of anti-Scientology pages." [Boing Boing Net]

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European Union Researches the Benefits of Open Source Software (O'Reilly Network) [LWN.net]

Refusing to see the source code. -- Comment()
Silicon.com: In an article about Microsoft asking 2,300 organizations if they wanted to see Microsoft's source code. Only 150 said yes. Jason Matusow, shared source manager at Microsoft, was quoted in the article as saying:

One of the great myths of open source is that everyone wants to look at source code.

[Matt Croydon::postneo]

The important point is: what are the terms of seeing the source code? Can you use it, modify it, pass it on? Or do you have to agree to not to use it, not to modify it, or pass it on? And the terms may even stipulate that you are not allowed to do any coding which implements similar things than the source code you have seen - in effect eliminating you as a competitor to the owner of the source code.

In this case I believe the rational thing is to refuse to see the code.

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MS silently fixes password sniffing bug with XP SP1: "Keystrokes, including passwords, can be sniffed when using Windows Terminal Server or the XP remote control feature. MS has rolled a fix silently into SP1 without making any public statement on this serious problem." [The Register]

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CEA's Shapiro Challenges Copyright Community's Attack on Consumers and Technology: "...urged the content community to work with, not against, the technology industry, specifically in the critical area of copyright. ... Shapiro refuted the content community's claims that downloading is illegal or immoral. One, he said, fair use rights are guaranteed to consumers by statute, and applied judicially on a case-by-case basis. ... the fact is that real and intellectual property are different and are governed by different principles. Downloading a copyrighted product does not diminish the product, as would be the case of taking and using tangible property such as a dress." [via Private Ink]

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Security through the millenia: "Bruce Schneier: The Odyssey. And don't miss the rest of this month's Crypto-Gram." [dive into mark]

Bruce Schneier is definetely a writer you should read, so subscribe to the Crypto-Gram newsletter. His book Secrets and Lies is a recommended review of digital security for everyone: geeks, managers, and everyday computer users.