An article on CNN follows the story of a Florida woman who has been refused a drivers license because she will not submit to being photographed without her veil. Florida maintains that it is a matter of security that the drivers license (which also serves as the equivalent of an …

The ACLU's program to bolster civil liberties in the wake of the USA Patriot Act has new friends in Vermont. That state joins Alaska and Hawaii in passing legislation that restricts law enforcement from gathering intelligence on social, political, and religious views and actions and reining in the level …

Wired is reporting that Cingular Wireless's customer service site was hacked and that customer information was available to the hackers.

Internet advertiser Bonzi Software settled a class- action lawsuit brought against it in Spokane, Washington. An article from CNET gives a few more details, but the settlement will require that the company stop using fake UI elements and start using the word Advertisement in their banner ads.

A provocative article in Wired goes just a little bit too far in claiming that Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a "crime against humanity", but argues reasonably that the perfect enforcement brought by the proposals and technologies being pushed by the content owners would materially change the way people work …

A report from BBC News recounts the story of a 15-year-old British girl who is being tormented by a group of "cyberbullies" that have put up a web site about her.

A victorious article on the EFF website announces that Colorado's Governor Owens has vetoed a state-level super-DMCA bill passed by the legislature. For those unfamiliar, the EFF has an extensive resource page on super- DMCA bills, but they are basically the RIAA and MPAA looking to extend the DMCA further …

Controversial Gator is under investigation again. This time, it is the venerable Harvard Law School that is stopping to examine the company's tactics. An article from CNET covers the report at a high level. The report contains a number of interesting statistics, technical descriptions, and even some tools for figuring …

CNET reports that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has sent a letter to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation outlining the official Microsoft line on spam. The committee hearing was attended by the Vice Chairman of AOL, Brightmail's CEO, the Executive Director of EPIC (Mark Rotenberg) , and …

What's good for Microsoft must certainly be good for the US Department of Defense. Under attack by privacy and civil liberties groups for their Total Information Awareness program, the DoD has now stated that TIA means Terrorism Information Awareness. I feel just about as much safer now as I did …

An article in CNET reports that there is a patent lawsuit brewing over challenge-response anti-spam software. The good news is that there is a lot of prior art, and the folks who have it (including Brad Templeton, early chariman of the EFF] ) are very willing to help in the lawsuits …

An excellent article in the New York Times covers most of the major forms of electronic surveillance currently being used to watch Americans in their homes and discusses the implications of some of these techniques.

Security Focus reports that an effort led by the ACM is attempting to get a security research exemption enacted for the DMCA. The idea is simple, since the "black hats" are going to violate the law anyway, the "white hats" should have a chance to legally locate, solve, and publicize …

Did you know that your car keeps track of how fast you're going? I did, but this article claims that "most" drivers don't realize that their cars may have black boxes in them. This is now more of a concern, since they are starting to show up in court cases …

The judge in San Francisco who is mulling over the 321 Studios case against the movie industry over their DVD copying software appeared to be trying to see both sides of the argument today. On some issues, such as whether the software is in violation of the DMCA, she seemed …

A commentary from CNET looks at two provisions of the new PROTECT act that may raise first amendment challenges. The sections are the "Misleading domain names on the internet" and a section once again attempting to redefine child pornography to include images created virtually that "appear" to be children. Although …

A good article in The Washington Post about blacklists and their implications. As I've stated before, II think that they're fine, but that the users need to pay attention to who is making them and what their motives are. The alternative is not (as the spammers how) having no blacklists …

CNET reports that the case between DVD X-Copy manufacturer 321 Studios and the big movie studios is heading to court Thursday. An article on this site pointed out the tactics of the company.

If this isn't a public warning that handing police and judicial powers to corporations is a really bad idea (see the DMCA, which grants subpoena powers to companies without a judicial hearing), I don't know what is. According to a story on CNET, the RIAA now says it "mistakenly" sent …

We all hate spam. Now, our legislators are finally starting to get into the act and we need to take a look at some of the Bills that they are writing and debating on our behalf. Of particular concern is the wide divergence of state and local anti-spam laws that …