According to an article from CNet, Marybeth Peters, the Registrar of Copyrights, is set to endorse the INDUCE act (written about here in a previous article). In the history of bad technology legislation, this act is set to be rivaled only by the DMCA in terms of its chilling effect …

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed the INDUCE act of 2004 (originally the Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act of 2004, but retitled Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004). The act would potentially outlaw anything that anybody could do that would conceivably be considered by any reasonable person …

EFF representative Cory Doctorow gave a talk to Microsoft about DRM (Digital Rights Management) on June 17th, 2004. An electronic transcript is available. Not surprisingly, it details why DRM is bad and will lead to no good in technological, social, and business terms. One of the most interesting passages was …

BBC News is carrying an article this morning with the results from a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center about hate-based internet sites. The report, not surprisingly, indicates that the internet is being used as a communication and fund raising avenue for these groups.

With all of the concentration nationally on Iraq and terrorism, the emphasis on the environment has taken a back seat since 2001. However, an article from the Christian Science Monitor describes recent increases in local environmental organizations and causes since the advent of the Bush administration. Using IRS data and …

An article from Salon today, written by a former Pentagon staffer, gives an insider view of what happened in the Pentagon leading up to the Iraq war. It is one person's view and your take may vary, but it seems entirely plausible and is worth a read. Normally, Salon.com …

SupidSecurity is a web site that specializes in "Exposing fake security", or to be more succinct, finding security provisions that aren't and exposing them to the light of day. Today, they have an article from Reuters (via Yahoo) discussing an American who was fined $10,000 for crossing into Canada …

An article in Wired by Lawrence Lessig makes some interesting points about price discrimination by drug companies. He argues that there are rational reasons for charging more money in the US and other developed countries than in Africa. The basic argument goes like this: we think it is bad to …

OK, now we're getting somewhere. SCO's amended complaint (appearing on Groklaw) contains information about which files are infringing and on which lines. There are 4 tables of lines in the complaint (hopefully this isn't their whole case), and they refer directly to the lines of code in the Linux 2 …

According to an article from the Washington Post, the University of Virginia will be dedicating $16M to keep the university affordable. The plan, dubbed Access UVa will attempt to eliminate need-based loans for low income students attending the university, a plan to cap needs-based loans for all students (in state …

SCO's lawsuit against IBM expanded from $3B to $5B this week, through the addition of copyright infringement claims. It appears that most of the new claims come from IBM's sale of their AIX operating system after the folks at SCO told them they were no longer licensed this summer. An …

Wired reports that Friday of last week a Federal Judge has declared unconstitutional portions of the USA Patriot Act that ban providing "expert assistance" to groups declared as terrorist organizations. The provision was struck down as being too vague and flying in the face of the First and Fifth Amendments …

In the world of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), it appears that SCO's CEO Darl McBride is planning on being right up there with certain political figures in his tactics. In a letter sent by SCO and later published on the OSAIA (Open Source and Industry Alliance) web site, McBride …

Technical and legal experts from California (which has some stringent anti- spam laws of its own) are weighing in on the CANSPAM act, passed by congress and signed into law in December by President Bush. The word... well, with it you Can Spam. I'm reminded of the faux advertisement for …

Starting in 2005, children conceived with donor sperm or eggs will be able to track down the donor. According to an article from BBC News, the new law will allow 18-year-olds to find out who the donors are. The new law doesn't change the treatment for sperm or eggs already …

Sounds stupid or silly, I know, but according to an article in the Washington Post, a gentleman living in the DC area was denied health care coverage because he was taking the prescription drug Propecia to fight his male pattern baldness. The insurance company in question was Kaiser Permanente and …

Most DC residents seem pretty happy about the restrictive gun laws in the District, however there have always been those who question the constitutionality of the laws. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled that the laws can stay in force. That's not a big surprise. However, the …

A number of developments in the SCO/IBM/Linux saga this week, including some disclosures by SCO and the announcement that Novell has completed its acquisition of SUSE which leads the way for IBM to pump money into Novell. The ongoing drama (such as it is) between SCO and the …

Those who have an interest in RFID (Radio Frequency ID) technology may be interested to note that the newly-established standards organization, EPC Global, has appointed (or is that anointed) Verisign to run their registry. EPC Global was established to take over for the Auto-ID lab, which was founded by MIT …

If anyone is thinking that Washington doesn't take the whole radioactivity issue seriously, they should check out this article from the Washington Post. It appears that a lawyer in DC had gone in for a stress test and his doctor had given him a radioactive dye. Turns out that the …