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 …

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 …

As an odd follow-up to this morning's story about too much salt in children's food comes this story from the BBC News. A woman is accused of attempting to kill an eight-year-old by giving the child solutions laden with large amounts of salt.

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.

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 …

Spamhaus (keepers of one of the many "black lists" of spammers' IP addresses) has penned a response to the folks at eMarketersAmerica (EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG) who filed suit against them in Florida court claiming that Spamhaus is illegally stopping legal communication. Clearly, the spammers don't understand, but the response is nicely …

An article on SecurityFocus heralds the coming of the book Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. What makes the self-publication of this book by hacker/author Andrew Shane Huang of interest to an audience broader than the hacker community is the fuss over whether Microsoft will attempt to …

An article in Wired today reports that the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as a way to provide legal cover for wiretaps is increasing as state and federal law enforcement agencies reduce the number of "Title III" Federal wiretap requests. The FISA taps are completely secret and are …

An insightful article from FindLaw about the recent court decisions on P2P file sharing and Apple's entry into the music market.

An article from Wired describes a recent bill that has made it through committee and in to the full assembly in California which would require that subpoenas made to ISPs for user information be forwarded to the customer within 14 days of receipt and that the customer have 30 days …

A thought-provoking article from Wired give a number of different people's take on the appointment of Nuala O'Connor Kelly (formerly of DoubleClick) to the position of Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security. The reviews so far are mixed, but she hasn't really had the opportunity to do …

A good article in Forbes this week summarizes the current state of Hollywood's war against your privacy in the state and local jurisdictions. For those who have not read previous articles on this subject, the industry associations are trying to tighten the DMCA provisions by removing the loophole procedure that …

The Boston Globe has an interesting, and slightly paranoid article1about the possibility of using high-tech brain scanners to detect "evil thoughts". Original link (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/121/nation/Some_fear_loss_of_privacy_as_science_pries_into_brain+.shtml) no longer available as of 2025-12-23. No reliable archive snapshot found. ↩

Here are some recent updates on the "progress" of MPAA-sponsored Super-DMCA legislation. Once again, the librarians are at the fore on opposing this legislation.

According to an article in the Washington Post, Verizon has failed to receive a stay against a previous ruling that will require them to hand over the names of a couple of P2P file sharing users in the next 14 days. The only hope for the preservation of the right …

Nobody likes spam (except maybe the members of the Monty Python troupe), but a group of online marketers, calling themselves the Email Service Provider Coalition (an initiative of the Network Advertising Initiative) has announced plans to create a system to register, rate and authenticate advertising on the 'net. With growing …

An article from Infoworld details the moves by a Boston company, 321 Studios to sue nine movie companies in order to prevent them from suing them later over potential DMCA violations.

One must wonder if Napster's VC, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, had any idea that backing the company would end up producing a lawsuit from EMI and Universal Records for "provided a safe haven for the rampant piracy of copyrighted works on an epic and unprecedented scale...Hummer Winblad knowingly facilitated …

Another dark day in what is becoming a dark year for privacy advocates. An article on CNet reports that the US Government has once again sided with the Recording Industry Association of America in yet another example of dissolving rights to privacy in this country. At issue is the appeal …