Creative Labs has updated
two of its MP3 players in order to break their FM radio recorder features. If you bought your Creative device because it said, Record FM radio!
on the box, you’re shit outta luck now — Creative just stole that value out from under your nose. Guess that means I’m not going to be buying anymore Creative devices — via Boing Boing
Microsoft is making several key changes to its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system in an attempt to soothe European antitrust worries, while keeping its worldwide distribution plans on schedule
A Hungarian airport has been bilked into trying an insane scheme to RFID-track every passenger. This panopticon was invented by snake-oil salesmen from University College London. It will track every passenger to within one meter, and it will contain countermeasures to prevent passengers from removing or trading their snitch-tags. The idea is that safety
is something abstract that can be enhanced by treating air travelers like rapists on day-release — as opposed to each traveller’s personal security of being free, and un-spied-upon. Imagine the things a terrorist could do with perfect knowledge of the location of every passenger in the airport: I think we’ll put the bomb there
— via Boing Boing
China has partially unblocked Wikipedia. Wikipedia refused to censor itself to appease totalitarian Beijing, but China unblocked it anyway. China needs Wikipedia and Chinese net-users would access it using circumvention tools — the block on Wikipedia made Chinese Wikipedia users into automatic dissidents. Readers in China report having problems getting to the Chinese language version, and English-language articles on certain subjects, such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 — via Boing Boing
Social networking web giant MySpace.com has moved to protect its Australian operation and users from music copyright infringements
An undercover TV investigation claims to have infiltrated criminal gangs selling thousands of UK credit card and passport details for as little as US$9.50 each from offshore call centres. The Dispatches
documentary, shown on UK’s Channel 4, follows a 12-month investigation. It included footage of middlemen offering an undercover reporter the credit card details gleaned from Indian call centres of 100,000 UK bank customers
The US government is loosening its grip on the domain name system and is edging closer to giving ICANN a greater measure of autonomy in making decisions about the future of the Internet
Jon Lech Johansen, known as DVD Jon
after he cracked CSS encryption at the age of 15, has now reverse-engineered Apple’s FairPlay DRM — but not to crack it. Instead Johansen’s company, DoubleTwist Ventures, wants to license the tech to media companies shut out by Apple from playing their content on the iPod. And, soon, on the iTV. Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple
A 29-year old Swede, who was the first to be convicted under last year’s new file-sharing laws, has been cleared on appeal. The court of appeal did not consider the screen dumps provided by the Antipiracy Bureau enough evidence to be able to convict the man. Since the crime does not carry a high enough punishment under Swedish law to allow for a search of the defendant’s house, this means it will be virtually impossible to prove file-sharing crimes in the future
International security expert Bruce Schneier claimed processing power has increased to such a degree that data has become a pollutant
The British Library has called for a serious updating
of current copyright law to unambiguously
include digital content and take technological advances into account
Paypal settled a suit with Maryland and 27 states. Among other things, they’ll conspicuously advertise a contact phone number and staff it 14 hours a day and be much more forthcoming about when they will debit your bank account. For those of you who think Paypal Sucks, well, starting soon it sucks just a little less
A gay couple flying from Paris to JFK on American Airlines were told by the crew and purser that they weren’t allowed to touch or kiss each other. When they questioned this, the captain came out of the cockpit and threatened to divert the plane. American Airlines says this was all according to procedure, because kissing of any kind isn’t allowed on AA flights — via Boing Boing
The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the program
In UMG v Lindor, the defendant Marie Lindor has made a motion to preclude the RIAA from introducing into the case songs as to which it has failed to produce the song files. Ms Lindor’s lawyers submitted to the Court the RIAA’s interrogatory responses where the record companies had stated under oath that their case was based upon (a) Media Sentry’s detection of song files being distributed
and (b) Media Sentry’s allegedly making perfect digital copies
of those files. Ms Lindor’s attorneys argued that the RIAA cannot prove that it made perfect digital copies of the songs if it doesn’t have the song files — via Boing Boing
Users of modchipped gaming consoles could face fines of thousands of dollars when new copyright protection laws are introduced this year by the Federal Government. Until now, it has only been illegal to distribute or sell services or devices seeking to disable or override copy control technologies, but now users of such tools will also fall foul of the law once the legislation is introduced later this year
A Florida appeals court ruled that Fox and the media in general have no obligation to tell the truth after Fox fired members of its investigative journalist team for exposing the truth
In his latest newsletter, security author Bruce Schneier delivered a scathing critique of politicians and the media for promoting fear and ultimately doing exactly what the terrorists want. Citing several cases of false alarms, Schneier writes: Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat… Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show’s viewership
Zune’s highly touted wireless file sharing will infect otherwise unprotected audio files with proprietary DRM. In cases where users are sharing songs covered by any of the Creative Commons licenses, this would be a clear violation of those license. From the CC FAQ: If a person uses DRM tools to restrict any of the rights granted in the license, that person violates the license
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new campaign in an effort to shed light on the US government’s electronic surveillance programmes
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