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RSA Data Security Inc pre-empts celebration parties, releases rights to PKC patent. You know that's the only reason they bothered, right? (Wow, two whole weeks...)
posted on Sep-6-00 at 1:38 PM

Da... da... da... DA DAAAA...
posted on Sep-4-00 at 4:03 PM

Sony: "Oops."
posted on Aug-30-00 at 3:51 PM

For those of you who don't want to violate the law by linking from your website to the DeCSS source code, you can now link to a [semi-]dramatic reading of the source code (3.5MB MP3), and this semi-alternative sort of Dylanesque folk song of the code (6.3MB MP3).

And no, I'm not making *any* of this up. Thanks to Dave at The Stuffed Dog. He can't blog it, but *I* sure can. :-) [Amazingly enough, they're both pretty good, although the song is a bit over driven. ]
posted on Aug-28-00 at 3:19 PM

Color me surprised. My annoyance at Tom Clancy for the shoddy quality of Rainbow Six is well known. I had expected to give up on him entirely; I didn't even plan to buy the new one in hardcover without reading it first...
posted on Aug-27-00 at 12:23 PM

Oh shit, oh piss, oh dear. Judge rules domain names are not property. We had enough problems with this in the last decade with 800-numbers. <sigh>
posted on Aug-25-00 at 2:03 PM

Aw, for the love of Kee-rist, can't anyone quit screwing with stuff?

Columbus plans to shoot parallel versions of the first film -- one for the U.S. market and one for Britain. His plan is to shoot two or three alternate sequences for each film and to give the British film the first novel's original British title, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." The American film will be called, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

posted on Aug-24-00 at 7:01 PM

John at Genehack sez: "The music industry is a drug dealer. Napster is drug legalization." I think he might be right.
posted on Aug-24-00 at 6:49 PM

To paraphrase George Carlin, don't you find it just a little strange that Linux Daily News is running stories about Dynamic Probes right next to stories about Brown Orifice?
posted on Aug-21-00 at 7:48 PM

This headline hasn't exactly gone *bad*... but it's starting to smell a little. [actually, I thought it was hilarious, though I couldn't quite tell you why.]
posted on Aug-21-00 at 6:35 AM

Music Industry to back down on Work-For-Hire. If you read the Courtney Love stories last month, you'll have heard that they snuck one across the plate in a satellite TV bill. Everyone screamed, and they've apparently decided to fight other battles. [spotted on Jerry Pournelle's mail page]
posted on Aug-14-00 at 8:28 PM

Because nothing says "You Suck!" quite like a website. "Sucks sites" and how to run them without getting sued...
posted on Aug-14-00 at 12:41 PM

So you wanna be an indie-rock expert? [Courtesy of Peterme.]
posted on Aug-12-00 at 2:35 PM

Convergence. Dave Barry does a bang-up job tying together the recent threads about Harry Potter and Stephen King.
posted on Aug-11-00 at 8:14 AM

Excellent. Massachusetts judge allows lesbian couple's names on original birth certificate. One supplied the egg, the other, the womb. The sperm were anonymous.
posted on Aug-11-00 at 7:52 AM

God Damn it, Clancy... I thought I told you to stop trying to buy football teams, and start *writing* books. And to let your editors edit...
posted on Aug-10-00 at 8:52 PM

Ok, here comes the firestorm. Joel on Software has some very good things to say -- though, like most user-interface-design mavens, I think about 50% of the time that he hasn't comprehended what the problem really is... but in this piece, he's wrong.
posted on Aug-7-00 at 12:26 PM

Sometimes, I just want to throw my hands up in the air, cry out in disgust, and give up. Apparently, these people in Britain have never heard of NTP, the Network Time Protocol, clients for which have been available for Win9X for *years*... and which *works*

Can we *stop* inventing the wheel, now? It rolls, already.
posted on Aug-4-00 at 2:37 PM

The flip side of the DejaNews linking fracas. Here's a story about YellowBrix (love that name) who supply a news feed with appropriate words pre-hotlinked to your products. This isn't exactly the same problem as the Deja thing for a couple reasons, but the original newswriters *still* didn't know their words would be linked. It's not as bad... but is it acceptable?
posted on Aug-3-00 at 12:04 PM

The RIAA's unhappy that you've stolen music? Well, give those MP3's right back to them, then. Another delightful approach to civil disobediance, courtesy of John at Genehack.
posted on Aug-1-00 at 8:02 PM

What's the right answer? FEMA's plans to use the Army to quell serious civil disturbances that might crop up during the Republican Convention almost certainly violates Posse Comitatus... but can the Army National Guard cope with the stuff? And can it chop to FEMA in the first place?
posted on Aug-1-00 at 4:12 PM

Courtesy of CamWorld, Here is what XML is really all about.
posted on Jul-31-00 at 6:54 PM

Apparently, we're not the *only* ones who may think that Louis Freeh needs a new job.
posted on Jul-24-00 at 7:35 PM

Arrgghh! Yuck! I guess orange is the new white.

Wrong Way! Go Back!
posted on Jul-24-00 at 4:49 PM

It's the year 2000; I was promised flying cars. I don't see the flying cars. Why are there no flying cars; why; why!?
posted on Jul-22-00 at 10:39 PM

Harry Potter is a head. Who knew? The things some people will find to be paranoid about...
posted on Jul-17-00 at 7:36 PM

It is time for Louis Freeh to lose his job. Carnivore, indeed. This has got to stop.
posted on Jul-16-00 at 6:05 PM

"Hatch Warns Labels, Don't Make Me Come Over There and Spank You" Oooh! This is gonna be good. [ From Inside via Dan Lyke's excellent Flutterby. ]
posted on Jul-13-00 at 4:05 PM

WARNING: there's an operating system problem in the Sony AIBO Robotic dog. If you have one... try not to admit to it in public. :-)
posted on Jul-10-00 at 2:48 PM

Well, here's an interesting one. Slashdot reports that a company called Quova is pinging the entire Internet, and pissing lots of folks off -- partially because they won't say why.

But I'm on the North American Network Operators Group mailing list, populated by the people who run those networks, and I ain't heard squat about it. Whassup widdat?
posted on Jul-7-00 at 3:31 PM

No one seems to have pointed out the Napster press release. It lists the points made in their legal brief, and, by cracky, they're all damned good ones. Their lead lawyer is the guy who just split Microsoft up; I think he might be able to win it; what do you think?
posted on Jul-6-00 at 2:39 PM

Red Hat co-founder Marc Ewing files to become a millionaire. Finally. More power to him, I say.
posted on Jun-28-00 at 7:40 PM

And now, here's something we hope you'll really like...
Californian David Simon decided that It Would Be Nice If you could use the Internet like your VCR. The MPAA and the Studios disagreed. Is this guy crazy? Or crazy like a fox?
posted on Jun-27-00 at 10:01 AM

Here's an interesting one... The Office of National Drug Control Policy apparently decided to buy banner ad rotations on websites... using pro-drug keywords. I actually think that's kind of clever. The problem is that they're using DoubleClick...
posted on Jun-26-00 at 7:18 AM

Third Circuit panel upholds injunction against Child Online Protective Act, says that "community standards" approach doesn't work in 'cyberspace'. Is sanity breaking out in the federal judiciary?
posted on Jun-23-00 at 10:01 PM

Found in my referer logs. Does anybody have any idea what this guy is about, or why someone who would go here would visit me, too? :-) [WARNING: Even adults may not want to look at this page...]
posted on Jun-22-00 at 7:03 AM

One last one before I run out to dinner (sorry for running off at the keyboard this afternoon, folks...)

The Supreme Court had to rule on this? That scares me a *lot*.
posted on Jun-21-00 at 3:15 PM

Do you use Microsoft Word? Or does Microsoft Word use you.
posted on Jun-21-00 at 2:13 PM

This story is *actually* about Lexis, who got their case file in the first place by stealing it from West, suing Jurisline, who in turn bought their CD's and mounted them on a free website, and winning.

Lawyers, in particular, may find this one interesting...
posted on Jun-21-00 at 11:59 AM

Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? What's happening to copyright law lately, why, why ignoring it may well be the best thing to do to fix it, and why Mickey Mouse is a Yakuza. Very nice piece from (former?) EFF Legal Counsel Mike Godwin
posted on Jun-21-00 at 8:59 AM

Is the Boss really in charge? Tucows is -- supposedly legally -- posting tracks from his early album, "Before the Fame" (though that sounds like a title applied after the fact to *me*).
posted on Jun-16-00 at 8:44 AM

What in the hell is it going to take? Broderbund/Mattel puts spyware in kids reading programs... [/.]
posted on Jun-15-00 at 2:55 PM

This is a bit old, but still topical; Louis Freeh propounds his ideas about freehdom... [from BugTraq^HSecurityFocus, via Counterpane Labs ]
posted on Jun-15-00 at 9:04 AM

Oh, cool; someone patented banner ads! And they're suing everyone else for using them. (Ok, so they really only patented *offline* banner ads; we could *hope*, right? :-)
posted on Jun-15-00 at 6:57 AM

POWER ALERT: SF and SJ, CA.
If you, or your website, are located in the *other* bay area :-), you might want to know that The California ISO (the people who run the grid) have declared a power emergency and the City of Palo Alto Utilities, among others, has implemented rolling blackouts.

Again, if you host in this area, this may result in intermittent outages to your site; you might wish to post a notice to that effect, so that regular visitors don't get worried.
posted on Jun-14-00 at 7:16 PM

Am I the *only* one here who didn't realize that Rob Malda was a weblogger, too?
posted on Jun-13-00 at 8:47 PM

Does Judy give judges a bad name? Should they care? Interesting piece written by... B.J Hunnicutt. :-)
posted on Jun-13-00 at 6:33 AM

It has been suggested, to general approval, that the plural really ought to be 'polygoose'.
posted on Jun-12-00 at 8:01 PM

Kids aren't particularly gullible. Though I must admit, I like the slug Neale put on this story better...
posted on Jun-12-00 at 7:28 PM

Remember that cassette drive on your TRS-80? Well, now, *submarines* can make use of that advanced technology, too...
posted on Jun-12-00 at 7:07 PM