Dec. 30, 2005
Financial Times
"Sony BMG
compensates buyers of flawed CDs"
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
Sony BMG has put the biggest of its legal challenges behind it. It
has settled a series of class-action lawsuits stemming from its use of
software that was intended to prevent illegal copying of its CDs but
left customers' computers vulnerable to viruses and other attacks...Lawyers for the plaintiffs welcomed the settlement, which the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital free-speech advocacy group,
said would "provide significant benefits for consumers who bought the
flawed CDs".
Dec. 30, 2005
Red Herring
"China
Tracking Porn Purchases"
Censorship experts said Friday that China will likely be unsuccessful
in finding pornographic web sites by monitoring payments made through
mobile phones, but they cautioned it could lead to overzealous
censorship of individuals...Danny O'Brien, activism coordinator for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, pointed to Europe as an example. Data-collecting regimes
there, in which telecommunications companies keep governments informed
of transactions they've flagged, were originally meant to combat
terrorism.But Mr. O'Brien said parameters have been broadened to the vague term
"serious crimes," which includes piracy. In China, mobile monitoring
could extend beyond porn payments and into transactions of a
religious, political, or other nature.
Dec. 29, 2005
Baltimore Sun
href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/13510733.htm">"Blogging
about your job can be a perilous pastime"
By Amy Rosewater
When it comes to blogging in your office, lawyer Mike Oliver has a
basic premise: Don't point and click too fast...Most companies would like to see themselves in the best light as
possible," said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. "The companies with the most flexible policies seem to
have the most open, honest blogs. The ones with restrictive policies
will have blogs that read like press releases and no one will want to
read them."The concern is that if you let the blogs have open information,
someone will write something that the company won't like, but it's
really a trade-off."
Dec. 29, 2005
Washington Post
"Sony
BMG to Settle Class-Action Lawsuit"
By Brian Krebs
Sony BMG Music Entertainment has agreed to a settlement that would end
a nationwide class-action lawsuit brought against the company over
security flaws in anti-piracy software that it shipped on millions of
music CDs...The settlement also would lay to rest a class action suit brought
against Sony by several
other parties, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Dec. 27, 2005
Roanoke Daily Herald
href="http://www.rrdailyherald.com/articles/2005/12/27/news/news2.txt">"Voting
machine search down to single firm"
By Amy Lotven
Election officials statewide got a shock Thursday afternoon with the
announcement from the State Board of Elections that one of the two
vendors certified to sell voting equipment in North Carolina has
withdrawn from the process...California-based privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontiers
Foundation (EFF) filed the suit on behalf of North Carolina voting
rights advocate Joyce McCloy. "North Carolina law requires the Board
of Elections to rigorously review all voting system code "prior to
certification," states an EFF press release on the suit. "Ignoring
this requirement, the Board of Elections on December 1st certified
voting systems offered by Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting
Systems, and Election Systems and Software without having first
obtained - let alone reviewed - the system code." Sequoia withdrew
from the bid process last week.
Dec. 27, 2005
Wired News
href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,69917-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_3">"Shop
'Til They Lock"
By Ryan Singel
Post-Christmas sales are a must for bargain hunters, but this year
brings a new incentive to stock up on electronics: 2005 might be the
last good year to get gizmos that aren't locked down...."We've already seen early examples: ReplayTV was taken off the market
after being sued by the television industry," von Lohmann said. "We
have never seen a PVR that has offered the same features, like the
ability to send shows from one machine to another, automatically
delete commercials and a very large hard drive capacity"...Von Lohmann said users should be cautious about technology like ViiV
and Windows Media Center. "Consumers need to ask themselves, 'Who are
these features are being built for: me or Hollywood?'" von Lohmann
said.
He recommends that consumers buy a digital TV tuner card now, before
media companies convince Congress to reinstate the HD-TV Broadcast
Flag, an anti-copying mandate from the FCC that was struck down by a
federal judge in May.
Dec. 26, 2005
CNET
href="http://news.com.com/Prime+time+for+Missouri+computing+team/2100-11395_3-6009198.html">"Prime
Time for Missouri Computing Team"
By Stephen Shankland
A Central Missouri State University team using more than 700 computers
has found the largest prime number so far, a gargantuan
9,152,052-digit numeral.The discovery, made Dec. 15 and confirmed Saturday, marked the second
time this year that a cooperative computing project called the Great
Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has found a new largest
prime. But like February's find, it falls short of the 10 million
digit size required to earn a $100,000 prize from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
Dec. 23, 2005
Los Angeles Times
href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-games23dec23,0,1099077.story?coll=la-story-footer&track=morenews">"Judge
Halts Limits on Game Sales to Kids"
By Julie Tamaki and Chris Gaither
A federal ruling that blocks California's ban on the sale of violent
video games to children is the latest setback to lawmakers trying to
clean up a medium that is increasingly graphic - and just as
popular..."This is not a surprising result," said Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney
with civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It brings
into question whether this is really the best use of the state's
resources to constantly put up these clearly unconstitutional laws,
only to have them challenged and thrown out.... It does seem to be one
in this series of: law passes, gets challenged, gets struck
down. Rinse, lather, repeat."
Dec. 22, 2005
CNET
href=http://news.com.com/Just+how+extensive+is+NSAs+spy+program/2100-1028_3-6006326.html">"Just
How Extensive is NSA's Spy Program?"
By Declan McCullagh
A week after a domestic-spying scheme by the National Security Agency
was disclosed, the details remain shrouded in secrecy..."The clues are piling up that vacuum-cleaner style dragnets are what's
at issue," John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, said in a mailing list message on Thursday. "Perhaps
they've pointed the NSA vacuum cleaner straight into all U.S.-based
international telecommunications"...Gilmore suspects that the NSA may have assembled a database of every
phone call that enters and leaves the United States, coupled with
similar automated storage of at least the "header" information of
e-mail messages. (Header information includes the To:, From: and
Subject: lines.)As evidence for that belief, he points to a paragraph in a New York
Times article on Tuesday. It cites unnamed officials as saying the NSA
system can identify "hot numbers"--the telephone numbers of -->
--suspects. Although the article -->
--doesn't go any further, Gilmore -->
--suspects the same spotting scheme -->
--applies to e-mail message as well.
Dec. 21, 2005
Associated Press
href="http://www.wwaytv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4274791&nav=menu70_2">"Trial
judge rejects challenge over N.C. voting equipment firms chosen"
The State Board of Elections followed the law in choosing the vendors
that can now sell voting machines to North Carolina counties...The Electronic Frontier Foundation contended that the board failed to
follow the state law that lays out how it should review the computer
software that machines need to operate. The board said its experts who
picked the vendors didn't examine some software that belongs to third
parties such as Microsoft.
Dec. 19, 2005
CBS 5 (San Francisco)
href="http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_353205016.html">"Inside
America's Top Secret Spy Agency"
By Tony Russomanno
In the shadowy world of spy versus spy, perhaps no agency is deeper in
the shadows than the National Security Agency. For years, even it's
existence was classified. The joke was that its initials - NSA -- stood for "No Such Agency"...Personal freedom advocates believe the NSA conducts standard phone
company wiretaps, as any police department can. Beyond that, the
agency could use a submarine to tap into transatlantic phone cables
and is known to monitor data from satellites. It may be trading
information with foreign spy agencies."They, of course will not tell us what happened," says Brad Templeton
of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "They won't tell us who they
did this to and they won't tell us how they did it, but we can
speculate."Templeton says there have been some rare looks inside the technology
of spying."They built a box called the carnivore for the Internet traffic and
that box was intended to be tapped on Internet lines," says Templeton.
Dec. 16, 2005
Red Herring
href="http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14913&hed=Warner+Changes+Tune+on+Lyrics+§or=Industries&subsector=EntertainmentAndMedia">"Warner
Changes Tune on Lyrics"
Music publishing company Warner/Chappell has apologized for abruptly
sending a cease-and-desist letter in November to the maker of a
specialized lyrics search engine after public criticism from music
fans and legal experts...Crucial to the agreement, said Mr. Ritter, was the legal opinion of
Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San
Francisco. Mr. von Lohmann had written a public letter to
Warner/Chappell earlier this week saying that pearLyrics did not
violate U.S. copyright law."Much of the commentary on the pearLyrics controversy has been focused
on unauthorized, commercial, ad-supported lyrics web sites," said
Mr. von Lohmann. "The legal status of those web sites, however, has
nothing to do with legal threats aimed at software like pearLyrics,
which plainly do not induce or contribute to the activities of those
web sites."
Dec. 14, 2005
Wired News
href="http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,69831,00.html">"Can State
Ignore Its E-Vote Law?"
By Kim Zetter
E-voting rules head to court this week in North Carolina, where
election officials stand accused of ignoring a tough new state law
designed to raise the bar on procedures to ensure machines are secure
and accurate.A hearing is set for Wednesday in the suit, filed by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, against two state agencies in North Carolina for
certifying voting machines in violation of state law..."It's a really good, really robust transparency-in-election-processes
bill," said EFF staff attorney Matt Zimmerman. "The statute really has
teeth and does more than the pro-forma requirement that other states
have."
Dec. 14, 2005
Associated Press
href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/13407993.htm">"Action
delayed a week in N.C. voting machine complaint"
A judge delayed acting on a lawsuit challenging the certification of
three voting machine vendors Wednesday because he needed more time to
familiarize himself with details of the case...The lawsuit, filed by California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation
on behalf of a Winston-Salem activist, asks the court to block the
approval of what it called "unqualified voting systems."
Foundation lawyer Matt Zimmerman said Wake County Superior Court Judge
Donald Stephens heard arguments on the complaint Wednesday, but
declined to rule because he is new to the case.
Dec. 14, 2005
CNET
"Faux
Hulks Can Keep Fighting Evil Online"
By Daniel Terdiman
Marvel Entertainment and NCSoft, publisher of such online games as
"City of Heroes," have settled a lawsuit over whether characters
created by players can legally resemble Marvel's comics characters...Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, which has been tracking the lawsuit, said that because
Marvel and NCSoft settled, it is likely no one will ever know the
terms and what rights online game publishers and players have going
forward."This is one of the big problems with copyright and trademark law,"
von Lohmann said. "There is no easy way to get an answer to any of
these questions if the rights holder is unwilling to fight it out in
court."But because the announcement contained language saying that the "City
of Heroes" content creation engine wasn't involved in the settlement,
von Lohmann fears companies like Marvel aren't done suing online game
publishers.
Dec. 12, 2005
ABC News
"Are
'Kid Trackers' a Parenting Boon or Privacy Threat?"
By Jonathan Silverstein
Whether they're concerned about the risk of abduction or simply trying
to keep tabs on their young ones, parents now have some high-tech
options to track their kids...But it's the issue of privacy that concerns Lee Tien, senior staff
attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties
advocacy group."I don't like the idea of these sorts of tracking services and have no
particular love of surveillance becoming institutionalized for use by
parents on their kids," said Tien.
Dec. 12, 2005
ZD Net
"Why an open
standard for DRM won't prevent the DRM trainwreck"
By David Berlind
Until last night, when I met Brad Templeton, chairman of the board at
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, my position has basically been
that DRM as an idea is a bad idea (especially the way it is being
implemented) but that if we must have it, then at least let's have one
that's based on an open standard so that the content you buy can flow
frictionlessly from one of your devices to the other without running
into a playback gotcha. But, based on what Templeton told me, I now
realize that even an open standard won't do much to solve the
problem. This for me - a huge proponent of open standards - was such
devastating news that Templeton will tell you that at first, I refused
to believe it. But it's true and perhaps just as troubling is how
open source software is one of the reasons why.
Dec. 12, 2005
Macworld
href="http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/12/pearlyrics/index.php">"Pared
Lyrics"
By Dan Miller
Walter Ritter is the developer behind pearlyrics, a nifty little
Dashboard widget... Last week, Ritter received a letter from Warner
Chappell Music-"one of the world's largest music publishers," its Web
site proudly proclaims-telling him to cease and desist....I did get in touch with Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, and he has a theory. This may just be
"a dry run for a much broader campaign in New Year." The target of
that campaign? Web sites that publish music lyrics.
Dec 10, 2005
New York Times
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/technology/10phone.html">"Live
Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy"
/>
By Matt Richtel
Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government
agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from
the handset...Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
privacy advocacy group that has filed briefs in the case in the
Eastern District of New York, said the law did not speak to that
use. James Orenstein, the magistrate in the New York case, reached the
same conclusion, as did Judge Smith in Houston and James Bredar, a
magistrate judge in the Federal District Court in Maryland.
Dec 8, 2005
Associated Press
href="http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/13361799.htm">"Election
group challenges certification of 3 vote machine vendors"
By Gary D. Robertson
A civil liberties group sued two state agencies Thursday, asking a
judge to prevent three firms from selling voting equipment because it
contends officials failed to properly review and assemble software
code from their machines..."The Board of Elections has simply ignored its mandatory obligations
under North Carolina election law," said Matt Zimmerman, a foundation
attorney. "
By certifying without a full review of all
relevant code, the Board of Elections has now opened the door for
North Carolina counties to purchase untested and potentially insecure
voting equipment."
