Press Mentions: December, 2005
Dec. 30, 2005Financial 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...Dec. 30, 2005
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".
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...Dec. 29, 2005
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.
Baltimore Sun
"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...Dec. 29, 2005
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."
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...Dec. 27, 2005
The settlement also would lay to rest a class action suit brought against Sony by several other parties, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Roanoke Daily Herald
"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...Dec. 27, 2005
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.
Wired News
"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....Dec. 26, 2005
"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.
CNET
"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.Dec. 23, 2005
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.
Los Angeles Times
"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...Dec. 22, 2005
"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."
CNET
"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...Dec. 21, 2005
"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.
Associated Press
"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...Dec. 19, 2005
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.
CBS 5 (San Francisco)
"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"...Dec. 16, 2005
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.
Red Herring
"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...Dec. 14, 2005
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."
Wired News
"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.Dec. 14, 2005
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."
Associated Press
"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...Dec. 14, 2005
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.
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...Dec. 12, 2005
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.
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...Dec. 12, 2005
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.
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
"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....Dec 10, 2005
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.
New York Times
"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
"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."
