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walktalker · 22-03-02, 04:27 PM

Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders
America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood. When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill. A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers. But the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) would also wreak havoc on programmers and software companies -- both those distributing code for free and those selling it.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html

Just Don't Call It a Hacker Camp

A planned gathering in Colorado for young geeks probably won't be billed as the "Hacker Summer Camp" because of some confusion over the proper definition of the word "hacker." Denver security firm White Hat Technologies plans to teach network security methods and hacking ethics to computer-savvy teenagers at what the company had been happily referring to as a "Hacker Summer Camp." But CEO Thubten Comerford is now considering dropping the H word from the camp's description after a column in the Denver Post quoted Comerford as "admitting" the camp "could wind up teaching kids an illegal activity."
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,51240,00.html

ICRA's F______g Good Filter
The Web can be filthy, bawdy, offensive, disgusting and of course just really lame -- but Stephen Balkam, the head of an old nonprofit group that is announcing new efforts to "rate" websites, believes that the Internet can be categorized into submission. Balkam is the CEO of the Internet Content Rating Association, or ICRA, which people like to pronounce as "IKE-ra." The group says its main aim is to protect kids who use the Internet from adult-oriented material, while at the same time protecting free speech.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51252,00.html

Bush wants to allow records to be shared without permission
The Bush administration has proposed changing some of the federal rules designed to protect the confidentiality of Americans' medical records, including the ability of patients to decide in advance who should be able to use their personal health information. The proposal would alter a federal safeguard adopted by the Clinton administration that compels patients to give written permission before their records may be disclosed to doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and insurance companies.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...2/MN129378.DTL

Bush Touts 'Smart' Border for the U.S. and Mexico
President Bush vowed Thursday to create a "smart border" with Mexico, saying he wants to speed the flow of people and goods across the frontier but target would-be terrorists and those who smuggle drugs and immigrants into the United States. The joint initiative with Mexico seeks to develop a "biometric" ID system -- using such identifying characteristics as fingerprints or retina scans -- for frequent travelers from both countries that would let them use commuter lanes at high-volume border crossings.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology

Lord of the Robots
In the not-too-distant future, a lot more people may be living with technologies that Brooks’s lab is developing. To help make pervasive computing a reality, researchers in his lab and MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science are developing — in an effort Brooks codirects called Project Oxygen — the requisite embeddable and wearable devices, interfaces and communications protocols. Others are building better vision systems that do things like interpret lip movements to increase the accuracy of speech recognition software.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/qa0402.asp

Study Says Political Candidates Not Using Web
U.S. congressional candidates aren't taking full advantage of the Internet as a campaign tool, according to a new study. Only 29 percent of the incumbent Senators and Representatives up for election in 2002 have clearly marked 2002 campaign Web sites, according to a study by the Washington D.C.-based Bivings Group. The Bivings Group, an online communications company that builds and operates political campaign sites, conducted its review of political campaign sites online, by searching under the names of incumbent candidates, Bivings spokesman Damien Del Porto said today.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175417.html

Appeals Court OKs Lawsuits Served By E-mail
E-mail is an acceptable way for lawyers to file lawsuits and serve legal documents, a federal appeals court ruled this week. In a landmark ruling Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a Las Vegas casino could legally serve lawsuit papers via e-mail on an offshore Internet gambling operation with no physical address. The court refers to serving legal papers as "service of process."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175414.html

Encryption patent firm stakes claim on industry
A previously unknown Californian firm which has obtained a patent for application-independent file encryption is seeking to enforce licensing from other companies in the security industry. The move has spurred anger among vendors hit by patent infringement claims; they say they will contest the action vigorously. Maz Technologies was granted a patent last year for a "method of transparent encryption and decryption for an electronic document management system". Recently the company appointed lawyers to press its claims.
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24421.html

Cellphones more dangerous than drunk driving
Using a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than being drunk behind the wheel, according to new research released today. Boffins at the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire, UK found that driving is impaired more by using a mobile phone than by being over the legal alcohol limit. The results found that drivers' reaction times were, on average, 30 per cent slower when talking on a hand-held mobile phone compared to being drunk - and nearly 50 per cent slower than under normal driving conditions.
http://www.theregus.com/content/5/24413.html

More news later on

22-03-02, 04:27 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood. When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill. A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers. But the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) would also wreak havoc on programmers and software companies -- both those distributing code for free and those selling it. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html Just Don't Call It a Hacker Camp A planned gathering in Colorado for young geeks probably won't be billed as the "Hacker Summer Camp" because of some confusion over the proper definition of the word "hacker." Denver security firm White Hat Technologies plans to teach network security methods and hacking ethics to computer-savvy teenagers at what the company had been happily referring to as a "Hacker Summer Camp." But CEO Thubten Comerford is now considering dropping the H word from the camp's description after a column in the Denver Post quoted Comerford as "admitting" the camp "could wind up teaching kids an illegal activity." http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,51240,00.html ICRA's F______g Good Filter The Web can be filthy, bawdy, offensive, disgusting and of course just really lame -- but Stephen Balkam, the head of an old nonprofit group that is announcing new efforts to "rate" websites, believes that the Internet can be categorized into submission. Balkam is the CEO of the Internet Content Rating Association, or ICRA, which people like to pronounce as "IKE-ra." The group says its main aim is to protect kids who use the Internet from adult-oriented material, while at the same time protecting free speech. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51252,00.html Bush wants to allow records to be shared without permission The Bush administration has proposed changing some of the federal rules designed to protect the confidentiality of Americans' medical records, including the ability of patients to decide in advance who should be able to use their personal health information. The proposal would alter a federal safeguard adopted by the Clinton administration that compels patients to give written permission before their records may be disclosed to doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and insurance companies. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...2/MN129378.DTL Bush Touts 'Smart' Border for the U.S. and Mexico President Bush vowed Thursday to create a "smart border" with Mexico, saying he wants to speed the flow of people and goods across the frontier but target would-be terrorists and those who smuggle drugs and immigrants into the United States. The joint initiative with Mexico seeks to develop a "biometric" ID system -- using such identifying characteristics as fingerprints or retina scans -- for frequent travelers from both countries that would let them use commuter lanes at high-volume border crossings. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology Lord of the Robots In the not-too-distant future, a lot more people may be living with technologies that Brooks’s lab is developing. To help make pervasive computing a reality, researchers in his lab and MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science are developing — in an effort Brooks codirects called Project Oxygen — the requisite embeddable and wearable devices, interfaces and communications protocols. Others are building better vision systems that do things like interpret lip movements to increase the accuracy of speech recognition software. http://www.techreview.com/articles/qa0402.asp Study Says Political Candidates Not Using Web U.S. congressional candidates aren't taking full advantage of the Internet as a campaign tool, according to a new study. Only 29 percent of the incumbent Senators and Representatives up for election in 2002 have clearly marked 2002 campaign Web sites, according to a study by the Washington D.C.-based Bivings Group. The Bivings Group, an online communications company that builds and operates political campaign sites, conducted its review of political campaign sites online, by searching under the names of incumbent candidates, Bivings spokesman Damien Del Porto said today. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175417.html Appeals Court OKs Lawsuits Served By E-mail E-mail is an acceptable way for lawyers to file lawsuits and serve legal documents, a federal appeals court ruled this week. In a landmark ruling Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a Las Vegas casino could legally serve lawsuit papers via e-mail on an offshore Internet gambling operation with no physical address. The court refers to serving legal papers as "service of process." http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175414.html Encryption patent firm stakes claim on industry A previously unknown Californian firm which has obtained a patent for application-independent file encryption is seeking to enforce licensing from other companies in the security industry. The move has spurred anger among vendors hit by patent infringement claims; they say they will contest the action vigorously. Maz Technologies was granted a patent last year for a "method of transparent encryption and decryption for an electronic document management system". Recently the company appointed lawyers to press its claims. http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24421.html Cellphones more dangerous than drunk driving Using a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than being drunk behind the wheel, according to new research released today. Boffins at the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire, UK found that driving is impaired more by using a mobile phone than by being over the legal alcohol limit. The results found that drivers' reaction times were, on average, 30 per cent slower when talking on a hand-held mobile phone compared to being drunk - and nearly 50 per cent slower than under normal driving conditions. http://www.theregus.com/content/5/24413.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies