Low End PC Archive for November 2002
Articles on Low End PC
Around the Web
- Rights:
Scuttling the pirates, Steven Musil, Cnet, 11.29. ISP imposed
bandwidth caps latest tool in fighting file sharing.
-
Rights: How to win (DMCA)
exemptions and influence policy, Seth Finkelstein, Electronic
Frontier Foundation, 11.29. "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) is extensively known now, being perhaps the most hated Internet
law since the Communications Decency Act censorship legislation."
-
Rights: Danish
anti pirates continue to target copyright theft, Tim Richardson,
The Register, 11.27. Danish Anti Piracy Group invoicing those who share
copyrighted material via Internet.
-
Rights: Common sense, copyright,
and fair use, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, Low End Mac, 11.27.
Copyright law no longer serves the public good. Congress needs to
overhaul copyright law to protect fair use and restore the public
domain.
- Rights: Piracy
and "civil disobedience", Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 11.26. "The
usual way for such bad laws to be changed is through a significant
proportion of the population exercising civil disobedience."
-
Rights: RIAA orders US Navy
to surrender, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 11.26. "In a timely
reminder of who's really in charge here, the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) has mounted a daring raid on the US
Navy."
-
Rights: RIAA punishing Navy
cadets 'because it can', Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 11.26.
Here's why the RIAA targeted the US Navy Academy.
- Review: Affordable MP3
players, Dan Costa, PC Magazine, 11.25. A look at seven sub-$200
MP3 players with 64-128 MB of memory.
-
Rights: Right
and wrong, John Bloom, National Review, 11.22. "In the name of
Mickey Mouse and other American icons, we have gradually lengthened
that 14-year limit on copyrights."
- Web: Physics
professor's search code nets 48 expulsions, ars technica, 11.26.
Software searches for plagiarism. Some UVA students left school, some
expelled, and some degrees revoked.
- Web:
Feds break
massive identity fraud, John Leyden, The Register, 11.26. Chief
suspect "worked for Teledata Communications, which supplies software to
link the systems of banks and credit reference agencies."
- Dark Side: Is Microsoft
truly 'trustworthy'?, Lauren Weinstein, Wired, 11.25. "Microsoft,
responsible for more security-bug-ridden software on desktop systems
than any other company, says it's now got the security
religion...."
- Humor: Response to West Africa
spam, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side, Low End Mac, 11.26. Dear Mr.
Dickson, my thoughts on helping your client move his $20 million.
- Spam: The Spam Report:
Throwing out the baby with the bath water, Gene Steinberg, Mac
Night Owl, 11.25. 40% of email is spam, filters catch a lot of it - but
also zap over 10% of legitimate email.
- Spam: Where the heck is all
this spam coming from?, The Register, 11.25. "...the percentage of
email that is spam could be 20%, 33%, or even up to 50%, compared to
less than 10% a year ago."
- Rights:
Toledo uncappers getting shafted, Slashdot, 11.22. "...those who
were indicted were violating their service contracts, but having their
posessions siezed by FBI agents is overkill."
-
Rights: Nailed
to the wall, Karl Bode, Broadband Reports, 11.21. Uncap your cable
modem in Toledo, watch cops confiscate all your computers - and maybe
even your VCR.
-
Rights: Pentagon to track
American consumer purchases, Fox News, 11.21. Dept. of Homeland
Security will have access to all your credit card transactions.
- Dark Side: Another new
"critical" flaw found in pre-XP Windows, Vern Seward, Mac Observer,
11.21. "A new vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web
browser has been found, and it's technically being described as a
'doozy.'"
- Dark Side: MS paper touts Unix
in Hotmail's Win2k switch, Thomas C Greene, The Register, 11.21.
Internal Microsoft documents praise Unix, but conclude MS "should eat
its own dogfood" and use Windows for Hotmail.
- History:
IBM's choice: Why did IBM choose Microsoft DOS?, David K. Every,
iGeek, 11.21. Why in the world did IBM even consider an OS from a
company with no OS experience?
- Rights: Sony to add
download function to music CDs, Kuriko Miyake, MacCentral, 11.20.
Interesting idea, but it requires an Internet connection and a Windows
PC....
- Humor:
Bill Gates dies and goes to heaven, iGeek, 11.20. "Your job will be
to supervise Heaven's new data processing center. We're building the
largest computing facility in creation."
-
Rights: Educating
schools about life with asthma, Laurie Tarkan, New York Times,
11.20. Zero-tolerance drug policies prevent asthmatic students from
carrying inhalers on one-third of schools, sometimes leading to
death.
-
Rights: The evil that
is the DMCA, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 11.19. "...the Electronic
Frontier Foundation argues that the DMCA chills free expression and
scientific research, jeopardizes fair use, and impedes competition and
innovation."
- Advice: Frequently asked
employment questions, Steve Watkins, The Practical Mac, Low End
Mac, 11.19. The five most frequently asked questions by those searching
for a job.
- Humor:
Lake Michigan whale watching, Geocities, 11.18. Here's the
hilarious article that Studies Weekly thought was legitimate. One born
every minute.
- Huh?:
Teaching aid has whale of a mistake, Newsday, 11.17. Whales and
dolphins in the Great Lakes? We've been laughing about this all
weekend.
- Advice: Benefits of computing at
the low end, Kevin Webb, The Mac Webb, Low End Mac, 11.15. Saving
money is just one reason for buying computers long after their initial
release.
- Rights: US gov's 'ultimate
database' run by a felon, Thomas C Greene, The Register, 11.14.
Yep, a law breaker will be in charge of tracking your email, charge
card transactions, etc.
-
Rights: William
Safire: "Sweeping theft of privacy rights" Imminent, John H. Farr,
Applelinks, 11.13. "The Homeland Security Act . . . has a
little-noticed provision that will eviscerate your personal freedoms if
not amended before final passage."
-
Rights:
EFF Urges Support for Rep. Boucher's DMCRA, Slashdot, 11.14. "The
EFF is urging everyone to contact their Representatives and ask them to
co-sponsor Representative [the] recently introduced Digital Media
Consumers' Rights Act...."
- Spam: The
Great Wall of Spam, fadden.com, 11.14. "What I decided to do was
block the subnets that inbound spam originated from."
- Perspective: Toward a public ethic:
Law and morality, Dan Knight, Reformed Reflections, Christian
Perspectives, 11.13. Why a diverse, tolerant society needs a public
ethic not rooted in a single religious tradition.
-
Rights:
How the U.S. can stop Internet censorship, Robert Vamosi, ZDNet,
11.13. "The United States has challenged nations that prevent their
people from getting full access to the Internet--and rightly so. But we
must also review our own policies."
- Dark Side: Gates gives $100m
to fight HIV, $421m to fight Linux, Thomas C Greene, The Register,
11.13. $100m over 10 years to fight AIDS in India; $421m over three to
fight Linux. Priorities.
- Tech:
WirelessUSB - better, faster and cheaper than Bluetooth?, Scott
McCollum, WorldTechTribune, 11.12. A less costly alternative to
Bluetooth, but will it catch on?
- Humor: Bush Speaks on Microsoft
Settlement Restrictions, Patrick McCloskey, My Turn, Low End Mac,
11.12. President Bush makes it clear that Bill Gates "must fully
disclose and destroy his proprietary software of mass
dysfunction."
- Rights: Euro thought police
criminalize impure speech on line, Thomas C Greene, The Register,
11.11. Europe preparing to ban all hate speech - except for religious
hate speech. Huh?
- Rights: Europeans
outlaw Net hate speech, Julia Scheeres, Wired, 11.10. For Council
of Europe, political correctness trumps free speech.
- Web: Gator Corporation
bites back, Andrew McLindon, electricnews.net, 11.08. Gator
counter-sues Extended Stay America over popup ads. Who should control
the end user experience?
- Opinion:
TiVo is to TV as slicing was to bread, Tim Goodman , SFGate.com,
11.07. Digital video recording should be the biggest thing since the
VCR.
- Perspective: The
reform Islam needs, James Q. Wilson, City Journal, 11.07.
"Religious toleration undergirds Western freedom. Islam is centuries
behind in developing it."
- News: Amiga rises from the
ashes, AmigaOne, 11.07. AmigaOne uses G3 and G4 CPUs, runs AmigaOS
4, available now, and prices seem reasonable.
- Rights: 'No more music CDs
without copy protection,' claims BMG unit, John Lettice, The
Register, 11.06. If you can't play the protected CD, BMG will blame
your hardware, not their copy protection.
- Opinion: Microsoft's near slap
on the wrist, Stephen Van Esch, Mac Scope, Low End Mac, 11.06. Buy,
lie, and get by - the three truths of the Microsoft antitrust
settlement.
-
Rights: Anonymous no
more on AOL, Forbes, 11.05. "Warning to anonymous critics on
Internet chat boards trying to sink stocks: We may soon know who you
are."
- Humor: Unsolved mysteries of the
Internet, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side, Low End Mac, 11.05. "What
anti-spam software do people who send spam use?"
- Dark Side:
Microsoft takes on PDF, Slashdot, 11.05. Typical - "Linux Format
reports on a new Microsoft PDF-killer technology to be included in
Office 11, called XDocs."
- Virus: Braid
virus winds its way through e-mail, Robert Lemos, Cnet, 11.04. New
viruse "can spread to PCs running any version of Microsoft Windows.
People who use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 and 5.5 may find that
their computers automatically become infected...."
-
Rights: The
worst coders in Washington, AOTC, 11.03. "Laws like the DMCA, the
Hollings Bill, and the CDA threaten to put the American technology
juggernaut up on blocks."
- Dark Side:
Microsoft: Freedom to dominate, Dan Gillmor, SiliconValley.com,
11.01. Courts give Microsoft "all the room it needed to stick to
tried-and-true anticompetitive tricks."
- more in the October 2002 archive
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