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John Lemke

Rep. Goodlatte Slips Secret Change Into Phone Unlocking Bill That Opens The DMCA Up For... - 0 views

  • Because of section 1201 of the DMCA, the "anti-circumvention" provision, companies have been abusing copyright law to block all sorts of actions that are totally unrelated to copyright. That's because 1201 makes it illegal to circumvent basically any "technological protection measures." The intent of the copyright maximalists was to use this section to stop people from breaking DRM. However, other companies soon distorted the language to argue that it could be used to block certain actions totally unrelated to copyright law -- such as unlocking garage doors, ink jet cartridges, gaming accessories... and phones
  • Separately, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to announce "exemptions" to section 1201 where it feels that things are being locked up that shouldn't be. Back in 2006, one of these exemptions involved mobile phone unlocking.
  • Every three years this exemption was modified a bit, but in 2012, for unexplained reasons, the Librarian of Congress dropped that exemption entirely, meaning that starting in late January of 2013, it was possible to interpret the DMCA to mean that phone unlocking was illegal. In response to this there was a major White House petition -- which got over 100,000 signatures, leading the White House to announce (just weeks later) that it thought unlocking should be legal -- though, oddly, it seemed to place the issue with the FCC to fix, rather than recognizing the problem was with current copyright law.
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  • While this gives Goodlatte and other maximalists some sort of plausible deniability that this bill is making no statement one way or the other on bulk unlocking, it certainly very strongly implies that Congress believes bulk unlocking is, in fact, still illegal. And that's massively problematic on any number of levels, in part suggesting that the unlocker's motives in unlocking has an impact on the determination under Section 1201 as to whether or not it's legal. And that's an entirely subjective distinction when a bill seems to assume motives, which makes an already problematic Section 1201 much more problematic. Without that clause, this seemed like a bill that was making it clear that you can't use the DMCA to interfere with an issue that is clearly unrelated to copyright, such as phone unlocking. But with this clause, it suggests that perhaps the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause can be used for entirely non-copyright issues if someone doesn't like the "motive" behind the unlocker.
  • Unfortunately, the bill was deemed so uncontroversial that it's been listed on the suspension calendar of the House, which is where non-controversial bills are put to ensure quick passage. That means that, not only did Goodlatte slip in a significant change to this bill that impacts the entire meaning and intent of the bill long after it went through the committee process (and without informing anyone about it), but he also got it put on the list of non-controversial bills to try to have it slip through without anyone even noticing.
John Lemke

Iron Maiden makes millions of dollars by playing live for pirates | The Verge - 0 views

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    The only thing the article got wrong is that they are not "pirates"... they are fans.
John Lemke

New mobile can check pulse, send ambulance - 0 views

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    The new EPI Life mobile phone comes complete with mini electrocardiogram. "We think it's a revolution. It has clinical significance," EPI medical chief Dr. Chow U-Jin said at the mobile industry's annual conference in Barcelona. "Anywhere in the world you can use it as a phone but you are also able to transfer an ECG and get a reply," Chow said. "If you get a normal reply it will just be an SMS," he added. "If it's severe, you get a call: 'Sir, an ambulance is on the way'." EPI Life has three hospitals in Singapore, all of which carry the phone users' history. EPI Life costs $700 (516 euros), the price of a top range smartphone, and 2,000 of them have been on the market since 2010.
John Lemke

Japan may send chatty humanoid tweet-bot to space - Yahoo! Finance - 0 views

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    Japan's space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station to watch the mission while astronauts are asleep, monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the microblogging site Twitter. Japan's space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2013 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter -- primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas -- and provide astronauts with "comfort and companionship."
John Lemke

Cops: Orlando Man Sabotaged "Whac-A-Mole" Games - News Story - WFTV Orlando - 0 views

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    We've all seen the Whac-A-Mole arcade game. Now, police say an Orlando man sabotaged the Holly Hill company that makes that game by planting a software virus. It shut down hundreds of games all over the world.
John Lemke

Spy Babe Now Wants to Design Astronaut Outfits | Danger Room | Wired.com - 0 views

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    Is your national space program fashion-forward enough? Astronauts getting a little frumpy after the Cold War? Having trouble getting that space plane off the ground? Why not lift morale and brighten up the place with some fierce new uniforms designed by planet Earth's most infamous ex-spy? Yes, Russia's famously outed sleeper agent Anna Chapman is back in yet another installment of her merciless publicity tour. This time, she's looking to help the ground crew at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center work it down the runway in style. Frilly epaulets for all! "Chapman told me that she intends to participate in designing clothing for the Khrunichev [Space] Center, in what capacity, designer or financially, she did not specify," the Gagarin Astronaut Training Center's top astronaut told Russian state media today.
John Lemke

The Commotion Wireless Mesh Project - Egypt Is Not Alone! « News and Views - 0 views

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    also ties in with security and privacy and censorship
John Lemke

Air Force Wants Hundreds of Fake Online Identities - Slashdot - 0 views

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    security privacy etc.
John Lemke

Police Chief Tells Parents To Hack Kids' Facebook Accounts | Techdirt - 0 views

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    with the security news stories
John Lemke

A Car You Can Drive With Your Thoughts - Slashdot - 0 views

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    A future soon themed news cast?
John Lemke

Physicist/musician's CD comes with a Petri dish and scientific paper - Boing Boing - 0 views

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    A micrograph of stained penicillin is printed onto the CDs, which are presented in an attractive Petri Dish setting. The album sleeve notes come in the form of a 20-page scientific paper, telling you all you could ever wish to know about the origins, methods and results of this art/science endeavour, as well as full lyrics and some scientific background to explain the songs.
John Lemke

DailyDirt: More Commercial Spaceships On The Way | Techdirt - 0 views

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    This one is a good addition to our news story on space.  Lets try and get that one done as a straight news story and present it to Chris as a sample.
John Lemke

FBI pushes for surveillance backdoors in Web 2.0 tools - 0 views

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    The FBI pushed Thursday for more built-in backdoors for online communication, but beat a hasty retreat from its earlier proposal to require providers of encrypted communications services to include a backdoor for law enforcement wiretaps. LUMPY HAS NOTES BELOW ties in with securirty and cyber attack.. use it as excuse
John Lemke

Destructive cyber attack inevitable: NSA chief - 0 views

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    The US National Security Agency (NSA) chief General Keith Alexander, pictured here in 2010, on Thursday urged top computer security specialists to harden the nation's critical infrastructure against inevitable destructive cyber attacks. LUMPY HAS NOTES BELOW THISQUOTE Ties in with Stuxnet and Anonymous and Antonymous having Stuxnet.  Might make a nice security and malware 30 news shows
John Lemke

A Social Networking Site For Criminals Lands Two Teens In Jail « The Blade by... - 0 views

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    Most of us are familiar with Facebook, but has anyone heard of 'Crimebook'? The novel social networking site was set up by two British teens to entertain the criminal element of society. These teens were raking in the money to the tune of some $26M with some 8,000 crooks using the social site to exchange stolen credit card information. The teens also shared the bank accounts of some 65,000 customers who had their accounts hacked by the thieves.
John Lemke

Robot hummingbird passes flight tests (w/ Video) - 0 views

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    The Hummingbird's bird-shaped body is removable but it gives the bot an uncanny resemblance to a real hummingbird. The vehicle can hover and maneuver just like the bird. The ornithopter can fly into buildings under the control of an operator flying the spybot with the help of a feed from its tiny video camera. The prototype is capable of flying at speeds of up to 18 km/h (11 mph) and weighs 19 grams, which is about the same as an AA battery.
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