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Maybe this has been around a while, but it's the first time I've seen it. There are utilities to unlock files that Windows won't let you delete because they are "in use".

The main suggestion in the article is a free utility called "unlocker" which will probably work well for normal users and I might add it to my list of tools for that reason. However, a commenter said that the Process Explorer utility will let you find the exact program that's using that file so you can close just it instead of unlocking every process at once.

Once I've experimented with them, I'll have one or the other on my tools page. Until then, feel free to go to the article and check it out yourself.

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What's the best way to attract a pile of threatening lawyers' letters from Microsoft? Sell pirate copies of Windows? Write a DRM-busting program? Londoner Jamie Cansdale has just discovered a new approach. He had the temerity to make Redmond's software better.

Oh wow! First they give him an award (the Most Valuable Professionals MVP award), and then they threaten lawsuits. Classic Microsoft.

George W. Bush

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No stranger to using doctored data, Bush painted a rosy picture of the efforts of the US to slow greenhouse gas emissions that was totally false.

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This article is a treasure trove of historical information about the battle between consumers and copyright holders in P2P and DRM.

A bit about the attitude of the market:

Rhetoric about internet democracy aside, the point of interest was that such a huge number of people had no problem with copying and sharing movies, that they regarded it almost as a right.

A bit about the Media companies' "shame on you" campaign:

The strongest moral card they hold is that illegal downloaders are ripping off the artists. This, however, is the most shamefaced hypocrisy imaginable. Media companies have historically been the biggest sharks going, pressuring artists into exploitative contract deals that cut them out of most of the money and limit their creativity. Their argument seems to be, "Buy the disc or else your favourite singers and actors will be sleeping in the gutters."

A bit about DRM:

Trying to control the technology itself only breeds resentment and the kind of reaction seen on Digg as a hacker took the power into his own hands and shared it with the world.

A bit about reality:

Critics point out that illegal downloads hit smaller, independent companies the hardest as they depend on direct sales. This may be true but it only suggests another economic model. Maybe artists should be selling for themselves directly. And if an artist has a song that’s downloaded illegally by 5 million users, they now have 5 million fans. That translates into lots of concert tickets. Canadian artist Leslie Feist was shocked to hear American audiences singing along to her new songs – the album hadn’t yet been released in the US. When she asked her fans how they knew the words they yelled back: Illegal downloads!?

Nice.

George W. Bush

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A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public does not learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

According to Crooks and Liars.com, they've changed the rules so that they're directly responsible for visitors which prevents the Secret Service from having to publicize the lists when served with FOIA requests.

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This is an interesting story: An Iraq War veteran is making trouble by being a very loud and media-covered opponent of the war.

They seem to have found an angle to attack him because he put on a uniform for a protest (though by stripping all the major labels from it, I don't see how that's any different than a costume store uniform). They plan to reactivate him so they can discharge him again only this time "dishonorable discharge" instead of "honorable".

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Someone has finally sued second life for "seizing" his assets. Linden shut down his account and removed the rights to his property.

Considering that Linden sells virtual property in online auctions for real money, this would seem like a fairly strong case on the part of the player… if it wasn't for the fact that the guy got the property through cheating the auction site.

Anyway, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. One thing's for sure, if this guy wins, virtual land will become solidly a real-world asset. I'm not looking forward to the IRS taxing game playing.

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What is the point of a federal regulatory agency that won't do it's job?

The issue landed in court after Creekstone Farms offended the USDA by constructing a state of the art facility to test for mad cow. The USDA fears that testing will reveal too many 'false positives,' scaring the hell out of consumers and threatening the financial health of the nation's meat industry.

Since when was the regulatory agency in the business of social control rather than industry regulation?

They must be taking pointers from the FDA and the FTC.

DVD Encryption will never work. Ever.

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The companies are trying so hard to make it impossible for people to copy DVDs, but hackers continue to prove that they're wasting their time. Just one day after releasing new keys for their copy protection system, a hacker posted the key on his website.

The AACS LA is not happy about these Processing Keys being released. When previous keys were leaked, the organization vowed that it would remove the keys from the Internet with cease-and-desist orders. Predictably, this only encouraged people to post them more. The whole series of affairs evokes memories of when DVD decryption was all the rage, and the DeCSS code wound up being printed on t-shirts to express the futility of trying to sue anyone who used or even knew about it.

The key thing here is that hackers are working for free and there's a lot of them. I don't think this is a battle that copyright holders will ever win.

Keeping to yourself is not a crime.

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I don't support criminals, but evading forensics is also about privacy, not just breaking the law. For those with the interest and skill, check out the article for some tools used to evade detection of things you'd rather keep hidden. Here are some of them:

• Timestomp – Destroys the timestamp evidence of files on your computer. Probably not something you'd want to run willy-nilly.
• Transmogrify – Hide files by making them seem like other file types. For example, you have that picture of you in Tahiti, but you don't want someone who steals your computer to know it's there. Make it look like a text document.
• Slacker – Breaks a file up and hides it in the free space at the end of other files. This could be very dangerous to use because if those files change, your hidden file could be destroyed. I'd be curious to see how this works in practice.
• KY – Puts files into null directories. Most tools won't know the directory is there so your files will be hidden. This one has potential for home use. If I try it and it's good, I'll post it in my tools section.