The results of this case are signifigant because the RIAA didn’t have to prove that the defendants actually shared anything. They won their suit because they were able to prove that the defendants made the songs available in their shared folder which, to the RIAA, is the same as distributing whether or not anyone actually downloads it.

It's so nice that our spy chief slipped up and released this information. If it helps the lawsuits against AT&T and the like go forward, all the better. One comment about something McConnell said: …. Your point? Typicall of the Bush administration to cite allowing lawbreakers to continue in their positions because, gosh, it would be bad to have consequences for illegal actions. Tags: George Bush

Microsoft uses the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool, a piece of DRM software with a catchy marketing slogan, to spy on your computer and then make a decision whether or not your version of Windows is valid. Assuming that it decides it's not (even if it is), it will disable your computer. The best part of the deal is that on Windows XP machines, they slipped the "tool" into the list of critical system updates so that anyone who didn't bother to look over the list of installs on the last update (or just has fully automatic updating turned on), would get the software without knowing about it. Well, it turns out that problems with the WGA server can shut down a lot of computers, very fast. It's nice to know that DRM works isn't it? Tags: Microsoft

There's been buzz that the new game, Bioshock, comes installed with a rootkit. It turns out that it's rootkit free… sort of. The point here is that people were worried that there's inappropriate software secretly installed with the game, and that much is true, it's just DRM, not an actual rootkit. As Ars Technica puts it:

Check out this article detailing the short version of all Diebold's sins with the most recent being their new name. Diebold, who has really died and did so boldly, is now known as Premier Election Systems. From Google: Premier: The first in importance or rank, the chief. How fitting. They are indeed the first, most important, and chief example of how e-voting can be implemented completely wrong, completely insecure, with complete and absolute failure. A quick summary of the article author's explanation for the name change: JTAG ERROR: No eff_ht index defined

I love these stories. I sure hope they win.

The FBI raided the home of a former justice department lawyer in order to discover any information they could about the leak of details on the illegal spying program. Nice to know that Bush followed through on persecuting anyone and everyone that exposes his embarassing and illegal exploits. Tags: George Bush

This might actually be good news. First, it’s only data on their employees instead of countless numbers of innocent people. Second, VeriSign is not that nice of a company. And most importantly, they are responsible for VeriChip, the spinoff company that is responsible for pushing human implanted RFID. Maybe a little ID theft (or worrying about it) will be a good wakeup call for them and they’ll be a little more sympathetic to the “privacy nuts” who are constantly fighting them and everything they do. Tags: RFID

In Germany, the RIAA equivalent company for the EU was filing criminal proceedings against file-sharers to discover their IP addresses. Now German courts say that practice will stop because sharing a few files is a petty offense and not worth the court’s time. It’s a step in the right direction. Remember, many people who download music are ones who wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. These big companies lose a lot less on filesharing than they make it out to be.

Wasn't it nice that Bush decided after he was caught breaking the law to put the spying program under FISA oversight (which is where it belonged by law before)? The best part of this story is that the FISA court has blocked certain parts of the program as a result. It's no wonder Bush is trying to have FISA amended. This was all so much easier for him when the program was still secret and he didn't have to follow the rules.