(entry last updated: 2002-07-26 15:28:39)

What were these two universities thinking?!? (I wonder what MIT does? TPP doesn’t do anything like this, at least.) Yale certainly seems to have abused the information they got, but Princeton was out of it to suggest that privacy could be ensured with the system they set up. (A Slashdot discussion is underway, with a comment describing the MIT process - a little more carefully constructed procedure.)

A good Foxtrot cartoon today; mod-chipping in Australia gets a boost; Edelman v. ACLU is percolating through the newswires; Wired points out that Berman-Coble protects certain music systems. Doc Searls coins a word: dysnia

Hmmmm - Apparently (at least in The Register’s Thomas Greene’s opinion), it has suddenly dawned on Valenti that Berman’s bill cuts both ways. Personally, I’m afraid that Thomas is wishing for something that isn’t there.

Dave Winer’s take is one that everyone should get behind! His ScriptingNews log has further points.

Dan Gillmor reports that HP has put the kibosh on Bruce Perens’ plan to openly violate the DMCA. Slashdot discussion

(5 items listed below)

• The Foxtrot cartoon of the day is particularly apt in the wake of the submission of the Berman-Coble bill; and stunning timing, given typical newspaper production cycles for cartoons. An earlier cartoon (March 2, 2001) has been one of my favorites. Although this Boondocks collection (scroll down) is still the best series yet.
• The opinion in Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment v Stevens [2002] FCA 906 (26 July 2002) concludes that a PlayStation does not incorporate an anticircumvention device, under the definitions in current Australian law. Slashdot discusses.
• Edelman v N2H2 gets some ink in the NYTimes - Donna’s Copyfight has a few more cites
• Following up on yesterday’s rant, Thomas Greene has found someone to praise in the face of the US Government’s “steamrolling [of] the rights of citizens to sue” for information released to the government under the revised Freedom of Information Act being crafted for the Homeland Defense initiative.
• Brad King analyzes Berman-Coble and finds, ironically, that systems with centralized servers (like AIM - and, Napster) are protected in ways that true P2P systems are not. Another angle, but nothing to make anyone happy. More depressingly, even SiliconValley.com’s (the online San Jose Mercury News) Dawn Chmielewski can’t come up with much workable rhetoric to explain why this bill is such a tragedy. Benny Evangelista at SFGate is also about par for the course.