By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 19th at 05:30 AM  | 

Had some work to do Friday night, so this this became Tech at Sunday Morning!

I still don’t see it passing the House after Mike Enzi’s winners and losers talk poisoned the well, but conservative governors want MFA passed for good reason. Ask Scott Walker.

Remember when the T-Mobile/MetroPCS deal flew through the Obama administration without a hitch? I think we now know why: it meant the end of the MetroPCS challenge to Net Neutrality. How convenient.

Stealth recording technology. What could go wrong? Of course, if you don’t like Google Glass, the real thing to do is to let property owners ban it on their own property. Problem solved.

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  May 17th at 10:00 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss a DHS reaction to Bitcoin, a CBO report on a shrinking deficit and why liberals think deficits are a good thing.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 16th at 02:30 AM  | 

Some fascinating Bitcoin developments: As I predicted, Mt. Gox just got trouble with its US dollar processor, Dwolla. Meanwhile it comes out that a cabal of developers has de facto control over the Bitcoin network and is devaluing very small wallets. The net effect of this is to reduce the money supply, deflating Bitcoin to benefit those with large holdings.

So even as Bitcoin is revealed to have its own central bankers, the new Megaupload is getting censored per New Zealand law, as Kim Dotcom weighs (heavily) in against Obama to attempt to distract from this censorship.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 14th at 12:00 AM  | 

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.

Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!

And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 9th at 12:30 AM  | 

I’m on antihistamines and hoping I’m not getting too sick, so this is going to be less… focused than it usually will be. Hang on.

Let’s recap the CISPA situation. Anonymous is proving why we need it (though BGR is delusional for thinking Anonymous was “attacking North Korea” when it hacked Twitter accounts, though BGR does sometimes go gaga for radical propaganda). China is, too. But the administration is opposing CISPA on “privacy” grounds. Hold that thought.

The Obama administration is not opposing and may back government mandates for “wiretapping” Internet communications – that is, government-mandated backdoors into encrypted communications. What was that about privacy, again?

At least Republicans are still serious on the matter, looking at the large scale of thefts and spying going on. Make no mistake: this is aimed at China. In theory it would affect Iran, but we already embargo them, so this affects China.

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  May 6th at 10:00 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Warren Buffet’s assessment of the bond market, Bitcoin’s shadow economy in Argentina and the online attacks that are rocking the currency.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 24th at 09:30 AM  | 

We’re at war online. Iran, North Korea, and Russia are the sources of sustained attacks on our government and our economy. They steal from us, they disrupt our operations, and they’re no better than the pirates of old. On the sea, such attacks would eventually mean war, but on the Internet they get a pass.

Individuals do tend to get nabbed after the fact, as they build massive botnets for credit card fraud and Bitcoin mining, but it’s not enough to sit back passively and wait to get attacked before doing anything.

We need to be proactive, and that means putting together all the information we can about attacks past, present, and future. We need to be able to deal with attacks before the spin up fully. We need to pass along warnings before it’s too late. And that means we need legislation to prevent trial lawyers from making a mess of all of this. So that’s why it’s time to pass CISPA.

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  April 8th at 10:00 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the passing of Margaret Thatcher, her role in history and the governmental threat of Bitcoin.

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  April 5th at 10:00 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the March employment report, the high unemployment rates in Europe and the Bitcoin Bubble.

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  April 1st at 09:03 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Bitcoin, how it has been used in Cyprus and if it may be the future of money.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 6th at 11:30 PM  | 

So even as Eric Holder is pushing back against the Weekend at Bernies-ification of Aaron Swartz, the man who committed premeditated crimes (as the puppet on the strings of the callous Larry Lessig, perhaps?), was caught, and was getting prosecuted for his high-profile sabotage of one of America’s leading academic institutions. It’s rare that you’ll see writers at RedState agree with that guy, but Moe is pushing back against the excesses of the Swartz defenders as well, and I pretty much agree with Moe.

Guys, if you want to push an anarchic anti-copyright agenda, do so on its own merits, as Joe Karaganis does. Don’t use the corpse of a suicide to do so.

There is room for IP reform in America, with excesses like the Sonny Bono act in the picture, and odd situations where Frito Lay can use patent and trade dress, two distinct concepts, to attack the same competitor. But the Swartz fan club is as auto-discrediting as the Sacco and Vanzetti crowd ended up being.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 28th at 01:00 AM  | 

So Republicans checked up on the Broadband Stimulus, yet another pork barrel spending project by the President, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid: Surprise! It was a wasteful failure, like the rest of the jobless stimulus.

IP reform: I’m not optimistic of copyright reform soon, though it is a populist thing the TEA party could do against Hollywood and the joint efforts of big government and big business. But implementing loser pays against only patent trolls would be nice. But don’t forget that trademarks are completely out of hand, too.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 30th at 03:30 AM  | 

Why Mitt Romney must win the election: Dianne Feinstein is urging Barack Obama to defy the Congress, which refused to pass the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act, and rule by decree on the matter.

And I know it’s a lot of inside baseball, some of the details of which I’m not entirely up on, but the FCC has been making hay before the election, and it’s not even pretending to make sense. Much as I’ve previously noted the left-wing advocacy groups do, the FCC uses whatever argument it must for the immediate issue at hand. Consistency across issues is not required.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 9th at 03:30 AM  | 

With fourteen articles to run through tonight, a near record, I don’t have time to waste. We’ll start with Joshua Trevino bringing us Bill Peacock on the Texas Amazon Tax. Texas SB 1 contains the tax Governor Perry already vetoed this session, and it needs defeated again. Says Peacock: “Gov. Perry was right to veto the Amazon tax bill, and he’d be right if he | Read More »