Tech at Night: Google gets its way against Obama, to everyone’s surprise?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 29th at 03:30 AM  | 

Apologies. I’ve had some technical issues tonight, and after twice nearly losing my list of links to work through… I’ll do my best, but I’m not really feeling it at this point. So sorry if I’m subpar tonight.

Two Google wins going on. Larry Page talked with FTC on antitrust and now the left is shrieking that sanity may prevail on this. Google isn’t a search monopoly. Amazon, eBay, IMDB, sites like these ensure it. Even if Bing and Duck Duck Go are having trouble breaking through, domain-specific search matters, a lot, and Google has to compete with that, or die.

That said, it’s ridiculous that Google was allowed to hack people’s browsers, store information surreptitiously, and instruct the browsers to send that information to their servers at later times. This directly against the expressed wishes and policies of the users involved. All they have to do is pay Obama his 20 pieces of silver, and they even get to keep the data.

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Tech at Night: Copyright flares up. Spectrum still matters too, though.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 20th at 01:30 AM  | 

So you may have heard that the Republican Study Committee pulled the copyright piece I spoke highly of over the weekend. I don’t have anything to say about this just yet. I’m going to reexamine the piece, to see if it had issues I didn’t notice in my quick read over the weekend. I’m also going to try to figure out just what’s happened. Then I’ll have more to say.

Copyright is ramping up, though. Darrell Issa is getting frisky against DMCA, and is going to push legislation. I don’t know if I support such a bill. The DMCA has issues, but for the most part it was a solid compromise that has served us well. It must not be changed lightly.

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Tech at Night: 30 months in prison for a DDoSer

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 8th at 04:00 AM  | 

Those nogoodniks online still need to beware, as Internet gangster Josh Schichtel, the creator (or operator, it’s hard to tell) of a 72,000 node botnet found out when he got socked with 30 months in prison and a $1,500 in fines.

And speaking of bad guys, Wikileaks, oh wait no, WCITLeaks. These are the good guys, trying to bring transparency to the ITU’s shadowy multinational negotiations of communications matters. And they’re looking to do more, going from pure leaking to adding policy and advocacy content.

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Telecommie* Aaron Swartz’s federal indictment (and unpersoning by Larry Lessig).

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  July 20th at 11:00 AM  | 

The formal indictment of PCCC/Reddit** co-founder (and Demand Progress Executive Director) Aaron Swartz is available [link fixed], and you will find it compelling reading, if only because it shows the level of stubborn disregard for other people’s property and needs that can be exhibited by a telecommie geek who is simultaneously convinced of the rightness of his cause, and not especially overburdened with a sense | Read More »

PCCC/Reddit cofounder Aaron Swartz indicted for mail fraud.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  July 19th at 04:59 PM  | 

PCCC stands for “Progressive Change Campaign Committee,” which was a group that rose to fame last year for its stellar record in taking progressive campaign cash and turning it into mocking, pathetically broken dreams; Reddit is of course the popular news source that none of you use because the liberals on it will downvote you to death if you try; Aaron Swartz is a co-founder | Read More »