Tech at Night: Obama's FCC Chairman pick goes to the Hill. For once, I agree with John McCain.

Tech at Night

Seen on RedState this week: 10 questions for Obama’s nominee to chair FCC. It doesn’t sound like his answers are all great, which is in keeping with this adminstration’s inability to follow through with good spectrum policy.

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In video games, this Microsoft announcement means both more and less than it’s made out to be. Yes, they are backing off on some of the mandatory online stuff, and removing whole features (like trading digital games) in order to respond to Sony. But they’re not promising no DRM, and in fact they just promised no selling of digital copies. However what they did do is 1-up Sony, who has left used game restrictions to publishers.

No, no, no, do not pass the Lofgren bill. Using or hijacking other people’s computing resources without permission to use them for your purposes, that should be a crime. If I accidentally leave my car unlocked, and you come swipe it, we don’t say “Oh well, you should have been more careful,” and let you off without penalty.

Aaron Swartz wanted to be the martyr. He made himself one. He only faced years in prison because he chose it. Instead of pleading guilty, he wanted a big, showy trial. Changing the law because of that person is just ridiculous and anti-property rights.

More in law enforcement: Google says they’re still going after drug dealers online, but Mississippi is asking the question I asked recently: are humans still collaborating in those sales efforts, as they were in the past?

Also, one Pirate Bay cofounder is wanted in 2 systems, er, countries. I love it when anarchists get rolled up, as will these online blackshirts.

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Even fugitive Kim Dotcom is paying the consequences of his crimes, as Megaupload has, at long last, been deleted. As a BGR commenter notes, though, Dotcom sure is eating well in New Zealand.

The first step though to securing your data is controlling where it is. NSA gets it. Do others?

There goes Sprint again. Dish concedes to SoftBank the Sprint bidding war, so what does Sprint do? Sue Dish and Clear, of course! Sprint for some reason consistently looks to government to give the firm what it cannot win in the marketplace.

I don’t get the point of this US-Russia Cyberwar hotline, unless Russia and the US are going to work together against China, whom Obama continues to promise to talk tough against, with tough actions yet to be seen. Then again, the real tough actions would be invisible to the press, right?

Should FCC regulations subsidize billion dollar sports franchises? I say no, so for once, I think I agree with John McCain, this time on sports blackouts.

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