By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 11th at 09:00 PM  | 

While I don’t share the zeal some have for ECPA reform, to change the requirements to search emails on third party servers, I think the whole project is at worst harmless so long as FISA is preserved.

As much as a broad free trade area would be great, I begin to wonder whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been hijacked by special interests, and so must fail. I mean, this “threat to Internet freedom” stuff is likely overblown, but the treaty is likely being used to try to ram stuff through that could never pass as ordinary legislation.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 26th at 03:30 AM  | 

It’s been a week, hasn’t it? It turns out the night I last did Tech, I pushed it way too hard, and my illness stuck with me another week. But we’re better now.

For what it’s worth, Steny Hoyer doesn’t see the Trans-Pacific Partnership passing anytime soon. I’m all for free trade, but TPP seems to be going far beyond trade, and becoming a grab bag of special interest provisions, and so I’m fine with giving it a lot of scrutiny.

As I’ve said before, the key to fixing patents is to remove the incentive the USPTO has to give out too many. So I’m glad the House rejected Democrat plans to reinforce USPTO getting funding that way. We must not let the office keep the feeas it collects anymore.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 19th at 03:00 AM  | 

Think the FAA is so great for making a slight loosening of its ridiculous regulations on phones on planes? Think again: The Euros are making us look bad by getting way ahead of us, and allowing full use of LTE at any time.

Anonymous is trying to go to war with America. Cells must start coming out denouncing this behavior I believe, or be considered anti-American and a threat to liberty until proven otherwise. Can we please go back to barring anarchists from the country, and expelling those we find?

Then again, the dope fiends among them are giving us plenty of reason to arrest them as it is through gangs like Silk Road, so… maybe that’s redundant.

I know it’s likely that the courts will toss out Net Neutrality again, but it still makes me smile to read predictions like that.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 14th at 03:30 AM  | 

I do apologize if I don’t go as in-depth tonight as I should. I think I’m coming down with something.

There goes Pandora. They appear to be giving up on getting their law passed that would give them a sweetheart regulatory deal, stomping on any need they’d have to negotiate in the marketplace. They don’t want competition or a marketplace. They want a command economy for music expanded beyond the insane system we already have in place for terrestrial radio. It’s good we’ve defeated their legal aims.

Speaking of picking winners and losers in regulation, here’s why they’re trying to kill Aereo. Broadcasters and cable companies are feeling threatened by the loss of revenues that are threatened by the push to go back to free terrestrial broadcasts, and we can’t let them get away with using government to prop themselves up.

MSNBC commentators don’t understand the law, surprise surprise.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 25th at 02:30 AM  | 

This will bet he only edition of Tech at Night this week. I was out of it Monday night, and this weekend I’m traveling to Denver for SGDQ 2013. I will be there to give live on stream commentary for the Legend of Zelda and Zelda II runs, so watch and donate if you care to.

House Democrats, together with a few libertarians, tried to restrict the NSA, and failed. I’m fine with this.

In other news, Google is accused of Net Neutrality violations for trying to restrict servers on Google Fiber. Heh. If people can run servers on Google Fiber then they’re going to have problems quickly. So this is a very interesting case.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 11th at 02:00 AM  | 

Out of control. It seems like only defeating Barack Obama in an election will truly stop this administration. Sure, for now they’ve been scared off of the Internet Tax, but with Net Neutrality and the Cybersecurity Executive Order still brewing, the Obama administration has more power grabs up its sleeves than we should ever have allowed.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 02:15 AM  | 

Right now the top issues are both getting lots of attention in the Senate. One is the cybersecurity bill. It’s been difficult for me to find out much about what’s going on with it, and it turns out there’s a reason. Sources familiar with the situation indicate to me that Harry Reid has been negotiating with Republicans in bad faith. Even Republicans who love to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 02:15 AM  | 

Right now the top issues are both getting lots of attention in the Senate. One is the cybersecurity bill. It’s been difficult for me to find out much about what’s going on with it, and it turns out there’s a reason. Sources familiar with the situation indicate to me that Harry Reid has been negotiating with Republicans in bad faith. Even Republicans who love to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 5th at 12:00 AM  | 

It’s Independence Day, which was very nice for me since I kept on resting and feel just about healthy now. No Tech on Monday thanks to my cold that wiped me out since Sunday. Unfortunately Google decided today was the day to celebrate a song that, while American, was specifically designed to carry political meaning as well as to reply to the Christian and patriotic | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 5th at 12:00 AM  | 

It’s Independence Day, which was very nice for me since I kept on resting and feel just about healthy now. No Tech on Monday thanks to my cold that wiped me out since Sunday. Unfortunately Google decided today was the day to celebrate a song that, while American, was specifically designed to carry political meaning as well as to reply to the Christian and patriotic | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 30th at 04:00 AM  | 

I hope nobody’s surprised that the Obama administration is stonewalling Darrell Issa from Trans-Pacific Partnership oversight. Because the President would love to get a power grab out of this, I’m thinking. In other House news, the Republican Study Committee is going Tech. Which is good; the less we have to rely on Democrats for good policy outcomes, the better. So I wish luck to Marsha | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 28th at 12:30 AM  | 

John McCain. Lisa Murkowski. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Saxby Chambliss. Richard Burr. Dan Coats. No, I’m not listing the centrist wing of the Senate Republicans. I’m listing some of the co-sponsors of SECURE IT, the bill that Senate Republicans have been forced to bring forth because the extremist Cybersecurity bill by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins just couldn’t be bargained with. That’s right, John McCain of | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 28th at 12:30 AM  | 

John McCain. Lisa Murkowski. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Saxby Chambliss. Richard Burr. Dan Coats. No, I’m not listing the centrist wing of the Senate Republicans. I’m listing some of the co-sponsors of SECURE IT, the bill that Senate Republicans have been forced to bring forth because the extremist Cybersecurity bill by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins just couldn’t be bargained with. That’s right, John McCain of | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 17th at 12:30 AM  | 

Earlier we covered Microsoft’s new Pirate Pay, which I said sounded like a DoS attack against copyright infringers. Others agree and say it may be illegal, which is true. Sure enough, Pirate Bay is under DDoS attack. Has Pirate Pay gone rogue? Cybersecurity and copyright, all in one issue.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 17th at 12:30 AM  | 

Earlier we covered Microsoft’s new Pirate Pay, which I said sounded like a DoS attack against copyright infringers. Others agree and say it may be illegal, which is true. Sure enough, Pirate Bay is under DDoS attack. Has Pirate Pay gone rogue? Cybersecurity and copyright, all in one issue.