Dumb Regulators To Legalize Bluetooth Spam
The UK Information Comissioner’s Office has determined that local privacy laws, designed to limit unsolicited marketing messages, do not apply to Bluetooth. This is because “text messages or emails” are not “covered” by the technology.
It’s a wonderful little mental game: Bluetooth can send and receive such data, sure, but as it is not, by their definition, a “public electronic communications network,” it’s O.K. by them to spam it — even though spam is clearly a public electronic communication!
Who is out there asking for Bluetooth to avoid coverage under the privacy laws that apply to everything else?
Exactly what group of supporters wants this deceptive and unwarranted distinction to be made?
If I may be so bold as to anticipate the answers to these questions, why is it so easy for spammers to manipulate these regulators?
Of all the things you read about concerning stupid regulatory mess-ups, this is the nightmare scenario.
Whatever Bluetooth-capable thing you have, just imagine it being a passive outlet for any marketing delivery system it moves within range of, the only remedy being to turn it off or cripple its functionality.
Source: Out-Law.com
You Can Change The World With Technology
Analysis of the RIAA’s victory over Jammie Thomas doesn’t have to be long.
Thomas got what was coming to her. She was obviously guilty… or was she?
From her blog/MySpace account:
I know this topic is debatable. It has been debated time and time again. I can honestly say I do NOT advocate theft. I will also say that I have NEVER used a P2P software to download or upload music. That was reason number one why I refused to settle with the music labels that were suing me in the first place. I did not do what they had accused me of and I was not going to pay them for someone else’s actions.
So what does the RIAA get now that Jammie Thomas got railroaded in my opinion?
$220,000 in actual (not punitive) damages for 24 shared files which is laughably out of touch with reality.
This victory is the RIAA’s money shot after years of lobbying, rent-seeking, bankrolling politicians and other legal and legislative maneuvering.
Nailing consumers for piracy is no longer untested law: it’s now backed by precedent.
The record industry is so obviously corrupt and immoral that most people either see thieving from it as a virtue, or are indifferent to its misfortunes.
Once an exemplar of venture capitalism’s driving spirit, the record industry is now nothing more than an economic and legal parasite.
Don’t believe me that the RIAA is in it for the money and not the justice?
Because after the verdict, RIAA attorney Richard Gabriel told reporters outside the courthouse “this is what can happen if you don’t settle.”
Seth Green Says Leave Chris Crocker Alone
The other day I posted a video of Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears and her performance at the Video Music Awards.
Well today I’m posting an awesome spoof done by Seth Green defending Chris Crocker. Enjoy:
Leave Britney Spears Alone
OMG is all I can say. This guy? is freaking out about how people are bashing Britney’s performance last night at the Video Music Awards… enjoy:
Who Should Do Our Terrorist Screening?
Ever since September 11, 2001, there’s been a question of how big a role businesses such as airlines and banks should play in helping to identify terrorists. The Department of Homeland Security’s headed in the right direction in wanting to take passenger screening over from the airlines.
Late last week, the Department of Homeland Security proposed that it begin doing the screening of passenger names against the government’s terrorist watch list database.
Today, DHS sends the watch list to airlines and they do the screening. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, speaking at a press conference, suggested he wasn’t satisfied that airlines are consistent enough in how they update their lists:
If they’re slow, or if they do it once a day or more slowly than that, they’re going to be more out of date. This gives us a much closer connection to the real-time information.
This move is part of Chertoff’s effort to implement DHS’s Secure Flight program, a passenger screening project that’s been marred by privacy mistakes and technical obstacles.
He proposes the Transportation Security Administration start screening tests this fall using data from air carriers that volunteer to provide it.
In another new regulation announced at the same time, DHS will require airlines provide the TSA with passenger data for all international flights in or out of the U.S. a half hour before a plane takes off. DHS will integrate that system into Secure Flight.
It seems to me that Chertoff’s heading in the right direction. Secure Flight’s had its missteps, with privacy problems foremost among them. Chertoff says the data will be checked against the watch list and “disposed of.”
Those privacy concerns are a place to watch and any CIO who has to meet data-sharing requirements with the government knows integration can be difficult and costly.
However, ultimately it’s the federal government, not the airlines, that should be combing passenger lists for terrorists.
YouTube’s Reign of Terror
The next leader of the free world may have stood on stage at The Citadel last night, but the real power in the room was YouTube.
Politicians are terrified of the video sharing site. How else to explain their participation in a 90-minute YouTube infomercial masquerading as a debate?
Yes, politicians want to demonstrate their relevance to an Internet-connected demographic, but they already do that.
Today’s presidential candidates have MySpace pages and campaign blogs, and several are raising millions of dollars online. They know how to pull the Web’s strings and make it dance.
Except for YouTube. Politicians are acutely aware they have yet to co-opt the video sharing site. For every propaganda video they post, there are a dozen dissenting posts, not to mention videos that link them to totalitarian nightmares or spotlight their preening vanity.
And they are haunted by the political carcass of George Allen, the Virginia senator who became YouTube’s poster boy for the perils of unguarded speech.
Every candidate on Earth is now on notice: If you do or say something stupid, it will be online within minutes, and then endlessly replayed and dissected on cable news and radio talk shows.
So the candidates participate in the YouTube debate, hoping, like high priests tossing a virgin into a volcano, to appease a mercurial god.
Is YouTube’s power good for democracy? Certainly I’m glad that the politicians haven’t figured out how to game this system.
Video-sharing platforms have become a vital forum for discussion and dissent. They give a much-needed voice to voters. And in last night’s debate, the gimmicky questions sometimes forced the participants to abandon boilerplate responses.
But in the long run I’m also afraid YouTube will compel candidates to become more guarded, to cling more desperately to scripted speeches and focus-group-tested talking points.
As the pressure of constant surveillance mounts, as candidates live in fear of a “Gotcha!” moment, we the voters will have less opportunity rather than more to understand what candidates actually believe.
Maybe it’s not just candidates who need to be afraid.