ARCH on ContactPoint

ARCH has now made a series of three short films on the ContactPoint and eCAF children's databases.







Essential viewing.

More on Clinton's win in New Hampshire

From OpEdNews via BradBlog:

"On January 10, 2008, analysts at the Election Defense Alliance (EDA) reported that based on the official results on the New Hampshire Secretary of state web site, there was a remarkable relationship between Obama and Clinton votes, when you look at votes tabulated by op-scan v. votes tabulated by hand in a head-to-head contest between the two candidates:

INCORRECT AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED: New Hampshire 2008 Democratic Primary Analysis (using voting method data as-of November 22, 2007)
Category	Votes	Clinton vs. Obama percentage
Clinton: statewide optical scan tally	91,717	52.95%
Obama: statewide optical scan tally	81,495	47.05%
Clinton: statewide hand-count tally	20,889	47.05%
Obama: hand count	23,509	52.95%

[...]

While the actual difference between Obama and Clinton hand count and optical scan margins are not a mirror image of each other to four decimal places as we had initially believed, the undeniable fact is that Obama appears to have carried the hand-counted tally statewide, while Clinton carried the optical scan statewide tally, by almost exactly opposite margins remains a remarkable result.

[...]

CORRECTED New Hampshire 2008 Democratic Primary Analysis (using voting method data updated on November 26, 2007)			Head to Head Clinton v. Obama Pre-election polling
Category	Votes	Head to Head Clinton vs. Obama percentage
Clinton: statewide optical scan tally	95,843	52.73%	Real Clear Politics (2)Average[2] 1/5 – 1/7/08: Clinton 43.9%Obama 56.1%
Obama: statewide optical scan tally	85,910	47.27%
Clinton: statewide hand-count tally	16,767	46.75%
Obama: hand count	19,097	53.25%

"

It would appear that there is at least circumstantial evidence that would point to the need for further investigation as to whether Clinton's and Obama's votes have been swapped by the voting machines. I wonder what stage Dennis Kucinich's formal request for a recount is currently at?

Of further interest is that the company that programs the voting machines in New Hampshire allegedly has a convicted drug trafficker working as its director of sales and marketing. Dori Smith guest blogging at Brad blog had this to say about company in November last year:

"LHS has proven to be less than agreeable to concerns about the voting systems they distribute across New England. Recently, their Director of Sales and Marketing, Ken Hajjar left a surprising comment in reply to a BRAD BLOG story about Diebold. Hajjar's impolitic comment began "Dear Brad, you are totally full of shit." He went on to charge, "You have no idea how elections are conducted and how many safeguards are in place, including human oversight," before referring to Election Integrity advocates as "paranoid" and "deluded".

Unfortunately, the comments were not out of character from previous interviews I'd done with him...

A few minutes later, when asked who would be on site, to either repair or replace the machines if there were problems during elections, Hajjar said, "Either a representative of the town or a representative of the vendor." He then explained, in some detail, about how they would open machines, in apparent violation of state law, to change memory cards during the elections.

Other LHS staff members we spoke with, including Mike Carlson and Tom Burge, provided similar comments. They said they would open machines up during an election and swap memory cards as needed. This is illegal under Connecticut law and Deputy Secretary Mara told us she has since informed LHS that such actions were in violation of Connecticut election laws.

In 2006, as Hajjar argued in favor of their policy to change cards during elections, I asked him about about the laws which govern chain of custody issues. His response: "I mean, I don't pay attention to every little law. It's just, it's up to the Registrars. All we are is a support organization on Election Day".

He said he had three memory cards in the trunk of his car and, in the event they had to be used, the chain of custody issues wouldn't matter since, "once you run the [pre-election] test deck through, you're golden"

"We would have a whole bunch of machines in the trunk in the car and we hope the phone doesn't ring, but if it does somebody tells us where to go, we replace the machine and then we go on our merry way," he declared...

Ken Hajjar's bluntness finally caught up with him this year. Following his less-than-appropriate comments at The BRAD BLOG, he has informed by Connecticut officials that he is no longer welcome to work in the state."

Thanks to Fergus O'Rourke for the pointer on the New Hampshire numbers.

Update: The statisticians have got to work on the potential e-vote conspiracy/cock-up here and are offering several plausible alternative explanations as to why the relative hand and computer counts came out the way they did.

"An analysis by The Associated Press' Election Research and Quality Control service found that Clinton led Obama by about 6 percentage points in machine-counted towns, where she earned 53 percent of the vote and Obama earned 47 percent. Obama led Clinton by about 8 percentage points in hand-counted towns, where he earned 54 percent of the vote and Clinton earned 46 percent.

Joe Lenski, executive vice president of Edison Media Research, one of two firms that conduct election exit polling for The AP and television networks, said those numbers fit the pattern.

"Since Florida 2000 there've been all sorts of theories out there, about Florida in 2000 and of course about Ohio in 2004. And I think certain people who are dissatisfied with the results are going to jump to this conclusion in any race that they're not satisfied with," Lenski said Friday. "And they're looking for one piece of evidence that's going to be convincing."

"If you do a little more statistical digging, you find out that this isn't proving what they think it's proving. It's a pattern that's been around for years," he said...

Lenski said it's all of a piece: Education, income and age -- factors that influence voters' candidate choices, also play into where they choose to live."

The end of the world as we know it

Now that John McCain has won the latest Republican primary in South Carolina I wonder if George Bush thinks we're even closer to the end of the world as we know it?



Thanks to Ian Yorston for the pointer to the video.

US Supreme Court decline to hear Kahle case

The US Supreme Court has decided against hearing the appeal of Brewster Kahle challenging the constitutionality of repeated Congressional extension of copyright term based on the impact of such extensions on orphan works i.e. those with no identifiable copyright owner. It is hardly surprising since the case was an attempt to revive the basic challenge raised by the Eldred v Ashcroft case and rejected by the Supreme Court in 2003.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Kahle v. Ashcroft, brought by Internet Archive and Open Content Alliance founders Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger in 2003, which challenged the constitutionality of the current copyright regime. Although not unexpected, the Supreme Court's refusal comes after a recent ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals raised hopes of a review and lets stand the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' rejection, effectively ending the case.

The Kahle suit was launched in the wake of the unsuccessful 2003 Eldred v. Ashcroft case, which challenged Congess's extension of copyright terms. In that ruling, the Supreme Court held that changes by Congress to the "traditional contours" of copyright law warranted a First Amendment review. Kahle v. Ashcroft contended that Congress's sweeping changes to copyright law in 1976 were enough of a change in the "contours of copyright" to require review."

Larry Lessig's first ever courtroom victory on technical and procedural issues in the Golan case last autumn had however raised some slim hopes that the courts might be prepared to start reining in the worst excesses of extensions to intellectual property laws.

Primary Sources on Copyright 1450 - 1900

A collection of academics from all over the world are collating a digital archive of primary historical sources on copyright (1450 - 1900).

What a great project. A terrific combination of new technology and old to make a tremendously valuable resource available to anyone with an interest in copyright and a computer connected to the Net. The organisers of the project are holding a conference in March.

This two day conference is the culmination of a research project involving the creation of a digital resource concerning the history of copyright in five key jurisdictions; France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, for the period before 1900. The project involves the selection of certain key documents, their digitisation, transcription, and translation. The project will create a free electronic archive of primary sources from the invention of the printing press (ca1450) to the Berne Convention (1886): in facsimile and transcription, translated and key word searchable. The documents will include statutes, materials relating to legislative history, case law, tracts, and commentaries. Editorial headnotes will provide context. The project is entirely publicly-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and benefits from an advisory board of internationally-recognised experts in relevant fields. When complete, the digital resource will be hugely valuable to scholars from all disciplines interested in the history of copyright. More information about the project is available at Primary Sources on Copyright History.

Yet another Uk anti terror bill on the way

I heard the Home Secretary on the radio this morning and the UK government are planning yet more anti terrorism legislation.

"In order to ensure that crimes of terror are prevented, and that those who attempt to commit those acts go to prison, the government has substantially increased funding for police and counter-terrorism.

To ensure that police and security services have the powers they need to fight back against the threat of terrorism, the government will soon introduce a counter-terrorism bill that gives them new legal rights.

Included in that act will be new or expanded powers related to:

• gathering and sharing information about terrorist suspects
• post-charge questioning of suspects
• tougher sentencing for offences tied in to terrorism
• the seizure and forfeiture of terrorist cash, property and other assets"

It doesn't say it in the Home Office press release about the speech but she emphasised her desire to have educational institutions inform the authorities of and crack down on unacceptable or extremist views.

Documents reveal that Blair urged end to BAE-Saudi corruption investigation

This won't be a big surprise to many people but just before Christmas the High Court published documents revealing that Tony Blair urged end to the BAE-Saudi corruption investigation.

Documents released in the High Court on Friday 21 December 2007 indicate that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into BAE's Saudi arms deals was dropped only after the then Prime Minister Tony Blair sent a personal minute to the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. They show that Goldsmith did not believe that the case should be dropped in response to alleged Saudi threats to withdraw intelligence and security co-operation.

The documents are a witness statement from the Director of the Serious Fraud Office, Robert Wardle, and nine redacted (words and sentences excluded) typed-up letters between the Prime Minister and/or Cabinet Office (the government department supporting the Prime Minister) and the Attorney General (which superintends the Director of the Serious Fraud Office) dating from December 2005 to December 2006.

The documents were released during a 'Directions Hearing' at the High Court to prepare for a judicial review brought by The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) against the UK Government's decision to cut short the SFO investigation into alleged corruption by BAE Systems in recent arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

The 5 year old suspected terrorist

In the mountain of silly security stories that now exist the detention and searching of a five year old as a suspected terrorist at an airport has got to rank right near the top of the stupidity scale. Thanks to Cory for the link. The TSA say that sort of thing should not be happening.

Demos report on National Security for the 21st Century

Demos's report on National Security for the 21st Century (pdf, 669 KB) was published just before Christmas. (Thanks to Bruce Schneier for the link) It has some radical suggestions for changing the UK's approach to security threats. From the executive summary and recommendations:

"The British government lacks a clear and coherent view of the nature
and priority of risks1 to the United Kingdom.
The national security architecture is flawed in its design. The
government remains structured around functions and services with
separate budgets for defence, foreign affairs, intelligence and
development. Whitehall departments, intelligence agencies and the
police forces that make up the security architecture have changed very
little in the past two decades, despite the end of the Cold War and the
attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
This model of government may have suited the security
environment of the Cold War when the UK faced a threat to its
national survival but the complex and uncertain security
environment demands a fundamental review of how government is
organised. This is especially true if government is to respond to
‘wicked’ problems, issues that are unbounded in time, scope and
resources. The common, unifying, external threat of nuclear war has
been replaced by a plethora of security challenges such as trafficking
and organised crime, international terrorism, energy security,
pandemics and illegal immigration. They are dangers that are present,
but not clear.
The government remains faced with a set of problems it cannot
solve on its own. In order to respond to the new security paradigm,
the UK’s security architecture must adapt, not just in terms of
processes and structures but in the mindsets of ministers and civil
servants. At the same time, it must develop close relationships with its
‘strategic partners’, the private sector and the wider public, which
raises further challenges of transparency, information sharing and
trust.
This pamphlet sets out a definition of and an approach to ‘national
security’, a concept understood by some as an abstract notion relating
to the ‘condition of the state’, and referred to in security and
intelligence legislation. It argues that the concept of national security
can serve a more vital role, as a principle for organising government.
The pamphlet draws on reforms and innovations from governments
elsewhere in Europe and the United States and suggests some radical
and innovative ideas on which to shape the future of the national
security architecture.
Its core argument is that while the UK government has been able
to ‘muddle through’ by creating new units within departments, merge
teams and allocate more resources for agencies to expand, the present
and future security environment urgently demands a more integrated
and strategic approach. Tinkering with the machinery will continue
to pay short-term dividends but it will only ever achieve marginal
improvements. Long-term success must be based on a more inclusive,
open and holistic approach to national security...
Part 2 of the pamphlet outlines how the government can transform
itself in response to the challenges identified in the pamphlet. The
changes revolve around three essential principles of adaptation in
government:

the need for a holistic approach to national security, based
on systems thinking, which allows individuals, agencies
and departments to take a much broader perspective than
normal; this includes seeing overall structures, patterns
and cycles in systems, rather than identifying only specific
events or policy options

the creation of an open and transparent national security
architecture for ministers, civil servants and the
government’s strategic partners – the private sector and
the wider public

a transformation of the national security architecture
based on the principles of public value, an intellectual
framework for reform in government that, although still
in its infancy, has huge potential for changing the way in
which the government measures its performance and
maintains the trust and confidence of society...

Recommendations


National security strategy
1. A national security strategy has the potential to
transform the way government approaches issues
of national security but the development of a strategy
must be comprehensive and supported across the
political spectrum,within Whitehall and by the
public.
2. While the publication of a national security strategy is
welcome the government should go further and create a
national security secretariat, based in the Cabinet Office
and subsuming the Overseas and Defence Secretariat,
Civil Contingencies Secretariat and parts of the Security
and Intelligence Secretariat.
3. In collaboration with the prime minister and cabinet the
national security secretariat should identify three to five
most serious and immediate priorities for UK national
security. These might be serious and organised crime,
counter-proliferation, counter-terrorism and energy
security.

System reform
4. The government should create networks across
Whitehall on issues such as ‘governance and rule of law’,
‘trade and diplomacy’, ‘climate change’ and ‘security
sector reform’. This will require changed departmental
structures based more heavily on teams and projects,
which are able to call on expertise from outside. These
networks will be the responsibility of a senior civil
servant, accountable to both a minister and Parliament.
5. Clarification of ministerial roles on issues of national
security is needed. At present too many key policy areas
or departmental units in government have little or no
ministerial leadership. This is not a call for a new
ministerial post in the Cabinet Office on security but
rather a plea for better ministerial oversight on a range of
policy areas such as security sector reform and conflict
prevention and on units that fall between departments
such as the new Stabilisation Unit.
6. Public value must become the intellectual framework for
public services and national security.
7. A national training centre should be created for the
intelligence agencies and law enforcement.
8. Based on the current IT programme SCOPE, the
government should go further and create a similar
system of information-sharing software based on the
successful Intellipedia in the US.

Accountability and oversight
9. The post of ‘spokesperson on national security’ should
be created and based in a new national security
secretariat.
10. The government should make public an annual threat
assessment.
11. A quadripartite parliamentary select committee on
national security should be created – bringing together
existing select committees that focus on UK national
interests, security and defence policy. The government
must allocate more resources to parliamentary select
committees including a panel of national security experts
National Security for the Twenty-first Century
who can be called on to undertake investigations in
specialist areas.
12. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) should
not become a parliamentary select committee. Instead the
ISC should be strengthened by recruiting a team of
independent investigators while more resources should
be provided for the ISC secretariat."

Refuse the terror

Refuse the terror video on YouTube:

Hacking life

Freeman Dyson thinks teenagers are going to be engaged in biological and genetic hacking in the none too distant future.

" DYSON: Because von Neumann thought that he was dealing with unreliable hardware, he made another mistake. The problem was how to write reliable software so as to deal with unreliable hardware. Now we have the opposite problem. Hardware is amazingly reliable, but software is not. It's the software that sets the limit to what you can do.

My prediction or prognostication is that the same thing is going to happen to biotech in the next 50 years, perhaps 20 years; that it's going to be domesticated. And I take the example of the flower show in Philadelphia and the reptile show in San Diego, at both of which I saw demonstrations of the enormous market there is for people who are skilled breeders of plants and animals. And they're itching to get their hands on this new technology. As soon as it's available I believe it's going to catch fire, the way computers did when they became available to people like you.

It's essentially writing and reading DNA. Breeding new kinds of plants and trees and bushes by writing the genomes at home on your personal machine. Just a little DNA reader and a little DNA writer on your desk, and you play the game with seeds and eggs instead of with pictures on the screen. That's all.

LLOYD: One of the reasons computers became ubiquitous is the phenomenon of Moore's Law, where they became faster and more powerful by a factor of two every two years. Is there an equivalent here?

DYSON: Exactly the same thing is happening to DNA at the moment. Moore's Law is being followed as we speak, both by reading and writing machines.

LLOYD: At roughly the same rate?

DYSON: Yes.

VENTER: It's happening faster. I had this discussion with Gordon Moore and I said that sequence reading and writing was changing faster than Moore's Law, and he said, but it won't matter, as you're ultimately dependent on Moore's Law.

DYSON: I agree with that. At the moment it's going fast.

CHURCH: Unless we build bio-computers—right now the best computers are bio-computers.

BROCKMAN: It took two weeks for a 17-year-old to hack the iPhone—and here we're talking about DNA writers and readers. That same kid is going to start making people.

DYSON: That's true, the driving force is the parents, not the scientists. Fertility clinics are a tremendously large and profitable branch of medicine, and that's where the action is. There's no doubt this is going into fertility clinics as well. For good or evil, that's happening.

BROCKMAN: But isn't this a watershed event because of our ideas about life? What's possible will happen. What will the societal impact be?

DYSON: It's not true that what's possible will happen. We have strict laws about experimenting with human subjects.

BROCKMAN: You can't hack an iPhone either; certain activities along these lines are illegal.

DYSON: But it's different with medicine. You do get put in jail if you break the rules.

BROCKMAN: Not in Romania.

DYSON: There are clear similarities but also great differences. Certainly it is true that people are going to be monkeying around with humans; I totally agree with that. But I think that society will put limits on it, and that the limits are likely to be broken from time to time, but they will be there."

Chip implants for prisoners

SpyBlog has a wonderfully thorough analysis of why the Independent on Sunday's sensationalised story about government ministers considering implanting chips in prisoners to track them is a non starter.

Don't even bother reading the Indie's story just look at SpyBlog's dissection of it.

EU Opens New Microsoft Investigation

From AP via Findlaw: EU Opens New Microsoft Investigation

"European Union regulators said Monday they were investigating whether software giant Microsoft Corp. used its market dominance to squeeze out office software and Internet browser rivals."

FBI wiretaps cut due to unpaid phone bills

You've got to laugh at the surveillance silly season stories like this one. The chink in US government's mass surveillance program might well be irritated phone companies cutting off FBI and other wiretaps due to unpaid phone bills!

"The FBI has hit a major hang-up in its wiretapping surveillance program: failing to pay its phone bills on time.

Facing tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals, a Justice Department audit released Thursday shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

And in at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies."

It gives a new twist to the idea that the piper must be paid. There's also a great quote in the piece from an ACLU lawyer:

"It seems the telecoms, who are claiming they were just being 'good patriots' when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind on its bills," said former FBI agent Michael German, the ACLU's national security policy counsel. "To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when FBI says warrant is in the mail but not when they say the check is in the mail."

The Ford Pirates

Apparently Ford's lawyers are leaning on the 9000 member 'Black Mustang Club', which will not now (scroll about 3/4 of the way down the page) be producing a calendar including pictures of club members' black Mustang Ford cars, since Ford claim to own the pictures and much else besides.

"I got some more info from the folks at cafepress and according to them, a law firm representing Ford contacted them saying that our calendar pics (and our club's event logos - anything with one of our cars in it) infringes on Ford's trademarks which include the use of images of THEIR vehicles. Also, Ford claims that all the images, logos and designs OUR graphics team made for the BMC events using Danni are theirs as well. Funny, I thought Danni's title had my name on it ... and I thought you guys owned your cars ... and, well ... I'm not even going to get into how wrong and unfair I feel this whole thing is as I'd be typing for hours, but I wholeheartedly echo everything you guys have been saying all afternoon. I'm not letting this go un-addressed and I'll keep you guys posted as I get to work on this.

I'm sorry, but at this point we will not be producing the 2008 BMC Calendar, featuring our 2007 Members of the Month, solely due to Ford Motor Company's claim that THEY own all rights to the photos YOU take of YOUR car. I hope to resolve this soon, and be able to provide the calendar and other BMC merchandise that you guys want and deserve!"

The thing is that although it is pretty stupid commercial practice to annoy a dedicated group of customers likely to put continuing long term repeat business your way, Ford have a fairly strong case under US IP law as it currently stands - calendar sales, which they have not authorised, featuring pictures of Ford vehicles. Yet another example of ordinary people not liking what they see when IP is brought to their attention in a rather in-your-face unfortunate kind of way. Witness some of the contributors to the BMC forum:

"Wow I cannot believe what I am reading. I thought we were making the payments and that when I take a picture of MY mustang I own the rights to the picture not them and if I want to publish a picture of my car it is mine. This is just crazy."

"*utterly speechless*

Just simply amazing. I would think they'd be flattered that we were so happy to be showing off our cars and getting them some publicity in the process."

"This is quite possibly the most absurd thing I've ever heard. the NOTION that after paying THOUSANDS of dollars, I'm not authorized to create artwork using pictures of what's rightfully mine just blows my mind!
Ford has another think coming if they think they're just going to go around squashing all the 'little men', who do nothing but SUPPORT them...

I don't know about you guys, but when I bought the Bullitt, I didn't see anything in the contract that said Ford would maintain "intellectual rights" to any pictures I might eventually take of the vehicle. BUMP that!"

This latter contributor may well own his car but I'm afraid the law says he is "not authorized to create artwork using pictures" which include Ford's trademarks.

Did Hilary really win New Hampshire?

From CounterPunch: Did Hilary really win New Hampshire?

Dennis Kucinich has filed a formal request for a recount of the machine ballots cast in the New Hampshire primary since there is some circumstantial evidence that they didn't work properly i.e. the outcome was substantially different to what the pollsters were predicting. If I had any confidence at all in evoting technology I'd probably be rubbishing the requst for a recount and sarcastically suggesting we just avoid the problem of going to the polls at all and just go by what the polling houses say. But as Prof. Doug Jones says, although there is no direct evidence available yet - no smoking gun - that anything has gone wrong, "the Diebold machines are vulnerable to viruses that can be spread through the machines by the PCMCIA memory cards, and there are other things that can go wrong too." As the good professor says, and he should know as one of the world's leading experts in evoting, it would help the process enormously "if they had a routine random audit procedure in New Hampshire."

Doctor suspended after objecting to the sharing of her personal medical details

Here's another personal data sharing story that everyone should be told. A doctor, who objected to her personal medical details being shared with researchers who then repeatedly phoned her asking intrusive questions, was suspended by her health trust for five years. She had to take her employer to court, firstly to insist her records be kept confidential and secondly to fight the suspension. The Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) and East of England Strategic Health Authority (SHA) eventually followed the advice of a smart barrister and apologised unreservedly to her in the High Court last Friday.

"A HUNTINGDONSHIRE doctor was excluded from work for five years after she objected to her own private medical records being given to researchers.

The doctor was also "unjustly branded dishonest" and believes her career was curtailed by the actions of Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust (PCT).

At the High Court in London on Friday, the PCT took the unusual step of making an apology to the doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons...

At the High Court Mr Justice Eady was told that the woman was born with a serious and life-threatening condition which attracted interest from medical researchers.

The court heard that her medical details "in fully identifiable form" were circulated widely for the purposes of research at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. As a result she received "uninvited, intrusive and upsetting" phone calls from unknown researchers.

Despite repeated attempts to have her details deleted from databases, she had to take court action to force Addenbrooke's to keep her medical records secret, the court heard."

Privacy + computers = complexity

I learn from Michael Geist that a federal court in California has ruled that a company collecting peer to peer data to track down people using P2P networks, allegedly illicitly, for music sharing, did not commit trespass to chattels. The case is Atlantic Recording Corp. v. Serrano.

Contrast that with the story of the methodist minister who was found to have child pornography on his work computer but considered to have a fourth amendment right to avoid having the computer seized and searched through inappropriate procedures without a warrant:

"A Florida appeals court has affirmed an order barring the state from using alleged child pornography taken without a warrant from an office computer as evidence against a Methodist pastor.

The Florida 1st District Court of Appeal found that Pastor Eric Young had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his office and workplace computer because they were reserved for his exclusive use and that the police officers who seized the evidence did not have valid consent to take it."

Or the Bush administration's mass warrantless wiretapping, which a worried Democrat controlled Congress is effectively considering rubber stamping, lest they be painted as 'soft on terror'...

And you see some of the anomalies of the regulation of modern communications technologies in the good old US of A. Is sharing music on the Net worse than collecting child pornography and does the war on terror mean there should be no checks or balances on government in the US, the UK or anywhere else? Answers on a postcard to your local parliamentary representative please.

Copying CDs could be made legal in UK

From the BBC: Copying CDs could be made legal in the UK

"Copying music from a CD to a home computer could be made legal under new proposals from the UK government.

Millions of people already "rip" discs to their computers and move the files to MP3 players, although the process is technically against copyright law.

Intellectual property minister Lord Triesman said the law should be changed so it "keeps up with the times".

Music industry bodies gave a cautious welcome to the proposals, which are up for public consultation until 8 April."

The details of the copyright consultation mentioned are available from the Intellectual Property Office, as ORG mentioned before Christmas:

" Over a year since Andrew Gowers made his recommendations for the reform of IP law, the UK Intellectual Property Office has finally announced a date for the first stage of a two-part consultation into modifications to the copyright rules so that private individuals, students and libraries can benefit from improved access to copyright material. A launch event will take place on 8 January at the British Library, and all interested parties are welcome to attend. Email copyrightconsultation [AT] ipo.gov.uk with your name, job title and the company or organisation you represent if you want to be on the list.

In his email inviting ORG to attend, Lord Triesman, the minister for intellectual property, assured us that he is “eager that all interests should make the fullest use of the consultation.” His speech to the Social Market Foundation last month [pdf] predicted much debate around Gowers’ recommended format-shifting exception:

“[This] recommendation raises an interesting point: there are some people who believe that such a change to the law will provide the consumer with a ‘right’ to copy a DVD for example – but that is not the case. Any change in the law will merely provide an exception from infringement for certain limited acts, and will not override any terms and conditions which the consumer agrees to when he or she buys a DVD in the first place.”

Meanwhile, the UK IPO has been quietly implementing Gowers Review recommendation numbers 46 and 47. Thanks to the IPKat for bringing ORG’s attention to the fact that we had missed the deadline for putting forward a suitably open candidate to the new Strategic Advisory Board on Intellectual Property, a panel that will advise Government on IP issues. Since ORG is subscribed to a large number of UK IPO message lists, we were surprised not to be informed that recruitment was underway. So we’ve asked the UK IPO to consider a late application for SABIP from the Open Rights Group."

Update: ORG were also at the government's 'launch' of the consultation yesterday.

Sony BMG drop drm on downloads

From the BBC, InfoWorld and others: Sony BMG are dropping drm on music downloads.

"Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.

The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service"

Patent troll tracker top ten trolls of 2007

Patent troll tracker has also nominated their top ten patent trolls of 2007 The top three were:


"...
3. Acacia. I didn't start tracking Acacia carefully until the summer. But still, on my blog I have reported on over two dozen lawsuits brought by Acacia this year, against more than 235 defendants. That's in addition to the over 200 lawsuits Acacia filed in previous years against hundreds and hundreds of defendants. And that's not including the two lawsuits (at least) Acacia has filed in December against 20 more defendants (yes, Acacia, I'm watching you). Acacia's business model, as a publicly traded company, is to accumulate patents and sue as many companies as possible in order to extract licenses. They have a market cap of over 275 million - that pays for a lot of lawsuits. Unlike other trolls, Acacia tends to not focus on one court in particular, although they have sampled the Eastern District of Texas more this year than in the past.

2. Erich Spangenberg. In any other year, Spangenberg would be #1. His subsidiaries, new ones seemingly being created every month, filed at least 15 lawsuits against over 200 defendants this year. Given Acacia sued at least 50 more defendants than Spangenberg in 2007, it was tempting to reverse their order. But Spangenberg - well, he just seems smarter than Acacia. For example, unlike Acacia, he won his trial ($36M from Hyundai) while Acacia lost its trial to Microsoft. Further, even though he sued less than Acacia, he seems to be more successful in resolving his cases (Acacia takes its cases to multiple Markman hearings taking years of litigation; Spangenberg's cases often seem to go away before there's a scheduling conference).

1. Global Patent Holdings. Sometimes quality is more important than quantity. Global Patent Holdings didn't sue as many defendants as Acacia or Erich Spangenberg this year. But their one patent claim -- claim 17 of the '341 patent -- is as disturbing as any patent being asserted by any non-practicing entity this year. Essentially, prior to the reexamination, GPH asserted that anyone with a JPEG on a website infringed their patent. Despite the fact that all 16 claims of the original patent have been finally cancelled, the one much-amended claim is still being asserted by those representing GPH to cover any website with a JPEG. GPH wasted no time after the reexamination certificate issued, suing 16 companies in 3 lawsuits. The amazing thing is the number of potential defendants. One report I saw had there being 100 million websites. Even if you assume only 40 million of them are in the US (a conservative number, if you ask me), and that only 10% of those websites have JPGs (again, an extremely conservative number), there are 4 million potential defendants. Even at Niro's published minimum of $125,000 per defendant, that's half a trillion dollars. Of course, not that many defendants will be sued, and this patent will surely be challenged, but this amazing statistic and the ramp-up of litigation is enough to earn Global Patent Holdings my seal of Patent Troll of the Year."

Are Acacia jurisdiction shopping with patent claims

Patent Poll Tracker has a fascinating list of some of the patent infringement cases pursued by Acacia in December 2007 and comments:

"Turning to our busiest patent troll in 2007, Acacia, it kept up momentum in December with new lawsuits.

Acacia's new subsidiary Coronary Stent Visualization Corp., established in Delaware on 11/19/07 with a principal place of business of 500 Newport Center Drive, 7th Floor, Newport Beach, CA, filed a lawsuit less than a month after formation. Acacia sued Philips Electronic North America Corp. on 3 patents owned by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) and allegedly exclusively licensed to Acacia. The exclusive license likely happened at some point just prior to February 2007, when Cedars-Sinai (represented by Jones Day-LA) told the PTO it had lost its small entity status. The 3 patents are 5,054,045; 5,457,728; and 5,822,391. The lawsuit, involving a Los Angeles patentee, Los Angeles inventors, a Los Angeles exclusive licensee/plaintiff, a Los Angeles prosecuting attorney/law firm (well, now-defunct Lyon & Lyon, anyway), and a New York defendant, was filed in Marshall, Texas on 12/17/07 by DiNovo Price Ellwanger of Austin.

Acacia also filed a big case on December 4, in the Southern District of Illinois (East St. Louis) - the second case they have filed there. This time the sub was Document Generation Corp., and Acacia used Simon Passanante of St. Louis. Patent asserted was 5,148,366. Again, Acacia said it is only the exclusive licensee. 19 defendants were sued, all in the medical software field. GE Healthcare and McKesson are the big ones, but 17 small-to-medium business were sued, too...

Acacia, a California company located in CDCA, is an exclusive licensee who has sued 19 defendants, who are located in 17 different judicial districts (including CDCA). The original assignee and inventors were all from Minnesota, then the patent was transferred via merger and relocation to a company in the Southern District of Ohio, and finally has ended up with I-Think, LLC, an Ann Arbor Michigan corporation which appears to be a subsidiary of the original Minnesota assignee, now called DocuMed. That's about 20 different judicial districts that make sense in terms of venue, yet Acacia chose the Southern District of Illinois. Why, exactly? What's in East St. Louis that appeals to Acacia?"

Extract from PM interview with Observer on ID Cards

The NO2ID folks have cut a pasted the extract from Gordon Brown's interview with the Observer dealing with ID cards.

"

Q: ID cards are seen as a tool for dealing with terrorism but there is a debate about whether they are an encroachment on civil liberties. Are you still committed to pressing ahead with them?

A: I think this debate about ID cards has also got to be one where people can see where there’s agreement as well as where there’s been a debate that’s led to disagreement. If someone said to you that I’m going to give you a better form of passport with biometrics and I’m going to include the current passport information in that if someone said to you that if someone comes to this country as a foreign national, given the worries about illegal immigration, they should carry some form of identity I think most people in the country would agree with that. And I think we’ve got to get the debate about, if you like the management, the identity management to a reasonable level. You know we are not trying to store information about individuals that are not actually, that is not information already in passports. We have to deal with the situation where people come into our country and it’s right I think that they ought to show whether they’re legal or illegal by what we ask of them to produce.

Q: But people seem confused as to what they are for. Is it specifically to guard against foreign nationals working and living illegally here. Or is it aimed at domestic security?

A: I think there are two things. One is, when it comes to foreign nationals coming into the country and the danger that there is illegal immigration into the country, I think most people would support there being some form of identification that people are asked to produce. So I think you know as a general sort of proposition I think people would say that we are right to introduce the cards for foreign nationals.

Q: Is that the principal reason for ID cards?

A: I think as far as the individual citizen is concerned - the danger for me and you in the modern world is that our identity is easily stolen. There are many attempts to do that as we found out. And people feel worried when information about them that is personal to them is lost and rightly so. And I think if we were giving a better means by which people could protect their identity then in the private sector as well as in the public sector people are looking at biometrics. I mean maybe in a few years time to switch on your computer you will need biometrics rather than a password.

Maybe when you go to a supermarket as happens in some parts of the States and Europe you are going to be safer, instead of carrying a credit card which can easily be stolen, in using your biometrics to shop. Maybe in relation to banking to use biometrics one way or another or fingerprint biometrics, whatever, whichever basis you might find that you are safer in your banking transaction than if you carried with you a card and a number. And actually the number of people who lose their PIN number is very high indeed. So I don’t think when people are dealing with their private transactions they’re so worried about the use of biometrics.

As long as it protects their identity and protects their identity being stolen and misused for other purposes. But look this is part of the debate. And I accept, look we are a country that prides ourselves on liberty, in civil liberties. It’s very important that any debate about this starts from what is the problem you are trying to deal with. What would you have done in the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century, the twentieth century and the twenty first century?

But the very fact that you’ve got biometrics now in a way that you didn’t have two centuries ago gives you opportunities to protect people’s identity in a way that you could not have done two centuries ago and I don’t think we should rule out the use of that. In fact I don’t actually think most of the general public think that the use of biometrics is in itself wrong, either for private transactions or for passports or whatever.

Q: So are you committed to ID cards?

A: We’re committed to the proposals that we put forward which are essentially this, that the passport information that you now use to get your passport, linked to the biometrics that are now available give you a better form of protection as an individual. But I’m happy that this debate continues because I believe that over the course of the debate some of the preconceptions about cards and everything will be dealt with.

Q: If you are saying that ID cards are aimed at people coming into this country…

A: No, I said two things. I said one is I think most people would think that if you were a foreign national coming into this country that to distinguish between those who are legally here and not legally here it made some sense to have the identity card. And I think as far as individual British citizens are concerned, I don’t think that people are philosophically against the use of biometrics for their private transactions or for passports, and that is essentially identity management.

Q: So it would be that British citizens and non-British citizens would need them.

A: Yes, but under our proposals there is no compulsion for existing British citizens."

So I trust that's all now crystal clear, then.

Sears privacy gaffe

The brilliant Ben Edelman at Harvard has discovered that third parties can search Sears customers personal data via the web, in breach of the company's own privacy policy. Brian Krebbs at the Washington Post says:

"Sears is having a bit of a rough day with the privacy community. The company got off to a rocky start with revelations that many customers who gave Sears their personal details after shopping at the company's Web site also were giving away their online Web browsing habits to marketers, thanks to snooping software silently installed (and ill-documented) by a Sears marketing partner.

Now, it appears the company's Web site may also be making those shopping habits publicly searchable, at least as they relate to products purchased in Sears stores and/or via its Web site.

The discovery comes from Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School and a privacy expert whose research has done much to raise public awareness about the intersection of big business and shady advertising practices."

Plan to give every child internet access at home

The UK government are reportedly planning to make it compulsory for parents to provide broadband internet access for their children at home.

Identifying potentional child criminals

The excellent ARCH blog has pointed out that the government have used Experian's consumer profiling software to identify potential child criminals on the national pupil database.

"

It’s not just industry that uses the system. Apparently all of the political parties do in order to target their election campaigning. It’s used by public services to allocate resources.

The man who developed Mosaic has recently added another weapon to Experian’s armoury: software that tells you a person’s ethnicity from their surname - particularly useful when someone refuses to tell you.

And now for the children bit: the government has used Mosaic to code the entire National Pupil Database. I’m ashamed to say that we completely missed this story when it was first published.

It’s come to our attention because we received a copy of a paper published in the British Journal of Criminology which examined the use of Mosaic in predicting which schools are likely to have a large number of potentially criminal pupils (based on their postcode). It suggests that such schools could be made into crime prevention academies. Unfortunately the full paper can only be accessed if you have the academic ATHENS log-in, but you can at least see the abstract here.

The name of one of the authors might seem familiar - that’s because he’s the designer of the Mosaic system.

Somebody please pinch me. I think I’m having a bad dream."

Boyle on the New Economy Year in Review

James Boyle reviewed the new economy of 2007 in the FT on New Year's Day. As with all James's writings it comes highly recommended.

"This year did not offer anything as fabulous as Senator Ted Stevens’ explanation of the internet as “not a big truck” but “a series of tubes” – a gaffe that ended up generating both its own music video and its own wikipedia entry. In fact, 2007 provided several arguable violations of the Stevens Principle – namely that “understanding a technology disqualifies one from regulating it.” Only time will tell whether these constitute a trend. It is not a “best of”, but here were three moments of happy surprise in what was otherwise a fairly grim year. In reverse order...3. US presidential hopefuls discover technology...

2. Surprising flashes of evidence-based policymaking continue The last few years have had several remarkable and unusual examples of intellectual property policy being made based on... gulp... empirical evidence about likely effects. Normally the purest example of faith-based policy, intellectual property, has been remarkably resistant to what the Bush administration derisively calls “reality-based” world views. Yet in 2005 and 2006, the remarkable Gowers Review in the UK and the European Union’s review of the database directive both actually attempted to model rigorously the effects of the various policies that were proposed and to test anecdototal claims against actual data. True, those efforts were not always successful. Despite a review that clearly showed that the database directive was not working, the Commission succumbed to tide of political pressure and kept it in place. But in 2007 the Gowers Review proposals on music copyright extension and personal copying were both kept alive, despite considerable opposition. The UK government, to its great credit, seemed to think that a study of actual effects was an important part of the policy process. True, looking at the facts does not guarantee good policy. But it is a promising beginning. Now if only the government would implement some of the recommendations on limitations and exceptions to copyright...

1. Maybe we need to fix patent law....?"

Mery has DNA profile removed, maybe...

David Mery, who got caught up in the anti-terrorism efforts of the metropolitan police, due to his "suspicious behaviour" at a tube station (wearing a heavy jacket on a cold summer's day), has gone through the process of having his DNA profile removed from the national database, possibly.

Good news in the US on Open Access

Via Science Codex:

"President Bush has signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide the public with open online access to findings from its funded research. This is the first time the U.S. government has mandated public access to research funded by a major agency."

The 2007 International Privacy Ranking

Privacy International has published The 2007 International Privacy Ranking

Not surprisingly the UK is rated the worst in Europe and on a par with the US, Russia and China.

Overview

Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.

The most recent report published in 2007, available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/phr and may be purchased in book form through EPIC's website, is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice. In 2006 Privacy International took the decision to use this annual report as the basis for a ranking assessment of the state of privacy in all EU countries together with eleven non-EU benchmark countries (click here for the 2006 results). Funding for the project was provided by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Follow this link for more details of last year's results.

The new 2007 global rankings extend the survey to 47 countries (from the original 37) and, for the first time, provide an opportunity to assess trends.

The intention behind this project is two-fold. First, we hope to recognize countries in which privacy protection and respect for privacy is nurtured. This is done in the hope that others can learn from their example. Second we intend to identify countries in which governments and privacy regulators have failed to create a healthy privacy environment. The aim is not to humiliate the worst ranking nations, but to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a healthy respect for privacy within a secure and fully functional democracy.

Important note

This study and the accompanying ranking chart measure the extent of surveillance and privacy. They do not intend to comprehensively reflect the state of democracy or the full extent of legal or parliamentary health or dysfunction in these countries (though the two conditions are frequently linked). The aim of this study is to present an assessment of the extent of information disclosure, surveillance, data exploitation and the general state of information privacy.

Summary of key findings

(Please note that "worst ranking" and "lowest ranking" denotes countries that exhibit poor privacy performance and high levels of surveillance.

• The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance o privacy safeguards.
• Concern over immigration and border control dominated the world agenda in 2007. Countries have moved swiftly to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to the privacy implications for their own citizens
• The 2007 rankings show an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion.
• The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes.
• Despite political shifts in the US Congress, surveillance initiatives in the US continue to expand, affecting visitors and citizens alike.
• Surveillance initiatives initiated by Brussels have caused a substantial decline in privacy across Europe, eroding protections even in those countries that have shown a traditionally high regard for privacy.
• The privacy performance of older democracies in Europe is generally failing, while the performance of newer democracies is becoming generally stronger.
• The lowest ranking countries in the survey continue to be Malaysia, Russia and China. The highest-ranking countries in 2007 are Greece, Romania and Canada.
• The 2006 leader, Germany, slipped significantly in the 2007 rankings, dropping from 1st to 7th place behind Portugal and Slovenia.
• In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the "black" category, denoting endemic surveillance.
• The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the "black" category along with Russia and Singapore. However for the first time Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England & Wales.
• Argentina scored higher than 18 of the 27 EU countries.
• Australia ranks higher than Slovakia but lower than South Africa and New Zealand.

Motley Fool: RIAA think we're all thieves

The Motley Fool has noticed the RIAA's case against Jeffrey Howell for copying legitimately purchased CDs onto his computer.

"Current litigation against Jeffrey Howell of Arizona shows that while the industry's gone after him for file-sharing, not ripping MP3s, it's also taking exception to recordings on his computer that he copied from CDs he purchased, with the outlook that Howell is also liable for the "unauthorized copies" he made and placed on his PC. Although there's a lot of clarification going on over the Internet now -- pointing out that the RIAA can't specifically target ripping CDs for personal use, since that falls within "fair use" -- the RIAA hasn't lent much reason to give it the benefit of the doubt as a reasonable entity here lately.

After all, a lawyer for Sony BMG said during a recent high-profile file-sharing trial that making one measly copy was, "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'." I joked at the time that maybe they'll come after us for singing tunes in the shower, but at this point, maybe that thought isn't funny so much as scary...

As I've said before, a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers -- which doesn't seem that outlandish at this point -- then I guess we'll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware.

For related Foolishness, see the following articles:

• The RIAA's beatings go on.
• The music industry's in a downward spiral. "
  

Can You Count on Voting Machines?

From the NYT: Can You Count on Voting Machines?

States Question Electronic Vote Machines

Findlaw Via AP: States Question Electronic Vote Machines

Happy New Year and first reaction to the iPod Classic

Happy New Year to one and all.

Well we had a terrific Christmas and my favorite Christmas present was the big Lego spaceship we got for my younger son. He and I have had great fun building it. Though the occasional missing piece has certainly proved to be a bit of a pain and I'll be contacting Lego about that.

My next favorite present was Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith where the young Tiffany Aching has to cope with a lovestruck spirit of winter leading to all kinds of typically clever and amusing Pratchett shenanigans.

My least favorite present (but not really I suppose) has turned out to be the one I has the highest expectations of - I finally compromised my anti Apple drm principles and bought my wife an iPod Classic. It's a lovely device in so many ways, now I've got it talking to one of my computers and the missus is delighted with it (now I've got it taking to one of my computers). But it spite of the relatively intuitive interface and the sleek, Apple design - it's a very attractive gadget - it turned out to be a lot more trouble to get going than I ever would have expected.

That was partly due to the problems I've been having getting my laptops communicating with my wireless router but not entirely.

I'd been trying to get iTunes to work on the laptop that had been communicating with the router via the router client. I won't bore you with the various attempts I made to do this but to they all ended in failure. So I gave up on iTunes on that machine and decided to use the desktop to load the lovely brand new iPod Classic. I figured this would be a doddle, to use a favored expression of a dear old college friend. iTunes was running with no problems on the desktop and communicating effortlessly with the iTunes store and Gracenotes song id utility. But no dice. On connection to the desktop machine the screen informed me that the version of iTunes on the machine was too old to talk to my better half's new gadget. You see the desktop is running Windows 2000 which is only compatible with iTunes 7.4, which in turn is incompatible with the shiny beautiful new Classic, which needs version 7.5 and higher.

So now I'm stuck - the two machines that will talk to the iPod won't talk to the wireless box. So I wire the newer laptop directly to the Virgin modem and I now have a way of getting some songs on the iPod. But that's tedious and uncomfortable - the space where the desktop resides is not spacious enough.

Right time to take a serious run at the wireless box problem again. In the end I had to disable the WEP security to check if the newer laptop had a wireless card problem (having originally being supplied with Vista) but once the WEP encryption was gone it connected faultlessly. The same couldn't be said for the older laptop with the iTunes connectivety problems but it did hook up, partly nevertheless.

Once I established it wasn't a wireless card problem I reset the WEP security key and tried again with the newer machine (now running on XP) using the Windows XP wireless connection utility. This time everything went smoothly. I now had one machine talking to the wireless box.

I also uninstalled the router client from the older laptop and went through Windows to connect to the router again with no apparent problems this time. Ok let's check iTunes, on the older machine first because that is likely to be the one at home most often. Again iTunes just didn't wnat to know, regardless of what I tried and I kept hearing Einstein saying - he that tries the same approaches over and over in the expectation of getting a different result is insane...

It turns out that there was some kind of dodgy interraction going on between the router's easy connect AOSS utility and the various security and proxy settings; and the order in which wireless boxes (including Nintendo DS machines) were connected set up some invisible barriers,which it was impossible for me to navigate. And starting from scratch was the only way to get round it.

Onto laptop number two (ex-Vista now XP). Wireless working faultlessly (mostly). How about iTunes? Various tweaks with settings later YES! It now talks to the router, the iPod, the iTunes store and Gracenotes. Now her indoors can have some music on her sparkly new music player and everyone is happy (except the boys want one now too) but it really should not be this difficult!

Update: My wife expressed some concerns about the copying of songs from her CDs to her iPod, whereupon I briefly explained the UK v US situation on fair dealing and fair use - technically allowed, for personal use, in the US (though it hasn't been tested in court, the statute seems pretty clear), not really allowed in the UK though the BPI claim be providing gracious informal permission potentially withdrawable at any time. Then I learn the RIAA have decided to chase someone in the US now for copying 2000 songs from legally purchased CDs onto his computer. It's hard to know all the details from this short WP report but it seems the RIAA's main objection is that he put the songs in a shared folder which does not constitute fair dealing copying for personal use. It seems unlikely that they really want to test or reign in the boundaries of fair use through this case but it will be worth following.

Aside: If anyone knows about sorting out a problem with the centre of a DS touchscreen giving up the ghost, I'd appreciate a pointer. Right up until Christmas a DS I've had for about 18 months was working fine but a rectangle in the centre of the touchscreen has just died. The guru at the local games shop, who is pretty good, says he's dealt with lots of touchscreen problems but never seen this particular one and apart from the dead rectangle the unit is in great condition. He's not sure if replacing the touchscreen will cure it.

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

From the Washington Post: FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

Thanks to HJ Affleck at FIPR for the pointer.

Nine NHS trusts lose data HRMC style

From the BBC, the Guardian and the Mirror, the latest data loss to be publicised - 9 Enlgish NHS trusts have addmitted losing hundreds of thousands of patient records.

"Cases include the loss of a CD holding 160,000 children's names and addresses by a Trust in East London and the loss of 244 cancer patients' details by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells health trust in Kent.

In one case, in Norfolk and Norwich, medical papers on patients with lung, breast and colon cancer were dumped in a wheelie bin."

Publican subscriber Greek TV loses football appeal

The publican accessing Premier League matches via a £800 subscription to a Greek TV station instead of a £6000 subscription to BSkyB has lost her appeal. The judges made the decision based on domestic UK law and said it was clear BSkyB had an exclusive right in the UK to braodcast the games at the heart of the dispute. Lord Justice Pumfrey did say, however, that they had not yet considered arguments based on EU law and would do so in the New Year.

A league spokesman said:

"We hope that publicans and others will now heed the advice of the
courts and accept that the use of foreign satellite systems to screen
Premier League football in the UK is copyright theft, pure and simple"

Which is exactly the sort of comment you'd like to see iced on the top of his hat just before he is made to eat it, hopefully when the same High Court judges politely explain that the publican's right to access Greek TV is perfectly in tune with EU competition law.