:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 9.26.2003 ::
:: P2P update ::
From CNET News.com:
Librarians to P2P critics: Shhh!
By Declan McCullagh
In a hotly contested lawsuit before a federal appeals court, two peer-to-peer companies are about to gain a vast army of allies: America's librarians.
The five major U.S. library associations are planning to file a legal brief Friday siding with Streamcast Networks and Grokster in the California suit, brought by the major record labels and Hollywood studios. The development could complicate the Recording Industry Association of America's efforts to portray file-swapping services as rife with spam and illegal pornography.
According to an attorney who has seen the document, the brief argues that Streamcast--distributor of the Morpheus software--and Grokster should not be shut down. It asks the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the April decision by a Los Angeles judge that dismissed much of the entertainment industry's suit against the two peer-to-peer companies.
ALSO fro CNET News.com...
The latest in the SPAM wars:
Attacks prompt shutdown of antispam lists
A Reuters report
Three Web sites that provide spam-blocking lists have been forced offline as a result of crippling Internet attacks in what experts say is an escalation in the war between spammers and opponents of unsolicited e-mails.
Antispam experts said Thursday that they believe spammers are behind the attacks, although they have no way of proving it.
The technological war comes as Congress considers a federal antispam law and California adopts what is widely considered to be the toughest such law in the country. The California law, signed Tuesday, allows people to sue spammers for $1,000 per unsolicited e-mail and up to $1 million for a spam campaign.
"This definitely marks an escalation in the spam wars," Andrew Barrett, executive director of the Spamcon Foundation, a spam watchdog group, said of the recent Internet attacks on lists used to block spam. "Before, it was a guerrilla war...This is the first time we've seen (spammers) employ such brazen tactics."
posted by me
:: 11:14:00 AM [+] ::
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