Apple Strikes Back

Maybe not Apple directly but you know they likely pushed forward with this investigation, which has now led to a hardcore search on the Gizmodo editor's house.  The police even nabbed all of his digital media and files.  Hopefully he's backed them up on the cloud...

All of this for posting photos and a writeup of a new iPhone that they found in a bar.

Net Neutrality

The Obama Administration's FCC has just setup a website in which it comes out in favor of net neutrality. Net neutrality basically says that an internet service provider cannot limit bandwidth depending on what it is (e.g. video downloads cannot be slower than text). ISP's argue that some of these forms of information should be limited, since a free for all would make it slower for all users.

This may be one case of the government undoing a wrong that it has created. Normally I would be all for a free market, which in this case would be to argue that the ISP's have the right to limit traffic on their network. However in this case the ISP's are not a free market; generally you are limited to 1 or 2 choices of who will provide your broadband. In my condo, I am limited to Cox Communications and Verizon DSL (not even FIOS). So this is a monopoly or duopoly situation, usually setup by some local government.

The thought was, if the government gave someone a stranglehold on the market, that would entice the provider to divvy up cash to build the network. They were mostly right. So since the government basically gave these ISP's entire swaths of the country, I think it makes sense that the government can tell them what to do with it. And given how slow the US broadband is compared to the rest of the world, I think that net neutrality makes sense at the moment.

Poker is not a crime

Online poker accounts were frozen by the federal government today. This is complete bullshit and needs to stop. These policies first started under the Bush administration, and President Obama should listen to Rep. Barney Frank and stop this immediately.

Need a job?

Screen adult ads in craigslist. Seriously. We are falling back as a society. Why is prostitution still illegal? And some believe that torture is not? Seriously?

Craigslist getting neutered - maybe

Its perfectly acceptable for Craigslist to choose what users can publish on its site. Its perfectly unacceptable for the government to limit that free speech.

And that's what advertisements are, even if the services advertised are not quite legal. It is free speech.

Free speech = first amendment = abolute

The only silver lining is that the founder of Craigslist appears to be fighting this so far.

How many characters does it take to get a copyright?

Mark Cuban has an interesting post regarding the copyrightablility of a post on Twitter (a "tweet" which is 140 characters or less).  He recently tweeted about the NBA refs and got fined $25,000.  Of course, ESPN, the AP, and many others are posting his tweet for all the world to see (which they already could, if they just went to his Twitter page).  

I think that it is definitely something that can be copyrighted, but I wonder what the damages would be?  Most electronic writing is copyrighted.  Take for instance this blog post.  It is copyrighted, and if you reproduce it without my consent I would be able to take you to court, and I'd win.

Stupid laws (PA Edition)

I have to say, I'm one to stand up for children's rights, but when someone is charged for taking pictures of themselves, that seems a bit off.  True, someone who is 15 cannot consent to anything, but in this case they are charged with not being able to consent to themselves.  Confused?  You should be. Just another display of our overly puritanical society.

Are terms of service now the law?

A woman has been indicted on 4 felony counts for using Myspace account she created with a fake name to harass a young girl (a former friend of her daughter) who then killed herself based on the harassment.

Obviously, this woman is not a good person, but no laws were broken.  At most, simple harassment, which is not even a misdemeanor in most states.

Federal prosecutors are now trying to stretch the law to say that if you violate the Terms of Service (TOS) of a website or online service, that in itself could be a criminal act.  In this case, part of their indictment hinges on the fact that the accused used a fake name for the MySpace account.  

So what the prosecutors are saying is that if a website tells you to use your real name, and you enter an alias, you are breaking the law.  This reading of the law is rediculous.  Websites have all kinds of crazy TOS's.  Some say that you cannot even send a link to the website to a friend.  Should that be a criminal act too?

I feel bad that a young girl lost her life, but we should not be giving any company the right to make new laws by updating their website.  

FYI - Google, who hosts this blog, actually has a very reasonable Terms of Service.  You can view it here.