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Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, January 20 2013 @ 07:16 AM EST |
If conduct can be charged so broadly as to cover virtually
everyone, then prosecutorial discretion effectively becomes
a license to persecute anyone who stands in the state’s way.
- Scott Horton, Harpers
Once we have so many laws that it's likely we're all
breaking at least one of them, the prosecutor's job is no
longer about enforcing the laws, but about choosing which
laws to enforce. It's then a short slide to the next step:
Choosing what people need to be made into criminals, then
simply picking the laws necessary to make that happen. -
Radley Balko, Huffington Post
---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 20 2013 @ 01:07 PM EST |
[PJ: Here they go again. Just like OOXML. Blech. This article pushes
Microsoft's solution, so I gather the push is on.]
The reason
behind this is pretty simple. Microsoft just spent $8 billion on Skype.
They're going to look pretty stupid if Skype becomes obsolete because the
equivalent of it is built into every browser.
Microsoft's "solution"
to this is a non-standard standard. That is, a standard that everyone can follow
but which doesn't actually specify enough to let different implementations talk
to each other. They can then put out a Skype browser plug-in and mobile apps
which follow their version, and call it "standard".
The Microsoft
CU-RTC-Web is a specification for a low level toolkit for VOIP applications It's
not however a specification which would allow the create of complete
applications that would work with each other. The ability to create
implementations that could actually talk to each other would be outside the
scope of the specification.
Web-RTC developers (Firefox and Chrome)
want a high level specification that is narrowly focused on VOIP (including
video calls), but which can be implemented in a compatible manner. So far the
Firefox and Chrome preliminary implementations aren't compatible. However,
that's because they're demos which are intended to show the practicality of
different ideas. Anyone who writes software should be familiar with the idea of
creating different prototypes to try out ideas to see what works best in reality
(as opposed to whatever theory happens to sound good in a meeting room). When
they settle on the details, they would work together to make sure they work with
each other. In the title article, Peter Bright is over-emphasizing the
preliminary problems and ignoring the fact that their narrow focus means they
don't have to solve every potential problem in communications, just the few that
directly affect them.
Microsoft is going their own way, and Apple is
sitting this out. However, I expect that Mozilla and Google will simply go ahead
anyway. If Microsoft persists with their CU-RTC-Web (aka Skype plug in), then
that will simply give people using MS Windows one more reason to install Firefox
or Chrome. If Apple doesn't implement it for iOS devices, then third parties
will no doubt produce apps for it.
In the end, what is happening is
that Firefox and Chrome will have this feature, and Microsoft and Apple can
either join in or be left behind. If you want something to worry about, then
worry about who is going to own the "phone book" or "web central office"
(web-CO?) which connects people together. If you want to "web call" or "web
phone" your cousin, then you need some sort of web site that sits in the middle
to make the initial connection between the two of you. And it has to be a web
site that actually knows who the two parties are so that you can filter out
calls from telemarketers. Right now, the most likely parties for this function
are Facebook and Google. So, we are potentially looking at a future where
Facebook is the phone company and knows who you called and when, and can
man-in-the-middle every phone call. Microsoft would like their Skype system to
occupy that role, but that depends on their CU-RTC-web becoming the "standard"
(which I don't think is going to happen).
Facebook (or Microsoft)
controlling the phone system is not a very attractive future. What we need is an
open, distributed, secure "web phone" directory. It's possible, but it isn't
going to arise by itself. It will need infrastructure software to handle making
the initial connections between parties to a call. We need the Free Software
version of that infrastructure software to be the dominant version in order to
ensure interoperability. That is where the focus needs to be now.
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Authored by: dio gratia on Monday, January 21 2013 @ 02:40 AM EST |
The Shylock banking trojan now travels by
Skype.
CSIS calls Shylock one of the most advanced online
banking trojans and one that is being continually updated with new features.
They also note that Microsoft announcing that it is migrating Messenger users to
Skype and the emergence of a Skype-enabled Shylock "does not seem completely
coincidental".
Color me not surprised. Why ruin a perfect record
now? Further information in the blog post Shylock calling Skype.
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Authored by: kg on Monday, January 21 2013 @ 11:55 AM EST |
Alex Stamos blogged about a week ago, but I hadn't seen
it yet, and it
doesn't seem to be in the newspicks. Maybe I
missed it.
Link: The
Truth about Aaron Swartz's
"Crime"
What struck me is that the media
still doesn't get what
happened at MIT, and the prosecutor was able to
misrepresent
it in a way that persuaded a grand jury to indict him.
Inaccuracies such as comparing a MAC address to a VIN
once again hammer
home the importance of education. That
even MIT spoofs its MACs on its wireless
access points
should have been exonerating evidence on that count. It's
not
"hacking" in the black hat (illegal) sense, even though
it is merely
reconfiguring your own system.
A 1981 article I came across
explores the role of the prosecutor
and grand jury. It's
worth a read, and it seems that prosecutors have
discovered
that they can get around the pesky courts by plea
bargaining. --- IANAL
Linguist and Open Source Developer [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 22 2013 @ 07:46 AM EST |
I have a letter from Sen Leahy, said "Ideas can not be
patented, only inventions".
The confusion is that folks, including the USPTO, seem to
think that you can patent an idea. That is not the intent of
the law.
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