Phil Zimmermann wrote the encryption program PGP, and nearly went to jail over it. He sold his company to Network Associates, which barely seemed interested in marketing the program. Now NAI has not decided to stop selling PGP, but now NAI Tells Sites To Remove PGP, under threat of prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DCMA).  [Source: Slashdot]

Seems to me that NAI has the right to do with PGP what it wants; it owns it, and can sell it or not as it so wishes. It also can insist that other people not distribute it. The techology is out there, however, and other people have built software based on the PGP algorithm. You should use it.

Here’s what Zimmermann himself has to say about NAI’s non-promotion of his program. Keep in mind that he’s not a lawyer, and the page doesn’t directly address the current question. But it’s interesting nonetheless.

 

It’s not like they have a real threat or anything, but it seems that the FBI has alerted New York City to be watching out for another terrorist attack against a landmark. Specifically listed are the Statue of Liberty, which is within easy view of here, and the Brooklyn Bridge, which a few blocks from here and which I drive across several times a week.

The AP dispatch said that “[m]orning traffic at the Brooklyn Bridge was scrutinized carefully Tuesday.” Dunno if that means it was scruitized more than usual, but the cops are supposed to be out there every morning to enforce the HOV2 regulation in place since September. [Later: the Times says that scrutiny was, indeed, increased.]

I know that stuff like this is always possible, and more possible than ever after 9/11. But there’s a certain degree of denial that I suppose everyone needs to get through the day in every circumstance. Having that veneer stripped is less than comfortiable, especially when there’s nothing that I can actually do about it — and (I suspect) precious little that anyone can do.

Radio broadcasters don’t have to pay record companies to play music over the air. Webcasters were facing the possiblity of having to do just that — and many of them were saying that the proposed royalty was unfair and ruinous.

Except that Librarian of Congress James Billington, whose business it is to set the royalty rate, rejected a proposal from an arbitration panel. He didn’t say what the final rate would be, but promised a June 20 deadline.

Here’s the Library of Congress official link to the whole megillah.

More cupidity from the record industry:

“Since both sides appealed the panel’s determination anything is possible,” said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. [ed note: Where did Hilary Rosen go? Is she now so generally despised that they’re not letting her out in public?] He said he does not know what decision Billington will make, but he looks forward “to the day when artists and labels finally get paid for the use of their music.”

RIAA members, of course, are record labels, which have a perfectly terrible history of paying their artists and a mostly wonderful track record of paying themselves.

The Register had this story first, but I didn’t quite believe it. Now Reuters has picked it up and confirmed it in great detail.

Sony has taken to screwing with its music CDs so that they won’t play on computers. God only knows how much they spent developing or licensing the technology.

Here’s how to beat it: take a common marker (a Sharpie is probably best), and draw a line around the edge on the non-labelled side. Presto! a disc that will play.

Millions of dollars to protect, 39 cents to defeat. No wonder retail CDs cost $19.

Impossibly Hip meets the Biological Clock:

Babies have long been a fixture in the area’s Latino, Polish and Hasidic communities. But the pioneering artists and those who followed them to Williamsburg in the last 20 years seemed to float above such corporeal concerns as pregnancy and child-rearing. They were known for pierced navels and creative facial hair, for cigarette-filled afternoons and all-night roof parties.

You see, the first baby store has opened in Williamsburg. Those without kids are horrified. Those with are grateful. Those of us who have kids and roll our eyes at such ghettos of hipness are amused.

 

Unlike most cities, the subway — not the roads — is New York City’s circulatory system. Several subway lines were disrupted when the World Trade Center was destroyed, and their restoration was an early sign that things were getting back to normal. In an astonishingly short time, transit officials opened train lines that ran next to, but not quite under, the towers. In one case, a station is being bypassed, but even there ongoing repairs are evident.

The train line that runs down the West Side of Manhattan to the ferry terminal was directly under the towers. It’s been out of commission since September 11, but even that line will be back sooner than most people had imagined. From the NY Times:

A Subway Interrupted Awaits Its Imminent Resurgence. As the debate continues over what to build above ground at ground zero, a few hundred men are already rebuilding what was once below the ground.

From the NY Times (I’ve got to get more news sources….):

Bell Labs Forms Panel to Study Claims of Research Misconduct. Lucent Technologies’ Bell Laboratories has formed a panel to examine the validity of some recent impressive experiments.

No one’s accusing anyone of anything. Not really, not yet. But good for the Labs for taking allegations seriously and looking into them sooner rather than later.

Leo J. Burke. “People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.”

Similar: “I sleep like a baby; I wake up every two hours, screaming.”

 

Via 24-hour Drive-Thru:

SOME EVIDENCE FOR OPTIMISM.. U.S.S. Clueless. Steven Den Beste writes about how he accidently left his HP Jornada handheld computer at the mall. “I felt a bit sick. Of course, there was no chance I was going to get it back. A thousand bucks down the tube… ” But he got it back after all – likely what happened is some honest person found it, and turned it on to a mall restaurant, where likely another honest person tucked it away in a bin somewhere, where it was likely passed by several OTHER honest people who didn’t steal it, and finally brought out to Steven’s waiting hands by yet another honest person. He writes, “It’s easy to get cynical about people, to assume that down deep inside everyone is evil. It isn’t true.”

I have a similar story. I once lost a cell phone in a Las Vegas taxicab. During Comdex, where about a quarter-million people flood the city. I mean, this phone was gone. But the next passenger in the cab found the phone, and worked though the address book and found the entry Home. He pressed Send. My wife answered. She paged me. I returned the page, and she said, “You dropped your phone. Call Bell Taxi and ask for cab number” something-or-other; “the driver has it.” Twenty minutes later, I had my phone back. The cabbie got a large tip, but I have no idea who the samaritan was.


[24-hour drive-thru]

Maybe it is, if it’s too subtle. And if you’re in Texas. The NY Times reports on a lawsuit against a Dallas alternative weekly.

I’ve written lots of this kind of stuff, going back all the way to high school. I’ve been called on the carpet a bunch, but I’ve never been sued. A carpet burn every few years I can stand but I have no particular appetite for court, so this kind of thing can be a bit <ahem> chilling.

Brits complain that Yanks have no sense of irony. They may be right. Big flashing HTML or XML <humor> </humor> tags would be a shame.