Monday, November 9, 2015
When is time to take antitrust action against Comcast? It’s hard to read about U.S. comeptition law without wondering when Comcast is going to face consequences for its clear abuse of its market power.Monday, October 19, 2015
China hack attacks on US continue despite commercial spying pact If this surprises you, I’ve got a real-life, fully functional totally Back to the Future hoverboard to sell you…Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Hackers Can Silently Control Siri From 16 Feet Away Well this is concerning: A pair of researchers at ANSSI, a French government agency devoted to information security, have shown that they can use radio waves to silently trigger voice commands on any Android phone or iPhone that has Google Now or …Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Axel Springer bans adblock users from Bild online According to the report by Reuters at The Guardian: More than 30% of Germans online use such software, many more than the 5% of internet users globally in 2014, according to Dublin-based analytics and advisory firm PageFair, which develops “ad …Wednesday, October 7, 2015
CFPB proposes ban of class action prohibitions in arbitration clauses The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a press release today: In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress required the CFPB to study the use of arbitration clauses in consumer financial …Thursday, September 24, 2015
‘Happy Birthday’ copyright held invalid Until now, Warner has asked for royalties from anyone who wanted to sing or play "Happy Birthday to You" --- with the lyrics --- as part of a profit-making enterprise. Royalties were most often collected from stage productions, television shows, …Wednesday, September 23, 2015
The Government Is Selling Thousands of Homes to Hedge Funds Without Their Owners' Knowledge
Jared Bennett reports at The Atlantic:
It was a great deal for Oaktree. The fund bought the pool of mortgages for about two-thirds of the $105.7 million HUD estimated the homes were worth. [Julius] Uwansc, …
Monday, September 21, 2015
Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online ‘Counter-Strike’ character Michael Sheridan reports at NYDailyNews.com: Julien Barreaux reportedly spent six months looking for the person who killed his online character in a virtual knife fight, and eventually found the foe …Thursday, September 3, 2015
Tom Brady’s Four-Game N.F.L. Suspension Erased by Judge Tom Brady is now set to play in the Patriots' opener. I don’t care, but I know my parents, my siblings and most of my friends might. Here’s what the presiding judge said: "The court finds that Brady had no notice that he could …Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Missouri Teenagers Protest a Transgender Student’s Use of the Girls’ Bathroom I can’t blame the students for protesting. Kids can be cruel, and kind of dumb. I certainly was. But parents and attorneys like Derrick Good display a shameful vacuity in couching their bigotry in terms like …Thursday, August 27, 2015
Alison Parker, Adam Ward of WDBJ remembered by friends It’s inappropriate to use these tragic murders as fodder for the never-ending Second Amendment debate, and people on both sides of the isle are already guilty of that. If the killer’s intent was to terrorize, are those people who are …Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Lewis James Fogle Free, 34 Years After His Wrongful Conviction The case against Mr. Fogle itself was never a strong one – it was based entirely upon the testimony of so-called jailhouse informants, including a man himself suspected of the crime. It was only years after the 15-year-old victim’s body …Friday, August 14, 2015
What’s better for free speech on reddit, saving a single thread or getting the whole site unbanned in Russia? If the choice is between all of reddit remaining banned in most of Russia and IP-blocking access to one thread about mushrooms, I’d block access to the thread. I think …Thursday, August 13, 2015
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police This is troubling: Lt. Scott Wahl, a spokesman for the 1,900-member San Diego Police Department, said the department does not require police officers to file a report when they use the facial recognition technology but do not make …Wednesday, August 12, 2015
The ethics of modern web ad-blocking Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper and, more recently, Overcast: This won’t be a clean, easy transition. Blocking pop-ups was much more incisive: it was easy for legitimate publishers to avoid one narrowly-useful Javascript function to open new windows. But …Monday, August 3, 2015
Can the FTC ban digital goods? Brent Kendall, writing at The Wall Street Journal: The current case is about patents, but the ITC also can take action against goods that infringe copyrights, an issue important to Hollywood and other rights holders. They are eyeing the ITC as a new venue for …Monday, August 3, 2015
Federal Court’s data breach decision shows new tilt toward victims, class-action lawsuits John Fontana writes at ZDNet: In an interesting twist, the Court said the fact Neiman Marcus offered free credit monitoring services was evidence that there was harm to these victims. The ruling turned …Friday, July 31, 2015
“Happy birthday” lawsuit takes a(n unexpectedly interesting) turn Did you know copyright lawyers have waged a legal battle over ‘Happy Birthday’ for a long time? They have, and, somehow, it recently got interesting. If this proposition is accepted by the judge, …Wednesday, July 29, 2015
China-Tied Hackers That Hit U.S. Said to Breach United Airlines This is starting to look like a concerted effort to gather a specific data set for some sort of coordinated use: The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions …Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Drone regulation, firefighting and basic decency Michael Martinez, Paul Vercammen and Ben Brumfield report at CNN: Five such "unmanned aircraft systems" prevented California firefighters from dispatching helicopters with water buckets for up to 20 minutes over a wildfire that roared Friday onto a …Monday, July 20, 2015
Democracy.io - Contact your Members of Congress Great stuff from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Failure to effectively reach members of Congress has disastrous consequences. Studies show that politicians fundamentally misconceive their constituents’ views, making it harder for them to …Sunday, July 19, 2015
Ex-Googler says she exposed company-wide pay inequality with crowdsourced spreadsheet Kristen V. Brown wrote for Fusion about Googler Erica Joy’s recent salary spreadsheet. Google had no response to her request for comment, which is the worst kind of response to something like this. Apple …Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Antitrust official inappropriately lauds Amazon’s “disruptive business model” DOJ antitrust head William J. Baer, speaking at a London antitrust conference: By conspiring with Apple, which was seeking a fail-safe way to enter the market, five major publishers and Apple reached an …Monday, July 13, 2015
Obama Plans Broader Use of Clemency to Free Nonviolent Drug Offenders Peter Baker of The New York Times: In his second term, Mr. Obama embarked on an effort to use clemency and has raised his total commutations to 43, a number he may double this month. The initiative was begun last year by James M. …Thursday, July 9, 2015
iOS 9 Public Beta coming today? I rarely cross-post from my geekery-focused Tumblr, but I’m so excited about this I had to share it here, where I have literally thousands more followers. I’ll be writing a proper post about the public beta after I’ve used it for a few days. There are some interesting …Wednesday, July 8, 2015
The Verge made a FAA drone exemption search engine Ben Popper reports at The Verge: We have partnered with the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College to collect data on every commercial exemption the FAA grants. It's a fascinating snapshot of a fast-growing industry still in its infancy. …Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Tor Project seeks Executive Director The Tor Project, makers of anonymizing browsing tools, is looking for a new Executive Director: The position provides the high-profile opportunity to assume the voice and face of Tor to the world, and particularly to the global community of Internet …Monday, July 6, 2015
When a Company Is Put Up for Sale, in Many Cases, Your Personal Data Is, Too I have written about this before, but it’s worth reminding you. These days many companies offer an official privacy policy and an easier-to-read but not so official abridged version. Sometimes the two do not agree: …Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Amazon AWS: Good enough for the CIA Leena Rao has a fascinating background story at Fortune on Amazon Web Services, built around a profile of its leader, Senior Vice President Andy Jassy. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but this bit was particularly interesting: Netflix’s adoption also …Monday, June 29, 2015
Philly diner’s SCOTUS-inspired brunch menu following same-sex marriage ruling Oh Philadelphia, how I miss you sometimes. Danya Henninger writes at Billy Penn: Over the weekend, Sam’s Morning Glory Diner ran a pair of specials that sold out faster than any dish in the South Philly restaurant’s …