David Berlind:

Secondary in my mind (not by much) to the DRM goal vector is the technology vector. This is where Hollywood’s need to protect its turf has turned into a gift from heaven for the technology companies that incessantly seek out market control points through the use of proprietary technologies. To you, proprietary generally means one of two things. Lack of compatibility or increased cost to get compatibility. Today, the different DRM technology makers are in a race to drive as much DRMed content (DRMed with their different DRM technologies that is) into market as possible. By doing so, they are securing the future of their playback technologies because you’ll always need them to access your content. In this context (driving DRMed content to market), Microsoft is the tortoise and Apple is the hare

Bruce Schneier:

he Boston Transportation Department, among other duties, hands out parking tickets. If a car has too many unpaid parking tickets, the BTD will lock a Denver Boot to one of the wheels, making the car unmovable. Once the tickets are paid up, the BTD removes th boot.

The white SUV in this photo is owned by the Boston Transportation Department. Its job is to locate cars that need to be booted. The two video cameras on top of the vehicle are hooked up to a laptop computer running license plate scanning software. The vehicle drives around the city scanning plates and comparing them with the database of unpaid parking tickets. When a match is found, the BTD officers jump out and boot the offending car. You can sort of see the boot on the front right wheel of the car behind the SUV in the photo.

Hiawatha Bray:

If this sounds paranoid, take it up with IBM. The company filed a patent application in 2001 which contemplates using this wireless snooping technology to track people as they roam through ”shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, rest rooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, museums, etc.” An IBM spokeswoman insisted the company isn’t really prepared to go this far. Patent applications are routinely written to include every possible use of a technology, even some the company doesn’t intend to pursue. Still, it’s clear somebody at IBM has a pretty creepy imagination.

Declan McCullagh:

The Violence Against Women Act may be about to do violence to Americans’ right to privacy.
A U.S. Senate committee (Judiciary, which includes both Wisconsin Senators: Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl – contact them on this issue!) has adopted an amendment to the VAWA legislation that would add the DNA of anyone detained by the cops to a federal DNA database called “CODIS.”
Note that it doesn’t require that you’re convicted of a crime or even formally arrested on suspicion of committing one. Mere detention — might a routine traffic stop eventually qualify? — will be sufficient for CODISification. (Current law only authorizes blood or saliva swabs and entry into CODIS for people convicted of a crime.)

Senator Kohl is up for re-election in 2006. I think Kathleen Falk would make an excellent candidate!

“Trusted Computing” comes to your cellphone…. The EFF correctly points out that this is a further limit on what we can do with our own devices.

Jonathan Krim:

Suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities could be forced to provide samples of their DNA that would be recorded in a central database under a provision of a Senate bill to expand government collection of personal data.
The controversial measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and is supported by the White House, but has not gone to the floor for a vote. It goes beyond current law, which allows federal authorities to collect and record samples of DNA only from those convicted of crimes. The data are stored in an FBI-maintained national registry that law enforcement officials use to aid investigations, by comparing DNA from criminals with evidence found at crime scenes.

Via Bruce Schneier: “This seems like a really bad idea.

Stepping up the battle against entertainment piracy, Verizon Communications Co. have entered a long-term programming deal that calls for the phone company to send a warning to Internet users suspected of pirating Disney’s content on its broadband services.

Under the deal, one of the first of its kind in the television industry, Disney will contact Verizon when the company suspects a Verizon customer of illegally downloading content. Without divulging names or addresses to Disney, Verizon will then alert the customer that he or she might be violating the law. Disney will be able to identify suspicious customers through an Internet coding system.

”

Tom Barnett:

Commerce is making ready a team of intellectual property (IP) specialists to deploy to nations giving us fits on piracy. Sort of a WTO-enforcing SWAT team.
The lead experience here is China, and that is all fine and good. This is where our “conflict” with China should really be centered: in economics and in rules.
Other countries targeted are all either New Core (Russia, India, Brazil) like China, or key Seam States (Thailand) or places where we’re making a special trade effort to shrink the Gap (Big Bang-land Middle East).
Good move, I say. One the White House can point to in upcoming trade pact battled with Congress, which, in its infinite wisdom, is moving more and more toward protections as a catch-all answer for America’s economic woes. Bad, stupid, ahistorical choice, but there it is.