There's been a lot of talk over the weekend about whether or not a musical work encoded as DNA would be protected under copyright; Does that mean that if I take a DNA strand and somehow derive music from that, the copyright that protects the musical composition somehow retroactively protects all other works derived from that DNA strand?

Let's think this through for a moment:
A musical work that was written via "traditional" techniques and then encoded in DNA (as it might be encoded using MIDI or MusicXML) would be protected under copyright because it already was before it was DNA-encoded.

In the same vein, a musical composition derived from a DNA strand (much in the same way space music is "derived" from the constellations) would be protected under copyright because, by definition, it is a "musical composition."

Either way, the DNA itself isn't the "work" being copyrighted.

This brings up a lot of interesting questions about who owns DNA and DNA-derived works, that's for sure! The situation isn't any less complicated than the DNA patenting issue.

Here's a Slashdot story on it, along with a piece from the NY Times.

Here's an excerpt from the NY Times piece:

The idea is that a DNA sequence, if encoded as music, might be copyrightable as a work of art. A researcher wanting to use that sequence could obtain it as a music file and decode it after purchasing a proprietary back-translation program.

Such a system would benefit the biotechnology companies, because their work would be protected — for up to 100 years in some cases. But Dr. Stemmer argued that it would also aid other researchers by making more DNA sequences available. With the current uncertainty about patents, some companies have refused to reveal sequences they have deciphered out of fear that they will lose the rights to them.

Dr. Stemmer said that intellectual property lawyers and other genomics companies are studying various ideas for protecting ownership of DNA sequences, although a spokeswoman for Maxygen said that Dr. Stemmer's digital music proposal was intended only to stimulate discussion in the scientific community and was not part of any company strategy. Still, Dr. Stemmer noted that warfare among genomics companies could happen. "When it does break out," he said, "things will polarize very quickly."

John Dunn, who wrote the Bio2Midi program four years ago (and who has written other molecules-to-music programs available through his company, Algorithmic Arts, in Fort Worth, Tex.), said he was inspired to create this kind of software after working with DNA researchers and finding that genetic data has some qualities, like thematic variation, that are similar to music.

I just added a new update to my XML New Products column for the IEEE's Internet Computing: The World of XML Tools .

This update features XML-enabled P2P Applications, along with a table of over 52 companies in 21 different product categories.

I just saw Death To Smoochie last night.

What a great movie with a tight script and a great cast!

Kudos to Director Danny Devito for putting it all together!

It was also really nice to see Robin Williams branching out from his usual typecast roles. Robin has another movie coming out soon called Insomnia that looks like another high quality departure from the usual feel good shit that I, personally, can only take so much of (nothing personal Robin! I love ya man!)

Here's a friendly easter story from the Sacramento Bee:
Jack rabbits attack walkers in Sonoma County; man bitten, woman forced to evade jack rabbit.

Here's a nice piece by Eliot Van Buskirk for CNET on the SSSCA2 that provides a bit more background than some of the other articles to date:
Senator "Fritz" wants your bits.

Here's a NY Times article by Chris Gaither covering the latest developments in Walter Hewlett's battle to save HP's future, despite its own shareholders:
Hewlett Heir Files Lawsuit to Overturn Merger Vote,
by Chris Gaither for the NY Times.

Michelle Delio takes a look at the latest in a long history of Windows Media Player exploits. See the Wired News story:
Next Virus Exploit: Media Player?.

Let's hope he can figure out how to get all of the votes counted this time around!

Here's an Businessweek interview with the DNC's new head techie -- Mark Walsh:
Getting the Dems Up to Web Speed.

See Alex Salkever's:
Guard Copyrights, Don't Jail Innovation
-- Senator Hollings' call for hardware-embedded anticopying measures is the last thing consumers and the entertainment industry need.

In this case, however, the proposed cure is far worse than the disease. Introducing copyright-protection mechanisms into almost all digital hardware clearly flouts the interests of consumers. And it's more evidence that, when it comes to delivering content in the 21st century, the entertainment industry is hell-bent on stifling technology, rather than using it in ways that eventually could become highly profitable. Hollings' proposal hands control over the innovative forces that drive tech development to some of the most change-resistant companies in the world.

This isn't the first such proposal. Similar bills have come up in the past few years. But unlike those efforts, this one may actually pass. It has the gung-ho backing of the movie industry, especially Disney, and the record labels, two of the most influential lobbying bodies in D.C. Meanwhile, the high-tech industry that fought so hard to fend off past attempts at mandatory copyright protection is distracted by its own woes and is hardly in a position to take a stand on anything, let alone a touchy issue such as piracy.

Hmmm. Here's a very interesting Plastic discussion about whatever the hell is going on right now during Bush Administration's re-org over at the INS:
Plastic: House Dems, GOP Agree to Dismantle INS, Bungling Continues.

Here's an article by Anne Eisenberg for the NY Times that explains why the latest results of Brown University's rhesus macaque monkey experiments are particularly significant:
Don't Point, Just Think: The Brain Wave as Joystick.

In the experiment, performed on three monkeys, the team implanted a tiny set of 100 miniature electrodes in the motor cortex, the part of the brain just under the skull that commands how the arms will move. Then they threaded the wires from the electrodes through a hole in the skull and connected them to a computer.

When the monkeys played the pinball game, their brains made characteristic signals that were recorded as the neurons fired near the electrodes. The team wrote a program that paired the spiky patterns the neurons made as they fired with the related trajectories of the monkeys' arms as they moved the cursor.

Then they were able to substitute a signal that translated brain-wave data into joystick output, so that when the monkey thought about a move, the cursor actually made that move.

Dr. Donoghue said that the electrodes tapped up to 30 neurons, and that only three or so minutes of data were needed to create a model that could interpret the brain signals as specific movements.

In the experiment, the pinball game was switched intermittently by the researchers from hand to brain control. It took slightly longer for the monkey to succeed in hitting the red dot with brain control, but the difference was negligible, he said.

Related experiments by other researchers, Dr. Donoghue said, have required extensive training for the monkeys to bring a cursor under their mental control. "In our work, we had immediate substitution of the program for hand control," he said.

The experiment demonstrates the plasticity of the brain in adapting itself to new jobs, said Dr. William Heetderks, director of the neural prosthesis program at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, one of the agencies financing the work at Brown.

Dr. Heetderks said he expected the animals to learn to control the cursor mentally. "But the speed and quality with which the monkey learned to control the movement of the cursor was a surprise," he said. "It was minutes, not weeks."

More on the Bush Administrations latest attack against your privacy: insisting that you to hand over your personal data right off the bat if you ever want to hope you see your reimbursement check from your health insurance provider.

See the article:
Bush Acts to Drop Core Privacy Rule on Medical Data,
by Robert Pear for the NY Times.

The Bush administration today proposed dropping a requirement at the heart of federal rules that protect the privacy of medical records. It said doctors and hospitals should not have to obtain consent from patients before using or disclosing medical information for the purpose of treatment or reimbursement.

The proposal, favored by the health care industry, was announced by Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, who said the process of obtaining consent could have "serious unintended consequences" and could impair access to quality health care.

The sweeping privacy rules were issued by President Bill Clinton in December 2000. When Mr. Bush allowed them to take effect last April, consumer advocates cheered, while much of the health care industry expressed dismay.

Today's proposal would repeal a provision widely viewed as the core of the Clinton rules: a requirement that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers obtain written consent from patients before using or disclosing medical information for treatment, the payment of claims or any of a long list of "health care operations," like setting insurance premiums and measuring the competence of doctors.

The title of the LA Times article by Henry Weinstein says it all:
Oregon Jury Finds Against Philip Morris.

Here's an LA Times piece by Jon Healy about one of Monday's important developments in the Napster case (the other one being the Anti-trust investigation OK):
Napster Ruling Is Upheld.

What an exciting week in the Napster case!

Here's an LA Times piece by Joseph Menn:
Napster Dispute Puts Bid on Hold.

Declan McCullah was impressively at his post first thing last Monday morning* with three excellent stories on the SSSCA2 (the CBDTPA) for Wired News.
(*Unlike some people I know that couldn't get to writing about it until today :-)

What Hollings' Bill Would Do

Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders

Anti-Copy Bill Hits D.C.

The Bush administration has proposed to eliminate the U.S. medical privacy rules that require patients to give consent for disclosure of their health information prior to receiving care.

The American Medical Association is crying foul.

See the Reuters article by Lisa Richwine:
Feds Urge Medical Privacy Changes, Advocates Upset.

That modification "strikes at the very heart of the privacy regulation. Without a prior consent requirement, patients will have no control over how their health care information is used or disclosed," said Georgetown University's Health Privacy Project, an advocacy group for medical privacy rights.

The American Medical Association, which had urged the federal government to make the consent requirement less burdensome for doctors, said it too thought the administration was going too far.

"We knew it had to be fixed. Just to remove it completely is a serious problem," said Dr. Donald Palmisano, the AMA's secretary-treasurer.

Quote from the EFF's Effector on the subject:

Imagine a world where all digital media technology is either mandatory or forbidden -- Senator Fritz Hollings and a cabal of Hollywood entertainment interests are cooking up a set of laws aimed at conjuring this apocalyptic world into existence.

Today, Senator Hollings introduced the alarming Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), which will give Hollywood plutocrats the power to stall new digital media technologies for a year, negotiating a phony "consensus" at lawyer-point with technologists. This "consensus" will receive the force of law, prescribing which user-hostile features are mandatory and which innovative features are forbidden. CBDTPA is derived from the draft SSSCA (Security Systems & Standards Certification Act), the subject of our last alert.

Both the House and the Senate have called for comments on the future of digital music, an issue that is deeply entwined with technology mandates.

Send your comments to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Chairman Patrick Leahy and Ranking Republican Member Orrin Hatch via form at:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cfm?comments=1

You can also send your comments by email and fax to The Hon. Howard Coble, Chair of the The House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet & Intellectual Property at:
howard.coble@mail.house.gov
Fax: +1 202-225-3673
(I'm emailing AND faxing!)

I sure hope we can get Congress to listen to reason, so I don't have to go to Washington DC and participate in a Million Geek March!

I'd rather focus on my work, but my livelihood depends on innovation, and innovation will be effectively stifled if this legislation goes through.

For more information about contacting your legislators and other government officials, see the EFF's "Contacting Congress and Other Policymakers" guide.

Of the large pile o' tasks that I'm behind on...to do a little blogging and rant about some of the less finer things in life...

Professor Kevin Warwick has become the world's first cyborg.

A device has been implanted into his arm to both record the day-to-day impulses of normal muscle use and record the reactions his arm has to stimuli coming from the device.

See the article by Polly Curtis for the Unlimited Guardian:
Scientist becomes world's first cyborg

and

Here's a clip from the Unlimited Guardian piece:

he implant was designed by Professor Brian Andrews, from the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire.

It is hoped the experiment will help scientists better understand the nervous system, and restore movement in people after spinal injuries. "The big aim is hopefully about helping people move around again and to control their bodies more," said Professor Warwick.

There is also scope for enhancing the sensory system. One of the laboratory experiments planned over the next three months - the length the device will be in the professor's arm - is designed to give him a sixth sense. By attaching an electronic ultra sound sensor to the device, it is hoped that Professor Warwick will be able to develop the sensory capabilities of a bat, through his arm.

"For me that could be fun," he explained, "but for someone who is blind, it could be immediately useful, it could give them the chance to sense space like a bat. Another application could be for someone with arthritis - we could put a chip in them and electronically remove the pain."

Doug McVay, Editor of the Common Sense for Drug Policy's Drug War Facts Book, handed over some goodies to Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post:
Just What Was He Smoking?.

But an even more interesting story (as McVay explained it to me -- wealth of knowledge that guy!) -- isn't merely the plethora of amusing quotes (and there's more where that came from!), but rather that Nixon comissioned the Shafer report to give drugs a bad name. Then, much to Nixon's dismay, the Commission actually did right by the American people and provided the objective analysis it was supposed to provide: and recommended decriminalization :-)

More on the details of the report and its significance in the days to come.

For now, let the dog and pony show begin:

In an excruciating sequence from Sept. 9, 1971, Nixon is meeting with former Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer. Shafer heads a presidential commission on drug policy that Nixon has heard might be flirting with the notion of recommending the decriminalization of marijuana...

...Nixon is on a roll, lecturing like a history professor:

"Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. . . . You know what happened to the popes? It's all right that popes were laying the nuns."

Someone laughs nervously. Nixon bulls on, not a hint of humor in his voice.

"That's been going on for years, centuries, but when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual. . . . Now, that's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don't let 'em hang around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them."

"Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us."

Well, that was 31 years ago, and I am happy to report that the Jew-homo-doper-Commie-shrink-lefty-pope cabal has not, to date, destroyed us. Nixon seems to have been wrong on this one.

Of course, it's not the first time he was wrong. Yes, he was a crook. No, it wasn't a third-rate burglary. And yes -- we do still have Dick Nixon to kick around. Apparently, thanks to his tapes, forever and ever and ever.

I probably recommend an HP printer to about 3-4 people a month.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that after this merger.

This is a sad day in HP history indeed. It also says a lot about the state of the economy when Walter Hewlett loses control of Hewlett-Packard. (Has the whole world gone mad? :-)

Here's a CNN article by Richard Richtmyer that doesn't even try to get Walter Hewlett's point across:
It's all over but the counting:
With the bitter proxy fight over HP-Compaq nearing a close, focus shifts to vote tally.

With that in mind, here's an L.A. Times article by Joseph Menn that gives a better explanation of Hewlett's argument:
Walter Hewlett Explains Stance .

Here's a pretty depressing article about a trend in the attitudes of MBA students:
Learning to Put Ethics Last: During their spell in B-school, MBA students become more focused on company profitability and less on things like customer service,
by Mica Schneider for Businessweek Online.

Wow am I digging the Plucky RSS Reader for the Mac.
(at GeoffreyGrosenbach.com)

Molecular-transistors are here. (Hee-haw!)

Now just what the heck does that mean? :-)

Well, it's kind of a long story, but the synopsis below does a pretty good job of summing it up.

Here's this nice explanation (thanks ACM News service) along with a link to its longer version:
The Nanotube Computer,
by David Rotman at the MIT Enterprise Technology Review
(Technology Review (03/02) Vol. 105, No. 2, P. 36; Rotman, David)

Carbon nanotubes have the potential to significantly change the world of electronics over the next decade. Phaedon Avouris of IBM Research says that nanotubes can be fashioned into transistors that are superior in performance to silicon-based transistors. Molecular transistors based on nanotubes or nanowires could increase the number of devices that can be installed on a chip, boosting computer memory and logic circuits. Nanotubes are very compatible with existing semiconducting materials, and the possibility exists that they can be combined with silicon technology, although the dual metallic/semiconducting nature of nanotubes can complicate the fabrication of logic devices. They are also seen as an eventual replacement for silicon once it reaches the threshold of Moore's Law. Meanwhile, companies such as Nantero are pursuing nanotube-based nonvolatile memory, which could eliminate the need for people to repeatedly boot up their computers and supplant dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). Nanotubes can also emit electrons at low voltages, and this property forms the basis of thin but cheap flat-panel displays that project a high-quality image; Motorola and other electronics firms are competing to build a working nanotube display. Nanotube research has helped raise the profile of nanoscale materials and their commercial applications, which could include minuscule biological sensors and light-emitting diodes, fuel cell electrodes, and many others.

Here's another article about the DNA computer in today's New York Times:
In Classic Math Riddle, DNA Gives a Satisfying Answer.

"That's a nasty tumor on your left side ma'am, would you like us to remove that for you during your flight?" (And, yes, the pain killers would be better in business class :-)

ATTENTION: B of A customers: if you made a deposit in the bank last Friday, you'd better check that it made it and that you weren't charged for any checks that may have bounced over the weekend as a result.

See the L.A. Times article by Kathy Kristof:
Bank of America Says Glitch Is Fixed.

 Here's the whole little article:

Bank of America Corp. officials said Sunday that they were able to correct a computer glitch that had deprived about 1.1 million customers of deposits that were supposed to be electronically credited to their accounts Friday.

The bank could not explain what had gone wrong with its computer system but said the backup system had been implemented and all its customers now have access to their funds.

Bank of America said Saturday that 1.1 million direct deposit customers in California, Arizona and Nevada were affected by the glitch. The bank, based in Charlotte, N.C., with about 25% of the retail banking market in California, said it would take care of any fees and charges if customers' checks bounced as a result of the computer error.

Brown researchers have enabled a monkey to move a computer cursor just by thinking about it using a computer implant.

See the article:
The power of a thought,
by Felice J. Freyer for Projo.com.

The researchers implanted a tiny silicone chip, containing 100 hair-thin electrodes, in the brains of three rhesus monkeys that had learned to play a simple video game with a specially designed joystick.

They connected one monkey's implant via 100 wires to a computer system, and then disconnected the joystick. Manipulating the now-useless joystick, the monkey was instantly able to move the cursor toward a target simply by thinking. Sometimes it let go of the joystick while continuing to play. The cursor responded just as quickly, but not quite as smoothly, as when the animals had used their hands to control it.

"We substituted thought control for hand control," said John Donoghue, chairman of Brown's department of neuroscience and the project's senior researcher.

Although other researchers have used brain implants to produce motion, the Brown work is remarkable for the speed and accuracy of the monkey's cursor control, said Dr. William Heetderks, director of the neuroprosthesis program at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "The quality of the movement is in a sense competitive with using your hand to produce a movement," he said.

If such a system is eventually found to be safe and reliable in people, it could unlock a vast potential for paralyzed people, who would be able to do anything that can be accomplished by moving a computer cursor.

Andersen's not getting away with a fine and a slap on the wrist this time.

See:
Andersen Misread Depths of the Government's Anger,
by Kurt Eichenwald for the New York Times.

Last week, Andersen became the first major accounting firm ever charged with a felony. The firm, and its lawyers, misread the depths of the government's anger with Andersen in the wake of its flawed audits of other major clients. Earnings restatements by those clients have caused their stock prices to tumble, costing investors tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

In such cases, Andersen paid a fine and moved on. This time, law enforcement officials wanted to crack down hard.

The prosecutors' zeal for going after Enron appears to be almost matched by their fury at Andersen. In their view, Andersen has minimized the significance of its transgressions — including one from another case that left the firm under an injunction against future misdeeds at the very time the Enron documents were destroyed.

"Obviously," said one person involved in the case, "the question finally came down to, `How many times do investors have to lose millions of dollars because they relied on Andersen before somebody finally charges them with a crime?'... "

...Andersen saw the case as limited to the Enron document destruction, with its past conduct not at issue. It considered the evidence weak and the prosecutors' interpretation of the law wrong. Faced with the prospect that a guilty plea would put it out of business, the firm chose a criminal trial, the first major corporation to do so in recent years.

Andersen has seen the case transformed from a business problem to a crisis of historic proportions. The government now faces an angry corporate adversary rumbling with demands for a rapid trial, which could hinder the prosecutors' ability to develop essential evidence.

The standoff with Andersen followed months of behind-the-scenes battles and decisions that inexorably set both sides on the path toward an all-out legal war.

Here's a rather critical view of the music side of SXSW, courtesy of the Austin American Statesman:
Sure, music bizzers talk (Just not to each other),
by Joe Gross.

I just got BloggerPro going. I'll let you know how it goes...

The New York Times did a piece on SXSW:
Festival Is Upbeat Despite Music-Business Doldrums,
by Jon Pareles.

Remember those full body X-Ray scanning machines in the movie Total Recall? Well, they're not just science fiction any more.

Let's set aside the questionable constitutionality of a virtual strip search without probable cause for a moment...which is a tough order, I know, but I have another concern.

The current round of "voluntary testing" described in the article below doesn't mention anything about a proper study of the health risks associated with such a frequent exposure to X-Rays (despite their claims of using "low power X-rays").

Last I checked, any repeated exposure to any kind of X-Rays isn't a good idea. The only reason the X-Rays that our chiropractors and dentists use on us aren't harmful is because we are only exposed to them infrequently; No more than once a year of either kind is a good idea. This is why the person operating the equipment needs to stay behind the protective window when they flick the switch (the dangers of repeated exposure).

I hope our government isn't seriously considering frying all of us under these systems and waiting to find out later what the health risks are.

I hope the people volunteering to be searched by such systems are warned adequately in advance about the possible health risks involved.

If there aren't any risks involved, and I'm worrying for nothing, I'd like to see a report from someone objective and reputable confirming this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

See the AP story by Mike Branom:
New Security Devices at Fla. Airport.

One system, the Rapiscan Secure 1000, uses low-energy X-rays to search a person through clothing. When Rapiscan project manager Bryan Allman scanned himself, detected was a plastic knife hidden in his shirt pocket.

However, the outline of his body — every inch of it — also was clearly visible. Perhaps proving the machine's revealing nature, airport officials refused to put a woman in the scanner.

Security officials said the scanner would only be used when a passenger shows an "anomaly." Also, the security worker examining the scan would be the same sex as the person being searched.

The potential for complaints about the invasiveness of the search didn't seem to bother Allman.

"Everybody has to learn that the world has changed since Sept. 11, and the world needs a much more thorough type of screening," Allman said.

But the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) says the scan is too intrusive.

"This, of course, is a virtual strip-search," ACLU associate director Barry Steinhardt said. "There's no question this has tremendous potential for embarrassment."

Steinhardt pointed out there have been incidents across the nation where male security workers harassed female passengers during hands-on searches.

"We fear this is going to be indiscriminately used," Steinhardt said. "We know that even less-invasive searches are being abused at airports."

Another system, a little larger than a phone booth, blows quick bursts of air at a person, then "sniffs" the air to detect any traces of explosives. The Barringer Ionscan 400B has a library of 40 types of explosives against which it can judge results.

The Ionscan also can be quickly adjusted to test for 60 types of drug residue, which Hood praised as a bonus stemming from the war on terrorism. "The ability to use technology to be able to stop some of the drug trafficking, we're always looking for the opportunity to deal with that war, as well," Hood said.

But Steinhardt asked: "Do we really want to be turning airport security personnel into the DEA?" He added that searching for drugs would distract checkpoint workers from their true purpose: keeping planes safe.

A 'DNA computer' has been used for the first time to find the only correct answer from over a million possible solutions to the classic NP-complete computational problem.

Check out the PhysicsWeb article by Katie Pennicott:
‘DNA computer’ cracks code.

Adleman and colleagues chose an 'exponential time' problem, in which each extra variable doubles the amount of computation needed. This is known as an NP-complete problem, and is notoriously difficult to solve for a large number of variables. Other NP-complete problems include the 'travelling salesman' problem - in which a salesman has to find the shortest route between a number of cities - and the calculation of interactions between many atoms or molecules.

Adleman and co-workers expressed their problem as a string of 24 'clauses', each of which specified a certain combination of 'true' and 'false' for three of the 20 variables. The team then assigned two short strands of specially encoded DNA to all 20 variables, representing 'true' and 'false' for each one.

In the experiment, each of the 24 clauses is represented by a gel-filled glass cell. The strands of DNA corresponding to the variables - and their 'true' or 'false' state - in each clause were then placed in the cells...

...According to Adleman and co-workers, their demonstration represents a watershed in DNA computation comparable with the first time that electronic computers solved a complex problem in the 1960s. They are optimistic that such 'molecular computing' could ultimately allow scientists to control biological and chemical systems in the way that electronic computers control mechanical and electrical systems now.

Does Microsoft own the Trademark to "Windows", or not? One Judge isn't so sure.

See the Seattle Post Intelligencer article by Dan Richman:
Ruling questions protected use of the name 'Windows'.

It's no surprise that RIAA President Hilary Rosen came out in favor of the evil SSSCA last week.

Here's a transcript of her statement, if you're interested.

Kevin Kelley takes a shot at providing some examples of how music might be sold in the future, now that simple copies of songs are basically "free."

See the NY Times article:
Where Music Will Be Coming From.

Looks like the ugly truth about the Catholic church's pedophile cover-up is only going to get uglier and uglier.

See the New York Times article by Laurie Goodstein and Alessandra Stanley:
As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its Faithful Reel.

I was on a panel today at SXSW!

Hank Jones asked me to give a little ten minute presentation on Audio Formats and Web site Security..

I saw a great movie yesterday at the SXSW Film Festival:
Daniel Cavey's Dear XXX.

AOL is toying with the idea of swapping IE for a Gecko-based model as its default browser.

See:
AOL 7.0 tests Netscape browser,
by Jim Hu for CNET.

Man, when CSPAN's hot, it's hot!

I tuned in just in time to see the nomination of Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals get rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It was pretty gratifying.
(I guess every now and then, the system works :-)

What a great time I had this week at SXSW! I met a lot of great people (I'll be blogging their sites all week) and learned a ton of stuff about things I always wanted to know about.

More on this later as I attempt to catch up on the last four days of notes!

I'm actually still in Austin hanging around to check out some interesting panels at the Music portion of the conference on Saturday.

Blogger is still being a royal pain in the butt and it's reminding me why I'm on the verge of switching over to Moveable Type. (Hint Hint Evan!)

I just sent my letter to Intel saying "thank you" for standing up to the SSSCA last week.

These letters can be sent Leslie Vadasz c/o tom.marchok@intel.com .

Here's what I sent:

Dear Mr. Vadasz,

I am a journalist and magazine editor who has been watching the SSSCA proceedings very closely over the past few months. (I also own 3 PCs and 2 laptop PCs, and plan to be buying a lot of new hardware over the next 6 months, for what it's worth).

I wanted to thank you personally for being the only tech company with enough integrity to speak out on behalf of both the average consumer and your technology partners around the world.

Thank you for fighting the entertainment industry's attempts to undermine our fair use rights and harm our economy by hobbling your industry with burdensome, nonsensical regulations that protect their bottom line at the expense of your own.

Please keep up the good work -- don't let Hollywood take away your right to innovate and my right to use my equipment as I see fit.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein
Contributing Editor, XML.com, OpenP2P.com
Freelance Journalist - http://www.finetuning.com/collect.html

Intel's got a lot of integrity. It was the only company that spoke up at the SSSCA hearings that went on all last week on Capitol Hill.

Consumer representatives weren't invited to Senator Hollings' little get together. Luckily, Leslie Vadasz, one of Intel's founders, delivered an elegant statement on our behalf, and followed it up with a follow-up letter to Hollings.

The EFF has put together a little letter we can all send to Intel to show our support. I'm on my way out the door to SXSW (Lawrence Lessig is speaking about the Creative Commons at 3pm today), but I'll be sending one out this weekend.

Check out the latest EFFector:
ALERT: Oppose SSSCA; Support Intel's Bravery A Bad Law and a Sneaky Process .

Has the Bush Administration forgotten that using Nuclear Weapons in any capacity will kill everything else on the planet within in a few years after they've initially wiped out the enemy?

What part of "kill everything else on the planet" do they not understand? Hey guys. That's us! Us too! Us too! Get it? We all die. Every one of us, and the animals...and the plants....the whole she-bang! Get it now?

Take a look at:
Secret Plan Outlines the Unthinkable
--A secret policy review of the nation’s nuclear policy puts forth chilling new contingencies for nuclear war,
By William M. Arkin for the L.A. Times.

Like all such documents since the dawning of the Atomic Age more than a half-century ago, this NPR offers a chilling glimpse into the world of nuclear-war planners: With a Strangelovian genius, they cover every conceivable circumstance in which a president might wish to use nuclear weapons--planning in great detail for a war they hope never to wage.

In this top-secret domain, there has always been an inconsistency between America's diplomatic objectives of reducing nuclear arsenals and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on the one hand, and the military imperative to prepare for the unthinkable, on the other.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration plan reverses an almost two-decade-long trend of relegating nuclear weapons to the category of weapons of last resort. It also redefines nuclear requirements in hurried post-Sept. 11 terms.

In these and other ways, the still-secret document offers insights into the evolving views of nuclear strategists in Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's Defense Department.

While downgrading the threat from Russia and publicly emphasizing their commitment to reducing the number of long-range nuclear weapons, Defense Department strategists promote tactical and so-called "adaptive" nuclear capabilities to deal with contingencies where large nuclear arsenals are not demanded.

They seek a host of new weapons and support systems, including conventional military and cyber warfare capabilities integrated with nuclear warfare. The end product is a now-familiar post-Afghanistan model--with nuclear capability added. It combines precision weapons, long-range strikes, and special and covert operations.

But the NPR's call for development of new nuclear weapons that reduce "collateral damage" myopically ignores the political, moral and military implications--short-term and long--of crossing the nuclear threshold.

Under what circumstances might nuclear weapons be used under the new posture? The NPR says they "could be employed against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack," or in retaliation for the use of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, or "in the event of surprising military developments."

Planning nuclear-strike capabilities, it says, involves the recognition of "immediate, potential or unexpected" contingencies. North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are named as "countries that could be involved" in all three kinds of threat. "All have long-standing hostility towards the United States and its security partners. All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and have active WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and missile programs."

China, because of its nuclear forces and "developing strategic objectives," is listed as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency." Specifically, the NPR lists a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons.

Other listed scenarios for nuclear conflict are a North Korean attack on South Korea and an Iraqi assault on Israel or its neighbors.

The second important insight the NPR offers into Pentagon thinking about nuclear policy is the extent to which the Bush administration's strategic planners were shaken by last September's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Though Congress directed the new administration "to conduct a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear forces" before the events of Sept. 11, the final study is striking for its single-minded reaction to those tragedies.

GREAT editorial by Eric Hellweg for Business 2.0 on the SSSCA:
Memo to the Record Companies: Downloading Can't Be Stopped
--The recording industry is feeling the heat after years of technophobia and abusive behavior toward consumers. Can it muster the strength to try something new?

To make matters worse, the industry is turning to Washington for a bailout. Most absurd among its proposals to Congress is the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), sponsored by Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), which would force computer equipment companies to install government-sanctioned copy protection on all hardware and consumer electronics devices. Does Hollings really believe consumers will let the government decide what kind of hardware goes into their PCs and iPods? Such a move would, as Intel (INTC) executive vice president Leslie Vadasz said during a preliminary hearing on the matter, "substantially retard innovation, investment in new technologies, and ... reduce the usefulness of our products to consumers."

Instead of trying to rewrite copyright law, the labels should instead brush up on the laws of supply and demand.

Now there's a new website that streams hearings from Capitol Hill:
Capitol Hearings.org (a service of C-SPAN).

(Friendly Fascism Alert :-):
This chilling editorial by Nat Hentoff for the Village Voice provides some enlightening information about the absurdity of the provisions of the USA Patriot Act which enable law enforcement and government agencies to force libraries and bookstores to hand over their records and furthermore does not allow them to talk about it publicly.
Big John Wants Your Reading List.

This is now the law, and as I wrote last week, the FBI, armed with a warrant or subpoena from the FISA court, can demand from bookstores and libraries the names of books bought or borrowed by anyone suspected of involvement in "international terrorism" or "clandestine activities."

Once that information is requested by the FBI, a gag order is automatically imposed, prohibiting the bookstore owners or librarians from disclosing to any other person the fact that they have received an order to produce documents.

You can't call a newspaper or a radio or television station or your representatives in Congress. You can call a lawyer, but since you didn't have any advance warning that the judge was issuing the order, your attorney can't have objected to it in court. He or she will be hearing about it for the first time from you...

...As I often do when Americans' freedom to read is imperiled, I called Judith Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association. I've covered, as a reporter, many cases of library censorship, and almost invariably, the beleaguered librarians have already been on the phone to Judy Krug. She is the very incarnation of the author of the First Amendment, James Madison.

When some librarians—because of community pressure or their own political views, right or left—have wanted to keep books or other material from readers, Judy has fought them. She is also the leading opponent of any attempt to curb the use of the Internet in public libraries.

As she has often said, "How can anyone involved with libraries stand up and say, 'We are going to solve problems by withholding information'?"

I called to talk with her about the FBI's new power to force libraries to disclose the titles of books that certain people are reading—and she, of course, knew all about this part of the USA Patriot Act. And the rest of it, for that matter.

She told me how any library can ask for help—without breaking the gag order and revealing a FISA visit from the FBI. The librarian can simply call her at the American Library Association in Chicago and say, "I need to talk to a lawyer," and Judy will tell her or him how to contact a First Amendment attorney...

George Orwell said: "If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."

Today, the public doesn't even know about this provision in the strangely titled USA Patriot Act. A lot of people are still afraid to get on a plane. Is Ashcroft fearful that if people find out about his interest in what they're reading, they'll be afraid to go to libraries and bookstores—and will start asking questions about what the hell he thinks he's doing? And where is Congress?

Today's a voting day in my state (California). Is it in your state? Then GO OUT AND VOTE! :-)

I still have to figure out what's up for grabs this time around in the election. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm voting for Barbara Lee.

Remember Barbara Lee? She was the one dissenting vote against the USA Act.

415-554-4411 is the number to call in San Francisco to find out the location of your polling station.

Major Security and Privacy Issues on the Morpheus Network

The Morpheus network underwent two serious attacks last week. Users have only recently been allowed to reconnect to the network using the new Morpheus Preview Edition.

The explanation below is made up of excerpts from the statement published on the MusicCity website from Steve Griffin, the StreamCast/Morpheus CEO:

This week MusicCity and Morpheus users suffered dual attacks. First, early this week MusicCity's servers were hit by a massive Denial of Service attack. Soon thereafter, Morpheus users found that a separate attack had been launched on their computers and their Morpheus software programs.

It appears that the attacks included an encrypted message being repeatedly sent directly to your computers that changed registry settings in your computer. Later, it appears our ad servers were attacked resulting in messages being sent to other sites without our knowledge, which threatened our most basic revenue model. We believe some of these attacks continue as Morpheus users attempt to connect to the old Morpheus User Network. This was why it is important to quickly deploy our new software product...

...These attacks have forced us to more quickly deploy our new software product in order to allow you to bring the largest p2p community back together. Since it appears that the attack on your computers came from the closed proprietary FastTrack-Kazaa software, we have opted not to continue with this p2p kernel. We believe it to have the ability to access your computer at will and change registry settings. In addition, we remain committed to NOT bundling any spy ware with our product.

We are pleased to migrate to an open Protocol product with the release of Morpheus Preview Edition, which is based on the very large network of Gnutella users...Since our company and your p2p network are being attacked, we would appreciate your constructive comments for improvement, not simply criticisms. With you help and input, we will continue to provide the pre-eminent p2p software product in the world.

Lastly, we want to address some of the misinformation we've seen recently. There have been many comments that we caused these problems intentionally. Let me assure you that we would NEVER treat the Morpheus users in this fashion...

But WAIT, there's MORE (also from the Morpheus website):

BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU CLICK A recent press statement announced that KAZAA/Sharman Networks has a new program that allows you to re-connect to the Kazaa/FastTrack Network. This new program is NOT endorsed by MusicCity and will NOT allow you to connect to the Morpheus/Gnutella P2P network. We find it interesting that someone sent a message to your computer earlier this week which prevented your Morpheus Software product from joining the network and now a new software installer suggests that it allows you to re-connect.

Meanwhile, according to LimeWire, unique users have reached an all time high that was most likely caused by all of the Morpheus network's part-time users briefly connecting to the network in the course of installing the new software.

Looks like Microsoft broke a pretty serious promise it first made in March of 1999: to remove the function from Office 2000 that uniquely identifies every file.

In a letter from Yusuf Mehdi, Director of Windows Marketing at Microsoft, he promises that:

"The forthcoming release of Office 2000 will not include the ability to insert unique identifier in documents."

Unfortunately the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch and Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool. are no longer available. But thanks to Brewster Khale's Wayback Machine, I can get a complete index of snapshots from when it existed since 1999.

Using the wayback machine, I was able to locate the last released version of the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch. An updated version for Office 2000 doesn't seem to ever have been made available. I'm not sure if the Office 97 patch works with later versions of Office (or even if this patch works, for that matter, because I haven't tested it -- just linking to it FYI :-)

For more information, check out:

Microsoft Office 97 and 2000 Have A Dirty Little Secret

Windows 98 Knows Who You Are

Microsoft Attaches an ID to all Office Documents!

Wow! In less than three hours after my original posting, Bush's "Shadow Government" has become a "Bunker Government", courtesy of CNN.

Of course, it's still a bad idea for all of same reasons.

See the unattributed CNN article based on the heresay of an unidentified senior government official at:
Bunker U.S. government in place.

The lessons, according to this official, included a dramatic need to improve computer and other communications equipment and capabilities at the secure locations. Also, several departments are reviewing legal requirements to make sure those serving in the bunker government have the authority to carry out key government functions, should contact with Washington somehow be severed.

Well I didn't get into CAL Berkeley for graduate school. Damn.

There's still a chance I could get in to Stanford -- I haven't heard back from them yet. Think good thoughts everybody :-)

Here's a cool blog that shadows the actions of Mr. Bush's Administration and suggests progressive alternatives to them (still no word yet on the Shadow Government Blog's progressive alternative to a Shadow Puppet Government):
The Shadow Government of the USA

I Don't Want A Shadow Puppet Government

Our Representatives on Capitol Hill need to be more involved in the selection process of any sort of "back-up governement" to ensure so that our country is not turned over to the wrong hands, which would only make things worse in a time of crisis.

The circumstances under which such a back-up government would take over also need to be clarified. Are we talking about when every last member of the House and Senate have been taken out by some huge cross-global conspiracy over a 24-hour period? To the extent where the existing chain of command rules would not be allowed to operate accordingly?

Would this back-up government be temporarily in charge? Or will our government effectively be dissolved irreversibly as a side-effect of the change-over, as the quote below would suggest?

Whatever it is, let's codify it explicitly and have the House and the Senate vote on it. Let's take advantage of the checks and balances that are still firmly in place and do this thing right after everyone agrees that it even needs to be done.

I don't want to find out, after the fact, who's been placed in charge of my country and why. In many ways, that's what happened during our last Presidential election. It wasn't okay then, and it wouldn't be okay now.

In a nutshell: who are these people and under what circumstances will they be placed in control of me and my country?

Or as a friend of mine put it when he heard the news: "Hey, who's picking 'em? What is this a dictatorship all of a sudden?"

For more information, please read:

Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret (By Barton Gellman and Susan Schmidt for the Washington Post)

Shadow Government Activated for U.S. (Associated Press)

This clip is from the Washington Post article:

Deployed "on the fly" in the first hours of turmoil on Sept. 11, one participant said, the shadow government has evolved into an indefinite precaution. For that reason, the high-ranking officials representing their departments have begun rotating in and out of the assignment at one of two fortified locations along the East Coast. Rotation is among several changes made in late October or early November, sources said, to the standing directive Bush inherited from a line of presidents reaching back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Officials who are activated for what some of them call "bunker duty" live and work underground 24 hours a day, away from their families. As it settles in for the long haul, the shadow government has sent home most of the first wave of deployed personnel, replacing them most commonly at 90-day intervals.

The civilian cadre present in the bunkers usually numbers 70 to 150, and "fluctuates based on intelligence" about terrorist threats, according to a senior official involved in managing the program. It draws from every Cabinet department and some independent agencies. Its first mission, in the event of a disabling blow to Washington, would be to prevent collapse of essential government functions.

Assuming command of regional federal offices, officials said, the underground government would try to contain disruptions of the nation's food and water supplies, transportation links, energy and telecommunications networks, public health and civil order. Later it would begin to reconstitute the government.