Nov 18th, 2008 · If we humans have such big brains, how can we get conned? Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak has an interesting post on Psychology Today in which he recounts how he was the victim of a classic con called 'The Pigeon Drop' when he was a teenager and explains how …
Nov 14th, 2008 · George Washington University has today released a three-volume history of NSA activities during the Cold War (major highlights). Written by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson, the 1,000-page report, 'Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945-1989,' details …
Oct 17th, 2008 · In a San Antonio, Texas case, Maverick v. Harper, in which a young woman was accused of having committed copyright infringement at the age of 16, the Judge denied the RIAA's summary judgment motion this summer, saying there were factual issues as to whether …
Oct 15th, 2008 · The RIAA, unhappy with the Court's decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict over $23.76 worth of song files, and throwing out the legal theory on which it was based, has made a motion for permission to file an appeal from the Judge's order, in …
Oct 9th, 2008 · With prompting from the Sunlight Foundation's Open House Project, the US Library of Congress announced today that its online database THOMAS will now generate persistent URLs, known as legislative handles, for legislation documents. As Free Government …
Oct 8th, 2008 · aaandre writes with word of a Washington Post story which begins: "The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, …
Sep 5th, 2008 · David Kravets of Wired.com, who provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas trial last year, takes stock of the RIAA's 5-year-old litigation campaign, concluding it is 'at a crossroads', and noting that 'billions of copies of copyrighted …
Aug 25th, 2008 · Deep End's Paul Venezia criticizes the lack of criminal charges for corporate negligence in data breaches in the wake of last week's Best Western breach, which exposed the personal data of 8 million customers. 'The responsibilities attached to retaining …
Aug 4th, 2008 · Apparently the RIAA's 'big gun' didn't fare so well this morning in Duluth, when he tried to persuade the judge in Capitol v. Thomas that the part of the Copyright Act which says 'by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending', …
Aug 3rd, 2008 · Matthew Paul Thomas has an entry on his blog called Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, And How To Improve It. While this advice is helpful and may indeed lead to improvements in many open source programs, the guidelines may be much more difficult for …
Aug 1st, 2008 · I guess the RIAA is getting nervous about the ability of its 'national law firm' (in charge of bringing 'ex parte' motions, securing default judgments, and beating up grandmothers and children) to handle the oral argument scheduled to be heard on Monday, …
Jun 21st, 2008 · A group of 10 copyright law professors has filed an amicus curiae ('friend of the court') brief on the side of the defendant in Capitol v. Thomas, agreeing with the judge's recent decision that the $222,000 verdict won by the RIAA appears to be tainted …
Jun 19th, 2008 · According to a new study performed by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, increased emphasis on helping students with a history of lower academic achievement results in lower performance for high achievers. This trend appears to be related …
Jun 8th, 2008 · The NY times is reporting that an American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L. To put the performance of …
May 15th, 2008 · The judge in Capitol Records v. Thomas said today he's thinking about granting a new trial because he may have committed a 'manifest error of law' in his jury instructions. He says that his instruction that simply uploading music to a P2P network without …
May 9th, 2008 · The RIAA's top litigation lawyer, who has been personally leading the RIAA's litigation campaign for the past several years, Richard Gabriel, will be leaving his law practice, after getting a job as a state court judge for a 2-year term in Colorado. What …
May 3rd, 2008 · At Fordham Law School's annual IP Law Conference this year, Slashdot member NewYorkCountryLawyer had a chance to square off with Kenneth Doroshow, a Senior Vice President of the RIAA, over the subject of copyright statutory damages. Doroshow thought the …
May 1st, 2008 · palegray.net notes that on this day in 1964, the first BASIC program was run. From the Wired article:"Mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz had been trying to make computing more accessible to their undergraduate students. One problem was …
Feb 25th, 2008 · A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA …
Jan 5th, 2008 · David Kravetz of Wired.com covered last year's Capitol v. Thomas trial gavel-to-gavel. It's worth noting, then, his article saying that the RIAA's recent statement — that Sony's top litigation lawyer 'misspoke' during the trial. She said that making …
