Compendium

Entries

Friday, August 23, 2002

this is a test

Business Communications Review - Voice Services Pricing: How Low Can They Go?

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Compendium takes a vacation

Up in the bucolic mountains of New Hampshire and Maine. See you right after Labor Day!

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Internet safe for another day

Oh, phew. In case you missed the story, a federal judge yesterday threw out BT's suit against Prodigy, the one in which BT claimed it owned a patent on the concept of hyperlinks.

BT claimed a patent issued in 1989, based on work done by an employee in the 1970s, gave it the right to levy a fee - or whatever it wanted to do - for every use of a hyperlink. The suit conveniently ignored the work on hyperlinks done well before the 1970s by such people as Vannevar Bush (See his famous essay As We Think)and Ted Nelson in the 1960s (come to think of it, Nelson is *still* working on the concept).

The judge ruled "no jury could find" that Prodigy had infringed the patent, which, thanks to the ruling, you don't have to pay to read here.

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Holding off on the Wi-Fi Grande

Steve Outing thinks the Starbucks wi-fi plan is just too expensive: People already pay $40 or $50 a month for wireless access; are they really going to pay another $12 an hour (or $50 a month for unlimited connectivity at any Starbucks in the U.S.), just to be able to delete spam while sipping coffee?

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Thursday, August 22, 2002

The Britney Spears Telecom page

On which every picture ever taken (or Photoshopped) of Britney with telephones and other telecom equipment is proudly displayed, including Britney and her first point to point microwave install (an Alcatel 9600 USY STM-1/0 Urban Digital Radio Link).

And after you've spent the roughly 5 seconds it takes to glance at this, check out the links on the left side of the page for some decent essays and tutorials (all sans Britney, though) on the history of telephones, packet and circuit switching and the like.

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Subtly making Fusion easier to use (at least, in IE)

Look to the left and you see a toolbar. Ho, hum, you say? If you're using Internet Explorer on Windows, though, click on one of the arrows next to menu items, and watch the magic as the menu expands on the same page (as opposed to making you wait for a whole new page to load). We're working on figuring out why it doesn't work in IE on the Mac (suggestions gratefully accepted!). We know why it doesn't work in Netscape or Mozilla, but we're looking for workarounds for that as well.

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So what would a busy network manager's Weblog look like?

It might look a lot like Dave McNamee's Weblog, in which Dave McNamee, a product manager with the state of Utah, keeps his staff up to date on what's going on in his department (and on his flying lessons).

Via Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog.

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Wednesday, August 21, 2002

SpamCops or SpamThugs?

Edward Felten is an associate professor of computer science at Princeton. In this article he writes about how he was blacklisted by the self-appointed net nannies at SpamCop:

Earlier this week, my ISP shut off this site, because the site had appeared on a list of "spammers" published by an outfit called SpamCop.

Apparently, this happened because one person, whose identity I was not allowed to learn, had sent SpamCop an accusation saying that he had received an unwanted email message, which I was not allowed to see, that did not come from me but that did mention my web site. On that "evidence" SpamCop declared me guilty of spamming and decreed that my
site should be shut down. Never mind that I had never sent a single email message from the site. Never mind that the site was not selling anything.

Naturally, I was not allowed to see the accusation, or to learn who had submitted it, or to rebut it, or even to communicate with an actual human being at SpamCop. You see, they're not interested in listening to complaints from spammers.

With help from my ISP, I eventually learned that the offending message was sent on a legitimate mailing list, and that the person who had complained was indeed subscribed to that list, and had erroneously reported the message as unsolicited. Ironically, the offending message was sent by someone who liked my site and wanted to recommend it to
others. Everybody involved (me, my ISP, the person who filed the complaint, and the author of the message) agreed that the report was an error, and we all told this to SpamCop. Naturally, SpamCop failed to respond and continued to block the site.

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Poetry as the ultimate anti-spam weapon?

Anne Mitchell, a California attorney, has come up with a novel way to beat spam. Well, actually, a haiku way: Embed a copyrighted haiku in the headers of legitimate e-mail. Any spammers that get caught with the haiku in their messages can then be sued up the wazoo for copyright infringement.

Um, yeah, but as Cory Doctory notes:

Spammers are already engaged in fraud, for the most part. Nigerian letter scams, Ponzi schemes, illegal pornography -- they're already illegal! Spam doesn't flourish because we lack the legal framework to attack spammers.

Plus, he adds, who is Mitchell to decide what is and isn't "legitimate?"

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Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Security expert: Scared of Palladium

Like Dave Kearns, Scott Bradner and Mark Gibbs, security consultant Bruce Schneier has some strong reservations about Microsoft's Palladium encryption/security proposal:

There's a lot of good stuff in Pd, and a lot I like about it. There's also a lot I don't like, and am scared of. My fear is that Pd will lead us down a road where our computers are no longer our computers, but are instead owned by a variety of factions and companies all looking for a piece of our wallet. To the extent that Pd facilitates that reality, it's bad for society. I don't mind companies selling, renting, or licensing things to me, but the loss of the power, reach, and flexibility of the computer is too great a price to pay.

What do you think?

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Our newest Weblog: The Multimedia Exchange

Wherein Fusion Multimedia Editor Jason Meserve discusses the latest in multimedia and streaming technology.

The more blog-aware may notice that it's using Moveable Type. We'd been using Greymatter for blogs, because it's really easy to set up and use - oh, and free - but it doesn't scale well (basically, for each new Weblog, you need to install a new copy of the software and it hasn't been updated much in quite some time.

Moveable Type, in contrast, lets you set up and administer multiple Weblogs from a single "console," is updated regularly and has a large community of developers taking advantage of its plug-in architecture (one of the first plug-ins I'll install is one to let our authors add meta data, such as keywords, for our search engine to use). Equally important, MT has a simple workflow (postings have two states: "draft" and "publish") - our news editors want to start having Weblog postings go through an editing process just like the rest of our content. Look for me to move our other Weblogs (right now, this one and Keith Shaw's Cool Tools: Daily Dose) over to it.

This Perl app is $150 for commercial use. The authors only accept payments via PayPal, so, guys, that's why you haven't gotten any money from us yet - this is the first time in my life I've ever actually had to use that service and it takes several days to open an account.

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How to convince the boss to buy into this blogging thing

Lunch Reviews is a daily listing of what people in one office eat for lunch - why doesn't your office have one?

Lunch: penne and sausage

A new pasta place opened up about a block from my office. Today was my third trip there, an indication of the quality of their goods. I got my pasta to go, rushed back to my desk, and read ESPN.com. Apparently a writer for ESPN the magazine feels that the NFC East is the best division in football. I hope the Eagles win the SuperBowl, it would green light all shades of buffoonery on my part.

I probably should have had a salad today because I'm having a fat week.

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Monday, August 19, 2002

Wardriving takes to the air

Time was when, in a certain circle of wireless hacker types, wardriving and warchalking were cool.

They are so last week.

A group of Australian wireless buffs have taken the art of discovering open wireless ports to new heights:

Cap'n Richard, Will (Yagi), Peterh & me took "IGI" - a Grumman Tiger 4 seat aircraft up to 1500ft and flew around Perth picking up AP's with Netstumbler running on an Handheld Ipaq/Cantenna and Kismet on a Toshiba Tecra 9000 with built-in Antenna.

They call it warstorming (from "wardriving" and "barnstorming").

Via Boing Boing.

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The growing politicization of open source

Tim O'Reilly (he of the eponymous computing books), doesn't like the idea of governments mandating the use of open source software (there's currently a bill in the California legislature to do that):

No one should be forced to choose open source, any more than they should be forced to choose proprietary software. And any victory for open source achieved through deprivation of the user's right to choose would indeed be a betrayal of the principles that free software and open source have stood for.

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Friday, August 16, 2002

How would this guy deal with spam?

The El Paso Times reports:

Incensed over too many postcards about missing children and meat sales, an Upper Valley man dumped paint on a receptionist at a West Side direct marketing company, police said.

Richard Gesell, 49, of the 5600 block of Green Castle, was shouting profanities in the Advo Direct Marketing office Monday, police said. He insisted he had called many times and wanted the mailings stopped.

Gesell's mother, Ruth, said her son suffers from depression and needed medication. She said junk mail grates on his nerves.

"You get so much," she said. "You start spilling your mail all over the ground and making a mess. No matter what you say, they keep sending it. He's called everybody."

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Is Katherine Harris an IEEE member?

An IEEE working group has been quietly trying to build something called a "Standard Upper Ontology," which, as far as I can tell, is a sort of meta-data index to an even larger glossary of meta terms (You can read more on the the working group's home page).

As Joshua Allen notes, however, the fate of this proposed standard "is turning into a replay of the last presidential elections." He points to this message from Working Group Chairman Jim Schoening on the group's e-mail list:

The Standards Association previously declared this vote failed (because they said it required a majority of all votes cast, not a majority of YES vs. NO.). I followed their directive and declared that it had failed. I then appealed through proper channels and the appeal won, so I declared the vote HAD passed. The SA has now directed that their original position must be followed, regardless of the appeal. To me this is a clear violation of the appeals process and the fundamental principle of Due Process, required of all ANSI accredited Standards Developing Organizations. I don't see how this directive can stand up to further appeals.

To which Lowell Johnson, chairman of the group's Standards Activities Board replies:

I have been directed by the SA to tell you that the SA considers their position to stand. That means, you must announce this to your group, and proceed as if that original motion had failed.

I have also been directed to replace you as WG chair if you refuse.

Naturally, this all didn't come out of a vacuum - the debate's been going on for months.

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Thursday, August 15, 2002

Dual leaky buckets and hot-potato routing

We're working on a cool new secret project. Oh, OK, you can take a look at what could be our defining moment, if you promise not to tell the whole world just yet. In the course of building this new mini-site up, I've come across two networking terms that I just can't stop repeating:

• Dual leaky buckets
• Hot-potato routing

So, are you as easily amused as I apparently am? If so, what other unusual networking terms are out there? Let me know!

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Into gizmos?

Who isn't? That's why you need to check out Cool Tools: Daily Dose, written by our own Keith Shaw, for your RDA of gizmo news.

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Two more Apple "Switched" parodies

To go with these ones:

• A PC gamer
• A claymation monkey

Via MetaFilter

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Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Use an open wireless port; go to jail?

At least one FBI agent thinks people who go around looking for - and using - open wireless access pointsare breaking the law, according to a copy of his memo now being circulated around the 'Net:

Identifying the presence of a wireless network may not be a criminal violation, however, there may be criminal violations if the network is actually accessed including theft of services, interception of communications, misuse of computing resources, up to and including violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute, Theft of Trade Secrets, and other federal violations. At this point, I am not aware of any malicious activity that has been reported to the FBI here in Pittsburgh, however, you are cautioned regarding this activity if you have implemented a wireless network in your business. You are also highly encouraged to implement appropriate wireless security practices to protect your information assets.

So knock off that warchalking right now.

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AT&T Broadband barking up the wrong tree

An AT&T Broadband user (let's call him Deep Modem), noticed an interesting contradiction on the provider's site. On its service overview page, the company says:

If you've been relying on a dial-up connection, you've been missing out on the true power of the Internet. But with AT&T Broadband Internet, you'll discover a whole new world online. Take it from our customers, who contact us with stories like these:
• Watching African wildlife LIVE via Web cam.
• Taking a "virtual tour" of a daughter's apartment 2,000 miles away.
• Reconnecting with childhood friends through online gaming.
• Checking in on Fido via "Doggie Cam".

Ooh, sign us up today! But then Deep Modem notices the following clause in AT&T Broadband's revised AUP:

Prohibited uses include, but are not limited to, using the AT&T Broadband Equipment (as defined in the Subscriber Agreement) or the Service to:...

(xiv) run programs, equipment or servers from the Premises which provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of the your home LAN (Local Area Network). Examples of prohibited programs and equipment include, but are not limited to, mail, ftp, http, file sharing, game, newsgroup, proxy, IRC servers, multi-user interactive forums and Wi-Fi devices.

Which gets DM to wonder: How one does check in on Fido via "Doggie Cam" if you can't run a server?

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Tuesday, August 13, 2002

9/11 schlock

So, what's the best way to commemorate the events of 9/11? Why, buying tchotchkies, of course, at least, if you're a member of eBay Nation. Here are some of the 9/11 things currently on sale on eBay:

9/11 teddy bear
"Remember those who died on that horrific day with this bear."

The 9/11 cellphone holder
"Lights On Top Of WTC Flash Red & Green With Each Incoming Call."

The 9/11 George Bush commemorative 2001 dollar bill
"Each bid of $1.00 is for 2 of these bills. These are the real deal, not a cheap color copy!".

The Elvis Presley/George W. Bush/DJ Joe Supersounds American Trilogy WTC 9/11 CD
"It Is The Way Of Remembering 3 Great Giants! And All Those Who Were Killed On 9/11."

The 9/11 New York skyline photo with the car and WTC lights that twinkle!
"IT'S ALIVE with the energy of our beloved Big Apple. Headlights from the cars move across the Brooklyn Bridge and the Office Lights switch on and off in the breathtaking Twin Towers and surrounding buildings. REMIND YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY DAILY with this gorgeous back-lit 8 1/2 X 11 picture of beautiful New York City before that fateful day."

The 9/11 Ground Zero Miracle Cross Pewter Keychain
"We at The Miracle Cross Inc. hold the exclusive right to manufacture and copyright these products."

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Getting around the spam filters

As Paul McNamara has chronicled, over-eager spam filters on some mail systems now dropkick legitimate e-mail that happens to contain the words or phrases the filter thinks signal spam. The result is a growing headache for people who put out newsletters on certain topics, such as, oh, networking.

Anne Holland, the editor of ContentBiz, which puts out newsletters on putting out newsletters writes about an experiment in avoiding the problem:

Last week we started adding "typos" to commonly filtered words in our issues -- such as s^pam and f^ree -- but it's turned out to be tougher than you might think just because training yourself to spell that way and remembering to check for it when proofing isn't second nature yet. So now I guess I have to ask our writers and editors to add auto-change to Word so when they use the correct spelling, it uncorrects it for publication.

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Monday, August 12, 2002

Ray Ozzie: OSes still matter

Ray Ozzie, the father of Lotus Notes and now the father of Groove, spent some time recently discussing why Groove only ships in a Windows version, unlike Notes, which came in versions for almost every OS under the sun:

In the first five years of Notes, we built about a half million lines of (C) code, having to write a ton of junk from scratch e.g. custom memory managers, code component managers that did all sorts of trickery for memory conservation, multi-byte character handling, rich text editing, MDI window handling, and all sorts of grunge - because it was early, and we were based on a fairly basic OS, there was little code around to re-use. We then ultimately spent years and millions of dollars porting Notes to the Mac, to OS/2, to Open Look and Motif, to Solaris, to the AS/400 and the 370, to ... well, you name it. Yes - it was worth it at the time - but the "drag" that this porting effort had on our organization was ultimately staggering; there was no way that we could do releases in anything less than two-to-three years. It contributed significantly to slower innovation.

In the first (nearly) five years of Groove, by concentrating for the present on a single platform, and by leveraging everything that we can possibly get our hands on, by embracing new processes that wouldn't have been possible without a sophisticated development environment, we've built about four and a half million lines of (C++) code and continue to deliver new feature releases quarterly, leveraging powerful tools, componentry bundled with the rich layers of code beneath us sometimes referred to as an OS, having both leveraged (the reasonably licensed IBM unicode libraries) and contributed (crypto++) open source code - again, purely for leverage and to help others leverage what we've done. From where I've come, it's truly breathtaking in so many dimensions, and the product could never be where it is without standing on the shoulders of giants - particularly Microsoft.

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One Ellen Feiss collectible that won't last long

Everybody's favorite maybe-stoner Apple spokesswitcher now appears on the front of a t-shirt promoting the legalization of marijuana. Get yours before the Apple legal department (or Feiss's own attorney) finds out. The justification for the tee:

By putting the ad back up on the site, Apple is saying, to me at least, "If this girl can operate our computers while stoned, so can you." Apple is tacitly targeting its loyal users, students and designers, who probably have more potheads per capita than other similarly aged markets.

Now that they are addressing potheads, who else will come out of the closet and say, "Marijuana isn't the only green in their pocket!" In the future, there may be commercials geared to stoners because they buy stuff too.

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Sun and open source: Is McNealy whining too much?

Over at LinuxWorld, Nicholas Petreley acknowledges a complaint from Sun's Scott McNealy that the open source movement may be damaging Sun's ability to market things such as its Sun ONE vision of Web services. But, Petreley adds:

Yes, open source is screwing up conventional software revenue models. However, nobody is holding a gun to McNealy's head to force Sun to stick to conventional revenue models.

He points to IBM as an example of a company that is evolving to survive on open source.

To which Amy Wohl adds:

Sun's revenue model problem isn't Microsoft versus Open Source it's commodity hardware and the disappearance of Operating Systems as an important differentiating issue. IBM figured this out and moved faster (can you believe it?) first to a service-centric model and then to the Linux open source OS; Sun didn't.

Speaking of Sun and Linux, we here at Snide Comments Central were shocked, shocked to read the following in today's New York Times:

Trying to blunt a growing challenge to the low end of its business, Sun Microsystems plans on Monday to introduce its first computers running the Linux operating system.

In fact, Sun has sold Linux boxes since it bought Cobalt Networks in 2000 (for $2 billion, which even back then, might've been enough to capture the attention of the Times, ya think?). What Sun is really doing is introducing a new line of Intel-based Linux servers.

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Friday, August 9, 2002

Andy's computer

Andy has a lot of time on his hands (maybe not quite as much as the guy with 1,000 Disney tattoos, but still a lot). See just how much with illustrated story of how he got his Lego characters to build a computer for him.

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What's wrong with "Minority Report"

Jane Pinckard recently saw the Spielberg/Cruise effort and points out all its technology flaws:

Speaking of efficient, I noticed that you guys are still using disks to transfer files from one user station to another. I mean, it's in the same room, you know? You guys could just get a cheap-o wireless card or something, save you the extra step. Especially since sometimes I guess you guys are really in a time crunch, right? Those disks you guys are using are pretty but they are so outdated.

Via Megnut

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Internet radio to go

In Bring on the WiFi Radios, Doc Searls writes about the idea of using Wi-Fi to turn PDAs into portable radios. There's already one app to turn a Sharp Zaurus into an Internet radio. Yes, yes, there is that copyright decision that is making such stations drop like flies, but as Searls notes, that decision doesn't apply to non-U.S. sites.

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Thursday, August 8, 2002

Blogs as disruptive tech

Think "content management" and you may think expensive, complex systems that require sophisticated programmers and hardware to run.

But coming up from the low end are Weblogs, which are increasing in sophistication even as they make it easy for the average Shmoe to do fancy things with content. In Blogs as Disruptive Tech, John Hiler argues some savvy companies are beginning to realize they can get much of the benefit of the six-figure apps at a tiny fraction of the cost and complexity. Now, Hiler works for a company that sells Weblogging software, so he might be biased, but it's still an interesting article to ponder.

And here at Networking Central, um, Network World? We're using mix and match. We currently have a hybrid approach, consisting of low-cost software (the free Greymatter for Weblogs and the low-cost Links for our new Resource Links areas and high-end stuff - Rhythmyx (which we hope to roll out bigtime next month). But the eventual goal is to get all our content into Rhythmyx (which has got to be the hardest product name to spell) - there are just too many good reasons to manage and manipulate our content in a single database and from a common interface (that, and the fact that our IS department wishes I would stop loading Perl scripts on the servers!).

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Atomic storage

Technology Research News reports that researchers at the University of Wisconsin say they've figured out how to use individual gold atoms to store data on a silicon wafer (one atom equals 1, the absence of one represents 0):

The researchers found that the optimum spacing for each bit is a four-atom section of track. This makes the bit spacing 1.5 nm along the tracks and 1.7 nanometers between tracks, which amounts to a data storage density of 250 trillion bits per square inch. This is equivalent to storing the contents of 7,800 DVDs in one square inch of material.

Via Slashdot.

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Microsoft's newest threat: Google

You wouldn't think so, but dig down into this speech by Microsoft Corporate VP Yusuf Mehdi at a Goldman Sachs conference earlier this year:

Google I think of really more as a competitor than I would as a partner. ... Google is trying to be more of a portal as you say, more of a portal experience and a starting point on the web, and I think that probably is more in conflict with what we are trying to do with MSN Search.

Via Webmaster World.

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Wednesday, August 7, 2002

The Ethernet-enabled teddy bear

Teddy Borg is a teddy bear with an embedded five-port 10/100 Ethernet switch. "Dear Lord, why?" you ask?

Teddy Borg was created by three MIT students on a total whim. We like computers, networking hardware especially. So one day we get the idea of putting a networking switch inside a teddy bear. Why? Because we can. Because it was either this, or do classwork on a Saturday. Because it would be moderately amusing. Because we have the vain hope that it will attract women.

With numerous construction pictures, should you wish to emulate it (oh, the switch LEDs are embedded in the eyes).

Via Danelope.

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T-shirts for geeks

Halibut Stuff sells shirts only a nerd - or a Unix networking type - could love, with slogans like "B*A*S*H" and "RegEx." Oh, yeah, and a tee that shows the nine-layer OSI model (what? You thought there were only seven layers? Check out the other two).

Via Boing Boing.

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Tuesday, August 6, 2002

Apple "Switched" parodies

Here are all the ones I could find (of course, some might argue the real ads are, in fact, parodies themselves). Know of others? I'm all ears!

• A spikey-haired cyber-dude ("My dad used to beat me with his PC")
• An Ellen Feiss wannabe
• A guy who needs really big USB ports (Not Safe for Work)
• An accountant - by day (also NSFW)
• Steve the Dell Dude
• Bill Gates
• Big Brother from the Apple "1984" ad
• Tony Soprano
• Brittney Spears
• A guy upset with Apple's decision to charge for .mac

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Can't get enough trademark news?

Then The Trademark Blog is for you - pretty much daily links to breaking trademark and copyright news.

Via Evhead.

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Is this a trade show or a Tom Clancy movie?

I *think* Sector 5 is some conference in Washington D.C. later this month on network security and cyberterrorism. But after visiting the site with my sound on, I keep wondering who's going to play the Evil Terrorist Mastermind and whether Harrison Ford Matt Damon will show up.

Via Doc Searls.

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Monday, August 5, 2002

The Macintosh couch

Last week, it was the mouse-pad couch. This week, geek chic rises to new heights with a couch made entirely of old Macintosh cases at the Mac Store in St. Louis.

Via Boing Boing.

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A site that dares to link

Yeah, sure, hyperlinks are the heart of the Web and all, but a growing number of companies want to stop you from linking to them. Don't Link to Us! chronicles sites with anti-linking policies, including one with this gem:

"You may refer to the URL of this Web Site without limitation, but you may not link to this Web Site without the prior written approval of DKSystems."

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The LED Museum

Continuing our quest to find the most obscure topic with obsessive fans, today we stumble across the LED Museum - a site dedicated to changing the way you think about tiny little lights:

If you're like most people, you probably think of those dim red or yellow-green lights on the fronts of stereos and the red digits in alarm clocks.

This website was put here to hopefully change your mind about these small miracles of quantum technology. For no longer is the LED some dim little indicator light - and no longer do they only come in red or puke green. Today's LEDs can be found in just about every color of the spectrum, and in the invisible regions at each end too. They even come in white, plus they last up to 100,000 hours or even more before they need to be replaced! This makes them especially well-suited for Christmas lights and other forms of decorative lighting.

Complete with reviews of individual LEDs:

This is ETG's latest offering in the green part of the spectrum. It is a bright lime green in color, noticeably less whitish than the typical Nichia green in the most commonly available rank. Dominant wavelength was eyeballed to be around 528-529nm; this was confirmed with a spectral analysis that was later taken.

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Friday, August 2, 2002

Really high tech

The BBC reports:

A survey about cannabis use has found that people who work in the technology industry are the most likely to have tried the drug.

Almost 92% of the people that work in the technology and telecommunications industries answered "yes" to the survey's question asking if they had ever smoked cannabis.

The story, however, does not specify whether this was on the job or not.

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Mac Dudette nearing 15th minute

Ellen Feiss, the possibly stoned Macintosh dudette, continues in the spotlight this week, what with t-shirts and mugs and the continued slavering devotion of even non-Mac users. As Rick Ellis writes on AllYourTV:

The story of Ms. Fleiss is joining the Hampsterdance, the dancing baby and the Nigerian banking fraud email as a story that cuts across all virtual boundaries (and operating systems). People who wouldn't buy an Apple computer with someone else's money are talking about the ad, and the company.

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Copyright wars

Doc Searls sums up the current (seemingly one-sided) battle between Hollywood and the recording industry and everybody else on the issue of digital rights management. Even if you don't particularly care about the royalties Internet radio stations now have to pay, he includes a quote from San Jose Mecury News columnist Dan Gilmor on the recording industry's effort to win legal absolution for hacking peer-to-peer networks:

If you or I asked Congress for permission to legally hack other people's computers, we'd be laughed off Capitol Hill. Then we'd be investigated by the FBI and every other agency concerned with criminal violations of privacy and security.

Then again, you and I aren't part of the movie and music business. We aren't as powerful as an industry that knows no bounds in its paranoia and greed, a cartel that boasts enough money and public-relations talent to turn Congress into a marionette.

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