Matthew Gifford

Lawrence Lessig reports that MetManiac will be returning. It had previously been taken down due to legal threats.

CompTIA, a group that is in part backed by Microsoft, is urging the U.S. Defense Department not to promote the use of open source software. It seems that Microsoft is ignoring its own research, which suggests that attacking open source software has actually backfired. Maybe it’s too optimistic to think that the Darknet paper marks a change in Microsoft’s direction.

Ugh. Of course Dave Winer would link to this site during a lull in my writing.

I got a good chuckle out of this.

This site now pings Weblogs.com using the XML-RPC interface. Hopefully this will attract a few more visitors.

I never expected Microsoft to release a whitepaper like The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution [via Boing Boing]. It totally contradicts the direction that the company has been taking recently. From the conclusion:

This means that a vendor will probably make more money by selling unprotected objects than protected objects. In short, if you are competing with the darknet, you must compete on the darknet’s own terms: that is convenience and low cost rather than additional security.

Is this the beginning of a radical shift toward rational thinking within Microsoft or just another marketing ploy?

“We need to find ways to share as much information with individuals as is possible to make every American, whether they are in an industry or business or in law enforcement or in their families, capable of enhancing their security by being aware and alert,” Ashcroft said.

“So it’s with that in mind that we will guide our approach to information sharing to make it possible for us all to be a part of the team which defeats terror.”

Do those two sentences really mean anything? Maybe he’s talking about how the FBI is now in the business of distributing blacklists. The creation of the Information Awareness Office is only going to make the situation worse.

Dusty Baker is the new manager [via Scripting News] of the Chicago Cubs. Wish him luck. He’s going to need it.

I gave iChat a fair chance. It just didn’t work out. That it’s the buggiest piece of software I’ve ever used, even after the 10.2.2 patch, was the first strike against it. Add to that an inferior UI and the only reasons left to use it are the ability to transfer files and integration with OS X’s address book, neither of which is all that important to me.

Welcome back to the dock, Adium duck.

In his most recent NYT editorial (Boing Boing), William Safire argues that the Homeland Security Act is “a sweeping theft of privacy rights.” This is a position that seems to be altogether missing from what little debate there is in Washington. Dissent from the Republicans has been nonexistent. The best that the Democrats have been able to come up with is that the President is trying to eliminate union influence in the executive branch. Where is the outrage about the erosion of constitutional rights? Is there anyone in Washington willing to defend the citizens and the Constitution?