Yesterday, Prince Charles published a letter in the Independent urging caution on nanotechnology.

Maybe John should send him a copy of The Book...

I came accross this on one of my numerous update lists.

JAPANESE SCHOOLCHILDREN TO BE RFID-CHIPPED
Japanese authorities have decided that tracking children
with RFID technology is the best way to protect kids. School
authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the
benefits of using RFID chips on kids outweigh the
disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one
primary school.
http://networks.silicon.com/lans/0,39024663,39122042,00.htm


[Read More!]

Here it comes. (Link to story about implanted electrodes in monkey brains that can read thoughts and predict behavior.)

Now, maybe this won't scare most humans, because their thoughts and behaviors are more complex and harder to predict than are monkeys'. But I, like, Homer Simpson, basically never experience thoughts on the higher-than-simian level, to this story bothers me.

On the other hand, it at least gives me a nice technoparanoid story to post on wetmachine to celbrate the end of my vaation

I'm actually cutting short my vacation to Pennsic to give the Keynote address at the 2004 National Summit for Community Wireless Networks on August 20-22, 2004. This conference is a meeting of folks deploying community wireless networks, policy wonks like yours truly, and anyone else who cares about revolutionizing spectrum policy and setting networks free. the goal is to educate each other and develop ways to move forward in a coherent movement that promotes positive spectrum management reforms. The announcement is reprinted below. Please circulate widely. Hope to see you all there. [Read More!]

This article over at the Register implies that there has been a cover up over the death of two British pilots who were shot down after mistakenly being identified as an Iraq scud by the Patriot missle system. It seems that the military is reluctant to criticize the missle system, given that billions of dollars in sales to foreign governments are pending. Acknowledging its major flaws could be bad for Raytheon's bottom line.

Hmm... I dimly seem to recall some half-remembered president that nattered on about the threat of the industrial-military complex to American freedom. Or something.

I'm getting rather worried as I gear up for two major FCC proceedings that are supposed to be good proceedings for unlicensed spectrum access. Et Docket No. 04-151 proposes opening the 3650--3700 MHz band to unlicensed spectrum (proposed rules in pdf here). The other, ET Docket No. 04-186 proposes opening the broadcast bands to unlicensed spectrum access (proposed rules in pdf here). What could be wrong? See below. I sure hope someone other than me shows up to comment . . . [Read More!]

Good news: The House Commerce Committee had a hearing on the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, which would undo the more obnoxious provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Bad news: The House Judiciary Committee (which handles intellectual property issues) approved the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act, a bill to criminalize the use of false information in WHOIS registrations. This wouldn't be so bad if you weren't required to divulge a boatload of personal information under the “thick” WHOIS requirements in order to register a domain name. Folks who hate getting beaten up by their governments over free speech issues or just hate the way spammers use the WHOIS database often try to defnd themselves by submitting false information.

More on the merits of the bills below. But also of relevance (and what makes the Sausage Factory so much fun) is to note the difference a change in committee makes. [Read More!]

Normally, I figure that people will hear about these sorts of things on other sites, but I figured that this was important enough to post it up here. According to ZDNet, malicious hackers have compromised several “major websites.” They didn't deface these sites with the usual “1 0wNez joo, biatch!” (forgive my poor leet speak). Rather, they installed their own software to take advantage of Internet Explorer's unpatched security holes to install software on visitor's PCs. The owners of the sites are apparently unaware of the fact that they are infecting their visitors, and visitors are probably complacent that they only visit “reputable” sites and have nothing to fear from spyware.

If you're reading this using Internet Explorer (on Windows, at least), please, go download the latest version of Mozilla (or their up-and-coming new browser, Firefox). It's free, and it's a much more useful browser than IE, nevermind the fact that it doesn't have the known gaping security holes that IE does. It's also a supported application under constant development, unlike Internet Explorer.

(Updated: It appears that the problem will only affect users of Internet Explorer 6, not earlier versions. According to Microsoft, if you have installed WIndows XP service Pack 2 Beta (which 99% of you haven't, I'd guess) then you're safe as well.)
[Read More!]

I will have a lot more to say on this later, but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its decision on the FCC's media ownership deregulation that took place last summer.

The result is a near total victory for MAP and the other public interest clients and the American people. The FCC's June 2, 2003, deregulatory Order is reversed as not supported by logical reasoning based on the record. The court reverses and remands to the FCC, keeping the old rules in effect until the FCC resolves this mess. The court rejects the FCC's position that the provision of the 1996 Act that requires the FCC to conduct a review of its ownership rules is “deregulatory” or that it prohibits the FCC from making ownership regulations more stringent. Instead, the FCC is supposed to review its ownership rules and decide whether the public interest requires the FCC to keep the rule, relax the rule, eliminate the rule, or make the rule even more stringent.

More information at our website.

YEEEEEEHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

According to Wired, the Democratic Convention in Boston is accepting bloggers application for press credentials. So, anybody think Tales of The Sausage Factory should go on a road trip?