Author archives

MIT Researchers and Unmonitored Web Access

Researchers from MIT have developed a scheme, called Infranet, that ensures anonymity and access to Web content that has been blocked or censored, for users around the world. An abstract of their paper titled Infranet: Circumventing Web Censorship and Surveillance provides links to the full-text of the paper in HTML, PDF and PostScript. See also …

Subjects: Privacy

Global Internet Freedom

Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) issued a press release on October 2 announcing the introduction of H.R. 5524, cited as the Global Internet Freedom Act, to defeat Internet jamming and censorship around the world. Specific reference is made in the bill to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Cuba and other countries that actively prevent citizens from freely accessing …

Subjects: Freedom of Information

NueStar's Vast Database of Telephone Numbers

NeuStar.com, manager of the “.kids.us” domain, has another government contract that highlights its competitive edge in the realm of data collection, according to a July 8, 2002 article in Forbes. The company owns a database of 160 million telephone numbers for North American customers, and it routinely updates telecom companies when changes and additions occur. …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Privacy

Judge v. Anonymous Web Critic

A three year old web defamation case is in the news again. It began when Judge Joan Orie Melvin of the Pennsylvania Superior Court filed a defamation suit in Loudon County, Virginia in 1999 against an anonymous webmaster who published comments to his site, hosted by AOL. The AOL legal department posted copies of decisions …

Subjects: Internet, Privacy

Local Government and the Power of E-Mail

Today the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report, How local officials use the Internet and the civic benefits they cite from dealing with constituents online. The report states “that local officials have embraced the Internet as part of their official lives and most now use email to communicate with constituents.”

Subjects: E-Government

The Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002

Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California has introduced legislation that seeks to balance the right of copyrightholders of digital content, with the right of consumers who purchase and make personal copies of materials including CDs, DVDs and e-books. A press release on the legislation is available on her website, as well as a link to …

Subjects: Copyright

New Blog Focused on the Supreme Court

The three attorney law firm of Goldstein Howe PC in Washington, D.C. whose practice is focused on Supreme Court litigation, introduced their new blog, SCOUTSBlog, on October 1. According to the firm founder Tom Goldstein, “We intend to cover the Supreme Court comprehensively — all of its opinions and orders — but we want to …

Subjects: Blogs