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From the Union for the Public Domain (UPD), a non-profit citizens group since 1996, whose goal is “to protect and enhance the public domain in matters concerning intellectual property,” news of this Survey of National Government Representatives Regarding the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, “being used by volunteers to collect information about national positions on the proposed …
Senate Bill 1723, “an urgency measure, would provide that no city or county may use any form of direct recording electronic device (DRE) as part of its voting system for the November 2, 2004, general election.” See the bill analysis here.
Report to Senator McCain into the alleged destruction of an audiotape of air traffic controller witness statements from 9/11/01, May 4, 2004. From the New York Times, F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers’ Statements
Two related stories worth noting: The New York Times reports increased circulation stats over the past six months, but other newspapers including the Washington Post report a downturn, some of which may be attributed to the migration of readers to the paper’s website. A recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey reports “that Web surfers are more politically active …
U.S. Releases 2004 Report on Intellectual Property Protection Office of the United States Trade Representative press release: Annual “Special 301” Report Finds Continued Progress on Strengthening Intellectual Property Protection, but Significant Improvements Needed 2004 Special 301 Report (documents are in pdf): Executive Summary, Statutory Authority, Developments in IPR, Full Report.
An online survey conducted in April indicates “that 75% of accountholders are less likely to respond to email from their banks, and over 65% said they were less likely to sign-up or continue to use their banks online services.” These results reflect growing consumer concern with phishing and email fraud, occurrences of which are increasingly …
Record Broken: 82% of U.S. Email is Spam For reference, see the latest spam statistics on the MessageLabs homepage.
Yesterday, California Senate Bill 1436, the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, sponsored by Senator Kevin Murray, won approval by the Judiciary Committee. In addition, Assembly Bill 2787, which prohibits the download of spyware to a computer in California, was approved by the Committee on Judiciary.
“The Homeland Security Working Group ensures that the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) [Executive Order establishing NSDI] supports the preparation for, prevention of, protection against, response to, and recovery from (1) threats to the nation’s population centers and critical infrastructures that are of terrorist, criminal, accidental, or natural origin and (2) related adverse events.” The …
From EUpolitix.com, this brief but fascinating Country by country guide to new EU member states as of May 1.
At a hearing on the “Use, Security, and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems” held today by the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Johns Hopkins University computer science professor and computer security expert Avi Rubin testified that the e-voting systems currently in place for the November election are fundamentally flawed. A recent New York Times …
From Walt Mossberg, Making the Internet A Little Easier On Aging Eyes, and about Walt Mossberg, The Kingmaker, “Walt Mossberg makes or breaks products from his pundit perch at a little rag called The Wall Street Journal.”