After announcing that SOPA would be delayed until 2012, it’s hearing date and potential vote has been quietly rescheduled to 12/21/2011. While SOPA claims to help stop piracy, it also gives DHS even greater ability to act without due process. Even if that wasn’t a violation of the 4th amendment, DHS has a horrible record of abusing the power it already has. It’s time to once again call our representatives to remind them they are sworn by oath to protect the constitution.
More nanny state skullduggery on our Internet: check out who’s at the top of the SOPA’s author’s donor list.Then have a look at who’s been downloading!
Meet the most distracted generation as mobile data use explodes. Age demographic shows data usage peaks at 25-34 and declines with age.
Doing the only right thing to restore customer confidence: Sprint is the first wireless provider to ditch Carrier IQ.
An old tactic as a new trend? Buying new business in a very slow economy. Verizon offers $300 to competitors subscribers in the southern US to jump ship. Groupon burns some of it’s IPO cash trying to stay ahead of copycat offerings from Amazon and Ebay.
A few lucky souls in San Francisco will be getting uncapped 1GB broadband for about what most US cable subscribers pay for 30MB or less.
Protect IP AKA E Parasite is advancing in the Congress and could become law in the blink of an eye. If passed this bill will stifle innovation, creativity, and kill jobs. It will also enable the government to censor any site it wishes. That means the democratization of knowledge and the freedom of expression will be at risk for everyone. Even if you trust the group running the show today (and you shouldn’t) , they won’t be there forever.
Please call or write your representative and your senators today to encourage them to vote against Protect IP. The freedom you may save will be your own.
Congress calls out Belarus for copying its internet agenda. Actually it’s a pot calling the kettle black.
Are big layoffs coming at Cisco?
Open hardware license framework gets updated and refined.
Google improving products search? Your mileage may vary, but I’ve had better luck finding products with Bing. Maybe Searchzilla fianlly got the wake up call.
The Smartphone acheives 33% market share.
Netflix faces much higher costs for content.
Belated news: Byte is back ! The reboot features Gina Smith at the helm and original columnist Jerry Pournelle on the team. Here’s wishing Gina, Jerry and the rest of the Byte team great success on longevity.
The Chinese Communists have effectively walled off the internet in their nation, or at least made the free flow of information to and from the rest of the world a difficult and risky undertaking. What about an iron firewall to replace the iron curtain? A group called RUSSOFT has proposed that another great firewall be built around Belarus, Russia, and surprisingly Ukraine. The project would take a decade and cost several hundred million dollars. RUSSOFT members would be the obvious beneficiaries, so it’s no surprise they are pushing the idea. It’s a very bad idea, but we are living in strange times.
Lets hope the Governments involved have enough common sense to let this idea die without being funded.
The proposal seems to mimic an idea expressed by Russia’s Minister of Communication, Igor Schegolev. Schegolev had earlier spoken about the need to protect the Russian share of the internet (called the Runet for websites ending in .ru), from external threats. The ministry is currently working on creating a Cyrillic alphabet alternative to the Latin-based domain name system, and the controls could feasibly go hand-in-hand.
The proposal on “providing access to foreign Internet resources through a funnel,” appeared in a report written by Makarov titled “Proposals for developing the information society.” As of yet, Makarov says he hasn’t discussed the project “with the people who make the decisions on these issues in Russia.”
The computer expert firmly believes that an information funnel will not necessarily be used to restrict Internet freedoms. “International rules and standards must be worked out to attribute sources that are dangerous to society, and control of the national network must be established based on a dialogue between the government and the online community,” Makarov explained.
Kremlin critics are concerned that such a move would give the government undue power over the internet, which has remained relatively free even as authorities have clamped down on independent print and broadcast media. (The Other Russia)
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