The FISA Bill Update has passed the Senate 69-28. That includes the Telecom Immunity portion thereto. This sets a very dangerous precedent. Next you know the Bankers and Realtors will be looking for retroactive immunity from the housing debacle. Personally I hope there is a challenge that flows to SCOTUS.

As these votes show, however, the case against telecom immunity has failed to win a majority of the Senate or the House. We can expect a fairly easy passage of the final FISA bill, allowing the NSA to get back to business and the trial lawyers to look for another target. I’ll update this as the news proceeds.

Very bad indeed.

Linky.

Australia. EBay has finally reached its strtegic limit. Though it is still a power in the auction/resale market its dominance has been exposed. In a case of sellers leaving and PayPal enforceemnt EBay’s fortunes have changed. They have so ticked many in their community that a small percentage may never come back. –

eBay has officially withdrawn all further plans to make its online payment system PayPal its sole acceptable payment method, but offering PayPal as one of the payment options remains a requirement and there’s no sign of the auction giant apologising for suggesting that its opponents were no better than drug addicts.

The war is now officially over. Having been told by both the regulator and its customers that plans to make PayPal compulsory were unacceptable, greedy, anti-competitive, and just plain stupid, eBay has finally thrown in the towel on plans to make PayPal the only way to pay for eBay auctions in Australia.

eBay’s statement acknowledging its backdown — something widely anticipated ever since it removed its target date for changing its current approach — contains the closest we’ll ever see to an apology for its greedy and rapacious tactics.

“eBay has withdrawn its notification to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) about removing other payment methods,” it reads. “Instead eBay will continue to allow all existing payment methods on eBay.com.au. We have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay Community. eBay regrets any uncertainty that this process has caused among the Community and believe that today’s decision will remove further doubt.”

The internet age institutes an iron maiden — Communities make industries and communities break companies. Any company that attempts to buck the lady is gone before they are buried. Ebay is no different. With both the ACCC and sellers raising hell EBay had no choice but to back down on their PayPal restrictions. But the maiden will not have it stop there. Once the ruckus has begun nothing short of near capitalization will satisfy the community.

If you are a business that operates on the internet keep one thing in mind. If you find a ‘Your Company Sucks’ web site do not discount it. Nor should you attempt a cease and desist thru your lawyers. That is just bear bait for your eventual defeat. Better to ask for a conference with the site owner and ask them what it will take to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. Your success in that endeavor is up to your political skill.

Regardless, EBay is in the thick of it. It will take more than just a PayPal retreat to satisfy the mob.

Linky

Ruuuh-Roooh is right! The FCC has handed Verizon the equivalent of a cease and desist order on customer retention efforts. It was not a suggestion, or even a tradeoff. It is stop or we the FCC will find some appropriate action –

No more letters. No more presents. No more anything.

The federal government, speaking on behalf of former Verizon phone service customers, yesterday sent the communications company a stern message: Stop trying to woo back those consumers who have opted for a new provider. They’ve moved on.

Verizon had been using its proprietary data to contact former customers and try to persuade them to give the company another try. But a majority of members of the Federal Communications Commission yesterday said such practices are illegal and infringe a consumer’s privacy.

“Today we carry out Congress’s unambiguous mandate to protect consumer privacy,” said Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner. Two Democratic and two Republican commissioners voted against Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican. The chairman had pushed for the agency to rule that Verizon’s use of phone numbers to contact its departing customers was legal, despite complaints from cable service operators.

Verizon yesterday evening requested a stay on the FCC decision.

It is surprising in its action. The FCC usually does not have the commissioners issuing action statements like this. That is usually handled as a parliamentary action by the enforcement bureau. Not only that but issues of customer interaction is not generally handled by the FCC either. So for all these forces to converge in this means that there are many complaints on file and some serious pressure on the Commission from the Hill.

I take this two ways. First, glad to see the Commission act for once rather than worry about political aftershocks. They appear to be taking a consumer oriented action. Second, I have concerns here. The primary one being the primacy of free choice in contract law. If a parting customer wishes to hear the retention pitch, its their right.

The crux of course is Verizon overplayed its hand for sure. If having tendered an offer the parting customer say ‘No’. That should be the end of it. Not the continued barrage of emails and letters. The cable guys should not be to overjoyed by this either. For once having spoken the Commission will have to promulgate rules to support the action. Most likely they will apply to them as well as the Telcos. To do otherwise will run foul of 14th Amendment provisions. Oh, an you can fully expect Verizon to run this into the 1st DC Appeals.

More here.

I have to warn you, this topic is gross, anatomically so. Now that I have your attention I have to point out that you should not try this at home, nor will this be in JackAss III if it ever comes out. Be that as it may –

“Can You Hear Me Now?”

Cops: Ohio Peeping Tom hid cell phone camera in his backside

JUNE 23–Meet Jeffrey Barrier. The Ohio man allegedly used a cell phone camera to snap photos of a naked woman at a tanning salon Saturday and then hid the phone in his anus in a bid to thwart police. Standing on a chair, Barrier, 41, took the photos at Cincinnati’s Aloha Tanning, where a 35-year-old woman was “in the nude in a tanning room,” according to a Hamilton County Municipal Court affidavit. When cops later confronted Barrier, “he kept denying any involvement of the incident” and claimed to not have a camera. However, a second search of the suspect turned up the camera. As noted in a Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office report, Barrier “did hide evidence in his anus.” …

The report goes on, but I think you get the picture. Its times like this I almost fear for the health of the Republic. Something is seriously wrong with people who would inflict such pain on themselves to avoid prosecution. As many a judge has said — “Remand to custody and for pain served.”

Still better? — “Hi there big boy! That a ringing bowel movement I hear or you just happy to see me?”

Ick. But that is the world today.

Lnky.

Use a PDA or smart phone and route personal message on it as well as business messages? Well the 9th circuit court says you have the right of privacy for those messages. Even if those messages are on business devices.

A federal appeals court has made it more difficult for employers to snoop legally on e-mails and text messages their workers send from company accounts. Under Wednesday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can’t read them unless the worker agrees.

Users of text-messaging services “have a reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding messages stored on the service provider’s network, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in the three-judge panel’s unanimous opinion.

The ruling limits employers’ access to employee e-mail on internal servers.

The text-message part of the ruling will affect more employers than the e-mail portion because most U.S. companies pay outside parties for text-messaging but keep e-mail on internal servers, analysts said.

Well there are issues with this. Internal Servers protected too? What if the employee is trafficing in porn on their personal mail that traverses the employers servers? I see a big legal conflict here. What is to be the IT protocol to manage these dual use handhelds? If the content is to be unflinched then the only proper course might be to flush the whole device. What a hassle.

Well I have a suggestion. Why not flip the tables? If you buy the handheld for personal use and business as well then the issues tend to disappear legally. All the employee has to do is agree to flush the business feed and contents on the handheld. Given some analysis, employers will come to this conclusion as well.

Linky.

Of course we believe that stealing copyrighted works is wrong. But we are also been very critical of the RIAA’s tactics. Herein is a case in point–

But then there’s the case of a New York family accused of copyright infringement. The case, defended by Ray Beckerman, an outspoken critic of the RIAA and the publisher of the blog — Recording Industry v. The People — was awaiting a decision for about a year from a federal judge on whether the case should be dismissed.

Beckerman argued that merely making copyrighted music available on peer-to-peer networks was not infringement, an argument bolstered by recent opinions in other jurisdictions — but a viewpoint shared by only a handful of judges. Beckerman’s argument was that if the RIAA can’t prove anybody downloaded the music from an open share folder, then the case would have to be dismissed.

What is most egregious here is that the RIAA withdrew their suit only to refile in another court with a more favorable judge. In withdrawing the suit the presiding judge should have identified ‘with prejudice’. That would have prevented the RIAA from refilling.

Read the whole thing here.

Man, I have been known to pull a few mistakes in my life. But I have never been so bold as to rip somebody off using somebody else’s equipment. That is what T-Mobile is alleging. –

T-Mobile USA sued Starbucks, saying the coffee chain breached a contract by allowing AT&T to supply in-store customers with free wireless Internet access using T-Mobile’s lines and equipment. T-Mobile, which said it agreed to provide Wi-Fi service at Starbucks in 2002, accused the largest American coffee chain of secretly developing a plan to let AT&T provide free Internet service at more than 7,000 Starbucks stores in the United States. T-Mobile said it is bearing the cost and burden of the free Wi-Fi service offer because it provided equipment and technology at thousands of Starbucks stores.

Could be true. Or they could just be ticked that AT&T has the account now. I hope that T-Mobile had a rock solid contract on the prior equipment and service terms. But you do know Dear Reader that the whole litigation is a fools errand. The cost of even ‘professional’ AP’s is only a couple of C notes. Total cost of replacement would be less than a pair legal teams duking it for 6months in court. Sigh…

Linky.

First, on the record, we don’t support phone phreaking. Its a form of theft. That having been said what is related in the Wired article just does not add up.

Why is an indictment issued in Dallas for an arrest that was issued in Amherst, NH? I am no lawyer but my understanding is indictments generally issue in the jurisdiction where the infraction occurred. Anybody know the answer?

“…that Weigman was not supposed to know where he lived, and that Weigman had arrived in the middle of a Sunday.” This is probably the oddest piece of all. I was able to find Smith’s address in less than 5 minutes using the internet and a couple of search engines. Smith’s presumption of privacy on his part is fallacious. As to Weingard’s visit, yes it was ill advised. However I hold no special significance to it occurring on a Sunday.

If I take the balance of the article on its face, Weingard is in deep trouble. The phrekng piece is the least of it. He faces trespass, stalking at a minimum. Its an interesting case to watch. Not that it affects the majority of what we report here.

The real story? A youth with misdirected ambitions. A security offiicial with a trigger finger. The FBI doing what they are required to do. Its a shame to see a talented mind go to waste.

Well Time Warner mght want to hold off on turninig off the UseNet servers. They got a bigger fish to fry. The City of LA just slapped TW with a nice fat law suit for bad service and failure to comply with the contract terms that won them the territory.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office plans to sue Time Warner Cable Inc. today, alleging that the company caused “major havoc and distress” when it became the No. 1 pay TV provider in Southern California two years ago.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said Wednesday that Time Warner violated state law by making false and misleading statements to subscribers. The 25-page lawsuit, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, claims the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.

“Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents were ripped off,” Delgadillo said in a statement. “Time Warner must be held accountable for its promises.”

Which begs the question of the Lede. How is this different than Dallas, Houston, Beaumont, etc? Lack of interest by the powers that be is the only rationale for the difference. But regardless this should be an interesting lawsuit to watch.

Linky.
Legal brief.

Well this is choice. MediaDefender an electronic hired gun for the RIAA and MPAA brought down the site of Revison3 this past weekend. The attack brought down Revision3’s internal website, RSS and mail systems. FBI is now on the case. –

It’s an open debate whether MediaDefender’s actions were lawful, even when it targets illicit torrent-tracking sites pointing the way to unauthorized, copyrighted material. The FBI is examining the Revision3 affair.

One bureau source told Threat Level that it was a “gray” area in federal computer security law.

Then there’s the area of corporate responsibility. Louderback said in an interview that Revision3 closed the hole in its tracker over the Memorial Day weekend and subsequently got slammed by MediaDefender.

“That’s when MediaDefender went into overdrive and started pummeling us,” Louderback said. “If a tracker was previously open and suddenly shut, their systems are automatically configured to put them out of business.”

So what’s wrong with MediaDefender protected the property of their clients? Well to concede a point, yes Revision3 servers were supporting a bitTorrent feed pointing to locations where copies are hosted. But here are MediaDefenders’ problem(s):

• The feed has an IP address. Doesn’t take much to do a quick whois search and call the assigned tech contact for that listing. MediaDefender made no attempt to contact Revision3
• By MediaDefenders approach the attack is indiscriminate and harms others. SYN floods typically end up as a router level attack to firms like Revision3. That is also where the defense occurs as well. As the flood continues the router is brougt to its knees impacting the service of all rather than the single server that is the culprit.
• Such defense attacks impact not just the receiver but the backbone traffic as well. Why should the public be impacted by such actions when the issuer has not even taken the preliminary steps of contacting the hosting company?
• Finally, such actions by MediaDefender are a form of electronic vigilantism. Our legal system does not permit a victim to take the law into their own hands as MediaDefender has done. Which is the core problem here. To allow the actions of MediaDefender to stand is to open a major pandora’s box. Every person with a grudge would posses legal standing to do this to anyone without recourse.

I hope the FBI invokes RICO, and nabs MediaDefender, MPAA and RIAA. Would do them justice.

Linky