Cryptosmith

Minnesota’s Senator Klobuchar has co-sponsored a bill to criminalize certain behavior by peer-to-peer file sharing programs.

The bill is supposed to require a sort of informed consent by computer owners whenever a P2P file sharing program arrives. Here’s what the bill wants to require:

• Ensures that P2P file sharing programs cannot be installed without providing clear notice and obtaining informed consent of the authorized computer user.

• Makes it unlawful to prevent the authorized user of a computer from:
1. Blocking the installation of a peer-to-peer file sharing program, and/or
2. Disabling or removing any peer-to-peer file sharing program.

Having taught several networking courses (not to mention having written my share of networking software), I’m not sure where they can draw the line. What constitutes ‘clear notice,’ and does that include such things as Windows and Apple file sharing? Do these OS vendors already comply with planned legislative requirements, or will they have to update their configuration software?

Does “Microsoft Genuine Advantage” violate the law if it won’t let the computer owner block its communication with the Mother Ship in Redmond? If so, how does Microsoft check for people using the same license on two or more computers?

Continue Reading »

Posted under Household Tech & Security | No Comments »

If it’s public information on paper, is the electronic version also a public record?

As a techie, I tend to think so. The electronic version carries more information, is easier to work with, and is sometimes easier to authenticate.

The city of Phoenix, AZ, recently argued the opposite in court, and ultimately lost. Someone was suing the city and demanded some public records. The city provided paper copies, some of which appeared to be backdated. The plaintiff demanded the electronic copies so he could examine the metadata. The city refused, saying that the metadata was not public record. Two courts agreed, but the Arizona Supreme Court disagreed. So a court is on record saying that, if the document is a public record, the electronic form is also a public record.

Continue Reading »

Posted under Security | No Comments »

I just bought a Dell laptop. I generally buy from vendors I know, and St. Thomas has been buying Dell systems for the past several years. I might have bought an Apple, but their lowest base price was $1,000. I knew I could do a little better. In any case, I wanted to run both Windows and Linux. Running OS-X would have been a plus (I’m addicted to Aperture) but not worth the extra dollars.

The hardware seems solid – an XPS 1330 – and it’s comfortably compact. It has thumbprint authentication that seems tolerably robust. The major size limiters, the RAM and hard drive, are easy to replace. So is the 802.11g network card. It came with “Windows Home Premium.” I’m astonished at the amount of Dell-branded software you have to trim back. And I’m appalled that the default search engine, “Live.com,” directs you away from OpenOffice.org when you go looking for it.

Continue Reading »

Posted under Household Tech & Security | No Comments »

Back in the 1970s when many of us were struggling to free ourselves from mainframes, the mantra in the computing world was “Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM.” No doubt Bill Gates was inspired by this to build his own empire. Today, people unblushingly swap “IBM” for “Microsoft” in that mantra.

Since converting back to the Macintosh I’ve been learning a lot about Microsoft-centric software. Several programs that ran on both systems have essentially withered, especially since the conversion to OS X. I’m most directly affected by Microsoft-centric teams at Intuit and at Adobe. Continue Reading »

Posted under Household Tech | No Comments »