Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
The Baltimore Sun opinion page recognizes that the REAL ID Act’s national ID system “will neither weed out terrorists nor make a dent in the flow of illegal immigration – the two problems it was devised to address.” In light of the exorbitant cost and impossibility to implement, its advice is to junk the REAL [...]
Yesterday I argued that computerized voting was dangerous because it makes the voting process more centralized and less transparent. Today I’ll argue that open source voting is clearly better than proprietary computerized voting, but that paper ballots is preferable to either. Open source voting software doesn’t do a whole lot to address the centralization issue. [...]
Forget missing laptops. The hot issue in the computer world lately is burning laptops. That’s right: while thousands of government laptops have gone astray, some of the rest have burst aflame. The most recent incident was about a week ago, when a Lenovo Thinkpad at Los Angeles International Airport spontaneously caught fire, leading several airlines [...]
Businessweek reports that CinemaNow has delivered the Holy Grail of the online movie business: a mainstream movie (although, it must be said, not a very good movie) that consumers can purchase for $10 and burn to a DVD that can be played on an ordinary DVD player. Well, sort of. BusinessWeek mentions in passing that [...]
Legislation to whitewash President Bush’s spying programs has moved another step closer to passage, as three of the Republican holdouts accepted a “compromise” that EFF’s Derek Slater says will still undermine civil liberties. The most objectionable thing about the Specter bill, from my perspective, was the fact that it would have made FISA review optional [...]
Techdirt notes that peer-to-peer network Limewire is returning fire in its battle with the RIAA: Last month, the RIAA sued Limewire after Limewire wouldn’t agree to simply roll over and pretend the RIAA’s interpretation of the Supreme Court decision in the Grokster case was actually what the Supreme Court said. The court actually said that [...]
Quick update… Last week I discussed our government’s ongoing lost laptop follies after the House Committee on Government Reform reported that more than 1,100 laptop computers had vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers. And the [...]
A couple of weeks ago, Luis Villa had an excellent comment about the merits of open source voting. I had expressed the opinion that open source voting machines would be preferable to the status quo, but that the ideal outcome would be not to use computers in voting machines at all. Louis responded: I think [...]
I was pleasantly surprised to see sanity slowly creeping back into airport security rules, as the TSA allows liquids on airplanes: The new rules, which will go into effect Tuesday, allow travelers to carry liquids, gels or aerosols in containers of 3 ounces or less, as long as they all fit into a clear 1-quart [...]
Scholars at RAND Europe recently released a comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s controversial Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS), more commonly known as the “Television without Frontiers Directive.” This effort, which is being coordinated by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, aims to bring some rationality to inconsistent EU media regulations. The problem is, in an effort [...]
May 16, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
