In the latest episode of the BBC’s internationally popular motoring show Top Gear, a little dig at legacy broadcasters and distributors managed to sneak through to air. Front-man Jeremy Clarkson undoubtedly earned the dislike of industry groups in the UK when he lauded the popularity of one of their guests, despite the extremely limited availability of the guests work in the UK. Continue reading
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Comcast and Time Warner – Time for a New Solution?
The proposed merger between Time Warner Cable(TWC), and Comcast/NBCUniversal is a boon for the company, but a disaster waiting to happen for consumers all across the US, if not the world. The impact isn’t just on Comcast subscribers, or NBC viewers, or the TWC consumers, but all across the US, as a massive incumbent poised to dominate both content and content delivery. Continue reading
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Lawyer Confused by Creative Commons
When it comes to copyright, everyone’s an expert it seems. And often, what they think they know they really don’t. This is actually MORE common than you’d think with lawyers, who often become experts in a certain type of law, and think they can lecture other kinds.It’s not so rare, Law professors make lousy litigators, Litigators make crappy contractual/corporate lawyers, and corporate/contractual litigators are crap at most things. It’s why lawyers have specialties, be it personal injury (ambulance chasers), criminal defense or copyright. Continue reading
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You Won’t Believe Who is Behind Public Bittorrent Trackers Going Down So Often
Bittorrent Trackers go down a lot. If you’ve ever used torrents, you’ll know the frustration of one that won’t start, because the trackers are down. The reason for it will amaze you!
Ok, I thought I’d give a go at a buzzfeed-style headline, but the question is one that’s probably run through your mind at one time, and you probably will be a bit shocked/surprised at the answer. The answer simply put is… Continue reading
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Checksums are Not Encryption and Other Media Fallacies
There are a lot of people that seem to have some confusion about the differences between checksums, encryption, and compression. It’s not just Grandpa and Cousin Doris that are a bit mystified though, it’s often a lot of tech journalists, and the police/judiciary.
At their most basic, the two things might seem alike. They’re ways of describing information that leads to verification of data. Yet apart from this, they’re two very different beasts.
For those wondering why I’ve included compression with encryption, the simple answer is compression is encryption. When data is transformed in any way using a method where it can be transformed back, it’s encryption. Write it backwards and it’s encrypted, write it vertically, and that’s a form of encryption, Write it in Spanish instead of English, and that’s technically encryption too. It might seem simple, but take a phrase, put it in a language you don’t know, and you won’t be able to decrypt it. Continue reading
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Valenti’s Boston Ripper Storms Apple Trial
Today, during the Apple-Samsung patent trial case, a blast from the past was resurrected by Apple. During final statements before a Jury would consider damages in a rehearing of the massive patent infringement suit, Apple attorney Harold McElhinny channelled the spirit of MPAA honcho and copyright maximalist Jack Valenti. Continue reading
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Everything You Need to Know About Online Activism, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience
hacktivism 101 Speaking to a very nice gentleman from Al Jezeera America (Adam Elrashidi) on Friday about Hacktivism, his questions helped me clarify some thoughts on this topic that I’ve been meaning to write since last month’s piece on Jeremy Hammond. The problem is that there are three terms that are bandied about like cheap ad-hominem’s on a cable ‘news’ show: Hacktivisism, Civil Disobedience, and Online activism. Continue reading
