July 18th 2008
Terry Childs was a system administrator for the city of San Francisco’s high-speed network. According to reports, last week the disgruntled employee created a super password for the network and removed his follow administrators, effectively making himself the only person who can maintain the network. Now officials are stuck, since Mr. Childs is locked up […]
July 15th 2008
There’s an Internet rumor circulating that Devo is suing McDonald’s for using their unique appearance in an American Idol co-branded Happy Meal. Devo bass player Gerald Casale fueled the rumor by providing this compelling quote: “We don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended.” But in fact-checking the story I […]
July 13th 2008
Its not web law, but still, news of humorous, ill-conceived policies sometimes just deserves posting. According to an article by Jeffrey Denning in the Washington Times, a senior official at the DHS is interested in a “safety bracelet” for air passengers that would serve as a boarding pass, GPS-enabled locator and, yes, STUN DEVICE. The […]
July 9th 2008
The Wall Street Journal apparently set journalistic duties aside today, and simply reprinted the Republican National Committee’s gleeful take on Obama’s reversal on a promise to oppose telecom immunity. The Journal‘s Marketwatch literally stated, “here’s was the RNC has distributed” and then apparently quoted verbatim the entirety of an RNC statement. Marketwatch classified this post […]
June 17th 2008
Keep reading: it keeps getting stranger. But there may be something to like here, too. On Thursday, Judge Alex Kozinski, the Chief Judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to convene an ethics panel to investigate his own conduct. Judge Kozinski was presiding over a high-profile obscenity […]
June 7th 2008
According to Singapore company VueStar Technologies, images that link to other Web pages, or the method of “locating Web pages by utilizing visual images,” are a violation of their patent. From ZDNet/Asia: “Those who use visual images which hyperlink to other Web pages or Web sites … whether on the first page or subsequent pages of a Web […]
June 4th 2008
Inspired by the hideous and tacky mascots of the Beijing Olympics, the Internet Surveillance Division of the Public Security Bureau in Shenzhen and the Beijing Police have adopted animated, noseless “censor-mascots” of their own, Jingjing and Chacha. Note the play on words: jing cha means “police” in Chinese. Even as Chinese citizens use the Internet […]
April 28th 2008
As a result of a mandate by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), beginning September 2007, all cars and trucks sold in the US must have a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). Here’s how it works: there’s a sensor, usually in the valve stem, that monitors information like pressure, temperature, and whether the tire is […]
March 26th 2008
The cable company Comcast is experimenting with a new cable set-top box that uses a camera and recognition techniques to see who is in the room, bring up their “viewer profile,” and tailor ads to them. Although Winston Smith would shudder, the Department of Homeland Security is probably giddy with excitement. Gerard Kunkel, Senior VP […]
February 29th 2008
The FCC’s recent hearing in Cambridge on broadband network management practices had a group of unusual participants. Comcast admitted to paying people from the street who did not know about the hearing to fill the auditorium’s seats. They arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon […]
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