If you were watching TV and a show came on called How to Hack Computers and Commit Credit Card Fraud with a lead commercial from Bank of America, you might think there’s something amiss.  Like, where does the network get off airing a show specifically teaching people how to commit crimes?  And did BofA really mean to be the sponsor?  ...

As the deadline approached for public comments to the Copyright Office in anticipation of its review of Section 512 of the DMCA, TorrentFreak reported yesterday morning that 50,000 “citizens” chimed in to protest DMCA “abuse,” apparently enough to “crash” the government’s servers.  Assuming the crash did occur, it’s probably an endorsement for Copyright Office modernization, but to the matter at ...

Yesterday, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced the official launch of the Digital Economy Board of Advisors, presenting seventeen volunteer professionals described in a press release as a “diverse group.”  And while it’s true that this diversity does represent the full spectrum from tech industry power players (YouTube & ATT) to tech industry startups (Lyft & Handy), Secretary Pritzker did not ...

(Republishing as the April 1 deadline for comments to the US Copyright Office approaches.) Remember Bill Clinton?  If you don’t, he’s that guy who was just in New Hampshire campaigning for his wife Hilary, who’s running for president. Anyway, Bill Clinton was president so damn long ago that when he was first sworn into office, most of us didn’t even ...

In yesterday’s post, I referred to the Android-based service called Google Now, which is about as close as your mobile device comes (so far) to reading your mind and anticipating your wants and needs.  By gathering data from contacts, emails, destinations visited, searches made, etc. the algorithms applied by the Now service essentially learn a user’s interests and then prompts ...

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