Jaani.net

The blog

Writing & notes

Essays, notes and reflections on technology, law and life.

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    MPAA embarks upon further litigation against P2P downloaders

    ‘The Motion Picture Association of America said it filed 286 lawsuits against people around the United States based on information acquired from file-trading sites shut down earlier in the year. Most of those sites were hubs connecting people using the BitTorrent technology, a peer-to-peer application designed for speeding downloads of large files’: As with previous… Read more →

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    Web Privacy Not Respected by Online Retailers, Study Shows

    CNET reports on a new study that has found systematic misuse of information collected from consumers on the internet: Pharmaceutical and health care firms performed the worst in the privacy study, with an average overall score of 5.4 out of 10. Others at the bottom of the list include insurance firms and companies in the… Read more →

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    Australian Movie Industry To Target Illegal DVDs, Sue Downloaders

    According to The Australian, ‘The movie industry may consider prosecuting internet users who download pirated copies of Hollywood blockbusters, warning it will take pirates to court if consumers “migrate to illegal downloads en masse”. The Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (‘AFACT’) is already warning that organised crime is using popular peer-to-peer networks and pirate websites… Read more →

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    Chinese Government Censors Weblog Star

    ‘Reuters reports on China’s efforts to censor its latest Internet-born star, a young woman known as Furong Jiejie (‘Sister Furong’). She is seen as a pioneer pushing the boundaries of traditional media controls, but in the process has become a target of government censors. In late July, authorities told the country’s top weblog host to… Read more →

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    Holland on the Failure of Law in Cyberspace

    H Brian Holland, of Barry University School of Law, has published an article entitled ‘The Failure of the Rule of Law in Cyberspace? Reorienting the Normative Debate on Borders and Territorial Sovereignty’ (2005) John Marshall Journal of Computer & Information Law [Forthcoming]: The ultimate goal of this article is to suggest a different perspective on… Read more →

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    Internet Accounts and Probable Cause

    Orin Kerr offers this analysis of the circumstances in which the existence of an internet account will satisfy the ‘probable cause’ requirement to search a home for evidence: In [such] cases, the police know that an Internet account was used in a particular way potentially related to criminal activity. The police then use that knowledge… Read more →

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    Lexar Settles Patent Dispute with Memorex

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Lexar Media Inc said on Monday Memorex has agreed to settle a patent infringement case related to CompactFlash cards sold by Memorex prior to November 2004, sending Lexar shares up 1.7 per cent. Lexar claimed in its 2001 lawsuit that certain Memorex cards infringed a number of its flash memory patents.… Read more →

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    Legal ethics and the Ford Pinto

    Basically every private law subject I’ve taken in law school has had something to say about the Ford Pinto case. Various movements in legal theory have referred to it when discussing product liability, consumer rights, the moral turpitude of law and economics, legal ethics (including the procedural pathologies of adversarial advocacy and other annoying alliterations),… Read more →

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    Nuclear Reactor Cybersecurity Targeted by New US Legislation

    Under new United States legislation, operators of the US electricity grid will be subject to greater regulation of their cybersecurity practices: A visit from the Slammer worm … may have been in part to blame for failures at a nuclear power plant in 2003, the report said. And in March, electric industry security consultants reported… Read more →

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    Cabinet Paves Way for Telstra Sale

    Federal Cabinet has approved a $3 billion plan for regional telecommunications that will pave the way for the full sale of Telstra. The plan includes a $2 billion fund to pay for service upgrades in regional Australia in the future. Mr Costello says the plan will resolve the issue of Telstra’s ownership once and for… Read more →