hydrarchist writes: " ...the following text was written by a codewriter using the handle "Beale Screamer", and was extracted from the zip.file containing a source code and DOS utility and documentation scheme to un-protect .WMA audio files, and claims more generally to have identified means of for circumventing Microsoft's Version-2 digital rights management (DRM). You can read an overview of the story at openflows. You can also read several chapters of Siva Vaidhyanathan's book "Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity ", which is extensively cited in the text at Siva's home page. Enjoy!

Mad as Hell about the DMCA


By "Beale Screamer"

This document is intended as a position paper on copyright and the
abuses the copyright system has undergone, especially with the
introduction and abuse of the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA). This document is originally distributed with software
that in fact clearly violates the DMCA, and so this gives background
on why I would write this software. I hope that anyone who uses this
software reads the "README" and "LICENSE" files in the same
distribution, and respects my wishes as to how the software should be
used. I do not want to create massive copyright infringement, but
rather hope to give people the tools to regain the rights that have
existed for centuries with respect to copyright, and are now in danger
of being taken away in a most uncompromising manner.

Louis Lingg writes: "RAND has recently published, and made available on-line, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.

Chapters include: The Networking of Terror in the Information Age; Gangs, Hooligans, and Anarchists--The Vanguard of Netwar In the Streets; Networking Dissent: Cyber Activists Use the Internet to Promote Democracy In Burma; Emergence and Influence of the Zapatista Social Netwar; Netwar in the Emerald City: WTO Protest Strategy and Tactics; Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a Tool for Influencing Foreign Policy; The Structure of Social Movements: Environmental Activism and Its Opponents.

From RAND press release: 'The authors also find that, despite their diversity, all networks built for waging
netwar may be analyzed in terms of a common analytic framework. There are
five critical levels of theory and practice: the technological, social, narrative,
organizational, and doctrinal levels. A netwar actor must get all five right to be
fully effective. The most potent netwarriors will not only be highly networked
and have the capacity for mounting "swarming" attacks, they will also be held
together by strong social ties, have secure communications technologies, and
project a common "story" about why they are together and what they need to
do. Like Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda, these are the most serious
adversaries. But even those networks that are weak on some levels may pose
stiff challenges to their nation-state adversaries.'"

Louis Lingg writes: "Pattern Recognition software has long been used by credit card companies to detect fraud, by banks to detect money laundering, and by brokerage houses to detect stock-trading irregularities. It is once again being proposed for airline use in determining and managing risk in the transportation system. businessweek online has posted Rating Travelers for Risk by Alex Salkever.

Back in April 1999 wired posted a piece by Declan McCullagh examining the privacy implications and other issues arising from implementation of such systems: You? A Terrorist? Yes!"

hydrarchist writes: "
Who will watch the watchmen?

-- Richard Stallman, October 2001

Who will watch the watchmen? The question was first posed in Latin, but it is just as important today as it was 2,000 years
ago. Power has to be kept in check, as the founders of our country knew when they designed a system of checks and
balances in the U.S. Constitution. Any agency that has the power to protect us from enemies also has the power to do us
great harm.

Police must be able to search for evidence, if they are to catch terrorists or other criminals. But when police can get access
too information about us too easily, they regularly abuse their power. (See "Cops tap database to harass, intimidate.") It is
vital to protect citizens from police intrusion. In the United States, we do this by requiring the police to go to court and obtain
a search warrant.

Micz Flor writes: "Agreeing on Standards as a Strategy for Independence

New economic models of collaboration such as the Digital
Artisan are still built on a conventional understanding
of the product. If we move attention away from the
product and towards the spaces in-between, literally
nothing seems to stand in our way. It is the interfacing
of products which best describes the new reality. This,
not collaboration per se, holds the strategic key for
independent development.

Micz Flor, Berlin Aug2001 (written for ASU 2)

A few years ago, the sudden surge of a revolutionary scent took hold of
the developed world. The 'Digital' had arrived and melted into all kinds
of discourse. The 'Digital' seemed to bring together the social and the
economic, the information and the product, the communicative and the
competitive. Enthused by the digital era's utopian powers and its free
floating potential of the shockingly new, many alternative economic and
social models were formulated.

Open Source DNA?

Eugene Thacker eugene.thacker@lcc.gatech.edu

Opening the Biomolecular Black Box

What follows here is a series of observations, comments, and reflections on
the current intersections between computer science and molecular biology. In
conjunction with issues pertaining to open source initiatives, this aim of
this paper is to raise similar questions in the domain of biotechnology.



All of us have witnessed the media-hype generated by such biotech issues as
the human genome, human cloning, and debates over the use of embryonic stem
cells. But what often goes unmentioned is that the real generator of radical
change in fields like biotech is not genome mapping, cloning, or genetic
engineering != it is >=bioinformatics.=a technology-driven quest.

But is that all that bioinformatics is? In other words, what other kinds of
developments can emerge out of this intersection between computer science
and molecular biology, between computer code and genetic code, between data
and flesh? Could it be that approaches from computing (network theories,
systems theories, parallel processing, a-life) might have something to teach
us about the complexity of the organism? Could such approaches even
transform the way in which molecular genetics and biotech has traditionally
thought of the organism, the body, and biological >=life

[text continued at:
http://www.mikro.org/Events/OS/text/Eugene-Thacker _OSDNA.htm]

"The Architecture of Survival"

Jon Ippolito



At times during the past two weeks, faith in the benefits of electronic communication has been as badly damaged as the World Trade Center's once-proud structures. Depicting the Internet as a veiled, invisible force, some observers have insinuated that the World Trade Centers might still be standing had it not been for the global communications network that empowered the terrorists. In an otherwise reasoned essay in the September 13 _New York Times_, Thomas L. Friedman wrote of terrorists "superempowered" by "their genius at using the networked world [and] the Internet." Even online insider _Wired News_, in a Sept. 20 headline that read "the Internet's fingerprints are all over last week's attack," metaphorically personified the Internet as Osama bin Laden's partner in crime. According to these reports of an "online Jihad," real-world structures, and the many lives within, were undermined by information architecture.

Hackers face life imprisonment under 'Anti-Terrorism' Act
Justice Department proposal classifies most computer crimes as acts of
terrorism.
By Kevin Poulsen
Sep 23 2001 11:00PM PT



Hackers, virus-writers and web site defacers would face life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole under legislation proposed by the Bush
Administration that would classify most computer crimes as acts of
terrorism.



The Justice Department is urging Congress to quickly approve its
Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a twenty-five page proposal that would expand the
government's legal powers to conduct electronic surveillance, access
business records, and detain suspected terrorists.



The proposal defines a list of "Federal terrorism offenses" that are subject
to special treatment under law. The offenses include assassination of public
officials, violence at international airports, some bombings and homicides,
and politically-motivated manslaughter or torture.



Most of the terrorism offenses are violent crimes, or crimes involving
chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. But the list also includes the
provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that make it illegal to crack
a computer for the purpose of obtaining anything of value, or to
deliberately cause damage. Likewise, launching a malicious program that
harms a system, like a virus, or making an extortionate threat to damage a
computer are included in the definition of terrorism.

nomadlab writes: "CNN is reporting that Microsoft is planning to alter it's flight simulator game.

They will remove images of the World Trade Center from the New York City simulation as well as change the documentation.


The game introduction shows two people using
the software, who say, "John, you just about
crashed into the Empire State Building! Hey, that
would be cool."


The company says it plans to remove that
particular section from the introduction because
some people may find it offensive."

nomadlab writes: "I just saw this on slashdot.org. Microsoft's user license for the new version of frontpage puts legal limitations on what you can publish on the web if you use frontpage to author your site.

In the box was the "Microsoft Frontpage 2002" license on a four-page folded sheet, titled
"End- User License Agreement For Microsoft Software." Under Section #1, Grant of License, the second paragraph
headed "Restrictions" states in part: "You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages
Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of
these parties, violate any state, federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography."

Maybe the next version of Word will add criticism of the current government?"