YouTube returns to Thailand after it agrees to censorship

So the web is not as all-powerful as we thought it would be. After Google and Yahoo changed their policies to agree to censorship in China, and then Second Life buckled down to US pressure and removed gambling from the online game, YouTube agreed to some amount of censorship and remove some videos that were critical of the country's highly regarded king. This agreement related to existing videos and new ones as well, which means extra overhead for YouTube as they will to review all videos referred to them by Thailand and remove the ones deemed insulting to the King:

Thai censors lifted their ban Friday after five months of blocking the online video site because it had carried material seen as insulting to the country's highly venerated king. The site's management has agreed to block any future clips that are deemed offensive to Thai culture or that violate Thai law, said Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the minister of information and communications technology.
Sitthichai said the agreement with YouTube — a site that allows people to post and share video clips — had been reached some time ago, but that there had been technical problems in implementing it. "Any clip that we think is illegal, we will inform YouTube and YouTube will have a look independently," he said. "If YouTube agrees that it is illegal for Thailand or against Thai culture, they will block it from viewers in Thailand."

Thailand has laws that prohibit any disrespect of the King, and people have been penalized in the past. However, there is no difference now if Iranian and Saudi Arabians censors prohibit a lot of videos that are either disrespectful of the Prophet or show too much skin. In addition, since China has an unstated law that any mention of democracy or openness is equivalent to sedition and must be punished, they must be justified in their attempts to censor what all people can read.

Unlocking the iPhone

Ever since the iPhone was released, there has been a quest among the hacking community to break open the restrictions placed on the iPhone. There would be 3 primary reasons for the hacking effort:
- It's a new device, hence the need for a large section of the hacking community to try and break it; after all, it's a device out there with a major reputation to be made for the first person who successfully is able to demonstrate a break
- The iPhone is locked to the AT & T telecom service for 5 years, and hence there is an effort to break it such that the phone can work with other services inside the US
- There is currently no announced service for the iPhone outside the US, and with a number of people having seen and heard news for months about this great new device, there is a strong factor in trying to get the device to work outside the US.
There have been some news in the past, but no confirmed hack for the iPhone that will break the AT & T activation need. It is of course only a matter of time, and there seem to be some credible news about these breaks:

The iPhone unlocking game heated up considerable over the weekend with no less than three people/groups claiming to have unlocked the coveted Apple device. The first and most impressive iPhone unlock comes from a New Jersey teenager and involves soldering, but most definitely works. Shortly after that came word from Engadget that the somewhat questionable outfit iPhone Sim Free had succeeded with a software only SIM unlock (Engadget claims to have an iPhone that was successfully unlocked).
What about the iPhone Sim Free hack? Engadget is pretty adamant that it works, the iPhone Sim Free folks unlocked one of their iPhones, which led Engadget to throw some bold tags around this statement: “Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.”

Once such a news is confirmed, and hacking of the iPhone becomes easy, it is very likely that there will be a small industry that will grow around the concept of easy hacking of an iPhone so that it can be used outside the country.

Anti-SCO verdict to increase usage of Linux?

Seems very likely. After the judgment of the Single Judge (which can be appealed), the case for more people moving to the Linux platform seems to be much more likely. For quite some time now, SCO has been threatening people with the promise of billions of dollars to be paid in royalty to SCO. When a corporation has to take a decision about purchasing an Operating System for use, it looks at the total cost. Now, Linux is free, has some support cost, and may seem more difficult for Windows-comfortable users to use, but the threat of royalty payments and the uncertainty was prohibitive. With that gone now, one can expect Linux sales to go up significantly:

The court victory likely means better business for Novell, which sells Linux software. Brent Williams, an analyst at the Benchmark brokerage, explained that many businesses interested in switching to Linux had been sitting on the sidelines while the SCO suit played out. They worried using Linux could obligate them to pay royalties to SCO or make them lawsuit targets. SCO has sued AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler for using Linux without paying them.
Companies like Novell and Red Hat make money by packaging and supporting Linux. IBM, which failed in its attempt to market a proprietary operating system of its own, has championed Linux as an alternative to Windows.

With this judgment, SCO gets a body blow, and investors reacted in the same way; the SCO stock was down 70%, and given that SCO is primarily a Linux patent earning company, it is expected that their current business model will be significantly affected. The biggest loser of course could be Microsoft, if more businesses move to a Linux based solution, the direct impact would be on the MS businesses of the Operating System and Office.

SCO no more a threat to the Unix Community

Some time back, there was a major commotion in the open-source community when SCO, now effectively a patent-holding vulture, staked claim to some prime Unix patents and filed a case against IBM for contributing Unix code to Linux, and followed suit next year by filing similar claims against Novell, claiming that Novell's claims to owning Unix were false.
Well, how things have turned. In a judgment that overturned all these claims, and instead put SCO on a path to closure, a judge ruled in the case that it was indeed Novell that owned the Unix and Unixware copyrights, and closed SCO's claims. In addition, in a judgment that will create immense trouble for SCO, the judge also ruled that after SCO's deals with Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, it is SCO which owes Novell a share of the revenue such generated. And since Novell owns the license, SCO no longer has a leg to stand on in its case against IBM and Novell can force SCO to withdraw the case.
This judgment is something that will be welcomed by most people, especially people from the open-source industry, who always had the threat of SCO's cases open, and reinforced recently with the threat from Microsoft that it also owned some patents that were at the core of Linux. Read more details of the judgment:

In the ruling, the judge said SCO must pay Novell, but the amount will be determined in a trial, said Pamela Jones, founder and editor of Groklaw, a Web site that follows open-source software legal issues.
The ruling is good news for organizations that use open-source software products, said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "From the perspective of someone who is adopting open-source solutions to run in the enterprise, it proves to them that the industry is going to defend the platform, and that when organizations attack it from a legal perspective, that the industry collectively will defend it," he said.
The decision is "abysmal" news for SCO, according to Zemlin. "Their future is looking bleak," he said.

Now the boot is on the other foot. It is Novell that can file claim to recover revenue from SCO's earnings, something that a number of people in the open-source community will really welcome. In addition, the fact that there is no longer a threat to the Linux community is sure to be welcomed. Next to Microsoft, SCO must be the next most disliked name among these people.

Real life invades online world: Gambling banned in 'Second Life'

'Second Life' is a very popular online game, with 8.5 million avatars (representing real people). Now, since creating an avatar is free, this figure is not representative of all the total number of people involved in Second Life, but the number is still a fairly high number. Second life promises a real world online, where you can . Since gambling is a major part of life, gambling inside second life is also common, with the ability to gamble at baccarat, poker, and other games. Now, the difficulty for Linden Labs, the makers of Second Life is that online gambling is explicitly banned in the United States, and in the past, authorities have taken steps to enforce the ban. Second Life may be different, since the gambling is done by avatars, and not by the real person, yet Linden Labs has backed down, and enforced a ban on gambling, and threatened to take a number of measures if it sees gambling happening:

Although "Second Life" is home to large corporations such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Intel Corp., which have virtual advertisements and marketing promotions, thousands of gambling shops dominate commerce. Virtual characters, known as "avatars," may compete at baccarat, poker, slots or other games.
San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which operates "Second Life," imposed the gambling ban last week, citing in a blog "conflicting gambling regulations around the world." The company may remove violators' virtual equipment and may suspend or terminate accounts. Linden Labs also threatened to report user information to authorities.
Numerous "Second Life" fans complained in message forums and on their blogs that the ban was a heavy-handed move to restrict freedom, and experts said the ban could crimp revenue.

This step would be a big shock to users, who would have not had the expectation that constraints from the real world would come zooming in, and the company would buckle down. Depending on user reaction, and given the sense of shock that a lot of users would have felt, the membership and revenue would go down to some extent (there was some initial reaction at the blog, refer this link). On the whole, not a good thing. There are numerous other things that happen in online games, and if the reason for curtailing this is because the US Government is not getting a cut of the online gambling revenue, then it seems very mercenary.

Tech Titans challenge copyright claims in the media

Sounds a bit long-winded, but is a simple thing. When you watch a baseball match or a football match, you will get bombarded with warnings that tell you what you can or cannot do with the thing that you are watching on TV. They never tell you what you can do, instead it is all about not reproducing nor transmitting it any form, coupling this with an official warning and with logos of the league. This practice is now being challenged by a tech association, Computer & Communications Industry Association (comprising such titans such as Google and Microsoft) who contend that these warnings do represent the whole truth, and hence are essentially misleading customers about their rights.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission Latest News about Federal Trade Commission stating that such organizations as Major League Baseball, the National Football League and NBC/Universal, to name just a few, have been misleading consumers for years about their rights under the fair use doctrine in copyright law.
"Every time an American consumer opens a book, plays a DVD or watches a wide range of broadcast programs, he or she is confronted by strong language warning of what they are not allowed to do with that product," the executive summary of the complaint reads. "By design or effect, many of these warnings are misleading and harmful to millions of American consumers, customers and businesses," it continues. In fact, these statements grossly misrepresent federal law, which allows use of this material in certain circumstances, the CCIA contends.
"Uses of copyrighted works unauthorized by the copyright holder are not only permitted by federal law," reads the complaint, "they are actively encouraged by it. Section 107 of the Copyright Act, for example, encourages the unauthorized use of copyrighted works for various purposes, including criticism, commentary and news reporting. Under some circumstances, fair use permits the reproduction of an entire work by consumers."
Further, it goes on to say, MLB's claim that news accounts or "descriptions" of the game cannot be "disseminated" is, no pun intended, completely off base. "No author may copyright facts or ideas. Copyright serves to promote the dissemination of information by ensuring that every idea, theory and fact in a copyrighted work becomes instantly available for public exploitation at the moment of publication.

This seems an important issue. For years now, viewers have been essentially threatened that even if they take a section of the recording for doing a critical commentary, it is illegal; and how many users are so aware of that their rights that they don't get dispirited by such challenges.
The concept of fair use is subject to a fair amount of interpretations, and with the rapid advance of technology, legislation and legal compliance is typically falling behind. And for fundamental issues affecting the First Amendment Rights of a citizen, it is even more difficult for a court to refer to the Constitution and interpret it in such cases. Not to talk about how this complaint may even be biased, since many of the complainant companies are running searches, user to user networks, on which many of these clippings get posted.

Google wants court supervision of Microsoft to continue

In 2000, a federal judge had found that Microsoft had committed a violation of federal anti-trust law; forcing PC makers to use Microsoft software products on the computers sold by them as opposed to similar software made by other software makers. In a massive scare to the company, the federal judge had ordered the breakup of the company. The part about breaking up of the company was set aside by an appeals court, and the case went back to district court and a new judge did not order the drastic breakup step. Under the new settlement, Microsoft reached an agreement with the Justice department and nine states which ordered Microsoft to modify licensing and to provide competitors with adequate technical information such that their products would run on the OS as a first-class citizen, equal to Microsoft products.
This agreement was valid for 5 years, but Google wants this agreement to be extended, accusing Microsoft of a repeat behavior with regard to changes in the desktop search function introduced in Vista.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Google (GOOG) asked for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief outlining its concerns. The filing came on the eve of a regularly scheduled hearing to update U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Microsoft's compliance with a federal consent decree. "Microsoft's hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment in this case," Google wrote.
In a filing last week, the Justice Department, 17 states and the District of Columbia detailed changes Microsoft agreed to make to its desktop search function, and said the measures would resolve any issues raised by the complaint. "Microsoft went the extra mile to resolve these issues in a spirit of compromise," Microsoft said in a statement. "The government has clearly stated that it is satisfied with the changes we're making. Google has provided no new information that should suggest otherwise in their filing."

Vista introduced a new search capability in Vista called 'Instant Search' that allowed users to search for items in the hard drive. In April, Google filed a complaint that this prevented other companies from providing their own desktop search function, and in a settlement, Microsoft agreed to make changes to its search function to resolve these issues.
With the change, Microsoft will allow computer manufacturers and end-users to select their own preferred search engine, similar to what is being done for other third-party programs. Google, however, does not believe that Microsoft has really turned a new leaf and wants the settlement period extended so that a check can be kept on whether Microsoft is indeed making the required changes.

Privacy protection for email

There have been a host of privacy debates that have happened in recent times, essentially between the Bush administration and privacy advocates. The need to protect the US from terrorist attack, and including the need to detect such attacks before they happen, seems to have guided the US to break previous privacy protocols, and demand its right to investigate and demand information through snooping, wire-tapping and numerous other sources. The debate is over privacy seekers claiming that these measures are excessive and the Government is seeking excessive authority.
A lot of these measures have turned up in court, with people challenging some decision or the other of the Bush administration; in a recent judgement, the case of email was debated and a decision made, against the administration. The court has ruled that investigators in a Ohio fraud investigation had over-stepped their authority in getting emails from a internet services provider without a warrant, and that citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their emails stored in web email service providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail.
Even though this judgement was rendered by the Sixth Circuit federal court, if used by other federal courts, it could set a precedent.

Monday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio held that Internet users had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of personal e-mails being stored by Internet service providers such as Yahoo! and Google.
"It goes without saying that like the telephone earlier in our history, e-mail is an ever-increasing mode of private communication, and protecting shared communications through this medium is as important to Fourth Amendment principles today as protecting telephone conversations has been in past," the court said.
At the same time, the ruling could make it more difficult for government investigators to gather information on suspected criminals or terrorists, said Kerr. Investigators would have to gather more incriminating facts about a suspect before they could read personal e-mails.

Fundamentally, email has not been debated in the past like this decision, and whether this decision stays, or is over-turned by the full panel of the 6th circuit, or by the Supreme Court, will decide what laws Congress needs to make in this regard. And it is quite obvious that Congress needs to make more laws in this regard, since the whole question of email, privacy and the need of investigation, especially in the context of preventing terrorist attacks is a wide open question that needs more discussion. If this decision is not over-turned, it will set a benchmark to Congress in terms of what it can provide, and where it needs to draw the line.

MySpace information causes arrest of sex offenders

A few weeks back, MySpace was issued subpoenas by various state attorney generals to provide information on sex offenders. At first, MySpace resisted giving this data to the attorney-generals, but soon capitulated and agreed to provide this information.
The attorney generals were looking for sex offenders who were maybe preying on children on MySpace, an objective which made it difficult for MySpace to oppose them. And now it looks like states are starting to act on the information supplied by MySpace.

Seven convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace.com have been arrested in what Texas officials said was the country's first large-scale crackdown of registered offenders who use the social networking Web site.
They were picked up after MySpace.com released the names of offenders with online profiles to the state Attorney General's Office, which had issued a subpoena for the site's subscriber information.

There are some privacy implications to supplying this information, but overall, it is incumbent on the state authorities and service providers to prevent their facilities from being used to exploit defenceless children. In that sense, this is a pretty good happening, and if it discourages more sex offenders from using the anonymity of the web for exploitation, even better.

EMI signs deal with YouTube

YouTube has managed to sign a deal with another music company for letting YouTube users access songs and videos from the catalog of EMI. With this, YouTube has now managed to sign a deal with all major music companies - EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Entertainment. The deal with EMI will allow users to access music and videos, and even allow them to incorporate some of these elements in their own content.
Details of the deal in terms of financial compensation to EMI is not available. However, YouTube is still facing a major lawsuit on behalf of other videos on their site, with several companies such as Viacom, The English Premier League, etc having files lawsuits against Google for infringing their copyright. This lawsuit is being fought by Google on the grounds that they are not knowingly infringing piracy, and that YouTube is just a platform, protected by the law. It could be very much possible that Google will also claim that there are a number of companies who have signed deals with YouTube, and that the companies who have filed the lawsuit are the ones who could not reach an agreement. The market does not seem to worry about the lawsuit too much, with Google's share going above $500.