Berkman Blog Buzz, week of March 10

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations. For a complete picture, please visit our Berkman aggregator. Last week’s Blog Buzz is here.

What’s going on … take your pick here or browse below.

*Ethan Zuckerman blogs about open wireless networks
*David Isenberg is excited about the new wi-fi bill
*Lawrence Lessig writes Congress
*Derek Slater reports on abuse of the DMCA subpoena provision
*StopBadware contemplates the challenges of badware
*Dan Gillmor comments on bloggers and disclosure
*Creative Commons speaks with David d’Atri on one commons-based business model

The full buzz.

"And evidently, this sort of breathless reporting is very popular - it’s the most emailed story on the Times’s site over the past 24 hours.  Some basic facts - almost every wireless router in the world comes with an easily set option to turn on WAP encryption. While WAP is not an especially strong encryption scheme - techniques exist to crack it - it will keep most casual users from accessing your network, if that’s what you want…"
Ethan Zuckerman, “Boo! Scary open wireless networks! Run! Hide!”

"We could party like it was 1998 again! Last month five of the 22 senators on the Commerce Committee, which is responsible for telecom legislation, including its Chairman, Ted Stevens (D-AK), introduced a bill that'd let us do that! The other co-sponsors, two Ds and 2 R's, are Senators George Allen (R-VA), John Sununu (R-NH), John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). It's called the American Broadband for Communities Act…"
David Isenberg, “Wi-Fi on Steroids Bill Introduced! (no NOT Wi-Max)”

"No one will like me for this letter. 'Through an extraordinarily open set of proceedings, the Office gathered a wide range of views that addressed the costs of orphan works. The report does an excellent job in summarizing and analyzing those views. It embodies an integrity and balance that is essential for informed policy making. It will provide an important foundation for Congress’ work as it addresses this issue…'"
Lawrence Lessig, "Orphans"

"This is yet another abuse of DMCA 512(h), which allows copyright holders to unmask an Internet user's identity based on a mere allegation of infringement without any due process. You might recall that EFF helped Verizon limit the scope of this dangerous statute when the RIAA attempted to attain the identities of P2P file sharing users. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the provision doesn't apply to content residing on individuals' own computers…"
Derek Slater, “DMCA Subpoena Provision Still Endangers Privacy”

"While the website, somewhat misleadingly, advertises itself as "Spyware Free," the software bundles over half a dozen advertisement spewing programs that muddle with too many toolbars, popups, webpage highlights, and a bunch of other stuff you never expected (but if you read several nearly unintelligable EULAs, you might have). Nor can these beasts be easily disabled—every reboot, they come back. Getting rid of them is like wrestling a buttered monkey. And when you run their uninstaller, one of the Explorer toolbars remains on the computer!"
Stopbadware.org, “Musings on the bundling problem”

"Most of all, though, it’s worth noting that people involved with stories, or their paid personnel, constantly talk with pro journalists. Now they talk with interested bloggers and others in the "new media" world. It’s part of the influencing and journalism processes, but it’s getting larger and to some degree messier. I’d guess that most professionals realize they shouldn’t pass off other people’s work as their own. And the difference between advocacy and straight-up reporting, while sometimes less clean than we might like, is not a total mystery."
Dan Gillmor, "Bloggers and Disclosure"

"'Although it is really smart from a business point of view, we find no fair to use a clever type of price discrimination which aims to extract the total surplus from each customer by asking them to self-discriminate. We admit that it takes a lot of good marketing to ask people to self-discriminate and we think Magnatune does a great job. However we prefer to sell more at a cheaper price as we are for more people having more music. If we were to implement a flexible price schema then we would find fair to give artists 100% of the earnings over a certain amount…"'
Creative Commons, “Beatpick flatters Magnatune business model”

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