Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, on the "insidious" quality of vertical integration: The Web's infrastructure can be thought of as composed of four horizontal layers; from bottom to top, they are the transmission medium, the computer hardware, the software, and the content. ... I am more concerned about ...

arts technica has an interesting summary/critique of a working paper, titled "File-Sharing and Copyright" by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. Since the genesis and intent of most copyright law is to stimulate creativity -- not to protect authors and publishers -- Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf argue that while file-sharing might be ...

On May 29, 2009, Obama announced his intention to appoint a "cyber czar" to coordinate cybersecurity policy for private and government computer networks in the US. Obama also argued the importance of educating the public about cybersecurity while highlighting the dialectical reality of cyberspace: Cyberspace is real and so are ...

According to Wired's Threat Level blog: Sweden’s Pirate Party won a seat in the European Union Parliament, swept in Sunday amid outrage over a new copyright law and the convictions of the four founders of The Pirate Bay. The party, formed to protest copyright law, took 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden ...

from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr: The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have ...

Cindi Katz and I just published an article in a special issue of Children, Youth and Environments that focuses on Children and Technological Environments. CYE is an open access journal so you can read our article for free through their website (FYI - they ask you to create an ...

Hat tip to Michael Oman-Reagan who brought this to my attention. Apparently, the current version of H.R.1, the stimulus bill being debated in the U.S. Senate, includes incentives for hiring "disconnected youth" which the bill defines as: ``(ii) DISCONNECTED YOUTH.--The term `disconnected youth' means any individual who is certified by the designated ...

You ARE being watched, US. Since 9/11 Homeland Security has pumped an enormous amount of money into public surveillance technologies (online and off). Yet, as most recent studies are showing, the presence of this surveillance does nothing to reduce crime or make people more safe. So, what is this surveillance ...

F I N A L L Y. Via Daily Tech: After losing an appeals court challenge last July, proponents of 1998’s Child Online Protection Act received a final blow to their cause – this time from the United States Supreme Court, who quietly declined to review the law without comment. COPA – ...

Yet another major security flaw found in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's proprietary web browser. Via the BBC: Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of ...