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  • Jun
  • 18
  • 2008

reddit – Trac

We've always strived to be as open and transparent with our users as possible, and this is the next logical step. When we say 'open-source' we mean specifically that the code behind reddit is available to the public for download, and we're inviting the public to submit code to help improve the site.

Reddit is unique in the social news scene in that we have a huge community of developers. It seems only natural that we give you all in that community a chance to contribute back to reddit and make it a better place for everyone. We know…

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  • Jun
  • 12
  • 2008

Canadian Minister Will Introduce Canadian DMCA Tommorow

Here it is, folks, at long last: Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice is about to introduce his Canadian version of America’s disastrous Digital Millennium Copyright Act tomorrow. In 1998, the US bill criminalized the majority of American net-users at the stroke of a pen with a bill that cost tens of thousands of downloaders their life’s savings.

In a disgusting bait-and-switch, the Harper government is pushing this bill forward within 24 hours of the PM's official apology to the aboriginal victims of the Residential Schools program. They're no doubt trading on the good…

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  • Jun
  • 07
  • 2008

Congress Urged to Investigate ISPs over User Tracking

Charter Communications’ plan to track users’ web surfing and hand the data over to ad agencies is attracting increasing Congressional attention. The heads of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee have already asked Charter to stop, and a coalition of privacy groups call on them to initiate an investigation.

Beyond the privacy implications, the experience of British Telecom with a similar form of snooping suggests that basic incompetence of the ad agency can have a negative impact on users. Wired found an internal British Telecom document…

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  • May
  • 26
  • 2008

TJX employee fired for exposing shoddy security practices

Article about a company who refuses to accept that they are at fault for poor security and the fallout when an employee brings it to the attention of the IT security community.

Benson's May 8 posting was prompted by news that managers had changed the password for employees to access the store server. Inexplicably, it was set to blank. When Benson first began working for TJX, his password was the same as his user…

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  • May
  • 21
  • 2008

Canadian DMCA May be Established to Criminalize Copyrights

Word on the street is that Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice is about to try to shove the Canadian version of the US’s failed Digital Millennium Copyright Act through Parliament very soon, and very fast. He made plans to do this before, and the overwhelming public outcry caused him to shelve them.

I wish they'd stop jumping the gun with these appeals based on the “word on the street” saying it's gonna be Real Bad(tm) and come out Real Soon Now(tm). When I wrote my MP when this all started I got a polite…

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  • Apr
  • 27
  • 2008

Big Media Continues to Fight Net Neutrality

Big Media has made its deal with broadband ISPs like Comcast to make sure its Internet video gets priority A-1 Express Lane carriage over the Internet. In exchange, they are supporting the ISPs’ fierce opposition to net neutrality rules that would bar them from pushing everyone else’s video into the Bus Lane…

Obviously we need to deregulate the cable delivery monopoly and also open the doors for municipal and Federally funded broadband programs to level the playing field for rural Americans in the future job markets. It would be better to hire rural…

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  • Mar
  • 31
  • 2008

Get your German interior minister’s fingerprint here

A hacker club has published what it says is the fingerprint of a Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s interior minister and a staunch supporter of the collection of citizen’s unique physical characteristics as a means of preventing terrorism.

“Each individual’s fingerprints are unique,” he is quoted as saying in this official interior department press release announcing a new electronic passport that stores individuals' fingerprints on an RFID chip….

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  • Feb
  • 28
  • 2008

Heavy legal guns ask judge to reverse Wikileaks shutdown

A collection of public interest groups has attempted to intervene in the Wikileaks case, arguing that the judge’s order that removed the site’s DNS entry was overly broad, and erred on both jurisdictional and constitutional grounds.

Its ineffectiveness, however, may be the least of its problems. A hearing on the renewal of the restraining order is scheduled for Friday, and the EFF, ACLU, and Project on Government Oversight have joined forces to file a request to intervene in…

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