The United States Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has passed in the US House of Representatives despite vocal online opposition, and the surprising threat of veto from the White House. H.R. 3523 drew criticism because it is purported to be a threat to privacy as it encourages Internet Read more
The above xkcd cartoon should be required viewing for every IT professional making decisions about cybersecurity. We are now constantly faced with services that ask us to change passwords all the time, and these must meet certain requirements. The password must have a cap, a number, and increasingly, a special Read more
One of the most frequent questions I receive is with regards to the 2010 ruling by the Costa Rican Constitutional Court (Sala IV) declaring access to the Internet as a fundamental right. The Costa Rican online jurisprudence system is considerably clunky and difficult to navigate, and most of the requests Read more
A science fiction author has sued games company Ubisoft for copyright infringement in its wildly popular game series Assassin’s Creed. The plaintiff, one Mr John L Beiswenger, is asking for either $1,050,000.00 USD for infringement, or up to $5 million USD for wilful infringement of his novel Link. It would Read more
Creative Commons has released the first draft of the 4.0 version of its licences for public comment, and while there is much to discuss about it, I will be doing it in a later post. The following words are prompted by something that I have noticed arising from the public Read more
This is the first issue of the 9th volume of SCRIPTed, A Journal of Law and Technology. I can’t believe that I’ve been doing it for 9 years! Thanks to the editing team for another good issue. Issue DOI: 10.2966/scrip.090112 Cover Circuit Board Michelle Andresson From the author: “The circuit Read more
By now there is growing evidence that software patents do not benefit anyone. Really, software developers, software experts, venture capitalists, and industry insiders, everyone who is actually involved in producing software knows that software patents are a blight to the industry. The only ones who seem to benefit are patent Read more
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has announced that it will adopt two sets of recommendations that favour human rights approaches for search engines and social media platforms. In Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)3, the Committee has adopted a series of impressive-sounding policies that recognise the growing importance of search Read more
It’s time for this year’s April’s Fools update. One of my favourite days in the tech calendar, as geeks don their silly hats and allow their imaginations to run loose. Down in New Zealand, TPP Watch were the first off the start blocks with the news that the text for Read more