Blogging Rights
Surely you have read stories of people who were fired for blogging, but did you know that Rick Santorum (R-PA) is trying to restrict the public's right to access taxpayer-funded information provided by the National Weather Service? Were you aware that Sony sold millions of music CDs that they intentionally The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is working to protect freedom of digital information and particularly freedom of expression for bloggers. To this end, they have created an online legal guide for bloggers that anyone can refer to. This legal guide provides information about bloggers' legal liability issues, bloggers as journalists, and other legal issues, such as students who blog, blogging about political campaigns, workplace blogging, and publishing adult material on one's blog. You can also join EFF and support their efforts by making a donation (I joined, and my t-shirt is pictured on the right). You can also check out EFF's action alert page to learn more about who is assaulting the public's right to free speech and what types of speech are are under attack.
Via Crooked Timber
© 2004, 2005, 2006 by GrrlScientist
posted by GrrlScientist at
15:06
5 Peer Reviews:
It's not quite true that Sony infected people's computers. What these CDs did was to alter the rootblock of the computer's hard drive, so that the CD could not be copied.
When this was discovered, they gave out a free piece of software to remove it, which unfortunately left the computer vulnerable to certain viruses.
In case you're wondering why they would do this, it's because that part of the hard drive does not have access by the average user, and takes special programs to alter it without making your computer unbootable.
There's also a brouhaha because it appears that they used without attribution parts of some open source software.
Greg; thanks for the clarification. I should have done more checking before I wrote that.
GrrlScientist
Greg: could you provide a citation that the Sony Rootkit is related to the boot sector? I haven't seen any indication of the sort.
That said, it's not literally a "virus"; what it is is spyware - commercial software installed without notice or license. Which is a crappy business practice.
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