CNET has a special report that is worth review. It includes the following articles: Safety: Assessing the infrastructure risk, Politics: Weighing security against liberties Lessons, and Keeping networks alive in New York.
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Monthly Archives: August 2002
Grading the Search Engines
Fortune Small Business (FSB) columnist Maggie Overfelt offers short reviews and grades for AlltheWeb, Google, MSN, Teoma, WiseNut and Yahoo. Also from FSB, see the article All the Right Moves about the incredible rise in the fortunes of the 4 year old Google, a company that is making what appear to be all the right… Continue Reading
"Prototype for a Universal Virtual Computer"
According to this New York Times article, Dr. Raymond Lorie, Research Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center, has been testing a program to preserve digital documents so that they can be read decades into the future, despite the obvious obstacles of the evolution of hardware and software. A paper he wrote on the topic,… Continue Reading
California Legislature Considers Pioneering Consumer Privacy Bill
The California State Senate will decide today whether or not to pass the most recent marked up version of Senate Bill 773, the California Financial Information Privacy Act. If passed, financial institutions would be required to obtain written permission from their clients to disseminate, sell or market personal data to third parties. Continue Reading
Ninth Circuit Reverses Its Decision in Konop v. Hawaiian Air
On August 23, 2002, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, issued a decision which was a rare reversal of its own previous decision of January 1, 2001. Continue Reading
Junk Fax Web Site
A group of California activists are hopping mad, to the tune of a $2 trillion lawsuit against a fax broadcasting company (fax.com, inc.) who they claim is invading their privacy. Cases were filed in both the Northern District of California and in the California Superior Court for Santa Clara County on August 22, 2002. These… Continue Reading
Librarians Responding to Patrons Via Online Reference Services
In the Circuits section of today’s New York Times, there is an article about adoption of 24/7 virual reference services by public libraries around the country. These services are provided both by contract employees from their homes during off-hours, and by librarians serving their patrons during scheduled hours when libraries are open. One of the… Continue Reading
Ziff Davis Reaches Agreement With NY AG ON E-COMMERCE SECURITY STANDARDS
On August 28, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced that a settlement had been reached with publisher Ziff Davis (whose holdings include PC Magazine, Extreme Tech, eWeek and CIO Insight) to resolve a security breach that compromised the personal data of some 12,000 subscribers to its Electronic Gaming Monthly. The agreement stipulates that… Continue Reading
Companies to Develop Digital Signature Guidelines"
The Electronic Financial Services Council is spearheading an initiative called SPeRS (Standards and Procedure for Electronic Records and Signatures) to create acceptable non-partisan guidelines for digital signatures in e-commerce transactions. Continue Reading
Group Tries to Block USPTO Destruction of Paper Collection
On July 24, 2002, the USPTO submitted a Report to Congress on the Removal of Classified Paper from the USPTO’s Public Search Facilities. In response, the National Intellectual Property Association is seeking to stop the USPTO’s systematic destruction of the world’s largest paper collection of patent and trademark documents, which number in the tens of… Continue Reading
Ford Threatens Action Against Dot-Com Demise Site
F***edcompany.com, the notorious, and apparently lucrative site that foretells the demise of dot-coms, succumbed to Ford’s threats concerning copyright infringement (after being shut down by their ISP for two days), and removed postings which were send-ups of several of the auto manufacturer’s popular advertising slogans. Continue Reading
ICANN Approves Lapsed Domain Names List
ICANN adopted a resolution on August 22 creating a waiting list service (WLS) for those who are interested in acquiring dot-com and dot-net domain names that have lapsed. Continue Reading
