WATCH A COMPANY DESTROY ITSELF

This is fun. Forgent Networks, Inc., is attempting to ambush the digital imaging industry by claiming that it owns the software patent on JPEG compression technology. Forgent says it is “in contact” with computer, software, camera, and other digital imaging product...

MICROSOFT RESERVES RIGHT TO HACK YOUR COMPUTER

Here’s one of those things that might be trivial, or it might be enormously significant. There’s no way to be sure – but this is not a time when I have a very high opinion of the decisions made for us by big businesses. Microsoft included language in the license...

REPLAYTV SPYING ORDER OVERTURNED

A federal court overturned the order entered last month that required Sonicblue to write and install software to monitor what its customers were watching and report that information to the entertainment industry so they could scrutinize it for copyright violations....

THE FBI, PROUD GUARDIANS OF OUR RIGHTS

Gotta love this story. In 2000, the FBI apparently used Carnivore electronic surveillance in an attempt to collect information on Osama bin Laden’s network. Unfortunately they screwed up and also collected a whole bunch of e-mails exchanged by “non-covered...