New French law on Internet piracy meets skepticism AP
Christine Albanel, the French culture minister, foresees cutting 1,000 Internet connections every day and sending 13,000 warnings to first- or second-time offenders. Christian Engstrom, Pirate Party nominee for parliament, said the French law is damaging to the free exchange of information on the Internet. “The fact that they evade the rule of law and work together with a greedy copyright industry is not fitting for a Western democracy,” Engstrom said in a statement. [Also see Loppsi 2: time for a new French Revolution.]

Google: Let us keep search data or die The Register
Google’s lobbying to avoid restrictions on its ability to retain search data took a rather sinister turn this week, with co-founder Larry Page claiming such moves mean the “more likely we all are to die”. Privacy advisers to the European Commission have suggested that search data should be wiped after six months. But if you believe Page, those plans mean people will die. At its Zeitgeist conference in London, he claimed web search data is a better method of tracking the spread of infectious disease than traditional methods such as the US Centers for Disease Control’s reporting network of thousands of doctors.

The free Xen 3.4 hypervisor and virtualisation strategy Heise Online
A new version of the free Xen hypervisor is now available to download. Xen is a kind of “super operating system” which works directly with the hardware, allowing several virtualised operating systems to be executed on a system. Currently, it’s mainly used for server virtualisation. Version 3.4 builds on a number of strategic enhancements designed to reposition the project. Things had become quiet around the free hypervisor since its commercial XenSource division was taken over by Citrix. Oracle and Sun started using their “own” Xen and KVM became a free competitor in the Linux community. In the launch announcementfor version 3.4, the developers discuss three areas of “significant enhancement”. The first is XCI (Xen Client Initiative) which aims to make Xen more amenable to extension. With Xen 3.4, these features are now available for the community to work with. Among the potential options discussed within the XCI working groups is Client Hypervisor Services which, for example, could allow an embedded a virus scanner running in its own virtual machine to monitor other VMs. The second enhancement is for Xen in high availability solutions. It is now possible to isolate faulty CPUs and memory components during operation (off lining). The third enhancement announced is better power management; Xen 3.4 is said to include noticeably improved power saving techniques. Optimised schedulers and timers, along with new algorithms, allow for more aggressive power saving.

7 in NY charged in Craigslist prostitution ring Associated Press
Seven New Yorkers were indicted on charges of running a 24-hour prostitution ring on Craigslist as the Web site’s CEO struck back to keep South Carolina’s attorney general from pursuing criminal charges against the company. Five of the seven New York residents were arrested Wednesday on charges of corruption, conspiracy and money laundering. The five pleaded not guilty at their arraignment at state Supreme Court in Queens, where authorities say the operation was based. Authorities are searching for the two others. The arrests came the day after Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster sued South Carolina’s attorney general, saying the prosecutor’s threat to file prostitution charges against the San Francisco company violates its executives’ constitutional rights.

Microsoft ordered to pay Cdn. company $200 million Canadian Press
Microsoft Corp. was ordered by a U.S. court Wednesday to pay Canadian software company i4i Limited Partnership US$200 million for infringing on a patent over the way its popular Microsoft Word program handles documents. Douglas Cawley, a lawyer for i4i, said that the company will now seek an injunction preventing Microsoft from continuing its infringement on the patent. The jury in the case before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found Microsoft “wilfully infringed” on i4i’s patent. Cawley said that means the judge could triple the damages. Cawley said the key to the case were Microsoft emails showing the company knew about i4i’s patent. Microsoft spokesman David Bowermaster said the company was disappointed by the verdict. [Comment: Will they get their internet cut-off in France for infringement?]

California Seeks OK on Violent Games Law Associated Press
California Attorney General Jerry Brown has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a law banning the sale or rental of violent videogames to minors. In February, the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the 2005 law as a free speech violation that could limit minors’ access to other material under the guise of protecting children. The court said there were less restrictive ways such as parental control to prevent children from accessing violent videogames.

The CRTC to us regular folks: YOU CAN`T HANDLE THE TRUTH! The Legion
Minutes of the in-camera sessions of the CRTC`s license renewal hearings last week. The entire document is available here, http://www.crtc.gc.ca/fra/transcripts/2009/tb0430-A.pdf . Don`t rush to grab it in the hope it will finally give you some much needed insight into what`s really going on in Canadian television. Because the blacked out lines are repeated on virtually every one on the report`s 251 pages.

National Archives Loses Sensitive Data Fox News
The National Archives lost a computer hard drive containing massive amounts of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and Secret Service and White House operating procedures, congressional officials said Tuesday. One of former Vice President Al Gore’s three daughters is among those whose Social Security numbers were on the drive. Other information includes logs of events, social gatherings and political records. The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation of the matter, according to Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and senior committee Republican Darrell Issa of California.

Mozilla’s Jetpack To Make Firefox Extension Development Easier, More Widespread Ostatic
Mozilla is out with a new project called Jetpack, which is an API designed to make building extensions for Firefox easier and faster. It won’t require extensions to be written in XUL and will allow developers to use standard technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Notably, Jetpack will also allow Firefox users to load extensions without annoying browser restarts, and will resolve compatibility issues between older extensions and newer versions of Firefox.

China drops controversial ‘trade barrier’ for IT products OUT-LAW News
A certification scheme that threatened to ban many software and hardware products from China has been curtailed. The scheme, which holds IT vendors to controversial national standards, will be limited to public procurement only, a government agency has said. The requirement, which applies to 13 product types, was due to come into effect this month. But in a formal notice issued late last month, the government announced that its introduction would be postponed until May 2010. The Shanghai office of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, subsequently received confirmation from China’s certification agency that the scheme will be restricted to those products being supplied to the government. Suppliers targeting companies and consumers in China will not need to comply with the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) scheme, according to the Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA).

(Cheers, Marc)

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May, 2009