Prof. Geist has released “In the Public Interest,”
a compilation of 19 essays on Canada’s copyright struggles as a new
round of copyright reform gets underway.  “As Canada embarks on a
new round of digital copyright reform, this collection of 19 essays
from Canada’s leading copyright experts provides context and analysis
of the latest reform proposals. Edited by Professor Michael Geist, an
internationally-regarded authority on Internet and technology law, the
collection reviews international copyright norms, assesses dozens of
specific Bill C-60 provisions, and identifies potential future
copyright reform initiatives.”  It’s bound to be a useful book if
you are remotely interested in the movement to constrain the
strengthening of IP rights around the world.

So, the United States is mad that the EU and others want to reduce the US control over the domain name system, as exercised through a contract between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN.  I agree wholeheartedly that the system of management of the DNS, which has worked well at a technical level, is a procedural mess and should be transitioned, as planned, to a system less dominated by the United States.  (Along with many others, I’ve written a couple of turgid pieces to this effect, such as this one.)

But the notion that the United States has “effective control of the Internet,” as reported here and elsewhere misses is badly misleading.  (The NYT/IHT quote lead reads in full: “The United States and Europe clashed here Thursday in one of their sharpest public disagreements in months, after European Union negotiators proposed stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet.”)  The US does not have “effective control of the Internet” via its partial authority over the DNS (which, I repeat, ought to be fixed).  The Internet is controlled by the interplay of an incredibly complex series of laws, code, markets, and norms, as Lawrence Lessig famously wrote in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace — that was right in 1999, and it’s right in 2005.  The US no more has control over the Internet than China does, or as we as users do, or as Microsoft or Google do.  The misplaced emphasis on ICANN-as-lightening-rod ensures that the more important issues of Internet governance are glossed over or never engaged in full.

Lance Knobel wrote today
about meeting with MySociety’s Tom Steinberg, who is coming to talk at
the Berkman Center on Tuesday about PledgeBank, “one of those ideas
that is so brilliantly simple you wonder why it hasn’t been done
before.”

The Otter Group has released a 12-pager on how podcasting can be used for learning.  Anything that makes learning fun, easier, and more productive, in the corporation or the academy, is worth exploring.  The Otter Group has a few good examples, such as using podcasting in teaching conflict resolution and medical practice.  The most useful part of the document is how easy and inexpensive it is for teachers to produce podcasts.  (Via Bill Ives, who is the Berkman lunch speaker today at 12:30 p.m., Pound 332).

If true, this matter brings Garrison Keillor so far down in my estimation…  Yet another T-shirt you cannot buy.

The lawyer who wrote this cease-and-desist letter apparently scanned
into this page cannot have kept a straight face when s/he wrote, in
relevant part:

“It has come to our attention that you are marketing
T-shirts bearing the words, ‘A Prairie Ho Companion.’  We believe
that your use of these words creates a likelihood that the public will
be confused as to the sponsorship of the T-shirt and our client’s
services and products.”  [Ahem, counselor: have you ever listened to your client’s program?] 
“Because of the high probability of confusion, and because of our
client’s prior rights in this mark and trade name, on behalf of our
client, we hereby demand that you immediately abandon all use of ‘A
Prairie Ho Companion.'”

Now, I can think of several reasons why one should cease and desist
from use of such a phrase, and the printing on T-shirts with such a
phrase emblazoned on it.  But Mr. Keillor’s service mark and
trademark rights are not among them.   

How do you solve today’s security problems on the Internet, like
viruses?  Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi, the CTO and CIO of AT&T, is
telling us here at the Berkman Center that we need to think again about
end-to-end:

1) You have to build intelligence into the network, especially sensors, to solve problems like viruses.

2 + 3) You have to cloak your network.  PCs themselves should be cloakable. 

A program that AT&T and Intel have underway will help solve that
via a chip that goes into devices and will know whether an executable
should be executed or not.  AT&T Reference Chip-Set is already
in the labs.  There’s a referencable out-of-band signal that helps
your PC to shut down when it needs to shut down.

Jonathan Zittrain, piped in from Oxford, wants to know: Does this offer
a tool to the policy-maker?  Dr. Eslambolchi: “IANAL,” for
starters.  Vonage does not have a 911 answer to nomadic activity,
he says, and that regulators make such rules as they need to do. 

What is the point of the chip-set?  The focus of a chip-set is to
protect the end computer to viruses and worms.  The point is not
to create a v-chip. 

David Weinberger and Paul Hoffert and others want to know: But what if
the word “freedom” is a virus or a worm to some government?  Would
those chip-sets help such a government?

JZ wants to give the consumer the two-wheel-drive/four-wheel-drive
switch, so that you can either be in safe mode or in off-road. 
Anything is possible to be built into the silicon, says Dr. Eslambolchi.  It
hasn’t been designed that way.  It’s meant to be for business
customers, not for ordinary customers.

The LA Times’ Megan Stack has written an excellent, anecdote-rich piece
on the effect of technology- and social-norm-based censorship in the
Middle East, with emphasis on Syria, Bahrain, and Egypt.  At ONI,
we’ve done an in-depth report on Bahrain. 
Ms. Stack’s piece is heavy on the youth and politics angle on the
story, both of which I think are important.  (Thanks to Jeff
Engerman for the link.)

The Association of Food Journalists just announced that MSNBC’s Jon Bonne won not just first place (for his piece on Rhubarb) but also second place (for his Beaujolais nouveau instant classic) in the Best Food Coverage on the Internet category for 2005.  Next year, he ought to go for the trifecta.

“Forget the mayor’s race tomorrow,” they’re saying.  Britt Blaser,
Micah Sifry, and other good people have been working on an interesting
campaign to get
people to turn out in NYC for a downballot race.  Their man is
Andrew Rasiej; he calls himself the “Johnny Appleseed” of technology and politics, he and his team have been organizing like crazy in
cyberspace, and he’s all for open wi-fi in NYC.  An interesting test to see if a concerted
effort  of the very tech-savvy can affect the outcome of an
important, but super low-turnout, race.

Today we are releasing our Open ePolicy Report, covered in this morning’s New York Times by Steve Lohr.  The webcast is streaming right now (Friday morning, from 9:30 a.m. EST) from here.

We owe big thanks to project founder/director Jeff Kaplan, all the
working group members, Prof. Charles Nesson who is presenting the
report on our behalf right now, Erica George, Amanda Michel, and our
sponsors from IBM and Oracle, among many others. 

The Project’s new web site is a good place to go for further information. As is the comments section of this slashdot post.