Doing business with bad guys could result in fines, or even jail time, for U.S. companies
DarkReading has an interesting article today which explains why “[n]ew and little-known regulations could mean fines, or even jail time, for [American] companies that do business with bad guys.” The publication writes: “If you're a security pro, you might be familiar with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) requirements, which basically require companies to check their customers' identities against a list of known terrorists to prevent them from unwittingly providing products or services to an enemy. [...]
Watch Out, Germany! Googzilla is Not a Stuffed Animal…
How neutral and unbiased can the search for information be if a de facto monopolist is conducting it? That is the question posed today by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an article [in German] on Google. […]
Looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The blogosphere has been all aflutter with the analysis that Tom Kemp at Centrify has done of the draft protocol-patent mapping provided by Microsoft for its Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP) and the Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP). Many people find it interesting and surprising that 80% of the published protocols may not be covered by patents, apparently assuming that the low percentage of patent coverage correlates to a low importance of these patents. Frankly, I don’t see how [...]
Federal officials and business leaders point to benefits of trade pacts
Inc.com writes that “Federal officials and business leaders this week dismissed calls by the Democratic presidential candidates to renegotiate NAFTA, saying free trade deals help American small businesses and the U.S. economy grow. ‘All the trend lines before and after NAFTA are positive,’ U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told small-business owners gathered in Washington for Small Business Week, an annual series of workshops and award ceremonies hosted by the Small Business Administration. ‘If you have aspirations to grow, there are [...]
New Jersey Supreme Court says people have an expectation of privacy online
NJ.com reports that “[t]he Supreme Court of New Jersey became the first court in the nation yesterday to rule that people have an expectation of privacy when they are online, and law enforcement officials need a grand jury warrant to have access to their private information. In state proceedings, the ruling will take precedence over what attorneys describe as weaker U.S. Supreme Court decisions that hold there is no right to privacy on the internet.” Above the Top reveals that [...]
OLPC “Give 1 Get 1” participants encounter serious keyboard problems
Slashdot reveals that “[m]any participants in OLPC's 'Give 1 Get 1' program of last November are now encountering what has come to be known as the 'stuck key' problem, in which one or more of the keys on their XO-1 laptop's built-in keyboard become stuck in an activated position, or are activated when adjacent keys are pressed. […] [T]he official word from OLPC is that the root cause of this problem is unknown because ‘[t]here are several manufacturers of the [...]