Blackmoor Vituperative

Worried that a visa program for high-skilled foreign workers is being abused to displace higher paid Americans, two U.S. senators on Monday asked nine foreign-based companies to explain how they are using the work permits.

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in letters to the companies that they had received reports of fraud and abuse of the H-1B visa program that allows companies to bring highly skilled workers into the United States.

“More and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas to displace qualified, American workers,” Grassley said in a statement.

The senators said some visas were being used to train foreign workers in the United States to perform jobs that were later transferred to India and other countries.

[....]

At least 65,000 H-1B visas are allotted each year. The nine foreign companies, most of them based in India, accounted for 20,000 of the visas available last year, the senators said.

“The reality is that too many H-1B visas are being used to facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries,” Durbin said.

(from eWeek, Lawmakers Ask Foreign Firms for Work Visa Data)

Damned straight.

Microsoft is back with more vague threats and bogus claims concerning their patents being violated by open source software.

In an interview with Fortune, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, claims that the Linux kernel violates 42 of its patents, the Linux graphical user interfaces run afoul of another 65, the Open Office suite of programs infringes 45 more, e-mail programs violate 15, while other assorted free and open-source programs allegedly transgress 68.

(from eWeek, Microsoft Claims Open-Source Technology Violates 235 of Its Patents)

You first heard this noise back in 2004. It was piffle then, and it’s piffle now. The fact that a company would continue to make empty threats like this, year after year, should be enough reason for you to stop doing business with them.

That’s aside from the practical ramifications of using Microsoft’s software. Anyone who runs a mission-critical server on a Windows machine rather than a Linux or Unix machine, anyone who runs a web server on IIS rather than Apache, anyone who chooses to use Microsoft Office instead of OpenOffice, anyone who chooses to use Internet Explorer rather than Firefox — these people are all technological illiterates who shouldn’t be allowed near a computer keyboard or an IT architecture meeting.

Anti-gun Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) continues his assault on American gun owners.

Dingell has been tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to broker a compromise with Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) on H.R. 297, a gun control bill being pushed in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting.

The bill provides about $1 billion to the states to “provide the National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS] with all records concerning persons who are prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm… regardless of the elapsed time since the disqualifying event.”

As GOA has pointed out in previous alerts, this could lead to millions more Americans being included in the FBI’s database of prohibited persons.

Dingell, being a former NRA board member, is in a unique position in the Congress on Second Amendment issues. Despite the fact that he betrayed gun owners by supporting the Clinton semi-auto ban, he is still viewed on the Hill as one of the few pro-gun Democrats.

So his support gives the bill the appearance of having the support of gun owners, when actually it is the most massive expansion of gun control in over a decade.

McCarthy, of course, is the most notorious anti-gunner in the Congress. Her sitting down with Dingell to decide the fate of our gun rights is like two foxes deciding how to best guard the henhouse.

To make matters worse, Dingell is in negotiations with the NRA to come up with a ‘compromise’ as quickly as possible.

The NRA itself told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on April 24 that the group “backs [the] proposed new legislation” in the House.

Newsweek reported, “The NRA’s position puts the group at odds with the Gun Owners of America, which has already launched a public campaign to block the legislation that the NRA supports, warning that the proposal could ‘block millions of additional, honest gun owners from buying firearms.’”

Politicians always seek to pass laws in the aftermath of a tragedy, as if one more law will stop evil people from doing evil deeds. Instead of passing more and more laws that ultimately will snuff out our liberty, we should consider repealing gun control laws that prevent citizens from defending themselves when a madman strikes.

CONTACT INFORMATION: You can visit the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Representative the pre-written e-mail message below. And, you can call your Representative at 202-225-3121 or toll-free at 1-877-762-8762.

I am so tired of Congress. They never give up on trying to pass bad laws. Day in, day out… it never ends. Why do you people keep voting for these nimrods?

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN -news) said on Wednesday the company will launch a digital music store later in 2007 with millions of songs, free of copy protection technology that limits where consumers can play their music.

(from Yahoo! News, Amazon to sell digital music free of copy curbs)

Way to go, Amazon. Great move.

Here we go again. Congress has decided it needs to protect us from spyware, but – surprise, surprise – the bill they are most seriously considering actually offers no help in that regard. What’s worse, the bill seems designed to make it harder for you to legally go after those who spy on you, particularly if they are doing so to determine if you’re authorized to use a software product.

Last week a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved H.R. 964, the Spy Act, which bans some of the more blatant forms of spyware such as those that hijack computer or log keystrokes. The bill now goes to the full committee for approval, and it’s expected to move quickly as it has strong bipartisan support.

But why? There are already plenty of federal and state laws regarding computer fraud, trespass, and deceptive trade practices that make spyware illegal. The existing laws have been sufficient to allow the FTC and/or state attorneys general to even successfully go after some of the nastier adware companies like Direct Revenue and Zango/180 Solutions. So what is the purpose of this law?

[...]

In other words, it’s perfectly OK for basically any vendor you do business with, or maybe thinks you do business with them for that matter, to use any of the deceptive practices the bill prohibits to load spyware on your computer. The company doesn’t have to give you notice and it can collect whatever information it thinks necessary to make sure there’s no funny business going on. And by the way, another exception provision specifically protects computer manufacturers from any liability for spyware they load on your computer before they send it to you. Of course, the exception for software companies checking to make sure you’re an authorized user is the strongest evidence of what this bill is all about. After all, in terms of function, there’s not much difference between spyware and DRM. Too bad for Sony this bill wasn’t already the law when its rootkit-infected CDs came to light.

[...]

Let’s sum up. If the Spy Act become law, hardware, software, and network vendors will be granted carte blanche to use spyware themselves to police their customers’ use of their products and services. Incredibly broad exceptions will probably allow even the worst of the adware outfits to operate with legal cover. State attempts to deal with the spyware problem will be pre-empted and enforcement left up almost entirely to the FTC. Gee, what’s not to like in that deal?

(from InfoWorld, Spy Act Only Protects Vendors and Their DRM)

So here’s my question: just how stupid are Federal legislators? As corrupt as they are, I simply can’t imagine that people in Congress are intentionally making it legal for criminal organizations like Zango and Sony to infect consumers — not just their customers — with malware, rootkits, and so on. But that is exactly what they are doing. So… what the hell is wrong with these people?!?

Want further proof that the Spy Act will do more to protect spyware and adware than it will to stop it? As the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Fred von Lohmann pointed out in his Deep Links blog, Zango, which is regularly identified by security company Webroot Software as one of the biggest spreaders of adware, came out in recent testimony before Congress in full support of the Spy Act in its current form.

That’s pretty much all I need to know. If a company such as Zango thinks this bill is A-OK, then we might as well start referring to it as the Please Spy Act.

(eWeek, Another Bad Technology Bill)

Further information:

The Spy Act
The EFF’s Fred Lohmann on the Spy Act’s impact

A Russian headmaster said on May 7 a court has fined him half his monthly wage for using pirated copies of Microsoft software at his school in a case President Vladimir Putin has called “utter nonsense.”

Prosecutors said Alexander Ponosov had violated Microsoft’s property rights by allowing pupils to use 12 computers with unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows and Office software.

Ponosov, a headmaster in a remote school in the Perm region of the Ural mountains, said he did not know the computers had fake licenses when they were delivered by a sub-contractor.

Russia has been urged to crack down on the widespread availability of cheap pirated software, films and music as it prepares to enter the World Trade Organization.

[...]

“Today the court brought in a guilty verdict — they ordered me to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles ($194.4),” Ponosov told Reuters by telephone from the Perm region.

“I consider myself not guilty and I will file an appeal,” he said, adding that he had not paid the fine. He said he earned about 10,000 roubles a month.

Putin has described the case as “utter nonsense” and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev even asked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to intercede on the teacher’s behalf.

(eWeek, Russian Teacher Fined in Microsoft Piracy Case)

Take heed, true believers: this is exactly what the Digital Rights Mafia (DRM) is all about. You are not a consumer: you are a criminal, and the media robbers barons will twist the legal system into pretzels to make sure you get what they think you deserve.

We are all Alexander Ponosov, and it will get much worse before it gets better. Half your monthly salary is nothing compared to what the Digital Rights Mafia wants from you.

Michael Geist has it right, when speaking of the US bullying of other countries to get them to adopt US-style copyright legislation:

Not only are the policies suspect, but the USTR report should be seen for what it is — a biased analysis of foreign law supported by a well-orchestrated lobby effort.

(from BBC News, Ignore the US copyright bullies)

Here’s a funny Mac ad spoof from Ctrl+Alt+Del.

In a new effort dubbed “Luke’s Binoculars” — after the high-tech binoculars Luke Skywalker uses in Star Wars — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is setting out to create its own version of this science-fiction hardware. And while the Pentagon’s R&D arm often focuses on technologies 20 years out, this new effort is dramatically different — Darpa says it expects to have prototypes in the hands of soldiers in three years.

The agency claims no scientific breakthrough is needed on the project — formally called the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System. Instead, Darpa hopes to integrate technologies that have been simmering in laboratories for years, ranging from flat-field, wide-angle optics, to the use of advanced electroencephalograms, or EEGs, to rapidly recognize brainwave signatures.

[...]

Darpa’s ambitions are grounded in solid research, says Dennis McBride, president of the Potomac Institute and an expert in the field. “This is all about target recognition and pattern recognition,” says McBride, who previously worked for the Navy as an experimental psychologist and has consulted for Darpa. “It turns out that humans in particular have evolved over these many millions of years with a prominent prefrontal cortex.”

That prefrontal cortex, he explains, allows the brain to pick up patterns quickly, but it also exercises a powerful impulse control, inhibiting false alarms. EEG would essentially allow the binoculars to bypass this inhibitory reaction and signal the wearer to a potential threat. In other words, like Spiderman’s “spider sense,” a soldier could be alerted to danger that his or her brain had sensed, but not yet had time to process.

(from Wired, Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers’ Brains)

With dozens of lawsuits against phone companies for cooperating with the Bush Adminisration’s domestic spying operations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s suit against AT&T, President Bush is now asking Congress to give immunity to the phone companies, The Washington Post reports.

Lots of luck getting that one through a pretty pissed off Democratic Congress.

The proposal states that “no action shall lie . . . in any court, and no penalty . . . shall be imposed . . . against any person” for giving the government information, including customer records, in connection with alleged intelligence activity the attorney general certifies “is, was, would be or would have been” intended to protect the United States from terrorist attack. The measure, which has not yet been filed, is contained in a proposed amendment to the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill.

This little bit of stonewalling comes as the FBI was found to have contracted with phone companies to obtain phone records. Without probable cause to search someone’s records, however, that’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment. So the bureau claimed the requests qualified under the “exigent circumstances” exception to the Fourth. The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean a danger the suspect will escape or destroy evidence. The Justice Dept. inspector general found that no such circumstances existed; the FBI just plain lied.

“To let them off the hook now sets a dangerous precedent by encouraging them to continue to engage in illegal collaborations with the government in the future,” said Kevin Bankston, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which last year filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T for allowing the government to unlawfully monitor U.S. residents.

“The end result is not only will the Bush administration continue to stonewall Congress in its request for information on warrantless wiretapping, but no one who participated will have any threat above their head. You could just face a congressional subpoena and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m immunized,’ ” the ACLU’s TimSparapani said.

Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wouldn’t support immunity for companies that intentionally broke the law.

(from ZDNet, Bush wants immunity for telcos that assisted in illegal searches)

It’s hard to keep one’s faith in the good intentions of our President when faced with something like this.

The Norway Liberal Party (Venstre) which is holding 6% of the seats in parliament has issued a resolution stating that “Copyright law is outdated”.

“A society where culture and knowledge is free and accessible by everyone on equal terms is a common good. Large distributors and copyright owners systematically and widely misuse copyright, and thereby stall artistic development and innovation.”

Here are some changes proposed by the party “to reinstate the balance in copyright law”:

- Free file sharing for personal use “Laws and regulations, both national and international, need to be changed so they only regulate limitations of use and distribution in a commercial for-profit context.”
- Shorter commercial copyright term (the current span in Norway is 70 years).
- Ban on DRM – “…anyone who has bought the right to use a product needs a technologically neutral way of using it. This means that distributors can not control how citizens wish to play back legally bought digital music.”

“It is wrong to make an entire generation of criminals,” said vice chairwoman of the Liberal Party, Trine Skei Grande. “We managed to make compensation models when the photocopier was invented, but we haven’t managed to do anything about modern technology. The law must adapt to the citizens and the impact of technological innovation.”

(from The Register, Norwegian liberals call for relaxation of copyright laws)

Way to go, Norway. Well, 6% of Norway, anyway.