The Mandelbear's Musings

Aaron Perzanowski and Deirdre Mulligan have just posted a wonderful pre-publication paper called "The Magnificence of the Disaster: Reconstructing the Sony BMG Rootkit Incident," which will shortly be published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. Exhaustively researched and footnoted -- but written in clear, non-lawyerese prose -- The Magnificence of the Disaster comprehensively analyses the madness that led Sony-BMG to install dangerous, illegal rootkit anti-copying software as well as spyware (produced by a company founded to supply Elvis impersonators, no less!) on millions of its CDs, leading the company to enormous financial and legal penalties.

... and keepin' old Cheney down (with apologies to Phil Ochs). But I couldn't resist, now that Chris Dodd (D-CT) has succeeded in stopping the FISA bill with its retroactive immunity for telco wiretapping.

It'll be back in January, but that's a whole new year, and a few more senators may be thinking about how it will look on their record.

And, from a Google search for my Mom's name, this 10-day-old news article.