Tag: freedom
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Aaron Swartz and freedom of information
I had a passing knowledge of Aaron but did not know too much about him beyond his involvement in Reddit. It’s very sad nonetheless to hear of his passing this weekend past. At his own hand shows perhaps a despair he may have had as a result of his legal issues. Aaron’s story will ring…
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VP8 vs H264
Apparently the MPEG-LA forum, which manages a pool of patents relating to H.264, thinks that any implementation of video will be encompassed by one or more patents from its patent pool. Not only does this reek of megalomania, but it also shows just how far gone the US patent system had gone down hill. It…
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Privacy and freedom: World Gone Mad Part 1
Last week, a story broke in the US concerning invasion of privacy and has become a huge talking point globally. The Lower Merion School District provided Apple Mac laptops to students ( no private machines were allowed ) and installed remote control software on these, allowing the school to remotely activate web-cams in an apparent…
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Australia and the net filter
The Australian government have gone public with their China-style Internet filter which includes the following measures: mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused-Classification-rated content a grants program to encourage introduction of optional filtering by ISPs, to block additional content requested by households an expansion of an existing cyber-security program run by the government to improve education and…
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Freedom and copyright
A statement by John Sullivan from the FSF in the US has just been posted and sheds a lot of light on the ongoing RIAA lawsuits which the RIAA themselves said they would be dropping earlier this year. What is interesting about the article is the continued view that music, art and software, and the…