June 29
Read Baase chapter 2 on privacy and chapter 3 on free speech.
Start reading the material in Chapter 4 on software patents
Debates
This usually means "classical" music.
blog.dbmiller.org/2021-06-28-dear-google-public-domain-compositions-exist.
There are legal consequences to filing takedown notices, but that's not entirely what is at issue here.
You might think I was exaggerating when I said that pharmaceuticals could be copied relatively cheaply. It turns out to be much cheaper than I thought!
www.freethink.com/shows/just-might-work/how-to-make-insulin.
Schools are terrified of mass shootings. They aren't too tolerant of bullying or criticism, either.
www.eff.org/press/releases/schools-are-spying-students-students-can-fight-back.
For the record, I think the "security certificate" mentioned in the second paragraph is a Wi-Fi certificate, not a TLS certificate-authority certificate. Only the latter would allow school authorities to see into TLS-protected sessions.
Also, this article pinpoints "chilled speech", and chilled participation, as the real cost of privacy loss. While that's particularly true of K-12 students (or maybe 6-12 students), it's an excellent point that applies, to a degree, to everyone.
www.cnbc.com/2021/06/28/judge-dismisses-ftc-antitrust-complaint-against-facebook.html.
Because the judge ruled that the FTC had not shown Facebook was a monopoly.
“The Complaint is undoubtedly light on specific factual allegations regarding consumer-switching preferences,” the court wrote. “These allegations -- which do not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook’s market share at any point over the past ten years -- ultimately fall short of plausibly establishing that Facebook holds market power.”
From the ruling:
The FTC’s inability to offer any indication of the metric(s) or method(s) it used to calculate Facebook’s market share renders its vague ‘60%-plus’ assertion too speculative and conclusory to go forward.
It sounds like the FTC was in fact just sloppy, and not like the judge was demanding extraordinary proof. The FTC is allowed to refile the case.
mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-did-congress-just-vote-to-break.
They didn't actually pass anything, but there was bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. The part that seems almost certain to pass is increased funding for antitrust enforcement.
The ACCESS act might pass, but does not mean much. It might mean that Signal, for example, can send to Facebook Messenger accounts.
The merger bill is problematic because adapting to changing circumstances is critical to tech survival. Facebook's argument for buying Instagram is basically that some groups were moving away from Traditional Facebook.
The nondiscrimination bill and the break-up bill are interesting, but I agree with Stoller's observation that they would have to be worded very precisely to have any effect. The "line of business" idea in the break-up bill is not likely to get anywhere. And the consumer-harm issue with the nondiscrimination bill will likely mean it too will have no effect
Start with ARM and patents.
Just what is hacking?