Why the Broadcast Flag Won't Fly

Also in the new ish of Wired, which you should buy just for the cover: My latest take on the FCC's Broadcast Flag ruling, after several rounds of re-education from people involved in the negotiations who read my previous Slate piece. My favorite line in the issue is the Hype List item I blurted out to Adam Rogers when he asked me about the United Nation's World Summit on the Information Society: "The U.N. couldn't control Saddam Hussein, how are they gonna handle 10,000 sysadmins?" Link to this entry Posted on 1/27/04; 12:41:47 PM

The Blogfather's Hit List

100,000 people read Glenn Reynolds every day, but what does Glenn read? I got him to write up a list of his bookmarks for the February issue of Wired. Glenn was great about editing the piece at least five times, so that readers who've never seen any of the sites (including his own) would understand why they're such must-reads. Glenn is busy being humble about the whole thing with a bit of InstaMath: It's nice to be called an "Internet rock star" by Wired, but I don't think it's really true ... My slice of the pie is getting steadily bigger, but the pie is getting bigger faster. Link to this entry Posted on 1/27/04; 12:33:35 PM

Mars rover update

BBC: "Nasa scientists say hundreds of computer files that have accumulated on the Mars rover Spirit may be the cause of problems that have crippled it." Sounds like my laptop. Link to this entry Posted on 1/27/04; 11:01:16 AM

Dean advocated "Internet driver's license"

Declan McCullagh at CNET and Andrew Orlowski at the Reg pile on Dr Dean for a speech he gave at a conference two years ago. Dean advocated building smart card readers onto PCs so they could read driver's licenses before allowing Net users onto certain sites, as a guard against identity theft, child molestation, and "cyber-terrorism," which he claimed "could turn our economy upside down with more dangerous effectiveness than any violent act of which terrorists are now capable." I worry more about Stinger missles myself. Link to this entry Posted on 1/27/04; 10:22:41 AM