APRIL FOOL
EFFector Vol. 20, No. 11a April 1, 2007 editor@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424
In the 666th Issue of EFFector:
- Hollywood Stars Present World's Brightest Shiniest Object to Key Senate Committee
- RIAA to Parents: Pay When They're Toddlers and Save the Bother Later
- American Travelers' "Risk Assessment" Score to Be Based on Google PageRank
- NSA to Open Virtual "Black Box" Office in Second Life
- GoDaddy Admits Error: We Accidentally Protected One of Our Customers
- miniLinks (5): YouTube Sues Viacom for Profiting Off Jokes at Its Expense
- Administrivia and EULA
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effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a desired
change.
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* Hollywood Stars Present World's Brightest Shiniest Object to
Key Senate Committee
Washington, D.C. - Dozens of Hollywood celebrities and the
movie industry's finest pyrotechnicians gave their all in an
amazing pageant of music, dance and extremely bright hypnotic
light in an exclusive presentation to the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Internet and Intellectual Property last
Friday.
The event, titled "Oh So Big And Shiny: Things More
Interesting Than Those Dweebs on Their Dumb Bleeping
Machines," was part of the subcommittee's scheduled hearing on
threats to security research in online commerce by
misapplications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA).
"We saw Senator Sununu's eyes wander to the written testimony
of some imprisoned cryptographer during the 'Our Reliving the
Explosions of the Die Hard Movie' sequence, but I think we got
him back," said the MPAA's Seth Oster, who organized the
display. The show was introduced by an eight-foot animatronic
version of MPAA President Dan Glickman, whose robot head
emitted a powerful strobe into the committee members' eyes
during the duration of the show.
Due to encores and an extensive post-extravaganza cleanup
operation, two members of the consumer electronics industry, a
man whose family was allegedly kidnapped by DMCA-wielding
ninjas, and Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge were unable to make
their scheduled appearances.
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
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* RIAA to Parents: Pay When They're Toddlers and Save the
Bother Later
The RIAA today sent a "settlement letter" to all parents of
children under 3 years old offering a toddler settlement rate
for online copyright infringement if they simply send payment
to major record labels before their children learn to read.
"Our goal is to make this easier for parents," said RIAA
President Cary Sherman. "Everyone knows that in this era of
increasing hard drive capacity and new digital media
technologies, it is inevitable that every child in America
will infringe copyright sooner or later. With our 'toddler
settlement' rate, parents can avoid those pesky lawsuits.
Consider it a way to invest your child's future."
The toddler settlement requires parents to log everything
their child ever does online and to make those logs available
to the RIAA at regular intervals. "It can just become a part
of every birthday celebration," added RIAA's counsel at Holme,
Roberts and Owen. "Blow out the candles and send your Internet
logs to Uncle RIAA!"
For this post:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
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* American Travelers' "Risk Assessment" Score to Be Based on
Google PageRank
According to a joint announcement by the Department of
Homeland Security and search engine giant Google, Inc., today,
all citizens of the United States traveling across borders
will be given a risk rating, to be based on the overall
position of their homepage when Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) representatives type the name into the
popular search engine.
"Until now, we've been using an unduly complex metric to
deduce which innocent citizen will suddenly become
'interesting' to our agents during routine inspections," said
a TSA spokesperson. "Finally we thought, why not just find out
who everyone else thinks is 'interesting' instead?"
"You know, like, crowdsource it?" added a Google spokesperson
from a nearby office hammock.
The RankInSecurity rating will take values generated by
Google's patent algorithm and TSA's own unique data mining
methods to determine whether the traveler will pass through
security checkpoints unhindered, be obliged to "volunteer" for
further screening, or simply sent back home until their online
popularity improves.
When asked about the risks of scores being distorted by so-
called "Googlebombing," the TSA spokesman visibly blanched,
screamed for backup, and threw the questioner onto the floor.
Further calls to the TSA were not answered by press time.
For this post:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
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* NSA to Open Virtual "Black Box" Office in Second Life
The National Security Agency announced today plans to open a
virtual "office" in the popular online game Second Life. The
office will consist of a large black box located in an
undisclosed location. "We've already eavesdropped on most
Americans' first lives," said NSA spokesperson Narc Informer.
"Now we have a whole new world to listen in on." The
government also plans to build a virtual secret courtroom to
issue virtual carte blanche wiretapping orders and will
eventually add a virtual offshore interrogation island for
enemy combatant avatars to be held without trial.
For this post:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
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* GoDaddy Admits Error: We Accidentally Protected One of Our
Customers
The general counsel of Internet domain registrar GoDaddy
publicly apologized today for giving sufficient notice to one
of its customers before revealing her identity to a third
party.
"I don't know how it happened," said Christine Jones. "We
somehow managed to inform a customer a month in advance about
a subpoena seeking her identity, including sending her a copy
of it. The customer actually had time to find counsel and
protect her identity."
This falls on the heels of a previous event when GoDaddy
refused to take down its customers' domain in response to a
request written in crayon on a scrap of paper. "We would have
pulled the whole website down with two minutes notice as
usual," added Ms. Jones. "But it was written in yellow crayon
and you know how hard that is to read."
For this post:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
For more on GoDaddy's disregard for users' rights:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005168.php
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* miniLinks
miniLinks features noteworthy news items from around the
Internet.
~ YouTube Sues Viacom for Profiting Off Jokes at Its Expense
Daily Show, Colbert Report "systematically and intentionally
built a business model on the backs of YouTube and its user
community, making fun at our expense without just
compensation."
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
~ Court Smells a Copyright Violation
Plush "Fartman" doll infringes on "Pull My Finger Fred"
(seriously).
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/03/court_rules_for.html
~ Dungeon Masters, Guild Members to Testify on Chaotic
Neutrality in Congress Next Week
Twenty-sided dice to decide legislation's fate.
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
~ FBI to Stop Using National Security Letters in Favor of BLTs
Instead of intimidating phone companies, Internet service
providers and librarians into revealing personal information
with these secret letters, the FBI will now entice disclosure
by offering a scrumptious sandwich.
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
~ NSA, FBI Debut Search Engine to Compete with Google
"We had so much of this data just layin' around, we figured
'why not monetize it?'" says agency
official.http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
~ Steve Jobs Announces new iPatch Product for Music Lovers
Apple revolutionizes the way people can sail the open sea.
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=556
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* Administrivia and EULA
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