Posted on April 23rd, 2008 by William McGeveran
The Minnesota State House has passed the “Hannah Montana bill”, 119-12. The proposed legislation, which I discussed last month, bans software that jumps the queue at Ticketmaster and other sites that sell event tickets. The state Senate passed a slightly different version of the bill easrlier this month, and now must consider the […]
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Filed under: Internet & Society, Minnesota, badware, Digital Media, Intermediaries, Software, Music
Posted on March 12th, 2008 by William McGeveran
The Minnesota Legislature is considering a proposed bill aimed at an important and very large constituency: fans of tween-pop sensation Hannah Montana who couldn’t get tickets to her, like, totally sold-out show here a few months ago (and their frustrated parents). The same phenomenon occurred nationwide as ticket brokers swooped in to buy up […]
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Filed under: Internet & Society, Minnesota, badware, Digital Media, Software, Intermediaries
Posted on March 27th, 2007 by William McGeveran
Ethan Zuckerman has a fantastic post up about Google’s response to scams by hackers who hijack other peoples’ blogs and wikis: it lists the link with the warning message, “This site may harm your computer.” They do so based on analysis by the Berkman Center’s rapidly growing “Stop Badware” project, which analyzes malicious code […]
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Filed under: badware, Microsoft, Security, Internet & Society, Digital Media, Berkman, Scholarship, Intermediaries, Filtering, Search Engines
Posted on February 1st, 2007 by Derek Bambauer
Simple: don’t send unsolicited e-mail, right? It’s more complex than that. Kelly Jackson Higgins at Dark Reading has a list of suggestions / rules on how not to be labeled as a bad actor. Some are easy: when someone asks not to receive messages anymore, unsubscribe them! Some are more complex: make sure you don’t […]
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Filed under: Security, Internet & Society, ISP, Spam, Intermediaries, badware, Notes
Posted on October 21st, 2006 by William McGeveran
Wendy Seltzer has dissected the End User License Agreement (the agreement where the user needs to click “I Agree”) for Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system. She is not impressed. Many commenters to her post chime in with their own objections to the EULA.
Discussion question: Is this “badware“?
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Filed under: badware, Microsoft, Security, Internet & Society, Digital Media, Open Standards, Berkman, Privacy, Software, Intermediaries
Posted on September 5th, 2006 by Derek Bambauer
I’ve been doing battle with Microsoft’s Windows XP Activation. The experience has nearly pushed me to follow Tim’s lead and move to Gentoo Linux, and has certainly made me nostalgic for MacOS. In a larger sense, it’s made me think about how DRM can be counterproductive.
As a hobby, I like tinkering with computers. […]
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Filed under: Encryption, Internet & Society, Security, Microsoft, Digital Media, badware, Software
Posted on September 2nd, 2006 by William McGeveran
John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center, has an engaging and illuminating post about the StopBadware project’s warning concerning AOL downloads (which I discussed here). It’s worth reading the whole post, which explores how, as his title says, “good companies sometimes release bad applications.” He goes through his own frustrating experience testing out the […]
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Filed under: ISP, Security, badware, Digital Media, Berkman, Software, Intermediaries
Posted on August 29th, 2006 by William McGeveran
The StopBadware project, which is led in large part by the Berkman Center, has issued an “open inquiry” criticizing the design of AOL’s free software download. (The release has also been reported in media outlets including the New York Times).
Among the problems, according to StopBadware, is that downloading AOL also installs other software, that […]
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Filed under: badware, ISP, Security, Digital Media, Software, Intermediaries, Berkman, Media