Tech at Night

I know, I’m late again. Turns out after being sick my body’s just been exhausted recovering. We’ll be better off next week.

Ajit Pai came to RedState on Friday to tell us about the Zapple Doctrine was being used by the FCC to stifle freedom of speech, specifically to try to hinder Scott Walker. The Zapple Doctrine is now dead, but we need to check the FCC to keep it from returning.

Broadcasters also want to check the FCC but they’re going to the courts, the same way ISPs had to over Net Neutrality.

And House Republicans are hard at work to shut Net Neutrality down again, after the courts already had to slap it down twice before.

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Tech at Night

Remember during the height of the Edward Snowden media frenzy, how his defenders would dutifully parrot every word RT said about him? Here’s your great Snowden defender now. RT and Snowden are the enemies of liberty, peace, and the United States of America.

Bitcoin is the fantasy tool of ideologues, the 21st century version of Goldbuggery, but there turns out to be a group even more ridiculous than the Bitcoin zealots: TSA agents.

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Tech at Night: Google, Apple, RIM, Al Franken

On July 27, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Good evening. Sure, it’s technically morning, but when I went to post tonight I realized I had nothing queued up to write about, so I had to make a crash run through my news feeds before I could get started.

But get started we shall tonight with Apple and the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is apparently entrusted with setting rules for what forms of reverse engineering are allowed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a landmark bill which included (over)broad restrictions on software. In short, the DMCA pretty much bans reverse engineering or circumvention of software or hardware that enforces copyright. Exceptions are given though, and the Library of Congress has announced some more exceptions.

One of them is a doozy: Both major forms of Apple iPhone “jailbreaking” are now expressly legal in this country. It is allowed to circumvent Apple’s restrictions to install legitimate software otherwise inaccessible through the App Store. It is also allowed to buy a used iPhone and circumvent the AT&T carrier restriction in it.

In practice this might not mean much, as jailbreaking activity was already strong due to clear legality in other countries from the start. That fact forced Apple to fight jailbreaking technologically, rather than legally. But now the full might of American engineering may be brought to bear on iPhone jailbreaking, and Apple might have a tougher time going forward.

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Tech at Night: FCC, Indecency, Google, Free Press

On July 14, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Good evening. I’ll get started on tonight’s overview right away by taking a look at Free Press, and some new information pertaining to that neo-Marxist organization dug up by Big Government. Specifically, when co-founder Robert McChesney isn’t dreaming of a total government takeover of all the media in America, creating a “media reform” of single-payer, state-controlled news nationwide, he’s defending Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Why? Because Chavez has implemented “media reform,” of course.

That’s right, what Free Press wants for America is what Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela. Ponder that the next time they tell you Net Neutrality is a harmless technical matter. And make sure to read the whole thing over there. Big Government really does do good work.

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Nima Jooyandeh facts.