http://www.techscoop.net Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:18:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Aaron Massey has a good write-up of the DNS vulnerability that was discovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky and leaked onto the Internet this week. In a nutshell, a flaw in the design of the DNS protocol (which translates domain names like "techdirt.com" to IP addresses) will make it possible ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/dns-flaw-is-a-serious-security-threat-2/ Aaron Massey has a good write-up of the DNS vulnerability that was discovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky and leaked onto the Internet this week. In a nutshell, a flaw in the design of the DNS protocol (which translates domain names like "techdirt.com" to IP addresses) will make it possible ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/dns-flaw-is-a-serious-security-threat/ Drivers in the UK seem to really have a problem with completely relying on GPS navigation directions. But it's hard to believe the headline that GPS devices caused 300,000 crashes for motorists across the pond. Based on a quick search, the UK's Department for Transport reported less than ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/300000-uk-motorists-say-gps-lead-them-into-danger-but-not-all-of-them-followed/ While Google has bought plenty of small startups, almost none of those deals have amounted to very much. It almost seems like most of the startups disappear into Google forever. There are a few exceptions such as YouTube and (maybe) Writely. But the list of startups that ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/is-googles-proprietary-tech-stack-destroying-its-acquisitions/ As we predicted last month, the FCC's approval process for the XM-Sirius merger continues to drag on. This is becoming absurd. The merger was announced almost 18 months ago, which should have been more than enough time for the FCC to reach a decision, or at least come up with ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/fccs-adelstein-drags-out-xm-sirius-review-even-more-2/ As we predicted last month, the FCC's approval process for the XM-Sirius merger continues to drag on. This is becoming absurd. The merger was announced almost 18 months ago, which should have been more than enough time for the FCC to reach a decision, or at least come up with ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/fccs-adelstein-drags-out-xm-sirius-review-even-more/ We've been talking about the popularity of "technopanics," where the press (often spurred on by "advocacy" groups) push out a "but think of the children" campaign to worry about how child predators are using this or that kind of technology -- when the reality is that there is often little ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/advocacy-group-claims-google-maps-is-a-tool-of-child-predators/ Following the EU's misguided proposal to extend performance copyrights on songs from 50 years to 95 years, a group of professors from intellectual property, legal and innovation positions, have gotten together to send a highly critical letter, pointing out why such a copyright extension is not necessary and, in fact, ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/european-intellectual-property-scholars-copyright-extension-harms-innovation/ A couple of years ago, we wrote about a proposal to restrict search engine companies from doing business in foreign countries whose Internet policies the United States government deems "repressive." In March, we noted that it was back. Jonathan Zittrain has written up an analysis of the latest version. It ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/how-congress-might-accidentally-ban-us-companies-from-doing-business-in-the-us/ Over the years, we've seen numerous ideas and recommendations for ways to fix copyright, and a popular one is getting rid of the automatic creation of copyright on new works, requiring individuals to actually register that work -- often combined with a shorter time limit on copyrights that would have ... http://www.techscoop.net/2008/07/23/how-about-five-year-renewable-copyrights-with-a-use-it-or-lose-it-clause-2/