toosigma

In an article in Wired, Bruce Schneier makes the following insightful observation:
Trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.

After reading an article on the misuse of patents, I’ve finally decided to write an overview of how I think intellectual property should work. Many of these ideas are probably borrowed or modified from other sources (notably Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture), so I can’t claim true originality.
Patents
Even with the changes to the patent system [...]

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has recently been debating several initiatives that I’ve been following, both of which I’ve discussed in previous posts.
The first is the Broadcast Flag - an initiative originally mandated by the FCC to force all electronics manufacturers to obey a “broadcast flag” that would determine how any given [...]

I stumbled across an article today that makes me wonder what kind of world some people really want. In this article, a librarian refused to divulge confidential records to the police without a subpoena. As a result, she is facing disciplinary action for “a blatant diregard for the Police Department”.
Maybe I’m wrong, but [...]

This article was originally spurred by the generally negative portrayal of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in the novel Digital Fortress. As a long-standing fan and member of the EFF, I must admit that I was more than a little taken aback at some of the characterizations of the organization. The members of [...]