Kevin Mitnick gets walkie talkie rights

Well I am not really suprised and I don't know personally if it is a hollow victory but Kevin Mitnick gets ham radio license renewal. A lot of news agencies are putting a Christmas/New Year spin on this whole topic but I don't see how holding a license to talk on the radio is going to help rehab a criminal of computer crime. It is just a punishment for something unrelated. I am glad he got it back but it is like taking away someones drivers license away for rape. This system makes no sense to me sometime. Read more here

Microsoft going to court again? You're kidding

Thats right someone else is a little pissed at Microsoft and they are not going to take it sitting down. British mobile phone maker Sendo said on Monday it had filed suit in U.S. federal court against its former partner Microsoft in a dispute over intellectual property. At the time Sendo declined to give all the reasons for the split, saying only that it had not been given access to so-called 'source code' which would allow it to tailor the software. Read more here .

Dmitry Sklyarov in the news

According to cnet, Dmitry Sklyarov deposition that was videotaped was play at the ElcomSoft trial. He did think that was fair. He rather have ben called to the stand. On Tuesday, a jury acquitted ElcomSoft of all counts against it in the first case to test the criminal provisions of the DMCA, a U.S. law aimed at updating intellectual property rules for the computer age. Although jurors agreed the product was illegal because it was designed to crack antipiracy technology controls, they declined to convict because they didn't believe ElcomSoft intended to break the law. Dmitry said if someone came to him with another project focused on cracking copyright protections, "I would ask you, if you're sure this is legal." If the answer is unclear, Sklyarov said he would suggest the person find a lawyer who could figure it out. Article on the story here

Attack of the Drones
Iraq send the US a message that they don't like Star Wars. They decided to send us this message by shooting down one of our recon planes. Well I guess the US felt as if they would like our model airplane, and I guess Iraq cannot spot a real warplane from a funny looking drone. Viva el Darth Vader. See the story here.