Reading Group Topics Archive

Fall 2001

• 27 Nov: Dave Touretzky leads discussion on the federal DMCA law as misused to stifle criticism. Associated papers:
  • Example threat letter from a lawyer indirectly representing the Church of Scientology
  • Dave Touretzky's do-it-yourself DMCA counter-notification

Spring 2002

• 5 Feb: Adam presents Networks and Netwars (David Ronfeldt & John Arquilla)

• 12 Feb: Sonya presents Unwiring the World Project, using wireless to bridge rich/poor gaps and network remote regions. Sandy Pentland at the MIT Media Lab.

• 26 Feb: Anupriya presents "Feminism and the Technological Fix" by Carol A. Stabile,head of the Women's Studies Department at Pitt, in honor of Women's History Month.

• 18 Mar: Chris Long presents the SSSCA, a new law in the draft phase that would make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or traffic in new electronics without copy protection support.
  • Full text of the draft bill on cryptome
  • Short article at Hardware Central
  • Longer, more general article at Salon
  • EFF Action Alert

Summer 2002

• 18 June: Chris Long presents IP as it applies to software.

• 2 July: Trey Smith presents the effects of recent technology on the battle between dissidents and governments (some suggested reading and comments below).
  • Letters to Phil Zimmerman about PGP and human rights groups
  • Human Rights Watch: Free Expression on the Internet Includes a nation-by-nation guide to government control of Internet access.
  • Editorial on Chinese Censorship An interesting look at the Internet's recent effects in China. Another article talks about imperfect control, e.g. banned books being freely available in electronic form from local government web sites (!)

Fall 2003

• Oct. 17

  Topic: Eldred v. Ashcroft
  Presenter: Sonya
  Paper: Erwin Chemerinsky. Balancing Copyright Protections and Freedom of Speech
  

  More information:

  Eldred v. Ashcroft is Lawrence Lessig's case to declare the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act unconstitutional, which will soon reach the Supreme Court. For more, visit:

  • Edward Solum's collection of commentaries
  • Lawrence Lessig's site
  • Get your "Free the Mouse" bumper sticker!

• Oct. 24

  Topic: Bill Gates's anti-trust testimony
  Presenter: Adam
  Paper: full text of the testimony from Politechbot
  

• Nov. 14

  Topic: UCITA
  Presenter: Trey
  Paper: Pamela Samuelson. Legally Speaking: Does Information Really Want To Be Licensed?
  

  More information:

  UCITA is the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. Among many other things, it makes software shrink-wrap licenses more enforcable. It has been criticized as favoring businesses over consumers. Drafted by a national organization, it is slowly being introduced into state legislatures [passed in Virginia (1999) and Maryland (2000)]. Of special interest because Mary Jo Dively, CMU's new attorney, helped draft the bill, and will be speaking about it next week at a CPSR seminar.

  A few other articles of interest:

  • Legal Articles on UCITA (a set of links to arguments from both sides)
  • Lawrence Lessig. Sign It and Weep. (very entertaining, presents a simple alternative plan)
  • David Cohn and Mary Jo Dively. The Need for a More Objective Look at the Myths of the Proposed Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (summary: UCITA opponents don't like it because they are ignorant and have unreasonable expectations)

• Nov. 21 (special meeting: officer elections)

  Topic: Educating people about computer security
  Presenter: Chris
  Paper: Home Network Security
  

  More information:

  Chris has proposed that we push for computer security and privacy issues to be added to the basic curriculum offered to CMU students (maybe through the Computing Skills Workshop). This discussion will be about how get started on that. Extra links:

  • CDT's guide to online privacy
  • EPIC guide to privacy tools
  • Cryptographic Terminology 101

• Dec. 5

  Topic: Event planning for next semester
  

Fall 2003

• Jan. 30, 2003

  (postponed from the previous week)
  Topic: Special Registration
  Presenter: Sonya Allin
  

• Feb. 20, 2003

  Topic: How we address ethics in our work
  

  Presenter: Sonya, Chris, and Trey will start, but we hope everyone will participate.

• March 17, 2003

  Details TBA.

• date TBA

  Topic: ICANN
  Presenter: Peter Shane (director of INSITES)
  Paper: TBA
  

  More information:

  ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Among many other things, it determines when new top-level domains (.biz, .person) get created, how the potentially lucrative name registration business will be conducted, and how name disputes will be arbitrated. ICANN has come under fire lately for not adequately representing the interests of "Internet users at large". Peter Shane is helping to draft a report about the state of ICANN, and may in the future have a voice in restructuring it. He wants to get us involved.