GamePolitics is reporting that Senator Clinton has formally filed game legislation. The bill, likely not to be discussed until the Senate returns from Holiday break, is co-sponsored by Senator Lieberman. From the article: "The Senators emphasized that their legislation will put teeth in the enforcement of video game ratings, helping parents protect their children from inappropriate content. They were joined in making the announcement by April DeLaney, Director of the Washington Office for Common Sense Media; Norman Rosenberg, President and CEO of Parents Action for Children and Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital in Boston and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, in a show of support for the legislation. "

jb.hl.com writes "President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the U.S. without court approval after 9/11, the New York Times has reported. The report says that under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been unconstitutionally and illegally monitoring international communications of hundreds in the U.S. When asked about the programme on U.S. TV, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'"

wiredog writes "Security expert Bruce Schneier is reporting on a continuing effort to penetrate US government and industry computer systems that most likely stems from the Chinese military." From the Terranet article: "The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity."

An anonymous reader writes "A brief story over on Finextra reveals that the Korean government is introducing new legislation that will force banks to compensate customers who have been victimized by identity theft even if the banks are not directly responsible. This action obviously will not stem identity theft but the hope is that this will push banks into security improvements that will make identity theft much harder."

Philip K Dickhead writes "After numerous ethical lapses and much controversy, Diebold CEO, Wally O'Dell resigned to the applause of the markets. Diebold's price improved more than 5% today, as the story broke. Business Week is reporting that O'Dell is leaving for "personal reasons", although the news blog Raw Story cites board action on imminent securities fraud litigation, and legal challenges by states claiming fraudulent certification of Diebold voting machines. Latest vulnerability tests show an impossibly negligent attention to vote security and privacy." Not overly surprising, considering their recent childish antics in NC.

cshirky writes "Boston.com is reporting that 'AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.' The telcos basic fear, of course, is that the end to end design of the net (PDF version) will erode the telcos ability to use service charges to generate revenue for delivering video and voice; the proposed solution is to break end-to-end in order to protect pricing leverage over the users." We reported on this at the beginning of the month, when it was just speculation. Not any more.

schnippy writes "A joint Mexico-U.S. effort to build a monster radio telescope in Mexico is causing concerns because the project, the Large Millimeter Telescope, is part of a U.S. Defense Department effort to develop the target acquisition and directed-energy technology needed for anti-satellite warfare." From the article: " Supporters said links between science and the military are nothing new and emphasized the telescope being assembled on the 15,000-foot Sierra Negra in the state of Puebla wont be some kind of Star Wars defense outpost."

Andy Updegrove writes "Linda Hamel, the General Counsel of the Massachusetts department that is struggling to establish ODF for state use, has prepared a challenge to those in the State Senate that would strip State CIO Peter Quinn of his power to set IT policy. Her analysis graphically describes why a task force of political appointees has no business telling more than 2000 IT professionals what to do."

Armadni General writes "CNN is reporting that a new Italian law requires that all businesses offering public internet access, such as web cafes, to identify and record all customers. While supporters of this law trumpet its anti-terrorism potential, still others see no such advantage and bemoan this invasion of personal privacy. 'They must be able, if necessary, to track the sites visited by their clients. [...] Contents of people's e-mail is, however, supposed to remain private and can only be made available to law enforcement through a court order. Italy also obliges telecommunications companies to keep traffic data and European ministers agreed last week to require the carriers to retain records of calls and e-mails for a maximum of two years. The European Parliament's two largest groups endorsed the data retention initiative on Wednesday despite complaints from privacy advocates and telecoms, and the full body is expected to adopt a bill next week.'"

Kludge writes "The EFF is suing the NC elections board. The board certified several voting machine manufacturers although none of the manufacturers would comply with the state law (passed unanimously) that the machine code be kept in escrow."

An anonymous reader writes "A Professor of religion at University of Kansas has resigned from his position at the university because of his anti-creationism views." From the article: "Mirecki had planned to teach a course in the spring that examined creationism and intelligent design after the State Board of Education adopted science standards treating evolution as a flawed theory. Originally called 'Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,' the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request." The article goes on to explain that Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-Christian sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles.

dolphinlover writes "Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation chairman believes that the $100 laptop computers to be manufactured by the MIT media lab run by Nicholas Negroponte beginning in early 2006 are merely 'gadgets', making them unattractive to consumers who will be disappointed by their 'limited range of programs'." From the article: "Negroponte said at their launch in November the new machines would be sold to governments for schoolchildren at $100 a device but the general public would have to pay around $200 -- still much cheaper than the machines using Intel's chips. But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs."

The ESRB has has released a statement condemning the National Institute for Media and the Family's analysis of the gaming industry and the ESRB. Specifically, the ESRB questions the group's research and bias in issuing the original damning analysis of the ratings board. From the article: "On points where the ESRB's methodology was questioned, the ratings board said that the real reason for the relatively low number of Adults-Only titles was a publisher-level determination to modify game content to avoid the AO label, which will usually prevent a title from being carried at retail."

afaik_ianal writes "The Sydney Morning herald is reporting that Kazaa is blocking Australian downloads of their client, just a day after the deadline passed for implementing keyword filters. According to the article, Shaman networks were still working on installing the filters yesterday."

turbosaab writes "Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters. According to the Washington Post, 'Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert.'"

Moe Napoli writes "While machinima has long promised itself as a way to democratize animated filmmaking, it might finally be finding its way out of the steady stream of crass comedy and frag videos. Filmmakers with a desire to express their political views are using machinima as way of articulating their perspectives. One film that's gaining a lot of attention for its political message is The French Democracy, a machinima about the suburban riots in France, and made with Activision's recently released game/machinima app, The Movies. Additional commentary about the film is also on Clive Thompson's Collision Detection and Paul Marino's Thinking Machinima."

Big_Al_B writes "CNN reports that a federal judge ruled against the state of Illinois law that banned the sale of some games to minors." From the article: "The Illinois law, which also was to go into effect January 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors, and allowed $1,000 fines for violators. Kennelly said the law would interfere with the First Amendment and there wasn't a compelling enough reason, such as preventing imminent violence, to allow that." Triumphantly, GamePolitics offers up the ESA's reaction to the decision. The Governor has vowed to appeal, so this isn't over yet.

AdamWeeden writes "According to the Free Software Foundation of France the French Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that 'You will be required to change your licenses ... You shall stop publishing free software,' and warn they are ready 'to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code.'" From the post: "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence. Will SACEM sue France Télécom R&D research labs for having published Maay and Solipsis (P2P pieces of software used to exchange data)? Up to this point, the rather technical debate surrounding the issues addressed by DADVSI bill (copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society) makes one ask: Just how much control do the Big Players in the field of culture want to seize? It now looks like years of quibbling have put an end to compromises." More information on the DADVSI bill is available at Infos-du-net.com. They've come a long way since last year.

Dotnaught writes "Computer security researchers Professor Edward Felten and Alex Halderman have asked the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption (pdf) to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) so that they can circumvent copy protection technology used to protect spyware. The DMCA currently makes it illegal to bypass digital locks almost regardless of what they protect or the user's intent. As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Copyright Office theoretically grants exemptions, but in reality discourages anyone from asking. What's significant about the application submitted by Felten and Halderman is that they knew about the dangers posed by Sony's XCP DRM software a month before the news became public. But they delayed publication for fear of prosecution. During that time, many more consumers fell victim to the spyware propagated by Sony."

coolgadget wrote to mention an article at DigitalTimes reporting that the production schedule MIT has laid out for the $100 laptop may be unrealistic. From the article: "Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, and Inventec, which are reportedly bidding to manufacture the world's cheapest notebook distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives, consider that meeting the volume shipment schedule for the US$100 notebook would be 'unlikely' given the current technical hurdles that need to be overcome ... The OLPC project will need huge support from governments to solve a variety of software and hardware problems including handwriting recognition, translation, and panel issues, all under a low-cost production budget, Taiwan notebook makers stated. Related components for the low-cost notebooks are still in the design stage, indicated the makers, noting that a 7.5-inch display sample for the US$100 model could be released by January of next year at the soonest." We've previously discussed this story.