TuxTeam.com

Presentation by Wendy Seltzer <firstname@lastname.org>

DMCA
-Section 512 (ISP Safe Harbor, Notice, Takedown)
-Section 1201 (Anticircumvention)
1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
- +20 years to all copyright terms (existing and future)

Betamax exception: Technology used primarily for non-infringing purposes should not be seen as infringing even if some infringing use occurs.

McCain posted clips of interviews on YouTube, networks of original videos filed DMCA takedown notices, resulting in removal of his clips. Lawsuits under 512(f) to remedy false takedown claims.

Google shows that links have been removed per DMCA as well as publication of DMCA complaint via Chilling Effects. These complaints include the original links to the content, as the DMCA requires specificity in filing a takedown complaint.

Similar to Chilling Effects, MIT runs a site known as YouTomb which attempts to track videos removed as DMCA violations. In this site, you will find both legitimate and abusive uses of the DMCA.

The French HADOPI act, struck down by French Constitutional Court (Internet Access is key to exercising basic human rights), said that 3-time violators of copyright should have their Internet access shut off and be banned from getting a new ISP account.

Anticircumvention: If there is a technological measure intended to protect copyright, it is an independent violation of the law to break that measure. Sharpies for copy-protected CDs? Lexmark claimed the chip in their toner cartridge constituted an “effective technological measure” to prevent production of 3rd party cartridges.

MPAA claims that videorecording a TV set constitutes an acceptable analog alternative to using software to circumvent DVD protection, and thus DeCSS and similar technologies should not be allowed as an exemption under DMCA. This comes from the same group that has fought for laws prohibiting bringing a videorecording device into a movie theater. (Recorded by Timothy Vollmer, video of video of video on Vimeo)

“Sorry, you can't interoperate with that with Free Software.” Anti-consumer features embedded solely in hardware and proprietary software. Free software would make users able to increase the usefulness of their DVDs and other media, but would potentially allow for infringing uses of the system.

Authors of DMCA probably did not realize impact of anticircumvention provisions, nor realize the potential power of FOSS in the realm of media. Congress is also probably not aware of the nature of the Open Source software running the rendering clusters involved in producing the movies, the servers distributing the content and trailers and other information, and many other components necessary for their infrastructure.

In closing: Monorail Kitteh now stops @ Library.

I'm currently at the first annual South East Linux Fest (in the opening keynote) and I'm really impressed with what they put together. It's not huge, but it's really impressive and really professional. I'm very impressed by the conference badges, the bags, the turnout, and the arrangements. I think there's a lot from this we can take away for the Atlanta Linux Fest, especially promotion-wise. ALF is in about 3 months, but that doesn't mean we can't get some things together.

Handing out conference schwag doesn't seem like a big benefit, but giving these things out to attendees will foster a more professional image for speakers and vendors, and provides attendees something to take home to remind them about the conference for the next one. (Delayed returns, yes, but returns nonetheless).

Increased promotion is a no-brainer. Organizing (and possibly funding) increased promotion can pose a problem. Some ideas: break up promotional methods, areas, etc. Start attaching conference stickers to Ubuntu CDs being distributed. Find out about placing signs at Frys, Microcenter, and maybe game stores (even the DND style game stores probably have a decent overlap with the Linux community). Also, academic institutions — signs at universities, especially around their Computer Science departments, are likely to attract attention.

Perhaps most importantly is to build an 'image' for a conference. SELF has a very distinctive logo, and the logo is present on their website, their conference materials, and the badges at the conference. This provides cohesiveness and prepares a brand for the conference.

Some thoughts to think about, and I'm sure I'll come up with more as we progress through the day.

I often use a number of PPAs on one or more of my systems, such as FreeNX, Firefox dailies, Chromium dailies, etc. I do like to use signed packages, even if they’re automatically signed, but manually installing the PPA keys is a bit of a pain. The Source Guru has a solution.

Things have been very busy since I started my job at Kennesaw State University. Because my department uses Drupal extensively for producing dynamic websites, I decided it was time to migrate my own content to Drupal. So my intent is that this replaces my old WordPress blog and also provides a place to host projects and other work.

A couple of updates, since it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything meaningful.

On March 2nd, I will be starting a new job as an IT System Support Specialist III at Kennesaw State University.  Typical of a government job, the title is rather meaningless.  To be specific, I will be supporting a variety of Linux and Mac OS X servers for the university and the platforms running on them (Drupal, Moodle, and other technologies.)  The production servers are RHEL and the development is on CentOS.

Of course, every good turn comes with a down turn. 

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I haven’t had a real personal website up in a long time, but I’m trying to get back on the ball.  Not a whole lot of content yet, but it’s coming along.  Take a look at http://www.tuxteam.com.

I was inspired by Jono Bacon’s post here and “Kubuntu, the Blue-Headed stepchild“.  This started as a response to the latter, but I decided this is a better venue.

My experience with Kubuntu has been frustrating, to say the least, and I doubt it has much to do with the Ubuntu team.  Firstly, the insistence on making everything “big” drives me crazy.  How can I use KDE when it won’t let me resize panels?  I also can’t find a way to create custom launcher icons on the panels (in gnome, I have a few set up to open ssh connections I use very often).

Also, how can I get a functional Application menu in Kubuntu that has proper icons and does not replace one menu section with another?  It’s ridiculous that it hides the list of application categories to display the applications themselves, unless the user is supposed to always know what category something is in.

Basically, I completely agree with the comments posted here: http://meta.ath0.com/2008/01/18/kde-4-ui-critique/ and am wondering if anyone knows of ways to work around them.

There’s a lot of issues going on around OOXML these days.  Specifically, there’s alledged copyright violations by posting the OOXML specs by members of the Boycott Novell group.  I want to address a specific issue: why is something applying for ISO standardization so secret?

International standards (e.g., ISO) should be open and royalty-free.  It’s ridiculous if there’s a “standard” that’s locked in to a single vendor.  Can someone explain any sanity to this situation?

For some reason, I have a habit of placing all kinds of random files throughout my home directory on my laptop.  Sometimes things end up in ~/Documents, other times ~/Desktop, and still others just in ~.  This is bad.

My desktop, on the other hand, I keep squeaky clean.  On the other hand, I sometimes have related files on my laptop and desktop… so even more filesystem mayhem.

So I think I need a good way to manage my laptop files.  First off, more self discipline.    Secondly, I’m thinking of a small utility to merge files between two systems.  Perhaps some sort of bi-directional rsync based on modified dates?  Maybe also a method for mapping particular files/directories on one system to the other.  From the days of Windows 9x, I remember something like Windows Briefcase (if that’s what it was called) and it now seems like a decent idea.  Anyone know of this?  If not, maybe it’s time to learn some Glade and pyGTK.

Yesterday I gave a talk at Atlanta Linux Fest 2008 on SSH and GPG.  I quickly received requests to post notes from my talk, so I’m going to try to write it up here.  If I miss anything, I’ll try to keep it updated.

Slides are available here: SSH & GPG. They don’t show everything, as a lot of it was Demo and Q&A, documented below.

This is Part 1 of a two part series.  I got far more questions about the OpenSSH content, so I’ll be focusing on that here.  I’ll add GnuPG content shortly, time permitting.

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