Kevin Fogarty

ThePirateBay, the notorious file-sharing site consistently accused by opponents of file-sharing of being the source of much of the piracy and deviltry in the world, launched an online survey trying to measure the habits and opinions of file sharers worldwide as part of an effort to counter what it calls entertainment-industry propaganda.

That "propaganda" includes surveys, industry research and claims about the impact of content piracy consistently found by courts to be unsubstantiated, misleading and designed only to support the anti-piracy goals of sponsors such as RIAA and MPAA rather than reflect results of legitimate research.

What does it say about the market for tablet computers that the best-selling tab running Android is not really a tablet.

It's an e-reader that was invented to help sell the public on e-books, whose components don't have to be manufactured, printed or mailed but retail for close to the same price, vastly increasing profits to booksellers like Kindle developer Amazon.

There's a really lame old joke that feels like it grew out of Soviet Cold War cynicism but is as American as paranoia gets: The setup doesn't have to be too specific – just anything that mentions the CIA, FBI or NSA's tendency to run covert surveillance operations even within the U.S. (where only the FBI is supposed to).

The punchline is always the same: One character asks another something about how to get ahold of the spies to report something suspicious. "I don't know where to call them," the other character replies, "but just talk loudly into the lamp and they'll hear you."

The distinction between evidence and eavesdropping got a little clearer this morning, when a Chicago judge declared unconstitutional an Illinois law used to punish people who audio- or video-record police in action.

In most places within the U.S. the First Amendment protects anyone making audio or video recordings of things they can see or hear while not committing other crimes.

Do you know what the worst thing is about Google's new no-privacy policy and attempt to collect data about everything you do online in one place no matter where you do it or on what site?

You have no choice but to go along with it, if you want to find the information you're looking for. Intrusiveness is one thing, intrusiveness to which it's impossible to say 'No' is another. Especially when Twitter and the other services you use online are being just as intrusive.

Top execs at the SOPA-promoting RIAA said over and over that the process of addressing alleged copyright infringements would be open and fair, not the secret-accusations-in-a-back-room affair most SOPA opponents imagined it would be.

All opponents had to go on was the language in the act, which described a process in which those claiming to own copyrights could make accusations to law enforcement agencies, which would go enforce the law without having to validate that the accusations were true or that the accuser actually owned the copyright.

As if dating – and meeting potential mates online – weren't tough enough, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports online dating sites come with big holes in security that compromise at least the privacy and possibly the financial security of their users.

EFF points out six major weak points in the security and practices of online dating sites, most of which appeared first among Facebook's menu of privacy eroding and were universally panned, but have never been eliminated.

RIAA chief complains anti-SOPA forces used his own dirty tricks against him.
Misinformation may be a dirty trick, but it works. – Cary H. Sherman, CEO, Recording Industry Association of America, NYT op/ed Feb. 7, 2012

The CEO of the organization most militantly dedicated to enforcing copyright at the expense of its customers, its business model, its credibility and the basic protections of the Constitution wrote an op/ed piece for the New York Times demonstrating the chance to abuse his enemies with half truths and invective is more important than rebuilding the credibility of his organization.

If you've been worried about the financial health of the music business, especially since last Friday, when Congress shelved indefinitely the SOPA and PIPA bills music-business moguls were counting on to halt the global pilfering of their products and profits, you can stop.

The music business is actually in pretty decent shape. Much better shape, in terms of digital sales, than any other part of the entertainment business, according to execs at the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA), the industry's professional association, Washington lobbyist and apologist.

Why does bad news always travel fast unless it's something you could actually guard against?

Symantec put out the word Tuesday night that end users – consumers, not just enterprise customers as it had said before – were at risk from hackers who stole source code for its pcAnywhere remote-access software.

The Internet database YouHaveDownloaded was guaranteed to be a hit the minute it hit the web.

The site– put up "as a joke," by three friends who give their physical address as being in Antarctica, so far out of the way they have to use latitude and longitude rather than a ZIP code; crawls BitTorrent sites, recording the IP addresses of people downloading files and the files they're downloading.

Microsoft's announcement last week that it would require of customers the ability to reach into their personal PCs todisable, restrict, uninstall or repair software bought from the Windows Store made me realize how pervasive this sense of entitlement is among software vendors.

Mobile app vendors and the carriers involved are greatest offenders in the invasion-of-privacy contest, but with some justification, however inadequate.