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You may recall a story from a few years back involving self-proclaimed "corporate virtue advisor" Dov Seidman and his quest to sue Chobani for using the phrase "How food is made matters" and the social media hashtag #howmatters. Seidman's problem with all of this? He had a trademark registered for the word "how." Yeah, seriously. Seidman claimed that his super-awesome transformational use of "how" as a noun instead of a verb had been trademarked and that this somehow meant that a company that sells yogurt couldn't use the word in any way similar.

We've seen space travel getting cheaper over time, but it's still pretty expensive to get a person into low earth orbit. Some billionaires are optimistic that space travel will be accessible to more than just astronauts and other billionaires, and we're seeing some progress. Reusable rockets and more affordable space stations could lead to some pretty cool space-based vacations -- if you remember to bring your SPF infinity sunblock.

Multiple government agencies have gone all-in on cybersecurity. CISA was pushed through late last year -- dumped into the back pages of a "must pass" omnibus spending bill. Just like that, the government expanded its surveillance power and cleared its cyberthreat inboxes to make way for all the information non-governmental entities might want to share with it. It promised to share right back -- making this all equitable -- but no one really believed the government would give as much as it would take.

With the world mocking the sheer ignorance of their anti-encryption bill, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are doubling down by planning a staff "briefing" on the issue of "going dark" with a panel that is made up entirely of law enforcement folks. As far as we can tell, it hasn't been announced publicly, but an emailed announcement was forwarded to us, in which they announce the "briefing" (notably not a "hearing") on "barriers to law enforcement’s ability to lawfully access the electronic evidence they need to identify suspects, solve crimes, exonerate the innocent and protect communities from further crime." The idea here is to convince others in Congress to support their ridiculous bill by gathering a bunch of staffers and scaring them with bogeyman stories of "encryption caused a crime wave!" As such, it's no surprise that the panelists aren't just weighted heavily in one direction, they're practically flipping the boat. Everyone on the panel comes from the same perspective, and will lay out of the argument for "encryption bad!" PANELISTS

This decision was handed down by the Supreme Court more than a week ago, but it's worth reporting. Late last year, the Court decided to take a look at an issue related to asset forfeiture and the implications it has for the Sixth Amendment.

One of the more darkly entertaining aspects of the massive Panama Leaks has been watching exposed politicians attempting to reconcile past promises to get tougher on financial wrongdoers with their own tax-dodging efforts.

How do we know whether information is classified? Well, because the government tells us it is. But what does that mean? It turns out it means whatever the government wants it to mean, subject to time, place, personnel involved, etc.

Make a big impression with the little 2-inch-cubed RIF6 Cube Projector. It's super lightweight and made to use anywhere. With just the Cube and your MHL/HDMI devices (like your smartphone or laptop), you can transform your 5-inch screen into a 120-inch display to stream movies, show presentations and slide shows, or play games. It has a built-in speaker and LED light source that lasts up to 20,000 hours. It is available in the Techdirt Deals Store for $249 and comes with a flexible tripod, remote control, charger and various cables for connecting your devices.

Brian Bergstein should know better. As the executive editor of the MIT Technology Review with fifteen years of technology journalism under his belt, he really shouldn't be asking "What if Apple is Wrong?" -- at least not in the way he does.

Towards the end of 2014, Google filed for an injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, whose close ties with the MPAA had led to a sustained campaign of harassment over Google's supposed lack of interest in policing the entire internet for infringing material.

Some of the other iPhones the FBI tried to pretend weren't going to be the beneficiaries of a precedential All Writs order are apparently not even the beneficiaries of the agency's Break Into an iPhone Using This One Simple Trick! anticlimax in the San Bernardino case.

In what I'm sure is a very confusing situation for Sheriff Bob Colbert and Deputy Jeff Gragg, prosecutors are bringing conspiracy and extortion charges against the pair for an act normally deemed perfectly acceptable. (via HuffPo)

This week, we reported on a German court declaring adblockers legal for the fifth time, and sparked a discussion about online advertising that contained our two most insightful comments of the week. It makes us happy to see first place go to That Anonymous Coward for his take on Techdirt's approach to advertising:

Five Years Ago This week in 2011, we saw a variety of attempts to define whole new forms of copyright infringement (and to fight back against them). The UK advertising agency was going after a CD jukebox maker for advertising that it is capable of making copies; a Greek site linking to legal videos from rightsholders was sued for infringement; it wasn't clear if Amazon would end up buying music licenses it shouldn't need; the MPAA unsurprisingly sued a streaming site that used connected DVD players; and an Italian court said Yahoo was liable for people finding infringing movies via its search. But the big copyright battlefield was the COICA bill, which was drawing opposition from across the political spectrum (and that was being ignored by Senator Patrick Leahy). The House held preliminary hearings on piracy, but it devolved into a parade of strawmen and a "why can't Google just fix this?" party. Ten Years Ago This week in 2006, Microsoft was making some bold claims about software piracy and defending the supposed need for proprietary security measures, while the software industry as a whole was trying to mislead China on the economics of piracy. The RIAA, which misses no opportunity to be a bully, was telling an MIT student he should drop out of school to pay a hefty infringement fine, while Streamcast was going to court to try to clear up some legal questions about filesharing — and we wondered if a country like Antigua could take on the US using free music. This was also the week that Apple broke down one of the biggest divides in computing by deciding to support Windows on Apple computers. Fifteen Years Ago This week in 2001 it was the waning days of Napster, and some were comparing the P2P revolution with the early days of radio, though others were trying to paint a picture that P2P was dead. MLB was making its foray into payed audio streams of games and hitting some technical hiccups, while some people were realizing that charging for the streams was silly. An early trailblazer in something many schools have since done, MIT made all its course materials available online, while another trail was also being blazed in the world of online pizza ordering. And we all looked to the future of then-fresh Verizon, still referred to as Baby Bell by many. Forty-Three Years Ago It would take a long time after this notable date for mobile phones to become the ubiquitous devices they are today, but it was on April 3rd, 1973 that Motorola researcher Martin Cooper made the first phone call with a handheld mobile phone. The device in question weighed 1.1kg and offered 30 minutes of talk time on a ten-hour charge.

This week, we're taking a look at some new crowdfunded gadgets for music lovers and creators. Atmo Sfera It's a piece of audio gear, but its real appeal is purely visual. The Atmo Sfera is a new "platterless" turntable from a team of Italian designers, and boy is it nice to look at. In use, the vinyl record floats and spins on the central pivot while the sleek carbon fibre arm glides across it, and suddenly other turntables seem clunky by comparison. Of course, this design innovation isn't solely about style: going platter-free is an alternative approach to reducing unwanted vibrations in a turntable, basically taking the opposite route from the more common method of using a hefty, dense, high-quality platter. The Atmo Sfera is also a totally self-contained, ready-to-play device that doesn't require additional pre-amps and other audio gear, which can't be said for all quality turntables. VIE SHAIR Though earbuds reign supreme for casual listeners in their day-to-day life, not everyone is willing to make that sacrifice when on- and over-ear headphones deliver such staggeringly superior sound. But those big head-cans come with downsides: they are extremely isolating, and even the most comfortable pair starts to hurt after a while. The VIE SHAIR aims to solve this with a unique "frame" design that lifts the headphones off your ears while still directing the sound where it needs to go, for the double benefit of being able to hear what's around you and not ending up drenched in ear sweat. Now, if only they could figure out how to make them roll up into a tiny ball like earbuds... Loopa Looping is a tremendously fun digital music technique, and one that a lot of creative people have done some amazing stuff with. Usually the gear takes one of a few forms: a single pedal in the standard design of stage pedals everywhere, a multi-pedal monster, or a tabletop looping "station". None of these things do the job alone: they need to be hooked up to instruments, microphones, etc. The Loopa puts one of the most entertaining looping workflows into a single package: it's a self-contained looper microphone with on-board controls, so the entire process can be held in one hand. It's got some solid specs, too: 24-bit digital audio, up to 12-minute loops, and unlimited layers with multiple levels of realtime undo and redo. Wait until you see what beatboxers can do with something like this.

For many years now, we've written about the fact that copyright law and the First Amendment are actually in quite a lot of conflict. After all, copyright is regularly used to stifle speech, and the First Amendment isn't supposed to allow for the barring of speech. Over the years, legal experts have been increasingly starting to realize this. A few years back, we wrote about a paper wondering why copyright law doesn't require a showing of harm, as should be required under the First Amendment. We've also pointed out that the more that you explore the fact that copyright and the First Amendment seem to be in conflict, the more you recognize how screwed up copyright law has been. I'm even aware of two whole books that both focus on this problem: Neil Netanel's Copyright's Paradox and David Lange & H. Jefferson Powell's No Law (as in "Congress shall make no law...").

As Techdirt has reported, politicians (and some journalists) haven't waited for the facts to be established before assuming that encryption is to blame for recent terrorist attacks. But as detailed information starts to appear, it becomes clear once more that the bombings and shootings did not succeed because things had "gone dark," but largely because intelligence agencies in both Europe and the US missed numerous clues and hints about the bigger picture. This emerges most powerfully from a long article in The New York Times, which charts the rise of ISIS over many years, and how the authorities were slow to catch on:

The Earth's moon is the most well-known planetary satellite because we see it almost every night. But the Earth has a few more natural satellites that aren't technically moons. There are a bunch of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are in resonance with the Earth around the Sun. Several quasi-satellites and trojans dance around our planet in space -- and these objects could be potential landing sites for probes someday (or for asteroid mining operations). They're just not moons (or dwarf moons or whatever you want to nickname them), but maybe they'll be space stations.

One of the rules that is supposed to keep trademark law from creating language-lock insanity is the prescription against trademarking purely descriptive terms. That's why you get a trademark on Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but not on "soda." It's why "computer" is not a valid trademark term. Were this not the case, companies could simply lock up the language of their marketplaces, restricting terms not to the benefit of the consumer, but purely as a monopolizing strategy.

The Baltimore Police Department's warrantless deployment of Stingray devices has come to an end. It may have gotten away with more than 4,300 times so far, but the Maryland Special Appeals Court has declared these devices operate as searches under the Fourth Amendment.

Our advocating for the Connecting with Fans and giving them a Reason to Buy equation (CwF+RtB) being a solution to piracy has become something of a mantra for us here at Techdirt. And we've seen an absolute ton of success stories of people implementing some version of it. But, really, if you want a recent story of a creator going about this in a way that appears to hit every single note just about perfectly, you need only look toward the latest PC gaming hit: Stardew Valley.

"But for video," as they say. (Well, mainly Scott Greenfield…)

We've noted how Tennessee is one of twenty states that has passed state laws, quite literally written by companies like AT&T, prohibiting towns and cities from wiring themselves with broadband -- even if nobody else will. When the FCC announced it would be taking aim at these protectionist broadband laws last year, Tennessee politicians threw a hissy fit, suing the FCC for "violating states rights." That incumbent ISPs are being allowed to write awful state law that's hampering a generation of business development in the state? Not apparently much of a concern.

Add 32GB or 64GB of storage to your iOS device with the iSafe Drive Lite. This MFi-Certified storage device is small enough to slip into your pocket to take with you anywhere. One end connects via a lightning connector and the other end uses USB to connect to your computer for easy two way swapping. Store your music and movies on it without eating up your device's internal storage or use it to transfer data back and forth between the two without relying on a cloud storage system.

The NYPD's Office of the Inspector General has just released its year-end report summarizing its 2015 oversight work. We covered its use of force report late last year -- a report which found the NYPD completely uninterested in policing itself. The report noted the NYPD has "historically… failed to discipline officers who use force without justification."

They've been threatening this for months now, but Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have finally released a "discussion draft" of their legislation to require backdoors in any encryption... and it's even more ridiculous than originally expected. Yesterday, we noted that the White House had decided to neither endorse nor oppose the bill, raising at least some questions about whether or not it would actually be released. Previously, Feinstein had said she was waiting for the White House's approval -- but apparently she and Burr decided that a lack of opposition was enough.

The criminal justice system theoretically operates on a presumption of innocence. An arrest booking is hardly an indicator of guilt, but try telling that to millions of people who believe being accused is no different than being found guilty by a jury. Everyone knows this presumption of guilt exists, despite it being wholly contrary to the basis of our justice system.

The Comite Champagne, or CIVC, has never bothered to pretend it is anything other than a jealous protector of the word "champagne." The trade group and its winery members have made quite a name for themselves ensuring that nobody else anywhere could possibly market a product that in any way suggests it is champagne. This is supposedly done to ensure the reputation of wine from the Champagne region of France remains as sparkling as the product, but predictably devolves into the kind of protectionist racket too often seen in trademark cases.

There are only a handful of vehicles that have launched people into space (or even just provided shelter) for space-faring people. A few more ships and space stations would be nice to see, and there are a few in various stages development (unfunded proposals, ahem). If you're interested in people (not just robots) exploring outer space, here are just a few links on some of the ships that might transport more folks to at least the edge of space.

It never made much sense that ripping CDs in the US is considered legal, while ripping DVDs is somehow horrible piracy. If anything, it seemed to be an artifact of history. Either way, it was much more difficult for people to rip DVDs. However, whenever the issue would come up, most people would point to SlySoft's AnyDVD product, which was a clunky, but functional bit of software for getting around DRM and ripping DVDs. The company was based in Antigua and had been around for years. So it took some people by surprise when it announced it was shutting down due to regulatory changes earlier this year. It looked like Hollywood had done what it normally does and scared an innovative company it didn't like out of business. But, as reader Derek points out to us, it looks like it only took a week or so before former SlySoft employees resurfaced in Belize with a new offering called RedFox, using a somewhat similar logo. As the RedFox folks explain things:

Every since the FBI announced that it had found its own way into Syed Farook's iPhone, people have been wondering exactly how it managed to do so, and how many people the exploit puts at risk. Unsurprisingly, the agency declined to share any details with Apple and tried to downplay the possibility that they'd be breaking into phones left and right — despite pretty quickly entertaining the idea of doing exactly that. Now, following a discussion with Director James Comey last night, we have some more... well... I don't think you can exactly call them "details", but:

You really would think people would know better by now when it comes to trying to surrepticiously edit Wikipedia pages to hide information, but they don't. There is a long history of people and companies trying to disappear or edit potentially embarrassing facts from Wikipedia, only to have it backfire directly in their faces via a little thing we call The Streisand Effect. And yet they still try.

Time for yet another episode of "Your Tax Dollars Faffing About." According to documents liberated by Kevin Burke, the TSA spent a ridiculous amount of money on an iPad app that randomly generates a left or right arrow.

Okay, let's dive right into this one, because there are some details that need to be summarized before we get into the meat of this story. TCYK is a a company named after a Robert Redford film, The Company You Keep, which the company attempted to use as as a profit center by sending out threat letters to suspected copyright pirates in the UK, including to an 82 year old woman, because why the hell not? Copyright trolling and threat and settlement letters from folks like these aren't especially news-worthy, but what makes TCYK interesting is the convoluted shell-game it plays by operating from the United States and partnering with local UK businesses that barely exist just to extort money out of the public. Well, that and its involvement with people connected to the whole Malibu Media mess from a few years back.

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Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr have been talking about legislation that forces tech companies to help law enforcement break into encrypted devices for quite a while now. Nearly a month ago, they suggested it was almost ready to be formally introduced, but indicated that the White House's response would determine when exactly that happened. Now, Reuters is reporting that sources in the administration told them backdooring encryption will not have the President's support, adding another question mark to when we'll actually see this bill (though there's a chance it will show up this week).

Techdirt has just written about WhatsApp finishing the roll-out of end-to-end encryption to its billion users worldwide, including for group chats. That's obviously pretty big news. As the Whatsapp blog post announcing the move notes:

For some time now Verizon's made it very clear it wants nothing to do with its core fixed-line broadband business. Instead, Verizon's taking a huge bet that it can transform ye olde phone company into a huge advertising and streaming media empire, with a focus on wooing (read: selling ads to) Millennials. To that end Verizon acquired AOL and its ad technology for $4.4 billion last year. It developed a highly-controversial stealth ad tech that can track these youngsters around the Internet without their consent, and it created its own "Go90" streaming video service specifically aimed at Millennials.

In a mess of a case that involved multiple incidents of prosecutorial misconduct, as well as an after-the-fact decision to seize assets, the only people walking away clean are the prosecutors. The Open File has the background and details.

We all know that society is going straight down a hellish toilet bowl. We know this mostly because everyone says so. Violence is rampant, sex is carried out with all the care of discussing the weather, and generally we're squashing morality like it was a bug walking across the concrete. And we all know who the real culprits of all this immorality are: teenagers.

The end of Moore's law is basically here already, but it's not such a surprise. It's maybe more surprising that it's lasted so long. What are we going to do now that our computers aren't getting exponentially better? Try completely different ways of making computers, of course. Quantum computers are making some significant advances, even though they're not ready to compete with regular silicon processors just yet. Here are just a few new quantum milestones that could lead to some re-thinking of encryption schemes and programming courses.

Last month we noted how Canadian regulator the CRTC tried to do something about the high cost of TV service by forcing Canadian cable operators to provide cheaper, more flexible TV bundles. Under the new CRTC rules, companies had to provide a $25 so-called "skinny bundle" of discounted TV channels starting March 1, and the option to buy channels a la carte starting December 1.

Although rather forgotten now, one of the most troubling Snowden revelations appeared in 2014, and concerned GCHQ's "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG -- the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Put simply, its job is to "manipulate, deceive and destroy" reputations. Of course, it would be naïve to think that GCHQ is alone in using these techniques. We can safely assume all the major spy agencies engage in similar activities, but what about other players? To what extent might ambitious politicians, for example, be using these dirty tricks to slime their opponents -- and to win elections unfairly? If a long and fascinating feature in Bloomberg is to be believed, the outcome of presidential elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela were all influenced and possibly even determined by the work of one man, a certain Andrés Sepúlveda, using similar methods to those employed by JTRIG. It's a great story, and well-worth reading in full. What follows are some of the details that are likely to be of particular interest to Techdirt readers. Sepúlveda began on a modest scale:

Late last year, we discussed how an application modder named Twisted had managed to push Sony, the megalith corporation, into producing a remote play PC application for its Playstation 4 console. Twisted had previously managed to crack open Sony's Android remote play application, originally designed to work only on Sony brand smartphones, so that any Android user could play the PS4 on the go. This, of course, made the PS4 product more useful and added a feature to potential console buyers that Sony had, for some reason, decided to restrict. Xperia phones, it should be noted, aren't exactly jumping off the shelves at stores, but Playstation 4 consoles certainly are. Then Twisted announced he was going to release a PC version of the app. Sony had not released any PC version of its remote play functionality. But shortly after Twisted's announcement, Sony too announced it would be releasing a remote play for PC application.

An IP address is not a person, even less so if said IP address traces back to a Tor exit relay. But that's not going to stop the "authorities" from subjecting people with no knowledge at all of alleged criminal activity from being subjected to raids and searches.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in Virginia challenging the government's terrorist watchlist. Eighteen plaintiffs -- including a 4-year-old boy who was placed on the watchlist at the age of 7 months -- claim their placement on the watchlist is discriminatory and has deprived them of their rights.

Unleash your inner novelist and let Scrivener help manage your writing project. Available for $22.50 in the store Mac or for $20 for PC (select your preferred version in the drop down menu), the Scrivener household license allows you to access your work on multiple devices. Scrivener replaces bits of paper, index cards and sticky notes by allowing you to storyboard projects, to edit and work on different sections, either alone or in concert, and to post notes and access research. There's a script formatting function to help you write the next classic movie hit, a name generator, and the ability to freely edit and restore to older versions so you won't lose anything as you dive deep into the creative process.

Wikimedia has, of course, a somewhat tortured history when it comes to copyright and artwork that appears on Wikipedia. Whether it's political logos, German museum art, and this goddamned monkey, Wikipedia often finds itself targeted over uploaded photos of artwork and copyright claims that too often appear to be either baseless or at cross-purposes with the world of art more generally. When you mix all of this up with a strange sense of entitlement by those who produce public art over how that art is photographed, the result is a Swedish court declaring that Wikipedia has violated copyright by hosting pictures of public Swedish statues.

USA Today's Brad Heath has dug up another use for the FBI's now-infamous All Writs Act orders: skirting the Fifth Amendment. In a 2015 case currently headed to the Appeals Court, the government is attempting to use All Writs to force a defendant to unlock his devices.