Techdirt

The importance of machine learning is becoming clearer as vast amounts of valuable data accumulates and human minds are looking ill-equipped to try to parse all of it. Sure, humans seem to be better at deciphering our own handwriting and voices, but artificial intelligence (AI) might be a tad better at predicting long-term weather patterns or imminent economic instabilities. We've already seen AI that can beat the best of us at Jeopardy! and chess. Here are just a few open source projects that could help achieve the next milestones of AI and machine learning.

The only thing as trustworthy as a cop's testimony are statements made by confidential informants. These are used to secure warrants and, occasionally, as supporting evidence in prosecutions. Never mind the fact that confidential informants are often career criminals who carry with them the innate desire to stay out of jail.

For years, AT&T worked tirelessly to erode its customers' legal rights, using mouse print in its terms of service preventing consumers from participating in lawsuits against the company. Instead, customers were forced into binding arbitration, where arbitrators employed by the company unsurprisingly rule in their employer's favor a huge percentage of the time. Initially, the lower courts derided this greasy behavior for what it was: an attempt by AT&T to eliminate customer legal rights and save a buck. And with AT&T's massive history of fraud, you can imagine AT&T was looking to save quite a bit.

During a recent 13-night run at Thalia Hall in Chicago Dave Chappelle tried something different. He partnered with a company by the name of Yondr in an attempt to keep attendees from not only taking photos or videos, but from so much as sending an emoji during the program. Yondr's solution to public performance cell phone etiquette is basically a smart cell phone sock. Or perhaps a cell phone cozy if you're a grandma (hi grandma). Effectively it's a pouch that attendees of an event are forced to put their devices in if they want to enter the performance:Fig. 1 a decidedly sexy phone cozyThe technology claims to be relatively effortless, with a performance venue surrounded by a perimeter. Inside of said perimeter, the phone in the sexy sock is locked and won't work. To use your phone (or, say, call 911), users need to exit through a set of technically-unspecified sensor gates, and head out the lobby:

The last time we wrote about the Las Vegas Review-Journal -- the largest newspaper in Nevada -- it was owned by Stephens Media and was making headlines for using the LVRJ as a copyright troll, pretending to sell its copyrights to a company called Righthaven. That scam fell apart when it was discovered that Righthaven didn't really own the copyrights it was suing over. Since then, the LVRJ has changed hands a couple times. Stephens Media sold the paper to New Media Investment Group earlier this year. And then, last week, it was announced that "New Media Investment Group" had sold the newspaper to News + Media Capital Group LLC, for $140 million. News + Media Capital Group LLC is a brand new Delaware-based company, and no one has the slightest clue who they are, including all the folks working for the LVRJ.

Increase your productivity and give your hands a rest with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Premium, available in the Deals store for $99.99. With the PC Premium version, you can use any headset you'd like (more flexibility than the Home version), work in Excel or PowerPoint, and use audio playback for proofreading your work. The license is good for use on 2 computers and includes all minor updates, and you can choose English (US or UK), French or German. We also have Dragon 5 for Mac available for $149.99 (only available with US or UK English).

I really do hate that most of the time we've spent here talking about eBooks, a digital technological advance that should be all about the wonderful expansion of knowledge and reading, is instead spent talking about that purchasing minefield eBooks have created by not actually allowing for true ownership. Whether it's retailers' DRM efforts to restrict access to already-paid-for books or the inability to get at the books you've purchased simply because you've moved around the world a bit, it's been made abundantly clear to the average reader that they do not own the eBooks they've purchased.

As law enforcement and their friendly politicians have used the attacks in San Bernardino to renew a call to undermine and break encryption, the mainstream press has been an easy target for politicians looking to get out whatever message they want. Take, for example, the following set of stories that popped up for me in a simple Google News search: Note that the first story -- the one claiming the San Bernardino attackers had encryption actually came out before the second story saying they did not. Incredibly, if you read the full text of both stories, neither fully agrees with its own headline. The ABC story is ridiculously vague:

When the executive in charge of your company's traditional television services publicly admits she's a cord cutter who no longer watches traditional TV, it might be time to reconsider the future of pay television. By and large most cable and broadcast executives have responded to the cord cutting phenomenon by either denying it exists, claiming it's the domain of losers, or insisting it's a fad that will magically evaporate once more Millennials procreate. But at a recent TV industry conference, Verizon's director of FiOS TV services, admitted she's been a cord cutter for a while:

Back in October, the FBI very belatedly admitted it had been doing an abysmal job tracking the number of people killed by law enforcement officers. For nearly 15 years, the DOJ has been charged with collecting this data, but so far has only managed to produce totals that are halfof those compiled by citizens and journalists.

This week, we pointed out the disturbing synergy between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on the subject of encryption, the internet and free speech. Three of our four top-voted comments this week come in response to that post, with first place for insightful going to Eric for an observation that's difficult to ignore:

Five Years Ago Wikileaks, Wikileaks, Wikileaks. That was the dominant subject this week in 2010. Firstly, there were plenty of attempts to squeeze out the site through various means: though Twitter was a holdout and the White House was contradicting the Library of Congress on the subject, the Swiss bank handling Wikileaks donations found a technicality under which to freeze the account while PayPal cut off all payments. The Defense Department appeared to be blocking all sites with Wikileaks in the title, then Visa and Mastercard joined the no-more-payments-for-Wikileaks chorus (despite not having any similar issues with the KKK). This may have been because the latest leak was about them. But, the more people tried to kill the site, the more it spread. Political pundits didn't seem to understand its distributed nature and the government didn't realize that expansionist copyright policies are what drove the development of such technology. Meanwhile, those who actually bothered to look at the cables themselves discovered plenty of things, like the expected fact that the US entertainment industry basically wrote Spain's new copyright law and the US Embassy had its fingers in Swedish copyright issues too. Ten Years Ago The worlds of film and television were changing rapidly this week in 2005, and some seemed to get it while others didn't. Steven Soderbergh had a good grasp on where things were and needed to be headed for films, while CNN seemed somewhat confused about offering broadcast content online. NBC made some shows available for download on iTunes, which shed some light on why they wanted to sue TiVo a few weeks earlier. Cable companies were trying to maneuver around having to offer a-la-carte channels (even though some recognized this was still just a stepping stone to unbundling the shows altogether. Oh, and though the Sony Rootkit scandal was winding down, it wasn't over: yet another vulnerability was found and... another one too, in a patch for a previous one. Good for Sony. Fifteen Years Ago Still lots of analysis of the tech bubble this week in 2000. Some were trying to figure out just what caused it while others were being both optimistic and pessimistic about the future of tech (not to mention those who still thought they could assert that the internet is a passing fad). Bands were experimenting with the internet, and most people were reading too much into individual successes and individual failures. Rage Against The Machine was surprised to find people getting banned from Napster for sharing their music, since they didn't want that at all. Some people were finally taking a clear and sober look at the future of mobile music, though in general it was becoming clear that wireless was the next big thing in tech. 247 & 138 Years Ago December 6th is a double-hit of the first publications of long-running institutions, though only one of the two still survives as of a few years ago. First, in 1768, it was the day of the publication of the first volume of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, one of three volumes that would eventually become a set costing 12 pounds sterling. Then, in 1877, it was the day the Washington Post published its first issue, which clocked in at four pages and cost three cents.

I've seen crowdfunding projects for personal drones that promise the moon and obviously fail to deliver — and it's not surprising that this happens and even sometimes works, given the automatic sci-fi appeal of an autonomous flying assistant that hovers at your side. Today, we're looking at a project by someone who shares that dream, but who recognizes it's not going to materialize overnight: Fleye, the personal drone and developer's platform that represents a step in the direction of that sci-fi future. The Good In a world increasingly saturated with drones, there are two things that make the Fleye stand out. The first is its design: unlike most drones, it's not a quadcopter, but rather is powered by a single blade concealed entirely within its round outer shell. Aesthetically, this is just cool: the Fleye doesn't look like it should be able to hover and maneuver the way quadcopters do, but it is. Functionally, this serves a key purpose: if the goal is a future where small flying robots operate regularly in human-filled spaces, then the safety factor becomes a real concern, and little bumper rings around exposed high-speed blades simply isn't going to cut it. The Fleye has nothing on the outside that can hurt you — and watching it gracefully recover after being bumped or shoved is delightful. The second notable aspect is that the Fleye is focused on being a platform for developers. The creator clearly has a vision of a future full of small autonomous and semi-autonomous drones, hovering over our shoulders and running errands for us and taking our selfies for us — but he also gives the clear impression that he knows this future isn't "right around the corner" and, in fact, may never even arrive in the vague way we envision it. Rather, he wants to offer a real opportunity for people to explore and experiment in that direction. The Fleye has WiFi, an HD camera, and an on-board computer available in two different models: one with a dual-core and half-gig of RAM, the other with a quad-core and a full gigabyte. All this is wrapped up with an API and an SDK that lets developers create autonomous tasks for the Fleye, leveraging its ability to recognize its surroundings and make split-second adjustments to its course. The Fleye itself, as it is right now, probably isn't the drone that goes mainstream and starts appearing everywhere — but it may well be the platform that trains the generation of developers who go on to achieve that dream. The Bad Drones still face some severe technology limitations, and the Fleye is no exception. For one thing, though the video isn't entirely clear on this point, it surely makes the same loud and somewhat grating noise that we were all disappointed by the first time we saw a drone flying in person rather than doing graceful silent maneuvers in an audio-dubbed video. Secondly, it still has the limitation of a 10-minute flight time on a full battery charge. Neither of these things are the fault of the Fleye itself, but they do represent technological bottlenecks that diminish the usefulness and appeal of personal drones in general. The Platform By default, the Fleye is controlled solely by apps for iOS and Android. Normally this is a very irritating choice, but in the case of the Fleye, it's actually just a starting point: the drone is controlled by WiFi through an API that uses JSON-over-UDP, meaning virtually any WiFi-connected device is capable of become a controller. The creator is working on SDKs for iOS, Android, NodeJS and Python so people can begin creating their own control software for any and all devices. But that's just for remote control — the Fleye itself runs on Linux and can be accessed via SSH, deploying custom software directly to the drone so it can then operate autonomously or semi-autonomously to complete tasks you've designed. Custom apps don't need to train the drone from the ground up, as a low-level API within the Linux environment gives custom software easy access to the autopilot functions and video pipeline. With all these capabilities, I'm excited to see what developers start creating once they get their hands on the Fleye.

A couple of weeks ago, Techdirt wrote about a German museum suing Wikimedia over photos of public domain objects that were in its collection. We mentioned there was a related situation in the UK, where the National Portrait Gallery in London had threatened a Wikimedia developer for using photos of objects that were clearly in the public domain. Mike pointed out that in the US, the Bridgeman v. Corel case established that photographs of public domain images do not carry any copyright, since they do not add any new expression. In a rare bit of good news, noted by Communia, the UK Intelllectual Property Office has just announced officially that it takes the same view (pdf):

Private drones are the new CCTV. As Cyrus Farivar words it for Ars Technica, the age of sousveillance is upon us.

Cities have enacted laws against smoking, salt, sugar, trans fat... and it's raising awareness of these unhealthy habits. But is it really effective at improving general health? Maybe not. It's difficult to actually measure what effect these health warnings have when the result is essentially a decades-long experiment on participants that aren't monitored that well. However, smoking is down, diabetes is no longer on the rise, and consumption of sugary soda is also down. (NB: It probably wasn't warning labels alone that caused these trends.)

The federal government needs to start working on across-the-board legalization of marijuana. Until it unites the nation under THC, this sort of bullshit is going to continue. (via FourthAmendment.com)

Eighteen months ago, Mike wrote about the DMCA being abused to censor stories in an Ecuadorian newspaper that someone in the government there apparently didn't want out in the open. But Boing Boing points us to a post by Andrés Delgado from a few weeks back which offers hope that some good things could be happening in Ecuador in the field of copyright. It concerns the country's New Intellectual Property Legislative Proposal, which was drawn up using public input on the open WikiCOESC+i:

A sexting scandal made a Colorado high school a national headline. The numbers were shocking: 106 students involved with 351 images being circulated. But the most shocking number of all is this one: zeroarrests. (h/t Techdirt reader withersteen)

The appointment of a FISA Court amicus to argue on behalf of the American public -- part of the surveillance reforms contained in the USA Freedom Act -- seems to be working out pretty well. FISC judge Michael Mosman appointed Washington DC attorney Preston Burton to examine one issue facing the court: whether the NSA can retain the bulk records it collected under Section 215. According to the new limitations, the NSA must immediately destroy any records that are not "foreign intelligence information." Unsurprisingly, the NSA is reluctant to begin this purge.

The French government has issued a statement indicating it will not be participating in the nation's law enforcement agencies' perversely masturbatorial power fantasies. A few days ago, Le Monde published a few "highlights" from a law enforcement "wishlist," crafted in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris.

For the person who is constantly misplacing their things, you can gift them the iHere 3.0 Tracking Device (Gen 2) for $22.99. iHere can be attached to your keys or slipped into a wallet to help you find them. It works with a 75 ft. range, is rechargeable, has an up to 85 dB alarm so it is easy to hear, and pairs with iOS and Android devices (though it does mention that it is optimized for iOS at this point). The app includes a car finder feature and an optional separation alert to let you know when you’re about to leave your phone somewhere. This deal won't last long and comes with free shipping in the US, so act fast.

Another terrorist attack (this one thwarted) has renewed calls for private companies to work more closely with law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

You learn quite a bit writing for this site. For instance, did you know that Milano cookies aren't a style of cookie, but are rather an actual trademarked name of a dessert from Pepperidge Farm? I didn't. Yes, the two biscuit cookies with a layer of chocolate in between, which most of us ignorant fools just call a cookie sandwich, is jealously protected by Pepperidge Farm. Case in point is the company's lawsuit against Trader Joe's for selling what it claims is an infringing cookie.

Contract disputes between cable companies and broadcasters have gotten increasingly ugly as programmers demand more and more money for the same content. These retransmission fee fights often result in consumers not only losing access to content they're paying for, but it places the consumer in the position of PR pinata, as each side tries to get consumers annoyed at the other guy. After a few months of bickering, on-screen tickers and blacked out content, the two sides usually agree to a new confidential contract, which then winds its way to the end consumer in the form of yet another cable bill rate hike.

Earlier this week Spain's new Criminal Procedure Act came into force. Although this is an update to an old law from 1882, it legalizes the use of some of the most modern digital snooping techniques around, as an article in El País explains (original in Spanish). For example, one option under the new law is to install malware on a suspect's devices, a really bad idea we warned two years ago might happen. The new law specifies that surveillance can be carried on equipment used habitually or occasionally by a suspect, but does not clarify what happens with networks or a shared family computer. The Spanish police will also now be able to deploy undercover agents online who can interact with other users, and record their conversations, even if those take place with members of the public in their own homes. The new powers generally require judicial authorization, and the exact nature of the permitted surveillance will depend on the seriousness of the alleged crime. But the law also allows the Spanish Interior Minister and, in her or his absence, the Secretary of State for Security, to grant permission to the police to snoop on private communications in an "emergency", or when the alleged crimes relate to terrorism or armed groups. Such permission must then be quickly confirmed or revoked by a judge, but in the latter case, there's a nasty twist in the new law. Even though the police would be unable to use in court any evidence they found during surveillance whose authorization was later cancelled, they could use it to help them ask for permission to carry out more surveillance, taking advantage of the knowledge they gained. As El País notes, the new law will allow:

Remember CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU? Even though the text was "celebrated" back in October 2014, it is still not ready to be presented for possible ratification. As Techdirt has been covering, it's pretty clear that the problem area is the corporate sovereignty chapter, because of concerns about the huge power it grants to Canadian (and US) corporations. First there were hints that Angela Merkel wanted the so-called "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS) mechanism changed. Then France said the same -- twice. Most recently, the EU commissioner responsible for trade and trade agreements, Cecilia Malmström, indicated that it wouldn't be possible re-open the corporate sovereignty chapter, or to move away from "classic" ISDS to the re-branded version known as the Investment Court System (ICS), which the European Commission is pushing in an attempt to head off growing opposition to the whole idea. However, the arrival of a new government in Canada seems to have changed the situation once more, as Politico.eu reports:

If you haven't heard about quantum computing, it's an alternative to "classical computing" that relies on some strange properties of quantum physics. Sure, the computer (or whatever device) you're reading this on also relies on physics a bit, but it stores information digitally as ones and zeroes -- and not some superposition of two states of matter in an array. A few organizations are working on quantum computers (e.g., Google, NASA, D-Wave, Cambridge Quantum Computing, Yale Quantum Institute, Microsoft, IBM, etc.), but the true potential is still just slightly out of reach (for now).

It's been widely suspected for ages that both the NSA and the FBI made use of so-called "zero-day" exploits to hack into computers. Leaks from a few years ago (which may or may not have come from Snowden) exposed just how massive the NSA's exploit operation was, and there have been plenty of stories of security companies selling exploits to the NSA, who would use them, rather than reveal them and get them patched -- thereby putting the public at risk. Last year, the President told the NSA to get better at revealing these zero day exploits to companies to patch, rather than hoarding them for their own use. Just about a month ago, the NSA proudly announced that it now discloses vulnerabilities 90% of the time -- but conveniently left out how long it uses them before disclosing them.

Every political season, the conspiracy theories come out to play. I personally like the one that suggests that all the high ranking world leaders are actually lizard-people from the planet Bilderburg, or however that one goes. But the slightly more believable conspiracy theories can be fun, too, such as the one that says Donald Trump is a Clinton plant to ensure Hillary wins the Presidency on the theory that not enough American voters are actual crazy enough to elect Donald Trump as president. Which... yeah.

We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt.

Tom Wither, author, "intelligence professional," and apparent apologist for the NSA, has written two op-eds in hopes of impressing on Americans the grave dangers that await them in this post-bulk phone metadata collection era. Wither lays the blame for future horrors on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. He frames his argument with the recent horror of the Paris attacks.

A little extra power is always a good idea to have on hand. The $36.99 Limefuel Blast 20000mAh Battery Pack can charge up to 4 devices at once helping to make sure you're ready for all day adventures without needing to stop for an outlet. This little aluminum cased pack comes with a USB charging cable and a 2A input for speedier charging of a device. There are LED indicators to show its charge capacity and preserves its power for future use with an auto-shutoff. At just over 1 pound, it's easy to stash at your desk or slip in your bag to always have the juice your devices need.

We see abuse in the way some companies and people use the DMCA takedown process all the time. Those stories typically range from anywhere between mildly frustrating to truly infuriating. But to really abuse the DMCA process in the most heartless, idiotic, disingenuous and fan-hating manner, we of course must bow before the masters over at Disney.

As we've covered for some time, Comcast has slowly but surely been expanding the company's immensely-unpopular broadband usage caps. Primarily deployed to less competitive markets where consumers can't vote with their wallet, the caps restrict customer consumption to 300 GB per month, after which users have the option of either paying $10 per each additional 50 GB, or paying a $30 to $35 fee for the same unlimited data they used to enjoy. It's Comcast's charming way of imposing a glorified rate hike on uncompetitive markets while simultaneously using market power to protect TV revenues from Internet video.

Earlier this week, we wrote about an absolutely ridiculous Associated Press story by reporter Ted Bridis, claiming that law enforcement investigating the San Bernardino shootings are being somehow held back because of the close of the NSA's Section 215 phone records program. There were all sorts of problems with that story, so it's great to see the Associated Press ask one of its enterprising young reporters -- a guy who goes by the name Ted Bridis -- to do a "fact check" piece on Republican Presidential candidates who are now repeating the very claims that Bridis himself made earlier in the week.

Earlier this week, we wrote about an absolutely ridiculous Associated Press story by reporter Ted Birdis, claiming that law enforcement investigating the San Bernardino shootings are being somehow held back because of the close of the NSA's Section 215 phone records program. There were all sorts of problems with that story, so it's great to see the Associated Press ask one of its enterprising young reporters -- a guy who goes by the name Ted Birdis -- to do a "fact check" piece on Republican Presidential candidates who are now repeating the very claims that Birdis himself made earlier in the week.

A few years ago, AT&T realized something amazing: you don't have to build a cutting edge, fiber to the home broadband network, when it's relatively easy to fool the press and public into believing you're building a cutting edge, fiber to the home network. So as AT&T was actually busy reducing its fixed-line broadband spending and quietly walking away from DSL users it didn't want to upgrade, it launched a service it calls "U-Verse with Gigapower." Basically, AT&T's delivering gigabit speeds to high-end housing developments, then pretending the upgrades are much, much larger than they actually are.

Today, we're launching a new initiative from our think-tank, The Copia Institute. The European Commission is holding a public consultation on new regulations for the internet, and the only way to send comments is through a painfully long and oblique online survey. Unfortunately, thanks to those five pages of small print and confusing questions, most people don't seem to have realized just how big a deal this consultation is — and it only runs until December 30th. The new regulations that are being considered include a long list of things that we've fought hard against here at Techdirt. In general, it all focuses on "intermediary liability" — the dismantling of safe harbors and creation of new regulations that hold online services accountable for the actions of their users. Apart from the obvious common sense objection that this is clearly putting the blame in the wrong place, we know it has all sorts of negative effects: it encourages services to spy on the actions of their users, it turns providers into de facto judges and squeezes out free speech safeguards like fair use, it leads to filtering and takedown systems that inevitably target lots of legitimate content... the list, as our readers know, goes on and on. We discussed the issue in detail last week on our podcast. This isn't just an issue for Europe. Currently, the EU's rules around intermediary liability are largely in line with the safe harbor approach in the US, and changing this could impact every online service that has European users, everyone who wants to share content internationally or make use of services from the EU, and generally everyone who cares about innovation, privacy, competition and free speech on the global internet. So we're asking everyone to brave the nightmarish online survey and speak up against these new regulations, and to help we've created the Don't Wreck The Net campaign and survey survival guide. There we outline the core issues at stake, and offer some help orienting yourself in the survey and understanding what the bureaucratically-worded questions are getting at. Again, it's really important that people respond to this public consultation. Not only is the survey a pain, the details strongly indicate that the European Commission really wants to enact some new regulations — often, it only gives you space for additional comment when you are criticizing the existing framework, but not when you are defending it. You can bet that lots of folks from the copyright industries have submitted their responses, no doubt calling for robust new notice-and-staydown rules and proactive monitoring requirements. This can't be the only message the Commission hears. Open up the campaign page, make use of our resources, and tell EU lawmakers not to wreck the net »

On matters of trademark, a law I hate much less than other forms of intellectual property, I tend to think of its administration as needing to be built on a basis of trust. The purpose of trademarks are chiefly to benefit the public, in that they are designed to keep the consumer from being fooled into thinking one brand is another. With that in mind, the USPTO has the power to grant exclusivity to certain brand identifiers in order to help the public consumer identify brands and companies. For this arrangement to work, the USPTO must be trusted not to screw it all up by granting marks on common terms or by limiting customer options by being too exclusive and stifling business.

Fusion is always just 30 years away, but we seem to be actually making some progress after decades of building huge superconducting magnets that will probably be impractical for producing net energy. We've seen Lockheed Martin and a bunch of fusion energy startups claiming to be able to control a fusion reaction in less than 30 years, but economically generating energy is still a distant milestone.

The academic open access movement has gained traction over the past several years as more researchers have noticed their work disappearing behind incredibly expensive paywalls. What could be used to further the scientific world is instead being used to keep companies like Elsevier in prime financial health. Even publicly-funded research is largely unavailable, even to other researchers. Elsevier's participation in the open access movement has been to charge readers for access to open access documents. Recently, the hashtag #icanhazpdf has been used on Twitter to encourage the sharing of paywalled documents between researchers.

Washington Post reporter Andrea Peterson has put together a really excellent explainer piece on what you should know about encryption. Considering the source, it's a good "general knowledge" explainer piece for people who really aren't that aware of encryption or technically savvy. That's important and useful, given how important this debate is and how many participants in it don't seem to understand the first thing about encryption. But what struck me is this little tidbit:

In case you haven't heard, we're holding a huge clearance sale over in the Insider Shop! We're getting rid of all our existing Techdirt gear to clear the way for new merchandise in the future — so now is your last chance to pick something up. The sale ends this Sunday, December 13th. You can get our popular DMCA t-shirt and Seized t-shirt each for over 40% off. Our pullover logo hoodie is only $35, and the zip hoodie is only $40. We've also got some gear from Techdirt's think-tank, The Copia Institute: a logo t-shirt and keychain, and a ready-to-assemble Copia Cardboard kit for diving into the world of smartphone-powered VR. The Techdirt Gear Clearance sale runs until December 13th, and all merchandise orders will be processed and shipped together on the 14th and 15th. Check out the sale today!

It's no secret today's vehicles collect tons of data. Or, at least, it shouldn't be a secret. It certainly isn't well-known, despite even some of the latest comers to the tech scene -- legislators -- having questioned automakers about their handling of driver data.

This is hardly a surprise, but after Congress had more or less realized that passing a law to undermine encryption wasn't a good idea, the clueless surveillance state hawks have used the Paris and San Bernardino attacks as a chance to go for it again. In a hearing this morning, FBI Director James Comey -- who has long been leading the charge -- explained that he thought tech companies ought to change their business model to drop end-to-end encryption. Ridiculously, he argued that there's no "technical issue" in undermining encryption, just a business decision:

Yesterday was actually my birthday... and apparently while I was celebrating returning to the same relative spot in the solar system, the folks arguing over the copyright on the song Happy Birthday agreed to settle the case. What's lacking, of course, are details. There's just a minute order in the docket:

Earlier this year, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who seems to be an endless well of bad ideas around surveillance, started pushing a bill that would require internet companies to report to the government any content they suspected was posted by terrorists. This bill has all sorts of problems, not the least of which is that most of the major internet companies already alert the government to any terrorist-related content that they come across. But, by mandating such reporting, it will only lead to these companies filing a bunch more reports -- much of which will be bogus, flooding the government with useless information, just to avoid running afoul of the law.

Learn all about the art of penetration testing and hacking with the pay-what-you-want White Hat Hacker Bundle. The first two courses in the bundle include tutorials on pentesting Node.js and how to prevent XSS attacks. If you beat the average price ($11.15 at the time of writing), you gain access to five more courses covering WiFi security, ethical hacking, Windows exploits, and more. Ten percent of the profits from your purchase will go towards Project HOPE, which delivers essential medicines and supplies, health expertise and medical training to respond to disaster, prevent disease, promote wellness and save lives around the globe.

Earlier this year, the EFF's Rainey Reitman set up the SaveCrypto.org petition, which tied directly into the White House's We the People... petition site. The petition got the necessary 100,000 signatures to demand a response (though the White House isn't always good about doing that). And, now the White House has responded (sorta). The petition itself is pretty clear: