DigitalKoans

A study by Anirban Banerjee, Michalis Faloutsos and Laxmi N. Bhuyan ("P2P:Is Big Brother Watching You?") has shown that peer-to-peer file sharing users who do not employ blocklists can be tracked by media companies or their agents.

Here's an excerpt from the paper:

A naive user is practically guaranteed to be tracked: we observe that 100% of our peers run into blocklisted users. In fact, 12% to 17% of all distinct IPs contacted by a peer are blocklisted ranges. Interestingly, a little caution can have significant effect: the top five most prevalent blocklisted IPs contribute to nearly 94% of all blocklisted IPs we ran into. Using this information users can reduce their chances of being tracked to just about 1%.

Source: Anderson, Nate. "P2P Researchers: Use a Blocklist or You Will Be Tracked. . . 100% of the Time." Ars Technica, 10 October 2007.

Campus Technology has published an interview with Michael Keller about the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group.

Version 1.2.0 of the open-source Evergreen ILS software has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the Frequently Asked Questions:

From a library perspective, what does Evergreen do? What modules or components are available?

Evergreen currently has modules for circulation, cataloging, web catalog, and statistical reporting. Evergreen also supports the SIP2 protocol for self-check and Internet/computer access control.

What does it not do?

Evergreen's Acquisitions and Serials modules are currently under joint development with the University of Windsor. Other features on our roadmap include a Z39.50 server, and telephony and credit card support.

The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities has posted a description of its IMLS-funded Our Americas Archive Project.

Here’s an excerpt:

Rice University, in partnership with the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland has received a three-year National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the amount of $979,578 for the Our Americas Archive Project (OAAP), with an additional $980,613 provided in cost share by the institutions. The project will develop an innovative approach to helping users search, browse, analyze, and share content from distributed online collections. OAAP will incorporate recent Web 2.0 technologies to help users discover and use relevant source materials in languages other than English and will improve users’ ability to find relevant materials using domain-specific vocabulary searches. Two online collections of materials in English and Spanish, The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA), and a new digital archive of materials to be developed at Rice, will provide an initial corpus for testing the tools. Rice principle investigators, Geneva Henry (Executive Director, Digital Library Initiative) and Caroline Levander (HRC Director), along with MITH co-PI Neil Fraistat are undertaking this innovative digital humanities project with a view to supporting scholarly inquiry into the Americas from a hemispheric perspective. As Geneva Henry says, “our goal is to develop new ways of doing research as well as new objects of study—to create a new, interactive community of scholarly inquiry.”

Two significant online collections of materials in English and Spanish supporting the interdisciplinary field of hemispheric American Studies—Maryland’s Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) [http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/] and a new digital archive of multilingual materials being developed at Rice [http://rudr.rice.edu/handle/1911/9219]—provide an initial corpus for developing and testing these new digital tools. The two multilingual archives illustrate the complex politics and histories that characterize the American hemisphere, but they also provide unique opportunities to further digital research in the humanities. Geographic visualization as well as new social tagging and tag cloud cluster models are just some of the new interface techniques that the Our Americas Archive Partnership will develop with the goal of creating innovative research pathways. As Caroline Levander comments, “we see this as a first step in furthering scholarly dialogue and research across borders by making hemispheric material available open access worldwide. Our goal is to further develop innovative research tools that will help generate a collaborative, transnational research community.” Ralph Bauer, MITH Fellow, general editor of the Early Americas Digital Archive, and collaborator on the project adds, “the added digital materials and tools to navigate seamlessly through these two collections is enabling new forms of scholarship. Because the OAAP makes available materials that are dispersed in different geographic locations, it facilitates collaboration and intellectual exchange among an international audience. The digital medium offers rich opportunities for multicultural exchanges and is therefore uniquely suited for a hemispheric approach to history.”

Goggle has released a digital video of noted copyright expert James Boyle’s talk on "7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution."

Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

If you wanted to undermine the technological revolution of the last 30 years, using the law, how would you do it? How would you undercut the virtuous cycle that results from access to an open network, force technological innovation into stagnation, diminish competition, create monopolies over the basic building blocks of knowledge?

Jammie Thomas will appeal the Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas verdict. More on this and further reactions to the case in the articles and posts below:

• "Capitol v. Thomas: The Key Appeal Issue"
• "EFF to Weigh in on First RIAA Downloading Trial Appeal"
• "For RIAA, a Black Eye Comes with the Job"
• "An Open Letter to the RIAA"
• "Thomas to Appeal RIAA's $222,000 File-sharing Verdict"
• "Will Appeal Succeed in RIAA's $222,000 'Making Available' Case?"

You might recall that back in July, EDUCAUSE issued an urgent call to action about a file sharing amendment that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid intended to make to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act.

It's déjà vu all over again. Virtually the same proposal has been incorporated into Rep. Howard P. McKeon and Rep. Ric Keller's College Access and Opportunity Act of 2007, and EDUCAUSE has again issued an urgent call to action. Get the details at EDUCAUSE's P2P or File Sharing page.

Also read "A Controversial Antipiracy Measure Re-emerges." Here's an excerpt:

Like Mr. Reid’s amendment, the House proposal calls on the U.S. secretary of education to identify the 25 institutions that received the most notices identifying cases of copyright infringement of both music and movies. The colleges appearing on those lists would then be required to devise “a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent” to illegal file swapping.

Source: Read, Brock. "A Controversial Antipiracy Measure Re-emerges." The Wired Campus, 8 October 2007.

Kwik-Fit, a UK car repair company, has been sued by the Performing Rights Society over staff use of radios.

Here's an excerpt from "Kwik-Fit Sued over Staff Radios":

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is maintained that amounts to the "playing" or "performance" of the music in public and renders the firm guilty of infringing copyright.

Source: "Kwik-Fit Sued over Staff Radios." BBC News, 5 October 2007.