Yearly Archives: 2003

New Name, Same Old New World Charm

Posted on October 15, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

On March 1, 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its functions were divided into various bureaus of that department. There's the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. Services mind you. And there's the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But underneath the new coat of paint, it's still the same loathsome and arbitrary bureaucracy. Read those two links and gnash your teeth.

Or maybe (here's a horrible thought), now that it's got that Homeland Security vibe, it's getting worse.

Continue reading →

Posted in Administrative Law, Civil Liberties | Comments Off on New Name, Same Old New World Charm

Anatomy of a Scam

Posted on October 15, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Here's a particularly nice, illustrated, explanation of how a typical identity theft scam works. It starts with a fairly convincing looking email “from” e-bay, that directs you to a website that looks legit…but isn't. It harvests your data, and your life is never the same again.

I'm adding disLEXia: cybercrime/-security sightings to my monitoring list.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Anatomy of a Scam

Good Plugin; Great Legal Summary

Posted on October 14, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

I'll probably be installing the SimpleComments MT plugin soon. Merging Trackbacks & comments seems sensible to me, although I'm slightly concerned about whether it plays nice with the MT-Blacklist plugin.

But I have to admit that what I really love most about Simple Comments is the authors' summary of the MIT License which goes like this:

Like our other freeware, this plugin is released under the open-source MIT License. In plain English, that means you can do whatever you want with the software, including modifying it, selling it, or eating it, but we’re not responsible for anything that goes wrong.

Posted in Movable Type | Comments Off on Good Plugin; Great Legal Summary

It’s When, Where AND How You Say It

Posted on October 14, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Thanks to rc3, I found Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka, and its observations on “registers of conversations”. Which explains why rc3 is a good thing to read — it taps into pools I don't. Except that now I guess I'll be reading Danny O'Brien too…

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs | 1 Comment

A Noble Attempt to Build Public Discourse Encounters a Major Obstacle: Fred Barnes

Posted on October 14, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Monday evening I attended the U. Miami edition of The People Speak: America Debates its Role in the World which was a marquee edition of the 1000 or so related events being held around the country this fortnight.

The run-up to the meeting was not auspicious. Neither in some ways—mostly relating to the presence of Fred Barnes—was the meeting.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics: US | 4 Comments

DKos Moves to Scoop

Posted on October 14, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Daily Kos, the lively left-leaning political news and commentary site, is leaving Movable Type and switching to Scoop, which is the sort of community-building software I wrote about in the final section of my Habermas paper.

It's been suggested that blogs shouldn't have comments but that they should instead link to each other to make conversations more visible. The dKos move represents the radical counter to that view.

In the end, users will decide what they like best; in the interim there's plenty of room for both approaches, plus some arbitrage.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on DKos Moves to Scoop