Dutch Court Allows Research On Smart Card Vulnerabilities To Be Published
We recently wrote about how NXP Semiconductor (formerly Philips Semiconductor) was suing to try to stop the publication of some research that showed some vulnerabilities in its chips used in smart...
View ArticleBoston Subway System Stops Defcon Talk; But Paints Security Target On Its Back
You would think after years and years of it backfiring every time some scared organization tries to shut down a talk concerning their security vulnerabilities, that people wouldn't even bother any...
View ArticleMBTA Will Work With MIT Students, Rather Than Suing Them, To Improve Security
You may recall, back in August, that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority convinced a judge to ban the Defcon presentation by three MIT students, showing how weak the security was on the...
View ArticleHow The Lock Industry Put Its Head In The Sand, Rather Than Deal With...
We've discussed in the past how locksmiths are apparently upset that geeks online have revealed that lockpicking is really easy, but it's not just the locksmiths. It's the lock makers themselves....
View ArticleCheap Trick: More Afraid Of Being Ignored Than Ripped Off
Last week on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert did a gag about the new Cheap Trick album coming out on 8-track. I assumed it was just a joke, but apparently it's real. The band, as a little...
View ArticleMovie Makers Use 'Fake' Piracy Numbers To Score Distribution Deal
The NY Times recently had a blog post noting that the makers of an $850,000 romantic comedy called X's and O's were thrilled that their movie was widely shared on file sharing networks, because the...
View ArticleIt Isn't Easy To Break Out Of Obscurity In The Music Business
It's no secret at all that it's tough to become famous in the music industry. In the past, you had to hope for one of the golden lottery tickets from a major record label. Otherwise, after a few years...
View ArticlePublisher Experiments With 'Free' And Sees Book Sales Increase 20x
We've pointed to numerous studies, at this point, that have all found that, when done right, free ebooks can greatly increase the sales of physical books (and, in some cases, even of ebooks). Here's...
View ArticleIdeas vs. Execution Shows Why Competition Is A Good Thing
I was recently talking with a group of folks who were discussing an idea for a new product, which I thought was pretty compelling. However, one of the concerns raised by someone in the group was the...
View ArticleForget Finding A Needle In A Haystack... How About Actually Finding Haystack
We recently wrote about Newsweek's coverage of Austin Heap and Haystack, a program he supposedly wrote to help Iranian internet users avoid being spied on by the Iranian government. Some of our...
View ArticleHaystack Situation Looking Worse And Worse: Why Did The State Dept. Endorse...
A couple weeks ago, we noted that there were increasingly serious questions being asked about Haystack, the high profile app that was being championed in the press for supposedly helping Iranian...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Comic Book 'Pirated' On 4Chan, Author Joins Discussion... Watches Sales Soar
Paul Watson points us to yet another example of how engaging with fans of your work (even if, technically, they infringed on your copyrights) can lead to pretty happy outcomes for everyone. The basic...
View ArticleFinancial Industry Favors Security Through Obscurity; Demands Cambridge...
The chip and PIN system that is used for financial transactions throughout large parts of Europe and Canada (still surprised that it hasn't really come to the US...) has numerous vulnerabilities that...
View ArticleWhich Would You Rather Have: 100,000 Unauthorized Downloads Of Your Music......
As a bit of a follow up to our discussion of the Canadian band (who will remain nameless) that complained vociferously that its debut album had been shared on torrent sites over 100,000 times, despite...
View ArticleLabels Dropping Out Of Spotify Are Totally Missing The Point
We recently reposted a blog post by the indie band Uniform Motion discussing how much money they make from various music platforms. A bunch of other blogs reported on it too and it created some...
View ArticleThe Promo Bay Asks Artists: Would You Rather Fight Piracy... Or Have A...
Tim O'Reilly coined the famous saying that obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy -- and it seems that the folks over at The Pirate Bay have constructed a simple experiment to test this...
View ArticleIs It A Problem If People Only Discover A Musician Because They Have A Cool...
One of the things we've heard for years, whenever we talk about awesome marketing campaigns and business models that musicians and other artists have put together, is that it's somehow a "shame" that...
View ArticleBand Explains Why It Loves When Fans Download Unauthorized Copies Of Its Music
There's an interesting blog post by Alexander Abnos, who is both a musician in the band Secret Cities and currently working as an intern at WNYC's SoundCheck radio program. He talks about how much his...
View ArticlePulling Music Off Spotify Sends Exactly The Wrong Message
There's been a lot of hubbub the last couple days over Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich deciding to pull Yorke's solo work and his songs with his "new" group Atoms for Peace...
View Article
