blog » May 13, 2005/News bits

Boo, Adobe

According to Dave Coffin, Nikon’s decision to encrypt part of their RAW files is nothing out of the ordinary. (DPReview interview) It seems that Adobe is just whining. Interestingly, Adobe’s latest Camera RAW software claims support for the D2X. Hubert’s new opinion: Adobe is just a bunch of whiners trying to grab some attention. Nikon should still not encrypt their files, but that goes out to the rest of the industry too. I can now continue to recommend Nikon products. Dave Coffin still rocks for his work on decoding the various RAW formats.

No DMCA for Canada

As a followup to another previous post, Canada will not be implementing its own version of the DMCA. (/.) See the government’s reform proposal. One of the main highlights is that circumventing a technological protection measure is only illegal if it is done for illegal purposes. That is, I can use DeCSS to watch DVDs, but not to copy and sell them, which seems fair to me. Of course, the US doesn’t like our plan.

However, SOCAN wants 25% of the online music business. (/.) Will they not be happy until they have a levy on everything remotely related to music? It reminds me of the ING Direct commercials: just another hand in your pocket.

Free/open access research

The number of open access journals is growing. (/.) The Directory of Open Access Journals currently lists 1555 journal (59 in Mathematics, 50 in Computer Science). Now we just need some of these to build up a good reputation.

The Dutch are also providing free access to their research. (/.) It looks like the Internet is finally living up to its promise of a giant repository of information.

Speaking of journals, you know you need to revamp your review process when you accept a randomly generated paper. (/.) Note to self. Don’t trust anything you read in WMSCI. Best wishes to Stribling, Aguayo and Krohn, who will be giving a randomly generated talk at the conference.

It’s never too early for brainwashing

The Hong Kong Boy Scouts are introducing an IP merit badge. (/.) While I don’t outright disagree with such a thing in principle (I myself am pretty strict with regards to copyright, trademark, and patent law), this badge is being backed by the Motion Picture Association, which undoubtedly means that it will be extremely one-sided in its views. (The term "intellectual property" itself is misleading.)

REAL ID

Yet another reason to not live in the US. Read Bruce Schneier’s comment on REAL ID. Schneier is a brilliant man when it comes to security. To all the Americans who don’t like the way their government is going, come to Canada. We’ll never do something that stupid — unless maybe if the Conservatives come to power (although I doubt even they would try something like that). But we should be safe for a while. If the Conservatives win this spring, it will most likely be a minority.

Breeding for a cure

This is frightening.

RSA-200 factored

One more step in the RSA factoring challenge has been achieved. RSA-200, a 200-digit (decimal) number has been factored. (/., WikiNews, MathWorld). Apparently, the researchers used the General Number Field Sieve, and it took "55 CPU years", which is a useless unit of measurement.