Posted 9:07 AM (0) comments

Generic identity?

According to The Register (Moratorium on RFID chips urged), the usual cabal of "privacy advocates" are urging that Radio Frequency ID tags (RFID) be scrapped, trashed and junk-heaped. Once again, the neo-luddites who don't understand the needs of anyone else except themselves are doing their best to halt the advance of technology. RFID is a boon to the retail industry, especially the high-volume, low-margin industries such as mass merchants (e.g., Wal-Mart) and grocers (e.g., Safeway). The idea that someone, somewhere knows what you're buying has already been addressed (ad infinitum) under the guise of affiliate cards.

Let's chip in, but a south sea island and ship off all the privacy-at-all-cost, anonymity-now crusaders who can then create their own private, anonymous society and let the rest of us get on with our lives.

Posted 9:00 AM (0) comments

Newsflash: People prefer free to $$$

According to SCO's Darl MacBride, the GPL (Gnu Public License) threatens the $229 billion software market. The SCO Group CEO enlisted the help of the World Intellectual Property Organization to bolster his arguments against the open source GNU General Public License, or GPL, and Linux during a keynote address at the CD Expo conference in Las Vegas.

Here's another newsflash, Darl - there's no law which requires me to sell my intellectual property, I can choose to give it away (while still retaining copyright). I can even choose to release it into the Public Domain! Imagine that, freedom of choice - what an innovative concept!