Ars Technica: Virgin Mobile might be hopping on the “Copyright Enforcement Express.” And, for some reason, Samuel L. Jackson might be driving the muthafuckin’ train.

I can’t wait to see the first YouTube attempt at what Mr. Jackson’s anti-piracy commercial might look like. I suggest a reworking of the “Google Maps is Scary” video, only with Sammy J. showing up at the offenders’ door with one of those electric rope things from Jumper.

T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, knows a thing or two about monopolies. Now they want a slice of the color spectrum and, apparently, Engadget is getting in the way. [via]

Apparently, as a result of the USA PATRIOT Act, if you use Gmail,  you violate Canadian and European privacy laws. [via]

Just thought we’d let you know…

Ars Technica: AG Mukasey says “piracy funds terrorism.” Well, sort of.

In a recent speech, Mukasey - a man with eerily deliberate tastes - doesn’t go so far as to suggest the average P2P file-sharer is totally complicit. The article provides a good overview of various government initiatives aiming to crack down on commercial piracy and, believe it or not, hacking.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope.

It’s Superman’s AMAZING copyright reversion! [via]

It’s nice to be reminded that there are real heroes in the world, Judge Larson.

Ars Technica weighs in on the BitTorrent/Comcast truce.

Every Friday, Ben brings you SD&IF’s weekend space filler With Us / Against Us. Prepare to be torn down, then gloriously uplifted!

(more…)

The sun is shining. Readership is up. Spring is (tentatively) here. It’s a good day at sd&if. So, let’s recap the week, yes?

• Bloomberg: China, the Olympics, human rights, and…LeBron James. The article gives a brief, but pretty solid, overview of the many ethical challenges facing athletes, companies, and countries going into this summer’s games.
• Variety: Iran goes on censorship blitz.
• WP: Net Neutrality’s Quiet Crusader. SPOILER: It’s Ben Scott of Free Press.
• Gizmodo: Comcast n’ BitTorrent BFFs! Hilarious.
• ArsTechnica: Gotta solve that TCP congestion, dudes.
• Daily Star, Lebanon: Persepolis unbanned.
• Sun-Sentinel: Generacion Y, one of Cuba’s most popular blogs, being blocked by Cuban government.
• Boston Globe: On the privatization of libraries. Which, also, makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. Not the article, but the issue.

That about wraps it up for me this week. Ben will have With Us / Against Us done sometime between now and…well, all bets are off, folks. And, what the hell, go Wisconsin! And that’s something this Gopher grad never thought he’d say.

Happy Weekending!

UPDATE: So much for Wisconsin. I guess I’ll go back to being a Gopher fan. Which should make Ben happy.

Comcast and BitTorrent…together at last?

…and have a laugh.

Gawker’s got probably the best Tom Cruise crazy-as-beans Scientology video parody ever right here.

Wow. Really, wow.