You thought the Feds wanted to break Microsoft in half? You may have been right. Published reports say the Justice Department wants to do precisely that, breaking the Redmond, Wash. software giant into two separate companies operating under what the Washington Post called "tightly restrained" business practices for 10 years. Justice was all but ready to bring the recommendation to federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who had ruled Microsoft a monopoly, which broke American antitrust law. And early reports indicated nearly all 19 states which joined the legal action against Microsoft were ready to sign on to the Justice recommendation - even California, where state Attorney General William Lockyer had previously favored dividing Microsoft into three entities. Other parts of the Justice plan are said to include three-year restrictions on the operating systems company created under the split-up, which Justice believes would give personal computer makers more room to feature products made by Microsoft rivals. Microsoft's response to the proposal is expected in May, when a remedy hearing in the antitrust case is also scheduled.
LOS ANGELES - The judge who barred Kevin Mitnick from any use of computers or other communications technology for his probation period under a plea bargain figured that, at best, he wouldn't be able to earn much more than slightly above the minimum wage. Shows what she knew: the world's most notorious computer hacker is said to have $20,000 in coming speaking engagements lined up, and he's already been on the lecture circuit and publishing commentaries to earn his keep until probation ends. And the Feds aren't exactly thrilled - the federal probation department has ordered Mitnick, essentially, to put up and shut up if he doesn't want to go back to prison. He was freed in January. "They're saying I can no longer write nor speak about technology issues," Mitnick said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press April 27. "I think it is an abrogation of my First Amendment rights.... Probation is not supposed to be punitive." Mitnick's probation, however, only orders him to stay away from computers or anything else granting Internet access. It says nothing, reportedly, about speaking or writing on technology. "They don't like the idea of my being like a celebrity," he told the AP. "They are trying to chill my free speech in hopes that my notoriety will die down." The 36-year-old former hacker maintains he wants to teach others about protecting themselves against hacks and other cyber-intrusions. "This is good for the public and good for me because I feel productive," he continued. "I recognize the errors of my past and I want to be productive."
NEW YORK - Speaking of freedom of cyberspeech, Internet censorship is spreading among various governments, enough so to threaten traditional media liberty, says Freedom House in a newly-published report. "The explosion of news and information on the World Wide Web is tempting governments, developed and developing, politically free and not free, to consider restricting content on the Internet," the human rights group said in the new report, its 22nd annual press freedom survey. It's called "Censor Dot Gov: The Internet And Press Freedom 2000." Among the ways it says governments try restricting Net information include Internet-explicit licensing and regulation, holding the Web accountable under existing restrictive print and broadcast laws, filtering Net content by server control or government servers used to block incoming information, and censoring cybercontent "deemed unacceptable after dissemination." Freedom House said several countries restrict the Net on grounds of "protecting the public from subversive ideas or violation of national security" - one example, the report said, was parts of Asia, where some governments cite "traditional Asian values" as justification for Net censorship; or parts of the Middle East, where some governments use "protecting morality" as justification. But Freedom House doesn't let the U.S. off the hook, either, tweaking the Clinton Administration for trying to block Net porn with the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a law shot down as unconstitutional. Total figures, according to Freedom House: 60 percent of the world's nations restrict print and electronic journalists, and 80 percent of the world's people live with far less than a free press.
BELGIUM - Europe's Parliament is mulling limits on anonymous e-mail on grounds that kind of regulation would help police surveillance against criminals. The restriction was endorsed the week of April 17 by the parliament's ironically named Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice, and Home Affairs Committee. This might square with a recent American recommendation to consider similar regulations, but privacy advocates, according to early reports, are not amused. For one thing, such a law, if it passes, would fly in the face of some individual countries' laws - Germany, for example, has a law saying Internet service providers should offer anonymous use and payment accounts. For another thing, a Dutch member of parliament, Oussama Cherribi, said in January anonymous Web surfing itself should be a criminal offense with unlimited anonymity a penal offense. A Swiss representative told a United Nations conference a month later he favored regulations forcing Websites to get permits identifying themselves. Privacy advocates argue anonymity is how you hide from people you don't want spying on you, says Wired; but critics say that lets the crooks hide only too well online.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
