From ZDNet: “While Microsoft peppers the media with promotions surrounding the release of Windows XP, new versions of three major commercial Linux distributions also hit store shelves this week.”

Kelly McNeill writes “It seems as if using computers from the command line is considered “advanced” and only gets taught at higher levels of education. I disagree. I believe that the command line should be the first interface that a user encounters. The first thing a user should learn is “ls” because that way they will learn what a filesystem is. They will learn how to organize their files. They will learn how to pipe programs together into powerful commands.”

Kelly McNeill writes, “It is disturbing that Culp has determined exactly what the right course of action is, without first holding any open and honest consultations with the groups affected. It is my opinion that not only is what he says untrue, it also could be armful to the discovery and ultimate removal of any security flaws.” It’s at osOpinion.com.

ZDNet: “More than half a million customers have registered a .info domain name during the first 90
days of operation, according to Afilias, the official registry for the new global top level
domain (gTLD).

The 500,000 milestone comes after Afilias received heavy criticism of its handling of the .info
sunrise period this summer. The .com domain took more than five years to reach the same level
of registrations.”

CNET News.com: “The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is evaluating new “vertical markets” as a means of
increasing revenues, according to a source within the company. Among the considerations are
new niche searches for periodicals, medical information or technology that Web surfers or
companies would pay to use.”

CNET News.com: “Slashdot.org, the “news for nerds” Web site popular among software developers and Linux
fans, said this week that it plans to use larger ads and offer a subscription service.

When Slashdot increases ad sizes, it plans to introduce a subscription service for people who
want to pay for an ad-free version. Jeff Bates, who runs the site, said Thursday that Slashdot will
launch the new ads and subscription service early next year. The cost of the service has yet to
be determined.” Slashdot and NewsForge are part of OSDN, owned by VA Linux.

An overreaching “anti-terrorism” bill passed
Congress today
without adequate hearings and debate at the urging
of the
Bush Administration. Both houses have passed the
bill, now
called the USA PATRIOT Act. The president will
likely sign
it into law by Friday.EFF’s civil liberties and technology experts are
available
for media interviews.

The USA PATRIOT Act:

http://www.eff.org/sc/20011025_hr3162_usa_patriot_bill.html

Background information on anti-terrorism
legislation:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/

EFF is preparing further commentary and analysis for
publication at http://www.eff.org/

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading
civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in
the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively
encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression, privacy, and openness in the information
society. EFF is a member-supported organization and
maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the
world:
http://www.eff.org/

– end –

Anonymous Reader writes “MP3 Newswire has posted The RIAA’s open letter demanding an appology for an article that appeared in Billboard titled “RIAA Criticized Over Effort to Change Anti-Terrorism Bill.”” One of RIAA’s complaints is that the Billboard reporter didn’t actually talk to RIAA as the reason for the story’s inaccuracy. The letter doesn’t explain how Wired News reporter Brad King, who broke the story last week and actually spoke with a RIAA rep for the better part of an hour before writing his piece, managed to reach the same conclusions as Billboard’s scribe.

Reported at CNET News.com: “”We are going to support the latest
versions of Opera and Mozilla so
people will be able to get the MSN
experience,” said Bob Visse,
MSN’s director of marketing.

But, Visse warned, “the experience
may be slightly degraded simply
because they don’t support the
standards we support closely, as far
as the HTML standard in those
browsers.””

Kelly McNeill writes “Tuesday, Apple unveiled its highly anticipated iPod MP3 player, a device that many believe will lead to a series of products meant to realize the company’s vision for making its brand the “digital hub” for all external devices. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I’d like to take this time to analyze the iPod’s specifications, compare it to competing products and see how it will fare against the competition.”