David Kravets
Security

Felten, Fellow Tinkerers Predict $900 iPhone, Piracy Prosecutions

The scholars and other thinkers over at Freedom to Tinker are predicting some obvious and not so obvious outcomes for 2009. Among the least obvious is that "an affirmative action lawsuit will be filed against a university, challenging the use of a software algorithm used in evaluating applicants." For the Cult of Mac crowd, the […]

Picture_1_2 The scholars and other thinkers over at Freedom to Tinker are predicting some obvious and not so obvious outcomes for 2009.

Among the least obvious is that "an affirmative action lawsuit will be filed against a university, challenging the use of a software algorithm used in evaluating applicants." For the Cult of Mac crowd, the Tinkerers suggest, "Apple will release a netbook, which will be a souped-up iPhone with an 8'' screen and folding keyboard. It will sell for $899."

The most obvious is, "DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement." Another obvious prediction from the Tinkerers is that the Recording Industry Association will continue to sue individuals for file sharing copyrighted works, despite its pledge not to.

A less obvious prediction is that the Obama administration "will bring criminal actions against big-time individual copyright infringers based on data culled from server logs of a large 'private' BitTorrent community."

A rather optimistic prediction is that the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the Lori Drew case in 2009, but not issue a decision until the following year. Threat Level believes that's too optimistic, given the circuit is the nation's largest and most backlogged.

According to the Tinkerers, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, under which Drew was convicted, will result in "dozens" of lawsuits citing the act -- all "premised on the theory that one can exceed 'authorized access' or act 'in excess of authorization' by violating Terms of Service."

It seems as though one prediction has already come true. The Tinkerers say an "embarrassing leak of personal data will emerge from one or more of the social networking firms." Does this week's security breach by Twitter count?

What New Year's predictions do you have?

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