Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43228750/ns/technology_and_science-security/
pc games pc world business software development news open source software news
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
New DroidDream malware infects 24 Android apps
Attention, Android fans: DroidDream is back, and your mobile security is again at stake.
Infosmack 101 - Smack down
Quiz show time
And on Infosmack this week is an enterprise tech quiz show we call "Smack Down".?
Source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/31/infosmack_episode_101/
Will Sony Bloggie 3D bring mainstream to 3D?
I bought a Sony Bloggie 3D last week because I am researching 3D. Vizio gave me a 65-inch 3D TV to help in this research and to give me a screen for the studio I’m building, too, but that will be the point of a future look at 3D. Yesterday I shot video at a [...]
Source: http://scobleizer.com/2011/05/29/will-sony-bloggie-3d-bring-mainstream-to-3d/
Facebook beta testing improved Android App
If you frequent social networks and have an Android device, then you've almost certainly used the Facebook application and chances are that you've found its functionality somewhat lacking, particularly when compared to the iOS app or the website itself.
Luckily the developers behind the app haven't been sitting still. A few...
Luckily the developers behind the app haven't been sitting still. A few...
SilverlightShow for May 23-29, 2011
Check out the Top Five most popular news at SilverlightShow for SilverlightShow Top 5 News for May 23-29, 2011.
Here are the top 5 news on SilverlightShow for last week:
- Entity Framework 4.1 Code First, Silverlight, and Shared Models with REST+JSON
- A Simple Physics Game using Silverlight and Farseer Engine
- Windows Phone 7 Mango - Sockets
- Using IIS Express to Secure Silverlight and WCF Applications
- Windows Phone 7 Mango - Silverlight and XNA integration
Stay in the 'Light
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/geekswithblogs/%7E3/HaVr2-AZRr0/145642.aspx
MSI Makes the 3GB N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition Official
After it has been spotted on various websites, MSI has finally made official the N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition graphics card which packs 3GB of video buffer memory and is the company's most advanced solution based on the Nvidia GTX 580 design.
The card has the same Twin Frozr IIi cooling system as the regular Lightnin...
The card has the same Twin Frozr IIi cooling system as the regular Lightnin...
CNET Road Trip Picture of the Day Official Sweepstakes Rules
The official sweepstakes rules for the CNET Road Trip Picture of the Day sweepstakes, which runs from May 30 through August 7, 2011.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20065451-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
computer security news slash dot linux news popular science articles
Monday, May 30, 2011
Academic Publishers Attempting To Eliminate Fair Use At Universities [Updated]
There are stories about legal battles over copyright that make you shake your head in bewilderment. There are some that make you chuckle. And then there are some that simply infuriate, such as this one sent in by Chris ODonnell.
For those who may not be aware, e-reserves are a practice by which universities can share course materials with students, relying heavily on fair use. Basically, it used to be that professors would have to reserve printed materials in the university library for students, the school paying permission fees for each printed copy. In the digital world, of course, this is wholly unnecessary. Professors more often put a single copy of the reading material up on a school server, slap some password protections on it to make sure only students of the class have access, and all of that dead tree copying suddenly becomes antiquated. This, of course, is great for education, as students who are already paying rising costs for course material and tuition suddenly don't have to share in the materials cost for digital goods now protected under fair use. It's a huge win for higher education, something every good citizen realizes is of rising importance in the global economy.
So, of course the content creators are suing. Specifically in what reeks of a test case, Cambridge, Oxford, & Sage publishers are filing against Georgia State University and asking the court to issue one of the all-time-detrimental-to-education injunctions in the modern era.
Some quick background is probably in order. E-reserves have long been a contentious issue for academic publishers. Publishers Weekly has been following the long history of so-called academic publishers using strong-arm tactics to get institutions to limit what can be done with e-reserves:
That would be bad enough, but the injunction the publishers are seeking against Georgia State is even worse. This is outlined by Kevin Smith, Duke University's first Scholarly Communications Officer, in a piece entitled "A Nightmare Scenario For Higher Education". Smith notes several revelations about the injunction, which would first seek to make Georgia State University responsible for everything that is copied within their grounds and associated web spaces. It does this by enjoining university students and professors to the injunction. It includes not only e-reserves, but also faculty web pages and LMS systems, effecitively encompassing the entire educational institution under Georgia State's responsibility to monitor materials available to anyone anywhere. Smith notes:
But it gets even worse. Smith discusses how permission fees are the real goal here, as well as the obliteration of fair use for all of Georgia State, before noting:and they want to make it a rule that no more than 10% of course material may be material that was acquired without payment. It's classic monopolistic behavior: you have to pay for our stuff and you have to use our stuff by rule, therefore you must pay no matter what. If this sounds familiar, it's because music publishers have tried this on high school radio stations in the past. Update: A bunch of commenters make the convincing point that we may have read too much into the 10% limit, and that it does not forbid other types of licenses... though the agreement is still highly questionable on almost every other point.
To summarize, we've got "academic" publishers threatening litigation upon universities that are sharing educational material, under clear fair use protections, in a more efficient manner to further knowledge, while at the same time attempting to codify rules demanding that they use such material. All while education costs rise and the United States continues its hand-wringing over its slipping education system.
To summarize more succinctly, I have to go throw up now.
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For those who may not be aware, e-reserves are a practice by which universities can share course materials with students, relying heavily on fair use. Basically, it used to be that professors would have to reserve printed materials in the university library for students, the school paying permission fees for each printed copy. In the digital world, of course, this is wholly unnecessary. Professors more often put a single copy of the reading material up on a school server, slap some password protections on it to make sure only students of the class have access, and all of that dead tree copying suddenly becomes antiquated. This, of course, is great for education, as students who are already paying rising costs for course material and tuition suddenly don't have to share in the materials cost for digital goods now protected under fair use. It's a huge win for higher education, something every good citizen realizes is of rising importance in the global economy.
So, of course the content creators are suing. Specifically in what reeks of a test case, Cambridge, Oxford, & Sage publishers are filing against Georgia State University and asking the court to issue one of the all-time-detrimental-to-education injunctions in the modern era.
Some quick background is probably in order. E-reserves have long been a contentious issue for academic publishers. Publishers Weekly has been following the long history of so-called academic publishers using strong-arm tactics to get institutions to limit what can be done with e-reserves:
"Indeed, there has been mounting concern over e-reserve practices since the early 1990s, when publishers predicted that e-reserves could erode revenue from printed coursepacks. In 1994 publishers sought to deal with e-reserves at the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), but the issue proved so contentious that the participants could not agree on a recommendation for the final report. Since then, the threat of litigation has loomed over a number of universities concerning their e-reserves, as publishers' reproduction revenues dipped."Read carefully, and you can immediately see what's going on here. Basically, the digital world has made sharing educational documents more efficient, such that reproducing printed copies of material is no longer a necessity. And academic publishers are freaking out because a revenue stream is threatened. This, of course, is where fair use should come into play as a protection for those seeking to share and enhance knowledge for our nation's young people, something which virtually everyone would agree is important. But not so-called academic publishers. For them, it's that revenue stream that's important, and the progress of the nation's knowledge be damned.
That would be bad enough, but the injunction the publishers are seeking against Georgia State is even worse. This is outlined by Kevin Smith, Duke University's first Scholarly Communications Officer, in a piece entitled "A Nightmare Scenario For Higher Education". Smith notes several revelations about the injunction, which would first seek to make Georgia State University responsible for everything that is copied within their grounds and associated web spaces. It does this by enjoining university students and professors to the injunction. It includes not only e-reserves, but also faculty web pages and LMS systems, effecitively encompassing the entire educational institution under Georgia State's responsibility to monitor materials available to anyone anywhere. Smith notes:
"In short, administrators at Georgia State would have to look over the shoulders of each faculty member whenever they uploaded course material to an LMS or any other web page. Arguably, they would have to monitor student copying at copiers provided in their libraries, since GSU would be enjoined from “encouraging or facilitating” any copying, beyond a limit of about 4 pages, that was done without permission."The whole concept of higher education revolves around the ability of an institution's professors to share and expound upon knowledge. The very label of "a free exchange of ideas" now goes out the window, as the injunction results in the giving up of fair use by not only university staff, but students as they try to learn. Let's be clear: students are attempting to use this material to further knowledge while "academic" publishers are putting up roadblocks.
But it gets even worse. Smith discusses how permission fees are the real goal here, as well as the obliteration of fair use for all of Georgia State, before noting:
"Added to these rules from the Guidelines is a new restriction, that no more than 10% of the total reading for any particular class could be provided through non-permissive copying. The point of this rule is nakedly obvious. If a campus had the temerity to decide that it was going to follow the rules strictly (since the flexibility which is the point of fair use would be gone) and make sure that all of its class readings fell within the guidelines, they still would be unable to avoid paying permission fees. Ninety percent of each class’s reading would be required, under this absurd order, to be provided through purchased works or copies for which permission fees were paid, no matter how short the excerpts were."I'll paraphrase in case there are others like me, because when I read the above my brain immediately began attacking my eyeballs for exposing it to something so utterly ridiculous. Publishers are attempting to require universities to pay more in permission fees for using their content
To summarize, we've got "academic" publishers threatening litigation upon universities that are sharing educational material, under clear fair use protections, in a more efficient manner to further knowledge, while at the same time attempting to codify rules demanding that they use such material. All while education costs rise and the United States continues its hand-wringing over its slipping education system.
To summarize more succinctly, I have to go throw up now.
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Twitter Close To Acquiring AdGrok
We're hearing from multiple sources that Twitter is in talks to acquire Y Combinator-backed key word bidding platform�AdGrok for a deal that is less than $10 million. It's still unclear where exactly the deal is in the closing process or whether this is a tech acquisition or an acqui-hire. AdGrok itself automates the process of bidding on contextual keywords on Google AdWords, perhaps Twitter could find some use in this for their own promoted trends? 
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WhwmhOZBeUw/
Release roundup: Power, memory, cases, and mice
This week, Corsair, Cooler Master, Enermax, and NZXT are featured in our look at miscellaneous release announcements that didn't make it into our regular news coverage.
Corsair announces world's fastest production 8GB PC memory kit. Not everybody has $499 to spend on a single memory kit,...
Corsair announces world's fastest production 8GB PC memory kit. Not everybody has $499 to spend on a single memory kit,...
Source: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/21014
technology review wiki cnet solid state technology harvard business review
Nvidia Kal-El promises quad-core mobile graphics (Digital Trends)
Digital Trends - Nvidia?s Tegra graphics processor might be the current top-dog for graphics in the universe of Android devices, but Nvidia has already outlined its plans to dominate the mobile graphics arena for years to come. Last February, the company announced its forthcoming Kal-El quad-core mobile graphics chip, and now the company has provided an update on its progress, releasing a demo video of Kal-El?s real-time lighting and physics capabilities on a HoneyComb Android tablet?and all the lighting and physics are calculated in real time, rather than merely playing back canned video animations. The video is called ?GlowBall,? and features a glowing ball lighting up and moving through a 3D ?creepy funhouse? environment.
apple daily news oriental daily ming pao daily apple daily english
Last chance to see space shuttle in night sky
With NASA's space shuttle Endeavour set to undock from the International Space Station late Sunday, skywatchers across much of the United States and southern Canada are in for a real treat: They'll have one last chance to see Endeavour in the night sky before the shuttle retires for good.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43196938/ns/technology_and_science-space/
computer magazines computer security news slash dot linux news
Foxconn worker from Chengdu factory commits suicide
Sadly, a 20-year-old male employee at Foxconn (Apple's contract manufacturer for many products) committed suicide Thursday morning, according to a report from the Hong Kong China News Agency (HKCNA) cited by Bloomberg. The worker was reportedly employed at the company's new facility in Chengdu where an explosion killed three workers on May 20.
Further details about Thursday morning's incident are sparse, and the reasons behind the factory worker's suicide are currently unknown. This is at least the 14th publicized death by suicide among Foxconn's workforce since the start of 2010.
Foxconn chairman Terry Gou declined to comment about the incident saying he doesn't know the full details about the apparent suicide. However, last year, Gou said suicides by Foxconn employees were prompted by personal issues rather than tough working conditions in his company's facilities.
Labor groups like China Labor Watch disagree. Foxconn's critics have slammed the Taipei-based company for operating facilities with a sweatshop atmosphere -- an accusation Gou vehemently denies.
In response to last year's suicides and subsequent harsh criticism, Foxconn, which builds electronic products for several other recognizable brands including Sony and Dell, raised wages, slashed overtime, offered counseling, and tried to improve the work-life balance for its more than one million factory workers in China.
Although Foxconn's suicide rate remains markedly lower than China's national average, Thursday morning's death, last Friday's explosion, and protests outside a Foxconn shareholder meeting earlier this month suggest the manufacturer has more work to do to improve employee safety and overall satisfaction.
Our thoughts and condolences go out to the friends and family of the young man who died.
Foxconn worker from Chengdu factory commits suicide originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/27/foxconn-worker-from-chengdu-factory-commits-suicide/
Smartphones threaten TV advertising
Hollywood is afraid of online video streaming, but a recent study suggests their biggest threat is the smartphone. IPG Media Lab and YuMe looked at people's behaviors when they watched TV. They discovered participants had the TV on, but were not always actively engaged. About 94% of the study's 48 participants were distracted during the 30 minutes of watching. The smartphone was the biggest culprit and accounted for 60% of these distractions.
The researchers also compared DVRs with the smartphone and found that turning your head to look at your phone had a greater impact than fast forwarding through a commercial. This isn't rocket science. When you glance away, you miss the commercials on TV. When you zoom through the commercial, you get glimpses of the ad which still leaves an impression.
My own usage mirrors this study. When my phone chimes at a new tweet or an incoming email, I quickly turn away from the TV and see what just came in. TV advertisers have an uphill battle as this practice of checking my phone is so ingrained that it's almost automatic. The only way to stop it would be to devise a method to detect when the TV is on and disable my phone.
Smartphones threaten TV advertising originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/27/smartphones-threaten-tv-advertising/
Sunday, May 29, 2011
ASUS PadFone shown off in proper brightness ahead of launch? (Update: new mockup)
Update: So here's our theory: the slide button ASUS teased in round one is probably for unlatching a cover on the back, which in turn houses the phone in a landscape docking bay underneath. We're basing this on the oddly positioned dent that could very well be an opening for the phone's camera, so the cover would either pop out on a hinge or be entirely removable. See our own rough mockup after the break.
Continue reading ASUS PadFone shown off in proper brightness ahead of launch? (Update: new mockup)
ASUS PadFone shown off in proper brightness ahead of launch? (Update: new mockup) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 08:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Notebook Italia | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/asus-padfone-shown-off-in-proper-brightness-ahead-of-launch/
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New Mexico sticks with its spaceport dream
Construction of the world's first built-from-scratch spaceport is moving ahead despite the challenges posed by Mother Nature and the site's location in New Mexico's "no man's land."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43207943/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Apple orders iCab iOS browser to cripple JavaScript modules
Presumably it's not the fact that iCab can execute JavaScript that's causing Apple to apoplectically puff and splutter, but rather its ability to download modules. Both Apple and Google frown upon apps that contain market-like functionality, and someone at Apple probably thought that iCab's JavaScript modules looked like a bit too much like discrete apps.
Alexander Clauss, iCab's developer, has rather a lot to say on the matter. "Maybe if I would have called the modules 'smart bookmarks' and would have made installing them much more complicated, Apple would have never asked to remove the ability to download them from the internet. The great user experience of installing modules has probably created a suspicion that these modules are more than just a piece of JavaScript code. From a pure technical point of view, if Apple does not allow to download modules (JavaScript code), Apple would also have to disallow to load web pages in general, because these do also contain JavaScript code."
In conclusion, to circumvent Apple's draconian decree, iCab Mobile now simply comes bundled with some 20 JavaScript modules. The ability to download modules made by third-party developers has been disabled, however -- but even then, Clauss says that you can simply contact him and ask for your module to be bundled with the next version of iCab.
Download iCab Mobile for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch ($1.99)
Apple orders iCab iOS browser to cripple JavaScript modules originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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apple iphone news apple macbook news apple stock news microsoft news
The 10 Worst Lap Dance Songs of All Time
Just try to get a boner while listening to these. We dare you.
Source: http://digg.com/news/entertainment/the_10_worst_lap_dance_songs_of_all_time
Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time
We're not entirely sure of the time line here, but it looks like Google has now rolled out the SPDY HTTP replacement to its full bevy of Web services, including Gmail, Docs, and YouTube. If you're currently using Google's Chrome browser you're probably already using SPDY.
We originally reported on SPDY way back in November 2009, when Google introduced it as yet another experiment in making the Web faster, like Go, Native Client and speculative pre-connections. Over the last 18 months, though, SPDY support has found its way into the stable build of Chrome.
SPDY is basically a streamlined and more efficient version of HTTP. At its most basic, SPDY introduces parallel, multiplexed streams over a single TCP connection -- but at the same time, SPDY allows for prioritization, so that vital content (HTML) can be sent before periphery content (JavaScript, video). All in all, the SPDY protocol can halve page load times, which is obviously rather significant.
The best bit, though, is that SPDY is an open-source project. HTTP 1.1 is a lumbering beast that needs to be replaced before low-latency real-time computing really becomes a reality, and SPDY is one of the best options currently on the table. To be honest, we're not sure why SPDY hasn't received more coverage -- it's awesome in every way. At the moment, though, the only way to help speed up SPDY's proliferation, is with an experimental Apache mod.
As far as actually 'trying it out,' your best bet is downloading Chrome, hitting up some Google sites, and then checking chrome://net-internals to see your active SPDY sessions. SPDY is a transparent replacement for HTTP, though, and as such it's rather hard to see its effects. Google's sites definitely feel fast in Chrome, but there are more technologies than just SPDY at work.
Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Take that, content. APIs get own delivery network
Apigee on the edge
Apigee ? a company dedicated to improving the use of APIs across the interwebs ? has unveiled an API delivery network designed to grease API calls in much the same way a CDN smooths the transfer of images and other net content.?
Source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/26/apigee_api_delivery_network/
Paul Allen's Lawsuit Patents To Be Reexamined
eldavojohn writes "Last year Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen filed suit against eleven tech companies citing patent infringement on four of his patents. Groklaw has followed up with some interesting documents that reveal three out of the four have already been granted a reexamination by the USPTO with the fourth still pending."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Munch On Me Is A Groupon For Food, Done Right
Munchonme is a daily deals site for food. But wait, before you click away to a slideshow about hot coders, Munchonme has got some features that might just reroute you from relying on the big G and coming back to its sweet sweet embrace. First of all Munchonme focuses on giving discounts on specific dishes, instead of onanything in the entire restaurant. Any business who's been a victim of the Groupon effect knows why this is important, namely because restaurants can prepare for the onslaught in advance, overloading on the inventory they expect will sell out.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/hYih1QcK4TE/
slash dot linux news popular science articles popular mechanics
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Malware Scanner Finds 5% of Windows PCs Infected
BogenDorpher writes "According to statistics generated by Microsoft's new free malware scanning and scrubbing tool, Safety Scanner, one in every twenty Windows PCs are infected with malware. Microsoft's Safety Scanner was downloaded 420,000 times in just one week of availability and it cleaned up malware or signs of exploitation from more than 20,000 Windows PCs, according to statistics generated by Microsoft's Malware Protection Center. This resulted in an infection rate of nearly 5%." That seems an awfully low number, based on how quickly Windows machines are scanned for plunder after going online; though it's a few years old, here's a report that suggests (as of 2007, at least) a grace period of less than 10 seconds. That was just one instance, and an intentionally vulnerable machine, but have improvements in security software software, and in Windows itself, made things so much better since then?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
True Legend review
Famed Chinese action director and the man behind some of the most famous American fight choreography, Yuen Woo-ping, returns with True Legend, a movie with a bizarre plot, but amazing action.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/digitaltrends/%7E3/qXqDJSYgG4I/
Recent Law School Grad Gets Berated By Judge, Then Sues Nearly Everyone Who Discussed The Case
Yikes. Here's a story that's been making the law blog rounds that I hadn't heard about until now. There's a lot of background here, so I'll see if I can catch you up. Apparently, the family of someone accused of murder hired a 2009 law school graduate named Joseph Rakofsky to be the accused man's lawyer. Rakofsky was admitted to the bar in New Jersey, but not in Washington DC where the case was heard. Apparently, Rakofsky did not do a very good job handling the case -- and the judge told him so in declaring a mistrial. The Washington Post covered the story, highlighting the judge's concern with Rakofsky:
There are, of course, all sorts of ways to respond to such criticism. You could, for example, admit that you were wrong. You could learn from the experience. You could, if you believed any of the reports were incorrect, reach out to those who wrote the stories and ask them to correct them. You could go into hiding. Rakofsky, on the other hand, chose to sue almost everyone who had discussed the story, creating a case that some legal bloggers quickly dubbed Rakofsky v. Internet. You can see a copy of his filing embedded below, but along with suing a ton of bloggers, Rakofsky sued the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Allbritton Communications and (believe it or not) the American Bar Association.
If you read the filing itself, it appears to be an attempt by Rakofsky to retry the murder case, going through many of the details in the case, before then stating that the judge in the case "slandered" Rakofsky... and posits that the judge may have done so because he was upset with the quality of Rakofsky's work in that it might help the accused:
Of course, all of this then leads to claims that pretty much everyone who repeated what happened in the courtroom or what Rakofsky actually did type in the email is guilty of defamation. One of the lawyers who was sued, Eric Turkewitz, has posted a pretty thorough discussion of the case, which is getting tons of attention and is worth reading in full. Turkewitz goes through the history, explains why he believes nothing he said was defamatory, and then, for good measure, piles on a few more things in an attempt to make his point clear:
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A D.C. Superior Court judge declared a mistrial Friday in a 2008 murder case and allowed the defendant to fire his New York-based attorney, who exhibited what the judge said were numerous signs that he lacked knowledge of proper trial procedure, including telling the jury during his opening statements that he had never tried a case before.Believe it or not, there's a lot more in the story. The story caught the attention of plenty of law blogs, who then wrote about it, and (not surprisingly) they were not kind to Rakofsky. One law blogger has been keeping a list of blog posts about Rakofsky -- including some questions about claims on Rakofsky's website that appear to overstate his experiences and qualifications.
Judge William Jackson told attorney Joseph Rakofsky during a hearing Friday that he was "astonished" at his performance and at his "not having a good grasp of legal procedures" before dismissing him.
What angered Jackson even more was a filing he received early Friday from an investigator hired by Rakofsky in which the attorney told the investigator via an attached e-mail to "trick" a government witness into testifying in court that she did not see his client at the murder scene.
According to the filing, Rakofsky had fired the investigator and refused to pay him after the investigator refused to carry out his orders with the witness. The filing included an e-mail that the investigator said was from Rakofsky, saying: "Thank you for your help. Please trick the old lady to say that she did not see the shooting or provide information to the lawyers about the shooting." The e-mail came from Rakofsky’s e-mail account, which is registered to Rakofsky Law Firm in Freehold, N.J.
There are, of course, all sorts of ways to respond to such criticism. You could, for example, admit that you were wrong. You could learn from the experience. You could, if you believed any of the reports were incorrect, reach out to those who wrote the stories and ask them to correct them. You could go into hiding. Rakofsky, on the other hand, chose to sue almost everyone who had discussed the story, creating a case that some legal bloggers quickly dubbed Rakofsky v. Internet. You can see a copy of his filing embedded below, but along with suing a ton of bloggers, Rakofsky sued the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Allbritton Communications and (believe it or not) the American Bar Association.
If you read the filing itself, it appears to be an attempt by Rakofsky to retry the murder case, going through many of the details in the case, before then stating that the judge in the case "slandered" Rakofsky... and posits that the judge may have done so because he was upset with the quality of Rakofsky's work in that it might help the accused:
... his anger may have been prompted by the diligence and zeal with which RAKOFSKY conducted his defense in the interest of the client as much as anything else, rather than any shortcoming in RAKOFSKY's knowledge of court procedure...He also tries to explain away his own email that asked the investigator to "trick" a witness by saying it meant something else:
... BEAN sought to exploit, for the purpose of receiving compensation that was not due him, an email, which had been hastily typed by RAKOFSKY on a mobile device, that used an unfortunate choice of the word "trick" -- which, as BEAN knew only too well, was a shorthand word that meant only that Bean should underplay the fact that he worked for the defense-- which memorialized an earlier conversation between BEAN and RAKOFSKY concerning a non-witness, referring only to RAKOFSKY's suggestion to BEAN to understate the fact that he was employed by the defense...And, yes, he goes on to claim that Bean then tried to "blackmail" him -- which certainly could lead to defamation charges back, if the claim is untrue.
Of course, all of this then leads to claims that pretty much everyone who repeated what happened in the courtroom or what Rakofsky actually did type in the email is guilty of defamation. One of the lawyers who was sued, Eric Turkewitz, has posted a pretty thorough discussion of the case, which is getting tons of attention and is worth reading in full. Turkewitz goes through the history, explains why he believes nothing he said was defamatory, and then, for good measure, piles on a few more things in an attempt to make his point clear:
Having given the basic outline of the story, I now turn to the part where I give my opinions. So let me go on to say that: In addition to being incompetent, I also think, based on the comments of the presiding judge, his co-counsel and the juror that spoke up, that he is unskillful, incapable, inept, unqualified, untrained, unprofessional, and clumsy. This is in addition to being a bumbler, blockhead, dolt, dingbat and chucklehead for having brought this suit, guaranteed to rain much unhappiness unto his name. I’ve got a thesaurus and I’m not afraid to use it.He also sums up the ridiculousness of the lawsuit perfectly:
What was Rakofsky thinking? That a bunch of lawyers that make their living in the well of the courtroom, accustomed to walking a high-wire without a net as we cross-examine hostile witnesses, would somehow cower in fear at an utterly frivolous lawsuit? Did he think that those of us that write blogs, for all to see, might not somehow have a basic grasp of the First Amendment? Didn’t he know, well before he even went to law school, that people have a right to set forth their opinions? How could he survive law school and pass a bar exam without knowing constitutional fundamentals? Perhaps the better question, why wasn’t he thinking of what would happen in response to such a suit? Was he a spoiled child that got everything he wanted simply by throwing a tantrum?This one seems like it will be fun to follow.
And those of us that are practicing lawyers are the small fries, compared with our co-defendants Washington Post, American Bar Association and Thompson Reuters. Like they are going to roll over and pull down their articles? Good grief.
Rakofsky’s choices at this point seem limited. But certainly, the first thing he ought to do is put away the damn shovel as he is burying himself with it.
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