CNet has a story on SafeMessage, a messaging service that lets people send heavily encrypted
email directly to each other, which could be a boon for privacy advocates but a
headache for law enforcement authorities.

CT2600 has gone on the offensive against the MPAA in the Connecticut version of the DeCSS cases. CT2600 has filed a motion to dismiss claiming that the motion picture companies are the wrong plaintiffs and that DeCSS is not an access circumvention device. Read the brief here. -Anonymous Reader

After many delays, the NewsForge discussion page is finally open for business (and pleasure). There is no such thing as an “off topic” post in any one thread here, unlike a certain other site we could name.Also unlike that other site, only our editors have moderation power so far, but that may change; we’ll see how things go.

We have made our discussions page totally open-ended. Anything you want to say that relates to Open Source or free software in any way is on-topic here, and you are free to set your own subject whether or not it has to do with any stories we have run recently.

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If you register (assuming you haven’t already), you can also do neat things like customize your NewsForge home page and see a groovy grey bar across the NewsVac Links section that’ll show you where you left off reading the last time you checked NewsForge. But we can talk about the benefits of having a NewsForge account at another time — like after we get t-shirts printed or come up with some other slick giveaway.

And please, don’t expect anything as fancy as a car if you sign up with NewsForge, okay? We’re focused on news, not glitz, around here. To have a chance of winning the much-ballyhooed Slashdot Cruiser, you need to sign up at OSDN.com, the central site for the whole Open Source Development Network, of which NewsForge is merely one small (although *ahem* vital) part.

GovTech.net interviews Open Source evangelist Eric S. Raymond: “A few
months
ago, I was
talking to
Raymond
on the
phone,
when I
called a
computer
criminal a
hacker’
instead of
a ‘cracker.’ He hung up on me. I bet
I’m not the first. I suspect that
somewhere there is a ‘Survivors of
ESR’ support group for journalists.
They probably have T-shirts and
everything. It took more than a few
e-mails to smooth things over.”

From a story at ZDNet: “Intel Corp. may have a Halloween treat for tech trick-or-treaters the launch of the Pentium 4 processor for desktop PCs. The chip maker will launch the next-generation processor for desktops in the last week of October, probably Oct. 30.”

Metro Link has announced the closing of a deal which
provides the company with $5.6 million in cash and stock from Linux
Global Partners, a New York-based
venture capital firm. The press release is posted at LWN.net.

LinuxDevices has a how-to article: “A new set-top box computer
form-factor from Allwell (in Taiwan) enables embedded Linux developers to create great
looking products without the hassle and huge expense of building it themselves.”

The dates are:
Zope 101 and 201 at San Diego, Calif., Sept. 25-28; and Zope 101 and 201 at Denver, Colo., Oct. 2-5. The announcement’s at LWN.net.

Jesse Berst’s Anchordesk addresses questions from readers about why he “picks on” the software giant: “Or this one: If Microsoft is so bad, why can’t I find anything that works any better?
This argument relies on a total lack of awareness of the market. Microsoft owns 80% to 90% share in key segments. For all intents, there are no options.”

ZDNet has a followup story on Mozilla.org’s release of its roadmap document this week. “Slow and steady” progress is being made on the browser.