John Buckman (BookMooch founder) joins EFF Board of Directors

[This was announced in the EFF newsletter back in September.]

Source: http://www.eff.org/press/releases/2007/09#005443

* Two Leading Technologists Join EFF Board of Directors

Free Culture Leader John Buckman and Privacy and Security Expert Lorrie Faith Cranor Sign on to Distinguished Team

San Francisco - The Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has elected two leading technologists to join its executive board: free culture leader John Buckman and privacy and security expert Lorrie Faith Cranor.

John Buckman is a programmer, an entrepreneur, and the founder of Magnatune.com — an online record label that strives to be fair to both recording artists and consumers alike. The Magnatune site provides web-based distribution to over 250 recording artists and features an innovative tool for online music licensing for film, television, and new media. This Creative Commons-backed business model has helped establish Buckman as a leader in the free culture movement. Buckman is also the founder Bookmooch.com, an online community for the exchanging of used books. His past accomplishments include having founded email software company Lyris in 1994, which he sold to JL Halsey in 2005. He also created Tile.net, an early web site directory that was purchased by Internet.com in 2001.

“EFF fights to protect the rights of artists and fans who use technology to make and enjoy creative works,” said Buckman. “I’m happy to join them in taking on these cutting-edge issues.”

Lorrie Faith Cranor is an Associate Research Professor in the School of Computer Science and the department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book “Security and Usability” and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). Cranor has authored over 80 research papers on online privacy, phishing and semantic attacks, spam, electronic voting, anonymous publishing, usable access control, and other topics. She has also testified as an expert in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Internet “harmful to minors” laws. In 2003, Cranor was named one of the top 100 innovators 35 or younger by Technology Review magazine. She was previously a researcher at AT&T Labs Research and taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

“The privacy and security policy decisions made now will have far-reaching implications in the years to come,” said Cranor. “I’m pleased to work with EFF as they champion the public interest in these important debates.”

Other members of EFF’s executive board include John Perry Barlow, David Farber, Edward W. Felten, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, Joe Kraus, Lawrence Lessig, Pamela Samuelson, Shari Steele, and Brad Templeton.

“EFF is so fortunate to have such a distinguished Board of Directors, comprised of leaders in technology, policy, and law,” said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. “John and Lorrie bring a wonderful wealth of experience to EFF and will help us continue to think about our role in relation to emerging technologies.”

BookMooch in the NY Times

Clear the Bookshelf and Fill It Up Again, All Online - New York Times

A good introduction and some background on this wonderful social site.

FreeRice

FreeRice > Take a multiple-choice vocabulary quiz and feed people for every word correctly or incorrectly identified. How cool is that? The more you play, they more food gets delivered. It’s also adaptive to individual skill levels.

I think I could definitely use some help with my lexicon (50¢ please).

del.icio.us information

Have you been curious about this del.icio.us thing but hesitate to dive in or can’t tell what the hell it is? This video from Common Craft could help (1):

del.icio.us certainly isn’t the only “social bookmarking” (2) system available. A worthy contender to the crown are the Simpy (3). But the are Simpy del.icio.us and only ones isn’t (4).  And I mean it.

Here’s an example - all my bookmarks tagged “bookmarks”: http://del.icio.us/bobodod/bookmarks

Lawrence Lessig on ending corruption

Lawrence Lessig (1) (2), professor of law at Stanford Law School, founder of the Creative Commons (3) and board member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (4) has announced his next ten years will be dedicated to ending corruption (5) (6).

Where do I sign up?! Well, probably at Lessig’s Corruption wiki (7).

(If you would like to see more of Mr. Lessig, take a look at “The Withering of the Net: How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net” (8) (9). Very worth the 40 minutes.)