Dan Gillmor blasts both Microsoft and AOL in his column for their hypocrisy in the instant messaging flap.

In other Congressional news, two House committees have issued reports on the evils of cryptography. There’s not anything to say about this that hasn’t already been said.

The LA Times series on software conterfeiting continues today with an article about how computer companies are footing part of the bill for cracking down on counterfeiters. Interestingly, it’s against the law for the federal agencies (like the FBI) to take corporate money to act as mercenaries on their behalf, so the companies are doling out the dollars to local agencies to roam around the country cracking down on software pirates. Perhaps some victims of violent crime could get together and buy the police more guns and police cars, so that they can get more attention paid to their cases.

Want to know why most Americans are tired of politics? Consider the Congressional idiocy that underlies the current debate over tax cuts. Not only will the proposed tax cuts postpone any repayment of the national debt, but they will also largely benefit the rich, who, as we all know, really need the money.

Scott Rosenberg lends his opinion today in the continuing saga of San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris Nolan. You should read the column yourself, but he argues that the Internet economy has empowered journalists, and made them more independent from the publications that employ them. More stuff to think about, anyway.

I got an announcement this morning that sourceXchange is registering developers. The registration form wasn’t available earlier because of a DNS problem.

In case you don’t know, Microsoft has entered the instant messaging market, and in order to catch up with the entrenched players, they’re offering interoperability with existing products. AOL is the entrenched player, they’re pissed off, and they’re blocking Microsoft. Right now, Microsoft has successfully made their product, MSN Messenger Service, communicate with AOL Instant Messenger (ICQ support is forthcoming). Of course, the problem is this whole market is filled with slimy companies. AOL is desperately trying to hang on to the market share that they have, and Microsoft is just playing the interoperability game long enough to capture enough of the market to kill everyone else. A pox on both their houses, I say.

Home of the Underdogs is a museum of older computer games that the site maintainer thought never got the acclaim they deserved when they were released. The list includes vintage games like Legacy of the Ancients, Hacker, MULE, and an entire Koei collection. Even if you don’t download any of the creaky games, check out the site for a walk through computer game history.

PJ Huffstutter, a reporter for the LA Times, has written an investigative piece about software counterfeiting in Southern California. It does a wonderful job of capturing the scope of the software piracy business, and best of all doesn’t contain any bogus “dollars lost” numbers from industry groups that are flogging their agenda.

Seen at netwinder.org: “If it wasn’t for C we’d all be using BASI, PASAL, and OBOL.” -Andrew Cole