From the “not really news” department comes the report that Janet Reno and the FBI are begging Congress not to lighten up on crypto restrictions. It seems to me that they’re all just buying time until the courts clear up this mess.

Speaking of lobbyists, Salon has an interesting article about the availability of overtime pay for tech workers today. Apparently, tech workers are specifically denied the right to collect overtime thanks to the zealous lobbying efforts of our benevolent employers. The exemption is ignored by California law, but the lobbyists working for the Silicon Valley are working to change that. I’m so glad to know that our employers are willing to demonstrate their concern for our quality of life by spending their money on lobbying for looser labor laws instead of just coughing up overtime pay. The article also discusses the idiotic ‘overtime stigma’ that is attached to people who aren’t willing to work for free out of some misbegotten sense of charity for a profit-making enterprise.

Real Networks has made its way onto the Realtime Blackhole List for spamming.

You knew it had to happen soon or later … an Internet industry lobbying group has been formed. (Yeah, I already know about TechNet, they’re a computer industry lobbying group.)

The Industry Standard is taking an interesting look at what comes next after the standard PC.

Just in time to coincide with the release of Office 2000, is the Cult of the Dead Cow’s Back Orifice 2000. There’s a Web site at www.bo2k.com, but it appears to be down, probably due to excess traffic. InfoWorld also has a Back Orifice article that describes its capabilities, and includes some gratuitous whining from a Microsoft employee. The latest version of Back Orifice is released under the GPL, so you can use it as a foundation for your own Windows “administration tools.”

The saga of QNX and Amiga continues.

Has anyone seen any news releases about Microsoft Passport?

I know nobody pays attention to the Amiga any more (I know I don’t), but I still found this bit of computer industry intrigue too good to pass up. Last year, Amiga dubbed QNX as their partner to create a new version of the Amiga operating system. Within the past few days, QNX made an announcement about their support for the Amiga, with screenshots and everything. Yesterday, Amiga announced that the next version of the Amiga operating system would use the Linux kernel. I’m wondering whether QNX made their announcement with prior knowledge of Amiga’s plans to dump them, in order to put pressure on them not to delay the release further by going with a different kernel. Interesting stuff.

Web Review has a very high level article on PHP.