Surprising, But Good, News: FTC Appoints Ed Felten As CTO

from the excellent dept

Thu, Nov 4th 2010 4:58pm — Mike Masnick

This is a surprise, but really excellent news. Princeton Computer Science professor Ed Felten -- one of the few folks out there who seems to really understand various tech issues having to do with e-voting, DRM, net neutrality, copyright and other issues has been appointed as the first ever CTO of the FTC. Felten is the guy who was threatened by the RIAA years ago for cracking their DRM and daring to want to actually publish an academic paper about how weak the DRM was. He's also been heavily involved in exposing security weaknesses with e-voting machines (and has been legally threatened about that as well). His blog (which now includes posts from lots of others), called Freedom To Tinker, has long been a must read. Hopefully Felten is able to actually make a difference.

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Filed Under: ed felten
Companies: ftc

12 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 4 Nov 2010 @ 5:18pm

Good news
*crosses fingers*
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2010 @ 6:12pm

Hope he turns out ok and not like the Fedora forums :)

ps: Go to the Fedora forum and try to criticize the admnistrators/forum/Linux there and you see what I mean LoL
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Karl (profile), 4 Nov 2010 @ 6:34pm

Nice
I love his blog. Hopefully he'll actually make a difference.

Perhaps this even makes up for the loss of Rick Boucher.
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Dave, 4 Nov 2010 @ 6:42pm

WOW!
Mike,
That's great news! I truly can't believe it, especially after mountains of political stupidity regarding technology or music.

That's the best news in a long time!

Thanks.
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Chris in Utah (profile), 4 Nov 2010 @ 8:15pm

Love the spearhead on allourideas.com as well. I considered working on a project such as that a while back. Never did get it off the ground though ie forumforideas.
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AW, 4 Nov 2010 @ 11:32pm

Waiting for the other shoe to drop...good things don't happen in America without a heavy price paid for them. Mark my words it's a Trojan horse somehow.
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Jay (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 12:18am

Looks like someone may have a score to settle...
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 6:13am

Wow! Nice choice for a change. I can guarantee it wouldn't have happened with a Republican President. But the lobbyists will make him ineffective because they own the house and the senate and the politicians will ignore him because they will be told to.
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JustMe (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 6:22am

Way to go Ed!
Nice to see when good guys are rewarded for hard work and placed in positions where they can do some good.
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Gene Cavanaugh, 5 Nov 2010 @ 6:31am

Felten
Good article, well written.
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weneedhelp (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 10:18am

Humans are weak
I hope he does good things, but once the lobbyist start flashing money his way... lets hope there are still some ppl with integrity out there.
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Thomas (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 12:34pm

Unfortunately..
once the Republicans take over in the house, this guy will be out the door so fast since the lobbyists will tell the congresspeople "We gave you multiple millions for your campaign, get rid of this turkey or else."
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