News Humor Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of themonth: Thursday, April 21st, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Church ofChampaign in Savoy. The Linux SIG convenes, of course, 45 minutes earlier,at 6:15 pm. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of this newsletter.
The April 21 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. The Linux SIGwill be looking into astronomical software. The Macintosh SIG will belearning about Carbon Copy Cloner. And, PC SIGs is open for anything anyonewants to bring in.
ToCCase is 1st Such U.S. Felony Conviction
By Karin Brulliard, Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page B03
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38788-2005Apr8.html
A Loudoun County judge yesterday sentenced the first person convicted offelony spam charges in the nation to nine years in prison but allowedhim to remain free on bond during his appeal.
Jeremy Jaynes, 30, of the Raleigh area of North Carolina, was convictedin November of violating Virginia's anti-spam statute by illegallyflooding America Online accounts with tens of thousands of bulk e-mailadvertisements. The case was tried in Loudoun because the e-mails, whichpeddled such products as stock pickers and a computer program, ranthrough an AOL server in the county.
In sentencing Jaynes, Circuit Judge Thomas D. Horne said he would notbegin serving his term because there are "substantial legal issues"related to the anti-spam law, enacted in 2003, that need to be explored.Horne also said he believes Jaynes does not pose a danger to society.
"This is a case of first impression. . . . It is a statute that is beingtried for the first time," Horne said.
Lisa Hicks-Thomas, a prosecutor with the computer crimes division of theVirginia attorney general's office, said she is certain the convictionand sentence will prevail on appeal.
"I'm satisfied that the court upheld what 12 citizens in Virginia havedetermined is an appropriate sentence," Hicks-Thomas said. The trialjury recommended Jaynes serve three consecutive three-year sentences.
David Oblon, Jaynes's attorney, expressed similar confidence thatdefense arguments would win on appeal and said that "any sentence istherefore moot."
He added: "However, the sentence was not what we recommended, and we're disappointed."
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Jaynes as the head of alucrative spam business that he operated from his home with help fromhis sister and codefendant, Jessica DeGroot, and a third defendant,Richard Rutkowski. They said the defendants used phony Internetaddresses to send more than 10,000 spam e-mails to America Onlinesubscribers on three days in July 2003 -- a volume that makes the crimea felony.
The jury convicted DeGroot in November and recommended she be fined$7,500, but Horne dismissed her conviction last month. Rutkowski wasacquitted.
Before hearing his sentence, Jaynes told Horne he never meant to causeanyone harm.
"I can guarantee the court I will never be involved in the e-mailmarketing business again," he said.
At the sentencing hearing, Oblon argued that a nine-year sentence wastoo long for a nonviolent crime. He asked Horne to run Jaynes's threesentences concurrently and suspend most or all of them.
Oblon referred to several letters written by Jaynes's friends and familymembers -- and one from former North Carolina attorney general RufusEdmisten -- that were submitted to the court as testament to Jaynes'scharacter.
Horne acknowledged the letters, which he said described Jaynes as aformer Eagle Scout who helped "the poor build houses," but he said thejury's recommended sentence reflected community sentiment about spammingand what he called its "tremendous societal costs."
Jaynes has been free on $1 million bond since November. But under theconditions of his bond, he must live in Loudoun County, can rarely leavehis home and must wear an electric monitor so officials can keep trackof his whereabouts.
Oblon said he would file a motion requesting the bond conditions beamended to allow Jaynes to return to North Carolina while the case wendsits way through appellate courts, a process he said could take fouryears.
ToCby John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)Media Minutes: March 25, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm032505.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm032505.pdf
Next month a round of discussions will take place on how to balanceglobal protection of intellectual property with universal freedom ofinformation. Such a task falls to the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization, a UN-sponsored agency. Unfortunately all too often manyof these discussions mirror neoliberal economic strategies. The sametrend seems to be taking place here: at the April talks, which willinvolve representatives of more than 180 countries, advocates for thepublic interest for the most part will not be allowed a seat at thetable. The Electronic Frontier Foundation says this is problematicbecause any discussions that do take place will be subsequently skewedtoward the perspectives of media industries and other private interestswho make their money off the trade of information. Currently the WorldIntellectual Property Organization is evaluating how copyright andpatent laws affect developing countries; the EFF says without adequatepublic representation in this discussion the agency's conclusions mayend up favoring big business' penchant for restrictions onknowledge-sharing over the public tendency to open information flows.
ToCThe REAL reason you should think DRM is evil
From: Colin Foster
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:02:53 -0800
From: "TidBITS Talk Discussion List" <tbtalk.tidbits.com>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08013>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2522>
Here's a side of DRM I never seem to see, but I think is the realreason DRM technology is being pushed so hard by the Content Cartel:repurchasing power.
There are 3 groups of people in the media content marketplace thatDRM technology might affect: Illegal Media Providers, Illegal MediaConsumers, and Honest Consumers.
1.) Does DRM technology stop the Illegal Media Providers frombypassing DRM restrictions or the mass distribution of DRM-freebinaries?
No. Not one piece of DRM protected media has ever been released thatcouldn't be broken in minutes.
Some say it is still a 'speed bump' to illegal copying but this isnot accurate. A technology that only needs one person on the planetto break it in order for all others to bypass, is an inconsequentialhindrance.
Some say the problem is just with the current generation of DRM andthat the NEXT generation will really stop the piracy. But by thenature of encryption, you can't both give a person 'the message' andkeep it from them at the same time. The Content Cartel already knowsthat DRM encryption will always be broken swiftly.
We have laws to make mass distribution of copyrighted materialillegal, but those laws exist independently of DRM. DRM technologydoes not aid those laws in any way.
Therefore, the Content Cartel isn't interested in DRM for its ability tostop people from ripping or distributing their content (because theyknow it can't).
2.) Does DRM stop the Illegal Media Consumers from downloading movies& music?
No. By the time someone is downloading something the DRM has beenremoved.
Therefore, the Content Cartel is not interested in DRM for its abilityto stop the people from illegally downloading content.
3.a.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using theircontent in ways that are illegal?
No. They're 'honest' consumers, remember? They don't want to doillegal things with their content. If they were dishonest then we'dhave to put them in the second group.
3.b.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using theircontent in ways that are legal?
Yes! There are a many examples one could give of the fair use ofdigital media that is blocked by DRM (see below). So, if this is theONLY group that DRM affects, why would the Content Cartel do this tothe Honest Consumers?
I think the answer to this question is grounded in the fact thatdigital media is lossless (that is, you can copy it an infinitenumber of times, and still have the same file, unlike analog formatssuch as records and tapes).
Consider how much money was made selling people music they alreadyowned but was worn out, or just available in a new format?player-piano scrolls to 3-minute-waxes, 3-minute-waxes to 78's, 78'sto 33's, 33's to Tapes, Tapes to CDs
That last step was the mistake. CD technology is digital and thatmeans if someone makes a backup copy of that music before it wearsout, they won't just own it for the rest of their life, so willanyone they bequeath their music collection to. Forever.
Even if there is a technology shift to a new medium, that new mediumwill be digital, so the conversion will happen without the need torepurchase the content.
It is this permanent ownership of perfectly reproducible content thatI think terrifies the Content Cartel. And it is Honest Consumerrepurchasing that I think the Content Cartel is really trying toperpetuate with DRM technology. Honest Consumers are in the VASTmajority so forcing them put purchase the same content multiple timesgenerates far more revenue than finding a way to make Illegal MediaConsumers purchase it just once.
"But how does DRM force repurchasing?" you may ask. Here are someexamples:
e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K.or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase yourDVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).
e.g., If you 'authorize' a media device to play music, but it isstolen/broken/lost/etc. you cannot de-authorize that device. Do that3 times (by the current rules -- which are subject to change at thewhim of the Content Cartel) and you'll be repurchasing all yourmusic. This 'authorized for 3 devices only' rule is a nice fail safeto make sure that EVENTUALLY music you once owned will have to berepurchased. Maybe not by the first owner of the content if they arevery careful, but the content almost certainly won't be passed to anew generation as a book or painting would.
e.g., If you want to make a VHS copy of a DVD so your kids can watchit on the VHS player you have in the car, you can't. You'll just haveto buy a VHS version of the movie you already own.
This is the major reason I feel that DRM is wrong (though there aremany others). I don't believe the Content Cartel is interested DRMtechnology for stopping illegal copying at all. They want to stopLEGAL copying, and reap the staggering financial rewards of forcingHonest Consumers to buy, and buy again.
-Colin.
[Editor's Note:
As they said in All The President's Men, "Follow the money." This wholebattle is for the ownership of our culture, a grandiose way of sayingcorporations want to own the content of our culture's creative outputand sell it back to us a copy at a time.
The Content Cartel are already the bottom feeders of our culture.Through the expiration of copyright. they already bring us, royaltyfree, those budget copies of Shakespeare and Dickens and other worksthat lapse into the public domain. But through the active swindling oftalent (John Fogerty and Billy Joel are just two that spring to mind),they reap the benefits of creativity they did not themselves produce.Add to that the egregious extension of copyright into the distant futureand we have a corporate stranglehold on the soul of our people.
Will there even be a public domain when they're through? And who willcontrol the content we as a society are allowed to consume? As BillMoyers said of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, when giving theKeynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform in Madison,Wisconsin, back on November 8, 2003, "The clear intent was to prevent amonopoly of commercial values from overwhelming democratic values - toassure that the official view of reality - corporate or government - wasnot the only view of reality that reached the people."
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/1112-10.htm ]
ToCJustices ask if restricting file sharing could stifle innovation, yetquestion online downloading.
March 29, 2005: 2:21 PM EST
URL: http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/29/technology/grokster.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices questioned Tuesday whetherthe recording industry's attempts to shut down online file-sharingnetworks would deter inventors from developing new products like Apple'siPod music player.
But the justices also suggested that peer-to-peer networks could be heldaccountable for copyright infringement because they attracted users bytelling them that they could copy music and movies for free.
Record labels and movie studios have sued to shut down peer-to-peersoftware makers like Grokster and Morpheus, arguing that the millions ofsongs and movies copied each day over these networks have cut intosales.
Lower courts have ruled that Grokster and Morpheus can't be heldresponsible for the activities of their users because, like avideocassette recorder, their software can be used for legitimate aswell as law-breaking purposes.
The Supreme Court seemed sympathetic to that line of reasoning. JusticeSteven Breyer noted that other inventions, from the movable-typeprinting press to the iPod digital-music player, could be used toillegally copy protected works but have proven beneficial to society.
If the court found Grokster liable for the infringing practices of itsusers, it could have a chilling effect on other inventors, Breyer andseveral other justices said.
"There's never evidence at the time when the guy's sitting in his garagefiguring out how to invent the iPod," said Justice David Souter in opencourt Tuesday.
But the court also zeroed in on a question that has figured lessprominently in previous cases: Whether Grokster and its ilk should beheld liable for encouraging, or "inducing," widespread unauthorizedcopying.
Grokster attorney Richard Taranto argued in court that the networkshould be judged by its current behavior, not its actions several yearsago when it was initially trying to attract users.
But Souter termed that argument "ridiculous." Even if Grokster no longeradvertises the fact that users can easily find copyright material, itstill benefits from its past advertising, he said.
"Sales of a product on Friday are a result of inducing acts on Mondaythrough Thursday," Souter said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that a lower court should hold afull trial to investigate whether Grokster was liable for inducement.
Recording-industry attorney Donald Verrilli suggested that Groksterwasn't entitled to the protection afforded the video cassette recorderbecause it is mostly used for infringement, not legitimate uses.
"Their massive actual infringement gets a free pass so long as they canspeculate that there are non-infringing uses out there," Verrilli said.
Revenues in the recording industry have plunged by roughly 25 percentsince file-sharing networks emerged in 1999, though the industry posteda slight sales increase last year.
Non-infringing uses are now widespread, Taranto said. Hundreds ofthousands of songs and millions of video games have been sold through asystem called Altnet that allows copyright holders to exert some controlover their material, while musicians who don't want to sell songs andmusic videos have been able to distribute them for free, he said.
Verrilli said that those figures pale in comparison to the 2.6 billionsongs that are reproduced without permission each month.
The Justice Department's Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of therecording industry, suggested that a product should enjoy protection ifit was used for infringement less than 50 percent of the time.
Related article:
"The Shape of Film To Come" On The Media, April 1, 2005
URL: http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_040105_film.html
by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 1, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm040105.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm040105.pdf
The United States Supreme Court heard two cases on March 29th that willdetermine both the future of broadband Internet access and just whatsort of content will be available online. The access case, Brand XInternet Services vs. FCC, involves a California-based company seekingto offer unbundled broadband service over cable systems. Present FCCpolicy allows cable companies to keep their networks to themselves eventhough the Telecom Act of 1996 requires networks that offertelecommunications services be opened to competition. Andrew JaySchwartzman is president and CEO of the Media Access Project and was onhand for the Supreme Court argument. He says it's very dangerous topredict the outcome of the case based on the hearing, but he'scautiously optimistic.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman: "The court certainly expressed itsunderstanding of our central argument, which was that the FCC wastrying to evade a congressional deregulation scheme by takingderegulation into its own hands."
The FCC's argument is that cable systems sell their services in bundles:TV and broadband come as a package which can't be split in two,although there's no evidence to suggest such a split is a technicalimpossibility.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman: "Justice Scalia asked, 'If I'm sellingwindshields, could you make me buy windshield wipers?' And thatargument really goes to the heart of the points we were trying to make.So we took some hope from that."
The same day as the Brand X debate, the court heard arguments in alawsuit pitting entertainment conglomerates against file-sharingsoftware developers. That case, MGM vs. Grokster, questions whether themakers of file-sharing programs should be held liable for anycopyright-infringing activity users may engage in. Controlling law atthe moment involves a 1984 Supreme Court decision about the liabilityof VCR-makers; back then the Court ruled that just because a technologymay give people the potential to duplicate copyrighted content does notcondemn its use. Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst with the ElectronicFrontier Foundation, says the Grokster case is about more than justcontent piracy: it's about the viability of technological innovation.
Annalee Newitz: "Do we want an environment where companies - smallcompanies, small entrepreneurs, have to hire a fleet of lawyers beforethey develop new kinds of applications for media technology?"
The Consumer Federation of America's research director, Mark Cooper,believes that regardless of the case's outcome, we haven't seen orheard the last of this issue.
Mark Cooper: "If the Court does the right thing and upholds the lowercourt ruling, then it'll be the recording companies who will run toCongress. We have to be ready for that. If the Court does the wrongthing, then we're the ones who need to go to Congress. But either way,it's the next battle that's the most important, not the last one."
Rulings in both cases are expected by the end of June.
ToCEFFector Vol. 18, No. 11.a April 1, 2005 (donna@eff.org)
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
URL: http://www.eff.org/effector/18/11a.php
[Editor's Note: Note the date.]
Alpharetta, GA - Diebold Election Systems and Choicepoint, Inc.,today announced a joint venture that could revolutionize the votingmarket. The concept is simple: combine Diebold's demonstrated expertisein voting systems with Choicepoint's superior data-mining techniques toproduce PredictaVote(TM) - the first 100 percent voter-free, predictivevoting system.
"The beauty of this approach is that it is self-correcting," explainedChoicepoint CEO Derrick Sithe. "If someone wants to increase the chancesthat his or her vote will be counted correctly, the voter simply needs toopen up more of his or her life to our data-collection methods. Apply formore credit cards. Register for more grocery loyalty cards. Purchase moresubscriptions. Fill out more warranty cards. Compare that to today'spaperless e-voting machines, where voters have no way to determine whethervotes are accurately counted. There's really no comparison."
Even more impressive than its accuracy is its cost-effectiveness, saycompany spokespersons. PredictaVote caps a decade of innovation andstrategic thinking at Diebold, explained Diebold President and CEO OllieO'Sell. "Elections have historically been ridiculously expensiveundertakings. Who's to blame? Quite simply: the voter. Accounting foreverything from allowing employees time off to vote to ensuring theaccuracy and security of the machines, elections drain an average of $12billion from the American economy every year in the form of manufacturingcosts and lost productivity. With PredictaVote, all of these problems goaway with the voter."
Company officials conceded that a number of design choices had yet to befinalized, but emphasized that all predictive factors were customizable ona jurisdiction-by- jurisdiction and demographic-by-demographic basis.Immigrants and the homeless, for example - i.e., those without extensivecredit histories - will be excluded from final vote tallies or be subjectto additional invasive investigatory procedures, said Choicepoint's Sithe.
"This approach seems to be working well for us in our airport screeningalgorithms, and we see no reason that it wouldn't work here."
AP article:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=441>
On The Media, April 8, 2005
URL: http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_040805_unbroken.html
BROOKE GLADSTONE: If all goes according to plan, the summer of2006 will see Philadelphia launch the United States' first city entirelyaccessible to wireless Internet. The service will blanket Philadelphia's135 miles, so that any Philadelphian will be able to get on line, andwith the costs subsidized, the mayor says every citizen will be able toafford it. The city first decided to take on the project when it foundInternet providers ignoring low income neighborhoods, and those sameInternet providers have tried to block the plan, by legally challengingthe city's right to make wireless Internet access just another publicutility. Dianah Neff is the chief information officer for the City ofPhiladelphia. Dianah, Welcome to OTM.
DIANAH NEFF: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, if all goes according to plan, thiswould be the largest Internet accessible municipality on the planet. Whyis Philadelphia going to all this trouble?
DIANAH NEFF: It is important to us that we be able to overcomethe digital divide and we not leave another generation of families andindividuals behind that can't participate in the knowledge economy. Sowe think this will be a stimulus. We're enhancing the potential for ourcommunity to be successful.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you mentioned the digital divide.Obviously, you'll be giving everybody access to the Internet, but willthey have a computer, or will you be providing those as well?
DIANAH NEFF: That is a part of our program. It is not just toprovide the Internet - it's not build it and they will come. We areworking closely with non-profits and the community business districtsand our schools to make sure that we get computers into the homes aswell as training and education.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: All right. What's it take, in laymen'sterms, to blanket a city like Philadelphia with Wi-Fi?
DIANAH NEFF: Well, we have 135 square miles. We believe thatabout 3,000 devices will cover the entire city. We are going to go outfor a request for a proposal to solicit probably a consortium ofcompanies to design, build and maintain that network.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But who has the Internet now?
DIANAH NEFF: We have about 64 percent of our households thathave computers. Only 58 percent have connection to the Internet. Thenumber one reason cited - 76 percent of the time - was cost or access tohigh speed broadband. This will be funded through bonds or bankfinancing, and then will be repaid through revenue generation by peoplesubscribing to the network.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But regular companies who would like toprovide this service are really worried about what Philadelphia isdoing. Verizon and the City of Philadelphia have been locked in a bitterfight over this whole thing, and spokesmen from these companies say whyare you going to turn this wonderful information superhighway intoanother crappily-run public utility?
DIANAH NEFF: [LAUGHS] Well, one, it's not going to be apoorly-run public utility. We are going to contract this out with aprofessional organization who do this. We're going out for a request forproposal to select the best vendor out there. The city has had six pilotareas, one square mile, and we've had an opportunity to test it out. Andthen we will monitor to be sure that the network is performing, thatit's kept up to date, that the customers are satisfied with the servicethat they're getting.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: In other cities, I understand, and correctme if I'm wrong, there's been an arrangement where cities who werethinking of doing this will give the local, say, telephone company say14 months to get their own project off the ground, and if they don't,then they'll step in. You just felt that you could do it better?
DIANAH NEFF: Oh, we felt we could do it quicker. It's not justthe 14 months. It's two months for them to respond to the request. Theyhave 14 months, then, to build it, and then they can ask for another 12months' extension, and at the end of that time, they could tell thecommunity that they don't want to do it, and then the community can gooff and do it. Also, you have to remember that the existing DSL andcable companies do not provide nomadic outdoor capabilities. That is animportant element of this project. That is not accessible today.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Right. But it could be, couldn't it? Theycould build that on the very same light poles.
DIANAH NEFF: That's correct. And they may bid on the RFP.There's no exclusion from deciding that they want to put in a proposalto build the network.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So they can build it, but they can't set theprice for it.
DIANAH NEFF: That's correct. You know, remember, one of theinitial goals was an affordable broadband, and if you're a family thatbrings in 28,000 dollars a year, 40 to 50 dollars on top of yourtelephone and your cable service is not affordable.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The main reason people don't have broadband,they cited, is cost. But the main reason why I don't have a car is cost.That doesn't mean I'm expecting the government to subsidize one for me.
DIANAH NEFF: No. And yet, think of the billions of dollars ofsubsidies that the telecommunications companies have been given over theyears to deploy the wired environment that we have today. We believethat if we're going to be competitive and survive as a great city, weneed to make sure that our population have the training and educationand access to the Internet. Virtually every job today requires somebasic computer skills and the ability to transact over the Internet.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Dianah Neff, thank you very much.
DIANAH NEFF: You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Dianah Neff is the chief information officerfor City of Philadelphia.
ToCby John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 8, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm040805.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm040805.pdf
The anti-indecency crusade in Congress just took a totalitarian turn. In anApril 4th speech to executives attending the cable television industry'sannual conference in San Francisco, Congressman Jim Sensenbrennersuggested criminal prosecution for indecency cases. The scary thing is thatSensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, is chair of the House ofRepresentatives' Judiciary Committee, which puts him in a prime position toramrod such legislation through the House. Criminalizing indecentprogramming would almost certainly run afoul of the first amendment, andSensenbrenner hasn't detailed just how he would implement his proposal.Because cable TV is not free it is not subject to FCC indecency regulation,although some in Congress have talked about changing that. In February theHouse passed a bill to increase the maximum fine the FCC can levy inindecency cases by more than 15-fold, from $32,500 to $500,000.
ToCby John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 8, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm040805.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm040805.pdf
Telecom companies continue their push to squelch community Internetprojects. Bills are pending in the state legislatures of Colorado andTexas which would preemptively forbid cities and towns from offeringbroadband data services; a bill in Texas would ban the establishment ofthem by next year. In West Virginia, telecom corporate lobbying effectivelywatered down a state Senate proposal that would have guaranteed cities andtowns the right to develop community Internet projects - now thelegislation just calls for a study of the concept. In Arkansas, lawmakersare debating a proposal to give millions of dollars of tax breaks tocompanies who build out broadband networks; the state already has laws inplace that restrict community Internet projects. Ten states in all haveimplemented legal barriers to community Internet development, while another11 are debating doing so. At the federal level, however, the attitude isthe opposite. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to give awaysome $9 million to local governments for community Internet projects: thisis on top of more than $30 million similarly spent over the last threeyears.
ToCURL: http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=IL
Sen. Steven J. Rauschenberger (R) 22nd District (Elgin) on 2/17/2005 filedSenate bill 499 in the Illinois General Assembly which carries an amendmentthat would flatly prohibit any municipality or other local governmententity from operating a communications network in the state.Straightforward and to the point, this bill offer no possibility formunicipalities to provide broadband, even in cases where no commercialprovider is willing to do so. The bill specifically prohibits bothwholesale and retail service.
Read the bill:
Information on Senator Rauschenberger:
http://www.ilga.gov/Senate/Senator.asp?GA=94&MemberID=1004
ToCby John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 15, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm041505.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm041505.pdf
Advocates for the development of community Internet go on the offensivein the fight to stop telecom companies from convincing lawmakers to bansuch projects on a state-bystate basis. Big Telecom's been spreadingmuch disinformation about the viability of community broadband, whetherit be about the financial health of such projects or their actualeconomic impact on cities and towns that have tried them. Specifically,Verizon's been circulating an unsigned pseudo fact-sheet toutingseveral examples of supposedly failed community Internet projectsaround the country. That document's now been deconstructedpoint-by-point - and it turns out that Verizon used obsolete data andtwisted the stories of actual successful projects to paint them asfailures. Free Press project Manager Frannie Wellings wrote the reportsetting the record straight about Verizon's misinformation: she says thecompany's research began to unravel as soon as she started digging intoit.
Frannie Wellings: "I called up everybody including projects thatVerizon had said didn't exist anymore. Then you look online and seethey've got a web site and that they're fully functioning."
A couple of examples demonstrate the misinformation at work: Verizonclaims Dickenson County, Virginia sold off its wireless network to acontractor, who then lowered the monthly access fee while maintainingthe same level of service. The truth is the network is fully functionaltoday, still in county hands, and the county was the one who reducedfees by $5 a month because the network runs so smoothly. In fact,Verizon itself once made an unsolicited offer to buy the network, onlyto be rebuffed by Dickenson County. Then there is the fiber opticnetwork financed by the city of Cedar Falls, Iowa: Verizon says it'slost money in every year of operation. The real story is the networkwent cashflow-positive in 1997, broke even in 1998, turned a net profitin 2003, and is given partial credit for tripling the amount of newdevelopment in the city. Wellings says breaking the news about Verizon'sclaims to those the company cited as failures was an interestingexperience, to say the least.
Frannie Wellings: "Most of these people did not know. Most of themwere obviously upset that they were, number one, being used for thiscampaign, and number two, being lied about."
Part of the disconnect between Verizon and the truth was due to thecompany's use of the maximization of profit as the barometer of successfor community Internet projects when none of them were really set upwith that as a primary goal.
Frannie Wellings: "Private companies and municipalities would judgethe success of a project very differently. So in cities where residentswere never able to get access to broadband because private companies didnot see it as profitable for them, municipalities have gone intobusiness. Municipalities see that as being successful because they'reactually serving their community."
Verizon has since admitted to authoring and circulating the false-factsheet, but has made no other comment about being debunked so thoroughly.
ToCby John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 15, 2005
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm041505.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm041505.pdf
Cable companies doing business in Arizona lose a campaign to pad theirpockets with extra profit at the expense of public service. A bill thatwould have forced cities and towns to cut cable company franchise feesby 20% while closing public access channels just got voted down in theArizona legislature. The bill was backed by cable companies likeAdelphia, Comcast, Cox, and Mediacom; they tried to sell it as some kindof tax relief that would have lowered monthly bills. But city ofPhoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says the truth of the matter was it wouldhave sucked money right out of local coffers - to the tune of $8million a year in his community alone.
Phil Gordon: "$8 million a year is the same as the salaries for 150new Phoenix police officers or firefighters. It's the same as closingdown the main city of Phoenix of library forever. That's what $8 milliona year does for us."
Lobbyists for the cable companies tried some last-minute parliamentarymoves to keep the legislation alive but strong opposition from thegrassroots convinced lawmakers to vote it down. Larry Nelson, Mayor ofYuma, Arizona, says the entire proceeding reeked of hypocrisy.
Larry Nelson: "States' rights is a major issue with our legislature.And the very party that wants that, I'm affiliated with it, but yet theydon't want to recognize the local rights."
Had the Arizona bill passed it would have set a dangerous precedent, assimilar efforts to cut franchise frees and cripple public access tocable systems are pending in another halfdozen states.
Related Links:
Arizona Independent Media Center - http://arizona.indymedia.org/
Free Press: Defend Local Access - http://www.freepress.net/defendlocalaccess/
Free Press: Reports on Community Internet -http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=reports
by Timothy Karr
Published on Tuesday, April 12, 2005 by Media Citizen
URL: http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/2005/04/is-cheap-broadband-un-american.html
We have Big Media to thank for saving Americans from themselves. Just asthe notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take hold intowns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon, Qwest,Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created legislation thatwill stop the "red menace" of community Internet before it invades ourhomes.
And to think that Americans might want to receive high-speed access atcosts below the monopoly rates set by these few Internet ServiceProviders (ISPs).
Today, monthly broadband packages offered by the national carriers hoverabove $50, barring access to millions of Americans who can't afford thesticker price. Cities and towns across the country have taken up thetask of building a cheaper alternative -- often choosing easy-to-buildwireless mesh networks -- to bridge the gap that has kept many on thedarker side of the digital divide.
Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army ofcoin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists toprotect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal Internetinitiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and freeenterprise.
Their weapon of choice is industry-crafted legislation that restrictslocal governments from offering public service Internet access atreasonable rates. Laws are already on the books in a dozen states. Thisyear alone, 10 states are considering similar bills to block publicbroadband or to strengthen existing restrictions.Spinning broadband astheirs alone to provide, ISPs have chalked up some earlyvictories-including a draconian law now on the books in Pennsylvania,which strips local governments of the right to choose their ownhomegrown broadband solutions without the prior approval of a monopolyphone company. In late 2004, Verizon dictated the law word-for-word tolocal legislators, who then quietly slipped it into the middle of a72-page bill that appeared to call for improved communicationsinfrastructure for all Pennsylvanians.
It will have the opposite effect.
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon beforeoffering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask permissionfrom Borders before checking out books.
Meanwhile, the United States has slid from first to thirteenth place innational broadband penetration, falling behind South Korea, Japan andCanada, where effective private-public sector initiatives have pavedover the digital divide, allowing more citizens to reap the economicbenefits of the open information era at a fraction of the costs we takefor granted.
Not so in the United States. A nation that once prided itself as theglobal pacesetter in technological innovation and affordablecommunications is now held in the thrall of corporations eager to keep abasic 21st Century right-the right to connectivity-from citizens whocan't afford their exorbitant access fees.
How has America fallen so far back?
The struggle for accessible, locally provided broadband has beenbuilding for several years. But it didn't hit the corporations' radaruntil the middle of 2004, when larger cities such as Philadelphia andSan Francisco recognized broadband access as a basic public utility-nodifferent from water, gas or electricity-that they could provide.
It's easy to understand the local appeal. Broadband networks have provena win-win for municipal governments: Community Internet createsfree-market competition for communications services, improves schools,enhances public safety and social services, and encourages entrepreneursthrough public-private partnerships. These networks are relatively cheapto build and bring technology-and resulting economic opportunity-tolow-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities that are routinelypassed over by the large commercial providers.
For consumers and citizens, low-cost broadband is extremely popular.Across the country municipal referenda and city council measures infavor of building public broadband pass easily-in some cases offeringnot only community Internet, but also television and telephone service.
"Access to the Internet today is as much a necessity of life as the moretraditional services and should be available to all," says JonathanBaltuch, an economic development consultant from St. Cloud, Florida, acity that voted to provide citizens with a wireless network covering 30square miles.
According to Baltuch, St. Cloud's municipal network has yielded aconsiderable return to residents. Prior to the city's broadband network,a St. Cloud resident paid on average $450 a year for commercial Internetaccess. Today they pay on average $300 a year in property taxes-moneythat not only provides broadband access but also supports efforts tokeep city streets clean, pick up residential garbage and provide forlocal police and fire protection. "By the city providing this oneservice to its residents the average household savings will be 50percent more than the average tax bill for all city services," Baltuchsays. "Further the $3 to $4 million per year that is leaving the city toflow to corporate headquarters all over the country will stay in thelocal economy."
Philadelphia decided to follow suit. Last year, Mayor John F. Streetannounced plans for "Wireless Philadelphia" a project that by next yearwill provide the city's population of 1.6 million, spread out over 135square miles, with a full range of Internet services.
It was at this point that the incumbent ISPs began to show their horns.The ISPs is loath to loosen their stranglehold on a market that,according to the Telecommunications Industry Association, could yield$212.5 billion in revenues by 2008.With so much at stake, it was time tomark out their territory and smother municipal broadband projectswherever they began to take root.
The goal was simple-legislate competition out of existence. But to do sothe industry needed allies in its fight against local choice. It foundthem easily among state representatives willing to sell statehouse votesto fill their campaign coffers, and Washington-based think tanks-such asthe Cato Institute and the New Millennium Research Council(NMRC)-willing to produce "research" that pleased their corporatefunders.
To this mix of industry sock puppets add a gullible media. In a finelytargeted media campaign, the "evils" of municipal broadband were pressedupon local journalists who were willing to echo corporate concernswithout digging for an opposing view. Too often, local papers failed tofollow the money that linked their sources at the Cato Institute andNMRC to the industry-taking at face value comments and data from thesethink tanks without revealing the conflicts of interest that wouldimpugn their research.
A report discrediting community Internet issued by NMRC, for example,has been cited nearly a dozen times by journalists in the two monthssince its release. Not a single reporter bothered to let readers in onthe fact that the NMRC receives money from the same corporations whosepolicy positions it just happens to profess.
On February 17, the battle over access finally graced the front-page ofthe New York Times, with a story pegged to Philadelphia's ambitiousplans to turn the city into "one gigantic wireless hot spot." The firstquote by Times writer James Dao went to Adam Thierer, identified as"director of telecommunications studies at the libertarian CatoInstitute." He told the Times: "The last thing I'd want to see isbroadband turned into a lazy public utility."
Dao failed to note that the Cato Institute is funded by Verizon, SBCCommunications, Time Warner, Comcast and Freedom Communications. Daothen interviewed David L. Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast,who also disparaged community networks.
Again, Dao failed to alert readers to Cohen's web of interests thatmight impugn his integrity. In a previous incarnation, Cohen served aschief of staff to then Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell. Rendell hassince moved into the governor's mansion, while Cohen jumped to theprivate sector. This relationship might explain why the governor ignoredwidespread public opposition and signed into law last December the billthat shafted Pennsylvania communities seeking to offer homegrownbroadband services.
These corporations say that they're shutting down homegrown broadbandefforts to safeguard the best interests of American free enterprise.But, as Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief technology officer, asked in arecent column for ZDNet: "When was the last time they were elected todetermine what is best for our communities? If they're really concernedabout what is important to all members of the community, why haven'tthey built this type of network that meets community needs or approacheda city to use their assets to build a high-speed, low-cost, ubiquitousnetwork?"
ToCJunko Yoshida
EE Times
( 0 4 / 0 4 / 2 0 0 5 9 : 0 0 AM EDT )
URL: http://www.eetonline.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160401638
Engineers design and build information technologies that can savecost, improve efficiency and deliver social benefits. But they are alsoaware that information collected and stored digitally can be difficultto protect. Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and LibertyProgram for the American Civil Liberties Union, probes the privacyimplications of digital and RF technologies and argues that certainapproaches intended to heighten security may, in fact, leave societymore vulnerable.
EE Times: Do certain technologies raise red flags for privacyrights advocates?
Steinhardt: The problem is not any specific technology.Technologies in general are developing at the speed of light, while -certainly in the United States - laws that protect privacy are back inthe Stone Age.
We look at a number of technologies, but I would hesitate to singleout one that's more worrisome, because they are all worrisome. We'redeveloping the infrastructure for the surveillance society without, atthe same time, creating the chain to hold the monster.
EE Times: You made a statement on RFID tags last summer beforethe Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the HouseCommittee on Energy and Commerce. What's wrong with RFID?
Steinhardt: Placement of RFID chips on identity documents,passports and drivers' licenses that is the major issue, not whetherWal-Mart puts RFID chips [on its stock].
[Inclusion of] RFID chips in identity documents is not a fantasy: Thenew standard for passports, globally [adopted] through the InternationalCivil Aviation Organization [ICAO], is to include a contactlessintegrated circuit. The chip will hold all the data in the passport -significantly more data than what is now in the passport - includingbiometric data as well as biographical data. And it's unprotected. TheUnited States pushed very hard to keep it unprotected.
So, now, any identity thieves or terrorists who have a reader canobtain that data. It's a frightening development. Americans who travelinternationally must be afraid, very afraid, that we are essentiallyleaving ourselves with a big bull's-eye on our backs saying: "We areAmericans."
EE Times: What, then, would the ACLU like to see in thee-passport spec? Is personal data encryption good enough?
Steinhardt: At a minimum, the RFID chip is an invitation todisaster. Any identity document that's going to be carried, including apassport, ought to be protected in the most robust way. One way is torequire it to make physical contact with a reader, so you avoid theproblem of eavesdropping, of unknowing interceptions. Why shouldn't werequire contact with a reader so that at least there is some actualnotice that data is being collected?
There are huge volumes of data eventually being collected, bothbecause of data stored within the card itself and because of thedatabase that the card will be linked to. It will enable essentiallyuniversal monitoring and tracking. It hurtles us down the path towardthe surveillance society, where you will not be able to engage in anytransaction without having your actions recorded, your backgroundchecked, [your privacy] violated.
EE Times: Is it true that there are no laws or regulationsgoverning the requirement that you show an ID to get into a building orcontrolling what is done with data that is collected?
Steinhardt: In the United States, there's no regulation onwhat data is collected, what is done with it or how it's stored. We donot have the fair-information principles that exist in the rest of thedeveloped world.
Consider the example of ChoicePoint, a large data aggregator,probably the largest one in the United States. ChoicePoint sells data.It aggregates literally billions of records. It stores substantialamounts of information about virtually every American, from names andaddresses to purchases, sometimes medical data. It freely sells thatinformation on the open market, and there is very little way ofregulating that activity.
There was a recent disclosure that identity thieves posing aslegitimate customers ordered information [from ChoicePoint]. ChoicePointgot fooled. But in theory, if the thieves had said, 'We are identitythieves, here's our money, give us data,' they would have been free todo it. There is no meaningful regulation in the United States.
EE Times: You say the government and private corporationsalike are gathering more and more details about our everyday existence.Yet it appears that people are voluntarily giving out personalinformation. Are they doing so out of ignorance?
Steinhardt: Every time Americans have been given an option ofvoting for stronger privacy protection, they in fact have opted to dothat. For example, there was a referendum in North Dakota, a very smallconservative state, on the day of the Republican primary, and 62 percentof voters in the state voted to require that before banks can transfertheir private information they have to get consent, which is of coursestandard law in the rest of the world. So people get it. Peopleunderstand intuitively that there's data you need to protect, and thatsomeone should ask your permission before using it.
EE Times: How do you educate the public and the Congress?
Steinhardt: The United States is engaged in a process oftrying to convince the rest of the world that they should adopt our WildWest approach to data. Chances that anything meaningful will happen inthis Congress or in the next four years are very slim. And the questionthen is: Is it too late? Is it simply that technology will outstrip theability to control it?
EE Times: I interviewed a European engineer involved ine-passport development who said the U.S. administration is more in thebusiness of collecting data than protecting private information. Do youagree?
Steinhardt: The current administration has no interest at allin protecting information. They actively resist any intent to put brakeson their ability to collect information.
EE Times: Please give us an example.
Steinhardt: This really is an example of what we refer to asU.S. policy laundering. The Bush administration is very interested indeveloping a global passport with an RFID chip to hold all this data,but it would have difficulty convincing the Congress to adopt that. So[the administration] went to the International Civil AviationOrganization and got a world standard created. Then the presidentannounces at the G8 summit meeting that it's necessary to adhere to theworld standard.
Britain is about to create a national ID card that will essentiallyfollow ICAO standards. Certainly, nations around the world are dealingwith ICAO standards in their passports. Those standards will quicklymigrate into other identity documents, such as driver's licenses in theUnited States.
EE Times: How can we stop that?
Steinhardt: Partly by explaining just what the risk is: It isan identity thief's dream to have all this data stored in one place,particularly one insecure place. In the end, it's going to be identitytheft that will result in genuine privacy protection legislation in theUnited States.
EE Times: I want to discuss the concept of fair use. Why isfair use important for innovation?
Steinhardt: Fair-use doctrine in the United States wasn't anafterthought; it was an essential part of the section on intellectualproperty in our Constitution. It was designed to protect innovation. Itwas designed to allow people to take ideas to reality. And what isincreasingly happening is that the ideas are being locked up byintellectual-property laws.
And we're beyond the point where it's simply ideas. In the UnitedStates we are patenting genes, to the point where the person from whomthe genetic information was derived has no access to thatinformation.
We've gone way overboard in the United States. We are stiflinginnovation, and we are having a dramatic effect on our ability to buymedical care, to encourage the introduction of entertainment - all thethings that make the American economy so strong.
EE Times: While big media corporations spend a lot of moneyprotecting their copyrighted content, traditional fair-use rights forconsumers - making copies of purchased content for personal use - seemto be decreasing.
Steinhardt: That's right. It has led to consumers' havingfewer choices or simply deciding to disobey the law. We wish moreindustries would learn from Napster and from the download battle. We hadmillions of downloads; we had the record industry prosecuting people,forcing Internet providers to turn over names.
But you know, Apple comes along, and then iTunes - a 99 cent downloadof music - and the iPod, and it's a major economic phenomenon. But manyin the industry don't seem to understand the lessons of iPod, iTunes andNapster, which is that if you create a product that's fairly priced andeasily accessible, people will buy it.
EE Times: Technology has consequences, and engineers arestarting to appreciate their responsibility for those consequences, goodand bad. Is there such a thing as an ethics code for the engineeringcommunity?
Steinhardt: I don't believe ethics codes make a difference. Iam always thrilled when engineers come forward and offer to build toolsthat might protect privacy. But in the end there is no substitute forlaw, for rules.
Some of those rules may call for technologies that engineers willcreate to protect our privacy. But we'd better do it soon because we areprobably only [a few] years away from a nightmare society of constantsurveillance.
[Editor's Note:
Other articles of interest:
"Our Ratings, Ourselves" by Jon Gertner -http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/magazine/10NIELSENS.html
"Measure by Measure" -http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_040805_measure.html]
ToCPaul Thurrott
URL: http://www.wininformant.com/
The security experts at Symantec have verified what Windows watchers have knownfor some time: Microsoft's third-quarter 2004 release of Windows XP ServicePack 2 (SP2) dramatically improved security for XP users and, as a result, theentire Internet. According to Symantec, the August 2004 release of XP SP2 wasimmediately followed by a dramatic drop-off in the number of PC-based bots,compromised PCs that hackers use to spread malware around the Internet. "Thetiming of this drop corresponds closely with the availability of Windows XPService Pack 2," a Symantec report reads. "It's reasonable to assume that thisservice pack is responsible, along with other mitigation measures, for thedecline in identified bot network computers." Amazingly, this drop-off in botsoccurred during a time period in which the number of worms and Trojan attackson Windows machines almost doubled. We all know that XP SP2, like any softwareproduct, isn't perfect. But this data suggests that XP SP2 was a highlysuccessful release that was sorely needed.
I wrote about my anecdotal experience trying in vain to find an Xbox video gameconsole late last year and now, 3 months later, Microsoft is acknowledging thatthe Xbox is indeed in short supply. The reason? Microsoft credits the shortageto the "surging popularity" of the Xbox, which has started outselling the SonyPlayStation 2 fairly regularly after years of being Sony's punching bag.Microsoft says that it's working to increase Xbox production to meet demand,but I have to think this sort of demand is unprecedented. Microsoft will likelyship the sequel to the Xbox, code-named Xenon, to customers in time for the2005 holiday season, which is about 3 weeks away if I understand the retailcalendar. Has there ever been a technical product this successful in the waningmonths of its life cycle?
Mitchell Baker, president of The Mozilla Foundation, declared this week thatFirefox is more secure than Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and will remain soeven if its user base dramatically expands. That's because Firefox isn'tintegrated into Windows, he says, and doesn't support dangerous technologiessuch as ActiveX. "Nothing will be perfect," she said, and yes, Firefox willsuffer from vulnerabilities from time to time. But its architecture is cleanerand safer than IE's. Could be. It certainly couldn't be any worse than IE. Iguess this year's release of IE 7.0 will be an interesting milestone for theMozilla folks. If they can overcome the excitement that the IE release willgenerate, they're all set. But I have a bad feeling that Firefox might be infor a bit of trouble when IE 7.0 ships. Either way, it should be interesting.
Online giant Yahoo! significantly enhanced two of its service this week, givingits users dramatically more email storage and a much improved desktop searchtool. First, Yahoo! is raising the storage capacity of its free email serviceto 1GB, matching Google's GMail, although that service is stuck in perpetualbeta and not generally open to the public. The free version of Yahoo! Mail isalso getting some email antivirus functionality that was previously availableonly to paying customers. On the desktop search front, Yahoo! is adding theability to search the information that's stored in Yahoo! Messenger archivesand contact lists, even when that data is stored on Internet servers. Yahoo!Desktop Search, however, is still in beta.
It will still sell more copies than OS X Tiger, but what a waste of time. Thisweek, representatives of Dell and HP, the world's two largest PC makers,downplayed the effects of the European Union's (EU's) requirement thatMicrosoft ship special N versions of XP that don't include Windows Media Player(WMP). Dell says it won't offer the products on its PCs. HP said that it willoffer XP Home Edition N and XP Professional Edition N but that it expectslittle demand from customers. HP noted that because the N versions cost thesame as the XP versions that include WMP, consumers have little incentive toconsider the products. Well, duh.
Microsoft has filed lawsuits against 117 people the company accuses oflaunching phishing attacks against consumers. In phishing attacks, theattackers send email messages to unsuspecting users that purport to be frominstitutions such as banks, credit card companies, and retail stores. Themessages attempt to trick recipients into visiting specially made Web sites andproviding credit card information or other private data. Phishing attacks aregrowing dramatically. The number of such attacks has increased more than 25percent each month since July 2004. Microsoft announced the lawsuits withofficials from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National ConsumersLeague, which are touting today as April Phool's Day in a bid to educateconsumers about these scams.
I hate it when my favorite companies can't get along. This week, Dell CEO KevinRollins reiterated that his company will continue to ignore microprocessorupstart AMD and work solely with Intel. Dell and AMD came frustratingly closeto working together. After AMD pioneered the 64-bit x64 processor, Dell brieflyconsidered moving to AMD but backed off when Intel jumped on board the x64rollercoaster. "We saw Intel lagging a few months ago and expressed interest inAMD," Rollins said. "Since that time, Intel has really stepped up to theplate." The situation makes me wonder whether Intel's interest in x64 wasdriven, in part, by Dell's desire to move to that platform. Ah, well, we couldplay what-if games all day. In my favorite what-if scenario, Commodore's Amigaplatform went on to dominate the computer industry.
The number of visitors hitting the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web site isgrowing rapidly, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings. In March over 2.6 millionpeople visited the site, compared to 2.2 million in January and 1.6 million inFebruary. By all accounts, Firefox now controls about 5 percent of the Webbrowser market, an amazing accomplishment for a relatively new product facingoff against Internet Explorer, which hasn't faced any serious competition sinceabout 1998.
ToCURL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=46046
Intel has begun shipping its first-ever dual-core Pentium 4 microprocessor,which features two processor cores in one chip, giving users much of theperformance of a dual-processor configuration at a lower cost. The Pentium 4Extreme Edition 840 (you have to love the ultra-clear Intel namingconventions) is now shipping to PC makers, who will unveil dual-core systemsat the chip's launch event, which should be any day now.
The dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 features two processor cores thateach run at 3.2GHz. Leading PC makers such as Dell have confirmed that they'llship PCs based on the new chip later this month. However, the Extreme Editionversions of the Pentium 4 are expensive, high-end chips that are aimed atgaming enthusiasts. Intel will ship a more widely available dual-core chip,the Pentium D, by the end of June, the company says.
Both Intel and rival AMD are working on dual-core designs for their desktop andserver chips, but the two companies are taking opposite approaches to shippingthe chips. Intel will ship dual-core versions of its desktop-oriented Pentium4 chips before it preps dual-core Xeon processors for workstations andservers. AMD, meanwhile, is prepping dual-core versions of its server-orientedOpteron processors but won't provide dual-core Athlon-64 chips for desktop PCsuntil 2006.
ToCMichael J. Miller - PC Magazine - April 15
URL: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=673134
Microsoft is slowly but surely lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding its nextversion of the widely used Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn.
Recently, I got a firsthand look at Longhorn's new search capabilities, as wellas many more details about what end users can expect from the still-in-development OS, courtesy of Jim Allchin, group vice president of Microsoft'sPlatforms Group. Allchin also revealed that hardware developers at this month'sWindows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHec) will be given a releasedesigned for writing device drivers, and that a full beta version with userinterface will come out a few months later.
Allchin described Longhorn as nothing less than "the OS platform for the nextten years." It's on track for Beta 1 release this summer and final release forthe 2006 holiday season. Although the Avalon graphics system, Indigo Webservices system, and WinFS file system (now slated to ship sometime afterLonghorn) have gotten the most attention, Microsoft's design goals focus on sixkey points, Allchin says:
Developers, Allchin explained, are working to make sure the system is easier toplug into, and that it can more readily understand the devices and networksit's connected to at any time—understanding, for instance, different printerswhen you move your laptop between the office and home. — Continue reading
Security is a top concern, but so is making Longhorn a safer environment forchildren to use. Allchin said the system is moving to Least-Privileged UserAccess as a privilege default, so that end users can't accidentally installmalicious files. Sitting underneath all this will be a "virtual file system,"helping ease application compatibility issues that arise from low privileges ontoday's systems. Beyond that, Internet Explorer would run in a "containmentarea," unlike standard applications, making it even harder for maliciousapplications to end up on your system. Longhorn will have secure start-up,using Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to lock the hardware and software andmaintain outgoing and incoming firewalls. System restore will now include userdata as well, and there will be a new backup system to protect your data and dothings such as writing incremental file changes to another disk.
Deployment and management changes are aimed at corporate users, with the goalof making it easier for IT departments to manage multiple system images fordifferent kinds of machines, for example.
Microsoft characterizes the different ways people use the system—at work, athome, or on the go—as "experiences." I was particularly intrigued by some ofthe changes designed to make Windows a better mobile operating system. Amongthe new features planned are instant-on, wireless projecting of information,tools to help it better understand different network environments, and supportfor auxiliary displays (imagine a laptop with an LCD on the outside cover, soyou can still see your next appointment even when the laptop is closed.)
On the server front, Allchin said he wants Longhorn server to work well inspecific roles: as a Web server, mail server, active directory server, and soon. Under Longhorn, you'll be able to set up a machine for just a specificrole, with none of the other features enabled. This should make the system bothfaster and more secure.
Longhorn, Allchin told me, will be a platform for the next ten years, with thenew Avalon graphics system, the Indigo Web services system, and, eventually,the delayed WinFS file system. But it will have other features as well, such astop-to-bottom Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) support for companies thatwant to support it. And the operating system will support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. — Continue reading
Perhaps the most interesting thing was the demo. Although Allchin said the newuser interface was not complete, the demo illustrated how Longhorn will takemuch more advantage of the graphics processing unit built into most machines,especially for 3D effects and the like. Allchin's demonstration showed foldersgrowing into their space on the desktop and shrinking back to the task bar. Insome ways, these looked like the file system effects in Macintosh OS X.
More important is the new Windows Explorer, which shows previews of documentsinstead of icons and lets you search "anything that can be indexed," includingsearch folders that the user can set. It's designed for a full-context searchof all the data on your computer, and allows you to sort the results by allsorts of queries, such as document author, date, and so forth.
Allchin seemed very pleased about getting this search capability into Longhorn."This is the original Cairo concept," he said, referring to an operating systemMicrosoft promoted years ago.
I remember when Microsoft described Chicago (Windows 95) as being on the roadto Cairo. The search features didn't make it into the operating system thatbecame Windows NT (probably because the hardware wasn't ready). Indexing hasbeen available in Windows for a while, but it's been slow. Indexing is also inMSN Desktop Search. Several new desktop search tools are available now, butintegrating search into the core OS has its advantages, such as updatingwhenever files change. (Of course, a similar feature should be in Apple's OS XTiger, which ships this month.)
Microsoft representatives will, according to Allchin, distribute a build ofLonghorn at the WinHEC show at the end of this month, but this is a month-oldbuild designed for developers to write 64-bit drivers, display drivers, and thelike. The full Beta 1, which he described as a public beta aimed at "ITengagement," should be out this summer. Overall, Allchin says, there should bemore interim builds for Longhorn than testers saw in the beta cycles leading upto the release of Windows XP SP2. The next big build opportunity should be atthe Professional Developers Conference in September, where Microsoft will pushhard for developers to create Longhorn-specific products. After that, Beta 2will be the first beta really aimed at end users. Allchin says the product ison track for a holiday 2006 release. And not surprisingly, he says it will beaccompanied by "massive marketing."
Clearly, a lot needs to happen between now and when Longhorn ships. We'll letyou know more as we get details.
ToCURL: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2471.html
The Resident shield in version 1.3 has an issue allowing certain cookies(Specifically legitimate advertising cookies like Double Click, Tribal Fusionand others)when set to notify. If page loading becomes a problem, right clickthe tea timer icon in the Systray, select "Resident IE" and either uncheck "UseResident in IE sessions" or check "Block all bad pages silently".
Please uninstall previous versions before installing this one.
SpyBot-S&D searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; littlemodules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. But many ofthese modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and moreto the net.
If SpyBot-S&D finds such modules, it can remove them - or replace them withempty dummies in case their host software won't run with its bot removed. Inmost cases, the host still runs fine after removing the bot.
For a list of 'supported' bots see the feature lists below. The Spybot-S&Dinterface is so easy, that updates just require replacing a file of about 80kin size. Those updates are distributed by my software mailinglist, at theauthors page and are also available from inside the programs update section.
Another feature of Spybot S&D is the removal of usage tracks, which makes itmore complicated for unknown spybots to transmit useful data. The list of lastvisited websites, opened files, started programs, cookies, all that and morecan be cleaned. Supported are the three major browsers Internet Explorer,Netscape Communicator and Opera.
Last but not least Spybot-S&D contains some routines to find and correctinvalid entries into the registry.
[Hisel's Note: It looks like Spybot now knows about Mozilla-style cookies andoffers to whack the baddies if you wish.]
ToCBy Ina Fried
Story last modified Tue Apr 12 16:43:00 PDT 2005
URL: http://news.com.com/Unpatched+flaw+found+in+Microsoft+software/2100-1002_3-5668257.html
Microsoft is investigating the report of a flaw that could open systemsusing its Access or Office software up to attack.
The vulnerability, which was not one of eight patched by Microsoft onTuesday, is in the Jet database engine component, according to anadvisory posted the same day by security company Secunia. It couldenable an intruder to remotely execute malicious code on a vulnerablePC, Secunia said.
Microsoft has not confirmed the existence of the security hole, whichpotentially affects software including Microsoft Office and theMicrosoft Access database program.
Secunia rated the problem "highly critical," noting that exploit codefor the flaw had been shared on a public mailing list.
"The vulnerability is caused due to a memory handling errorwhen...parsing database files," Secunia said in its advisory. "This canbe exploited to execute arbitrary code by tricking a user into opening aspecially crafted '.mdb' file in Microsoft Access."
A Microsoft representative said on Tuesday that the company has notheard of any attacks on customers' systems using the unpatched securityhole.
"We are aware of the exploit code that has been released," the Microsoftrepresentative said, adding that the software maker would takeappropriate action once it has completed its investigation of theproblem.
The original alert regarding the flaw came from a security research firmcalled HexView, Secunia said.
Continuing an ongoing debate about when and how flaw finders shoulddisclose vulnerabilities, Microsoft criticized the researchers for goingpublic with the vulnerability, rather than privately contacting thesoftware maker so a patch could be released when the flaw was disclosed.
"It is unfortunate that this researcher decided to post publicly," theMicrosoft representative said.
HexView said in its own advisory that it notified Microsoft of the flawon March 30, but had received no response.
A Microsoft representative said the company had no record of any contactfrom HexView before the flaw was publicized.
Word of the problem comes on the same day Microsoft released fixes foreight other flaws, several of them critical, and some of them revealedpublicly for the first time in its monthly security bulletin.
ToCBy James Coates
Chicago Tribune
04/14/05 1:00 AM PT
URL: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/42272.html
Folks in areas like the Internet portal and music sales division MSN, aswell as those pushing to sell Windows to makers of cable set-top boxes,won't appreciate being lumped in with the company's complacent core.Neither will Microsofties.
It's been another fruitful week on the Web's groaning sideboard of freesoftware delicacies and services.
The week's most noticed giveaway was Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) additionof spy satellite images, which show nearly every address in the UnitedStates, to its map address-finding service. Even better was Firefox'snew Scrapbook extension.
A constant torrent of these new powerful tools stands naked as alighthouse in a computer industry where innovation languishes like thecash building up in Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) corporate treasury fromcontinuing sales of the same old stuff.
Never has a company boasted as loudly about innovation while growingever more stagnant.
Folks in areas like the Internet portal and music sales division MSN, aswell as those pushing to sell Windows to makers of cable set-top boxes,won't appreciate being lumped in with the company's complacent core.Neither will Microsofties with the humongous research and developmentbudget seeking stuff like accurate voice recognition for pocket PCsand home electronics.
But when was the last time you picked up a newspaper or logged on to theWeb and discovered an exciting new software offering from Microsoft?
Today the red-hot player is Google. This strange Web search portaloutfit, led by self-proclaimed good guys, innovates. Then a horde ofpowerful competitors imitate.
Google was first to offer a plug-in for Microsoft's Internet ExplorerWeb browser that killed those incessant pop-ups. Best still, Google wasway out front giving away so-called Desktop Search software that indexesevery word on your computer, then recalls anything you want in seconds.Microsoft quickly followed with MSN desktop search, and Yahoo (Nasdaq:YHOO) replied with an even better offering through a firm called X10that had been creating industrial-strength hard-drive-search softwarefor years.
Google next copied mapping and route-planning services like Mapquest andopened Maps.Google.com, probably the best mapping tool you can findshort of hiring on at the CIA.
Type in a name and address, and Google brings up a map showing itsstreet location and how to get there. Type in "White House, Washington,D.C.," and you get driving directions from your house to 1600Pennsylvania Ave. plus a street map of the surroundings.
Now you can click on a "Satellite" icon in the upper right of the Googledisplay and produce an aerial photo of the White House along with a bigchunk of the surrounding landscape. A zoom feature brings you to asimulated altitude around 1,000 feet with such clarity that you can seesome of the brick lines in the Washington monument with its shadowsplayed across The Mall.
I loved this stuff from the first click and wasted so much time playingwith aerial views of Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Miami that mypaycheck probably should get docked. But, wow.
A day after Google released this satellite tool, Firefox announcedScrapbook, which may be the best thing to hit blogging since John Kerry.
You first need to get Firefox's free browser that competes withMicrosoft Internet Explorer at Firefox.com. Follow the directions on thesite to acquire plug-ins and extensions unique to Firefox's software. Ilack space to cover Firefox's browser itself, but you'll see that it'sgreat.
Scrapbook creates a pane down the left side of the display where you candrag icons for entire Web sites or just the best parts. You canstockpile a page and collect new stuff each time it changes. This letsfollowers of an individual Web log keep track of changes as the bloggerblogs on. And on.
You can even store an entire Web site by downloading every bit of itsfiles for offline use or code napping. Or you can simply paint a smallbit of a Web page and drag that to the pane. The big deal here is thatScrapbook indexes stored stuff and permits quick keyword searches asyour collection of clipped information grows.
A Note feature built directly into Firefox lets you paint important textand save it into a file, but Scrapbook sucks in pictures, sounds, moviesand the rest if you want.
The contents of each scrapbooked item are represented by an icon in thepane, and as it grows it presents items much like the favorites on anybrowser. But, with stuff stockpiled, it comes up instantly offline.
Bill Gates isn't stupid and he isn't lazy. I'll bet they're sweatingbullets Redmond, Wash., as news about Google's satellite and FirefoxScrapbook flashes around the country. You can track his response bydragging this to your Scrapbook: Microsoft.com.
ToCURL: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/pr?n=/pr/corporate/2551
[Wall Note: Mandrake provides a popular Linux distribution and services,and Conectiva produces a Brazilian Linux distribution.]
After spending weeks balancing pros and cons, Mandrakesoft has decidedto change its name!
The name change will apply worldwide to both the company and itsproducts. The management team sees two good reasons for this change:
1. The recent Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger calls for a new identitythat better represents the combination of two key companies and theirglobal presence.
2. The long-winding trademark lawsuit with Hearst Corporation hasreached a point where we decided it is more reasonable for us to moveforward. By adopting a new name, we eliminate the liability attached tothe Mandrakesoft name and we can focus on what is important to us:developing and delivering great technology and solutions to both ourcustomers and our user community.
We will endeavor to build even stronger brand recognition in our newname. So what is the new name?
The winner is ...
M A N D R I V A
Why Mandriva? This new name, simple and efficient, is the synthesis ofMandrakesoft and Conectiva. This will further a smooth transition andwill build on our existing brand recognition in the IT world.
ToCKey predictor of IT will end sometime, reckons its progenitor.
By Manek Dubash, Techworld
13 April 2005
URL: http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=3477
Moore's Law is dead, according to Gordon Moore, its inventor.
The extrapolation of a trend that was becoming clear even as long ago as1965, and has been the pulse of the IT industry ever since willeventually end, said Moore, who is now retired from Intel.
Forty years after the publication of his law, which states thattransistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two years,Moore said this morning: "It can't continue forever. The nature ofexponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.
"In terms of size [of transistor] you can see that we're approaching thesize of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, but it'll be two or threegenerations before we get that far - but that's as far out as we've everbeen able to see. We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach afundamental limit. By then they'll be able to make bigger chips and havetransistor budgets in the billions."
As for whether computing have been different without Moore's Law, hesaid: "It's hard to say - I think it has become a very useful guide. Atthe start it didn't have much impact, but the first place I saw animpact was when the Japanese entered the memory business. It seemed thenthat the industry generally was moving in a random direction but oncethe Japanese got into memory they had a plan and were successful intaking a leading position in that area.
"In that respect, it would have been different if we hadn't noticed thattrend. I was lucky as I was just in a position to see things further outthan most people, working for Fairchild who were at the forefront of thetechnology industry."
On the anniversary of the April 1965 Electronics magazine article thatmade him famous, Moore, who was then head of R&D at electronics giantFairchild, also said that he didn't believe nanotechnology wouldsupplant electronics anytime soon.
"Integrated circuits were a result of cumulative investment of over$100bn so to replace that, just springing full-blown from a small base,is unlikely. Electronics is a mature industry. And we're alreadyoperating well below 100nm which is seen as the start of nanotech sowe're there already.
"Building things up from the bottom, atom by atom, comes from adifferent direction. It's not replacing ICs - the technology is beingapplied in different fields such as gene chips to do bio-analysis veryquickly, micro-machines in airbags and avionics, micro-fluidics -chemical labs on a chip.
"Electronics though is a fundamental technology that's not likely to bereplaced directly. There's a difference between making a small machineand connecting them by the billion. Nanotech will have an impact butit's not about replacing electronics in the foreseeable future."
Asked if he foresaw mass market computing, Moore said that he lookedback and, "in the original article I did but had no idea what it wouldlook like." He saw home computing as a small market, with applicationssuch as storing recipes in the home. As a result, Intel - where Moore bythen worked - didn't pursue that avenue.
Moore also scorned the technology used by the military. He agreed thatthe military drove advances in computing when costs were very high as itgave them capabilities they couldn't get in any other way, through the1960s. "Since then it hasn't had much impact as the commercial businesstimeframe is so much faster than the pace at which military systemschange - they use obsolete electronics in modern military systems."
Finally, asked if there were any new laws for next 40 years, he said:"I'll rest on my laurels on this one! I'm not close enough now to makenew predictions - several things have been called Moore's Second Law butI can't take credit for any of them."
ToCOne fundamental difference guarantees that Windows will continue to dominate
Ahead of the Curve by Tom Yager
April 13, 2005
URL: http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/04/13/16OPcurve_1.html
[Wall Note: A lot of Linux users, such as myself, don't care if Linuxkills Windows or not, Linux is great as it is. But FYI:]
You can quit proclaiming Linux the Windows killer.
Linux is established and has a niche that, as various pendulums swing,will grow and shrink. Show me charts and stats and benchmarks that proveLinux superior to Windows in every measure and I'll not argue with you.But no matter how much money and dedication is poured into Linux, itwill never put a dent in Windows' mind share or market share becauseLinux is an operating system, a way -- and probably the best way -- tomake system hardware do what it's told. But you can't turn Linux into aplatform even if you brand it, box it, and put a pricey sticker on it.
Businesses and organizations of all sizes need consistent, predictable,scalable, self-contained platforms for server solutions. Windows wins.Linux doesn't lose, because it can continue the legacy of anothernonplatform, namely Unix, that needs to be refreshed and extended.
The practical need to keep Unix around isn't rooted in nostalgia ormisguided conviction. There may be times when you're convinced that thesolution you need doesn't exist as a whole. The total solutions thatexist might be too confining or expensive, or -- as is sometimes theshowstopper for me -- simply closed. Open source Unix, in which categoryI place Linux, BSD, and Darwin (the OS layer of Apple's OS X), is a500,000-piece bag of Legos that comes with some drawings and a fewmodels you can use, build on, or tap into as references for your owncreations. On paper, an OS is an ideal place to start building, becauseyou get to choose everything that sits above it and presumably you knowjust what belongs in each of those gaps between your hardware and yourapplication. You see, while developers can write to an operatingsystem's default API, they'll spend most of their time encapsulating andabstracting low-level system calls to create what is, in effect, anapplication platform.
No one is so foolish as to make what can be acquired cheaply or free;it's wiser to pick one from among hundreds of platforms and modules thatfill in the holes between open source Unix and your applications.
In contrast, Windows fills in all the blocks between the hardware andyour apps. It does it in ways that you can't alter, but which you canuse in different ways. You can code with the tools of your choice and inthe programming language of your choice, and unless you stray too farfrom the rule book, everything you create will interoperate witheverything others write for Windows. An operating system is a rack intowhich device drivers and APIs are inserted. A platform is a rack intowhich applications are inserted.
Linux and Windows don't compete. Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products,Articles) sees this as an opportunity and has struggled mightily toposition the combination of Solaris and Java as a platform. It almostmakes it. I'd choose J2EE and Solaris over Linux for nonuser-facingserver applications in shops that have expert administrators. But,similar to Linux and other flavors of Unix, Solaris is a nonstarter onclients, and that's enough to hurt its capability of competing withWindows. There is only one platform that can stand toe-to-toe withWindows, and that's the combination of OS X and Java.
Stay tuned; I'll tell you all about it.
ToChttp://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/12tiger.html
Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" will go on sale Friday, April 29, at 6:00 p.m.during special events at Apple's retail stores and Apple AuthorizedResellers. Tiger has more than 200 new features and innovations includingSpotlight, a revolutionary desktop search technology that lets usersinstantly find anything stored on their Mac, including documents, emails,contacts and images; and Dashboard, a new way to quickly access importantinformation like weather forecasts and stock quotes, using a dazzling newclass of applications called widgets. [Apr 12, 2005]
ToCTidBITS#770/14-Mar-05
In the latest update in Apple's quest to squelch information leaks,Judge James Kleinberg of Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled lastFriday that the news site O'Grady's PowerPage must divulge itsconfidential sources, describing the information as "stolen property."The judge was careful to note that his ruling should not be construedmore broadly than Apple's right to subpoena information from PowerPage'sISP Nfox. The judge also made a distinction between "the publicinterest" (served by whistleblowers disclosing health, safety, orwelfare hazards) and "the interested public" (served by news andenthusiast Web sites). The full text of the decision can be downloadedfrom The Mac Observer site. Jason O'Grady has said he will appeal thedecision. [ACE]
<http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/03/11.8.shtml>
ToCTidBITS#772/28-Mar-05
Apple Computer has settled out of court with Doug Steigerwald, a recentgraduate of North Carolina State University and an Apple DeveloperConnection member who admitted to sharing seeds of Mac OS X 10.4 Tigeron the Internet. Steigerwald will pay Apple an unspecified amount, butNews.com quoted Apple as saying, "It is not our desire to send studentsto jail." Legal action remains pending against two other men in thecase, which was filed in December and is separate from other lawsuitsApple has filed against Macintosh rumor sites. Steigerwald also stillfaces a criminal investigation. [ACE]
<http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-5632119.html>
<http://news.com.com/Apple+sues+over+loose+Tiger/2100-1047_3-5500034.html>
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/13results.html
Apple announced second quarter financial results, with a net profit of $290million or $.34 per diluted share. These results compare to a net profit of$46 million or $.06 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter. Revenue forthe quarter was $3.24 billion, up 70% from a year ago. Gross margin was29.8%, up from 27.8% a year ago. International sales accounted for 40% ofrevenue. [Apr 13, 2005]
ToChttp://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxupdate1039.html
About Mac OS X Update:
Delivers improved compatibility and reliability for Mac OS X v10.3"Panther" and is recommended for all users.
Improvements include:
Download Details:
Post Date: 04/15/05
File Size: 51.3MB
TidBITS#771/21-Mar-05
Apple today released Security Update 2005-003, a collection of fixes forMac OS X 10.3.8 and Mac OS X 10.3.8 Server. Included in this package areupdates to AFP Server, Bluetooth Setup Assistant, Core Foundation, CyrusIMAP, Cyrus SASL, and Mailman. It also addresses a few permissionsissues that could enable malicious access to files and folders. And,Safari is updated to handle the problem with Unicode characters used indomain names (see "Don't Trust Your Eyes or URLs" in TidBITS-766_).Security Update 2005-003 is available via Software Update as a 15.4 MBdownload, or from Apple's software downloads page. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301061>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07983>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
TidBITS#772/28-Mar-05
Apple last week released an update for iPod photo owners. The hefty 28.9MB iPod Updater 2005-03-23 brings the iPod software to version 1.1 andadds support for Apple's forthcoming $30 iPod Camera Connector(announced in February, and now available for order from Apple's onlinestore). It also improves slideshow transitions. The updater is availablevia Software Update or as a separate download. Although this updateoffers nothing new for owners of other iPod product lines, it doesinclude the most recent software versions for each model (hence the hugedownload). [JLC]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08001>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/>
TidBITS#77404-Apr-05
I've written a bit about Skype, a voice-over-IP program for Mac,Windows, and Linux that offers great quality service, five-userconference calling, and outbound calls at low rates to the regular phonenetwork (see "Road Warrior Scramble" in TidBITS-771_). But wait! There'smore. Skype is now testing SkypeIn, an inbound telephone number attachedto your Skype account. Other companies offer a similar service, buttypically only in a bundle. For instance, Vonage has what they call asoft phone service, but it's an add-on to an existing Vonagefull-service account.
<http://www.skype.com/products/skype/macosx/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08028>
SkypeIn costs a ridiculously low 10 euros for three months of service inthis phase (including unlimited inbound calls and voicemail), or aboutUS$4 per month. The Vonage service is Internet telephony only, whileSkype includes Skype-to-Skype and inbound and outbound telephone networkcalling. And Skype includes instant messaging and file exchange, too.[GF]
<http://www.skype.com/products/skype/macosx/changelog.html>
ToCby Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#77404-Apr-05
Adobe announced today that the latest versions of Photoshop,Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive will hit the market in May 2005 aspart of Creative Suite 2, the company's thorough refresh for theirflagship products. Acrobat is on a separate track, and was updated toversion 7 in fall 2004.
The new CS2 offers a host of advantages for those working across manyAdobe programs by further pulling together elements that get created inone program, tweaked in another, and placed on a page (Web or print) inanother. The new Adobe Bridge software works with Version Cue CS2, aWebDAV-based server that retains multiple versions of files in anarchive, to allow browsing across all kinds of media, including lookingat older revisions, storing multiple live versions of a single file, andeven browsing and purchasing royalty-free stock photography.
New features in Photoshop include a vanishing point feature foradjusting perspective, better raw digital camera file support,32-bit-per-channel images, and layer control through click and drag.Illustrator gains live trace, live paint over bitmaps, Photoshop layersupport, and aid for creating content for mobile devices such as cellphones. Indesign now features object styles and support for Photoshopand PDF layers. GoLive is improved with better previews through embeddedrendering, visual tools for building CSS-based pages, mobile deviceauthoring tools, secure FTP (SSH and SSL), and the capability to createfavicons. Version Cue now supports multiple live versions of the samefor use in different applications, but more important, it apparently nowworks, too - something I couldn't say about Version Cue CS.
CS2 comes in Standard and Premium editions. Premium includes AcrobatProfessional, GoLive, Illustrator, InDesign, and Version Cue. Standardomits Acrobat and GoLive. Premium costs $1,200 from scratch, or $550 asan upgrade from either CS 1.1 or earlier edition, or $450 from CS 1.3.Photoshop CS or 7.0 users can pay $750 for an upgrade to the entiresuite. Standard is $900 from scratch, $350 from a previous CS version,or $500 from Photoshop CS or 7.0.
ToCTidBITS#77511-Apr-05
Back in the early days of the PalmPilot, Florent Pillet released PalmBuddy (later renamed Sync Buddy), a Mac OS program for backing up datafrom a Palm OS handheld by opening an active connection between the twomachines. Now, Pillet has rewritten Sync Buddy for Mac OS X. Sync Buddy2.0.1 can back up handhelds via USB, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi connections.It also lets you install files and transfer photos, as well as copyfiles to removable media such as SD cards. The utility is compatiblewith Hot Sync Manager (which Palm Desktop uses to synchronize data) andMark/Space's The Missing Sync software, automatically disabling themwhile Sync Buddy is running, and re-enabling them when it's done. SyncBuddy 2.0.1 costs $25, and is available as a 4.3 MB download. [JLC]
<http://www.florentpillet.com/syncbuddy.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04956>
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#772/28-Mar-05
Credit card number theft is one of those events that seems to happenonly to other people... until it hits you. That just happened to me, andthe repercussions proved a bit more instructive and far-reaching that Iwould have initially anticipated.
The first hint that something was wrong came when Tonya was reviewingthe charges on the MasterCard we use solely for business purchases.There was a $19.95 charge to something related to Yahoo, but it wasn'tpossible to tell exactly what service from the limited information onthe credit card statement. Tonya knew she hadn't ordered anything onlinethat could have generated such a charge, and when she asked me, Icouldn't remember anything either. To verify that I wasn't simply losingmy memory, I searched all my received email around the date in question,and even went so far as to search my OmniWeb history for Yahoo URLsaround the date.
The situation was becoming more curious, so Tonya called the phonenumber on the credit card statement, and waited on hold for a while. Asshe waited, she realized that what she had called was Yahoo Personals -Yahoo's online dating service. She immediately yelled for me to get onthe phone, figuring that the whole situation was just going to generatesnickers for the customer service people if they heard a wife calling tofind out about a dating service charge on her husband's credit card. Iwas good and refrained from making jokes about how I didn't even get anydates from Yahoo Personals once the customer service people came on theline.
It took a little back and forth with Yahoo's customer service people,since we weren't willing to give them much more personal information,some of which they claimed they needed to look up the account that hadmade the charges. Eventually we got them to tell us that the YahooPersonals account did indeed have the same user name as my My Yahooaccount (I immediately changed that account's password, just for goodmeasure), but that the birth date listed with the Yahoo Personalsaccount did not match either of our birth dates. That was sufficient forthem to cancel the account and refund our money.
The Yahoo Personals customer service rep recommended that we cancel thecredit card used, which we were already planning as the next call. Ourcredit card issuer was totally on top of it, cancelling the card andissuing us another one before we'd even had a chance to explain the fullsituation. Tonya keeps records of merchants that are automaticallywithdrawing from that credit card, so next she reset all of thoseaccounts. The morning was shot, but it seemed that we were out of thewoods. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.
A few days later, Tristan and I were out driving when I remembered thatour other car likely had a flat tire due to a slow leak I'd beenmonitoring. That normally wouldn't have been an issue, but Tonya had anappointment before we would be home, and I wanted to alert her to blowup the tire and to remember her cell phone in case she needed me to comechange the tire while she was out. In New York State, it's illegal todrive while talking on a cell phone unless you're using a hands-freesystem, so I pressed the speed-dial number for home and handed Tristanthe phone so he could give her the message. A few seconds later he gaveme back the phone, saying "It's being weird." I pulled over andlistened, and indeed, I'd somehow ended up with Verizon Wirelesscustomer service. I hung up and tried again, and got them again. Thistime I waited until I could talk to a person, who promptly informed methat they had disabled our service because the monthly bill had beenrejected by our credit card - apparently one auto-withdrawal had slippedpast Tonya's record keeping. Luckily, I was able to use another phonelater to walk Tonya through inflating the tire, but the credit cardfraud was increasing in annoyance.
The next week Tonya managed to get the account reinstated, and protestedsufficiently vehemently when Verizon Wireless tried to charge a $15 feefor doing so that they waived the charge. She pointed out that it wouldhave been trivial for them to notify us via voicemail or text messagingthat our auto-withdrawal had failed, but needless to say, the customerservice drone couldn't do anything but forward the feedback (if eventhat).
That wasn't the end of the bother, though the next one was purely myfault. I'd set up a Google AdWords account for Take Control that alsowithdrew money from that MasterCard, and I'd forgotten to inform Tonyathat it needed to be added to the list of auto- withdrawal services. Asyou'd expect, the next time Google tried to charge money to the card, itwas rejected, too.
But here's the difference between Verizon Wireless and Google. WhereVerizon Wireless didn't bother to inform us that they'd disabled ourservice and thus caused us unnecessary trouble, Google sent me a niceemail message, informing me of the problem, telling me that they'dtemporarily disabled our ads, and giving me a link to my account so Icould enter a new credit card number. The entire process took only acouple of minutes, and most of that was exclaiming to Tonya about howGoogle had a clue in comparison to Verizon Wireless.
We were relating this story to a friend over dinner the other day, whosaid she'd had a similar thing happen. In her case, though, the fraudhad included the perpetrator changing the billing address related to thecard, so she hadn't even received a tip-off statement. She recommendedthat we run a credit report as well, just to make sure any additionalhanky-panky wasn't going on with our finances.
A bit of investigation revealed that recent U.S. legislation requiresthe three major credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian, andTransUnion - to provide anyone who asked with a free credit report onceevery 12 months (so you can get one credit report from each company allat once, or you can request a report from one of the companies everyfour months to be on the lookout for problems). Unfortunately, thecredit reporting companies were given quite some time to roll out theservice to the entire country, so although people in western and midweststates can request their free credit reports right now, people in thesouth must wait until 01-Jun-05, and those of us in the eastern statesmust wait until 01-Sep-05. (Some states - Colorado, Georgia, Maine,Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont - also require thatresidents be allowed to request one or two free credit reports eachyear.)
<https://www.annualcreditreport.com/>
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/fcra/>
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/preemption/>
Our friend said she'd used another service called FreeCreditReport.com,which gives you a free credit report, but requires that you sign up fora slew of fee-based credit reporting and monitoring services that couldbe useful, particularly if you wanted to be informed about changes toyour credit report over time. You can (and I did) cancel the membershipwithout paying anything - hence the "free" aspect of the credit report,and of course, you can pay about $10 for a credit report if you don'twant to play the "cancel my membership" game. Luckily, my credit reportshowed nothing of significant concern, though they apparently think I'ma year younger than I am. I'll have to fix that at some point. It'sentirely likely that other problems haven't shown up yet, and I plan tostart running regular credit reports in September.
<http://www.freecreditreport.com/>
In this day and age, shopping on the Internet is simply a fact of lifefor many people. I don't believe that using a credit card on theInternet is any more or less likely to result in credit card numbertheft than using it over the phone or in person, but the more you usecredit cards, the more likely it is some miscreant will obtain yournumber and abuse it. It's mostly an annoyance with credit cards (thoughnot necessarily with debit cards!), since your liability is limited to$50 in the United States, and I've never heard of anyone ever beingcharged even that. But the hassle factor can be large, as our experienceproved, and credit card fraud could be the first step in a more completeidentity theft. So, I recommend the following precautions.
<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/>
<http://www.stclairsw.com/HistoryHound/>
<http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/>
Many instances of credit card number theft may not be within your sphereof influence. The Register has an article listing a number of stories oflarge businesses, educational institutions, and other organizationslosing control of sensitive personal information in this month alone.There's nothing you can do about such situations (apart from checkingdata security practices when possible), but some common sense and efforton your part can reduce the impact of credit card number theft if itdoes happen to you. I got off easy this time, and I hope this is the endof the story (for a much more exciting story of credit card numbertheft, read the page at the second link below).
<http://www.theregister.com/2005/03/23/id_theft_cannot_be_escaped/>
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/publius_ovidius/111672.html>
by Andy J. Williams Affleck <andy@podcrumbs.com>
TidBITS#76614-Feb-05
Few buzzwords surrounding Internet technologies have moved into themainstream more quickly than "podcasting," but because of this speed andan only tangentially related name, few consumer-level technologies haveengendered more confusion. So what is podcasting?
Quite simply, podcasting is creating an audio file (traditionally in MP3format, though other formats can be used as well) and making itavailable online for other people to listen to. If that were all therewas to it, you would probably say "So what? That capability has beenaround for years!" and you would be correct. What's different now isthat there are simple ways to subscribe to specific shows and have theaudio files automatically downloaded to your computer and placed intoyour MP3 software - likely iTunes on the Mac - and, thus, if you wishonto your MP3 player - probably an iPod - without any effort.Simplifying and automating that task has made all the difference.
Right off the bat, I want to clear up one common misconception aboutpodcasting: it has essentially nothing to do with the iPod, and you donot need an iPod to listen to podcasts. If another MP3 player was thecool toy everyone had to have, podcasting would have been given adifferent name.
But look how far podcasting has come in a short time! Since this summerwhen there were only a handful of people putting their audio filesonline for others to hear, thousands more have taken to the virtualairwaves and begun producing their own shows. "Podcasting" was coined inSeptember 2004 as a term, and by December it had already gotten mentionin major newspaper and news magazines. I can't remember ever seeing anew technology go from grass roots to appearances in the legacy mediathat quickly.
Already there are over a thousand different people (no one really knowsexactly how many) producing their own shows. Topics, when they exist atall, run the gamut from music to food to movie reviews to podcastingitself. Many are simply audio versions of weblogs where the content mayonly be interesting to a small circle of friends (and sometimes eventhat's a generous characterization).
Some people have criticized podcasts on the grounds that it is fareasier and quicker to read a Web page and scan or search for informationthan it is to download a huge audio file and listen to it to get whatthe creator is trying to say. That's true, but it misses the pointentirely - podcasting is to weblogs what radio is to newspapers.Podcasting represents a new form of broadcast media. You can think of itas an audio weblog, but podcasts can transcend that description. Perhapsa better analogy is with legalized pirate radio where everyone can havetheir own station and show.
Here are some samples of content which would simply not be asinteresting (or, in some cases, even possible) in a text-only medium:
<http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail220.html >
<http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail221.html >
<http://www.geekfuactiongrip.com/>
Interestingly enough, the vast majority of my use of iTunes and my iPodare listening to various podcasts. I'm watching less TV and I neverlisten to the radio (in fact, the few times I do, aside from NPR, isusually painful). I enjoy the fact that I am finally able to listen andenjoy content which was not produced by the giant corporate monoculture,but by regular people.
Podcasting History -- The various technical pieces that make podcastingpossible have been around for a long time. But the synergy that led tothe explosion of podcasting began toward the end of 2000 when Dave Winerand Adam Curry met in New York City. Dave is the creator of thevenerable outliner MORE, UserLand Frontier, the weblog system RadioUserLand, and the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) standard which is socritical to weblogs and, increasingly, news sites around the world. Adamis a former MTV VJ and founder of OnRamp, a New York City ISP from theearly 1990's. Adam wanted to move large files around (at the time he wasthinking about video) and Dave didn't see how it would work. Downloadinglarge files was always a pain and rarely yielded worthwhile results.Often you'd spend ages