News Humor Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: Thursday, April 21st, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Church of Champaign 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 SIG will be looking into astronomical software. The Macintosh SIG will be learning about Carbon Copy Cloner. And, PC SIGs is open for anything anyone wants to bring in.
ToC
Case 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 of felony spam charges in the nation to nine years in prison but allowed him to remain free on bond during his appeal.
Jeremy Jaynes, 30, of the Raleigh area of North Carolina, was convicted in November of violating Virginia's anti-spam statute by illegally flooding America Online accounts with tens of thousands of bulk e-mail advertisements. The case was tried in Loudoun because the e-mails, which peddled such products as stock pickers and a computer program, ran through an AOL server in the county.
In sentencing Jaynes, Circuit Judge Thomas D. Horne said he would not begin 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 being tried for the first time," Horne said.
Lisa Hicks-Thomas, a prosecutor with the computer crimes division of the Virginia attorney general's office, said she is certain the conviction and sentence will prevail on appeal.
"I'm satisfied that the court upheld what 12 citizens in Virginia have determined is an appropriate sentence," Hicks-Thomas said. The trial jury recommended Jaynes serve three consecutive three-year sentences.
David Oblon, Jaynes's attorney, expressed similar confidence that defense arguments would win on appeal and said that "any sentence is therefore 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 a lucrative spam business that he operated from his home with help from his sister and codefendant, Jessica DeGroot, and a third defendant, Richard Rutkowski. They said the defendants used phony Internet addresses to send more than 10,000 spam e-mails to America Online subscribers on three days in July 2003 -- a volume that makes the crime a felony.
The jury convicted DeGroot in November and recommended she be fined $7,500, but Horne dismissed her conviction last month. Rutkowski was acquitted.
Before hearing his sentence, Jaynes told Horne he never meant to cause anyone harm.
"I can guarantee the court I will never be involved in the e-mail marketing business again," he said.
At the sentencing hearing, Oblon argued that a nine-year sentence was too long for a nonviolent crime. He asked Horne to run Jaynes's three sentences concurrently and suspend most or all of them.
Oblon referred to several letters written by Jaynes's friends and family members -- and one from former North Carolina attorney general Rufus Edmisten -- that were submitted to the court as testament to Jaynes's character.
Horne acknowledged the letters, which he said described Jaynes as a former Eagle Scout who helped "the poor build houses," but he said the jury's recommended sentence reflected community sentiment about spamming and what he called its "tremendous societal costs."
Jaynes has been free on $1 million bond since November. But under the conditions of his bond, he must live in Loudoun County, can rarely leave his home and must wear an electric monitor so officials can keep track of his whereabouts.
Oblon said he would file a motion requesting the bond conditions be amended to allow Jaynes to return to North Carolina while the case wends its way through appellate courts, a process he said could take four years.
ToC
by 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 balance global protection of intellectual property with universal freedom of information. Such a task falls to the World Intellectual Property Organization, a UN-sponsored agency. Unfortunately all too often many of these discussions mirror neoliberal economic strategies. The same trend seems to be taking place here: at the April talks, which will involve representatives of more than 180 countries, advocates for the public interest for the most part will not be allowed a seat at the table. The Electronic Frontier Foundation says this is problematic because any discussions that do take place will be subsequently skewed toward the perspectives of media industries and other private interests who make their money off the trade of information. Currently the World Intellectual Property Organization is evaluating how copyright and patent laws affect developing countries; the EFF says without adequate public representation in this discussion the agency's conclusions may end up favoring big business' penchant for restrictions on knowledge-sharing over the public tendency to open information flows.
ToC
The 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 real reason DRM technology is being pushed so hard by the Content Cartel: repurchasing power.
There are 3 groups of people in the media content marketplace that DRM technology might affect: Illegal Media Providers, Illegal Media Consumers, and Honest Consumers.
1.) Does DRM technology stop the Illegal Media Providers from bypassing DRM restrictions or the mass distribution of DRM-free binaries?
No. Not one piece of DRM protected media has ever been released that couldn't be broken in minutes.
Some say it is still a 'speed bump' to illegal copying but this is not accurate. A technology that only needs one person on the planet to break it in order for all others to bypass, is an inconsequential hindrance.
Some say the problem is just with the current generation of DRM and that the NEXT generation will really stop the piracy. But by the nature of encryption, you can't both give a person 'the message' and keep it from them at the same time. The Content Cartel already knows that DRM encryption will always be broken swiftly.
We have laws to make mass distribution of copyrighted material illegal, but those laws exist independently of DRM. DRM technology does not aid those laws in any way.
Therefore, the Content Cartel isn't interested in DRM for its ability to stop people from ripping or distributing their content (because they know 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 been removed.
Therefore, the Content Cartel is not interested in DRM for its ability to stop the people from illegally downloading content.
3.a.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using their content in ways that are illegal?
No. They're 'honest' consumers, remember? They don't want to do illegal things with their content. If they were dishonest then we'd have to put them in the second group.
3.b.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using their content in ways that are legal?
Yes! There are a many examples one could give of the fair use of digital media that is blocked by DRM (see below). So, if this is the ONLY group that DRM affects, why would the Content Cartel do this to the Honest Consumers?
I think the answer to this question is grounded in the fact that digital media is lossless (that is, you can copy it an infinite number of times, and still have the same file, unlike analog formats such as records and tapes).
Consider how much money was made selling people music they already owned 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's to 33's, 33's to Tapes, Tapes to CDs
That last step was the mistake. CD technology is digital and that means if someone makes a backup copy of that music before it wears out, they won't just own it for the rest of their life, so will anyone they bequeath their music collection to. Forever.
Even if there is a technology shift to a new medium, that new medium will be digital, so the conversion will happen without the need to repurchase the content.
It is this permanent ownership of perfectly reproducible content that I think terrifies the Content Cartel. And it is Honest Consumer repurchasing that I think the Content Cartel is really trying to perpetuate with DRM technology. Honest Consumers are in the VAST majority so forcing them put purchase the same content multiple times generates far more revenue than finding a way to make Illegal Media Consumers purchase it just once.
"But how does DRM force repurchasing?" you may ask. Here are some examples:
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 your DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).
e.g., If you 'authorize' a media device to play music, but it is stolen/broken/lost/etc. you cannot de-authorize that device. Do that 3 times (by the current rules -- which are subject to change at the whim of the Content Cartel) and you'll be repurchasing all your music. This 'authorized for 3 devices only' rule is a nice fail safe to make sure that EVENTUALLY music you once owned will have to be repurchased. Maybe not by the first owner of the content if they are very careful, but the content almost certainly won't be passed to a new generation as a book or painting would.
e.g., If you want to make a VHS copy of a DVD so your kids can watch it on the VHS player you have in the car, you can't. You'll just have to buy a VHS version of the movie you already own.
This is the major reason I feel that DRM is wrong (though there are many others). I don't believe the Content Cartel is interested DRM technology for stopping illegal copying at all. They want to stop LEGAL copying, and reap the staggering financial rewards of forcing Honest Consumers to buy, and buy again.
-Colin.
[Editor's Note:
As they said in All The President's Men, "Follow the money." This whole battle is for the ownership of our culture, a grandiose way of saying corporations want to own the content of our culture's creative output and 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, royalty free, those budget copies of Shakespeare and Dickens and other works that lapse into the public domain. But through the active swindling of talent (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 future and we have a corporate stranglehold on the soul of our people.
Will there even be a public domain when they're through? And who will control the content we as a society are allowed to consume? As Bill Moyers said of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, when giving the Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform in Madison, Wisconsin, back on November 8, 2003, "The clear intent was to prevent a monopoly of commercial values from overwhelming democratic values - to assure that the official view of reality - corporate or government - was not the only view of reality that reached the people."
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/1112-10.htm ]
ToC
Justices ask if restricting file sharing could stifle innovation, yet question 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 whether the recording industry's attempts to shut down online file-sharing networks would deter inventors from developing new products like Apple's iPod music player.
But the justices also suggested that peer-to-peer networks could be held accountable for copyright infringement because they attracted users by telling them that they could copy music and movies for free.
Record labels and movie studios have sued to shut down peer-to-peer software makers like Grokster and Morpheus, arguing that the millions of songs and movies copied each day over these networks have cut into sales.
Lower courts have ruled that Grokster and Morpheus can't be held responsible for the activities of their users because, like a videocassette recorder, their software can be used for legitimate as well as law-breaking purposes.
The Supreme Court seemed sympathetic to that line of reasoning. Justice Steven Breyer noted that other inventions, from the movable-type printing press to the iPod digital-music player, could be used to illegally copy protected works but have proven beneficial to society.
If the court found Grokster liable for the infringing practices of its users, it could have a chilling effect on other inventors, Breyer and several other justices said.
"There's never evidence at the time when the guy's sitting in his garage figuring out how to invent the iPod," said Justice David Souter in open court Tuesday.
But the court also zeroed in on a question that has figured less prominently in previous cases: Whether Grokster and its ilk should be held liable for encouraging, or "inducing," widespread unauthorized copying.
Grokster attorney Richard Taranto argued in court that the network should be judged by its current behavior, not its actions several years ago when it was initially trying to attract users.
But Souter termed that argument "ridiculous." Even if Grokster no longer advertises the fact that users can easily find copyright material, it still benefits from its past advertising, he said.
"Sales of a product on Friday are a result of inducing acts on Monday through Thursday," Souter said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that a lower court should hold a full trial to investigate whether Grokster was liable for inducement.
Recording-industry attorney Donald Verrilli suggested that Grokster wasn't entitled to the protection afforded the video cassette recorder because it is mostly used for infringement, not legitimate uses.
"Their massive actual infringement gets a free pass so long as they can speculate that there are non-infringing uses out there," Verrilli said.
Revenues in the recording industry have plunged by roughly 25 percent since file-sharing networks emerged in 1999, though the industry posted a slight sales increase last year.
Non-infringing uses are now widespread, Taranto said. Hundreds of thousands of songs and millions of video games have been sold through a system called Altnet that allows copyright holders to exert some control over their material, while musicians who don't want to sell songs and music videos have been able to distribute them for free, he said.
Verrilli said that those figures pale in comparison to the 2.6 billion songs that are reproduced without permission each month.
The Justice Department's Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of the recording industry, suggested that a product should enjoy protection if it 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 will determine both the future of broadband Internet access and just what sort of content will be available online. The access case, Brand X Internet Services vs. FCC, involves a California-based company seeking to offer unbundled broadband service over cable systems. Present FCC policy allows cable companies to keep their networks to themselves even though the Telecom Act of 1996 requires networks that offer telecommunications services be opened to competition. Andrew Jay Schwartzman is president and CEO of the Media Access Project and was on hand for the Supreme Court argument. He says it's very dangerous to predict the outcome of the case based on the hearing, but he's cautiously optimistic.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman: "The court certainly expressed its understanding of our central argument, which was that the FCC was trying to evade a congressional deregulation scheme by taking deregulation 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 technical impossibility.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman: "Justice Scalia asked, 'If I'm selling windshields, could you make me buy windshield wipers?' And that argument 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 a lawsuit pitting entertainment conglomerates against file-sharing software developers. That case, MGM vs. Grokster, questions whether the makers of file-sharing programs should be held liable for any copyright-infringing activity users may engage in. Controlling law at the moment involves a 1984 Supreme Court decision about the liability of VCR-makers; back then the Court ruled that just because a technology may give people the potential to duplicate copyrighted content does not condemn its use. Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the Grokster case is about more than just content piracy: it's about the viability of technological innovation.
Annalee Newitz: "Do we want an environment where companies - small companies, small entrepreneurs, have to hire a fleet of lawyers before they 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 or heard the last of this issue.
Mark Cooper: "If the Court does the right thing and upholds the lower court ruling, then it'll be the recording companies who will run to Congress. We have to be ready for that. If the Court does the wrong thing, 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.
ToC
EFFector 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 voting market. The concept is simple: combine Diebold's demonstrated expertise in voting systems with Choicepoint's superior data-mining techniques to produce PredictaVote(TM) - the first 100 percent voter-free, predictive voting system.
"The beauty of this approach is that it is self-correcting," explained Choicepoint CEO Derrick Sithe. "If someone wants to increase the chances that his or her vote will be counted correctly, the voter simply needs to open up more of his or her life to our data-collection methods. Apply for more credit cards. Register for more grocery loyalty cards. Purchase more subscriptions. Fill out more warranty cards. Compare that to today's paperless e-voting machines, where voters have no way to determine whether votes are accurately counted. There's really no comparison."
Even more impressive than its accuracy is its cost-effectiveness, say company spokespersons. PredictaVote caps a decade of innovation and strategic thinking at Diebold, explained Diebold President and CEO Ollie O'Sell. "Elections have historically been ridiculously expensive undertakings. Who's to blame? Quite simply: the voter. Accounting for everything from allowing employees time off to vote to ensuring the accuracy and security of the machines, elections drain an average of $12 billion from the American economy every year in the form of manufacturing costs and lost productivity. With PredictaVote, all of these problems go away with the voter."
Company officials conceded that a number of design choices had yet to be finalized, but emphasized that all predictive factors were customizable on a jurisdiction-by- jurisdiction and demographic-by-demographic basis. Immigrants and the homeless, for example - i.e., those without extensive credit histories - will be excluded from final vote tallies or be subject to additional invasive investigatory procedures, said Choicepoint's Sithe.
"This approach seems to be working well for us in our airport screening algorithms, 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 of 2006 will see Philadelphia launch the United States' first city entirely accessible to wireless Internet. The service will blanket Philadelphia's 135 miles, so that any Philadelphian will be able to get on line, and with the costs subsidized, the mayor says every citizen will be able to afford it. The city first decided to take on the project when it found Internet providers ignoring low income neighborhoods, and those same Internet providers have tried to block the plan, by legally challenging the city's right to make wireless Internet access just another public utility. Dianah Neff is the chief information officer for the City of Philadelphia. Dianah, Welcome to OTM.
DIANAH NEFF: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, if all goes according to plan, this would be the largest Internet accessible municipality on the planet. Why is Philadelphia going to all this trouble?
DIANAH NEFF: It is important to us that we be able to overcome the digital divide and we not leave another generation of families and individuals behind that can't participate in the knowledge economy. So we think this will be a stimulus. We're enhancing the potential for our community to be successful.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you mentioned the digital divide. Obviously, you'll be giving everybody access to the Internet, but will they have a computer, or will you be providing those as well?
DIANAH NEFF: That is a part of our program. It is not just to provide the Internet - it's not build it and they will come. We are working closely with non-profits and the community business districts and our schools to make sure that we get computers into the homes as well as training and education.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: All right. What's it take, in laymen's terms, to blanket a city like Philadelphia with Wi-Fi?
DIANAH NEFF: Well, we have 135 square miles. We believe that about 3,000 devices will cover the entire city. We are going to go out for a request for a proposal to solicit probably a consortium of companies 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 that have computers. Only 58 percent have connection to the Internet. The number one reason cited - 76 percent of the time - was cost or access to high speed broadband. This will be funded through bonds or bank financing, and then will be repaid through revenue generation by people subscribing to the network.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But regular companies who would like to provide this service are really worried about what Philadelphia is doing. Verizon and the City of Philadelphia have been locked in a bitter fight over this whole thing, and spokesmen from these companies say why are you going to turn this wonderful information superhighway into another crappily-run public utility?
DIANAH NEFF: [LAUGHS] Well, one, it's not going to be a poorly-run public utility. We are going to contract this out with a professional organization who do this. We're going out for a request for proposal to select the best vendor out there. The city has had six pilot areas, one square mile, and we've had an opportunity to test it out. And then we will monitor to be sure that the network is performing, that it's kept up to date, that the customers are satisfied with the service that they're getting.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: In other cities, I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's been an arrangement where cities who were thinking of doing this will give the local, say, telephone company say 14 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 just the 14 months. It's two months for them to respond to the request. They have 14 months, then, to build it, and then they can ask for another 12 months' extension, and at the end of that time, they could tell the community that they don't want to do it, and then the community can go off and do it. Also, you have to remember that the existing DSL and cable companies do not provide nomadic outdoor capabilities. That is an important element of this project. That is not accessible today.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Right. But it could be, couldn't it? They could 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 proposal to build the network.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So they can build it, but they can't set the price for it.
DIANAH NEFF: That's correct. You know, remember, one of the initial goals was an affordable broadband, and if you're a family that brings in 28,000 dollars a year, 40 to 50 dollars on top of your telephone 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 of subsidies that the telecommunications companies have been given over the years to deploy the wired environment that we have today. We believe that if we're going to be competitive and survive as a great city, we need to make sure that our population have the training and education and access to the Internet. Virtually every job today requires some basic 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 officer for City of Philadelphia.
ToC
by 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 an April 4th speech to executives attending the cable television industry's annual conference in San Francisco, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner suggested criminal prosecution for indecency cases. The scary thing is that Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, is chair of the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee, which puts him in a prime position to ramrod such legislation through the House. Criminalizing indecent programming would almost certainly run afoul of the first amendment, and Sensenbrenner 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 the House passed a bill to increase the maximum fine the FCC can levy in indecency cases by more than 15-fold, from $32,500 to $500,000.
ToC
by 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 Internet projects. Bills are pending in the state legislatures of Colorado and Texas which would preemptively forbid cities and towns from offering broadband data services; a bill in Texas would ban the establishment of them by next year. In West Virginia, telecom corporate lobbying effectively watered down a state Senate proposal that would have guaranteed cities and towns the right to develop community Internet projects - now the legislation just calls for a study of the concept. In Arkansas, lawmakers are debating a proposal to give millions of dollars of tax breaks to companies who build out broadband networks; the state already has laws in place that restrict community Internet projects. Ten states in all have implemented legal barriers to community Internet development, while another 11 are debating doing so. At the federal level, however, the attitude is the opposite. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to give away some $9 million to local governments for community Internet projects: this is on top of more than $30 million similarly spent over the last three years.
ToC
URL: http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=IL
Sen. Steven J. Rauschenberger (R) 22nd District (Elgin) on 2/17/2005 filed Senate bill 499 in the Illinois General Assembly which carries an amendment that would flatly prohibit any municipality or other local government entity from operating a communications network in the state. Straightforward and to the point, this bill offer no possibility for municipalities to provide broadband, even in cases where no commercial provider is willing to do so. The bill specifically prohibits both wholesale and retail service.
Read the bill:
Information on Senator Rauschenberger:
http://www.ilga.gov/Senate/Senator.asp?GA=94&MemberID=1004
ToC
by 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 offensive in the fight to stop telecom companies from convincing lawmakers to ban such projects on a state-bystate basis. Big Telecom's been spreading much disinformation about the viability of community broadband, whether it be about the financial health of such projects or their actual economic impact on cities and towns that have tried them. Specifically, Verizon's been circulating an unsigned pseudo fact-sheet touting several examples of supposedly failed community Internet projects around the country. That document's now been deconstructed point-by-point - and it turns out that Verizon used obsolete data and twisted the stories of actual successful projects to paint them as failures. Free Press project Manager Frannie Wellings wrote the report setting the record straight about Verizon's misinformation: she says the company's research began to unravel as soon as she started digging into it.
Frannie Wellings: "I called up everybody including projects that Verizon had said didn't exist anymore. Then you look online and see they've got a web site and that they're fully functioning."
A couple of examples demonstrate the misinformation at work: Verizon claims Dickenson County, Virginia sold off its wireless network to a contractor, who then lowered the monthly access fee while maintaining the same level of service. The truth is the network is fully functional today, still in county hands, and the county was the one who reduced fees by $5 a month because the network runs so smoothly. In fact, Verizon itself once made an unsolicited offer to buy the network, only to be rebuffed by Dickenson County. Then there is the fiber optic network financed by the city of Cedar Falls, Iowa: Verizon says it's lost money in every year of operation. The real story is the network went cashflow-positive in 1997, broke even in 1998, turned a net profit in 2003, and is given partial credit for tripling the amount of new development in the city. Wellings says breaking the news about Verizon's claims to those the company cited as failures was an interesting experience, to say the least.
Frannie Wellings: "Most of these people did not know. Most of them were obviously upset that they were, number one, being used for this campaign, and number two, being lied about."
Part of the disconnect between Verizon and the truth was due to the company's use of the maximization of profit as the barometer of success for community Internet projects when none of them were really set up with that as a primary goal.
Frannie Wellings: "Private companies and municipalities would judge the success of a project very differently. So in cities where residents were never able to get access to broadband because private companies did not see it as profitable for them, municipalities have gone into business. Municipalities see that as being successful because they're actually serving their community."
Verizon has since admitted to authoring and circulating the false-fact sheet, but has made no other comment about being debunked so thoroughly.
ToC
by 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 their pockets with extra profit at the expense of public service. A bill that would have forced cities and towns to cut cable company franchise fees by 20% while closing public access channels just got voted down in the Arizona legislature. The bill was backed by cable companies like Adelphia, Comcast, Cox, and Mediacom; they tried to sell it as some kind of tax relief that would have lowered monthly bills. But city of Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says the truth of the matter was it would have sucked money right out of local coffers - to the tune of $8 million a year in his community alone.
Phil Gordon: "$8 million a year is the same as the salaries for 150 new Phoenix police officers or firefighters. It's the same as closing down the main city of Phoenix of library forever. That's what $8 million a year does for us."
Lobbyists for the cable companies tried some last-minute parliamentary moves to keep the legislation alive but strong opposition from the grassroots convinced lawmakers to vote it down. Larry Nelson, Mayor of Yuma, 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 they don't want to recognize the local rights."
Had the Arizona bill passed it would have set a dangerous precedent, as similar efforts to cut franchise frees and cripple public access to cable 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 as the notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take hold in towns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created legislation that will stop the "red menace" of community Internet before it invades our homes.
And to think that Americans might want to receive high-speed access at costs below the monopoly rates set by these few Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Today, monthly broadband packages offered by the national carriers hover above $50, barring access to millions of Americans who can't afford the sticker price. Cities and towns across the country have taken up the task of building a cheaper alternative -- often choosing easy-to-build wireless mesh networks -- to bridge the gap that has kept many on the darker side of the digital divide.
Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal Internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise.
Their weapon of choice is industry-crafted legislation that restricts local governments from offering public service Internet access at reasonable rates. Laws are already on the books in a dozen states. This year alone, 10 states are considering similar bills to block public broadband or to strengthen existing restrictions.Spinning broadband as theirs alone to provide, ISPs have chalked up some early victories-including a draconian law now on the books in Pennsylvania, which strips local governments of the right to choose their own homegrown broadband solutions without the prior approval of a monopoly phone company. In late 2004, Verizon dictated the law word-for-word to local legislators, who then quietly slipped it into the middle of a 72-page bill that appeared to call for improved communications infrastructure for all Pennsylvanians.
It will have the opposite effect.
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon before offering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask permission from Borders before checking out books.
Meanwhile, the United States has slid from first to thirteenth place in national broadband penetration, falling behind South Korea, Japan and Canada, where effective private-public sector initiatives have paved over the digital divide, allowing more citizens to reap the economic benefits of the open information era at a fraction of the costs we take for granted.
Not so in the United States. A nation that once prided itself as the global pacesetter in technological innovation and affordable communications is now held in the thrall of corporations eager to keep a basic 21st Century right-the right to connectivity-from citizens who can't afford their exorbitant access fees.
How has America fallen so far back?
The struggle for accessible, locally provided broadband has been building for several years. But it didn't hit the corporations' radar until the middle of 2004, when larger cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco recognized broadband access as a basic public utility-no different from water, gas or electricity-that they could provide.
It's easy to understand the local appeal. Broadband networks have proven a win-win for municipal governments: Community Internet creates free-market competition for communications services, improves schools, enhances public safety and social services, and encourages entrepreneurs through public-private partnerships. These networks are relatively cheap to build and bring technology-and resulting economic opportunity-to low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities that are routinely passed 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 in favor of building public broadband pass easily-in some cases offering not only community Internet, but also television and telephone service.
"Access to the Internet today is as much a necessity of life as the more traditional services and should be available to all," says Jonathan Baltuch, an economic development consultant from St. Cloud, Florida, a city that voted to provide citizens with a wireless network covering 30 square miles.
According to Baltuch, St. Cloud's municipal network has yielded a considerable return to residents. Prior to the city's broadband network, a St. Cloud resident paid on average $450 a year for commercial Internet access. Today they pay on average $300 a year in property taxes-money that not only provides broadband access but also supports efforts to keep city streets clean, pick up residential garbage and provide for local police and fire protection. "By the city providing this one service to its residents the average household savings will be 50 percent more than the average tax bill for all city services," Baltuch says. "Further the $3 to $4 million per year that is leaving the city to flow to corporate headquarters all over the country will stay in the local economy."
Philadelphia decided to follow suit. Last year, Mayor John F. Street announced plans for "Wireless Philadelphia" a project that by next year will provide the city's population of 1.6 million, spread out over 135 square 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 to mark out their territory and smother municipal broadband projects wherever they began to take root.
The goal was simple-legislate competition out of existence. But to do so the industry needed allies in its fight against local choice. It found them easily among state representatives willing to sell statehouse votes to fill their campaign coffers, and Washington-based think tanks-such as the Cato Institute and the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC)-willing to produce "research" that pleased their corporate funders.
To this mix of industry sock puppets add a gullible media. In a finely targeted media campaign, the "evils" of municipal broadband were pressed upon local journalists who were willing to echo corporate concerns without digging for an opposing view. Too often, local papers failed to follow the money that linked their sources at the Cato Institute and NMRC to the industry-taking at face value comments and data from these think tanks without revealing the conflicts of interest that would impugn their research.
A report discrediting community Internet issued by NMRC, for example, has been cited nearly a dozen times by journalists in the two months since its release. Not a single reporter bothered to let readers in on the fact that the NMRC receives money from the same corporations whose policy positions it just happens to profess.
On February 17, the battle over access finally graced the front-page of the New York Times, with a story pegged to Philadelphia's ambitious plans to turn the city into "one gigantic wireless hot spot." The first quote by Times writer James Dao went to Adam Thierer, identified as "director of telecommunications studies at the libertarian Cato Institute." He told the Times: "The last thing I'd want to see is broadband turned into a lazy public utility."
Dao failed to note that the Cato Institute is funded by Verizon, SBC Communications, Time Warner, Comcast and Freedom Communications. Dao then 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 that might impugn his integrity. In a previous incarnation, Cohen served as chief of staff to then Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell. Rendell has since moved into the governor's mansion, while Cohen jumped to the private sector. This relationship might explain why the governor ignored widespread public opposition and signed into law last December the bill that shafted Pennsylvania communities seeking to offer homegrown broadband services.
These corporations say that they're shutting down homegrown broadband efforts to safeguard the best interests of American free enterprise. But, as Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief technology officer, asked in a recent column for ZDNet: "When was the last time they were elected to determine what is best for our communities? If they're really concerned about what is important to all members of the community, why haven't they built this type of network that meets community needs or approached a city to use their assets to build a high-speed, low-cost, ubiquitous network?"
ToC
Junko 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 save cost, improve efficiency and deliver social benefits. But they are also aware that information collected and stored digitally can be difficult to protect. Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program for the American Civil Liberties Union, probes the privacy implications of digital and RF technologies and argues that certain approaches intended to heighten security may, in fact, leave society more vulnerable.
EE Times: Do certain technologies raise red flags for privacy rights 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 in the Stone Age.
We look at a number of technologies, but I would hesitate to single out one that's more worrisome, because they are all worrisome. We're developing the infrastructure for the surveillance society without, at the same time, creating the chain to hold the monster.
EE Times: You made a statement on RFID tags last summer before the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the House Committee 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 whether Wal-Mart puts RFID chips [on its stock].
[Inclusion of] RFID chips in identity documents is not a fantasy: The new standard for passports, globally [adopted] through the International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO], is to include a contactless integrated circuit. The chip will hold all the data in the passport - significantly more data than what is now in the passport - including biometric data as well as biographical data. And it's unprotected. The United States pushed very hard to keep it unprotected.
So, now, any identity thieves or terrorists who have a reader can obtain that data. It's a frightening development. Americans who travel internationally must be afraid, very afraid, that we are essentially leaving ourselves with a big bull's-eye on our backs saying: "We are Americans."
EE Times: What, then, would the ACLU like to see in the e-passport spec? Is personal data encryption good enough?
Steinhardt: At a minimum, the RFID chip is an invitation to disaster. Any identity document that's going to be carried, including a passport, ought to be protected in the most robust way. One way is to require it to make physical contact with a reader, so you avoid the problem of eavesdropping, of unknowing interceptions. Why shouldn't we require contact with a reader so that at least there is some actual notice that data is being collected?
There are huge volumes of data eventually being collected, both because of data stored within the card itself and because of the database that the card will be linked to. It will enable essentially universal monitoring and tracking. It hurtles us down the path toward the surveillance society, where you will not be able to engage in any transaction without having your actions recorded, your background checked, [your privacy] violated.
EE Times: Is it true that there are no laws or regulations governing the requirement that you show an ID to get into a building or controlling what is done with data that is collected?
Steinhardt: In the United States, there's no regulation on what data is collected, what is done with it or how it's stored. We do not have the fair-information principles that exist in the rest of the developed 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 substantial amounts of information about virtually every American, from names and addresses to purchases, sometimes medical data. It freely sells that information on the open market, and there is very little way of regulating that activity.
There was a recent disclosure that identity thieves posing as legitimate customers ordered information [from ChoicePoint]. ChoicePoint got fooled. But in theory, if the thieves had said, 'We are identity thieves, here's our money, give us data,' they would have been free to do it. There is no meaningful regulation in the United States.
EE Times: You say the government and private corporations alike are gathering more and more details about our everyday existence. Yet it appears that people are voluntarily giving out personal information. Are they doing so out of ignorance?
Steinhardt: Every time Americans have been given an option of voting for stronger privacy protection, they in fact have opted to do that. For example, there was a referendum in North Dakota, a very small conservative state, on the day of the Republican primary, and 62 percent of voters in the state voted to require that before banks can transfer their private information they have to get consent, which is of course standard law in the rest of the world. So people get it. People understand intuitively that there's data you need to protect, and that someone 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 of trying to convince the rest of the world that they should adopt our Wild West approach to data. Chances that anything meaningful will happen in this Congress or in the next four years are very slim. And the question then is: Is it too late? Is it simply that technology will outstrip the ability to control it?
EE Times: I interviewed a European engineer involved in e-passport development who said the U.S. administration is more in the business of collecting data than protecting private information. Do you agree?
Steinhardt: The current administration has no interest at all in protecting information. They actively resist any intent to put brakes on their ability to collect information.
EE Times: Please give us an example.
Steinhardt: This really is an example of what we refer to as U.S. policy laundering. The Bush administration is very interested in developing 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 Aviation Organization and got a world standard created. Then the president announces at the G8 summit meeting that it's necessary to adhere to the world standard.
Britain is about to create a national ID card that will essentially follow ICAO standards. Certainly, nations around the world are dealing with ICAO standards in their passports. Those standards will quickly migrate into other identity documents, such as driver's licenses in the United States.
EE Times: How can we stop that?
Steinhardt: Partly by explaining just what the risk is: It is an 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 identity theft that will result in genuine privacy protection legislation in the United States.
EE Times: I want to discuss the concept of fair use. Why is fair use important for innovation?
Steinhardt: Fair-use doctrine in the United States wasn't an afterthought; it was an essential part of the section on intellectual property in our Constitution. It was designed to protect innovation. It was designed to allow people to take ideas to reality. And what is increasingly happening is that the ideas are being locked up by intellectual-property laws.
And we're beyond the point where it's simply ideas. In the United States we are patenting genes, to the point where the person from whom the genetic information was derived has no access to that information.
We've gone way overboard in the United States. We are stifling innovation, and we are having a dramatic effect on our ability to buy medical care, to encourage the introduction of entertainment - all the things that make the American economy so strong.
EE Times: While big media corporations spend a lot of money protecting their copyrighted content, traditional fair-use rights for consumers - making copies of purchased content for personal use - seem to be decreasing.
Steinhardt: That's right. It has led to consumers' having fewer choices or simply deciding to disobey the law. We wish more industries would learn from Napster and from the download battle. We had millions 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 download of music - and the iPod, and it's a major economic phenomenon. But many in the industry don't seem to understand the lessons of iPod, iTunes and Napster, which is that if you create a product that's fairly priced and easily accessible, people will buy it.
EE Times: Technology has consequences, and engineers are starting to appreciate their responsibility for those consequences, good and bad. Is there such a thing as an ethics code for the engineering community?
Steinhardt: I don't believe ethics codes make a difference. I am always thrilled when engineers come forward and offer to build tools that might protect privacy. But in the end there is no substitute for law, for rules.
Some of those rules may call for technologies that engineers will create to protect our privacy. But we'd better do it soon because we are probably only [a few] years away from a nightmare society of constant surveillance.
[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 ]
ToC
Paul Thurrott
URL: http://www.wininformant.com/
The security experts at Symantec have verified what Windows watchers have known for some time: Microsoft's third-quarter 2004 release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) dramatically improved security for XP users and, as a result, the entire Internet. According to Symantec, the August 2004 release of XP SP2 was immediately followed by a dramatic drop-off in the number of PC-based bots, compromised PCs that hackers use to spread malware around the Internet. "The timing of this drop corresponds closely with the availability of Windows XP Service Pack 2," a Symantec report reads. "It's reasonable to assume that this service pack is responsible, along with other mitigation measures, for the decline in identified bot network computers." Amazingly, this drop-off in bots occurred during a time period in which the number of worms and Trojan attacks on Windows machines almost doubled. We all know that XP SP2, like any software product, isn't perfect. But this data suggests that XP SP2 was a highly successful release that was sorely needed.
I wrote about my anecdotal experience trying in vain to find an Xbox video game console late last year and now, 3 months later, Microsoft is acknowledging that the Xbox is indeed in short supply. The reason? Microsoft credits the shortage to the "surging popularity" of the Xbox, which has started outselling the Sony PlayStation 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 likely ship the sequel to the Xbox, code-named Xenon, to customers in time for the 2005 holiday season, which is about 3 weeks away if I understand the retail calendar. Has there ever been a technical product this successful in the waning months of its life cycle?
Mitchell Baker, president of The Mozilla Foundation, declared this week that Firefox is more secure than Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and will remain so even if its user base dramatically expands. That's because Firefox isn't integrated into Windows, he says, and doesn't support dangerous technologies such as ActiveX. "Nothing will be perfect," she said, and yes, Firefox will suffer from vulnerabilities from time to time. But its architecture is cleaner and safer than IE's. Could be. It certainly couldn't be any worse than IE. I guess this year's release of IE 7.0 will be an interesting milestone for the Mozilla folks. If they can overcome the excitement that the IE release will generate, they're all set. But I have a bad feeling that Firefox might be in for 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, giving its users dramatically more email storage and a much improved desktop search tool. First, Yahoo! is raising the storage capacity of its free email service to 1GB, matching Google's GMail, although that service is stuck in perpetual beta and not generally open to the public. The free version of Yahoo! Mail is also getting some email antivirus functionality that was previously available only to paying customers. On the desktop search front, Yahoo! is adding the ability to search the information that's stored in Yahoo! Messenger archives and 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. This week, representatives of Dell and HP, the world's two largest PC makers, downplayed the effects of the European Union's (EU's) requirement that Microsoft 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 will offer XP Home Edition N and XP Professional Edition N but that it expects little demand from customers. HP noted that because the N versions cost the same as the XP versions that include WMP, consumers have little incentive to consider the products. Well, duh.
Microsoft has filed lawsuits against 117 people the company accuses of launching phishing attacks against consumers. In phishing attacks, the attackers send email messages to unsuspecting users that purport to be from institutions such as banks, credit card companies, and retail stores. The messages attempt to trick recipients into visiting specially made Web sites and providing credit card information or other private data. Phishing attacks are growing dramatically. The number of such attacks has increased more than 25 percent each month since July 2004. Microsoft announced the lawsuits with officials from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Consumers League, which are touting today as April Phool's Day in a bid to educate consumers about these scams.
I hate it when my favorite companies can't get along. This week, Dell CEO Kevin Rollins reiterated that his company will continue to ignore microprocessor upstart AMD and work solely with Intel. Dell and AMD came frustratingly close to working together. After AMD pioneered the 64-bit x64 processor, Dell briefly considered moving to AMD but backed off when Intel jumped on board the x64 rollercoaster. "We saw Intel lagging a few months ago and expressed interest in AMD," Rollins said. "Since that time, Intel has really stepped up to the plate." The situation makes me wonder whether Intel's interest in x64 was driven, in part, by Dell's desire to move to that platform. Ah, well, we could play what-if games all day. In my favorite what-if scenario, Commodore's Amiga platform went on to dominate the computer industry.
The number of visitors hitting the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web site is growing rapidly, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings. In March over 2.6 million people visited the site, compared to 2.2 million in January and 1.6 million in February. By all accounts, Firefox now controls about 5 percent of the Web browser market, an amazing accomplishment for a relatively new product facing off against Internet Explorer, which hasn't faced any serious competition since about 1998.
ToC
URL: 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 the performance of a dual-processor configuration at a lower cost. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 (you have to love the ultra-clear Intel naming conventions) is now shipping to PC makers, who will unveil dual-core systems at the chip's launch event, which should be any day now.
The dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 features two processor cores that each run at 3.2GHz. Leading PC makers such as Dell have confirmed that they'll ship PCs based on the new chip later this month. However, the Extreme Edition versions of the Pentium 4 are expensive, high-end chips that are aimed at gaming 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 and server chips, but the two companies are taking opposite approaches to shipping the chips. Intel will ship dual-core versions of its desktop-oriented Pentium 4 chips before it preps dual-core Xeon processors for workstations and servers. AMD, meanwhile, is prepping dual-core versions of its server-oriented Opteron processors but won't provide dual-core Athlon-64 chips for desktop PCs until 2006.
ToC
Michael 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 next version of the widely used Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn.
Recently, I got a firsthand look at Longhorn's new search capabilities, as well as many more details about what end users can expect from the still-in- development OS, courtesy of Jim Allchin, group vice president of Microsoft's Platforms Group. Allchin also revealed that hardware developers at this month's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHec) will be given a release designed for writing device drivers, and that a full beta version with user interface will come out a few months later.
Allchin described Longhorn as nothing less than "the OS platform for the next ten years." It's on track for Beta 1 release this summer and final release for the 2006 holiday season. Although the Avalon graphics system, Indigo Web services system, and WinFS file system (now slated to ship sometime after Longhorn) have gotten the most attention, Microsoft's design goals focus on six key points, Allchin says:
Developers, Allchin explained, are working to make sure the system is easier to plug into, and that it can more readily understand the devices and networks it's connected to at any time—understanding, for instance, different printers when you move your laptop between the office and home. — Continue reading
Security is a top concern, but so is making Longhorn a safer environment for children to use. Allchin said the system is moving to Least-Privileged User Access as a privilege default, so that end users can't accidentally install malicious files. Sitting underneath all this will be a "virtual file system," helping ease application compatibility issues that arise from low privileges on today's systems. Beyond that, Internet Explorer would run in a "containment area," unlike standard applications, making it even harder for malicious applications to end up on your system. Longhorn will have secure start-up, using Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to lock the hardware and software and maintain outgoing and incoming firewalls. System restore will now include user data as well, and there will be a new backup system to protect your data and do things such as writing incremental file changes to another disk.
Deployment and management changes are aimed at corporate users, with the goal of making it easier for IT departments to manage multiple system images for different kinds of machines, for example.
Microsoft characterizes the different ways people use the system—at work, at home, or on the go—as "experiences." I was particularly intrigued by some of the changes designed to make Windows a better mobile operating system. Among the new features planned are instant-on, wireless projecting of information, tools to help it better understand different network environments, and support for auxiliary displays (imagine a laptop with an LCD on the outside cover, so you 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 in specific roles: as a Web server, mail server, active directory server, and so on. Under Longhorn, you'll be able to set up a machine for just a specific role, with none of the other features enabled. This should make the system both faster and more secure.
Longhorn, Allchin told me, will be a platform for the next ten years, with the new Avalon graphics system, the Indigo Web services system, and, eventually, the delayed WinFS file system. But it will have other features as well, such as top-to-bottom Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) support for companies that want 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 new user interface was not complete, the demo illustrated how Longhorn will take much more advantage of the graphics processing unit built into most machines, especially for 3D effects and the like. Allchin's demonstration showed folders growing into their space on the desktop and shrinking back to the task bar. In some ways, these looked like the file system effects in Macintosh OS X.
More important is the new Windows Explorer, which shows previews of documents instead of icons and lets you search "anything that can be indexed," including search folders that the user can set. It's designed for a full-context search of all the data on your computer, and allows you to sort the results by all sorts 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 system Microsoft promoted years ago.
I remember when Microsoft described Chicago (Windows 95) as being on the road to Cairo. The search features didn't make it into the operating system that became Windows NT (probably because the hardware wasn't ready). Indexing has been available in Windows for a while, but it's been slow. Indexing is also in MSN Desktop Search. Several new desktop search tools are available now, but integrating search into the core OS has its advantages, such as updating whenever files change. (Of course, a similar feature should be in Apple's OS X Tiger, which ships this month.)
Microsoft representatives will, according to Allchin, distribute a build of Longhorn at the WinHEC show at the end of this month, but this is a month-old build designed for developers to write 64-bit drivers, display drivers, and the like. The full Beta 1, which he described as a public beta aimed at "IT engagement," should be out this summer. Overall, Allchin says, there should be more interim builds for Longhorn than testers saw in the beta cycles leading up to the release of Windows XP SP2. The next big build opportunity should be at the Professional Developers Conference in September, where Microsoft will push hard for developers to create Longhorn-specific products. After that, Beta 2 will be the first beta really aimed at end users. Allchin says the product is on track for a holiday 2006 release. And not surprisingly, he says it will be accompanied by "massive marketing."
Clearly, a lot needs to happen between now and when Longhorn ships. We'll let you know more as we get details.
ToC
URL: 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 Fusion and others)when set to notify. If page loading becomes a problem, right click the tea timer icon in the Systray, select "Resident IE" and either uncheck "Use Resident 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; little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. But many of these modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.
If SpyBot-S&D finds such modules, it can remove them - or replace them with empty dummies in case their host software won't run with its bot removed. In most cases, the host still runs fine after removing the bot.
For a list of 'supported' bots see the feature lists below. The Spybot-S&D interface is so easy, that updates just require replacing a file of about 80k in size. Those updates are distributed by my software mailinglist, at the authors 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 it more complicated for unknown spybots to transmit useful data. The list of last visited websites, opened files, started programs, cookies, all that and more can 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 correct invalid entries into the registry.
[Hisel's Note: It looks like Spybot now knows about Mozilla-style cookies and offers to whack the baddies if you wish.]
ToC
By 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 systems using its Access or Office software up to attack.
The vulnerability, which was not one of eight patched by Microsoft on Tuesday, is in the Jet database engine component, according to an advisory posted the same day by security company Secunia. It could enable an intruder to remotely execute malicious code on a vulnerable PC, Secunia said.
Microsoft has not confirmed the existence of the security hole, which potentially affects software including Microsoft Office and the Microsoft Access database program.
Secunia rated the problem "highly critical," noting that exploit code for the flaw had been shared on a public mailing list.
"The vulnerability is caused due to a memory handling error when...parsing database files," Secunia said in its advisory. "This can be exploited to execute arbitrary code by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted '.mdb' file in Microsoft Access."
A Microsoft representative said on Tuesday that the company has not heard of any attacks on customers' systems using the unpatched security hole.
"We are aware of the exploit code that has been released," the Microsoft representative said, adding that the software maker would take appropriate action once it has completed its investigation of the problem.
The original alert regarding the flaw came from a security research firm called HexView, Secunia said.
Continuing an ongoing debate about when and how flaw finders should disclose vulnerabilities, Microsoft criticized the researchers for going public with the vulnerability, rather than privately contacting the software maker so a patch could be released when the flaw was disclosed.
"It is unfortunate that this researcher decided to post publicly," the Microsoft representative said.
HexView said in its own advisory that it notified Microsoft of the flaw on March 30, but had received no response.
A Microsoft representative said the company had no record of any contact from HexView before the flaw was publicized.
Word of the problem comes on the same day Microsoft released fixes for eight other flaws, several of them critical, and some of them revealed publicly for the first time in its monthly security bulletin.
ToC
By 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, as well 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 free software delicacies and services.
The week's most noticed giveaway was Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) addition of spy satellite images, which show nearly every address in the United States, to its map address-finding service. Even better was Firefox's new Scrapbook extension.
A constant torrent of these new powerful tools stands naked as a lighthouse in a computer industry where innovation languishes like the cash building up in Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) corporate treasury from continuing sales of the same old stuff.
Never has a company boasted as loudly about innovation while growing ever more stagnant.
Folks in areas like the Internet portal and music sales division MSN, as well 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 development budget seeking stuff like accurate voice recognition for pocket PCs and home electronics.
But when was the last time you picked up a newspaper or logged on to the Web and discovered an exciting new software offering from Microsoft?
Today the red-hot player is Google. This strange Web search portal outfit, led by self-proclaimed good guys, innovates. Then a horde of powerful competitors imitate.
Google was first to offer a plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser that killed those incessant pop-ups. Best still, Google was way out front giving away so-called Desktop Search software that indexes every 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 X10 that had been creating industrial-strength hard-drive-search software for years.
Google next copied mapping and route-planning services like Mapquest and opened Maps.Google.com, probably the best mapping tool you can find short of hiring on at the CIA.
Type in a name and address, and Google brings up a map showing its street location and how to get there. Type in "White House, Washington, D.C.," and you get driving directions from your house to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. plus a street map of the surroundings.
Now you can click on a "Satellite" icon in the upper right of the Google display and produce an aerial photo of the White House along with a big chunk of the surrounding landscape. A zoom feature brings you to a simulated altitude around 1,000 feet with such clarity that you can see some of the brick lines in the Washington monument with its shadow splayed across The Mall.
I loved this stuff from the first click and wasted so much time playing with aerial views of Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Miami that my paycheck probably should get docked. But, wow.
A day after Google released this satellite tool, Firefox announced Scrapbook, which may be the best thing to hit blogging since John Kerry.
You first need to get Firefox's free browser that competes with Microsoft Internet Explorer at Firefox.com. Follow the directions on the site to acquire plug-ins and extensions unique to Firefox's software. I lack space to cover Firefox's browser itself, but you'll see that it's great.
Scrapbook creates a pane down the left side of the display where you can drag icons for entire Web sites or just the best parts. You can stockpile a page and collect new stuff each time it changes. This lets followers of an individual Web log keep track of changes as the blogger blogs on. And on.
You can even store an entire Web site by downloading every bit of its files for offline use or code napping. Or you can simply paint a small bit of a Web page and drag that to the pane. The big deal here is that Scrapbook indexes stored stuff and permits quick keyword searches as your collection of clipped information grows.
A Note feature built directly into Firefox lets you paint important text and save it into a file, but Scrapbook sucks in pictures, sounds, movies and the rest if you want.
The contents of each scrapbooked item are represented by an icon in the pane, and as it grows it presents items much like the favorites on any browser. But, with stuff stockpiled, it comes up instantly offline.
Bill Gates isn't stupid and he isn't lazy. I'll bet they're sweating bullets Redmond, Wash., as news about Google's satellite and Firefox Scrapbook flashes around the country. You can track his response by dragging this to your Scrapbook: Microsoft.com.
ToC
URL: 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 decided to change its name!
The name change will apply worldwide to both the company and its products. The management team sees two good reasons for this change:
1. The recent Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger calls for a new identity that better represents the combination of two key companies and their global presence.
2. The long-winding trademark lawsuit with Hearst Corporation has reached a point where we decided it is more reasonable for us to move forward. By adopting a new name, we eliminate the liability attached to the Mandrakesoft name and we can focus on what is important to us: developing and delivering great technology and solutions to both our customers and our user community.
We will endeavor to build even stronger brand recognition in our new name. 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 of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva. This will further a smooth transition and will build on our existing brand recognition in the IT world.
ToC
Key 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 as 1965, and has been the pulse of the IT industry ever since will eventually end, said Moore, who is now retired from Intel.
Forty years after the publication of his law, which states that transistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two years, Moore said this morning: "It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.
"In terms of size [of transistor] you can see that we're approaching the size of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, but it'll be two or three generations before we get that far - but that's as far out as we've ever been able to see. We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit. By then they'll be able to make bigger chips and have transistor budgets in the billions."
As for whether computing have been different without Moore's Law, he said: "It's hard to say - I think it has become a very useful guide. At the start it didn't have much impact, but the first place I saw an impact was when the Japanese entered the memory business. It seemed then that the industry generally was moving in a random direction but once the Japanese got into memory they had a plan and were successful in taking a leading position in that area.
"In that respect, it would have been different if we hadn't noticed that trend. I was lucky as I was just in a position to see things further out than most people, working for Fairchild who were at the forefront of the technology industry."
On the anniversary of the April 1965 Electronics magazine article that made him famous, Moore, who was then head of R&D at electronics giant Fairchild, also said that he didn't believe nanotechnology would supplant 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 already operating well below 100nm which is seen as the start of nanotech so we're there already.
"Building things up from the bottom, atom by atom, comes from a different direction. It's not replacing ICs - the technology is being applied in different fields such as gene chips to do bio-analysis very quickly, micro-machines in airbags and avionics, micro-fluidics - chemical labs on a chip.
"Electronics though is a fundamental technology that's not likely to be replaced directly. There's a difference between making a small machine and connecting them by the billion. Nanotech will have an impact but it's not about replacing electronics in the foreseeable future."
Asked if he foresaw mass market computing, Moore said that he looked back and, "in the original article I did but had no idea what it would look like." He saw home computing as a small market, with applications such as storing recipes in the home. As a result, Intel - where Moore by then worked - didn't pursue that avenue.
Moore also scorned the technology used by the military. He agreed that the military drove advances in computing when costs were very high as it gave them capabilities they couldn't get in any other way, through the 1960s. "Since then it hasn't had much impact as the commercial business timeframe is so much faster than the pace at which military systems change - 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 make new predictions - several things have been called Moore's Second Law but I can't take credit for any of them."
ToC
One 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 Linux kills 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 prove Linux 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, it will never put a dent in Windows' mind share or market share because Linux is an operating system, a way -- and probably the best way -- to make system hardware do what it's told. But you can't turn Linux into a platform 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 another nonplatform, namely Unix, that needs to be refreshed and extended.
The practical need to keep Unix around isn't rooted in nostalgia or misguided conviction. There may be times when you're convinced that the solution you need doesn't exist as a whole. The total solutions that exist might be too confining or expensive, or -- as is sometimes the showstopper for me -- simply closed. Open source Unix, in which category I place Linux, BSD, and Darwin (the OS layer of Apple's OS X), is a 500,000-piece bag of Legos that comes with some drawings and a few models you can use, build on, or tap into as references for your own creations. On paper, an OS is an ideal place to start building, because you get to choose everything that sits above it and presumably you know just what belongs in each of those gaps between your hardware and your application. You see, while developers can write to an operating system's default API, they'll spend most of their time encapsulating and abstracting low-level system calls to create what is, in effect, an application 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 that fill in the holes between open source Unix and your applications.
In contrast, Windows fills in all the blocks between the hardware and your apps. It does it in ways that you can't alter, but which you can use in different ways. You can code with the tools of your choice and in the programming language of your choice, and unless you stray too far from the rule book, everything you create will interoperate with everything others write for Windows. An operating system is a rack into which device drivers and APIs are inserted. A platform is a rack into which applications are inserted.
Linux and Windows don't compete. Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) sees this as an opportunity and has struggled mightily to position the combination of Solaris and Java as a platform. It almost makes it. I'd choose J2EE and Solaris over Linux for nonuser-facing server applications in shops that have expert administrators. But, similar to Linux and other flavors of Unix, Solaris is a nonstarter on clients, and that's enough to hurt its capability of competing with Windows. There is only one platform that can stand toe-to-toe with Windows, and that's the combination of OS X and Java.
Stay tuned; I'll tell you all about it.
ToC
http://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 Authorized Resellers. Tiger has more than 200 new features and innovations including Spotlight, a revolutionary desktop search technology that lets users instantly find anything stored on their Mac, including documents, emails, contacts and images; and Dashboard, a new way to quickly access important information like weather forecasts and stock quotes, using a dazzling new class of applications called widgets. [Apr 12, 2005]
ToC
TidBITS#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 last Friday that the news site O'Grady's PowerPage must divulge its confidential sources, describing the information as "stolen property." The judge was careful to note that his ruling should not be construed more broadly than Apple's right to subpoena information from PowerPage's ISP Nfox. The judge also made a distinction between "the public interest" (served by whistleblowers disclosing health, safety, or welfare hazards) and "the interested public" (served by news and enthusiast Web sites). The full text of the decision can be downloaded from The Mac Observer site. Jason O'Grady has said he will appeal the decision. [ACE]
<http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/03/11.8.shtml>
ToC
TidBITS#772/28-Mar-05
Apple Computer has settled out of court with Doug Steigerwald, a recent graduate of North Carolina State University and an Apple Developer Connection member who admitted to sharing seeds of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on the Internet. Steigerwald will pay Apple an unspecified amount, but News.com quoted Apple as saying, "It is not our desire to send students to jail." Legal action remains pending against two other men in the case, which was filed in December and is separate from other lawsuits Apple has filed against Macintosh rumor sites. Steigerwald also still faces 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 $290 million 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 for the quarter was $3.24 billion, up 70% from a year ago. Gross margin was 29.8%, up from 27.8% a year ago. International sales accounted for 40% of revenue. [Apr 13, 2005]
ToC
http://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 for Mac OS X 10.3.8 and Mac OS X 10.3.8 Server. Included in this package are updates to AFP Server, Bluetooth Setup Assistant, Core Foundation, Cyrus IMAP, Cyrus SASL, and Mailman. It also addresses a few permissions issues that could enable malicious access to files and folders. And, Safari is updated to handle the problem with Unicode characters used in domain 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 MB download, 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 28.9 MB iPod Updater 2005-03-23 brings the iPod software to version 1.1 and adds support for Apple's forthcoming $30 iPod Camera Connector (announced in February, and now available for order from Apple's online store). It also improves slideshow transitions. The updater is available via Software Update or as a separate download. Although this update offers nothing new for owners of other iPod product lines, it does include the most recent software versions for each model (hence the huge download). [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-user conference calling, and outbound calls at low rates to the regular phone network (see "Road Warrior Scramble" in TidBITS-771_). But wait! There's more. Skype is now testing SkypeIn, an inbound telephone number attached to your Skype account. Other companies offer a similar service, but typically only in a bundle. For instance, Vonage has what they call a soft phone service, but it's an add-on to an existing Vonage full-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 in this phase (including unlimited inbound calls and voicemail), or about US$4 per month. The Vonage service is Internet telephony only, while Skype includes Skype-to-Skype and inbound and outbound telephone network calling. And Skype includes instant messaging and file exchange, too. [GF]
<http://www.skype.com/products/skype/macosx/changelog.html>
ToC
by 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 as part of Creative Suite 2, the company's thorough refresh for their flagship products. Acrobat is on a separate track, and was updated to version 7 in fall 2004.
The new CS2 offers a host of advantages for those working across many Adobe programs by further pulling together elements that get created in one program, tweaked in another, and placed on a page (Web or print) in another. The new Adobe Bridge software works with Version Cue CS2, a WebDAV-based server that retains multiple versions of files in an archive, to allow browsing across all kinds of media, including looking at older revisions, storing multiple live versions of a single file, and even browsing and purchasing royalty-free stock photography.
New features in Photoshop include a vanishing point feature for adjusting 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 layer support, and aid for creating content for mobile devices such as cell phones. Indesign now features object styles and support for Photoshop and PDF layers. GoLive is improved with better previews through embedded rendering, visual tools for building CSS-based pages, mobile device authoring tools, secure FTP (SSH and SSL), and the capability to create favicons. Version Cue now supports multiple live versions of the same for use in different applications, but more important, it apparently now works, too - something I couldn't say about Version Cue CS.
CS2 comes in Standard and Premium editions. Premium includes Acrobat Professional, GoLive, Illustrator, InDesign, and Version Cue. Standard omits Acrobat and GoLive. Premium costs $1,200 from scratch, or $550 as an 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 entire suite. Standard is $900 from scratch, $350 from a previous CS version, or $500 from Photoshop CS or 7.0.
ToC
TidBITS#77511-Apr-05
Back in the early days of the PalmPilot, Florent Pillet released Palm Buddy (later renamed Sync Buddy), a Mac OS program for backing up data from a Palm OS handheld by opening an active connection between the two machines. Now, Pillet has rewritten Sync Buddy for Mac OS X. Sync Buddy 2.0.1 can back up handhelds via USB, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi connections. It also lets you install files and transfer photos, as well as copy files to removable media such as SD cards. The utility is compatible with Hot Sync Manager (which Palm Desktop uses to synchronize data) and Mark/Space's The Missing Sync software, automatically disabling them while Sync Buddy is running, and re-enabling them when it's done. Sync Buddy 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 happen only to other people... until it hits you. That just happened to me, and the repercussions proved a bit more instructive and far-reaching that I would have initially anticipated.
The first hint that something was wrong came when Tonya was reviewing the charges on the MasterCard we use solely for business purchases. There was a $19.95 charge to something related to Yahoo, but it wasn't possible to tell exactly what service from the limited information on the credit card statement. Tonya knew she hadn't ordered anything online that could have generated such a charge, and when she asked me, I couldn't remember anything either. To verify that I wasn't simply losing my 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 URLs around the date.
The situation was becoming more curious, so Tonya called the phone number on the credit card statement, and waited on hold for a while. As she waited, she realized that what she had called was Yahoo Personals - Yahoo's online dating service. She immediately yelled for me to get on the phone, figuring that the whole situation was just going to generate snickers for the customer service people if they heard a wife calling to find out about a dating service charge on her husband's credit card. I was good and refrained from making jokes about how I didn't even get any dates from Yahoo Personals once the customer service people came on the line.
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 had made the charges. Eventually we got them to tell us that the Yahoo Personals account did indeed have the same user name as my My Yahoo account (I immediately changed that account's password, just for good measure), but that the birth date listed with the Yahoo Personals account did not match either of our birth dates. That was sufficient for them to cancel the account and refund our money.
The Yahoo Personals customer service rep recommended that we cancel the credit card used, which we were already planning as the next call. Our credit card issuer was totally on top of it, cancelling the card and issuing us another one before we'd even had a chance to explain the full situation. Tonya keeps records of merchants that are automatically withdrawing from that credit card, so next she reset all of those accounts. The morning was shot, but it seemed that we were out of the woods. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.
A few days later, Tristan and I were out driving when I remembered that our other car likely had a flat tire due to a slow leak I'd been monitoring. That normally wouldn't have been an issue, but Tonya had an appointment before we would be home, and I wanted to alert her to blow up the tire and to remember her cell phone in case she needed me to come change the tire while she was out. In New York State, it's illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone unless you're using a hands-free system, so I pressed the speed-dial number for home and handed Tristan the phone so he could give her the message. A few seconds later he gave me back the phone, saying "It's being weird." I pulled over and listened, and indeed, I'd somehow ended up with Verizon Wireless customer service. I hung up and tried again, and got them again. This time I waited until I could talk to a person, who promptly informed me that they had disabled our service because the monthly bill had been rejected by our credit card - apparently one auto-withdrawal had slipped past Tonya's record keeping. Luckily, I was able to use another phone later to walk Tonya through inflating the tire, but the credit card fraud was increasing in annoyance.
The next week Tonya managed to get the account reinstated, and protested sufficiently vehemently when Verizon Wireless tried to charge a $15 fee for doing so that they waived the charge. She pointed out that it would have been trivial for them to notify us via voicemail or text messaging that our auto-withdrawal had failed, but needless to say, the customer service drone couldn't do anything but forward the feedback (if even that).
That wasn't the end of the bother, though the next one was purely my fault. I'd set up a Google AdWords account for Take Control that also withdrew money from that MasterCard, and I'd forgotten to inform Tonya that it needed to be added to the list of auto- withdrawal services. As you'd expect, the next time Google tried to charge money to the card, it was rejected, too.
But here's the difference between Verizon Wireless and Google. Where Verizon Wireless didn't bother to inform us that they'd disabled our service and thus caused us unnecessary trouble, Google sent me a nice email message, informing me of the problem, telling me that they'd temporarily disabled our ads, and giving me a link to my account so I could enter a new credit card number. The entire process took only a couple of minutes, and most of that was exclaiming to Tonya about how Google had a clue in comparison to Verizon Wireless.
We were relating this story to a friend over dinner the other day, who said she'd had a similar thing happen. In her case, though, the fraud had included the perpetrator changing the billing address related to the card, so she hadn't even received a tip-off statement. She recommended that we run a credit report as well, just to make sure any additional hanky-panky wasn't going on with our finances.
A bit of investigation revealed that recent U.S. legislation requires the three major credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion - to provide anyone who asked with a free credit report once every 12 months (so you can get one credit report from each company all at once, or you can request a report from one of the companies every four months to be on the lookout for problems). Unfortunately, the credit reporting companies were given quite some time to roll out the service to the entire country, so although people in western and midwest states can request their free credit reports right now, people in the south must wait until 01-Jun-05, and those of us in the eastern states must wait until 01-Sep-05. (Some states - Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont - also require that residents be allowed to request one or two free credit reports each year.)
<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 for a slew of fee-based credit reporting and monitoring services that could be useful, particularly if you wanted to be informed about changes to your credit report over time. You can (and I did) cancel the membership without 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't want to play the "cancel my membership" game. Luckily, my credit report showed nothing of significant concern, though they apparently think I'm a year younger than I am. I'll have to fix that at some point. It's entirely likely that other problems haven't shown up yet, and I plan to start running regular credit reports in September.
<http://www.freecreditreport.com/>
In this day and age, shopping on the Internet is simply a fact of life for many people. I don't believe that using a credit card on the Internet is any more or less likely to result in credit card number theft than using it over the phone or in person, but the more you use credit cards, the more likely it is some miscreant will obtain your number and abuse it. It's mostly an annoyance with credit cards (though not necessarily with debit cards!), since your liability is limited to $50 in the United States, and I've never heard of anyone ever being charged even that. But the hassle factor can be large, as our experience proved, and credit card fraud could be the first step in a more complete identity 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 sphere of influence. The Register has an article listing a number of stories of large businesses, educational institutions, and other organizations losing control of sensitive personal information in this month alone. There's nothing you can do about such situations (apart from checking data security practices when possible), but some common sense and effort on your part can reduce the impact of credit card number theft if it does happen to you. I got off easy this time, and I hope this is the end of the story (for a much more exciting story of credit card number theft, 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 the mainstream more quickly than "podcasting," but because of this speed and an only tangentially related name, few consumer-level technologies have engendered more confusion. So what is podcasting?
Quite simply, podcasting is creating an audio file (traditionally in MP3 format, though other formats can be used as well) and making it available online for other people to listen to. If that were all there was to it, you would probably say "So what? That capability has been around for years!" and you would be correct. What's different now is that there are simple ways to subscribe to specific shows and have the audio files automatically downloaded to your computer and placed into your MP3 software - likely iTunes on the Mac - and, thus, if you wish onto 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 about podcasting: it has essentially nothing to do with the iPod, and you do not need an iPod to listen to podcasts. If another MP3 player was the cool toy everyone had to have, podcasting would have been given a different name.
But look how far podcasting has come in a short time! Since this summer when there were only a handful of people putting their audio files online for others to hear, thousands more have taken to the virtual airwaves and begun producing their own shows. "Podcasting" was coined in September 2004 as a term, and by December it had already gotten mention in major newspaper and news magazines. I can't remember ever seeing a new technology go from grass roots to appearances in the legacy media that quickly.
Already there are over a thousand different people (no one really knows exactly how many) producing their own shows. Topics, when they exist at all, run the gamut from music to food to movie reviews to podcasting itself. Many are simply audio versions of weblogs where the content may only be interesting to a small circle of friends (and sometimes even that's a generous characterization).
Some people have criticized podcasts on the grounds that it is far easier and quicker to read a Web page and scan or search for information than it is to download a huge audio file and listen to it to get what the creator is trying to say. That's true, but it misses the point entirely - podcasting is to weblogs what radio is to newspapers. Podcasting represents a new form of broadcast media. You can think of it as an audio weblog, but podcasts can transcend that description. Perhaps a better analogy is with legalized pirate radio where everyone can have their own station and show.
Here are some samples of content which would simply not be as interesting (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 iPod are listening to various podcasts. I'm watching less TV and I never listen to the radio (in fact, the few times I do, aside from NPR, is usually painful). I enjoy the fact that I am finally able to listen and enjoy content which was not produced by the giant corporate monoculture, but by regular people.
Podcasting History -- The various technical pieces that make podcasting possible have been around for a long time. But the synergy that led to the explosion of podcasting began toward the end of 2000 when Dave Winer and Adam Curry met in New York City. Dave is the creator of the venerable outliner MORE, UserLand Frontier, the weblog system Radio UserLand, and the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) standard which is so critical to weblogs and, increasingly, news sites around the world. Adam is a former MTV VJ and founder of OnRamp, a New York City ISP from the early 1990's. Adam wanted to move large files around (at the time he was thinking about video) and Dave didn't see how it would work. Downloading large files was always a pain and rarely yielded worthwhile results. Often you'd spend ages downloading a tiny postage-stamp sized video which took less time to play than download.
But Adam had a brilliant idea: look at the speed of your network connection and how much time that connection is sitting idle (when you are away from your computer, doing tasks that don't use it, etc.) You could download vast amounts of data during that idle time. Dave was sold on the idea and since he was working on RSS 2.0 at the time, he added the concept of an "enclosure," which would simply be a URL to a binary file such as a video file. In this way, programs that supported enclosures would automatically pick up any new enclosures uploaded to a Web site as part of a weblog entry and download them in the background, at night or whenever the user told the software to retrieve enclosures.
And thus, some years ago, everything that was needed for podcasting was in place. You could create the content, make it available for others to subscribe, and it could be downloaded while you were otherwise idle. So, why did podcasting take so long to catch on?
Before 2004, there simply was no critical mass in terms of people. Not enough people owned MP3 players, read weblogs, or had the motivation to create audio content.
In terms of content, Dave Winer himself was one of the first people to use podcasting. He began recording what he now calls "Morning Coffee Notes." He also worked with Christopher Lydon, formerly the host of WBUR's "The Connection" in Boston, who began recording interviews and making them available in this way as well. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Dave walked around making audio posts from the convention and publishing them on his site. There was starting to be enough content to catch people's attention. In addition, by this time, the blogging community had not had any major technology innovation in over three years. As Dave put it, "You're looking at a community that's hungry for some new ideas."
But one final piece of the puzzle was missing: It was still annoying to move the downloaded audio files onto an MP3 player manually so you could listen to them in the car, on the train to work, or while exercising, which are times when radio is traditionally popular. Adam Curry then wrote and released an AppleScript script called iPodder that simply went through the RSS feeds for a list of sites, looked for enclosures it hadn't already seen, downloaded them, and moved them into iTunes (and therefore, his iPod). With that last problem solved, it became obvious that not only was it easy to distribute any content you created, but an audience could now find and listen to your work easily. The floodgates opened.
One of the interesting side notes to this story is the fact that without planning it, Dave and Adam reversed their roles. Dave says, "Adam is a radio professional and I'm a software professional, and by this point in time my major contribution to this was the radio side of it and his major contribution was the software side of it." Dave believes it was this very reversal that made podcasting possible. Adam didn't know the rules of software design and thus could break them, and Dave did not know the rules of radio and could break them as well. This ignorance of the "rules" led to the critical breakthroughs which may not have happened had they not switched places.
(Note: The quotes from Dave Winer come from an interview with Dave via Skype from January 2005. The interview is about 20 minutes long and contains a wealth of interesting historical background on podcasting. It is available in its entirety as a podcast at my Podcrumbs site.)
<http://www.podcrumbs.com/audio/Podcrumbs_2005-02-05.mp3 >
Listening to Podcasts -- A number of different Macintosh programs enable you to subscribe to podcasts and copy subscribed show content into iTunes, where you can listen to them on your Mac or later send them to your iPod.
First, there are the programs that are designed solely for podcasts: iPodder (free), iPodderX Lite (free), iPodderX ($20), PlayPod (free), PoddumFeeder ($5). These tools all help you subscribe to specified RSS feeds and copy to iTunes any and all MP3 files they find during periodic scans.
<http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/>
<http://ipodderx.com/>
<http://www.iggsoftware.com/playpod/>
<http://www.ifthensoft.com/poddumfeeder.html>
Next, there are more traditional RSS readers which have added the capability to manage podcasts on top of everything else they already do. As far as I know, only NetNewsWire Pro 2.0's public beta and PulpFiction have added support for podcasting, but it's only a matter of time before podcasting support becomes commonplace.
<http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/beta.php>
<http://freshsqueeze.com/products/pulpfiction/>
Finally, several programs for managing iPods directly (especially in terms of copying notes, calendar items, contacts, news and more to the iPod) have added support for RSS enclosures. These include Pod2Go ($12), and YamiPod (free).
<http://www.kainjow.com/pod2go/>
<http://www.yamipod.com/>
Personally, I use a combination of iPodderX and NetNewsWire Pro. iPodderX manages the podcasts where I want to listen to every single episode as it comes. Then I use NetNewsWire Pro - which I also use for all my other RSS feed reading - for feeds where I listen only to occasional episodes. NetNewsWire Pro makes it easy to pick and choose, thanks to a convenient button that downloads an enclosure and moves it into iTunes automatically. It gives me an opt-in approach to individual episodes.
My advice? Try all the various tools and see what you like. There's no way to predict which tool will fit your desired approach to podcast content.
Once you have one of the tools above installed, you can point it to any number of sites out there to find podcasts. Each come with some suggested feeds and iPodder and iPodderX both also offer integrated directories from which you can subscribe to podcasts. Outside of these, the iPodder and iPodderX Web sites both provide their directories online where you can find podcasts to sample.
It's customary for people producing podcasts to announce them via a specific Web site, audio.weblogs.com. At any given time, the 100 most recently posted podcasts are listed there, making it another excellent way to sample new podcasts.
Lastly, if you don't want to mess with any of the software above and just want to sample podcasts right in your browser, you can do that, too. All of the podcasts are presented as simple links on their Web sites (and on audio.weblogs.com) as clickable MP3 files which Safari will play for you right in the browser.
Signing Off -- It will be interesting to see where podcasting goes. From one standpoint, it truly is the people's radio: a chance for every person who wishes to have his or her own show without needing a radio station or being bound by FCC regulation. A.J. Liebling famously said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." The advent of individuals being able to publish on the Web meant that everyone could own a printing press; with podcasting, now everyone can have a radio show. Video is undoubtedly not far behind.
From another standpoint, podcasting reveals a new marketplace just opening up. Who knows how and when (or in many cases, if) people will start to make real money from podcasts? But it's certain that some people will. And who knows what will happen when the media moguls become aware of the successes in podcasting? Will they try to stop it or co-opt it? Is there any chance they could succeed at either? If the past performance of the Internet is any indication, I doubt it. But that's all speculation, and as with Internet publications, and then with weblogs, it's likely that podcasting will have a very few commercial successes, many failures, and will in the process contribute a vast quantity of original content of widely varying quality to the Internet-connected world at large.
For now, I'm just enjoying hearing all of the different voices in all their wonderful cacophony.
[Andy J. Williams Affleck is a project manager for a U.S. federal government contractor and an expert in usable accessibility in Web design. He's long been fascinated by any tool to allow the individual to communicate to others, be it newsletters, email, weblogs, podcasting, or whatever comes next.]
ToCPayBITS: If Andy finally set your mind at ease with regard to what
podcasting is all about, say thanks with a few bucks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=andyjw%40raggedcastle.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/ paybits/>
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
March 17, 2005 - President Rollins opened the General Meeting, but passed on the traditional introductions. We all knew each other.
Richard pointed out that we have a "G" and a "B" wireless router tonight.
Richard explained the trouble we've been having with our Internet connection supplied by Volo. The trouble was water migration between antenna and router box. Our own Richard Rollins provided the cure by suggesting that they fill the space with dielectric grease, like is use in the car industry, an industry Richard is intimately acquainted with. They did and the problem was solved. Volo is now using the technique system wide.
Richard told us about a "G" router for $29 from outpost.com or Fry (who owns them). It's currently selling for $22.99 online. We went to the site and looked around a bit.
It was noted that the Microsoft case with the Judicial Department is being reviewed.
Apple won its trade secrets suit against several web sites that announced Apple products before Apple was ready to do so.
Phil Wall asked how much it would cost to build a 64-bit system. Wayne Hamilton said about $300. During the discussion it came up that Richard is an authorized Dell dealer. The discussion turned to Dell and the cheaper run of computers.
George Krumins related his story about Computer Deli and buying a power supply with the gift certificate he won last month. He put in a good word for Computer Deli with the members.
Marianne Venute talked about a digital imaging training center in Naperville. It's half PC and half Mac.
We held another drawing for two Computer Deli gift certificates. Kevin Hopkins and Ed Serbe won.
Kevin Hopkins related his story about purchasing a video card and a DVD burner at Computer Deli and thanking them for their support of the club. He let them know his purchase was a direct result of that consideration on their part. Kevin went on to tell of his difficulty in getting the video card to work properly, mostly due to his own ignorance of Windows, that and an outdated driver.
The group talked about the new PCI Express slots and all the other new standards coming down the pike.
Richard asked if anyone had played with the new Mac mini yet. No one has.
It was announced that the PC SIG would look at Kevin Hopkins' PC and see if they can't get the card working properly.
The Mac SIG would be examining the use of monitor mirroring on Marianne's laptop and show Emil's new iPod Shuffle.
ToC
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The March meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, March 22, 2005, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Richard Rollins, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, and Phil Wall.
Richard Rollins: Richard chided the Corporate Agent for now missing two meetings in a row, an unprecedented occurrence. Laughter at Kevin's expense followed. Richard thanked Phil Wall for doing the Linux SIG. He announced that we have solved the Internet problem hopefully. He also announced that we gave away two more gift certificate from Computer Deli. The Computer Deli had given us $125 worth, so we have one left.
Phil Wall: Phil said he didn't have much. Next month's Linux SIG with be examining astronomical software. Phil is the Treasurer of the astronomical club here in town, so discussion turned to the stars and telescopes for a little bit.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin didn't have anything new to report.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin said he really didn't have any new business. He said he had implemented the new policies on the Starship forums. He noted traffic is down a little. He reported that Mike Latinovich had updated some of the forum software. Phil suggested installing some games on the server to spark interest and participation. He said there are some free PD online games available, He offered to investigate it a little farther.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that there were 6 at the Linux SIG and a total of 18 members at the General meeting. He said he would be demonstrating Carbon Copy Cloner at the Mac SIG next month.
ToC
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The FBC-CS is located at 1602 N. Prospect Avenue in Savoy, on the NE corner of Burwash and Prospect. To get to the the First Baptist Church from Champaign or Urbana, take Prospect Avenue south. Setting the trip meter in your car to zero at the corner of Kirby/Florida and Prospect in Champaign (Marathon station on the SW corner), you only go 1.6 miles south. Windsor will be at the one mile mark. The Savoy village sign (on the right) will be at the 1.4 mile mark. Burwash is at the 1.6 mile mark. The Windsor of Savoy retirement community is just to the south; Burwash Park is to the east. Turn east (left) on Burwash. The FBC-CS parking lot entrance is on the north (left) side of Burwash. Enter by the double doors at the eastern end of the building's south side. A map can be found on the CUCUG website at http://www.cucug.org/meeting.html. The First Baptist Church of Champaign is also on the web at http://www.fbc-cs.org .
Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at mid year.
Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by email. All recent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user group exchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. As a matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):
President/WinSIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 Vice-Pres/MacSIG: Emil Cobb 398-0149 e-cobb@uiuc.edu Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Richard Hall 344-8687 rjhall1@uiuc.edu Corp.Agent/Web: Kevin Hisel 406-948-1999 contact/index.html Linux SIG: Phil Wall 352-5442 phil.wall@pobox.com
Email us at http://www.cucug.org/ contact/index.html, visit our web site at http://www.cucug.org/, or join in our online forums at http://www.cucug.org/starship/ .