[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week


"The goal is to get every single torrent on the Internet indexed." – Bram Cohen


"It is impossible for the motion picture industry to legislatively attack file sharing because they don't like the way it's used for movies without attacking it in general. A broad-fronted attack on file sharing is going to fail." – U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Virginia


"Boucher is right. It's not going away. P2P is just too good a way of sharing information. It's efficient, it's easy, and it uses the Internet the way it was meant to be used." - Andrew Kantor


"We have tools to let anyone make high-quality videos to reach millions of people. We'll give a [TV] channel to anyone who wants a channel." – Tiffiniy Cheng


" 'Adult' films not merely sell well, but offer profit margins of 80% or more, compared to the 20-40% (before expenses) typical of mainstream fare. From Deutsche Telekom to small U.S. cablecos, they are the key source of profit from video." - FutureOfTV


"[Bill Gates said] struggles with security issues had probably cost about a year's delay in the introduction of its next-generation version of Windows." - John Markoff


"My heart and viscera just shrank and chilled." - Rita Saltz


"We find that evidence of appellant's Internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state's case against him." – Judge R.A. Randall


"Taking pictures used to be an event of sorts. Now they have camera phones -- they e-mail pictures, look at them once and trash them. The image is not what it used to be. The value of the image is no longer what it was." –Volker von Glasenapp


"If you think we are a snack, remember we eat you too." - Alessandra da Silva Carlos


















Volez ce MP3!
Bruce Gain

PARIS -- Record labels and movie studios are counting on the courts to help wage their war against global online piracy. But in France, some courts are refusing to go along.

Judicial activism is roiling the entertainment industry here, as judges release convicted fileswappers with suspended sentences associated with otherwise draconian penalties stipulated by copyright law.

Now, in a widening rift, the powerful president of the French magistrates union has begun to openly advocate decriminalizing online trading in copyrighted works for personal use.

"We are in the process of creating a cultural rupture between a younger generation that uses the technologies that companies and societies have made available, such as the iPod, file download software, peer-to-peer networks, etc.," Judge Dominique Barella told Wired News. "It's like condemning people for driving too fast after selling them cars that go 250 kmh."

Barella first began his crusade after writing an article in the French daily Libération in March following rulings by French judges who suspended jail time and fines for alleged perpetrators who were caught downloading music for their personal use. The leniency of the French judges illustrates what Barella describes as confusion over the definition of the intellectual property protection law. Instead, a more appropriate policy needs to be adopted in France and in Europe that protects what he says are mostly young people of the MP3 generation who are weak targets against the machinations of the entertainment industry's legal agenda.

The industry is not taking Barella's statements lightly. In a letter last month addressed to the French Minister of Justice Dominique Perben, more than 20 representatives of France's entertainment, music and film association bodies and advocacy groups expressed their outrage.

"We are surprised and shocked that the president of the magistrates union, given the level of influence he has on his (judicial) colleagues, can publish in the press a call to not criminally sanction criminal acts, which contradicts the intentions of government bodies," the letter read.

The letter also thanked the minister in advance for "taking actions that he deems appropriate."

France isn't alone in creating legal headaches for the entertainment industry's copyright enforcement efforts. A Canadian appeals court last week upheld a decision from a lower court finding that internet service providers in the country are not required to divulge the identity of accused fileswappers.

Barella says last week's letter to the ministry is hardly surprising given the industry's copyright campaign. But he said he believes it is ultimately futile to criminally prosecute fileswappers across Europe who stand accused of illegally distributing music, movie or other copyrighted media files using peer-to-peer networks.

"This is a subject that will serve as a source of debate for Europe since … when there is a problem with the application of the penal code on a large scale, the problem must be examined at its source," Barella said. "It is similar to the sociological consequences of the Prohibition period in the U.S. (during the 1920s). Certain laws can have unexpected consequences on society."

Instead, criminal proceedings should be geared more toward prosecuting large-scale counterfeiting rings instead of going after "a young person who fills up his or her iPod."

"The resources of the police and judges are exhausted by these small cases, and do not take care of the large international (counterfeiting) rings," Barella said, adding that the role of the magistrate union is to communicate to society his colleagues' concerns.

Such thinking is anathema to the industry, which is counting on civil lawsuits and criminal proceedings to create a deterrent that will help bring a generation that grew up surrounded by easy internet piracy back into the ranks of paying customers. Lauri Rechard, the deputy general counsel and director of licensing and litigation for The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, said there is nothing innocuous about the act of downloading and uploading copyrighted files.

"People still look at this as 'harmless, file sharing,' but the fact is that the effects are the same, or even actually worse, than a massive-scale organized crime piracy operation," Rechard said. "If you look at the number of files that are distributed and the number of music that is being offered without payment to the authors and injury inflicted to the copyright holders, at some point people need to start understanding what we are up against here."

Thus far in Europe, hundreds of criminal indictments and civil proceedings against alleged illegal file downloading mostly initiated last year have not resulted in any prison sentences served, according to the IFPI. Among the more severe sanctions, 98 individuals in Denmark have agreed to pay a "few thousand euros," out of which one individual will pay up to 13,000 euros in damages each. Thirty-nine parties in Germany will pay up to 15,000 euro apiece to settle claims in Germany, the IFPI said.

Meanwhile, legal actions and the growing popularity in Europe of filing sharing over P2P networks will likely not cancel each other out in the near time, according to Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist for the computer and communications policy arm of the OECD. So instead, the entertainment industry might make content more readily available to consumers in Europe to dissuade illegal file downloading.

"Recent developments have proven that new business models to get content out to customers can work," Wunsch-Vincent said. "Now is the time for the content industry, access and technology providers to get out of courts and back to business."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67594,00.html


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U.S. Senators Urge International Copyright Crackdown
Declan McCullagh

U.S. senators urged the Bush administration on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia and China to respect copyright law, warning that those nations have become havens for movie and software piracy.

Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who chairs the Senate copyright subcommittee, made one of the most ominous statements to date about what might happen if unfettered piracy continues. "Before Russia enters the (World Trade Organization), many of us will have to be convinced that the Russian government is serious about cracking down on the theft of intellectual property," Hatch said during a hearing.

James Mendenhall, the acting general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative, said his colleagues are hosting a delegation from China this week to talk in part about copyright law. "We're going to be issuing a request through WTO rules seeking additional information from China on the status of enforcement in China," Mendenhall said. (A WTO spokesman later said the talks were still ongoing.)

The USTR recently highlighted the governments of both Russia and China as top copyright offenders. A report in April placed both on a "priority watch list"--along with Brazil, Israel and Indonesia--and plans to wield the WTO apparatus as a lever to force greater compliance with international norms. Another U.S. tactic is to ink free-trade deals including strict copyright regulations with individual nations.

Piracy in China alone costs U.S. companies between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion a year, the USTR says. Industry estimates place Russia's infringement rates last year at 80 percent for motion pictures, 66 percent for records and music, 87 percent for business software, and 73 percent for entertainment software.

Hatch and Vermont's Patrick Leahy, the panel's top Democrat, said that pirated copies of "Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith" already were available on the streets of Beijing and Moscow and expressed frustration about the situation. "What is enough of either a carrot or a stick to make them change, especially when it seems to be governmental policy to allow this?" Leahy asked.

"We've raised the issue at the presidential level, we've put them on the priority watch list," replied Mendenhall. Further progress will take negotiations, WTO pressure and patience, he said.
http://news.com.com/Senators+urge+in...3-5720631.html


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Minnesota Court Takes Dim View Of Encryption
Declan McCullagh

A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

Ari David Levie, who was convicted of taking illegal photographs of a nude 9-year-old girl, argued on appeal that the PGP encryption utility on his computer was irrelevant and should not have been admitted as evidence during his trial. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and is sold by PGP Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.

But the Minnesota appeals court ruled 3-0 that the trial judge was correct to let that information be used when handing down a guilty verdict.

"We find that evidence of appellant's Internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state's case against him," Judge R.A. Randall wrote in an opinion dated May 3.

Randall favorably cited testimony given by retired police officer Brooke Schaub, who prepared a computer forensics report--called an EnCase Report--for the prosecution. Schaub testified that PGP "can basically encrypt any file" and "other than the National Security Agency," nobody could break it.

The court didn't say that police had unearthed any encrypted files or how it would view the use of standard software like OS X's FileVault. Rather, Levie's conviction was based on the in-person testimony of the girl who said she was paid to pose nude, coupled with the history of searches for "Lolitas" in Levie's Web browser.

Judge Thomas Bibus had convicted Levie of two counts of attempted use of a minor in a sexual performance and two counts of solicitation of a child to engage in sexual conduct. The appeals court reversed the two convictions for attempted use of a minor, upheld the two solicitation convictions, and sent the case back to Bibus for a new sentence.
http://news.com.com/Minnesota+court+...3-5718978.html


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EFF Obtains Draft PATRIOT Bill
Web Release

Bill Gives Justice Department More Power to Demand Private Records

On Thursday, May 26, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will consider in closed session a draft bill that would both renew and expand various USA PATRIOT Act powers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has obtained a copy of the draft bill, along with the committee's summary of it, and has made them available to journalists and interested citizens on its website, http://www.eff.org/.

"Even though Congress is still debating whether to renew the broad surveillance authorities granted by the original USA PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department is already lobbying for even more unchecked authority to demand the private records of citizens who are not suspected of any crime," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "The Senate's intelligence committee should focus on adding checks and balances to protect against abuse of already-existing PATRIOT powers, or repealing them altogether, rather than working to expand them behind closed doors."

http://www.eff.org/.

"Even though Congress is still debating whether to renew the broad surveillance authorities granted by the original USA PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department is already lobbying for even more unchecked authority to demand the private records of citizens who are not suspected of any crime," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "The Senate's intelligence committee should focus on adding checks and balances to protect against abuse of already-existing PATRIOT powers, or repealing them altogether, rather than working to expand them behind closed doors."

Draft of new PATRIOT Act powers.

Senate Select Committee summary.

http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php


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Sweden's Parliament OKs Anti-Piracy Law
Mattias Karen

Sweden's Parliament on Wednesday made it illegal to download copyright material from the Internet and approved measures to discourage people from burning copies of CDs and DVDs.

The law, which takes effect July 1, also bans technology and software used to circumvent protections on copyright material, including music, movies and games.

Until now, it was prohibited in Sweden to make copyright material available for others to download. But downloading such material was legal.

The new law also makes it illegal to copy an entire book, including text books, on a copying machine.

It does not forbid making a copy of a CD or DVD for personal use but slaps a tax on recordable CD and DVD-discs. Consumers will have to pay a 24-cent tax for a 700-megabyte disc.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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Hong Kong Uncovers Pirated Disc Operation
AP

Hong Kong customs officers seized 504 disc copying drives, about 10,000 pirated discs and more than 34,000 blank discs at the largest pirated disc operation uncovered in the territory, the government said Tuesday.

On Monday, officers raided two disc-making factories masquerading as a car mechanic shop and a renovation company, the government said in a statement. Both factories are believed to be controlled by the same criminal syndicate, it said.

The goods seized were worth a total of about $79,500. Officers arrested four men, but it wasn't immediately clear if they have been charged.

It also wasn't clear whether the pirated discs contained video or computer software.

Hong Kong is known for its counterfeit luxury goods and DVDs, but officials have promised to clamp down on the illegal products.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...stomwire.ht m


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Copyright Ruling 'Deprives Public Of Rare Music'
Louise Jury

A small record label that has specialised in bringing neglected classical composers to the public faces costs estimated at up to £1m after losing a tortuous legal wrangle over copyright.

Hyperion warned that CDs of work by lesser-known composers will be threatened by the Court of Appeal decision which will make it more expensive to release them.

Its battle with Lionel Sawkins, a composer and scholar, began after the label released an album of the music of a long out-of-copyright French baroque composer, Michel-Richard de Lalande, based on arrangements made by Dr Sawkins.

Hyperion failed to get his approval for the release of Music for the Sun King and did not identify him as the editor of the arrangements, prompting him to seek damages of up to £50,000 for breach of copyright.

He won at the High Court last year, but the label took the case to appeal where the judgment was upheld yesterday in a ruling which will have widespread ramifications for the classical recording industry.

Usually no royalties have to be paid on music by composers who have been dead for more than 70 years. But music by neglected composers often requires work by an editor to make scores ready for performance.

Dr Sawkins spent a reported 1,200 hours and researched a variety of manuscript and printed sources to produce the four Lalande editions that went to court. He claimed to have added orchestral parts himself, to have adapted and modernised the notation and restored corrupted parts of the music.

Hyperion argued that the edition he produced for performance was not a new and substantive musical work in its own right and that he could not obtain copyright for it as an original piece of music.

But Lord Justice Mummery, Lord Justice Mance and Lord Justice Jacob disagreed in three out of the four pieces. Lord Justice Jacob ruled that, far from mere copying, Dr Sawkins's adaptations were what made the works "playable". "This was not servile copying. It had the practical value of making the work playable. He recreated Lalande's work using a considerable amount of personal judgement. His recreative work was such as to create something really new using his own original work."

However, Simon Perry, the director of Hyperion, warned that the judgment meant that almost every edition of an out-of-copyright work would have its own musical copyright because the law would regard it as "original".

"This will affect classical record companies and performers of classical music as they will have to seek - and pay for - a licence before performing or recording music from an edition," Mr Perry said.

"The collateral damage caused by this decision will affect not only the prosperity of the company, but also dozens of artists and groups, producers, engineers, composers, music publishers and musical editors, and most importantly, the record-buying public whose access to rare and collectable repertoire served by Hyperion ... will be severely diminished."

The law courts were not the right place to assess questions of copyright which were formerly decided by the Performing Rights Society, Mr Perry added. "Giving someone a copyright for copying something is patently ridiculous."

Dr Sawkins was not available for comment. However, some in the music industry have been sympathetic to the fact that scholars are often poorly rewarded for their work and that the CD should not have gone ahead without terms being agreed.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/leg...p?story=639800


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Record Weekend For Star Wars Despite Widespread BitTorrent Distribution
Thomas Mennecke

Prereleases, or leaked movies, have become a growing concern for the movie industry. Like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the MPAA contends that both physical and online piracy is costing movie studios millions of dollars in lost revenue. To combat this growing trend, the MPAA helped enact the "The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (FECA)."

The FECA is a strong piece of legislation that significantly strengthens the current copyright laws. The act amended the existing copyright laws by criminalizing the distribution of prereleased movies. For the casual file-trader, sharing just one prereleased movie could earn you up to three years in prison and a significant fine. From the MPAA's perspective, the goal of this new amendment aims to deter online and offline piracy.

It appears the new amendment did not achieve its desired result.

Within one day of Star Wars' release, the New York City Police Department shut down a DVD piracy ring that contained over 1,000 copies of the new movie. Typically, such pirated releases cost very little to the street consumer - perhaps $5 - $10. Despite the closure of this piracy ring, copies of this movie and many others continue to be readily available.

In the virtual world, the anti-piracy amendment did not appear to fair much better. Hours before Star Wars' theatrical debut, a release group name ViSA uploaded the movie to Usenet. According to online sources, despite a time stamp occupying a small percentage of the screen, the movie is very watchable. Many agree this is a "work print" copy designed for studio screenings - definitely not for public viewing. Because the online copy is a "work print" version, it is suspected the movie was leaked by an inside employee of Lucas Films, Ltd.

From Usenet, the film disseminated to the P2P community via BitTorrent, and to a lesser extent, eDonkey2000.

The MPAA was infuriated, or at least attempted to appear so, at the level of online distribution. On the day Star Wars was released, the MPAA issued an unprecedented press release expressing their frustration at the current situation. MPAA CEO and President Dan Glickman cited the online distribution "...dims the magic of the movies for everyone..." In addition, the press release stressed the economic impact of online piracy.

"If piracy and those who profit from it are allowed to flourish, they will erode an engine of economic growth and job creation; undermine legitimate businesses that strive to unite technology and content in innovative and legal ways and limit quality and consumer choice."

Whether the MPAA and Lucas Film, Ltd. are truly furious over the online distribution of Star Wars is another matter. The mainstream media attention focused on this event is unparalleled, easily eclipsing the interest given to the prerelease of Attack of the Clones. One could argue the elevated interested has actually helped promote ticket sales.

Despite the wide spread proliferation of this movie, Star Wars Episode III still managed to have a record breaking weekend. On its initial Thursday release at 12:01 AM, the movie set a midnight record by making over $16 million. It then went to break a one-day record by making $50 million for Thursday's remainder. Star Wars went on to break the two-day record by making $83.8 million. The film also broke the three-day record by earning $124.7 million. Did it break the four-day record? Absolutely, by raking in $158.5 million by Sunday.

Did the wide spread piracy that accompanied this movie hurt this movie's profitability? Perhaps it lost a million or so, but in the grand scheme of things it appears that online and physical piracy had virtually no role in Star Wars' economic power. Until the day comes that home entertainment equipment can truly reproduce the theater experience, the MPAA’s claim that online piracy hurts movie revenue will remain weak.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=798


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Feds Shut Web Site in Piracy Crackdown
Mark Sherman

Federal raiders. Internet pirates. Intergalactic screen adventures. The government announced a crackdown Wednesday on the theft of movies and other copyright materials that has the elements of a film plot.

Federal agents shut down a Web site that they said allowed people to download the new "Star Wars" movie even before it was shown in theaters.

The Elite Torrents site was engaging in high-tech piracy by letting people download copies of movies and other copyright material for free, authorities said.

The action was the first criminal enforcement against individuals who are using cutting-edge BitTorrent software to obtain pirated content online, Justice and Homeland Security Department officials said.

Elite Torrents had more than 133,000 members and offered 17,800 movies and software programs in the past four months, officials said. Among those titles was "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," which was available through Elite Torrents six hours before its first showing in theaters, the officials said.

The movie was downloaded more than 10,000 times in the first 24 hours.

Authorities served search warrants in 10 cities against computer users accused of being the first to offer copyright materials to other BitTorrent users on the Web site, Homeland Security's Customs and Immigration Enforcement agency said. The cities are: Austin, Texas; Erie, Pa.; Philadelphia; Wise, Va.; Clintonwood, Va.; Germantown, Wis.; Chicago; Berea, Ohio; Anthem, Ariz., and Leavenworth, Kan.

Authorities said the warrants were still under seal.

Investigators said many of the copyright movies were available through the Web site before their commercial release.

President Bush signed a new law last month setting tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.

"Today's crackdown sends a clear and unmistakable message to anyone involved in the online theft of copyrighted works that they cannot hide behind new technology," said John C. Richter, acting assistant attorney general.

People trying to access the elitetorrents.org Web site on Wednesday were greeted with a warning about the penalties for copyright infringement, although officials said the investigation is focusing on those who originally offered the pirated materials.

The message also said: "This site has been permanently shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement."

BitTorrent has become the file-sharing software of choice because of its speed and effectiveness, especially after the recording industry last year began cracking down on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established software.

The peer-to-peer software works by using tracker files that are posted online. The tracker files point to users who are sharing a given file, be it a pirated feature film or a home movie. BitTorrent then assembles complete files from multiple chunks of data that it obtains from everyone who is sharing the file.

The Motion Picture Association of America assisted in the investigation that led to Wednesday's action against Elite Torrents, officials said.

"Shutting down illegal file swapping networks like Elite Torrents is an essential part of our fight to stop movie thieves from stealing copyrighted materials," said the group's president, Dan Glickman.

Hollywood movie studios last year sued many operators of computer servers that use BitTorrent technology to help relay digital movie files across the Internet. The group also sued six sites this month that focus on swapping television programs.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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Bit-ance.net Goes Offline
Thomas Mennecke

It has been a rough day for the BitTorrent community. One of the largest and well respected BitTorrent indexing sites, EliteTorrents.org, met an untimely end earlier this morning. This has sparked a large reaction from the BitTorrent community, as another well known site, Bit-ance.net, has closed its' doors forever.

Upon reaching the site, visitors and regulars alike are greeted with the following message:

"Thanks for being a part of bit-ance.net, your data has disappeared and so have we ..."

Bit-ance.net was a large BitTorrent indexing site with over 24,000 registered users. It covered a wide range of content, particularly the type of torrent files the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) cited EliteTorrents for.

While Bit-ance.net was not served with any type of copyright violation notice, the escalating atmosphere against the BitTorrent community placed the site's owners and users in peril.

"As I'm sure you're aware, the current climate throughout the BitTorrent scene, and indeed, P2P in general, is a little volatile," site moderator and lead IRC channel Operator "mosaiegh" told Slyck. "The site's closing (indefinite hiatus) is in the interest of everyone, especially the sites' users."

mosaiegh stressed the importance of protecting Bit-ance.net's users, especially considering the FBI/U.S. Customs' implied action on EliteTorrents.org. By taking the site off line now and destroying any records, the population's safety is considerably enhanced.

While many will be dismayed at this news, it was perhaps the best thing the administrators and owners of Bit-ance could have done to ensure the security of their 24,000 person userbase.

Although the IRC channel will remain open, mosaiegh conveys that Bit-ance.net will, in all likely circumstance, never return.

"...the P2P world is so unpredictable and with such a clamp down on sites, the question of: is all this really worth it? And upon weighing the costs (not just financial, of course) and benefits of running a site; the answer is different as to what it used to be."

Many will miss Bit-ance as not just another BitTorrent indexing site, but as a place and community to call home. Acting as Bit-ance.net's representative, mosaiegh gave perhaps the final farewell.

"While we do express our apologies to all effected parties, all actions are taken in the interest of the greater good of its users in an effort to protect their most precious asset: their privacy. And of course, a thank you to them for helping [make] the site what it became, and the many memories it created for so many that will live on..."
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=804


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Is Bittorrent Unstoppable?
Gsurface

Is Bittorrent unstoppable?

In today's age, nothing is more valued than information and the speed at which it is delivered. Whether you are a music aficionado or a college teacher trying to distribute papers and reading material, you have used one form or another of Peer to Peer (P2P) software to send or receive files. We all have our personal choice and flavor of P2P wavering only to our personal preference to broadband constraints but no one can deny the phenomenon which is Bittorrent.

Humble Beginnings
In 2002, upfront of thousands of the most savvy of hackers and industry veterans, the then 27 year old Bram Cohen introduced an open source P2P protocol specifically aimed towards Linux developers who needed a fast and cheap way to distribute their Linux software online and not he nor anyone else at that exact point in time could expect how his concept would be received. Fast forward to present day and you can see the once meek P2P protocol as a household name, infuriating many and rejoicing the remainder. Within just two years, Bittorrent's use exploded, being used as an alternative to the then dying eDonkey and Kazaa P2P protocols to distribute every single type of file imaginable, from movies to game to pornography. Many flocked to it for its ease of use and the promise of maxing out their download speed capabilities and others used it for its original intent of distributing open source software and information in a cheap and uncomplicated manner. Each month meant a new milestone and more users for Bittorrent which gathered more and more attention from general users and other more powerful people that started a search and destroy mission for its users.

Doom for the thriving P2P technology?
In the year 2002, there was ground shaking outrage towards file-swapping and P2P in general from the two biggest enforcers of anti-piracy in the world, RIAA and the MPAA. Every month a new P2P protocol and pirate group was killed off as the two giants flexed their muscle, vowing to find and destroy piracy at its root by dispatching thousands upon thousands of online private detectives to find and catch people trading copyright material. For almost 2 years it seemed like Bittorrent was evading such attention from the two anti-piracy giants but then at the beginning of 2005 things turned for the worse for Bittorrent users. One by one, major Bittorrent communities and "trackers" were scared or threatened into submission by RIAA and MPAA with threats of million dollar lawsuits and jail time and slowly but surely the Bittorrent user base went from a roaring and seemingly unstoppable beast to a whimper and underground operation. As the threats rolled in to Bittorrent tracker operators, the number of trackers diminished and ultimately so did the users of the tracker, now with things seemingly getting worse for Bittorrent users, Bram and others have come together to rid the protocol of it's dependence on centralized/static trackers using a new and innovative technology included within each newer Bittorrent client which makes it possible to have torrents that are "trackerless".

How it works
To understand this new technology we first must understand Bittorrent’s current innards and operation. Currently when one wants to share a file using Bittorrent, the user must create a "torrent" file from within their Bittorrent client and then assign that torrent to be "tracked" by a "tracker." All the tracker does is coordinates and manages connections of peers, holding hash data for the file being shared and nothing more. The new "Trackerless" technology recently introduced into the latest release of Bittorrent clients basically do's away with the tracker based system very easily by shifting the responsibility of the tracker to the peers unilaterally. Based upon Kademlia distributed hash table or DHT for short, it allows each client to effortlessly store and share peer contact information pertaining to each individual torrent. It all sounds great right? I mean no more expectation on individuals to spend outrageous amounts of money and risk by hosting a tracker; instead there is a decentralized and pure peer to peer operation, right? Well it does have its disadvantages as well. Without a static or central tracker you can't collect statistics or guarantee a stable transfer of files between users which makes telling a definitive number of peers connected terribly hard.

What's next?
In the end of the day, no one can truly say Bittorrent is a dying P2P outlet only because those that worked so hard to make it what it is today is also continuing to make the protocol evolve and take shape with each difficult day that passes. We will see new and innovative things take form within the Bittorrent community and its technology as the need for change becomes more apparent each and every day from the anti-piracy firms and its user base. One can only sit and ponder about what else is to come and be born from the Bittorrent team as we look into the next year or two.
http://www.flexbeta.net/articles.php...showarticle=91


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New Search Tool For BitTorrent
John Borland

Peer-to-peer developer Bram Cohen earned himself a place in Internet history with the creation of the BitTorrent file-swapping program.

But his open-source software, now one of the most widely used means of legally and illegally downloading files such as movies or software, has barely helped him earn a living.

Now the programmer is aiming to turn his donation-supported work into a steadier business, with a San Francisco-area start-up devoted to BitTorrent products. The first product, to be released in the next few days, will be an advertising-supported search engine that scours the Web for links to BitTorrent files.

"We're trying to make it a less haphazard revenue stream," said Cohen, who is moving back to the San Francisco area for the project.

The search tool, which will be based on Web crawling technology owned by Cohen's company, could be a boon to downloaders who previously have had little in the way of navigation for BitTorrent files.

Unlike peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, eDonkey or the original Napster, no central search technology exists for BitTorrent. Instead, links to specific files are posted on Web sites. Sites that specialize in copyrighted files such as movies or music are often taken offline by legal action.

A few tools have existed to get around this process. Exeem, an application distributed by the former operators of SuprNova, a big BitTorrent Web site, integrates Cohen's downloading technology with a more traditional searchable file-swapping network.

An older Web search tool called Bitoogle also has provided some search capabilities. Cohen said his BitTorrent search will be more powerful than Bitoogle, however.

Cohen said his tool won't aim to screen out the myriad copyrighted files likely to come up in a Web search. But like other search engines, he will comply with federal copyright law and remove any links that copyright holders point to as leading to infringing material.

Plans for the new search tool were first reported by Wired News.

Cohen said his new company, eponymously named BitTorrent, will also host file downloads in torrent form and consult with companies wanting to use the technology to distribute their own products.
http://news.com.com/New+search+tool+...3-5719020.html


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BitTorrent Creator to Launch Search Engine
AP

The creator of the popular online file-sharing program BitTorrent said Monday he is preparing to launch a Web-based search engine that will comb the Internet for sites hosting files for downloading movies, music and other data.

The ad-supported search engine is designed to function like Google, Yahoo and other search sites used to find Web sites by topic and could be up and running as early as Tuesday, Bram Cohen said.

"People's No. 1 question is 'How do I find stuff?'" Cohen said.

Other popular online file-sharing software programs, such as eDonkey and Kazaa, feature search engines that sift through the computers of its users to find a specific file or title, but BitTorrent is different.

The program, developed by Cohen in 2001, looks for torrent files - digital markers that it needs to assemble complete files from multiple bits of data obtained from other computer users.

Locating the torrents, however, requires finding host sites. And while Cohen himself has not been a target of government or the film and music industries' piracy watchdogs, some operators of Web sites hosting tracker files have been forced to shut down.

Users of the BitTorrent search engine should have an easier time finding the torrent files, wherever they are.

"The goal is to get every single torrent on the Internet indexed," Cohen said.

A link to the search engine will be posted on BitTorrent.com. As of Monday, it had indexed or found 60,000 torrent files, Cohen said.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...05-23-21-33-05


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MPAA Blames BitTorrent for Star Wars Distribution
Thomas Mennecke

Two days prior to Episode III's release, inaccurate reports dictated this movie was already spreading on the BitTorrent network. However, it was soon discovered the copy purportedly existing on BitTorrent was simply a false copy. On Wednesday, May 18th, approximately 3 hours before Episode III officially debuted in theaters, a release group named "ViSA" uploaded this film to the Newsgroups. This was the genuine article.

From there it eventually spread out to P2P networks such as eDonkey2000 and BitTorrent. For those unfamiliar or simply not willing to use the Newsgroups, P2P networks such as BitTorrent helped Episode III become accessible to the mainstream. Countless duplicates of this movie have since spread across computers throughout the world.

The MPAA has been working vigorously to thwart prerelease movies and online distribution. Recently, President George Bush recently signed the "The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (FECA)." This Act amends the current copyright law by adding prison time and significant fines for those found guilty of distributing prereleased movies.

Believing such amendments would deter movie pirates, the MPAA had some choice words over the current leakage of Episode III.

“There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world," MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman said in a press release.

As an earlier post on the Slyck forums pointed out, the MPAA blamed BitTorrent as a whole, rather than a specific tracker (or trackers.) BitTorrent trackers act as indexes for the network, since the network itself is not searchable. Once an individual downloads a torrent file from a tracker, the torrent informs the BitTorrent client the necessary information to locate and download the desired media file.

Many feel generalizing BitTorrent in this fashion is unwarranted, as many legitimate uses exist; such as distributing the Linux Operating System.

“Fans have been lined up for days to see Revenge of the Sith. To preserve the quality of movies for fans like these and so many others, we must stop these Internet thieves from illegally trading valuable copyrighted materials on-line."

Or, as General Grievous would say, "Crush them!"
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=797


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Star Wars Downloading Stealing Corporate Bandwidth
Staff Writer

Organizations may experience a slow down across their networks and risk potential legal action from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as Star Wars fans use the BitTorrent P2P file sharing application while at work to download and share copies of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith."

The final episode of the Star Wars series has been leaked onto the Internet only hours after the movie opened in theaters across the globe. It is being downloaded over the popular BitTorrent file-sharing network and it is reported that a version of the movie has already been downloaded by thousands of people.

The probability of Star Wars fans downloading the movie using easily accessible broadband access at work is high and this presents organizations with two key problems. The first is the corporate network struggling to cope with the abnormal load posed by the file sharing activities, which may adversely affect legitimate use of the network by sucking up too much bandwidth. The second is that organizations that do not take steps to prevent this pirating of the movie could be at risk of legal action by the MPAA.

"BitTorrent has absolutely no legitimate use in corporate networks and CIOs and IT managers should be extremely wary of its presence within the enterprise," said Peter Shaw, CEO of Akonix Systems, Inc. "This latest Star Wars episode is causing great excitement among movie fans so it's inevitable there will be high demand for free copies of the movie. Organizations should immediately make sure that the use of BitTorrent and other file sharing applications are banned in company policies and enforcing this with a technology solution to block its use."

Products are available to help corporations defend themselves from file sharing abuse on the networks. Akonix L7 Enforcer provides protection against security risks and liability from the unauthorized use of the latest IM and P2P protocols, such as eDonkey and BitTorrent. Organizations which are unaware of the extent of IM and P2P file sharing use on their networks can determine this by using Akonix RogueAware, a free monitoring tool which detects and reports on IM and P2P activity.
http://www.securitypronews.com/news/...Bandwidth.html


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The Death Star, As Apt Metaphor For Your Network

Hi, Max Chafkin here, for Inc.com. While viruses and spam are normally the most dreaded calamities to befall a company's network, starting yesterday an unlikely threat emerged: George Lucas.

In anticipation of the opneing of "Episode III � Revenge of the Sith," thousands of people logged onto peer-to-peer (P2P) networks like BitTorrent to download an illegal sneak peek. The third and final Star Wars prequel was available online mere hours after the movie opened in theaters.

Fun, right? Not for your network administrator. Office file sharing can suck bandwidth away from normal operations and slow down a company�s network. Small businesses in particular may suffer, especially those that rely on asynchronous DSL, which can be crippled by the kind of heavy uploading required by P2P software.

Worse, file swapping can leave companies open to security threats and potential lawsuits, says Francis Costello, head of marketing at San Diego-based Akonix Systems, which provides messaging and network security software to large companies. "If I put BitTorrent on a machine and I share the wrong directory I could allow people access to confidential corporate data," says Costello.

Also worth remembering: the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) could pursue litigation against companies whose employees share movies at work. The scenario is, to be sure, unlikely--but it's not as farfetched as you may think. In 2001, the Recording Industry of America sued Arizona- based Integrated Information Systems for allowing employees to use P2P networks at work -� the suit was settled according to CNET.

While the MPAA has yet to follow the RIAA's litigious lead, it has recently stepped up its anti-piracy campaign, announcing that it is suing individuals who have downloaded only a single movie.

So what can businesses owners do? Akonix, along with several other companies, offers what Costello called "perimeter security" -- basically a sophisticated firewall that blocks users from connecting through P2P networks or downloading unauthorized files via instant messaging software.

Short of that, you may want to consider the methadone clinic approach to the problem, and spring for Sith tix for all of your employees.
http://blog.inc.com/archives/2005/05...r_network.html


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Movielink "Wishes It Had Adult"

Hollywood movies offer no margins

Movielink is owned by four studios, but even their own company doesn't get films at prices that offer much margin. Figures aren't public, but they are losing significant money. At a Digital Hollywood event, a CinemaNow exec pointed to the solution - go adult. The Movielink execs quiet response, "I wish we could."

"Adult" films not merely sell well, but offer profit margins of 80% or more, compared to the 20-40% (before expenses) typical of mainstream fare. From Deutsche Telekom to small U.S. cablecos, they are the key source of profit from video.
http://www.futureoftv.net/


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EU Ponders Putting Movies On Web
Caroline Briggs

European film-makers are looking to the internet to boost international sales in an industry still dominated by Hollywood.

Culture ministers from across Europe promised to explore issues surrounding the online distribution of movies, after a meeting at the Cannes film festival on Tuesday.

The summit - which also included representatives from the film industry, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecoms agencies - discussed possible policies for film distribution online.

Twenty-five culture ministers at the event acknowledged that the chance for film-makers to target new audiences was "huge on the web".

"In Europe, as in other continents, the opportunities for people to enjoy films online are set to increase tremendously over the next few years," said European Union media commissioner Viviane Reding.

The fact this discussion has taken place in Cannes this year... shows that using online distribution is imminent
Tina McFarlind, UK Film Council
"We must take this opportunity to contribute to exploiting new markets and increasing revenue for our film-makers while expanding the choice available to the general public."

UK Film Council spokeswoman Tina McFarlind said it was significant that online movie distribution was being examined.

"The fact this discussion has taken place in Cannes this year and the fact all these culture ministers, ISP providers and industry figures have got together to discuss it, shows that using online distribution is imminent."

Earlier this month UK retailer Tesco announced plans to launch a film downloading service "as soon as possible" to build on the success it has had in the online music sector.

But it said the UK's Broadband capacity was not yet capable of handling movie downloads.

Last month website Wippit said it would launch the UK's first site offering films to download and keep this summer.

The Cannes meeting also looked at online piracy, with a European leadership summit formed to examine the problem.

"There are indeed risks of a disastrous loss in revenue if the market is inundated with unauthorised file-sharing of films, as has been seen with music," the culture ministers said in a statement.

We need to look at ways of changing children's behaviour towards piracy by repeating the message that it is not a victimless crime
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell
UK Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell told the BBC News website she was concerned about piracy and unauthorised file-sharing on the internet.

"There was a general view that action to tackle piracy was important for the future health of the internet," she said.

"We also need to look at ways of changing children's behaviour towards piracy by repeating the message that it is not a victimless crime."

Ms Jowell added that the UK Film Council was behind the first movie ever to be officially premiered on the internet. This Is Not A Love Song - by Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy - was launched in September 2003.

Last year the Motion Picture Association of America launched legal action to sue people who facilitate illegal film downloading.

The industry wants to stop people using programs such as BitTorrent to swap movies over the internet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...lm/4558427.stm


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Music Industry Must Sing New Tune
Mark Evans

A short conversation this week with a 20-something colleague about music downloading got me thinking when he mentioned he had started buying CDs again.

Intrigued, I asked why he had stopped using free peer-to-peer (P2P) services, which are still legal to use in Canada until copyright laws change. The answer was far from definitive -- he had just grown tired of "stealing" music.

It's an interesting comment because it makes you wonder what has changed, and if this is representative of growing sentiment. My sense is "P2P Fatigue" is starting to emerge as the novelty of free music slowly fades -- albeit six years after Napster took the music industry by storm.

In some ways, P2P services are like going to an all-you-eat buffet with amazing desserts. After a while, you're stuffed and realize maybe the next time you're out for dinner, the nice -- more expensive -- restaurant up the street with smaller, but better, portions would be a better option. You can equate the nicer restaurant to CDs bought at retailers or Web sites such as iTunes, that -- for a fee -- offer high-quality, virus-free downloads. Music retailers are making this option more appealing with lower CD prices, while there are plenty of places on the Web to legally buy music.

This is not to suggest the P2P world is disappearing because there are still billions of free songs being downloaded each month -- many of them by younger consumers who the music industry describes as the "lost generation." As a result, it would be wrong to expect a huge rebound in CD sales or a sudden surge in legal downloads.

That said, if P2P Fatigue is really alive and well, there is a huge opportunity for the music industry to win back consumers. But it means the industry needs to stop hammering its customers with the law and, instead, focus on the benefits of buying legitimate music, such as higher-quality products and access to such value-added features as priority concert tickets and exclusive Webcasts.

In a sense, the Federal Court of Appeal's decision yesterday to uphold a lower court ruling that allows Canadian Internet service providers to not disclose the names of customers who use P2P services is a positive development for the music industry.

The music industry's inability to discover the identify of people downloading free music and, more importantly, the inability to sue them, means different weapons have to be used to counter P2P activity. Music labels will have to be more imaginative than running quasi-public service advertising campaigns that downloading free music is bad.

As much as the Web is an efficient way to distribute music, it has enormous potential to develop strong and more lucrative ties with customers. The music industry has wasted six years trying to catch up with P2P technology. It needs to be smarter and more creative -- otherwise we'll soon be talking about lost generations of consumers.
http://www.canada.com/national/natio...b-d36c99b6b380


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Hitachi Ramping Up Sales Of Secure PCs

Japan's Hitachi Ltd. said on Monday it aimed to sell 30,000 security-enhanced personal computers (PCs) with no hard disk drives (HDDs) this business

year at a time of growing concern about corporate data leakage.

Hitachi sees personal computers with advanced security functions as an area of growth as corporations step up efforts to prevent business data from leaking, and it launched its first HDD-less notebook computer in April.

In order to appeal to broader corporate customers, the Tokyo-based company plans to offer two additional models of security-enhanced desktop and notebook PCs by August.

The new notebook PC is expected to sell for about 129,000 yen ($1,193) and the desktop model for 124,000 yen, Hitachi said.

The HDD-less PC stores no information. Tasks are carried out by interacting with server computers or PCs in the office, protecting business information including the personal data of clients even when the PC is lost or stolen.

Hitachi, Japan's largest electronics conglomerate, said it aimed for 10 billion yen ($92.5 million) in sales of the new PCs and related products and services in the year to next March.

Hitachi said demand for security-enhanced PCs is likely to total 300,000 units in Japan in the current business year.

Rival NEC Corp. also launched personal computers with no hard disk drives in April, aiming for 100 billion yen in sales, related hardware and computer services in three years.

Shares in Hitachi, which aims for an overall PC shipments of 756,000 units in the year to next March, closed 2.55 percent higher at 643 yen, outperforming the Tokyo stock market's electric machinery index, which gained 1.14 percent. ($1=108.15 yen)
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...HITACHI-DC.XML


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Acting Against Anti-File-Swapping Lawsuits In Israel
shlomif

A recent Ynet feature claimed Israel is going to be the third country in the world after the U.S. and England to feature its own law-suits against file-sharer. Two issues are at stake here:

The privacy of the file sharers. Is the ISP allowed to disclose their identities based on their IPs and time?
The legitimacy of the file-sharing process. Can Internet surfers download files using Peer-to-Peer technologies and other means?

Let's tackle them one by one. First the first issue. The short answer is that the ISPs must not disclose such information, at least not without a court permit. By all means, the so-called "Intellectual Property" is not property. The act of infringing on such "goods" is not "stealing". Their positional status among law traditions in many countries (including the U.S.) is that they are simply things that are nice to have, and infringing on them is not stealing. Makes sense too: if I duplicate a song or a computer program or a video, or a picture, the original is left intact. But if I take a tangible value without permission, then the owner has one less instance of it. While I respect the rights of copyrights owner to make money out of their creations, it is not as important as the rights of owners of actual property to preserve their own property.

The second issue (of the file swapping itself) is also perfectly legitimate. While not too many people have heard about it, there's a well known "First Sale Principle" in copyrights tradition. Generally, the copyright owner gets the ownership on the first sale, where all subsequent copies of the original can be done legally. For example, libraries may rent books that they buy.

Downloading a song does not involve a single ounce of guilt. About 20% of Americans share songs, and in Israel it's probably an even higher percentage. It would be a joke to consider all these people as criminals. Can anyone imagine a 21st century Dostoevsky writing "Crime and Punishment" about a file-swapper?

I admit it: I have been downloading songs from the Internet which I have not bought on CDs yet. So did my sisters. However: here's an interesting observation. I never bought a lot of CDs, and since we got a fast Internet connection, have bought about the same amount of CDs. However, my sisters have always bought a lot of CDs and since we had an ADSL connection, they became introduced to many new bands, and as a result have still been buying a lot of their CDs. Perhaps even much more than before. So the Music Industry and the artists did not lose a lot from me, but OTOH gained a lot from my sisters.

My father has bought many recordings of pieces of Classical Music online, and still buys many Classical CDs, despite downloading many others. So the media industry should be happy with the Fish Family.

Neither I, nor my sisters or fathers feel an ounce of guilt about having downloading these songs without buying them afterward. While I highly approve of Online Music Buying services like iTunes[1], P2P networks should co-exist with them free and undisturbed. The next generation of musicians won't think twice before putting all their songs online for free download. As an artist, I can testify that making a living out of one's creations plays a very marginal in one's artistic activities. The main motivation is creating something new and getting everybody possible to experience it, and comment on it. I would continue to write stories, essays, articles and open-source software, regardless if I ever make any significant amount of money out of it. So would almost any artist on the planet, a few of which has so far earned enough to last them and their inheritors for several life-times. (and the arm is still erect).

I hereby testify that I will free time out of my schedule to help in any way I can to help represent some selective lawsuits against file sharers. I wish to take them through the three circuits of Israeli courts, if necessary. I will perform any research task that I will be assigned to do. My knowledge of copyright law is limited to what I've learned as an open-source software developer. (which is quite a lot) However, I'm also interested and knowledgeable in history, especially ancient history of the Near East and Europe. [2] I will even be willing to testify in front of an Israeli court, if that's necessary.

I wish to set the record straight for file sharers right here and right now. Israel is different from the U.S. in the sense that it would be able to easily put a record label owner behind bars if he continues to harass innocent people by filing lawsuits against them.

Bring it on!

Yours truly, -- Shlomi Fish.

[1] - As long as they do not have the so-called "Digital Rights Management", which is so easy to break, and have fully open-source and cross-platform clients.

[2] - I should note that, as far as I know, copyright law is purely a recent phenomenon that emerged during post-Renaissance Europe. In ancient times, when "paper" was precious, and its duplication very time consuming, the ancient authors who published their works in the public, encouraged people to distribute, quote, and make use of their work as much as possible. While people often charged money for preparing a copy, this copy was freely distributable, and also copyable.

A different concept altogether was that of secrecy and privacy, which was considered by many to be sacred. But this is a very distinct issue from copyright laws, and I fully support it.
http://www.advogato.org/article/841.html


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Linux Lab Lays Off Programmers
Stephen Shankland

The Open Source Development Labs, the organization that employs Linux leader Linus Torvalds, has laid off nearly a sixth of its staff as part of a shift to new priorities.

The group cut nine of its 57 staff and contractor positions, Chief Executive Stuart Cohen confirmed Monday. The cuts affected several programmers who worked on the open-source operating system as well as staff in sales, marketing, business development and internal computer operations.

The organization, which calls itself the "center of gravity" of the Linux movement, made the cuts as part of a plan to rebalance its work force. New priorities include the establishment of a European office and an expansion of Asian operations into China and Korea from today's base in Japan, said Nelson Pratt, director of marketing.

"We're a small enough organization that what would be a small change in focus for a bigger company has a large effect on us," Pratt said.

The nonprofit organization isn't dropping its programming efforts, however. It still employs Torvalds, a top deputy named Andrew Morton, and Chris Wright, who maintains a Linux security component. And "substantially more than half our employees are engineers," Cohen said.

OSDL, based in Beaverton, Ore., shepherds several efforts to improve Linux by gathering opinions from computing technology sellers and customers. The efforts focus on Linux on high-end servers, telecommunications equipment and desktop computers.

"We want to be the place where the users, the vendors and the community can come together (to discuss) technical issues, legal issues, business issues and market issues," Cohen said. "Our work groups are becoming the places where data center issues and desktop Linux issues get resolved. I think the 'center of gravity' is becoming more and more true."

Not all see OSDL's role the same way. Greg Kroah-Hartman, a high-ranking Linux programmer, disagreed with the "center of gravity" characterization on his blog Monday while drawing attention to the fact that some experienced kernel programmers now are looking for jobs.
http://news.com.com/Linux+lab+lays+o...3-5717430.html


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CA Fixes Bug In Antivirus Products
Joris Evers

A high-risk security flaw in several of Computer Associates International's antivirus products could put users at risk of cyberattack, the software vendor warned on Monday.

The flaw lies in the scanning engine used in CA's enterprise and consumer antivirus products, the company said. An attacker could gain full control over a victim's PC by sending a specially crafted Microsoft Office document, according to a security advisory published on the CA Web site.

CA rates the issue "high risk" because an attacker can gain full access to a computer without any user interaction, according to the advisory.

The flaw in CA's antivirus engine is the latest in a series of security bugs in antivirus software. During the past few months, problems have been found in products from Symantec, McAfee, F-Secure and Trend Micro.

Consumer products that contain the flawed engine include CA's eTrust EZ Antivirus and EZ Armor, a bundle that offers the antivirus product. Affected business products include eTrust Antivirus, Intrusion Detection and Secure Content Manager, according to the advisory.

CA publicly disclosed the security issue Monday, but had a patch available on May 3, said Sam Curry, a vice president at CA in Islandia, N.Y.

The patch was made available to corporate customers, Curry said. "The consumer products are automatically being updated today," he said. CA counts between 3 million and 4 million consumers and about 1 million organizations as its antivirus customers, he said.

Consumers who are on more recent versions of EZ Antivirus and EZ Armor may find that their products have already been automatically updated, CA said. Users should check if the antivirus engine in their product is version 11.9.1. If it is a lower number, a virus signature update should be done to get the patch, according to CA.

Users of older versions are advised to upgrade or follow the guidelines in CA's advisory.

CA is not aware of anyone actually using the latest vulnerability in its products to attack users, Curry said. "This vulnerability is still only a potential vulnerability. There are no known exploits in the wild yet," he said. "However, I would say it is only a matter of time."
http://news.com.com/CA+fixes+bug+in+...3-5717570.html


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Worm, Phishing Scam Hit IM Services
Joris Evers

A new worm and a phishing scam are targeting members of the America Online and Yahoo instant messaging networks, security companies warned Tuesday.

In both cases, people receive an instant message with an apparent reference to the newly released "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" movie, encouraging them to click on a link, said Jon Sakoda, chief technology officer at IMLogic, an instant messaging security company.

"Both seek to capitalize on momentum and enthusiasm around the 'Star Wars' movie," he said.

In the case of the AOL worm, the text in the instant message is: "hehe, i found this funny movie," and the word "this" is a hyperlink, according to the IMLogic advisory. The Yahoo message references "StarGames" in the link, IMLogic said in its warning.

IMLogic has listed both the Yahoo and AOL issues as "medium" risk threats. McAfee has only had one report of the AOL worm, said Craig Shmugar, virus research manager at the antivirus software vendor.

When an IM user clicks the link in the AOL message, malicious code is downloaded to the user's PC. The code is installed, and the worm sends itself to all of the victim's contacts, Shmugar said. The code, a variant of the Gaobot virus, could give the attacker remote control over the victim's PC, he said.

The link in the Yahoo instant message leads to a site that is designed to look like a real Yahoo Web site, but is in fact part of a phishing scheme to steal login information, Sakoda and Shmugar said. (Phishing scams are a prevalent type of online fraud that attempts to steal sensitive user information such as user names, passwords and credit card information.) Once at the Web site, the IM user is asked to enter their Yahoo credentials, which appear to then be e-mailed to a Hotmail e-mail address.

The worm and phishing scam are the latest in an increasing number of cyberthreats that use instant messaging to get to Internet users. Just as with attachments and links in e-mail, instant messaging users should be careful when clicking on links that arrive in instant messages--even messages from people they know, Sakoda said.

People are advised to keep their antivirus software up to date. McAfee will update its antivirus software on Wednesday to detect this latest Gaobot variant, Shmugar said. Current McAfee products may catch the malicious software via their intrusion detection capabilities, he said.
http://news.com.com/Worm%2C+phishing...3-5719088.html


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Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage'
Ted Bridis

The latest threat to computer users doesn't destroy data or steal passwords - it locks up a person's electronic documents, effectively holding them hostage, and demands $200 over the Internet to get them back.

Security researchers at San Diego-based Websense Inc. uncovered the unusual extortion plot when a corporate customer they would not identify fell victim to the infection, which encrypted files that included documents, photographs and spreadsheets.

A ransom note left behind included an e-mail address, and the attacker using the address later demanded $200 for the digital keys to unlock the files.

"This is equivalent to someone coming into your home, putting your valuables in a safe and not telling you the combination," said Oliver Friedrichs, a security manager for Symantec Corp. The company said Tuesday the problem was serious but not deemed a high-level threat because there were no indications it was widespread.

The FBI said the scheme was unlike other Internet extortion crimes. Leading security and antivirus firms this week were updating protective software for companies and consumers to guard against this type of attack, which experts dubbed "ransom-ware."

"This seems fully malicious," said Joe Stewart, a researcher at Chicago-based Lurhq Corp. who studied the attack software. Stewart managed to unlock the infected computer files without paying the extortion, but he worries that improved versions might be more difficult to overcome. Internet attacks commonly become more effective as they evolve over time and hackers learn to avoid the mistakes of earlier infections.

"You would have to pay the guy, or law enforcement would have to get his key to unencrypt the files," Stewart said.

The latest danger adds to the risks facing beleaguered Internet users, who must increasingly deal with categories of threats that include spyware, viruses, worms, phishing e-mail fraud and denial of service attacks.

In the recent case, computer users could be infected by viewing a vandalized Web site with vulnerable Internet browser software. The infection locked up at least 15 types of data files and left behind a note with instructions to send e-mail to a particular address to purchase unlocking keys. In an e-mail reply, the hacker demanded $200 be wired to an Internet banking account. "I send programm to your email," the hacker wrote.

There was no reply to e-mails sent to that address Monday by The Associated Press.

Ed Stroz, a former FBI agent who now investigates computer crimes for corporations, said the relatively cheap ransom demand - only $200 - probably was deliberately low to encourage victims to pay rather than call police and to discourage law enforcement from assigning these cases a high priority.

"That's a very powerful threat," Stroz said. "If somebody encrypted your files, you need this stuff now to do your work."

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said more familiar Internet extortion schemes involve hackers demanding tens of thousands of dollars and threatening to attack commercial Web sites, interfering with sales or stealing customer data.

Experts said the Web site where the infection originally spread had already been shut down. They also said the hacker's demand for payment might be his weakness, since bank transactions can be traced easily.

"The problem is getting away with it - you've got to send the money somewhere," Stewart said. "If it involves some sort of monetary transaction, it's far easier to trace than an e-mail account." http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...05-24-16-25-52


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Montana Leaves Private Info on Computers
Bob Anez

State agencies failed to remove private information before retiring outdated state computers, risking public disclosure of Social Security and credit card numbers, medical records and income taxes, a new report discloses.

The legislative audit, obtained Tuesday, blamed unclear state policy for the computer hard drives not being properly "scrubbed" before the machines were donated to school districts, given to other state agencies or sold to the public.

"The state lacks a single clear policy instructing departments on information removal, assigning responsibility for defining sensitive data, and assigning responsibility for performing data removal and certifying the task has been accomplished," the auditors said.

Janet Kelly, Department of Administration director, said in a written response that her agency immediately began crafting a more concise policy to ensure private information held by the government is not made public.

"The resulting language will require that all data must be irretrievably removed from the hard drive," she said.

Jeff Brandt, acting chief information officer for the state, said Tuesday the new policy should be complete by mid-July. In the meantime, he said, a warning has gone out to all information technology officials throughout state government.

"We're telling folks to not make any assumptions about options for scrubbing disks," he said. "Err on the side of making darn sure they are scrubbed."

Brandt said the information discovered by the auditor's office was never divulged, so the people to whom it pertains need not be concerned. However, he acknowledged the state has no way of knowing if other data on other computers discarded by the state was disclosed over the years as the machines changed hands.

The state has about 11,000 desktop computers and regularly disposes of aging machines. Last year alone, 51 agencies got rid of more 2,300 computers. Most are given to school districts.

State policy requires all agency information be removed from the computers "in such a manner that it cannot be recovered" after the machine leaves a department. But the audit noted that part of the policy also refers to removal of "meaningful information," wording that appears to make the policy inconsistent.

A 1996 policy mandated each computer be certified that removal of all data has occurred, but that same requirement is not contained in the current policy, the report said.

Mark Athearn, who heads the state surplus property office, said his office has stopped collecting computers until the revamped state policy is in place.

Auditors obtained 18 discarded state computers and found 12 of them contained information related to the department that had used them. The hard drives contained software that should have been removed, legal hearing notes, meeting files, citizen e- mails to department staff, and permit application information.

Eight of the machines also held confidential data, including 386 Social Security numbers, financial records for 182 people, 84 business files and job applicant information.

The audit said all agencies contacted were aware of the policy requiring hard drives be cleaned before computers are discarded, but some departments were using tools that did a poor job of completely removing the information.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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Banks Notify Customers of Data Theft
Paul Nowell

More than 100,000 customers of Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp. have been notified that their financial records may have been stolen by bank employees and sold to collection agencies.

In all, nearly 700,000 customers of four banks may be affected, according to police in Hackensack, N.J., where the investigation was centered.

So far, Bank of America has alerted about 60,000 customers whose names were included on computer disks discovered by police, bank spokeswoman Alex Liftman said Monday.

"We are trying to communicate with our customers as promptly as possible," she said. "So far, we have no evidence that any of our customer information has been used for account fraud or identity theft."

Wachovia said it has identified 48,000 current and former account holders whose accounts may have been breached.

"The numbers have increased as we continue to receive additional names from police," Wachovia spokeswoman Christy Phillips said Monday.

Both banks are providing the affected customers with free credit reporting services.

In a separate case with the potential for identity theft, a laptop containing the names and Social Security numbers of 16,500 current and former MCI Inc. employees was stolen last month from the car of an MCI financial analyst in Colorado, said company spokeswoman Linda Laughlin.

The car was parked in the analyst's home garage and the computer was password-protected, she said. MCI would not comment on whether the data was encrypted.

The bank record theft was exposed April 28 when police in Hackensack charged nine people, including seven bank workers, in an alleged plot to steal financial records of thousands of bank customers.

The bank employees accessed records for customers of Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Commerce Bank, PNC Bank of Pittsburgh, and Charlotte-based banks Wachovia and Bank of America, according to Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa.

Repeated calls seeking comment were not returned by Commerce Bank officials, while PNC officials declined to estimate how many of their customers' accounts may have been breached.

"We have no evidence that any of these accounts have been compromised at all. We continue to work with law enforcement officials," said Pat McMahon, a spokesman for PNC.

New Jersey authorities found 12 names and Social Security numbers belonging to PNC customers but the bank found no suspicious activity in the accounts, he said.

Collection agent Orazio Lembo Jr., 35, of Hackensack made millions of dollars through the scheme, Zisa has said.

Authorities said they discovered the plot after they executed a search warrant at Lembo's apartment in February as part of a separate investigation. They seized 13 computers which contained details about the plan, Zisa said.

Lembo received lists of people sought for debt collection and turned that information over to the seven bank workers, who would compare those names to their client lists. The bank workers were paid $10 for each account they turned over to Lembo, Zisa said.

In New Jersey, continued scrutiny of computer discs seized from Lembo's offices was yielding more names. Investigators have now identified nearly 700,000 potential victims, Hackensack police Capt. Frank Lomia said Monday.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...05-23-23-06-38


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FBI Investigates Stanford Computer Breach
AP

The FBI is investigating a computer security breach at Stanford University that resulted in the theft of personal data - including letters of recommendation and Social Security numbers - for nearly 10,000 people.

The breach happened May 11, when someone from outside the university gained access to the school's network, Stanford general counsel Debra Zumwalt said Wednesday. The university would not say whether the breach happened as a result of a remote hacker, the physical theft of a laptop or other typical means of network penetration.

Stanford began mailing notifications Monday to about 300 recruiters and 9,600 others - mostly students - who visited the school's Career Development Center since 1996. The electronic dossiers generally did not include financial information such as credit card numbers or driver's license numbers.

The mailings complied with a state law that took effect in 2003 and requires organizations to notify California residents whenever personal data has been compromised. So far, school officials say, there's been no evidence of identity theft resulting from the breach.

When the university learned that someone had accessed the network, security officials temporarily disabled the career center's computers and reported the incident to the San Jose field office of the FBI.

"Protection of confidential information is a high priority of Stanford," Zumwalt said. "Since this incident, we have been working to understand this breach of our system and ways to prevent a reoccurrence."

The breach is the latest to affect a major California university. In one of the state's largest security breaches, the University of California, Berkeley warned 1.4 million Californians that a problem in October had exposed the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and birthdays of people who had participated in a state in-home care program.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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Can’t hack it

Teen Goes Too Far

He tried to be selfish but couldn’t
Nick Farrell

A TEEN who tried to bump up his grades to an A by hacking into his school’s computer system, accidentally revealed his cunning plan to officials.

It seemed like a good idea; break into the school’s network and change your grade to an A. However, due to a feature in the school’s record keeping software, he actually managed to turn everyone else’s grade into an A.

Then it turned out that by a strange quirk in the districts record keeping software that he managed to also make every kid in the District a certified genius.

Staff at the Natomas Unified School District smelt a rat when they found that they were suddenly teaching 18,697 top scholars, instead of the usual bunch of no-hopers.

Natomas staff are a bit clued up on hacking at the moment, because there have been four separate incidents of hacking into school computers in the Sacramento area.

Seven students have been charged or are under nvestigation by school or law enforcement officials.

Collaring the teen and the bloke who he advised, apparently was not difficult.

He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour charges in Sacramento Juvenile Court. He was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and six months' informal probation.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23473


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Student's Start-Up Draws Attention and $13 Million
Ellen Rosen

It is not easy capturing the attention of Jim Breyer, one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capitalists. But Mark Zuckerberg, a 21-year-old Harvard student, managed to do it with a Web site that has attracted 2.8 million registered users on more than 800 campuses since it began in February 2004.

Mr. Breyer was so taken with Mr. Zuckerberg's company, thefacebook.com, which creates online interactive college-student networks, that his firm, Accel Partners, plans to announce a $13 million investment in the start-up today.

"It is a business that has seen tremendous underlying, organic growth and the team itself is intellectually honest and breathtakingly brilliant in terms of understanding the college student experience," Mr. Breyer said.

Five years after the Internet bubble burst, a new generation of Web start-ups is quietly attracting investment capital. Thefacebook.com typifies the breed: a company that is built on substance rather than high expectations. While $13 million might seem paltry next to the free-flowing sums of the late 1990's, Mr. Breyer said it was a "significant investment" from Accel's new $400 million fund.

"The first model was to raise a lot of venture money early on, even before we understood the consumer experience and knew the risks," Mr. Breyer said. Today, by contrast, his firm backs companies "like thefacebook, which have built a deep relationship again and again with the customer." Social sites, as well as those involving music and video, are among those that are particularly attractive right now, he said.

Mr. Zuckerberg and his two roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, started the venture in February 2004 as an online directory of all Harvard's students, a big step up from the photo books of incoming freshmen the school produced annually.

The premise - and the process - were both simple: students wanting to join needed a current ".edu" e-mail address to register without fees. They could then supply a digital photo and create a profile of themselves.

They could view one another's profiles and, as the site spread to other campuses, those at other schools if they were accepted as a "friend." Think of individual college directories connected by - at most - six degrees of separation.

(Thefacebook.com is not the first foray into a college site for Mr. Zuckerberg, a computer-sciences-turned-psychology major. As a prank in November 2003, he set up facemash.com, a site that "popped up two students' photos and asked users to choose who was more attractive," he said. Harvard officials were not amused and they put him on probation. But the university's administration has not voiced any complaints with thefacebook.com, he said.)

The three friends designed their site, Mr. Zuckerberg said, "in such a way that if it was good, it could be introduced at other schools." It was an instant hit, and within one month Columbia, Stanford and Yale students could log on to sites at their schools. By June 2004, sites were available for about 30 campuses and 150,000 students were registered. (The colleges and universities themselves do not have any editorial or financial involvement.)

Realizing they were onto something with big potential, Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Moskovitz decided to spend last summer in Silicon Valley, where they had friends working as interns at established companies like Google. (Mr. Hughes joined them for the summer, but returned to Harvard to act as the company's media spokesman.)

The two intend to return to Harvard in the fall and nurture their company slowly, Mr. Zuckerberg said, adding schools to their roster slowly "because we wanted to create safe communities" and make sure the system could handle the increased use.

But events overtook them. Before heading west, Mr. Zuckerberg arranged a dinner with Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, to talk about his Web site, which had swept through Stanford University in a number of weeks. A few weeks later, the two bumped into each other on a street in Palo Alto, Calif. Before long, Mr. Parker, who is also a co-founder of Plaxo, an online service that updates e-mail address books, began informally advising the company. By the end of the summer, he became president. And he introduced Mr. Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and founder of PayPal, the online payment service acquired by eBay in 2002.

Mr. Thiel invested $500,000 as seed money, the first major infusion of cash into thefacebook.com, Mr. Zuckerberg said. More important, his connection gave it the imprimatur of an up-and-coming company. Soon, other investors came calling.

But the one who impressed them most was the team from Accel, said Mr. Zuckerberg, who is thefacebook.com's chief executive. At 43, Mr. Breyer, the firm's managing partner, is a seasoned investor who serves on the boards of Wal-Mart Stores and Real Networks.

Mr. Breyer has taken a seat on the company's board, joining Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Parker and Mr. Thiel. He would not disclose the size of the stake Accel will take in thefacebook.com. And while he envisions that the company will one day go public, he said there was "no significant timetable."

Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Parker decline to disclose revenue, which comes solely from advertising, though they say the company is profitable. With the infusion of outside cash, they are also able to pay themselves salaries and rent an office in Palo Alto. They have not determined when they will return to Harvard, where they remain on leave.

The site is becoming ubiquitous at the 840 colleges where it is available. Laura Hofmann, who just finished her sophomore year at Loyola College in Baltimore, said that when thefacebook.com was introduced at her school in the fall, "everyone was addicted; at first, I was on five times a day."

Ms. Hofmann's sister Kate, who graduated this week from Tufts University in Medford, Mass., missed the site's early days because she was studying abroad for a semester. Upon her return, she acknowledged that the site was a "huge procrastination tool." But now, she said, it is most useful as a means of keeping up with alumni.

How to retain alumni as users is "an interesting question for us," Mr. Parker said. "We're trying to figure out what functionality they want once they graduate. Are they looking for jobs? Are they trying to date?"

But first, with the help of the new financing, the company wants to saturate the approximately 1,400 four-year colleges nationwide.

Running thefacebook.com has not been one success after another. A competitor, ConnectU, has sued the company in a federal district court in Massachusetts, asserting that Mr. Zuckerberg took its idea. Mr. Zuckerberg denies the allegation, saying he helped out at ConnectU for only a few weeks in the fall of 2003, when, he says, it was more of a dating service than a directory. He says his company has counterclaimed, asserting defamation. Calls and e-mails messages to ConnectU were not returned.

While the breakout success of thefacebook.com is unusual, those in Silicon Valley say there is plenty of room for other Internet companies. According to Allen Wiener, an analyst at the research firm Gartner Inc., a successful company needs to have a "clearly articulated product and service," that will "save time or money, offer something someone can't find somewhere else and fulfill a greed or lust factor." The service offered should be "compelling," adds Mr. Thiel, and one which "draws in new users to get organic grass-roots growth."

Difficult? Maybe, but Mr. Thiel predicts a lot of young entrepreneurs will make the grade. "We are nowhere near the end of the innovation arch," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/business/26sbiz.html


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Group Rethink
Michael Fitzgerald

Common sense is uncommon in individuals and, at first blush, seems even more so in groups. No one expects crowds to produce useful thought. We fear the tyranny of the majority and mob rule, avoid peer pressure where we can, and immediately see the aptness of Charles Mackay's 19th-century book title Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

But the idea of collective intelligence shouldn't seem so far-
fetched. After all, democracy is built on the principle that large groups know how to govern themselves. Commodities markets, which set prices on the basis of group knowledge, play a growing role in everyday business decisions. Even lone geniuses build on the work of others: for every Einstein there are Poincares and Lorentzes and Hilberts lurking in the background.

In fact, evidence of collective intelligence is all around us, and New Yorker writer James Surowiecki collects much of it in The Wisdom of Crowds. [Surowiecki wrote on technology and happiness for the January 2005 issue of Technology Review.] Surowiecki shows how groups can often outthink even the most knowledgeable experts. He offers proof after proof that "the value of expertise is, in many contexts, overrated." By recounting how the stock market divined that booster rocket manufacturer Morton Thiokol was most to blame for the Challenger shuttle disaster (the official answer came six months later), or how the U.S. Navy found the sunken submarine Scorpion by aggregating the best guesses of a variety of experts, Surowiecki demonstrates that collective intelligence can be harnessed, and that it does not have to be unwieldy. Collections of experts, he concedes, are prone to the ills of groupthink, which can lead to debacles like the Bay of Pigs. But he argues that crowds with certain characteristics--notably, diversity of opinion, independence of opinion, decentralization, and a way to aggregate opinions to arrive at a collective decision--will generally outsmart their most brilliant members. This is true for specific problems and broad ones, Surowiecki says, and for crowds big and small. His premise quickly comes to seem intuitive.

Groups, then, can act as parallel-processing decision engines, pooling disparate knowledge to answer even hard questions in areas like public policy. What we lack, however, is a reliable way to build such decision engines. And Surowiecki's book, unfortunately, offers no practical solutions.

But technologists, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists do. The last several years have seen intense interest in developing technology that improves our connectedness (see "Tagging Is It," p. 21). In part, that interest was spurred by the phenomenal success of open-source software, which is built by communities (see "How Linux Could Overthrow Microsoft," p. 64). It also reflects the success of Google and eBay, which have profited by harnessing the collective behaviors of very large groups. Connecting technologies like online social networks and Web logs, or "blogs," are familiar to many people, and wikis--group Web pages that any member may edit--soon will be (see "Larry Sanger's Knowledge Free-for-All," January 2005, p. 21). Technologists, then, are already attacking the problem of how to achieve a high group IQ.

Better communications tools are one ingredient. Indeed, Thomas W. Malone of MIT's Sloan School of Management argues in The Future of Work that ever cheaper and more-useful communications technology will effect a revolution in the way businesses operate. E-mail is the obvious example, but Malone also points to artificial electronic markets, which can aggregate employees' best guesses about sales, resource allocation, research and development efforts, and even pollution control. That last was done at BP, which used an internal futures market rather than a committee of experts when it wanted to find ways to reduce its emissions.

Malone says such markets, combined with blogs and other technologies that make it easier for employees to share information, will enable, for the first time in business history, "the
economic benefits of large organizations, like economies of scale and knowledge, without giving up the human benefits of small ones, like freedom, creativity, motivation, and flexibility." He is convinced that companies like Google, which uses internal blogs to keep management ranks flat, represent the future of industry. Tomorrow's companies, he predicts, will be led not by dictatorial, alpha-ego CEOs but by "cultivators" who understand that productivity and profits soar when all of a company's intellectual capital is being tapped.

Other institutions are also being remade through technologies that marshal collective intelligence. Dan Gillmor's We the Media shows how blogging, the Short Message System (SMS),
and corollary technologies like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) are creating a new and vital kind of journalism. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am friendly with Dan.)

Gillmor believes that such technologies have brought us to a turning point in media history: with the removal of major barriers to information distribution, such as the need for a broadcast license or a printing press, more people can provide journalistic observation, and that makes for a better-informed populace.

It can also make for better media. An excellent illustration involves Jane's Intelligence Review, the respected defense periodical. In 1999, Jane's posted a draft of an article on cyberterrorism to the massively popular online discussion forum Slashdot, whose denizens vetted the document so thoroughly that Jane's decided to rewrite it from scratch.

Gillmor does not claim that blogging, SMS, and the like are perfect. He is concerned about the ease with which technology can be used to promulgate untruths (he remembers the faked picture of John Kerry with Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam rally). He worries about "trolls" (people who post disingenuous, irrelevant, or obscene messages in order to get attention) and "spin doctors" (people who deliberately post misleading items). But he explains how the communal character of blog culture mitigates many potential excesses: bloggers who are uninteresting don't get linked to; those who make false assertions can be pilloried. What frightens him more is the prospect that governments and the mainstream media will try to slow or even derail bloggers, SMS news services, and other emergent forms of journalism through defamation or copyright infringement laws.

Like many, Gillmor also believes that networked technologies could make the political process more democratic. For at least a decade, the Internet has been hailed as the antidote for big campaign contributors' undue influence on electoral outcomes. Until recently, it was a quack cure. But the Howard Dean campaign's successful use of the Internet in the 2004 Democratic primary race suggests that, as Gillmor puts it, "American politics was approaching a tipping point." Joe Trippi, Dean's former campaign manager, agrees.

In his book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Trippi contends that the Dean campaign would never have taken off had he not employed communications technology like Meetup, a website that facilitates real-world gatherings. He argues that in 2004, the Internet was to the presidential election what television was in 1956--something present in 75 percent of homes but not truly understood by most politicians and political operatives. But by 2008, Trippi says, the Internet will be at the heart of the political process. America, in Trippi's view, is now run by the 631 people who collectively raised between $100 million and $150 million for the Bush campaign. But technology will make it possible for ordinary citizens to band together, piling small donations into substantial political war chests and speaking with a voice every bit as powerful as those of the special-interest lobbies. The model for all this? The campaign of Howard Dean, of course.

What Trippi identifies as the Dean campaign's strength could just as easily be described as its main problem: it was propelled by its supporters and therefore had no strategy for directing, or even much understanding of, the forces it had unleashed. The campaign had no clue, Trippi makes clear, that thousands of people would show up at Dean meetups at a time when the candidate was barely mentioned in the national press. Nor did it expect to see millions of dollars in small contributions coming in via the Internet.

Yet it's beguiling to envision campaigns that are shaped as much by voters as by the candidates themselves. Trippi seems to be that rare political professional who would be happy to find that, in the next campaign cycle, he was out of a job.

An influence upon all these books is Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs, which looked at the way groups of people use cell phones and other wireless devices to organize collective action. Rheingold wrote that "the most far-reaching changes will come...from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible."

Creating a communications infrastructure that fosters a healthy democracy has been a concern of the United States since its founding. Newspaperman and intellectual Walter Lippmann once noted that the real trouble with both the press and representative democracy is "the failure of self-governing people to transcend their casual experience and their prejudice by inventing, creating, and organizing a machinery of knowledge." That machinery may finally have arrived.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...view_group.asp


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Publishers Protest Google Library Project
Michael Liedtke

Scholarly Publishers Protest Google's Online Library Project, Citing Financial Threat

A group of academic publishers is challenging Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index, highlighting fears that the ambitious project will violate copyrights and stifle future sales.

In a letter scheduled to be delivered to Google Monday, the Association of American University Presses described the online search engine's library project as a troubling financial threat to its membership -- 125 nonprofit publishers of academic journals and scholarly books.

The plan "appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale," wrote Peter Givler, the executive director for the New York-based trade group.

The association asked Google to respond to a list of 16 questions seeking more information about how the company plans to protect copyrights.

Two unnamed publishers already asked Google to withhold its copyrighted material from the scanners, but the company hasn't complied with the requests, Givler wrote.

Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages left Monday.

The association of nonprofit publishers is upset because Google has indicated it will scan copyright- protected books from three university libraries -- Harvard, Michigan and Stanford.

Those three universities also operate publishing arms represented by the group complaining about Google's 5-month-old "Libraries for Print" project. That means the chances of the association suing Google are "extremely remote," Givler said in an interview Monday.

Still, Givler said the association is very worried about Google's scanning project.

"The more we talked about it with our lawyers, the more questions bubbled up," he said. "And so far Google hasn't provided us with any good answers."

Google also is scanning books stored in the New York Public Library and Oxford in England, but those two libraries so far are only providing Google with "public domain" works -- material no longer protected by copyrights.

Federal law considers the free distribution of some copyrighted material to be permissible "fair use." The company has told the nonprofit publishers that its library program meets this criteria.

Some for-profit publishers also are taking a closer look at Google's library-scanning project.

"We are exploring issues and opportunities with Google, including the potential impact of this program on our authors, our customers and our business," said John Wiley & Sons Inc. spokeswoman Susan Spilka.

Copyright concerns aren't the only issue casting a cloud over Google's library-scanning project. The project also has drawn criticism in Europe for placing too much emphasis on material from the United States.

One of Google's most popular features -- a section that compiles news stories posted on thousands of Web sites -- already has triggered claims of copyright infringement. Agence France-Presse, a French news agency, is suing for damages of at least $17.5 million, alleging "Google News" is illegally capitalizing on its copyrighted material.

The latest complaints about Google are being driven by university-backed publishers who fear there will be little reason to buy their books if Google succeeds in its effort to create a virtual reading room.

The university presses depend on books sales and other licensing agreements for most of their revenue, making copyright protections essential to their survival.

Google has turned its search engine into a moneymaking machine, generating a $369 million profit during the first three months of this year alone. The company is counting on its library scanning project to attract even more visitors to its site so it can display more ads and potentially boost its earnings even more.

Investors already adore Google. The company's shares surged $13.84, or 5.7 percent, to close Monday at $255.45 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Earlier in the session, the shares traded as high as $258.10 -- a new peak since the company went public nine months ago at $85.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050523/googl...ghts.html?.v=4


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Microsoft vs Google Heats Up
John Oates

Bill Gates kept the heat on Google yesterday by lifting the skirts on MSN’s new local search and mapping service.

Gates demoed “MSN Virtual Earth” - a new local search service which will combine local search with maps and satellite pictures.

Speaking at a conference in Carlsbad, California, Gates said Google would struggle as competition over search moved away from its interenet sweet spot to new technologies and new platforms.

According to the NewYork Times, Gates said: “Google is still perfect, the bubble is floating and they can do everything. You should buy their stock at any price.”

MSN’s “Virtual Earth” sounds spookily like Google Earth also due in the next few weeks. It will let users mix satellite images, maps and local search information. The company is combining its Terra Server with technology from MapPoint. Terra Server hosts satellite images of the US. The service should be available in the US during the summer but without the aerial photos - they will be added later in the year. No word yet on wider availability.

Microsoft says the images are taken at 45 degrees giving users more information than “straight-down” views. It has an exclusive deal for images from Pictometry International.

Local searching is becoming a technology Holy Grail. Companies are keen to exploit the many smaller businesses which trade locally and don’t bother with a website. It is also vital for mobile companies looking for new sources of revenue from bandwidth-equipped phones. Competition is likely to be fierce with all major search engines chasing the local market.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/24/ms_local_maps/


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Take That, Google: Bill Gates Struts Microsoft's New Search Stuff
John Markoff

Bill Gates used his appearance at an industry conference here Monday to offer Microsoft's response to Google's latest online offerings, incorporating satellite imagery into location-based search results and introducing a new customizable MSN "start" page.

Mr. Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, also said that he was skeptical of Google's ability to maintain its dominance in the search marketplace indefinitely. Increasingly, he asserted, that competition will revolve around new technologies and take place in new arenas, like searching local information, where Google is less dominant than in Web searching.

"Google is still perfect, the bubble is floating and they can do everything," Mr. Gates told the moderator sarcastically at a conference on digital technology, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, at a resort in this town 35 miles north of San Diego. "You should buy their stock at any price." He then added, "We had a 10-year period just like that."

Microsoft will make its satellite-imaging technology available this summer as part of an advertising-supported local search service offered by MSN, its online service, he said. Microsoft will then add more elaborate imagery in the fall.

Microsoft's service, called Virtual Earth, will compete directly against a service called Google Earth, which will feature high-resolution imagery, three-dimensional buildings in some cities and driving directions, among other features.

Today Mr. Gates showed the Microsoft service offering mapping data overlaid on the satellite imagery, all of it combined with directory listings and a clipboard feature that lets users make note of places they find. He said the new product had its roots in work done at Microsoft Research, which during the last decade has developed a global mapping database known as TerraServer.

He demonstrated the ability for MSN online users to move back and forth between map views of local information and satellite views of the same locations. He also said that Microsoft had taken an exclusive license for enhanced aerial photo imagery from Pictometry International of Rochester.

In his demonstration, he showed a high-resolution photo of a downtown building in Seattle taken from a 45-degree angle, showing significant structural detail generally unavailable from top-down satellite images.

Last week Google, which already offers satellite imagery of the United States based on its Google Maps service, showcased the advances in satellite-aided search results reflected in Google Earth, developed with its acquisition of Keyhole, a satellite imaging software company.

One conference participant involved in the local-search field was dismissive of the value added by satellite imagery.

"It's eye candy," said the participant, Perry Evans, the founder of MapQuest service (now owned by America Online), who recently founded Local Matters, a company based in Denver that offers search technology for local information. But he said the competition between Google and Microsoft was forcing both companies to quickly introduce new services, which would be useful to customers.

Mr. Gates also demonstrated a new MSN start page that would let users arbitrarily organize the embedded information and other information sources on an MSN- provided home page. Yahoo, MSN and America Online have already offered user customizable home pages, and last week Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., began offering its own version of such an information portal, called Fusion. Google executives, who were also at the conference here, declined to comment on the new Microsoft services.

On other initiatives by Microsoft, Mr. Gates said he felt that the company had made significant progress in "hardening" its operating system against network attackers and virus writers. Most of the remaining issues, he said, involve what the industry refers to as "social engineering," or the ability of a malicious person to fool computer users over the Internet.

He said that the company's struggles with security issues had probably cost about a year's delay in the introduction of its next-generation version of Windows, code- named Longhorn. The company has said it planned a commercial release of the program late next year.

He also said he was optimistic about the potential of the company's software for cellphones.

"We've gone from one customer three years ago to 68 customers today," Mr. Gates said. "We're a very patient company."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/te...y/24gates.html


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Microsoft Must Comply or Face Fine
Paul Meller

Microsoft has until the middle of next week to comply with the European Commission's antitrust ruling, or face daily fines of up to $5 million, Europe's competition monitor said Monday.

The European Commission ruled in March 2004 that Microsoft had abused its dominant position in the European software market. The company paid a 497 million euro fine last summer, but it has not acted on two orders to change its business practices.

"They have until the end of the month to satisfy us," said Jonathan Todd, spokesman for Europe's competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes. She expects Microsoft to make a "final offer" on all aspects of last year's ruling, he added.

Tom Brookes, a spokesman for Microsoft, said the company was trying to address the commission's concerns. "We are aware of the commission's time frame and we continue to work towards full compliance," he said in Brussels.

The company has submitted proposals in the last year to address the antitrust ruling, but they have fallen far short of what the commission is seeking.

The commission ordered that Microsoft make room for rival programs by offering a second version of its Windows operating system without the Media Player program. It also instructed Microsoft to license secret information inside Windows to rivals to allow them to produce server software that works with Windows, which operates more than 95 percent of personal computers around the world.

If Microsoft's final offer fails to satisfy the regulator, or if the company misses the June 1 deadline, the commission will write a formal letter to the company, outlining its concerns.

Microsoft would then be given the opportunity to respond, either in writing or in a hearing before the commission. The final decision to impose fines would then be taken by Ms. Kroes and her 24 fellow commissioners. The process could take around two weeks and the fine is calculated based on roughly 5 percent of Microsoft's global daily sales. The deadline for compliance was set in late April during a meeting between Ms. Kroes and Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, but was kept secret until now.

Microsoft appealed last year's antitrust ruling at the European Court of First Instance, Europe's second-highest court, in Luxembourg, and asked the court to suspend the remedies called for in the ruling until after the appeal. That request was turned down in December. The appeal is still going forward.

Since then, Microsoft has been in almost daily contact with the commission on how to comply with those remedies. Each side has accused the other of slowing the process.

At the meeting last month, she told Mr. Ballmer that Microsoft must comply with the ruling "urgently and in full."

Mr. Ballmer's previous visit to Brussels was weeks before the historic antitrust ruling in March last year. He tried to secure a settlement with Ms. Kroes's predecessor, Mario Monti, but left empty-handed after three days of meetings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/te...gy/24soft.html


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A Front-Runner at Microsoft, but There's No Race Yet
Steve Lohr


Annie Marie Musselman for The New York Times
Eric Rudder, a rising star at Microsoft.

The path to the top at Microsoft is not for the timid. Anyone hoping to make the ascent must be able to match wits with two of the most formidable and combative intellects in corporate America: Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, and Steven A. Ballmer, its chief executive.

Eric Rudder, a senior vice president, demonstrated that skill not long after he arrived at Microsoft. In 1992, Mr. Rudder, then 25, had a confrontation with Mr. Gates, recalled Brad Silverberg, a former senior Microsoft executive. The dispute centered on some now-forgotten technical matter in the Windows desktop operating system.

"Bill, you're absolutely, totally wrong," Mr. Rudder said, according to Mr. Silverberg. "And here's why."

After hearing him out, Mr. Silverberg said, Mr. Gates conceded the point, saying: "You know what? I guess you're right."

Careers at Microsoft are built on such episodes, proof of the right stuff. Yet more is required to climb up the executive ladder, notably a deep understanding of technology and a deft grasp of business.

"And you have to deliver, you have to be in charge of building products that generate huge growth in revenues and profits," observed Michael A. Cusumano, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied Microsoft for years.

No one recently has delivered more than Mr. Rudder. For two years, he has led Microsoft's fast-growing business for server products - the software powering computer networks behind everything from Web pages and e-mail to corporate back-office systems.

There is no heir apparent at Microsoft. Both Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer are only 49, and neither has suggested that he wants to step aside soon. Yet by putting Mr. Rudder, 38, in charge of a business earmarked for near-term growth, they singled him out as the likely front-runner among the next generation of leaders.

"Bill and Steve see a lot of themselves in Eric," said Mr. Silverberg, who is now a venture capitalist.

Mr. Rudder's group has grown at 15 percent to 20 percent annually for the last few years, reaching $10 billion a year in sales. It has become Microsoft's third big business by expanding at roughly twice the pace of the more mature desktop divisions, the Windows operating system and the Office software package. Microsoft's server group has posted faster growth than the software businesses of big corporate rivals like I.B.M. and Oracle, and has not suffered much so far from Linux, the popular free operating system.

Someday, Microsoft's fledgling divisions could also be big and profitable, like its Xbox video game consoles and software, and its MSN e-commerce Web sites and search. Young executives from those groups, and others, are also in the running to head the company someday. They include Steven Sinofsky, a senior vice president leading the Office business; Chris Jones, a vice president guiding Windows development; Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president in charge of MSN; and J Allard, a vice president who heads the Xbox team.

But Mr. Rudder's server division is the first real winner in Microsoft's strategy to move beyond its desktop stronghold.

That success reflects an evolution in Microsoft's corporate culture and the way it must compete in the future, especially in newer markets where the company is not dominant.

Put simply, Microsoft is moving beyond its heritage as an often insular place focused entirely on shipping and selling software products. That mentality struck many corporate customers as a Microsoft-knows-best arrogance. In fact, the company's surveys of customer satisfaction showed a declining trend for five years until 2003, when the trend reversed.

Microsoft remains first and foremost a technology product company, but one that is far more open to outsiders - and Mr. Rudder's group, by most accounts, has led the way. Corporate customers are brought in to help with product designs early on. Engineers are now routinely dispatched to the field to see how customers use technology and what they want.

More than a thousand engineers and product managers in Mr. Rudder's unit have started blogs in the last couple of years to explain what Microsoft is doing and to field comments and criticism from customers and programmers outside the company.

"It's a huge cultural shift for us," said Simon Witts, a vice president who is a 14-year veteran at Microsoft.

To spend more time with customers himself, Mr. Rudder decided to move to Paris for a year, starting last August, along with his wife and their two children, a 10-year- old daughter and an 8-year-old son.

As someone who came up through the technology side of the business, spending his career at the suburban Seattle headquarters, Mr. Rudder said he felt the need to spend more time in the field, seeing things through the eyes of Microsoft's sales teams and their corporate customers. He has traveled to dozens of countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"I wanted to encourage our people to spend more time in the field," Mr. Rudder explained in an interview while on a trip to Microsoft headquarters here. "So I felt I should lead by example."

The brainpower and competitive zeal valued at Microsoft were evident long before he arrived at the headquarters here in 1988. Growing up on Staten Island, Mr. Rudder had an aptitude for math and science, owned a Commodore home computer and did some programming on an I.B.M. minicomputer in high school. At Brown University, he did not plan to major in computer science initially, but he was lured by the challenge. A computer graphics course had the reputation for being both fascinating and the toughest undergraduate course at Brown.

As a student from a public school attending an Ivy League college, Mr. Rudder recalled, he was determined to test himself in that class. "It could have been marine biology," he said.

At Microsoft, Mr. Rudder found an environment suited to his skills and temperament. He became a product manager, building software and heading teams of engineers working on networking technology, Windows and programming tools.

In 1997, Mr. Gates picked Mr. Rudder as his technical assistant, a sign he was being groomed, and he served as Mr. Gates's aide for technology strategy until 2001, the longest tenure for anyone in that job. Mr. Rudder was then placed in charge of the strategically important software tools business at a time when developers were flocking to Java as the programming tool of choice for the Internet era of open communication and data sharing, instead of locking up information inside a supplier's proprietary technology.

Microsoft's alternative is its .Net programming tools, which are linked to Windows but embrace Internet and Web technologies. The .Net strategy was a technological answer to market imperative and customer demand. "We needed to link things together and work with other vendors," Mr. Rudder explained. "And we had the model with the Internet."

Mr. Rudder kept the tools business when he took charge of the server division in 2003. Today, Microsoft's .Net has closed the gap with the Java programming environment, called J2EE, which is backed by the software companies including I.B.M., Sun, Oracle and BEA Systems, and according to some surveys has pulled ahead of Java.

Bret Rupe, a chief architect for information technology at Weyerhaeuser, has been impressed by the changes at Microsoft. "We want suppliers who play well with others," he said. "Microsoft has really moved away from its proprietary view in the last few years." Assured by that trend, Weyerhaeuser, a big lumber and paper company, decided 18 months ago to increase its investment in Microsoft's server software in its data centers.

Mr. Rudder himself has adopted a somewhat more accommodating style lately, colleagues say, shedding a "never give an inch" mind-set that could stifle contributions from others. His future at Microsoft will hinge on how the company fares against the challenge of open-source software, which is distributed free and is improved by cooperative networks of programmers.

Windows and Linux have both done well in recent years because both systems run on machines using low-cost microprocessors from the personal computer industry - and corporations are increasingly adopting these servers to cut costs.

Still, Linux poses a real long-term threat to Microsoft. In most markets, Microsoft has adopted a high-volume, low-cost strategy. Yet open-source software is an "up from the bottom" phenomenon, a very different kind of competitor for Microsoft.

Mr. Rudder and his lieutenants marshal a series of arguments as to why "free" software is not free at all, once maintenance and support costs are included.

They point to the vast Microsoft "ecosystem" of millions of programmers worldwide and hundreds of thousands of companies who use Microsoft product and tools.

Linux and its open-source cousins, analysts say, could yet batter Microsoft's profit margins and growth. "Revenues may not go to zero but they can certainly stop growing," said Mr. Cusumano, the M.I.T. professor. "That's the nightmare for Microsoft, that happening sometime over the next 10 years."

Finishing off a boxed lunch, Mr. Rudder gave no hint of any such qualms. He is a true believer in the proposition that Microsoft's best days are surely ahead, and any suggestion to the contrary is emphatically dismissed.

"Microsoft is a growth company, absolutely," Mr. Rudder declared. "The opportunities are unlimited."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/te...gy/25soft.html