[JackSpratts]

NBC Chief Says Apple 'Destroyed' Music Pricing
Katie Marsal

NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.

"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business -- in terms of pricing -- and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side," Zucker said at a breakfast hosted by Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Communications.

His comments Sunday were the most aggressive yet since NBC informed Apple last month that it had decided not to renew its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on iTunes after this year.

NBC originally claimed to be seeking more control over the pricing of songs and videos that it was selling on iTunes, in addition to better piracy controls and more flexibility to bundle video content in an effort to increase revenues.

For its part in the bitter feud, Apple responded by saying NBC was asking for a twofold increase in the wholesale price of its TV show content, which would have resulted in the retail price to iTunes customers increasing to $4.99 per episode from $1.99.

Answering questions at the breakfast Sunday, Zucker offered substantially more color on the iTunes matter, explaining that it was “a relatively easy decision” for NBC to walk away from the Apple download service because it had only earned about $15 million from the service last year in spite of accounting for about 40 per cent of the videos sold on the store.

He said NBC routinely propositioned Apple to breach its standard pricing model and experiment with higher pricing for one hit show such as “Heroes” by raising the price from the iTunes standard $1.99 to $2.99 on a trial basis.

“We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99,” he said. “We made that offer for months and they said no.”

The NBC chief also revealed that in addition to more pricing flexibility, his firm was also seeking a cut of Apple hardware sales -- such as the iPod and iPhone -- which were capable of viewing content downloaded from the iTunes Store.

"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," he said. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing."

Zucker's comments also arrive just as NBC and NewsCorp. are launching their joint online video venture, Hulu.com, which aims to compete with iTunes by offering streaming TV and other commercial video content to viewers under an ad-supported model.

He said that 50 million streams of TV shows accessed on NBC.com during the month of October are proof that there is a demand for traditional TV series on the web.

“It’s extraordinary,” he said. “It’s like a small cable channel in our universe that is becoming very successful.”
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...c_pricing.html





Robert Fripp Lays in to Music Industry Rip-Off Merchants
Paul Hales

Vista composer exposes EMI's lucrative shenanigans

GUITAR WHIZZ and composer of Vista's little blipping noises, Robert Fripp is fed up with the hypocrisy of the music industry over copyright.

Fripp writes that he and his King Crimson band feel ripped off by record label EMI.

Apparently, EMI may have flogged some King Crimson CDs when it shouldn't have and cryptically Fripp refers to returns of unsold CDs. "A concern with returns is always that they are not dumped back onto the market by mistake (by mistake, dear reader)," he writes.

But it is the issue of downloads that is causing most headaches.

"After the licence (with EMI) expired," writes Fripp, "King Crimson tracks repeatedly appeared on various download websites licensed from EMI. If this had happened during the licence period, it would have been disturbing – even though shit happens and we should have gotten over it! - because EMI never had download rights from us."

This, mainly, is because when the licence period began, there was no such thing as downloads. Fripp says the EMI licence was subsequently not renewed because he and the band were not willing to approve download rights, "because the royalty terms offered sucked."

"These are current industry standard royalty terms," Fripp adds.

The download income EMI offered was neither sufficient nor satisfactory says Fripp. But what galls the most, he says, "is the cavalier approach to copyright ownership of someone other than EMI."

"It’s a little too rich to punish punters for illegal downloads of EMI copyright material when EMI are themselves guilty of copyright violation. The response, many months ago, of the EMI lawyer (the one who also said "shit happens! get over it") effectively told us "I’ve done my best! we’ve told them to take it down!"

"This isn’t quite good enough when making publicly available the copyright material of others. How bad do EMI management systems have to be that the company has no power of control over its licensing to download companies?"

As Fripp notes it's a pain in Aris for artistes to have to keep tabs on the record companies like this. It's "a major distraction from the creative life, and almost wholly a negative experience," he bleats.

The bad news, he writes, is that it's not in the record companies' interests to sort it out. In this case: "Efficiency is not seen as being in the direct interest of the record company - because it profits from its carelessness."
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...c-industry-rip





EMI Puts Full Video Catalog On Music Choice
FMQB

EMI Music has inked a deal with multi-platform network Music Choice, which allows the broadcaster to stream EMI's entire music video library on television and online in the U.S. This agreement provides access to EMI's roster of both established and emerging artists, from Lily Allen and The Decemberists to David Bowie and Coldplay. The music videos are available for viewing by millions of fans who have access to Music Choice through its free On Demand network and its free online music service for broadband subscribers. In addition, Music Choice will feature EMI's artists in original programs such as Artist of the Month, Fresh Crops, Rock U and Tha Corner.

"Music Choice is a powerful way for us to reach our fans - through TV and online - and we are delighted to include them as one of the growing platforms that will expose our artists' works to consumers," said Lauren Berkowitz, SVP of Digital for EMI Music North America.

"Music Choice is thrilled to now have access to EMI's full roster of well-known and up-and-coming artists, adding to the depth of content available on our television network and online music site," said President and CEO David Del Beccaro. "EMI's artists will be exposed to a nationwide audience that has helped us build the most popular On Demand music network in the country by placing over a billion orders for our free music-related content."
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=503122





Terra Firma On Shaky Ground With EMI
Peter Lauria and Brian Garrity

Terra Firma is already trying to trim its equity stake in EMI amid a major strategic review of the music company's business that could result in big changes, including a possible sale of its physical distribution business, The Post has learned.

EMI insiders and financial sources confirmed that Terra Firma has met with dozens of private-equity firms, hedge funds and other institutions in a bid to recoup some of the $1.5 billion in equity it poured into EMI as part of its $4.7 billion acquisition.

Terra Firma CEO Guy Hands already has gone back at least twice to the limited partners who participated in the original financing, asking for additional equity, according to one source who has met with the firm.

Offering partners an opportunity to invest in a deal on their own isn't unusual. But sources said that taking such a step just three months after closing the EMI deal and going outside of its co-investor base suggests that Hands is already disillusioned with his purchase.

"If they thought the deal they made was good, they wouldn't be diluting their stake by trying to bring other investors in," said one person close to EMI. "They're trying to find others to buy in so they can offload some of the risk."

One source close to Terra Firma conceded the firm's offer for EMI was predicated on various financial assumptions based on limited due diligence.

In addition to diluting its equity position, sources said Terra Firma is also looking at a number of cash-saving initiatives, with company insiders confirming that selling off its physical distribution operation and farming out packing and shipping functions hasn't been ruled out.

Selling EMI's distribution operations - a strategy that other record companies have mulled since 2000 - would generate quick cost savings because of the cuts in staff, overhead and real estate. It would also fit in with EMI's pruning of its real estate and distribution holdings in recent years.

Other cost-saving options under review include overall job cuts and spending curbs, sources said.

Hands, who has a history of selling bonds backed by the cash flow of various assets, could use this strategy as a way to quickly raise cash as well.

While Terra Firma has yet to make its first debt payment as part of the EMI purchase, sources said the cost-saving measures under review are aimed at prettying up the balance sheet for when Terra Firma has to show the company's numbers to its lender banks.

A spokesman for Terra Firma declined to comment.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292007..._ground_wi.htm





The B-52's Return With First New Album In 16 Years
FMQB

"The World's Greatest Party Band," The B-52's, will make their return on February 26 with Funplex, the band's first studio album in 16 years. The follow-up to 1992's Good Stuff will be released via Astralwerks and was produced by Steve Osbourne (New Order, KT Tunstall) in their home town of Athens, GA.

Guitarist Keith Strickland explains, "It's loud, sexy rock and roll for your pleasure zones, with the beat pumped up to hot pink." Singer Kate Pierson recently told Rolling Stone, "We’re more conscious of song structure, instead of fitting everything into a collage. This album, the songs build and build and by the end, it’s totally different, this course is hammering along and you’re dancing."

"We are thrilled to be bringing The B-52's music to a new generation of intergalactic fans. Cindy [Wilson], Fred [Schnieder], Kate, and Keith have made an album that is incredibly fresh, dynamic and perhaps most importantly, quintessentially The B-52's ... instantly recognizable, instantly fun," Astralwerks label manager Glenn Mendlinger commented.

Funplex track list:

1. "Pump"
2. "Hot Corner"
3. "Ultraviolet"
4. "Juliet Of The Spirits"
5. "Funplex"
6. "Eyes Wide Open"
7. "Love In The Year 3000"
8. "Deviant Ingredient"
9. "Too Much To Think About"
10. "Dancing Now"
11. "Keep This Party Going"

http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=503267





Ripples in the Music Industry, Part 1: Breaking Away
Walaika Haskins

Piracy is not the major music labels' main problem, according to analyst Mike Goodman. "The problem is that they have an inefficient business model. We're undergoing a business correction, and there is not anything they'll be able to do about this market correction. Revenues for the music industry are going to decline." Meanwhile, musical artists are using the Internet to strike out on their own.

October seemed as though it would be a banner month for the recording industry after a Minnesota jury ruled in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the first peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing lawsuit to go to trial. The jurors demanded Jammie Thomas, a single mother who the RIAA claimed had shared copyrighted audio files, pay US$222,000 in damages. The award appeared to vindicate in the industry's years-long battle to put an end to illegal downloads by any means necessary.

The RIAA has filed lawsuits against nearly 26,000 individuals it says have illegally shared music files. The bulk of those sued have opted to settle out of court and as a result have paid an average of US$2,000 in fines.

The industry representative was so buoyed by its success that on Oct. 12, the RIAA filed suit against Usenet host Usenet.com, claiming that the newsgroups violate federal copyright laws and contain millions of copyrighted sound recordings.

A predecessor to listservs and other Internet forums, Usenet -- short for User Network -- is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion network comprised of newsgroups -- a compendium of messages from users on a specific topic with the most recent posts stored on the Usenet host's server . Newsgroups are widely used in academic settings and are largely unmoderated. An RIAA win here could provide the legal foundation necessary for the group to bring lawsuits against scores of universities, Internet Service Providers and other newsgroup hosts.

Also, on Oct. 18, the RIAA sent out its ninth wave of pre-litigation letters informing 411 students at universities across the country, including the University of California in Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern California, Tufts University and Drexel University, of its intent to sue them. According to the group, it has identified these students as significant violators of their copyrights. The letters allow the students to, the RIAA said, resolve the industry's claims at a "discounted rate before a formal lawsuit is filed."

Distorted Vision?

The RIAA and record labels have concentrated much effort on stopping P2P file-sharing and breaking iTunes' stranglehold on digital downloads. However, what happens when an artist attempts to buck the system by using the Internet instead of a label? With digital downloads, musicians could take the distribution and marketing -- arguably the main reasons record labels exist at all -- into their own hands and leave music companies holding an empty bag.

"It is yet another example of [the recording industry] missing the point," Mike Goodman, a Yankee Group analyst, told the E-Commerce Times. "They are so myopic on piracy, and now their list of culprits [for declining CD sales] has shifted to pirates and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) , that they continue to miss the real problem. And they are the real problem."

Recording labels have seen their revenues decline significantly from the buying frenzy of the early 1990s, when consumers replaced their cassette tapes and vinyl records with CDs and sent profits to historical highs. According to the RIAA, file-sharing has cost record labels $4.2 billion in profits each year worldwide.

However, even if the industry was able to root out every vestige of piracy tomorrow, it would still lose $1 billion next year, Goodman continued.

A 2004 study by two researchers at Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina found that tracks trafficked heavily online by file-sharing networks showed no appreciable drop in sales. They followed sales of 680 albums during a 17-week period in 2002. The researchers reported that for every 150 downloads of a track from those albums, sales rose by one CD. They concluded that file-sharing, instead of depressing sales, actually increased sales of popular albums by more than 600,000 copies.

"The problem is not piracy. The problem is that they have an inefficient business model. We're undergoing a business correction, and there is not anything they'll be able to do about this market correction. Revenues for the music industry are going to decline. And when all is said in done in about five or ten years from now, you'll probably see about a 30 percent decline in revenue for the recording industry," Goodman predicted.

On the plus side, it will no longer have an inefficient business model, he added.

Musically Bound No More

Artists have long chafed against the bonds imposed on them by their recording deals. Prince fought a very public battle with Warner Bros. for most of the 1990s, even changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol. Once released from his contract, The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince resumed using his given name and vowed to go independent. He started his own label, NPG Records, and despite a distribution deal with EMI/Capitol Records has released the bulk of his recordings over the past decade on the Web.

In July, he gave away copies of his latest album, "Planet Earth," as a promotion in the UK's Mail on Sunday newspaper. Industry pundits speculate that the British freebie was valued at some US$500,000. Other big-name performers including Peter Gabriel, Duran Duran and Dolly Parton have also given away millions of CDs in promotions overseas.

"A lot of different bands have done a lot of different things," Goodman noted, pointing to other bands such as Phish, which exhorted concert goers to make bootleg tapes of their live performances.

Mick Hucknall, frontman of Simply Red, started a record label named after the band. On the label's Simply Red Web site, fans can download the group's recordings and videos going as far back as 2003 or pick up a mug, t-shirt and tour merchandise at the site's online store.

Recording labels as they are today will not exist in five to ten years, Goodman predicted. "They don't have a purpose. In a digital world where recording artists can create their own music -- and I would argue that they could probably do it more efficiently -- and where artists don't need a record label to distribute their music, the record label doesn't serve a purpose in that world."

While there will continue to be branded recording companies such as Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and EMI, what those companies do will be fundamentally different, Goodman said.

Some musicians such as Ani DiFranco have found success as independent artists. The folk rock songstress started her own label, Righteous Babe Records, and distributes her recordings through her Web site. Though she styles herself as an artist and not an entrepreneur, for whom the music and not the money is paramount, DiFranco reportedly has made $4.25 for each CD sold. Under contracts with major labels, superstars like Michael Jackson and Prince reportedly have earned as little as $2 per CD sold.

Power Shift

One huge example of the seismic shift taking place in the music industry came with the announcement Oct. 16 that Madonna had chosen not to renew her longstanding 25-year relationship with Warner Bros. in favor of a recording and touring deal with Live Nation, a concert promoter, at a reported value of $120 million.

Under the 10-year deal, Madonna will produce three albums for which she will receive a $17 million advance for each CD in addition to the $18 million signing bonus she already earned. Live Nation gains rights to any music-related products -- CDs, tours and merchandise, DVDs, TV shows, films and Web sites. The music promoter will also have to pony up $50 million in cash and stock to promote every one of Madonna's tours.

"It's a different kind of deal, [one] you'd never see from a record label," said Goodman, who calls the tie-up a "hybrid" deal. "There is still a recording component to it, but there are also still a lot of professional services -- merchandising, promotion for the tours, etc. That deal is somewhat reminiscent of a deal that is bridging the past -- sort of a typical recording deal -- with the future which is more of a professional services kind of deal."

Former Beatle Paul McCartney signed a recording contract with Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) ' Hear Music label, which sold his new CD in its retail coffee locations, while another rock legend, the Eagles, will sell their forthcoming CD, "Long Road Out of Eden," exclusively at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) stores.

"[The record labels'] fundamental problem is that they're becoming irrelevant in the marketplace and they are doing nothing to rectify that situation," Goodman pointed out.

Digital Freedom

This new paradigm for business in the music industry began to show itself in the latest generation of rock greats when top-selling alt-rock band Radiohead refused to re-up on its contract with EMI after it expired in 2004. At the time, Thom Yorke, lead vocalist, told Time magazine that while he enjoyed the folks over at EMI, the time had come for the band to question why it needed a recording label. He added that it would give the group a certain amount of pleasure to give the finger to a business model that was headed the way of the dinosaurs.

On Oct. 10, the band launched its latest album, "In Rainbows," as a self-released digital download for which fans could set their own price. The move indicated record companies have more to worry about than illegal downloads. The revolutionary distribution and pricing scheme has perhaps given the recording industry a glimpse of a future -- one in which artists have a direct line to fans, thus excising the need for a middle man, more commonly known as recording companies.

The success of the download strategy will not be known for some time. Radiohead has refused to release any numbers on the download. A representative from their management company, Courtyard Management, told reporters the group will disclose sales numbers after Christmas.

However not content to wait for official figures, Gigwise, a UK music site, reported the band sold 1.2 million downloads of "In Rainbows" during the 10-day period after it was released, for an average of a little more than $8 per download. If the site's figures are accurate, the band brought in just under $9 million. The Register estimated the amount paid by consumers at a more conservative $5.

Falling Like Dominoes

Just a few days after Radiohead's historic album download hit the Internet, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis and Jamiroquai announced they would make their latest efforts available in online-only downloads. Following Radiohead's example, Nine Inch Nails (NIN) said it would release its upcoming album, "Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D" ("Year Zero Remixed") online and allow fans to pay what they thought it was worth.

"I've waited a long time to be able to make the following announcement: As of now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently different," the band's singer and lead musician Trent Reznor wrote in a post on the NIN Web site. "It gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate."

In a later post on the NIN, site Reznor wrote that the album will also be release through "the traditional retail outlets" in three formats: digital, vinyl and CD/DVD-ROM. The digital downloads will be available on iTunes, Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and possible other sites and will include 14 tracks. Then there is the vinyl package of three discs with a combined 17 tracks. The third format, a physical CD/DVD-ROM, will "cost a bit more than 'regular'" but contains the exact same tracks as the digital download.

Reznor followed that news with another announcement on Oct. 25 that a CD collaboration with Saul Williams, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust," will be available for free at Niggytardust.com on Nov. 1.

"There are obviously similarities in how Radiohead just released their new record and the way we've chosen to," he wrote. "After thinking about this way too much, I feel we've improved upon their idea in a few ways that benefit you, the consumer.

"One thing that is very different in our situation is that Saul's not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is, and that means we need your support on this more than ever."

Oasis' lastest single, "Lord Don't Slow Me Down," went up on the bands Web site Oct. 21. The download cost $2 for the single, or fans can get it bundled with two live recordings, "The Meaning of Soul" and "Don't Look Back in Anger" for $3.

Reality Check?

All things are not rosy, however, for artists who decide to go it alone without the protections of a major recording label, James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, told the E-Commerce Times.

"Artists going solo won't be as successful as they think," he stated. "One of the jobs of the labels is to insulate the artists from the fact that no matter how passionate their fans are, for most artists their diehard fan base is actually very small. By jumping ship, these artists will face the realities of their own power."

Radiohead came face to face with one such reality -- full disclosure -- even before "In Rainbows" made it to the Internet. On Oct. 9 -- one day before its release -- fans who had pre-ordered the download reportedly received an e-mail indicating that "In Rainbows" would be a 48.4 MB ZIP file with 10 160 kpbs, DRM-free MP3s. The outcry from fans was almost immediate from Radiohead devotees who were stunned that the band would not release tracks at a higher quality level. CD-quality bitrates are higher -- from 224 to 320 kbps.

The low compression rate makes the tracks more suitable for playback on smaller devices like computers, iPods and other digital media players. Those who want a track to play on a high-end stereo system will have to wait until the double CD is released in early 2008.

However, "the labels have not provided artists with much of an alternative for their ambitions, so they might be driving great talent out the door," McQuivey pointed out.

"The net benefit of this tragic drama is for consumers. Artists are not rational business people, therefore they will not be constrained by the same habits and patterns that have limited the labels," he explained. "So you see Radiohead experimenting with what I would call the public television model, where people can choose to pay whatever they want.

"Great experiment, but it won't drive dramatic revenues for the music," McQuivey continued. "But do they care? Perhaps the music is better used as a loss leader to drive people to buy concert tickets, t-shirts, art and other memorabilia."

Radiohead apparently still believes record labels have at least a limited purpose in the industry. The band has reportedly decided to sign a deal with a record company to bring the two-CD "discbox" version of the album to store shelves in December or January. Two likely candidates are ATO Records and Side One Records.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/...ing-Away.xhtml





Music Takedown Strikes the Wrong Chord
Michael Geist

In February 2006, a part-time Canadian music student established a modest, non-commercial website that used collaborative "wiki" tools, such as those used by Wikipedia, to create an online library of public domain musical scores. Within a matter of months, the site – called the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) – featured more than 1,000 musical scores for which the copyright had expired in Canada.

Nineteen months later – without any funding, sponsorship or promotion – the site had become the largest public domain music score library on the Internet, generating a million hits per day, featuring more than 15,000 scores by in excess of 1,000 composers, and adding 2,000 new scores each month.

Ten days ago, the IMSLP disappeared from the Internet. Universal Edition, an Austrian music publisher, retained a Toronto law firm to demand that the site block European users from accessing certain works and from adding new scores for which the copyright had not expired in Europe. The company noted that while the music scores entered the public domain in Canada 50 years after a composer's death, Europe's copyright term is 20 years longer.

On Oct. 19, the law firm's stated deadline, the student took the world's best public domain music scores site offline. While the site may resurface – at least one volunteer group has offered to host it – the case places the spotlight on the compliance challenges for Canadian websites facing competing legal requirements.

There is little doubt that the site was compliant with Canadian law. Not only is there no obligation to block non-Canadian visitors, but the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that sites such as IMSLP are entitled to presume that they are being used in a lawful manner.

The site would therefore not be subject to claims that it authorized infringement.

Further, while there have been some suggestions that the site also hosted works that were not in the Canadian public domain, Universal Edition never bothered to provide the IMSLP with a complete list of allegedly infringing works.

Although IMSLP is on safe ground under Canadian law, the European perspective on the issue is more complicated. There is no question that some of the site's music scores would infringe European copyright law if sold or distributed in Europe. However, the IMSLP had no real or substantial connection – the defining standard for jurisdiction – with Europe.

Indeed, if Universal Edition were to file a lawsuit in Austria, it is entirely possible that the Austrian court would dismiss it on the grounds that it cannot assert jurisdiction over the Canadian-based site (and even if it did assert jurisdiction, it is unlikely that a Canadian court would uphold the judgment).

This case is enormously important from a public domain perspective. If Universal Edition is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest copyright term applying on a global basis.

Moreover, there are even broader implications for online businesses. According to Universal Edition, businesses must comply both with their local laws and with the requirements of any other jurisdiction where their site is accessible – in other words, the laws of virtually every country on Earth. It is safe to say that e-commerce would grind to a halt under that standard since few organizations can realistically comply with hundreds of foreign laws.

Thousands of music aficionados are rooting for the IMSLP in this dispute. They ought to be joined by anyone with an interest in a robust public domain and a viable e-commerce marketplace.
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/271389





Stop me before I share again

New System Will Help Computer Users Avoid Illegal File-Sharing

The University of Michigan will launch a new educational service to help students avoid unintentionally infringing copyright law.

Be Aware You're Uploading (BAYU) is a new automated system that detects when computers on residence hall networks upload files using peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology.

"The University is launching this educational service because many people who use peer-to-peer file-sharing technology do so in ways that may result in copyright infringement or other risks," said Jack Bernard, assistant general counsel in the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel. The service begins Oct. 30.

BAYU is part of U-M's long-standing educational campaign to help students use computing and network resources effectively and lawfully. Peer-to-peer file-sharing, itself, is a lawful activity and is used increasingly for important instructional activities and research. But, it is what and how users file-share that may be unlawful, Bernard said. Many users who intend to use the technology lawfully are infringing unwittingly.

Last year, the University received hundreds of notices from copyright holders who alleged that users were uploading copyrighted content using P2P technology. Many users reported they had not intended to upload, thought they had turned off the uploading feature on their computer or only had uploaded files that were lawful to upload.

The new service will help users avoid unknowingly uploading copyrighted material; help users who are consciously uploading to do so responsibly; and help individuals who use peer-to-peer file-sharing be mindful of the risks associated with the technology.

When BAYU notices P2P uploading, it will send an e-mail with a link to educational information and University resources to the person associated with that computer. BAYU also will help users avoid accidentally exposing themselves to computer viruses and violations of their privacy through P2P uploading.

"We hope that BAYU will help alert students to the possibility that they are uploading unintentionally so they can avoid violating the law," Bernard said. "BAYU does not look at the content being uploaded or content on a computer's hard drive. It simply notifies individuals that a computer associated with them is engaged in uploading. The decision about whether or not to continue uploading rests with the individual."

Many people use peer-to-peer file-sharing technology without understanding how it works, Bernard said. Some P2P applications come configured to upload, so if users do not reconfigure the application to prevent uploading, they may end up uploading accidentally. Even if students have configured their computer software not to upload, the uploading feature may be reengaged when the software is restarted, updated, or through some other mechanism.

Students can mitigate their risks by monitoring their use of P2P technology, understanding how the technology works, and learning about the laws and policies that govern its use, said Bernard. As long as P2P technology is on a computer there is some risk.

The Recording Industry Association of America is cracking down nationally on the illegal swapping of songs. It is seeking settlements with people at 19 universities, including U-M, which has recently received notice of 20 such settlements.

The University is working on ways to expand the benefits of the program to the broader campus community.
http://www.physorg.com/news112894073.html





In Students’ Eyes, Look-Alike Lawyers Don’t Make the Grade
Adam Liptak

A bunch of law students at Stanford have started assigning letter grades to their prospective employers, which pretty much tells you who holds the power in the market for new associates. It’s not easy to persuade new lawyers from the top schools to accept starting salaries of only $160,000.

The students are handing out “diversity report cards” to the big law firms, ranking them by how many female, minority and gay lawyers they have.

“Many of the firms have atrocious, appalling records on diversity,” said Michele Landis Dauber, a law professor at Stanford and the adviser for the project, called Building a Better Legal Profession. The rankings are at www.betterlegalprofession.org.

In New York, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton got the top grade, an A-minus. At Cleary, the project says, 48.8 percent of the associates are women, 8.7 percent are black, 8.3 percent are Hispanic and 4.5 percent are openly gay.

Herrick, Feinstein, by contrast, got an F. Its numbers: 37.7 percent women, 4.9 percent black, 1.6 percent Hispanics, and no openly gay people.

In Washington, no firm got an A. But seven scored in the D range, including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Kelley Drye Collier Shannon; Baker Botts; and Mayer Brown.

The numbers were provided to a central clearinghouse by the firms themselves. “Our process is simple,” the student group said in explaining its methodology. “Cut, paste and rank.”

Firms in the top fifth received A’s, in the second fifth B’s, and so on. Overall grades were arrived at by averaging grades for partners and associates in five categories: women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and gay people.

The firms with low rankings did not dispute the basic numbers, with one exception. Herrick Feinstein said it reported that it had no openly gay lawyers “because, at the time of the filing, we did not ask for that information.” There are, the firm said in a statement, openly gay lawyers working there, “including one on the diversity committee.”

The students have ambitious plans, including asking elite schools to restrict recruiting by firms at the bottom of their rankings. They also plan to send the rankings to the general counsels of the Fortune 500 companies with the suggestion that they be used in selecting lawyers.

“Firms that want the best students will be forced to respond to the market pressures that we’re creating,” said Andrew Bruck, a law student at Stanford and a leader of the project.

Roger Clegg, the president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a research group that supports colorblind policies, said the whole thing was pernicious.

“Diversity is all too frequently a code word,” he said, “for preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex, or lower standards, or being opposed to assimilation.”

Vikram Amar, a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, added that law firms might well be violating employment discrimination laws in the process of trying to improve their rankings.

“As bad as their numbers are,” Professor Amar said of the firms, “the relevant applicant pool of law students with top grades is more white and Asian still.”

Whatever their consequences, the numbers the students have collected offer a fascinating snapshot of the profession.

In New York, a third of the big firms had no black partners, and an overlapping third no Hispanic ones. Half the firms in Boston had no black partners, and three-quarters no Hispanic ones.

“This is 2007,” Professor Dauber said. “If you can’t find a single black or Hispanic partner, that’s not an accident.”

The students also found relatively few female partners in New York, ranging from 7 percent at Fulbright & Jaworski to 23 percent at Morrison & Foerster. Those numbers are “a bit of a canary in the coal mine,” said Deborah L. Rhode, another Stanford law professor. “The absence of women as partners often says something about how firms deal with work-family issues.”

I asked the firms with particularly poor rankings for comments, and most of them responded, generally with quite similar statements. The issues are serious and difficult ones, they said, but they are working hard to make progress.

Some questioned the grading system. Paul C. Rosenthal, a partner at Kelley Drye, called it “totally ridiculous,” for instance, because the firm’s Washington office received an A for the number of black associates and yet a D overall.

Others pointed to offices at their firms with better numbers, to particular partners of color, to expanded recruiting efforts and to “affinity groups” and “diversity coordinators” and a “diversity protocol.” None questioned the essential premise of the report, which is that numbers matter.

The report cards seem to be having an impact. Mr. Bruck said a second-year student at Stanford had recently turned down an offer from one firm “as soon as he saw that it got an F on our diversity report card.” Professor Dauber said the student, who is white and male, “is the poster boy for our effort.”

But the student did not get into Stanford by being stupid enough to pick a fight with a prominent law firm at the start of his career. He would not discuss the matter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/us/29bar.html





New Haven Conn. Hit with 911 Calls from Around the Country
AP

A computer glitch is being blamed for a flood of 911 calls from around the country to New Haven's emergency center.

Officials say some 519 calls came within a 44-minute span Monday from as far away as Florida, Chicago, Texas and Puerto Rico.

As far as authorities can determine, the problem was related to a Colorado-based company that serves Internet-based phone companies.

For whatever reason, hundreds of personal calls made by Internet phone customers ended up routed to New Haven's 911 center.

State officials that oversee 911 answering points say AT&T fixed the problem.
http://www.newstimes.com/region/ci_7320315





FBI Puts Antiwar Protesters on Criminal Database; Canada Uses It To Ban Protesters From Entry
Rob Kall

Two well-respected US peace activists, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin and retired Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, were denied entry into Canada On October third. The two women were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. At the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Bridge they were detained, questioned and denied entry.

"In my case, the border guard pulled up a file showing that I had been arrested at the US Mission to the UN where, on International Women's Day, a group of us had tried to deliver a peace petition signed by 152,000 women around the world," says Benjamin. "For this, the Canadians labeled me a criminal and refused to allow me in the country."

"The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies," says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. "The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country." Both Wright and Benjamin plan to request their files from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and demand that arrests for peaceful, non-violent actions be expunged from international records. "It's outrageous that Canada is turning away peacemakers protesting a war that does not have the support of either US or Canadian citizens," says Benjamin.

"In the past, Canada has always welcomed peace activists with open arms. This new policy, obviously a creature of the Bush administration, is shocking and we in the US and Canada must insist that it be overturned. Four members of the Canadian Parliament--Peggy Nash, Libby Davies, Paul Dewar and Peter Julian-- expressed outrage that the peace activists were barred from Canada and vow to change this policy.

Ann Wright told OpEdNews that this was the second time the two Code Pink activists had been turned away from the border, the first event ocurring on August 19th.

Wright explained, "We decided to go to Canadian border to push the envelope to see if the Canadian Gov would not let us into Canada again until we had been "criminally rehabilitated."

To be criminally rehabilitated, they would have to do a huge amount of paperwork and state that they were no longer going to commit the "crimes" they were convicted of.

Wright told OpEdNews "We were told (by the canadian border agents) if we tried to enter Canada again, we would be officially deported from the country, which is "big trouble. 'We've warned you not to come back until we are criminally rehabilitated.'

Wright asserted, "We will never be criminally rehabilitated since we intend to continue to engage in non-violent peaceful protest of Bush administration policies, particular the war on Iraq and we intend to peacefully and nonviolently protest all of these until they end. They can lead to arrests for civil disobedience, like refusing to move from the fence in front of the whitehouse or standing up and speaking at congressional hearings."

Wright explained that the Canadians, by their own law, do not allow people in who have been convicted of various kinds of offenses.

If, when you are asked by a Canadian immigration officer if you have been arrested, they check the FBI database and that's how they found we were listed.

Wright added, "The fact that the FBI has put us on this list. The National Crime Information Center Computerized Index is a form of political intimidation. The list is supposed to be for felony and serious misdemeanor offenses.

"We don't qualify-- it's for sex offenders, foreign fugitives, gang violence and terrorist organizations, people who are on parole, a list of eight categories all together.

"It is very disturbing. We've asked our congressional representatives to investigate this."

According to Wright, there was almost no coverage of this in the US, except for an AP release. In Canada, Toronto's Globe and Mail and several other newspapers and three Canadian TV stations covered it.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...ntiwar_pro.htm





U.S. Navy Said to Chase Pirates Off Somalia
Mike Nizza

As Somalia’s rulers have struggled with an insurgency and political instability that culminated in the resignation of the prime minister on Monday, piracy has flourished off its shores. Experts say that there have been “many more” than the 26 attacks formally reported to the International Piracy Center this year, and new hijackings are reported with unfortunate frequency.

But the latest hijacking came with news that the United States Navy has now entered the fray. A distress call from a Japanese-owned chemical tanker, Golden Mori, found its way to the U.S.S. Porter, an American destroyer, which intercepted and then sank the two skiffs that the pirates used to reach the ship, according to CNN.

Now, the pirates have no obvious exit route, and another American destroyer, the Arleigh Burke is on their tail in Somali waters, which are usually something of a pirate refuge. This time, the American navy received permission to enter from the embattled transitional government.

These days there iis a mind-boggling amount of pirate activity on the high seas, if a Reuters report about the second pirate attack this week is any guide (that one concerned a Korean vessel):

Four other boats — a Comoros-registered cargo ship, two Tanzanian fishing vessels, and a ship from Taiwan — area also being held by armed groups.

The International Piracy Center, which reported the end of a downward trend in pirate attacks earlier this month, recommends that ships stay at least 200 nautical miles away from the Somali coast, saying that the nasty seaborne criminals there are armed with rocket-propelled grenades and aren’t afraid to use them.

It’s not clear why the United States decided to engage these particular pirates, but it probably has nothing to do with the tanker’s dangerous cargo: benzene, a solvent linked to cancer. The American ship opened fire on the Golden Maru before it knew what the cargo was, according to CNN.

Other possible reasons include Japan’s especially close alliance with the United States, and perhaps a conclusion that matters have simply gotten out of hand off Somalia’s coast, and that it was time for the world’s most powerful navy to take up again the mission that it was created in the 1790s to perform.

“I trust some other assets are on their way,” a retired Navy reserve captain blogged about the operations off Somalia. “Time someone busted these pirates’ chops.”
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/200.../index.html?hp





Robot Boats Hunt High-Tech Pirates on the High-Speed Seas

As maritime crime heats up, will the U.S. Navy follow Israel and Singapore’s lead to stock up on new unmanned surface vessels? And could they stop Al Qaeda?
Erik Sofge

Robots versus pirates—it’s not as stupid, or unlikely, as it sounds. Piracy has exploded in the waters near Somalia, where this past week United States warships have fired on two pirate skiffs, and are currently in pursuit of a hijacked Japanese-owned vessel. At least four other ships in the region remain under pirate control, and the problem appears to be going global: The International Maritime Bureau is tracking a 14-percent increase in worldwide pirate attacks this year.

And although modern-day pirates enjoy collecting their fare share of booty—they have a soft spot for communications gear—they’re just as likely to ransom an entire ship. In one particularly sobering case, hijackers killed one crew member of a Taiwan-owned vessel each month until their demands were met.

For years now, law enforcement agencies across the high seas have proposed robotic boats, or unmanned surface vessels (USVs), as a way to help deal with 21st-Century techno Black Beards. The Navy has tested at least two small, armed USV demonstrators designed to patrol harbors and defend vessels. And both the Navy and the Coast Guard have expressed interest in the Protector, a 30-ft.-long USV built by BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Israeli defense firm RAFAEL.

The Protector, which comes mounted with a 7.62mm machine gun, wasn’t originally intended for anti-piracy operations. But according to BAE Systems spokesperson Stephanie Moncada, the robot could easily fill that role. “Down the line, it could potentially be modified for commercial use as well,” she says. Instead of being deployed by a warship to intercept and possibly fire on an incoming vessel, a non-lethal variant of the Protector could be used to simply investigate a potential threat.

A favorite tactic of modern-day pirates is to put out a distress call, then ambush any ships that respond. The unmanned Protector could be remote-operated from around 10 miles away, with enough on-board sensors, speakers and microphones to make contact with a vessel before it’s too late. “Even without the machine gun, it could alert the crew, give them some time to escape,” Moncada says.

The 55-mpg Interceptor could become the long-range patrol boat of the future, while the jetski-size Sentry (inset) could help a terrorist plot such as Al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole in December 2000. (Photographs Courtesy of MRVI and Qinetiq—inset)

This past summer, Florida-based Marine Robotic Vessels International (MRVI) unveiled a USV that emphasizes reconnaissance over firepower. The 21-ft.-long Interceptor can travel at up to 55 mph, and is designed to be piloted both remotely and autonomously.

For a patrol boat, autonomous control would be a huge advantage, allowing it to traverse huge stretches of open sea, instead of having to remain within radio range of a given vessel. While the Interceptor could be fitted with a water cannon or other non-lethal offensive system, its primary mission is to serve as a sentry.

According to MRVI President Dan Murphy, the Interceptor is available now. But the USV market is just getting started: Two months ago, British defense firm Qinetiq debuted its own robotic vessel, the jetski-size Sentry. Among its potential duties is intruder investigation, which could include scouting out unidentified boats, along the lines of the raft that detonated alongside the USS Cole in Yemen, as well as offering a first look at a possible pirate-controlled vessel. The Sentry, however, can only operate for up to six hours at a time, severely limiting its ability to operate at sea.

Although the Protector is currently deployed by the Israeli and Singaporean Navies, the U.S. Navy has yet to field a full-production USV, much less a pirate-hunting one. But if piracy continues to escalate around the world, it may only a matter of time before the private sector gets fed up and buys a few unmanned boats to act as scouts. After all, one of the best things a robot can do is get blown to pieces ... so you don’t have to.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...s/4229443.html





In India, Poverty Inspires Technology Workers to Altruism
Anand Giridharadas

Manohar Lakshmipathi does not own a computer. In fact, in India workmen like Mr. Manohar, a house painter, are usually forbidden to touch clients’ computers.

So you can imagine Mr. Manohar’s wonder as he sat in a swiveling chair in front of a computer, dictating his date of birth, phone number and work history to a secretary. Afterward, a man took his photo. Then, with a click of a mouse, Mr. Manohar’s page popped onto the World Wide Web, the newest profile on an Indian Web site called Babajob.com.

Babajob seeks to bring the social-networking revolution popularized by Facebook and MySpace to people who do not even have computers — the world’s poor. And the start-up is just one example of an unanticipated byproduct of the outsourcing boom: many of the hundreds of multinationals and hundreds of thousands of technology workers who are working here are turning their talents to fighting the grinding poverty that surrounds them.

“In Redmond, you don’t see 7-year-olds begging on the street,” said Sean Blagsvedt, Babajob’s founder, referring to Microsoft’s headquarters in Washington State, where he once worked. “In India, you can’t escape the feeling that you’re really lucky. So you ask, What are you going to do about all the stuff around you? How are you going to use all these skills?”

Perhaps for less altruistic reasons, but often with positive results for the poor, corporations have made India a laboratory for extending modern technological conveniences to those long deprived. Nokia, for instance, develops many of its ultralow-cost cellphones here. Citibank first experimented here with a special A.T.M. that recognizes thumbprints — to help slum dwellers who struggle with PINs. And Microsoft has made India one of the major centers of its global research group studying technologies for the poor, like software that reads to illiterate computer users. Babajob is a quintessential example of how the back-office operations in India have spawned poverty-inspired innovation.

The best-known networking sites in the industry connect computer-savvy elites to one another. Babajob, by contrast, connects India’s elites to the poor at their doorsteps, people who need jobs but lack the connections to find them. Job seekers advertise skills, employers advertise jobs and matches are made through social networks.

For example, if Rajeev and Sanjay are friends, and Sanjay needs a chauffeur, he can view Rajeev’s page, travel to the page of Rajeev’s chauffeur and see which of the chauffeur’s friends are looking for similar work.

Mr. Blagsvedt, now 31, joined Microsoft in Redmond in 1999. Three years ago he was sent to India to help build the local office of Microsoft Research, the company’s in-house policy research arm. The new team worked on many of the same complex problems as their peers in Redmond, but the employees here led very different lives outside the office than their counterparts in Redmond. They had servants and laborers. They read constant newspaper tales of undernourishment and illiteracy.

The company’s Indian employees were not seeing poverty for the first time, but they were now equipped with first-rate computing skills, and many felt newly empowered to help their society.

At the same time, Microsoft was plagued by widespread software piracy, which limited its revenue in India. Among other things, the company looked at low-income consumers as a vast and unexploited commercial opportunity, so it encouraged its engineers’ philanthropic urges.

Poverty became a major focus in Mr. Blagsvedt’s research office. Anthropologists and sociologists were hired to explain things like the effect of the caste system on rural computer usage. In the course of that work, Mr. Blagsvedt stumbled upon an insight by a Duke University economist, Anirudh Krishna.

Mr. Krishna found that many poor Indians in dead-end jobs remain in poverty not because there are no better jobs, but because they lack the connections to find them. Any Bangalorean could confirm the observation: the city teems with laborers desperate for work, and yet wealthy software tycoons complain endlessly about a shortage of maids and cooks.

Mr. Blagsvedt’s epiphany? “We need village LinkedIn!” he recalled saying, alluding to the professional networking site.

He quit Microsoft and, with his stepfather, Ira Weise, and a former Microsoft colleague built a social-networking site to connect Bangalore’s yuppies with its laborers. (The site, which Mr. Blagsvedt started this summer and runs out of his home, focuses on Bangalore now, but he plans to spread it to other Indian cities and maybe globally.)

Building a site meant to reach laborers earning $2 to $3 a day presented special challenges. The workers would be unfamiliar with computers. The wealthy potential employers would be reluctant to let random applicants tend their gardens or their newborns. To deal with the connectivity problem, Babajob pays anyone, from charities to Internet cafe owners, who finds job seekers and registers them online. (Babajob earns its keep from employers’ advertisements, diverting a portion of that to those who register job seekers.) And instead of creating an anonymous job bazaar, Babajob replicates online the process by which Indians hire in real life: through chains of personal connections.

In India, a businessman looking for a chauffeur might ask his friend, who might ask his chauffeur. Such connections provide a kind of quality control. The friend’s chauffeur, for instance, will not recommend a hoodlum, for fear of losing his own job.

To re-create this dynamic online, Babajob pays people to be “connectors” between employer and employee. In the example above, the businessman’s friend and his chauffeur would each earn the equivalent of $2.50 if they connected the businessman with someone he liked.

The model is gaining attention, and praise. A Bangalore venture capitalist, when told of Babajob, immediately asked to be put in touch with Mr. Blagsvedt. And Steve Pogorzelski, president of the international division of Monster.com, the American jobs site, said, “Wow” when told of the company. “It is an important innovation because it opens up the marketplace to people of socioeconomic levels who may not have the widest array of jobs available to them.”

Mr. Krishna, the Duke economist, called it a “very significant innovation,” but he cautioned that the very poor might not belong to the social networks that would bring them to Babajob, even on the periphery.

In its first few months, the company has drummed up job seekers on its own, sending workers into the streets with fliers promising employment.

To find potential employers, in addition to counting on word of mouth among those desperate for maids and laborers, Babajob is also relying on Babalife, the company’s parallel social networking site for the yuppie elite. People listed on Babalife will automatically be on Babajob, too.

So far, more than 2,000 job seekers have registered. The listings are a portrait of India’s floating underclass, millions and millions seeking a few dollars a day to work as chauffeurs, nannies, gardeners, guards and receptionists.

A woman named Selvi Venkatesh was a typical job seeker. “I am really in need of a job as our residential building collapsed last month in Ejipura,” she said, referring to a building collapse that killed two people, including an infant, in late July, according to The Times of India.

In Mr. Blagsvedt’s apartment one morning, Mr. Manohar, the painter, professed hope.

He earns $100 a month. Jobs come irregularly, so he often spends up to three months of the year idle. Between jobs, he borrows from loan sharks to feed his wife and children. The usurers levy 10 percent monthly interest, enough to make a $100 loan a $314 debt in one year.

Mr. Manohar does not want his children to know his worries, or his life. He wants them to work in a nice office, so he spends nearly half his income on private schools for them. That is why he was at Babajob in a swiveling chair, staring at a computer and dreaming of more work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/te...gy/30poor.html





Here's How a Slick Laptop Thief was Foiled in Tampa

Smart, shrewd,determined. A serial thief was portrayed as all these. Here's how his alleged crime spree unraveled after a stop in Tampa.
Scott Barancik

In March, a clean-cut stranger wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt strolled into the Tampa headquarters of Outback Steakhouse, mingled with company staff until they left for the day and walked out with 11 laptop computers crammed into his shoulder bag.

When a security guard stopped him in the parking lot, the gifted liar convinced him he was out for a jog. Later, at his $1,800-a-month apartment along Miami Beach, the burglar erased the laptops' hard drives and began selling them via services like eBay, where he had earned a 99.4 percent customer-satisfaction rating and tens of thousands of dollars in profit.

"It's pretty rare that you come across a smart thief," Tampa Police Detective Larry Brass said. "Typically it's just, 'Kick in a window, grab what you can and go.' "

Outback isn't his only alleged victim. Dubbed the "Khaki Bandit" in Milwaukee, pictured on "wanted" leaflets in central Colorado, shown on TV news reports robbing the Miami headquarters of Burger King Corp. and FedEx Corp., the laptop thief has been investigated in more than two dozen heists across five states, including the recent theft of 10 laptops from Tampa's Sykes Enterprises Inc.

But Outback parent OSI Restaurant Partners may have been his undoing. Thanks in part to the company's use of a clever antitheft device, Brass made an arrest in April. Evidence collected at the Miami Beach condo helped link some of the other unsolved burglaries to the same man: Eric Almly, a 33-year-old career criminal from Duluth, Minn., now awaiting trial in a Miami jail. Almly and his lawyers declined to comment.

Though his plain features defy Hollywood's idea of a con artist - think Leonardo DiCaprio's rakish character in Catch Me If You Can - Almly has the right resume. A determined thief since his mid teens, he has made a near science of stealing and selling laptops over the past five years. He's even developed some acting skills, if you consider perpetrating a faceless office-worker a form of theater.

"This is a very intelligent young man," an Almly defense attorney said in 1993, moments after the 18-year-old had been sentenced to serve one year on a work farm. "If he can put his intelligence to positive uses, then the sky's the limit."

Practice, practice, practice

Almly, born in 1974 to 22-year-old Mary Almly, wasn't always such a smooth operator.

In his youth, he broke into buildings with a hammer and screwdriver, sometimes in broad daylight. He swore belligerently at a police officer who detained him. He wore clothes a witness could easily remember; in one early case, a convenience-store surveillance video captured him wearing a University of Kansas sweatshirt that turned up later in a search of his home.

After a Duluth jury acquitted him of a home-burglary charge in 1992, Almly apparently didn't lay low. A week later he was back in jail, charged with three break-ins and suspected of eight more, according to a front-page article in the Duluth News Tribune. (Prosecutor records on the outcome of those charges are no longer available.)

Almly could be childishly impulsive. After a 1995 home burglary in which he found a Compaq laptop computer - quite possibly the first laptop he owned - he picked up a pay phone and called the victim to gloat. When he called again minutes later to apologize, the victim hung up and dialed *69. An arrest was made.

A three-year prison sentence for four separate crimes stopped Almly temporarily, but it didn't reform him. Instead, he emerged a more sophisticated and patient criminal. The new Almly sauntered into office buildings during business hours, right behind an employee carrying a magnetic access card. He trimmed his sandy-blond hair short, traded his jeans and Nike sneakers for business-casual threads, and began cloaking his volatile personality with a chipper, nonthreatening veneer.

Shrewdly, he began focusing on laptops. Lightweight and slim, easy to conceal, cheap to mail and a breeze to sell, they are, ounce for ounce, among the most valuable items in any corporate office. Almly sold many of the units to shady brokers in overseas locales such as Latvia; a manifest kept at the U.S. Post Office in Carlsbad, Calif., showed he had sent 35 packages to Taiwan in 2004 under the alias Jeffrey Scott Siegle and the corporate name NBE Ventures. Almly sold many of the remaining computers on eBay via the online name LaptopDlr55.

"Excellent product, fast shipping, fast feedback," one satisfied eBay buyer commented, a day before Almly's April arrest.

Two faces

Like most adults, Eric Almly is two people.

In his private life, he is quirky, emotional, demanding and sometimes mean. At work, he is professional, civilized and unflappable, his body temperature hovering somewhere between Frappucino and absolute zero. Neither half is ever fully in charge.

Witnesses and police say the high-school dropout is eerily good at projecting calm, even in stressful situations. At Outback, one employee who observed him loitering became suspicious. "She was about to confront him, but he turned as if he was speaking to someone in a cubicle, so her alarm went down," said Brass, the Tampa detective. "That's the thing about these guys, they're actors."

In Phoenix, legal assistant Miriam Foulk said she bumped into Almly one evening in 2002 while preparing to leave her law firm. If he had shown fear, she might have thought he was up to no good. Instead of sprinting away or reacting violently, though, he "just smiled, didn't say anything and kept going" deeper into the office. Three laptops were missing the next morning.

Mary Kim Caldito had a similar encounter last year at her Greenwood Village, Colo., law firm. She was working late one Friday night when a man she thinks was Almly started to enter her office but, seeing her, backed away. "I said, 'Can I help you?' He said, 'No, I'm just looking for Steve.' Steve was our I.T. guy's name at the time, so I didn't think anything of it," Caldito recalled. This time, Almly retraced his steps and left the office with the three laptops he had pinched.

Almly has never been caught in the act. Until Tampa, most of his arrests had come about as much from his mistakes as from shrewd police work. At the Carlsbad, Calif., post office where Almly mailed laptops to Taiwan, for example, Almly was widely disliked.

"They said he was a real jerk," Carlsbad Police Sgt. Mickey Williams said. "He actually threatened to fight one of the clerks over something." So when local police distributed leaflets with Almly's photo, the postal workers immediately recognized him, and they were more than happy to call 911 the next time he came in.

To catch a (laptop) thief

Under normal circumstances, the chances of catching Outback's burglar would be slim. He left no usable fingerprints. There was no surveillance video of him. Because eBay does not require sellers to list a computer's serial number, the laptops would disappear without a trace.

Meanwhile, Outback officials were justifiably worried. What if the laptops contained proprietary information about the company's future plans? What if a disgruntled ex-employee were to give a laptop to a competitor, or to extort money from the company? What if key files were not backed up?

Almly, of course, was not interested in the laptops' contents, and Outback had an ace up its sleeve. Nine of its 11 stolen laptops had been equipped with security software that transmits a stolen computer's physical location the moment a thief accesses the Internet with it. With that information, a nationwide crime spree began to unravel.

Brass obtained a search warrant for Almly's Miami Beach condo. There, he found some of the Outback laptops, and several others he checked against an FBI database of stolen property. One turned out to have been stolen in Milwaukee, another in Naples.

With Almly's name and photo in hand, Brass issued an alert to police departments across the country. One, Miami-Dade, matched the photo to surveillance video from the burglaries at Burger King, FedEx and two other companies and re-arrested Almly in his Miami jail cell.

Brass subpoenaed Almly's eBay transaction records, which allowed him to track down more stolen laptops. The canny thief never knew what hit him.

"He just figured that a corporation like Outback would kind of write it off, absorb the loss and move on from there," Brass said.

One last lie

Evelyn Iacovaccio, Almly's girlfriend in South Florida, doesn't want an article written about him. All she knows about his past is what he's told her and what little she's gotten from Googling him. She wants to help him move beyond the past.

They talk often. She does things he can't, like pick up his stuff from the Miami Beach condo and monitor his e-mail. "He's rethinking his life right now," she says. "He just wants to put everything behind him, and look into the future."

A Google search on "Eric Almly" doesn't pull up a 1993 Duluth News Tribune article about an Almly sentencing hearing. According to the article, the judge told Almly to "stop blaming other people for your deeds." The prosecutor said, "It is our belief that he will reoffend." Almly said, "I guarantee I have set educational and moral goals."

His probation officer said he had heard Almly make the same pledge twice before. "Before you know it, he's out of jail and reoffending again. It's frustrating."

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan and staff writer Abbie VanSickle contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

Key events in the life of Eric Almly

1974: Born in Duluth, Minn.

1992: Because of a lengthy juvenile record, Almly is tried as an adult on a charge related to a residential burglary in Duluth; jury acquits. Is arrested a week later after 11 homes are broken into.

1993: Sentenced to one year on Minnesota work farm. "Stop blaming other people for your deeds," judge thunders.

1995: Allegedly steals Compaq laptop computer from occupied home in Duluth. Calls victim from pay phone to taunt - and, in a second call, to apologize.

1996: A day after posting bail, allegedly tries to burglarize a residence, church, computer store and other businesses. Temporarily eludes Duluth police by scaling retaining wall and dropping 30 feet to snow-covered ground.

1997: Placed on work release while serving three-year prison sentence in Minnesota. Absconds; is recaptured.

2002: Indicted in Maricopa County, Ariz., but is no-show at subsequent hearing; bench warrant issued. Case eventually dismissed for lack of speedy prosecution.

2003: Allegedly steals laptops from six businesses in Phoenix and Scottsdale; grand jury indicts Almly, a.k.a. Matthew William Cournoyer, on 16 counts.

2005: Gets two-year sentence for stealing laptops from Carlsbad, Calif., businesses. Postal workers who had helped "egotistical jerk" - a.k.a. Jeffrey Scott Siegle - mail laptops to Taiwan happily testify.

2006: Hit-and-run accident leads to high-speed chase by San Diego police; stolen laptops found in car. Skips pretrial hearing; bench warrant issued.

2007: Arrested at Miami Beach condo in burglary of Outback Steakhouse parent OSI Restaurant Partners in Tampa. Laptops on premises traced to thefts in Naples and Milwaukee. While in Miami jail awaiting extradition to Tampa, is charged with four local burglaries.

Protect your laptops, Corporate America

The theft of a corporate laptop can be agonizing.

It's not just the replacement cost. Imagine losing a laptop that contained inside information on a pending merger, details of a failed workplace romance, confidential customer data or a PowerPoint presentation you never backed up.

Eric Almly's victims have been relatively fortunate. Instead of exploiting the data on their computers, he typically erases it in preparation for resale. Still, the statistics on laptop theft are troubling:

- In 2004, the most recent year for which there were data, an estimated 2-million laptops were stolen in the United States. Of those, 97 percent were never recovered.

- A 2006 survey of information security personnel by the Ponemon Institute found that 81 percent worked at companies that lost one or more laptops containing sensitive information the prior year.

- More than half of identity-theft related data breaches are caused by the loss or theft of laptops or other data-storage mediums, according to Symantec and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

So what can businesses do to minimize the potential harm from a stolen laptop?

The most important step, of course, is to prevent theft. Companies should review their office- and laptop-security procedures with private or police security experts.

The next best thing is to stop the thief from misusing a stolen computer's contents - and to catch the thief.

Larry Brass, the Tampa Police detective who arrested Eric Almly this spring, says he's not permitted to endorse a particular product. But he says if Outback's laptops were not outfitted with software called Computrace LoJack for Laptops, made by Absolute Software, there is "no question" Almly would be walking free today.

Here is how it works: after a computer is stolen, the victim notifies Absolute's recovery team. When the thief accesses the Internet via that computer, the Computrace software on his computer silently broadcasts information that allows the team to determine his physical location.

With a street address in hand, police can make an arrest. The corporate version of the software gives subscribers the ability to remotely delete sensitive information from a computer.

"Do you know how many Dell laptops are for sale on eBay right now? And they're not required to list serial numbers," Brass says. "The reason that case has been solved is because of that software."

How Almly stole so many laptops

Eric Almly has declined to discuss his criminal history, but a lot can be inferred about his modus operandi from police reports, detectives and witnesses. Here are some of Almly's preferred methods:

Choose targets with care. He went to neighborhoods, cities or states where he was not recognized. He sought large corporate offices to blend in with their large staffs and to find lots of laptops. When possible, he scheduled multiple burglaries for a single building that housing more than one company.

Know the victims. He observed his targets in advance and paid attention to how employees dressed, whether they needed magnetic passes to enter and move about the building, and what time most of them left for the day.

Time the arrival. He entered a business on the heels of an employee who could hold open a security door. He often arrived at about 4 p.m., a busy time of day that let him blend with the staff and exploit a time period when receptionists and assistants left for the day, but beefed-up nighttime security measures had not kicked in. He acted like he belonged.

Make the move. When the office emptied, he went looking for laptops room by room. He kept an eye out for magnetic access cards, too. He had an alibi in case he was confronted. When done, he put the laptops in his shoulder bags - he would carry one into the building with a second bag inside it - and go.

Move the product. He drove or mailed laptops back to his temporary home. He prepared them for sale by erasing the prior owner's data and installing or updating critical software.

How the story was written

Research for this article fell into two broad categories: interviews police officers, prosecutors and witnesses, and printed materials (police reports, court records, newspaper articles and Internet message boards). Information about Eric Almly's upbringing and personal life was scant. Almly declined multiple opportunities to talk. So did his two South Florida lawyers, defense attorney Teresa Williams and former Miami-Dade narcotics prosecutor David Macey. Family members who refused to comment included Almly's mother, Mary Almly; his stepfather, Paul Tynjala; his stepsister, Casey Korte; and a maternal aunt, Glenda Viche. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. Information about Almly's father was not available. Several outsiders -Almly's Miami Beach landlord, the attorney for one of his corporate victims - spoke freely but admitted knowing relatively little about him. His girlfriend, Evelyn Iacovaccio, allowed a brief interview but said she would need Almly's permission before talking at length. She did not return subsequent calls or e-mails.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/28/ne...slick_la.shtml





"$100 Laptop" Hits $200
Jim Finkle

A computer developed for poor children around the world, dubbed "the $100 laptop," has reached a milestone: Its price tag is now $200.

The One Laptop per Child Foundation, founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, has started offering the lime-green-and-white machines in lots of 10,000 for $200 apiece on its Web site (http://laptopfoundation.org/participate/givemany.shtml).

Two weeks ago, a foundation executive confirmed recent estimates that the computer would cost $188, which was already higher than the $150 price tag in February and $176 in April.

The laptops are scheduled to go into production next month at a factory in China, far behind their original schedule and in quantities that are a fraction of Negroponte's earlier projections.

It is unclear when the machines will be ready for customers, as the Web site said version 1.0 of the software that runs the machine will not be ready until December 7.

Foundation spokesman George Snell declined comment on the pricing or release schedule.

When Negroponte said he could produce the laptops for $100, industry analysts said it had the potential to shake up the PC industry, ushering in an era of low-cost computing.

He hoped to keep the price down by achieving unprecedented economies of scale for a start-up manufacturer, and in April, he told Reuters he expected to have orders for 2.5 million laptops by May, with production targeted to begin in September.

But that has not panned out. So far the foundation has disclosed orders to three countries -- Uruguay, Peru and Mongolia. It has not said how many machines they have ordered.

Wayan Vota, an expert on using technology to promote economic development who publishes olpcnews.com, a blog that monitors the group's activities, estimates orders at no more than 200,000 laptops.

"One-hundred dollars was never a realistic price. By starting with an unrealistic price, he reduced his credibility selling the laptop," Vota said.

Negroponte, a charismatic technologist who counts News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim among his friends, has attracted a lot of attention for the foundation.

He has met with leaders around the globe and promoted the introduction of computers into classrooms in the most impoverished regions of the world. As he has done that, big technology companies have boosted spending on similar efforts.

The laptop features a keyboard that switches languages, a video camera, wireless connectivity and Linux software.

Microsoft Corp is trying to tailor Windows XP to work on the machine and recently said it is a few months away from knowing for sure whether it can accomplish that task.

The display switches from color to black-and-white for viewing in direct sunlight -- a breakthrough that the foundation is patenting and may license next year for commercial use.

The laptop needs just 2 watts of power compared with a typical laptop's 30 to 40 watts and does away with hard drives. It uses flash memory and four USB ports to add memory and other devices.

Earlier this year the foundation teamed up with Intel Corp, which is developing a rival machine. The two may work together on a second-generation laptop. This first machine runs on a microprocessor developed by Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...technologyNews





Uruguay Buys First '$100 Laptops'
BBC

The first official order for the so-called "$100 laptop" has been placed by the government of Uruguay.

The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12.

A further 300,000 may be purchased to provide a machine for every child in the country by 2009.

The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders.

"I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written," Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation, recently told the New York Times.

However, he said he was "delighted" with the first deal.

"We commend Uruguay for being the first country to take concrete actions to provide laptops to all its children and teachers and look forward to other countries following this example," he said.

Rumour factory

The XO laptop, as the machine is known, has been developed to be used primarily by children in the developing world.

It is durable, waterproof and can be powered by solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers. It includes a sunlight readable display so that it can be used outside and has no moving parts.

OLPC aims to sell the laptop for $100 or less. However, over the last year, the machine's price has steadily increased and now costs $188 (£93).

Governments were initially offered the green and white machines in lots of 250,000. However, this has since changed and there are now a variety of ways that the laptops are sold or distributed.

For example, from 12 November, members of the public can buy a machine for themselves as well as one for a child in a developing country.

The Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme will initially distribute laptops to Cambodia, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Haiti.

Other schemes allow donors to purchase lots of 100 or more of the machines for a country of their choice. Prices start at $299 (£145) per machine.

Connected country

However, the main focus for OLPC has been selling the machines direct to governments.

In July, hardware suppliers were told to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build the low-cost machines.

Many believed that the decision meant that the organisation had met or surpassed the three million orders it need to make production viable. However, the latest news suggests this was not the case.

Previous reports had also suggested deals with the governments of Libya, to provide a laptop for every child, as well as Peru and a sponsorship programme with Italy to provide 50,000 machines to Ethiopia.

A spokesperson for OLPC said none of these were confirmed deals.

Instead, Uruguay is the first country to sign up for the scheme.

The order for 100,000 machines was placed by the state-run Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay (Latu) which runs a large scale education and communications project known as Ceibal.

The scheme will also provide connectivity to all of the schools involved.

Before placing the order, Latu had also evaluated the rival Intel Classmate PC.

Initially the XO laptops will be distributed in eight to nine of the country's 19 regions. A further 300,000 machines will provide machines for all of the country's children.

"We will also cover the rest of the country later in 2008 and Montevideo in 2009," said Miguel Brechner, president of the organisation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/7068084.stm





Nigerian Education Selects Intel-Powered Classmate PC with Mandriva Linux
Press Release

Mandriva today announced that the Nigerian government has selected Intel-powered classmate PCs running on Mandriva Linux for educational use in nationwide pilot in Nigeria. Mandriva is working with Intel Corporation and Technology Support Center Ltd. to provide 17,000 Intel-powered classmate PC. The aim of this project is to improve the quality of technology delivered to students, and to help teachers and parents.

The Intel-powered classmate PC is a small, rugged, mobile educational solution specially designed for primary students in emerging markets. Shipped in May this year, this fully functional PC is currently being piloted in more than 25 countries around the world. Nigeria was one of the first countries to run pilots of Intel-powered classmate PCs in their schools.

Nigerian government’s decision to choose Mandriva Linux to run on classmate PCs reaffirmed Mandriva Linux as one of the most popular Linux distributions in the world. Mandriva's emerging market strategy is based around a network of local partners and OEM agreements with hardware providers. Mandriva has been working with Intel on classmate PCs since the very beginning, making Mandriva Linux one of the first operating systems to run on the machine. The classmate PCs provided to Nigeria will run a customized version of Mandriva Linux 2007 built on Mandriva Flash technology. This edition has been tailored to classmate PCs hardware with a unique launcher application which makes it easier to access the most commonly needed applications.

"We are delighted to participate in this project along with our partners, and to help bring Mandriva Linux and open source applications to Nigeria. This operation validates our approach of cooperating with Intel on the classmate PC and of leveraging our local presence in a country such as Nigeria," said David Barth, CTO and Vice President of the Consumer Business Unit for Mandriva.

The Intel-powered classmate PC will be used in local Nigerian schools by teachers, parents and students. Students will use them to learn about IT technology and to assist them with class research. Teachers will use them to improve their computing skills and to help them track students and projects.

"Based on the needs of the community, the Intel-powered classmate PC will assist a communities that have been previously underserved. The classmate PC's features for teachers and parents will also help them focus on education," said Dele Ajisomo, President of Mandriva West Africa.

Intel-powered classmate PCs use a low power Intel processor for good performance and battery life. These mobile PCs feature a 2 GB of internal flash storage, WiFi mobile technology, as well as anti-theft applications, classroom management and a content filter. These mobile PCs are designed to deliver the right performance to support essential learning applications and experiences.

“The TSC is proud to open the doors of Technology Enabled Learning and to be part of the team enhancing the quality of education delivery in Nigeria. The Technology Support Center and Mandriva working together provide high quality open source solutions to facilitate technology adoption, knowledge based economic empowerment, technology diffusion in some of the most remote and underserved areas of Africa”, said Nyimbi Odero, CEO Technology Support Center.
http://www.mandriva.com/enterprise/e...mandriva-linux





Internet Pioneer Cerf Stepping Down After 7 Years Heading Internet Oversight Group
AP

In the 1970s, Vint Cerf played a leading role in developing the Internet's technical foundation. For the past seven years, he's faced the more daunting task of leading a key agency that oversees his creation.

After fending off an international rebellion and planting the seeds for streamlining operations, Cerf is stepping down this week as chairman of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers.

"My sentence is up," Cerf said with his characteristic sense of humor, which he and others credit for helping him steer the organization through several high-profile battles from which it emerged more stable and stronger.

Cerf, 64, who's also a senior executive at Internet search leader Google Inc., joined ICANN in 1999, a year after its formation to oversee domain names and other Internet addressing policies. Cerf was elected chairman in 2000 and leaves the unpaid position after Friday's board meeting in Los Angeles because of term limits.

When he joined the board, many questioned whether ICANN would survive. Now - though some people still complain that ICANN is arbitrary, secretive and slow - the focus is more on improving it than replacing it.

Under Cerf, the organization withstood power struggles and ballooned in size. It also has shown signs of movement on key issues: After years of debate, for instance, it is now beginning to create mechanisms for more easily adding Internet addresses, including domain names in languages besides
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English.

"In some respects it has gained credibility," Cerf said. "It is now part of the Internet universe as opposed to a thing that was open to some serious debate."

That has been particularly so since ICANN, teaming with the U.S. diplomats, resisted efforts by China, Brazil and other developing countries to replace the group with a more U.N.-like organization over which world governments would have greater control.

Among other things, ICANN critics wanted quicker action on addresses in other languages, saying the current restrictions are akin to requiring all English speakers to type in Chinese. Many foreign governments also resented the U.S. government's veto power over the Marina del Rey, Calif.-based nonprofit agency.

Calls to strip ICANN - and the United States - of its oversight of domain names, which are key for computers to find Web sites and route e-mails, grew as world leaders gathered in Geneva for the 2003 U.N. World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union even joined by the time the summit convened again in 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia.

But ICANN ultimately emerged intact.

Credit goes to many people besides Cerf, yet many say he had the gravitas to meet with heads of states and senior ministers - and tell them, "no."

"He has a certain star quality," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's chief executive since 2003. "He can open a door. He can talk to anybody. He can say, 'Me and my colleagues actually invented the Internet and here's how it works.' There was a lot of ignorance, and he was able to say, 'It just doesn't work the way you think it works."'

Cerf tested the first Internet hookups in 1969 when he was a graduate student at UCLA. As a professor at Stanford University in the 1970s, Cerf led a team that invented the protocols, known as TCP/IP, that now serve as the Internet's basic communications tools.

Known since as one of the Internet's founding fathers, Cerf continued working on Internet technology at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and later developed MCI Mail, the Internet's first commercial e-mail service. Google lured him in 2005 to be its "chief Internet evangelist" and gave him an office a few doors from CEO Eric Schmidt.

In 1997, then-President Clinton presented Cerf and TCP/IP co-inventor Robert Kahn the National Medal of Technology, and in 2005 President Bush gave the pair the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As ICANN chairman, Cerf has played a hands-on role, attending many committee meetings and workshops in his trademark three-piece suit, often asking questions and contributing his know-how.

Jeffrey Eckhaus, a business development director at domain registration company Register.com Inc., found him "very knowledgeable about every single topic that would go on. He would really know all the ins and outs."

Besides his sense of humor and his technical knowledge, Cerf brought business and administrative acumen, many ICANN participants say. He has a slew of anecdotes ready and has displayed a willingness to listen to concerns and "engage with people from heads of states down to university students," Twomey said.

Now that Cerf has guided ICANN from nearly its inception through a tumultuous adolescence and into early adulthood, many believe it's time for an ICANN driven more by procedures than personality.

"It doesn't demean Cerf's towering legacy to say people are ready for a change," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and frequent ICANN critic.

The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf's name recognition or long-standing ties to the Internet.

"The bad news is we're not going to find another Vint," said Steve Crocker, a high school classmate of Cerf's and fellow Internet pioneer. "It's equally a form of good news. We're now going to go through a period where ordinary mortals are managing things."

Even with Cerf's clout, ICANN has had its share of battles. For one, a decision to reverse preliminary support for a proposed ".xxx" domain name for porn sites was criticized as arbitrary and politically influenced.

During Cerf's tenure, ICANN's staff and budget have grown, permitting faster response. Its roughly 100 staff members are paid out of a $41.6 million budget for fiscal 2008, compared with about a dozen employed during fiscal 2001, when ICANN budgeted $3.78 million for operating expenses.

The board and its constituency committees have reorganized numerous times in an effort to better reflect the Internet community, and minutes to private board meetings have been posted more quickly to improve transparency.

Nonetheless, many critics still complain that ICANN has neither opened the decision-making process enough nor acted as quickly as it should on issues like adding domain names - after several years, it is just now streamlining the approval process.

Few of those complaints, however, are directed at Cerf.

"It would have been a lot more without Vint," said David Farber, former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. "I don't have warm, fuzzy feelings about ICANN, but Vint is not a person you want to get into battles with. He's a nice guy. He's smart. He's reasonable to talk to."

Cerf plans to disengage entirely from ICANN for at least a year, freeing him to write books and devote more time to his Google duties.

"This is a very important test ICANN both must pass and will pass, that it can withstand a change of its senior management," Cerf said. "I have no hesitation at all turning this over to a new team."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_7310187





To Break Privacy Deadlock, Some Seek to Scrap Whois Databases on Domain Name Registrations
AP

Tech industry lawyer Mark Bohannon frequently taps a group of searchable databases called Whois to figure out who may be behind a Web site that distributes pirated software or tricks visitors into revealing passwords.

Like a "411" for the Internet, Whois contains information such as names and phone numbers on the owners of millions of ".com" and other Internet addresses. Bohannon and his staff at the Software and Information Industry Association rely on the free databases daily in their efforts to combat theft and fraud.

Law-enforcement officials, trademark lawyers and journalists, as well as spammers, also use it regularly.

"The Whois database is in fact the best, most well-recognized tool that we have to be able to track down who in fact you are doing business with," said Bohannon, the trade group's general counsel, adding that alternatives such as issuing subpoenas to service providers take more time and cost money.

Nonetheless, some privacy advocates are proposing scrapping the system entirely because they can't agree with the people who use the system on how to give domain name owners more options when they register - such as designating third-party agents. Privacy advocates say individuals shouldn't have to reveal personal information simply to have a Web site.

The so-called "sunset" proposal is expected to come up Wednesday before a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a key Internet oversight agency.

It will have a tough time winning approval - and could create chaos. But the fact that abandoning Whois is on the table underscores frustrations among privacy advocates that ICANN appears on the verge of launching new studies and deferring a decision yet again after some six years of debate.

Ross Rader, a member of ICANN's generic names council and the sunset proposal's chief sponsor, said many negotiators are stalling because they prefer the status quo, which gives them the access to Whois that they desire.

An executive with domain registration company Tucows Inc., Rader said he is just trying to break the deadlock and doesn't necessarily want the databases to disappear.

"What removing the status quo will do is force all of the actors to come together without the benefit of a status quo to fall back on and say, 'We are now all screwed. What will we do?"' Rader said. "It will lead to better good-faith negotiations."

Think of it as saving the system by breaking it first.

Marilyn Cade, a former AT&T executive who has been active on Whois advocacy, called the sunset proposal "an emotional overreaction that somehow got crystalized into an option. Everyone who has done the long hours of hard work to examine policy options thinks that they have a monopoly on what is best, but the facts are not yet there."

Cade is part of the camp that prefers further studies on the extent of any Whois abuse and the degree to which individuals are actually registering names for personal use - which could justify more privacy - rather than for businesses, nonprofit endeavors or domain name speculation.

Those findings, she said, would help ICANN tailor new policies that address actual problems, even if it means delay. And the study option seems likelier than the sunset proposal to prevail Wednesday.

When the current addressing system started in the 1980s, government and university researchers who dominated the Internet knew one another and didn't mind sharing personal details to resolve technical problems.

Since then, the use of Whois has changed greatly.

Law-enforcement officials and Internet service providers use it to fight fraud and hacking. Lawyers depend on it to chase trademark and copyright violators. Journalists rely on it to reach Web site owners. And spammers mine it to send junk mailings for Web site hosting and other services.

Internet users, meanwhile, have come to expect more privacy and even anonymity. The requirements for domain name owners to provide such details also contradict some European privacy laws that are stricter than those in the United States.

There's agreement that more could be done to improve the accuracy of Whois, as scammers and even legitimate individuals who want to remain anonymous can easily enter fake data.

The disagreements are over "who gets to see it (and) how can we protect people's privacy while at the same time making accurate information available to those who need it," said Vint Cerf, ICANN's chairman.

ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization Council appeared to break a logjam in March when it formed a working group to consider letting domain name owners designate third-party agents in Whois listings. Currently, owners must provide their full names, organizations, postal and e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

But when the working group started developing an implementation plan, the opposing sides quickly disagreed on the basics, including the level of detail required.

"There were a number of parties that just would not compromise and could not accept that there are legitimate uses of Whois," said Margie Milam, a working group member and general counsel of the brand-protection firm MarkMonitor.

Approval of the sunset proposal, as drafted, would mean abolishing the current Whois requirements by late 2008. After that, individual registration companies would be able to decide whether to continue offering data on their customers, leading to gaps in the registration records.

The threat of losing Whois would force serious negotiations before it happens, said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor on the Whois working group. "The sense of shock that would settle around certain people would be rapid and immediate."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_7313561





Online Marketers Joining Internet Privacy Efforts
Louise Story

Most consumers are familiar with do-not-call lists, which are meant to keep telemarketers from phoning them. Soon people will be able to sign up for do-not-track lists, which will help shield their Web surfing habits from the prying eyes of marketers.

Such lists will not reduce the number of ads that people see online, but they will prevent advertisers from using their online meanderings to deliver specific ad pitches to them.

Today the AOL division of Time Warner will announce a service of this type, which will be up and running by the end of the year. Other programs are likely to be articulated soon, as online advertisers prepare for a two-day forum on privacy to be held by the Federal Trade Commission.

AOL says it is setting up a new Web site that will link consumers directly to opt-out lists run by the largest advertising networks. The site’s technology will ensure that people’s preferences are not erased later.

There is a silver lining for marketers, however: the AOL site will try to persuade people that they should choose to share some personal data in order to get pitches for products they might like. Most Web sites, including AOL, already collect data about users to send them specific ads — but AOL is choosing to become more open about the practice and will run advertisements about it in coming months.

Consumers who have already seen some benefits from online tracking systems — in the form of movie recommendations from Netflix, perhaps, or product recommendations from Amazon — might warm to AOL’s argument.

“Instead of having interruptive ads, instead of jarring things that will grab your attention, things are hopefully tailored to be suitable to your experience,” said Jules Polonetsky, the chief privacy officer for AOL. “We think tailoring advertising content in a way that is useful is a good proposition.”

Whether consumer privacy groups and other advertising companies agree with AOL’s philosophy will become clearer tomorrow and Friday at the event put together by the F.T.C., the agency that monitors advertising for deceptive and unfair practices. The gathering will feature privacy officials from Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft, as well as experts in the field of behavioral targeting, which is the delivery of ads to people based on their online habits.

Advertising companies fashion their behavioral targeting models differently, but generally the practice involves linking demographic information and Web site visits. Under the practice, people who read articles about babies would receives ads for baby gear even when they move on to read articles about stocks, for example. Much of the information is gathered anonymously, without links to people’s names.

Consumer advocacy groups have in the past asked the F.T.C. to set up some kind of do-not-track list for the Internet, but the commission has been hesitant to issue regulations that might slow innovation on the Web, said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“We all love the Internet, and the last thing we want to do is suggest that the government would step in here in a way that would take that away from consumers,” Ms. Harrington said. “We haven’t reached conclusions on any of these questions. The big news here for us is — and maybe it seems obvious when you say it fast — is that advertising has changed dramatically.”

Since 2004, companies have more than doubled the amount they spend on ads on the Internet, shifting that money away from more traditional outlets like television, radio and print publications. Companies will spend $20 billion this year on Internet ads, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group of Web publishers, estimates.

The growth has been fueled in part by technologies that enable advertisers to use data about consumers on the Internet in ways that were not possible in older media. Traditionally, viewers and readers have been shown the same ads in the same places at the same times, no matter their age, gender or interests. Advertising was designed for a mass audience, leading to decades of water-cooler humor about that funny commercial last night, shown to everyone who tuned in.

But to many consumer brand companies, making different ads for different people is a better way to reach prospective buyers — and the Internet captures enough data for them to do so.

AOL executives say they are happy to give people a way to keep their Internet habits private, even though that would undercut AOL’s own behavioral targeting efforts. In July AOL acquired a behavioral ad network company, Tacoda, that has been promoting opt-out options to users for a year.

“We all have to build toward a future where we are delivering ads people want and not just ads we want people to see,” said Dave Morgan, the founder of Tacoda who now works at AOL. “The only way to do that is to listen to consumers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/technology/31aol.html





F.T.C. to Review Online Ads and Privacy
Louise Story

Whitney Chianese was exchanging e-mail messages with her mother a few weeks ago, discussing the recent death of her grandmother, when advertisements for health care products began popping up on her computer screen.

Ms. Chianese, who lives in Rye, N.Y., was taken aback, and realized she had been naïve in thinking her e-mail chat was as private as if they were sitting the couch of her mother’s home in Atlanta.

“It was like Big Brother,” said Ms. Chianese, 28. “It became too much. Is there a middle road? One needs to be found.”

Many people agree. The Federal Trade Commission will hold meetings today and tomorrow about online privacy. The questions they will entertain include how much control people need or want over the vast trove of information that corporate America routinely collects about people as they click from site to site on the Internet.

In advance of the F.T.C. meetings, a coalition of consumer groups called yesterday for a do-not-track list that would permit people to opt out of so-called behavioral tracking programs, which use data about a consumer’s Web travels to deliver relevant ads. Separately, the AOL division of Time Warner announced that it would enhance its system that lets people remove themselves from tracking databases. Opting out does not reduce the number of ads; instead people would receive generic ones.

Most Web tracking is done anonymously, and marketing firms are typically aware only of the sites someone has visited, not their name or address. But as Web tracking technology grows more sophisticated, experts on digital privacy say it is inevitable that marketers will know not only which sites somebody has visited, but also who is doing the Web surfing.

The developments raise new questions for consumers. Do people care if advertisers follow their digital footsteps as much they care, say, about telemarketers calling them during dinner? Will public anxiety mount as customized marketing makes its way to cellphone and television screens?

With the advertising industry increasingly placing its hopes — and money — in the behavioral field, privacy advocates argue that the government needs to establish guidelines for digital privacy now. “It’s a digital data vacuum cleaner on steroids, that’s what the online ad industry has created,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “They’re tracking where your mouse is on the page, what you put in your shopping cart, what you don’t buy. A very sophisticated commercial surveillance system has been put in place.”

Internet advertising is just the latest flashpoint in the privacy debate. It has been eight years since the F.T.C. has held a public workshop on the use of consumer data in online ads, and a lot of the hypothetical situations described then are now a widespread reality.

Many executives in the advertising industry do not see anything wrong with online targeting. They argue that the practice benefits consumers, who see more relevant ads. And they contend that for consumers, relinquishing some innocuous personal data is a small trade-off for free access to the rich content of the Internet, much of which is ad-supported.

“Why should the direct mail firms be able to target like that, and we’re not? All because it’s electronic?” said David J. Moore, chief executive of 24/7 Real Media, which is owned by the advertising conglomerate the WPP Group. “Ultimately, if you want the content to remain free on the Web, you need to at least give us the information to monetize it.”

But there is growing concern, even among online companies, about what information is being used to deliver ads to people.

“The market is getting edgier and edgier, and what is accepted in the marketplace gets dodgier and dodgier,” said Martin E. Abrams, the executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership at the law firm Hunton & Williams, a research organization financed by companies like Google, Microsoft and Best Buy. “We have really moved to a world where we say consumers need to police the market, and, increasingly, it is a harder world to police.”

Some observers say that many people do not really mind the targeting. Recent privacy surveys have found that younger people do not care as much about privacy as their parents do, but privacy groups say that is because people do not understand how much information is gathered.

“If people were shown all the stuff that’s been collected, I think they would be more appalled,” said Richard M. Smith, an Internet consultant who will speak on the F.T.C.’s opening panel.

Ian Ayres, a professor at Yale Law School who has written a book about data mining, said, “If a computer is scanning my X-ray at an airport, I feel differently than if a human undresses me.”

Mr. Ayres cautioned that online data could be taken too far; companies could use it to discriminate against customers or charge wealthier ones higher prices. And because the Web is less transparent than a shopping mall, those actions might go undetected.

Behavioral targeting is not the only kind used online. Some companies scan e-mail messages and search queries to figure out which ads might be relevant to people. Google scans e-mail messages like Ms. Chianese’s message about her deceased grandmother — but only uses the most current ones in its tracking.

Facebook, the social networking site, is expected to announce an advertising policy soon that will deliver ads based on user information like college, friends, marital status and hobbies. The ad network 24/7 Real Media has been experimenting with linking offline ad databases to people’s computer addresses, though the company says it is not actually provided the names or addresses of people. Acxiom, a direct mail database company, said recently that it had begun selling such data to online companies.

Consumer groups seeking a do-not-track rule have a long wish list. They want disclosure notices saying that online ads resulted from behavioral tracking. They also want consumers to be able to view and edit the profiles the ad networks are building. Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said yesterday that “providing a consumer with advertising that matches their interests is something that provides a lot of value to consumers.” But, she added, “there are questions about whether it may also come with costs that consumers don’t want to pay.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/te...01Privacy.html





AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance
Ryan Singel

From the company that brought you the C programming language comes Hancock, a C variant developed by AT&T researchers to mine gigabytes of the company's telephone and internet records for surveillance purposes.

An AT&T research paper published in 2001 and unearthed today by Andrew Appel at Freedom to Tinker shows how the phone company uses Hancock-coded software to crunch through tens of millions of long distance phone records a night to draw up what AT&T calls "communities of interest" -- i.e., calling circles that show who is talking to whom.

The system was built in the late 1990s to develop marketing leads, and as a security tool to see if new customers called the same numbers as previously cut-off fraudsters -- something the paper refers to as "guilt by association."

But it's of interest to THREAT LEVEL because of recent revelations that the FBI has been requesting "communities of interest" records from phone companies under the USA PATRIOT Act without a warrant. Where the bureau got the idea that phone companies collect such data has, until now, been a mystery.

According to a letter from Verizon to a congressional committee earlier this month, the FBI has been asking Verizon for "community of interest" records on some of its customers out to two generations -- i.e., not just the people that communicated with an FBI target, but also those who talked to people who talked to an FBI target. Verizon, though, doesn't create those records and couldn't comply. Now it appears that AT&T invented the concept and the technology. It even owns a patent on some of its data mining methods, issued to two of Hancock's creators in 2002.

Programs written in Hancock work by analyzing data as it flows into a data warehouse. That differentiates the language from traditional data-mining applications which tend to look for patterns in static databases. A 2004 paper published in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems shows how Hancock code can sift calling card records, long distance calls, IP addresses and internet traffic dumps, and even track the physical movements of mobile phone customers as their signal moves from cell site to cell site.

With Hancock, "analysts could store sufficiently precise information to enable new applications previously thought to be infeasible," the program authors wrote. AT&T uses Hancock code to sift 9 GB of telephone traffic data a night, according to the paper.

The good news for budding data miners is that Hancock's source code and binaries (now up to version 2.0) are available free to noncommercial users from an AT&T Research website.

The instruction manual (.pdf) is also free, and old-timers will appreciate its spare Kernighan & Ritchie style. The manual even includes a few sample programs in the style of K&R's Hello World, but coded specifically to handle data collected by AT&T's phone and internet switches. This one reads in a dump of internet headers, computes what IP addresses were visited, makes a record and prints them out, in less than 40 lines of code.

#include "ipRec.hh"
#include "ihash.h"

hash_table *ofInterest;

int inSet (ipPacket_t * p)
{
  if (hash_get (ofInterest, p->source.hash_value) == 1)
    return 1;
  if (hash_get (ofInterest, p->dest.hash_value) == 1)
    return 1;
  return 0;
}
void sig_main (ipAddr_s addrs < l:>,
{
  /* code to set up hash table */ 
  ofInterest = hash_empty ();
  iterate
    (over addrs) {
    event (ipAddr_t * addr) {
      if (hash_insert (ofInterest, addr->hash_value, 1) < 0)
    }
  }
  /* code to select packets */
  iterate
    (over packets
     filteredby inSet)
  {
    event (ipPacket_t * p)
    {
      printPacketInfo (p);
    }
  };
}

Another sample program included in the manual shows how a Hancock program could create historical maps of a person's travels by recording nightly what cell phone towers a person's phone had used or pinged throughout a day.

AT&T is currently defending itself in federal court from allegations that it installed, on behalf of the NSA, secret internet spying rooms in its domestic internet switching facilities. AT&T and Verizon are also accused of giving the NSA access to billions of Americans' phone records, in order to data-mine them to spot suspected terrorists, and presumably to identify targets for warrantless wiretapping.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...vents-pro.html





Cellphones Team Up to Become Smart CCTV Swarm

Software that turns groups of ordinary camera cellphones into a "smart" surveillance network has been developed by Swiss researchers. The team says it will release the software for programmers and users to experiment with.

The software employs Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology included in many modern phones, to automatically share information and let the phones collectively analyse events that they record. This provides a platform for a group of phones to act as smart network capable of, for example, spotting intruders or identifying wildlife.

Other researchers are developing similar intelligent camera networks. These work like an ordinary CCTV surveillance system, but use software instead of a human analyst to interpret what is happening on screen, comparing the footage captured by each camera for a more complete picture.

Philipp Bolliger, Moritz Köhler and Kay Römer at the Institute for Pervasive Computing in Zurich, Switzerland, wanted to make such camera networks more accessible. So they developed software called Facet that transforms a few cellphones into a smart camera network.

To test the software, the researchers attached four Nokia 6630 phones running Facet to the ceiling of a corridor in their department. The phones were angled so that the camera of each could see a different part of the corridor and so that they could all see peopling walking past.
Complex tasks

Whenever a phone detects an object entering or exiting its field of view, it sends a message via Bluetooth to alert the phones on either side. These phones, in turn, pass the message on to other nearby handsets so that eventually the entire network receives the message.

One handset on the network also reports this information to a computer over a normal GPRS cellphone connection.

Each phone determines the distance to its nearest neighbour. The phones currently use the average speed people walk to guess the distances between themselves, based on how long people take to move from one phone's view to another's.

In testing, the system determined the distances between each phone with about 95% accuracy. They were placed 4 metres apart, making it accurate to about 20 centimetres. In future, recording the speed at which objects pass by would make more accurate judgments possible.

Knowing the shape of the cellphone network provides the foundation for the system to perform more complex tasks, says Bolliger. Facet could, for example, report via text message when someone walks down a corridor in a particular direction, or sound an alarm if a dangerous animal approaches a campsite, he suggests.
Zooming in

The researchers plan to release Facet as an open-source project, allowing anyone to use or modify its code, and to experiment with networked camera phones running the software. "Because of the way we implemented it, the whole thing will run in Java on virtually any phone you want," Bolliger says. "It will be very nice to see what people come up with."

Before they release the software, however, the Zurich team hopes to improve it. "The next step is better image analysis – for example, to look at the shape or identity of objects," Bolliger explains. Facet can currently only spot things around 1 metre in size. "Our goal would be around 10 or 15 cm," he adds.

"I like the idea of easily connecting many phones," says Eiman Kanjo, a researcher at Cambridge University in the UK, who is working on using cellphones to record urban pollution.

"But I don't think they have found the best application yet," she says. "I think this would be best used in other places, when it becomes open source other people might brain storm and find the killer app."
http://technology.newscientist.com/a...ctv-swarm.html





Germany Seeks Expansion of Computer Spying

A proposal to secretly scan suspects' hard drives causes unease in a nation with a history of official surveillance.
By Kim Murphy

The first evidence was the bombs themselves, packed into a pair of suitcases and left on two passenger trains in northwest Germany.

Because of a technical flaw, they never exploded, but not for lack of planning. The laptop of one of the suspects in last year's bungled bombings contained plans, sketches and maps -- a virtual road map to an attack that could have killed dozens.

What if law enforcement agents had been able to secretly scan the contents of the computer before the attempted attack was carried out?

To the unease of many in a country with a history of government spying through the era of the Gestapo and communist rule in East Germany, law enforcement authorities are using the suitcase bomb case to argue for measures that would significantly expand their ability to spy on the once-private realm of My Documents.

Expanded surveillance laws since the Sept. 11 attacks already have enabled many Western governments to monitor telephone and e-mail traffic, the conversation in Islamic militants' chat rooms and the websites visited by terrorism suspects.

Now, along with several other European countries, Germany is seeking authority to plant secret Trojan viruses into the computers of suspects that could scan files, photos, diagrams and voice recordings, record every keystroke typed and possibly even turn on webcams and microphones in an attempt to gain knowledge of attacks before they happen.

"What this case showed us is that they are using laptops, they are using computers, and it would have been very, very helpful to track them down with online searches," said Gerhard Schindler, director of the German Interior Ministry's counter-terrorism bureau.

The proposal significantly raises the stakes in the balance between privacy and security here in Germany, where the idea of a watchful government calls up images of agents sitting in basements at old typewriters listening to secret microphones.

Here in Berlin, T-shirts with a photograph of Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and the logo "Stasi 2.0," a reference to the former German Democratic Republic's infamous secret police, have suddenly become popular. Many fear a return to the 1970s, and the often-severe anti-terrorism measures wielded by then-West Germany to fight the devastating tactics of the leftist Red Army Faction.

And in today's high-tech world, the proposed measure causes a chill to those who see hard drives as the new window to the soul.

"Back in the '80s when people were fighting the census, it was because they feared the state could find out that they were not honest toward the tax authorities or something like that," said Sven Lueders, head of the Humanist Union of Berlin, which helped organize a recent protest against the so-called Bundestrojaner, or federal Trojans. "Now what people fear is that the state can actually look into your computer. Because almost everybody has something on his computer that he doesn't want somebody else to see."

"If you spy on my telephone calls, you can never have as big a picture of me as if you can read my hard drive," said Constanze Kurz, an activist with the Berlin-based hacker organization the Chaos Computer Club, which has pledged to find and publicize the first government Trojan.

"My communications, my private photos, my private films, all of my research. And if you install that Trojan on the computer, you can look not only at this data on the hard drive, but you can see what I'm typing, you can collect my thoughts as I'm typing them in," she said. "If you give me your computer for one hour, I will know everything about you."

Already, Romania, Cyprus, Latvia and Spain have laws that allow "online searches," according to a report from Germany's Interior Ministry, which conducted an informal survey in Europe. Switzerland and Slovenia appear to also allow such searches, and Sweden is in the process of adopting similar legislation, the report said.

In the U.S., where battles are being fought over warrantless surveillance of telephone and Internet communications, the FBI is known to have implanted software designed to identify target computers. But it is unknown, and the FBI won't say, whether the government has tried to surreptitiously search the contents of hard drives.

"I'm not aware of that technique being used in the United States," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "But it's also not clear, given the current view of the president on his powers to conduct electronic surveillance, that it hasn't been used."

Europe has been scrambling in recent months to adopt new counter-terrorism measures as recent arrests in Britain, Germany and Denmark have shed light on the increased number of militants raised in Europe.

On Nov. 6, the European Union's justice commissioner, Franco Frattini, will propose a new set of counter-terrorism measures that is expected to include proposals to block Internet sites offering bomb-making recipes and to make online recruiting of terrorists a criminal offense.

"The picture of the terrorist of today doesn't have an AK-47 under his arm, but he has a laptop on his lap," Schindler said in an interview at his well-guarded Interior Ministry office.

The mood in Germany since the latest wave of arrests in September has been tense, with senior officials warning that they cannot hope to stop all the plots believed to be underway.

"A terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is certain. The question is no longer whether such an attack could be carried out by terrorists, but when," Schaeuble told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper in September.

Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has warned that he would be prepared to order the shooting down of a commercial airliner hijacked by terrorists under emergency laws, despite a court ruling that held such a measure illegal.

Police say that although the current authority to enter a suspect's home and seize computers and storage drives for inspection is helpful, there are times when the ability to probe without the suspect's knowledge, by way of an e-bug implanted when he unknowingly opened an e-mail attachment, might yield crucial information.

"I can imagine lots of cases where it's sensible not to do a physical search first," said Konrad Freiberg, chairman of Germany's police union, who is an advocate of the proposed new authority.

"For example, if a suspect is under telephone wiretapping and we know from his phone calls that he's planning an attack. At the moment, we would have to go to his apartment and search his apartment. But then he would know that we are there. And maybe in this case, it would be more sensible to let it go for a couple of days, look at what he's doing, see what he's planning, and do that secretly, in hiding," he said.

Federal intelligence agencies already had been conducting these kinds of online searches but were forced to halt the practice in February, when the Federal Court of Justice ruled it was illegal. The interior minister said such searches would not resume before the passage of legislation, and possibly an amendment of Germany's Basic Law, to allow them.

The government is awaiting a decision from the federal Constitutional Court, which is hearing a legal challenge to the procedure brought in a provincial case, and, depending on the outcome, could present proposed legislation by the end of the year.

Critics of the proposed policy complain that it could circumvent the normal, adversarial legal procedures for searches precisely because of its secrecy.

"It is already possible with the decision of a judge to physically search computers, but it has to be approved by a court. And since it is necessary to have it approved by a court, it is also possible to object," said Hans-Christian Stroeble, a member of parliament from the Green Party. "But if you want to do it secretly, it runs completely out of the control of legal procedure.

"What we fear is that without any hint of a criminal background, police can secretly go into computers, maybe even the computers of political opponents, and spy them out, gaining access to personal data like photos, diaries, love letters, things like that," Stroeble said.

Law enforcement authorities emphasize that they are seeking an official legislative sanction to ensure that proper protections are in place.

"We need to put this into a clear framework of rules, which means it has to be clearly defined who is going to allow online searches," Schindler said. "It's not going to be a police officer who decides that; it of course will be a judge who decides."

Computer aficionados say it's doubtful that any criminal worth his salt would be foolish enough to open an e-mail attachment with a Trojan virus embedded in it. Government officials responded that they might embed the programs in communications from the tax authorities -- a proposal that raised more controversy, with critics saying it would cause the public to mistrust all government communications.

German authorities are also trying to regulate the distribution of militant material on the Internet. In a groundbreaking case in the city of Celle, an Iraqi Kurdish immigrant identified only as Ibrahim R. is on trial for forwarding videos made by Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, available elsewhere on the Internet, into Islamic militant chat rooms.

Prosecutors, who have charged him with supporting terrorism, say his postings amount to conducting a "virtual jihad."

But Klaus Ruether, his defense lawyer, said anyone might forward such videos; Ibrahim R.'s crime is that he seemed to agree with the points of view expressed, the lawyer said.

"If a person can be punished only because of what they suppose he has in his mind," Ruether said, "then we have crossed an important line."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...ylevelproposal





Fugitive Has Support of Longtime Friends
Travis Loller

Few in this small Tennessee town can believe the woman they knew as Linda McElroy was capable of murder. Her neighbors and friends learned this week that she was really fugitive Linda Darby - who was convicted of killing her husband but escaped 35 years ago from a life sentence at an Indiana prison.

Some have known her for decades and are genuinely convinced she's not a cold-blooded killer. She claims she is innocent and wants her husband's true killer found and punished.

Bill Hatfield, 54, said he's known Darby for 20 years and ``she wouldn't hurt a flea.'' He said he hopes to start a letter-writing campaign urging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to review the case and consider a pardon.

``She's cleaned our house for 15 years and has a key to the house. I'd let her in tomorrow,'' said Hatfield, who works for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

``She's never done anything but help people,'' he said. ``She used to care for my elderly parents, staying at night from 7 to 7, and she had the full run of the house. She cared for my mother just like she was her own mother.''

Darby was convicted of fatally shooting her second husband, Charles Darby. Police said she left his body in a bedroom at their home in Hammond, Ind., and set the house on fire to cover up the crime.

According to news reports at the time, the couple had been subjected to vandalism and threats before the murder. Police later attributed the incidents to Linda Darby, claiming the couple had been under financial pressure that was causing a breakup of their marriage, something she denied.

At trial her 9-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, Terri Dixon, testified that on the night of the murder her mother had left a motel room where she was staying with her five children on a return trip from visiting relatives. Police also said they found a shotgun at the motel that was consistent with the murder weapon.

Her defense attorney at the trial put no witnesses on the stand, and instead attacked what he called ``tainted evidence'' and ``rehearsed witnesses.'' That strategy did not work and it took a jury less than two hours to find Darby guilty of first-degree murder.

Two years later, in 1972, she climbed over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison and fled.

Darby told The Giles Free Press in an interview this week that when she escaped prison her first thought was to be with her children again, but she soon realized that authorities would find her if she went to them.

Instead, she knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend.

In Indianapolis she met Willie McElroy, the man who would become her third husband. Later, the couple moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up.

She and her husband ran a junk and antiques shop for a number of years, friends said. More recently, Darby worked cleaning houses and sitting with elderly people.

Giles County Sheriff Kyle Helton has said Darby, 64, led a flawless life during her 30-plus years in Pulaski.

Elaine Jones, a 55-year-old retired nurse who said she has known Darby for about 30 years, said she thought Darby incapable of murder.

``We need to do something to show support,'' she said. ``I know she didn't do it, and somebody don't have that in them - this is a person I've known since the late '70s - without getting in trouble or showing some signs of instability.''

Officials at the Giles County Sheriff's Department said Friday that Darby had been removed from their custody by Indiana authorities, but they did not know where she was being taken. A spokesman for the Indiana State Police and a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Corrections were unable to say late Friday where Darby was being held. It was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer.

Willard Plank, chief investigator with the Indiana Department of Correction, said a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security helped detectives find Darby. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones. But there also were other clues that he said he could not talk about.

Once Indiana investigators became suspicious that McElroy was Darby, they sent a photograph and fingerprints to Pulaski police who positively identified her.

Darby told Nashville television station WSMV-TV she was innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime.

``I'm not a murderer,'' she said. ``I just don't know how they ever convicted me. I really don't. But I didn't do it.''
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...010883,00.html





Masked Thieves Storm Into Chicago Colocation (Again!)

Think your data's secure. What about your data center?
Dan Goodin

The recent armed robbery of a Chicago-based co-location facility has customers hopping mad after learning it was at least the fourth forced intrusion in two years. They want to know how C I Host, an operator that vaunts the security of its data centers, could allow the same one to be penetrated so many times.

"I can't believe a datacenter has been broken into that many times," said Nick Krapf, president of Bloodservers.com, a startup game hosting provider, who said $15,000 worth of Dell servers were stolen in the October 2 heist. "What do you got to do to secure your facility for it not to happen? We're pulling all our equipment from all their other facilities."

In recent years, many IT administrators have found religion about installing security patches and deploying other measures such as intrusion prevention systems to keep criminals from accessing their systems and the data stored on them. The series of break-ins at C I Host is a reminder that safeguards must also extend to more mundane protections, including dead-bolt locks and steel cages.

CI Host likes to vaunt the security of its Chicago-based colocation facility, noting that safeguards include multiple layers of 24x7 security cameras, proximity card readers, biometric access controls and key pads, double-locking mantraps at data center entrance and 360-degree perimeter and roof surveillance. And yet, the same location has been the target of at least four burglaries or robberies since August 2005, according to police reports and former customers, some of whom say they lost sensitive data and hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware.

Representatives from C I Host didn't respond to emails requesting comment for this story.

In the most recent incident, "at least two masked intruders entered the suite after cutting into the reinforced walls with a power saw," according to a letter C I Host officials sent customers. "During the robbery, C I Host's night manager was repeatedly tazered and struck with a blunt instrument. After violently attacking the manager, the intruders stole equipment belonging to C I Host and its customers." At least 20 data servers were stolen, said Patrick Camden, deputy director of news affairs for the Chicago Police Department.

The Chicago location has been hit by similar breaches in the past, according to police reports. One report detailing an occurrence on September 23, 2005, recounts a "hole cut through the wall coming out onto the hallway of third floor." During a September 20, 2006 incident, an intruder "placed a silver + blk handgun to [victim's] head and stated 'lay down on the floor.'" The victim, a C I Host employee, was then blindfolded, bound with black tape and struck on the head with a weapon, according to the report.

To add insult to injury, C I Host representatives haven't been particularly quick to alert customers of the robberies. It took them several days to admit the most recent breach, according to several customers who say they lost equipment. According to James F. Ruffer III, support people told him his server was down because the company had a problem with one of its routers. Krapf, the Bloodservers.com president, said he was told the same thing, as did several people recounting their experience on this forum.
"From a business owner perspective, my reputation is worth more to me than money," said Ruffer. "The longer they waited the more money each particular person was losing. They should have been upfront and right on the ball."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...nter_breaches/





The War on the Unexpected
Bruce Schneier

We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats.

This isn't the way counterterrorism is supposed to work, but it's happening everywhere. It's a result of our relentless campaign to convince ordinary citizens that they're the front line of terrorism defense. "If you see something, say something" is how the ads read in the New York City subways. "If you suspect something, report it" urges another ad campaign in Manchester, UK. The Michigan State Police have a seven-minute video. Administration officials from then-attorney general John Ashcroft to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to President Bush have asked us all to report any suspicious activity.

The problem is that ordinary citizens don't know what a real terrorist threat looks like. They can't tell the difference between a bomb and a tape dispenser, electronic name badge, CD player, bat detector, or a trash sculpture; or the difference between terrorist plotters and imams, musicians, or architects. All they know is that something makes them uneasy, usually based on fear, media hype, or just something being different.

Even worse: after someone reports a "terrorist threat," the whole system is biased towards escalation and CYA instead of a more realistic threat assessment.

Watch how it happens. Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to -- a policeman, a security guard, a flight attendant -- now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it's a false alarm, it's not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he's wrong, it'll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he'll be praised for "doing his job" and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we're done, innocent people have been arrested, airports have been evacuated, and hundreds of police hours have been wasted.

This story has been repeated endlessly, both in the U.S. and in other countries. Someone -- these are all real -- notices a funny smell, or some white powder, or two people passing an envelope, or a dark-skinned man leaving boxes at the curb, or a cell phone in an airplane seat; the police cordon off the area, make arrests, and/or evacuate airplanes; and in the end the cause of the alarm is revealed as a pot of Thai chili sauce, or flour, or a utility bill, or an English professor recycling, or a cell phone in an airplane seat.

Of course, by then it's too late for the authorities to admit that they made a mistake and overreacted, that a sane voice of reason at some level should have prevailed. What follows is the parade of police and elected officials praising each other for doing a great job, and prosecuting the poor victim -- the person who was different in the first place -- for having the temerity to try to trick them.

For some reason, governments are encouraging this kind of behavior. It's not just the publicity campaigns asking people to come forward and snitch on their neighbors; they're asking certain professions to pay particular attention: truckers to watch the highways, students to watch campuses, and scuba instructors to watch their students. The U.S. wanted meter readers and telephone repairmen to snoop around houses. There's even a new law protecting people who turn in their travel mates based on some undefined "objectively reasonable suspicion," whatever that is.

If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.

We need to do two things. The first is to stop urging people to report their fears. People have always come forward to tell the police when they see something genuinely suspicious, and should continue to do so. But encouraging people to raise an alarm every time they're spooked only squanders our security resources and makes no one safer.

We don't want people to never report anything. A store clerk's tip led to the unraveling of a plot to attack Fort Dix last May, and in March an alert Southern California woman foiled a kidnapping by calling the police about a suspicious man carting around a person-sized crate. But these incidents only reinforce the need to realistically asses, not automatically escalate, citizen tips. In criminal matters, law enforcement is experienced in separating legitimate tips from unsubstantiated fears, and allocating resources accordingly; we should expect no less from them when it comes to terrorism.

Equally important, politicians need to stop praising and promoting the officers who get it wrong. And everyone needs to stop castigating, and prosecuting, the victims just because they embarrassed the police by their innocence.

Causing a city-wide panic over blinking signs, a guy with a pellet gun, or stray backpacks, is not evidence of doing a good job: it's evidence of squandering police resources. Even worse, it causes its own form of terror, and encourages people to be even more alarmist in the future. We need to spend our resources on things that actually make us safer, not on chasing down and trumpeting every paranoid threat anyone can come up with.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...ar_on_the.html





Endangered Species - The Chemistry Set
Posted by Angry Political Optimist

What do Islamofacism, methamphetamine production, tort lawyers, and homemade fireworks have in common? The answer is that they are all part of the seemingly inevitable process of destroying the childhood Chemistry Set. A.C. Gilbert, in 1918 was titled the “Man who Saved Christmas” with his innovative ideas of packaging a few glass tubes and some common chemicals into starter kits that enabled a generation to learn the joy of experimentation, and the basis for the scientific method of thought.

Some of Gilbert’s original sets included such items as sodium cyanide, radioactive samples (complete with a Geiger counter), and glass blowing kits. I will freely admit that one of the first things I did with my chemistry set was to attempt to make an explosive. I remember mixing up chemicals that evolved free chlorine gas and having to evacuate the house. I remember mixing potassium nitrate and sugar to make rocket engines and quickly evolving to higher specific impulse fuels. I remember the joy of finally obtaining some nitric acid which allowed me to nitrate basically everything in the house (cotton for gun cotton, glycerine and alcohol for nitroglycerine). So yes, I have to admit that there is a risk involved. But this is how people learn. Sometimes knowledge comes with pain — one-shot induction.

Today however, the Chemistry Set is toast. Current instantiations are embarrassing. There are no chemicals except those which react at low energy to produce color changes. No glass tubes or beakers, certainly no Bunsen burners or alcohol burners (remember the clear blue flames when the alcohol spilled out over the table). Today’s sets cover perfume mixing and creation of luminol (the ‘CSI effect’ I suppose).

In some States, you need a FBI criminal background check to purchase chemicals. Some metals, like lithium, red phosphorus, sodium and potassium, are almost impossible to purchase in elemental form. This is thanks to their use in manufacturing methamphetamine. Sulphur and potassium nitrate, both useful chemicals, are being classified as class C fireworks (here is a good precursor link). Mail order suppliers of science products are raided. Many over-the-counter compounds now require what is essentially a (poor) background check. Even fertilizer (ammonium nitrate) is under intense scrutiny. Where does this trend end? Ten years from now, will the list include table salt, seawater and natural gas — precursors to many industrical chemicals?

Then there is the liability issue. Of course some people buy into the lets be safe at any cost and assert that much chemistry can be done without explosions and stinky fumes. If a ladder manufacturer is under a constant barrage of liability suits, imagine the torrent of litigation directed to those giving a child a set of potentially dangerous chemicals. Its a CHILD, for God’s sake. [Oh, I’m sorry, for a minute there I was waxing Democrat.]

Yet there is still a little hope. Although Thames and Kosmos can’t ship their sets with the full range of chemicals needed to perform their listed experiments, at least they provide a list of sources from which to acquire them (assuming the appropriate permits, licenses, fees, FEES, background checks, and did I mention fees.) What is at stake here is no less than the future of America’s competitiveness and the innovation the make the United States the magnet for international entrepreneurs and scientists. Without the chemistry set, will we have scientists and innovators, or just a country of rock stars, political commentators and movie idols.

[Author’s Note: This article is primarily a result of my frustration in trying to acquire a few hundred grams of potassium carbonate for an electrolyte solution.]
http://12angrymen.wordpress.com/2007...chemistry-set/





10-Year-Old With Matches Started a California Wildfire
Michael Parrish

A 10-year-old boy admitted that he accidentally started one of the largest of last week’s Southern California wildfires while playing with matches, enforcement officials say.

The blaze, the Buckweed fire, started in the early afternoon of Oct. 21, in Agua Dulce, a rural community in the northern part of Los Angeles County. Fanned by high winds and hot, dry weather, it spread quickly, driving 15,000 people from their homes, destroying 21 houses and 22 other buildings, injuring three people and blackening more than 38,000 acres.

Investigators immediately began tracing the cause of the fire, and on Oct. 22 arson investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department talked with the suspect, whose name has not been released, a department spokesman, Steve Whitmore, said Wednesday. “It became known to them that they needed to speak with this young boy,” Mr. Whitmore said. “He acknowledged that he was playing with matches and accidentally, his words, set the fire.”

Mr. Whitmore would not discuss the case further before evidence was presented to the county district attorney’s office.

The youth was left in the custody of his parents, awaiting word on whether he would be prosecuted. If so, the case would be heard in the county’s juvenile justice system, said Sandi Gibbons, the public information officer for the district attorney’s office.

“We have had cases involving minors this young before” Ms. Gibbons said, recalling the case of a 10-year-old boy who was prosecuted for killing a bicycle-shop owner.

It was not clear Wednesday whether the boy’s parents could be held financially responsible for damage caused by the blaze, which has been fully contained.

Several adult arson suspects have been arrested in the seven counties affected by last week’s fires. “A 10-year-old boy is in a whole other psychic realm,” said Dr. Jeff Victoroff, associate professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry, at the University of Southern California. “At least one study suggests that if you take a population of boys between kindergarten and fourth grade, 60 percent of them have committed unsupervised fireplay, which is to say that fireplay is a common and absolutely normal part of human development.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/01wildfire.html





Innovators Take Patent Bill Battle to Senate

Executives and lobbyists from some of America's richest and most influential companies are walking the halls of Congress, buttonholing senators to argue for strong patents to preserve U.S. innovation.

But they disagree on how to accomplish that goal.

High-tech firms such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco Systems say they need patent legislation that reduces their vulnerability to a growing number of infringement suits.

Meanwhile, seed and herbicide giant Monsanto, pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly, and smaller tech firms say the bill weakens patents and threatens American competitiveness.

After the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a patent overhaul bill on September 7, the battle has moved to the Senate, where the measure could come up within weeks.

Both patent camps say they can win.

"If you brought this bill before the Senate tomorrow, I think it would pass," said Steve Elmendorf, lobbyist for the pro-tech Coalition for Patent Fairness.

A coalition opposing the bill disagrees, saying there are 33 undecided senators--enough to put the bill's future in doubt.

Since the House passed its version, the two sides have reached agreement on some areas in the bill, but one big sticking point remains: damages.

Under current law, damages can be calculated as the entire market value of the product, and that number can be tripled, if the patent infringement is found to be willful.

Those opposed to changes in the damages provision say the costs of infringement should be high to protect their patents.

But big high-tech companies argue that this calculation is inappropriate for cell phones, televisions, or other gadgets that contain a dozen or more patented features. Under the patent reform bill, damages would be based on the contribution that the infringed patent makes to the product.

"That is the big thing that is holding up patent reform in Congress right now," said Hans Sauer, associate general counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "Everything else is subject to resolution."

The driving force behind the legislation has been complaints by tech companies of a sharp increase in patent infringement lawsuits over the past several years.

Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler said the maker of communications equipment faced three lawsuits per year a decade ago, while today, the company has 30. Each can cost millions of dollars to fight.

"There is a small cottage industry using the secondary market for patents in a way they were never meant to be used, in my opinion," said Bruce Sewell, general counsel at Intel.

And companies are suing each other at a rapid rate. There are more than a dozen lawsuits between wireless-phone maker Nokia and chipmaker Qualcomm on three continents.

Sometimes patent lawsuits stem from licensing disputes rather than infringement concerns. In other cases, companies have knowingly infringed, or companies are shown in court to have brought an unfounded lawsuit, said Scott Kieff, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

"You see bad behavior in both directions," said Kieff.

While the legislation is the current battleground, recent Supreme Court decisions and new rules from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could have profound effects.

In KSR v. Teleflex, the U.S. high court essentially said patent applicants had to work harder to prove that their innovation was truly new, not just an obvious extension of what was already known.

In eBay v. MercExchange, the Supreme Court took away the threat of an automatic injunction, should a patent be found to have been infringed.

"I was hopeful we would see a slowdown (in lawsuits) after the Supreme Court (ruling), but we've seen an increase," said Tim Crean, chief intellectual-property officer for SAP, the world's biggest business software maker.

The Patent Office has new rules that go into effect November 1, and it has proposed another that restricts the amount of supporting information applicants can file that might have a bearing on whether the innovation should be patented.

The rule is an effort to speed the patent process, but critics say a court could later invalidate a patent for failure to present a relevant piece of "prior art."

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has filed a suit against the government's planned changes.

Anat Hakim, a patent attorney with Foley & Lardner, said the combined effects of the Supreme Court rulings, Patent Office changes, and legislation could have unforeseen consequences, as have some previous patent overhaul efforts.

"The incentives that were created were not the ones that were intended," she said.
http://www.news.com/Innovators-take-...3-6215827.html





Court Blocks Patent Office From Instituting Controversial Rules

The USPTO says the rules are intended to speed reviews, but critics say they would limit patent protection.
Paul McDougall

A federal judge on Wednesday enjoined the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from instituting new rules, scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, that critics say would limit the level of patent protection available to inventors.

Ruling on a motion filed by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, which is suing the Patent Office over the issue, Judge James Cacheris of the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia blocked, for now at least, the patent office from implementing the regulations Thursday as planned.

"This is a sign that the challenge to these rules is legitimate," said Mark Murphy, a Chicago-based patent attorney whose firm, Cook Alex, is not involved in the litigation.

The new rules are intended to speed patent reviews by the chronically understaffed USPTO. Among other things, they limit so-called "continuing applications" through which inventors can modify existing patent applications.

Murphy said the new rules would "severely limit the level of patent coverage you can get for an invention" if they are allowed to take effect.

GlaxoSmithKline originally filed its suit against the USPTO on Oct. 9.

The drug manufacturer contends that it, and other companies that invest heavily in research and development, needs the freedom to broaden their patent claims when new applications for their inventions are discovered.

A spokesperson for the patent office said the USPTO is committed to implementing the new rules despite Wednesday's setback.

"The USPTO continues to believe that the rules are an important component of modernizing the patent system. They are part of a package of initiatives designed to improve the quality and efficiency of the patent process," said the spokesperson.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=202800798





Wi-LAN Files Suit Against 22 Firms

Wi-LAN Inc <WIN.TO> said on Thursday it has initiated litigation against 22 technology companies in two actions claiming patent infringement.

Wi-LAN, which licenses patents for telecom products, said the suits against chip suppliers, equipment vendors and electronics retailers have commenced in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division.

The filings claim that the companies infringe Wi-LAN patents -- related to Wi-Fi and power consumption in DSL products -- by making or selling such products as wireless routers, modems and personal notebook computers.

The legal action is against Acer <2353.TW>, Apple <AAPL.O>, Atheros Communications <ATHR.O>, Belkin International, Best Buy <BBY.N>, Broadcom <BRCM.O>, Buffalo Technology, Circuit City Stores <CC.N>, Dell <DELL.O>, D-Link <2332.TW>, Gateway Inc <GATE.DE>, Hewlett-Packard <HPQ.N>, Infineon Technologies <IFXGn.DE>, Intel <INTC.O>, Lenovo Group <0992.HK>, Marvell Semiconductor <MRVL.O>, NetGear <NTGR.O>, Sony <6758.T>, Texas Instruments <TXN.N>, Toshiba <6502.T>, Westell Technologies <WSTL.O>, and 2Wire Inc.

Ottawa-based company Wi-LAN in July said it struck a preliminary deal with Fujitsu <6702.T> to license its entire portfolio. Financial terms were not released.

"While we prefer to resolve patent infringement through business discussions, we have consistently maintained that litigation was always a possibility when negotiations do not result in a license within a reasonable time," Chief Executive Jim Skippen said in a statement.

Wi-LAN said it has a portfolio of more than 280 issued or pending patents.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...39976920071101





Eye-Fi Adds Wi-Fi to Almost Any Digital Camera

The gadget: The Eye-Fi. It's an SD memory card that adds Wi-Fi to any camera. Plus the free Eye-Fi service supports automatic uploads to 20 different web photo sites (like Flickr) as well as a computer on your home network.

The verdict: It works flawlessly.

The performance: Like we said, the Eye-Fi works flawlessly. Setup takes roughly five minutes (you program the card through your computer and bundled card reader). From there, you simply snap pics in the range of your router, and chances are, by the time you go back to your computer, the pictures will be viewable. If your router dies, you turn off your camera, or even if you take out the card and put it back in, the photos will upload when you get things sorted out again. It's actually a normal 2GB memory card underneath all of the other functionality and can work as such.

The catch: We figured it must drain more battery—but apparently in-camera SD power standards dictate that this extra consumed power needs to be minimal, to the level of not being noticeable to the end user. Unfortunately, the product doesn't support hotspots.

The price: $100

The verdict Part II: Sure, the Eye-Fi is basically a cradle replacement. But snapping photos and automatically uploading them in real time to share is truly fantastic, especially when the images can be better than one's camera phone. And the entire product experience is built with simplicity. If you can get over the price and are sick of cords, we strongly recommend the purchase. Available now.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/review/ey...era-316537.php





World's Smallest Radio Fits in the Palm of the Hand . . . of an Ant

Single carbon nanotube is fully functional radio, receiving music over standard radio bandwidth

Harnessing the electrical and mechanical properties of the carbon nanotube, a team of researchers has crafted a working radio from a single fiber of that material.

Fixed between two electrodes, the vibrating tube successfully performed the four critical roles of a radio--antenna, tunable filter, amplifier and demodulator--to tune in a radio signal generated in the room and play it back through an attached speaker.

Functional across a bandwidth widely used for commercial radio, the tiny device could have applications far beyond novelty, from radio-controlled devices that could flow in the human bloodstream to highly efficient, miniscule, cell phone devices.

Developed at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems, a research team led by Alex Zettl of the University of California at Berkeley announced the findings online on Oct. 31, 2007 (http://pubs.acs.org/journals/nalefd/index.html). The findings are scheduled to be printed in Nano Letters in November.

"This breakthrough is a perfect example of how the unique behavior of matter in the nanoworld enables startling new technologies," says Bruce Kramer, a senior advisor for engineering at NSF and the officer overseeing the center's work. "The key functions of a radio, the quintessential device that heralded the electronic age, have now been radically miniaturized using the mechanical vibration of a single carbon nanotube."

The source content for the first laboratory test of the radio was "Layla," by Derek and the Dominos, followed soon after by "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.

One of the primary goals for the center is to develop minuscule sensors that can communicate wirelessly, says Zettl. "A key issue is how to integrate individual molecular-scale components together into a system that maintains the nanometer scale. The nanoradio achieves this by having one molecular structure, the nanotube, simultaneously perform all critical functions," he adds.

The new device works in a manner more similar to the vacuum tubes from the 1930s than the transistors found in modern radios. In the new radio, a single carbon fiber a few hundred nanometers (billionths of a meter) long, and only a few molecules thick, stands glued to a negatively charged base of tungsten that acts as a cathode. Roughly one millionth of a meter directly across from the base lies a positively charged piece of copper that acts as an anode.

Power in the form of streaming electrons travels from an attached battery through the cathode, into the nanotube, and across a vacuum to the anode via a field-emission tunneling process.

"The field emission process could be likened to a runner jumping across a ditch; you only make it across if you have enough speed, i.e. energy, to begin with," says Zettl. "So electrons jump the physical gap from cathode to anode when you supply enough energy to the device from the battery."

The stream of electrons along the nanotube changes when a radio wave encoded with information--simply a wave of photons that travels in a controlled manner--washes across the tube and causes it to resonate. This mechanical action is what amplifies and demodulates, or decodes, the radio signal.

Returning to Zettl's runner analogy, the vibrating nanotube is akin to a ditch with a constantly changing width. Just as the runner's chances of making the leap depend on how far the gap is, the chances of electrons making the leap depend on the distance of the nanotube tip from the anode.

"This coupling of the mechanical waving motion of the nanotube to the success rate of electrons jumping the gap is key to the functioning of the radio," says Zettl. "What emerges from the anode is then the information signal, which can be transferred to additional amplifiers and a speaker to reveal the originally encoded music or any other data."

By permanently lengthening or shortening the nanotube, a modification resulting from sending a short-lived larger-than-normal electrical current through the device, the researchers were able to control the frequency of the radio signal that the device could receive.

The researchers believe it would be easy to produce such nanotube radios for receiving signals in the 40-400 megahertz range, a range within which most FM radio broadcasts fall.

The researchers fine tune the nanoradio to a frequency, akin to a channel, by using the electrostatic field between the cathode and anode to tighten or loosen the nanotube, a process the researchers relate to the tightening or loosening of a string on a guitar. According to Zettl, the sensitivity of the nanotube radio can be enhanced by attaching an external antenna or by using an array of nanotubes that maintain the extremely small size.

While the concept of a miniaturized receiver for picking up broadcast music signals has appeal, the technology has the potential to assist in a range of interesting uses.

Adds Bruce Kramer, "The application of a fully functioning radio receiver less than 50 millionths of an inch in length and one millionth of an inch in diameter potentially allows the radio control of almost anything, from a single receiver in a living cell to a vast array embedded in an airplane wing."

The lead author on the study was graduate student Kenny Jensen from Zettl's research group and he was joined on the paper by postdoctoral researcher Jeff Weldon and graduate student Henry Garcia, also members of the Zettl group at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition to support from NSF, the work also received funding from the Department of Energy. The research was supported through NSF award number EEC-0425914.
http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110566





Social Media Bomb Sent from USAToday
Barry Hurd

Working diligently through the week, contributing reporter Greg Farrell from USAToday probably never realized that his actions would send an impact around the world. In a hurried rush of editorial confusion, Greg succumbed to the pressure of sending along a message that should have been double-checked.

This however, is not your typical bomb. It is the one of the first social media bombs to explode. A social media crisis that spread around the world through major media syndicators, news outlets that didn’t check facts or investigate and disclose all of the information.

How the catastrophe at USAToday began: Friday, October 12th, 2007.

Greg Farrell had finally finished an investigative piece covering the topic of corporate whistle-blowing. The feature focus of the article was Lynn Brewer, a business woman and speaker who had earned a reputation as having been one of the whistle-blowers who emerged from the implosion of Enron. Greg’s article attempted to spotlight a series of points in Lynn’s history that would set the stage for defacing her reputation as an ethical professional with integrity in support of his article’s title: The Enron whistle-blower who wasn’t.

According to the online world the bomb started ticking when the news story went live on the front page of USAToday (Friday, Oct 12, 2007). Within hours of the release, bloggers at several media sites covered the story as hard-hitting investigative journalism and applauding the work as being a top-notch review of the real story.

Unfortunately they were led astray. According to hardcopy evidence displayed in a personal conversation with Lynn Brewer, along with information gathered through my own personal investigation, every assertion in the article simply demonstrates how a journalist at USAToday (Greg Farrell) used his soapbox for devastating results. The very hard-hitting journalism and seemingly top-notch article were all created by a man who really needed to look in the mirror and expose his own personal agendas. Over a dozen sources ranging from BloggingStocks to WizBang were sucked into a fraudulent support of the article, likely under the presumption that an author at USAToday would double-check facts before releasing such an article.

Presuming that such investigation happened would be normally be correct, for a reputable, major media outlet. In this instance however, that investigation went down a painful path of personal and professional motives. Greg was actually provided with actual copies of pay stubs, Lynn’s letter of resignation, travel receipts, parking tickets, and even invited to listen to the audio of Ken Lay’s secretary confirming personal appointments with Lynn Brewer. For reasons that were not very apparent in the article which I will detail, the factual information was specifically left out or even flatly wrong.

As a consultant for online reputation management and how social media and technology is changing the way news is released, I have covered the use of media tools and news syndication services again and again. I have detailed ethical uses of media to cover news stories and I have also added my own research of the “facts” covered by other stories to really compare the situation… and analyze how social media has the ability to both create and ruin professional reputation. In this case social media was directly fueled by a fire started with a traditional media article and that caused a significant impact to a business woman’s online reputation.

Thousands injured…

After Greg Farrell released his story, tens of thousands of readers saw the article both in the print and online versions of USAToday. It then went through a week long cascade of being reposted by several online news blogs and syndication services, eventually dying down after a full week of exposure. During this time, readers of the article relayed information to Lynn Brewer and her professional contacts, causing potential damage to both her reputation and the company she has worked diligently over the past 6 years to build.

Since USAToday is such a well-known media outlet, dozens of individuals who relied on Greg Farrell’s article wrote various pieces supporting the viewpoint and the tone in his article. The social media mob felt justified in throwing stones at a professional who has spent six years encouraging companies to “become something better”.

When the facts become revealed: How does a professional feel when they have been “duped” by a unsubstantiated news story?

Here is a short list of bloggers and news sources who supported the article (without due investigation) and put themselves in a professional bind by exposing their readership to the article:

CONDÉ NAST PORTFOLIO, which is a sister site in the same network of sites such as Wired.com and VanityFair.com

The Bing Blog, a child of CNN’s Fortune.com - which is owned and operated by Time Warner Company.

BloggingStocks.com, a member of Weblogs, Inc, a AOL owned subsidiary and one of the largest blogging networks.

Wizbang’s Jim Addison covers political and financial topics with a nationwide audience.

The Wired GC is published by John Wallbillich, a former general counsel in the Midwest and founder of Lexvista Partners.

FierceSarbox provides CFO’s, CIO’s, CTO’s and senior compliance managers with the Sarbox guide to more efficient compliance.


In less than a full week, the story continued full-circle from traditional media, to social media, back to traditional media.

On Friday, October 26 Inside Edition’s Paul Boyd continued coverage of this story on a slant towards high-conflict journalism. Having personally watched part of the interview process and met Paul, I was left inquisitively wondering how sixty minutes of video interviewing is carefully trimmed down to make up half of a five minute segment.

In the world of social media, such editing and manipulation of the facts isn’t controlled by the journalist, the news station, or the station’s advertisers. I would be intrigued to find out what type of journalistic viewpoints can be brought to my own article: approaching 2000 words in length, I’m sure there is a good 3 to 5 minute clip somewhere in here that can add fuel to the fire.

A few of the many details left out of Greg Farrell’s USAToday article:

Lynn Brewer is author of “Confessions of an Enron Executive: A Whistleblowers story” and Founder of The Integrity Institute, a company focused on providing the tools and consulting needed to promote corporate sustainability and identify future Enrons.

Greg Farrell is author of “Corporate Crooks”, a competitive book that tries to identify points of corporate sustainability and of predicting future Enrons.

Greg Farrell has an article identifying himself as a contributing author at Integrity International; another competitive business to Lynn Brewer’s Integrity Institute. (I would love to know if there is a payroll slip there…)

The four individuals who are quoted in Greg’s article supporting his negative piece are all mentioned in Lynn’s book, with not so favorable mentions on their character or what they did at Enron. I would love to bullet point how strange it is to see that all the individuals quoted in Greg’s article have both personal and professional axes to grind with Lynn.

Here are some examples of flat-out wrong (and somewhat ironic) points made by Greg in the review of Lynn’s paperwork:
According to Greg’s article, Lynn was sent to London to do a corporate training and never showed up… but she has a parking ticket from that visit for the right time frame, and just several blocks away from the building she did the training in. Apparently her car made the trip to the training location but she was somehow out in the countryside enjoying a personal vacation.

I also personally listened to Lynn’s voicemail that clearly identifies Ken Lay’s secretary confirming Lynn’s travel plans and Lynn’s meetings with Ken Lay just before his death.


Other interesting impacts arising from Social Media:

As of the time of this article: 109 comments were made on it at USAToday, within a week of posting his editorial attack on Lynn Brewer, other “second tier” social media sites were influenced.

Lynn Brewer’s own name entry at Wikipedia was changed within two days of the article being distributed, and even Amazon.com’s book review of “Confessions of an Enron Executive: A Whistleblower’s Story” had personal attacks against Lynn Brewer based on Greg Farrell’s article: “As verified by USA Today in an article on October 12, 2007, she was neither an executive at Enron nor was she in any position to have witnessed the wholesale malfeasance she described.”.

Lynn was kind enough to grant access to her server logs to detail the impact of traffic from the USAToday story, which identifies how a news story can virally increase a site’s traffic by syndicating content through the social media communities.

In summary of the article written by Greg Farrell, from my perspective the article:

Seems entirely biased without full-disclosure.

Is more focused on being a personal attack rather than real journalism.

Leads the reader down a path of half-presented information, denying readers basic facts and the ability to decide for themselves.

Was the catalyst that triggered pack mentality across the social media blogosphere.


The USAToday story defines clear issues at the newspaper, and in across the current media distribution channels:

We cannot assume that stories are in fact true.

We cannot assume that journalists present non-biased articles.

We cannot assume that the basic facts given are accurate.

Lastly, we cannot assume that syndicated information on other news sites is true, non-biased, accurate, or even remotely on-target.

As media figureheads and as evangelists of ethical and moral journalism, we must not shed our responsibility to question everything and confirm what we are told. Each and every one of us has the duty to examine the issues deeper than the media paparazzi trying to get onto the cover of the next grocery store magazine or sell advertising to a pop-culture audience. We cannot rid ourselves of this responsibility to the public by syndicating stories without disclosing and investigating all of the facts.

Knowing that major drama based media companies will always produce ethically challenged stories driven by advertising campaigns, I’m placing a challenge to all social media journalists: to raise the bar of true journalism by presenting as many facts as we can and working together to reveal what major news outlets hide.

This is a critical subject, requiring on-going debate and meriting all of our efforts to produce journalism that raises the bar for future of our media.

My own disclaimer: this is the personal review and commentary of Barry Hurd. My sister works as a consultant with the Integrity Institute which is founded by Lynn Brewer. Lynn Brewer is a personal friend. Lynn Brewer is also a client of my company: SocialMediaSystems.com. Having detailed knowledge of the social media space and online reputation, along with a detailed knowledge of Lynn’s work, my own investigation both in the real world and online, and personal reviews of evidence (hard copy records, audio tracks, etc… on a CD in my possession if anyone wants to read/listen), I detailed the ripple of impact that occurred from the nationwide syndication of one reporter’s bad journalism.
http://socialmediasystems.com/10/29/...res-thousands/





'Camelot' Star Robert Goulet Dies at 73
Duane Byrge

Robert Goulet, a Tony- and Grammy-winning actor and singer best known for his towering, romantic portrayal of Sir Lancelot in "Camelot" both onstage and in the movies, died Tuesday. He was 73.

Goulet died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles while awaiting a lung transplant after being diagnosed with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis in September. He had a cancerous prostate removed in 1993.

He had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

"Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with "Camelot," the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.

Goulet received a Tony Award as best actor on a musical for his performance in "Happy Time" in 1968.

He made his U.S. TV debut in 1961 on "The Ed Sullivan Show." During the '60s he was a popular guest star on the top variety shows and specials of the era including "Judy and Her Guests, Phil Silvers and Robert Goulet," "The Jack Benny Program," "The Joey Bishop Show," "The Mike Douglas Show," "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Andy Williams Show."

In the late '60s, he starred in such big musicals as "Brigadoon," "Carousel" and "Kiss Me Kate." All three appeared on ABC, with "Brigadoon" receiving five Emmys, including best special of the 1966-67 season.

He also guest starred on almost every major variety TV show, including "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," "Follies" and "The Flip Wilson Show."

Indicative of his self-deprecating and good-natured sense of humor, Goulet appeared on "Police Squad!" as himself and later co-starred in "Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" (1991). He also appeared in "Weird" Al Yankovic's video for "You Don't Love Me Anymore," the comic movies "Beetlejuice" and "Scrooged" and on the such comedy shows as "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and "The Flip Wilson Show." More recently, he voiced himself on "The Simpsons."

"You have to have humor and be able to laugh at yourself," Goulet said in a biography on his Web site.

Goulet also had a successful recording career. He won the best new artist Grammy Award in 1962 and made the top 20 in 1964 with the single "My Love Forgive Me." The album of the same name hit the top 5 the following year. He had more than a dozen charting albums during the '60s.

"When I'm using a microphone or doing recordings I try to concentrate on the emotional content of the song and to forget about the voice itself," he told the New York Times in 1962.

"Sometimes I think that if you sing with a big voice, the people in the audience don't listen to the words, as they should," he told the paper. "They just listen to the sound."

Goulet sang at the White House for three presidents and delivered a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II. He also played at supper clubs; his four-week engagement at the Persian Room was one of the most successful in the history of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

Robert Gerard Goulet was born Nov. 26, 1933, in Lawrence, Mass. After his father's death when he was 11, Goulet and his mother moved to Edmonton, Alberta, where he developed an interest in performance. He did a stint as a DJ on CKUA and sang in local shows. When he was awarded a singing scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music, Goulet moved to Toronto.

While training, he won small parts on TV and made his stage debut in 1951 as Edmonton in Handel's "Messiah." He subsequently landed the male lead in a CBC production of "Little Women." He also starred on the Canadian stage in the satire "Spring Thaw."

Goulet's star brightened with TV: He appeared on Canada's top TV variety program, "Showtime," where he co-starred for three years.

With increased TV exposure in Canada, Goulet moved to weightier stage productions, including "Thunder Rock," "Visit to a Small Planet" and "The Bells Are Ringing." During this period, he auditioned for Lerner and Loewe for Sir Lancelot in New York, impressing the duo when they had given up on finding a suitable performer. Playing opposite Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, Goulet became a stage star.

He voiced the 1962 animated feature film "Gay Purr-ee" along with Judy Garland and also brought his jocular style to such game shows as "What's My Line?" and "Password."

Although Goulet headlined frequently on the Las Vegas Strip, one period stood out, evidenced by a photograph that hung on his office wall. It was the mid-'70s, and he had just finished a two-week run at the Desert Inn when he was asked to fill in at the Frontier, across the street.

Overnight, the marquees of two of the Strip's hottest resorts read the same: "Robert Goulet."

In his last performance Sept. 20 in Syracuse, N.Y., the crooner was backed by a 15-piece orchestra as he performed the one-man show "A Man and his Music."

He married Louise Longmore in 1956. The couple had one daughter, Nikki, before divorcing in 1963. That year, Goulet married Carol Lawrence. The couple had two sons, Christopher and Michael, before divorcing in 1981. Goulet married Vera Novak in 1982.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...b3cc875f?imw=Y





Young Voters Plug in to Politics
Andy Sullivan

It's not the neon lights or hip-hop beats that make this an unusual whistle stop in the November 2008 presidential contest. It's the youthful faces of those in the crowd.

At a high-tech forum sponsored by MTV and MySpace, some 200 Coe College students peppered Barack Obama with questions about Iraq, gay marriage and immigration, rewarding him with ear-shattering whoops when his answers meet their approval.

They've passed interviews and lined up hours ahead of time for seats at the event.

But when the 46-year-old junior senator from Illinois asks how many plan to take part in Iowa's caucus in January, fewer than one-third raise their hands.

"You can be part of the solution," Obama tells them. "If just the student body at Coe participated, you'd be a huge bloc."

If the history of Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential contest is any indication, they won't be. The average age of the Iowa caucus-goer is nearly 55, according to Iowa State political science professor Steffen Schmidt. This year's caucus takes place on January 3, when many students will be out of state for the holidays, and voting absentee is not an option.

The Iowa caucuses -- widely watched as an indication of who might win a party's presidential nomination -- are gatherings of voters across the state that are one step in the process of picking delegates to a party's national nominating convention.

"If I was home I would definitely participate," said Jennifer Winter, 21, who will be in Costa Rica with the school choir. "Things are going to turn out the way they turn out."

For nearly 30 years, the story of young Americans and politics has been one of mutual neglect: Young people didn't turn out on Election Day, so politicians didn't court them.

Some 52 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 1972 presidential election, compared with 68 percent of all eligible voters, a 15-percentage-point gap. By 2000, that gap had yawned to 27 points as youth participation had dropped to 36 percent.

But that may be changing. In 2004, participation among young voters increased to 47 percent. It edged up again in the 2006 congressional election as well.

Field organizers say heavy turnout on college campuses in Virginia and Montana helped Democratic Senate candidates narrowly defeat Republican incumbents in those states in 2006, tipping control of Congress to Democrats.

Wars a Factor

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made young people more aware of current events, and high schools have pushed them to become more active in their communities, said Kathleen Barr, director of research and education at Rock the Vote, a non-partisan group focused on mobilizing young voters. Easier voter registration and outreach have helped as well, she said.

Polls show the newest voters favor Democrats over Republicans by a 22 percent margin and are much more liberal-leaning than their elders on social issues like immigration, race and homosexuality.

"The (Republican Party) to some extent frightened them off by being too harsh," Schmidt said.

There are plenty of them as well -- 50 million citizens under 30 will comprise a quarter of all eligible voters next year.

That hasn't escaped the attention of the Democratic presidential candidates. Front-runner Hillary Clinton unveiled a plan to make college more affordable. Obama's campaign has a dozen staffers working on youth outreach and claims student chapters at more than a third of Iowa's high schools.

Most polls show Obama trailing Clinton by a narrow margin in Iowa, where he must finish strongly to overcome the former first lady's 20-point lead in national polls.

A University of Iowa poll released on Monday found Obama holds an overwhelming lead over Clinton among Iowa voters under 45 -- 41 percent to 19 percent. But fewer than half of Obama's supporters said they are likely to caucus, the poll found.

"We feel pretty confident that a young person we identify as a supporter, who we talk to several times, who comes out to volunteer for us, will come out to caucus," said Obama national youth coordinator Hans Riemer. "It's about building relationships."

Thus the race could hinge on voters like Leah Reuber, 19, who came away from the MTV event determined to show up at a caucus to vote for Obama in her home town of Bellevue.

"Having someone younger in the office of the president would be a really great change," Reuber said. "They might be more in touch with how things really are in the real world, as opposed to the same rich, white males."
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...19786120071031





"Simpsons" Video Game Spoofs Industry
Scott Hillis

In the latest antics of "The Simpsons", Bart chases a giant ape through a video game factory, Lisa destroys a logging camp and Marge storms city hall with an angry mob.

But don't look for those episodes on TV.

They are levels in "The Simpsons Game" that hit stores on Tuesday amid praise from critics for its faithful recreation of the hit TV show's look, feel and humor.

"That was one of the big design challenges on this game, to make each of the levels feel like episodes. We wanted to make the game feel like a fully playable season of the show," said Hans Tencate, lead producer on the game at Electronic Arts Inc.

Several writers from the TV show injected the game with the irreverent wit "The Simpsons" is known for, coming up with some 8,000 lines of dialogue -- enough for a full season.

"Few games embrace their license's soul so well -- 'The Simpsons Game' nails the show's trademark humor, in-jokes, and social satire, plus it features impressive cartoony graphics and the real-deal voice actors. This is total fan service, meaning Simpsons fans -- and apologists -- will be pleased," gaming news site 1up.com said in its review.

The new game is the latest addition to the already large catalogue of more than 20 "Simpsons" titles, which range from 1991's arcade machine to 2003's "The Simpsons: Hit & Run".

But this appears to adhere most faithfully to the show.

Developers came up with a way that let them create Homer, Bart and other characters in 3D yet retain a look that is remarkably like the cartoony visual style of the show.

"It's actually much harder to do than you would think partly because 'The Simpsons' is hand-drawn. We came up with proprietary technology ... that gives the game a little more of what the TV show would look like," Tencate said.

The game hopes to build on two other milestones this year: the 400th episode of the TV show and the long-awaited movie adaptation that has pulled in more than $500 million at the box office worldwide.

In the game, the Simpsons discover they are living inside a video game and have powers matching their personalities. Bart, for example, can turn into the superhero "Bartman" while Lisa can activate the "Hand of Buddha" to move large objects.

Just as the show used a pop culture medium to skewer pop culture, the game is peppered with parodies of an industry still struggling to shed geeky stereotypes and win mainstream acceptance.

"There are not many video games to my recollection that do full-blown multilayered parodies of the video game industry. We make fun of everything from 'Pong' to 'Tomb Raider'," Tencate said.

While the humor has won praise from critics, some reviewers said they were disappointed with some of the actual gameplay, the lack of online features and for limiting cooperative play to two people.

The game had an average rating of 69 on Metacritic.com, which creates a weighted average of reviews from gaming Web sites and publications.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...1?pageNumber=2





Hackers Unlock Censored Content in 'Manhunt 2'
Peter Svensson

Hackers have unlocked violent content that was censored by the publisher of the game "Manhunt 2" to give it a marketable rating, the company confirmed Thursday.

The game, initially given an "Adults Only" rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, went on sale in the U.S. on Wednesday with a "Mature" rating, after being modified. Most stores refuse to carry "Adults Only" games; Mature means a game is intended for player 17 or older.

Game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and the studio that designed the game, Rockstar Games, have long been at the center of the debate over video game violence and children.

Two years ago, a hacker uncovered a hidden sex scene in their game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

In "Manhunt 2," the player takes the role of a man who escapes from an insane asylum and goes on a killing spree.

Take-Two edited parts of the game, including blurring some of the most gruesome killing scenes, to get the less restrictive rating.

Hackers defeated that blurring on the version of the game for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable. The game is also available for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii systems, and those versions do not appear to have been hacked.

The hack does not roll back all the changes that enabled the game to qualify for the "Mature" rating, and it requires some technical expertise and a PSP unit that is itself hacked to accept modified software.

But Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit that advises parents about entertainment that may be inappropriate for children, Thursday asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into the ratings process, now funded and governed by an industry association. The process lacks basic transparency, Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer said in a statement.

"We believe that families and all consumers should have an assurance from game publishers and the game ratings board that the content being advertised is the same as the content being sold," Steyer said.

In the Grand Theft Auto incident, the ratings board changed the game's rating from "Mature" to "Adults Only" and retailers pulled it off shelves.

Since then, the board has required that publishers submit even hidden content for review, and Take-Two spokesman Ed Nebb said the publisher had followed that requirement for "Manhunt 2."

It is unclear whether the private, nonprofit ratings board considered the hidden material in assigning the "M" rating to "Manhunt 2."

Board spokesman Eliot Mizrachi said only that it is aware of the hacking issue and is looking into it.

Both the revised and original versions of "Manhunt 2" were banned by the American ratings board's British counterpart.

"I stand behind the game and the ESRB ratings process," Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement. "It is unfortunately the case that no one in the entertainment software industry is immune from hacking. We hope that consumers will not engage in hacking or download illegally modified copies of our games."
http://www.newstimes.com/ci_7360372#





My Story
Jammie Thomas

A lot of misinformation has been printed concerning my case, my family, my living situation, and me personally. I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight. As most already know, I was sued by RIAA (actually by some of the individual recording labels that make up the RIAA) and I lost.

First, I want to tell you all about me before we dissect my case and what went wrong.

‘I never wanted this much notoriety, ever’

I am a single mother of 2 beautiful boys; Tyler who is 13 and Triston, who is 11. These two are my life and they’re the reason why I do anything. It is also because of these two I decided to fight back against the RIAA. After I received the various letters from both my ISP and the RIAA, I made up my mind I was not going to be bullied into paying for something I didn’t do. My father always taught me to stand up and fight for what I believe in and I figured what better way to teach my boys this same lesson but through example.

My family have been my most staunch supporters through this entire situation. My parents even helped me secure a loan for the retainer money for my attorney when this first started. All of my family wanted to be at the courthouse during the trial, but after I saw the news articles that happened the day before the trial started, I asked them to stay away, to try and shield them from what I was about to go through.

After I was contacted by the RIAA, I started researching these cases hoping to find answers to why this was happening and what I could do to stop it. I came across websites that would become one some of the biggest assistant in my own case. These site are Recording Industry vs. The People, a blog written by an attorney, Mr. Ray Beckerman, who handles similar cases in New York, and p2pnet.net. It is also because of Mr. Beckerman I was able to find Mr. Brian Toder, my attorney in Minnesota.

Mr. Beckerman’s site chronicles cases of everyday people being sued by the RIAA and a lot of these cases are very similar to mine. The first case I read about was Patty Santangelo. She is also a single mother who decided to fight back. Recently, she had her case dismissed with prejudice, granting her the victor and now eligible for her attorney’s fees and court costs.

I’m very excited for her.

Another case I learned of was Tanya Anderson. Ms. Anderson is also a single mother who decided she was not going to be bullied into paying for something she didn’t do. And Ms. Anderson recently won her case against the RIAA just as Ms. Santangelo did. I would love to suggest a pattern is emerging - 3 cases of single moms refusing to pay the RIAA. But considering over 26,000 people received what the RIAA calls ‘pre-suit settlement letters’, I find it highly unlikely all of those are single parents.

After reading about these cases and others more dire than mine, including the suit against a woman with multiple sclerosis who has never even used a computer, many cases against teens and pre-teens, even a case against a deceased elderly woman, I became rather enraged. My initial reaction was how dare they? I also thought how could they get away with this type of extortion here, in America? The more I read, the more sick and disgusted I became. I knew after this I would not ever settle, no matter how bad my situation became.

I never dreamt my case would actually make it to court. I figured the RIAA had run from every case that was even close to going before a jury and they would do the same thing with my case. Yeah, I was wrong. My attorney kept warning me all along I might be the first case to ever go to court, but I was naïve and didn’t want to see the bigger picture. A cold splash of reality wakes anyone up and the judgment against me was that splash I seemed to need.

I also never dreamt how large of a story my case would become. Before I went to court, no one except those close to me knew of this situation I was dealing with. Now, I can Google my name and read articles about me. A very odd and surreal feeling for me as I never wanted this much notoriety, ever. Unfortunately, a lot of the articles I’ve read are full of half-truths, conjectures, and right out lies. I can understand media outlets having a deadline to meet, but I cannot understand media outlets filling the holes in their stories with incorrect information.

‘Best Buy made the decision to replace the hard drive’

I would like to now talk about some of that incorrect information which has plagued news articles and comments. First, I will finally set straight the issue with my computer hard drive, when it was replaced, why it was replaced, who replaced it and what might have happened to the old drive. I have read many comments and articles that I had my hard drive replaced after I learned of my suit. This could not be further from the truth. What most people don’t know, if I did have my hard drive replaced after I was served the initial complaint to this suit, that would be considered spoliation of evidence, which is a criminally prosecutable offense. All the following dates, keep in mind so you can see the timeline yourself.

The day MediaSentry (the RIAAs ‘investigative’ company) said I was caught illegally sharing songs over KaZaa was February 21, 2005. My computer crashed approximately 2 weeks later. The only reason I know why it crashed is this: my boys were playing a video game and in the middle of some epic battle on their game, the computer froze up, then the screen went black, and in my child’s frustration, the side of the computer was smacked. After that, the computer would not load and I would receive error messages.

I brought my computer into Best Buy for repairs on March 7, 2005. Remember, I brought it in for repairs under the extended warranty, not to have the hard drive replaced. And if anyone who has used a large chain electronic store to repair their electrical equipment knows, these companies do not replace hard drives on the whim of the customer if they have to pay for the hard drive replacement covered under warranty. They try to do whatever is cheaper for the company, which normally means fixing the issues with the hard drive. With my hard drive, the issues couldn’t be fixed so Best Buy, not me but Best Buy, made the decision to replace the hard drive.

The RIAA didn’t subpoena my personal information from Charter until late April 2005, almost 2 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. As with all RIAA subpoenas to ISPs, I was not notified of the court date when the subpoena was issued. I was only notified after Charter Communications was served with the subpoena. This letter came late April 2005, again 2 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. I didn’t officially hear from the RIAA until late August 2005, almost 6 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. The lawsuit itself wasn’t officially started until April 2006, over 1 year AFTER my hard drive was replaced.

As you can see, I did not replace my hard drive to hide any evidence of anything. The replacement wasn’t my choice and I would have to be psychic to know 2 months in advance my personal information was going to be subpoenaed and a year later, I would be sued.

Yes, all this information was given to the jury during the trial. The main problem that arose concerning my hard drive was the date I gave my attorney for when the hard drive was replaced. I didn’t check the records for Best Buy before I gave my hard drive to Mr. Toder, so when I told him the hard drive had been replaced, the date I gave was January or February of 2004. Obviously, after we received all the information from Best Buy, we saw that the hard drive was replaced in March 2005. We also found out I didn’t even own the computer until March 2004, one month after the date I told my attorney.

This wouldn’t be the first time I was off by a year on my dates.

During my deposition, I was off by one year on the date I purchased my computer (I said early spring 2003 when it was early spring 2004), the date my hard drive was replaced (I said 2004 when it was 2005) and when I finished ripping all the music to my computer (I said the fall of 2005 when it was the fall of 2006) to only name a few. I was basing everything off my memory, without taking into consideration as stressed as I was, my memory wasn’t what I thought it was. I have learned a hard lesson as the jury was not able to see my deposition transcript. I now know to check and double check everything and if I haven’t, my answer will be ‘I don’t know.’

Another rumor I would like to put to rest is the question why didn’t I buy the music since it is offered for less than a dollar per song on sites like I-tunes? To be completely honest with you, I already own those songs they accused me of ‘making available’ on KaZaa. I own over 240 CDs I have purchased throughout my life, most while I worked at Best Buy when I was in college. Their employee discount is amazing!

Anyway, on these CDs are almost 3,000 songs, which in turn are on my computer right now. I have purchased additional songs from Walmart.com. So in total, I own roughly 3,000 individual songs, all legally purchased.

‘I can look back now and see many things I could have or should have done differently’

Now on to my defense during the trial. A lot of people have said I should not have used a ’spoofing’ defense, especially without an expert to testify and give the details.

First, I did not use a ’spoofing’ defense. That term was not even mentioned during my trial until after the judge himself asked one of the witnesses what spoofing was. I never presented a defense someone spoofed my information. My defense was based around the facts an IP address does not identify a person, there was no trace of KaZaa or any peer to peer software on any computer I owned, not a single witness could testify they could identify who was online making song files available, there was no witness who could testify they ever saw me use or talk about any peer to peer software, and there was not a single person who could identify me as the person caught on February 21, 2005 sharing files through KaZaa. Yes, my attorney mentioned certain computer terms during the trial, but I have no idea what any of those terms are.

Second, I did have an expert. This expert did inspect my computer and was going to testify for me at trial. That was originally the plan, until I couldn’t come up with the money for my expert during the trial. Another thing most people don’t know is the defendant is responsible for paying expert witnesses their hourly rate during the trial and providing for their food and board while at the trial. My attorney was able to secure that expert witness at a very reasonable rate, but I wasn’t able to afford this rate during the entire trial.

As for what’s next, my attorney filed a motion to have the verdict thrown out or to have the judgment reduced based on the constitutionality of the judgment. This is not an appeal, this is a post trial motion. We are currently waiting for the plaintiffs to file their response to our motion. The judge will not make a decision on that motion until after the plaintiffs have filed. The timeline for appeals is we have 30 days after the judge decides all post trial motions before we file any appeals. The legal aspects of this case are questions for my attorney and I will always refer those kinds of questions to him. I do know personally I cannot allow my case to end this way, with this judgment. My case will be used as a sledgehammer by the RIAA to force other people caught in the RIAA’s driftnets to settle, even if they are or are not guilty of illegally sharing music online.

Considering hindsight is always 20/20, I can look back now and see many things I could have or should have done differently. I could have settled before I was even sued. I could have settled many times before the case went to trial. I could have worked harder to find a way to afford the things I needed at trial. But I refuse to live life regretting could haves or would have or should haves.

The one piece of advice I can give to anyone who finds themselves being sued or threatened to be sued by the RIAA is to fight back.

The more people fight back against these cases, the more expensive it will be for the RIAA to bring these suits and the less resources the RIAA will have to use against others.

I was found liable of copyright infringement without the plaintiffs having to prove I downloaded anything, without having to prove I was aware of any file sharing taking place on my computer or within my home, without having to prove I owned a copy of KaZaa, without having to prove any files were shared with anyone from my computer and without having to prove who was on the computer the night of February 21, 2005.

This doesn’t seem fair and it’s what keeps me going in my fight.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13882
















Tuesday, November 6th Is Election Day.

Don't Forget To




























Until next week,

- js.



















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