The Newspaper Shop -- wednesday edition

[walktalker]

I've lost track of the number of newspaper I published now... oh, what the heck, pick a number

Software patches are rotten to the core
If there was a recurring theme to this year's Black Hat Briefings and DefCon conferences in Las Vegas, it might have been this: Software vulnerabilities create opportunities for malicious users. There's a little bit of the proverbial chicken and egg to this statement. After all, you can't patch a flaw if you don't know about it, and if you do know about it, there's a good chance that malicious users do, too. Firewalls provide pretty good protection. However, companies and some government systems now open holes in their firewalls to allow employees or service partners remote access to their internal network. Services such as VPNs, wireless, P2P, and SOAP make it hard for system operators to identify who is on the "inside" of a given system and who might be attacking them from the outside.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...790357,00.html

Microsoft pulls back on Java support
Microsoft is quietly pulling back support for Java in its new products, dealing a new blow to a rival technology that played a starring role in the software giant's continuing antitrust battle with the government. Prerelease copies of Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system, which goes on sale this fall, drop the software needed to run Java-based programs. Java software is used to create some of the animated and interactive features of Web pages and hand-held devices; Web surfers using computers with Windows XP won't see those features without loading additional software.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...790355,00.html

Viral, bogus MS bulletins shuttered
The Web sites of two bogus Microsoft security bulletins were closed down on Wednesday after they were discovered to contain malicious code that could cripple infected computers. The two bogus bulletins -- complete with software patches and links to a hoax Web site -- were discovered on July 10. Both contained potentially damaging viruses. "This is a cunning piece of psychology to get past the most suspicious PC user," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus firm Sophos. "You receive a message that at first glance looks like a Microsoft bulletin, but once executed takes you to the virus distributor's Web site and downloads the malicious component."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...790383,00.html

Arrest fuels Adobe copyright fight
Attention, software pirates, security researchers and those out to prove a point: Adobe Systems doesn't pull its punches. That's the lesson Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian software programmer, learned Monday when FBI agents arrested him in Las Vegas for allegedly publishing a program that removes the security protections from Adobe eBook files. The bureau said such activity was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Sklyarov, who has been moved to San Jose, Calif., for trial, has become the latest casualty in a fight between software maker Adobe and Elcom, a 20-person company in Moscow. The jailed programmer is one of the authors of the Advanced eBook Processor, an application designed to strip various security measures from Adobe's eBook format.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...790369,00.html

Bush calls for cyber-security force
The Bush administration is moving to set up a government cyber-security panel to determine how best to protect the nation's most important computers and keep the federal government functioning in case of serious cyber-attack. The effort is outlined in the final draft of an executive order, called "Infrastructure Protection in the Information Age," which is circulating among senior administration officials. President Bush is expected to sign and issue the order within two weeks, and the panel would begin operations Oct. 1.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...790366,00.html

"Code Red" worm claims 12,000 servers
Almost 12,000 Web servers have been infected by a new Internet worm that takes advantage of a security flaw in Microsoft software to deface sites, security experts said Wednesday. The worm could also help attackers identify infected computers and gain control of them. Known as the Code Red worm because of evidence that it may have been launched from China, the self-spreading program infects servers using unpatched versions of Microsoft's Internet Information Server software and defaces the Web sites hosted by the servers. The code is still being analyzed to see if it does any further damage. But the way the worm is written, it could allow online vandals to build a list of infected systems and later take control of them, said Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer with eEye Digital Security.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Copy-protected CDs quietly slip into stores
For the last several months, consumers in ordinary record stores around the world have unwittingly been buying CDs that include technology designed to discourage them from making copies on their PCs. According to Macrovision, the company that has provided the technology to several major music labels, the test has been going on for four to six months. Although it's not disclosing just which titles have been loaded with the technology, at least one has sold close to 100,000 copies, the company said. The technology, which inserts audible clicks and pops into music files that are copied from a CD onto a PC, highlights what could become a critical part of the major music labels' efforts to stem digital piracy.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Napster gets temporary reprieve
A federal appeals court on Wednesday issued a short reprieve for Napster, saying the company can temporarily restart its song-swapping service online. The ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stays a week-old decision ordering the company to block all song trading through its service, unless it could block 100 percent of the songs that record labels had identified as copyrighted. Napster, which is appealing last week's order, had said it could block more than 99 percent of unauthorized songs on its service with new audio fingerprint technology it is testing but could not guarantee 100 percent success. The appeals court released a terse note Wednesday saying that last week's ruling, made by federal Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, would be "stayed pending a further order of this court."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Microsoft asks court to revisit browser ruling
Microsoft on Wednesday petitioned an appeals court to rehear part of its antitrust case. The Redmond, Wash.-based company asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to readdress the finding that combining the Internet Explorer Web browser with Microsoft's Windows operating system violated antitrust law. "Through this petition we are making a good-faith attempt to seek clarification on the issue of commingling," the company said in a statement. "This issue is important not only to Microsoft, but the industry as a whole, so we are asking for the court's guidance on this matter." The company said it "believes there is no basis for the District Court's finding on commingling" and is "requesting the appeals court to review the record once more."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Napster fans can test new system soon
A test version of Napster's new subscription-based file-swapping service will be available shortly, the company said. Napster is letting fans try out a free beta version of the software before it launches a new paid model designed to appease the recording industry, which has sued the current free service out of existence. "We're hard at work creating an environment that will sustain the Napster community over the long term," the company said in a letter to beta testers. "We expect that Napster will start small and grow, just as it did when Shawn first released it two years ago." Shawn is Shawn Fanning, who started the wildly popular file-swapping system, which attracted tens of millions of consumers before a series of court challenges by the Recording Industry Association of America succeeded in shutting down the service.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Web studies rate bigger ad formats
The Internet Advertising Bureau trade group, Microsoft and DoubleClick have a message to companies skeptical about online advertising: Bigger is better. At least that's what two studies, made public Wednesday by the groups, conclude. The studies come months after the standards for larger, more interactive ads that could help advertisers better brand their products and services. "The new (ads) were three to six times more effective than banner advertisements in increasing message association and brand awareness," said Nick Nyhan, president of DynamicLogic, which was hired by the IAB and Microsoft to conduct their studies. Message association is an industry term that refers to a consumer's ability to match a logo or slogan to a product.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Open-source challenge to the musical status quo
At a moment when online music is increasingly the domain of giant corporations, a small band of independent programmers is working to shake up the status quo by developing a free, high-quality music format. With a format bearing the unlikely name of "Ogg Vorbis," these programmers want to create an audio technology that competes against Microsoft's Windows Media and RealNetworks' technologies -- and perhaps even unseat MP3 as the unrivaled king of the Internet audio world.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1014-201...html?tag=bt_pr

More news later on

[walktalker]

Satellite companies get wireless licenses
Eight satellite companies have been awarded wireless licenses by the Federal Communications Commission, angering wireless industry players that wanted to use the radio waves instead for the next generation of cellular phone service. Tuesday's move by the FCC is meant to trigger more satellite phone service, mainly in rural areas of the United States, where cellular phone service is sparse or nonexistent, according to an FCC spokesman. The decision ends a dogfight between the cellular phone industry, which uses land-based towers to offer wireless phone service, and the satellite phone industry, which offers mobile phone service using satellites orbiting the earth. Both industries had been fighting for years over the same slice of radio spectrum.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Windows XP could draw Net phone companies into battle
Gavin Cowie isn't in the Net phone business, but it didn't take him long to figure out why the technology has never taken off. "It's worth it because it's so cheap, but sometimes it sounds like I'm underwater," said Cowie, a 28-year-old San Francisco Web consultant who uses Net2Phone's service to call his family in the United Kingdom. "You need a headset or microphone, and I don't think people will be happy talking into a computer screen." Five years after Net telephony promised to revolutionize the way the world communicates, the same roadblocks to mass adoption remain. Today, however, Internet phone companies like Net2Phone, Deltathree and Dialpad Communications are pinning their hopes on an unlikely player in the telecommunications market: Microsoft.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-201...html?tag=ch_mh

Britannica.com users say farewell to free read
Get ready to pay if you want online access to the full Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica.com will soon start charging $5 a month, or $50 a year, for access to the full encyclopedia, which has been available for free online since the site launched in October 1999. The change to a subscription service, announced Wednesday, comes two months after Encyclopaedia Britannica and Britannica.com announced plans to consolidate their operations. Britannica.com has struggled like other dot-coms in the volatile Internet market and has laid off more than 150 people, more than half its U.S. workers, since late last year. The company said it will begin charging in the next few days. However, Britannica.com will continue to offer some free resources for basic reference.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Singapore clamps down on Web content
Singapore has tightened its grip on Internet content in the run-up to the next election by ordering a current affairs portal to register as a political Web site. Sintercom -- which runs chat rooms, a speaker's platform and the "Not ST" section as an alternative to the pro-government Straits Times newspaper -- has sent in the registration forms but now faces questions of how it will comply. "We will try to hold fast to our belief and principles as much as we can as new problems crop up," the organizers said in a statement posted on the site.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

U.S. Security Plan Too Top-Heavy?
Critics fear proposed changes to the way the government protects the nation's technology backbone from terrorism could bog down the process and remove the accountability of having a single person in charge. A draft executive order from President Bush, obtained by The Associated Press, would abolish the high-profile post of security chief in favor of a board of about 21 officials from all major federal agencies. The White House has briefed several industry groups on the plan and told executives that Bush is expected to sign the order formalizing the changes after Labor Day. Mark Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes division, predicted with so many federal agencies involved in the advisory panel "it's going to have input from everybody on God's green earth" before any action is taken.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45337,00.html

Who, What, Where, Why and Web
In universities across the United States a struggle rages for the heart and soul of journalism -- and the Internet appears to be the battlefield. Web-based journalism is shaking up the academy as journalism schools are scrambling to offer students multimedia skills at the expense, some faculty worry, of traditional reporting. The battle between teaching students how to cover a sewer commission meeting and/or teaching them Dreamweaver Web page production has opened some deep fissures.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44797,00.html

Europe's Spin on Web Reporting
Europe may lag behind the United States in its use of the Internet, but that has some advantages, including the luxury of sitting back and learning from U.S. failures. That now seems to be the situation in the realm of online journalism. "People look at what's happening in the United States, and take what is best and discard the rest," said Milverton Wallace, director of NetMedia, in London, which recently handed out its third annual online journalism awards for Europe. Having watched a number of heavily hyped U.S. Internet publications struggle, and sometimes sink, Europeans are latching on to the importance of modest expenditures and long-term business plans.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45227,00.html

All the News That Fits
Read any good television lately? The volume of on-screen information will increase in the next two months when new versions of CNN Headline News and ESPNews are launched as part of the transformation of TV viewing in the computer age. CNN Headline News will include business news, headlines and a weather map in an expanded display that will leave only about half of the TV picture for news anchors, starting Aug. 6. The CNN Headline News changes, part of an overhaul that includes a faster pace and new faces, is an acknowledgment that computers have affected consumer habits, said Teya Ryan, executive vice president and general manager.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45335,00.html

Ashcroft concerned about missing FBI weapons, computers
A day after the FBI said hundreds of agency firearms and computers are unaccounted for, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and senators expressed concern over the disclosure. "We think any time firearms are missing, it's a serious circumstance," Ashcroft said. "I don't want to overstate it. I take it very seriously. And the laptops are to be taken seriously, as well. The FBI reported Tuesday it had tentatively determined that more than 400 firearms and another 184 laptop computers -- including one that contained classified information -- are unaccounted for.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/07/18/fb...iny/index.html

Banana targeted by code crackers
The banana will be the next major food crop to have its entire collection of genes decoded, an international consortium of scientists has announced. The banana genome should allow researchers to develop strains that are more resistant to disease and which require fewer agrochemicals to be applied during their cultivation. Researchers also have high hopes for the banana as a so-called nutraceutical - its natural packaging could make it an ideal way to transport and consume drugs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1445357.stm

Space station computer crashes again
After yet another computer crash on the International Space Station on Tuesday, a NASA spokesman has told New Scientist that the station's spinning hard drives may be replaced with units with no moving parts. These could work better in orbit, as the lack of gravity is much less likely to affect solid state components than moving ones. The station's central command computers have suffered many glitches since the station opened. All three crashed during the last shuttle mission in April 2001, causing the station's communication system with Earth to go down.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991042

Hitting the optic brick wall
Researchers have established the theoretical limit to the information-carrying capacity of optic fibres. In the insatiable quest for greater "bandwidth", the finding is important. To a certain extent, the more light pumped into an optic fibre, the more information it can carry. But at some point, increasing the intensity degrades the optic signal, limiting the number of phone calls, video or other data that can be transmitted. Ultimately, the fibre's maximum capacity is reached. Now for the first time, researchers from Bell Laboratories in the United States, have established exactly where this optic "brick wall" lies. And they've pinpointed the most potent reason for it - a phenomenon known as "cross-phase modulation" where messages interfere with each other in a random way that can't be filtered out.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s320303.htm

More news later on

[walktalker]

Napster Case: Publishers Willing To Deal, Lawyer Says
It may or may not be an actual olive branch, but the attorney representing thousands of music publishers and songwriters in a class-action copyright suit against Napster today made it clear that his clients are ready to bargain. New York attorney Carey Ramos' clients comprise publishers and songwriters represented by the Harry Fox Agency, whose work has been infringed by Napster users. As a group they have identified some 80,000 of their songs that have been placed on Napster's network for illegal, free swapping. If Ramos is wielding an olive branch, it has undeniable strings attached.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168099.html

Adobe Alerted Government To Russian Software Crack
Sources for Adobe Systems today said that the company supported the FBI's decision to arrest the Russian Software developer who found a way to circumvent the security features in Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader. "We support the government's decision and will do whatever it takes to (aid) in their investigation," Adobe Vice President of Marketing Susan Prescott said today. The FBI on Monday arrested Dimitry Sklyarov, a Russian software developer responsible for creating the "Advanced eBook Processor," a controversial application capable of defeating e-book security features.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168098.html

Another Congressional Panel Takes Stab At Media Violence
A top representative of the electronic gaming community will join leaders of the film, recording and retail industries later this week on a panel testifying before Congress about what the entertainment industry is doing to curb children's access to violent content. Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) President Douglas Lowenstein will be asked by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet to outline what electronic game manufacturers are doing limit kids' access to violent and gory games, Commerce Committee sources said. Also testifying on behalf of their respective industries will be Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti and Recording Industry Association of America President Hillary Rosen.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168096.html

Webcasters Win Right To Join In Royalties Panel
Webcasting companies that offer "interactive" radio programming have won the right to participate in a federal arbitration panel charged with setting royalty rates for online music. In a ruling issued Tuesday, the U.S. Copyright Office rejected a request by the recording industry to exclude the Webcasters from a series of arbitration hearings aimed at setting an industry-wide royalty rate that online broadcasters would be required to pay for the privilege of streaming music on the Internet. Copyright owners and Webcasting companies are battling it out in federal court over whether Webcasters' services are "interactive" and thus not eligible for set royalty rates.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168095.html

German Multimedia Group Supports 'Opt-In' Spam Standard
The German Multimedia Association (DMMV) said it supports so-called an "opt-in" remedy for fighting unsolicited commercial e-mail, or "spam." The announcement comes amid continued debate at the highest levels of the European Union on how to deal with spam. A solid majority of the EU Telecoms Council supports the "opt-in" system, which would ban direct marketers from sending unsolicited e-mails unless they are given explicit consent by potential recipients. The council comprises telecommunications ministers of the 15 EU member states. But the European Parliament is leaning toward an "opt-out" system, under which e-mail-box owners would be targets for direct marketers unless they make it known that they do not want to be spammed.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168076.html

Godfathers Of E-mail To Get Webby Honor
Most of us have never heard of Douglas Engelbart and Ray Tomlinson. But they changed the way millions communicate. Wednesday night they'll get the first Lifetime Achievement Awards at the fifth Webby Awards for their contributions to the invention of e-mail. Choosing the winning topic was easy, says Maya Draisin, executive director of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which judges the Webbys. "E-mail, really as much if not more than the Web, has transformed our lives," Draisin says. "The element of communication is such a critical aspect of (the) Internet." But finding the right people "was a bit of a research task," she says.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168082.html

Thank God for the Internet
Enough with the Internet pity-party, already. As the three-hanky demise of the dot-coms and the floundering of technology stocks continue to hog headlines, Michael Lewis is one journalist who's telling a different story. In his new book "Next: The Future Just Happened," the author of "Liar's Poker" and "The New New Thing" looks at the emperor-has-no-clothes effect that the Net has on many of the so-called experts in fields like law and finance and how new technologies like TiVo and Replay are undermining entire industries. But the real showstoppers in the book aren't the technologies themselves, but the kids who are using them.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...wis/index.html

[mike4947]

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Fabulous as always.