The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

[walktalker]

Sklyarov reflects on DMCA travails
Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov thinks it was unfair of prosecutors to play his videotaped deposition at the ElcomSoft trial rather than calling him to the stand. But after a legal saga that's included a surprise arrest outside his Las Vegas hotel room, three weeks in jail, and visa tangles that almost prevented him from coming back to the United States for trial, Sklyarov has decided not to worry about situations over which he has no control. "During my life I'm trying not to spend too much time trying to find what means for me things I cannot change," Sklyarov, 27, said in his first interview since testifying in the criminal copyright case of ElcomSoft, his employer.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978497.html

Linux maker Mandrake: We need cash
Linux seller MandrakeSoft issued a plea for cash Friday, encouraging people to buy products, MandrakeClub memberships or company stock. The company, based in Paris but drawing much of its revenue from North America, needs $4 million to pay debts and cover expenses in order to attain profitability. It's the second time this year the company has sought help from its customers. "A very difficult time has arrived for us: We have a very big short-term cash issue," co-founder Gael Duval said in a statement. MandrakeSoft isn't the only company to struggle with the business prospects of Linux, an open-source clone of the Unix operating system and one of several technologies once popular with investors.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-978593.html

Sharp's 3D monitors: Look, no glasses
Consumer-electronics giant Sharp next year plans to sell notebooks and flat-screen LCD monitors that can show three-dimensional images. The monitors will let people see high-resolution 3D images or run 3D programs without using special glasses or additional software. For example, bodies and bullets appear to fly all over the place in a version of the popular game "Quake" that has been adjusted to work on Sharp's 3D monitors. The technology also will be aimed at businesses, said Greg Nakagawa, senior vice president of Sharp Systems of America. General Motors has discussed experimenting with the technology in its modeling and design department. Medical imaging companies and e-commerce sites also are potential customers.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-978499.html

Hollywood targets DVD-copying upstart
The movie industry is training its legal guns on a new target: a small start-up that lets people make copies of their DVDs. On Thursday, seven major movie studios filed a countersuit in federal court in San Francisco, claiming that 321 Studios is violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by selling its DVD Copy Plus and DVD-Xcopy programs. The studios filed the claim in response to 321 Studios, which in April took the unusual step of asking a federal court to declare its copying products legitimate because they would allow people to make personal copies of DVDs they already own -- a process the company claimed is allowed under a doctrine known as fair use. 321's president said at the time that he asked for the legal opinion after reading press accounts in which the studios threatened the company.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978580.html

Week in review: Defending tech
Courts in the United States were busier than usual with cases tied to the tech world, as judges weighed in on copyrights, spam, international libel law and prisoner rights. In a closely watched test of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a jury acquitted a Russian software company of criminal copyright charges related to selling a program that can crack antipiracy protections on electronic books. The company faced four charges related to directly designing and marketing software that could be used to crack the copyright protections of Adobe Systems' eBooks, plus an additional charge related to conspiring to do so. The jury acquitted the company of all charges. The jury foreman said the jurors agreed that ElcomSoft's product was illegal but acquitted the company because they believed the company didn't mean to violate the law.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978552.html

Pop-ups add new twist
Pop-up advertisements, already the bane of millions of Web surfers, are becoming more intrusive. Pop-up and pop-under ads open a new window when people visit many popular Web sites, often littering the computer desktop with multiple browser screens. Advertisers hope people will visit the promoted Web page by clicking anywhere on the window, although many simply close it by selecting the "X" box in the top-right corner. But a relatively new feature may make it harder for people to avoid these windows. Using a technique called the "kick through," advertisers can direct a person to another Web site if they simply move their cursor across the pop-up ad -- no clicking is necessary.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978616.html?tag=fd_top

Federal database spy site fading away
Call it the incredibly shrinking government Web site. As controversy grows over the Defense Department's shadowy Total Information Awareness (TIA) project, the project's virtual presence is steadily decreasing. If fully implemented, TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical insurers, and motor vehicle databases for police convenience in hopes of snaring terrorists. First, biographical information about the TIA project leaders, including retired Adm. John Poindexter, disappeared from the Defense Department's site last month. A mirror that one activist created from Google's cache shows the deleted information included four resumes listing past work experience but no addresses or contact information.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978598.html?tag=fd_top

Technology allows in-flight care
Hi-tech computer medical technology is being used to offer expert care to airline passengers who fall ill in-flight. On average one plane a day has to make an unscheduled landing somewhere around the world because a passenger has fallen ill and requires medical treatment. Not only is this highly inconvenient for other passengers, it costs an industry already struggling to cope with turbulent times a great deal of money - $50,000 to $100,000 per diversion. Airbus, in collaboration with the French Space Agency, has come up with a solution - an on-board, satellite-connected medical briefcase. A crew member with proper training can now take basic heart, blood, temperature and sugar level readings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2592069.stm

Google opens up in the land down under
Having taken control of the google.com.au domain name earlier this year, Google has conducted a quiet launch of its renowned search capabilities into the Australian market. According to Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost, the Australian search capability has been available for a few days. "We try to offer a local site to as many users around the world as possible," Frost explained. "From Singapore to Finland and the United Arab Emirates, the number of countries we cover is changing every week, and Australia is the latest to go live." Preferring to stick to a soft launch, Frost said she could not make any further announcements regarding the company's intentions in the Australian market until the start of 2003.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978556.html?tag=cd_mh

Cable carriers, TV makers call a truce
Television makers and U.S. cable operators reached a peace accord Thursday to allow digital cable signals to be directly piped into television sets without extra equipment, clearing a major hurdle in the transition to digital TV. The deal, which requires Federal Communications Commission approval, would bury the hatchet between two industries that have squabbled for years over how to offer the higher-quality pictures and advanced services that digital television promises. If approved by the FCC, the roughly two-thirds of U.S. households that subscribe to cable TV services would be able to enjoy digital pictures over high-definition television (HDTV) sets without shelling out more money, as some consumers do now, for set-top boxes to read the signals.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-978516.html?tag=cd_mh

Linux tapped to be audiovisual aid
Audiovisual gear for the home, such as digital video recorders, from Sony and other manufacturers could soon have a new version of Linux inside. Sony and Matsushita said Wednesday that, under a new joint development agreement, they will concoct a new version of the open-source operating system for consumer electronics devices. Linux is primarily used in servers, PCs and communications equipment. The companies will collaborate to create a version of Linux that boots quickly and offers snappy performance for use in digital video recorders and other audiovisual devices. Digital video recorders capture television programs and store them on a hard drive for later viewing. The operating system might also be used in portable devices, the companies said in a statement.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-978317.html?tag=cd_mh

Putting a Price on Cyber Love
In these days of corporate belt-tightening, it's not the kind of news that pops up very often. A small company with a lightly traded stock on a low-profile exchange suddenly gets a buyout offer for more than triple its value from one of the biggest media companies on the planet. To make it even odder, it's a company so seemingly passé that it still has a dot-com at the end of its name. But online dating experts say the explanation for Thursday's announcement by USA Interactive (USAI) that it will shell out approximately $150 million in stock to purchase British matchmaking site uDate.com was simple: While other industries falter in the face of a continuing economic slowdown, Internet personals sites are going gangbusters.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56940,00.html

Terrorists on the Net? Who Cares?
To all those Chicken Littles clucking frantically about the imminent threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. computer networks, a new report says: Knock it off. Online attacks are merely "weapons of mass annoyance," no more harmful than the routine power failures, airplane delays and dropped phone calls that take place every day."The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously," said Jim Lewis, a 16-year veteran of the State and Commerce Departments. He compiled the analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare give them credit for," Lewis wrote in the report.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,56935,00.html

Frankfurt: Nein to Neo-Nazi Sites
Germany's most populous state is requiring Internet providers to block two U.S.-based neo-Nazi websites after a court ruled the measure did not violate the providers' rights, officials said Thursday. The verdict followed months of legal wrangling between North Rhine-Westphalia's top new-media official, Juergen Buessow, and 18 Internet providers based in the state, who said they could not be held responsible for the sites' content. "We don't want such content to be available to everyone," said Ulrich Schiefelbein, a spokesman for Buessow's office. He refused to name the U.S. sites or the providers, citing German privacy laws. German law makes spreading Nazi ideology to the public a crime, but the Internet offers a loophole to neo-Nazi sites based abroad. German officials have repeatedly made efforts to block such content in recent years, even though it is legal in the United States, where the sites are based.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56945,00.html

McCain: Enough Hot Air, Already
Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced late Thursday that he intends to hold Commerce Department hearings starting in January with the goal of taking action to fight global warming. Such hearings would pressure the Bush administration -- which has opted out of international efforts to battle the greenhouse effect -- to focus on the problem. "He's very engaged on this issue," said McCain spokeswoman Pia Pialorsi. McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) have been working on legislation to create a trading system for buying and selling emissions, enabling heavier polluters to buy "credits" from lighter polluters to meet the specified threshold, Pialorsi said.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56941,00.html

Is That a TiVo Under the Tree?
Will this be the year that TiVo catches on with a mass audience? Not likely, say analysts. While many users of personal video recorders say they can no longer imagine watching TV sans TiVo, the products have yet to reach a critical mass of consumers. "It's still a confusing product with a confusing value proposition," said Greg Ireland, a research analyst with IDC. "Consumers may have heard of the term TiVo, but they don't know what it does." And without any major marketing campaigns to educate consumers or spark their interest, PVRs are still considered a product for "early adopters" rather than for mainstream shoppers.
http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,56828,00.html

Why LEDs (and newsmen ) Are Everywhere
Gas, glass, and brass are so pre-millennium. LEDs are the lights of the digital age - and they're everywhere. Those bright new dotted traffic signals? Energy-efficient light-emitting diodes in green, yellow, and red. LEDs are also showing up on bicycles, buses, and subway cars, and in a variety of architectural lighting situations - for example, to throw a color wash onto a wall. In a few years, they'll illuminate automobile headlights, homes, and offices, too. Here's why.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...tart.html?pg=8

Stanford, Bush Council Mix Words
The chairman of President Bush's bioethics council demanded a public apology from Stanford University, accusing the school of trying to conceal the nature of its stem cell research and mischaracterizing the bioethics council's views. Stanford has said its new cancer institute will conduct stem cell research using nuclear transfer techniques that many consider to be cloning of human cells. However, Stanford said characterizing its work as cloning is wrong because the institute won't create human embryos, just cells. In a statement posted on the university's website last week, Stanford claimed the President's Council on Bioethics supported its view and its planned research.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,56948,00.html

Cloned Babies Arriving Soon?
The race to produce the first birth of a human clone is nearing the finish line -- if you believe the public pronouncements. Last month, it was an Italian fertility doctor, Dr. Severino Antinori, who promised a cloned baby boy in January. On Thursday, it was a scientist who belongs to a group that believes life on earth was created by extraterrestrials. Brigitte Boisselier, head of a company called Clonaid, confirmed media reports that a cloned baby girl is expected to be born this month. And she says she'll offer proof the baby is a clone of the woman carrying the pregnancy. Many scientists say they don't put much stock in either cloning effort. They discount Boisselier chiefly because she does not specialize in reproductive medicine, but is a chemist by training.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,56936,00.html

Star of Bethlehem: Going Back in Time to Examine Its Origins
It seems almost traditional at this time of year for stargazers to ponder the age-old question of the possible origin of the Star of Bethlehem. Was the so-called Christmas Star an unusual, eye-catching gathering of naked-eye planets, or was that fabled "sign in the sky" a meteor, comet, nova, or indeed something supernatural? New knowledge of the old astrological beliefs and modern computer-based planetary tables may yet shed new light on this age-old question. But before going back in time to explore the possible answers, one needs to understand the many problems behind the questions. There are many factors that contribute to the puzzle, including the uncertainty in the actual date of Christ’s birth and the terminology used to describe celestial events during the Star’s appearance some 20 centuries ago. For instance, any heavenly object bright enough to attract attention was apt to be called a "star."
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/star...em_021220.html

Star cluster puzzle revealed by Chandra
The Chandra space observatory has revealed that an enigmatic star cluster 6000 light years from Earth is immersed in a mysterious cloud of high-energy electrons. The cluster of stars, designated RCW 38, has an X-ray spectrum indicating that its surrounding gas cloud is filled with extremely high-energy electrons moving through a magnetic field. These high-energy particles are normally associated with supernova explosions or the neutron stars they leave behind, but not star clusters. "The RCW 38 observation doesn't agree with the conventional picture," says Scott Wolk of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team that imaged the cluster. Wolk's team, and colleagues at the European Southern Observatory in Germany, speculate that a supernova may have faded thousands of years ago leaving behind an undetected neutron star that is responsible for the observed X-rays.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993207

Broadband supplier puts limits on peer-to-peer services
Readers using cablevision's "Optimum" broadband connections have received a message in a bottle from the firm warning them that using a list of peer-to-peer file services could mean the firm might restrict access to its services. It sent a message to some of its customers yesterday headed "potential security brief" and listed which peer-to-peer file services could cause their bandwidth to be throttled, if the file sharing option is not disabled. The services Cablevision specifies are Aimster, KaZaA, iMesh, Audiogalaxy, eDonkey2000, NeoModus, BearShare, Gnotella, Gnucleus, GTK-Gnutella, LimeWire, Mactella, Morpheus, Phex, Qtella, Shareaza, SwapNut, and XoLoX. Cablevision's justification is that these peer-to-peer file services mean "the entire Internet can access the files on your hard drive".
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6818

Rethink urged over net snooping laws
Net snooping laws in the UK are a mess, a government committee set up to look at the controversial legislation has been told. The inquiry, led by the House of Common's All Party Internet Group, has heard evidence from industry, law enforcers and the Home Office over the last two weeks. The debate has revolved around plans to force telephone operators and internet service providers to store customer data for up to six years. But police have admitted that the current legislation is illegal. "The system is not compliant with the Human Rights Act," Assistant Chief Constable of the National Crime Squad Jim Gamble told MPs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2588213.stm

Shots fired in copyright cold war
Attemps to block copying of music CDs will spark an arms race between record labels and hackers, according to Gartner analyst Daniel McHugh. Next year, all releases from EMI Australia will feature copy control technology that prevents digital copying.
But Mr McHugh said hackers would quickly respond with ways to beat each new measure. "Protecting CDs is warranted in the short term to send a clear message that copying and distributing music files will no longer be tolerated," he said. "Trying to protect artists' intellectual property is a noble act. "But these attempts to block copying will only fuel an arms race." Music companies needed to look at alternative ways of distributing music to the masses.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html

More news... hum... after the holidays ?

[Smoketoomuch]

Linux maker Mandrake: We need cash
Linux seller MandrakeSoft issued a plea for cash Friday, encouraging people to buy products, MandrakeClub memberships or company stock. The company, based in Paris but drawing much of its revenue from North America, needs $4 million to pay debts and cover expenses in order to attain profitability. It's the second time this year the company has sought help from its customers. "A very difficult time has arrived for us: We have a very big short-term cash issue," co-founder Gael Duval said in a statement. MandrakeSoft isn't the only company to struggle with the business prospects of Linux, an open-source clone of the Unix operating system and one of several technologies once popular with investors.

Oh well, I wanted to buy my first Mandrake Power Pack edition when 9.1 comes out, but I guess I will order it in january. It will be my first OS to pay for, but they deserve the money, being one of the most cutting edge and innovative distribution (urpmi package management is the best package manager for rpm based distributions around, one that for the first time makes RPM on par with Debian's apt-get). I also decided to buy it since no one forces me to do so - MDK is free and will remain so - the choice to pay or not to pay depends on the user's own conscience. I nice and passionate post on the old mandrakeuser board describes very well what free software is about: http://www.club-nihil.net/mub/viewto...?p=17029#17029

Mandrake is on a 6-month release cycle ... this release isn't being "pushed" at all, no more than 8.2 ... 8.1 ...

I do recall that 8.2 was somewhat criticized for having a less than thorough run through the beta stages, and everyone was screaming it was because of the IPO (and god knows what other conspiracy theories!)

Personally, I think it's just because Mandrake is the closest thing to a "bleeding edge" distro you're going to find outside SourceMage or Gentoo. Mandrake is sort of like, um, the Anti-Debian.

Mandrake is possibly the most open commercial Linux distro in existence. EVERY single tool Mandrake has created to make it easy to use (drakconf and all the associated tools, the Mandrake installer, the partitioning tools, and LOTS of other goodies) are GPL'd. Ever read the Mandrake End-User-License-Agreement? You should. It only takes a few seconds. "Everything is GPL. No Warranty. Have fun." At any time anyone in the world is welcome to view the next, unreleased version of Mandrake (via the Cooker). Oddly enough, the UnitedLinux companies seem to be suffering. Arguably, without Big Blue keeping SuSE afloat, it'd be a lost cause. And Caldera hasn't been relevant in years.

RedHat and Mandrake are totally open (Rawhide = RedHat Cooker) and they happen to be at the top of the list of "major" distributions. Companies like Lindows will come and go (and not quickly enough) but RedHat and Mandrake, by virtue of being accessible to everyone, will endure. People often say "RedHat doesn't have a community" -- and that's simply not true. It has a large community, just a different -sort- of community than, say, this one.

My point? If everyone who comes to this board whining about Mandrake having this bug or that bug or missing some wonderful, terrific app (that no one else has probably ever heard of) or not supporting x piece of hardware (that, again, no one else has probably ever heard of) -- if all of those people had bought a Mandrake boxed set, imagine how much better Mandrake 9.2 or 10.0 would be? Maybe now that Microsoft is cracking down on pirates (again), interest in Linux will see another swell. Unfortunately, former XP pirate refugees aren't likely to come to the community to give ANYthing, since Mandrake (and Linux in general) makes it so damned easy to take and take and take ... somehow, along the way, the original ideals of what Free Software is all about have been perverted.

I think it's way too easy to forget that a great deal of people, maybe even a majority, have never bought ANYthing from Mandrake. They haven't contributed. So I find it hard to envision Mandrake in any way, in any context, as "money hungry" ... In the Linux community it often seems that end users (a great many of whom have contributed nothing) have this weird notion that because Mandrake (or KDE, or GNOME, or whatever) is free then somehow the developers OWE the users a new, better version that, surprise surprise, costs $0. So, Mandrake is dragging around a great deal of baggage in the form of freeloaders, yes, and it might NEED the money -- but it simply isn't a greedy company (such as Microsoft or, IMO the even more despicable Lindows).

Imagine extending this philosophy onto another topic:

Waiter: Have you made your selections?

Patron: Yes. We'll have ... the best you have. All of it. And we want it now.

Waiter: Very good, sir. We'll do our best. Will you be paying today?

Patron: Of course I'm not paying! Now snap to it!

Waiter: Very good, sir. Your food will be out shortly. We are a bit understaffed, but we'll do our best.

Patron: HURRY!

---Later---(but not much)

Patron: WAITER! Where is our food! DAMNIT, we've been waiting 10 minutes!

Waiter: Sorry, sir. We're doing the best we can. Our kitchen staff is 90% volunteer, since, like yourself, most of our patrons elect not to pay for our services. We are doing the best we can and humbly ask you to be patient.

Patron: I can't believe this. How hard can it be to cook a 7 course meal with all the trimmings and serve it up to us for free on a silver platter (and we're damn well keeping the platter, too)? If we don't get it NOW we're going to that other restaurant down the street. They make us cook all our own food, but at least we'll get it the way we like it! Or maybe we'll go back to the SuperMegaMonopoly Restaurant. They're rediculously expensive and we often get food poisoning or at least terrible indigestion, but we know a secret, underhanded, illegal trick to get it for free anyway!

Waiter: <weary sigh> Very good, sir. It will be only a bit longer now. The chef is horribly overworked and, even though he doesn't actually get paid most of the time, he's applying the finishing touches even as we speak.

Patron: The wine IS imported, right? And all the ingredients are fresh and hand-selected for flavor? We only want the very best, the cream of the crop. Nothing else will do.

Waiter: Ah, here it is. Bon apetit. Enjoy, sirs. May I get you anything else?

Patron: Oh my god! This is awful! We waited that long for this?? And you even wanted us to PAY FOR IT? What kind of a con job are you people running here??

It never ceases to amaze me the number of Linux users I see who say something like, "I just downloaded <whatever free program> and it sucks! What the hell is this? Why would <project authors> create something like this? This is why Linux will never be better than Windows!" As if Mandrake, or anyone else who creates free (in all senses of the word) software, OWES them something ...

Before anyone says anything derogative about Mandrake, perform a simple experiment:

Visit Linux From Scratch. Assemble, by hand, a running Linux system equal in functionality to your current Mandrake installation. Then come back to the board (from inside KDE 3.0.2 or GNOME 2 on your new hand-built system) and let everyone know what a terrible job Mandrake has done in putting together their distribution and what a silly notion it is to actually PAY them for such a trivial amount of work.

Okay, my rant is over now. Let me put on my flame retardent armor ...