The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

Hot spots elude RIAA dragnet
Early last spring, NYCWireless co-founder Anthony Townsend got a note in the mail saying that someone on his network had been violating copyright laws. This type of note is becoming increasingly common as record companies and Hollywood studios subpoena Internet service providers (ISPs) for information about subscribers in order to stop people from trading songs and movies online. But Townsend's case was unusual: As the representative of a loose collection of wireless "hot spot" Internet access points, there was no way he or the relevant access point operator in New York's Bryant Park could identify or warn the file trader.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1026...g=fd_lede1_hed

Researchers delve into the human factor
Researchers are trying to get a grip on one of the big problems with computers: the human on the other end. A team of computer scientists, academics and others gathered this week at IBM's Almaden Research Center to swap ideas on how to better understand the ways in which humans interact with machines. Specifically, they met to compare notes on different ways to make sense of how technology is being consumed. Intel, for example, has hired anthropologists to travel the globe, exploring how computing differs in various cultures. Other companies are using new technologies, such as eye-tracking cameras and software that records each click of the mouse to get a picture of what their users are doing. Meanwhile, Web search king Google finds its own employees are the best guinea pigs on which to test new ideas.
http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-1026...g=fd_lede2_hed

PC sales surge in second quarter
Despite the SARS epidemic, the war in Iraq and economic uncertainty, the PC market grew faster than expected in the second quarter. PC shipments rose by nearly 10 percent in the April-to-June period compared with the same three months in 2002, according to research firm Gartner. Rival researcher IDC said Wednesday that shipments were slightly less robust, climbing by 7.6 percent. Both figures were higher than the firms had expected. Gartner had forecast that PC shipments would climb 6.4 percent and IDC predicted a 4.1 percent gain. The companies count the same products, but their methods and sources differ. Overall, 33.2 million desktops, notebooks and so-called x86 servers rolled off assembly lines during the period, according to IDC.
http://news.com.com/2100-1003_3-1026576.html?tag=fd_top

State says Microsoft getting off easy
The Massachusetts attorney general's office said Wednesday that tougher penalties are necessary to prevent Microsoft from engaging in anticompetitive behavior. Massachusetts, the only state still pursuing antitrust charges against the software maker, said in a court filing that a set of penalties that a federal judge imposed last year are insufficient. "The failures of the district court's remedy are profound," the state said in a brief filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. "It fails to stop Microsoft’s illegal conduct and does nothing to restore competition to the monopolized market or to prevent Microsoft from engaging in similar means to the same unlawful end." Last November, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected harsher antitrust punishments.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1026499.html?tag=fd_top

Microsoft warns of critical Windows flaw
Windows users should expect to have another update from Microsoft waiting for them on their computers. The software giant issued a patch Wednesday morning to plug a critical security hole that could allow an attacker to take control of computers running any version of Windows except for Windows ME. A group of Polish hackers and independent security consultants, known as the Last Stage of Delirium, discovered the flaw and worked with Microsoft to fix it. "It should be emphasized that this vulnerability poses an enormous threat, and appropriate patches provided by Microsoft should be immediately applied," the group said in an advisory posted to its Web site. The group said that programs designed to exploit the vulnerability will likely be available on the Internet soon.
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-1026420.html?tag=fd_top

How to buy a piece of Star Wars
Money and artefacts from the Star Wars Galaxies game are turning up on auction sites barely a month after it opened its virtual doors. On auction site eBay, Galaxies players are giving others the chance to get ahead in the online Star Ward world by offering for sale large sums of game money, raw materials and finished items. One of the most expensive items on offer is 500,000 Star Wars credits being offered for $550 (£343) of Earth money. It remains to be seen whether game operator Sony allows the auctions to continue because it has tried to stamp them out in other games it runs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3070749.stm

Virus marketing reaches new lows
Internet security companies are warning about devious marketing tactics that have virus-like effects, but aren't actually viruses. Anti-virus company Sophos has warned that its Australian technical support have been receiving reports from people who receive an e-mail inviting them to visit a Web site -- run by Avenue Media NV, based on Curacao in the Caribbean -- containing free comic video clips, including on of Bill Gates copping a pie in the face. Users who visit the site and view a video clip begin sending the e-mail invitation to their friends. The site achieves this because the video clip is not downloaded directly, but instead an ActiveX control is launched which not only displays the video, but also downloads and additional software component named "Internet Optimizer" onto the computer, which sends the e-mails.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/sec...0276284,00.htm

Microsoft loses key patent ruling
With little fanfare, a federal judge has issued a critical ruling supporting a patent lawsuit against Microsoft brought by InterTrust, a digital rights management company. In a crucial preliminary hearing aimed essentially at setting the ground rules for the trial itself, Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled strongly in favor of InterTrust Technologies. The company is suing Microsoft on 144 counts of patent infringement, contending that Microsoft products ranging from the Windows operating system to the Xbox game system violate its digital rights management patents. No decision has been made on whether Microsoft actually has infringed on InterTrust's patents. But the so-called Markman hearing was a critical stage, at which definitions of terms and the scope of the patents were decided. Patent attorneys say a decision in favor of a patent holder greatly improves a lawsuit's ultimate chance of success. Armstrong's ruling was issued on July 3.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1026595.html?tag=cd_mh

Broad patents on streaming media upheld
California-based holding company Acacia Research said Wednesday that it won a preliminary court ruling in favor of broad patent claims covering virtually all streaming media transmissions. The company has won a preliminary injunction against five adult entertainment Web sites, barring them from using on-demand digital video or audio online, or providing advertising links to any other such sites. The ruling was a default decision, after the five companies declined to respond to a lawsuit, but does mark the first court validation of sweeping patent claims that could ultimately encompass virtually every site offering online multimedia content. Acacia owns patents on the process of transmitting compressed audio or video, which is one of the most fundamental multimedia technologies used on the Internet.
http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-1026466.html?tag=cd_mh

Corporate P2P use is common, study says
File-swapping applications are deeply entrenched inside corporate networks, according to a survey of computer systems by a Canadian network monitoring company. In a study spanning 560 companies, ranging from 10 to 45,000 employees, Canadian company AssetMetrix found peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa and Morpheus installed at least once in 77 percent of companies. The survey found that every company in its sample with more than 500 employees had at least one installation of file-swapping software. The results highlight the potential risks that corporations and individuals run, as the record industry prepares to file potentially thousands of lawsuits against individuals who offer copyrighted materials online. "Corporations are frantic about how to rein in some control over this," said AssetMetrix President Paul Bodnoff.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1026184.html?tag=cd_mh

Mozilla Wants to Rumble With IE
Microsoft's Internet Explorer might have trounced the likes of Netscape Navigator, but the folks at Mozilla.org insist the browser wars aren't over. That was the message coming from Mozilla.org's offices in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday when it announced it would split from America Online and form the independent Mozilla Foundation. The move signals an effort by the developer of the open-source Mozilla Web browser to compete more directly with Microsoft's IE -- which currently controls nearly 96 percent of the market, according to Web analytics firm OneStat.com. "People say there's no innovation in the browser space," said Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker, "but that's only if you're using IE. We want people to know that there's a better product out there."
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59640,00.html

Bionic Eyes Benefit the Blind
Gaze deeply into his eyes and a silicon chip calmly stares back at you. More than just the stuff that $6 million men are made of, several types of "bionic eyes" are beginning to make their presence felt in the area where they are most needed -- restoring sight to the blind. Earlier this year, three people were successfully implanted with a permanent "retinal prosthesis" by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Each patient wore spectacles with miniature video cameras that transmitted signals to a 4-mm-by-5-mm retinal implant via a wireless receiver embedded behind the ear.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,59634,00.html

Totally Random
Here's a random thought: "Everything we do to achieve privacy and security in the computer age depends on random numbers." So says Simon Cooper, an encryption expert and author of Building Internet Firewalls. Random number sequences have been around for 4,000 years, but never have they been in such demand. That's because they're the building blocks of cryptography. Every time you establish an SSL connection to, say, E*Trade, there's a string of digits working hard behind the scenes. As many as 368 bits of random data go into creating the connection - 128 bits to make encryption keys, the rest for authentication codes and the prevention of replay attacks - that's necessary whenever you send your credit card information over an ecommerce site's "secure server" or exchange medical records with your insurance company online. Even the secrecy of the messages whizzing between military commanders in the Middle East depends on random numbers.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/random.html

EU: The US must ban spam
Attempts to combat spam, the scourge of e-mail users the world over, would be hampered if the U.S. fails to introduce an outright ban, said a senior European Commission official Tuesday. A law banning unsolicited e-mail messages comes into force in the 15-member European Union in the fall. The Commission Tuesday announced an initiative that aims to go even further in stamping out that activity. The law prohibits e-mail marketers in the Union from sending their promotions to individuals unless those targeted have expressly asked to receive promotions. The U.S. government appears to favor an opt out approach, whereby marketers can flog their wares to anyone by e-mail unless the person targeted asks to be removed from the target list.
http://www.idg.net/ic_1326438_9678_1-5041.html

Piracy linked to terrorism
The head of Interpol called on Wednesday for a global crackdown on software and music piracy, saying the illicit proceeds help finance al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist networks. The international police agency's secretary-general, Ronald K Noble, urged governments and law enforcement agencies to treat such crimes as a priority, saying in a statement, "it is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups". The statement was issued on Wednesday ahead of a speech on the subject that Noble was to give in Washington to the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technol...388359,00.html

How you can pay bills in blink of an eye
A Lothian firm has developed a futuristic iris scanner which will allow the public to pay bills in an instant. Said to be the first of its kind in Europe, the machine represents the latest in cash-free payment systems. It works by scanning the unique image of a person’s iris to confirm their identity. The user looks into a camera for a few seconds while a video image is taken to be cross-referenced with a database. Once their identity is confirmed, the system automatically deducts the appropriate payment from the person’s bank account, doing away with the need to carry cash, cards or chequebooks. Designers at CRB Solutions in Loanhead say it could easily be installed in council one-stop-shops to allow people to pay routine bills, such as council tax and bus passes, in seconds. The firm also expects hospitals and businesses to install the scanners as a security measure at entrances to buildings and secure areas.
http://www.news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=766962003

Tsunami risk from asteroids downgraded
Rocks raining down from space are much less likely to hit the Earth's surface than astronomers thought. In particular, the new finding suggests asteroids are less likely hit the sea, meaning a reduced risk of monster ocean waves that could wash away coastal cities. "If a 200-metre asteroid hits an ocean, then potentially it can generate a tsunami that poses a threat to anyone living around the ocean rim," says Phil Bland of Imperial College in London. Bland and his colleague, Natalia Artemieva of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, used computers to simulate what happened to asteroids weighing up to 100,000 tonnes as they plummet through the Earth's atmosphere, getting hotter and then breaking up. Their model took account of all the forces on different fragments of the rock.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993949

Smoking supernova solves dusty mystery
The mystery of when and how the first solid particles in the Universe formed may have been solved, with the discovery of an exploded star that produced vast quantities of dust. Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a supernova that exploded 300 years ago. Using the SCUBA instrument at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii, Loretta Dunne, at Cardiff University, Wales, and colleagues, detected the faint glow of a cloud of frigid dust grains equivalent to at least double the mass of our Sun. Infrared satellites have previously seen small quantities of dust in supernova remnants, at temperatures of -173 to -73°C. But, at -255°C, the dust that Dunne recorded is just 18 degrees above absolute zero.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993951

Interest in anonymous file-trading grows
Interest in anonymous internet file-sharing networks has surged since the music industry revealed plans to sue individuals illegally offering copyrighted songs to other users. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on 25 June that it would start collecting information about "users who are illegally offering to 'share' substantial amounts of copyrighted music". The association said these users would face legal action and possible fines of up to $150,000 each. A US court cleared the way for the RIAA to pursue individual file-traders by ordering the service provider Verizon to reveal the identity of a handful of users earlier in June. Research from internet monitor Nielsen NetRatings released on Tuesday shows that sharing through the most popular file-trading networks has decreased by 15 percent since the threat was made. But, as well as shying away from ordinary networks, it appears that many file-traders are looking for alternatives that protect their identity.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993950

Warner, Disney, Fox, Universal Sue China Pirates
Four of the world's biggest film studios have taken their first open legal action against video pirates in China, an attorney representing the group said on Tuesday. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) took the action last September on behalf of The Walt Disney Co, AOL Time Warner's Warner Bros, Vivendi Universal and News Corp's Twentieth Century Fox, said MPA regional legal counsel Mark Day. Two actions in Beijing have since been settled, while verdicts on another series of suits in Shanghai are expected in the next one to two weeks, he said. "This is the first time our member companies have litigated in relation to anti-piracy in their own name in China," he said. Warner and Universal settled their Beijing-based complaints against one retailer and two factories this spring, Day said. Under that settlement, the defendants paid a collective $30,200 in damages, apologized and agreed to destroy all their stock of the illegally copied materials. They also agreed not to copy illegally any MPA member titles in the future, and were required to give the MPA the names of the parties that placed the illegal replication orders.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=3090265

Record Labels Send ISPs Subpoenas in Piracy Battle
The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it sent out subpoenas to Internet service providers as it prepares to sue hundreds of individuals who illegally distribute songs over the Web. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body. Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3104053

Report Could Be Tough On NASA
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board members are sifting through stacks of investigative material in a push to complete by late August a report on the causes of the shuttle disaster, the chairman said Friday. "The board is involved almost exclusively with writing the report now," said retired Adm. Harold Gehman Jr. He said just about all of the investigative activities are now complete and the 13-member board is divided into groups that are writing chapters of the report. The report, which also will recommend ways in which NASA can make shuttle flight safe again, is expected to reach more than 100 pages. It will focus on the root causes of the Feb. 1 accident that killed seven astronauts.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in563555.shtml

More news later on

[multi]

Interest in anonymous file-trading grows
Interest in anonymous internet file-sharing networks has surged since the music industry revealed plans to sue individuals illegally offering copyrighted songs to other users. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on 25 June that it would start collecting information about "users who are illegally offering to 'share' substantial amounts of copyrighted music". The association said these users would face legal action and possible fines of up to $150,000 each. A US court cleared the way for the RIAA to pursue individual file-traders by ordering the service provider Verizon to reveal the identity of a handful of users earlier in June. Research from internet monitor Nielsen NetRatings released on Tuesday shows that sharing through the most popular file-trading networks has decreased by 15 percent since the threat was made. But, as well as shying away from ordinary networks, it appears that many file-traders are looking for alternatives that protect their identity.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993950

We've only just begun to share

music ,shows and software

A zip for luck and we're on our way

We've only just begun



Before the riaa comes we fly

So many roads to choose

We start our walking

And learn to run

And yes! We've only just begun



(*) Sharin' horizons that are new to us

Watchin' the sines along the way

Talkin' it over just the two or so million of us

Workin' together day to day, together



(**) And when the evening comes we smile

So much of p2p ahead

We'll find a place where there's room to grow

And yes! We've only just begun

[floydian slip]

rap on