Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 21st, '07

[JackSpratts]

Since 2002


































"If in fact the book is posted online or the ending is revealed prior to midnight on Friday, it will not result in us selling a single less copy of the book." – Steve Riggio


"The trio are not worried about 'spoilers,' who are people who spoil the ending of the book by shouting it to people waiting in line to buy it. Spoilers learn how the book ends by reading snippets on the Internet. Whole copies of the book have been pirated and reprinted on the Web. To avoid spoilers, people wear earplugs or listen to music while waiting in line." – Mark Langlois


"A customer told the [bookstore] owner, Christine Onorati, that the last time she went to a “Harry Potter” party, a 6-year-old flipped to the end of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and screamed, 'Snape xxxxxx Dumbledore!' So Ms. Onorati decided to hold an adults-only party." – Motoko Rich


"We cannot tolerate the situation when only 10 percent of the Kalashnikovs are manufactured legally. We cannot stand for this. We must fight." – Sergey V. Lavrov


"Don’t follow your mentors, follow your mentors’ mentors." – David Leach

































July 21st, 2007






High finance

RIAA Settles for 300 Bucks
NewYorkCountryLawyer

In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical 'settlement' injunction — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/07/15/2125234.shtml





The details

RIAA Spends Thousands to Obtain $300 Judgment
Eric Bangeman

What's the cost of file-sharing? For Terri Frye of Hickory, NC, it was $300. That's the amount she'll have to pay the RIAA after agreeing to a judgment in a file-sharing case. Frye is a single mother living in state-supported housing who received one of the RIAA's settlement letters in November 2005. Wanting to defend her innocence, she immediately contacted a lawyer. "She did a good thing, finding a lawyer as soon as she found out [the RIAA] was pursuing her," Joey Long, one of her attorneys, told Ars Technica. "It's what every person should do when they receive a settlement letter."

Despite contacting Frye in late 2005, the RIAA did not actually file suit until March of this year. In the intervening period, Frye repeatedly informed the RIAA that they had the wrong person. Even if she was guilty of infringement, another of Frye's attorneys, Matthew K. Rodgers, told the labels that she couldn't afford to pay damages of up to $750 per song due to her financial situation.

The correspondence between the RIAA's legal counsel and Frye's between the time of the settlement letter and the filing of the lawsuit paints a picture of the RIAA's unwillingness to budge at all from its position that Frye was either directly or indirectly responsible for infringement, despite her protestations to the contrary. It also showed a troubling lack of communication within the RIAA. According to a filing by Frye, the RIAA agreed to give her until May 16 to file an answer to their complaint. Then, on May 4, the plaintiffs informed Long that they were going to file for a default judgment, saying that the agreed-to extension was "not in the file."

As early as December 2005, Frye offered to work with the labels "to avoid any liability and will agree to any reasonable condition that would avoid the payment of any penalties." The following month, she was informed that the RIAA would not "release" her from the claims of infringement, and even if she offered the RIAA an affidavit identifying the person she believed responsible for the infringement, the record labels would not agree to drop their claims against her without having the affidavit in hand.

After months of back-and-forth between the RIAA and Frye, the RIAA filed suit in March of this year. This came despite Frye's assertions that she had told the owner of the PC associated with the account about the RIAA's inquiries and that the owner subsequently deleted all the incriminating evidence.

"The RIAA wanted us to reveal who actually committed the infringement," said Long. But absent any assurances that she would not be held liable for infringement herself, she was unwilling to divulge the information herself.

The end result is that the RIAA likely spent thousands of dollars to obtain a $300 judgment. And although Frye agrees to be enjoined against future copyright infringement, she does not admit to any wrongdoing. We asked Long if Frye was going to work with the record labels to identify the person actually responsible for the infringement now that the case has been closed and a judgment entered. "I can't disclose any of the information about that," Long told Ars. "It's between us and them."

The RIAA's prelitigation settlement letters say that defendants are liable for costs of $750 per song. MediaSentry flagged 706 songs on the computer that became the basis for the lawsuit, and at $750 per song, that works out to a total of $529,500. The RIAA settled for a minuscule fraction of that number, one curiously close to the 70¢-per-track figure a record industry attorney said is close to the labels' share of each track sold. File-sharing defendants have argued that the $750-per-track damages sought by the RIAA are excessive, and here we have them accepting a judgment for about 40¢ per track. The RIAA appears willing to extract even a miniscule settlement from a single mother on federal assistance who was willing to help them discover the true identity of the alleged infringer rather than walk away emptyhanded.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-judgment.html





Losing streak

RIAA v. Santangelo Default Judgment Vacated
NewYorkCountryLawyer

It was reported last week that at the July 13th status conference in Elektra v. Santangelo II, the default judgment taken by the RIAA against Patti Santangelo's daughter, Michelle, was vacated by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. This has now been confirmed in papers filed by the RIAA's lawyers in which they indicated that the Judge vacated the default judgment because he prefers cases to be decided on their merits, rather than by default. The papers sought $513 in attorneys fees for (a) procuring the default judgment and (b) preparing judgment enforcement documents.

Patti Santangelo is the first RIAA defendant known to have moved to dismiss the RIAA complaint. After two years of litigation, the RIAA dropped its case against Patti Santangelo, leaving open only the question of whether the RIAA will be ordered to pay her attorneys fees.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/07/19/189249.shtml





Judge Awards $68,685.23 in Attorneys Fees Against RIAA in Capitol v. Foster
Ray Beckerman

In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the Court has order the RIAA to pay the defendant Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys rees and costs.

This is the first attorneys fee award, of which we are aware, against the RIAA.

Ms. Foster was represented by Marilyn Barringer-Thomson of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blo...neys-fees.html





Music Industry Countersued

Soldier: Record labels violated his privacy, abused copyright law
Andrew Eder

Music-industry litigation tactics against suspected online music pirates face a challenge in Tennessee, with an Army sergeant arguing that record labels have engaged in a “conspiracy” to defraud courts and violate privacy rights.

The claims come in response to a lawsuit against Nicholas Paternoster of Clarksville, Tenn., 33, soldier at nearby Fort Campbell, who is accused of infringing copyrights by using the peer-to-peer file-sharing program Kazaa to distribute songs online.

The lawsuit was one of seven filed across the state in March by the record labels in a litigation campaign coordinated by the industry’s Washington-based trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America.

The RIAA has targeted hundreds of college students with lawsuits — including dozens at the University of Tennessee — in a well-publicized push to curb illegal downloading, which the industry says has crippled record sales.

At the same time, the RIAA has continued to go after users of commercial Internet service providers, like the seven people sued in Tennessee. Since September 2003, when the litigation campaign was launched, recording industry attorneys have pressed more than 21,000 instances of legal action nationwide, according to the RIAA.

Of the seven Tennessee cases filed in March, court records show that only Paternoster has challenged the recording industry’s charges. His Nashville attorneys filed a response to the record labels’ lawsuit last week.

In the response, Paternoster denies the allegations of copyright infringement and responds with a counterclaim charging that the record labels are abusing copyright law.

The labels, “ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting together in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy,” allege Paternoster’s attorneys from the Nashville law firm Beam & Rogers.

The countersuit points out that although the recording industry singled out only six songs whose copyrights were infringed, the complaint includes screenshots of more than 4,600 files from Paternoster’s personal computer, including hundreds of apparently pornographic pictures and movies.

According to another document filed in the case, Paternoster was unaware that the Kazaa software was installed on his computer. While on a tour of duty in Germany from 2004 to 2005, the document says, another soldier downloaded the software and set up a Kazaa account under Paternoster’s name.

Last summer Paternoster discovered the software and “thousands of files downloaded on his computer by the soldiers he housed,” and he uninstalled the software and deleted the files, according to the document.

Kazaa and other file-sharing networks often make a computer’s files available for download by other network users, which allows the RIAA’s investigators to document instances of copyright infringement. The file-sharing option can be disabled, but many users never realize they are making their files available.

By including the full list of Paternoster’s files in the public record, the record labels invaded his privacy and are trying to “shame” him into accepting their demands, his attorneys argue.

“Such actions by the Counter-Defendants are a blatant misuse of their right to investigate potential copyright infringement and violate public policy,” the countersuit reads.

The attorneys list a host of other common complaints about recording industry tactics, including targeting dead, disabled and unknowledgeable people with lawsuits; relying on Internet Protocol addresses to identify defendants; making “extortionate threats” and seeking “exorbitant settlement amounts” through the RIAA; and invading defendants’ privacy by pursuing “John Doe” lawsuits and subpoenas without the individual’s knowledge.

Attorneys for the record labels from the Nashville law firm Bowen Riley Warnock & Jacobson would not comment on the case, referring questions to the RIAA.

“We try to be fair and reasonable in resolving these cases,” said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. “Our aim is not to be in court, but to seek appropriate retribution for the damage done to the industry.”

Of the other six recent lawsuits in Tennessee, three have been dismissed, one has been settled for more than $9,000, and the record labels are seeking default judgments for $7,500 and $4,500 against two other defendants who did not respond to summonses.

Duckworth said the majority of dismissed cases are the result of settlements, although she would not discuss individual cases.

One defendant whose lawsuit was dismissed, Jerrel Lovett of Columbia, Tenn., said Tuesday that he paid a settlement, although he wouldn’t say how much. Another lawsuit target, Melissa Corbett of Memphis, could not be reached for comment.

The third defendant whose lawsuit was dismissed is Debbie Brackins of Sevierville. Reached Tuesday, Brackins would not say whether she paid a settlement.

“It’s done and it’s over, and I don’t ever want to discuss it again,” she said.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/ju...y-countersued/





University of Kansas Adopts One-Strike Policy for Copyright Infringement
Eric Bangeman

In response to the RIAA and MPAA's campaign against file-sharing, the University of Kansas has announced a stringent policy for students found sharing copyrighted content on the university network. Students fingered for file-sharing would be kicked off of the residence hall network, although they would still be able to use campus computer labs.

A brief notice on the University of Kansas ResNet site explains the university's new position very succinctly. "If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever," reads the notice. "No second notices, no excuses, no refunds. One violation and your ResNet internet access is gone for as long as you reside on campus." Presumably, the University is referring to illegally downloaded copyrighted material, as there is plenty of copyrighted material that can be downloaded legally.

Formerly, KU had a three strikes policy, but the new policy is one of the most stringent we have seen. Other schools have tightened their policies on copyright infringement since Big Content ratcheted up its fight against on-campus file-sharing. For one, Stanford University has made file-sharing a potentially very expensive proposition with its reconnection fees. First-time offenders will have to pay a $100 reconnection fee, with subsequent offenses assessed reconnection fees of $500 and $1,000. Along with the $1,000 fee, students will be referred to Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action after a third offense.

Ohio University has taken a different approach to file-sharing, choosing to ban all P2P traffic from its network. Although it has had the effect of shutting down some of the file-sharing that occurs on its campus network, it has also had the effect of pushing some of the P2P traffic to darknets.

A KU spokesperson told the Lawrence Journal-World that the increased number of takedown notices has led to the new policy. The school received 345 complaints in 2005, up from 141 the year before. "It's serious business. Students need to take notice," KU spokesman Todd Cohen told the Journal-World. Cohen also noted that the school had received 23 prelitigation settlement letters from the RIAA on the same day the new policy was announced.

Another factor in KU's move may be recent rumblings from Congress. In May, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) of the House Judiciary Committee issued an ominous warning to schools, telling them that they need to do something about piracy or Congress would be forced to act. "We want to know exactly what they plan to do to stop illegal downloading on their campuses," said Smith. "Universities have a moral and legal obligation to ensure students do not use campus computers for illegal downloading."

The end result may be an expensive technological arms race between schools and technologically-savvy students. KU's new policy is likely to have the desired effect of discouraging most casual P2P users while driving towards darknets.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ringement.html





Top EU Court Official Says ISPs Shouldn't Have to ID Alleged Infringers
Eliot Van Buskirk

Here in the US, the RIAA can issue a John Doe subpoena to any ISP demanding to know which of its subscribers was using a given IP address to share copyrighted music at a certain time. Although the RIAA has tried to circumvent this system, it forms a cornerstone of the organization's legal strategy against those it suspects of infringement.

Labels and their legal representatives could have a harder time employing a similar strategy across the pond. An advocate general for the European Court of Justice has issued an opinion stating that ISPs targeted by civil copyright cases in the European Union should not have to identify allegedly-infringing subscribers when pressured to do so by label representatives.

The Spanish version of the RIAA -- Promusicae -- had sued the Telefonica ISP, demanding that it release the identities of allegedly infringing subscribers, but Telefonica refused, claiming that it could only turn over such information as part of a criminal prosecution.

This could be a big hurdle for the record industry P2P litigation strategy in Europe, but we won't know until later this year. According to MarketWatch,

"The adviser's opinion will be reviewed by the court's panel of judges before a final ruling sometime later this year. The judges follow their advisers' opinions about 80% of the time."
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/07/...-court-of.html





Copyfraud
Jason Mazzone

Brooklyn Law School

Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 40
New York University Law Review, Vol. 81, p. 1026, 2006

Abstract:
Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use.

Copyright law itself creates strong incentives for copyfraud. The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials. There is also no remedy under the Act for individuals who wrongly refrain from legal copying or who make payment for permission to copy something they are in fact entitled to use for free. While falsely claiming copyright is technically a criminal offense under the Act, prosecutions are extremely rare. These circumstances have produced fraud on an untold scale, with millions of works in the public domain deemed copyrighted, and countless dollars paid out every year in licensing fees to make copies that could be made for free. Copyfraud stifles valid forms of reproduction and undermines free speech.

Congress should amend the Copyright Act to allow private parties to bring civil causes of action for false copyright claims. Courts should extend the availability of the copyright misuse defense to prevent copyright owners from enforcing an otherwise valid copyright if they have engaged in past copyfraud. In addition, Congress should further protect the public domain by creating a national registry listing public domain works and a symbol to designate those works. Failing a congressional response, there may exist remedies under state law and through the efforts of private parties to achieve these ends.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...#PaperDownload





Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright -- to promote progress, for the benefit of the public -- then we must make changes in the other direction.

This talk by Richard M. Stallman is broken into two parts: the main talk and the question and answer sessions following the talk. Both are available in only OGG/Theora format in keeping with Stallman's wishes. They are available under the Creative Commons NoDerivs 1.0
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media...0Networks.html





“iTorrent”: A BitTorrent Client for your iPhone?
Ben Jones

The possibility of file sharing whilst walking down the street is closer than you might think. Carrying a BitTorrent client in your pocket is getting closer, with the release of new high-powered communication tools, such as the much publicized Apple iPhone.

It would almost seem as if TorrentFreak is the only technologically based news site to have not carried some sort of piece about the iPhone, in one form or another. In order to correct this deficit, we wondered ‘would it be possible to torrent on one? After all, what can be more iconic than using something (potentially) dubbed iTorrent?

The technical specifications of the device certainly make it possible. It has more than enough cpu power for it, assuming a nice, tightly coded client was written. The built in WiFi (802.11b/g) and use of the EDGE 2.75G wireless network data transfer system allows a fairly widespread availability of reception.

According to one of the developers of the ‘iPhone-binutil‘ project, going by the name ‘geohot’, the only obstacle stopping it from making an application like “iTorrent” happening is their current lack of coding ability for the iPhone. The file system is open, and media players already exist, if for nothing else than playing media from iTunes.

On of the downsides it that, for many, the 3.4Gb free on a brand new phone (or 7.4Gb, if you went for the bigger one) may not be enough to hold much data, but it all depends on what you torrent. Bigger problems are that the battery will last only in the region of 6-8 hours at best (according to Apple’s figures) which isn’t the greatest. Additionally, many users have reported the wifi connections being on the slow side as far as data transfers go. Using EDGE is a lot slower, about 30k/sec max.

Of course, the benefits are that you can carry it around with you, and you have the wide range of content available, with the benefits of torrent file’s typical pricing (free). Of course, time will tell. Meanwhile, the lack of MMS on the iPhone has been a small thorn in the side of many owners. However, there is help at hand in the form of a workaround. More details here.
http://torrentfreak.com/itorrent-a-b...r-your-iphone/





ZipTorrent Pollutes and Slows Down Popular Torrents
Ernesto

BitTorrent users are facing a new enemy. A BitTorrent client named ZipTorrent, allegedly created by our friends from the anti-piracy organization Media Defender, leeches bandwith and spreads useless data chunks.

The goal of ZipTorrent is to slow down popular downloads as much as possible. They use hundreds of these clients at the same time and this can potentially bring the average download speed down to zero. Even more so, it is not unlikely that it will record your IP-address in the process so they can send you a copyright infringement notice on top of it.

On the Media Defender website we read:

“Decoying and Spoofing are the most commonly known techniques that we employ. We send blank files and data noise that look exactly like a real response to an initiated search requests for a particular title.”

According to ubisuck over at the mininova forums, Media Defender is doing just this with ZipTorrent. Apparently the fake client is a mod of the popular BitTorrent client Azureus which can be configured to send fake data.

Here’s a full screenshot of the ZipTorrent configuration screen. As you will see, there are some dubious settings like “fake upload ratio mode”, “no upload” and “safe fake download”.

It is not hard to check whether you are connected to these fake clients. In the peers list of your BitTorrent client they will show up as “ZipTorrent” and most of the time you will be connected to a bunch of them all originating from similar IP addresses with either 0% or 100% of the file completed.

However, there are blocklists to stop these malicious clients from connecting to your BitTorrent client. Pasted below is a list of the known IP-ranges ZipTorrent is on. The ranges were identified by The Pirate Bay team and are posted in several forums. You might want to add these to the blocklist of your BitTorrent client or PeerGuardian.

There’s one problem though, Media Defender will probably move to new IPs if they read this, a never ending story.
http://torrentfreak.com/ziptorrent-p...ular-torrents/





eEsel come eEsel go

German eDonkey Servers Shut Down

FILE-SHARING service eDonkey suffered a body blow last Friday as German music industry lawyers won a fight in the battle to to shut down the 'Donkey servers.

The District Court in Hamburg has made a temporary injunction to the operator of an eDonkey server. Heise reports that the computer must be taken offline for "as long as the range of music files offered for download via the server contains illegal files."

While the server itself did not host any illegal files - being a P2P service after all - the server operator was snagged for having "willingly and in a causal fashion assisted in the illegal disturbance."

"We shall in future take legal action against any operator of a P2P network srver who makes tracks available ilegally," warned International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) director Peter Zombik. He went on to say that it's "sad to see the inherently beneficial P2P network technology still being used to violate copyright on a massive scale."

Stefan Michalk of the IFPI told Heise that, after the move, it's up to the ISPs to lend a helping hand.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41056





Driveway Allows File Sharing up to 500MB Per File
pelf

If you’ve had problems sending very large files via the Internet, you may want to read more about Driveway. Driveway is a FREE online file sharing service and any system that is Internet-accessible and has a browser can be used for this purpose. There is NO NEED to register for an account, and you may start using Driveway right away.

To upload and download files:

1. Select the files you wish to upload or download.
2. Provide your e-mail ID (optional) if you’d like to receive the “Download” and “Delete” links by email. If you do not enter your email ID, you will not be able to download or delete the file.
3. Depending upon your purpose of usage, click on “Send Files for Read” or “Send Files for Edit” option. If you had not entered your email ID, only the file read or file edit link would appear on the confirmation page. You can save these links for downloading the files anytime in future.

The next-best-thing is that you can upload multiple files with a maximum size limit of 500 MB per file! So with Driveway, you don’t have to split that PowerPoint presentation into a few smaller files, which was what I used to do back when the highest thumbdrive capacity was 128MB!

And if you’re done with the file and would like to delete it from the system or whatever, just enter your email ID when you uploaded the files and you will receive an email with links to download or delete the file. Click on the “Delete” link of the particular file and it will be deleted from the Driveway System immediately.

Please note that files are kept in the Driveway System for up to 90 days from the last date of access to the file. So if you don’t want your files to be scattered in the Internet, you might want to remember removing them after you’re done
http://chenpn.com/2007/07/18/drivewa...00mb-per-file/





Net Radio "Compromise" Hinged on DRM Adoption
Ken Fisher

As we reported Friday, the looming royalty crunch on Internet radio that would have begun today (July 15) was narrowly averted last week by a temporary reprieve from SoundExchange. Now it appears that a lasting compromise is indeed possible, but such a compromise will likely mean mandatory DRM (Digital Rights Management) for Internet radio.

The original decision by the Copyright Royalty Board would have tripled royalties over the next three years: an increase which many webcasters said would straight-up put them out of business. Political positioning or not, SoundExchange didn't want July 15 to be a date that lived on in infamy, so they offered a temporary reprieve and laid out the terms for a new compromise. We have to agree with Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), who warned that a July 15th cut-off could have made the situation rather unfavorable for SoundExchange. "Whatever congressmen and women have heard to date, you're going to hear five to ten times as much after July 15 [if net radio stations go dark]," Inslee told a hearing of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Small Business.

That catastrophe has been averted, and SoundExchange looks ready to deal. Yet it appears that the CRB-backed royalty increase and the increased per-station fees may be leveraged to accomplish something else the music industry would really like to see: Internet radio locked down in DRM.

After news of the temporary compromise broke, SoundExchange eventually distributed a press release that characterized its compromise offer. It speaks for itself (emphasis added):

"SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in 'streamripping'—turning Internet radio performances into a digital music library," reads the statement.

A source at a major MP3-based Internet radio station who did not want to be named told Ars Technica that this is not the first time that SoundExchange has expressed interest in seeing streaming media locked down with DRM, but this is the first time it has been laid down on the table as absolutely necessary to any compromise that would deviate from the royalty agreement already approved by the Copyright Board.

The source also tells me that DRM is the only plausible "tool" at the disposal of webcasters to accomplish SoundExchange's goal of working to stop music "streamripping." It would appear that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The music industry is very worried about users recording Internet radio for the purposes of "disaggregating" music, and the message seems to be that if webcasters will scratch the industry's back, then a better deal is possible. Too bad it's a deal that could kill another potential avenue of fair use (recording radio), and limit users' ability to enjoy radio by limiting playback to clients that support DRM.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-adoption.html





Digital Freedom Campaign Responds to Latest RIAA Attempts to Hold Internet Radio Hostage
Press Release

RIAA Admits 'Stream-ripping' Is Not a Problem

The Digital Freedom Campaign today responded to a statement made by Recording Industry Association of America Senior Vice President of Government Relations, Mitch Glazier in a recent edition of Technology Daily, noting that "stream-ripping," an unrelated issue to the current Internet radio royalty rate debates, was not necessarily a problem.

Mr. Glazier, addressing the logic behind a sudden effort by the recording industry to require webcasters to adopt anti-'stream-ripping' technology was asked whether stream-ripping was even a problem, stated, "why wait until it is a big problem to start addressing it? There are available technologies in the marketplace to address this issue." The 'stream-ripping' issue is not relevant to the Internet royalty rate decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in March, and was not mentioned in the CRB ruling.

"The music industry's top lobbyist is calling for the implementation of a burdensome, costly, and completely unnecessary technology by webcasters who play and promote the artists the RIAA claims to represent. He then admits that the issue is "not a big problem," said Jennifer Stoltz, a spokesperson for the Digital Freedom Campaign. "For the RIAA to try to impose unrealistic and wholly unnecessary technical mandates on an innovative and vibrant industry as part of larger, unrelated negotiations process is baffling.

"The specific issue at hand is not commercial piracy, but rather fair use of legally recorded music for personal use, which is perfectly legal," Stoltz continued. "Requiring webcasters to implement mandatory digital rights management technologies to prevent any personal recording of Internet radio streams is an imposition on both webcasters and consumers. It is a costly solution without even a hint of a problem. There is no evidence whatsoever that stream-ripping or commercial piracy from Internet radio is an issue, and the RIAA and SoundExchange should proceed with the ongoing negotiations with webcasters without demanding provisions that would further harm and inconvenience Internet radio listeners."

The Digital Freedom Campaign supports the fair compensation of artists for their work, but also believes the imposition of unsustainable fees on internet broadcasters will hurt innovators, music fans, and independent and non- mainstream musicians. The moratorium on the imposition of new fees on Internet broadcasters while negotiations toward a resolution are underway is positive for the industry as a whole. That said, the DFC is extremely concerned by reports that, as part of the "compromise," SoundExchange has demanded that all internet radio stations implement mandatory digital rights management technologies. No evidence has been produced to justify this extraordinary imposition on consumers, and is unfortunate that as the record industry is moving away from DRM that frustrates digital music buyers, SoundExchange is attempting to foist new DRM mandates on digital radio listeners.

The Digital Freedom Campaign fights for consumer rights in a digital age that enables literally anyone and everyone to be a creator, an innovator or an artist -- to produce music, to create cutting-edge videos and photos, and to share their creative work. Digital technology empowers individuals to enjoy these new works when, where, and how they want, and to participate in the artistic process. These are basic freedoms that must be protected and nurtured. The Digital Freedom campaign is dedicated to defending the rights of students, artists, innovators, and consumers to create and make lawful use of new technologies and lawfully acquired content free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly and abusive lawsuits.

For more information about the Digital Freedom campaign, please visit us at http://www.digitalfreedom.org/.
http://sev.prnewswire.com/radio/2007...9072007-1.html





FMC Files Complaint Over Clear Channel Practices
FMQB

Last month, the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) accused Clear Channel of forcing musicians to give up their digital copyrights in order to get the airplay that is required under the payola consent decree. Now the FMC has formally filed a complaint with the FCC over the matter.

In the FMC's filing, the organization is asking that the FCC rule that artists who waive their digital rights in exchange for airplay are actually sponsoring broadcasts, and rules relating to sponsorship should apply to those artists. The FMC notes that it has filed the complaint to "resolve any possible uncertainty as to the applicability of the commission's sponsorship-identification rules to certain broadcast programming carried by Clear Channel Communications Inc."

"This is naked and transparent pay-for-play," said FMC policy director Michael Bracy. "The fact that Clear Channel would ask artists to give up a valuable royalty as a condition of even having their song considered for airplay questions their commitment to stamping out payola. The fact that the move comes as part of the payola settlement is unbelievable. Clear Channel has responded to allegations of payola with payola."

Last week, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) sent an open letter to the heads of CBS Radio, Citadel, Clear Channel and Entercom, questioning their commitment to ending payola in radio. The letter was prompted by the FMC's accusations against CC.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=440611





Disney Music Label Offers New CD Format
Yinka Adegoke

Walt Disney Co. music label Hollywood Records is offering a new CD format with extra features to encourage compact-disc purchases in a bid to reverse declining CD sales.

Hollywood Records on Wednesday unveiled its new CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format with digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty.

The new format also replaces the traditional CD booklet and plastic jewel case with recyclable packaging.

Teen punk band Jonas Brothers will be the first act to use the technology when they release their self-titled album on August 7.

Music companies have been seeking new ways to give buyers more value from recorded music sales in hopes of turning around declining sales trends of regular CDs.

U.S. CD sales were down nearly 20 percent in the first half of 2007 as more young buyers digitally download music and piracy runs rampant.

Disney executives hope to hold the interest of fans by offering content similar to the extras on movie DVDs and convince them that pure music products still offer good value.

Recorded music is also competing with video games and other forms of entertainment for a share of consumers' disposable income.

The content on a CDVU+ can be downloaded and accessed online and off. The label said the extra content had been produced for the new format rather than using the band's outtakes or widely available material, such as existing music videos.

"We really believe if you're going to give consumers what they want, we should do it in a way they're used to," said Ken Bunt, Hollywood Records' senior vice president of marketing.

Hollywood Records is a label within Disney Music Group, which last year had the two biggest selling CDs in the U.S., the High School Musical soundtrack and country singer Rascal Flatts' "Me And My Gang."

Other acts include Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. Bunt said the company is already making plans to release albums from Duff and two other big selling acts -- The Cheetah Girls and Atreyu -- on CDVU+.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...21191420070718





Record Labels Try to Bottle up Leaks

Music executives say prerelease album exposure hurts sales, and they're cracking down on a key source of the piracy: the media.
Eric Benderoff

Prince's newest album, "Planet Earth," won't hit stores until July 24, but it's possible to buy it now on eBay -- and that's not unusual.

Prerelease "leaks" of promotional albums now are commonly found at file-sharing Web sites or on eBay months before an official release date, and once out, can gain massive distribution within hours through downloads on peer-to-peer online music networks.

Last year, high-profile releases by such groups as The Strokes, The Flaming Lips and The Red Hot Chili Peppers were available illegally online weeks before their launch.

More recently, Jack White of The White Stripes gave a Chicago radio station a tongue-lashing this summer for playing his new album, "Icky Thump," three weeks before its release date. The album showed up on various file-sharing sites later that day.

Record companies say such leaks damage sales, and they're cracking down on a key source of prerelease piracy: the media.

Labels are beefing up security by using new encryption and digital watermarking technologies on promotional copies, making it possible to track down the source of unauthorized copies. They also are turning to services such as Web Sheriff or MediaDefender, which aggressively surf the Web for leaked digital copies of music, movies and other copyright-protected content.

When content is found, these companies seek to take it down, or in the case of MediaDefender, flood the Web with bogus or "spoof" MP3 files that have the same name as the music but are empty. On the peer-to-peer networks notorious for pirated copies of music, fans who want a given recording may have to sift through countless bogus files before finding the real thing.

"We create a 'needle-in-the-haystack' for people who want the music," said Randy Saaf, MediaDefender's chief executive. "When the stuff gets out there, it's our theory that you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube."

The new tactics are part of the battle to stop sliding music sales. Album sales -- including digital and physical copies -- have fallen 15 percent so far in 2007, according to statistics released earlier this month from Nielsen Soundscan. That is on top of a 13 percent slide in CD shipments in 2006, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, continuing a trend that saw CD shipments fall in five of the last six years.

Ironically, record labels are finding the promotional cycle they've long used to build buzz for a new release can backfire in the Internet age. Thousands of copies are sent to reviewers, record stations and others close to the music business months in advance of the release date to get fans interested in the music and stoke demand. But illegal album copies often are leaked well before official release dates, putting a dent in sales and, at times, forcing labels to push up an album's launch.

For music, "every major release can be found on the Internet typically two to four months before the label intends to release an album," said John Giacobbi, managing director and founder of Web Sheriff Ltd. "It can get out of hand very quickly and cut sales in half."

"For any release that is expected to sell over 8,000 copies, we'll usually find a CD for sale [on eBay] before the release date," said Nan Warshaw, a co-owner of Chicago's Bloodshot Records. "Most likely they are from media reviewers."

Sometimes, the artist speaks up.

On May 30, three weeks before the June 19 release of the White Stripes' "Icky Thump" album, Chicago radio station WKQX-FM 101.1, known as Q101, played the entire album on the air without approvals from the band's label, Warner Bros. Records, or the band.

"That was the original leak of the album," Giacobbi said. "Word got around of this pretty quickly and then everyone started to rip the stream."

Some listeners who heard the broadcast started making copies, one of which made it to the Swedish peer-to-peer Web site The Pirate Bay, where fans could download the "Q101 radio rip" of "Icky Thump."

The quality was poor, but lead singer Jack White was so irate at the radio leak that he called from a tour in Spain "looking specifically for me, to yell at me for leaking the album," wrote Electra, the Q101 disc jockey who played the album during her show, on her blog.

When White called, her show was off the air so she took the call with two other deejays. The conversation happened off the air.

"We tried to explain where we were coming from -- someone gave us a copy of a record that we were really excited to play, and the whole experience was an hourlong lovefest for him and his band -- but he wasn't having it," Electra wrote. "He hung up, very, very angry and I thought I was going to cry."

The leaked copy came from someone associated with the record, said Marv Nyren, the regional vice president and general manager in Chicago for Emmis Communications, which owns the stations. The person with the album told the station that a few songs already were being played in Europe.

"We told the label we had a copy of the album," Nyren said, "and that we would like to play it once." The label said they didn't really want the station to play the album, but we "don't think we'll send you a cease-and-desist order" if you do, Nyren said.
So the station was under the impression that it would be OK if it played the album, just once.

"Radio stations have been doing this for 50 years. We get music in advance and we play it," he said. "Many labels say they'll send it to us because they want us to play the [music]. We never, ever try to hurt an artist. It doesn't do me any good to have Jack White mad at us."

Warner Bros. could not be reached for comment.

Although many people on the Web speculated that the episode was a stunt to promote the album, it was not, and the station apologized to White and the record label.

Bloodshot's Warshaw understands why White was angry.

"It was not supposed to happen," she said. "It was something beyond his control."

That is the main reason why labels want to slow the prerelease piracy, because it takes control out of their hands.

"After the release date, it's about educating fans," she said. "By stealing a CD [getting it from a friend or on a peer-to-peer network], it's taking money out of the band's hands.

"But prerelease, it's about leaking material. You can try to control it," she said.

One way Bloodshot is trying to control the problem is by limiting the number of tracks reviewers receive of certain recordings. Instead of sending the entire album, the label will distribute two MP3s to reviewers. Other reviewers still receive a CD, but if they are found to be selling prerelease discs at sites such as eBay, Bloodshot removes them from its lists.

Giacobbi, with Web Sheriff, says many CDs sent to reviewers can be traced. Some recordings could have a special watermark; others, a certain digital code.

"We terminate dozens of auctions on eBay every day," he said of his 20-person team that constantly monitors the Internet for violations. "And then we try to get information on the seller and go after them."

Web Sheriff works with dozens of labels in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

For a digital leak, it can track which Internet service provider was used for sending music files to a peer-to-peer network. It sends a note to the ISP, which then can then notify the computer user they are engaging in illegal activity.

Each computer's Web connection has a unique Internet protocol address.

"The ISPs usually always cooperate," Giacobbi said.

But Saaf, whose MediaDefender floods the Web with bogus files, said the take-down approach only goes so far.

"You really can't take it down once it's out there. It can spread quickly," he said. "So we try to put up some speed bumps to slow it down."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...i-business-hed





You Can Play the Record, but Don't Touch
Nell Boyce

At the Library of Congress, in a small, white room with bright red carpet, physicist Carl Haber sits down to play a record from 1930. It's a recording of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe." But here's the strange thing: This record is broken.

"It looks like somebody just got hungry and took a bite out of it," says Haber. He has positioned the record on a turntable and fitted the broken piece back into place, like it's a jigsaw puzzle. "If we spun this thing fast, the piece would come flying off, you know, and maybe hit somebody," he says.

But this turntable doesn't spin like a normal record player. And there's no needle hovering over the record. Instead, there's a camera linked to a computer. It snaps detailed images of the groove cut into the disc, and uses the images to reconstruct the sound without ever touching the record.

Haber got the idea for this setup a few years ago, when he was driving to work and listening to NPR. He heard a report on how historic audio recordings can be so fragile that they risk being damaged if someone plays them by dragging a needle over their surfaces. It made Haber wonder if he could get the sound off old recordings without touching their delicate surfaces. He worked with a colleague, Vitaliy Fadeyev, and they managed to reconstruct sound on a 1950 recording of "Goodnight, Irene" performed by the Weavers.

This was just a proof of principle. They have now developed their hands-off technique to the point that it's being tested at the Library of Congress to see whether it's good enough to someday scan the library's vast archive of sound recordings.

One thing they've learned: A broken record is no problem. Haber clicks a mouse and the camera takes pictures of the groove on "Iolanthe."

"And by taking these pictures, it essentially just unwinds the record into a big long stripe," Haber explains.

The picture appears on Haber's computer screen. It looks like a black and white photo of a tire tread.

"Here's the break," he says, pointing to a line. "You can see, there's a little piece of dust, little scratch marks on it." The computer ignores all these flaws as it translates the images into sound.

It used to take Haber hours and hours to re-create short sound clips. Now his improved system, which he calls IRENE, can scan a record quickly enough to make it roughly comparable to a trained technician playing an old record in real-time.

IRENE was installed at the Library of Congress late last year. The library has millions of old audio recordings, and many are in poor condition or use obsolete formats. Peter Alyea, a digital conservation specialist at the library, says that to play old records, you often need trained technicians who can do things like choose the proper needle out of dozens of options. But if IRENE lives up to its potential, Alyea says, anyone could make a digital copy of an old record.

"They don't have to worry about any of the technical aspects," he says. "They simply can stick a disc on it and get some sound out of it."

Alyea says it's like a photocopy machine for sound. "It brings the possibility of automation much closer to reality for these kinds of materials."

And given that he has thousands and thousands of records that he would like to digitize and make widely available, the prospect of automation is hugely attractive. Audio recordings could be scanned in the same way that some libraries are now scanning all of their books into a digital format. But Alyea needs to know: Exactly how good is IRENE at making digital copies?

So he and Haber are putting IRENE through its paces. One test involves a disc etched with simple tones to see how well IRENE can read some old-fashioned discs coated with lacquer. The library has thousands of these one-of-a-kind records. The format is obsolete.

But luckily, Haber says, audio engineer George Horn still makes them at Fantasy Studios in California. Horn cut some discs with well-defined tones. Haber says, IRENE can reproduce the tones amazingly well.

"The machine is not adding its own color. It's not adding anything of its own nature," he says.

Haber says IRENE does take some things away. He plays one record from 1953, a Les Paul and Mary Ford recording of the song "Johnny Is the Boy for Me." This record has a bad skip in it that's very apparent on a regular record player. But IRENE skips over the skip like it's not there.

Haber plays an IRENE reconstruction of another record, a very worn shellac disc with a song called "Hemlock Blues," performed in the 1950s by David Lee Johnson. It's owned by a collector who says it's too damaged to play it with a regular needle. But IRENE scanned it and got some decent sound.

IRENE isn't perfect. It removes pops and clicks, but it sometimes has a hissing noise in the background. Still, the Library of Congress finds all this encouraging enough that it has started testing the system on hundreds of discs, what Alyea describes as a kind of simulation of what a mass digitization project would be like.

When taking flat photographs, it can create a three-dimensional image of the groove on a record, or on an old wax cylinder. Haber been working with the University of California's Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, to reconstruct sound from field recordings, like one wax cylinder made around 1911 that features a Native American called Ishi.

Haber says it's amazing to hear these voices from the past. "There's this whole human and cultural component to what we're looking at," says Haber, whose main job is studying subatomic particles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. "That makes it wonderful."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=11851842





Limiting Ads of Junk Food to Children
Brooks Barnes

Trix are no longer for kids — at least not on children’s television shows. But Cocoa Puffs are another matter.

Trying to persuade critics the industry does not need government regulation, 11 big food companies, including McDonald’s, Campbell Soup and PepsiCo, have agreed to stop advertising to children under 12 products that do not meet certain nutritional standards. Some of the companies, like Coca-Cola, have already withdrawn all such commercials or are in the process of doing so. Others, like General Mills, said they would withdraw them over the next year or so, while a handful agreed to expand their self-imposed bans to radio, print and Internet advertising.

Still, the agreements will probably amount to a ripple rather than a sea change in terms of what foods children see pitched on their favorite television shows and Web sites. For example, while General Mills will no longer be advertising Trix to the 12-and-under crowd, it will continue to peddle Cocoa Puffs, which have one less gram of sugar per serving. And it will be able to continue advertising Trix on television shows and other media that are considered to cater to “families” rather than just children.

That qualifier amounts to a major loophole, given the media-watching habits of children. An episode of Nickelodon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” for instance, is viewed by an average audience of 876,000 children age 6 to 11, according to Nielsen Media Research, and falls in the category of shows that are off-limits to ads for junk food. But “American Idol” from Fox, which qualifies as a family show, attracts 2.1 million children in the age group.

The companies have also agreed for the first time to open their marketing plans to the Council of Better Business Bureaus and its Children’s Advertising Review Unit, which will review them and report publicly on the findings. This scrutiny and the pledges to self-regulate, which will be announced at a Federal Trade Commission event today, are an attempt to show corporate responsiveness to growing concerns about childhood obesity.

“We are hopeful that people will look at this and say that the community has done a substantial, enormous amount of work,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.

Advertisers spend some $900 million annually on television tailored to children under 12, according to industry estimates. Together, the companies involved represent two-thirds of the total children’s advertising market, according to the Better Business Bureau. Cadbury Adams, Coca-Cola, Hershey, Kellogg, Kraft, Mars and Unilever are the other participating companies.

The nutritional parameters vary by company, but are all based on the 2005 United States Dietary Guidelines developed by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services.

A pat on the back from critics is unlikely. The pledges, which were made under the threat of regulatory intervention and, in some cases, the threat of lawsuits, fall short of the demands from child advocacy groups. Most critics have been pushing for uniform guidelines for marketers to follow and for oversight from a body with the authority to enforce them.

“This is great public relations for the companies, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough,” said Susan Linn, co-founder of the Boston-based group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “It is going to be impossible to monitor if the companies are actually doing what they say.”

To some degree, the pledges appeared to be an effort by the food companies to get out in front of a forthcoming government study on childhood obesity. Senators Sam Brownback and Tom Harkin announced July 5 that they would postpone a report from a task force they formed with the Federal Communications Commission in lieu of the companies’ plans to announce concessions today. At the time, Senator Brownback said, “The extension will allow for a more thorough examination of new initiatives.”

The financial impact of the pledges on television networks like Nickelodeon, ABC Family and Cartoon Network will depend on how well the food companies can tweak their products. Many of the companies are not automatically withdrawing their products from the airwaves; rather, they are trying to reformulate the foods to meet nutritional guidelines. If they cannot do so to their satisfaction, they say they will replace ads for so-called junk foods with spots for healthier alternatives.

Cadbury Adams, the maker of Bubblicious chewing gum, says it will either withdraw advertisements of the brand from certain media or will direct half of its current Bubblicious budget to the promotion of healthier eating habits. The company declined to specify how much it spends promoting Bubblicious each year, but said that a healthier habit might be choosing a smaller portion of gum.

MTV Networks, which owns Nickelodeon and other channels popular with younger viewers, expects the agreements to have minimal impact on its bottom line. “Many products sold by these companies haven’t been on our air for years,” said Jim Perry, executive vice president for ad sales at Nickelodeon and MTV Networks Kids and Family Group. Marva Smalls, executive vice president for Nickelodeon public affairs, added, “We have been on the road pressing for this.”

Similarly, some of the participating companies said that their ad budgets would not be altered in any meaningful way; PepsiCo, which makes Pepsi Cola and Frito-Lay snack foods, said that its children’s advertising budget represents only 1 percent of its overall ad budget. Starting Jan. 1, PepsiCo will advertise to children only products that meet the criteria set out in its 2004 “Smart Spot” nutritional program.

Under PepsiCo’s pledge, only two products can be marketed to children under 12, according to Lynn Markley, vice president for health and wellness. They are Baked Cheetos, which have 50 percent less fat than regular Cheetos, and Gatorade. In the case of Gatorade, the company says the brand will sponsor ads that give tips to children on participating in sports. The product itself will not be pictured.

PepsiCo’s commitment will also translate to a diminished role for Cap’n Crunch, the familiar mascot of the cereal made by the company’s Quaker Oats division. Ms. Markley said that the Cap’n will remain on cereal boxes but that as of Jan. 1, 2008, he will not appear in any television, print, Internet or other advertising to children under 12. This will mean an end to his interactive arcade-style game for children at www.capncrunch.com.

Other companies agreed in their pledges to limit their use of licensed characters like SpongeBob or Scooby-Doo.

Deborah Platt Majoras, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, called the various pledges “a significant step” and urged more food makers to join the effort. “While changes in food marketing alone will not solve the nation’s childhood obesity problem, these actions will help make a healthy choice the easy choice,” she said in a statement.

Efforts to curtail junk food advertisements started escalating about three years ago, as evidence of the problem of child obesity started mounting. Food companies, concluding that the issue would not go away and fearing the kind of government scrutiny given to tobacco companies, started trying to police themselves.

Kraft was an early leader. In January 2005, the company said it would stop advertising products like Oreos, Chips Ahoy and most Oscar Mayer Lunchables on programs aimed at children ages 6 to 11. Other companies followed, including Kellogg, which said last month that it would stop marketing foods that have more than 12 grams of sugar per serving to children. These include such childhood favorites as Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Pop-Tarts.

General Mills said it looked to Kellogg to establish its own nutritional standards. “We saw that public interest groups praised that level, and we decided to line up together on that,” said Christina L. Shea, senior vice president for external relations.

Ms. Shea said that some brands, like Cocoa Puffs, already complied with the standard of 12 grams of sugar or less per serving. Trix cereal, however, has 13 grams. Ms. Shea said the company would reformulate the cereal no later than the end of 2008, or not advertise the brand to children after that point.

Elizabeth Olson contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/business/18food.html





Clip and Save Just Got Easier

Online coupon company gives shoppers the world without turning over their personal information
Sandra Guy

Coupon clippers have a new high-tech option to get their bargain fix with startup Zimini.

The company offers coupons in a desktop application so shoppers can remain anonymous. Shoppers cite their preferences without giving their name, address, telephone number or e-mail address.

Zimini highlights the locations of participating retailers on a map, and offers a choice of 200 demographic characteristics of customers to send coupons, promotions and other offers. The software launched on June 7.

Zimini charges merchants $49.95 per coupon or promotion. Participation is free to individual and business consumers.

"Consumers don't have to worry about spam solicitations, because they never provide an e-mail address," said Robert Carlton, CEO, president and founder.

Carlton came up with the idea for Zimini and the coupon software three years ago when peer-to-peer technology was the rage. Though peer-to-peer was the inspiration, the software takes the form of a downloadable software application.

"People find it easy and convenient to download music and movies for free," said the 41-year-old Carlton, who spent 18 years working in marketing and communications for Ford Motor Co., GTE, Intel and McDonald's. "I thought, 'How can we use the same peer-to-peer technology to provide a service and keep users' identities safe and private?'"

Shoppers who use Zimini's software build a profile of their coupon preferences. They can also choose a ZIP code for home, work, vacation or business travel from which to receive special offers.

They receive the offers on their desktop, not by e-mail. Zimini automatically zaps outdated offers.

Zimini's technology prevents users from forwarding the coupons and promotions.

For merchants, Zimini manages customer data, includes an automatic legal disclaimer on each promotion, and offers a Print-Once technology that allows only one copy to be printed from a desktop.

The company uses its geographic information system-based technology to recommend the geographic area that will best respond to a promotion.

"People will not drive very far for a pizza or a burger," Carlton said. "But they'll go much farther to see a sports game or their favorite entertainer."

Roberto Scolaro, owner of EspressoTiamo.com, a Waltham, Mass.-based online coffee and tea business, started using Zimini's software to offer customers a 20 percent "summer sale" discount prior to their online checkout. Scolaro has no bricks-and-mortar stores.

Scolaro liked the idea of Zimini pinpointing potential customers, and appreciated the attention he receives from a startup.

"You're not wasting money throwing thousands of e-mails at just anybody," he said.

Zimini was one of 60 startups out of 400 applicants chosen to show off its technology at the DEMO.com conference, an emerging technology conference that features technologies it believes show the most promise.

Lisa Bradner, a Chicago-based senior analyst at Forrester Research, said Zimini has a compelling case for bargain hunters, but needs to strengthen its business case for retailers.

"It's appealing to consumers because their participation won't result in their getting 10,000 e-mails from other companies," she said. "But retailers are not getting data on who is redeeming the coupons or on other coupons the customer is receiving."

Zimini faces competition from giants such as Coupons.com and AOL Shortcuts, which is set to launch its online coupon business this fall, and, to a lesser extent, the former Cool Savings, a Chicago-based money-losing online coupon site that morphed into Q Interactive, a profitable online lead-generation site for the likes of Walt Disney, Wal-Mart and Pepsi.

Retailers are getting more sophisticated about rewarding customers for their loyalty as they enter a store, and that, too, could hurt couponing, Bradner said. Retailers such as Jewel grocery stores and new CVS drugstores let shoppers scan their loyalty cards into a machine, and receive coupons for merchandise they would likely buy based on their shopping history.
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/g...ecol18.article





Virtual Marketers Have Second Thoughts About Second Life

Firms find that avatars created by participants in the online society aren't avid shoppers.
Alana Semuels

SECOND LIFE — a three-dimensional online society where publicity is cheap and the demographic is edgy and certainly computer-savvy — should be a marketer's paradise.

But it turns out that plugging products is as problematic in the virtual world as it is anywhere else.

At http://www.secondlife.com — where the cost is $6 a month for premium citizenship — shopping, at least for real-world products, isn't a main activity. Four years after Second Life debuted, some marketers are second-guessing the money and time they've put into it.

"There's not a compelling reason to stay," said Brian McGuinness, vice president of Aloft, a brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. that is closing its Second Life shop and donating its virtual land to the nonprofit social-networking group TakingITGlobal.

Linden Lab, the San Francisco firm that created Second Life, sells companies and people pieces of the landscape where they can build stores, conference halls and gardens. Individuals create avatars, or virtual representations of themselves, that travel around this online society, exploring and schmoozing with other avatars. Land developed by users, rather than real-world companies, is among the most popular places in Second Life.

But the sites of many of the companies remaining in Second Life are empty. During a recent in-world visit, Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad Island was devoid of visitors and the virtual staff that was supposed to be online.

The schedule of events on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s site was blank, and the green landscape of Dell Island was deserted. Signs posted on the window of the empty American Apparel store said it had closed up shop.

McGuinness said Starwood's venture into Second Life did accomplish something. Feedback from denizens gave Aloft ideas for its physical hotels.

The suggestions included putting radios in showers and painting the lobbies in earth tones rather than primary colors. But now that the design initiative is over, he said, it's difficult to attract people to the virtual hotel to help build the real-world brand.

For some advertisers, the problem is that Second Life is a fantasyland, and the representations of the people who play in it don't have human needs. Food and drink aren't necessary, teleporting is the easiest way to get around and clothing is optional. In fact, the human form itself is optional.

Avatars can play games, build beach huts, dress up like furry animals, flirt with strangers — sometimes all at once.

Their interests seem to tend toward the risque. Ian Schafer, chief executive of online marketing firm Deep Focus, which advises clients about entering virtual worlds, said he recently toured Second Life. He started at the Aloft hotel and found it empty. He moved on to casinos, brothels and strip clubs, and they were packed. Schafer said he found in his research that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia."

Another problem for some is that Second Life doesn't have enough active residents.

On its website, Second Life says the number of total residents is more than 8 million. But that counts people who signed in once and never returned, as well as multiple avatars for individual residents. Even at peak times, only about 30,000 to 40,000 users are logged on, said Brian Haven, an analyst with Forrester Research.

"You're talking about a much smaller audience than advertisers are used to reaching," Haven said.

Some in the audience don't want to be reached. After marketers began entering Second Life, an avatar named Urizenus Sklar — in the real world, University of Toronto philosophy professor Peter Ludlow — wrote in the public-relations blog Strumpette that the community was "being invaded by an army of old world meat-space corporations."

He and other residents accused companies of lacking creativity by setting up traditional-looking stores that didn't fit in. His column was reproduced in the Second Life Herald.

Nissan Motor Co., a subject of such protests, has since transformed its presence in Second Life from a car vending machine to an "automotive amusement park," where avatars can test gravity-defying vehicles and ride hamster balls. Sun Micro has made its participation more interactive and fanciful, Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos said.

Ludlow isn't impressed. He said most firms were more interested in the publicity they received from their ties with Second Life than in the digital world itself. "It was a way to brand themselves as being leading-edge," he said.

Angry avatars have taken virtual action. Reebok weathered a nuclear bomb attack and customers were shot outside the American Apparel store. Avatars are creating fantasy knockoffs of brand-name products too.

Some buying and selling does go on in Second Life. An avatar can acquire currency — called Linden dollars — by earning it or buying it with U.S. dollars. (The exchange rate is 268 Lindens to $1.) With a stack of Linden dollars, an avatar can spice up his or her look or while away the time in a casino.

Only a few other virtual worlds allow avatars to create and sell content as Second Life does. But users are flocking to the other worlds, in part because some don't require people to download software to take up residence.

Others just want to access a larger community than Second Life offers. Between May and June, the population of active avatars declined 2.5%, and the volume of U.S. money exchanged within the world fell from a high of $7.3 million in March to $6.8 million in June.

Companies are following them. IBM Corp., which has an extensive presence in Second Life, is expanding into the other environments, including There, which features a digital version of the popular TV show "Laguna Beach," and Entropia Universe, which pits users against one another in a sci-fi civilization.

Consulting firms that were set up to bring brands into Second Life are busy helping clients explore other worlds.

One such agency, Millions of Us, recently announced that it had formed a partnership with Gaia Online, a site popular with teenagers, and CEO Reuben Steiger said it would be unveiling more soon. Millions of Us had previously worked only with Second Life.

"It's not about whether Second Life is good or bad," Steiger said. "It's just that there are a lot of alternatives."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,3135510.story





Virtual Frets, Actual Sweat
Katie Zezima

KEVIN Doyle and Ivan Wine strode to the front of River Gods and picked up the guitars with the confidence of two guys who had played this bar and those instruments many times before.

With their wives watching from a nearby table, Mr. Doyle, 30, a software consultant clad in a Dewar’s Scotch T-shirt, and Mr. Wine, 32, a graphic designer with an unruly goatee and thick black glasses, strapped on the guitars and chose a song from the list on a projection screen.

They planted themselves in position as the first plodding strains of Black Sabbath’s head-banging heavy-metal classic “War Pigs” emanated from the speakers. As the song’s tempo increased, they frantically fingered the multicolor buttons on the necks of the guitars, hitting them with authority in time to the song’s signature “dun-dun-dun” riffs.

But the two men were not showboating. They were actually concentrating, biting their lips and staring almost trancelike at the screen, watching colored balls falling toward them on an electronic fretboard.

When Mr. Doyle and Mr. Wine finished the last riff, the audience whooped and cheered. The newly minted music gods offered high fives as they returned to their seats.

“We rocked the song,” Mr. Wine said.

This is Guitar Hero night, where curious bar patrons, self-styled bad boys and video game addicts, all usually a drink or two deep, play the game Guitar Hero on a big screen, and fulfill their dreams of being a preening, prancing rock ’n’ roll frontman.

Bars from Roanoke, Va., to San Diego are offering Guitar Hero nights, some providing players with big-hair wigs, Viking helmets and other colorful garb to help them complete the momentary illusion of being Eric Clapton or Lenny Kravitz. Others serve as hosts of competitive tournaments where the winners receive real guitars.

Players come because, for most, it’s as close as they’ll get to being an actual rock star.

“The audience cheers and it’s almost like being onstage,” Mr. Wine said. “You don’t get that playing the game in your living room.”

Within the past year, bar owners and managers have introduced the game, usually played in basements and bedrooms, into their locations to spike business on otherwise slow nights. Now they say Guitar Hero night is the new karaoke night — without the embarrassment of atrocious vocals.

“It’s for people like me, who can’t play guitar but want to,” said Jasper Coolidge, the head talent booker at Pianos, a downtown Manhattan bar that features Guitar Hero night every Tuesday.

Mr. Coolidge said business on Tuesdays had tripled at the bar, which typically attracts a post-college crowd, since the event began in April. “We wanted some sort of quirky thing that wasn’t your typical New York dance-club house music night,” he said.

At River Gods, where the crowd is filled with high-tech workers in rock T-shirts, blue jeans and Converse sneakers, bar regulars and bewildered patrons who just stopped by for a drink, some of the players take it much more seriously.

“There are a couple of people who are these cartoon-character version of nerds,” said Jeff MacIsaac, the entertainment producer here. “They’re playing their Game Boys until Guitar Hero starts. They’re actually playing video games before the video games start.”

Guitar Hero requires dexterous players to press buttons on a plastic guitar in time with a song chosen from a library of familiar rock tunes like “Message in a Bottle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” As the player watches colored notes scroll down a television screen, the object is to hit the corresponding colored buttons (along with a second strum button) in time with the notes to score points. The harder the level, the faster the notes fall and the more complicated the chords.

The original version of Guitar Hero was developed by Harmonix, a company that creates musical-theme video games, and released by the software company RedOctane for PlayStation 2 in 2005. But it was not until the release in late 2006 of a sequel, Guitar Hero 2, which featured a larger catalog of songs (“Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine, “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana) and a new head-to-head play mode, that the game found its way into bars. About three million copies of Guitar Hero 2 have been sold for PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360, according to Harmonix and RedOctane. No one knows how many copies are being featured in bars.

Greg LoPiccolo, one of the creators of Guitar Hero and a vice president of product development at Harmonix, said the game was created to help people experience the thrill of performing in a club. But he didn’t anticipate that it would actually catch on in bars.

“We never intended for it to happen,” said Mr. LoPiccolo, who usually selects Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Texas Blood” when he plays the game. “But once we saw it take place, it was kind of perfect, really.”

Prowess at Guitar Hero doesn’t necessarily equal expertise on a real guitar. At River Gods, Ben Azar, a 27-year-old guitar student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, eyed the game’s guitar controller skeptically when it was handed to him. Just press the buttons to the beat of the song, he was told by one of the event’s organizers.

As Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me” started, Mr. Azar watched the screen as his fingers worked the frets, but he often looked confused, unsure why a note was missed or exactly what rhythm the guitar line was following.

After finishing his song, Mr. Azar said that using the Guitar Hero controller forced him to concentrate more on pressing buttons than preening like a rock god. “It’s very different,” Mr. Azar said. “It’s like making love to a rubber doll.”

Even though the game doesn’t accurately simulate the mechanics of playing a guitar, players said that the lure of Guitar Hero lies mostly in the mythology of the instrument — one that for every rock fan conjures up images of Pete Townshend smashing his guitar on stage or Jimi Hendrix setting his aflame.

“When one thinks of rock ’n’ roll, the first thing to come to mind is usually someone wailing away at a guitar,” Mr. Wine said later in an e-mail message. “The guitar is at the heart of almost every rock band out there that is or has been.”

Others players, like Shandi Sullivan, a former contestant on “America’s Next Top Model” and a regular at Pianos, appreciate Guitar Hero more for the experience of dressing up and performing for a live audience.

After discovering the game in April at a friend’s apartment, Ms. Sullivan started coming to Pianos every Tuesday, and she even bought a PlayStation 2 to practice with in her apartment. At the bar’s weekly Guitar Hero party, she assumes a different rock ’n’ roll alter ego each time. She has been both Pat Benatar and Elvis Presley. Given her choice, though, she still prefers to rock out to Megadeth, and the game has turned her on to contemporary heavy-metal acts like Shadows Fall.

“I can’t wait until the ’80s version comes out,” Ms. Sullivan said. “Eighties music is my life.”

When Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, a sequel featuring the music of such nostalgically coiffed artists as Twisted Sister and Flock of Seagulls, is released on July 24, it will be the last collaboration between Harmonix and RedOctane. Last year, MTV purchased Harmonix, and RedOctane was acquired by the video game publisher Activision.

But the Guitar Hero franchise will rock on. Later this year, RedOctane and Neversoft, a video game studio owned by Activision, plan to release Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and Harmonix will start Rock Band, a Guitar Hero-like game that will also allow players to become drummers, bassists and vocalists.

RedOctane is sponsoring a stage at the Family Values Tour this summer, which includes rock and heavy-metal acts, and it will hold Guitar Hero contests between sets. The winner will receive a guitar autographed by Jonathan Davis, the frontman of Korn.

As with real rock stars, there is plenty of rivalry and ego to be found among the players of Guitar Hero. Mr. Coolidge, the Pianos talent booker, and Caroline Enright, the manager of River Gods, have thrown down a challenge: a New York vs. Boston Guitar Hero competition, preferably to be held when the Red Sox are playing the Yankees.

“We’re going to have a tournament here to decide who is going up there,” Mr. Coolidge said from New York.

In Cambridge, Ms. Enright said she is ready and willing. “It’s on,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/fa...ml?ref=fashion





Firefox Now a Serious Threat to IE in Europe: Report
Stan Beer

Mozilla's Firefox (FF) web browser has made dramatic gains on Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) throughout Europe in the past year with a marked upturn in FF use compared to IE over the past four months, according to French web monitoring service XiTiMonitor.

A study of nearly 96,000 websites carried out during the week of July 2 to July 8 found that FF had 27.8% market share across Eastern and Western Europe, IE had 66.5%, with other browsers including Safari and Opera making up the remaining 5.7%. The July market share represents a massive 3.7% rise since a similar survey in March.

A particularly worrying sign for Microsoft is that in some key European markets FF is threatening to overtake IE as the market leading browser. In Slovenia (47.9%) and Finland (45.4%) FF usage has reached parity with IE, while in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and Ireland, FF has either reached or is nearly at 40% market share.

Countries where FF market share has now reached 30% or more include, Austria, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Latvia.

Strong gains for FF were also reported in France, Sweden and Switzerland where in all three countries FF is now approaching 25% market share.

Although clear market share gains for FF were reported in every single European territory, countries where IE still has not reached 20% market share include Britain, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Norway and Denmark.

Australasia, already a strong FF market, has also seen big gains in FF market share over the past four months, with an increase in FF usage from 24.8% in early March to 28.9% in early July.

Another worrying sign for Microsoft is that a separate survey from XiTiMonitor taken over the same period is that there has been a reluctance of IE users to adopt the latest version of the browser IE7, even in markets where IE is strong.

Only about one third of IE users have adopted IE7 compared to 85% of FF users who have adopted the latest version of the browser, FF2. Significantly, FF2 has a greater market share than IE7 in 17 European territories, while IE7 is ahead of FF2 in 16 territories.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13517/53/





Holes in Firefox Password Manager

The Mozilla developers have fixed a known hole in the password manager of Firefox & Co, but a door remains open for exploitation. If the user gives permission, the inbuilt password manager of the open-source browser saves passwords and enters data into the respective form fields on the user's next visit automatically. This happens not only on the page where the password was saved, but also on all other pages on this server that contain a similar form.

If users are allowed to create their own web pages on a server, as is the case on many community sites, an attacker may emulate the login form to have the access data, which are entered automatically, sent to his own server. In the past, a login form could even be set up to send the data directly to the attacker's server as soon as the submit button was clicked. Firefox entered the data automatically regardless of the target of the specified action. However, the developers have now implemented changes to check the destination to which the data are sent; consequently, the demo run by heise Security no longer worked. But Markus Bucher noticed that it is not necessary to change the destination: rather, it is possible to read out the entered data via JavaScript and then submit them. To do so, the page must simply access the data via the DOM (document.<form>.<field>.value). The updated browsercheck page of heise Security demonstrates how this works.

When asked by heise Security, Mozilla developer Gavin Sharp confirmed that the developers are aware of that problem. Indeed, there were controversial discussions of the issue in the bug database, but further measures were discarded. Automatically entering passwords in other pages increases the user-friendliness on sites with several login pages. And even if this functionality is removed, this does not mean that passwords cannot be stolen. Provided an attacker can place script code on a server, he is able to manipulate the pages as he wishes anyway and has other ways to steal user access data.

The position of the Mozilla developers is quite comprehensible, since the JavaScript security model almost completely relies on the origin of code (same origin policy). If an attacker succeeds in placing malicious code on a server, he may manipulate practically all pages from this server while they are displayed in the browser as he wishes. However, an uneasy feeling remains considering that a password manager enters passwords into faked forms without any user interaction. Somehow, this is reminiscent of a wallet with a hole in it.

From the users' perspective, this means that they should not entrust their passwords to the password manager on web sites that allow other users to create their own pages containing scripts. Otherwise somebody can easily create a page that steals the password as soon as the page is opened (see our password stealing demo for that). This category of sites includes many content management systems including blogs and social networking sites. Specific filtering functions attempting to distinguish good from evil code are not really helpful, since experience shows that they can be bypassed in most cases. Users could also disable JavaScript or use add-ons such as NoScript to set up rules to provide additional protection. In the age of Web 2.0 this would, however, mean that many pages would cease to function. On the other hand it is doubtful that by not using a password manager security levels would be raised, since the resultant need to remember passwords often induces users to choose simplistic passwords and use them on multiple sites.

Update:
Apple's Safari behaves in a similar manner. The browsercheck demo works the same way: on visiting the "evil" page, your password is stolen by JavaScript without any user interaction.
http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/93018





Macrovision Boosts Pirate Headaches with Security Code Blended into Game Code

Macrovision has developed a way to blend security code into actual game code, a shift that could have implications for all manner of digital media traditionally protected by security ‘wrapped’ around, rather than embedded inside, content.

Revealed on July 16, the Asymmetric Code Blending technique is designed to make it difficult for hackers to separate and duplicate just the game code. Game publishers will be able to apply the technology to games distributed online, through Macrovision’s ActiveMARK product, and via physical media, through its SafeDisc Advanced product.

“The security code changes with every game by embedding it with each game,” says Corey Ferengul, executive vise president, marketing and solutions, for Macrovision.

Publishers distributing via physical media also can allow online activation of the games or parts of the game by employing Asymmetrical Code Blending in the SafeDisc Advanced product. With flexible activation accounts, gamers can make backup copies and run the game on multiple and mobile computers without requiring that the physical CD or DVD be present at all times.

Macrovision believes the additional frustration for hackers created by Asymmetric Code Blending will help make game publishers more comfortable with digital distribution in multiple channels including Web 2.0 trends, such as peer-to-peer networks and viral sharing.

Ferengul argues that Code Blending can transform viral sharing of games among users from a worry to an advantage for publishers. For example, he says, the publisher can program the game so that when it is downloaded from the Internet and then shared from one gamer to another, the game automatically reverts to a try-before-you-buy state. The publisher can set rules, such as “try and die,” to time the game out in a certain time period, or to limit the levels into which the new viral user can enter to play.

“If I like a game and want share it, I can do that, but the publisher is protected,” he says. “If it try it and I don’t’ buy it, it dies. It can be that it dies after a time period, or it may be you can do level one, but never higher. You don’t want to take away sharing, but you can do it in a way that protects the publisher and is still valuable to the end user.”

Publishers taking advantage of these distribution options will not only leverage word of mouth promotion among gamers, he says, but also effectively multiply potential points of sale without compromising security in a viral environment.

So far, Macrovision has applied Asymmetric Code Blending only to game content, but when asked whether Macrovision intends to apply it to video, music or other types of digital media, Ferengul says, “We now have this as a part of our engineering expertise.”

Although physical distribution continues to comprise “the lion’s share” of game distribution, online distribution is growing, and the capabilities of Asymmetric Code Blending appear to be in line with other findings of Macrovision’s recently completed annual survey of the game market, Ferengul says.

More than 50 percent of survey respondents said they will buy games only after being afforded an opportunity to try them, and 81 percent said their purchases were influenced by reading a review of the game, which typically emphasize fellow gamer reviews. “People are passing games around and want to try them in advance,” he says. “There’s a very strong community in the games space. If you’re doing commerce, you have to do things like user recommendations, peer analysis.”

The survey also found significant growth in casual games and a broad willingness to accept advertising as a way to pay for games. The most popular game titles are puzzle games, and a quarter of respondents said they are also watching TV when they play. Only 22 percent of the games audience is 18 to 34 years old, leaving 78 percent who are 35 and older.

“We are seeing premium video, major sporting events or business knowledge or verticals that are paid, but we’re seeing massive amounts of online content moving toward ad-supported models,” Ferengul says. “People are much more accepting of advertising games as a way to pay, with 83 percent willing to watch up to a 30-second ad for a free game. They’re playing one to two hours at a time per session. You really have a captive audience and measurable demographic.”
http://www.screenplaysmag.com/tabid/...1/Default.aspx





FairUse4WM v1.3 Fix 2 Promises Vista, Zune DRM Stripping
Ryan Block

Oh, IT'S ON. After months of eager anticipation, it looks like either Viodentia has finally come out of hiding, or s/he's passed the torch on to another (Doom9 forum user Divine Tao?) -- but either way it looks like MS DRM IBX components up to version 11.0.6000.6324 are good to go with the latest version of FairUse4WM, v1.3 Fix 2 (read: this is the update we know you've all been waiting for). We haven't yet confirmed ourselves, but feel free to tell us whether you got a sweet taste of DRM freedom without having to continue using XP and Windows Media Player 10 with that subscription music service.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/15/f...-drm-stripping





Zune DRM Stripper

These days it's hard to keep digital media locked up in any format. Our Zune ears recently heard tell of a program that strips DRM off of tracks purchased from the Zune Marketplace, or traded via Wi-Fi. What makes this more significant is the optional Zune subscription which allows users to download almost all the Zune Marketplace.

We decided to download and test the Zune DRM stripper for ourselves to see if it actually works. In fact, it was so effective that we have decided not to publish any direct links to it.
http://www.zunescene.com/zune-drm-stripper/





Microsoft WM-DRM and IBX 11.0.6000.6324
Divine Tao

This post introduces a new tool for uncovering the individual keys from Microsoft's DRM blackbox components ("IBX"), up to version 11.0.6000.6324. Lacking the source code to the extant programs, I can only offer this output of my own efforts.

To actualize fair use rights with the new IBX, first run 'mirakagi' which will enter the IBX keys into the FairUse4WM blackbox-keys.txt text file.
Next, you should use the attached version of FairUse4WM, 1.3Fix-2. This includes an important fix for a video corruption bug, often seen in scenes affording high compression.

If problems occur, please provide the program text. IBX versions after 11.0.6000.6324 are not currently supported.

This version should be capable of interfacing with both Windows Vista and Zune software versions.

Download links to follow in the next post.

MD5 hash 0d5eaa7f8010e1293221a320943adb7e

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127943





Office, Vista Save Microsoft Profits from Xbox Ravaging
John McBride

Thank goodness for the Windows and Office cash cows. Despite a blistering $1.06 billion charge to repair faulty Xbox 360 consoles, Microsoft's fourth-quarter profits rose 7.3 percent, and annual revenues topped $50 billion for the first time. Fourth-quarter profit was a hefty $3.04 billion, compared to $2.83 billion last year. The Xbox charge sliced 8¢ a share off earnings, leaving 31¢ a share, compared to 28¢ a share last year. Revenue for the fiscal year was $51.12 billion, 15 percent better than last year.

Much of the good news came from the traditional Microsoft profit centers. The Microsoft Business Division rode a 20 percent increase in Office 2007 sales to post profits of $2.9 billion, 19 percent better than the same quarter last year. Servers and Tools profits were up 15 percent to $1.05 billion, and the Client Division saw an 11 percent increase in profits to $2.82 billion as sales of Vista chugged along.

Then there are the laggards. Entertainment and Devices, home of the Xbox, posted a $1.2 billion loss for the fourth quarter—nearly three times the $423 million fourth-quarter loss last year. That was expected. And, apparently, so was the 10 percent fourth-quarter drop in revenue for the division. Xboxes and Zunes sell better around the holidays and, hey, Halo 3 isn't out yet.

Still, the news isn't good. Microsoft has sold 11.6 million Xboxes, falling short of its goal of 12 million (although with the hardware issues maybe that's not such a bad thing) and Peter Moore is gone. The division did manage to make its goal of selling 1 million Zunes by the end of fiscal 2007 though, CFO Chris Liddell said in a conference call.

The Online Services Division continues to muddle along. Advertising sales were up 33 percent and Windows Live Search's market share is up. That boosted fourth-quarter revenue 19 percent over last year. But heavy spending on data centers and employees means losses climbed 28 percent to $239 million.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-ravaging.html





Microsoft Sees Stronger XP Sales in FY08

Microsoft said that it expects Windows XP to make up a significantly larger part of sales in the coming year.
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Microsoft Corp. Thursday said that it expects Windows XP, the operating system supposedly made moot by Windows Vista, to make up a significantly larger part of sales in the coming year.

During a conference call with analysts following the earnings results release Thursday afternoon, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the company has changed its fiscal year 2008 forecast from an 85/15 split in sales between Vista and XP to a 78/22 split. Windows XP sales will, in other words, be nearly 50 percent higher in the next 12 months than Microsoft had estimated earlier.

"We fine-tuned the Vista/XP mix for next year" during the company's usual budgeting last month, said Liddell. "We changed it from 85 percent to 78 percent. Now, it's a lower number [for Vista], but it's still a very high number overall from our perspective, so 78 percent Vista mix in terms of sales next year."

According to Liddell, Microsoft will generate the same revenue, more or less, under the new Vista vs. XP numbers, although there might be some slight differences because Vista sales have tended to involve more of the higher-priced versions, dubbed premium by the company, than has XP. The financial forecast didn't spell out that directly, however. The only clue was a US$120 million difference in what Microsoft pegged as the "undelivered elements" it assigned to unearned income for the coming year.

"Undelivered elements" are revenue set-asides to account for as-yet-unknown upgrades and enhancements to software. The set-aside shrunk from $660 million in the last 2008 forecast to $540 in the estimate presented Thursday.

"Because of that change [in the OS split], then the amount of undelivered element that comes from Vista is slightly lower than it would be otherwise," Liddell explained.

His remarks caught the attention of Michael Cherry, analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland, Wash.-based research company. "What that seems to say is that XP has stronger legs than you would expect after the release of a new operating system."

Clues that users aren't ready to ditch XP have not been hard to find. In April, for example, Dell Inc. retreated from its earlier Vista-only position and announced it would return XP to the operating system choice list for consumer PCs. Three months before that, Microsoft extended support to Windows XP Home and XP Media Center to match Windows XP Professional's drop-dead date of April 2014.

"Most of the machines I see pitched in catalogs are in the $700 range, certainly under $1,000," said Cherry. "Computers with that amount of hardware are a better fit for XP. With Vista's requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware."

It's possible, Cherry added, that Microsoft might find itself forced to recognize more reality in the future. "At some point, they might have to consider limiting the availability of XP" to push people to Vista.

The software developer has made at least one move in that direction already. In mid-April, it announced it would terminate sales of Window XP to resellers and retail after Jan. 31, 2008. Users' reactions were almost unanimously negative.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...1/article.html





A Patent Is Worth Having, Right? Well, Maybe Not
Michael Fitzgerald

PATENTS are supposed to give inventors an incentive to create things that spur economic growth. For some companies, especially in the pharmaceutical business, patents do just that by allowing them to pull in billions in profits from brand-name, blockbuster drugs. But for most public companies, patents don’t pay off, say a couple of researchers who have crunched the numbers.

“Today, over all, patents don’t work; for the information technology industry especially, they don’t work,” said James Bessen, who became a lecturer at Boston University’s law school after a career in business. In 1983, he created the first computer publishing software with Wysiwyg (an acronym for “what you see is what you get”) printing abilities. He also founded a desktop publishing company, Bestinfo, later acquired by Intergraph.

Neither Mr. Bessen nor his company patented anything, in part because his lawyers told him that software couldn’t be patented at the time. He ultimately became interested in whether patents spurred innovation, since the software industry for years innovated steadily without using many patents. He and a colleague, Michael J. Meurer, are readying a book on the topic, “Do Patents Work?,” due in 2008. (A synopsis and sample chapters are at researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork/.)

The two researchers have analyzed data from 1976 to 1999, the most recent year with complete data. They found that starting in the late 1990s, publicly traded companies saw patent litigation costs outstrip patent profits. Specifically, they estimate that about $8.4 billion in global profits came directly from patents held by publicly traded United States companies in 1997, rising to about $9.3 billion in 1999, with two-thirds of the profits going to chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Domestic litigation costs alone, meanwhile, soared to $16 billion in 1999 from $8 billion in 1997.

Things have probably become worse since then. For instance, patent litigation is up: there were 2,318 patent-related suits in 1999, and 2,830 in fiscal 2006 (though that’s down from the peak year, 2004, when 3,075 were filed). Mr. Bessen said awards in patent cases also seemed to be up, though he was less confident in that data. Worse, he says, companies doing the most research and development are sued the most.

Mr. Bessen’s critique of the patent system does not go so far as that of economists like Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, who argue that the patent system should be abolished ( http://www.dklevine.com/general/inte...gainstnew.htm). Mr. Bessen said that besides girding the pharmaceutical industry, the system did seem to work reasonably well for small companies and individual inventors. Still, he said that “our finding is that the risk of patent litigation is creating a disincentive for R&D,” especially for information technology companies, and that the system urgently needs change.

Mr. Bessen’s data is controversial. John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University, thinks that Mr. Bessen and Mr. Meurer have undervalued the profits made from patented items, though he acknowledged that a vast majority of patents are worthless.

Mr. Duffy, who thinks that the patent system remains a powerful innovation engine for the economy, also noted that the data covers only the private value of patents — it does not try to measure the social value of patents, that is, the impact an invention has for society at large. How, for example, might one measure the value of the stability of an airplane, which can be traced to an invention patented by the Wright Brothers?

Still, Mr. Duffy does not discount the research. In fact, he has invited Mr. Meurer to present it at a conference later this summer. “The numbers are serious, and they are provocative,” Mr. Duffy said.

The data don’t seem out of line to R. Polk Wagner, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He said that other research has established that patents typically are worth less than $10,000. “It’s not any secret that on a cash basis, it doesn’t make sense to file patents, and yet companies do it,” Mr. Wagner said.

Some companies are still spending billions on research programs despite the increase in litigation costs. “Whether or not the R&D efforts you make invite litigation in no way relates to whether you do them,” said Bernard S. Meyerson, an I.B.M. fellow who is named on more than 40 patents and is currently chief technologist at its systems and technology group. I.B.M. has one of the corporate world’s largest research budgets, spending some $6 billion a year. And it does make money from its patents, at least on a licensing basis.

Of course, I.B.M. also employs 370 corporate patent lawyers who Mr. Meyerson said work “hand in hand” with the company’s inventors, trying to make sure that the company is aware of patent pitfalls that might affect its work.

I.B.M. and many other large high-tech companies have hefty patent portfolios, which Mr. Meyerson said deters the companies from suing one another. He said the industry operates under a large intellectual-property umbrella: “you are licensed under mine, I’m licensed under yours, and by declaring peace as opposed to war, you have freedom of action,” Mr. Meyerson said.

Even so, he said I.B.M. is concerned that innovation could be choked by patent litigation and would like to see the system reformed.

Congress could step in, and there are patent reform bills in the House and the Senate, with many of the provisions aimed at reining in litigation and damage awards. But this marks the third consecutive year that Congress has considered patent reform, and there is enough opposition from large companies to suggest that it will again have to wait until next year.

There are other paths to change: the United States Patent and Trademark Office could open patent applications to public comment, which could help patent examiners find applicable previous inventions. The office in June began a yearlong experiment allowing open comment on 250 patent applications (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com...hes/07-21.htm). The Web is already ahead of the patent office: a site called wikipatents (www.wikipatents.com) has created an open comment process for several years’ worth of patent applications.

ANOTHER might be to increase the number of appeals courts that handle patent cases. Right now, there is only one, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, may have helped the system immensely with a ruling in June that should stiffen the standard of “obviousness,” the key criterion in granting a patent. Tougher standards may weed out many bad patents and reduce litigation.

But technological inventions are often not obvious, especially when it comes to the esoteric world of software, where it can be unclear even to the inventor what the patent will be good for.

Mr. Bessen, for one, is not optimistic. “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better for the technology industry,” he said. If he’s correct, it will become harder to question his economic analysis of the current patent system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/bu...y/15proto.html





Russia’s Trademark Gun, but Others Grab Profits
C. J. Chivers

THE automatic Kalashnikov, the world’s most abundant firearm and a martial symbol with a multiplicity of meanings, turns 60 this year. In some places this is cause to shudder. In Russia it is treated as a milestone to celebrate, and a chance to cry foul.

Once strictly Communist products, the AK-47 and its offspring are killing tools so durable and easy to use that they were heralded as achievements of state socialism and industrial might. Uncoupled from the laws of supply and demand by their origins in planned economies, they flowed from arms plants in the tens of millions, becoming national defense and foreign policy instruments for the Soviet Union and allied states.

But the 60th birthday party has displayed the rifle’s evolving place in both the market and the Kremlin’s mind. These days the Kalashnikov is seen through capitalist lenses, and argued about in ways that could not possibly have been envisioned by its Communist creators.

In cash-hungry Russia, Kalashnikov is now an informal brand. And as purchases of Kalashnikov rifles and their derivatives continue on foreign markets, Russian arms manufacturers and exporters worry not about ideology and world dominance, but over sales opportunities lost.

The back story manages to be both odd and unsurprising. Russia’s anger is at the United States, a potential customer that has become, once again, a premier distributor, handing out the weapons to indigenous police officers and soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States was also a bulk purchaser in the 1980s, when it supplied mostly Chinese and Egyptian Kalashnikovs to anti-Soviet insurgents in Afghanistan.

In returning to the Kalashnikov market, the Pentagon has shunned purchases from Russia, opting instead for AK-47 knockoffs available for sale or donation from other countries’ stockpiles. (The true AK-47 was short lived and swiftly modified; its many variants, almost all of which the Soviet Union helped create via foreign aid, are often inaccurately called AK-47s, by now universal shorthand.)

In Afghanistan, the United States has selected the AMD-65, a short-barreled Hungarian Kalashnikov copy with a forward hand grip and futuristic muzzle, as the standard weapon of the Afghan police. It has received most of its projected 55,600 AMD-65s via its foreign military sales programs, according to data provided by Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.

Another 10,000 Kalashnikov knockoffs were transferred in 2006 to Afghanistan from Slovenia. At least some weapons being handed out, based on an examination of the shipping containers and rifles this spring in Afghanistan, are inexpensive Chinese clones.

Similarly, in Iraq (which once had its own Kalashnikov plant, built with Communist help) the United States scrounged or purchased more than 185,000 Kalashnikov-style rifles and light machine guns for Iraqi security forces from 2003 and 2006, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

It did so without buying a single weapon from Russia, which, as creator of the underlying design that all automatic Kalashnikovs share, regards itself as the rightful owner of an informal but global brand.

These transfers have alarmed and irritated Russian officials and arms merchants, and split the AK-47’s 60th birthday celebrations between parties and bitter pleas.

With events that began in early July and will continue into August, the Kremlin and its arms-export agency are feting both a family of weapons and the man credited with their creation, Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, who at 87 has proved to be as durable as the rifles that bear his name.

Even General Kalashnikov himself is venting his dismay over proliferation without Russian profit. “I take them into my hands and, my goodness, the marks are foreign,” he said of the knockoffs the Soviet Union once championed. “Yes, they look alike. But as to reliability and durability — they do not meet the high standards of our military.”

Without these controversies, the celebrations might have had a familiar feel. The AK-47 and its derivatives, first tested in the forests outside of Moscow six decades ago, have been common on battlefields and in Soviet and revolutionary iconography for two generations. General Kalashnikov long ago became a hero of the proletariat.

By the fall of the Soviet Union, their global saturation was complete. Soviet students practiced assembling and disassembling Kalashnikovs in the 10th grade. Soviet statues clutched them with muscular, thick-handed grips. Almost anyone who might fight the West or its partners had been eligible for automatic rifle shipments from the Communist bloc, or even a rifle or ammunition plant.

Every self-respecting Communist revolutionary and even allies of convenience, from Fidel Castro to Yasir Arafat to Idi Amin, eventually had their Kalashnikov stockpiles and Kalashnikov poses, never mind the body counts.

The testimonials this month have celebrated Russia’s version of this history. Depending on your point of view, these rifles have been either a revolutionary’s trusted partner or a lethal instrument of proxy war, terror and crime. The chosen speakers, hand-picked by Russian officials, have chosen the former line.

“On behalf of all my brethren who died in the anti-American war to liberate our country, we thank you for inventing this weapon,” Senior Col. To Xuan Hue, the defense attaché from Vietnam, told Mr. Kalashnikov at one celebration.

Group Capt. Biltim Chingono, the defense attaché from Zimbabwe, also sidestepped the rifle’s checkered reputation, saying that in his country’s civil war it had proved “to be the mightier and decisive freedom pen.”

In Russian circles, little praise is being spared. “The famous Kalashnikov assault rifle has become not only an example of daring innovative thought but also a symbol of the talent and creative genius of our people,” President Vladimir V. Putin said in a decree.

At the same events, Russian officials and arms manufacturers are clamoring over who should be allowed to put Kalashnikov rifles on the market.

Some arguments are based on quality, and Russia claims, without offering evidence, that the copies and clones are not as well made as the genuine article. There is some support for this on black markets in Iraq, where the Russian Kalashnikovs often fetch higher prices than their clones, although whether the rifles are better or simply more coveted is not clear.

Other arguments are rooted in what the Russians claim is law, as the arms industry insists that the factories that the Kremlin once sponsored, and now are in sovereign, post-Soviet countries, have no right to manufacture or sell items of Soviet design.

“More than 30 foreign companies, private and state based, continue the illegal manufacturing and copying of small arms,” said Sergey V. Chemezov, the former K.G.B. officer and confidant of Mr. Putin’s who directs Rosoboronexport, the state arms-marketing agency. “They undermine the reputation of the Kalashnikov.”

So far, few customers have paid notice. The largest customer in the market, the United States, has purchased whatever weapons it sees fit, coloring the AK-47’s 60th birthday, like much of Kalashnikov history, with another angry struggle.

“We cannot tolerate the situation when only 10 percent of the Kalashnikovs are manufactured legally,” said Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. “We cannot stand for this. We must fight.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/we...15chivers.html





Punishing Google
Rachel Rosmarin

Much to investors' disappointment, Google cannot clear every hurdle put in front of it. On Thursday, the company reported second-quarter earnings of $925 million, or $3.56 cents per share, which missed expectations by a hair: Analysts were calling for Google to post earnings of $3.59 per share.

Even though earnings in the second quarter topped year-ago figures by 28%, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) investors might be sorry to see that Google couldn't match its $1 billion in earnings reported in the first quarter of 2007.

No matter that Google's revenue shot up in the second quarter by nearly 60% vs. the same period last year, to $2.72 billion, beating estimates of $2.68 billion--the company's stock plunged nearly 8% in after-hours trading to $505.

Why the shock? Expectations for Google are unusually high (see "Can Google Defy Gravity Again? Probably"). Since the company went public in August 2004, Google has surpassed expectations in every quarter except for one.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt didn't acknowledge a slip-up. "Our performance once again demonstrates the strength of our core search and ads business," he said in a statement. "The growth in our global traffic combined with our ongoing improvements in monetization resulted in solid revenue growth, even in a seasonally slow quarter."

During a conference call, Schmidt noted that the company increased its head count by more than was expected during the quarter, bringing on 1,548 new hires. "We're pleased with the people we brought in, but we're going to watch this area very closely," he said. Schmidt also reminded analysts that Web traffic during the second and third quarters is traditionally weaker than during the first and fourth quarters. "We will expect that to be true for many years to come," he said.

George Reyes, Google's chief financial officer, pointed out that the company's revenues from the AdSense network may have been lower than expected for the quarter because of the company's decision to begin weeding out publishers' sites that "were not meeting quality thresholds," he said. Some of these sites could be the type that is filled with advertising but not much content. Publishers of these sites benefit from revenue-sharing with Google, but with fewer of them around, there are fewer revenues for Google to take.

When an analyst asked Omid Kordestani, Google senior vice president of global sales and business development, how much revenue products not related to advertising contributed to the company's bottom line, he couldn't come up with much. "No impact this quarter," he said. That means high-profile Google products like YouTube, with its video advertising, and extensive mapping and mobile software aren't registering as compared with Google's massive search-ads business.

But Kordestani said Google's ad sales teams are learning how to sell ads on these new products. “Every group in the U.S. has gone through a lot of training,” he said. "They get supporting expertise to help them sell against things from YouTube, to print, to TV advertising."
http://www.forbes.com/technology/200...19google1.html





The Boat Is About to Rock (Again) in Internet Video
Brad Stone

DMITRY SHAPIRO brings an unlikely gadget into meetings these days: a TV remote control.

As chief executive of Veoh Networks, an Internet video company based in San Diego, Mr. Shapiro uses the remote to navigate the company’s new software program, VeohTV, on his laptop. The software acts like a Web browser but displays only Internet video, presenting full-length television shows and popular clips from the Web’s largest video sites, like NBC.com and YouTube. It lists those videos in a program guide and plays them in a small window or across the entire screen.

The product, now in a private testing phase, will be available to the public later this year. It has the potential to be a popular and practical way to watch online video. But like a long line of other innovative high-tech tools, VeohTV could also threaten and alienate traditional media companies and even cause some of Veoh’s Internet rivals to consider legal remedies.

For the last two years, Veoh Networks has operated a video-hosting Web site, Veoh.com. The site works much the way YouTube does, with a few notable exceptions. The company does not impose any time limits on the length of videos and does not use digital fingerprinting technology to filter out copyrighted material. That has led to some rights holders to complain that Veoh has fallen behind in protecting intellectual property.

Nevertheless, Veoh.com has been growing fast: it draws about 15 million visitors a month, up from 4.5 million in January. Veoh Networks is a private company and does not release financial data. YouTube, by contrast, gets more than 100 million visitors and serves up more than three billion video clips a month, according to several market research firms.

“It’s impossible to compete with YouTube as a video sharing site now,” said Josh Bernoff, a vice president at Forrester Research. “Veoh is a good example of a company that decided to go off in a new direction.”

That direction is VeohTV. To support the new effort, the company raised about $26 million this summer from investors, including Time Warner; Goldman Sachs; Spark Capital, a venture capital firm in Boston; and the former Disney chairman Michael D. Eisner, who joined the Veoh board and counsels Mr. Shapiro, a 38-year-old, Russian-born engineer. The company introduced VeohTV as a beta product last month, making it available for testing to a group of invited users.

I found VeohTV to be easy to use. Once the software is downloaded to a computer, it offers an easy-to-navigate directory of 114 video channels, including listings for CBS, NBC, Fox and YouTube. On the NBC channel, there are dozens of episodes of “Heroes,” “30 Rock” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” On the Fox channel, there are several full-length episodes of the dramas “Bones” and “24.”

Those shows are free and available for streaming on the NBC and Fox sites. The VeohTV player, Mr. Shapiro said, is just giving them a new audience.

“There are full-length episodes at Fox.com, but many customers don’t know how to find them,” he said. “The Web browser is fine for short clips. But if you just want to sit back and watch video on the Web, this is what you will want to use.”

Major media companies, however, are more interested in protecting their copyrighted programs. Veoh does not ask for permission to play material from other Web sites, though Mr. Shapiro says he wants to strike advertising-sharing deals with content owners to ensure that shows appear in high-quality video. But Veoh does not think that it needs consent because VeohTV is doing nothing more than playing what is already online, including any commercials shown during the programs.

The networks may disagree. By only offering video, VeohTV omits all the other advertisements on the network sites. For example, people who watched an episode of “Heroes” on NBC.com last week also saw for 40 minutes a banner ad for McDonald’s on the same page. VeohTV users watching the same episode would not see the banner.

Rick Cotton, the executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, said that streaming full-length television episodes drives traffic to other parts of NBC’s site and exposes users to the ads on it. And the right to play those shows is valuable, he said, pointing to the still-unnamed venture between NBC Universal and the News Corporation to create an online repository of their TV shows and movies. Sites like MySpace, AOL and MSN have already entered into commercial agreements to display the venture’s content.

“This material has value,” Mr. Cotton said. “The notion of taking it and generating traffic with it needs to be negotiated and needs to be done with the agreement of content owners.” That’s why NBC and the other major studios are keeping close tabs on VeohTV’s business model.

FOR some video content, VeohTV can act as a digital video recorder, turning a video stream — meant to be viewed on the Web — into a downloaded file on a user’s hard drive. VeohTV users can record a YouTube video, for example, even though YouTube, owned by Google, says its terms of service specify that videos uploaded to the site will only be streamed.

Other software, like the recently released RealPlayer 11, by RealNetworks, can turn streaming video into downloads as well. But according to Ricardo Reyes, a YouTube spokesman, VeohTV steers users away from its ads while violating YouTube’s contract with its users. Mr. Reyes says the company is watching Veoh carefully. In response, Mr. Shapiro says his software provides an easier way to do something that is already technically possible on YouTube.

Mr. Shapiro and his backers are aware their product will disrupt current business models. So have many technological innovations in the past, he argued, and Veoh hopes to build a large audience while courting large media companies. That creates an apparent contradiction that will be hard to resolve. Veoh maintains that it does not need permission to list and play other companies’ videos inside VeohTV. But it also wants to play nice.

“We are going to try to be friendly to content owners,” said Todd Dagres, a partner at Spark Capital who serves on the Veoh board. “We are going to try to be the white-hat company.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/bu...y/15ideas.html





Happy Blogiversary

It's been 10 years since the blog was born. Love them or hate them, they've roiled presidential campaigns and given everyman a global soapbox. Twelve commentators -- including Tom Wolfe, Newt Gingrich, the SEC's Christopher Cox and actress-turned-blogger Mia Farrow -- on what blogs mean to them.
Tunku Varadarajan

Notwithstanding the words of Tom Wolfe, who puts an elegant boot, below, into the corpus of bloggers, there are many more people today who would read blogs than disparage them.

The consumption of blogs is often avid and occasionally obsessive. But more commonly, it is utterly natural, as if turning to them were no stranger than (dare one say this here?) picking one's way through the morning's newspapers. The daily reading of virtually everyone under 40 -- and a fair few folk over that age -- now includes a blog or two, and this reflects as much the quality of today's bloggers as it does a techno-psychological revolution among readers of news and opinion.

We are approaching a decade since the first blogger -- regarded by many to be Jorn Barger -- began his business of hunting and gathering links to items that tickled his fancy, to which he appended some of his own commentary. On Dec. 23, 1997, on his site, Robot Wisdom, Mr. Barger wrote: "I decided to start my own webpage logging the best stuff I find as I surf, on a daily basis," and the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as the primordial root of the word "weblog."

The dating of the 10th anniversary of blogs, and the ascription of primacy to the first blogger, are imperfect exercises. Others, such as David Winer, who blogged with Scripting News, and Cameron Barrett, who started CamWorld, were alongside the polemical Mr. Barger in the advance guard. And before them there were "proto-blogs," embryonic indications of the online profusion that was to follow. But by widespread consensus, 1997 is a reasonable point at which to mark the emergence of the blog as a distinct life-form.

Once a neologism, outlandish to some, weblog has come to be abbreviated to blog, a brusque and jaunty word that no one, now, would think to look up in a dictionary. That said, the spell check on Microsoft Word has yet to awaken to the concept of the blog. Type in "blogging," for instance, and you will promptly earn a disapproving underscore in red, with the suggestion that "bogging," "clogging," "flogging" or "slogging" (unappetizing alternatives all) might, in truth, be the word you seek.

In the decade since their conception, blogs, once a smorgasbord of links, have evolved into vehicles for a fuller, more forceful and opinionated prose. Not all of it has been lovely to behold, or even edifying. Inevitably, there has been bombast, verbosity and exposure to the public eye of thoughts that, ideally, should have remained locked inside fevered heads. (The impact of blogs on public discourse has included, I contend, the emergence of a form of "oral blogging," noticeable at seminars and the like, where people who might once have asked brisk questions are now empowered by the blog form to hold forth at length, with little attempt at self-editing.)

The other change in the blog has, of course, been its mainstreaming. Blogging was once the province of the Nerd Without a Life (NWAL -- which, when pronounced aloud, sounds remarkably and appropriately like know-all). Today, while members of that tribe still abound, there are others who blog not because it is their only window on the world, but because blogging offers the opportunity of direct and immediate communion with those who would respond to their ideas. Call it intellectual "skin contact."

Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, blogs (his is the Bogle eBlog, so called because the second word is an anagram of his surname; and unlike many CEOs, he blogs without the aid of a ghostblogger). Gary Becker, Nobel laureate in economics, blogs. Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement of London, blogs. Mia Farrow, the cinema actress, who also writes below, blogs. As do politicians and activists of every stripe. Some blogs are profitable businesses, and it is no surprise that the traditional media have bought into the action, including this newspaper (see James Taranto's contribution, below).

Featured here, then, are a dozen brief meditations on what the blog has come to mean and on the role blogs play in the usual tussles of any civilized society. The appropriate question about blogs, 10 years into their first appearance, is not whether they are a form of exhibitionism, or journalism, or theater. It is, instead, this, and I pose it with a courteous apology to Tom Wolfe: What would we do without blogs?



Harold Evans
A Spurious Megaphone

Editor at large, the Week
Former editor, the Times of London
Favorite blogs: AndrewSullivan.com (political pundit for the Atlantic Monthly); MichaelTotten.com (Mideast affairs blogger); HeadButler.com (news and culture roundup)

Coming from a print culture where the rule was check, check, source, source, I was chilled, in the early days of the blogosphere, by the easy dissemination of lies.

Did you know that 9/11 was the work of the Mossad? How else can you explain that the 4,000 Jews were tipped off to stay away that morning? Gibberish, of course, but widely believed in the Muslim world.

In Indonesia, Tom Friedman reported, only 5% of the population could get on the Web, but these 5% spread rumor as fact: "They say, 'He got it from the Internet.' They think it's the Bible."

In this case, the revealed "truth" was a blog by one Sy Adeeb, writing from Alexandria, Va., under the logo of Information Times (with an address at the National Press Building in Washington, which had no trace of him). When I tracked him down, he told me he got it from Al Manar, the Hezbollah station in Beirut.

Once upon a time, Adeeb would be sending out smudged mimeographed sheets that would never see the light of day. Now, as bloggers on the Web, Adeeb and others like him have a megaphone to the world, with this spurious authenticity of electronic delivery. (Tony Blair says there are 70 million blogs. Presumably, British Intelligence has been counting.)

What's lamentable is that mainstream media, in a desperate race to be hip, will often now quote an unsourced blog story as a source. So nobody can really calculate the ripple effect of blogging.

That said, there's a lot that's great about the blogosphere.

Some blogs have become the best check on monopoly mainstream journalism, and they provide a surprisingly frequent source of initiative reporting. As an example, the only hope of staying sane in the lockstep stereotyped reporting of the 2000 presidential campaign was to look up Eric Alterman on MSNBC.com and the Daily Howler hilariously documenting the false narrative into which every story about Al Gore was fitted.

Christopher Cox
Bolstering Investors' Toolkit

Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission

Without a good search engine (Google, of course, along with blogdigger, Feedster and a handful of others), it would be impossible to intelligently sample the vast landscape of the blogosphere. With that basic tool, it's at least possible to get a feel for the range of opinions on a given topic. It's a bit like reading the verbatims from an opinion poll; you get someone's genuine opinion, and it most certainly is not statistically valid.

Blogs can contribute a great deal in the world of finance, which turns on information -- the newer, the better. As investors strive to make sense of the ever-higher mountains of data that we're buried under, the services of bloggers, whom we can imagine sitting at home in their pajamas trolling the Internet for us, free of charge, are likely to be an increasingly consequential addition to the investor's tool kit.

To be sure, the blogosphere is subject to all of the same risks as the Internet itself. Many blogs are loaded with vanity posts, half-truths, rumors, and even intentional distortions. Others have spotty quality. The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Internet Enforcement has discovered several fraudsters operating blogs on the Web.

There's no question, however, that among the ranks of legitimate bloggers, the corporate world is well represented, although some executives have undoubtedly hired professionals to blog in their stead. And, of course, you'll have seemingly unlimited choices when it comes to selecting your favorite Web-based market analyst. Not surprisingly, when it comes to the new financial-reporting language of XBRL and interactive data, blogs such as blog.hitachixbrl.com are a far more likely place to find the latest scoop than, say, your local library.

When, in September 2006, I posted on one executive's blog (search for "Jonathan Schwartz" + "Christopher Cox" and you can find it), it immediately became clear how quickly news can spread. The exchange drove home the point that in carrying out the SEC's mission, Web-based disclosure will be of growing importance.

On his blog, Mr. Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, challenged the commission to clarify that the use of blogs like his could be consistent with our regulations requiring public companies to share news with the public at the same time they give it to market professionals. As a result of that exchange, the SEC is moving forward on that initiative, aided by thoughtful commentary from outside our own cathedral, some of it found on blogs.

Do bloggers portend more lasting ramifications for the securities world? But of course. Shareholders are on the move, and technology has given them a cheaper and more-effective means to communicate. From improved price discovery to better corporate governance, investors, markets, managements and boards will never be the same.

Favorite blogs: Mr. Cox prefers not to specify any favorite blog because "the way that some SEC followers hang on every agency pronouncement will lead someone to decide that monitoring the blog is both a new compliance burden and a guide to the hidden meanings of agency thinking."

Mia Farrow
The Editor in Chief: Me

Actress
Favorite blogs: BoingBoing.net (Tracks nooks and crannies of the Web); GPSMagazine.com (Everything about global positioning systems)

When my daughter came to me crying because the school newspaper refused to print one of her articles, I said: Why not start your own paper?

Unfiltered publishing was once the exclusive domain of media moguls, but today, who needs Rupert Murdoch? Blogging has become a publishing equalizer that was scarcely dreamed of years ago. It's free, you don't need editors or publishers, you don't even need to be able to write well.

Last year, I followed my own advice. I started www.miafarrow.org. I am my own toughest critic, and I can't say the acceptance rate for my pieces is vastly improved, but the only person I have to convince that an article is worth publishing is the editor in chief: me. (When a piece is posted, the entire staff is elated.)

It is through this experience that I've come to appreciate the purity and power of blogging. I have appeared in more than 40 movies, written a book and given countless interviews on TV, radio and in print. Yet none of this has allowed me to spotlight issues important to me as completely as my blog.

I have blogged from some far-flung locations, such as the ravaged borders between Darfur and eastern Chad. And even in the most isolated regions, I knew that I was not alone. I had brought with me 30,000 readers a day, and they stuck with me every step of the way.

Via satellite phone, I sent messages from the outskirts of the newly attacked town of Paoua in remote northwestern Central African Republic. I found myself in the middle of a humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of people had fled into the bush. They were eating leaves and drinking swamp water. No one was there to protect them. "Drums and gunfire are the music of the night," I blogged. Neither the reader nor I could know what would happen next. That immediacy and urgency was transmitted to my family and friends back home, along with thousands of members of the larger human family.

James Taranto
Answering an Unmet Need

Editor, OpinionJournal.com
Favorite blogs: KausFiles.com (Slate's prolific political blogger); InstaPundit.com (Libertarian law professor's take on politics and technology); JustOneMinute.typepad.com (Recent addition to politics blog circuit)

In the world of politics and political journalism, blogs have evolved differently on the right and the left. The seeds of this evolution were sown by two proto-blogs that played key roles in the Clinton impeachment.

On Jan. 18, 1998, the Drudge Report sent an email billed as a BLOCKBUSTER REPORT: "At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, Newsweek magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation: A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States!"

Drudge's borrowed scoop forced the story into the open, and within three days President Clinton issued the first of many denials. His subsequent testimony under oath that he had not had a fling with Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice. Had Drudge not acted after the mainstream media hesitated, there is no way of knowing if the story would ever have seen the light of day.

That September, after it became clear that Mr. Clinton had lied about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, a pair of liberal technology entrepreneurs began a project called "Censure and Move On," an online petition calling on Congress to abandon impeachment, "immediately censure President Clinton and move on to pressing issues facing the country." The Web site, MoveOn.org, later became a hub for liberal political activism, opposing the Iraq war and other Bush administration policies.

Broadly speaking, conservative bloggers have followed the Drudge model, acting as a check on the liberal tendencies of the mainstream media, or "MSM." Conservative bloggers' proudest moments have come when they have debunked false and biased MSM reporting, especially CBS's fraudulent exposé on President Bush's National Guard service in 2004 and Reuters' doctored photos from Lebanon in 2006.

The liberal blogosphere, meanwhile, is a hotbed of edgy activism -- some might say extremism. It pushed forward the Valerie Plame kerfuffle and gave support to candidates such as Ned Lamont, Jon Tester and Jim Webb. Just as conservative talk radio helped along the Republican victory in 1994, liberal blogs had their moment of triumph in the midterm elections 12 years later.

Conservatives see blogs as the answer to Dan Rather, who is liberal but not overtly so. Liberals see them as the answer to Rush Limbaugh, who is open about his opinions and his desire to influence public opinion. In both cases they answer an unmet need in the political/media marketplace.

Jane Hamsher
21st-Century Howard Beales

Founder, firedoglake (political blog)
Favorite blogs: DigbysBlog.blogspot.com (political news and commentary); TBogg.blogspot.com (liberal pundit covers news and culture); CrooksAndLiars.com (left-leaning commentary with lots of video clips)

During the '90s, railing at the TV set was the isometric sport of the silent majority. Progressive political junkies watched in isolation as the Washington Post prominently printed one Whitewater story after another as if they originated on tablets of stone rather than the fax machines of Arkansas political operatives. Many people felt like they were the only ones who scratched their heads in wonder that it all made no sense, recoiling in horror as a slick PR operation rapidly escalated from the realm of lazy, spoon-fed journalism to the constitutional mockery of the Clinton impeachment.

That isolation ended with the advent of the progressive blogosphere, which acts as a virtual water cooler for those who not only want to rail at the TV set, they want the TV set to listen. Probably nothing better contrasts the pre- and postblogospheric worlds than the Whitewater and CIA leak stories. In one, the endless repetition of meaningless gibberish was allowed to take root and become conventional wisdom. In the other, despite the constant reiteration of abject fantasies like "no underlying crime was committed," the public seemed to realize that it's not okay to perjure yourself in front of a grand jury and obstruct justice on behalf of your boss. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was allowed to try his case in court before GOP spinmeisters could try it in the press, and a recent Gallup poll shows that 66% of the country thinks Bush should've left Scooter alone to do his time.

That message wasn't carried by the beltway Brahmins of the MSM, the media elite who transcend party loyalties and embrace Libby as one of their own. They collectively bristled at the thought that Scooter (and no doubt themselves) should be subject to the verdict of some "ignorant jury" (as Ann Coulter likes to call them). No, that message was carried by bloggers and their readers, the thousands of people who collectively pored over the story's coverage, serving as institutional memory and holding media outlets to account when the politics of access journalism threaten to obscure the truth.

At a time when government is in desperate need of oversight and the Fourth Estate has become uncomfortably close with those they are tasked with covering, the progressive blogosphere is a place where erstwhile Howard Beales coalesce to fill the gap. They come together to challenge the virulent Rovian notion that no law is so sacred, no tenet of national security so vital it can't be flouted in the pursuit of political gain. Scooter and other hermetically sealed beltway denizens may think he's a hero, but the rest of the country realizes he's nothing better than a garden variety crook.

It ain't perfect, but it's progress.

Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner
'Milblogging' the War

Spokesman for Multi-National Force, in Iraq

Military blogs offer readers a front-row seat into the camaraderie, pride and challenges of those in uniform. No one can better represent the experiences of a soldier than soldiers themselves, and "milbloggers" deployed to the frontlines of the war on terror offer first-hand insights into their service and sacrifice.

Why does this matter? Because milbloggers uniquely reveal the human face of our forces, from a young trooper patrolling Baghdad neighborhoods to a doctor saving lives at a Combat Support Hospital. First-hand accounts are an important way to communicate the creativity, commitment, and the lighter moments of those who are placing their lives on the line.

In the past decade, new technologies from satellite phones to Internet technology have changed the relationship between information and warfare. The military's former inclination to control information has been replaced by an appreciation of the risks, but more importantly the opportunities of cyberspace.

One example is when soldiers, of their own initiative, create and maintain personal blogs about their day-to-day experiences. Since blogs have the potential to reach a global audience, we have established clear guidance to ensure that blogging does not violate operational security, individual privacy, military policy or propriety. Our troops are fast learners, so while we have had a few breaches there have been many more positive experiences shared.

By no means do all military blogs paint a positive picture, nor should they. Each posting represents an individual's musings at a particular point in time. We are waging a historic fight against a ruthless enemy. It is also a campaign that historians will be able to learn more broadly about from anecdotes and insights in today's military blogs.

Favorite blogs: "Around here, folks like to read Small Wars Journal (http://smallwarsjournal.com/index.php), Blackfive (http://www.blackfive.net/) and The Mudville Gazette (http://www.mudvillegazette.com/)."

Newt Gingrich
New Political 'Prosumers'

Former House speaker
Favorite blogs: RedState.com (Republican news and notes); Corner.NationalReview.com (conservative magazine's politics blog); PowerlineBlog.com (covers law and right-leaning politics)

Home Depot redefined an industry by catering to customers who preferred to fix their homes themselves rather than rely on professional repairmen. Dell Computer revolutionized the computing industry by allowing customers to design their own computers instead of purchasing the prepackaged, recommended configurations.

It may not seem obvious, but blogging is part of this same social trend. Think of blogging as a DIY movement in our always intertwined media and political culture, blurring the lines between professional producers (news organizations and politicians) and amateur consumers (citizens), creating what Alvin Toffler called "prosumers," characterized by their desire to play an active role in creating the products they consume and by their distrust of professionals who claim to know what's best.

In politics, supporters of a candidate or party are increasingly dissatisfied with simply putting up yard signs or making scripted phone calls; they want those in power to listen and respond to them as well. They also don't trust professional politicians to do what is right without constant supervision.

In many ways, these are the characteristics of any insurgent political movement, but blogging is enabling particularly rapid mobilization and organization.

We've already seen the effects on the Democratic Party. Web sites such as Daily Kos and MoveOn.org -- which I find fascinating as models of online activism -- have made it quite clear that their aim goes beyond stopping President Bush; they're also targeting leaders in their own party viewed as unresponsive to the grassroots. Sen. Joe Lieberman's primary loss is the most visible example. If Republicans remain out of step with their base for too long, expect a similar insurgency on the right.

Similarly in news, it used to be that the only way to respond to an article or editorial was to write a letter to the editor. Now anyone can be a publisher. Bloggers can critique, fact-check or applaud journalists on their own platform, as well as offer their own analysis of world events. The term MSM is a derogatory term in the blogosphere, signifying distrust of the news professional.

To succeed in this new environment, news and political organizations will need to offer products that are both highly responsive and easily customized. Balancing this pressure with the need for news organizations to remain objective and politicians to act in accordance with their leadership responsibilities in a representative democracy will be a significant challenge.

Dick Costolo
Zero-Cost Publishing

Group product manager, Google
Former CEO of FeedBurner (blog services and tools provider)
Favorite blogs: FakeSteve.blogspot.com (musings by a Steve Jobs imposter); Publishing2.com (new media and the future of online publishing); Blog.Photoblogs.org (aggregates the best of the photoblogs)

When I was a kid, there were three broadcast TV channels that everybody was subscribed to, a couple of local papers and a handful of local radio stations with significant range. For all these broadcasters, a community of interest was defined as all the households this broadcast is reaching, so there was no real concept of targeted content or communities of interest. If you happened to be interested in venture capital and were a college student living in Detroit, there was no way for you to participate (an important term) in any community of interest around venture capital unless you moved to Silicon Valley or paid a ridiculous sum of money to subscribe to an obscure newsletter.

On the publishing side, the barriers to entry were replete with all manner of government regulation, massive capital requirements and steep learning curves, creating a natural status difference between publishers and subscribers. The publishers had massive status, the subscribers little or none. The Internet destroyed most of the barriers to publication. The cost of being a publisher dropped to almost zero with two interesting immediate results: anybody can publish, and more importantly, you can publish whatever you want. With the cost of publication at almost zero, the cost of subscribing to almost any community of interest also dropped to zero. Anybody can publish and anybody can subscribe, and publishers and subscribers are now two sides to the same coin. Any subscriber can actively participate in any community of interest by becoming a publisher in that community.

Everything is challenged and no media provider is immune from open public questioning. This is true across the spectrum of publishers. A VC blog written by an expert in Silicon Valley with 20 years' experience is subject to counterpoints from the student in Detroit who's similarly passionate about this community of interest. The challenge, of course, is that in a media democracy, it is incumbent on all of us to determine how we make decisions about authenticity and authority in media, since these traits are no longer an implicit (if sometimes unwarranted) artifact of publication.

Tom Wolfe
A Universe of Rumors

Novelist

One by one, Marshall McLuhan's wackiest-seeming predictions come true. Forty years ago, he said that modern communications technology would turn the young into tribal primitives who pay attention not to objective "news" reports but only to what the drums say, i.e., rumors.

And there you have blogs. The universe of blogs is a universe of rumors, and the tribe likes it that way.

Blogs are an advance guard to the rear. For example, only a primitive would believe a word of Wikipedia (which, though not strictly a blog, shares the characteristics of the genre). The entry under my name says that in 2003 "major news media" broadcast reports of my death and that I telephoned Larry King and said, "I ain't dead yet, give me a little more time and no doubt it will become true."

Oddly, this news supposedly broadcast never reached my ears in any form whatsoever prior to the Wikipedia entry, and I wouldn't have a clue as to how to telephone Larry King. I wouldn't have called him, in any case. I would have called my internist. I don't so much mind Wikipedia's recording of news that nobody ever disseminated in the first place as I do the lame comment attributed to me. I wouldn't say "I ain't" even if I were singing a country music song. In fact, I have posted a $5,000 reward for anyone who can write a song containing the verb forms "am not," "doesn't," or "isn't" that makes the Billboard Top Twenty.

Favorite blogs: Mr. Wolfe, "weary of narcissistic shrieks and baseless 'information,' " says he no longer reads blogs.

Xiao Qiang
Breaking the 'Great Firewall'

Founder and editor of China Digital Times (an independent aggregator of China news); director, China Internet Project at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley
Favorite blogs: ZonaEuropa.com (global news with a focus on China); SmartMobs.com (author Howard Rheingold's tech thoughts); Blog.DoNews.com/keso (opinated takes on tech, from iPhone to Google)

Lian Yue started his blog in the spring of 2005. A free-lance columnist, Lian lives in Xiamen, one of China's most wealthy cities on the southeast coast. His liberal-style social commentary and humorous writing quickly won him thousands of readers.

Starting this March, Lian posted a series of articles warning the people in his hometown that a paraxylene (PX) chemical factory being built in his city could have a disastrous environmental impact. He called on residents to speak out against the construction. "Don't be afraid," Lian wrote on his blog on March 29. "Please just talk to your friends, family and colleagues about this event. They might still be in the dark."

Lian is one of 16 million (and growing) active bloggers in China. While most posts are personal, an increasing number of bloggers writing about public affairs have become opinion leaders in their local communities. Despite the government's "Great Firewall" to filter out "undesirable information," and the tens of thousands of personnel hired to police the Internet, the sheer number of bloggers writing about public affairs is having a transformative impact on Chinese politics.

Xiamen authorities have vigorously deleted anti-PX factory messages on any servers within their governing territory. However, word still got out to local residents via email, IM and SMS on mobile phones. One of Lian Yue's articles on this topic was published in a newspaper in a neighboring province and spread "like wildfire" throughout the blogosphere. By the end of May, SMS messages and cellphone photos of protesting slogans such as "Boycott PX, Protect Xiamen" were sent out to millions of Xiamen residents. On June 1 and 2, against the local authorities' warning, several thousand citizens spontaneously showed up "to walk" in front of the city government with anti-PX message boards. Participants reported the protest live with their cellphones, which directly transmitted photos and text to their blogs.

The government was forced to announce a "re-evaluation" of the factory construction.

In China, blogs enable millions of citizens to express their opinions with reduced political risk simply because of the sheer number of like-minded opinions online. Facing these independent voices, the old ideological machine starts to crumble. Within society, bloggers like Lian Yue are seen as more credible voices than propaganda officials. The Chinese blogosphere is a dynamically contested terrain. What will the long-term implications be? I think the writing is already on the Great Firewall.

Jim Buckmaster
Zero-Cost Publishing

CEO, Craigslist
Favorite blogs: Slashdot.org (one of the first tech blogs); Metafilter.com (community blog anyone can edit); Valleywag.com (tech gossip site); TechDirt.com (popular tech news site)

Iraq Occupation? Global Warming? Abuse of Power? Pick up a Blog!

I read blogs every day, for all sorts of reasons, but I turn to blogs especially when I want to hear alternative viewpoints -- for example, information on a particular medical treatment from the viewpoint of patients receiving it, rather than doctors administering it; reports from the battlefield seen through the eyes of soldiers rather than politicians; thoughts on a particular technology from the standpoint of engineers rather than executives.

Consider the Iraq occupation -- or colonization. Corporate media provide saturation coverage, but often manage to leave all the most interesting bits for bloggers, such as what our government is actually trying to accomplish by occupying Iraq (blog.zmag.org/ttt), what Iraqis think about the occupation so far (afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com, iraqblogcount.blogspot.com), how our soldiers feel about it (cbftw.blogspot.com), and how taxes being appropriated for it are being doled out (www.huffingtonpost.com). On global warming and reducing our reliance on oil imports, stories in corporate media tend to reinforce the status quo, dwell on political impracticalities of making changes, or focus on pork-barrel nonsolutions like ethanol. Turn instead to quality blogs on the subject (like cleantechblog.com, or Amory Lovins's blog at green.yahoo.com) and you quickly learn that excellent solutions are at hand, but are being mostly ignored because they aren't popular with certain large corporations and their representatives in Washington.

With millions of private citizens now blogging, there is a diverse and not-easily-censorable chorus to sound alarms, something the corporate media often will not do. In fact, I think our "citizen journalists" in the blogosphere protect us against abuse of power to a far greater degree than the much ballyhooed "citizen militia" afforded by gun ownership -- without the daily carnage of accidental and impulse shootings.

Elizabeth Spiers
Effective Niche Targeting

Writer
Founding editor, Gawker (news and gossip site)
Favorite blogs: Reason.com/blog (news and commentary recommended by libertarian magazine's staff) MaudNewton.com (former attorney who writes on literature and culture); DesignObserver.com (posts about design)

"I don't know why anyone reads blogs," the editor in chief of a large magazine once said to me. "It's like listening to the crazy guy on the subway rant." I had generated a substantial part of my income in the previous three years from professional blogging and wasn't inclined to bash blogs categorically, but I conceded that in some cases she was right. There are countless blogs that are filled with inarticulate vituperative screeds that appear to have been published by people whose mental facilities are not fully intact. I'll even confess to having written a few posts that undoubtedly fit that description.

That said, a blog is just a format for content. It's a way of presenting information in a linear fashion, in reverse chronological order. Ultimately, the blog is only as good as the information presented.

Of the various blogs I've written or produced, the ones that worked best -- the ones that had the biggest and most loyal readerships -- always had a few consistent qualities. They were topically focused, often in niche areas. They published regularly and frequently, typically during office hours and several times a day. They published content that was original or difficult to find, from breaking news to proprietary photographs to obscure links that readers are unlikely to find on their own. They were usually well-written, which has its own intrinsic appeal for anyone who prefers to enjoy what they're reading. And lastly, they engaged their readership by soliciting feedback and responding to it, in the form of asking for tips, allowing comments or otherwise demonstrating some level of interest in their audience's preferences.

Most blogs are personal diaries and don't fit those criteria, even in part. But the success of the various blogs that do choose to follow the aforementioned formula indicates that it's possible to create commercially viable media products for niche audiences. Even more important for traditional media, blogs are an inexpensive way to test new editorial concepts with an engaged audience whose behavior and preferences are more directly measurable than in any other medium. This alone should be of interest to any pragmatic editor
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118436667045766268.html





Tech Boom, Media Bust
Brian Caulfield

It was a slow Friday at Red Herring magazine. The receptionist at the Silicon Valley tech title had stepped away from her desk. So a messenger strolls in from the summer sunshine, finds a 20-something reporter on her first real job and hits her with an eviction notice. Red Herring has three days to pay the rent or get out. Word got around, fast. Then someone looked outside. There, driving up in a rented silver Mazda minivan is a correspondent with gossip blog Valleywag. Aaaaaaand she's got a camera.

Silicon Valley is booming again. But if you work in tech media, there's blood on the floor. Take Red Herring. It hung onto its offices after getting the eviction notice earlier this month. But gossip site Valleywag is breaking story after story not just on its beat--but about its woes. Meanwhile, bigger publications are hurting too: Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) Business 2.0 saw ad pages drop 21.8% through March from the same period a year ago; PC Magazine's editor in chief walked out the door after ad pages fell 38.8% over the same period; and one-time online powerhouse CNET is reporting growing losses even as the companies it covers flourish. It may be happening in tech first, but there's no reason the same thing won't happen, eventually, in every media niche.

Things couldn't be much more different than the last boom. While online upstarts such as HotWired struggled to make money--they had to invent the banner ad--print titles flourished. The Industry Standard, founded in 1997, set ad sales records. Business 2.0 came out of nowhere to scoop up gobs of ads against articles detailing how to succeed in the new economy. And one-time venture capital bible Red Herring ballooned to hundreds of pages. Then the tech downturn hit. The Industry Standard closed. The assets of Red Herring and Business 2.0 were sold to new owners.

But while the good times are back--the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit a six-and-a-half-year high last week--tech trade and new-economy publications have not bounced back. The first problem: online keyword advertising. Media insiders say search engines such as Google have snarfed up the product-driven ads. Rather than running product listings in trade publications and newspapers, media insiders say tech companies prefer to buy keyword ads so they can send buyers straight to the gear they want. "Search is what ignited everything," says Geoff Ramsey, Chief Executive of eMarketer, a firm which aggregates and analyzes online marketing statistics.

Meanwhile, Industry Standard founder John Battelle is keeping the bonfire of the print titles burning. His Federated Media Publishing is selling ads on more than 100 blogs, giving ad buyers the ability to spend big money on a collection of highly specialized sites--many of them focused on tech--that suit their needs. "If Cisco has to spend, I don't know, a couple of million dollars on a trade campaign, they are not spending it with Red Herring or Business 2.0. They are spending it with Federated Media, with bloggers who cover the sector," says Rafat Ali, editor and publisher of online media tracker PaidContent.org.

And while blog networks are quickly gaining scale, even their most coveted offerings are cost-competitive. To make a back-of-the-napkin comparison based on rate cards: A start-up looking to get attention will grab a third-of-a-page color ad in a magazine with a rate base of 600,000 and might pay $27,300; or it can pay $21,000 for 600,000 impressions for its ads on TechCrunch--a site covering start-ups represented by Battelle's Federated Media--assuming they take the priciest ad slot on one of tech's hottest sites.

That's no surprise, given that it takes fewer resources for blogs to crank out content than it does print titles. Web sites such as GigaOm, TechCrunch and Valleywag--with a few laptops, a web server and some hustle--are crowding into beats once dominated by trade publications and enthusiast magazines who rely on printing presses and full-time writers and editors. Bottom line: A successful blog can simply grab more readers, per employee, than more traditional media.

Talk to blogger Matt Marshall. He walked away from covering venture capital at one of California's biggest newspapers, the San Jose Mercury News, to run a venture capital Web site from the second bedroom of his Fremont, Calif., home. He has no employees. Federated Media handles the ad sales for a 40% cut. And Marshall says he now makes more than he did as a reporter. Meanwhile, the Mercury News laid off 31 of his former colleagues this month. "Where they can actually succeed is by taking a particular vertical and absolutely nailing it," eMarketer's Ramsey says of bloggers like Marshall.

Of course, blogging is not the express lane to riches its more exuberant backers would have you believe. The anonymous satirist who runs "The Secret Diary of Fake Steve Jobs" started hitting up his readers for money-making ideas just weeks after being named to Business 2.0's list of "50 Who Matter Now," even while, in character as Apple Chief Steve Jobs, he boasted about Apple's huge stock gains. And while Marshall says he's making a living, he's still living lean: he says he works until 3 a.m. many nights. "I can go under any day, and that's what brings the passion to this," Marshall says.

The truth is, the vast majority of bloggers will never garner more than a few dozen readers. Then again, most of today's print-heavy news outlets are scaling back in the face of the relentless online competition. Marshall's father, Tyler Marshall, walked away from journalism after winning a Pulitzer Prize at The Los Angeles Times, bought out in a round of downsizing at the venerable newspaper. When Marshall told his father about his plan to launch his own publication, the older Marshall didn't discourage him. After all, what did he have to lose?
http://www.forbes.com/technology/200...techmedia.html





Create Your Own Live TV Channel With Selfcast
Press Release

RawFlow’s New Online Broadcasting Portal for User Generated Content is Now Released as a Beta Version. Selfcast Allows Anyone to Create Their Own TV Channel for Free and Broadcast Live on the Internet.

RawFlow, a leading provider of live peer-to-peer streaming technologies, has announced the public launch of a beta version of Selfcast – a P2P based live broadcasting portal. For the first time ever, anyone can broadcast live to the world for free using just a webcam, a pc and an internet connection. Budding directors, musicians, talk show hosts and others, can now reach the masses online.

Selfcast enables users to:

• Broadcast live anywhere, any time
• Invite friends, fans and family via integrated invitation tool
• Completely free, easy to use
• Broadcast directly from webcam or microphone
• Get instant feedback from viewers who can submit comments or participate in the Live chat
• Broadcast live or pre-recorded content which can be added to a play list

In order to create broadcasts, a user simply downloads and installs the Selfcast software, which works as broadcast wizard and encoder for the broadcasts. Friends can then be invited to watch via built-in Instant Messenger (IM) tools such as Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, and MSN. You can also invite your friends to watch via email.

RawFlow is the company and driving force behind Selfcast – it uses its unique peer-to-peer technology, to enable anyone, anywhere to broadcast themselves live on the internet without any need for expensive hardware, infrastructure or bandwidth.

Selfcast successfully added 500 beta testers on to the site on June 25th this year, and now allows anyone to try the beta version.

Mikkel Dissing, Chief Executive Officer at RawFlow, commented: “Selfcast is unique in the sense that it allows anyone to broadcast for as long as they like for free. The fact that it is live means that you can get instant gratification from fans and friends. We already have had positive feedback from our early beta testers, and now welcome anyone to join our live video community”.

Next up for Selfcast will be developing widgets which allows users to implement their channels into other social networks and websites.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...&newsLang =en





Facebook: the Ultimate P2P Darknet Enabler?
vednis

Could Facebook be used as the catalyst for a new generation of Peer-to-Peer darknet applications?

Briefly, a darknet is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. This is very similar to the networks that Facebook builds. Trust is the key. You connect to close friends and relatives, giving them access to personal content not privy to your larger network as a whole.

Facebook could become an enabler for these networks, in that it provides a common point in the network through which you may connect with those trusted people. Not directly, but via Facebook’s new applications interface, or via exisiting network tools that Facebook supports directly, such as MSN, Gmail, etc.

One such darknet application may be Peer-to-Peer shared backups. Imagine making an agreement with your relatives, that you would each devote 2GB of hard-drive space to keeping the family photo pool backed up. Some clever Open Source software could keep the photo pool maintained, distributed among all of your computers. The sharing tool could use a Facebook application for peer discovery.

You could even route new content over existing tools. I wonder, if you could install the iLike application, could you use it to publish new content for your friends, and hook an Open Source content sharing tool into the iLike interface to handle the transfer? iLike publishes what’s new, Facebook publishes your content share points, and the Open Source tool handles the data.

Using Facebook to publish content discovery and sharing points opens the door to federated services, allowing you to get your network out of the hands of commercial parties. If I could publish the address of a personal server on Facebook (a server that I own, running my own services), then I could start building networks and sharing with others outside of Facebook. And I would once again have control of my identity within those networks - I won’t have to rely on the Facebook privacy controls, or anything like that.

Just some ideas.
http://acanvas.wordpress.com/2007/07...rknet-enabler/





Re-Vote Likely After E-Vote Error

A California judge appears set to nullify an election result voting down medical use of marijuana after an e-voting lawsuit.
Stephen Lawson

A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data, a public-interest lawyer arguing the case said Friday.

In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election. A hearing on Friday morning in advance of a final ruling brought out nothing that indicated Smith would deviate from her preliminary decision, said attorney Gregory Luke, who is representing Americans for Safe Access. The medical-marijuana advocacy group is suing the county, assisted by the technology rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The case points to the dangers of electronic voting systems, which make it harder to ensure fair elections, Luke said. Electronic voting machines have been widely adopted in the U.S. since the disputed presidential election of 2000. Laws in California and some other states now require paper records of all votes, but the California law wasn't in place for the Berkeley election.

Both sides argued their cases before Smith on Friday in a last-ditch hearing on the proposed sanctions, according to Luke. The hearing brought out nothing new that suggested Smith would change direction, he said.

Americans for Free Access sought a recount of the vote on Measure R, which would have established procedures for opening marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley. It lost by fewer than 200 votes. A recount wasn't possible because the city didn't share the necessary voting records, in violation of election laws, Judge Smith ruled in April. In May, the county agreed to share some data.

The county reused voting machines from Diebold Election Systems Inc. without saving sufficient data to carry out a recount or review the election process, Luke said. Officials failed to save key evidence even after the suit was pending, he said. Data from the vote in question has only been found on 20 of the hundreds of machines used in the election, according to Luke.

In addition to ordering another vote on Measure R, Judge Smith's preliminary ruling called for the county to pay the US$22,604 cost of the recount, as well as attorney's fees and the cost of a trip to Diebold offices in Texas.

Ordering a new vote is a rare move for a court, Luke said.

"This is a very severe sanction. ... and it's warranted," he said Friday.

Luke expects a final ruling in the case within two weeks. The county could appeal to a higher court if the ruling goes against it, he said. Attorneys for the county were not immediately available for comment.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html





Forecast for Young, Stevens Clouds Up

CONGRESSMEN: Increasing national scrutiny makes pair take notice of political winds.
Steve Quinn

They are, by their own admissions, feisty and cranky, with tempers that underpin their reputations as old-school -- yet effective -- members of Congress. They have more than 70 years of service on Capitol Hill between them and aren't ready to call it quits.

But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, 83, and Rep. Don Young, 74, have also found themselves under increasing national scrutiny while their Republican party -- which staunchly supports them -- tries to mount a comeback to regain majority status in Congress.

The two men are being pushed on legal and ethical grounds for various cozy relationships with influential businessmen.

Yet neither plans to soften the tone or approach that enabled them to direct millions of federal dollars to Alaska.

Both are seeking another term next year, undaunted by the growing scrutiny and with hopes the Republicans will be back in power.

"People don't understand; if you don't establish yourself as the biggest dog in the yard, you're going to be chased out," Young said. "No one has been able to do that to me."

Political analysts say Young -- Alaska's lone representative since a special election in 1973 -- may be the most vulnerable right now, but Stevens could be in for the toughest time yet in his political career heading toward the 2008 election.

Long-Serving Senator

Stevens is facing scrutiny from federal investigators for a home remodeling project, an investigation that dovetailed with a corruption investigation into state officials.

Meanwhile, his son Ben, a former Alaska Senate president, was one of six state lawmakers who had their offices raided by the FBI last year. He has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

Ted Stevens, a former prosecutor, said his attorneys have advised him not to discuss the investigation.

However, Stevens did say that he's not taking the investigation lightly, especially if it gains momentum.

"The worst thing about this investigation is that it does change your life in terms of employment potential," said Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history who was appointed in 1968. "It doesn't matter what anyone says, it does shake you up. If this is still hanging around a year from November, it could cause me some trouble."

But so far, Stevens seems to be thriving on the setbacks. He was recently credited for helping broker a compromise on the Senate's energy bill.

"I think all this has increased my focus on doing my job," he said. "I'm working to get this concept out of my mind that someone is trying to make something illegal out of all this. That's what's really disturbing."

'Earmarks Are Good'

Meanwhile, criticisms launched at Young have come piecemeal over the last several years. He was connected to the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff when one of his former aides pleaded guilty to accepting gifts in exchange for official acts on the lobbyist's behalf.

He has also taken heat for earmarks, money awarded for specific projects. Young most notably gained national attention for securing $200 million for a bridge project linking the southeast Alaska community of Ketchikan to its airport on Gravina, a nearby island, which became known as the "Bridge to Nowhere."

More recently, Young -- the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee -- is taking heat for directing money to a Florida road project study. The money was not sought by the district's Republican congressman but would benefit a major contributor to Young's campaign.

"When you are chairman of a committee, you represent the whole nation; you don't represent one district, which is in my case is one state," Young said. "Earmarks are good for the country and good for the people you represent.

"That is the role of a congressman. If you can't get money for your district, you shouldn't be in Congress," he said.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put Young on notice that it will provide logistical and financial support to a strong party challenger. So far, his only challenger is Diane Benson, whom Young defeated for re-election in 2006.

"They are welcome to try," Young said. "I know that I'm the one they would like to eliminate. It doesn't bother me as long as I run a good campaign and do what's right for this state."

The first punch has already been thrown. The Democratic committee recently launched a radio ad criticizing Young's commitment to providing benefits to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Committee spokesman Fernando Cuevas says the party nationally believes the old guard needs to step down, especially in Alaska where one current and three former state lawmakers face federal bribery and extortion charges.

"People are tired of seeing politicians in this light, from the state legislature to this," Cuevas said. "People are tired of the spin. That style is done. You are seeing politicians at a different standard."

Democrats Smell Blood

Alaska Republican Party chairman Randy Ruedrich is not worried about the fate of his party's two warhorses. He said enough Alaskans will remember how Stevens and Young have helped the state grow, and not just the major cities, but the rural areas as well.
"Their work is what made good drinking water available to our rural system," Ruedrich said.

"They made life in many villages and small towns 20th century living rather than a honey bucket world," he said of the plastic buckets still used by some Alaskans without running water in their homes.

Ruedrich said he welcomes a challenge from Democrats who couldn't unseat U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed by her father to his seat when Frank Murkowski was elected governor in 2004.

But even as Democrats start to smell blood, political analysts say none of the troubles for Stevens or Young is enough to knock them off their perch just yet.

"Those two have been drilling for oil in Washington for a long time and they struck it rich," said David King, political science professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"They are making sure they bring home the bacon to Alaska," he said. "Ideology and style don't matter as much as bringing money back home. That culture in Washington hasn't changed much at all."
http://www.adn.com/front/story/9118343p-9034682c.html





Hackers Steal U.S. Government, Corporate Data from PCs
Jim Finkle

Hackers stole information from the U.S. Department of Transportation and several U.S. companies by seducing employees with fake job-listings on advertisements and e-mail, a computer security firm said.

The victims include consulting firm Booz Allen, computer services company Unisys Corp, computer maker Hewlett- Packard Co and satellite network provider Hughes Network Systems, a unit of Hughes Communications Inc, said Mel Morris, chief executive of British Internet security provider Prevx Ltd.

Of the list, only Unisys acknowledged that viruses had been detected and removed from two PCs, saying no information had been leaked. A Department of Transportation spokeswoman said the agency could not find any indication of a breach and a spokeswoman for Hughes said she was unaware of any breaches.

The other parties either declined comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

Prevx said the malware it identified uses a program named NTOS.exe that probes PCs for confidential data, then sends it to a Web site hosted on Yahoo Inc. That site's owner is likely unaware it is being used by hackers, Morris said.

He believes the hackers have set up several "sister" Web sites that are collecting similar data from other squadrons of malware. It was not clear whether the hackers used any information stolen from more than 1,000 PCs.

The hackers only targeted a limited group of computers, which kept traffic down and allowed them to stay under the radar of security police, who tend to identify threats when activity reaches a certain level.

"What is most worrying is that this particular sample of malware wasn't recognized by existing antivirus software. It was able to slip through enterprise defenses," said Yankee Group security analyst Andrew Jaquith, who learned of the breach from Morris.

Security experts say such crimes occur frequently because hackers have access to software that allows them to build undetectable malware that security firms are unable to fight.

In this case, the malware had not been flagged as dangerous, although security firms put out updates identifying it as such on Monday night after Prevx sounded the alarm.

"The sophistication is really far out there. There is no way security companies are going to catch up," said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a San Francisco firm that helps companies and government agencies detect and fight attacks on their computer systems.

Wesson said his company is monitoring three other campaigns that are currently ongoing, but declined to discuss them, saying that could hamper counter-intelligence efforts.

Wake-Up Call

Many large organizations -- including government agencies -- do not use all the bells and whistles in their security software, security experts say.

For example, organizations can choose to only let employees run programs on a list of safe software, but most take the opposite approach, banning programs listed as dangerous.

Also, sensitive information on PCs is rarely encrypted. Doing so makes stolen information useless to hackers, but requires extra work by employees who access the data.

A researcher with a large security firm said the attack disclosed by Prevx is "a wake-up call."

"We try to strike a balance between usability and protection. It's a delicate balance. But organizations need to lean more toward the protection side than the usability side," said the researcher who declined to be identified.

What is unusual about the case publicized by Prevx, security experts say, is that the firm named the victims.

Prevx CEO Morris said he did so to bring attention to vulnerabilities in security systems protecting sensitive government data.

Hackers use security tools to help them determine whether their malware will be able to get past corporate and government defenses. For example, a Web site called virustotal.com lets users upload files to see if they are safe. Hackers use it to see if their malware will make it past security systems.

Morris said he had downloaded the data from the Web site used by the hackers and provided it to investigators from the FBI's Law Enforcement Online, or LEO, program.

An FBI spokesman declined comment.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco, John Crawley in Washington, Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domes...38118020070717





Is Winning on Faulty Slot Machine Crime?

Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against casino gamblers who won big on a slot machine that had been installed with faulty software.

The machine at Caesars Indiana credited gamblers $10 for each dollar they inserted because the software wasn't designed for U.S. currency, state police said. More than two dozen people played the machine before one gambler alerted Caesars employees.

Caesars lost $487,000 on the machine during that time, state police said.

A decision on whether to bring criminal charges could come in a couple of weeks, said John Colin, chief deputy prosecutor for Harrison County. He said "criminal intent" may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.

The casino said some of the gamblers returned the money after the casino contacted them.

"This is a bit of an unusual case because you've got to go back and piece together who did what," Colin said. The prosecutor's office declined to say Thursday what criminal charges could be brought.

The incident occurred last July, but he said obtaining casino records took longer than expected.

Kathryn Ford of Louisville, Ky., the gambler who alerted the casino, said going after the other patrons was unfair.

When a slot machine jams and gamblers lose money, they don't get it back, she said.

"It doesn't work in the reverse," Ford said. "They need to forget it and move on."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070719/...s_slot_machine





The Top Countries For Cybercrime
Andy Greenberg

Cybercrime, like every digital industry, is outsourcing. Though the U.S. still produces more malware, spam and viruses than any country in the world, illicit IT jobs are increasingly scattered across an anarchic and international Internet, where labor is cheap, legitimate IT jobs are scarce and scammers are insulated from the laws that protect their victims by thousands of miles. As Thomas Friedman might say, the criminal underworld is flat.

According to a Symantec (nasdaq: SYMC - news - people ) report at the end of 2006, Beijing is now home to the world's largest collection of malware-infected computers, nearly 5% of the world's total. Research by the security company Sophos in April showed that China has overtaken the U.S. in hosting Web pages that secretly install malicious programs on computers to steal private information or send spam e-mails. And another report from Sophos earlier that month showed that Europe produces more spam than any other continent; one Polish Internet service provider alone produces fully 5% of the world's spam.

Cybercrime this geographically diverse isn't just hard to stop; it's hard to track. Common tactics like phishing and spam are usually achieved with "botnets," herds of PCs hijacked with malware unbeknownst to their owners. Botnet attacks can usually be traced only to the zombie computers, not to their original source. That means the majority of studies mapping botnet attacks point to every place in the world that has vulnerable PCs, with no real sense of where the attacks begin.

Researchers at Sophos Labs say they have a solution: They can roughly identify the host country of malicious software by tracing the default language of the computer on which it was programmed. According to their analysis of the default language linked with about 19,000 samples at the end of last year, Americans and other non-British English speakers still produce the most malware, more than a third of the world’s total. Close behind is China, producing 30%, followed by Brazil, with 14.2%. Russia places fourth with 4.1% of the world’s malware.

Bill Pennington of White Hat Security attributes these developing countries' bad behavior to an overabundance of technologically trained young people with low-paying jobs. "If you’re in Russia or China and you have a computer science degree," he says, "You can either go work for nothing or you can make money using your skills for nefarious purposes."

Cybercrime isn't merely spreading to certain foreign countries, it's becoming cosmopolitan, says James Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. As crime syndicates in Europe and Asia move into online scams, Lewis says that a single cybercrime operation can now be distributed among many different groups in several countries. One may create a "botnet" while another rents those computers to send credit scam e-mails and a third party transfers funds using the fraudulently obtained banking information. Sometimes each operation is on a different continent.

"The big problem here is political. It’s sovereignty," Lewis says. "The FBI cannot go enforce American law without the consent of the country where cybercrime is being carried out. So even if U.S. laws were perfect, it wouldn’t be enough to protect you." He describes a "Bonnie and Clyde" situation, where police stop at the edge of their jurisdiction rather than pursue criminals to their hideouts.

The growth areas of the malware industry aren't easily predicted. India, for instance, is one of the world’s most technologically booming developing countries, but ranks surprisingly low on Sophos' list. The U.K. and India together contribute only 1.3% of the world's malware--both use British English as a default language, so their samples couldn't be separated--and Sophos researchers say the majority of that criminal activity comes from the U.K. Eugene Kaspersky, Russian security guru and head of Kaspersky Labs, can only explain India’s lack of cybercrime as a "cultural difference."

Nandkumar Saravade, director of cyber security for India's National Association of Software and Service Companies, says that India has so far avoided a cybercrime epidemic thanks to the success of its legitimate IT industry. "Today, it is a fact that any person in India with marketable computer skills has a few job offers in hand," he says.

But Saravade and Kaspersky both warn that security professionals should expect the subcontinent’s malware contribution to grow in coming years. When it does, India likely won't be ready to contain the problem: The country's last major cybercrime law was created in 2000, long before botnets became an issue.

India isn't alone in being unprepared: Kaspersky says that the growing industry of malware professionals around the world hasn't been fully recognized by international legal bodies or the software industry, which continues to build vulnerable programs.

"We in the security industry need to attract the attention of government authorities, educate users and encourage changes in basic operating systems," he says. "Alone, we don’t have a chance."
http://www.forbes.com/home/technolog...ybercrime.html





Attackers Hide in Fast Flux
Kelly Jackson Higgins

Cybercriminals are increasingly using an advanced method of hiding and sustaining their malicious Websites and botnet infrastructures -- dubbed "fast-flux" -- that could make them more difficult to detect, researchers say.

Criminal organizations behind two infamous malware families -- Warezov/Stration and Storm -- in the past few months have separately moved their infrastructures to so-called fast-flux service networks, according to the Honeynet Project & Research Alliance, which has released a new report on the emerging networks and techniques.

Fast-flux is basically load-balancing with a twist. It's a round-robin method where infected bot machines (typically home computers) serve as proxies or hosts for malicious Websites. These are constantly rotated, changing their DNS records to prevent their discovery by researchers, ISPs, or law enforcement.

"The purpose of this technique is to render the IP-based block list -- a popular tool for identifying malicious systems -- useless for preventing attacks," says Adam O'Donnell, director of emerging technologies at security vendor Cloudmark.

Researchers and ISPs have been aware of fast-flux for over a year, but there hasn't been an in-depth look at how it works until now. "All of this research on fast-flux is new. No one had any definitive research on it," says Ralph Logan, vice president of the Honeynet Project and principal of The Logan Group. "We saw a rising trend in illegal, malicious criminal activity here."

Fast-flux helps cybercriminals hide their content servers, including everything from fake online pharmacies, phishing sites, money mules, and adult content sites, Logan says. "This is to keep security professionals and ISPs from discovering and mitigating their illegal content."

The bad guys like fast-flux -- not only because it keeps them up and running, but also because it's more efficient than traditional methods of infecting multiple machines, which were easily discovered.

"The ISP would shut down my 100 machines, and then I'd have to infect 100 more to serve my content and relay my spam," Logan says. Fast-flux, however, lets hackers set up proxy servers that contact the "mother ship," which serves as command and control. It uses an extra layer of obfuscation between the victim (client) and the content machine, he says.

A domain has hundreds or thousands of IP addresses, all of which are rotated frequently -- so the proxy machines get rotated regularly, too -- some as often as every three minutes -- to avoid detection. "It's not a bunch of traffic to one node serving illegal code," Logan says.

"I send you a phishing email, you click on www.homepharmacy.com -- but it's really taking you to Grandma's PC on PacBell, which wakes up and says 'it's my turn now.' You'd have 100 different users coming to Grandma's PC for the next few minutes, and then Auntie Flo's PC gets command-and-controlled" next, Logan explains.

The home PC proxies are infected the usual way, through spam email, viruses, or other common methods, Logan says.

The Honeynet Project & Alliance set out a live honeypot to invite infection by a fast-flux service network. "Our honeypot can capture actual traffic between the mother ship and the end node," Logan says. The alliance is still studying the malicious code and behavior of the fast-flux network it has baited, he says.

What can be done about fast flux? ISPs and users should probe suspicious nodes and use intrusion detection systems; block TCP port 80 and UDP port 53; block access to mother ship and other controller machines when detected; "blackhole" DNS and BGP route-injection; and monitor DNS, the report says.

Cloudmark's O'Donnell says fast flux is just the latest method of survival for the bad guys: There are more to come. "Any technique that allows a malicious actor to keep his network online longer -- and reduce the probability of his messages and attacks being blocked -- will be used," he says. "This is just the latest of those techniques."
http://www.darkreading.com/document....WT.svl=news1_1





Adobe Flash Exploit Could Log Keystrokes
Dawn Kawamoto

Adobe has issued three critical security updates, one of which is designed to stop a problem in the way the Flash player interacts with browsers, which could result in users' keystrokes being transmitted to attackers.

Adobe Flash Player 9.0.45.0, 8.0.34.0 and 7.0.69.0, as well as their earlier versions running on all platforms, are affected.

Users loading a malicious vector graphics file format (SWF) in their Flash Player may find attackers exploiting security flaws due to an input validation error in 9.0.45.0 and earlier versions, according to a security advisory from Secunia. Attackers, as a result, can gain remote access to a user's system.

In versions 7.0.69.0 and earlier running on Linux and Solaris, malicious attackers could exploit an error in the interaction between the Flash Player and certain browsers. That could potentially lead to a leaking of keystrokes to a Flash Player applet, Secunia noted. Flash Player 9 is not affected.

Versions 8.0.34.0 and earlier contain a bug due to insufficient validation of the HTTP referrer. As a result, an attacker could execute a cross-site forgery attack. Flash Player 9, however, is not affected.

Adobe recommends that 9.0.45.0 users upgrade to 9.0.47.0 for Windows, Mac and Solaris, or 9.0.48.0 for Linux.

Adobe Flash Player 9 is the recommended solution for the other two versions that contain security flaws.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/securi...2028443,00.htm





FBI Remotely Installs Spyware to Trace Bomb Threat
Declan McCullagh

The FBI used a novel type of remotely installed spyware last month to investigate who was e-mailing bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Wash.

Federal agents obtained a court order on June 12 to send spyware called CIPAV to a MySpace account suspected of being used by the bomb threat hoaxster. Once implanted, the software was designed to report back to the FBI with the Internet Protocol address of the suspect's computer, other information found on the PC and, notably, an ongoing log of the user's outbound connections.

The suspect, former Timberline High School student Josh Glazebrook, was sentenced this week to 90 days in juvenile detention after pleading guilty to making bomb threats and other charges.

While there's been plenty of speculation about how the FBI might deliver spyware electronically, this case appears to be the first to reveal how the technique is used in practice. The FBI did confirm in 2001 that it was working on a virus called Magic Lantern but hasn't said much about it since. The two other cases in which federal investigators were known to have used spyware--the Scarfo and Forrester cases--involved agents actually sneaking into offices to implant key loggers.

An 18-page affidavit filed in federal court by FBI Agent Norm Sanders last month and obtained by CNET News.com claims details about the governmental spyware are confidential. The FBI calls its spyware a Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier, or CIPAV.

"The exact nature of these commands, processes, capabilities, and their configuration is classified as a law enforcement sensitive investigative technique, the disclosure of which would likely jeopardize other ongoing investigations and/or future use of the technique," Sanders wrote. A reference to the operating system's registry indicates that CIPAV can target, as you might expect given its market share, Microsoft Windows. Other data sent back to the FBI include the operating system type and serial number, the logged-in user name, and the Web URL that the computer was "previously connected to."

News.com has posted Sanders' affidavit and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue.

There have been hints in the past that the FBI has employed this technique. In 2004, an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the bureau had used an "Internet Protocol Address Verifier" that was sent to a suspect via e-mail.

But bloggers at the time dismissed it--in hindsight, perhaps erroneously--as the FBI merely using an embedded image in an HTML-formatted e-mail message, also known as a Web bug.

Finding out who's behind a MySpace account

An interesting twist in the current case is that the county sheriff's office learned about the MySpace profile -- timberlinebombinfo -- when the creator tried to persuade other students to link to it and at least one of their parents called the police. The sheriff's office reported that 33 students received a request to post the link to "timberlinebombinfo" on their own MySpace pages.

In addition, the bomb hoaxster was sending a series of taunting messages from Google Gmail accounts (including dougbrigs@gmail.com) the week of June 4. A representative excerpt: "There are 4 bombs planted throughout Timberline High School. One in the math hall, library hall, and one portable. The bombs will go off in 5 minute intervals at 9:15 am."

The FBI replied by obtaining account logs from Google and MySpace. Both pointed to the Internet Protocol address of 80.76.80.103, which turned out to be a compromised computer in Italy.

That's when the FBI decided to roll out the heavy artillery: CIPAV. "I have concluded that using a CIPAV on the target MySpace 'Timberlinebombinfo' account may assist the FBI to determine the identities of the individual(s) using the activating computer," Sanders' affidavit says.

CIPAV was going to be installed "through an electronic messaging program from an account controlled by the FBI," which probably means e-mail. (Either e-mail or instant messaging could be used to deliver an infected file with CIPAV hidden in it, but the wording of that portion of the affidavit makes e-mail more likely.)

After CIPAV is installed, the FBI said, it will immediately report back to the government the computer's Internet Protocol address, Ethernet MAC address, "other variables, and certain registry-type information." And then, for the next 60 days, it will record Internet Protocol addresses visited but not the contents of the communications.

Putting the legal issues aside for the moment, one key question remains a mystery: Assuming the FBI delivered the CIPAV spyware via e-mail, how did the the program bypass antispyware defenses and install itself as malicious software? (There's no mention of antivirus defenses in the court documents, true, but the bomb-hoaxster also performed a denial of service attack against the school district computers -- which, coupled with compromising the server in Italy, points to some modicum of technical knowledge.)

One possibility is that the FBI has persuaded security software makers to overlook CIPAV and not alert their users to its presence.

Another is that the FBI has found (or paid someone to uncover) unknown vulnerabilities in Windows or Windows-based security software that would permit CIPAV to be installed. From the FBI's perspective, this would be the most desirable: for one thing, it would also obviate the need to strong-arm dozens of different security vendors, some with headquarters in other countries, into whitelisting CIPAV.

Earlier this week, News.com surveyed 13 security vendors and all said it was their general policy to detect police spyware. Some, however, indicated they would obey a court order to ignore policeware, and neither McAfee nor Microsoft would say whether they had received such a court order.

The verbatim results of our survey are here.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9746451-7.html





FBI Ducks Questions About its Remotely Installed Spyware
Declan McCullagh

There are plenty of unanswered questions about the FBI spyware that, as we reported earlier this week, can be delivered over the Internet and implanted in a suspect's computer remotely.

Many of the questions hearken back to the old debate over the FBI's Carnivore wiretapping system, which technical luminaries Steve Bellovin, Matt Blaze, David Farber, Peter Neumann, and Eugene Spafford raised in a December 2000 paper.

Some of the perfectly reasonable points they made: What about security flaws? Is there evidence of a "systematic search for bugs?" How about audit and logging? Why not publish the source code for public review?

And of course there are issues more specific to the FBI's use of the Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier, or CIPAV, including whether the bureau believes it can install it on Americans' computers willy-nilly in the wake of a wacky 9th U.S. Circuit Court decision this month.

We were planning to list them for your delectation, only to find that Kevin Poulsen at Wired had already done an excellent job of it. (We should note that, although we were on the trail of the CIPAV story this week, Wired was first to publish it.)

Some of the questions Kevin posed to the FBI, with no answers as of Thursday:

- What kind of investigations has the CIPAV assisted in?

- Does the CIPAV have the capability, if so configured, to record keystrokes? Generally, does the FBI have the ability to electronically and surreptitiously deliver monitoring software to a target's PC that records keystrokes?

- Do other law enforcement agencies have access to the CIPAV technology?

We also contacted the FBI with our own questions--with no better luck in terms of actually getting a response from the bureau, which must be busy defending our nation from serious threats or something.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9747666-7.html





Will Security Firms Detect Police Spyware?
Declan McCullagh

A recent federal court decision raises the question of whether antivirus companies may intentionally overlook spyware that is secretly placed on computers by police.

In the case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger--call it fedware--to record the typing of a suspected Ecstasy manufacturer who used encryption to thwart the police.

A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet.

Most of the companies surveyed, which covered the range from tiny firms to Symantec and IBM, said they never had received such a court order. The full list of companies surveyed: AVG/Grisoft, Computer Associates, Check Point, eEye, IBM, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Microsoft, Sana Security, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro and Websense. Only McAfee and Microsoft flatly declined to answer that question. (Click here for the verbatim responses to the survey.)

Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives. Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's OS X include built-in encryption.

Some companies that responded to the survey were vehemently pro-privacy. "Our customers are paying us for a service, to protect them from all forms of malicious code," said Marc Maiffret, eEye Digital Security's co-founder and chief technology officer. "It is not up to us to do law enforcement's job for them so we do not, and will not, make any exceptions for law enforcement malware or other tools." eEye sells Blink Personal for $25, which includes antivirus and antispyware features.

Others were more conciliatory. Check Point, which makes the popular ZoneAlarm utility, said it would offer federal police the "same courtesy" that it extends to legitimate third-party vendors that request to be whitelisted. A Check Point representative said, though, that the company had "never been" in that situation.

This isn't exactly a new question. After the last high-profile case in which federal agents turned to a key logger, some security companies allegedly volunteered to ignore fedware. The Associated Press reported in 2001 that "McAfee Corp. contacted the FBI... to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software." McAfee subsequently said the report was inaccurate.

Later that year, the FBI confirmed that it was creating spy software called "Magic Lantern" that would allow agents to inject keystroke loggers remotely through a virus without having physical access to the computer. (In both the recent Ecstasy case and the earlier key logging case involving an alleged mobster, federal agents obtained court orders authorizing them to break into buildings to install key loggers.)

Government agencies and backdoors in technology products have a long and frequently clandestine relationship. One 1995 expose by the Baltimore Sun described how the National Security Agency persuaded a Swiss firm, Crypto, to build backdoors into its encryption devices. In his 1982 book, The Puzzle Palace, author James Bamford described how the NSA's predecessor in 1945 coerced Western Union, RCA and ITT Communications to turn over telegraph traffic to the feds.

More recently, after the BBC reported last year on supposed talks between the British government and Microsoft, the software maker pledged not to build backdoors into Windows Vista's encryption functions.

Even if the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration or other federal police haven't tried to compel security companies to whitelist fedware, security experts predict that such a court order is just a matter of time.

What remains unclear, however, is whether police have the legal authority to do so under current law. "The government would be pushing the boundaries of the law if it attempted to obtain such an order," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated wiretapping cases. "There's simply no precedent for this sort of thing."

One possibility is a section of the Wiretap Act that says courts can "direct that a provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian or other person" to help with electronic surveillance.

"There is some breadth in that language that is of concern and that the Justice Department may attempt to exploit," Bankston said.

In theory, government agencies could even seek a court order requiring security companies to deliver spyware to their customers as part of an auto-update feature. Most modern security companies, including operating system makers such as Microsoft and Apple, offer regular patches and bug fixes. Although it would be technically tricky, it would be possible to send an infected update to a customer if the vendor were ordered to do so.

When asked if it had ever received such a court order, Microsoft demurred. "Microsoft frequently has confidential conversations with both customers and government agencies and does not comment on those conversations," a company representative said. Of the 13 companies surveyed, McAfee was the other company that declined to answer. (Two others could not be reached as of Tuesday morning.)

Some security companies refused to reply to the initial version of our survey, which broadly asked about fedware whitelisting. In response, we revised the question to ask if they would alert a customer to the presence of keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency "in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge."

Cris Paden, Symantec's manger of corporate public relations, initially declined to reply. "There are legitimate reasons for not giving blanket guarantees--one of those is a court order," he said at first. "There are extenuating circumstances and gray issues."

But after we altered the question, Paden replied: "Barring a court order to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, Symantec would definitely alert our customers to the presence of any malicious code or programs that we detect on their systems." He added that Symantec had "absolutely not" received any such a court order.

One danger with whitelisting fedware is that it creates a potentially serious vulnerability in security software. If a malicious vendor of spyware were clever enough to mimic the whitelisted government spyware, it would also go undetected.

But if fedware becomes more common, savvy criminals could simply turn to open-source software that's less likely to have backdoors for police. ClamAV and OpenAntiVirus.org both offer open-source security software, and it's also possible to boot off of a CD-ROM and inspect the hard drive for malicious tampering.

At the moment, at least, there aren't any industry standards about detecting fedware. "CSIA does not currently have a position on this issue nor has the issue ever been addressed by its board of directors," said Tim Bennett, president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance.
http://news.com.com/Will+security+fi...3-6197020.html





FBI Patriot Act Abuse Documents: What Special Project Lives in FBI HQ Room 4944?
Ryan Singel

In March, the Justice Department's Inspector General revealed that FBI agents had sent a flurry of fake emergency letters to phone companies, asking them to turn over phone records immediately by promising that the proper papers had been filed with U.S. attorneys, though in many cases this was a complete lie. More than 60 of these letters were made public today as part of a FBI document dump in response to a government sunshine lawsuit centered on the FBI's abuse of a key Patriot Act power.

The most striking thing about these expedited letters (made public via the Electronic Frontier Foundation) is that they all use the same pathetic, passive bureaucratese: "Due to exigent circumstances, it is requested that records for the attached list of telephone numbers be provided."

So far they seem to all be coming from the same office: the Communications Analysis Unit which looks to be located in Room 4944 in FBI Headquarters. The "exigent letters" also refer almost exclusively to a "Special Project" and the only name on any of the letters is Larry Mefford.

Mefford was no rookie FBI agent. Mefford was the Executive Assistant Director, in charge of the Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Division. In English, that means he was in charge of preventing another terrorist attack domestically.

What does that mean? Well, Mefford's name is on documents that requested personal information on Americans. Some of those requests included information known to be false to the agents signing them. That's a federal crime, according to one former FBI agent.

What was this "Special Project" in the Communications Analysis Group? What exactly were they doing that would require "expedited" letters that sometimes requested more than 2 pages of phone numbers from phone companies? In the immortal words of the Butch Cassidy, who are those guys?

The documents also show that these "exigent letters" -- essentially end runs around the rules set up to keep the FBI from trampling on citizens rights -- weren't devised by some rogue Jack Bauer-style agent. The form letters originated from inside FBI Headquarters and in some cases, bear the name of a senior level FBI offiicial who should have been aware of the letters' legal grey status and possibility for abuse.

The FBI is fully aware of the power handed to it by Congress's passage of the Patriot Act. Indeed, as early as November 28, 2001, every field office was warned by the Office of the General Counsel that:

NSLs are powerful investigative tools in that they can compel the production of substantial amounts of relevant information. However, they must be used judiciously. [...] In deciding whether or not to re-authorize the broadened authority, Congress certainly will examine the manner in which the FBI exercised it. Executive Order 12333 and the FCIG require that the FBU accomplish its investigations through the "least intrusive " means. Supervisors should keep this in mind when deciding whether or not a particular use of NSL authority is appropriate. The greater availability of NSLs does not mean that they should be used in every case.

From the looks of the audits coming out, that seems to be one memo FBI agents dutifully ignored. And perhaps rightfully so, since Congress didn't bother to challenge Alberto Gonzales's knowingly false statements to Congress about the FBI's use of these powers before they made them permanent.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...triot-act.html





Met Given Real Time C-Charge Data
BBC

Police are to be given live access to London's congestion charge cameras - allowing them to track all vehicles entering and leaving the zone.

Anti-terror officers will be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act to allow them to see the date, time and location of vehicles in real time.

They previously had to apply for access on a case-by-case basis.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith blamed the "enduring vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London" for the change.

Police are believed to have used the cameras to trace the routes taken by the two Mercedes cars used in last month's alleged attempted bomb attacks in London.

But the Home Office said discussions were underway on giving police greater access to data before the discovery of the two car bombs.

National security

Under previous rules, police had to apply for access to the cameras on a case-by-case basis because of concerns that routine use of the information would be an invasion of privacy.

Under the new rules, anti-terror officers will be able to view pictures in "real time" from Transport for London's (Tfl) 1,500 cameras, which use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology to link cars with owners' details.

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

Police and security minister Tony McNulty said: "The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police believes that it is necessary due to the enduring, vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London.

"The Met requires bulk ANPR data from TfL's camera network in London specifically for terrorism intelligence purposes and to prevent and investigate such offences.

"The infrastructure will allow the real-time flow of data between TfL and the Met."

Watchdog

Mr McNulty said the home secretary had signed a certificate exempting the two organisations from some provisions of the 1998 Data Protection Act.

The Met will produce an annual report for the Information Commissioner, the government's data protection watchdog who oversees how material from CCTV cameras is used.

The scheme will also be reviewed in three months' time after an interim report by Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, so the home secretary can be "personally satisfied ... that the privacy of individuals is protected", added Mr McNulty.

Congestion charge cameras form a ring around central London to enforce the £8-a-day toll.

Although charges are only in force at peak times, the system runs 24 hours a day, a TfL spokesman said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...cs/6902543.stm





NY Gov: New York City Traffic Plan "Still Alive"
Joan Gralla

New York City's plan to cut traffic congestion by imposing fees on drivers in a large swath of Manhattan during peak periods was "still alive" on Tuesday, according to Gov. Eliot Spitzer, but no final accord had been reached despite late-night talks.

Yet Mayor Michael Bloomberg was less optimistic, telling reporters, "I don't know that it's dead or alive." He vowed to keep fighting for his plan, which he has trumpeted as key to improving air quality in the city, and blasted Democratic state legislators for lacking the courage to enact unpopular measures.

Under Bloomberg's plan, which is modeled on a similar program in London, drivers south of 86th Street in Manhattan would pay $8 per car on weekdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.; trucks would pay $21.

A string of surveys found that voters disapproved of Bloomberg's proposed fees, which critics said would fall hardest on lower-income drivers and burden already-crowded subways, buses and commuter trains.

But the state mass transit agency said it could handle the influx of new riders, and badly needed the $30 billion the new fees would raise to build new subway and commuter rail lines, and add high-speed buses over the next 30 years.

"Don't tell me about polls, the people of New York elected a mayor and said 'Do what's right,'" said Bloomberg, whose decision to become an independent after winning two terms as a Republican and high-profile stands on gun control and cigarette-smoking have catapulted him to the national stage.

The mayor repeatedly warned that the city would lose $500 million of federal transportation aid if the state did not enact his congestion pricing plan into law by Monday.

But the state's Democratic-led Assembly, a powerful body that had killed the mayor's plan for a Yankee baseball stadium in Manhattan, resisted and on Monday said it instead would study the plan.

"Once-In-Lifetime Opportunity Lost"

Though Speaker Sheldon Silver said he was told the U.S. Department of Transportation would accept a study to keep alive the city's bid for federal aid, Bloomberg on Tuesday said he did not expect it would pass muster because the agency wanted model projects for other cities in contention for the funds.

"I think, sadly, we jeopardized -- at best -- and probably lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and demonstrated once again that Albany just doesn't get it," Bloomberg said, adding state lawmakers lacked the moxie the Democratic City Council showed in enacting tough measures, from tax hikes to a trans fat ban.

Yet a spokeswoman for Spitzer, a Democrat, on Tuesday said in an e-mail that a congestion-pricing accord still might be reached. "There is a sense that things are moving in the right direction after a long night of talks that are continuing this morning, but no deal has been reached. You are fair to say it's still alive," said Christine Anderson.

But Joseph Bruno, the senate majority leader, held out little hope, blaming Democratic lawmakers and the governor.

"The governor's inability to bring people together has doomed this measure and cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars to improve mass transit," Bruno said in a statement.

Bloomberg, who has said that the city's poor air quality has contributed to high rates of asthma among children in low-income areas, said, "I should tell you who should feel let down: the people who breath the air, the people who are trying to do business in the city."

Spokesmen for the speaker and the Department of Transportation were not available.

U.S. transportation officials in August are expected to pick which anti-traffic plans to fund. The other eight cities in contention are: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

London officials say traffic has fallen around 10 percent due to its congestion pricing program, which began in 2003. In February, London doubled its fees to 8 pounds ($16.36) per vehicle.

Like London, New York's congestion plan calls for mounting surveillance cameras in key areas in Manhattan to record the license plates of cars driving in the designated areas during peak periods.
http://www.reuters.com/article/bonds...21591020070717





Criminal Investigation Secrets Leak onto Internet by Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Networks

Student records also released onto the net by malware

The Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo has confirmed that personal information about 12,000 people related to criminal investigations has been distributed across the net from an officer's infected computer. The police officer, who had installed the Winny file-sharing software on his PC, did not realise that a piece of malicious code was making the confidential data available to other users via the peer-to-peer network.

About 6,600 police documents are said to have been compromised, including interrogation reports, statements from victims of crime, and classified locations of automatic license plate readers. Among the files was a list of the names, addresses and personal information about 400 members of the criminal Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza gang.

Coincidentally, as news of the police data leakage was announced it was also revealed that almost 15,000 pieces of personal information about students was leaked onto the internet from a PC belonging to a high school teacher in Ichinomiya. The 43-year-old teacher, who was running the Share P2P file-sharing program, had also been compiling a list of retired Air Self-Defense Force officers on behalf of his mother who had worked at their base in Kagamihara. This information also leaked onto the internet.

These are not the first occasions that malware has taken advantage of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to steal information:

• In May 2006, Sophos reported that a virus had leaked power plant secrets via Winny for the second time in four months.
• The previous month, a Japanese anti-virus company admitted that internal documents and customer information had been leaked after one of its employees failed to install anti-virus software.
• Earlier in 2006, Sophos described how information about Japanese sex victims was leaked by a virus after a police investigator's computer had been infected.
• In June 2005, Sophos reported that nuclear power plant secrets had been leaked from a computer belonging to an employee of Mitsubishi Electric Plant Engineering.
• The police force in Kyoto, Japan, were left with red faces after a virus spread information about their "most wanted" suspect list in April 2004.

"How many more times will we hear stories of police forces in Japan leaking information about criminal investigations because they have not stopped their officers from installing file-sharing software?" said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "All organizations can learn from these stories of data loss, and need to ensure that they are taking computer security seriously. If you allow your employees to put sensitive company data onto their own home computers, you are running the risk that they will not be as well defended as the PCs within your business. Organizations need to set and enforce policies as to what software their workers are allowed to run, or risk endangering data security."

A survey conducted last year by Sophos reflects the serious concern that uncontrolled applications are causing system administrators. For example, 86.5 percent of respondents said they want the opportunity to block P2P applications, with 79 percent indicating that blocking is essential.
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories...iew/sid/23987/





Japanese P2P Leak Cop Fired
John Leyden

A Japanese policeman has been fired after he was held responsible for accidentally leaking confidential information via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software installed on his work PC.

The ex-copper, who has not been named, lost his job with the Tokyo Police Department over the leak of personal details of 12,000 people obtained during the course of criminal investigations. The hapless plod apparently installed the Winny file-sharing software onto his PC, blissfully unaware that confidential data was being made available to other users via the P2P network.

About 6,600 police documents are said to have been compromised, including interrogation reports, statements from victims of crime, and classified locations of automatic licence plate readers. Among the files was a list of the names, addresses, and personal information of 400 alleged members of the notorious Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza gang.

The Tokyo Police Department have a policy against running P2P software on PCs. The officer falsely claimed not to be running Winny in an internal audit prior to the leak.

The officer's superiors are being held partially responsible for the incident, with up to 10 facing possible disciplinary proceedings.

"It's no surprise that the Japanese police force has taken a hard line against this officer for disobeying advice about not running P2P file sharing software on his PC - the authorities have been trying to enforce a ban following a number of similar embarrassing incidents in the past," notes Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

The Winny file sharing network is the most popular P2P network in Japan, boasting an estimated 250,000 users. The technology has become a focus of concern for authorities after investigation records from a Kyoto Prefecture Police officer's computer and military files from Japan's Self-Defence Force as well as police files from the Tokyo Police were made available across the Winny P2P network. In May 2006, a virus was blamed for leaking power plant secrets onto Winny.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07...eak_cop_fired/





The Stalker in Your Pocket
Mike Elgan

For most of a century, nosey people, both professional and amateur, have used microphones and cameras to listen to and watch unsuspecting targets.

In recent years, the miniaturization of electronics has enabled these devices to be hidden. Extreme drops in price have made spy electronics available to anyone, even creepy stalker types. The only remaining challenge is placement: If anyone wants to capture the juicy tidbits, they've got to have a microphone or camera in the right place at the right time.

Enter the camera phone, a dream come true for not just spies but a new breed of "cell phone stalkers."

Camera phones contain all the necessary ingredients for completely invasive stalking: a microphone, camera, personal data on the user, location information, a chat and call history -- you name it. And victims carry them everywhere they go.

All that's missing is the software that lets stalkers take control. This new software, called snoopware, does just that. Snoopware -- both legal and illegal -- enables stalkers to secretly seize control of a phone's electronics to listen, watch and spy on their victims.

Welcome to the creepy new world of cell phone stalking.

Although cell phone stalking is new, there's already plenty of bad information, urban legends and false beliefs about it in circulation. I'm going to sort all this out for you, tell you about what's possible and how to protect yourself (it's easier than you think). But first, let's look at the first and most celebrated case to date of this new world of cell phone stalking.

Meet the Kuykendalls

I told you in a previous column about a family in Washington state called the Kuykendalls, who say that a hacker was stalking them through three of their cell phones for more than four months.

The stalker seemed to perform unprecedented cell phone superhacks, according to press reports. For example, he watched them through their phones' cameras and listened through the microphones. When they turned off the phones, the hacker turned them back on remotely, seized control of the phones and sent text messages from them. When they got new phones, the hacking continued. Even scarier, they received almost daily threats of violence from an anonymous caller, who seemed to be calling from a family member's own phone, even when that phone was turned off, and provided details about what they were doing and even what they were wearing.

In addition to the Kuykendalls, the family's neighbor and Mrs. Kuykendall's sister were also harassed by the anonymous caller.

Although the mainstream press played up these events as some kind of terrifying superhack, I think something much more ordinary is going on.

The most likely explanation, based on the limited information publicly available, is that some malicious script kiddie, who knows the family personally, pulled off one or two simple hacks, then "socially engineered" the family into thinking he'd done something more impressive.

For example, a combination of spoofing one of the family's cell phone's Caller ID, which is easy to do, and using that trick to retrieve voice mail, plus possibly hacking the carrier's Web site to change ringtones and cause other mischief. These steps, combined with old-fashioned spying on the family in person, could explain nearly all the superhacking claims.

Hacked? Yes. Disturbing? Very. Illegal? Absolutely. But it's a far cry from the picture painted in the press of some unstoppable arch-villain mastermind.

Experts interviewed on TV and in the newspapers answer "yes" to the question, "Is this kind of hack possible?" And, in fact, it is possible, but spectacularly unlikely.

To pull off the Kuykendalls' superhack described in the press, the family would have to repeatedly buy high-end camera phones, such as Windows Mobile, BlackBerry or other devices, leave Java support on, keep Bluetooth on and in "autodiscovery" mode, or give the hacker full physical access to the phones to install several snoopware applications.

What's possible?

Snoopware is on the rise, mostly because of the increasing sophistication of phones. They're like mini-PCs. Most snoopware attacks have taken place in Europe and Asia. But they're coming to America.

Security experts estimate that there are more than 400 types of snoopware (most of them variants of a few major snoopware programs), and that figure may top 1,000 by the end of the year.

Your typical new snoopware program might enable someone to listen to phone calls and read e-mail and text messages, or steal contacts and other data. Some snoopware can use your phone's microphone to listen, even when the phone is supposedly "off." Other programs can capture images from a camera phone's camera.

Snoopware is the kind of software used by the government to eavesdrop on gangsters and terrorists.

But snoopware isn't the only way to stalk via cell phone.

Most carriers offer a "skip passcode" feature that lets you turn off voice mail password-checking when you call from your cell phone. But because carriers use Caller ID to verify the phone, cell phones "spoofing" another phone's number can get in, enabling hackers to access your voice mail and other features without ever knowing the password.

Semilegitimate snoopware programs called Mobile Spy from Retina-X Studios and FlexiSpy from Vervata run invisibly and upload text messages and phone logs to an online server. They can also upload location information. Mobil Spy runs only on Windows Mobile phones, while FlexiSpy offers versions for Series 60 Nokia phones, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. A Pro version of FlexiSpy enables eavesdropping through cell phone microphones when you call a dedicated phone number. A future Pro-X version will let you listen in on calls in progress. The companies target concerned parents, suspicious spouses and distrustful bosses, but obviously a malicious hacker could use them for cell phone stalking.

Sounds bad. But be aware that these programs require physical access to the phone for installation, and they're easy to detect. The security software companies generally consider these applications as malware, and alert users to their presence.

How to beat cell phone stalkers

The best cure is prevention. Don't allow strangers to gain access to your phone. Like any other kind of software, snoopware doesn't install itself. The leading methods for installation are physical access installation, where the user installs by clicking on an attachment or link; or via Bluetooth. By preventing potential stalkers from touching your phone, never clicking on e-mail attachments or links from strangers, and turning off Bluetooth autodiscovery, you'll keep snoopware off your phone.

The fact is, snoopware hacks are dangerous only if you're unaware of them. Once you suspect someone is using your cell phone to spy on you, it's trivially easy to stop them.

Let me count the ways:

1. Buy an anti-malware application from vendors like Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, F-Secure, SMobile, MyMobiSafe and others. These products find not just the shadowy, hacker snoopware programs, but the legal ones, too.

2. Turn on passwords for voice mail access. Do you have to enter a password each time you check voice mail? If not, your carrier has enabled the "skip passcode" feature. A stalker spoofing your Caller ID can check your voice mail, too. But by re-enabling a good password, it will be much easier to keep your voice mail private.

3. Downgrade your cell phone. Snoopware works only on the most advanced phones. For nontechnical users like the Kuykendalls, one simple solution is to swap out your high-end phone for a cheaper model that doesn't support Java or Bluetooth and doesn't have a camera. This isn't a good solution for gadget fans, but for families feeling terrorized, this is a cheap, fast and easy way to get control.

4. Switch carriers. There's not much you can do at the handset level to foil a hack of the carrier's Web site. If the company can't shut down the hacker, switch to another carrier.

5. Buy an anonymous prepaid phone. The last-ditch solution (just before going without a cell phone) is to buy a prepaid phone from 7-Eleven or a similar store. This provides not only the benefits of a low-tech cell phone and a new carrier, but greater anonymity.

The cell phone stalker trend is real. But simple, common-sense precautions can protect you and your family from malicious harassment.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...pageNu mber=1





Local news

Security Watch: Don't Get Burned by Viruses and Hackers

Here's looking at you, gangsta
Robert Vamosi

Well-known criminologist Edmond Locard once said that every contact leaves a trace, and that's also true when talking about online crimes. We leave behind our IP addresses at every site we visit. We have posts to newsgroups that are still accessible via Google. And there's that embarrassing MySpace page that was started but abandoned years ago. So when a person suddenly decides to commit an online crime, as one security researcher suggests, all that prior online history follows them, and, as we shall soon see, that history may help investigators eventually identify the perpetrator. But positive identification of online miscreants might not be enough. It seems real-world law enforcement doesn't yet know what to make of online crimes or their perpetrators. And that might explain why the thieves sometimes get away with their crimes.

The attack
Too often I report on online crime stories and don't follow up. In this case, both the initial attack and its follow up was brought to my attention by Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Security Labs. You'll note that for the last two weeks I've been writing about Chris' research into shadowy economics behind botnets. In last week's column, Boyd took a simple Trojan horse file and expertly followed its online links back to servers located in the Middle East, to a group ostensibly raising money in support of some extremist views. Not one to back away from a good chase, Chris has recently applied himself to yet another online mystery.

A few weeks ago I wrote about an attack using a YouTube video. The video (no longer available) promotes a mod called Hood Life for the popular game Grand Theft Auto. The attack didn't involve the YouTube video itself; it used a URL displayed at the end to download an associated malicious file. At the time of the story, Chris, an avid gamer, was livid that people would fall for the shoddy graphics in the video and actually download the file. Apparently at least 54 people did download the malicious file.

Starting with YouTube
For someone to post to YouTube, he or she first needs an account. A lot of people fake information in their accounts, but Boyd decided to take the information available on the Hood Life GTA mod as fact: someone named "YoGangsta50" uploaded the file. In his personal blog, Boyd details the steps he used in his research behind who placed the video on YouTube, and who might also be responsible for the malicious code file download.

As an obvious next step, Boyd used Google to find YoGangsta50. From the results, Boyd learned that this person once posted on the Young Buck forum, and in 2005 the person using that name created another GTA virus. Comments to the post mention that the person using the name YoGangsta50 had previously hacked the 50cent accounts, but soon had a falling out with the forum. It's from these posts that Boyd learned a geographic location for YoGangsta50: Hartford, Connecticut.

Other evidence
In reviewing other online postings, Boyd writes that he found on sites attributed to YoGangsta50 an obsession with the comic strip and cartoon The Boondocks. Elsewhere Boyd finds other evidence: "we now have a first name--'John.' It also mentions he's black, which might also be useful for future reference."

Using a different search engine, Boyd next finds a profile page on Bolt.com, then another profile on Xanga.com, the latter containing a reference to yet another page going up on FreeWebs.com MySpace Protect very soon. On all of these pages there are references to The Boondocks, age 19, and Connecticut--all consistent with the details so far learned elsewhere. This looks now to be a positive ID. Boyd concludes: "How many black youths do you think are aged between 16 and 19, are living in Hartford, Conn., with a supposed real name of 'John,' are into The Boondocks (and spend every other moment telling you about it online), and also just happen to be called YoGangsta50?" So why isn't this person now behind bars?

Response from the law community
Boyd says he sent all this research to law enforcement, but hasn't heard back. "I'll be sending them a follow-up mail today, but generally this kind of thing can be vaguely frustrating, in my experience. Each state's law agencies operate in different ways...some will reply, some will get back to you long after the initial contact, and others will ignore you completely. There's just no way to know in advance what reaction you'll get."

It's entirely possible that law enforcement doesn't yet know what to make of Boyd's research. After all, who were the victims? And do their losses exceed the $5,000 minimum required by the FBI and Secret Service before either agency will investigate? I doubt it. So, on the one hand, you have state agencies that are overworked as-is and don't have the means to investigate on their own, and, on the other, federal agencies that can investigate but can't be bothered with such petty crimes. In this case the criminal might go free simply because no one wants to prosecute.

The answers are out there
I do agree with Boyd that "we need to focus more on who is hiding behind the veil of supposed anonymity when pushing infections (and less on the infections themselves) and drag them kicking and screaming into the light." This case was easy since the alleged individual didn't do much to obscure his online identity. But I caution against vigilante justice. It's also possible for online searches to generate false positives, to follow the wrong person and end up with some innocent person who chose an unfortunate online nic.

Last summer I wrote about Neal Krawetz's research. Krawetz has identified those creating computer malware just by looking at a person's use of words, keystrokes, even keyboards in chats, blogs, and e-mail. Just because you're online doesn't mean you are anonymous. There are ways of identifying criminals. Now, if we could get law enforcement interested, we'd be set.

Late update
A few days after this column originally appeared, Boyd posted an update on his blog. It appears John from Hartford is giving up the Internet. In a post, Yogangsta50 writes, "you all can say goodbye to me. mabye the internet was not for me! I Dont want to do this anymore. Somebody help me!" He goes on to explain how to remove the virus he created--go into Safe Mode in Windows, find C:\\Program Files\GTA Hoodlife, then click and delete the Unins000 file.

Yogangsta apparently saw the news about him, and it affected him. "How does it feel to see your name all over the Internet!!!! i could not sleep for 2 days. i have been crying all day. am so sorry that i did those things. i learned my lesson." Let's hope that's true.


Anyone have other examples of how online information has helped smoke out an online criminal? TalkBack to me.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6754132-1.html





"Death To Worm Writer!" Glower Apple Fan Boys
kdawson

StonyandCher write(s) to spread news about the strange story of the reported Apple OS X worm, which is growing stranger by the day. The blog of the researcher who claimed to have created the malware reportedly received death threats. The blog was then hijacked, according to the researcher, who calls him/herself InfoSec Sellout. InfoSec blamed David Maynor for hacking the blog. For his part, Maynor apparently unmasked himself as "LMH" and InfoSec as Jon Ramsey. The post to the Fuzzing mailing list has not been independently confirmed. David Maynor wrote in and denies that he is LMH.
http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/07/07/19/1231216.shtml





A Worm for Your Apple

A small controversy is brewing over claims that an independent researcher going by the moniker Information Security Sellout (or InfoSec Sellout) has developed the framework of a worm that targets a currently undisclosed vulnerability affecting the Intel versions of OS X. The worm is expected to extend to PPC versions as soon as the author is able to test against that architecture. With the author dubbing it 'Rape.osx', the evolution of the worm is likely to be keenly watched by Apple watchers, security researchers, and malware developers.

When the first report was published on Sunday, InfoSec Sellout was claiming that the proof-of-concept worm was able to reliably deliver root and was based on a variation of mDNSResponder vulnerabilities that Apple had previously patched. InfoSec Sellout later disclosed that the worm was first completed on July 14, with functional testing on a network of approximately 1,500 OS X systems by the 16th of July.

In its first instance the worm only left a text file as evidence that it had been on a system, but it is reported that the worm can fully be 'weaponised' with the payload of choice (and it can achieve that result at this time). While InfoSec Sellout states that the worm only seeks out other systems on the same network for infection, they point out that it is not going to take much extra work for the worm to attack a much broader network segment.

Following the path of many recent researchers, the author has stated publicly that they are avoiding telling Apple about their work until it is complete (and after they have been compensated from unnamed sources). This has led to the expected arguments about the ethical and professional nature of such behaviour. In their defence, the author claims that it would be irresponsible to report on incomplete research. Plus, they don't want to give the vulnerability to Apple in order for Apple to miss patching the underlying vulnerability - only patching the particular approach vector being used.

With Apple having some of the most passionate defenders in Information Technology (its userbase), the ongoing arguments about the merits of 'Rape.osx' are likely to go long into the future - well after any real or perceived threat from the worm has passed.
http://www.beskerming.com/commentary...for_Your_Apple





iPhones Flooding Wireless LAN at Duke University

18,000 requests per second from iPhones knocking out dozens of access points at Duke University.
John Cox

The Wi-Fi connection on Apple’s recently released iPhone seems to be the source of a big headache for network administrators at Duke University.

The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school’s pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown.

“Because of the time of year for us, it’s not a severe problem,” says Kevin Miller, assistant director, communications infrastructure, with Duke’s Office of Information Technology. “But from late August through May, our wireless net is critical. My concern is how many students will be coming back in August with iPhones? It’s a pretty big annoyance, right now, with 20-30 access points signaling they’re down, and then coming back up a few minutes later. But in late August, this would be devastating.”

That’s because the misbehaving iPhones flood the access points with up to 18,000 address requests per second, nearly 10Mbps of bandwidth, and monopolizing the AP’s airtime.

The access points show up as “out of service.” For 10-15 minutes, there’s no way to communicate with them, Miller says. “When the problem occurs, we see dozens of access points in that condition,” Miller says. The network team began capturing wireless traffic for analysis and that’s when they discovered that the offending devices were iPhones. Right now, Miller says, there are about 150 of the Apple devices registered on the campus WLAN.

The requests are for what is, at least for Duke’s network, an invalid router address. Devices use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to request the MAC address of the destination node, for which it already has the IP address. When it doesn’t get an answer, the iPhone just keeps asking.

“I’m not exactly sure where the ‘bad’ router address is coming from,” Miller says. One possibility: each offending iPhone may have been first connected to a home wireless router or gateway, and it may automatically and repeatedly be trying to reconnect to it again when something happens to the iPhone’s initial connection on the Duke WLAN.

They’re still sorting out what that “something” is. On two occasions, one last Friday and one today, Monday 16 July, both users seemed to be behaving completely normally, yet both iPhones started flooding the net with ARP requests. In both cases, the user first successfully connected to the WLAN at one location, and then moved to another building, where the ARP flood began. “It may have something to do with the iPhone losing connectivity and then trying to reconnect in a new location,” Miller says.

Most of the W LAN is comprised of Cisco thin access points and controllers. Some older autonomous Cisco Aironet access points tend to uncover the flooding first, since they try to resolve the ARP request themselves. But Miller’s team has seen the CPU utilization on the WLAN controllers spiking as they try to process the request flood passed on to them in control traffic from the thin access points.

“I don’t believe it’s a Cisco problem in any way, shape, or form,” he says firmly.

So far, the communication with Apple has been “one-way,” Miller says, with the Duke team filing the problem ticket. He says Apple has told him the problem is being “escalated” but as of mid-afternoon Monday, nothing substantive had been heard Apple.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...ke-iphone.html





Update on Duke’s Wireless Network and Apple’s iPhones

A note from Tracy Futhey, Duke’s chief information officer, on Duke’s wireless network and Apple’s iPhones:

By now many of you have read news accounts around iPhones and Duke’s wireless network. Some of the reports incorrectly made it sound as if our entire wireless network had collapsed. Others made it sound as if the iPhone could not work correctly on our wireless network. Still others seem to imply that Duke’s network was deficient in some way because the problem had not been encountered more broadly. The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service. Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols.

Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue. Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and there have been no recurrences of the problem since. We are working diligently to fully characterize the issue and will have additional information as soon as possible. Earlier reports that this was a problem with the iPhone in particular have proved to be inaccurate.

In closing, I extend my gratitude to the very strong technical staff within OIT that was able to identify this situation, working shoulder-to-shoulder with technical staff from two of our long-time partners, Cisco and Apple. Meanwhile, our Duke community should feel confident that both the Duke wireless network is fully functional, and the iPhone is fully operable within our environment.
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/07/cisco_apple.html





iPhone Partially Unlocked, Calls Without AT&T Contract

Apparently, the amazing code wizards at the iPhone Dev Wiki have been able to partially unlock the iPhone using a new application called iASign. It won't fully unlock the iPhone for use with other companies, but the hack will allow you to use any existing Cingular/AT&T Pre-paid/MVNA SIM so you don't have to get a two-year contract with AT&T. We are now testing this, but if confirmed the benefits are great.

That's full call functionality without two years of slavery and:

• People can still enjoy corporate rate, which they don't get on iPhone plans (10% to 20% off in some cases even more)
• People can use a company AT&T SIM card on their personal iPhone.

The iPhone Dev Wiki rebels are now in their final assault to get the iPhone fully free of the Evil AT&T Galatic Empire:

All problems with unlocking lie in the baseband, the radio chipset for the iPhone. The chipset is an S-Gold2, and don't come in the chat and give us links to PapaUtils, we can't use them. Now the iPhone only has one lock, a network personalization lock. This lock means the MCC(US=310) and the MNC(AT&T=410) must match the first six digits of the SIM cards IMSI. This check is done in the baseband firmware itself. I'm not really sure where yet, but that isn't really relevant. The only thing standing in the way of an unlock is the baseband. All the other sim checks are known and can be patched out. We even know the AT command to do the unlock. It's 'AT+CLCK="PN",0,"xxxxxxxx"'. But good luck finding those x's. They are called the NCK, or Network Control Key, and are believed to be unique in everyones phone. Forget brute force(time impractical) and the obvious entries. If you still think bruteforce is a good idea, read this. Further, there is a limit of 3-10 unlock attempts per phone, after which the firmware will "hard-lock" itself to AT&T. So why can't we just patch the firmware? The firmware, located in the ramdisk at /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE03.12.06_G.fls, is signed. See here for what is known about the file. The sig is checked in the baseband bootloader. The updater program, bbupdater, only checks a checksum, which can be changed. The update will take, but then the phone won't boot because the sigs don't match.

We worked two solid days on disasseming the radio fw. There are a few backdoors, but none that would lead to an unlock. If you are *good* with disassembling ARM, PM geohot for the idb. We've documented a lot of functions pretty well. Although, this firmware is very difficult to work through. I'm 90% sure the password check happens in the function called pwdcheck, but I haven't found it yet. For all we know there could be a simple algorithm to generate the NCKs that we've missed.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/...act-279606.php





Silent Hands Behind the iPhone
Ken Belson

Etched into the back of every iPhone are the words “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” Apple might as well have added “Made in Taiwan.”

With little fanfare, Taiwan companies are playing a big role not only in the production of Apple’s latest device but in a wide array of other communications equipment, including the broadband modems in homes across the United States and the next generation of high-speed wireless gear.

Apple does not discuss which vendors it uses, but news reports in Taiwan said that Hon Hai and Quanta received orders to produce millions of iPhone handsets, reports that those companies declined to confirm. Other manufacturers there were almost certainly involved because they provide components used in advanced phones, industry analysts said.

Taiwan companies also have a hand in making iPods and iMacs, they said, as well as game machines for Sony and Microsoft.

Taiwan’s rise as a communications workhorse is part of a decade-long transformation under way on this island. Already the world’s biggest producers of computer components, Taiwan companies like Compal Electronics, in addition to Hon Hai and Quanta, have used their expertise to branch out into new markets that use many of the same products.

By harnessing the ability to cut costs, churn out products quickly and work flexibly with customers, the Taiwan companies have become top makers of cellphones, smartphones, broadband modems, wireless routers, global positioning devices, networking equipment and other gear. They, like companies elsewhere, have also made deep inroads into China, where many of their factories are.

“It’s not a surprise that the iPhone would be made here because the food chains for Apple’s notebooks and iPods are already in Taiwan,” said Dominic Grant, a telecommunications analyst at Macquarie in Taipei. “It’s a natural progression.”

Taiwan’s evolution from computer-making giant to telecommunications Goliath has gone largely unnoticed in the United States because companies here make most of their money as made-to-order manufacturers, not sellers of their own brand products. But Taiwan’s industrial makeover has helped its companies remain competitive in a world increasingly dominated by low-cost Chinese assemblers and by Japanese and South Korean companies with strong footholds in high-end components like flash memory chips.

The strategy of repackaging — finding new uses for computer components — has paid dividends. Companies on the island have captured 87 percent of the global market for wireless modems, 84 percent of the D.S.L. modem market and 70 percent of the market for personal digital assistants.

In the competitive cellphone business, Taiwan companies made 12.4 percent of the world’s handsets last year, up from 9.8 percent in 2005, according to the Institute for Information Industry, a government-affiliated research center. That share is expected to grow as brand-name companies like Sony Ericsson outsource more of their production to companies here.

In all, Taiwan companies produced $31.5 billion in communications equipment and services last year, more than 50 percent above the total the year before, according to the institute, which expects production to reach a value of $46 billion by 2010. Less than a quarter of that was manufactured on Taiwan, with the bulk made on the Chinese mainland.

“It’s been a fairly natural progression because handsets are really a mini-version of the PC, and Taiwanese are adept at adjusting,” said Gary Chia, president of the Yuanta Research Center.

The transformation did not happen by accident. As in much of Asia, the government played an active role in steering businesses into new markets by showering them with tax incentives, cheap property to build factories and research money.

Companies on Taiwan have also been able to shift gears smoothly because the concentration of component producers on the island has made it easier to gather the technology and engineers to design and assemble new products.

And Taiwan companies, like their rivals in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere in Asia, have increasingly shifted production to their factories in China to save money. With their close cultural, financial and linguistic ties to mainland China, Taiwan’s companies have an edge over those from elsewhere.

These advantages helped scores of companies tackle new markets. Take D-Link, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of broadband modems. About two decades ago, it started out by making network interface cards that linked computers. As Internet access for home use expanded, the company started making dial-up modems.

As phone companies in the United States and elsewhere started leasing modems to their customers, D-Link was flexible and designed products to each carrier’s specifications while remaining cheap enough to nudge out rivals.

“Telecommunications companies are difficult to deal with because each one has its own standards, and there is a lot of customization,” said J. C. Liao, D-Link’s president. “But it turned out to be an advantage because Taiwanese are more flexible compared to companies in the U.S. or Japan. We’re quick to lower costs and not stick to our own rules.”

D-Link has evolved with the technology, expanding into wireless modems and pushing into emerging markets like India and Russia, as well as selling under its own brand name at big retailers like Best Buy and Office Depot to become the No. 2 competitor, after Linksys. About 15 percent of the company’s revenue now comes from brand products.

Mitac International, a leading seller of global positioning devices, took a similar route. Through the 1980s and early ’90s, it built personal computers for the likes of Compaq. But as profit margins slipped and mergers reshaped the industry, the company started making personal digital assistants. Then Hewlett-Packard bought Compaq, leaving Mitac short a big customer.

So when the United States government allowed civilians to use G.P.S. technology, the company integrated it into its personal digital assistants after a couple of years of development. Mitac joined another leader in the industry, Garmin, which is based in Kansas but makes almost all its G.P.S. devices in Taiwan.

“We saw these big waves come one by one in the mid-1990s, so we tried to figure out how to survive in this rapidly changing business,” said Billy Ho, the president of Mitac International, which sells G.P.S. devices under the Mio brand. “We realized there was no Microsoft in the digital map business.”

Mitac still earns about 70 percent of its sales by making desktop computers, servers and other technology for other companies, though Mr. Ho hopes that the share will fall to 50 percent by next year.

Since so many of the latest devices are made here, it is perhaps unsurprising that some Taiwan companies are beating brand-name companies to the punch. High Tech Computer, for instance, introduced a touch-based handset just weeks before the iPhone was released. With a less recognizable name, High Tech has more modest ambitions. But it is still pleased that Apple has joined the market.

“We’re happy they share the same vision as we do,” said Fred Liu, the chief operating officer. “We think these phones will change people’s minds and their behavior.”

While D-Link, High Tech and Mitac have developed brand-name products to reduce their reliance on their made-to-order business, there are plenty of other companies that have had trouble branching out on their own.

For instance, in 2005 BenQ, which primarily made cellphones for other companies, bought the handset division of Siemens in hopes of taking on the likes of Sony Ericsson and LG. Yet BenQ, a spinoff of the Taiwan computer giant Acer, alienated one of its biggest customers, Motorola, which was wary of having a new competitor manufacturing its products. BenQ also underestimated the depth of Siemens’s problems and how much it would cost to break into an already crowded and competitive cellphone market.

After losses mounted, BenQ liquidated the venture and will focus its energy on making handsets for other companies, as well as on its existing businesses producing flat-panel monitors, televisions and digital cameras.

“People thought with Acer’s success, BenQ could make it, too, since its chairman came from Acer,” said Kirk Yang, managing director at Citigroup in Hong Kong. “But the acquisition was a black hole. BenQ didn’t have a home base and had no experience running a branded handset business.”

Mr. Yang and other analysts said that Taiwan companies were unlikely to abandon their made-to-order business entirely. Instead, they will focus more on doing more design work on behalf of customers who are trying to outsource more and more of their production.

“The iPhone is a great example of where Taiwan is still strong: reliable sourcing, leading technology and complex integration,” said Allen J. Delattre, chief of the electronics and high-technology practice at the consulting firm Accenture. “Does the average person who buys an iPhone know it’s from Taiwan? Maybe. Do they care? Probably not. But if you look at the companies in Taiwan, they are behind the scenes, and that’s a good place to be because that’s where the value is.”

The key for Taiwan companies, Mr. Delattre and other analysts said, is to invest in next-generation products early. For example, companies here are fast becoming important players in the development of WiMax wireless and fiber optic broadband equipment.

They are again getting a healthy push from the government, which is spending more than $200 million over five years to help create the world’s largest high-speed WiMax network. By next year, with 2,000 base stations spread across the island, companies will be able to start testing new applications, like the sending of video from ambulances on their way to hospitals.

“We are trying to make the infrastructure more complete,” said Tsung-Tsong Wu, deputy minister of the National Science Council, which has a $1 billion annual budget. “If the highways are built, companies can go as fast as they like.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/te.../18taiwan.html





Web Censorship is Failing, Says Chinese Official

A Government minister admits that trying to suppress information on the internet "is like walking into a dead end"
Jane Macartney, Beijing

The internet and mobile phones have undermined attempts by China’s secretive rulers to control the news, a senior Communist party official admitted today.

He accused local governments of being “too naive” by continuing to suppress damaging information about corruption or about disasters, and urged party members to be more open with members of the public.

Wang Guoqing, a vice minister with the cabinet’s information office said: “It has been repeatedly proved that information blocking is like walking into a dead end.”

He said governments used to believe that they could muffle 90 per cent of all bad news. But this was no longer the case. In the internet age, he said, the party had to become adept at managing and controlling information, rather than covering it up.

Mr Wang cited a recent slavery scandal, when local officials attempted to conceal the used of forced labour at brick kilns in north-central Shanxi and Henan provinces.

Unable to obtain information from local officials, parents whose children had gone missing used the internet to post messages and to seek information. Their improvised campaign revealed that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people had been forced for years to work as slaves, and had been beaten, starved and guarded by dogs.

Mr Wang said that keeping the information out of the media spotlight until the scandal was exposed by crusading journalists left the Shanxi government in a vulnerable position.

Yet even after they were exposed for allowing the slavery scandal to continue for many months, authorities appear to be reverting to the time-honoured way of dealing with crises by imposing censorship. State-run Chinese Central Television has been ordered to play down the negative aspects of the scandal and to stress the government’s successes in catching offenders and bringing them to justice. Parents of missing children have come under pressure not to speak to the media.

Zhan Jiang, a media expert at the China Youth University for Political Sciences, said: “It is definitely more difficult for the Government to control information flows these days. The North Korean government can do it but in China it is not so easy.”

But the Communist Party remains wary of a free flow of information. For example, no date has yet been announced for the most important political event of the year – the party’s congress that is held once every five years and when a new central Committee and Politburo will be chosen. Based on past such events, most Chinese are guessing it will be in September or October.

Mr Zhan said China still had a long way to go towards full transparency, but international influence was a factor in greater openness.

He said: “There are people who don’t want the public to know anything negative. Progress takes time. But there are struggles between the forces of openness and of conservatism.”

Reporters Without Borders, the media watchdog, describes the Chinese Government as an “enemy of the internet”. In its annual report in February, it said China used armies of cyberpolice and spearheaded an increasingly sophisticated movement to restrict the internet.

In January, President Hu Jintao said China’s rulers intended to keep as tight a rein on the internet as they did on traditional forms of the media such as newspapers and television.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2086419.ece





Web-Based Anonymizer Discontinued
RobertB-DC

With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/07/19/231204.shtml





Search Engine "Ask" to Allow Anonymous Web Search
Elinor Mills

Search site Ask is launching a new tool that will let people search the Web anonymously, the first major search engine to offer that functionality.

By using the new AskEraser tool, users will be able to set their privacy preferences so the search engine doesn't retain their Web search history. Users will be able to see what the privacy setting is on the search results pages.

AskEraser is expected to be deployed on Ask.com in the U.S. and United Kingdom by the end of the year, and globally early next year.

For people who don't want to search anonymously, Ask will maintain the user search data for 18 months and then it will disassociate the search history from the IP address or cookie information. Cookies are small files stored on a computer so that the computer can be recognized when it revisits Web sites, enabling the site to remember the user's preferences for things like e-commerce and sites that require log-in.

"We'll have no way of figuring out how to associate the searches with a (particular) person," said Doug Leeds, head of development at Ask. "There will be no way for us to receive an IP address from a governmental agency and figure out what searches were done by that IP address."

The move by Ask, a wholly owned business of IAC, follows but exceeds steps taken by Google. Earlier this week, Google said it would set cookies on Web searches to expire after two years instead of in 2038. In practice, however, only a miniscule number of people will be affected by the change because if you visit Google even once in the next two years, the cookie will be renewed for another two years.

In March, Google said it would start anonymizing the final eight bits of the IP address and the cookie data after somewhere between 18 months and 24 months, unless legally required to retain the data for longer. Doing so effectively would enable someone to narrow the IP address down to 256 possible computers or users. That would be similar to obscuring the last digit in someone's street address.

The risks associated with Web search data were highlighted last August when AOL inadvertently exposed on the Internet the search history of more than 650,000 of its users.

Microsoft and Yahoo are also expected to improve their Web search privacy practices, according to the Financial Times.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9747585-7.html





Teen Sues School Officials Over Free Speech Issue
Susan Haigh

A Burlington, Connecticut teenager sued two top school officials Monday, saying they violated her constitutional rights by removing her as class secretary because she used offensive slang to refer to administrators on an Internet blog.

Avery Doninger, a 16-year-old student at Lewis Mills High School, wants to be immediately reinstated as class secretary. She also wants a new election for class officers for the upcoming school year, when she will be a senior, and a chance to give the candidate speech she was forbidden from giving to her classmates.

Doninger's mother, Lauren, filed motions for temporary and permanent injunctions on her daughter's behalf against school Principal Karissa Niehoff and Region 10 Superintendent of Schools Paula Schwartz, according to court documents filed Monday in New Britain Superior Court.

Niehoff removed Doninger as the class of 2008 secretary and banned her from running for re-election after discovering the teen used a pejorative term when she referred to unnamed school administrators in an online journal.

Avery Doninger posted the message to http://www.livejournal.com , which is not associated with the school, from a home computer.

"I don't like what Avery wrote," Lauren Doninger told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "(But) she had the right to do it and it was up to me, not the school, to determine whether or not there had been a consequence."

At the time, Avery Doninger was criticizing the administrators over the cancellation of a school event known as Jamfest. Doninger said she helped organize the music event for months and was frustrated by delays with improvements to the school gym, where Jamfest typically is held.

She acknowleged Monday she regrets using the offensive slang.

"It really was an unsavory term," she said. "I'm definitely going to be really careful from now on."

But the teen said she believes her rights have been violated and that she's been singled out by school administrators.

"This is something that I felt was really necessary to stand up for, because you really have to stand up (for) the little things about democracy, the little things that make democracy really work in the big world," she said.

Several weeks after Avery Doninger posted the message in April, Niehoff demanded she apologize to the superintendent of schools, tell her mother about the blog entry, resign from the student council and withdraw her candidacy for class secretary, the lawsuit alleges.

She was the only candidate running for class secretary.

While Doninger apologized and reported the incident to her mother, she refused to resign. Niehoff then "administratively removed" her from the post, the lawsuit said.

Besides being banned from running for re-election, Doninger was barred from giving a speech to her school class, the lawsuit claims. Doninger and fellow students were also prohibited from wearing printed shirts supporting her free speech rights.

A call seeking comment was left with Burlington school officials.

Niehoff told WVIT-TV in May that school leadership positions are a privilege, not a right.

"When kids are in a position of privilege, there are certain standards of behavior we expect them to uphold," she told the TV station. "Our position stands for respect. We're just hoping kids appreciate the seriousness of any communication over the Internet."

Jon L. Schoenhorn, the Doningers' attorney, said Connecticut school districts have no legal authority to punish students for private online postings that do not use school resources and do not occur on school grounds.

Schoenhorn said last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting student speech rights does not harm his client's case because it is narrowly tailored.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said an Alaska high school student could be suspended for holding up a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" because it advocated illegal drug use.

The high court also determined that Joseph Frederick unfurled his handiwork at a school-sanctioned event in 2002, triggering his suspension. Students had gathered to watch the Olympic torch make its way through Juneau, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...07-16-17-53-53





US Senate Committee Passes FCC Indecency Bill
Adam Thomas

US Senate Commerce Committee today passed a bill that would allow FCC to fine broadcasters for slip of the tongue expletives, negating a ruling by federal appeals court in New York that commission's policy on 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious.

The Protecting Children from Indecent Programming Act introduced by Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) would effectively overturn the court decision on the Fox Television Stations v. FCC in which the court ruled: "We find the FCC's new policy sanctioning 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act for failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy."

A mandate by Congress that a “fleeting expletive” can now be found indecent will create a vast chilling effect on broadcast speech, the advocacy group Center for Democracy and Technology claimed.

CDT points out that prior to this bill and the FCC’s policy change, the FCC exercised discretion in determining which utterances were indecent, and consistently found that one-time uses of curse words were not indecent.

The bill would empower FCC to find fleeting expletives indecent, it is highly likely that broadcasters will censor themselves even more to avoid being targeted by the Commission, the group argued.

But CDT also points out that if Senator Rockefeller’s bill becomes law, it will certainly force the courts to consider the constitutional question: Does the FCC have First Amendment authority to censor the use of a single curse word over the airwaves?

Currenty, FCC’s constitutional authority to regulate broadcast content rests on the 1978 Supreme Court case FCC v. Pacifica Foundatio in which the Court held that the FCC had properly found comedian George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” monologue to be indecent.
http://pressesc.com/01184929170_senate_indecency_bill





Debate on Child Pornography’s Link to Molesting
Julian Sher and Benedict Carey

Experts have often wondered what proportion of men who download explicit sexual images of children also molest them. A new government study of convicted Internet offenders suggests that the number may be startlingly high: 85 percent of the offenders said they had committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, from inappropriate touching to rape.

The study, which has not yet been published, is stirring a vehement debate among psychologists, law enforcement officers and prison officials, who cannot agree on how the findings should be presented or interpreted.

The research, carried out by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is the first in-depth survey of such online offenders’ sexual behavior done by prison therapists who were actively performing treatment. Its findings have circulated privately among experts, who say they could have enormous implications for public safety and law enforcement.

Traffic in online child pornography has exploded in recent years, and the new study, some experts say, should be made public as soon as possible, to identify men who claim to be “just looking at pictures” but could, in fact, be predators.

Yet others say that the results, while significant, risk tarring some men unfairly. The findings, based on offenders serving prison time who volunteered for the study, do not necessarily apply to the large and diverse group of adults who have at some point downloaded child pornography, and whose behavior is far too variable to be captured by a single survey.

Adding to the controversy, the prison bureau in April ordered the paper withdrawn from a peer-reviewed academic journal where it had been accepted for publication, apparently concerned that the results might be misinterpreted. A spokeswoman for the bureau said the agency was reviewing a study of child pornography offenders but declined to comment further.

Ernie Allen, who leads the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is mandated to coordinate the nation’s efforts to combat child pornography, said he was surprised that the full study had not been released. “This is the kind of research the public needs to know about,” Mr. Allen said. Others agreed that the report should be published but were more cautious about the findings. “The results could have tremendous implications for community safety and for individual liberties,” said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. “If people we thought were not dangerous are more so, then we need to know that and we should treat them that way. But if we’re wrong, then their liberties aren’t going to be fairly addressed.”
Everyone agrees that researchers need to learn more about online consumers of illegal child images. The volume of material seized from computers appears to be doubling each year — the National Center collected more than eight million images of explicit child pornography in the last five years — and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made child protection a national priority in 2006.

Those who are arrested on charges of possession or distribution of child pornography generally receive lighter sentences and shorter parole periods than sexual abusers. They do not fit any criminal stereotype; recent arrests have included politicians, police officers, teachers and businessmen.

“It’s crucial to understand the sexual history of all these offenders, because sometimes the crime they were arrested for is the tip of the iceberg, and does not reflect their real patterns and interests,” said Jill S. Levenson, an assistant professor of human services at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and head of the ethics committee of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.

Previous studies, based on surveys of criminal records, estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of those arrested for possessing child pornography also had molested children.

The psychologists who conducted the new study, Andres E. Hernandez and Michael L. Bourke, focused on 155 male inmates who had volunteered to be treated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C., according to a draft of the paper obtained by The New York Times from outside experts who want the study published.

The Butner clinic is the only residential program devoted to the treatment of sexual offenders in the federal prison system. The inmates in the study were all serving sentences for possession or distribution of child pornography.

About every six months as part of an 18-month treatment program, they filled out a record of their sexual history, including a “victims list” tallying their previous victims of abuse. Therapists encouraged the men to be honest as part of their treatment, and the sexual histories were anonymous, according to the paper.

The psychologists compared these confessions with the men’s criminal sexual histories at the time of sentencing. More than 85 percent admitted to abusing at least one child, they found, compared with 26 percent who were known to have committed any “hands on” offenses at sentencing. The researchers also counted many more total victims: 1,777, a more than 20-fold increase from the 75 identified when the men were sentenced.

Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bourke concluded in the paper that “many Internet child pornography offenders may be undetected child molesters.” But they also cautioned that offenders who volunteer for treatment may differ in their behavior from those who do not seek treatment.

They submitted the paper to The Journal of Family Violence, a widely read peer-reviewed publication in the field, and it was accepted.

But in a letter obtained by The Times, dated April 3, Judi Garrett, an official of the Bureau of Prisons, requested that the editors of the journal withdraw the study, because it did not meet “agency approval.”

Editors at The Journal of Family Violence did not respond to phone or e-mail messages asking about the withdrawal.

Dr. Hernandez mentioned the research briefly during testimony before a Senate committee last year. But the bureau blocked Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bourke from attending some law enforcement conferences to speak about the findings, said two prosecutors who did not want to be identified because they have a continuing work relationship with the bureau.

“We believe it unwise to generalize from limited observations gained in treatment or in records review to the broader population of persons who engage in such behavior,” a bureau official wrote to the organizers of a recent law enforcement conference, in a letter dated May 2 and given to The Times by an expert who is hoping the study will be published.

Some prosecutors say they could use the study to argue for stiffer sentences. While some outside researchers agreed that the risk of over-generalizing the study’s results was real, almost all the experts interviewed also said that the study should still be made public.

Dr. Peter Collins, who leads the Forensic Psychiatry Unit of the Ontario Provincial Police, called the findings “cutting-edge stuff.”

“We’re really on the cusp of learning more about these individuals and studies should be encouraged, not quashed,” Dr. Collins said.

Understanding the relationship between looking at child pornography and sexually assaulting children is central to developing effective treatment, psychologists say.

It is not at all clear when, or in whom, the viewing spurs action or activates a latent, unconscious desire; or whether such images have little or no effect on the offender’s subsequent behavior. But the relationship probably varies widely.

“My concern is about sensationalism, about the way something like this is handled in the media,” said Michael Miner, an associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Minnesota who treats sex offenders. “The public perception is that all of these guys will re-offend, and we know that just isn’t true.”

At least some men convicted of sexual abuse say that child pornography from the Internet fueled their urges. In a recent interview, one convicted pedophile serving a 14-year sentence in a Canadian federal prison said that looking at images online certainly gave him no release from his desires — exactly the opposite.

“Because there is no way I can look at a picture of a child on a video screen and not get turned on by that and want to do something about it,” he said. “I knew that in my mind. I knew that in my heart. I didn’t want it to happen, but it was going to happen.”

How many offenders does he speak for? The study may help answer that question, some say.

“The penalties we seek, the vigor with which we prosecute — the very importance we give to child pornography cases — all of these things are affected by what we know about the offenders,” said Leura G. Canary, the United States attorney for Middle Alabama who also leads the Attorney General’s Working Group on Child Exploitation and Obscenity. “And right now we know very little.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/19sex.html





Pupils Browse Porn on Donated Laptops

Nigerian schoolchildren who received laptops from a U.S. aid organization have used them to explore pornographic sites on the Internet, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported Thursday.

NAN said its reporter had seen pornographic images stored on several of the children's laptops.

"Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials," NAN said.

A representative of the One Laptop Per Child aid group was quoted as saying that the computers, part of a pilot scheme, would now be fitted with filters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070720/...FG8XwBExgZ.3QA





Fish 'n' chips

CEO Accused of Building Secret Drug, Sex Lair
AP

The co-founder of semiconductor maker Broadcom Corp., under scrutiny in a federal stock options probe, was accused seven years ago of building an underground hideaway at his estate to indulge in drugs and sex with prostitutes, according to court documents.

In a draft complaint made against Henry T. Nicholas III, a construction crew claimed the billionaire failed to pay them millions of dollars for work performed between 1998 and 2002, and used "manipulation, lies, intimidation, and even death threats" when anyone threatened to quit.

The illegal network of tunnels and rooms underneath Nicholas' Laguna Hills estate was kept secret from his wife and city officials, the documents said.

The purpose of one secret room was to allow Nicholas to "indulge his appetite for illegal drugs and sex with prostitutes," the crew claimed.
http://news.newstimes.com/news/updat...e=news_updates

[JackSpratts]

The World's Top-Earning Models
Kiri Blakeley

In 1990, supermodel Linda Evangelista uttered what has become the most famous quote in modeling history: "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."

She was referring to herself and fellow supermodel Christy Turlington, both of whom were a core part of the handful of models shaking up the industry by being as famous and powerful as celebrities.

Models did talk shows. They landed movie roles. They inspired franchises (the ill-fated "Fashion Café," which was part-owned by supermodels Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell and Elle MacPherson). They dated or married movie stars (Linda Evangelista and Kyle MacLachlan; Christy Turlington and Ed Burns; Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere). And, of course, they made millions.

Some still do. Gisele Bundchen tops Forbes.com's 2007 list of The Top Earning Models in the World, raking in $33 million, more than triple the $9 million banked by Kate Moss, who came in second. The 15 models on our list were ranked primarily according to estimated earnings over the past 12 months.

Where necessary, the "relevancy" of the model--determined by recent campaigns, editorials, fashion magazine covers and the opinion of those in the industry-- were taken into account. Household names Heidi Klum ($8 million), Adriana Lima ($6 million) and Alessandra Ambrosio ($6 million) round out the top five slots.

Gisele Bundchen is a workhorse who leads the pack by far: While most models on the list have one major contract in addition to three or four seasonal campaigns, Bundchen juggles almost 20 campaigns. She also brings in at least $6 million a year by licensing her name to a Brazilian shoe company, Grendene. But watch for Bundchen's fortunes to possibly decline next year: In December, her record-breaking $5 million a year deal with Victoria's Secret expires.

For most other models, things are different. Top models like those on our list still bank millions, but only once a multiyear contract is secured. The days of $10,000 runway fees are over. Top models don't even do runway. It's considered an internship process for the hundreds of anonymous 15- and 16-year-old foreign girls who swarm the runways of New York, Paris and Milan each season. They do 70 shows in six weeks and are paid about $250 an hour their first season.

A good hardworking model can make $200,000 a season. But chances are that model, once the season is over, will never be seen or heard from again.

In the supermodel heyday, most of the top models were homegrown--Cindy Crawford from Illinois, Tyra Banks and Christy Turlington from California. Their American accents made for a fairly easy transition to stardom. Then the fashion industry, which thrives on change, began to prefer foreigners.

Five years ago, it was the Brazilians, out of which rose Bundchen, Lima and Ambrosio. This new trinity, with their Victoria's Secret contracts, became well known, but with their foreign accents, they were unable to cross over into the world of TV, movies and talk shows as easily as their predecessors did. And with the exception of Bundchen, who dated Leonardo DiCaprio on and off for several years, they kept their private lives private.

A few seasons later came the Eastern Europeans: anonymous, pale, barely into their teens and bordering on anorexic. They were too young to become movie stars or date celebrities; too skeletal to bag Victoria's Secret contracts; and a lack of English didn't bode well for a broad media career.

Natalia Vodianova of Russia, who worked at a fruit stand from the time she was 11, rose out of this pack and into the protective arms of Calvin Klein. The vast majority were sent back to where they came from. Vodianova may be a star in the industry, but try to find a teenager in a Midwestern mall who would line up to get a glimpse of her the way she would have ten years ago for Tyra Banks or Cindy Crawford.

Meanwhile, the rise of celebrity culture relegated many models to anonymity. Cosmetic companies almost exclusively sign celebrities for their campaigns, as do designers. Scarlett Johansson is the face of Louis Vuitton; Eva Longoria represents L'Oreal; Jessica Alba pouts for Revlon; the list goes on and on.

Even more devastating to the industry's ability to create supermodels was that the fashion magazines followed suit. A decade ago, models graced 10 of the 12 covers of American Vogue. Last year, only one model made the cover, and that was Linda Evangelista--she of the famous $10,000-a-day quote--as if Vogue had a hankering for the time when models proudly proclaimed their celebrity status.

But it wasn't just celebrities knocking models out of the limelight. The designers--Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger, Miuccia Prada--became more famous than their mannequins. Isaac Mizrahi hosted the Golden Globe pre-show for the E! network. Donatella Versace is regularly skewered on Saturday Night Live. A decade ago, a top model might have made $100,000 on a single print campaign for a designer. Now, she will more likely get a small stipend fee, some free clothes, and the honor of an "association" with the famous designer.

But if opportunities for superstardom were waning in the modeling world, the ones who did make it could stay there longer than ever thanks to the advent of retouching. "It's completely stopped the aging process," says Elite agent Richard Habberley, who represents Victoria's Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio (who, at 26, need not worry about that just yet).

Eighties ubermodel Christie Brinkley, at 52, reclaimed her Cover Girl contract and appears none the worse for 20 years having passed. Christy Turlington, 38, and Linda Evangelista, 42, are also bagging new contracts, and look in advertisements almost exactly as they did back in their supermodel glory.

Ivan Bart, a top agent at IMG Models, which represents Gisele Bundchen and Heidi Klum, among others, adds that revenue streams are more plentiful these days: "There are new markets like Asia and China. The world is more global than ever." In March, IMG started a traveling Fashion Week, bringing the runway and top models like Gemma Ward and Naomi Campbell to towns like San Francisco and Houston.

But the fashion world is about nothing if not trends. And trends are cyclical. Already the editorials of Vogue are turning away from the scary skinny models of Eastern Europe towards a healthier-looking and more Americanized standard. Hilary Rhoda is probably the best example of this.

The new face of Estée Lauder grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and played lacrosse and field hockey in high school. Unlike the size zero waifs that have taken over the runway, Rhoda wears a size four or six.

Cosmetics companies could start launching new faces again. In L'Oreal's latest ad campaign, Dutch model Doutzen Kroes is prominently featured next to Eva Longoria.

Models might even be making a comeback as cover girls. Vogue's May issue showcased 10 of the hottest new faces, including three models on our list: Hilary Rhoda, Doutzen Kroes and Jessica Stam. Natalia Vodianova had the July cover to herself. "It was time for Vogue to do a model again," says Patrick O'Connell, a rep for Vogue editor Anna Wintour. "Models are important."

One consistency throughout the past decade has been Victoria's Secret's modeling machine. The $5 billion lingerie giant (part of publicly traded Limited Brands) has launched the careers of dozens of supermodels over the years, including Gisele Bundchen and Heidi Klum and newer bikini babes Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio and Karolina Kurkova.

It has also steadfastly refused to follow the celebrity trend. "Most celebrities are about five foot two inches," says Edward Razek, the company's chief marketing officer, explaining why he turns down at least one celebrity a month begging to model the brand.

Victoria's Secret takes a similar role in nourishing talent to stardom in the way that Hollywood studios did with actresses back in the 1930s and '40s. A model starts out doing some runway, then advances to catalog, and, provided her professionalism and personality impresses enough people, she might eventually end up with the Academy Award of modeling gigs--a multiyear, multimillion dollar contract as a Victoria's Secret "angel." The company invests time and money into making their angels celebrities--the girls are given speech lessons and media training and booked on talk shows.

If the girls are lucky, they break into supermodel stardom and then, like Victoria's Secret alums Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks, become media moguls. This season, Victoria's Secret even began branding their beauty products with the girls' names and likenesses. "We don't subscribe to that nameless, faceless model routine," says Razek.
http://www.forbes.com/media/2007/07/...topmodels.html





Strikes Cast Shadow on Showbiz Jobs Outlook
Carl DiOrio

A regional economic forecast update boosts previous projections for job declines from potential Hollywood labor strife.

Even without a strike by writers, actors or directors, entertainment industry employment will decline 1.9% next year to 161,300 jobs, according to Wednesday report from the L.A. County Economic Development Corp. The midyear forecast also said that accelerated film and TV activity at the start of Hollywood contract talks will produce a modest 0.9% increase in entertainment employment this year, for a total 164,500 industry jobs.

In a February report, the agency had forecast an '08 decline of 1.4% and a more robust '07 jobs growth of 4.5% (HR 2/21).

LAEDC chief economist Jack Kyser attributed the short-term job growth and longer-term decline on studios' stockpiling of film and TV materials in anticipation of a possible strike by Hollywood writers or others. The WGA is in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers for a new film and TV contract, and actors and directors are expected to commence similar talks sometime early next year.

"We have built in some sort of labor disruption for 2008," Kyser said. "Even if there is no strike and everything is hugs and kisses, you have a slowdown. That's because you already have product sitting on the shelf, so to speak. ... With TV series, you see extra episodes going into production (and) on the film side, people are rushing to line up actors and directors, with the rule of thumb being to try to get two films done (per actor) before anything might happen."

The regional economist recalled first noting evidence of film and TV stockpiling in February, when the LAEDC issued its earlier forecast.

"There was a lot of pooh-poohing of that from the Writers Guild back then," he said. "Well, you can't pooh-pooh it now. It's there."

A central issue in the WGA-AMPTP talks, which began Monday, is whether writers deserve boosted compensation for film and TV content reused over the Internet or over mobile platforms.

It's an issue that could defy easy resolution, in part because the technology on which studios are trying to base new business models are still developing, Kyser said. Indeed, studios want writers to delay their demand for boosted Internet compensation until new-media businesses mature and profits stabilize.

"It's going to be really difficult," Kyser said. "They're saying you can get an episode of 'Ugly Betty' on your telephone, but I'd be happy getting my phone calls through without experiencing dropped calls. So I think you're a way away from any sort of profitability."

The LAEDC economist said California would do well to offer tax credits or other production incentives similar to those in dozens of other states, but added, "I'm not holding my breath on that."

The usual budgetary woes ultimately will dash hopes of passing incentive bills circulating in Sacramento, Kyser predicted. That's unfortunate, he said, as the incentives of other states, including a particularly aggressive recent push by New Mexico, are causing a flight of projects and jobs from California.

Kyser said he cringes whenever former New Mexico governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson comes to Los Angeles. "He's supposedly campaigning, but you know he's working the phones" to bring film projects to his home state, he said.

"People think the big studios are really rolling in dough, but people forget that studios are part of big conglomerates and have to be mindful of the bottom line," Kyser said. "And if there are incentives offered, they are going to take advantage of those."

The LAEDC report forecast for other industry segments was rosier than for entertainment, whose prospects it gave a "C" grade. For instance, technology is rated "A-" and is expected to mark a 12.1% employment increase to 241,100 jobs in '07 and post another 2.7% uptick to 247,700 jobs in '08.

Statewide, the LAEDC report found that growth will slow in California in '07. In '08, economic growth in the state will pick up a little speed (and) a modest acceleration is expected in 2009.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...d6c8b74c568947





The Actualizer
Mark Oppenheimer

Giovanni Ribisi called me. Burt Reynolds asked me to call him at home. The director Joel Schumacher called me from Romania between takes for his next movie. Anne Archer and I played phone tag for two weeks. A-list, B-list, stars of stage, stars of screen, they were all eager to talk. The Tony winners John Glover and Tyne Daly. Edie McClurg, the dippy secretary in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” David Carradine.

Put the word on the street that you’re writing about Milton Katselas, and every student he has ever had will want to tell you about the best acting teacher in the world, the man who took them from fresh-faced, straight-off-the-plane-at-LAX ingénues looking for work — commercials; God willing, someday a sitcom — to being real artists. They’ll tell you about how he saved them from the failings of the artist’s personality, like narcissism and drug addiction, and set them aright. They were born with the talent, but he gave them careers.

But there are dissenters too. Students have left Katselas’s school, the Beverly Hills Playhouse, because of the unspoken pressure they felt to join the Church of Scientology, the controversial religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s. Nobody ever told them to join, but they could not ignore how many of their classmates and teachers were Scientologists. Or the fact that Milton Katselas, the master himself, credits Hubbard for much of his success in life. And the assorted weirdness: one of Katselas’s students works a day job at the Scientology Celebrity Centre, where Tom Cruise and John Travolta study, and one zealous television star left the playhouse because she said she believed that Katselas wasn’t committed enough to Scientology.

Before trying to metabolize this strange cocktail of Hollywood, dreams both deferred and achieved, and Scientology, consider the very sincere professions of faith in a bearded, baritone septuagenarian with a Mediterranean temper who began as a student of Lee Strasberg and became the teacher of Ribisi, Daly and Carradine; of Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Selleck, Tony Danza, Priscilla Presley, Patrick Swayze, Cheryl Ladd and hundreds more.

Richard Lawson, a Katselas student and occasional Scientologist, who now teaches at the playhouse, says that Katselas’s teaching helped him cheat death in 1992 when his plane from LaGuardia crashed in Flushing Bay and he was submerged underwater. “I just got this inspiration to overcome it, to fight with everything I had to get out,” Lawson told a reporter in 1998. “One of the things I attribute that to is the teachings of Milton.” Anne Archer, who discovered Scientology at the playhouse nearly 30 years ago, says, “I have seen performances sometimes in that class that are so brilliant that they’re better than anything I have seen on the stage or film.” Her husband, the producer Terry Jastrow — also a Scientologist — says that Katselas changed the texture of his daily existence: “I go out in the world and look at human behavior now. I see a woman or man interacting with a saleslady, and I see the artistry in it. Life is an endless unspooling of art, of acting, of painting, of architecture. And where did I learn that? From Milton.”

Most people in the Los Angeles acting community believe that the Beverly Hills Playhouse is a serious conservatory where actors train with a master teacher, while others think it’s a recruitment center for Scientology. I wondered if it might be both. What if the playhouse was a serious conservatory, and Katselas a master teacher, not in spite of Scientology but because of it?

I first attended Katselas’s weekly master class on a Saturday morning in April. I took my seat in his small theater on South Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills well before the 9:30 start time. I was stargazing — Justina Machado from “Six Feet Under” was there; Beth Grant from “Little Miss Sunshine” was there — when promptly at 9:30 the class rose to its feet in a standing ovation. Katselas had entered by the door near stage left, and he was proceeding slowly, with the shuffle of a man vigorous but in his 70s, to his chair on a landing a few rows up from stage right, offering small, regal waves as he went. Nobody sat until he did.

“What is this, Easter?” he asked.

“Passover,” several students answered at once.

“What is this class, 82 percent Jewish — the rest goyim?” People laughed, and at that the lights dimmed, then came up, and a scene began.

And one thing very quickly became clear: Milton Katselas is an uncommonly good teacher.

In the first scene, Jack Betts, whom I later placed as the judge in “Office Space,” played the actor John Barrymore, from the one-man show “Barrymore,” made famous on Broadway by Christopher Plummer. I thought that Betts captured both the dissolution and the grandeur of a great man in his pickled decline, but after the scene, when Betts sat at the edge of the stage to receive his critique, Katselas made clear how much better the performance could have been.

A Katselas critique is a respectful dialogue; he is never mean, but he is challenging. Katselas wanted Betts to find the quieter notes in Barrymore. One place to start, he thought, might be in the song with which the scene begins: Barrymore singing “I’ve Got a Girl in Kalamazoo.” As Betts had sung it, the song was brassy, vaudevillelike: “A! B! C! D! E! F! G! H! I got a gal in KAL-amazoo!” Katselas had him sing it over again, several times, suggesting that he turn the final syllable, the zoo, into a drunken, slurred, tossed-off note of disdain. After several more takes of the song, Katselas wasn’t satisfied, but it seemed that Betts was getting there. The Barrymore that emerged at the end of 45 minutes was stranger, sadder, perhaps a bit louche, less of a stereotype and altogether more believable than what Betts had delivered at the beginning of class.

In many ways Katselas embodies what we expect from the acting pedagogue. He has a sexual, dangerous edge — I wasn’t shocked when he confessed that he had dated several of his students. He looks unkempt, but deliberately so, very bohemian. He swears a lot, as if perpetually burdened by his inability to wring better performances from his students. But although he believes in sex and danger and anger, Katselas never sounds like a Freudian in search of those emotions, and in this regard he breaks the stereotype.

The great American acting teachers, like Strasberg and Stella Adler, have typically insisted that there is a role for an actor’s emotional history in his or her performance. In various versions of Strasberg’s “Method,” the actor uses “sense memory” or “affective memory” to relive actual experiences — the death of a parent, an episode of sexual violence, the birth of a child — to summon tears, horror, elation or some other emotion for the character. Acting classes can thus resemble talk therapy, as actors, lost in the moment, weep, scream or cackle. But Katselas is adamant that he doesn’t care what his students have been through. Digging into the past might work for some students, and as an avowed pragmatist Katselas tells actors to use whatever works. But he mostly gives actors bits of physical direction rather than asking probing questions about their motivation. In one scene, he had two lovers touch their foreheads together, injecting a note of true intimacy into what had been pure farce; in another, he told an angry junkie to clench his hair in his fists and yank, and all of a sudden the actor found the rage that had been missing from his performance.

“The purpose of the acting art is not to bring about therapy,” Katselas told me later. “One taps their own experience of love or violence and tries to pull from it whatever is possible in terms of an association or understanding, but there is also the imagination and the character and the writing. The personal thing is always very strong and can be created, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you go into the traumas of your life in order to get it.”

Is this teaching Scientology? Not at all. But it happens to be quite consonant with Scientology, which is famous for its opposition to psychiatry and psychotherapy. (A group founded by the Church of Scientology operates a museum in Hollywood called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.) The only time I heard Katselas quote L. Ron Hubbard, the Scientology founder, in class, he was oblique about it. Four students had just performed a scene in which two college students, about to have a one-night stand, are suddenly, in an absurdist, “Oleanna”-like twist, interrupted by lawyers who want them to agree in advance how far their petting may go. In his critique of the scene, Katselas railed against the legal profession: he wanted the actors to understand that this was more than a funny scene; it was also an indictment of how litigiousness, as well as the fear of it, separates us from our desires. Lawyers are just one group to whom Americans give over their autonomy, and these undergrads, having let the lawyers in, needed to push them back out and take responsibility for their own actions. It is not therapy that reunites us with our authentic selves but willpower, properly directed. “A cat that I study says you are responsible for the condition you are in,” Katselas told the room. “Period.”

That “cat” is Hubbard. But Katselas never says so, and it’s not clear that he ought to. In the context of the scene critique, Hubbard’s seems a germane aphorism, one that might help the actors get a better feel for the shifting alliances onstage. In other arts, it’s easy to gauge proficiency, if not genius. We know what technically correct music sounds like, and writers have rules of grammar and syntax to follow or to tactfully violate. But what makes a good acting performance? How do you disappear into a character? In addition to being the most ineffable of arts, acting depends on extraneous accidents of fate, like the right look. And it’s the only art that you can’t master alone; there’s not much market for soliloquies. With all those uncertainties, a fine performance, let alone a paycheck for it, can seem terrifyingly elusive. It must be the rare actor who can dismiss supernatural aids, whether Scientology or superstitious incantations like “Break a leg,” without a slight loss of nerve.

When David Carradine met Milton Katselas at an audition in the mid-1960s, there were 50 people sitting in the back rows of the theater, just watching Katselas watch actors. “He already had a cult fame, these followers who were like disciples,” Carradine says. “He was the hot young director. I read the play, and I really hated it, but I went to the audition anyway.” Katselas was barely 30 years old.

Born to Greek immigrants in Pittsburgh in 1933, Katselas moved to New York straight after graduating from the Carnegie Institute (now Carnegie Mellon). There was no period of ignominy, no nights of waiting tables. He had seeded the town for his arrival. “I told the guy at Carnegie that within a week, I’d be working with Kazan and I’d be studying with Strasberg,” Katselas told me last spring when we met at his house in West Hollywood. “Prior to that, when I was still in university, I was walking in the streets of New York, just visiting over holiday, and I saw Kazan, and I said to a guy, ‘Is that Kazan?’ and he said, ‘Yeah.’ ” Elia Kazan was fast becoming a legend. He directed “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1951; “On the Waterfront” would come in 1954 and “East of Eden” the year after. “I ran after him; I lost him; I found him; he went up in a building,” Katselas said. “I had my back to the building, looking away from the building. Then this guy taps me on the back, says, ‘What do you want?’ It’s Kazan. He went up, knew that I was chasing him. We spoke a little bit in Greek. I told him I was in university. He says: ‘When you come from university, look me up. I’ll give you a job.’ ” When Katselas arrived in New York, Kazan kept his promise and hired him as his gofer during the Broadway run of “Tea and Sympathy.”

The charmed life got more charmed. Strasberg let Katselas into his class at the Actors Studio. Kazan sent his young Turk — or, rather, Greek — to the stage director Joseph Anthony, who hired him. Katselas talked himself into a job with Joshua Logan, the great director of movies like “Picnic” and “Bus Stop.” Katselas began teaching and directing, and in 1960, at Edward Albee’s request, he directed the American premiere of “The Zoo Story” for the Provincetown Playhouse. His greatest success, though, was “Butterflies Are Free,” a timely play about a blind Manhattanite who falls for a free-spirited hippie, which opened in 1969 and ran for more than 1,000 performances. Blythe Danner won a Tony for her performance, and Katselas was nominated for his direction. In the early 1970s, Katselas moved to California to direct “40 Carats” with Liv Ullmann and the film version of “Butterflies Are Free,” in which Goldie Hawn took Danner’s role.

Katselas never made it back to New York to live. In his telling, his migration sounds like an inevitable progression: Hollywood beckoned; he began teaching in California; it agreed with him. The truth is somewhat more complicated: New York was where Katselas succumbed to, then defeated, an addiction to methamphetamines; it’s where his first marriage, to an alcoholic, began to fail. California must have represented an escape and a fresh start. In 1983, he returned East to direct “Private Lives” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton but was fired during the tryouts before the show reached New York. “I got along great with Burton, and he told me I was one of the few directors he ever accepted notes from,” Katselas says. “But I didn’t get along with Elizabeth, and I’d rather not go into why.” He never worked on the East Coast again.

In California, Katselas met L. Ron Hubbard, the science-fiction writer and amateur scientist whose teachings form the basis of Scientology. Scientology promises its adherents the ability to become “clear,” ridding themselves of negative memories, or “engrams,” that retard their abilities. After becoming clear, they can proceed up “the bridge to total freedom,” realizing their full potential as “thetans,” spirits trapped in bodies. One mechanism of advancement is “auditing,” in which the Scientologist, in conversation with a church “auditor” and hooked up to a machine called an “E-meter,” deletes engrams; there are also church classes like “Personal Efficiency” and “Life Repair.” As a Scientologist proceeds “up the bridge,” he can gain access to esoteric knowledge, like how we thetans got here. Scientology, it has been widely reported, teaches that 75 million years ago the evil alien Xenu solved galactic overpopulation by dumping 13.5 trillion beings in volcanoes on Earth, where they were vaporized, scattering their souls. (John Carmichael, the president of the Church of Scientology of New York, told me, “That’s not what we believe.” He refused to discuss the church’s esoteric teachings, though he did claim that Scientology’s beliefs about the origins of the universe and mankind “follow the much older tradition of Eastern religion dating back to the Vedic hymns.”)

What most Americans know of Scientology is the alien myth, parodied on a famous “South Park” episode; or the German government’s view that Scientology is less a religion than a cult with totalitarian overtones; or the church’s winning fight for tax-exempt status despite the fees it charges, which for many courses are thousands of dollars; or reports in The Times and elsewhere that while battling with the I.R.S., church lawyers hired private investigators to find dirt on federal employees. Millions are also aware of the religion’s celebrity practitioners, like John Travolta, Isaac Hayes and Beck. But for most people who dabble in Scientology, including dozens of Beverly Hills Playhouse students, the religion boils down to two rather prosaic practices. There is the auditing, which, despite Scientologists’ angry denials, is a lot like the psychotherapy they abhor, and there are the classroom teachings. In class, Scientologists learn Hubbard wisdom like “What’s true is what’s true for you” and “Understanding is composed of affinity, reality and communication,” as well as practical advice about the importance of working hard, not blaming others and communicating clearly. Scientology is a quintessentially American mix of prosperity gospel, grandiose hopes for technology, bizarre New Age mythology and useful self-help nostrums.

Katselas was introduced to Scientology in 1965 and has been studying it, off and on, ever since. He has achieved the state of clear, and gone well beyond it; he is, he told me, an Operating Thetan, Level 5, or O.T. V. According to “What Is Scientology?” published by the church, being an Operating Thetan means that you “can handle things and exist without physical support and assistance. . . . It doesn’t mean one becomes God. It means one becomes wholly oneself.” But despite his advanced level of Scientology training, only “on five or six occasions,” Katselas says, has he urged a student to explore Scientology.

Others confirmed that Katselas does not proselytize. “I didn’t know he was a Scientologist until four days ago,” says Burt Reynolds, who has been a guest teacher at the playhouse. “The Scientologists I know, the actors I know, practically want to drag me there. He’s never brought it up.” Katselas’s devotion to Hubbard notwithstanding — he keeps a picture of L.R.H., as Scientologists call him, on a table in his office — he makes rather modest claims for Scientology. “It certainly helped me,” he says. “It helped me as a painter. I started doing a lot of painting, did the Scientology, and it opened up my visual sense. And it helped me in communication, endlessly, and that’s a vital thing in teaching or directing.”

It was in precisely those two areas, painting and communication, in which I thought I could divine Scientology’s influence. Katselas thinks highly of himself as a visual artist. He maintains his own studio, employs a full-time assistant who helps with his sculpture and mixed-media works and has had a handful of shows (three in a gallery that he owns). And although he has no architectural training, he has collaborated with a local architect, offering ideas for the design of two houses in the trendy Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles; one of the houses, it so happens, was purchased by Apl.de.Ap, one of the singers for the Black Eyed Peas. Katselas does not do the blueprints for the houses he “designs,” just as he does not do all the technical work for his art. Katselas has no reputation among critics of painting or architecture. But he seems to have a strong belief in the multifarious nature of his genius — he eagerly showed me the houses he has helped build and gave me a long tour of his art studio — and that is typical of Scientologists, who are taught to think of their potential as limitless.

As for communication, Katselas is, like Hubbard, fairly obsessed with the idea that if only people communicated better, the world’s problems would disappear. Katselas told me that if he sat down the warring parties in Israel, he could broker a truce — a comment that nicely marries Scientology’s human-potential hubris and its faith in communication as the greatest virtue. Katselas also shares Scientologists’ admirable habit of looking words up in dictionaries. Every teacher at the playhouse has a dictionary handy and has actors learn words they don’t know, and Katselas uses numerous dictionary definitions in “Dreams Into Action,” the self-help book he published in 1996 and hawked on “Oprah.” The book acknowledges Hubbard “for his wisdom, writings and inspiration” and carries blurbs from, incongruously, Mario Cuomo and Molly Yard, the former president of the National Organization for Women.

It might seem odd, then, that Katselas and the Scientologists have been somewhat at odds. I asked Katselas if it was true that the actress Jenna Elfman left the playhouse because she found him insufficiently committed to the church. He confirmed the rumor, hesitantly. “In a certain way, yes,” he said. “I don’t know what really occurred there. She was going to be fully involved with Scientology at a certain point in her life. I don’t know if that crept back in.” (Gary Grossman, who has worked at the playhouse for more than 20 years, also said he thought that Elfman wanted to move Katselas “up the bridge” in Scientology, though he added that “the only ones that would know would be Milton and Jenna.” Elfman never returned calls that I made to her publicist.) “But I’ve got to do what I’m going to do,” Katselas continued, “and I’m not going to do it because somebody tells me I should do it, and it doesn’t matter what somebody else thinks is right.”

Katselas’s stubbornness, and his sheer ego, are the keys to understanding his relationship to Scientology. He takes what he can from the teachings, but he can be rather contemptuous of the church. “I know [Hubbard] made a statement once that Scientology is not the people in it,” Katselas said. “Scientology is a technology that he’s developed that is really powerful, and these artists respond to it because it cleans up certain things that they’ve looking to or that they’re dealing with, and that helps them in their quest or in their way, and there’s no doubt of that.” But, he added: “I don’t go to parties, I don’t go to Scientology events. I just don’t do it. And they’re not enthralled with me because of that.” Katselas agreed that some Scientologists were “zealots,” by which he might have meant that for them Scientology was primary, whereas for Katselas Scientology is instrumental. This is a man, after all, who had the chutzpah to chase down Elia Kazan on the street and ask for a job. Scientology didn’t convince Milton that he had unlimited potential; it just confirmed what he already suspected.

Katselas was born with the ego and the talent, but Adam Donshik wasn’t. Donshik, who first told me about Katselas three summers ago, is an old high-school classmate of mine. We were part of the small theater crowd, and we acted together in “Guys and Dolls” and “Gypsy.” He had a lovely voice and was always cast in the musicals, but he was an indifferent actor. We hadn’t spoken for more than 10 years when in 2003 I flipped to the ABC drama “Threat Matrix” and saw him playing a terrorist. Eight months later, I was in Beverly Hills on an assignment, and we met for a drink. His hair was a little thinner, but he looked great, all tan and muscled. The West Coast suited him. The career was going great, he said. Life was going great. “You want to know why?” he asked. “Scientology. I’ve become a Scientologist!” He smiled as if to acknowledge the improbability of this Jewish kid from New England finding Scientology. He had gotten involved through friends at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, where he studied.

Donshik now works for the playhouse as an admission interviewer, acting in TV series on the side. Of a total playhouse payroll of about a dozen teachers, interviewers and assistants, nearly all, I discovered, had at least dabbled in Scientology. Some, like Allen Barton, who is executive director of the school, are committed Scientologists; others, like Rick Podell and Gary Grossman (who starred with Tom Hanks in “Bachelor Party”), have taken just one class and do not consider themselves Scientologists. Jocelyn Jones and Gary Imhoff, former faculty members, are Scientologists, as is Jeffrey Tambor, an actor best known as the imprisoned patriarch George Bluth Sr. on “Arrested Development” and who was Katselas’s heir apparent until he abruptly quit the faculty several years ago. (Katselas blamed Tambor’s wife: “I think she felt there was a tension between her and me and the school, and I think Jeffrey was caught in the middle of it.”)

Of the students, I easily located a dozen who are Scientologists, and based on interviews, I concluded there are probably several dozen more in the current student body of 500. Like their teachers, some students are devout while others indulge a mild curiosity and then drop off. “I went down and took a couple of classes,” David Carradine said. “I’m no kind of Scientologist, but I’ve been around it enough to know it’s a very intelligent thing.” This being Hollywood, some students, like Giovanni Ribisi, were Scientologists before they came to the playhouse.

Of course, other students worry less about how Scientology will help their acting than how it will help their careers; there’s a widespread perception in Hollywood that Scientology is a networking tool. People notice that, say, two stars of “My Name Is Earl,” Jason Lee and Ethan Suplee, are Scientologists; that the Scientologist Kirstie Alley did a guest appearance on Elfman’s “Dharma and Greg”; that Ribisi has popped up on “My Name Is Earl.” “I knew someone at the playhouse who joined Scientology because she thought it would help her career,” one agent told me. “She thought Jenna Elfman would be her best friend.” And actors who study at the Celebrity Centre on Franklin Avenue do bump into the stars, chat with them, even have lunch with them at the restaurant. How bad could that be for a career?

All religious communities can be networks for business contacts, but Scientology makes a special pitch to celebrities, and church literature is filled with testimonials from Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other stars. According to a pamphlet I was given at the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood (there are eight Celebrity Centres, in cities from Paris to Munich to Nashville), the center was founded in 1969 “to take care of those who entertain, fashion and take care of the world . . . the artists, the leaders of industry, politicians, sports figures and the like.” As a very successful hack sci-fi writer, Hubbard was something of a junior-varsity celebrity himself, and he had great esteem for his betters. “Hollywood makes a picture which strikes the public fancy, and tomorrow we have girls made up like a star walking along the streets of the small towns of America,” Hubbard once wrote. “A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists.”

Of course, the majority of those who study at Celebrity Centres are not actual celebrities, and for many of them the chance to be valued for their art alongside more successful peers, the Cruises and the Travoltas, must be salubrious for the ego. At the centers, the agent can join the same exclusive club as his client, the editor as his writer. And all of them can bask in a theology that holds, again to quote Hubbard, that “one of the greatest single moves which could be made to advance and vitalize a culture such as America would be to free, completely, the artist from all taxes and similar oppressions.”

But if a few students have appreciated the playhouse for its connections to Scientology, others have left alienated. “I have clients who left there because of all the Scientology,” one longtime Hollywood agent told me. Terrell Clayton, who had a recurring role on “Six Feet Under” and studied at the playhouse for five years, says that the pressure to study Scientology is subtle. “It’s not like while you’re being critiqued they say you need to join Scientology,” he says. “It’s small conversations you might have with colleagues or fellow students.” He now studies with Ivana Chubbuck, a highly regarded teacher who wrote “The Power of the Actor.” Chubbuck has kind words for Katselas. “It seems when people come from his studio to work with me, they seem to be pretty good actors, so he must be doing something right,” she says. “In terms of how he operates as a Scientologist or a human being, I would be remiss in saying something based on rumor or hearsay.”

And then Chubbuck told me something unexpected and clarifying: “If he’s putting something else he does in his teaching, if it works, it works.” In other words, even if he were dispensing Scientology-flavored pedagogy, even if his example did lead some young actors to the Celebrity Centre to spend their dollars — earned at union scale, working bit parts in Lifetime movies — on classes meant to bring about a state of clear, that might not be a bad thing, not if it helped their art.

Katselas is adamant that he does not want a cult around himself. “It worries me,” he said when I mentioned that his students seem to worship him. But he collects disciples. His personal chef, art assistant and longtime girlfriend are all students or former students (the latter two have studied Scientology). He knows what’s best for others too: he threatened to fire his art assistant, Richard Shirley, unless Shirley lost weight. (“He’s in my life; it’s very much my business,” Katselas said. “Everything is everybody’s business. Our fellows are our responsibility.”) And he cultivates the image of a man with almost magical powers. “Dreams Into Action,” his motivational book, is full of promises for future greatness, if only people would heed his words. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. He has style: he drove me around in a restored vintage Mercedes. He’s an entrepreneur, a real estate investor, even a partner in Skylight Books, one of L.A.’s best independent bookstores. He once got drunk with the sculptor David Smith. He has the wit of Thurber, the charm of Zorba. According to one Scientology text, man “is not only able to solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness, but also to achieve new states of awareness he may never have dreamed possible.” Katselas seems to have achieved such a state — what student could be blamed for wanting to drink his elixir?

On my last day in Los Angeles, I saw Adam Donshik play Hamlet in class. It was the scene in which he kills Polonius and fights with his mother. Katselas wasn’t impressed — his critique was barbed — but Adam was worlds better than in high school. Even accounting for age and maturity, something else had intervened. An unusual teacher had given Adam both a religion and a talent for acting. If the two were somehow inseparable, it might not pay to try to pull them apart. I could mock Adam for following the man or for following the faith. But perhaps it would be wiser to simply watch him act.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/ma...atselas-t.html





Chief of Universal Finds Success at the Back of the Pack
Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

The hilltop theme park outside the 14th floor office of Ron Meyer, president of the Universal Studios Group, anchored by past glories like its “Jurassic Park” and “Backdraft” rides, could stand a makeover.

An attraction based on “Transformers,” the smash hit from Universal’s former ally, DreamWorks SKG, might add a little pizazz. But “Transformers” went to Paramount in a deal made many months ago, and DreamWorks soon followed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Meyer, 62 years old and the longest-serving chief of a major movie company, had to rent a hit with his recent deal to feature Warner Brothers’ “Harry Potter” series in Universal’s Florida park.

So it goes at Hollywood’s sixth-place studio. Though profitable for the last nine years, Universal has been noticeably short on blockbusters to call its own.

That is largely by design. In a strategy that is starkly different from other top film studios, Mr. Meyer has determined that Universal should stay well behind the leaders, allowing the flashiest and most expensive projects — and typically the biggest payoffs — to go elsewhere.

“We gauge ourselves to be in the middle,” Mr. Meyer said. Universal currently ranks last among major studios at the domestic box office and hasn’t placed higher than third in the last seven years.

This approach appears to have put Universal on a permanent second tier, a strategy that could concede the future to a few “superstudios” like, for instance, the higher volume distributor Warner Brothers. Warner has routinely invested much more than the amount that Universal spends — less than $1 billion — on production each year.

Fox, following another tack, has been less prolific, but is plunging into 3-D with an expensive but possibly transforming production of “Avatar,” a science-fiction thriller from the filmmaker James Cameron.

In Hollywood’s go-for-broke culture, hewing to the center may bring perils of its own: A willingness to spend handsomely on so-called franchise films may ultimately bring returns to support a bold stroke like Disney’s acquisition of Pixar Animations Studios, or may help it get the first shot at the most promising talent.

“You gain stature and bragging rights by having big budgets,” said Harold Vogel, an entertainment industry analyst who runs Vogel Capital Management. “Not too many up-and-coming filmmakers are motivated by saying, ‘Gee, I just did a modestly budgeted picture for Universal.’ ”

Mr. Meyer’s bosses, however, do not consider Mr. Meyer’s approach the slightest bit risky. “We’ve been very, very pleased to be right in the middle of the pack of market share and have strong growth in profitability,” said Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, of which Universal Studios is a unit. “People mistake market share for profitability. We’re interested in running a very sound business and having discipline in doing so.”

And General Electric, which acquired a majority interest in the studio more than three years ago, backed Mr. Zucker’s decision last month to renew Mr. Meyer’s contract two years before it expired, giving the executive the prospect of an unusually long 17-year run in charge of a company he joined in 1995.

Mr. Meyer, a talent agent turned studio chief and known for his consummate people skills, has held Universal together through corporate transitions that might easily have damaged the company. But old-style Hollywood charm has gone only so far. While margins remain strong and the unit has overcome losses that plagued it in the 1990s — last year Universal contributed about 30 percent to NBC Universal’s 2006 operating profit, or $850 million, on revenue of $5 billion — the company has suffered some setbacks of late.

Despite a business relationship with Universal that yielded movies like “Seabiscuit,” DreamWorks arranged to make “Transformers” with Paramount, then sold itself to that studio. Making the situation worse, DreamWorks then recruited Mr. Meyer’s top movie executive, Stacey Snider.

Most recently, Universal has stumbled with “Evan Almighty,” which became the most expensive comedy in Hollywood history after its budget ballooned to more than $175 million. The movie, poorly received when it opened last month, will lose money for both Universal and its financing partner, Gun Hill II, though not a large amount, Mr. Meyer said. The investment fund is expected to be involved with nine pictures a year at the studio.

Mr. Meyer’s longevity at Universal despite its turbulent performance has prompted Hollywood to cast him as something of a Teflon executive. He is one of the industry’s most compelling characters. Dropping out of high school at 15, Mr. Meyer joined the Marine Corps at 17, and began his movie career at 19 as a messenger at a talent agency. He eventually joined William Morris as a television agent, ultimately leaving to co-found the Creative Artists Agency with Michael S. Ovitz and Bill Haber.

His preference for relatively safe, lower-cost productions like “Knocked Up,” “Inside Man” and “The Break-Up,” all of which clicked at the box office, or “United 93,” “Because I Said So” and “The Good Shepherd,” which largely did not, would seem at odds with his personal style. For example, over the years he had a strong interest in high-stakes card games, which he said he has now put aside.

“Chronic gambling is an illness and has a lot of stupidity that goes along with it,” Mr. Meyer said. He decided to give up gambling when G.E. acquired the bulk of Universal from the French conglomerate Vivendi. “That made my decision for me,” he said, alluding to the visibility and management rigor that ownership by the conglomerate would bring with it.

First hired at Universal by an earlier owner, Seagram, and its chairman, Edgar Bronfman Jr., Mr. Meyer was initially given financing to match any of his competitors. But he squandered much of it on a string of flops that included “Babe: Pig in the City,” “Meet Joe Black” and a “Psycho” remake.

“I had huge financial support from Edgar and failed miserably. I mean really failed,” Mr. Meyer said. Mr. Bronfman slashed the studio’s production pool to $600 million, significantly less than what others were spending at a time when Warner was first establishing its “Harry Potter” franchise and Sony was getting the “Spider-Man” series under way.

The reduced spending meant smaller films, most of which stopped short of top-level success even when “The Bourne Identity” or “The Mummy” did well and spawned a sequel or two. (“King Kong,” a rare big-budget bet in 2005, cost more than $200 million, but ultimately became a winner.) For Mr. Meyer, it also brought a new focus on profit, which was helped along, he said, by some schooling from the business guru Ram Charan, a ubiquitous corporate consultant and the author of self-help books including “Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning.”

“It got everybody their bonus. It kept my owners happy. It kept them from coming in and meddling with our business. And it kept me employed,” Mr. Meyer said. Having one executive at the helm during the studio’s years of bouncing among corporate owners has created a comfortable association for some of Hollywood’s best production companies, including Working Title Films (“United 93,” “Pride & Prejudice”), Imagine Entertainment (“Inside Man,” “A Beautiful Mind”) and Tom Hanks’s Playtone (“Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Mamma Mia,” both on the way). All three recently renewed deals with Universal.

“His undying loyalty to us causes us to have the same feeling toward him,” Brian Grazer, the co-chairman of Imagine, said. The producer said he had considered going elsewhere, but ultimately felt bound by the studio chief’s willingness to back unconventional films like “Friday Night Lights” or “8 Mile.”

Mr. Meyer has clearly preferred continuity to adventure. When Stacey Snider left to join DreamWorks, for instance, the executive found her replacements inside the family: He divided her job between Marc Shmuger, a marketing veteran who was then the studio’s vice chairman, and David Linde, who had been co-president of its Focus Features specialty division.

Though he continues to have lunch with Ms. Snyder and all three of the DreamWorks co-founders — David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg — the executive was stung by their abrupt departures. During a wide-ranging session in his paneled office last week, he spoke of his disappointment at having failed to mobilize Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, quickly enough behind a counteroffer that might have kept DreamWorks at Universal in the face of a $1.6 billion bid from Paramount, owned by Viacom.

Not long afterward, Mr. Meyer forced Ms. Snyder into deciding whether to remain with Universal after discovering on a Sunday morning that she had been talking to DreamWorks. The studio chairwoman was told she must declare her intention to stay at a Monday staff meeting, or lose her job. Come Monday morning, she did not show up. A spokesman for Ms. Snyder declined to comment.

Despite the tumult, Mr. Zucker said that Universal is on track to deliver “strong, steady growth,” particularly internationally. At a recent presentation to Wall Street, Mr. Zucker positioned the studio as a bright spot helping to offset continued weakness at the NBC broadcast network.

Mr. Meyer says he believes much of the division’s growth will come from the company’s theme parks,.

That expansion will happen partly through arrangements to license the Universal name and attractions to parks in Dubai, Singapore and elsewhere. Attendance will perk up, he says, through deals under which Universal will tap Warner for “Harry Potter” for its Orlando park and Fox for a “Simpsons” attraction at Universal City.

“We don’t have to own it,” Mr. Meyer said, in speaking of the cinematic extravaganzas that will give birth to future attractions. “It costs us a little more money to license it. But I’m thrilled to pay for something special.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/bu...a/16meyer.html





Summer Cinema’s One-Week Wonders
David M. Halbfinger

After its superstrong $182 million opening week in May, “Spider-Man 3” plunged at the box office by 61 percent the next week. “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” sank like a stone in its second week, dropping 66 percent. And when the box office gross for “Transformers” fell by only 47 percent after a week in theaters, Hollywood marveled at the movie’s strength.

The movie business has been heading this way for years, but this summer is proving the apotheosis of the one-week blockbuster. The blur of big-budget films may have left moviegoers with whiplash, given how quickly each film announces itself in television ads and then disappears from marquees, yet few in Hollywood are complaining. Far from it, since the steep drop-offs are largely fueled by a run of blockbusters from every major studio, and Hollywood has a chance of breaking 2004’s summer box office record.
“It’s about the best you can hope for without being on an island,” Jeff Blake, vice chairman of Sony Pictures, said.

For audiences, the summer’s ultrawide releases have made it easier than ever to get into blockbusters on opening weekend and more dangerous than ever for lesser films to open at the same time as these so-called tent poles. Moviegoers who made “Knocked Up” a hit, meanwhile, can expect plenty of knockoffs in the next few years, until its formula of raunchy comedy grows tired.

The blockbuster onslaught has been driven partly by a shift in the way studios and theater chains divide up box office receipts. Until several years ago, most of the grosses went to the studios initially, but theaters benefited more the longer a film played. As a result, megaplex owners had a financial disincentive to play a new movie on too many screens.

Now studios and theater chains typically agree on a flat percentage split, no matter how long a movie plays. So “Pirates,” “Spider-Man 3” and “Shrek the Third,” for example, each opened on more than 10,000 screens in May.

“We don’t care anymore whether we generate revenue in the first week, the third or the fifth,” said Mike Campbell, chief executive of Regal Cinemas, the nation’s biggest theater chain.

With cinemas freed to put each week’s new blockbuster on enough screens to offer show times every 20 minutes, the pressure on studios to deliver huge opening weeks has reached new proportions. It’s little surprise, then, that a film like “Transformers,” originally set for a Wednesday release, sped up its debut to a Monday night, and that more films than ever are sneaking into theaters the night before their scheduled releases.

Though there is little data to prove it, studio executives are convinced that the week-in, week-out blockbuster bombardment has also further eroded the repeat business that made these movies so tantalizing to studios. For movies like those big May “threequels,” which have each exceeded $300 million in domestic box office grosses but not yet equaled their franchise records, that is a shortcoming that huge worldwide grosses will more than offset.

But for films that are not part of such franchises or did not quite work the way they were intended to, the crowded schedule has created a cruel, cruel world.

“If you do come up with a movie that doesn’t hit, the consequences are as dire, if not more dire, than they’ve ever been,” said Adam Fogelson, president of marketing at Universal Pictures, which experienced those dire results with “Evan Almighty” after succeeding with the modestly budgeted “Knocked Up.”

The jampacked summer schedule has had other repercussions. Smaller studio movies can no longer count on picking up the spillover audiences, said Rob Moore, president of worldwide marketing, distribution and operations at Paramount. Warner Brothers, he noted, opened the romantic comedy “Lucky You” against “Spider-Man 3” to disastrous results.

“In the past, people who couldn’t get into the big blockbuster would see something else and then come back the next week,” he said. “But theaters and multiplexes can give you so many seats on opening day that it’s incredibly rare that somebody can’t get in within an hour of when they walk up.”

And Mr. Campbell, of Regal, said this year’s May offerings might have left audiences hung over a little bit in June, traditionally a gangbusters month. (Witness the underwhelming results of Warner Brothers’ “Ocean’s Thirteen” and Sony’s “Surf’s Up.”)

This summer’s scorecard, according to film executives, shows that originality (and not merely sequels) can work, though Hollywood’s ideas about what constitutes originality can be a bit mind-bending. “Transformers,” after all, is considered an original franchise for Paramount and DreamWorks, though it was based on a decades-old toy line and an animated series and movie. And with Hollywood simply in thrall to Judd Apatow, the writer-director-producer of “Knocked Up,” his originality is already spawning untold imitations.

Before the June lull, Hollywood had high hopes for breaking the 2004 summer box office record of $3.95 billion. As of Sunday, this year’s box office gross had reached $2.587 billion. On the strength of big July hits like “Transformers” and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” and with “The Simpsons” coming on July 27, expectations of record breaking continue to mount.

What will determine the outcome, said the box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Media by Numbers, could be whether August proves to be the new June, packed as it will be with franchise installments like Universal’s “Bourne Ultimatum” and New Line’s “Rush Hour 3,” as well as another Apatow-branded comedy, Sony’s “Superbad.”

The summer of 2008, by the way, looks as intensely competitive and crowded as this one. The comic-book adaptation “Iron Man” is scheduled to open on May 2, followed by the Wachowski brothers’ “Speed Racer” from Warner Brothers; the next installment of the “Narnia” series from Disney; the new “Indiana Jones” sequel; and a comedy produced by Mr. Apatow, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

And the jockeying for prime position has already extended to 2009. Disney has claimed May 1 for the third “Narnia,” and two 3-D extravaganzas — James Cameron’s “Avatar” for 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” — so far look to duke it out on May 22.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/movies/18stud.html





With 5th Film, Harry Potter Masters the Box Office Race
Brooks Barnes

As Harry Potter’s wizardry skills keep growing, so do his box office powers.

In its first five days of release, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” the fifth film based on the J. K. Rowling books, sold an estimated $140 million in tickets at American theaters. That was enough to break several records, including biggest opening on a Wednesday and biggest five-day nonholiday total. The tally marks the strongest five-day performance in the movie franchise’s history, according to Box Office Mojo, an online tracking service. The second highest belongs to the fourth film, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” which earned $119.7 million in its first five days in 2005.

“The Order of the Phoenix” had a three-day weekend total of $77.4 million. It also opened to robust receipts internationally, with about $190 million. Warner Brothers said the movie outperformed its predecessors in most countries and broke a handful of sales records.

Hype surrounding the forthcoming release, on Saturday, of the final book of the Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” surely helped. Warner Brothers, which is owned by Time Warner, also tried a different distribution strategy with the latest picture, rolling out “Order of the Phoenix” on a Wednesday in the middle of summer. The previous four movies were all released on Fridays (one of the films in June, the others in November).

“To see the movie franchise continue to grow is an indication that original fans are staying with us, and new ones are coming,” said Dan Fellman, Warner Brothers’ president for domestic distribution.

“Transformers,” from DreamWorks and Paramount, dropped 49 percent at the weekend box office, a steep decline for most movies but a respectable showing for the toy-theme release given its enormous opening last week. As the No. 2 film it sold an estimated $36 million in tickets over the weekend. Rounding out the top five were “Ratatouille” with $18 million, “Live Free or Die Hard” with $10.9 million and “License to Wed” with $7.4 million.

Of note was the dismal performance of “Captivity,” an entry in the “torture porn” horror genre that had tried to capture attention with a contentious ad campaign. Billboards for the release chronicled a young woman’s torment, leading to a rare censure by the Motion Picture Association of America in the spring.

“Captivity’s” take was estimated at nearly $1.6 million in 1,050 theaters for a poor per-screen average of $1,476. That reinforces the slump that R-rated horror films have experienced lately in an oversaturated marketplace after the success of movies like “Saw” and “Hostel.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/movies/16box.html





The Voice of Harry Potter Can Keep a Secret
Motoko Rich

Jim Dale is either one of the luckiest men in America or one of the most tortured.

A little less than two months ago, Mr. Dale, the veteran Broadway actor turned voice of Harry Potter, finished recording the audio version of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final installment in the colossally successful series by J. K. Rowling.

So that means that he knows how it ends.

His grandchildren, who visited from England after he completed the recording, literally twisted his arms trying to get him to divulge a clue. His wife is still in the dark. Everywhere he goes, people want to know What He Knows.

“It’s a surprise ending,” he said on Friday, during an interview in his Park Avenue co-op. “Let’s say that.”

Gee, thanks.

It is not quite four days until Harry Potter’s legions of fans can procure a copy of “Deathly Hallows” — in hardcover, CD or cassette — and find out for themselves exactly who does what to whom. Mr. Dale signed a confidentiality agreement so that he will not breathe a word of the plot.

But after spending eight years creating more than 200 voices for all the characters in the “Harry Potter” books, Mr. Dale really believes that readers — and listeners — should discover the end for themselves.

“For those people who say, ‘C’mon, Jim, how does it end?,’ it’s like parents who say: ‘There’s a surprise gift for you in the next room. It’s a bicycle,’ ” said Mr. Dale, whose apartment could easily make a Hogwarts professor feel at home with its eclectic collections of Victorian cake decorations, pewter plates and Persian swords. “Let the child find out for himself by opening this gift.”

Mr. Dale, 71, was born in central England and has had a long and storied career as a stand-up comedian, a pop singer and an actor in everything from the British “Carry On” series of films and Shakespeare at the National Theater in London to Broadway productions of “Joe Egg” and “Barnum,” for which he won a Tony Award.

Serendipity landed Mr. Dale the part of reading “Harry Potter.” Back in 1999, Listening Library, then an independent company, acquired the United States audiobook rights to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first book in the series, for just $15,000. Timothy Ditlow, the son of the company’s founders, was at a dinner party with a group of avid theatergoers who recommended Mr. Dale. (In Britain the audiobooks are produced by Bloomsbury, and Stephen Fry, the actor, author and comedian, reads them.)
Mr. Ditlow recalled Mr. Dale’s performance in “Barnum” and a few other Broadway shows. Although Mr. Dale had recorded only one audiobook, which was never released, Mr. Ditlow offered him the job. “I think it’s just one of those combination factors of luck and just going by your gut,” Mr. Ditlow said.

Since he first went into the recording studio in the summer of 1999, Mr. Dale has recorded every single word of the “Harry Potter” series, amounting to 117 hours and 4 minutes of reading time across the seven books — or a lot of long car rides. Including sales of CDs, cassettes and digital downloads, the audiobooks have sold more than 5.7 million copies, according to the Random House Audio Publishing Group, which now owns Listening Library.

For his work on the “Harry Potter” series, Mr. Dale has won a Grammy Award and holds the record for creating the most voices in an audiobook in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Deathly Hallows,” which runs to 784 pages in the ink-and-paper version, took about two and a half weeks, working six-and-a-half-hour days, recording about 18 to 20 pages an hour, to finish. As with the other books, Mr. Dale received the manuscript only two or three days before he was scheduled to begin recording.

“That makes it impossible for me to actually read it before recording it,” said Mr. Dale, who does not possess the 13-year-old megafan’s ability to inhale the book in a weekend.

So he read about 100 pages ahead, and noted all the different voices he needed for the first few days of recording. The benefit of reading in chunks, Mr. Dale said, is that: “I don’t ever know how the book is going to end so I can’t unconsciously lead you in the direction that the book is going. I don’t know who the villain is because I am just reading 100 pages at a time.”

By now the publisher has digital files of all the voices he has used for long-running characters like Hermione Granger, one of Harry’s sidekicks, as well as more minor recurring characters like the Death Eaters, so that Mr. Dale can recreate those voices for the latest book. He takes into account the aging of the main characters, who started out as 10 and 11 in “Sorcerer’s Stone” and are now 17 and 18 in “Deathly Hallows.”

For new characters Mr. Dale uses an old-fashioned cassette recorder and tapes one or two sentences in the new voice and notes the place in the text. Then, when he shows up in the studio and starts to read, he will go to his tape recorder, rewind until he finds the right voice, and play it back to refresh his memory before recording the text. To create the range of voices, he calls on his knowledge of dozens of accents from across the British Isles and imitates the voices of friends and relatives.

For Peeves, the poltergeist, he used the voice of an old comedian friend. For Prof. Minerva McGonagall, Mr. Dale chose the voice of an aunt on his wife’s side, who, perhaps fortunately, did not live to hear herself commemorated that way.

As with the earlier books, Ms. Rowling (whom Mr. Dale said he has met twice) sent along a list of new words and character names and their corresponding pronunciations. Whenever he stumbled on a word not on the author’s list, Mr. Dale would record it in context in several ways to account for every possible pronunciation.

The producers are sticklers for absolute fidelity to the text. “If she says ‘someone laughs, ha, ha, ha,’ and I do four ‘ha’s,’ I am stopped and told, ‘Just do three,’ ” Mr. Dale said.

This Friday night, in the run-up to the release of “Deathly Hallows” at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, Mr. Dale will appear at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in Manhattan, where he will invite children onto the stage to do impressions of his voices. After the book is released, he will do a tour of Houston, Washington, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C.

Since attracting a fan base for his “Harry Potter” readings, Mr. Dale has been recording other children’s classics, like “A Christmas Carol,” “Peter Pan” and “Around the World in 80 Days.”

“So if we can encourage the children who follow Jim Dale to listen to other books he records,” Mr. Dale said, “then we are really encouraging them to read or listen to other books that they may never find on their own.”

This fall fans will also be able to hear Mr. Dale’s voice as the narrator of “Pushing Daisies,” a new television series from Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of “Men in Black.”

But it is his role as the aural embodiment of Harry Potter that has brought Mr. Dale a chance at the kind of immortality that many performers crave.

“We have been part of history — big, big history,” Mr. Dale said. “It’s like the people who were connected with Lewis Carroll or the people connected with J. M. Barrie when ‘Peter Pan’ came up. It has been marvelous. Now my voice can be heard in hundreds of years’ time. We all need to leave something behind, and I am leaving behind a legacy of the ‘Harry Potter’ audiobooks.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/books/17dale.html





Harry Potter Finale Allegedly Leaked Online
Kevin Griffin

A 33-year-old Vancouverite has downloaded what appears to be about 60% of the seventh and final Harry Potter book -- even though the children's novel isn't supposed to be officially released until midnight Saturday.

The discovery of what appears to be major portions of the novel on a European website is part of the continuing hype over the imminent release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It also follows on the heels of the recent release of the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Byron Ng said he started his search for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday after reading a newspaper account of the heightened security around release of the book -- including using measures such as GPS technology to track the trucks delivering the books to retailers.

Oddly enough, Ng doesn't consider himself a big Harry Potter fan.

"I know the basics and I've watched some of the movies but I don't really pay attention to it," he said. "This is a high value release so I looked at it for fun."

Ng said he went online and found what appeared to be the novel's first few paragraphs mentioned in an article that appeared Sunday in The Guardian, based in the U.K. He used that information to Google and find the rest of the novel.

He found that someone had posted what appeared to be first 495 pages of the 794-page book on a peer-to-peer sharing website where directions to pirated movies and other material are located. So he downloaded it too.

"It is not an e-book or Word file, which is what people would normally do," he said. "What some guy did was take pictures of it, 500 little files, each with a picture of a page. Someone took the trouble to do that."

Jamie Broadhurst, director of marketing for Raincoast Books, said that in the "runup to a new Harry Potter, there's lot of speculation, there's lots of rumours.

"There's lot of content that's purporting to be the authentic book. What I can say is that we can't possibly verify any of those rumours.

"We would encourage people to wait until July 21 and share in the secret together -- at one minute past midnight."

On the information downloaded by Ng, most of the text is legible but some pages have been photographed at an angle, making them difficult to read. On each pdf, you can also see the knuckles and partial fingers of someone holding the book open on a carpeted floor.

What Ng said was unusual about the file is that no one can claim bragging rights because the posting on the European website is anonymous and doesn't even have a fictitious name.

As of Monday afternoon, the file allegedly containing the latest Harry Potter novel had been downloaded 507 times.

Ng said he doesn't think the posting was an example of guerrilla marketing -- anonymously using the Internet to build interest in a company or brand.

"I think it's a deliberate leak," he said. "Someone somewhere has taken the trouble to do this -- who knows who it is."

Raincoast Books has published 10 million copies of the Harry Potter books.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...46e7b8&k=22091





New Potter Book May Have Made Its Way to Web
Motoko Rich



Frustrating perhaps the most elaborately orchestrated marketing machine ever mobilized for a book, photographs of what appeared to be every single page of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the breathlessly awaited seventh and final installment in the series by J. K. Rowling, were circulating on the Web yesterday.

To the publishers of Harry Potter, there is no time or date more sacred than what they are calling “midnight magic,” 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. Then, and only then, can readers buy their copies of “Deathly Hallows.” Both Bloomsbury, the British publisher, and Scholastic, the publisher in the United States, have gone to great lengths to safeguard the book’s content and release date, ordering booksellers not to sell a single book a minute earlier than the official time.

But those less mindful of the publishers’ wishes could go onto various file-sharing Web sites yesterday to look at amateur-seeming photographs of what appeared to be each pair of facing pages of a copy of the book. The pictures, which could be downloaded through sites like the Pirate Bay and MediaFire, showed the book laid out on a green-and-red-flecked beige looped carpet, with fingers holding the pages open. Some of the photos made the text difficult to read, but the fiercely protected ending was definitely legible.

Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic’s trade and book fairs division, said the company was asking various Web site hosts to take the photos down. “We’re not confirming if anything is real,” she said. “But in the spirit of getting to midnight magic without a lot of hoo-ha, can you just take some of this stuff down.”

The company’s lawyers were also pursuing the identity of the person who posted the pictures.

On Monday, the company issued a subpoena to Gaia Online, a social networking and gaming site, ordering it to take down a link to some photos purporting to be “Deathly Hallows” pages posted by a user. Bill Danon, a Gaia spokesman, said that within hours of the subpoena, Gaia removed the photos and banned the user for 14 days.

Some fans were convinced that the images posted around the Web were authentic. Emerson Spartz, the founder and Web master of MuggleNet.com, one of the biggest Harry Potter fan sites, said he thought the photos were the real deal.

“I read enough of it to where I could tell,” he said. Although he did not read to the end, he said: “I’m not even really hopeful that it won’t get spoiled for me. I’m just expecting it anytime I log on to check e-mail.”

Doris Herrmann, an English teacher in Clear Lake, Tex., who is also a project coordinator for the Leaky Cauldron (leakynews.com), another big fan site, said: “I hate to say it, but it really does look authentic.” She said that while it was possible to work wonders with Photoshop or other programs, it would be difficult to write a whole manuscript, typeset it like the originals and then photograph the whole thing.

Tens of thousands of people downloaded the files yesterday, according to BigChampagne, a research firm that tracks file-sharing. By midday, many of the Web links were no longer working.

On the link-sharing site Digg yesterday, a person using the name TocsinFilms appeared to take credit for uploading the images, then said he was simply “one of the first” to do so. He wrote on Digg in May that he had obtained a copy of the book from “someone who works for a Scholastic Distributing company for Waldenbooks” and had posted photos of its pages online. Those photos have since been taken down. This person did not respond to e-mail or telephone inquiries.

Some who say they have copies of the book or knowledge of the plot have been posting snippets and scans of supposed manuscript pages for weeks. Ms. Holton acknowledged that some of the photos looked genuine. But, she added, “it’s a bunch of people who are going to extraordinary lengths to make it look like they have the authentic book.”

There were also six photos posted on Flickr, the picture-sharing site, by a user named hermionepotter77, a reference to one of Harry’s best friends. Over the caption “Here ya go kids, the Deathly Hallows ending!” one appeared to show the first page of the final chapter; others showed the table of contents and more pages. This material was almost entirely different from what appeared in the images of the full book, meaning one or both had to be fake.

“This happens with every book, and there are a lot of them out there, and we appeal to everybody not to put them up,” said Sarah Beal, a spokeswoman for Bloomsbury in London. “It’s amazing how creative people can be. It may look real, but it doesn’t mean they are.”

Hype and frenzy have been building for weeks as readers anticipate the release of this final Harry Potter book. Ms. Rowling has hinted that two or more characters are likely to die, leading to speculation from many fans that Harry may not survive his own series. Fans have been hypothesizing about other important plot points, too, like who will end up with whom and whether Prof. Severus Snape, a character whose moral character has been in question, is genuinely evil.

Despite the possible leak, bookstores across the country continued to gear up for festivities on Friday night, expecting long lines of readers at midnight. Scholastic is publishing a record 12 million copies, and Ms. Holton said the company had no plans to move up the release date.

“If in fact the book is posted online or the ending is revealed prior to midnight on Friday, it will not result in us selling a single less copy of the book,” said Steve Riggio, chief executive of Barnes & Noble, which has 1.3 million orders for “Deathly Hallows.” As far as Mr. Riggio is concerned, the press coverage generated by potential spoilers just increases advance orders.

Judy Bulow, children’s book buyer for the three Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, said she doubted that Web spoilers would deter readers from buying the book or attending the midnight parties.

“I think kids are still wanting the great big book,” she said. Tattered Cover is planning parties at two locations and will raffle off the chance to be first in line to buy a copy.

David F. Gallagher contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/us/18potter.html?hp





A 'Harry' Night Out

Fans camp out to be first in line to get new Harry Potter book
Mark Langlois

Danni, Ally, and Ashley began camping out in front of Barnes & Noble Booksellers at 12:30 p.m. Thursday to make sure they're the first ones to buy "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at midnight tonight.

"It's very suspenseful waiting for the book to come out," said Danni Mandra, 20, who attends Hartwick College in New York, studying philosophy.

Their wait in line will end at 6 p.m. today when the three women from North Salem will be given arm bands by the store employees. The bands will be numbered to say the order of patrons waiting in line for books.

"The plan is to be the first in line, and we'll camp out tonight to make that happen," said Ally Mandra, 17, a senior at North Salem High School.

Sisters Ally and Danni were waiting with Ashley Nussbaum, 16, also a senior at North Salem High School.

They may eat dinner, which will likely be from Sinapi's Pizza in the Danbury Square Mall, and have dessert, which will likely be from Cold Stone Creamery nearby.

But they aren't going to give up their place in line. One of the girls will remain while the other two go pick up food.

All three are avid Harry Potter fans who expect to spend Saturday and Sunday, if necessary, reading the 700-page book. The previous book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," broke publishing records for the most sales in its first three days of publication, and this book is expected to outsell the "Prince."

The trio are not worried about "spoilers," who are people who spoil the ending of the book by shouting it to people waiting in line to buy it. Spoilers learn how the book ends by reading snippets on the Internet. Whole copies of the book have been pirated and reprinted on the Web.

To avoid spoilers, people wear earplugs or listen to music while waiting in line.

"That's why I brought my i-Pod," Ally Mandra said.

"Our house stopped going online entirely yesterday," Danni Mandra said.

In a somewhat belated effort to halt the flood of Harry Potter rumors and possible truth from harming the book's release, author J.K. Rowling sent a plea from her Web site to spoilers.

"I'd like to ask everyone who calls themselves a Potter fan to help preserve the secrecy of the plot for all those who are looking forward to reading the book at the same time on publication day."

The book is being kept in its boxes worldwide until a few minutes before midnight, although The New York Times published a review of the book in its Thursday editions.

"I'm not looking," Danni Mandra said. "J.K. Rowling never lets us down. The books have matured with the audience. If you started reading them at age 10, and you've had a 10-year wait for the last book, you're 20. They're enjoyable for a 20-year-old to read."
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/st...rce=big_barker





Long Lines and Wide Smiles Greet the Final Volume of ‘Harry Potter’
Motoko Rich


New York


London


Danbury!

There has never been anything quite like it, and nobody knows whether there ever will be again.

The Harry Potter phenomenon reached its tumultuous climax this morning as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final installment in the hugely popular series by J. K. Rowling went on sale at 12:01 a.m.

Parties to herald the arrival proliferated around the city and across the country. At the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in Manhattan, lines snaked around the block as police officers ordered fans off the street. Downtown in SoHo at the McNally Robinson Bookstore, an adults-only group swilled “magic punch.” And at the Borders at Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, fans who had been given numbered wristbands earlier in the day thronged around the front of the store at midnight. “Are we ready for Harry Potter?” yelled the manager. “Yea!” the crowd screamed back.

Pilyoung Yoo, 41, won a raffle for the first place in line. “It’s so amazing,” she said. After snagging their copy, her son Ted Yoo, 9, opened it to page 705. He wanted to find out how it ends.

In London, where the book went on sale five hours before New Yorkers could get their hands on a copy, Tineke Dijkstra, a 15-year-old fan from the Netherlands, had waited in line outside the Waterstone’s in Piccadilly Circus for two days to ensure that she was one of the first ones to buy the book. “I slept three hours in the last two days in the rain,” she said after emerging from the store with her copy. “I’m going to go and read one chapter and then go to sleep.”

Throughout the day in New York and elsewhere, booksellers readied for their biggest party of the year by putting the finishing touches on cauldrons, replicas of series locales like Diagon Alley, and Potter-themed snacks and drinks like “golden snitch” balls and butterbeer.

It was a day when fans lined up for hours, dressed up as their favorite characters, and braced for all-night reading sessions of the final volume in the series that has chronicled the magical adventures of the boy wizard, his education at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his epic battles against the evil Lord Voldemort.

In London, nearly 500 fans wrapped around several city blocks by 8 p.m., waiting to get into Waterstone’s, many eating pizza and chanting, “Good will prevail!” By 11:30, the mob had worked into a pandemonium of excitement, shouting, “Only half an hour to go!” and singing, “J.K., J.K., thank you!” The street outside the store was so clogged with revelers that cars and buses could only pass through one lane.

In SoHo in Manhattan, Chelsea Logan, 17, and Leah Wickman, 18, two recent high school graduates from Santa Rosa, Calif., arrived at 7:30 a.m. yesterday to sit on the corner of Prince and Mercer Streets, up the block from the headquarters of Scholastic, the United States publisher of the series, to mark their places as first in line to buy their copies of “Deathly Hallows.”

“We were terrified that we were going to get here and there would be, like, this line,” said Ms. Wickman, sporting a T-shirt with the crest of Gryffindor, the Hogwarts house where Harry and his closest friends have lived for most of the series.

Two years after the sixth book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” set sales records, the publishers were expecting “Deathly Hallows” to do it again. Scholastic, the United States publisher (Bloomsbury publishes it in Britain), has printed 12 million copies, and Barnes & Noble and Borders each had pre-orders of 1.5 million copies; on Amazon.com, nearly 2.3 million copies had been ordered worldwide.

Over the decade since the first book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” appeared in Britain (as “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”), the series has become a publishing sensation. More than 325 million copies have sold around the world, spawning movies, collectible figurines, souvenir candies and most of all, a passionate fan base that is about to conclude what for many of them has been the greatest reading experience of their lives.

“I am quite bereft at the fact that it’s over,” said Lauren Calihman as she waited for a wristband that would give her a priority place in line at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in Manhattan. “I began reading when I was in fifth grade, and now I’m a sophomore in college, so it’s been a lifelong friendship.”

Ms. Calihman, 19, was decked out in Potter regalia, with owlish glasses and her version of a Hogwarts uniform: a button-down shirt, gray sweater dress and necktie. During a week in which spoilers leaked across the Internet, photos of the entire book appeared on file-sharing sites, and some newspapers, including The New York Times, published early reviews, Ms. Calihman studiously avoided any blogs or news reports that featured spoilers about the book. “I cover my ears when people talk about it,” she said.

But down at “Harry Potter Place,” a cobblestone stretch of Mercer Street in SoHo that Scholastic had turned into a street fair with jugglers, face painting and a huge model of the Whomping Willow, Renesandy Diaz, 15, confessed that he had read the ending of “Deathly Hallows” online earlier this week and learned who died. “I was upset, because I know how hard J. K. Rowling’s worked and it’s disappointing to see pirates put the book online,” he said. He still planned to buy a copy and read it through “until I drop.”

The “Harry Potter” books have not only transported a generation of children, but charmed adults, too, who got into the spirit of the Friday-night parties. In Peninsula, Ohio, where the entire town had transformed itself into a Potter-themed village, Stacy Sadar, 39, an executive recruiter from Richfield, Ohio, dressed up as Lord Voldemort and brought her horse, Moonshine, costumed as Voldemort’s snake sidekick, the Basilisk.

So what did Ms. Sadar think would happen to her character in “Deathly Hallows?” “Oh, I’m going to die,” she said. “I’m not even going to live through the night. I’m very upset about that.”

On the West Coast of the United States, the Pacific time zone was working against readers who wanted to remain in the dark on the plot (“Deathly Hallows” went on sale there three hours after its debut in New York). At Cover to Cover, an independent bookstore in San Francisco, Mark Ezarik, the owner, said most fans were trying to figure out how to avoid spoilers. “Fans are trying to stay away from the Internet,” he said. “They don’t even want to talk to anyone. Everyone is terrified about learning what happens even before they have the book.”

For booksellers, the new “Harry Potter” is clearly the biggest release of the year. But because of major discounting, many will not make a huge profit on the book. But while margins on “Harry Potter” are thin, “it brings a whole lot of people into the store,” said George L. Jones, the chief executive of Borders Group, as staff members at the chain’s Time Warner Center store prepared for its huge shindig. “It entices them to buy something else.”

With the series drawing to its much-heralded close, it was clear that future generations will come to the books without the hoopla that has defined them since 2000, when the publishers first set a midnight release for the fourth installment, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

“I think there is something that is extremely special about having lived through the first wave,” said Arthur A. Levine, the Scholastic editor who first bought the United States rights to “Sorcerer’s Stone” in 1997 for $105,000. “But when I read Jane Austen for the first time, I didn’t feel like ‘Darn, I wish I’d been there when Jane was out there letting them go for the first time.’ ” At the end of the day, he said, a reader’s “experience is a special, one-on-one intimate experience whenever you have it.”

Melena Ryzik and Emilyn Sosa contributed reporting from New York, Sarah Lyall and Ariana Green from London, Christopher Maag from Cleveland, Dan Frosch from Denver and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/books/21pott.html





Muggles!
Motoko Rich

A customer told the [bookstore] owner, Christine Onorati, that the last time she went to a “Harry Potter” party, a 6-year-old flipped to the end of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and screamed, “Snape xxxxxx Dumbledore!” So Ms. Onorati decided to hold an adults-only party. She’ll be serving sangria in a cauldron, running a trivia contest and giving away “Harry Potter” pens and notebooks. The store’s event space is being transformed into a dungeon, but Ms. Onorati insists that the adults-only theme extends only to the alcohol.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/books/20pott.html





Islamic Creationist and a Book Sent Round the World
Cornelia Dean

In the United States, opposition to the teaching of evolution in public schools has largely been fueled by the religious right, particularly Protestant fundamentalism.

Now another voice is entering the debate, in dramatic fashion.

It is the voice of Adnan Oktar of Turkey, who, under the name Harun Yahya, has produced numerous books, videos and DVDs on science and faith, in particular what he calls the “deceit” inherent in the theory of evolution. One of his books, “Atlas of Creation,” is turning up, unsolicited, in mailboxes of scientists around the country and members of Congress, and at science museums in places like Queens and Bemidji, Minn.

At 11 x 17 inches and 12 pounds, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, “Atlas of Creation” is probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Mr. Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran.

In bowing to Scripture, Mr. Yahya resembles some fundamentalist creationists in the United States. But he is not among those who assert that Earth is only a few thousand years old. The principal argument of “Atlas of Creation,” advanced in page after page of stunning photographs of fossil plants, insects and animals, is that creatures living today are just like creatures that lived in the fossil past. Ergo, Mr. Yahya writes, evolution must be impossible, illusory, a lie, a deception or “a theory in crisis.”

In fact, there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth.

The book caused a stir earlier this year when a French translation materialized at high schools, universities and museums in France. Until then, creationist literature was relatively rare in France, according to Armand de Ricqles, a professor of historical biology and evolutionism at the College de France. Scientists spoke out against the book, he said in an e-mail message, and “thanks to the highly centralized public school system in France, it was possible to organize that the books sent to lycées would not be made available to children.”

So far, no similar response is emerging in the United States. “In our country we are used to nonsense like this,” said Kevin Padian, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who, like colleagues there, found a copy in his mailbox.

He said people who had received copies were “just astounded at its size and production values and equally astonished at what a load of crap it is.

“If he sees a picture of an old fossil crab or something, he says, ‘See, it looks just like a regular crab, there’s no evolution,’ ” Dr. Padian said. “Extinction does not seem to bother him. He does not really have any sense of what we know about how things change through time.”

Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University, said he and his colleagues in the life sciences had all received copies. When he called friends at the University of Colorado and the University of Chicago, they had the books too, he said. Scientists at Brigham Young University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Georgia and others have also received them.

“I think he must have sent it to every full professor in the medical school,” said Kathryn L. Calame, a microbiologist at the Columbia University medical school who received a copy. “The genetics department, the biochem department, micro — everybody I talked to had it.”

While they said they were unimpressed with the book’s content, recipients marveled at its apparent cost. “If you went into a bookstore and saw a book like this, it would be at least $100,” said Dr. Miller, an author of conventional biology texts. “The production costs alone are astronomical. We are talking millions of dollars.”

And then there’s postage. Dr. Padian said his copy was shipped by a company called SDS Worldwide, which has an office in Illinois. Calls and e-mail messages to the company were not returned, but Dr. Padian said he spoke to someone there who told him SDS had received a cargo-container-size shipment of books, “with everything prepaid and labeled. It just went all over the country.”

Fatih Sen, who heads the United States office of Global Impex, a company that markets Islamic books, gifts and other products, including “Atlas,” would not comment on its distribution, except to describe the book as “great” and refer questions to the publisher, Global Publishing of Istanbul. Repeated attempts by telephone and e-mail to reach the concern, or Mr. Yahya, were unsuccessful.

In the book and on his Web site (www.harunyahya.com), Mr. Yahya says he was born in Ankara in 1956, and grew up and was educated in Turkey. He says he seeks to unmask what the book calls “the imposture of evolutionists” and the links between their scientific views and modern evils like fascism, communism and terrorism. He says he hopes to encourage readers “to open their minds and hearts and guide them to become more devoted servants of God.”

He adds that he seeks “no material gain” from his publications, most of which are available free or at relatively low cost.

Who finances these efforts is “a big question that no one knows the answer to,” said another recipient, Taner Edis, a physicist at Truman State University in Missouri who studies issues of science and religion, particularly Islam. Dr. Edis grew up in a secular household in Turkey and has lived in the United States since enrolling in graduate school at Johns Hopkins, where he earned his doctorate in 1994. He said Mr. Yahya’s activities were usually described in the Turkish press as financed by donations. “But what that can mean is anybody’s guess,” he said.

The effort seems particularly odd given the mailing list. Both Dr. Padian and Dr. Miller testified for the plaintiffs in the Dover, Penn., lawsuit that successfully challenged the teaching of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism, in schools there. Other recipients include Steve Rissing, a biologist at Ohio State University who has been active on behalf of school board candidates who support the teaching of evolution and science museums that accept evolution as the foundation for modern biology.

“I don’t know what to make of it, quite honestly,” said Laddie Elwell, the director of the Headwaters Science Center in Bemidji, Minn., which she said received a dozen copies. Chuck Deeter, a staff member, said he and his colleagues might use the books’ fossil photographs in their programs on Darwin, which he said can be a hard sell in a region where many people are fundamentalist Christians with creationist beliefs.

Support for creationism is also widespread among Muslims, said Dr. Edis, whose book “An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam” was published by Prometheus Books this spring.

“Taken at face value, the Koran is a creationist text,” he said, adding that it would be difficult to find a scholar of Islam “who is going to be gung-ho about Darwin.”

Perhaps as a result, he said, Mr. Yahya’s books and other publications have won him attention in Islamic areas. “This is a guy with some influence,” Dr. Edis said, “unfortunately for mainstream science.”

Dr. Miller agreed. He said he regularly received e-mail messages from people questioning evolution, with an increasing number coming from Turkey, Lebanon and other areas in the Middle East, most citing Mr. Yahya’s work.

That’s troubling, he said, because Mr. Yahya’s ideas “cast evolution as part of the corrupting influence of the West on Islamic culture, and that promotes a profound anti-science attitude that is certainly not going to help the Islamic world catch up to the West.”

As the scientists ponder what to do with the book — for many, it is too beautiful for the trash bin but too erroneous for their shelves — they also speculate about the motives of its distributors.

“My hypothesis is, like all creationists, they believe that they have a startling truth that the public has been shielded from, and that if they present the facts, in quotation marks, that the scales will fall from the eyes and the charade of evolution will be revealed,” said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which fights the teaching of creationism in public schools. “These people are really serious about this.”

That may be, Dr. Miller said, but it’s also possible “that Harun Yahya and his people have decided that there are plenty of Muslim people in the United States who need to hear this message.”

In his e-mail message, Dr. de Ricqles said some worried that the book was directed at the Muslim population of France as a strategy to “destabilize” poor, predominantly immigrant suburbs “where a large population of youngsters of Moslem faith would be an ideal target for propaganda.”

But despite its wide distribution, Dr. Padian predicted that the book would have little impact in the United States. “We are used to books that are totally wrongheaded about science and confuse science and religion,” he said. “That’s politics.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/science/17book.html





The Open Library Project

What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.

First, the library must be on the Internet. No physical space could be as big or as universally accessible as a public web site. The site would be like Wikipedia—a public resource that anyone in any country could access and that others could rework into different formats.

Second, it must be grandly comprehensive. It would take catalog entries from every library and publisher and random Internet user who is willing to donate them. It would link to places where each book could be bought, borrowed, or downloaded. It would collect reviews and references and discussions and every other piece of data about the book it could get its hands on.

But most importantly, such a library must be fully open. Not simply "free to the people," as the grand banner across the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh proclaims, but a product of the people: letting them create and curate its catalog, contribute to its content, participate in its governance, and have full, free access to its data. In an era where library data and Internet databases are being run by money-seeking companies behind closed doors, it's more important than ever to be open.

So let us do just that: let us build the Open Library.

Earlier this year, a small group of people gathered at Internet Archive's San Francisco office to discuss whether this was possible. Could we build something so grand? We concluded that we could. We located a copy of the Library of Congress card catalog, phoned publishers and asked them for their data, created a brand new database infrastructure for handling millions of dynamic records, wrote a new type of wiki that lets users enter structured data, set up a search engine to look through it all, and made the resulting site look good.

We hooked it up to the Internet Archive's book scanning project, so that you can read the full text of all the out-of-copyright books they've made available. And we hope to add a print-on-demand feature, so that you can get nice paper copies of these scanned books, as well as a scan-on-demand feature, so you can fund the scanning of that out-of-copyright book you've always loved.

But we can only do so much on our own. Hopefully we've done enough to make it clear that this project is for real—not simply another pie-in-the-sky idea—but we need your help to make it a reality. So we're opening up the demo we've built so far, opening up the source code, opening up the mailing lists, and hoping you'll join us in building Open Library. It sure is going to be a fun ride.

—Aaron Swartz and the Open Library team, 16 July 2007

http://demo.openlibrary.org/about





C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success
Harriet Rubin

Michael Moritz, the venture capitalist who built a personal $1.5 billion fortune discovering the likes of Google, YouTube, Yahoo and PayPal, and taking them public, may seem preternaturally in tune with new media. But it is the imprint of old media — books by the thousands sprawling through his Bay Area house — that occupies his mind.

“My wife calls me the Imelda Marcos of books,” Mr. Moritz said in an interview. “As soon as a book enters our home it is guaranteed a permanent place in our lives. Because I have never been able to part with even one, they have gradually accumulated like sediment.”

Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete. Ken Lopez, a bookseller in Hadley, Mass., says it is impossible to put together a serious library on almost any subject for less than several hundred thousand dollars.

Perhaps that is why — more than their sex lives or bank accounts — chief executives keep their libraries private. Few Nike colleagues, for example, ever saw the personal library of the founder, Phil Knight, a room behind his formal office. To enter, one had to remove one’s shoes and bow: the ceilings were low, the space intimate, the degree of reverence demanded for these volumes on Asian history, art and poetry greater than any the self-effacing Mr. Knight, who is no longer chief executive, demanded for himself.

The Knight collection remains in the Nike headquarters. “Of course the library still exists,” Mr. Knight said in an interview. “I’m always learning.”

Until recently when Steven P. Jobs of Apple sold his collection, he reportedly had an “inexhaustible interest” in the books of William Blake — the mad visionary 18th-century mystic poet and artist. Perhaps future historians will track down Mr. Jobs’s Blake library to trace the inspiration for Pixar and the grail-like appeal of the iPhone.

If there is a C.E.O. canon, its rule is this: “Don’t follow your mentors, follow your mentors’ mentors,” suggests David Leach, chief executive of the American Medical Association’s accreditation division. Mr. Leach has stocked his cabin in the woods of North Carolina with the collected works of Aristotle.

Forget finding the business best-seller list in these libraries. “I try to vary my reading diet and ensure that I read more fiction than nonfiction,” Mr. Moritz said. “I rarely read business books, except for Andy Grove’s ‘Swimming Across,’ which has nothing to do with business but describes the emotional foundation of a remarkable man. I re-read from time to time T. E. Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom,’ an exquisite lyric of derring-do, the navigation of strange places and the imaginative ruses of a peculiar character. It has to be the best book ever written about leading people from atop a camel.” Students of power should take note that C.E.O.’s are starting to collect books on climate change and global warming, not Al Gore’s tomes but books from the 15th century about the weather, Egyptian droughts, even replicas of Sumerian tablets recording extraordinary changes in climate, according to John Windle, the owner of John Windle Antiquarian Booksellers in San Francisco.

Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was priced at a few thousand dollars in the 1950s. “Then DNA became the scientific rage,” said Mr. Windle. “Now copies are selling for $250,000. But the desire to own a piece of Darwin’s mind is coming to an end. I have a customer who collects diaries of people of no importance at all. The entries say, ‘It was 63 degrees and raining this morning.’ Once the big boys amass libraries of weather patterns, everyone will want these works.”

C.E.O. libraries typically lack a Dewey Decimal or even org-chart order. “My books are organized by topic and interest but in a manner that would make a librarian weep,” Mr. Moritz said. Is there something “Da Vinci Code”-like about mixing books up in an otherwise ordered life?

Could it be possible to read Phil Knight’s books in the order in which Mr. Knight read them — like following a recipe — and gain the mojo to see a future global entertainment company in something as modest as a sneaker? The great gourmand of libraries, the writer Jorge Luis Borges, analyzed the quest for knowledge that causes people to accumulate books: “There must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest.”

Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power. The empire-loving Elizabeth I surrounded herself with the Roman historians, many of whom she translated, and kept one book under lock and key in her bedroom, in a French translation she alone of her court could read: Machiavelli’s treatise on how to overthrow republics, “The Prince.” Churchill retreated to his library to heal his wounds after being voted out of power in 1945 — and after reading for six years came back to power.

Over the years, the philanthropist and junk-bond king Michael R. Milken has collected biographies, plays, novels and papers on Galileo, the renegade who was jailed in his time but redeemed by history.

It took Dee Hock, father of the credit card and founder of Visa, a thousand books to find The One. Mr. Hock walked away from business life in 1984 and looked back only from his library’s walls. He built a dream 2,000-square-foot wing for his books in a pink stucco mansion atop a hill in Pescadero, Calif. He sat among the great philosophers and the novelists of Western life like Steinbeck and Stegner and dreamed up a word for what Visa is: “chaordic” — complex systems that blend order and chaos.

In his library, Mr. Hock found the book that contained the thoughts of all of them. Visitors can see opened on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s “Rubáiyát,” the Persian poem that warns of the dangers of greatness and the instability of fortune.

Poetry speaks to many C.E.O.’s. “I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers,” says Sidney Harman, founder of Harman Industries, a $3 billion producer of sound systems for luxury cars, theaters and airports. Mr. Harman maintains a library in each of his three homes, in Washington, Los Angeles and Aspen, Colo. “Poets are our original systems thinkers,” he said. “They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.”

He never could find a poet who was willing to be a manager. So Mr. Harman became his own de facto poet, quoting from his volumes of Shakespeare, Tennyson, and the poetry he found in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and Camus’s “Stranger” to help him define the dignity of working life — a poetry he made real in his worker-friendly factories.

Mr. Harman reads books the way writers write books, methodically over time. For two years Mr. Harman would take down from the shelf “The City of God” by E. L. Doctorow read the novel slowly, return it to the shelves, and then take it down again for his next trip. “Almost everything I have read has been useful to me — science, poetry, politics, novels. I have a lifelong interest in epistemology and learning. My books have helped me develop a way of thinking critically in business and in golf — a fabulous metaphor for the most interesting stuff in life. My library is full of things I might go back to.”

It was the empty library room and its floor-to-ceiling ladder that made Shelly Lazarus, the chairwoman and chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather, fall in love with her house in the Berkshires, which was built in 1740. “When my husband and I moved in, we said, ‘We’re never going to fill this room,’ and just last week I realized we needed to build an addition to the library. Once I’ve read a book I keep it. It becomes a part of me.

“As head of a global company, everything attracts me as a reader, books about different cultures, countries, problems. I read for pleasure and to find other perspectives on how to think or solve a problem, like Jerome Groopman’s ‘How to Think Like a Doctor’; John Cornwall’s autobiography, ‘Seminary Boy’; ‘The Wife,’ a novel by Meg Wolitzer; and before that, ‘Team of Rivals.’

“David Ogilvy said advertising is a great field, anything prepares you for it,” she said. “That gives me license to read everything.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/bu...libraries.html





Houghton Mifflin to Buy Harcourt Units
Michael J. de la Merced

Houghton Mifflin, the publishing company, said yesterday that it would acquire the Harcourt unit of a rival, Reed Elsevier, for $4 billion in cash and stock, uniting two of the biggest names in educational publishing.

Houghton Mifflin said in a statement that it would buy the unit, which includes Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood-Heinemann, for $3.7 billion in cash and $300 million in stock.

As part of the agreement, Reed Elsevier will hold about 11.8 percent in Houghton Mifflin’s parent company, the Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group. The combined company will be run by Anthony Lucki, the chairman and chief executive of Houghton Mifflin and the former head of Harcourt.

Houghton Mifflin, with annual revenue of more than $1 billion, is the fourth-largest United States educational publisher, after McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Harcourt.

The sale is the latest transaction in educational publishing this year, though this is seen more as a strategic merger.

In May Thomson said that it sold its education unit to two private equity firms as it prepared to merge with Reuters. Houghton Mifflin itself was sold last year by its owners — Bain Capital, Thomas H. Lee Partners and the Blackstone Group — to Riverdeep, based in Ireland, the maker of programs like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and the Oregon Trail, for $3.4 billion including debt.

The deal is expected to close late this year or early next year, subject to regulatory review. Reed Elsevier is expected to return the education unit proceeds to shareholders by way of a special dividend.

Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers and Citigroup, which advised Houghton Mifflin, have committed to financing the debt portion of the deal, while existing Houghton Mifflin investors, including J & E Davy, a brokerage house in Dublin, will provide $235 million in equity financing.

Reed Elsevier was advised by UBS.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/bu...7harcourt.html





Former Spammer: 'I Know I'm Going to Hell'

A retired spammer predicts the problem will only get worse, aided by consumers who still buy products and faster broadband speeds
Jeremy Kirk

"Ed," a retired spammer, built a considerable fortune sending e-mails that promoted pills, porn and casinos. At the peak of his power, Ed says he pulled in US$10,000 to US$15,000 a week, storing the money in US$20 bills in stacks of boxes.

It was a life of greed and excess, one that preyed especially on vulnerable people hoping to score drugs or win money gambling on the Internet. From when he was expelled from high school at 17 until he quit his spam career at 22, Ed -- who does not reveal his full name but sometimes goes by SpammerX -- was part of an electronic underworld profiting from the Internet via spam.

"Yes, I know I'm going to hell," said Ed, who spoke in London on Wednesday at an event hosted by IronPort Systems, a security vendor now owned by Cisco Systems "I'm actually a really nice guy. Trust me."

A quick-witted and affable guy who wears an earring and casual clothes, there was a time when Ed wasn't so nice. He sent spam to recovering gambling addicts enticing them to gambling Web sites. He used e-mail addresses of people known to have bought antianxiety medication or antidepressants and targeted them with pharmaceutical spam.

In short, Ed said he was "basically what people hate about the Internet."

He spent 10 hours a day, seven days a week studying how to send spam and avoid filtering technologies in security software designed to weed out garbage e-mail. Most spam filters are effective 99 percent of the time; he aimed for that remaining window, using tricks such as including slightly different images in his spam, which can fool filters into thinking the e-mail is legitimate.

"The better I got at spam, the more money I made," Ed said.

He would start a spam run by finding an online merchant who wanted to sell a product. Then he'd acquire a list of e-mail addresses -- another commodity that has spawned its own market in the world of spam. He'd also set up a domain name, included as a link in a spam message, that, if clicked, would redirect the recipient to the merchant's Web site, enabling Ed to get credit for the referral.

The spam would then be sent from a network of hacker-controlled computers, called botnets. Those machines are often consumer PCs infected with malicious software that a hacker can control. Ed would "rent" time on those computers from another group of hackers that specialized in creating botnets.

If one of the spam recipients bought something, Ed would get a percentage of the sale. For pharmaceuticals the commission was around 50 percent, he said.

Response rates to spam tend to be a fraction of 1 percent. But Ed said he once got a 30 percent response rate for a campaign. The product? A niche type of adult entertainment: photos of fully clothed women popping balloons.

To track the money, merchants set up a "referral sales page" where spammers can see how much they make from a spam run. Ed would log in frequently, watching the money increase. He was paid into electronic payment transfer accounts, such as e-gold or PayPal, or into his debit card account, which he could cash out in US$20 bills.

That became problematic when the cash became voluminous. He says he made US$480,000 his last year of spamming. But the lifestyle of being a spammer was taking a toll. In essence, he had no life.

It's hard to go into a bar and explain your job to a woman by saying "I advertise penis enlargement pills online," Ed said. "It doesn't go down very well."

He rationalized his actions by saying spamming is not like robbing someone, although the lurid impact of spam was clear. Some nine million Americans have some dependence on prescription drugs, Ed said, and he noticed that the same people were buying different drugs each month. "These were addicts," he said.

Additionally, "the product is always counterfeit to some degree. If you're lucky, sometimes it's a diluted version of the real thing," he said. Viagra is cut with amphetamines, and homemade pills are common from sketchy labs in countries such as China, India and Fiji, Ed said.

So Ed got out of the business. He's written a book, "Inside the Spam Cartel: Trade Secrets from the Dark Side," which he said has had some take-up in law enforcement circles eager to learn more about the spam business, which he projects will only get worse.

As broadband speeds increase, spammers will increasingly look to market goods by making VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls or sending out videos, Ed said. The ultimate unsolvable problem is users, who continue to buy products marketed by spam, making the industry possible.

"I think in 10 years we'll still get spam," Ed said. "Be prepared to be bombarded."
http://www.computerworld.com.au/inde...42;fp;2;fpid;1





Iran's New Game: `Rescue Nuke Scientist'
Ali Akbar Dareini

An Iranian hard-line student group unveiled a new video game Monday that simulates an attempt to rescue two Iranian nuclear experts kidnapped by the U.S. military and held in Iraq and Israel.

The "Rescue the Nuke Scientist" video game, designed by the Union of Students Islamic Association, was described by its creators as a response to a U.S.-based company's "Assault on Iran" game, which depicts an American attack on an Iranian nuclear facility.

"This is our defense against the enemy's cultural onslaught," Mohammad Taqi Fakhrian, a leader of the student group, told reporters Monday.

Iran and the U.S. have been in a standoff over Iran's nuclear program, which Washington alleges is a cover for developing atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charges and says its nuclear projects have peaceful purposes.

Tensions also have escalated over the detention of five Iranians in Iraq. U.S. authorities have said the five include members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Iran has denied the allegations and insists the five are merely diplomats.

In "Rescue the Nuke Scientist," U.S. troops capture a husband-and-wife team of nuclear engineers during a pilgrimage to Karbala, a holy site for Shiite Muslims, in central Iraq. Game players take on the role of Iranian security forces carrying out a mission code-named "The Special Operation," which involves penetrating fortified locations to free the nuclear scientists, who are moved from Iraq to Israel.

To complete the game successfully, players have to enter Israel to rescue the nuclear scientists, kill U.S. and Israeli troops and seize their laptops containing secret information.

If players fail a mission, a message pops up saying: "With resistance, you can battle the enemy." Iran's red, white and green flag flutters in the top right corner throughout the game.

"We tried to promote the idea of defense, sacrifice and martyrdom in this game," Fakhrian said.

Fakhrian said his group was trying to market the video game first in Iran and other Muslim countries. But the group also has plans to bring the game, which comes on a CD for computers, to Western countries, he said.

The game comes from the same student group that was behind the infamous "World Without Zionism" conference in 2005 where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Ali Reza Masaeli, leader of the group that designed the new game, said it took three years for his technical team to produce it. The team was based in Isfahan, a city in central Iran that houses a nuclear site.

"It is an entirely Iranian product in response to the U.S. cyber war against Iran," Masaeli said.

This game follows the free "Assault on Iran" online series from New York-based Kuma Reality Games. That game simulates U.S. Special Forces destroying the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. A message left with Kuma's public relations agency was not immediately returned.
http://www.physorg.com/news103819918.html





Multi-Gigabit Wireless "Within Three Years"
Vidura Panditaratne

Multi-gigabit wireless technology using of extremely high radio frequencies (RF) to achieve broad bandwidth and high data transmission rates over short distances will be ready within three years making wired computers and peripherals obsolete, a team of Georgia Tech scientists announced today.

Scientists at the institute's Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) expressed confidence that this approach could result in a range of personal area network (PAN) applications, including next generation home multimedia and wireless data connections able to transfer an entire DVD in seconds.

The research focuses on RF frequencies around the currently unlicenced free-for-all 60 gigahertz (GHz) range.

GEDC team have already achieved wireless data-transfer rates of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a distance of 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters and 5 Gbps at 5 meters.

“The goal here is to maximize data throughput to make possible a host of new wireless applications for home and office connectivity,” said Prof. Joy Laskar, GEDC director and lead researcher on the project along with Stephane Pinel.

Pinel is confident that Very high speed, p2p data connections could be available potentially in less than two years.

The research could lead to devices such as external hard drives, laptop computers, MP-3 players, cell phones, commercial kiosks and others could transfer huge amounts of data in seconds while data centers could install racks of servers without the customary jumble of wires.

“Our work represents a huge leap in available throughput,” Pinel said. “At 10 Gbps, you could download a DVD from a kiosk to your cell phone in five seconds, or you could quickly synchronize two laptops or two iPods.”

Pinel added that users of multi-gigabit technology could wirelessly connect to any device that currently uses Firewire or USB.

Wireless high-definition video could also be a major application of this technology as users could keep a DVD player by their side while transmitting wirelessly to a screen 5 or 10 meters away.

The biggest challenge for the team is to further increase data rates and decrease the already-low power consumption, as they aim to double current transmission rates by next year.

The Georgia Tech team is seeking to preserve backward compatibility with the WiFi standard used in most wireless LANs today.

GEDC researchers are pursuing this goal by modifying the system architecture to increase intelligence and effectiveness in the CMOS RF integrated circuits that transmit the data using CAD tools and testbed equipment to recalibrate system models and achieve the desired improvements in speed and functionality.

Investigators are placing special emphasis on implementing an RF concept called single-input-single-output (SISO) / multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), which enables ultra-high data throughput while preserving backward compatibility with WLAN 802.11, the WiFi standard used in most wireless LANs today.

“We are pursuing a combination of system design and circuit design, employing both analog and digital techniques,” Pinel said. “It's definitely a very exciting mixed-signal problem that you have to solve.”

Pinel is quick to point out that a multi-gigabit wireless system would present no health concerns as the transmitted power is extremely low, in the vicinity of 10 milliwatts or less and the 60 GHz frequency is stopped by human skin and cannot penetrate the body.

The team admits that the fact that multi-gigabit transmission is easily stopped means that line-of-sight is essential, and this could be a stumbling block in practical settings.

According Laskar, representatives of the ECMA International computer-standards organization met at GEDC in February to discuss a new international 60 GHz standard and again in October to finalize the technical decisions.

The IEEE, the leading international association of electrical engineers, is also weighing a 60 GHz standard, to be called 802.15.3C.

“The promise of multi-gigabit wireless is tremendous,” Laskar said. “The combination of short-range functionality and enormous bandwidth makes possible a whole range of consumer and business applications that promise great utility.”
http://pressesc.com/01184858412_multi_gigabit_wireless





A PC That Uses Less Energy, but Charges a Monthly Fee
John Markoff

Subscription-based personal computers are not a new idea — and never popular — but Grégoire Gentil and Alain Rossmann have devised a green twist.

This summer the pair will begin selling a simplified Linux-based PC for $99 and a $12.95 monthly subscription charge. They say that the deal is better than it looks because the 15-watt PC can save up to $10 a month in electricity compared with a standard 200-watt PC.

Their company is Zonbu, and the Zonbu computer will be sold through its Web site, zonbu.com. The founders said that the PC had received the highest certification possible from the Green Electronics Council, a nonprofit group that has created a product classification standard known as Epeat (for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool).

The designation is meant to help consumers make educated choices when buying computer-related equipment and encourage electronics makers to build products that are more energy efficient and have a lower impact on the environment.

Zonbu said that it would be the first desktop computer for consumers to receive the gold rating.

The computer is the size of a cigar box and uses a low-power Intel-compatible microprocessor from VIA Technologies of Taiwan. It comes with four gigabytes of flash memory instead of a disk drive, a spinning mechanical part that uses much of a PC’s power. It also lacks a fan, another big energy user.

The Zonbu PC also uses a Gentoo version of the Linux operating system and will come with a range of software applications like the Mozilla Firefox browser, Skype voice-over-Internet service, OpenOffice software suite and many games. An additional 25 gigabytes of free online storage is available, with more offered for purchase.

Mr. Gentil, the chief executive and a Stanford-educated computer engineer, said that the idea for Zonbu came to him in his frustration over providing extensive computer support to his family in Paris and their various PCs.

“My father was crashing his Windows machine all the time,” Mr. Gentil said. That led him and Mr. Rossmann, a former Apple executive who has started many Silicon Valley companies, to pursue the possibility of creating an appliancelike computer tailored to consumers who have no computer expertise.

The two men think they can sell the PC the same way that cellphones are sold, subsidizing the cost of the hardware with the revenue from the monthly service charge.

“The market we want to target is the second PC in the home,” Mr. Gentil said. “If you want to give a PC to your kids or put it in the kitchen, this is a good candidate.”

Zonbu is based in Menlo Park, Calif. The system will lack a keyboard, mouse and monitor, which the company will sell as options. It plans to sell a version without a service fee to Linux software developers for $250, so that they will create more applications for the Zonbu PC.

The Linux operating system, once the province of computer enthusiasts, has now matured to the point where it could be a commercial rival to Windows and Macintosh, Mr. Gentil said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/te...y/16cheap.html





$298 Wal-Mart PC Features OpenOffice.org, No Crapware
Eric Bangeman

Looking to get a jump on the lucrative back-to-school shopping season, Wal-Mart has begun selling a sub-$300 PC. The Everex IMPACT GC3502 comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2 installed on a system that includes a 1.5GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of DDR-2 SDRAM, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and integrated graphics, as well as a keyboard, mouse, and speakers.

The Everex machine will be competing for Wal-Mart shelf space with the low-cost Dells recently introduced to the world of brick-and-mortar sales. The retail giant currently sells the Dell Dimension E521 for $498 alone or bundled with a 19" LCD monitor and slightly faster Athlon 64 X2 CPU for $200 more.

Cost aside, the two centerpieces of the Everex offering are the inclusion of OpenOffice.org 2.2 and the absence of crapware typically bundled with low-cost PCs. Including OO.org instead of Microsoft Office or even Microsoft Works allowed the PC manufacturer to shave a few additional dollars off of the PC's price, and according to OO.org marketing project lead John McCreesh, the open-source office suite passed all of Everex's tests "with flying colors."

Users accustomed to being bombarded with trialware offers and seeing their would-be pristine Windows desktops littered with shortcuts to AOL and other applications will likely be pleased at their absence from the GC3502. "In creating the eco-friendly GC3602, our main focus was to build a no-compromise, back-to-school PC with all the software applications a typical student would require, without resorting to bundling frivolous trial versions or increasing prices 30 percent," said Everex product manager Eugene Chang.

While the price may be right for budget-conscious shoppers, the replacement of familiar brands like Intel, AMD, and Microsoft with VIA and OpenOffice.org may give some would-be buyers pause. And as the price and specs indicate, the machine is going to find itself on the very low end of the performance spectrum. That said, for basic word processing, e-mailing, listening to music, watching video, and web surfing, the machine should be adequate, and Windows Vista Home Basic doesn't have the graphical overhead of the other versions.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-crapware.html





Magnetic "Wobbles" Cause Disk Failure
Rene Millman

New research could lead to more reliable hard disks

Scientists have discovered one of the major causes of hard disk failure.

According to researchers working at the University of California and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, understanding certain types of disk drive failures, called magnetic avalanches, could help disk drive manufacturers produce more reliable storage.

Magnetic avalanches occur when a magnetic head hovers over a patch of disk drive causing the polarity of that part of the drive to change its alignment or spin. The patch's polarity in many magnetic materials changes in a haphazard series of large and small jumps that physicists liken to an avalanche - though the scientist's research showed it often behaves more like an explosion or runaway fire. These avalanches can cause sections of hard drive to lose data.

Research was carried by Joshua Deutsch, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Andreas Berger, who did the research while at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

Deutsch said that the research paper, published in 13 July edition of Physical Review Letters, that the findings advanced knowledge of magnetic spin in drives.

"The big advance in this paper is that in previous models of avalanches, the spin just flips from up to down as soon as they apply a magnetic field, and they're done. But that's not the way spin behaves in the real world," Deutsch said.

The scientists said that previous models overlooked an effect called "spin precession", which each magnetic field exerts on its neighbours. The scientists likened each individual bit of information on a platter to a "tiny pincushion bristling with individual magnetic fields."

As the head of the drive nears, each pin wobbles in a widening circle - pointing neither up or down but somewhere in between - before it settles on its new polarity. They called that wobbling "precession" and said it resembled the way a spinning top draws out circles as it rotates.

"It takes around a few nanoseconds for a precession to die down," said Deutsch. "That's not that fast compared to computers today. It's not as fast as the timescale you get for a transistor to switch." During that brief time, each magnetic field contributes forces that affect the precession of neighbouring fields.

Combining all those wobbles adds up to a lot of energy that changes the polarity of neighbouring bits and spreads across the surface, causing sections of disk drive to be wiped out.

The researchers suggested that the reason these avalanches die out is that the magnetic material can dampen the wobbles. They said that materials that good damping abilities would make candidates for use in hard drives.

"Obviously, disk drive makers have already learned by an enormous amount of ingenuity and trial and error what materials make good disks," Deutsch said. "But now we understand a lot better one of the reasons why - because the materials are good at damping, and we can quantify how damping will stop runaway avalanches. We still can't calculate their damping, but at least we can measure it."
http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/120196/m...k-failure.html





Perfect for Lava lamps



Chameleon Liquid Could Outshine LCDs
Belle Dumé

A liquid that changes colour when exposed to a magnetic field could cheaply replace the colour components in conventional LCD monitors, claim US researchers.

The liquid contains tiny iron oxide particles coated with plastic. It is cheap and easy to make, and could also be used in flexible, rewritable, electronic paper, the researchers say.

Yadong Yin and colleagues at the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Riverside, US, created the liquid by coating particles of iron oxide – each about 100 nanometres in diameter – with a polymer and suspending the mixture in water.

The plastic coating means that each particle has a highly charged surface.

And, because the individual particles have the same charge, they repel each other in the solution. However, since iron oxide is also magnetic the particles will come together when exposed to a magnetic field.

Light fantastic

The opposing forces of electrostatic repulsion and magnetic attraction result in the particles arranging themselves into an ordered structure, known as a colloidal "photonic crystal".

The colloidal crystal reflects light because the spacing between neighbouring particles in the structure is equivalent to the wavelength of light. Also, tuning the spacing slightly alters the exact wavelength, or colour, of light that is reflected. This can easily be done by varying the strength of the magnetic field applied to the crystal.

The researchers did this in experiments simply by moving a magnet further away from, or closer to, the liquid. The crystal reflects brilliant colours from red to violet as the magnetic field strength increases. But, when the field is switched off, the crystal reverts back to its original brownish colour.

Better outdoors

"This is the first report of a photonic crystal that is fully tuneable in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum," says Yin.

"We see applications in various areas, including sensors, optical switches and flexible colour displays," he told New Scientist. "For example, the system can be used to make extra-large displays or posters to replace expensive LCD monitors. And, because the colour is based on reflection, it is better for outdoor applications than current LCD displays that perform poorly in direct sunlight."

A colour display would contain millions of small pixels made from the photonic crystals, explains Yin, with each pixel being assigned a different colour using a distinct magnetic field.

The crystals could also be sandwiched between two plastic sheets to form rewritable paper with a magnetic field acting as the "pen", he adds.
http://www.newscientisttech.com/arti...hine-lcds.html





Podcasting Real Estate in Europe and Asia
Beth Gardiner

House and apartment listings that are read aloud so they can be loaded onto an iPod player for the morning commute; video tours of faraway villas, accessible with the click of a mouse. Video and audio file-sharing, technologies already so popular for entertainment and communications, are giving real estate buyers and sellers a variety of new tools for finding and marketing properties.

It is in American real estate that the sharing of audio and video files over the Internet has caught on most quickly — with video tours of homes now widely available — but property markets in the rest of the world also are beginning to embrace the idea.

The popularity of Apple’s iPod and other digital media players now has consumers comfortable with the idea of carrying their favorite audio — and, more recently, video — selections wherever they go. At the same time, the growth of Web sites like YouTube and of Internet podcasts of radio, television and online content has made uploading and downloading files routine for many people.

Real estate professionals say it is only natural that those selling and buying property — an activity that places a premium on obtaining and distributing information — are making use of new ways to reach out.

“You’re able to impart quite a lot of information in a podcast, and when it comes to property you need to do your research,” said Felicity Quigley of the British Web site buyassociation.co.uk. “It’s a very personal medium, it’s like radio, you can listen to it while you’re doing something else; you feel like they’re talking to you.”

The sluggishness of the American real estate market may be one reason why agents Stateside have embraced Internet video so enthusiastically, Ms. Quigley said. In markets like Britain, where sales are still flourishing, few see the need for an additional marketing tool, she said.

Also, the U.S. Multiple Listings system, which gives lots of agents access to the same properties, means that promotional videos will reach wider audiences there, making the investment worthwhile.

In Europe, Ms. Quigley predicted, “I think we’re going to see an explosion in the next 18 months of podcasting, videocasting.” She added, “People are going to become much more aware of online and using it as a tool, to see it as another way of marketing themselves, because that’s where things are going.”

Already, sites like BuyAssociation and the British-based nubricks.com offer downloadable, radio-style discussions of issues like the booming London housing market, buying retirement property overseas and “fly-to-let,” the purchase of faraway homes for vacation use and rental. In segments generally about a half-hour long, experts and journalists discuss the markets in places like Spain, Turkey, Morocco and Thailand for those who are thinking of buying there or are just curious.

In London and its suburbs, the Foxtons real estate agency offers daily audio downloads of an automated voice reading new listings, so would-be buyers can save themselves the trouble of trolling the company’s Web site at their desks.

And in many markets, agents and private sellers are offering video tours of properties for sale or rent, helping potential buyers and tenants to narrow down which homes they want to visit, to get a good idea of the housing stock in remote locations and even to share images with family or friends who cannot view the places in person.

Salespeople or owners trying to snag long-distance buyers use Internet video to promote entire regions, towns or neighborhoods, posting short clips designed, for example, to inform those in Europe about the advantages of investing in a particular part of Latin America.

A Place in the Sun, a Web site (a-place-in-the-sun.com) that offers homes for sale or rent in France, charges 500 euros, or $657, for a professionally made video, or allows owners or agents to post their own free of charge. Steve Carroll, a programmer for the site, says that customers love the online tours, and that homes with video tours in their listings usually sell or rent more quickly than others.

“There are so many rental properties available that you have to use something interesting to stand out a little bit,” he said. “The video, it stays in people’s minds.”

Mark Jones, of Staffordshire, in central England, was so impressed with a video on Countryside International’s Web site two years ago that he bought a vacation home in Orlando, Fla., through the international real estate agency without ever visiting the place.

Soon afterward, he set up his own Web-based business to help fellow Florida homeowners rent their properties, and he plans to start posting podcasts.

He said he and his wife had wanted to buy overseas but “weren’t really sure where, when and how to go about it.”

“We found it really useful to actually hear somebody talking about what we were thinking about doing,” he added.

The technical hurdles for getting started with podcasting are low. Adam Samuel, managing director of nubricks.com, said that once a would-be podcaster has a computer and an Internet connection, all that is needed to make audio shows is a microphone and headphone set, available for as little as $40, along with editing software that can be downloaded free.

At the other end of the spectrum, making sophisticated videos can require technical expertise and thousands of dollars in equipment and production programs. Some, like Mr. Jones, contract out such work to professionals.

Podcasting is most popular among the young, but enthusiasts say they have had little trouble introducing the technology to consumers over 35 — who are more likely to be buying and selling real estate.

“People who are pretty switched-on computerwise” are the ones finding podcasts on their own, said Graham Pyle, managing director of Countryside International. “But others see it if they’re pointed towards it.”

“Once you explain it,” he added, “even the middle-aged and older people become a little bit savvy, they like the idea.”

Still, not everyone is sold on the technology.

Leo Lapworth, Web manager at Foxtons in London, said he had heard a lot of unjustified hype about video tours, which his company is not planning to add as part of imminent improvements to its site.

“If I’m a buyer,” he said, “I don’t really need to see someone opening a cupboard door. What I need to see is the floor plan, the room-by-room descriptions, and that’s what’s going to help me decide whether I want to see the property or not.”

One region where podcasting has yet to catch on is Asia, which is often ahead of the rest of the world in embracing new technologies.

Most Hong Kong customers still prefer more traditional sources of real estate information, like newspapers, magazines and visits or phone calls to agents’ offices, said Gordon Tse of the Midland Realty agency in the city. Many buyers think personal contact might help them get a bargain, and a large network of agency offices encourages personal visits, he said.

Also, many Hong Kong people believe in the Chinese concept of feng shui, the harmonious arrangement of space, so they want to see the actual property rather than just video, Mr. Tse said.

The South China Morning Post, an English-language paper in Hong Kong, has just added a weekly property podcast to its Web site, but it is one of only a handful of outlets in the region to use the format. The paper’s technology editor, Michael Logan, said the podcast would most likely include video tours of particularly impressive homes and segments in which experts answer readers’ property questions.

Mr. Logan said there was a wealth of property information available in Hong Kong, with one source being cable television channels. So property video already exists, he said; “it just doesn’t exist on the Internet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/re...gh-london.html





Democracy Player is Dead, Long Live Miro
Steve O'Hear

Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player) is an open-source Internet TV application that combines a media player and library, content guide, video search engine, as well as podcast and BitTorrent clients. Developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation, Miro aims to make online video “as easy as watching TV”, while at the same time ensuring that the new medium remains accessible to everyone, through its support for open standards. Described by some as the “Firefox of media apps”, the resulting effort is a slick looking and easy-to-use application — not a mean feat when dealing in open-source methodology — that gives Apple’s iTunes (the default media player and video podcast client for many) a genuine run for its money.

At first glance, Miro’s appearance is similar to iTunes, in part because the application is very Mac-like (including the Windows and Linux versions). But also because both applications have a lot of overlap in terms of functionality. On the left hand-side column are buttons that give you access to the Miro guide (a directory of channels which you can subscribe to); online video search; your local video library; new content which has completed downloading but which you haven’t yet watched; and a view of what’s currently being downloaded.

Just below these options are any “channels” that you’re subscribed to. Channels are Miro’s name for RSS 2.0 feeds which utilize media enclosures, the format commonly used by video podcasts. In addition to the Miro player, the Participatory Culture Foundation also provides software and a website designed to make it easy to publish Miro-compatible channels.

When you first install the application, a number of examples channels are already setup, grouped into folders, such as “News and Tech”. Folders not only provide a way of keeping things organized, but they also enable you to aggregate a group of channels so that new videos play back one after the other. Playlists can also be created manually, based on any videos in your library.

At the bottom of the screen are Miro’s player controls, with the usual play/pause, stop, and skip, as well as the option to go full-screen.

Miro guide

Miro’s content guide is far better than the equivalent video podcast directory in iTunes. Not only does Miro list over 1,500 channels but it’s also better organized, with content filtered by popularity, editor picks, genre, tags, and language. There’s even a section dedicated to HD video.

Subscribing to a channel is a one-click affair, from which new content is downloaded automatically. You’re also given the option — via a simple drop-down menu — to grab all episodes listed in a channel (not just the most recent), or to switch off auto-download altogether — that way you can handpick certain videos, rather than downloading every future episode of a show.

Video search

Miro has a built-in search function which accesses content from YouTube, Veoh, Google Video, Blogdigger, Revver, DailyMotion, and Blip.tv. Videos that it appear in search results can then be downloaded but not streamed, which I found a little frustrating as it means waiting to view a YouTube video, for example. However, downloading makes a lot more sense in the context of this next feature: the ability to create a new channel based on a specific search result.

As an example, I created a new channel based on the latest videos from YouTube that have been tagged “iPhone”. By dowloading rather than streaming, videos remain viewable even if they are subsequently pulled from the originating site, and the user experience consistent with regular channels. However, a better solution might be to offer users both options in which previews are streamed, and videos from saved search results are downloaded.

Library

Miro’s “library” is where you can access any videos that have been downloaded, either manually or as part of a channel subscription. Additionally, the application can be used to manage virtually any video you have stored on your computer — Miro is compatible with most common video file types: DivX, Xvid, QuickTime, WMV, AVI etc — and you even have the option (found in “preferences”) to have Miro monitor particular folders on your hard drive, for any newly added videos.

BitTorrent support

As already mentioned, Miro has a built-in BitTorrent client so that you can subscribe to channels that use the peer-to-peer technology to lower the cost of distribution. (Evidence of the Participatory Culture Foundation’s mission to help create a level playing field for content producers.) It also means that Miro can be used to automatically download and watch television shows from file-sharing sites, which although not always legitimate, is useful none the less.

No iPod/AppleTV support

Unlike iTunes, Miro isn’t able to sync compatible video podcasts with an iPod, nor can it sync or stream content to the AppleTV (which is a real shame considering the application’s strong focus on HD content). Were Apple to open up its set-top-box to third party software developers, then a version of Miro that works with the AppleTV would make a lot of sense.

Verdict

Miro is quite possibly the best video “podcast” client and player out there. Its multi-format support, coupled with a very well thought out user interface, extensive content directory, and support for a number of popular video sharing sites, makes it a formidable Internet TV application.

What next?

The project currently has four full time and two part time developers, and the Participatory Culture Foundation recently received a donation from the Mozilla Foundation (makers of Firefox), bringing their total funding to just over 1.3 million dollars. A source close to the project told me that one new feature being considered is support for third-party plug-ins (ala Firefox), and this could be the key to Miro supporting hardware beyond the PC, such as set-top-boxes and media extenders (think Tivo, PS3 or XBox360) and portable media players (iPod or Zune).

Why the name change?

When Democracy Player launched back in February 2006, the feedback received was that the name evoked different, yet equally negative responses. For many Americans it conjured up an image of yet another left wing media project, and to the rest of the world it was, rather bizarrely, being associated with the policies of the Bush administration. In contrast, the new name is purposely abstract.
http://www.last100.com/2007/07/17/de...ong-live-miro/





Copyright Board Gives Go Ahead to iPod Levy
Michael Geist

The Copyright Board of Canada has released its decision on a series of motions contesting the latest attempt by the Canadian Private Copyright Collective to apply the private copying levy to iPods and removable memory storage cards. The proposed levy was challenged by the Canadian Storage Media Alliance and the Retail Council of Canada, who argued that the Federal Court had already struck down a previous levy on iPods (or more accurately digital audio recorders) as outside the Copyright Act. The CSMA and RCC argued that the Board had no jurisdiction to consider or approve the levy or alternatively that the CPCC should be prevented from proposing it.

The Board conducted hearings on the motions last month and has responded quickly with an emphatic rejection of the CSMA and RCC. Siding consistently with the CPCC, the Board has left little doubt that it believes that the earlier decision has not foreclosed the possibility of a levy on devices such as the iPod. In fact, the Board provides the clearest statement yet that it believes that the levy could be applied to any device, including cellphones and computers. At paragraph 70, the decision states:
CSMA expressed misgivings about the possibility that cellular phones and computers might end up being leviable. We see no inherent problem with this scenario. A thing that is ordinarily used by individual consumers to make private copies should not be excluded from the private copying regime for the sole reason that it has other uses. Indeed, all media that are currently subject to the levy can be used for purposes other than private copying."

The decision continues by stating that this interpretation is consistent with the intent of the Copyright Act and Parliament, concluding that "to rule that digital recorders are not audio recording media does not serve the purpose of the Act or that of Part VIII [the private copying provisions]. It instantly makes the conduct of millions of Canadians illegal, and even possibly criminal."

Today's decision will likely be appealed, though assuming it stands it will lead to new hearings on the private copying levy. Moreover, given the Board's view that the levy potentially applies to any device, including personal computers, it also provides further confirmation that peer-to-peer downloading is covered by the private copying levy. As I argued earlier this year (parts one and two), a levy to address P2P may make sense, yet the current approach, which could lead to levies on SD cards, doesn't work. If we're going to make P2P legal through a levy system, the system must (1) address both downloading and uploading; (2) consider addressing non-commercial use of content; (3) cover audio and video; and (4) more closely link the copying to those paying the levy. The government has yet to play its hand on this issue, but with the prospect of an unpopular levy and mounting pressure for a Canadian fair use provision, it will have to take a stand sometime soon.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2112/125/





The Harm Being Caused by DRM, and Those with their Heads in the Sand
Defective By Design

Using Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to lock down citizens is simply unethical. It strips us of our freedom to control the devices and computers we own. DRM sets a dangerous precedent for electronic monitoring of our society, and takes away the traditional rights we have had with the music and video we own.

We don't want these handcuffs on our society!

We have seen time and time again that DRM schemes just don't work as advertised. We are told that DRM will stop counterfeiting, but the organized crime rings responsible, continue to be unaffected by DRM. Citizens who do hand over money to purchase music and video from Big Media are the only ones penalized by DRM. Yet despite all the evidence of how quickly DRM schemes like HD-DVD and BluRay are cracked - these individuals from the technology, media, and entertainment industries still hold out hope of putting bigger handcuffs on us, or devising more complex big brother monitoring schemes. This is why they lobby for copyright extension, and legislation like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that makes circumventing a DRM scheme - to be in control of your computer - a crime.

DRM hucksters keep on selling them on the idea that DRM is the answer, and because the alternative - accepting that DRM is unethical and broken, doesn't fit their desires to keep us locked to their channel, they, like the proverbial ostrich, just stick their heads in the sand and continue to lead themselves and society astray.

But what if there was a way to guarantee that you could lock down citizens - that you could build an impregnable DRM scheme to control and monitor what we do with digital files? That all our computers could be owned by the entertainment industry. Would they do it? What about the cost to society? Would they care?

Take Action Now: You emails will go straight to the source...
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/act...eir_heads_sand





ISPs Now Have A Cost-Effective Solution To Eliminate P2P Piracy and Reduce Bandwidth Consumption
Press Release

SafeMedia provides the only solution on the market guaranteed by a hold harmless agreement from any lawsuits related to copyright infringement on a network where their products are properly installed," said Pasquale Giordano, President & COO, SafeMedia Corp., Boca Raton, Fl.

Hollywood, Calif, & Boca Raton, Fla. (Billboard Publicity Wire/PRWEB ) July 17, 2007 -- Recent court action and the nation's largest ISP provider brings the spotlight on one of the country's only business solution to prevent piracy. A recent Judge's ruling holding a Belgium ISP responsible for installing a technical solution to block or filter Illegal P2P networks and the announcement by AT&T that they will police copyrighted materials distributed over illegal P2P networks, brings more attention to the need for SafeMedia's P2P Disaggregator (P2PD) solution to stop P2P Piracy.

"ISPs are now recognizing the potential legal liability in addition to the enormous cost of excessive bandwidth usage from P2P file sharing networks and that they require a solution that addresses both complete protection and bandwidth reduction," said Pasquale Giordano president & COO, SafeMedia Corporation. "Only our solutions stop contaminated P2P file sharing, protect user privacy, reduce bandwidth consumption from contaminated P2P networks and provide a network that is safe for the legal distribution of media."

SafeMedia's portable solutions safely drop all contaminated P2P network traffic rendering the contaminated P2P network useless. It does this without reading the content of files and without violating user privacy. The company maintains the world's largest dictionary of P2P software characteristics and updates their installed solutions every three hours to reflect changing protocols or signatures of contaminated P2P networks.

SafeMedia provides the only solution on the market guaranteed by a hold harmless agreement from any lawsuits related to copyright infringement on a network where SafeMedia's products are properly installed.

"We believe that stopping the illegal sharing of copyrighted files is crucial and can only be accomplished at the network level by isolating contaminated P2P networks at the source of their content. Those companies that attempt to "read" user transmissions are prying into the personal and business data of users which might result in further legal liability for invasion of privacy," said Pasquale Giordano, President of SafeMedia Corporation.

Giordano also noted that, "Solutions that attempt to read files are easily circumvented via encryption which is wildly used in P2P applications in addition to negatively impacting the performance of a network. Our solution is effective with encrypted and non encrypted transmissions and never affects the performance of the network or the user."

P2P Disaggregator Product Line

P2P Disaggregator was designed with maximum portability enabling deployment across the broadest variety of end-user sites, either integrated into network devices installed in user locations such as DSL and cable edge routers/modems, or subnet edge routers and concentrators, or as an independent network appliance.

Product Deployment Connectivity

SafeDSL Integrated on chip xDSL
SafeCABLE Integrated on chip Cable Modem
SafeNET Integrated on chip T1 to OC198 Network
Clouseau Network appliance T1 to 10 Gig Network

SafeDSL
With SafeDSL, P2PD technology has been successfully integrated into DSL/ADSL/SDSL network devices installed in end-user edge routers and modems. SafeDSL significantly reduces residential DSL provider Internet traffic as much as 65% by preventing user upload and download to P2P networks which contains illegal copyrighted files. SafeDSL is compatible across all manufacturers of these devices, and with all DSL service providers.

SafeCABLE
SafeCABLE is the integration of SafeMedia Corporation’s Peer to Peer Disaggregator technologies into cable network devices installed in end-user edge routers and modems. SafeDSL significantly reduces residential cable modem provider Internet traffic as much as 65% by preventing user upload and download to P2P networks which contains illegal copyrighted files. SafeCABLE is compatible across all manufacturers of these devices, and with all cable modem broadband service providers.

SafeNET
With SafeNET, P2PD technology is integrated into network devices supporting T1 and higher network capacities, and manufactured by companies such as Cisco, D-Link, Foundry Networks, Q com Technology Inc., Fujian Star-net Communication Ltd, and Aztech Systems Ltd. SafeNET reduces network traffic as much as 65-80%, depending on location, by preventing user uploads and downloads to P2P networks that contain illegal copyrighted files. SafeNET is compatible across all network devices.

CLOUSEAU
CLOUSEAU is the integration of SafeMedia Corporation’s P2PD into network appliances deployed on end-user subnets. CLOUSEAU connects to any subnet no matter how the network is configured, and supports wired or wireless, fiber or gigabit subnets. CLOUSEAU is available at three different price and performance levels to accommodate the widest variety of customer bandwidth-level needs ranging from CLOUSEAU 10 appropriate for small enterprises with up to 20 users, 100Mbit (10/100 Ethernet) networks and T1 connectivity; to CLOUSEAU 500 appropriate for enterprises with up to 100 users with 1-2 Gigabit (10/100/1000) Ethernet lines; to CLOUSEAU 1000 for large enterprises where 10 Gigabit network throughputs are required. CLOUSEAU significantly reduces network Internet traffic by as much as 65-80% by preventing user file upload and download participation in contaminated P2P networks.

Copyright Holders Solution to Internet Privacy

Dream weavers, heart breakers, magic makers, you’re the people who transform us. Because of you, we have something to sing about in our showers, spend hours blasting aliens, and laugh ‘til it hurts in darkened rooms. What you do is not easy. Magic never is. It takes time and money and missed dinners with your significant other and running out of excuses. It takes talent and skill. It takes something out of you. And you need and deserve to be compensated and rewarded for the magic you do. Even wizards need to eat. And eat well if they’re really good wizards.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who think stealing your work is OK. Stealing their work is not OK. Just stealing yours. And they’ve cut a hole in your pocket and its leaking money. Your money. Money for you. Money for your significant other. Money for your kids. Your money.

And the best solution, until now, has been the prosecution of a very small number of all the thieves out there. And that’s the best that you can do. You are never going to catch and prosecute them all just like you’re never going to catch and prosecute all the litter bugs, speeders and jaywalkers. And these thieves, even if they once in a while have a little twinge of conscience, think of what they’re doing as no more harmful than crossing in the middle of the block or throwing a gum wrapper on the sidewalk.

Laws don’t help. Not much anyway. Warnings help even less. And prosecution? Well, catch me if you can. That’s it. Until now.

Now we have the perfect solution "Clouseau™". The technology makes it impossible to transmit copyright protected material on the Internet via P2P. Impossible. Not unlikely. Not improbable. Impossible.

Clouseau™ is what’s known as a ‘network appliance’ and it gets plugged into a computer system exactly like the one you’d find in a college. Before you plug it in…illegal P2P. After you plug it in…no P2P.

And, in techie terms, its ‘bulletproof’. You cannot hack it or destroy it. It cannot censor anything. It can only discriminate between legal and illegal. It cannot violate anyone’s privacy. And no First Amendment issues.

What You Can Do

So how do you get the technology deployed into computer systems? How do you stop the thieves? How do you force compliance?

Speak out. Make yourself heard. Call the RIAA and the MPAA. Call your union steward. Call your agent. Call the media. Call your Congress person. You’re a wizard. People listen to wizards. They really do.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/7/prweb540305.htm





Internet Phone Company Halts Operations
Matt Richtel

SunRocket, an Internet telephone company, has ceased operations and is moving its customers to one or more other companies, according to a person briefed on its status.

A recording on SunRocket’s customer service line said the company “is no longer taking customer service or sales calls.” Executives of SunRocket, which was founded in 2004 and is based in Vienna, Va., could not be reached for comment.

Telecommunications industry analysts said the development highlights the struggles of start-ups trying to offer telephone service over the Internet.

These start-ups face enormous competitive pressure from the biggest players in the telecommunications industry, both cable and traditional telephone companies. The cable companies in particular have made a strong push into the telephone market by offering the service as part of a product bundle with television and Internet access.

The start-ups, like SunRocket and Vonage, the best known of the group, tend to offer a single product, and they do not have the same power as the larger companies to control quality of service because they do not operate their own telecommunications lines, said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at Pali Research in New York.

In April, SunRocket announced that it had reached 200,000 subscribers and said the milestone was a testament to consumers’ embrace of Internet telephony, which allows telephone calls to be transmitted as data over the Internet. One of SunRocket’s main pitches to potential customers was its offer of $199 for a year of unlimited calling to the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Vonage, which went public last year, was a pioneer in the commercialization of the technology. But its fortunes have floundered too, along with its stock, which has been on a steady slide over the last year, closing Wednesday at $2.95.

Alan Bezoza, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said Vonage had continued to add subscribers, but the cost of attracting them had put the company deep into the red. He said that in its first quarter this year, Vonage added 166,000 customers, but lost $73 million. The start-ups “are going up against the marketing muscle of very large companies, like cable and telecom companies,” Mr. Bezoza said.

Mr. Bezoza said that he believed that stand-alone Internet telephone companies could wind up as successful niche players in the market, but their investors would have to be willing to endure a substantial period of losses before they built enough of a customer base to be profitable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/bu...rocket.html?hp





Truphone Lands a Hefty Blow for VoIP
Andrew Lim

Making cheap calls over the Internet using your mobile phone and VoIP software is Truphone's business, and while most UK network operators don't object to people blabbering over Truphone's service, this wasn't possible on the T-Mobile network. Truphone subsequently took T-Mobile to court, accusing the network of "preventing the launch of the Truphone service" and "abusing its dominant position" by not routing calls to Truphone users.

In an unexpected interim judgement, Deputy High Court Judge Robin Knowles QC yesterday instructed T-Mobile to route calls to Truphone numbers by Monday 23 July, so it can provide its service while the case is heard. According to Truphone, this is the first time interim relief has been awarded against a mobile network operator under the Competition Act.

The implications of this ruling could have a profound effect, as Truphone CEO James Tagg pointed out in a press release. "The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop Internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it's right that we should not be prevented from doing so."

It's important to point out that this isn't a final ruling and although the first battle has been won, the war is far from over. Truphone now has to take T-Mobile to court for a full hearing of the case and if Truphone loses, the injuction would be lifted and it would probably be blocked once more. Of course, you might be wondering, does it matter if only one network blocks Truphone? Well, yes it does.

If VoIP services on mobile phones are going to succeed and we're all going to be calling each other for free, the networks have to allow it. If one network is allowed to say no, then the service becomes almost pointless, as you won't be able to contact anyone on that particular network. More importantly, all the other networks will be able to prevent VoIP applications as well -- none of them want to allow VoIP, but they have been wary of banning it. So the ruling in this case could be a landmark one, as it will potentially create a legal precedent regarding VoIP services on mobile networks. Definitely something to keep an eye on if you value cheap mobile calls.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39...9291657,00.htm





Charting the $480 Billion US Spectrum Giveaway
Nate Anderson

Critics of US spectrum policy will have plenty of ammunition for their howitzers after reading the new working paper from J.H. Snider of the New America Foundation. Snider heads up the Wireless Future Program at New America, and his paper offers an inside look at the sometimes-dirty world of spectrum lobbying, which Snider characterizes as responsible for a $480 billion giveaway from the public treasury.

The giveaway in question comes after Congress passed legislation in 1993 requiring the FCC to hold auctions for future spectrum licenses, a move that was itself prompted by a massive giveaway of prime spectrum in the late 1980s. Using the high end of his estimate (which ranges from $140 to $480 billion), Snider observes that the giveaway in question amounted to "more than 90 percent of the value of spectrum usage rights [the government] has assigned from 1993 through the present."

The giveaway that Snider's talking about isn't a massive grant of free spectrum to corporate interests; instead, it's something much more subtle and far more difficult for the public to understand. To understand why Snider considers this a "giveaway," let's first look at the difference between the amount of money the government has actually received for licenses since 1993 and the amount of money that such licenses are worth.

The FCC has taken in no more than $40 billion from auction licenses in the last 15 years, but Snider digs into SEC filings from the companies that own such licenses. These companies are required to estimate the value of these assets each year; in 2006, the major television and radio broadcasters, along with the major local phone companies, estimated that the value of their spectrum was $177 billion for the licenses in question (and this may be low, given Snider's own calculations). Where did the $140 billion difference come from? Snider argues that it did not come from the "changing conditions of supply and demand." Instead, it tended to come from the ways that licenses were modified after they were issued, almost always in favor of the license owner.

This is where spectrum lobbyists enter the picture. They generally follow a four-step program to secure lucrative rights to spectrum: 1) create a problem, 2) outline a solution complete with a "public interest" promise, 3) secure a license and increased negotiating power against the government, and 4) exploit that enhanced power to renegotiate the terms of the license. The "public interest" pitches are predictable, usually involving variations on the terms "public safety," "free TV," "universal broadband," "educational programming," etc.

Snider doesn't say it, but this sounds a bit like the current pitch for reduced-price 700MHz spectrum by Frontline Wireless, which is itself backed by a former FCC Commissioner and wants to help serve "public safety."

Once a company has a license in hand, it's difficult for the federal government to get it back and easier for the company to convince the FCC to broaden the initial terms of the license without requiring any more money. Snider outlines a whole host of strategies that lobbyists use—the spilled milk strategy, the technobabble strategy, the go-slow strategy, the Louisiana Purchase strategy—and this part of the report actually makes the most interesting reading (it also contains the best titles).

Even if the giveaway numbers are less than Snider's lowest estimate, he points out that they would still be huge. "If Representative Jefferson can be indicted for accepting bribes of less than $1 million," he writes, "and an average citizen can be thrown in jail for attempting to walk out of a government building with a decrepit chair worth five dollars, then surely a giveaway of public assets of at least $10 billion deserves careful public scrutiny to ensure that the conditions that cause it do not persist."

There are a host of things that can be done to clean up the situation. New rules to track changes to spectrum rights can help, as can rules that would limit the revolving door between the FCC and industry. Such reforms "will be very difficult and require leadership at the highest levels," Snider says, and he ends the report by calling for leaders "with the vision and courage to make it happen." Any takers up in Washington?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-giveaway.html





Google's Gargantuan Wireless Bid Puts FCC on the Spot
Scott Moritz

Google is flexing its muscle in the mobile broadband business.

The company said Friday it would bid for $4.6 billion worth of wireless spectrum at a coming federal airwave auction -- but only if the Federal Communications Commission adopts so-called open standards for a speedy wireless broadband alternative to existing phone and cable Internet connections.

A key point of Google's proposal would involve a so-called open devices licensing condition, under which the FCC would mandate that consumers be enabled to use any wireless device on any company's network. The telcos who run the big existing networks oppose this concept.

Google's bold move comes just a day after the Mountain View, Calif., Net giant disappointed Wall Street with mixed second-quarter numbers. Google shares tumbled 7% in late trading Thursday and were maintaining that level Friday morning, down $36.10 to $512.40.

Google has been very interested in the 700MHz air waves, which are being vacated by analog UHF TV broadcasters who have been forced to move to digital signals. The newly available spectrum offers a prime swath of wireless real estate where the frequencies are particularly conducive to data transmission and can travel through walls.

The Federal Communications Commission is overseeing the auction and Chairman Kevin Martin has called the 700MHz band an opportunity for a "third pipe" and a "national wireless broadband alternative."

In recent months, Google has been busy trying to guide the FCC's policies on the auction and on the use of the spectrum. Google says its analysis suggests that conventional wireless players like AT&T and Verizon have a big advantage in the auction and the imperative to consolidate the new spectrum.

In a letter to the FCC on July 9, Google attorney Richard Whitt stressed that the company was interested in the new wireless opportunities the radio waves could open up.

"The 700 MHz auction may well be the FCC's most important wireless-related action for many years, because it could lead to the introduction of new facilities-based providers of broadband services, wielding new business models," Whitt wrote.

On Friday, Google reiterated its interest in the auction but said it will bid only if the FCC adopts four types of "open" platforms as part of the license conditions, including one that would allow consumers to choose a device and use it on any network.

One way or another, Google is planning on getting involved with the so-called fourth generation wireless or 4G business. If Google acquires a slice of the radio waves it will likely push an open platform approach and act as a wholesaler allowing other companies to resell a variety of services.

"Whether we ultimately bid, and do so successfully, we are also considering various post-auction business arrangements, such as joint partnerships and anchor tenancy," Whitt wrote.

A pricey dive into the wireless auction could put more pressure on expenses and further hurt the stock, says one money manager who is short the stock. By some estimates, if Google won spectrum, it would face as much as $6 billion in additional expenses as it builds a national wireless network infrastructure.
http://www.thestreet.com/s/googles-w...l?puc=googlefi





AT&T Softens Position on Open Access Spectrum

Company's new interpretation of what the FCC auction rules would allow riles some, pleases others
Grant Gross

AT&T Inc. has backed away from earlier complaints about proposed open-access rules on parts of the 700MHz spectrum to be auctioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission by early next year.

Draft auction rules floated by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin have "struck an interesting and creative balance between the competing interests" that are lobbying the commission, AT&T said of its understanding of those rules in a statement Wednesday.

Just last Thursday, AT&T Vice President Robert Quinn had written the FCC saying the so-called Google plan for open-access rules for part of the auctioned spectrum "would turn the clock back on a decade of bipartisan consensus on the proper approach to wireless deregulation."

In addition, open-access rules could expose the FCC "to a reversal in the courts," with lawsuits delaying the auction winner from using the spectrum, Quinn wrote on July 12. The open-access proposals would diminish the value of the spectrum and amount to "corporate welfare," AT&T said.

Since then, AT&T has gained a better understanding of Martin's draft auction rules proposal, AT&T said Wednesday. Martin's proposal, as AT&T now understands it, would "allow" the auction winner to experiment with some open access rules, Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs, said in a statement.

"The plan would enable the introduction of an alternative wireless business model without requiring changes in the business models of AT&T and others in what is a highly competitive wireless industry," Cicconi added.

Google Inc. and several consumer groups have called for open-access rules on a portion of the 60MHz of spectrum to be auctioned. Under open-access rules, auction winners would be prohibited from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors, and they would have to connect to any wireless devices customers wanted. In addition, under open-access rules proposed by Public Knowledge and other groups, the auction winner would have to sell spectrum access to competitors at wholesale prices.

Open-access rules are needed to encourage a third national broadband competitor to the large cable and telecom carriers, the groups have said.

"We urged the commission not to rely on a status quo approach to the upcoming auction," wrote Richard Whitt, Google's telecom and media counsel, in a letter to the FCC July 9. "Rather, the agency must do what is necessary to bring about robust forms of ... broadband competition."

Public Knowledge, a digital rights group, has said Martin's draft rules don't go far enough. While Martin wants device portability and no blocking of Web applications, he hasn't called for wholesale access to the spectrum. Without wholesale access, it's unlikely a third broadband service could challenge cable and telecom services, Public Knowledge has said.

Art Brodsky, communications director for Public Knowledge, called the new AT&T position a "remarkable turnaround."

But Randolph May, president of the conservative think tank, The Free State Foundation, said he disagrees with AT&T's interpretation of what the auction rules would allow.

"My impression (perhaps erroneously) had been that Chairman Martin's proposal would mandate an open access ... regime in the one block [of the spectrum]," May wrote in an e-mail. "There is a significant difference between 'allowing' and 'mandating.' My understanding is that absent a mandate, nothing at all in any existing or proposed FCC rule would prevent the winning bidder from voluntarily adopting an open access business model."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/...osition_1.html





Broadband Data Improvement Act Clears Senate Commerce Committee
Nate Anderson

Congress has at last taken an interest in a seemingly arcane debate over the metrics used by the FCC and is moving on the issue with surprising speed. For years, geeks have criticized the way that the agency collects broadband information, focusing especially on the fact that the bar for "broadband" is set laughably low (200Kbps) and that if one person in a ZIP code has access, then the entire ZIP code is considered "served." The Broadband Data Improvement Act hopes to remedy some of these problems, and it has just unanimously cleared the Senate Commerce Committee.

The bill, should it pass the broader Senate and House, would force the FCC to make a couple of major changes to the way that it puts together its broadband information. For one thing, the agency is directed to come up with a new metric for "second generation broadband," defined as being the minimum speed needed to stream full-motion, high-definition video.

The FCC also needs to get far more granular with its reporting, switching from the use of simple ZIP codes to the far more specific ZIP+4 codes. That may still not appease everyone, but it will greatly increase the quality of data from large, yet sparsely populated areas that might share a zip, but not the full ZIP+4. Arguably, it is these areas that need study the most.

The idea is that, unless policymakers have good data to work with, they are likely to end up making poor policy. Passage of the bill out of committee has already drawn praise from Free Press, one of the groups that has lobbied hard for the bill and has appeared at committee hearings where it was discussed.

Free Press policy director Ben Scott said, "For too long, policymakers have been forced to operate in the dark, relying on misleading and sometimes inaccurate information about the U.S. broadband market. By providing detailed information about the deployment, availability and use of broadband services in this country, the Broadband Data Improvement Act promises to bring us one step closer to our shared goal of universal, affordable broadband."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...committee.html





MPAA to FCC: Net Neutrality Could Kill a Cornucopia of Content (Monitoring)
Nate Anderson

We pointed out yesterday that the FCC's Notice of Inquiry regarding network neutrality has attracted nearly 27,000 comments, most from individuals and small businesses. But plenty of major players submitted comments, too, including a host of organizations that don't deal directly with Internet routing issues at all. Case in point: the Motion Picture Association of America, whose comments have appeared online at the FCC's site today.

The MPAA is concerned that network neutrality rules might bring an end to such beloved technologies as digital watermarking, deep packet inspection, acoustic fingerprinting, and content filtering of all kinds. The group is careful to state that it does not have a formal position on the broader network neutrality debate, but it does want to ensure that promising filtering technologies are not made illegal as a side effect of any regulation.

For those confused by the astonishing range of discussions all grouped beneath the "network neutrality" umbrella, take heart: the MPAA can't define it, either. In fact, they admit in a footnote that their restraint on the issue is "in part due to the difficulty of understanding exactly what is meant by the term; different participants start from different premises, and there is no agreed-upon set of definitions."

The MPAA's concern is not with winning any sort of broad ideological ground in the debate over how the Internet should work, but to make sure that ISPs can "manage their networks to protect intellectual property in order to best serve the interests of content creators and the content-consuming public." Actually, the last five words of that sentence could just be left off with no damage to accuracy, but at least the MPAA is paying lip service to consumer concerns.

They're certainly right to be worried about the potential impact of any network neutrality regulations on things like deep packet inspection (look for our feature next week on the topic and how it ties into the network neutrality debate), though again everything depends upon exactly what is meant by "network neutrality." Going beyond the specific technologies listed above, the MPAA believes that ISPs need to have the right to control traffic shaping, quality of service guarantees, latency, and bandwidth hogging—all of special concern when it comes to regulating P2P traffic.

In the end, the group concludes that "it would be Pyrrhic indeed to adopt a set of principles asserting that consumers have a right to a cornucopia of excellent content, but fail to provide an environment in which such content can actually exist." A neutral network, it seems, might not be such a place. Sure, this is FUD—no evidence is presented that content owners and a neutral net can't coexist, and iTunes has been serving up plenty of content for years—but it sounds pretty dire.

But the MPAA rightly notes that piracy on the Internet is alive and well. When it comes to actively stopping such piracy, Solveig Singleton of the Progress & Freedom Foundation agrees with the MPAA; network neutrality "may hamper efforts to control piracy like spam [i.e., in the manner that spam is controlled], by impeding traffic carried by or through disreputable ports of call."

Perhaps, to illustrate these points, the MPAA should get the message out in a more effective way. Maybe a feature film? Network Neutrality: Conqueror of Cornucopias of Content and General Destroyer of Worlds should clean up nicely at the summer box office.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...f-content.html





Does Comcast Hate Macs?
David Cassel

They're the largest ISP in America. And they hate Macs. And the Firefox browser. At least, that's the impression you get from Comcast's installation procedure — and clues scattered across their home page.

Last month Dave Winer noted that Comcast's installation procedures require the use of Internet Explorer. Another Comcast user makes the same complaint. "They helpfully provide you with a CD that has a custom Comcast-branded version of IE5 for the Mac, because Apple hasn't shipped a Mac in quite a few years that has IE5 on it by default."

Even Comcast's web page shows an apparent bias against Mac users — or anyone not using Internet Explorer. When you click the page's "Games" hyperlink, an error message pops up, warning that the site "is not optimized for Firefox browsers or Macs."

"Our site is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher, on Windows Operating System."

The web contains other stories — including one from a user group for Apple fans. One Mac owner reports he'd called Comcast to troubleshoot his cable modem. Comcast's technician told him he knew "nothing about *&@#$ing Macs,"eventually disappearing into his truck. By the time the technican returned, the customer had repaired the cable modem himself with a phone call to Comcast's support line.Now I'm afraid to ask how Comcast handles Linux….
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20...ast-hate-macs/





Police Excuse Angry Computer User for Outburst

A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathized with his technical frustrations.

Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers found the street and pavement covered in electronic parts and discovered who the culprit was.

Asked what had driven him to the night-time outburst, the 51-year-old man said he had simply got annoyed with his computer.

"Who hasn't felt like doing that?" said a police spokesman.

While escaping any official sanction the man was made to clear up the debris.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...74877020070717





The Mini-Penis Scandal

US Publisher Turns away from Cartoon Nudity
Franziska Bossy and Elke Schmitter

The drawings are harmless really. But a US publisher has decided not to publish a series by children's book author Rotraut Susanne Berner. The problem? Cartoon breasts and a half-millimeter-long willy.

It is rare that a German book generates any interest in the United States. And children's books are usually completely off the radar. The delight was thus all the greater at the Hildesheimer Gerstenberg publishing house when a query came in from the American children's book purveyor Boyds Mills Press for a series by Rotraut Susanne Berner.

"It was really a sensation," Berner told SPIEGEL ONLINE. At first. As it turned out, there were a couple of changes that had to be made before the books could be unleashed on the America public. First off, smokers had to be removed from the illustrations. But that wasn't all.



One image shows a scene from an art gallery -- and for realism's sake, there is a cartoonish nude hanging on the wall along with a tiny, seven-millimeter-tall statue of a naked man on a pedestal.

American kiddies, obviously, could never be expected to handle such a depiction of the human body. The US publisher, somewhat awkwardly, asked if they could be removed.

The author, not surprisingly, considers the request to be absurd. The statue's mini-willy, the author points out, is hardly even a half-millimeter long. And the naked woman hanging on the wall? Hardly a realistic depiction of the female anatomy. The US publisher, says Berner, was embarrassed to ask for the changes, but they were even more afraid of how American mommies and daddies might react if junior were exposed to such pornography.

For the author, any kind of self-censorship was completely out of the question. She said she could maybe have lived with putting black bars in front of the problem spots, but "invisible censorship" was out. "If you're going to censor something, then the reader should be aware of it," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

But the US publisher would have none of it -- after all, one hardly wants to call attention to one's own deletions. Meaning, that the Hildesheimer publishing house will have to forego the honor of being published in the US -- and American children are safe from shocking German sensibilities.

Many children in the rest of the world, however, have already been exposed. Berner is one of the best-known contemporary children's book authors. And the series, which playfully follows the daily life of children and adults through the four seasons, is already a bestseller in 13 countries from Japan to the Faroe Islands. So far, no other country has been overly concerned about the cartoon boobies and mini-penis, Berner said.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...493856,00.html

















Until next week,

- js.



















Current Week In Review





Recent WiRs -

July 14th, July 7th, June 30th, June 23rd, June 16th, June 9th

Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. Questions or comments? Call 213-814-0165, country code U.S.. The right to publish all remarks is reserved.


"The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black