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Old 23-07-08, 07:54 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 26th, '08

Since 2002


































"I've worked for everything I've got, and I don't understand why people are out there trying to rob you. I never thought anything like this would happen." – Ellen Saylor, 70 year-old RIAA victim


"Steve loves Apple. He serves at the pleasure of Apple's board. He has no plans to leave Apple. Steve's health is a private matter." – Peter Oppenheimer


"After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money.

You would think he’d want them to know before me. But apparently not."
– Joe Nocera




































July 26th, 2008




Every Major Senate Democratic Challenger Announces Support for Network Neutrality
Matt Stoller

For the last few months, we've been posting Democratic Senate challenger positions on net neutrality here at OpenLeft. Since we started posting, we've been getting in statements and positions, from blogs like Cotton Mouth and the Political Base, from the candidates themselves, and from readers who took the time to ask and send in statements. I'm happy to report that every single Democratic challenger with more than $500k in cash on hand has announced their support for net neutrality. This is a milestone for the fight for internet freedom. I included statements reacting to this news from Senator Byron Dorgan, Speaker Pelosi, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Google public policy director Alan Davidson, and Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu.

One thing you'll notice is that there is basically no organized telecom or cable money going to any of these candidates, with the exception of Al Franken, Mark Warner, and Mark Udall. Franken and Warner both had careers with cable or telecom companies, so they have friends in those industries, and Udall is a sitting House member.
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7125





To See Rights Fade For A Cause You Can't Be On The Wrong Side Of...
Jad

TechDirt stole my thunder, but I shall opine nevertheless. It's quite sad how little attention this is getting outside the corners of the internet where tech-savvy people gather, but perhaps the media thinks those are the only people who would understand it. The overriding theme, the sound bite, the message, it's loud and clear and it can't be argued against:

Internet Service Provider X shuts down access to deep dark portion of the Internet where only pedophiles hang out. Your children are safer now!

You have carte blanche to do whatever you want in this country if you can somehow, in some vague way - with connections basic enough so Joe-casual-news-reader can understand - tie it into protecting the children. If the appearance of the children being protected looks good enough, it doesn't matter what reality actually is.

Besides, a good portion of people out there probably have no idea what Usenet is.

Follow up:

Usenet, in a short and over-simplified way, is interactivity on the Internet before there was interactivity on the Internet, or even the Internet as we know it. Usenet predates the social networking giants that almost all of us use today, it predates the "user generated content" sites, it predates the message boards which came before all that. Usenet is a decentralized system of computers and servers the world over where people post things - messages, stories, topics (so basically the grandfather of the message board). Collectively the posts are known as news and categories of news are known as newsgroups. A hierarchy is in place to group the groups, which give a general idea of the content in them. sci.* will tend to have things about science. news.* will tend to have actual news stories. talk.* will tend to have random banter. You get the idea.

These discussion groups are not the enemy, however. Usenet is also home to the first and, some thought, the last bastion of the file sharing world, alt.* The alt.* newsgroup is where nearly every last bit of new anything you see on the internet for downloading - music, movies, software, games, you name it - is posted before it goes anywhere else. alt.* is the source for many bittorrent releases. Usenet has been a thorn in Big Content's side for a very long time, and it seemed that Big Content had no effective way of stopping it. Shutting down Usenet would be like shutting down a section of the Internet, and that's just never going to happen in America, right?

Give the ISPs a minor amount of credit, they tried everything else they could to fight file sharing for nearly a decade now. They've targeted specific software (Napster, Kazaa), they've targeted individuals (hey neat, the music sharer is in jail longer than the rapist), they've targeted websites that do no hosting of content but just give links to where that content is (Suprnova, Demonoid, OiNK, but not Google because they have way too much money to fight it), they've targeted people at random (college students and grandmothers are keeping record execs from getting that 7th figure in their check!), they've even targeted the concept of higher education in America (lobbying Congress to cut funding for schools who don't cut down or ban file sharing, forget the kids future or the cost of tuition). None of that has worked. File sharing, led by bittorrent and some rather smart people continuing to work on more and more complex decentralized and encrypted methods of file dissemination, has not been slowed.

There are some minds out there in the groupthink collective of Big Content that would probably enjoy seeing the Internet turned off, or turned into a metered pay-per-month website package deal (the Basic tier, 50 websites & now including Myspace! only 29.99/month!). Neither one of those things are going to happen, which leaves only one possible way to stem the file sharing tide: ban an entire subsection of the Internet.

How are you going to do that, exactly? Legal challenges will sprout up from all corners the second any attempt is made to ban any whole section of the internet outright, right?

Enter the convenient excuse: child pornography.

The whole idea behind this oh-so noble movement amongst the ISPs (pressured by Big Content) is not to blot out an entire subsection of the Internet because it is the source for hacked versions of their overpriced software or allows for free dissemination of their mostly substandard entertainment - that would just seem like Big Content being Big Content. No, this cause is noble, and right, and fair, just, and good to throw in some more happy words. This cause is for saving the children. This cause is for stopping child pornography! The pats on the back their giving their selves for their great crusade must feel nice.

This ought to be utterly transparent that this is not a crusade against any such thing - it's an easy way to throw up a smokescreen for a complex problem, make everyone feel good, and actually get nothing done. This is the point where I tip my hat to TechDirt and their explanation for how effective this is in really fighting child pornography:

Quote:
Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately. Blocking access to some websites doesn't solve the problem. Those who still produce and make use of child porn will still get it from other sources -- but it will be more underground, making it more difficult for authorities to track down.
That's fine, though. Much like it's okay to put away people who share files for much longer periods of time than people who actually commit real crimes (but multinational corporations are people, too!) it's fine to ultimately hinder future efforts of tracking down those who engage in the perversities of child pornography and the sources they get it from - just as long as Adobe can see a few less copies of Photoshop cracked, or Microsoft a few less copies of Vista, or insert-popular-musical-group-here from having a few more albums downloaded for free.

These are only immediate effects, though. Such decisions, with ISPs going along with it, will undoubtedly have long term ramifications if left unchecked. Back to TechDirt...

Quote:
Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review.
What is objectionable, anyhow? Child pornography, obviously, but what about other things that unsettle people? Perhaps porn in general will become too objectionable for the internet. Maybe certain political views? File sharing, of course.

Recently the very popular text editor, Notepad++ caused the entirety of SourceForge to be banned in China because of its stance on the Olympics being held under the repressive regime of China. Chinese ISPs blocked the entire SourceForge domain because one small section of it contained "objectionable" material. Whether it be the ISPs in America, or Big Content and their fat wallets, but I have to wonder sometimes if someone around here is taking notes on how best to go about censoring the Internet.
http://secondpagemedia.com/theroad/i...ause-you-can-t





Bell's Internet Throttling is Like Reading People's Mail, ISPs Say
Peter Nowak

Bell Canada Inc.'s slowing of internet speeds is the equivalent of the post office opening people's mail and deciding when they should get their letters, a group of small service providers have said in their final volley at the company.

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers, a group of 55 companies that rent portions of Bell's network to provide their own broadband services, made its last plea Wednesday to regulators to force Bell to end its speed throttling.

In November Bell started using deep packet inspection (DPI) technology to identify what its customers were using their internet connections for, then started slowing peer-to-peer (P2P) applications such as BitTorrent.

The company extended the practice to CAIP members in March, which prompted the group's complaint to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in April.

In its submission on Wednesday, CAIP said Bell's defence for throttling — that the company is only slowing P2P downloads, which still get to the user "eventually" — is discriminatory and anti-competitive.

"Postal service customers have the freedom to decide for themselves the urgency of their packages, and to pay the postal service a fee based on how quickly they want their packages delivered," CAIP said.

"Bell’s high-handed imposition of traffic management is more appropriately analogized to a postal service that opens each package, decides according to its own priorities how important the contents are, and delivers it at a speed of its own choosing, notwithstanding the needs or intentions of package senders and recipients."

A spokesperson for Bell did not return a request for comment but the company has said it only uses DPI to determine the type of traffic, and does not probe any deeper.

The CAIP submission was the final step in a public CRTC investigation, which began in May, into whether Bell has violated the Telecommunications Act by illegally changing its terms of wholesale service. The commission is expected to rule on the case in September.

In its filing, CAIP said Bell has failed to prove there is congestion on its network and has put forward a "varying storyline" for why it has done so since the probe began.

The company initially said it started throttling to prevent the five per cent of heavy P2P users from slowing access for the majority of customers but, CAIP said, Bell made virtually no mention of that factor in its final submission to the CRTC last week.
Bell has since switched tactics and said that P2P applications are designed to eat up all available bandwidth, then again changed gears by saying that exponential growth of traffic has necessitated the throttling, CAIP said.

The group disputed Bell's points, saying its members saw no evidence of network congestion before the throttling began last year.

CAIP also said Bell has shown "proof positive" that its network has no congestion problem by recently unveiling faster speeds for its own Sympatico customers — services that are not available to CAIP members — as well as an online video store, which requires large amounts of network capacity to work properly.

Bell has villainized P2P, CAIP says

Bell has also unfairly characterized P2P as a tool of bandwidth abusers and copyright violators, CAIP said, when in fact BitTorrent has been endorsed as a legitimate application by many Hollywood studios as well as educational and government institutions. P2P has been targeted by Bell because it is a "politically easy target" through this reputation.

CAIP said P2P cannot eat up all available bandwidth because users are limited by the connection speeds they buy from Bell or any other ISP. The group also cited a CRTC submission from network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc., in support of Bell, which forecasts that P2P traffic as a portion of total internet traffic will decline in the next few years.

The group's case has found a wide base of support and has garnered submissions from the likes of Google and Skype, as well as consumer groups, privacy advocates and more than 1,300 individuals. Telus, Rogers and Cisco have made submissions in support of Bell.

CAIP summarized its submission by saying that Bell is trying to stifle competition by removing smaller ISPs' ability to differentiate their services. The CRTC must therefore order the company to stop its throttling in order to preserve competition in providing internet access.

"Canadians have voiced concerns regarding the privacy of their telecommunications and the fact that an array of legitimate and socially, economically and culturally important information and activities, once available to them through P2P applications, are now virtually inaccessible to them during their leisure hours," CAIP said.

"Canadians understand that if Bell is allowed to shape their competitors’ end-user traffic, Bell can effectively render competitors’ products and service offering indistinguishable from its own, thereby eliminating competition in downstream retail markets."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...tech-caip.html





Internet Founder Blasts ISPs for Hurting National Interests
Peter Nowak

Vint Cerf, who developed the technical principles on which the internet works, has blasted telephone and cable companies for harming national interests by holding investments in their networks to ransom.

Cerf, a long-time advocate of keeping the internet free from control by service providers and a current senior vice-president for search giant Google Inc., told the Silicon Valley Watcher blog that the companies are being childish by threatening to withhold upgrading networks unless they get breaks from regulators.

"Basically, it's like little kids in a tantrum: 'I'm not going to build this system unless you give me three scoops of ice cream and a pony,'" he said in a video posted on the blog on Tuesday. "My reaction to this is quite negative. It's harmful to the national interest to behave in this way because it is serious infrastructure — it's very much like the road ways."

Cerf said large internet service providers (ISPs) need to be split into two entities — one wholesale arm that sells access to the company's network to other firms, and one retail arm that sells internet access to customers. The wholesale arm would have to sell access to other service providers at the same rate that it charges itself.

The model has been adopted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, where Cerf said it is working. Separation of a company — if not fully structural, then at least of its accounting department — is necessary to keep competition in providing internet access alive, which will head off ISP interference such as the slowing of certain kinds of traffic that is happening in the United States and Canada.

"We have to provide incentives that cause those companies to behave differently or create an incentive for a competitor to put in facilities that will compete with them. I want to take away their monopoly mandate," he said. "We have to make it a privilege to build the infrastructure. There has to be a reasonable rate of return, but it cannot be a confiscatory rate of return and it cannot be abused by allowing people to throttle competitors."

Rogers stirs up new hornet's nest

Cerf's comments come as a new controversy has erupted over internet interference by a Canadian ISP. Online message boards have been lit up for the past few days by users angry over a change made by Rogers Communications Inc. in how failed internet address searches are resolved.

Under the new system implemented last week, when a Rogers customer types in an internet address that does not exist they are redirected to a company-supported page with ads and links, rather than to the typical "server not found" page. Rogers did not notify customers of the change but does offer the ability to opt-out.

The move has outraged users, who say Rogers is hijacking their browser and searches. The opt-out function has also been criticized because it is browser-based, which means users must re-opt out every time they clear their tracking cookies.

"They did this to spam us with advertising when we type in a wrong [internet] address," wrote one poster on the Digital Home website. "I can't believe I pay Rogers for this service and they did this without asking us and they refuse to turn it off."

Nancy Cottenden, spokesperson for Rogers, said the change was made in order to eliminate error pages and "provide helpful search results based on what a customer is looking for."

"We make product enhancements on a regular basis and considered this to be one of them," she said. "We don't notify on each and every one."

University of Ottawa internet law professor Michael Geist said Rogers should offer the function on an opt-in basis, or at least institute the opt-out at a higher level — as other ISPs who have made this move have done — so that people don't have to constantly reset their browsers.

"The Rogers approach certainly isn't respectful of consumer choice," he said. "The response that Rogers has been giving — 'this is our network and we'll do whatever we damn well please' — does highlight what is for many a concern."

Rogers took heat last year for putting its own content on other company's web pages. Rogers experimented with inserting messages on sites such as Google that warned users they were nearing their monthly download limit, but quickly backtracked after being accused of violating net neutrality principles.

The company, along with Bell Canada Inc., is currently at the centre of a storm regarding the throttling of internet speeds: Their decision to slow down peer-to-peer internet applications such as BitTorrent has prompted a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which has said a full inquiry into net neutrality is coming.

Bell is also embroiled in a CRTC dispute with its internet wholesale customers, a fight that has seen Google accuse it of breaking Canadian telecommunications law. The CRTC expects to rule on the dispute with the Canadian Association of Internet Providers in September.

Cerf, who joined Google as a vice-president and "chief internet evangelist" in 2005, developed the transmission protocols that the internet is based on back in the 1970s.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...tech-cerf.html





Big Six ISPs Capitulate to Music Industry

Britain's six leading internet providers have signed a Government-led agreement to stamp out illegal music file sharing.

The six providers - BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, Sky and Carphone Warehouse - will implement a series of measures against those found to be file sharing.

Offenders may find their internet connection is throttled, or may even have their traffic "filtered" to prevent media files from being downloaded. Thousands of letters are expected to be sent to customers of the big six in the coming weeks, warning them of evidence of illegal file sharing on their connection.

UPDATE: ISPs yet to decide on file-sharer punishment

The ISPs are reportedly reluctant to impose the BPI's preferred "three strikes and you're out" approach of cutting off users' broadband connections.

Change of heart

Some of the ISPs have already begun sending out warning letters to their customers, under previous agreements with the BPI. Both Virgin Media and BT have sent out thousands of warnings to customers suspected of making illegal downloads, whilst Tiscali ran a trial with the BPI last summer before cancelling the deal because of a row over costs.

The deal is something of an about-face for Carphone Warehouse boss, Charles Dunstone, however. He publicly lambasted the three-strikes proposal last year before claiming it wasn't an ISP's job to police its service.

"We believe that a fundamental part of our role as an internet service provider is to protect the rights of our users to use the internet as they choose," Dunstone said. "The music industry has consistently failed to adapt to changes in technology and now seeks to foist their problems on someone else."

Government deal

The new deal has reportedly been brokered by Ofcom, after heavy music industry lobbying of both ISPs and Government.

Speaking last October, the parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Lord Triesman, said the Government was not prepared to tolerate "intellectual property theft".

"Where people have registered music as an intellectual property I believe we will be able to match data banks of that music to music going out and being exchanged on the net," he said.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/214620/b...-industry.html





Telco Won't Install Fiber Network, Sues to Prevent City from Doing So
Nate Anderson

The small town of Monticello, Minnesota seems an unlikely spot for a battle over city-owned fiber-to-the-home. The town, which is a distant commute to Minneapolis, thought it could better attract residents and business by building its own fiber-optic network. After a couple years of due diligence, the town held a referendum; 74 percent of voters agreed to fund the $25 million scheme. The city sought the needed municipal bonds, but the day before it closed on them, the local telco filed suit to stop the plan. Its claim: taking out bonds to build a fiber network is illegal.

Bridgewater Telephone argues that the city cannot use tax-exempt bonds to "enter into direct competition with incumbent commercial providers of telephone, Internet, and cable television services." The odd thing about the complaint, a copy of which was seen by Ars Technica, is that it makes almost no argument; instead, the company simply quotes a short bit of Minnesota law and essentially says, "See, it's illegal!" without offering an explanation.

The statute in question says that cities can use bonds to fund nursing homes, garbage collection, parks, playgrounds, "homes for the aged," and more, including "any utility or other public convenience from which a revenue is or may be derived." If the judge finds that fiber-to-the-home is a "public convenience," the case seems to be over.

"Current expenses" go back to the future

The only further comment that Bridgewater makes is that bond money cannot be used to pay for "current expenses," a clear sign from the state that towns cannot spend themselves into debt and just keep issuing bonds to pay for the mess. Bridgewater treats these two words as a law against setting aside a bit of the bond money to cover startup expenses for the new project.

Normally, when a city builds a new swimming pool, for instance, it would set aside a portion of the fees to pay for the initial hiring of lifeguards and the snacks that stock the cafe. Christopher Mitchell, a director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (which advocates for local control of broadband networks), tells Ars that if the judge accepts such arguments, "then cities cannot bond for anything."

The City of Monticello, which has just replied to the lawsuit, thinks the whole case is ridiculous. In its response, the city's attorney says that the telco offers only a "plain misreading of a Minnesota statute" and "pleads no facts that tend in any way to call into question whether the project constitutes a 'utility or other public convenience from which revenue is or may be derived'."

As for the "current expenses" issue, the city sounds exasperated with Bridgewater. "There is nothing 'current' about the items that Bridgewater/TDS attempts to describe as 'current expenses'," says the response. "Those expenses will be incurred in the future, as part of an effort to secure a benefit that will arise even further in the future when the system is functioning, and that will endure even further into the future."

Mitchell, who has been involved with the city on this entire issue, tells Ars that he's sympathetic to arguments from private companies about having to compete unfairly with cities. But he points out that cities have to publish their business plans, deployment, targets, and funding, which levels the playing field. And Monticello did first approach Bridgewater, asking it to deploy fiber in the town; the answer was no. (Congress has also started to debate the issue.)

The alternative, Mitchell says as he looks at the rest of the world, is that the US will have to be content with second-rate Internet; nearly all major fiber deployments around the globe have had government backing or serious support. The payback on such schemes tends to be too far in the future for companies that have to answer to shareholders on a quarterly basis. Even Verizon, which might be seen as an exception to the rule, proves the point; investors were initially quite skeptical of the proposed $18 billion-20 billion payout, and only recently has the company's move started to look prescient rather than foolishly risky.

As for the Bridgewater claim, Mitchell says that his response upon reading it was, "This can't be serious, they're not even trying to win." The timing of the complaint makes it look as thought Bridgewater wants to delay the process. If so, the company has already succeeded. In the meantime, Monticello has approved a much smaller fiber loop to connect government and major industrial sites.

Local control, choice of ISP

Assuming the lawsuit can be dealt with, Monticello hopes to build fiber lines to each home and business in town with the goals of:

• choice of service provider
• competitive rates
• local service
• local ownership
• economic development
• economic returns to the community

When 74 percent of town's voters want to build themselves a fiber network, but the telco demands that they 1) not do it, and then 2) accept that the telco won't do it for years, either, the market (such as it is) doesn't appear to be functioning well. Monticello's solution is to build an interconnect facility of its own where ISPs can come in and link up to any fiber user who wants their service. The city maintains the lines and the connection facility, but doesn't need to become an ISP.

We're seeing more cities interested in this sort of arrangement as they recognize that fiber is the future but that, unless they are a FiOS town, that fiber won't be coming to the homes in their communities any time soon. Cases like this will help set the parameters for how cities or local co-ops can design, build, and operate such networks.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-doing-it.html





Phone Giants Fight to Keep Subscribers
Laura M. Holson

With millions of people snapping up the iPhone, AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the popular phone, should be quite pleased with the stream of revenue it can expect from customers.

But AT&T, the biggest telecommunications company in the United States, has a problem: analysts say consumers are dropping traditional landlines faster than expected. The company, which still gets 32 percent of its revenue from its landline business, reports its second-quarter financial results Wednesday and is expected to talk about how its traditional phone service is contracting.

AT&T is not the only company facing a changing environment in the communications business. All of the major telecommunications companies — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel — are figuring out how to make more money from customers as they spend more time sending text messages or browsing the Web on their wireless phones, rather than talking.

At the same time, as the American cellphone market gets saturated — nearly 85 percent of American consumers already own a mobile phone — phone companies are finding that growth is slowing. With more options, mobile phone buyers are also becoming more selective about the calling plans and the type of phones they want, making the market even more competitive.

“In short order, sentiment in the telecom sector has gone from bullish to guarded to ... well, slightly queasy,” Craig Moffett, a research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company who follows communications companies, wrote in a recent report.

Wireless phones are, by far, more common than landlines. According to CTIA, the wireless industry’s trade group based in Washington, there are 262 million wireless subscribers in the United States. In contrast, the Federal Communications Commission counts 163 million business and residential landlines as of June 2007, its latest report.

Analysts say that AT&T will report a decline in the number of its traditional landline subscribers. A spokesman for AT&T said executives could not comment ahead of earnings. Currently the company has 60.4 million traditional landlines — in contrast to 68.7 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2006 — and 71.4 million wireless subscribers.

AT&T has been losing landline subscribers each quarter at an accelerated rate since 2006. It dropped 7.4 percent in 2007. Analysts think that the economic downturn could also have an impact on the landline business. They say consumers looking to cut expenses will drop their landline — which can cost up to $60 a month — before they drop their wireless phone plan.

“I think AT&T is pedaling as fast as it can to transform themselves from a wire line to a wireless company,” Mr. Moffett said. “To a degree it is working.” The question, though, he said, is “is it fast enough?”

Analysts also expect it will report slower growth in its wireless business as well.

Verizon, which reports its second-quarter results on Monday, also is seeing slower growth. On Tuesday, Verizon Wireless said it added 1.5 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2008, the same number it added in its first quarter. Both numbers are down, though, from the fourth quarter in 2007, which was two million new subscribers.

Verizon Wireless, which is a partnership between Verizon and Vodafone, has 68.7 million subscribers.

“It’s still very strong,” said Roger Entner, a senior vice president for Nielsen IAG, a market research firm. But compared with earlier figures, he said, it “is indicative of a slowdown.”

Verizon, too, is not immune from customer losses in its landline business. According to the report by Mr. Moffett, Verizon is vulnerable in the East Coast where it has a high percentage of customers.

Despite the loss of customers, companies will still need to spend to upgrade their networks. (Verizon currently has 40.5 million traditional landlines.) A spokesman for Verizon said executives were not available to speak until its financial results were announced.

Mr. Entner said AT&T and Verizon would have to sell customers more services to make up for the decline in traditional landline revenue. It is why they, particularly Verizon, are aggressively competing with cable companies to sell Internet and television services, bundled with traditional and wireless phone service.

“If you own a home business, they are going to want to sell you not only a line for your home, but one for your office too,” Mr. Entner said. “They are going to want to sell you more, more of everything.”

Keeping customers, along with acquiring new ones, is of paramount importance. Sprint, the No. 3 wireless carrier in the United States, has sought to stem the tide of customer defections of its wireless service. In the first quarter of 2008, 1.1 million of Sprint Nextel’s 53.9 million customers fled, and churn — a measure of turnover and therefore how unhappy customers are — was on the rise. It announces its financial results on Aug. 6.

“The big carriers have fed on Sprint Nextel,” Mr. Entner said. “But there comes a time when all the people who want to leave have already left.”

A bright spot, at least in the case of AT&T, is the debut of the latest iPhone. With a subsidized price of $199, it is sure to attract new customers, said Walter Piecyk, an analyst with Pali Research. “Economically, it turns out great for them,” he said, because new customers are required to sign a two-year contract to get the subsidized price.

Carriers are seeking to address declining revenue in the landline business several ways besides focusing on the wireless business and bundling calling plans with Internet and television service. It would not be inconceivable, said one telecommunications executive who declined to be named because he was not authorized to discuss his company’s plans, that in the next 10 years, carriers could entice their least profitable landline customers to give up their old-fashioned phones for free or deeply discounted wireless service.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/te...y/23phone.html





Griping Online? Comcast Hears You and Talks Back
Brian Stelter

Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast’s practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide.

He assumed he was writing for his own benefit. “It feels like nobody ever really reads my blog,” he said. “Nobody has left a comment in months.”

Shortly afterward, he received an e-mail message from Comcast, thanking him for the feedback and adding that it was working on a new interactive guide that might “illuminate the issues that you are currently experiencing.”

Mr. Dilbeck found it all a bit creepy. “The rest of his e-mail may as well have read, ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ ” he said.

But Frank Eliason, digital care manager at Comcast, says he was just trying to help.

From a sparse desk dominated by two computer screens in the new Comcast Center here, Mr. Eliason uses readily available online tools to monitor public comments on blogs, message boards and social networks for any mention of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company. When he sees a complaint like Mr. Dilbeck’s, he contacts the source to try to defuse the problem.

“When you’re having a two-way conversation, you really get to clear the air,” Mr. Eliason said.

Comcast is not the only company trying to reach out to customers online. Using the social messaging service Twitter, Southwest Airlines answers customer questions about ticket prices and flight delays, Whole Foods Market posts details about discounts, and the chief executive of the online shoe store Zappos shares details of his life with 7,200 “followers.” Many other companies also monitor online discussion groups.

But Comcast is going an extra step by talking back, contacting customers who are discussing the company online.

Odds are they are complaining about Comcast. The company was ranked at the very bottom of the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index, which tracks consumer opinions of more than 200 companies. Hundreds of customers have filed grievances on a site called ComcastMustDie.com.

Comcast says the online outreach is part of a larger effort to revamp its customer service. In just about five months, Mr. Eliason, whose job redefines customer service, has reached out to well over 1,000 customers online.

Lyza Gardner, a vice president at a Web development company in Portland, Ore., used Twitter to vent about a $183 cable bill last month. (The bill was prorated for almost two months of service.) Her comment — “very angry at Comcast” — set off Mr. Eliason’s search tool, prompting him to type out his typical reply: “Can I help?” The response caught Ms. Gardner off guard.

“It’s one thing to spit vitriol about a company when they can’t hear you,” she said in an interview. It’s another, she said, when the company replies. “I immediately backed down and softened my tone when I knew I was talking to a real person.”

As blogs, forums and social networking sites have become pervasive parts of people’s lives, companies have grappled with whether — and how — to deal with them. The sites expose hundreds and potentially thousands of other people to the experiences of individual customers.

Brian D. Solis, who runs a public relations firm, FutureWorks, that specializes in social media, said companies like Comcast are “taking what used to be an inbound call center and turning it into an outbound form of customer relations” that can also help spot problems before they get out of hand.

Still, others agree with Mr. Dilbeck, the University of Washington student, that the online outreach is annoying. “Comcast Is Watching Us,” declared a blog called Contempt for the World in February, when Mr. Eliason started wading into the comment sections of blogs.

On the whole, though, all the talking back appears to be good for the company’s public image. Mr. Eliason said he remembered only seven cases in which customers had called him creepy, and he believed the benefits far outweighed the occasional awkwardness.

When a commenter makes claims of being mistreated by Comcast, Mr. Eliason contacts the person directly and steers the case toward a resolution. “Wish me luck @comcastcares,” William Pomerantz, an employee at the X Prize Foundation in Washington, wrote last month as he headed to his new apartment to await his third appointment for a Comcast installation.

Three hours later, Mr. Pomerantz badly needed some luck. The technician had not arrived, a telephone representative had disconnected his call, and Mr. Eliason’s online account was “strangely silent,” as he complained online.

Mr. Eliason, checking his messages as he rode home on a commuter train, noticed Mr. Pomerantz’s comments and responded: “I will get someone there!”

Half an hour later, a technician arrived. “Before he was done, I had two more technicians call and say they were ready to come immediately if I still needed assistance,” Mr. Pomerantz recalled. “The reaction was a thousand times better than what I was getting by phone.”

Of course, most customers still call when they have problems. If they all started blogging and commenting instead, Mr. Eliason would be quickly overwhelmed. “This is a channel, but it is not the first step” for customer concerns, he said.

Already the number of online comments are more than Mr. Eliason can handle himself, so his staff has gradually grown to seven people; soon it will have 10.

By acting quickly when customers complain — even at the oddest hours — the team has proved that its service is not aimed solely at users with the loudest virtual voices. Noting the thunder and wind late on the night of June 11, richrecruiter, a Twitter user, wrote that he was “counting down to Comcast outage interrupting tonight’s Phillies game.” Mr. Eliason quickly replied with a brief “LOL,” short for “laugh out loud.”

“See, I knew you were listening to me!” the customer answered. By then, it was past 11 p.m.

“Absolutely,” Mr. Eliason replied from his BlackBerry, his wife sound asleep in the bedroom. “A little tired tonight, but I am still on it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/te...25comcast.html





Internet Firm Says It Targeted Ads To Customers' Web-Surfing Habits
Ellen Nakashima

Regional Internet company Embarq told lawmakers this week that it notified 26,000 high-speed Internet customers in Kansas that it was conducting a targeted advertising test based on their "anonymous" Web-surfing behavior and offered them the ability to opt out.

Embarq posted a notice in its privacy policy on its corporate Web site more than two weeks before the controversial test was conducted earlier this year, company officials wrote in two letters to leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The lawmakers are investigating the practice and whether privacy laws adequately protect consumers in this area.

Some committee members were not satisfied with Embarq's action.

"I am still troubled by the company's failure to directly inform their consumers of the consumer data gathering test and the notion that an 'opt out' option is a sufficient standard for such sweeping data gathering," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.

The test in Gardner, Kan., used deep-packet inspection technology provided by the Silicon Valley company NebuAd. When installed in an Internet service provider's network, the technology permits a window into potentially all of a consumer's online activity, from Web surfing and search terms to any unencrypted Web communication.

"Embarq may use information such as the Web sites you visit or online searches that you conduct to deliver or facilitate the delivery of targeted advertisements," the online notice said. "The delivery of these advertisements will be based on anonymous surfing behavior and will not include users' names, email addresses, telephone numbers or any other personally identifiable information."

It also said that "by opting out, you will continue to receive advertisements . . . but these advertisements will be less relevant and less useful to you."

Fifteen subscribers opted out, Tom Gerke, Embarq president and chief executive, wrote in a letter Wednesday to committee chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.) and Markey.

Gerke wrote that Embarq's approach to the test followed "the prevailing industry practices" and was "consistent" with the Federal Trade Commission's proposed guidelines for self-regulation in online advertising.

But at a hearing last week, Markey asserted that an opt-out standard was insufficient. "It's like saying that the mailman can open up any letter . . . find out what's in it, then . . . partner with other companies, letting them know what individual Americans are receiving in the mail," as long as a person has not objected in advance, he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?hpid=sec-tech





Minsk Says Internet to Stay Free

Authorities in Belarus will not use a new law on the media to restrict the Internet, an aide to President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.

The new law, approved by parliament last month, does not specifically require Internet sites to be registered, but allows their regulation to be overseen by government decisions.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the continent's leading rights watchdog, called for rejection of the law before its passage.

Independent journalists in the country of 10 million had expressed fears that web sites could be closed down.

"All talk about Belarus introducing restrictions on the Internet is just sheer stupidity," said Vsevolod Yanchevsky, presidential adviser responsible for ideology.

"The authorities feel strong enough not to be afraid of anything, including biased ideas," Yanchevsky said. "On the contrary, it is in our interest to have free development of the Internet and no restrictions. The Internet will be free in Belarus."

Since Lukashenko came to power in 1994, many independent publications have been closed down, leaving the Internet as the chief means of information on the country's small, and often divided, liberal and nationalist opposition.

State media in the country, wedged between Russia and three European Union states, report at length on the president's activities and heap lavish praise on his initiatives. Opposition figures are given little air time apart from brief spots, as required by law, during election campaigns.

Lukashenko, his tough stand on dissent and generous state subsidies are broadly popular, particularly outside the capital.

But the president remains barred from the United States and European Union on grounds that he rigged his 2006 re-election.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/articl.../42/369113.htm





China Tops U.S. in Number of Internet Users
David Barboza

China said the number of Internet users in the country reached about 253 million last month, putting it ahead of the United States as the world’s biggest Internet market.

The estimate, based on a national survey and released on Thursday by the China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing, showed a powerful surge in Internet adoption in this country over the last few years, particularly among teenagers.

The number of Internet users jumped more than 50 percent, or by about 90 million people, during the last year, said the center, which operates under the government-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences. The new estimate represents only about 19 percent of China’s population, underscoring the potential for growth.

By contrast, about 220 million Americans are online, or 70 percent of the population, according to the Nielsen Company. Japan and South Korea have similarly high percentages.

Political content on Web sites inside China is heavily censored, and foreign sites operating here have faced restrictions. But online gaming, blogs, and social networking and entertainment sites are extremely popular among young people in China.

The survey found that nearly 70 percent of China’s Internet users were 30 or younger, and that in the first half of this year, high school students were, by far, the fastest-growing segment of new users, accounting for 39 million of the 43 million new users in that period.

With Internet use booming, so is Web advertising. The investment firm Morgan Stanley says online advertising in China is growing by 60 to 70 percent a year, and forecasts that by the end of this year, it could be a $1.7 billion market.

China’s biggest Internet companies, including Baidu, Sina, Tencent and Alibaba, are thriving, and in many cases are outperforming the China-based operations of American Internet giants like Google, Yahoo and eBay.

“The Internet market is the fastest-growing consumer market sector in China,” said Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley. “We are still far from saturation. So the next three to five years, we’re still going to see hyper-growth in this market.”

Baidu, for instance, said on Thursday that its second-quarter net profit had jumped 81 percent. During that period, Baidu had a 63 percent share of China’s search engine market, while Google had about 26 percent, with Yahoo trailing far behind, according to iResearch, a market research firm based in Beijing.

Tencent, a popular site for social networking and gaming, now has a stock market value of $15 billion, making it one of the world’s most valuable Internet companies. In comparison, Amazon.com is valued at about $30 billion.

One measure of the growth of the Internet here, and its social and entertainment functions, is the popularity of blogs.

The site of China’s most popular blogger, the actress Xu Jinglei, has attracted more than 174 million visitors over the last few years, according to Sina.com, the popular Web portal, which posts a live tally. According to Sina, 11 other bloggers have also attracted more than 100 million visitors in recent years.

The Internet’s popularity often poses serious challenges to the government. Online gambling, pornography, videos of protests and online addiction have led to regular campaigns to crack down on what the government views as vices. But Internet users have also used the Web for nationalist campaigns to criticize the Western news media or foreign companies, as was the case after riots broke out in Tibet this year.

While several organizations had projected that China would surpass the United States in Internet users this year, the new survey results were the first time a government agency had released figures showing China’s market to be larger than that of the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/bu...6internet.html





China Arrests Online Dissident in Pre-Olympics Crackdown
Ben Blanchard

Chinese police have arrested a prominent Internet dissident for violating his probation terms, a rights group said, as the country steps up a pre-Olympic crackdown on dissent to ensure the Games go smoothly.

Du Daobin, from the central province of Hebei, was given a suspended sentence for subversion in 2004 having been detained by police in Wuhan for posting online essays in support of fellow dissident, Liu Di.

Du was then released into house arrest, Reporters Without Borders said in an emailed statement, but was arrested this week having been accused of posting articles on overseas websites and receiving guests without permission.

"Du was living under a permanent threat," the group said. "He could have been imprisoned at any time under the sentence he received more than four years ago. He is the third leading cyber-dissident to be imprisoned in the run-up to the Olympic Games, after Hu Jia and Huang Qi."

Chinese police arrested Huang in the country's southwest for "possession of state secrets" after he offered help to parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake in May.

Hu, a prominent AIDS activist, was jailed for 3- years earlier this year for inciting subversion and criticizing the ruling Communist Party.

A fourth dissident, Ye Guozhu, jailed in 2004 for organizing protests against forced evictions, was due for release on Saturday but he was taken from the prison where he was being held and his whereabouts were unknown, Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.

"We believe that the police took him away to silence him during the Games, and that he will not be released until after the Olympics when most foreign journalists will have left Beijing," the group quoted his brother, Ye Guoqiang, as saying.

Ye Guoqiang said police told him they had taken Ye Guozhu from the prison, but did not say where he was being held or for how long.

Human Rights in China said the government was using the slogan of a "peaceful Olympics" to target rights activists.

"The current state of affairs is intolerable," said the group's China executive director, Sharon Hom, in a statement.

"Under the banner of a 'peaceful Olympics,' authorities continue to employ contradictory and counterproductive security methods, which only serve to exacerbate the human rights crisis and provoke greater instability in China," she added.

The government says the charges of a pre-Olympic campaign against dissidents are groundless.

Last week, the official Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed Games' spokesman as saying the Olympics were actually improving China's human rights record, and defended security measures.

"To ensure the hosting of a successful Olympic Games, and to ensure the safety of foreign athletes and visitors, China has indeed taken a series of necessary, legitimate and reasonable security measures," the spokesman said.

"lt's unnecessary to arrest so-called 'dissidents' for the sake of the Olympic Games. The accusation is untrue."

Still, the swirl of bad publicity in the run-up to the Games, which open on August 8, appears not to have dampened Chinese people's enthusiasm, though censorship means little foreign criticism is reported domestically.

More than 90 percent of Chinese surveyed by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project said they thought the Olympics would help China's global image, and almost everyone thought the Games would be a success.

(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck; Editing by Nick Macfie)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072301045.html





Death Penalty for Bloggers in Iran

A few weeks ago, the Islamic Parliament in Iran approved a draft law which shocked the country and is at the center of current debate.

The draft law is asking for expanded sentencing for those who publish atheistic articles and pornographic materials, or articles about rap, sex slave exports, banditry, prostitution, depravity, and kidnapping.

According to this draft, which was approved for faster review by the majority of Majlis [Iranian members of Parliament], the death sentence could be used against bloggers, journalists, artists, and intellectuals who can be easily falsely accused and convicted by intelligence services or the judiciary branch for publishing "articles against Islam."

Beside China, Iran is the most dangerous country for the bloggers and maintains one of the tightest controls over the Internet. Yet, more than 1.5 million bloggers write daily about their life, publishing about local news or criticizing government and mandatory Islamic rules. Based on Alexa, Iranian internet users are eager to read blogs as a source of news, semi-news, gossips, or entertainment.

Blog providers inside Iran are very sensitive to the content of blogs they host. If they find an anti-Islamic or pornography focused blog, they immediately delete it. If they ignore the blog, the filtering center in the Communication Ministry will delete it. My Persian language blog, like many blogs and websites criticizing the regime, is banned and filtered inside Iran by either the service providers or the government.

This new law, which brought waves of criticism against new conservative Majlis, including from major EU and human rights organizations, brings the prospect of harsh suppression of intellectuals and bloggers. The death penalty is an option.

To underscore the point, there are many political prisoners in the notorious jails inside Iran who are there because they have been accused of atheism or have been targeted by fatwas issued by top mullahs including the Supreme Leader Khomeini. Under Islamic law in Iran, the sentences these people face include beheading, slashing, executing and the cutting hands and feet.

Bloggers inside Iran believe the draft law is created to threaten youth and intellectuals, as well as suppressing freedom of speech and expression.
http://www.theseminal.com/2008/07/23...ggers-in-iran/





Police Director Sues for Critical Bloggers' Names

Site popular with citizens, officers
Amos Maki

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin and the city of Memphis have filed a lawsuit to learn who operates a blog harshly critical of Godwin and his department.

The lawsuit asks AOL to produce all information related to the identity of an e-mail address linked to MPD Enforcer 2.0, a blog popular with police officers that has been extremely critical of police leadership at 201 Poplar.

"In what could be a landmark case of privacy and the 1st Amendment," the anonymous bloggers write on the site, "Godwin has illegally used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to ruin the Constitution of the United States.

"Some members of the Enforcer 2.0 have contacted their attorneys and we are in the process of filing a lawsuit against Larry and the City of Memphis. What's wrong Larry? The truth hurt?"

It wasn't clear if the lawsuit is aimed at shutting down the site or if it's part of an effort to stop leaks that might affect investigations.

Many of the documents in the case, filed in Chancery Court on July 10, have been sealed by Chancellor Kenny Armstrong. Police officials would not discuss the action, citing pending litigation.

Whatever the reason, Internet and free-speech advocates said they had serious problems with the city's actions.

"You can complain about the government, and you should be able to do that without fear of retaliation or threatening actions on the part of the people in these positions," said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based watchdog group. "I guess they've kind of annoyed them at some level, but you really don't want to see law enforcement or government resources spent in this way."

AOL has been ordered to turn over similar records in the past.

In 2001, Japanese company Nam Tai filed a complaint in California state court against unknown Web posters claiming they committed libel and violated the state's unfair business practices statute.

Nam Tai was able to obtain the e-mail address of one of the posters and then obtained a subpoena from a Virginia state court to AOL seeking the name behind the e-mail address.

AOL filed a motion to have the order quashed, but lost that bid in trial court and the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee said they will be watching the case closely and that anonymous speech is essential to the free flow of ideas in a democracy.

"We are quite interested in preserving the anonymity of the bloggers," said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. "Anonymous speech has long been protected speech under the First Amendment."

The bloggers, who operate under the name of Dirk Diggler -- the name of the porn star in "Boogie Nights" -- say their site provides an important service to officers and citizens.

"This is another attempt at disrupting an outlet for officers to gather and complain about the administration," they said on the site.

"Further, this allows us unrestricted communication with the citizens of Memphis. The citizens should be made aware of the scandals that rock the administration and shudder the rocky foundation in which they operate today."

The bloggers also said city attorneys earlier this year wrote a threatening letter on city letterhead to a company that produced T-shirts for the bloggers.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...ogger-critica/





Record Labels Ask Judge for Ruling Against Lime Wire
Stefanie Olsen

Thirteen record labels have asked a judge to issue a decision in a 2-year-old case against peer-to-peer software company Lime Wire for allegedly inducing copyright violations of music files.

The motion for summary judgment was filed Friday with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The record labels, including Warner Bros. Records, Sony Records, and Virgin Records, are asking the judge for a decision because they claim Lime Wire has "promoted infringement," and has taken no steps to prevent illegal file trading, among other complaints.

The record companies originally filed their suit against Lime Wire in August 4, 2006, alleging "inducement of copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and with respect to pre-1972 recordings, common law copyright infringement and state law unfair competition." They also allege personal acts of copyright infringement by Mark Gorton, the owner of Lime Wire, and CTO Greg Bildson.

Lime Wire, which has filed a similar motion for summary judgment in the case, argues that it is not liable for "vicarious" or contributory copyright infringement because of the Sony-Betamax safe harbor. That safe harbor roughly states that makers of technology used for a variety of purposes are not liable for its creation and distribution so long as the products are "merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses," according to its filing.

The record label's filing states that a statistical study of Lime Wire showed that nearly 99 percent of download requests on its P2P software are for infringing music files. Because billions of files are shared every day, the "probable scope of copyright infringement is staggering," according to the document.

Because of the obvious parallels of previous cases against P2P file-sharing companies, the legal document refers heavily to those cases, including a 2005 Supreme Court decision against Grokster.

"As the Supreme Court observed in the context of the very similar Grokster litigation, '[w]hen a widely shared service ... is used to commit infringement, it may be impossible to enforce rights in the protected work effectively against all direct infringers, the only practical alternative being to go against the distributor of the copying device for secondary liability...'" according to the legal filing.

It continues: "Given the vast number of infringements that occur every day using LimeWire and the lack of a genuine issue as to any material fact, the argument for imposing secondary liability on this summary judgment motion is as powerful as it was in Grokster."

Lime Wire's CEO George Searle said in a statement that the recording industry's lawsuits aren't helping the music consumer, nor artists, songwriters, and publishers.

"Litigation isn't a good digital business model," said Searle, whose company's software has been downloaded more than 150 million times. "We're confident in our position and in the eventual outcome of this lawsuit, and we look forward to the day we can work together with the entire music industry to help expand its reach and deliver more to the consumer."

Based in New York, Lime Wire was founded in 2000. This spring, the company launched a music store for songs of independent artists.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9997427-93.html





Universal Says DMCA Takedown Notices Can Ignore 'Fair Use'
David Kravets

Universal Music told a federal judge here Friday that takedown notices requiring online video-sharing sites to automatically remove content need not consider whether videos are protected by the "fair use" doctrine.

The doctrine permits limited use of copyright materials without the owner's permission.

The music company made the argument Friday as part of a lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania woman whose 29-second video of her toddler dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was removed last year after Universal sent YouTube a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The act requires the automatic removal of material a rights holder claims is infringing its copyrights. If it isn't removed, legal liability can be placed on YouTube or other video-sharing sites. But the act also allows the uploader -- in this case, the Pennsylvania mother of the dancing toddler -- to demand the video return online.

Universal did not challenge Stephanie Lenz's assertion that the video was a "fair use" of Prince's song. After being taken down for six weeks, the video went back online last year, having now generated about half a million hits.

The courthouse dispute on Friday centered on a rarely used clause in the DMCA -- originally approved by Congress in 1998 -- allowing victims of meritless takedown notices to seek damages in a bid to deter such notices and breaches of First Amendment speech.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the woman's law firm, asked U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel on Friday to award attorneys' fees and other unspecified monetary damages under Section 512 of the DMCA.

In what Fogel said was a "case of first impression," Universal attorney Kelly Klaus said Universal or other copyright holders are not liable for damages when somebody asserts fair use to reverse a takedown notice.

Klaus and the judge agreed that damages have been awarded when a sender of a takedown notice falsely represents copyright ownership. But in this case, Universal owns the rights to Prince's song.

"Are you saying there cannot be a misuse of a takedown notice if the material is copyrighted?" Fogel asked Klaus.

"I don't think 'fair use' qualifies," Klaus answered.

Corynne McSherry, an EFF staff attorney, countered. She said the DMCA's damages clause "intended to prevent misuse of takedown notices," even when there's a fair-use defense.

Fogel, who did not indicate when he would rule, said "It's a very important issue of statutory interpretation."

While there is no bright-line rule, the factors to consider whether a video that's uploaded to a file-sharing site is a fair use are: how much of the original work was used, whether the new use is commercial in nature, whether the market for the original work was harmed, and whether the new work is a parody.

Here are Universal's and EFF's latest briefs in the case.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...rsal-says.html





Bill Asks Attorney General to Investigate Piracy
Mark Hachman

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate on Thursday that would allow the U.S. Attorney General to bring civil actions against Americans that violate copyrights.

The bill, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008", was scheduled to be introduced on Thursday, according to Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the bill along with Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). The bill's co-sponsors include Senators Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The bill is similar to the "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Act" of the 2007 Congress, which set out to establish a so-called Intellectual Property Enforcement Network (IPEN) made up of the deputy secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, Justice, the Treasury, Commerce, and State, plus the Deputy Attorney General and other senior government members.

However, the current bill would pair the IPEN with a designated Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, an advisor who would report directly to the President. Enforcement would be left to the FBI, who would be authorized to form an operational task force to fight copyright crime. An organized crime task force would also be created at the Department of Justice to link copyright violations to organized crime, such as DVD piracy. Five "intellectual property law enforcement coordinators" could be sent overseas to work with local law enforcement.

"The time has come to bolster the Federal effort to protect this most valuable and vulnerable property, to give law enforcement the resources and the tools it needs to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to make sure that the many agencies that deal with intellectual property enforcement have the opportunity and the incentive to talk with each other, to coordinate their efforts, and to achieve the maximum effects for their efforts," Sen. Leahy said in a statement. "The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 does just that."

The proposed bill would also tighten civil IP laws, requiring that an actual copyright be filed before a criminal case can be brought. However, according to the text of the bill, no actual copyright would need to be filed in the case of a civil suit brought by the Attorney General or another individual or company.

The bill would also explicitly allow documents and records to be seized in the course of a civil copyright-infringement suit. And a "harmless error" provision would allow prosecutors to gloss over minor errors in copyright filings that would otherwise provide defendants a loophole.

Reactions split across industry lines

Unsurprisingly, the bill was welcomed by software groups, including the Business Software Alliance. ""BSA and its members commend Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Evan Bayh (D-IN), John Cornyn (R-TX), George Voinovich (R-OH) and others for their leadership on intellectual property issues, as further illustrated today, with the introduction of the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," the BSA said in a statement. "This important legislation will go a long way to curbing software piracy which cost more than $48 billion around the globe. The bill will provide US law enforcement with new legal tools to combat software piracy and counterfeiting. It will also provide much needed resources to investigate and prosecute IP crimes and expand the successful program of placing IP attaches in key US embassies around the globe."

"American innovators and creators are driving our nation's economy. Whether they are born of research, technological innovation or the strum of a guitar, creative expression of ideas are the backbone of job creation, growth and surplus trade," executive director Patrick Ross of the Copyright Alliance added.

"We urge Congress to act quickly so that copyright owners can see new enforcement measures on the President's desk this Congress," Ross said in a statement.

Public interest group Public Knowledge said it was concerned, however. "We are concerned that several provisions in this bill could have harmful, if unintended, consequences that would harm consumers," Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of the organization, said in a statement. "The bill rightly targets enforcement of copyright law against commercial infringers, but some of these same enforcement provisions are likely to hurt ordinary consumers.

"The provisions allowing seizure of equipment may be harmful to consumers," Sohn added. "Seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate. This bill goes even farther, expanding the penalties under the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to create new grounds for allowing a family's computer to be seized if used to circumvent digital rights management, even if for fair uses.

"In addition, this bill would turn the Justice Department into an arm of the legal departments of the entertainment companies by authorizing DoJ to file civil lawsuits for infringement, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill," Sohn concluded.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2326397,00.asp





Government Copyright Bill Fails Green Test
Michael Geist

The environment is obviously one of the biggest issues of the moment. The federal political parties are spending their summers trying to sell Canadians on their plans for the future, provincial governments are unveiling regulations to address waste, and local municipalities are getting into the game with increasingly sophisticated recycling programs.

As our environmental policies move beyond establishing emissions standards or cleanup requirements, law and regulation is increasingly focused on creating incentives for business to reduce polluting activities and for consumers to adopt environmentally-friendly habits. Given the desire to reorient long-standing practices, laws not traditionally considered part of the environmental file should also be examined to determine whether they are consistent with promoting "greener" behaviour.

The notion of "green copyright" sounds odd, yet the policy choices found in Bill C-61, Industry Minister Jim Prentice's controversial copyright bill, disappointingly run directly counter to the current emphasis on the environment.

For example, Canadians trash an estimated 184,000 tonnes of old computers, cellphones, and printer cartridges each year, with many of containing potentially hazardous materials such as mercury and lead. In response, the Ontario government recently proposed a new electronic waste fee to encourage recycling of older devices.

Despite attempts to reduce e-waste, Bill C-61 establishes new barriers to the reuse of electronics. If enacted into law, it would prohibit the unlocking of cellphones, forcing many consumers to junk their phones when they switch carriers (there are an estimated 500 million unused cellphones in the United States alone).

Similarly, the U.S. version of Bill C-61 has resulted in lawsuits over the legality of companies that offer to recycle printer ink cartridges. In one lawsuit, Lexmark sued a company that offered recycled cartridge and though it ultimately lost the case, the lawsuit created a strong chill for companies set to enter that marketplace.

Bill C-61 also creates new barriers in the race toward network-based computing, which forms part of the ICT industry's response to the fact that it accounts for more carbon emissions than the airline industry.

Network-based computing – often referred to as "cloud computing" – benefits from the efficiencies provided by large computer server farms that are often situated in proximity to clean energy sources. Network experts argue that Canada could parlay its high-speed optical networks and environmental advantages in the north to become a global cloud computing leader with zero carbon emissions, yet the new copyright bill now stands in the way.

The bill prohibits companies from taking advantage of cloud computing to offer network-based video recording services (as are offered by some U.S. based providers). It also stops consumers from shifting their music, videos, and other content to network-based computers, limiting these new rights to devices physically owned by the consumer. In fact, the bill even blocks consumers from using network-based computer backup since multiple copies of purchased songs or videos is forbidden.

Canadian politicians entered the summer recess expecting to get an earful about the environment from their constituents. To the surprise of many, the digital environment has joined the physical environment as one of the hot-button issues of the summer.

Sources indicate Prentice received more than 20,000 letters criticizing Bill C-61 within weeks of its introduction. Local members of Parliament such as Conservative Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North) and Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal (Newton-North Delta) have scheduled town hall meetings on copyright in response to constituent concerns, while author and broadcaster Tom King, an NDP candidate in the forthcoming Guelph by-election, has emphasized copyright as a key campaign issue.

As Canadians express concern over both their physical and digital environments, many may begin to link the issues by advocating for a greener copyright bill.
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/463909





First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.
Randall Stross

AFTER scanning his textbooks and making them available to anyone to download free, a contributor at the file-sharing site PirateBay.org composed a colorful message for “all publishers” of college textbooks, warning them that “myself and all other students are tired of getting” ripped off. (The contributor’s message included many ripe expletives, but hey, this is a family newspaper.)

All forms of print publishing must contend with the digital transition, but college textbook publishing has a particularly nasty problem on its hands. College students may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere.

Consider the cost of a legitimate copy of one of the textbooks listed at the Pirate Bay, John E. McMurry’s “Organic Chemistry.” A new copy has a list price of $209.95; discounted, it’s about $150; used copies run $110 and up. To many students, those prices are outrageous, set by profit-engorged corporations (and assisted by callous professors, who choose which texts are required). Helping themselves to gratis pirated copies may seem natural, especially when hard drives are loaded with lots of other products picked up free.

But many people outside of the students’ enclosed world would call that plain theft.

Compared with music publishers, textbook publishers have been relatively protected from piracy by the considerable trouble entailed in digitizing a printed textbook. Converting the roughly 1,300 pages of “Organic Chemistry” into a digital file requires much more time than ripping a CD.

Time flies, however, if you’re having a good time plotting righteous revenge, and students seem angrier than ever before about the price of textbooks. More students are choosing used books over new; sales of a new edition plunge as soon as used copies are available, in the semester following introduction; and publishers raise prices and shorten intervals between revisions to try to recoup the loss of revenue — and the demand for used books goes up all the more.

Used book sales return nothing to publishers and authors. Digital publishing, however, offers textbook publishers a way to effectively destroy the secondary market for textbooks: they now can shift the entire business model away from selling objects toward renting access to a site with a time-defined subscription, a different thing entirely.

The transition has already begun, even while publishers continue to sell print editions. They are pitching ancillary services that instructors can require students to purchase, just like textbooks, but which are available only online on a subscription basis. Cengage Learning, the publisher of Professor McMurry’s “Organic Chemistry,” packages the new book with a two-semester “access card” to a Cengage site that provides instructors with canned quizzes and students with interactive tutorials.

Ronald G. Dunn, chief executive of Cengage Learning, says he believes the printed book is not about to disappear, because it presents a large amount of material conveniently. Mr. Dunn predicted that textbook publishers were “headed for a hybrid market: print will do what it does best, and digital will do what it does best.”

Whether students will view online subscriptions as a helpful adjunct to the printed textbook or as a self-aggrandizing ploy by publishers remains to be seen.

As textbook publishers try to shift to an online subscription model, they must also stem the threat posed by the sharing of scanned copies of their textbooks by students who use online publishing tools for different purposes. The students who create and give away digital copies are motivated not by financial self-interest but by something more powerful: the sweet satisfaction of revenge.

Mr. Dunn says that online piracy is “a significant issue for us.” His company assigns employees to monitor file-sharing sites, and they find in any given month 200 to 300 Cengage textbook titles being shared. The company sends notices to the sites, demanding that the files be removed and threatening legal action.

Textbook Torrents, a site that opened last year and was wholly dedicated to arranging peer-to-peer sharing of textbook files, closed without explanation this month. But other sites continue to rely upon similar technology for disseminating unauthorized copies of textbooks, facilitating the piece-by-piece movement of copies of files found on the computers of participants.

The Pirate Bay, which is based in Sweden, presents a devilishly fearless challenge to American textbook publishers. It describes itself as an “anticopyright organization” and offers music, movies, television shows and software, as well as e-books like textbooks — not a single item of which, it boasts, has ever been removed at the request of a copyright owner.

When a copyright holder sends the Pirate Bay a removal request, the letter is posted on the site with a sarcastic response, like inquiring where an invoice should be sent for the costs of “Web publishing and hosting services” that Pirate Bay incurred when it posted the notice. I corresponded last week with Peter Sunde, a Pirate Bay founder, asking about evidence of greater interest in textbook titles. He said his site does not collect statistics about downloads because of privacy concerns, but generally, he said, the volume of e-book downloads had increased.

The textbook publishers have abundantly good reasons to promote e-books. When Cengage sells an e-book version of “Organic Chemistry” directly to students, for $109.99, it not only cuts out the middleman but also reduces the supply of used books at the end of the semester.

THE e-book is wrapped with digital rights management, which, history indicates, will be broken sooner or later. But as long as it does work, digital publishing with a subscription model is a much fairer basis for the business. Such an arrangement spreads revenue across multiple semesters, so it isn’t the unfortunate few students in the first semester with a new edition who shoulder the bulk of the burden.

A one-semester e-book subscription does require a change in expectations. Students cannot sell their texts at the end of a course, so buying one can’t be viewed as a short-term investment to be cashed out. But as students show no attachment to textbooks in any case, the loss of access after semester’s end seems likely to go unlamented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/te...gy/27digi.html





Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?
Motoko Rich

Books are not Nadia Konyk’s thing. Her mother, hoping to entice her, brings them home from the library, but Nadia rarely shows an interest.

Instead, like so many other teenagers, Nadia, 15, is addicted to the Internet. She regularly spends at least six hours a day in front of the computer here in this suburb southwest of Cleveland.

A slender, chatty blonde who wears black-framed plastic glasses, Nadia checks her e-mail and peruses myyearbook.com, a social networking site, reading messages or posting updates on her mood. She searches for music videos on YouTube and logs onto Gaia Online, a role-playing site where members fashion alternate identities as cutesy cartoon characters. But she spends most of her time on quizilla.com or fanfiction.net, reading and commenting on stories written by other users and based on books, television shows or movies.

Her mother, Deborah Konyk, would prefer that Nadia, who gets A’s and B’s at school, read books for a change. But at this point, Ms. Konyk said, “I’m just pleased that she reads something anymore.”

Children like Nadia lie at the heart of a passionate debate about just what it means to read in the digital age. The discussion is playing out among educational policy makers and reading experts around the world, and within groups like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

Even accomplished book readers like Zachary Sims, 18, of Old Greenwich, Conn., crave the ability to quickly find different points of view on a subject and converse with others online. Some children with dyslexia or other learning difficulties, like Hunter Gaudet, 16, of Somers, Conn., have found it far more comfortable to search and read online.

At least since the invention of television, critics have warned that electronic media would destroy reading. What is different now, some literacy experts say, is that spending time on the Web, whether it is looking up something on Google or even britneyspears.org, entails some engagement with text.

Setting Expectations

Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Pride and Prejudice” for fun. And those who prefer staring at a television or mashing buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit from reading on the Internet. In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.

Some Web evangelists say children should be evaluated for their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print reading comprehension. Starting next year, some countries will participate in new international assessments of digital literacy, but the United States, for now, will not.

Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Often, they argue, writers on the Internet employ a cryptic argot that vexes teachers and parents. Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games or sending instant messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best.

Last fall the National Endowment for the Arts issued a sobering report linking flat or declining national reading test scores among teenagers with the slump in the proportion of adolescents who said they read for fun.

According to Department of Education data cited in the report, just over a fifth of 17-year-olds said they read almost every day for fun in 2004, down from nearly a third in 1984. Nineteen percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun in 2004, up from 9 percent in 1984. (It was unclear whether they thought of what they did on the Internet as “reading.”)

“Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

Children are clearly spending more time on the Internet. In a study of 2,032 representative 8- to 18-year-olds, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half used the Internet on a typical day in 2004, up from just under a quarter in 1999. The average time these children spent online on a typical day rose to one hour and 41 minutes in 2004, from 46 minutes in 1999.

The question of how to value different kinds of reading is complicated because people read for many reasons. There is the level required of daily life — to follow the instructions in a manual or to analyze a mortgage contract. Then there is a more sophisticated level that opens the doors to elite education and professions. And, of course, people read for entertainment, as well as for intellectual or emotional rewards.

It is perhaps that final purpose that book champions emphasize the most.

“Learning is not to be found on a printout,” David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, said in a commencement address at Boston College in May. “It’s not on call at the touch of the finger. Learning is acquired mainly from books, and most readily from great books.”

What’s Best for Nadia?

Deborah Konyk always believed it was essential for Nadia and her 8-year-old sister, Yashca, to read books. She regularly read aloud to the girls and took them to library story hours.

“Reading opens up doors to places that you probably will never get to visit in your lifetime, to cultures, to worlds, to people,” Ms. Konyk said.

Ms. Konyk, who took a part-time job at a dollar store chain a year and a half ago, said she did not have much time to read books herself. There are few books in the house. But after Yashca was born, Ms. Konyk spent the baby’s nap time reading the Harry Potter novels to Nadia, and she regularly brought home new titles from the library.

Despite these efforts, Nadia never became a big reader. Instead, she became obsessed with Japanese anime cartoons on television and comics like “Sailor Moon.” Then, when she was in the sixth grade, the family bought its first computer. When a friend introduced Nadia to fanfiction.net, she turned off the television and started reading online.

Now she regularly reads stories that run as long as 45 Web pages. Many of them have elliptical plots and are sprinkled with spelling and grammatical errors. One of her recent favorites was “My absolutely, perfect normal life ... ARE YOU CRAZY? NOT!,” a story based on the anime series “Beyblade.”

In one scene the narrator, Aries, hitches a ride with some masked men and one of them pulls a knife on her. “Just then I notice (Like finally) something sharp right in front of me,” Aries writes. “I gladly took it just like that until something terrible happen ....”

Nadia said she preferred reading stories online because “you could add your own character and twist it the way you want it to be.”

“So like in the book somebody could die,” she continued, “but you could make it so that person doesn’t die or make it so like somebody else dies who you don’t like.”

Nadia also writes her own stories. She posted “Dieing Isn’t Always Bad,” about a girl who comes back to life as half cat, half human, on both fanfiction.net and quizilla.com.

Nadia said she wanted to major in English at college and someday hopes to be published. She does not see a problem with reading few books. “No one’s ever said you should read more books to get into college,” she said.

The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers. According to federal statistics, students who say they read for fun once a day score significantly higher on reading tests than those who say they never do.

Reading skills are also valued by employers. A 2006 survey by the Conference Board, which conducts research for business leaders, found that nearly 90 percent of employers rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with bachelor’s degrees. Department of Education statistics also show that those who score higher on reading tests tend to earn higher incomes.

Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. “What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” said Mr. Gioia of the N.E.A. “I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests.”

Nicholas Carr sounded a similar note in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in the current issue of the Atlantic magazine. Warning that the Web was changing the way he — and others — think, he suggested that the effects of Internet reading extended beyond the falling test scores of adolescence. “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” he wrote, confessing that he now found it difficult to read long books.

Literacy specialists are just beginning to investigate how reading on the Internet affects reading skills. A recent study of more than 700 low-income, mostly Hispanic and black sixth through 10th graders in Detroit found that those students read more on the Web than in any other medium, though they also read books. The only kind of reading that related to higher academic performance was frequent novel reading, which predicted better grades in English class and higher overall grade point averages.

Elizabeth Birr Moje, a professor at the University of Michigan who led the study, said novel reading was similar to what schools demand already. But on the Internet, she said, students are developing new reading skills that are neither taught nor evaluated in school.

One early study showed that giving home Internet access to low-income students appeared to improve standardized reading test scores and school grades. “These were kids who would typically not be reading in their free time,” said Linda A. Jackson, a psychology professor at Michigan State who led the research. “Once they’re on the Internet, they’re reading.”

Neurological studies show that learning to read changes the brain’s circuitry. Scientists speculate that reading on the Internet may also affect the brain’s hard wiring in a way that is different from book reading.

“The question is, does it change your brain in some beneficial way?” said Guinevere F. Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University. “The brain is malleable and adapts to its environment. Whatever the pressures are on us to succeed, our brain will try and deal with it.”

Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,” said Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.

But This Is Reading Too

Web proponents believe that strong readers on the Web may eventually surpass those who rely on books. Reading five Web sites, an op-ed article and a blog post or two, experts say, can be more enriching than reading one book.

“It takes a long time to read a 400-page book,” said Mr. Spiro of Michigan State. “In a tenth of the time,” he said, the Internet allows a reader to “cover a lot more of the topic from different points of view.”

Zachary Sims, the Old Greenwich, Conn., teenager, often stays awake until 2 or 3 in the morning reading articles about technology or politics — his current passions — on up to 100 Web sites.

“On the Internet, you can hear from a bunch of people,” said Zachary, who will attend Columbia University this fall. “They may not be pedigreed academics. They may be someone in their shed with a conspiracy theory. But you would weigh that.”

Though he also likes to read books (earlier this year he finished, and loved, “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand), Zachary craves interaction with fellow readers on the Internet. “The Web is more about a conversation,” he said. “Books are more one-way.”

The kinds of skills Zachary has developed — locating information quickly and accurately, corroborating findings on multiple sites — may seem obvious to heavy Web users. But the skills can be cognitively demanding.

Web readers are persistently weak at judging whether information is trustworthy. In one study, Donald J. Leu, who researches literacy and technology at the University of Connecticut, asked 48 students to look at a spoof Web site (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) about a mythical species known as the “Pacific Northwest tree octopus.” Nearly 90 percent of them missed the joke and deemed the site a reliable source.

Some literacy experts say that reading itself should be redefined. Interpreting videos or pictures, they say, may be as important a skill as analyzing a novel or a poem.

“Kids are using sound and images so they have a world of ideas to put together that aren’t necessarily language oriented,” said Donna E. Alvermann, a professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia. “Books aren’t out of the picture, but they’re only one way of experiencing information in the world today.”

A Lifelong Struggle

In the case of Hunter Gaudet, the Internet has helped him feel more comfortable with a new kind of reading. A varsity lacrosse player in Somers, Conn., Hunter has struggled most of his life to read. After learning he was dyslexic in the second grade, he was placed in special education classes and a tutor came to his home three hours a week. When he entered high school, he dropped the special education classes, but he still reads books only when forced, he said.

In a book, “they go through a lot of details that aren’t really needed,” Hunter said. “Online just gives you what you need, nothing more or less.”

When researching the 19th-century Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for one class, he typed Taney’s name into Google and scanned the Wikipedia entry and other biographical sites. Instead of reading an entire page, he would type in a search word like “college” to find Taney’s alma mater, assembling his information nugget by nugget.

Experts on reading difficulties suggest that for struggling readers, the Web may be a better way to glean information. “When you read online there are always graphics,” said Sally Shaywitz, the author of “Overcoming Dyslexia” and a Yale professor. “I think it’s just more comfortable and — I hate to say easier — but it more meets the needs of somebody who might not be a fluent reader.”

Karen Gaudet, Hunter’s mother, a regional manager for a retail chain who said she read two or three business books a week, hopes Hunter will eventually discover a love for books. But she is confident that he has the reading skills he needs to succeed.

“Based on where technology is going and the world is going,” she said, “he’s going to be able to leverage it.”

When he was in seventh grade, Hunter was one of 89 students who participated in a study comparing performance on traditional state reading tests with a specially designed Internet reading test. Hunter, who scored in the lowest 10 percent on the traditional test, spent 12 weeks learning how to use the Web for a science class before taking the Internet test. It was composed of three sets of directions asking the students to search for information online, determine which sites were reliable and explain their reasoning.

Hunter scored in the top quartile. In fact, about a third of the students in the study, led by Professor Leu, scored below average on traditional reading tests but did well on the Internet assessment.

The Testing Debate

To date, there have been few large-scale appraisals of Web skills. The Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, has developed a digital literacy test known as iSkills that requires students to solve informational problems by searching for answers on the Web. About 80 colleges and a handful of high schools have administered the test so far.

But according to Stephen Denis, product manager at ETS, of the more than 20,000 students who have taken the iSkills test since 2006, only 39 percent of four-year college freshmen achieved a score that represented “core functional levels” in Internet literacy.

Now some literacy experts want the federal tests known as the nation’s report card to include a digital reading component. So far, the traditionalists have held sway: The next round, to be administered to fourth and eighth graders in 2009, will test only print reading comprehension.

Mary Crovo of the National Assessment Governing Board, which creates policies for the national tests, said several members of a committee that sets guidelines for the reading tests believed large numbers of low-income and rural students might not have regular Internet access, rendering measurements of their online skills unfair.

Some simply argue that reading on the Internet is not something that needs to be tested — or taught.

“Nobody has taught a single kid to text message,” said Carol Jago of the National Council of Teachers of English and a member of the testing guidelines committee. “Kids are smart. When they want to do something, schools don’t have to get involved.”

Michael L. Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford who lobbied for an Internet component as chairman of the reading test guidelines committee, disagreed. Students “are going to grow up having to be highly competent on the Internet,” he said. “There’s no reason to make them discover how to be highly competent if we can teach them.”

The United States is diverging from the policies of some other countries. Next year, for the first time, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers reading, math and science tests to a sample of 15-year-old students in more than 50 countries, will add an electronic reading component. The United States, among other countries, will not participate. A spokeswoman for the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Department of Education, said an additional test would overburden schools.

Even those who are most concerned about the preservation of books acknowledge that children need a range of reading experiences. “Some of it is the informal reading they get in e-mails or on Web sites,” said Gay Ivey, a professor at James Madison University who focuses on adolescent literacy. “I think they need it all.”

Web junkies can occasionally be swept up in a book. After Nadia read Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir “Night” in her freshman English class, Ms. Konyk brought home another Holocaust memoir, “I Have Lived a Thousand Years,” by Livia Bitton-Jackson.

Nadia was riveted by heartbreaking details of life in the concentration camps. “I was trying to imagine this and I was like, I can’t do this,” she said. “It was just so — wow.”

Hoping to keep up the momentum, Ms. Konyk brought home another book, “Silverboy,” a fantasy novel. Nadia made it through one chapter before she got engrossed in the Internet fan fiction again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/bo...eading.html?hp





Black Radio on Obama Is Left’s Answer to Limbaugh
Jim Rutenberg

Warren Ballentine, one of black talk radio’s new stars, was on a tear against Senator John McCain as he broadcast from the Greenbriar Mall here last week, blithely dismissing Mr. McCain’s kind words about Senator Barack Obama at the recent N.A.A.C.P. national convention.

“He came out talking about how good of a race Barack Obama was running, and how proud he was of Barack,” Mr. Ballentine said. “You know he went back home and said, ‘I can’t believe I spoke in front of all those Negroes today!’ ”

“He was pandering to the crowd, talking about how he felt when Martin Luther King Jr. died,” Mr. Ballentine went on. “However, he didn’t vote for the holiday of Martin Luther King Jr.”

Rush Limbaugh, meet your black liberal counterprogramming. Mr. Ballentine is one of the many African-American radio hosts and commentators who are aggressively advocating for Mr. Obama’s election on black-oriented radio stations daily.

Since Mr. Limbaugh first flexed his tonsils two decades ago, Democrats have publicly worried about their lack of an answer to him and his imitators, who have proven so adept at motivating conservative Republicans to go to the polls, especially for President Bush.

Now it is Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has a harmonious chorus of broadcast supporters addressing a vital part of his coalition, feeding and reflecting the excitement blacks have for his candidacy in general. Mr. Obama is getting support from white liberal talk radio hosts as well, but the backing he is getting from black radio hosts could be especially helpful to his campaign’s efforts to increase black turnout and raise historically low voter registration enough to change the math of presidential elections in battlegrounds and traditionally Republican states like this one.

“Urban stations can be in ’08 what Rush Limbaugh delivered for conservatives a generation ago,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has a two-year-old radio program that is now syndicated on stations throughout the country, including in states like Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina. “If you look at the political map of where our shows are, it matches the gap of unregistered voters.”

Mr. Limbaugh and other conservative hosts generally support Mr. McCain, though perhaps with less enthusiasm than they displayed for the man he hopes to replace.

When it comes to criticism from black radio hosts like Mr. Ballentine, Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said, “John McCain believes every person is entitled to their opinion, no matter how outrageous.”

“But John McCain is an inclusive candidate,” Mr. Bounds added, “and he will be the president of all Americans.” (Mr. Ballentine was correct that Mr. McCain voted against the Martin Luther King holiday, in 1983 — but Mr. McCain later expressed regret and supported the holiday in his home state.)

While debate may continue over whether Mr. Obama is drawing an inordinate share of attention from mainstream news and entertainment outlets, there is generally little pretense of balance in major African-American media outlets. More often than not, the Obama campaign is discussed as the home team.

Mr. Obama conducted frequent interviews with black radio personalities during the primary season, appearing on programs like “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” where his swing through the Middle East was referred to as a “pre-victory tour” on Friday; the “Michael Baisden Show,” where the host has joked that the savings from the gasoline tax suspension Mr. McCain supports would help him buy a pack of “Now & Laters” candy, and “The Steve Harvey Morning Show.”

Those three shows report reaching a combined audience of nearly 20 million, though industry analysts say exact, national numbers are hard to peg and programs generally are known to exaggerate their audiences.

The favoritism extends beyond talk radio.

This month’s Ebony magazine lists Mr. Obama first among the “25 Coolest Brothers of All Time,” alongside Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Caribbean stations play songs about him, like “Barack Obama” by Cocoa Tea and “Barack the Magnificent” by the calypso star Mighty Sparrow. “We spin them three, four times a day,” said Sir Rockwell, the morning D.J. at WDJA in Delray Beach, Fla.

Earlier this year, attendees of the Black Entertainment Television network’s annual awards program, including the stars Alicia Keys and P. Diddy, turned it into an impromptu rally for the candidate (“Obama, y’all!,” Ms. Keys shouted upon receiving an award before a television audience of nearly six million people).

The network is planning to show Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention live, but not Mr. McCain’s. “This is an historic occasion, so that demands some special treatment from us,” Debra L. Lee, the BET chairman, said of the Democratic convention. Her smaller rival, TV One, said it would not cover the Republican convention at all.

Within the black media, there have been questions about whether Mr. Obama is keeping his distance from them and their audiences to avoid being too identified by race. Some black radio hosts now complain that he is avoiding them at worst and taking them for granted at best as he courts white voters through more mainstream outlets.

“There is the appearance he will go to a Larry King before he will go on black radio in, say, Arkansas,” said Bev Smith, a black talk radio pioneer based in Pittsburgh. She placed the blame on Mr. Obama’s staff, not the candidate, who has occasionally visited her program. The Obama campaign has come under similar criticism from some members of the major trade group for black newspaper owners, the National News Publishers Association, after Mr. Obama declined invitations to appear at the group’s events.

Aides to Mr. Obama said he has been busy transitioning to a general election footing, part of which has included outreach to other voter groups less familiar with Mr. Obama. But, earlier this week the campaign hired a new communications strategist, Corey Ealons, to focus exclusively on black media and help with an intensified effort to take advantage of their excitement about Mr. Obama’s candidacy.

“As Senator Obama expands his outreach to voters during the general election, African-American media will continue to be a very important part of expressing his priorities for the community,” Mr. Ealons said. Mr. Obama is to appear Sunday at a gathering of minority journalists in Chicago called the Unity ’08 Convention. Mr. McCain declined an invitation to speak to the group.

Whatever criticism the black media has of the Obama campaign, it has generally not shown up heavily on the air or in print. Earlier this year, the PBS and public radio host Tavis Smiley, one of the best known black radio and television voices, resigned as a regular commentator on Mr. Joyner’s show after receiving a hail of angry e-mail messages and phone calls for questioning Mr. Obama’s commitment to black issues.

One caller to Mr. Ballentine’s show last week laid out some boundaries for him, as well: “All of us coming down on him and criticizing him before we give him a chance, you know, that might hurt his campaign — let’s get him in there first,” the caller said. Mr. Ballentine responded, “Brother, I would never criticize him — until he’s in the White House.”

Mr. Ballentine, who says he has an audience of three million people nationally, usually broadcasts from his home town of Durham, N.C. His special appearance at the mall here — with a predominantly black clientele — provided a vivid example of just how helpful hosts like him can be.

“Even if you are a convicted felon, you can go and vote,” he told his listeners, although the laws vary from state to state. “We need to be registering people with tremendous numbers.”

At each commercial break, he invited his local audience to come to the mall to register; he did not mention that the man signing up voters was an Obama staff member.

Mr. Ballentine has plenty of company in the registration drive. “I really push to get out the vote,” Ms. Smith, the host from Pittsburgh, said. Ms. Smith said Mr. Obama could turbo-charge the efforts by appearing on black radio more, though she understood the complexities.

“Barack Obama is walking a thin line because whites will accuse him of being too black and blacks will accuse him of being too white,” she said. “I think he’s a godsend — whether he’s on my show or not, I’m going to talk about him every day.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/us...7radio.html?hp





Merger of XM and Sirius a Step Closer to Approval
Tim Arango

The Federal Communications Commission was set to approve a merger between XM and Sirius on Thursday, a move that would end a nearly 18-month review of a deal that would essentially create a monopoly in satellite radio.

Late Wednesday, the F.C.C. reached a consent decree with the two companies involving violations of commission rules, an agreement that should pave the way for formal commission approval as early as Thursday.

“I’m optimistic that this is a significant obstacle we can take off the table and move ahead very shortly with the merger,” Kevin J. Martin, the chairman, said in a telephone interview Thursday morning.

The violations involved receivers in cars that were not compliant with F.C.C. rules. XM will pay a $17.5 million fine, while Sirius will pay $2.2 million. The difference in the fines is because XM, according to Mr. Martin, continued to flout commission rules after being notified they were in violation. “That’s a significant violation of our own rules,” he said.

On Wednesday, Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican member of the F.C.C., appeared ready to vote in favor of the deal, which would break a deadlock along party lines among the other four commissioners. She would join Mr. Martin in supporting the merger, with certain conditions.

Jonathan S. Adelstein, a Democratic F.C.C. commissioner, on Wednesday voted against the merger, arguing that it was not in the public interest to let the only two companies in a particular business combine.

Both XM and Sirius operate satellites that beam radio signals to subscribers, who must pay for the service; each offers a menu of stations with a much broader geographic reach than terrestrial radio.

In March, the Justice Department, which reviews deals on antitrust grounds, approved the proposed $5 billion merger. Agency officials said they did not view the deal as creating a monopoly because of the many alternatives in audio programming, like iPods and HD Radio.

The combination of Sirius and XM would create one satellite radio company with about 17 million subscribers and programming that would run the gamut from Howard Stern to Oprah Winfrey, Major League Baseball to Martha Stewart.

Although the F.C.C. made no announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Adelstein’s public comments suggested that the commission was close to approval.

“I was hoping to forge a bipartisan solution that would offer consumers more diversity in programming, better price protection, greater choices among innovative devices and real competition with digital radio,” he said in a statement. “Instead, it appears they’re going to get a monopoly with window dressing.”

Patrick Reilly, a spokesman for Sirius, did not return a call seeking comment. Nathaniel Brown, the spokesman for XM, declined to comment. A spokesman at the F.C.C. declined to comment, and Ms. Tate did not immediately return a call for comment.

While no formal announcement was made, many saw the deal as a fait accompli.

“As expected, the Federal Communications vote on the XM-Sirius deal is going to be a 3-2 vote, with Republican Commissioner Deborah Tate casting the decisive vote, most probably, in our view, in favor of the transaction,” wrote Blair Levin, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus and a former chief of staff at the F.C.C., in a research note on Wednesday.

With the final go-ahead from the government, the deal could close within days, giving a significant victory to Mel Karmazin, the chief executive of Sirius and the person who would run the combined company. A longtime media and entertainment executive — he previously ran CBS and was president of Viacom — Mr. Karmazin was the chief architect of the merger with XM.

Among the conditions that both companies had already accepted were à la carte programming that would give consumers flexibility in which channels they pay for, the permission for any electronics company to develop devices that would receive the service and a price freeze for three years.

Shares in both companies rose on Wednesday in anticipation of approval. XM rose 94 cents, or 10.3 percent, to close at $10.04. Sirius closed at $2.68, up 30 cents, or 12.6 percent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/bu...a/25radio.html





Music Industry Zealous in Tracking Tune Thieves
Thomas Kaplan

Ellen Saylor, a 70-year-old retiree who lives in Clearwater, does not exactly fit the profile of someone who might steal music on the Internet.

Yet America's largest record companies are suing her in federal court this month on accusations of illegally downloading music she didn't buy, a charge that has quietly ensnared dozens in the bay area in recent years, much to their fright. "I don't even know how to use a computer," Saylor says. "How could they say I'm doing something like that?"

Saylor stands to lose thousands of dollars if the record companies prevail, and she is not alone. With little fanfare, record companies are filing thousands of lawsuits per year across the country in an effort to discourage the illegal downloading they say has cost the music industry billions.

And just in this part of Florida, judges are awarding them hundreds of thousands of dollars for their claims.

Scores have been sued in Florida's Middle District since 2003, and facing the prospect of even larger costs in legal fees, at least 50 of them have not even bothered to fight the lawsuits in court, according to a review of records by the St. Petersburg Times. Judges have ordered them to pay the record companies a total of more than $300,000 in damages.

That doesn't include the many people who settle with the record companies rather than face a lawsuit. Attorneys who have handled the cases say there is little else for defendants to do but settle or simply allow the court to rule against them, with legal costs prohibitive and the prospect of a lengthy court battle with the billion-dollar record industry daunting.

Lawsuits were filed this month against Saylor and five others in the area, including 21-year-old Monika Pierzchlewicz, a student at the University of South Florida.

Pierzchlewicz's mother, Grazyna, said when she first learned of the lawsuit, she wanted to fight. But then she went online and read about other cases, including that of a Minnesota woman who decided to challenge her own copyright infringement lawsuit and was found liable by a jury last fall for $220,000 in damages.

That changed her tune. "I'm just so scared," she said this week. "I think we're just probably going to settle. I don't even want to go to court."

Her reaction was hardly unique among people facing the suit, according to Michael Wasylik, a Dade City lawyer who has handled several "file sharing" lawsuits in the bay area.

"The primary impact of these lawsuits is sheer terror in not only the targets, but their families," he said. "For college students especially, I get phone calls from mothers and fathers who are angry, who are upset, who are confused, who are terrified at what's going to happen to their children."

But the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group that represents the record companies, says the lawsuits are not about intimidation or making money, but rather the principle that stealing music on the Internet is exactly that — stealing.
"The reality of it is that nobody wants to get caught, and most people complain when they are," said Liz Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the RIAA. "Bringing lawsuits was never the music industry's first choice, rather a small piece of a large puzzle ultimately aimed at encouraging fans to go legal."

More than half of all college students download free music illegally, amounting to as many as 1.3-billion illegal downloads annually, according to studies cited by the record companies. To fight back, the RIAA monitors online file-sharing traffic and looks for copyrighted work being shared; when such material is found, investigators determine the user who was sharing the music.

Then they take action. The RIAA has filed more than 30,000 lawsuits since 2003 and has even set up a Web site where people can pay their settlements via credit card.

So that's what many people do. "It's impossible to fight it," Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who is a leading critic of the record industry's suits, said in a telephone interview. "They have no good options. They can't afford to pay for lengthy litigation; they can't afford the settlement."

That was the predicament facing Dunedin resident Morgan Halloway, a 23-year-old senior at St. Petersburg College. Halloway admits she downloaded music illegally — just like all her friends, she said — but never expected to face the wrath of the record companies.

"Your first thought is, 'How am I going to pay for this, am I going to go to jail?' " she recalled this week. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong. Why (sue) me, when so many people do it?"

Halloway said she tried to settle with the record companies but could not afford the $5,000 fee they demanded. "I tried to explain to them, 'Hey, I'm a full-time student, can I do a payment plan?'" she said. "They said, 'Well, that's not good enough for us.' "

So she did nothing, and a federal judge in April entered a $7,500 judgment against her, one of dozens piling up in federal court here. (Money made from the lawsuits is reinvested into education programs and deterrence efforts, Kennedy said. The court awards depend, in part, on the number of songs a person is accused of getting illegally.)

Halloway's father, John, 48, a retired Pinellas County sheriff's deputy, still fumes about the ordeal. "This is a record company shakedown, is what it is," he said. "It's time that it stops."

Saylor, meanwhile, didn't even realize she was being sued until a reporter telephoned her this week. The record companies say they caught her sharing more than 1,800 songs — including tracks by Destiny's Child, Kenny Chesney and Christina Aguilera — last summer.

A retired housekeeper of limited means, Saylor said she has a computer at home that a granddaughter has occasionally used for schoolwork, and nothing else. Faced with the lawsuit, she says she isn't sure what she'll do next.

"I've worked for everything I've got, and I don't understand why people are out there trying to rob you," she said. "I never thought anything like this would happen."

Times researchers Shirl Kennedy and John Martin contributed to this report. Thomas Kaplan can be reached at (813) 226-3404 or tkaplan@sptimes.com.


>>FAST FACTS

How illegal file-sharing works

In general, record companies monitor peer-to-peer file sharing networks online — accessed through programs like Lime Wire and, before it was shut down, the original Napster — to see if copyright songs are available for download. The programs allow people to avail their music collection to fellow Internet users to download, and to search for songs (and movies and TV shows) to download for their own enjoyment. But people who share their music can be identified by their internet protocol (IP) address, which can then be traced to reveal their full identity and allow the record companies to file lawsuits.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/article709473.ece





Man Receives Suspended Sentence for File Sharing
The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Kyoto District Court sentenced a man to 18 months in prison Thursday, suspended for three years, for distributing popular TV animation footage using the Share file-sharing software without the permission of the copyright holders.

Prosecutors had sought an 18-month prison sentence for Kazuhiro Maki, 34, a former company employee of Kawasaki, over violations of the Copyright Law.

According to the ruling, Maki infringed on copyrights from April to May by helping an indefinite number of Share users download animation footage originally aired on TV.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national...25TDY02304.htm





Serious YouTube Test of Copyright Law
Bob Egelko

A woman who posted a home video on YouTube of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" squared off Friday against entertainment giant Universal Music Corp. in a federal court case that tests copyright law.

The issue in Stephanie Lenz's lawsuit against Universal is whether the owner of the rights to a creative work that's being used without permission can order the Web host to remove it without first considering whether the infringement was actually a legal fair use - a small or innocuous replication that couldn't affect the market for the original work.

Lenz's lawyers, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say her 29-second video, with fuzzy camerawork and unclear sound, was such an obvious noncommercial fair use that Universal should have to reimburse her for the costs of taking it out of circulation for more than a month last year.

The company's lawyers say the 1998 federal law that authorized copyright-holders to issue takedown orders didn't require any such inquiry - in fact, they argue, there's no such thing as an obvious fair use.

No court has ever addressed the issue, said U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, who is presiding over the case.

Lenz, a writer and editor from Gallitzin, Pa., used her digital camera to take the video of her son, Holden, dancing to "Let's Go Crazy" on a home CD player in February 2007, and she posted the file on YouTube for family and friends, her lawyers said.

Four months later, Universal, which owns the rights to the song, ordered YouTube to remove the video and nearly 200 others involving compositions by Prince. Copyright owners gained that power under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows them to remove Web postings that they believe to be unauthorized duplicates without having to sue for infringement.

Lenz, exercising her rights under the same law, notified YouTube several weeks later that her video is legal and ordered it restored. YouTube complied after waiting two weeks, as required by law, to see whether Universal would sue Lenz for copyright infringement - a suit that would have allowed her to claim fair use as a defense. Lenz then sued Universal in Northern California, YouTube's home district, claiming the takedown order was an abuse of the copyright law.

"There must be some requirement that a copyright owner both consider fair uses and determine honestly whether they exist before sending their (takedown) notice," Lenz's lawyer, Corynne McSherry, said in court papers. She said the video, which focuses on the toddler and contains only a snippet of the song, couldn't have any conceivable impact on the market Universal's copyright was meant to protect.

But Fogel, at Friday's hearing, said he was concerned that requiring copyright holders to consider the possibility of fair use before ordering a takedown puts judges in the business of "trying to read their minds" and seems to be an expansion of the 1998 law.

Universal's lawyer, Kelly Klaus, argued that even brief homemade videos have a potential commercial effect if they proliferate on a site like YouTube and that Lenz's posting flies in the face of the 1998 law, which allows copyright holders to order removal of work believed to be an infringement.

Fogel observed, however, that the law is "intended to prevent misuse of takedown notices."

The Lenz video can be viewed at http://links.sfgate.com/ZEGD





Wife's Rant on YouTube Falls Foul of Judge
Ed Pilkington

A British actor who took her battle against her millionaire husband to the internet, posting videos that lambasted him on YouTube and which gained an audience of millions, has been ordered to leave her New York home by a judge who has ruled her behaviour was "spousal abuse".

Tricia Walsh-Smith, 52, whose previous claim to fame had been bit parts in the Benny Hill Show and a play she wrote called Bonkers, had the YouTube videos professionally filmed in the Park Avenue apartment she has shared for 13 years with her husband. In them she claimed Philip Smith, a Broadway producer, 77, was trying to evict her and leave her penniless.

In a six-minute rant, she railed against "male chauvinist pigs" and exhorted "woman warriors" to flock to her cause. She also revealed embarrassing details, notably that he had a stash of the impotence drug Viagra despite the fact they never had sex. The videos attracted more than 4m hits on YouTube.

Smith sued for divorce on the grounds that the videos were a form of spousal abuse, and this week Judge Harold Beeler of New York state supreme court agreed.

He said Walsh-Smith had embarked on a "callous campaign to embarrass and humiliate her husband and his daughters. Smith has been publicly humiliated to an unprecedented extent." Walsh-Smith must quit the apartment within a month. Smith in turn is bound to pay her $750,000 (£375,000) under the terms of their pre-nuptial agreement. "I'm terribly sorry it came to this, but I'm obviously happy with the result," Smith said. Walsh-Smith insists she has no regrets about her dalliance with marital meltdown via the web: "It brought attention to my plight and the plight of a lot of other women."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/23/usa.youtube





Woman Accused in MySpace Suicide Case Seeks to Have All Charges Dismissed
Peter Whoriskey

The lawyer for a Missouri mother accused of creating a fake MySpace page to harass a 13-year-old girl is arguing that charges should be tossed out of court because if she is guilty, then so are millions of Internet users every day.

Lori Drew became the focus of national outrage after the girl committed suicide. Court papers filed yesterday seize on a possible weakness in the prosecution case that has been noted by several legal experts since the May indictment: While Drew's alleged behavior may have been wrong, there is no legal sanction against it.

In charging Drew, prosecutors relied on their belief that she, like countless others on social networks such as MySpace, created a fake identity -- in this case, a 16-year-old boy, "Josh Evans," who flirted with and then rejected 13-year-old Megan Meier.

Because the false profile violated MySpace policy, prosecutors charged Drew with four counts based on her accessing a computer system "without authorization." In doing so, they relied on a statute commonly wielded against hackers and information thieves.

Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization and via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

"The government, in its zeal to charge Lori Drew with something, anything, has tried to criminalize everyday, ordinary conduct: the wayward or misuse of a social-network website," defense attorney H. Dean Steward wrote in a motion to dismiss that was filed yesterday.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment.

Drew's alleged harassment of Meier is often cited as an example of boorish behavior on the Web, where the freedom of electronic communication has often devolved into vitriol and vulgarity.

But whether such behavior can be or should be legally regulated is disputed.

Prosecutors say Drew created the "Josh Evans" identity in order to strike up a flirty conversation with Meier, who had been friends with her daughter. After a few weeks of chatting, "Josh Evans" began to send Megan nasty messages. Finally, her father said, one suggested that "the world would be a better place'' without her.

In October 2006, soon after allegedly receiving the message, Meier hanged herself in her bedroom.

The resulting public outrage led state and federal prosecutors in Missouri to examine the case.

After a meeting in March 2007, "it was decided that the case should be declined for federal prosecution," according to an internal memo from the FBI's St. Louis office.

Later, however, federal prosecutors in the Los Angeles area, where MySpace's servers are, picked up the case.

"To my knowledge, it is the first case of its kind in the nation,'' U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien told reporters. "But when an adult violates terms on a MySpace account to gain information that creates this type of reaction, it caused this office to take a really hard look.''

While acknowledging that public sentiment runs against Drew's purported Web behavior, some legal experts and civil liberties groups argue that the prosecution's case would mean that millions of people who violate the terms of service at the Web sites they visit could become criminally liable.

Many people gloss over or simply skip the legal documents they encounter on the Web. But in the Drew case, the essence of the prosecution is that by violating MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, she was accessing the MySpace system "without authorization."

"The problem with this case is it makes a criminal out of virtually everybody online," said Mark Rasch, a former computer crime prosecutor at the Department of Justice and now a privacy and security consultant. "This was a hackers' statute -- a break-in statute. When we start to apply it to other conduct, it puts other people's liberty at risk," he said.

"The conduct that is abhorrent is leading this girl on -- and if they want to prohibit that, they should pass a cyber-harassment law," Rasch said.

Experts in the field also said that if violating terms of service is a crime, then the Web sites that write the agreements essentially could function as lawmakers or prosecutors.

"The possibilities for abuse are endless because Web site terms of service are arbitrary," said Orin S. Kerr, a former federal computer crime prosecutor and now a George Washington University law professor, who has provided informal advice to the defense. "A computer owner could set up a public Web site; announce that only Christians can visit; and then refer for prosecution any Jews, Muslims or atheists who visit the Web site out of curiosity."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072301542.html





Facebook Libel Case Damages Won

Businessman wins first ever libel case involving Facebook
BBC

A businessman whose personal details were "laid bare" in fake entries on the Facebook social networking website has won a libel case at the High Court.

Mathew Firsht was awarded £22,000 in damages against an old school friend, Grant Raphael, who created the profile.

The judge ruled that Mr Raphael's defence - that the entry was created by mischievous party gate-crashers at his flat - was "built on lies".

The profiles were on Facebook for 16 days until they were taken down.

Mr Firsht accused Mr Raphael of creating a false personal profile, and a company profile called "Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?".

Mr Raphael said that "strangers" who attended an impromptu party at his house in Hampstead in North London sneaked off to a spare bedroom and created the profiles on his PC.

Deputy Judge Richard Parkes QC described his claim as "utterly far-fetched".

The judge heard that the private information concerned Mr Firsht's whereabouts, activities, birthday and relationship status and falsely indicated his sexual orientation and political views.

Bearing a grudge

Mr Firsht complained about allegations that he owed substantial sums of money which he had repeatedly avoided paying by lying, and that he and his company were not to be trusted.

He was awarded £15,000 for libel and £2,000 for breach of privacy and his company, which finds audiences for TV and radio shows and provides warm-up services for live audiences, including the evictions on Big Brother, was awarded £5,000 for libel.

The two former friends went to school together in Brighton but fell out around six years ago over a business dispute.

Mr Firsht accused Mr Raphael of bearing a grudge against him and of creating the false Facebook entry with the aim of causing him anxiety and embarrassment.

"He is plainly a businessman of single-minded drive and dedication, and he did not strike me as being the kind of man to waste valuable time on ancient disputes," the judge said.

By contrast, Mr Raphael's company went into voluntary liquidation and, by the time the present dispute arose, "Mr Firsht was prospering and highly successful, and Mr Raphael was not".

The judge said Mr Firsht would have accepted an apology if Mr Raphael had offered one at an early stage, thus avoiding the distress and expense of litigation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7523128.stm





Scrabble Maker Hasbro Sues Over 'Scrabulous'
Declan McCullagh

This is the lawsuit we all knew was coming: Hasbro, which sells the Scrabble board game, has sued to shut down the wildly popular knockoff on Facebook called Scrabulous.

Hasbro on Thursday filed a copyright and trademark lawsuit in New York against the creators of the ad-supported Scrabulous application, which boasts an astonishing half-million daily users.

Mark Blecher, general manager for Hasbro Digital Media, said in a telephone interview that his employer's goal is to promote its authentic, legitimate Facebook application. "This is theft of intellectual property," Blecher said of Scrabulous. "It's really no different from when the recording industry faced the issue of folks posting music on sites like Napster and letting them copy it for free."

Blecher said that Hasbro waited, "in deference to the fans," until it launched its official Scrabble Facebook app earlier this month. That was created by Electronic Arts and is used by a mere 8,900 daily users.

The lawsuit names as defendants Kolkata, India-based RJ Softwares, its CEO Rajat Agarwalla, and Jayant Agarwalla, who launched Scrabulous two years ago. It asks the court to yank the Scrabulous game from Facebook, disable the Scrabulous.com domain name, and grant Hasbro damages and attorneys fees.

It's unclear how the lawsuit will proceed; the defendants could simply ignore it if they no U.S. assets to seize, and aren't worried about Indian courts enforcing a default judgment. RJ Softwares did not respond to queries on Thursday.

Hasbro combined the lawsuit with a notice to Facebook invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's takedown provision. Facebook also did not immediately respond to queries. As of approximately 2 p.m. PT on Thursday, the Scrabulous application was still listed on Facebook.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-999...=2547-1_3-0-20





Turnabout

Facebook Sues German Rival
Natalie Weinstein

Social-networking giant Facebook has filed a copyright infringement suit against a German counterpart, according to the Financial Times.

StudiVZ is accused of "copying the look, feel, features and services" of Facebook, including its "wall" feature, according to the complaint filed Friday in California, the Financial Times reported.

The suit asserts that the sites are so similar that StudiVZ simply replaced Facebook's "blue color scheme with a red one."

According to StudiVZ's site, the Berlin-based company has 10 million users. The site was purchased last year by German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

Facebook launched its own German language version in March.

CNET News could not immediately reach StudiVZ for comment.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9995188-93.html





Man (27) Prosecuted Over Obscene Bebo Messages

A man has been prosecuted for putting offensive and obscene messages on social networking site Bebo in what is believed to be the first case of its kind to come before the Irish courts.

Paul Anthony Matthews (27) posted what a judge described as "outrageous" messages on a teenage girl's site on January 31 this year.

Matthews, of Carnbeg, Doylesfort Road, Dundalk, agreed to pay the victim €3,000 instead of going to jail.

The pioneering case was brought under Section 13 (I) of the Post Office Amendment Act 1951 for sending offensive or indecent material by means of telecommunication.

Matthews, a father of one, admitted posting explicit and abusive messages on the teenager's site. The victim cannot be identified because of a court order.

Dundalk District Court was told that Matthews had a previous disagreement with the then 16-year-old and posted the messages on her Bebo page. The teenager had made a complaint about Matthews to gardai regarding another matter and the Bebo messages were investigated.

Arrested

Matthews was arrested and admitted when questioned that he had put up the messages on her site.

Judge Conal Gibbons said this was the first of its type he had ever had to deal with.

He was outraged by what Matthews had written about the girl "for all the world to see".

He added: "It's a shocking state of affairs that this rubbish can be put up on sites."

He was shown the messages and he said they "certainly were offensive and damaging".

"The owners don't look at the pages and edit them. They wash their hands and say it's not their business," he said.

"It strikes me that they should take responsibility but that doesn't take away from the culpability of the defendant."

The judge praised the gardai for taking the matter seriously. He said that while most people used modern communication for positive ends, some, like Matthews, used it "to do evil".

He noted that Matthews had admitted his involvement and had pleaded guilty. He placed Matthews under the supervision of the probation service and the case was adjourned to June 3, 2009 for the compensation to be paid.
http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-1399572.html





My Son, the Blogger: An M.D. Trades Medicine for Apple Rumors
Brian Stelter

For eight years, Arnold Kim has been trading gossip, rumor and facts about Apple, the notoriously secretive computer company, on his Web site, MacRumors.com.

It had been a hobby — albeit a time-consuming one — while Dr. Kim earned his medical degree. He kept at it as he completed his medical training and began diagnosing patients’ kidney problems. Dr. Kim’s Web site now attracts more than 4.4 million people and 40 million page views a month, according to Quantcast, making it one of the most popular technology Web sites.

It is enough to make Dr. Kim hang up his stethoscope. This month he stopped practicing medicine and started blogging full time.

“In some ways I’ve neglected the site for so long,” he said in a telephone interview. “Now that I actually have a chance to work on it full time, there’s a good chance it can grow more.”

Dr. Kim epitomizes the home-grown publishers whose wealth has been enabled by the Internet. Although few of the millions of blogs ever make their creators rich, the ones that do provide all the incentive necessary to fuel the medium.

A question Dr. Kim often fields from friends and associates is, “How does that make money?” He answered the question in an entry on his personal blog last month. It can all be “boiled down to one simple accomplishment: building traffic,” he wrote. “That’s it. If you have a site that attracts a lot of visitors, you will be able to make money. On the Internet, traffic equals power, which subsequently equals money.”

When Dr. Kim, who lives just outside Richmond, Va., began blogging about Apple in 2000, the word blog had not entered the lexicon. Creating anything beyond a bare-bones Web site required programming skills and tech knowledge. Dr. Kim, a computer science major at Columbia University, had the know-how. He also knew that almost everyone enjoys an advance look at future products.

He envisioned MacRumors as an aggregator of all the rumors and hints that appeared on message boards and other Web sites. “The rumor reports have probably been more right than wrong over the years,“ he said.

Given Apple’s penchant for secrecy, the company inspires a lot of speculation in the technology industry. Apple enthusiasts dissect every product rumor the way political pundits do political sound bites.

As one of the original Web sites about Apple, MacRumors was well positioned to become a destination for users and a clearinghouse for gossip. MacRumors “knows more about Apple than Apple management does,” the blog 24/7 Wall St. declared last spring.

The site placed MacRumors No. 2 on a list of the “25 most valuable blogs,” right behind Gawker Media and ahead of The Huffington Post, PerezHilton.com, and TechCrunch. Two of the other tech-oriented blogs on its list, Ars Technica and PaidContent, were sold earlier this year, reportedly for sums in excess of $25 million.

Ars Technica reaches an estimated three million people a month, according to Quantcast. PaidContent and its three associated blogs reach about half a million people, but earn additional revenue through conferences and seminars. Since MacRumors attracts a far larger audience, those valuations would suggest Dr. Kim has created a very valuable piece of Web real estate.

Dr. Kim is not a millionaire blogger yet, and given the slumping online advertising market, he faces some hurdles as he expands the site. But he has reason to be optimistic.

Stepping away from medicine felt somewhat strange, he admits. Dr. Kim was bringing home a six-figure income as a doctor, but he recognized that blogging was becoming more lucrative. He says the site also yields a six-figure income for him.

About three years ago, through a combination of Google text advertising, banner ads and commissions on product sales, MacRumors started turning a substantial profit. While Apple is obviously not an advertiser, other technology-oriented companies are, including Verizon, the online audio-book store Audible.com and the information technology products company CDW.

Still, he hesitated to make it a full-time job because he enjoyed medicine — and he had invested almost $200,000 in his education. But he finally concluded that “on paper, it was an easy decision.” He also had a practical reason for wanting the ability to work from home. Her name is Penelope, and she is 14 months old.

When he told his father, also a doctor, about the decision, Dr. Kim was pleased that “he was very supportive of it, which was sort of surprising to me.”

For Dr. Kim, figuring out which rumors are real and which are mere dreams is the fun part.

“It is sort of a gut feeling,” he acknowledged, adding that most of the images of future Apple products that circulate on message boards are fakes. Sometimes he will post suspicious images with a caveat about their authenticity.

On one memorable occasion, he said, Apple accidentally raised the curtain on a new Mac on its Web site a week ahead of the official announcement, leading to a free-for-all on MacRumors’ message boards and some urgent phone calls from the company.

Dr. Kim has worked in relative anonymity. For many years, readers knew him only by his user name, “arn.” (“If I really wanted to hide, I could have done a better job,” he said. He eventually added his full name so he could receive media credentials for conferences.)

Dr. Kim is branching out beyond MacRumors. He helps run a spinoff Web site, Touch Arcade, that tracks the new games available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. But he is remaining coy about his other expansion plans. Apple, it seems, is not the only company trying to keep secrets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/te...21blogger.html





Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry
Matt Richtel

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

In a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because their low price could threaten PC makers’ already thin profit margins.

The new computers, often called netbooks, have scant onboard memory. They use energy-sipping computer chips. They are intended largely for surfing Web sites and checking e-mail. The price is small too, with some selling for as little as $300.

The companies that pioneered the category were small too, like Asus and Everex, both of Taiwan.

Despite their wariness of these slim machines, Dell and Acer, two of the biggest PC manufacturers, are not about to let the upstarts have this market to themselves. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest PC maker, recently sidled into the market with a hybrid of a notebook and netbook that it calls the Mini-Note.

Several makers are taking the low-powered PCs one step further. In the coming months, they are expected to introduce “net-tops,” low-cost versions of desktop computers intended for Internet access.

A Silicon Valley start-up called CherryPal says it will challenge the idea that big onboard power is required to allow basic computing functions in the Internet age. On Monday it plans to introduce a $300 desktop PC that is the size of a paperback and uses two watts of power compared with the 100 watts of some desktops.

It wants to take advantage of the trend toward “cloud computing,” in which data is managed and stored in distant servers, not on the actual machine.

Industry analysts say that the emergence of this new class of low-cost, cloud-centric machines could threaten titans like Microsoft and Intel, or even H.P. and Dell, because the giants have built their companies on the notion that consumers want more power and functions built into their next computer.

Some of the big computer companies put a positive spin on the low-cost machines, saying they welcome new categories. But they would just as soon this niche did not take off, given the relatively low profit margins.

“When I talk to PC vendors, the No. 1 question I get is, how do I compete with these netbooks when what we really want to do is sell PCs that cost a lot more money?” said J. P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Even as some PC vendors are jumping into the fray, others say they are resisting. Fujitsu, one of the world’s top 10 personal computer makers, said that it believes the low-cost netbook trend is a dangerous one for the bottom line.

“We’re sitting on the sidelines not because we’re lazy. We’re sitting on the sidelines because even if this category takes off, and we get our piece of the pie, it doesn’t add up,” said Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product management for Fujitsu. “It’s a product that essentially has no margin.”

Stan Glasgow, chief executive of Sony Electronics, said, “We are not looking at competing with Asus.” But he said the company is investigating what consumers want in a second PC.

It is a market that caught the major computer companies — both hardware and software — by surprise after Asus, entered the market last year with the $300 Eee PC. The company thought the device would essentially appeal to the education market, or as a starter laptop for adolescents, but the interest has turned out to be broader.

With an emphasis not in on-board applications (like word processing), but Internet-based ones like Google Docs, the Linux-based Eee PC sold out its 350,000 global inventory. It has been in short supply ever since, said Jackie Hsu, president of the American division of Asus. Everex has sold around 20,000 of its CloudBook, which sells for about $350.

The sales are a veritable drop in the bucket compared with the 271 million desktop and laptop PCs shipped globally last year. But there is an intensifying debate about how big the category can become, and what segment of the market finds these computers appealing.

IDC, a market research firm, is predicting that the category could grow from fewer than 500,000 in 2007 to nine million in 2012 as the market for second computers expands in developed economies.

Intel is projecting that by 2011, the market for the netbooks will be 40 million units a year, which is why Intel is jumping in with low-powered chips that would be used in the netbooks and the net-tops.

With its new Atom chip, Intel is competing against upstarts including Via, a Taiwanese company that has a chip called the C7. The C7 is showing up in netbooks and, indeed, is being used in the Everex models and in H.P.’s $500 Mini-Note.

William Calder, an Intel spokesman, said that the cost of the Atom for PC makers is around $44, compared with $100 for a state-of-the-art chip. He said that Intel executives think the market for low-cost PCs is too big to pass up, though it does raise a potential threat to more powerful and more profitable computing lines.

Microsoft has been a reluctant participant too. Even though it is no longer selling its Windows XP operating system software, it made an exception for makers of these low-cost laptops and desktops. Microsoft said it was responding to a groundswell of consumer interest in the low-cost machines, but some makers of those machines say Microsoft did so reluctantly because it did not want to lose market share to Linux.

Tim Bajarin, an industry analyst with Creative Strategies, a technology consulting firm, said that while the big computer companies have been caught off guard by the market’s potential, they are finding little choice but to dive in.

“H.P., Dell and these other PC makers have learned that if there’s consumer interest, you can’t just sit back and let someone else steal all the thunder,” he said.

Hewlett-Packard thinks consumers want more than a mobile Internet terminal. “Our competitors proved there is a pretty good market,” Robert Baker, a notebook product manager at Hewlett-Packard conceded.

Dell has not been specific about the price or features of its entry, but Michael Tatelman, vice president for marketing at Dell, said he believed that the category would have limited consumer appeal.

They are useful for someone on the go at an airport or on a commuting trip on a bus, but not for a more intense computing experience, he said. “It’s a good 30- to 90-minute experience.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/technology/21pc.html





New Mobile Browsers Bringing Real Web to Handhelds

'The browser wars are back,' says one developer
John Cox

A new generation of mobile Web browsers is finally making the Web a reality on handheld devices.

The latest example is last week's beta launch of Opera Mobile 9.5, a native Web browser for high-end smartphones. It's an evolutionary release for the Norwegian software company, but it comes just days after Apple's iPhone 3G, with its highly capable Safari browser, went on sale. Other brand-new entrants, such as Mobile Firefox and Skyfire, are expected later this year, at least in beta form. (See slideshow of new mobile browsers.)

But the evolving mobile browsers are only one part of the picture. Mobile browsing is affected by the client hardware, ranging from the processor to the kind of wireless network being used, all of which have improved markedly. It's also affected by the design of Web sites being targeted, and there's new attention being focused on optimizing these sites for mobile users.

When everything comes together, the results can be impressive. In the United States, the combination of the iPhone's large screen, touch interface and Safari has given mobile users a new way of viewing the Web: the way they're used to seeing it with their PC-based Web browsers. Until now, most users struggled with so-called microbrowsers, which typically access separately created and maintained Web content.

StatCounter reported in March that Safari/iPhone was the No. 1 mobile browser in the United States, and No. 2 globally, trailing the Nokia Web browser. Google released data in January showing that Christmas traffic to its site from iPhone users outstripped all other mobile devices, at a point when the iPhone had just 2% of the smartphone market.

The lesson was clear: Give mobile users a browser they could actually use . . . and they'd use it.

No more second-class browsing

"Mobile browsing was considered a second-class citizen on the Web," says Matt Womer, the Mobile Web Initiative Lead, Americas, with the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). "You had to serve completely different content, with a different markup [language] and different protocols." Those were the days of such early browsers as Phone.com/OpenWave, and the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP), a markup for creating mobile-friendly Web content.

The iPhone Safari browser, though not the first full Web browser for handhelds, crystallized a huge change in thinking. "There's [now] a convergence of the desktop Web and the mobile device Web," says Mike Rowehl, scalability architect for start-up Skyfire Labs, which is creating a thin-client mobile browser, with most of the heavy-lifting work being done by the core Firefox desktop browser running on servers. "The iPhone really cracked that open, and people are starting to think differently about the services on their device."

"People browsing the Web from a mobile device don't expect an 'alternative universe' which lacks features they're used to," says Jay Sullivan, vice president of mobile for Mozilla, overseeing the Mobile Firefox project, which will shortly release its alpha test version.

Next generation of mobile browsers

There is a range of vendors vying to win the browsing allegiance of mobile users. Opera Software launched one of the earliest of these browsers in 2000, Opera Mobile. The company says the 9.5 release will rival desktop browsing in speed. In early 2006, Opera Mini was introduced for less-capable phones. Another is the browser widely used in Symbian-based mobile phones, such as those from Nokia. Still another offering is Bitstream's two-year-old ThunderHawk browser, which the company earlier this year ported to Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) , a Java-based application development platform for mobile phones, to make for the first mass-market release of the browser.

In development are Mobile Firefox, a client browser, and Skyfire, with a thin client working with desktop Firefox 3.0 running on servers.

All of them have in common powerful, modern rendering engines, which make it possible for the browsers to display Web sites that look like those you see with a desktop browser. Safari and the Nokia browser use the same rendering engine: the open source WebKit. All Firefox projects use the same rendering engine, Gecko. Opera has over a decade invested in its core engine.

Programs this powerful and complex, even when highly optimized for memory use, need powerful and complex devices to run on. But currently, most mobile phones are low- to midrange designs.

"Lots of people have tried to access their favorite Web sites [with the default microbrowser] and failed," Sampo Kaasila, vice president of R&D for Bitstream, in Cambridge, Mass. "They conclude 'the mobile Web doesn't work for me.' But with Opera Mini, it will work for e-mail, news and social networking. That's key for building the industry as a whole."

Thin browsers emerge

Several vendors are creating thin-client browsers, such as Skyfire, ThunderHawk and Opera Mini. They run the rendering and other processing on server farms, which have fiber connections to the Internet, and send to the lightweight mobile client simply a representation of the Web page on phones that could never run a full mobile browser.

With this approach, the vendors also can consistently implement improvements like data compression. Bitstream uses its own compression technology to create what executives say is a 23-to-1 reduction in over-the-air data sizes.

But many mobile browsers, and the major HTTP server platforms, already support a compression utility called gzip (short for GNU zip), though it apparently is not routinely used, according to Jason Grigsby, vice president and Web strategist for Cloud Four, a Portland, Ore., Web development shop that increasingly focuses on mobile applications.

When activated on both the browser and Web server, Gzip compresses content typically by 75% to 80% on the server before sending it to the browser for decompression. Grigsby, who makes presentation on mobile Web performance, says he constantly hears from Web developers that these kinds of performance issues are new to them.

In the course of creating an online performance test for mobile browsers, Grigsby and another colleague spent 36 hours trying to figure out why some versions of BlackBerry's browser displayed the thumbnail-sized test images and others didn't. It turned out to be a bug in how the browser added an image to the page. "It points to the fact that the [mobile] browser has not been a focus of RIM's development, and it's not up to modern browsing standards," Grigsby says.

Trade-offs and frustrations

For developers the advent of such browsers can bring constant and frustrating trade-offs between industry standards and vendor innovations and extensions. "The iPhone has a whole slough of iPhone-specific Cascading Style Sheet extensions, which let you do things that you can't do with CSS on other browsers," says Grigsby. ThunderHawk makes use of Bitstream's patented font technology, substituting its own fonts and creating several magnification levels to increase the legibility of text on mobile screens.

"More standardization is needed," Grigsby says.

The W3C's Mobile Web Initiative has created a set of best practices for optimizing Web site design to improve browsing for mobile users. It's expected to become a formal W3C recommendation in the next two months, says Matt Womer

But there's a limit to standardization. Browsing on a given mobile device is highly individualized by the device capabilities, the browser design decisions, and the user's interaction with both. Every vendor in this article displays a full Web page on a phone screen. But after that, how you work with it can vary widely.

The iPhone's touch interface clearly has made browsing easy for users but it's just as clearly a high-end phone. Mozilla's Mobile Firefox project is crafting both a touch and a nontouch user interface.

Bitstream's ThunderHawk shows at the top of the screen what the company calls a "minimap" of the entire Web page, outlining the section of the page being viewed by the user, with clickable "hotspots" to other parts of the page. The minimap is an aid to navigating the full page quickly.

Opera Mobile 9.5 borrows from Opera Mini to now show a full Web page, then let users pan and zoom to find and focus on specific areas. A grayed-out upside down "V" on the bottom right of the screen gives one-click access to an overlay page of standard browser buttons and actions.

It all adds up to new opportunities, and new headaches. "The browser wars are back and this time the battlefield is mobile," says Grigsby.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...b=&story=ts_mb





Fallon Will Start ‘Late Night’ on the Web
Bill Carter

With a new round of shake-ups in late-night television set to begin next year, Lorne Michaels has decided to try to get a jump on things by starting NBC’s next edition of “Late Night,” with its new host Jimmy Fallon, as a nightly entry on the Internet.

Mr. Fallon has been named as the replacement for Conan O’Brien when Mr. O’Brien takes over the “Tonight” show from Jay Leno next year, and Mr. Michaels, the long-time boss of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” who also serves as executive producer of “Late Night,” told television reporters here Sunday that he wants Mr. Fallon to work out as many of the rough spots in his presentation as possible in performances on a website.

Mr. Michaels said he did not know yet which site he will use to post the shows with Mr. Fallon, but he was sure of several of the plans:

The web performances will likely begin in the fall, long before the transition from Mr. Leno for Mr. O’Brien is set to take place. The entries will not constitute anything like an entire hour-long show. “I expect that we’ll do something like five or 10 minutes,” Mr. Michaels said.

But he said they most likely will be on every night, to try to establish the rhythm of a nightly show. And he said, “I’m going to post them at 12:30 every night, so people will begin to look for Jimmy at that time.”

NBC is expected to announce the schedule for the transition from Mr. Leno to Mr. O’Brien and from Mr. O’Brien to Mr. Fallon here tomorrow. NBC executives have previously said that Mr. O’Brien will probably stop production on his “Late Night” show in February, while he moves west and prepares to lead “Tonight” from a new stage now being built on the lot of the NBC Universal studio.

Mr. Leno is expected to continue until perhaps June. Mr. Michaels said Sunday that Mr. Fallon will definitely get some time on the air following Mr. Leno before Mr. O’Brien takes over “Tonight.” He pegged the likely start date for Mr. Fallon on the television version of the show as “sometime in the spring.”

One reason for trying out the show online, Mr. Michaels said, is that the Internet will allow Mr. Fallon more freedom in terms of what he can say and do, “more opportunity for experimentation,” Mr. Michaels said. But he added that he didn’t expect the show to push the line too far in terms of content. “I think we’re our own censors,” he said.

But the main reason for the idea, he said, was the experience of Mr. O’Brien, who endured a long period of uncertainty about whether he would survive after he assumed the desk on “Late Night” succeeding David Letterman. “Conan needed time to find his show,” Mr. Michaels said. “I think this will help Jimmy to do that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/ar.../21fallon.html





In Hollywood, Bad Times May be Good News for TV Biz
Paul Thomasch

All the worries about a lousy housing market, sky-high gasoline prices and job losses should make this a natural time for Americans to grab the remote and seek solace in front of the television set.

As TV executives prepare for the 2008-09 broadcast season, they can only hope audiences will be looking for an extra dose of escapism.

After all, the industry is coming off a rocky year, marred by a 14-week writers strike, a lack of new breakout hits and the proliferation of digital video recorders that have rendered the old notion of "appointment television" virtually obsolete.

All that was reflected in another season of year-to-year ratings declines as more viewers seemed to gravitate toward cable TV, YouTube and video games.

"There's no doubt that this was a challenging year," Dawn Ostroff, the fledgling CW network's entertainment president, recently told a gathering of TV writers and critics.

But Ostroff is betting that her network's 2008-09 lineup -- including bubble gum fare like "Gossip Girl" and "One Tree Hill" -- will resonate with those who want to lose themselves for an hour or two in a good old-fashioned melodrama.

"It's interesting because when you look at when shows like this were very popular, 'Dynasty' and 'Dallas' back in the day, it was when there were economic hard times," she said, referring to two programs popular in the 1980s.

"A lot of times when the country goes through times like these, where we're in what is perceived by many people as a recession, having entertainment be escapist is what our viewers look for," Ostroff added.

Sports May Score

Sports also appear to be a shelter from the economic storm, at least judging from the big audiences that tuned into the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open golf tournament.

A clear test case for the TV industry will be the Olympic Games starting next month, carried exclusively in the United States by NBC Universal. Across its broadcast, cable TV and online outlets, NBC Universal is planning a record 3,600 hours of coverage of the games, though about a third of that will be streamed over the Internet.

"I think the country is really ready for this," NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol told TV writers. "It isn't exactly a joyful time; $4 gasoline, people who can't afford vacations; wild prices on food. Audiences are really looking for something to cheer."

The TV industry is hardly in the clear. U.S. audiences have numerous options when it comes to escapism, from DVDs and movies to video games and the Web.

What's more, the TV industry is still recovering from the screenwriters' strike that began in late 2007 and ended in February. Labor jitters persist over stalemated contract talks between actors and the studios, but the two sides are expected to reach a deal without another strike.

One lingering result of the walkout by screenwriters was a shorter TV development season, so networks reduced the number of series pilots they ordered to save time and money. That could be risky, particularly given the pressure executives are under to find new hit shows.

"It was really important to give (audiences) something to look forward to, something to anticipate," said CBS programming chief Nina Tassler. "We all know what the hype of Heath Ledger and 'Batman' -- I mean, my son was at the movie theater last night at midnight because he had to see it. But there is (also) the anticipation of the fall (television) season, which is really important."

At ABC, Entertainment President Stephen McPherson vowed to spend "a lot of money and effort" promoting his fall schedule. That goes for both its new drama, "Life on Mars," taken from the BBC hit of the same, and returning shows like "Eli Stone" that the network believes need more time to catch fire with viewers.

Indicating just how concerned executives are about the upcoming TV season, McPherson told writers he was cheering for big ratings increases for the entire industry, not just his network.

"I'm rooting for all of broadcast television in the fall," he said. "More than ever, we all need to take a step back and root for the industry."

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co; NBC Universal is majority owned by General Electric Co; Fox is part of News Corp; CBS is part of CBS Corp; and The CW is a joint venture of CBS Corp and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Brothers and CBS.

(Editing by Steve Gorman, Leslie Gevirtz)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...29951520080722





EZTV Trials TV-Torrent Streaming
Ben Jones

Last week, we wrote about the new attempt to invigorate video distribution, by mixing torrents with streaming video. Our piece piqued the interest of the leading TV-torrent distribution group – EZTV – and just a few hours ago, they launched a live-beta test of the technology for their ‘warez’.

TorrentFreak likes to be right there reporting important news, but it’s not that often that we are the catalyst for P2P developments. This, however, is one of those times. EZTV administrator ‘Novaking’ told TorrentFreak that the decision to start experimenting with Swarmplayer came after reading about the technology here last week, and it left him “intrigued”.

The Swarmplayer EZTV is experimenting with uses slightly modified torrent files (.tstream), which make it possible to stream video files using the BitTorrent protocol. This new technology allows publishers to offer video steams without having to pay for expensive bandwidth. Theoretically, you can watch all torrent files with the player but it’s recommended to use newer releases, as they often offer a higher swarm speed. Streaming the typical TV show will run to around 100kb/sec, a speed unattainable with their older television torrents due in part to the low peer numbers, as much as the larger piece size used in the pre-stream torrents.

Novaking isn’t too worried about the sequential piece transfer, and loss of the tit-for-tat impacting the speeds of the swarm for those not trying to stream. “The spread will be so wide in the first week,” he tells us, “that it won’t affect it greatly. Of course it’s impossible to tell until it’s fully live and working.” Currently, only their own torrents will be available via .tstream files, but the hope is that should the test prove successful during the next week, to have them for the torrents from their partner sites, such as MVgroup as well.

BitTorrent streaming is the ideal low-cost distribution model for online video. Here at TorrentFreak we have been testing out the Swarmplayer since its very early beta days with Mininova, and it does look to be a very promising development. However, the client does not (yet) have an option to keep a fully saved copy of the file on your system for later re-watching, and it also doesn’t allow you to change the port it uses. But these are minor issues that should be solved easily.

It is interesting to see that this multi-million dollar research project collaborates with torrent sites like Mininova, and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC. Could this be the future of television? It is at least a possibility, and something for major networks to look at, as some already are (the BBC is a member of the group behind P2PNext, for example). EZTV’s Novaking certainly seems to think so. “We are hoping that TV networks start seeing this as a method to provide people with what they want”.
http://torrentfreak.com/eztv-trials-streaming-080726/





Networks Fight Shorter Olympic Leash
Brian Stelter

For several years now NBC has meticulously planned all the details for its coverage of the many sports events at the Summer Olympics in China.

But with the Games only 19 days away, many at the network are concerned about how they will be permitted to cover any unscheduled events, like political protests or government crackdowns — or whether the Chinese government will allow them to cover such things at all.

One of the most common hypothetical questions NBC officials have bandied about involves the opening ceremonies on Aug. 8.

Hundreds of athletes will parade into a stadium in front of world leaders, including President Bush, and a huge global television audience. If an athlete holds a protest sign or waves a Tibetan flag, how will the Chinese hosts react? Will the television networks show the scene? How will the Chinese handle the media for the rest of the Games?

The stakes are high for both the network, which paid $900 million for broadcast rights for the Olympics, and the reputation of NBC News. If it covers any controversies aggressively, it risks drawing the ire of the Chinese and interfering with coverage of sports events. But if it shies from coverage of any protests, NBC risks being criticized in the West for kowtowing to China — particularly since its corporate parent, General Electric, is aggressively expanding its investments in China.

One thing is for sure, vows Steve Capus, the president of NBC’s news division: “If there’s news, we’re going to cover it.”

NBC and other broadcasters have been at odds with Chinese authorities over what, where and when they will be allowed to film. During the last seven years, broadcasters had been assured that they would receive the same freedoms they have had at previous Olympics, but in the last few months, those promises have been contradicted by strict visa rules, lengthy application processes and worries about censorship.

Seeking to defuse growing tension, network executives met face to face two weeks ago with representatives of the International Olympic Committee and Chinese officials. At an eight-hour meeting in the International Broadcast Center in Beijing, the Chinese organizing committee relented slightly, saying that broadcasters like NBC that have paid for rights to the Olympic Games may transmit live from Tiananmen Square — but for only six hours a day, from 6 to 10 a.m. and 9 to 11 p.m.

The broadcasters, which include the BBC in Britain, the CBC in Canada, the Seven Network in Australia and SABC in South Africa, unanimously pressed for further access, according to minutes of the meeting obtained by The New York Times. According to two people at the meeting, when the Beijing vice mayor, Cao Fuchao, remarked that his country’s authorities would not reverse their decision to restrict access, Alex Gilady, an I.O.C. commissioner and NBC vice president, pointed his finger and said: “We still have one month to go. We will pursue this to the end.”

But time is not on the broadcasters’ side. Nineteen days from now, when the torch is lighted in Beijing, journalists and viewers could be facing the most restrictive environment for an Olympics in modern times.

At the meeting, on July 9, after months of uncertainty, Chinese officials said that all applications for live broadcasting would be approved throughout Beijing and the other cities where Olympic competitions were planned. Furthermore, the committee said that all broadcasters could tape reports from Tiananmen Square.

But the broadcasters say they will not believe it until they see it. One I.O.C. commissioner, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid further complicating the situation, said matter-of-factly that Chinese officials had “put a tourniquet” on the Olympics.

“Had the I.O.C., and those vested with the decision to award the host city contract, known seven years ago that there would be severe restrictions on people being able to enter China simply to watch the Olympics, or that live broadcasting from Tiananmen Square would essentially be banned, or that reporters would be corralled at the whim of local security, then I seriously doubt whether Beijing would have been awarded the Olympics,” the commissioner said.

The contentious negotiations are particularly perilous for NBC, part of NBC Universal, which is trying to produce 3,600 hours of coverage. The company paid a record amount for the broadcast rights, and it expects to generate $1 billion in advertising revenue. The coverage will be produced by NBC Sports under the direction of Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics.

But the network could find itself covering news outside the track or swimming pools if there are political protests or another government crackdown. Mr. Capus of NBC acknowledged that these Games were arguably the most newsworthy Olympics in a generation, since they have put a spotlight on China’s environmental problems and human-rights abuses.

He was diplomatic about the recent negotiations. “We are encouraged by the progress that we saw last week, and the potential for the cooperation that has been pledged,” Mr. Capus said.

NBC has good reason to cross its fingers. Its owner, GE, has had its sales in China grow rapidly this decade, to a projected $10 billion by 2010, from around $1 billion in 2000. The company is involved in more than 300 projects related to these Games, including technology for the new National Stadium. Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive of G.E., has said the Olympics will create “decades of good will in China.”

NBC Universal has taken out an insurance policy to protect itself against the disruption or cancellation of the Games. This is a standard precaution: an NBC spokesman said that networks covering the Games had taken out such insurance since 1980, when the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics.

“It’s pretty much a given that this is not Barcelona, and this is definitely not Atlanta,” one of the correspondents said on the condition of anonymity, because the network prohibits speaking to the news media without authorization. “So how much access will we get? I don’t think we’ll know until we’re there.”

“Today,” NBC’s morning show, is traditionally the news division’s signature Olympic program, and a co-host, Matt Lauer, will be in China before the Games, broadcasting from the Great Wall and other cultural icons. Then his colleagues Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Ann Curry will join him at the program’s set at the Olympic Green in Beijing. Because of the 12-hour time difference, the sun will be setting during the American morning show.

“NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” will originate from Beijing for the first week of the Games. Tom Brokaw, the network’s senior correspondent, will be in Beijing, as will Richard Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, who spends most of his time in war zones and hot spots.

But NBC officials are not eager to discuss the peculiarities of broadcasting from China. Mr. Ebersol would not respond to a request for an interview, the network said.

Some news organizations have had to leap through hoops merely to rent office space, order phone lines and set up satellite dishes. Stations that reserved locations for live shots later have had their permissions revoked, and journalists have speculated that the bureaucratic hurdles have been put in place to discourage free reporting, despite the country’s promises.

Once the staff is in place in China, many of the hypothetical situations about the Olympics will hinge on a single question: what is sports and what is news?

Broadcasters expect that the country’s security apparatus will work hard to prevent a repeat of the early stages of the Olympic torch relay, where pro-Tibet protesters disrupted the run and extinguished the flame several times.

The primary television feed of the sporting events is produced by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, a partnership between China and the I.O.C. If a demonstration occurs at an Olympic site, the official broadcast may not capture it. But networks like NBC have their own cameras in place that could film spontaneous developments at the events. In such cases, the responsibility falls to NBC to decide what to show the American audience.

“Those are decisions that will be made on the fly when it happens, and you hope they make the right decision,” one of the NBC correspondents said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/sp...ics/21nbc.html





As Papers Struggle, News Is Cut and the Focus Turns Local
Richard Pérez-Peña

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.

The study, by the Pew Research Center and Tyler Marshall, a former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, is based on a written survey of the top editors at 259 newspapers of all sizes and interviews with a sampling of those editors.

The findings come as no surprise to anyone following the travails of the newspaper industry, racked every few days by new reports of layoffs, falling revenue, credit downgrades, shrinking page counts and declining circulation. But the Pew study appears to be the broadest attempt yet to measure how widespread the changes have been.

Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news “very essential” to their papers.

“It’s really concerning when we have two wars overseas, our economy is more global, we’re competing with economies that are growing faster than ours, and our dependence on foreign oil is one of the biggest stories,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Almost half the papers said they had cut the human resources devoted to covering news from abroad, a striking figure given that most newspapers are small and historically have not had any reporters or editors working full time on foreign news.

“In many cases, the resource they had for foreign news was an editor pulling material from the wire services, or they were willing to send a reporter overseas in limited cases, and they’re doing less of that now, or none at all,” Mr. Rosenstiel said.

Three-fifths of the papers reported having less space for news over all, as newspapers try to save money by shifting to smaller pages and printing fewer of them. The only area cut nearly as often as foreign news was national news, which declined at 57 percent of the papers. Business coverage ranked next, reduced by one-third of the papers.

Large-circulation papers have been far more likely to reduce the space given to business, the arts, features and opinions — areas that historically have not been central to small papers.

Half of all papers said they had increased the amount of state and local news they published, especially “hyper-local” community news.

At 59 percent of the newspapers, editors said news staffing had declined over the previous three years, and that was true at 85 percent of the large papers. In the months since the survey was taken, the nation’s major newspaper chains have made some of the deepest newsroom cuts on record.

Yet the shrunken newsrooms have taken on added duties in feeding their Web sites, like producing subsites covering specific towns or neighborhoods, or posting articles in the morning and updating them throughout the day. And most papers report that their reporters’ blog posts are not edited before going online.

A majority of the editors who took part in the study said they worry about a loss of institutional memory and journalistic standards, as experienced people leave the business and a younger crew of reporters publishes more news quickly online. But almost half the editors said they were more excited than fearful about the possibilities of the Internet.

“One thing that surprised me was how optimistic the editors are,” Mr. Rosenstiel said. “They’re convinced that they can still make their newspapers better, because otherwise I’m not sure they could go to work in the morning.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/bu.../21papers.html





How to Save Local Newspapers: Cellphones
Claire Cain Miller

Verve’ Wireless’s mission is to save the local paper by making it mobile. It provides publishers with the technology to create mobile Web sites, so readers can read the paper on their cell phones. Verve or the newspaper then sell ads on those sites. Verve already powers mobile versions of 4,000 newspapers from 140 publishers, including the Associated Press, McClatchy, and the New York Times Regional Media Group.

The A.P. started using its Verve-powered Mobile News Network in May. It apparently liked it enough to invest in the company. Verve Wireless has raised $3 million in its second round of fundraising, led by its biggest customer, the Associated Press. Iron Capital and a third investor, not yet disclosed because the deal is still being finalized, also participated in the round.

Since May, 728 A.P. member newspapers have joined the network. Its iPhone application, which delivers daily headlines and photos and lets users watch slideshows or videos and text or email stories to friends, took the runner-up spot in the Apple Design Award competition. The investment in Verve is rare for the news organization.

Verve’s chief executive, Art Howe, is the first to admit that he’s betting on an industry that’s under siege. Newspapers’ strength is providing local news and information and the mobile Web is the logical outlet for local content, argues Mr. Howe, who is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is himself owner of 50 local papers. “Mobile is actually a better way to reach people than print or even Web. It’s versatile, immediate, travels and is just as compelling–if it’s done right–as a Web site or a printed page.”

People are increasingly using their phones to surf the Web. Of the 95 million mobile Internet subscribers, 40 million actively use their phones to go online, double the number two years ago, according to Nielsen Mobile. Thirteen million use their phones to read the news, and a cell phone version of a Web site extends a site’s reach by 13 percent.

Local plus mobile is a winning formula for advertisers too, says Tom Kenney, Verve’s president. There is still no better way for the local florist or bakery to reach potential customers than the daily newspaper, he argues, and mobile makes that even easier. A Mexican restaurant can send a reader a coupon for a free margarita when they are walking nearby during happy hour, for example, or a car dealer could deliver an ad with a map and walking directions when a user types in an auto-related search.

Mr. Howe and Mr. Kenney founded Verve in 2005 with $2.5 million in seed funding. They spent two years building the Web-based software platform, which lets publishers customize their mobile sites and add features like text messages with breaking news alerts. Verve gives publishers the software and help designing their mobile sites for free, in exchange for a cut of ad revenue. Verve functions as a mobile ad network, providing technology to publish ads on cell phones and connecting national and local advertisers with small publishers who wouldn’t otherwise have the sales force to sell mobile ads. Its biggest competitor is Crisp Wireless, whose customers include Tribune Interactive, Gannett Digital and Hearst.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...nes/index.html





Stoooopid .... Why the Google Generation Isn’t as Smart as it Thinks

The digital age is destroying us by ruining our ability to concentrate
Bryan Appleyard

On Wednesday I received 72 e-mails, not counting junk, and only two text messages. It was a quiet day but, then again, I’m not including the telephone calls. I’m also not including the deafening and pointless announcements on a train journey to Wakefield – use a screen, jerks – the piercingly loud telephone conversations of unsocialised adults and the screaming of untamed brats. And, come to think of it, why not include the junk e-mails? They also interrupt. There were 38. Oh and I’d better throw in the 400-odd news alerts that I receive from all the websites I monitor via my iPhone.

I was – the irony! – trying to read a book called Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson. Crushed in my train, I had become the embodiment of T S Eliot’s great summary of the modern predicament: “Distracted from distraction by distraction”. This is, you might think, a pretty standard, vaguely comic vignette of modern life – man harassed by self-inflicted technology. And so it is. We’re all distracted, we’re all interrupted. How foolish we are! But, listen carefully, it’s killing me and it’s killing you.

David Meyer is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. In 1995 his son was killed by a distracted driver who ran a red light. Meyer’s speciality was attention: how we focus on one thing rather than another. Attention is the golden key to the mystery of human consciousness; it might one day tell us how we make the world in our heads. Attention comes naturally to us; attending to what matters is how we survive and define ourselves.

The opposite of attention is distraction, an unnatural condition and one that, as Meyer discovered in 1995, kills. Now he is convinced that chronic, long-term distraction is as dangerous as cigarette smoking. In particular, there is the great myth of multitasking. No human being, he says, can effectively write an e-mail and speak on the telephone. Both activities use language and the language channel in the brain can’t cope. Multitaskers fool themselves by rapidly switching attention and, as a result, their output deteriorates.

The same thing happens if you talk on a mobile phone while driving – even legally with a hands-free kit. You listen to language on the phone and lose the ability to take in the language of road signs. Worst of all is if your caller describes something visual, a wallpaper pattern, a view. As you imagine this, your visual channel gets clogged and you start losing your sense of the road ahead. Distraction kills – you or others.

Chronic distraction, from which we all now suffer, kills you more slowly. Meyer says there is evidence that people in chronically distracted jobs are, in early middle age, appearing with the same symptoms of burn-out as air traffic controllers. They might have stress-related diseases, even irreversible brain damage. But the damage is not caused by overwork, it’s caused by multiple distracted work. One American study found that interruptions take up 2.1 hours of the average knowledge worker’s day. This, it was estimated, cost the US economy $588 billion a year. Yet the rabidly multitasking distractee is seen as some kind of social and economic ideal.

Meyer tells me that he sees part of his job as warning as many people as possible of the dangers of the distracted world we are creating. Other voices, particularly in America, have joined the chorus of dismay. Jackson’s book warns of a new Dark Age: “As our attentional skills are squandered, we are plunging into a culture of mistrust, skimming and a dehumanising merger between man and machine.”

Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta, has just written The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardises Our Future. He portrays a bibliophobic generation of teens, incapable of sustaining concentration long enough to read a book. And learning a poem by heart just strikes them as dumb.

In an influential essay in The Atlantic magazine, Nicholas Carr asks: “Is Google making us stupid?” Carr, a chronic distractee like the rest of us, noticed that he was finding it increasingly difficult to immerse himself in a book or a long article – “The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

Instead he now Googles his way though life, scanning and skimming, not pausing to think, to absorb. He feels himself being hollowed out by “the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self – evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the ‘instantly available’”.

“The important thing,” he tells me, “is that we now go outside of ourselves to make all the connections that we used to make inside of ourselves.” The attending self is enfeebled as its functions are transferred to cyberspace.

“The next generation will not grieve because they will not know what they have lost,” says Bill McKibben, the great environmentalist.

McKibben’s hero is Henry Thoreau, who, in the 19th century, cut himself off from the distractions of industrialising America to live in quiet contemplation by Walden Pond in Massachusetts. He was, says McKibben, “incredibly prescient”. McKibben can’t live that life, though. He must organise his global warming campaigns through the internet and suffer and react to the beeping pleading of the incoming e-mail.

“I feel that much of my life is ebbing away in the tide of minute-by-minute distraction . . . I’m not certain what the effect on the world will be. But psychologists do say that intense close engagement with things does provide the most human satisfaction.” The psychologists are right. McKibben describes himself as “loving novelty” and yet “craving depth”, the contemporary predicament in a nutshell.

Ironically, the companies most active in denying us our craving for depth, the great distracters – Microsoft, Google, IBM, Intel – are trying to do something about this. They have formed the Information Overload Research Group, “dedicated to promoting solutions to e-mail overload and interruptions”. None of this will work, of course, because of the overwhelming economic forces involved. People make big money out of distracting us. So what can be done?

The first issue is the determination of the distracters to create young distractees. Television was the first culprit. Tests clearly show that a switched-on television reduces the quality and quantity of interaction between children and their parents. The internet multiplies the effect a thousandfold. Paradoxically, the supreme information provider also has the effect of reducing information intake.

Bauerlein is 49. As a child, he says, he learnt about the Vietnam war from Walter Cronkite, the great television news anchor of the time. Now teenagers just go to their laptops on coming home from school and sink into their online cocoon. But this isn’t the informational paradise dreamt of by Bill Gates and Google: 90% of sites visited by teenagers are social networks. They are immersed not in knowledge but in “gossip and social banter”.

“They don’t,” says Bauerlein, “grow up.” They are “living off the thrill of peer attention. Meanwhile, their intellects refuse the cultural and civic inheritance that has made us what we are now”.

The hyper-connectivity of the young is bewildering. Jackson tells me that one study looked at five years of e-mail activity of a 24-year-old. He was found to have connections with 11.7m people. Most of these connections would be pretty threadbare. But that, in a way, is the point. All internet connections are threadbare. They lack the complexity and depth of real-world interactions. This is concealed by the language.

Join Facebook or MySpace and you suddenly have “friends” all over the place. Of course, you don’t. These are just casual, tenuous electronic pings. Nothing could be further removed from the idea of friendship.

These connections are severed as quickly as they are taken up – with the click of a mouse. Jackson and everyone else I spoke to was alarmed by the potential impact on real-world relationships. Teenagers are being groomed to think others can be picked up on a whim and dropped because of a mood or some slight offence. The fear is that the idea of sticking with another through thick and thin – the very essence of friendship and love – will come to seem absurd, uncool, meaningless.

One irony that lies behind all this is the myth that children are good at this stuff. Adults often joke that their 10-year-old has to fix the computer. But it’s not true. Studies show older people are generally more adept with computers than younger. This is because, like all multitaskers, the kids are deluding themselves into thinking that busy-ness is depth when, in fact, they are skimming the surface of cyberspace as surely as they are skimming the surface of life. It takes an adult imagination to discriminate, to make judgments; and those are the only skills that really matter.

The concern of all these writers and thinkers is that it is precisely these skills that will vanish from the world as we become infantilised cyber-serfs, our entertainments and impulses maintained and controlled by the techno-geek aristocracy. They have all noted – either in themselves or in others – diminishing attention spans, inability to focus, a loss of the meditative mode. “I can’t read War and Peace any more,” confessed one of Carr’s friends. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

The computer is training us not to attend, to drown in the sea of information rather than to swim. Jackson thinks this can be fixed. The brain is malleable. Just as it can be trained to be distracted, so it can be trained to pay attention. Education and work can be restructured to teach and propagate the skills of concentration and focus. People can be taught to turn off, to ignore the beep and the ping.

Bauerlein, dismayed by his distracted students, is not optimistic. Multiple distraction might, he admits, be a phase, and in time society will self-correct. But the sheer power of the forces of distraction is such that he thinks this will not happen.

This, for him, puts democracy at risk. It is a form of government that puts “a heavy burden of responsibility on our citizens”. But if they think Paris is in England and they can’t find Iraq on a map because their world is a social network of “friends” – examples of appalling ignorance recently found in American teenagers – how can they be expected to shoulder that burden?

This may all be a moral panic, a severe case of the older generation wagging its finger at the young. It was ever thus. But what is new is the assiduity with which companies and institutions are selling us the tools of distraction. Every new device on the market is, to return to Eliot, “Filled with fancies and empty of meaning / Tumid apathy with no concentration”.

These things do make our lives easier, but only by destroying the very selves that should be protesting at every distraction, demanding peace, quiet and contemplation. The distracters have product to shift, and it’s shifting. On the train to Wakefield, with my new 3G iPhone, distracted from distraction by distraction, I saw the future and, to my horror, it worked.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle4362950.ece





Just looking

Idol Socialization
Jeff Lippold

Japanese companies are always looking to meet the needs of the "niche-ist" of niche markets. For example, top-selling record label Avex has discovered a new way to reach extremely anti-social sets — the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), and the most reclusive of the recluses, the hikikomori. Most believe that these groups’ refusal of social participation stems from their lack of social skills. The hikikomori almost never socialize with other people and prefer to spend their time in their bedrooms, completely locked away from the world. The total numbers of NEET and hikikomori may have been overestimated in the past, but they do exist to some extent and are mostly male.

Avex is trying to reach these groups with a new DVD — part "corporate social responsibility," part traditional content delivery, and part talent blog/model promotion. The DVD is called Miteiru dake (Just Looking), and it features various talent/models just staring straight ahead. That’s right, the models on the DVD do very little other than stare straight at the camera. According to the website, the idea is to get young males who aren’t used to socializing with women to become more accustomed to making eye contact and/or handle the fact that a sentient being sits across from them and awaits interaction. The DVD hopes to cure those afflicted with shyness so that they may rejoin society.

The result, from what one can see on the website, is strangely disconcerting. A girl will stare back at you for an extended period of time, expressionless and periodically blinking (the blinks are eerily profound). Once in a while the model will utter a phrase like "ohayoo" (good morning) or make a move to say something, but for the most part there is just an uncomfortable silence. Most of the women on the DVD are jimusho-based talento (most have blogs on Ameba and other DVDs of their own to sell), but there are also foreign women, young girls, and older women thrown in the mix to give the viewer experience in handling long, uncomfortable silences with those of different races and ages.

Without even broaching the logic of creating a product expressly for a niche that doesn’t have a whole lot of money, Miteiru Dake is a bold new experiment in combination idol promotion and social charity, using a conventional Japanese content business model (nothing’s free, but you can buy it on DVD and follow up with the stars through their blogs). And one of the payoffs is that the reformed NEET and hikikomori may just become lifelong fans of the female idols who saved them from the hells of an asocial existence.
http://clast.diamondagency.jp/en/
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Social Engineering 101: Mitnick and Other Hackers Show How it's Done
Elinor Mills

Kevin Mitnick knows that the weakest link in any security system is the person holding the information.

As a young fugitive hacker, he went to jail for breaking into computer networks, mostly by using his cunning and persuasion than his tech skills. He was an early master of the science of social engineering--manipulating people into doing what you want, such as giving out passwords and other information that unlocks sensitive information on networks.

Mitnick and a panel of other hackers discussed their social engineering pranks and gave live demonstrations at the Live HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference late on Saturday.

"Everything happened more than five years ago" and the statute of limitations has passed, he said. "I never said I didn't deserve to be punished, but it really went overboard putting me in solitary confinement" for eight months.

Mitnick, who was released in 2001 after serving five years in jail, announced that he has a contract to write his life story and showed a preview for a reality-based TV series in development in which he would test corporate networks by trying to break into them. As part of his plea agreement, he was banned from writing a tell-all until 2007. He also runs a security consulting firm and lectures.

Dubbed the "most dangerous hacker in the world," Mitnick was put in solitary confinement and prevented from using a phone after law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone, he said.

Mitnick didn't do any whistling on Saturday, but in his keynote following the panel he talked about how he listened in on FBI phone calls during the three years he evaded the FBI, left them doughnuts when he narrowly escaped raids and was chased down by a helicopter. He also demonstrated how to be able to see the phone numbers of callers on caller ID even when they have their number set to be blocked.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9995253-83.html





AFP Enlists Kids to Fight E-Crime
Charles Miranda

TEENS as young as 14 have been recruited by the Australian Federal Police to help fight online crime - recognition they are more net savvy than veteran agents.

Yesterday, 20 teenagers began working with the AFP in an Australian-first to develop strategies to catch cyber fraudsters, predators and even those grooming youths for acts of terrorism.

The move is part of a worldwide program, with children in the US, Canada, UK and 23 other countries being recruited and deputised to help fight e-crime.

The AFP said the move was not a gimmick or an experiment but recognition that evolving technology was truly only understood by those who used it as part of their everyday lives.

The young were also best placed to identify evolving crime, including cyber bullying and identity theft, as well as helping police develop strategies to warn parents.

AFP high tech crime centre head Kevin Zuccato said: "We realised the only way to do that effectively was to listen to digital natives, the young people of today and those born into the internet".

"It's almost programmed into their DNA how to use technology and how to navigate around the ocean that is the internet."

"For us 30-, 40-, 50-year-old police officers, policy makers and government officials, it's impossible - in my view - to develop appropriate effective strategies unless we listen to the people we're trying to protect."

Mr Zuccato said teens gave advice about chat room chatter, jargon and code used in mobile phone SMS.

"(The teens) can help us dissuade criminals, educate children to stay safe online, empower themselves to make the right decisions online and if we can provide policies with their information that means we minimise the number of victims," he said.

Twenty teenagers from Canberra were brought to the UK as part of a global strategy to use their knowledge to develop a charter for the UN.

One recruit, 15-year-old Ella, said she hoped what she knew and could pass on to police would help others.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/...013044,00.html





San Francisco's Mayor Gets Back Keys to the Network

IT administrator Terry Childs is in jail for previously refusing to hand over the admin passwords to the city's multimillion dollar WAN
Robert McMillan and Paul Venezia

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom met with jailed IT administrator Terry Childs Monday, convincing him to hand over the administrative passwords to the city's multimillion dollar wide area network.

Childs made headlines last week when he was arrested and charged with four counts of computer tampering, after he refused to give over passwords to the Cisco Systems switches and routers used on the city's FiberWAN network, which carries about 60 percent of the municipal government's network traffic. Childs, who managed the network before his arrest, has been locked up in the county jail since July 13.

On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane. Newsom is ultimately responsible for the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) where Childs worked for the past five years

Mayor Newsom secured the passwords without first telling DTIS about his meeting with Childs, according to DTIS chief administrative officer Ron Vinson, who added, "We're very happy the mayor embarked on his clandestine mission."

The department now has full administrative control of the network, he said in an interview Tuesday night.

It's likely that Childs had a lot to tell the mayor when the two met.

Childs' attorney has asked the judge to reduce Childs $5 million bail bond, describing her client as a man who felt himself surrounded by incompetents and supervised by a manager who he felt was undermining his work.

"None of the persons who requested the password information from Mr. Childs ... were qualified to have it," she said in a court filing.

Childs intends to disprove the charges against him but also "expose the utter mismanagement, negligence, and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger," his motion reads.

Vinson dismissed the allegations. "In Terry Childs' mind, obviously he thinks the network is his, but it's not. It's the taxpayers'," he said. "The reason he's been sitting in jail is because he denied the department and others access to the system."

The court filings help explain just how this happened.

According to an affidavit from James Ramsey, an inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, he and other investigators discovered dial-up and DSL (digital subscriber line) modems that would allow an unauthorized connection to the FiberWAN. He also found that Childs had configured several of the Cisco devices with a command that would erase critical configuration data in the event that anyone tried to restore administrative access to the devices, something Ramsey saw as dangerous because no backup configuration files could be found.

This command, called a No Service Password Recovery is often used by engineers to add an extra level of security to networks, said Mike Chase, regional director of engineering with FusionStorm, an IT services provider that supports Cisco products.

But without access to either Childs' passwords or the backup configuration files, administrators would have to essentially re-configure their entire network, an error-prone and time-consuming possibility, Chase said. "It's basically like playing 3D chess," he said. "In that situation, you're stuck interviewing everybody at every site getting anecdotal stories of who's connected to what. And then you're guaranteed to miss something."

Without the passwords, the network would still continue to run, but it would be impossible to reconfigure the equipment. The only way to restore these devices to a manageable state would be to knock them offline and then reconfigure them, something that would take weeks or months to complete, disrupt service, and cost the city "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars," Ramsey claims.

Crane argues that these monitoring devices were installed with management's permission and were critical to the smooth functioning of the network. They would page Childs when the system went down and allow him to remotely access the network from his personal computer in case of an emergency.

In interviews, current and former DTIS staffers describe Childs as a well respected co-worker who may have gone too far under the pressure of working in a department that had been demoralized and drastically cut as the city moved forward with plans to decentralize IT operations.

About 200 of the department's 350 IT positions had been cut since 2000, mostly to be relocated to other divisions within city government, said Richard Isen, IT chapter president with Childs' union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21.

Despite his conflict with some in the department, Childs has a lot of support there, Isen said. "There is a lot of sympathy, only because there is a basic feeling that management misunderstand what we actually do and doesn't appreciate the complexity of the work."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/...network_1.html





Researchers Could Face Legal Risks for Network Snooping
Chris Soghoian

A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for a research project in which they snooped on users of the Tor anonymous proxy network. Should federal prosecutors take interest in the project, the researchers could also face up to 5 years in jail for violating the Wiretap Act.

The team of two graduate students and three professors neither sought legal review of the project, nor ran it past the Human Subjects Committee at their university, putting them in a particularly dangerous position.

The academic paper, "Shining Light in Dark Places: Understanding the Tor Network" (pdf) was presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium yesterday, in Leuven, Belgium. The authors are listed as: Damon McCoy, Kevin Bauer, Dr. Dirk Grunwald, Dr. Tadayoshi Kohno and Dr. Douglas Sicker.

The goal of the project was to learn what kind of traffic was flowing over Tor -- a free network providing anonymous web and other Internet services to hundreds of thousands of users world-wide. Some of Tor's users include pro-democracy dissidents, journalists and bloggers in countries like China, Egypt and Burma who would otherwise face arrest and torture for their work.

Tor relies on volunteers who donate computing power and bandwidth to run approximately 2500 publicly accessible proxy servers, which are then used by hundreds of thousands of people to hide their Internet traffic.

In order to study Tor, the researchers setup their own 'exit node' server on the University of Colorado's high-speed network. For 4 days in December 2007, they logged and stored the first 150 bytes of each network packet that crossed their network, thus revealing what kind of traffic was crossing the network, and the remote websites that Tor users were visiting. While the authors do not state how many sessions they snooped on, they do state that their server carried over 700GB of data.

In a second part of the study, the researchers ran an 'entry node' to the network for 15 days, which allowed them to determine the source IP address of a large number of Tor users. They used this to learn which countries use Tor more heavily than others. Note that in this second part of the study, the researchers did not have access to the destination site information, nor were they able to observe the kinds of traffic going through their server.

The researchers found that HTTP (web traffic) was responsible for 58% of their servers' bandwidth. They also found that the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, while accounting for only 3% of the number of connections, was responsible for over 40% of the overall bandwidth. They also observed that German users were responsible for over 30% of the requests through their server.

No Legal Review Sought

In his presentation of the work at the PET Symposium yesterday, Kevin Bauer, one of the graduate students who wrote the paper shed some light on the limited amount of legal analysis performed on the project.

Bauer said that the researchers "spoke informally with one lawyer, who told us that that area of the law is ill defined" based on this, the researchers felt that it was "unnecessary to follow up with other lawyers."

The lawyer they spoke to was Professor Paul Ohm, who teaches at the University of Colorado Law School. Ohm has previously collaborated with two of the researchers on an earlier publication, which discussed the legal risks faced by academics engaged network monitoring research. Ohm, a former federal computer crimes prosecutor, has also been the subject of some media attention in recent months, after he publicly stated that ISP-level advertising and traffic-shaping systems may violate US wiretap laws .

In a response to questions by this blogger, Professor Ohm seemed to attempt to distance himself from the researchers, writing by email:

I met with the research team once before they had finished their research, although I don't know how far along they were at that point. At the meeting, I gave them a very brief sketch about federal Wiretap law and they gave me a very brief sketch of their research. They seemed to have put in place a number of controls to try to minimize the risk of liability. I haven't seen the final paper (as far as I can recall).

I'm not their lawyer, and I've never been their lawyer, and I haven't produced any official or unofficial legal advice about their research, but because I spoke with them about this, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to give you any opinions about the research other than this brief statement.

Legal Risks

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which wrote a legal guide for operators of Tor servers, strongly advises server administrators against snooping on their users. A section in the legal guide makes this clear:

Should I snoop on the plaintext that exits through my Tor relay?

No. You may be technically capable of modifying the Tor source code or installing additional software to monitor or log plaintext that exits your node. However, Tor relay operators in the U.S. can create legal and possibly even criminal liability for themselves under state or federal wiretap laws if they affirmatively monitor, log, or disclose Tor users' communications .... Do not examine the contents of anyone's communications without first talking to a lawyer.

While state laws vary, one immediate concern would be the Wiretap Act, a federal law that broadly prohibits snooping by network operators and others. The core prohibition of the Wiretap Act is found at section 2511(1)(a), which prohibits any person from intentionally intercepting, or attempting to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication." A violation of these rules is is a Class D felony, and can result in fines up to $250,000 and up to 5 years in jail.

It is this same law that groups such as the ACLU and EFF sued AT&T and other telecom companies for violating, when they shared customer communication with the US National Security Agency. AT&T was able to obtain retroactive immunity from the US Congress, but only after spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbyists.

In order to learn more about the legal issues at play, I spoke with Kevin Bankston, the EFF lawyer who wrote the Legal guide for Tor server operators, and who also lead the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T. Bankston told me that:

"I agree that their logging the content exiting their nodes would appear to constitute interceptions of those electronic (not wire) communications under the Wiretap Act, and I don't think they qualify for the narrow provider exceptions [18 USC 2511, 2 (a) I], so I still see the same potential civil and criminal liability that was noted in our FAQ."

No Human Subjects Committee Review

In addition to possible legal issues, the project also raises serious ethical concerns related to the study of users' communications without their consent.

During his presentation, Bauer revealed that the researchers did not seek the approval of their university's Institutional Review Board -- a body that reviews research projects that involve human subjects. He said that, "we were advised that it wasn't necessary," adding that the IRB review process is used "used more in medical and psychology research at our university," and was not generally consulted in computer science projects

Information listed on the website of the University of Colorado's Human Research Committee states that: "All research involving human participants that is conducted by UCB faculty, staff or students must receive some level of review by the Human Research Committee."

Of particular concern to all Institutional Review Boards is any research that involves the study of participants under the age off 18, and other at risk or vulnerable persons. Given that the users of the Tor network have gone out of their way to seek anonymity, and that in some cases, their discovery could lead to arrest or torture, it would seem that these users would almost certainly be considered to be vulnerable. Furthermore, it is quite likely that the snooped communications include at least a few users under the age of 18 -- something that the researchers did not address in their paper.

In a paper published earlier this year, Dr. Simson Garfinkel explored some of the common myths and pitfalls for computer security researchers that study real users and their behavior, and the need to submit their projects to an IRB review.

Dr Garfinkel specifically deals with one of the researcher's claims:

Myth: Because the Common Rule exempts research involving subjects that cannot be identified, IRB approval is not required when using anonymized data

Although this would certainly be convenient, most institutions only allow a determination of exemption to be made by the IRB itself.

A request for clarification on these issues left with the director of the University of Colorado Human Research Committee had not been returned by press time.

Other concerns

In addition to the issues surrounding US legal liability, and ethical concerns over human subject testing -- there is one other problem: International law.

While the researchers are Americans, and conducted their study on a server based in the US, there is certainly an international angle to their study. Users from around the world sent traffic through the researchers' server, and as such more strict Canadian and European intercept and data privacy laws may apply.

Furthermore, one of the strongest privacy protections inherent in the Tor system is the complete lack of logging. That is, if law enforcement agencies approach a Tor server administrator seeking information on a user of the system, the admin can truthfully reply that they have no logs, and thus have nothing that they can be compelled to produce.

Taking questions before their presentation, two of the authors told me that they still have a copy of the data that they collected, and admitted that it was not currently stored on an encrypted disk. They did stress that it was, however, being kept in a "secure" location.

What this means of course, is that law enforcement agencies could easily subpoena this data, thus legally compelling the researchers into handing over the data. This places the users of the Tor network at a significant risk, one that certainly violates the expected social norms of the system.

During the question and answer session after his presentation, Bauer stated that the researchers were still not sure what they were going to do with the data set, and were exploring possibilities for releasing it to researchers in an anonymized and non-personally identifiable way. This statement was met with boos from the audience, which was mainly made up of privacy researchers and activists, a number of whom run their own legitimate Tor servers.

Caveat Emptor

While the US government did not send officials to this annual meeting of privacy researchers, the Canadian government did. A representative for Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario was in the audience during the presentation.

When asked for comment on the research project, and any potential impact for Canadian citizens who may have used the snooping Tor server, Cavoukian issued the following statement:

"Whether you run an ISP, a search engine, a Tor server node, or a research project, the principle of Data Minimization should rule. Universal privacy practices require that strong limits be placed on the processing and storage of personal data. In today's online world of constant data availability, privacy requires data minimization at every stage of the information life-cycle: If you don't need the data, don't collect it in the first place; if you don't need it any more, then destroy it securely -- don't keep it any longer than you need to. Full stop."

Wise words indeed.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9997273-46.html





Speculation Over Back Door in Skype

According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.

This has been confirmed to heise online by a number of the parties present at the meeting. Skype declined to give a detailed response to specific enquiries from heise online as to whether Skype contains a back door and whether specific clients allowing access to a system or a specific key for decrypting data streams exist. The response from the eBay subsidiary's press spokesman was brief, "Skype does not comment on media speculation. Skype has no further comment at this time." There have been rumours of the existence of a special listening device which Skype is reported to offer for sale to interested states.

There has long been speculation that Skype may contain a back door. Because the vendor has not revealed details of its proprietary Skype protocol or of how the client works, questions as to what else Skype is capable of and what risks are involved in deploying it in an enterprise environment remain open.

Last week, Austrian broadcaster ORF, citing minutes from the meeting, reported that the Austrian police are able to listen in on Skype connections. Interior ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia declined to provide heise online with a comment on the matter. He did, however, offer general comments on the meeting, which were, however, contradicted by other attendees.

In contrast to statements from the interior ministry, the meeting was not attended solely by technical staff; those present included lawyers, regulatory experts and staff at the regulator. Neither were the ministry representatives mere technicians, rather they were high-ranking officials in management positions. They demanded from the ISP representatives present an "Austrian industry solution" for accessing data traffic. They called for ISPs to allow the interior ministry to install network bridges and Linux computers in their network centres. These would be used to copy and filter data traffic and forward it to the interior ministry via an encrypted connection. To facilitate filtering, ISPs should assign fixed IP addresses to customers being monitored.

it was made clear that should ISPs oppose these demands, monitoring legislation would be revised at some future time-point to prescribe the use of the ETSI ES 201 671 Version 3.1.1. monitoring standard. This would be legally binding and would require significantly more time and effort and be more expensive to implement. The reason given for not updating the legislation right away was that, in view of the present absence of terrorist activity, it would not currently be possible to mobilise political support for such a move. The officials are reported to have made clear that they were well aware that their monitoring plans would only catch the more gauche end of the criminal spectrum. Professionally organised criminals would utilise encryption algorithms that would not allow easy decryption.

It was also put about that two major ISPs had already succumbed to this pressure. The network bridges requested by the interior ministry have reportedly already been installed on their systems. This was confirmed by both companies, off the record. UPC/Inode was willing to "definitively deny" that a network bridge had been installed on its network and stated that there were also no plans to do so. Monitoring was carried out in individual cases only and only when instructed by a court order.

According to Mobilkom Austria, "the authorities have no access and will not be granted access." Likewise its fixed line affiliate Telekom Austria. Mobilkom has informed heise online, that, in response to a court order, on a single occasion it stored the total data traffic for one customer over a number of days and forwarded it to the police. In such cases, the interior ministry now wants to replace the use of physical media, with the inevitable delays this entails, with an encrypted connection. ISPs will, however, remain responsible for separating the monitored data stream from overall traffic.

For reasons of redundancy, Mobilkom's network does not have a central point from which all traffic can be accessed. Because the plan has now been made public, the money-saving idea of assigning fixed IP addresses to customers who are to be monitored is unlikely to be able to be implemented. More expensive solutions are likely to be required, though it remains unclear who will bear the ensuing costs.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/113353





New Systems Keep a Close Eye on Online Students at Home
Andrea L. Foster

Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes.

It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph — part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act — is all but assured of becoming law by the fall. No one in Congress objects to it.

The paragraph is actually about clamping down on cheating. It says that an institution that offers an online program must prove that an enrolled student is the same person who does the work.

Already, the language is spurring some colleges to try technologies that authenticate online test takers by reading their fingerprints, watching them via Web cameras, or recording their keystrokes. Some colleges claim there are advantages for students: The devices allow them to take tests anytime, anywhere. Many students must now travel to distant locations so a proctor can watch them take exams on paper.

But some college officials are wary of the technologies, noting that they are run by third-party vendors that may not safeguard students' privacy. Among the information the vendors collect are students' fingerprints, and possibly even images from inside their homes.

"This is taking a step into a student's private life," said Rhonda M. Epper, co-executive director of Colorado Community Colleges Online. "I don't know if we want to extend our presence that far."

The officials also want flexibility to comply with the proposed law. They worry that the government will force them to use a particular method that could be too expensive or that would emphasize exams over other assessments. They also complain that the provision implies that cheating is more of a problem among students online than among students in a classroom.

Biometric Solutions

Three technologies, which vendors have been promoting at college conferences and which colleges are evaluating, illustrate the promises and pitfalls of this kind of monitoring.

Troy University, in Alabama, has been testing a gadget that features a mirrored sphere suspended above a small pedestal. Called Securexam Remote Proctor, it's about the size of a large paperweight and plugs into a standard port on a home computer. The pedestal includes a groove for scanning fingerprints, a tiny microphone, and a camera. The sphere reflects a 360-degree view around the test taker, which the camera picks up.

Students are recorded during exams, and anything suspicious — such as someone else's presence or voice in the room — is flagged.

To use the system, a student sits in front of a computer and places a finger on the pedestal. Securexam checks whether the digital fingerprint and the image of the student match those the student provided at registration. Then the test opens online via a course-management system. The student is prevented from viewing anything else online.

The system is not cheap. Students pay $150 for the device. Further, it works only with the Windows operating system and an Internet Explorer browser, creating a problem for students who have Macs, for instance.

Software Secure Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., developed the device with $1.1-million in seed money from Troy. In return, the university gets the first 10,000 Securexams that the company produces. If it sells more than that, the university receives a share of the proceeds.

By the end of this fall, the university anticipates that about 800 of its 17,000 eCampus students from across the world will have used Securexam. Thousands more will begin using the device in January.

World Campus, the online arm of the Pennsylvania State University system, is testing another system called Webassessor. It uses proctors, Web cameras, and software that recognizes students' typing styles, such as their speed and whether they pause between certain letters. Students purchase the cameras for $50 to $80 apiece. They allow proctors to view a student's face, keyboard, and workspace.

The Phoenix-based provider of the system, Kryterion Inc., employs proctors who remotely observe and listen to as many as 50 students at a time. If the keystroke pattern of a student who is taking an exam does not match the one he or she provided at registration, or if the image of a student taking an exam does not match a digital photograph that the student provided at enrollment, then the student cannot start the exam. A proctor can also stop a student who is acting suspiciously from completing an exam. Students must have a broadband connection to use the service.

Kryterion charges institutions $20,000 to customize the software and for training. It also charges colleges each time students sit for an exam.

World Campus has been trying out Webassessor this summer on undergraduates in two courses. "At the moment, things look promising for a complete rollout," says Rick L. Shearer, interim director of World Campus.

Challenging Questions

Several other universities are forming partnerships with Acxiom Corporation. The company's system relies on test takers' answering detailed, personal "challenge" questions. Acxiom, based in Little Rock, Ark., gathers information from a variety of databases, including criminal files and property records. The company uses the data to ask students questions, such as streets they lived on, house numbers, and previous employers. If students answer the questions correctly, they proceed to the exams.

National American University Online is testing the system on its students, and the Colorado community-college consortium is also considering using it.

Jeffrey L. Bailie, dean of online instruction for National, says he anticipates that the system will be used on students when they take final exams or other high-stakes assessments. "We want to take just one added step to make sure that the person on the other end is who they're reporting to be," he says.

He declines to reveal how much the system costs. But Michael A. Jortberg, who is leading Acxiom's higher-education efforts, says it costs roughly $10 a student.

Unfair Burdens?

Despite the lure of these technologies, many college officials have decided to wait to test them on their students, noting the cost. Furthermore, officials say, it's unclear what requirements the Education Department would impose on institutions to comply with the proposed law.

"It's going to reduce access," says John F. Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, an online institution based in Albany, N.Y. "It's going to increase costs."

Other officials are disturbed that the proposed law singles out online education.

"We're feeling a little picked on," says Lori McNabb, assistant director of student and faculty services at the UT TeleCampus, the online arm of the University of Texas system.

She says there's no evidence that cheating or fraud happens more often with its students than with students in face-to-face classes.

How do professors know that a student enrolled in a large lecture class is the same one handing in an assignment or test, she asks?

She and others say online instructors rely more on discussions, writing assignments, quizzes, group work, and "capstone" projects to judge their students' performance, and less on big exams. Tests, when they are administered, are often randomized so students in the same class get different questions, which must be answered quickly, making it difficult for those unfamiliar with the material to take tests for students. Instructors become familiar with students' writing styles so they can spot fraudulent work, officials add.

Mr. Ebersole, despite his worries about reduced access for students, does see one upside to the proposed law. If the provision causes online colleges to document that their enrolled students are indeed the same ones completing course work, online education could garner more respect, he says.

"If it raises confidence and credibility in the eyes of regulators and traditional educators," says Mr. Ebersole, "it's worth it."
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i46/46a00103.htm





Lock your inboxes

‘Spam King’ Escapes from Federal Prison
Ryan Naraine

Edward “Eddie” Davidson, a notorious e-mail spammer who was sentenced to jail time in April, has escaped from a federal prison camp in Florence, Colorado.

Davidson, also known as the “Spam King, made a run for it when his wife visited him last Sunday and is now officially listed in “escape” status, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was last seen in Lakewood, CO.

The FBI, IRS, and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force are helping the U.S. Marshals in the search for Davidson.

Davidson was housed in a minimum security facility. Minimum security institutions, also known as Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and are work and program-oriented. FPCs are generally located adjacent to larger institutions, where inmates help serve the labor needs of the larger institution.

This from the Rocky Mountain News:

“He jumped in the car with his wife,” said Will Cochenour of the Lakewood police Tuesday. “When they were leaving, he forced her in the car, brought them home and left after a change in clothing. He’s still at large.”

On April 28, 2008, Davidson was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Marcia S. Krieger to serve 21 months (just under 2 years) in federal prison. Judge Krieger also ordered him to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS. As part of the restitution, Davis has agreed to forfeit property he purchased, including gold coins (which the IRS is selling today), with the ill gotten proceeds of his offense.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1543





Final message

Fugitive Spammer Dies in Murder-Suicide

Colorado officials say man, woman, 3-year-old dead; 2 survive ordeal

A convicted spammer and his wife, who were being sought after she helped him escape prison, were found slain along with their young daughter Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide, authorities said.

A teenage girl was shot in the neck and a baby was found unhurt in a car seat inside the vehicle where the three bodies were found, Arapahoe County undersheriff Mark Campbell said. The relationship between the girl, baby and the escaped convict wasn't immediately clear.

The bodies of "Spam King" Edward "Eddie" Davidson, his wife, and 3-year-old daughter were found in an SUV parked in a farmhouse driveway in a rural part of Bennett, about 25 miles east of Denver. Authorities said Davidson was the apparent gunman.

"What a nightmare, and such a coward," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said. "Davidson imposed the 'death penalty' on family members for his own crime."

Authorities had been searching for them since Sunday, when the couple drove away from a minimum-security federal prison in Florence, 90 miles south of Denver.

Eid said that after Davidson escaped, he drove to the Denver suburb of Lakewood and got a change of clothes and cash. The house where the shooting occurred was not where the Davidsons lived, Campbell said.

Davidson, 35, was sentenced in April to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion and criminal forfeiture.

Campbell said deputies rushed to the farmhouse after receiving reports of shots fired.

They found Davidson on the driver's side of the SUV and a woman dead on the passenger side. A girl was found dead in the back of the car, and a 7- or 8-month-old boy was in a car seat uninjured.

Injured girl ran for help

Campbell said a teenage girl who was shot in the neck ran to a neighbor's house for help and has been hospitalized. He said the girl had serious injuries, but was coherent and talking when taken to the hospital.

Prosecutors said that from 2002 to 2005, Davidson's business, Power Promoters, and his subcontractors would spam people's inboxes with e-mails promoting items such as watches and perfume.

From 2005 through part of 2006, he sent thousands of e-mails from his home in Bennett, sometimes with false information, on behalf of a Houston company promoting a penny stock as an excellent investment, according to a plea agreement. His bank account deposits from 2003 to 2006 totaled $3.5 million, the plea agreement said.

Prosecutors said they also found about $380,000 that he had stashed in his girlfriend's bank account over three years, and purchases totaling $418,000 from a company that sells gold, platinum, palladium and silver coins.

Prosecutors did not identify the girlfriend in court documents.

When Davidson was sentenced, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger noted it was Davidson's first serious conviction, and that he was supporting three children, which documents did not identify. She noted Davidson had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A condition of his sentence was that he undergo mental health counseling.

Michael Arvin, Davidson's attorney during his criminal trial, did not return a phone message left after business hours Thursday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25840140





Google Blogger "Hosts 2% of World's Malware"
Barry Collins

Google's Blogger service is responsible for 2% of the world's malware hosted on the web, according to a new report from security firm Sophos.

The security firm claims hackers are setting up pages on the free blogging service to host malicious code, or simply posting links to infected websites in other bloggers' comments.

"Blogger accounts for around 2% of malware," according to Sophos's senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley. "It's head and shoulders above the rest [of the blogging services]."

Cluley says Blogger is worse than other blogging services because of its close ties with the search behemoth. "The attraction for the bad guys in targeting Blogger is that things pretty much get spidered instantly into Google, because it [Blogger] is part of Google," he says.

Sophos says it doesn't blame Google for the situation and that the company is proactive in weeding out malicious sites from its search results. It also claims pre-scanning blogs for malicious content simply wouldn't work. "The sheer weight of legitimate traffic makes that unworkable," claims Cluley. "We see 16,000 malicious web pages added every day - that's one every five seconds, and that's just little old Sophos. Google may see more than that."

"You could post a link into someone's blog and even if you checked that link at the time, it may be totally harmless. In 20 minutes time the hacker says 'OK, Google's now checked me, now I'll update the page'. So you have to continually scan all of the links on all of the blog pages to do this properly. Which basically is another whole new Google, re-spidering the web to check if there's something malicious there."

Google says its users mustn't be evil. "Google takes the security of our users very seriously, and we work hard to protect them from malware," a company statement reads. "Using Blogger, or any Google product, to serve or host malware is a violation of our product policies. We actively work to detect and remove sites that serve malware from our network."
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/214371/g...s-malware.html





Google Launched Knol to Challenge Wikipedia

Recently the number one search engine, Google, has unveiled to the public Knol, the company's website that allows experts to write, express ideas on their fields of expertise. The main difference between Knol and Wikipedia is the authorship. On Knol the public will have the actual names of the authors, whereas Wikipedia allows anyone to edit anonymously, just tracking the IP.

"We are deeply convinced that authorship - knowing who wrote what - helps readers trust the content," outlined Cedric DuPont, product manager for Google's Knol.

According to Mr DuPont, the entries on the public website, called knoll.google.com, are dubbed "knols".

The name "knoll" is a nice, very simple word to remember, and it’s part of knowledge," said Udi Manber, the head of search engineering at Google.

In December Google performed a limited test of its new service. It is interesting to note that the service has almost the same tools that single blog pages have. However, Knol encourages experts to reduce the amount of content on a topic to a single page, which is not updated chronologically.

"What we want to get away from is 'this last voice wins' model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional," said Mr DuPont.

The search engine looks forwards to rank entries by popularity in order to encourage competition. For a better understanding, let's check an example: this knol on lung cancer features lots of details on the topic, along with images and a glossary. If you check the upper right corner, you may notice the name of the author Jessica Donington, and her title, Thoracic Surgeon NYU School of Medicine. As other contributors publish on lung cancer, Google will rank related pages in accordance with user ratings, reviews and the number of people's references to certain pages.

Knol does not edit nor endorse the entries and those who visit a specific page will not be able to edit information without the permission of the author. In case readers consider any content objectionable, they can notify Google.

Knol uses the so-called "moderated collaboration", where any reader of a certain topic page may suggest edits to the author, who can choose whether to accept, reject or alter changes before publishing.

Google was able to reach an agreement Conde Nast's New Yorker magazine, allowing Knol's publishers to use one of the magazine's cartoons in each entry. In addition Google will allow writers to run ads on their articles and will share the income.

Mr DuPont mentioned that the primary goal of Knol is not to provide competition to Wikipedia but to serve as a main source of authoritative information that anyone can use to edit Wikipedia articles.

"Knols will fill gaps on what we have on the web today. That is what we hope," he added.
http://www.infoniac.com/hi-tech/goog...wikipedia.html





The Death of Google's Patents?
John F. Duffy

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc.

In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”[1] Perhaps, the agency has conceded, some “new, unforeseen technology” might warrant an “exception” to this formalistic test, but in the agency’s view, no such technology has yet emerged so there is no reason currently to use a more inclusive standard.[2]

The Bilski en banc hearing attracted enormous attention, and yet there has remained a sense among many patent practitioners that the PTO’s attempts to curtail section 101 would affect only a few atypical patent claims. The vast bulk of patents on software, business and information technology are thought by some not to be threatened because those innovations are typically implemented on a machine—namely, a computer—and the tie to a machine would provide security against the agency’s contractions of § 101. Even if that view were right, the contraction of patent eligibility would be very troubling because the patent system is supposed to be designed to encourage the atypical, the unusual and the innovative. But that view is wrong.

The logic of the PTO’s positions in Nuijten, Comiskey and Bilski has always threatened to destabilize whole fields of patenting, most especially in the field of software patents. If the PTO’s test is followed, the crucial question for the vitality of patents on computer implemented inventions is whether a general purpose computer qualifies as a “particular” machine within the meaning of the agency’s test. In two recent decisions announced after the oral arguments in the Bilski case, Ex parte Langemyr (May 28, 2008) and Ex parte Wasynczuk (June 2, 2008),[3] the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has now supplied an answer to that question: A general purpose computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software processes are unpatentable if they are tied only to a general purpose computer.

That stark answer should capture the attention of the many inventors and firms owning, or seeking to own, patents on innovative computer implemented processes, for the PTO’s new interpretation of patentable subject matter provides a clear avenue to reject patent applications and to invalid issued patents on all such innovations without regard to how meritorious or creative the innovation is. To understand the sweeping implications of this new position, we need only to consider how the PTO’s position applies to the patent on Google’s PageRank technology, which is surely one of the most famous and valuable of all modern software patents and which is now almost surely invalid under the agency’s position.

The Patent on Google’s PageRank Technology

Google has constructed its web search technology using a “technology for ranking web pages” that the company refers to as “PageRank.”[4] This patented technology was developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were attending Stanford University.[5] Stanford owns the patent, and Google holds a perpetual license on the technology that is exclusive through at least 2011.[6] The first claim of this important patent reads:

A computer implemented method of scoring a plurality of linked documents, comprising:

obtaining a plurality of documents, at least some of the documents being linked documents, at least some of the documents being linking documents, and at least some of the documents being both linked documents and linking documents, each of the linked documents being pointed to by a link in one or more of the linking documents;

assigning a score to each of the linked documents based on scores of the one or more linking documents; and

processing the linked documents according to their scores.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999 (filed Jan. 9, 1998, issued Sept. 4, 2001).[7].

How does Google’s patent fare under the position advanced by the government in Bilski? The first part of the government’s test recognizes the patentable eligibility for processes that result in “a physical transformation of an article.” Google’s PageRank process seems to fail that part of the test, for the process merely generates a set of scores (which are merely numbers) that are then used to score or rank documents. The documents themselves probably do not qualify as physical articles under the government’s restrictive test, for the documents are typically virtual webpages. Moreover, even if the documents would count as physical articles, they are not transformed; the process merely ranks them. The total output from the Google patent is just a mass of intangible data, and worse still it is intangible data about intangible documents. Simply put, there’s no “physical,” no “transformation,” and no “article.” Indeed, Google’s process is even less physical than the process at issue in Bilski, which involved hedging the volatility in money flows. Dollars and cents seem real and physical enough for many people. If processes affecting money flows do not qualify as producing a physical transformation, it seems impossible to imagine that a process would qualify where it only scores virtual documents by virtual links to other virtual documents.

The second part of the PTO’s proposed eligibility test is thus crucial. Unlike the patent claim in Bilski, which was not limited to machine implemented hedges, Google’s PageRank patent claim expressly states that it is “computer implemented.” But the government’s test does not merely require a connection to a machine; it requires a tie to a particular machine.

On a recent panel held after the oral argument in Bilski, I raised the issue of Google’s patent claim with Ray Chen, the lawyer who represented the PTO in Bilski, and he asserted that, under the PTO’s position, the Google claim was probably still patentable.[8] But in light of the PTO’s subsequent decisions in Langemyr and Wasynczuk, it is increasingly hard to see how Google’s PageRank patent survives. Nor is that one patent an anomaly in Google’s portfolio.[9] Indeed, other patents owned by Google include claims that do not even include a formal limitation to a computer.[10] Google might have thought that the patent system would surely protect new technological developments that are highly creative and socially valuable. The PTO’s new position proves that view mistaken.

Langemyr and Wasynczuk

The patent claim at issue in Langemyr covers a “method executed in a computer apparatus” for producing a model of a physical system using a set of partial differential equations.[11] Even though Langemyr’s claimed invention is more closely tied to the physical world than Google’s PageRank technology is—Langemyr is, after all, modeling the physical systems rather than scoring virtual documents by their virtual links to other virtual documents—the PTO Board still had little difficulty finding that Langemyr’s claimed process does not contain a “physical transformation” and therefore does not qualify as patentable subject matter under the first part of the PTO’s test. The Board reasoned that the claimed process produced no “transformation of subject matter but merely an abstract mathematical expression that is created from the previous steps.”[12] The process, the Board noted, “does not require any physical output into the real world.”[13] Precisely the same can be said of Google’s patented process, which produces merely mathematical expressions—a set of ranks or scores—and lacks any physical output into the real world.

Thus for both Langemyr and Google, patent eligibility under the PTO’s test comes down to the interpretation of the second part of the PTO’s test. Both the Langemyr and Google patent claims are expressly limited to processes “executed” (Langemyr) or “implemented” (Google) on a general purpose computer, and the Langemyr decision holds that “the limitation that the method is ‘executed in a computer apparatus’ does not tie the method to a ‘particular machine.’”[14] The key flaw in Langemyr’s claim, the PTO Board reasoned, was its general applicability to all computer: “Any and all computing systems will suffice, indicating that the claim is not directed to the function of any particular machine. … Thus, the claimed method is not tied to ‘a particular machine,’ but rather is tied only to a general purpose computer.” [15]

In these crucial passages, the PTO Board has provided the foundation for rejecting and invalidating huge swaths of software patents, including not merely Langemyr’s claims, but those of Google, Microsoft, IBM and many other companies. If we want to evaluate the PTO’s ongoing attempts to constrict § 101, it does not seem an understatement to say that the constriction is truly breathtaking, given that the PTO’s position pushes outside the patent system Google’s PageRank patent, even though that patent covers one of the most widely known and commercially successful innovations of our era.

This is not, however, the end of the story. The PTO’s decision in Ex parte Wasynczuk provides one final twist so Kafkaesque as to strain credulity.

As in Langemyr, the invention at issue in Wasynczuk relates to a “computer-implemented” process for modeling physical systems.[16] As in Langemyr, the PTO Board in Wasynczuk holds the broadest claim in the application to be unpatentable subject matter because “the sole structural limitation recited is the ‘computer-implemented system’ of the preamble” and that limitation “is not any particular apparatus” because the computer could be “essentially any conventional apparatus that performs the claimed functions.”[17]

Yet unlike in Langemyr, the application in Wasynczuk also included a narrower claim in which “the first simulating step [of the claimed process] is performed on ‘a first physical computing device’ and the second simulating step is performed on ‘a second physical computing device.’”[18] The PTO Board holds that claim to be patentable subject matter. The Board concluded that the collection of the two “physical computing devices” operating together “is ‘a particular apparatus’ to which the process is tied, not simply a generic computing device for performing the steps.”[19] Distribution of the process over two general purpose computing devices quite clearly seems to be the key to patentability in the Board’s view, for the Board emphasized that the narrower claim covered only the embodiment in Wasynczuk’s specification that “uses two computing devices” not the embodiment that “uses a single computer.”[20] In sum, an innovative process is not patentable when operating on a single computer processor but is when operating on two processors, even though the Board recognizes that the process in the unpatentable claim “is essentially the method” set forth in the patentable claim.[21]

Google’s PageRank patent claim is of course not saved by the PTO’s caveat that two computer processors are better one when it comes to patentable subject matter. The PageRank claim requires only computer implementation and is thus invalid under both Langemyr and Wasynczuk. But the Wasynczuk definition of “particular machine” opens up vast possibilities for future litigation. In an age when even simple laptops often contain multiple processors, many patent claims could be written as functioning on multiple “physical computing devices.” Will such claims generally be patent eligible? Will dual core processors operating on a single chip (e.g., Intel’s Centrino Duo® chip) constitute a “particular machine”? Or will the processors have to be physically separate chips or physically separate computers? Will the patent claims have to specify that certain steps occur only on one processor while other steps occur solely on the other? Will the result be different if the processors share steps to some degree? All these and many more fascinating questions will provide ample billable hours for patent attorneys even as inventors look on with utter horror and disbelief at the crucial importance the legal system is placing on distinctions that are technologically meaningless to the innovations sought to be patented.

Requiem (?) for Google’s Patent

The apparent death of Google’s pioneering PageRank patent under the PTO’s new rule for patentable subject matter may be a cause for celebration among those who are philosophically opposed to property rights in innovation and are eager to confine the patent system’s ambit. It will surely be cause for mourning among those who believe that allowing patents on cutting edge technologies has served the country well for more than two centuries and that a radical departure from the traditional approach would be unwise. And it is likely to generate puzzlement among business people and innovators, who may wonder how agency decisions supposedly premised on the need for ensuring that “that the patent system be directed to protecting technological innovations”[22] have ended up rendering unpatentable innovations in search engine technology, computer modeling, bioinformatics and many other innovations in cutting edge fields related to software and information technology.

Undeniably, however, the pallor now cast upon Google’s patents and many other software patents highlight the stakes in the Federal Circuit’s pending en banc decision in Bilski. The PTO Board’s reasoning in Wasynczuk also reveals that the agency’s proposed new rule for patentable subject matter will not produce certainty but will instead open up software patents to new and previously unimagined litigation over the precise scope of the concept of a “particular machine.” Vast industries of modern innovation must now wait to see whether the courts will follow the agency’s lead.
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008...ath-of-go.html





The F.T.C.’s Bully Pulpit on Privacy
Saul Hansell

I recently had a chance to sit down with Lydia B. Parnes, the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s bureau of consumer protection. She is the top government regulator who looks after Internet advertising and privacy issues, among many other concerns.

We spoke in her large office, piled high with stacks of paper, a few hours after she testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on the how advertising companies are trying to track the behavior of users online.

Interestingly, while Google and Microsoft called for new legislation to create national privacy standards, Ms. Parnes did not. She said the commission believed that its initiative to encourage online companies to regulate themselves is a better way. Here are some of her thoughts, and those of her colleague, Eileen Harrington, the deputy director of consumer protection, who joined us.

Why not pass a law on Internet Privacy?

Ms. Parnes was wary of a rush to legislation because too little is known, she argues, about what needs to be required and what should be banned. With a market that is changing as quickly as Internet advertising, there is danger, she said, in “taking a snapshot of the way the market works at a specific time.”

She added that “nobody is quite sure” what the harm is that might be prevented by a privacy law. When I pressed for what appears to be the emerging dangers from tracking on the Internet, she said pointed to the fact that sensitive information—such as a person’s medical or financial status—could be misused. Moreover, if data is not kept securely, people are at risk of identity theft.

What about the broader view that people simply don’t want to be watched as they move through their private lives? Ms. Parnes said that people’s views on this are not entirely consistent.

“A big question is how much consumers understand the connection between relevant advertising and tracking,” she said. “If you ask people whether they want to be trace when they are online they generally say they do not. But if you ask them whether they want a free Internet they say yes. And if you ask them if they want relevant advertising, they say yes.”

Nosey I.S.P.’s

I asked Ms. Parnes whether special rules are needed for Internet Service providers that want to monitor the surfing activities of their customers and sell the data to advertising companies. She had no answers, only questions.

“Do consumers have some different expectation of privacy, given their relationship with their I.S.P.?,” she asked. If they do, she said it is still an open question whether such monitoring should be banned outright or whether there should be a rule requiring the I.S.P.’s to get more explicit consent from their customers to use their surfing behavior.

The lesson of spam

Ms. Harrington pointed out it took several years for a consensus to emerge that legislation was needed to regulate junk e-mail or spam.

“Quite a lot was known about spam,” she said, including the specific harm that it caused: “It was know that it was clogging mailboxes.” Moreover, the commission, along with other law enforcement agencies, had taken legal action against various spammers under existing statutes, which exposed their limitations.

Ultimately Congress passed the Can-Spam Act in 2003. That law defines some standards that have been more or less adopted by legitimate companies, such as requiring commercial e-mail to have the physical address of the sender as well as a way to request to be removed from the e-mail list. It also defines a range of illegal e-mail practices that are routinely ignored in astoundingly high volume by spammers of the world.

How self-regulation works

As Ms. Parnes explained it, self-regulation at the Federal Trade Commission is a far different concept than at some other agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. The New York Stock Exchange, for example, operates as a self regulatory organization, governing the practices of its members, but it is also tightly supervised by the S.E.C. What is more, no one can trade stocks on the N.Y.S.E. without submitting to these rules.

To the F.T.C., self regulation is a much more voluntary proposition.

“We can say you really should do this,” Ms. Parnes said. “We don’t have the ability to say you are required to do it.” That is largely a function of the relatively weak powers that Congress has invested in the commission. It was formed out of the trust busting era at the beginning of the last century and now has a broad charter to fight anti-competitive, misleading and fraudulent business practices.

Ms. Parnes said that the commission has found that its suggestions can be very persuasive.

“When we come out and say we think people should follow these general principles, surprisingly at the end of the day industry steps up.”

Will nosey advertisers be like candy makers?

Ms. Parnes pointed to the commission’s call for food companies to restrain how they market food to kids, which resulted in an agreement with 10 big food companies in 2006. Now companies representing more than two-thirds of the food market participate, which Ms. Parnes defined as a major accomplishment.

I wondered about the rest of the companies who are having a field day pushing all manner of sugary and fatty treats to our obese children. And by extension, Iwhat if one-third of the advertising companies and Internet providers decided not to sign on to the commission’s preferred regulatory standards?

As it is, the current, relatively weak standards run by a group called the Network Advertising Initiative, is agreed to by the very biggest Internet advertising companies, like Microsoft and Google’s DoubleClick, but smaller players and even some big ones, like ValueClick, don’t submit to them.

Ms. Parnes said the agency has the ability to pressure more companies to participate. “I don’t think companies want to be seen as out of the mainstream, not doing things that 70 percent of the industry is doing.”

She harkened back to a phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt, one of the original trustbusters.

“This is an area we can use the bully pulpit to encourage the best practices by the industry,” she said.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...acy/index.html





Web Ad Firm Learns People Don't Like Spying
Ray Everett-Church

The last couple of weeks have been pretty bad for the folks over at the behavioral targeting and advertising company NebuAd.

During some highly contentious hearings on Capitol Hill, it seems to have come as a shock and surprise to the executives at NebuAd that people might have a problem with having their Internet connection spied upon for advertising purposes.

NebuAd, a Redwood City, Calif.-based start-up has been raked over the coals on both sides of Capitol Hill in recent weeks for its business model, which is based upon the monitoring of consumer broadband connections to build activity profiles and to deliver better targeted advertisements.

Several members of Congress suggested that NebuAd's monitoring and analysis of consumers' Internet connections was only permissible if consumers gave affirmative consent and "opted-in" for the service.

There were no news reports that the skull of NebuAd's CEO, Robert Dykes, exploded at that suggestion. But it certainly could have, because Dykes knows just as well as anybody else that very few people would be willing to be spied upon without some real tangible benefit coming in return.

When I first read about NebuAd's plight, I could only roll my eyes and mutter, "here we go again!" Sure enough, the more I read about them, the more I realized that they were heading down an ugly road.

You see, this is a line of business that I know a thing or two about. Nearly a decade ago, I worked as the first Chief Privacy Officer for an Internet advertising start-up called AllAdvantage.

Even in those ancient times (when the Internet, in some places, still was little more than a 'series of tubes'), there were very few consumers begging to be spied upon in the vain hope that they'd get to see better targeted ads. The ranks of those suffering from too little advertising are even smaller today. Knowing this, at AllAdvantage we decided that the one way to get people to let us "spy" on them was to pay them for the privilege. So we built a system that rewarded people for the time they allowed us to look over their shoulder and build a data profile. In 18 short months, more than 10 million people around the world gave us permission, and in turn we paid out more than $100 million to them before the bottom fell out of the dotcom advertising market in early 2001.

The other thing we knew, and frankly it was the reason they hired me away from a law firm in Washington, DC, was that, even with a permission and compensation-based system, and even with the strongest privacy protections in place, politicians and policy-makers would not look kindly on a business that seemed to be built upon spying on people.

So even before I had moved into my office at AllAdvantage, I had a meeting with one of the best tech-industry lobbyists in Washington to feel him out about the best approaches to take in order to head off the inevitable firestorm.

Before AllAdvantage even had its name painted on its office door, our lobbyist Robb Watters was helping us to understand the lay of the land in terms of how Internet privacy was being viewed, and how to help shape the discussion so that our company was perceived to be driving efforts to protect consumers and not seen as trying to pull a fast one.

As a result of this strategy, AllAdvantage quickly became recognized as a thought-leader while many of our competitors would go on to be branded as 'spyware' companies and hounded out of business.

Unfortunately, NebuAd seems to be learning, a little too late, that when you set up shop squarely in the middle of a big bear trap, your business plan needs to include – from the outset – a strategy for when the trap starts to close around you.

Also unfortunate is the fact that NebuAd is no different than too many other companies in the Internet space in that they are so focused on the internals of their business that they fail to consider external factors like laws, regulations, and politics.

Perhaps it's because I grew up in Washington, worked as a lobbyist, and trained as a lawyer. But I still marvel at how, all too often, start-ups will rush headlong into their business with a blind spot so huge that it prevents them from seeing the entire United States government.

The irony of course is that with all the bloviating from various members of Congress about the sanctity of consumers' private communications, this same Congress caved into terrorism fear-mongering and voted to allow the government to do precisely what it frets about NebuAd doing. Luckily, such hypocrisy is well understood out here in Silicon Valley, and NebuAd may yet find a profitable exit from this mess.

I wonder how much Al-Qaida would pay for delivering ads to suspected terrorists found via illegal warrantless wiretaps?
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/fea...ike+Spying.htm





Library Confrontation Points Up Privacy Dilemma
John Curran

Children's librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on "Love That Dog" when police showed up.

They weren't kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library's public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

"It's one of the most difficult situations a library can face," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of intellectual freedom issues for the American Library Association.

Investigators did obtain a warrant about eight hours later, but the June 26 standoff in the 105-year-old, red brick library on Main Street frustrated police and had fellow librarians cheering Flint.

"What I observed when I came in were a bunch of very tall men encircling a very small woman," said the library's director, Amy Grasmick, who held fast to the need for a warrant after coming to the rescue of the 4-foot-10 Flint.

Library records and patron privacy have been hot topics since the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Library advocates have accused the government of using the anti-terrorism law to find out — without proper judicial oversight or after-the-fact reviews — what people research in libraries.

But the investigation of Brooke Bennett's disappearance wasn't a Patriot Act case.

"We had to balance out the fact that we had information that we thought was true that Brooke Bennett used those computers to communicate on her MySpace account," said Col. James Baker, director of the Vermont State Police. "We had to balance that out with protecting the civil liberties of everybody else, and this was not an easy decision to make."

Brooke, from Braintree, vanished the day before the June 26 confrontation in the children's section of the tiny library. Investigators went to the library chasing a lead that she had used the computers there to arrange a rendezvous.

Brooke was found dead July 2. An uncle, convicted sex offender Michael Jacques, has since been charged with kidnapping her. Authorities say Jacques had gotten into her MySpace account and altered postings to make investigators believe she had run off with someone she met online.

Flint was firm in her confrontation with the police.

"The lead detective said to me that they need to take the public computers and I said `OK, show me your warrant and that will be that,'" said Flint, 56. "He did say he didn't need any paper. I said `You do.' He said `I'm just trying to save a 12-year-old girl,' and I told him `Show me the paper.'"

Cybersecurity expert Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, said the librarians acted appropriately.

"If you've told all your patrons `We won't hand over your records unless we're ordered to by a court,' and then you turn them over voluntarily, you're liable for anything that goes wrong," he said.

A new Vermont law that requires libraries to demand court orders in such situations took effect July 1, but it wasn't in place that June day. The library's policy was to require one.

The librarians did agree to shut down the computers so no one could tamper with them, which had been a concern to police.

Once in police hands, how broadly could police dig into the computer hard drives without violating the privacy of other library patrons?

Baker wouldn't discuss what information was gleaned from the computers or what state police did with information about other people, except to say the scope of the warrant was restricted to the missing girl investigation.

"The idea that they took all the computers, it's like data mining," said Caldwell-Stone. "Now, all of a sudden, since you used that computer, your information is exposed to law enforcement and can be used in ways that (it) wasn't intended.'"
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/...xsvc=1&cxcat=0





Stet
Virginia Heffernan

I am stumped by how to excerpt the language on message boards and blogs.

Take a passage signed by zipthwung, an astute online commenter: “pornography if for the ruling classes and their violent vulgar all consuming appetites. Or their slaves.”

Interesting. But so as not to distract you with the typos, should I have repunctuated it, adding commas and plunking a hyphen into “all-consuming”? Should I have turned that “if” to “is”?

Zipthwung — I can testify, as a longtime fan — is a poet and a mystic. Maybe he means “if.” Dude thinks that way. Oh, but there’s more. Before quoting him, should I have determined his real name? Gender? Profession? Home address?

Week after week, these questions dog me. Sometimes I opt to copy words and paste them into the text of a column — to quote verbatim. I treat message-board words as if they had been written in books, articles, brochures or press releases. Is that what zipthwung wants? Should I care?

Consider another example. To show that Web users are curious about human reproduction, I might quote kavya on Yahoo Answers, word for word: “How is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?”

But that makes kavya look like an idiot. Readers might miss the sweet earnestness of his question. Maybe he (or she) is 7 or a native speaker of Hungarian. I should cut the kid a typographical break; that’s not an easy question to ask. The cockamamie diction and syntax of Internet English is, possibly, only incidental to his inquiry. A reporter could paraphrase or revise his question — “How is a baby formed?” — lest readers get blinded to the intent of the question by moronizing typos.

But “How is babby formed?” is funny. And who wants to deny readers a chance to laugh and to get the full flavor of Internet-culture wackiness? It’s flat-out lying to pretend that everyone (or anyone) spells well online.

My problem with message-board language brings up a prior problem in journalism: the difficulty of translating spoken language into written language. The philosopher Jacques Derrida gained notoriety by dimming the bright line between what was known in strange pre-Internet lingo (French, was it?) as langue and parole. He thought the written-spoken distinction was suspect and by turns collapsed and reasserted itself in the merry game of signification.

Nothing works more Frenchly and merrily this way — shape-shifting at a rapid pace — than Internet language, which morphs from standard English (a dialect of which has become the Web’s lingua franca) to other languages and dialects to slang and emoticons and acronyms and phonetic miscellany. (Take “hey guys, i’m stoopid. DOH! meh. GAH. :O wth.” Can this communication be taken as an admission of some kind of error? Can it be faithfully paraphrased as “she admitted her mistake on a message board”?) I can’t tell how much of this keycap casserole belongs in ink on paper or how much of it makes sense there.

The Sanhedrins of style at newspapers are not so amused by the merry game of signification. (Derrida’s not big with real newspapermen.) Most of them seem to believe in standardizing spoken English — to a point. At The New York Times, using nonstandard spelling to reflect dialect — “he wuz a good friend” — is seen as a sketchy business, since no two writers do it the same way and since it can reflect bias. But rhetorical eccentricities ought to be preserved. “I’m friends with him 20 years,” for example, does not have to become, “I have been friends with him for 20 years.”

Some architects of Times style have proposed that communication on a message board should be treated like the text of a novel. As novels of sorts, message boards ought to be excerpted using the same protocols that newspaper critics use to quote from fiction. That is, we should go light on the academic sics, addition brackets and omission ellipses, which in a paper can come across as sneering, cluttered, pretentious or all three.

By contrast, when transcribing message-board posts, idiosyncrasies of language should be preserved as far as possible and taken as intentional, unless in context they are obviously evidence that the writer has innocently hit the wrong key (“teh,” “rihgt”). A “wuz” on the Internet remains “wuz” in the paper. In thorny cases, a critic or reporter can extenuate a passage outside of quotation marks. (“ ‘The soiled fish,’ writes Melville, conjuring an odd image with a ‘soiled’ where perhaps ‘coiled’ was intended.”)

Daniel Okrent, the first public editor for The Times, who is now at work on a book about the history of Prohibition, e-mailed me further thoughts: “The minute you start trying to replicate someone’s accent or diction, you run the risk of appearing to be patronizing or worse. When the Mississippi State football coach said something like, ‘There ain’t but one color that matters here,’ the paper was wrong to recast it as ‘There is only one color . . .’ — he didn’t say that.”

Okrent continued: “But if in reaching for the sound of his voice they had rendered it as ‘I ain’t gonna suspend mah players fer actin’ up on weekends,’ it would have been inappropriate. I say stick with the actual words the man uses and not with the way he says them.”

Dropping g’s, Mark Twain-style, does look supremely corny, though The Times once liberally clipped those g’s into apostrophes for folksy effect. In 1907, the paper published an article called “Mr. Devery Has Some Thoughts on the Way Things Is Goin’.” Devery, a former New York police chief, was what can only be called a colorful character, complete with colorful, g-free words and colorfully disagreeing subjects and verbs. “If things is run right,” Devery opined, in The Times’s rendition, “the chief of police ought to be nothin’ but a sort of foreman, a feller to carry out the orders of them above him. He ought to be a sort of — of — editor.”

Comes off kind of fakey today, don’t it? Certainly having one or two subjects in a news article say “goin’ ” or “gonna” or (come on) “gwine” when everyone else gets their participles standardized is unfair and misleading. On the other hand, Times readers of 100 years ago found Devery’s dialect funny, and writers and readers alike crave funny quotations. It may seem condescending or even racist to use the dialect conventions of “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” but it also seems like a crime against humor and the truth of Web language to adjust “How is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?” in the name of imagined fairness.

While Okrent took a hardline position about message-board posts — once going so far as to suggest a reporter shouldn’t quote them unless she has a real name and even an ID for the poster — I stand by my consumer-end experience of boards. Though an intrepid A-section reporter might be able to turn up names, ranks and serial numbers by pushing sources and insisting everything be said on the record, in proper English and for attribution, I’ll never accomplish all that with the crazy stuff on boards. Certainly not in a passage like this one, which showed up recently on a mothering site:

How many months into your relationships has ILY come out?
3ish
What are you, 16?
just curious
what is ily?
I love you
Idiot

And who would want all those names, professions, ages, locations — letters-section-of-The-New-York-Times kind of stuff? So I’ll go on treating message boards like novels until I am persuaded otherwise. Oh, dear Web, I love you, Idiot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/ma...l?ref=magazine





Crowd - Sourcing The E – Car

After the wikipedia, the wikicar.

"eCars - Now!" is a Finnish Internet community seeking to apply the collective approach taken by online collaborators like the authors of Wikipedia to start converting used petrol-fuelled cars to electric ones, with the first roll-out due this year.

The Finnish-language forum claims to be first of its kind in the world, and wants to provide an alternative to what its members perceive as foot-dragging in the oil and auto industries.

The group is working in the tradition of "open source" projects laid down by information technology -- like the Linux computer operating system which was started by a Finn and challenged Microsoft's dominance.

"If we succeed very well it will create similar projects across the world with whom we can share what we know," said project participant Jukka Jarvinen, adding that a similar scheme was launching in Denmark.

"We're hoping to create a global movement."

Electric cars have struggled to shake off a quirky image with tiny sales of often fantastical vehicles at prohibitive prices, or economy-sized "golf carts" with limited range.

But because they are charged from the power grid and make more efficient use of energy, they produce fewer emissions and are seen as a promising clean-air alternative to petrol-powered vehicles.

When it comes to promises, auto-makers are keen to capitalize on mounting consumer concern about high gasoline prices which is prompting trade-ins of gas-guzzling SUVs.

Chrysler LLC was one of the latest to say it plans to launch all-electric vehicles in the next three to five years.

General Motors is rushing to complete the design of its Chevy Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid, Mitsubishi Motors plans to launch its electric compact car "i-MiEV" in Japan in 2009, and in Europe Daimler's electric Smart and Mercedes models are touted for 2010.

But the Finnish group offers an outlet for fans who have so far been disappointed by the car industry. Some experts say it will still take 5-10 years for alternatives to petrol-fuelled cars to take root, given the capacity challenge for an auto industry that is adding 65 million new cars a year to a fleet of 1 billion.

Open Source

The group is starting small. It has identified demand for more than 500 electric conversions in Finland and its Web site aims to begin introducing potential buyers to sellers of suitable used cars and components, and mechanics who can make the conversion with an electric motor and lithium batteries.

Its first conversion model will be a Toyota Corolla -- it aims to produce a few dozen finished eCorollas this year -- which it says would have a range of 150 kilometers per charge and a top speed of 120 km/h.

This compares with Oslo-based specialist car producer Think's model City, which travels up to 180 kilometers with a top speed of 100 km/h.

The forum expects the used car and mechanics' work in total to cost roughly 25,000 euros ($38,000), close to the price of a new Corolla in Finland, and will make the conversions using commercially available components.

On the forum, participants feed ideas to the site's discussion boards and email lists, the best of which the non-profit community will put into use.

The community believes 500 orders would be sufficient for mass conversions: Think plans a batch of 8,000 electric cars next year at 20,000 euros each.

Its experts are volunteers who negotiate prices for the components and car conversions. End-users will pay for the car, the component costs and the mechanic.

"We are not trying to jealously build any sort of corporation out of this," Jarvinen said. "This kind of an unorganized organism that grows in small cells across the world cannot be bought out."

Obstacles

The old common problem of electric cars -- heavy batteries with a limited life-span -- has mostly been overcome with lithium battery technology, although limits to the range remain.

Infrastructure for power is a hurdle: there are few public spots where one can charge an electric car in Finland, but they can also be charged at home.

Renault and Nissan have signed a deal with Portugal to make the country one of the first to offer consumers the possibility of nationwide electric car charging stations. The two makers have also said they will mass-market electric cars in Israel and Denmark in 2011.

The e-group's intentions are good, says researcher Juhani Laurikko of the Technical Research Centre of Finland, but they are not yet approaching the issue in a sustainable way.

"Frankly, there is not much potential here, but these are moves in the right direction. Converting petrol-fuelled cars that are only a few years old is a waste of natural resources," he said.

"I would rather see conversions done on used cars older than 10 years with older petrol-engine technology."

The community says it is best for the electric car's image to start with new cars rather than tired models.

Finland's Vehicle Administration said the community's cars could be admitted to the roads in Finland.

"They may well be admitted, as long as they fulfil the legally set criteria," said Erik Asplund, senior officer at the vehicle inspection unit. "There are a few of these criteria but probably nothing that couldn't be overcome."

(http://www.sahkoautot.fi/)

(Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn in London; Editing by Sara Ledwith and Jon Boyle)
http://www.reuters.com/article/inter...70916120080723





Why Power Outages are Bad for Your Data

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What happens hardware-wise
3. What happens software-wise
3.1. Disk cache
3.2. (Encrypted) file systems
3.3. (Linux software) RAID
3.4. Databases
4. Surge protection
5. Recommendation
5.1. Selecting a UPS

1. Introduction

You've taken every precaution against data loss. You do regular backups, which you've carefully planned (and even tested). But, what happens to your precious data when there is a power outage? Will your file system recover? Properly? Are you sure? Or, will you resort to your backup, just to be safe? Maybe you need a UPS. Then again, maybe not. This article will help you to make that decision.

2. What happens hardware-wise

When the power fails, no individual component gets a clean shutdown command; power is just removed. When this happens, some parts of the machine may last longer than other parts. One of the first things that will happen, is that the memory DIMMs will no longer be refreshed properly (DRAM needs to be refreshed constantly otherwise it will lose its data) and very rapidly, the memory will contain only garbage. The hard drives and DMA controller however, will run a bit longer; so if data is being written to disk, the DMA controller will keep reading data from memory, but it has no idea that this data is corrupted. Some file systems are more sensitive to this kind of failure, because of the different kinds of journaling they do.

There are certain machines which are protected against this type of data corruption, by having the power supply send an interrupt to the operating system when power fails, but ordinary class PC hardware does not.

3. What happens software-wise

3.1. Disk cache

Disk write cache is used to collect and delay transfers to the disks in favor of speed, because memory is faster than disks. When you shut down a machine when there is uncommitted data in the cache, you will lose this data, or corrupt it because only part of the cache is written. This can be illustrated very nicely by booting your Linux machine with the kernel parameter "init=/bin/bash". This will start a shell instead of the initialization procedure. You can then edit files, like /etc/shadow, should you want to reset your password. If you then press ctrl-alt-del without running the "sync" command to commit the disk cache first, your changes will not be committed to disk.

3.2. (Encrypted) file systems

Most people will think that because of journaling, file systems are protected against power failures. It's true that filesystems with journaling are more robust than those without, but it should be clear by now there are some things the file system cannot protect against.

Then of course, there different ways journaling can be done. Ext3 is more resillient against power failures then XFS and ReiserFS, because ext3 does physical block journaling.

According the Gentoo Wiki, you are even more susceptible to data loss in the event of a power failure when using an encrypted file system. I have to admit that I can't think of the reason why this would be so, because as I explained, after a power failure, everything that is written to disk is garbage anyway, whether it passes through some encryption pipeline or not. But, it's something you want to keep in mind.

3.3. (Linux software) RAID

Linux software RAID, and any RAID basically, needs to know if the disks of the array are still properly matched to eachother when the array is initialized. When power fails, or when you press reset, they will be in a "dirty" state, and the system may need to recreate the array. That is, if it can. I've never tried it, but I can imagine that a RAID0 can be completely destroyed by a power failure. But, don't take my word for that...

Modern Linux kernels (2.6.16 and newer) and raid tools (mdadm 2.4.1 and newer) luckily have a precaution against that, namely a write intent bitmap. When using Linux software RAID, I'd advise you to enable this. There are enough resources on the internet where you can find how, like the Gentoo Wiki.

3.4. Databases

Databases, like PostgreSQL or MySQL do a lot of internal work to keep the database in a clean state. When it is interrupted violently, this can be disastrous. The PostgreSQL mailinglist doesn't have "don't kill -9 the postmaster!" as a standard signature to list messages for nothing. Interrupting normal write operations and transactions is also a very bad idea, because that could leave the database in a incoherent state.

An added problem with databases is, that a lot of them write to the file system, so you have an extra layer of things that can go wrong. MySQL has the ability to write to the partition directly, which makes it more robust.

Applications like LDAP directories, source control management repositories, etc, are also potentially susceptible to the same kind of failures. Like I describe in my backup article, it's also important to make scheduled dumps of such applications, to make sure have a backup in a robust, self-contained archive.

4. Surge protection

UPSes also protect against surges on the mains power. However, only an online UPS (the expensive sort) does it properly, by always running the load from the battery. The offline variety merely uses MOVs, which is exactly the same thing as those ordinary power strips with surge protection. The effectiveness of those things can be questioned because of delay time, impedance (resistance) of the safety earth, longetivy of the MOVs because of frequent surges, etc. The internet is filled with information about the fallibility of MOV surge protection.

The surge protection on UPSes also often includes protection for ethernet and/or telephone networks. I really advice against using those. When there is a surge, the MOVs temporarily short the line containing the surge with the safety earth, but it will also connect the data networks to it. This safety earth, however, does not have infinitely low impedance, and therefore it's possible that some of the excess current will travel up the network, as opposed to down the safety earth. The exact details of this are more complex than this, but as always, the internet is your tool should you want to find out more.

5. Recommendation

It should come as no suprise that I would advise a UPS if your data is important to you, especially when the machine in question is heavily used data-wise (with a lot of writing to the disks), like an office file server, or when it uses a database of some sort. And even more so if you use XFS or ReiserFS. It's also convenient to have your external USB disk, router, cable modem, telephone switch, or similar devices on the UPS. The router and network switches is particularly neat, because then the machine can notify you (by e-mail or SMS) of the power failure, and possible connections from the internet (like your SSH shell...) will be maintained.

5.1. Selecting a UPS

In my experience, servers often use a lot less power than you'd think (at work, our dual core 1.8 GHz Intel with three disks only uses about 100W), so you don't really need a big UPS. I'd advice getting/borrowing a power/VA meter to gauge the power use of the machine in question, and size the UPS accordingly. When doing so, remember that it will use more power when the CPU is highly utilized.

Our 500 VA APC CS 500 can supply one server, one pentium-100 (internet router), phone switch and network switch for about 15 minutes. It's loaded at 40% under normal use.

I would not connect a CRT monitor to a UPS. When the degaussing coil of the picture tube is triggered (when the monitor is turned on for example), an enormous surge of current is drawn. When you're running on battery power, this is enough to make computers connected to it reboot. Should the connected devices ever start on battery power, each connected device will suffer a momentary power outage because of the high current drawn by the degaussing coil of the monitor. This kind of outage is not very good for your hardware. Besides, what use does it have to run the monitor off a UPS? The primary function of a UPS is to avoid data corruption because of an ugly shutdown, not because you are too lazy to save your work all the time...
http://www.halfgaar.net/why-power-fa...-for-your-data





Home Servers May Render CD Racks Obsolete

Converting to a fully digitized entertainment library is a good way to cut down on clutter in the house. So what replaces the CD rack once you do?

The 500 GB hard drive that comes standard on most home computers today? Soon, even that won't be big enough to store and organize the massive amount of digital music, video and photography that consumers are accumulating as part of the emerging "terabyte lifestyle."

That opens the door to a new market, one that for now remains a niche afterthought to most people: home servers.

Most digital media today is stored on an individual computer and then synched to one device or another or streamed through a home network to an entertainment system or other appliance. The drawback with such a system is that all files will be lost should the hard drive crash, and it's very difficult to synchronize files across multiple computers, devices and users without overlap.

By contrast, a home server acts as a central storage hub for all the content in the home, and multiple devices can link to it in order to stream or otherwise access music, video or other content. A home server will even automatically backup and reconcile content stored on any connected device. And servers are far less prone to crashes.

The home server market is currently all potential, with only an estimated 400,000 U.S. households employing one today, according to multiple analyst reports, dominated primarily by tech enthusiasts and IT pros installing them in their homes.

But Forrester Research projects the U.S. market will grow to more than 4.5 million households by 2012, while the Diffusion Group predicts it surging to as high as 21.5 million in all of North America by 2015.

Driving this growth, of course, is digital content. It's hard to measure just how much content is now stored on home computers, but based on reported activity, it's certainly on the rise. A Forrester Research survey shows that the number of people viewing or managing photos on their computers rose from 26% of survey respondents in 2002 to 47% in 2007. The percentage of those owning an MP3 player went from 3% to 36% during the same time frame.

"The digital assets that people have are clearly climbing, and with that comes the potential need for a home server," analyst J.P. Gownder says. Diffusion Group senior analyst Ted Theocheung notes that the average computer user will have up to 2 terabytes of content stored by 2010.

But increased storage capacity is not enough to jump-start the market. The real appeal of the home server is its synching, streaming and management capabilities. The more devices in the house that need access to the same content, the more need there is for a home server.

According to Forrester, the number of homes with multiple computers increased from 25.8 million in 2002 to 47.8 million last year. These computers are increasingly being connected via a home network, the penetration of which has doubled in the same time period from 12% to 24%. And that's not even including the proliferation of iPods, mobile phones and other portable devices that need access as well.

"There needs to be something beyond backup to make the home server story come alive for consumers," Gownder says. "The server category has to demonstrate application extensibility where it's projecting things you couldn't do previously rather than just being a source of backup and storage. It needs to proactively help people with their media."

Hewlett-Packard's Media-Smart Server line, for instance, allows users to store their entire iTunes library on a server, from which any computer in the home network can then stream music. French company LaCie offers its Ethernet Disc Mini Home Edition service that does much the same.

Microsoft, and its Windows Home Server software that it launched in January, is expected to rule the home server market for the next five years, during which PC-based servers will be the dominant solution. But Theocheung says the real spike in consumer adoption won't come until after consumer electronics companies begin building server-like functions into their entertainment system products, which will overtake the PC as the primary source of such store-and-synch capability. In particular, he expects cable operators to be leaders in this transition, doing for servers what they did for DVRs by including the functionality in set-top boxes.

"That changes the whole model," Theocheung says. "If you have to buy these yourself, the trend is going to be slower. But when service providers latch onto this and let you just add $5 to your $100 monthly cable bill, it's not a noticeable impact. Then you're going to see some action."

Perhaps when this market begins to expand, music subscription services like Rhapsody and Napster will place support for their technology on these home servers. Rhapsody in particular has been aggressive about making its service compatible with non-PC music appliances. Meanwhile, the move to digital rights management-free downloads for purchased content will also be a key step toward ensuring that digital music takes advantage of the coming media server boom.

Following are some home server options:

PC-Based

HP MediaSmart Server ($600): Five hundred GB of storage on a single hard drive; supports up to four additional drives; features a Gigabit Ethernet connection and four USB 2.0 ports.

Fujitsu Siemens SCALEO Home Server (Europe only): Choice of two 500 GB or two 750 GB of storage; includes a Gigabit local area network and four USB 2.0 ports.

Consumer Electronic

Seagate Mirra ($350): Five hundred GB of storage; provides network file backup to connected PCs; monitors any folders users choose to back up and synch via a LAN; includes remote access.

Apple Time Capsule ($300/$500): Choice of 500 GB or 1 terabyte of storage; integrated with Mac OS Leopard software for automatic file backup; offers built-in extension to the Airport Extreme Wi-Fi base station. LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini-Home Edition ($200): Five hundred GB of storage; doubles as a home networking hub; can stream to multiple devices and provide remote access to content via any Web browser; includes USB 2.0 ports and Gigabit Ethernet networking functions.

Combo

Sony HES-V1000 ($3,500): Five hundred GB of storage with 200-disc Blu-ray DVD changer; integrates with Sony PlayStation 3 and Sony TVs that include the XrossMediaBar, a multi-option, onscreen menu that offers access to content from home networked devices and Internet-based sources like online music and movie services.

Harman Kardon DMC 100 Digital Media Center ($3,500): Two hundred fifty GB of storage; delivers up to four streams of music, video and photos at the same time to up to four devices; automatically rips inserted CDs to the hard drive for digital backup; records and plays content from various media cards and USB devices.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...37031220080721





SanDisk: Windows Vista Not Optimized for Solid-State Drives
Brooke Crothers

SanDisk said Monday that Windows Vista is not optimized for solid-state drives, delaying the delivery of optimized drives until next year.

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are used instead of hard disk drives in select high-end notebook PCs today such as the Apple MacBook Air and Toshiba Portege R500.

The next generation of SSDs will use multilevel cell (MLC) technology, which will require a more sophisticated controller--a crucial component in solid-state drives. These drives will have capacities ranging up to 128GB, 160GB, and later, 256GB. MLC drives are expected to appear in a wider selection of notebooks later this year.

Speaking during SanDisk's second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid-state drive makers. "As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid-state disk," he said.

This is due to Vista's design. "The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," he said.

"Unfortunately, (SSDs) performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs and that is why we need to develop the next generation, which we'll start sampling end of this year, early next year," Harari said.

Harari said this challenge alone is putting SanDisk behind schedule. "We have very good internal controller technology, as you know...That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment," he added.

In the very low-end of the market, however, this is not an issue. "In very low-end, ultra low-cost PCs, existing controllers can get the job done for 8-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte storage because these are relatively unsophisticated...requirements," he said.

SanDisk has a production joint venture with Toshiba, which also makes solid- state drives.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-99...=2547-1_3-0-20





Home Media Part 1: Why We Don’t Care About Blu Ray

The home media market is in a strange place right now. For awhile it seemed like the HD DVD vs Blu Ray battle would decide the future of personal entertainment but Blu Ray’s continuing slow sales figures now give a clearer indication of what consumers want and where the market is heading.

People aren’t switching from DVD to Blu Ray because they think dvd is good enough, the only added value HD DVD really offers is higher picture quality, and not many people seem to care. The precedent was set by the music industry; people are perfectly happy with 128kbps songs from itunes (a CD is 320kbps). Beyond a certain point higher image/sound quality are given diminishing ratios of importance by consumers. Sure we’d be happy to buy into better looking dvds for about £200, but the biggest problem with Blu Ray is that it doesn’t fit it’s only market.

If we want to ‘’go high-def’’ you’re going to need a Blu-Ray player (about £300) an ‘’HD Ready’’ (what a confusing, un-consumer friendly term) TV costing around £600, a high definition cable subscription plan, because you want your tv to be HD too (Sky HD costs £210 for set up and the box then +£10/month) and that's without considering the added cost of the more expensive discs. In total then over two years going HD will cost you around £1400 or $2800 more than sticking with SD, all that just to have better picture quality.

Unless you’re an audio/visual- ophile nut, or you’re mad rich, you’d actually have to be pretty crazy to spend that kind of money for a few more pixels. As with the CGI backlash, we’re seeing that really how something looks (in terms of pixels not visuals) isn’t that important. Cinema is a means to tell stories; it is primarily a narrative (like literature) and not a visual form of art (like paintings). The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. As mentioned in Style of Gimmicks Part 2, the vast array of visual cues and camera techniques only work when used as the most effective way to convey the intended emotion/message otherwise they’re just showing off.

Blu Ray, at its current price point, is just another expensive gimmick. People want their media delivered easier and cheaper (why is bittorent so popular?) and don’t mind about the slight qualitative hit this entails. This is why digital downloads are the future, and this will form the topic of discussion in part 2.
http://www.thecollectiveshelf.com/20...dont-care.html





The Real Story of HDTV Standards—There Aren't Any: Buzzword

Sure, you're excited about next week's Shark Week and ComicCon's preview of the fall television lineup. But are you sure you're seeing every last tooth and Lost easter egg? In his biweekly digital trends column, PM's senior tech editor investigates the lawless lands of broadcast television, where the quality of the picture that ends up on your expensive hi-def set is determined by a bunch of fuzzy math.
By Glenn Derene

When you turn on a high-definition broadcast, you assume that your TV will come to life with the crispest, sharpest picture imaginable. But the fact is, hi-def doesn't always mean high quality.

The standards for what qualifies as HD—the ones that go into effect with the big digital TV changeover in February—were set by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) back in the 1990s, and really only involved one major qualification: having a whole lot of pixels. In fact, there's no real regulation over high-definition picture quality at all—"none whatsoever," one industry consultant told me. And that's part of the reason why different HD stations often have wildly varying levels of picture quality that change from one moment to the next. Behind the scenes, content producers, broadcasters and cable and satellite providers are engaged in a constant tug-of-war over bandwidth and video quality, with no hard metrics to even define what looks acceptable. Even officials at HBO, where Generation Kill looks pretty fantastic on my TV, bemoaned the lack of a silver bullet ... for now.

In order to qualify as hi-def, a signal must have either 720 horizontal lines of progressively scanned pixels (720p), 1080 lines of interlaced pixels (1080i) or 1080 lines of progressively scanned pixels (1080p, which nobody even broadcasts yet.) But there's a whole lot more to the quality of digital television than the number of pixels present. After all, 1080 lines of poor-quality pixels may technically be "high-definition," but that doesn't mean it looks very good.

One of the most important factors in determining picture quality is bit rate, or how much video and audio data is being sent down the pipe for each program. The technology behind digital television relies heavily on digital compression, and the ATSC specifies that digital TV use the MPEG-2 compression standard, which is also utilized by DVDs, although some satellite broadcasters use the more efficient MPEG-4 advanced video coding (AVC) standard. These compression technologies are necessary in order to deliver a large number of channels to consumers. Without these codecs, an uncompressed HD video stream could require as much as 1 gigabit per second of data capacity—that's 52 times the capacity of the average broadcast channel. With compression, the same stream can be shrunk almost infinitely. But compression is often used overzealously, and picture quality suffers as a result.

Many people are already familiar with this data-size/fidelity tradeoff from their experiences with digital music: MP3 files with high levels of compression may take up less hard drive space, but they sound muffled and unsatisfying. The same is true for video. When an HD signal is over-compressed, it may have the same number of total pixels, ensuring it's still technically HD, but the picture is often tainted with blocky, pixelated noise and image artifacts.

Surprisingly, there is little regulatory control over compression. According to ATSC president Mark Richer, the ATSC standard does not require minimum bit rates for over-the-air broadcasters, and the FCC requires only that broadcasters provide at least one service that is equivalent to analog television. Each over-the-air channel has a bandwidth of 6 megahertz, which can handle a maximum bit-per-second throughput (also known as "payload") of 19.3 Mbps. But since each broadcaster only needs to provide a 480i digital signal, which typically demands 4 to 6 Mbps, that leaves plenty of space for other subchannels on the same channel's bandwidth. Even high-definition channels (which take up anywhere from 12 Mbps for a good-quality 720p broadcast to at least 15 Mbps for 1080i) should have enough leftover data space to broadcast a quality standard-definiction subchannel.

The math seems to work, but digital TV isn't generally broadcast at set bit rates. Instead, most broadcasters use a technology known as "statistical multiplexing" to dynamically allocate bandwidth to various programs based on the needs of each program, ensuring the most efficient use of the available bandwidth.

For example, an HD broadcast on NBC next month of a track-and-field event during the Olympics would have fast-paced movement requiring a lot of extra bits—in general, the more movement there is on screen, the more pixels need to update in each frame, so the less efficient the compression of the video stream becomes. But a newscast on an NBC sub-channel, with largely static talking heads, requires a lower bit rate for the same perceived quality. So the statistical multiplexer will shift a greater portion of the bits running down the broadcast pipe to a sporting event like the Olympics. "The bit rate for video is incredibly flexible," says television industry consultant Mark Schubin. "The range is enormous—there are broadcasters that have done HD in as little as 6 Mbps and as much as 18 Mbps."

And that's just in the broadcast realm, where only a few programs are potentially running on each channel. Cable and satellite services transmit hundreds of channels at a time, and there is literally no regulatory oversight at all when it comes to compression of HD content on those services. The only applicable language in FCC regulations is the "must carry" rule, which specifies that a cable company cannot down-convert a locally broadcast HD signal to an SD signal. For example, if ABC affiliate KTKA in Topeka, Kan., is sending out Desperate Housewives in 720p, Cox cable service cannot change it to 480i to save bandwidth. In order to keep cable and satellite companies from overcompressing their programs, many cable channels and major networks broker individual minimum-quality-of-service contracts with each provider. But even those are somewhat nebulous.

I asked Robert Zitter, HBO's chief technical officer, what his company's requirements were. "We do a contractual relationship with all of our distributors, and one of the items that's addressed in there is what they can and cannot do with our signal," he says. "But much of it cannot be quantified. There's not a device that's made that can look at a picture and say pass or fail. We all wish we had it—it would make the negotiations a lot easier. Ultimately, it winds up being more subjective than quantifiable."

HBO delivers its programming precompressed, explains Zitter, and does make demands about what other programming the company's content is multiplexed with onto the same channel (no sports channels, animated content or other high-bit-rate-demand content). But HBO is a content provider with plenty of negotiating clout that places a high priority on video quality. For many second-tier cable channels, their programs' compression is often left to the whims of the cable or satellite companies. And as more and more HD channels have ever-higher bit-rate demands, and as increased Internet usage puts more strain on overall cable bandwidth, the horse-trading between broadcasters over bits per second could easily get ugly.

In fact, according to Hugh Brydges, of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, there is a behind-the-scenes quasi-democracy of bandwidth going on with many cable networks, where major channels get assurances of quality, while certain low-viewership channels aren't really channels in the classic sense at all. Using a technology called "switched digital video," these channels are served up to viewers upon request like a video-on-demand movie. When nobody is watching, the channels take up no space at all.

For the future, the cable and satellite industries have a few tricks up their sleeves to free up some extra bandwidth for more HD programming. Satellite companies are already moving to the more efficient MPEG-4 AVC standard, which allows for more HD channels. The cable industry is moving more slowly to new compression standards and also hopes to phase out a lot of the analog channels that are currently clogging up much of its bandwidth. Interestingly, that puts them in a similar situation to the one many broadcasters are now dealing with because of the digital television conversion: Many customers with older, non-HDTVs will require new set-top boxes to view content. Alas, the only other option is to keep on squeezing that signal.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...y/4275063.html





Netflix 2Q Profit Up 4 Pct, Beats Analyst Views
Michael Liedtke

Netflix Inc.'s second-quarter profit crept up 4 percent, beating analyst expectations as the online DVD rental leader signed up 168,000 new customers while spending less money to attract them to the service.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company said Friday that it earned $26.6 million, or 42 cents per share, from April through June, up from $25.6 million, or 37 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

The average earnings estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was 40 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 11 percent to $337.6 million to match analyst estimates.

Netflix shares gained 32 cents, 1.2 percent, to $27.05 in Friday morning trading.

The company ended June with 8.4 million subscribers, and probably would have had even more if it had advertised its service as vigorously as it usually does.

But management has decided to sacrifice some of its growth opportunities to ensure it keeps Wall Street happy with higher profits, Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings said during a Friday conference call.

As a result, Netflix trimmed its marketing expenses by $5 million, or 11 percent, from the same time last year.

Despite the cutback and a slowing economy, Netflix had far more success luring new subscribers than last year when it lost 55,000 customers during the spring — the only quarter that the company's service has shrunk during its nine-year history.

"We appear to be substantially unaffected by the negative economic climate," Hastings said.

Netflix could afford to spend less on advertising because its biggest rival, Blockbuster Inc., has been promoting its online rental service less aggressively during the past six months.

But some analysts believe that is about to change now that Blockbuster has abandoned a takeover bid for electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. and is preparing to expand its Internet presence with a pay-per-view online video service acquired last year from Movielink. In a sign that it could be gearing up for more growth, Blockbuster hired a new chief marketing officer just a few weeks ago.

Hastings, though, said he doesn't expect Blockbuster to derail Netflix this year. Underscoring management's confidence, Netflix still expects to end the year with 9.1 million to 9.7 million subscribers — the same guidance issued three months ago.

The company also affirmed its previous profit projections for the year.

Holding the line on advertising costs will be important to Netflix because the company is spending more to develop a service that streams movies and TV shows over high-speed Internet connections.

Netflix still isn't charging more money for unlimited use of the streaming service, even though its costs for licensing movies are rising as the service becomes more appealing to subscribers because of a recently introduced $100 device that automatically shows the video on TV sets instead of computers.

Hastings declined to comment Friday on unconfirmed reports that nearly 100,000 of the TV streaming players made by Roku Inc. had been sold during their first two months on the market.

Microsoft Corp.'s video game console, Xbox 360, is scheduled to start streaming for Netflix this fall, a breakthrough that could increase the usage of the digital service even more dramatically.

Netflix also is facing higher costs to buy high-definition DVDs for subscribers with Blu-ray players, but the company has already decided to raise its prices for that luxury. Hastings said Netflix will begin testing different prices for Blu-ray DVDs during the current quarter.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...rWnGgD924ULOO1





MPAA Wants to Randomly Break Your Home Theater Depending on Which Channel You're Watching
Cory Doctorow

The MPAA is petitioning the FCC to lard cable television with "selectable output control," a DRM system that allows broadcasters to specify which of your TV devices can decode which shows. With selectable output control, parts of your home theater would go dark as you flipped up and down the dial: this show won't play through your Dolby, that one won't go to your PVR, this one won't go to your DVD recorder, that one won't work with your DTV set. It's the digital TV equivalent of one of those absurd Bond-villain world-domination schemes -- the idea that every device that can plug into a TV (including PCs, game consoles, etc) will be designed to shut itself off in the presence of a flag saying, "This device may not receive that program."

Previously, the FCC told the MPAA that this was a dumb idea and to get lost, but Hollywood is nothing if not persistent (as is amply demonstrated by the number of Police Academy sequels produced). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed some great comments in the docket:

Quote:
Right now, your consumer electronics are designed by the consumer electronics industry, which reacts to consumer market demand in choosing how to innovate. That consumer-focused approach makes sense. But if the MPAA has its way, however, we'll be well on the way to a world in which every new feature to every home theater product has to be pre-approved by the content industry.
Link

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/22...to-random.html





MPAA Hacker Spied on The Pirate Bay
Ernesto

Court documents show that a hacker, hired by the MPAA, offered to reveal the identities of the Pirate Bay founders. The hacker, who also retrieved private information from TorrentSpy, was paid $15.000 for his efforts.

It turns out that the MPAA will do pretty much anything to obtain information about BitTorrent sites and its users. Back in 2006, they made a deal with a “hacker”, better known as Robert Anderson, to steal e-mail correspondence and trade secrets from TorrentSpy.

The hacker later admitted that this was indeed true, and in a surprising turn of events, he switched sides, and joined TorrentSpy. The court case between the MPAA and TorrentSpy eventually led to the downfall of TorrentSpy, but it turned out that the MPAA was also interested in intel on The Pirate Bay.

Cnet cites court documents showing that Anderson wrote to the MPAA: “We can provide the names, address, and phone (numbers) of the owners of Torrentspy.com and Thepiratebay.org — along with evidence, including correspondence between the two companies.”

In addition, the court documents reveal that MPAA’s Dean Garfield stated: “We were going to get information about the location and identity of the people who were running Torrentspy, as well as information related to a general conspiracy and relationship between Torrentspy and a number of other prominent services including ThePirateBay.”

I a response to the news, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak: “We’re very open with what we do. I think the e-mails between us and Justin would be something along the lines with “what’s up with the scraper that is going berserk” or “what the fuck is up with that filerights-shit?”.. I think it’s amazingly funny if the MPAA bought information like that, expensively, and against the US law. Only proves their stupidity and that they have no case.”

The Pirate Bay has always been one of the main targets of the MPAA. In 2006, John Malcolm, Executive Vice President of the MPAA wrote a letter to Sweden’s State Secretary in which he urged the authorities to take action against the site: “It is certainly not in Sweden’s best interests to earn a reputation among other nations and trading partners as a place where utter lawlessness with respect to intellectual property rights is tolerated.”

It is of course interesting to see that the MPAA is interested in the identities of the Pirate Bay founders, but they could have easily done a Google search, because that info is pretty much public information. I guess they rather use a hacker.

The Pirate Bay website is offline at the moment, unrelated to this news, as they are doing some server maintenance and site upgrades. They will be back soon.
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-hacker-...te-bay-080725/





The Pirate Bay Promotes “The Dark Knight” Leak
Ernesto

The Pirate Bay is messing with Hollywood again, as they’ve put up a new logo which links to pirated copies of the blockbuster movie “The Dark Knight”. Although Warner did all it can to protect the film from leaking, a Cam version leaked onto BitTorrent sites soon after it premiered.

The Dark Knight has been a huge success in theaters. In its first weekend, the film grossed a record breaking $158.4 million, and it’s currently on top of IMDB’s top 250 movies of all time with an average rating of 9.3.

The Pirate Bay now joins the hype, as the renamed their site into “The Pirate Bat“, and put up a new logo that links to a search for “The Dark Knight”.

A week ago the police arrested a man who tried to record the movie with a camcorder. However, they couldn’t stop all cammers, and it didn’t take long before a leak got onto various BitTorrent sites. Rlslog reported last week that a copy of “The Dark Knight”, was published by a release group called “TradingStandards”. As usual, reports say that the quality of the leak is pretty poor. There has since been a Telesync of the movie released, which means if nothing else, the sound will be better.

This is not the first time that The Pirate Bay has rebranded its site to piss off content owners. When Apple’s OSX x86 leaked. in July 2005, they renamed the site to the Pear Bay, and linked to the leaked torrent. Back in July 2005 The Pirate Bay put up a logo inspired on Grand Theft Auto for the release of their new website, the Grand Theft Bay. Apart from being creative with their logo’s TPB is known for their hilarious responses to copyright owners who request takedowns.
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-b...t-leak-080725/





Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Cut
Brook Barnes

HOW did Hollywood lose Steven Spielberg?

Late last month, DreamWorks, the boutique movie studio that Mr. Spielberg co-founded in 1994, let it be known that it had found a way to exit its unhappy three-year marriage with Paramount Pictures. Reliance ADA Group, a Mumbai conglomerate, was nearing a deal to give the dream workers $550 million to form a new movie company.

That Mr. Spielberg and his business partner David Geffen had found an investor wasn’t surprising. Mr. Spielberg is a superstar. DreamWorks had made it clear for months — via public comments and private grousing fed into the Hollywood grapevine — that they hated being part of Paramount and were going elsewhere as soon as it was contractually allowed.

But there was still an element of shock: Hollywood could not come up with a rich enough deal for Mr. Spielberg, the most bankable director in the business and a “national treasure”? His last movie alone, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” has sold $743 million in tickets and is still playing in theaters around the world.

For that matter, there wasn’t anybody on Wall Street willing to write a blank check for the guy with “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park” on his résumé?

The pending deal with Reliance underscores some realities about Mr. Spielberg — mainly that he has become so expensive that few public companies can afford him. Mr. Spielberg’s standard deal, on par with other blue-chip talent, is 20 percent of a movie’s gross from the first ticket sold, although he agreed to a somewhat less aggressive paycheck on the latest “Indiana Jones” installment to offset its high budget.

And there’s another whisper coming from Hollywood’s highest echelons. It’s a sensitive topic — and one that Mr. Spielberg’s associates find hugely insulting — but one that bears consideration: How long before the A-list director, at 61, is a little, well, Jurassic?

SUCH talk is rooted in sour-grapes justifications for losing Mr. Spielberg to Reliance, his allies say, noting his huge list of projects on the horizon. Among them are potential blockbusters like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” which he will produce. He’s also pursuing more cerebral projects like an Abraham Lincoln film with a script written by the “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner.

Even so, Mr. Spielberg’s representatives had been talking with potential backers for months, said three people involved who requested anonymity for fear of angering the powerful director. The Spielbergians had casual chats with companies including Sony and the News Corporation. Hollywood-friendly banks like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs were also in the mix.

Hollywood’s seeming inability to close a deal with Mr. Spielberg highlights the shift toward a more corporate, buttoned-down movie business. Just a few years ago, bragging rights often drove business decisions. Steven Spielberg is available? Back up the money truck. We want that jewel in our crown no matter what the cost. And studio bosses could justify such ego-driven loss leaders: In the entertainment business, talent draws talent.

Associates of Mr. Spielberg say they have not seriously entertained any Hollywood overtures, something corroborated by Ron Meyer, the president of NBC Universal. “We have not been given the opening to be in business with DreamWorks,” said Mr. Meyer, adding that the studio would jump at the chance given “the opportunity and the right deal.”

But now that the big studios are all firmly embedded in big corporations, profit margins are the obsession. Add in skyrocketing star salaries and ballooning marketing costs, which have hammered margins, and pop go the sweetheart deals. “Big names don’t carry the same weight they used to,” said Harold L. Vogel, an independent media analyst.

DVDs also have a starring role in the reluctance to take on risk. After years of blistering growth, domestic DVD sales fell 3.2 percent last year to $15.9 billion, according to Adams Media Research, the first annual drop in the medium’s history. While DVDs are still a big business, any decline is cause for great concern, because DVD sales can account for as much as 70 percent of revenue for a new film.

When DVDs were soaring, studios had an incentive to own projects outright. Recently, they’ve been going the other way, trying to share ownership to protect themselves. Indeed, the DVD situation combined with other business challenges — the arrival of widespread Internet streaming being one of the thorniest — has studios so panicked that all their executives chatter about these days is mitigating risk. Hardly a time to double down on a fat deal with Mr. Spielberg.

Studios are also increasingly focused on out-of-the-park franchise films that sell overseas. The DreamWorks slate is a little patchy — namely because Mr. Spielberg and Stacey Snider, the company’s chief executive, believe in delivering a mix of prestige films and blockbusters. Along with “Norbit,” the sophomoric Eddie Murphy smash that sold $159 million in tickets, come films like “Things We Lost in the Fire,” a drama starring the Oscar-winner Halle Berry that sold about $8.4 million in tickets.

Chip Sullivan, a corporate spokesman for DreamWorks, declined to comment. He said Ms. Snider was on vacation and unavailable. Mr. Spielberg, via a spokesman, declined to comment. Bruce Ramer, the director’s longtime lawyer (Mr. Spielberg named the mechanical shark in “Jaws” after him), also declined to comment.

As for Wall Street, the firm belief in Hollywood is that the arrival of Reliance marks the end of the private equity and hedge fund boom that has propped up the industry. With the capital markets in turmoil, terms have tightened substantially for movie deals. Investors are demanding faster payback schedules, better guarantees and even a say in how movies are made and marketed.

None of that is acceptable to the DreamWorks team. Mr. Spielberg, who has directed more than 50 films, also wants to control his own destiny; at this point in his career, say friends, his accomplishments have earned him the right to have 100 percent control over his movies. Autonomy and ownership are paramount, and, at the moment, overseas investors are the most likely to allow Mr. Spielberg to write his own ticket, say studio executives.

In some ways, Reliance marks a return to the past. Studios have over the last decade tapped American investors — DreamWorks began with backing from Paul Allen, a founder of Microsoft — but foreign investors, notably Germans, were a big source before that.

THE deal with Reliance is not done. People involved in the talks, which are private, say that work is progressing but that no deal is likely to be signed for several weeks. In addition to the $550 million in equity — which may inch higher during negotiations — DreamWorks is seeking access to a $400 million line of debt financing.

And Hollywood will still have a chance to nab a piece of the storied director. After negotiations with Reliance wrap up — if they wrap up — Mr. Geffen and Mr. Spielberg will start looking for a distribution deal with one of the big studios, most likely Universal Pictures or 20th Century Fox.

Will Mr. Geffen and Mr. Spielberg see a bidding war? Probably, but it depends on what kind of terms they want.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/bu...a/27scene.html





Ruling Reveals ID of Online Oscar Ticket Seller
Anthony McCartney

A judge's ruling has brought the organization that hosts the Academy Awards a step closer to discovering how tickets to this year's show got online.

An attorney for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that the organization has learned the identity of a person who posted an ad on Craigslist, claiming to have two tickets available for this year's show.

The disclosure to the Academy comes a day after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Fahey ordered Craigslist, an online site where people can post free ads to sell everything from couches to concert tickets, had to disclose the identity of the person who posted the ad in February offering the tickets for $2,500 each.

The poster was identified only as "Daniel."

No one showed up on Craigslist's behalf at Tuesday's hearing.

The Academy sued several people and companies in March, accusing them of selling or brokering Oscar tickets. In court documents, it states that invitees to the Academy Awards show are explicitly told they cannot sell or give their tickets away.

David Quinto, an attorney working for the Academy, said the organization is trying to maintain the security of the Oscars, which each year honors Hollywood's top performers and moviemakers.

"If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security," Quinto said.

Attorneys for the Academy told Fahey that cases against several of the original parties named in the lawsuit have been dismissed. Attorneys said they plan to seek default judgments from two of the remaining defendants.

Quinto said Wednesday the Academy plans to add the Craigslist poster to the lawsuit in the hopes of learning who bought the tickets.

According to court documents, the Academy considers anyone who used someone else's Oscar's ticket to be a trespasser at the ceremony.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...pefOgD924512O0





Student Blogger Plans Libel Lawsuit
AP

An attorney for a high school student who brought a free speech lawsuit against her school district last year said he now plans to file a libel lawsuit against the principal.

Jon Schoenhorn, a Hartford attorney representing Avery Doninger, said he has served notice to Burlington, CT Lewis S. Mills High School Principal Karissa Niehoff of the impending lawsuit.

Doninger and her family have been at odds with the district since last year, when Doninger used offensive slang to refer to administrators on an Internet blog. School officials removed her as class secretary, which Doninger said was a violation of her constitutional rights.

The case went as far as the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York as Doninger sought an injunction to regain her spot as class secretary and speak at her class graduation in June. The court rejected that request, but her lawsuit is pending.

The threat of a new libel lawsuit stems from an e-mail exchange that Niehoff had with a Wisconsin man who read about the legal case in the New York Post.

School administrators said Niehoff improperly disclosed information about Doninger in the exchange, which the man forwarded to Doninger's family. Niehoff was suspended for two days without pay for the incident.

Schoenhorn said Thursday that Niehoff will be sued for libel "for the false things she said to people about Avery."

A formal lawsuit has yet to be filed, and Schoenhorn declined to give details about when and where the suit might be filed.

Niehoff's attorney, Christine Chinni, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Doninger's mother, Lauren, said Niehoff was punished for making a comment and distributing it on the Internet, the same reason cited for the punishment of her daughter, she said.

"It's not a decision we made lightly," she said. "The irony is too overwhelming that Avery, at 16, made some ill-considered remarks and sent them into cyberspace, and she was punished relentlessly. The principal effectively does the same thing. Does she expect no consequences?"
http://www.newstimes.com/latestnews/ci_9997634





British Judge Rules Tabloid Report Tying Grand Prix Boss to ‘Orgy’ Violated Privacy
John F. Burns

In a ruling with potentially wide implications for press freedom in Britain, a judge ruled Thursday that a tabloid newspaper breached the privacy of Max Mosley, the overseer of grand prix motor racing, when it published an article in March claiming that he had participated in a sadomasochistic “orgy” with a Nazi theme.

The judge, Sir David Eady, awarded Mr. Mosley, 68, damages equivalent to about $120,000 and legal costs estimated to be at least $850,000 in his lawsuit against The News of the World.

The ruling upheld the central arguments by Mr. Mosley and his lawyers: that there had been no Nazi theme to the five-hour sex session in an apartment in the Chelsea district of London that was secretly filmed by the newspaper, and no issue of public interest in its decision to splash the article on its front page and post video on its Web site.

“I found that there was no evidence that the gathering of March 28, 2008, was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behavior or adoption of any of its attitudes,” the judge wrote.

He added that Mr. Mosley had a “reasonable expectation” of privacy for sexual activities that took place on private premises and that did not involve violations of the criminal law.

“There was no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the video extracts on The News of the World Web site — all of this on a massive scale,” the judge said.

But he denied Mr. Mosley the “punitive damages” he had sought, which could have amounted to millions of dollars. The damage done to Mr. Mosley’s reputation by “the embarrassing personal information” disclosed by the newspaper “cannot be mitigated by simply adding a few noughts to the number first thought of,” the judge said.

Outside the court, Mr. Mosley said he was delighted with the ruling, which he described as “devastating” to The News of the World.

“It demonstrates that their Nazi lie was completely invented and had no justification,” he said. “It also shows that they had no right to go into private premises and take pictures and film of adults engaged in activities which are no one’s business but those of the people concerned.”

The ruling was one of several by Justice Eady and other judges in recent years in privacy cases against British newspapers under a provision of the European Convention on Human Rights. Some legal experts say the rulings have shifted the balance in Britain in favor of celebrity plaintiffs and against newspapers and other media organizations in invasion-of-privacy cases.

Justice Eady, in his finding, said his ruling should not be considered “a landmark case,” but rather “the application to rather unusual facts” in the Mosley case of privacy principles that had been developing in British court judgments in recent years. Still, the ruling caused a stir among lawyers fighting for press freedoms, some of whom said it was a bellwether for a new, more restrictive era of news media coverage of people in the public domain.

Other lawyers cautioned against alarmism, saying British courts would continue to weigh two competing provisions in the European rights convention — Article 8, establishing a right of privacy, and Article 10, protecting press freedoms — and that it was too early to know where the lasting balance would be struck.

“One lesson it teaches is that public figures can have a private life,” said Desmond Browne, a barrister who has represented some of the plaintiffs in headline-making privacy cases.

Editors of some of Britain’s more serious newspapers also were wary about drawing instant conclusions about where press law in Britain was headed.

Roger Alton, editor of The Independent, a newspaper known for the rigor of its investigative journalism, said he was not too troubled by the ruling.

“It’ll affect kiss-and-tell stories,” Mr. Alton told the British Broadcasting Corporation. “But it’s not a landmark. It’s not going to set things up in a completely different way.”

But Colin Myler, editor of The News of the World, said the judgment was based on precedents established by “judges in Strasbourg,” seat of the European Court of Human Rights, and that the issues involved had never been addressed by Britain’s Parliament. “As a result, our media are being strangled by stealth,” he said.

For Mr. Mosley, success in the case represented at least a partial vindication of what amounted to a gamble. Rather than resigning in shame, as have many well-known figures caught in sex scandals, Mr. Mosley chose another route. He admitted to a passion for sadomasochism, which he told the court had continued for 45 years, and discussed, from the witness box, details of what had occurred in the Chelsea apartment.

But the aspect of the article that he, and many of his detractors in the world of motor racing and beyond, considered the most damaging was the claim that the session involved a conscious effort to recreate the atmosphere of a Nazi death camp.

The potential damage to Mr. Mosley was linked, inevitably, to the fact that he is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain’s National Union of Fascists in the 1930s, whose secret marriage to Mr. Mosley’s mother, Diana, took place at the home of the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels in 1936, with Hitler as guest of honor.

In court, lawyers for The News of the World said they based their claim of a Nazi theme, in part, on the use of commands in guttural German or German-accented English by Mr. Mosley and the women involved. But Mr. Mosley and four of the five women involved maintained that what they intended in their role-playing was to recreate a generic prison scene, not a Nazi death camp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/wo.../25mosley.html





New York State Passes Video Game Labeling Law

Video games sold in New York state must clearly label ratings for violent content under a law signed on Tuesday, which rights groups criticized as likely unconstitutional.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said that it planned to mount a legal challenge against the law, signed on Tuesday by New York Gov. David Paterson, as it raised free speech concerns.

The group said that similar laws in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Washington state have been thrown out as unconstitutional.

The U.S. video gaming industry submits to ratings on a voluntary basis, and the system is similar to movie ratings.

The new law says that is it compulsory for games that are already rated to be labeled and also requires that new video game consoles are installed with parent-controlled lockout features by 2010.

"This legislation will provide information and educate consumers to help them make better choices for their children," said state Sen. Andrew Lanza, a bill sponsor.

Robert Perry, the NYCLU's legislative director, said the new law was a "back-door" way of regulating video game content.

The law also establishes an advisory council to study "the connection between interactive media and real-life violence in minors exposed to such media" and to evaluate the ratings issued by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

(Reporting by Edith Honan, editing by Christine Kearney and Eric Beech)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080723/...RvGw1BC8MjtBAF





Net Censorship Law Struck Down Again
Ryan Singel

A federal appeals court struck down as unconstitutional a Clinton-era law that would have forced websites with adult material to verify visitors' ages, dealing another blow to the government in a 10-year court battle over net censorship.

The 3rd U.S. Circurt Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday a 2007 lower-court decision that the Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment since it was not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult websites.

Both courts also found that the standards for material that had to be hidden from open browsing were so loosely defined that any content not suitable for a four-year-old would have been hidden behind a age-verification firewall.

"Unlike COPA, filters permit adults to determine if and when they want to use them and do not subject speakers to criminal or civil penalties," the court wrote.

The Justice Department has been defending COPA since its passage in 1998, when the ACLU and others filed suit against the censorship law and won an immediate injunction. Since then, the court battle has made its way twice to the Supreme Court, though the government has never won any clear battles in the dispute.

COPA makes it a crime to knowingly post material that is "harmful to minors" on the web for "commercial purposes" without having some method -- such as a credit card -- to verify a visitor's age.

Critics assailed the law for infantilizing the internet and requiring website operators -- including news sites -- to live in fear of prosecution if even a small part of their website contained adult material.

COPA was intended to be a narrower version of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which would have catastrophically extended the rules of television 'decency' to the internet had the Supreme Court not emphatically rejected it in 1997.

In its ruling, however, the appeals court did not see much of a difference between the two laws.

"It is apparent that COPA, like the Communications Decency Act before it, 'effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another,' Reno, 521 U.S. at 874, 117 S.Ct. at 2346, and thus is overbroad. For this reason, COPA violates the First Amendment," the judges wrote. "These burdens would chill protected speech."

The ACLU's Chris Hansen, a First Amendment lawyer for the rights group, applauded the decision.

"For years the government has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been finding the attempts unconstitutional," Hansen wrote in a statement. "The government has no more right to censor the internet than it does books and magazines."

The Justice Department is not pleased with the decision and is reviewing its options, according to spokesman Charles Miller.

"We are disappointed that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Congressional statute designed to protect our children from exposure to sexually explicit material on the internet," Miller said.

The ACLU, suing on behalf of Salon magazine sexualhealth.com and the owner of the Urban Dictionary website, successfully argued that the law criminalizes constitutionally protected speech, would drive pornography sites to non-U.S. servers, and prevent the spread of health information due to people's unwillingness to register to read sensitive information.

They also argued the law would apply to anyone who wrote about mature subjects who also happened to have Google or Yahoo ads on their personal blog.

For its part, the government says the law was intended to apply to pornographic websites, not news sites. It also argues COPA's age restrictions would work with content filters.

The government is likely to appeal Tuesday's decision for a full hearing at the appeals court or to the Supreme Court.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ensorship.html





FCC Surprised And Disappointed By Super Bowl Ruling
FMQB

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has released a statement saying that he's "surprised" and "disappointed" by yesterday's appeals court ruling that said the FCC was wrong to fine CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl. The court found that the FCC "arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy" that exempted fleeting and unexpected broadcast material from being deemed an indecency violation. In the fall, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving fleeting and unscripted swear words that were uttered on television by Cher and Nicole Ritchie, among other celebrities. Martin said that yesterday's decision "highlights the importance of the Supreme Court’s consideration of our indecency rules this Fall."

"The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the Janet Jackson incident during the Super Bowl Halftime show was not indecent and declared that the FCC was wrong to fine CBS for the broadcast," Martin said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "I am surprised by [the] decision and disappointed for families and parents. The Super Bowl is one of the most watched shows on television, aired during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience. Hundreds of thousands of people complained about the show, and a unanimous Commission found that it was inappropriate for broadcast television. In fact, following this incident, Congress said we should be assessing greater fines – as much as 10 times the amount we actually fined CBS – for incidents like these in the future. I continue to believe that this incident was inappropriate, and this only highlights the importance of the Supreme Court’s consideration of our indecency rules this Fall."

The entire 102 page court ruling can be read, in PDF format, here.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=802804





Software Makers Threaten to Sue eBay Over Counterfeits
Holly Jackson

First it was fashion giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA complaining about counterfeit fashion goods on eBay. Then it was Tiffany taking eBay to court.

Now it's the software industry telling eBay that it needs to do more to detect and delete listings for counterfeit goods--or else.

The Software and Information Industry Association, a Washington, D.C., trade association that counts companies such as Intuit, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat as board members, said on Thursday that it's contemplating a lawsuit against eBay. Another option, the group said, would be lobbying Congress to rewrite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and make online auctioneers liable for what's sold.

"Their refusal to work with us will only push us closer and closer to a lawsuit," Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA's senior vice president for intellectual property policy and enforcement, said in an interview.

Kupferschmid said the SIIA has offered at least 20 suggestions to eBay listing ways it can aid the software industry in curbing the sale of pirated software. Among the suggestions: not allowing the "Buy It Now" option on software; placing a notice in a user's feedback if they have been caught selling pirated software; adding a delay on software auctions so they can be reviewed; and permitting the SIIA to run a paid ad on the Web site telling eBay visitors about the risk of buying pirated software.

"They just say no," Kupferschmid said. "We've never been given any rationale."

Instead of taking legal aim at eBay--no suit has been filed so far--the SIIA has busy targeting individual pirates on the site.

It made a point of touting a federal prosecution in which Jeremiah Mondello, 23, of Eugene, Ore., was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison for selling $1 million worth of counterfeit software. Prosecutors said Mondello made more than $400,000 in profit from the sales, and included an aside in a press release saying that the SIAA provided "assistance to the investigation."

The SIIA has relied on civil cases filed against eBay users. This year it says it has filed 32 civil complaints, and Kuperfschmid said all previous cases have resulted in victories. The users convicted of copyright infringement were kicked off the site, and some also paid monetary damages at an average of $50,000.

But assailing only individuals isn't sufficient for the SIIA, who said it is considering suing eBay itself for copyright infringement.

"That's something that we have talked about with our members and talked about internally...we are certainly waiting to see if eBay will do more, or actually do anything to address the software piracy problem they have on their site," Kuperfschmid said.

It may be an uphill battle. In last week's decision, a federal judge in New York wrote that eBay cannot be forced to shoulder the burden of examining individual auction listings for possible counterfeits.

"The court is not unsympathetic to Tiffany and other rights holders who have invested enormous resources in developing their brands, only to see them illicitly and efficiently exploited by others on the Internet," U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan wrote. "Nevertheless, the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark."

For its part, eBay says it spends $5 million a year on maintaining its fraud search engine, which has 13,000 rules that are designed to identify counterfeit listings based on words such as "replica" or "knock-off." Listings flagged by the search engine are manually reviewed by customer service representatives. In addition, eBay offers a Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") program that lets trademark owners report and remove infringing listings.

Making matters tricky is that it may (or may not) be legal to resell legitimately purchased software if the End User License Agreement, or EULA, says you can't. Courts in different states have reached different conclusions about whether the EULA contract can trump the generally recognized right, called the first sale doctrine, of customers to resell books, DVDs, or audio CDs.

"Counterfeits are very bad for our business--we don't want them on our site. People don't want to buy them and we don't want to sell them. But we can't be the expert," eBay spokesperson Nichola Sharpe said on Thursday. "We recognized very early on we need to partner and collaborate. We established the VeRO program in 1998 and we partner with 18,000 associations, including the SIIA."

Sharpe said the VeRO program allows a copyright owner to patrol the site and notify eBay to take down the listing. In addition, she said her employer takes extra steps to prevent illegal goods such as luxury goods and software from being listed, though it will not remove the "Buy It Now" option at SIIA's request.

SIIA's concern isn't exactly new: It launched a so-called auction litigation program in May 2006 and has been occasionally agitating against eBay ever since.

The SIIA said it had been waiting until the results of the counterfeit lawsuit brought by jewelry maker Tiffany were in.

Kuperfschmid thinks that any SIIA lawsuit would be taking a different approach, perhaps relying more on copyright law than trademark law, which had been Tiffany's strategy. (Tiffany's lawyers said last week that their client was likely to appeal.)

"The standards are somewhat different under copyright than trademark law," Kuperfschmid said. "If you look in the statute under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), it does have a standard for determining when eBay may or may not be liable," Kuperfschmid said.

And if courts eventually rule that the DMCA doesn't force eBay to be the kind of Net-cop that the SIIA might like, there's always one remaining option: rewrite the law.

"There may be a point where we decide to go up to Congress and ask for legislation that would make eBay and other similar sites required to take what I would call 'preemptive and proactive steps' to prevent infringement on parts of their sites," Kuperfschmid said. "And if they didn't, they could be liable."

CNET News' Declan McCullagh contributed to this report
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9999429-93.html





BSkyB and Universal to Launch Digital Music Service
Mark Sweney

Amy Winehouse: one of the Universal Music artists whose tracks will be available as part of the link-up with BSkyB. Photograph: EPA

BSkyB is to break into the digital music market with a new business, launched in conjunction with Universal Music, that aims to take on Apple's iTunes in the UK.

The new as-yet-unnamed venture, in which BSkyB is the majority shareholder and Universal is an equity partner, aims to launch by the end of the year.

The service, which is likely to be Sky-branded, will offer a monthly subscription service as a counter to iTunes' track-by-track purchasing.

The subscription will give users unlimited access to streamed tracks plus a set number of download-to-own songs, initially to Universal Music's catalogue of hundreds of thousands of songs from artists including Amy Winehouse, U2, Kanye West, Duffy, Rihanna, Eminem, Elton John and Abba.

Downloaded tracks will work on any device that can play MP3s, including iPods and mobile phones.

BSkyB, which several years ago registered the brand name Sky Tunes, is in negotiations with other music companies to join the venture and to potentially take equity.

Pricing of the subscription packages, and the number of tracks that will be made available to download for each tier, will be revealed closer to the time of launch.

"We think that there is a considerable unmet and untapped demand in the digital music market," said the BSkyB chief operating officer, Mike Darcey. "There is a desire among consumers to consumer, discover and purchase music online."

He added that not all those needs were met by the current legal services and that some offerings were "not well-marketed".

"We have considerable expertise in customer-focused subscription services, content aggregation, packaging and marketing," he said. "We have strong broadband services and online assets and we have contact with one in three UK households. No one has brought that to bear."

The new service will compete against music download stores from companies including 7digital, HMV and, in the near future, Amazon UK.

Mark Mulligan, a vice-president at analysts JupiterResearch, said that the service would compete directly against existing subscription offerings from the likes of Napster and eMusic.

He added that music companies are keen to see a wider range of distribution services for their music and more competition for iTunes, which accounts for more than 70% of the UK digital music market.

"The music industry is still trying to knock Apple down to size," he said. "People are realising that people are not buying digital music in the numbers they should be. The decline in CD buying is greater than the rate people are buying digital music."

Mulligan said that BSkyB's announcement was the first of a "second coming" of music subscription services that failed to take off a few years ago.

"Sky is trying to be the first music service targeted at families. They have relationships with households, while offerings such as Apple have been more about young, tech-savvy one-to-one relationships."

He added that there was a political dimension for Sky, which runs an ISP service, supporting legal music services.

"It is very important for the music industry to help find legal solutions," said Darcey.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...b.digitalmedia





DRM Still Sucks: Yahoo Music Going Dark, Taking Keys With It
Nate Anderson

The bad dream of DRM continues. Yahoo e-mailed its Yahoo! Music Store customers yesterday, telling them it will be closing for good—and the company will take its DRM license key servers offline on September 30, 2008. Sure, it's bad news and yet another example of the sheer lobotomized brain-deadness that has characterized music DRM, but the reaction of most music fans will be: "Yahoo had an online music store?"

If you think this sounds familiar, it's because this happened earlier this year with MSN Music, although Microsoft has since relented and will keep the DRM authorization servers up and running through 2011.

Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers. Instead, Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer. Sure, you'll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that's a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn't download it illegally or just buy it on CD!

No, you were one of the digital pioneers, and in this brave new frontier world, a few people are just going to get malaria. Fact of life. And someone will step in a bear trap, and then it's time for the bite rag, the alcohol, and the saw. Just the price of progress. And yes, some poor group will get trapped in snowfall when crossing the pass, and cannibalism may or may not be involved by the time they stumble barefoot from the mountains next spring. No one can prevent such tragedies.

Well, except for everyone who saw this coming. Ars has been one of only many groups banging the anti-DRM drum for years. We're not pro-piracy, we're just not dumb as rocks. DRM makes things harder for legal users; it creates hassles that illegal users won't deal with; it (often) prevents cross-platform compatibility and movement between devices. In what possible world was that a good strategy for building up the nascent digital download market?

The only possible rationales could be 1) to control piracy (which, obviously, it has had no effect on, thanks to the CD and the fact that most DRM is broken) or 2) to nickel-and-dime consumers into accepting a new pay-for-use regime that sees moving tracks from CD to computer to MP3 player as a "privilege" to be monetized. What we really need to do is just—you know what? Why bother. We've been down this road so many times before that everyone knows their lines by heart.

No, it's not the end of the world; yes, we have bigger problems. But the Yahoo news is just another depressing reminder of all the wasted time and energy put into these schemes designed to create roadblocks for legal users. At least the music business has gotten the message, and all four major labels and most indies now sell DRM-free online.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...s-with-it.html





Apple Has Killed Audio Quality, Says Neil Young
Andre Yoskowitz

Rock star Neil Young made some interesting comments at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference yesterday including his suggestion that music sound quality has been "dumbed down to Fisher-Price toy levels" since the inception of the iPod.

“Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway,” Young said. “Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.”

Young spoke out about the poor audio quality of the most popular audio codec, MP3, and also talked about his "long-term, multimedia archiving project of his entire career" which will be available as a series of Blu-ray discs. Young hopes his project will become the basis for an alternative digital platform with higher quality sound.

The artist spent most of his time expressing his feelings at the decline in audio standards and put the blame mainly on companies such as Apple who he feels have "an increasing focus on convenience versus quality."

“We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements,” he said. “The ears are the windows to the soul.”
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/14892.cfm





Apple Shares Beaten Late on Concerns Over CEO's Health, Guidance
Kasper Jade

Apple handily beat expectations for its fiscal third quarter Monday, but investors used a late trading session to punish shares of the Mac and iPhone maker after the company offered conservative forward-looking guidance and refused to comment on the health of chief executive Steve Jobs.

In a statement following the market's close, Apple said third-quarter profits rose more than 30 percent to $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, on revenues of $7.46 billion, driven by record sales of nearly 2.5 million Macs and double-digit iPod growth to more than 11 million units.

However, the Cupertino-based company saw its shares tumble 10.75 percent, or nearly $18, to $148.42, as investors overwhelmingly rejected management's guidance of $1.00 in per share earnings on sales of $8.3 billion for the current fourth quarter. On average, analysts had been forecasting earnings of $1.23 per share on the same amount of revenue.

In a subsequent conference call, Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer also braced analysts for unwelcome declines in the company's gross margin going froward. He said an ongoing back-to-school promotion and an unspecified product transition during the current quarter will see gross margin fall sequentially by 330 basis points to 31.5 percent.

Oppenheimer told analysts to expect average gross margin for all of fiscal 2009 to come in even lower at 30 percent, as the company moves forward with a strategy that will see it introduce new "state of the art products" that will generate slimmer profits because they'll be offered at price points that can't be matched by rival electronics makers.

Also weighing on Apple shares late Monday were rejuvenated concerns over the health of chief executive Steve Jobs. Shares struggled in the red for most of the day after the New York Post reported that some hedge fund managers on Wall Street are finding it difficult to cope with the increasingly gaunt appearance of the company co-founder.

Jobs's physical health has been an on-again, off-again topic of concern ever since he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer four years ago, for which he underwent successful treatment. However, his overly haggard appearance at last month's Apple developer conference spooked a number of investors and company followers who wondered if his health had begun to relapse.

"Multiple sources who have met with - and in some cases even dined with - Jobs in the weeks surrounding the introduction of the iPhone 3G on July 11, said they came away troubled by his thin appearance," the Post reported.

When asked by an analyst about Jobs's condition on Apple's quarterly conference call Monday, Oppenheimer refused to provide any color, citing his boss's right to privacy.

"Steve loves Apple. He serves at the pleasure of Apple's board," he said. "He has no plans to leave Apple. Steve's health is a private matter."
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...uidan ce.html





Apple’s Culture of Secrecy
Joe Nocera

“No one wants to die,” said Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. “And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”

It was a little over three years ago that Mr. Jobs spoke those existential words, in a commencement address at Stanford. His thoughts about death came during a portion of his speech in which he publicly discussed — for the one and only time, so far as I can tell — his brush with pancreatic cancer.

He talked about how he had learned in 2004 that he had a tumor on his pancreas. How his doctors told him that he shouldn’t expect to live more than six months. How, after “living with that diagnosis all day,” he had a biopsy that showed that his was a rare form of pancreatic cancer, curable with surgery. “I had the surgery and I’m fine now,” Mr. Jobs told the Stanford graduates. He added, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

It was an uplifting tale, and an inspiring message. It was also less than the whole truth. In fact, Mr. Jobs first discovered he had an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor — which is both rarer and less deadly than other forms of pancreatic cancer — in October 2003. This was a full nine months before he had the surgery to remove it. Why did he wait so long? Because, according to a Fortune magazine article published in May, Mr. Jobs was hoping to beat the cancer with a special diet.

The Apple directors who knew the gravity of the situation urged him to undergo surgery, according to the Fortune article. But it was only when Mr. Jobs realized that the tumor was growing that he finally agreed. And only after the surgery was successful did he inform employees that he had been sick, in an e-mail message in which he declared himself “cured.” That’s how Apple’s shareholders found out, too. The company has never spoken about his illness, citing his “privacy” concerns.

I bring this up because of what transpired on Tuesday afternoon, during Apple’s third-quarter conference call. In June, rumors began swirling that Steve Jobs was sick again. They had started during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where Mr. Jobs looked unusually thin and haggard.

Although the Apple public relations machine quickly put out the word that Mr. Jobs had been struck by “a common bug,” few investors were buying it. Wall Street analysts were besieged with questions from clients, wanting to know about Mr. Jobs’s health. On Monday, The New York Post published an article citing “multiple sources” who, the paper said, had met with Mr. Jobs and were “troubled by his thin appearance.” So when the Apple conference call on Tuesday opened for questions, a Lehman Brothers analyst named Ben Reitzes gently asked the $64,000 question.

“A New York newspaper today called into question some issues around Steve and his health,” he said. “Would you mind addressing the situation?”

“Steve loves Apple,” replied Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s chief financial officer. “He serves as the C.E.O. at the pleasure of Apple’s board and has no plans to leave Apple. Steve’s health is a private matter.”

That was it. No insistence that he was cancer-free. No attempt to explain his gaunt condition. No nothing. When I spoke to Steve Dowling in Apple’s public relations department on Thursday, I got the same response. “Steve’s health is a private matter,” Mr. Dowling said. Then, just for good measure, he said it again. “Steve’s health is a private matter.”

But is it really?



There are no hard and fast rules about how and when companies need to disclose information about the health of their chief executives. In 1995, when Andrew S. Grove, then the chief executive of Intel, received a diagnosis of prostate cancer, he informed the company’s board and management. Intel. But he never told the company’s shareholders. Mr. Grove says now that because the cancer never impaired his ability to do his job, there was no reason to inform shareholders. (The world found out about Mr. Grove’s illness only when he wrote about it the following year.)

On the other hand, when Charles H. Bell received a diagnosis of colorectal cancer shortly after he became the chief executive of McDonald’s in 2004, the company quickly released the news. Mr. Bell resigned from the company that November, and died two months later.

“The question surrounding any kind of corporate disclosure always is: Is it material?” said Larry S. Gondelman, a lawyer with Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville. “And there is no bright line test in determining materiality.” A spokesman for the Securities and Exchange Commission said that the law defined materiality as information that “the reasonable investor needs to know in order to make an informed decision about his investment.”

No company has ever been held to account by the S.E.C. for failing to disclose information about its chief executive’s health, and I’m not suggesting that the S.E.C. should go after Apple for keeping mum about Mr. Jobs’s health. Indeed, I found plenty of people who felt he had every right to keep the information to himself. “As long as he is healthy, he doesn’t have to disclose,” said Charles R. Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Company. Roger McNamee, the well-known technology investor at Elevation Partners, said, “Because Steve Jobs has been appearing in public regularly, investors are getting a valuable form of disclosure.”

But if ever there was a chief executive who ought to feel some responsibility to tell shareholders about his health, it is Steve Jobs. First of all, he is not like other chief executives — he is, instead, the single most indispensable chief executive on the planet. As Mr. Wolf nicely put it, “Apple is Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs is Apple.” He added, “I think the stock would drop 25 percent or more if he were to leave the company unexpectedly.” When investors whisper about Mr. Jobs’s health, it’s not just gossip they are indulging in — his health really matters to Apple’s future.

Secondly, Mr. Jobs has had cancer, for crying out loud — and in the public mind, a particularly insidious kind. Although several doctors I spoke to say that the kind of cancer he had, and the kind of operation he underwent, give him a better-than-even chance of living a long and happy life, there are no guarantees with cancer. We all know that. Which is all the more reason why, at a minimum, Apple should flatten the rumor that his cancer has recurred — even if it won’t go further than that. “Not being able to provide a statement effectively dismissing the question is really unsatisfactory to most investors,” said A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., who follows the company for Sanford C. Bernstein.

The final reason, to be blunt about it, is that Apple simply can’t be trusted to tell truth about its chief executive. Under Mr. Jobs, Apple has created a culture of secrecy that has served it well in many ways — the speculation over which products Apple will unveil at the annual MacWorld conference has been one of the company’s best marketing tools. But that same culture poisons its corporate governance. Apple tells analysts far less about its operations than most companies do. It turns low-level decisions into state secrets. Directors are often left out of the loop. And it dissembles with impunity.

As, indeed, it has in this latest episode. On Wednesday, John Markoff reported in The New York Times that Mr. Jobs had had a surgical procedure earlier this year, the details of which remain unclear. I hear that he has had ongoing digestive difficulties, which have contributed to his weight loss — possibly a side effect of the surgery. And in the weeks leading up to the conference, he came down with an infection, which had a lot to do with why he looked so gaunt. It wasn’t cancer, thank goodness. But was more than a “common bug.” By claiming Mr. Jobs had a bug, Apple wasn’t just going dark on its shareholders. It was deceiving them.

It would be horrible if Mr. Jobs had a recurrence of cancer. I hope it never happens. At 53, he is in the prime of his life, the father of a young family. And for the rest of us, it’s exhilarating watching him work his magic in the marketplace. Steve Jobs has created more value and driven more innovation than just about anybody in business. Who doesn’t want to see what he’ll come up with next?

He also, though, needs to treat his shareholders with at least a modicum of respect. And telling them whether or not he is sick would be a good place to start.

On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I’d gotten my final “Steve’s health is a private matter” — and much to my amazement — Mr. Jobs called me. “This is Steve Jobs,” he began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.” After that rather arresting opening, he went on to say that he would give me some details about his recent health problems, but only if I would agree to keep them off the record. I tried to argue him out of it, but he said he wouldn’t talk if I insisted on an on-the-record conversation. So I agreed.

Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn’t hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than “a common bug,” they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer. After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money.

You would think he’d want them to know before me. But apparently not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/bu.../26nocera.html





Killer rip

Citizen Woz – Proto-Pirate
Rick Auricchio

My first VCR was the JVC HR-6700U, which I bought in late 1979 or early 1980. At the time, an Apple colleague had a contact in the consumer-electronics industry. Several of us Apple guys bartered Apple equipment for VCRs. I also got some stereo speakers that way.

The 6700U had a fully-electronic tuner as opposed to the turn-knob ones common at the time. The user could therefore tune any of the 16 (20?) tuning buttons to any channel; you didn’t have to accept all existing channels, just the ones you cared about. Also, the tuning was by means of small knobs for each “slot.” We were able to tune the TV cable “mid-band” between channels 6 and 7, to pick up additional channels. Those channels were not normally available without paying for a fancier cable box.

The digital timer allowed two-week advance programming, but didn’t support “all-weekday” programs. You could do, e.g. every Thursday or all seven days, but not Mon-Fri.

Now here’s a funny anecdote. Andy Hertzfeld, later of Macintosh fame, was one of my colleagues at Apple at the time. His 6700U developed a clock problem: it ran exactly four times faster than real time. As engineers, we all knew that some divider chip had failed. But Andy didn’t want to part with the unit and wait for warranty service. Being a resourceful software engineer, he simply wrote a program on the Apple ][. He entered the date/time of the desired TV program, then the current clock reading—which could be almost any “random” day/hour/minute. The program then told him what to set for the recording, having computed where the VCR’s overspeed clock would be when the program aired.

Another anecdote. We used to line up a half-dozen of the VCRs and copy tapes. Just plop ‘em on an unused desk, cable ‘em all up, and push all the buttons. This was bad enough, but then Steve Wozniak wanted a tape of the newly-released “The Empire Strikes Back.” He bribed a San Diego projectionist to “borrow” the print from the cinema and drive it to Los Angeles in the dead of night. After several hours in a transfer facility, he had a 3/4″ U-Matic professional copy of the film print, and the projectionist high-tailed it back to the cinema to return the print. That tape also made its way into the copying chain. We were perhaps the first half-dozen people with videotape copies of the film. (I discarded my heavily-letterboxed copy years ago…)

Woz later mentioned that the 4000-foot film reels wouldn’t fit the 3000-foot tables on the transfer machine, so they spent extra time cutting the print into sections that would fit, then spliced it back into its original form. Film companies, however, are very cautious that nobody steals frames from a film, lest they be printed into illegal still photos. The prints were examined to detect frame-stealing. Woz never asked whether the splices got the projectionist into any trouble; an occasional splice could be due to a film break, but not several at regular intervals.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/...bs&Qis=XL#qdig
















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