Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - March 17th, '07

[JackSpratts]

"It was just a complete, damn sellout of The Band - its reputation, its music; just as much disrespect as you could pour on Richard and Rick's tombstones." – Levon Helm


"As a nation, we’ve lost something that’s very hard to get back, which is the benefit of the doubt. It will be years before we restore our reputation for veracity, and the only way to do that is to reveal more about the sensitive information that underlies our policies." – Ashton B. Carter


"I bite my teeth in the wood good and hard and then I get it good and strong." – Thomas Edison


"I gradually became obsessed." – Li Yanlin


"Viacom is so ticked off at YouTube. It’s just so obvious." – Nick Nocera


"If it's Un-American and "terroristic" to share files, just call me Alsama Bin Downloaden." – Dr. Avery


"I think the people who can’t afford movies deserve to be entertained just like more privileged people." – aXXo
































Wi-Fried

The DC power supply to my router conked out early one evening this week. A unique little item (5v-2 amps) that Linksys says they no longer carry (!) and for which tech "support" dryly recommends I substitute a universal unit (they're awfully helpful over there). So it was back to dial-up for me.

Later that same night the router itself fried because of that universal unit (go Linksys tech support!) although the router may have cooked the original power supply to begin with, I might never know, but I was now sol as it were and it was time for a new one.

The next morning when I couldn't get it locally I crawled over to Newegg and ordered a WRT54G*L*, which is basically the clone of my four year old original. Because new 54Gs from Linksys are not up to the standards they set with the first units, containing less memory, cheaper chips and dicey firmware that can't be flashed w/opensource, they made the new L model to satisfy discriminating users like moi. It comes with all the original memory, Linux software and is easily loaded with the good stuff.

The delivery guy knocks the next day, just 24 hours after I ordered it and with free shipping no less so ok UPS/Newegg! Installing it was simple and the cabled PCs lit up immediately but the wireless part was trickier, at least getting it going securely like it was before. It won’t take my last config file but I’ll get it running. I’m motivated.

Wireless really is the way to go. It’s changed the Internet for me. The big stranded boxes still do their things; stream music, serve the privatenets like Waste & Alliance and the open P2Ps like BT and Soulseek, and handle the important background stuff, but now I access the net from my living room couch, just like watching TV or reading a book, with a notebook resting comfortably on my lap.

Actually it's more like whittling or knitting in that I can be with other people, participate socially, talk, hang out and still do all my " 'netting." That's a big difference compared to when I was doing the stereotypical anti-social geek thing - removed to another room, chained to a desk, planted in front of a big monitor (not that there was anything wrong with that ).

Well, maybe there was a little. I know this Linksys and a Thinkpad have changed things for the better.
















Enjoy,

Jack

















March 17th, 2007






Viacom Sues YouTube Over Copyrights
Seth Sutel

MTV owner Viacom Inc. sued the popular video-sharing site YouTube and its corporate parent, Google Inc., on Tuesday, seeking more than $1 billion in damages on claims of widespread copyright infringement.

Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube and represents the biggest confrontation to date between a major media company and the hugely popular video-sharing site, which Google bought in November for $1.76 billion.

YouTube's soaring popularity has been a cause of fascination but also fear among the owners of traditional media outlets, who worry that YouTube's displaying of clips from their programs -- without compensation -- will lure away viewers and ad dollars from cable and broadcast TV.

Viacom is especially at risk because much of its programming is aimed at younger audiences who also are heavy Internet users. Your reaction?

Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.

YouTube said at the time that it would comply with the request and said it cooperates with all copyright holders to remove programming as soon as they're notified.

In a statement, Viacom lashed out at YouTube's business practices, saying it has "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

Viacom said YouTube's business model, "which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws."

Viacom said YouTube has avoided taking the initiative to curtail copyright infringement on its site, instead shifting the burden and costs of monitoring the video-sharing site for unauthorized clips onto the "victims of its infringement."

A representative for Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other media companies have also clashed with YouTube over copyrights, but some, including CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, have reached deals with the video-sharing site to license their material. CBS Corp. used to be part of Viacom but has since split off into a separate company.

Universal Music Group, a unit of France's Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but later reached a licensing deal with the company.

In addition to damages, Viacom is also seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.

Google shares dropped $4.82, or 1.1 percent, to $449.93 in Tuesday morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while Viacom's Class B shares rose 43 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $40 on the New York Stock Exchange.
http://www.boston.com/business/techn...p1=MEWell_Pos5





CBS in Ad-Backed Deal With YouTube for Basketball
Paul Thomasch

CBS Corp. has reached a deal with YouTube to show highlights, press conferences and other content from the NCAA basketball tournament on the video-sharing site, the broadcaster said on Thursday.

Unlike much of the video on YouTube, however, the CBS basketball clips will be sponsored by advertising from General Motors Corp.'s Pontiac.

The advertising deal, terms of which were not released, is part of a broader CBS strategy to receive payment for its content and shows, something it has become increasingly vocal about in recent weeks.

The CBS agreement with Google Inc.'s YouTube is also notable in light of the $1 billion lawsuit filed against the video-sharing site this week.

The suit by Viacom Inc. accuses Google and YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement." Up until a year ago, CBS and Viacom were part of the same company.

CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith declined to comment on the Viacom lawsuit.

Smith also declined to speak about CBS' discussions for a broader distribution and advertising deal with Google and YouTube. Recent press reports have said those discussions have stalled.

But Smith, in an interview, said the CBS deal with YouTube for the NCAA basketball content fits its strategy of monetizing its shows and broadcast material.

"From our perspective, we absolutely want to experiment and make sure we do things with as many online platforms as we can, but we need to get paid for our content," he said. "Not only do we need to get paid for our content, we need to learn about our community."

He added that a "naive move" would have been for CBS to bypass YouTube and build its own site "and have three people show up to enjoy some incredibly great content."

Instead, CBS and Pontiac reached the deal with YouTube under which game clips will be uploaded to the site in nearly real time. Users will be able to comment on the clips, rate them, recommend them and post their own video responses.

The YouTube channel will also include links to other CBS and NCAA sites.

While Smith did not disclose terms of the deal, he said: "All our partners get everything out of this deal."

He also said a record number of users has registered to watch the full basketball games live online through the CBS Webcast (http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod). Last year, CBS' online broadcasts marked one of the biggest Internet video events.

"We found a parade and jumped in front of it," Smith said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031501234.html





Google Confident Digital Liability Law Protects It
Eric Auchard

Google Inc. is confident its popular video-sharing site YouTube and other Web services Google offers have strong legal protections under current copyright law, company attorneys said on Tuesday.

Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. ended six months of thinly veiled threats of legal action against YouTube earlier on Tuesday with a $1 billion lawsuit that accuses Google and YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement."

But Google and YouTube lawyers said their actions are squarely within the protections offered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and they were prepared to defend the company aggressively.

The DMCA has served as the legal standard defining U.S. copyright law in the digital age. It limits liability for firms that act quickly to block access to pirated materials once they are notified by copyright holders of specific infringement.

"Here there is a law which is specifically designed to give Web hosts such as us, or... bloggers or people that provide photo-album hosting online ... the 'safe harbor' we need in order to be able to do hosting online," said Alexander Macgillivray, Google's associate general counsel for products and intellectual property.

"We will never launch a product or acquire a company unless we are completely satisfied with its legal basis for operating," Macgillivray told Reuters in an interview.

Google's move to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in early October was preceded by a series of threats and at least one federal lawsuit filed against YouTube.

YouTube was sued in July 2006 by Los Angeles News Service operator Robert Tur for allowing YouTube users to upload and view his famous footage of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In September, Doug Morris, chief executive of Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, accused YouTube and News Corp.'s MySpace social network site of being "copyright infringers' at a Wall Street conference.

David Drummond, the executive who spearheaded Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube last November, serves as both its head of business development and chief legal officer.

Responding to Viacom's suit, which also seeks an injunction that could lead to a possible shutdown of YouTube, Macgillivray said Google had done its homework.

"This is an area of law where there are a bunch of really clear precedents, so Amazon and eBay have both been found to qualify for the safe harbor and there are a whole bunch more," Macgillivray said.

"We will continue to innovate and continue to host material for people, without being distracted by this suit."

The attorney noted Google previously won dismissal of a lawsuit involving copyright issues filed by Nevada attorney Blake Field. The judge used 'safe harbor" protections, among a series of grounds, in granting summary judgment to Google.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...16411620070314





American Studios' Secret Plan to Lock Down European TV Devices

EFF Exposes Standards Jeopardizing Innovation and Consumer Rights
Press Release

An international consortium of television and technology companies is devising draconian anti-consumer restrictions for the next generation of TVs in Europe and beyond, at the behest of American entertainment giants.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the only public interest group to have gained entrance into the secretive meetings of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB), a group that creates the television and video specifications used in Europe, Australia, and much of Asia and Africa. In a report released today, EFF shows how U.S. movie and television companies have convinced DVB to create new technical specifications that would build digital rights management technologies into televisions. These specifications are likely to take away consumers' rights, which will subsequently be sold back to them piecemeal -- so entertainment fans will have to pay again and again for legitimate uses of lawfully acquired digital television content.

"DVB is abetting a massive power grab by the content industry, and many of the world's largest technology companies are simply watching," said Ren Bucholz, EFF Policy Coordinator, Americas. "This regime was concocted without input from consumer rights organizations or public interest groups, and it shows."

Despite recent record profits, American movie and television studios insist that new technologies could ruin their industry. In past battles against innovation, these same studios sued to block the sale of the VCR and the first mass-marketed digital video recorder in the U.S. Having failed in those efforts, they have now turned to creating technical standards that, when backed by law, are likely to restrict consumers' existing rights and threaten the future of technological innovation.

With DVB, the plan begun by entertainment companies in the U.S. has now gone global. EFF's report is aimed at alerting European consumer groups and consumers about the dangers posed by the proposed standards and providing informational resources for European regulators.

"DVB members' active indifference, even hostility, to user rights is shameful," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. "When American studios ask for regulatory support for restrictions pushed through the DVB Project, public officials must stand up for consumer rights, sustain competition and innovation, and tell Hollywood to back off."
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_03.php#005156





DSL Gateways Will Mark Video to Catch Pirates
Peter Sayer

Another role could soon be added to the many already performed by home gateway devices: identifying video pirates.

Home gateway manufacturer Thomson SA plans to incorporate video watermarking technology, which it also developed, into future set- top boxes and other video devices. The watermarks, unique to each device, will make it possible for investigators to identify the source of pirated videos.

By letting consumers know the watermarks are there, even if they can't see them, Thomson hopes to discourage piracy without putting up obstacles to activities widely considered fair use, such as copying video for use on another device in the home or while traveling to work.

"The idea is to slow down piracy without limiting the use of the consumer. They should not be upset about this unless they are widely redistributing content," said Pascal Marie, responsible for strategic marketing at the company's content security division.

Thomson developed the technology, NexGuard, to identify individual copies of the films distributed digitally to cinemas or on DVD as preview copies for reviewers and awards juries. In the past, pirated copies of films available over the Internet or in street markets have been traced back to such sources.

Now, the availability of high-definition video-on-demand services is multiplying the points at which high-quality video can be pirated.

Thomson's plan is to watermark video with a unique code before it leaves the home gateway or set-top box (STB). To do that, it is working with semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics to incorporate NexGuard into digital video chips. STMicro has already incorporated NexGuard into its 7100 series of chips for STBs. NexGuard can mark video encoded in MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and VC-1 formats.

At Cebit in Hanover, Germany, this week, Thomson is demonstrating how the chips might be used, and at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas next month, it will show prototype STBs incorporating the technology.

Also next month, the company will unveil system capable of directly watermarking content produced with Windows Media Video 9 codecs, Marie said. "We are able to process directly this format without the need to decode it, watermark it and re-encode it."

Thomson sells its gateways and STBs to network operators -- one of its biggest customers is Orange, the Internet access subsidiary of France Telecom, which packages the devices as the LiveBox, an all-in-one terminal for telephony, television, Wi-Fi and Internet access.

Thomson will apply the watermarking at two levels, Marie said. One watermark will identify the network operator distributing the content, while a second, carrying 40 bits of information, will identify the individual device, he said.

The watermarks are robust, Marie said. Films projected digitally and captured by a camcorder can still be traced, although "we need a longer period of detection to identify it," he said. Clips recorded directly from an STB, re-encoded at a lower bit rate and then posted to an online video sharing service might be identifiable after just a few seconds, he said.
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1722391352





Sony's Grouper Picks On Searchles TV
pradeepe

"Sony's Grouper, a video sharing site, has sent Searchles, a social search engine, a cease and desist letter over Grouper videos being streamed through Searchles TV, "the Internet's first video player that empowers users to mashup videos back-to-back with one player using multiple sources like MySpace, YouTube, Google Video, Blip.tv or Grouper." Grouper claims that Searchles has "effectively stripped away Grouper's extensive copyright protection system, including the 'Flag as Inappropriate' button and the link that appears on every single page of the Grouper website to allow copyright owners to report allegedly infringing material, in accordance with the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." It's interesting to note that Grouper itself is being sued for copyright infringement."
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/03/16/003224.shtml





Internet Radio Broadcasters To Take Legal Action Over Royalties
FMQB

Internet broadcasters are taking action against last week's proposed new, higher royalty rates. Lawyers for NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are planning legal action in Washington, D.C. to overturn the new rate hikes. "Right now the thought is that the initial response needs to be a legal response," WXPN/Philadelphia GM Roger LaMay told internetnews.com.

The suggested new rates would increase to $.0008 per-play for 2006 (retroactively), $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 in 2008, $.0018 in 2009 and $.0019 for 2010. "If this were to go into effect it's going to have public radio stations looking for ways to cut back what we do, as opposed to expanding. Now, there is significant dis-incentive when you're talking about services that are committed to public service," LaMay told the site.

A spokesperson for SoundExchange, which lobbied for the new rates, told internetnews.com that their intent is not to cripple Internet radio. "We're all fans of Internet radio. We don't want to see Internet radio go away. These are negotiations. We're not trying to stick it to anybody. In terms of what happens next? Either side could appeal to the U.S. District court," said spokesperson Wilhem Dicke.
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=368205





Radio Chief Says Satcasters Cannot Be Trusted With Monopoly Power

Appearing alongside along Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) President & CEO David Rehr said Feb. 28 during a Congressional hearing called to review the proposed merger between XM and Sirius that neither company can be trusted with the monopoly power Rehr believes the combination would create.

Turning his attention to the familiar claims that both satellite companies' terrestrial repeaters cause interference to radio broadcasters, Rehr said, "Both companies routinely and regularly violate FCC technical rules. XM operated more than 142 repeaters at unauthorized locations and at least 19 repeaters without any FCC authorization at all. Sirius constructed at least 11 of its repeaters at different location from what they reported to the FCC, including one in Michigan 67 miles away from its reported and authorized locations."

Rehr also pointed to the two companies' own statements from 1997 - when they first applied for their licenses - where both insisted that having two separate satellite radio providers would keep the sector vibrant.

"Ironically, the argument for greater competition came from Sirius, then called CD Radio," said Rehr. "They argued that multiple providers were necessary to 'assure intra-service competition.' They said more players would have 'compelling market-based incentives' to differentiate themselves from competitors. Perhaps more telling, Sirius explicitly stated that no satellite provider should ever be permitted to combine with another provider because, 'such a development would have serious anticompetitive repercussions.'"

Firing back, Karmazin - who was still working in terrestrial radio in 1997 - said that the landscape was vastly different a decade ago, and argued that XM and Sirius couldn’t have imagined then the competitive challenges presented by things like HD Radio, iPods, and Internet radio. He also said that satellite radio must compete with thousands of terrestrial stations nationwide, while only commanding a small percentage of all radio listening. "XM and Sirius are relatively small players in that highly competitive and rapidly evolving audio entertainment marketplace," he said. "There are 223 million weekly AM and FM radio listeners in the United States. Contrast that to Sirius and XM. The companies currently have about 14 million subscribers. Satellite radio is a David operating in a land of Goliaths and is hardly a threat to controlling the audio entertainment market. We are absolutely not a monopoly."

Commenting after the hearing, NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said, "NAB does not believe Mel Karmazin came even close to making the case for a government-sanctioned monopoly."
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntr...&pt=todaysnews





The Band Drummer Helm Sues Over TV Ad
AP

Levon Helm, former drummer for The Band, is suing a Manhattan advertising firm over the use of the band's signature song, "The Weight," in a television commercial.

In a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in December, Helm asks for information about BBDO Worldwide's profits from the commercial for Cingular cell phone service and for financial compensation for the use of his performance.

Helm's attorney, Michael Pinsky, said state law prohibits the use of a celebrity's voice or likeness for profit without his prior written permission. The lawyer said Helm received a royalty payment from the use of the "The Weight" in the commercial, but does not feel he has been adequately compensated. According to an annual royalty statement from EMI Records, which owns Capitol Records, The Band's record label, Helm took home one-fifth of half of the licensing fee that BBDO paid to Capitol for the right to use the song, Pinsky said.

A BBDO spokesman declined comment.

"It was just a complete, damn sellout of The Band - its reputation, its music; just as much disrespect as you could pour on Richard and Rick's tombstones," Helm, a longtime Woodstock resident said.

Richard Manuel, vocalist and piano player for The Band, died in 1986. Rick Danko, who played bass, died in 1999. The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...EAST&TEMPLATE=





It’s Suit Man!

Stan Lee Media Sues Marvel: $5B

Back-from-the-dead dot-com files suit claiming ownership of superheroes.
Michael Cohn

Stan Lee Media sued Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion Thursday, claiming it co-owns Marvel’s superhero characters, including Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Incredible Hulk.

The company is no longer owned by Stan Lee, the comic book legend who more recently hosted the TV series Who Wants to Be a Superhero? on the Sci-Fi Channel, which was produced by his latest company, Pow Entertainment.

In the suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, Stan Lee Media seeks to assert rights to the revenue generated by its superheroes that Marvel Entertainment is profiting from.

Mr. Lee formed Stan Lee Media during the dot-com boom as a way of bringing his superheroes online, but the company went bankrupt and produced a litany of lawsuits and criminal charges in its wake involving stock manipulation schemes against the other co-founders of the company.

Now the company is back from the dead, having been reconstituted by Jim Nesfield, who gathered a group of former investors, while he took charge as chairman, CEO, and president. He has now filed a lawsuit on their behalf.

He said Mr. Lee signed a contract in October 1998 that assigned co-creative interests to Stan Lee Media. Unfortunately for Stan Lee Media, the same rights were assigned to Marvel.

“Stan Lee is no longer with the company, but the contract remains intact,” he said. “He has signed it and the contract is still in force.” He added that Mr. Lee may be called to testify if the case goes to trial.

He said the contract had been hidden from the public and Mr. Nesfield has filed suit on behalf of the shareholders to assert their rights. He said they are entitled to 50 percent of all revenue going back three years and going forward 50 years. They can only go back three years by law, but not as far back as 1998.

A Marvel spokesperson declined to comment but later issued a statement from Mr. Lee: “I do not support this action and believe the suit to be baseless.” Mr. Lee currently serves as president emeritus of Marvel Comics. He and Pow Entertainment could not immediately be reached for comment. In January, he filed suit against Mr. Nesfield and two of his associates alleging they illegally took over his former company and infringed on his trademarks and copyrights.

Whistleblower History

Mr. Nesfield is a self-described whistleblower who assisted New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in his investigation of market timing by mutual funds when Mr. Spitzer was the state’s attorney general. He has also testified before the U.S. Senate, he said, about market-timing abuses, and appeared on 60 Minutes.

While he was not initially involved with Stan Lee Media, he said he has been a long-time observer ever since the company filed to go public in 2000. “I’ve been following the company since its initial flotation and its demise, and I specialize in bankrupts in distress,” he said. “I’m what they call a vulture.”

Ethan Horwitz, a partner at Goodwin Procter, who filed the complaint on behalf of Stan Lee Media against Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Enterprises, and Marvel Characters, said a settlement is possible.

“It’s very early in the case, but obviously in any case a settlement is possible,” he said. “Basically, Stan Lee assigned a lot of valuable rights to Stan Lee Enterprises. We are now the owner of those rights, and we go from there.”

He acknowledged that the history of the company has been messy, but he thinks much of it won’t be relevant to the main issues. He said he had not yet heard back from Marvel, and unlike his client Mr. Nesfield, he said he had no estimate of the damages.
http://www.redherring.com/Article.as...inmentAndMedia





Music Downloading Is Up, Both Legally And Illegally
FMQB

A new study from the NPD Group says that the number of songs downloaded online is way up, both legally and illegally. Specifically, about 5 billion songs were downloaded illegally in 2006, far outnumbering the 500 million that were paid for. The number of U.S. households participating in illegal file swapping rose 8 percent to 15 million, says NPD, although the overall growth in the number of households involved did slow down from 2005. At the same time, legal online purchases of music jumped 56 percent and the number of U.S. households buying legally rose to 13 million.

"Legal a la carte downloads were the fastest growing digital music category in 2006, and it is likely that the annual number of legal users will surpass P2P users in 2007. Unfortunately for the music labels, the volume of music files purchased legally is swamped by the sheer volume of files being traded illegally, whether on P2P or burned CDs sourced from borrowed files," said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick, according to Bloomberg News. "Five billion files downloaded illegally clearly affect prospects for both CD sales and sales of digital song tracks online."

Though the growth rate of illegal file swapers is slowing, the number of downloads per user is rising. The average user of LimeWire, a major source of illegal sharing, downloaded 309 files last year, which marks a 49 percent rise from 2005, according to the NPD study. On the legal side, about 70 percent of households that bought songs online used Apple's iTunes service, but the average number of songs bought by each iTunes user fell 11 percent.
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=368827





University Absent from Recent RIAA File Sharing Report
Miranda Byrd

Peer-to-peer, MP3, LimeWire. Sound familiar? These twenty-first century terms are now being paired with the existing terms piracy, copyright and lawsuit. Reality is setting in for many college students across the country who now find themselves tangled in the legalities of sharing music without permission.

In 2000, the rock group Metallica spoke out against the file-sharing program Napster and its users, blaming the MP3 service for acting as a conduit for copyright infringement.

This campaign turned into a movement within the recording industry to stop peer-to-peer file sharing of music. The Recording Industry Association of America has filed suits against individuals, and since 2003 over 18,000 people have been taken to court for illegal downloading.

Seven years after the initial uproar, the crack down continues on music pirates. Last week the RIAA began sending letters to college students at over three times the previous amount.

According to RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol, "The theft of music remains unacceptably high and undermines the industry's ability to invest in new music. This is especially the case on college campuses...We recognize that the nature of online music theft is changing, and we need to adjust our strategies accordingly."

As part of the battle against music piracy, RIAA released a new list of universities with the highest occurrence of illegal downloads. UWG was not on the list.

"Our work with college administrators has yielded real progress, and we're grateful for the help of those who have worked closely with us," says Bainwol.

UWG has implemented network security to make it more difficult for students within the network to share music with one another. Programs like iTunes allow students to listen to other students' music libraries, but prevent permanent file-swapping.

How difficult is it to get caught stealing music? Not very, thanks to the cooperation of colleges across the country. For more information on UWG's network security policies, visit the Information Technology Services website at www.westga.edu/~its.
http://media.www.thewestgeorgian.com...-2774389.shtml





RIAA Sues Stroke Victim in Michigan

The RIAA has now brought suit against a stroke victim in Michigan in Warner v. Paladuk:

Summons in Warner v. Paladuk

Although the defendant John Paladuk, an employee of C&N Railroad for 36 years, was living in Florida at the time of the alleged copyright infringement, and had notified the RIAA that he had not engaged in any copyright infringement, and despite that the fact that Mr. Paladuk suffered a stroke last year which resulted in complete paralysis of his entire left side and severely impaired speech, rendering him disabled, and despite the fact that his disability check is his sole source of income, the RIAA commenced suit against him on February 27, 2007.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blo...-michigan.html





Interview: aXXo, The Most Popular DVD Ripper on BitTorrent
Ernesto

In real life, aXXo is just an average American teenager, but on the Internet he’s a celebrity, with over a million people downloading his DVDrips every month. The search term “aXXo” is among the top searches on every torrent site, and even anti-piracy organizations use his name to trap people into downloading fake torrents. We had the chance to ask him a few questions, and find out a little more about him.

For those of you who never heard of aXXo, he is responsible for hundreds of DVDrips that find their way to millions of PCs around the world. Most of the rips are 700MB, made to fit on a single CD. Some have criticized his preference for single CD rips because of the inferior video quality, but most pirates agree that he does a great job.

Earlier this year aXXo temporarily stopped uploading movies because axxotorrents.com was trying to profit from his name. After a few weeks that site went down, and aXXo continued releasing DVDrips.

Most of the time it is impossible to track down the source of DVDrips, especially with people from “the scene“. But aXXo is not a member of the scene, and although was not very talkative either, he was at least willing to answer a few questions.

TorrentFreak: What motivates you to share these movies?

aXXo: Not everyone can afford $8.50, or whatever it cost’s these days, to see movies.

TorrentFreak: Don’t you think that ripping and uploading these (copyrighted) movies is wrong?

aXXo: The movie industry loses only 1% of its yearly profits, in a multi-BILLION dollar industry. I think the people who can’t afford movies deserve to be entertained just like more privileged people.

TorrentFreak: Are you alone in this, Or do you get help from others?

aXXo: I have help, I could never do this alone of course.

TorrentFreak: What do you think of sites that (mis)use your name, like axxotorrents.com?

aXXo: They can go to Hell, we are here for the community, and will never ask anything in return.

TorrentFreak: How can people tell if the torrent is not a scam, or a fake torrent?

aXXo: aXXo torrents will never be a RAR archive, and the torrents will always contain 3 files.

TorrentFreak: Where do you get the movies, and do you use scene releases as well?

aXXo: …

TorrentFreak: Okay, perhaps this one is easier to answer. What is your favorite BitTorrent site?

aXXo: I like TorrentBox.

TorrentFreak: Anything you want to add to this?

aXXo: Just a quick note: I have been hearing cases of the people being tracked by downloading fake aXXo torrents, so please be careful! If you’re not sure if it’s legit, DONT DOWNLOAD.

TorrentFreak: Thanks!

aXXo: You’re welcome.

http://torrentfreak.com/interview-ax...on-bittorrent/





Writing a Peer-to-Peer Application Using .Net - Part 1

As per my last post, there is a new namespace (System.Net.PeerToPeer) available in the .NET Framework "Orcas" March CTP tailored to making it simple to write P2P applications using managed code. I have posted a write up (with code samples) on the P2P team blog which digs into Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP); one of the many technologies in the new namespace. PNRP is a cool new technology which provides a serverless name resolution solution tailored to P2P scenarios. Check it out and let us know what you think of the new features in System.Net......
http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/archive/2...et-part-1.aspx





Content Protection Digital Rights Management Market Spending Exceeds $9 Billion Over Five Years, Says Insight Research Corp.
Press Release

Spending on digital rights management (DRM) software and hardware to protect entertainment, commercial software, and other information will exceed $9 billion dollars over the next five years, says a new market research report from Insight Research Corp. By the close of 2007, total worldwide spending on DRM will reach just over $1 billion, and by 2012 business spending is forecasted to grow to nearly $1.9 billion, according to the new research study.

According to Insight's newly-released market analysis report, "Wireline and Wireless Digital Rights Management: Securing Content Distribution 2007-2012," DRM involves the combination of software and hardware technologies that enable the content owner and distributors to assign and control rights and conditions for viewing, listening, and employing the content present in digital media and applications -- be it a song, a movie, a medical or financial record, or a software game. The study focuses on the use of DRM by wireline retail users, wireless retail users, TV and home entertainment network (HEN) users, software application retail users, as well as software application corporate users. The report notes that as the value of digital content increases, applications of DRM will increase, though at a slower rate than the value of content based on the fact that DRM pricing is not tied to the value of the protected content.

"DRM evolved over the last two decades to serve corporations that needed a means to deal with information piracy, peer-to-peer file sharing, and various regulatory requirements. So in a sense DRM did not arise to meet the needs of end users, and in fact, it may be said to have evolved to spite the end user," says Robert Rosenberg, President of Insight. "While organizations like Creative Commons have emerged to balance the respective -- and sometimes conflicting -- rights of artists and creators, media companies, and individuals who share content, by and large the focus of the DRM industry is to protect the rights of the owner of the content, not the end user," Rosenberg concludes.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4546196&EDATE=





DMCA Abuser Apologizes for Takedown Campaign

Michael Crook Agrees to Stop Attacks on Free Speech
Press Release

Michael Crook, the man behind a string of meritless online copyright complaints, has agreed to withdraw those complaints, take a copyright law course, and apologize for interfering with the free speech rights of his targets.

The agreement settles a lawsuit against Crook filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of Jeff Diehl, the editor of the Internet magazine 10 Zen Monkeys. Diehl was forced to modify an article posted about Crook's behavior in a fake sex-ad scheme after Crook sent baseless Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices, claiming to be the copyright holder of an image used in the story. In fact, the image was from a Fox News program and legally used as part of commentary on Crook. But Crook repeated his claims and then attempted to use the same process to get the image removed from other websites reporting on his takedown campaign.

"Crook's legal threats interfered with legitimate debate about his controversial online behavior," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "Public figures must not be allowed to use bogus copyright claims to squelch speech."

In addition to withdrawing current complaints against Diehl and every other target of his takedown campaign and taking a copyright law course, Crook has also agreed to limit any future DMCA notices to works authored or photographed by himself or his wife, or where the copyright was specifically assigned to him. All future notices must also include a link to EFF information on his case, as well as the settlement agreement. Crook has also recorded a video statement to apologize and publicize the dangers of abusing copyright law.

"We're pleased that Crook has taken responsibility for his egregious behavior," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "Hopefully, this will set a precedent to prevent future abuse of the law by those who dislike online news-reporting and criticism."

The settlement with Michael Crook is part of EFF's ongoing campaign to protect online free speech from the chilling effects of bogus intellectual property claims. EFF recently filed suit against the man who claims to have created the popular line dance "The Electric Slide" for misusing copyright law to remove an online documentary video that included footage of people trying to do the dance.

For the video statement from Michael Crook:
http://blip.tv/file/169553

For more on Diehl v. Crook:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/diehl_v_crook/

http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_03.php#005161





Victims Fight Back Against DMCA Abuse
Nate Anderson

DMCA takedown notices: sure, they provide an easy way for companies or individuals to get copyrighted information pulled from sites like YouTube, but what happens when the process is abused? The DMCA does require takedown notices to be made under threat of perjury, and damages are possible against those that abuse the takedown process by using it for frivolous or fraudulent purposes. The EFF has recently filed two cases against alleged DMCA abusers, and may be prepping a third against Viacom.

First up is the case against Michael Crook, a guy who thought it would be a worthwhile use of his time to respond to Craigslist personal ads, extract personal details from those he dubbed "perverts," then post this information online. Not surprisingly, this practice provoked a fair amount of controversy and commentary, and a picture of Crook (from a Fox News appearance) was posted on several prominent blogs. Crook issued DMCA takedown notices which demanded that the images be pulled and that he owned the copyright to them.

He did not, of course, but "fair use" would have allowed the pictures in any event. The EFF stepped in after 10 Zen Monkeys received a takedown request. In a settlement, Crook agreed to stop using such takedown notices and was forced to record a public video apology.

The EFF is also challenging Richard Silver, the creator of popular wedding dance the "Electric Slide," who claims that his copyright was violated by a clip uploaded to YouTube. In that clip, a California man records people dancing at concert by the band Sublevel 3; as part of that video, "one group perform[s] a set of line-dancing steps for just over 10 seconds," according to the EFF complaint. That 10 seconds of footage apparently contained steps that resembled the Electric Slide, and Silver sent a takedown notice to YouTube.

In taking the case to court, the EFF claims that Silver "knowingly" and "materially" misrepresented his own copyright claim; the EFF says that the dance steps are not suitable for copyright at all. Furthermore, Silver's claim to have copyrighted a single video performance of the dance does not prevent others from filming the same steps. The case is still pending in a California court.

Finally, a Viacom executive admitted last month that less than 60 of his company's 100,000 takedown requests to YouTube were invalid. John Palfrey of Harvard's Berkman Center wonders what rights those 60 people have?

We may find out. The EFF called for people who had videos pulled inappropriately to contact the group, though the EFF tells The National Law Journal that it cannot comment on its future legal plans.

The EFF has also gone after non-DMCA claims, such as the copyright action against the SpankMaker and a trademark claim against an environmental group that hoped to shut down the Chicago Auto Show.

Nothing new under the sun

While it's heartening to see a group stand up to these sorts of pressure tactics, the problem of illegitimate copyright complaints is an old one that shows no sign of withering away. Companies routinely use copyright claims to demand the removal of material they simply dislike, as Best Buy did when it claimed that its prices were under copyright and could not be posted on the Internet.

A report on the subject from the Brennan Center for Justice contains an anecdote from the 1940s, when Warner Brothers threatened to sue Groucho Marx for a parody film called A Night in Casablanca. Marx's response: "Up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers." When the movie was eventually released, the studio did not sue.

In the 1990s, another bizarre copyright claims surfaced when Republicans attempted to stop the sale of Contract with America underpants, but the prize for sheer hilarity goes to a recent complaint from The National Pork Board. On January 30, 2007, the Board send a cease-and-desist letter to the Lactivist blog, which was using the phrase "the other white milk" on its site and merchandise.

The National Pork Board believed that this was too similar to its own phrase, "the other white meat," and told the Lactivist to stop using it. "In addition," said the letter, "your use of this slogan also tarnishes the good reputation of National Pork Board's mark in light of your apparent attempt to promote the use of breast milk beyond merely for infant consumption."

One of the reasons companies misuse the DMCA and cease-and-desist copyright letters is that the tools can quickly accomplish what they want to have happen; stuff they don't like goes bye-bye in a hurry. When the other option is slogging slowly through the court system, letters look like an excellent alternative.

The DMCA makes it simple to fire off these letters like cannonballs, flattening critics or parodists. The DMCA does contain a few safeguards against making fraudulent threats, but most ISPs and companies like YouTube will immediately pull the listed content, and they generally don't look into the issue of whether such content truly was infringing. Instead, they rely on users to rebut the allegations, which many users don't know how to do or don't bother to attempt.

Giving companies a reason to think twice before pulling the trigger on a takedown notice is good for free speech, and we applaud groups like the EFF that are doing something about the problem.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...mca-abuse.html





Walmart Sends Us DMCA Takedown Letter For Slideshow

Walmart's lawyers issued a takedown notice for the market research we posted on March 6.

The letter, posted inside, is dated for March 8th, the same day the AP article confirming the data published. That's what we like to see, synchronized watches.

To see the slides, go the original post or download from one of these two sites:
http://rapidshare.com/files/20790789/walmart.rar.html
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IBCTP2LY
http://consumerist.com/consumer/walm...how-243645.php





EU Commissioner Criticizes iPod-iTunes Tie-In
Eric Bangeman

European pressure on Apple to open up its iPod-iTunes ecosystem is growing, as EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva has spoken out against the tie-in between the iPod and Apple's iTunes Store. Speaking on the topic of DRM, Commissioner Kuneva says in comments reported in German-language magazine Focus that she believes consumers shouldn't be locked into the iPod by music they purchase from Apple's iTunes Store.

"Do you find it reasonable that a CD will play in all CD players, but an iTunes song will only play on an iPod?" asked Kuneva. "It doesn't to me. Something must change."

Kuneva also said that the industry needs competitive pricing and uniform sales contracts, in addition to a "cooling-off" period during which consumers could "return" downloaded music. She plays to discuss these initiatives in Brussels later this week.
Europe and the closed ecosystem

Apple has come under increasing of criticism in Europe over the past year or so over its music-hardware ecosystem. Pressure has been increasing from Norway and a few EU member countries for Apple to open up its DRM so that consumers would be able to play iTunes music on any device of their choosing.

Early in 2006, the Consumer Council of Norway filed a complaint with the country's Consumer Ombudsman, accusing Apple of violating Norway's Marketing Control Act. At issue was Apple's FairPlay DRM, which locks consumers into the iPod and iTunes, as well as the lack of a cooling-off period and the company's disavowal of any responsibility for damage that may be caused to users' computers by iTunes.

The Norwegian Ombudsman ordered Apple to change its terms and conditions for the Norwegian version of the iTunes Store, and other Scandinavian countries began investigations of their own. Apple has engaged in dialogue with the countries, but no changes have been made.

Just a couple of months ago, Germany and France joined the Scandinavian countries in asking Apple to open up FairPlay to allow other digital audio players to play iTunes tracks.

Harmonizing consumer protection laws

Lurking in the background is a wholesale EU effort to rewrite the Union's consumer-protection laws. The laws vary between member countries, and the EU would like to standardize them. One issue being discussed is whether the cooling-off period should apply to digital content, with the European Commission looking at the possibility of using the lack of interoperability between the iPod, Zune, and other digital audio players as a way to force online music sellers to accept "returns."

Kuneva appears intent on going a step further and forcing Apple to open up its ecosystem, a move that would make the consumer groups pressing for a change happy.

Apple Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs has said that his company would make everybody happy by selling DRM-free music if only the record labels would agree to it. Color some Europeans unimpressed: a spokesperson for the Norwegian Consumer said that while Jobs' comments were welcome, they don't address the underlying problem of interoperability. It's going to take concerted government action or a truly unlikely change of heart on the part of the music industry to accomplish that.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...es-tie-in.html





'Casino Royale' Blu-Ray Cracks Amazon Top Ten

In another high-def first, the Blu-ray edition of 'Casino Royale' cracked the top ten on Amazon's DVD top sellers list upon its release Tuesday, peaking late in the evening at #8.

Updated hourly, the Amazon list tracks all video disc sales at Amazon, including standard-def DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. And while the top of the list is usually dominated by standard-def DVD releases, some early adopters have made sport out of tracking how next-gen releases on both formats stack up in Amazon's overall rankings, spawning at least two frequently updated head-to-head charts (at HdGameDb and eProductWars ), and countless posts on our own Smackdown Forum.

The strong performance for 'Casino Royale' at Amazon would seem to back up predictions that the latest Bond flick would score record-breaking overall first-week sales for a next-gen disc. The current record holder is the Blu-ray edition of 'The Departed,' which as we reported last week is said to have sold a total of 20,000 units in its first week out last month.

Lest anyone misunderstand this news and start sounding the death knell for standard-def DVD, it should be noted that two other editions of 'Casino Royale' (both standard-def DVD) also cracked the top ten yesterday -- the wide screen two-disc version (at #1) and the full screen two-disc version (at #10).

Still, it is a milestone, and the forums are already abuzz with predictions of which next-gen title might be next to meet or beat 'Royale' on the Amazon chart.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/518





Popularity Might Not Be Enough
Dan Mitchell

LET’S say you wanted to build an advertising-supported online media business that took in $50 million a year in revenue. How many users would you have to attract to get there?

Probably too many for most people to even try, if the numbers run by Jeremy Liew, a venture capitalist at Lightspeed Venture Partners, are accurate. On his blog (lsvp.wordpress.com), Mr. Liew determined that even the type of site that can get the largest advertiser payments per user would have to be immensely popular before it made that kind of money.

The analysis is “sobering,” wrote Tim O’Reilly, the chief executive of O’Reilly Media, a publisher of computer books. “This may be why more entrepreneurs are going for low-investment sites that don’t need an exit but provide ‘lifestyle businesses’ for their owners,” he wrote on Radar, his company’s blog (radar.oreilly.com).

That is, rather than seek venture financing and hire a staff, it may be better for one or two people to create a relatively simple site — say, a hobbyist blog for guitar enthusiasts — and use a service like Google AdWords to, hopefully, make enough money to live on.

But to make $50 million with a big staff-produced content-rich guitar site, sponsored by, say, Fender and Gibson, a site would have to generate more than 200 million page views a month, Mr. Liew estimated.

A site aimed at a specific demographic, like teenagers or Asian-Americans, would need to generate 800 million page views a month, by Mr. Liew’s reckoning.

And for a general-interest site, the ad rates go even lower, so traffic would need to be much higher to generate $50 million — about four billion page views a month, which would put it in the top 10 of all the sites on the Web.

All of which is to say that even though advertisers are flocking online, there is still a long way to go before they start paying the kind of rates they pay to traditional media outlets.

There are other options, of course, including charging for subscriptions, or, as Mr. O’Reilly pointed out, aggregation. He noted how outfits like Weblogs Inc. and Gawker Media create multiple sites, “publishing blogs like they were books, with some expected to succeed and others to fail.” And independent sites can be brought together in a network, like FM Publishing, which sells ads for dozens of sites.

Stemming the Video Tide Online video may soon overwhelm the Internet, creating problems for Internet service providers and potentially for users. Help could come from new technology being developed for peer-to-peer networks, according to Wade Roush, writing for Technology Review (technologyreview.com).

I.S.P.’s are wary of peer-to-peer networks not only because of their use for piracy, but also because they hog bandwidth and turn users into distributors of content who don’t pay anything extra for the burdens they place on the system. But Mr. Roush examines new technologies that could make such networks more efficient and could allow I.S.P.’s to identify the biggest bandwidth users and charge them accordingly.

That second idea might make advocates of “network neutrality” a little nervous, since it would let I.S.P.’s favor some content providers over others. But Hui Zhang, the computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who developed the technology, says such concerns are overblown.

“Of course, we don’t want the service providers to dictate what they will carry on their infrastructure,” he said. “On the other hand, if P2P users benefit from transmitting and receiving more bits, the guys who are actually transporting those bits should be able to share in that.”

Super Suers It became even clearer this week that the Recording Industry Association of America isn’t overly worried about the public relations aspects of its fight against file-sharers. In one case, according to court papers, five big record companies are suing a Florida man who is largely paralyzed from a stroke (recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com). In another, record companies are suing a Georgia family who say they cannot possibly have downloaded any music because they don’t own a computer (vnunet.com).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/bu.../17online.html





Surveillance

Don't Like ID Cards? Hand Over Your Passport
James Slack

The first ID cards will be issued in 2009

Anybody who objects to their personal details going on the new "Big Brother" ID cards database will be banned from having a passport.

James Hall, the official in charge of the supposedly-voluntary scheme, said the Government would allow people to opt out - but in return they must "forgo the ability" to have a travel document.

With one in every eight people saying they will refuse to sign-up, up to five million adults could effectively be refused permission to leave the country.

Campaigners reacted to Mr Hall's remarks with fury, saying they were yet more evidence of the lurch towards "Big Brother" Britain.

Phil Booth, of the NO2ID group, said: "The idea that ID cards scheme is voluntary, and people can opt-out, is a joke.

"There are all sorts of reasons why people need to travel, not just for holidays. There is work, visiting relatives.

"What are these people supposed to do? It stretches the definition of voluntary beyond breaking point. They will go to any length to get personal information for this huge database. Who knows what will happen to it then?"

Mr Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, delivered his warning during a Downing Street "webchat".

One concerned member of the public, Andrew Michael Edwards, asked what would happen to people who refuse to join the £5.4 billion scheme.

Mr Hall replied: "There is no need to register and have fingerprints taken - but you will forgo the ability to have a passport".

Officials later explained the meaning of his remark.

The first ID cards will be issued in 2009, to anybody who applies for a passport.

People will be required to give fingerprints, biometric details such as a facial scan and a wealth of personal details - including second homes, driving licence and insurance numbers.

All will be stored on a giant ID cards Register, which can be accessed by accredited Whitehall departments, banks and businesses.

While The ID Cards Bill was going through Parliament, peers agreed an "opt out" with Ministers for people who needed a passport, but did not want to participate in the ID cards scheme.

It was the only way the Lords would accept the legislation, amid howls of concern that it represents yet another move towards a surveillance society.

But, as Mr Hall's comments this week make clear, the opt-out only applies to being physically issued with a card.

In order to get a passport, people will still have to hand over all their personal details for storage on the ID cards Register - where they will be treated in the same was as those who agreed to sign-up.

They simply avoid getting the card - even though they will have to pay the full combined price of £93 for an ID card and passport.

It means that, despite the Government repeatedly insisting the scheme is voluntary, the only way to avoid signing-up is to never obtain or renew a passport.

Therefore, anybody who objects to ID cards on principle and wants to keep their personal details private must remain in the UK for the rest of their lives.

Critics said it was clear ID cards were being made compulsory by stealth.

Some 6.6million people apply for travel documents each year.

Mr Booth said legal challenges were inevitable, as restricting the right of free movement is a grave breach of human rights law.

A YouGov survey, published three months ago, found 12 per cent of Britons would refuse to take part in the scheme, even if it meant paying a fine or serving a prison sentence.

Mr Booth predicted many of this group would be prepared to bring test cases to challenge the Government's position in court.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "This comment confirms long standing suspicions that the government's claim that the ID database will be voluntary is simply not true. The voluntary claim is serving as a fig leaf for a universal compulsory system.

"Once again the government's ID card plans are being pursued behind the backs of the British people."

Labour has become increasingly obsessed with the introduction of ID cards, claiming they will help to beat fraud and illegal immigration.

But both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have fiercely opposed the scheme, amid concerns costs could spiral out of control.

Academics have predicted the final bill could reach up to £20 billion.

There are also concerns Ministers could be tempted to strike financial deals to pass on personal details, in a bid to recoup some of the enormous costs.

If the Tories win power, it will be scrapped immediately.

Mr Hall's comments will fuel the suspicion that Ministers are involved in a desperate race against time to get the project off the ground, and get as many people's details as possible before the next General Election.

The Home Office said it had never hidden the fact anybody refusing to give their biometric and other personal details to the ID cards database would not be eligible for a passport.

A spokesman said it was more cost effective to link the issuing of passports and ID cards, rather than allow people to register their details for one but not the other.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...70&ito=newsnow





Spying Too Secret For Your Court: AT&T, Gov Tell Ninth

AT&T told an appeals court in a written brief Monday that the case against it for allegedly helping the government spy on its customers should be thrown out, because it cannot defend itself -- even by showing a signed order from the government -- without endangering national security.

A government brief filed simultaneously backed AT&T's claims and said a lower court judge had exceeded his authority by not dismissing the suit outright.

Because plaintiffs' entire action rests upon alleged secret espionage activities, including an alleged secret espionage relationship between AT&T and the Government concerning the alleged activities, this suit must be dismissed now as a matter of law," the government argued in its brief (.pdf).

The telecom giant and the government are appealing a June ruling in a federal district court that allowed the suit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the telecom to proceed, despite the government's invocation of a powerful tool called the "states secrets privilege," which allows it to have civil cases dismissed when national secrets are involved.

California Northern District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker ruled, however, that since the government had admitted it was wiretapping Americans without a warrant and that AT&T had to be involved, the case could go forward tentatively. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the government and AT&Ts' appeal in the coming months.

"This case cannot and should not go forward where AT&T is disabled from responding to allegations or evidence tendered by the plaintiffs, and is therefore deprived of the ability to defend itself against potentially massive liability," AT&T's lawyers wrote in a brief (.pdf). "Moreover, as this Court has explained, although a dismissal in contexts like this one may appear 'harsh' for the individual plaintiffs, the 'greater public good,' and "ultimately the less harsh remedy," is the protection of military and intelligence secrets the release of which could harm the public's safety."

The suit, which relies heavily on documents provided to the rights group by former AT&T employee Mark Klein, alleges that AT&T helped the government spy on internet communications, data-mine domestic call records and listen in on phone calls without a warrant as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The government, which says it has inherent constitutional powers to wiretap in the time of war, said in January it would stop the warrantless wiretapping of certain overseas phone calls and get warrants from the court it evaded.

AT&T also argues that all of lawsuit needs to be thrown out because the government has never admitted to spying on internet traffic and getting phone records. It has only admitted to wiretapping overseas communications where one end of the communication belongs to a person suspected of terrorist links. Since the EFF defendants say they aren't terrorists or communicate with terrorists, the only part of the spying that has been admitted -- and thus admissible in court -- doesn't apply to them, AT&T argues. Since the rest of the purported surveillance is thus secret the case has to be thrown out.

As to Plaintiffs' claims of harm from untargeted content surveillance, the government has not acknowledged the existence of any such program, and any information about the methods or targets of alleged government surveillance is unquestionably covered by Director Negroponte's invocation of the state secrets doctrine.

AT&T furthermore argues that the lower court's ruling that AT&t had to be involved due to the width of the surveillance program and the size of AT&T was an uninformed guess:

The district court used a chain of conjecture, hypothesis, and unwarranted inference to suggest that AT&T's alleged participation in these programs was not in fact a secret. The court, for instance, relied on its own unfounded and inexpert speculation that content surveillance requires the cooperation of a telecommunications provider.

EFF will file its response later this month, and will likely argue, as it already has in the district court, that Congressional officials have admitted that some of the nation's largest telecoms did turn over call record databases to the government, so that is not a secret either.

The appeals court has not yet set a date for oral arguments.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...o_secret_.html





Connecticut Regulators Conclude They Can Probe Phone Records Issue
AP

The state Department of Public Utility Control has concluded that despite federal government objections, it has the authority to investigate the release of thousands of phone records to the National Security Agency.

The DPUC, in a draft decision Monday, said that it determined it has jurisdiction to look into the charge that AT&T and Verizon turned over thousands of Connecticut phone records to the NSA without warrants.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut filed its request for a probe with the DPUC in May 2006 after news reports that telecommunications companies turned over calling records of millions of Americans without subpoenas or court order.

In September, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the DPUC, saying it cannot force two telecommunications companies to answer questions about whether they provided customer records to the federal government.

The lawsuit, which is still pending, claimed the DPUC overstepped its authority when it ordered the two telecommunications companies to answer questions from the ACLU.

According to several media reports last year, the NSA was assembling a massive data base to analyze calling patterns to detect terrorist activity.

Renee Redman, of the ACLU of Connecticut, said the DPUC is the first state regulatory agency to indicate it has jurisdiction; Vermont denied a motion to dismiss and ordered that discovery go forward, but has yet to rule further.

The state DPUC rejected the arguments of the utilities as well as the federal government that the state agency was seeking "to intrude on foreign intelligence-gathering and military activities."

The state agency said it was only interested in whether the two companies violated Connecticut customers' rights by illegally releasing the information, something that is within its jurisdiction. It also found it has a remedy in the form of monetary fines, if it determines AT&T and Verizon violated privacy rules.

David Goldberg, an attorney with the DPUC, said Monday the agency will take written exceptions to the ruling by March 20, with oral arguments on April 19 and a final ruling expected by April 25.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-13-10-07-14





Patriot Act Games

Gonzales Says ‘Mistakes Were Made’ in Firing of Prosecutors
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny

WASHINGTON, March 13 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, under criticism from lawmakers of both parties for the dismissals of federal prosecutors, insisted Tuesday that he would not resign, but said, “I acknowledge that mistakes were made here.”

The mea culpa came as Congressional Democrats, who are investigating whether the White House was meddling in Justice Department affairs for political reasons, demanded that President Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, explain their roles in the firings.

With Mr. Bush traveling in Mexico, the White House insisted that the president’s role had been minimal and laid the blame primarily on Harriet E. Miers, who was White House counsel when the prosecutors lost their jobs and who stepped down in January.

“The White House did not play a role in the list of the seven U.S. attorneys,” said Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush’s counselor, referring to a roster of those who were fired.

Mr. Bartlett said it was “highly unlikely” that Mr. Rove would testify publicly to Congress about any involvement he might have had. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t find other ways to try to share that information,” he said.

With Democrats vowing to get to the bottom of who had ordered the firings and why, the White House scrambled to put its own spin on the controversy by releasing a stream of e-mail messages detailing how Ms. Miers had corresponded with D. Kyle Sampson, the top aide to Mr. Gonzales who drafted the list of those to be dismissed.

Mr. Sampson resigned Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, at a press conference in an ornate chamber adjacent to his office, Mr. Gonzales pledged to “find out what went wrong here,” even as he insisted he had no direct knowledge of how his staff had made the firing decisions. He said he had rejected an earlier idea, which the White House said was put forth by Ms. Miers, that all 93 of the attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in their regions, be replaced.

“I felt that was a bad idea,” he said, “and it was disruptive.”

With Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, insisting that Mr. Gonzales should step down, his appearance underscored what two Republicans close to the Bush administration described as a growing rift between the White House and the attorney general. Mr. Gonzales has long been a confidant of the president but has aroused the ire of lawmakers of both parties on several issues, including the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program.

The two Republicans, who spoke anonymously so they could share private conversations with senior White House officials, said top aides to Mr. Bush, including Fred F. Fielding, the new White House counsel, were concerned that the controversy had so damaged Mr. Gonzales’s credibility that he would be unable to advance the White House agenda on sensitive national security matters, including terror prosecutions.

“I really think there’s a serious estrangement between the White House and Alberto now,” one of the Republicans said.

Already, Democrats are pressing the case for revoking the president’s authority, gained with the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act last year, to appoint interim federal prosecutors indefinitely, without Senate confirmation. The administration has argued that such appointments are necessary to speed the prosecution of terrorism cases. After the dismissals became a big political issue last week, Mr. Gonzales signaled that the administration would not oppose the changes being sought by the Democrats.

“We now know that it is very likely that the amendment to the Patriot Act, which was made in March of 2006, might well have been done to facilitate a wholesale replacement of all or part of U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who serves on the Judiciary Committee. “Who authorized all of this? Who asked for that change?”

Questions about whether the firings were politically motivated have been swirling through the administration since January. But they reached a fever pitch on Tuesday with disclosures by the White House that Mr. Bush had spoken directly with Mr. Gonzales to pass on concerns from Republican lawmakers, among them Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, about the way certain prosecutors were handling cases of voter fraud.

The White House took the unusual step of having Mr. Bartlett conduct a hurried briefing with reporters in Mérida, Mexico. He said the president had “all the confidence in the world” in Mr. Gonzales and traced the idea for the firings to Ms. Miers, saying she had raised the question of whether the Justice Department should clean house in Mr. Bush’s second term, as is common when a new president comes into office.

“What Harriet Miers was doing was taking a look and floating an idea to say, ‘Hey, should we treat the second term very similar to the way we treat a first term?’ ” Mr. Bartlett said.

White House officials reiterated Tuesday that Mr. Bush had not called for the removal of any particular United States attorney and said there was no evidence that the president had been aware that the Justice Department had initiated a process to generate a list of which prosecutors should lose their jobs.

But inside the White House, aides to the president, including Mr. Rove and Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, were said to be increasingly concerned that the controversy could damage Mr. Bush.

“They’re taking it seriously,” said the other of the two Republicans who spoke about the White House’s relationship with Mr. Gonzales. “I think Rove and Bolten believe there is the potential for erosion of the president’s credibility on this issue.”

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties expressed anger about the administration’s handling of the matter. While Democrats voiced the loudest criticism, several leading Republicans — among them Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Ensign of Nevada, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and George V. Voinovich of Ohio — said Tuesday that they also had concerns.

Mr. Ensign, ordinarily a strong supporter of the White House, said he was “very angry” at how the administration had handled the dismissal of the prosecutors, particularly Dan Bogden, the United States attorney in Nevada. Mr. Ensign said he had been misled or lied to last year when he asked the Justice Department about the firing of Mr. Bogden and was told that it had been connected to his job performance.

“I’m not a person who raises his voice very often,” said Mr. Ensign, who is also the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate. Of his decision to speak out, he said, “I think there are times where you just have to do what you feel is right, and this is one of those times.”

Mr. Coburn said the firings had been bungled, calling them “idiocy on the part of the administration.”

Mr. Specter, in a speech on the Senate floor, referred to another of the dismissed attorneys, Carol C. Lam, who prosecuted Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman now serving an eight-year sentence in a corruption case.

Mr. Specter raised the question of whether Ms. Lam had been dismissed because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful,” and he questioned the Justice Department’s initial explanation that those who had lost their jobs had received poor performance evaluations.

“Well,” he said, “I think we may need to do more by way of inquiry to examine what her performance ratings were to see if there was a basis for her being asked to resign.”


David Johnston, Eric Lipton and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Washington, and John Holusha from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/wa...4&ei=508 7%0A





The Failed Attorney General

During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference.

He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them.

First, there was Mr. Gonzales’s lame op-ed article in USA Today trying to defend the obviously politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, which he dismissed as an “overblown personnel matter.” Then his inspector general exposed the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been abusing yet another unnecessary new power that Mr. Gonzales helped wring out of the Republican-dominated Congress in the name of fighting terrorism.

The F.B.I. has been using powers it obtained under the Patriot Act to get financial, business and telephone records of Americans by issuing tens of thousands of “national security letters,” a euphemism for warrants that are issued without any judicial review or avenue of appeal. The administration said that, as with many powers it has arrogated since the 9/11 attacks, this radical change was essential to fast and nimble antiterrorism efforts, and it promised to police the use of the letters carefully.

But like so many of the administration’s promises, this one evaporated before the ink on those letters could dry. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, admitted Friday that his agency had used the new powers improperly.

Mr. Gonzales does not directly run the F.B.I., but it is part of his department and has clearly gotten the message that promises (and civil rights) are meant to be broken.

It was Mr. Gonzales, after all, who repeatedly defended Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international calls and e-mail. He was an eager public champion of the absurd notion that as commander in chief during a time of war, Mr. Bush can ignore laws that he thinks get in his way. Mr. Gonzales was disdainful of any attempt by Congress to examine the spying program, let alone control it.

The attorney general helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror, and that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture. He has been central to the administration’s assault on the courts, which he recently said had no right to judge national security policies, and on the constitutional separation of powers.

His Justice Department has abandoned its duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights. It approved a Georgia photo-ID law that a federal judge later likened to a poll tax, a case in which Mr. Gonzales’s political team overrode the objections of the department’s professional staff.

The Justice Department has been shamefully indifferent to complaints of voter suppression aimed at minority voters. But it has managed to find the time to sue a group of black political leaders in Mississippi for discriminating against white voters.

We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/op...25f&ei=5087%0A

Politics, Pure and Cynical

We wish we’d been surprised to learn that the White House was deeply involved in the politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, but the news had the unmistakable whiff of inevitability. This disaster is just part of the Bush administration’s sordid history of waving the bloody bullhorn of 9/11 for the basest of motives: the perpetuation of power for power’s sake.

Time and again, President Bush and his team have assured Americans that they needed new powers to prevent another attack by an implacable enemy. Time and again, Americans have discovered that these powers were not being used to make them safer, but in the service of Vice President Dick Cheney’s vision of a presidency so powerful that Congress and the courts are irrelevant, or Karl Rove’s fantasy of a permanent Republican majority.

In firing the prosecutors and replacing them without Senate approval, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took advantage of a little-noticed provision that the administration and its Republican enablers in Congress had slipped into the 2006 expansion of the Patriot Act. The ostensible purpose was to allow the swift interim replacement of a United States attorney who was, for instance, killed by terrorism.

But these firings had nothing to do with national security — or officials’ claims that the attorneys were fired for poor performance. This looks like a political purge, pure and simple, and President Bush and his White House are in the thick of it.

Earlier, the White House insisted that it had approved the list of fired United States attorneys after it was compiled. Now it admits that White House officials helped prepare it. Harriet Miers, the White House counsel whom Mr. Bush tried to elevate to the Supreme Court, originally wanted to replace all 93 attorneys with Republican appointees.

The White House still says Mr. Bush was not involved in the firings, but newly released documents show that he personally fielded a senator’s political complaint about David Iglesias, who was fired as United States attorney in New Mexico. The papers suggest that the United States attorney in Arkansas was fired just to put a Rove protégé in his place, and a plan was mapped out by administration officials to “run out the clock” if lawmakers objected.

Among the documents is e-mail sent to Ms. Miers by Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, ranking United States attorneys on factors like “exhibited loyalty.” Small wonder, then that United States Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego was fired. She had put one Republican congressman, Duke Cunningham, in jail and had opened an inquiry that put others at risk, along with party donors.

More disturbing details have come out about Mr. Iglesias’s firing. We knew he was ousted six weeks after Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, made a wildly inappropriate phone call in which he asked if Mr. Iglesias intended to indict Democrats before last November’s election in a high-profile corruption scandal. We now know that Mr. Domenici took his complaints to Mr. Bush.

After Mr. Iglesias was fired, the deputy White House counsel, William Kelley, wrote in an e-mail note that Mr. Domenici’s chief of staff was “happy as a clam.” Another e-mail note, from Mr. Sampson, said Mr. Domenici was “not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool” before getting his list of preferred replacements to the White House.

Given what’s in those documents, it was astonishing to hear Mr. Gonzales continue to insist yesterday that he had no personal knowledge of discussions involving the individual attorneys. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, was right on the mark when he said that if Mr. Gonzales didn’t know what Mr. Sampson was doing, “he doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what’s going on” at his department. Fortunately, last year’s election left Democrats like Mr. Schumer in the majority, with subpoena power. Otherwise, this and so many other scandals might never have come to light.

Mr. Gonzales, who has shown why he was such an awful choice for this job in the first place, should be called under oath to resolve the contradictions and inconsistencies in his story. Mr. Gonzales is willing to peddle almost any nonsense to the public (witness his astonishingly maladroit use of the Nixonian “mistakes were made” dodge yesterday). But lying to Congress under oath is another matter.

The Justice Department has been saying that it is committed to putting Senate-confirmed United States attorneys in every jurisdiction. But the newly released documents make it clear that the department was making an end run around the Senate — for baldly political reasons. Congress should broaden the investigation to determine whether any other prosecutors were forced out for not caving in to political pressure — or kept on because they did.

There was, for example, the decision by United States Attorney Chris Christie of New Jersey to open an investigation of Senator Bob Menendez just before his hotly contested re-election last November. Republicans, who would have held the Senate if Mr. Menendez had lost, used the news for attack ads. Then there was the career United States attorney in Guam who was removed by Mr. Bush in 2002 after he started investigating the superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. The prosecutor was replaced. The investigation was dropped.

In mid-December 2006, Mr. Gonzales’s aide, Mr. Sampson, wrote to a White House counterpart that using the Patriot Act to fire the Arkansas prosecutor and replace him with Mr. Rove’s man was risky — Congress could revoke the authority. But, he wrote, “if we don’t ever exercise it, then what’s the point of having it?”

If that sounds cynical, it is. It is also an accurate summary of the governing philosophy of this administration: What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it to get more power?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/opinion/14wed1.html





80% of Federal Agencies Flunk E-FOIA Test
Jay Savage

According a report published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, only one in five government agencies complies with the 1997 law that requires them to make much public information available on the web and clearly post procedures for obtaining information and making so-called "sunshine requests" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Some highlights include:

• Only one in five federal agencies (21 percent) posts on the Web all four categories of records that the law specifically requires;
• Only one in 16 agencies (6 percent) posts all ten elements of essential FOIA guidance;
• Only 36 percent of agencies provide the required indexes of records;
• Only 26 percent of agencies provide online forms for submitting FOIA requests;
• Many agency Web links are missing or just wrong - one FOIA fax number checked in the Knight Survey actually rang in the maternity ward of a military base hospital.

The Departments of Defense, the Interior, and Veterans' Affairs, Homeland Security, and the CIA, among others, were particularly low-scorers. No shocks there. Bright spots, on the other hand, included "E-Stars" such as NASA, the FTC, and, surprisingly enough, the Department of Justice.

Anyone whose ever tried to get information from a government website probably won't be surprised by the results. The best results come from agencies who are either small or see their missions as serving the public interest. The worst results are from agencies who thrive on secrecies and/or bloated bureaucracies, which , unfortunately includes most of them.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/03...k-e-foia-test/





Huntsman to Sign Anti-Porn Resolution
Nathan Johnson

A government study last year showed about 1 percent of Web sites are dedicated to it, but more and more employees -- and children -- are stumbling across it, and looking for it.

On Tuesday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will hold a ceremonial signing of House Concurrent Resolution 3, which urges the U.S. Congress to step up and join the fight in keeping Internet pornography away from children and out of workplaces.

The measure stresses technology-based solutions to keep porn out of the hands of children and off work computers, though the idea is not without its critics.

The resolution states that current filtering technologies cannot do enough to stop access to porn, as some employees and children actively seek ways to bypass filters on their computers.

Instead, lawmakers have suggested that Congress work to change the nature of the Internet and allow for an "adult content channel" and a "family content channel", which would separate out the different types of content and allow filtering at its source.

The CP80 foundation, a longtime Internet pornography foe, was directly involved with the legislation. Its Internet pornography solution is part of the resolution.

Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the idea of two channels has been brought up several times in the past 10 years, but hasn't happened because "it's a bad idea."

Jeschke said that the problem comes down to what content will be considered adult, what won't be, and who gets to make those decisions.

"There's always situations where an art site or a history site gets blocked," she said. Her group referees to the channel idea as a form of censorship, one that Jeschke thinks is very dangerous.

Both Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, the sponsor of HCR 3, and Matt Yarro, of the CP80 foundation, say they are not set on any one particular solution.

"We're interested in whatever works," Daw said. Yarro echoed a similar sentiment, saying that whether or not the solution he suggested gets implemented, it will at least "get the debate going."

Daw pointed out that this resolution has no legal effect, but is instead designed to put pressure on national lawmakers. He said he has spoken with some of Utah's congressmen, but said more can be done with the resolution in hand.

According to Yarro, the key part of this resolution is that it shows more than just a few groups are pushing to address the problems of Internet pornography. Yarro said that the goal is to let legislators know "that people are crying out. ... That this is the community."

"There is this assumption that you can't control it (the Internet)," Yarro said. "It's a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. ... We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to."

The movement to block the Internet porn seems to be gaining traction, with 13 other states, according to Yarro, putting forth similar resolutions.

Daw hopes that a ceremonial signing will encourage federal leaders to begin making changes.

Though Daw says that this will be an ongoing fight without an end in sight, he intends to find a way to "put another arrow in people's quivers."
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/213120/





No Regulations Planned for Radio ID Tags, EU Says
Kevin J. O'Brien

The European Commission said Thursday that it would not curb the growth of the tiny radio transmitter tags that transportation companies, retailers and manufacturers use to track goods and purchases, saying it was confident that the RFID tags could be designed to protect consumer privacy.

"I know that most of you are wondering what new regulation I am going to propose today," said Viviane Reding, the European commissioner responsible for Internet and communications, at a news conference at the Cebit technology convention in Hannover. "Well, today I am here to tell you that on RFIDs, there is not going to be a regulation," she said, referring to radio frequency identification tags.

The announcement by Reding, who has taken an aggressively pro-consumer attitude since she took office in 2004, signaled to businesses that the development of the tracking devices would not be hindered in the European Union.

Instead, Reding said she planned to create an advisory group of industry representatives, privacy advocates, consumers and scientists to determine whether changes were needed to the EU's existing electronic privacy directive to accommodate RFID use while protecting personal privacy. The group is expected to make a recommendation by the end of this year.

Some privacy advocates criticized the decision. They have expressed fears that the tags could be used by marketers and retailers to surreptitiously track consumer health data, financial information and buying habits. The tags, which are based on microchips, emit radio signals over a short range that carry more information than do bar codes.

"This is a reckless decision that squandered a great opportunity," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a London-based watchdog group. "Government regulations would have helped embed privacy into the very structure of RFID themselves."

He said the potential for abuse could have been curtailed by limiting the range of chips to 6 inches, or 15 centimeters, to prevent long-range scanning and by restricting the embedding of personal information on chips.

"Very light legislation would have benefited the industry by giving a baseline for using the technology across Europe," Davies said. "Now the industry runs the risk of national legislatures passing laws country by country."

According to the commission, the RFID market in Europe, worth €500 million, or $662 million, this year, will grow to €7 billion by 2016. Worldwide, more than one billion RFID tags were sold in 2006.

Reding said the full commission had endorsed her decision. Last year at Cebit, she raised the possibility of RFID regulation, citing "a future of ubiquitous surveillance, identity theft and low trust."

But Reding said she had grown confident that the tags could be designed to meet privacy concerns. Companies like Philips, for example, now make RFID tags for consumer goods that buyers can deactivate at the cash register after the purchase.

The legal status of RFIDs was uncertain because of European privacy laws, which are stricter than those of the United States.

Reding said the technology needed to be encouraged because of its potential to cut government administrative costs and to make entire sectors of the economy more efficient. "We must provide industry with the certainty they need to use this technology," Reding said.

Robert Cresanti, a U.S. under secretary of commerce for technology who met with Reding at Cebit, said he was relieved that the European Commission was not going to regulate RFIDs, which he said would have slowed their diffusion and added costs.

"No regulation, in my point of view, is a victory," he said.

In the United States, RFID use is largely unencumbered by national and state law, and the chips must only respect restrictions on dissemination of health and financial data, Cresanti said. "In the EU, there is a broader privacy protection, and our concern was that existing laws could have been used to the detriment of RFID technology," he said.

Reding said she would continue urging businesses in the EU to use the recommended radio spectrum frequencies set aside last year for RFID use. She said she was also working with the authorities in the United States, Russia and Japan to coordinate standards and frequencies so that the simplest possible chips could be designed to work globally.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...iness/rfid.php





Mumbai Police Can Now Nail Web Offenders

Landmark deal signed with Orkut to share ip addresses and help arrest those posting objectionable content
Sagnik Chowdhury

Shivaji forums or anti-Ambedkar postings or “hate India” campaigns on Google’s social networking site, Orkut, have been confounding our authorities for quite sometime now. Other than blocking the objectionable forums, the Mumbai Police could do little—except wait for the next one to pop up on the web, say, a “fan club” of wanted underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim or Chhota Shakeel.

But not any more. The Mumbai Police is finally equipped to track down such offenders and bring them to book. A single e-mail between the DCP in charge of the Enforcement Branch and the California-based company will now nail such persons.

Following a meeting between representatives of the site and the Enforcement Directorate last month, the Mumbai Police and Orkut have entered into an agreement to seal such cooperation in matters of objectionable material on the web.

“Early February, I met three representatives from Orkut.com, including a top official from the US. The other two were from Bangalore. We reached a working agreement whereby Orkut has agreed to provide us details of the ip address from which an objectionable message or blog has been posted on the site and the Internet service provider involved,” said DCP Enforcement, Sanjay Mohite.

That the measure is fool-proof is evident from the fact that an encrypted code has also been agreed upon for such communication to prevent people from posing as the Mumbai Police and laying their hands on such information from Orkut.

“I am also going to hold a meeting with all Internet service providers to stress the need to share information. We are also hoping to rope in U Tube in the future,” said Mohite.

Earlier, if a complaint regarding objectionable content was received, the police would contact the computer emergency response team, a government body based in New Delhi, and ask it to block the concerned web page. They did not have any way to track down the culprits.

“It was almost out of the question to track down the person who posted the material as we would have to go through the CBI to get basic information from Orkut as they are based in the US. The entire process of letter rogatory would come into play. But now we can take action on any content posted on the site from India,” he explained.

Mohite talks of a citizen who had complained to the police in November regarding a photograph of her posted on Orkut, along with derogatory text.

“She provided us the name of a suspected, but we did not have any proof. After the new agreement was reached, we asked Orkut for the details of the concerned ip address. They replied instantly and we nailed the culprit, who turned out to be the suspect,” said Mohite.
http://cities.expressindia.com/fulls...?newsid=226058





Egypt Court Rejects Blogger Appeal
Ines Bel Aiba

An Egyptian court on Monday upheld a four-year sentence against a blogger convicted of insulting religion and defaming the president, a verdict condemned by rights groups as a threat to free speech.

The court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria rejected the appeal by 22-year-old Abdel Karim Suleiman who was sentenced last month, lawyers Gamal Eid and Ahmed Seif al-Islam told AFP.

"The verdict was not handed down on the basis of the law," said Eid, who is also the head

of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. "It is a religious verdict similar to those of the Inquisition."

The decision was seen by international rights groups as an attempt to intimidate Egypt's burgeoning blogging scene.

Elijah Zarwan, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch in Cairo, said the verdict was a "chilling precedent" which "might close crucial the doors to free expression."

"We are dismayed that the judge rejected the appeal. (The blogger) should have never been imprisoned in the first place," Zarwan added.

His view was echoed by the Paris-based international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

"It is a very bad sign for the freedom of expression in Egypt," said Julien Pain, the group's Internet Freedom desk chief. "It sends an extremely threatening message to other Egyptian bloggers."

Suleiman, who blogs under the name Karim Amer, was sentenced to three years in prison in February for insulting religion and a year for defaming President Hosni Mubarak after posting an entry on his blog lashing out at Cairo's Al-Azhar University -- the highest seat of learning in Sunni Islam.

"I say to Al-Azhar and its university and its professors and preachers who stand against anyone who thinks differently to them: 'You are destined for the rubbish bin of history, where you will find no one to cry for you, and your regime will end like others have'," he wrote.

Despite worldwide appeals for his release, the court ruled that the young Muslim blogger should be jailed for insulting Islam in his writing.

"The Moharram Beik criminal court has sentenced the blogger after he created a website through which he attacked Islam," Judge Ayman Okkaz said. "On his site, he claimed that Islam incited terrorism, hatred and murder."

The conviction was based on a series of vaguely worded articles in the penal code that forbid the spreading of false information, insulting Islam or other revealed religions, and "affronting the President of the Republic."

Egypt has thousands of bloggers, although only a few discuss political issues. Recently some have been shedding light on alleged torture by security services.

Suleiman's arrest came on the same day last November that Reporters Without Borders published a new list of 13 countries it described as "enemies of the Internet" -- and included Egypt for the first time.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/12032007/32...er-appeal.html





"Disaster for privacy"

Google Sets Long Limits on Records Retention
Miguel Helft

Web search companies collect records of the searches that people conduct, a fact that has long generated fears among privacy advocates and some Internet users that valuable personal data could be misused.

Now Google is taking a step to ease those concerns. The company keeps logs of all searches, along with digital identifiers linking them to specific computers and Internet browsers. It said Wednesday that it would start to make those logs anonymous after 18 months to 24 months, making it much harder to connect search records to a person.

Under current practices, the company keeps the logs intact indefinitely.

"We have decided to make this change with feedback from privacy advocates, regulators worldwide and, of course, from our users," said Nicole Wong, Google's deputy general counsel.

But it is unclear whether the change will have its intended effect.

Privacy advocates reacted with a mix of praise and dismay to the decision.

"This is really the first time we have seen them make a decision to try and work out the conflict between wanting to be pro-privacy and collecting all the world's information," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group. "They are not going to keep a profile on you indefinitely."

Others were less enthusiastic.

"I think it is an absolute disaster for online privacy," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Rotenberg said his organization has been trying to combat efforts by law enforcement officials to require online services to retain search records for long periods of time. He said that 18 months to 24 months was too long, and added that because of Google's dominant position, it would most likely set a de facto standard for data retention.

Wong said Google uses the search data internally only to improve its search engine and other services. She added that Google would release search data only if compelled by a subpoena. Even so, Google was the only major search engine to resist a U.S. Justice Department subpoena for vast amounts of search data last year — a move that drew praise from privacy advocates.

Just how personally revealing such data can be became evident last year, when AOL released records of the searches conducted by 657,000 Americans for the benefit of researchers. While AOL did not identify the people behind the searches, reporters from The New York Times were able to track down some of them quickly through their search requests.

The ensuing flap caused AOL to tighten its privacy policies. The company now keeps search histories for only 13 months.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...ess/google.php





Your ISP May be Selling Your Web Clicks
Jeremy Reimer

David Cancel, the CTO of the web market research firm Compete Incorporated, raised eyebrows at the Open Data 2007 Conference in New York when he revealed that many Internet service providers sell the clickstream data of their users. Clickstream data includes every web site visited by each user and in which order they were clicked.

The data is not sold with accompanying user name or information, but merely as a numerical user value. However, it is still theoretically possible to tie this information to a specific ISP account. Cancel told Ars that his company licenses the data from ISPs for millions of dollars. He did not give a specific figure about what this broke down to in terms of dollars per ISP user, although someone in the audience estimated that it was in the range of 40¢ per user per month—this estimate was erroneously attributed to Cancel himself in some reports on the event. Cancel said that this clickstream data is "much more comprehensive" than data that is normally gleaned through analyzing search queries.

The revelation brings to mind the minor scandal that erupted when AOL was found to be giving away its search results to researchers—this was discovered only after a large sample of data was accidentally released to the public. Clickstream data is, as Cancel admitted, much more interesting to marketers than search engine data.

There is some evidence that the data traditionally gathered by market research firms such as Compete may not be as accurate as the companies had hoped. Establishing "ISP relationships" helps to augment that data—traditionally gathered by user-installed toolbars—but may not be, strictly speaking, an ethical practice.

Of course, it's an established fact that if you surf the web, your surfing habits can be tracked by any site you happen to visit. The expectation of privacy while surfing isn't necessarily a reasonable one, but ISPs that expect to profit from this data should at the very least inform their users that they are doing so. Some US Congressmen are calling for new laws to be enacted to protect the privacy of Internet users.

For his part, David Cancel told Ars that he "strongly supports an increase in the methods and degree to which disclosure is communicated," not only for clickstream data but for any kind of data collected on users' personal surfing habits. He stated that "all users should be informed explicitly when their data can be sold to a third party."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...eb-clicks.html





How to Surf Anonymously Without a Trace
Preston Gralla

The punchline to an old cartoon is "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," but these days, that's no longer true.

It's easier than ever for the government, Web sites and private businesses to track exactly what you do online, know where you've visited, and build up comprehensive profiles about your likes, dislikes and private habits.

And with the federal government increasingly demanding online records from sites such as Google and others, your online privacy is even more endangered.

But you don't need to be a victim. There are things you can do to keep your surfing habits anonymous and protect your online privacy. So read on to find out how to keep your privacy to yourself when you use the Internet, without spending a penny.

What they know about you

Whenever you surf the Web, you leave yourself open to being snooped upon by Web sites. They can track your online travels, know what operating system and browser you're running, find out your machine name, uncover the last sites you've visited, examine your history list, delve into your cache, examine your IP address and use that to learn basic information about you such as your geographic location and more. To a great extent, your Internet life is an open book when you visit.

Sites use a variety of techniques to gather and collate this information, but the two most basic are examining your IP address and placing cookies on your PC. Matching your IP address with your cookies makes it easier for them to create personal profiles.
If you'd like to see what kind of information sites can gather about you, head to these two sites, which peer into your browser and report what they find.

Privacy Analysis of Your Internet Connection gathers and displays basic information, such as your operating system, screen resolution, what site you previously visited, general system setup and so on.

BrowserSpy delves even deeper into your system and even reports on whether you have certain software on your system, such as RealPlayer and Adobe Acrobat, including version information.

Protect yourself: Surf anonymously

The best way to make sure Web sites can't gather personal information about you and your computer is to surf anonymously by using an anonymous proxy server that sits between you and the Web sites you visit.

When you use an anonymous proxy server, your browser doesn't contact a Web site directly. Instead, it tells a proxy server which Web sites you want to visit. The proxy server then contacts the Web site, and when you get the Web site's page, you don't get it directly from the site. Instead, it's delivered to you by the proxy server. In that way, your browser never directly contacts the Web server whose site you want to view. The Web site sees the IP address of the proxy server, not your PC's IP address. It can't read your cookies, see your history list or examine your clipboard and cache because your PC is never in direct contact with it. You're able to surf without a trace.

There are three primary ways to use anonymous proxy servers. You can configure your browser to use a such a server (or get software to do it for you); you can visit an "anonymizer" Web site, which does the work of contacting the server; or you can download software that will ensure your anonymity when you use the Internet. We'll look at how to do each.

Keep yourself anonymous with Tor

The best free software you can find for being anonymous when you use the Web is to use the free Tor. When you use Tor, all your communications -- not just Web surfing, but also instant messaging and other applications -- are in essence bounced around a giant network of Tor servers called "onion routers" until it's impossible for sites or people to be able to track your activities.

Setting up Tor is straightforward. Download a package that includes not just Tor, but other software you need to work with it, such as Privoxy, a proxy program. All the software is self-configuring, so you won't need to muck around with port settings or the like. Tor runs as a small icon in your system tray. To start Tor, right-click it and choose Start from the menu that appears; to stop it, right-click it and choose Stop.

Once it starts, simply use the Internet as you normally would. If you're superparanoid, you can regularly change your Tor "identity" to make it even harder for anyone to track your travels. Right-click the Tor icon, and select "New Identity." That's all it takes.

Tor also includes a nice bandwidth tool that has nothing to do with anonymity but that graphs your bandwidth use. Right-click the Tor icon, and choose Bandwidth Graph. You can see it in action, along with Tor's right-click context menu, in the nearby figure.

Firefox users will want to download the Torbutton, which will let them turn Tor on and off from directly within the browser.

I've found only one drawback to Tor: At times, I've noticed a slowdown in surfing when using it. But that comes and goes, and slowdowns aren't that extreme. So if you're worried about your privacy when you surf, it's a great bet.

Web sites that let you surf anonymously for free

A number of free Web sites offer free anonymous surfing via proxy servers. The benefits of these sites are obvious: When you surf, you're anonymous. But there are some drawbacks as well. Surfing tends to be slower -- and in some cases very slow. And when you use these Web sites, some sites you visit from them don't display properly.

The sites all work pretty much the same. Head to them, and in a box, type the Web site you want to visit. From that point on, you'll be surfing anonymously; the site does the work of using an anonymous proxy server for you.

The Cloak is one such service. It lets you customize exactly how anonymous you want to be and what surfing technologies you want to leave on or off. It goes beyond providing anonymity and can protect you in other ways -- for example, by turning off Java and JavaScript or even blocking banner ads. As you can see in the nearby screenshot, you can configure all that yourself before you start to surf.

Once you do that, you type in the address you want to visit, and you're off. As you browse in your browser's address bar, you'll notice an odd URL that contains the Cloak's URL as well as the site you're visiting. For example, if you visit CNN, you'll see something like this:
http://www.the-cloak.com/Cloaked/+cf...//www.cnn.com/

Note that if you want to remain anonymous during your surfing session after you visit the first Web site from The Cloak, you'll have to only click links. If you type a URL directly into the address bar, the Cloak will no longer work.

The Cloak is free, but it has some limitations. You'll surf more slowly than normally, and the slowdown may become noticeable. One reason is that the site also offers a for-pay service, and so it throttles down free users, while letting those who pay surf without a throttle. And the site may also limit the amount of time you surf anonymously as well, depending on whether many users are logged in simultaneously.

Use your browser with an anonymous proxy

If you don't like the limitations imposed on you by sites like the Cloak or would simply prefer to configure anonymous surfing yourself, you can easily set up your browser to use an anonymous proxy server to sit between you and the sites you visit.

To use an anonymous proxy server with your browser, first find an anonymous proxy server. Hundreds of free, public proxy servers are available, but many frequently go offline or are very slow. Many sites compile lists of these proxy servers, including Public Proxy Servers and the Atom InterSoft proxy server list. To find others, do a Google search.

I prefer Atom InterSoft proxy server list because it provides more information about each server. It lists server uptime percentage and the last time the server was checked to see if it was online.

Find the server with the highest percentage of uptime. Write down the server's IP address and the port it uses. For example, in the listing 24.236.148.15:80, the IP address is 24.236.148.15, and the port number is 80.

In Internet Explorer, select Tools-->Internet Options, click the Connections tab, and click the LAN Settings button. Check the "Use a proxy server for your LAN" box. In the Address field, type in the IP address of the proxy server. In the Port field, type in its port number. Check the "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" box; you don't need to remain anonymous on your local network. Click OK and then OK again to close the dialog boxes. Now when you surf the Web, the proxy server will protect your privacy. Keep in mind that proxy servers can make surfing the Web slower, depending on the proxy you're using.

In Firefox, select Tools -->Advanced, click the Network tab, and click the Settings button. Choose "Manual proxy configuration," enter the proxy information (IP address and port number), and click OK and then OK again

Problems with anonymous proxy servers

If you set up your browser to use anonymous proxies, as I just outlined, you need to keep in mind that there's one potential danger: Theoretically, a hacker could set up a proxy server, and then use it to capture information about the Web sites you visit. And if you type in user names and passwords, he could steal those as well.

I haven't heard of this actually happening in the real world, but you should be aware that it's a possibility. Using software like Tor or a free proxy server like the Cloak won't expose you to this danger; only the use of public proxy servers does.

How can you protect yourself against this? Before using a proxy server, do a Google search on its name and address to see if there are any reports about hackers using it. And it's also a good idea to only use a server that you notice have been on the lists a long time, because hackers are not likely to keep a server running a long time without being caught or shutting it down.

What else you can do

There are other ways to help protect your anonymity online. If you're worried that your searches may be used by search engines or government agencies to invade your privacy or create a profile about you, see Seven ways to keep your search history private.
If you want to be able to send e-mail anonymously so that no one can find out that you sent it, you can use an anonymous remailer such as the Web-based Anonymouse's AnonEmail or the downloadable QuickSilver.

There are also plenty of for-pay anonymity services, such as the Anonymizer, and the Anonymizer's new Nyms service, which uses utilizes disposable e-mail addresses to protect your true e-mail identity.

Finally, for a very good all-around resource about how to protect your privacy online, check out the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Online Guide to Practical Privacy Tools. It has plenty of links to software and sites to help protect your privacy.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9012778





Seagate Ships Hard Drives With Encryption
Joris Evers

Seagate Technology on Monday plans to announce the first manufacturer to sell laptop PCs with Seagate's new hard drive that has built-in encryption technology.

Fremont, Calif.-based ASI Computer Technologies will start selling computers equipped with Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 drive next month, Seagate said in a statement. The computers, called ASI C8015, will be sold through a number of ASI's partners, including Newegg.com, PowerNotebooks.com and ZipZoomfly.com, an ASI representative said.

In addition to an 80GB Seagate drive, the ASI machine will feature a fingerprint reader, 15.4-inch display, Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.0GHz processor, Nvidia graphics with 256MB memory, 1GB RAM and a DVD rewritable drive, according to ASI. The price is expected to be about $2,150.

The Seagate drives are equipped with the company's new "DriveTrust" technology, which the company promotes as a simpler way to safeguard data stored on laptops. The encryption technology is designed to make life tougher for computer thieves and to prevent embarrassing breaches.

ASI is a small player among notebook makers. It ships "whitebook" computers that don't carry a name brand and are sold by resellers who sometimes put their own names on the hardware.

Seagate is also in discussions with major, brand name laptop makers and expects to announce more deals for its new hard drive midyear.

"We will obviously be selling this to worldwide resellers," said Michael Hall, a Seagate spokesman.

Seagate pitches its encrypting hard disk as an alternative to full-disk encryption software, such as products sold by PGP and PointSec Mobile Technologies. Additionally, high-end editions of Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system include an encryption feature called BitLocker.

The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 offers up to 160GB of capacity, a Serial ATA interface, and hardware-based Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, according to Seagate. ASI will ship its laptop with Wave Systems' management software to simplify enterprise use of the computers, it said.
http://news.com.com/Seagate+ships+ha...3-6166180.html





AMD's Well May Be Running Dry
Jordan Robertson

The high-flying Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) of 2006 has given way to a company in financial peril, saddled with debt and bleeding from a brutal price battle with its larger and suddenly resurgent Silicon Valley archrival, Intel Corp. (INTC)

AMD finds itself the subject of rumors of a possible takeover or private-equity cash infusion. While it wasn't long ago that AMD was stealing a big slice of the microprocessor market and emerging as a long-term threat to Intel, those very gains may have left AMD's well running dry.

Though the price competition has cut into both chip makers' profits, Wall Street has punished AMD's stock particularly hard.

Its shares have plunged more than 60 percent over the past year on fears about the company's ability to continue gaining share without hurting profit margins. Meanwhile, Intel's stock is down just 4 percent.

Investors are concerned AMD is spending too heavily to keep up with Intel's aggressive transition to next-generation manufacturing technology.

AMD's fall has wiped out about $10 billion in shareholder wealth. Analysts say the exodus will likely continue until the company rolls out its new chips this year and resolves fears about its dwindling cash reserves and high capital expenditures.

The shifting fortunes highlight the challenges facing AMD as it squares off against a company with seven times its annual revenue and a history of spending heavily on breakthrough technologies.

"AMD, as a company, has enough strong parts that it will survive, but I think it's going to be a rough couple of years for this organization," said Stephen Kleynhans, a research vice president at Gartner Inc. (IT) "They've got some very solid technology, but technology can be very fleeting. A technology lead today can just disappear in just a matter of quarters."

Both Intel and AMD are adept at weathering the boom-and-bust cycles of the volatile semiconductor industry. But they are still adjusting to AMD's newfound competitiveness across a range of products, from desktops to laptops to servers.

AMD stole about 4 percent of the overall processor market from Intel in 2006, according to Mercury Research. AMD scored a particularly big victory by partnering with Dell Inc. (DELL), once an exclusive Intel client.

But Intel, which still controls about three-quarters of the total market, has roared back with a lineup of powerful and energy-efficient processors that appears to be slowing AMD's offensive.

While AMD continues to gain market share in desktops and laptops, its growth in the lucrative server market has stalled. In 2006, AMD siphoned about 5 percent of the server market from Intel, but leveled out at 22 percent share during the second half, according to Mercury Research.

Last month, Intel scored a high-profile victory of its own, announcing an alliance with server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) The partnership will put Intel chips back in Sun servers and workstations after several years of AMD exclusivity.

AMD is banking on regaining momentum with the mid-2007 launch of its new server chip, code-named Barcelona, which has four computing engines and an updated design. The company acknowledges that Intel beat it to market with four-core chips that launched in November. But AMD insists its design for getting the cores to communicate with each other will serve as a key advantage.

"Five years ago no one knew who we were in the server space, now we're a player," said Mario Rivas, AMD's executive vice president for the computing products group. "This will allow us to be a serious contender in the server space and regain the performance crown. There is a halo effect that goes with that."

But analysts are not optimistic about a quick turnaround for AMD.

The company swung to a $166 million loss for fiscal 2006 and disappointed investors by offering little clarity on how it intended to differentiate its products from Intel's and improve profitability.

This week, AMD warned it was unlikely to meet its first-quarter revenue guidance of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.

"Our view is that this will get worse before it gets better," said Christopher Caso, a senior analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey. "This quarter's performance is evidence that it did get worse."

Wall Street is worried that AMD is in dire need of cash after its $5.6 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. and heavy spending on factory upgrades. AMD bought ATI last year under the philosophy that combining traditional processing chores with graphics capabilities in one chip would give AMD a long-term advantage over Intel.

But the deal reverberated through AMD's finances. At the end of 2006, AMD was sitting on $1.5 billion in cash but had $3.8 billion in debt, including $2.2 billion associated with the ATI acquisition. In 2005, AMD had $1.8 billion in cash and a total debt load of $1.4 billion.

AMD said in its annual report that the big debt may crimp its ability to borrow more money and pay for $2.5 billion in capital expenditures planned in 2007.

"It's a dilemma - we believe AMD needs to spend the money to build the fabs (chip factories), but they may have to find some additional financing to achieve those goals," said analyst John Lau of investment bank Jefferies & Co. "We believe investors need to see some resolution of these issues before they start to get back into the stock again."

Intel ended 2006 in a healthier financial position: $10 billion in cash and $2 billion in total debt. Intel's net income dropped 42 percent last year - hurt by price-cutting and extensive factory upgrades - but analysts are bullish the company is quickly recouping its investments and improving profitability.

Intel is known for its heavy research-and-development spending even during lean times. In 2006, the company said it was eliminating 10,500 positions in a massive restructuring. But it still spent $5.9 billion on R&D - about 17 percent of overall revenue - up from $5.1 billion in fiscal 2005.

By comparison, AMD plowed $1.2 billion - more than 21 percent of its revenue - into R&D last year.

The expenditures have helped Intel pull ahead of AMD by at least a year in producing chips based on 65-nanometer and 45-nanometer technology, which shrinks chip circuitry to 65- and 45-billionths of a meter. The smaller scale allows more transistors to be crammed onto the same piece of silicon.

AMD said it is closing the gap with Intel and believes its partnership with IBM Corp. makes rolling out the technology more cost-efficient.

"We believe we're putting the right capacity in at the right time, and we're immediately getting the benefits," said Tom Sonderman, AMD's director of manufacturing technology.

Industry analysts said both companies are suffering from the need to balance the near-term goals of shareholders and the huge expenditures required to stay competitive.

"What this comes down to is the companies are playing a long-term game," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. "The financial people would be delighted to hear AMD would not be investing in any factories. They would be delighted if Intel would not compete on price to gain market share and would focus on margins. That's great for the next three quarters, but a train wreck for both companies."

Perhaps one lifeline for AMD will come from none other than Intel itself.

AMD is suing Intel for antitrust violations, claiming that Intel undercut AMD by forcing customers into exclusive deals and offering secret rebates. Trial isn't due to begin for two more years, but there's precedent for a settlement. In the mid-1990s, AMD and Intel agreed to resolve several legal claims against each other, and one result was that AMD won the right to keep producing chips on the x86 design architecture - which both companies still use today.
http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8NPUI7G0.html





Data Show How Electronics Mix With Medical Devices
Nicholas Bakalar

If a halogen lamp causes static on a nearby radio, the problem is probably not serious. But what if the electronic antitheft device in the department store makes a heart pacemaker malfunction, or a cellphone used in a hospital interferes with a blood pressure monitor?

Two reports published in the March issue of The Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggest that the dangers of radio wave interference with implanted medical devices are real but modest, and that cellphones in hospitals present no danger at all.

One study, both of whose authors have received research financing from manufacturers of medical equipment, describes two cases in which antitheft devices, sometimes called electronic article surveillance, or E.A.S., systems, apparently caused medical devices to malfunction.

A 71-year-old man with an implanted defibrillator was shocked and staggered by an electronic antitheft system, and a 76-year old woman with a pacemaker collapsed while standing near one of the devices. Seated leaning against the machine, she passed out and was revived five times before store employees moved her away from the device.

Neither person was seriously harmed. The authors said both episodes happened in spring 2006 at large retail stores, but did not identify them.

“There is no problem in having E.A.S. systems,” said Dr. J. Rod Gimbel, a co-author of the study and a cardiologist at East Tennessee Heart Consultants in Knoxville. “But it would be good practice to educate the staffs of retail stores about the problem.”
Jim Vanderpool, product health and safety director for Sensormatic Electronics, the manufacturer of the surveillance machines involved in both incidents, said in an e-mail message that the company had “no independent information regarding the two specific cases,” but that the article reinforced the scientific consensus “that patients with medical implants like pacemakers and defibrillators should simply walk through electronic antitheft systems at a normal pace.”

The Food and Drug Administration advised the industry in 2000 to label surveillance devices with warnings not to linger near them or lean on them. “That recommendation still holds true,” said Mitchell Shein, a senior reviewer in the agency’s device center. “But if a person is exposed to an E.A.S., as long as they move through at a normal pace, the likelihood of a negative outcome is very limited.”

Another article in the same journal describes an experiment testing cellphones at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., over a four-month period in 2006. The researchers used various phones and wireless handheld devices in 75 patient rooms and the intensive care unit, where patients were nearby or connected to a total of 192 medical machines of 23 types.

In 300 tests of ringing, making calls, talking on the phone and receiving data, there was not a single instance of interference with the medical apparatus. For many of the tests, the cellphones were working at lower received signal strengths — that is, showing fewer bars on the screen — which means they were operating at the highest power output levels. The authors conclude with a recommendation to relax existing cellphone rules.

But Mr. Shein said changing hospital cellphone regulations on the basis of these findings might be premature. “I think it’s dangerous for someone to go around doing ad hoc testing and conclude that it’s not going to be an issue for others,” he said. “There was no result, but there may have been if the circumstances had been slightly different.”

Dr. David L. Hayes, the senior author and a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, disagreed. “Cellphone technology is the same throughout the country,” he said, “and hospital equipment is similar. I don’t think that testing in another part of the U.S. is going to have different results.

“I’m advocating based on this testing that we should change the rules,” Dr. Hayes continued, “and in fact many people ignore the rules anyway. In a way, the policy is already antiquated and violated de facto.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/health/13cell.html





Chinese Boot Camps Tackle Internet Addiction
Ian Ransom

Combining sympathy with discipline, a military-style boot camp near Beijing is at the front line of China's battle against Internet addiction, a disorder afflicting millions of the nation's youth.

The Internet Addiction Treatment Center in Daxing County uses a blend of therapy and military drills to treat the children of China's nouveau riche addicted to online games, Internet pornography, cybersex and chats.

"I gradually became obsessed," said Li Yanlin, a university student whose grades plunged after he became addicted to Internet games. But after several weeks at the Daxing facility, the 18- year-old said he "recognized the falseness of online gaming."

Concerned by a number of high-profile Internet-related deaths and juvenile crime, the government is now taking steps to stem Internet addictions by banning new Internet cafés and mulling restrictions on violent computer games.

The government-funded Daxing center, run by an army colonel under the Beijing Military Hospital, is one of a handful of clinics treating patients with Internet addictions in China.

Patients, overwhelmingly male and aged 14 to 19, wake up in dormitories at 6:15 a.m. to do morning calisthenics and march on the cracked concrete grounds wearing khaki fatigues. Drill sergeants bark orders at them when they are not attending group and individual counseling sessions. Therapy includes patients simulating war games with laser guns.

The center's tough-love approach to breaking Internet addiction is unique to China, but necessary in a country with over two million teenage Internet addicts, according to the facility's staff.

"Many of the Internet addicts here have rarely considered other people's feelings. The military training allows them to feel what it's like to be a part of a team," said Xu Leiting, a psychologist at the hospital. "It also helps their bodies recover and makes them stronger."

The center has treated 1,500 patients in this way since opening in 2004, and boasts a 70 percent success rate at breaking addictions.

A stay costs about 10,000 yuan, or $1,290, a month, nearly a year's average disposable income in China. But the center takes on pro bono cases for poor families, said Tao Ran, its director.

"There is no trend for Internet addiction as far as social or economic status, or geography, are concerned. So long as they can get access to a computer, there will be addiction," Tao said.

At the end of 2006, China had 137 million Internet users, an increase of 23.4 percent from the previous year.

Of users under 18, an estimated 13 percent, or 2.3 million, are Internet addicts, according to a 2006 study by the China National Children's Center.

Internet addiction rates posted in Western studies vary wildly, with little consensus as to what constitutes addiction and whether the concept exists.

A Stanford University School of Medicine report issued in 2006 said that one in eight adults find it hard to be away from the Internet for several days, but the report was inconclusive as to whether excessive use could be defined as an addiction.

China's health authorities, however, have few illusions about placing Internet addiction on a par with alcoholism, drug-taking and gambling.

"The effects are the same," Tao said. "Some addicts drop out of school, some mug people for money, steal and sell their families' things to keep playing games. Some end up killing themselves because they feel life has no point."

The social consequences of addiction had caught the government off guard, as had the Internet's explosive growth.

"Suddenly, from a handful of users in 1997, China now has over 130 million. People can get online in the most remote places. The legal system did not have time to develop," Tao said.

Addiction to the Internet is blamed for most juvenile crime in China, a number of suicides, and deaths from exhaustion by players unable to tear themselves away from marathon game sessions.

In 2005, a Shanghai court handed a life sentence to an online game player who stabbed a competitor to death for stealing his cyber-sword — a virtual prize earned during game-playing.

The rising tide of Internet-addicted youth prompted the government this year to ban new Internet cafés, which are seen in China as breeding grounds for social delinquency.

Delegates at the National People's Congress, China's annual session of Parliament, have proposed stricter criminal punishments for Internet café operators who admit minors, and have flagged restrictions on violent games.

"Even President Hu Jintao talked of developing a scientific and civilized Internet environment recently," Tao said.

But China's Internet addiction is not merely a product of an imperfect regulatory system, Xu Leiting said.

"The main cause of Internet addiction is that parents' expectations for their children are too high," said Xu.

With education perceived by many parents as the only means of advancement in an ultracompetitive society of 1.3 billion people, some lock their children up to study and ask teachers to assign extra homework. The pressure can be too much for some children, Xu said, especially if they fail.

"Then they escape to the virtual world to seek achievements, importance and satisfaction, or a sense of belonging."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031200073.html





After False Claims, Wikipedia to Check Degrees
Noam Cohen

After an influential contributor and administrator at the online encyclopedia Wikipedia was found to have invented a history of academic credentials, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder and globetrotting advocate, has called for a voluntary system for accrediting contributors who say they have advanced degrees, like a Ph.D. or M.D.

The details of how the system would work are still being bandied about, and include the idea of having users fax copies of their diplomas to Wikipedia's offices, or relying on a "circle of trust," whereby a trusted individual would be in charge of verification. Wales said he thought that some version of his proposal would begin on the site "in a week."

But reaction within the fiercely egalitarian Wikipedia world has not been universally favorable. Many writing on Wales's user page seemed dumbstruck at the idea of Wikipedia spending its time to verify academic authority when the site's motto is "the encyclopedia anyone can edit."

Florence Devouard, Wales's successor as the head of Wikimedia Foundation board, the parent of the many Wikipedias in scores of languages, said she was "not supportive" of the proposal. "I think what matters is the quality of the content, which we can improve by enforcing policies such as 'cite your source,' not the quality of credentials showed by an editor," she added.

Wales was reacting to the public fallout from the revelation last week that a contributor and Wikipedia administrator named Essjay who claimed to be a tenured professor in Catholic canon law was in fact Ryan Jordan, a 24-year- old man from Louisville, Kentucky. Wales said that the Essjay controversy was evidence of "growing pains" for the site, a worldwide phenomenon that has become a default research tool for nearly everyone who uses the Internet.

And while he said "the moral of the story is what makes for a good Wikipedian is not a good credential," he added that it was important that the general public not think that Wikipedia is "written by a bunch of 12-year-olds."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...iness/wiki.php





History, Digitized (and Abridged)

In the Internet age, historical records that have not been converted to digital form could vanish from the nation's memory.
Katie Hafner

The National Steinbeck Center, at the top of Main Street in this farming community, exhibits an array of artifacts from John Steinbeck's life and works: family memorabilia, a passport from the 1960s and movie stills from "The Grapes of Wrath." Downstairs, in a climate-controlled vault, is the original manuscript of "The Pearl," his novella published in 1947. There is also an exuberant letter that Steinbeck wrote to a distant relative when he was a teenager, as well as rare footage of him on 16-millimeter film, introducing a 1961 movie, "Flight."

Steinbeck aficionados wishing to examine the manuscript of "The Pearl," which he wrote in pencil in small, precise handwriting on a yellow legal pad, have to travel here — after making an appointment with a part-time archivist, who is in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The center takes great care to preserve these relics of Steinbeck, a Nobel laureate, yet it has no plans to take the collection a step further, to adapt to a digital age. As a result, the manuscript of "The Pearl" is no more likely to be digitized than is the camper with the canine-motif curtains that Steinbeck immortalized in his book "Travels With Charley," and that is parked in perpetuity in the center's main exhibition hall.

These Steinbeck artifacts are not the only important pieces of history that are at risk of disappearing or being ignored in the digital age. As more museums and archives become digital domains, and as electronic resources become the main tool for gathering information, items left behind in nondigital form, scholars and archivists say, are in danger of disappearing from the collective cultural memory, potentially leaving our historical fabric riddled with holes.

"There's an illusion being created that all the world's knowledge is on the Web, but we haven't begun to glimpse what is out there in local archives and libraries," said Edward Ayers, a historian and dean of the college and graduate school of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia. "Material that is not digitized risks being neglected as it would not have been in the past, virtually lost to the great majority of potential users."

To be sure, digitization efforts over the last 10 years have been ambitious and far-reaching. For many institutions, putting collections online, for both preservation and accessibility, is a priority. Yet for every letter from Abraham Lincoln to William Seward that can be found online, millions of documents bearing fine-grained witness to the Civil War will never be digitized. And for every CD re-release of Bessie Smith singing "Gimme a Pigfoot," the work of hundreds of lesser-known musicians from the early 20th century are unlikely to be converted to digital form. Money, technology and copyright complications are huge impediments.

It is not for a lack of trying.

At the Library of Congress, for example, despite continuing and ambitious digitization efforts, perhaps only 10 percent of the 132 million objects held will be digitized in the foreseeable future. For one thing, costs are prohibitive. Scanning alone on smaller items ranges from $6 to $9 for a 35-millimeter slide, to $7 to $11 a page for presidential papers, to $12 to $25 for poster-size pieces. (The cost of scanning an object can be a relatively minor part of the entire expense of digitizing and making an item accessible online.)

Similarly, at the National Archives, the repository for some nine billion documents, only a small fraction are likely to be digitized and put online. And at thousands of smaller, local collections around the country, the bulk of the material is languishing on yesterday's media: paper, LPs, magnetic tape and film.

Strapped for money, archivists around the country are looking to private partners for help. Google has donated $3 million to help start an effort led by the Library of Congress that will digitize and share materials around the globe, and has also provided technical resources for digitizing various printed materials at the library. Google, on its own, is digitizing books at the Library of Congress, which has its hands full with other items. And a number of other companies and foundations, including Reuters, IBM and the Andrew Mellon Foundation, have financed digitization projects around the world.

Even with outside help, experts say, entire swaths of political and cultural history are in danger of being forgotten by new generations of amateur researchers and serious scholars.

Consider the Library of Congress archive of one million photo prints from The New York World-Telegram & Sun; only 5,407 have been digitized. Of the 1.2 million images from U.S. News and World Report, the library has digitized only 366. Its collection of five million images from Look magazine, spanning the period from 1937 to 1971, creates what Jeremy Adamson, director of collections and services at the library, calls "a fascinating portrait of America through photo stories on social and political subjects, personalities, food, fashion and sports." Yet only 313 of those images have been digitized.

"It's a crying shame," Adamson said, "as today's public is acutely visually literate and comfortable with pictures as a means to understand the past and experience for themselves the direct look and feel of history."

The reason for not digitizing these collections? "Not enough money," Adamson said.



THE decision to put off digitizing a significant collection is seldom easy, archivists at the Library of Congress say. Plans to digitize The National Intelligencer, a newspaper published in Washington during much of the 19th century and filled with Colonial script not easily recognized by digitizing equipment, eventually had to be put on hold because of the high expense.

"If researchers conclude that the only valuable records they need are those that are online they will be missing major parts of the story," said James Hastings, director of access programs at the National Archives. "And in some cases they will miss the story altogether."

Maritime buffs, for example, hoping to use the Internet to piece together the story of the Silenus, one of the finest ships ever built in North America, will find a spotty narrative. The papers of its captain, Joseph King, who lived a brief but adventurous life, from 1782 to 1806, can be found courtesy of the Mellon Foundation, in a digitized archive from the Mystic Seaport's collection. Researchers will see how much Captain King paid for "1 potte lijn oli" in 1803, when the ship was in the Netherlands.

What they will not see is that two years after King's death, at the Cape of Good Hope, the ship itself was advertised for sale on May 4, 1808, in Calcutta. This clue remains paperbound, on the front page of The Asiatic Mirror, an English-language newspaper published in Calcutta during that era, whose only known remaining copies now reside in large bound volumes in a remote storage room outside Washington. The relative obscurity of the newspaper, and its odd size, make it impractical to digitize.

A Google search will pick up the next chapter of the story at the Princeton University's special collection, which includes the papers of James and Dolley Madison. It reveals that in 1817, President Madison signed over the ship's papers to William Gallup.
"The story of what happened to the good ship Silenus between 1806 and 1817 will never be complete," said Adamson of the Library of Congress, "but what happened in 1808 in Calcutta is the kind of little crumb that can be picked up and become a significant research item."

The ultimate fate of information relating to potentially valuable but obscure people, places, events or things like the Silenus highlights one of the paradoxes of the digital era. While the Internet boom has made information more accessible and widespread than ever, that very ubiquity also threatens records and artifacts that do not easily lend themselves to digitization — because of cost, but also because Web surfers and more devoted data hounds simply find it easier to go online than to travel far and wide to see tangible artifacts.

"This is the great problem right now, and it's a scary thing," said the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. "The dots are only connected by a few of us who are willing to go to the places to make those connections."

In its digitization efforts, the Library of Congress is focusing mainly on special collections, hewing to a philosophy that it should be digitizing objects that cannot be seen elsewhere. There are the obvious things, like the papers of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. And then there are the Farm Security Administration's collection of photographs from the Depression, and a set of mounted photographs of the America's Cup yacht race since the 1890s.

Elizabeth Dulabahn, a senior manager at the Library of Congress who oversees part of the library's digitizing effort, said the library was examining closely the behavior of those who use its Web site.

"We're trying to do a better job of understanding the kinds of information that people are looking for on the Web, and the kinds of searches that bring users to the library's site," she said. She cited Women's History Month and the centennial of the first Wright Brothers flight as "examples of events of interest to a broad constituency."

The Library of Congress and other archives are creating indexes that refer to the contents of a physical collection, in the hope that they will entice researchers away from their computers.

But the reality remains that a new generation of researchers prefers to seek information online, a trend made all too clear to Hastings of the National Archives last year, after Google, in an experiment of sorts, digitized 101 of the National Archives' films — including World War II newsreels and NASA footage — and put them up on its site, at video.google.com/nara.html.

"Before that happened, we had 200 requests total for the whole year in our research room," Hastings said. "The first month the films were available on Google, there were about 200,000 hits on them — a thousandfold increase."

In some cases, strange bedfellows have conspired to help solve the problem.

Over the years, the New Orleans Public Library has steadily been digitizing its photographs, but its documents have gone largely untouched. The collection, which rivals the holdings of many university special collections, contains millions of historical documents, going back to 1769 and the Spanish colonial era.

The records survived Hurricane Katrina unscathed, but are still at risk for damage and loss, said Irene Wainwright, an archivist at the library.

"I can't tell you how many people have suggested to us, 'Oh, you just need to digitize all that stuff down in the basement and you'll be all right,'" Wainwright said. "They have no idea how much effort that requires."

Enter the Genealogical Society of Utah, an organization financed by the Mormon Church, for whom the search for ancestors is a core mission. The society has embarked on a three-year, $200,000 project to digitize all of the library's genealogically relevant records from 1805 to 1880 (www.familysearch.org).

"The records we gather document the lives of people," said Wayne Metcalfe, vice president of the society. "Births, christenings, land records and other documents that provide information about individuals who have lived on the earth."

To that end, genealogy experts affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are fanning out, digital cameras in hand, making copies of genealogically relevant records in 200 cities around the world, including New Orleans. Over the next five years, the church expects to have hundreds of millions of digital images available.

Metcalfe said economies of scale helped his organization bring down the cost of capturing each image to roughly 20 cents — far less than what a commercial company might charge.

Similarly, IBM's digitization efforts — dating to the mid-1990s, when the company converted a healthy chunk of the Vatican Library's archives — are done in a way to benefit the company as well as the institution looking to digitize its holdings.

"We look for projects that will highlight IBM's most innovative technologies or help us develop those technologies with very specific partners who have a problem to solve," said Paula Baker, vice president for global community initiatives at IBM The company looks for projects that require the newest technology.

Such is the case with its most recent multiyear, multimillion-dollar project: a virtual version of the vast Forbidden City in Beijing, which IBM is building in partnership with China's Ministry of Culture. When it is finished, early next year, the site will include interactive, three-dimensional images of ancient thrones, artwork and military implements.

Baker added that each time IBM embarks on a new venture, requests start coming in from other institutions in need. "When we do these projects everyone else comes out of the woodwork," she said. "But we have to be very selective."

Donald Waters, program officer for scholarly communication at the Mellon Foundation, said his foundation had also become increasingly selective over the years.

By way of example, Waters pointed to the papers of Matthew Parker, the archbishop of Canterbury in the 16th century who collected ancient manuscripts to prove the early existence of an independent English-speaking church that was responsible not to the pope but to the king of England. For centuries, those papers have been locked up at Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University. Mellon is financing a project to put them online.

"It takes a special skill to select stand-alone collections that have a durable appeal in the marketplace of scholars, which is the marketplace that Mellon cares most about," Waters said. "As interesting and as important as standout collections in individual libraries and archives might be, the mere fact of digitizing them does not mean that once they are online they will attract and sustain an audience."

The Parker collection, Waters said, meets all these criteria — it is a core collection for a variety of fields: linguistics, ecclesiastical and religious history, English history, art history, medieval studies. He added, however, that the materials have a long history of restricted access, largely to protect the materials because they are so important.

"Digitization would allow much broader access to the contents," he said, "which is sufficient for much research, without exposing the physical manuscripts to added handling."



WHILE copyright is not a concern for those digitizing documents that are hundreds of years old, copyright restrictions play a significant role when it comes to modern material. Even if the Steinbeck Center in Salinas were to find the money to digitize, say, the manuscript of "The Pearl," its copyright would limit its distribution.

"At this point, online materials are best for authors no longer under copyright," said Susan Shillinglaw, a professor of English at San Jose State University and scholar in residence at the Steinbeck Center.

When Leonard Bernstein's family donated the composer's papers to the Library of Congress in 1993, it was with the goal of digitizing portions of the collection and making them broadly accessible. Although more than a thousand items from the collection have been digitized and placed on the library's Web site, there is still an enormous quantity of material that, because of sheer volume and copyright concerns, is still accessible only to researchers who travel to the library.

For instance, the collection includes a seven-page letter that Jacqueline Kennedy wrote by hand to Bernstein at 4 a.m. on June 8, 1968, the day after the funeral for Robert Kennedy, thanking him for conducting Mahler's Requiem during the ceremony. The letter is an extraordinary window into her grief: "Your music was everything in my heart, of peace and pain and such drowning beauty," she wrote. But the library would need permission from the estate of Onassis to digitize it.

When it comes to sound recordings, copyright law can introduce additional complications. Recordings made before 1972 are protected under state rather than federal laws, and under a provision of the 1976 Copyright Act, may be entitled to protection under state law until 2067. Also, an additional copyright restriction often applies to the underlying musical composition.

A study published in 2005 by the Library of Congress and the Council on Library and Information Resources found that some 84 percent of historical sound recordings spanning jazz, blues, gospel, country and classical music in the United States, and made from 1890 to 1964, have become virtually inaccessible.

"Copyright is a very blunt instrument," said Tim Brooks, the author of "Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890 to 1919" (University of Illinois, 2004). "Once you have copyright, you have total control; there's very little room in the copyright law even for preservation, much less reissuing material."

Generally, rights owners like Sony BMG have reissued on CD only a small portion of the recordings they control.

For example, John Philip Sousa's own band made scores of recordings for Victor Records in the early 20th century. BMG bought Victor in 1986, and few if any of those recordings have since been reissued on CD. "There is probably an odd track out somewhere," Brooks said, "but they've certainly never done any kind of retrospective of him that I'm aware of." And of the hundreds of recordings made in the same period by Noble Sissle, an African-American tenor who recorded for several labels now owned by Sony BMG, few if any have made it onto CD.



THE result, Brooks said, is a series of gaps in the popular understanding of the nation's musical heritage. "It's as if before Bessie Smith, there was nothing," he said. "It has the effect of narrowing our own understanding of our own history."

Another factor that determines what is digitized is how straightforward it is to copy the material.

In some cases, said Theresa Salazar, curator of Western Americana at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, the two go hand in hand. "Agencies and organizations providing funding often want large volume for their money," Salazar said.

For example, she pointed out, objects like books can be handled in a straightforward way. It is easy to capture these materials because they are printed, and many of these titles are more or less the same size.

No one knows this better than Google, whose digitization efforts focus mainly on books.

In its quest to scan every one of the tens of millions of books ever published, Google has already digitized one million volumes. Google refuses to say how much it has spent on the venture so far, but outside experts estimate the figure at at least $5 million. The company has also been scanning and indexing academic journals to make them searchable, and is working with the Patent Office to digitize thousands of patents dating back to 1790.

David Eun, Google's vice president for content partnerships, said that rather than dwell on what is being left behind, he preferred to take a more optimistic view.

"We're talking about a huge, huge universe of content," Eun said. "If you look at the glass as half-empty it becomes too overwhelming."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...311history.php





How to Run Vista Legally Without Activation ... for at Least a Year
Gregg Keizer

Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end run around one of Microsoft Corp.'s key antipiracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today.

Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely.

"The [activation] demands that Vista puts on corporate buyers is much more than on XP," said Livingston. "Vista developers have [apparently] programmed in back doors to get around time restrictions for Vista activation."

Microsoft promptly labeled the registry change a "hack," a loaded word that is usually synonymous with "illegal."

"Recently it has been reported that an activation hack for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system has been identified," said David Lazar, the director of the company's Genuine Windows program, in an e-mail. "Although these reports are purely speculative at the moment, we are actively monitoring attempts to steal Microsoft intellectual property."

"This is not a hack," Livingston shot back when Lazar's e-mail was read to him. "This is a documented feature of the operating system." To back up his view, Livingston pointed out links to online support documents where Microsoft spells out the pertinent registry key. Nor is it speculative; Livingston demonstrated the procedure live via a Web conference session today and claimed "we have run this dozens of times."

Livingston last month revealed that a one-line command lets users postpone Vista activation up to three times. Combined with Vista's initial 30-day grace period, that meant users could run Vista for as long as 120 days before they had to activate the OS. At the time, Microsoft seemed unconcerned with the disclosure and flatly stated that using it would not violate the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA).

"The feature that I'm revealing today shows that Microsoft has built into Vista a function that allows anyone to extend the operating system's activation deadline not just three times, but many times," Livingston said.

Microsoft documented the key on its support site in a description of what it calls "SkipRearm". In it, Microsoft explains that "rearming a computer restores the Windows system to the original licensing state. All licensing and registry data related to activation is either removed or reset. Any grace period timers are reset as well."

By changing the SkipRearm key's value from the default "0" to "1," said Livingston, the earlier-revealed "slmgr -rearm" command can be used over and over.

In tests with several editions of Vista purchased at different times, Livingston found that copies of Vista Ultimate and Vista Home Premium obtained at the end of January would accept the SkipRearm change only eight times. Together with the three postponements made possible with slmgr -rearm and the opening 30-day grace period, that would give users nearly a year (360 days) of activation-free use. A copy of Vista Home Basic bought March 14, however, ignored the SkipRearm registry change.

"Microsoft has slipstreamed something into Home Basic and Home Premium," Livingston said. "But from my reading of the support documents, Microsoft needs to keep this feature in its business editions, Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. It seems that Microsoft is sympathetic to enterprises' difficulty in rolling out Vista within the activation deadlines."

Lazar did not answer several questions e-mailed to him today, including one that asked why Microsoft had included the SkipRearm feature in the first place. However, he indicated that the feature could be blocked if Microsoft desired. "It is important to note that these hacks are, at best, temporary. Microsoft has systems in place to detect and block piracy."

"This is somewhat of a threat to Microsoft," Livingston said. "But the extent to what it can retroactively patch, I don't know. Maybe they will want to change this. But that would only call more attention to activation and perhaps reveal the mechanism Vista is using to count SkipRearm."

Livingston has not been able to find where Vista stores the SkipRearm count; conceivably, that count is what restricts its use to a maximum of eight. If someone was to find the count location, however, and manage to change that as well as the SkipRearm registry key, users might be able to postpone activation forever, said Livingston.

"The problem I see with this is that unscrupulous system builders will use it [to install counterfeit copies of Vista], but that Vista will start demanding activation a year or more out, when the guy is long gone with your money," said Livingston. "And then the activation key wouldn't work because he would have used it on hundreds or even thousands of systems and Microsoft would have blocked it."

Microsoft introduced product activation in 2001's Office XP and also used it in that year's Windows XP. Activation was toughened up for Vista, however. After the grace period, nonactivated PCs running Vista drop into what Microsoft calls "reduced functionality" mode. In reduced mode, users can only browse the Web with Internet Explorer, and then only for an hour before being forced to again log on.

Livingston's work-around, however, may do away with activation altogether. "[Activation] has become so convoluted, the way Microsoft has implemented it, that it's more of an irritation to legitimate users than a worthwhile antipiracy measure," Livingston concluded.

Naturally, Microsoft's Lazar sees it differently. "The new antipiracy technologies in Windows Vista are designed to protect customers and prevent the software from working correctly when it is not genuine and properly licensed," he said. "Systems utilizing these hacks will not provide the benefits of genuine Windows, nor will they work as expected."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9013258





Ballmer Says Google's Hiring Pace is 'Insane'

Microsoft CEO calls rival's efforts to expand of outside search and advertising 'cute'

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said rival Google Inc.'s pace of employee growth is "insane," and the company has few successful businesses outside of Internet search and advertising.

"They're going to double in a year. That's insane, in my opinion," Ballmer said Thursday during an address to students at Stanford University, near Palo Alto, Calif.

Google, the most-used Internet search engine, had 10,674 employees at the end of last year, up 88 percent from a year earlier.

Redmond-based Microsoft, the world's largest software company, expanded to 75,000 employees over almost three decades, a rate that made it easier for the company to digest new hires, Ballmer said.

"What that's allowed us to do is build up a base of capable people," Ballmer said.

"I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value."

Google also is reliant on a single source of revenue, Ballmer said. The company made almost all of its revenue last year from advertising sales.

"They're still really one business, and it's a search and advertising business," he said. Google's other efforts have been "cute," he said.

Ballmer, who was Microsoft's 24th employee, also said it's getting tougher to hire the best software developers.

"There's more recruiting competition than there's been in a long time," Ballmer said. "Hedge funds want programmers these days. It's kind of a pain in the neck."

Asked by a student what keeps him up at night, Ballmer said managing people and relationships and shifting business models were the biggest culprits. Still, those aren't major interruptions.

"I actually do sleep very well," he said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...tgoogle16.html





Europe Exec Confirms Google Phone
Elinor Mills

The head of Google in Spain and Portugal has confirmed that Google is working on a mobile phone. "Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone," Isabel Aguilera is quoted as saying on the Spanish news Web site Noticias.com.

Google spokespeople in the United States have repeatedly declined to comment on rumors of a Google Phone, but the smoke has been rising lately. Earlier this month, Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners wrote in his blog that an inside source told him the Google Phone will be a BlackBerry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap and optimized Java and that it would offer voice over Internet Protocol.

Rumors also circulated that that Google and Samsung were building a phone, code-named "Switch," Simeonov said, and his posting includes what he claims is a leaked photo of the device. That wouldn't be so far fetched as Google and Samsung announced a partnership in January to bundle mobile versions of Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail on certain Samsung phones. Late last year, the rumor was that France Telecom Group's mobile-telephony division Orange was in discussions with Google.

Plus, Google has on its payroll. Andy Rubin, the founder of handheld device maker Danger who later started Android, a mobile-software maker that Google bought in 2005. Google also acquired mobile-applications company Reqwireless and Google secretly acquired a company called Skia, whose first product is a portable graphics engine that renders 2D graphics on handhelds.
http://news.com.com/2061-10812_3-616...-0-5&subj=news





Palm Hires Apple Designer in Response to iPhone
John Markoff

Palm, the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple's new iPhone.

The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago at Palm on a line of new products, a company spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment further on the project.

Mercer joined Palm with two employees from Iventor, the independent design firm that he headed in Palo Alto, California, but Palm did not acquire the company, said the spokeswoman, Marlene Somsak. Palm is based in nearby Sunnyvale.

Apple's iPhone is still several months away from being available, but its flexible interface is already shaking up the cell phone industry, including Palm, which makes the hybrid phone-organizers known as smart phones.

The Prada phone from the South Korean consumer electronics maker LG offers some similarities to the iPhone, and industry analysts have said that the Apple phone will force the industry to shift its focus from hardware to software design.

Although Palm pioneered the market for hand-held computers, the company has found itself under pressure in recent years by some of the most powerful names in consumer electronics, including Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Microsoft.

Last year, Palm gave ground in its struggle and adopted Microsoft's Windows Mobile software for one version of its Treo smart phone.

The company's own Palm OS software is widely seen within the industry as aging and in need of a fundamental revision.

Mercer, a college dropout, joined Apple in 1987. While there, he was the lead designer of Version 7 of the Macintosh finder, the operating system's graphical desktop. He later founded Pixo, a software tools firm that created a development system used by Apple software designers to conceive the first version of the user interface for the iPod music player.

More recently, as an independent designer, he worked under contract with Samsung to design the Z5, an MP3 player that has been a best seller in South Korea. He has developed a reputation for designing interfaces that have cinematographic qualities and yet perform briskly on small consumer electronics devices.

"He's the best of the best in this space," said Paul Saffo, an adviser to Samsung and a Silicon Valley forecaster. "The guy has a knack for designing complex systems in ways that are accessible."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...ss/webpalm.php





Mobile Carriers Sick of so Many Operating Systems
Eric Sylvers

Two operating systems run more than 95 percent of the world's computers, but dozens of systems are behind the 2.5 billion mobile phones in circulation, a situation that has hampered the growth of new services, industry executives and independent specialists say.

"There are too many operating systems already and more are coming on stream, making things complicated for smaller software companies," said Tony Cripps, a senior analyst with the telecommunications consulting firm Ovum in London.

Mobile phone carriers are watching with more than passing interest because the new applications they are counting on to increase revenue and profit may make it to only a limited number of phones as software developers struggle to keep up with the different operating systems. Having multiple systems is also time-consuming and costly for the carriers, which must configure the phones they sell.

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company in terms of revenue, has been leading a push to limit the number of operating systems, declaring in November that it would eventually sell only phones that ran on Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Symbian Series 60 or Linux. For more than a year, NTT DoCoMo of Japan has concentrated on Symbian, a privately held British-based company in which Nokia of Finland has a nearly 50 percent stake, and Linux.

"What Vodafone did by choosing a few was inevitable," a Symbian executive vice president, Andy Brannan, said.

Arun Sarin, the Vodafone chief executive, said last month: "We need to reduce the number of operating systems on phones. I'm not saying bring it down to one, but several. With fewer operating systems, it will be easier for content delivery."

Most mobile phone manufacturers use internally developed software to run their simpler phones. But smart phones, high-end devices that have access to the Internet and send e-mail, run on operating systems created by other companies. Brannan said that in the future, only the most basic phones would run on operating systems developed by the phone makers.

Last year, two-thirds of smart phones sold ran on Symbian's operating system, an increase of about four percentage points from 2005, according to Canalys, a consultant and market research firm based near London. Microsoft was second last year with a 14 percent market share, slightly less than the year before, followed by Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, with 7 percent, and Linux, with 6 percent, according to Canalys.

Having so many operating systems makes it expensive to make software, said Faraz Hoodbhoy, the chief executive of PixSense, whose software helps users of camera phones save and share multimedia content.

"It's not like with computers, where anybody who has an Internet connection can download your software," he said. "The barrier to innovation is higher in the mobile world."

What operating system a software developer decides to concentrate on first will most likely depend on what geographic area and type of user it is trying to attract, Cripps, the Ovum analyst, said. Windows Mobile is stronger in North America and with business users, while Symbian is dominant in Europe and with nonbusiness customers.

But despite the moves by Vodafone, DoCoMo and other service providers, the huge size of the mobile phone market will ensure that smaller operating systems survive, Cripps and several executives said.

Fabrizio Capobianco, chief executive of Funambol, an open-source software company based in Redwood City, Calif., that has developed a highly popular e-mail program for mobile devices, said, "I don't see convergence of the operating systems happening anytime soon."

Citing Apple's new phone, Capobianco, who began as a technology entrepreneur in Italy, added, "Vodafone is trying to standardize by going with three operating systems, but now the iPhone is coming, so they will have to have at least four."
http://news.com.com/Mobile+carriers+...3-6166275.html





Risky Behavior: Walking and Talking
Eric Nagourney

Much has been written about the dangers of driving while using a cellphone. But how about walking and talking on the phone?

Researchers said they have evidence that this, too, can pose a risk, and not just from irritated fellow pedestrians who don't want to hear the details of your personal life.

The researchers, Julie Hatfield and Susanne Murphy of the University of New South Wales in Australia, set out to see if people who are talking on the phone pay less attention at intersections. They observed more than 500 people crossing the street and found that those who were talking on the phone did indeed appear more distracted than those who were not.

In the study, which appears in Accident Analysis & Prevention, men on the phone crossed more slowly at intersections without traffic signals. Women on the phone not only crossed more slowly, but also were less likely to look at traffic before setting out or to wait for cars to stop.

The findings are in keeping with those of researchers who have looked at driving and cellphone use. The real issue seems to be one of distraction, and that is as important for pedestrians crossing the road as it is for drivers, the new study says.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/...ce/snvital.php





Telecoms Fighting in Tough TV Arena
Eric Pfanner

David Holt was leading a discussion at a conference on a new kind of television, sent into living rooms over telephone lines, when he decided to pop his toughest question. How many people in the audience, asked Holt, an executive at Nortel, actually watched television in this way?

The mostly young, male telecommunications and media executives facing Holt — Scandinavians in funky glasses, Americans with phones clipped to their belts — might have looked like early adopters. But only about a dozen people, out of several hundred in the room, raised their hands.

Faced with the loss of revenue from their core businesses, telecommunications companies around the world are spending billions to build high-speed networks that can deliver so-called IPTV services — like digital television, on-demand movies and interactive services — via telephone lines.

But as the sparse response to Holt's question showed, telecom companies may face a significant challenge in persuading even their own kind, let alone ordinary consumers, to subscribe to IPTV, or Internet protocol television.

The biggest hurdle, analysts say, is that consumers already have plenty of ways of bringing digital television into their homes. Cable and satellite have attracted many of the consumers who want to pay extra for television. Free, over-the-air digital television has been introduced in some countries.

Video services like YouTube and Joost are growing on the Internet. Given the variety of other options, does anyone really need IPTV? "That's the multibillion-euro question," said Lars Godell, an analyst at Forrester Research. "On a stand-alone basis, there's really no clear business case for these services."

Of the companies with the most at stake with IPTV, the biggest single outlay may be the $18 billion that the U.S. company Verizon has invested in a new fiber-optic network for delivering high-speed connections to millions of customers' homes. Companies like Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom and Telecom Italia have also announced big investments in faster networks.

Nortel, Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper Networks, companies that make routers, switches, set-top boxes and other gear, are already reaping the benefits of these investments, executives say. So is Microsoft, which provides software to help telecoms manage digital rights, video on demand and electronic program guides.

The telecoms and their suppliers say IPTV can match or surpass cable and satellite systems in channel capacity, and makes vast video libraries available on demand. IPTV also creates the prospect of improved interactive services, they add.

"TV today is a very archaic experience — it's like the PC in the 1980s," said Christine Heckart, general manager for marketing at Microsoft TV, which is providing software to IPTV providers like AT&T in the United States, Club Internet in France and Swisscom in Switzerland.

One reason IPTV has been a tough sell, analysts say, is confusion about what it is. Though IPTV stands for Internet protocol television, it is not delivered over the Internet. Like cable, IPTV uses a closed network to deliver video to televisions, via set-top boxes. That separates it from nascent "Web TV" services like Joost, which are accessed over the public Internet and viewed on personal computers.

Analysts say about five million consumers around the world subscribe to IPTV, though the numbers are concentrated in places like Hong Kong, France, Belgium and Iceland, where market conditions have been favorable. Elsewhere, analysts say, the main attraction of IPTV may be the fact that it is often bundled with telephone calling and broadband in a convenient package of services entering the home via one line, with one bill.

Estimates of growth vary widely. Eric Abensur, a vice president of France Télécom's Orange division in Britain, predicted at the conference in London last week that there would be more than 100 million IPTV customers globally by 2010. MRG, a research firm, says the numbers will be about half that. Ovum, another firm, is even more conservative, predicting fewer than 30 million subscribers by 2010, though it does not include video-on-demand services in its estimate.

Several success stories for IPTV, or telecom television, as it is also known, were detailed at the conference.

In France, IPTV has attracted close to one million subscribers to at least a half-dozen competing services. In Iceland, the first country in the world to get a nationwide IPTV network, one- quarter of households subscribe to the service, according to David Gunnarsson, senior engineer for data services at Siminn, an Icelandic telecommunications company. In Hong Kong, the telecommunications provider PCCW has attracted 750,000 users to its IPTV service, said Paul Berriman, head of strategic market development.

But in markets where cable or satellite television are already widespread, IPTV faces an uphill battle, analysts say. In Germany, for instance, most homes are wired for basic cable, and consumers have shown little willingness to pay extra for digital cable or satellite. In Britain, well over half the households already get digital television in three major ways: from paid-for satellite or cable, or from Freeview, a free, over-the air digital service.

For some telecoms offering IPTV in these markets, "the main motivation has been defensive," said Annelise Berendt, an analyst at Ovum.

By adding television to broadband and voice services in a "triple play" package — some telecoms have even included mobile calls, creating a "quadruple play" — they hope to stop existing consumers from defecting and to attract new ones with convenience.

Some telecoms have gone on the offensive, investing in premium content in an effort to attract viewers. Rights to top-flight soccer matches have helped Belgacom, the former telecom monopoly in Belgium, attract subscribers to its IPTV offering; it had 140,000 customers by the end of last year, in a country of 11 million people.

Another pioneering IPTV service, FastWeb in Italy, also used soccer to attract audiences, though growth has slowed recently. In what may be a sign of the challenges facing IPTV, analysts say, the company's founder, Silvio Scaglia, has turned his attention to an Internet television venture, Babelgum.

Securing the rights to attractive programming can be expensive.

Godell, the Forrester analyst, said telecoms typically had to hand over about two-thirds of their IPTV revenue to content providers, tminimizing profit margins.

But if telecoms do nothing, they could stand to lose even more, analysts say. Video is going digital and online in any case, but telecommunications companies will see no benefit if consumers turn to openly available Internet services like YouTube or Joost instead of the telecoms' IPTV offerings.

Some telecoms would like to start generating revenue from Internet video sites and other guzzlers of bandwidth, in effect charging them tolls through separate carriage agreements. This has emerged as a sensitive issue in the United States as the 2008 presidential election campaign begins. Silicon Valley businesses that benefit from free use of the Internet have put forth the case for equal access to telecom networks, or "net neutrality." Without it, they say, only those who can afford the tolls will manage to get their content through an increasingly congested Internet.

Telecommunications companies, and some analysts, say mandatory net neutrality would actually hasten the day when gridlock seizes the Internet. Without the ability to charge fees for heavy users, the telecoms argue, they will be unable to afford the upgrades needed to keep Internet traffic flowing smoothly in the era of digital video.

"If Joost and YouTube think they can ride on someone else's bandwidth for free, there will be a problem," said Godell, the analyst.

In a European twist on the debate over network access, regulators in Brussels are locked in battle with the German government over a new law that allows Deutsche Telekom, the former monopoly phone company in Germany, to keep rival telecoms off a new, €3 billion, or $4 billion, high-speed network.

Deutsche Telekom hopes that exclusive access will help it recoup the cost by selling new services, including IPTV. But the European Commission recently warned the government that it faced legal action over what Brussels considers an illegal "regulatory holiday."

Meanwhile, Telecom suppliers like Nortel will benefit whether video is delivered over the Internet or on private networks; one way or the other, their equipment is needed. But they, too, have a stake in promoting the capabilities of higher-speed networks.

"It's like the transition from the corner store to the supermarket," said Holt, the Nortel executive.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...ess/iptv12.php





Election Could Determine Future of French News Channel
Doreen Carvajal

With presidential elections looming, even the top brass of the television station France 24 cannot predict the long-term future of the new 24-hour international news channel that is subsidized by the government to offer a French voice to the world.
But the three-month-old station, broadcasting in English and French, is forging ahead, preparing to add another channel in Arabic on April 2 and pressing to expand its cable coverage in the United States, where it is still only available in a limited way in Washington and a small part of New York.

"We don't have our own destiny in our hands because we don't know who will be elected," said Alain de Pouzilhac, the chief executive who is presiding over the rapid evolution of the channel based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. "The most important issue for France 24 is to have a strong audience, realize that objective and to be qualitatively different from the competition."

Basically, that competition is the elite global media club of CNN, BBC World and Al Jazeera. And Pouzilhac, the former head of the advertising agency Havas, has embarked on a charm offensive of his own to promote the idea that the ingénue, France 24 is breaking into the big time.

The personal campaign comes at a time when the new channel is fending off jostling from Radio France Internationale, the veteran international radio broadcaster that also benefits from public financing and is competing for limited government funding.

The RFI chief executive, Antoine Schwarz, publicly floated the notion last month of creating a cost-effective French version of the multimedia BBC, combining France 24 with the radio broadcaster and TV5, the French-language network that delivers international programming from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.

Pouzilhac scoffed at the idea of a media merger.

"I am concentrating on France 24," he said. "When I read something about how we have to put together radio and television together to be a copy of the BBC, I say the guy who said that is right for another time. But unfortunately he is living in 2007, when the BBC did it in 1957."

Armed with encouraging survey results, Pouzilhac is driving France 24 hard into new media with its bilingual Web site, www.france24.com, which offers live streaming of its broadcasts. The newscaster is assiduously courting international bloggers, most recently organizing a competition and a giveaway of podcasting and videocasting kits to invite them into interactive discussions about the French presidential elections.

The channel does not have viewer figures yet about its television broadcasts, but it has released results of two studies, including Nielsen figures that show that its news Web site has established itself as a third international news network in some parts of the world.

During France 24's first three weeks, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, it attracted 2.5 million unique visitors in nine countries surveyed, including the United States, Germany and Brazil. The biggest following was in France with 1.2 million, but the other half came from abroad. CNN's Web site draws 9 percent of its visitors from outside the United States while the BBC attracts 53 percent from outside Britain.

ComScore, which also tracks Internet traffic, came up with a more modest count, indicating the French site drew 1.64 million unique visitors in its first month and 1.61 million in January.

"I don't have a feel for how good or how bad they're doing it in the market place," said Simon Spanswick, the chief executive of the Association of International Broadcasters, based in London. "It's possibly too early to tell. The product seems good, varied in terms of hard news and softer stories, which is quite interesting."

That reflects the advertising background of Pouzilhac, who also personally has been trying to forge new distribution deals in the United States through Time Warner Cable and partnerships with user generated online sites.

Mark Harrad, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable, said the company does not generally comment on its discussions. But France 24 is not the only news channel based in Europe pressing to get into the United States.

EuroNews, a pan-European 24-hour news channel that, like France 24, has France Télévisions as a shareholder, is also courting Time Warner and recently announced an alliance with EchoStar Communications, a digital satellite TV system in the United States.

As France 24 seeks to expand, it is has turned up its marketing machine.

"Over all, what they have been very good at since the launch is clever marketing," Spanswick said, noting its print ads and online marketing tactics.

As for the long term future of France 24, he predicts it is safe though it was a pet project of President Jacques Chirac.

"I would be surprised if a decision was made to scrap it, having spent tens of millions of euros on a channel that has already had impact on the market."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...iness/tv12.php





Conrad Black is Living Large Standing Trial
Richard Siklos

When Conrad Black pleaded not guilty to criminal fraud charges in December 2005, the Chicago court granted his request that he could be defended by Edward Greenspan, one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers in Canada, where he is known by the nickname "Fast Eddie."

But the court made Black sign a waiver acknowledging that he understood his lawyer, for all his renown in Canada, does not know American law.

If he loses, Black, who could face up to 90 years in prison, cannot appeal on the grounds that it was his lawyer's fault.

"I love that I've been certified as stupid by the Illinois judge," said Greenspan, who plans to frame a copy of the court document and hang it in his Toronto law office. "So stupid," he added, "that no matter how incompetent I might be, Conrad can't rely on it."

The waiver is just one of the elements that seem to ensure that the case of United States of America vs. Conrad Black et al., which begins Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, is going to be unusual.

First there is Lord Black himself, a larger-than-life figure whose baroque vocabulary and towering demeanor can seem straight out of Dickens. Unlike most defendants in corporate malfeasance trials facing the rest of their years behind bars, Black has gone very public — giving interviews and speeches and writing articles chastising his accusers and vowing not only exoneration but a comeback.

"He not only says he's not guilty," Greenspan said, "he says it to everybody who listens, and everybody who doesn't listen."

The trial is taking place in Chicago because that is the registered headquarters of Black's former U.S. holding company, called Hollinger International — which in its heyday a decade ago was one of the world's largest newspaper companies by circulation. That means the former press tycoon will be pitted against Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for Illinois who last week made headlines as a White House Special Counsel by convicting the former chief of staff for the vice president of obstructing justice, perjury and lying to investigators.

Fitzgerald is not expected to prosecute the Black trial personally, but will stop in from time to time to observe how the case is progressing.

In the midst of what is expected to be a three- or four-month trial, Black is also publishing a biography of Richard Nixon — his fourth book — and is expected, if time allows, to hold something of a promotional tour in the middle of the case. Also expected to add to the carnival atmosphere is a flotilla of international media expected to cover the trial and the promise of a parade of celebrity witnesses including Henry Kissinger, former Illinois Governor James Thompson, and the real estate developer Donald Trump.

In Black's native Canada, the media attention on the trial is nothing short of gaga. The Globe and Mail, considered the most serious newspaper in Canada, recently ran a front-page article about eating a lobster dinner with Black in a restaurant; the Canadian newsmagazine Macleans published a special edition last week devoted to the "trial of the century."

One poll said that 56 percent of Canadians were following the developments in Black's trial.

As Robert Fulford, a longtime columnist and commentator on Canadian media, said during an interview: "There seems to be no one in the country who has no opinion on Conrad Black."

In an e-mail last week, Black characterized what is to come as "the big battle" of his ordeal.

"The last act of the three-part story will come when we win, and we will win," he said.

The case against Black and his colleagues differs from other high-profile corporate scandals like Enron, Worldcom and Adelphia because, unlike those companies, Black's former company is a going concern, though much smaller.

Most of the newspapers it owned have been sold and Hollinger International is now called the Sun-Times Media Group. On paper, the case it most resembles is Tyco, which resulted in a conviction for its former chief executive, L. Dennis Kozlowski, after an earlier mistrial. Kozlowski is serving up to 25 years in prison.

Black's legal team is expected to contend in court that the business is in worse shape today, having spent some $200 million investigating and pursuing allegations of wrongdoing by the company's cofounder.

In 2003, Black claimed to have come close to arranging a deal to sell Hollinger International for more than $18 a share. After paying special dividends totaling $5.50, the company's stock closed Friday at $5.31.

Black contended in an e-mail last week that the directors behind his ouster and Richard Breeden, the former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who helped conduct the internal investigation into Hollinger and its affiliates, "have sucked the blood out of those companies and done savage violence to the public shareholders."

There has long been a cinematic quality to Black's life and career — including his rise to prominence, and striking fall. He was, for a time, the publisher of newspapers like the Daily Telegraph in London, Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and most of the large daily newspapers in Canada. Married to a glamorous conservative columnist, Barbara Amiel, who served on Hollinger International's board and as a corporate vice president, Lord and Lady Black cut a swath through high society in London, Toronto, Palm Beach and New York.

But in late 2003 — two years after giving up his Canadian citizenship in a huff to become a British peer — Black's career unraveled at the hands of his hand-picked board of high-profile directors, who included Kissinger and Thompson, amid allegations that he and several associates, including his longtime partner, F. David Radler, had helped themselves to unauthorized bonuses that were not properly disclosed to the board or shareholders. An internal company inquiry accused Black's management of greed on a massive scale and called Hollinger "a corporate kleptocracy."

Black and three former Hollinger International executives, Peter Atkinson, Jack Boultbee and Mark Kipnis, have pleaded not guilty to charges that include fraud, racketeering and obstruction of justice relating to $82 million in allegedly misappropriated money. Most of the money in question related to agreements between buyers of Hollinger newspapers and the company that neither it nor key executives would start publications that would compete against those being sold.

Black has argued that any wrongdoing was the result of either sloppy paperwork, was approved by the company's start-studded board, or was the handiwork of Radler — who has pled guilty to a single fraud charge and agreed to act as a chief witness against Black and the others.

Radler will serve a sentence of up to 29 months for his plea, possibly in a facility in Canada.

Some other charges against Black stem from alleged abuses of his position of trust running a publicly-traded company including using the company plane for a holiday to Bora Bora, buying a Park Avenue apartment on unfair terms from the company, and using $40,000 of company money to pay for a 60th birthday party for Amiel at La Grenouille restaurant in New York that was well attended by business and media elites.

Trump, who was at the dinner, is likely to testify on Black's behalf that he regarded it as a business event because he was negotiating a deal to buy the Sun-Times office building, three people close to the case said.

Edward Sussman, the assistant U.S. attorney who is trying the case with two colleagues, declined to comment.

Greenspan's place at his defense table is fitting for the latest chapter in Black's odyssey. The two men attended their first year of law school together at York University in Toronto in 1965, although Black dropped out but later completed the degree at a school in Quebec. Greenspan, who grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, also went to high school with Amiel.

At his office last Tuesday morning, Greenspan had filled the boardroom table in the main-floor library at his firm — which occupies a former bank branch complete with vault — with color-coded files relating solely to his much-anticipated cross-examination of Radler. Having risen at 4 a.m. in Chicago to grab an early flight, Greenspan underwent a quick blow dry by a stylist named Jimmy before having his photograph taken.

Although he would not discuss his legal strategy, Greenspan said he was confident of victory even though the curve for learning the procedures of the U.S. court after a career in Canadian law was steep.

In preparation for the Black trial, Greenspan and Edward Genson, a Chicago criminal defense lawyer, and their supporting lawyers have plowed through some seven million pages of evidence, much of it culled from various civil actions pending in the Hollinger debacle.

"I am going to be tired, but I am going to be ready," Greenspan said.

Asked if he had tried to curb Black's public statements, Greenspan declined to comment on the basis of client-attorney privilege.

He said it had not been determined if Black would testify on his own behalf, but it does not require a stretch of imagination to guess which way Black would vote on such matters.

But one thing he said he had not done was attempt to moderate Black's imperious, multisyllabic style.

"You can't change him," Greenspan said. "That would be silly if I tried to turn him into Forrest Gump."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...ness/black.php





The Web Drives an Advertising Boom Without the Need for Agencies
Louise Story

The Internet has allowed consumers to trade stocks without using high-priced brokers and let travelers book flights directly from airlines.

Now it may free advertisers to make their own television commercials without going through a traditional ad agency.

Several companies are offering automated ad creation over the Internet and, in some cases, ad placement services that all advertisers can use to more finely direct their marketing. Advertisers use the new sites to select from commercial footage and customize campaigns with a few clicks of the mouse and little human interaction, often for a low flat fee.

"When people say, 'you're commoditizing creative,' well, sure we are," said Jordan Zimmerman, chairman of Zimmerman Advertising in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who calls the automated service "a virtual advertising agency."

"But we're really doing it with excellent work," he said.

The new systems threaten some of the roles that advertising agencies have traditionally played. National advertisers, mainly in the retail, real estate and auto industries, are using the systems to make their messages more relevant on the local level.

They can automatically add names of local sales agents or dealership addresses, and they can change the content of the ad, depending on where it is showing, to appeal to various demographic groups. Among the companies that have used the services are Wendy's, Ford, Coldwell Banker and Warner Independent Pictures.

Zimmerman, an advertising agency that is part of Omnicom Group, is selling stock advertising and online buying for television, the Internet, print publications, radio, direct mail and in-store ads.

The automated system they are offering to advertisers, called Pick-n-Click, is currently available only for automotive advertisers. It has 150,000 components — like voice-overs, video footage and text options.

AutoNation, a franchise group of 331 car dealers, has signed on as a customer. Zimmerman plans to expand the site's ad offerings to other retail areas, like home furnishings, in the next few months.

Visible World, based in New York, introduced a product this week that allows advertisers to create thousands of custom versions of television commercials. The company also plans to add online and mobile video ads to its system soon. And Spot Runner, an online ad agency based in Los Angeles that has been offering to make local television commercials for $499, plans to branch into automated radio and Internet ad development this year.

Interest in these systems is being driven, in part, by the increased use of customization in traditional media like television. Advertisers are increasingly interested in taking what they have learned in the online world about custom marketing and applying it in the off-line world.

"If there's a man and a woman watching television in two different houses and you are Procter & Gamble, it would be more efficient to show one of them an ad for a Gillette's men's razor and the other a woman's ad," said Mark Read, director of strategy at WPP Group, an advertising holding company that has invested in Visible World and Spot Runner. "In the scenario when you run the woman's ad in both houses, you've got half the efficiency."

To customize ads, the companies, to a varying degree, link postal codes with census and other third-party data to develop local demographic profiles, isolating viewers more finely than typical cable operators.

Visible World has an extensive system in place, running a distribution network through media partners and using the partners' routers to steer versions of ads to different parties. Visible World works at the household level by using information from cable set-top boxes.

The result is that Visible World can automatically run ads in Spanish when its databases determine that is appropriate or can send more youth-focused ads where younger people are likely to be watching.

Another company, OpenTV, a part of Kudelski Group, a digital security company based in Switzerland, is delivering multiple versions of ads to cable set-top boxes in partnership with a cable operator and uses viewer data to decide which ad to show.

Invidi Technologies, a company based in Princeton, New Jersey, has developed an ad system that uses remote- control behavior and other viewer actions to guess which member of a given household is tuned in.

In addition to tailoring ads to consumers, the new systems allow advertisers to modify their ads at the last minute by logging in online.

"You find out at 10 p.m. your competitor is running an intense sale on something," said Michael Goldberg, chief marketing officer for Zimmerman. "You can go into your arsenal of work and select something to combat that and program it to run the next day — all in five minutes."

The Web interfaces eliminate the need for advertisers to call or meet with ad agencies to fashion or tinker with their ads.

But humans are not entirely removed from the process. They are still involved in shooting the footage for the campaign options online and managing the new sites, among other tasks.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/...iness/adco.php





Reporters and Sources Slowed Their Dance to Show the Steps
David E. Sanger

THE conviction of I. Lewis Libby last week unleashed the expected debate over who was the biggest loser: Mr. Libby himself; an administration that now sees a loyal insider facing prison; or the press corps, which hardly emerged unscathed and worries that the trial gives confidential sources one more reason to shut up.

But lost in that discussion is how much has changed since the summer of 2003 in the delicate dance between reporters and sources. Both are under intense new pressure to show their work — to explain what is a fact and what is an assumption or an extrapolation. It is a pressure that is building on government officials who once sat at lunch dropping a knowing line like, “I can’t go into the details, but the Iranians are building. ...”

And more than ever it is building on reporters whose job it is to go beyond reporting the latest conclusions of a secret National Intelligence Estimate and explain to their readers whether those conclusions — and the always-murky data attached to them — are reasonable, or being twisted to fit a policy agenda.

None of this started with Mr. Libby, of course, but his case centered on a brief window in time that summer, when the White House was forced to admit that it couldn’t support President Bush’s assertion that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Africa. Amid nasty finger-pointing between the White House and the C.I.A., the administration suddenly had to declassify its intelligence findings, in a desperate effort to explain why Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made so many false assertions. Mr. Libby was consumed in that effort.

Ever since, no one in the administration has been able to stuff the intelligence genie back into the C.I.A.’s black bag. And so whether the subject is yellowcake in Africa, centrifuges in North Korea, a drawing of two hemispheres of uranium in Iran, or the pedigree of roadside bombs in Iraq, there is this different dynamic at work.

The understandable instinct to say, “Sorry, it’s classified,” has been tempered by the belated realization of the administration that its credibility has suffered so much damage, at home and abroad, that it has little choice but to reveal a broader sampling of the evidence that it reflexively stamps Top Secret. For the first time in memory in dealing with a White House that prizes “no comments,” it is easier to squeeze officials into explaining how they reached their conclusions — and who dissented.

“As a nation, we’ve lost something that’s very hard to get back, which is the benefit of the doubt,” said Ashton B. Carter, a Harvard professor worked for the Clinton administration and is now on an advisory panel to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “It will be years before we restore our reputation for veracity, and the only way to do that is to reveal more about the sensitive information that underlies our policies.”

The White House has hardly opened the spigot. Ask about the intelligence on the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Pakistan that led to Mr. Cheney’s recent trip. Or about evidence that American allies in the Middle East are toying with going nuclear. Officials remain tight-lipped.

But there have been exceptions. Even in the two months that Mr. Libby was in the dock, his old colleagues were busy talking. A military show-and-tell last month about Iran’s role in Iraq illustrated the new imperatives for the government: to demonstrate a bit more evidence, and to backtrack when the evidence doesn’t support the contentions. After weeks of promises from American officials in Baghdad and Washington to prove their case of Iranian meddling, American military and intelligence officials in Baghdad finally showed their evidence in February, laying out components for assembling deadly new varieties of roadside bombs. They showed off serial numbers and other evidence that they argued linked the weapons to Iranian arms factories.

Partly because it took the military so long to get its presentation together, the news coverage was skeptical. It was a skepticism fueled by the assertion of an anonymous briefer, who cited no evidence in declaring that Iran’s leadership had authorized smuggling the weapons into Iraq for attacks on Americans. That’s when it got interesting.

Back in Washington, first Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then Mr. Bush backpedaled, saying they could not prove Iran’s leaders were behind the attacks. “Part of it was messed up,” one senior military official acknowledged. “But everyone knew that every statement had to be footnoted. That’s new.”

And two weeks ago American intelligence officials were scrambling to explain their doubts, as well as their conclusions, about the extent of progress North Korea has made in enriching uranium, a different pathway to a bomb from the one used for the North’s nuclear test last year.

The big question is how long this flirtation with openness will last, and how long journalists will remember the bitter lessons that arose from their inability (critics would say unwillingness) to insist that the government talk not only about its conclusions, but about its logic. Officials are loath to do so, often invoking the familiar refrain that it would endanger “sources and methods.”

Sometimes it clearly would. But the Iraq experience also offered some lessons for reporters in how to test both the findings and the analysis of American intelligence agencies. The most straightforward way is to compare Washington’s analysis to the intelligence findings of other countries, or to those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose deadly dry reports on Iran have been the main source of information about the progress of its nuclear program.

The I.A.E.A.’s record isn’t perfect, but it was, after all, that agency and the Italians who played a big role in casting doubt in 2003 on Mr. Bush’s claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa. But even some I.A.E.A. officials complain that because of American mistakes, all intelligence reports are now considered suspect, including the agency’s.

That creates the risk that the next big intelligence mistake may be in the other direction: that over-caution could result in missing evidence of a country speeding toward weapons of mass destruction. In fact, Iraq was an anomaly. Many of the big intelligence failures of the past have included missing the speed at which the Soviets, the Chinese, the Indians and the Pakistanis were getting ready to test a weapon.

Nicholas Lemann, the dean of Columbia Journalism School, teaches a course called “Evidence and Inference,” and says he is now “hammering into the head of everyone around here that when someone tells you something, you have to say, ‘Walk me through how you came to your conclusion.’ ”

“It’s an ethos issue,” he said. Whether the new ethos proves lasting depends on how many in Washington — the spooks, the policymakers, the reporters — learned the real lessons of Iraq, and of the cascade of events that led to Mr. Libby’s troubles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/we.../11sanger.html





With Redesign of Time, Sentences Run Forward
Katharine Q. Seelye

Having just turned 84, Time magazine is coming out with a new look and editorial approach on Friday.

In: A cleaner, simpler design, heavy on labels at the top of each page and the names of its columnists in World-War- II-size type — the better to brand with.

Out: The last remnants of Time's signature syntax, parodied by the humorist Wolcott Gibbs with his phrase, "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind."

Richard Stengel, Time's new managing editor, said the inverted syntax would vanish from the Milestones section, where it still crops up in obituaries.

"Henry Luce may be rolling over in his grave over this," he said of Time's co-founder. "But it had outlasted its usefulness." Still, he said, Luce might like some of the changes, including the reintroduction of distinct sections.

The iconic cover is still recognizably Time, with its posterlike presentation of a central image showcased inside a red border. But the familiar Time logo is a bit smaller, to make room for three or four teaser boxes across the top.

The redesign is the latest step in a major retrenchment meant to uproot the magazine from the perception of it as a weekly report (meaning old news) to one that is more timeless, with the hope of staying relevant in a 24/7 news cycle with its Web site, time.com.

Since Stengel's appointment last spring, Time has cut back its circulation, from 4 million to 3.25 million. The move eliminated copies that were going to places like doctors' offices where they were not necessarily wanted, and it reduced the rates that advertisers had to pay.

Time also switched its publication date to Friday from Monday, cut 50 people from its staff, shut its bureaus in Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles, and invested more in its Web site. It further saved costs by contracting with more columnists, who, as established writers, may be less expensive than full-time staff journalists.

The new design allows the magazine to highlight these columnists and shift its editorial approach from a single omniscient voice to multiple well-known voices (more like its rival Newsweek). Time's columnists include Joe Klein, Michael Kinsley and William Kristol.

Helping to streamline the look of the magazine is the elimination of most of its custom editions, sought by advertisers who wanted to reach narrow slices of readers based on geography and demographics.

In some weeks, Time printed as many as 30,000 (yes, 30,000) different versions of the magazine, said Edward McCarrick, the publisher, adding that it was not worth the effort.

Stengel said he sought inspiration for the redesign in back issues of Time that are bound and locked in a closet near his office on the 24th floor of the Time & Life Building in New York's Rockefeller Center.

"The original Time magazine divided the world into sections," he said. "It was like a TV dinner, where you had your dessert course, your main course, your vegetable course."

He said he would replicate that experience, with the new magazine clearly demarcated into something like chapters, each beginning on a right- hand page and taking the reader through Briefing, Arts and Ideas.

They will include yet more well-known writers who have what Stengel calls "branded expertise" in subjects like law and health.

Whether these changes can save the magazine remains to be seen. Or, as Gibbs wrote in 1936 in The New Yorker: "Where it all will end, knows God!"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...iness/time.php





Citizen Journalism Wants You!
Jay Rosen

Welcome to Assignment Zero. It's pro-am journalism in the open style made possible by the web. This is a collaboration among NewAssignment.Net, Wired and those who choose to participate.

I hope you will. Because we're trying to figure something out here. Can large groups of widely scattered people, working together voluntarily on the net, report on something happening in their world right now, and by dividing the work wisely tell the story more completely, while hitting high standards in truth, accuracy and free expression?

If they can, this would matter.

It's called Assignment Zero because we needed to jump start our site somehow, and this project with Wired turned out to be it. We're trying to create a pro-am, open-platform reporting tool that we can improve and modify later, for use in bigger, more sprawling and difficult stories down the road. Maybe about the environment. Or the schools. Or -- who knows? -- the war.

We're going to start with something closer to home, a story tangled up with the birth of NewAssignment.Net. I suppose some people consider it a "techie" subject. I do not. But it's definitely web journalism about something happening in the wider world because of the web. As I understand it, that is Wired's beat.

We're going to investigate the growth and spread of crowdsourcing, which overlaps with something called peer production. (Yochai Benkler's complete term is "commons-based peer production.") This basically means people making valuable stuff by cooperating online, mainly because they want to and sometimes because they're paid to assist.

Wired has paid special attention to the crowd-sourcing of new products, as with an open call for cool designs. This taps people outside the firm as potential producers, typically unpaid but doing it for their own reasons. (Like to get their ideas out there.) You know of outsourcing. Meet crowdsourcing.

While the geeks invented such practices, first with free software, then with open source, they long ago lost control of them; and today crowdsourcing is on the rise across a wide social landscape, from corporate America and government to arts and crafts. Wikipedia calls this open-source culture.

Collaboration in the open-source diaspora and why it works when it does (plus what it can't do ...), that's a sprawling and nuanced story with lots of locations. It lies in pieces -- and in people who know the practices. There's also a little mystery at the core of it: Why are these people willing to work for free?

After the crash of TWA Flight 800, the investigators cleared out a hangar and tried to find all the pieces of the plane so they could examine each and figure out what happened. In a way what we're doing is crash-site journalism. But for a social wave that's still breaking.

The part we need you for is to help us find the best parts, and develop them into pieces of original reporting. If there's a piece of it you're especially interested in -- Assignment Zero interviews Jimmy Wales about the social architecture that makes Wikipedia work (a piece we will do -- then you can work on it with others at our site, and maybe get the byline, even though everyone else gets (some) credit, too.

We'll give assignments to anyone who can complete the mission, and donate quality work. Anything you know that will help us track the spread of crowd sourcing and peer production can (if we do this right) be filed at the Assignment Zero site. Anyone you know who participates in "wisdom of the crowd" projects is a source for us. We're asking those with real experience in open-source or crowd-driven projects to take our survey of volunteers. The more we get the better a survey it is.

And if you just have an interest in developing this kind of journalism for future use, join the project. There will be plenty to do.

A professional newsroom can't easily do reporting in the many-to-many style. It's a closed system. Because only the employees operate in it, there can be reliable controls. That's the strength of the system. The weakness is the newsroom only knows what its own people know or dig up. Which wasn't much of a weakness before the internet made it possible for the people formerly known as the audience to realize some of their informational strengths.

The site we built for Assignment Zero is "open platform." Anyone can wander by and check out what we're doing. And if we do this right, anyone can find within minutes something useful to do. We're betting that openness has editorial advantages bigger than its well-known weak points. (Which include trolls, fools, spam, sabotage, edit wars and the inflow of "crap.")

Assignment Zero works like this:

• We're going to take one big, moving story -- the spread of crowdsourcing and peer production methods across wired society -- and with your active assistance break it down into reportable parts. Some of these parts we already have. More of them is what we need.
• Then we're going to develop those parts -- in the open, at the site -- into pieces we can formally assign to contributors. Each piece is a part of a larger puzzle we are putting together. We don't know yet how many pieces there will be. It's open-ended.
• We'll set deadlines for those pieces, and with your help find contributors who are motivated and qualified to complete them. Not for pay (we're not at that stage yet) but for public benefit and some byline glory in the final results. An "author" in our system can be an individual writer, a two- or three-person team. A class could get an assignment. A blog, plus users, could do one. In an agreement with Calvin Tang and Mike Davidson, the founders of Newsvine, we are going to ship to them a "box" of assignments for people at that site to complete. It will then be up to Newsvine to figure out how to get those pieces done. They have plans.
• We'll edit what comes in and with the crowd's help verify it to the best of our ability. (Our director of verification is Craig Silverman from Regret the Error.)
• Final results? That will probably take a couple of months. We plan to publish in a package at NewAssignment.Net all the pieces that came in and made the editor's final cut. Could there be video? Some, yes, but we have to think about it. Could there be audio? There could be. Photos, of course. Wired will run a piece by Jeff Howe drawing off Assignment Zero. Wired will be free to pick and choose from tour final package and publish any portion of it, in print or online. What doesn't run at our site or at Wired.com can appear elsewhere on the net. (We won't own your content. A Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License will apply.)

Pro-am means just that: a mix of professional and amateur talent. Some formatting, some freestyling. Some things decided by editors, others left to participants. We don't know what the optimal mix is yet.

Assignment Zero started when Evan Hansen, editor in chief of Wired News, wrote to me shortly after NewAssignment.Net was announced in the summer of 2006. He said he wanted to experiment at Wired's site with some of the same ideas. The most important of these was Dan Gillmor's citizen journalism classic: My readers know more than I do. They always had, but with the net they can bring it on.

Evan and I wondered: In situations where Gillmor's maxim applies, and readers collectively do know more than we do, could we pull that scattered knowledge together and tell a story of interest to Wired, and to others in the culture? He wanted to try it, as one path to innovation for his site. I wanted to try it, so that I could bootstrap New Assignment.Net and launch our beta site around the requirements of a particular story.

But we needed the particular story. I suggested to Evan a big, sprawling, pro-am, people-powered report on all the various forms of crowdsourcing and peer production now popping up across the social landscape, as the tools for online collaboration keep improving and people find new uses for the web. It's one of the more exciting things happening in Wired's field of vision, made possible precisely because we are so "wired." (That is, some of us are.)

Like any such shift it generates hype and improper definition when mainstreamed. So I said to Evan: It's been done, but we could tell this story way better if we took it by swarm. Let's find out what life is really like on the open-source frontier, which is big enough now to be unaware of its total reach. Let's try to find all examples, do a 360-degree sweep, and bring the parts together for analysis. And above all, let's locate the people who, living and working on that frontier (though they have others lives too) really know this subject from the inside out. Their realism is precious.

I wanted to cast a wide net, from well-publicized cases like Wikipedia, Linux software and the Mozilla browser, to less familiar examples like community patent review or open-source spying, newer ventures like open-source footware, or the crowdsourcing of consumer electronics, along with open-call T-shirt design and efficient collaboration among knitters, which is peer production, too.

Evan Hansen went for it, and Assignment Zero was born. Wired News and Wired magazine agreed to pay the costs of the editor we hired to organize the story and run the project from start to finish. She's Lauren Sandler. (Here's her blog, the best way to keep in touch with the project.)

Lauren has covered everything from cultural politics in the U.S. to the war in Iraq. She's been a producer at NPR, an editor at Salon and has taught in the graduate journalism program at NYU. She's also written a book (about evangelical youth in the United States) based on her immersion reporting. A pro but not a geek. One reason I hired her is she isn't native to "open source," or to web culture. She has brought fresh eyes.

The editor's job is part traditional. She has to commission work, set deadlines, keep track of all the parts and bring the whole thing in on time. In an open newsroom, none of that happens without quality participation. Making it happen is Amanda Michel's job. She used to work in politics -- online organizing -- then at Harvard's Berkman Center. She's the director of participation for Assignment Zero and for NewAssignment.Net. Her position is like the community guy in an open-source software project. It takes an editor (Sandler) and a DP (Michel) to complete the assignment when it's open platform journalism.

Evan Hansen also assigned to the project an extremely qualified writer, Wired's Jeff Howe, who helped coin the term crowdsourcing. Now he's writing a book about it. Jeff will be doing a big feature for Wired.com that will feed off of Assignment Zero, and link to parts of it. A good way into this subject is to read Jeff's earlier coverage of crowdsourcing: His original Wired story, a piece about Gannett, the big newspaper company, going to crowdsourcing and his blog.

Joining them is Steve Fox, editor at large for Assignment Zero and project manager for the launch site. He's a career journalist who spent 10 years at the Washingtonpost.com, as it rose from nothing to lead the big newspaper sites. He's also taught web journalism at the University of Maryland. David Cohn, who has been editing the NewAssignment.Net blog, is associate editor of Assignment Zero, Lauren Sandler's deputy, and head blogger for the project.

ChapterThreeLLC and partner Zack Rosen are our developers (Zack is my nephew.) They work in Drupal, an open-source content-management platform and developers' community. The site is designed by Unified Field in New York, led by Marla Supnick and Eli Kuslansky.

One day, stories with a thousand people on the masthead might become routine, and we'll know how to do them. Right now we're seeking hundreds, who can help us take apart and put together a single sprawling story that matters to Wired and the world beyond.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72970-0.html