Letters from Septic Land

‘Then This Happened’

2010-08-21T16:25:00.001-04:00

This is what high-end smartphones looked like in 2007:

Smartphones were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws.

Then this happened:

Other manufacturers had neglected touchscreens for years, but Apple figured out how to do a touchscreen well, and did.

Fans of the former types of smartphones and much of the tech press declared this smartphone useless or not capable enough because of its lack of a keyboard, its non-removable battery, its lack of expansion slots or ports, and other hardware features in which Apple chose differently from what most other manufacturers were doing.

That ended up not mattering. Now, most high-end smartphones look like this:

In early 2010, subcompact, inexpensive computers (a.k.a. “netbooks”) looked like this:

Netbooks were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws.

Then this happened:

Other manufacturers had neglected tablets for years, but Apple figured out how to do a tablet well, and did.

Fans of netbooks and much of the tech press declared this subcompact, inexpensive computer useless or not capable enough because of its lack of a keyboard, its non-removable battery, its lack of expansion slots or ports, and other hardware features in which Apple chose differently from what most other manufacturers were doing.

That ended up not mattering. And now, other manufacturers are scrambling to build tablet products as quickly as possible.

How do you think the subcompact, inexpensive computer category will look in three years?

All original content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 U.S. License except that which is quoted from elsewhere or attributed to others. In short, you may reproduce, reblog, and modify my content, but you must provide proper attribution.
I'm Marco Arment, lead developer of Tumblr and Instapaper.

A "map" of Tweets

2010-04-26T16:50:00.001-04:00

Shuttle launch

2010-04-05T07:11:00.001-04:00

Why Google Should Buy Palm [Analysis]

2010-03-18T20:04:00.001-04:00

Why Google Should Buy Palm [Analysis]: "

With terrible sales and no sign of turnaround, Palm's options are whittling down to one: buyout. Ex-Appler Phil Kearney sees a buyer in Google, which, in its looming megawar with Apple, might need Palm as much as Palm needs it. More'»

(Via Gizmodo.)

A well thought out piece: "Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs"

2010-02-20T07:23:00.001-05:00

External Link: Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs: "Computer veterans often joke about 'newbie' users who have trouble understanding basic computing concepts, but it's not funny when you're attempting to help a friend understand something online or if you're dealing with customer support questions. ShoveBox developer Dan Grover writes about the divide between how computers work and the expectations of those who use them, with suggestions for how to improve the experience.

iPad Snivelers: Put Up or Shut Up [NSFW]

2010-02-01T13:25:00.001-05:00

It's taken me a couple of days for me to understand the wet sickness I felt in response to all the post-iPad whining, until it finally came up in a sputtering lump: disgust.

The iPad isn't a threat to anything except the success of inferior products. And if anything's dystopian about the future it portends, it's an American copyright system that's been out of whack since 1996.

Mark Pilgrim, a man I don't know but can easily presume is my technical better many times over if only because he is employed by Google, said this in a piece called 'Tinkerer's Sunset':

Now, I am aware that you will be able to develop your own programs for the iPad, the same way you can develop for the iPhone today ... And that's fine - or at least workable - for the developers of today, because they already know that they're developers. But the developers of tomorrow don't know it yet. And without the freedom to tinker, some of them never will.

Then, John Naughton, writing for the Guardian:

For the implication of an iPad-crazed world – with its millions of delighted, infatuated users – is that a single US company renowned for control-freakery will have become the gatekeeper to the online world. The iPad – like the iPhone – is a closed, tightly controlled device: nothing gets on to it that has not been expressly approved by Apple. We will have arrived at an Orwellian end by Huxleian means. And be foolish enough to think that we've attained nirvana.

This noxious attitude has permeated our tech culture for the last couple of decades, from a half-decade of open-source devotees crying about Microsoft on Slashdot, on toward the last few years of Apple ascendency. It's childish. It's defeatist. And it shows a simultaneous fear to actually innovate and improve while spilling gallons of capitulative semen to a fatuous, dystopian cuckold wank-mare.

Stop trembling, start creating

Nerds! You're not smarter or better than the people who just want to use your creations for their own purpose. You want it both ways: to be able to complain about the incompetency of your family when you're asked to help them work on their computers, but to swing around the half-understood ideas of dead authors when a company actually decides to build a computer that doesn't crumble to dust as a matter of course.

You learned to love technology by tinkering? That's great! Please explain to me how a closed ecosystem like Apple's will impede a curious child's ability to explore in the least way. It's not 1980. It doesn't cost a month's salary to buy a computer. And as long as it takes code to make programs, there will still be plenty of 'real' computers around.

Worse, this inviolate right to tinker you claim, the oh-so-horrible future you're trying to frighten everyone with literal think-of-the-children fearmongering, is the imagined possibility that future engineers won't be able to create their own tools.

Well guess what? Only shade-tree tweakers give a flip about creating their own tools. Most people want to use the quality tools at hand to create something new.

Fix the law

Is the DMCA a travesty? Is it bullshit that someone should go to jail for cracking the firmware of a device they own? Of course. Only monsters would allow the curious to go to jail for exploring. Every song ever recorded, every movie ever filmed—they're all together less important than a person's freedom.

But you know what will fix those issues? It's not bitching about how those stupid customers may or may not buy an iPad. It's fixing the legal system. (Or for most of us, myself included, letting the EFF fight those battles for us.)

The number of engineers complaining about Apple's decisions who aren't using products of other capitalist corporations who thrive in the shadow of patent law and the DMCA approaches zero: Moan away in your Google browsers on Windows running on your copyrighted Intel processors. You're really fighting the good fight.

Hilariously, the great open-source hope is Google's Android, but its best apps are designed—and tightly controlled—by Google, which has used its clout to roll over countless web-based companies in a manner just as Orwellian or Huxleyan or whoever it is we're invoking now as Apple or Microsoft.

If you want to walk the walk, you can follow Stallman's lead and do all your computing on a tiny netbook, interfacing with the internet from a text console running emacs. Let me know how that works out for you. Be sure to take a picture of yourself using your Lemote Yeeloong next to the biodiesel engine you made on your handforged anvil.

Fix your product

'Now it seems [Apple is] doing everything in their power to stop my kids from finding that sense of wonder. Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world,' whimpers Pilgrim. Grow the fuck up. Apple has no more 'declared war' on your children than Henry Ford declared war on colors besides black.

Apple is selling a product. They've chosen to keep it closed for demonstrably reasonable benefits. And—yes, okay!—several collateral benefits that come from controlling the marketplace that services their products.

But Apple is not the government. There's no mandate to buy an Apple product except the call of excellence. And if you think the average persona on the street doesn't recognize both the ups and downs of buying into an Apple ecosystem, you're eyeing them with the typical nerd myopia, looking down your nose with the same autistic disdain you cultivated in high school. Turns out the internet you helped build as a sanctuary ended up a great place for normal folk, too.

Consider a path that will truly inspire the coming generations of tinkerers and engineers: Working your ass off to make a product that competes with Apple on every count that matters—design, ease-of-use, a simple marketplace, customer satisfaction; you know, everything—and does it with the open-source licenses and values you claim to believe in; or fight to change the broken copyright laws that demonize the tinkering in the first place.

(Via Gizmodo.)

The Most Heart-Wrenching Explanation Of The Mars Spirit Rover's Life Yet [Mars Spirit Rover]

2010-01-29T09:01:00.001-05:00

The Most Heart-Wrenching Explanation Of The Mars Spirit Rover's Life Yet [Mars Spirit Rover]: "

Addy and I are both weeping dusty red-colored tears in honor of the Spirit Rover's new permanent surroundings after reading this xkcd chronicle of his poor little life. [xkcd]

(Via Gizmodo.)

What's missing from the iPad?

2010-01-27T19:08:00.001-05:00

All in all, the iPad turned in a pretty exciting product debut. I don't think Apple will have any trouble selling these things, and it can't be a very good day in Amazon, Sony or Barnes and Noble's executive suites.

While all the final info is not out yet, there were a few major omissions from the iPad hardware. Here's the highly desireable stuff that came out missing :

No camera, which means no video conferencing. No quick shots for blog posting. No videos.

No Verizon. The AT&T pricing looks good, but is it really unlimited or is there a 5GB ceiling? Many users are pretty desperate to get away from AT&T, so it was surprising Apple went for another partnership with them.

No notifications. Not a word was said about them. They might be in there, since the iPad clearly runs iPhone apps (and what iPhone app doesn't notify you these days?) but nothing was demoed.

Enhanced multitouch. As far as we can tell, it works the same as the iPhone -- no dynamic tactile interface, no pressure sensitive screen, nothing special that we know about yet.

No TV content. Of course there's the iTunes deals, but Apple has apparently been scrambling around to make so DVR deals as well. So far, nothing.

No multitasking. Perhaps the biggest disappointment: no streaming media apps while punching out a document in Pages. No MLB video running in a corner while you read your mail, or pulling up a PDF while chatting with a friend.

I think the iPad will be a superior device, and will sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Apple will certainly extend and enhance the iPad over time, but it would have been great to see some of these things in the initial release.

Anything else we missed that they missed?

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Tech Reflections - Digital Muse for Beat Poet - NYTimes.com

2010-01-23T19:31:00.001-05:00

Tech Reflections - Digital Muse for Beat Poet - NYTimes.com: "Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh

By Gary Snyder

Because it broods under its hood like a perched falcon,

Because it jumps like a skittish horse and sometimes throws me,

Because it is poky when cold,

Because plastic is a sad, strong material that is charming to rodents,

Because it is flighty,

Because my mind flies into it through my fingers,

Because it leaps forward and backward, is an endless sniffer and searcher,

Because its keys click like hail on a boulder,

And it winks when it goes out,

And puts word-heaps in hoards for me, dozens of pockets of gold under boulders in streambeds, identical seedpods strong on a vine, or it stores bins of bolts;

And I lose them and find them,

Because whole worlds of writing can be boldly laid out and then highlighted and vanish in a flash at ‘delete,’ so it teaches of impermanence and pain;

And because my computer and me are both brief in this world, both foolish, and we have earthly fates,

Because I have let it move in with me right inside the tent,

And it goes with me out every morning;

We fill up our baskets, get back home,

Feel rich, relax, I throw it a scrap and it hums.

Copyright Gary Snyder, used by permission"

(Via .)

The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This

2010-01-21T10:56:00.001-05:00

The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This [Apple]: "

Some people want the Apple Tablet to run Mac OS X's user interface. Others think its UI will be something exotic. Both camps are wrong: The iPhone started a UI revolution, and the tablet is just step two. Here's why.

If you are talking hardware, you can speculate about many different features. But when it comes to the fabled Apple Tablet, there are basically three user interface camps at war. On one side there are the people who think that a traditional GUI—one built on windows, folders and the old desktop metaphor—is the only way to go for a tablet. You know, like with the Microsoft Windows-based tablets, and the new crop of touchscreen laptops.

In another camp, there are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface that nobody can imagine now, one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone—even while Apple and thousands of experts have explored every UI option imaginable for decades.

And then there's the third camp, in which I have pitched my tent, who says that the interface will just be an evolution of an existing user interface, one without folders and windows, but with applications that take over the entire screen. A 'modal' user interface that has been proven in the market battlefield, and that has brought a new form of computing to every normal, non-computer-expert consumer.

Yes, people, I'm afraid that the tablet will just run a sightly modified version of the iPhone OS user interface. And you should be quite happy about it, as it's the culmination of a brilliant idea proposed by a slightly nutty visionary genius, who died in 2005 without ever seeing the rise of the JesusPhone.

This guy's name was Jef Raskin.

The incredible morphing computer

Raskin was the human interface expert who lead the Macintosh project until Steve Jobs—the only guy whose gigantic ego rivaled Raskin's—kicked him out. During his time at Apple, Raskin worked on a user interface idea called the 'information appliance,' a concept that was later bastardized by the Larry Ellisons and Ciscos of this world.

In Raskin's head, an information appliance would be a computing device with one single purpose—like a toaster makes toast, and a microwave oven heats up food. This gadget would be so easy to use that anyone would be able to grab it, and start playing with it right away, without any training whatsoever. It would have the right number of buttons, in the right position, with the right software. In fact, an information appliance—which was always networked—would be so easy to use that it would become invisible to the user, just part of his or her daily life.

Sound familiar? Not yet? Well, now consider this. Later in his life, Raskin realized that, while his idea was good, people couldn't carry around one perfectly designed information appliance for every single task they can think of. Most people were already carrying a phone, a camera, a music player, a GPS and a computer. They weren't going to carry any more gadgets with them.

He saw touch interfaces, however, and realized that maybe, if the buttons and information display were all in the software, he could create a morphing information appliance. Something that could do every single task imaginable perfectly, changing mode according to your objectives. Want to make a call? The whole screen would change to a phone, and buttons will appear to dial or select a contact. Want a music player or a GPS or a guitar tuner or a drawing pad or a camera or a calendar or a sound recorder or whatever task you can come up with? No problem: Just redraw the perfect interface on the screen, specially tailored for any of those tasks. So easy that people would instantly get it.

Now that sounds familiar. It's exactly what the iPhone and other similar devices do. And like Raskin predicted, everyone gets it, which is why Apple's gadget has experienced such a raging success. That's why thousands of applications—which perform very specialized tasks—get downloaded daily.

The impending death of the desktop computer

Back in the '80s, however, this wasn't possible. The computing power wasn't there, and touch technology as we know it didn't even exist.

During those years, Raskin wanted the information appliance concept to be the basis of the Mac but, as we know, the Macintosh evolved into a multiple purpose computer. It was a smart move, the only possible one. It would be able to perform different tasks, and the result was a lot simpler than the command-line based Apple II or IBM PC. It used the desktop metaphor, a desk with folders to organize your documents. That was a level of abstraction that was easier to understand than typing 'dir' or 'cd' or 'cls.'

However, the desktop metaphor still required training. It further democratized computing, but despite its ease of use, many people then and today still find computers difficult to use. In fact, now they are even harder to use than before, requiring a longer learning curve because the desktop metaphor user interface is now more complex (and abstract) than ever before. People 'in the know' don't appreciate the difficulty of managing Mac OS X or Windows, but watching some of my friends deal with their computers make it painfully obvious: Most people are still baffled with many of the conventions that some of us take for granted. Far from decreasing over time, the obstacles to learning the desktop metaphor user interface have increased.

What's worse, the ramping-up in storage capability and functionality has made the desktop metaphor a blunder more than an advantage: How could we manage the thousands of files that populate our digital lives using folders? Looking at my own folder organization, we can barely, if at all. Apple and Microsoft have tried to tackle this problem with database-driven software like iPhoto or iTunes. Instead of managing thousands of files 'by hand,' that kind of software turns the computer into an 'information appliance,' giving an specialized interface to organize your photos or music.

That's still imperfect, however, and—while easier than the navigate-through-a-zillion-folders alternative—we still have to live with conventions that are hard to understand for most people.

The failure of the Windows tablet

As desktop computing evolved and got more convoluted, other things were happening. The Newton came up, drawing from Raskin's information appliance concept. It had a conservative morphing interface, it was touch sensitive, but it ended being the first Personal Digital Assistant and died, killed by His Steveness.

Newton—and later the Palm series—also ran specialized applications, and could be considered the proto-iPhone or the proto-Tablet. But it failed to catch up thanks to a bad start, a monochrome screen, the lack of always-connected capabilities, and its speed. It was too early and the technology wasn't there yet.

When the technology arrived, someone else had a similar idea: Bill Gates thought the world would run on tablets one day, and he wanted them to run Microsoft software. The form may have been right, but the software concept was flawed from the start: He tried to adapt the desktop metaphor to the tablet format.

Instead of creating a completely new interface, closer to Raskin's ideas, Gates adapted Windows to the new format, adding some things here and there, like handwriting recognition, drawing and some gestures—which were pioneered by the Newton itself. That was basically it. The computer was just the same as any other laptop, except that people would be able to control it with a stylus or a single finger.

Microsoft Windows tablets were a failure, and they became a niche device for doctors and nurses. The concept never took off at the consumer level because people didn't see any advantage on using their good old desktop in a tablet format which even was more expensive than regular laptops.

The rise of the iPhone

So why would Apple create a tablet, anyway? The answer is in the iPhone.

While Bill Gates' idea of a tablet was a market failure, it achieved one significant success: It demonstrated that transferring a desktop user interface to a tablet format was a horrible idea, destined to fail. That's why Steve Jobs was never interested. Something very different was needed, and that came in the form of a phone.

The iPhone is the information appliance that Raskin imagined at the end of his life: A morphing machine that could do any task using any specialized interface. Every time you launch an app, the machine transforms into a new device, showing a graphical representation of its interface. There are specialized buttons for taking pictures, and gestures to navigate through them. Want to change a song? Just click the 'next' button. There are keys to press phone numbers, and software keyboards to type short messages, chat, email or tweet. The iPhone could take all these personalities, and be successful in all of them.

When it came out, people instantly got this concept. Clicking icons transformed their new gadget into a dozen different gadgets. Then, when the app store appeared, their device was able to morph into an unlimited number of devices, each serving one task.

In this new computing world there were no files or folders, either. Everything was database-driven. The information was there, in the device, or out there, floating in the cloud. You could access it all through all these virtual gadgets, at all times, because the iPhone is always connected.

I bet that Jobs and others at Apple saw the effect this had on the consumer market, and instantly thought: 'Hey, this thing changes everything. It is like the new Mac after the Apple II.' A new computing paradigm for normal consumers, from Wilson's Mac-and-PC-phobic step-mom to my most computer-illiterate friends. One that could be adopted massively if priced right. A new kind of computer that, like the iPhone, could make all the things that consumers—not professionals, or office people—do with a regular computers a lot easier.

This was the next step after the punching card, the command line, and the graphical desktop metaphor. It actually feels like something Captain Picard would use.

Or, at least, that's how the theory goes.

Potential UI problems they need to solve

For the tablet revolution to happen, however, the iPhone interface will need to stretch in a few new directions. Perhaps the most important and difficult user interface problem is the keyboard. Quite simply, how will we type on the thing? It's not as easy as making the iPhone keyboard bigger. You can read our analysis of the potential solutions here. The other issues involved are:

• How would Apple and the app developers deal with the increased resolution?

• How would Apple deal with multitasking that, in theory, would be easier with the increased power of a tablet?

• Where would Apple place the home button?

The resolution dilemma

The first question has an easy answer from a marketing and development perspective.

At the marketing level, it would be illogical to waste the power that the sheer number of iPhone/iPod Touch applications give to this platform. Does this mean that the Apple Tablet would run the same applications as the iPhone, just bigger, at full screen?

This is certainly a possibility if the application doesn't contain a version of its user interface specifically tailored for the increased screen real state. It's also the easiest one to implement. The other possibility is that, in the case the application is not ready for the extra pixel space, it may run alongside other applications running at 320 x 240 pixels.

Here is a totally made-up example of home-screen icons and apps running on a tablet at full screen:

However, this would complicate the user interface way too much. My logical guess is that, if the app interface is not Tablet-ready, it would run at full screen. That's the cheapest option for everyone, and it may not even be needed in most cases: If the rumors are true, there will be a gap between the announcement of the device and the actual release. This makes sense, as it will give developers time to scramble to get their apps ready for the new resolution.

Most developers will like to take advantage of the extra pixels that the screen offers, with user interfaces that put more information in one place. But the most important thing is that the JesusTablet-tailored apps represent an opportunity to increase their sales.

From a development point of view, this represents an easily solvable challenge. Are there going to be two applications, one for the iPhone/iPod touch, and another one for the tablet? Most likely, no. If Apple follows the logic of their Mac OS X's resolution-independent application guidelines—issued during the World Wide Developers Conference in June—the most reasonable option could be to pack the two user interfaces and associated art into a single fat application.

How to multitask

Most rumors are pointing at the possibility of multitasking in the tablet (and also on the iPhone OS 4.0). This will bring up the challenge of navigation through running apps that take all over the screen. Palm's Web OS solves this elegantly, but Apple has two good options in their arsenal, all present in Mac OS X.

The app switch bar or a dock

They can implement a simple dock that is always present on the screen or is invoked using a gesture or clicking a button or on a screen icon. This is the simplest available method, and can also be made to be flashy and all eye candy.

Exposé

This is one of those features that people love in Mac OS X, but that only a few discover on their own. Once you get it, you can't live without it. I can imagine a tablet-based Exposé as an application switcher. Make a gesture or click on a corner, and get all running applications to neatly appear in a mosaic, just like Mac OS X does except that they won't have multiple windows. The apps could be updated live, ready to be expanded when you touch one of them. Plenty of opportunity for sci-fi'ish eye candy here.

A gesture makes sense for implementing Exposé on the tablet—as you can do on the MacBook Pro—but they could also use their recently-patented proximity sensing technology. In fact, I love this idea: Make the four corners of the tablet hot, making icons appear every time you get a thumb near a corner. The icons—which could be user customizable—could bring four different functions. One of them would be closing the running application. The other, call Exposé and bring up the mosaic with all running applications. The other could invoke the home screen, with all the applications. And a fourth one, perhaps, could open the general preferences. Or bring a set of Dashboard widgets that will show instant information snippets, like in Mac OS X.

Here's an illustration—again, totally hypothetical—of what this sort of Exposé interface might look like:

The trouble with the home button

The physical home button in the iPhone and the touch plays a fundamental role, and it's one of the key parts of the interface. Simply put, without it, you can exit applications and return to the home screen. On the small iPhone, it makes sense to have it where it is. On this larger format—check its size compared to the iPhone here—things are not so clear.

Would you have a single home button? If yes, would you place it on a corner, where it could be easily pressed by one of your thumbs, as you hold the tablet? On what corner? If you add two home buttons, for easier access, wouldn't that confuse consumers? Or not? And wouldn't placing a button affect the perception of the tablet as an horizontal or vertical device? This, for me, is one of the biggest—and silliest—mysteries of the tablet.

What about if Apple decides not to use a physical button? Like I point out in the idea about Exposé, the physical button could be easily replaced by a user definable hot corner.

Revolution Part Two

With these four key problems solved, whatever extra Apple adds—like extra gestures—is just icing on the iPhone user interface cake that so many consumers find so delicious. The important thing here is that the fabled Apple Tablet won't revolutionize the computing world on its own. It may become what the Mac was to the command-line computers, but the revolution already started with the iPhone.

If Apple has interpreted its indisputable success as an indication about what consumers want for the next computing era, the new device will be more of the same, but better and more capable.

Maybe Apple ignored this experience, and they have created a magical, wondrous, an unproven, completely new interface that nobody can imagine now. You know, the one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone. I'm all for pancakes.

Or perhaps Steve Jobs went nuts, and he decided to emulate el Sr. Gates with a desktop operating system.

The most logical step, however, is to follow the iPhone and the direction set by Raskin years ago. To me, the tablet will be the continuation of the end for classic windowed environment and the desktop metaphor user interface. And good riddance, is all I can say.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Speaking of Wednesday

2010-01-20T16:13:00.001-05:00

Speaking of Wednesday: "

Today’s the day for Indie Relief: loads of great software, all proceeds to Haitian earthquake relief.

★

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Paying by the Bit: Internet Access in New Zealand

2010-01-15T15:31:00.001-05:00

A very funny post:

For reasons that would take too long to explain here, I moved to New Zealand about six months ago. I brought my life with me, including, among goods and chattels more varied than I had realized, my trusty Mac mini, which has been doing sterling duty as a Web and mail server for a year or more. My life also includes a wife and daughter, and they, not surprisingly, came with me too.

This has been an almost entirely unqualified success. The people in New Zealand are friendly, the food is astonishing, and the wine is spectacular. But, even in God's Own Country, nothing is perfect. New Zealand is a truly splendid place to live in many, indeed almost all, regards. But for a techie - and I am, quite unashamedly and unabashedly, one of that number - there are definite quibbles, of which by far the largest is bandwidth, or the lack thereof.

When I lived in America, I was undeniably spoiled, as many Americans tend to be. Life, however shallow it may have been in other regards when one lives in Florida, was certainly easy from a connectivity point of view. My home office had a broadband connection with, as I simply took for granted, took for my birthright, unlimited data. I could slurp down, and throw up, all the data I wanted. The Internet was mine, all of the time.

But when we signed up for our New Zealand connection, we were stunned - stunned, I say! - to discover that the Internet, in New Zealand, is a highly limited and finite resource. We went from 'all you can download' to 'you get 20 GB a month, you'll pay $100 a month, and you'll be grateful for it' in the time it takes to fly from Los Angeles to Auckland (which is, now I come to think about it, a horrendously long time). This was a most atrocious imposition for the Internet junkies that my wife and daughter had become (not me, though, of course - I was far too virtuous, too self-restrained). For all that New Zealand had to offer, the narrowness of its Internet pipes was simply intolerable.

We opted for the 'double your data' option (and the additional $30 per month that wasn't optional), but we still find ourselves limited by 40 GB per month. I check the online usage-meter every few days (using, in the process, a few more precious bytes; oh, the cruel, vicious, bitter irony!), and issue imprecations to Wife and Daughter, reminding them that Facebook is a luxury, not an absolute necessity; they, as addicts always do, try to justify their endless status-checking as being entirely reasonable, indeed essential. I calculate the bandwidth usage of Skype and of YouTube; I flinch when I see Daughter download another Mary-Kate and Ashley movie from iTunes (that's not really a bandwidth issue; that's just on general principles -
I'd cringe if that were happening if we had a free and entirely unlimited T3 connection direct to the trans-Pacific backbone). I have developed new and careful Internet habits: I use the 'Open link in new window' option if I think there's any possibility that I might want to visit a second link from the same page, to avoid potentially having to load the original page a second time, and Apple Mail no longer checks automatically every minute - each check uses several dozens of bytes, I'm sure, and they all add up. I even avoid visiting Japanese or Chinese sites, conscious of two-byte character sets using more than their fair share of bandwidth.

I check my Google Analytics numbers with conflicted emotions: every page view for our various blogs and online presences is, on the one hand, a cause for celebration - more visits, more revenue, more Internet fame and glory. On the other hand, those page views are also an occasion for more hand-wringing, since they were served up from my Mac mini, over my desperately and mercilessly limited Internet connection. I post photography from the beautiful country we now call home, but wince when I see that I've had visits to my site. Even the very act of visiting the Google Analytics Web site eats up a handful of kilobytes that I can scarce afford. Even writing this article is a painful experience; while the catharsis of venting about the
primitivity of our connection is undeniably therapeutic, every adjective, every atom of invective, every single character I devote to letting the world know how abjectly deprived we are is one fewer byte that can be used elsewhere.

The reason for this caution is simple. As soon as we reach our allocated 40 GB - think about that for a second; it's only a gig and a third per day, and the lovely and talented Mrs. McCabe, with whom I share everything, including my bandwidth, is a Web designer - a Gollum-like finger, somewhere in a dungeon buried deep in darkest Auckland, reaches out in the gloom, flicks a switch, and says 'It's dial-up for you. Your bandwidth is mine, it's mine, my precioussss.' And that's it. We're reduced to an Amish connection, one so slow it would be more efficient to hand-write packets of data and strap them to the legs of carrier pigeons. Web pages load - if they load - in minutes, rather than seconds. YouTube is a pipe dream. Downloads, well,
downloads don't. There has been much discussion around the blogosphere in the last month about when the first decade of the 21st century will end. Here in New Zealand that discussion is academic - we're still, at least in terms of Internettery, stuck back in the 1990s. My connection today is so slow that I half-expect to hear the dolphin-screech of a modem actually dialing in to Vodafone as I try to connect, and I'm grateful that I'm not on deadline for this article. Looking at the cave paintings of Lascaux would represent a faster data transfer than the one I'm hobbled with right now.

I have, I would like to stress, been more than diligent in my attempts to figure out where our precious data might be going. My first thought was Skype, given that Daughter spends much of her time video-chatting with friends back in the Northern Hemisphere. I installed iStat Menus; as far as I could tell, a two-way video conference was using only around 120 KBps. But Vodafone's (for they are our current Internet provider) online 'check your usage' tool was reporting that there were days when we used as much as 6.5 GB of data. The day we reached this number (our record so far, by the way) was a school day - I doubt, then, that Daughter's Skyping can be the culprit (she would have
needed 15 hours of non-stop chatting, and while she's good, even she's not that good).

I suspected that it might be my server. I was reluctant to give up running my own server after moving to New Zealand because I've localized a handful of my domains - mccabe.net.nz, threelions.co.nz, astralgraphics.co.nz - and it's hard to find U.S.-based hosting services that handle .nz domains. I host my personal site, stevemccabe.net, as well as my clients' sites, through a European hosting-and-reselling service, but they don't offer anything in the Kiwi domain space, so I've bought my domains through GoDaddy. I've become familiar with GoDaddy's DNS setup system, and so, frankly, it's just convenient to register with them and then host myself. That said, GoDaddy's pricing structure for hosting is Byzantine beyond belief (I've had
clients in the past want me to set up their sites on GoDaddy - oh, the power of advertising, especially if it involves scantily clad ladies with large chests - and I now make it a condition of service that I provide hosting as well as design) and life was so much easier when I knew that I had all the Internet connectivity I wanted.

So I looked at the traffic stats on my server. This was a bittersweet experience because on the one hand, no, I wasn't ploughing through my data, which was good, but on the other hand, this meant that my sites weren't getting the traffic I would have liked. Still, at least that was another possible culprit struck from the list.

I issued the sternest of imprecations to my girls, and, to all intents and purposes, stopped using the InterWebs. But no matter how much we cranked back our usage, we still found that we were using - or, at the very least, we were being reported as using - at least several hundred megabytes a day.

It was time to talk to Vodafone. I contacted them several times, and received several different bogus explanations: I had viruses (_ahem_, my network is Apple-only), I had moochers (WPA2 password, a house built of brick, a large garden) - basically, it was my fault, one way or another. It certainly couldn't be Vodafone's fault. I pushed a little further. I was told to install a data tracker - I was even sent Vodafone's recommended monitor, SurplusMeter. I installed it across my network, and it reported, of course, that I was using monstrous amounts of data. The reason was simple - it meters not only wide-area, but also local-area network traffic. My iMac, for example, was
pushing through megabyte after megabyte, even though I had no applications open at all. Well, none that would use the Internet.

Except iTunes. But I wasn't downloading anything. What I was doing was streaming music to my AirPort Express. SurplusMeter was recording every last packet that went out of the data port it was charged with monitoring - in this case, my AirPort card. I called Vodafone again, and explained that the numbers SurplusMeter reporting were meaningless. They said I should shut down my local network for a day and see what my numbers were like. I did - and on that day my wife's iMac managed not to report a single bit going in or out. Not bad for a Web designer who telecommutes between New Zealand and Florida.

Vodafone's next suggestion was that we had a line fault. This was a possibility - I live in a very old house (we think it's pre-war, but we're not sure which war; my money's on the Boer War) - and one of the call-centre people I spoke to noticed that, while a DSL modem typically reconnects four or five times a day, mine had already reconnected over a dozen times - and I still hadn't finished my first cup of coffee. They assured me that they would look into this, but in the meantime I'd need to disconnect my phone line (a service, mind you, that I pay for) for a day in case there was a problem with my DSL filters. This may, or may not, have been the problem; I have no way of knowing. Maybe they're still running tests. At the very least,
they haven't replied.

Finally, I wrote to Russell Stanners, CEO of Vodafone NZ, at the end of last month. A week or so later, I got a phone call from Vodafone, and, after a long chat, the rep who called me (also called Russell; hmm...) agreed to waive the $199 early termination fee and release me from the one-year contract that we would have been bound to until June 2010.

We're switching to TelstraClear. I'm not doing this because they're particularly brilliant, but because they do one thing that Vodafone don't - instead of dialing us back to pecking-out-bits-on-a-Morse-Code-tapper speeds, they'll keep on selling us more gigabytes. I'm willing to pay for a service (especially a service that I actually receive), but the idea that I only get my 40 gigabytes, and, regardless of whose fault it is, that's it, I'm cut off like a naughty schoolboy, well, that really chafes.

So now we're waiting. Our Internet connection went back to last-millennium speeds after only a fortnight this month, so we're struggling - some evenings we can't tell whether we're offline, or just really slow. And although I signed up to TelstraClear over a week ago, I just had a phone call from one of their reps letting me know that, because of the Christmas and midsummer holiday backlog, they won't flip our switch for another week.

I'll be emailing this article off to TidBITS World HQ shortly. I have no idea when they may get it. The Word document that contains this piece is 41 KB, which, at my current Internet speeds, could take until March to send. It might be quicker for me to save it to a CD, swim to California with the disc between my teeth, walk across the country, and hand it to Adam Engst personally.

[Bio: Steve McCabe is a Mac consultant, tech writer, and teacher who moved, for reasons that have but the most tangential connection to this article, to New Zealand in April 2009. He writes about his adventures in New Zealand, he blogs about tech, and he is currently rebuilding his personal Web site.]

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(Via TidBITS: Mac News for the Rest of Us.)

Help Haitians With a Donation to the American Red Cross

2010-01-13T16:05:00.001-05:00

Help Haitians With a Donation to the American Red Cross: "

I’m not sure what to say about the devastating earthquake in Haiti, other than to encourage you to help with a donation. (The form includes an Amazon payments options — super easy if you have an Amazon account.)

Another good option: Doctors Without Borders.

★

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Google to Cease Censoring Search Results in China?

2010-01-12T18:25:00.001-05:00

Google to Cease Censoring Search Results in China: "

Google senior vice president David Drummond:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

He also revealed that Google was the victim of a large-scale security attack last month, aimed at getting access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights advocates.

Good for Google.

★

(Via Daring Fireball.)

A trap set by Google?

2009-12-29T13:36:00.001-05:00

The story of Totlol - Totlol - Video for Kids: "The story of Totlol

Prelude - a trap set up by Google

Every start-up has a story. This is the story of Totlol. Because I did everything myself, it is also the story of almost two years of my life. It's the story of a flourishing service into which I put tons of work. It's the story of site for which I had high hopes. It's the story of how things unfolded when it has fallen into a trap set up by Google.

What?

A trap? Set up by Google?

Yep. It works in the following manner:

Google releases a public API. They watch what third-party developers do with the API and modify the Terms of Service (ToS) for that API in a way that prevents breakthrough potential. Google may then move to offer a similar service based on their platform rather than the API.

Unbelievable?

I thought so too. Until I experienced it first hand.

Read on.

Act one - I build a website

My son, now four, has been a YouTube user since the time he was about 10 months old. Not his fault. He'd crawl into the office, I'd point the browser to show him something interesting. I had 'online video' and 'kids' in my head for a while and in early 2008 I decided I'll make my ideas a project.

The very first prototype of Totlol had an upload button and no YouTube integration. When it was done I contacted a content creator with a good YouTube presence and showed it to them. The response: 'Great idea for a site' but 'we have limited resources when it comes to distributing ... so our participation isn't a sure thing.' They never uploaded. I got replies along the same lines from others I contacted.

That was not good.

Then I thought about YouTube a little more. When uploading to YouTube, content creators give an implicit right to distribute. They don't want to be bothered again. I figured that if I empower a community to sort what has already been uploaded it will have a chance of succeeding. The YouTube APIs provided the right tools.

I launched the first version of Totlol publicly on May 11, 2008. It introduced the concepts of community participation and video pre-screening and was very well received. With that feedback at hand I made a bold decision. I decided to commit to the project and make it a start-up. Making an even gutsier move I submitted an application for the TechCrunch 50 start-up competition. Then I went to work on building what I just promised to deliver in three months.

On June 16, 2008 I received, via Totlol's contact form, a message from Stephanie Liu, currently a Developer Technical Programs Manager at Google and back then part of the YouTube API team.

It said:

'I saw some blogs / articles about the site, and think it's a great example of how to use the APIs :) I'd like to feature the site on code.google.com'

We had a short discussion and finished exchanging information and files on the 18th. Then there was silence and what seemed like a couple of weeks have passed. Finally an e-mail arrived:

'Sorry for the delay -- Totlol is currently on the featured project widget on code.google.com and code.google.com/apis/youtube'

Delay? That happens. I said 'Really, really, really thanks' and went back to work building stuff.

Act Two - They change the terms

The interest in Totlol was not coincidental. It was one of the first to use tools provided as part of a major YouTube API upgrade done a few months prior. That upgrade also introduced a whole new set of ToS dated March 10, 2008. It is a boring document but I actually read it very carefully several times before starting to work on YouTube integration.

Though newly published less than four months prior, Google found it necessary to make a small update to the YouTube API ToS on July 7th.

A new restriction on commercial use was introduced:

'the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of the API Client containing YouTube audiovisual content, unless other content not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales.'

The tangled wording is specifically restrictive for sites where the main use case is watching videos. Such sites are navigated mainly by jumping from one video to the other. The occurrences of a page views in which there is no audiovisual content are random and far-between. Getting sponsorship under these terms would be ridiculous. Advertising revenue would be practically non-existent.

There was no announcement of the ToS change. It wasn't in the blog and though I've later looked in the Developer Forum archive, I could not find one there either.

Within two months of launching publicly, the legal walls that would later trap me have been erected. But no one told me.

By September I had a Beta and though I didn't make the cut for the TechCrunch 50, I moved on with enhancements. AgeOptimizer came in October. OAuth linked YouTube accounts came in January. By April I brought Totlol to the iPhone. It became an Apple featured Web App and I got another nod of approval when the site became a Webby Awards Official Honoree. The backend was finally stable. Usage was growing nicely. People really liked it.

Then, as I was ready to make a business move, I looked at the ToS again. They changed. I read them carefully and, oops, something was wrong. There was a new commercial use restriction.

Boom. I've hit the brick wall.

Act Three - Trapped

What can one do? I didn't know when the ToS changed nor the context in which it was done, but, I'm an optimist.

The commercial use restrictions set in the ToS do say that there may be exceptions if one can 'obtain YouTube's prior written approval'. With that in mind I went to Google I/O, the annual developer conference.

At the conference I met Kuan Yong, Sr. Product Manager at Google and as far as I knew, the person responsible for the API. He was about to give a presentation titled Best Practices for Writing Great, Monetizable YouTube Apps. I said 'hi' and sat down.

I thought Totlol was great, others thought Totlol was great and I knew the API team at YouTube thought it was great. I was hoping to see how it would be presented. It wasn't. It felt awkward. Bizarre. At least Kuan was kind enough to acknowledge Totlol and me verbally.

After the presentation was done I caught up with Kuan, we had a chance to chitchat and I popped the question. Sort of.

I didn't ask Kuan to allow me something specific. He couldn't do it anyway without consulting others. Instead I asked for help in finding a brand sponsor and demonstrated how Totlol will look with sponsorship in place.

After a few days and some e-mail exchange I got a clear message:

'I recommend that you do what all other websites do'.

I was trapped.

I basically had three options: I could leave things as are and have no business, I could intentionally violate the ToS and be at Google's grace or I could modify the site to circumvent the way the ToS were worded, sacrifice the user experience and hope to satisfy a sponsor. I didn't like my odds, my business plan was in ruins and generally speaking there is no point shouting at the rain.

At 2 AM, the morning of June 5 I posted a message on the site saying that it will close by the end of the month.

This is where things should have ended. But they didn't.

Act Four - You want to do what?

Friday, June 5 was e-mail day. TechCrunch did a story and the messages started flowing in. Among them was one from Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management at Google.

It was titled:

'From YouTube: brainstorming about what features you'd need on-site to recreate TotLol experience'

He said:

'I lead the product management team for the consumer experience at YouTube.com'

He stated:

'My goal is that eventually i'd like to support lots of successful vertical experiences such as yours w/in the site in addition to outside the site.'

He asked for my 'expertise' and he followed with some fairly specific questions.

I felt uneasy.

There was e-mail exchanged and then a meeting at a Starbucks in San Bruno. Hunter arrived at that meeting with a block of paper and pen. He was ready to take notes and he again asked very specific questions, some I dodged, some I answered. As a follow up to that meeting I clarified that I was at a 'stop loss' situation, pointed that they control the terms and hence control Totlol's future and offered my time under other arrangements if they are interested.

Within two days I had a reply. The mail contained some sentiments, vague hopes for the future and a lot of words. It also included this:

'Ultimately our role in the developer community is to provide technical guidance, promotional support and to ensure developers have a voice in the direction of our API roadmap. As a platform, we need to stay agnostic from the business-side of that equation.'

I wasn't sure what 'agnostic' meant so I checked. At the time, Hunter knew when and why the ToS were changed. I didn't know, he didn't tell me, and agnostic he wasn't.

Game over. Right? Nope.

Act Five - Not to die.

In the flood of e-mail that followed the closing announcement was something interesting. One user offered to make a donation, another said she'd like to pay a monthly fee, then another and another. A content creator wrote and said he was 'proud' to be on the site. People didn't just like Totlol. They loved it.

It was time not to die.

Anyone familiar with online marketing knows that converting site visitors into paying members is a monumental task. The numbers are brutal and this was to be the easy part. Google has published an adjacent document to the ToS, called Using the YouTube APIs to Build Monetizable Applications. If the ToS are walls, this document is like the barbed wire and warning signs that prevent you from even thinking of getting close to the wall.

The odds were still against me, but I was a year in the red and something is better than nothing. I decided I'd give it a try.

For the first time in my life I built something according to lawyers' guidelines not users' wishes. This is how the current set-up of Totlol came to be. This is why users are nagged. This is where the wording at the about page came from. I notified Hunter requesting that if Google is to object they'll do it sooner rather than later. There was no reply so I enabled fee requests.

Totlol users are serious people and Totlol is a serious full-featured web application. Now, supported solely by members it is still trapped, still can't breakthrough, but it is alive. It is a shining example for the true potential of YouTube and is one of, if not the, best YouTube powered website out there.

So they lived happily ever after. Yah, right.

Act Six - WTF?

Over the past couple of months I have checked YouTube API ToS at archive.org a few times but all they had was the March 10, 2008 version of the API ToS. This version obviously differs from the current version dated April 8, 2009 but it offers no indication as to how and when things changed.

Then in November archive.org updated.

I clicked the stored versions one by one and there it was, a ToS update dated July 7, 2008 . I compared it to the original and...

WTF?

On July 7?

That was way earlier than I thought! There was no major YouTube change at the time! That was at the time when I was working on the beta! That was like when...

I looked up an old e-mail thread. There it was, the old e-mail from Stephanie Liu. The one with the apology for the delay.

It said:

'Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 4:50 PM'

I actually felt my stomach turn.

Curtain - The six inches in front of your face

I contacted Hunter. I contacted Kuan. I contacted Stephanie. I even sent an e-mail to legal@google.com

Stephanie 'can't remember exactly' what the reason for the delay was. Her 'memory is hazy'. These are direct quotes in case you wondered. Kuan won't answer a simple question regarding his own I/O presentation. I guess he doesn't want to lie. If replying, Hunter emits random legal verbiage. The person who actually made the decisions is courageously hiding behind them.

So, let's sum things up. This is what happened:

When the YouTube API team saw Totlol they liked it. At about the same time someone else at Google saw it, realized the potential it, and/or similar implementations may have, and initiated a ToS modification. An instruction was given to delay public acknowledgement of Totlol until the modified ToS where published. Later an instruction was given to avoid public acknowledgement at all.

Why?

I think the simplest explanation may be the correct one. As Hunter stated very clearly - they have a goal. They also have a method that works. With some cover-up, silence and amnesia they almost got away with it.

What should I do about what has happened?

I really don't know, but maybe you do. Here is the contact form. Use it as you like.

As for the future, following instructions from my wife, I'm looking for a job. Not a project or a start-up idea. A job, preferably with a stable, innovative and honest internet related company in the San Francisco Bay area where we currently live. I have a diverse skill set and I pay great attention to details. You may use the contact form for that too if relevant.

Thanks for making it this far.

I did my best.

That's what living is.

Ron.

"

(Via .)

President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA

2009-12-28T16:56:00.001-05:00

Today, DHS's Napolitano's response to the crotchbomber: 'We're looking to make sure that this sort of incident cannot recur.' But the TSA's response to Abdulmutalib's attempt makes one thing clear: We must stop pretending the TSA is making us safer.

Security expert Bruce Schneier nails the core incompetency: 'For years I've been saying 'Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.''

So what has the TSA done in response to the attempted attack? They've told airlines to make passengers stay in their seats during the last hour of flight. They've made it verboten for passengers to hold anything in their laps, again only during the last hour of flight. Perhaps most hilariously telling, they've forbidden pilots from announcing when a plane is flying over certain cities and landmarks.

There is no other way to interpret it: The TSA is saying clearly that they can't prevent terrorists from getting explosives on airplanes, but by god, they'll make sure those planes only explode when the TSA says it's okay.

I want our government to prevent terrorism and to make flights safer. But we are spending billions of dollars and man-hours to fight a threat that is less likely to kill a traveler than being struck by lightning. In the last decade, according to statistician Nate Silver, there has been 'one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown [the] equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.' (Sadly, this does mean that in the future we can expect one out of every two round-trip flights to Neptune to be hijacked.)

The TSA isn't saving lives. We, the passengers, are saving our own. Since its inception, the TSA has been structured in such a way as to prevent specific terror scenarios, attempting to disrupt a handful of insanely specific tactics, while continuing to disenfranchise and demoralize the citizens who are actually doing the work that a billion-dollar government agency—an agency that received an additional $128 million just this year for new checkpoint explosive screening technology—has failed to do.

We just had the first legitimate attempted attack in years, and the TSA changes the threat level from orange...to orange.

This goes far beyond simple customer satisfaction issues like 'Take Back Takeoff.' (Although they are of a kind.) It has to do with wildly irrationally response of a government agency in the face of failure. An agency whose leader, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, said at first blush that the attempted attack showed that—here comes the Katrina-class foot-in-mouth—'the system worked.' (She shoveled shit in her mouth this morning, while still talking up the asinine new measures that the TSA will be taking to respond to this isolated threat.)

I don't want to die on an airplane. I don't want to die in my home while eating an organic bagel infested with parasites that lay eggs on my liver. I don't want to die from starvation or bad water or a thousand other things that I pay our government to monitor and regulate.

But I also don't expect the government to protect from the literally endless possibilities and threats that could occur at any point to end my life or the life of the few I love. It's been nearly a decade since terrorists used airplanes to attack our country, and last week's attempt makes it clear that the lack of terrorist attacks have nothing to do with the increasing gauntlet of whirring machines, friskings, and arbitrary bureaucratic provisions, but simply that for the most part, there just aren't that many terrorists trying to blow up planes. Because god knows if there were, the TSA isn't capable of stopping them. We're just one bad burrito away from the TSA forcing passengers to choke back an Imodium and a Xanax before being hogtied to our seats.

President Obama, don't let this attack—this one attack that was thankfully stopped by smart, fearless passengers and airline staff—take us further in the wrong direction. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way. Americans of all stripes and affiliation standing up to say, 'This isn't working. We gave you our money. You're not making us safer.' We appreciate the attempt to make us safer and acknowledge that it came from an honest attempt to protect American (and the rest of the world's) lives.

But it's a failure. It's wrongheaded. It's a farce. Tear it down. Put the money towards the sort of actions at which our government excels, like intelligence. The failure of the TSA leaves us no choice, but it's okay. The American people are ready to take back the responsibility for our own safety. Really, we already have.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Regret the Error’s 2009 Year in Media Errors and Corrections

2009-12-16T18:06:00.001-05:00

Regret the Error’s 2009 Year in Media Errors and Corrections: "

One of my very favorite year-end list traditions. (Via Jim Coudal, who spotted one of the best.)

★

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Operation Chokehold v. AT&T and The Dark Star

2009-12-14T17:51:00.001-05:00

I’ll tell you something — I’m really blown away by the way people have responded to AT&T’s bastardly behavior over bandwidth usage. Our engineers are friggin livid. And, because they’re engineers, which means they’re basically evil little pricks, they’ve come up with a plan to teach AT&T a lesson. They’re calling it Operation Chokehold. Last night I got this email that they’ve been sending around inside Apple, encouraging people to join the crusade:

Subject: Operation Chokehold

On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. THe idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!

The engineers have asked me to serve as a kind of communications director for their efforts — soliciting ideas on what apps to use (Pandora may not be the best) and how to refine the attack on the network.

If anyone has ideas, use the comment strings. Tell your friends. Get people involved. We have five days to create a movement and plan a major assault. As the Portuguese said during the Obama campaign: Si, se puede.

FWIW, many of you probably know that Woz and I got our start by selling boxes that hacked the old phone system back in the 1970s. I hate these idiots more than you can imagine. The idea of spanking them like this just gives me tingles all over.

(Via The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.)

RT FB Robert Neuschul: "Sometimes I really DO love new technology: #Defamation Mapping of the World" http://bit.ly/8mVCJg

2009-12-12T18:48:00.001-05:00

Trafigura again gagging UK press. This time the BBC's Newsnight.

2009-12-12T18:04:00.001-05:00

This is Google's cache of http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8048626.stm. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 9 Dec 2009 13:53:18 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more

Text-only version
These search terms are highlighted: trafigura newsnight

Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast

By Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean
BBC Newsnight

It is the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century, the type of environmental vandalism that international treaties are supposed to prevent. Now Newsnight can reveal the truth about the waste that was illegally tipped on Ivory Coast's biggest city, Abidjan. A giant multinational is being sued in London's High Court by thousands of Africans who claim they were injured as a result.

The truth behind Ivory Coast toxic waste dump

Our investigation took us to Amsterdam where the waste could have been safely disposed of. Instead the company, Trafigura, went for the cheaper option and offloaded it in Abidjan.
Trafigura has always denied that the chemical waste was dangerous, but we have seen an analysis by the Dutch authorities which reveal it to be lethal.
We consulted a leading toxicologist, John Hoskins from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He said it would bring a major city to its knees.
The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations, and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".
A terrible smell
It happened on 19 August 2006 in the dead of night. A convoy of trucks from a newly-formed company in Abidjan arrived to take the waste away. They illegally dumped the first loads at the huge tip in Aquedo.

Watch Newsnight's 2007 investigation into claims toxic waste was dumped in Ivory Coast

A powerful stench soon engulfed the area. The tip's operators were called out and the drivers sent packing. They looked elsewhere to drop the waste, tipping it in at least 18 places across the city and beyond.
The Aquedo tip stretches as far as the eye can see. As scores of waste trucks tip their loads, an army of Abidjanis cluster around, children amongst them, brandishing long metal spikes. They pick through the rubbish, looking for anything that can be sold.

Deaths

We were soon surrounded by people, only too willing to talk about the night the toxic waste was dumped and the terrible smell that made them gag and sicken.

There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard
Esaie Modto, head of Djibli village

Just round the corner from the dump, we met Jean Francois Kouadio and his wife, Fidel.

She had been eight months pregnant with their first child when the fumes swamped their home. Fidel gave birth prematurely and the boy, Jean Claude, died within a day.
Their second child Ama Grace was born a year later. She too fell ill.
The doctors said that Ama Grace "was suffering from acute glycaemia caused by the toxic wastes".
They could do nothing for her and she died.
The medical reports state a "strong presumption" that the deaths of the two children were caused by exposure to the toxic waste and Jean Francois and Fidel now fear they will never become parents.
Polluted water
We also visited the village of Djibi, just outside Abidjan. The waste that was tipped here got into the water supply, killing the fish that fed the village.

Thousands of people say they were victims of the waste

The head of Djibi, Esaie Modto, told us that every last person here fell ill, two thousand people:
"There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard."
So what was it that brought such ruin on a country that in 2006 was still struggling to recover from a civil war?
The waste was generated as the result of an oil deal spanning three continents. Trafigura bought a consignment of cheap and dirty heavy oil with a high sulphur content. Instead of putting it through a refinery, Trafigura tried to clean it up, using a do-it-yourself method, so they could sell it on at a massive profit.
They used a ship called the Probo Koala which they stationed off Gibraltar as a rough and ready refinery. Caustic soda and a catalyst were added to the oil which reacted with the sulphur and settled to the bottom of the tank. Trafigura were then able to sell the oil, but left with a toxic sludge at the bottom of the tank.
"Smelly but not dangerous"
The Probo Koala went to Amsterdam where they attempted to unload this sulphurous tar as if it were normal ships' waste, which would have cost a few thousand euros.

Watch the 2007 Newsnight interview with Eric de Turckheim, co-founder of Trafigura

However the fumes were so bad, the emergency services were called and the Dutch authorities carried out tests. They discovered the waste was highly toxic and told Trafigura that it would cost half a million euros to dispose of safely.
The Probo Koala instead pumped the waste back on board and left port, ending up in West Africa.
Marietta Harjono of Greenpeace Nederland says this has led to a prosecution by the Dutch authorities for "falsification of papers - they deliberately were silent on the toxic nature of the waste", as well as for illegal import of toxic waste and "illegal export of toxic waste from Europe to Cote d'Ivoire".
When Newsnight first investigated the toxic dumping scandal in 2007 one of Trafigura's founders Eric de Turckheim told Jeremy Paxman "these materials were not dangerous for human beings. It was smelly, but not dangerous."
Newsnight's new investigation shows this was far from the case. Trafigura continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Read Trafigura's full statement
Watch Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean's investigation in full on Newsnight on Wednesday 13 May 2009 at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Bonjour, Y'all! ASN Split Personalities

2009-12-09T16:04:00.001-05:00

One company I worked at, some years back now, whose name I've redacted, to save the blushes of the guilty, used public IP addresses on their internal network - a recipe for disaster. With assistance from a good friend, we managed to dodge that particular bullet.

This is even worse :)

Remember when the telephone company came to your house to hook up your phone and gave you a new phone number? This new number was how your friends and family were going to contact you. You counted on the telephone company to ensure that someone hadn't already been issued that number, because if they had, various problems would ensue. What would happen when your mom tried to call your number if it was also assigned to someone else? Could you directly call the other party to work out the problem? Well, in the BGP realm, something similar has been happening with autonomous system numbers (ASNs).

Organizations need an ASN to run BGP and route on the Internet. They are each assigned globally unique ASN(s) by their local Regional Internet Registry (RIR), who get them from IANA. A few weeks ago, the NANOG folks noticed that AS1712 had been registered by two different organizations (in France and Texas) that were both using the number to announce their separate network prefixes. ARIN issued a statement conveying that they were aware of the problem and were working to resolve it. We took at look at the data and found that AS1712 isn't the only dually-assigned ASN out there. In fact, even a root server didn't escape unscathed.

(Via Renesys Blog.)

The Psychology of Being Scammed

2009-11-30T08:55:00.001-05:00

The Psychology of Being Scammed: "

This is a very interesting paper: 'Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security," by Frank Stajano and Paul Wilson. Paul Wilson produces and stars in the British television show The Real Hustle, which does hidden camera demonstrations of con games. (There's no DVD of the show available, but there are bits of it on YouTube.) Frank Stajano is at the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge.

The paper describes a dozen different con scenarios -- entertaining in itself -- and then lists and explains six general psychological principles that con artists use:

The distraction principle. While you are distracted by what retains your interest, hustlers can do anything to you and you won't notice.

The social compliance principle. Society trains people not to question authority. Hustlers exploit this "suspension of suspiciousness" to make you do what they want.

The herd principle. Even suspicious marks will let their guard down when everyone next to them appears to share the same risks. Safety in numbers? Not if they're all conspiring against you.

The dishonesty principle. Anything illegal you do will be used against you by the fraudster, making it harder for you to seek help once you realize you've been had.

The deception principle. Thing and people are not what they seem. Hustlers know how to manipulate you to make you believe that they are.

The need and greed principle. Your needs and desires make you vulnerable. Once hustlers know what you really want, they can easily manipulate you.

It all makes for very good reading.

Two previous posts on the psychology of conning and being conned.

(Via Schneier on Security.)

Ex-Blue Peter presenter launches Linux based computer for 50+ market

2009-11-11T08:09:00.001-05:00

For those of us "of a certain age", this is a change from sticky back plastic and straws. It's probably "one she made earlier":

The computer runs the Linux Mint operating system, powered by Vegan Solutions's Eldy software

Legendary Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton has launched a new computer range specifically designed for older users and technophobes.

(Via Macworld UK.)

ACTA terms may force ISP anti-piracy, 3 strikes rules

2009-11-04T12:25:00.001-05:00

ACTA terms may force ISP anti-piracy, 3 strikes rules: "A leaked set of proposals for the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) suggests the international deal will require harsh online anti-piracy measures. The draft will reportedly force Internet providers in all member states to actively police copyright on their networks. To qualify for safe harbor and reduce their liability, the ISPs would also have to implement 'gradual response' rules like France's three-strike law that initially warn and eventually punish those said pirating content, likely forcing them offline....

The full detail is here: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/

(Via MacNN | The Macintosh News Network.)

One problem with the internet...

2009-11-04T11:43:00.001-05:00

...is that it can be the equivalent of handing a sharp instrument to a 4-year old and then hoping against hope, that they don't run around, fall over and cut themselves or damage something or somebody as they flail wildly about.

I remember the annual influx of new members to AOL back in the dial-up days and the collective resigned sighs on Usenet from the older veterans as the same old questions were re-cycled, the same mistakes made, the same flame wars started, until eventually, the newcomers "got it" and stopped being a PITA.

And now every man and his dog, irrespective of sanity levels or lack of access to their medication can blog, Tweet, IM and generally annoy reasonable people.

And do these people have any clue about how the Internet works? From the look of a great number of pointers "out there"; apparently not.

I was amused, for at least a second, to see a poorly edited and frankly illiterate attack [an "attack" in that "being savaged by a dead sheep" sense] from a very small blog recently (the normal "I have an axe to grind and just watch me, boy am I going to grind it and because I'm anonymous, I can say what I like" type - unlike say, those people putting their heads above the parapet in Iran, Tweating, blogging and using FB, at great personal risk to life and liberty in an attempt to secure same), where the anonymous owner "confused" my personal blog on which are personal writings with something that was being said by me as part of my day job elsewhere on the web.

An easy mistake to make I suppose. If that is, you're an idiot. Or have forgotten to take your tablets.

[As a side-bar, it's funny to read here that "anonymous" shows one definition given as "lacking individuality, distinction, or recognizability"]

But there you go; there's just no class "out there" anymore, so we have the modern day equivalent of those new AOL-ers I described earlier, coming on-line now, trying to play in the big league and cutting themselves in the process. Democracy (or evolution?) in action I suppose and that's always a good thing, no? One just has to accept with a resigned sigh, that people are people and that they'll say and do the most stupid things.

Feel free to email me at chris[dot]bulow[at]gmail.com, as my blog makes clear, if you disagree.

And I will add finally, that my many American friends find the slang terms to which this person objected (and when "helpfully" defining them, he/she/it almost managed to raise their writings to a believable level of righteous indignation) hilarious when used by a Brit to describe them - they have far worse to say about me. It's Cockney "rhyming slang" and they're fascinated by that stuff.

But that's another story. And another day.

अलन Turing

2009-09-10T19:32:00.002-04:00

From the pen of the always readable Rupert Goodwins, comes his take on the great news that finally, after all these years, the UK government has pardoned Alan Turing. If you don't know who he is, you should, go investigate:

"I've just written one of my most satisfying stories for years. It wasn't much cop in journalistic terms: rattled off in a few minutes, it was based on a story in another publication and bolstered with a quote from yet another. No phone calls, no fact checking, no independent views. Yet I don't remember being quite so moved by the ordinary process of assembling the sentences for a very long time.

The story, of course, is that Alan Turing has received an official posthumous apology from Gordon Brown. The crime of what happened to Turing cannot be righted by this or any other act, but the symbolism goes a long way to turning a single — if very deep — tragedy into something that can do a great deal of good for a long time.

It is tremendous that as a result of this, more people will know of and perhaps come to understand the importance of intellect in the service of a greater good. The story of Bletchley Park is still new and somewhat raw, but it shows the resilience and capabilities of a free society dedicated to its cause, in the face of a ferocious enemy utterly devoted to injustice and the ascendency of self-serving power.

That this story should be so intimately coupled to the subsequent injustice and abuse of power perpetrated on Turing is both ironic and important. In 2010, it can be hard to imagine a society where homosexuality is criminalised and, by common consent, rightly so — but it takes very little effort to see that such ideas are still widely held, even celebrated, and by groups who claim to support the very principles of freedom, tolerance and liberty that Turing helped to defend.

By officially recognising the injustice, the UK government has said what cannot be said enough: that homophobia is a destructive force that hurts those who hold it — and destroys those against whom it is aimed. We will never be free of prejudice, but we can choose not to follow it, to recognise it for what it is and to fight it. We may not have the genius of Turing to help us or the dangers of wartime to sharpen our resolve, yet we have his example and his fate to remind us why such things are utterly necessary.

With luck, the story of Turing will become part of the body of national myth which celebrates the best of our culture, warns against the worst, and so helps us decide how to behave towards ourselves and others. It's hard to think what could have more potential or lasting importance.

You don't often get to report on that.

A good day."

[ZDNet UK Blogs - Rupert's Diary]

Stephen Hawking both British and not dead

2009-08-12T19:18:00.001-04:00

The right in the USA plus the insurance companies are trying anything to attack healthcare reform. In perhaps the most amusing effort to discredit US President Barack Obama's plan for nationalized health care - if not the most ridiculous - US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily has said that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead.…

(Via The Register.)

51 Conspiracy Theories That Don’t Exist But Should

2009-07-30T16:10:00.001-04:00

From the beginning of time there have been conspiracy theories. Back then, they were pretty basic such as Og and his secret fire. As we advanced as a society, so did our conspiracy theories and the paranoia grew right along with it. From the mysterious Illuminati to the Da Vinci Code to the mystery man on the grassy knoll to the moon landing, almost every major event in history automatically gets a conspiracy theory attached to it. Well what about the minor events? What about the things in life that we may take for granted? That is, by focusing on the large & grand conspiracy theories, are we missing some of the smaller ones that might exist?

In the spirit of keeping hope alive for all conspiracy theorists out there who are slowly having the rug pulled out from under their theories by things like facts and proof, here is a list of 51 conspiracy theories that don’t exist, but probably should. So slap on your foil hat and enjoy!

1. The Military has Alien technology that allows intergalactic Unreal Tournaments.
2. Astronauts on the space station only age one day for every three on board.
3. The moon landing was not a hoax. However, every NASA mission after that is because - let’s face it - how can you top landing on the moon!
4. Publicly released Hubble images are actually the results of Photoshop
tutorials by Industrial Light and Magic interns.
5. The Matrix is a documentary. It’s release was a “glitch.” Think about it, man.
6. Cable companies are working with grocery delivery services to market targeted food advertising to the giant Agra-conglomerates in the United States. You are only safe by “borrowing” your neighbor’s cable or stopping grocery delivery service. Otherwise, they know where you live.
7. The government has secretly taken over all aluminum foil manufacturers to embed transmitters in every roll because for a while there, they weren’t able to read our minds.
8. Tunnels and Bridges give us all Total Recall.
9. Dick Clark is a robot and used his own parts to create his robot son Ryan Seacrest.
10. Jim Morrison faked his death so he could start a successful niche bakery that only sells muffin tops.
11. Star Trek: Enterprise was just a mass hallucination, once we realized that - it was gone.
12. So-called “genetically modified foods” are merely hardier breeds of terrestrial crops harvested from the bowels of our hollow Earth! (bum-bum-buuuuuuuuuuuum!!!)
13. Alex Trebek is omnipotent.
14. NASA has actually landed on the moon on numerous occasions and has built an enormous colony on the dark side of the moon. Remember SC Governor Mark Sandford? He’d actually been at the moon colony and they made up that story about his extra-marital affair to cover it up.
15. In 1919 Babe Ruth wasn’t traded to the Yankees, the Yankees and Boston switched teams. After the 2004 season they switched back.
16. Al Gore invented Global Warming, then invented the Internet to spread the word.
17. Those Hulu commercials? They’re the truth.
18. In 1992 Patrick Stewart and William Shatner had a bare-knuckles boxing match in the basement of a sound stage in Hollywood, the result of which Shatner had to die at the end of Star Trek: Generations.
19. Peter Mayhew is actually a Wookiee, he just shaves for appearances. He lives in the forest and is routinely mistaken for Bigfoot.
20. Space Invaders was created by the Military to train children to defend the Earth against alien ships that attack in rows moving side to side and increasing in speed as they get closer to Earth.
21. By law, there has to be a Gene Hackman movie on any channel at any given time of the day. (See also, the Caine-Hackman Theory)
22. The responsibility for the recovery of the United States banking and financial systems has been secretly been placed in the hands of the Banker from Deal or No Deal.
23. The internet is currently run by a 13-year-old Princeton graduate from inside the hollowed out head of Teddy Roosevelt at Mount Rushmore.
24. The city of Las Vegas gets only half of its electricity from Hoover Dam. It gets the other half from the turbines inside Billy Mays that will continue to run for the next 15 years.
25. Hobbits actually existed. Peter Jackson and Danny DeVito are the last known living members of that race.
26. Steve Jobs is a cyborg built by Bill Gates. He wasn’t sick recently, he just had to get his continuum transfunctioner repaired.
27. The United States Originally had 14 Colonies. One of them was eaten by a giant alien snake which is where the “Don’t Tread on me Flag” came from.
28. Kevin Bacon is CGI created by ILM. Lucas made a deal with Hollywood to include Kevin in all those movies. If you look carefully during the warehouse dance scene in Footloose you can see some pixilation.
29. There are several documents recently discovered by the J.R.R Tolkien estate written in English, Elvish and Dwarfish that speak of a dream he had where Bard the Bowman died and left him 2000 lbs of grain. A willed wheat ton … gives me the creeps just thinking about it.
30. Lake Pontchartrain eats people alive.
31. Keanu Reeves is a Time Lord.
32. The Dinosaurs were wiped out by a doomsday device of their own making. The evidence is the abundance of iridium at the 63 million layer.
33. Every DVR has a chip in it that relays information back to the NSA. Anyone watching FOX News is automatically placed on a watch list.
34. Larry King died in 1991. What you see on Television now is a Henson produced Muppet voiced by Frank Oz.
35. Soylent Green isn’t made from people. It’s made from wheat grass, flour and imitation crab meat.
36. Carl Sagan found a way to travel between dimensions, unfortunately for us the other dimension was more exciting.
37. Our assumptions about Area 51 have all been wrong, it’s actually a giant underground petting zoo.
38. The Twilight Saga is a real story, written to introduce Vamps to tween girls who will be in the majority in the world when they are older and more accepting of their new blood-sucking overlords’ public introduction to humankind.
39. Levar Burton really wanted to play Lando and Billy Dee Williams really wanted to play Geordi. They discuss it frequently on a secret Twitter network run on an HP Superdome that sits in the basement of Barack Obama’s old house in Illinois. Bonus, the real birth certificate is hidden in the Superdome’s 3.5″ diskette slot.
40. There really are desperate, cash-laden Nigerian princes, lawyers for long-dead super-rich British relatives and representatives of unclaimed Canadian and Dutch Lotto funds searching the internet for their money’s rightful home. The banks holding the cash just want you to think they’re all scams so they can stay loaded.
41. Everything you’ve heard about Chuck Norris actually applies to Mr. T.
42. The Earth is a giant computer created by another giant computer to calculate the question to the ultimate answer.
43. MSG, as it turns out, is actually very important to brain development. The Chinese put out misinformation to the rest of the world so that they’ll have a leg up in the New World Order.
44. Speaking of Chinese food, the reason it tastes the same no matter where you go is because it’s actually supplied to each restaurant through giant underground pipes from a central factory in Quebec.
45. Snopes.com is actually run by government spooks so they can cover things up by calling them “urban legends.”
46. We actually hit “peak oil” back in the 1970s, but the oil companies and auto manufacturers conspired together to continue making money. Our vehicles now are actually all fusion-powered, and what you buy at the pump is just water with some smelly additives.
47. San Diego Comic Con is only the cover for an annual Illuminati meeting, where the world’s real money is divided up. The Illuminati are disguised as the booth babes.
48. LOL Cats pictures aren’t doctored. Those are actual cats asking if they can haz cheezburgers.
49. All babies born are being chipped by the government in secret for population control. When they turn 30, they’ll be summoned to Carousel.
50. The most effective torture method used by the military isn’t water boarding, it’s Bedazzling.
51. There are only 50 items on this list.

Do you have any you’d like to add? Leave them in the comments.

Special thanks to the following for their contributions: @hipsterplease, @lmorganjr, @corrinalawson, @jonathanliu, @antonolsen, @jrbooth, @nerdfoo, @dgiancaspro, @cebsilver, KingKen, @tombatron & Pushcart.

Bonus conspiracy tip: In order to counteract the embedded transmitters in the aluminum foil - pour water that has been heated in a microwave over the foil. The radioactive water molecules will disable the device and render your thoughts unreadable and uncontrollable. Remember you can only stop the Conspiracy with uncontrolled thoughts.

"She would say that, wouldn't she?"

2009-07-30T12:16:00.001-04:00

Hackers hit MI5 website 2:36PM, Thursday 30th July 2009

Hackers have attacked the MI5 website in an attempt to gather information on people using the site.
The attack was confirmed by the Home Office which called it a "small issue".

A spokesperson says the hackers targeted a vulnerability in the site's embedded Google search engine with a cross-site scripting attack. They were looking to inject code onto the site and redirect users to malicious pages, though the spokesperson denies they got this far.

She was also keen to point out that the website is not hosted on MI5's own servers, and thus sensitive data was never under threat. The issue has now been resolved.

"MI5 takes security very seriously. Its website is secure and hosted in a high security environment," says the spokesperson.

She wasn't willing to offer any further information on the attack, beyond the fact that a group calling itself "Team Elite" is claiming responsibility.

Stuart Turton

Mandy Rice-Davies Applies of course...

2009-07-30T11:55:00.001-04:00

"They would say that, wouldn't they?"

Microsoft-Yahoo deal may hurt competition, Google exec says
(by Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service)

The head of Google’s search organization said the search deal announced Wednesday between Microsoft and Yahoo looked likely to be negative for competition and for consumers.

If Yahoo adopts Microsoft’s Bing search engine in place of its own, that will reduce the search market from three major players to two, said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience. She said several groups at Google were still studying the proposed partnership, which is expected to close next year, but that it might reduce innovation.

“Everyone runs faster in a race where there are more people,” Mayer said in a brief interview at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit in Palo Alto, California.

The likely effects of the deal are being debated in various corners of the industry. Some observers have suggested it may increase competition in the online advertising market, by creating a more viable competitor to Google.

When it comes to search, however, an industry analyst shared Mayer’s concern.

It’s “unfortunate” that there will now be one fewer major search player because it will weaken the competitive landscape, IDC analyst Al Hilwa said.

In their quest to catch up with Google, both Yahoo and Microsoft were doing interesting and innovative things in search, he said. “That has been good for the industry,” Hilwa said. With this deal, Microsoft is likely to feel less urgency to innovate and “move the needle,” he said.

Mayer was at the AlwaysOn conference for a panel discussion about innovation, where she talked about how Google develops and cultivates ideas. The core of its approach is forming small groups that cover all key areas of expertise, she said.

When Mayer joined Google, the company only had nine engineers. When it grew to 18 engineers, it had to decide whether to put more people on the three projects it was already working on or create more three-person groups. It stuck with small groups and formed more of them, she said.

Google’s groups typically include a technical leader, a product manager, designers and a technical team to carry out the project, Mayer said. But they are largely self-selecting, often forming around ideas that have come out of the 20 percent of a Google employee’s time that’s devoted to personal side projects. Those are the kinds of projects that can inspire a team to work on weekends, she said.

Development teams typically work in the same office so they can just turn around to bounce ideas off each other, Mayer said. With user interface designers included, a team can come up with a new feature, immediately work out how it might look to consumers and test the design from the beginning, she added.

Brainstorming goes hand in hand with prototyping at Google, according to Mayer. For example, when the company’s Gmail development team comes up with a new component or design tweak, the members typically try it out themselves for a day before deciding whether to pursue it.

Mayer defended Google’s focus on statistics about how consumers use its products, an approach that has been criticized as “data-driven” and stifling creativity.

“To be data-driven means to be user-focused,” Mayer said. All design starts with intuition, but the constraints imposed by real-world use statistics can give rise to greater creativity, she said.

“Sometimes that data proves you wrong, and when it does, it can cause you to question yourself and what you thought was the right thing to do. How do you respond to that?” Mayer said.

Google doesn’t initially worry about whether a technology can be monetized through direct payments or advertising, but looks at whether it’s popular.

“Anything that attracts a lot of users, that’s fundamental to their everyday life routine, is monetizable,” Mayer said.

Juan Carlos Perez in Miami contributed to this report.

The iPhone a weapon of mass destruction? I really don't think so...

2009-07-28T19:20:00.001-04:00

iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims

By David Kravets July 28, 2009 | 4:18 pm | Categories: Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The nation’s cellphone networks could suffer “potentially catastrophic” cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices — that’s what Apple claims.

A jailbroken iPhone is a weapon of mass disruption, Apple claims.
The Copyright Office is considering a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to legalize the widespread practice of jailbreaking, in which iPhone owners hack their devices to accept software that hasn’t been approved for distribution through the iPhone App Store. Apple made the claim in comments filed last week (.pdf) with the agency.

The company’s filing explained that jailbreaking could allow hackers to altering the iPhone’s BBP — the “baseband processor” software, which enables a connection to cell phone towers.

By tinkering with this code, “a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data,” Apple wrote the government. “Taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer — to potentially catastrophic result.

“The technological protection measures were designed into the iPhone precisely to prevent these kinds of pernicious activities, and if granted, the jailbreaking exemption would open the door to them,” Apple added.

Threat Level had no idea the iPhone was so dangerous. We’re gratified that Apple locked down this potential weapon of mass disruption before hackers could unleash cybarmageddon. This also explains why Apple rejected the official Google Voice App for the iPhone this week. We thought it was because Google Voice posed a threat to AT&T’s exclusivity deal with Apple. Now we know it threatened national security.

At stake for Apple is the closed business model it has enjoyed since 2007, when the iPhone debuted. More than 30 million phones have been sold. Apple has told the Copyright Office that its locked-down platform is what made the iPhone’s success possible.

The EFF has asked the regulators for the DMCA exemption, (.pdf) which would allow consumers to run any app on the phone, including those not authorized by Apple.

Fred von Lohmann, the EFF attorney who made the request, said Apple’s latest claims are preposterous. During a May public hearing on the issue in Palo Alto, California, he told regulators there were as many as a million unauthorized, jailbroken phones.

In an interview Tuesday, he said he suspected those phones have not been used to destroy mobile phone towers. “As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened,” he said.

He added that, if Apple’s argument was correct, the open-source Android phone from Google on T-Mobile networks would also be a menace to society. ”This kind of theoretical threat,” von Lohmann said, “is more FUD than truth.”

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says “no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” But under the law, every three years the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office must consider the public’s requests for exemptions to that anti-circumvention language.

Apple also claimed that jailbreaking would pave the way for hackers to alter the Exclusive Chip Identification number that identified the phone to the cell tower, which could enable calls to be made anonymously. Apple said “this would be desirable to drug dealers.”

Palin - Does she have any shame?

2009-07-21T20:55:00.001-04:00

Or will she just use the "I'm just a small town girl, I don't understand all these liberal laws" as her excuse for this one? Either way, she should just really, really disappear and stop trying to be a driving force in US politics. She's a joke...

From CNN:

Sarah Palin's attorney says the report is not final, and he is preparing more information for the investigator.

An investigator hired by the state personnel board recommended Palin -- who gives up her office on Sunday -- refuse money from the defense fund and ask the state to pay legal fees for ethics complaints that have been dismissed.

Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein said the report is not final, however, and he is preparing "supplemental information" for the investigator.

"There has been no Board finding of an ethics violation, and there is a detailed legal process to follow before there is a final resolution," Van Flein said in a statement released to reporters. He added, "Whatever you have seen was released in violation of law."

In a posting on her Twitter page, Palin said, "new info was just requested even; no final report."

Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008. In announcing her resignation earlier this month, she cited the cost of battling ethics complaints filed by critics as one of the reasons she is quitting about two-thirds of the way through her four-year term.

Most complaints have been dismissed, though one led to her paying back taxes on state per diem funds, and she agreed to repay about $8,100 in travel expenses for her children in another case.

Palin supporter Kristan Cole formed the Alaska Fund Trust in April to pay legal bills Van Flein said topped $500,000. Its Web site features a photograph of Palin and her husband, Todd, and calls itself "the official legal fund created to defend the integrity of the Alaska governor's office from an onslaught of political attacks."

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Cole said the fund "was thoroughly vetted by numerous attorneys from Alaska to the East Coast." According to a copy of the preliminary report obtained by CNN, Personnel Board investigator Thomas Daniel wrote that Cole told him Palin approved the use of her photo and the "official" designation.

"In light of the evidence that the governor expressly authorized the creation of the trust and the fact the trust Web site quite openly uses the governor's position to solicit donations, there is probably cause to believe that Gov. Palin used, or attempted to use, her official position for personal gain," Daniel wrote.

Daniel wrote that it would be "particularly appropriate" for the state to pay legal fees for a public official when an ethics complaint is dismissed -- but he said the state Ethics Act would have to be changed to do so.

"I can only apply the Ethics Act as currently written," he wrote. "And as currently written, it does not allow a state official to use her position to solicit funds to pay for a private attorney or any other personal expense."

The Alaska Fund Trust limits donations to $150 and bars state contractors or lobbyists from contributing. It has not yet reported contributions.

Is Google now evil?

2009-07-11T13:48:00.001-04:00

Google’s Microsoft Moment
9
JUL 2009

I'm not sure Google's new Chrome OS announcement is that big a deal, or that the eventual product that gets released will actually have that much impact, but it's a useful milestone in marking Google's evolution towards becoming an older company with a distinctly different culture than they used to have.

This is, for lack of a better term, Google's 'Microsoft Moment'. This is the point when the difference between their internal conception of the company starts to diverge just a bit too far from the public perception of the company, and even starts to diverge from reality. At this inflection point, the reasons for doing new things at Google start to change.

Let me be clear: I don't think Google is 'turning evil'. Hell, I've caught a lot of flack for the fact that basically I don't think Microsoft was evil. But there are some notable trends going on across Google today that could cause the company to compromise its stated values and that will certainly cause people to think Google is being evil, if not corrected. I'll try to outline a few key cultural indicators from around Google.

Designing for corporate synergy, not for users
Google's recent development work on applications for mobile devices has often been delivered exclusively as applications for their own Android platform instead of as iPhone applications, despite the fact that iPhones are roughly forty times more popular in the marketplace. iPhones are also much more popular outside of the United States than Android, further limiting the actual audience served by these applications. Now, it's obviously good company policy to make sure to support Google's own platforms, and Google does an admirable job of using generic open web technologies where possible to avoid having to choose between platforms at all. But choosing to leave the majority of users in a given market unaddressed because they are on a platform that is not part of your corporate goals is short-sighted and leaves a lingering sense of mistrust.

If you look at Microsoft ten years ago, or even as recently as five years ago, they had a tendency to say 'Well, we've got a version that works on Windows Mobile.' or 'This works on Internet Explorer' and feel that they'd done their job for addressing mobile or the web. Or Windows Media Player would connect to XBox but not to any other systems for sharing media. They were putting their corporate agenda ahead of what the marketplace had chosen as its preferred platforms. But after all these years, Microsoft's internal teams have finally started to develop their web or mobile versions of products to work on competitor's browsers and competitor's mobile platforms, recognizing that they have to go where the users are, instead of favoring only the platforms created by their corporate siblings. Google appears to be headed the other way.

Forgetting what the real world uses, and favoring what's convenient for your own business goals is a quick way to have customers think you don't care, and to indicate to partners or developers that pleasing Google is more important than pleasing customers.

Multiple competing product lines: Chrome OS and Android
This is one of the simplest and most obvious examples, after this week's announcements: Google is now offering not one, but two mobile operating systems. While they undoubtedly share code, I can't help but think back to ten years ago, when Microsoft was vehemently protesting about how much code was shared between the Windows NT/Windows 2000 operating systems and the Windows 95/98/ME operating systems. If I make a screen two inches smaller, should I use Android instead of Chrome OS? If the keyboard works with my fingers instead of my thumbs, I should use Chrome OS and not Android? I know Google is convinced its employees are smarter than everyone else in the world, but this is a product management problem, not a computer science problem.

Changing methods of communication
Within Google, I'm sure the perception is that their public-facing communications are still very 'Googley'. Now, Google does an excellent job of maintaining and using an enormous number of official corporate blogs in dozens of languages for a rapidly-blossoming number of products and initiatives. But despite my admiration for that effort, and their commendable willingness to forgo the usual boring press releases, the way that the company communicates with the public has fundamentally changed, and not necessarily in a more human direction.

In lieu of blog posts or simple word-of-mouth, as helped popularize the Google search engine itself ten years ago, efforts like Chrome are being accompanied by television ads, complete with all of the production values of primetime TV. Instead of launching a new developer initiative by promoting an SDK on their blog, Google is filling convention centers, Apple-style, with day-long developer presentations and an Oprahesque giveaway of free phones under every seat. Instead of white papers, there are highly-produced comic books being distributed to the press to explain the value of Chrome.

Now, I actually support these types of outreach. Getting outside of the insular tech bubble requires higher production values and clearer messaging. But when Google evokes Apple or Microsoft or Oracle in its style of communicating ideas, and when cell phone ads on TV say 'Powered by Google', an average consumer's conception of Google essentially shifts to seeing this company not as 'those guys who do the search engine' but instead as another consumer electronics company, like Samsung or Sony, but a little more hip.

This would be okay, except that I doubt Google's internal self-image as an organization has changed to reflect this new reality. 'We're not like some giant company with flashy TV ads — we're just a bunch of geeks in Mountain View!' And while that might be true for the vast number of engineers who define the company's internal culture, the external impression of Google being just another tech titan like Microsoft will gain footing, making the audience for Google's messages less tolerant of ambiguity and less forgiving of mistakes.

Only the last generation of companies can be evil, not us!
Though it's almost impossible to picture now, in the era when Microsoft was formed, IBM was synonymous with an almost Orwellian dominance of information technology. It's been a full 40 years since the antitrust actions against IBM, and IBM is seen as a bastion of open-sourceness now, but Microsoft's founding mindset clearly was shaped with the idea that 'those old guys from the last generation are evil, and we're the nimble, smart upstarts who are going to humanize this industry'. Sound familiar?

Though it's hard to believe, the FTC's first investigations against Microsoft began eighteen years ago. When Microsoft reached its apex in terms of public perception and industry respect, with the launch of Windows 95, the culture inside the company still largely saw themselves as upstarts against old, proprietary behemoths. Though Microsoft's headcount has increase fivefold since then, at the time of Windows 95's launch, they had about 17,000 employees.

Google's headcount just passed roughly 20,000 employees. And most of those staff members are firmly convinced that evil, or at least incompetence, is firmly the trait of the last generation's dominant tech player: Microsoft. The idea that developers or customers might start to bristle at their dominance is met with the (true, yet irrelevant) argument about how open their data and platforms are. Eric Schmidt said yesterday that Chrome OS is so open that Microsoft could make Internet Explorer for it, though of course the effort of porting the browser would be prohibitively complex. By neatly inverting the framing of the conversation ('We didn't bundle a browser with our OS, we bundled an OS with our browser!'), Google's avoided having to confront the parallels between this moment in their corporate culture and Microsoft's similar moment of ascendancy 15 years ago.

Still haven't developed Theory of Mind
And finally, as I outlined two years ago, Google still hasn't developed theory of mind. From my piece then:

This shortcoming exists at a deep cultural level within the organization, and it keeps manifesting itself in the decisions that the company makes about its products and services. The flaw is one that is perpetuated by insularity, and will only be remedied by becoming more open to outside ideas and more aware of how people outside the company think, work and live.
Worse, because most of the dedicated detractors of Google have been either competing companies or nutjobs, it's been hard for Googlers to take criticisms seriously. That makes it easy to have defensiveness or dismissal of criticisms become a default response.

Conclusion
Google has made commendable steps towards communicating with those outside of its sphere of influence in the tech world. But the messages will be incomplete or insufficient as long as Google doesn't truly internalize and accept that its public perception is about to change radically. The era of Google as a trusted, 'non-evil' startup whose actions are automatically assumed to be benevolent is over.

Years ago, GMail introduced context-sensitive ads and was unfairly pilloried for being anti-privacy or intrusive. And while there have been a few similar hand-slappings along the way, Google's never faced a widespread backlash against their influence or dominance from average consumers yet. Today, protestations of 'but it's open source!' are being used to paper over real concerns about data ownership, and the truth is that open code doesn't necessarily imply that average users are in control.

And ultimately, once a tech company becomes dominant in its space, it's susceptible to a kind of reverse Hanlon's razor: Anything caused by stupidity or carelessness will instead be attributed to malice. Similar to the Law of Fail ('Once a web community has decided to dislike an idea, the conversation will shift from criticizing the idea to become a competition about who can be most scathing in their condemnation.'), Google is entering the moment where it has to be over-careful not to offend, and extremely attentive to whether they are treading lightly.

Is Google evil? It doesn't matter. They've reached the point of corporate ambition and changing corporate culture that means they're going to be perceived as if they are. Whether they're able to truly internalize that lesson, accept it, and act accordingly will determine if they're able to extend their dominance in the years to come.

(Illustration courtesy of Federico Fieni.)

"

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Do residents get free access to Nerdapalooza 2009?

2009-07-09T14:41:00.001-04:00

In case you’ve managed to avoid its constant mentions in our HipTrax podcasts over the previous months, Nerdapalooza is set to go down this very weekend. Yes, Nerdapalooza, the annual music and culture festival that attracts geeks of all stripes from the world over is scant days away. Of course, for every one of you who is, even now, pocketing his ticket and nodding slyly, there are surely countless others scratching their heads in dismay.

To those of you not in the know, I present the following rundown of the festival’s finer points. Consider it your cheat sheet for all things Nerdapalooza. There may well be a test later.

The Festival is in Its Third Year: Nerdapalooza was conceived in Arcata, CA by John ‘Hex Warrior’ Carter in early 2007, but the first official festival, Nerdapalooza SE 2007, took place in Gainesville, FL in August of that year.

But in Its Fifth Iteration: Between Nerdapalooza SE 2007 (Gainesville), Nerdapalooza Beta (Arcata), Nerdapalooza UK (Bradford) and Nerdapalooza SE 2008 (Orlando), this year marks the festival’s fifth outing.

It’s in Orlando Again: Nerdapalooza is once again occurring in Orlando, FL. This year’s venue, the Holiday Inn Express Convention Center on International Drive, affords easy access to dining, shopping and the Mouse.

It’s For a Good Cause: Nerdapalooza is, at its core, a charity event benefiting Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play. Sure, it looks like nothing more than a gaggle of geeks reveling in their own esoteric passions, but the proceeds of every purchase, from tickets to event-themed merch, goes to put toys, games and books in the hands of hospitalized children worldwide.

It’s the Largest Event of its Kind: Lots of festivals and conventions feature nerdy music, but Nerdapalooza is the only event firmly centered on the concert-going experience. You can hear Wizard Rock, chiptunes, nerdcore hip-hop and filk-rock all on one stage.

The Crowd is Kid-friendly, the Music Not so Much: Nerdapalooza is a safe and controlled environment in which nerds of all ages game, reminisce and (most importantly) listen to music. Many of the acts on the roster, however, feature adult themes and language in their music. Of course, it’s also important to note that just as many of the yearly participants offer a more family-friendly brand of musical entertainment. To put it another way, for every Grammar Club there is a Dual Core. If you’re planning on bringing along your geeklings, be sure you do a little pre-show listening to determine which artists you feel offer appropriate lyrical fare; then consult the performance schedule to plan accordingly.

There are Ample Diversions: If you’re looking for something to do between sets (or if you just need a break from all the rocking), this year’s festival features its own ‘Gaming Pavilion.’ Boasting spectacle-driven options from Dance Dance Revolution to Marvel vs. Capcom 2, even this aspect of the event is likely to draw a crowd.

It’s Reasonably-Priced: Tickets for both days of the event have recently been reduced to $20. Yes, you can dork out for an entire weekend for a mere twenty bones. If you’re only in town for a single day of the event (Saturday, July 11 or Sunday, July 12), daily tickets are $15.

You Can Meet the Talent: If you’re a fan of, say, Uncle Monsterface, Nerdapalooza is an excellent opportunity to not only catch them on stage, but to actually interact with such artists in the proverbial trenches. In fact, as most performers spend the bulk of their time in the audience supporting the other participants, you’d have a hard time not meeting the talent.

Oh Yeah; The Headliners!: Headlining the events first night is the combined geeky hip-hop might of MC Frontalot and MC Lars. Likewise, day two will conclude with the Mega Man rock of The Protomen and the incomparable mc chris. But don’t forget that these acts represent only a fraction of the musical entertainment on tap for Nerdapalooza 2009. With live performances from noon to midnight both days, the event’s headliners may be the main course, but don’t discount the other dozen or so daily acts on the table!

"

(Via Wired News.)

Fake Steve on Chrome OS

2009-07-08T18:01:00.001-04:00

Fake Steve on Chrome OS:

"So everyone is worked up about this new browser operating system from Google. Drudge apparently has gone off his meds again and calls it a 'death blow' to the Borg. No spinning red light, but still, pretty over the top. I guess it's supposedly going to destroy us too -- like we're some kind of collateral damage. Man oh man. Where to begin?

First of all, nobody seems to appreciate how goddamn hard it is to make an operating system. You don't just wake up one day and fall out of bed and make one. Not even the smarty pants kiddies at Google can do that. These things take years. Decades, even. Ours started out 20 years ago, at NeXT. You could say it goes back to 1977, with the BSD guys. Heck, you could even say it goes back to 1969 with Dennis Thompson and Lionel Ritchie. Even Windows is -- what? Twenty years old? Something like that. For that matter, look at Linux. Correct me if I'm wrong -- and I'm sure you fucking freetards will find something to correct -- but I think Linus Tordalv started working on Linux back in 1991 when he was a high school student in his native Denmark. That's nearly twenty years ago, and the shit still doesn't run right. Point is, whatever Google might release in the second half of next year, it will just be a starting point. It won't come close to what we've got.

Point two: Who in their right mind thinks the world needs yet another desktop operating system? The hacks who are foaming at the mouth about this big threat to Microsoft are the very same halfwits who a couple years back were declaring that the desktop OS was dead, Windows Vista would be the last one ever made, Apple shouldn't bother making any more versions of OS X, blah blah. Now they're saying nope, the world does need more operating systems, especially ones like this that are designed to work extra super specially well on computers that are hooked up to the Internet. Whatever that means.

Point three: They're aiming this OS (or as we call it, 'POS') at netbooks, at least at first, and in case you hadn't noticed, the netbook market is fucking tiny and will remain so forever. According to IDC, there were 11 million netbooks sold last year, and by 2013 that figure will hit 39 million. The market for PCs and laptops will be 10 times that size -- literally -- at 400 million units. Smartphones will be over 300 million units. So, um, you guys at Google want to have a dog fight with Microsoft to get a few points of that market? Go have fun. Seriously. Knock yourself out. Frankly, if the entire netbook market caught fire, I wouldn't piss on it to put it out. But that's just me.

Point four: You also may not have noticed, but nobody uses Chrome. I mean think about it. Do you know anyone who uses Chrome? Really? And you know why nobody uses Chrome? Because Chrome is shit. Just utter, utter shit. I mean they've got all these big brains at Google and you'd think they could make a decent fucking browser. Jesus, the freetards at Mozilla can do it. But not Google. Nope. They gave it their big best effort and what did they come up with? Chrome. It's a joke. I mean, literally, we laugh about it, except when Eric is around. But as soon as he leaves the room we all go 'Chrome!' and just burst out laughing. Our guys on the Safari team even had special toilet paper made up with a Chrome logo on every sheet. That's how bad it is. Trying to make an OS out of Chrome is like saying you're going to turn a Pontiac Aztek into a stretch limousine. I suppose it could be done, but why?

Point five: What the fuck is going on inside Google? How much more out of control and undisciplined can this place get? How many new goddamn operating systems are they going to create? They've already got Android, and nobody wants it. Now they're going to make yet another operating system, this time out of a browser that nobody wants. What's next? A Gmail-based operating system? A YouTube-based operating system? Honestly, Google, is there anyone in charge over there? Is there anyone who knows how to criticize anything in that fucked up little Montessori preschool of yours? I mean I guess it's nice that you all get to spend 20 percent of your time dreaming up useless shit, and I guess you have to use the Montessori method and tell everyone that whatever little piece of shit they've created is just so wonderful and perfect and beautiful -- but really, as I've told Eric before, that doesn't mean you have to release everything these bozos dream up. There's a word for this. It's called 'no.' Have you heard of it? I mean, fine, let them fuck around with stuff. Engineers like to tinker. So let them tinker. Then when they bring you whatever it is they've made, first you say you're too busy to meet with them. Then you say you've changed your mind and you will meet with them after all. Then you wait until they're all in the conference room with everything set up, and you send Katie down to tell them that you're going to be a little bit late. You make them wait an hour. Then two hours. Then, at six in the afternoon, you send Katie down to tell them that you've changed your mind again and now you can't make it. Then, finally, you set up another appointment and this time you do meet with them -- but before they can even speak you just look at whatever it is they've made and you say, I'm sorry, that's a piece of shit, and you walk out. Trust me, engineers love this. They're all masochists. That's why they became engineers in the first place.

Point six: It's going to be free. So what's the point? I mean I understand the idea of a loss leader. We don't charge for iTunes. You'll notice, however, that we do charge money for music and hardware. But how does this concept apply to Chrome OS? Somehow if you put out a new operating system you'll get more people using the Internet and then you'll be able to sell more of those shitty little ads? Forgive me if I'm missing something here, but I don't see how a free OS or a free browser helps Google. To put it another way, have you ever met anyone who said they'd really like to try out that Interwebs thing, but they're just put off by the low-quality operating systems and browsers that are available at this time, so they're sitting it out for now? Or like maybe they're on the Internet now but they would just be soooo inclined to spend soooo much more time on the Web, and they'd be soooo much more likely to actually click on the ads, if the OS and browser made it somehow less onerous to, um, type in a URL and go to a page? Nah, the only point in Google giving away a free browser and OS is somehow to fuck up Microsoft. (And/or to do some sneaky shit that helps Google screw users a little bit more efficiently. See Point 8 below.) But on the anti-Microsoft angle, take it from someone who has spent the past 10 years selling a superior operating system and getting only 4 percent market share -- as obsessions go, battling the Borg is waaay overrated. If you ask me, Google is getting a little nutty about the Borg and it's starting to show. They're starting to look like the new Scott McNealy. Remember him? Ran a company called Sun, which had a great little business going until McNealy became obsessed with Gates and started doing things like paying millions of dollars to buy StarOffice so he could get into that booming free software business.

Point seven: The only people who are pushing for this are the hardware OEMs and ODMs and they're only doing it so they can get a bargaining chip on the Borg. They don't want to use Chrome, or Android, or Linux. They want Windows. They just don't want to pay for it. Whatever Microsoft wants to charge for Windows 7, the hardware guys want to pay less. Hang the threat of yet another OS over Ballmer's shiny head and maybe he'll bring down his prices. That, anyway, is the thinking. Happened already in netbooks when they first came out with Linux on the Anus EEEEEPC -- that rang some bells up in Redmond, believe me. So maybe there is some benefit to Google in forcing Microsoft to lower its prices. Maybe by doing that they choke off a little bit of Redmond's oxygen supply, and that makes it a little harder for Microsoft to encroach on Google's search advertising business. Google is pissed about Bing, and the Yahoo stuff. So they splatter back some machine-gun fire at Microsoft's cash cow, the OS business. Fair enough. As DeNiro said, They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. But if that's your big goal in life, the chance to maybe put a stick in Microsoft's spokes -- well, we've come a long way from the days of Sergey and Larry with stars in their eyes, wanting to make the world a better place. If that's really what gets these guys up in the morning, well, friends, I will pray for your soul. Here at Apple we have better things to do. Like creating new devices that nobody else has ever created before, and restoring a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives. Or inventing whole new multi-billion-dollar markets that didn't exist before. You'd rather just ape the Borg. Well, whatever. Godspeed to you, Google.

Point eight: People are starting to realize that Google is not their friend, and that all this 'free stuff' from Google is not about a) philanthropy, or b) keeping Microsoft honest, but really about c) helping Google gain even more control over what you do on the Internet. See a nice piece by John Paczkowski here for an example. You know how we call IBM the Original Borg, or OB? Google is the NB. Really, Google, in case you hadn't noticed, a lot of people are kind of not really liking you guys right now. Even the freetards are starting to turn on you.

So, to reiterate, everything's fine, and there's nothing to worry about. It's nice that Google wants to make more operating systems, and we at Apple don't feel threatened by this, or betrayed by our own board member Eric Schmidt, just as we didn't feel betrayed or threatened by the Android smartphone platform. We welcome competition and think it's just great that Google wants to contribute to advancing the state of the art of personal computing. As Sarah Palin would say, the engineers at Google are ambitionistic about wanting to progress the world, and gosh, ya know what? That's darn good for everyone.

Or, as I just told Eric on the phone a few moments ago: Dear friend, I realize you think I'm weak right now, and maybe a little bit vulnerable, and you may also still be a little bit peeved because even though you're on the board at Apple I didn't tell you about the surgery I was having and instead led you to believe that I had moved to Tennessee because I needed to negotiate some country-western deals for iTunes. Okay. Fair enough. And I know you think you got a lifetime free pass on fucking me over after you and Al Gore bailed me out of that jam with the SEC investigation of the options backdating a couple years back. But, dear friend, enough is enough. You really need to think about what you're doing and who it hurts. Seriously. I mean it. Do some thinking. Meanwhile, for the time being, I've instructed Apple security to revoke your pass at Infinite Loop, and I would really, really, really appreciate it if you would just not call me or come around here anymore. Because if you do, well, I'm just so upset about all this that I might just -- well, honestly, Eric, I'm afraid I couldn't be responsible for what I might do. I will hurt you, Eric. I'm sorry, but I will. Are you feeling me? Because that's how it is. Seriously, bitch. It's over between us. Namaste."

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Spanish Police Foil Remote-Controlled Zeppelin Jailbreak

2009-07-08T17:46:00.001-04:00

Sometimes movie plots actually happen:

...three people have been arrested after police discovered their plan to free a drug trafficker from an island prison using a 13-foot airship carrying night goggles, climbing gear and camouflage paint.

[...]

The arrested men had setup an elaborate surveillance operation of the prison that involved a camouflaged tent, powerful binoculars, telephoto lenses, and motion detection sensors. But authorities caught wind of the plan when they intercepted the inflatable zeppelin as it arrived from the Italian town of Bergamo.

(Via Schneier on Security.)

Nine Must-Have Features We Want to See in a Google OS

2009-07-08T17:43:00.001-04:00

What's inside Google's just-announced Chrome Operating System? How does it work, exactly? Nobody outside Google knows. We can, however, build a dream operating system from the ground up, and that's what we're doing with some help from the hive mind.

We asked on Twitter what features users wanted to see in Google's Linux-based, web-focused operating system, due to be released in code later this year, then on sponsored netbooks in the second half of 2010. We've compiled ten must-have features that we'd like to see from Google's upcoming operating system here.

Speed, Speed, Speed

twitashu says,

'Well I'll be more than happy with a 10 sec. boot time. Also, Google should drive software companies to consider Linux seriously.'

TomRittervg says,

'if they want me to care, it has to make me go 'holy crap, THIS IS FAST'; just like did when I started using chrome'

There are two schools of thought on the boot-up speed wars—one being that, if you're going to work all day on a computer, a few more seconds at start-up don't really matter. The other idea, though, is exactly what Google's aiming at: the netbook as something you fire up, quickly jump on the net with, then suspend or shut down when you're done or moving again. If Google can recreate the relative speed of Chrome as a browser to Chrome as an operating system, it's definitely going to open more eyes.

Of course, it's not just about boot-up speeds. Regardless of how quickly an operating system boots up, what matters the majority of the time is how fast it works when you're actually using it. Google will probably be aiming for the sweet spot between kitchen sink functionality and fast, lightweight operation. We'd guess that the first few releases will be fairly barebones to keep things snappy.

Seamless Syncing of Your Browser and Desktop

Bittermormon9 says,

Browser with syncable bookmarks. Thats A+ #1!!

It is odd, isn't it? Despite the plethora of syncing services, there is still no viable bookmark synchronization service for any browser you want, whether on your phone or across desktops. Fixing this would go a long way toward demonstrating Google's commitment to openness—even in an OS named after their own browser.

We'd go even further and suggest syncing all over the place. For example, I want instant, no-brain-needed synchronization of files and cloud data-whether through a 'G Drive' or Dropbox or my own server space-between my laptop, my browser access, and my Android phone (or, in my Happy Land fantasy on Lollipop Lane, any phone out there).

Integrated Quicksilver/Quick Search Box

Friend of Lifehacker and Quicksilver/QSB developer Nicholas Jitkoff is one of the folks at Google working on Chrome OS, and we've heard that he plans on integrating something Quicksilver-like into the OS, so that's at least something that Quicksilver, Launchy, and Ubiquity geeks like us can get excited about.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Other Power-User Considerations

Apart from Quicksilver dreams, crazy keyboard shortcuts, along with all the small productivity pieces that power users love from their OS of choice, may not make all the difference to just anyone, but if you want to win over the Lifehacker crowd, your OS better be plentiful with shortcuts.

Support for All Kinds of Hardware

mpwalker says,

'I'd love to be able to load Chrome OS on my eight year old laptop and see it speed along. any chance of that?'

The Linux kernel that Chrome OS will run on is notably adaptive and swift on older processors with less memory. That said, compatibility with peripheral hardware like video cards, Bluetooth devices, and, especially, wireless networking gear, is the reason most clear-eyed Linux fans can't quite say it's ready for mass appeal, so it'll be interesting to see how Google navigates this terrain. It'd be great if Google could churn out a lightweight OS that would work well with aging hardware as well as cutting-edge netbooks.

Further Blurs the Line Between Web and Desktop

dmandle says,

'cloud storage (seamless) separately launchable webapps IE Fluid on OS X, fast standby/resume, ability to export settings to liveCD'

Wow, that's a mouthful (tweetful?). Fluid/Prism-like apps seem like a given, based on what we've seen in Chrome's built-in 'application' powers, but it'd be nice to see web and desktop integration grow even stronger. Let me drag attachments into Gmail or access all of my apps whether I'm online or off. Last, we kind of think that live CD export is just a great idea.

An Eye for User Privacy

dpreacher says,

'must-have for chrome OS: no google snooping on me'

This will be the conversation that rises once the initial turbulence of 'Google Trying to Kill Microsoft?' subsides. There will be license agreements and privacy disclosures, sure, but those concerned that Google's holding too much of their personal data now have to contend with an operating system where 'most of the user experience takes place on the web.' Let's hope for controls, placed somewhere accessible, that let one control just how much data is saved, collected, and reported.

In a similar vein, total encryption of passwords and user data (in the case of loss or theft, a la BitLocker/FileVault) would be great. We're particularly concerned about saved password encryption for web pages and (Wi-Fi) networks, and presumably so is Google.

Support for Current Linux Applications

jussinen says,

As it's built, Linux apps should work. Having wine in to allow windows apps would be nice. Running mac apps be brilliant.

Linux apps can likely be made to work on Chrome OS, but many Linux apps work on just a choice distribution or two (these days, mostly Ubuntu and Fedora), then painstakingly ported to meet other distributions' library/system/kernel requirements. Google has experience tweaking WINE to the needs of their apps like Google Earth and Picasa, and could potentially make it more accessible for Windows porting. As for the last bit: Sure Mac compatibility would be 'brilliant,' but also very unlikely.

Enterprise Friendly

johnwohn says

'must have? for enterprise use, must run Salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP, etc in browser with no hitches. Oh, and Google Apps.'

A good question, and one we'd expect for any new platform. We'd assume that Google can't, or won't, rewrite their browser product to support proprietary protocols or handlers, but would hope that the increasing popularity of standards-compliant browsers will push enterprises down that road. It's not that sexy for general consumers, but it could make a huge difference in widespread adoption, especially if Google wants their OS to compete with Microsoft.

There's still plenty of room for discussion on the must-have features of a modern OS, so tell us what you'd like to see included, or stripped out, in the comments.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Iran Tries to Pacify Protesters With Lord Of The Rings Marathon

2009-06-25T14:01:00.001-04:00

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 25, @01:28PM
from the chip-the-glasses-and-crack-the-plates-that's-what-Ahmadinejad-hates dept.movies

Iranian state television's Channel Two is playing a Lord of the Rings marathon in an attempt to keep people inside watching hobbits and not protesting in the streets. Normally people in Tehran are treated to one or two Hollywood movies a week, but with recent events the government hopes that sitting through a nine hour trilogy will take the fight out of most. Perhaps this was not the best choice in films if you want your people not to believe that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

دموکراسی شعار ماست، خشونت انزجار ماست

Oh, the irony - South Carolina Governor and Appalachian Trail Devotee Mark Sanford Voted to Impeach Bill Clinton in 1998

2009-06-24T19:03:00.001-04:00

Sweet delicious schadenfreude, how I love thee.

(Via Daring Fireball.)

RIAA settles suit where defendant had no PC!

2009-06-24T15:50:00.001-04:00

RIAA member Universal Music Group this past weekend was forced to settle a music file sharing lawsuit it had filed against New Hampshire resident Mavis Roy. The label dropped its case after evidence provided by anti-piracy snooping firm MediaSentry was successfully challenged by the defense's expert witness Dr. Sergey Bratus. Among other key problems with the data, the defense pointed out that Roy didn't own a computer at all at the time of the supposed infringement and that it wasn't until a letter appeared that she was aware of any possible action.
Universal is likely to have settled the case to avoid creating a legal precedent that could be used to shoot down other MediaSentry-derived evidence and defeat the RIAA in similar cases.

Opponents to the RIAA's lawsuit tactics have argued that MediaSentry is not only an unauthorized investigator but that it has regularly misidentified file traders by making assumptions about the accuracy of IP addresses that have targeted the deceased, young children and those like Roy who didn't have computers. Such tracking systems can only see file sharing accounts used by certain IP addresses and doesn't account for those using others' connections, mistaken physical addresses or the person actually using the computer.

The RIAA has claimed it will stop suing individuals in favor of trying to force Internet providers to monitor and flag pirated material, but questions have been raised why new lawsuits have appeared and why other, sometimes questionable lawsuits have persisted since the formal change in policy.

From MacNN

The boring old plug

2009-06-23T18:14:00.001-04:00

This is pure genius and I want one:

Force of Nature: Artist Puts Petal to the Metal for Electrifying Images

2009-06-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

From Wired magazine:

Iran and the Internet: Uneasy Standoff

2009-06-21T18:18:00.001-04:00

Iran and the Internet: Uneasy Standoff: "Iran and the Internet: Uneasy Standoff
By James Cowie on June 16, 2009 4:21 PM | 3 Comments | 1 TrackBack

We've received enough interest about our previous notes on Iranian Internet connectivity that I wanted to give a brief update, and some reflections.

In short: Iran is still on the Internet. As the crisis deepens, people are literally risking their lives by continuing to use the Internet for coordination and communication. Iran's physical connectivity to the Internet is so centralized, and so fragile, that it's within the power of the government to simply 'turn it off' if they so desired. And yet, they have not done so.

Except for a brief period of outage over the weekend, the routes into Iran from the rest of the world have been basically intact, if a bit congested and unstable. Most of that congestion and instability is probably the result of six billion people who are freshly interested in Iranian politics, all reading (and in some cases, yes, attacking) Iranian websites. We aren't making things easier for the people inside Iran, who need that same bandwidth to get out their images and observations and tweets.

To show that nothing much has changed structurally, consider the fact that the same lineup of six international carriers are still carrying the megabits back and forth to the government's monopoly points-of-presence at the Iranian border. (See the following chart, which shows how the relative percentages of routes to Iranian networks carried by those providers has changed over the last few days.)

What happens inside Iran to those bits is anyone's guess (censorship, site blocking, traffic interception, and harassment, from all accounts). But the pipes are open and the traffic is flowing. In a few cases (which I will not detail, for obvious reasons), there are actually direct paths to international carriers, in defiance of government monopoly, that are now getting good use.

I've talked to a lot of people in the last few days about this puzzle. In a crisis that verges on revolution, the first thing a government typically does is take control of the media that can be controlled, and shut down the media that cannot.

Why is it different this time? There seem to be three basic theories.

The cynics. Perhaps the government has left the Internet intact so that they can use it to surveil and round up dissidents. Perhaps they even put bandwidth constraints in place to make it easier to cope with the volumes of traffic that need to be captured and filtered.

The optimists. Perhaps the government has realized that a modern economy relies on the Internet to such an extent that it cannot be turned off, for fear of disrupting financial transactions and business communications. Iran's Internet ecosystem is relatively rich, and the impact on their economy of a sustained Internet shutdown would be significant. Why make it harder for companies to do business in Iran at a time when oil revenues are cratering and foreign investment is looking for reasons to take a walk?

The realists. Perhaps the government is too busy with other things to worry about the Internet. Governments aren't well-suited to run the Internet, and they don't completely understand how it works. The Internet has never been 'turned off' before, and it would take creativity and thoughtful action to figure out who to ask in order to get it done. So it simply hasn't happened, and probably won't. Good thing, too, because they might not be able to turn it on again.

You can pick the theory you like. I guess I'm a realist, but I'd like to be an optimist. If you wait long enough, something good can come out of something bad. If fertility rates hadn't tripled during the long Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, Iran wouldn't be faced with this demographic bulge of restless 20-somethings who have grown up with the Internet and expect it to keep working.

You can fight people, but you can't fight human nature, and you can't fight demographics. Iran is going to follow the same long-term trend as the rest of the developing world: building a civil society based on free expression, global communication, free mobility of human capital, and cross-border investment. That's what the Internet symbolizes, and yes, if you ask these folks, it's worth fighting for."

(Via Renesys Blog.)

Gaps in the Iran firewall

2009-06-21T12:36:00.001-04:00

Posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Bookmark on del.icio.us
A Deeper Look at The Iranian Firewall
by Craig Labovitz

In the previous blog post about the Iranian firewall, we explored macro level Iranian traffic engineering changes (showing that Iran cut all communication after the election and then slowly added back Internet connectivity over the course of several days). Like many other news reports and bloggers, we also speculated on Iran’s intent — how was the government manipulating Internet traffic and why?

Thanks to the cooperation of several ISPs in the region and Internet Observatory data, we can now do a bit better than speculate — we have pieced together a rough picture of what the Iranian government’s Internet firewall appears to be doing. The data shows that DCI, the Iranian state run telecommunications agency, has selectively blocked or rate-limited targeted Internet applications (either by payload inspection or ports).

I’ll step through several of these applications.

On average, Internet traffic is dominated by web pages (roughly 40-50% of all Internet traffic). And the vast majority of this web traffic (unless you happen to be Google or Facebook) goes into ISPs and the millions of associated end users (as opposed to traffic going out of a country or ISP). Iran is no exception.

The below graph shows web traffic (TCP port 80) into Iran over the days before and immediately after the election. Though the graph clearly shows a brief post-election outage followed by a decrease in web traffic, the Iranian web traffic was comparatively unaffected by Iran filter changes. Based on reports of Iran’s pre-existing Internet filtering capabilities, I’d speculate DCI did not require significant additional web filtering infrastructure.

In contrast, the next graph shows streaming video traffic (Adobe Flash) going into and out of Iran. Note the significant increase of video traffic immediately preceding the election (presumably reflecting high levels of Iranian interest in outside news sources). All video traffic immediately stops on the Saturday following the election (June 13th at 6:00pm Tehran / IRDT) and unlike the web, never returns to pre-election levels.

The next graph on Iranian applications filters shows email into and out of the country. Again note the run up in email traffic immediately preceding the election (especially outbound mails). And then? The data suggests DCI began blocking some outgoing email even before the election completed. Following the election, email returned at reduced levels (again, presumably because DCI had filtering infrastructure in place).

Finally, a look at the top applications now blocked by the DCI firewall(s). The chart shows average percentage decrease in application traffic in the days before and after the election. As discussed earlier, the Iranian firewalls appear to be selectively impacting application traffic. I’ll note that ssh (a secure communication protocol) tops the list followed by video streaming and file sharing.

While the rapidly evolving Iranian firewall has blocked web, video and most forms of interactive communication, not all Internet applications appear impacted. Interestingly, game protocols like xbox and World of Warcraft show little evidence of government manipulation.

Perhaps games provide a possible source of covert channels (e.g. “Bring your elves to the castle on the island of Azeroth and we’ll plan the next Ahmadinejad protest rally?”).

Iran and Twitter

2009-06-20T19:48:00.001-04:00

http://twitter.com/IranElection

No pre-conditions? "Demilitarisation" doesn't count as one then?

2009-06-17T06:37:00.001-04:00

If any further proof was needed that Israel's current PM has no intention of offering a realistic program that the Palestinians would have any chance of selling to their people for a possible two-state solution, then this BBC report should be enough to show that he's merely posturing.

The Jewish people wouldn't accept such a "solution" if suggested for them - does he honestly think that this is anything other than laughable?

Netanyahu seeks 'demilitarised Palestine

The US has put pressure on Mr Netanyahu to accept a 'two-state' solution
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he will back a Palestinian state - but only if it is completely demilitarised. He said a Palestinian state must accept the existence of Israel and must have no army, no control of its air space and no way of smuggling in weapons.

Mr Netanyahu's speech comes a month after US President Barack Obama urged him to accept a two-state solution.

The Israeli leader offered to talk to the Palestinians immediately.
He said he was willing to talk with no preconditions, adding: 'We want to live with you in peace as good neighbours.'

Mr Netanyahu also said he was willing to go to Damascus, Riyadh and Beirut in pursuit of a Middle East peace deal."

(Via BBC News.)

The BNP and The Royal British Legion

2009-06-15T12:09:00.001-04:00

I think this sums up everything that needs to be said about Griffin and his neo-Nazi thug followers. All credit to The Royal British Legion.

Oh, and just in case you're in any doubt why I feel justified in labelling them neo-Nazis, take a look after this letter.

09 June 2009

Dear Mr Griffin,

We couldn't help but notice that there was egg on your face (and on your suit jacket) on the day after you were elected MEP for North West England.

Please don't leave egg on ours.

You wore a Poppy lapel badge during your news conference to celebrate your election victory. This was in direct contravention of our polite request that you refrain from politicising one of the nation's most treasured and beloved symbols.

The Poppy is the symbol of sacrifices made by British Armed Forces in conflicts both past and present and it has been paid for with blood and valour. True valour deserves respect regardless of a person's ethnic origin, and everyone who serves or has served their country deserves nothing less.

The Poppy pin, the Poppy logo, and the paper Poppy worn during Remembrance are the property, trademark and emblem of The Royal British Legion.

For nearly 90 years, The Royal British Legion has pursued a policy of being scrupulously above the party political fray. It is vital that everyone - the media, the public and our beneficiaries - know that we will not allow our independence to be undermined or our reputation impaired by being closely associated with any one political party. This is more important now than ever.

On May 27th, 2009, the National Chairman of The Royal British Legion wrote to you privately requesting that you desist from wearing the Poppy or any other emblem that might be associated with the Legion at any of your public appearances during the European Parliamentary election campaign.

He appealed to your sense of honour. But you have responded by continuing to wear the poppy. So now we're no longer asking you privately.

Stop it, Mr Griffin. Just stop it.

Regards,

The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion is the nation's leading Armed Forces charity providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present and their families. It is also the national Custodian of Remembrance and safeguards the Military Covenant between the nation and its Armed Forces. It is best known for the annual Poppy Appeal and its emblem, the red poppy.

Nazi Party
We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.

BNP
It believes that the indigenous peoples of the entire British Isles, and their descendants overseas, form a single brotherhood of peoples, and is pledged therefore to adapt or create political, cultural, economic and military institutions with the aim of fostering the closest possible partnership between these peoples.

Nazi Party
Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.

BNP
The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples. BNP activists and writers should never refer to 'black Britons' or 'Asian Britons' etc, for the simple reason that such persons do not exist.

Nazi Party
Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.

BNP
It is therefore committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.

Nazi Party
We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press.

BNP
The BNP stands for the revolutionary principle that the printing presses and broadcast channels of the media must tell the truth in their reports.... we will create a new criminal offence of “The deliberate dissemination of falsehoods about an individual or organisation for financial or political gain” by any media outlet.

Nazi Party
All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

BNP
A separate danger to genuine democracy comes from the concentration of ownership and control of the mass media in too few hands, particularly when the hands concerned are those of foreigners whose primary loyalty is not to Britain.

Fascism
An inherent aspect of fascist economies was an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence. Fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state. Fascism opposes many capitalist tenets, such as support of free trade and free international movement of capital.

BNP
The British National Party is pledged to the maintenance of a private-enterprise economy operating within a broad framework of national economic policy. It is opposed to international monopoly capitalism and to laissez-faire free trade and free movement of plant and capital.

Fascism
Fascist movements oppose any ideology or political system that is deemed detrimental to national identity and unity, such as communism and laissez-faire capitalism.

BNP
The British National Party is implacably opposed to Marxism and liberal-capitalist globalism, which undermine our standard of living, human and ecological welfare, freedom and national identity.

Fascism
Fascism tends to promote principles of masculine heroism, militarism, and discipline; and rejects cultural pluralism and multiculturalism.

BNP
The compulsory National Service system....would begin at the age of 18 with a period of basic training in the army. This would include full training with the citizens’ assault rifle. Conscientious objectors who refuse to undertake military service would be allocated other constructive work for the community, but would NOT receive THE CITIZEN'S RIGHT TO BE ARMED, or THE RIGHT TO VOTE.
Even if.... it proved to be possible to assimilate and integrate huge numbers of immigrants from other ethnic and cultural groups into Western societies without mayhem and bloodshed, we would still oppose it.

MEMBERSHIP (Lifted from their earlier website, they have never retracted this however)
Membership of the party shall be open only to those who are 16 years of age or over and whose ethnic origin is listed within Sub-section 2 (ii) The Celtic Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community; viii) The Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community; xi) Members of these ethnic groups who reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them.)<-----That's white to you and me.

"[t]he British National Party’s determination not simply to stop any further mass immigration into the British Isles, but also to reverse the tide which has transformed vast areas of our country out of all recognition over the last fifty years. We, as the sole political representatives of the Silent Majority of the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh who formed and were formed by our island home, have one overriding demand: We want our country back!"

"We would repeal the Race Relations Acts and all other restrictions on free speech in Britain.... We would abolish all departments, agencies, or other units of government whose sole and specific purpose is to deal with ethnic issues, grievances, or crimes.... We would abolish all laws against racial discrimination in employment and the government bodies associated with enforcing them."

"A Clause 28-style proscription against the promotion of racial integration in schools and the media would be introduced."

"This wicked, vicious faith has expanded from a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago, to it's now sweeping country after country before it, all over the world. And if you read that book (the Koran), you'll find that that's what they want." - Nick Griffin

"It is more important to control the streets of a city than its council chamber." - Nick Griffin

“The electors of Millwall did not back a post-modernist Rightist Party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan “Defend Rights for Whites’ with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, POWER IS THE PRODUCT OF FORCE AND WILL, NOT OF RATIONAL DEBATE.” - Nick Griffin

"I am only going to represent the white people. I WILL NOT REPRESENT ASIANS. I will not do anything for them. They have no right to be in my great country." - Derek Beackon

"When we get to power OUR OPPONENTS WILL BE SWEPT AWAY like flies." - John Tyndall

"Very few people in Britain are aware of the huge influence over the mass media exercised by a certain ethnic minority, namely the Jews." - Nick Griffin

“The controllers of Hollywood, almost entirely Jewish. Some 'ANTI-SEMITISM' MAY BE PROVOKED BY THE ACTIONS OF CERTAIN JEWS THEMSELVES and thereby have a RATIONAL BASIS”. - Nick Griffin

"There is no doubt that hundreds, probably thousands of Jews were shot to death in Eastern Europe, because they were rightly or wrongly seen as communists or potential partisan supporters. That was awful. But THIS NONSENSE ABOUT GAS CHAMBERS is exposed as a total lie." - Nick Griffin

"[t]his BLOODY JEW [Alex Carlile MP] whose only claim is that his grandparents died in the Holocaust." - Nick Griffin

"There's not a European country the Jews haven't been thrown out of. When it happens that many times, it's not just persecution. THERE'S NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE." - Mark Collett

"Without the White race nothing matters [other right-wing parties] believe that the answer to the race question is integration and a futile attempt to create "Black Britons", while we affirm that NON-WHITES HAVE NO PLACE HERE AT ALL AND WILL NOT REST UNTIL EVERY LAST ONE HAS LEFT OUR LAND." - Nick Griffin

"Yes, Adolf went a bit too far. His legacy is the biggest problem that the British nationalist movement has to deal with. It just creates a bad image." - Nick Griffin

"There is a STRONG, DIRECT LINK from Oswald Mosley to me." - Nick Griffin

“The TV footage of dozens of ‘gay’ demonstrators flaunting their perversions in front of the world’s journalists showed just why so many ordinary people find these CREATURES so repulsive.” - Nick Griffin

"Churchill was a fucking cunt who led us into a pointless war with other whites [the Nazis] standing up for their race." - Mark Collett

"He's a fucking traitor." - Mark Collett on the Prince of Wales

"The Royals have betrayed their people. When we're in power they'll be WIPED OUT and we'll get some Germans to rule properly." - Mark Collett

"A FRIENDLY DISEASE because blacks, drug users and gays have it." - Mark Collett on AIDS

"Hitler will live forever; and maybe I will." - Mark Collett

"The sick minds who would have us believe that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz are completely twisted." - Tony Lecomber

"Asians are rubbish, and that is what WE ARE GOING TO CLEAR FROM THE STREETS." - Derek Beackon

"Those responsible for creating this multi-racial hell hole must face trial and pay the ultimate penalty." - Nick Griffin

"AIDS Monkeys.... bum bandits.... faggots." - Mark Collett on homosexuals

"Racial laws will be enacted FORBIDDING MARRIAGE between Britons and non-Aryans: medical measures will be taken to prevent procreation on the part of all those who have hereditary defects either racial, mental or physical." - John Tyndall

"Mein Kampf is my Bible." - John Tyndall

"[t]here will be an unanswerable case when the day for the great clean up comes, to IMPLEMENT THE FINAL SOLUTION against these sub-human elements by means of the GAS CHAMBERS" - John Tyndall

"There's a difference between selling out your ideas and selling your ideas. And the British National Party isn't about selling out it's ideas, which are your ideas, but we are determined now to sell them. And that means basically to use these salable words.
As I say, 'freedom', 'security', 'identity', 'democracy', nobody can criticise them, nobody can come at you and attack you on those ideas: they are salable. Perhaps one day, once by being rather more subtle, we got ourselves into a position where we control the British broadcasting media, then perhaps one day the British people might change their minds and say, 'Yes, every last one must go'. Perhaps they will one day, but if you offer that as your soul mate to start with, you're going to get absolutely nowhere. So, INSTEAD OF TALKING ABOUT RACIAL PURITY WE TALK ABOUT IDENTITY." - Nick Griffin addressing the Ku Klux Klan

"Voluntary repatriation. Isn't that EASIER TO SELL than compulsory repatriation for all?" - Nick Griffin

"I honestly don't hate asylum seekers - THESE PEOPLE ARE COCKROACHES *and they're doing what cockroaches do because cockroaches can't help what they do, they just do it, like cats miaow and dogs bark." - Mark Collett *This is what the Hutus in Rwanda called the Tutsis of which 800,000-1 million were killed

"Well apparently didn't they get a lot of dentistry and plastic surgery."
- Rotherham BNP's Marlene Guest, referring to horrific Nazi experiments on Jews and others during World War II.

"The idea that the Black African Bishop Sentamu, the Asian Muslim MP Shahid Malik, the part-Turkish Boris Johnson and the Jewish Lord Goldsmith have anything to teach the indigenous English about St. Georges Day is absurd." - John Lee Barnes

"When these Asians go out looking for a victim, they don't go looking for Asian victims. They don't go mugging Asian grandmas, they don't go stabbing each other, they don't go trying to solicit sex off little Pritesh or little Sanjita, they go straight to the whites because they are trying to destroy us and they are the racists." - Mark Collett

“All black people will be repatriated, even if they were born here. ” - Nick Griffin

"Black culture is totally inimical to the mental and spiritual development of young white people, encouraging laziness, lack of ambition in worthy pursuits, preoccupation with the trivial and the banal, appalling manners and absence of respect for others". - John Tyndall

"WHITE WORKING CLASS SCUM will be swept away by a future BNP government." - BNP councillor Simon Smith

"THE RICH ARE GENETICALLY SUPERIOR TO THE POOR." - Tony Lecomber

"I'm no apologist for WHITE WORKING CLASS SCUM." - BNP councillor Simon Smith

"Rest assured, all those HOMEGROWN TRATORS who have taken part in the war against our indigenous rights will one day be held to account for their crimes." - Nick Griffin

“I want to see Britain become the 99 per cent genetically white country she was just eleven years before I was born, and I want to die knowing that I have helped to set her on a course whereby her future genetic makeup will one day not even resemble that of January 1948, but that of July 1914. Nothing will ever turn me from working towards that final vision.” - Nick Griffin

"Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal... [it] is like suggesting force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence." - Nick Eriksen

"Honestly now, would you prefer your kid growing up in Oldham and Burnley or 1930's Germany? It would be better for your child to grow up there." - Mark Collett

"Meanwhile, the indigenous side in the low-to-medium level civil war brewing in this country is getting its training. . .Its all going to get very messy." - Nick Griffin's blog on the BNP website

"It's clearly worth talking in terms of SIX-FIGURE SUMS to persuade families to go"- Nick Griffin, the Times, April 19, 2007

“We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an EXCESS OF SENTIMENTALITY TOWARDS THE WEAK AND UNPRODUCTIVE. No good will come of it.” -Jeffrey Marshall (senior organiser for the BNP’s London European election campaign), 2009 after the death of Ivan Cameron.

“There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all.” Jeffrey Marshall again referring to Ivan Cameron.

"The capitalist free traders, the Marxists and organised Jewry have declared war on the white man, not just in Britain but in every nation on the planet". - Nick Griffin

"We don't think the most overcrowded country in Europe, can realistically say, 'Look, you can all come and all your relatives'. When the Gurkhas signed up - frankly as mercenaries - they expected a pension which would allow them to live well in their own country." - Nick Griffin, 12 May 2009

Nick Griffin addressing a KKK meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OSzAtxnAJU

Nick Griffin denying the Holocaust on the Cook Report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X8QQwU00Jk&feature=related

Nick Griffin denying he denied the Holocaust on the Cook Report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-G2x9lotx8&feature=channel_page

The BNP canvassing for the EU and council elections 2009.
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=82021815938&h=17rjV&u=vcxm0&ref=mf
The BNP's organiser admits that membership is limited to white Europeans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuyLVayDOHo&feature=player_embedded
Marlene Guest repeating the claims of 'Did Six Million Really Die?', a Holocaust denial book by Richard Verrall of the National Front. It's been thoroughly refuted by historians and claims things such as the Holocaust is used as a tool to exterminate the 'white race': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Six_Million_Really_Die%3F

Sky News expose on the BNP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKk2K3fMk0

"Liar, liar, pants on fire"

2009-06-14T19:42:00.001-04:00

Something that used to be shouted as an epithet at school.

And today, Google gets my vote for the best candidate. Google Gears is (see below) supposed to work on OS and browsers greater than the minimum (hence the "+" after the various definitions). Quite simply, it doesn't. I'm running Snow Leopard which is OS X v10.6 - higher than their minimum. Using Safari v4 - higher than their minimum.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire".

So Google needs to either get their army of coders working on getting Gears properly running or change this on their gears.google.com page:

"Gears works on the following browsers:

Apple Mac OS X (10.4 or higher, G4, G5 or Intel Processor)
Firefox 1.5 or higher
Safari 3.1.1 or higher (requires OS X Tiger 10.4.11+ or Leopard 10.5.3+, G4, G5 or Intel Processor)"

LATER: A good friend pointed out that this doesn't mean they've got it wrong - I know Simon, I was ranting :)

Fiber To The Home: Ideal Economic Stimulus?

2009-06-14T19:20:00.001-04:00

I only came across this blog post today but it's fascinating. So, why shouldn't this be done?

Apart from incumbent telco inertia and fear of course :) And a shedload of technical/legislatory problems to solve. But apart from that...

Fiber To The Home: Ideal Economic Stimulus?: "

New York.--Senator Robert Bulkley, of Ohio, has made a proposal which is certainly worth considering.

It is as clear as daylight that, to bring about any sort of recovery, somebody must start some new sort of business or some extension of an old business.

It is also clear that nobody is in sight right now who has any notion of doing that — at least not in time to do this country any good as a depression cure.

There is one business which is a public business but is also a private one. This is the road-building business. The Government pays for the roads and hires the contractors. But the roads are built usually by private contractors and with materials furnished by private manufacturers.

If there is one thing needed in this country now, in view of the development of the automobile, it is express highways running east and west and north and south. Why, therefore, cannot the Government go into the business of building these highways?

— Washington News, February 9, 1938

Tough Times for Local Exchange Carriers

This week, the headlines seem to be full of fresh doom and gloom for wireline carriers, who employ people in every congressional district across America. Sooner or later, someone is going to call for Congress to tap some of the hundreds of billions in 2009 economic stimulus to help the LECs through troubled times, save lots of jobs, and preserve the way we do business in our critical last-mile communications infrastructure.

Is this wise? Is there a better way?

Customer Owned Networks

I stumbled across a really interesting paper this week, written by Derek Slater and Tim Wu, and it set me to thinking. Slater is a policy analyst for Google, but not writing on their behalf; Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School.

They propose an interesting thought experiment. What if you could own your internet connection, instead of leasing it from a service provider? In their "customer owned network" scenario, homeowners would literally purchase a strand of glass, running from their house to a common point of presence, where multiple providers would compete for the right to sell services over the fiber. The property rights you'd acquire in the physical network would be quite literal — when you sell the house, your strand of fiber goes with it. It's an improvement to your house.

The optical trunk, or bundle of fibers, that winds its way through your housing development, town, or county would also be yours, owned as a cooperative by all of the individual strand owners, who would pay the equivalent of "condo maintenance fees" to cover repair costs (backhoes do get hungry, you know).

Slater and Wu call this the "Homes with Tails" model, and a 400-home customer owned network is already being built out in Ottawa, in a trial run by CANARIE. In that experiment, the electric company brings your strand to the house, and charges you an additional $0.02 per kilowatt-hour over five years to pay for it (thus encouraging you to save energy in the process).

Have it Your Way

Their key observation about a customer-owned last mile network is that you, the homeowner, would have complete freedom to light your fiber however you like. You can make whatever deal you can make, with whatever provider you can meet at the PoP, who is willing to offer you service over your fiber. You'd strike a deal, they'd set a price, they'd lease you some link-layer equipment for your house, they'd light the fiber and offer you services under contract. But they wouldn't have anywhere near the same kind of leverage that they would if they owned the glass.

Don't like their pricing? Don't like their lack of network neutrality? Don't like the cut of their jib for whatever reason? Just cut 'em loose and get another service provider. It's your fiber, all the way from your house to the exchange point. They meet you where you have the maximum number of choices (the PoP), rather then the fewest (your doorstep).

How much bandwidth would you have on tap? Well, using current laser technology and cheap commodity equipment, it's trivial to push one to ten gigabits per second over that strand. And it gets you to a PoP where you could be paying a provider of your choice tens of dollars a month for the right to sustain those gigabits, and burst to tens of gigabits, across the public internet. Yes, in a competitive environment, where you buy the data service and own the fiber to the exchange point, that's how little you might pay for retail gigabit connectivity, if declines in wholesale internet transit prices continue on their current trendline. And as the switching and transmission technology curve matures over the 15- or 30-year life of your home fiber investment, maybe you end up with terabits per second of capacity. Futureproof, baby.

Getting Off the Launchpad

So this led me to think about the challenges of launching customer-owned networks, most of which focus around the "first mover disadvantage" — if someone starts a program like this in your neighborhood, your best play is to wait until they (the rich early adopters) have paid the freight. Then you jump in a few years later and pay only incremental connection costs. But because the startup costs are really significant, and because nobody wants to look like a sucker, this in essence means that such projects never get built, except in the easiest-to-reach neighborhoods, and then only by a service provider who hopes to extract a monopoly rent over the fiber. Not what we're looking for!

What's worse, the current economic climate also makes it hard to envision anyone starting a new fiber buildout of any scale. Credit has all but dried up, making it increasingly difficult for anyone to justify sinking huge capital investments into projects that might not return dividends for years, if ever, and then only in the densest markets, and then only depending on dodgy assumptions about penetration rates and revenue per user. Verizon is bravely pressing ahead with its FIOS buildout, estimated to cost $20B over 2004-2010 to reach just 18M households in five east coast markets. But then, Verizon just laid off thousands of people, a few weeks before Christmas, as business softens and their competition strengthens. And Verizon is probably among the strongest of the wireline carriers, most of whom are too focused on their collapsing margins and inability to roll commercial paper in this credit environment to think about undertaking significant new fiber-to-the-home projects. Especially if the model (customer-owned fiber) prevents them from exacting monopoly rents when it's all built out.

Time for a New Deal?

You have to ask: wouldn't this be an interesting use for a few hundred billion dollars of government investment? If the new Obama administration is looking for an investment project that would stimulate the economy in the short term, and build a completely new set of national capabilities in the long term, a national-scale customer-owned physical network would be an intriguing possibility. The government would provide the cash and the muscle to build the network, and then transfer it, strand by strand, to its long-term owners: those who own the parcels of residential and commercial property where the fiber terminates.

Start with a mixture of rural areas and midwestern cities: economically depressed areas where carriers have arguably underinvested in the residential fiber plant relative to what might be in the long-term public interest. Send a surge of engineering companies into the field, working in cooperation with municipalities and the utilities to secure the rights of way, open the streets, install the ducts, climb the poles, string the fiber, reach the houses.

You'd have to cover a few million miles of roads, at an average cost of tens of thousands of dollars per mile. You'd have to build some reasonable number of regional PoPs where service providers can meet customers, and maybe subsidize more fiber to help the independent providers carry aggregated customer traffic back to traditional internet exchange points in the big cities. But because it's "just fiber" (no customer premises equipment, no switching, no nothing), and because you're the government, able to lean on regulated industries and secure rights of way fairly cheaply, you're still talking tens of billions of dollars, maybe a couple hundreds of billions, to cover really large parts of the country.

And because we're still focused on leaving this a customer-owned network, ownership of the fiber network would remain with the individual citizens who own the pieces of property where the strands terminate. At the end of the project, the government doesn't own the network (individual property owners do), and they don't operate it (individual service providers do, competing for individual property owners' business). The property rights would be quitclaimed to the individual property owners. The costs could even be recovered from property owners over the next 30 years, perhaps in the form of a few dollars per month surcharge built into new residential mortgages, or as a federal tax on services provided over the new network.

Limited Government Intervention, Private Ownership

None of this is new, of course. Bill St Arnaud has been advocating customer-owned network projects in Canada for a long time (he's the fellow responsible for CANARIE's Ottawa trial I mentioned earlier). And compare Fred Goldstein's vision of divesting the CO and local loops from the switching and service platform to create a set of highly-regulated "LoopCos" for truly competitive universal access. In our customer-owned last mile fiber network, some Loopco-like entities would have to bid the local contracts to maintain the fiber plant, run the fiber exchange points, and so forth, all complications that I've glossed over here.

And the general concept of a national information grid and fiber to the home has been floating around for a long, long time, at least since the PITAC studies from more than ten years ago. To my knowledge, however, the concept of a customer-owned national last mile fiber plant has never received serious consideration. What works in favor of building it this time around is the economic climate, and the size of the effort that most people are now willing to envision for the government's role in rebooting the national economy.

The hundred-billion-dollar costs for building this project are not out of line with the other flavors of economic stimulus that have been proposed. The strategic returns on the investment are potentially far higher. The technology for stringing and laying fiber is well-established, the materials readily available, the expertise distributed among thousands of local small businesses nationwide. And at the end, instead of having poured that money down a hole fighting a war, or buying every American a new Chinese-made plasma TV, you've actually changed the ground rules of the domestic internet infrastructure.. and the American economy itself.

How many gallons of gas would be saved by eliminating half the miles commuted to school and work every day? How many pensioners could live an extra year or two at home, watched over by telepresent family, instead of checking into nursing homes? How much safer would our economic infrastructure be from attack, if the infrastructure of our information economy could be spread thinly around the country? What kind of entrepreneurial innovations might emerge, what new industries might flourish, if any two American street addresses could exchange nearly limitless amounts of internet traffic on demand?

I don't know, but I'd like to find out. It would be a highly nontrivial project, and I have glossed over many of the trickiest parts, such as building and managing the exchange points, and determining who gets to colocate and cross-connect there, on what terms.. In fact, building a nationwide customer-owned last mile network would be so nontrivial in scale, and so disruptive of the existing economics of Internet edge access, that it could only be envisioned during a time of national crisis. Would the payoff to future generations of property owners be worth it? We have a rare opportunity to consider the question.

Disclaimer: These opinions are mine alone, and not those of Renesys Corporation.

(Via Renesys Blog.)

Iran, the elections and "censorship" by the incoming government...

2009-06-14T14:42:00.001-04:00

Strange Changes in Iranian Transit

By James Cowie on June 14, 2009 7:33 AM

Many media sources have reported outages in Iranian mobile networks and Internet services in the wake of Friday's controversial elections. We took a look at the state of Iranian Internet transit, as seen in the aggregated global routing tables, and found that the story is not as clear-cut as has been reported.

There's no question that something large happened in the Iranian telecom space, and that the timing aligns with the close of voting and the emerging controversy. Iran typically has a fairly high baseline level of sporadic route instability, due to the country's highly centralized incumbent transit through DCI (Data Communications Iran, AS12880) and DCI's somewhat peripheral connectivity to the main east-west conduits for data. Even so, we started seeing spikes of route instability (changes in the paths to Iranian IP space) starting around 08:05 UTC on Saturday (just after noon in Tehran) that were significantly larger than normally expected. These bursts affected as many as 400 prefixes (blocks of IP addresses) — the majority of Iran's Internet presence.

At 17:48 UTC, instability turned into outage, as more than 180 Iranian networks were withdrawn from the global routing tables, indicating that there were no remaining paths into DCI for that portion of Iranian traffic. Contrary to media reports, however, the outages were fairly short-lived. Within a few minutes, half of the outaged population were restored to alternative transit; over the course of an hour, outage levels returned to their normal baseline. Route instability continued to be fairly high, and that pattern has continued through the night and into Sunday.

What can we say for sure? Not much, except that Iran remains well-connected to the Internet from a routing perspective. If I had to guess, I'd say that there are probably a lot more people around the world pulling local content from Iran's providers right now, and that surge of demand is probably contributing to increased congestion and (perhaps) some of the route instability we see. It wouldn't be unusual for there to be some inbound cyber-mischief as well, from supporters of one or the other side, but so far we only have rumors on that front.

It is interesting to note that the changes in routing that took place were very specific in their impact on DCI's various transit providers, who keep the country connected to the world. There are six of them: Turk Telecom (TTNet, AS9121), FLAG (AS15412), Singapore Telecom (AS7473), PCCW (AS3491), Telia (AS1299), and Telecom Italia Sparkle (AS6762). As the following plot shows, five of them lost Iran's transit, and one of them (Turkish Telecom) was a big gainer. (Red arrows indicate loss of transit preference from the outside world; green indicates a gain in transit via the given provider.)

A transit shift of this magnitude may indicate that something (administrative, or physical) has affected Iran's connection to the submarine cables running east and west — not a total outage, but some kind of significant impairment. Turkey has their own, interesting arrangements with Iran for transit, and those are still in good shape (perhaps somewhat congested, having presumably doubled or tripled in transit volume). It wasn't unusual to see 300ms traceroutes from North America and Europe in this timeframe to many Iranian sites.

Of course, you have to remember that globally visible routes are the signposts for inbound traffic to and through DCI to the local providers; from the outside, there's no telling what the Internet experience of the average person inside Iran is like today. It sounds as if a lot of content is being blocked within the country. For now, it's a good sign that information continues to flow, and Iran is still connected to the world at large. Let's hope they stay connected...

20 years of CIX

2009-06-14T14:27:00.001-04:00

It's 20 years ago this year since I first ventured onto CIX, a UK-based (originally bulletin board - for those of you too young to know what this means, ask your parents!) conferencing system and a fount of knowledge, fun and a social and business meeting place.

Using a modem running at 2400 baud if I remember correctly. The excitement as I paid about UKP 400 for a 9600 upgrade. Sad, but true. Now of course, it's IP all the way, using either the web based forums or, for the die-hards, an off-line reader called Ameol.

Wiki has the bare-bones of the history.

Sheesh. So much has changed. I originally joined for the Netwire conference - which was the only UK based source of technical support and patches for Novell' Netware software - still one of the best OS' ever written, that got beaten in the marketing stakes by Microsoft and Windows NT.

Lots of good friends dating back from the very beginning - some of whom I still haven't met face to face! Births, deaths, marriages, divorces - all the rich tapestry of life was there. Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers fame was a member as were most of the technical journalists who wrote about the early days of personal computing.

In this day of free forums and Google, is CIX still value for money? Yup. It's a shame that its glory days are past but until the last server is switched off and the connection to the outside world cut, I'll still be paying my UKP 7 per month...

Too late for Liz again but...

2009-06-13T20:44:00.001-04:00

From the BBC: Analgesic drugs do not always work against cancer pain but a breakthrough could lead to drugs to alleviate the pain experienced by cancer patients.

The biology of cancer pain is different to other types of pain, often rendering analgesic drugs ineffective.

Work by a German team, published in Nature Medicine, shows that blocking a specific type of hormone-like molecule produced by tumours could help.
The team showed that the molecules make nerve endings grow in nearby tissue, causing an acute sensation of pain.

Pain is one of the most debilitating symptoms associated with the many forms of the disease. It can become excruciating as cancer advances, but tackling it has proved difficult for doctors. The molecules highlighted by the latest study, by a team at Heidelberg University, were known to play a role in the development of blood cells in the bone marrow. But this is the first time they have also been shown to have a role in causing pain.

The researchers hope their work could lead to new drugs to block this action. Dr Mark Matfield is scientific adviser to the Association for International Cancer Research, which partly funded the work.

He said: "Identifying one of the ways in which cancer causes pain - in fact, perhaps the main mechanism - is a crucial step towards drugs that could bring relief to cancer sufferers across the world."

Dr Joanna Owens, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "It's important that we continue to improve pain relief for people with cancer, and this study reveals an intriguing new avenue to explore. What's particularly encouraging is that this research could one day lead to drugs that can block pain locally at the tumour site - which could ultimately lead to more effective pain relief with fewer side effects."

Baby Stars Discovered in Violent Galactic Core

2009-06-10T19:52:00.001-04:00

Funny: A Haynes manual for the Apollo 11 craft.

2009-06-10T09:42:00.001-04:00

The biter bit? Poetic justice? Desperation? Your call...

2009-05-06T21:24:00.001-04:00

When Microsoft purchased Hotmail in December of 1997 for an estimated $400m, it ran on FreeBSD. But Redmond ripped out the open source OS and replaced it with Windows 2000. Or at least, it tried to.

More than a decade on, Microsoft still harbors some sort of deep-seated urge to destroy the free software movement it once compared to cancer. But unmitigated open-source antipathy has given way to a kind of free software schizophrenia. In need of extra licensing dollars, Microsoft may sue a Dutch GPS maker over its use of Linux. But in its ongoing struggle to catch the un-catchable Google, Redmond has no problem reversing its Hotmail-era attitudes.

In July of last year, Microsoft acquired Powerset, a San Francisco startup intent on bringing natural language processing to web search. And like the original Hotmail, the startup's semantic search engine leans heavily on open source code.

Some of the company's core technologies are proprietary, including the XLE ranking algorithms it licenses from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). But outside of that core, as Powerset product manager Mark Johnson once put it, the company uses open-source code wherever possible.

Most notably, Powerset generates its search index via Hadoop, the same open-source distributed computing platform that juices Yahoo!'s search engine. Based on Google's MapReduce distributed computing platform and GFS file system, Hadoop was originally developed by open-source maven Doug Cutting, now on the Yahoo! payroll. But it was Powerset that originated Hadoop's HBase project, an effort to mimic Google's famous distributed storage system, BigTable.

When Microsoft acquired the company, Powersetters Michael Stack and Jim Kellerman took a hiatus from their full-time HBase contributions. But by October, Redmond had cleared the pair to resume their open coding. And that's what we'd call giving yourself cancer. 'While Microsoft has supported open source in the past,' a company mouthpiece tells us, 'this is the first time that Microsoft has continued to support open source with an acquired company.'

By all accounts, Powerset will drive Microsoft's latest, ill-fated attempt to unseat the Google search monopoly. In March, a Tweet from Powerset co-founder Barney Pell set the blogopshere a-burbling about the impending relaunch of Microsoft Live Search, and days later, screenshots of an internal beta - dubbed Kumo - rose to the surface of the web.

When Kumo launches, in early June, it will be the first 'shipping' Microsoft product backed by open source code. That's the word from Robert Duffner, a senior director in Microsoft's platform strategy group.

In an email to The Reg, Microsoft points out that several other product teams have their hand in free software, including the Windows HPC and System Center teams. But they've yet to actually ship code drawn from the community.

In recent years, Microsoft has enjoyed hearing itself talk in vague terms about its commitment to open source. 'Microsoft believes contribution and co-development are natural progressions of participating in open source communities,' the company burbled to us over email. 'A variety of Microsoft product teams and business groups are moving towards increasing contribution and co-development. The opportunity is in understanding the rules and practices of the particular project’s community to participate or contribute in a positive way.'

But with Kumo, it can't help but go whole-hog. Yes, a search engine can't be confused with a shrink-wrapped application or downloadable software. But remember the Hotmail switcheroo.

Regardless, it's a telling moment when Microsoft contributes to an open-source project with such a high-profile. After years of hostility towards Free Software Foundation (FSF) licensing, Redmond has contributed patches to the ADOdb database abstraction library for PHP, and the company likes to boast that to date, it has initiated more than 300 open-source projects.

But the Apache-licensed Hadoop - with its ability to process epic amounts of data on commodity hardware - underpins not only Yahoo! but Facebook. And it's the bastard child of the Google Chocolate Factory.

Perhaps Microsoft is changing after all. Or perhaps Ballmer's Google chase has reached the point of desperation. ®"

(Via The Register.)

I love the quote; "She makes Dr. Strangelove look sane"...

2009-05-06T20:36:00.001-04:00

DHS’ New Chief Geek is a Bioterror ‘Disaster,’ Critics Charge

By Noah Shachtman

Depending on who you ask, the Obama administration’s controversial pick to be the Department of Homeland Security’s geek-in-chief is either a leading authority on the deadliest terror threats — or a biowar chicken little, dangerously out of touch with reality.

At first glance, Dr. Tara O’Toole is a dream candidate to take over the position of DHS under secretary for science and technology. She’s a doctor, the CEO of the University of Pittburgh’s Center for Biosecurity, the chairwoman of the Federation of American Scientists, and the brains behind a series of influential disaster response exercises that woke Washington up to the threat of terrorists with weapons of massive destruction. Who better to take over DHS’ nearly billion-dollar research portfolio — about 45 percent of which goes towards chemical and biological defense?

But the outcry over O’Toole’s nomination began just moments after the White House announced its intent late Tuesday to name her to the job. To her critics, O’Toole has dangerously overhyped the bioterror threat — leading to a huge increase of the number of research labs and researchers handling deadly agents. Ironically, it’s these very facilities that are now these most likely sources for a deadly outbreak or bioattack; the 2001 anthrax strikes, for instance, were an inside job.

“This is a disastrous nomination. O’Toole supported every flawed decision and counterproductive policy on biodefense, biosafety, and biosecurity during the Bush Administration,” Rutgers University microbiologist and homeland security policy critic Richard Ebright tells Danger Room. “O’Toole is as out of touch with reality, and as paranoiac, as former Vice President Cheney. It would be hard to think of a person less well suited for the position.”

“She was the single more extreme person, either in or out of government, advocating for a massive biodefense expansion and relaxation of provisions for safety and security,” he adds. “She makes Dr. Strangelove look sane.”

O’Toole rose to prominence in biodefense circles after producing Dark Winter, a June 2001 exercise that explored how a single smallpox outbreak could threaten millions of lives in 15 countries. An Army War College report later found that the exercise tripled the normal transmission rate for smallpox — mak[ing] it next to impossible for the game players to do very much to contain the outbreak, and assur[ing] a disastrous outcome irrespective of whatever control measures the players may attempt to carry out.” Atlantic Storm, a 2005 exercise also produced by O’Toole, had similar issues. According to the report, it made “grossly misleading assumptions” about the ease of creation and dispersion of the same biological agent — assuming bioterrorists would enjoy a capability that neither the Americans nor Soviets could achieve at the heights of the Cold War.

To George Smith, a protein chemist a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, these exercsies show O’Toole to be “the top academic/salesperson for the coming of apocalyptic bioterrorism which has never quite arrived. [She's] most prominent for always lobbying for more money for biodefense, conducting tabletop exercises on bioterrorism for easily overawed public officials, exercises tweaked to be horrifying. [And she] has never obviously appeared to examine what current terrorist capabilities have been… in favor of extrapolating how easy it would be to launch bioterror attacks if one had potentially unlimited resources and scientific know-how.”It’s a “superb appointment if you’re in the biodefense industry and interested in further opportunity and growth,” he tells Danger Room. “Alternatively, a disaster if threat assessment and prevention ought to have some basis in reality.”

If confirmed, O’Toole would succeed the widely-respected Jay Cohen, a retired admiral.

And for Mum as well...

2009-05-06T20:30:00.001-04:00

Trial drugs 'reverse' Alzheimer's

The drugs are licensed to treat certain types of cancer. US scientists say they have successfully reversed the effects of Alzheimer's with experimental drugs. The drugs target and boost the function of a newly pinpointed gene involved in the brain's memory formation. In mice, the treatment helped restore long-term memory and improve learning for new tasks, Nature reports. The same drugs - HDAC inhibitors - are currently being tested to treat Huntington's disease and are on the market to treat some cancers. They reshape the DNA scaffolding that supports and controls the expression of genes in the brain.

"We need to do more research to investigate whether developing treatments that control this gene could benefit people with Alzheimer's" said Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer's Research Trust

The Alzheimer's gene the drugs act upon, histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), regulates the expression of a plethora of genes implicated in plasticity - the brain's ability to change in response to experience - and memory formation. This findings build on the team's 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn. Lead researcher Professor Li-Huei Tsai explained: 'It brings about long-lasting changes in how other genes are expressed, which is probably necessary to increase numbers of synapses and restructure neural circuits, thereby enhancing memory. 'To our knowledge, HDAC inhibitors have not been used to treat Alzheimer's disease or dementia. 'But now that we know that inhibiting HDAC2 has the potential to boost synaptic plasticity, synapse formation and memory formation. 'In the next step, we will develop new HDAC2-selective inhibitors and test their function for human diseases associated with memory impairment to treat neurodegenerative diseases.'

Future hope.

HDAC inhibitor treatment for humans with Alzheimer's disease is still a decade or more away, she said. The chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Rebecca Wood, said: 'This is promising research which improves our understanding of memory loss in Alzheimer's. 'We need to do more research to investigate whether developing treatments that control this gene could benefit people with Alzheimer's. 'We desperately need to fund more research to head off a forecast doubling the UK population living with dementia.' Julie Williams, an expert in the genetics of Alzheimer's for the trust, said scientists were on the brink of finding a number of candidate genes that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's. 'If we can find the triggers and causes then we can hopefully prevent them. That is the great ambition.'

"

(Via BBC News.)

Always a few years too late. At least for Liz...

2009-05-06T20:27:00.001-04:00

Gene allows cancer to enter brain:

Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in UK women.

A gene that allows cancer to spread into the brain has been identified by US scientists.

The brain is well protected by a network of defences, and it can be very difficult for foreign substances such as viruses and drugs to gain access. But scientists have discovered a gene which appears to give spreading breast cancer cells a 'free pass'. The study, published in the journal Nature, raises hopes of new drug therapy to stop cancer spread.

The genes they've identified could become good targets for new drugs

The brain is protected by a densely-packed network of tiny blood vessels known as the blood-brain barrier. This barrier prevents cells and molecules circulating in the general bloodstream from entering the brain tissue. Breast cancer can spread to the brain, but usually only does so years after the primary tumour has been removed - suggesting that the remaining cancer cells must acquire specialised properties to breach the brain's defences.

The researchers, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, examined tissue samples, and used sophisticated genetic analysis to try to determine how this takes place. They identified three genes in mice which are involved in the spread of breast cancer to the brain.
Two of the genes - COX2 and HBEGF - have already been shown to help breast cancer invade the lungs, suggesting they play a general role in the spread of secondary tumours. But the third gene, ST6GALNAC5, appeared only to be involved in helping the cancer penetrate the brain.
This gene seems to work by helping breast cancer cells 'stick' to blood vessels in the brain, which allows them to slip through into the brain tissue. Without ST6GALNAC5, the cells fail to breach the blood-brain barrier.

Important implications

Liz Baker, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: 'While this work is at an early stage, and was only carried out in mice, it could have important implications for breast cancer treatment in the future. 'Around 10% of breast cancers that spread will travel to the brain, and the outlook for these patients can be quite poor.
'Cancer spread is one of the most challenging aspects of the disease so we welcome this discovery.'

Professor Sir David Lane, Cancer Research UK's chief scientist, described the study as 'very exciting'. He said: 'The genes they've identified could become good targets for new drugs as well as some existing medicines, so they offer hope of being able to block this particular form of metastasis. 'One of the reasons why cancer is so hard to treat unless we catch it early is because it spreads.'"

(Via BBC News.)

Great joy! Star Trek's Warp Drive Not Impossible..

2009-05-06T20:21:00.001-04:00

'No doubt trying to ride the hype train that's currently going for the new Star Trek film, Space.com has a new article detailing how warp drive may not be impossible to achieve. From the article,''The idea is that you take a chunk of space-time and move it,' said Marc Millis, former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project. 'The vehicle inside that bubble thinks that it's not moving at all. It's the space-time that's moving.' One reason this idea seems credible is that scientists think it may already have happened. Some models suggest that space-time expanded at a rate faster than light speed during a period of rapid inflation shortly after the Big Bang. 'If it could do it for the Big Bang, why not for our space drives?' Millis said.' Simple, right?'"

(Via Slashdot.)

Ashford, Kent? Why there!

2009-05-06T15:47:00.001-04:00

Damn! So close and yet so far:

"Ashford, Kent households first to benefit from Virgin tests

Reaching four times that of its current broadband best, Virgin Media is trialling superfast 200Mbps broadband access.

(Via Macworld UK.)

London sees rise in terror stops

2009-05-05T22:25:00.001-04:00

London sees rise in terror stops: "Somebody in London is stopped and searched every three minutes, according to new figures obtained by BBC London.
The Metropolitan Police used section 44 of the Terrorism Act more than 170,000 times in 2008 to stop people in London.
That compares to almost 72,000 anti-terror stop and searches carried out in the previous year.
The Met said anti-terror searches had been more widely used since the planting of two car bombs in central London in July 2007.

Of all the stops last year, only 65 led to arrests for terror offences, a success rate of just 0.035%.

Figures showed more than 60% of those stopped were white - about the same as the proportion of white people in London.

The Section 44 power allows police to search any person or vehicle without the need for suspicion.

It was intended to be used for big events like the Queen's Speech or just in designated areas where the terror threat was high.
Since February 2001, however, it has been in force throughout the Met area. Where and when it can be used is decided by the police who have to apply to the Home Office for approval for its use in a specific area for up to 28 days.

Lord Carlile said it was time for the Met to reconsider how the power was being used.

'The new Metropolitan Police commissioner should look at London again from the viewpoint of section 44,' he said.
'It catches no or almost no terrorism material, it has never caught a terrorist and therefore it should be used conservatively.'

Section 44 is used outside London but far less. In 2007, all the other police forces in England and Wales combined only used it 12,399 times, compared to almost 72,000 in London that year alone.
A Met police spokesman said: 'The threat to London from terrorism is real and serious and these powers are a vital tactic in our counter-terrorism strategy.
'They can disrupt and deter terrorist activity, create a hostile environment for terrorists and provide visible reassurance to the public.'
He added: 'No one community is singled-out or targeted, terrorists come from all backgrounds.'
The Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Metropolitan Police were all unable to say whether anyone had successfully been charged or convicted for terror offences as a direct result of section 44."

(Via BBC News.)

Bluetooth Phone Headset Makers in Class Action Lawsuit - Give Me a Break

2009-05-03T11:18:00.001-04:00

Bluetooth Phone Headset Makers in Class Action Lawsuit- Give Me a Break: "

Have you ever received a letter notifying you that you are involved in a class action lawsuit and that your rights may be affected? Usually it involves the fact that you purchased something from a list of companies who have been sued and that a proposed settlement has been made that will determine what your damages will be. I got one of these letters yesterday that involves a suit against Motorola, Plantronics and Jabra concerning Bluetooth headsets they sold. The suit was filed because these companies did not warn consumers of a ‘risk of hearing loss and that Defendants acted wrongfully when they did not warn consumers of the risk (if it exists).’

I had to read that part twice, they are being sued because they didn’t warn about a risk that might not exist. That’s what it says and that’s what it means. Can you say frivolous lawsuit? I knew you could. This is what is wrong with this system in the US. Why bring a class action suit like this in the first place? The answer is money. Millions of dollars are being pursued from these big, bad companies and all under the guise of trying to protect us, the unknowing public.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not railing against the ability to take recourse against companies that wrong us as consumers. It is important that we have an avenue of redressing wrongs. I am no legal expert but from all that I’ve seen of these class action suits I can’t say I have ever seen any consumer get fairly represented when the redressing takes place. It seems to me only the lawyers involved get any redressing and they deserve it, you can never have enough Armani suits.

This becomes glaringly obvious when you read through the aforementioned document above. The defendants in the suit ‘deny their Bluetooth headsets are unsafe or that they did anything wrong. Defendants are settling only to avoid the risk and expense of trial.’ In other words the law firms representing you and I bullied these companies into accepting a class action settlement to keep their potential risk as small as possible. This is how class action suits work and what is wrong with them.

If my best interests are being served by those who brought this class action suit against these companies what does this settlement mean for me and the other millions who bought headsets? Nothing it turns out.

‘It is not practical or economical to provide benefits directly to individual Class Members because the Class is very large and the amount each Class Member would receive is very small. Therefore, the Class Representative, the attorneys for the Class, and the Defendants agree that the cost of distributing any kind of benefit directly to Class Members would consume too much of the Porposed Settlement benefits. Instead, they believe that providing funding to non-profit organizations that focus on preventing hearing loss will indirectly benefit all Class Members’.

In other words there are too many of us consumers so we wouldn’t get much anyway. That’s the reason for the part of the settlement that ‘will donate $100,000 to one or more non-profit organizations that focus on preventing hearing loss.’ This sounds like a drop in the bucket to me but a brilliant strategy because who among us can complain about a law suit that gives part of the settlement to charity?

The full settlement agreement shows the real purpose behind this (and many) class action lawsuits. In addition to the $100k generously donated to several charities the proposed settlement will pay this:

Class Counsel will ask the court for up to $800,000 in attorneys’ fees and up to $38,000 for reimbursement of documented expenses. Class Counsel will also request up to $12,000 total for the Class Representatives, who helped the lawyers on behalf of the whole Class. The Court may award less than these amounts. Defendants will separately pay the fees and expenses the Court orders. These payments will not reduce the amount Defendants will donate to charity.

Defendants will also separately pay the costs to provide notice to the Class and administer the Proposed Settlement, up to $1.2 million. If those costs are less than $1.2 million, Class Counsel may request reimbursement for additional documented expenses up to $12,000, which Defendants will pay upon approval by the Court.

It’s easy to see where the money will really go and who gets it- the law firms working in our best interests. No doubt the ultimate take will be in excess of $2 million as evidenced by these documents and what is really going on. To recap, the aggrieved parties (us) get nothing, a charity gets a pittance and the seven law firms handling the suit get a few million bucks. Sounds fair to me.

I win as a consumer in this suit because my best interests are being looked after. When I buy a Bluetooth headset in the future there will no doubt be a sticker on the box warning me that if I keep the volume too high I risk my hearing. That’s a big win for me. I am consumer hear me roar.

(Via jkOnTheRun.)

A modern day Stonehenge?

2009-04-25T09:25:00.001-04:00

A strange feeling...

2009-04-02T19:55:00.001-04:00

...watching Barack and Michelle Obama in England, with the Queen and at the G20 summit. And smiling proudly at how they look and comport themselves...

And from JoyOfTech:

Spam data and trends: Q1 2009

2009-03-31T14:05:00.001-04:00

Spam data and trends: Q1 2009: "

Editor's Note: The spam data cited in this post is drawn from the Google enterprise security and archiving security network. For a discussion of what Google is doing to keep spam out of your Gmail inboxes on the consumer side, see this post.

In providing email security to more than 50,000 businesses and 15 million business users, Google security and archiving services, powered by Postini, process and cull spam from more than three billion enterprise email connections every day. This gives us strong insights into the state of the spam industry, some of which we share in regular posts to this blog.

Read on for a quick overview of spam trends and events in the first quarter of 2009.

What we saw in the Postini data centers

The most significant spam-related event in the first quarter of 2009 occurred when spam volume returned to pre-McColo takedown levels. By the second half of March, seven-day average spam volume was at the same volume we saw prior to the blocking of the McColo ISP in November 2008.

Spammers have clearly rallied following the McColo takedown, and overall spam volume growth during Q1 2009 was the strongest it's been since early 2008, increasing an average of 1.2% per day. To put that number into context, the growth rate of spam volume in Q1 2008 was approximately 1% per day – which, at the time, was a record high.

Of course, like every year before it, 2008 set a new record for overall spam volume. But in 2008 spam growth flattened over the summer and early fall, and then fell off a cliff after the McColo takedown (daily growth declined to .8%, .3%, and then .01% in the last three quarters of the year). This pattern raises some interesting questions regarding what we can expect in the rest of 2009: Will spam growth once again flatten or decline after a strong first quarter? Or have spammers – as part of their recovery from the McColo takedown – rebuilt botnets to be capable of sustaining or even accelerating this early growth spurt?

It's difficult to ascertain exactly how spammers have rebuilt in the wake of McColo, but data suggests they're adopting new strategies to avoid a McColo-type takedown from occurring again. Specifically, the recent upward trajectory of spam could indicate that spammers are building botnets that are more robust but send less volume – or at least that they haven't enabled their botnets to run at full capacity because they're wary of exposing a new ISP as a target.

New types of spam

The most significant development in spam vectors this quarter was the appearance of location-based spam. In this type of attack, users click on a link in a spam message and are directed to a page that contains a fraudulent news headline describing a crisis or disaster in a major city nearby. The attack customizes the location for each user by determining the geolocation of the user's source IP and then identifying the nearest major city. The addition of location creates a heightened level of interest, and the user is tempted to click on the embedded video – which in turn downloads a virus to his or her machine.

Meanwhile, the economy, financial markets, job cuts, and resume help continue to be the most prominent topics spammers are employing as lures for more traditional attacks. We also saw increased spam activity around the U.S. presidential inauguration and St. Patrick's Day, in keeping with the recent propensity spammers have demonstrated for reading the news and keeping their eyes on the holiday calendar in targeting their attacks.

Virus roundup

In early 2008, a trend emerged in which we saw spam messages with attached viruses (otherwise known as 'payload viruses') spiking every Sunday, possibly targeting a maintenance window to catch corporate defenses when they were undergoing scheduled updates.

This year we've seen the payload viruses spread out across every day of the week, with no immediately obvious pattern in their distribution. It's difficult to say for certain what prompted the change, but one possible explanation is that spammers switched tactics because they weren't seeing the success they'd hoped for from the focused attacks.

Of course, payload viruses have also seen a recent spike overall -- in the month of March we saw a 9x increase from February. This pales in comparison to the highs we saw last summer, but it may indicate a developing trend that's worth keeping a close eye on.

Viruses delivered as a blended threat (when a spam message directs a user to a malicious website, which then results in a virus being downloaded to the user's computer) continue to be popular with spammers. E-cards are one of the best examples of this vector, and Valentine's Day saw a flurry of activity using e-cards to direct users to malicious websites.

Conclusions

Spammers continue to prove their resilience -- whether it's bouncing back from the biggest takedown on record or finding new ways to exploit the ways we communicate for malicious purposes, they're clearly here to stay. And Google believes firmly in the power of the cloud to protect your enterprise from them: Outsourcing message security to Google enables you to leverage our technical expertise and massive infrastructure to keep spammers from your door. See how much spam is costing your business, learn how much you could be saving with Google Message Security, or contact us for more information.

Posted by Amanda Kleha, Google security and archiving team

(Via Official Google Enterprise Blog.)

If it all goes pear shaped, this is a nice option...

2009-03-24T17:48:00.001-04:00

Who said comic books were bad for you?

2009-03-24T14:29:00.001-04:00

Boy rescued from window-ledge by Thai 'Spider-Man':

An unusual disguise has helped a Bangkok fireman rescue an eight-year-old boy who had climbed on to a third-floor window ledge, Thai police say.
The firefighter dressed up as the comic book superhero Spider-Man in order to coax the boy, who is autistic, from his dangerous perch.
Police said teachers had alerted the fire station after the boy began crying and climbed out of a classroom window.
It was reportedly his first day at the special needs school.
Efforts by the teachers to convince the pupil back inside had failed.
But a remark by his mother about his passion for comic superheroes prompted fireman Somchai Yoosabai to rush back to the station, where he kept a Spider-Man costume in his locker.
The sight of Mr Yoosabai dressed as Spider-Man and holding a glass of juice for him, brought a big smile to the boy's face, and he promptly threw himself into the arms of his "superhero", police said.
Mr Yoosabai normally uses the costume to liven up fire drills in schools.

(Via BBC News.)

The Makers of Things

2009-03-24T07:34:00.001-04:00

In the late 1800s, the Brooklyn Bridge was built with no power tools, no heavy machinery, and only a basic, evolving understanding of how to make steel. It’s not these facts, but the stories surrounding the facts that inspire me when I take a good, long stare at a suspension bridge. But first…

Stunning.

In a good bridge, I see the defiant end result of how some of my favorite engineering stories begin:

‘I’m sure you can arrange an impressive line of people who say it’s impossible. I take personal joy in ignoring those who say no.’
‘Yes, halfway through this project we’ll discover the impossible, but we know how to build through the impossible. Impossible is when we do our best work.’
‘Trust me when I say that I can close my eyes and see the end result, and when you can see it, too, you will be amazed.’
Ignore the No. When Brooklyn and New York’s population was booming at the end of the 19th century, the best way to get to and from Brooklyn was via ferries. As solutions were considered, I’m sure there were those who simply thought, ‘More boats!’ These ardent defenders of the status quo were not engineers — they were the business. Their goal was not to build something great, but to make a profit.

It was an engineer named John Roebling who proposed a suspension bridge. We take bridges for granted now, but back in the 1800s, bridges were in beta. They fell. One out of every four bridges… fell. He convinced them by designing a bridge half again as big as any before it that was six times stronger than he estimated it need to be. Roebling designed the complete specification for the bridge in a mere three months and then died of tetanus from an injury he received surveying the bridge site.

Discover the impossible. Both of the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are in the water of the East River. Ever wonder how you dig a big hole in the bottom of a river bed? In the late 1800s? It’s called a caisson, which is a huge, watertight wooden box half the size of a city block. This monstrosity was constructed on the river, sealed with pine tar, and carefully floated to a specific location on the river. It was then slowly sunk to the riverbed by placing stone on top that would eventually become the foundation.

Done, right?

Wrong. With the caisson on the riverbed, it’s time to push it another 45 feet into the riverbed in search of bedrock. Workers did this through the continued application of stone to the top while workers in the caisson dug out the riverbed with shovels, buckets, and, when necessary, dynamite. There was nothing resembling an electrical grid, so there was nothing resembling modern lighting in this watertight pine-tarred box, which was slowly descending through the floor of the East River. There were no jack hammers, so when they hit rock, they used small amounts of dynamite to crack these rocks. In a pine-tarred box, at the bottom of a river, mostly in a very wet dark.

And when the caisson finally hit bedrock 45 feet underground, they had to do it all over again for the New York tower. 30 feet deeper.

You will be amazed. With his father killed via an accident early in the surveying process, it was Washington Roebling, John’s son, who was chief engineer. He did the balance of this work bedridden in Brooklyn Heights, suffering from caisson disease, which he acquired working in the caisson as it descended into the New York-side of the East River. It’s not technically a disease; it’s decompression sickness or the bends, and it forced him to monitor all of the work from a window in his bedroom. He relayed detailed instructions via his wife, Emily, who effectively managed a cadre of politicians, competing engineers, and anyone else working on the bridge for over a decade.

As the New York caisson descended further than its Brooklyn counterpart, the incidents of the bends increased, killing two men. With no bedrock in sight, Roebling used his knowledge of geology and mineralogy to make an amazing decision: stop digging. It wasn’t bedrock, but it was compacted sand.

The New York tower. 78 feet deep into the riverbed. Resting on sand. It hasn’t moved.

We Are Defined By What We Build

The Brooklyn Bridge was built from 1870 until 1883. A quick history refresher: five years after we finished shooting each other in the American Civil War, we started building this:

Three years after that, work started on another:

And before the Williamsburg Bridge was even done, work started on the Manhattan Bridge:

These are the words and the stories I hear in the Brooklyn Bridge: enthusiasm, audacity, impossibility, and amazement. More importantly, I see a work of bare utility with a palpable sense of confidence, an equilibrium with nature, and a beauty that only grows with time.

We are defined by what we build. It’s not just the engineering ambition that designed these structures, nor the 20 people who died building the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s that we believe we can and decide to act. I’m happy to report our new President agrees when he says,

‘In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.’

Someone, sometime soon is going to start describing the climb out of this impressive hole we’ve dug for ourselves, and they’re going to call it ‘America 2.0’. Clever, yes. We need a new version of ourselves and that’s going to involve bright, unexpected ideas from those we least expect them from, and they’re going to strike you as impossible. All you need to do to understand these terrifyingly ambitious ideas is to look back at what we’ve already done to understand what we can do.

# MARCH 23, 2009 : COMMENTS (24)"

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Died and gone to heaven...

2009-03-17T19:25:00.001-04:00

Well, some of the fan boyz think so...

Finally....

2009-03-17T19:13:00.001-04:00

The Shuttle from Winter Park

2009-03-15T19:58:00.001-04:00

OR one of these? Top speed: 225 m.p.h....

2009-03-04T16:17:00.001-05:00

Do I REALLY need one of these?

2009-03-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

Test post with beta 2.13b14 - which of course works.

2009-03-03T20:13:00.001-05:00

About frickin' time: FCC to Telecoms: Explain Privacy Protection or Pay Up

2009-02-25T20:14:00.001-05:00

Marketing calls from companies you wouldn't buy from in a million years? Blame the telcos and their crap attitude to privacy. So, finally, "Federal regulators proposed $12 million in fines for telecoms that failed to file privacy reports about their customers' phone records in 2008. The FCC hopes the fines will prod companies into filing this year's report by March 1 and send a message the government is serious about consumer telephone privacy" (Via Wired News.)

The mathematics that screwed Wall Steet

2009-02-23T18:34:00.001-05:00

Taken from issue 17.03 of Wired...

The end of an era...

2009-02-21T13:38:00.001-05:00

The 'Last' pic'n'mix bag from Woolies, fetches £14,500

The souvenir from the collapsed retail chain received 115 bids before finally being sold to the highest bidder on eBay at midday on Saturday.
Ed Adams, a Woolworths store manager, filled the pic'n'mix just before his shop in Petts Wood, Bromley, south London, closed for the last time.
The money will go to the Retail Trust, a charity for retail industry workers.

"I am really proud and excited to see such an enormous sum has been raised for the last bag of pic'n'mix," said Mr Adams. "Retail Trust is a fantastic organisation that has helped so many people like me."

Worthwhile cause

The 800g bag includes fizzy cola bottles, rhubarb & custards, strawberry bon bons, Turkish delight, white mice and pineapple cubes. Nigel Rothband, Retail Trust chief executive, said: "It's taken us by surprise. It's very exciting and much more than we were expecting." The bag has been officially certified by Woolworths' administrators, Deloitte, as the last one. A spokesman said: "The administrators of Woolworths PLC have consented to the sale of this item for the benefit of Retail Trust. "They are pleased to be supporting this worthwhile cause and hope the proceeds will make a difference to those workers helped by the charity." An eBay spokesman said they were working with the charity to "finalise payment" from the winning bidder.

WTF is "synthetic letter of credit facility in the amount of up to $130m"?

2009-02-18T13:23:00.001-05:00

BearingPoint buckles under debt

Apple ups the ante; an excellent piece on what to expect in Snow Leopard

2009-01-23T10:17:00.001-05:00

Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Apple ups the ante

By Prince McLean

Apple initially seemed to suggest that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be a minor release following 2007's 10.5 Leopard, citing support for Exchange Server push messaging as the only customer-facing feature. However, Apple historically directs attention upon its currently shipping products rather than its future plans. As the Snow Leopard release grows closer (remarks at WWDC last summer indicated it would ship "in about a year," or Summer 2009), more details have been released.

New kernel features in Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard will deliver a full 64-bit kernel, requiring the same significant "all at once" upgrade in device drivers that Vista's significant kernel changes did. Apple will likely have an easier time pulling this off, as Snow Leopard is only designed to run on a relatively small number of higher end PCs, all made by Apple. Rather than trying to get lots of vendors on board as Microsoft must, Apple will be supplying the majority of kernel-level drivers for Snow Leopard.

While Microsoft has sold a 64-bit version of Windows for Intel x86 PCs since mid-2005, actual 64-bit adoption has been slow. Apple has incrementally supported 64-bit background servers and applications in Mac OS X since the release of the PowerMac G5 in 2003; all 64-bit capable Macs can already run 64-bit Mac OS X software because Apple doesn't offer two versions of its operating system; the same version of today's Leopard runs both 32-bit and 64-bit code.

In Snow Leopard, this will improve as the entire operating system, including all bundled apps, will be compiled for both 32-bit and 64-bits. This results in a roughly 15% increase in performance across the board for 64-bit Macs, such as those with Core 2 Duo processors (most models released since 2006). It also has implications related to security hardening. Windows users also benefit from running the 64-bit version of Microsoft's operating system, but compatibility problems have made the move less attractive, leaving mainstream Windows users stuck on a 32-bit platform. Windows 7 perpetuates this problem by delaying the move to 64-bits to a future release.

In addition to bringing 64-bit processors into the mainstream of Mac computing by making 64-bit the default rather than an option, Snow Leopard also debuts the fruits of Apple's efforts in making full use of multiple cores and multiple processors. Snow Leopard's new Grand Central Dispatch is used to aggressively and efficiently schedule processes across all available processor cores in parallel, and OpenCL is being made available to allow developers to take advantage of the raw processing power that often lays idle in the system's GPU.

Strategic improvements

Apple is also advertising QuickTime X as a streamlined, highly efficient media playback library (originally developed for the iPhone), as well as new advancements to Safari 4.0 and its SquirelFish Extreme JavaScript engine. The latter two will help to accelerate a new wave of sophisticated web applications, including Apple's own SproutCore-based MobileMe and iWork.com, as well as other HTML5 applications from partners such as Google, which are similarly working to develop open, interoperable, and high performance web apps with desktop-style features based upon industry standards.

Microsoft, in contrast, is betting upon its own Silverlight, a Flash-like, proprietary platform for web development that ties web applications to the company's own development tools and runtime rather than leveraging open web standards for interoperability.

Like Microsoft, Apple hopes to bridge its desktop operating system with online cloud computing services offered as subscription software. The difference is that Apple is again working within open standards and in partnership with companies like Google, rather than offering entirely proprietary services. That strategy appears to be paying off, as Apple now has millions of paid MobileMe subscribers which represent more than ten percent of the Mac installed base, while Microsoft has yet to move its Live Mesh out of beta, and has struggled to put together a consistent strategy for its web services.

Next month, Microsoft is expected to announce SkyBox as a new mobile cloud sync service to take on MobileMe (and later its SkyMarket to rival Apple's iPhone App Store), despite having its Windows Mobile platform eclipsed by the iPhone and splintered among various hardware makers and service providers, each of whom might not want to cede the potential for software sales and cloud sync revenues exclusively to Microsoft.

Touch and Office features

While Microsoft made a lot of announcements about integrating touch screen features into Windows 7 back in 2007 around the rollout of the iPhone and its own Surface project, Apple will be delivering a more practical version of new touch functionality in Snow Leopard, one which enables developers to make use of the multitouch trackpads now built into all of Apple's notebooks (which make up more than half of the company's sales).

Apple has already delivered multitouch gestures that can be used system wide, as well as pinch and zoom features that work in its own specific apps. Snow Leopard will extend touch frameworks to developers to allow them to take full advantage of multitouch trackpads in innovative ways, all without users having go out and purchase their own touch screen monitors.

Other silent but practical additions to Snow Leopard include new text processing features that will give all Mac applications the kind of auto-complete and auto-correction features Microsoft provides inside Word. Mac OS X has already extended Word-style spelling and grammar checking to be a system wide service. Windows offers those services in Microsoft-authored apps but they don't yet extend to third party apps.

Open software updates

For Windows NT, Microsoft developed its own new sophisticated file system called NTFS, but it never shared or licensed the technology so that other vendors could build interoperable systems that used it. The result was a selection of patent-threatened, mostly-compatible software libraries that enable Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X to use NTFS volumes in a limited way. That vacuum prompted Sun to develop its own sophisticated file system to go well beyond the capabilities of NTFS.

Sun has released its 128-bit ZFS as part of OpenSolaris, enabling Apple to build a compatible, read-only implementation in Mac OS X Leopard. In Snow Leopard, Sun's ZFS will be fully supported as a read/write file system, enabling mainstream Mac users to start taking advantage of its storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshot features.

Other open software improvements to make their way into Snow Leopard include the CUPS printing libraries used by both Mac OS X and Linux, which Apple acquired and maintains with the support of the community. Apple has also funded development of the open source LLVM compiler, which is intended to build upon and eventually replace GCC (the GNU C Compiler). LLVM is already resulting in major new code optimizations, but the explicit optimizations for parallel execution it supports will also help Snow Leopard apps take full advantage of Grand Central dispatching across multiple cores.

Microsoft develops its own kernel, file systems, printing technology, compilers, and other operating system components, resulting in less opportunity to take advantage of advancements by the open source community.

Where's the open beta?

Some have wondered why Apple hasn't shipped a public beta for Snow Leopard, which appears set for release well ahead of Windows 7. The answer is that Apple unique position demands it take an alternative approach. Microsoft's new software will eventually be bundled on every new PC sold, outside of Apple's, so there's no need to worry about leaking features or showing off the flaws of an unfinished product. Microsoft doesn't have to sell Windows 7, it only has to worry about market rejection. Due to the volumes of PCs it will eventually be installed on, it's bound to be successful even if it is a marginal product.

By contrast, Apple has to vigorously sell Macs against all odds. It has to deliver products as they are completed in order to awe the market both with its differentiated features and its finished quality. If Apple were to open up Snow Leopard to public review, the Windows-aligned tech media would have a field day complaining about its minor errors, as they worked so hard to do at Leopard's actual release. There would also be an immediate call to port Snow Leopard's look and features into Windows, erasing Apple's competitive advantages before the company could even begin selling its work.

Windows Vista worked hard to incorporate versions of Mac OS X features, but Apple was still able to show off unique features in Leopard at its release.

Rumored enhancements

The lack of a public beta means that users will be kept guessing about the finishing touches to Snow Leopard up until its release. One rumor calls for a new unified appearance called Marble, a like assumption given Apple's consistent efforts to brand and identify each reference release of Mac OS X with user interface improvements. Apple's own apps, notably Logic Pro 8, iTunes, iLife, and iWork, provide clues to the company's direction.

Apple will also be incrementally improving upon technologies that already exist in Leopard, from accessibility features like Voice Over, to new font Auto Activation in Font Book, to resolution independence, which is required to support the increasing screen density of modern displays.

MobileMe suggests new features related to managing notes, tasks, and events in Snow Leopard's apps (as well as on the iPhone). Document sync with iWork.com makes sense too, as does expanded functionality within Back to My Mac, Leopard's mashup of Bonjour and IPv6 VPNs that allows users to share their home files and devices with their mobile notebook while traveling. New geotagging services in iPhoto and location lookups in iMovie indicate the potential for moving expanded location-related services to the operating system level for all apps to use.

Apple's tight integration between its operating system and its hardware allows the company to deliver new innovation at a remarkable pace. Apple can build in hardware support and deliver immediate operating system integration for it, as it did when upgrading its notebook audio to optical digital interfaces, or in moving decisively to MiniDisplayPort graphics and multitouch trackpads.

Until completed versions of Snow Leopard and Windows 7 ship, the closest we can get is a look at the betas. The next segment will look at installing and using the Windows 7 public beta.

Welcome to the White House

2009-01-20T13:03:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the White House: "

Whitehouse.gov is updated.

"The Train In Spain Runs Mainly On The Plain"

2009-01-15T19:15:00.001-05:00

The Prisoner

2009-01-14T14:48:00.001-05:00

The Prisoner: "Cult series star Patrick McGoohan dies, aged 80"

(Via BBC News.)

Can you say "own goal", Microsoft?

2009-01-09T18:55:00.001-05:00

Windows 7 Beta Over Before it Began: "

Just a quick update if you’re still trying to get at the Windows 7 beta. You can stop trying because it’s on hold according to CNET. They source to a post on the Windows team blog, but even hitting that gets me a ‘Server Busy’ error. The gist of Microsoft’s message: ‘Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I’ll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!‘

Maybe I’m just cranky and tired, but I’m sitting here sadly shaking my head. Yes, I realize that when you open up a beta for an OS that’s been earning pretty good impressions, you’re going to get hammered with server traffic. I truly sympathize with that situation. But if you’re a company that offers rock solid software and services to enterprises and consumers everywhere, you have to keep your own afloat. Even at a time like this. Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be an update once the situation sorts itself out. Maybe the BitTorrent leaks were a better idea?

(Via jkOnTheRun.)

Would you call it a grouter?

2009-01-09T11:24:00.001-05:00

Google building own router to replace Juniper?: "Google is the 'one big ol' customer floating [Juniper's] bottom line.'

Google is building its own routers because of dissatisfaction with Juniper's systems, according to blog SD Times

(Via Macworld UK.)

Lust!: New SD Standard Will Allow for 2TB Cards

2009-01-08T15:02:00.001-05:00

The SD Association announced the SDXC (extended capacity) memory card specification, which could drive up the size of Secure Digital Memory cards to 2TB. Initial SD cards released by manufacturers based on the specification will provide storage capacity of 64GB, said Rex Sabio, co-chairman of SDA.

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Bugger :( The Stooges guitarist found dead

2009-01-06T13:40:00.001-05:00

Guitarist Ron Asheton, who helped found Iggy Pop's band The Stooges, is found dead at his home in Michigan.

Asheton, 60, was an original member of the rock band fronted by Iggy Pop in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
His riffing featured on hits including I Wanna Be Your Dog, No Fun and Down On The Street.
Police sergeant Brad Hill said there were no signs of foul play, and the musician's death appeared to be from natural causes.
He said officers discovered Asheton after being called to his home on Tuesday by an associate who had been unable to reach him for several days.
The band - which also included Asheton's brother Scott on drums and the late Dave Alexander on bass - are on the shortlist to enter the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this April.

Split and reform

Formed in 1967, The Stooges were not well-received by critics or fans in their early days but their records, especially 1973's Raw Power, were a key influence on punk.
A tour in support of that album was overshadowed by Pop's heroin addiction, and the group disbanded in February 1974.
Pop went on to score solo hits such as Lust for Life, Real Wild Child and The Passenger.
Asheton, meanwhile, acted in a series of low-budget horror films in the 1980s and 1990s.
He was also ranked as the 29th greatest rock guitarist by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.
By this time Asheton, his brother Scott and bassist Mike Watt had started playing as The New Stooges. The Stooges officially reformed, along with Iggy Pop, in 2003.
Their first album in three decades, The Weirdness, was released in 2007.
They played Glastonbury the same summer, and last year headlined the Get Loaded event on Clapham Common, south London.

From the BBC website.

Beautiful

2008-12-25T08:37:00.001-05:00

Merry Xmas

2008-12-24T16:46:00.001-05:00

The "Dark Ages" haven't gone: Pope puts stress on 'gay threat'

2008-12-22T20:39:00.001-05:00

"Pope Benedict says that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction."

(Via BBC News.)

Dubai Is Building a Refrigerated Beach

2008-12-19T18:52:00.001-05:00

dataxtream writes 'The world's first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai, located along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. The beach will include heat-absorbing pipes under the sand along with large wind blowers, which will keep tourists cool and guard their feet against the hot sand. Half of me says these guys need a reality check, the other half wants to go there.' I believe I've just thought of a way we could solve this whole global warming thing I've been hearing about.

(Via Slashdot.)

Xmas Tree Cluster

2008-12-17T18:44:00.001-05:00

Don't delay: Delete your DNA today

2008-12-17T10:14:00.001-05:00

What to do now

Now that a European Court has decided that the retention of the DNA of innocent people is illegal - what should you do now?

Earlier this month, 17 judges on the Grand Chambers of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled unanimously that the UK is in violation of the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) by retaining the fingerprints, DNA samples and profiles of Messrs S and Marper. Mr S was arrested at the age of 11 and charged with attempted robbery. Mr Michael Marper was arrested and charged with harassment of his partner. Both were arrested in 2001, and both had their fingerprints and DNA samples taken. Later that same year Mr S was acquitted and the case of Mr Marper was formally discontinued, as he and his partner had become reconciled and the charge was not pressed.

The court foundthat the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the powers of retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of persons suspected but not convicted of offences, as applied in the case of the present applicants, fails to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests and that the respondent State has overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard. Accordingly, the retention at issue constitutes a disproportionate interference with the applicants' right to respect for private life and cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society.

Let's look at the consequences of this ruling. What you can you do - as soon as you've finished reading this article - and what is the likely impact on legislation and policies?

Don't delay - delete your DNA today

The ruling clearly affects the retention by England, Wales and Northern Ireland police forces of fingerprints and DNA samples, and derived DNA profiles of both those who have been acquitted and those for which a decision of no further action (NFA) was taken. If you are among the estimated 573,639 to 857,366 innocents whose DNA profile is on the National DNA Database (NDNAD), you should act now. Don't wait until the time the police will have to weed out these records and samples.

Writing to the chief of police

The first step is to write to the chief of police of the force that arrested you. This may seem obvious, but several responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests we sent out as part of the research for this article, before the outcome of the S and Marper UK case was known, reveal that few individuals have gone to the trouble of asking.

At one extreme, the Warwickshire Police force has not received any requests in the last three years even though they contributed 12,263 DNA profiles to the NDNAD in the same period. At the other end of the scale, the Metropolitan Police, which in the past three years has contributed 85,305 DNA profiles, close to a fifth of the DNA profiles added by all English and Welsh forces to the NDNAD, received only 23, 64 and 110 requests for the removal of DNA profiles from the NDNAD, and granted 11, 18 and 21 of these respectively for 2006, 2007 and 2008 (up to the end of November).

Even though the West Midlands Police has in recent years arrested for recorded crimes about a third the number the Met has, it has received a similar number of requests for removal: 58, 49 and 83, and granted 25, 7 and 28 of these respectively for 2006, 2007 and 2008 (to November 21). For forces with fewer arrests such as the Cheshire, Durham or Gwent Constabularies, you can count the number of requests granted, since recording them started, on one hand. Police guidelines (the Retention Guidelines for Nominal Records on the Police National Computer) ensured that received requests to get off the NDNAD were granted only exceptionally. As a consequence of the ruling, the exceptional will have to become the norm.

Several forces do not keep a tally of the requests they receive. For example, the Northamptonshire Police responded to our request for details: "There is no single database holding the information requested. Some information may be held on individual custody records but manual examination would take the request over the cost limit and any results would not be conclusive in any case." One force, the Derbyshire Constabulary decided "As a result of your request [I] have asked the staff who deal with exceptional cases to consider making a record of requests and decisions."

Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK, a not-for-profit organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies from a public interest perspective, which provided expert evidence on behalf of Messrs S and Marper to the ECHR, commented on the ruling: "[This] landmark decision vindicates all those innocent people who have struggled to get their DNA destroyed. It means that there must be strict new rules to limit DNA retention and prevent misuse."

How to write a formal request

Having decided to write to request destruction of your fingerprints and DNA samples, deletion of your DNA profile and deletion or updating of any other database records linking to this information, the next step is to figure out what you should write. You need to include enough information so the police can identify you, the circumstances in which you were arrested (and your fingerprints and DNA samples were taken), details of the NFA decision or of your acquittal, and the reason you are requesting your records to be deleted and your samples to be destroyed.

This initial letter doesn't have to be long but it must be precise otherwise the police won't be able to deal with it. In its FOI response, the Cheshire Constabulary explained that it "receives numerous 'requests' for the removal of DNA, [t]he majority of which could not be considered formal request as when asked why we should consider their request, they simply do not respond or they actually mean something different. We would seek to clarify requests to establish the identity of the requestor and the reasons why they are requesting removal of data. This is well before we can actually consider the merits of a request and whether or not it fits the requirements of the Exceptional Cases procedure."

GeneWatch suggests this as a reason to "[a]sk for them to remove your records and destroy your DNA in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights". You may want to send a copy of the letter to your MP and a copy of any reply to GeneWatch (and let us know how it goes as well).

Another suggestion is that you may also want to argue for the police to remove your records and destroy your DNA samples in "other cases (e.g. cautions, final warnings, spent minor convictions)". Although the ECHR decision only covers people who have not been convicted, it makes clear that an interference with personal informational privacy such as the retention and use of profiles and samples must be indispensable and proportionate with the legitimate aim of the criminal justice system (i.e., the seriousness of the offence).

The Court cannot, however, disregard the fact that, notwithstanding the advantages provided by comprehensive extension of the DNA database, other Contracting States have chosen to set limits on the retention and use of such data with a view to achieving a proper balance with the competing interests of preserving respect for private life... The Court considers that any State claiming a pioneer role [as the UK is] in the development of new technologies bears special responsibility for striking the right balance in this regard.

If you're in a situation where you find this balance has not been achieved, for example the indefinite retention for children given reprimands, then you may also benefit from this ruling.

Taking into account the ECHR ruling, the police are now likely to accept all legitimate requests as they would be in a very weak position if an innocent person were to seek a judicial review in case of refusal. Due to the small number of requests granted prior to the ruling, the actual deletions from the NDNAD and the Police National Computer (PNC) and destruction of samples is a very ad-hoc process. The Met promised a process last year and eventually did publish one (pdf), but it was not worth the wait.

Here's the process they go through: "If the decision to delete has been made, the Exceptional Cases Unit will contact the respective departments and agencies to ensure that the DNA, fingerprints and PNC records are deleted/destroyed accordingly."

The National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) realises that "following the judgement last week in the S & Marper case heard at the European Court of Human Rights the DNA sample retention and destruction requirements are being reviewed." At least, once a DNA profile has been deleted from the database, it would appear that these transactions are propagated to all backups in short time:

The NDNAD has both a regular internal and a regular off-site back-up procedure. All transactions carried out on the NDNAD are backed up each working day. The deletion of profiles from the NDNAD would be treated the same as any other NDNAD transaction within this back-up procedure. Any record of a DNA profile will also be removed from all back-up media within 10 days of its deletion from NDNAD.

Until a comprehensive process is published giving stronger confidence in the deletion process, once you get confirmation that your request has been granted you may want to ask to be present when the physical samples are destroyed and electronic data is deleted and updated. If you go for this, ask speedily or possibly even with your request letter, as in my case the deletion process was started before informing me of the decision!

Observing the process by a large number of individuals would be costly in time and money; an easier alternative would be for the labs used by the police to generate DNA profiles from the samples taken from individuals to systemically destroy the DNA samples once a DNA profile has been derived. The DNA samples are not used for identification.

"Do no evil"? Hmmmmmm

2008-12-12T14:59:00.001-05:00

Google cranks up the Consensus Engine: "

Manufacturing isn't dead - it just went to Mountain View

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.…

(Via The Register.)

DNS and BIND 9.x

2008-12-10T18:57:00.001-05:00

The Bible:

Highly recommended: Securing your laptop and iPhone web traffic with Hotspot Shield

2008-12-06T08:45:00.001-05:00

Securing your iPhone web traffic with Hotspot Shield: "

Filed under: iPhone

Have you ever wondered whether the wifi data you send and receive with your iPhone or iPod touch at the local coffee shop or airport is secure? Well, I bet if you hadn't wondered that before, you are now. It's easy to forget that inside that cute little handheld device live the guts of an actual computer, and likely a lot of personal data. Depending on your surfing habits, you could be sending and receiving personal information in a non-secure way over public wifi.

If you're concerned about your data's safety, consider using Anchorfree's Hotspot Shield free VPN service. Hotspot Shield has been a great way to lock down your laptop's wifi for a long time now, and just recently they have released instructions on how to take advantage of their service on an iPhone / iPod touch. Pleasantly, the service does not require that a program be downloaded to your device, but rather takes advantage of the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in VPN functionality.

My only gripe with Hotspot Shield is that it can sometimes be challenging to get the VPN to successfully connect. Anchorfree recommends performing a quick reboot of your device to get your connection going, but in my experience even that can be a hit-or-miss scenario. But it's still better than letting that creepy guy that keeps hitting on the barista peruse my http requests. 'Cause I'm not paranoid, but I'm sure that's what he's doing.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Santa Claus' Gmail account hacked...

2008-12-04T12:12:00.001-05:00

'Faith-based' investment firm fingers holiday's most sinful games

2008-12-03T22:16:00.001-05:00

'Faith-based' investment firm fingers holiday's most sinful games: "

Holy @&$#

Buying video games as holiday gifts can be pretty intimidating when you've got a major deity looking over your shoulder.…

(Via The Register.)

Testing the ‘Broken Windows’ Theory of Crime

2008-11-24T16:46:00.001-05:00

Testing the ‘Broken Windows’ Theory of Crime: "

Interesting experiment testing the theory that signs of visual disorder, such as litter and graffiti, encourage crime and other acts of disorder. (Via Gus Mueller.)

(Via Daring Fireball.)

From basketcasecomix.com

2008-11-18T16:46:00.001-05:00

Feds Can Locate Cell Phones Without Telcos

2008-11-17T20:20:00.001-05:00

"schwit1 sends along an Ars Technica report covering the release of documents obtained under the FOIA suggesting that the Justice Department may have been evading privacy laws in their use of 'triggerfish' technology. Triggerfish are cell-tower spoofing devices that induce cell phones to give up their location and other identifying information, without recourse to any cell carrier. 'Courts in recent years have been raising the evidentiary bar law enforcement agents must meet in order to obtain historical cell phone records that reveal information about a target's location. But documents obtained by civil liberties groups under a Freedom of Information Act request suggest that 'triggerfish' technology can be used to pinpoint cell phones without involving cell phone providers at all. The Justice Department's electronic surveillance manual explicitly suggests that triggerfish may be used to avoid restrictions in statutes like CALEA that bar the use of pen register or trap-and-trace devices...' The article does mention that the Patriot Act contains language that should require a court order to deploy triggerfish, whereas prior to 2001 'the statutory language governing pen register or trap-and-trace orders did not appear to cover location tracking technology.'

(Via Slashdot.)