The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 2, 2006

Official News - page 10

WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton

OK, guys. I need some feedback. When I started writing Winding Down, nearly five years ago, I aimed to write 800-1,200 words an issue. That pretty rapidly became 1,200 words an issue, and over the next couple of years climbed to 1,600. It's now regularly hitting 2,000+ words an issue. (This issue is 2,360 words.)

Is this too much? I've always been a little wary about overloading people and I really would like some feedback about whether the present size is too much for people? Write to me at alan@ibgames.com - I can assure you that I will read what you have to say, though, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my prejudices will be discarded...

I was please to note a report from Gartner indicating that PCs are becoming more reliable, although over a fifth of notebooks will still die within four years of purchase. That didn't used to be a problem when people replaced computers every two years, but I suspect it will start to be a problem soon!

Incidentally, I was canceling my subscription to a SuSE Linux mailing list (our new servers run Red Hat Fedora) and as is usual I got an e-mail asking me to click on a link to confirm the cancellation. I did so and was taken to a page headed 'Novel Corporate Suppression File'. Gulp! I think whoever designed this bit of the site needs a lesson in user friendliness!

And finally, I've now reviewed the book 'Imaginary Weapons', which I mentioned a couple of issues ago. I'd really recommend that my US readers take a look. The review is at: http://www.ibgames.net/alan/reviews/hafnium.html.


Shorts:

In the 18th of June edition of the Winding Down, I reported on Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) spyware program. The outcry over WGA has now reached such a pitch that Microsoft have provided instructions on how to remove the program. It's also issued a new version which is slightly less intrusive and is more honest about its intentions. Be warned though, that no means of removing the new version is provided. You would think that Microsoft would learn not to issue programs that can't be removed.

The change of heart, however, has come too late to avoid the class action suites. Having failed to learn from the Sony debacle last year, Microsoft are in the process of embarking on the same journey. A class action has already been filed in Seattle. It is alleging that the company misled users as to the true nature of the WGA by masking it as a part of a batch of monthly updates which often includes security patches. The word on the grapevine is that this class action is going to insist on real cash payouts, not vouchers to buy even more Microsoft software at reduced prices.

Further class action suites are in the offing in other states including New York, the home of the consumer's rotweiller, Eliot Spitzer. I'll be following this one over the next few months - more information as it becomes available.

How to remove the WGA program:
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=2738068-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9001540&source=NLT_PM&nlid=8

It seems the UK police have managed to lose a rucksack containing a bunch of anti-terrorist files. The rucksack, it appears, was lost in a street in South East London. I'm not sure how you 'lose' a rucksack 'in a street' - no details were forthcoming, but what were they doing hiking around the streets of London with a rucksack full of sensitive files in the first place? just goes to show - you don't need a computer to lose confidential information. (Though, of course, it helps.)

The Guardian newspaper noted that the police 'are desperate to get them [the files] back before they fell into the wrong hands.' I just bet they are!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1806116,00.html

Our old friends EDS have come up with a neat little trick to squeeze more money out of unsuspecting government departments. Most IT contracts specify that you can't make changes once the design is fixed, because of the massive amounts of extra work (and therefore time) this causes. EDS cunningly inserted a clause into a 2.3 bn UK pounds (about US$3.8 bn) Ministry of Defence (MoD) contract saying that the ministry could change its mind about what it wanted, but there would be extra charges.

The poor saps at the MoD fell for it and took the clause as a charter to make changes. EDS was, of course, very obliging, and, as EDS say in a note to its annual statement, it's now negotiating the cost of those changes with the MoD. The UK government, of course, is stuffed, since it long ago outsourced all its technical knowledge, and now has no one left with the ability to spot and guard against this sort of problem.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/06/26/eds_dii_vii/

Microsoft's long running dispute with the EC seems to be coming to a head. The Financial Times reports that the commission has drafted a decision which says that Microsoft has not fully adhered to the commission's 2004 ruling. There is also a strong rumour that the commission will decide on whether to impose a fine of two million Euros a day (that's about US$2 million). Of course, this could all be sabre rattling, but I suspect not. This anti-trust issue has been going on too long (I've been covering it for two years now), and the EC is rapidly losing patience. Microsoft doesn't seem to understand that the EC is not the same as the obsequious US Department of Justice that allowed the US case to be effectively neutered. Microsoft may well rue the day is decided to thumb its nose at the EC's investigation and required remedy.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/27/ec_microsoft/

Now here's an interesting idea. The US company Fon are offering a broadband wireless router for a mere US$5. All you have to do is to share your broadband connection with other Fon users. If you aren't a Fon user you can still use the Fon network for US$3 a day - which is how Fon makes its money. It's a nice idea for getting free roaming networking, and Fon will make sure that whatever happens you always have access to at least half of your bandwidth. I like it - more details at:

http://ct.cnet-ssa.cnet.com/clicks?t=2732990-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0

More bad news for Microsoft. It has had to delay the launch of its new version of Office because of quality and performance problems. That sounds familiar! The new version of Office was supposed to ship in October, but that has now been pushed back to the end of the year. I suspect it will be pushed back further still - probably to coincide with the launch of Vista in 2007.

http://www.physorg.com/news70817401.html

Ah yes! SCO v IBM and the rest of the world. The end is (nearly) nigh. The judge has dismissed nearly two thirds of the items in SCO's case on the grounds that it had failed to provide sufficient evidence to allow them be part of the case. Groklaw's transcript of the judges ruling makes for fascinating reading (see the URL at the end of this item) - you can see her frustration with the tactics of SCO in the case.

I thought the best bit was where she demolished the argument of SCO's technical expert using his (the expert's) own published textbook on Unix programming! It's my nomination for the best read of the week :)

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060628203537917

And so to the news of the week - Google launches its long awaited online payment processing system. Just for once they are launching with the production version, not an early beta version :) This is definitely a first! Actually, there's not a lot to say about it, other than that it will probably give PayPal a run for its money.

Personally I wouldn't trust either PayPal or Google to collect money for me, not unless they came under the same regulation as banks do - and even then I would still be a little leery about it.

I want my money handled by boring men in grey suits whose mission in life is to look after money and make sure none of it goes astray, not dot com throwbacks for whom the company's chef is, like, where it's at, man. I'm the creative one - I don't want other people being creative with my money!

http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=2749085-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0


Homework:

Alexander Cameron of Digital TX has written an neat analysis of why he thinks the big media companies are heading for a fall. Interestingly enough this is one of the few pieces I have read about this topic that doesn't start from a copyright and DRM = bad, peer2peer = good point of view, or the other way round. It is a cool look at the forces acting to negate the old saying 'content is king'. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in this issue, although I wouldn't unreservedly endorse his conclusions.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/24/iptv_vod_content/

One of the main bodies that will affect the future of the Internet in the USA is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). CNet's News.Com has just published an interview with Democrat FCC commissioner Michael Copps. The interview makes for interesting reading about the way in which he thinks about Internet regulatory issues. With the debate on 'Net neutrality' hotting up in Washington, the interview is well worth looking over, if you can take the vomit yellow design of the CNet site.

http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=2762772-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0

And a couple of pieces for the programmers out there from the 'acmqueue' online magazine.

The first is a fascinating mini-history of the Object Management Group's CORBA technology (for the non-techies, it's a method of getting programs on different machines to talk to one another). I haven't personally ever had to use CORBA but I knew programmers didn't like CORBA. However, I had no idea what the genesis of the problems was. As a discussion on how not to create standards this is a must read. Recommended.

http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=396

The second piece is called 'The Fallacy of Premature Optimization' by Randall Hyde. Basically it is a re-look at the whole issue of optimization in the light of how people have taken Sir Tony Hoare's famous quote, 'premature optimization is the root of all evil' as an excuse to eschew all optimization. As with all polemics, it goes a little overboard in the opposite direction, but it is nevertheless a timely reminder that optimization does have a role and it is worth thinking about at the design stage.

http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v7i24_fallacy.html


Personal Losses:

USA - A hacker broke into the Nebraska Treasurer's Office computer system handling child support. The attack may have compromised the names, social security numbers and other personal information of 9,000 employees and up to 300,000 other people. The computer also contained tax identification information for 9,000 business that collect and send-in child support.

An interesting feature of the attack was that the attacker got into the department's backup computer, rather than the main one. The lesson is, of course, that back-up computers need just as much security as the primary computers - by definition they have the same information on them!


Geek Toys:

I guess this item is more of a warning to geeks that some of their toys may stop working soon, than a toy in its own right. Researchers at Ohio State University have invented a radar system that's indistinguishable from background noise. This means that the radar detectors in those expensive cars you bought with your dot com profits will soon not be able to warn you about police radar traps!

Somehow, I think this is one invention whose inventors will have no difficulty getting funding to turn it into a commercial product!

http://www.physorg.com/news70539481.html


Scanner - Other Stories:

Hacker breaks into Nebraska Treasurer's Office computer system
http://www.physorg.com/news70813837.html

In "The Ultimate Technology," George Maney shows us why genies are considered clever.
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v7i24_theultimatetechnology.html

PC Hardware is getting more reliable
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=2726754-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0

Libra still weighs down UK flagship government IT project
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/23/libra_disc/

The end of the era at Microsoft can't come fast enough
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=12CB8D6:1F69382

Secure identity begins at home
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/23/pc_identity/

Pentagon, DARPA fear enemy tampering
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/exds0FypUC0FrK0EctT0E7


Acknowledgements:

Thanks to readers Barbara, Fi, and David for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
2 July 2006

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.


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