WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
This coming week sees the launch of Microsoft's new stealth weapon - Window Vista. It's pretty much a stealth launch as well, no razz, no midnight queues, no rolling Stones jingles, just Microsoft's new operating system sliding unannounced into a computer near you.
I've covered Vista several times in the past, so I'm not going to go through the arguments again, just reiterate my advice - avoid it if you possibly can, and don't even think about putting it on existing hardware if you want to run applications as well.
I have, however, got non-Vista stories about Microsoft - not to mention stories about Apple, HP, and others for your information and entertainment.
And the first one out of the hat is...
Story: A smorgasbord of woes
...a little story about Apple (the computer company, not the Beatles record company). I wouldn't like to be accused of picking on Microsoft, so I thought I'd tell you about the problems Apple are having in Europe, given that the US papers are full of stories about their stock options and virtual board meetings.
For some time there have been rumblings about the fact that iTunes purchases lock you into the iPod through Apple's proprietary Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Last year there was a run-in with the French government on the issue, but that was relatively low profile - after all, everyone expects the French government to be stroppy.
The latest round of problems started a few weeks back when the Norwegian Consumer Council lodged a complaint with the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman. The complaint claimed that Apple's DRM system acted against the interest of the consumer. The Ombudsman agreed, and said that by stopping songs bought on iTunes from being played on any player other than an iPod, the law was being broken.
One US-centric analyst dismissed the problem, sneeringly suggesting that if Norway wanted to make a difference they should embargo the export of smoked salmon. Apple, he said had much more pressing problems with the share options. He's wrong. Both of them are serious matters for Apple, whose entire profitability structure depends on (1) Steve Jobs being at the helm, and (2) iTunes/iPod technological lock-in. A threat to either, anywhere is grave, and we live in a global economy in which issues in one country bleed through into others.
Within a day or so it became clear that Norway wasn't an isolated case - consumer groups in Germany, France, and Finland were also on the prowl over the issue, and there were rumours that Sweden, Denmark and the UK were also interested. That would encompass most of the northern European market if there was a concerted effort - a lot of people, a lot of iTunes songs, and a lot of money.
Finally, at the end of the week it was reported that the Dutch Consumer Ombudsman had lodged a complaint with the newly created Dutch Consumer Authority, which is now investigating the iTunes/iPod affair.
Perhaps our analyst would like to add nine different types of herring to his smoked salmon...
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=15EA7BE:215D3E184FC552DCCF9B4E0E6AC06258EFF29049075316B4
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/24/apple_drm_illegal_in_norway/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/dutch_out_of_tune_with_apple/
Roundup: Black Ops
It looks like the ex-HP executives involved in the black ops affair are going to get off lightly. Rumours abound that the California attorney general is offering a plea-bargain to the embattled executives. The deal seems to be that if they plead guilty to a misdemeanour, the other charges will be dropped. If this is the case, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy - especially their victims.
The exposure of the illegal activity has, though, opened a real can of worms for HP. At the moment it's pursuing a lawsuit against a group of former employees claiming that they used HP's intellectual property, funds and research to create a flat panel start up. It seems the HP didn't notice what was going on for ages, until the wife of the 'ringleader' (Karl Kamb) served a subpoena on the clueless HP during divorce proceedings, demanding to know what HP knew about a company called byd:sign Inc.
Duh! HP didn't know anything, and started to investigate. The result was the aforementioned subpoena. Kamb's riposte was entirely predictable - well in retrospect it was predictable, anyway :) Kamb filed a countersuit claiming that he was only doing things the HP way, and that the money he is supposed to have made off with was a secret slush fund which was used for espionage targeted at Dell's entry into the printer market!
The countersuit has now been zapped by the judge, although Kamb can re-file the case, this time under seal, and in the meantime Kamb is forbidden to discuss the case with reporters. I think HP is suffering from a bad case of petard hoisting!
And, lest you think that black ops of this kind are confined to the US market, I'd draw your attention to Italy, where Telecom Italia is embroiled an ongoing industrial espionage scandal. This week the former chairman of Telecom Italia denied any involvement, and in Milan investigators ordered the arrest of three former Telecom Italia workers on espionage charges. A fourth suspect is already in custody.
Telecom Italia is being investigated over allegations of spying on business rivals and politicians. Starts to sound familiar? I bet it does. And if you want an extra twist in this convoluted case, how about the fact that the Italian government holds a minority stake in Telecom Italia? More news on this case as the 'facts' become available.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/hp_tv_kamb/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/hp_judge_kamb/
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=15EA7B8:215D3E184FC552DCCF9B4E0E6AC06258EFF29049075316B4
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/telecom_italia_spy_scandal/
Shorts:
I don't know why it is that I am still surprised when I read that employees - even, or maybe especially, high level ones - have no idea of computer security. An IT consultancy in the UK sent out USB sticks to 500 finance directors of large firms in the UK. The stick was accompanied by an anonymous invitation saying 'For Your Chance to Attend the Party of a Lifetime'.
More than 47% of the recipients (65% in the case of media companies) plugged the memory stick into their computers.
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e2RQ0BsjfA0Xxi0DgJc0EZ
Those of you who belong to the 99.999999999% of the population who hate speed cameras will no doubt experience a delicious tingle of schadenfreude at the latest news from the borders of Scotland. It seems that they have been suffering from a plethora of badly wrecked speed cameras. Not only do the locals hate the cameras, they are prepared to do something about the issue - up to, and including, setting fire to the cameras!
The solution put forward by the Lothian and Borders Safety Camera Partnership? More cameras to see who is vandalising the existing cameras! Could this be the start of a camera/vandal arms race, I ask myself? First, cameras to watch the speed cameras, then cameras to watch the cameras watching the speed cameras, then...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/cctv_gatso/
I'm not normally that enamoured of the Taiwan government, but, for once, they've come up with an idea that I approve of. It seems that they are planning to allow Taiwanese companies to invest in mainland China. The devil, though is in the small print. Permission will only be granted if the company involved gives written guarantees that it will make equal or better investments at home in Taiwan.
Neat idea. I can think of a number of countries that would benefit from such action. Unfortunately, it requires decisive leadership to take bold decisions, something that I've noticed is sadly lacking here in the west.
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=15EA7BB:215D3E184FC552DCCF9B4E0E6AC06258EFF29049075316B4
I was delighted to see the judge in the 'SCO v. IBM and everyone else in the world' case slap SCO down yet again. The judge ruled against SCO's contention that IBM zapped code that would have proved that they (IBM) had added SCO proprietary code to Linux. She said that she found the information SCO were asking for in the version control files handed over to SCO by IBM!
SCO must be in a pretty desperate way if they have no one who can extract information from version control files - it's not as though it's rocket science. Any halfway competent programmer, sysadmin or non-techie judge could do that in a day. Yet another one of SCO's looney lawsuits goes down the pan.
I look forward to the day when this shrinking collection of crazy claims vanishes entirely.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/19/sco_setback/
A new unpatched security hole in Microsoft Word - the fourth to be reported in Microsoft applications in the last two months - was announced last week. Attacks are already being mounted using the flaw, and, as yet there is no sign of a patch to fix it. The bug allows an attacker to hijack systems running Word 2000, and crashes Word 2003 and Word XP, according to Symantic. Not really a very good start to the year for Microsoft...
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=27314761-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Top secret - eat before reading. Microsoft hosted a secret meeting of Internet security experts at the end of the week. The agenda, our mole tells us, was focussed on the threats from zombie computers and botnets (and, no, the mole wasn't an HP exec). Other than that, no one is talking. I'm sure, though, that readers will appreciate the irony of Microsoft hosting a security conference. Though, I suppose in fairness, one has to admit that they almost single handedly created the need for Internet security experts and firms :)
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=26620663-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Scanner: Other stories
Software company fails to prove it wrote its own software
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/software_company_fails_to_prove_it_wrote_its_own_software/
Survey: US government managers don't support teleworking
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=15EA7BC:215D3E184FC552DCCF9B4E0E6AC06258EFF29049075316B4
Man dressed as The Joker gets ID card
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/the_joker_gets_id/
Space scientists take a fresh look at crime
http://www.physorg.com/news88872533.html
Cisco admits iPhone Open Source license violation
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=15EE6A6:215D3E184FC552DCA1248E8EF602F9C8EFF29049075316B4
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
28 January 2007
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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