The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: April 20, 2008

Official News page 11


WINDING DOWN

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

Well, I still haven't managed to get my hands on an ASUS Eee PC. However, I've now actually seen one - a delegate at the ACCU conference had just bought one. I have to confess I wasn't that keen on the screen - I didn't really like the aesthetics, although I would have still bought it.

Now, however, I've looked at the reviews of the new second generation Eee PC, the 900 and I like the look of it much better, so I've decided to wait and get that one. Hopefully supplies will be a little less erratic than those of the original. Oh, and I will, of course, be getting the better specced Linux, not the Windows XP, version :)

And now for something completely different...


Shorts:

Information came to light this week showing that computers aren't the only reason that local government bureaucrats lose people's data. Employees of the central London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea have managed to lose sensitive data on children no less than three times recently. On the first occasion a social worker had court papers stolen which having a drink in a pub. Then a youth worker had a notebook containing the addresses of a dozen children stolen - also in a bar. Finally, a third employee managed to have a laptop with children's data stolen while in a coffee shop. Clearly children in the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea are at risk - from the incompetence of its council's employees!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/15/london_loses_childrens_data/

Interesting news from Intel this week. This year is going to be the year when they sell more mobile CPUs than desktop ones. This crossover comes two years earlier than was expected. Previous estimates were that sales of laptops wouldn't overtake those of desktops until 2010. Mind you, selling more laptop chips than desktop chips doesn't necessarily mean selling more laptop machines than desktop machines, since makers like ASUS are now starting to use laptop chips to produce small footprint desktop machines. The direction in which things are going is very clear though. There will be even more opportunities for government bureaucrats to lose people's data while having a quick drink in the nearest bar!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/17/intel_laptop_desktop_crossover/

And talking of losing personal information, I note that Oklahoma's Department of Corrections managed to make a basic programming error on their web site. So basic, in fact, that it allowed any one who had read the first chapter of 'SQL for Dummies' to browse their entire database. Not just browse, but change as well... It apparently took no more than a minute to download over 10,000 records, complete with social security numbers, from the site. Not good. I gather the problem has now been fixed, but how could they make such a basic error in the first place? Perhaps the first correction needs to be to their programmer recruitment policy!

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Oklahoma-Leaks-Tens-of-Thousands-of-Social-Security-
Numbers,-Other-Sensitive-Data.aspx

According to AT&T, the Internet is going to reach the limits of its current capacity by 2010, unless there is substantial further investment. This prediction might have been believable if it had come from a techie, but, in fact, it was announced in a speech to a London conference of government officials by Jim Cicconi, VP of legislative affairs.

In the follow up questions the audience quickly spotted the hidden context of the speech. It was an attempt to persuade governments not to legislate the right of consumers not to have their Internet traffic interfered with. AT&T, like all the major providers, are fighting a rearguard battle to defend their right to tamper with their customers' Internet traffic in the interests of what they call 'efficiency'.

Maybe they should just take a leaf out of US senator Ted Stevens book, and build some more 'tubes' for the data to flow along :) That way, to quote senator Stevens, when you 'send an Internet', it will get to there in a reasonable time...

http://ct.news.com/clicks?t=47658351-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-
bf&brand=NEWS&s=5

And while we are on the subject of ISP tampering with their customers' traffic, new research from the University of Washington indicates that a number of ISPs are already adding adverts to web pages being sent to their customers. The research was conducted last July and August, and the ISPs involved included RedMoon, Mesa Networks, MetroFi and XO Communications, although the latter have denied the practice and suggested that the ads are being added by a downstream provider purchasing capacity from XO.

However it's done, and whoever it's done by, this doesn't bode well for the future. Sounds to me like a good reason to transfer to an ISP that isn't tampering with pages on their way down to the browser. I wonder if it's possible to have the browser detect this sort of thing? Maybe standard ad-blockers can also handle it. This would repay a bit of investigation, I suspect.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144682/isps_meddled_with_their_
customers_ web_ traffic_study_finds.html

I see the attempt to sort out the USA's patent laws has run into problems in the Senate. Personally, I'm ambivalent about the measures contained in the bill, but the opposition, which comes mainly comes from pharmaceutical companies and the detested Monsanto Co, doesn't surprise me. There are too many vested interests in the current patent system to allow it to be changed easily.

The truth is that the whole systems is badly broken, but too many people are doing too well out of it to allow it to be changed without a serious struggle.

http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBIRy0FypUC0FrK0FyWl0EX
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBIWR0FypUC0FrK0FyuZ0EB

And one of the things that might cause some movement in the patent bill road block is a set of patents held by a small Pennsylvania company, which threatens to block the US government's US$1.5 billion effort to make the transition to digital TV less costly. The problem is that the patents are claimed to cover part of the digital TV broadcasting standard and their owner, Rembrandt Inc, is already suing 14 companies, including such heavy weights as Disney, ABC, GE, NBC, CBS, and Fox for millions of dollars worth of patent infringements.

If Rembrandt succeeds, then the cost will be passed on to consumers, sharply increasing the cost of the transition to digital TV next year, and making a mockery of the government's US$40 voucher towards the cost of a set top box converter. In the meantime the government is desperate to grab back the spectrum used by current analog TV broadcasts so that it can auction the space off for vast profits. Sounds like potential for a head on collision to me.

http://www.physorg.com/news127581851.html

In a major reversal of roles Sweden's Pirate Bay P2P organisation is planning to sue the music industry lobby group The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for blocking access to its web site. The publicity surrounding the IFPI's legal attempt to force Danish ISP Tele2 to block access to Pirate Bay resulted in Pirate Bay moving up from being the 29th most popular site in Denmark to it becoming the 24th most popular site. I suspect this might cramp Pirate Bay's attempt to get really ginormous damages out of the IFPI, but I'm all in favour of them trying!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/piratebay_sues_music_industry/

I was fascinated to see that Microsoft have admitted that Vista's User Account Control pop-up windows asking for confirmation that you want to do anything it disagrees with, was made to deliberately annoy its users. Fascinated, yes, surprised, no. This is, after all, the company that decided to make you click on the start button to turn the computer off!

It seems that the real purpose of the pop-ups is to persuade third party application developers to play by Microsoft's rules by ensuring that if they don't their users will be faced with an endless stream of pop-ups on installation. Talk about a dumb idea. Since ordinary users don't know that, all they do is curse Microsoft, and there is no incentive for developers to behave, because users have to buy the software before they install it, and the users assume it's Microsoft anyway. (It is a Vista operating system box after all!)

And to cap it all, Microsoft think that other operating systems should also shoot themselves in the foot by adopting a similar strategy. Thank you, but no thanks.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080411-vistas-uac-security-prompt-was-designed
-to-annoy-you.html


Homework:

Ever wondered why the Titanic really sank? Yes, I know, it hit an iceberg. That much is definitely true, but a decade ago, the wreck of the Titanic was discovered and in the process it was found that the bow was not as badly gashed as had been assumed from speed with which the Titanic sank. What they did unexpectedly find was that six seams had opened up in the ship's bow plates, and that the damage ended just where the construction changed from using iron rivets to using steel rivets.

Could sub-standard iron rivets have been the cause of the ship sinking so rapidly? It looks as though this is definitely possible and a team of researchers has been investigating the make up of some of the rivets recovered from the wreck as well as the records of the builders, Belfast's Harland & Wolff. It makes an interesting detective tale and is well worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15titanic.html

I don't want to alarm you but...

Business Week has published a really interesting article about espionage in sensitive US computer networks. The piece looks at the networks of what Eisenhower once referred to as the military-industrial complex - the military procurement boards and their defence industry contractors. It reveals an interesting and shadowy world where true espionage (as opposed to mere hackers) meets hi tech, and the advantage, as usual, lies with the attackers. If you want to know what is going on in this world, the article opens the door a tiny crack and allows us all to peer into the murk.

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_16/b4080032218430.htm


Geek Toys:

Now here's a little something for dedicated followers of fashion - An Armani television! Yes, Armani and Samsung have launched their new 46" LCD set with colour customisable logos... Prices haven't yet been announced, but the set should be available in mid-summer, with a 52" version to follow later in the season. Gorgeous dahling, absolutely gorgeous...

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/17/armani_samsung_tv/

For those into more conventional geek chic, how about the aptly named 'Cyborg' gaming keyboard? It not only has backlit groups of keys and a beguilingly angular shape, but also its own touch sensitive dashboard along the top. You can alter which keys are backlit, a distinct advantage when you are playing in the semi-darkness beloved of geeks, and - the killer feature, this - in game mode the Windows Start menu keys are disabled! A snip at only US$120.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/11/cyborg_keyboard/

I couldn't resist this snippet sent in by a reader - 'Discover the fundamentals of computer programming by playing a board game!' Yes - it's a board game called c-jump, and it seems to be about skiing and programming. The game, the blurb says, 'is based on the code of a real computer program'. Phew, for a moment I thought it might be based on the code of an Unreal program :)

http://www.c-jump.com/


Scanner: Other Stories

ASUS launches second-gen Eee PC
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/16/asus_launches_eee_900/

ISO/OOXML debacle
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease/faqs_isoiec29500.htm
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080415150233162

Dutch transit card crippled by multihacks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/dutch_transit_card_crippled/

Consumer groups advocate for 'Do Not Track' registry
http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN1520070020080415

Google sneaks under standards radar
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/04/16/google_de_facto_geographic_standard/

New York to implement an 'Amazon tax'
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3740056/Amazon+Tax+Lands+in+New+York.htm

Dubai impounds cable slicing ships
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/14/undersea_cable_cut_ships_nabbed/


Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, Lois and Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
20 April 2008

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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