The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 31, 2011

Official News page 12


WINDING DOWN

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

Congratulations to my old friends Kelton Flynn and John Taylor of Kesmai who have been honored with Game Developers Choice Online Awards for their seminal games 'Islands of Kesmai' and 'Air Warrior'. In my opinion it was a well deserved award, especially given their pioneering work. (See Scanner section for URL.)

And so to this week's Winding Down...


Shorts:

Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently published an interesting piece of investigative journalism about US cyber warfare companies. It seems that about five years ago the Pentagon shifted its emphasis in the cyber warfare field from defensive to offensive weapons, resulting in a blossoming of smaller hi-tec companies capable of developing the sort of weapons needed - botnets, zero day exploits, and the like.

For most of that time these companies have remained largely unseen until the hacker group Anonymous hacked a computer security firm named HBGary Federal, and published a large cache of its e-mail, including material from other members of the cyber warfare establishment. The article draws on some of that material.

Take a look at the article. It's one of the cooler, and more reasoned, looks at what is going go in this field. It's not at all sensationalist, and that, perhaps, is makes it all the more scary...
http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/cyber-weapons-the-new-arms-race-07212011.html

And while we are on the subject of hacking, I note that just about the entire online population of South Korea got hacked in one go. Personal information on 35 million users of a South Korean social network, Cyworld, was exposed as a result of a hack. As usual the information involved included names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other personal details. Given that South Korea's population is around 49 million, there can't be that many online people left to hack in that country!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/28/cyworld_korea_megahack/

NetworkWorld has come up with a slide show of wacky and amusing uses for retired space shuttles. I rather liked the idea of a shuttle Starbucks, with space suited baristas! Take a peek.
http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2011/072011-shuttle-layer8.html

I see the movie studios are up to their old tricks - in this case burying studies that don't show what they wanted them to show. According to the standard media biz myths 'pirates' are freeloaders who cost the studios billions of dollars in lost revenue. Actually, a recent study commissioned by a studio and carried out by the GfK Group (one of the largest market research organizations in the world) found that far from being a drain on the movie business, 'pirates' are the studios' best customers!

The study indicates that the typical 'pirate' downloads an illegal copy of a movie to try it before purchasing. Not only that, but it also found that such people purchase more DVDs than the average consumer, and go out to the movies more often. The are also more likely to go to the more costly opening weekend releases. The studio decided, surprise, surprise, not to publish the report...

This is not the only report to show that so called 'piracy' helps sell movies and music. One has to wonder exactly how long it will be before the studios stop harassing their best customers and figure out a way to reward them, just like ordinary businesses do!
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/movie-industry-bins-report-proving-pirates-are-great-consumers-20110720/

I covered Google+ the other week. One of the things I didn't mention was its requirement for real names. This is proving to be something of a defining issue for some people, who don't wish to use their real names. A lot of hot air has been expended on the issue, especially now that Google has been round zapping accounts it considers not to be using real names.

There are a number of issues involved here, including the right to anonymous speech. There are sound political reasons for allowing anonymous speech, I only wish that sort of right existed in the UK. However, there is a world of difference between the right to anonymous speech on the Internet, and the right of any given commercial entity to decide that -its- service is only for non-anonymous customers. Free speech is a contract between a people and its government, not a requirement on companies operating in that country. (Incidentally, free speech is also one of the most misunderstood concepts around. In a nutshell, it's the right of other people to say things that you really, really, don't think they should be allowed to say.)

If a company, like Google, decide their service does not support anonymous speech, then that is nothing but a commercial decision, and they will be the ones that ultimately bear the financial consequences. My take? I think that Goggle is taking a bigger risk than they realize with this decision, and their historic lack of ability to understand what goes on in the heads of their customers when it comes to customer service, is only going to exacerbate that risk.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-deleting-accounts-en-masse-no-clear-answers/567
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000884.html
http://gawker.com/5825343/
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/07/27/google-misses-an-opportunity-privacy-is-an-important-part-of-openness/

Move over, Man in the Moon, your place is now taken by the Old Man in the Sun, as captured by NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory. Don't believe me? Go to the URL and run the video!
http://io9.com/5824921/nasa-spacecraft-discovers-a-sinister-face-hidden-on-the-sun


Homework:

Fogg Creek's blog has an interesting take on girl geeks. It seems that the number of women taking computer science degrees is on the rise after decades of decline. In the early days of computers over 40% of software developers were women, but after 1984 the number of women taking computer science degrees dropped off until it had nearly halved by 2006.

The article also includes an interview with Leah Hanson, the only woman on Fogg Creek’s entire technical staff (Fogg Creek is a software house). Speaking from personal experience, I have to say that all the women programmers I've worked with over the years have been of a very high caliber indeed (which is more than can be said for some of the men...). It's worth a read.
http://blog.fogcreek.com/girls-go-geek-again/

Those of you who regularly go to science conferences will know that one of the more ubiquitous features of such events is the poster display covering the topics being discussed. Now a neat new project, called Skolr, has been founded to collect these posters - currently ditched after the end of the event - and make them available on line.

Here's how it will work: At registration, presenters will be given a Web URL for poster registration. They'll then sign up, enter their poster abstract, the title, and the names of the authors and upload the poster as a PDF. Some keyword tagging will be added to enhance searchability, and the uploaded data will complement the physical display of the posters for that meeting. Posters captured by the system will be arranged by collection, associated with particular meetings.

Very nifty, this project really deserves to succeed.
http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/science-posters-given-a-new-life-online-34066/


Geek Toys:

Have I got a car for you! It's a 1925 Rolls Royce that mounts guns and a searchlight. It belonged to an Indian maharajah during the British Raj, and he used it for tiger hunting. Unlike most cars, which are designed to go fast, this one's six cylinder, eight litre engine with a very low gear ratios was designed for creeping up on tigers through rough jungle terrain.

Of course creeping up on tigers to shoot them is not allowed anymore, but I can think of quite a lot of uses for a car designed for creeping, as, I'm sure can you! It goes on auction this coming month in the US, and is expected to fetch around US$1 million. Just the thing to spend the loose change remaining from the dotcom boom...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14298157

You don't want a slow car? OK. OK. How about this then? Roaring down the street on a motorcycle customized to look like one of the Xenomorphs in the movie 'Alien'? It's the work of artist Roongrojna Sangwongprisarn (I think my spell checker is going to have something to say about this name...), who creates his artwork out of recycled spare parts from cars and motorcycles, and sells them for clients all over the world. So you're in with a chance, bad boy!
http://io9.com/5825630/horrify-your-friends-by-racing-down-the-street-on-this-alien-xenomorph-motorcycle


Scanner:

On cybersecurity, Congress can't agree on turf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-cybersecurity-congress-cant-agree-on-turf/2011/07/18/gIQACGCWMI_story.html

Game Developers Choice Online Awards honor Kesmai founders
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36111/Game_Developers_Choice_Online_Awards_Honor_Kesmai_Founders_SOEs_EverQuest.php

Climate unit releases virtually all remaining data
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14315747

How can 30-year-old receivers sound better than new ones?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20082026-47/how-can-30-year-old-receivers-sound-better-than-new-ones/?tag=mncol;txt

Sony brings its online bank to Australia
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/28/sony_bank_deposits_in_aus/


Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and to 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
31 July, 2011

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! 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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