| Catch the Latest Net Gossip |
| Cooking Pots and the Net's Free Market |
| Technorealism |
| One Wicked Tough Net IQ Test |
| FBI Sends out Spam |
| African Art in a Different Light |
| Rock On |
| Coming Soon to a Theater Near You |
| Revamped Chicago Tribune |
| Pro Writers, Pro-Environment |
| Marijuana Special Report from New Scientist |
| Agrisurfer Digest |
| Have Confidence in Our Margin of Error |
| Let's Fix up the Planet, Eh? |
| Communicator 4.05 Available |
| Save the Children |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
Navigator Source Code and Much More
This week's big news is the heavily anticipated release of Netscape's browser source code. Beyond the technically daunting code itself, the accompanying support site offers a number of additional gems. For example the "C++ Portability Guide" is a breezy compilation of tips collected by Netscape during its continuing struggle to port code to 25 different machines and a dozen different compilers. You could build a company on this tip list alone. You could also grow rich by fulfilling Project Blue Sky's feature list: construct a robust, fast, free Java Virtual Machine, link the browser cache to the Alexa Web archive to get rid of the dreaded 404 error, and implement a regression test framework. See this site for the source code, documentation, and information on how to get involved.http://www.mozilla.org/
Newsgroup Spam Fighters on Strike
"It's like trench warfare: years of moving the line back and forth a few yards, and what do we have to show for it?" In response to this sentiment, spam fighter Chris Lewis has decided to implement a scorched earth policy. He called for other Usenet spam fighters to stop canceling spam messages, starting April 3. He hopes that without the tireless - and apparently thankless - work of cancel heroes, Usenet newsgroups will become mired in junk posts, leading to pressure on ISPs to help police the problem. Chris said the "latest statistics show about 1.3 million or more spams per week. Fully 40% of all Usenet traffic is spam, 40% spam cancels, leaving 20% (content). In other words, four fifths of all Usenet traffic is spam or spam cancels." For more discussion, visit the news.admin.net-abuse.usenet newsgroup.http://www.sputum.com/cns/moratorium.html
Game Play Site: http://play.yahoo.com/
Editorial Site: http://games.yahoo.com/
Usenet Filters in Trouble: Playboy Wins Copyright Infringement Suit
Playboy's latest online copyright victory interests us less for the amount involved ($3.7 million) than for its problematic legal precedent. In this case, as in a previous one, Playboy successfully sued an online subscription service which did nothing more then automatically filter images from Usenet feeds. The US District Court in Texas thinks that automated Usenet filter services should be consider publishers, and publshers are responsible for copyright violations on their sites. Why is this bad? If you know Usenet, you know no-one can police what shows up there. Following this court's logic, if you run an automated Usenet spam filtering service as a gift to the online community, you could be liable for posts you had nothing to do with. CNet has the story.http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20703,00.html
How Many Web Pages Are There, How Many Are Indexed?
Just before publication we got word of two important Web related studies published in the April 3 issue of Science. Among other things the authors of "Searching the World Wide Web" discovered that no single engine indexes more than about one-third of the "indexable Web" and that the Web itself contains at least 320 million pages. The second study, "Strong Regularities in World Wide Web Surfing", gives a predictive mathematical model for the sequences in which people look at web pages. Abstracts are available online with free registration, but you'll need to pay to read the full articles - or take trip down to your local library.http://www.sciencemag.org/
Wilderness: http://earthday.wilderness.org/
EDN: http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/earthday/ednethome.html
Sendmail Author Allman Starts Company, Releases Beta Sendmail 8.9
Eric Allman has released the latest and greatest beta of the venerable sendmail mail server, coinciding with the launch of his new company Sendmail, Inc. The software further enhances its anti-spam capability in addition to including the usual mix of new options and fixed bugs. Meanwhile, Eric's company is gearing up to release a commercial version of Sendmail in the third quarter. The most noteable feature of the Sendmail Pro package will be a Web-based configuration interface.http://www.sendmail.com/
Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption
The latest way to hide data from prying eyes goes by the name of "chaffing and winnowing". The technique, designed by Ronald Rivest (one of the inventors of public key encryption and the R in RSA), embeds a cleartext message in a stream of bits so that the bad guys have no idea which bits are part of the message and which are bogus. Even if encryption is outlawed, with this method you will still be able to send totally confidential messages. Neat, eh? Furthermore, a good samaritan third party's totally benign chaffing service can make your data unreadable - while nobody in the little menage-a-troi uses encryption! It gets even better. If you're forced to divulge a key, you can do so in such a way that the bad guys read a harmless wrong message instead of your secret correspondence. Read the paper and start programming.http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/chaffing.txt
New Site for Com, Org, and Net Domain Registration
Network Solutions' new domain registration site tries to simplify the domain name registration process. You can now look up domain names and register instantly, get instant alternative domain name suggestions when your first choice is not available, and get keyword-driven domain name suggestions. This low cost option eliminates the unnecessary expense of contracting a Web hosting service just to register a domain name.http://www.worldnic.com/
Nordic Countries Continue to Lead in Per Capita Internet Usage
That's the word from the Computer Industry Almanac. This page offers some stats and projections about Net use in various countries. Finland (24% of the population), Norway (23%) and Iceland (23%) lead the US (20%) in per capita use of the Net. However, over 54% of the estimated 100 million Internet users out there call the US home. Hit the "Home" link for information about the number-filled, reasonably priced ($50) Computer Industry Almanac.http://www.c-i-a.com/19980319.htm
ONLINE CULTURE
Information technologists and amateur websurfers alike should harken to a new whisper on the Net. Much in the same vein as our humble publication, the minds behind the IT Gossip.net site have scoured the Net to bring you the latest, greatest buzz on what's going on in the corporate universe the Internet has become. Instead of painstakingly writing articles, verifying sources, and the like, the IT Gossip site acts as a middleman or broker, providing only the headlines and convenient links to articles wherever they may reside. We think they're missing out on the best part, but it does save time and keeps the news fresh.http://www.itgossip.net/
Cooking Pots and the Net's Free Market
In a recent essay, First Monday managing editor Rishab Aiyer Ghosh discusses how Net transactions differ from those in brick-and-mortar retail. "Much of the economic activity on the Net involves value but no money," he writes. "The free resources of the Net greatly outweigh all commercial resources." On the Net, a product can be a Web site, e-zine, registration data, or, in the case of Linux, an operating system developed first by one person and then by thousands. Ghosh uses a cooking pot metaphor to explain how consumption of intangibles drives Net activity: we all put in something - flames, freebies, feedback - for others while taking out something for ourselves. Ghosh's economic model may not sit well with Net merchants, but others may embrace his explanation of "reputation capital" and "trading in dynamic resources". This is a long essay by Web standards, and not a breeze, so plan ahead.http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/ghosh/index.html
Philosophical concepts like technorealism rarely make headlines in the daily media. Technorealism, basically a collection of profoundly non-revolutionary statements such as "technologies are not neutral", "government has an important role to play on the electronic frontier" and "information is not knowledge", will hardly inflame the passions of the electronic polis - but that seems to be the point of this profoundly moderate doctrine. The doctrine argues that hyper hype distorts expectations, and that we should all just settle down a bit and not get overexcited. A nice message to be sure, but compare it to the impassioned call to action of the spam fighters' moratorium (see above). The former stirs the blood. The latter stirs a lukewarm cup of cocoa. Check out the lively discussion forums at Feed, worth a read.
Technorealism: http://www.technorealism.org/
Feed: http://www.feedmag.com/html/dialog/98.03dialog/98.03dialog_master.html
How much do you think you know about the Internet? Whether you're Tim Berners-Lee or you've just plugged in your first modem, the Web IQ Test will entertain you with humor, wicked puns, and clever digs at the high and mighty. Wrong answers, more fun than correct ones, can lead to amusing if derogatory comments or far-flung sites elsewhere on the Net (we found ourselves at an unusual little site about penguins at one stage). You might find yourself wishing some of the suggested red herrings really were correct....
http://www.wwwvoice.com/iqintro.html
America's fearless crime fighters can't seem to resist the call of easy publicity. Wired reports on a series of FBI e-mail messages with "confidential" warnings about terrorist activities. The Bureau, Wired says, bought a mailing list of 100,000 system administrators and summarily sent listees reasonably sensitive terrorist warnings. Judging by where the mail wound up - overseas in at least one instance - the people responsible did not closely scrutinize the mailing list. According to the story, the mail was sent "under direct order of Attorney General Janet Reno".
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/11107.html
ART ONLINE
African Art in a Different Light
You say you don't know much about art, but you know what you like? Well, that's just not good enough for the Bayly Art Museum of the University of Virginia. This site records the museum's 1993 exhibit, "African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning". The curators note that museums usually exhibit African artifacts with reference only to cultural context and use - and our experience, even then, has been that the notes are pretty sparse. While Africa hardly presents a single monolithic culture, Bayly identifies some of the formal aesthetic principles and values that shape much of Africa's art. The catalogue points out that African aesthetics spring from and reflect moral bases; in many African languages, for instance, the same word means "beautiful" and "good". African art that is beautiful also depicts and upholds moral values. This small but unusual exhibit doesn't rely on a collection of cliched masks hanging on a wall. It specifies, in fact, that masks should be seen in the round and at eye level. Instead the Bayly surprises us with lacy, soaring carved headwear and masks. Don't pass up the chance to take a look at this small but smart site.http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dic/exhib/93.ray.aa/African.html
Contemporary Approaches to World Rock Art is a scholarly site of relatively short but thoroughly referenced articles on the analysis of rock art, approaches to dating it, and its ethnography. The text may be a bit clinical for the casual visitor, but the art - some of it going back 40,000 years - will speak to a broad audience. Its samples - from the Australian outback, through India, Europe, and to the Americas - are never less than graceful, its images dreamy. Pithy annotations tie the illustrations to the text. Be sure to take full advantage of the thumbnails to see the photographs in as much detail as your monitor can muster. You could spend hours touring these caves and outcroppings.
http://www.une.edu.au/~Arch/RockAr2.html
Coming Soon to a Theater Near You
Who says AOL members are ignorant clods who can't design decent Web pages? Not us. The proof is in the page design, Jon C. Allen's One Sheet Design to be exact. This, Jon's online portfolio, features an up-and-coming movie poster designer, or so you are led to believe. We believe. Based on the page design, he's the next Michelangelo-cum-Tarantino and, let's face it, that's all that counts in the virtual world. The page layout approaches perfection, although the centering of the text combined with the white on black occasionally strains the eyeballs. Beyond the design, Jon's insights into the movie biz make for pithy commentary. Oh, yeah - his posters ain't too shabby either.http://members.aol.com/jca2112/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
Its new Web site design helps the Tribune feature a constantly updated rotation of Web-tuned content screens, each of which points to a different part of the site and is accompanied by related advertising. Even frequent visitors will find that each story looks new, with many graphics, info, and links. The site echoes the newspaper's coverage of sports, community, and a large classified marketplace. In January, they reported serving over one million page views from their Real Estate section.http://chicago.tribune.com/
Earth Times has a conscience, but that doesn't necessarily make it all precious and boring. From political instability in India to investigation of a cluster of leukemia cases in Woburn, Mass., this online version of the paper makes your ordinary daily look embarrassingly overcensored. Human rights, Web reviews, columnists with opinions to burn, and social issues are discussed in depth by people who know their stuff.
http://www.earthtimes.org/
SURFING SCIENCE
Marijuana Special Report from New Scientist
Ever wondered what's left after smoking 10 joints a day for 30 years? Ever been able to form the thought? Apparently dope is not so damaging to the memory as first imagined. This detailed investigation looks at marijuana as, wait for it, a cure for delinquency and mental illness. Most amusing to our most objective writer was that women outperformed men on all the tests, forcing one pharmacologist to suggest men are "deviant" in ways undetected by research. Have you ever considered aerosols to be the future of the spliff? Scientists have. Take a look at this research if only to have some stats at your fingertips next time you forget your PIN.http://marijuana.newscientist.com/
Agrisurfer is an e-zine modelled after little old us, NSD. With a slogan like "More grain, less chaff", you gotta love it, even if the agri biz isn't your thing. And if it is, check out the related AgriSurf Web index. This excellent resource points to literally thousands of ag-related websites around the world, broken down into usable categories with listings labelled by country. Good search engine, too. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you get a weekly e-mail with the latest additions and small descriptive blurbs about them. Specialized but super.
http://www.agrisurfer.com/
Have Confidence in Our Margin of Error
A little background goes a long way when you're trying to prove a point. We were drawn instantly, by guilt and curiosity, to this primer called Statistics Every Writer Should Know, which explains in plain English a lot of statistical terms that non-mathematicians blithely misuse: mean; median; margin of error; etc. Thanks to creator Robert Niles, the site may help you turn impressed heads in remedial math class or the accounting department. Well chosen examples clarify statistical concepts that some of us just can't keep straight in our wetware. What you learn here won't make you a walking textbook, but it may make you more critical when news anchors cite results of the latest studies or when your doctor tells you, "chances are everything's fine and dandy, take two aspirin, and call me in 26 years."http://nilesonline.com/stats/
The idea is simple: a non-profit international environmental emergency response system without an activist slant. The Environmental Emergency Response System works out of Canada, because Canada, it claims, is politically the next best thing to Switzerland, and - well, frankly, good ol' neutral Switzerland doesn't have their Husky Emergency Mush Response Team up to snuff yet. You can find news on the latest earthquakes here, plus info on how to volunteer for duty, if you're so inclined. Be sure to view the site with MSIE and not Netscape if you want to be able to navigate to all the sections. The first place they should dispatch their emergency cleanup crew is to their own frames layout.
http://www.teers.org/
SOFTWARE
Netscape has released a new Communicator update unrelated to the Navigator 5.0 source code release reported above. This stable supported version of the Communicator is noteable for a faster Java virtual machine. The release also includes a Eudora mailbox import utility and a new Cosmo player. There's also at least one security fix. Time to upgrade.ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.05/
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
The Save the Children organization, long dedicated to aiding and preserving the lives of the young in the world's underdeveloped countries, recently received an award for Excellence in Internet Communications. To find out why, one need only visit the Save The Children Web site, which clearly and succintly outlines the organization's activities and offers general information on the sorry state of a large number of the world's youth and the bleak future that awaits them barring significant social and financial changes. The site's message rings clear: the world's children have needs that only those in wealthier, developed countries can provide.http://www.savethechildren.org/