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| Dispatches from the Spam Wars |
| Anatomy of an April Fool's Joke |
| Interview with Mixter, David Dittrich: DDoS and Other Matters |
| Sounds of Cyberspace |
| Vaughn Bode |
| Art Gallery of Surrealism |
| Themed Art |
| You Oughta Take Good Pictures |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Redwall Abbey |
| True Dork Times' Funny, Heady Stuff |
| Book Clubs |
| In Which Magazine Did I See That? |
| Primarily Unusual Numbers |
| It Wants to Be Your Weather Wall |
| The Dream Lab |
| Red Hat Linux 7.1 Released |
| Perl 5.6.1 Released |
| Beta Acrobat Reader for the Palm |
| Rob Bredow's Special FX |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
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BREAKING SURF
Microsoft to Restrict MP3 Quality in Windows XP
To the likes of Microsoft and RealNetworks, MP3s must be way too popular. They'd rather have us use their own proprietary formats for music files, which make it difficult for users to share files freely. But making the world safe for the music industry is not an easy task; nor is cleaning up the huge mess of MP3s out there. As part of Microsoft's relentless effort to wean us off other peoples' stuff and onto its own copyright-secure format, the company will severely restrict the sound quality of MP3 files in the next version of its operating system, Windows XP. As well, music recorded in Windows Media Audio will sound better and need less storage space. Early tests suggest music recording software from other vendors doesn't operate well in the new Microsoft environment either. To even think of something like this, Microsoft has to be assuming the consumer is going to eat what he's given. This is why there are anti-trust lawsuits out there, folks. These attitudes should get you pretty hot under the collar. Remember, you do have alternatives.ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2707267,00.html
Yahoo Focuses Anti-Hate Banner Ads in Hate Forums
Yahoo has, in the past, taken flak for allowing various unsavory hate groups to host Yahoo forums. In an apparent effort to atone, the company has begun directing anti-hate message ads to specifically selected problematic forums and to other forums with certain keywords - for example, white supremacist forums might display ads about tolerance. Yahoo has donated free ad space to nonprofits for years, and it has agreed to accept ads from Tolerance.org, a newly formed anti-hate organization. Yahoo will also donate ad space to groups supporting concerns such as the environment, equal access to technology, disaster relief, and AIDS. This move, a recent decision to ban Nazi items from auctions, and a halt to sales of adult videos, clearly point to a new corporate direction - call it a Disney-pure version of Yahoo. Given that some have speculated that Disney might indeed target Yahoo for takeover, this may make sense from a shareholder's perspective - not to take anything away from any moral imperatives behind the decisions. CNet has the story.Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/
Tolerance.org: http://www.tolerance.org/index.jsp
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5631609.html
Yahoo Backs out of the Porn Business
Hey, we told you so. Yahoo has posted a hasty we-used-to-sell-porn-but-we're-not-doing-it-anymore-sorry press release. Yahoo had been quietly selling porn for the past two years but only recently began to receive much media attention for it. Coincidentally, the company recently stopped doing it. The beleaguered company most likely closed off that profitable line of business for fear of alienating investors - like, say, oh... Disney. Yahoo, currently beset by internal management issues, has also posted two consecutive quarterly losses. CNN reports.Sorry: http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release755.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/04/11/yahoo.porn.ap/index.html
Radio stations' streaming simulcasts may be a thing of the past because of a demand from the American Federation of TV & Radio Artists (AFTRA) union for supplemental payments. The NY Post reports that thousands of stations abruptly stopped netcasting last week as station managers pulled the plug until they can figure out what to do about the union demand. The first sign of trouble came two weeks ago, when Disney suspended its Web simulcast after being reminded by the American Association of Advertising Agencies that streamed ads require additional fees. It seems at times as if all the goodies are being gradually stripped from the Internet as patentees, copyright holders, and artists fix their beady gaze on potential new revenue streams. The economics are challenging, however, and it could end up a lose-lose situation. Gnashing teeth and wailing probably won't help.
AFTRA: http://www.aftra.org/
NY Post: http://www.nypost.com/04112001/entertainment/28378.htm
Germany Cracks down on Nazi File Swappers, Contemplates More
Germany is preparing to prosecute 120 individuals accused of trading neo-Nazi files and MP3s. Local police have searched the apartments of 103 people and seized computers and disks. Trading pro-Nazi artifacts, including files and music, is illegal in Germany (except in historical and educational context) and those convicted could face up to three years in prison. Germany's Interior Ministry caused a stir by contemplating government-sponsored hack attacks or denial of service (DoS) attacks against neo-Nazi Web sites. So far, the idea has been met with skepticism and concern over cross-border issues. The German government says the majority of neo-Nazi sites do not originate in Germany and, as such, it is considering legal action against webmasters in America. CNN has more on the music and the DoS idea.Music: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/04/10/germany.nazis.reut/index.html?s=8
DoS: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/04/10/nazi.spam.idg/index.html
Bird's Eye View of European Cybercrime Treaty
The Council of Europe is drafting a new treaty called the Convention on Cybercrime, supposedly to help fight criminal activity across national borders. Curiously, the main forces behind it are the US Department of Justice and the FBI. Mike Godwin, legal champion of free speech and author of Cyber Rights, is concerned the treaty may represent an assault on American civil liberties and an invasive costly nuisance for businesses. In a Law.com article, he reviews the situation masterfully and thoroughly - it makes rather disturbing reading. Many US corporations oppose the treaty because of its possible drag on business. In the "yes" corner, we find the usual suspects - including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America Association - who are always eager to combat copyright infringement. The flower of freedom needs stout fences to keep out the hobnailed boots of regulators, censors, and so forth. The proposed treaty looks hobnailed to us.http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=law/View&c=Article&cid=ZZZD3WRL5LC&cst=1
That's our tacky salute to Joey Ramone, ne Jeffrey Hyman, ex-drummer and lifetime lead singer of the Ramones. CNN has a great obituary article that emphasizes the band's seminal role in influencing music of the '70s and '80s away from disco. As the article points out, the Clash's Joe Strummer calls the Ramones "the daddy punk group of all time." You might suspect we only put this here to use that headline. You may be right. On the other hand you may just need to be sedated.
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/15/obit.ramone.ap/index.html
The Dumbest Moments in E-Business History
Here are the dumbest 101 moments in e-business history, howlers and groaners all, captured at their birth and carefully preserved for us to smirk over knowingly. With business models dead and dying, the air hissing out of overinflated valuation balloons, Men of the Year looking anything but, brave prognostications looking like so much ridiculous claptrap, and instant billionaires reduced to penury, there's no shortage of moments to choose from. Even so, we salute eCompany for tackling the challenge of sorting out the true howlers from the myriads of also-rans. We can't possibly summarize the unintentionally funny stuff that was said and done in the heat of the giddy moment, but you'll be gloating and giggling in no time and eagerly reading on to the next entry. The site also invites your own ideas about the stupidest dotcom moment.http://www.ecompany.com/edit/0,2088,11274,00.html
Kozmo, a company that sold goods online then delivered them within the hour throughout New York City, has closed its doors, laying off close to 1,100 workers in the process. Executives explained that the company just could neither turn the corner nor go the last mile. Wired covered the announcement with some interesting stories from former Kozmo employees. Another Internet venture that is stumbling around the corner and gasping into the last mile is NBCi, broadcaster NBC's heavy-handed but ultimately shallow attempt at a portal. Some 370 jobs in San Francisco will be phased out over the next few months. Wired has critical, I-told-you-so coverage of NBCi. For those of you who like to look at car crashes, we've included links to both sites - Kozmo.com is definitely dead and NBCi looks like it needs to be defibrillated.
Kozmo: http://www.kozmo.com/
Wired on Kozmo: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43025,00.html
NBCi: http://www.nbci.com/
Wired on NBCi: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,42964,00.html
As anybody who opens Microsoft Word docs in plain-text word processors knows, there's a lot of hidden crap in any such document. Some of that crap is formatting, but some of it is also hidden text - the kind of text that MS Word users don't see and usually prefer that others don't see either. Alcatel makes network equipment and recently one of their DSL modems was shown to have a significant security flaw. In public, Alcatel says - in a MS Word doc - that vulnerability is a factor of modems in general and that you should have a firewall. Some meddling kids, however, got a hold of that doc and took a closer look at its hidden text. Apparently, Alcatel's troubleshooters feel a whole lot more guilty than they are willing to admit. Cynics would argue that all companies take such evasions around the truth but, regardless, the moral of the story is don't use Word files on the Web.
Alcatel: http://www.alcatel.com/vpr/?body=/latestnews/13042001uk
Flaw: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010411/tc/modem_flaw_2.html
Hidden text: http://morons.org/articles/1/188
It's not often that we run a link to a two-paragraph Web page, but this is too good to pass up. For four years, the University of North Carolina has been puzzled by a network server that was working as expected but which it couldn't physically locate. By physically tracking cables, they finally found it. Renovations had entombed it behind some drywall. It worked for four years without being touched - wanna bet it wasn't running Windows NT?
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010409S0001
.Edu Domains under New Management
The management of Internet domain names has become slightly more diverse as a university technology consortium will now manage the .edu domains. Formed in 1998, Educause is an international nonprofit association intended to help educational institutions use information resources and technology to further research, teaching, scholarship, and institutional management. Although based in the US, Educause also accepts international members into its organization. Educause will take over the .edu top-level domain database management and registration duties from VeriSign and attempt to make things easier, and simpler, for educational institutions. Wired has more details.Press release: http://www.educause.edu/news/2001/04/edudomain.html
Educause: http://www.educause.edu/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43015,00.html
ONLINE CULTURE
The LA Times has run an article about how the good fight against spam is fought. This broad-stroke overview looks at the war and its major fronts, e-mail and Usenet spam. The article point out that in the absence of any compelling legal and legislative roadblocks to spamming - roadblocks which many think would not work anyway - the fight is carried on by an ad hoc collection of vocal and dedicated private individuals and organizations. If you're new to all this and you're really pissed off about all those unwanted messages in your mailbox, this is a good place to start to understand the scope of the problem. If you want a more detailed perspective, check out the alt.spam FAQ, in particular the extensive list of URLs at the end covering all aspects of the problem.LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/lat_spam010416.htm
alt.spam FAQ: http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
Anatomy of an April Fool's Joke
Admittedly, this was an April Fool's Joke for geeks, but it's still nice to know the details of how it was carried off, especially given the metaphorical cast of thousands involved. Simon Cozens is the managing editor of Perl.com. He decided to play a joke on the programming community by announcing on April Fool's Day that the Perl and Python programming languages were going to be merged into a new language called Parrot. The whole thing was pulled off magnificently with the collusion of folks at O'Reilly, the publisher of the definitive Perl and Python books, and other insiders. In this article, Simon tells how he pulled it off. Aside from the intrinsic coolness of the story, there is also the important point that in this day and age of instant global communication it only takes a bit of clever planning and conspiracy to make the world believe just about anything you want.http://www.oreilly.com/news/parrotstory_0401.html
Interview with Mixter, David Dittrich: DDoS and Other Matters
Mixter, a hacker, gained notoriety last year for creating the first notable Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) tool, one called Tribe Flood Network (TFN). David Dittrich, a noted security consultant, wrote a widely read analysis of the tool (see NSD 6.05 and David's info-packed home page below). Recently, the two got together at a security conference in Canada and the result was this interview on CNet. Mixter talks about how he got started in hacking and what's happened since he unleashed TFN amid other similar DDoS tools. Dittrich briefly touches on the pre-history of DDoS, and his own work in a world where most people prefer to create security problems rather than solve them.CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1014-201-5560506-0.html
Dittrich: http://www.cac.washington.edu/People/dad/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
While there's an increasing number of text and animation experiments online, the field of audio art is still being fledged. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Minneapolis's Walker Art Center have put together a showcase of audio experiments called Crossfade, which plays with Internet properties like John Cage plays with room acoustics. The Flash exhibit called Ping sounds like nothing more than a fingernail run across a piano string with an interruptive slam effect you generate by clicking a "ping" button. Waves emanate from the button to a varying list of educational sites. While the artists claim there is control over instruments and sound setup, we couldn't find the adjustments. Yoko Ono's "Sonic Flux" is something of a throwback to the pre-digital: visitors are invited to contribute sounds by telephone, which are then overlaid with Ono's "Voice Piece for Soprano". Rather high-tech versions of low-tech art, but an interesting effort.http://www.sfmoma.org/crossfade/
Readers of National Lampoon may remember the "Cheech Wizard" comic strip of the early 1970s, both for its temper and its magic. The strip's creator, Vaughn Bode, made it come to life in the magazine, and his work is seen by new people years after his own passing at the young age of 34. This site dedicated to Bode's work has collected a number of his cartoons. Fifty pieces from the Deadbone series originally in Cavalier, a long-forgotten men's magazine, have both clean and less-than-clean humor in them. A few gems with Cheech Wizard show samples of the magician, lizards, and highly suggestive women. Some will take offense, while others will have a laugh. You decide which camp you'd claim to be in, but do so only after you've actually looked at his work.
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~jdavies/bode/
Netsurfer is always rooting for professional illustrators who still have the juice at the end of the day to paint fine art. Jody Harmon, a longtime illustrator for the US military, paints in the surrealism tradition. Some well respected art publications have lauded his work. The online gallery displays canvasses reflecting a world view the artist describes as off-center, somewhat naive, and romantic.
http://www.jodyharmon.com/
Systems gurus Vertech, from Falls Church, Va., are out to show that telecommunications geeks have artistic souls, too. With that goal, they created the Ineffable Vertech Theme Park, a collection of art images that changes every month. The current "Spring" collection features pieces like Van Gogh's "Irises", Seurat's "Spring", and Milton Avery's "Spring Orchard". The flowers they bloom, and all that. It's sort of like those slim volumes of poetry you find on the clearance table at the local bookstore - "Thoughts of Love" or "Dogs" - that usually get purchased as presents. Now there's a thought... gift Web sites.
http://www.vertechinc.com/themepark/index.htm
Do you botch photographs for Aunt Matilda, on your family holidays, or for your dating service? If so, you're probably an amateur and, like most, you're likely to find much useful background and plenty of help at PhotographyTips.com. Equipment, subjects, techniques, - you can easily find pretty much anything you need to know for starters. For example, the Subjects area covers aerial and underwater photography, landscape, still and mobile life, and even a page on how to generate ideas when you run out of ideas for photos. Mini-galleries illustrate tips and short articles. This site invites submission of tips and photos of your own. Drop in for insight if you need to hire a wedding photographer or model.
http://www.photographytips.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
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Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations
Mapping Websites: Digital Media Design
'Hello My Big Big Honey!': Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews
Diamonds Are Forever: The Remix Albumhttp://www.redwall.org/
True Dork Times' Funny, Heady Stuff
We've all seen or heard of the Onion. A parody source of considerable prowess, it's had no equal in its business. A worthy competitor has finally emerged from the underbrush of the Internet, however, and we'd suggest adding this to your list of frequently visited sites. A recent visit produced the following stories, among others: "Bush warns: 'Just do what Mr. Cheney says, or I'll be President'" and "Physicians worried about increased rectal head-stuffing". Heady stuff, all around, we'd say. Even the banner ads are funny. Do check out the archives; there's great material to be unearthed.http://www.deathsuite.org/Truedorkfront.htm
Book Club Deals has a huge resource of all the large, popular book clubs, sorted under genres and allowing you to join or learn more about each. From Dr. Seuss & Friends to Books-for-Cooks to the eHarlequin Club, you should find something to your taste here.
http://bookclubdeals.com/
In Which Magazine Did I See That?
Mag portal helps you find articles on the Net using a search engine. The ultimate research tool, this is a site with access to more information than you're probably ever going to want to use. We scrolled through hundreds of articles, wasting even more time reading celebrity gossip and learning abut dotcom disasters. Great for journalists and readers alike.http://magportal.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Curious tidbits are found in the oddest places - including mathematics. (Don't run away yet.) Prime Curios attempts to catalogue as many prime numbers as possible and provides little bits of information including the occurrence of these numbers in the real world. Knowing that 11 is the smallest two-digit additive prime (we'll spare you the definition) is probably not in everyone's bag of tricks. But learning trivia like the fact that Apollo 11 parked itself in orbit 11 minutes after launch is of more general interest. Some of the numbers in Prime Curios have only one or two entries of usually complex math, but plenty of others sport dozens of tidbits that even young kids will find interesting.http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/index.html
It Wants to Be Your Weather Wall
The wall in question, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Stone Test Wall, was built by the National Bureau of Standards (now known as NIST) in 1942. The intent was to show the "effects of weathering on different types of stones, with the climatic conditions being the same for all stones. It offers a comparative study of the durability of many common building stones." "Many" is defined as 2,352 individual samples of 30 types of stone. Compare the travertine found in Italy to that found in South Dakota or Tennessee, or the check the differences between Minnesota and North Carolina quartz after 60 years of exposure to the elements.http://stonewall.nist.gov/
Dream. Dream, dream, dream, dreeeam... - uh, sorry, that song just keeps invading our space. We happened across the dreamsite, and, well - things have never been the same. Who'd have thought that in the past ten years, lucid dreaming would fall under the scope of the scientific eye? It, and other dream-related material, has. This site sort of sucks you in and then goes, "Hey, we're going to add more content eventually." We hope they add it soon, as what we found was kind of fascinating. Guys, something's amiss, here - you're only running an average of 18.3 dreams a night (that .3 is probably when you had to get up to visit the porcelain throne). The women are currently doing about 21.5 dreams, and they're more likely to contain olfactory sensation than men's dreams are (trust us on this, you really need to shower after work).
http://www.crhsc.umontreal.ca/dreams/
SOFTWARE
Red Hat has released version 7.1 of its Linux distribution. Version 7.0 was somewhat criticized for being a bit too bleeding edge because it included libraries and a compiler that were not fully supported by many popular applications. Things have settled down a bit and version 7.1 should be quite stable and probably more secure. This version is notable for including kernel 2.4, a much improved version for enterprise computing and for large resource machines. Other enhancements include configuration and security improvements, the latest and greatest KDE and GNOME desktop environments, USB support, and improved internationalization.PR: http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2001/press_sevenone.html
The latest version of the popular Perl programming language is out. Note that the 5.6.x series of Perl releases contains quite a bit of architectural change from previous versions. An extensive list of new and enhanced features is available in the perl5-porters archive on Develooper.com, required reading for Perl aficionados.
Perl: http://www.perl.com/pub
Archive: http://archive.develooper.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg24783.html@perl.org/msg24783.html
Beta Acrobat Reader for the Palm
The latest piece of useful software for the Palm line is a beta version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader. A lot of big organizations and government entities publish Acrobat PDF format documents, which are now directly readable on the Palm. You were just waiting to read all those tax forms on your Palm, weren't you? It's beta software, but fairly functional.http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/betareg.html
CORRECTIONS
In NSD 2.09, we covered Rob Bredow's visual effects Web site. He's worked on major motion pictures and TV shows such as the Star Trek franchises and "Men in Black". If you missed it the first time, go now.http://www.185vfx.com/