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BREAKING SURF
It's not science fiction - it's an actual draft of a specification for a communication system that could provide Internet-like services across interplanetary distances, useful for, say, deep space exploration. Numerous technical experts in Net and space communication technologies, headed by Vinton Cerf, collaborated on the draft. The big challenge in such a system is overcoming the long delays between communicating entities, even when data is transmitted at the speed of light. This system takes a store-and-forward approach to the problem, not unlike e-mail. Fascinating reading, and probably a seminal document in the development of a solar-system-wide Net. Those interested in more information about the project will want to visit the InterPlaNetary Internet Project (IPNSIG) Web site. No, we couldn't figure out the abbreviation either.Draft: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-ipnrg-arch-00.txt
IPNIP: http://www.ipnsig.org/
View an Extrasolar Transit for Fame and Glory
Here's a chance for amateur astronomers to get their name in the record book. The usual radial velocity measurement technique has discovered two planets orbiting Gleise 876, a star some 15.3 light years away. Now, the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is calling on all amateurs with the right equipment to start watching for these planets to transit in front of the star. Detection of an extrasolar transit would not only be a first for an amateur - there's only been one previous such optical observation, period - but would also provide useful independent corroboration of the existence of the satellites by a method unrelated to that used to detect them originally. The professionals believe there's a reasonable chance transits could be observable from Earth but of course there's no guarantee, so all that stargazing could be for nothing. Wired has more and AAVSO has the official invite.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,43865,00.html
AAVSO: http://www.aavso.org/alerts/alert281/alert281text.stm
In 1968, when Kubrick inspired a generation with HAL, "2001: A Space Odyssey" became a cult hit. Now, fans of the Kubrick/Spielberg film "AI" are nervously watching a "real" AI that is mesmerizing those with the patience or passion to unravel the intricate game that has allegedly been created to promote the film to the Web savvy youth of 2001. It starts, apparently, at the Web page for a fictional Chan family, all born in the mid-21st century. A whole slew of links and analysis can be found at Help Solve the Mystery of Evan Chan. The interactivity isn't limited to the Web, either. ZDNet reports that when a curious Dan Fabulich poked about on one of the sites and submitted his telephone number to the Anti-Robot Militia, his phone later rang and he heard a metallic-sounding voice warning him against opposing robots: "We'll be watching. Have a nice day." Those intrigued by mystery and gaming will find this the ultimate promotion of a film that audiences are anticipating with some trepidation and excitement. Others may just poop their pants.
Chan: http://www.familychan.org/
Mystery: http://www.for-evan.com/
ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2713561,00.html
Internet Explorer's Unique ID Lets Others Track Your Surfing
This detailed dissection looks at how the Internet Explorer Web browser maintains a unique global ID number/cookie that is readable by any domain. This allows any Web site to hijack a user's ID number, possibly leading to security problems with your accounts on MSN, Hotmail, or other Microsoft properties. Details are in this expose. The tracking technology built into Internet Explorer is not widely known and is apparently more invasive than originally thought. The fact that this technology exists is less alarming than the fact that it is so poorly known. Most people know something about cookies and can make informed choices about how to use them, but hardly anybody knows about this behavior from Microsoft's browser. We should note that as yet there are no publicly known security exploits associated with this privacy hole.http://www.newmediawhore.com/article.php?story=20010518172000930
Free speech is disturbing, divisive, revolutionary, inspiring, and liberating but never comfortable or complacent. In Charlottesville, Va., the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression plans to build an amazing monument to the troubling freedom, a seven-by-50-foot community blackboard on which anyone will be able to write anything. This clever celebration of the First Amendment will be built as soon as the required $250,000 can be raised. Similar to Hyde Park oratory, another celebration of freedom of expression, most of the writing probably will be ephemeral, erased, rebutted, overwritten. The board itself, however, will represent an enduring and brave public celebration of an essential freedom. The Boston Globe has the story, the Thomas Jefferson Center site pictures and drawings of the place where it will be built and of the proposed monument.
Globe: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/137/oped/In_Virginia_a_7_by_50_foot_monument_to_free_expression+.shtml
Center: http://www.tjcenter.org/monument/cover.html
Genetic Weapons and Other Risks of Extinction
Does the thought of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction keep you awake at night? If so, you might want to update your fears, or at least augment them, with the addition of bioengineered pathogens that can wipe out an entire race or system of agriculture, or which can be designed to simply single out and kill one person, as the Village Voice reports. Groups that may be predisposed to use bioweapons include governments, terrorists, and religious movements. Some fringe groups have already advocated the use of genetic weapons to support their cause. And you can't ignore the many more risks to the human race, not least of which are misuse of nanotechnology and asteroid impacts. Here's a primer on evaluating and understanding our possible transition to a post-human society, i.e. extinction. Have a nice day.Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0120/baard.shtml
Extinction: http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html
Is That a Phone in Your Nest or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Cell phones are so ubiquitous these days that some birds are now incorporating their ringing sounds into their songs. Starlings in Copenhagen are especially good at this, CNet tells us, where the wings-down favorite is Nokia's ring. It turns out that many members of the feathered fraternity are great imitators of all kinds of ambient noises, including car alarms, police sirens, chainsaws, and lawn mowers and this is the just the latest enrichment of their musical repertoire. Being the first with a catchy new sound in his ornithological musicmaking can get a male bird with a sharp ear that sexy mate he's been hoping to attract. Not to be out-imitated, some phone companies are now offering bird calls as ring tone options.http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-5962186.html
Microsoft VP Extols Commercial Software Model, Open Source Advocates Loudly Dissent
With failed business models still smoldering and many dotcoms stumbling shudderingly close to bankruptcy, Craig Mundie, Senior VP of Microsoft, vigorously defends the commercial software model. Companies that provide their product for free, he reminds us, have mostly perished, in contrast with corporations that sell their product at prices that generate profits and allow growth. Not surprisingly, Craig's not fond of the open-source software approach, which he claims isn't a sustainable business model and threatens traditional companies like Microsoft. His company's Shared Source philosophy is better, he argues. The free software school, through advocate Bruce Perens, counters that the more effective collaboration of open-source projects yields superior, more robust software that fits a wider range of needs. We're not sure this really needs to be an either-or proposition as Craig implies but in terms of the debate, and in a last word commentary at ZDNet he frankly gets the better of the argument. Still, Microsoft's views would seem more compelling were it not for the company's predatory business practices.Craig: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
Perens: http://www.perens.com/Articles/StandTogether.html
ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2761605,00.html
A vigilante self-replicating computer program called the Cheese Worm is making its way across Linux servers that have been previously compromised by other, malicious worms. The Linux operating system has been plagued by worm attacks over the past couple of months, but system administrators haven't seen anything like the Cheese worm, which actually tries to undo the damage of the worms which preceded it. The Cheese worm looks for compromised machines, fixes the security hole, then scans for more compromised Linux machines. As is the case with most vigilante actions, security experts aren't impressed, noting the Cheese worm still uses nefarious methods to do its good deed.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5949401.html
New Net Stealth Technology: IP Address Hopping
CNet has this rather tantalizing article about a new Net technology for hiding your site by continually changing the IP address of your server, up to several times per second. Only somebody who knows the predetermined pattern of those changes could connect to your site. The technical details are sketchy, but the neat idea is supposedly the basis of a new product from a company called Invicta Networks. The company has heavy spook connections, with a former CIA director on the board and a former head of the KGB 8th Chief Directorate (the Soviet counterpart to the National Security Agency) as CEO. It's not clear how well - or if - this works, nor how much infrastructure is needed to support this. However, the idea is certainly of great interest and will likely show up in open-source form sooner or later.CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5996375.html
Invicta: http://www.invictanetworks.com/
Stealth Blocking of Sites by ISPs
One of the basic services an ISP provides should be unfettered connectivity to the rest of the world. The Net is built on a grid of ISPs who agree to link and carry each other's traffic. Theoretically, the nature of that traffic should not matter - it's just bits being shuffled around - but some ISPs are not so laissez-faire. Many use filter lists, like the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL), to block certain types of traffic to or from specific sites, typically spam sites. Last week, AboveNet's RBL blocked traffic to Macromedia's Web site, preventing that portion of the Net that uses the AboveNet backbone from reaching Macromedia, home of widely used Web technologies such as Flash. This was a specific instance of what's called ISP stealth blocking, a practice that's strongly condemned by a wide coalition of groups including EFF, EPIC, ACLU, CPSR and the Censorware Project. Any online consumer should definitely be aware of this. Slashdot has the Macromedia story, and Peacefire has the joint anti-stealth blocking statement.Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/21/1944247.shtml
Peacefire: http://www.peacefire.org/stealth/group-statement.5-17-2001.html
Attrition.org Calls it Quits on Defacement Mirror
Attrition.org has decided to stop maintaining its mirror of defaced Web sites. The Web site is staffed by volunteers who can no longer keep up with the huge volume of submissions of sites that were defaced by crackers. They also cite the abuse they have had to endure from both the defacers and the defaced, including denial of service attacks. Attrition has always been the first site to check whenever word of a Web site crack surfaced. It has an archive of defaced pages dating back to 1995. Fortunately, it plans on continuing defacement statistical analysis - a valuable security resource - using information from another mirror site.Statement: http://www.attrition.org/news/content/01-05-21.001.html
Statistics: http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/stats.html
Vegas Escort Service Phone Hacking
Under the heading of general hacking activity, this article on SecurityFocus discusses what may or may not be a widespread conspiracy to hack phones in Las Vegas. Some business owners allege that the phone lines for their adult escort businesses are being hijacked and redirected as part of organized criminal activity. They say rival escort services are hacking and redirecting phone calls and sending their own girls to the callers while freezing out the original businesses. The article is quite long on hearsay and short on proof, but it does make for entertaining reading, and that's all the excuse we need to point you to it.http://www.securityfocus.com/news/205
Restricted Registration for .Biz, .Info Domains Begins
This week marks the beginning of the new registration period for .info and ..biz top-level domains (TLDs). NeuLevel is handling the .biz domain and is accepting trademark holder applications before opening up the process to everybody. Afilias will be handling trademark holder applications for .info domains from approximately June 25 to July 24. Details of the process are available in the ICANN announcement, and the schedules at the URLs below. We've also included links to the two registrars. Trademark owners need to be aware of this process, which is basically a test before ICANN lets loose the other new TLDs. Meanwhile, the domain trading in .biz is already going on at domain auction sites like AfterNIC.Announcement: http://www.icann.org/announcements/icann-pr15may01.htm
NeuLevel: http://www.neulevel.com/
Afilias: http://www.afilias.com/
Biz schedule : http://ipc.songbird.com/dotbiz-info.html
Info schedule : http://ipc.songbird.com/dotinfo-info.html
AfterNIC: http://www.afternic.com/
US Lets VeriSign Continue to Handle .Com Domains
It seems that VeriSign (a.k.a. Network Solutions) will continue to administer the .com domain for the next few years. The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has signed off on a deal between VeriSign and the Net governance organization ICANN. The DOC press release summarizes some provisions of the agreement designed to promote competitiveness in the domain name market. A term sheet goes into a bit more detail. Those interested in such matters will also want to check out ICANNWatch, which covers the deal and has links to media coverage.DOC: http://www2.osec.doc.gov/public.nsf/docs/icann-verisign-0518
Term sheet: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/termsheet51801.htm
ICANNWatch: http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=160&mode=thread&order=0
Winter Olympics Tickets on eBay
Salt Lake Organizing Committee is offering tickets on eBay to 2002 Winter Olympics events. Any money earned above the face value of the ticket will go to benefit the Paralympic Games, a competition for athletes with physical disabilities. Go to eBay and search for "Olympic tickets" to get a listing of current auctions. This auction runs through May 30 and features 100 front-row tickets to events such as figure skating, hockey, and ski jumping. According to CNet, the committee will offer more such auctions in the near future. At press time, prices ranged from $450 (ski jumping) to $5,500 (figure skating) per ticket. Frankly, we think those prices and events ought to be reversed.CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-5993489.html
eBay: http://www.ebay.com/
Paralympic Games: http://www.paralympic.org/
Everyone's talking about it, and soon most of America could be affected by it: the report of the National Energy Policy Development Group entitled "Reliable, Affordable, and Environmentally Sound Energy for America's Future". This is the one of the more corporate documents we've seen from the White House, surely no coincidence.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/
ONLINE CULTURE
Sex Deception in Online Gaming
Few people know what it's like to be a member of the opposite sex, and to find out usually involves a lot of expensive surgery or at the very least a new wardrobe. But online, and face-to-face, role-players have been testing out characters of the opposite sex for some time - only online, it's more difficult to pierce the veil of truth. It is widely acknowledged in online role playing games such as EverQuest or Ultima Online that men can take the fast track to acceptance and experience by playing a female character. Similarly, women could avoid endless sexual advances and play aggressively by adopting a male persona. Both sexes have learned in the online gaming world what it's like to wear the other's shoes, and sometimes the lessons have real-world implications. The LA Times has an article about playing for the other team.http://www.latimes.com/business/updates/lat_gender010517.htm
White Hat/Black Hat: One Hacker's Story
This is the story of Max Butler, a.k.a. "Max Vision" a.k.a. "The Equalizer" - hacker, security expert, and family man. Max was just sentenced to 18 months in jail for doing what he does best, messing about with computers. That's not the real point, though, which has more to do with the thin line between good and malevolent hackers. One might say that the moral of the story is that even good guys succumb to the temptations of power, or maybe that nobody will thank you for pointing out their problems. And that may be the real tragedy, because Max's story means there will be fewer good guys to make the Net a more secure place for us all. Read the Wired take and form your own opinion.http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44007,00.html
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Just Checking: Scenes from the Life of an Obsessive-Compulsive
The Blue Nowhere
Metaplanetary
GNU Autoconf, Automake, and LibtoolSURFING SITES
There's an old saying to the effect that the best classroom to be found is at the feet of one's elders, and in many ways, this site demonstrates that. It's an intimate autobiography put together by a World War II veteran; a survivor of the Pearl Harbor bombing. A selection of stories from the time imparts a flavor of what it must have been like. Add to this a selection of photos taken by the author, some of which are true gems, and you have a place well worth dropping by. Bear in mind that, like its era, it's not politically correct. One of the photos, for example, is entitled "The Japs Missed", but it's an inspiring shot, taken during a time of surging adrenaline. As the saying goes, those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it.http://hometown.aol.com/jhmcgoran/
Remember back when you were in college? Those tiled bathrooms presented great acoustics, didn't they? Admit it, you sat on the bench playing your guitar and "singing" - and it sounded great! Depth of tone you'd never experienced before, interrupted only occasionally by the sound of a rush-week pledge quietly barfing. This is sort of the same idea, only without the pledges and their noises. Silos, as it happens, beat the heck out of college restrooms when it comes to musical effects. This site offers a sampling of what can happen when you get serious about it. The length and breadth of silo music offered here is sure to hook you. And if that's not enough, you can transmit your own material into the silo. You may never leave the place, unless you're strictly into country music. This stuff may take place in a silo, but that's as close to country as it gets - it's actually located in downtown Montreal.
http://www.silophone.net/
This is your clearinghouse for dumb stuff. Not speechless, although it's possible that you could be rendered so upon visiting the place. Nope, this is dumb as in stupid. In Oregon, for example, it is required by state law that dishes must drip dry. And if you've been eating canned corn, you can't use the leftovers for fishing bait. In Florida, if an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, you need to pay the parking fee. Also in Florida, having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal. So is oral sex. So, presumably, is oral sex with a porcupine. Seems like a pretty prickly situation regardless - don't try this at home, even if it happens to be legal in your state of residence (or mind).
http://www.thedumb.com/
Choose Your Own Real-Life Adventure
Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? Oh yeah, you were too cool to read them, sure, right.... Well, the rest of us remember reading along in the little paperbacks, keeping our fingers in all the places we think we may have screwed up so it'd be faster to potentially survive the second time around. Amalgamated Humor has brought the series into the new century with two new faux volumes: "The Corporate Ladder" and "Your Fun, Fun Relationship". They're bitter romps through real life, complete with the misspellings one often encounters in the real world. As with most of the original Choose Your Own Adventures, the first person perspective works better if you're a male.http://www.capnwacky.com/choose/
The Binary Dinosaurs Virtual Computer Museum
In Ireland and the UK, boot sales (rummage or garage or yard sales in North America) can be gambling with even odds. Sometimes you'll find real treasures. Most of the time, your experience is pretty much limited to buying some little boy's Incredible Hulk action figure for 50 cents. But one such boot sale offered an Enterprise 64 computer (circa 1984) which sparked the creation of a truly impressive collection. The Binary Dinosaurs Virtual Computer Museum shows off one person's incredible assembly of older computers. A wide variety of systems includes a few large groups with recognizable names: 35 assorted Sinclair computers, 32 different kinds of Commodores, 26 Atari systems, and 25 Apples - all distinct models. If you've got something hidden away in your attic, consult the list of the many systems that are still needed to create a complete set. Not that the collection right now isn't pretty stellar. Go check out the 34 different consoles you can use in playing Pong - all 34 kinds of Pong.http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/
Most TV sportscasts are awash in statistics - football, golf, horse racing, basketball - often to the point of inanity. Blame baseball. Blame Baseball-Reference.com, which gained exposure recently in Sports Illustrated. The technology section of Salon.com describes this easy-to-use reference site as "the stat junkie's perfect high". Created and maintained by applied mathematician Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference.com is a database-driven encyclopedia of the grand old game, with names and numbers from the 1800s to 2000. It's hard to imagine a baseball statistic that isn't discoverable somewhere on this still non-commercial site, unless perhaps a stat from last night's Cubs game. The three-page Salon article is a good introduction for those who might be interested in young Professor Forman or his "required destination for other fantasy baseball players".
Forman: http://baseball-reference.com/
Salon: http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/04/20/baseballreference/index.html
At first glance, SearchHippo may seem old-fashioned. This modest search engine has no glitzy ads or personalization, nor does it offer free e-mail, chat, or e-commerce. But developers can augment their own sites for free with XML-based code to generate SearchHippo hits with custom formatting. (Search feeds from other search engines, if available to the little guy at all, can cost a lot or require sacrificial partnership.) In addition, webmasters can log in to specify keywords for SearchHippo to index for future searches. This is a welcome throwback to the early days of Web search engines that were eager for site notifications and content summaries from users. SearchHippo is "the exclusive hobby of Kevin Marcus", a software architect for an Internet company. His site is unlikely to become the next Excite or AltaVista, but it may prove a useful alternative.
http://www.searchhippo.com/
More often than not, we hit the "skip intro" button on splash pages with flashy Flash. Yes, Flash is cool but all too often, it's useless in a utilitarian world. Hence, the tongue-in-cheek Skip Intro, which has its own Flash intro to set the tone and a fake game that ends in a putdown. Macromedia may not enjoy it, but you might, even though the intro sequence will try your patience with intentional repetition.
http://skipintro.com/
Personality Prediction through Sleep Positions
No one wants to find out that, as a tummy sleeper, he is narrow-minded, self-centered, and always forcing people to comply with his needs. Moreover, he is reckless and desultory. If you hope to find out something about your personality, go right ahead and assess your sleeping position, and then try your partner's. It's probably as accurate as your horoscope. Our reviewer is taking solace in the fact that he is actually a she and that being reckless is downright dazzling to some.http://www.sleepbest.com/habbit/frame-e.htm?/habbit/index-e.htm
ONLINE TRAVEL
Yet another fairly informative article about Sealand, the tiny host of HavenCo, the first real data haven. Sealand is basically a small platform in the North Sea 10 km off the coast of England. It claims sovereignty and has achieved some notoriety as a functioning data haven. This WorldNetDaily article details the history and potential future of the place. It also reveals that Sealand is willing to host the web presence of the Tibetan government-in-exile, much to the annoyance of both China and the UK. Good background.http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21962
In the late 1700s, a Chinese mapmaker drew three different maps of his known world. Maps of this genre provide a glimpse of the vast and changing Chinese topography. They also served to bolster Chinese mythology, and they dominated in the culture until at least the middle of the 19th century. The maps of the immediate China area are quite detailed and rather accurate. At least, there aren't any notations saying things like "Here Be Dragons". Not so, the further one gets from the immediate - the so-called outer regions are poorly defined. Understandable, as everything that wasn't part of the immediate China was deemed barbarian at the time. The interactive map is stunning; especially when one considers that it was a hand-drawn, 45-inch by 27-inch product, carefully tinted in a variety of colors.
http://www.rice.edu/Fondren/ETC/jingban/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
A scrap of paper from the dream date at the bar last night has a phone number, but no name. Too chicken? AnyWho will give you the name and address with a road map and a set of driving instructions. Wish you'd called first? For privacy advocates, a signed postal letter will remove an entry.http://www.anywho.com/rl.html
Laughing All the Way to the Bank
Anyone who's ever been snubbed by a snotty teller or turned down for a loan by a bank manager has a new champion in - well, we'll call him Mr. Dude. When the bank where he's been a long-time customer tells him basically to take his business elsewhere, he does, then makes a Shockwave movie of it for the Web.http://www.xdude.com/
SOFTWARE
This bunch of bug fixes fixes Microsoft's industrial strength operating system. Anybody running the OS - which means mostly corporate IT departments - will need to plan for installing this update. There is a huge number of bug fixes here; a full list is available on the Microsoft support site. You can download the update, or pay for a CD. Update:Fixes: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q282/5/22.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/sp2/default.asp
Exegesis: Companion to Larry Wall's Perl Apocalypse
"Exegesis: n. an interpretation and explanation of a text, esp. Holy Writ." Damian Conway has started this series of articles to parallel Larry Wall's Apocalypse series about the design of Perl 6. The purpose of Damian's series is to give concrete examples of Perl code and how it will look in the upcoming new Perl 6 version. Very technical, but a great resource if you want to get a leg up on the radically re-engineered Perl 6.Exegesis: http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/05/08/exegesis2.html
Apocalypse: http://www.perl.com/pub/au/Wall_Larry
CORRECTIONS
The Altculture online pop culture cornucopia we covered in NSD 2.14 has been eaten up and assimilated by Plastic, a "news filter/group Web log devoted to pop culture" that we featured in NSD 7.05. Makes sense - Automatic Media owns both sites, as well as Feed and Suck. The new Altculture URL follows.http://www.plastic.com/altculture/