|
Home Subscriptions Netsurfer Science E-Zine Netsurfer Education E-Zine Netsurfer Books E-Zine |
| Creating Identity: It's What You Know |
| MAPS Charging for Content |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Palestine in the 1930s |
| Loch Ness by a Native |
| An American in Arabia |
| Screaming Europeans |
| Nuclear Event detectors |
| Filtered Underwear |
| Annotea: Third Voice Re-invented |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
Programmer Arrested After Giving Security Research Presentation
Dimitry Sklyarov gave a presentation entitled "eBooks Security: Theory and Practice" at the Def Con 9 hacker conference in Las Vegas. The talk disclosed details about e-books and covered removing protection from encrypted PDF files. Sklyarov works for ElcomSoft, which publishes a program that decrypts such PDFs. At press time, it appears that Sklyarov has been arrested at the behest of Adobe, which owns the PDF format, for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which explicitly prohibits most work on cracking decryption systems. The presentation exposes just how trivially easy it is to break several common and sometimes expensive e-book encryption formats. You can wade through a great deal of discussion of the situation on Slashdot or read accounts at Wired and Planet eBook. This is likely to balloon into another major free speech challenge to the DMCA.Def Con 9: http://www.defcon.org/
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/yro/01/07/18/1136244.shtml
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45298,00.html
Planet eBook: http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=165
Amelia Earhart's Aircraft Found?
It is surely the greatest aviation mystery in history: what happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan on their fateful attempt to fly around the world in 1937? Their plane is assumed to have gone down in the Pacific, but no trace has ever been found. The International Group of Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) commissioned a space-imaging company to snap a picture of the remote Nikumaroro Island in the Pacific to see if they could detect any underwater wreckage. Some artifacts and bones were found on Nikumaroro back in the 1940s, but they were never definitively identified. The space images revealed a few rust-colored pixels in the island's lagoon, which may be parts of Earhart's plane. Space.com has the story and the photo of Nikumaroro while TIGHAR's Earhart Project has more details and a plea for donations.Space.com: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/amelia_plane_010711.html
TIGHAR: http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/AEdescr.html
Two million people are currently behind bars in the US, MotherJones.com tells us in a disturbing expose of the American justice system. Just why is the Land of the Free the world's biggest jailer? And why is the prison population rising so fast? The prison industry is now a growth business, sometimes literally, with its own self-serving advocacy that argues for more prisons, better prisons, and tougher sentencing. Far from being correctional, however, prisons just seem to make things worse. In particular, the impact of jail sentences on the families of inmates can be devastating. For prisoners, the prison experience is dehumanizing, degrading, and dangerous. For society, the financial cost is high and rising steeply and the social cost of mass incarceration is often ruinous. MotherJones.com turns its sober gaze to alternatives to jail, looks at moral issues, ponders whether the war on drugs does much more harm than good, and generally makes you feel uncomfortable that so many people are in jail.
http://www.motherjones.com/prisons/
Planet-Gobbling Dust Storm on Mars
According to NASA, the largest Martian storm in 25 years has elevated the temperature of that planet's atmosphere by a "stunning" 30 degrees Celsius. The storm crossed a threshold on June 26, expanding beyond its location in the Hellas Basin and becoming a planetary event. The NASA story has images which show the temperature jump and the spread of the storm. No one knows how long the storm will last, but scientists are delighted with the amount of data they are collecting on this massive atmospheric event.http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast16jul_1.htm?list552511
Famous for its coveted yellow jersey, the Tour de France is the biggest and best bike race in the world: nothing else comes even close. The race takes almost a month to complete and features some of the most grueling conditions and most physically demanding effort you can imagine. Most of us may know the Tour de France mainly through the personal heroics of Lance Armstrong, who beat testicular cancer to race and win in 1999 and 2000. Now he's vying to make it three in a row, and after Stage Ten he's in third place. The official Tour site comes in five different languages so there's really no excuse for not visiting its maps, news, and facts about each team. ESPN follows the story of Armstrong and his nine-person US Postal Service team (team members are critical in this race). It's a fascinating race enriched with a seedy undercurrent of police raids, urine sampling, and possible drug use. We also point you to the Internet Tour de France Game 2001 - we're too late to enter this year but the site's kinda interesting in its own right.
Tour: http://www.letour.fr/
ESPN: http://espn.go.com/oly/index.html
Game: http://lcg-www.uia.ac.be/~erikt/tdf/
Sponsored by the English Department of San Jose University, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is for those of us who think we have a talent for wretchedly bad writing. Inspired by Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton's immortally bad opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night...", much loved by Snoopy, the BLFC has had considerable success since its modest beginning with three entries back in 1982. This year's winner, Sera Kirk, shares a hometown with our editor - surely a coincidence - and won with an ode to the running of the "angry yapping bullets" in Liechtenstein. The BLFC site itself is pretty droll.
BLFC: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
Winner: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2001.htm
This article looks at how scientists and educators are putting the high-speed connections of Internet2 (I2) to good use. The I2 backbone today consists of 185 universities and research labs on two fiber-optic backbones with speeds of 155 megabits per second. The network is being used to test multicasting, quality of service technologies, routing protocols, and other network issues. At the same time, the connections are used for real work in fields such as remote medicine, remote manipulation, tele-immersion, and remote access to scientific instruments such as telescopes. A good snapshot of the future.
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/tynan/tynan071001all.asp
This brief news bulletin reports that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban government has banned the use of the Internet in that country. According to Foreign Minister Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, the Taliban doesn't mind the technology as much as the content that can be found online. "We want to establish a system in Afghanistan through which we can control all those things that are wrong, obscene, immoral, and against Islam," Muttawakil said. Neither citizens nor government departments can use the Net. The impact of the ban is problematic. Afghanistan barely has any phone lines, never mind any sort of Net infrastructure, and the ban will be almost impossible to police. Almost.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010713/wr/tech_afghan_internet_dc_1.html
How Far Does US Libel Law Reach?
American Ellen Batzel hired American Bob Smith to paint and refinish floors in her American house. After a dispute about payment, Bob fired off an e-mail to Ton Cremers, who operates the Museum Security Network, a Dutch non-profit that tracks art forgeries and theft. In his e-mail, Bob claimed Ellen is a Nazi descendant whose numerous art works are stolen Nazi loot. Without checking the facts, Ton included these claims in his e-mail newsletter. Now Ellen is suing both Bob and Ton, for $10 million. She says she had to move to avoid harm, lost business because of the e-mail, and had to defend herself against a campaign to have her disbarred. Poor Ton has lost his job, hounded from the museum where he worked by Ellen's lawyers. Since neither Ton nor Bob have money, the lawsuit seems pointless and vindictive, but Bob probably deserves it. Of interest to Ton, and an intriguing point of law in the case, is whether US libel law should apply outside the US and whether any rulings are enforceable. Salon has the litigious details.http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/07/13/museum_security_network/index.html
The American Solar Challenge started July 15 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, is sponsored by the US Department of Energy, takes 11 days, covers 2,300 miles along historic Route 66, and finishes in Claremont, Calif. This year, 29 teams have entered this engineering and logistics challenge, including a handful from Canada, all trying to be the fastest solar-powered vehicle over the course. Thanks to tracking units in each vehicle, you can follow the progress of all entrants online. The race suffers a confusing Web site that badly needs a rethink. Still, the technical challenge is daunting and important and the rules and regulations stiff and exacting. May the sun shine on your solar panels and your batteries prove capacious.
http://www.formulasun.org/asc/
Consumer Complaint Against Pay for Positioning at Search Engines
The practice of paying for search engine listing positioning is not new. Several search engines have based their business models on this idea. But this complaint from a consumer rights organization asserts that several search engines engage in this practice without informing consumers about it - effectively deceptive advertising, which is against the law in the US. The complaint comes from Commercial Alert, a group founded by well known consumer activist and recent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader. The complaint names many search engines, big and small. The companies deny any deceptive practices.Story: http://www.msnbc.com/news/601205.asp?0dm=T11OT&cp1=1
Complaint: http://www.commercialalert.org/releases/searchenginerel.html
Open source software and operating systems are becoming mainstream choices among businesses and consumers. There's clearly a great deal of anecdotal evidence in favor of open source products, but quantitative information ultimately sways the decision-makers. David Wheeler has assembled an impressive array of such data from a large number of studies carried out over the last few years by various organizations. This paper rounds up the data and conclusions. It cites studies which looked at market share, performance, cost of ownership, and other information. There is a wealth of data and links here which clearly show not only that open source software is indeed popular in the business and consumer worlds, but also that in many instances it is also the right choice for the job.
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
The June Top 50 traffic ranking numbers from Media Metrix have quite a bit of information on how pop-ups influenced traffic at the major Web sites during June. For example, eBay's Half.com site rose from number 12 in May to number eight on the strength of its aggressive pop-up campaign. Clearly, pop-ups work to drive traffic to Web sites, but Media Metrix adds an important caveat: "It is impossible to determine whether a user intended to visit a site that is also accessible through pop-up or pop-under pages. Truly objective audience measurement cannot be influenced by what a user may or may not have intended to do online." There are more statistics in the press release at this URL.
http://www.jmm.com/xp/jmm/press/2001/pr_071201a.xml
Packet Storm Security Site Changes Hands
The Packet Storm Web site is well known in the online hacking community as a repository not only for numerous security tools, but also for a vast library of exploit code. Since the site never really made money for the company that owned it, it went on sale. The site changed hands for $1, as a group of hackers and sysadmins purchased it during Def Con 9. The group plans on making the site the foundation of a mirrored network of open security sites. Wired has the story.Packet Storm: http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,45275,00.html
Public Enemy Invites You to Download Their Music
The rap group Public Enemy is releasing vocal tracks online and inviting the public to download them and add music. A new track will be made available each week. It's a contest and winners get $1,000 and wind up on the next Public Enemy CD. The band wants some originality and asks that entries not be limited to traditional rap or hip-hop formats. Give it a go.http://www.slamjamz.com/slamnews.php?article=7
ONLINE CULTURE
Creating Identity: It's What You Know
A 15-year-old student managed to carve out a niche for himself as a legal expert on an ask-the-expert type Web site. The site, AskMe.com, allows people to solicit advice from self-described experts and to rate those experts on the quality of their advice. Marcus Arnold managed to rate at the top of the legal advice heap on AskMe.com, to the intense annoyance of real lawyers who did not measure up. The story is only a jumping off point for author Michael Lewis, who uses the tale of the young Marcus to muse on the philosophical implications of identity, technology, and the demise of insular cultures. This long excerpt from Lewis's forthcoming book is a thoughtful, evocative essay which not only touches on important issues of online culture but presents a touching human story as well. Highly recommended reading.AskMe: http://askme.com/
Excerpt: http://archives.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/magazine/15INTERNET.html
"Effective Midnight 7/31/2001, all non-subscription access to MAPS services will cease." So reads the MAPS subscription page. As most spam fighters know, MAPS is a database of open-relay mail servers which allow spam to be routed through them. ISPs around the world use the database to blacklist e-mail traffic to and from open-relay sites. Now the site is going commercial, probably diminishing the number of sites which use it and thus defeating the purpose of a large boycott. Did MAPS have an effect? This may be a good opportunity to find out. Look for subject: "MAPS Subscription Policy Changes" in the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup. Slashdot also has a fairly critical (of MAPS) discussion.
MAPS: http://www.mail-abuse.org/subscription.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/13/0513251&mode=thread
|
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.
|
Java Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Java Developers
Does America Need A Foreign Policy?
Revelation Space
Pilates - Mat Based Workout for BeginnersSURFING SITES
Coca Cola's Secret Court Battle
There's probably a good legal case among the megs of data and hundreds of links on this site. There are two issues: did Coca Cola and one of its ad agencies steal valuable materials and ideas, and why do they seem to be concealing all mention of the this suit against them in their stock filings? The matter seems straightforward, but the amount of damages sought seems ridiculous (at least $4 billion), and Coke's reactions, at least as presented by the plaintiff and Guerilla News, are both odd and extremely disturbing. All the documentation filed or produced for this long-running legal matter along with commentary is available at Guerilla News. Just getting an overview takes a while. After spending too much time in these archives, our reviewer learned a lot about what is wrong with the American legal system, but gained insight into the merits of each party's case.http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/
Well, here it is, the middle of 2001, and while the fuzzy, feel-good movie "AI" has been released, there's been no sign of HAL. What happened? Marvin Minsky, a prominent professor at MIT, previews his upcoming book, "The Emotion Machine" and tries to answer the question. He looks at the successes and failures in 30 years of AI research. While the situation has improved tremendously in recent years, Minsky points to a need for developing improved schemes for knowledge representation and reasoning. The result is a fascinating account of the history of computers, gaming, and programming, which then moves to a discussion of new ideas for making machines more versatile and resourceful. This presentation from a recent Game Developer conference, entitled "Programs, Emotions and Common Sense", runs just over an hour in RealPlayer or MP3 format (it's a 12-MB MP3 file), and in the practical sense, all you really need is the audio. Minsky graciously provides a link to the slides used in his excellent discussion, as well.
http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?stream_id=526
Ichiro Suzuki, right-fielder for the Seattle Mariners (bats left, throws right), has a large international base of fans, and this is their cyberwatering hole - or would that be watering cyberhole? Nahhh. On the data link, you can pick up his hitting stats along with American League standings and Suzuki's rank among the American League batting averages. Hitting the Profile tab gives you a readout of the 27-year-old sensation, along with an historical look at his game from 1991 through the year 2000. There's also a game-by-game scoreboard tucked away in this site, which describes how Suzuki fared in each. The Major League leader in hits and stolen bases, he can also walk on water, according to some of his fans. There's a BBS feature so you can yak if you're so inclined. By the way, the site's supposed to be even better if you have a Japanese character set. We didn't try that option.
http://www.ichiro.com/index.html
Bob calls himself Normal, but we'll defer judgment and leave it to you to decide. How many other places out here offer a direct e-mail link to God Almighty? Normal Bob is responsible for the Jesus dress-up doll we featured in NSD 7.14, and that says a lot right there. At his own site, you can visit the Special People Club, the Super Chics from Outer Space, and a large selection of hate mail, among other things. This last seems to be largely contributed by serious church-goers who rather vehemently object, in particular, to the Jesus Dress Up segment. One line in this well-designed site pretty well sums the situation up: "Is he mocking your savior, making fun of you or does he just piss you off?" It's a question to ponder during your visit.
Bob: http://www.normalbobsmith.com/
NSD 7.14: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/nsd.07.14.html#SS8
Inspired by the popular Am I Hot or Not Web site, Am I Annoying or Not gives users the opportunity to participate in ranking over 2,000 people (past, present, real, and fictional) on the irritation scale. Most irritating at the moment? Hillary Rodham Clinton, who seems to grind more nerves than Hitler, Paul Bundy, Jim Jones, or Satan. Site features include an Index of Annoying Celebrities, Most and Least Annoying, the Annoyatorium Forum and an "Are You Annoying or Not?" Quiz. The site moderators themselves seem to find vegetarianism and smoking particularly annoying celebrity habits, while physical beauty and film nudity rate highly as not annoying characteristics. Perhaps that explains why the Lumiere brothers - film pioneers - annoy over 74 percent of voters - no nude scenes.
http://www.amiannoying.com/
If you find yourself bedeviled by such questions as "Is it bad manners to relieve myself in a public swim area?" or similarly stymied by what action, if any, should be taken when someone farts in an elevator, you will be glad to know that help is at hand. CourtesyFlush says it provides practical answers to non-traditional etiquette questions. What is "non-traditional"? You know, the kinds of questions that Emily wouldn't touch with a ten-foot Post, like: "How does one gently remind the webmaster that he hasn't updated in five months, so he should get out of the elevator and stop farting around?"
http://www.courtesyflush.com/
It's amazing how much fun it is to see pretty much anyone who has shown their bare belly in the last ten years here made at least 100 pounds bigger. What would the world be like if these were our role models? What represents beauty nowadays? This is really a lot of fun and gives you some idea of what would happen if food were less freely available in the Western world and fat was seen as an indication of affluence.
http://www.fatlaneonline.com/
If you're fascinated by mustard - and who isn't? - you may want to plan a trip to Mount Horeb, Wis. soon, in order to pay a visit to the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum, home to over 3,000 varieties of everyone's favorite yellow condiment. Founded in 1986 by curator Barry Levenson, the museum also features "an extensive collection of mustard memorabilia and antique mustard pots". If that sort of thing gets your heart racing, you'll probably need a pacemaker after visiting the museum's official site, where you can buy assorted mustard paraphernalia - a "mustard herbal bath" anyone? - or enroll at the mock mustard college "Poupon U." where you can take courses in such fascinating subjects as "Brown Spicy Mustard in Etruscan Literature". Um, could someone pass the ketchup please?
http://www.mustardweb.com/
Raw Media Network is allowing you to apply to be in a new live-action online series called "The Revengers". Think you have what it takes to play Mya, the multi-tasking mastermind? Or perhaps you have the drop-dead gorgeous looks to pull off Walter, who only thinks he's the head of the organization? Then head to the site and link your head shot. If you're more the wallflower type, you can just cast votes for your choice of the new stars. Or maybe you can lend a hand in plot lines, creating a story arc to ensure your favorite character gets laid. So get in there and make yourself known to the new casting couch of the 21st century.
http://www.the-revengers.com/
Sony has decided to move forward with their new interactive broadband service, Screenblast, despite the fiscal forecast on the field and the fact that other sites are already out there offering similar services. They're aiming at a young crowd, teens who want to remix their own music and videos. Their preview screen screams out, "We're only interested in trust-fund kids." The options for bandwidth are 128, 300, and T1, and we've got to imagine most kids' schools aren't going to want to see them remixing a Britney Spears video during typing class. Most of the revenue will come from advertising. How much money can a company make off of online ads for pizza and acne medication, though? The service is due out in the fall.
http://www.screenblast.com/
Ever wondered who those pixilated faces are staring back at you from your computer screen while you're playing games? What if it were you? 3Q is ready to make that a reality. They've set up kiosks in San Jose, Seattle, and Dallas where for $15 you can walk away with a CD version of your face, ready to pop into your personal copy of Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament (and soon The Sims, too). It won't exactly look like you. For one, your face is the only bit that's copied, so the rest of your digital body will be somebody else's. That could be good or bad. For some folks it might eliminate that nagging feeling that they need to go to the gym. The other drawback is that your face will automatically be framed by a helmet, bringing new meaning to the term "helmet hair."
http://www.3qme.com/
According to Roxy Roxborough, the odds are greater that extra-terrestrial life will be verified by the year 2010 than that "Mr. Bean" (or, presumably, any sequel) will win an Oscar by then. But if Rowan Atkinson were revealed to be an ET himself, might not those odds change? And if Mr. Bean were less odd, would his odds of winning be greater? Oh well, existential questions such as this are for fools like us, while oddsmaker Roxy (100-to-1 this is not his birth name) crunches cold, hard numbers to deliver gaming odds on his America's Line sports gambling Web site, as well as a few fun odds and ends such as the 2010 predictions and the 2004 Presidential odds.
America's Line: http://www.americasline.com
2010: http://www.americasline.com/2001odds.html
President: http://www.americasline.com/pres.html
ONLINE TRAVEL
In this site hosted by Hebrew University, Eduard Fischer displays photographs of Palestine in 1930-1939, a period when many Jews fled from rising European anti-Semitism to settle there, in the hope of creating a Jewish homeland. Fischer's stark black and white images perfectly encapsulate the promise and the conflicts of the area at this transitional time, with one set of pictures featuring Arabs and Jewish settlers peacefully coexisting outside the walls of Jerusalem and another showcasing a celebration of Ramadan, taken one day before the Arab revolt against the British mandate. The layout is simple but appropriate, with an exhibit map providing effortless navigation through the photos. A little background history on the region might improve the uninitiated viewer's understanding, and more content would be nice, as there's not much text to accompany the images, but these are only minor gripes. The site clearly aims to be a personal, visual account of a long troubled region at a distinct moment in time, and as such, it succeeds admirably.http://www.snunit.k12.il/vmuseum/pal/Palestine.html
Loch Ness has always held a peculiar fascination for millions of otherwise ordinary people. This is perhaps the most comprehensive, and level-headed, site assembled to date on the subject. That famous photograph of the monster? We're sure you've seen it. Always looked to our resident zoologist like a shot of an elephant swimming. This site features the photo, and a shot of the photographer - who, it turns out, was a big-game hunter. The whole thing was eventually exposed as an elaborate hoax. Imagine our surprise. Everything from climate to folklore to first-hand accounts through prehistory and photos are gathered in one convenient location, and the volume of information and links is most impressive. They even have live surface and underwater cams for your viewing pleasure. Sadly, we spotted no monsters. The place is still under construction, so mind the dust, watch your head, and add a bookmark for future visits.
http://www.loch-ness.com/Default.asp
Keith Hekman sure gets around. He initially created this site to show his friends where he'd been, but it's expanded into a travel guide/log of his life in Cairo and travels in the Middle East and Europe. This is a great way to investigate some of the less known destinations and to safely visit trouble spots. We cruised around Amsterdam; the commentary is simple and informative (you should ride bikes in the city) - but we didn't linger as long as Keith in the shipping museum.
http://www.aucegypt.edu/hekman/index.html
One doesn't normally think of Europe as a Mecca for roller coaster enthusiasts, but the members of the European Coaster Club (ECC) might have a different opinion. The ECC, which calls itself Europe's premier roller coaster club, organizes trips and behind-the-scenes tours to various stomach plungers all over the continent. At its Web site you can sign up for a membership, view trip schedules, or join their official mailing list. And sure, Europeans may have the edge on the US in education and health care, but just wait until their planned 17-day jaunt to the States next year, when they'll get a look at good ol' American coasters - still the envy of the civilized world.
http://www.coasterclub.org/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Want to be the first on your block to learn of the coming Armageddon? Check out these nuclear event detectors, which boast the ability to electronically sniff out low-level nuclear environments and explosions. One assumes you wouldn't really need a detector for larger blasts.http://www.micro-circuit.com/newmarket/products5.htm
It's a serious problem. Under-Tec offers a serious answer. The idea seems feasible, and those references that could be checked do check. Under-Tec odor-capturing undergarments could be the best thing that ever happened to you. The Under-Tec site is sales oriented, but its links lead to many intriguing sites.
http://www.under-tec.com/
SOFTWARE
Annotea: Third Voice Re-invented
Long time readers of NSD will recall a company called ThirdVoice. They produced a software product that let you annotate any Web site while browsing and read the notes left by others. The notes, held on ThirdVoice servers, did not need the participation of the actual sites, who did not always appreciate critical comments that they could not control in virtual proximity to their Web pages. Ultimately, ThirdVoice folded but the idea did not die with the company. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is sponsoring a project called Annotea, which provides essentially the same capability with open source standards and tools. It's part of their Somatic Web project, an effort to add more meta-data to Web content.http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea/