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BREAKING SURF
Somebody has rewritten the Web exploit that affects Microsoft Web servers to be both more aggressive and more destructive. It is reportedly hitting cable DSL users hard, lighting up their modems like Christmas trees as it pings them while searching for new machines to infect. The new variant is also installing back doors on infected systems, which allows crackers to control the machines. Wired has an overview, while Newsforge has an article on the technical community's response. This includes rude Perl code and makes known that your firewall log gives you a list of infected machines that you can happily exploit to your heart's content - all of a sudden we have a flood of hackable machines open to anyone with a modest knowledge of Windows. In effect, Code Red II implemented a nifty new way to passively obtain a list of compromised machines. Look for more use of this technology in future worms.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,45847,00.html
Newsforge: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/07/1437202&mode=nested
World Population Likely to Peak before 2100
That's the prediction from a new, rigorous, human population growth model. The model statistically predicts an 85% chance that global population will peak before 2100, and predicts with 60% certainty that this peak will be less than 10 billion (there are 6 billion of us today, but not all read NSD yet). The study also looks at future patterns of human migration and demographic predictions. Nature has the study, with links to all sorts of supplemental info. There's also a press article for those not into heavy statistics.Study: http://www.nature.com/nature/fow/010802.html
Press: http://www.nature.com/nsu/010802/010802-10.html
Dmitry Sklyarov Released on $50,000 Bail
The headline says it all. Dmitry was arrested for making public the encryption used by E-Book software at an international computer conference. The case has become a genuine cause celebre, making the jump from the technical community to at least some of the major media. Specifically, the New York Times (NYT; requires free sign-up) published a Dmitry-favorable editorial written by Lawrence Lessig, a major player in the Microsoft monopoly trial and the online legal landscape. He has a lucid explanation of the larger issues and why you should care. Epic has details of the release and the upcoming trial and Wired has more on the popular reaction.NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30LESS.html
Epic: http://www.eff.org/temp/20010806_eff_sklylarov_annouce.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45879,00.html
New Framework For Discussing Intellectual Property
Much of the current debate about the future of intellectual property - copyrights, patents, fair use - is framed in terms of rights. The rights of content holders clash with the rights of content users, and possibly with the rights of governments. Jon Stokes persuasively argues that this debate may be better served by being reframed in terms of structures. In many ways, content holders already understand this. The major content producers are pushing for legislation around the world that will produce legal and market structures which will benefit them at the expense of other parties to the debate. Stokes argues that the parties should be working on developing those types of legal and market structures which would serve their individual interests rather than focusing on arguing about rights. It's a good think piece with a valuable new perspective on the whole IP debate.http://www.arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/01q3/ip-ethics/ip-ethics-1.html
Network Structure of Internet Analogous to Natural Processes
Recent studies of the interconnections both between Web pages and between actual physical nodes of the Internet reveal some startling similarities to natural networks. Researchers have linked the growth and structure of the Net to the mathematics of both physical systems (the Bose-Einstein Condensate) and biological systems (spread of epidemics). Such "scale-free" networks resist random node failures, meaning that if many systems were disabled by viruses at random, the Net would keep on chugging along. On the other hand, such networks are vulnerable to attacks against a relatively small number of key, highly interconnected nodes. The studies also reveal the mathematics of the "rich get richer" phenomenon whereby nodes with many links tend to attract more links. This is illustrated by the phenomenal growth of Google, which takes advantage of scale-free web topology in ranking its search results. This somewhat technical paper offers insight into why the Net has the properties it does.http://physicsweb.org/article/world/14/7/09
Two stories reveal a new online business model. Salon calls it "the parasite economy" because it's based on companies which seek to piggyback on popular free software packages. For example, when you install music-sharing software such as KaZaA you also install five other applications, most dedicated to serving up commercial content - the polite name for ads - in some way and to collecting information about your online behavior. Some of those applications are stealthy - you don't get clearly informed about their installation and you may not get a choice about installing them in the first place. CNet describes how advertising networks are trying to get into the business of capturing some peer-to-peer eyeballs through similar methods, with some apparent success.
Salon: http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/02/parasite_capital/index.html
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6759036.html
Imagine hundreds of millions of virtual aquariums "holding" fish that can swim in and out to other aquariums connected through the Internet. That's the fishy application DALi (it means Distributed Artificial Life, not the surrealist) is offering as a demo of its new peer-to-peer software aimed at providing shared entertainment through the Web. Download the software and generate randomly any of 20 species of fish. You can't control where they go or what they do, but you can follow them, and find out the origin of any new fish that show up on your screen. This introductory Java application is a calm, innocuous beginning to something potentially big and exciting. Wired has all the briny facts. We hope things go swimmingly for the new company.
DALi: http://www.daliworld.net/index.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,45726,00.html
Stats on Rate of Dotcom Demise
Webmergers has been statistically tracking the death spiral of the dotcom industry. It notes that July had the lowest number of Web company failures since last September. Of course, this is mostly because there are few surviving ones left anyway. Webmergers notes that since January 2000, 592 Internet companies have folded - 62% of them in the last seven months. A SF Gate article on this data quotes the president of Webmergers as saying that "Internet failures represent only about six percent to eight percent of all online companies" out of a total of between 7,000 and 10,000 existing Internet firms.Webmergers: http://www.webmergers.com/editorial/article.php?id=39
SF Gate: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/08/02/BU145234.DTL
"By the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can beat the human World Cup soccer champions." Now there's a scary notion, but we know a stretch target when we stumble over one, thank you! Obviously the goal is not really about soccer but stimulating the development and demonstration of multi-purpose AI. No one is too optimistic about meeting that 2050 date, either, never mind creating a synthetic Pele and winning the World Cup. If you're real fast, you can catch the current state of the art at the American Association for Artificial Intelligence annual conference in Seattle (ends August 10), where some 111 teams from 23 countries are competing this week in the soccer challenge. Currently, the main challenge is to figure out where the ball is, never mind playing as a team. There's no humanoid competition yet, but several will be shown this year at the Seattle RoboCup shindig. Wired has the ball on this one.
RoboCup: http://www.robocup.org/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,45705,00.html
Community Site Craigslist Struggles with Profit Model
Like many online ventures, this fairly famous San Francisco Bay Area community Web site is worried about its financial future. As a result, it has engaged its users in a dialogue about how it can make money and survive. The public discussion provides a rare internal glimpse into the struggle of a Web site to come to terms with the dotcom collapse. So far, Craigslist has found no real consensus among its users on how it should charge for content. This may reflect the fact that the online community in general is still not ready to embrace the pay-for-content model. Whatever the outcome, the process is worth observing, particularly for other sites struggling with the same problem. Craigslist summarizes user feedback so far, and you can check out the forums devoted to this topic. The summary also links to a nicely structured pro/con analysis of various revenue generating ideas. Kudos to Craigslist for making this process visible.Summary: http://www.craigslist.org/revenue.2.html
Forums: http://forums.craigslist.org/?forumID=29
"Big Brother 2" Lures Paid Subscribers
In case you haven't been paying attention, the "Big Brother 2" (BB2) TV show forces a dozen strangers to live together in a house bristling with video cameras. The object - surprise, surprise - is to be left after everybody else has been asked to leave. The content is apparently compelling enough that 25,000 people have paid to receive streaming media of the shows. Even more impressive, RealNetworks claims some 300,000 people are Gold Pass subscribers (at $10 a month) with access to the BB2 videos. It's neat to see real money chase non-porn content, although it's still voyeuristic and hardly uplifting stuff. We wonder what this means for RealNetworks, which claims it's not changing its business emphasis from software to content provider. One pundit in a CNet article talks about a "paradigm shift" - that always makes us reach for the hard hat. The BB2 site also features a house tour, profiles of the house guests, and chat rooms.BB2: http://www.CBS.com/primetime/bigbrother2/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6762532.html
Anything goes in the new .biz and .info top-level domains, at least for most registries. Way back when Network Solutions had a tight grip on the domain name business, it forbid the usual favorite obscenities and foul words, at least until 1999 when its grip loosened with competition. Now, profanity is perfectly OK. Fair or foul, it's all the same to the registries, which just want to take your money, so grab your favorite expletives and rude words and let the land rush begin. Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure we should advise you that fuck.info and shit.info are already taken, or so Wired claims. Fuck!
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45758,00.html
Poul Anderson was one of the most prolific and most honored science fiction and fantasy authors around. He began his career in 1947 and was a frequent short story contributor to some of the early science fiction magazines such as Amazing and Analog while also turning out numerous acclaimed novels. He won many awards, including four Nebulae and seven Hugos. Anderson's bibliography is simply massive; check out the long listing in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB). Check out our Book Recommendations section for a couple of selections representative of his work. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) site has a small obit and some nice tributes.
ISFDB: http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?Poul_Anderson
SFWA: http://www.sfwa.org/News/panderson.htm
Risks with Microsoft Passport Single Log-in Technology
This paper by two researchers at AT&T Labs dissects Microsoft's Passport sign-on protocol. Passport is probably best known as the log-in method used by Hotmail and MSN. It is also a big part of Microsoft's e-commerce strategy and fundamental to the control of online services in the next generation of Windows. While the idea of a single global Net log-in is not necessarily bad, the paper criticizes Passport for grafting the service on older technologies such as JavaScript and HTTP, which were not really designed for running a secure service. The paper also hypothesizes possible attacks against the system which could compromise not only your personal log-in information but also the contents of your electronic wallet. Anybody curious about how Passport works should read this.http://avirubin.com/passport.html
MP3s on Your Work Computer May Get You Fired
It seems not only porn can get you the pink slip these days. According to this CNet story, more and more companies are creating computer use policies which ban music files, mostly for fear of copyright violations. In one case, a secretary at Northwestern University was fired after tech support discovered 2,000 MP3 files on her work machine.http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6775251.html
Netscape Alumni Starting New Content Delivery Venture
A company called Kontiki has been started by several Netscape vets not scarred by Browser War Syndrome. Former Netscape portal chief Mike Homer is the CEO, and Jim Barksdale is reportedly throwing in some venture money. Wade Henessey and Marc Andreessen are also affiliated with the company, according to CNet. The company will focus on efficient content distribution using peer-to-peer technology. Kontiki's customers are expected to be large companies who want to distribute either large files or video over internal networks or the Net.Kontiki: http://www.kontiki.com/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6766377.html
You know the sort of thing: dust bunnies; weeds; skin diseases; insurrection; letters to the editor. You put off dealing with them and they just keep growing and growing until they become too big to realistically deal with. Well, we vacuumed, herbicided, medicated, and put down the rebel scum - and then we were faced with a backlog of nearly a year's worth of letters to the editor to deal with. We could have published them all or selected only the very best. Instead, we casually trashed the first 10 months or so of letters and published only recent ones. Too bad, too - you wrote some real gems in February. Maybe next time....
http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/letters/letter.07.25.html
Just our friendly periodic prod to get you gazing at one of our other popular ezines, Netsurfer Science. The latest issue has African writing systems, marijuana, a touch of chaos, rockets and a bit of action in a galaxy far, far away. How can you resist? Check it out and subscribe if you like.
NSS 04.08: http://www.netsurf.com/nss/nss.04.08.html
Subscribe: http://www.netsurf.com/nss/subscribe.html
ONLINE CULTURE
If Hunter Thompson were to write about the Webby 2001 Awards this is the kind of story he'd have produced. Andrey Slivka penned this scathing portrait of ex-dotcom bohemians, a whole generation seemingly doomed to have peaked way too early. The piece is a literary gem, evoking a time and a place: the post-Bohemian ambiance of the Webbies where nobody quite knows what's next contrasted with the barely out-of-sight squalor of San Francisco's South of Market district. Read it, it's good.http://www.nypress.com/14/31/news&columns/feature.cfm
We try, Lord knows we try, but there are days when we're just fated to be your Internet tabloid ragsheet. What are you gonna do when you have content like this landing at your feet? Paul Morgan had a boating accident on dry land, resulting in a pair of still-attached but non-functional feet. He claims he can't get insurance to cover an amputation, which would allow him to get functional prosthetics. His solution? He'll amputate his feet with a home-made guillotine and let you watch the online video feed for a low, low price. Yes, he does expect to piss off a bunch of people, though hopefully not his morbidly adoring audience. Is the story true? Well, as somebody once said, we're too lazy to look it up. If it isn't, it should be.
http://www.cutoffmyfeet.com/
The sexy new term for this type of behavior is "astroturfing", meaning the use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement. A former staffer from Linux Today has accused that mag's executive editor, Kevin Reichard, of making inappropriate postings under other identities on LinuxToday.com forums. The claim is causing ripples in the Linux community. The details of the story are rather insider-oriented, but the important part is that the community, which prides itself on openness and honesty, perceives this conduct as unethical. Worse, LinuxToday.com specifically prohibits such online shilling. Some of the pressure to tolerate this apparently came from the company's business-oriented desire to keep readers "in the channel", meaning retaining them at LinuxToday.com rather than sending them off to other Web resources. Paul Ferris writes his accusatory story, Slashdot has discussion, and Kevin has apologized.
Ferris: http://www2.linuxjournal.com/cgi-bin/frames.pl/articles/conversations/0030.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/06/1346240&mode=thread
Kevin: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-08-08-007-20-OP
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
If most arts-related writing tends to bore you, or especially if it doesn't, don't neglect Arts Journal (AJ), "the Daily Digest of Arts and Culture Journalism". Culling pertinent articles from over 200 English language publications every day, AJ presents intelligent, lively, and timely news and essays on dance, media, music, publishing, theatre, and the visual arts, as well as hot issues, people, and perspectives on the arts. This excellent publication seems to manage what many others have tried and failed to do - inform, expand, and illuminate in a manner that neither patronizes nor alienates. The result is content that positions arts issues firmly within the context of everyday relevancy. Skeptical? Have a look at the editors' breakdown of the Napster issue earlier this year, and the controversy surrounding digital art.AJ: http://www.artsjournal.com/
Napster: http://www.artsjournal.com/artswatch/napsterprimer.htm
Digital: http://www.artsjournal.com/artswatch/digitalcritical.htm
One of the Best Movie Review Sites on the Web
The Internet has seen the rise of many an amateur film critic, but James Berardinelli is among the best. His site, Reelviews, has garnered praise from such industry heavyweights as Roger Ebert, who calls it one of the best movie review sites on the Web. After reading Berardinelli's informed, thoughtful opinions, it's hard to disagree with that assessment. For an electrical engineer, Berardinelli showcases a remarkable knowledge of film history, not to mention a remarkable passion for his hobby - he regularly drives an hour each way from his New Jersey home to attend advance screenings in Philadelphia. With all the studio-controlled (and invented) blurb writers out there, any intelligent film criticism is most welcome, and Berardinelli is a breath of fresh air.http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies.html
Don't say we didn't warn you: the Lizardman's site is not for the queasy of stomach. Then again, what did you expect from a member of the Jim Rose Circus? The site highlights the freak (and we say that with all due respect) in all his glory: tattoos, forked tongue, pierced septum, filed teeth, non-stick forehead, apadravya, and more. If you know what that last one is, you know whether or not you want to let your kids have a looksee. If you don't know what it is, you probably don't want them watching over your shoulder. Lizardman's revamping his site right now, and if you're a member of the Body Modification E-Zine community, you can get in to read his diary as the redesign progresses. He promises pictures and videos of the portions of his act he breaks out. The flesh hook suspension shots are already there for those so inclined.
Lizardman: http://bmeworld.com/amago/
Circus: http://www.ambient.on.ca/jimrose/jimrose.html
If the words "Rainbow" and "music" make you think of Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio instead of Kermit the Frog and John Denver, Hard Radio is right down your heavy metal alley. All the news about metal, from the '70s to today, is here, although a lack of organization makes it a challenge to find what you're looking for. Likewise, the collection of interviews is impressive, but once again, an ounce of organization would prevent two hours of headache. If you're looking for constantly streaming hard rock, a "what's playing now" banner runs constantly in the lower left corner, letting you know whether or not what's playing is going to be worth the effort of banging your head. BOOKS & EZINES
http://www.hardradio.com/
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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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Tale of the Rose: The Passion That Inspired the Little Prince
Genesis
Net Privacy: A Guide to Developing & Implementing an Ironclad ebusiness Privacy Plan
White-Hat Security Arsenal: Tackling the Threats
Norton SystemWorks 1.0 and Norton Personal Firewall 1.0 BundleComputer Game Research Journal
A popular entertainment and an important industry finally receives the academic treatment in the first issue of the International Journal of Computer Game Research. The introduction admits that the greatest challenge may be in carving out independent space for the new field amidst a sea of existing disciplines that would like to absorb it as their own. Nothing here obviously connects to making a better Quake or Ultima Online, but we think it's probably a good thing that some serious folk want to probe the entrails of computer games for social and cultural significance. For our money, the star of the first issue is "Is It Possible to Build Dramatically Compelling Interactive Digital Entertainment", an article that suggests game designers need to figure out what makes gamers think they are dealing with real people and then make systems that trigger those stimuli. Remember, though, it's academic, i.e. big words, long sentences, and references to obscure work no one has ever heard of. Stick around and see what develops.http://cmc.uib.no/gamestudies/
Once upon a time, voyeurism was a lot of work. Take reading someone's diary for instance. You had to sneak into your sibling's bedroom, find the forbidden text's secret hiding place, and then carefully return it to exactly the same position, always operating under the threat of imminent capture. But now, thanks to the Web and a rapidly evaporating sense of shame, anyone can swing over to sites like Digital Expressions to read diaries online or, if you like, post your own for the whole wired world to see. Enjoyment will depend on how much interest you're going to derive from poring over the minutia of a complete stranger's existence, with most of the entries being of the "my boyfriend and I broke up again" variety - but we have to admit there's something oddly magnetic about the whole thing.
http://www.digitalexpressions.nu/
Probing Beyond the Obvious, with Gratuitous Slams
If you're looking for centrist opinion, this is not the place to go. For the liberal-inclined, however, it's hog-heaven. Top among the offerings when we visited were a comparison of the IQ of the past dozen US presidents, showing that the Democrats are smart guys and the Republicans, especially Dubya, are boneheads. If you're a Bushwacker, it's a lot of fun. This is an opinion site, and it slams Canada, the UK, and Jamaica - does it have something against the Commonwealth? There's a "Missile Defence Myth" piece, which makes it clear that we're all gonna die if such a system is put together. But the site is full of wonders, such as the nugget "Placebo: The Miracle Drug", and it offers up some truly great quotes in a special section, as well. The Humour section consists largely of things we've all received in e-mail a couple of dozen times, all gathered together in one convenient place. There are more frauds and horrors presented or linked to here than we knew what to do with. We just found a quiet cave and hunkered down until it all went away.http://members.home.net/eye-openers/
Now here's how to make fun. Madeleine Begun Kane's G.W. Bush "diary" won an About.com Bushie Award for Parody. If this is parody, our reviewer needs a new dictionary. This site is vicious and wickedly funny, at least to those who don't blindly support the current resident of the White House. Bush sometimes stumbles over his words, and has known moments of public inarticulateness. Kane starts with the real things and magnifies it to the point of high humor. There are daily entries, usually based on Mr. Bush's public words and actions. Accept this site as roll-on-the-floor humor or avoid it.
http://www.madkane.com/bush.html
Hard-Core Political News and Commentary
Lucianne Goldberg, she of Monica-Gate instigation, offers a news forum with an unusual format. Users contribute all the content and other users comment on it. It's a cross between a straight news site and a open forum. The rules make the site sound democratic, but the reality is this is pretty hard-core right-wing news and commentary. Clinton (any Clinton) as Satan can be found in many guises, and while many posts are at least reasonable in tone, a certain amount of nearly inarticulate drivel is present. Once you learn to skip the drivel, the site is useful for both adherents and opponents of the prevailing political breeze here.http://www.lucianne.com/main.asp
The O Pine is all about sharing ideas without the lunacy you find in most discussion groups. That's likely because there's enough lunacy here that any additional input would simply be gratuitous. The discussion of technical writing is a particularly impressive example well worth checking out. While you're stumbling around, you can find out why - contrary to popular myth - trucks don't raise gas prices. The content's a little sparse, so you won't spend a lot of time here, but what time you do spend will be rewarded with commentary that runs the gamut between touching, dorky, and loony.
http://neptune.spacebears.com/opine/
Someone's Not Playing with a Full Deck
Cardhouse revels in its weirdness. A blog, a compendium of odd articles, and 29 playing cards - Cardhouse is all of these things and more. If none of that makes much sense, don't expect too many answers from the site - a bizarre, intermittently funny collection of various oddities and links. It's so out there that no description can really do it justice - you have to see it for yourself. Definitely not for everyone, but with much of the Web succumbing to an insufferable blandness, originality, even if it is this bewildering, is a welcome sight.http://www.cardhouse.com/home.htm
SURFING SCIENCE
This site hopes to prove to you that the ancient Egyptians used kites to lift their obelisks to an upright and locked position. How they actually did that is debatable, some of those pillars of stone are amazingly large and prone to break if dropped. Best guesses by historians are ramps, ropes, and lots of workers. The group behind this site seeks to prove that using kites and a bunch of pulleys, it's possible to lift fairly heavy loads. The site has photos and soon will have videos. Egyptologists, while amused, are not giving the method much credibility. Whether true or not, it's a cool engineering stunt.http://www.pyramidiots.com/
Network Time Protocol (NTP) has been in use for over two decades, now. Bet ya didn't know that. We sure as heck hadn't noticed. However, NTP has long been used to synchronize time between a system and a remote server. Pretty ho-hum stuff. Who cares? Well, you probably do. It seems that timing is everything when it comes to cryptographic authentication and other stuff you depend on when you're buying books and games online. This site goes into time in more detail than you likely believed possible, and provides information and links to NTP and to a range of other time sychronization topics and products. Really, where else are you going to find a bibliography on Computer Network Time Synchronization? This is a geek site to compare with all geek sites. We love those!
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/
Geography Action! Rivers 2001 is an online project produced by the National Geographic Society to educate children about river conservation. It includes an animated river system which shows how a watershed works, online and offline games, activities like coloring and writing, and a calendar of local river-related events. The site also includes a special section for educators of K-12 students, where they can pick up lesson plans and hands-on activities.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographyaction/
SOFTWARE
What's really notable about this new version 4.7 of the most popular internet messaging client is that AOL is actively trying to build a community around it. One of its new features is a Web page called the Aim Today Window. It's basically a portal to various new services and social tools, such as a Rate-a-Buddy, a clone of the AmIHotOrNot Web site, daily tips for using instant messengers, pet photos, and features for finding other AIM users with similar interests. There are numerous user interface tweaks and a few notable new features such as the ability to send buddy lists to others, and HTTP proxy support to make AIM easier to use from behind firewalls.http://aim.aol.com/aimnew/newreg/home.html
CORRECTIONS
Tricks of the Great American Car Deal
NSD 2.10, which came out before the Net hit sullen puberty, featured an item called "Revenge of the Suckers" that covered CARveat Emptor: Tricks of the Great American Car Deal. It has moved.http://www.autobuyology.org