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BREAKING SURF
Liberty Alliance to Challenge Microsoft's Passport Federation
As we reported last issue, Microsoft plans to broaden its Passport authentication service by permitting third parties a degree of credential management control, while hosting the actual authentication process. The goal is to allow surfers to hold one unique identity wherever they may visit. Naturally, the Microsoft approach has cheesed off the competition, who have entered an opposing alliance. The so-called Liberty Alliance of 33 companies includes, among them Sun Microsystems, United Airlines, General Motors, and Fidelity Investments. CNet notes that although Microsoft has been invited to join, it for some reason seems leery. Both Microsoft and the Alliance envision a near future in which users won't have to remember multiple usernames and passwords as they flit from Web site to Web site - and businesses can be assured that when they stream product over the Net, the person at the receiving end can be, and will be, charged. One small problem has already cropped up for the Liberty Alliance: the term is already associated with a Jerry Falwell Ministries site.Liberty Alliance: http://www.projectliberty.org/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7308230.html
When a major tech outlet says enough is enough, maybe it's time you said it too. Microsoft's latest scheme, forced upgrades of its products, has pushed ZDNet columnist Rupert Goodwins to push alternatives. He maintains that now that Microsoft has monopolized the market and saturated it with full-featured products, as it has by one means or another, the only way it can continue to bring in revenue is to harvest its captive market against its will, to treat it like a baleen whale treats krill. Pieces at USAToday and the BBC illustrate how the move will force Microsoft's customers to cough up even more money than they have; the Tech Report compares Microsoft's tactics to a mob shakedown. Meanwhile, US government lawyers are using velvet fists, state lawyers are still using iron, new hearings on penalties won't happen until next March, and Windows XP is due out Oct. 25. CNet is archiving the battle.
ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2815189,00.html
USAToday: http://www.usatoday.com/money/tech/2001-09-27-msoft-software.htm
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1575000/1575746.stm
Tech Report: http://www.tech-report.com/onearticle.x/2938
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-204-7329488.html
Like other financial operations, international terrorism leaves a money trail, and so the US is investigating the assets of Osama bin Laden and his network. Kim Schmitz - the huge, wealthy, ex-con, German hacker - claims that he and other hackers have provided the US government with information about bin Laden's accounts at Sudan's AlShamal Islamic Bank. Kim told Newsbytes that he founded an organization, Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism, to hack bin Laden's accounts as well as those of his network, Al Qaeda. Kim, a reformed hacker who served time for computer crimes, now runs successful computer security and investment firms and has offered $10 million for the capture of bin Laden. The FBI will not comment on the veracity of Schmitz's claims.
Newsbytes: http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170588.html
AlShamal: http://www.shamalbank.com/
Kim: http://www.kimble.org/
Media Self-Censoring of "Terrorist"
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that some media organizations have restricted the use of terms such as "terrorist" and "Islamic fundamentalist" to avoid appearing biased or judgmental. CNN, for example, while stopping short of prohibiting specific words, says it is stressing the need to "define people by their actions", using "alleged hijackers" to refer to those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. Reuters takes a harder line, forbidding its journalists to use the word "terrorist" to describe the attacks or their perpetrators, a move that has occasionally led to some pretty silly copy; a recent Reuter's story describes certain events that occurred "after civilian aircraft hit the skyscrapers." UPI editor-in-chief John O'Sullivan takes strong exception to the Reuters policy in a National Review editorial.WSJ: http://interactive.wsj.com/fr/emailthis/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1001528478171129000.djm
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=253872
National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/jos/jos.shtml
Recent events have intensified concerns and prompted speculation over the availability of chemical and biological weapons, and the frightening truth is that at least one deadly nerve agent can be produced with only a low-tech facility and an Internet connection. In 1998, the US bombed a Sudanese chemical plant, claiming that, with the help of Iraq, it was producing VX nerve gas; a Scientific American story that year revealed that Iraqi scientists probably got the VX recipe in declassified US Patent and Trademark Office information, easily found on the Internet. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, at least, had no problem producing VX, using it to kill a former member in 1994. Interactive Learning Paradigms (ILPI) is one of many sites that details VX's chemical composition and properties.
Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/1998/1198issue/1198techbus1.html
ILPI: http://www.ilpi.com/msds/vx.html
That Osama bin Laden and his web of terrorists might have nuclear weapons doesn't bear thinking about, but Wired raises this specter without bringing much meat to the meal. There's some discussion about suitcase-sized nukes and gossip that the Soviets lost a few during the break-up of the Soviet Union, as well as informer reports that bin Laden has been after nuclear materials for a long time. The story is thin, if terrifying, but it points to a fat resource put up by Carey Sublette. Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions (NWFAQ) is a megaton of information about nuclear weapons in general, organized into 14 big chapters (two aren't online yet). You can download a .zip file of the whole thing to read at your convenience. Carey thinks public commentary and awareness is essential to combat proliferation and guard against misuse. His site is huge, fairly authoritative, and readable, a serious place for a serious subject.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47158,00.html
NWFAQ: http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html
Bruce Schneier on Airline Security: Reality vs. Appearance
In this special issue of his Crypto-Gram newsletter, Bruce Schneier - best known for his cryptography and computer security work - takes on what he believes is a lot of snake oil circulating about the state of airline security. The article also discusses the use of biometrics in airports, diagnosing intelligence failures, regulating cryptography, the use of steganography by terrorists, and protecting privacy and liberty in the current environment. As he usually does, Bruce cuts through a lot of manure to get to the core of these issues in an eye-opening article with many useful links.http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0109a.html
Remember that Election Brouhaha?
Some of you might be old enough to remember the election imbroglio of 2000, in which the US Supreme Court finally put an end to all thought of officially recounting Florida's election results. Since then, a few unofficial recounts took place but the biggie, the recount everyone has been waiting for, is a complete analysis undertaken in concert by organizations as diverse as CNN, the Washington Post, and the National Opinion Research Center. Well, the count is in. The problem is that the consortium of counters has decided that now is not the time to release results, what with those terrorist attacks and all. Inside.com has the story, which should be a little more widespread than it ishttp://www.inside.com/product/product.asp?entity=localhost&pf_ID=875BEE02-1B64-4435-A4B1-4FEEB24A2A2B
Internet2 Goes Virtual for Member Meeting
In both a sign of the post-Sept. 11 times and a tribute to the maturity of the technology, the latest meeting of Internet2 members is taking place entirely online. Internet2 is a consortium of educational, industry, and government organizations that is developing the next generation Internet. The Internet2 network is already quite mature and blazingly fast. Net videoconferencing technology is also fairly sophisticated, so it made sense to have the meeting online. You don't have to be hooked up to Internet2 to view the proceedings - streams and archives are available in RealVideo and Microsoft Media format. Set aside some time if you're interested.Internet2: http://www.internet2.edu/
Meeting: http://www.internet2.edu/activities/html/vimm.html
FTC Takes On Pop-Up Trap Sites
A perfect and successful online exploitation is under assault from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which wants to shut down John Zuccarini's 5,500 or so Web sites. John had a brilliant idea. He registered numerous domain names that were misspellings of other popular sites. For example, he owned domains with 41 variations on the spelling of "Britney Spears". When netsurfers misspelled or mistyped the proper domain, they would stumbled into John's sites, where embedded JavaScript would start popping up multiple windows containing advertising for porn, gambling, and psychic sites. (Hmmm. Could a naked Miss Cleo help you win at blackjack?) Other code would hijack the function of the Back button and make it open ad windows as well. John reportedly made between $800,000 and $1 million per year from the operation, at up to 25 cents per ad. The FTC is charging unfair trade practices and trotting out that ever popular "kids may stumble on porn" argument. The Washington Post and CNN have stories.Post: http://www.washtech.com/news/regulation/12829-1.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/10/01/internet.scams.reut/index.html
Experts' Consensus: 20 Most Critical Net Security Problems
A year after the first version of this list was released, a new update doubles the number of listed problems. The list is endorsed by a who's who of notable security organizations and luminaries, such as the FBI, the NSA, and a long list of major ISP security experts. It's worth noting that the top seven problems are quite generic, including using default manufacturer installs of operating systems (which usually contain security problems), weak passwords on system accounts, bad back-up policy, numerous open ports, sloppy firewall filtering, incomplete logging policy, and vulnerable CGI programs. It reads like a litany of a sloppy IT industry. The rest of the problems are specific to Windows and Unix, many also featured last year. The list is geared more to system administrators than to end users, with numerous technical links and references, but it still makes educational reading.http://www.sans.org/top20.htm
Evidence That Worms Disrupt Internet
Researchers at Renesys Corporation recently analyzed Internet global routing data collected from June-September, 2001 at a network node in Amsterdam. They found numerous hours-long periods of rapid growth and decay in route change rates, indicative of extensive and widespread degradation of the global Internet. Unexpectedly, these episodes correlated well with the propagation phase of Microsoft-targeting worms such as Code Red and Nimda. The researchers suggest the damage occurs through a combination of two effects of the worm-induced traffic surges. First, worm-induced traffic surges near the "edges of the Internet" gum up the works and choke off Internet bandwidth and speed. The second effect is that network operators are forced by excess traffic to shut down and reboot their routers. All in all, this detailed technical document, complete with color time-series charts and graphs, offers unexpected and important conclusions about the serious disrupting influence of worms and how network degradation occurs.http://www.renesys.com/projects/bgp_instability/
A number of places have touted Web-based office functions, and the latest to test the waters appears to be Yahoo, which may be seeking to counter the drop-off in ad revenue with subscription-based office productivity suites accessible by browsers or other Web-enabled devices. The applications - and your files - would be stored online, letting you access and edit any of your files from anywhere, anytime. A recent Yahoo survey asked, among other things, how much you'd be willing to pay for such a suite and how much customer service you'd expect for renting such services. This sort of approach seems to be the new holy grail, as Microsoft has been pushing in the same direction with their .Net My Services. It can succeed, but the question is: would you use it?
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7324918.html
In an effort to capture user attention, Internet ads perform gymnastic feats such as popping up and popping under site content, but new, more aggressive marketing methods are forcing readers to jump through the hoops. As introduced by Salon, these "jump-through" ads compel non-paying readers to access stories via an ad-bearing portal page; click an article link and you are directed to an ad page that then allows you to click through to the story. Yahoo News reports on this new strategy, which a Salon spokesman says has received only "a smattering of negative reader comments." Must have been some other impetus that led Salon to even more recently bump all news and political coverage behind a $30 per year subscription wall. More - not much more, mind you - at CNet.
Salon: http://www.salon.com/
Ads: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7298323.html
Bump: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7375961.html
Some new domains with the .biz extension will be reachable as you read this; others will have to wait. The suffix registrar, NeuLevel, had decided to award contested names, those for which multiple applications had been received, randomly. Some applicants felt that this approach amounted to running an illegal lottery and they've gone to court to press the issue. The California court wants to hear more information before ruling whether or not to block release of the contested properties. CNet offers a brief look at the issue.
NeuLevel: http://www.neulevel.biz/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7323763.html
Latest Netcraft Survey of Web Server Software Usage
Netcraft surveyed 32,398,046 sites and found that Apache still rules with 59.51% market share, with Microsoft servers second at 27.46%. Both have been gaining at the expense of Netscape iPlanet servers and Zeus. Microsoft had some setbacks this month, losing about 80,000 servers in the wake of the recent worm proliferations and suffering the business failure of Webjump, a major hosting site that used Microsoft Web servers. The survey also tracks the number of Microsoft server sites with security vulnerabilities, which dipped in the wake of CodeRed but has begun to rise again. The survey also has some nifty info on regional variations in operating system use.http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
With the market for tech stocks currently about as bad as it's possible to imagine, why is PayPal filing for an IPO? PayPal is a popular online payments company heavily used by eBay customers, but is competing head-to-head with eBay's own payment system, BillPoint. Like most dotcoms, PayPal has been burning money at a prodigious rate, stoking the furnace of expansion and market share with dollar bills. So far, funding has come mostly from venture capitalists and foreign banks. Now, it would like to trade stock certificates to rake in some $80 million more and keep the furnace roaring. Maybe it can heat up enough to make a profit. CNET has a brief item.
PayPal: http://www.paypal.com/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-7340170.html
Although the home page still says "Readers Rejoice", there's little joy in Contentville today - not two years after founding the innovative pay-to-read site, Steve Brill has announced its demise. Conceived as a sort of readers' clearinghouse for everything from books and magazine articles to speeches, dissertations, and legal documents, the company was launched with high hopes and $120 million from heavy-hitting investors such as CBS, NBC, and Primedia. In a recent staff memo announcing the closure, Brill admits "my idea for Contentville just didn't work." Jim Romenesko's Media News (JRMN) has the full memo, in which Brill declines to blame the dotcom economy or recent events for the company's failure.
Contentville: http://www.contentville.com/
JRMN: http://www.poynter.org/medianews/memos.htm
Excite and Exodus Exit the Economy
The rumors have flown for weeks, but Excite@Home and Exodus Communications, two of the big names in the dotcom world, have finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Excite@Home announced the sale of its network infrastructure to AT&T for a mere $307 million in cash. Numbers tell the tale: Excite@Home shares, in April 1999 worth almost $100, were selling for 13 cents last Friday. Exodus? Toilet paper is worth more than its stock, literally. The corporate webhosting company stores thousands of sites, including such well-knowns as Yahoo and eBay. For now, these sites are standing by Exodus, but the company name may eventually prove eponymous. CNet has stories on both companies, and an interview with William Hearst III, former atHome CEO.Exodus: http://www.exodus.net/press_room/pressrelease/20010925_01.html
Excite@Home: http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=ATHM&script=411&layout=0&item_id=210411
CNet 1: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7339605.html
CNet 2: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7321191.html
Interview: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1014-201-7340505-0.html
New Web Site for Domain Registrar Network Solutions
VeriSign, which owns Network Solutions, has just launched a new Web site. The company claims the usual improvements in usability and navigation. It's a pretty straightforward commercial site geared for selling domains and other VeriSign services. They also have a somewhat improved WHOIS search form. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.http://www.netsol.com/
Even with the monster market declines after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bill Gates remains the world's richest person. Or so Forbes tells us in its annual ranking of the 400 wealthiest individuals. Although the original, late August list is still available, do check out the post-attack numbers. Of course, whether anyone besides themselves and the Fox network is interested in the 400 richest people remains unclear.
Original: http://www.forbes.com/2001/09/27/400.html
Post-Attack: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/1008/losers_amount.html
ONLINE CULTURE
Just think of all the words that have winged their way across cyberspace in the 30 years since the invention of e-mail. In 1971, Ray Tomlinson wrote a 200-line program that moved messages across a network. These days, Tomlinson says he does not even remember which month the first message was sent or what it contained. He does say it was ALL IN CAPS. Poetically, we can think of this as the first shout of a new baby being born, a baby who would change the world. Read the story of the first e-mail message here.http://www.pretext.com/mar98/features/story2.htm
Cybersquatting among the Ruins
This clever headline leads off a Salon article on the cyberspace land rush in the wake of Sept. 11. Within minutes of the first plane crash, netsurfers registered numerous World Trade Center-related domain names. While many mean to build Web memorials, numerous others have explicitly or implicitly put up their newly acquired domains for sale. The article notes that shortly after the attacks, another land rush led to the registration of more militant domain names that call for retaliation and retribution. Peering at this online cultural phenomenon, author Bryan Geon notes, "Had New York been the target of nuclear or biological terrorism, one can be reasonably confident that nycnuke.com or nycanthrax.com would have been registered within minutes."http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/10/01/wtc_domain/index.html
Buying Your Way to the Top of the Game
We've covered this topic before, but virtual game items continue to support a very real and quite lucrative economy. This Wired article talks about the large sums of money that players of online games like EverQuest (so addictive, players call it EverCrack), Ultima Online, and Diablo II can make, as much as $3,500 per day for some game-gear brokers. The game companies frown on this trading, and have successfully banned game item sales at eBay. Resourceful players have responded by setting up their own auction sites, such as PlayerAuctions. There's real money in them thar orc-infested virtual hills.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47181,00.html
EverQuest: http://everquest.station.sony.com/
Ultima Online: http://www.uo.com/visitor/
Diablo II: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo2/
PlayerAuctions: http://www.playerauctions.com/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
We like to use the word "irreverent" around here: 20 times so far in NSD history - oops, make that 21. But "irreverent" (22) is just about the only word to aptly describe the content on Icebox, which wants "to create original animated entertainment programming on the Web." The short films take advantage of some well known help - for example, Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall, Newsradio) is one of the voice talents on "Superhero Roommate" and Michael Dorn voices the captain in "Starship Regulars". Other names might be less familiar but most of the film creators worked on "The Simpsons" and other cutting-edge comedies. Although all you really need to enjoy the clips is Flash and a recent-vintage computer, we recommend a high-bandwidth connection, since many of the animations are over 1 MB in size. The site tries to support itself with sales of DVDs of episodes and branded stuff, but we're not really sure that annoying pop-up ad is there purely to enhance the design of the site.http://www.icebox.com/
The Comics Journal: Gnawing the Industry's Bones
The Comics Journal, a serious print publication that attacks - and we do mean "attacks" - the comics industry from an arts perspective, has an online presence that includes selected articles from the print version, as well as some Web-only content. You'll find industry news, interviews, tough reviews, and acerbic essays at the site, and, in the September issue, a nice listing of 60 new female artists that includes links to those with personal sites. You'll also find a transcript of the Comics Journal's San Diego Comic Convention discussion panel and its indictments against specific industry figures for crimes against the comics art form, wherein the authors declare "only after we have gnawed the bones of our enemies can we wipe the blood from our hands and face the dawn of a new day."http://www.tcj.com/
Wilderness Livin' and Picture Takin'
Dave's plan was to live in the wilderness and wait for the proper light to expose film. So he started buying camping gear and living outdoors, all the while building his dream photo system. Was it worth it? From our perspective, the answer is a resounding "yes". This site is all about the outdoors and the photos one can capture there, if one has but the patience and an obsessive, focused drive. Dave has traveled pretty extensively, and some of his favorite shots are displayed here. Some of ours, as well.http://www.iamdave.com/index.html
Finding an Artistic Use for Snail Mail
Concerned about what can be done to preserve the jobs and sanity of under-employed postal workers in this era of electronic mail? The answer, clearly, is to elevate snail mail to a popular art form, which is precisely what the jittery people at Nervous Industries are doing. "We are trying to re-acquire the misused acronym of LMAO and use it for good," they say. "Now, LMAO stands for Land Mail Art Objects." These are objects such as notebooks, photo albums, and mixed tapes that are sent out to anyone signing up for them, modified by each participant, and finally returned to the originators. The Nervous Industries site offers around 150 current projects, from the saccharine (collective baby photo album) to the sinister (stalking diary), plus an update section for tracking projects, and a Q and A space for communication between participants.http://www.nervousness.org/
If you are among the few who know that "Funky Butt" was both the name of a circa 1895 song by Buddy Bolden and a New Orleans music hall where the great original jazzman played, then do we have a site for you. The Red Hot Jazz Archive is a searchable database of pre-1930s jazz bands and musicians containing a wealth of information and a mind-boggling collection of early jazz sound files in Real Audio format. Classic jazz lovers can lose themselves in this cross-referenced wonder of a site that also includes contextual photos, a collection of essays, a roundup of short jazz films made in the late 1920s and early 1930s, suggested reading material on every topic, and more background than you can throw a drum stick at.
http://www.redhotjazz.com/
After the whole Napster thing went down, many of the lyrics servers shut down or disabled their databases in fear of similar lawsuits. One of the few still fully-functional lyrics servers for modern songs is this site. This search engine works better if you're a teenager or if you're trying to figure out the lyrics to this week's pop, hip-hop, or rap songs. The likelihood of a song being in the database is inversely proportional to its grammatical correctness. If it includes the word "booty," it's probably in there - unless you're talking about a little foot.
http://lyrics.astraweb.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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Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds: The Tragedy & Triumph of ASA Flight 529
Overcome Email Overload with Microsoft Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002: Get Through Your Electronic Mail Faster
Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic
Art of Seductionhttp://tim.oreilly.com/
If you prefer your love life shaken, not stirred, visit Savannah, the Web columnist who dispenses romantic advice no one should actually take. Wondering what to do about your cheating husband? Savannah says relax, silly girl, and enjoy the unexpected bonanza of pricey peace offerings. Is your lover affectionate and generous, but can't remember your name? Savannah says don't rock the boat: remember the Antonio Banderas rule and settle for what you have. And if all else fails, don't hesitate to consult Savannah's guide to vengeance etiquette. After eight marriages, Savannah understands love perfectly. If she can't fulfill you, we highly recommend a sidetrip to Elizabeth's Page and its amusing essays.
Savannah: http://www.savannahsays.com/
Elizabeth's Page: http://www.savannahsays.com/elizabeth.htm
Writers who grieve the loss of Inkspot will applaud the rebirth of much of its content, thanks to the efforts of erstwhile Inkspot managing editor Moira Allen and her new site, Writing-World.com. Allen not only secured rights to Inkspot favorites and moved them here, she added lots of other material. The site offers more than 250 articles and 500 links to resources on a variety of subjects such as book promotion, literary agents, and copyright. The Book Publishing page, for example, for example, has articles such as "Ten Steps Toward Finding a Publisher" and "How to Write a Novel Synopsis". The Contests page links to many writing competitions and other contest gateways. Stacks of banner ads will whisk you to Amazon.com and to writing classes, author services, and more. You'll also find articles on electronic and self-publishing and links to scam alerts. Need more? Sign up for Allen's bi-weekly newsletter. Her keyboard is hot.
http://www.writing-world.com/
O'Reilly has put together a nifty list of security-related books. The list includes books from all publishers and is a fine starting point for putting together a comprehensive library on all aspects of Internet and computer security. It's useful if you need to build a corporate security library.
http://security.oreilly.com/news/security_bibliography.html
SURFING SCIENCE
While some scientists are studying why certain whales have inexplicably chosen to abandon the open sea and congregate at the mouth of the Mississippi River, others have discovered fossil remains that confirm DNA evidence that whales are most related to land-based hoofed animals, hippos particularly. In the Gulf of Mexico, researchers are using digital tagging devices to learn what is luring a group of wandering whales so close to shore, where they come from, how they communicate, and how underwater noises affect them. In Pakistan, the discovery of two sets of 50-million-year-old remains represents "one of the most important events in the past century of vertebrate paleontology" and has convinced dubious morphological paleontologists that whales are related to artiodactyls (even-toed, hoofed mammals) such as pigs, cows, sheep, and hippos. MSNBC has both stories and, lucky for us, Science has allowed full free access to the issue in which it published the whale reports.Tagging: http://www.msnbc.com/news/632585.asp
Fossils: http://www.msnbc.com/news/631206.asp
Science 1: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2216
Science 2: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2239
With typical British understatement, the Web site of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford appears at first glance to promise little more than the usual obligatory institutional Web presence. What it should really impart is "Wowee! Huzza-Huzza! Look Here!" Or not. But with eight online exhibits - most notably, the very impressive Epact: Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe" - an library of 8,527 images, and a searchable database including, so far, 13,760 objects, this site certainly represents a jolly good resource. An easily overlooked section is the archived collection of museum newsletters, which contains tidbits such as the fascinating "Archaeological Finds: Floorboard Discoveries" article in the Spring 2000 issue that details the revealing ephemera dating found under the floorboards of the museum.
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/
The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa
This is worth visiting just for the opening animation of a pair of rocks sliding across the desert floor in Death Valley, Calif. It definitely falls under the heading of "spooky but true". The area known as Racetrack Playa is an almost perfectly flat dry lakebed upon which a number of rocks, ranging in size from pebbles to 650-pound boulders, gather no moss. We say "gather no moss" not only because there's insufficient water to support moss growth, but because the rocks move from place to place, apparently completely unaided. The proof is the furrows they leave in the lakebed as they move. How do rocks move across an essentially flat surface by themselves? Some of these things have moved as much as 3.2 km. To add to the unbelieveableness of it all, the rocks generally move slightly uphill, as the apparent source of the rocks is a few centimeters lower in elevation than the places in which they end up. It's generally accepted that these rocks are pushed along ground slickened by rain or flood by wind, but nobody has ever witnessed that happening. Paula Messina studies the phenomenon and Virtual Guidebooks has a nice QTVR panorama of the area.Paula: http://geosun.sjsu.edu/paula/rtp/
Panorama: http://www.virtualguidebooks.com/SouthCalif/DeathValley/NorthernDeathValley/RacetrackPlaya.html
SETIatHome was the killer app of distributed computing, but now researchers in biomedical disciplines are also lining up to use your spare processor cycles. Folding@Home, a Stanford University effort, is an effort to study the folding and mis-folding of proteins. Previously, such research required a supercomputer like the one IBM is specially building: Blue Gene. Folding@Home has room to grow; it currently has 15,000 users compared to SETI's three million. NSD, by the way, sponsors a group of SETI@Home users, which can be reached at the URL below. So far, our 85 members have parsed almost 27,000 blocks of data, totaling more than 80 years of CPU time.
Folding: http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/Cosm/
NSD SETI: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_lookup&name=Netsurfer+Digest
SOFTWARE
The International Obfuscated C Contest
You have until Dec. 1 to submit your twisted C code to this year's contest. The goals of the contest are to write obscure code, stress compilers, illustrate some of the subtleties of the C language, and to provide a safe forum for poor C code. The organizers don't mention it, but there's also the unwritten goal of driving the judges who read your code into gibbering Lovecraftian insanity, a guaranteed win.Contest: http://www.ioccc.org/
Lovecraft: http://www.hplovecraft.com/
The NSA has released the second public version of a special secure Linux prototype. SELinux is an attempt to create a highly secure, public-domain operating system suitable for meeting the needs of the government. The latest revision has bug fixes and a bunch of technical internal changes. Of interest to hardcore operating system and security folks.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/