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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 09 Issue 14
Volume 9, Issue 14 Atari Online News, Etc. April 6, 2007
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2007
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0914 04/06/07
~ Bonnell Leaves Atari! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Google's TiSP Guffaw!
~ More News Going Online ~ ICANN To Go Private? ~ HP Ready To Play!
~ Hacker Appeal Dashed! ~ Organized Theft Fight! ~ New Hotmail Glitches!
~ Reading News Online! ~ Missing IRS Laptops! ~ Sony Cuts PSP Price!
-* Work and Home Balancing Act! *-
-* .XXX Domain Rejection: Litigation? *-
-* Verisign To Increase Some Domain Name Fees *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It's hard to believe that exactly one week ago, I was playing golf! As
occasionally happens here in New England, the weather has changed
drastically, for the worse. Although it's almost gone, we had a couple
of inches of that wet, heavy snow the other day. After having a good
taste of Spring, I'm officially tired of this stuff! Although we've had
a terrific winter with regard to snow (not much), it's April. Enough!
And to make matters worse, we lost one of the members of our family the
other day. We woke up to discover that our 30-year old African Grey
parrot, Beau-Coo, has passed away during the night. This has been a tough
loss to take; we had "Bo-Bo" in our family for over 20 years. He was a
real character. We're really going to miss him immensely.
It's a shame that our pets don't live long lives. While African Greys
can live up to 80 years, Bo-Bo was fairly young. We have two other birds,
and one is over 20 years old now. Our two dogs are both pushing 10 years,
which is getting old for them as well. For us, these are vital parts of
our family; and it's always difficult to lose a member. But, that's the
way things are and there's nothing that we can do but try and keep them
as healthy as possible, love them, and enjoy the time that we have
together.
So, although there are a number of interesting topics I could choose from
this week to offer commentary, I'm truly not in much of a motivated mood
to do so. This is a multiple holiday week, so I will extend holiday good
wishes for those of you who celebrate either of the two holidays.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, it's just a couple of days before
Easter, and we're having my wife's family over for the holiday. I, of
course, am in charge of baking the ham... my wife, it seems, is only in
charge of meat products weighing less than 1/4 pound (before cooking).
I don't mind though. I make a kickin' ham, and I actually like doing it.
It's the other stuff that I'm not crazy about... you know... the
cleaning and washing pots and pans and stuff like that.
Speaking of cleaning, that's what I'll be doing for the next 48 hours or
so. We've only lived here for ten months, but already the pack-rat in
me is showing. Plus, there's the usual dusting and vacuuming and such
to do.
I really hate that domestic stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know. That makes me the
same as everyone else, and I'll get no sympathy from you, right? [Grin]
Well, at any rate, Easter is almost here, the ham is in the fridge
waiting to hit the oven, the relatives are picking out their Easter
bonnets, and the the house WILL get the spring cleaning that it needs.
I'd like to mention that this is also Passover (as I'm writing this, it
is the fifth day of Passover) for those of the Jewish faith. Happy
Passover to any and all of you who observe the holiday.
I've always wondered... is it correct to say "Happy Passover", or is it
more appropriate to say "Good Passover"? I'd appreciate anyone who
knows setting me straight on that.
Anyway, the messages in the NewsGroup are kind of meager this week, so I
figured I'd waste a line or two telling you about the Easter
preparations.
Oh, wanna know about my 'special supersecret ham glaze'? That's the
reason that my ham is always so good. Hell, even my mother asked me for
the recipe! Now, my mother is a cookin'/bakin' fool, and I've never met
anyone who tops her on any of her specialties. But when my sister's
grand-mother-in-law died a decade ago, I baked a ham for them to have
at the house so they wouldn't have to worry about things to eat for a
couple of days. Well, my mother was over there consoling them (as
mothers and mothers-in-law tend to do) and had a piece of the ham.
After ascertaining that it was I who had made the ham, she called me and
asked me what was in my glaze, "because it was so good that I had to go
back and have a second piece to see if I could figure out what was in
it", and "It was just so good... especially the meat that had been
sitting in the juice! It wasn't like anything I've had before!"
Now, if you know someone like my mother, who is an accomplished cook and
a baker of all manner of confections and goodies, you know how rare a
thing it is for someone like that to actually ask for a recipe for
anything. That was the single highest compliment I've ever received on
anything I've made in the kitchen. I'll cherish that moment for the
rest of my life.
So, if you're interested, here's my ham glaze recipe and associated
hints:
Take one quarter cup of pineapple juice (from the can of sliced
pineapples that you're going to put all over the ham while you're
baking it), one quarter cup of apple juice (yep, whatever kind you find
in the grocery store, 1 cup of dark brown sugar, 1/8 of a teaspoon of
ground clove (I don't bother scoring the ham and studding it with
cloves anymore... this works just as well), a dash of cinnamon (JUST a
pinch... you don't want even really want to taste it, you just want it
to leave a hint of 'something' in the glaze) and a dash of nutmeg.
Mix this all up until everything's combined. It's going to be thick and
mushy, but don't sweat it when the brown sugar doesn't all dissolve.
Just keep mixing it until it's all homogeneous.
Now take about a quarter of a cup of this mixture and add a quarter cup
of seltzer/club soda. Mix that sucker up and paint it all over the ham
until you've got no more of the mixture left. It should be nice and
sticky and, if you're baking a spiral-cut ham (I love these puppies!)
it'll work its way into the ham and flavor it from the inside out,
while the glaze on the outside seals up the ham so the juices don't
leak out as much. Don't worry... when you go to cut the ham after
baking, just cut it to the bone along the veins of fat, pull it off the
bone, and separate the slices from the inside of the ham out. If you do
it right, you get the best of both world.
Cover that big hunk 'o hog up with tin foil and bake it as you usually
would. About TWO hours before it's done, pull the ham out and drain
half of the liquid out of the roasting pan. Plaster the rest of your
glaze mixture all over the ham and stick it back in the oven, fully
covered, and pull it out to baste it with the remaining liquid in the
pan every 20 minutes or so. That glaze mix is going to saturate the
meat and leave you with a wonderful aromatic flavor.
That's it. Now you know Joe's Magical Mystery Glaze secret. Use this
knowledge wisely. [Grin]
For those of you who keep kosher, I apologize for taking up so much room
talking about this, but all I can do is to write about what I know. And
right now I know I'd better start getting that ham ready for the oven.
[grin]
Okay, let's get to the news, hints, tips and info from the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
A while back, Guillaume Tello posted this about a mod he made to MagiC:
"I made long ago a modification to MAGIC.RAM (version 5.02) to speed it
up at boot time. The same can be done with MAGIC.RAM version 6.2.
My modification skips the floppy detection/boot as it's the big waste of
time when booting and that, this is yet done by TOS before launching
Magic."
Deryrck Croker tells Guillaume"
"Nice work! If you can work this idea up into some sort of patching
program, it would make it available to those who don't want to get
involved with sector editing. I will be glad to host such a utility on
my web site."
After a suitable amount of time, Derryck reports:
"I'm pleased to report that Roger Burrows has wrapped this code up in a
nice patcher program. It's for MagiC versions 5.xx and 6.xx, is
reversible, and is available for download from the MISC section of my
web site, http://ddp.atari.org ."
Guillaume tells Derryck:
"Great! [This is] Easier for those who don't like Hexa(decimal)."
I normally don't use anything that was posted on April 1st in this
column, but this is the only other thread with any substance to it this
week. Rob Pilay posts:
"I've just finished my latest project, Windows Vista for ATARI ST.
Now you can play all the latest PC games on your ST - without any
additional hardware. Because of my superb program code, all
Windows Vista compatible programs will work in all the ST's
resolutions.
Windows Vista ST will be available on disk, CD or punchcards.
Here's the website : www.windowsvistaforatarist.com "
Matthias Arndt takes some of the fun out of it by replying:
"Nice try - it's April 1st!"
'RustyNutt' adds:
"I really had a good laugh this morning over this. Thanks!"
Mark Bedingfield adds something that I thought myself:
"Besides, your Atari ST will be faster than a Vista PC now! Jeeeeezzzz
it is [poop]"
Everyone's favorite techie, Alison, adds her thoughts:
"Yes, Vista is absolutely terrible. I sorted out the next door's
wireless a few weeks back and they have a new Vista laptop. Always I
reboot the machines a few times to make sure they retain the WPA/WEP
stuff in their profile.
Talk about sloooooowww. It's like 5-minutes odd to boot up on a brand
new laptop with so much anti-virus [poop] and gizmo [poop] on it. My
IBM 486 laptop running 95 is faster than theirs. And mine is 15-years
old!!
Glad I was there in the 80's.... No really, I am so glad.
This machine I'm typing this on is an AMD Athlon 2600+ running 98SE,
512MBytes of RAM, a 3COM 54b adapter. It boots in 10-seconds flat."
Martin Tarenskeen adds:
"Did anyone try to measure the time it takes to boot a simple ST or
Falcon with plain TOS and not too many (or no) AUTO folder programs and
desktop accessories? I really love(d) that TOS-in-ROM concept! But
things like FreeMiNT and NVDI slow down the boot process."
'Coda' tells Martin:
"My Mac boots in 0.000 seconds. Well of course it doesn't, but the fact
is - that it seldom gets rebooted. It stays on 24/7, eats only 20W of
power when idle (30W at full tilt), and never crashes.
My other half's is a PII-400 dell laptop running XP SP1 (before the
nightmare of SP2), and that's also plenty quick enough for daily email/
internet/word/excel for the wife.
Vista - Just Say No."
RustyNutt adds:
"The humor was in why would anyone want to do this?!?!
My Falcon runs [Windows] 3.11 on a 286 expansion card, but to be sure,
it's only a novelty. Not that the Falcon is able to do this, it's the
microsoft part....."
Well there ya go... from an April Fools' joke to a real,
honest-to-goodness thingamabob. Where else but in the Atari world, huh?
Well folks, that's it for this time around. Tune in again next week,
same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying
when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony Cuts PSP Price!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Bonnell Quits Atari!
Wii Are The Champion!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony Cuts Price of PlayStation Portable
Sony announced today that it is cutting the price of its PlayStation
Portable gaming handheld from $199 to $169.
Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America,
said that Sony has shipped more than 25 million PSPs to stores and that
volume is allowing it to become more efficient in manufacturing.
Consequently, he said, Sony can pass on its cost savings to consumers.
The PSP Core Pack will now be priced closer to the rival Nintendo DS,
which at $129 had sold more than 35 million units as of the end of
December. Tretton said that after two years on the market the PSP is
achieving Sony's goal of expanding the handheld gaming market to older
console gamers who didn't play Nintendo handhelds.
The average age of the 7.5 million PSP owners in North America is 24, and
only 10 percent of those are DS owners, Tretton said.
There are more than 250 titles on the PSP now, with the top hits including
Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for
Speed ost Wanted, SOCOM US Navy Seals, and Madden.
The PSP debuted in March 2005 at $249 in North America, about four months
after the debut of the $149 Nintendo DS. The PSP has a 16:9 widescreen
display and the ability to play movies, music, games and access the
Internet.
Analysts had expected Sony to trim the price after the close of its
March 31 fiscal year because it has the potential to hurt the Japanese
company's already weak bottom line.
Wii Are The Champions?
The anticipated battle between Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's
PlayStation 3 for videogame console supremacy has become a sideshow to the
unexpected rise of Nintendo's Wii as the new-generation game console of
choice.
Once a dark-horse contender, the Wii has outsold both its competitors in
recent months. According to sales data from the NPD Group, the Wii sold
335,000 units in February to the Xbox 360's 228,000 and the PS3's 127,000.
Of the three new-generation game consoles, the Xbox 360 has sold the most
at 5 million units in the United States alone, but that's mainly due to
the fact that it was released a full year earlier than either the Wii or
the PS3. Since they first hit shelves last November, the PS3 has sold 1.1
million units while the Wii has tallied 1.86 million.
What's interesting is that the Wii achieved this feat not by offering a
lot of multimedia bells and whistles like its competitors do, but by
simply focusing on games.
"We've seen Nintendo expand the marketplace and grow it beyond the
traditional gamer," says Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. "They
really redefined the videogame experience by creating something new and
different."
That innovation is the Wii controller, a motion-sensitive wand that allows
gamers to control the action onscreen by waving the device about rather
than jostling a joystick and pushing buttons.
That controller and the games developed for it have captured the
imagination of both the core gamer demographic and their parents, wives
and other family members.
So what does that say about Sony and Microsoft, which also are hoping to
attract nongamers to their respective new-generation consoles by
positioning them as home entertainment hubs?
Both consoles contain hard drives to store content and allow users to
stream music and video content from their home computers. The PS3 features
a Blu-ray DVD player and is developing a Second Life-style virtual world
called PS3 Home, while the Xbox Live Marketplace offers downloadable
movies and TV shows.
"Microsoft and Sony clearly have larger aspirations for the game console
in the living room as a portal for some of the other services they're
trying to sell," Gartenberg says. "The hardcore gamer may be the one
purchasing the console, but other family members may use the other
features. Nintendo's approach has been to get nongamers playing games."
According to NPD Group spokesman David Riley, the Wii's "gaming first"
message is much easier for nongamers to grasp than Microsoft and Sony's
more complicated home entertainment message.
"While they have that capability, it's not that easy to use," he says.
"It's going to be a ways off before that capability becomes mainstream."
Yet that's not to say the effort is in vain. Microsoft is showing signs
of early success with its decision to add TV and movie downloads to the
Xbox Live Marketplace. Since first making such content available last
November, the company says it has seen a 400% increase in downloads.
Microsoft did not reveal exactly how many downloads that figure
represented.
"All of these strategies are viable," Gartenberg says. "It's not a
question of one over the other. Nintendo has demonstrated that there are
multiple ways to get into the hearts and minds of other family members."
Other factors also play a role in the Wii's early success. At $250, the
Wii is the cheapest option on the shelves, with the Xbox 360 carrying a
$400 tab and the PS3 a whopping $600. Additionally, the PS3 was hampered
early on with severe product shortages and a dearth of blockbuster games
that show off the system's capabilities.
But it's far too early to pick the ultimate winner. Gaming industry press
and analysts still feel the PS3 has the chops to dominate in the end.
Reviews at videogame site GameSpot say that "the PS3 has all the
processor, graphics and communications power necessary to win this
generation," while Electronic Arts departing CEO Larry Probst told a Web
conference audience that he believed the PS3 will prove the ultimate
winner.
Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 is taking strong lead in the number of games
sold. The Xbox 360 has six titles in the top 10 for February - including
the No. 1 title - while Wii has three and PS3 none (PS2 title "Guitar
Hero" took the final spot). Additionally, Xbox 360 owners buy far more
games than the owners of other consoles at a rate of 5.4 games per 360
owner. That rate falls to 2.3 for the PS3 and 2.8 for the Wii.
That leaves the Wii, for now, with everything to lose.
"Their challenge going forward is to make sure this is not a passing fad
by getting a stream of content into the market," Gartenberg says. "The
game console purchase driver is still going to be first and foremost
games. The secondary stuff is the icing on the cake."
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Atari, Inc. Announces Departure of Bruno Bonnell
Atari, Inc. announced Thursday the departure of Bruno Bonnell, effective
immediately, from all of his positions at Atari, Inc.
Bonnell was the Chairman of the Board, Chief Creative Officer, Acting
Chief Financial Officer and a director of Atari. Bonnell's departure from
Atari came at the same time as Bonnell's departure from his positions as
the Chief Executive Officer and a director of Infogrames and from all his
positions with subsidiaries of Infogrames.
Bruno Bonnell stated, "Since 2000 I have had the privilege of carrying the
Atari flag in our industry. I wish the very best to all the teams moving
on with the company, and I have no doubt in their talent and experiences
to bring Atari, Inc. to the top."
David Pierce, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Atari, said,
"Bruno Bonnell is a legend in the video games business. He was one of the
early participants in the industry as we know it, and was responsible for
major successes both on the creative and on the corporate side. We wish
Bruno success with any future undertakings, and as a result of his
dedication and efforts with Atari, Inc., we are well-positioned for our
future endeavors."
HP is Ready to Play
Any lingering image of Hewlett-Packard Co. as a stodgy company was
dispelled Wednesday night in San Francisco as the company called "Game On"
in its bid for a piece of the online gaming industry.
The company's HP Labs research center is developing technology that could
be incorporated into next-generation personal computers that play
interactive video games designed for the broadband era. By doing so, HP
thinks it can compete against a surge in popularity of console-style games
such as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation and Nintendo Co.
Ltd.'s Wii.
At an event that drew HP officials, technology partners and reporters, the
company showed off prototypes of gaming technologies, including gaming PCs
from VoodooPC, which HP acquired in the fourth quarter of 2006. The gaming
unit within HP's Technology Solutions Group is called "Game On."
The prototypes include computers with curved screens so someone playing a
race car game can see the track they're driving on ahead and to their
sides and a touch-screen computer built into a coffee table so players can
sit on all sides and participate. HP also played a video in which a
teenage boy walks through a big city with his handheld game player. He
points the device at a portion of the city's skyline, the device scans
the outline of the buildings in view and creates a game scene from that
image.
While impressive, HP has a steep hill to climb. Sales of gaming consoles
grew 33 percent in 2006 while sales of gaming PCs grew by only 1 percent,
according to the retail sales tracking firm NPD Group Inc. While HP
doesn't expect consumers to camp outside retail stores overnight to buy
an HP, as they for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 when they launched,
there are other more promising signs of market potential.
Sales of gaming software that runs on PCs reached US$6 billion globally
in 2006 and are forecast to hit $12 billion by 2010, said Rick Wickham,
director of games for Windows for Microsoft, citing figures from IDC.
Rahul Sood, chief technology officer of HP's global gaming business unit,
who came over from VoodooPC, sees HP offering a premium line of gaming
PCs priced higher than its current line of HP and Compaq branded PCs, but
lower than VoodooPC's custom-made models, which can sell for $8,000.
Asked specifically if HP plans to soon introduce a line of PCs such as
that, Shane Robison, executive vice president and HP's chief strategy
technology officer, said, "I am not allowed to go there."
HP is not the first PC maker to try to branch out into high-end gaming
PCs. Dell Inc. acquired Alienware Corp. in March 2006, for an undisclosed
amount. But HP appears to be taking advantage of its new relationship with
VoodooPC more quickly.
HP's move into gaming could be a "game-changing" move, said Rob Enderle,
lead analyst with technology research firm The Enderle Group. HP could try
selling high-margin gaming PCs to escape from the low-margin PC market it
competes in with every other PC maker. But it could also be a risky move.
"The buyer may say they don't want one and that is the risk when you make
a game changer. You make a guess at where the market is going and you get
there first," Enderle said. "If you guess wrong you're there all by
yourself."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Google Guffaw: High-Speed Internet John
Presiding over a company with a market value of $143 billion apparently
gives Silicon Valley's most famous billionaires a good sense of humor, and
a case of corporate potty mouth.
Senior executives at Google Inc. launched their annual April Fools' Day
prank Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering
consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing
systems.
Code-named "Dark Porcelain," Google said its "Toilet Internet Service
Provider" (TiSP) works with Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating
system. But sorry, septic tanks are incompatible with the system's
requirements.
The gag included a mock press release quoting Google co-founder and
president Larry Page, a step-by-step online installation manual, and a
scatological selection of Frequently Asked Questions. On some Google
sites, the company's official logo, a multicolored "Google" that changes
according to the season and on holidays, substituted a commode for the
second "g."
"There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been
studying this exact solution for a long time," Page said in the facetious
statement. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way
through the sewers, up out of your toilet and, splat, right onto your PC."
Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, called TiSP a "breakthrough
product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of
their best thinking in the bathroom."
TiSP is the latest April Fools joke at the Mountain View, Calif.-based
company, where hijinks pervade cubicles all year long. In blogs, Google
employees joke about the recent injection of green dye into milk in the
cafeteria, while another talks about zany underlings filling the vice
president of engineering's office with sand.
Eric Raymond, a software developer in Malvern, Pa., and author of the New
Hacker's Dictionary, said TiSP nailed several important tenets of hacker
humor.
The concept of free wireless access parallels a legitimate, four-year
deal between Google and EarthLink Inc. to provide free wireless Internet
service throughout San Francisco starting in early 2008.
As part of the spoof, Google said TiSP would be offered in three speeds:
Trickle, The No. 2, and Royal Flush.
"The leitmotif of hacker humor is precise reasoning from utterly bizarre
premises, and once you're in that groove, you're absolutely fearless about
going deeper," Raymond said. "We also have a tendency to deliberately
zigzag between highly intellectual humor and utter slapstick. The more
zigzags you can manage in a single spoof, the funnier it is."
On the Net:
Google prank: http://www.google.com/tisp/
ICANN Rejection of .XXX Domain Might Bring Litigation
Last Friday, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
voted 9-5 to reject a proposal by ICM Registry to set up and operate a
.xxx domain for sex-related sites. In the wake of ICANN's decision, ICM
Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said that the dispute will likely wind up in
court.
"This will probably go into litigation," Lawley said. "There are multiple
prongs for challenging the ICANN decision."
The plan that ICANN rejected last week was the third version of ICM
Registry's proposal, which was originally filed in 2000. After objections
were raised by the U.S. government, ICM Registry amended its proposal in
2004 to include the creation of an independent entity, the International
Foundation for Online Responsibility. Under the terms of ICM Registry's
proposal, IFOR would be responsible for determining whether .xxx sites
were in compliance with rules established for the new domain.
Lawley said he was not surprised by the outcome. "No," he said, "we saw
the writing on the wall. We held a teleconference with ICANN last month
and could tell the outcome from the way the conversation was going."
Lawley said that despite the fact that ICM Registry had complied with
ICANN's criteria for a new top-level domain, the Bush administration has
been actively pressuring ICANN to reject the .xxx proposal.
"We're clearly of the opinion, and we know for a fact," Lawley said, "that
the U.S. government intervened and prevented the signing of the August
2005 contract between ICANN and ICM Registry."
ICANN Board member Susan Crawford, who voted in favor of the new top-level
domain, suggested in her blog that ICANN had in fact given in to
governmental pressure.
"I am troubled by the path the Board has followed on this issue since I
joined the Board in December of 2005," she wrote. "I would like to make
two points. First, ICANN only creates problems for itself when it acts in
an ad hoc fashion in response to political pressures. Second, ICANN should
take itself seriously as a private governance institution with a limited
mandate and should resist efforts by governments to veto what it does."
Crawford pointed out that the United States was not the only government to
oppose the .xxx domain. The Board also received objections from Australia,
Brazil, and several other countries.
In May 2006, following ICANN's decision not to sign the .xxx TLD contract,
ICM Registry filed suit against the U.S. Departments of Commerce and
State, arguing that those agencies have no right to withhold e-mails
dealing with the Bush administration's response to the .xxx proposal. ICM
Registry believes that it can show that the U.S. government exerted undue
influence on the purportedly independent body.
Lawley said that a U.S. District Court judge recently ruled in favor of
ICM Registry and is ordering the U.S. Government to turn over more
relevant e-mails. "A federal judge has agreed with our version of the
facts," Lawley said, "and now we're reviewing our options from here on
out. There are many different possible approaches."
His chief objection, Lawley added, was that ICANN's decision was
fundamentally unfair.
"If you want to set up the process to prevent a .gay or .muslim TLD, well
go ahead, you can set your own rules; but what you can't do is change the
rules in the middle of the game," Lawley said. "We followed the rules as
they stood in 2004 to the letter, and they simply didn't like the
outcome."
VeriSign To Increase .com, .net Domain Fees
VeriSign is planning to raise the wholesale cost of registering a .com or
.net domain name in October to generate more money for infrastructure
improvements, the company announced on Thursday.
The increases are the first of several VeriSign is allowed impose through
2012 under an agreement with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers), the overseer of the Internet's addressing system.
VeriSign is the official registry for domain names ending in .com, .net,
.cc, and .tv.
On Oct. 15, the wholesale price of a .com domain will go from $6 to $6.42,
a 7 percent hike and the maximum annual percentage increase allowed under
the March 2006 agreement with ICANN. A .net domain name will increase 10
percent, from 3.50 to $3.85.
VeriSign can't raise the price of the .com domain registrations more than
7 percent annually in four years of the six-year agreement with ICANN,
which runs through 2012. However, VeriSign is allowed to raise prices for
security reasons or in respect to new ICANN policies if there hasn't been
a formal price increase that year.
The impact of the price hike on domain name owners could vary. VeriSign
charges those fees to registrars, which may package domain name
registration service with other services, such as Web site hosting.
Those registrars may set their own pricing for their services to consumers
or businesses, as long as they pay VeriSign the basic domain registration
fee. VeriSign said it manages relationships with more than 150
ICANN-accredited registrars that submit 100 million domain name
transactions daily.
At the end of 2006, .com and .net domains numbered 65 million with new
ones added at an average of 2.1 million per month, according to VeriSign
statistics released last month. With the new price increases, VeriSign
will boost its revenue by at least $22.7 million.
VeriSign said the new revenue will be invested in equipment that deals
with requests for Internet sites on the .com and .net domains. VeriSign
runs a network of servers that are part of the DNS, which enables domain
names, such as www.idg.com, to be translated into numerical Web site
addresses that can be called into a Web browser.
Web surfers are putting more pressure on the DNS system by making more
requests for Web sites, VeriSign said. The company is handling around 30
billion queries a day on its infrastructure, up from 1 billion in 2000.
In February, VeriSign said it plans to invest $100 million over the next
three years in its DNS infrastructure. The project, called Titan, will
boost VeriSign's bandwidth from 20Gbps to more than 200Gbps, allowing it
to respond to more than 4 trillion DNS queries a day.
ICANN Weighs Recommendation To Go Private
Looking to fortify its charter, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently released a report indicating it would
like to change its legal status and become a private entity.
The nonprofit private-public partnership oversees Internet Protocol
address space allocation and domain name system management, among ther
responsibilities.
In a March 23 report (PDF), the strategy committee appointed by ICANN
president Paul Twomey encouraged the board of directors to explore options
for becoming a private international organization based in the United
States.
"The Committee wants to be clear that in referring to a private
international organization it is not suggesting a treaty organization or
an intergovernmental organization," the report said.
"The balancing of these aspects is essential to maintaining not only a
single lobal interoperable Internet, but also a model that is
sufficiently versatile to adjust to the Internet's growth and
development," the report said. "The private sector based
multi-stakeholder model repeatedly demonstrates itself as the most viable,
responsive, mechanism to ensure stability and security of the Internet's
future."
The committee also stated that ICANN should maintain its multistakeholder
model, its processes for organizational improvement outlined in its bylaws
and mechanisms for accountability. The report stated that ICANN may
consider incorporating California state laws or U.S. federal rules into
its arbitration process.
No timetables for legal changes to the ICANN charter have been publicly
disclosed.
"The Committee considers such developments may contribute to the further
improvement of stability," the report said.
British Hacker Loses U.S. Extradition Appeal
A British computer expert accused by Washington of the "biggest military
hack of all time" lost an appeal on Tuesday against plans to extradite
him to the United States to stand trial.
Gary McKinnon was arrested in 2002 following charges by U.S. prosecutors
that he illegally accessed 97 government computers - including Pentagon,
U.S. army, navy and NASA systems - causing $700,000 worth of damage.
Two of Britain's leading judges rejected a High Court challenge by
McKinnon to an earlier court order backed by Britain's Home Secretary that
he should be extradited.
"We do not find any grounds of appeal against the decision," said one of
the judges, Lord Justice Maurice Kay.
"Mr McKinnon's conduct was intentional and calculated to influence and
affect the U.S. government by intimidation and coercion."
"As a result of his conduct, damage was caused to computers by impairing
their integrity, availability and operation of programs, systems,
information and data on the computers, rendering them unreliable," Kay
said.
McKinnon's lawyers had argued that sending him to the United States would
breach his human rights and should not be allowed on the basis that his
extradition was sought "for the purpose of prosecuting him on account of
his nationality or political opinions."
McKinnon, whose hacking name was "Solo," has admitted gaining access to
U.S. government computers but denies causing any damage.
At the time of his indictment, Paul McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, said "Mr McKinnon is charged with the
biggest military computer hack of all time."
If found guilty in the U.S, McKinnon could face up to 70 years in jail
and fines of up to $1.75 million.
He is expected to apply to the House of Lords, Britain's highest court,
for permission to challenge Tuesday's ruling.
Retail Trade, FBI Fight Organized Theft
Two leading retail industry associations have teamed up with the Federal
Bureau of Investigations to create a national online database that will
allow merchants to share information to fight organized retail theft.
The database, scheduled to debut Monday with 40 retailers, consolidates
efforts made by the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry
Leaders Association. Both organizations had launched their own
password-protected online national crime data bases last year.
Previously, merchants had never shared information, so organized rings
could hit various stores in one area without being detected.
Joseph LaRocca, NRF's vice president of loss prevention, said that this
data base called Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network will become
the "national platform" for sharing retail crime information.
In a statement, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Brian Nadeau, program
manager for the FBI's Organized Retail Theft program, said that this tool
"will create a stronger partnership between retailers and law enforcement
to tackle a growing problem and disrupt criminal organizations."
Increasingly, the nation's retailers are focusing less on petty crimes
and more on organized retail theft, which costs the industry $30 billion
annually and rising. Customers also pay a hefty price. NRF, the
industry's largest trade group, estimates that shoppers pay almost 2
cents on every dollar to cover the cost of retail theft.
According to a recent poll conducted by NRF, 81 percent of retailers
surveyed said they have been a victim of organized retail crime. Nearly
half of those polled also had seen an increase in organized retail crime
activity in their stores.
Unlike average shoplifters who steal for themselves, those involved in
organized crime steal the goods and resell to flea markets, pawn shops or
on the Internet.
For a long time, LaRocca said that these cases were hard to crack because
stores had been secretive about giving out information. And state laws
have been weak on shoplifting. Moreover, shoplifting doesn't become a
federal crime until at least $5,000 in stolen merchandise crosses a state
line. U.S attorney general's offices don't prosecute unless the
merchandise is worth $50,000.
With this tool, merchants will be able to remain anonymous. Retailers who
log onto the secure Web portal choose which information about a crime they
want to be made public, and don't have to identify themselves initially.
However, stores have to at least provide basic information about the
crime, including the date and time it occurred, the dollar amount stolen
and the type of retailer involved, LaRocca said.
Federated Department Stores Inc.'s Macy's, Limited Brands Inc., and
American Eagle Outfitters Inc. are among participating retailers that were
willing to disclose their names, LaRocca said.
LaRocca said that NRF's data base, which was launched last June, has
already made some inroads, collecting information on about 14,000
incidents, and identifying certain trends.
Based on information collected, the top states that have experienced the
most organized crime-related incidents are California, New York, Florida,
New Jersey and Texas. LaRocca said that the suburban New York area - New
York, New Jersey and Connecticut - has had the most of incidents.
One of the early success stories, LaRocca said, was law enforcement's
ability to tie two similar organized crime incidents that occurred late
last year to two different retailers in Southern California to the same
ring as a result of merchants' sharing of information. Law enforcement
officials are working to crack the case, said LaRocca, who declined to
identify the merchants.
Missing IRS Laptops Phone Home
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may not be doing a very good job
of encrypting data on its laptops, but it does have a way to recover its
lost equipment.
In fact, thieves looking to steal from the U.S. Department of the Treasury
may find themselves behind bars, thanks to tracking software used by the
IRS to contact investigators whenever a laptop is stolen.
Nearly 500 IRS laptops went missing in a three year period between 2003
and 2006, according to the agency that oversees the IRS, called the
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
TIGTA recently published a memo illustrating how the agency could do a
better job at protecting taxpayers' data. For example, TIGTA found that
nearly half of the 100 IRS laptop computers that it tested had unencrypted
sensitive data, relating to both IRS employees and taxpayers.
The report's conclusion? Well, TIGTA left little room for guesswork there,
entitling its memo: "The Internal Revenue Service Is Not Adequately
Protecting Taxpayer Data on Laptop Computers."
However, in an earlier TIGTA report presented to Congress late last year,
the oversight agency listed a few of the high-tech tricks the IRS uses for
security.
The agency has combined video technology with specialized software to keep
track of some PCs, the report says.
The IRS uses video-over-Internet technology to remotely operate
surveillance cameras on its premises, and it also has special software
that lets IRS PCs notify government agencies if the computer goes missing.
The software can also provide investigators with the machine's IP address
once it pops back up on the Internet. With the IP address in hand,
Treasury Department investigators have been able to identify criminal
suspects and recover stolen equipment, the report states.
Although PC thefts have been making front page news for more than a year
now, observers say these type of laptop recovery systems are just starting
to get the government's attention. "I think this is below a lot of
people's radar," said Richard Smith, an Internet security consultant with
Boston Software Forensics.
One company that sells this type of PC recovery service, Vancouver's
Absolute Software Corp., says that it has been stepping up dialogue with
the U.S federal government over the past year and a half.
To date, the company counts NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration) and the U.S. General Services Administration among its
customers.
Absolute's software, which is installed in the firmware and the PC's hard
drive, is extremely difficult to remove. It can not only report the
location of a stolen computer, but it can also be used to wipe data from
a machine after it's been stolen, said John Livingston, the company's
chairman and CEO.
Absolute is one of about a half-dozen companies, including CyberAngel
Security Solutions Inc. and Brigadoon Software Inc., that sell this type
of PC recovery product. And while Livingston admits that the market for
these services is "still in the early part of the adoption curve," he says
that Absolute has now signed up about 1 million subscribers. "We've gotten
thousands of stolen computers back. We do it every day," he said.
Hotmail Glitches Reported
Some of the beta testers for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live Hotmail service
are getting an increase in storage, but the extra capacity isn't being
introduced as smoothly as some of them might hope.
The users will see from their storage meter that they now have 4 G-bytes
of storage, up from 2 G-bytes before. But the extra storage might not
actually have been assigned to their accounts yet, according to a company
blog posting.
"This seems like putting the cart before the horse," the posting says.
"The reason for this is that the storage upgrade is being gradually rolled
across the universe and does not immediately change every account at the
same time."
The problem should resolve itself as the upgrade continues over the next
two weeks, Microsoft said. The expanded storage is only for "Hotmail Plus"
customers who are beta testing Windows Live Hotmail, a revamped version of
the company's Web e-mail service.
Hotmail Plus customers pay US$19.95 per year for a 2G-byte account and
extras such as the ability to send 20 M-byte attachments.
Microsoft's free Hotmail service offers 1 G-byte of storage and a 10
M-byte attachment limit. By comparison, Google Inc.'s Gmail offers 2.6
G-bytes of storage for free and Yahoo Inc.'s free e-mail includes 1
G-byte of storage.
Last month, Microsoft rolled out another feature upgrade, M10, for the
Windows Live Hotmail beta, which is supposed to improve its speed and
reliability.
Web News Readers Have Greater Attention Span
People who use the Internet to read the news have a greater attention span
than print readers, according to a U.S. study that refutes the idea that
Web surfers jump around and don't read much.
The EyeTrack07 survey by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism
school, found online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read
while broadsheet newspaper readers read an average of 62 percent, and
tabloid readers about 57 percent.
Sara Quinn, director of the Poynter EyeTrack07 project, said this was the
first large public study internationally to compare the differences
between how people read the news online and in newspapers.
She said they were surprised to find that such a large percentage of
story text was read online as this exploded the myth that Web readers had
a shorter attention span.
"Nearly two-thirds of online readers, once they chose a particular item
to read, read all of text," Quinn told Reuters on Thursday at the American
Society of Newspaper Editors' annual conference where the study was
released.
"That speaks to the power of long-form journalism."
The study also found that people paid more attention to items written in a
question and answer format or as lists, and preferred documentary news
photographs to staged or studio pictures.
The study involved testing nearly 600 readers in four U.S. markets -
readers of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, The St. Petersburg Times in
Florida, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, and the Philadelphia Daily News.
The test subjects, who were 49 percent women and 51 percent men aged
between 18 and 60, were asked to read that day's edition in either print
or online over 30 publication days.
Two small cameras were mounted above the subject's right eye to monitor
what they were reading. They were allowed to read whatever they liked.
The study found about 75 percent of print readers were methodical compared
to half of online readers.
Methodical readers tend to read from top to bottom without much scanning
around the page, read in a two-page view when reading in print, and
re-read some material.
But whether online readers were methodical or scanners, they read about
the same volume of story text.
Quinn said a prototype test also found that people answered more
questions about a news item correctly if the information had been
presented in an alternative manner rather than traditional narrative.
This could have been a question and answer format, a timeline, short
sidebar or a list.
"Subjects paid an average of 15 percent more attention to alternative
story forms than to regular story text in print. In broadsheet, this
figure rose to 30 percent," the study said.
Large headlines and photos in print were looked a first but online
readers went for navigation bars and teasers.
Quinn said more findings from the study would be released at the
Poynter conference in April.
McClatchy's Deal With Yahoo Opens Doors
Many newspaper publishers still consider major Internet companies to be a
threat, but a deal announced last week to bring foreign news and
commentary to Yahoo Inc. from correspondents at McClatchy Co. newspapers
could open the way to even more cooperation between print and online
media.
Yahoo, a major online destination for news, regularly displays foreign
news from a number of outlets including Reuters Group PLC, The Associated
Press and Agence-France Presse, as well as National Public Radio and the
Christian Science Monitor newspaper. Yahoo also has links to stories in
other outlets and lets readers pull in news from outside sites that use
an online syndication tool called RSS feeds.
The arrangement with McClatchy - which owns 31 newspapers including The
Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee - would bring stories from four of
McClatchy's eight foreign bureaus, mainly in the Middle East and Asia, as
well as exclusive online material including notebook-type blog postings
from correspondents, links to other resources and travel tips, according
to Howard Weaver, McClatchy's vice president for news.
"We're going into it with a small subsection of our content and see how
it goes," Weaver said. "We have really high quality, exclusive content.
Yahoo has the largest audience in the world. That seems like a pretty
obvious thing to do."
Scott Moore, the head of news and information at Yahoo, said the company
has found "significant interest" from other well-known news organizations
about forming similar partnerships. Moore declined to name the
organizations or provide other details, other than to say there could be
announcements of other deals over the next two to three months.
Foreign news is a major draw for visitors to Yahoo, Moore said, and is
the No. 3 most popular category of news on the site following "Top News,"
a category with largely domestic news stories, and business news.
While the Yahoo-McClatchy deal will start off on a relatively modest
scale, analysts saw it as an intriguing new kind of collaboration between
companies that had traditionally seen each other as rivals but who
actually had complementary strengths that could make such ventures
fruitful for both sides.
Mike Simonton, newspaper analyst at the credit ratings service Fitch
Ratings Inc., said newspapers are transforming themselves from being
primarily distributors of information to producers of news that can then
be distributed by other means.
Large Internet companies like Yahoo and Google Inc. "need the type of
trusted content that newspaper companies provide," Simonton said, while
newspapers need new avenues of distribution. "I think the publishers are
starting to see that Yahoo and Google can really be more partners than
competitors, and Yahoo is seeing that as well."
Many newspaper publishers have been cutting back on costs in recent years
due to declining circulation and advertising, and several have cut back
on foreign bureaus. Last year Tribune Co. consolidated the foreign staff
across its newspapers, and in January The Boston Globe, which is owned by
The New York Times, closed its last three remaining foreign bureaus.
For newspaper companies that still maintain significant foreign staffs,
such as the New York Times, The Washington Post Co. and Dow Jones & Co.,
publisher of The Wall Street Journal, cutting deals with online providers
could provide new revenues and audiences for coverage they are already
paying for.
"I think it sets up all kinds of interesting possibilities," said Ken
Doctor, media analyst for Outsell Inc., a market research and consulting
firm based in Burlingame, Calif. "I would expect to see more of these
kinds of deals."
The Washington Post, which has 30 foreign correspondents, currently
distributes news online through a joint venture with Tribune's Los Angeles
Times. Spokesman Eric Grant declined to elaborate on other plans the paper
might be considering.
Dow Jones said in a statement that it would "would certainly consider
licensing our foreign news to sites and portals if the partnership was an
effective revenue or traffic driver, or both."
Tribune declined to comment, and Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The
New York Times, said the company is "exploring alternatives for
distributing our journalism and evaluating ways we can partner with
others."
McClatchy's Weaver indicated that the company was still feeling its way
in the growing world of online distribution and figuring out how best to
position itself.
"We are recognizing that there are opportunities where people used to see
problems," Weaver said.
As for his new partners over at Yahoo, he's expecting plenty more contact
with them. "These are new entries in my Rolodex," he said.
BlackBerrys, Laptops Blur Work/Home Balance
Staying in touch constantly by using laptops, BlackBerrys and other
wireless devices has blurred the line between a person's professional and
personal life, according to a new survey.
Seventy five percent of people questioned in a survey by Yahoo! HotJobs
said they used their wireless devices equally for work and personal
reasons.
Nearly 30 percent were so attached to them they only switched them off
while sleeping.
"Wireless devices are powerful communications tools," Susan Vobejda,
vice president of marketing at Yahoo! HotJobs, said in a statement.
"While they were intended to provide convenience and flexibility for
workers' lives, they have changed the physical parameters of the
workplace and extended the work day. Professionals can work from anywhere
and connect at any time."
The online survey of 900 professionals revealed that 81 percent stay
connected with a mobile phone, 65 percent use a laptop to keep in touch
and 19 percent have adopted smartphones, cell phones with computer-like
functions.
Most of the people who responded to the poll had favorable reactions to
wireless devices but slightly more than a quarter think they are kept on
a permanent corporate leash.
Vobejda said the wireless devices are a professional reality and people
must set limits.
"With 67 percent of respondents admitting to having used a wireless
device to connect to work while on vacation, signs indicated that the
American workforce may be facing burnout," she added.
People who can't turn off the devices are advised to speak up if they
feel they are being overworked, and to learn to say 'no' if work is
encroaching too much on personal time.
Instead of using wireless devices to arrange meetings and business
appointments, they should use them to schedule some free time.
"It's important for people to set limits on when and how to disengage
in order to maintain work-life balance," Vobejda added.
=~=~=~=
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