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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 13 Issue 44
Volume 13, Issue 44 Atari Online News, Etc. November 4, 2011
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2011
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:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1344 11/04/11
~ China Scorns at Charges! ~ People Are Talking! ~ CIA Tracks Revolts!
~ US Blasts China, Russia! ~ The Right to Dual-Boot ~ Facebook-Google War!
~ Anonymous Exposes Users! ~ Stupid Hacker Tricks! ~ Copyright and Wrong!
~ Spike TV Gets Award Show ~ ~ New Call of Duty!
-* UK's Cyberattacks Warnings! *-
-* UK Says Internet Power Grab Will Fail *-
-* Video Games Stimulate Kids' Imaginations! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, remember last week I mentioned that we were about to get hit by a
Nor'easter that weekend? Well, we got hit and hit hard! While we didn't
get a large amount of snow in my immediate area, other areas weren't as
fortunate - up to 3 feet in areas! And to make matters much worse, the
snow was that extremely wet and heavy stuff - not the fluffy light stuff
that is easily moved!
The problem with this kind of snow, at this time of the year when leaves
are still in abundance on trees, is that the leaves acts as a blanket of
sorts and the snow weighs heavily down on them. There were alerts all
over the place that warned the citizenry that the chances of downed
branches and trees was very high. Well, we could hear the sounds of
branches cracking all night. At about 11:15 p.m. on Saturday night, I
heard one particular cracking noise that was very close. I looked out
various windows to see if it was one of my trees. The pines were okay.
The huge oak in the side yard was fine. The oaks near our property in
my neighbor's yard were fine. I finally looked out a back window and
saw a branch - a large one - overhanging my neighbor's deck. He has no
trees, so I knew it was mine. But, it was dark so I couldn't see too
clearly. I heard my neighbor's commotion, so I hollered out to make sure
everyone was okay; I didn't know how much of the tree (or branch) fell,
or if it caused any damage. They responded and said they were okay, so
I went to bed because I had to be at work early in the morning.
When I woke up, I looked out my window in my upstairs study to get a
better look, The branch was actually a good portion of my tree! In
fact, it looked like the tree had split in half, and fallen on my
neighbor's garage, deck, and house! I couldn't see any obvious damage
from my vantage point, so I let my wife know what I saw, and for her to
call my neighbor.
When I got home from work - out early because our store was without
power, as was most of the town, I went next door to survey the damage.
I spent the rest of the day trying to contact our insurance company,
as well as a tree removal service to cut up and remove the tree. It
was precariously draped over their garage and up against the sliding
door on their deck.
The tree was removed Wednesday, and I saw my insurance agent Thursday.
Fortunately, there was little damage to my neighbor's house, etc. So
that meant no cost him. My insurance, hopefully, will reimburse me to
cut up and remove the tree, and no noteworthy damage on my property.
In fact, in talking to my claims adjuster, he told me that taking my
claim report was one of the easiest ones he's taken due to this storm!
So, I consider myself and my neighbor to be very fortunate! People are
still without power, almost a week after this storm. There has been
widespread damage throughout the state, and lives lost due to
storm-related issues. It's been a horrific week for many, many people.
And the problem is, there's very little one can do to prepare for this
type of a storm so early in the Fall season. And we had less than
three inches of snow!
Anyway, things are quieting down now and starting to get back to normal.
The Halloween celebrations were postponed until tonight, but we decided
to forego being a part of this year; we didn't even buy any candy for
the little ghosts and goblins who would normally be out canvassing the
neighborhood.
So, as we try to finally get some rest from all of the events of the past
week, I hope that everyone enjoyed your Halloween festivities - either
on Halloween night, or a postponed one. And don't forget, that if you're
affected by Daylight Savings Time, set your clocks back an hours this
weekend and enjoy and extra hour of sleep!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Video Games Stimulate Kids Imaginations!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Call of Duty: Elite Fight Night!
Spike TV's Video Game Awards!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
New Research Shows Video Games Stimulate Kids Imaginations
We all know that parents should pay attention to both the amount of time
kids spend playing video games and the type of games they're playing, but
contrary to some prevailing wisdom, a new study shows that kids who play
video games may actually be more creative than those who don't.
The study of 491 12-year-olds was conducted by lead researcher Linda
Jackson, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, as part
of the Children and Technology Project. It found that the more kids played
video games, the more creative they were in tasks like writing stories and
drawing pictures, as gauged by the figural version of the Torrance Test of
Creativity. The test uses picture-based exercises to measure mental
characteristics like originality, elaboration, and emotional
expressiveness.
The study found that in general, boys played video games more than girls,
and, perhaps not surprisingly, that boys also tended to play sports and
violence based games while girls tended to favor games featuring
interaction with others. The Entertainment Software Association reports
that about 72% of households in the United States play video or computer
games.
The study also found that use of technology other than playing video
games, such as using cell phones, browsing the internet, or using a
computer for other tasks, did not have a noticeable effect on creativity.
Jackson is hopeful that video game designers will be able to use the
results of the study to design games which can "blur the distinction
between education and entertainment."
Call of Duty: Elite Fight Night Gives Famous
Rivals A Chance To Settle It Digitally
And in this corner... When the Call of Duty: Elite service rolls out in
conjunction with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 next Tuesday, there will
be both a free service as well as a premium version. The free service will
offer new levels of stat tracking and several more options to expand the
reach of the game, but for those that opt in for the premium version,
membership has its privileges.
One of those privileges is access to 'Friday Night Fights,' a weekly video
series produced by Ridely and Tony Scotts RSA Productions, which will be
released exclusively to Elite premium members. Each Friday two new rival
groups will face off via Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Sometimes it will
be celebrities, other times it will be well-known group rivalries. Both
sides will receive coaching from professional gamers, and the episodes
will feature a slew of famous personalities to join in the fun. The
winning side will then donate the proceeds - up to $5,000 - to the Call of
Duty Endowment, a charitable group dedicated to helping returning soldiers
find employment.
The series will premiere next Friday, November 11 on Veterans Day, and
feature the classic rivalry of Army vs. Navy. The series will continue
each week through the rest of the year until the first season is complete.
Some of the famous groups and celebrities involved are:
* Celebrities:
o Music: Good Charlotte (Benji & Joel Madden), The Game, Cali Swag District
o Sports: Dwight Howard (Orlando Magic), John Wall (Washington Wizards)
o Actors: Michelle Rodriguez
o Personalities: Jack Osbourne
* Real world rivals:
o Army vs. Navy
o Police vs. Fireman
o New York city fans vs. Boston fans
The show will be hosted by model-turned-WWE Diva and current George
Clooney squeeze, Stacy Keibler. The series will be part of the first batch
of entertainment videos released as part of the Call of Duty: Elite, Elite
TV, which will air several programs exclusively for subscribers. Will
Arnett and Jason Bateman have also signed on to create original content,
and more program announcements will be coming soon.
Call of Duty: Elite will be released on November 8. A years worth of the
premium service will be included as part of the Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare 3 Hardened Edition, or it can be purchased separately for $49.99
per year.
Spike TV Hosts Video Game Awards Show
Emmy-winning producer Mark Burnett is taking on another awards show, this
time Spike TV's Video Game Awards next month.
The "Survivor" and "Celebrity Apprentice" producer says he's very
comfortable around video games, given that he's regularly trounced at them
by his three teenagers. They particularly enjoy "Black Ops" and "FIFA," he
said.
"It's an enormous industry. It's going to get bigger and bigger and
bigger," he told TheWrap. "It's such a growing, dynamic industry, and it
seemed a great way for me to absorb more and go beyond just passively
enjoying video games, and get into it more, as well as bring my skill set
to make it an epic awards show."
Burnett's previous awards shows have included MTV's VMAs and the Emmys.
"Mark's bold producing style is a perfect fit for gamers, and his
tremendous vision and unparalleled energy will take the show to a new
level," said Casey Patterson, executive producer of the VGAs and executive
vice president of event production for Viacom Media Networks Entertainment
Group.
Besides handing out awards, the VGAs feature exclusive world premieres and
teasers for some of the most-anticipated games. Guests include Hideo
Kojima, who will premiere "Metal Gear Solid: Rising."
BioWare, creators of most anticipated game nominee "Mass Effect 3," will
announce a new project and studio.
The VGAs telecast will premiere live, in high-definition, on Saturday,
December 10 at 8 ET/5 PT.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Britain Warns Against State-Sponsored Cyberattacks
British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned foreign governments against
state-sponsored cyberattacks Wednesday, hinting at a more confrontational
approach if they don't stop.
Hague, who was speaking at the close of a two-day conference on
cybersecurity, was careful not to identify any countries by name, even
when asked repeatedly about China.
He told reporters in London that Britain had not hosted a "judgmental
conference" where participants sat around pointing fingers.
"It hasn't been our approach in this conference to identify other countries
and try to name and shame them," he said, before adding: "That may happen
on other occasions."
In recent months a string of British officials have warned of the threat to
the nation's electronic infrastructure from foreign hackers, with much of
the suspicion falling on Russia and China.
Earlier this week former security minister Pauline Neville-Jones, who now
serves as the prime minister's representative to business on cybersecurity,
said Beijing and Moscow were "certainly" involved in that sort of activity.
In earlier comments on online censorship, Hague was more direct.
Asked about a Russo-Chinese proposal for an Internet "code of conduct,"
Hague said those countries' attitudes toward free speech didn't match his
own.
He predicted that governments who attempted to resist "the tide that is
flowing toward greater transparency and accountability" would fail.
Hague said he wouldn't seek to square Chinese or Russian Internet policies
with Britain's, explaining that it was up to others to "square themselves"
with free expression and an open Web.
US Report Blasts China, Russia for Cybercrime
U.S. intelligence officials accused China and Russia on Thursday of
systematically stealing American high-tech data for their own national
economic gain.
It was the most forceful and detailed public airing of U.S. allegations
after years of private complaints. U.S. officials and cybersecurity
experts said the U.S. must openly confront China and Russia in a broad
diplomatic push to combat cyberattacks that are on the rise and represent
a "persistent threat to U.S. economic security."
But experts said solving the problem won't be easy.
In a report released Thursday, U.S. intelligence agencies said "the
governments of China and Russia will remain aggressive and capable
collectors of sensitive U.S. economic information and technologies,
particularly in cyberspace."
Speaking at a forum at the National Press Club, Robert Bryant, the
national counterintelligence executive, said the U.S. is finally making
the charges public because China and Russia are stealing sensitive U.S.
technology data.
"If we build their economies on our information, that's not right," he
said. "We want to basically point out what the issue is. We want to be
worried and we want to be careful, but we also want there to be an
awareness and, frankly, drive that toward solutions where we work together
to bring this under control."
The report is part of an increased effort by U.S. officials to highlight
the risks of cyberattacks in a growing high-tech society. People,
businesses and governments are storing an increasing amount of valuable
and sensitive information online or accessing data through mobile devices
that may not be as secure as some computers.
The Obama administration has urged individuals and the corporate world to
better protect their data. Thursday's report is a clarion call,
cybersecurity experts said.
"We should have done this years ago," said James Lewis, cybersecurity
expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. "We've pretended it hasn't been happening, but that's not the
case. I hope this is the first in a series of documents that lays out the
huge problem the U.S. is facing."
The U.S. points fingers at Russian and Chinese intelligence services and
corporations based in those countries or tied to the governments.
The intelligence report, however, did not say how many of the cyberattacks
are government-sponsored and would not name other countries that pose
similar but lesser threats. It suggested that U.S. allies may be using
their access to American institutions to acquire economic and technology
information.
China had no immediate response to the report, which was issued after
normal business hours Thursday in Beijing.
China has consistently denied engaging in cyberspying and, at a regularly
scheduled news briefing Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei
reiterated Beijing's insistence that it also has been attacked.
"China is a major victim of hacking," Hong said. "China is ready to
build, together with other countries, a peaceful, secure and open
cyberspace order."
He added, "As for the remarks from certain quarters, I would point out
that hacking attacks have no boundaries and are anonymous. Speculating on
the origin of the attacks without investigation is neither professional
nor responsible."
China has been linked to a number of high-profile breaches.
Google Inc., operator of the Internet's most popular search engine,
disclosed two sophisticated attacks against its systems that it believes
were launched from China. The disclosures touched a nerve for
technologists, government officials and human rights advocates alike
because of the unique roles Google and the Chinese government have in
shaping what is seen - and not seen - on the Internet by citizens of the
world's most populous country.
In one attack, some of Google's intellectual property was stolen in a
computer attack that also targeted at least 20 other large companies. And
earlier this year Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said it believes
hackers in China broke into the Gmail accounts of several hundred people,
including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and
political activists.
The report also noted other incidents linked to China:
* Last year computer security firm Mandiant reported that data was stolen
from a Fortune 500 manufacturing company during business negotiations
when the company was trying to buy a Chinese company.
* Earlier this year, McAfee traced an intrusion to an Internet protocol
address in China and said intruders took data from global oil, energy and
petrochemical companies.
While officials could not pin down an exact economic cost to the U.S.
government and businesses, they said the losses are extremely
significant.
"(China's) continued theft of sensitive economic information is a threat
to our national security, hurts American businesses and workers, and
causes incalculable harm to global economy," said the chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. "This once again
underscores the need for America's allies across Asia and Europe to join
forces to pressure Beijing to end this illegal behavior."
The escalating rhetoric carries its own political risks, particularly as
the U.S. has tried to improve relations with China and Russia. China is a
key lender and trading partner, and the U.S. has relied on Beijing to put
pressure on its longtime ally North Korea to negotiate over its nuclear
program.
Russia, meanwhile, is a key vote in the U.N. Security Council,
particularly on issues involving Iran sanctions and nuclear arms
reduction.
Both were Cold War enemies whose motives and government workings are often
purposely opaque to American partners or competitors.
"We have to start being more confrontational," said Lewis, adding that the
U.S. needs to have a more muscular trade policy and make sure that World
Trade Organization rules are observed.
The report said foreign intelligence services have used independent hackers
as proxies, thereby giving the agencies "plausible deniability."
And it also accused the Chinese of being "the world's most active and
persistent perpetrators of economic espionage."
Attacks from Russia are a "distant second" to those from China, according
to the report. But it said Moscow's intelligence services are "conducting
a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from
U.S. targets."
The report said some of the most desired data includes communications and
military technologies, clean energy, health care, pharmaceuticals and
information about scarce natural resources. Of particular note, the report
said, is interest in unmanned aircraft and other aerospace technology.
U.S. officials have called for greater communication about cyberthreats
among the government, intelligence agencies and the private sector. The
Pentagon has begun a pilot program that is working with a group of defense
contractors to help detect and block cyberattacks.
The report, issued by the national intelligence director's office of the
counterintelligence executive, comes out every two years and includes
information from 14 spy agencies, academics and other experts.
"We have to do a lot to scare those other guys into thinking 'don't do it
or bad things will happen to you' but after we do that, we have to solve
it here, at home," said Alan Paller, director of research at SANS
Institute, a computer-security organization.
"We need to say, 'if you allow your citizens to attack computers in our
country, causing massive damage, we have the right to cause massive damage
in your country.'"
China Scorns U.S. Cyber Espionage Charges
China on Friday dismissed a U.S. report on online spying as
"irresponsible," rejecting the charge that China uses cyber espionage to
steal lucrative U.S. trade and technology secrets.
The U.S. intelligence report said on Thursday China and Russia are using
cyber espionage to steal U.S. trade and technology secrets to bolster their
own economic development, which poses a threat to U.S. prosperity and
security.
So much sensitive information sits on computer networks that foreign
intruders can net massive amounts of valuable data with scant risk of
detection, said the report to Congress.
Foreign intelligence services, corporations and individuals stepped up
their efforts to steal information about U.S. technology that cost many
millions of dollars to develop, according to the report by the Office of
the National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. government agency.
But the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei rejected the report,
and repeated Beijing's long-standing position that it wants to help.
"Online attacks are notable for spanning national borders and being
anonymous. Identifying the attackers without carrying out a comprehensive
investigation and making inferences about the attackers is both
unprofessional and irresponsible," Hong told a daily news briefing in
answer to a question about the report.
"I hope the international community can abandon prejudice and work hard
with China to maintain online security," he added.
The U.S. report acknowledged the difficulty of determining who exactly is
behind a cyber attack. U.S. companies have reported intrusions into their
computer networks that originated in China, but U.S. intelligence agencies
cannot confirm who specifically is behind them.
Intelligence officials say it is part of the national policy of China and
Russia to try to acquire sensitive technology for their own economic
development, while the United States does not do economic espionage as part
of its national policy.
The State Department in June said it had asked Beijing to investigate
Google's allegation of a major hacking attack that the Internet giant said
originated in China.
UK Says Governments' Internet Power Grab Will Fail
Attempts by China, Russia and others to gain more control over the
Internet are doomed to failure, Britain said on Wednesday, after hosting
a major conference on cyberspace that it said sent a clear signal to
authoritarian governments.
Speaking after the London conference attended by 60 nations, British
Foreign Secretary William Hague said threats of cyberterrorism and
cybercrime were real, but should not be used as a pretext for online
repression.
"The conference agreed that efforts to improve cyber security must not be
at the expense of human rights," he said, summing up the conference's
conclusions.
"My message to governments is that in the long term efforts to resist the
freer flow of information, the tide that is flowing toward greater
transparency and accountability, will fail."
The conference was designed to give fresh impetus to debates taking place
in multiple forums about the future of cyberspace, including the growing
threat of cybercrime, and the Internet's potential for boosting economic
growth.
China, Russia and some other fast-growing economies have been calling in
recent months for a bigger say in how the Internet is run. It has until
now been loosely governed by a collection of mainly Western-dominated
bodies.
"I suspect London marks the emergence of two clear camps that have been
coalescing this year," said one Western delegate, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
"The Western agenda is now robustly declared and challenging for China.
Will Russia and China decide to play or not?"
The conference was dominated by the United States and Europe, with U.S.
Vice President Joseph Biden, European Commissioner Neelie Kroes and
Facebook policy director Richard Allan among the top speakers.
Russia took part in the conference and stood by its call for a new
international treaty or code of conduct for cyberspace to be established
by governments.
China sent a small delegation but did not participate actively in the open
sessions. It was barely mentioned by name during the conference despite
the fact that more state-sponsored cyber attacks are believed to originate
in China than in any other country.
Europe is hoping China will help bail out the euro zone, which sank deeper
into crisis this week with Greece's call for a referendum on a financial
rescue plan.
"I don't think you can simultaneously hold a conference of this kind,
drawing governments into this discussion, and as people are coming to the
door, point your finger at them all and say: 'You are guilty men,' so we
are going about this in a diplomatic way," Hague said.
In his closing message, he said: "State-sponsored attacks are not in the
interests of any country, long term... those governments that perpetrate
them need to bring them under control." He did not name names.
Some private-sector delegates like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were
less reticent.
"People do realize that there are some legitimate problems and that those
problems need solutions," he told Reuters in an interview. "The difficulty
comes when you've got countries like China who maybe view freedom of
speech as the problem that needs to be solved."
Canadian academic Rafal Rohozinski, an expert on cyber warfare and chief
executive of the SecDev Group, said the West was under pressure to regain
control of the agenda on Internet governance in the face of a growing bloc
of developing nations that want more influence.
"The G8, the Euro-Atlantic alliance if you like, needs to come up with an
effective counter-narrative," he told Reuters.
This week's event will be followed by conferences in Budapest in 2012 and
Seoul in 2013.
CIA Tracks Revolt by Tweet, Facebook
In an anonymous industrial park, CIA analysts who jokingly call themselves
the "ninja librarians" are mining the mass of information people publish
about themselves overseas, tracking everything from common public opinion
to revolutions.
The group's effort gives the White House a daily snapshot of the world
built from tweets, newspaper articles and Facebook updates.
The agency's Open Source Center sometimes looks at 5 million tweets a day.
The analysts are also checking out TV news channels, local radio stations,
Internet chat rooms - anything overseas that people can access and
contribute to openly.
The Associated Press got an apparently unprecedented view of the center's
operations, including a tour of the main facility. The AP agreed not to
reveal its exact location and to withhold the identities of some who work
there because much of the center's work is secret.
From Arabic to Mandarin, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the
analysts gather the information, often in a native tongue. They
cross-reference it with a local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted
phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest
levels at the White House. There might be a real-time peek, for example,
at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin
Laden, or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for
revolt.
Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn't know exactly
when revolution might hit, says the center's director, Doug Naquin.
The center already had "predicted that social media in places like Egypt
could be a game-changer and a threat to the regime," he said in an
interview.
The CIA facility was set up in response to a recommendation by the 9/11
Commission, its first priority to focus on counterterrorism and
counterproliferation. Its predecessor organization had its staff heavily
cut in the 1990s - something the CIA's management has vowed to keep from
happening again, with new budget reductions looming across the national
security spectrum.
The center's several hundred analysts - the actual number is classified -
track a broad range of subjects, including Chinese Internet access and the
mood on the street in Pakistan.
While most analysts are based in Virginia, they also are scattered
throughout U.S. embassies worldwide to get a step closer to their
subjects.
The center's analysis ends up in President Barack Obama's daily
intelligence briefing in one form or another almost every day. The material
is often used to answer questions Obama poses to his inner circle of
intelligence advisers when they give him the morning rundown of threats
and trouble spots.
"The OSC's focus is overseas, collecting against foreign intelligence
issues," said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood. "Looking at social
media outlets overseas is just a small part of what this skilled
organization does," she said. "There is no effort to collect on
Americans."
The most successful open source analysts, Naquin said, are something like
the heroine of the crime novel "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a
quirky, irreverent computer hacker who "knows how to find stuff other
people don't know exists."
An analyst with a master's degree in library science and multiple
languages, especially one who grew up speaking another language, makes "a
powerful open source officer," Naquin said.
The center had started focusing on social media after watching the
Twitter-sphere rock the Iranian regime during the Green Revolution of 2009,
when thousands protested the results of the elections that kept Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. "Farsi was the third largest
presence in social media blogs at the time on the Web," Naquin said.
After bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May, the CIA followed Twitter to
give the White House a snapshot of world public opinion.
Since tweets can't necessarily be pegged to a geographic location, the
analysts broke down reaction by language. The result: The majority of Urdu
tweets, the language of Pakistan, and Chinese tweets, were negative. China
is a close ally of Pakistan's. Officials in Pakistan protested the raid as
an affront to their nation's sovereignty, a sore point that continues to
complicate U.S.-Pakistani relations.
When President Obama gave his speech addressing Mideast issues a few weeks
after the raid, the tweet response over the next 24 hours came in negative
from Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, the Persian Gulf and Israel, too.
Tweets from speakers of Arabic and Turkic contended that Obama favored
Israel, while Hebrew tweets denounced the speech as pro-Arab.
In the following days, major news media came to the same conclusion, as
did analysis by the covert side of U.S. intelligence based on intercepts
and human intelligence gathered in the region.
The center is also in the process of comparing its social media results
with the track record of polling organizations, trying to see which
produces more accurate results, Naquin said.
"We do what we can to caveat that we may be getting an overrepresentation
of the urban elite," said Naquin, acknowledging that only a small slice of
the population in many areas being monitored has access to computers and
Internet. But he points out that access to social media sites via
cellphones is growing in such areas as Africa, meaning a "wider portion of
the population than you might expect is sounding off and holding forth
than it might appear if you count the Internet hookups in a given
country."
Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become a key resource for following
a fast-moving crisis such as the riots that raged across Bangkok in April
and May of last year, the center's deputy director said. The AP agreed not
to identify him because he sometimes still works undercover in foreign
countries.
As director, Naquin is identified publicly by the agency although the
location of the center is kept secret to deter attacks, whether physical
or electronic.
Naquin says the next generation of social media will probably be
closed-loop, subscriber-only cellphone networks, like the ones the Taliban
uses to send messages among hundreds of followers at a time in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Those networks can be penetrated only by technical
eavesdropping by branches of U.S. intelligence, such as the National
Security Agency - but Naquin predicts his covert colleagues will find a
way to adapt, as the enemy does.
Anonymous Exposes Visitors to Child Porn Sites
The online "hacktivist" group Anonymous claimed on Wednesday to have
published the Internet Protocol addresses of nearly 200 visitors to child
pornography forums.
In a statement posted to pastebin.com, Anonymous said it was exposing the
IP addresses as part of a campaign dubbed "Operation Darknet."
An IP address is the unique number used by every device that connects to
the Internet.
Most of the IP addresses of visitors to child porn sites exposed by
Anonymous were in the United States but some were located in Europe, Latin
America and elsewhere.
Anonymous said it captured the IP addresses of visitors to child porn
forums by tricking users into downloading a fake update to Tor software,
which can be used to obscure an Internet user's identity.
The purported Tor update actually routed traffic to a forensics server
controlled by Anonymous that logged incoming IP addresses and destination.
During a 24-hour period last week, Anonymous said it captured the unique
IP addresses of 190 visitors to child porn forums.
Anonymous has been involved in scores of hacking exploits including the
recent defacing of a website of Syria's Ministry of Defense to protest a
bloody crackdown on anti-government protestors.
Last year, the shadowy group launched retaliatory attacks on companies
perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Who's Winning the Facebook-Google Tech War
When Google launched its Facebook doppleganger, Google+, it became clear
that the two were in an war to win the Internet. Google ruled the Web for
awhile, but little underdog Facebook crept up and all of a sudden its
social networking site had 800 million very active users. Now the two are
in a bona-fide war, explains Fortune's Miguel Helft. "In the long history
of tech rivalries, rarely has there been a battle as competitive as the
raging war between the web's wonder twins," he writes. One could argue that
one is better than the other, preferring Google+'s circles to Facebook's
Timeline, but this is really a numbers game.
Google: Google has the largest share of the ad market than any single tech
company, nabbing 41 percent of the $31 billion U.S. online ad market. And
it's basically got the ad search market cornered.
Facebook: Facebook may not have all that ad power, but its ad-revenue is
growing at a super-fast 81 percent this year.
Winner: Tie Hands down, Google brings in more money. But the trends aren't
working in its favor. "Advertisers are putting more of their limited
dollars into Facebook, with its 800 million users, many of whom spend more
time on Facebook than on any other site," writes Helft. Google's display
ad dollars will grow a measly 34 percent, peanuts compared to Facebook's
expected growth. There is one big however, though, for Facebook. The
company hasn't quite been able to monetize all the ad attention its
getting very well. It can attract big names, like Ford, but these
companies aren't spending too much to advertise on Facebook, as The Wall
Street Journal's Emily Steel and Geoffrey Fowler noted. "Everybody wants
to be liked," they write. "The question for Facebook Inc. is how much
advertisers are willing to pay for the opportunity."
Google: Google rakes in almost nine times as much as Facebook, and is
expected to grow to $38 billion this year.
Facebook The social network is expected to more than double its revenue
this year to $4.3 billion.
Winner: Google Facebook's growth rate trumps Google's 30 percent growth.
But having that lump of cash means Google can buy popularity and growth.
Just this year, Google spent $12.5 billion (Facebook times 3) to acquire
Motorola. "Page can afford these big swings (and others) in the years
ahead, given the way his advertising business just keeps growing," Fast
Company's Farhad Manjoo pointed out.
Google In trying to keep its most talented people around, Google shot
itself in the foot. After losing talent, Google offered top engineers big
$10 million in equity-and-cash deals to stay, an executive told Helft.
Smarty pants Google employees leveraged that, seeking offers from Facebook
to get raises. Google changed its strategy, offering a company wide 10
percent raise. In short: Google's spent a lot of money to keep people
around.
Facebook Facebook has successfully stolen away Google's best. "Four of
Facebook's 11 top executives hail from Google, including COO Sheryl
Sandberg and David Fischer, the advertising and operations chief,"
explains Helft.
Winner: Facebook Google spent big money to keep its gold and in doing so
ruined its cred. "It created an un-Googley environment," senior manager
who left Google recently told Heflt. And Facebook still won over those
coveted Googlers.
It's a close race. Facebook's all about growth this and growth that. But
then again, Google does have all that money with which to squash
Facebook.
Copyright and Wrong
A piece of legislation backed by the MPAA was introduced in the House of
Representatives this week and threatens to upend the way we use the
Internet.
The E-Parasites Act, a contrived acronym for Enforcing and Protecting
American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation, seeks to
give the attorney general broad power to create a blacklist of websites
that 'induce' copyright infringement. Service providers would then be
legally compelled to block these websites.
Lets say youre using an online digital locker service like Dropbox to
store your Microsoft Word files. Someone else on the site, however, is
using it to house illegally downloaded MP3s. The record label finds out,
approaches a judge and says, "Dropbox is inducing its users to commit
copyright infringement. We request you block it, or well go to MasterCard
- which handles Dropboxs money matters - or the sites advertisers and
legally demand that they stop facilitating the sites inducement of
copyright infringement."
The law can either shutter a website until it removes copyright-violating
material or financially ruin it. In either scenario, your Word files are
gone.
Should the E-Parasites bill become law, virtually every company on the
Internet will be expected to constantly patrol their users for copyright
infringement. It also effectively neutralizes the 'safe harbor' part of
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, that protects companies
from being prosecuted after copyright material has been uploaded to their
websites.
It would be pretty difficult for Twitter and YouTube to exist if they had
to constantly monitor and scan every single tweet for verboten content.
Sure, illegitimate websites would be hampered, but experts feel it would
place unprecedented economic burdens on legitimate ones.
"This bill is a disaster," said Electronic Frontier Foundation staff
attorney Corynne McSherry. "Its a jobs-killer that would hurt legitimate
businesses. In this type of economic environment, we should be trying to
create jobs, not destroy them."
The Motion Picture Association of America disagrees with that assessment,
arguing that 'rogue websites' cost millions of jobs and dollars worth of
damage in the process.
Sound like geek-speak to you? Think again. Many of todays most popular
websites and services that we use every day depend on those DMCA safe
harbors. Put it this way: The only reason YouTube, Facebook and a host of
others are able to exist is because these safe harbors protect them from
destructive litigation, or worse. If E-Parasites goes into effect, rights
holders can go to companies like MasterCard and PayPal, tell them that
YouTube is engaging in copyright infringement, then tell them to cut off
funding. And if that happens, say bye-bye to YouTube.
"No American wants to be told what website theyre allowed to go to," said
Holmes Wilson, co-founder of the Fight for the Future digital advocacy
group. "If this passes, you could go to Dropbox in the morning and find a
message from the government saying it was blocked."
In effect, the law would create a separate, 'America-approved' Internet,
just like the kind found in China with its Great Firewall. The move would
"send signals to oppressive regimes around the world that censoring the
Internet is OK so long as its done in the name of intellectual property,"
said McSherry.
Then theres the technical side to consider. To block 'rogue' websites,
the proposed law interferes with the technology that translates
easy-to-remember website names into their actual numbered addresses. (Do
you really trust Washington bureaucrats with one of the Internets most
vital technologies?) But if you happened to know the numerical IP address
of a website - a quick Google search will reveal it - youd be able to
bypass the roadblock and visit the site.
So in the unlikely event that thedaily.com gets blocked, youd be able to
reach it by typing 50.16.191.138 into your address bar.
Said McSherry: "Interfering with the Internet is not how you protect it."
The Right To Dual-Boot: Linux Groups Plead Case Prior to Windows 8 Launch
Red Hat, Canonical and the Linux Foundation have laid out a set of
recommendations for hardware vendors in hopes of preserving the ability to
install Linux on Windows 8 machines. Windows 8 machines should ship in a
setup mode giving users more control right off the bat, the groups argue.
As we reported last month, Windows 8 computers that ship with UEFI secure
booting enabled could make the task of replacing Windows with Linux or
dual-booting the two operating systems more difficult. In order to get a
'Designed for Windows 8' logo, PCs must ship with secure boot enabled,
preventing the booting of operating systems that arent signed by a
trusted Certificate Authority.
Hardware vendors can give users the option of disabling the secure boot
feature - but they could also decline to do so, making it impossible to
run a non-Windows operating system. In practice, it seems unlikely that
dual-boot scenarios will be prevented entirely, but Linux vendors and the
Linux Foundation are worried about how UEFI secure booting will be
implemented.
In a paper titled "UEFI Secure Boot Impact on Linux," Red Hat and Canonical
warn that "Microsofts recommended implementation of secure boot removes
control of the system from the hardware owner, and may prevent open source
operating systems from functioning." Although Windows 8 isnt expected to
hit the market until later in 2012, the paper notes that hardware vendors
could start shipping UEFI-enabled systems in Q1 2012 in preparation for
Windows 8.
Red Hat and Canonical agree that UEFI secure boot brings security
advantages in malware prevention by protecting against rootkits and in
giving IT departments ability to dictate that only authorized OSes can be
booted. But given the potential impact on the freedom to install Linux and
other alternative operating systems, the open source vendors offer a few
recommendations.
These include that 'OEMs allow secure boot to be easily disabled and
enabled through a firmware configuration interface,' that hardware
vendors 'provide a standardized mechanism for configuring keys in system
firmware'; and that 'hardware ship in setup mode,' giving the end user
more control right up front.
How much control do users want?
This last recommendation could be problematic for hardware vendors
attempting to give a clean out-of-the-box experience to users, the vast
majority of whom simply want to use Windows and get the system up and
running quickly.
Red Hat and Canonical argue that "If the process required to disable secure
boot is difficult for non-technical users, then we risk restricting use of
unsigned software to a small portion of the market." One could also argue
that Linux installations are already restricted to a small portion of the
market, which tends to be technically savvy enough to work around the
restrictions expected in UEFI-enabled systems. However, Red Hat and
Canonical may be worried that future attempts to bring Linux desktops to
the mainstream will be impeded.
In a separate paper titled "Making UEFI Secure Boot Work With Open
Platforms," the Linux Foundation makes a recommendation similar to the one
offered by Red Hat and Canonical, saying 'all platforms that enable UEFI
secure boot should ship in setup mode where the owner has control over
which platform key (PK) is installed. It should also be possible for the
owner to return a system to setup mode in the future, if needed.'
The Linux Foundation further supports the establishment of an independent
certificate authority to issue keys to third-party hardware and software
vendors, presumably allowing Linux-based operating systems to be installed
and still gain the security benefits of UEFI secure boot. (The Free
Software Foundation has also weighed in with a petition directed at
hardware vendors.)
Microsoft, for its part, noted in a blog post last month that it does not
'mandate or control the settings on PC firmware that control or enable
secured boot from any operating system other than Windows,' but says UEFI
secure boot addresses a pre-operating system environment that is
vulnerable to attack.
"At the end of the day, the customer is in control of their PC," Microsoft
says. Without mentioning Linux by name, Microsoft said "For the enthusiast
who wants to run older operating systems, the option is there to allow you
to make that decision."
Indeed, as we noted last month, the Windows 8 developer system built by
Samsung and distributed at Microsofts BUILD conference contains the
option to disable secure boot. Since few computers ship with Linux
pre-installed, Linux groups hope that same option will be available on all
Windows 8 systems, and that it will be easily accessible even for users
who arent Linux experts.
Stupid Hacker Tricks: Exploits Gone Bad
If the Internet is the new Wild West, then hackers are the wanted outlaws
of our time. And like the gun-slinging bad boys before them, all it takes
is one wrong move to land them in jail.
Whether they are out to steal money or merely wreak havoc, the
consequences of an exploit gone bad can be harsh. And these days, the
margin for error can be measured in bits. After all, thanks to the
Internet's international nature, cyber outlaws have an awful lot of
sheriffs sniffing out their online footsteps.
[ For more real-world tales of brain fail, see "Stupid user tricks 5: IT's
weakest link." * Find out which of our eight classic IT personality types
best suit your temperament by taking the InfoWorld IT personality type
quiz. * Get a $50 American Express gift cheque if we publish your tech
tale from the trenches. Send it to offtherecord@infoworld.com. ]
Sometimes, though, the sheriffs don't have to work too hard. Clever as
they often are, hackers can turn boneheaded pretty quickly and slip up in
silly ways, leaving authorities a virtual road map pointing right to their
doorsteps.
Just ask the suspects in these five cases, all of whom have officially
earned a spot in InfoWorld's Stupid Hacker Tricks Hall of Shame.
Stupid hacker trick No. 1: Hack, tweet, repeat - until arrested
The suspect: Scott Arciszewski
The crime: Hacking an FBI-sponsored website
Dossier: Arciszewski is accused of hacking into the website of InfraGard,
an FBI-run program focused on cyber crime prevention. Yes, you read that
correctly: cyber crime prevention. In other words, if there were an
encyclopedia entry for "places you don't want to mess with," InfraGard
would top the list.
Common sense be damned, though, someone decided InfraGard needed to be
infiltrated. Apparently the company's ties with the government rubbed some
folks the wrong way; this past June, the hacking collective known as
LulzSec took credit for taking down one of the organization's sites,
citing recent computer crime legislation as the cause of its ire.
The incident connected to Arciszewski came just one month later, in July
2011. The FBI alleges that Arciszewski, a 21-year-old computer engineering
major at the University of Central Florida, broke into InfraGard's Tampa
Bay chapter website. He's accused of uploading a few files - animated
kitty GIFs, one can only hope - and then posting a link on Twitter showing
others how he skirted the website's security.
The tweet reportedly contained just eight words - "Infraguard [sic]
Tampa has one hell of an exploit" - along with a shortened link. That
turned out to be more than enough to send the bloodhounds on Arciszewski's
path.
The bust: FBI agents, none too pleased with their public flogging, set out
to find the guy who tore a hole in their virtual fence. It didn't take too
much work, from the sounds of it: According to reports, Arciszewski
retweeted his boast to the attention of the FBI's official press office
account. D'oh!
"Word of mouth leads to a lot of arrests," says Clifford Neuman, director
of the USC Center for Computer Systems Security. "Hackers often brag to
others on message boards and social [media] services, so detectives look
for indications like online postings and then start tracing forward from
that activity."
In Arciszewski's case, the feds tracked down the IP address used in the
attack and connected it to that troublesome tweet. According to Ryan J.
Reilly at TPM Idea Lab, the FBI went from Arciszewski's Twitter account to
his personal website. Before long, they found his real name, matched up
some photos, and showed up at his UCF dorm room with a warrant for his
arrest.
On the plus side, that may have been the most action Arciszewski's dorm
saw all semester.
Stupid hacker trick No. 2: Risqué Miley Cyrus pics arouse suspicion
The suspect: Josh Holly
The crime: Hacking celebrities' Internet accounts as part of a spam and
credit card-stealing caper
Dossier: It's no party in the U.S.A. these days for Josh Holly, the
21-year-old accused of hacking Miley Cyrus's Gmail account and posting
provocative pics of her online. Holly is currently facing criminal
charges - though, in a surprising twist, not for the semi-indecent
exposure of the then-15-year-old star.
Holly's trouble actually revolves around a series of spam-based credit
card thefts. In August, he pleaded guilty to felony charges stemming from
the possession of about 200 compromised credit card numbers. According to
the FBI, Holly hacked into numerous celebrities' MySpace accounts, then
used their accounts to spam the masses, reaching legions of responsive
followers and bringing in more than $100,000 in shadily obtained revenue.
So where does the lovely Ms. Cyrus factor into the equation? Holly
famously bragged about breaking into Miley's email and stealing her
risqué photos (which, of course, were plastered all over the Web in no
time). Holly told Wired the whole thing started when he broke into a
MySpace admin panel and found a plain-text list of passwords. He tried
Miley's MySpace password on a Gmail account she was known to use,
according to the interview - and sure enough, it worked.
The bust: Though Holly was never charged specifically for the Miley
incident, that high-profile hack appears to have played an integral role
in his arrest. The FBI followed his boastful bread crumbs and raided his
Tennessee home. They seized his computer and found all the evidence they
needed inside.
Holly seemed to spot his slip-ups pretty quickly - after the fact, at
least. In an interview conducted with Wired shortly after his arrest,
Holly is quoted as saying, "There's no way I can get out of this. ... I
was an idiot and I didn't delete any of my [hard drive data]. I never
thought they would raid me. They're going to get full proof [sic]
evidence of everything that I've said I've done."
Of course, the massive amounts of money moving through various accounts
probably didn't help, either. Where there's money, after all, there's
almost always a trail.
"Whenever there is required collusion - the exchange of a hack or credit
card number or anything like that - that creates a point of vulnerability
where information can be exposed," USC's Neuman explains.
Holly could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Stupid hacker trick No. 3: Boost score, get busted
The suspect: An unnamed 17-year-old from Manchester, U.K.
The crime: Launching a DDoS attack on the Call of Duty website and
bringing the game to a screeching halt
Dossier: The British teen is accused of using a tool called Phenom Booter
to perform a DDoS attack on the servers responsible for hosting the
popular Call of Duty video game. According to U.K. media reports, the
boy's goal was to keep other players from signing in and killing his
character - thereby allowing him to maintain a high score.
Ah, kids.
To his credit, the plot worked. It reportedly took the Call of Duty staff
several hours to get the site back up and running. In the meantime,
countless users were unable to get online and play.
Our junior hacker didn't stop with the single attack, though. Investigators
say he spent time scouting out other would-be hackers and offering to sell
them the secret to his score-boosting ruse.
The bust: Police tracked the teen to his home - where you can imagine Mum
and Dad were none too pleased.
While hackers often use proxies and redirection services to mask their
locations, it sounds like our amateur attacker didn't do much to hide.
Officers say they quickly figured out that the server responsible was
hosted in the United Kingdom. From there, it didn't take them long to
make their way to the Manchester neighborhood where Boy Wizard lived.
"Hackers only need to make a mistake once for that to be the piece of
evidence which ultimately identifies them," says Graham Cluley, senior
tech consultant at Sophos.
Needless to say, this little prank didn't have police laughing. "This type
of crime can often be the precursor to further offending in more
traditional areas of online crime," detectives told the Daily Mail.
"Spanky, spanky," the kid's parents probably added.
Stupid hacker trick No. 4: Pummel PayPal, get payback
The suspects: Christopher Cooper, Joshua Covelli, Keith Downey, Mercedes
Haefer, Donald Husband, Vincent Kershaw, Ethan Miles, James Murphy, Drew
Phillips, Jeffrey Puglisi, Daniel Sullivan, Tracy Valenzuela, Christopher
Vo, and one unnamed minor
The crime: Conducting a DDoS attack against PayPal
Dossier: When a handful of financial companies decided to stop handling
payments for donations to WikiLeaks last December, the Internet
temporarily went wild. Hackers from the group Anonymous cocked their guns
and fired, promising to take down anyone "bowing down" to what they called
"government pressure" to muzzle WikiLeaks' efforts.
For PayPal, that meant a bunch of bogus Internet traffic. Hackers around
the country conducted a DDoS attack against the site, allegedly using a
tool called "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" to send massive amounts of data into
PayPal. The goal, of course, was to overwhelm the company and cause its
service to collapse.
The bust: A "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" sounds impressive - but apparently,
the tool did a poor job of hiding its operators' locations. PayPal was
reportedly able to identify the IP addresses of different attackers in
its server logs, allowing authorities to use that data to dig up the
suspects.
"Even if hackers do redirect through other sites, it's frequently still
possible to track an attack back to them," USC's Neuman notes. "You trace
it back to one point, then you go through diplomatic channels to get the
authorities in the outside country to find and collect the logs. It's a
months-long process, but it can be done."
In this case, that kind of international effort wasn't even needed. FBI
agents conducted raids on the suspects' homes and made their arrests. And
remember: For someone with something to hide, a raid can spell serious
trouble.
"When they arrest them, they've got warrants," Neuman says. "Even though
the path back to them may have been somewhat obscured, they usually have
information on their own machines that shows they had the source code or
program related to the attack. A lot of individuals don't think it will
ever get to that point and don't even try to prepare."
Each suspect is charged with conspiring to cause damage and intentionally
causing damage to a protected computer - charges that, combined, carry
penalties of up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Some payback
indeed.
Stupid hacker trick No. 5: Chat up your iPad account hack, end up in the
clink. The suspects: Andrew Auernheimer and Daniel Spitler
The crime: Hacking into an AT&T database and exposing the email addresses
of thousands of iPad owners
Dossier: Aurenheimer and Spitler discovered a public script on AT&T's
website in which you could plug an ICCID number - a unique identifier
associated with each iPad's SIM card - and get back the email address of
the user who owns the device.
Armed with that knowledge, the two men, allegedly operating as "Goatse
Security," are accused of creating their own script called the "iPad 3G
Account Slurper." That script is said to have input random ID numbers in
rapid-fire succession. Every time it came across a legitimate one,
investigators say, it retrieved and logged the corresponding email
address.
Harmless, right? Not quite: The script harvested more than 100,000 email
addresses in all, including those of folks like New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and numerous
other national leaders. And the guys from Goatse didn't keep the info
quiet: The company is accused of offering the data to both News Corp. and
Thomson Reuters. It was Gawker, however, that eventually bit and published
a glimpse of the stolen tidbits, causing an embarrassing debacle for AT&T
and Apple alike.
The bust: Once the data dump went public, the pressure was on to find the
responsible parties. In this instance, once again, the old adage "loose
lips sink ships" may describe what brought Goatse Security down.
In their complaint against Aurenheimer and Spitler, prosecutors cite
numerous emails and chat logs in which the men appear to discuss the hack
and their involvement. One note even mentions the possibility of "iPad
focused spam" - something that certainly doesn't look good for anyone
mulling over the men's intentions.
"In the cases of less-professional cyber criminals, they may find it
irresistible to brag online about their activities, or leave nicknames in
their attacks, which ultimately help authorities unmask them," Cluley
points out.
Unmasked, perhaps - but hey, at least their email addresses weren't exposed.
How AOL Gets 3.5 Million People to Keep Paying for Dial-Up
The secret to AOL's 3.5 million dial-up subscribers: they're not paying
for dial-up. Completely baffled the fact that not only do 3.5 million
people still subscribe to AOL's dial-up service, but the company signed
up 200,000 new subscribers just this year, we asked AOL spokeswoman
Maureen Sullivan let us in on their magic. "We've been able to offer
increased subscription offerings to our long term customers, who in some
cases don't want or need dial-up access," she told The Atlantic Wire.
"What other services can we provide to them, that they value?" AOL asked
itself. So it keeps the money rolling in by offering other important
services, like McAfee Security and Suzanne Sommers Sexy Forever, a weight
loss program for women over 40.
The AOL subscriptions come in various flavors, ranging in prices from
$9.99 per month for a bare-bones package to $25.90 per month for the
highest level "AOL Total Advantage." It is not a great business. In the
company's latest earnings release, revenues from subscriptions were down
22 percent. But it's still big money with $192 million in subscriptions
reported for the quarter, 36 percent of the entire company's revenues.
This is how they described the mini-boom in new subscriptions in their
earnings
release:
Subscription revenue declines reflect a 15 percent and 3 percent
decline in domestic AOL-brand access subscribers and average revenue per
subscriber, respectively. During the quarter, AOL began a price
rationalization program and migrated certain individuals who did not
previously receive access service (and therefore were not included as
domestic AOL-brand access subscribers) to a higher priced plan with
additional services that included access service. As a result, domestic
AOL-brand access subscribers increased by approximately 200,000, leading
to a lower year-over-year rate of decline than we have seen in recent
quarters.
Some of those subscriptions, Sullivan told us, also apparently include
people who live in areas without access to broadband. And another subset
of people use it as a backup. But that really doesn't sound all too
appealing. Reverting back to dial-up from Broadband sounds like death.
Remember how long it took to download those Napster songs? Days!
Considering how far Internet has come from its screechy, sloth-like roots,
the continued existence of AOL's dial-up business and growing subscriber
base astounded the Internet. But it turns out that these people aren't
just paying for dial-up they're paying for other services. You can check out
the full list of "deals" at what AOL calls its Lifestore. We guess AOL's
just very good at scaring people into selling security systems?
=~=~=~=
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