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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 13 Issue 07
Volume 13, Issue 07 Atari Online News, Etc. February 18, 2010
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 #1307 02/18/10
~ CIFA Kills Kill Switch ~ People Are Talking! ~ More Browser Battles?
~ 'Do Not Track' System? ~ Gov't Employs Hackers! ~ Xoom Tablet Pricing!
~ Chrome Users Can Block ~ Hack Your PS3 and Lose! ~ LG Seeks Ban of PS3!
~ New Xerox Printer, Ink ~ Vermont Mulls Alias Ban ~ Teacher Strikes Nerve!
-* U.S. Internet Freedom Plan! *-
-* Lost Cojones of American Journalism? *-
-* House Votes To Overturn FCC Internet Rules *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Finally, some weather around here that hasn't chilled us to the bone or
buried us in tons of snow! And we actually experienced a couple of days
with relatively warm temperatures. Sure things will go downhill starting
this weekend, but it was nice to see the sun and feel some warmth again!
Even one of the dogs dared to venture out onto the snow - packed four feet
deep. He didn't venture far, but it's a start.
A lot of interesting articles this week. One, in particular, I had given
some thought about long before this article appeared online, but hadn't
said anything about the topic. Thanks to Fred Horvat for sending it along
to me, and ultimately to you. I won't delve into it too deeply here
because I'd rather you read it for yourself, but I did want to make a few
observations and comments.
I graduated college in 1975, with a degree in journalism. If you're old
enough to remember, this period of time was a tumultuous one for politics
and journalism. The Vietnam War was coming to an "end", Nixon was having
his problems with Watergate and the Pentagon Papers were being published.
I had thoughts of becoming an investigative reporter, but had some doubts,
both personal and professional. But that period of time in America was
a significant one for journalism.
How this pertains to the article in this issue is obvious to those who
read the news back then and remembers how it all came about. Like much
of the significant news you read and hear about almost every day is
something that journalists' sources hint at, or information that is
provided to them. And journalists will follow up and investigate
further, and report it. Journalists like Daniel Ellsburg and Bob Woodward
didn't write the Pentagon Papers - they reported them. In the news world,
they were heroes, and rightfully so. Today, Julian Assange, the head of
WikiLeaks, is being vilified for his publishing of tons of documents that
he obtained from a military leak. And the American press is essentially
taking no stance in the matter. What's the difference? Because WikiLeaks
isn't a typical news medium? Assange isn't an American? What? Perhaps
the journalistic code has gone by the wayside, I don't know.
Anyway, read the article; I think you'll find it interesting. Come up with
your own conclusions, and maybe you'll agree. You may not, but that's okay
too. That's what is great about living in a free country!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, I wanted to talk a little about Egypt
last week, but I also wanted to see how things might... shake out. How
things looked as they progressed. In this day of rapid-fire news and
happenings, it's easy to forget that something like a 'revolution' can
take years.
Now, a week later, there isn't really a lot more known (I'm writing this
much earlier in the week than I usually do, so there are bound to be
developments that I'm not including here. But in general, what we have here
is, by some accounts, a brutal regime that has repressed its own
people under the guise of security.
Of course, I'm no expert on either Egypt or the Middle East, so I can't
peak with any authority on most of what's going on. What I CAN do is the
same thing that you can... Research.
If you're of a mind to, you can go to the CIA's website (yes, the Central
Intelligence Agency) and browse and/or download their World Factbook
(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/download/download-2011/factbook.zip).
If you want to trust the CIA to have accurate information on people and
countries, this is a very good source. It's updated often and has all kinds
of information for inquiring minds.
Anyway, the situation in Egypt is something that hasn't made the front
pages very often until recently. It's been a 'friendly' country for a long
time. It's people are mostly Muslim (about 90%, mostly Sunni), and yet
they signed a peace treaty with Israel... something their president paid
for with his life.
And yes, we tend to think of the Egypt of three thousand years ago when we
hear the name. Pharaohs, mummies, pyramids and scarabs, Women all dressed
like Cleopatra (who was Greek, not Egyptian), men in ornate golden
headdresses or shaved bald and looking like the King of Siam ("So it is
written; so it shall be done"), and throngs of slaves building pyramids and
monuments, the Egyptian religion with all those strange images, but Egypt,
as I said, is mostly Muslim now, and the sensibilities of its people are
Muslim.
That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. You can be Muslim and not plot
the downfall of the western world, and I don't see the need to beat that
theme to death here. What I DO want to beat to death is the idea that
communications... the way we communicate and the hardware and software we
use... has changed almost every facet of our lives and we now take it for
granted. We don't even realize it anymore.
Now, you may be asking yourself; "what does that have to do with Egypt or
Egypt with this?"
The short answer is that it doesn't. The slightly less short answer is that
how we communicate has changed everything for us. Even the "revolution"
(and I only put quotes around it because it remains to be seen how it will
all wash out) in Egypt and the unrest in Iran right are affected by the
new technology.
I remember the first time I ever heard of Twitter. There was an American
college student in Egypt filming a documentary, and he aroused the ire of
the police. The police arrested him and his local guide and (I think)
translator.
The police, evidently, were not as up-to-date as he was, and they neglected
to confiscate his cell phone. While he was waiting to be processed, he was
able to 'tweet' that he'd been taken by the police. His friends, of which
there were many, contacted everybody they could think of from the news
media to the Department of State.
The student was released, but his guide/interpreter was not as lucky and
to my knowledge and memory, has not been heard from since.
Now, would the student have been released anyway because he was American
and the local constabulary was afraid of repercussions from either the
United States or their own government? Would the student still have been
released had he not had the presence of mind to mobilize the people? Maybe
we'll never know for sure, but we should also wonder what would have
happened if the Egyptian interpreter had tweeted as well.
It may seem to you like I'm ignoring the bigger and more important picture
here, but let's face it, there are a million different opinions out there
every time something happens. The last thing the world needs is MY opinion.
But within that thought is my premise. There ARE a million different
opinions on just about everything that happens, as soon as it happens.
Gone are the days when news from around the world had to be transported
via sailing ship, gone are the times when news transmitted most easily by
newspaper, taking days at a minimum, or later, radio, then television.
Yes, radio and television brought us the news at the speed of light, but
it was still one-way communication.
Today, the internet has provided us with instantaneous feedback. Something
'hits' and there's instant response. People can now actually communicate
back or send there feedback to where it'll (hopefully) do the most good.
Meanwhile, there's a revolution or two going on, and people are still
dying the old fashioned way. Many of us had hoped that this new age of
communication, this ability to respond, this instant feedback ability
would have, if not eliminated the need for revolutions, at least
minimized the need for bloodshed. Perhaps were only part way to where we
need to be for that. Perhaps we'll never get there, or perhaps its right
around the corner. There's only one way to find out, and that's to push
through.
So on the count of three, all together now....
Well, that's it for this time around, friends and neighbors. 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 - Activision Wants Take-Two!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" LG Sues Sony, Wants PS3 Ban!
Hack Your PS3, Forfeit...!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Activision-Blizzard Wants to Acquire Take-Two
"Call of Duty" maker Activision-Blizzard is trying to buy Take-Two
Interactive, the publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, according
to a report.
A senior executive told trade magazine MCV that rumors of a "shock
acquisition" are circulating at a "very senior level" at the company.
The acquisition would add a stable of bestselling video games to
Activision's library: "Grand Theft Auto," "Red Dead Redemption," the "2K
Sports" series, to name a few.
Activision-Blizzard and Take-Two were not immediately available for
comment.
In 2008, Electronic Arts spent six months trying to acquire Take-Two
for up to $2 billion, but the latter rejected the offers as "inadequate"
Last week, Activision-Blizzard officially ended its "Guitar Hero"
business unit, blaming sluggish sales and high costs of music licensing.
Its shares plunged around 8 percent after the announcement. At the same
time, the company stopped production of the unreleased "True Crime: Hong
Kong," which was believed to have been fully developed.
Lately Activision-Blizzard has had more commercial success with video
games. "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm"," launched on December 7, sold 3.3
million copies worldwide in its first 24 hours and 4.7 million in its first
month. "Call of Duty: Black Ops" has hit more than $1 billion in retail
sales worldwide. Activision released the first Xbox Live add-on pack for
the game on February 1, dubbed "First Strike," which received 1.4 million
downloads in the first 24 hours, a 25 percent increase over last year's
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" add-on.
LG Sues Sony, Seeks Ban of PlayStation 3
First Sony brought a civil suit against LG Electronics alleging patent
infringement. Seoul-based LG has responded with a similar complaint of its
own that, if successful, would ban the PlayStation 3 in the United States.
Bloomberg reports on the back and forth squabble going on between the two
consumer electronics giants, which dates back to December 28 when Sony
alleged LG mobile phones and Blu-ray players infringe on more than seven
Sony patents.
Most recently, on February 4, LG fired back, filing two complaints with
the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington alleging Sony's
Blu-ray players, including the PS3, infringe on four of its patents.
According to Bloomberg, LG's Blu-ray patents are for a way of dealing with
multiple data streams, such as different camera angles, as well as a
system to reproduce data that's stored on a read-only device.
The International Trade Commission is now investigating the claims from
both companies, and the organization has the power to block imports of
products that it deems have infringed on patents.
Both Sony and LG have also brought their cases to federal court in
California seeking compensation for the unauthorized use of their
inventions.
Hack Your PS3, Forfeit PlayStation Network Access Forever
Circumvent Sony's PlayStation 3 security algorithms or run unauthorized
software on your PS3 and Sony says it'll sever your access to its
PlayStation Network for good. That's Sony's not-really-surprising
official position on unsanctioned PS3-fiddling, just announced courtesy
its PlayStation Blog.
"Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or
pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access
to Qriocity [music and movie download] services through PlayStation 3
system terminated permanently," reads the salient portion of the
statement.
"To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all
circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software
from their PlayStation 3 systems."
What the statement doesn't address is the question some have about
hacking the PS3 to run alternative operating systems like Linux. Sony
originally allowed and supported Linux installs with an "Other OS"
option, but removed it a few years later over "security concerns."
While hackers have probed the PS3's security routines for years, they've
never fully "unlocked" the device until recently, when iOS jailbreaker
George "Geohot" Hotz posted the PS3's root security key, allowing anyone
to decrypt and sign PS3 code.
Sony's was initially silent about the hack, but in mid-January issued a
civil complaint against Hotz and others involved in reverse-engineering
the root security code. Today's PlayStation Blog announcement marks the
first direct public statement addressing the issue, as well as specifying
what'll happen if you're found in violation of Sony's PlayStation Network
"terms of service" and "user agreement."
It sounds like this one's could bounce around for some time before it's
sorted in court. At issue: Whether hacking your PS3 to run Linux is
analogous to hacking an iPhone to run unofficial software. The U.S.
government exempted iPhone jailbreaking from the DMCA (Digital Millennium
Copyright Act) earlier this year, implying (if not explicitly stating)
that jailbreaking is legal.
But is "jailbreaking" your PS3 legal? Is Hotz's hack even technically a
"jailbreak"? What does it mean that most probably want the hack to
pirate games?
We'll see, but Sony's position in the meantime is pretty unambiguous:
Fool with the hack, and you're off the grid for good.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Clinton To Lay Out U.S. Internet Freedom Plan
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will unveil a new U.S. push for global
Internet freedoms on Tuesday, citing Internet-fired protests in Egypt and
Iran as examples of how new technologies can spark political
transformation.
Clinton, making her second major address on Internet policy amid growing
evidence of how communications technologies can transform politics
around the globe, will underscore U.S. commitments to a free, open and
secure Internet, the State Department said on Monday, releasing excerpts
of her speech.
"There is a debate underway in some circles about whether the Internet
is a force for liberation or repression. But as the events in Iran,
Egypt and elsewhere have shown, that debate is largely beside the
point," one excerpt of Clinton's speech says.
"What matters is what people who go online do there, and what principles
should guide us as we come together in cyberspace. That question becomes
more urgent every day," Clinton will say, according to the excerpts of
her address.
Under Clinton, the U.S. State Department has pushed Internet freedom as
a basic human right, although it has also struggled with the
consequences as it seeks to control the damage wrought by the WikiLeaks
release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.
Clinton has condemned the WikiLeaks releases, saying they are based on
stolen information that threatens both U.S. security as well as the
wellbeing of confidential sources including human rights activists and
others cited in the cable traffic.
But she has also strongly defended the basic value of a free Internet,
saying social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook can give
voice to people's aspirations as seen in protests in Tunisia, Egypt,
Iran and elsewhere.
The State Department, previewing Clinton's speech at a Washington, D.C.
university on Tuesday, said she would "reaffirm U.S. support for a free
and open Internet and underscore the importance of safeguarding both
liberty and security, transparency and confidentiality, and freedom of
expression and tolerance."
"Our allegiance to the rule of law does not dissipate in cyberspace.
Neither does our commitment to protecting civil liberties and human
rights," Clinton will say, according to the speech excerpts.
Clinton has made Internet freedom a central plank of U.S. foreign
policy, and last year called efforts by some governments to control
their citizens' access to the Internet as "the modern day equivalent of
the Berlin Wall."
The forceful U.S. stance on the Internet has led to friction with China
and other countries, which the United States has accused of hacking and
censorship in an attempt to control the flow of information.
Along with China, Clinton has cited Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among
countries that censored the Internet or harassed bloggers -- and in
Egypt and Iran, opposition protests have been fueled in part by new
Internet technologies that allow people to organize.
The clash over the Internet was thrown into stark relief last year when
search giant Google Inc threatened to quit China's market amid charges
of hacking and censorship, although it later devised a work-around that
it said both complied with Chinese law and its own pledge to allow users
broad access to the Internet.
Clinton, who has directed the State Department to work on ways to
broaden global Internet access and prevent authoritarian governments
from using the technology to suppress dissent, will underscore that
there is no turning back from the increasingly networked society.
"History has shown us that repression often sows the seeds for
revolution down the road. Those who clamp down on Internet freedom may
be able to hold back the full impact of their people's yearnings for a
while, but not forever," her speech says.
House Votes To Overturn FCC Internet Rules
The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to overturn proposed rules
that bar Internet service providers from blocking legal content but give
some discretion to ration access for bandwidth hogs.
The vote - which was spearheaded by Republican lawmakers determined to
undo a range of Obama administration initiatives - would block funds to
implement rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission in
December.
The measure was added as an amendment to a sweeping spending bill that
will fund the government for the rest of the current fiscal year.
To become law, the measure would also need to pass the Senate, where
Democrats hold a majority, and get President Barack Obama's signature.
No vote has been scheduled for the measure in the Senate.
In debate on Thursday, Republican Representative Steve Scalise said the
rule would stand in the way of innovation and kill jobs.
"We think the FCC overstepped their boundaries," he said. "This is
something that should be done and solved in the halls of Congress."
But Democratic Representative Edward Markey said killing the rule would
squash innovation. He said regulators have in the past stepped in to
ensure competition - as they did when AT&T fought the sale of
telephones made by other companies to replace their black rotary
telephones.
"Verizon's not going to invent anything new. What they want to do is
squeeze competitors," Markey said.
In a lawsuit filed in January against the rule, Verizon Communications
argues the FCC overstepped its authority.
In December, the FCC voted 3-2 to ban Internet service providers like
Verizon and Comcast Corp from blocking traffic but gave them some
discretion to ration access and manage their networks. The FCC's two
Republicans voted against the measure.
The split highlighted a divide between those who say the Internet will
flourish without regulation and those who say the power of high-speed
Internet providers to discriminate against competitors needs to be
restrained.
Verizon filed its complaint with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia.
The same court ruled last year that the FCC lacked the authority to stop
Comcast from blocking bandwidth-hogging applications on its broadband
network, spurring the agency's most recent rulemaking effort.
House Votes to Block Funding for FCC Net Neutrality Rules
As promised, House Republicans took on the Federal Communications
Commission's net neutrality rules this week, voting to suspend funding for
the agency's controversial plan.
By a vote of 244 to 181, the House approved an amendment to a spending bill
that would halt funding for the plan, which was approved in December.
Though the issue is generally split among party lines, 10 Democrats voted
in favor of the amendment, and four Republicans voted against it.
The Internet "does not need to be regulated by an unelected group of
federal bureaucrats," Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, said in a
statement. "Net regulation will discourage investment and innovation
precisely when we need it most, especially in light of our push to
increase broadband deployment. The FCC should not stand in the way of
Internet innovation and expansion."
Stearns, who joined with Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon to introduce the
amendment, said any Internet regulations should be approved by Congress
"only after holding deliberative hearings and with a vote by elected
officials."
The vote comes several days after Walden and Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan
Republican, joined Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Kay Bailey
Hutchison of Texas to author a joint resolution of disapproval regarding
the FCC's net neutrality rules.
A joint resolution of disapproval, part of the Congressional Review Act,
would need to pass with a majority in both chambers, then survive a veto
from President Obama, so passage is unlikely. The Walden amendment also
needs to survive additional votes.
In December, the FCC approved net neutrality rules along party lines. The
order provides three high-level rules: transparency; no blocking; and no
unreasonable discrimination. The order received support from Chairman
Julius Genachowski and Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon
Clyburn, but was not approved by Republican commissioners Robert McDowell
and Meredith A. Baker.
Republicans swiftly vowed to take the rules down. Democrats, however, said
the rules did not go far enough; Sen. Maria Cantwell unveiled net
neutrality legislation intended to strengthen the rules.
The main issue is whether the FCC has the authority to regulate broadband
in the first place. In April, a court ruled that the FCC had no right to
hand down a 2008 network management enforcement action against Comcast,
throwing the FCC's broadband authority into question. The FCC later
maintained that it has authority via the Communications Act, but others
disagree.
Verizon and MetroPCS the FCC <sic>, arguing that it lacks the authority
to regulate broadband. In its response, the FCC said the suits should be
dismissed because Verizon and MetroPCS filed their complaints too soon.
US Bill Would Prohibit Internet 'Kill Switch'
Three U.S. senators criticized for past legislation that would allow the
president to potentially quarantine or shut down parts of the Internet
during a major cyberattack have introduced a new bill that would put
limits on that authority.
The Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act, introduced late Thursday,
would explicitly deny the president or other U.S. officials "authority
to shut down the Internet." The legislation, similar in many ways to a
controversial 2010 bill, comes after persistent criticism that the
bill's sponsors want to give the president a so-called Internet kill
switch.
"We want to clear the air once and for all," Senator Joe Lieberman, a
Connecticut independent, said in a statement. "There is no so-called
'kill switch' in our legislation because the very notion is antithetical
to our goal of providing precise and targeted authorities to the
president. Furthermore, it is impossible to turn off the Internet in
this country."
In 2010, the bill's sponsors - Lieberman, Maine Republican Susan
Collins and Delaware Democrat Tom Carper - introduced a wide-ranging
cybersecurity bill that would have defined emergency powers that the
president could use, including shutting down parts of the Internet, when
there's an "ongoing or imminent" cyberattack on the nation's critical
infrastructure.
The new legislation has similar language, again allowing the president to
take emergency measures to protect critical infrastructure. But the new
bill adds language saying that the president, federal cybersecurity
officials and other government employees do not have the authority to shut
down the Internet.
The three senators, all members of the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee, argued that the bill would limit broad
powers the president has in the Communications Act of 1934 to take over
or shut down wired and radio communications during war time. But critics
said the bill, which failed to pass through Congress, would give the
president broad and ambiguous authority.
Representatives of the Center for Democracy and Technology and the
Computer and Communications Industry Association, two critics of the
2010 cybersecurity bill, weren't immediately available for comment on
the new legislation.
Some critics have continued say the 2010 bill had a kill switch
provision, with comparisons to Internet shutdowns in Egypt and other
Middle Eastern countries in recent weeks, even though the legislation
did not authorize presidential power to shut down the entire Internet in
the U.S.
The persistent kill-switch criticisms were distracting from a serious
debate about cybersecurity measures the U.S. needs, Lieberman said.
"The so-called 'internet kill switch' debate has eclipsed discussion of
actual, substantive provisions in this bill that would significantly
improve the security of all Americans," he said in a statement.
The new, 221-page bill mirrors parts of the 2010 bill. The new bill
would require owners of critical infrastructure to fix
cybervulnerabilties and would create a national center focused on
preventing and responding to cyberattacks. The bill also would reform
the cybersecurity rules for federal agencies, and it would establish a
cybersecurity research and development program in the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security.
New legislation is needed to protect U.S. networks, Collins said.
Computer systems in Congress and the U.S. executive branch were attacked
1.8 billion times a month as of early 2010, she noted.
"The threat of a catastrophic cyber attack is real," she said in a
statement. "Attacks are happening now."
Experts have questioned whether anyone has the ability to shut down the
Internet in the U.S., but the bill makes it "crystal clear" that the
president cannot take that action, Collins added.
Congress Takes Stab at "Do Not Track" Legislation
Momentum is building behind the US Federal Trade Commission call for some
sort of "do not track" system. Each of the major Web browser vendors have
come up with their own unique approach to preventing Web surfing habits
from being tracked, and now Congress is getting in on the act with pending
"do not track" legislation.
I spoke with Behnam Dayanim, co-chair of Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider's
Litigation and Regulatory Group. Behn has extensive experience in U.S.
and global personal-data privacy issues and shared some thoughts about
the "Do Not Track' bill, and what we can expect going forward.
Behn explained that this legislation is the first effort in the United
States to classify an IP address as personal or sensitive information
worthy of protection. Behn added "The bill leaves quite a lot to the
Federal Trade Commission to sort out. That is a reasonable approach--and
a refreshing change from how much congressional legislation is drafted--
but it would portend a vigorous and likely difficult rulemaking if
enacted, as the FTC attempts to implement its mandate."
If the FTC wants to know how much fun that game is, it need look no
further than the FCC. The FCC has a similarly broad mandate to regulate
interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire,
satellite and cable. However, virtually every FCC decision or attempt at
fulfilling that mandate is met with massive resistance from the GOP and
an overwhelming lobbying effort by the industries the FCC is charged with
overseeing.
Behn describes one example of the nuanced minefield this legislation
might create for the FTC. "It defines "sensitive information" to include
information that "relates directly" to an individual's physical or
mental health. That definition raises a lot of questions - if I visit
WebMD or a site for a psychiatric center near me, does that browsing
behavior "relate" to my physical or mental health? In truth, the answer
may depend on why I went there - for myself, for a loved one, out of
idle curiosity."
The legislation itself takes a broad approach rather than directing
specific solutions. Some sort of universal opt-out framework--similar to
the telemarketing "do not call" registry, would be best, but the bill
leaves open the possibility that "do not track" could be implemented at
the browser level. That system requires a lot of user awareness and
interaction, though--like requiring people to register for different "do
not call" plans depending on which phone hardware or phone company they
use.
The FTC could take up the challenge and develop a more universal opt-out
approach, but like FCC efforts to impose net neutrality, any FTC attempt
to regulate on a broad scale is bound to be met with controversy and
resistance.
Ultimately, though, Behn is confident the bill will not pass - at least
not in its entirety or in its current form. "Although we may see some
internet privacy legislation from this Congress, I would not rate the
chances as high, and any bill that does pass will reflect more of a
self-regulatory bent than is reflected in Rep. Speier's bill."
Government Employs Hackers in Brave New Scheme
Since the dawn of computing there's been a cold war between those who
run computer systems and those who attack them.
And never the twain shall meet - at least until now.
Speaking at the ShmooCon hacker convention in Washinton, D.C., Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project manager Peiter Zatko has
announced Cyber Fast Track, a new scheme that will rely on the skills of
"small organizations, boutiques, hacker spaces, [and] maker labs" in order
to find cybersecurity solutions.
Zatko is perhaps best known in hacker circles by the handle of "Mudge,"
and as the one-time member of the L0pht and Cult of the Dead Cow
collectives. He created the legendary password-cracking tool L0phtCrack and
was one of the first to highlight buffer overflow hacks in 1995. In 1998 he
famously told a Senate committee that hackers could bring down the Internet
within 30 minutes.
The nature of government contracting means that cybersecurity projects
undertaken by the Department of Defense typically involve millions of
dollars and are designed to take years to complete. There's nothing
wrong with that, Zatko claims, but more agile thinking is necessary.
Zatko described what he called the "asymmetry" between the ease of
creating malware compared to the solutions used to defend against it; a
piece of malware typically involves 125 lines of computer code, he said,
and that's stayed the same since 1985. However, the latest unified
threat management solutions involve around 10,000,000 lines of code,
having risen from the same kind of figures as malware in 1985.
Attaching a one dollar value to each line of code, it's clear that
creating defensive solutions is becoming increasingly expensive,
complex, and time consuming, while malware is remaining simple to produce.
Zatko's solution is to harness those within the hacking community who
typically present research at black or white hat conventions but whose
work flies under the radar of DARPA. He intends to harness teams or
individuals employed on the back of short fixed-price DARPA contracts to
produce results within months rather than years.
"I went over to the dark side because they need it," Zatko explained in
his keynote, referring to his employment by DARPA, and adding later: "I
want the government to modify and change."
So will it work?
To answer the question it's necessary to understand what motivates
hackers: curiosity, a sense of fun, and community. Finding out secrets
within software or hardware is a reward within itself, but sharing those
secrets with others increases standing among your peers.
Although hackers have had various criticisms leveled at them over the
years, few have ever suggested hackers are motivated by money. That kind
of thinking is limited to fiction.
However, mere pecuniary advantage isn't what Zatko is using to motivate
his former comrades. He spoke of creating "hacker incubators" and made
it clear that the DoD would not request commercial rights to any
innovations discovered.
Essentially, Zatko wants to sponsor researchers, rather than providing
them with rewards if they do well. This is much more in thinking with
typical hacker aspirations - getting somebody to pay the bills while they
do the things they love. And, in any case, at the end of the process the
hacker or team concerned is free to seek all the rewards they can get
for the work.
Zatko merely wants to exploit the huge brain power and creativity of the
hacker community, and as a former member, he knows exactly what makes it
tick. Although his scheme will not go into operation for a few months
yet, the signs are that it might produce results that improve security
for all of us.
Vermont Mulls Ban on Aliases Online for Sex Offenders
Vermont lawmakers are considering making it a crime for convicted sex
offenders to use false names on social media sites like Facebook, after one
such incident was reported in the state.
Only two states have related measures, said Erik Fitzpatrick, a lawyer
on the research staff for the Vermont Legislature: New York and Illinois
bar convicted sex offenders from using social networking sites at all as
a condition of their probation. The National Conference of State
Legislatures was unaware of similar laws or pending legislating in other
states.
A former teacher at a school for boys who had committed sex crimes told
a state Senate committee Friday that he spotted a Facebook profile last
fall with a picture of a former student in the program who was using an
alias.
Chuck Laramie, the former teacher, said the 26-year-old man had become
Facebook friends with 14- and 15-year-old girls.
The man was convicted in 2004 of sexual assault, defined in Vermont law
as engaging in a sex act with another person without that person's
consent, and has not completed a sex offender treatment program, the
state's online sex offender registry shows.
Laramie said he saw Facebook messages the man sent the girls, telling
them he was "struggling with his sexuality and thinking he might be gay.
Some of the girls were replying by saying, 'Oh, no, you're not.' He was
getting these young girls to feel sympathy for him," Laramie said. "It
was a classic grooming situation" in which sexual predators
psychologically manipulate potential victims.
If the man were a sex offender trying not to re-offend, that was "an
extremely high-risk situation to put yourself in," Laramie said.
Facebook takes extensive steps, including teams of internal
investigators working with law enforcement agents around the country,
when it detects people on its network behaving suspiciously, the company
said in a statement. Contacting minors or users of predominantly one
gender are seen as clues, and Facebook uses systems including a national
database of convicted sex offenders to do real-time checks, the
statement said.
"Protecting our users, especially the many children who use Facebook,
has always been a top priority for us. We've devoted significant
resources to developing innovative and complex systems to proactively
monitor the site and its users," the company said.
Some state senators questioned whether Vermont could ban sex offenders
from using computers altogether, but one, Sen. Jeanette White, a Windham
Democrat, noted that many public services, such as applying for extended
unemployment benefits, require using computers.
The bill under review would make the crime a misdemeanor punishable by
up to two years in jail. The committee said it would continue to
consider the bill.
Champions Shaping Up for Browser Battles
Google on Friday released a revved-up version of Chrome as rivals Microsoft
and Mozilla beefed up their own champions for the competitive Internet
browsing software arena.
In keeping with the arrival of the lunar year of the rabbit, Googleproduct
managers Jeff Chang and Li Chan touted the latest test versionof Chrome as
"quick as a bunny."
The latest Chrome release came a week after Microsoft fielded an Internet
Explorer 9 (IE9) "release candidate" boasting improvements in speed,
security, privacy, and website graphics capabilities.
IE9 had been downloaded more than two million times as of Friday, according
to Ryan Gavin, the senior director of the IE team.
"We are especially excited to see the number of partners and developers
embracing IE9 and taking advantage of the performance capabilities,"
Gavin said in a blog post.
Mozilla last week released a test version of its Firefox 4 web browser
with enhancements that included a "Do Not Track" feature people could use
to signal websites that they don't want their online activities recorded.
"We've continued our work to improve performance and stability, while also
implementing a 'Do Not Track' privacy feature to provide more control over
online behavioral tracking," Mozilla said.
Firefox debuted in 2004 as an innovative, communally crafted open-source
browser released as an option to Internet Explorer.
Google last month released extension software for its Chrome browser that
lets users opt out of being tracked by a growing set of companies adopting
industry privacy standards regarding online advertising.
"Keep My Opt-Outs" lets people opt out of having snippets of code referred
to as "cookies" installed on their computers to track online behavior for
the purpose of targeting ads.
Microsoft "Tracking Protection" was built into IE9, but users need to be
savvy enough to activate the feature and create lists of the third-party
websites that they do not want to track their behavior.
Internet Explorer is the most widely used Web browser in the United States
followed by Firefox, Chrome and Apple's Safari.
Chrome Users Can Block Unwanted Websites
Google on Monday gave users of its Chrome Web browser the ability to block
search results from low-quality websites known as content farms.
Google's principal engineer Matt Cutts said Chrome users can download
and install an extension for Chrome that blocks sites which provide
"shallow or low-quality content" from their search results.
"When you block a site with the extension, you won't see results from
that domain again in your Google search results," Cutts said in a blog
post.
"If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to
Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as
a potential ranking signal for our search results."
Cutts said the Chrome extension was available in French, German,
Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish in addition to English.
The announcement was Google's latest move in the fight against poor
quality search results generated by content farms, which produce
hundreds or thousands of poor quality pages a day in a bid to attract
traffic to their advertisements.
Last month, the company announced moves to make it harder for spam-packed
websites to rank high in search results.
Google is the dominant search engine in the United States, enjoying a
65.6 percent share of the US online search market at the end of January,
according to tracking firm comScore.
ComScore said 16.1 percent of US online searches in January were done at
Yahoo! websites, which are powered by Bing, while Bing handled 13.1
percent of online queries during the month.
Motorola's Xoom Tablet Priced at $799
Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc's Xoom tablet will sell for an unsubsidized
$799 at Verizon Wireless, with WiFi-only version priced at around $600
price, chief executive Sanjay Jha said on Wednesday.
"Competing with Apple you have to deliver premium products," Jha said,
adding Xoom software was also upgradable.
Motorola is a latecomer to the surging market for tablet computers,
which was created by Apple's iPad last year, and is expected to reach
total sales volumes of around 50 million units this year.
Jha said nearly all Motorola products will use Google's Android software
this year, which could get a boost from Nokia's pact to start using
Microsoft's software.
"I am as focused on Android as I ever have been. As a result of Nokia
adopting Microsoft it's possible that some of the other players
concentrate on Android," Jha told reporters in Barcelona on sidelines of
Mobile World Congress trade show.
He said he hoped alternative operating systems to Android would still
stay on the market.
"I hope there will be at least three or four. I love Android, but I hope
as hell there won't be just one."
Jha also said the company was looking at possibly having its own
application store.
Future Xerox Printer Uses New Ink, Heats Paper
Xerox on Monday offered a glimpse into the future of its printing
products, announcing a high-speed inkjet printer that employs a new type
of liquid-free ink to produce higher quality prints while reducing costs.
The new printer uses a granulated formulation of resin-based ink, which
feels much like sand to the touch, said Wayne Buchar, a product engineer
at Xerox. The printing process involves melting the ink and heating the
paper, which helps capture and freeze ink to produce vivid images.
The combination of granular ink and heating of paper eliminates the need
to dry paper after printing is complete, Buchar said. Many printers use
water-based inks, which could suffer from bleed-through and dull color,
and usually require more expensive and specially-treated papers to
accelerate the drying process.
The printer is initially targeted at organizations printing documents
such as marketing material or bank statements in high volumes, said
Tracy Yelencsics, vice president of production segment and program
marketing at Xerox. Installations of the printer will begin in the
second half of this year, and Yelencsics declined to comment on whether
the technologies in this printer would reach end-consumer products.
The new printer has the characteristics of traditional laser printers,
which use toners, and solid-ink printers, which use blocks of solid ink,
Buchar said. To operate the printers, users have to buy granulated ink,
which is transferred to barrels in the printer. The printer then blows
the ink granules from the barrels through pipes to melters, where the
granules convert to liquid. The ink is then sent to printheads, which
spray the ink on warm paper. The printer employs sensors that scans
billions of droplets per second to ensure printing precision.
Xerox also melts ink in its solid-ink printers, but the print process
uses aluminum drums to hold and melt the ink. This printer employs a
more efficient process as it sprays the melted ink directly on warm
paper, Buchar said.
The printer can print up to 2,180 two-sided pages per minute, Yelencsics
said. It can also print on low-cost and plain paper.
The printer also help save costs by unifying multiple printing
processes, Yelencsics said. For example, commercial printers may use
separate color and black and white printers to print headers and
personalized information on documents such as bank statements. The new
printer's ability to print in all colors at fast rates on uncoated and
normal paper could reduce the need for multiple printers, which could
help reduce printing, warehousing and mailing costs, Yelencsics said.
Pennsylvania Teacher Strikes Nerve With 'Lazy Whiners' Blog
A high school English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was suspended
for a profanity-laced blog in which she called her young charges
"disengaged, lazy whiners" is driving a debate by daring to ask: Why are
today's students unmotivated - and what's wrong with calling them out?
As she fights to keep her job at Central Bucks East High School,
30-year-old Natalie Munroe says she had no interest in becoming any sort
of educational icon. The blog has been taken down, but its contents can
still be found easily online.
Her comments and her suspension by the middle-class school district have
clearly touched a nerve, with scores of online commenters applauding her
for taking a tough love approach or excoriating her for verbal abuse.
Media attention has rained down, and backers have started a Facebook
group.
"My students are out of control," Munroe, who has taught 10th, 11th and
12th grades, wrote in one post. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy
whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades,
complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they
desire, and are just generally annoying."
And in another post, Munroe - who is more than eight months pregnant -
quotes from the musical "Bye Bye Birdie": "Kids! They are disobedient,
disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy LOAFERS."
She also listed some comments she wished she could post on student
evaluations, including: "I hear the trash company is hiring"; "I called
out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son"; and "Just as bad as
his sibling. Don't you know how to raise kids?"
Munroe did not use her full name or identify her students or school in
the blog, which she started in August 2009 for friends and family. Last
week, she said, students brought it to the attention of the school,
which suspended her with pay.
"They get angry when you ask them to think or be creative," Munroe said
of her students in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.
"The students are not being held accountable."
Munroe pointed out that she also said positive things, but she
acknowledges that she did write some things out of frustration - and of
a feeling that many kids today are being given a free pass at school and
at home.
"Parents are more trying to be their kids' friends and less trying to be
their parent," Munroe said, also noting students' lack of patience.
"They want everything right now. They want it yesterday."
One of Munroe's former students, who now attends McDaniel College in
Westminster, Md., said he was torn by his former teacher's comments.
Jeff Shoolbraid said that he thought much of what Munroe said was true
and that she had a right to voice her opinion, but felt her comments
were out of line for a teacher.
"Whatever influenced her to say what she did is evidence as to why she
simply should not teach," Shoolbraid wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "I
just thought it was completely inappropriate."
He continued: "As far as motivated high school students, she's
completely correct. High school kids don't want to do anything. ... It's
a teacher's job, however, to give students the motivation to learn."
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association declined to
comment Tuesday because he said the group may represent Munroe. Messages
left for the Central Bucks School District superintendent were not
returned.
Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality,
said school districts are navigating uncharted territory when it comes
to teachers' online behavior. Often, districts want teachers to have
more contact with students and their families, yet give little guidance
on how teachers should behave online even as students are more plugged
in than they've ever been.
"This is really murky stuff," she said. "When you have a teacher using
their blog to berate their students, maybe that's a little less murky.
But the larger issue is, I think, districts are totally unprepared to
deal with this."
Munroe has hired an attorney, who said that she had the right to post
her thoughts on the blog and that it's a free speech issue. The
attorney, Steven Rovner, said the district has led Munroe to believe
that she will eventually lose her job.
"She could have been any person, any teacher in America writing about
their lives," he said, pointing out that Munroe blogged about 85 times
and that only about 15 to 20 of the posts involved her being a teacher.
"It's honest and raw and a little edgy depending on your taste. ... She
has a deep frustration for the educational system in America."
Rovner said that he would consider legal action if indeed Munroe loses
her job.
"She did it as carefully as she could," he said about her blog. "It's so
general that it applies to the problems in school districts and schools
across the country."
WikiLeaks, Revolution, and the Lost Cojones of American Journalism
Now that the WikiLeaks releases about Tunisian corruption have directly
sparked a peoples' uprising in Tunisia; now that Egypt is in the throes
of pro-democracy protest driven in large measure by WikiLeaks' revelation
in the Palestine Papers about US manipulation of Palestine, surely one
would expect key U.S. news organizations and journalists to rally
prominently to the defense of the right to publish that that site
represents. One would expect lead editorials supporting Assange's right
to publish from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USAToday,
not to mention every major TV outlet. But instead, what we have heard is
the deafening sounds of what middle-schoolers call 'crickets' - that is,
an awkward silence. As Nancy Youssef in the McClatchy papers reported
recently, most U.S. journalists - and, even more shamefully, journalists'
organizations - decided, regarding supporting Wikileaks' freedom to
publish, to "take a pass."
How on earth could this be? This cravenness represents one of American
journalism's darkest hours - as dark as the depth of the McCarthy era. In
terms of the question of the legalities of publishing classified
information, most American journalists understand full well that Assange
is not the one who committed the crime of illegally obtaining classified
material - that was Bradley Manning, or whomever released the material to
the site. So Assange is not the 'hacker' of secrets, as People magazine
has mis-identified him; he is of course the publisher, just as any
traditional news organization is. He is not Daniel Ellsberg, in the most
comparable analogy, the illegal releaser of the classified Pentagon
Papers; rather, Assange is analogous to the New York Times, which made
the brave and correct decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in the
public's interest.
U.S. journalists also know perfectly well that they too traffic in
classified material continually - and many of our most prominent reporters
have built lucrative careers doing exactly what Assange is being charged
with. Any sophisticated dinner party in media circles in New York or
Washington has journalists jauntily showing prospective employers their
goods, or trading favors with each other, by disclosing classified
information. For we all, in this profession, know that seeking out and
handling classified information is what serious journalists DO: their job
is to find out the government's secrets in spite of officials who don't
want these secrets revealed. American journalists also know that the U.S.
government classifies information mostly out of embarrassment, or for
expediency, rather than because of true national security concerns (an
example is the classification of suspicious deaths in Guantanamo and other
US-held jails). The New York Times garnered kudos - as they should have -
in 2005 with the publication of the SWIFT banking story - based on leaked
classified documents, which makes Bill Kellers' recent essay trying to put
distance between his newspaper and WikiLeaks all the more indefensible.
Here is what readers are not being told: We have ALL handled classified
information if we are serious American journalists. I am waiting for more
than a handful of other American reporters, editors and news organizations
to have the courage - courage that is in abundance in Tahrir Square and on
the pages of Al Jazeera, now that we no longer see it on the editorial
page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal - to stand up and
confirm the obvious. For the assault on Assange to be credible, they would
have to come arrest us all. Many of Bob Woodward's bestselling books,
which have made him America's highest-paid reporter, are based on
classified information - that's why he gets the big bucks. Where are the
calls for Woodward's arrest? Indeed Dick Cheney and other highest-level
officials in the Bush administration committed the same act as Bradley
Manning in this case, when they illegally revealed the classified identity
of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
So why do all these American reporters, who know quite well that they get
praise and money for doing what Assange has done, stand in a silence that
can only be called cowardly, while a fellow publisher faces threats of
extradition, banning, prosecution for spying - which can incur the death
penalty - and calls for his assassination?
One could say that the reason for the silence has to do with the sexual
misconduct charges in Sweden. But any serious journalist in America knows
perfectly well that the two issues must not be conflated. The First
Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First
Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having
committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment.
Indeed the most famous First Amendment cases, the ones that are supposed
to showcase America's strength and moral power, involve the protection of
speech most decent people hate.
So again: why have U.S. journalists and editor, as Youssef reported,
"shunned" Assange? Youssef reports an almost unbelievably craven American
press scenario: The "freedom of the press committee" - yes, you read that
correctly - of the Overseas Press Club of America in New York City declared
him "not one of us." The Associated Press itself won't issue comment about
him. And even the National Press Club in Washington made the decision not
to speak publicly about the possibility that Assange may be charged with a
crime. She notes that it is foreign press organizations that have had to
defend him.
One answer for this silence has to do with what happens to the press in a
closing society. I warned in 2006 and often since that you don't need a coup
to close down America's open society - you need to simply accomplish a few
key goals. One critical task - number seven - is to intimidate journalists;
this is done, as in any closing society, by creating a situation in which a
high-profile reporter is accused of "treason" or of endangering national
security through their reporting, and threatened with torture or with a show
trial and indefinite detention. History shows that when that happens, you
don't need to arrest or threaten any other reporters - because they
immediately start to police and censor themselves, and fall all over
themselves attacking the "traitor" as well. That way safety lies, whether
the knowledge is conscious or not.
Another motive is revealed in the comment that Assange is "not one of us."
U.S. journalism's business model is collapsing; the people who should be
out in front defending Assange are facing cut salaries or unemployment
because of the medium that Assange represents. These journalists are not
willing to concede that Assange is, of course, a publisher, rather than some
sort of hybrid terrorist blogger, because of their self-interested
prejudices against a medium in which they are not the gatekeepers.
In this, paradoxically, they have become just like the outraged U.S.
government officials who are threatening Assange: the American government
too is in the position, because of the Internet, of no longer being able to
control its secrets, and is lashing out at Assange as it faces a future in
which there are no traditional gatekeepers, and all institutions live in
glass houses.
It is for this reason that the prosecution of Assange - and his betrayal
by his fellow journalists and publishers in America - is so almost absurdly
futile. Even if they lock Assange up forever, the world of the future is a
WikiLeaks world. Trying to extradite and to convict Assange is like trying
to convict the first person who dared to install a telephone. The WikiLeaks
necessity - for citizens who are upset at government or private sector
abuses of power - to release documents, is not going away, ever. Egypt is
showing us that conclusively: they turn off the news and people create the
news on their cellphones. The technology of leaking government secrets
globally is not going away either. In five years one can expect that every
major institution will have its own version of WikiLeaks - so shareholders,
members of university communities, citizens of governments all over the
world, and so on, can read the secrets that are in the public interest that
the traditional gatekeepers wish to keep under wraps.
History shows that journalists only protect themselves, when bullied like
this, by fighting back - as a group. And history shows that when a
technology and its social change are inevitable, it is better to integrate
the way the future will work, into an open society - rather than trying
pointlessly to punish it, in this case by seeking to ship the inevitable
future off to Guantanamo Bay.
=~=~=~=
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