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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 13 Issue 40
Volume 13, Issue 40 Atari Online News, Etc. October 7, 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 #1340 10/07/11
~ Apple's Steve Jobs Dies ~ People Are Talking! ~ The "Woz" on Jobs!
~ GOP Cybersecurity Bill? ~ Chrome Passing Firefox ~ Anonymous After NYSE?
~ R.I.P. Steve Jobs Scam! ~ Exclusive Games on PSN ~ IE Losing More Ground
~ $35 for Aakash Tablet! ~ ~ Drunk on Facebook?
-* ACTA Violates Human Rights? *-
-* Psystar Going to the Supreme Court? *-
-* Yahoo Is Hoping for Microsoft Deal, Again! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I know, there's nothing that I could possibly say or add that you haven't heard
already over the past 48 hours or so regarding the death of Apple's Steve Jobs.
But, I have to say that, in my opinion, Steve Jobs and Apple are synonymous.
Before Jobs returns to Apple, it was a sinking ship. And Jobs' return was
ironic - having been fired at Apple, formed his new company - NeXT, and then
coming back to Apple when it buys NeXT. It was something that was simply made
to be.
What's not to like about Steve Jobs? After all, he started his technology
"career" at Atari in the mid-70's, secretly aided by his longtime friend,
Steve Wozniak! Sure, it was during Atari's beginnings, and with games, but
that shouldn't matter. And yes, he would shortly grow into one of Atari's
competitor's with the advent of Apple Computers. But, that was the beginning
of what would turn out to be an incredible career.
Fast-forward from Apple and Mac computers to the Apple iPod, iPod Touch,
iPhones, iPads, and more. Steve Jobs was an innovative soul whose works
is felt by a huge portion of today's humanity. When a new product is
announced by Apple, people line up overnight to wait in line to buy it.
Many of us can recall similar enthusiasm when Atari announced new products!
But, Steve Jobs' life was cut short. What happens with Apple is anyones
guess because I feel that Jobs was the life force behind the company. not
having that force will certainly be different for the company. Time will
tell if his knowledge and excitement will carry on via others. For his
sake and legacy, I certainly hope so.
Wouldn't it have been nice if Steve Jobs had been a part of Atari during
its computing days, and perhaps have had a major role in the company.
Things may have been a lot different for Atari users today!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony PlayStation Network Releases Exclusive Games!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony PlayStation Network Releases Exclusive Games
Sony Computer Entertainment America this week will begin rolling out
exclusive new games as part of a strategy to lure players with fun titles
only available on its PlayStation Network (PSN).
An "Only On PlayStation Network" program will kick off Tuesday and showcase
videogames made by studios backed by a $20 million publishers fund set up
by the Japanese entertainment titan.
"Our strategy from the very beginning, and even dating back to the
PlayStation One, was to bring original brand content to our platform," PSN
senior director Susan Panico told AFP.
"Now, we are wrapping this all into a program," she said.
PSN is an online venue where PlayStation 3 console users can obtain games
software and play with or against one another.
Every Tuesday in October, the PlayStation online shop in North America
will introduce exclusive new games that can be downloaded. The titles to
debut this month include "inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood" and "PixleJunk
Sidescroller."
Introduction of the program is to be marked by discounts and promotions.
The move is part of a plan by Sony to win more PSN fans by providing
enticing games unavailable at rivals such as Xbox Live.
"We are looking now to double-down on this strategy," Panico said.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Apple Co-founder, Chairman Steve Jobs Dies
Apple co-founder and Chairman Steve Jobs died Wednesday. He was
56.
Jobs had been suffering from various health issues following the
seven-year anniversary of his surgery for a rare form of pancreatic
cancer in August 2004. Apple announced in January that he would be
taking an indeterminate medical leave of absence, with Jobs then
stepping down from his role as CEO in late August.
Jobs had undergone a liver transplant in April 2009 during an earlier
planned six-month leave of absence. He returned to work for a year and
a half before his health forced him to take more time off. He told his
employees in August, "I have always said if there ever came a day when
I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I
would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."
One of the most legendary businessmen in American history, Jobs turned
three separate industries on their head in the 35 (April 1, 1976)
years he was involved in the technology industry.
Personal computing was invented with the launch of the Apple II in
1977. Legal digital music recordings were brought into the mainstream
with the iPod and iTunes in the early 2000s, and mobile phones were
never the same after the 2007 debut of the iPhone. Jobs played an
instrumental role in the development of all three, and managed to find
time to transform the art of computer-generated movie-making on the
side.
The invention of the iPad in 2010, a touch-screen tablet computer his
competitors flocked to reproduce, was the capstone of his career as a
technologist. A conceptual hybrid of a touch-screen iPod and a slate
computer, the 10-inch mobile device was Jobs' vision for a more
personal computing device.
Jobs was considered brilliant yet brash. He valued elegance in design
yet was almost never seen in public wearing anything but a black mock
turtleneck, blue jeans, and a few days worth of stubble. A master
salesman who considered himself an artist at heart, Jobs inspired both
reverence and fear in those who worked for him and against him, and
was adored by an army of loyal Apple customers who almost saw him as
superhuman.
Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955 to young parents who gave him
up for adoption. Paul and Clara Jobs gave him his name, and moved out
of the city in 1960 to the Santa Clara Valley, later to be known as
Silicon Valley. Jobs grew up in Mountain View and Cupertino, where
Apple's headquarters is located.
He attended Reed College in Oregon for a year but dropped out,
although he sat in on some classes that interested him, such as
calligraphy. After a brief stint at Atari working on video games, he
spent time backpacking around India, furthering teenage experiments
with psychedelic drugs and developing an interest in Buddhism, all of
which would shape his work at Apple.
Back in California, Jobs' friend Steve Wozniak was learning the skills
that would change both their lives. When Jobs discovered that Wozniak
had been assembling relatively (for the time) small computers, he
struck a partnership, and Apple Computer was founded in 1976 in the
usual Silicon Valley fashion: setting up shop in the garage of one of
the founder's parents.
Wozniak handled the technical end, creating the Apple I, while Jobs
ran sales and distribution. The company sold a few hundred Apple Is,
but found much greater success with the Apple II, which put the
company on the map and is largely credited as having proven that
regular people wanted computers.
It also made Jobs and Wozniak rich. Apple went public in 1980, and
Jobs was well on his way to becoming one of the first tech industry
celebrities, earning a reputation for brilliance, arrogance, and the
sheer force of his will and persuasion, often jokingly referred to as
his "reality-distortion field."
The debut of the Macintosh in 1984 left no doubt that Apple was a
serious player in the computer industry, but Jobs only had a little
more than a year left at the company he founded when the Mac was
released in January 1984.
By 1985 Apple CEO John Sculley - who Jobs had convinced to leave Pepsi
in 1983 and run Apple with the legendary line, "Do you want to spend
the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to
change the world?" - had developed his own ideas for the future of the
company, and they differed from Jobs'. He removed Jobs from his
position leading the Macintosh team, and Apple's board backed Sculley.
Jobs resigned from the company, later telling an audience of Stanford
University graduates "what had been the focus of my entire adult life
was gone, and it was devastating." He would get the last laugh.
He went on to found NeXT, which set about making the next computer in
Jobs' eyes. NeXT was never the commercial success that Apple was, but
during those years, Jobs found three things that would help him
architect his return.
The first was Pixar. Jobs snapped up the graphic-arts division of
Lucasfilm in 1986, which would go on to produce "Toy Story" in 1995
and set the standard for computer-graphics films. After making a
fortune from Pixar's IPO in 1995, Jobs eventually sold the company to
Disney in 2006.
The second was object-oriented software development. NeXT chose this
development model for its software operating systems, and it proved to
be more advanced and more nimble than the operating system
developments Apple was working on without Jobs.
The third was Laurene Powell, a Stanford MBA student who attended a
talk on entrepreneurialism given by Jobs in 1989 at the university.
The two wed in 1991 and eventually had three children; Reed, born in
1991, Erin, born in 1995, and Eve, born in 1998. Jobs has another
daughter, Lisa, who was born 1978, but Jobs refused to acknowledge he
was her father for the first few years of her life, eventually
reconciling with Lisa and her mother, his high-school girlfriend
Chris-Ann Brennan.
Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, having convinced then-CEO Gil Amelio
to adopt NeXTStep as the future of Apple's operating system
development. Apple was in a shambles at the time, losing money, market
share, and key employees.
By 1997, Jobs was once again in charge of Apple. He immediately
brought buzz back to the company, which pared down and reacquired a
penchant for showstoppers, such as the 1998 introduction of the iMac;
perhaps the first "Stevenote." His presentation skills at events such
as Macworld would become legendary examples of showmanship and star
power in the tech industry.
Jobs also set the company on the path to becoming a
consumer-electronics powerhouse, creating and improving products such
as the iPod, iTunes, and later, the iPhone and iPad. Apple is the most
valuable publicly-traded company in the world, surpassing
ExxonMobil?'s market capitalization in August.
He did so in his own fashion, imposing his ideas and beliefs on his
employees and their products in ways that left many a career in
tatters. Jobs enforced a culture of secrecy at Apple and was an
extremely demanding leader, terrorizing Apple employees when he
returned to the company in the late 1990s with summary firings if he
didn't like the answers they gave when questioned.
Jobs was an intensely private person. That quality put him and Apple
at odds with government regulators and stockholders who demanded to
know details about his ongoing health problems and his prognosis as
the leader and alter ego of his company. It spurred a 2009 SEC probe
into whether Apple's board had made misleading statements about his
health.
In the years before he fell ill in 2008, Jobs seemed to soften a bit,
perhaps due to his bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004.
In 2005, his remarks to Stanford graduates included this line:
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've
ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of
death, leaving only what is truly important."
Later, in 2007, he appeared onstage at the D: All Things Digital
conference for a lengthy interview with bitter rival Bill Gates,
exchanging mutual praise and prophetically quoting the Beatles: "You
and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead."
Jobs leaves behind his wife, four children, two sisters, and 49,000
Apple employees.
Apple Co-founder Wozniak Says He'll Miss Jobs
When Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs in a Silicon Valley
garage in 1976, he couldn't have known the incredible footprint that Jobs
would leave on the consumer electronics landscape.
The two built and marketed the first personal computer to generate color
graphics, the Apple II. Jobs would go on to become the showman and the
mastermind behind revolutionary products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Although the two didn't stay as close through the decades, they remained
in touch.
Wozniak was among millions mourning Jobs' death on Wednesday at 56.
"We've lost something we won't get back," Wozniak said in a phone
interview with The Associated Press. "The way I see it, though, the way
people love products he put so much into creating means he brought a lot
of life to the world."
Wozniak wiped away tears in a separate AP video interview.
Jobs "gets a reputation for being a strong leader and for being brash. But
to me he was always so kind, such a good friend," he said.
Wozniak, five years older than Jobs, first met him when Jobs was still in
high school. Early on, the two experimented with technology in a
mischievous way: by building so-called "blue boxes" that emits tones at
the right frequencies to trick phones into allowing users to make free
calls anywhere in the world.
The two were also active in the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of
computer hobbyists, where Wozniak's homemade computer drew attention from
other enthusiasts. That computer piqued Jobs' interest as something with
potential far beyond the geeky hobbyists of the time.
The pair started Apple Computer Inc. in the garage of Jobs' parents in
1976 (a rarely-mentioned third co-founder, Ronald Wayne, left shortly
after its creation). According to Wozniak, Jobs suggested the name after
visiting an "apple orchard" that Wozniak said was actually a commune.
Wozniak and Jobs both left Apple in 1985. In Jobs' case, it followed a
clash with then-CEO John Sculley. Jobs resigned his post as chairman of
the board and left Apple after being pushed out of his role leading the
Macintosh team.
Jobs returned in 1997 as interim CEO after Apple, then in dire financial
dire straits, bought Next, a computer company he started. This was the
start of Apple's amazing upswing, which continues today with the
popularity of products such as the iPhone and the iPad.
In recent years, they weren't as close - Jobs declined to write the forward
for Wozniak's autobiography, iWoz, which was released in 2006. Wozniak said
he last saw Jobs about three months ago, shortly after Jobs briefly emerged
from a medical leave to unveil the company's latest iOS mobile software and
its iCloud content syncing service.
Wozniak said Jobs looked ill and sounded weak at the time.
Jobs, whose cause of death wasn't revealed by Apple or his family, had
battled cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after
taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another
leave in January - his third since his health problems began - and
officially resigned as CEO in August. Jobs became Apple's chairman and
handed the helm to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.
His death was followed by an outpouring of grief around the world from
Apple fans and competitors, as well as heads of state. In a sign of how
pervasive the gadgets he spearheaded have become, much of the mourning was
done on Apple gadgets: People held up pictures of candles on their iPads,
reviewed his life on Macintosh computers and tapped out tributes on
iPhones.
Wozniak, 61, said Jobs was a good husband and father and a great
businessman who had an eye for details. He said Jobs was a good marketer
and understood the benefits of technology.
When it came to Apple's products, "while everyone else was fumbling around
trying to find the formula, he had the better instincts," he said.
According to Wozniak, Jobs told him around the time he left Apple in 1985
that he had a feeling he would die before the age of 40. Because of that,
"a lot of his life was focused on trying to get things done quickly,"
Wozniak said.
"I think what made Apple products special was very much one person, but he
left a legacy," he said. Because of this, Wozniak hopes the company can
continue to be successful despite Jobs' death.
Yahoo Shares Soar on New Microsoft Takeover Hopes
Yahoo Inc.'s stock price soared more than 10 percent late Wednesday on
hopes that its once-spurned suitor, Microsoft, will return with another
takeover bid now that the struggling Internet company is mulling a possible
sale.
Reuters reported late in the day that Microsoft Corp. is considering
whether to make an offer, and that fed the takeover speculation that has
swirled around Yahoo Inc. since it fired Carol Bartz as CEO five weeks ago.
The story cited unnamed sources that Reuters said included a high-ranking
Microsoft executive saying there's disagreement within Microsoft on whether
it makes sense to pursue Yahoo again more than three years after being
rebuffed.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Yahoo's shares reached $16.15, their highest point since Bartz's Sept. 6
ouster, before retreating to close at $15.92, an increase for the day of
$1.46, or 10.1 percent. They fell 46 cents after hours.
Microsoft is widely viewed among investors as the most tantalizing
candidate to buy Yahoo because the world's largest software maker has the
cash to pull it off and a history with its rival that makes a takeover
seem like a realistic scenario.
But making a case for Microsoft to buy Yahoo still requires wishful
thinking. That's partly because Yahoo and Microsoft are now bound together
in an Internet search partnership that gives Microsoft less incentive to
buy Yahoo outright. Microsoft also is facing a challenge with personal
computer sales slowing that could make the headaches that would accompany
a Yahoo acquisition even less attractive.
Despite long-running problems, Yahoo still holds some allure because its
brand remains among the best-known on the Internet. Its website attracts a
worldwide audience of nearly 800 million, although its users are sticking
around for shorter periods of time and hanging out more frequently at
Facebook.
Various buyout firms and Internet companies have been identified has
potential suitors since Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo sent
an email to employees last month acknowledging several interested buyers
had contacted the company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Yahoo has hired investment bankers Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Allen &
Co., to advise its board as it fields those inquiries.
Filo's and Yang's note said Yahoo's board's strategic review could last
months while the company also searches for a new CEO. In the meantime, Tim
Morse, whom she hired as Yahoo's chief financial officer, is running the
company. Bartz bluntly said not long after Yahoo hired her in 2009 that
the company probably should have accepted Microsoft's original takeover
offer.
Determined to narrow Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative search
market, Microsoft had offered $31 a share for Yahoo in early 2008. It
eventually sweetened the bid to $33 per share, or $47.5 billion, but
withdrew the offer when Yang held out for more.
Yahoo's shareholders were incensed, and its board scrambled to justify why
it didn't seize the opportunity to sell at a price the stock hasn't come
near ever since.
Most analysts believe Yahoo would jump now at the chance to sell to
Microsoft now, given that its revenue has been declining instead of
growing as the board had promised. Any buyer probably would be able to pay
much less than Microsoft once offered.
Analysts have estimated Yahoo could fetch $18 to $22 per share.
The question now is whether Microsoft is as attracted to Yahoo as it was
three years ago. As part of its turnaround efforts, Yahoo hired Microsoft
to run its search engine. That 10-year deal gives Microsoft 12 percent of
the revenue from ads that run alongside Yahoo's search results and, more
importantly to Microsoft, valuable insights into the interests of Web
surfers.
Rather than bid by itself, Microsoft could team up with one of Yahoo's
other potential suitors. That list includes Chinese Internet company
Alibaba Group, whose CEO last week said it's "very interested" in buying
Yahoo, and it includes the buyout firms Silver Lake Partners and Providence
Equity Partners, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz,
Russian investment firm DST Technology and even another fallen Internet
star, AOL Inc.
Mac Clone Maker May Take Fight with Apple To Supreme Court
A U.S. appellate court this week rejected an appeal by Mac clone maker
Psystar in a long-running case related to copyright infringement of Apple's
Mac OS X operating system.
But Psystar's lawyer said he will continue the fight to the U.S. Supreme
Court if necessary.
"This is far from over," K.A.D. Camera of the Houston firm Camera & Sibley
LLP, who represents Psystar, said in an interview today.
In a ruling Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
confirmed a lower court's late-2009 permanent injunction against
Florida-based Psystar that prevented the company from copying, using or
selling Mac OS X, and blocked it from selling any system with Apple's
operating system preinstalled.
Psystar, which began selling Mac clones in the spring of 2008, customized
Mac OS X so it would run on non-Apple hardware, then used the software to
power the machines it sold. In July 2008, Apple sued Psystar, claiming that
the latter infringed Apple's copyright and that its use of Mac OS X
violated the software's license agreement.
That license banned the use of Mac OS X on any but Apple's own hardware.
Several months before the district court slapped Psystar with the
injunction, the company filed for bankruptcy, revealing that it owed
hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to the law firm which was
representing it in the Apple lawsuit.
Although Psystar came out of bankruptcy later that year, it has not sold
Mac clones since December 2009.
In an opinion issued Wednesday, Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder affirmed the
lower court's injunction.
"We conclude that the district court correctly ruled that Apple had not
engaged in copyright misuse," Schroeder wrote. "This is principally because
its licensing agreement was intended to require the operating system to be
used on the computer it was designed to operate, and it did not prevent
others from developing their own computer or operating systems."
Psystar had contended that it could do whatever it wanted with the copies
of Mac OS X it purchased, since it bought those copies on the open market,
including from Apple's own online store as well as Amazon's.
Schroeder confirmed the district court's ruling that Psystar's reasoning
didn't hold water.
"[Psystar's] argument falsely assumes that Apple transferred ownership of
Mac OS X when it sold a retail-packaged DVD containing software designed to
enable Apple's existing customers to upgrade to the latest version of the
operating system," she wrote in the opinion. "The buyers of that DVD
purchased the disc. They knew, however, they were not buying the software.
Apple's SLA clearly explained this."
The only win Psystar received from the appellate court involved the numerous
motions Apple was granted to seal court documents in the case. Apple had
asked that the documents not be made public because they purportedly
revealed technical details of Mac OS X, including how Apple locked the
software to its Mac hardware.
Republicans Urge Incentives for Cybersecurity
A Republican task force in the House of Representatives said Congress
should give companies incentives to boost their cyber defenses, but that
tougher regulation may be warranted to protect critical facilities like
power and water plants.
Recommendations in the report, which was released on Wednesday, can
"reasonably be acted upon during this Congress," which ends in January
2013, said the task force of 12 Republicans headed by Representative Mac
Thornberry.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's office is overseeing the drafting of
a comprehensive cybersecurity bill aimed at combating breaches and theft
from company and government computer networks. But progress has been slow.
The Thornberry report appeared to reject Reid's comprehensive approach,
arguing for a more piecemeal strategy to avoid unintended consequences.
"We think that it is very important that you get the details right,"
Thornberry told Reuters.
The report also appeared to be skeptical of government regulation to
strengthen cyber defenses with the exception of critical facilities like
nuclear power, electricity, chemical and water treatment plants.
"Congress should consider carefully targeted directives for limited
regulation of particular critical infrastructures," the Thornberry report
said.
White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the Obama administration was
still reviewing the House report but thought it "reflects a common belief"
in the need to confront cyber threats to U.S. national security.
"We remain committed to the passage of cybersecurity legislation and look
forward to working ... on the swift accomplishment of this goal," she said.
U.S. lawmakers have considered several cybersecurity bills in recent years,
but failed to pass any despite a growing sense of urgency following hacking
attacks on Google Inc , Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's No. 1
supplier, Citigroup , the International Monetary Fund and others.
Among the many obstacles to cyber legislation are overlapping jurisdictions
in Congress and disagreement over how much a role government should play in
regulating and protecting private networks.
Congress, meanwhile, has spent much of the recent months in bitter battles
over the budget and national debt.
Paul Smocer of the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents banking,
securities, investment and insurance firms, said a cyber bill "probably
has a better chance now than it's ever had" in spite of Washington's
rancor over debt and taxes.
"Obviously Congress is dealing with a lot of key issues. But we are seeing
some momentum behind the introduction of legislation and in its
consideration, more so than we have seen in quite a while," he said.
Cameron Kerry, the Commerce Department's general counsel, said on Tuesday
there was "a good chance" that some significant cybersecurity legislation
could win approval by March.
"This is a difficult political environment to get things done but you've
seen that there are times that you can get bipartisan agreement on
legislation," he said.
The Ponemon Institute said in an August report that cyber attacks cost U.S.
and multinational organizations $1.5 million to $36.5 million per year for
each of the 50 companies surveyed.
The National Association of Manufacturers, which represents 11,000
companies, said Congress should avoid "imposing a prescriptive regulatory
framework" and instead put forward incentives for firms to get fully
up-to-speed on cyber security.
But Howard Schmidt, the top White House cyber official, said putting into
law "established good business processes" was needed to ensure that lights
stay on, water is drinkable and phones work if tech-savvy criminals target
the computer networks that make public utilities vulnerable to attack.
The House report also urged legislation to improve information sharing
between the government, Internet service providers, or ISPs, ISP customers
and others in a position to know about malicious traffic on networks.
The administration is beginning a similar effort by creating guidelines
for ISPs to notify customers whose computers have been wrangled into a
botnet, essentially a network of computers disseminating malicious software
unbeknownst to their owners.
Thornberry liked the idea. "I think that's a wonderful development," he
said. "To what extent the government should be involved, that's not quite
clear."
Anonymous Threat To 'Erase the NYSE' Is Probably a Fake
YouTube videos for an operation called Invade Wall Street first appeared
on Monday, calling for online activists to download specific software
necessary to carry out a denial of service attack against the New York
Stock Exchange on October 10. One video, titled "A Message to the Media,"
said the group had chosen "to declare war against the New York Stock
Exchange," adding, "on October 10th, NYSE shall be erased from the
Internet." The video carries the Anonymous logo and comes from a YouTube
user called The Anonymous Message. The same user has uploaded 13 other
videos since joining YouTube in July, including a threat last week to
carry out a cyber-attack of the New York Police Department which doesn't
seem like it happened.
But on Twitter, where the #InvadeWallStreet hashtag first gained traction
on Monday via Anonymous-related accounts, a backlash now warns would-be
participants that the attack is a set-up aimed at reaping bad press for
Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street protest. A widely circulated statement
warns that "many of our brothers and sisters have gone down in the fight
for using such tactics, like the WikiLeaks defendants who took down Visa,
Paypal, and Mastercard which led to mass arrests." Another points out that
the video "proposes you use depreciated tools that have known flaws," such
as a low-orbit ion cannon, a denial of service tool Anonymous members have
been busted for using.
A Twitter account called AnonyOps, which has approximated an official
Anonymous mouthpiece in the past, broadcast this message on Tuesday:
"#invadewallstreet #IWS possibly a psyop? ... Don't get roped in by
those who want 2 see #occupywallstreet fail." Others passed around links
to a Daily Kos article suggesting police had infiltrated the crowd that
marched onto the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, and a March story from the
Guardian about the U.S. military developing weaponized sock puppets
(Internet slang for made-up propaganda accounts). Most warning against the
protest simply pointed out that it's not the kind of action that's going
to get people on their side -- a marked departure from the brazen attitude
of Operation Payback, the massive DDOS attack that gained Anonymous its
fame. Then there's the obvious flaw with the Oct. 10 plan: It's Columbus
Day, and the markets are closed.
The Invade Wall Street operation smacks of the empty threat that was
OpFacebook. But an attack on the stock exchange's website could still
happen, if enough viewers of the YouTube video follow the on-screen
directions. If it does, most of Anonymous would like you to know they had
nothing to do with it.
ACTA Violates Fundamental Human Rights
A few days ago, several countries signed ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement. As you are probably aware, ACTA was drafted up in secret,
and is basically Obama/Biden's attempt to impose the US' draconian pro-big
business/big content protection laws on the rest of the world ('sign it,
or else'). The European Parliament still has to vote on it, and as such,
Douwe Korff, professor of international law at the London Metropolitan
University, and Ian Brown senior research fellow at the University of
Oxford, performed a 90-page study, with a harsh conclusion: ACTA violates
fundamental human rights.
The Greens in the European Parliament, together with Korff, presented the
result during a press conference today. You can watch the press conference
as a video-on-demand, including the questions-and-answer sessions which
followed, and you can download the full 90-page study as well.
Green MEP Jan Phillip Albrecht summarises the study's findings - and it
ain't pretty. "As the study points out, encouraging the 'cooperation'
between internet providers and the content industry amounts to privatised
policing, violating the rule of law and the right to fair judicial
process. ACTA also allows for the monitoring of internet users without
initial suspicion, the handing over of their personal data to rights
holders on the basis of mere claims and the transfer of this data even to
countries without adequate data protection, all of which is in clear
conflict with legal guarantees of fundamental rights in the EU," he
states, "The agreement does not contain 'fair use' clauses or exceptions
for trivial or minimal infringements. It therefore tilts the balance -
both in terms of substance and of process - unfairly in favour of rights
holders and against users and citizens."
The final conclusion from the study itself isn't much rosier. "Overall,
ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one
group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and
unfairly against others. It equally disproportionately interferes with a
range of other fundamental rights, and provides or allows for the
determination of such rights in procedures that fail to allow for the
taking into account of the different, competing interests, but rather,
stack all the weight at one end," the study concludes, "This makes the
entire Agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European
human rights instruments and -standards."
Of course, most of us already knew this, but it's always good to have a
detailed study from a reputable source to point to whenever you enter into
a discussion about this topic. ACTA is pure, concentrated evil in liquid
form, and I find it inconceivable that anyone would support this - other
than big business and big content, of course.
Internet Explorer Loses Market Share to Chrome, Safari
Microsoft's share of the global browser market fell 0.92 percent in
September in comparison with the prior month. What's more, Internet
Explorer's market share has declined 7.5 percentage points since the same
time last year, according to the latest data from Net Applications.
On the other hand, 22.1 percent of all Windows 7 machines accessing the
Internet worldwide were running Microsoft's latest IE9 browser at the end
of September, the web metrics firm said Saturday. The other top browsers
running on Windows 7 machines were IE8 (31.6 percent), Firefox 6 (13.7
percent), Chrome 13 (13.1 percent) and Chrome 14 (5.9 percent).
Microsoft specifically designed IE9 to take advantage of the advanced
graphics capabilities of the latest desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks and
media tablets running Windows 7. As a result, IE9 on Windows 7 machines
accounted for a 31 percent market share of the browser market in the
United States last month.
"Microsoft has been pushing IE9 and Windows 7 as the best browsing
experience on Windows 7 because of IE9's use of hardware acceleration and
its integration with the Windows 7 user interface," said Net Applications,
which is based in Aliso Viejo, Calif.
Given that most people never change the browser that ships with their new
machines, IE9's market share will inevitably continue to rise as more
people upgrade to new hardware. According to Net Applications, machines
running Windows 7 accounted for 30.4 percent of all browser users worldwide
at the end of September.
However, IE9's emphasis on advanced hardware characteristics made it
impossible for Microsoft to offer IE9 support on older machines running
Windows XP, which was introduced in August 2001. Microsoft reports that
IE6 still held a 9 percent share of the global browser market in
September.
In China, for example, IE6 held a 28.7 percent market share and also
continues to post significant numbers in South Korea (11.9 percent), Japan
(7.1 percent), India (7.1 percent) and Taiwan (6.6 percent). Asia as a
whole currently accounts for more than 42 percent of the world's Internet
usage, according to Internet World Stats.
Elsewhere in the world, however, IE6 is tottering on the edge of
extinction. In the United States last month, for example, IE6 held a
mere 1.4 percent share of the browser market and also posted similar low
share numbers throughout Europe, Africa and South America.
Mozilla notified its browser developer community last April that Firefox
would be moving to a shorter development cycle with respect to future
releases. Under the new system, Mozilla can in theory issue a Firefox
browser refresh at six-week intervals from now on. Nevertheless, Firefox's
22.5 percent share of the global market at the end of September was
slightly down from where the browser stood in April.
The shorter development cycles are great for individual users, but
corporations take a while to accept and implement a new browser throughout
their workforce, said Net Applications Executive Vice President Vincent
Vizzaccaro.
"This factor alone can put a ceiling on what non-IE browsers can hope to
achieve in terms of usage market share," Vizzaccaro said. "Mozilla may be
backing off of a rapid development cycle and [I] would guess that the
reason [would be] to bring corporations back into their mix of users."
By contrast, Chrome's share of the global browser market leaped from
12.5 percent in April to 16.2 percent in September. Apple's Safari browser
uptake also rose in September as is generally the case at the start of the
annual back-to-school shopping season.
"This year, Mac share rose 0.42 percent to reach 6.45 percent of worldwide
desktop usage and 13.7 percent in the United States," Net Applications
said.
Google Chrome on Track To Overtake Firefox in 2011
According to data provided by StatCounter, Google Chrome is currently in
position to rise above Mozillas Firefox and become the second most
popular Web browser by December 2011. Googles aggressive advertising for
the speedy browser has helped growth over 2011. Starting with 15 percent
of the market share in January 2011, Googles current market share has
risen to 23.6 percent as of September 2011. Googles rapid gain in market
share is likely attributed to users defecting from Internet Explorer and
Firefox. Microsofts user share has dropped from about 46 percent at the
start of the year down to 42 percent and Mozillas user share has dropped
a little over five percent in the same time period.
Other browsers such as Apples Safari and Opera have experienced very
little growth over the last year. In order to compete with Googles rapid
release cycle for Chrome, Mozilla has shifted from long development
cycles for each version of the browser to a similar pattern of quicker
releases. Googles six week turnaround on new versions of the browser has
helped the search company gain fans within the tech community and
automatic updating of the software has also been helpful for people
lacking technical skills with computers. Google has also been successful
with a national advertising campaign around adoption of the browser, the
most popular being a commercial playing to the nostalgia of growing up.
While StatCounter foresees a more rapid adoption of Google Chrome,
competing firm NetApplication sees a wider gap between the various
browsers and predicts that Chrome will overtake Firefox sometime next
year. They also predict that Internet Explorers market share will drop
below 50 percent of all users. Regarding mobile browser market share,
Apple is currently in the lead with Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch
with over 50 percent of all mobile users. Google is in second place with
about 16 percent market share through the Google Android OS.
Facebook Scammers Use Steve Jobs Death to Lure Victims
Within hours of Steve Jobs' death, an Orlando-based anti-malware lab
located a bit of nastiness aimed at infecting the computers of people
seeking to pay their respects.
"It is not unusual for cyber-crooks and fraudsters to take advantage of
headline-grabbing events to spread their creations and affect the maximum
number of victims possible in a short period of time," said Luis Corrons,
technical director of PandaLabs.
In this case, a phony Facebook link called "R.I.P. Steve Jobs" redirected
users to a site that claimed to give away free iPads in Jobs' memory. At
one point, over five fans every second added their information to the site
by becoming "fans." Before it was reported and disabled on Friday morning,
the scam site had amassed 21,000 clicks by visitors through Facebook.
It's not the first time scammers have used tragedy to lure in unsuspecting
victims who use viral posts from others' clickjacked profiles, who then
spread the scam even further.
Less than 24 hours after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated
Japan last year, scam videos about a whale that had been thrown into a
building hit Facebook. Confused and concerned Facebook users clicked the
links posted all over their Facebook feeds, the result of "clickjacking" -
whereby an innocent click on a video or hyperlink redirected users to a
phishing site, or infected their computer with malware by taking advantage
of the "like" function that autopublished posts and videos to the user's
wall. This then spread the bad links to other unsuspecting users.
Scammers used the death of Amy Winehouse this year to launch similar
phishing scams. Within hours, photos and videos claiming to have
information about and footage of the gifted singer's death were circulating
all over Facebook, spreading like wildfire as the clicks turned into
additional posts in the feed. In order to "see" the material (which does
not exist), users were asked to "like" the page or subscribe to the page,
some even prompting users to post their phone numbers.
A similar scam tried to monopolize on the news of Michael Jackson's death
and prompted people to view evidence that the star faked his own demise.
When Facebook users clicked the links to see this information, the video
scam redirected users to a site that asks to install an application on
their computer. Doing so not only compromised their own internet safety,
but that of their friends and contacts, as well.
While there's no shortage of ways for people to take advantage of grief and
the high-profile deaths or tragedies that will, invariably, appear on
social networking sites, the safest bet is to simply avoid clicking on any
suspicious or outrageous-sounding links on Facebook. Every click helps
scammers target more people, and uses the world's most widely used social
networking site to do it.
Worlds Cheapest Tablet Is Just $35 for Students in India
A few companies are putting out budget-level iPad competitors, but it's
unlikely that anything can touch the all-time low price tag of a new tablet
in India. Called the Aakash (Hindi for "sky"), the tablet is part of a
pilot program that will gift the little slates to 1,000,000 Indian
students. Students who don't receive a tablet on the house can buy one for
a dirt cheap $35.
The $35 rock-bottom pricing scheme is part of a subsidized government
initiative, but the tablet's true price is only $15 more. Naturally, the
feature set isn't exactly top of the line, though it does sport two USB
ports, which is more than the iPad can say. The Android tablets feature a
resistive 7" LCD screen, up to three hours of battery life, and not a whole
lot in the way of processing power.
But advanced fetaures aren't the point. The initiative seeks to put
computers into the hands of as many Indian youths as possible, where they
will be used as a supplement to traditional coursework. Currently, only 8%
of India's population has access to the internet.
Drunk on Facebook? That Could Be A Problem
College students' Facebook pages might hold clues to which of them are at
risk for alcohol dependence and abuse, according to a new study.
Researchers found that students who had pictures or posts about getting
drunk or blacking out were more likely to be at risk of drinking problems,
based on a screening test. That was not necessarily the case for students
who mentioned alcohol or drinking on their pages, but not in a way that
showed that they drank too much or in unhealthy situations.
It's possible that Facebook pages could help schools find out who needs to
be assessed for alcohol-related problems - although privacy and ethical
concerns might make that complicated, researchers said.
The question is whether "what's being found on these sites... is actually
predictive of clinical conditions," said Dr. James Niels Rosenquist, a
social media researcher and psychiatrist from Massachusetts General
Hospital who wasn't involved in the new study.
The findings suggest that messages on Facebook sites do seem to be linked
to what happens in the "real world," he told Reuters Health.
Dr. Megan Moreno from the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a team of
researchers from her university and the University of Washington in Seattle
who surveyed the Facebook pages, including photos and posts, of 224
undergrads with publicly-available profiles.
About two-thirds of those students had no references to alcohol or drinking
on their pages. The rest of the pages mentioned or had pictures of social,
non-problematic drinking or more serious and risky alcohol use, including
riding in a car while drunk or getting in trouble related to drinking.
The researchers brought all the students in for a 10-question screening
test used to determine who is at risk for problem drinking. That test
assesses the frequency of drinking and binge drinking as well as negative
consequences from alcohol use.
Close to six in ten of the students whose Facebook pages had references to
drunkenness and other dangerous drinking scored above the cutoff showing a
risk for alcohol abuse and dependence, as well as other drinking-related
problems.
That compared to 38 percent of students who had more minor references to
alcohol and 23 percent of those who didn't mention alcohol or drinking at
all, according to findings published in the Archives of Pediatrics and
Adolescent Medicine.
In addition, close to one in five Facebook-implicated risky drinkers said
they had an alcohol-related injury in the previous year.
Moreno and her colleagues proposed that peer leaders such as residential
assistants could be trained to use Facebook to see who is at risk for
problem drinking, and refer those students to get screening. Or, parents
and administrators could talk to a school's counselors if they were worried
about alcohol-related content on a student's page.
"You might have someone who, if they write in a Facebook posting about being
drunk... that might be a red flag," Rosenquist told Reuters Health.
But, he added, with social media "you get very small snapshots into people's
lives," so perusing Facebook pages alone might not be enough to see who
needs to be screened for alcohol problems.
And there are other concerns as well, he said, including how appropriate it
is to go scouting on students' pages for certain information.
Moreno said that a college RA already has a connection with students and is
there to look out for them - and this study is showing that "there is some
legitimacy in approaching students that you're worried about," including if
that worry is coming from Facebook posts.
But, she added, "Paying attention to people's privacy concerns is really
big."
Moreno suggested that universities could have links to the health center or
to online screening tests show up as Facebook advertisements for students
who use terms such as "blacked out" on their pages.
"With the targeted messaging, there's not that (feeling) that someone you
don't know is creeping on your profile," she told Reuters Health.
=~=~=~=
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