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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 11 Issue 01
Volume 11, Issue 01 Atari Online News, Etc. January 2, 2009
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
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:
Djordje Vukovic
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
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To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the
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Now available:
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Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/
=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1101 01/02/09
~ Happy New Year - 2009! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Macintosh at 25!
~ MacWorld Rumor Mill! ~ MS Pay-Per-Use Vision! ~ IE Losing Ground!
~ Top 10 Games/Consoles! ~ TeraDesk 4.00 Released ~ FCC Okays Porn?
~ Windows 7 Leak Helping ~ The 2009 State of Spam ~ Big MS Layoffs?
-* Facebook Policy Draws Anger! *-
-* "Secure" Sites May Not Be Safe Sites *-
-* Web Sites Could Get Cinema-Style Ratings! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Welcome to a new year! I can't say that I miss 2008 too much due to our
personal losses a couple of weeks ago, but like it or not, time presses
onward. We have our beloved Butkus "home" with us again even though it's
in the form of his cremated remains. He meant too much to us to treat him
like a piece of unwanted "trash" via mass-burial or cremation. So now his
urn is adorned with one of many favorite photos along with one of his most
treasured toys. We're still grieving, but I guess that you really have to
be a true dog-lover to understand. So I appreciate your indulging me when
I talk about our loss within these pages.
Otherwise, it's been an interesting year. Here at A-ONE, we've completed
10 years of publication. In and of itself, that is quite an
accomplishment, if I do say so myself. My thanks go out to all of you who
have helped us to continue to make this possible. Your interest, whether it
was sending us interesting articles, or just by continuing to read our
offering week after week means a lot to us. News pertaining to Atari
computing and gaming continues to dwindle, but the faithful are still out
there in one form or another. While we all certainly wish that the name
Atari was prominent in today's world, it is not. And it hasn't been for
many years now. That's just the way that things are. But as long as people
like you continue to talk about them, support web sites pertaining to
Atari-related topics, continue to program for them, or just plain enjoy
using them as much as you do - we'll continue to do our meager part in
reporting about it. Of course, we'll continue to bring you other news that
may be more relevant to your current computing and gaming interests.
I hope that you all had an enjoyable New Year's Eve. In this part of the
world. our New Year's Eve brought about a half a foot of new snow that had
to be cleaned up. Typically, I'd spend New Year's Eve with a few drinks and
listening to some raucous music from years gone by. I really wasn't in the
mood to do that this year, so I just spent some time relaxing, played a few
games on our new Nintendo DS, and saw the new year rung in with little
fanfare. Maybe I'm getting older, but this new year didn't seem to hold
much celebratory interest as in the past. But, it's still a new year, and
I hope that it will bring some new beginnings, and some resolutions to
some of the problems that we're all facing today. Happy New Year, from all
of us at A-ONE!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
TeraDesk 4.00 Released
Version 4.00 of TeraDesk open-source desktop for the 16-bit and 32-bit
lines of Atari computers is available at:
http://solair.eunet.rs/~vdjole/teradesk.htm
Please note the new location; domain name has been changed because of
recent political changes :( The old URL should still be available for
a while as:
http://solair.eunet.yu/~vdjole/teradesk.htm
The main new feature in this release of TeraDesk is the ability to handle
large disk partition sizes- up to 2 TB, which seems to have become a
necessity with appearance of large hard disks or systems like Aranym.
Other improvements include better formatting of displayed large numerical
values, automatic truncation of long filenames when copying to FAT
partitions, support for links to relative paths, etc. Besides, a number
of (not very critical) bugs has been fixed.
Have fun, and a Happy New Year.
Djordje
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, there MAY be enough STuff in the
NewsGroup for us to have a decent column this week... of course, it took
TWO weeks to accumulate enough traffic for a week's column, but let's
not dwell on that, huh?
But before we get to the Atari stuff, let's talk a little bit about this
'n that. Last week, I talked a lot about my pet choices. The whole line
of thought was brought about by Dana mentioning the surgery and hopeful
recovery of his faithful dog, Butkus. That got me thinking about my
pets, past and present. Of course, I didn't know that Butkus had taken a
turn for the worse and left us... Our thoughts go out to Unka Dana and
Auntie Mrs. Dana [grin]. I don't remember the exact wording anymore, but
the line from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Mr. Bojangles" always struck
me: "It ain't fair that a dog don't get to live too long, but still has
to die old." Yep, ya got that one right, Bojangles.
So, here we are at the beginning of a new year, looking back at what I'm
sure everyone would consider a... less than optimum year. I'm not going
to enumerate all the things that are off-kilter, because unless you're
stupid or unwilling to see, you already know. If you're unwilling to see
all the things that need to be fixed, then nothing anyone else says is
going to make a difference. If you're stupid, well, you're probably
having someone else read this to you, and they've cut this part right
the hell out so you don't feel bad.
This is going to be a watershed year, I think. Either we'll finally
start doing something about all the problems we've collectively caused,
or the whole damned thing is going to come crashing down upon us. I'm
talking about not only political, but social, economic and environmental
problems that threaten to bring us to our knees, not in small part
because we can't even agree on whether or not they actually ARE
problems.
I had a rather interesting conversations with a very conservative woman
the other day. She was a true world-traveler.. born and raised in
Canada, lived for decades in Germany, then a time in Great Britain...
the only thing she was sure of was that we didn't need social programs.
Her view of Canada, Germany and England was that they spent too much on
'socialization', and that they were now paying the price.
Of course, being the pain in the butt that I am, I observed that she had
picked some very "socialist" environments in which to live, and that it
appeared to me that she'd 'milked' the system for as long as she needed
it, and then came here to extol the virtues of being lactose-free.
Typical behavior for some folks, I'm afraid: Use the system to better
your own situation, then 'slam the door' and keep everyone else from
doing the same.
Another interesting thing she said was that "the wars aren't important"
and that "you can blame the world economy on the countries that wouldn't
help us."
WHAT?? First of all, how exactly did she become 'us'? Is this what we're
going to have to deal with this year? Gaza, Global warming, bail-outs,
closings, unemployment, interest rates, foreclosures, Darfur, Kabul,
Tehran and Baghdad and we're wasting our time finger-pointing? And not
just finger-pointing, but finger-pointing in such a stupid, self-serving
way.
I've got an idea: Why don't we stop whining and crying about OUR pet
disaster being the worst and just shut up and work toward getting it
straightened out? Even if each problem gets only a little better, trust
me... better is better.
Personally, I think this is finally going to be the year where we roll
our sleeves up and, if not take responsibility, at least take our
problems seriously.
I've got my fingers crossed. How 'bout you?
Well, enough of this. Let's get to the news, hints, tips and info
available from the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Ben Smith asks for help finding XFormer software:
"I need a Link for Atari 8 Bit Software to be used on ST XFormer!
Please!"
'Russ G' tells Ben:
"The archive places I knew seem gone. There was the Holmes' archive at
langsite. There are some game sites, Atarimania.com and a Vietnamese
site."
Ben tells Russ:
"I've added at the bottom a post from Michael Current. He's A great
treasure and Atari Resource! Someone E-Mailed me the game I was looking
for! I was able to transfer it to a 5.25" Disk so I can play it on my
800xl! I would like to be able to transfer any file this way using the
XFormer cable that I have! Unfortunately, the Transfer Utility wont
transfer just any file. I need to transfer any file from my ST to 8 Bit
using the Transfer Utility!...
Archive-name: atari-8-bit/welcome
Posting-Frequency: 10 days
Last-modified: July 20, 2008
Welcome to the comp.sys.atari.8bit newsgroup!
Discussion about 8 bit Atari micros.
Welcome to the Usenet newsgroup for discussion about the Atari 8-bit
family of computers! These include the Atari 400, 800, 1200XL, 600XL,
800XL, 65XE, 130XE, and 800XE personal/home computers, and the Atari XE
video game system.
The 400/800/1200XL/600XL/800XL computers were produced from 1979-1984 by
Atari, Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, USA, while Atari was a division
of Warner Communications.
The 800XL/65XE/130XE/800XE computers and XE game system were produced
from 1984-1992 by Atari Corp., also based in Sunnyvale, California, USA.
Today, the Atari computer intellectual property rights, along with the
home market rights to the Atari trademark itself, are owned by
Atari Interactive, Inc., a subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA.
http://corporate.infogrames.com/
ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
Kept by Michael Current, michael@mcurrent.name
The latest version of this document is posted to these Usenet newsgroups
every 10 days: comp.sys.atari.8bit, comp.answers, news.answers
Known mirrors of the the latest version of this document:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/atari-8-bit/welcome
http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/atari-8-bit/welcome.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/welcome/
NEWSGROUP BACKGROUND
comp.sys.atari.8bit was created in November 1986 (as part of the Great
Renaming) as a direct replacement for: net.micro.atari8
comp.sys.atari.8bit is unmoderated, and has no formal newsgroup charter.
The comp.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups is managed by the Big-8
Management Board: http://www.big-8.org/
RELATED USENET NEWSGROUPS
alt.binaries.comp.atari8bit
Programs for Atari's 6502-based orphans.
comp.sys.atari.advocacy
Attacking and defending Atari computers.
comp.sys.atari.announce
Atari related hard/software announcements. (Moderated)
Moderator: Kevin Savetz
comp.sys.atari.announce web page: http://www.atariarchives.org/csaa/
comp.sys.atari.programmer
Programming on the Atari computer.
WEB FORUMS
Atari 8-Bit family (forum sponsored by Atari, Inc.)
http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=524
Atari 8-Bit Computers forum at AtariAge
http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showforum=12
WEB PAGES
Atari 8-bit Computer Web Ring, kept by Raphael Espino
Ring Hub: http://www.webring.com/hub?ring=a8bit
Ring Home Page: http://www.geocities.com/rjespino/a8ring.html
SOFTWARE
http://www.atarimania.com/ "The World's Finest Atari Database"
http://atari.fandal.cz/ Games, Demos
http://ftp.pigwa.net/ or ftp://ftp.pigwa.net/ "Total Demoscene
Archive"
XL Search "The Atari 8-Bit File Archive Search Engine" (Bill Kendrick)
http://xlsearch.atari.org/ or
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/
Atari SAP Music Archive, http://asma.atari.org/
INFORMATION
Atari 8-Bit Computers: Frequently Asked Questions (Michael Current)
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq
http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/atari-8-bit/faq.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/preamble.html (multipart
edition)
Atari 8-Bit Computers: Vendors and Developers (Michael Current)
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/atari-8-bit/vendev
http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/atari-8-bit/vendev.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/vendev/
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/vendev/preamble.html (multipart
ed.)
Atari 8-bit New User, Emulator Help FAQ (Bill Kendrick)
http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/new_and_emu.html
Atari Disk Image FAQ (Steve Tucker)
http://www.atarimax.com/ape/docs/DiskImageFAQ/
Cartridge List for the Classic Atari 800/XL/XE Computers (Andrew
Krieg)
http://my.execpc.com/~krieg/links/8bit.carts
Atari BBS List (Trevor Holyoak)
http://www.atariplanet.info/ATARIBBS.TXT
Easter Egg Compendium and Contest (Digital Press)
http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/ --Atari 400-800-XL-XE-XEGS
computers
USER GROUPS
ABACUS - Atari Bay Area Computer User Society
http://www.abacusonline.org/
ABBUC - Atari Bit Byter User Club
http://www.abbuc.de/
ABBUC HAR - Hanover ABBUC Regional Group
http://www.bertelmann.org/har/
ABBUC RAF - Frankfurt ABBUC Regional Group
http://www.abbuc-raf.de/
ACEC - Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Columbus
http://acec.atari.org/
IMAGE - Indiana-Michigan Atari Group Exchange
20087 Roosevelt Rd, South Bend IN 46614-5026, USA
SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians
http://www.scatarians.org/
SLCC - San Leandro Computer Club
http://william_george.tripod.com/slcc/
SPACE - Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts
http://space.atari.org/
NEWS SOURCES (in addition to comp.sys.atari.announce)
Atari Online News, Etc. -- A-ONE Online Magazine (Dana P. Jacobson)
http://www.atarinews.org/
ATARItoday (Andreas Bertelmann)
http://www.ataritoday.net/ "
Whew! What a post, huh? I don't know about you, but I'm cutting that out
and saving it.
Russ G tells Ben:
"Yes, I neglected to mention the FAQ. Michael Current keeps up with URLs
and sources for A8, an excellent source. I have my own archive, but it
isn't accessible except to say something needed and let me search.
I don't have the POOL disks, but I do have a lot of stuff, CTH archive,
Holmes archive, a German archive, and my own collections from the days.
ftp.pigwa.net seems extensive, maybe too extensive, as I can't find
stuff on it."
'Super Stonic' adds:
"There are some Atari 8-bit archive sites listed on DP's links page:
http://www.digitpress.com/links.htm"
Ben Smith now asks for help setting up STiK:
"I'm trying to install STIK but when I'm booting up I get an error
Dialog box
saying "STiK is not loaded". I can't get past this dialog box by
clicking on it or clicking the <Return> key so I have to reboot! Is
there a file STiK is looking
for? What's the filename and where should I place it so STiK finds it?"
Jean-Luc Ceccoli tells Ben:
"If I remember correctly, there must be a folder named STIK_CFG at the
root of your boot partition, which should contain the config file,
something like DEFAULT.CFG."
Well folks, that's it for this week. I know, it hasn't been a great year
for Atari info, but let's hope that things start picking up now that the
holidays are over, huh?
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 - Nielsen's Top 10 PC Games and Consoles of 2008!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Acer Launches Extreme Gaming Aspire Notebook!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Nielsen's Top 10 PC Games and Consoles of 2008
World of Warcraft, Tetris, and the PlayStation 2 make strange bedfellows,
but they each topped Nielsen's 2008 year-end scan of popular media trends
in the U.S. World of Warcraft's a no-brainer on the PC games chart. But
what about Alexey Pajitnov's twenty-some-year-old Tetris for mobiles? And
are people *really* still playing the PS2?
And then some, according to Nielsen. In fact the PS2's "usage minutes" -
31.7% of total - were actually /double/ the number two console on the
list. Surely the Wii, right? Think again: The Xbox 360 topped the Wii,
17.2% to 13.4%.
The PS2's lead (down from 42.2% in 2007) should surprise no one when you
factor the console's mammoth install base and the increasingly vibrant
secondary market for used games.
Curiouser: The old black-and-electric-green Xbox, which held 13.9% of
Nielsen's console usage numbers in 2007, beat the PlayStation 3 in 2008,
9.7% to 7.3%. There's a splash of cold water to the face.
Tetris led third quarter mobile revenue shares with 7%, followed by
Bejeweled (4%) and Guitar Hero III (3.6%). Nielsen didn't track mobile
games in its annual 2007 report.
Bungie's original Halo beat The Sims and The Sims 2 for "average minutes
played per week" in PC gaming, though Halo 2 dropped off the chart after
tying its predecessor for 4th in 2007. I would've guessed Team Fortress
2 (first appearance this year), Counter-Strike, and Counter-Strike:
Source (the latter were numbers 6 and 10 respectively in 2007) for top
10 contenders, but check out Blizzard's Diablo II blazing to life at
number 7 after a 2007 absence. Blame Blizzard's Diablo III announcement
in June?
*The take away:* Everyone thinks no one's playing the Wii. They're
wrong. The 360 can claim the slightly higher usage-to-units ratio, but
the Wii leapt from 5.5% in 2007 to 13.4% in 2008, a notably larger
increase than the 360's 11.8% to 17.2%.
The PS3? It's usage increase (2.5% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2008) was actually
commensurate with the 360's. Still, Sony's got a year to really get the
lead out if it doesn't want to be this generation's GameCube (which,
speaking of, was actually number six on Nielsen's console usage chart
with 4.6% of total, so that's not necessarily a slam). The PS3's doing
much better than the gloomy picture CNN and the Wall Street Journal
misleadingly paint, but it's still well off analyst's original
predictions.
Total time spent top 10 PC gaming in 2007 = 86 hours per week.
Total time spent top 10 PC gaming in 2008 = 62 hours per week.
Is that a downtrend in overall PC gaming? A down/turn/, to be sure, but
as for trends, it's hard to say with just these numbers. 2008 was kind
of a mediocre year for PC games - all the biggest releases were either
MMOs or multi-platform ports. With PC exclusives like Diablo III and
Starcraft II on the horizon, 2009 looks tastier.
Also: While World of Warcraft topped the PC charts, its average minutes
played per week dropped from 1023 in 2007 to 671 in 2008, or from about
17 hours per week to only 11. Sound significant? We'll see. We
definitely need more data to gauge whether the juggernaut's peaking,
subscriber base increases or no. (Note that Nielsen's numbers predate
the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in November, which might've skewed
everything more favorably.)
Acer Launches Extreme Gaming Aspire Notebook
In a move to attract more gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, Acer
America on Monday introduced the Aspire 8930G-7665 notebook PC. The
notebook taps into the power of the new Intel Core 2 Quad mobile
processor Q9000, designed for extreme mobile performance and speed for
gaming on the go.
"By incorporating the latest capabilities of Intel's Core 2 Quad mobile
processors into the Aspire 8930G-7665, Acer is delivering a perfect
combination of mobility, innovation and extreme gaming capabilities,"
said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer
America.
Acer promises groundbreaking performance for multimedia applications and
3-D gaming with its latest notebook. It relies on four processing cores,
12MB of shared L2 cache, a 1066-MHz Front Side Bus, and clock speeds of
up to 2.53 GHz. According to Acer, the 8930G-7665 brings unprecedented
swiftness and realism to 3-D games.
"Gamers and enthusiasts who enjoy HD multimedia entertainment will find
the performance benefits of quad-core mobile performance in the Aspire
8930G unrivaled to other multimedia notebooks on the market," Agnihotry
said.
Along with new quad-core power, the Aspire 8930G-7665 offers gamers and
multimedia enthusiasts high-definition functionality. The notebook PC
features an 18.4-inch HD CineCrystal widescreen 1920x1080-pixel display,
with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
High-definition entertainment is provided by Blu-ray Disc technology,
Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics, and Dolby audio. Acer said the new
notebook gives users a true cinematic experience for movie watching,
playing games, and listening to music.
The Acer Aspire 8930G-7665 is available now for $1,799. That's an
extremely aggressive price for what the notebook offers, according to
Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. That
pricing strategy has allowed Acer to rapidly gain market share in the PC
industry, but the audience for this new model is somewhat limited.
"With a large gaming notebook that's priced above $1,000, you are really
not talking about a big volume segment here," Kay said. "There are going
to be some people who want this, but it's a small population."
Kay sees the audience for the Acer Aspire 8930G-7665 as gamers who
thrive on LAN parties, a group of individuals with two or more gaming
consoles, TVs and games sharing a common router for multiplayer
competitions.
According to Kay, one of Acer's positioning strategies is to have a PC
for everyone. The company, he said, is blanketing the market so it has
at least one PC - and sometimes more than one - in the sweet spot for
every buying segment.
The Acer Aspire 8930G-7665 gives the company a gaming notebook that
bodes well for its other models. "With this model, Acer is showing it
can do a super-high-end notebook," Kay said, "so that has some halo
effect on the rest of the line."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Researchers Show 'Secure' Sites May Not Be Safe
The small image of a padlock in the corner of your browser may not
accurately indicate that a Web-site connection is secure, according to
new research. A team of U.S. and European researchers used a computing
grid of more than 200 Sony PlayStation 3 video-game machines to create
fake certificates and fool a browser into thinking it had a secure
connection with a trusted site.
Researchers from California, teams from the Centrum Wiskunde &
Informatica (CWI) and Eindhoven University of Technology in the
Netherlands, and teams from the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne
(EPFL) in Switzerland presented a paper Tuesday at the 25C3 security
congress in Berlin. They showed that they were able to generate two
messages with one digital signature, similar to the process of an older
digital-certificate system, using an algorithm called MD5.
A user who visits a Web site whose URL begins with https usually sees a
locked padlock in a browser corner, indicating that the site employs a
digital certificate issued by one of several trusted certificate
authorities. The browser verifies the certificate, using one of several
algorithms, including, for some sites, MD5.
The MD5 digital-certificate system is still in use by many sites, and
could enable third parties to create fake certificates and fool a
browser into thinking it was visiting a secure site. A more modern and
secure digital-certificate system is used by many sites.
The vulnerability was first identified four years ago by Chinese
researchers, who had created a collision attack by generating two
different messages with the same digital signature. But the amount of
computing power needed to generate a fake certificate was considered a
huge obstacle to anyone attempting to take advantage. By one estimation
at the time, a desktop computer would need more than 30 years to
generate such a fake certificate.
But the paper presented in Berlin demonstrated that the researchers,
using PS3s in a cluster, were able to generate two fake certificates
with the same digital signature in only three days.
Security experts had mixed responses. Bruce Schneier, chief security
technology officer for British Telecom, told The New York Times that
most people don't rely on digital certificates. When was the last time
you checked your browser certificates to make sure they're good, he
asked.
But other security researchers have suggested that the research could
have an enormous impact, affecting virtually every browser as well as
e-mail, chat servers, and online collaboration. Although only some sites
use the older digital certificates, all browsers will accept them.
Using this weakness, for instance, it would be possible to set up
virtually undetectable phishing sites that a browser identifies as
trusted and secure.
Arjen Lensa, head of EPFL's Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms, said
the major browser makers, such as Mozilla and Microsoft, have been
informed of the vulnerability.
The immediate goal of the research is to end the use of the MD5
algorithm, which is still being used by some certificate authorities.
CWI cryptanalyst Marc Stevens said it's imperative to migrate to more
robust alternatives such as SHA-2 and the upcoming SHA-3 standard.
The State of Spam: What to Expect in 2009
Spam, oh spam - can we ever get rid of you? 2008 saw a promising blow
to the endless sea of junk mail, but the relief didn't last for long.
Now, spam experts say new forms of annoyances are on the way for the new
year.
"Some battles have been won in 2008, but the war is far from over," says
Martin Thornberg, co-founder of SPAMfighter, a software development and
spam research company.
So far, junk mail has managed to infiltrate only about 22 percent of its
potential Internet territory, Thornberg says. That means more methods -
and, yes, more headaches - are bound to be on the horizon.
They may not have a doppler radar, but the SPAMfighter team has a full
forecast - and it doesn't look pretty. Here's what's topping the junk
mail outlook for 2009:
* More social network spam. Spammers started bringing their ways to
networks in increasing numbers throughout '08, and that trend is
expected to climb quickly in the coming months.
* More complex networks behind the efforts. The shutdown of a Colorado
hosting company in November had a significant effect because of its
configuration: That single company served as the control center for the
majority of botnets that were propagating unwanted messages. Researchers
think as much as 75 percent of all junk mail was tied to that one place.
Spammers will be smarter in 2009, SPAMfighter says, building more resilient
and less centralized systems.
* More combined methods. Spam will be partnered with spyware and
phishing tactics to create new kinds of "blended threats," SPAMfighter says.
* An increase in "spear phishing," or spam campaigns targeted to specific
groups and interests. These might include messages tailored to employees of
a particular company or organization, or even just to members of certain
online networks. The messages are designed to look like official
communications.
* A general rise in creativity. In 2008, SPAMfighter observed things
like phishing attempts disguised as warnings against phishing. As even
novice Internet users become more savvy, the disguises are likely to
expand.
Many of the anti-spam precautions seem obvious - but, obviously,
everyone isn't taking them. The good news? The number of people still
gullible is small. A recent University of California study (PDF) suggests
only one in every 12.5 million spam messages gets a response.
The bad news? That tiny percentage is enough to generate $7,000 a day,
or $3.5 million a year, for a decent-sized spam network, the study says.
What's more, the activity could add as many as 8,500 new bots into the
spam network every 24 hours.
While we'd love to track down those imbeciles actually ordering stuff
from spam - if you're one of them, please leave a comment below with
your contact information - the more realistic action is just to spend a
few minutes talking about proper cyberprotection. So, if you're
confident in your spam-fighting abilities, relax and enjoy a
complimentary pumpkin muffin.* Otherwise, read on and reinforce your
knowledge.
* Thinking about responding to an unsolicited message? Maybe a pleasant
request to be removed from the list? Don't. End of story.
* The same goes for "delivery failure" messages. If you don't remember
sending the message being referenced, hit delete and move on.
* Avoid giving out your primary e-mail address on any forum or blog site
that you don't absolutely trust. Set up a secondary "junk" account for
public distribution instead.
* Similarly, don't post your primary e-mail address on your own blog or
Web site. Bots will find it and add you to their lists.
* Never send money, either for a purchase or donation, to any entity you
learned about through an unsolicited message.
* This is old, but it still hasn't hit home for some folks: DON'T CLICK
ON LINKS IN UNSOLICITED E-MAILS. If a message from your bank tells you
to click to confirm your account, ignore it. Open up your browser and
type in the bank's legit URL manually, then see if there's any real
issue to be addressed.
Simple enough? I thought so. And, not to leave anyone out, we've
arranged to commend your continued reading with a warm cinnamon sticky
bun, on the house.** You're a strong soldier in the war against spam,
dear friend. Welcome to the team.
Macintosh at 25: Still The Innovation Leader
On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh came into the world, starting the
second major revolution in the personal computer industry. Steve Jobs
and team took some lessons from Xerox PARC and created the first
user-friendly, mass market computer.
By today's standards, it wasn't that user-friendly (some will remember
disk-swapping with the original Mac, which had 128KB of RAM and a 400KB
3.5-inch floppy disk drive), but compared with Microsoft's DOS operating
system, it was a major technical innovation.
The 128K Mac version of the graphical user interface, with icons, fonts,
folders, audio and a mouse, started a new era of computing that hasn't
yet run its full course. MacPaint, MacWrite, and eventually LaserWriter,
PageMaker, and Photoshop led to a revolution in desktop publishing, and
AppleTalk made networking relatively simple.
After nearly 25 years, the Macintosh and its offspring, such as the iPod
and iPhone, are still leading in terms of setting the pace for
innovation. Mac sales climbed over the past several years, but still
represent a small portion of overall PC sales and have slowed down
recently. The iPod holds market share in its category and the iPhone has
set a new standard for smart phones.
With the annual Macworld conference approaching, and Steve Jobs
declining to participate in the proceedings, expectations are low for any
major announcements.
Of course, the Mac fan sites and blogs are full of speculation about
Steve Jobs' health, a new Mac Mini and iMac, a quad-core Mac laptop,
new home servers, a cloud-based version of the iWork suite of applications,
an iPod e-book reader, and a Netbook with a 7- to 9-inch screen.
Whatever Apple announces at Macworld, without Jobs spinning his reality
distortion field onstage, the result will be less impactful.
Nonetheless, don't expect the Mac faithful to walk away from Macworld
without something to satisfy their cravings.
Windows 7 Leak Helps Microsoft Focus Beyond Vista
A trial version of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system has
leaked to the Internet. The blogosphere is buzzing about several sites
where tech enthusiasts can download the beta Build 7000 version of the
operating system.
Specifically, the operating system can be found on the Pirate Bay
BitTorrent site, and it has been downloaded thousands of times. A second
BitTorrent site, Mininova, also has a beta version of Windows 7.
Microsoft wasn't immediately available for comment, but the company had
not planned to officially release beta copies of Windows 7 until the
MSDN conference in January. A final version of the post-Vista OS is
scheduled for release in late 2009 or early 2010.
A software build leaked from a company is no big deal, according to
Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.
Nor is it the first time Windows 7 has leaked from Microsoft's testing
pool. Last October, just hours after Microsoft released the alpha
edition at its Professional Developers Conference, the software showed
up on the Internet.
Microsoft may not be too upset about the leaks. Gartenberg said having
so many journalists and bloggers writing about the Windows 7 posting is
actually good for Microsoft as it tries to overcome negative Vista
publicity.
"Microsoft should be pleased that this build is getting as much
attention as it has, because when people stop talking about your
products is when you have a problem," Gartenberg said. "What's even more
gratifying for Microsoft is it seems most people who are using this
leaked software seem to be fairly impressed with its capabilities and
performance, which bodes pretty well for Windows 7 going forward."
As Gartenberg sees it, Vista may be the most successful product deemed a
failure by observers. Microsoft spent millions on a campaign to realign
consumer perceptions about the controversial operating system.
"The Vista brand was something Microsoft needed to get past," Gartenberg
said. "While the product itself clearly can be salvaged in the guise of
Windows, the Vista brand wasn't doing anything for Microsoft and the
sooner they can get past that and get people focused on the Windows
brand and the Windows 7 message, the better."
Even if Windows 7 doesn't turn out to offer dramatic updates, getting
attention about the next generation of Microsoft's Windows operating
system can only help, Gartenberg said. Based on Build 7000, he said it's
possible that Windows 7 could make its market debut in time for the 2009
holiday season.
"Expect to hear much more formal news about Windows 7 at the Consumer
Electronics Show next week and into next year as Microsoft tries to get
the market away from Vista and the Vista message and more onto the
overall Windows message," Gartenberg said.
Macworld Rumor Mill Is Humming with Dreams Again
Macworld wouldn't be Macworld if it didn't stir up the rumor mill just
days before the much-anticipated event. Apple fans enjoy thinking up fun
devices and gadgets that Apple engineers should be developing, and this
year is no different.
"As always, the more out the rumor is, the less likely it's going to
come to pass," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile
strategy at Jupitermedia.
High on the rumor list is the iPhone nano, a wishfully more affordable
version of the iPhone. Already manufacturers have posted photos of
silicone cases and other accessories.
Not far behind is a rumor that a new iPhone 3G with more storage
capacity is in the works. In fact, the rumor has Apple engineers working
on a 32GB iPhone. An old rumor that Apple's inventory of 8GB iPhones
would be sold at a low price has come true. AT&T is selling a version
for $99 while Walmart has one for $150.
Picasa, anyone? Another rumor has Google coming out with a Mac version
of Picasa, a photo storage, editing and organization program. Jason Toff
of Google's Mac team increased expectations with a recent blog post.
"At any given time, there will be plenty of Googlers at our booth
available to answer questions about any Google software made for Mac or
iPhone," Toff wrote. "Demo stations will be placed throughout the booth
so that attendees can try out Google software on their own and, in many
cases, talk to the people who helped create that software."
"I'd look at things such as a 32GB iPhone or a Picasa as things that are
certainly probable," Gartenberg said.
Upgrades, more storage - how about an all-out fantasy iPhone? Some
iPhone owners have been dreaming up their own ideas - the iPhone Pro or
iPhone Elite, which would have 60GB of storage, a slide-out Qwerty
keyboard, a one-megapixel camera for iChat and a high-quality camera
with optical zoom and video.
Analysts say users' dreams of a souped-up iPhone is probably not on
Apple's radar. "In terms of radical new form factors such as a
keyboard-based iPhone, I'd say those would be least likely to happen,"
Gartenberg said.
One rumor that has many Mac users sitting up and paying attention is a
new iMac.
Speculation has run rampant that a new iMac will hit the Macworld floor
in January. The souped-up iMac would include a magnesium-aluminum alloy
chassis, a cooling mechanism, and the low-power quad-core desktop chips
coming from Intel.
"It's been a while since we've seen the iMac updated, so a new version
of that wouldn't be a surprise," Gartenberg said.
Microsoft Outlines Pay-Per-Use PC Vision
Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go computing.
U.S. patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas Day,
details Microsoft's vision of a situation where a "standard model" of PC
is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the supply chain. The
end user then pays to use the computer, with charges based on both the
length of usage time and the performance levels utilized, along with a
"one-time charge."
Microsoft notes in the application that the end user could end up paying
more for the computer, compared with the one-off cost entailed in the
existing PC business model, but argues the user would benefit by having
a PC with an extended "useful life."
"A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable
software and service options has a user interface that allows individual
performance levels to be selected," reads the patent application's
abstract. The patent application was filed June 21, 2007.
"The scalable performance level components may include a processor,
memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include word
processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a
pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost
associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually
selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being
performed," the abstract continues.
Integral to Microsoft's vision is a security module, embedded in the PC,
that would effectively lock the PC to a certain supplier.
"The metering agents and specific elements of the security
module...allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply
a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware
that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance
capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level
settings and usage," the application reads.
'A more granular approach' According to the application, the issue with
the existing PC business model is that it "requires more or less a one
chance at the consumer kind of mentality, where elasticity curves are
based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time-sale,
one-shot-at-the-consumer mentality."
Microsoft's proposed model, on the other hand, could "allow a more
granular approach to hardware and software sales," the application
states, adding that the user "may be able to select a level of
performance related to processor, memory, graphics power, etc that is
driven not by a lifetime maximum requirement but rather by the need of
the moment."
"When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and,
when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the
highest available performance may be made available to the user," the
document reads. "Because the user only pays for the performance level of
the moment, the user may see no reason to not acquire a device with a
high degree of functionality, in terms of both hardware and software,
and experiment with a usage level that suits different performance
requirements."
By way of example, the application posits a situation involving three
"bundles" of applications and performance: office, gaming, and browsing.
"The office bundle may include word-processing and spreadsheet
applications, medium graphics performance and two of three processor
cores," the document reads. "The gaming bundle may include no
productivity applications but may include 3D graphics support and three
of three processor cores. The browsing bundle may include no
productivity applications, medium graphics performance and high-speed
network interface."
"Charging for the various bundles may be by bundle and by duration. For
example, the office bundle may be $1.00 [68 pence] per hour, the gaming
bundle may be $1.25 per hour and the browsing bundle may be $0.80 per
hour. The usage charges may be abstracted to 'units/hour' to make
currency conversions simpler. Alternatively, a bundle may incur a
one-time charge that is operable until changed or for a fixed-usage
period," the document reads.
Microsoft's patent application does acknowledge that a per-use model of
computing would probably increase the cost of ownership over the PC's
lifetime. The company argues in its application, however, that "the
payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the
computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine."
The document suggests that "both users and suppliers benefit from this
new business model" because "the user is able to migrate the performance
level of the computer as needs change over time, while the supplier can
develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value
than the one-time purchase model currently practiced."
"Rather than suffering through less-than-adequate performance for a
significant portion of the life of a computer, a user can increase
performance level over time, at a slight premium of payments," the
application reads. "When the performance level finally reaches its
maximum and still better performance is required, then the user may
upgrade to a new computer, running at a relatively low performance
level, probably with little or no change in the cost of use."
IE Lost Share to Firefox, Safari and Chrome in December
Web sites saw visitors deserting Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser
in favor of Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome in
December, according to Web analytics company Net Applications.
Internet Explorer was used by 68.15 percent of Web surfers monitored in
December, down from 69.77 percent in November and 71.27 percent in
October, according to preliminary figures published by Net Applications
on its Hitslink Web site Friday. IE's share has slipped from around
75 percent since the start of 2008.
Safari, Firefox and Chrome all profited from the slide in IE's
popularity.
Firefox's share rose to 21.34 percent, from 20.78 percent in November
and 19.97 percent in October, while Safari's climbed to 7.93 percent,
from 7.13 percent in November and 6.57 percent in October.
Google's Chrome browser topped the 1 percent mark in Net Applications'
survey for the first time, with a share of 1.04 percent, up from 0.83
percent in November and 0.74 percent in October.
Opera's share remained steady at 0.71 percent.
Net Applications warned that decreased workplace use of the Internet in
December may have biased its results.
"The December holiday season strongly favored residential over business
usage. This in turn increases the relative usage share of Mac, Firefox,
Safari and other products that have relatively high residential usage,"
it said.
However, Internet Explorer's market share actually declined more slowly
in December than it had done in November, according to the company's
figures.
Operating system statistics provided by Net Applications suggest that
Macintosh owners are more faithful to the browser provided by their
operating system manufacturer than are Windows users. Mac OS market
share increased slightly in December to 9.63 percent, from 8.87 percent
in November, mirroring the rise in Safari usage. while desktop Linux
usage by Web surfers remained steady at 0.85 percent, compared with 0.83
percent in November. Windows usage dipped to 88.68 percent from 89.62
percent in November, a smaller decline than that in IE usage.
Net Applications tracks browsers visiting sites that use its traffic
monitoring service, compiling data on around 160 million visitors per
month, according to its site.
Websites Could Get Cinema-Style Ratings
The kind of ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid
to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and
offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.
Andy Burnham told The Daily Telegraph newspaper, published on Saturday,
that the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of
President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for
English language websites.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and
the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will
set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as
saying in an interview.
Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibility.
"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Burnham
told the paper.
Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where
the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the
paper said.
Any moves to censor the Internet would go to the heart of a debate about
freedom of speech on the World Wide Web.
"If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked
very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't
reach," Burnham told The Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit
that stuff seriously now."
He said some content should not be available to be viewed.
"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply
there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other
people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest
lies and being clear about it."
Burnham, who has three young children, pointed to the example of a 9
p.m. television "watershed" in Britain before which certain material,
like violence, cannot be broadcast, and said better controls were needed
for the Internet.
The minister wants new industry-wide "take down times" so that websites
like YouTube or Facebook would have to remove offensive or harmful
content within a specified time once it is brought to their attention.
He also said Britain was considering changing libel laws to give people
access to legal help if they are defamed online.
FCC Chair Okays Porn for Free Broadband
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is reportedly dropping plans for free,
national broadband service that would block access to porn. He told Ars
Technica that he has circulated an order that would move forward on plans
for a free wireless broadband network, but would strip provisions calling
for a pornography filter.
"A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this,
but we're concerned about the filter," Martin said. The chairman has
sent the plan - minus the porn filter - to his fellow commissioners, but
they are apparently not too enthusiastic about the idea.
The commission in June proposed auctioning off spectrum in the AWS-3
band, which would be used for the nationwide broadband system. The winner
was supposed to have built out the smut-free service within 10 years and
pay a small percentage of its revenue to the U.S. Treasury.
Wireless carriers like T-Mobile, however, objected to the plan, claiming
that activity in the AWS-3 band would interfere with wireless activity
in the adjacent AWS-1 band - and specifically, its 3G network. T-Mobile
paid $4.2 billion for AWS-1 spectrum in 2006.
At the behest of T-Mobile, the commission conducted tests to ensure that
a national broadband network would not interfere with mobile phones. The
results, unveiled in October, concluded that mobile carriers have little
to worry about.
Martin and the rest of the FCC's commissioners did not address the issue
during a Tuesday meeting.
Facebook Nudity Policy Draws Nursing Moms' Ire
Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites
like Facebook and MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies. The
disputes reveal how the sites' community policing techniques sometimes
struggle to keep up with the booming number and diversity of their
members.
Facebook began as a site just for college kids, but now it is an online
home for 140 million people from all over the world. Among the new faces
of Facebook are women like Kelli Roman, 23, who last year posted a photo
of herself nursing one of her two children.
One day, she logged on to find the photo missing. When she pressed
Facebook for an explanation, she got form e-mails in return.
Facebook bars people from uploading anything "obscene, pornographic or
sexually explicit" - a policy that translates into a ban on pictures
depicting certain amounts of exposed flesh.
Roman responded by starting a Facebook group called "Hey, Facebook,
breastfeeding is not obscene!"
"There is nothing about bottle-feeding a child that has to be discreet,"
said Roman, who lives in Fallbrook, Calif., in an interview. "With
breast-feeding, it should be the exact same way."
Today the group - part petition, part message board, part photo-sharing
hub - has more than 97,600 members.
One of them, Stephanie Muir of Ottawa, was new to Facebook when she
stumbled across the group last year. Muir, a mother of five, does
volunteer work related to public health and breast-feeding and said the
issue is important to her.
"I think it's time we all get over this notion that women's breasts are
dangerous and harmful for children to see," she said. So she organized a
Facebook protest last weekend against the site's policies, which she
believes are arbitrarily enforced and discriminate against women.
Muir said more than 11,000 people participated in the group's "virtual
nurse-in" by swapping out their regular profile pictures on Facebook and
uploading ones depicting breast-feeding.
At Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., 23-year-old mom Heather
Farley, who was visiting from her home in Provo, Utah, led a real-world
nurse-in to complement the online event. About 10 women showed up to
breast-feed their babies outside the front door, drawing attention from
local media if not Facebook employees, who were scarce on that Saturday
after Christmas.
A member for almost four years, Farley has nearly 400 friends on
Facebook, a network she'd be hard-pressed to replicate if she moved to a
smaller site with more lenient photo policies. She uses Facebook more
than e-mail to stay in touch with far-flung high school and college
friends. She especially likes to check out pictures of their babies and
share photos of hers. But with a 9-month-old, "it's almost hard to get a
picture of me not nursing," she said.
This fall, Farley changed her profile photo to one that showed her
breast-feeding. Someone probably objected, because Facebook deleted it.
It, like MySpace, generally relies on members to point out when others
break the rules.
Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the company's guidelines regarding
exposed flesh allow most breast-feeding photos. However, Facebook draws
the line at a visible nipple or areola, he said. Facebook also nixes
pictures showing the gluteal cleft.
Facebook doesn't generally go looking for nudity, but it does respond
quickly when someone on the site flags another person's photo as
inappropriate. Schnitt said the policies were instituted years ago, when
Facebook was much smaller, but they reflect common practices on
mainstream Web sites.
"We decided nudity was something we didn't want on the site. It doesn't
matter the context. We would agree that there are absolutely many
contexts for nudity where it is not obscene," Schnitt said, but
emphasized that Facebook can't practically convene a panel to decide on
a case-by-case basis.
John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in Internet
issues, called Facebook a victim of its own success.
"As we wrap more and more of our lives into a single environment on the
Web, the feeling that civil liberties ought to be protected there
continues to grow," Palfrey said.
But it's really just that - a feeling. Online hangouts might simulate a
public place, but they're still private Web sites where the company is
king, not the Constitution or the myriad state laws that apply to
breast-feeding outside the home.
News Corp.-owned MySpace, which prohibits nudity, also has sparked
online protests over photos taken down of breast-feeding mothers. A
company spokeswoman did not return messages seeking comment.
One contrast is LiveJournal, a popular blogging network, which made an
exception for nursing in its no-nudity policy. The rule came in response
to feedback from users and an advisory board comprised of Internet
scholars.
While Schnitt said Facebook's policies predate a recent push by law
enforcement agencies to better protect children from online predators,
the whole field of Web hangouts may be skittish about anything that
might expose kids to nudity, said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at
the free-speech watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Facebook already curtails the activities of some members based on age
and the networks they belong to. For example, adults can't look at
profiles of kids under the age of 18, even if they're members of the
same regional network.
Palfrey suggests a middle ground might emerge, in which networking sites
like Facebook can better satisfy diverse constituencies without creating
strife. That will require honing the technology to make it more certain
that only people within specific networks and groups could see, say, a
breast-feeding photo, while keeping children from seeing nudity.
Palfrey describes the goal as making "a site that is good for everyone,
or good for the largest number of people, rather than the fewest."
Microsoft Planning Big Layoffs for January?
Mark January 15 in your calendar: Rumors of layoffs at Microsoft peg
that as the day the bad news will come.
The latest to report on the possibility of layoffs at the software giant
is the blog Fudzilla, which puts the number of job cuts at 15,000, or
nearly 17 percent of Microsoft's worldwide operations. The January 15
date is a week before Microsoft's second-quarter earnings report,
scheduled for January 22.
Microsoft also has a briefing for financial analysts planned for January
8 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with the headliner
listed as Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices
division.
Those purported layoff numbers are up from earlier rumors, which
suggested that 10 percent of the company's employees would lose their
jobs.
Fudzilla sees the biggest hit coming for the MSN unit, where Yusuf Mehdi
recently took over as marketing chief while the company continued to
look for an executive to run its overall online services group:
So far, we haven't managed to confirm what departments or regions will
be hit the worst, but we're hearing that MSN might be carrying the brunt
of the layoffs. We're also hearing rumors about the possibility of
somewhat larger staff cuts at Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and
Africa).
It's unlikely that Microsoft will be laying off a lot of people in
departments and regions that are doing well, and considering the recent
upturn in console sales, we have a feeling that at least most of the
people working in the Xbox 360 departments will be pretty safe.
Wall Street veteran Henry Blodget says the target areas mentioned by
Fudzilla make sense, but not the high volume of job cuts:
Unless Microsoft's business has been absolutely crushed in the past two
months, there is no reason for the company to suddenly cut this much
cost. Microsoft's margins are still fine, and much of its revenue is
generated from multi-year contracts (and is therefore unlikely to see a
massive intra-quarter hit).
In October, word leaked out of Microsoft that it would be closing its
MSN Groups service on February 21, to be replaced with Windows Live
Groups.
Blodget sees potential for a restructuring in Redmond that would fit
into the long-running, on-again-off-again Microhoo saga:
The only way we could see Microsoft laying off this many people is if
the company decided to eliminate business units. And if Microsoft did
decide to restructure its business, it would likely sell rather than
shut down divisions, including MSN (If Microsoft wants to get out of the
consumer Internet business, which it should, the best way to do it is to
spin its online operations into Yahoo in exchange for a big piece of the
company.)
=~=~=~=
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