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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 10 Issue 24
Volume 10, Issue 24 Atari Online News, Etc. June 13, 2008
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:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1024 06/13/08
~ High Gas = Telework?! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Icahn Blasts Yahoo!
~ Spyware Bill Lacking! ~ U.S. Hacker Sentenced! ~ U.S. Privacy Laws!
~ Snow Leopard Previewed ~ China Denies Hacking! ~ World's Fastest PC!
~ New Firefox Next Week! ~ Four Nations Fight MS! ~ Amazon Fails Again!
-* DiCaprio Set To Play Bushnell *-
-* Russian Prez Wants Cryllic Domain! *-
-* Yahoo-Microsoft Talks Fail, Google On Again *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Wow, when we get a heat wave, we get a heat wave!! Four consecutive
days of 90-plus degrees of sweltering heat. And naturally, there was
plenty of humidity to go along with it! And the rest of the week we
saw temperatures in the 80's - what a cold snap! I'm certainly grateful
for air conditioning and swimming pools!
Well, I didn't do much outdoor work this past week - too darn hot! And
as a result, some of my plants waiting to get in the ground didn't fare
too well. Sure, everything got watered, but apparently not enough to
keep up with the heat. We'll see if the few that aren't well come back.
Almost everything has been planted - a couple more flats of annuals to
go. Then I have to paint and put up some new planters for the remaining
few plants. I think next year I'm going to put in a lot of perennials
so I don't have to go through this every year! Hmmm, maybe I'll start
putting some in sooner!
And before I forget, don't you forget your fathers this weekend! We all
tend to remember mothers on Mothers Day, but somehow forget our dads on
Fathers Day. My wife and I will be heading "down Maine" to visit my
father this weekend. Should be a good time; we haven't seen him in some
time now. Don't forget!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, Mother Nature gave us a taste of
summer here in the northeast this past week. Temperatures have been in
the mid 90's for four days, and the humidity was annoyingly high for
several of them. Thank goodness for air conditioning, huh?
I don't have a lot to talk about this week, except that a good family
friend passed away the other day. He was my brother's father-in-law.
Ted was a good guy, and I always enjoyed getting together with him at
birthday parties for his grand children/my niece and nephew.
Ted was one of those guys who was, at least every time I'd seen him,
happy, personable and fun-loving.
At 79 years old, he was your typical hard workin' guy who delighted in
watching his children and grandchildren grow and become 'people' in
their own right.
Through all the trials and tribulations that come with age, Ted dealt
with whatever came his way with the same good natured attitude. While
the phrase 'slow and steady' might be a little misleading (there was
really nothing slow about Ted), 'steady' seems to be a good word to fit
him. I guess 'easy going' would be the best way to describe him. Show
me a man today who can deal with having NINE children and still
maintain a sense of normalcy, and I'll show you Ted's successor. I'm
not holding my breath though. He'll be sorely missed, and my
condolences go out to his wife of 58 years, Ruth.
On a different note, the PHOENIX Mars probe is now sitting on the ground
in the Martian arctic, waiting to analyze a sample of dirt to see
what's in the stuff. The major snafu so far seems to have been that
they couldn't get the darned stuff to go through a screen that was
designed to keep large clumps of it from blocking the entrance to the
oven that's going to cook the heck out of it. While many will simply
throw their hands up and point to this as "another NASA screw-up", the
fact is that we can learn something even from this problem (which was
resolved the other day when the dirt finally made it through the screen
and into the oven). The best science seems to happen not when there are
good answers, but when there are good questions. Well, amigo, we've got
some pretty good ones now: Why didn't the dirt make it through
the 'strainer' before? Why DID it finally make it through? Was there
frozen water or carbon dioxide ice or frost holding the grains of sand
together? Was there an electrostatic charge holding it in place? We
don't know... yet.
It strikes me that the interest in Mars landings isn't what it once was.
I vaguely remember when Mariner flew past Mars and gave us our first
real look at the planet. Actually, I remember studying it in school
several years after the fact, but the effect is the same. I remember my
father just shaking his head at the news that there were indeed no
oceans or 'canals' on Mars, and that it looked like a cold, dead
wasteland, and mumbling about money wasted. I remember my science
teacher being excited about the fact that the human exploration of
Mars "couldn't be far off".
I wonder what Mr. Wysocki would think now, after more than 4 decades,
about how far we've come. True, we haven't sent men to Mars, and we're
not that much closer to doing so now than we were then, but we've
learned so much more than even the most optimistic scientist would have
hoped for back when Mariner 4 took those first pictures.
We now know that Mars is dry, but has large amounts of water ice buried
just beneath the surface in many if not most places, we've learned that
the polar caps are not just frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice to you and
me) as once thought, but a combination of CO2 and frozen water. We've
learned that it's a planet of superlatives and extremes: It has the
highest volcano/mountain and the longest and deepest valley or canyon
in the solar system, that there's about a hundred degree difference
between the warmest and coldest temperatures (Earth has about a 250
degree difference between warmest and coldest temps), and that huge
dust storms can cover the entire planet from time to time. It may be
dry, dusty, almost airless and bathed in ultraviolet radiation, but
it's sure not boring.
Will we ever send people to Mars? I don't know. It seems that we lose
interest in things so quickly today. Heck, we've even lost interest in
finding out why we've lost interest. I hope that we'll work toward
sending astronauts to Mars, but I'm afraid that it'll take something
huge, like the discovery of life on Mars or some sort of unimaginable
catastrophe here on our home planet to give us the kick in the pants
that we need. Heck, 30 years ago I would have bet you a week's pay that
we'd have been there by now.
Well, let's get to the news, hints, tips and info available from the
UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Guillaume Tello asks about LAN networking particulars:
"Does anyone know the max speed of the LAN ports on the TT and Mega STE?
Any network software made?"
Jo Even Skarstein tells Guillaume:
"230k baud for the LAN ports.
Nothing specific for the LAN-ports for software as far as I know.
They're just ordinary serial-ports (RS-422 I think), so you can run
TCP/IP over SLIP or PPP like on the normal serial port."
Guillaume hunts around and tells Jo Even:
"I have found DUETLANT for the TT, I can't get it to run...
I have on both TTs:
- DUETLANT.PRG
- then DUETCONF.PRG & DUETCON.INF in the auto folder
DUETCONF.INF has:
SPEED 19200 (not too ambitious)
TIMEOUT 5 (cool, no hurry)
STATE 0 (read only)
And one of them has this line:
DRIVE N F (locally virtual drive N will be connected to distant existing
drive F)
The boot is Ok, then when I try to reach drive N, 5 seconds after I get
a message saying that data may be corrupted on drive N. But it exists!"
'ggnkua' tells Guillaume:
"I found the program on
http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Network/Local/
and I'll give it a go when I get home - at work right now. Do I need a
special cable for the lan port? (I can't remember its shape at the
moment)."
Guillaume tells ggnuka:
"That's where I got it!
I used the cable found between a MacIIsi and its printer. Is it the good
one? Don't know...
Well if you can make a network even with another serial port (I have a
Modem 1 connection) with Duet, I'd like to know your settings.
Does SERIAL.CPX interfere? I tried with and without it, no change..."
Mark Goossens jumps in and tells Guillaume:
"Today, I tried DUET also, with 3 computers.
- between TT <-> MSTe 1
- between TT <-> MSTe 2
- between MSTe 2 <-> MSTe 1
Without success.
I used two different cables. I disabled my normal AUTO folder, and
booted the machine with minimum requirement.
I got drive N (mapped to drive C on both machines), but couldn't open
the folder. Maybe someone has had more luck? In the near future, I'll
try it again with sting and bnet."
Mark comes back and posts:
"I've connected ethernec's to my falcons (2x) , and netusbee on my TT.
Under mint, I use mintnet and bnet for mint. Under magic, I use sting
and bnet for sting. With bnet I've graphically access to the other
computer. The other computers are located on a 'p'-drive.
I can copy over the network, just by drag and drop, from one to
another window. Bnet is for me a great piece of software. I like it a
lot. Unhappily, it don't work with samba drives. For that I use
Sharity-light (under mint, or under magic).
You must always use the command line for establishing a network
connection. Writing a startup script would be a good idea. [Grin]"
Alyre Chiasson asks about the DIP switches for the MegaSTE's hard drive
controller:
"With the acquisition of a new floppy drive I decided to try and get my
Mega Ste up and running. I was wondering what the jumper settings
should be on the mother board connector for the Atari hard disk
controller when the controller is removed? Are there any other dip
switches on the mother board that must be flipped when the controller
is removed?. I want to use my ICD Link II in its place. All of this was
because I thought the controller might have been at the origin of some
of my problems with getting the hard disk to work properly. However,
when I opened the case a red resistor pack (at least that's what I am
calling it) fell out. It has 8 pins with a shiny red housing that
covers them across the top. There are other similar ones on the mother
board. The questions is did it fall out of the mother board from
somewhere or was it a leftover during fabrication? Are there any
schematics of the Mega Ste that might tell me where it might have come
from or where they should be? Google turned up some references but
nothing concrete. It could be at the origin of all my problems. The
last series of numbers on the resistor are 311J213."
'ppera' tells Alyre:
"Mega STE schematics can be downloaded here:
http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/
There you may find purposes of DIP Switches (it's called so) in
the machine.
I know only from memory that switch pos 7 is for activating high
density floppy mode - in case that you replaced your original one (for
instance EPSON SMD 380 was in mine, SD) with some HD floppy."
Jo Even Skarstein replies:
"If I remember correctly, it only activates HD-mode in the desktop
floppy formatter. HD-mode is handled automatically."
ppera tells Jo Even:
"That's not correct. With switch 7 at original pos. my machine
couldn't read HD floppies. When I moved it, then it started to read
HD, and formatting in HD as option appeared too.
Of course that HD is handled automatically, otherwise it wouldn't read
DD floppies. Under activating I meant not momentaly mode, but support
for HD mode..."
Mark Bedingfield tells ppera:
"I've had 3 MegaSTE's and they all behaved the same. I could format
1.44's with the switch off, but not from the desktop menu. The switch
enables a cookie for TOS. It flags the drive basically. There is an
auto folder cookie app that simulates the same thing for non
MegaSTE/TT/Falcon owners.
What version of TOS were you using? I have only really tried with 2.06.
I had a 2.05 Mega but upgraded it before I even used it. Also installed
TOS 2.06 rom's in STE's and STFM's as well as a couple of HDD upgrades.
Always the same. Step rate was really the only issue."
Jo Even sides with Mark:
"My Mega STE behaved exactly like yours. It was a rather early MSTE with
a standard DD floppy. When the floppy died I replaced it with a Sony
HD-drive. It worked fine without touching the dip-switch at all."
Ppera checks his hardware and tells Jo Even and Mark:
"Well, I checked it again yesterday... (I don't use much floppies on
it, there is hard disk of course). It worked not at all with HD
floppies. So, I replaced drive and it worked. Then I checked
problematic floppy (TEAC) and saw that HD sensor is little moved, and
diskette with HD hole still pushes it down. I bend it with small
screwdriver, so it is now OK.
And yes, switch pos 7 is only for extra format option.
It looks that when I put in TEAC (about year ago) it just had similar
HD detection problem, and after moving DIP switch 7 it just happened
that HD sensor switch worked good...
I have TOS 2.06 . It is some early Mega STE, was 2.05 in, but I
replaced it immediately.
Yeah, step rate is solved very primitive, and with DD floppies we have
horrible sounds - especially TEAC has loud one.
I patched TOS 2.06 earlier, and set there steprates to 3 mS, used some
little proggies or bootsector of floppies to set 6 mS for HD diks. It
was for 520ST with added simple circuit for supporting HD floppies. Of
course, it offered not HD format from Desktop, because was no port and
microswitches.
By the way. I solved steprate problem in STE with special HW adapter -
it switches back FDC clock to 8MHz while stepping - done with
monostable. So, no SW fixing is required."
Jo Even asks Ppera:
"Does your MSTE have a 1772-02-02 or an Ajax floppy controller? My had a
02-02 and HD did work fine. I'm just curious whether the Ajax solves the
step-rate-problem more elegantly than the 1772."
Ppera replies:
"t has Ajax. But that chip is nothing better considering steprate.
It is just guaranteed good for HD floppies and maybe for ED ones
(never saw such). In other words, it can reliably work at 16 MHz or
even 32 MHz (for ED). But dumb FDC never knows with what MHz is
clocked, so steprate should be solved by OS. Atari could solve it with
little effort - just setting steprate according to what floppy is
inserted and/or at what clock FDC runs. Maybe it would require
additional bit on some port, don't know."
Well folks, that's it for this time around. Tune in again next week,
same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying
when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - DiCaprio To Play Bushnell!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Gamers Are Not Shy Nerds!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Leonardo DiCaprio Lined Up To Play Video Game Mogul
Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play pioneering video game entrepreneur
Nolan Bushnell in a biopic about the Atari co-founder's life, it was
reported Monday.
Daily Variety said screen heart-throb DiCaprio had been attached to
produce as well as star in the film about Bushnell, one of the founding
fathers of the video game industry.
Atari - which created the world's first successful video game "Pong" -
was estimated to be worth more than 2 billion dollars by 1982 but was
later broken up following the US video game crash of 1984.
DiCaprio, 33, will next appear in two dramas, the spy thriller "House of
Lies" and "Revolutionary Road."
Video Game Addicts Are Not Shy Nerds
Playing video games for hours on end may be bad for your health, but,
according to an Australian study, it doesn't mean you are a lonely nerd
and won't damage your social skills.
The study, by Australian psychology graduate Daniel Loton, found that 15
percent of 621 adult respondents to an online survey were identified as
"problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games.
But only one percent of those gamers appeared to have poor social
skills, specifically shyness, Loton said, contradicting the stereotype
that video game fans tend to be lonely, geeky, and addicted to gaming
because they are unable to socialize.
"Our findings strongly suggest that gaming doesn't cause social
problems, and social problems are not driving people to gaming," Loton,
from Victoria University, told Reuters.
"What is important to note is that even problem gamers did not exhibit
significant signs of poor social skills or low self-esteem."
Loton said the characteristics that might define a problem gamer include
an intrusive preoccupation with gaming - where the amount of time spent
playing is affecting work, sleep, and close relationships - and an
inability to stop playing.
Problem gamers were more likely to be involved in Massively Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as the genre classic "Ultima
Online" or "World of Warcraft," which has some 10 million subscribers
worldwide, the research found.
Loton, who admitted that he has always played video games, spent the
last two years conducting the study, which was based on mainly
Australian and mainly male respondents.
His questionnaire included scales to measure social skills, self-esteem
and determine "problematic" and "dependence forming" play.
"My analysis showed only tiny relationships, that is less than 5 percent
of variation in problem play scores, was explained by social skills," he
said.
The findings come after widely reported statements made last year by the
American Medical Association (AMA), which labeled MMORPG gamers as
"somewhat marginalized socially, perhaps experiencing high levels of
emotional loneliness and/or difficulty with real life social
interactions."
Citing concerns of video game overuse, the AMA is likely to consider
adding "video game addiction" to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders at its 2012 review.
But Loton said calling excessive gaming an addiction may be taking it a
step too far.
"There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence about gaming addiction.
Online forums abound with tales of people who can't get off the
computer," he said.
"But from a clinical point of view, an addiction is a mental illness
with very serious consequences. In this context, we need to ask whether
gaming is responsible for causing people's lives to fall apart in the
same way we see with gambling, alcohol or drug addiction."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Icahn Blasts Yahoo Again
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn continued his epistolary shouting match
with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock on Monday with a letter in which he
urges Bostock to justify his director compensation by releasing his time
sheets and accuses him of purposefully not answering questions.
What's clear from the tone and frequency of Icahn's letters is that he
seems more and more convinced that, as a Yahoo investor, he needs to
push his slate of candidates to unseat the company's directors at the
next shareholder meeting in August and, he hopes, bring Microsoft back
to the negotiating table.
The focus of the latest angry exchange of letters, which started last
week, is Yahoo's adoption of an employee severance plan that both Icahn
and Yahoo shareholders suing the company allege was implemented to
sabotage Microsoft's attempt to acquire Yahoo. Bostock and Yahoo's top
executives maintain that the severance plan was necessary in order to
retain employees in light of the uncertainty created by Microsoft's
pursuit of Yahoo, which officially ended after three months in early May.
"I cannot understand why the Yahoo board feels so strongly about its
'poison pill' severance plan and why it continues to refuse to rescind
it. How can you continue to repeat that your severance plan is in the
best interests of shareholders and employees?" Icahn wrote in Monday's
letter.
Yahoo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but on Friday
issued a brief statement saying that Icahn, in his previous missive, had
inaccurately interpreted the "retention" plan and that his suggestions
that the plan be canceled would have a "destabilizing impact" on the
company. Yahoo also accused Icahn of having "no credible plan to
operate" the company.
The brevity and content of Yahoo's statement on Friday clearly irked
Icahn, who ripped into Bostock on Monday.
"In your press release from Friday, you stated again that I do not have
a credible plan for Yahoo. Did you even bother to read my letter, which
went into great detail on what measures I would ask the new board to
take? Ironically, while you keep inquiring about my plans, it is
interesting to note that Yahoo's board has been busy reaping great
compensation benefits. Indeed, you made approximately $10,000 per week
last year-- not bad for a board member. I believe most of your
shareholders would be interested in seeing your time sheets –
especially in light of the fact that, in my estimation, most of your
so-called 'plans' over the last few years have been failures," Icahn
wrote.
Icahn also reiterates his call for removing Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang
as CEO and returning his "Chief Yahoo" title, so that the company can
hire "a talented and experienced" replacement, offering Google CEO Eric
Schmidt as a model.
On Monday of last week, the partially censored complaint in a
class-action shareholder lawsuit against Yahoo was released in its
unedited form following the judge's decision.
That complaint, filed in Delaware Chancery Court in February on behalf
of shareholders the Police & Fire Retirement System and General
Retirement System of Detroit, is full of angry allegations, copies of
internal Yahoo documents and accounts of what plaintiffs characterize as
Yahoo's bad-faith maneuvers toward Microsoft.
Specifically, the document goes into great detail about the crafting of
the severance plan to support the plaintiffs' allegations that the plan
was put in place solely as a "poison pill" technique to drive Microsoft
away. After reading the unedited complaint, Icahn fired off his first
letter last Wednesday to Bostock.
Microsoft announced its unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo on Feb. 1-- a
US$44.6 billion cash-and-stock deal that offered shareholders a 62
percent premium over Yahoo's stock price the day before. Yahoo's board
rejected that offer, saying it undervalued the company, and Microsoft
later increased it to $47.5 billion, but Microsoft eventually walked
away from the negotiations on May 3 after the two sides failed to agree
on a price.
After Microsoft withdrew its offer, several large Yahoo institutional
investors publicly criticized Yang and the board for, in their view, not
negotiating in good faith and failing to look out for shareholders' best
interests.
Yang and other Yahoo executives responded by saying that they were open
to negotiating further but that Microsoft unexpectedly walked away
without ever putting its last offer in writing.
Then Icahn got into the picture, acquiring a significant amount of Yahoo
stock and readying his proxy fight in order to reignite merger
negotiations.
However, Microsoft officials have indicated that the company isn't
interested in buying all of Yahoo anymore.
Microsoft did acknowledge on May 18 that it has approached Yahoo with a
proposal to enter into a more limited partnership or deal, which many
observers believe likely involves Yahoo's search advertising business.
Yahoo-Microsoft Talks Fail, Google Deal Expected
Yahoo Inc and Microsoft Corp have failed to agree on a partnership or
merger, the companies said on Thursday, sending Yahoo shares down 13
percent.
Instead, Yahoo is close to a search advertising deal with Google Inc
and an announcement could come later in the day, sources familiar with
the matter said.
The software maker had sought a deal with Yahoo for more than a year. By
early May. Microsoft had offered up to $47.5 billion to buy the Internet
company.
Microsoft hoped an acquisition would accelerate its ability to
capitalize on Internet advertising growth and better compete with
Google, which is increasingly fighting for the same audience of Internet
users.
"It was pretty clear it was going to be one or the other. Yahoo wasn't
going to do a deal with Google and then partner with Microsoft," Global
Crown Capital analyst Martin Pyykkonen said.
Yahoo said on Thursday that Microsoft had made it clear in a meeting on
June 8 that it was no longer interested in buying the company outright,
even at the price of $33 per share Microsoft had most recently proposed.
That may not appease Yahoo shareholders, including billionaire Carl
Icahn, who have been pressuring Yahoo to reach a deal with Microsoft.
Icahn has called for Chief Executive Jerry Yang to be ousted.
Microsoft said it was not interested in "rebidding" for all of Yahoo,
sending its shares up more than 4 percent as investors showed relief
that the company would not be paying too high a price for a deal they
considered risky.
On Thursday, Yahoo said that an alternative Microsoft proposal to buy
only its search business did not fit into Yahoo's plan to grow search
and display advertising.
Microsoft said in a statement that its alternative offer was still open
for discussion. It said that its most recent discussion with Yahoo for a
partial deal would have valued Yahoo at more than $33 per share.
Analysts said they did not expect that Yahoo and Microsoft would try
another round of negotiations based on their statements.
"It certainly seems to be the end," said Derek Brown, an analyst at
Cantor Fitzgerald. "In their most recent discussions, they were talking
about totally separate visions of both a deal and the future."
Microsoft is expected to soon be on the prowl for other acquisition
targets since it has not given up its goal for online advertising.
"Microsoft will keep trying," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "Yahoo
is one of most popular sites on the Web and there is no one else with as
much traffic. AOL may be one option and it may not be as expensive."
Icahn, who has waged a proxy battle to remove Yahoo's board at its
August 1 annual meeting, had urged Yahoo to secure a higher price from
Microsoft. Icahn has said a partnership with Google should only be a
second choice.
Icahn could not be reached for comment.
Yahoo shares sank as low as $22.50 on news of the talks failing and the
potential Google deal. It was their lowest level since January 31, the
day before Microsoft announced its offer for the company.
Yahoo shares closed down $2.63 at $23.52. Google shares finished up
$7.75 at $552.95, and Microsoft closed up $1.12 at $28.24.
Apple Previews Its Next Mac OS 'Snow Leopard'
Apple on Monday offered a preview of "Snow Leopard," the next major
version of its Mac OS X operating system.
Snow Leopard, which presumably will be designated Mac OS X 10.6 when
released in about a year, will focus more on speed and stability than
new features. It will be optimized for multicore processors and will be
designed to facilitate future Mac platform innovation.
"We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just
seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,"
said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior VP of software engineering, in a
statement. "In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience,
we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the
world's most advanced operating system."
The forthcoming operating system will lift the theoretical system memory
limit to 16 TB. Mac OS X, a 64-bit operating system, supports addressing
up to 4 TB of physical memory today. Current Mac Pro models can
accommodate up to 32 TB of RAM.
Snow Leopard will include a new technology called "Grand Central" to
help developers write applications that take full advantage of multicore
processing. It also will extend support for what Apple is calling Open
Computing Language, which is designed to help programmers take advantage
of graphics processing units for general performance gains.
In addition, Snow Leopard will include QuickTime X, a revised and
optimized version of Apple's media technology; native support for
Microsoft Exchange; and an implementation of JavaScript that helps
applications like Apple's Safari Web browser run 53% faster.
Google Says It Would Support U.S. Privacy Law
Google Inc has told a senior Republican lawmaker concerned about
privacy that the Internet search and advertising company supports a
federal privacy law.
Privacy advocates object to the amount of information that Google, Yahoo
(YHOO.O) and other online companies collect about users. Google, in
particular, has been under pressure to post a link on its home page to
its privacy policy.
Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the senior Republican on the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, wrote to Google in May asking for details about the
search engine's privacy practices since it acquired competitor
DoubleClick.
Google told Barton in a letter dated June 6 that it would support
creation of a federal Internet privacy law. A copy of the letter was
obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
"Google supports the adoption of a comprehensive federal privacy law
that would accomplish several goals such as building consumer trust and
protections; creating a uniform framework for privacy, which would
create consistent levels of privacy from one jurisdiction to another;
and putting penalties in place to punish and dissuade bad actors," the
letter said. It was signed by Alan Davidson, Google's chief lobbyist.
Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and Barton met last November, and
two of Barton's aides went to Google headquarters in Mountain View,
California in December to discuss privacy.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, was skeptical of Google's endorsement of a federal privacy law.
Rotenberg said that when companies push for a "comprehensive" law, they
often want something that would preempt more stringent state laws.
"We do not want the states to have their hands tied," he said Rotenberg,
citing California and New York as examples of states with tough privacy
laws.
Spyware Legislation Needs More Work
A bill before the U.S. Senate targeted at spyware needs some fine-tuning,
with part of it seemingly allowing broadband providers and computer
software and hardware vendors to scan users' computers without
authorization, a couple of spyware experts said.
The Counter Spy Act, introduced last June, would allow broadband
providers, computer hardware and software vendors, financial
institutions and other businesses to detect and prevent the unauthorized
use of software for fraudulent or other illegal activities, said Arthur
Butler, a lawyer for advocacy group Americans for Fair Electronic
Commerce Transactions. The bill says it would not prevent such scans.
"We think this language is overly broad and could protect activities
which could be harmful to computer users," Butler told the Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. "It would, in effect,
allow a software vendor to truly monitor everything that's on a user's
computer, essentially setting [vendors] up as an ad hoc police force."
Another portion of the same section of the bill, aimed at limiting
antispyware software vendors and other tech companies from legal
liability, would protect antispyware vendors and ISPs (Internet service
providers) from legal liability when they protect users from
"objectionable content." But without some accountability for antispyware
vendors and ISPs, Web sites could have little recourse to refute being
labeled as objectionable content, said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice
president of government affairs for the Direct Marketing Association
(DMA).
Some legitimate DMA members have been targeted by antispyware vendors,
and in some cases, the two sides have been able to work out a
compromise, he said. But in other cases, the software vendors haven't
responded to concerns, and the bill could make it harder to work out
issues, Cerasale said.
"'Objectionable software' is a subjective term, and we can disagree on
it," Cerasale said.
However, witnesses at the hearing praised the general direction of the
bill. The legislation, sponsored by Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas
Democrat, could allow the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek
additional civil penalties against spyware distributors, and it defines
several activities as illegal, including creating zombie computers,
hijacking Internet access, launching denial-of-service attacks and
delivering endless loops of pop-up ads.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed two antispyware bills in 2007,
but the Senate has failed to act on spyware legislation during this
session.
"Spyware and harmful adware are a critical threat to our online security
and privacy," said Vincent Weafer, vice president of security response
at Symantec. "It is wrong, and it must be stopped."
But Weafer and other witnesses also urged senators to stay away from
getting too specific about what constitutes spyware. The bill doesn't
specifically target programs that collect computer users' Web surfing
histories, but some people may consider that a form of spyware, said
Benjamin Edelman, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies
spyware.
"Practices change quickly, and at our peril do we make a list of
practices that ought to be prohibited because, the next day, there will
be more practices that we didn't think of," Edelman said.
China Denies Hacking into US Computers
China denied accusations by two U.S. lawmakers that it hacked into
congressional computers, saying Thursday that as a developing country it
wasn't capable of sophisticated cybercrime.
"Is there any evidence? ... Do we have such advanced technology? Even I
don't believe it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly
scheduled news conference.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a senior
Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday that
their office computers were hacked into by people working from China.
Both lawmakers, longtime critics of China's human rights record, said
the compromised computers had information regarding political dissidents.
Wolf said four of his computers were compromised beginning in 2006.
Smith said two of the computers at his global human rights subcommittee
were attacked in December 2006 and March 2007.
China has a thriving information technology industry and claims to have
221 million Internet users - equal to the U.S. as the most in the world.
Qin repeated previous denials that the government sponsors computer
attacks overseas and said China also was a victim of cybercrime.
"I'd like to urge some people in the U.S. not to be paranoid," Qin said.
"They should do more to contribute to mutual understanding, trust and
friendship between the U.S. and China."
The lawmakers' allegations came as U.S. officials were investigating
whether Chinese officials had secretly copied the contents of a
government laptop during a visit to China last December by U.S. Commerce
Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack
into Commerce Department computers.
China has also denied that it was involved in that incident, calling the
charges groundless.
The Pentagon acknowledged last month at a closed House Intelligence
committee meeting that its vast computer network is scanned or attacked
by outsiders more than 300 million times each day.
Wolf said the FBI had told him that computers of other House members and
at least one House committee had been accessed by sources working from
inside China.
The FBI and the White House have declined to comment. The Bush
administration has been increasingly reluctant to publicly discuss or
acknowledge cyber attacks, especially ones traced to China.
The allegations are the latest in a series of cybersecurity problems
blamed on China. Reports last year cited officials in Germany, the
United States and Britain as saying government and military networks had
been broken into by hackers backed by the Chinese military.
US Hacker Gets 41 Months for Running Rogue Botnet
A U.S. hacker who hooked up a botnet within Newell Rubbermaid's
corporate network was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Wednesday,
according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Robert Matthew Bentley, of Panama City, Florida, must also pay US$65,000
restitution. He was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Florida.
Bentley could have received a 10-year sentence. He pleaded guilty to
charges of computer fraud and conspiracy to commit computer fraud for
using the botnet to install advertising software on PCs located
throughout Europe without permission.
Newell Rubbermaid, which makes products such as Sharpie markers and
plastic food-storage containers, reported their European computer
network had been hacked around December 2006. At least one other
European-based company also complained.
Bentley's indictment was enabled by investigations conducted by several
law enforcement agencies worldwide, including London's Metropolitan
Police Computer Crime Unit, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Finland National Bureau of Investigation
and other local U.S. agencies.
Others who helped Bentley are still under investigation, the department
said. Bentley received a commission from a company called DollarRevenue
for every installation of the advertising software.
Ad software can be very difficult to remove and trigger unwanted
pop-ups. Many hackers have become astute at installing the software
through surreptitious means, such as exploiting software vulernabilities
in a PC's operating system or Web browser.
In December 2007, DollarRevenue was fined E1 million (US$1.54
million) in the Netherlands, one of the largest fines ever levied in
Europe against a company over adware. That investigation found that
hackers were paid E0.15 each for installation of DollarRevenue
software on computers in Europe and $0.25 for PCs in the U.S.
Four Nations Fight Microsoft Document-Format Standard
Four developing countries have appealed against the adoption of
Microsoft's Office Open XML document format as an international
standard, the International Organisation for Standardisation said on
Monday.
ISO said in a statement the national standards bodies of Brazil, India,
South Africa and Venezuela had appealed against the positive outcome of
a vote it held in March after a controversial fast-track ratification
process.
It gave no details of the substance of the appeals. At the time of the
vote, several parties complained that the discussion and subsequent
voting process was muddled and rushed.
Gaining the final ISO stamp of approval would help Microsoft win more
public-sector contracts, as some government bodies are nervous about
storing archives in a proprietary format.
The adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard will remain on hold until the
appeals are resolved, which could take several months, ISO said.
Critics say OOXML is not fully translatable into other document formats,
notably the open-source Open Document Format that is already recognized
as an international standard.
ISO's secretary-general and the general secretary of the International
Electrotechnical Commission are considering the appeals and will submit
them to their respective management boards for consideration by the end
of the month.
The boards will then decide whether to proceed with the appeals process.
New Version of OpenOffice.org Fixes Critical Bug
OpenOffice.org has issued a patch for a security vulnerability affecting
several versions of its open-source office suite.
The latest version, 2.4.1, is available for download on the
organization's Web site.
The vulnerability is a memory problem called a heap overflow,
OpenOffice.org said in an advisory. It can be exploited if an attacker
sends someone an OpenOffice.org document that can take advantage of the
flaw, which would then allow the hacker "to execute arbitrary commands
on the system with the privileges of the user running OpenOffice.org."
So far, no working exploit has been reported, the organization said. The
flaw affects version 2.0 through 2.4.
The upgrade also includes several other fixes and new features, which
are listed at OpenOffice.org.
OpenOffice.org, which is supported in part by Sun Microsystems, competes
with Microsoft's Office productivity suite. OpenOffice.org's next major
release, 3.0, is scheduled for September.
New Firefox Web Browser To Be Released Tuesday
A new version of the Firefox Web browser is scheduled for release
Tuesday with improvements in security, speed and design.
Many of the enhancements in Firefox 3 involve bookmarks. The new version
lets Web surfers add keywords, or tags, to sort bookmarks by topic. A
new "Places" feature lets users quickly access sites they recently
bookmarked or tagged and pages they visit frequently but haven't
bookmarked.
There's also a new star button for easily adding sites to your bookmark
list - similar to what's already available on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet
Explorer 7 browser.
Other new features include the ability to resume downloads midway if the
connection is interrupted and an updated password manager that doesn't
disrupt the log-in process.
In a nod to the growing use of Web-based e-mail, the browser can be set
to launch Yahoo Inc.'s service when clicking a "mailto" link in a Web
page, the ones you might come across clicking on a name or a "contact
us" link. Previously such links could only open a standalone, desktop
e-mail program.
Yahoo is the only Web service initially supported. To use rivals like
Google Inc.'s Gmail and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail, developers of those
services will have to enable that capability first.
Firefox also will start blocking rather than simply warning about sites
known to engage in "phishing" scams that try to trick users into
revealing passwords and other sensitive information. The new version
adds protection from sites known to distribute viruses and other
malicious software.
The list of suspicious sites come from Google Inc. and StopBadware.org,
a project headed by legal scholars at Harvard and Oxford universities.
Security researchers who need access to problem sites can manually turn
the feature off.
Firefox 3 also offers speed and design improvements - the back button is
now larger than the forward button, for instance, because people tend to
return to a previous page more often, said Mike Schroepfer, the
project's vice president of engineering.
Firefox is the No. 2 Web browser behind Microsoft Corp.'s Internet
Explorer. It comes from Mozilla, an open-source community in which
thousands of people, mostly volunteers, collectively develop free
products.
Mozilla has been developing Firefox 3 for nearly three years and has
been publicly testing it since November for Windows, Mac and Linux
computers.
Its supporters are organizing launch parties around the world next week,
and Mozilla is trying to set a world record for most software downloads
in a 24-hour period.
Microsoft is currently testing Internet Explorer 8, while Opera Software
ASA released Opera 9.5 on Thursday.
Energy Dept. Says New Computer World's Fastest
A computer designed to run virtual tests of U.S. nuclear weapons will be
the world's fastest, making 1,000 trillion calculations per second, the
U.S. Department of Energy said on Monday.
The IBM Roadrunner supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico is the first to achieve a what is known as a petaflop of sustained
performance, the department and IBM said.
"Flop" is an acronym meaning floating-point operations per second. One
petaflop is 1,000 trillion computer calculations per second.
"Roadrunner will be used by the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration to perform calculations that vastly improve the
ability to certify that the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is reliable
without conducting underground nuclear tests," the department said in a
statement.
"Roadrunner will not only play a key role in maintaining the U.S.
nuclear deterrent, it will also contribute to solving our global energy
challenges, and open new windows of knowledge in the basic scientific
research fields," it added.
"To put this into perspective, if each of the 6 billion people on earth
had a hand calculator and worked together on a calculation 24 hours per
day, 365 days a year, it would take 46 years to do what Roadrunner would
do in one day," the department said.
Amazon Site Stumbles Again Monday
Online shoppers struggled to enter Amazon.com's main e-commerce site on
Monday, after it had experienced similar problems on Friday.
Between 10:03 a.m. and 10:23 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time, only about 30
percent of visitors managed to enter Amazon.com, according to mobile and
Internet management firm Keynote Systems, which tracks Web site
performance.
After stabilizing, Amazon.com again wobbled, and its availability
dropped to about 68 percent between 10:56 a.m. and 11:09 a.m., said
Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations.
After that, the site went back to normal and remains that way at press
time.
However, the technical gremlins also hit the company's U.K. storefront
on Monday, and the problems there are ongoing.
The U.K. site first experienced problems at 10:06 a.m. PT, and its
availability dropped as low as 38 percent - meaning that about six of 10
people couldn't enter - but by 12:11 p.m. the availability had climbed
back to about 96 percent, White said.
Asked for comment, Amazon provided this statement via e-mail: "Some
customers reported intermittent problems accessing Amazon retail Web
sites on Monday morning. However, we are working to resolve the issues,
and Amazon's web services are not affected."
Even people who managed to enter and browse the sites faced slow
performance: While Amazon.com pages typically load in six seconds or
less, that average climbed to about 15 seconds during the affected
periods, White said.
Gomez, another Web site monitoring firm, puts Amazon's normal average
response times between 3 seconds and 8.5 seconds, but that average rose
to 14 seconds on Friday and stood in a range of between 2.5 seconds and
14 seconds on Monday.
On Friday, when the availability problems lasted about 3 hours, as well
as on Monday, most shoppers having access problems were getting a
cryptic error message saying "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable," which means
nothing to nontechnical people.
This indicates to White that whatever caused the problem proved hard to
isolate, making it impossible for the company to configure its system to
trigger a more intelligible alert acknowledging the problem in plain
English.
White's guess is that a misconfiguration somewhere in Amazon's complex
e-commerce system discombobulated unrelated pieces in its vast network
of databases, data centers and application and Web servers.
If this is indeed the cause of the problems, the lesson for Amazon and
anyone else is to perform rigorous testing before making any
alterations, especially when the change will have an effect on many
moving parts in the system, White said.
"The more complex a system is, the more challenging it is to maintain,
and a configuration problem here can cause problems somewhere else," he
said.
White confirmed Amazon's statement that the company's Amazon Web
Services hosted technology services weren't affected by the problems on
Friday and Monday.
Russia's President Calls for Cyrillic Internet Domain
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for Russia to be assigned an
Internet domain name in the Cyrillic script on Wednesday as part of a
Kremlin drive to promote Russian as a global language.
The Kremlin is concerned that Russian, once the main language throughout
the Soviet Union, is losing ground to local languages and to the
creeping influence of English. It sees defending Russian as a matter of
national pride.
He said 300 million people worldwide used Russian media and that a
Cyrillic domain name would be a key part of raising the importance of
Russian as a language, a task he said was his personal priority as
president.
"We must do everything we can to make sure that we achieve in the future
a Cyrillic Internet domain name - it is a pretty serious thing,"
Medvedev told the International Congress of Russian Press in Moscow.
"It is a symbol of the importance of the Russian language and Cyrillic
and it is not a bad sphere of cooperation. And I think we have a rather
high chance of achieving such a decision in the Internet world."
Medvedev has been keen to portray himself as an Internet-savvy head of
state: he has publicly used his mobile telephone to connect to the
Internet and says he surfs online every morning for news.
Russian Internet sites use domain names in the Latin script, as in most
parts of the Internet. Addresses end either with the suffix .ru, or in
some cases .su, a domain name inherited from the Soviet Union.
Industry experts say Russia wants its domain name to be .rf - for
Russian Federation - but written in the Cyrillic script.
Some in the industry have though raised concerns that it could allow the
state to control more of the content in a sphere that has remained a
relatively free forum for dissent at a time when traditional media have
become subject to tighter control.
Russian is one of the United Nations' six main languages and the sixth
most widely spoken languages in the world after Mandarin, English,
Hindi/Urdu, Arabic and Spanish.
Salaries Are No Secret at New Site
Glassdoor.com, which went live last night, allows anyone to peer into
details many employers would no doubt rather keep secret: salary
information, CEO ratings from employees, and dishing about work
environment, among other things.
The site shows teaser details for Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco and Google for
non-registered viewers, but to see all the data that others have shared,
you'll need to first provide anonymous details on your own
employment. Share your salary and see those from others.
Same for employer reviews. You won't need to provide your name
(though you will need to give it an e-mail address), and it's free.
Glassdoor says it's focusing on SF Bay area companies at the start, but
is expanding to other regions and industries. As with any ratings
system, I wouldn't put much stock in ratings for companies that are only
based on a few people's reviews. It's too easy for one overly
happy or disgruntled person to skew a rating.
But as an article in the San Francisco Chronicle describes, even a few
scathing reviews could prove useful for an on-the-ball company to see if
there's a problem manager or situation. I could certainly see
people being more willing to vent on an anonymous site than to walk into
their company's HR. Companies might not like to see such
information made public, but they could still turn it to their advantage.
Also, while other sites such as Salary.com provide data on how much a
given type of job might pay, Glassdoor.com could provide more specific
comparisons, such as how much the other people in your particular
company with your same job title are making. If those people
happen to enter their data on the site, that is.
The site is sluggish right now and I'd guess it might be under a heavy
load. For more background on Glassdoor, head to the SF Chron
story.
Even With $4 Gas, Demand for Telework Unmet
Even as gas prices hit historic highs in the U.S., most residents can't
telecommute, according to a new survey released by advocacy group
Telework Exchange.
Nearly all of the respondents in a recent survey by Telework Exchange
expressed an interest in telecommuting and 92 percent said they believed
their jobs could be done from home. But only 39 percent of the
respondents, culled from 377 registrants of the Telework Exchange Web
site, said they were able to telework at least part time.
"Telework Exchange registrants (both government and private-sector
employees) do have a clear interest in telework," Cindy Auten, Telework
Exchange's general manager, said in an e-mail. "We find that this is an
accurate sample of the full population."
Even with people in much of the U.S. paying $4 a gallon or more for gas,
telecommuting seems to be facing an uphill battle. Telework Exchange has
pushed for more telework options for U.S. government workers, but a
survey released in March by CDW-G found only 17 percent of federal
employees telecommuting.
Surveys have shown that management resistance to telework remains a
barrier, Auten said. "What we found was that as managers become exposed
to/involved in telework, their approval of the operating practice
improves significantly," she added. "Encouraging managers to telework is
a critical step to achieving overall agency telework adoption. Further,
agencies must educate and train management on telework drivers and
benefits."
Thirty-eight percent of the survey's respondents said they they're
willing to pay any amount for gas. More than eight in 10 respondents
said they rely on their vehicles to get to work, with only 13 percent
using car pooling and 10 percent using public transportation.
However, 78 percent of survey respondents said they were making
lifestyle changes because of high gas prices. More than seven in 10 said
they were limiting car trips or consolidating errands. Another 62
percent said they were spending less in general on other things and 53
percent said they were eating out less often.
An average U.S. resident spends $2,052 a year for gas to commute, and
spends 264 hours on the road, according to the survey.
"I think that we are seeing a tipping point for people to start looking
for other alternatives to commuting," Auten said.
A law passed by Congress in 2000 requires federal agencies to create
plans where eligible employees "may participate in telecommuting to the
maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance."
Telework supporters say that such plans would have several benefits. It
would keep more drivers off clogged roads in the Washington, D.C., area,
and it would decrease air pollution, supporters say.
Asked how employees can convince their managers to allow telecommuting,
Auten offered several suggestions.
Workers can point to online tools, including Telework Exchange's Online
Eligibility Gizmo and its Telework Value Calculators, she said. The
gizmo is a quiz that helps workers determine their eligibility to
telecommute and the calculators show the costs of regular commuting.
"Telework Exchange recommends using the calculators and printing out the
findings to present a business case for telework to management," Auten
said.
Employees may also have to prove to managers that they can remain
productive, she added. "It is also important that employees focus on
measurable outcomes to demonstrate continued or increased productivity,"
she said. "It is also helpful to use project schedules, key milestones,
regular status reports, and team reviews."
Internet Companies To Block Child Porn Sites
Verizon , Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block Internet
bulletin boards and websites nationwide that disseminate child
pornography, New York's attorney general announced on Tuesday.
The ISPs also agreed with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to
contribute more than $1.1 million to help the state combat the spread of
child pornography. The news was first reported in the New York Times
late on Monday.
The companies have agreed to block access to newsgroups that traffic
such images on one of the oldest online outposts, known as Usenet, as
well as sites that host child pornography.
The agreements will affect customers not just in New York but throughout
the country.
"The pervasiveness of child pornography on the Internet is horrific and
it needs to be stopped," Cuomo said in a statement. "We are attacking
this problem by working with Internet Service Providers to ensure they
do not play host to this immoral business."
His office said its undercover investigation uncovered a major source of
online child pornography known as "Newsgroups" - an online service not
associated with websites.
Users can use Newsgroups as online bulletin boards where users can
upload and download illicit files. The investigation uncovered 88
different Newsgroups that contained a total of 11,390 sexually lewd
photos featuring prepubescent children.
After ISPs initially ignored the investigators' complaints, the attorney
general's office threatened charges of fraud and deceptive business
practices and the companies agreed to cooperate and began weeks of
negotiations.
=~=~=~=
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