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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 12 Issue 43
Volume 12, Issue 43 Atari Online News, Etc. October 22, 2010
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1243 10/22/10
~ EU Kids Not Safe-Savvy ~ People Are Talking! ~ Sites To Be Liable?
~ Oz Court Order via Web ~ Parents Do Monitor Kids ~ Get A Red Wii, More!
~ Sex.com Sells for $13M ~ The Cyberbully Bugaboo! ~ The New MacBook Air!
~ Court to Google: Tell! ~ Most Kids Cyber-Bullied ~ HP Unveils Slate!
-* E-crime More Common Than Real *-
-* Passwords: You're Doing It All Wrong *-
-* US Studying Australian Web Security Program *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
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Fall is definitely in the air, and a little winter too! The leaves are
finally starting to turn in my neck of the woods. We always seem to be
"later" than most, but I think that's more to the fact that oak trees
tend to turn color than most other tree types. And we seem to have a
preponderance of oak trees around here! And, the temps have been
dropping drastically the past few days; we even had a quick burst of
rain-snow mix early this morning! Pretty soon I'll be kept busy trying
to keep up with all of the downed leaves. Another prelude to winter...
Finally had what I hope to be the last of my "frequent-flier" doctor
appointments, today. I had a 3-month follow-up with my cardiologist.
Had an EKG which was fine, but my blood pressure seems to have climbed
since last month. Not as bad a six months ago, but enough to have the
doc increase my medication dosage. Unless something changes for the
worse, I'm moved to annual check-ups with my primary and specialty
doctors. And, I seem to feel okay overall - a good thing.
Lots of interesting news bits for you this week. More on some various
"cyber-bullying" topics - some interesting reading. More on cyber
security measures here in the U.S., and that ongoing battle. Imagine
yourself being Amazon.com, and opening up a $200-plus million tax
bill! See what that's all about, and how it could potentially affect
us in the future - a seemingly never-ending revenue topic! So, let's
move along to these and other news bits for the week!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. It's going to be a short column this week.
Lots of things to do and messes to clean up. Another week has come and gone
and, depending on where you live, the leaves are in the process of
changing. The things that trees do in the autumn have always amazed me.
What a wonder feat of engineering they are, not only for their rich deep
colors, but for the fact that they exist at all.
Now I'm not going to go into a tirade and spout a bunch of Intelligent
Design nonsense, but it DOES amaze me that there is such wondrous
complexity... and to show my 'human arrogance'... that it all took place
without us doing anything.
I mean, look at how a tree works. It grows in the ground, extracting
nutrients from nothing but the earth, using sunlight and rain water and
the dirt and nothing else.
Think about it; A tree is a kind of.. chemical processing 'plant'. It
takes nitrogen and other various chemicals, along with water, from the
ground, uses chemical processes powered by sunlight and produces living
matter. It grows. It does not 'build', but creates.
And when it's this time of year, the trees shut down. The leaves undergo
changes and fall off. But they're not wasted. Trees know... the leaves,
mixed with anaerobic bacteria, will decompose and return nutrients to the
soil, enriching it for the spring. The tree slows down and settles in for
the coming winter, preparing for what's to come.
All winter long it survives by doing as little as it can, storing its
growth to nothing, protecting itself against the cold, getting ready to
start it all over in the spring.
When spring comes, it activates again, pulling water and nutrients from
the ground, sprouting leaves to catch the sun, putting out new shoots and
stems. Sap starts running again, without the benefit of a heart to pump.
Branches turn toward the sun, without the benefit of muscles. It puts out
fruits or seeds to ensure the continuation of its species, all without a
brain to tell it what to do or when.
Yes, it amazes me that what we take for granted because we see it every
day is really so special. It's a wonder. Have you ever stopped to wonder
how wood is 'made'? Think about it; that stuff has to come from somewhere,
and I don't know if any of US could craft something like a tree from
nothing but dirt and water and sunlight. And not only 'craft something',
but something that grows and can reproduce.
Oh, and by the way, in addition to growing on its own, it and its green
brethren make OUR lives possible in large part. I did make one mistake
above. In addition to water and 'dirt' and sunlight, there is one thing
that trees also need. Carbon dioxide. They take in carbon dioxide (without
the benefit of lungs, I might add) and break it down. The carbon gets used
in making wood, and the oxygen gets released into the air.. for us to
breathe.
It's true that most of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from the algae
in the oceans, but some of it comes from large areas of foliage like the
Amazon basin, and forests. And every single tree does it. Every tree you
pass on the road is taking in carbon dioxide and putting out oxygen.
So the next time you "knock on wood" or lean against a fencepost or sit
under an apple tree to try to discover a law of nature or something, think
about the tree too.
Of course, what led ME to think about this is that I've got a lot of
raking to do... all those 'solar collectors' are hitting the ground now.
Well, 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 - Nintendo Releases Red Wii, and more!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Nintendo Releases Red Wii, DSi XL Bundles, Wii Remote Plus
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. game,
Nintendo on Thursday released red Wii and DSi XL bundles, as well as the
new Wii Remote Plus.
The limited-edition lineup will be available in North America on Nov. 7.
First up is a red Wii bundle, which includes a red Wii console, the "Super
Mario Bros." Wii game, a new red Wii Remote Plus controller, Wii sports,
and a red Nunchuck controller. It will sell for $199.99, and is available
for pre-order
now.
The red Nintendo DSi XL bundle, meanwhile, includes a red DSi XL with
special artwork, the "Mario Kart" DS video game, three pre-installed
titles and built-in software, including "Brain Age Express: Arts &
Letters" and "Brain Age Express: Math and Photo Clock." The bundle also
add a large, red stylus. It will sell for $179.99 and is also available
for pre-order.
Nintendo also announced the Wii Remote Plus, which adds Wii MotionPlus
functionality. It will become the standard Wii controller going forward
and will be included in upcoming Wii hardware packages and bundles. It will
be sold separately for $39.99, or bundled with the new FlingSmash motion
control game for $49.99.
"Whether shoppers want to add a cool new look to their gaming setup or
expand their supply of controllers with an exciting game, Nintendo offers
a great value for the holidays," Marc Franklin, Nintendo of America's
director of public relations, said in a statement. "For anyone who is still
on the fence about whether to join the world of video games, we're offering
many fun, easy, economical ways to get involved."
Earlier this week, Netflix announced that Wii users will no longer need a
disc to stream its Watch Instantly content from the console. The next big
launch for Nintendo is expected to be its 3DS, which should launch in the
U.S. in March for $300.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
E-crime Now More Common Than Real Crime
If there was any doubt about the popularity of electronic dupery, it should
be put to rest with a report on global fraud released the week by the risk
management consulting firm Kroll. For the first time since 2007, when the
company began putting together its annual survey on crime, electronic fraud
surpassed physical scams as the most common form of fraud in the world.
In the past theft of physical assets or stock topped the report's fraud
charts, but this year's survey--performed by the Economist's Intelligence
Unit and based on information gathered from more than 800 senior executives
worldwide - showed information theft, loss or attack edging out physical
fraud by a razor thin margin of 27.3 to 27.2 percent.
While that margin may be small, the year-to-year increase for information
fraud isn't. Last year, information theft finished third in the fraud
rankings with 18 percent of the companies in the survey reporting info
scams, compared to 28 percent reporting physical fraud and 20 percent
management conflict of interest frauds.
The growing trend in information fraud isn't about to abate, either, the
report said. "The survey suggests that things may get worse before they
get better," it noted. "Information theft or attack is the type of fraud
to which respondents are most likely to describe their companies as
vulnerable (37 percent)."
"Again," it continued, "their concerns are not isolated. This type of crime
is regarded as the greatest weak spot for three of the 10 industries
covered in the survey - Financial Services, Professional Services, and
Natural Resources and the second greatest for three more - Construction,
Technology, Media and Telecoms, and Retail."
Although corruption topped the list cited by companies for avoiding
expanding into foreign countries (17 percent) or investing in them (37
percent), information theft came in second, with nine percent of
respondents refusing to do business in some regions because of it and 19
percent eschewing investment for fear of it.
"In most geographies information theft is the second biggest deterrent to
investment, but that varies widely, from seven percent in Western Europe to
31 percent in neighboring Central and Eastern Europe," the report said.
US Studying Australian Internet Security Program
The government is reviewing an Australian program that will allow Internet
service providers to alert customers if their computers are taken over by
hackers and could limit online access if people don't fix the problem.
Obama administration officials have met with industry leaders and experts
to find ways to increase online safety while trying to balance securing
the Internet and guarding people's privacy and civil liberties.
Experts and U.S. officials are interested in portions of the plan, set to
go into effect in Australia in December. But any move toward Internet
regulation or monitoring by the U.S. government or industry could trigger
fierce opposition from the public.
The discussions come as private, corporate and government computers across
the U.S. are increasingly being taken over and exploited by hackers and
other computer criminals.
White House cybercoordinator Howard Schmidt told The Associated Press that
the U.S. is looking at a number of voluntary ways to help the public and
small businesses better protect themselves online.
Possibilities include provisions in the Australia plan that enable customers
to get warnings from their Internet providers if their computer gets taken
over by hackers through a botnet.
A botnet is a network of infected computers that can number in the
thousands and that network is usually controlled by hackers through a small
number of scattered PCs. Computer owners are often unaware that their
machine is linked to a botnet and is being used to shut down targeted
websites, distribute malicious code or spread spam.
If a company is willing to give its customers better online security, the
American public will go along with that, Schmidt said.
"Without security you have no privacy. And many of us that care deeply
about our privacy look to make sure our systems are secure," Schmidt said
in an interview. Internet service providers, he added, can help "make sure
our systems are cleaned up if they're infected and keep them clean."
But officials are stopping short of advocating an option in the Australian
plan that allows Internet providers to wall off or limit online usage by
customers who fail to clean their infected computers, saying this would be
technically difficult and likely run into opposition.
"In my view, the United States is probably going to be well behind other
nations in stepping into a lot of these new areas," said Prescott Winter,
former chief technology officer for the National Security Agency, who is
now at the California-based cybersecurity firm, ArcSight.
In the U.S., he said, the Internet is viewed as a technological wild west
that should remain unfenced and unfettered. But he said this open range
isn't secure, so "we need to take steps to make it safe, reliable and
resilient."
"I think that, quite frankly, there will be other governments who will
finally say, at least for their parts of the Internet, as the Australians
have apparently done, we think we can do better."
Cybersecurity expert James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, said that Internet providers are
nervous about any increase in regulations, and they worry about consumer
reaction to monitoring or other security controls.
Online customers, he said, may not want their service provider to cut off
their Internet access if their computer is infected. And they may balk at
being forced to keep their computers free of botnets or infections.
But they may be amenable to having their Internet provider warn them of
cyberattacks and help them clear the malicious software off their computers
by providing instructions, patches or anti-virus programs.
They may even be willing to pay a small price each month for the service -
much like telephone customers used to pay a minimal monthly charge to cover
repairs.
Lewis, who has been studying the issue for CSIS, said it is inevitable that
one day carriers will play a role in defending online customers from
computer attack.
Comcast Corp. is expanding a Denver pilot program that alerts customers
whose computers are controlled through a botnet. The carrier provides free
antivirus software and other assistance to clean the malware off the
machine, said Cathy Avgiris, senior vice president at Comcast.
The program does not require customers to fix their computers or limit the
online usage of people who refuse to do the repairs.
Avgiris said that the program will roll out across the country over the
next three months. "We don't want to panic customers. We want to make sure
they are comfortable. Beyond that, I hope that we pave the way for others
to take these steps."
Voluntary programs will not be enough, said Dale Meyerrose, vice president
and general manager of Cyber Integrated Solutions at Harris Corporation.
"There are people starting to make the point that we've gone about as far
as we can with voluntary kinds of things, we need to have things that have
more teeth in them, like standards," said Meyerrose.
For example, he said, coffee shops or airports might limit their wireless
services to laptops equipped with certain protective technology. Internet
providers might qualify for specific tax benefits if they put programs in
place, he said.
Unfortunately, he said, it may take a serious attack before the government
or industry impose such standards and programs.
In Australia, Internet providers will be able to take a range of actions to
limit the damage from infected computers, from issuing warnings to
restricting outbound e-mail. They could also temporarily quarantine
compromised machines while providing customers with links to help fix the
problem.
Half of EU Kids Don't Know How to Be Safe Online
Half of the young children in the E.U. don't have basic Internet safety
skills such as knowing how to control privacy settings or block unwanted
contacts.
However, the threats faced by children online are steadily decreasing,
according to a new study by the European Commission. Only 5 percent of
children in Europe say that they have been bullied online, with a high
of 14 percent in Estonia and Romania.
The EUKidsOnline survey interviewed more than 23,000 children and one of
their parents in 22 E.U. member states, as well as Turkey and Norway. It
found that, on average, European children start using the Internet at
the age of seven, but a third of children between the ages of nine and
12 feel that there are enough "good things for kids" online.
Broadly speaking, children go online the earliest in the Nordic countries,
the Netherlands and U.K., and later in Mediterranean countries. The most
active young Internet users are aged 15 and 16, with 77 percent going
online daily.
Children in the survey say they use the Internet primarily for school work
or watching videos (84 percent and 83 percent respectively), playing games
(74 percent) and communicating via instant message (61 percent).
The vast majority of children use the Internet at home (85 percent),
with school in second place (63 percent). Although children mainly use
computers to go online, the survey found that one-third now connect via
mobile devices.
Virus Fighting: An International Sport
Microsoft is an American company, as is Apple. In the antivirus world some
of the big names like Norton and McAfee are American, but they're in the
minority. Kaspersky, a huge seller in American retail stores, is based in
Russia. The popular Spyware Doctor antivirus/antispyware tool comes from
Australia. While they're all competitors for your attention and shopping
dollars, they work together against the forces of software evil. Nowhere
is this clearer than in a meeting of Anti-Malware Testing Standards
Organization (AMTSO).
Founded in 2008, AMTSO is dedicated to ensuring that testing of
anti-malware software is conducted fairly, accurately, and consistently.
Yes, the vendors are in competition with each other; so when there's a
published comparison test they want dependable results. To this end AMTSO
created a set of basic guidelines for testing. The guidelines are quite
sensible. For example, testing should be reasonably open and transparent,
testing must be unbiased, and the conclusion of a test must be based on
test results. Members can submit a published test to the group's Review
Advisory Board; this board reports on how closely the test adheres to
AMTSO guidelines.
There are currently about three dozen members of AMTSO representing at
least two dozen countries (some have significant presence in multiple
countries). The most recent addition is HCL Technologies, formerly the
security division of CA, and it's a perfect example. The company itself is
based in India, but its representative to the current AMTSO meeting, taking
place now in Munich, comes from its Italian division.
In addition to the basic guidelines for testing, AMTSO has published a
number of other documents on topics including whole-product dynamic testing,
validating malware samples, and creating malware for test purposes (summary:
don't!). Representatives at the current meeting will vote on whether to
approve a new set of guidelines for testing false positives - those
unfortunate times when antivirus software mistakenly identifies a good
program as malicious.
Should Sites Be Held Liable for User Comments?
Britain's Attorney General has said that website owners should be made
legally responsible for comments made by visitors.
According to a report on Out-law.com, Dominic Grieve (pictured) told
members of the Criminal Bar Association that the spiralling number of
internet news web sites meant it was becoming more and more difficult for
courts to ensure that trials were fair, and that juries were not exposed
to material that could prejudice a hearing.
"The rise of [the Internet] has been profound in so many aspects of our
lives, including the relationship between the Courts and the media," Grieve
told the assembled audience of lawyers. "The news is constantly available
and updated either on 24-hour television networks, the websites of
mainstream news organisations, or unofficial blogs, emails and social
networking sites. The amount of material is vast and it can be passed on at
lightning speed.
"In my view this does not reduce the importance of the contempt of court
laws. It doesn't remove the need for fair and accurate contemporaneous
reports," the Tory MP said.
Turning his attention to comments posted by members of the public, Grieve
explained:
"If it is increasingly easy for individuals to act as unofficial
journalists and publishers the greater the need for general understanding
about why restrictions are sometimes necessary. This extends particularly
to those who run websites upon which members of the public place their
opinions.
"I understand that there is no clear authority in relation to their legal
obligation but there must, I feel, be an argument that they too have to
ensure that a trial is not prejudiced by what is posted," said Grieve. "I
would be happy to have further discussions with such organisations... with
a view to increasing their understanding of those potential risks."
Until now, printers and distributors have been able to argue that they had
innocently passed on prejudicial material - a defence that could be used by
web site publishers to disclaim responsibility for prejudicial comments,
argues technology lawyer Struan Robertson of legal firm Pinsent Masons.
"Site operators could use the 'innocent distribution' defence, claiming
that they did not know that material was sub judice," says Robertson. "This
defence is not available once they have been told about the material,
though."
"Online publishers that remove that material quickly would also be able to
claim a defence under the E-Commerce Regulations that absolve publishers
of responsibility for unlawful material as long as they remove it quickly
when told about it," said Robertson.
Grieve's comments suggest he is considering a change in the law to make
site publishers responsible for material posted by users, and come after a
string of high-profile cases in which courts held that they were powerless
to tackle the publishing of prejudicial material.
Extensive coverage of a paternity case in the High Court last year led to
the judge ruling that an extension of reporting restrictions was "futile".
In another judgment, a court ruled that reporting restrictions only
replied to those people who were aware of them - leaving open the question
of whether amateur commentators such as bloggers may be able to evade
restrictions that bound more professional news outlets.
43 Percent of Teens Affected by Cyber Bullying
Most kids have been the target of cyber bullying, according to a Wednesday
report. A study commissioned by the National Crime Prevention Council
found that 43 percent of kids were on the receiving end of this kind of
harassment last year.
Of the 824 teens surveyed by the council, 78 percent have been using the
Web for at least three years, while 96 percent have an e-mail account.
Despite the common presence of teens online, however, many have very
little parental supervision.
The study found that 43 percent of teens said that "their parents usually
know what they're doing online, but do not have any rules about their
activity" and about 27 percent said their parents have no idea what they're
doing online. About 23 percent have and follow their parents' rules.
As a result, 43 percent said they have experienced some sort of cyber
bullying. The trend was much more common among females, with 51 percent
reporting that they've experienced the harassment in some form, while 37
percent of men said the same. Cyber bullying is most rampant among high
school students, the survey reported.
"While 46 percent of high school teens have experienced cyber bullying,
only 35 percent of middle school students have had that experience," it
said.
The Harris poll said that cyber bullying is most likely to occur among
15 and 16-year-olds.
This information is especially timely in light of the wave of teen
suicides that have taken place as a result of cyber-bullying. Tyler
Clementi was a Rutgers University student who jumped to his death from
the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and another student
posted footage on the Internet of Clementi's sexual encounter with
another man.
In the wake of this and other teen suicides, Facebook recently announced
of a partnership between several organizations to curb hate speech on
its site. The collaboration includes MTV's a Thin Line campaign, the Gay
and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Human Rights Campaign
(HRC), the Trevor Project, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education
Network (GLSEN), and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays
(PFLAG).
Court to Google: Tell New Yorker Who Posted About Her
A business consultant who wants to know who's been anonymously disparaging
and fixating on her online has gotten a court to force Google to tell her.
As she joined a growing number of people who have persuaded courts to
unmask troublesome cyber ciphers, Carla Franklin said Wednesday she hoped
her case would help others combat similar problems.
"The Internet cannot become a safe haven for harassers and stalkers," she
said in an e-mail.
Google Inc. declined to comment. The Mountain View, Calif.-based online
giant says it doesn't discuss individual cases to protect users' privacy,
but it follows applicable laws.
A Manhattan court ruling issued Tuesday gives the company a couple of weeks
to provide Franklin with identity and contact information for the person or
people who posted denigrating comments and unauthorized videos of her,
beginning last year.
The videos, posted on Google-owned YouTube, were clips from an innocuous
student film in which she had appeared years before, coupled with personal
information about her to create an unsettling online shrine, she said.
Franklin did some modeling and acting before becoming a consultant to
nonprofit organizations.
The comments, made though another YouTube channel, featured a sexual slur
and were posted alongside videos she made for Columbia Business School
while earning a master's degree there, she said.
The postings were humiliating, creepy and potentially hurtful to Franklin's
professional prospects, she and her lawyer have said.
Franklin said in a blog post of her own this month that she believes she
knows who's responsible, but she went to court last summer to get proof so
she could potentially pursue further legal action. Her court case didn't
involve Columbia.
While anonymous commentary became an instant tradition and valued aspect
of the Internet, it's also become a scourge for people and businesses who
have found themselves bullied and besmirched by shadowy critics. And it's
become an issue for courts trying to weigh self-expression rights against
defamation and other legal claims.
"There's a tension there - there's a First Amendment right to be able to
speak anonymously, but there's no First Amendment right to violate the
law," said Bennet G. Kelley, a Santa Monica, Calif., attorney who
specializes in Internet law.
"People think: 'It's the Internet. I can do whatever I want,'" he said, but
"the law applies, online and offline."
Still, enforcing it can be a challenge. While a number of states have laws
against cyberharassment or cyberstalking, it can be difficult for
authorities to go after suspects who can easily change aliases and may be
in another jurisdiction.
Prosecutions do happen, including the recent trial of a New York man
accused of using phony online identities to harass and discredit his scholar
father's adversaries in a heated academic debate over the origins of the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The son, Raphael Golb, was convicted last month of identity theft and other
charges. He said his pseudonymous e-mails and blog posts amounted to
academic whistle-blowing and satire, not crime; he plans to appeal.
Some people end up going to court themselves to stop being trashed online.
In one high-profile case, Vogue cover model Liskula Cohen successfully
sued Google in a New York court last year to get the name of a blogger
who had made derogatory remarks about Cohen's hygiene and sexual habits.
Cohen said the comments on the site were defamatory. The blogger,
ultimately identified by court order as Rosemary Port, said her privacy
was violated, and she had a right to her opinions.
Australia Police Serve Court Order via Facebook
Australian police served a court order on an allegedcyber bully using the
social networking site Facebook, officials said Wednesday, describing it
as a national first.
Victoria police got court approval to use the site after attempts to serve
the order in person, over the telephone or via the post failed.
The "prolific" Facebook user was accused of, among other things, using the
site to harrass, bully and threaten another person, and police said they
transcribed all the court documents and sent them to his Facebook
inbox.
A video was also made of the order being read "as if the Respondent was
being directly spoken to" and sent electronically to him.
"He stated that he understood the seriousness of the orders, having read
... documents served via the social media website and agreed to comply,
stating that he would delete his Facebook profile," a police statement
said.
"In this instance we were able to deliver justice through the same medium
as the crime committed," said leading senior constable Stuart Walton, the
officer in charge of the investigation.
"Police will always pursue traditional means to enforce the law and to
protect the community, but we won't shy away from innovative methods to
achieve positive outcomes either."
In 2008 an Australian lawyer won the right to serve legal documents via
Facebook, the same year a Sydney court allowed lawyers to serve rugby player
Sonny Bill Williams with a subpoena via SMS text message.
Australia, with a population of 22.5 million, has almost nine million
Facebook users.
The Cyberbully Bugaboo
I'm not particularly pleased with the continued use of the concept of
the "cyberbully" when talking about what is clearly a situation
involving libel or slander.
The case at hand today is that of Carla Franklin. She had a laundry list
of complaints, many legitimate, that have been all rolled into the
category of cyberbullying by the media and others. The story is all over
the news, and the woman is now making TV appearances.
Let's summarize. She felt she was being cyberstalked, which is a concept
I never fully understood. You are either stalked or you are not. If
someone is dogging you on the Internet, does that constitute
cyberstalking? Law enforcement has never even been clear about what
action can be taken when you think you're being cyberstalked. Then, she
claimed harassment and defamation. This included the posting of a
YouTube video someone made of her (the circumstances are not clear) with
the word "whore" appearing somehow on the video.
She managed to get a judge to demand the names of the supposed three
people involved in the posting of the video and the comments. Two of the
names are JOEBOOMO8 and JIMMYJEANOO8, which sounds like the same guy to me.
To track the culprit down, Google will do a little research and pull
down the IP addresses which is simple enough. The IP address must then
be associated with an ISP. Next, the IP address needs to be linked to a
specific subscriber. Then, someone has to prove that the specific
subscriber was actually the one using the IP address. If this culprit
has an open Wi-Fi account or expert skills, it would be hard to prove he
did it. And there is always the remote possibility that the person(s)
who did this used a public library, cafe, or stolen Wi-Fi signal.
Generally speaking, at this point in the investigation, if zero
connection to Ms. Franklin can be shown, everything falls apart and a
lot of time was wasted.
In a simple online harassment case like this, the person being harassed
either knows the guy on the other end of the line or not.
The person harassing this woman is obviously a co-worker who hates her,
a snubbed suitor, an ex-boyfriend, an acquaintance who was wronged, or a
random psycho. There are not too many other possibilities. The random
psycho is the only dangerous one on the list. If any of the others were
dangerous, they would have physically attacked the woman by now, I would
think.
That said, something has to be done once in a while to cut down on the
online anonymous libel. And I'm not saying this because I'm against
people expressing themselves. It just seems as if too few people know
what libel is or that it's illegal. A few people need to be ruined (as
in prosecuted and jailed) for doing it to put the fear of God into the
others. And, yes, you can call someone an a-hole or even a whore, if you
do it right. Seriously. But not if it includes a never ending stream of
false accusations and harassing commentary.
I suspect this situation will resolve itself once the so-called bully's
identity is revealed. I can assure you that will be the most interesting
aspect of the story. "Dad! You?!?!" Other than that, this whole incident
seems lame and hardly newsworthy.
Most Parents Monitor Kids' Social Networking Regularly
"Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook."
So reads the introduction of an online support group,
myparentsjoinedfacebook.com, for the kids of parents who have connected
with them online. With rants ranging from a mother who "liked" hundreds of
photos on her daughter's page, to another who used Facebook to "out" her
son for logging onto Facebook too much, parents may learn a thing or two
about how to engage with your teens on social networking sites.
After all, some parents appear to have no shame when it comes to the
difference between monitoring and cyber stalking, according to a new study
on parent-teen attitudes towards online privacy conducted by San
Francisco-based privacy group Truste.
The study showed that 72 percent of the 1,037 parents with
social-networking accounts monitored their teen's social-networking accounts
regularly, with 35 percent checking every day. Another 10 percent of parents
were even secretly logged into their teen's accounts (the survey doesn't
share how this was done). Eighteen percent of teens said they have been
"disciplined" or "embarrassed" by their parents online.
In fact, although the study said that 84 percent of parents are "confident"
that their teen is responsible with posting personal information on a
social-networking site, 89 percent wanted these sites to have default
privacy settings that limited profile access to their teens' accounts.
Another 82 percent wanted the ability to delete their kids' posts; surely
an invasion of privacy in itself?
However Truste said its findings were a step in the right direction:
"Our survey shows that parents and teens are engaging together on social
networks, that parents actively monitoring teens, and that both teens
and parents care about privacy and are using privacy controls (to be
fair the teens are probably sometimes using them to hide content from
parents)," Truste president Fran Maier wrote in a company blog post.
Maier also admitted to joining Facebook to monitor the online behaviors of
her two sons' relationship that has taken some time to foster. Maier's
youngest threatened to de-friend her for posting too often on his wall.
Truste also released two sets of privacy recommendations for teens and
parents. The first piece of advice for parents: talk, chat and e-mail with
your teen about privacy. The first piece of advice for teens: befriend
your parents online.
Apple Shows Off iPad-inspired Mac Laptop
Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the thinnest, lightest Mac laptop yet,
fusing features from its popular iPhone and iPad with its traditional line
of personal computers.
Apple, whose computers have taken market share from PCs based on Microsoft
Corp's Windows, will bring a version of its mobile applications store to
the Mac, aiming to replicate its success and spur development of new
programs.
Loading up Macs with iPad features may help Apple stave off investors'
fears that sales will begin bleeding over to the tablet, which has stirred
up astonishing demand.
The new MacBook Air - introduced on Wednesday with Jobs' signature "one
last thing" set-up - is designed to reproduce the versatility of popular
devices such as the iPhone and iPad, and will incorporate FaceTime video
chats, which Apple is bringing to all its Macs.
Utilizing flash storage like the iPad rather than hard drives like
conventional computers, it can power up almost instantly from standby mode
and store data twice as quickly as a standard hard drive. But it
sacrifices processing power compared with Apple's other laptops.
"We asked ourselves what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?
Well, this is the result," Jobs said at a media event in Cupertino,
California, calling the Air the "future of notebooks."
It starts at $999 for an 11.6-inch model, weighs as little as 2.3 pounds
(1 kg), and measures 0.11 inches at its thinnest to 0.68 inches at the rear.
"They're basically merging the product lines; they're simplifying it," said
Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu. "They're taking the strengths out of what
they've learned on the iPhone and iPad and bringing that technology over to
the Mac side. It makes a lot of sense."
While plenty of attention is lavished on the iPhone and iPad, the Mac has
been critical to the company's success over past years. Apple sold $22
billion worth of Macs in fiscal 2010, comprising one-third of its revenue.
Shipments rose more than 30 percent and far outpaced the overall market.
Investors have wondered whether the iPad, a 10-inch touchscreen tablet that
began selling in April from $499, would cannibalize sales of the Mac - as
it has done for low-end, Windows-based laptops known as netbooks.
Gartner analyst Mike McGuire does not expect much cannibalization between
iPad and Macs because of the gulf in price tags. He said the Air will try
to bridge Apple's newer and older product lines.
"It's that missing link between the tablet future and the existing
notebook," he said.
Jobs also showed off a new version of Mac operating software, which the
company will release next summer. Nicknamed "Lion," it includes an improved
"iLife" multimedia suite and incorporates FaceTime video chat, which the
company recently launched on the iPhone.
FaceTime will allow for video calls between iPhones, iPod touches and
Macs. Over 19 million Apple devices are already equipped with FaceTime,
Jobs said. It released a test version of FaceTime for the Mac on Wednesday.
The App Store for the Mac will go live within 90 days, and developers will
be able to start submitting apps next month. They will get 70 percent of
the revenue from sales.
The original App Store debuted in 2008 and helped spur sales of the iPhone
by providing a wealth of fun, useful or merely diverting programs for sale,
at the touch of a button.
It houses more than 250,000 apps and has generated over 7 billion
downloads. In addition, more than 30,000 apps have been specifically made
for the iPad.
In the third calendar quarter, Apple became the No. 3 personal computer
maker in the United States with a 10.6 percent market share, according to
IDC. It holds roughly 20 percent of the U.S. consumer market.
But Apple's global market share is less than 5 percent, and the company is
aiming to increase sales outside its U.S. stronghold. The Mac user base
overall now stands at nearly 50 million.
HP Unveils $799 Tablet With A PC Feel
Hewlett-Packard Co unveiled its first product for the fast-growing tablet
market, a $799 device running Microsoft Windows that is aimed at business
customers.
HP's Slate 500 attempts to replicate the PC experience in a tablet form,
providing a contrast to rivals who have brought more of a smartphone
feel to their devices. The Slate runs the same version of Windows 7 used
by many companies on their standard PCs.
The tablet has a bigger price tag than competing products such as Apple's
iPad, which kick-started the tablet craze when it debuted earlier this
year.
HP's offering has an 8.9-inch, multi-touch-enabled screen, weighs 1.5 pounds
and comes with 64 gigabytes (GB) of storage and a digital stylus pen. It
gets five hours of battery life.
It comes equipped with Wi-Fi access but no built-in capability to connect
to high-speed cellular networks, as rivals including the iPad, Samsung
Electronics' Galaxy Tab and Dell's Streak have.
Carol Hess-Nickels, director of business notebook marketing at HP,
emphasized the Slate's business utility. She expects retail, healthcare and
insurance companies, among others, to build custom applications that take
advantage of the device's portability.
"It's really like a full-function PC, it runs Windows, it will run your
office applications, it just so happens to be in a slate form factor,"
Hess-Nickels said.
The HP Slate features the Intel Atom processor, which is commonly found in
inexpensive netbook computers. Rival tablets run on low-power ARM-based
chips found in smartphones.
The device is equipped with cameras in the front and back, enabling video
conferencing, and a USB port. It comes with a case and a docking station.
HP's Slate is now available online, and the company will be selling it
to businesses through its direct sales force.
It's $799 price tag makes it more expensive than the Wi-Fi-only version
of the iPad, which starts at $499 and runs up to $699 for a 64-GB model.
A 3G iPad starts at $629.
Verizon Wireless plans to sell Samsung's 7-inch tablet for $600. Dell's
5-inch Streak is priced at $550 but can be had for $300 if bought with a
data plan through AT&T.
HP, the world's largest PC maker, plans to release a tablet next year
that may look much different from the Slate.
That tablet will be based on the webOS software that HP acquired when it
bought smartphone maker Palm earlier this year for $1.2 billion. It will
likely be a more media-rich and consumer-friendly offering.
The tablet market is expected to surge next year to more than 50 million
units, research group Gartner has said. The iPad is expected to continue
to be the dominant product in this market.
Apple has sold more than 7 million iPads since the device launched in
April.
The market is still evolving, but Apple has targeted the iPad primarily
as a consumer device made for media consumption, rather than a business
device.
Earlier this month, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion unveiled a
7-inch tablet aimed at business customers.
And Dell has touted the business applications for its tablet, which
include healthcare. Dell expects to launch a 7-inch model by the end of
the year.
Sex.com and the World's Most Expensive Domain Names
If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that sex sells.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Web's simplest sex-based
domain name - sex.com - has just sold for a reported $13 million. Or, to
put it in a rhyme, 13 million bucks for a synonym of ... well, you know.
A company from the Caribbean called Clover Holdings is behind the $13
million sex.com bid, according to the BBC. It's not yet clear what Clover
plans to do with the sex.com site (though I think we can all take a guess).
To be sure, 13 million's no small chunk of change, even in the high-stakes
domain game. In fact, if the sex.com sale goes through - it still has to
be approved by a court - the name stands to be one of the most expensive
in the history of the World Wide InterWebs.
Get this, too: The last sale of sex.com is also among the grandest domain
transactions of all time. Back in 2006, original sex.com owner (and
Match.com founder) Gary Kremen sold the domain for $12 million. The company
that bought it ended up declaring bankruptcy, leading us to where we are
today.
So if sex.com is worth $13 million, what other domain names can fetch that
kind of cash? According to some records, the current top dollar-grabber is
internet.com. A company called QuinStreet reportedly bought the domain for
a cool $18 mil back in '09. QuinStreet is also said to have forked over
$16 million for insure.com that same year. Both of those sales, however,
appear to have included assets beyond just the names themselves.
The 10 highest priced standalone sales, according to industry magazine
Domain Name Journal (as reported by ABC News):
* Fund.com: $9.99 million
* Porn.com: $9.5 million
* Diamonds.com: $7.5 million
* Slots.com: $5.5 million
* Toys.com: $5.1 million
* Vodka.com: $3 million
* Candy.com: $3 million
* CreditCards.com: $2.75 million
* Computers.com: $2.1 million
* Seniors.com: $1.8 million
Man - if we could only find a way to combine a bunch of these into one
mega-spectacular super-domain, we'd have a billion dollar idea on our
hands.
Wait! I've got it:
VodkaCandyForSeniorsWhoPlaySlotsOnComputersWithCreditCards.com.
Big money, here I come.
Oracle Wants LibreOffice Members To Leave OOo Council
A group of key OpenOffice.org (OOo) contributors and community members
recently decided to fork the project and establish The Document Foundation
(TDF) in order to drive forward community-driven development of the open
source office suite. Oracle has responded to the move by asking several
members of TDF to step down from their positions as representatives on the
OOo community council.
During an OOo community council meeting last week, council chair Louis
Saurez-Potts told the TDF members who also sit on the OOo community
council that their participation in both organizations constituted a
conflict of interest and that their involvement in the new LibreOffice
fork should preclude them from holding leadership roles in the OOo
community. Saurez-Potts is Oracle's OpenOffice.org community manager, a
role that he also held at Sun prior to the acquisition. His position
suggests that Oracle views LibreOffice as a hostile fork and will not
join TDF as some had hoped.
"Your role in the Document Foundation and LibreOffice makes your role as a
representative in the OOo CC untenable and impossible. [I]t causes
confusion, it is a plain conflict of interest, as TDF split from OOo," he
told TDF members during a council meeting that took place on an IRC
channel. "If the TDF members do not disassociate themselves from the
[Document Foundation] then they must resign by Tuesday."
OOo council members who also hold leadership roles in TDF include
Charles H. Schulz, Christoph Noack, and Cor Nouws. It's unclear how they
will proceed now that they have been handed this ultimatum by Oracle.
Texas Sends Amazon.com A $269 Million Tax Bill
Amazon.com Inc said Texas sent it a $269 million bill last month for
uncollected sales taxes for purchases that its residents made through the
online retailer.
Amazon.com Inc said in a filing on Friday that the state sent the company
an assessment in September for uncollected sales taxes from December 2005
to December 2009, including interest and penalties.
Texas claimed Amazon should have collected sales taxes over that period.
"We believe that the State of Texas did not provide a sufficient basis for
its assessment and that the assessment is without merit," Amazon said in
the filing.
Amazon has found itself under attack over sales tax collection as states
deal with their budget deficits. In April, Amazon sued North Carolina's
department of revenue, claiming its demand for Amazon to turn over names
and buying records of customers violated privacy laws.
Passwords: You're Doing it Wrong
Safe password practices are often the only thing standing between you
and identity theft, loss of privacy, and even an empty bank account. Too
bad you're not following them. At least, the chances are good that you
aren't, according to a survey from security company Webroot.
Webroot surveyed 2,500 people in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia about
their password habits, and the results should worry everyone but
cybercriminals, who should be delighted. Criminals will also be pleased to
hear that people tend to labor under a false sense of security. Fifty
percent reported that their passwords were very or extremely secure, but
according to the survey:
* 41 percent have shared passwords with at least one other person in
the past year.
* 90 percent don't ensure that they never use the same password on
multiple accounts.
* 86 percent don't check that they're on a secure connection when
accessing sensitive information on unfamiliar computers.
* 14 percent never change their banking password.
* 20 percent have used a significant date (such as a birthday) or a
pet's name in their passwords.
* 84 percent fail to use passwords more than ten characters long.
The findings are even more disturbing among young people. The common
wisdom that young people are more tech savvy is apparently trumped by
the truism that they're more reckless; at least according to Webroot's
findings. Webroot found that among 18 to 29 year-olds:
* 12 percent have shared a password in a text message (vs. 4 percent
overall).
* 30 percent logged into a site requiring a password over public
Wi-Fi (vs. 21 percent overall).
* 54 percent have shared passwords with one or more people in the
past year (vs. 41 percent overall).
For tips on how to how to do passwords right, read PCMag's Password
Protection: How to Create Strong Passwords
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/zd/tc_zd/storytext/255833/38096545/
SIG=12e9q9o5f/*http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368484,
00.asp?kc=PCYH104039TX1B0000663>.
If you're looking for an app that can do it all for you, try our
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<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/zd/tc_zd/storytext/255833/38096545/
SIG=12efd1gef/*http://www.pcmag.com/article2/
0,2817,2343562,00.asp?kc=PCYH104039TX1B0000663>.
=~=~=~=
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