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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 14 Issue 10
Volume 14, Issue 10 Atari Online News, Etc. March 9, 2012
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2012
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 #1410 03/09/12
~ Hacker Is Informant! ~ People Are Talking! ~ SOPA Vote Is Delayed!
~ 'Sabu' Is Double Agent ~ Hackers Publish Source ~ Yahoo: Deep Layoffs?
~ Pakistan To Censor Web? ~ Apple Unveils 4G iPad! ~ No to Social Search?
~ New iPad To Break Bank? ~ ~ If .com, Seizable!
-* Anonymous Downs Vatican Site *-
-* Feb Video Game Retail Sales Drop 20% *-
-* ISPs To Disrupt Access of Copyright Abusers *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I apologize for a quick edition of A-ONE this week, as well as no commentary
od any kind. Due to a death in the family, my thoughts are elsewhere and I
am trying to deal with family matters
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - February Video Game Retail Sales Drop 20%!
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=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
February Video Game Retail Sales Drop 20 Percent
U.S. retail sales of video games tumbled 20 percent in February as people
cut spending on video games and systems in a month without big new game
launches.
Sales fell to $1.06 billion last month from $1.33 billion in February
2011, according to market researcher NPD Group.
Sales of the games themselves dropped 23 percent to $464.4 million,
But NPD analyst Anita Frazier estimates that people spent an additional
$550 million to $600 million on acquiring video content outside of
brick-and-mortar retail stores. This includes spending on mobile games,
video game downloads and buying virtual items.
Hardware sales fell 18 percent to $381.4 million. Hardware includes game
consoles such as the Wii and the Xbox 360 and handheld systems such as
the Nintendo 3DS. NPD no longer discloses how many gaming systems get
sold each month.
Sales of video game accessories such as game controllers declined
16 percent to $215.2 million. Accessories range from game controllers to
the Xbox Live point card, which lets users pay for movies, games or extra
game content through their Xbox 360 consoles.
The month's top-selling game was "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" from
Activision Blizzard Inc. Square Enix Inc.'s "Final Fantasy XIII-2" came in
at No. 2.
Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 was the best-selling console for the seventh
month in a row. Microsoft said it sold 426,000 units in February.
Sony Corp.'s handheld PlayStation Vita launched in the U.S. on Feb. 22,
and NPD said there were four days of retail sales for the gadget in the
February sales report. With the Vita, video game console units rose
87 percent from January. Without it, hardware unit sales rose 62 percent.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed
The House Judiciary Committee considering whether to send the Stop Online
Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote
date set - a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of
committee.
The committees chairman and chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Lamar
Smith (R-Texas), agreed to further explore a controversial provision that
lets the Attorney General order changes to core internet infrastructure in
order to stop copyright infringement.
Smith said the hearing would resume at the "earliest practical day that
Congress is in session." Hours later, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California)
tweeted that the committee would resume action Wednesday.
The abrupt halt to Fridays proceeding, which followed a marathon-long,
11-hour hearing Thursday, was based on a motion from Rep. Jason Chaffetz
(R-Utah). He urged Smith to postpone the session until technical experts
could be brought in to testify whether altering the internets
domain-naming system to fight websites deemed 'dedicated' to infringing
activity would create security risks.
Just yesterday, Smith said that was not necessary, despite a signed letter
by many of the internets core engineers saying the bills approach was
technically flawed.
The legislation mandates that ISPs alter records in the nets system for
looking up website names, known as DNS, so that users couldnt navigate to
the site. Or, if ISPs choose not to introduce false information into DNS
at the urging of the Justice Department, they instead would be required to
employ some other method, such as deep-packet inspection, to prevent
American citizens from visiting infringing sites.
ISPs, could, for instance, adopt tactics used by the Great Chinese
Firewall to sniff for traffic going to a blacklisted site and simply block
it.
But a host of security researchers and tech policy experts, including
Stewart Baker, the former Department of Homeland Security policy director,
said the plan "would still do great damage to internet security."
On Thursday, Chaffetz and a host of other lawmakers asked Smith to stop the
hearing so that the committee could bring in experts to testify. But Smith
had refused, and the committee voted 22-12 to leave the DNS redirect and
firewall provisions intact.
The committee heard from the Motion Picture Industry Association of
America at a SOPA hearing last month, but has never called an expert on
internet architecture. It was not immediately clear who Smith would
ultimately line up.
Michael OLeary, an MPAA vice president, had testified last month before
the committee that security concerns were 'overstated.'
Putting false information into the DNS system - the equivalent of the nets
phonebook - would be ineffective, frustrate security initiatives and lead
to software workarounds, according to a paper co-signed by security experts
Steve Crocker of Shinkuro, David Dagon of Georgia Tech, Dan Kaminsky of
DKH, Danny McPherson of Verisign and Paul Vixie of Internet Systems
Consortium. The paper was lodged into the committees record on Thursday.
"These actions would threaten the Domain Name Systems ability to provide
universal naming, a primary source of the internets value as a single,
unified, global communications network," they wrote.
Also lodged into the record was an open letter from 83 prominent internet
engineers, including Vint Cert, John Gilmore and L. Jean Camp.
"The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open
internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and open
Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the political
concerns and objectives of any one government or industry," they wrote.
In the security context, they maintain the bill would break the internets
universal character and hamper U.S. government-supported efforts to
rollout out DNS-SEC, which is intended to prevent hackers from hijacking
the net through fake DNS entries.
The measure, meanwhile, also grants private companies the ability to
de-fund websites they allege to be trafficking in unauthorized copyright
and trademark goods. Rights holders may ask judges to order ad networks
and banks to stop doing business with a site dedicated to infringing
activities.
The legislation also gives legal immunity to financial institutions and ad
networks that choose to boycott the rogue sites even without having been
ordered to do so.
Smiths legislation targets sites with foreign domains, not American-based
ones ending in .com, .org and .net.
Hackers Busted After 1 Becomes FBI Informant
An Internet outlaw's decision to go to work for the FBI poured light on a
secretive world where young computer experts caused havoc and where
authorities say a Chicago man and others celebrated their successes as
they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars with stolen credit card
numbers.
Court documents unsealed Tuesday revealed charges against six individuals
in Europe and the United States and showed the clash between law
enforcement and Internet hackers, a group of worldwide computer enthusiasts
already threatening to retaliate.
Law enforcement officials said it marked the first time core members of
the loosely organized worldwide hacking group Anonymous have been
identified and charged in the U.S.
Some Anonymous members put on a brave face.
"Anonymous is a hydra, cut off one head and we grow two back," read one
defiant message posted to Twitter.
At the center was the legendary hacker known as "Sabu," who when he was
arrested last June was identified as Hector Xavier Monsegur, 28, a
self-taught, unemployed computer programmer with no college education.
Authorities said his cooperation has helped to prevent more than 300
Internet attacks.
Authorities said he was living on welfare in public housing in New York as
he carried out crimes that made him a hero to some in cyberspace until he
made a rookie mistake - he posted something online without cloaking his IP
address, or computer identity - and someone tipped off the FBI.
Court records show he agreed to cooperate during an August plea proceeding
and testify against others.
Among those charged Tuesday was 27-year-old Jeremy Hammond of Chicago.
Investigators said Hammond boasted that he'd snared the personal data of a
former U.S. vice president and one-time CIA director as part of an attack
in December of Strategic Forecasting Inc. or Stratfor, a global
intelligence firm in Austin, Texas, that affected up to 860,000 victims.
The government said Hammond conspired to hack into computer systems used
by Stratfor, which describes itself as a subscription-based provider of
geopolitical analysis.
It said he and co-conspirators stole credit card information for
approximately 60,000 credit card users and used some of the stolen data to
make more than $700,000 in unauthorized charges.
Court papers said a January email titled "Official Emergency Communique
Straight from the Anonymous Hacker Underground" was sent to the company's
customers whose accounts had been compromised. The papers said it claimed:
"The sheer amount of destruction we wreaked on Stratfor's servers is the
digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb: leveling their systems in such a way
that they will never be able to recover."
Investigators said Monsegur and the other defendants were associated with
Anonymous, and some were also part of the elite spinoff organization that
Monsegur formed last May, Lulz Security or LulzSec. "Lulz" is Internet
slang for "laughs" or "amusement."
Monsegur and the other defendants were accused in court papers of hacking
into corporations and government agencies around the world, including the
U.S. Senate, filching confidential information, defacing websites and
temporarily putting victims out of business. Authorities said more than
1 million people were affected.
Prosecutors said that among other things, the hackers, with Monsegur as
their ringleader, disrupted websites belonging to Visa, Mastercard and
Paypal in 2010 and 2011 because the companies refused to accept donations
to Wikileaks, the organization that spilled a trove of U.S. military and
diplomatic secrets.
Also, prosecutors said, Monsegur and the others attacked a PBS website
last May and planted a false story that slain rapper Tupac Shakur was
alive in New Zealand. Investigators said it was retaliation for what the
hackers perceived to be unfavorable news coverage of Wikileaks on the PBS
program "Frontline."
A Twitter account associated with Monsegur has some 45,000 followers and
regularly spouts expletive-filled anti-government messages. His last tweet
on Monday was in German. An earlier tweet described the federal government
as being run by "cowards."
"Don't give in to these people," the message read. "Fight back. Stay
strong."
Monsegur pleaded guilty in August to charges that included conspiracy to
commit hacking, admitting he obtained dozens of credit card numbers online
and gave them to others or used them to pay his bills. His lawyer,
Philip L. Weinstein, declined to comment Tuesday.
His deal with prosecutors requires his full cooperation and testimony at
any trial. In return, he gets leniency from a potential prison sentence of
more than 120 years. He is free on $50,000 bail.
Also charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking were Ryan Ackroyd,
25, of Doncaster, England; Jake Davis, 19, of Lerwick, Scotland; Darren
Martyn, 25, of Galway, Ireland, and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, 19, of Birr,
Ireland.
Davis' lawyer, Adel Buckingham, declined comment. Contact information for
the other European defendants' lawyers could not immediately be located.
Hammond, who was arrested Monday, appeared before a federal judge in
Chicago and was ordered transferred to New York.
Defense attorney Jim Fennerty described Hammond as compassionate, saying
he had rallied against plans to hold the 2016 Olympics in Chicago because
he felt it would hurt low-income people and had protested against neo-Nazi
groups.
"He's concerned about people and issues - that's why I like him," Fennerty
said.
In July, when LulzSec's attacks were grabbing world headlines, someone
alleged that Sabu was Monsegur and posted personal details about him on
the Internet. Sabu took to Twitter to deny it.
Barrett Brown, a former journalist who became closely associated with
Anonymous, said Sabu's cooperation with the FBI could do serious damage to
Anonymous.
"He was an admired Anon," he said. "He's been a leader. People came to him
with information. God knows what else he told them."
Hacker Arrested in NYC Cooperated from Day 1
In his Twitter postings, the elite computer hacker known as "Sabu" urged
followers to resist the U.S. government and its agents.
But court papers made public Thursday reveal that Hector Xavier Monsegur
put up no such fight when FBI agents first knocked on his door on June 7.
From almost that first moment, he began talking, naming names and helping
investigators pick apart the international community of Internet
saboteurs.
He was arrested at 10:15 p.m. By the next day, federal prosecutors had
told a judge that Monsegur had given them detailed information on other
hackers suspected of breaking into the computer systems at several big
corporations.
"Since literally the day he was arrested, the defendant has been
cooperating with the government proactively," Assistant U.S. Attorney
James Pastore told a judge in New York during a secret court session for
Monsegur on Aug. 5. Over the past few months, the prosecutor said: "The
defendant has literally worked around the clock with federal agents. He
has been staying up sometimes all night engaging in conversations with
co-conspirators that are helping the government to build cases against
those co-conspirators."
That cooperation resulted in the arrests of five other alleged hackers this
week in Ireland, Scotland, England and the U.S., a takedown that stunned
fellow Internet saboteurs known for prizing anonymity and a culture of
resistance.
Monsegur secretly pleaded guilty in August, but judges had agreed to close
public courtrooms and seal all records of his case in order to keep his
work with the government from becoming known. Most of those court files
have since been unsealed, and documents made available Thursday provided
a handful of new details about Monsegur's work.
While software on his computer tracked his online activity and video
cameras monitored his home at a New York City public housing project,
prosecutors said, Monsegur worked feverishly with the FBI to monitor
Internet communications between fellow hackers. In many cases, he helped
thwart attacks as they were being planned, prosecutors said in a court
filing.
By August, he had worked with the FBI to "patch" 150 vulnerabilities in
computer systems being eyed by hackers, or in other cases react quickly to
help attack victims mitigate the damage, Pastore said in court.
Prosecutors were concerned from the start with Monsegur's safety if his
identity were to be revealed.
"Some of the groups against whom the defendant is cooperating are known to
retaliate against people who cooperate with the government in ways ranging
from the mundane, for example, ordering hundreds of pizzas to someone's
house, to much more serious: calling in hostage situations in part by
using family information and having a SWAT team show up at the person's
home," Pastore told a judge on Aug. 5.
Prosecutors haven't explained publicly why Monsegur was so willing to work
with the government, even as he continued to rail against it in posts
online. But court records did note that the 28-year-old was the legal
guardian of two young nieces. Neighbors have told The Associated Press that
Monsegur was raising the children after his aunt was jailed on drug
charges.
Other court papers noted that Monsegur lived on meager means. He had been
earning $6,000 per month until losing his job in the spring of 2010, and
had since been living off of $400 unemployment checks.
Monsegur has yet to be sentenced for his computer crimes, which included
a number of attacks on big corporations, foreign governments and U.S.
government agencies.
Hackers Group Anonymous Take Down Vatican Website
The Italian branch of the hackers group Anonymous took down the Vatican's
website on Wednesday, saying it was an attack on the Roman Catholic
Church's scandals and conservative doctrine.
The Vatican website www.vatican.va was inaccessible. A spokesman said he
could not confirm that the crash was the work of the hackers group but
said technicians were working to bring it back up.
A statement on the Italian website of the loosely-knit cyber-activists
group accused the Church of being responsible for a long list of misdeeds
throughout history, including the selling of indulgences in the 16th
century and burning heretics during the Inquisition.
"Today, Anonymous has decided to put your site under siege in response to
your doctrine, liturgy and the absurd and anachronistic rules that your
profit-making organization spreads around the world," the website said.
It also accused the Vatican of being "retrograde" in its interfering in
Italian domestic affairs "daily."
Anonymous, along with another group LulzSec, has taken credit for a number
of high-profile hacking actions against companies and institutions,
including the CIA.
Symantec Says Hackers Released Norton Source Code
Hackers have published the blueprints to a 2006 version of Symantec Corp's
widely used Norton Antivirus software on the Internet, according to the
software maker.
Symantec spokesman Cris Paden said on Friday that the release of the source
code, during the last 24 hours, posed no risk to millions of Norton
customers around the world whose PCs are protected by its security
software.
"The code that has been exposed is so old that current out-of-the-box
security settings will suffice against any possible threats that might
materialize as a result of this incident," he said.
Symantec has previously disclosed that a group called Lords of Dharmaraja
that is affiliated with the hacker group Anonymous was in possession of
source code for several of its products. It said the code was obtained in
a 2006 breach of the company's networks.
The hackers have previously released the source code for two other
Symantec products: Norton Utilities and pcAnywhere.
The company initially urged customers to disable pcAnywhere in the wake of
release of that product's source code, then it issued an upgrade to the
software and said told customers it was safe to use again.
ISPs To Disrupt Internet Access of Copyright Scofflaws
The nations major internet service providers, at the urging of Hollywood
and the major record labels, have agreed to disrupt internet access for
online copyright scofflaws.
The deal, almost three years in the making, was announced early Thursday,
and includes participation by AT&T, Cablevision Systems, Comcast, Time
Warner and Verizon. After four copyright offenses, the historic plan calls
for these companies to initiate so-called 'mitigation measures' (.pdf)
that might include reducing internet speeds and redirecting a subscribers
service to an 'educational' landing page about infringement.
The internet companies may eliminate service altogether for repeat file
sharing offenders, although the plan does not directly call for such
drastic action.
The agreement, backed by the Recording Industry Association of America and
the Motion Picture Association of America, also does not require internet
service providers to filter copyrighted material sailing through
peer-to-peer protocols. U.S. internet service providers and the content
industry have openly embraced filtering, and the Federal Communications
Commission has all but invited the ISPs to practice it.
"This is a sensible approach to the problem of online content theft," said
Randal Milch, Verizons general counsel. Cary Sherman, the RIAAs
president, said the deal was 'groundbreaking' and "ushers in a new day and
a fresh approach to addressing the digital theft of copyrighted works."
The RIAA, which includes Universal Music Group Recordings, Warner Music
Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music North America, kicked off
the marathon negotiations in December 2008, when it abruptly stopped a
litigation campaign that included around 30,000 lawsuits targeting
individual file sharers.
Key leverage in the marathon negotiations included the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which demands that ISPs have a termination policy in place
for repeat infringers. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo brought the parties
together when he was that states attorney general.
Michael OLeary, an MPAA vice president, said the industry will continue
to push for federal legislation that would dramatically increase the
governments legal power to disrupt and shutter websites dedicated to
infringing activities. That legislation is blocked in the Senate.
"That is an important priority," he said during a telephone conference,
noting that a House version of the stalled Senate legislation is to be
introduced soon. The White House applauded Thursdays announcement, saying
it will "have a significant impact on reducing online piracy."
The Center for Democracy & Technology, along with Public Knowledge, said
in a joint statement they were concerned about the accord. "We believe it
would be wrong for any ISP to cut off subscribers, even temporarily,
based on allegations that have not been tested in court," the groups
said.
Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, also had concerns. She added, in a telephone
interview, that the EFF was "pretty disappointed that ISPs have agreed to
serve as a propaganda agent for big media."
Thursdays plan, meanwhile, provides no immunity for internet subscribers
facing legal action, and leaves it up to the rights holders to detect
infringement.
"As provided under current law, copyright owners may also seek remedies
directly against the owner of an internet account based on evidence they
may collect," according to the deal. Sherman said in the telephone
conference that the RIAA does "not rule out the possibility of bringing
litigation" against repeat file sharing offenders.
The Copyright Act allows damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.
Peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted works is easily detectable, as
IP addresses of internet customers usually reveal themselves during the
transfer of files.
On the first offense, internet subscribers will receive an e-mail 'alert'
from their ISP saying the account 'may have been' misused for online
content theft. On the second offense, the alert might contain an
'educational message' about the legalities of online file sharing.
On the third and fourth infractions, the subscriber will likely receive a
pop-up notice "asking the subscriber to acknowledge receipt of the alert."
After four alerts, according to the program, 'mitigation measures' may
commence. They include "temporary reductions of internet speeds,
redirection to a landing page until the subscriber contacts the ISP to
discuss the matter or reviews and responds to some educational information
about copyright, or other measures (as specified in published policies)
that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter."
Online infringement, according to the MPAA and RIAA, accounts for
thousands of lost jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages and taxes
annually.
Members of the MPAA include Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony
Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros.
Apple Unveils 4G iPad
Apple Inc's latest iPad sports a crisper display and an array of
technology advances that, while less than revolutionary, may prove enough
for now to keep rivals like Amazon.com Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
at bay.
While stopping short of vaulting ahead of Motorola and Samsung, the device
- which comes 4G-ready and boasts a quad-core graphics processor - is
capable enough to help safeguard its two-thirds market share. "The screen
is a notable feature for non-techie customers, as is the faster
connectivity. That's something that mainstream consumers can identify
with," said Morningstar analyst Michael Holt. "There's pent-up demand
because a new device was widely anticipated. I they've made enough
incremental improvements to do well."
Other analysts say the faster processing may begin to draw heavy gamers,
encroaching on turf now dominated by gaming-hardware makers such as
Microsoft or Sony.
Chief Executive Tim Cook, presiding over his second major product launch
after debuting with 2011's voice-enabled iPhone 4S, introduced the highly
anticipated third iteration of the tablet, which is available for
pre-orders from Wednesday and will hit store shelves March 16.
But he stumped many in the audience by breaking away from the tradition of
calling the third-generation tablet the iPad 3, as some had expected,
referring to it simply as the "new iPad."
The company said it will continue to sell the iPad 2 but dropped its price
by $100. The older tablet now starts at $399 while the new
third-generation wi-fi only iPad starts at $499.
The high-end model of Apple's latest iPad starts at $629 and will be
capable of operating on a high-speed 4G "LTE," or Long-Term Evolution,
network. At speeds roughly 10 times faster than current 3G technology,
that may help banish the sometimes shaky video quality of older devices.
Wall Street had anticipated many of the features Cook showed off on
Wednesday, including a higher-definition "retina display" screen -
containing several times as many pixels within the same area - and a
better camera.
Shares of Apple closed barely higher, up 43 cents at $530.69. They hovered
around $530 throughout the unveiling event, which was attended by Marc
Benioff, CEO of enterprise cloud computing company Salesforce.com Inc;
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of online business review site Yelp Inc; and
influential venture-capitalist John Doerr, among other industry
luminaries.
Some had held out hope of a positive Apple surprise, recalling late CEO
Steve Jobs and his now-iconic "one more thing" at the very end of such
announcements. Others said the upgrades and tweaks to the iPad could only
go so far in fending off hard-charging competition.
"While the hardware is notably enhanced, with an impressive retina
display, better camera and faster processor, there are still some areas of
improvement that Apple needs to work on, in order to stay ahead of its
encroaching competitors," said Fred Huet, managing partner at Greenwich
Consulting.
"As tablets are increasingly being used for personal media consumption, it
is promising to see a better screen resolution. But will this be enough to
ensure Apple's competitive lead in the marketplace? No."
Others say Apple is betting a 4G-equipped iPad will tempt more U.S.
consumers to pay for higher-quality video on the go. That, in turn, should
give Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc a revenue boost, analysts say.
Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone
Group Plc, and AT&T will host and sell 4G wireless plans to 4G iPad users.
Until now, buyers have been reluctant to shell out extra cash even for
iPads with slower 3G connections. The cheaper WiFi-only model, with much
more limited Web access, is by far Apple's top-selling one today.
An updated version of the WiFi-only model remains at $499. The most
expensive 4G model, with 64 gigabytes of storage, will go for $829. The
previous iPad2 with 3G also sold for $629 to $829. The cheapest model of
the previous-generation iPad 2 now retails at $399.
"The iPhone 4S showed us that Apple doesn't need to out-do itself with new
product designs to continue extending its domination of a category," said
CCS Insight analyst John Jackson.
In an apparent departure from naming conventions, Apple's third-generation
tablet will not be called the iPad 3, but simply referred to as the latest
iPad, a small point that several analysts and executives noticed and
pointed out.
Forrester analyst Frank Gillet said most of Apple's other products, such as
the iPod or the MacBook Pro, do not warrant new appellations every time
they go through an upgrade. Apple may even drop the numerical extension for
the iPhone, he added.
Regardless of the name, the company is counting on a warm reception to its
latest tablet to fend off an increasingly aggressive challenge from
tablets powered by Google Inc's Android technology, with Microsoft Corp
software-driven devices slated to come soon. "Everyone's been wondering
who will come out with a product that's more amazing than the iPad 2,"
Cook said.
"Stop wondering: We are."
Earlier in the proceedings, Cook again held forth on what he called a
"post-PC world," in which users move increasingly away from traditional
desktop and laptop computing and toward an array of portable devices,
including tablets.
Smartphones and tablets are starting to eat into PC sales as mobile
technology gets more advanced and available content expands.
Some experts believe mobile devices, as they get more powerful, will
eventually displace PCs in many markets, hurting business for the likes of
Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc.
The global tablet user base reached 67 million in 2011, according to
researcher Strategy Analytics. Analysts expect double-digit growth in
tablet sales in coming years.
Cook also announced that the company's new $99 Apple TV set-top box, a
concept that late CEO Steve Jobs had called a "hobby," now supports
high-definition 1080p screen technology.
"Last year alone we sold 172 million post-PC devices," Cook told the
audience at the Yerba Buena Center in downtown San Francisco, Apple's
preferred venue for product unveilings.
"And this made up 76 percent of our revenues. This is incredible."
Cook's performance was again the subject of scrutiny. The CEO replaced
famed showman Jobs after the co-founder's October death, and has since
drawn several comparisons in terms of onstage charisma.
Some in Wednesday's audience found the event wanting.
"This iPad 3 launch is horribly boring. Steve, I miss you terribly,"
Salesforce's Benioff tweeted at the end of the proceedings. "Tim Cook
didn't thank or remember Steve Jobs at iPad3 launch. There would be no
iPad 3 without Steve Jobs."
Apples New iPad Can Max Out Your Data Plan in 10 Minutes
The new iPad is here, but will its speed cost you big?
One of the hallmark features of Apple's new iPad is its support for faster
4G mobile networks from carriers Verizon and AT&T, and from experience you
will certainly benefit from truly impressive data speeds as a result.
Unfortunately, all that blazing speed is going to come at a blazingly high
price to match.
As the graphic below shows, you'll be paying the same price for either 2GB
or 5GB worth of monthly data on either carrier at $30 and $50 monthly,
respectively; AT&T also offers a smaller 250MB plan for $14.99, and
Verizon offers a higher 10GB plan for $80 per month. The trouble is, none
of those data caps are actually very high when you start factoring things
in like streaming video, audio, beaming high-resolution photographs (one
of the features in the new iPhoto for iPad application), or syncing all of
your various media files using Apple's own iCloud storage service. Even
some apps, particularly games, can clock in at hundreds of megabytes.
Combine the realities of multimedia file size and a blazing fast connection
that allows transfer of said files at unprecedented speeds, and you have a
recipe for potentially expensive disaster. One careless download of a 1080p
high-definition movie from the iTunes Store over 4G could eat up your
entirely monthly plan and then some. In fact, if you could achieve download
speeds at the theoretical maximum 72Mbps of LTE, you could blow through a
5GB plan in just under 10 minutes, and Verizon's largest 10GB tier in about
20. Real-world speeds of course are actually going to be somewhat lower, but
we're still talking about the potential to obliterate your entire expensive
monthly data plan in much less than a single day.
Data pricing remains the Achilles' heel of 4G. Carriers and manufacturers
alike are avidly attempting to seduce consumers with the allure of
always-on connectivity offering speeds comparable to, if not faster than,
our cable internet service at home - but both sticker and bandwidth shock
are going to increasingly confront the average consumer as devices like the
new iPad spur greater interest in and adoption of 4G service. To live up to
the true promise of 4G, carriers will need to stop pricing mobile data for
gentle sipping and find a way to offer reasonable plans that reflect
real-world usage of 4G devices.
'Deep' Layoffs Expected at Yahoo
According to All Things Digital's Kara Swisher, "multiple sources both
inside and outside" Yahoo say that Thompson "is preparing a massive
restructuring of the company, including layoffs that are likely to number
in the thousands."
Yahoo is no stranger to layoffs in recent years. It cut about 150 jobs in
January 2011, after hacking 650 to 700 full-time positions a month earlier.
And in 2008, about 1,600 Yahoo employees lost their jobs.
That was the year Yahoo's board realized it couldn't turn around the
company with co-founder Jerry Yang at the helm. So the board hired former
Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz in January 2009. Within four months, she had cut
5% of Yahoo's workforce, or 675 jobs, as part of her well-articulated
strategy to enable the company to "kick some butt." She should have
specified whose butts were in for a kicking.
Now it sounds like Thompson, who became CEO in early January, four
months after Bartz's own butt got kicked, is planning to hack even deeper.
Yahoo currently has about 14,100 employees, almost exactly how many it
had in November 2010, despite subsequent layoffs. From Swisher's report,
it sounds like every division and project at Yahoo must make an economic
case for its survival, both product and non-product (PR, marketing,
research).
Supposedly layoffs and organizational restructuring could be announced
by the end of March. Don't be surprised if there are more in the months
after; it seems as if Thompson is willing to make big changes.
Yahoo, of course, has had stagnant revenue and share price for several
years now as it has been eclipsed by Google and Facebook as a favorite
destination for online advertisers. This has led to shareholder
uprisings and turmoil on the board, from which four directors last month
announced their resignation.
Last September I wrote a post titled, "Now would be an excellent time
for Yahoo employees to jump ship." I hope some of them did. To those who
didn't, good luck.
Wanted: Censor for Pakistan's Internet
Pakistan is advertising for companies to install an Internet filtering
system that could block up to 50 million Web addresses, alarming free
speech activists who fear current censorship could become much more
widespread.
Internet access for Pakistan's some 20 million Web users is less
restricted than in many countries in Asia and the Arab world, though some
pornographic sites and those seen as insulting to Islam are blocked.
Others related to separatist activities or army criticism have also been,
or continue to be, censored.
Few nations have so publicly revealed their plans to censor the Web as
Pakistan is doing, however. Last month, the government took out newspaper
and Web advertisements asking for companies or institutions to develop the
national filtering and blocking system.
"They are already blocking a lot of Internet content, and now they are
going for a massive system that can only limit and control political
discourse," said Shahzad Ahmad, the director of Bytes for All Pakistan,
which campaigns for Internet freedom. "The government has nothing to do
with what I choose to look at."
The government doesn't currently list the sites it has blocked, or their
number, or say who sits on the committee that decides what pages to shut
down. Pakistan's Telecommunication Authority instructs the country's 50
Internet Service Providers to block sites. The ISPs, which receive their
license from the PTA, are obliged to obey.
In November, the PTA ordered cell phone companies to block text messages
containing a list of more than 1,500 English words it said were offensive.
But the plan was dropped after public ridicule and complaints from cell
phone companies about practicality.
The plan to censor the Internet comes amid unease over a set of proposals
by a media regulatory body aimed at bringing the country's freewheeling
television media under closer government control. With general elections
later this year or earlier next, some critics have speculated the
government might be trying to cut down on criticism.
The media proposals call for television stations not to broadcast
programs "against the national interest" or those that "undermine its
integrity or solidarity as an independent and sovereign country" or
"contain aspersions against or ridicule the organs of the State."
Pakistan's Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan denied Wednesday that
the government was seeking to curb the media.
"We want to see the media growing. We want to strengthen it," Awan said,
emphasizing that the proposals were just that, and the government wouldn't
implement them without the media's consent.
The government advertisements state it wants a system capable of shutting
down up to 50 million Web addresses in multiple languages with a
processing delay of not less than one millisecond.
The head of Pakistan's ISP association, Wahajus Siraj, said he supported
the proposed system, saying his ISP and others in the association didn't
have the time or money to take down the sites. He also said rights
activists had nothing to worry about.
"They don't fully understanding the concept of it," said Siraj. "This is
not new censorship. It's making the manual system more efficient. I
respect their point of view, but decent freedom of speech should not be
blocked."
Siraj, who sits on the board of the government-run technology fund seeking
proposals for the blocking system, said there had been many expressions of
interest to create the system, including from two Western firms. He
declined to name them.
Websense Inc., a San Diego-based Internet security firm, has already said
it is not bidding for the Pakistan project.
"We call on other technology providers to also do the right thing for the
citizens of Pakistan and refuse to submit a proposal for this contract,"
it said in a statement. "Broad government censorship of citizen access to
the Internet is morally wrong."
U.S. technology companies have been criticized for helping foreign
governments censor the Internet to their citizens. Cisco Systems Inc.,
which makes networking equipment that could be used in official efforts to
monitor and control Internet use, is often cited; the company insists it
does not provide any government with any special capabilities and cannot
control what its customers do with the products.
Like in many Asian countries where pornographic materials are banned,
Pakistan currently tries to block adult websites. It also seeks to censor
what it sees as "blasphemous" content toward Islam, as other Muslim
nations do.
In 2008, the government blocked YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies on
the site; in 2010, it blocked Facebook for two weeks amid anger over a
page that encouraged users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Other sites that have, or continue to be blocked, are those containing
news and views from Baluchistan, a southwestern province where a separatist
insurgency has simmered for years in the face of army crackdowns. There
have been other cases where sites have been blocked apparently after they
triggered the anger of members of the military and political elite.
Rollingstone.com has been offline since July last year, reportedly because
it ran a short story critical of the amount of budgetary funds allocated
to the army. Rollingstone.com didn't return e-mails seeking comment.
Asked for comment, the telecommunication authority sent a statement that
explained the blocking system was being installed because the Pakistani
people wanted a "ban on blasphemous and objectionable contents that were
being used to harass, deface and blackmail the innocent citizens of
Pakistan."
Blocking pornographic websites and those seen insulting to Islam is not
unpopular in Pakistan; many would say it is obligatory under Islam. Many
of the most high-profile blocks have been a result of court orders acting
on petitions from members of the public.
"I'm with the government on this one. They have right the intention," said
Ahmjad Alvi, founder of Brainnet, one of the country's first ISPs. "Think
of the kids."
Nobody Really Likes Social Search Besides Google
Though Google claims the search process has been made better with its new
social search, people don't want that type of personalized experience
while searching, at least according to a new Pew study. Social search, in
Google's eye, enhances the experience; they assume we want to see what
our friends have posted on their Google+ profiles. It might make planning
a trip more informed, for example. But, actually it's just clutter. The
only one that benefits from the setup is Google.
The problem is, social search doesn't really provide the right kind of
information. We learned this when we tested the new Google out a few weeks
ago, getting very few relevant results for our queries. 65 percent of
those asked by Pew agreed, saying personalized search was a "bad thing" -
not for the usual privacy concerns, but because "it may limit the
information you get online and what search results you see." There were
the privacy issues too, with 73 percent of those surveyed not OK with it
on those grounds.
Even though Google claims to have a "better product," there's an
irrelevancy issue here; the company, in part, brought that upon itself
when it decided to leave every other social network out of its game. Those
Google+ profiles don't provide the same wealth of information bigger-name
social networks like Twitter or Facebook do, and Google social search only
includes Google+. The other issue, however, is that when searching Google,
people want the right answers to questions, from expert-ish sources - not
pictures of their friends' kids.
Google personalizes search in other, more subtle ways than just Google+,
and has been doing so for more than two years, tracking sites we often
click to provide "better" results. Social search brings personalization to
a whole new level, though, increasing both the visibility and volume of
targeted search results.
While users grumble, Google pushes forward because personalized results
mean more direct advertising. Advertisers like that, and Google lives off
of advertising.
Uncle Sam: If It Ends in .Com, Its .Seizable
When U.S. authorities shuttered sports-wagering site Bodog.com last week,
it raised eyebrows across the net because the domain name was registered
with a Canadian company, ostensibly putting it beyond the reach of the
U.S. government. Working around that, the feds went directly to VeriSign,
a U.S.-based internet backbone company that has the contract to manage
the coveted .com and other 'generic' top-level domains.
EasyDNS, an internet infrastructure company, protested that the
"ramifications of this are no less than chilling and every single
organization branded or operating under .com, .net, .org, .biz etc. needs
to ask themselves about their vulnerability to the whims of U.S. federal
and state lawmakers."
But despite EasyDNS and others outrage, the U.S. government says its
gone that route hundreds of times. Furthermore, it says it has the right
to seize any .com, .net and .org domain name because the companies that
have the contracts to administer them are based on United States soil,
according to Nicole Navas, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement
spokeswoman.
The controversy highlights the unique control the U.S. continues to hold
over key components of the global domain name system, and rips a Band-Aid
off a historic sore point for other nations. A complicated web of
bureaucracy and Commerce Department-dictated contracts signed in 1999
established that key domains would be contracted out to Network Solutions,
which was acquired by VeriSign in 2000. That cemented control of
all-important .com and .net domains with a U.S. company - VeriSign -
putting every website using one of those addresses firmly within reach of
American courts regardless of where the owners are located - possibly
forever.
The government, Navas said, usually serves court-ordered seizures on
VeriSign, which manages domains ending in .com, .net, .cc, .tv and .name,
because "foreign-based registrars are not bound to comply with U.S. court
orders." The government does the same with the non-profit counterpart to
VeriSign that now manages the .org domain. Thats the Public Interest
Registry, which, like VeriSign, is based in Virginia.
Such seizures are becoming commonplace under the Obama administration. For
example, the U.S. government program known as Operation in Our Sites
acquires federal court orders to shutter sites it believes are hawking
counterfeited goods, illegal sports streams and unauthorized movies and
music. Navas said the U.S. government has seized 750 domain names, "most
with foreign-based registrars."
VeriSign, for its part, said it is complying with U.S. law.
"VeriSign responds to lawful court orders subject to its technical
capabilities," the company said in a statement. "When law enforcement
presents us with such lawful orders impacting domain names within our
registries, we respond within our technical capabilities."
VeriSign declined to entertain questions about how many times it has done
this. It often complies with U.S. court orders by redirecting the DNS
(Domain Name System) of a domain to a U.S. government IP address that
informs online visitors that the site has been seized (for example,
ninjavideo.net.)
"Beyond that, further questions should be directed to the appropriate U.S.
federal government agency responsible for the domain name seizure," the
company said.
The Public Interest Registry did not immediately respond for comment.
Bodog.com was targeted because federal law generally makes it illegal to
offer online sports wagering and to payoff online bets in the United
States, even though online gambling isnt illegal globally.
Bodog.com was registered with a Canadian registrar, a VeriSign
subcontractor, but the United States shuttered the site without any
intervention from Canadian authorities or companies.
Instead, the feds went straight to VeriSign. Its a powerful company
deeply enmeshed in the backbone operations of the internet, including
managing the .com infrastructure and operating root name servers. VeriSign
has a cozy relationship with the federal government, and has long had a
contract from the U.S. government to help manage the internets 'root
file' that is key to having a unified internet name system.
Still, the issue of the U.S.s legal dominion claim over all .com domains
wasnt an issue in the January seizure of the domain of megaupload.com,
which is implicated in one of the largest criminal copyright cases in U.S.
history. Megaupload.com was registered in the United States with a
registrar based in Washington state.
The United States would have won even more control over the internet with
the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. But the nations biggest
online protest ever scuttled the measures, which would have allowed the
government to force internet service providers in the U.S. to prevent
Americans from being able to visit or find in search engines websites that
the U.S. government suspected violated U.S. copyright or trademark law.
But as the Justice Department demonstrated forcefully with the takedown of
Megaupload, just a day after the nets coordinated anti-SOPA protest, it
still has powerful weapons to use, despite the deaths of SOPA and PIPA.
So how does International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the
global body that oversees the domain-naming system, feel about the U.S.
governments actions? ICANN declined comment and forwarded a 2010 blog
post from its chief Rod Beckstrom, who said ICANN has "no involvement in
the takedown of any website."
ICANN, a non-profit established by the U.S., has never awarded a contract
to manage the .com space to a company outside the United States - in fact
VeriSign has always held it - despite having a contentious relationship
with ICANN thats involved a protracted lawsuit. But, due to contract
terms, VeriSign is unlikely to ever lose control over the immensely
economically valuable .com handle.
ICANN is also seeking to distance itself from the U.S. government by being
more inclusive, including allowing domain names in a range of written,
global languages, ending the exclusivity of the Latin alphabet in top-level
domains.
Still, many outside the United States, like China, India and Russia,
distrust ICANN and want control of the nets naming system to be turned
over to an organization such as the International Telecommunications Union,
an affiliate of the United Nations. Last year, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin met with Hamadoun Toure, the ITUs chief, and said he
wanted international control over the internet "using the monitoring
capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union."
"If we are going to talk about the democratization of international
relations, I think a critical sphere is information exchange and global
control over such exchange," Putin said, according to a transcript from
the Russian government.
Just last week, Robert McDowell, a Federal Communications Commission
commissioner, blasted such an idea.
"If successful, these efforts would merely imprison the future in the
regulatory dungeon of the past," he said. "Even more counterproductive
would be the creation of a new international body to oversee internet
governance."
ICANN was established in 1998 by the Clinton administration, and has been
under global attack to internationalize the control of the Domain Name
System ever since. A United Nations working group in 2005 concluded that
"no single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to
international internet governance."
But those pressures dont seem to have registered with President Barack
Obamas Justice Department. Hollywood was a big donor to Obama, and Obama
reciprocated by naming at least five former Recording Industry Association
of America attorneys to posts in the Justice Department, which has been
waging a crackdown on internet piracy. The Justice Department is looking
for even more money in next years budget to hire more
intellectual-property prosecutors.
Without SOPA or PIPA, the Justice Department lacks any mechanism to prevent
Americans from visiting sites that are on a domain not controlled by a U.S.
corporation. Knowing that, the worlds leading BitTorrent site, The Pirate
Bay, recently switched its main site from a .org domain to .se, the handle
for Sweden.
The Pirate Bays lead is unlikely to be followed by the millions of
non-U.S. companies that rely on .com, which remains the nets beachfront
real estate, even if it is subject to being confiscated by the U.S.
But it is possible that the U.S. governments big-footing over dot-com
domains in the name of fighting copyright could add more weight to the
arguments of those who want to put the U.N. in charge of the internets
naming system. While thats not inevitably a bad thing, it could lead to a
world where any .com might be seizable by any country, including Russia,
Libya and Iran.
Still, dont expect Uncle Sam to give up its iron grip on .com without a
fight.
=~=~=~=
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