Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 03
Volume 15, Issue 03 Atari Online News, Etc. January 18, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
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
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org
and click on "Subscriptions".
OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org
and your address will be added to the distribution list.
To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE
Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to
subscribe from.
To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the
following sites:
http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm
Now available:
http://www.atarinews.org
Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/
=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1503 01/18/13
~ Aaron Swartz Suicide! ~ People Are Talking! ~ PS4 Coming in May?
~ Schilling To Sell Sock! ~ Swartz Death Is Probed! ~ Teens Face Charges!
~ Million Ditch Facebook! ~ Facebook Free Calling! ~ Fixing Hacking Laws?
~ Fedora Linux: Coose GUI ~ HAcking Laws = Criminal ~ New Facebook Search!
-* Taxing Violent Video Games? *-
-* Anonymous Downs MIT Site over Swartz *-
-* Obama Wants To Create Violent Games Study! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It's another one of those weeks in which I don't have a lot to say. So,
in the interest of letting you all get right to this week's issue, I'll
just let this week pass by without any commentary!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Obama Asks Congress To Commission Violent Games Study!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Missouri Lawmaker Wants Violent Video Games Taxed!
PlayStation 4 Could Be Unveiled in May!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Obama Asks Congress To Commission Violent Games Study
Ever since the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Newtown,
Connecticut, American politicians have been scrambling to concoct new
legislation in an attempt to stem the tide of violent and unfortunate
outbursts such as the one carried out late last year.
President Barack Obama revealed a slew of possible actions, many suggested
by a task force headed-up by Vice President Joe Biden, including the use
of 23 executive orders and a series of suggestions to Congress.
As pointed out by the Washington Times, embedded in his suggestions to
Congress is the requested allocation of $10 million to study violent
media. However, its not as significant as it seems, with Times author
Stephen Dinan noting that President Obamas pushback against gun
violence focuses heavily on new firearms restrictions and on mental
health, but video games and movies two cultural issues that many
Americans blame for violence get little attention.
The requested money amounts to, in governmental terms, an incredibly
paltry sum. The American government spends over $10 billion dollars per
day.
Nonetheless, should Congress vote to allocate $10 million to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, the group will be able to undertake a
study investigating the relationship between video games, media images
and violence. But heres the important part, according to Stephen Dinan:
overall, the White House said that while limiting guns is the role of
the government, controlling what Americans see in movies and games is best
left to parents.
With Congress at an impasse over a much more serious issue in the form of
the debt ceiling, its unclear whether the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate will agree to any of
Obamas suggestions, nonetheless this one. However, well keep you posted
if and when legislation is officially drafted and sent to Congress.
Missouri Lawmaker Wants Violent Video Games Taxed
A rural Missouri lawmaker wants her state to tax certain video games to
help curb gun violence. The Associated Press reports state Rep. Diane
Franklin, R-Camdenton, believes a 1 percent sales tax on video games
rated teen, mature and adults only would help finance mental health
programs aimed at reducing gun violence such as the recent mass shooting
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
What does the legislation propose?
House Bill 157 proposes to create "an excise tax based on the gross
receipts or gross proceeds of each sale" of video games rated by the
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The tax also involves the
"storage, use or other consumption" of violent video games in Missouri
including "tangible personal property." This means the tax could extend
to memorabilia derived from the games such as toys, clothing and video
game accessories.
How does the legislation hope to enhance public safety?
The law hopes to procure "new and additional funding for treatment of
mental health conditions associated with exposure to violent video
games... ." The revenue from the tax cannot be used to replace existing
revenue already in place. Franklin deems the legislation "necessary for
the immediate preservation of the public health, welfare, peace and
safety." Therefore, if the legislation passes it will go into effect
immediately. There is no mention in the legislation as to how much
revenue should be generated, nor does it say whether the sales tax is
just on new merchandise as opposed to used games on the secondary market.
Have similar laws been considered before?
A similar proposal was struck down in mid-February in Oklahoma. Democrat
William Fourkiller crafted legislation in 2012 that is very similar to
Franklin's idea in Missouri. A subcommittee struck down the bill by a
6-5 margin. Fourkiller, in defending the law , said it wasn't a "magic
bullet" but that Oklahoma had "to start somewhere" to curb childhood
violence. Oklahoma also would have taxed ESRB teen, mature and adults
only games at a rate of 1 percent.
Does the Missouri law have a chance to pass?
CNN notes a federal appeals court made a ruling in 2003 that video games
are free speech protected by the First Amendment. Ironically, it was a
federal case stemming from St. Louis County, Mo., that created the
precedent for video games as free speech. Senior U.S. District Judge
Stephen Limbaugh's decision was reversed by an appellate panel. The ruling
came shortly after the state of Washington banned the sale of certain
video games to children under the age of 17. Gamasutra reveals New Mexico
also tried, and failed, to pass a similar law in 2008.
What are Franklin's credentials as they relate to the proposed bill?
Franklin was first elected in 2010 from Camdenton. She is a mother of two
sons and served on Camdenton School Board from 1993 to 1999. She sits on
the House Appropriations-Education committee. Franklin is a
third-generation small business owner and comes from a farming family.
Missouri Republicans currently have a veto-proof supermajority in the
General Assembly. Camdenton is a small city of around 3,700 people near
Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri.
PlayStation 4 Could Be Unveiled in May
A Sony executive may have revealed the companys upcoming plan to announce
its highly anticipated PlayStation 4 console. Hiroshi Sakamoto, deputy
senior general manager of Home Entertainment at Sony, said in an interview
with Chilean news website Emol that the company could announce its
next-generation gaming console in May. It had previously been speculated
that both Sony and Microsoft (MSFT) would unveil their latest consoles at
the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June. An earlier announcement would
allow the PlayStation 4 to receive more press, however, rather than
competing with the Xbox 720. Sakamoto said that an announcement may be
in [E3] or even earlier in May, adding in that time we expect to
deliver great news, but we must wait until May at least.
PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 Could Cost Just $350
Sony and Microsoft are both expected to announce their next-generation
gaming consoles at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in June, or even a
little before then. While we have seen rumored specs for both the
PlayStation 4 and the Xbox 720, one thing that has escaped us is a
possible price tag. In a research note to investors on Monday, Colin
Sebastian of Baird Equity Research suggested that both consoles could
retail for between $350 and $400 in the U.S., Games Industry International
reported. The analyst revealed that during the Consumer Electronics Show
last week he spent time with a number of companies involved in video game
development and distribution, who informed him that the next-generation
consoles will be largely built from off the shelf high-end PC
components, along with hybrid physical/digital distribution models,
enhanced voice controls and motion sensing, and broad multi-media
capabilities.
Sebastian believes that a PC-based architecture (Intel chips in the case
of Xbox) should have a number of advantages over custom-developed
silicon. In his opinion, there will be less of a learning curve for
software developers compared to completely new technology, and the cost of
production and retail price points should be lower than prior console
launches.
Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 in 2005 with a top end price of $399, while
Sony released the PlayStation 3 a year later for $499 and $599 respectively.
It will be easier to build online services around PC chip architecture,
including flexible business models (free-to-play, subscriptions) and
multi-media (over the top) content offerings, the analyst added. For
Microsoft, this design will also allow for more integration with Windows 8
and Windows Mobile devices.
Sebastian expects Sony to launch the PlayStation 4 in October and Microsoft
to launch the Xbox 720 in November.
Ex-Red Sox Pitcher Schilling Puts Bloody Sock Up for Auction
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling whose video game company
underwent a spectacular collapse into bankruptcy last year is selling
the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series.
Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says
online bidding begins around Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place
Feb. 23.
The sock previously had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame
and Museum. It has been at Heritage's Dallas headquarters for several
weeks and will be displayed at the auction house's Manhattan office before
it is sold, according to Ivy.
He said the sock is expected to fetch at least $100,000, though he
described that as a conservative estimate.
"I do expect the bidding to be very spirited," Ivy said.
Schilling's company, 38 Studios, was lured to Providence, R.I., from
Massachusetts with a $75 million loan guarantee in 2010. In May, it laid
off all its employees and it filed for bankruptcy in June. The state is
now likely responsible for some $100 million related to the deal,
including interest.
Schilling also had personally guaranteed loans to the company and listed
the sock as bank collateral in a September filing with the Massachusetts
secretary of state's office.
Messages left for his publicist were not immediately returned.
The bloody sock is one of two that sent Schilling into the annals of
baseball lore in 2004.
The other was from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, when
Schilling pitched against the New York Yankees with an injured ankle. That
sock is said to have been discarded in the trash at Yankees Stadium.
The one being sold is from the second game of the World Series, which the
Red Sox won that year for the first time in 86 years.
Schilling has said he invested as much as $50 million in 38 Studios and
has lost all his baseball earnings. He told WEEI-AM in Boston last year
that possibly having to sell the sock was part of "having to pay for your
mistakes."
"I'm obligated to try and make amends and, unfortunately, this is one of
the byproducts of that," he told the station.
Brad Horn, a spokesman for the hall of fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., said the
loaned sock was returned in December under the terms of the hall's
agreement with Schilling. The hall had had it since 2004.
The Feb. 23 live bidding will be held at the Fletcher-Sinclair mansion in
New York City, now home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. The auction
will feature other "five- and six-figure items," including a jersey and
cap worn by New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig, Ivy said.
Heritage last May auctioned off the so-called "Bill Buckner ball," which
rolled through the legs of the Red Sox first baseman in the 1986 World
Series. Ivy said that item, like Schilling's sock, was listed at the time
as being expected to bring in "$100,000-plus," but it was sold to an
anonymous bidder for $418,000.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide
Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City
yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to
The Tech. Swartz was 26.
The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably,
true, confirmed Swartz attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van
Nest, in an email to The Tech.
Swartz was indicted in July 2011 by a federal grand jury for allegedly
downloading millions of documents from JSTOR through the MIT network
using a laptop hidden in a basement network closet in MITs Building 16
with the intent to distribute them. Swartz subsequently moved to
Brooklyn, New York, where he then worked for Avaaz Foundation, a
nonprofit global web movement to bring people-powered politics to
decision-making everywhere. Swartz appeared in court on Sept. 24, 2012
and pleaded not guilty.
The accomplished Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0
specification at age 14, founded Infogami which later merged with the
popular social news site reddit, and completed a fellowship at Harvards
Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption. In 2010, he founded
DemandProgress.org, a campaign against the Internet censorship bills
SOPA/PIPA.
Reddit Founder's Death Fuels Probe
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched an internal probe
of the events leading up to the suicide of internet activist Aaron Swartz,
who was facing federal charges for allegedly hacking into the school's
journal archives.
"It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that
have ended in tragedy," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in a statement.
"Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and
that includes all of us at MIT."
Swartz' legal troubles began two years ago when prosecutors said he
illegally downloaded millions of scientific journals from MIT and JSTOR,
a journal storage repository. Swartz, 26, had been an advocate for open
access and the freedom of information online.
He was due to stand trial in April, and if convicted, could have faced
decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Swartz had pleaded not
guilty to the charges.
Hal Abelson, a professor at MIT, who is also founding director of both
Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation, has been tapped to lead
the school's internal probe.
"I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the
decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions
MIT took," Reif said.
Furor over Swartz' death has reached the White House in the form of a
petition asking for the removal of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz who pressed
the case against Swartz.
The petition has been signed by nearly 12,000 people and needs 25,000
signatures by Feb. 11 to garner an official response from the White House.
Swartz's family and supporters have laid blame for his death on an
aggressive prosecution that used its powers to "hound him into a position
where he was facing a ruinous trial, life in prison."
"Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a
criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial
overreach," Swartz' family and partner said in a statement that also had
harsh words for MIT.
"Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office
and at MIT contributed to his death," the statement said.
JSTOR, which had stated it did not want to pursue charges against Swartz,
posted a statement offering condolences to his family.
"He was a truly gifted person who made important contributions to the
development of the internet and the web from which we all benefit," JSTOR
said in a statement. "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted
being drawn into from the outset."
If the aftermath of his death, the justice department said it was dropping
all charges against him pro-forma, since there was no longer a defendant
to prosecute and the mysterious hackers' group Anonymous broke onto the
MIT website and posted a message in his memory.
The message, before the page was taken down, said, among other things, "We
call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime laws, and
the overzealous prosecutors who use them."
When Swartz was 14, he helped create RSS software, revolutionizing the
way people subscribed to and consumed information online.
As an adult, he co-founded Reddit, a social news website, and railed
against Internet censorship through the political action group Demand
Progress.
His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, in Highland Park, Ill., his family
said, and they said that remembrances of Swartz and donations in his name
could be made at rememberaaronsw.com.
Anonymous Hackers Down MIT Website After Aaron Swartz Suicide
The hacker group Anonymous took down the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's website Monday morning in retaliation for the role it felt
the college played in researcher Aaron Swartz's suicide.
Swartz, a political activist and computer programmer, reportedly hanged
himself last week in his Brooklyn apartment as he awaited trial on 13
felony counts for downloading and publishing roughly 4 million academic
journal articles from the database JSTOR.
He allegedly used the university's network to download the data.
Swartz's family and partner issued a statement over the weekend, accusing
the college of having a role in his death, saying "decisions made by
officials in the Massachusetts U.S. attorney's office and at M.I.T.
contributed to his death" and that "M.I.T. refused to stand up for Aaron
and its own community's most cherished principles."
From 4 p.m. to 7:50 p.m. PT on Sunday evening, M.I.T.'s network lost
access to most websites, including mit.edu, where Anonymous posted a
red-lettered message in Swartz's honor.
"Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the
government's prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of
justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died
fighting for â" freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a
publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for
it â" enabling the collective betterment of the world through the
facilitation of sharing â" an ideal that we should all support," said the
message.
Kimberly Allen, the media relations manager at M.I.T., did not immediately
respond to a call from TheWrap requesting comment.
President Rafael Reif asked computer science professor Hal Abelson on
Sunday to "lead a thorough analysis of M.I.T.'s involvement from" in
Swartz's case.
How to Fix America's Harmful Hacking Laws
Many technology-law experts feel there's too much leeway for prosecutors
under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, allowing prosecutors to rack
up serious charges for what may seem like minor offenses to outsiders.
The Aaron Swartz case may be a perfect example of such overreach. The
young programmer, who was indicted twice under the CFAA, faced 50 years
in prison for allegedly downloading 4 million academic-journal articles.
Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment last week, two days after
his lawyer and prosecutors reportedly failed to reach a plea deal.
Adam Goldstein, an attorney advocate at the Student Press Law Center in
Arlington, Va., said, "the language of [the CFAA] could be tighter, [but]
that's not why things are going horribly wrong" with computer-related
prosecutions.
"What's going wrong with these prosecutions," he said, "is that any
prosecutor in any corner of the country can prosecute a computer crime,
even though he or she may know absolutely nothing about computers and have
only a rudimentary understanding of what the laws were even designed to
prohibit."
In the Swartz case, the online archive from which Swartz downloaded the
journal articles chose not to press charges.
But the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz, did.
Not only did her office issue a four-count indictment of Swartz in July
2011, with maximum penalties of 35 years in prison, but in September 2012
it superseded the original filing with a 13-count indictment that added
15 more years.
"These sentences make no sense to me," said Chester Wisniewski, a senior
security analyst in the Vancouver, British Columbia, office of the British
firm Sophos. "While I take copyright and digital crime very seriously, I
can't explain or justify these penalties."
On Wednesday (Jan. 16), Ortiz issued a statement that she and her office
didn't really intend to throw Swartz into prison for five decades.
"There was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his
acts for personal financial gain," Ortiz said. "This office sought an
appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct a sentence that we
would recommend to the judge of six months in a low-security setting."
The charges against Swartz were dropped after his suicide.
"In my experience, U.S. attorneys tend to throw the book at defendants,"
said former federal public defender Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at
the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
"The 'tough' prosecutors are the ones who get promoted and have their
careers advanced," he said. "This isn't unique to Aaron's case or the
CFAA: it's a problem in federal criminal law, period."
Robert Graham, chief executive officer of Errata Security in Atlanta, said
it comes down to the way the CFAA and related laws were written.
"Laws target the means rather than the ends," Graham said. "This allows
you to be prosecuted because you use the same means [as a criminal], but
for legitimate ends. Almost anybody can be prosecuted for illegal use of
a computer if prosecutors wanted to."
Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil
Liberties Union, was more blunt.
"The offenses that Swartz was accused of were not motivated by profit, nor
did they involve actual hacking," Soghoian said.
"Federal prosecutors could and should have shown restraint in their case
against Swartz and instead focused their limited resources investigating
other, more serious computer hacking crimes."
Is Congress likely to craft and pass legislation to fix the CFAA? Many, if
not most, members of Congress don't know much about how computers work.
Meanwhile, leading lawmakers and government officials have been telling
the public that hackers have the capability to destroy America.
Some experts we spoke to think reform of the CFAA and related statutes
might be possible even in such a political environment.
"Change has to come from them [Congress], ultimately, and I'm convinced if
we get enough people concerned about the abuse of this law, there can be
some meaningful reform," Fakhoury said. "They did, after all, drop SOPA
[the Stop Online Piracy Act] when it became clear there was a lot of
dissatisfaction with it."
"I think we can trust Congress to do this, honestly, because I think they
know that they don't understand these crimes," Goldstein said. "I believe
they can understand that their ignorance is doing harm. And what member
of Congress wants to oppose creating a system that will better prosecute
electronic crimes?"
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced a bill Tuesday (Jan. 15) to amend
the CFAA and a related fraud statute.
Her proposal, which she called "Aaron's Law," would exclude violations of
private agreements and obligations, such terms-of-service agreements,
acceptable-use policies and employment contracts, from being considered
unauthorized access.
It would, in essence, mean you'd no longer be breaking the law by using a
friend's Netflix account.
It's not clear whether Lofgren's amendment would have prevented Swartz's
prosecution, however.
A prosecutor might have argued that Swartz, who used MIT's on-campus
network to download the archived journal articles, was not associated with
MIT and hence was not party to the contractual agreement MIT had with the
academic archive.
Graham was less optimistic about the prospect for legislative reform,
observing that Congress responds "to the will of the people, and the
people don't understand this issue, either."
"The people don't know how computers work. It's all witchcraft to them,"
he added. "Hackers are witches; the people want to see them burned."
Instead, Graham suggested abolishing the CFAA entirely.
"The solution is not to reform it, but remove it," he said. "Focus on the
actual crimes, such as espionage or stealing money, and not on the idea
of 'accessing a computer without authorization.'"
Goldstein, on the other hand, thinks the solution to handling electronic
infractions already exists it just isn't being used properly.
"When we have an area of the law we think is really complicated, we set up
some kind of body, either investigative or judicial, to help ensure the
laws are enforced correctly," he said.
"After Sept. 11, the federal government realized that terrorism cases are
sophisticated, subtle and aren't easy for your average cops and
prosecutors to identify. The Department of Justice set up the Joint
Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), a clearing house for terrorism information
with local groups of experts set up to analyze and prosecute terrorism
crimes.
"The Patriot Act itself also directed the Secret Service to set up the
Electronic Crimes Task Force," Goldstein said. "But electronic crime
prosecutions just aren't being 'cleared' through ECTF the same way
terrorism prosecutions are cleared through JTTF.
"If you search the ECTF website, Aaron's name doesn't come up, which
makes you wonder what the heck it's for. So what needs to happen, really
and truly, is for the ECTF to become a branch of the Department of
Justice like the JTTF, so it [becomes] able to meaningfully involve
itself in these cases the way JTTF does."
How Computer-Hacking Laws Make You a Criminal
In 1970, a 14-year-old boy dialed into a nationwide computer network,
uploaded a virus he had written and caused the entire network to crash.
That boy was Bill Gates. Five years later, he founded Microsoft.
A few years later, two young men went around college dorms in California
selling boxes of wires that let students bypass telephone-company
restrictions and make long-distance calls for free.
Those young men were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and a later venture
they started, Apple, is now the most valuable company in the world.
In 2010, another young man, who had already founded a multimillion-dollar
company, broke into a utility closet at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
He hooked up a laptop to the campus network and downloaded 4 million
academic journal articles, most of them in the public domain, from a paid
archive to which he had a subscription.
He was arrested, indicted twice on multiple counts of fraud and, at a
trial that was to have begun in April, faced 50 years in federal prison
and a $1 million fine.
His name was Aaron Swartz, and last week he hanged himself.
The difference between the fates of Gates, Jobs and Wozniak on the one
hand, and of Swartz on the other, originates with the Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act.
The CFAA is a 1986 law, section 1030 of the federal criminal code, which
makes any unauthorized access into a protected network or computer a
federal crime and permits harsh penalties for those convicted.
But 1986 was a long time ago. Today, any Web server can be defined as a
protected computer, and almost anything can be defined as unauthorized
access.
Use your roommate's Netflix account to watch movies on your iPad? You're
violating the CFAA.
Trim the URLs of articles on the New York Times website so you can read
them for free? You're breaking federal law.
Check your Facebook page at work, even if your employer forbids it? Better
call your lawyer.
If that sounds ridiculous, here's a fact: Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, a
well-known "gray hat" hacker, was convicted in November of fraud and
conspiracy for harvesting data from a publicly accessible server. He's
facing up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing next month.
There weren't any passwords protecting the data Auernheimer and his
friend, who later testified against him, downloaded. All they did was
change numbers in URLs and press "return." But according to the CFAA, they
were breaking the law.
"The punishments for these crimes are hugely disproportionate to the
offenses listed," said Adam Goldstein, an attorney advocate at the Student
Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. "We wrote these laws based on the 1980s
view of the worst-case scenario of hacking in a networked world."
To Robert Graham, chief executive officer of Errata Security in Atlanta,
the CFAA is "hopelessly out of date, and can be used to prosecute anybody
for almost anything."
"The issue is 'authorization,'" Graham said. "Back in 1986, everyone had
to be explicitly authorized to use a computer with an assigned username
and password.
"But today, with the Web, we access computers with reckless abandon
without knowing whether we are authorized or not," he added. "When you
click on a URL, you are technically in violation of the law as it was
designed."
Swartz was facing more prison time than he would have if he'd committed a
serious physical crime, such as assault, burglary, grand theft larceny or
involuntary manslaughter.
"Why the penalties are stiffer for e-crime does not make sense," said
Chester Wisniewski, an American who works as a senior security analyst in
the Vancouver, British Columbia, office of the British security firm
Sophos. "These penalties are more in line with murder than theft."
"There is a serious problem in federal criminal law where the use of a
computer ratchets up a criminal sentence dramatically out of proportion
from the harm caused," said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
"We wrote laws designed to punish the worst monsters of William Gibson's
nightmares," Goldstein said. "We're wielding them against people who
download journal articles and steal naked pictures from Scarlett
Johansson."
Teens Facing Charges after Threats Against School on Facebook
Three Quebec City teens have been charged with planning a shooting at
their high school.
The three teens two boys aged 14 and 15 and a 16-year-old girl face
charges of conspiracy to commit murder and will remain detained until a
bail hearing Monday.
They have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Police arrested the three early Thursday morning after receiving a phone
call from the administration at Le Sommet, a high school in a Quebec City
suburb.
Quebec City police spokeswoman Catherine Viel says the three are accused
of hatching a plan on Facebook allegedly a clear plan to cause the
deaths of many people at the school.
The alleged plot was directed at school administrators, teachers and
students.
After questioning the three teens, authorities decided the serious charges
were warranted.
A search of the students' lockers did not turn up any weapons and police
couldn't say if they had access to any.
But the use of firearms was part of the alleged plot, Viel said, adding
that the accused spoke specifically about guns and explosives online.
1.4 Million Americans Reportedly Ditched Facebook in December
We may have finally hit peak Facebook. Per MarketWatch, new data from
social media tracking company SocialBakers found that the number of
Americans using Facebook fell by nearly 1.4 million in early December.
Whats more, SocialBakers CEO Jan Rezab told MarketWatch that Facebook is
possibly getting to a point where the less engaged part of the audience
doesnt visit every 30 days, meaning the social network has very little
room to grow in markets where its already highly saturated. Of course,
since Facebook still has more than 1 billion users worldwide and 167
million in the United States alone, the company can afford to lose 1.4
million here or there. The question is whether this user loss is a mere
blip or the start of a trend.
Facebook Search To Generate Revenue, No Rival to Google
Facebook Inc's new search tool has strong potential to generate revenue
for the social networking company, though it is unlikely to challenge
Google Inc as the world's dominant search engine, Wall Street analysts
said on Wednesday.
Facebook's "graph search" tool, rolled out on Tuesday, lets its more than
1 billion users trawl their network of friends to find everything from
restaurants to movie recommendations and is the company's biggest foray
into online search.
Graph search contains some category suggestions that can be easily
monetized, BofA Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note.
"It should be easy to incorporate commercial search results via Facebook's
partnership with Bing," they added.
Facebook currently has a partnership with Microsoft Corp, whose Bing
search engine provides search results for external websites. Microsoft
also integrates certain Facebook results into its Bing search results.
BofA Merrill Lynch analysts estimated Facebook could add $500 million in
annual revenue if it can generate just one paid click per user per year,
and raised its price target on the stock by $4 to $35.
Facebook's shares were flat at $30.10 in early trading on Wednesday. They
have jumped about 50 percent since November to Tuesday's close after
months of weakness following its bungled Nasdaq listing in May.
However, analysts at J.P. Morgan Securities said the lack of a timeline
for the possible launch of graph search on mobile devices may weigh on the
tool's prospects.
The success of the graph search, which will rely heavily on local
information, depends on Facebook launching a mobile product, the analysts
said. Half of all searches on mobile devices seek local information,
according to Google.
Graph search also lacks the depth of review content of Yelp Inc, the
analysts added.
Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said monetization potential
would be largely determined by Facebook's ability to generate a
significant portion of search query share volumes and he expects that
quantity to be relatively low.
"Consumers are likely to continue prioritizing other sources, i.e. Google.
Advertisers would consequently only use search if they can, or are
perceived to, satisfy their goals efficiently with Facebook," Wieser said.
Analysts mostly agreed that Facebook's search tool was unlikely to
challenge Google's dominance in web search at least in the near term.
"As of now, we do not see Graph Search as a threat to Google Web search.
Looking forward, Facebook Graph searches could be competitive with certain
categories of Google searches, such as Places and Maps," BofA Merrill
said.
Internet search, social networking tools and e-commerce are among the
biggest weapons that companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.com
Inc. have in their battle for supremacy. A successful combination of the
three could win the day for them.
Google has been trying to combine social networking and search for more
than a year by integrating Google+ into its search engine.
"Overall, Graph Search offers users a unique view to information not
available on Google, but does not replace Google. We view the relationship
between Facebook Graph Search and Google as both competitive and
complementary," Piper Jaffray & Co analysts said.
The brokerage said users looking to buy a cellphone, for example, could
search for friends' reviews on Facebook and expert reviews on Google.
Fedora Linux Lets You Choose Your Own GUI Adventure
Linux fans hope that the interface changes in Windows 8 will drive more
users to Linux. But the open source operating system is facing interface
challenges of its own. Part of the problem is that after so much
controversy within the Linux community there are so many interfaces to
chose from. But the new version of Fedora a desktop focused version of
Red Hats distribution of Linux is offering users an easier way to
choose between the many flavors of Linux GUI.
The controversy began when the team behind GNOME one of the most popular
desktop environments for Linux unveiled version 3.0, which made drastic
changes to the user interface. Reaction was, shall we say, mixed. Then
Ubuntu announced that it would provide its own interface on top of GNOME,
called Unity. The response was even worse.
Some, like GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza, say the interface wars are
not as important as other issues in Linux, like ensuring compatibility
with older versions of the operating system. But the subject still really
gets geeks going. Linus Torvalds, the opinionated creator of the Linux
kernel, famously switched from GNOME to the alternative Xfce, but ended
up switching back to GNOME.
One of the big issues is the lack of choice on particular Linux
distributions. Ubuntu install discs only include Unity. If you want a
different window manager, you either have to add it after installing
Ubuntu, or you have to start with variant of Ubuntu made specifically to
use an alternate desktop environment, such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu. But you
have to know that you want something other than Unity.
Thats where Fedora comes in. Fedora 18 code named Spherical Cow, after
an old physics joke offers popular desktop environments GNOME, KDE, and
Xfce, as well as lesser known options Cinnamon and MATE.
The later two are both forks of GNOME. Forks are when a developer or
development team take the source code of an existing project and change or
extend it, usually creating a new independent version of the original
project. MATE is a fork and continuation of GNOME 2 created in 2011.
Cinnamon is a fork of GNOME 3 from the developers of Linux Mint, which is
itself a fork of Ubuntu.
The Linux desktop wars are far from over, but at least Fedora is helping
users decide for themselves who the winners should be.
Facebook Launches Free Calling for All iPhone Users in the US
In early January, Facebook began testing free calling over Wi-Fi and
cellular data for all Messenger for iPhone users in Canada, and said that
a US launch could be coming soon. Apparently, the test went well a new
free calling button has appeared in the app. Facebook has confirmed to
The Verge that the feature began rolling out to US users today, and
requires no update through the App Store. To make a call to another
Messenger for iPhone user, all you need to do is open a conversation with
that person, tap the "i" button in the top-right corner, and tap Free
Call.
What this means is that if you live in the US, you can now call other
Facebook users for free over Wi-Fi or using your phone's data connection
while you're on the go. When you call someone, a push notification
appears on their screen that says "Ellis Hamburger is calling," for
example. The feature is especially critical for people with bad cell
service at work or at home, and for those who want to conserve cell
phone minutes. It's also a huge step for Facebook which with a single
feature emerges as one of the largest communities of VoIP users in the
world. After a few tests, the call quality sounds very good, and is
certainly on par with competitors Viber, Vonage, and Skype which have
had the feature for some time, but all have much smaller user bases.
Facebook has had a partnership with Skype for video calling inside
Facebook's website since summer 2011, but Messenger still notably lacks
video calling. Facebook offered no more details or information about an
international rollout, VoIP calling through its Messenger for Android
app, or VoIP calling through its website, but we'd bet these things are
coming soon.
=~=~=~=
Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire
Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted
at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for
profit publications only under the following terms: articles must
remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of
each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of
request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org
No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial
media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or
internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without
the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of
Atari Online News, Etc.
Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do
not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All
material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.
