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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 25
Volume 15, Issue 25 Atari Online News, Etc. June 28, 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
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1525 06/28/13
~ Working During Vacation ~ People Are Talking! ~ Facebook To Pull Ads!
~ Google Video Game Fight ~ Another Apple-1 Shows! ~ SCO vs. IBM, Part 2!
~ PS3 Not To Be Abandoned ~ WOW Hackers Steal Gold ~ Firefox Hiring Spree!
~ ~ ~
-* Ouya To Shake Up The Industry *-
-* Dark Seoul Gang Hacked South Korea! *-
-* GCHQ Secret Access to World Communications *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
First, another heat wave here in the Northeast, and then thunder, lightning
and plenty of rain! And, the weather pattern is showing no immediate plans
to improve! Hopefully, things will get somewhat better in time to be able
to help celebrate the upcoming 4th of July holiday! I know that, this year
especially, the fireworks in Boston are going to be unforgettable! And,
I hope to be able to enjoy a terrific barbecue or two!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Ouya To Shake Up Game Industry?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Google Ready for Video Game Fight!
WOW Hackers Steal Millions in Gold!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The $99 Xbox? Ouya's Affordable Gaming Console Aims to Shake Up an Industry
This holiday season Microsoft launches its $499 Xbox One and Sony its
$399 Playstation 4. It's a big year for gaming fans and, well, a big year
for their wallets, especially when you consider that those prices don't
include any of the games.
But starting this week there is a new, significantly more affordable
gaming console on the market, which will sit next to those other hotly
anticipated systems on Best Buy and Target shelves later this year.
It's called Ouya (pronounced like Booya, without the B). It costs $99 and
it's nothing like the other consoles in terms of price, performance and
offerings. And that's the point.
"Ouya is a different type of game console. We wanted to bring gaming back
to the television by making it accessible to gamers," Julie Uhrman, the
founder of Ouya, told ABC News in an interview. "All the games are free
to try, and we allow any developer with the creativity and passion to
build a game for the television to do so."
Unlike the big clunky Xbox, Wii or Playstation boxes, the Ouya is a small
little box, no bigger than other small settop boxes, such as the Apple TV
or the Roku. The little vase-shaped device houses the guts of a high-end
tablet or smartphone, including an Nvidia quad-core processor and a Wi-Fi
radio. There's no CD or Blu-ray drive - you download the games right to
the device.
For $99 you get that box, an HDMI cord to hook it up to your TV and a
single, AA-battery-powered controller. Additional controllers will cost
$49.95.
The box doesn't only have some of the same parts as your phone, but it
also runs the same software as some of those phones. The menus and all
the games have been written on top of Google's Android platform. But it's
not just a stretched version of the software - the games and the Ouya
software have been created for TVs, Uhrman emphasized.
The whole point of using Android, which is an open platform, was to make
Ouya an open console. In fact, the O in Ouya stands for "open." The uya?
That stands for fun.
The fun, of course, comes with the games. The console launched on Tuesday
with more than 160 games, all of which are free to try. "You shouldn't be
gouged by paying $60 for a game if you don't even know if you like it,"
Uhrman says, taking a knock at the high-priced console games out there.
The only requirement of game makers when submitting games to the Ouya
store is that playing some part of it must be free.
But, no, you won't find "Halo" or "Call of Duty" or "Madden NFL 13" on
Ouya. The new console has attracted a range of game makers with experience
making games for the PC and game consoles. It also attracts game makers
who have never made a game before.
One game available for the console called "Astronaut Rescue" was created
by a father and his 8-year-old son. "His son broke his leg skiing, and the
dad was like you aren't going to sit inside all day long and play games,
so they decided to build one," Uhrman said.
Joining games like "Astronaut Rescue" are some names that are more
familiar to people, such as Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog," "Final Fantasy"
and "You Don't Know Jack." The lack of well-known titles might be a
sticking point for many, but the free options might be all it takes to
bring users in, say some experts.
"The Ouya is attractive because of the $100 price and its free-to-try
games. That alone will give people pause enough to consider picking up one
of these consoles even though they don't play the popular games today,"
Brian Blau, a research director at Gartner, told ABC News.
The first level of Sonic is free, but to unlock all the levels it costs
$6.99. Ouya users are asked to input their credit card numbers during the
set-up process.
What you won't find are a lot of games just brought over from mobile
phones, even though the impetus to create the system stemmed from the
impact of mobile gaming.
"Games are becoming common on the television. They are sequels, they cost
too much to make them - you are getting the same games over and over
again," Uhrman says. " We were starting to see more innovative games on
mobile platforms because it was easier for developers to create them."
Uhrman, who has spent 10 years in the video game industry, said she began
to see game makers leaving their games for consoles and move over to
making games for the phone and tablet. She herself found herself playing
games on an 8-inch screen with her daughter, rather than on the big TV in
front of her. As the industry changed and evolved with people playing on
those smaller screens and testing games before buying them, Uhrman
believed the entire console market had to be flipped on its head.
Bold words as the brand new Xbox and Playstations make their way to market
later this year. However, there are certainly many things the Ouya cannot
do that those consoles can. Beyond providing richer games and graphics,
they provide more features when it comes to home entertainment, including
video and music streaming services. Although Ouya plans to add some of
those features soon.
Additionally, early reviews of the Ouya also knock the system for some
software and graphics bugs. "There are a few issues that Ouya will need to
overcome as quickly as possible. One is this issue of stability," Blau
says. "Gamers are a tolerant group but only to an extent."
Still Uhrman believes the console, which is already sold out through
Amazon for now, offers something very different for a clear purpose. And,
of course, there's also that other reason to consider it, Uhrman says: "I
mean, it's $99."
Google Is Ready for the Coming Video Game Fight
Apparently with an eye on rumors of Apple entering the video game console
business (again), Google is reportedly working on their own Android-based
console. Oh, and an Android watch, too, which will also probably have an
Apple competitor.
According to the report from the Wall Street Journal (based, of course, on
unnamed sources), one of the rumored devices which also includes a Nexus
Q media-playing device would be released this fall. But according to the
Journal, it looks like the company might have another compelling reason
for getting into the game on gaming, at least when it comes to competing
with more traditional gaming console makers:
"Games that run on Android software have proved particularly popular,
and they are growing much more quickly than games made for the big-name
consoles supplied by Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. The
appeal of such games has prompted the development of new devices aimed
specifically for Android by other hardware companies."
Google Play's store has over 100,000 games already loaded, so the company
wouldn't be hurting for content if they did launch a console. They
wouldn't, however, be the first Android-based console out there. The $99
Ouya, which launched this week, runs a version of Android.
Sony Wont Abandon The PlayStation 3 After The PlayStation 4 Launches
Fear not PlayStation 3 owners, Sony has confirmed that it has no plans to
abandon its current console when the PlayStation 4 launches this holiday
season for $399. Sony Japan president Hiroshi Kawano and Sony Worldwide
president Shuhei Yoshida revealed in an interview with Japanese gaming
magazine Weekly Famitsu, translated by Kotaku, that support for the
PlayStation 3 will continue indefinitely and the company has no
intention of immediately shifting from the PS3 to the PS4. Kawano noted
that after seven years the console continues to sell at a constant
pace, adding that there are also many upcoming titles are for the
system.
With the 2014 launch of our cloud service in the US allowing users to
play PS3 games on the PS4, some people may switch consoles from the PS3
to the PS4, Kawano said. But thatll be a gradual process, and to say
were releasing a new console, so trade in your old ones for it would
be a makers ego talking, plain and simple.
Yoshida spoke about the companys decision to require a mandatory
PlayStation Plus subscription fee for online play. The executive noted
that the service, which had previously been optional, requires a large
investment of resources.
Considering the cost, to try to keep such a service free and
consequently lower the quality would be absurd, he said. We decided
that if thats the case, then it would be better to receive proper
payment and continue to offer a good service.
Yoshida was quick to point out, however, that a PlayStation Plus
membership would not be required for online play or video services that
werent realtime. He also revealed that if the main account on a system
had a PlayStation Plus membership, all other accounts on the
PlayStation 4 would receive the same benefits, meaning families wont be
required to pay for multiple memberships.
'World of Warcraft' Hackers Steal Millions in Gold
Adventurers in the online game "World of Warcraft" generally have to
worry about bandits and dragons, but their most dangerous threat this week
comes in the form of gold-hungry hackers. By exploiting the Web and mobile
applications for the game's Auction House (which allows players to buy and
sell items), malefactors have stolen millions of gold pieces, but players
who use two-step authentication are relatively safe.
For those who have somehow avoided almost every form of pop culture for
the last decade, "World of Warcraft" is a massively popular online game
from developer Blizzard that casts players as heroes in an intricate high
fantasy world. As players complete quests and triumph over mythical
beasts, they gather in-game gold pieces, which they can use to buy
supplies and equipment.
The issue came to light on June 22, when a user named "Abidah" realized
that almost 200,000 gold pieces had disappeared from his account for
three unauthorized purchases in the game's Auction House,. He posted his
plight on the Blizzard forums, where other users shared similar
experiences.
Blizzard investigated, and discovered that while "World of Warcraft"
itself had not been compromised, its Web and mobile Auction House apps
had. On June 23, Blizzard acknowledged the hack.
"We have taken the Web and Mobile Auction House offline to perform an
emergency maintenance," wrote a customer service representative on the
forums. "Unfortunately we can't provide an ETA as to when they will be
brought back online."
Blizzard is still not sure how hackers compromised the Auction House apps,
but a number of users tell similar stories: After using the Auction House
apps, they logged in a few days later to find tons of gold missing from
their accounts, often exchanged for absolute junk.
In order to steal gold, the hackers put common, almost worthless items on
display at the Auction House. Using players' compromised accounts, they
then bought the item for exponentially more than its in-game worth (a
block of wood, for example, is not really worth 50,000 gold pieces).
In all likelihood, the hackers do not want in-game gold for its own sake,
but rather want to sell it online in exchange for real money. The only
problem with this plan is that Blizzard will usually restore players'
gold if they lost it to a hack. In a large-scale hack, this will
essentially duplicate the server's gold supply, causing massive
deflation. Selling gold for real money becomes a profitless endeavor.
The Auction House Web app is now up and running again, but the mobile app
remains offline. "At this time we have no reason to believe that accounts
currently using an authenticator are at risk," wrote Blizzard in its
latest forum update.
An authenticator is a piece of mobile software that users can install to
give their Blizzard accounts two-step verification. Each time a user
attempts to log into a Blizzard game, he or she must fill out a secondary
code that gets sent to a mobile device.
Even this measure may not protect the Auction House hack victims, though.
Abidah was quick to point out that he did use an authenticator, and still
lost hundreds of thousands of gold pieces. However, his settings required
secondary authentication only once a week instead of for every login.
The mobile Auction House should be back up within a few days, users lost
no real money and Blizzard will probably restore players' lost gold. As
hacks go, this was on the fairly harmless end of the spectrum, but if
hackers have figured out a way around two-step verification, "World of
Warcraft" may be in for bigger problems in the future.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
GCHQ Taps Fibre-optic Cables for Secret Access to World's Communications
Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of
cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has
started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which
it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency
(NSA).
The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of
its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms
Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic
as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public
acknowledgement or debate.
One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge
volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it
can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been
running for some 18 months.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast
quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as
targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages,
entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to
websites all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system
was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to
the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his
attempt to expose what he has called "the largest programme of
suspicionless surveillance in human history".
"It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden
told the Guardian. "They [GCHQ] are worse than the US."
However, on Friday a source with knowledge of intelligence argued that the
data was collected legally under a system of safeguards, and had provided
material that had led to significant breakthroughs in detecting and
preventing serious crime.
Britain's technical capacity to tap into the cables that carry the world's
communications referred to in the documents as special source
exploitation has made GCHQ an intelligence superpower.
By 2010, two years after the project was first trialled, it was able to
boast it had the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes
electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, UK, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.
UK officials could also claim GCHQ "produces larger amounts of metadata
than NSA". (Metadata describes basic information on who has been
contacting whom, without detailing the content.)
By May last year 300 analysts from GCHQ, and 250 from the NSA, had been
assigned to sift through the flood of data.
The Americans were given guidelines for its use, but were told in legal
briefings by GCHQ lawyers: "We have a light oversight regime compared
with the US".
When it came to judging the necessity and proportionality of what they
were allowed to look for, would-be American users were told it was "your
call".
The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US
private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ
databases.
The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m "telephone
events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able
to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.
Each of the cables carries data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second, so
the tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21
petabytes a day equivalent to sending all the information in all the
books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours.
And the scale of the programme is constantly increasing as more cables are
tapped and GCHQ data storage facilities in the UK and abroad are expanded
with the aim of processing terabits (thousands of gigabits) of data at a
time.
For the 2 billion users of the world wide web, Tempora represents a window
on to their everyday lives, sucking up every form of communication from
the fibre-optic cables that ring the world.
The NSA has meanwhile opened a second window, in the form of the Prism
operation, revealed earlier this month by the Guardian, from which it
secured access to the internal systems of global companies that service
the internet.
The GCHQ mass tapping operation has been built up over five years by
attaching intercept probes to transatlantic fibre-optic cables where they
land on British shores carrying data to western Europe from telephone
exchanges and internet servers in north America.
This was done under secret agreements with commercial companies, described
in one document as "intercept partners".
The papers seen by the Guardian suggest some companies have been paid for
the cost of their co-operation and GCHQ went to great lengths to keep
their names secret. They were assigned "sensitive relationship teams" and
staff were urged in one internal guidance paper to disguise the origin of
"special source" material in their reports for fear that the role of the
companies as intercept partners would cause "high-level political
fallout".
The source with knowledge of intelligence said on Friday the companies
were obliged to co-operate in this operation. They are forbidden from
revealing the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access
to the cables.
"There's an overarching condition of the licensing of the companies that
they have to co-operate in this. Should they decline, we can compel them
to do so. They have no choice."
The source said that although GCHQ was collecting a "vast haystack of
data" what they were looking for was "needles".
"Essentially, we have a process that allows us to select a small number of
needles in a haystack. We are not looking at every piece of straw. There
are certain triggers that allow you to discard or not examine a lot of
data so you are just looking at needles. If you had the impression we are
reading millions of emails, we are not. There is no intention in this
whole programme to use it for looking at UK domestic traffic British
people talking to each other," the source said.
He explained that when such "needles" were found a log was made and the
interception commissioner could see that log.
"The criteria are security, terror, organised crime. And economic
well-being. There's an auditing process to go back through the logs and
see if it was justified or not. The vast majority of the data is
discarded without being looked at
we simply don't have the resources."
However, the legitimacy of the operation is in doubt. According to GCHQ's
legal advice, it was given the go-ahead by applying old law to new
technology. The 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa)
requires the tapping of defined targets to be authorised by a warrant
signed by the home secretary or foreign secretary.
However, an obscure clause allows the foreign secretary to sign a
certificate for the interception of broad categories of material, as long
as one end of the monitored communications is abroad. But the nature of
modern fibre-optic communications means that a proportion of internal UK
traffic is relayed abroad and then returns through the cables.
Parliament passed the Ripa law to allow GCHQ to trawl for information, but
it did so 13 years ago with no inkling of the scale on which GCHQ would
attempt to exploit the certificates, enabling it to gather and process
data regardless of whether it belongs to identified targets.
The categories of material have included fraud, drug trafficking and
terrorism, but the criteria at any one time are secret and are not subject
to any public debate. GCHQ's compliance with the certificates is audited
by the agency itself, but the results of those audits are also secret.
An indication of how broad the dragnet can be was laid bare in advice from
GCHQ's lawyers, who said it would be impossible to list the total number
of people targeted because "this would be an infinite list which we
couldn't manage".
There is an investigatory powers tribunal to look into complaints that the
data gathered by GCHQ has been improperly used, but the agency reassured
NSA analysts in the early days of the programme, in 2009: "So far they
have always found in our favour".
Historically, the spy agencies have intercepted international
communications by focusing on microwave towers and satellites. The NSA's
intercept station at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire played a leading
role in this. One internal document quotes the head of the NSA,
Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, on a visit to Menwith Hill in June
2008, asking: "Why can't we collect all the signals all the time? Sounds
like a good summer project for Menwith."
By then, however, satellite interception accounted for only a small part
of the network traffic. Most of it now travels on fibre-optic cables, and
the UK's position on the western edge of Europe gave it natural access to
cables emerging from the Atlantic.
The data collected provides a powerful tool in the hands of the security
agencies, enabling them to sift for evidence of serious crime. According
to the source, it has allowed them to discover new techniques used by
terrorists to avoid security checks and to identify terrorists planning
atrocities. It has also been used against child exploitation networks and
in the field of cyberdefence.
It was claimed on Friday that it directly led to the arrest and
imprisonment of a cell in the Midlands who were planning co-ordinated
attacks; to the arrest of five Luton-based individuals preparing acts of
terror, and to the arrest of three London-based people planning attacks
prior to the Olympics.
As the probes began to generate data, GCHQ set up a three-year trial at
the GCHQ station in Bude, Cornwall. By the summer of 2011, GCHQ had
probes attached to more than 200 internet links, each carrying data at
10 gigabits a second. "This is a massive amount of data!" as one internal
slideshow put it. That summer, it brought NSA analysts into the Bude
trials. In the autumn of 2011, it launched Tempora as a mainstream
programme, shared with the Americans.
The intercept probes on the transatlantic cables gave GCHQ access to its
special source exploitation. Tempora allowed the agency to set up internet
buffers so it could not simply watch the data live but also store it
for three days in the case of content and 30 days for metadata.
"Internet buffers represent an exciting opportunity to get direct access
to enormous amounts of GCHQ's special source data," one document
explained.
The processing centres apply a series of sophisticated computer programmes
in order to filter the material through what is known as MVR massive
volume reduction. The first filter immediately rejects high-volume,
low-value traffic, such as peer-to-peer downloads, which reduces the
volume by about 30%. Others pull out packets of information relating to
"selectors" search terms including subjects, phone numbers and email
addresses of interest. Some 40,000 of these were chosen by GCHQ and
31,000 by the NSA. Most of the information extracted is "content", such as
recordings of phone calls or the substance of email messages. The rest is
metadata.
The GCHQ documents that the Guardian has seen illustrate a constant effort
to build up storage capacity at the stations at Cheltenham, Bude and at
one overseas location, as well a search for ways to maintain the agency's
comparative advantage as the world's leading communications companies
increasingly route their cables through Asia to cut costs. Meanwhile,
technical work is ongoing to expand GCHQ's capacity to ingest data from
new super cables carrying data at 100 gigabits a second. As one training
slide told new users: "You are in an enviable position have fun and
make the most of it."
Facebook To Pull Ads from Pages with Sex, Violence
Facebook Inc said it will no longer allow ads to appear on pages with
sexual or violent content, as the online social network moves to appease
marketers being associated with objectionable material.
The moves come a month after several businesses pulled their ads from
Facebook amid reports of pages on Facebook that promoted violence against
women.
Facebook said at the time that it needed to improve its system for
flagging and removing content that violated its community standards, which
forbid users from posting content about hate-speech, threats and
pornography, among other things.
Ads account for roughly 85 percent of revenue at Facebook, the world's
largest social network with 1.1 billion users. Facebook said the changes
would not have a meaningful impact on its business.
On Friday, Facebook said it also needed to do more to prevent situations
in which ads are displayed alongside material that may not run afoul of
its community standards but are deemed controversial nonetheless.
A Facebook page for a business that sells adult products, for example,
will no longer feature ads. Previously such a page could feature ads
along the right-hand side of the page so long as the page did not violate
Facebook's prohibition on depicting nudity.
The move underscores the delicate balance for social media companies,
which features a variety of unpredictable and sometimes unsavory content
shared by users, but which rely on advertising to underpin their
business.
"Our goal is to both preserve the freedoms of sharing on Facebook but also
protect people and brands from certain types of content," Facebook said in
a post on its website on Friday.
Facebook said on Friday that it would expand the scope of pages and groups
on its website that should be ad-restricted and promised to remove ads
from the flagged areas of the website by the end of the coming week.
Pages and groups that reference violence will also be off limits to ads,
the company said. A Facebook spokeswoman noted that the policy would not
apply to the pages of news organizations on Facebook.
Facebook said the process of flagging objectionable pages and removing ads
would initially be done manually, but that the company will build an
automated system to do the job in the coming weeks.
Four-year Hacking Spree in South Korea Blamed on 'Dark Seoul Gang'
Researchers with U.S. security software maker Symantec Corp say they have
uncovered digital evidence that links cyber attacks on South Korea dating
back four years to a single hacking group dubbed the "Dark Seoul Gang."
Eric Chien, technical director with Symantec Security Response, said late
on Wednesday that his firm made the connection while reviewing malicious
software code used to launch attacks that disrupted some South Korean
government websites earlier in the week.
He said that the evidence did not uncover the identity of the gang
members.
North Korea has been blamed for previous cyber attacks on South Korean
banks and government networks, although Pyongyang denies responsibility
and has said it has also been a victim.
Symantec researchers found chunks of code that were identical to code in
malicious programs used in four previous significant attacks, the first
of which happened on July 4, 2009, according to Chien.
"We know that they are one gang," he said. "It is extremely well
coordinated."
He estimates that the group has between 10 and 50 members, based on the
sophistication of the code and the complexity of their attacks.
The July 4, 2009, attack wiped data on PCs and also launched distributed
denial of service attacks that disrupted websites in South Korea as well
as the United States.
In March of this year, the gang knocked tens of thousands of PCs off line
at South Korean companies by destroying data on their hard drives, Chien
said. It was one of the most destructive cyber attacks on private
computer networks to date.
Symantec published its report on the gang on its website:
http://bit.ly/14ukq4o
A hacking attack on Tuesday, the anniversary of the start of the Korean
War in 1950, brought down the main websites of South Korea's presidential
office and some local newspapers, prompting cybersecurity officials to
raise the alert.
Worst Sequel Ever: SCO vs. IBM Reopened
For the last several months, we have consistently stated and
maintained that our System V code is in Linux. The claims SCO has are
both broad and deep. These claims touch not just IBM but other vendors as
well. They also touch certain industry consortia and corporate Linux end
users. Our claims arent trivial. The violations of our intellectual
property are not easily repaired. It is our intention to vigorously
protect and enforce SCOs intellectual property, System V source code
and our copyrights. Were now fully prepared to do that.
Former SCO CEO Darl McBride, in 2003
When the SCO Group which for a decade waged an aggressive and
ill-starred legal campaign against the Linux OS collapsed into financial
ruin last summer, it seemed that the company was finally headed for an
ignominious grave. Following hard-fought but ultimately ludicrous lawsuits
against both Novell and IBM, SCO careened from Chapter 11 into Chapter 7
bankruptcy, volunteering in its own filing that it had no reasonable
chance of rehabilitation.
But evidently liquidation wasnt enough to keep SCO dead and buried,
because this past May the company filed a request to reopen its case
against IBM. Now a Utah district court judge has granted it, and SCO is
clambering from the grave and preparing to shamble into court after IBM
once again.
Astonishing. Youd think that after all these years, SCO would be little
more than a case study in why using litigation as a profit center to
compensate for market losses is bad business. But no. Its back. And once
again, its pushing forward with its suit accusing IBM of
misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, breach of contract
and tortious interference. And the end game here is the same as it has
always been: Squeeze millions of dollars in licensing fees from a company
it claims illegally distributed portions of its proprietary Unix code
with the Linux OS code it has never really specified, despite repeated
calls to do so from its defendants and the open source community.
So SCO has been given one last shot at IBM, a chief architect of its
ruin. And while its impossible to say what will become of it, the
companys litigation record doesnt bode well for its chances.
As Groklaw editor Pamela Jones quips in her write-up of this latest
development in the case, What SCO should really ask the court for is a
Time Machine, so it can go back in time and do a better job.
Foxconns Firefox OS Hiring Spree
Now that electronics manufacturer Foxconn has partnered with Mozilla to
develop devices running its Firefox operating system, the company is
hiring up in support of that effort.
Foxconn hopes to recruit up to 3,000 software engineers with chops in
HTML 5 and cloud computing application programming in the months ahead.
Thats triple the headcount the company said it planned to hire when it
first announced its partnership with Mozilla. And it speaks to the breadth
of its commitment to Firefox OS. Foxconn currently plans to build five
Firefox OS devices in support of its eight screens, one network, and one
cloud plan. And staffing up its software center in Greater Kaohsiung,
Taiwan, is essential to that effort.
[Foxconn] will do its best to develop the Kaohsiung software center as
the companys software powerhouse, the company said in a statement.
There will be no budget limit for fostering software talent.
A grand pronouncement for Foxconn, which is best known as a large-scale
manufacturing partner to device makers like Apple. And one that suggests
that the company is serious about diversifying its business, and not
simply to the manufacture of Firefox devices, but seemingly cloud
computing services, as well.
How Worker Vacations Put Employers at Risk
Bosses may want to be careful what they wish for when it comes to
expecting employees to work through their vacations. New research has
found that workers are risking their companies' security when they work
while on vacation.
Overall, 77 percent of respondents say they do not have an office network
when they are on vacation. However, that is not stopping many workers from
accessing work files out of the office. To do this, 32 percent of workers
say they access work files via insecure cloud-sharing services like
Dropbox, Google Drive or Skydrive. Workers are also putting sensitive work
information and files at risk by bringing work computers or business files
away on vacation. Just 23 percent of workers say they access files through
their corporate network.
Those lax security procedures have the potential to hurt companies in a
big way, especially since 59 percent of workers admit to working during
vacation. Common work tasks during vacation include checking email and
answering phone calls.
Technology is both the reason why workers have been able to more easily
work while on vacation and the reason for the security concerns about it.
Smartphones and personal laptops are the two most popular devices workers
use while on vacation. Tablets and work computers are also helping
workers to work on vacation.
"The information age has enabled unprecedented levels of employee
productivity from the corner office to the factory floor, but it has also
created a dependency on the applications, files and data that employees
depend on everyday to get their job done," said Todd Krautkremer, vice
president of marketing at Pertino, a provider of cloud services to small
and medium-size business that conducted the research. "This can actually
lead to anxiety when an employee is disconnected for a protracted period
of time."
Workers arent fully against having access to technology and devices while
on vacation, though. Nearly half of respondents say they are less stressed
on vacation since they know that they are never too far away from their
office and personal devices.
The research was based on more than 1,000 responses.
Another Working Apple-1 Pops Up, Could Sell for $500K
Christies said it hopes to sell a working Apple-1 computer for as much
as half a million dollars in a special online-only auction that starts
next week.
The computer, one of fewer than 50 known to have survived from a limited
run of about 200, is even rarer in that it works, according to
Christies, which Friday confirmed an account by the Associated Press that
the Apple-1 is functional.
Christies estimated that the rare computer will sell for between $300,000
and $500,000.
Thats not impossible: Last month, a working Apple-1 sold at a German
auction for $542,000. The total, including a 22.3% commission as well as
taxes, paid by the buyer was a record $671,400.
The May sale eclipsed the previous record of $640,000 for an Apple-1
established last November, also at an auction conducted by Auction Team
Breker of Cologne, Germany.
Whether the Christies Apple-1 sets a record or comes close to earlier
prices depends on whether the auction attracts the clientele thats been
willing to pay premium prices, said Mike Willegal, an Apple-1 expert whose
index of existing machines is the worlds most complete.
The question is how many people have that deep of pockets, Willegal
said in an email Friday. The last couple of high-dollar Apple-1s went to
Korea, so if the publicity gets to Asia, who knows?
Willegal, who keeps tabs on the whereabouts of known Apple-1s, said that
the Christies unit was news to him. This is likely a new one that has
surfaced, which is especially likely if it really has been in this mans
hands for so long, said Willegal, referring to the AP story. It said the
current owner, identified as Ted Perry, had acquired the Apple-1 in 1979
or 1980, and kept it in a cardboard box since then.
Christies declined to make Perry available for an interview Friday.
But Willegal wasnt surprised that the Apple-1 appeared out of nowhere.
Im sure the high selling prices are going to have some additional units
popping out of the woodwork, he said.
Apple-1 prices have climbed dramatically since the death of Apple
co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs in 2011. A working Apple-1 sold in
November 2010 by Christies went for $213,000; less than two years
later, in June 2012, rival Sothebys sold a different operational
Apple-1 for a then-record $374,500.
That kind of money may eventually prompt fraudsters to shill a forgery or
an accurate reproduction as the real thing. I think a reproduction or
forgery could be made pretty compelling, but an expert should be able to
tell the difference when looking at one in person, said Willegal, who
has been approached in the past to authenticate other Apple-1 computers,
but has declined because he was asked to do so based only on photographs.
Unlike later personal computers, including the 1977 Apple II, the Apple-1
was sold as a fully-assembled circuit board, but minus a case, power
supply, keyboard or monitor. Buyers had to provide those components,
resulting in some interesting customizations. Christies Apple-1 is
mounted on a wooden board, as are a modern keyboard and the power supply.
All Apple-1s were hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1976.
They sold then for $666.66, equivalent to $2,724 in todays dollars, or
more than a top-of-the-line 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina-quality
display goes for now.
The one to be sold by Christies is hand-signed by Wozniak, as are the
included manual and board schematics.
Christies Apple-1 will be exhibited at the Computer History Museum in
Mountain View, Calif., June 24-27. The online auction runs from June 24
to July 9.
Christies will put this Apple-1 on the block in an online auction that
begins June 24, and has pegged the likely sales price between $300,000
and $500,000.
=~=~=~=
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