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February 28, 2005
AOL tool links AIM buddies to Microsoft Outlook
By Scarlet PruittAmerica Online Inc. (AOL) is offering a beta tool which allows AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) users to see when contacts are online and available to chat through Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook e-mail application. The new application was unveiled Monday along with a string of partnerships that seek to weave AIM into various online sites and applications from CareerBuilder.com Inc., Ruckus Network Inc. and Thomson Corp.
The Outlook integration is aimed directly at business users' desktops using technology from Intellisync Corp.
"This is a big deal," said IDC research manager of collaborative computing Robert Mahowald. "Outlook is a wildly popular client so it puts AIM front and center with users."
The program is available for free download from the Aim.com Web site for users of AIM version 5.9 or higher who use Outlook 2002 or 2003, offering a new level of integration between the two company's products. Microsoft already offers integrated messaging features in Outlook through its own IM services.
The new tool, called AIM Sync, allows users to add contacts from Outlook to their AIM buddy list and matches e-mail addresses with AIM screen names. It then shows the "presence," or availability of contacts to chat online, by placing the AOL "running man" icon in e-mail, address book and phone list views of Outlook. Users who click on an icon can launch a chat or access the buddy's phone number and send a text message to a mobile phone by SMS (Short Message Service).
The integration of presence into e-mail applications underscores the need for users to be able to easily switch between instant messaging (IM) and e-mail functions depending on the urgency of information, AOL said.
The beta tool is also a way for AOL to gain more users for its IM service, since users can invite Outlook contacts who do not have AIM to join up.
While the functionality could be seen as a threat to Microsoft's own MSN Messenger, Mahowald sees it as a minor concern.
"Microsoft's current push is into business IM and they have more eggs in that basket," he said. The company will soon be launching its enterprise IM client for Live Communications Server 2005 code-named "Istanbul," for example, which will allow users to exchange messages with contacts on public IM networks for Yahoo Inc., AOL and MSN.
Meanwhile, AOL is spreading its reach through partnerships with business sites and applications. This is good strategy given that roughly 30 percent of consumer IM accounts are used for business purposes, according to Mahowald.
Under the deal with jobs site CareerBuilder.com, AIM users will be able to link their screen names to their resumes, giving hiring managers and recruiters the opportunity to initiate a chat with prospective employees online.
College digital entertainment network Ruckus is integrating AIM across its services, allowing students to see and chat with online friends. Finally, financial information company Thomson has integrated AIM into its Thomson AutEx trading network.
While there are a variety of enterprise IM applications on the market, they still don't match the popularity of public IM networks. Consumer IM accounts are expected to reach some 240 million by 2008 with an increasing amount of services hooking into enterprise applications, according to a recent report from researcher IDC.
Seeing this opportunity, AOL is encouraging third-party software developers such as Intellisync to create ways to integrate AIM into even more applications and services.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:58 PM
Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh, dies at 61
By James NiccolaiJef Raskin, the lead designer of the first Macintosh computer and a pioneer in the development of user interfaces, died Saturday at age 61. He had been diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, his family said in a statement. Raskin joined Apple Computer Inc. in 1978 as employee number 31 and headed the company's Macintosh development team from its inception until 1982. He named the project after his favorite type of apple, changing the spelling for copyright reasons.
He is credited with significantly advancing the design of user interfaces, which in the early 1980s were largely text-based and required users to memorize complex commands. Raskin convinced his peers at Apple that to reach a wider audience, the Macintosh needed an interface that was elegant and easy to use.
"Up to that time, at Apple and most other manufacturers, the concept was to provide the latest and most powerful hardware, and let the users and third-party software vendors figure out how to make it usable," he wrote later on his Web site.
Raskin left Apple in 1982, two years before the Macintosh went on sale, but he continued to influence the design of computers through his writing, lectures and consulting work. Soon after leaving the company he founded Information Appliance Inc., where he designed the Canon Cat computer for Canon USA Inc., although the product was not a commercial success.
His consulting clients have included Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and many other big names in computing. In 2000 he published a book, "The Humane Interface," that is widely assigned at universities.
Raskin was currently at work on a project called Archy, where he hoped to put many of the ideas expressed in his book into software. Archy uses simple commands for common operations in word processing and e-mail, but "doesn't work like anything else on this or nearby planets," meaning users would have to learn it from scratch, he wrote on his Web site.
His son, Aza Raskin, will continue to develop the project, a preview version of which is due out later this year, his family said in the statement.
Raskin's interests were not restricted to computers: He taught the recorder, harpsichord and music theory at San Francisco Community College in the 1970s, and his family described him as an orchestral soloist and composer. He also founded a company that designed and sold radio-controlled model aircraft.
Along with Aza, he is survived by his wife, Linda Blum, and his other children, Aviva and Aenea. Raskin lived most recently in Pacifica, California.
More information about Jef Raskin is available at his Web site, www.jefraskin.com. More information about Archy is at www.raskincenter.org.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:57 PM
France Telecom CEO becomes French minister of finance
By Peter SayerThierry Breton resigned as chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of telecommunications operator France Telecom SA on Friday, to become minister of finance in the French government. On Sunday, the company's board of directors named his replacement: Didier Lombard, previously the company's senior executive president in charge of technologies, partnerships and new services. Taking up the role of CEO, Lombard said he would continue to follow the strategy set out by Breton, of integrating the company's mobile and Internet businesses alongside its traditional fixed-line communications activities.
Lombard served the French government from 1988 to 1990, when he was technical and scientific director for the French Ministry of Research and Technology, and later became general director of industrial strategy for the Ministry of Industry, according to a statement announcing his appointment.
France Télécom, the former monopoly telecommunications operator in France, has a close relationship with the French government, which still holds 42.2 percent of its shares, according to the company.
Breton, appointed CEO of France Télécom in October 2002, is said to have already refused the job as head of the finance ministry once, in November. Then, the role was offered to Hervé Gaymard, whose resignation Friday was precipitated by a scandal over the use of public funds to rent an apartment for his family.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:57 PM
WORLDBEAT : Digital decorum for the urban masses
By Scarlet PruittYou're hip, you're urban, and you're on the go.
Before you leave the house each morning you make sure your headphones are snugly tucked into your ears, ensuring that no matter how bad the commute goes, it's at least to your own soundtrack. As the train doors snaps shut, you shove yourself into the last millimeter of space, and apologize at high volume to your fellow passengers. With your playlist still rolling you buy your newspaper from a man who mouths the price before you nearly get hit by a silent ambulance. Perhaps it's time for some iPod etiquette?
With the growing number of devices now hitting city streets a new question is emerging on how to use them in a way that connects, rather than isolates, you with other people. It may sound basic, but a recent survey on a busy London street indicates that there may be a problem.
"It drives me mad to hear three different peoples' music blasting through their headphones at me on the train," said London commuter Rob Shaw.
And volume is not the only concern. "People leave their iPods on when they go into shops and buy things. Now that's just rude," Shaw added.
Music listeners aren't the only worry as cell phone wielders are also coming under fire.
"I have a friend who texts constantly when she's with other people. It's really antisocial," said one Londoner who declined to be named so as not to offend the texter in question.
"It's rude when you are talking to someone and they are texting or listening to their music," agreed taxi driver Henry Mukasa. "But there is no replacement for a cell phone," he mused.
Ah, the cell phone. Not only does it allow users to break off boring conversations to make or receive calls, it now lets us text during live conversations in a sort of social multitasking. But should friends let friends text and talk? Surely there's some need for digital decorum here.
However people use cell phones, many Britons would seem to agree with Mukasa that they are irreplaceable. In fact, a new survey sponsored by U.K. bank Lloyds TBS PLC found that 63 percent of people polled feel concerned if they leave their cell phone at home. They join an already worrying group of e-mail addicts. The same poll found that 72 percent of respondents felt anxious if they were unable to check their e-mail for a day. >{? These people have a problem and its called Mobile and Internet Dependency Syndrome (MAIDS), according to Lloyds. MAIDS has swept the U.K. with some notably acute cases. Of the 936 Britons polled, 3 percent said they feel "panicky or freaked out" if they leave their mobile phone at home, while a further 1 percent suffer physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweaty palms, the bank said.
The young are particularly vulnerable to the disease, with 33 percent of respondents aged between 16 and 24 saying that they return home to retrieve forgotten cell phones rather than suffer the stress.
When called about the poll, Lloyds had no antidote for the syndrome, but referred to advice given to them by U.K. life coach Gladeana McMahon. Retain a sense of perspective and realize that a day without your mobile phone is not the end of the world, Gladeana said. The life coach recommended that people with severe cases see a stress expert. As for those who text and talk: prioritize.
That advice may help the over-communicators, but what about the isolators or hard-core headphone wearers?
We turned to iPod DJ club promoter Jonny Rocket for some advice. An iPod DJ club, for those not in the know, is a place where people can bring their own music playlist in for a spin and compete against other digital DJs for rewards and recognition.
Rocket sees a lot of iPod users in action and says that their music is both a friend in silence and a group activity. Those who shuffle along (no pun intended) only listening to their own tunes are missing half of the point, he said. That's why Rocket endorses his playlist club (www.ipod-dj.com) -- "to take a personal technology and mutate it into a collective experience."
As for iPod etiquette when users are darting to work, music at full blast, at least take the headphones off and say hello when you're buying your coffee, Rocket recommended. It adds a little human warmth, he added.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:55 PM
February 25, 2005
Mozilla warns of security holes, fixes Firefox
By Joris EversSeveral security vulnerabilities in Firefox and the Mozilla Suite of Internet software put users of the open-source products at risk of hacker attacks, the Mozilla Foundation warned Thursday. The organization released Firefox 1.0.1, which fixes 17 security flaws in the popular Web browser. The most serious flaws could allow an attacker to gain full control over a victim's PC, the Mozilla Foundation said in a statement. Firefox 1.0 was released in November and has since been downloaded more than 27 million times.
Firefox 1.0.1 also includes several fixes to guard against spoofing of Web addresses and the security indicator on Web sites. These vulnerabilities could be exploited for phishing scams, which typically use spam e-mail messages to drive people towards fraudulent Web pages that look like legitimate e-commerce sites.
One of the changes made in Firefox 1.0.1 is in the way the browser handles international domain names (IDNs). These names are now displayed differently to make it easier to spot spoofed Web sites. Because of the way Firefox displayed IDNs, it was possible to register domain names with international characters that resembled other common characters, thus tricking users into believing they were on a trusted Web site.
For protection against possible exploitation of the security flaws, users should download and install the latest version of Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation said. The organization does not offer patches to fix the problems without having to install a new browser.
Most of these flaws also affect the Mozilla Suite, which includes a Web browser, an e-mail client, Internet Relay Chat client and Web page editor. However users of the suite are left vulnerable because no fixes are yet available. Mozilla 1.7.6, the update that fixes the issues, is due out in "a couple of weeks," according to a Mozilla Foundation spokesman.
The public warning of the security vulnerabilities is evidence that the Mozilla Foundation's products give a false sense of security, said Thor Larholm, a senior security researcher with PivX Solutions Inc. in Newport Beach, California.
"The only reason Mozilla and Firefox have a good track record in security with a low number of security vulnerabilities is simply because they don't tell anyone about them," Larholm said via e-mail.
"The Mozilla Foundation has fixed hundreds if not thousands of security vulnerabilities over the last few years without notifying the world and without providing security patches, instead they have simply just told their users to upgrade," he said. "We have to remember that all software has security vulnerabilities, the only difference is in how we anticipate them and inform the world about their existence."
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 11:55 PM
Skype users may soon be sending text messages
By John BlauUsers of the Internet phone service offered by Skype International SA may soon be able to send text messages to mobile phones thanks to a service that went into beta testing on Friday. London-based Connectotel Ltd. has developed technology that allows SMS (Short Message Service) messages to be sent to users of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) handsets via Skype's P-to-P (peer-to-peer) network, according to Connectotel's business development and technical director, Spencer Gun.
Skype users could already receive SMS messages using the "SMS to Skype" service launched three weeks ago. Connectotel began a beta test of its "Skype to SMS" service with selected users on Friday, Gun said Friday. The beta test is currently limited to sending messages to the U.K. and it was unclear Friday when the service might be ready for commercial use.
To use the Skype to SMS service, Skype users must first add "smsgateway" to their list of contacts, and then initiate a chat session with that contact. Once they've initiated the session, they can add the U.K. phone number for the person they want to send the message to -- in its full international format -- followed by their message.
With the current SMS to Skype service, the mobile phone user pays to send the message. An international SMS is slightly more expensive than a national SMS, according to Gun.
The Skype to SMS service is free during the beta test period. But there is a cost to providing the service, and Connectotel hopes Skype will participate, according to Gun.
"For the beta test, we have purchased SMS messages in bulk to get a good price of less than 3 pence (US$0.06) per message, so we're currently paying for the service," he said. "What we would like to do is have the billing managed through the existing SkypeOut prepaid service. We're in talks with Skype about this possibility."
With SkypeOut, users must pay into an account, say €10 (US$13), against which they charge their calls. The SkypeOut global rate is 1.7 euro cents per minute.
Skype could not be immediately reached for comment.
Skype uses P-to-P technology to connect users to other users to talk and chat with friends. Skype was developed by the founders of Kazaa P-to-P technology, widely used to share music files. Sharman Networks Ltd. is the company behind the Kazaa file sharing software
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
Daum to challenge eBay with auction acquisition
By Martyn WilliamsSouth Korean Internet portal operator Daum Communications Corp. is mounting a challenge to eBay Inc.'s efforts in that country with the acquisition of a rival Internet auction site operator. Daum, which recently acquired portal operator Lycos Inc., has purchased a 90 percent stake in online auction marketplace operator Onket for 4.25 billion won (US$4.2 million), Daum said Friday.
Onket was established by Lee Keum Ryong who previously headed Internet Auction Co. Ltd., which is South Korea's number one online auction service and it now owned 99.7 percent by eBay Inc. The Onket stake was acquired from Inicis Co. Ltd., of which Lee is currently CEO and which operates an electronic payment system in competition with eBay's Pay Pal service.
As a result of the acquisition the running of Onket will be handled by Choi U Jeong, who heads Daum's own D&Shop online marketplace service, and the service will be rebranded at Daum Onket from May this year, said Jody Chung [cq], a spokeswoman for Daum. The company will promote D&Shop and Daum Onket side-by-side, the former for conventional online shopping and the latter for online auctions.
"We will conduct an aggressive online marketplace business with Onket, on the basis of our successful experience in e-commerce with our existing D&Shop and the great number of users of our portal," said Chung.
D&Shop has about 9 million users and Onket has more than 3.5 million users, she said. Both sites trail Internet Auction Co. Ltd., which has more than 10 million users, according to local media reports.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
NTT develops hydrogen fuel cell for mobile phones
By Paul KallenderNippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) has developed a prototype fuel cell that it hopes to commercialize within three years at a size small enough to fit inside mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics devices, the company said Thursday. The prototype is a micro polymer-electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) that works by combining hydrogen with oxygen, generating electricity and water, and is more powerful than the direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) currently being developed by many companies, said Kazuya Akiyama, a researcher at the energy systems project at NTT's energy and environment systems laboratories.
The power density of the NTT cell, which is a measure of the amount of power it can generate relative to its size, is up to 200 milliwatts per square centimeter. When the fuel cell is commercialized it will be able provide a 3G (third-generation) mobile phone that uses 2.5 watts of power with about 9 hours of talk time, Akiyama said in a presentation at NTT's Yokosuka R&D Center on Thursday.
In contrast, a DMFC developed by NEC last year offered a power density of 70 milliwatts per square centimeter. NTT calculates that to match the size of lithium ion batteries used in mobile phones, a fuel cell must have a power density of about 160 milliwatts per square centimeter or more, he said.
"DMFCs can't do it. There isn't enough power," Akiyama said.
NTT believes that the extra power advantage means hydrogen-fuelled PEFCs will be able to replace lithium ion batteries inside mobile phones and in tests the prototype has been able to power a phone long enough to allow a video or voice call, he said.
NTT's prototype is currently 13 millimeters by 42 millimeters by 80 millimeters, weighs 104 grams and it will take 2 years before the company can shrink this so that it can fit inside a cell phone, Akiyama said.
The hydrogen-fuelled PEFC technology does have at least one disadvantage compared to DMFC technology, he said.
Methanol fuel cells can work off small, nonpressurized cartridges of the liquid while hydrogen-fuelled PEFCs require pressurized hydrogen gas. While the hydrogen is only pressurized to 2 or 3 atmospheres, the industry has yet to create a small, safe and standardized container for this.
NTT has designed a hydrogen storage unit that is slightly bigger than an automobile battery that can store 50 liters of hydrogen. In the home, it could be used as a refueling station for a number of types of fuel cells although is too big for portable use.
Building a supply and container infrastructure, creating international packaging standards and making a legal framework to allow transportation of hydrogen canisters will take about 3 years, a year longer than it will take to resolve similar issues with methanol, Akiyama estimated. Regulations to allow passengers to carry methanol fuel canisters onboard commercial airliners should be completed around 2007.
"The fuel canisters we are using are very heavy and we need to make them smaller and lighter, and safety is a big concern," he said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
AOL enters local search market
By Juan Carlos PerezAmerica Online Inc. (AOL) has launched a local search service designed to let users of its search engine find information tied to a specific place, such as business listings, movie times and events. With this move, AOL joins search engine rivals Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Ask Jeeves Inc., which have similar services. The free service is available to both subscribers of the fee-based AOL online service and to Web users at http://localsearch.aol.com.
AOL estimates that about 20 percent of the queries run on its main Web search engine are for local information, so given the interest in this type of search it makes sense for AOL to have this service, said Dariusz Paczuski, vice president of marketing for AOL Search and Directional Media.
Interest from AOL and its rivals in local search is also driven by the new advertising opportunities offered by drawing in local businesses that may not have been interested in having their ads run along with query results that weren't specific to the city or area in which they do business.
For the local search service, AOL is aggregating information from a variety of its existing properties and from several partners. For example, local search results will feature business listings gathered from the AOL Yellow Pages, local entertainment information, reviews and ratings from AOL City Guide, maps and driving directions from AOL subsidiary MapQuest and movie information from AOL's Moviefone.
On the partner side, AOL's local search will feature retail shopping information from CrossMedia Services Inc.'s ShopLocal.com, restaurant information and reservation services from OpenTable Inc., dining certificate offers from Restaurant.com and event-ticket purchasing through AOL Tickets, which in turn partners with several ticketing services.
Future features AOL plans to add to the local search service include local news provided through Topix.net, as well as an index of general Web sites containing pertinent and timely local information that AOL will build in partnership with Fast Search & Transfer Inc.
AOL has hit the bull's eye with its approach to local search by providing not only useful information but also ways for users to act on the information, such as buying event tickets, obtaining driving directions and making restaurant reservations, said Allen Weiner, a Gartner Inc. analyst. "That's one of the most powerful and valuable things I see in this local search service: actions with content," Weiner said.
This service and others Dulles, Virginia-based AOL has unveiled recently make it clear the company is on the comeback trail, but a core issue remains unresolved: AOL's dual strategy of having a proprietary fee-based online service and a public portal open to all Web surfers, Weiner said.
AOL can make AOL.com a world-class Web destination that is in the same league with the offerings from Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Internet division and Google, Weiner said. But AOL will not be able to achieve that goal as long as it has to devote resources and efforts to its proprietary online service as well, he said.
Subscriptions to AOL's fee-based online service have been dropping consistently, and in response the company has begun devoting more attention and resources to AOL.com, whose business model is attracting Web traffic and selling advertising.
However, despite the erosion in its subscriber ranks, AOL, a Time Warner Inc. subsidiary, still has a significant number of members. Its U.S. subscriber base stood at 22.2 million at the end of the fourth quarter, 2 million less than a year earlier and down 464,000 from the immediate prior quarter.
This means that the fee-based online service still provides significant ongoing revenue for AOL, Weiner said. "AOL is waking up to the power that it has always had and packaging (its content and services) in a way that has tremendous value. But this doesn't negate that they're still pursuing this dual strategy," Weiner said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
EU formalizes UK iTunes pricing investigation
By Simon TaylorThe European Commission, the European Union's (E.U.'s) antitrust regulator, confirmed on Friday it has launched an investigation into whether Apple Computer Inc. is overcharging its British customers for music downloads. A spokesman for the Commission issued a statement saying an inquiry has been started into allegations that prices for downloads from Apple's iTunes Web site in the U.K. are substantially higher than prices for similar services on the company's French and German Web sites.
The Commission is also examining whether U.K. customers are prevented from downloading the same tracks from non-U.K.-based sites, the statement said. Under E.U. competition law it is illegal to segment the pan-European market into national territories in an attempt to obtain higher prices from customers in a specific country.
The inquiry follows a complaint by U.K. consumers' rights organization Which? in September 2004 that found U.K. iPod users were paying €1.14 (US$1.51) per download while prices in France and Germany were €0.99.
The complaint was brought by Which? to the U.K.'s competition authority, the Office of Fair Trading, which referred the matter in December to the Commission. Under E.U. law the Commission is responsible for cases with effects in more than one member state.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
Wall Street Beat: Takeover battles, Apple spark trading
By Marc FerrantiNews about Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod line, the continuing U.S. telecommunications sector merger saga, and a budding takeover battle in the Chinese online arena grabbed the attention of investors this week. On Wednesday, Apple updated the iPod family with, among other devices, a new 30G-byte model of its mini digital photo music player, which sells for US$349, or $150 less than the previous 40G-byte version. The company also dropped the price of the 60G-byte version by about $150, to $449.
Apple (ticker symbol: AAPL) shares Wednesday spiked by $2.94, to close at $88.23. Company observers say that Apple is making a healthy profit on iPod devices. For example, a recent analysis from IDC reported that Apple makes 35 percent to 40 percent margin on each iPod Shuffle player sold. An expected drop in flash memory prices will further fuel profits, IDC said.
In the telecom arena, Qwest Communications International Inc. Thursday made a new bid for MCI Inc. in an effort to snatch it away from Verizon Communications Inc. The new offer counters the deal, announced Feb. 14, for Verizon to buy MCI for US$6.7 billion.
MCI (MCIP) shares have ridden the turbulence in the sector to a new 52-week high, closing Thursday at $23.21, up 24.4 percent for the month.
The new Qwest offer is for the same amount that it had tendered earlier, about $8 billion, but this time the company is saying that it will guarantee the price. The acquisition mechanism announced by Qwest would allow for a faster payout to MCI shareholders than the Verizon deal.
MCI had rejected Qwest's earlier offer, after which Qwest publicized the fact that its bid was higher than Verizon's. MCI officials then had to explain publicly that Verizon is larger and more profitable than Verizon and thus a better fit. MCI said it would study the new Qwest offer.
The jockeying for position in the telecom world follows SBC Communications Inc.'s January announcement that it will acquire AT&T Corp. The deal paved the way for further industry consolidation as carriers scramble to fight the new telecom giant.
After the SBC announcement, the value of Qwest shares neared its 52-week high of $5.00, then plunged below $4.00 after the Verizon-MCI deal was announced. But since announcing that it intended to rebid, Qwest (Q) shares have moved back to the $4.00 range. Verizon (V) shares have inched down, closing Thursday at $35.50, 1.71 percent lower than its closing price one week earlier, when Qwest announced its intention to rebid.
Investor interest has also been piqued by a corporate takeover tussle in China. The efforts of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd., China's biggest online-game company, to acquire Internet media company Sina Corp. has boosted the value of Sina on the Nasdaq exchange.
On Feb 18, Shanda announced that, together with related companies, it had paid $230 million for a 19.5 percent stake in Sina. Sina (SINA) shares jumped by $2.82, to $28.42, on the news. Though Sina Tuesday announced a shareholder rights plan, otherwise known as a 'poison pill,' to ward off a takeover, the move did not dim Sina's star significantly, as shares in the company continued to trade in the $27 range. Continued interest in the company is likely due to the fact that a merged Sina and Shanda would be the largest company in the competitive Chinese Internet market.
Telecom manufacturers, meanwhile, see continued price pressure. Ciena Corp. shares lost $0.35 Wednesday, sliding to $2.40, after the company said it does not expect its second fiscal quarter to be better than its first. Part of the problem, the company said, is that although its optical transport business has made some gains, margins on the equipment are low. It forecasts a second quarter loss of $0.05 to $0.07.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:22 PM
February 24, 2005
ChoicePoint's error sparks talk of ID theft law
By Grant GrossThe revelation last week that data collector ChoicePoint Inc. has mistakenly given private information on up to 145,000 U.S. residents to identity thieves has led to renewed calls in Washington, D.C, for a national data privacy law. ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, reached agreement Feb. 16 with 19 state attorneys general to tell the 145,000 potential victims that ID thieves may have gained access to personal information such as Social Security numbers and credit reports. Potential victims live in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The ChoicePoint problem points to the need for a national privacy law, said representatives of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), both privacy advocacy groups. For most U.S. companies, the only ID theft notification that's required is a California ID theft law, which requires companies doing business in the state to notify customers if their personal information has been accessed by an unauthorized person. The California law went into effect in July 2003.
"There certainly is agreement that we need better notification, exactly because of cases like this," said Ari Schwartz, associate director at CDT. "We're seeing (data companies) selling it to a lot of different people."
ChoicePoint has access to about 19 billion public records, and the company reportedly has information on virtually every adult living in the U.S.
In addition to calls for legislation from privacy advocates, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, has called for congressional hearings on a piece of privacy legislation she introduced this year. Feinstein's Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act, introduced Jan. 24, would require businesses and government agencies to notify the likely victim when there is a "reasonable basis to conclude" that a criminal has obtained unencrypted personal data.
Feinstein's bill lacks co-sponsors, and a similar bill of hers went nowhere in Congress in 2004. Asked of the bill's chances in 2005, a Feinstein spokesman said the ChoicePoint problems have shown the need for legislation.
"Moving any bill is always a difficult prospect, but now more people are coming to an understanding of the issue of identity theft," the spokesman said.
Feinstein, in a statement, called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on her bill as soon as possible. "I strongly believe individuals have a right to be notified when their most sensitive information is compromised -- because it is truly their information," she said in the statement. "And they have the right to decide what actions they want to take once a breach has been discovered. Unfortunately, data breaches are becoming all too common and current federal law does not require notification to consumers when these breaches occur."
Schwartz and Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's president, questioned whether ChoicePoint would have notified potential victims at all without the California ID theft law. "They've been reckless with people's information," Rotenberg said of ChoicePoint. "We'd like Congress to look into what's happening in this (data collection) industry."
David Bernknopf, a ChoicePoint spokesman, disagreed that the California law is the only reason potential victims learned of the problems. The company first notified the sheriff's office in Los Angeles County in October of the possible data leak because ChoicePoint believed the problem started there, he said.
In November, California law enforcement authorities asked the company not to publicize the problems because of an investigation, and it wasn't until January that investigators identified potential victims in California, Bernknopf said. This month, California authorities notified the company that additional victims outside California existed, and the company then began notifying those people, he added.
It's still not entirely clear how the ID thieves got access to ChoicePoint's data, Bernknopf said. Authorities believe it was the work of a group of people who used IDs stolen from legitimate businesspeople to set up phony businesses that contracted with ChoicePoint for ID checks, Bernknopf said. Among other services, ChoicePoint provides background check documents for businesses and government agencies hiring workers.
"They didn't use their own names as chief executive officers of these companies," Bernknopf said of the fake company scam.
The ID theft "fraudsters," as ChoicePoint calls them, sought names, addresses, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, credit reports and public information such as bankruptcies, liens and professional licenses, according to the company.
ChoicePoint remains unsure of how many people will be affected by the scam because the company doesn't know the extent of the thieves' ability to use the personal data, Bernknopf said.
ChoicePoint welcomes congressional hearings about protecting consumer data, Bernknopf added. Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Derek Smith, in two books published in 2004, argues that U.S. residents can achieve an acceptable balance between security and civil liberties, although he has also criticized privacy advocates as being paranoid.
"Each of us has a right to privacy; however, none of us have a right to absolute anonymity," Smith said in a statement on his company's Web site.
Smith and his company have also suggested a national debate on privacy and ID theft is needed. "ChoicePoint has brought attention to this issue, because it's the right thing to do," Bernknopf said.
But EPIC has long criticized ChoicePoint for its massive collection of information of innocent people. In December, EPIC called for a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation of ChoicePoint, saying the company has skirted Fair Credit Reporting Act rules designed to ensure that credit reports are accurate. EPIC contends that many of the records ChoicePoint sells to law enforcement agencies and financial services companies should fall under the fair-credit rules and be subject to review by the people who are the subject of those records.
Smith, in a letter to EPIC, called the group's charges an "inaccurate, misdirected, and misleading attack."
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:33 PM
Singapore's Straits Times to charge for access
By Martyn WilliamsSingapore's The Straits Times newspaper will begin charging users to access its Web site from the middle of March, the newspaper's publisher, Singapore Press Holdings Ltd., said in a message to users on Thursday. The newspaper's move comes several months after it began requiring readers to complete a free registration process in order to access the newspaper online. In charging for content it joins a small number of publications around the world that are offering access to the full newspaper online in return for a subscription fee. Other major newspapers doing so include Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
The Straits Times will offer a one-month subscription for S$15 (US$9.20), a six-month subscription for S$72 and an annual subscription for S$120. A subscription will be required from March 15. In contrast a one-year subscription to the printed newspaper in Singapore costs S$276.
"We believe that we have a good and valuable product that users will want to pay for," the newspaper explained in the message. "It's also not a tenable business model to charge for the print edition of the newspaper and not for its online edition."
The newspaper will improve the content of the Web site as it begins the subscription service, it said. Business reports will be posted to the Web site 12 hours earlier at 6a.m., all showbiz gossip and lifestyle features will be online and the newspaper's consumer electronics and health supplements will be available in full on the same day that they are distributed with the newspaper. The archive will also expand from 3 days to 7 days, it said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:32 PM
Orange sues easyMobile for being orange
By Laura RohdeOrange SA, France Télécom SA's mobile telephony division, is seeing red over the branding strategy being used by mobile operator easyMobile.com. It launched a trademark infringement suit against the U.K. startup this week to prevent what it sees as misuse of its shade of orange. Orange began the court action after six months of negotiations failed to persuade easyMobile.com to drop the color from its advertisements and marketing materials, the company's U.K. subsidiary, Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd., announced this week. Orange claims that easyMobile.com is attempting to "pass itself off" as Orange by using a similar color.
EasyMobile.com was launched as a low-price, no-frills MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) service in the U.K. last November by Danish telecom company TDC A/S and T-Mobile UK Ltd. The easyMobile brand is licensed from easyGroup (U.K.) Ltd., which has used the color orange in the branding for all of its divisions since its launch in 1998. It also owns easyJet, easyCar and easyInternetCafe.
EasyMobile.com, which is owned by Telmore U.K. Ltd., said it doubts U.K. consumers are being confused by its branding and that it is ready to do battle with Orange.
In an letter made public this week, Frank Rasmussen, who founded Telmore and is now chief executive officer of easyMobile.com, accused Orange of using the issue as a way to short circuit easyMobile's emergence in the U.K. and other European markets.
"I am not a lawyer, but personally I do not believe this court action has anything to do with the use of the color orange," Rasmussen wrote in the letter. "We are going to launch a very strong concept and Orange is facing dramatic changes in the market. Why Orange is choosing to fight in the court is really not clear to me. We certainly don't want to be confused with Orange. Our war is going to be on the real battlefield: who can offer the British customers the best combination of freedom, low price and high service?"
Representatives from Orange and easyMobile.com declined to comment further on the matter.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:32 PM
T-Systems, Siebel offer hosted CRM service
By John BlauT-Systems International GmbH, the IT services subsidiary of German telco Deutsche Telekom AG, is rolling out a hosted CRM (customer relationship management) service based on technology from Siebel Systems Inc. The hosted Siebel CRM OnDemand service is targeted at small and medium-size companies, initially in the German-speaking countries of Europe, in addition to the Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Slovakia, according to T-Systems spokesman Paul Baur.
"We have a strong presence in the German-speaking region and see a lot of potential for a hosted CRM solution in Eastern Europe," he said. "That's why we are focusing on these countries for now."
Companies pay a fixed monthly price of €70 (US$93) per user and no software license is required. Those subscribing to the service by May 16 will receive the first month free and a 20 percent discount for a one-year contract.
Companies with 200 employees can reduced their CRM costs over a two-year period by as much as 60 percent with the T-Systems hosted CRM offering, compared to systems they operate on their own servers, according to T-Systems.
The IT service provider is delivering the service through its own global web of 32 data centers, with a total storage capacity of more than 2.1 petabytes. The data centers are linked via connections up to 5M bps (bits per second) to a dedicated 20G bps backbone network . Customers can access it via an encrypted Internet connection.
In a next step, T-Systems plans to offer CRM services tailored to specific industries, such as car manufacturing and financial services.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:32 PM
February 23, 2005
Scientists use antispam technology in AIDS vaccine work
By Stacy CowleyMicrosoft Corp. researchers are targeting computer algorithms developed for fighting spam at a very different enemy: HIV, the forerunner of the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) disease. Two Microsoft computer scientists, David Heckerman and Nebojsa Jojic, are part of a team presenting Wednesday at a Boston AIDS research conference an overview of their work on using software programs to uncover patterns in HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) genetic mutation. The pair are collaborating with bioengineers from Australia's Royal Perth Hospital and the University of Washington in Seattle to examine HIV's wild mutation patterns, a better understanding of which researchers see as a key step toward developing broadly effective AIDS vaccines.
Microsoft uses complex data-mining tools to help its Outlook e-mail software and Hotmail e-mail service comb through the vast torrent of incoming messages to separate spam from legitimate e-mail. With spammers ever-adjusting their messages to beat automated filters, spam-detection tools also need to dynamically evolve and flexibly seek out changing patterns.
The catalyst for the alliance between Microsoft's researchers and medical scientists was the idea that software designed to link "VIAGRA" and "V1AGXA" might also be adept at tracking DNA sequence mutations. If scientists can find stable sequences that persist through multiple HIV strains, they can more effectively craft vaccines to target those areas.
Simon Mallal, executive director of the Royal Perth Hospital's Centre for Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics, credits Microsoft's technology with enabling the medical research team to sift through patient data 10 times faster than any previous research technique.
The group's vaccine designs are currently undergoing laboratory testing at Perth and the University of Washington, using immune cell samples taken from HIV-infected patients. Researchers expect to release initial results later this year, but they're already optimistic about the research technique, suggesting it could also be used for work on hepatitis C and other mutating viruses.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 06:19 PM
Lycos launches dating search engine
By Juan Carlos PerezLycos Inc. is making it easier for lonely hearts to find their soulmates online. The company will launch on Wednesday a search engine that only indexes dating Web sites, giving users links to personal profiles found at iMatchup.com Inc., LoveAccess.com Inc., Tickle Inc., True.com and Lycos' own Matchmaker.com. "We did research last year and it revealed that (online) dating customers want a robust and efficient way for searching for dates online," said Curt Degenhart, a Lycos senior product manager.
Lycos Dating Search, as the search engine is called, contains millions of profiles and photos, and Lycos is in the process of striking deals with other online dating providers, he said. The site is at http://datingsearch.lycos.com and there will be a link to it from the main Lycos portal and from other sites on the Lycos network, he said.
Lycos is indexing the full text of the profiles it receives from the dating Web sites, providing in some cases more extensive search capabilities of their content than is possible at the dating sites themselves, Degenhart said.
Lycos Dating Search index will be refreshed on a daily basis, and use of the search engine is free, he said.
After a user runs a query, Lycos Dating Search returns portions of the profiles it finds. To read the full profile, users can click on the search result, which takes them to the original dating site.
Users arriving at the original dating sites from Lycos Dating Search get access to the full text of the profiles even if those profiles are normally not accessible to users who aren't dating-site subscribers, he said. There are no limits to the number of profiles Lycos Dating Search users can view.
Lycos Dating Search provides a variety of features and parameters to frame and narrow queries.
Lycos, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based subsidiary of South Korean Web portal operator Daum Communications Corp., will generate revenue in a number of ways from Lycos Dating Search. Lycos will sell online ads and charge partner dating sites fees. For example, partners will pay Lycos every time a Lycos Dating Search user clicks through to their site and/or every time a user signs up for their service, Degenhart said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:55 PM
New products let you take your TV on the road
By Martyn Williams
A new generation of products is promising users the ability to remotely access their TVs from around the house on a local network or from around the world via a broadband Internet connection.
Three such products made a splash at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and two of them are already available. While all three are slightly different, they all offer similar functions -- and all three systems are completely legal.
Each of these three products supports one-to-one streaming so multiple users can't be viewing the same stream at the same time. This means broadcasters aren't trying to block the systems, according to each of the three companies behind these systems.
Sony Corp.'s Location Free TV system is the most expensive of the three and the only one that doesn't require you to use a PC to view content. A base station for the system is bundled with a dedicated wireless TV. Two TVs are available, the 12.1-inch LF-X1 and the 7-inch LF-X5, and the sets cost US$1,500 and $1,100 respectively.
The base station connects to your TV antenna and up to two additional devices, like a TiVo or satellite tuner, all of which can be controlled from the TVs. Around the home, the TVs receive a high-quality MPEG2 video stream across a dedicated wireless link while when outside of the home they rely on a wired or wireless Internet connection to receive a lower quality MPEG4 stream.
"I took one of these on a business trip to New York and I sat at a Starbucks near Central Park in the morning and watched Japanese television," said Satoru Maeda, a general manager in Sony's Tokyo-based TV group. Maeda was speaking at a Sony event in Tokyo on Friday.
Orb Networks Inc. offers an all-software solution that runs on a PC at home and can be remotely accessed from a PC, PDA (personal digital assistant) or smart phone. Users can access images, video and music files stored on the host PC and, as long as a TV tuner is connected, live television. The system uses Windows Media or Real streaming formats. It's been available since January for Windows XP Media Center PCs and a beta version for Windows XP was released last week. Orb offers the system on a subscription basis and charges either $10 per month or $80 per year for service.
The Orb system can't control additional devices but it does offer access to programs recorded using the Media Center PC software.
"It's spontaneous access to your media," said Joe Harris, vice president of marketing at Orb Networks. "We are able to take any media you have on your home network and bring that to any device that has a browser and a media player connected to the Internet."
In demonstrations and tests of the two systems both delivered impressive results.
The Orb system was tested over several days last week from computers in Tokyo -- both an Apple iMac and Windows-XP based notebook PC -- to a Windows XP Media Center PC in San Jose. On most days the system delivered an uninterrupted stream of several hours of San Jose prime-time television at a reported speed of 491K bps (bits per second) and 30 frames per second. While the image wasn't as clear as conventional television, it was good enough to fill a notebook computer screen and not impact the enjoyment of the programs.
The Sony system delivered comparable results during a shorter demonstration. At CES, a system showed a live stream of TV from a base station back in Tokyo while at the Sony event last week a system was connected to base station in San Diego. The Sony stream was running at about the same bandwidth as the Orb TV system.
As might be expected, changes in bandwidth can have a big hit on the system. At some points during the weekend -- specifically when it was Sunday afternoon in Japan and Saturday evening in California -- the available bandwidth between the two locations couldn't support an uninterrupted Orb TV stream. Similarly, during the Sony demonstration on Friday the link back to San Diego suffered from the same occasional glitches, although the test was too short to determine how frequently this occurs in average use.
The tests also demonstrated the importance of access to recorded content. Because of the 17-hour time difference between Japan and the U.S. West Coast, the TV line-up available during Japan's evening hours consisted largely of overnight shopping programs.
In addition to the Sony and Orb systems, a third product was on show at CES and is promised soon. Sling Media Inc.'s system combines a hardware base station, called a Sling Box, with client software running on a PC. The base station hooks up in a similar manner to Sony's device and can be controlled remotely. Sling demonstrated remote control of a TiVo using its system at CES.
The system streams TV programs using Windows Media and constantly measures available bandwidth and adjusts the encoding to suit current connectivity, said Jeremy Toeman, vice president of product management at Sling Media, while presenting the system at CES. The system also tries to provide an uninterrupted audio stream because research has found people are far more willing to put up with glitches in the picture if the audio remains unaffected, Toeman said.
Sling expects to put the system on the U.S. market for around $250 during the first half of this year and expects versions for Japan and European markets to follow.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:55 PM
AOL to revamp inStore, replicate concept
By Juan Carlos PerezAmerica Online Inc. (AOL) plans to roll out significant enhancements to its inStore retail comparison shopping Web site in April, as the company simultaneously develops similar Web sites that will replicate the inStore concept for other industries such as travel and autos, an AOL executive said. The inStore enhancements, which AOL refers to collectively as inStore 2.0, will include an improvement to the AOL Wallet service, expanded personalization capabilities and an extended integration with the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) instant messaging service, said David Lebow, AOL's executive vice president and general manager of AOL Media Networks. AOL is also working hard at building loyalty features into inStore, but those may not be included in the April upgrade, Lebow said. "This new package of enhancements will carry us through to the holiday season," Lebow said.
AOL wants to make it easier for inStore visitors to use the AOL Wallet to do transactions with the vendors whose products can be found on inStore, Lebow said. The AOL Wallet is a service that lets subscribers store frequently used credit card numbers and shipping addresses so that they don't have to enter that information again when they make a purchase online. Another enhancement being contemplated for the AOL Wallet is the masking of actual credit card numbers with virtual ID numbers for additional security, an AOL spokesman said.
Meanwhile, inStore will have new capabilities to remember what shoppers did on their previous visits and, based on that knowledge, make personalized suggestions and offer different options to different shoppers, Lebow said. This would be an extension to the level of personalization already offered through inStore's existing "My Favorite Stores" feature, which lets shoppers create lists of their preferred stores; these lists are displayed for shoppers on the inStore home page and in other sections. "What we want is for the Favorite Stores function to be intuitive so that it remembers what you did last time and takes you back to certain places," Lebow said.
Finally, the new loyalty features will be provided in partnership with companies that specialize in loyalty programs to give shoppers incentives, such as credits at certain stores and cash rewards, Lebow said. "We're examining different options now and are working deeply on this right now," he said. If these loyalty features aren't rolled out in April, they will be added to inStore at some point before the holiday season, he said.
InStore, which was launched in September of last year in partnership with BizRate.com, has been such a success for AOL both in terms of revenue and visitors that the company is taking its concept of a search-driven comparison-shopping Web site and replicating it, Lebow said.
AOL has already announced a partnership with travel search engine Kayak Software Corp. to develop an inStore-like site for travel products that is expected to launch this year. Moreover, similar sites focusing on the auto industry and on personal ads are in the planning stages now, Lebow said. "InStore is very retail oriented, but we'll use its model across categories: search functionality at the center with premium advertising," he said.
At inStore and its forthcoming cousins, AOL generates revenue in a variety of ways, including conventional banner ads, fees for placing stores and products in premium locations on the site and fees for click-throughs to the online partner stores, Lebow said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:54 PM
UK store expands RFID trial, includes lingerie
By Laura RohdeU.K. retailer Marks & Spencer PLC (M&S) will extend its ongoing trial of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for the management of its clothing stock from nine of its stores to 53 in the second quarter of next year. "The feedback so far from our staff has been very positive in that the RFID tags have clearly improved our stock-taking process. What takes up to eight hours a week to do manually can be done with RFID tags in about an hour," said M&S spokeswoman Olivia Ross on Wednesday. "Plus the staff have said that they find the technology easy to use: simply waving a scanner over a rack of clothes."
RFID is a method for storing, receiving and transmitting data using antennas on tags that respond to radio frequency queries. Tags can be read when a remote scanner is passed over them. M&S began a trial of the technology itself in 2003 and then moved on to trial RFID on an item level in April 2004. The current trial is only for men's suiting but will include women's undergarments in 2006, Ross said.
"We are looking to test RFID with size-complex items, and for bras alone, there could be over 40 sizes," Ross said. The extended trial is expected to run through the third quarter of 2006, after which the company plans to continue with additional tests. Ross said there are no plans for what items future trials would include or time lines for when RFID would move from the test stage to being used on a regular basis in M&S stores.
BT Group PLC will be the main contractor on the second phase of the trial, providing M&S with IT services like deployment assistance and maintenance of the RFID readers. BT is also assisting with the implementation of RFID in M&S' food supply chain. M&S has contracted with Intellident Ltd. for the scanner technology, while the microchips are from EM Microelectronic-Marin SA.
M&S is quick to point out that the only purpose in using RFID is for improving its stock-taking process. The RFID tags are not scanned at the checkout, nor is any link made between the garment information held by the tag and the customer's details, such as credit card information, Ross said.
"We don't match personal details to the garment and we will never be doing that," Ross said. "We are open about the trials and the customer feedback we've been getting has been positive. The customers we've polled in the stores using RFID have said they noticed an improvement in stock availability which they like."
In the current trial, the RFID chips are placed inside throwaway paper labels. During the second phase of the garment trial, the chips will be integrated into the paper barcode labels M&S already uses to record the size and cost of the item, and will have the words "Intelligent Label for stock control use" marked on it so shoppers are aware of the RFID chip. The intelligent labels can be read at speeds 20 times faster than barcode labels, M&S said.
The company also provides leaflets to customers in the stores where the tags are used explaining the new technology as well as what M&S is doing -- and will not be doing -- with the information it collects, Ross said.
Peter Harrop, chairman of the Cambridge, England-based RFID specialist IDTechEx Ltd., said that companies planning to use RFID must conduct trials that show customers the technology's benefits, such as well-stocked stores, and address potentially sensitive issues from the outset.
Harrop pointed to the decision by clothing retailers Benetton Group SpA and Prada (I Pellettieri d'Italia SpA) to drop their RFID trials after receiving negative reaction to tags being put in women's lingerie and women's dresses, respectively. "I think Prada was quite surprised by the reaction of women shopping in its New York store who didn't like the idea of the store recording dress sizes," Harrop said.
U.K.-based retailer Tesco PLC, also found itself dealing with protests after it was revealed that during its pilot with Gillette razor blades, the tags were programmed to send instructions for in-store cameras to take pictures of people with the product at the check-out stand. "There was some protest, but Tesco completed the trial, which showed that the technology works," Harrop said. "Tesco has decided to proceed with its RFID trials but to focus on ones that don't have to do with catching criminals for the time being."
Harrop believes several of the privacy campaigners' concerns are contrived and, based on information culled from the 1,300 European RFID case studies IDTechEx has in its database, doesn't think privacy issues will derail the technology's use. "People face more intrusion on their privacy through the use of their mobile phones, which can continuously track their whereabouts, and that hasn't kept people away from that technology," Harrop said. "The main thing that would keep RFID tags from becoming ubiquitous is cost."
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:53 PM
Singapore strengthens cyber defenses against terrorists
By Sumner LemonThe Singaporean government will implement a three-year information technology project designed to strengthen the defenses of the southeast Asian nation against terrorists, criminals and hackers, government officials said Tuesday. "Terrorists are increasingly using infocomm (information and communications) technology and the Internet as a tool to seek funds, recruit members, spread propaganda and plan attacks with members in different parts of the world," said Tony Tan, Singapore's deputy prime minister and coordinating minister for security and defense, according to a written copy of a speech delivered in Singapore on Tuesday.
To defend Singapore's government and businesses from attacks by terrorists or hackers, the Singaporean government plans to spend S$38 million (US$23.4 million) over three years to implement its Infocomm Security Masterplan, Tan said. "We cannot afford to treat the threats from cyber terrorists, cyber criminals and irresponsible hackers lightly," he said.
The Infocomm Security Masterplan, which was developed by Singapore's multi-agency National Infocomm Security Committee, involved extensive consultations with government agencies and the private sector. The plan is designed to strengthen Singapore's IT defenses in three key areas: information protection and risk mitigation; situational awareness and contingency planning; and the development of professional skills and promoting research and development of security technologies, Tan said.
Several security-related projects will be undertaken as part of the Infocomm Security Masterplan, according to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). Those projects include establishing a National Cyber-Threat Monitoring Center to analyze threat information on a round-the-clock basis and conducting a vulnerability of the nation's critical infrastructure to determine measures required to strengthen IT-related defenses, the IDA said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:52 PM
Italy's mobile phone taps on overload
By Philip WillanItaly's largest mobile phone operator, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) SpA, has written to public prosecutors' offices throughout the country to warn that its system for intercepting phone calls is close to collapse, a spokesman for the company said Tuesday. "It's simple: the number of phone tap requests is constantly increasing and we have written to the prosecutors' offices to warn them that we are close to the limit and that we won't be able to cope with further requests," a TIM spokesman said in a telephone interview.
Every Italian mobile phone operator is obliged by law to maintain the capacity to intercept calls on 5,000 handsets but the operators have found themselves in difficulty in the face of requests to intercept up to 7,000 phones, according to published reports. Taps must be authorized by a judge and normally last for 15 days, or 40 in the case of organized crime suspects.
The number of requests has been doubling every two years, Justice Minister Roberto Castelli warned recently in a newspaper interview, adding that it is far higher than in other European countries.
In Italy 72 people have their phones under surveillance for every 100,000 inhabitants, according to figures from Germany's Max Planck Institute. That compares with 62 in the Netherlands, 32 in Switzerland, nine in Austria and 0.5 in the United States, the German criminological research institute said.
Asstel, the Association of Italian telecom operators, has responded to the technological and financial crisis by seeking a meeting with the Justice, Communications and Economy Ministries to discuss the upgrading of interception technologies and who should bear the cost.
Magistrates insist the phone taps are an essential instrument in the battle against crime and say investigators have to rely on them because of the difficulty in finding reliable witnesses.
Civil rights campaigners are concerned, however, that the investigative technique involves a massive violation of the right to privacy. "We must switch off this Big Brother which is invading citizens' lives," said Paolo Cento, a lawmaker for the opposition Greens Party.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:51 PM
February 22, 2005
Hackers post Paris Hilton's address book online
By Paul RobertsHackers penetrated the crystalline ranks of Hollywood celebrity Saturday, posting the cellular phone address book of hotel heiress and celebrity Paris Hilton on a Web page and passing the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of some of Tinsel Town's hottest stars into the public realm. A copy of Hilton's T-Mobile USA Inc. cell phone address book appeared on the Web site of a group calling itself "illmob." The address book contains information on over 500 of Hilton's acquaintances, including super celebrities such as Eminem and Christina Aguilera. It is not known how the information was obtained, but the release of the contact book may be further fallout from a hack of T-Mobile's servers that came to light in January.
The Hilton address book was posted on the illmob Web site, http://www.illmob.org, early Sunday and is a simple HTML table listing the phone numbers and e-mail addresses for acquaintances, along with other useful information, such as the number of the San Francisco Hilton Hotel and celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro.
The leak is bound to prompt a furious round of unplanned number changes among Hilton's coterie, after fans and curious Web surfers learned of the hack and began dialling their favorite celebrities.
Eminem's phone number was changed. Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst's voice mailbox was full. Tennis star Anna Kournikova's number was busy, despite repeated attempts to get through. Robert Shapiro's answering machine picked up when called and provided a number to page the star attorney in an emergency.
There was no answer at Hilton's home, nor did sister Nicky Hilton answer calls to her phone.
Reached by phone, actor Kevin Connelly, of the cable television show "Entourage," said he had received between 200 and 300 phone calls since early Sunday, as word of the hacked address book spread across the Internet. Connelly plays opposite Adrian Grenier in the HBO show about a young celebrity and his colorful entourage of old school chums. He declined to comment on whether he knew Hilton or why his name appeared in her T-mobile phone list.
Connelly, who received at least one other call while on the line with this reporter, said he would likely change his phone number Monday to stop the harassment.
It was unclear Sunday how the cell phone contact list was obtained. However, Hilton's was one of a number of celebrity cell phones that was reportedly compromised in an attack on T-Mobile's network that netted information on 400 of the company's customers, including sensitive information from the account of a U.S. Secret Service agent.
In January, the Bellevue, Washington, mobile carrier acknowledged that Nicholas Jacobsen, a California-based hacker, compromised its internal computer systems in 2003 and viewed the Social Security numbers of 400 customers. T-Mobile, which is part of Deutsche Telekom AG, did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Sunday.
Jacobsen pleaded guilty on Feb. 15 to one felony charge of accessing a protected computer and causing reckless damage. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May and faces a maximum possible sentence of five years imprisonment and a US$250,000 fine.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:15 PM
Power outage pulls plug on Wikipedia
By Sumner LemonA power outage inside the facility that hosts Wikipedia's servers has forced the free, community-authored encyclopedia offline, according to a message posted on the Wikipedia Web site. At approximately 2:15 p.m. PST on Monday, circuit breakers were tripped inside the colocation facility that houses Wikipedia's servers, taking out power to places inside the facility, the statement said. After several minutes, most of Wikipedia's servers and the switch that connects these servers and links them to the network had rebooted, it said.
Most of the servers quickly came back online, however, Wikipedia's MySQL database had been corrupted by the power outage, the statement said. Currently, Wikipedia is backing up copies the raw data stored in its 170G-byte database and is running recovery procedures, it said.
The statement did not say when the Wikipedia encyclopedia would be available again. In the meantime, the statement referred users looking for information to use cached versions of the Web site available through Google Inc.'s search engine.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:14 PM
EBay eyes open source for development software
By Johan BostromFollowing a path laid by open source developers, eBay Inc. may open up some of its source code in order to quicken the pace of application development and open up new business opportunities. The company is "currently investigating" the possibility of giving way the source code for its software development kit (SDK), under some form of open-source licensing plan, said Matt Ackley, senior director at eBay’s developer program.
"It's one way to deal with our pace-of-change problems," Ackley said after a keynote speech at the Web Services Edge show this week.
In general, efforts by large e-commerce companies to encourage research and development by third-party developers has fostered innovation.
Developers, attracted by the chance of getting a share of the big e-commerce companies' business, are creating new ways to drive site traffic.
According to eBay, external programmers and entrepreneurs have created more than a thousand applications using the company's SDK and application program interface (API).
EBay claims that 42 percent of the items on its Web site come in through external applications.
"Our biggest challenge is how to let the third-party developers adapt to the rapid changes of our platform," Ackley said. "We don't have the resources to offer SDKs in all languages and update the information as often as we would like. Today, we provide this forum for the developers to contribute their code," Ackley added, referring to SDKs. "What if we actually also contributed our code?"
The idea is welcomed by Alex Poon, a software developer in Los Altos, California. Poon makes a living from successfully implementing his idea to allow mobile phone access to online auctions through eBay’s API.
"From a developer point of view I love open source," Poon said, pointing out that, however, his own company has passed the stage where an open-source SDK would serve its purpose. Since last summer, anyone with a Java-enabled mobile phone in the U.S. can search and bid on eBay items using the Pocket Auction application developed by Poon and his colleague Richard Chen.
"I did my Ph.D on medical informatics and have been working with wireless, pen-based devices. The concept is still the same with mobile phones and we decided to do something other than game applications," Poon said.
Today, Bonfire Media -- comprising Poon, Chen and a third employee -- is selling its product via mobile carriers to customers across the U.S. Pocket Auction not only feeds online auctions with more potential bidders: eBay also receives a fee from Bonfire for use of the API.
EBay's Ackley defends the charge, which ranges from a flat fee of US$100 up to $5,000, depending on how many calls to the auction database that the applications does per day, plus a negotiated fee.
"We think it promotes efficiency. It's kind of like a toll," he said.
Poon seems pleased with the business model. "Well, they allow other people to make money. I think it's fair."
EBay's willingness to work with the developer community and find new ways of making money appears to be shared by other e-commerce sites.
Both Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. offer Web service programs and hand out free developer kits.
This doesn't mean, however, that the online giants are ready to give away their wares and databases for free. Alan Taylor, a programmer in Boston, is experiencing Amazon's efforts to balance between embracing the flourishing programmer community and guarding its own business.
Taylor runs the Amazon Light site, utilizing Amazon's free API to bridge search queries to other sites. His site allows a user to locate a book, or any product, in Amazon’s database and simultaneously check if the book is available at the nearest library, create a blog entry about the item or buy it.
Until last week, if the item was a DVD, you could also click and see whether it was for rent at Netflix. Or if it was a CD, one click allowed users to check if the title was available at Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music store. The features appeared to be lapped up by users but a step outside of Amazon's rules.
"I got a letter from their Web services team asking me to remove the links to Netflix and iTunes," Taylor said.
"It didn't match up with the license agreement," Jeff Barr, Web services "evangelist" at Amazon.com, said. "The expectation is that traffic comes back when we give away data."
Taylor, who is receiving 7 percent to 8 percent of the value of each Amazon purchase through his application, removed the links. "From a useful standpoint, I think it's kind of a shame."
Taylor also says that this type of reaction obstructs creativity among third-party developers. "It's a little bit of a chill: 'Oh, I don’t want to deal with these giants' legal departments.' As soon as a company put up a single entry barrier they need something really worth while in order to get people playing with it."
However, Taylor welcomes eBay’s examination of an open-source model for at least some of its software.
"It's great if you are talking about true open source, the more open the better," Taylor said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:14 PM
EU offers privacy guidelines for RFID
By Laura RohdeThe European Union (E.U.) has expressed concern that the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) technology by businesses and governments could violate human dignity as well as data protection rights and has published guidelines for businesses and agencies intending to use the technology. The E.U.'s executive body, the European Commission, tapped its advisory body on data protection and privacy, known as the Article 29 Working Party, to conduct its first assessment of data protection issues related to RFID. The technology is a method for storing, receiving and transmitting data via antennas on tags that respond to radio frequency queries.
"The ability to surreptitiously collect a variety of data all related to the same person; track individuals as they walk in public places (airports, train stations, stores); enhance profiles through the monitoring of consumer behavior in stores; read the details of clothes and accessories worn and medicines carried by customers are all examples of uses of RFID technology that give rise to privacy concerns," the group wrote in its report, published Jan. 19.
The resulting guidelines include gaining unambiguous consent from individuals where RFID is used and providing clear information to the so-called data subjects including the presence and location of RFID tags and trackers, what sort of data is being collected and how it is being processed. The E.U. also wants individuals to be made fully aware that they have the right to gain complete access to any personal data being collected and stored on them as well as the right to check on the accuracy of the data.
The global RFID market is forecast to be worth US$7.26 billion by 2008, according to a study by IDTechEx Ltd. released Monday. The Cambridge, England-based RFID specialist estimates that by 2008, 46.8 billion tags will be sold for the tracking of medicines, baggage, animals, books and tickets while another 15.3 billion tags will be sold for pallets and cases.
Additionally, by 2010, 48 percent of RFID tags by volume will be sold in East Asia, followed by 32 percent to North America, IDTechEx said.
The E.U. data protection working group said that such widespread use creates a variety of data protection concerns. "The problem is aggravated by the fact that, due to its relative low cost, this technology will not only be available to major actors but also to smaller players and individual citizens," the report said.
The group said it was seeking to provide guidelines not only to those using RFID technology but to manufacturers of RFID tags, readers and applications as well as RFID standardization bodies. For example, the International Organizations of Standardization has developed some sector specific standards for the use of RFID tags on freight containers, transport units and animals, while the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is affiliated with the United Nation, has developed global standards for passports that include RFID chips.
The working group's report urged such standardization bodies to include data protection features in technical specifications. It also called for the use of encryption on tags and applications to prevent unauthorized disclosure of the data collected and stored.
Less likely to be welcomed by businesses is the group's desire to make it easy for individuals to disable RFID tags. "When the individual has a right to withdraw his/her consent or object to the process and the subsequent right to disable the tag, both manufacturers and deployers of RFID technology should ensure that such operation of disabling the tag is easy to carry out," the report said.
The Article 29 Working Party group said it is seeking public consultation until March 31.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:14 PM
Europe takes lead on improving online privacy notices
By Scarlet PruittDespite concern voiced by some Internet users that their privacy is not being adequately protected when they surf and shop online, Web site privacy notices, with their micro-font, epic length and droning legalese, have done little to reassure them. Europe may be leading the way in making online privacy notices more palatable, however, thanks to a European Union plan that proponents hope will spread worldwide. The E.U.'s committee on data privacy, also known as the Article 29 Working Party, issued a guidance on corporate privacy notices late last year, calling for layered, easy to read privacy statements.
The guidance, which is not mandatory, is beginning to take hold as companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Proctor & Gamble Co. have already rolled out revamped notices. Privacy statements are considered crucial in telling Internet users how their personal information will be used by companies. They explain whether data can be sold to third parties, for instance, and what the users' rights are in accessing or correcting data.
The working party coordinated with privacy experts and corporate leaders to call for layered privacy notices in which information is presented in three tiers: short, condensed and full. Each layer should contain certain relevant information, such as the full name of the Web site controller and the purpose for processing information, and users can click through from the short notice to the full notice, depending on their level of interest.
The plan calls for using straightforward, easy to understand language and authors of the guidance say that although the information is provided in a more succinct form the privacy statements should still be complete. These sort of multilayered notices are also being examined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and advocates hope they will become the global standard for communicating privacy online.
It may help that some of the first companies to adopt layered notices, such as Microsoft and IBM Corp., are global concerns that seek to offer consistent information across their various online properties.
Microsoft, for example, has already launched the layered privacy notices on its MSN sites in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and the U.K. and has plans to roll them out on other global sites, according to Peter Fleischer, Microsoft's director of regulatory affairs. IBM has layered notices on its European sites, as well as on its main U.S. property.
But reader-friendly privacy notices are still relatively rare and it may take a while to compel companies to follow the new guidelines.
Proponents of the new notices argue that they are key to fostering a sense of trust in online business, as well as making citizens fully aware of their online rights.
The U.S. and other countries have the same sort of concerns around improving online privacy, but consensus on a solution seems harder to come by.
"In Europe, unlike the U.S., the regulators have been focusing on the harmonization of privacy notices for many years," Fleischer said.
The U.S. still has to negotiate a consensus with the various stakeholders, such as corporations, regulators and privacy groups, he added.
That said, certain U.S. groups such as financial services regulators are studying the layered notices and advocates hope that the standards will soon cover the worldwide Web.
"The layered notice is so compelling, it's inevitable they will be rolled out further," Fleischer said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:13 PM
Microsoft enters IPTV deal with Alcatel
By Scarlet PruittMicrosoft Corp. Tuesday announced plans to further roll out its Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) software under a global agreement with French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel SA. Together they will market an integrated IPTV delivery product using Alcatel's network access equipment and system integration services and Microsoft's TV IPTV Edition software.
Under the deal, Alcatel will make Microsoft its preferred network access and system integration partner, while Microsoft TV will serve as the French company's preferred software partner on global IPTV sales, they said.
The companies will also partner on developing and customizing applications for broadband providers, as well as integrating software into networks.
Microsoft has also reached IPTV deals with SBC Communications Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., among others.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:13 PM
Microsoft, Otto team on e-commerce
By John BlauMicrosoft Corp. and Otto GmbH & Co. KG, one of Europe's largest mail-order and online retailers, have agreed to collaborate in the area of e-commerce application development, the companies said Monday. The primary aim of their partnership will be to jointly develop online shopping applications -- based on Microsoft Windows technology -- across PC, TV and wireless platforms.
One of the projects, Digital Lifestyle Shopping, will be based on Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.
Microsoft plans to demonstrate the interactive shopping system at the Cebit trade show in Hannover, Germany, next month and later in the year at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.
The Otto Group, with annual revenue of around €14 billion (US$18 billion), has also agreed to join Microsoft's Smarter Retailing initiative. The initiative aims to help retailers improve sales and operations by delivering advanced applications for digital devices such as smart phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) as well as RFID (radio frequency identification) tags.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:13 PM
Yahoo to launch music download service in Japan
By Martyn WilliamsYahoo Japan Corp. has tied up with Sony Corp. affiliate Label Gate Co. Ltd. and will soon launch a music download service, the company said Monday. The download service will be based on Label Gate's existing Mora download service and offer around 73,000 songs from 39 domestic record companies. The files will be encoded in Sony's ATRAC3 data compression format and be playable on compatible devices including some models of cellular telephones, NetMD-type MiniDisc players, ATRAC CD players and the recently launched PlayStation Portable, said Nozomi Yamaguchi, a spokeswoman for Label Gate in Tokyo.
The songs will cost between ¥158 and ¥368 (US$1.50 and $3.50), said Yamaguchi.
Yahoo Japan attracts around 39 million visitors per month and is consistently ranked as Japan's number one web destination.
Label Gate began operations in 2000 with support from a handful of record companies and has steadily attracted the support of additional companies. It relaunched its own Web-based download service under the Mora name in April 2004 and in October launched a second service, called Music Drop, that provides music in the Windows Media format. In late 2004 the monthly download rate began to pick up and after breaking 100,000 downloads in October and 200,000 downloads in November it passed the 300,000 monthly download mark in December.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:12 PM
New York Times Co. buys About.com for $410 million
By Stacy CowleyThe New York Times Co. said Thursday it will pay US$410 million in cash to purchase online content network About.com Inc. from current owner Primedia Inc. The companies expect to close the deal by early April. About.com is a rare survivor from the dot-com boom. The New York venture launched in 1997 as The Mining Company, then sold in 2000 to Primedia in an all-stock deal initially valued at $690 million. Primedia envisioned the site as a linchpin for its strategy of online-and-offline content synergy, but the publishing company struggled with strategy execution, debt and management changes.
The New York Times Co. called About.com "highly profitable" and said the Web site network will complement the company's existing digital assets, such as the Web site for its New York Times newspaper and its boston.com portal built around The Boston Globe newspaper. The company said it will run About.com as a distinct business unit and maintain the About.com brand name.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:12 PM
February 18, 2005
Salesforce.com Q4 rises 82 percent
By Stacy CowleySalesforce.com Inc.'s fourth-quarter revenue rose 82 percent over last year's fourth-quarter total, to US$54.6 million, the company said Thursday as it released its financial results. The San Francisco-based hosted CRM (customer relationship management) software provider went public last year and has been one of the fastest growing companies in the enterprise software market. Per-share earnings were $0.03, a penny above the consensus forecast of analysts polled by Thomson First Call, and net income was $3.6 million, up from a $765,000 loss last year.
Sales and marketing expenses remained the publicity-loving company's largest expenditure, totaling $28.4 million during the quarter -- significantly outpacing the company's $3.2 million investment in research and development.
For its 2005 fiscal year, ended Jan. 31, Salesforce.com had revenue of $176.4 million, up 84 percent from 2004. Net income for the year was $7.3 million.
Salesforce.com ended the quarter with a reported 13,900 customers and 227,000 paying subscribers. For 2006, the company forecasts revenue of $282 million to $287 million.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 01:30 AM
February 17, 2005
Fired Google blogger reflects, moves on
By Juan Carlos PerezMark Jen's first day as a Google Inc. employee, Jan. 17, also marked the debut of his "Ninetyninezeros" blog, which he intended would serve as a personal journal of his experiences as a Google employee. Little did he know at the time that his tenure at Google would be quite brief. In the next week, Jen, an associate product manager in Google's AdSense advertising unit, praised and criticized his new employer in a candid way about a variety of topics, such as the intranet, his work laptop, a sales conference and compensation.
The blog (http://99zeros.blogspot.com), which Jen naively thought would mainly interest his friends and family, became extremely popular. (Its single-day record is about 60,000 unique visitors.) This was a far cry from Jen's previous technically-oriented blog, which he published while working for 18 months at Microsoft Corp.'s Redmond, Washington, headquarters before moving to San Francisco to join Google. He quickly found out there is a large audience in the so-called blogosphere interested in a view of life inside Google.
It turned out his superiors at Google, which ironically owns the popular Blogger service, also read Ninetyninezeros. On Jan. 26, Jen disclosed in his blog that he had been asked to remove some information from prior postings that Google considered to be sensitive information about the company's finances and products. Then he went over a week without posting. Rumors abounded among tech industry bloggers over Jen's fate. On Feb. 9 Jen finally disclosed that Google had fired him on Jan. 28. -- eleven days after starting on the job -- and that this blog had "either directly or indirectly" been the reason. If the blog was the cause -- Jen says Google gave him no explanation for firing him -- he joins a growing list of employees who have lost their jobs because of things they have written in their blogs.
Jen, a Michigan native who graduated from the University of Michigan in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering, is currently trying to move on and find a new job. Google declines to talk about Jen other than to confirm he was an employee there. But in this exclusive interview with IDG News Service, Jen, who is soft-spoken and courteous, chuckles often and doesn't sound bitter, shares the lessons he learned from his experience as Google's most notorious blogger, the mistakes he made and his future plans.
IDGNS: Are there any lessons you learned that you can share with others who may be in a similar position of blogging about work in their personal blogs?
Mark Jen: I've learned quite a few lessons from this entire episode. First of all, I learned that blogging is a public forum and ideas you express are going to be read by more people than you think. That's a crucial lesson. Another lesson is to clear up with your employer before you blog what exactly (it considers) acceptable and unacceptable. Make sure they have a definitive policy, or talk with your manager at length about what is and isn't okay. Also, you have to be sensitive to your corporate culture and that was one of my biggest mistakes. I hadn't really gotten a good feel for how Google operated at the time. Now I look back and realize I should have been a little bit more sensitive on that front. Those are the big lessons I learned and I'll be moving on with that knowledge.
IDGNS: Would you be willing to blog about your work experiences at your next job?
Mark Jen: I'll continue to blog, but the content of my blogs will be consistent with any particular requirements of my employer. If the company I work for doesn't care and is willing to let me have an open forum, I'll blog however I feel. But if I take a position with a company that has some specific policies around blogging, then of course I'll adhere to those policies. But in general I'll be blogging from here on out. It's a very interesting space and there's a huge community built up around it. There's a huge value there.
IDGNS: What's the traffic like to your blog?
Mark Jen: It's dying down. I was just about to blog about the traffic at my blog. At its peak a little over a week ago when the stories first started to break (about my termination) ... my blog hit over 100,000 page loads (in a single day.) In total I'm approaching 400,000 (page loads) overall.
IDGNS: What did Google tell you about ending your employment there?
Mark Jen: They've never given me a straight answer. I've requested an official statement or reason as far as why I was terminated but I wasn't given any such reason. Of course, it's well within their rights to refuse to give me a reason. I was an at-will employee in the state of California so they really don't need to give me a reason for terminating me. I definitely was surprised at being terminated. It's a shocking thing.
IDGNS: But you feel the blog played a significant part?
Mark Jen: Yeah, definitely. My blog either directly or indirectly was the reason for my termination.
IDGNS: So they didn't say the reason had been your work performance, or that they thought you weren't right for the job?
Mark Jen: No, nothing like that. There was no talk about my performance at all. Performance wasn't an issue.
IDGNS: Are you going to make a claim against Google in any way?
Mark Jen: No, I'm not interested in that. I don't think that's going to be productive.
IDGNS: So this chapter is closed for you and you're moving on?
Mark Jen: Right.
IDGNS: How do you feel about your status right now? Are you shell-shocked or depressed about this whole situation? Are you amused? Do you think all this attention is going to help you as you look for other job options?
Mark Jen: Initially I was a bit shocked and it took a little bit to process the event. But now it's more of a matter of just moving on. I've got a lot of good leads for new positions and also a lot of options open. So I learned my lessons from this episode and I'm moving on to bigger and better things.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:25 PM
Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn win major computing award
By Robert McMillanThe Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is finally giving networking technology a little respect. On Tuesday, the 58-year-old organization for computing professionals announced plans to award Internet pioneers Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn its prestigious A.M. Turing Award. Awarded annually since 1966, the $100,000 Turing Award is named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing. Past recipients include mouse inventor Douglas Engelbart and Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, the creators of Unix.
The 2004 award is the first to be given for work in computer networking, said Virginia Gold, a spokeswoman for the ACM. It will be presented at a June 11 event in San Francisco, she said.
News of the award came as a "huge surprise," Cerf said in an e-mail interview. "Historically this award has gone to people more involved in fundamentals of computer science. It is a stunning honor to be included in the list of earlier awardees," he said.
"The importance of networking is only just being demonstrated, so this recognition does not strike me as late," he added. "It would not surprise me to find that others who have made fundamental contributions to the networking of computing will be recognized in the future."
Cerf and Kahn developed the notion of an Internet Protocol (IP) while working on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project in 1973. The next year they published a paper on the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which could be used to route messages that were broken up into packets of data.
In 1988 Cerf joined long-distance telecommunications company MCI Inc., and he has played key roles in many groups that put the Internet on the map, including the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He is senior vice president for technology Strategy at MCI.
Kahn is chairman, chief executive officer and president for the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, which he founded in 1986.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:24 PM
Ringtone to be released as UK music single
By Laura RohdeMany popular songs have been turned into mobile phone ringtones, but the tables have been turned and a ringtone is set to be released in the U.K. as a music single in April. The distinctive "Crazy Frog" ringtone is described on the crazyfrog.co.uk Web site as sounding like "someone pretending to make race car noises" and has been downloaded 1 million times, according to Republic Media, the London-based public relations company promoting the single.
A group calling itself Pondlife took the ringtone and turned it into a song called "Crazy Frog Chorus," which will be released in the U.K. by Tug Records on April 4. One of the four members of Pondlife is Wes Butters, a DJ on British Broadcasting Co.'s (BBC) Radio One, who warned the music listening public the song will be polarizing.
Tug Records, in Fuerth, Germany, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The ringtone has been heavily promoted in the U.K. though television advertisements featuring an animated silver frog with rolling bug eyes and a severe underbite who wears a motorcycle helmet, goggles and vest.
Ringtone downloads account for 10 percent of the world's music market, or US$3 billion in business annually, according to Text Media Ltd.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
Italian DJ hit with record MP3 piracy fine
By Scarlet PruittAn Italian DJ is being slapped with a record fine of €1.4 million (US$1.8 million) after being caught with what are believed to be thousands of pirated MP3 music files and hundreds of illegally downloaded video clips, an international recording industry group said Thursday. Italian police discovered the DJ playing the allegedly pirated music in nightclubs near Rome. It ordered the fine against the individual, whose identity was not revealed, after a raid of the suspect's home turned up none of the originally purchased music, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said. The DJ may also be subject to further criminal sanctions, the industry group said.
The suspect was caught with more than 2,000 allegedly pirated MP3s and 500 video clips. The fine imposed by Italian police is the largest in Europe against an individual for MP3 piracy, the IFPI said.
The recording industry group said it was pleased with the amount of fine since the DJ was making money touring clubs with the music, while the original artists had not been properly compensated.
The DJ was discovered as part of a police operation targeting radio stations and clubs around Rome, the IFPI said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
Bugs delay AOL Netscape beta
By Joris EversAmerica Online Inc. (AOL) is delaying the release of the first public test version of a new Netscape Web browser until the end of the month to fix some last-minute bugs, the company said Wednesday. The beta version of the Netscape 8 browser was scheduled to be publicly available on Thursday, but the release date will slip by a week or two, an AOL spokesman said in a statement sent via e-mail. An early version of the browser seen by the IDG News Service late last month crashed many times under normal use.
The new Netscape browser is designed to protect users from scams and malicious code while surfing the Web. For example, the browser includes a feature that adjusts the browser security settings based on a list of known malicious Web sites to protect users from phishing scams.
With the release, AOL is taking aim at Microsoft Corp.'s dominant Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser, which has had many security vulnerabilities. In addition, AOL is looking to piggyback on the popularity of Firefox, the open source Web browser that was released in November and has since been downloaded more than 25 million times.
In an about-face, Microsoft on Tuesday said it would release a test version of a new IE browser midyear. Previously the company had said it would not release a new browser until it ships the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, in 2006. There has not been a new version of IE in four years. The new IE 7.0 will also address security issues such as phishing, Microsoft said.
Phishing scams are a prevalent type of online attack that typically combines spam e-mail messages and fraudulent Web pages that look like legitimate e-commerce sites. The attacks are designed to steal sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card numbers.
Netscape 8 is based on Firefox but also supports the IE browser engine. AOL released a preview version of the browser to a select group of testers in late November. The Netscape browser doesn't include the IE engine but uses the engine that is included in Windows. As a result, the Netscape 8 browser only works on Windows computers.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
New MyDoom worm uses search engines to spread
By Scarlet PruittInternet users are being threatened by yet another variant of the MyDoom mass mailing worm, which is spreading in part by using e-mail addresses found through popular search engines, security experts warned. The new variant was first spotted late Wednesday and reports from computer users suggest the worm is already circling the globe, according to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos PLC.
The worm proliferates by e-mailing itself through its own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) engine, according to Sophos. When it infects a computer it scans the hard disk for e-mail addresses and then takes the domains of the addresses it finds and queries search engines such as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Lycos Inc. looking for similar addresses, Cluley said.
If it finds the address JohnDoe@yahoo.com, for instance, it will use a search engine to look for other addresses at the yahoo.com domain to send itself to, Cluley explained.
A similar MyDoom variant appeared last July and managed to slow some search engines as it flooded them with queries. Cluley said he doubts the new variant will have the same effect since this outbreak is not as severe. Additionally, search engines have taken measures to prevent being crippled by the worm again, Cluley said.
The latest worm was created by repackaging an older MyDoom variant in an encrypted "wrapper" so that antivirus software could not recognize it, Cluley said. The method is just one of the clever ways hackers use to hide their attacks and antivirus firms should be aware of the ruse, he added.
Internet users should make sure their antivirus software is up to date to avoid infection.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:23 PM
Online auction providers grapple with fraud
By Juan Carlos PerezAs con artists lurk in the dark corners of online auction marketplaces scamming buyers, auction sites are having to deal with the persistent specter of fraud, which some believe is seriously harming buyer participation and sales in this very popular and large e-commerce medium. In January, a coalition of eBay Inc. sellers warned that, in their view, fraud is eroding the integrity of that marketplace and challenged eBay to implement concrete measures to address the issue. "The members of this organization feel this is the number one issue that is impacting their business and their ability to grow on the eBay marketplace," said Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA), which groups about 600 large eBay sellers that collectively generate over 70 million eBay transactions and US$1 billion in eBay gross merchandise volume annually.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has also identified fraud in online auctions as a real problem. On Feb. 1, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its "National and State Trends in Fraud & Identity Theft" study for 2004, reported that online-auction fraud last year made up 16 percent of all consumer complaints, or about 100,000, second only to identity theft with 39 percent. In the sub-set of Internet-related complaints, online auction fraud topped the list with 48 percent.
Fraud in online auctions can take a variety of forms. Most commonly, buyers may pay for an item but not receive it, or receive an item that doesn't match the description of the one advertised by the seller. However, some buyers also commit fraud by not paying for goods or by lying about not receiving merchandise. "Most of the complaints are basically about someone offering to sell something and then the consumer will send payment and never receive the item," said Deborah Matties, a staff attorney at the FTC.
EBay, by far the largest online auction marketplace, estimates that only around 1 in 10,000 of its transactions are proven fraudulent, but PESA argues that, even if fraud is rare, incidents get wide media coverage and are likely to discourage many potential buyers from participating in online auctions.
Garriss believes the fraud problem is partly to blame for eBay's slower growth in 2004 compared with 2003 in areas such as listings, consolidated net revenue and gross merchandise volume. This slower growth and eBay's missed earnings expectations in 2004's fourth quarter drove eBay's stock price down after its fourth-quarter 2004 financial report. The day after the report, eBay's stock closed at $83.33, from the previous day's $103.05 close. Since then it hasn't reached $90.
"We do think there is room for improvement on making the eBay auction marketplace a safer environment for shoppers," said Garriss, chief executive officer of Gotham City Online, a shoes and accessories seller on eBay. Specifically, PESA would like eBay to be more stringent in screening sellers who are new to the marketplace and want to sell either very expensive merchandise or sell in large volumes. PESA suggests possibly putting restrictions on these buyers until their identity has been thoroughly checked out and they have established a good track record on the marketplace.
But placing limits on sellers who haven't acted improperly is something eBay will not entertain, said Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman. "While we respect the opinion of all community members, we will not engage in any screening before any wrongdoing has occurred. All the people in (PESA) at one point started off as brand new sellers as well. Had seller screening been in place where sellers would be severely limited if they hadn't sold anything before, everybody in (PESA) would have been affected at one point as well," he said.
Durzy says eBay has implemented many tools and information for buyers and sellers to educate themselves about the best way to conduct themselves during an auction. For example, all eBay buyers and sellers are evaluated by the peers they do business with, so everyone has a ranking and anyone can read their feedback trail. If there are problems, eBay has a section of its Web site called Security Center where members can lodge complaints and bring eBay in as a mediator.
Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch, the online investigative arm of Consumer Reports, says reputable online auction sites such as eBay are trying to do a lot to prevent and combat fraud, but there is only so much they can do within the reality of an auction environment, where the presiding principle generally is "buyer beware." "Online auctions are perfect venues for fraud in the same ways that offline auctions are," Brendler said.
Some common-sense practices buyers are urged to follow include:
- Pay only with a credit card or via eBay's PayPal service; avoid sending checks, cash or money orders or wiring money.
- If purchasing an expensive item, use an escrow service, because they acknowledge receipt of your payment but don't release the funds to the seller until you confirm receiving the item in good condition.
- If using an escrow service, make sure it is a reputable one.
- Check the feedback others have left about the seller, a common feature on sites such as eBay.
- Look for listings with clear details and pictures of the item.
- If the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is: walk away.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 05:22 PM
February 16, 2005
Vonage says traffic blocked by ISP
By Stephen LawsonVOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. has reported to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that a broadband Internet provider deliberately blocked Vonage customers' calls. Vonage users who are customers of the broadband provider reported late last year that they suddenly couldn't use the Vonage service, said Brooke Schulz, vice president of corporate communications at Vonage, in Edison, New Jersey. Vonage did some troubleshooting and discovered that network ports over which its calls traveled had been deliberately blocked, she said. Vonage then manually rerouted its calls through the network as a temporary solution to the problem, Schulz said. Schulz declined to name the broadband provider.
VOIP technology breaks up voice calls into data packets and sends them over IP networks, a transmission method that is more efficient than traditional telephone switching, generally leading to lower phone bills. Calls made on a VOIP service may travel over the broadband data network of a consumer's phone company or cable provider while bypassing that provider's own voice calling service.
Vonage believes deliberate blocking of its calls is illegal, according to Schulz.
"We think it's infringing upon the customer's right ... to use the service to the best of their ability and to suit their needs," she said.
Vonage met with the FCC earlier this month to discuss the problem but has not filed a complaint, Schulz said. The company is now waiting for a response from the FCC before it decides how to proceed, she said. An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment.
The incident Vonage discussed with the FCC was particularly disconcerting, Schulz said, but Vonage is also investigating other possible cases of call blocking.
Vonage has been a trailblazer in VOIP, expanding its local service to 44 U.S. states and coming up against regulatory challenges in the process. In a closely watched ruling last year, the FCC ruled that Vonage's DigitalVoice service could not be regulated by the states, after the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission moved to regulate DigitalVoice like a traditional telecommunications service.
Vonage has approximately 400,000 customers, most of them in the U.S. and Canada, Schulz said.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:53 PM
Airbus preps Superjumbos for cell phone use
By Laura RohdeEuropean aircraft manufacturer Airbus SAS plans to include in its new Superjumbo A380 planes an optional voice and data system that can allow passengers to use their mobile devices in flight, the company announced Tuesday. The service, including onboard mobile telephony and Internet access for passengers, will be offered through the OnAir joint venture to airline companies purchasing the A380. The system could be fitted on other models from Airbus as well as on planes from U.S. rival The Boeing Co., OnAir said.
OnAir, in Geneva, was created last year by Airbus with Dutch airline IT services provider SITA Inc. and Tenzing Communications Inc., which sells products to enable in-flight e-mail and SMS (short message service). The European Union's Directorate General for Competition approved the joint venture on Jan. 27 and the companies incorporated OnAir Feb. 1. OnAir has 50 employees, most of whom are based in Seattle, where Tenzig is also located.
Airbus last year successfully completed an in-flight trial of mobile phones and infrastructure equipment based on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology using an Airbus A320 flight-test plane. Tested services included GSM telephony, Web browsing, e-mail and connectivity to a VPN (virtual private network). The trial, announced last September, also tested several wireless computing services, such as 3G (third generation); WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) technology; WLAN (wireless LAN) using the Wi-Fi standard 802.11; and short-range Bluetooth.
As part of the agreement announced Tuesday between Airbus and OnAir, the companies have begun the development phase of the system and are in the process of selecting suppliers for the different service components. The service should become commercially available in 2006, Airbus and OnAir said.
Airbus, in Blagnac Cedex, France, is planning to launch the 555-passenger A380 plane in 2006.
No airline has committed to installing the OnAir system, according to George Cooper, OnAir's chief executive officer, who spoke Tuesday on a webcast news conference. He added that airlines in Europe, the U.S. and Asia have already expressed interest in the OnAir services, though he declined to give any company names.
Cooper said that OnAir is committed to creating a system that allows airlines to offer an affordable service to its passengers while in the air. "The price you pay should be no more than standard roaming charge in Europe," he said.
Cooper also acknowledged the concern of some passengers that fights, particularly long-haul journeys, may be disrupted if other passengers are able to use their cell phones. "We continue to research these issues," Cooper said, "but, in anticipation of such a need, our system will give cabin crew complete control of the system, allowing them, for example, to switch to SMS-only mode when it is 'night' in the cabin."
But before passengers can begin using their mobile phones in the air, OnAir will need approval from European telecommunications regulators as well as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Airbus said it believes it is close to obtaining the green light in Europe.
Separately on Tuesday, the FCC announced a proposal in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration to relax its current ban on cellular telephone use in airborne aircraft. The FCC said it was seeking public comment on what spectrum bands should be included in the proposal, as well as on ways that the 800MHz cellular spectrum could be used to provide a communications link between airborne aircraft and the ground.
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 04:53 PM
February 15, 2005
Gates promises IE 7 by summer
By Joris EversMicrosoft Corp. by midyear plans to release a test version of a new Internet Explorer (IE) browser that better protects users from scams and malicious code while surfing the Web, the company announced Tuesday. Additionally, responding to a surge over the past year in online scams involving spyware, Microsoft has decided not to charge for its antispyware product, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 in San Francisco.
"We have looked hard at the nature of this problem and have made the decision that this antispyware product will be available at no additional cost to Windows users," Gates said. "I am very excited that we have this technology and it really addresses a burning need for our users."
Microsoft bought antispyware software maker Giant Company Software Inc. in December and released a beta of Windows AntiSpyware in January. Until Tuesday's announcement the company had not said whether it would sell the product or give it away. Other companies, including traditional antivirus vendors, offer antispyware products.
In addition to its free consumer product, Microsoft will offer a for-pay antispyware product for corporate users that will support enterprise needs for management and deployment, said Amy Roberts, a director in Microsoft's Security Business and Technology Unit. Roberts could not say when the enterprise antispyware product will be available.
A second beta version of the consumer Windows AntiSpyware product is scheduled to be available in the first half of this year, Roberts said in an interview after Gates' keynote.
With the increasing phishing threats and perhaps competitive pressure, Microsoft has changed its plans for IE. Previously the company's plans called for a new version of the ubiquitous browser to be included in the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, due in 2006.
"We have decided to do a new version of Internet Explorer," Gates said. The new IE 7 will "add new levels of security," he said. A first beta is due in mid-2005.
While scant on details for IE 7, Gates said the security enhancements will protect customers against phishing and other malware. The features will also be included in the version of IE for Longhorn. IE 7 will be for users of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Roberts could not say when the final version of IE 7 would be available.
IE is part of Windows and is used by most Web users, but it has a bad security reputation. Other browsers such as Firefox, Netscape and Deepnet Explorer are exploiting that reputation to steal market share. America Online Inc. later this week plans to release the first public test version of a new Netscape browser that offers phishing protection.
Phishing scams are a prevalent type of online attack in which spammers send e-mail messages to dupe recipients into visiting fraudulent Web pages that look like legitimate e-commerce sites to steal sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card numbers.
In his keynote at the opening of the annual security conference, Gates also updated attendees on Microsoft's efforts to build a single Web site for patches for Microsoft products. A test version of the delayed patching service, dubbed Microsoft Update, is slated to be available next month, Gates said.
Microsoft Update will support Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003, Exchange Server 2003 and SQL Server, according to Roberts. A final version of the update service is due in the first half of this year, at around the same time the company plans to release Windows Update Services (WUS), she said. WUS is a free Windows Server add-on for businesses that allows users to download and deploy patches.
On the issue of antivirus protection, Gates reiterated his company's intention to buy Sybari Software Inc. and to add its antivirus engine to Sybari's server antivirus product. Gates also said that a consumer antivirus product would be available from Microsoft by the end of 2005. This will be a paid product or service, Roberts said.
Microsoft's decision to give away the antispyware products makes sense, but spells trouble for third party spyware companies, said Pete Lindstrom, research director at Spire Security LLC.
"Spyware is a huge consumer issue and it's becoming a bigger enterprise issue, but it's a desktop issue, so it makes sense for Microsoft to (give away antispyware)," Lindstrom said. However, vendors such as WebRoot Software Inc. will have to find a way to differentiate. "They're not going to be able to compete on cost," he said.
At least one attendee found Gates both more engaging and more humble than last year, when Microsoft's founder declared an intention to end spam within a year -- a goal he acknowledged was not met in this year's speech.
"Instead of making promises I didn't believe (Gates) could keep, he was demonstrating substantial improvement in many areas that are important, like internal development processes," said Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc.
Also on Tuesday at the RSA Conference