WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
We regret the late arrival of the Winding Down at port 80 and port 25 which was caused by delays in the Internet pipes, which were too thin to hold such an almost bumper edition...
Well, not exactly, but if Transport for London can announce that their train is 'late, due to delays', then I can take a leaf out of their book and announce that last week's non-appearance of Winding down was due to a tardy Internet.
Anyway, I'm back, and we start with two roundups, the first about Microsoft, who have been very busy while I've been off, and the second looking at some of the privacy, security and copy protection issues that have cropped up recently.
So lets get down to it...
Roundup: Microsoft yet again
Well, first the good news for readers (though probably not Microsoft) - Dell has committed to making Windows XP available on its machines 'through at least 2009 and likely longer'. Given the sales advantage that will give it, I doubt that other PC box shifters will be long in following. Shouts of ' Vista is dead! Long live XP.' are probably premature, but this can't be good news for Microsoft and Vista.
Microsoft rolled out a bunch of seven bug fixes this last week. Of the seven three were classed as 'critical', three as 'important', and one as 'moderate'. If you use Windows Bluetooth, Internet Explorer, or Direct X (the gaming and media libraries), then you probably need to take a look at what's on offer.
And while we're on the subject of patches, the recent Windows XP Service pack 3 (SP3) upgrade is causing problems with Billion brand home routers. Actually, in this case it isn't strictly speaking Microsoft's fault. The problem is that the router continually reboots. It's caused by a bug in the router that didn't matter when Microsoft wasn't following the standard. Now Microsoft is in compliance, the router can't handle it. If you have this problem, Billion has a patch you can apply - always assuming you can stop the router rebooting for long enough to download it, of course,
Got an Xbox 360? Remember the Red Ring of Death problem that caused the machines to be recalled last year? It cost Microsoft in excess of US$1 billion to fix, and they have never revealed what the problem was. Now, the details have slipped out at a Design Automation Conference. It seems that Microsoft decided that it could save a few tens of millions of dollars by designing one of the graphics chips in-house, rather than by going to a professional design house. The result was a chip that gave off way too much heat, and which eventually had to be replaced. That sounds like a pretty expensive way of saving a few tens of millions of dollars to me - not to mention all the seriously annoyed customers who were adversely affected.
Those of you with long term memories will remember that in the last issue I mentioned that although Microsoft got its own XML standard (OXML, formerly OOXML) through the International Standards Organisation (ISO), via some rather fancy footwork, it was having difficulty implementing the new standard in its Microsoft Office suite. Now there is a further blow to its plans. Following a number of formal complaints from member bodies, the ISO has put the standard on hold while it investigates what actually happened.
And finally, for Microsoft, the really bad news. Bill Gates leaves the company for good at the end of this month, leaving uber-salesman Steve Ballmer in charge. It doesn't bode well, I expect to see a lot more screw-ups in the not too distant future, not least the replacement for Vista, which is being rushed out in a mere two years - Vista took five years.
I guess we will have to wait and see just how frequently Mr Ballmer can repeat his success of driving Yahoo into the arms of Microsoft's biggest rival, Google...
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/ISO-puts-standard-for-Microsoft-s-OOXML-document-
formats-
on-hold--/110892
http://blogs.computerworld.com/five_reasons_why_its_not_business_as_usual_for_microsoft
http://blogs.computerworld.com/five_reasons_to_fire_ballmer
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBJid0FypUC0FrK0F7rT0EX
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/11/ms_xbox_gp/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/09/windows_xp_dell_second_reprieve/
http://apcmag.com/router_crashes_blamed_on_windows_xp_sp3.htm
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBJlF0HiOOq0G4W0F8BI0EC
Roundup Two: Privacy, Security and Copy Protection
The EU Information Commissioner is considering rapping the UK's local Commission over the knuckles for its bizarre decision to take no action over British Telecoms' (BT) activities. BT it turns out passed information in its customer's web browsing to advertising profiling company Phorm without telling anyone what was going on. The UK information commissioner's excuse was that it was too difficult to explain to customers!
Quite to the contrary, it's really easy to explain to the customers. 'BT tapped into your private activities on the web, read the messages to find out what you were doing, and incidentally, who you are, and then passed the information on to another, unrelated, company so that they could build up a record of what you were doing.' Seems pretty straight forward to me, grossly unethical, if not downright criminal, behaviour of the part of British Telecom.
On the left hand side of the big pond, US researchers have discovered that data breach notification doesn't seem to cut down on identity theft. They did this by comparing rates in states which did and didn't have notification laws. There could be many reasons for this, not least of which is the length of time it takes for new laws to change the company culture, so the laws are still important for nailing the sloppy companies.
Back to this side of the big pond and a major study, which tracked European cell phone users via anonomised data supplied by a cell phone operator, has revealed the earth shattering information that most of us spend most of our time at home and at work! The study used a random 100,000 sample out of a 6 million population. It's difficult to believe that it was really anonymous if it established where both the home and the work were located - sounds to me like more grist for the EU Information Commissioner's mill.
Did you know that 87 percent of data breaches could have been prevented by reasonable security precautions? This begs the question of what is 'reasonable', but a recent study of over 500 data breaches revealed that such breaches were usually attributable to some combination of significant error (62%), hacking (59%), malicious code (31%), a known vulnerability (22%) and physical threats (15%).
Interesting isn't it? Oh and by the way, 845 of the breaches involved card data. Also, the report points out that those responsible were outsiders (84%), insiders (18%), business partners (39%), or a combination (30%). There's probably a good reason why all combinations of these figures add up to over 100%!
So why are IT security professionals so bad? Probably because they don't seem to learn from history, according to Kenneth van Wyk, who comes from an engineering and aviation background. He has an interesting point, but I'm not sure that it's the prime reason. I think it has more to do with the maturity of the subject. Scientific engineering has been in existence for over 150 years, aviation perhaps 70 or 80 years, and modern networked mass computing less than 20 years. I suspect if we looked at engineering or aviation 'pre-history' we would find similar problems to those we are now discovering in computing.
It's no excuse, of course, and van Wyk's suggestions of, for instance, check lists, taken from the aviation industry are a good start. There are already best practices for the IT security industry, but we should be aware that we are dealing with a rapidly moving target and that when security interferes with working practice, it is easier to change the security than the working practice!
I see Comcast really has stumbled into a hornets nest when it started meddling in its customers' data streams. The latest moves from its customers involve lawsuits and congressional minutes in what it's doing. The way things are going this could have nearly as big an impact as the Sony root kit case a few years ago. That could be a problem, because in banning the sort of tampering with customers' data practiced by Comcast, it may be that perfectly legitimate activities will end up being illegal as well.
Sadly, very few issues in politics and computer networks are black and white.
If you are interested in the Recording Industry Ass. of America's (RIAA) campaign against what it terms as 'piracy', then take a look at the New Zealand Herald's recent peek at behind the scenes at fortress RIAA. It's a fairly straightforward and uncritical description, but interesting none-the-less.
And talking of 'piracy', I can't say I've noticed customers forcing music biz executives to walk the plank in shark infested waters, cutting accountants' throats, or disembowelling A&R personnel. On the other hand I get the impression that a lot of people wish it would happen!
Finally, after reading the above you might like to read next-gen.biz's history of computer entertainment copy protection. I remember it well, I was there when it all happened...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10515239&pnum=0
http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/print.php/3751366
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10800&Itemid=
2&limit=
1&limitstart=0
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/223578/researchers_say_notification_laws_us_
lowering_
id_theft?fp=2&fpid=-1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/10/eu_bt_phorm_trial/
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBJlF0HiOOq0G4W0F8BH0EB
Shorts:
Fancy yourself as a history buff, or even just a trivia freak? Then take a look at Infoworld's round up of what it considers are the top fifteen turning points in the history of computing. I can't say I agree with all of their choices - for instance the launch of my Federation game doesn't feature for some unfathomable reason - but it makes interesting reading - take a look.
http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3280993/121542020/118801/0/
Internet News has a really sharp piece of analysis on the ASUS EeePC style mini-notebook computer. He thinks it's going to go down the mobile phone route of being given away, or sold for a minimal price, in return for signing up to a service, such as, say broadband, for a fixed time contract. In fact this is already happening. The Royal Bank of Canada is giving away an ASUS Eee PC 2G to new customers who open specific types of account. And, in the UK , PowerMobile.com is giving away an EeePC in return for an two year contract with a T-Mobile broadband service. I like it!
http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/article.php/3750916/Here+Comes+the+Asus+
Freee
+PC.htm
http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/RBC:SCRu-I71A8UANBDO10I/products/deposits/nolimit/
offer-
details.html
Finally, in this section, good news for my antipodean readers. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has zapped eBay's plans to force its customers to use PayPal for payments. The ACCC, in effect, considers that eBay shouldn't be allowed to use its near monopoly in on-line auctions to freeze out competition in the payments market. Nice to see that some regulators are doing their job properly.
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/831476
Homework:
Here's some new technology for you to look out for in the future - paper. But this is no ordinary paper, it's nano-engineered paper. Normally paper is weak because the fibers are so long and floppy. However, at a micro level cellulose, the main ingredient of paper, is extreme strong. Cellulose is also the most plentiful organic substance on Earth. Now scientists in Sweden have come up with a process to make paper with nano-sized fibres, and it turns out to be stronger than cast iron.
Hmm... This adds a whole new dimension to the art of making, and launching paper airplanes during boring lectures!
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/609/1?
And for those of you with a real bent for mathematics, take a look at the paper from Okubo, Buscemi, and Tomita, which describes a method of eavesdropping on the key exchange in quantum cryptography - you know, the cryptography that can't be broken! How could you possibly resist wanting to read a paper with the enticing title of 'Proposal of an eavesdropping experiment for BB84 QKD protocol with 1->3 phase-covariant quantum cloner'?
http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1778v1
Geek Toys: Two goodies
First, for those of you who still have cash left over (or a working credit card) from the dot com era, Sharp have just come out with a 108-inch LCD monitor. The resolution's not brilliant - 1920x1080, but the cachet, man, the cachet of having the world's biggest LCD monitor made from a single panel!
http://www.physorg.com/news132585045.html
And at the other end of the scale, the Firefox 3 browser goes live on Tuesday. Lotsa people are planning launch parties online - be there, or be square.
http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/06/11/coming-tuesday-june-17th-firefox-3/
Scanner: Other Stories
Apple's carpet-bomb Safari flaw can wreak havoc on Windows
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/10/apple_safari_carpet_bombing_demo/
The development of e-paper technology
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=
9091118&intsrc=hm_ts_head
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/29/fujitsu-shows-off-fab-pc-laptop-concept/
Apple takes the operator's shilling
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/11/iphone_business_model/
US Supreme Court limits patent claims
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h4Vh3UWrNfmfYpUBTTUUy7nsQj-gD916MQ682
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/09/us_supreme_court_limits_multiple_royalty_collection/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, Lois and Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
15 June 2008
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html
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