Are you super-paranoid about RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and how it allegedly melts holes in your brain and compromises your security? Then this wallet is for you. Dustin Kirk got a bit paranoid about today's growing use of RFID in everything from credit cards (like Chase's new Blink card) to driver's licenses and alien UFOs, so he made a wallet to store things in a way that blocks RFID transmissions. Apparently, some foil from the local Super Fresh worked just fine, so he integrated the foil into his Duct Tape wallet design. The end result is a wallet that blocks RFID signals, was cheap to make, and is ugly as sin. Hey, it's your security, so go for it. But don't expect the end result looking like you got it from Banana Republic.
The man credited with inventing the WWW posts his first blog entry.
Album covers that were banned, removed, altered or raised controversy.
Wonder why Bruce Springsteen's album is on the lis? Apparently some critics believed "The Boss" is pissing on the flag.
Via wtbw.
Their are always two sides to a story, so I am was hesitant to post this today, but I think it's important for companies that built new technology to be able to stand on their own two feet. When you are introducing some search algorithms that may in fact be better than what the biggest search engine out their, you should probably expect resistance. A startup kozoru has been banned from using the Google API and is one of the first companies that had built some search tools that has been banned.
Their are a lot of other small players culling Google's data so either they scared Google or Google must have found their utilization of the API going way beyond the intended purpose and license allowances. [loneronin.typepad.com]
This past Thursday, the New York Times exposed the most significant violation of federal surveillance law in the post-Watergate era. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying, wiretapping thousands of Americans and bypassing the legal procedures regulating this activity.
This isn't about the spying, although that's a major issue in itself. This is about the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search. This is about circumventing a teeny tiny check by the judicial branch, placed there by the legislative branch, placed there 27 years ago -- on the last occasion that the executive branch abused its power so broadly.
In defending this secret spying on Americans, Bush said that he relied on his constitutional powers (Article 2) and the joint resolution passed by Congress after 9/11 that led to the war in Iraq. This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo, a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism, but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.
Yoo starts by arguing that the Constitution gives the president total power during wartime. He also notes that Congress has recently been quiescent when the president takes some military action on his own, citing President Clinton's 1998 strike against Sudan and Afghanistan.
Yoo then says: "The terrorist incidents of September 11, 2001, were surely far graver a threat to the national security of the United States than the 1998 attacks. ... The President's power to respond militarily to the later attacks must be correspondingly broader."
This is novel reasoning. It's as if the police would have greater powers when investigating a murder than a burglary.
More to the point, the congressional resolution of Sept. 14, 2001, specifically refused the White House's initial attempt to seek authority to preempt any future acts of terrorism, and narrowly gave Bush permission to go after those responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Yoo's memo ignored this. Written 11 days after Congress refused to grant the president wide-ranging powers, it admitted that "the Joint Resolution is somewhat narrower than the President's constitutional authority," but argued "the President's broad constitutional power to use military force ... would allow the President to ... [take] whatever actions he deems appropriate ... to pre-empt or respond to terrorist threats from new quarters."
Even if Congress specifically says no.
The result is that the president's wartime powers, with its armies, battles, victories, and congressional declarations, now extend to the rhetorical "War on Terror": a war with no fronts, no boundaries, no opposing army, and -- most ominously -- no knowable "victory." Investigations, arrests, and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain "at war" for as long as he chooses.
This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law.
This is, fundamentally, why this issue crossed political lines in Congress. If the president can ignore laws regulating surveillance and wiretapping, why is Congress bothering to debate reauthorizing certain provisions of the Patriot Act? Any debate over laws is predicated on the belief that the executive branch will follow the law.
This is not a partisan issue between Democrats and Republicans; it's a president unilaterally overriding the Fourth Amendment, Congress and the Supreme Court. Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush. You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to see as president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter.
Laws are what give us security against the actions of the majority and the powerful. If we discard our constitutional protections against tyranny in an attempt to protect us from terrorism, we're all less safe as a result.
This essay was published today as an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Here's the opening paragraph of the Yoo memo. Remember, think of this power in the hands of your least favorite politician when you read it:
You have asked for our opinion as to the scope of the President's authority to take military action in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. We conclude that the President has broad constitutional power to use military force. Congress has acknowledged this inherent executive power in both the War Powers Resolution, Pub. L. No. 93-148, 87 Stat. 555 (1973), codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1541-1548 (the "WPR"), and in the Joint Resolution passed by Congress on September 14, 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). Further, the President has the constitutional power not only to retaliate against any person, organization, or State suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks on the United States, but also against foreign States suspected of harboring or supporting such organizations. Finally, the President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 11.
There's a similar reasoning in the Braybee memo, which was written in 2002 about torture:
In a series of opinions examining various legal questions arising after September 11, we have examined the scope of the President's Commander-in-Chief power. . . . Foremost among the objectives committed by the Constitution to [the President's] trust. As Hamilton explained in arguing for the Constitution's adoption, ‘because the circumstances which may affect the public safety’ are ‘not reducible within certain limits, it must be admitted, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no limitation of that authority, which is to provide for the defense and safety of the community, in any manner essential to its efficacy.’ . . . [The Constitution’s] sweeping grant vests in the President an unenumerated Executive power . . . The Commander in Chief power and the President’s obligation to protect the Nation imply the ancillary powers necessary to their successful exercise.
NSA watcher James Bamford points out how this action was definitely considered illegal in 1978, which is why FISA was passed in the first place:
When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was created in 1978, one of the things that the Attorney General at the time, Griffin Bell, said -- he testified before the intelligence committee, and he said that the current bill recognizes no inherent power of the President to conduct electronic surveillance. He said, ‘This bill specifically states that the procedures in the bill are the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be conducted.’ In other words, what the President is saying is that he has these inherent powers to conduct electronic surveillance, but the whole reason for creating this act, according to the Attorney General at the time, was to prevent the President from using any inherent powers and to use exclusively this act.
Also this from Salon, discussing a 1952 precedent:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argues that the president's authority rests on two foundations: Congress's authorization to use military force against al-Qaida, and the Constitution's vesting of power in the president as commander-in-chief, which necessarily includes gathering “signals intelligence” on the enemy. But that argument cannot be squared with Supreme Court precedent. In 1952, the Supreme Court considered a remarkably similar argument during the Korean War. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, widely considered the most important separation-of-powers case ever decided by the court, flatly rejected the president's assertion of unilateral domestic authority during wartime. President Truman had invoked the commander-in-chief clause to justify seizing most of the nation's steel mills. A nationwide strike threatened to undermine the war, Truman contended, because the mills were critical to manufacturing munitions.General said that the Administration didn't try to do this legally, because they didn't think they could get the law passed. But don't worry, an NSA shift supervisor is acting in the role of a FISC judge:The Supreme Court's rationale for rejecting Truman's claims applies with full force to Bush's policy. In what proved to be the most influential opinion in the case, Justice Robert Jackson identified three possible scenarios in which a president's actions may be challenged. Where the president acts with explicit or implicit authorization from Congress, his authority "is at its maximum," and will generally be upheld. Where Congress has been silent, the president acts in a "zone of twilight" in which legality "is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law." But where the president acts in defiance of "the expressed or implied will of Congress," Justice Jackson maintained, his power is "at its lowest ebb," and his actions can be sustained only if Congress has no authority to regulate the subject at all.
In the steel seizure case, Congress had considered and rejected giving the president the authority to seize businesses in the face of threatened strikes, thereby placing President Truman's action in the third of Justice Jackson's categories. As to the war power, Justice Jackson noted, "The Constitution did not contemplate that the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy will constitute him also Commander in Chief of the country, its industries, and its inhabitants."
Like Truman, President Bush acted in the face of contrary congressional authority. In FISA, Congress expressly addressed the subject of warrantless wiretaps during wartime, and limited them to the first 15 days after war is declared. Congress then went further and made it a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, to conduct a wiretap without statutory authorization.
GENERAL HAYDEN: FISA involves the process -- FISA involves marshaling arguments; FISA involves looping paperwork around, even in the case of emergency authorizations from the Attorney General. And beyond that, it's a little -- it's difficult for me to get into further discussions as to why this is more optimized under this process without, frankly, revealing too much about what it is we do and why and how we do it.m both parties are demanding hearings:Q If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?
ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.
Q And who determined that these targets were al Qaeda? Did you wiretap them?
GENERAL HAYDEN: The judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply -- and it's a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor, and carefully recorded as to what created the operational imperative to cover any target, but particularly with regard to those inside the United States.
Q So a shift supervisor is now making decisions that a FISA judge would normally make? I just want to make sure I understand. Is that what you're saying?
Democratic and Republican calls mounted on Tuesday for U.S. congressional hearings into President George W. Bush's assertion that he can order warrantless spying on Americans with suspected terrorist ties.York Times paragraph is further evidence that we're talking about an Echelon-like surveillance program here:Vice President Dick Cheney predicted a backlash against critics of the administration's anti-terrorism policies. He also dismissed charges that Bush overstepped his constitutional bounds when he implemented the recently disclosed eavesdropping shortly after the September 11 attacks.
Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine joined Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Dianne Feinstein of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon in calling for a joint investigation by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees into whether the government eavesdropped "without appropriate legal authority."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would prefer separate hearings by the Judiciary Committee, which has already promised one, and Intelligence Committee.
Administration officials, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the information, suggested that the speed with which the operation identified "hot numbers" - the telephone numbers of suspects - and then hooked into their conversations lay behind the need to operate outside the old law.
And some more snippets.
There are about a zillion more URLs I could list here. I posted these already, but both Oren Kerr and
Daniel Solove have good discussions of the legal issues. And here are three legal posts by Marty Lederman. A summary of the Republican arguments. Four good blog posts. Spooks comment on the issue.
And this George W. Bush quote (video and transcript), from December 18, 2000, is just too surreal not to reprint: "If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator."
I guess 9/11 made it a heck of a lot easier.
Look, I don't think 100% of the blame belongs to President Bush. (This kind of thing was also debated under Clinton.) The Congress, Democrats included, have allowed the Executive to gather power at the expense of the other two branches. This is the fundamental security issue here, and it'll be an issue regardless of who wins the White House in 2008.
EDITED TO ADD (12/21): FISC Judge James Robertson resigned yesterday:
Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.ly, here's some of the relevant statutes and decisions:....Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.
"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."
"Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)" (1978).
"Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001)," the law authorizing Bush to use military force against the 9/11 terrorists.
"United States v. United States District Court," 407 U.S. 297 (1972), a national security surveillance case that turned on the Fourth Amendment.
"Hamdi v. Rumsfeld," 124 S. Ct. 981 (2004), the recent Supreme Court case examining the president's powers during wartime.
[The Government's position] cannot be mandated by any reasonable view of the separation of powers, as this view only serves to condense power into a single branch of government. We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens. Youngstown Steel and Tube, 343 U.S. at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in times of conflict with other Nations or enemy organizations, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.
And here are a bunch of blog posts:
Daniel Solove: "Hypothetical: What If President Bush Were Correct About His Surveillance Powers?."
Seth Weinberger: "Declaring War and Executive Power."
Juliette Kayyem: "Wiretaps, AUMF and Bush's Comments Today."
Mark Schmitt: "Alito and the Wiretaps."
Eric Muller: "Lawless Like I Said."
Cass Sunstein: "Presidential Wiretap."
Spencer Overton: "Judge Damon J. Keith: No Warrantless Wiretaps of Citizens."
Will Baude: "Presidential Authority, A Lament."
And news articles:
Washington Post: "Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power."
The clash over the secret domestic spying program is one slice of a broader struggle over the power of the presidency that has animated the Bush administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came to office convinced that the authority of the presidency had eroded and have spent the past five years trying to reclaim it.Times: Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls."From shielding energy policy deliberations to setting up military tribunals without court involvement, Bush, with Cheney's encouragement, has taken what scholars call a more expansive view of his role than any commander in chief in decades. With few exceptions, Congress and the courts have largely stayed out of the way, deferential to the argument that a president needs free rein, especially in wartime.
A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.
The (UK) Guardian newspaper decides that it too can do this "SEO thing".
After detailing cutting-edge techniques such as adding keywords to metadatas, hidden text and the use of "Britney Spears", it decides to boost its own fake site to the top of the SERPs.
In a move that likely is viewed as diluting to pal Jeff Pulver who has some remaining shares in Vonage, the Wall Street Journal has reported that Vonage will announce that they raised $250 million dollars as early as Monday and that it is the last raise of cash before their IPO.
I'm not buying it, and neither is Om Malik, who does his own brand of quantitative analysis. Like Om points out, Vonage is a company looking for an exit, and in my mind they were down the road the right way up until the last raise up.
I don't buy their two billion dollar value either. One million lines or not, their cost per acquisition of each customer is too high, plus the consumer market will soon figure out that they can get phone calling on a Pay as You Go basis for less. Skype is already proving that, as will Yahoo and Gizmo project.
Someone needs to tell the Vonage guys it's time to take the money and run.
With a very detailed account of one teenage boy's life, the New York Times today has a very extended feature on the illicit use of webcam by teens who make money selling their bodies.
Over the past months I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the web cam market has a large percentage of "adult" conversation for pay occurring and was under the impression it was more offshore than here in the USA. I guess I'm not surprised.
Nor was I surprised to see some names named. Familiar companies that we all of were basically the enabling tools used to enable payment and gift giving.
There is a concept of ill gotten gains that one sometimes has to consider and given that these dollars were tied to illegal activity, even though the companies themselves were not doing things wrong.
An intriguing part of the story about Wikipedia and John Seigenthaler, the maligned journalist who found his Wikipedia biography had him as a JFK assassination suspect, is that the savvy folk obsessively monitor their own Wikipedia biographies, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales himself
who has edited it frequently, removing references to a credited "co-founder" of the encyclopedia and obscuring the nature of a pornographic web site he once published. Though some Wikipedia editors believe that it's always wrong to edit subjects in which you are involved, this idea is clearly not shared by Wales. The edit history of his biography reveals that he's made 18 changes with the account Jimbo Wales, most recently on Dec. 2.
The alleged co-founder in question is Larry Sanger, who coincidentally is setting up a ‘rival’ to Wikipedia, called Digital Universe which
aims to build on the model of free online encyclopedia Wikipedia by inviting acknowledged experts in a range of subjects to review material contributed by the general public. Called Digital Universe, the project is the brainchild of, among others, USWeb founder Joe Firmage and Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's earliest creators.
By providing a service they're calling "the PBS of the Web," the Digital Universe team hopes to create a new era of free and open access to wide swaths of information on virtually any topic.
According to Roger Cadenhead’s piece, Jimmy Wales is energetic in refuting any role for Sanger in the emergence of Wikipedia:
On seven different occasions, Wales has altered sentences that gave Larry Sanger credit for cofounding Wikipedia. Sanger, a former employee of Wales whose job was eliminated in 2002, led the project as "chief organizer" from its January 2001 launch and gave the site its name. He described himself as Wikipedia's cofounder in a 2004 Kuro5hin article. Wales does not share this view. On Oct. 28, 2005, he changed the text "Wales and Sanger set up Wikipedia" to "Wales set up Wikipedia." He made the change again later that day and repeated it on Nov. 9 and Dec. 1 -- other editors kept putting language back in that credited Sanger.
It’s an interesting conundrum. Of course, Wales is not alone in monitoring his biography, and I’m sure if I had one, I would monitor it obsessively too. But when does ensuring that you’re not being accused of masterminding the assassination of presidents become Stalinesque airbrushing of history? And the logical result of this is that every biography on Wikipedia becomes an autobiography, which may keep the subjects happy, but may mark the end of Wikipedia as a useful tool.
As part of lunch conversation yesterday, a very smart man savvy in the ways of the Internet joked that AOL might be the black widow, that kills its mate. The blogosphere this morning, it becomes even more evident that the people are downright pessimistic about the potential impact of Google buying 5% of AOL, a division of Time Warner. (Actually given all the settlements, and other deals, like this most recent one, Time Warner might have made more money off beleaguered AOL that it seems. Anyone remember the $750 million settlement with Microsoft back in 2003)
AOL, by the way continues to be the king maker in the Internet space, despite its troubles. I think many, scratch that, almost all have focused on the advertising aspect of this deal. In my mind, this is a deal which has larger strategic implications. The first - the instant messaging. The two companies explicitly state that they are going to interoperate their IM networks. For Google’s GTalk, this is a big boost, something it needed desperately in order to increase traction when compared to Microsoft and Yahoo. The IM alliance between Google-AOL is a good way to combat Microsoft-Yahoo IM combo. Wait, there is more…. Google had announced major voice-related announcements to the Jabber platform via its Jingle project.
With the release of Libjingle, the makers of these clients will be able to add the ability to make and receive calls between their clients and Google Talk. In fact, they’ll be able to support calls between their clients and ANY OTHER clients that support Libjingle .
An interoperability between the two IM networks could soon be enhanced to facilitating between AIM and GTalk users. Add to the mix, other SIP based clients that can talk to GTalk, such as Gizmo Project, well there is an informal VoIM network that starts to form. Google is very ambitious about Gtalk, and I can bet they are working on developing a bigger ecosystem than most people realize. From get go, they it seems worked on the premise that voice is worth “zero” in some situations. Despite appearances, there might be a method to their madness.
The second aspect of investing in AOL - video. Google stands to make a lot of money from video advertising over the Internet, as my dear friend Cynthia Brumfield has pointed out. They have been fighting an uphill battle to find a toehold in Hollywood, and well there is no one more old school Beverly Hills than Time Warner. I think this will be the thing that helps the company get some traction for its Google Video business.
Some have expressed their chagrin at flashing ads, or whatever. Well, Google wasn’t going to try and do a portal. They did. So deal with it and move on. In the end $1 billion in AOL will pay for itself, because Google will be selling a lot of ads on the AOL properties. And if nothing, its a hedge against Microsoft.
The deal terms…
The The Falkirk Wheel is a giant rotating boat lift and elevated canal developed by British Waterways to reconnect the Union Canal with the Forth & Clyde Canal, re-establishing east to west coast access for boats.
Thanks, Bryan.
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A few days ago, I pointed out the double standards Federal Communications Commission has when it comes to dealing with with the phone companies and cable operators. More proof that the FCC is totally skewed in favor of the phone giants! Last week FCC made a lot of noises about how it needs to worry about the network neutrality before giving the final go ahead on the proposed purchase of Adelphia by Time Warner and Comcast. At a luncheon hosted by Comptel today (where everyone sang Happy Birthday Mr. Chairman) FCC head honcho, Kevin Martin said….
“I’m hesitant to adopt rules that would prevent anti-competitive behavior where there hasn’t been significant evidence of a problem. That doesn’t mean people don’t have a lot of concern about potential problems, but there’s a significant difference between potential problems and problems that occur.” [via Reuters]
To recap, when the commish is saying that, there is no need for FCC to adopt rules to protect consumers and giving them freedom of choosing their IP Services, after all, carriers haven’t done anything thus far. So why worry?
Because both BellSouth and SBC have been quite explicit in saying that they are going to give preferential treatment to their own services and will charge others. (I have no problems with the preferential part, after all they own the network!)
Podjack: (verb) - To create an alternate RSS feed to a podcast without the permission of the podcasts owner. I am writing this piece for the sake of giving podcasters information on how to protect themselves from similar podjackings. And Im also going to finish this piece with advice on what to do if someone creates an unauthorized feed for your podcast. If youre involved in podcasting, you need to know about podjacking. This article…
podcast podcasting computer threats computer safety RSS
Direct and Related Links for 'Podjacking: Watch Out, Someone May Steal Your Podcast, Too!'
The webcast (video and audio) of the NYPL debate about the Google Print (now Google Book Search) project is now up (and has been up, but you know I am perpetually behind). Note, the slide that Chis Anderson is here. Please look at it. There is lots of confusion about what is being debated here. For the three different types of access Google is considering, see the description here.
Google has announced the addition of widget-style web apps to the Google homepage.
The personalized homepage was created to bring together the stuff that interests you from across the web. From an engineering perspective, this became an opportunity to create a framework for all types of content and information. Supporting RSS and Atom feeds was one step in that direction, and today we're excited to start supporting richer web apps as well. With the Google Homepage API, developers can now create modules for the personalized homepage. It's designed to be flexible and easy to use, and you don't need to download anything to create a module.
Google's directory of widgets is still small (only five widgets available), but the Google Homepage API should mean developers will be plugging in their own widgets very soon.
Thanks for the tip, Christopher!
Preparations for a class action law suit against the owners and operators of Wikipedia are underway. I can't figure out whether this is a chilling shot across the bow of any site with user-generated content, or whether it's a timely reminder of the obligations to society that technologists must observe as they invent within that society. Or, possibly--and I only throw this out as a remote and wild conjecture, a hypothesis (if you will) to be tested against available datum, a brainstorming session "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" flag to be run up the pole so it may be seen who salutes it--that it's a case of greedy opportunist whiners out to make any quick buck they can from whatever makes the headlines in the last slow news week. Ahem. Update: the lawsuit web page has the same whois data as QuakeAID, a site whose authenticity Wikipedia questions--see this summary of what happened for why the site may just be a Google Ad-revenue trick. Thanks, alert readers Nathan de Vries and Matt! Update 2: The people behind the class action site deny the connection and explain why the whois data is the same. Check the comments in the blog entry for details.
(Update: Alexa platform is now live)
Every so often an idea comes along that has the potential to change the game. When it does, you find yourself saying - "Sheesh, of course that was going to happen. Why didn't I predict it?" Well, I didn't predict this happening, but here it is, happening anyway.
In short, Alexa, an Amazon-owned search company started by Bruce Gilliat and Brewster Kahle (and the spider that fuels the Internet Archive), is going to offer its index up to anyone who wants it. Alexa has about 5 billion documents in its index - about 100 terabytes of data. It's best known for its toolbar-based traffic and site stats, which are much debated and, regardless, much used across the web.
OK, step back, and think about that. Anyone can use Alexa's index, to build anything. But wait, there's more. Much more.
Anyone can also use Alexa's servers and processing power to mine its index to discover things - perhaps, to outsource the crawl needed to create a vertical search engine, for example. Or maybe to build new kinds of search engines entirely, or ...well, whatever creative folks can dream up. And then, anyone can run that new service on Alexa's (er...Amazon's) platform, should they wish.
It's all done via web services. It's all integrated with Amazon's fabled web services platform. And there's no licensing fees. Just "consumption fees" which, at my first glance, seem pretty reasonable. ("Consumption" meaning consuming processor cycles, or storage, or bandwidth).
The fees? One dollar per CPU hour consumed. $1 per gig of storage used. $1 per 50 gigs of data processed. $1 per gig of data uploaded (if you are putting your new service up on their platform).
In other words, Alexa and Amazon are turning the index inside out, and offering it as a web service that anyone can mashup to their hearts content. Entrepreneurs can use Alexa's crawl, Alexa's processors, Alexa's server farm....the whole nine yards.
Does this change the game? Because I was embargoed and could not really talk to anyone about this, I have not had a chance to talk to folks who are smarter than me about this. So my analysis is limited to my imagination. And that itself is limited by the pricing structure - I do not know if using this service will be cheaper for developers and entrepreneurs than rolling their own. But I can only imagine that indeed it is, or Amazon would not be doing this.
So what has been a jealously guarded secret - the contents of the entire index - is now available to anyone who wants it (of course, this assumes Alexa's index is comparable to the big guys - honestly, I have no idea). The costs are modest - a few thousand bucks to process the entire web, Gilliat told me. How might that change the game? You guys are smarter than me - what do you think?
I am quite sure this means that Yahoo and Google will have to stare hard at their own (somewhat limited) search services and APIs, and think what they might do to compete, that much is certain. And if this starts to gain traction, all of a sudden, Amazon is a major search player, right next to Yahoo, Google, MSN, and IAC. A9+Alexa+web services= hmmmm....
Again, what do you think? Will this be like A9, a groundbreaking development that fails to get traction with a wider audience? Or might this just start something?
Wired News (not up yet) and the WSJ (free link) were also briefed on this news.
As seen on Mediapost:
WEB USERS CONDUCTED MORE THAN 5.1 billion search queries in October--marking a 15 percent increase from June, according to a Nielsen//NetRatings report released Tuesday. Google maintained its leadership position, garnering 2.4 billion search requests, or almost half--48 percent--of all searches. Yahoo! accounted for 21.8 percent of all searches, followed by Microsoft's MSN, which was responsible for 11.3 percent of search activity.
"Infosnacking" has been chosen as Websters New College Dictionary word of the year. Infosnacking means "checking e-mail, Googling sports scores, shopping online and surfing the latest headlines" while at work, according to Webster's.
Podcasting was chosen as the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. An article at Newsobserver.com points out that podcast is pretty widely used while infosnacking is not.
Thanks to Adfreak for the link.
Institute friend Peter Hesseldahl writes about iPod integration now influencing car buying:
Several people (no, not from Denmark) have told me how the integration of an ipod with the stereo system was a major factor when they choose their new, expensive car. Amazing how a $250 gadget can determine the purchase of product that's a hundred time more expensive.
Übercool adds to the story:
Few carmakers realize it yet, but seamlessly integrating an Apple iPod with a new automobile is influencing a lot of car buyers.
In one sense it's amazing, as Peter says; but two bigger trends make it make more sensible.
First, plenty of car buyers expect to spend a lot of time in their cars. In major metropolitan areas in the U.S., drivers can spend a couple hours a week-- or, added all together, several days a year-- commuting to and from work (see below). Then add shopping, chauffering kids, etc., and you get a substantial amount of time.
(Source: U.S. Census press release)
This connects to the second trend. More people-- in particular, families in the U.S.-- treat cars not just as transportation devices, but as living rooms. It's where families catch up; sometimes where they eat; and increasingly cars are equipped with comfy chairs, DVD players, and other entertainment systems. So having your music with you-- or more specifically, being able to carry some functionality from your living room to the car-- shouldn't come as a surprise.
Or perhaps the connection comes from another source: cars = mobility; iPod = mobility; ergo, cars = iPod.
What'll really be amazing is if bicycle designers start playing around with iPod integration: adding little speakers on the handlebars, say.
Technorati Tags: Apple, cars, ipod, travel
Close to one in four (28%) of HDTV owners reported that they did not get any special equipment from their service provider to watch HDTV channels because the picture quality was already improved with the purchase of an HDTV . 23% of HDTV owners did not invest in special equipment to watch HDTV channels because a message at the beginning of the programs they watch tells them that those programs are being broadcast in HD. Nearly one in five (18%) reported that they believed the HD television would give them high-definition channels without additional equipment.If TV was the opiate of the masses, maybe HDTV will be the placebo of the masses.
Wanna be the next Doogie Howser on the block? Start saving for this "pocket" electrocardiogram called the Radar Sark. Silly product names aside, this thing is particularly useful at saving your life. The EKG (for short) can check your heart to make sure it's performing correctly and to see if any abnormalities are present. Extremely useful in life or death situations where EMTs must make critical decisions. The product is touted as being vibration and impact resistant. So we're assuming it's something to keep in the car for when you crash it. Just try to be wearing your "Yo EMTs! I got an EKG in da trunk fool!" t-shirt that day.
Pocket electrocardiogram [Akihabara]
Firefox has released an extension that you should load. This extension will help you when you are are surfing the web and are directed to a website that may not be who or what it appears. Phishing has been going on for a while and people are usually sucked in when they get a e-mail that tells them to visit a site which turns out to be a front for a major identity theft ring. This is a good one and I actually tested it today and it works as advertised. [Google]
It's not very often I get really excited about a package that was due to arrive, but this last Thursday I was really excited when the Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 arrived in the mail.
I am sure all you have or still have a VCR recorder. The operation of that device is about as simple as electronics component you own. Well imagine a box that is about the size of a PDA and a lot thiner, that comes with a power cable, two video cables and has two memory slots for a compact flash and a MS Duo card.
Now let me run several scenarios by you, first of you have a Sony PSP, PDA, or any MPEG4 compatible device, and you want video content for that device! With the Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 you can record content for those devices as easy as using your VCR. You can record content onto your memory sticks in MPEG4 format and then drop that memory stick into your device and watch the video.
I wanted to see how easy this thing was to use. I inserted a 1 gig compact flash into the unit, turned it on and navigated the menu system with the easy to use remote control and recorded a 30 minute show that was being piped in from my DVR, to the Neuros Recorder, and out to the TV. Once I completed the recording I pulled the card out of the Neuros and inserted it into my Compact Flash slot on my PC, double clicked the file what do I see but a perfectly recorded TV show. Watching on my PDA was just as simple.
Folks I am in love, this is a product that has astounded me. I spent the next 5-6 hours grabbing VCR tapes that I have been putting off converting into a digital recordings, and let me just say I am one very happy camper. The unit must do some internal switching because when I recorded a DVD I simply selected DVD as the input device, when it came to recording from my VCR a simple change in my cabling resulted in great results.
You can choose from a wide range of recording quality settings. Please read the spec sheets as the device has various recording settings the highest of which is 640x480 which is fine for TV shows. Not impressed yet well you can schedule recordings just like you do on your DVR.
Not only does it record but it will also PLAY videos. So you download a MPEG4 video from the net, and you dump it on a memory card insert it into the player and hit play. I am not kidding folks it is that easy.
This company is all about fair use and that is what drew my attention to them. The manufacture is selling these things faster than hotcakes, I am going to be bragging this unit up for quite some time.
Tomorrow I am going to check and see if these videos I have recorded will work on my Video iPod everything I am reading indicates that it probably will work but I am not a 100% sure and have not tested it yet. So don't hold me to it I will let you know. Finally let me just say this, go to their website spend five minutes reading the specifications on this unit and let me know what you think. I will get some sample video's up in the link blog in a few days but I wanted to get this review on the street as it is just to darn hot to sit on any longer. [Neuros]
Disclaimer: Geek News Central was given this device to review, the hardware the device was run and tested were average home computer and television appliances, the product was evaluated with no expectation from the vendor of a positive review.
EFF Asks Court to Void Approval of Diebold and Others Without Source Code Review
Raleigh, North Carolina - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Thursday filed a complaint against the North Carolina Board of Elections and the North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services on behalf of voting integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, asking that the Superior Court void the recent illegal certification of three electronic voting systems.
North Carolina law requires the Board of Elections to rigorously review all voting system code "prior to certification." Ignoring this requirement, the Board of Elections on December 1st certified voting systems offered by Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Election Systems and Software without having first obtained let alone reviewed the system code.
"This is about the rule of law," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "The Board of Elections has simply ignored its mandatory obligations under North Carolina election law. This statute was enacted to require election officials to investigate the quality and security of voting systems before approval, and only approve those that are safe and secure. By certifying without a full review of all relevant code, the Board of Elections has now opened the door for North Carolina counties to purchase untested and potentially insecure voting equipment."
North Carolina experienced one of the most serious malfunctions of e-voting systems in the 2004 presidential election when over 4,500 ballots were lost in a voting system provided by e-voting vendor UniLect Corp. Electronic voting systems across the country have come under fire during the past several years as unexplained malfunctions combined with efforts by vendors to protect their proprietary systems from meaningful review have left voters with serious questions about the integrity of the voting process.
"North Carolina voters deserve to have their election laws enforced," said co-counsel Don Beskind of the Raleigh law firm of Twiggs, Beskind, Strickland & Rabenau, P.A. "Election transparency is a requirement, not an option. The General Assembly passed this law unanimously, and it is no