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WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton

Did you know that China has an official whose title is Head of Weather Manipulation? No neither did I, but a couple of weeks ago I added weather control facilities into my sci-fi on-line game, Federation 2. It's nice to know that reality follows fiction in this way. If you want to read the story, it's the first URL in the scanner section.

Here in the UK we could do with some weather control. Half the country has frozen up (including all public transport, of course) while the other half is enduring sunshine, something which is normally forbidden in winter (and summer, if it comes to that).

And, in the Mediterranean, storms have disrupted the Internet. This is a wake up call for everyone who thinks that virtual worlds are somehow completely cut off from reality. Cool stuff runs on real physical stuff.

But more of that later...

Shorts:

I have to confess that it was with a slight smirk that I read that games mega-corp Electronic Arts had made a loss in the third quarter, and that the loss was partly due to the way they account for on-line enabled games. Serves them right for turning me down as a network programmer a couple of years back!

I've never been to such a bizarre interview in my life. They didn't know why they wanted a network programmer, or even what one did. They gave me a written test that was all about 3D math and video programming, the few C++ questions were laughable, some of the code examples should have got the perpetrators a written warning, and the concept of optimising compilers seemed to have gone completely past them.

The interviewers were stuck in the world of the early 1980s - the only true code is 6502 and Z80 assembler, and it must be written in a garret by an unwashed pimply faced youth... At the time I thought this was just a problem with their developers, but the financial results indicate that perhaps the problem runs a little deeper :)

http://www.physorg.com/news121022115.html

So, Microsoft want to purchase Yahoo, and they are offering US$44.6bn, petty cash for Microsoft! I'm not planning to cover it since everyone else has, but just in case anyone missed it in the welter of 'information', here are details of Yahoo's 2007 profits: Jan->March down 11%, April->June down 2%, July->September down 5%, October->December down 23%. Perhaps Microsoft and Yahoo deserve one another!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7222114.stm

'Cables Zapped - Middle East cut off from the Rest of the World!' Well, that wasn't exactly the headline this week, but it sums up the tenor of the coverage in some quarters. What actually happened was that storms in the Mediterranean meant that ships running for shelter had to anchor in areas usually avoided, because of international cables, and the ships' anchors dragged and broke the cables.

No terrorists, no ideologically motivated saboteurs, just dragging anchors.

In the meantime, traffic is being routed via the Pacific instead of via Europe. It's painful, and it's slower, but the (e)mail gets through :)

Incidentally, the papers were full of stories about the cables being only as thick as your finger. You'd have to have extremely thick fingers for this to be the case! I'm looking at one of my desk toys, which is a piece of fibre optic cable - it's nearly an inch thick, and it is ordinary fibre cable, not undersea cable which has armoured covering. I'd be surprised if undersea cable wasn't at least as thick as my forearm. I wouldn't be surprised to find it was a lot thicker, since I would expect it to have multiple cables in it. Incidentally, all the stories missed the fact that the cable isn't normally buried - it floats at more or less neutral buoyancy!

If you really want to know all about international fibre optic cables, take a look at 'Snow Crash' author Neal Stephenson's 1996 article in Wired magazine. To my mind it was one of the finest stories Wired ever produced (and 'Snow Crash' is one of the best cyberpunk books ever written)!

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/01/internet.outage/?iref=hpmostpop
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3291606.ece

Last week I covered Apple's problems with it's 'missing' iPhones. The analyst who originally spotted the anomaly in the figures has now dipped a little deeper into the matter and come up with some rather interesting further information.

Readers may remember that there seems to be a discrepancy of something in the region of 1.3 million phones between what Apple claims to have sold, and what the networks reported as subscribers. The original figures suggested that while some of the discrepancy was due to hacked iPhones, most of it was due to the gadgets gathering dust in retailers storerooms. Now, though, it looks as though the figure for iPhones hacked to use on other networks may well be in the region of a cool million.

This represents a real dilemma for Apple. A million unlocked iPhones is in the region of 30% of its sales. On the one hand that reduces its ability to sell 'exclusive' (and expensive) deals to the carriers, but if they really crack down on the unlocking, they risk losing sales of up to 30%. Add to that the fact that Apple don't get any follow on income - a cut of the carriers' charges - for unlocked phones and you can see the way Apple are well and truly between a rock and a hard place!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/29/1m_unlocked_iphones/

Some interesting information is starting to trickle out about the techniques used by the trader behind the US$72bn fraud at Societe Generale (you can fill in your own French accents on the name). And very low tech they were too! Apart from using colleagues' accounts, setting up fake customer accounts, and removing the limits on his own trading, the trader's main weapon was no less than programming Excel in Visual Basic (see, it's all the perfidious Microsoft's fault, and wouldn't have happened if they'd use software libre!).

What Jerome Kerviel did was very simple, it seems, and perhaps rather clever. Management at SG keep an eye on the doings of their traders using reports in Excel spreadsheets, so Kerviel, who is now something of a folk hero in France, rewrote the VB scripts that generated the reports...

I wonder how many other big trading firms have similar low-tech problems that will now come to light in the tightened control resulting from this mess?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/socgen_hack/

And talking of low-tech problems and solutions, a major electronic bank heist was foiled by an alert employee in Sweden. The gang had gained control of the employee's computer and was in the process of transferring 'millions' from the bank to another account, when the employee, realising what was going on, had the presence of mind to yank out the cable - it's not clear whether it was the network cable, or the power cable. A very low tech solution which resulted in the perpetrator failing to get their dosh.

Stockholm police have now rounded up the alleged criminals, who, it is claimed, were about to have another go!

http://www.physorg.com/news120911829.html

Since hardly anyone else mentioned it, I would like to point out that the US Department of Justice has extended the period of oversight of Microsoft activities by another two years. This is the latest fall-out from the anti-trust trial that ended a few years back, and the reason behind the extension is interesting.

It seems the judge is having similar problems to those experienced by the EU in their anti-trust case - in particular, Microsoft's inability to provide the documentation needed by non-Microsoft developers. To be blunt, though, it seems to me that the market conditions are moving in a direction where this sort of oversight is becoming more irrelevant, since Microsoft has been stymied in its attempts to leverage its desk top Windows power into other areas. Google still controls the search engine space, Apple is gaining market share, as is the Firefox browser, and Linux continues to control a large chunk of the server market.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080130-doj-fits-microsoft-with-
another-two-year-long-leash.html

And, on the subject of Firefox, XiTi Monitor, a French web survey company, has produced some interesting figures for browser use in Europe. It seems that Firefox now has nearly 30% of the market - up from 23% this time last year. Also, the report claims that while 93% of Firefox users are running the latest version - Firefox 2 - less than half of all Internet Explorer users are using version 7, the latest IE version. If I were in Microsoft's shoes I would be starting to worry about this trend!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080129-firefox-gobbles-up-
more-internet-explorer-market-share.html

Microsoft are developing paranoia about what they claim is attempts by IBM to block the OOXML standard from being accepted by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). this is something of a reversal of roles - normally everyone else is paranoid about Microsoft! Perhaps this is a sort of preemptive paranoia? It could be because the sub-committees of the national standards bodies dealing with OOXML - which is Microsoft's 'open' standard for Word files - have suddenly received an influx of people with no interest other than getting control of the delegations to ISO so that they can vote to accept OOXML. The people who normally do the (unpaid) legwork on the committees are not happy.

Perhaps Microsoft should turn their attention to matters of beams, motes, eyes, pots, kettles and the color black...

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39292492,00.htm?r=1

DRM Coda:

Reader Fancy followed up on my stories about DRM and the music biz last week by pointing me to a song called 'Take back the Music' <http://www.thefump.com/lyrics.php?id=1013> on theFUMP.com where potential customers can listen free of charge. If you like it, you can buy it! Real open source addicts can also listen to 'The Creative Commons Anthem <http://www.thefump.com/lyrics.php?id=1002> :)

Annoying the Swiss is not generally considered to be a good idea. That, however, is what 'anti-piracy' company Logistep have done. They hit on a way of getting around the Swiss law that says the identity of an ISP subscriber can only be revealed in criminal prosecutions, not civil prosecutions.

Their tactic consists of getting the Swiss prosecutors to initiate a criminal case, subpoena the required info and then hand it over, at which stage Logistep initiate a civil case and the original criminal case is dropped. A neat little scam, but the Swiss have now caught on, and the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) has politely asked Logistep to stop it.

Logistep would do well to accede, since the velvet glove conceals an iron fist in the form of court proceeding should Logistep not cooperate!

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/25/Antipiracy-group-tactics-violate-
Swiss-law_1.html?source=NLC-SEC&cgd=2008-01-28

Meanwhile, back in the US of A, those masters of subtlety, the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) are trying hard to get their latest wheeze into law in Washington. And what is it? It's a statutory fine of US$1.5 million for copying a music CD! Pretty breathtaking, huh? And this is from an organisation many of whose principals stand convicted of price fixing on their CD sales! The word 'greed', doesn't even begin to cover it.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080129-statutory-damages-not-high-enough.html

Homework:

Tech issues haven't really figured so far in the US primary contests. As an outsider I find that really strange, given that much of the world position of the United States (and its wealth) is built on its superior technology. In fact, from where I am, I didn't think that any of the candidates had any interest in tech issues at all. However, some of them have positions on a few of the tech issues facing the US at the moment, and the EETimes has produced an interesting piece about who proposes to do what in the high tech field, should they make it to the hot seat in the White House.

I recommend this to my US readers, since it seems to me to cover a number of important issues.

http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBGep0FypUC0FrK0FnOW0Ez

On a different topic, the IEEE's online Spectrum magazine has produced an interesting little piece highlighting the issues that will be coming up on the topic of search-engine law over the next few years. I hadn't really thought about it, but there are several different roads the search engines could go down. Problems already on the horizon include copyright issues, free speech, and how open and regulated should the algorithms used be, given that a low listing can destroy an on-line business. Worth a read.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan08/5952

Geek Toys:

Polaroid have come up with something really nifty - an inkless printer that measures 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.9 inches, capable of delivering 2 x 3 inch prints. It looks like digital photo freaks are going to be able to print their deathless holiday snaps straight to paper! The system uses a special 'ZINK' gloss printing paper which has dye crystals embedded in the transparent gloss layer. Heat from the printer melts the different color dyes to release the color and make up the picture. One thing not mentioned is how permanent the pictures are, and I wonder if that is significant...

http://www.physorg.com/news120823058.html

If digital photography isn't your thing, then how about handheld games on a 4.3 inch, 800x480 screen. This neat little device is Linux based and supports a wide range of game emulators, including MAME, SNES, Genesis and PC Engine, so you can play existing games. Sounds good.

It's called 'Pandora', and all you have to do is open the box :)

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7004794073.html

Scanner: Other Stories

China vows to stop the rain for the Olympics
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23136575-5005940,00.html

Top secret UK data network goes live two years late - and falls over
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/scope_spooknet_delays/

'Reputation' managers step in against Internet 'thugs'
http://www.physorg.com/news120901981.html

EU debates privacy of IP numbers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/22/eu_ip_numbers_personal/

Theats from everywhere in operation 'Cyber Storm'
http://www.physorg.com/news120985163.html

The Pirate Bay tops 10 million users - and is slapped with copyright charges
http://www.slyck.com/story1643_The_Pirate_Bay_Breaks_10_Million_Users
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/pirate_bay_case/

Amazon MP3 store to go global in 2008
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1100346&highlight=

Suppressed video of Japanese reactor sodium leak
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/The_Monju_nuclear_reactor_leak

'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/

Acknowledgements

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
3 February 2708

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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