WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
It's nearly time for the ACCU Spring conference (11-14 April) and I'm giving a talk on network programming at it. This year's program is as varied and interesting (especially my talk) as ever and will feature a track on the future of C++ with speakers involved in developing the new C++ standard, including Bjarne Stroustrup, the 'inventor' of C++.
It also features an iconoclastic assault on the language from my old friend Russ Winder, whose offering is subtly entitled 'C++ has no useful purpose'. The lynching will take place in the car park afterwards...
So, what does this mean for you, my readers?
Well mainly it means that you are going to be deprived of your copies of Winding Down on Easter Sunday (8 April) when I will be writing my talk, and on 15 April, because I won't be around the week before to monitor the news. I realise this will cause some of the more addicted amongst you to curl up in the fetal position at the thought of being deprived of my wonderful prose for two consecutive weeks, but I know you will be brave and soldier on until the return of Winding Down on 22 April.
Of course you could always attend the conference, where you would be able to hear my dulcet tones, as well as reading my deathless prose!
And in the meantime, on with the show, and, while you are reading this week's offering, you might like to reflect on the implications of a bill recently put before the Texas legislature which would allow blind hunters...
Shorts:
Well, I suppose it was inevitable that eventually peer-to-peer (P2P) networking would be denounced as a threat to national security! The only real surprise is that the call comes not from the big media companies, but from none other than our old friends the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).
One would think they would have enough on their plate putting their own house in order instead of sticking their nose into other noisy disputes, but, no, it seems that's not the case. The USPTO's Office of International Relations recently published a report condemning P2P file sharing not only as a threat to national security, but also as a device for luring thousands of young innocents into a life of crime.
The mind boggles, but the report also reveals the depth of the USPTO's technical ignorance - the Internet is, and has always been, a peer-to-peer network. Its current major uses, like the web, may be client-server orientated, but its architecture remains the same - P2P. And these are the people who are supposed to be evaluating technical proposals for software and hardware patents. No wonder their own work is in such a shambles!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/uspto_p2p_malarkey/
Meanwhile, in California, Oracle has filed a lawsuit against deadly rival SAP alleging, among other things, computer fraud and abuse, computer and data access and fraud, and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage.
Ooooh! Harsh words. It seems that in late November Oracle discovered more than 10,000 'illicit' downloads from one of its password-protected customer support sites. All the downloads were from customers with expired, or soon-to-expire support contracts. And what's more - cue sinister and doom laden music - further investigation revealed that the customers were, or were about to become, SAP TomorrowNow customers...
Gasp! But that's not all. The lawsuit goes on to say, "...the access originated from an Internet protocol (IP) address in Bryan, Texas, an SAP America branch office location and home of its wholly owned subsidiary SAP TN..." I have to say that reading the story I'm left with a picture of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, wearing a fake beard and glasses, rooting around in the trash cans of Bryan, Texas, while dodging bullets from blind hunters :)
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=34931840-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
We recently had a big debate on Net neutrality over here on the right hand side of the pond. I wasn't invited, but I read about it in El Reg. Actually 'debate' is perhaps rather a strong word for the event. I gather from the reports that most of the participants seemed to be of the opinion that 'neutrality' is an incomprehensible American phenomena that didn't really apply over here. Basically, most people seemed to be of the opinion that it wasn't broke, so there was no need to fix it. A laudable ambition - especially considering the number of politicians involved in the meeting. Gentlemen (none of the reports I read indicated the presence of any women), I can but agree. Well done.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/20/uk_net_neutrality/
Struggling personal computer makers are unlikely to get much of a sales boost from Microsoft's 'Vista' operating system launched at the start of this year, according to a recent report from Gartner. Apparently, people are not exactly queuing up round the block to upgrade to it. I'm not surprised, Vista doesn't really have anything really compelling in it. Businesses and canny long time users will probably wait for version 3 before buying.
The fact is that most home users already have computers that can handle the applications they want to run, so there's little incentive to buy a new computer just so they can run Vista.
At the same time most of the features that should have made Vista attractive to businesses were stripped out to allow programmers time to concentrate on Digital Restriction Management (DRM) for the big media companies. The lack of business features means it's difficult to make out a business case for moving to Vista, and, in the meantime, big media is showing its gratitude to Microsoft by taking tiny steps towards providing DRM-free downloads...
So little hope for a boost for cash strapped PC makers in the near future.
http://www.physorg.com/news93618560.html
And talking of DRM, Deutsche Telekom's Musicload downloading service recently reported that problems associated with DRM are responsible for three in four of its support calls. The report not only took the time to have a go at the big media's obsession with DRM, but also pointed out that artists who have dropped DRM have enjoyed a 40% increase in sales since last December. That's pretty impressive; presumably someone in the fossilized music business will eventually notice it - but don't hold your breath!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/20/musicload_drm_problems/
As for not holding you breath... Those of you approaching retirement age will recall that when you were knee high to a grasshopper you first heard about SCO's claim that IBM had infringed SCO's copyright by importing a million line of code into Linux. Well your wait to see what is involved is nearly over.
It seems that SCO have finally identified a grand total of 326 lines of code out of the nearly three quarters of a million line of IBM's GPL'd code in the Linux kernel.
In 2003 SCO's CEO Darl McBride publicly declared that SCO had a 'mountain of evidence'. Looks more like a molehill of evidence to me. And that's not all, of the 326 lines most are comments (explanations of what the code is supposed to be doing), header files, and other statements that IBM maintain aren't eligible for copyright protection.
I don't think this is going to run for very much longer!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/sco_evidence_mountain/
Do you do regular backups? Yes? Well done! Now, when was the last time you checked that the backup worked?
You'd be surprised how many people make backups and never check that they work properly, and this week there was a tale of woe from the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work a technician accidentally deleted all the applicant information for a US$38 billion account. And that's not all; our intrepid techie then went on to format the backup disk as well.
No one panicked - there still remained the backup tapes.
The tape vaults were opened - cue creaky door sound a la Munsters - and the backup tapes for the account retrieved - only to discover that the tapes were completely unreadable... Nine months worth of information, 800,000 electronic images for recipients of the Alaska Permanent Fund down the digital drain, and all because no one had checked that the backup tapes were usable.
So the moral of this story is that just doing backups is no good unless you make sure that you can use the backup to restore your data.
And the Alaska Permanent Fund? Well, in the event they were lucky. The data that was lost was originally taken from paper forms which had been put into storage. Three hundred boxes of data had to be re-entered into the system. Lots of overtime, lots of duplicated work, and even that wouldn't have worked if the system had been in use for long enough to have had a direct on-line, paperless entry system for users.
http://www.physorg.com/news93596469.html
Scanner: Other stories
Fast, high quality and cheap inkjet printer could rock industry
http://www.physorg.com/news93863377.html
Unwanted Wireless Signals Bounce Off Special Paint
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001494
Privacy for Internet names in the Whois database moves closer
http://www.physorg.com/news93629730.html
Dutch FOI disclosures reveal the odd business of e-voting
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/foi_dutch/
Manufacturers fixed video tape prices, claims EU
http://www.physorg.com/news93621086.html
Computing pioneer John Backus dies
http://www.physorg.com/news93618179.html
DRAM prices continue to plummet
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/e5gM0FypUC0FrK0E8Ad0E7
Consortium formed to develop end-to-end specification for IPTV
http://www.physorg.com/news93624476.html
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barbara, Fi and DJ for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
25 March 2007
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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