Monday, March 17, 2003

In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients. A new genetic study underlines the extreme antiquity of a special group of languages that may be part of the ancestral human mother tongue. By Nicholas Wade. [New York Times: Science] 8:33:14 PM    comment []

Hollywood Investor Buys KirchMedia TV Unit. The Kirch media group agreed to sell its television assets to Haim Saban, who made his fortune by popularizing Japanese cartoons. By Mark Landler. [New York Times: Business] 8:23:36 PM    comment []

Technology replaces community in protests. Knight Ridder has a nice article about Technology and protests. The article asks if an electronic revolution has some limitations? It notes the concern some veteran organizers have about a virtual antiwar movement that caters to the elite and creates lazy activists, and wonders if these virtual protesters will balk at the face-to-face recruitment needed to sustain a long-term peace effort. Howard is quoted: [Smart Mobs] 5:12:20 PM    comment []

Eszter makes a nice point about a New York Times piece: in Networks by networks, she notes that the researchers discussed in the Times story were brought together by (an)other network(s) -- a point that goes well beyond the story. But then, Eszter's a sociologist, after all. She's supposed to notice these things. 3:00:39 PM    comment []

("Time" below -- the having-good-thoughts thing -- should be "Tim". My apologies to both.) (Later: fixed.) 3:00:36 PM    comment []

Tim has some good thoughts, begging the people who represent us: We cannot win alone. Not against tyranny. Because tyranny is a cage built by the prisoners themselves, brick by brick, and we cannot win if there is a general will in the world to make or tolerate such cages. We cannot win alone. We need people of good will everywhere to join us, and believe in us, and hold us close in their hearts and desires, to want the dream of freedom that we can embody. Our guns are at best only the key that unlocks the door: they will not help us be at home once we cross the threshold. There are people of good will waiting to join us. They will not unless we join them. Remember what the American revolutionaries said in rejecting the tyranny of an overseas monarchy: no taxation without representation. No governance without representation. Listen to all the people in whose name you now act, and whose future you now shape, both here and abroad. Make this their struggle, our struggle, not just yours. 2:00:23 PM    comment []

Very good discussion of the recently announced SSL Protocol Flaw, by Bruce Schneier, in Crypto-Gram. This is a real attack, and a good scientific result, but it's not applicable to most SSL users. This is true in part because of technical facts about the flaw as against most every real world implementation of SSL, but probably more significantly because (as Schneier told Reuters) Nobody bothers eavesdropping on the communications while it is in transit. 2:00:20 PM    comment []

Cyber terrorism 'overhyped', by Mark Ward, BBC News Online. Panel members [at CeBIT] said companies faced far more serious threats from ordinary criminals, fraudsters and pranksters than they did from technology-literate terrorists. 1:00:11 PM    comment []

Inkwell.vue, on The Well, is now featuring A conversation with David Weinberger: How is technology changing the way employees, partners and customers are putting themselves together, and how is that changing the basics of business? Dr. David Weinberger, offers his insights in his latest book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined. David has been hailed by The Wall Street Journal as a "marketing guru." He's a frequent commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. He is also the co-author of the bestselling The Cluetrain Manifesto. He's written for the "Fortune 500" of business and tech journals, including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe and Wired. He was a philosophy professor for six years, a comedy writer for Woody Allen for seven years, and a humor columnist for Oregon's major daily newspaper. Visitors welcome to follow along. Not so expensive, really, if you were to want to sign on and join the fun. 10:59:56 AM    comment []

Summary of HIPAA Regulations (the HIPAA Consensus Research Project from SANS -- thanks to Bruce Schneier for the pointer). 10:59:51 AM    comment []

Schoolgirl turns tables on email credit card fraudster, by John Leyden, The Register. The West Bridgford schoolgirl sent him a quiz - much like those that appear in any teen magazine - saying she wanted to get to know him better. Her questions included asking him his favourite colour, his favourite pop group... and then "what's your name?". When 15-year-old Edgar replied back with a full list of answers - even volunteering his mobile phone number - little did he suspect the game would soon be up. . . . I really wanted to get him for what he had done, said Danielle, now 15, told the paper. [sic] . . . Father-of-four Mr Athi, a computer engineer from the West Bridgford area of Nottingham, said: Edgar lived in two worlds. In one he was this devious hacker stealing from people. And in the other he was living his normal childhood meeting people on the Internet. 9:59:46 AM    comment []

The Kids Are All Right -- Young People and News: A Conversation (Columbia Journalism Review) Jon Stewart is not a journalist, but he plays one on TV. Stewart is the anchor and lead writer for The Daily Show, the mostly satirical program on Comedy Central. Stewart plays with the news in a way that has captured the attention of young people. Robert Love is a magazine journalist who, before he left it in June, spent twenty years at Rolling Stone, working with writers from Hunter S. Thompson to William Greider to Eric Schlosser. CJR asked the two of them to get together and talk about the connection — or lack of connection — between young people and the news. The following is an edited version of that conversation. They spoke in Stewart’s office, cluttered with dozens of newspapers and magazines that Stewart says he uses “for kindling.” 9:59:42 AM    comment []

Privacy Advocates Increase Efforts to Restrict Banks' Data Sharing. Privacy advocates are stepping up an effort to require California's banks to get consumers' permission before sharing or selling their financial data. By Adam Clymer. [New York Times: Technology] 7:13:17 AM    comment []

Pumping Life Into the Pay Phone. A pilot program in Canada is converting the telephone booth into a wireless Internet access point. Meanwhile, a Chinese company is developing public cell-phone charging stations that resemble pay phones. What does that leave for the humble pay phone? By Elisa Batista. [Wired News] See also this earlier coverage about mobile-phones-as-home-phones here at A blog doesn't need a clever name, or coverage from t'otherblog: Hive mind, from February, 2001, and A digitally divided life, from 2000, both on pay phones in particular. 7:07:39 AM    comment []