Monday, December 15, 2003

Wes sez AaronSw has a new page about alternative compensation systems for the music industry (although I only see one system there). Are there any opt-in alternatives, or is that impossible for some reason? [Hack the Planet] 10:01:54 PM    comment []

A Blue Holiday May Contain a Red Herring. Conventional wisdom has it that the season of joy and cheer is a general downer and a disappointment for many. Is it really all that bad? By Richard A. Friedman, M.d.. [New York Times: Science] 8:52:44 PM    comment []

Use the spectrum. This article in Businessweek gives the lowdown on three technologies that are under development.They are Smart antennas which are designed to extend the range of Wi-Fi.Mesh networks which consist of wireless devices that function as hubs that relay signals to their nearest neighbors so that transmissions are efficiently routed to their targets,and Agile radios which scan the airwaves for unused space in order to avoid any signal disruption caused by traffic congestion. Beyond Wi-Fi: A New Wireless Age [Smart Mobs] 8:48:28 PM    comment []

Supreme Court to Hear Cheney Energy Task Force Case. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would hear Vice President Dick Cheney's case for keeping his energy task force papers secret. By Reuters. [New York Times: Business] 5:36:31 PM    comment []

Check Point to buy Zone Labs for $205 million. Looking to diversify, firewall maker Check Point Software Technologies plans to acquire the maker of security software for desktops. [CNET News.com - Front Door] 5:32:16 PM    comment []

Bruce Schneier, in today's CRYPTO-GRAM, on electronic voting, with a mess o' links: My suggestion is simple, and it's one echoed by many computer security researchers. All computerized voting machines need a paper audit trail. Build any computerized machine you want. Have it work any way you want. The voter votes on it, and when he's done the machine prints out a paper receipt, much like an ATM does. The receipt is the voter's real ballot. He looks it over, and then drops it into a ballot box. The ballot box contains the official votes, which are used for any recount. The voting machine has the quick initial tally. This system isn't perfect, and doesn't address many security issues surrounding voting. It's still possible to deny individuals the right to vote, stuff machines and ballot boxes with pre-cast votes, lose machines and ballot boxes, intimidate voters, etc. Computerized machines don't make voting completely secure, but machines with paper audit trails prevent all sorts of new avenues of error and fraud. CRS Report on Electronic Voting: http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf Voting resource pages: http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/ http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/ http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ http://electioncentral.blog-city.com/index.cfm Bills in U.S. Congress to force auditable balloting: http://graham.senate.gov/pr120903.html http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?idY96 Virginia story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&content Id¦291-2003Nov5 or http://tinyurl.com/z9uc Indiana story: http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/089939-1241-014.html Nevada story: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2003/dec/10/515999082. html or http://tinyurl.com/z9ud California Secretary of State statement on e-voting paper trail requirement: http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf Maryland story: http://www.gazette.net/200350/montgomerycty/state/191617-1.html More opinions: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20031204.html http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/198 http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/7837475p-8778055c.html Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,61298,00.html http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr2239.html My older essays on this topic: http://www.schneier.com./crypto-gram-0012.html#1 http://www.schneier.com./crypto-gram-0102.html#10 5:27:44 PM    comment []

Biculturalism What are the cultural differences between Unix and Windows programmers? There are many details and subtleties, but for the most part it comes down to one thing: Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers. (Joel's review of this month's book of the month, Eric S. Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming) 4:27:34 PM    comment []

Get your Kid's Lit on! The rise of political books for children. By Christopher Dreher, Boston Globe. For conservative families on your shopping list, there's The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature (ISI), with stories by such canonical writers as Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, and Louisa May Alcott. William F. Buckley Jr. himself selected the stories from his magazine's collection of back issues of St. Nicholas Magazine, a popular turn-of-the-century periodical ''for Young Folks.'' More than 10,000 copies of ''Treasury'' have been sold so far to National Review subscribers. . . . On the left-hand side of the bookshelf is Red Rattle Books, the new imprint of the Brooklyn-based Soft Skull Press, publisher of such titles as ''Bomb the Suburbs'' and ''Get Your War On.'' Red Rattle's premiere title, The Saddest Little Robot by Brian Gage, is a futuristic fable about a maladjusted robot who struggles to free the working robots from the greedy upper echelon that controls their society. A forthcoming book, provisionally titled ''Hey, Kidz! Buy this Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Marketing Tactics and Artistic Activism for Short People,'' advises children and parents on how to counter the wiles of commercialism. We felt there needed to be more subversive children's books, says publisher Richard Nash, books that undermine the forces that make kids conform, though one thing we're trying to avoid is to create a new conformity. He continues, Kids know when they're getting manipulated. `Heather Has Two Mommies': they see right through that stuff. I think it's more valuable to give children the critical tools and show them how to use them. If 10 percent end up being rabid Republicans, well, that's just life. Also talks about the ''cosmopolitan spirit'' of New York Review Books, with ''Jenny and the Cat Club,'' (1973, ''an urbane Greenwich Village feline'') and ''The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily,'' (1947). Warning: includes mention of santorum. 2:27:15 PM    comment []

Dear Santa: I don't mind telling you, I'm seeing visions of books instead of sugarplums. And it feels as if they're dancing on my head, not in it. Patti Thorn's wish list, in the Rocky Mountain News. 12:26:55 PM    comment []

Iran's president defends web contro: Iran's policy of blocking access to certain websites has been defended by the country's authorities at the UN digital summit. By Aaron Scullion, BBC News Online. Speaking in Geneva, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami insisted that the country only blocks access to 240 "pornographic and immoral" websites. He said the ban only applies to sites that are incompatible with Islam, and a government official added that all political sites are free. . . . We are exerting greater control over pornographic and immoral websites that are not compatible with Islam, President Khatami said. But we are not censoring criticism. Criticism is OK. Even political websites that are openly opposed to the Iranian Government ... are available to the Iranian people. President Khatami added that Western broadcasters, such as the BBC, would not be blocked in Iran. . . . Freedom of expression and freedom of thought are the preconditions of a democratic society. But freedom does not mean chaos [Khatami said]. 10:26:37 AM    comment []

Using a Bicycle to Uplink on a Downtown Platform. A teacher is trying to get the tenuous link for the Internet deep in the New York City subway system. By David F. Gallagher. [New York Times: Business] 7:33:08 AM    comment []

When books kill. Movies and video games get blamed for acts of senseless violence all the time. But some famous murderers got their ideas from literature. [Salon Headlines] 7:30:24 AM    comment []

Vaporware: A Call for Submissions. Every year, technology companies talk up products just about to hit store shelves. And every year, a bunch of them fail to appear. It's that time again: Send us your nominees for Wired News' annual Vaporware Awards. By the Vaporware Team. [Wired News] (There's also previous coverage here at A blog doesn't need a clever name.) 7:26:00 AM    comment []