Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Bloggers Are Missing in Action as Ketchum Tests the Conscience of PR. "Maybe this is the way things are done all the time in PR today. It's one of the most plausible explanations we have for the Kethchum contract, the apparent fraudulence of which is roughly parallel to the memos in the Dan Rather case." [PressThink] 8:50:23 PM    comment []

TSA's list of items you can and can't take on a plane [bOing bOing] 6:09:12 PM    comment []

Iran, Calling Bush's Words 'Threats,' Says It Is Not Intimidated. The reaction came a day after President Bush refused to rule out military action against Iran if it continues to pursue nuclear weapons. By NAZILA FATHI. [NYT > International] 6:09:06 PM    comment []

Australian company takes blame for Panix domain hijack, (Computerworld New Zealand) An Australian company that manages internet domain name registrations acknowledged that it was partially responsible for a web domain hijacking that left Public Access Networks (Panix), a New York internet hosting company, without an internet address . . . . 10:34:25 AM    comment []

Hacker threat to Apple's iTunes Users of Apple's music jukebox iTunes need to update the software to avoid a potential security threat. Hackers can build malicious playlist files which could crash the program and let them seize control of the computer by inserting Trojan code. A new version of iTunes is now available from the Apple website which solves the problem. Security firm iDefence, which notified users of the problem, recommended that users upgrade to iTunes version 4.7.1. The problem affects all users of iTunes - Windows and Mac OS - running versions 4.7 and earlier. Users can automatically upgrade iTunes by opening the "look for updates" window in the program. The security firm says users should avoid clicking on or accessing playlist files - which have the file extension of .pls or .m3u - which have come from unknown sources. 10:34:21 AM    comment []

It's Official: Google moves to block Comment Spam. A post to the Google Weblog has confirmed earlier rumours that it has adopted the rel="nofollow” tag that will see the effectiveness of comment spam diminish as it is adopted by major blogging tools. When Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on links, in this case from the comment section of blogs, those links won’t get any credit when they rank websites in their search results, and the spammers will have lost their main incentive to spam blogs. On board include SixApart, SixApart LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, Flickr, Buzznet, Scripting News and Blosxom. (And add Yahoo and MSN to the list. -kc.) [unmediated] 7:08:34 AM    comment []

How much would a 1960 dollar be worth today?. Comparing a dollar then to a dollar now. Mark Frauenfelder reports in Boing Boing on research into a question I and others I know have often wondered about, which is "how much specific sums of money from the old days would be worth today."  Presented with the question, "How much is $100 from 1960 worth today?, a "nice calculator at the Economic History Services site" gives a variety of answers:   In 2003, $100.00 from 1960 is worth: $621.65 using the Consumer Price Index $502.09 using the GDP deflator $761.26 using the unskilled wage $1,297.73 using the GDP per capita $2,086.61 using the relative share of GDP. [Subdued Citizen] 7:07:26 AM    comment []

Global justice. I’m about to start teaching a new course on global justice. The course starts by looking at some general theoretical issues around justice and then moves on to look at some recent attempts to extend thinking about justice to the global sphere. I’m also going to accompany this with a blog which will basically be an opportunity to point to relevant stuff elsewhere on the web as well as being a course noticeboard. The reading list is here and the blog (currently empty) is here . [Crooked Timber] 7:07:00 AM    comment []

FBI Tosses Carnivore to the Dogs. The bureau abandons its controversial, customized snooping software in favor of ISP-initiated internet wiretaps and commercial applications designed to sift through e-mail and other online communications. [Wired News] 7:06:51 AM    comment []