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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future." (Lumbee)
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
02:31PM
Unique Readers:
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Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Saturday, August 30, 2003 |  |
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30 Aug 2003 @ 10:20
MICROSOFT WINDOWS: INSECURE BY DESIGN
By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 24, 2003;
Page F07
Between the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus, it's been a long two weeks for Windows users. But nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to lose a moment of sleep over these outbreaks -- just like in earlier "malware" epidemics.
This is not a coincidence.
The usual theory has been that Windows gets all the attacks because almost everybody uses it. But millions of people do use Mac OS X and Linux, a sufficiently big market for plenty of legitimate software developers -- so why do the authors of viruses and worms rarely take aim at either system?
Even if that changed, Windows would still be an easier target. In its default setup, Windows XP on the Internet amounts to a car parked in a bad part of town, with the doors unlocked, the key in the ignition and a Post-It note on the dashboard saying, "Please don't steal this."
Not opening strange e-mail attachments helps to keep Windows secure (not to mention it's plain common sense), but it isn't enough.
The vulnerabilities built in: Security starts with closing doors that don't need to be open. On a PC, these doors are called "ports" -- channels to the Internet reserved for specific tasks, such as publishing a Web page.
These ports are what network worms like Blaster crawl in through, exploiting bugs in an operating system to implant themselves. (Viruses can't move on their own and need other mechanisms, such as e-mail or floppy disks, to spread.) It's canonical among security experts that unneeded ports should be closed.
Windows XP Home Edition, however, ships with five ports open, behind which run "services" that serve no purpose except on a computer network.
"Messenger Service," for instance, is designed to listen for alerts sent out by a network's owner, but on a home computer all it does is receive ads broadcast by spammers. The "Remote Procedure Call" feature exploited by Blaster is, to quote a Microsoft advisory, "not intended to be used in hostile environments such as the Internet."
Jeff Jones, Microsoft's senior director for "trustworthy computing," said the company was heeding user requests when XP was designed: "What customers were demanding was network compatibility, application compatibility."
But they weren't asking for easily cracked PCs either. Now, Jones said, Microsoft believes it's better to leave ports shut until users open the ones they need. But any change to this dangerous default configuration will only come in some future update.
In comparison, Mac OS X ships with zero ports open to the Internet.
The firewall that's down: A firewall provides further defense against worms, rejecting dangerous Internet traffic.
Windows XP includes basic firewall software (it doesn't monitor outgoing connections), but it's inactive unless you use its "wizard" software to set up a broadband connection. Turning it on is a five-step task in Microsoft's directions (www.microsoft.com/protect) that must be repeated for every Internet connection on a PC.
Mac OS X's firewall isn't enabled by default either, but it's much simpler to enable. Red Hat Linux is better yet: Its firewall is on from the start.
The patches that aren't downloaded: Windows is better than most operating systems at easing the drudgery of staying on top of patches and bug fixes, since it can automatically download them. A PC kept current with Microsoft's security updates would have survived this week unscathed.
But hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Windows systems still got Blasted, even though the patch to stop this worm was released weeks ago.
Part of this is users' fault. "Critical updates" are called that for a reason, and it's foolish to ignore them. (The same goes for not installing and updating anti-virus software.)
The chance of a patch wrecking Windows is dwarfed by the odds that an unpatched PC will get hit. And for those saying they don't trust Microsoft to fix their systems, I have one question: If you don't trust this company, why did you give it your money?
Microsoft, however, must share blame, too. Windows XP's pop-up invitations to use Windows Update must compete for attention with all of XP's other, less important nags -- get a Passport account, take a tour of XP, hide unused desktop icons, blah, blah, blah.
Microsoft's critical updates also are absent from retail copies of Windows XP, forcing buyers into lengthy Windows Update sessions to get the fixes since last year's Service Pack 1 upgrade. At least the version of XP provided to PC manufacturers is refreshed once a quarter or so -- and Microsoft says it's working to shorten this lag.
The lack of any limit to damage: Windows XP, by default, provides unrestricted, "administrator" access to a computer. This sounds like a good thing but is not, because any program, worms and viruses included, also has unrestricted access.
Yet administrator mode is the only realistic choice: XP Home's "limited account," the only other option, doesn't even let you adjust a PC's clock.
Mac OS X and Linux get this right: Users get broad rights, but critical system tasks require entering a password. If, for instance, a virus wants to install a "backdoor" for further intrusions, you'll have to authorize it. This fail-safe isn't immune to user gullibility and still allows the total loss or theft of your data, but it beats Windows' anything-goes approach.
Because Microsoft blew off security concerns for so long, millions of PCs remain unpatched, ready for the next Windows-transmitted disease. Microsoft needs to do more than order up another round of "Protect Your PC" ads.
Here's a modest proposal: Microsoft should use some of its $49 billion hoard to mail an update CD to anybody who wants one. At $3 a pop (a liberal estimate), it could ship a disc to every human being on Earth -- and still have $30 billion in the bank. More >
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| Friday, August 22, 2003 | |
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 22 Aug 2003 @ 11:17
Letecia sent me that some sent to her.
With gasoline now well over $2.00 I'm happy to note, I've studied the car market pretty well and I have some suggestions for fuel efficient cars. This is a great time of year to buy as the dealers are trying to get rid of last year's inventory. Last year at this time I got a Honda Civic EX for $14,888, $16,000 out the door with mats. Real world mileage averages 32 mpg for me, CR rates it 29 mpg overall average, EPA rates it 32/38. You'll need to shop around, mostly online with LA dealerships to get a price that good.
Small sedan: My favorite choice is the Honda Civic HX, rated 36/44 mpg with a manual transmission, probably about the same with the CVT automatic. All the other Civics get about 32/38 but the EX has a much better engine than the DX and LX, with 10 more hp but still the same mileage. There's a $2,000 bump between models. Don't bother to consider the Civic hybrid. Civics have excellent resale value, depreciating only about $1,000 per year after the first year. In my circumstances I estimate the Civic EX costs a total of around 23 cents/ mile to drive including all costs. I'm not crazy about owning the two passenger Insight, though CR puts its mileage at 51 in overall driving. Corolla is comparable to the Civic. Toyota's $10,000 Echo is roundly dissed as junky and underequipped but it does get a real world average of 38 mpg in CR tests, the best of all conventional cars other than stinky diesels, better than Civic Hybrid. The Prius is redesigned this year as a midsized fast back hatchback with good cargo space and even better mileage that should average around 45 mpg overall. However, I wouldn't get one personally, as they are considerably more expensive than conventional cars and estimates on replacing the battery at roughly 100k miles runs around $3,000 currently. There's a cost benefit trade off between the nickel battery and all the tech and the improved mileage that doesn't quite cut it in my analysis. That's a big topic, I know, with political ramifications. If you regularly need a larger car the Toyota Matix or Pontiac Vibe, nearly identical, are rated 28/33. The back seat is extremely low and though the cargo space is 160% or so of a Civic, you'd have to block your rear view to use up the space. Ford is planning a hybrid Escape SUV, but the same concerns about hybrid tech would bother me. Ford Focus Wagon is huge and should average about 24 mpg overall, but it is not recommended due to reliability concerns. Most small wagons get pretty bad mileage. Even the tiny Mazda Protege wagon only averages about 23. Another good plan is to get the smaller car (or no car) and to rent a larger one when needed, like for family vacations. Enterprise has great weekend prices--cheaper than owning. And Home Depot rents out a flatbed for $15 for an hour and a half, no other charges, I think, if you do occasional building and stuff. But, of course, the better plan is to live close to work, and to walk, bike, carpool or bus. Take all means to drive fewer miles. Make those miles car-mandatory miles. Anyway, this list is not comprehensive. Check edmunds.com and consumerreports.org. You might get a Mini Cooper and still keep your status as an enviro. Don't get a diesel.
Happy biking. More >
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| Tuesday, August 19, 2003 | |
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 19 Aug 2003 @ 08:15
Nanoparticles Keep Brain Cells Alive
Dwayne Hunter
Betterhumans Staff
Friday, August 15, 2003, 8:46:55 PM CT
Nanoparticles originally developed for industry have an unexpected effect: They triple or even quadruple the life of rat brain cells, suggesting that they could help extend human lifespan and decrease age-related health problems.
It has been predicted that nanotechnology will revolutionize modern medicine, through such things as new materials that are more easily absorbed by human cells.
Discovering the health effects of one such material, a nano-oxide particle, involved a collaboration between a molecular biologist and a nanoscientist at the University of Central Florida.
Antioxidant nanotechnology
The two researchers are Beverly Rzigalinski, an assistant molecular biology professor, and Sudipta Seal, an associate engineering professor.
Rzigalinski focuses on how brain cells "talk" to each other and most recently has been focusing on microglia -- specialized cells that respond to brain injury and initiate a response to either repair or destroy damaged neurons.
Seal creates nanomaterials and recently developed a process for engineering particles on a nanoscale to be more efficient in industrial applications.
In response to publicity surrounding antioxidants and their antiaging properties, Rzigalinski decided to introduce some of Seal's particles to the brain cells of rats.
"In culture, rat brain cells usually live about three weeks," Rzigalinski said. "The cells exposed to the engineered nanoparticles lived three to four times longer."
Longer life
Rzigalinski repeated the experiment multiple times to confirm the results, and found that cells exposed to a single dose of engineered nano-oxide particles routinely outlived untreated cells by three to four times.
Next, Rzigalinski explored the quality of the aged neurons and found they were signaling or "talking" to each other in the same manner as their youthful counterparts.
"This shows there is a potential not just to extend the lifespan but to preserve function," says Rzigalinski.
Free radicals
The particles appear to address free radical damage, thought to be a major component of aging.
They also appear to regenerate once they penetrate a cell, which if true means that one dose could provide therapeutic effects indefinitely.
Based on their results, Rzigalinski and Seal have received US$1.4 million from the US National Institute on Aging to further study the reaction as well as possible future applications.
Rzigalinski first introduced the collaboration to her colleagues at the Nature Biotechnology symposium in Miami earlier this year.
She has also submitted an abstract of the work to the National and International Neurotrauma Symposium and the Society for Neuroscience.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2003 | |
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 17 Aug 2003 @ 21:45
My good friend Greg wrote this to me.
Hi all,
I've been too busy lately to barrage everybody with emails (lucky you), but the recent blackouts struck just a little too close to home, and brought back memories of the both the blackouts (holding the ratepayers effectively hostage) out here in California two Summers ago, as well as more distant disconcerting memories of my time working at Perry Nuke Plant in the early 80's.
You must consider that the storyline being fed to the news media pointing blame at transmission stations outside Cleveland are DIVERSIONS FROM THE TRUTH, and I portend that these potential lies are designed as a diversion from a MUCH larger problem that points to 'source incidents' that occurred further 'up line'.
Nuke Plant back in the early 80's - one incident in which a coworker and I threatened to go to the Plain Dealer about, and was accordingly threatened by upper management. I was less concerned about my mesely $6/hr job than OTHER more serious things. But this is all ancient history.>
Some things you might consider in the back of your mind while listening to the news spin on nightly news (if you even bother watching the news anymore) are:
1) Cascades don't occur in less than 10 seconds. This was a 800 MWatt SURGE flowing back through the grid!! The systems are designed to send alarms, trigger ISOLATED outages, or reroute power. With the current investigations pointing to transmission lines near Cleveland, it is OVERLOOKED that transmission lines don't CAUSE outages, they REACT to surges, bad commands from computerized networks, or human error (amongst other related things).
While it's no doubt true that one critical factor/vulnerability is the aging electrical grid, these systems DO have safeguards in place - especially since many of them SUPPOSEDLY were upgraded in lieu of the potential Y2K problem (which could have resembled events such as what occurred last Thursday only on a much larger scale internationally).
2) THe MSBlaster worm/virus that has reaked havoc on major networks at the Federal Reserve, etc. over the last few weeks COULD have played a factor in shutting down systems (like flipping a switch), but NOT without a coordinated attack - and again, the shutdowns would've most likely been sequential - taking closer to a few minutes rather than 10 seconds
3) The recent heatwave factor is only a consideration if, again, there were NO triggers, alarms, etc. AND again, wouldn't cause a 10-second collapse of the grid.
Below are a couple recent articles that give a hint (I believe) as to an underlying cause of last weeks' blackout. Details abound that point to a 'human factor' in this event. You will NOT hear about this little detail on the news, because your eyes will be diverted by positional politicians, finger-pointing at agencies, etc.
YOU will possibly never know what happened, and yet YOU will end up having to pay for this fiasco. In California, electric rates went up 800%, Enron swooped in and played mafioso tactics with the various electric companies (which were now vulnerable due to deragulation), Gov. Grey Davis spent the state surplus in THREE WEEKS to PAY OFF the debt to electricity brokers, and the taxpayer citizen was effectively held hostage, and ended up paying for all this greed and corruption.
Meanwhile, regular people leading regular lives are NEVER told (or think) to store provisions and make ANY preparations for such events, while Rumsfeld puts cameras in school restrooms. Immediately I wonder where the priorities truly are.
In a nutshell, it is my (and MANY others') opinion that the US is under economic (terrorist) attack from various sources - mostly from offshore with the support of onshore traitors getting kickbacks - in a very intricate, planned, and relatively slow-motion attack.
Go ahead and call me paranoid, or say 'oh, that's just Greg talking', but I recommend you consider NOT taking the face-value reality that is being handed to you via the bought-and-paid-for media, and ignore the boogie-men mentality portrayed by 'President' Bush, and keep putting the pieces together.
http://www.nonuclear.net/wealmostlostohio.htm
http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=257
** What Went Wrong: through the transmission lines—underground and overhead cables. That wasn’t so unusual. A power plant must have gone down. But seconds later, something happened that he’d never seen be-fore. The 800-megawatt surge reversed course and began hurtling back toward New York, like some giant ectoplasmic monster on a rampage.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/953562.asp#BODY More >
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17 Aug 2003 @ 17:33
August 2003, Issue 60
Published by Sonaris Consulting, Felix Bopp, Amsterdam, The Netherlands[formerly Music for New Media Newsletter]
You can find the online version at: [link]
Content
SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS:
The Millipede, Mystery of Musical Harmony
FOR THE BLIND AND DEAF:
The Clerc Center catalog, The Sonic Pathfinder
EXTRA-AUDIONARY
Toy Symphony
Toyland: Photon, Totally Absurd Inventions
FOR MUSICIANS
FinalScratch, Har-Bal
Hot developments: The Future Store
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SCIENCTIFIC FINDINGS
The Millipede: A future AFM-based data storage system
IBM, Zurich Research Laboratory: "Will micro- and nanomechanical systems be the building blocks of tomorrow's storage technologies? Our "Millipede" concept suggests the feasibility of a high-density data storage system based on micromechanical components borrowed from atomic force microscopy (AFM): tiny depressions melted by an AFM tip into a polymer medium represent stored data bits that can then be read by the same tip. This thermomechanical storage technique is capable of achieving data densities in the hundreds of Gb/in² range, well beyond the expected limits for magnetic recording (60–70 Gb/in²).
Whereas the readback rate of an individual probe is limited, high data rates can be achieved through the use of massive parallelism: in our Millipede system concept, the read/write head consists of an array of more than 1000 thermomechanical probes, fabricated on a single silicon chip using VLSI microfabrication techniques, which operate simultaneously."
[link]
Solving the Mystery of Musical Harmony: Insights from a Study of Speech
For over two thousand years, musicians and scientists have puzzled over why some combinations of musical tones played together sound more harmonious than others. Now, Duke University Medical Center perception scientists David Schwartz, Ph.D., Catherine Howe, M.D., and Dale Purves, M.D., have presented evidence that variation in the relative harmoniousness, or "consonance," of different tone combinations arises from people's exposure to the acoustical characteristics of speech sounds.
In their Journal of Neuroscience paper, the neurobiologists present a statistical analysis of the patterns of frequency and amplitude in human speech sounds, based on a collection of recorded utterances spoken by more than 500 people. They found that the points at which sound energy is concentrated in the speech spectrum predict the chromatic scale - the scale represented by the keys on a piano keyboard. Moreover, the difference in the amount of sound energy concentrated at these points predicts the relative consonance of different chromatic scale tone combinations.
These results suggest that certain pairs of tones sound more harmonious than others because they are physically similar to the patterns of sound energy most familiar to human listeners from their exposure to speech, said the researchers.
(Source: Dukemed News)
FOR THE BLIND AND DEAF
The Clerc Center catalog
The Clerc Center catalog offers a comprehensive listing of educational products and services available from the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. These products are valuable resources for educators and parents as well as other professionals working with deaf and hard of hearing children. They are also good sources of information for the general public.
[link]
The Sonic Pathfinder
The Sonic Pathfinder has evolved out of the work of the Blind Mobility Research Unit at Nottingham University, England. It is the product of a research program dedicated to achieving an understanding of mobility and the information requirements of the independent blind traveler. The Sonic Pathfinder embodies many of the findings of the Nottingham program; the emphasis is on achieving a simple display. For instance, the device does not attempt to provide the user with a sonic picture of the visual world. Instead it is selective; it displays only that information, which is of immediate practical interest to the moving pedestrian. The device uses an auditory display but one which has been chosen so that it does not mask the user's ability to hear, and make use of, environmental sounds. The display comprises the notes of a musical scale, which make a familiar tonal progression as the user approaches an object.
[link]
EXTRA-AUDIONAY
Toy Symphony
With Toy Symphony, Tod Machover and his team at the MIT Media Lab strive to bridge the gap between professional musicians and children, as well as between audience and performers. This three year project, combining children, virtuosic performers like violinist Joshua Bell and conductor Kent Nagano, composers and symphony orchestras around the world, is intended to radically alter how children are introduced to music, serving to redefine the relationship between professional musicians and young people.
Through the use of innovative technologies to create musical instruments and compositional tools designed for an individual of any skill level, as well as weeklong workshops culminating in an integrated performance with children and professional musicians, Toy Symphony is designed as an utterly inclusive experience, one that will infuse the orchestra with youthful and enthusiastic collaborators, and the instruments, sounds, and ideas of the 21st century.
"My goal," Machover said, "was to put together a suite of musical activities that children can do with other children and with grown-ups and that could end up in a concert."
Beatbugs are hand-held percussive instruments which allow the creation, manipulation and sharing of rhythmic motives through a simple interface. When multiple Beatbugs are connected in a network, players can share and develop rhythmic patterns to form larger scale compositions. The players themselves choose between manipulating existing motives and entering their own material, in essence creating a dynamic and collaborative music that is truly more than the sum of its parts.
Music Shapers are soft, squeezable instruments, which allow players to mold, transform, and explore musical material and compositions. Using capacitive sensing and conductive embroidery to measure the squeezing gesture, Music Shapers allow children access to high-level musical parameters such as contour, timbre, density and structure, rarely accessible through traditional musical instruments or pedagogy except after many years of study and mastery. The effect is that of "conducting" musical phrases and forms in a very tactile, visceral and enjoyable way.
[link]
TOYLAND
Photon
Photon was established in 2001 by Hidenori Watanave with the aim of creating interactive games with a focus on non-violence. Photon consists of a team of media artists, computer graphics creators, musicians and game planners.
RhythmEngine (REg) is a real time spatial communication / session tool using sound and visual effects over the Internet. Users navigate in a world of orbiting planets and avatars that meet and interact. The way to establish a dialogue is to make 'physical' contact with other fluctuating avatars. Upon contact, sounds and letters are emitted. These 'sound-signs' remain as traces that reflect the relationship between conversing entities. Photon emphasise that this type of environment favours a non-simultaneous communication style, quite different from the current trend of instant text messaging. More than 10,000 users per day have been recorded.
[link]
Totally Absurd Inventions
An example:
12 Gauge Golf Club US Patent 4,176,537* Issued / 1979
"Golf game got you down? Now you can have explosive drives every time with the 12 Gauge Golf Club! This special woody features a barrel, muzzle and a trap door in the rear for loading your explosive charge. The firing pin is aligned with the clubs sweet spot for blasting your balls into oblivion (careful)."
[link]
FOR MUSICIANS
FinalScratch
FinalScratch is a bridge for the professional and home DJ to enter and control the digital world. By using any standard turntable/mixer setup, a DJ can now manipulate digital music the way they have always done it...by hand and by vinyl. DJs can now mix both analog records and digital files the way they have always been accustomed to and prefer.
Just load any digital audio file onto your computer, then pick and choose from your own playlist. Your computer becomes your record box. As well for the professional, save and load any production, remix, or new edit you have created and play it that very moment or take it to gig the same night without the need to cut an acetate or make test pressings.
FinalScratch allows mixing of digital audio files, controlled with any DJ turntable. The FS10K package includes three special vinyl records, the Scratch Amp to connect the computer to your existing turntable/mixer setup, and the Final Scratch software. An FS10K system, which supports 2 turntables, includes the Final Scratch software, the Scratch amp, and 2 FS vinyl records.
The FinalScratch software allows the user to save the audio files in various playlists, called Record Boxes, as well to search and assign the audio files to either turntable. The software provides a visual representation of the music, needle position for each audio file, and remaining time of each audio file.
The vinyl records included in the FinalScratch, which contain digital information, are used to mix digital audio files like MP3, WAV, AIFF, and audio CD. All mixing is done directly from the turntables, including pitch shifting, cuing, spinning up and down, and even scratching. The FinalScratch records can be used in combination with traditional analog records when mixing your set.
[link]
Har-Bal
Har-Bal is a mastering equalization system for Windows systems (95,98,ME, NT, 2000 or XP) that corrects inconsistencies in mixed track sound files.
The software is composed of two parts: a spectrum analysis engine and a high-resolution linear phase digital filter to perform the EQ'ing so there is imperceptible degradation in quality (i.e. noise wise). Har-Bal analyzes a recording, which gives a measure of the average and peak spectrum content (displayed graphically) from which any user can judge the spectral balance. Through a user interface, the software allows you to design a matching digital filter. This differs from conventional approaches in that you no longer need golden ears to judge the problem areas of a particular recording.
The spectrum measurement provides you with an indication of any problems in the recording. Frequencies felt in the body, i.e., low frequencies, with high amplitudes and throbbing, pulsing envelopes can make listeners sick to their stomach...so the expression goes. There definitely seems to some connection with the corrected resonant frequencies of a song that has been harmonically balanced as opposed to mastering.
Har-Bal states that you will no longer need to test your mastered CD in cars, boom boxes, walkmans, etc. The software uses an 8192-point linear phase FIR filter whose characteristics are designed to match and compensate for the average spectrum as closely as possible.
[link]
HOT DEVELOPMENTS
The Future Store
The METRO Group Future Store Initiative is a cooperation project between METRO Group, SAP and Intel as well as other partner companies from the information technology and consumer goods industries. Its objective is to promote innovations in retailing on a national and international level. The initiative shall be understood as a platform for technical and process-related developments and innovations in retailing. Within the METRO Group Future Store Initiative, technologies and technical systems are tested and further developed in practice. In the long run the initiative is aimed at setting standards for retailing that can be implemented on an international scale.
[link]
More >
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| Saturday, August 16, 2003 | |
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 16 Aug 2003 @ 11:50
CNN: 'Explores Possibility that Power Outage is Related to Internet Worm'
It is ridiculous to accept that a lightning strike could knock out the grid, or the transmission system is over stressed. There are many redundant fault, limit and Voltage-Surge Protection safeguards and related instrumentation and switchgear installed at the distribution centers and sub stations along the Power Grid that would have tripped to prevent or otherwise divert such a major outage.
I believe that the outage was caused by the MSblaster, or its mutation, which was besieged upon the respective vulnerability in certain control and monitoring systems (SCADA and otherwise) running MS 2000 or XP, located different points along the Grid. Some of these systems are accessible via the Internet, while others are accessible by POTS dialup, or private Frame relay and dedicated connectivity.
Being an old PLC automation and control hack let me say that there is a very good plausibility that the recent East Coast power outage was due to an attack by an MBlaster variant on the SCADA system at the power plant master terminal, or more likely at several of the remote terminal units "RTU". SCADA runs under Win2000 / XP and the telemetry to the RTU is accessible via the Internet.
From what I recall SCADA based monitoring and control systems were installed at many water / sewer processing, gas and oil processing, and hydro-electric plants.
I also believe that yesterdays flooding of a generator sub- facility in Philadelphia was also due to an MBlaster variant attack on the SCADA or similarly Win 2000 / XP based system.
To make things worst, the Web Interface is MS ActiveX. Now lets see, how can one craft an ActiveX vuln vector into the blaster?
Oh, and for the wardrivers, SCADA can be access via wireless connections on the road? puts a new perspective on sniffing around sewer plants.
It is also reasonable to assume that we could have a similar security threat regarding those system (SCADA and otherwise based on MS 2000 or XP) involved in the control, data acquisition, and maintenance of other critical infrastructure, such as inter/intra state GAS Distribution, Nuclear Plant Monitoring, Water and Sewer Processing, and city Traffic Control. IMO
I think we will see a lot of finger pointing by government agencies, Utilities, and politicians for the Grid outage, until someone confess to the security dilemma and vulnerabilities in the systems which are involved in running this critical infrastructure.
Regardless of whether the Grid outage can be attributed to the blaster or its variant, this is not entirely a Microsoft problem, as it reeks of poor System Security Engineering practiced by the Utility Companies, and associated equipment and technology suppliers.
Nonetheless, the incident will cause lots of money to be earmarked by the US and Canadian Governments, to be spent in an attempt to solve the problem, or more specifically calm the public.
This incident should be fully investigated, and regulations passed to ensure that the Utility companies and their suppliers develop and implement proper safeguards that will help prevent or at least significantly mitigate the effects of such a catastrophe.
Conversely, I do not want to see our Government directly involved in yet another "business", which has such a controlling impact over our individual lives.
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 16 Aug 2003 @ 11:41
Techies see fraud danger in California's touch-screen voting
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- As if California officials didn't have enough to worry about ahead of the bewildering gubernatorial recall vote Oct. 7, computer scientists say shoddy balloting software could bungle the results and expose the election to fraud.
Their worst-case scenario is the accidental deletion or malicious falsification of ballots from the 1.42 million Californians who could vote on electronic touch-screen machines. These voters make up 9.3 percent of the state's 15.3 million registered voters.
The software experts also warn that, if any candidate contests the election, a meaningful recount would prove impossible because four counties -- including two of the largest -- don't provide paper backups to the electronic machines. The other counties still use punch-card machines, optical scanners or other systems that provide physical evidence of votes.
"We should put in the safeguards as soon as possible -- especially in an election that's going to be so complicated and difficult," said David Dill, a computer science professor at Stanford University.
The campaign to get printers and paper receipts included with electronic voting machines gained momentum in July, when a team from Johns Hopkins and Rice universities issued a report criticizing the 33,000 electronic machines already in use nationally that are made by Diebold Election Systems.
Diebold, based in North Canton, Ohio, produced a 27-page rebuttal, accusing researchers of a "multitude of false conclusions." Dozens of elections officials have vouched for the security of Diebold systems since the July 23 report.
Given the prevalence of computerized systems, the criticism is irresponsible, said Mischelle Townsend, registrar of voters in Riverside County, which has 4,250 touch-screens for 650,000 voters.
"The scientists are undermining people's confidence in democracy," Townsend said. "None of the critics is giving any credence to the extensive system of checks and balances that we employ internally."
But even some advocates of electronic voting, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, are backing off their praise in the study's wake. And in Maryland, which has plans to buy $55.6 million worth of Diebold machines, the governor commissioned a private consultant to investigate possible security flaws.
A team led by Avi Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, examined the machines' source code, which a Diebold worker anonymously published on the Internet earlier this year. His conclusion: Any clever 15-year-old could rig Diebold's system, which is based on Microsoft Windows, and vote multiple times.
Rubin also found that "1111" was Diebold's default password identification number for micro- chip-embedded "smartcards" that voting administrators used -- a simple PIN that any hacker might try before moving onto more sophisticated attacks. Rubin added that the lack of a paper trail would make a legitimate re-count impossible.
Silicon Valley scientists say the convoluted recall election, with 135 candidates on the ballot, could bolster their argument.
Peter Neumann, principal scientist at SRI International in Menlo Park, said touch-screens require voters to scroll through more than a dozen screens to look at all candidates. He questioned why such systems lack a search command and said it was "ridiculous" that voting machines in Riverside, Alameda, Plumas and Shasta counties -- principally made by Diebold and Sequoia Voting Systems -- would leave no paper trail.
Brian O'Connor, a vice president at Oakland-based Sequoia, said computerized systems, which allow ballots to be updated until just before polls open, are more flexible and cost-efficient than mechanical systems.
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| Wednesday, August 13, 2003 | |
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 13 Aug 2003 @ 21:01
Postal ID plan creates privacy fears
By Alorie Gilbert
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 12, 2003, 8:09 AM PT
A government report that urges the U.S. Postal Service to create "smart stamps" to track the identity of people who send mail is eliciting concern from privacy advocates.
The report, released last month by the President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service, issued numerous recommendations aimed at reforming the debt-laden agency. One recommendation is that the USPS "aggressively pursue" the development of a so-called intelligent mail system.
Though details remain sketchy, an intelligent mail system would involve using barcodes or special stamps, identifying, at a minimum, the sender, the destination and the class of mail. USPS already offers mail-tracking services to corporate customers. The report proposes a broad expansion of the concept to all mail for national security purposes. It also suggests USPS work with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to develop the system.
Such a system would not only allow the postal service to provide better mail-tracking information to consumers, the report said; it could give law enforcement authorities new investigative tools in the event of a mail-related terrorist attack such as the anthrax-tainted letters that killed five people and sickened more than a dozen others in 2001. The authorities have yet to solve that case.
"Intelligent mail has the potential to improve significantly the security of the nation's mail stream, particularly if the postal service fully explores whether it is feasible to require every piece of mail to include sender identification, in order to better assure its traceability in the event of foul play," the report said.
Privacy watchdogs worry, however, that requiring sender identification for all mail presents serious risks to civil liberties.
"We have a long history in this country of anonymous political speech," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Any change that removes anonymity from the public mail system is "making a major change to political discourse in this country," he said.
Such a system could also facilitate expanded government surveillance powers, said Chris Hoofnagle, deputy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
For instance, the FBI is already allowed to photocopy the outside of unopened letters and packages sent and received by suspected criminals in order to monitor their communications, Hoofnagle said. An intelligent mail system could make conducting such "mail cover" activity easier, enabling the FBI to build databases tracking communication among people on a broader scale, he noted.
Hoofnagle and Schwartz also questioned the cost and effectiveness of a system that hinges on proving the identity of millions of individual mail senders. Even an overhaul of the entire postal system may not thwart stamp-swipers and identity thieves, they said. "In order to close those holes, you have to move toward a police state," Hoofnagle said.
The commission's report notes briefly that "issues of privacy should, of course, be noted and balanced with the value of enhanced safety." A representative of the commission wasn't immediately available to explain how the postal service might actually strike such a balance.
A USPS representative said the agency is still reviewing the report and declined to comment on its recommendations. However, the USPS already has been investigating intelligent mail technology for at least two years. It made development of the system part of a "transformation plan" it issued last year.
USPS has also assigned its chief privacy officer, Zoe Strickland, to set up a working group to examine and incorporate privacy considerations into intelligent mail programs, according to a document on the agency's Web site.
The commission that released the report is overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and was established by an executive order from President Bush last year. It’s led by Harry Pearce, chairman of Hughes Electronics, a subsidiary of General Motors, and James Johnson, vice chairman of Perseus, an investment banking firm.
Major high-tech companies, including Canon, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Pitney Bowes, Symbol Technologies and Stamps.com, are pushing the Postal Service to adopt intelligent mail systems. Each participates in a special committee on intelligent mail run by the Mailing Industry Task Force, a cross-industry group formed in 2001 with the support of Postmaster General John Potter.
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| Tuesday, August 12, 2003 | |
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 12 Aug 2003 @ 13:50
Air Car America
By Bill Moore
Is it really possible to run a four passenger car or a minivan or a pickup on nothing but compressed air?
You bet! MDI Air Car in France has done it, but getting the idea off the drawing board and into the showroom is another matter, as its developers and investors have discovered over the last half decade since the car was officially unveiled.
But it appears that the "times they are converging" as battery development continues its slow pace of progress and fuel cells remain a distant dream. Maybe the way to power the "electric" cars of today isn't chemically, but mechanically with air compressed to 4,500 psi.
That's what Swiss-born engineer and San Francisco Bay-area entrepreneur Jean-Pierre Maeder is counting on as he races to line-up the necessary investment capital to begin manufacturing the MDI Air Car in Northern California. ZEV CAT web site
In this 48 minute-long interview, he talks about his plans and the amazing Air Car, which he's driven on MDI's development grounds in the south of France. Here's a car, he says, that can go at freeway speeds for 125-170 miles on its charge of compressed air, held in three under-the-floorboard tanks for less than $3 a charge.
To listen to the three-part interview click the Play Audio links at the top right. You will need the RealPlayer plug-in available for free from Real.Com. More >
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| Thursday, August 7, 2003 | |
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 7 Aug 2003 @ 08:59
Stealing The Internet
Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com.
Ever stop to wonder what is really happening to the Internet these days?
The crackdown by the music industry on illegal downloading tells just part of the story. Even with the dot-com bust, the digital boom is here, as high-speed connections, faster processors and new wireless devices increasingly become part of life. But the thousands of lawsuits are not just about ensuring record companies and artists get the royalties they deserve. They're part of a larger plan to fundamentally change the way the Internet works.
From Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes.
Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking.
All told, this is the business plan of America's handful of telecom giants -- the phone, cable, satellite, wireless and entertainment companies that now bring high-speed Internet access to most Americans. Their ability to meter Internet use, monitor Internet content and charge according to those metrics is how they are positioning themselves for the evolving Internet revolution.
The Internet's early promise as a medium where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged and the public interest can be served is increasingly being relegated to history's dustbin. Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking, while the part of the Net tied to round-the-clock billing is poised to grow exponentially.
One front in the corporate high-tech takeover of the Internet can be seen in Congress. On July 21, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on the "Regulatory Status of Broadband." There, a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others, told Congress that Internet service providers (ISPs) should be able to impose volume-based fee structures, based on bits transmitted per month. This is part of a behind-the-scenes struggle by the Net's content providers and retailers to cut deals with the ISPs so that each sector will have unimpaired access to consumers and can maximize profits.
The industry coalition spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company. Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission.
Meanwhile, in the courts, there has been a rash of new litigation spurred by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s pursuit of people who have illegally shared copyrighted music. The music industry no doubt hopes to discourage file-swapping piracy, and some big telecom companies, such as SBC Communications, have counter-sued, saying they will protect their clients' privacy. While that's good public relations, there's more to this story as well. Telecoms, like most big corporations, don't want other businesses, let alone the government, interfering in their operations -- so there's plenty of reasons to counter-sue -- even if the record companies and telecoms have parallel stakes in privatizing the Net.
Users need to know what part of the Net will be public and accessible and what part will be billed to credit cards.
But there's also a technologically insidious element to this side of the story. The software now exists to track and monitor Internet content on a scale and to a degree that previously hasn't been possible. The RIAA is taking people to court because it has the technology to track illegal Internet file swapping. This level of content-tracking is the next-generation application of what's been developed to keep children and teenagers from viewing porn at the local library or home. Consider this typical bit of sales arcana from the Web site of Allot Communications, which says its software can track and filter Internet communications and use that analysis to bill consumers.
Allot Communications provides network traffic management and content filtering solutions for enterprises, IP service providers, and educational institutions... Allot's QoS [quality of service] and service-level agreement enforcement solutions maximize return on investment by managing over-subscription [unintended uses], throttling P2P [peer-to-peer, the music piracy software] traffic and delivering tiered classes of services.
This new world of metering, monitoring and monetizing Internet content has prompted new business ventures, such as cable firms exploring partnerships with the videogame industry, where there's plenty of money to be made in high-volume interactive uses. In fact, the reason Hollywood has delayed the deployment of next-generation digital television, besides their fear of digital piracy, is they have not yet figured out how to impose their pricing model -- to extend their current distribution and sales monopoly.
Of course, the last concern in corporate boardrooms and Congress is how the privatization of the Net will affect free speech and the public interest. Just as C-Span and public broadcasting were crumbs thrown to the public the last time new communications technologies were developed, there's been little talk about insulating public-interest uses from a more 'metered' Internet.
There is undoubtedly a legitimate business case to be made for having people pay for emerging high-bandwidth uses, but whether people will be charged to see streamed videos of political candidates or public meetings is another matter. Moreover, users need to know what part of the Net will be public and accessible and what part will be billed to credit cards -- and this is unclear.
While there needs to be a balance between private sector goals and public policy needs, that's hardly a topic of discussion on the Internet's frontline. Currently, America's media giants are planning the equivalent of a 19th-century land grab in cyberspace to ensure they will profit mightily in the 21st century. Metering data transmissions and monitoring content is how they will get there. And the tools and political climate to achieve this are here.
This century's new media giants are now working with Congress, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell and their industry partners to transform the Internet. The only open question is whether the public will influence this transformation before it's too late.
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| Thursday, July 31, 2003 | |
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 31 Jul 2003 @ 18:56
Web Spawns Grid And All Will Change
July 4 2003
In two weeks' time scientists in Geneva will throw the switch on the biggest development in global communication since Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, scrawled "www" on a blackboard in 1989.
They will announce that 10 laboratories around the world can now talk to each other through their computers.
In the age of high-speed digital communication, this may not seem revolutionary. But this small step for computerkind marks the launch of a new technological concept - the next generation of the web. It is called the grid, and scientists say that before long it will change everything we do, from scientific research to business to tackling fires to booking holidays, and even to the way we watch and craft movies.
The internet now consists of huge servers that contain information on web pages that is then downloaded on to computers. As a user, you are limited in what you can do with that information by how much memory or processing power your own computer has.
Under the grid, the power of your machine - all those gigabytes, RAM and gigahertz - will become irrelevant. No matter how primitive and cheap your computer, you will have access to more power than now exists in the Pentagon.
"You just say I want this information and the [grid] is set up so that it goes out and collects that for you and makes it accessible," said Roger Cashmore, director of research at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, near Geneva.
The backbone of the grid will be computer centres filled with thousands of PCs linked together. Users will be able to use the programs, processing power or the storage they need as if it all existed on their own computer. And it is seamless - a user could be sitting tapping into a handheld computer on a train in England, using an application on a computer in the United States and storing files in Thailand and still have unlimited computer power.
It will be a while before the grid has any impact on everyday lives. Like the web, the grid is being developed to help scientific research into particle physics at CERN. Like the electrical grid, which gives the system its name, the computing power will become available on demand. But it is about more than particle physics.
The handheld computer, connected by mobile phone to the internet, would become a supercomputer. Movies could be edited and watched on it. It could access a word processor stored on a computer somewhere in cyberspace.
It took eight years for the internet to catch on, said Bob Jones, a grid project manager who was at CERN when the web was invented. This time, governments and scientists are already on board, so the results will be seen a lot sooner. "It'll be like the web," Mr Jones said. "When you have it you'll wonder how you ever got by without it."
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 31 Jul 2003 @ 18:42
In 1936 H.W. Dudley, a Bell Labs scientist, invented the first electronic speech synthesizer. Since that time AT&T Labs has been at the forefront in developing this technology. In 2001, AT&T unveiled the most advanced synthetic speech system to date, AT&T Natural Voices™. At the heart of this technology is the AT&T Natural Voices Text-to-Speech (TTS) Engine, and this engine supports a library of multilingual male and female voice fonts in languages including U.S. English, Latin American Spanish, German, U.K. English, Parisian French and Canadian French (and this list will continues to grow). Also unique to AT&T Natural Voices are custom voice icons, exclusive voices that will provide a fast and effective way for businesses to extend corporate image, brand and personality.
AT&T Natural Voices' TTS technology is the key to giving voice-a pleasant, natural and crystal clear voice-to a new generation of AT&T managed business services. Integrated with other AT&T Labs speech technologies-including speech recognition, natural language understanding, and dialog management-Natural Voices is "Closest to the customer?s ear™," providing human-like speech output capabilities that will help accelerate the use of speech technologies in automated customer interaction systems.
Although not sold as a stand-alone product, AT&T Natural Voices has been licensed by companies and organizations seeking to make the Web accessible to visually and physically impaired users. Natural Voices is used by Freedom Box, a conversational Web interface that tells users the choices they have and describes exactly what is available on a Web page. Other text reading programs using Natural Voices include NextUp's TextAloud, and ReadPlease.
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 31 Jul 2003 @ 18:39
Voice Cloning - Software
Recreates Voices Of Living & Dead
By Lisa Guernsey
New York Times
AT&T Labs will start selling speech software that it says is so good at reproducing the sounds, inflections and intonations of a human voice that it can re-create voices and even bring the voices of long-dead celebrities back to life.
The software, which turns printed text into synthesized speech, makes it possible for a company to use recordings of a person's voice to utter new things that the person never said.
The software, called Natural Voices, is not flawless -- its utterances still contain a few robotic tones and unnatural inflections -- and competitors question whether the software is a substantial step up from existing products. But some of those who have tested the technology say it is the first text-to-speech software to raise the specter of voice cloning, replicating a person's voice so perfectly that the human ear cannot tell the difference.
``If ABC wanted to use Regis Philbin's voice for all of its automated customer-service calls, it could,'' said Lawrence R. Rabiner, vice president for AT&T Labs Research.
Potential customers for the software, which is priced in the thousands of dollars, include telephone call centers, companies that make software that reads digital files aloud and makers of automated voice devices.
James R. Fruchterman, the chief executive of Benetech, a non-profit organization that uses technology in social-service projects, tested the software along with a dozen people who evaluate technology for blind people, and they said they were impressed.
``Natural Voices gets into the gray area,'' he said, ``where there is plausible deniability that it is a machine.''
Rabiner said he is excited about the possibility of resurrecting renowned voices, like that of Harry Caray, the Chicago Cubs announcer who delivered rousing play-by-play broadcasts. ``There are probably hours of recordings in archives,'' he said. Wouldn't it be great, he asked, if Harry Caray's voice could once again be broadcasting in Wrigley Field?
Ownership issues
The technology raises several questions. Who, for example, owns the rights to a celebrity's voice? Rabiner predicted that new contracts will be drawn that include voice-licensing clauses.
With computer-generated characters already appearing in place of real ones in some movies, will computer-synthesized voices compete with those of live actors as well?
And although scientists say the technology is not yet good enough to perpetrate fraud, synthesized voices may eventually be capable of tricking people into thinking that they were getting phone calls from people they know.
For now, technical limitations may temper any worries that a person's voice could be lifted without permission.
To build the software that re-creates unique voices -- which AT&T Labs is calling its ``custom voice'' product -- a person must first go to a studio where engineers record 10 hours to 40 hours of readings. Texts range from business news reports to nonsense babble. The recordings are then chopped into fragments of sounds and sorted into databases. When the software processes a text, it retrieves the sounds and re-assembles them to form new sentences.
Gains in synthetic speech
In the case of long-dead celebrities, archival recordings could be used in the same way.
Other companies and research centers, like IBM Research and Lernout and Hauspie, are also experimenting with this technique -- which is called concatenative speech synthesis -- to improve the quality of text-to-speech software. It is a big step up, engineers say, from the speech engines that were built from whole words that had been pre-recorded. And it is also a vast improvement, some say, from the entirely computer-generated and therefore robotic sounds that are used in many versions of text-to-speech software on the market today.
Now aided by the declining cost and increasing speed of microprocessors, far smoother sentences are possible, Rabiner said. He said that the speech team at AT&T Labs, led by Juergen Schroeter, an expert in speech synthesis, had created a more refined form of the concatenative technique by breaking a person's voice into ``the smallest number of units possible.''
A demonstration of the technology will be available on the Web beginning today at www.naturalvoices.att.com, said Michael Dickman, a spokesman for AT&T Labs.
Still, many engineers are skeptical of claims of a completely simulated voice that is almost indistinguishable from that of a human.
Now the pressure is on to perfect the technology. Analysts at McKinsey & Co. have predicted that the market for text-to-speech software will reach more than $1 billion in the next five years. In addition to customers like call centers and manufacturers of automated voice systems, the software could also be used by publishers of video games and books-on-tape and automobile manufacturers whose cars are equipped with software that gives driving directions. In the near future, engineers have said they expect people will want high-end speech technology that enables them to interact at length with their cell phones and Palm organizers, instead of typing on and squintingat a tiny screen.
Read on... More >
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| Friday, July 25, 2003 | |
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 25 Jul 2003 @ 11:35
Microsoft & National Security
Why Microsoft is a threat not only to consumers, but also to national security.
Why are there so many viruses on Microsoft Windows as compared to Macintosh and Linux? It's because Windows holds a near monopoly on the market. If you want to sabotage computer users and networks, Windows is your natural choice. The "Code Red" worm/virus for example, only affects Microsoft systems (Windows/Outlook). As did the 'ILOVEYOU' virus. And Melissa. And more recently the SQL Slammer worm.
Attacking computer infrastructures is made a lot easier when there is a large homogeneous environment you need to be concerned about and not many small and very different environments.
For the very same reasons, if you want to protect computer infrastructures, the equally natural thing to do is make the networks (servers, operating systems and applications) much more varied and diverse.
The conclusion is simple, the dominance of Microsoft has become a threat to national security. A virus is many times more dangerous in the current environment where pretty much everything runs on some combination of Microsoft OS, applications and networks. According to The Radicati Group, there will be 302 million corporate e-mail mailboxes worldwide this year - 35% of which will be powered by Microsoft Exchange. Gartner estimated in 2002 that 40% of business e-mail systems worldwide were claimed by Microsoft Express and Outlook.
But a threat to the country is not as bad for Microsoft as a threat to its market share. A more diverse environment necessarily means a smaller piece for Microsoft. So Microsoft aggressively works to promote
The history bears out how Microsoft understands the need to own the users environment and data as much as possible. Any opportunity for another company to provide solutions for the user in competition to Microsoft is a threat to them. They have used their dominance to lock in users. If you cannot read and write Word documents you are not going to stay in business long. During the nineties the real problem with Microsoft was access to up-to date and complete specifications to their file formats like Word and Excel. It's hard to market a Word processor which cannot read and write Word documents.
The monopoly Microsoft enjoyed in the nineties was one of file formats. Other developers would not have access to the specifications of the popular file formats until they were updated yet again and even then critical parts would remain secret. Imagine if you could have nought any word processor and been able to rely on that nineties anti-Mac buzzword 'compatibility' with Microsoft Word. The market would not have withered and died but flourished.
Markets always flourish when there is a real opportunity for competition. AOL had to make their email Internet compatible. Microsoft tried their own mini-version of the Internet. Neither worked. Email and the Internet only works when everything is compatible with everything else - as far as sending messages are concerned. It would be a mess if email couldn't get everywhere, email would only work in specific areas. And this is how it was in the 70's and 80's.
The monopoly Microsoft is building today is more one of transmission. Today you can not check a Hotmail email account unless you use a Microsoft product as Hotmail does not support the industry standard POP3. Tomorrow there is Hailstorm and the expansion of Passport. What a place for a virus!
As for .Net; ".Net represents a threat to the ability of the Internet to be open" Ed Zander, president and COO Sun. IHT March 28 2002 p 11
To better protect our technological infrastructure, we need more competition which can only come through open standards. We need to make it easy for developers to create products and services which can enhance the users processes at any time and place in the cycle.
All formats and protocols where end user data is moved (file formats & transmission standards) need to be open and accessible to developers.
When the flow of information is free it will be easier for businesses to offer solutions which can improve any part of the process for companies - they will not have to be locked in to any one total solution/environment. This means that as the information flow is smoother and the consumer has more choice, the hacker has bigger problems because precisely the opposite is true for the hacker - any new application, system which easily accepts, processes and sends on information is going to do it in it's own way.
In, and up to the 80's 80% of research was funded my the military. Now, over 90% by business - RAND (TV Cyber War. BBC2 Fri 21 Feb '03) Are we happy giving that much responsibility to one company, Microsoft?
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| Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | |
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 23 Jul 2003 @ 09:10
ELECTRIC CAR UNPLUGGED: HISTORIC PROCESSION & FUNERAL FOR THE EV1
WHEN: Thursday, July 24, 2003 -- 11 AM
WHERE: Hollywood Forever Cemetery 6000 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, 90038 (Take Santa Monica Bl. Exit from 101, go west about 10 blocks, or go to http://MTAWEB6.MTA.NET to find the best transit route.)
PARTICIPANTS:
Earth Communications Office Coalition for Clean Air
Sierra Club Physicians for Social Responsibility
Earth Resource Foundation
Ed Begley Jr.(Six Feet Under)
Alexandra Paul (Baywatch)
Hart Bochner (Die Hard)
Peter Horton (thirtysomething)
Inventors and Designers including:
Paul MacCready (inventor of the Gossamer Albatross,)
Wally Rippel and Alec Brooks / AeroVironment and Alan Cocconi / AC Propulsion) Drivers of EV1s, Toyota RAV4s, Honda Pluses & other EVâs (and many surprise guests)
Celebrities, Owners, Inventors, Environmental and Health Groups Honor Zero Emissions Vehicles at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Los Angeles, CA - The EV1, the emblem of the modern electric car era, is being reclaimed by General Motors in the wake of California's decision to drop its Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate. Despite the cars revolutionary design, performance, eco-friendliness, low maintenance and popularity, the car will disappear from the roads forever by the end of the summer.
On Thursday, JULY 24, electric car owners are participating in a ãfuneralä procession and memorial tribute to bid farewell to the EV1 and raise public awareness for the advantages of zero emissions vehicles. Various speakers, guest celebrities, environmental and health groups, and inventors and designers of the EV1 will be on hand.
Even with thousands of names on waiting lists for these cars, smog alerts on the rise and millions of tax-payer dollars invested in charging stations, few Americans will ever be able to use this progressive technology. Come see the final operating EV1s and hear the story of the future that could have been. More >
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| Monday, July 7, 2003 | |
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7 Jul 2003 @ 16:37
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 7 Jul 2003 @ 15:43
Battery Will Deliver 5 Hours Of Power For Laptops
NEC Says Develops Fuel-Cell Battery for Laptops
JAPAN: July 1, 2003
TOKYO - Japanese chips-to-computers giant NEC Corp said yesterday it has developed a small fuel cell, which it aims to test on the market within two years, that will dramatically improve the battery life of notebook computers.
The fuel cell would enable notebooks to operate for 40 consecutive hours, or around 10 times the life of regular lithium-ion batteries, a company spokesman said.
NEC is locked in fierce competition with domestic rivals such as Toshiba Corp, as well as U.S. and South Korean rivals that are rushing to bring fuel cell technology for notebooks to the mass market.
NEC aims to test the market in 2004 with a notebook computer having a built-in fuel-cell battery with a life of five hours, the spokesman said.
Toshiba said in March it aimed to release a methanol-powered fuel-cell laptop in 2004 that will provide five hours of battery life.
Fuel cells, which take in hydrogen and oxygen and turn them into electricity, do not need recharging like regular batteries. They require a refill of fuel such as hydrogen gas or liquid methanol in order to keep operating.
NEC shares got a boost from the announcement, closing up 7.53 percent at 600 yen and outperforming a 0.92 percent rise in the electrical machinery subindex.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
From AP Story
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| Friday, June 27, 2003 | |
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 27 Jun 2003 @ 16:25
Afghans launch new mobile network
Afghanistan will get its second telecoms network within a matter of weeks.
Online gambling sparks trade war
The US is asked to justify its laws on internet gambling after the Caribbean country of Antigua complains to the global trade umpire.
Wi-fi will be 'next dot.com crash'
Hopes of a profit bonanza from setting up wireless broadband networks will be dashed, a technology consultancy warns.
Polynesians get free wireless web
The tiny South Pacific island of Niue is the first nation to get free wireless internet services.
Judges hand it to asymmetry
A book about the uneven Universe wins the prestigious Aventis Prize for the best popular science publication in 2003.
EverQuest exposes cost of sexism
Online fantasy games are not free of the realities of sexism a study finds
Vatican unveils virtual tour
The Vatican offers a virtual tour of the famous Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo as part of upgrades to its website.
Student designs diabetic 'watch'
A Nottingham student hopes to help diabetics with a painless method of testing blood sugar levels.
Strato-plane looks skyward
British engineers prepare to send a solar-powered propeller-driven vehicle to an altitude of 132,000 feet (40 kilometres).
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| Monday, June 23, 2003 | |
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 23 Jun 2003 @ 04:16
Here's a intriguing list of Nanotech firms and MEM's I found looking for Nantero online.
http://www.dfj.com/ourcomps/ourcomps_main.html
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 23 Jun 2003 @ 04:16
Nanotube Chip Could Hold 10 Gigabits
12:47 17 June 03
NewScientist.com
A computer memory chip based on carbon nanotubes has passed a manufacturing milestone, according to the US company developing the technology.
The prototype chip would store information using hundreds of billions of nanotubes with a theoretical capacity of 10 gigabits of data, says Nantero, based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Once fully developed, the company says nanoscale random access memory (NRAM) could hold more data that existing types of RAM and would also be non-volatile, meaning data would not be lost when the power is been turned off. Computers using such memory could boot up almost instantly. Nantero also claims that NRAM would be much faster than current non-volatile memory, such as Flash.
Nantero is not the only company hoping to use carbon nanotubes to make improved types of computer memory. But the company believes its advantage lies in the fact that its chips can be made using existing silicon manufacturing methods and would therefore be relatively cheap to make.
Random Arrangement
Instead of trying to grow nanotubes in the correct alignment, Nantero applies them randomly across the entire surface of a silicon wafer. It then uses existing lithographic equipment to etch away the nanotubes that are not in the correct alignment.
"The creative breakthrough is to put nanotubes everywhere," Nantero's CEO Greg Schmergel told New Scientist.
The nanotubes remaining after etching are arranged in bunches across pairs of electrodes on the surface of the wafer. Applying a small electrical field alters the tubes so that they either bridge the gap between the electrodes or do not. These two states result in different conductivity that is easy to detect and can be used to represent a binary one or zero.
Nantero has now produced a wafer dotted with nanotube clumps, but is still developing the way of addressing each individual bunch. Schmergel says this is just a matter of harnessing existing silicon electronics technology.
Cees Dekker, an expert in carbon nanotubes at Delft University in the Netherlands, says the fabrication technique appears workable. But he says a potential problem lies in the difficulty of separating the different types of nanotubes that are created together during their creation.
"You have to find a way to deal with both semiconducting- and metallic-type nanotubes, which have rather different electrical properties," he told New Scientist.
Schmergel expects to have NRAM memory capable of storing up to four megabits in 18 months and components that could compete with current types of RAM in around three years.
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Sounding Circle - Category: Technology
