Technology Issues February 2004 1/ Australia to get own Internet name server. Australia will have its own top-level Internet name server from next week, bringing it in line with New Zealand. Sunday's launch is expected to improve the resilience of the Internet address system, and could increase speed and reduce "lag" for Australian net users. Each time an internet user views a web page, sends or receives an email, or does anything requiring an address such as australianit.com.au, the task can only be completed after checking information gleaned from one of the key computers known as root DNS (domain name) servers. Each of the 13 servers is assigned a letter from A to M, and while some root servers are based in only one location, others such as the F-root server, are hosted simultaneously in several places around the world. There are already 18 F-root servers around the world - including several in Asia and Europe and one in Auckland - but until now, each packet of internet data from Australia has found its destination with information gleaned from an offshore server. One source said it was "embarrassing" that Australia did not have its own root server. The Australian F-root server will be in Brisbane and could provide an increase in the speed with which Australian users obtain Internet data. But Internet experts said it would mostly improve resiliency here of the DNS system. A 2002 attack on several of the 13 root DNS servers raised worldwide fears about the vulnerability of the internet addressing system, a vulnerability expected to be reduced by distributing the DNS data over more locations. It is understood the local F-root server will be a joint project between internet exchange company PIPE Networks, web-hosting company WebCentral and the AsiaPacific Network Information Centre, which administers address space for the region. APNIC would act as the agent for the Internet Systems Consortium, which runs the F-root. PIPE Networks would provide a separate internet exchange to house the server and WebCentral its high-grade data centre facilities, both of which are prerequisites for an F-root server. Until recently, most of the root DNS servers, which direct the world's internet traffic, were in the US, but last week, the number of non-US servers overtook the number based in the US, according to APNIC's European counterpart, RIPE CC. www.root-servers.org. (AustralianIT, 21/1/04) 2/ Bagle linked to spam. A rapidly spreading email virus has some experts concerned that it could be a prelude to a broader series of attacks or a fresh spam effort. The virus, known as Bagle or Beagle, spread quickly since Monday. Although the virus - known as a worm because it replicates itself and sends out more copies via email - does not appear to damage computers, experts are concerned that it installs a program on the computers of users who open the attachment. This could enable the virus authors to send out barrages of email advertising that could generate money. Experts say this is a relatively new development in viruses, which had been linked in the past to hackers trying to show technical prowess or expose security flaws. "It seems perfectly possible that Bagle is yet another worm written by spammers," says Mikko Hypponen of the Finnish-based security firm F-Secure. "This way, they could first infect a large amount of computers. When they have enough, they could automatically install invisible email proxy servers on each machine and start spamming through them." Network Associates, another security firm, called the virus a "medium risk." "The Bagle worm is an internet mass mailer that harvests addresses ... and sends itself" to other recipients via email, Network Associates said. "The next recipient is thus unable to see the true sender." The email arrives, often from a phony address, with the subject "Hi" and a text of random characters and the message, "Test, yep." It also has an attachment that, if clicked on, installs a program on the user's computer.
The Virus Bulletin website said the worm does not appear dangerous now but should be monitored. "At first glance, (Bagle) is not a particularly interesting virus from a technical point of view," the website said. "It is, however, tipped to be big, with vendors pointing out that it is already spreading fast and, like last year's Sobig, has a built-in expiry date - possibly suggesting that improved versions will be released over the course of time." (Australian IT 21/1/04) 3/ ACTU lobbies for net privacy. The sacking of Centrelink staff over pornographic emails had raised workplace privacy issues, according to ACTU officials. Centrelink has sacked or demoted 24 employees at its Ballarat office in Victoria for transmitting sexually explicit pictures and jokes via the internet. ACTU senior industrial officer Linda Rubinstein predicted laws will soon be updated to restrict interception of email communication as they did for telephone conversations. "This case and other cases, it does raise the whole issue of the extent to which private use of email and the internet at work is acceptable, the extent to which it does remain private or it can be monitored by the employer," Ms Rubinstein told ABC Radio. "I think that it (laws) will (rapidly change) in the same way we have laws about monitoring of telephones and we have laws at least in NSW about video surveillance. The Victorian Law Reform Commission is doing an extensive inquiry into workplace privacy which will look at these issues and hopefully those findings later in the year will influence the development of law not just in Victoria but throughout Australia." (Australian IT 21/1/04) 4/ Ctrl+Alt+Del inventor retires. David Bradley spent five minutes writing the computer code that has bailed out the world's PC users for decades. The result was one of the most well known key combinations around: Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It forces obstinate computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands. Bradley, 55, is getting a new start of his own. He's retiring Friday after 28 and a half years with IBM. Bradley joined the company in June 1975 as an engineer in Boca Raton, Florida. By 1980, he was one of 12 working to create the IBM PC. He now works at IBM's facility in Research Triangle Park. The engineers knew they had to design a simple way to restart the computer should it fail. Bradley wrote the code to make it work. "I didn't know it was going to be a cultural icon," Bradley said. "I did a lot of other things than Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but I'm famous for that one." At a 20-year celebration for the IBM PC, Bradley was on a panel with Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other tech icons. The discussion turned to the keys. "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said. Gates didn't laugh. The key combination also is used when software, such as Microsoft's Windows operating system, fails. Bradley, whose name was once mentioned as a clue in the final round of the TV game show "Jeopardy," will continue teaching at NC State University after retirement. His office is filled with memories of his time at IBM and the keys that brought him fame in the tech world. He says he has almost every cartoon that featured Ctrl+Alt+Delete. There are video clips of the "Jeopardy" show and the panel with Gates. "After having been the answer on final Jeopardy, if I can be a clue in The New York Times' Sunday crossword puzzle, I will have met all my life's goals," Bradley said. (Australian IT 30/1/04) 5/ Japanese bone phone developed. Japanese telecom carriers have come up with the world's first mobile phone that enables users to listen to calls inside their heads - by conducting sound through bone. The TS41 handset, manufactured by electronics firm Sanyo, was put on sale by the Tu-Ka mobile phone group this month, drawing healthy demand from customers who want to hear calls better in
busy streets and other noisy places. The new phone is equipped with a "Sonic Speaker" which transmits sounds through vibrations that move from the skull to the cochlea in the inner ear, instead of relying on the usual method of sound hitting the outer eardrum. With the new handset, the key to better hearing in a noisy situation is to plug your ears to prevent outside noise from drowning out bone-conducted sounds. If the user holds the handset to the top of the head, the back of the head, cheekbone or jaw and plugs his or her left ear, the call will be heard internally on the left side. It is the first time that the bone conduction has been used in mobile phones although the technology has been available for fixed-line phones in Japan, mostly for elderly people, for the past two years. The Tu-Ka group has launched a major advertising campaign for the new mobile phone, featuring a young woman and an X-ray image of her skull using the handset. A spokesman at Tu-Ka Cellular Tokyo said it was too early to declare the TS41 a success, but retail store clerks said they were seeing a healthy demand for it. "We have lots of inquiries from young women thanks to the television commercial," said Tomoyuki Harasawa, a sales consultant at a Bic Camera consumer electronics store in Yurakucho, central Tokyo. "The actual buyers are mostly businessmen in their 30s and 40s," Harasawa said. "We sell four to five TS41s a day, a good figure for Tu-Ka, which lags far behind rival mobile operators" such as DoCoMo and Vodafone. The mobile phone is priced at Y7,800 ($95) each at the discount store. "I don't know if this is going to be a big hit, but it will be possible for Tu-Ka to raise its market share since this high-profile handset has improved its brand recognition among consumers," Harasawa said. Tu-Ka firms belong to Japan's second-largest telecom carrier, KDDI group. But TuKa subscribers account for only a small percentage of the market, far less than the roughly 20 per cent for the "au" brand in the same KDDI group and the more than 50 per cent for industry leader DoCoMo. Customers who examined the new phone on the Bic Camera sales floor had mixed reactions. Masaya Iwata, a 31-year-old accountant, said the product was interesting but he was not sure if he would buy it because he uses his mobile less and less for talking. "I use my mobile for picturetaking and emailing rather than having conversations," he said. Japan's top mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo launched "i-mode" phones in February 1999, offering internet surfing, emailing and video watching on mobile handsets. And J-Phone, now rebranded Vodafone to underline that it is controlled by the British-based telecoms giant, launched picture-taking handsets in November 2000. Nearly every new mobile handset in Japan now has a built-in digital camera enabling users to send images taken with their mobiles via email to other handsets or computers. Tomohiro Abukawa, a 34-year-old hair stylist, said he liked the bone-conducting phone, noting railway stations and streets were often too noisy to talk. "I may get this as it is also small," he said. But one woman in her 20s said she found the phone "scary". "Isn't this bad for your health?" she asked. Another woman, in her 30s, said she was interested in the mobile phone but was selfconscious. "What troubles me is that I may look weird if I'm talking with the phone pressed between my eyebrows," she said. (Australian IT 22/1/04) 6/ Digitisation in the British Library. Readers may be interested to know that the British Library has been digitising and restoring part of its ethnographic wax cylinder collection, which dates from 1898 and includes recordings from Africa, India, Australia and the United Kingdom. The collection was initially transferred to DAT by British Library Sound Archive staff Peter Copeland and Will Prentice. Two copies of each DAT have now been made on CD-R; one archive copy (a straight "warts and all" clone from the DAT), and one cleaned-up playback copy. The project began in June 2003 and is now complete. A total of 753 cylinder recordings have been
processed. A selection of these will be available for listening via the "Collect Britain" page on the British Library's website later this year. “My own role in this project has been the restoration of the recordings using our own "Mousetrap" Disc Processor for groove wall selection (based on the Packburn Audio Noise Suppressor) and SADiE with CEDAR plug-ins including the rather groovy CEDAR Retouch. Anyone interested in the restoration process is very welcome to contact me”. Clare Gilliam Ethnographic Wax Cylinder Project British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB Tel. +44 (0)20 7412 7426 E-mail: clare.gilliam@bl.uk British Library website: www.bl.uk (AV-Media-Matters listserv 15/1/04) 7/ The Mac turns 20. Its dedicated users are so passionate they're often described as religious about their love for the machine. Twenty years ago, on January 24, 1984, Apple Computer launched the Macintosh. It contained virtually unknown features, including simple icons, and an odd little attachment called a mouse. Many newspaper stories at the time had to include a definition. Silicon Valley's newspaper The San Jose (California) Mercury News, for example, described the mouse as "a handheld device that, when slid across a table top, moves the cursor on the Mac's screen." Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dubbed the Macintosh "the people's computer." Jobs and business partner Steve Wozniak -- a math and computer junkie -- had sold their first computer, the Apple I, in 1976. They had put it together in a garage. "The Mac's a symbol of a whole revolution, and most of us that participated in it from the beginning and believed in it bought into these new ideals of computers to really help people, and not something that you had to fight, memorize and learn," Wozniak told CNN. "That whole revolution just continues in our hearts to this day." With such an innovative and intuitive product, then why is Apple's market share just 3 percent to 5 percent, with Microsoft Windows claiming more than 90 percent worldwide? "What Apple does so well is to focus on research and design to produce the most intuitive device and the most elegant device," communications professor Ted Friedman of Georgia State University said. "The problem has always been that Apple was first but other companies have been able to come in and undercut them on price, and gradually appropriate all the features that made Apple special," Friedman explained. Still, Apple computers have come a long way since their introduction, when IBM's machines, not Microsoft, were the standard. Back then, people who operated computers were part of an elite club: either hobbyists who built their own, or folks in lab coats who worked on mainframes. Friedman said the point-and-click Macintosh was destined to make both technological and cultural history. "This was the product that inspired people in graphic design, and students, and other creative people. It was the whole idea of computers not just being something you would see in the office," Friedman said. Competing in a PC-dominated world, Apple has had its ups and downs. Techies trace that change in thinking to a TV ad that teased the Mac's debut during the 1984 Super Bowl. Even today that ad is considered one of the best ever produced. "It was a pivotal moment in the history of computers and the history of advertising," said Friedman, whose book "Electric Dreams," on the cultural history of personal computers, is due out soon. In the commercial a female athlete dodges storm troopers and throws a hammer to smash a giant authoritarian figure, who's ordering drone workers to conform
and obey. Her message of power and autonomy, says Friedman, reflected Apple's belief that computing was more than mindless numbers crunching. It actually could fuel the creative process. Jobs, Apple's CEO, was perhaps a good forecaster of the ubiquitous laptops, desktops, and personal digital assistants of today, when he predicted two decades ago that Macs would not be just an office tool. "People are going to bring them home to work on something Sunday morning, they're not going to be able to get their kids away from them, and maybe someday they may even buy a second one to use at home," Jobs said, the day he introduced the simple beige box back in 1984. But internal dramas at Apple also contributed to its notorious ups and downs. Jobs left the company in a power struggle in the late 80s. The firm floundered in a PC-dominated world. But Jobs' star continued to rise. He joined the enormously successful animation studio Pixar, makers of hits such as "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo." Jobs returned to Apple in the '90s as the visionary savior, and the company returned to making products considered ahead of their time: the iPod music player, iTunes song download service, and the iMovie video editing software to name just three. Known in tech circles as "The Wizard of Woz," Wozniak never formally left Apple, but he's only involved in a few consulting projects at the company these days. The former Hewlett-Packard engineer spends most of his time working for his firm "Wheels of Zeus," which is expected to launch some products later this year. "It was just a little bit disappointing that Apple kind of got itself into the situation where they didn't so much own what they had really brought to market," he said. In a legal fight through much of the 90's, Apple accused Microsoft of ripping off Macintosh interfaces in Windows. The case was settled out of court in 1997. But despite his frustrations with the outcome of the case, Wozniak is proud of being part of a revolution that started in a garage. "Macintosh users tend to be a very independent type, and they tend to be very loyal to their product," Wozniak said. "They've been threatened with [Apple] going out of business and being put out of their schools and out of their companies, and they've got to fight. There's so much passion for it." (CNN.com 24/1/04) 8/ Nevada coroner puts photos of deceased on Internet. Las Vegas -- Her naked corpse was discovered by accident by a pair of brothers more than 23 years ago along a dirt road on the edge of town. She looked like a teen, perhaps no older than 18, possibly a runaway. Her head was beaten with a hammer, but the coroner believes she actually died from stabbings from an unidentified 3inch object. The murder weapon isn't the only thing that remains unidentified. All these years later, the victim is still known only as Jane "Arroyo Grande" Doe, after the desolate desert path where her body had been dumped. Over the decades, that path became a major interstate and the young officer who arrived on the scene became a seasoned veteran. But every effort by Detective John Williams to identify what he calls "my girl," including exhuming her body last year to gather DNA samples, have brought him no closer to closing the most vexing case of his career. Now, in a controversial move, the coroner here is taking the search for answers to nagging cases like this to the Internet by posting, in what is believed to be a national first, the photos of dozens of unidentified bodies on the Clark County coroner's Web site. Several coroner and medical examiner Web sites around the United States publish information about so-called "cold cases," and some even accompany the blurbs with artists' renderings or clay-model representations that approximate what the deceased looked like when alive. But at www.accessclarkcounty.net, a prominent box beseeches visitors to "help identify human remains." A few clicks -- and a couple of warnings about graphic content -- later, the screen is filled with thumbnail-size pictures that can be enlarged to show actual shots of dead people. The warning states that "no decomposed remains will be shown," and some of the photos have been retouched to erase the more gruesome trauma. But many remain difficult to view.
"These are not glamour shots," said Coroner P. Michael Murphy, whose site has photos for about 40 of his 180 cold cases dating back to 1967. "The real issue is to make sure we don't show too much. We're only putting up some pictures because in most cases there isn't any image we can use." Indeed, in this city that provides the backdrop for "CSI," the televised crime drama popular for its gritty realism, the reality is that some cases aren't solved for decades, let alone in an hour. Most coroners’ offices have small budgets and little of the high-tech gadgetry of that show's death investigators. Murphy said his department chose to use real pictures partly because it can't afford a full-time sketch artist. Still, while Murphy is applauded for trying something new, some question the propriety and tact of his approach. "I just don't know if actual photos are the best way to accomplish this," said Sgt. Mike Harper, operations manager for the Alameda County coroner's office in Oakland. "A good description of the Doe and the circumstances would probably be just as beneficial as having a photo. If the photo is a clean shot of the face, maybe that's OK, but I don't think there's a need to go into the grotesque end of things." Jerry Nance of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, based in Washington, D.C., expressed concern that the photos could appeal to online fetishists who are excited by viewing such material. At the center, whose Web site also shows images of unidentified decedents, any photos are doctored to show the person with a smile, their eyes open and any trace of injury erased. "You start getting a lot of sick people who want to admire it from the gore standpoint," Nance said. "Even if the body is fresh, we still have our forensic artists open up the eyes and give some sort of spark of life to the thing. It does you no good to show a deceased person. It just appeals to the morbidity aspect, and the chances of recognition are better when you show them alive." Yet Clark County says its approach is working. Since the launch in November, the site has received more than 350,000 hits and has helped identify as many as a dozen people, said Assistant Coroner Les Elliot. In one case, the Dayton, Ohio, family of a slain homeless man whose body was found buried in a Las Vegas backyard confirmed that the deceased was their relative through the online picture after seeing the case profiled on the Fox show "America's Most Wanted" in November. The problem of unidentified remains is a national challenge. More than 95 percent of the dead are positively identified within a day of death, but there are more than 5,200 cold cases in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. Experts believe that's less than 15 percent of all unresolved cases. California deaths accounted for a disproportionate 2,188 cases in the database, whereas Illinois, for instance, had just 116 in the system as of Oct. 31, the most recently available statistics. Use of the Internet to identify these people is just as scattered. Despite California's assiduous reporting and homegrown high-tech industry, no Bay Area counties use the Web to disseminate detailed information or pictures about their cold cases. While smaller counties in places like Aiken, S.C., and Hackensack, N.J., have sites with information and images of unidentified people, major cities such as Chicago, Boston and San Francisco have done little online. "It's something we're exploring at this point to see if it's feasible," said Herb Hawley of the San Francisco County medical examiner's office. "I don't believe we'll be putting up actual photos. The most we would do is put up sketches." But Todd Matthews of the Doe Network, a national organization of volunteers and aggrieved relatives searching for missing loved ones, said he supports the effort. "They're showing reality, and sometimes it's hard to hide this reality from the public," Matthews said. "They're definitely bringing some attention to cases that otherwise have not seen the light of day for years." Williams, still trying to bring justice to Jane "Arroyo Grande'' Doe, holds out hope that Matthews is right and someone will someday help resolve his case. "If you look on TV, you'll see worse than what you see in this photo of my girl," Williams said. "If it's my daughter, I'd definitely feel bad to
see a picture of her dead. But it would not bother me if someone saw it on the Internet or TV to give me some closure and my family some closure. I'm sure things will offend people, but so be it. You got a young kid, dumped in the desert. That's more offensive." The Chronicle 22/1/04) 9/ Congress Stops Spam--But Not Its Own. Congress crowed about cleaning up our in-boxes with the passage of an antispam law last year, but brace yourself. Members of Congress are increasingly using e-mail to communicate with their constituents. They are aided by several companies that have developed ways to provide politicians with extensive e-mail addresses of those they hope to reach. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidates have already plunged into email marketing, relying on online promotions and e-mail solicitations in their campaigns. More than 30 members of Congress have purchased lists of constituents' e-mail addresses from Rightclick Strategies, and more than 20 are customers of @dvocacy. Both companies create for each client a unique list of e-mail addresses. "In the past two years we've seen a pretty dramatic switch," says John Hart, communications director for Representative Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), who uses Rightclick as a source of constituents' e-mail addresses. "Five years ago probably 75 percent [of communication] was traditional, and today 75 percent is probably e-mail." The lists are compiled by cross-matching names in the registered voter database for a particular district or state against the e-mail addresses of people who have opted in to mailing lists. Rightclick Strategies maintains a database of more than 160 million names and e-mail addresses, according to Jeff Mascott, managing director. Rightclick Strategies, which supplies data mainly to Republicans, has been creating lists for members of Congress for two to three years, Mascott says. Democrats draw their lists primarily from @dvocacy, which has been supplying such information for only five months. Officials from each company say they get several calls each week asking for lists. The first e-mail a constituent receives from a congressmember is often unsolicited, which could be a problem under the CAN-SPAM Act. The new law mandates that commercial e-mail be sent only if requested, and that senders honor recipients' request to have their addresses removed from future mailings. Both congress members and the businesses that supply the addresses are quick to note that their messages always include the option to unsubscribe. Most lists send out a preliminary e-mail inquiry to see if communication is desired. Members of Congress see the switch from physical to virtual mail as a time- and money-saving device. "It's a much more cost-effective way for voters and members of Congress to stay in communication. I think you'll be seeing more and more offices doing this," Hart says. "It's a much easier way for people to express their opinions to their elected officials." Hart says it costs about $30,000 less to do an electronic mass communication compared with a traditional paper mailing. The price of e-mail lists varies depending on their size, say both Rightclick Strategies' Mascott and Roger Stone, president of @dvocacy. Stone estimates it costs at least a few thousand dollars per list. Roger France, press secretary to Representative Charles Taylor (R-North Carolina), says it cost the congressman's office "about a quarter a name." Hart says DeMint's list cost about $14,000. Buying the lists enabled both representatives to add about 20,000 addresses to the constituent e-mail lists they were already compiling. DeMint's first newsletter went out last week and included items like the congressman's efforts to get South Carolina native "Shoeless" Joe Jackson into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (PCWorld 14/1/04) 10/ Some helpful stuff. In an earlier posting I told you how to download and install Sun's official version of Java but forgot to tell you what you should do with your Microsoft Java Virtual Machine AFTER the installation. Whoops! This may sound kind of strange, but my gut feeling is that you should *NOT* uninstall the MSJVM. Rather, you should abandon it in place.
Here's why. Uninstalling Windows components, even ones that are going to die in September, is a fool's errand if only because you have no idea if the uninstall is going work. The worst case scenario is that you could unintentionally break Windows in the process. And that's a risk I'm just not willing to take. Instead, to make sure your Microsoft Java Virtual Machine is sent off to its own private Siberia, download and install the Sun version of Java and then 1. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options. 2. Click on the Advanced tab. 3. Scroll down to the Java settings and make sure there is a checkmark next to Use Java 2 v1.42_03 for