Behind The Curtain
Privacy from Companies
9/5/2000; 1:31:30 PM 'We live in an age when Kmart can tell how many Huggies were sold in its stores across the country 10 minutes ago, but public officials, and hence the public, can't really say why airplanes don't fly. That's not because the data doesn't exist somewhere within the government - it does, spread across a gaggle of different computer systems, no doubt accessible through superhuman diligence - it's just not easily accessible to us. Thus is it easy for chairmen to speak as if the facts were unknown.

'This picture points to the next great hope for the information revolution: that we might be able to learn as much about governments and business as they have learned about us. That this might be the end of their effective privacy, just as it has effectively been the end of ours.'

British Telecom considers legal action over hyperlink patent Patents9/5/2000; 1:08:24 PM 'British Telecommunications (BT) is prepared to take legal action against ISPs in the US unless they cough up cash for using hyperlinks. 'The patent was granted in 1989 and is only still valid in the US. Patent 4,873,662 expires in 2006.'What amazing chutzpah!For previous coverage of this topic, which I will bravely hyperlink despite the apparent patent issues of that act, I refer you to the iRights coverage: Original coverage, including a[n illegal?] link to the original patent on 6/19/2000, and further commentary on 6/21/2000 and 6/24/2000.

Amazon's new privacy regs may backfire Privacy from Companies9/5/2000; 12:42:13 PM 'The noble mission to 'empower' on-line consumers reached new heights recently as retail powerhouse Amazon.com released an updated corporate manifesto affecting its American customers and guests, and so blessed us all with firm knowledge that we have no reason to expect any such thing as privacy while doing business on their Web site. 'The on-line advertising and retail industries have long resented slack talk involving such dangerous ideas as the need for federal privacy legislation, vehemently insisting that they can regulate themselves according to market pressures, so it was about time someone cleared up a few lingering popular misconceptions.'Shut up and $hop!... oops, sorry, got carried away there.This is a great article, they take a boring, depressing story and turn it into a joy to read with sarcasm and wit.Update: Amazon also seems they can play pricing games and then deny it. Thanks, Amazon, for proving that when e-commerce sites get big, they'll turn just as evil as other corporations.

Mr Legoland Windsor sued over his Web site
Humor/Amusing
9/3/2000; 9:49:36 PM 'The piss artist formerly known as Craig Cottrell has found himself on the end Danish toy company Lego's ire. It all started over a few beers with his mate. Inebriated, both of them decided to change their names by deed poll for a bet.'

And it goes downhill from there... love the ending of this article. BTW, despite the way that sounds, this is a true story from The Register.

Ain't no network strong enough Misc.9/1/2000; 10:44:43 AM 'Master cryptographer Bruce Schneier's "Secrets and Lies" explains why computer security is an oxymoron.'His basic contention is that humans will always screw up, thus no (human-built) system will be secure. It's very hard to challenge that line of reasoning. The more real-world experience you have, the harder it gets to challenge.I'm going to be very contrary to what seems to be public opinion, and say I hope Bruce Schneier is correct. A system with perfect security also strongly implies a system with perfect control, which will presumably belong to a someone or a small group of someones. The price we would have to pay for systems with perfect security is too high, compared to a world where nothing is quite secure.On a lighter note, how will William Gibson's Neuromancer ever come to pass if there's perfect security?

Updated cookie-alert software released for IE 5.5 Privacy from Companies9/1/2000; 10:35:45 AM 'Microsoft issued a software patch to the public today for its latest Internet browser that tells customers when third-party Web sites try to place cookies on their computers for tracking purposes. ...'The software within IE 5.5 gives consumers detailed information about cookies and tells them whether the cookie is coming from the Web site they are visiting or from a third-party site such as advertising networks DoubleClick or Engage. These companies often use cookies to track the performance of ad campaigns or to deliver targeted ads based on personal preferences.'If you're using IE5.5, I think I'd recommend getting this. I don't use it, I still use 5, so I don't know anything about it directly.Good to see Microsoft responding to security concerns.

Amazon.com Revises Privacy Policy on Consumer Concern Privacy from Companies9/1/2000; 10:33:08 AM 'The new privacy policy on the company's Web site details what personal information Amazon.com gathers, why it collects it and how it is used. The company didn't say how the new policies specifically differ from the old ones.'You'd think the complete lack of details would make it hard to comment on, but the NYTimes manages to fill out a complete article.I, on the other hand, will not. I love the web.

MS fumbles Word privacy scare Privacy from Companies9/1/2000; 10:19:29 AM 'Microsoft was caught off-guard yesterday by a warning that Word documents could be tracked over the Internet without their readers' knowledge. 'A press release from a security consultant drew attention to the potential problem, by which embedded links to content on servers could be used to track the usage of documents as they're passed around multiple users on the Net. Richard M Smith pointed out that the embedded content could well be invisible to the user, who could find themselves being tracked without their knowledge.'This security 'flaw' will exist in any place that URLs can be used, thus, they may exist in HTML e-mail, Word documents, or even a Linux script file that calls wget (which retrieves something based on the URL) to retrieve some URL. It's a fundamental problem to our conception of Internet security, not just a flaw in Word. If it's a flaw in word, it's a flaw that's extremely common.The problem is that there is no good way to prevent this. If you are going to allow people to use URLs to refer to network documents, and you automatically retrieve these documents without making the user confirm each one individually (if even that would help!), then retrieving an empty graphic image or a null string or something else that will be invisible will be possible.Any "solution" to this problem will make Word work less well, as they are basically going to have to just remove the feature.(Yesterday's news. Sorry for the delay, but I had a really hard time getting through to ETP.com yesterday.)

Taking Sides in the Napster War
Music & MP3
8/31/2000; 7:06:31 PM 'Napster and its kin can be viewed as sharing or stealing, as an innocent means of file sharing or an insidious way to infringe on copyright. There are plenty of sites on both sides of the issue.'

My apologies for the delay today... it seems ETP.com is slow for me today.