EU confirms deadly bird flu in UK
An outbreak of bird flu on a farm run by Europe's biggest turkey manufacturer Bernard Matthews is the highly pathogenic H5N1 version of the virus which can kill humans, the European Commission said on Saturday.Government veterinary experts were called to the farm near Lowestoft in eastern England late on Thursday. Preliminary tests showed the birds were killed by the H5 strain of avian flu. Link--->
Is it the Coming Flupocalypse...
Sweden to set up embassy in Second Life
We all knew it was only a matter of time:
Sweden is to become the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world of Second Life, officials said on Friday.
"We are planning to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden," Swedish Institute (SI) director Olle Wästberg told AFP. Link--->
SpamHaus - Irresponsible Net Citizens
I think in general that spam blocking databases are a good thing. I am as frustrated with spam as the next person. However, I think SpamHaus is irresponsible in the service they provide for the simple reason that they abuse their power and refuse to implement levels of granularity in their database. For example, right now my organization the Terrorism Research Center is being blocked by SpamHaus. We've operated on the same single static IP address for five years and we have never had a complaint against our IP address with SpamHaus. So why are we being blocked? Because according to SpamHaus we live in a bad Internet neighborhood and should be blocked because another IP address in our same subnet sent a direct mailing for Staples. Instead of just blocking the IP address engaging in spamming, they are blocking the whole subnet!
Let's look at a real-world equivalent to what Spam Haus is doing.
John Walsh runs a national sex offender registry at FamilyWatchDog.us. This is a responsible service that lists individuals and their granular Street Address.
What if John Walsh followed the SpamHaus methodology? Well, when a sex offender moved into your neighborhood, instead of listing the street address, they would list your whole neighborhood.
Now, let's imagine that your neighborhood being listed resulted in your not being able to get a job because an employer voluntarily looked at the list, saw there was an offender in your neighborhood and can't tell if it is you or not so they refuse your right of employment. Also, when you try to mail in your bill using USPS it is returned to sender because your power company doesn't accept mail from any listing in the Family Watchdog database.
When you contact Family Watch dog, they tell you the world is a big place. You are a free citizen and have the power to move and not live in a neighborhood with a sex offender.
This is exactly what SpamHaus is doing to TRC right now.
Lists of offenders, whether they be sexual predators or spammers can be a good thing, but not when they are operated by irresponsible entities that build a level of trust and then manipulate the system in ways that are harmful to the communities they are trying to protect. The Terrorism Research Center operates 24/7/365 because our customers rely on the intelligence we provide to stay safe. Also tens of thousands of people subscribe to our free newsletter to stay better informed on issues of terrorism and homeland security. However, SpamHaus is impacting our ability to do good work. Their attitude in dealing with these issues is arrogant, cocky and wrong. You can argue until you are blue in the face that SpamHaus only maintains a database and implementation is voluntary, but the bottom line is they have established an extensive following and have a responsbility to provide accurate results to their users.
If you are currently using SpamHaus, you should take a serious look at how their policies might impact your organization. If you like SpamHaus (as most do) you should email them and encourage them to be more responsible net citizens. There is no reason to block the Terrorism Research Center IP. There is no record of spam sent by us, no complaints against our organization in over 10 years of Internet operation. We've been responsible net citizens, it is time for SpamHaus to do the same.
I am happy to talk to any media outlets that want to discuss this story.
Update: As of 30-Jan-2007 09:34 GMT SpamHaus has changed the record to block only the offending individual IP address, not the entire subnet. This is what they should have been doing from the start. This issue is far from over because we need to hold SpamHaus accountable for their lazy and coercive practices. They should not be blocking entire subnets, especially when they have proof that doing so will hurt legitimate organizations (we provided that proof in 2005 to them). They should not use their status as the maintainers of a widely used spam database to coerce organizations to switch ISPs. They need to stay in their lane and focus on providing accurate listings.
Why Second Life Fails?
In December I wrote a blog post that predicted that over the longer-term Second Life fails because there is no governance. I am a big fan of SL, but to me it increasingly resembles some sort of phishing scam. In one month, I had games of chance that didn't pay out on winning hands, vendor machines that took my money but offered no merchandise, and watched mini-organized crime groups rotate through avatars on a weekly basis to engage in fraud against SL residents. Linden Labs, the creators of SL are no help in the matter as they always provide a canned response:
Linden Lab cannot verify, enforce, certify, examine, uphold or adjudicate any oath, contract, deal, or agreement made by the residents of Second Life. This includes the odds, operation, payouts, etc. of any gambling or "casino" scripts.
Whenever you are talking about real money, and this point SL is talking about Real Money the world will fall apart if there is no governance. Someone has to prevent fraud or SL fans like myself get frustrated and look elsewhere. From a long-term standpoint, I was pretty discouraged that SL will simply fail, not in a financial sense, but in the sense that is never realizes its full potential as a disruptive technology.
However, I was encouraged to read this interview with Mitch Kapor, the Chairman of Linden Labs' board.
We’re focused on building out the company. The grid has to stay up 24-7, the frame rates have to go up, we have to make it easier to use, it has to become more civilized, there are all sorts of governance issues. All that is a hundred times more important right now than worrying about cashing out. I am not thinking about a liquidity event. Link--->
Nice to see at the leadership level they at least recognize their own problems. Maybe they will address this after all.
In Loving Memory - Dr. Robert Garigue
I was extremely saddened to learn today that my good friend Robert had quietly passed away at the age of 55. I first met Robert back in 1994 when our paths crossed based on a mutual interest on the topic of information warfare. We would keep in touch periodically over the next several years often meeting at conferences and exchanging email. In 1997, I had the distinct honor (and challenge) of putting together the Coalition Vulnerability Assessment Team to perform penetration testing against classified networks in the United States, Canada, U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. I was delighted to learn that Canada had designated Robert as their delegate to the team. We quickly schemed a plan of global domination and advanced the bar for coalition assessments in ways we had been told would be politically impossible to achieve.
Our first CVAT deployment was during the summer of 1997 to Virginia Beach and it was an incredible experience. When not on-site engaging in network attacks, Robert and I spent our time at a local establishment called the Oysterette. It became our home away from home and we often closed the place (or stayed after hours) discussing technology, philosophy and everything in between. I remember upon our departure after three weeks, Robert brought a copy of the Little Prince for the waitstaff to read after they had expressed interest in our passionate discussions of the book one night. A year later I stopped by the Oysterette to say hello and learned that many of them had read and thoroughly enjoyed it!
By the summer of 1998 the CVAT was deployed to Blandford, U.K. and both Joy and I had the pleasure of Robert's company. We frequented the three good restaurants in town and Joy and I had the pleasure of meeting Robert's daughter who had traveled to England to meet him at the end of our deployment. I remember upon one late night dinner with Robert and his daughter that I hoped, if I had a daughter, she would one day look at me the way his daughter looked at him.
Our friendship flourished over the years to come and when Robert needed a place to stay during a three week research visit to Washington, D.C. he stayed with Joy and I and we found a forum for our late night conversations to continue. Having written on the impact of technology on religion and the human experience, I enjoyed having someone as eccentric as Robert to bounce ideas around in light of a paper he had written on the inherent belief systems embedded in machines by their creators.
Professionally, Robert was a military man, an academic, a civil servant and a businessman and he flourished at everything he pursued. He had a heart of gold, a sharp intellect and a passion for truly learning from our human relationships. Robert was a friend to many and a true pioneer in the fields of information warfare and security. His expertise in the area was clearly demonstrated by his leadership in advancing topics ranging from national assessment plans to critical infrastructure protection. One need only Google his name to get a feel for his contributions to the field once he entered the private sector.
In one of our last email exchanges, Robert signed off with the following:
"take care - count your blessings. kiss everyone for me "
I will Robert. I will.
Five Steps to a Killer iPhone
I am as excited about the release of the Apple iPhone and it will likely be on my shopping list come June. However, here are five key components that I think are missing in the first generation of the device as described during the keynote and on the Apple website.
- No third party applications. If this device is truly running OS X, then I don't expect Apple to be able to predict or deliver the full suite of applications I might need. We need a way for users to intall applications and/or support for some general productivity apps like word processing.
- No VOIP. This one has me stunned. I need iChat with VOIP or ability to load Skype. I fear that this is a result of the alliance with Cingular. If so, it is a damn shame. Want to really impress me? Put the camera on the face of the phone instead of the back and give me video chat.
- Attachment viewing. There are a lot of examples of viewing photo attachments in email. I don't need to be able to view photos, I need to be able to view Word documents and PDF files.
- Wireless sync. I want to sync this device over bluetooth and WiFi. I want to buy stuff on iTunes over WiFi/Edge and download directly to the device even if it means that it is one of my five authorized computers.
- Games. I see no mention of support for iPod games.
What features will you be looking for in the June release?
Nokia N80i - More Comments
I've spent two full business days with the N80i and given it some really heavy use. Here are some additional impressions...
Pros:
- Voice quality is excellent. As good as any cell phone I have used.
- Pairing with BT headset (Jawbone) worked great. Very seamless.
- Reception has been good. Certainly equal to my Razr (Cingular as well) and Pearl (t-mobile)
- User interface continues to be intuitive. Lots of little things (remembering my spot in the address book) that mean a lot but probably go unrecognized most of the time.
- Camera takes decent pictures. Better than any camera phone I have owned.
- Battery life is great. I read complaints of this on other reviews, but it has not been an issue. Heavy use and I still have 1/2 charge left. I always charge my cell phone overnight, so getting through two days of talk time on one charge is plenty.
- Slider is intuitive to use. This is my first slider phone and I am digging it.
Cons:
- Won't pair with my Prius (I blame this on Toyota, not Nokia)
- Won't connect to my work WiFi. This is a bit of an issue. It sees the WAP, asks for the WPA password, but then kicks back an error that it can not connect. It is a WPA2 WAP, which I thought was supported.
Steve Job's takes us five years into the future...
Just got done watching the Steve Job's keynote. The new iPhone is a rule breaker, paradigm shaker and it will be fun to watch this unfold over the coming six months. The implications of the interface far exceed the mobile phone market. I've been using a zero touch keyboard for two years that allows gesturing, etc. I expect we'll be seeing more of that type of device in the future. The future of human interface design drastically changed today.
More comments on my Nokia N80i later!
Nokia N80i First Impressions
I've been playing with the N80i a bit over the weekend and have been reasonably happy. The first thing I did (before even moving my SIM card to the new phone) was test the VOIP features. As a Mac user I did not use the Nokia CD, which I am assuming had the Gizmo Project software as I could not find it natively on my phone. However, a quick Google search revealed a web site where it was easily downloaded and installed to the phone. After literally 30 seconds of set-up (entering my Gizmo username/password) I was able to make phone calls over my home wireless network using VOIP. Sound quality was very good. As good as my hardwired $300 Polycom phone connected to my Voicepulse bridge. (Update: By going to my download folder and selecting Options/Update List, I was able to get the Gizmo client and a bunch of other add-ons)
Step two was to connect the phone to iSync and get my address book transfered. Ran into a bit of a problem with this one, but it was easily solved by modifying one of my plist files locally. If you would like a copy, just leave a comment and I'll post it for you. With the modification, iSync worked perfectly and my address book moved across complete with photos for contacts.
Cell phone voice quality seemed adequate and certainly on par with the Blackberry Pearl and Razr I had been using prior to this phone. No real issues yet on that front, but I'll report again once I've used it during the business week.
A few shortcomings:
- Proprietary charger and sync adapter. These days, I really expect my devices to charge and sync over mini-USB and to be able to trickle charge them via my computer's USB port.
- No 3.5mm headphone jack! That pretty much rules this out as a media device or me. I could buy the Nokia adapter for this purpose, but I probably won't.
This post makes me think that the N95 really may be the perfect phone as it addresses a lot of these shortcomings. However, the key question is whether the N95 will support the VOIP services like the N80i.
Update:
By request, here is my updated file (right click to download).
Just replace the file in this directory (make a back-up first!)
Proceed at your own risk!