Thursday, May 11, 2006

Book Review: The Last Templar

Not your typical Da Vinci Code   knockoff

The first half of The Last Templar is a rip-roaring and unpredictable page-turner that begins with four armed horsemen invading a Vatican exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The foursome, dressed as Knights Templar, are not after gold or riches. Instead they abscond with a fascinatingly complex encryption device from the era of the Crusades. The pursuit of the device and its meaning forms the crux of the plot.

The order of the Templar arose in the 12th century to protect travelers to the Holy Land. Their wealth and reputation were unassailable until 1307, when the King of France and the Church destroyed the remaining Knights. Their intent was reportedly to absorb the Templars' vast fiscal treasures. But, in what has perplexed scholars for centuries, no such treasure was ever found. The resulting aura of mystery has followed the legend of the knights ever since.

After the raid on MoMA, FBI agent Sean Ryan and archaeologist Tess Chaykin embark on an increasingly desperate hunt. Who were the four horsemen? What was the encoding device? And who is behind the apparent resurgence of the order?

Khoury is at his best educating the reader. The history lessons, woven throughout the characters' dialogue, is educational without being the least bit dry. But what purport to be action sequences are truly the crunchy bits, to the extent that I started skipping pages near the end of the book because of the formulaic conclusion. In short, worth reading, but only if you don't have something better at hand.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Google Trends


The real rocket scientists over at Google (and, yes, this time I'm using it as a real compliment) have introduced a true innovation related to search. Google Trends lets anyone see trending data on search terms...

Google Trends

AT&T: Suddenly Flummoxed (Updated!)


On one of its public relations web sites, AT&T describes its position as it tries to kill off network neutrality:

...[we] will not block, impair or degrade access to any legal web site, application or service, nor will we intentionally degrade the customer experience or the service delivery of content or application providers.

Sounds pretty good, right?

Now stop and ask yourself the following question. Why can't all of the King's lobbyists, lawyers and horsemen codify that single sentence into the law of the land?

Could it be because they don't intend to keep their word? Sometimes these guys are so transparent you can see through them on a sunny day.

Update: Pro-carrier blogger and anti-neutrality zealot Richard Bennett calls me a "shameless liar" and claims, "This exact language is in the COPE Act that was passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last week."

What Richard fails to mention is that the COPE Act renders the FCC impotent to render decisions and "lessons-learned" rules around neutrality. Title II of the COPE act -- rather than giving the FCC enforcement power -- would instead handcuff it (pg. 43):

"...the Commission’s authority to enforce the broadband policy statement and the principles incorporated therein does not include authorization for the Commission to adopt or implement rules or regulations regarding enforcement of the broadband policy statement and the principles incorporated therein, with the sole exception of the authority to adopt procedures for the adjudication of complaints, as provided in paragraph (3)."

An unenforceable law is as good as no law at all. COPE disintegrates the FCC's ability to slap down misbehaving carriers and is nothing more than an unsubtle homage to the telcos' lobbying power.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

TorPark threatens to enforce net neutrality


The new TorPark package combines two open-source efforts -- a portable Firefox browser and the Tor onion router -- into a single platform that threatens to enforce net neutrality whether the carriers like it or not. TorPark provides a secure, portable and anonymous package for web browsing that prevents packet inspection, filtering, and blocking.

In early February, I predicted this very confluence of packages -- i.e., the fact that combining Firefox and Tor (or OpenVPN, SSL VPNs, etc.) provides an almost insurmountable challenge to the telcos and cable companies who threaten to perform deep packet inspection on consumers' traffic. They can't say I didn't warn 'em.

And TorPark will only get better when Google and Yahoo bring their developers to bear.

Dear Carriers:

Don't hate the players. Hate the game.

Sincerely, TorPark

read more

Monday, May 08, 2006

Killing Skype and Vonage


From all appearances, the telcos and cable companies appear bound and determined to eradicate network neutrality. The resulting chaos is simple to predict: innovative services like Skype and Vonage would be left to die, unless they could pony up "prioritization tarriffs". And the next Skype, the next Vonage, the next innovation would never see the light of day. What investor would bother funding a startup that the telcos could kill off as easily as flipping a light-switch?

Verizon warns Financial Services Firms


The latest salvos: Verizon warned financial services firms that they, "may not get the secure networks" they need if net neutrality continues to be levied. The reason? The financial firms are getting antsy that the carriers' plans will dramatically escalate their costs. They are right about that - and, in fact, the carriers could enter or dominate any market they so choose.

And Verizon's argument is simply a rudimentary straw-man: net neutrality is enforced today by the FCC. Oh, and guess what? SSL/TLS -- the primary method of encrypting B2C network traffic -- is utterly, completely, and absolutely secure. Therefore, the VZ prediction has all the legitimacy and accuracy of Miss Cleo's Psychic Hotline.

No relief from Cable


In other news, Mediacom Communications -- a cable provider I've never even heard of -- crushed the hopes of consumers who thought that cable might provide competition for the telcos by offering a net-neutral environment. Instead, Rocco Commisso, CEO of the company, noted, "I don't think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that... Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?"

Perhaps, Rocket Scientist Rocco, because "last-mile" fiber into the home is a natural monopoly. Over the long haul, there will be only one fiber last-mile network in any town or city. Building out two or more expensive and competing sets of fiber loops will needlessly and dramatically increase consumer costs. Like electric power, water, and sewer systems, fiber networks are examples of natural monopolies. In other words, it makes no sense to build redundant last-mile fiber infrastructure.

Thus, as a natural monopoly, last-mile fiber must join the ranks of regulated infrastructure. In this case, the regulated framework is no more onerous than what exists today: an FCC-mandated state of net neutrality.

Anti-American Rhetoric


Put simply, these blathering excretions are anti-American rhetoric that threatens innovation and investment.

Let me get the carriers' arguments straight: erecting tollbooths on the Internet and suppressing those upstart Internet companies (responsible for the creation of a trillion or more in market-cap) is a good thing?

The carriers' intentions are so transparent that you can probably see through their business plans when you hold them up to bright light. I believe they seek to kill or control Skype, Vonage, YouTube, and any other service that threatens their antiquated business models.

For one, the hardware that Cisco markets to the carriers is downright ominous in its capabilities: the marketing lit almost comes out and giggles over the fact that carriers can meter, filter, degrade or even block third-party network traffic.

And instead of investing in layers 4 through 7 (applications or content), the carriers seem to invest mostly in lobbyists. In fact, I can't think of one innovative Internet application introduced by the carriers -- ever. That, by itself, tells me all I need to know.

Hitch a ride on over to Save the Internet and take action. Today.

The Ultimate Gadgets then...


If you remember what the first mobile phone looked like (11.5 pounds with a carrying case) or the first mass-market floppy-disk (the 360 KB 5.25" diskette stored within a paper sleeve), you'll get a kick out of a gallery of Gadgets now and then over at Fosfor.

Hey, does anyone know where I can download Windows drivers for my Verbatim 8" 2S/2D disks? I've still got some good stuff stored on those from the early eighties.

And an Ultimate Gadget now


The invaluable Engadget site describes the device that combines the functionality of keyboard and mouse into a single entity. Sounds silly, right? In fact, it's not. The keyboard splits into left-hand and right-hand section. The right-hand section can be rolled, just like a mouse, to save time and energy:

Their concept is quite simple: reduce the repetitive and arduous task of moving your hand from keyboard to mouse and back again a few thousand times a day. They accomplish that by splitting the keyboard and making the right half into a full fledged mouse...

Engadget: Combi-mouse

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Using virtualization as anti-virus


The latest tale from the Red Shed describes the use of virtualization software -- VirtualPC in this case, though it could have been VMware -- as an anti-virus platform. One wise commenter notes:

The security mechanism you describe in your article is a form of Mandatory Access Control (MAC). You are effectively defining domains within which your applications must run, and they only have access to the resources in those domains. Even a root user in a Unix VM can’t get access to the application you run in a separate VM. This mechanism strongly contains any accidental or malign activity within the domain of operation in a mandatory way (as opposed to a discretionary way, e.g. Unix file permissions). As such—and as you imply but don’t quite say explicitly in your article—virtualization kicks the ever-loving pants off of traditional antivirus software, vis-a-vis protecting your computer from viruses...

The virus software, in contrast, is doomed to painful and repeated failure because it can only catch what it already knows.


Rentzsch: Using Virtualization as Antivirus

Eyewitnesses to Hiroshima and Nagasaki


The remarkable Damn Interesting site has some fascinating eyewitness accounts of the bombs that ended the brutal war in the Pacific:

The sound of the American planes drew the attention of the city's residents, many of whom were outdoors participating in work programs. A few saw a large parachute unfurl beneath the B-29 before it flew away, but most saw only the flash that soon followed. The events that unfolded that morning on the streets of Hiroshima were recorded by those who survived. These survivors would come to be known as hibakusha– "people exposed to the bomb."

Kids Programming Language to go Open Source


The KPL (Kids Programming Language) will go open-source this summer, according to NewForge. KPL is a freeware development environment, which currently requires Windows. KPL is designed to be a fun way to get kids engaged in software development and concentrates specifically on game construction. Jon Schwartz, creator of KPL, asks the following questions related to the OSS version:

  • What platforms or technologies would you like to see KPL run on?
  • Are you using KPL v1.1 now, on Windows?
  • Are there communities where you could help spread the word about KPL as an open source project?
  • Are you a software developer who would work on KPL if it were open source? What language or technologies would you work with if you are?
  • What open source community or platform would you recommend for KPL v 1.1 as an open source project?

KPL

Friday, May 05, 2006

Bonfire of the Monopolists


In most places around the country, consumers are limited to zero, one or two choices for broadband connections to the Internet. I, for example, live in a metro area and have two choices: DSL from the phone company and cable from -- er -- my cable provider. My neighbors to the north have exactly one choice for broadband: DSL.

And with the mergers among the carriers, we're down to two telephone companies and a handful of cable operators. Which doesn't leave anyone interested in competition with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

The Carriers: Dedicated to Reducing Choice


The market for last-mile services might have been more competitive had the carriers not spent significant time and capital fighting municipal wi-fi or, for that matter, spending more on lobbyists than on application R&D.

In point of fact, the telcos have spent most of their energy attempting to reduce choice for last-mile services, even down to battling the city of New Orleans over its deployment of WiFi during the Katrina reconstruction.

We must also ask ourselves why the carriers spend so much on lobbyists and lawyers rather than value-creating applications like Skype, YouTube, and Vonage? The answer is that the carriers believe they can magically legislate value-creation by exterminating net neutrality and erecting tollbooths all over the Internet. And, of course, they are wrong.

Meanwhile, Cisco and other networking vendors are hawking hardware to the carriers that is utterly ominous in nature. It appears designed to analyze, block, filter, meter, and otherwise meddle with Internet traffic to financially benefit the carriers. In fact, they almost come right out and giggle over the capability of degrading applications that are competitive to the carriers' offerings.

Democracy versus Communism


And, yet, somehow the "let the free market decide" crew over at Townhall believes that this is a Democrat vs. Republican issue. Someone has convinced a few of these folks that letting the carriers destroy the current state of neutrality is a good thing.

Despite the attempts to portray it as such, this is not a Democrat vs. GOP issue. It is a Democracy versus Communism issue. Do we want the continued invention of thousands of new, diverse applications like Skype, Google, and Vonage? Or do we want a centralized planning committee at the carriers' headquarters to decide which startups live or die?

Plenty of conservatives -- from the Gun Owners of America, to Right Wing News, Instapundit, etc. -- support net neutrality. And more are joining the cause every day.

It's easy to see why. When net neutrality was violated in Canada recently, the results weren’t pretty. In that case, a telco blocked access to a political website whose views ran counter to its opinions. Consider that for just a moment.

Furthermore, such an environment destroys innovation. Even today, with a political landscape that seems to favor the carriers' stance, innovation has stalled. Stifel Nicolaus, an analyst quoted in Business Week, stated, "Right now, I would never invest in a business model that depended on protection from Net neutrality."

So who will fund the next great Internet idea? The answer is: no one. The result of killing off neutrality will be more censorship, less innovation, and will place America's Internet leadership position at risk.

The fathers of the Internet say...


The current state of the Internet -- the one that has resulted in such immense value creation -- is network neutrality. What the telcos are supporting is the extermination of neutrality and neutering the FCC's ability to enforce it.

Bob Kahn (co-inventor of TCP/IP), Vint Cerf (Godfather of the Internet), and Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the web) all favor network neutrality. But I suppose the telco lobbyists know more about the network then they do.

America's leadership in Internet innovation (and, by extension, its national security) hangs in the balance. Go to SaveTheInternet.com today and take action.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

50-Year Mortgage Debuts in California


Have your eye on a nice new pad in Brentwood? It may yet be affordable, if you qualify for a new mortgage product: a 50-year note. Make the first payment and then think to yourself:

"Only 599 more payments - and this baby is all mine!"

Six dollars a gallon


Gas PumpHappy with gas prices now? Perhaps you should be:

...Imagine another terrorist attack — especially one on Saudi Arabian oil refineries, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Monday during a visit to Pittsburgh.

If terrorists took out the sulfur-cleaning towers in northeastern Saudi Arabia, as described in the beginning of Robert Baer’s book, “Sleeping With the Devil,” crude oil prices could easily top $150 a barrel and stay there for more than a year, Woolsey said.

A barrel of oil sold for about $73 yesterday, with gas prices in the United States hovering around $3 a gallon.

Most Americans don’t want to think about paying double that.

And exactly how did we get in this situation?

Both parties have contributed to excessive fuel usage by failing to raise minimum fuel-efficiency standards and promoting gas-guzzling SUVs.

But it is the Democrats who have blocked the construction of new refineries for decades. As recently as yesterday, they decried legislation to speed refinery construction as "weakening environmental protections and [creating] new layers of bureaucracy."

It is the Democrats who have blocked offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico and in the outer continental shelf.

It is the Democrats who have blocked ANWR for over a decade (if Bill Clinton had permitted it then, oil would be flowing today). If all of ANWR were a football field, the drilling area represents less than the size of a postage stamp.

It is the Democrats who have blocked development of peaceful nuclear energy, despite new and safe ways to build reactors and treat waste.

It is the Democrats who have blocked even the construction of windmills!

No refineries? No offshore drilling? No ANWR? No nuclear energy? No windmills?

It is the Democrats' history of obstructionism that is responsible for our current energy prices.

Remember that the next time the Mediacrats howl about high gas prices, oil company profits, and the administration. Their obstructionism is the real cause, as clear as day.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Financial sector awakens to net neutrality issues


CableWhen the Harvard Business School writes its next case-study of public relations campaigns gone awry, they would do well to use the lesson of the carriers and network neutrality. For never has so much capital -- in this case, many tens of millions of dollars -- been utterly wasted through a series of outrageous PR gaffes.
  • Ed Whitacre, erstwhile Godfather CEO of SBC/AT&T, excretes a series of threats at value-creating application providers like Google and Vonage

  • Williams Smith, CTO of Bellsouth/AT&T, blathers about similar brain-damaged schemes: charging Yahoo to load faster than Google, for example. And never mind about an innovative startup with a radical new search scheme - they'll now never even get kick-started with venture money.

  • The leadership at Internet2 -- the high-speed, next-generation network backbone -- publicly worries about content-providers dealing with varying standards
Now the financial services industry -- a sleeping giant with lobbying power to spare -- has been aroused:

The U.S. financial sector, a powerful force in Washington, may be gearing up to jump into a Capitol Hill fight over the future of the Internet and stop an effort it says could add billions in costs just to maintain current offerings...

...they may wait for legislation to get to conference, where House and Senate negotiators work out differences between their bills.

In that environment of closed-door bargaining, banks and credit unions may be able to secure the Net neutrality language they seek, industry lobbyists say.

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions, America's Community Bankers, American Bankers Association and Independent Community Bankers of America, among other financial lobbyists, say they are monitoring the issue.

Bottom line: every business is at risk.

If you care about the future of the Internet, surf over to SaveTheInternet.com and take action. Today.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Net neutrality missing from Senate's telecom bill


The egregious Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) -- architect of the $200+ million bridge to nowhere -- released the long-awaited update to current telecomm law with a paean to the telcos. Missing, as expected, was any mention of network neutrality. Many in Congress -- GOP as well as certain key Democrats -- are as addicted to telco money as the typical teen is to MTV.

What the telcos and cable companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on (the best Congress money can buy?) is to change from the current state of FCC-enforced neutrality to no neutrality. In the proposed law, the FCC has no right to discipline the carriers for favoring content-providers.

Many commentators speculate that this omission will result in an Internet with three tiers of service:

1) Those content-providers (e.g., Google) that won't pay extra tarriffs and will run slow or, perhaps, not at all.
2) Content-providers (e.g., Yahoo) who decide to pay the packet-protection money and run with some quality-of-service (QoS) guaranteed.
3) New applications created by the carriers ("AT&T's SuperSearch!") that compete with content providers, with will run even faster.

In fact, Cisco's marketing lit for their new carrier hardware almost comes right out and guffaws over metering, filtering, degrading and/or blocking competitive network traffic.

Ever wonder why the telcos seem to spend more on lobbyists than inventing cool applications like Vonage and Skype? Now you know.

BusinessWeek said it perfectly last week: “…Blair Levin, analyst with Stifel Nicolaus: “Right now, I would never invest in a business model that depended on protection from Net neutrality…”

So the effect of the carriers’ activities is clear: it is already stifling Internet investment.

Get over to Save The Internet now... and do your part.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Judiciary Committee begins work on network neutrality


The House Judiciary Committee has opened a new front on the battle for network neutrality:

Two House Democrats are drafting a bill designed to impose antitrust penalties on broadband-access providers that attempt to demand fees from Web-content providers in exchange for priority treatment of their search, shopping and information-retrieval services. The legislation, still in draft form, is being developed by Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), members of the Judiciary Committee.

And Russell Shaw, blogging at ZDnet, describes the cost of decimating network neutrality in human terms. Immerse yourself in the hot-tub of wisdom - and read the whole thing.

Google introduces Arabic to English translation tool


It's in beta, of course. I can't help but think of the ramifications for those responsible for our national security. Google Translate - Arabic-to-English Beta.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

We wouldn't want to stifle innovation, would we?


Here's telco lobbyist Walter McCormick, Jr. -- head of the U.S. Telecom Association -- speaking to lawmakers recently on the topic of network neutrality :

Our industry has stated that it will not block, impair or degrade consumer access to the Internet, and the FCC has made it clear that it has the authority to enforce its broadband principles... Therefore, we believe that legislation in the area is premature. Any grants of new regulatory authority or statutory ambiguities could chill innovation and investment.

We wouldn't want to chill innovation and investment, would we? Unfortunately, McCormick's logic has all the intellectual rigor of an Art Schlicter ethics class.

Instead, there's pretty clear evidence emerging that the telcos' plans to eradicate neutrality are already stifling Internet innovation:

...Blair Levin, analyst with Stifel Nicolaus: "Right now, I would never invest in a business model that depended on protection from Net neutrality,"

The only innovation-destroying aspect to this whole debacle is the telcos' unwillingness to invest more in R&D than on lobbyists.

Let's remember Mr. McCormick's promises -- along with his sudden inability to articulate his bold statements as proposed law.

Hollywood Reporter: Walter McCormick's Promise

Book Review: Shadow Divers

Amateur wreck-divers risk it all to solve a WWII mystery

Shadow DiversHaving received a tip from some local fishermen, deep-wreck diving operator Bill Nagle leads a rag-tag, amateur crew to a location off the coast of New Jersey. They expect the typical salvage operation - perhaps a boat that went down a few hundred years ago carrying something of value: collectibles or, better yet, treasure.

Instead, this bunch of would-be explorers is utterly stunned when they discover what's located just beyond the limit of their diving ability: it's a Nazi U-Boat from World War II. Because all U-Boats were accounted for after the war, the nature of the sub is utterly mysterious. Which U-Boat was it? And what could have been its mission, operating this close to the US coast?

Amateur deep-sea divers John Chatterton and one-time rival Rich Kohler partner to solve a mystery of extraordinary proportions. Experts tell them the sub doesn't exist. And without any identifying material, no one will believe the discovery is legitimate. Because of the age of the wreck, virtually all identifying marks have been wiped clean. Complicating matters further is the sub's depth. At 230 feet, it is at the absolute limit of even the most experienced diver.

As Chatterton and Kohler pursue the true nature of the wreck, danger colors every aspect of their work. Multiple team members will die over the years they spend seeking the sub's origin. And only the most hair-raising operation imaginable will allow the key questions to be answered. Circumnavigating the globe to discover the truth, Chatterton and Kohler's quest resonates with deep respect for the wreck and the sailors who served on the sub.

Simply put, adventure stories don't get any better than this. Better yet, this tale is true... and breath-taking in its intensity.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Book Review: Devil in the White City

True story of matchless beauty and unspeakable evil

The World's Fair of 1893 was inarguably an inflection point in the United States' ascent from backwater territory to leader among nations. After all, the prior World's Fair, hosted by Paris in 1889, had unveiled France's gift to the world: the Eiffel Tower. Public sentiment widely anticipated that no country could match the smashing success of Paris. Public sentiment was wrong.

While many U.S. cities vied for the honor of the World's Fair, Chicago won out - beating New York, Philadelphia and Washington. Within months, Daniel Burnham and partner Charles Root, the leading Chicago architects of the day, transformed the lakeshore at Jackson Park into a spectacular and sparkling white city of the future. Clean water, electric lights, with a dedicated police-force and fire-squad. Rising from the lake were some of the largest and most ambitious buildings ever created, garnished with landscaping provided by the foremost designers of the day. And the park was capped by a singular, centerpiece attraction that would shock the world.

While Burnham was bringing his vision to life, another man -- Dr. H. H. Holmes -- was orchestrating a much darker plan. His large hotel, located near the fair, was a veritable house of horrors. Taking advantage of his prime location, Holmes advertised specifically to young, unescorted female visitors to the fair. After the event, hundreds of girls were reported missing. How many Holmes was responsible for is still unknown.

The fair attracted tens of millions of other visitors in its few short months of operation. Among them were Thomas Edison, Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, Houdini, Tesla, Clarence Darrow, Paderewski, Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt and Lillian Russell. Its inventions were numerous: the first-ever electric kitchen (including dishwasher), instant pancakes, Juicy Fruit gum, Cracker Jack, Shredded Wheat, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and the vertical filing system. And the fair also had longer-term ramifications: Elias Disney, Walt's father, helped build the "White City" and was a primary inspiration for DisneyWorld. Frank Baum's city of Oz was undoubtedly influenced by the Fair as well.

Weaving the twin storylines together, Larson has masterfully retold a story most Americans never learned: the transformation of the United States through a singular event, glimpsed through a prism tinted with both remarkable creativity and unspeakable destruction.