Acedemics Just Don't Get Digital Rights

Much of the furor sorounding "Digital Rights" has been emanating from College/University campuses, where huge amounts of illegal file sharing takes place, using the school's networks. The following article recently appeared on ZDNets Technology News Blog:

Politicians just don’t get it by ZDNet's Marc Wagner -- If we want to keep Washington lobbyists out of Education IT, we need to enforce our own codes of conduct with regards to copyright infringement. It is THEFT, plain and simple and if we don't pursue student misconduct ourselves, Congress will mandate solutions which will impede our educational mission for years to come.

Here was my response:

Disclaimer: I'm one of those "politicians" and have also spent the past 20+ years working in IT.

This issue is not complex. Current laws should be obeyed/enforced, until they are repealed/replaced.

It's illegal to copy and redistribute almost all commercially produced music, video or software. When you have a bunch of elitist academics tacitly supporting the theft of copyrighted materials and universities more interested in promoting their football teams than civics/ethics, you wind up with the situation you have now.

Copyright holders see as much chance of voluntary compliance or enforcement on college campuses, as they see for underage drinking, by the same irresponsible whelps who are all glad to break copyright law if they "feel" like it. If they saw mandatory ethics and civics classes being taught, as a apposed to diversity training and Marxism 101, perhaps they would be more willing to take a less aggressive approach to the problem.

It is my opinion that most of the knowledge worth knowing has little or nothing to do with popular culture. Saying that keeping the miscreants from Kazaa and other P-2-P tools will slow down or stifle true academic pursuits or learning is a disingenuous red herring.

If people want copyright laws changed, they should get involved in the political process. Students, try writing (not email, not text message) your elected representatives and in complete sentences, lay out a well reasoned position on why you think current copyright laws need to be changed and what you think they should be. "Teachers," get off your fat, tenured buts and teach these kids how to be productive, law-abiding citizens and how to work within the system to effect positive change!

Much of the furor sorounding "Digital Rights" has been emanating from College/University campuses, where huge amounts of illegal file sharing takes place, using the school's networks. The following article recently appeared on ZDNets Technology News Blog:

Politicians just don’t get it by ZDNet's Marc Wagner -- If we want to keep Washington lobbyists out of Education IT, we need to enforce our own codes of conduct with regards to copyright infringement. It is THEFT, plain and simple and if we don't pursue student misconduct ourselves, Congress will mandate solutions which will impede our educational mission for years to come.

Here was my response:

Disclaimer: I'm one of those "politicians" and have also spent the past 20+ years working in IT.

This issue is not complex. Current laws should be obeyed/enforced, until they are repealed/replaced.

It's illegal to copy and redistribute almost all commercially produced music, video or software. When you have a bunch of elitist academics tacitly supporting the theft of copyrighted materials and universities more interested in promoting their football teams than civics/ethics, you wind up with the situation you have now.

Copyright holders see as much chance of voluntary compliance or enforcement on college campuses, as they see for underage drinking, by the same irresponsible whelps who are all glad to break copyright law if they "feel" like it. If they saw mandatory ethics and civics classes being taught, as a apposed to diversity training and Marxism 101, perhaps they would be more willing to take a less aggressive approach to the problem.

It is my opinion that most of the knowledge worth knowing has little or nothing to do with popular culture. Saying that keeping the miscreants from Kazaa and other P-2-P tools will slow down or stifle true academic pursuits or learning is a disingenuous red herring.

If people want copyright laws changed, they should get involved in the political process. Students, try writing (not email, not text message) your elected representatives and in complete sentences, lay out a well reasoned position on why you think current copyright laws need to be changed and what you think they should be. "Teachers," get off your fat, tenured buts and teach these kids how to be productive, law-abiding citizens and how to work within the system to effect positive change!

BEWARE Of SMiShing Attacks On Cell Phones & PDAs

SMiShing is the newest form of cyber attack.

Like Phishing, from which it gets half its name (SMS + Phishing = SMiShing), SMishing attacks rely on social engineering.  They attempt to convince the unsuspecting user to do something that ultimately leads to the theft of personal information or financial fraud.

These attacks have already begun.  Users of cell phone services in Australia were recently sent an SMS message that told them to confirm a $2.00 p/day charge for an online dating service.  When alarmed users logged into the web site mentioned in the SMS message, the site attempted to infect their computers with a Trojan virus!

A new virus, VBS/Eliles has been identified by major anti-virus vendors.  In addition to its Trojan functions, the virus is designed to send SMS messages through cell phone service provider gateways.

The insidious part of this virus is that it actually offers the Cell Phone/PDA user with a free antivirus download for their device.  The software is allegedly from the recipients cell phone provider.  People who downloaded and installed the "antivirus" software on their phones were quick to discover that they had loaded malicious software instead!

Despite the other social malfunctions that plague Virus writers, they are good at sharing. Although SMiShing is new, the code to carry out this type of attack is already spreading on web sites and discussion forums used by would-be virus writers.  This means that we can expect to see more and more of these attacks in the near future.

eBay & PayPal Mobile Users @ Risk

Although no SMiShing attacks aimed at eBay or PayPal users have been documented, they will likely be future targets.  Both eBay Wireless and PayPal Mobile have mobile tools that make it convenient to manage auctions and pay vendors / sellers using a Cell Phone / PDA.  It won't take long for criminals to identify this pool of tempting mobile targets and start their attacks.

Users of newer converged devices are doubly at risk.  The current generation of cell phones like the Nokia 6265i, Motorola Razr (Razor) or LG Chocolate as well as PDAs like the Palm Treo 650 / 700 or HPs iPAQ running Windows Mobile Edition offer both SMS and Internet Web browsing and eMail, giving criminals multiple ways to target these devices.

Staying Safe

Start by following all the same rules that apply to other online communication tools like email and instant messaging;

1. Never Open/Respond to messages from unknown sources.
   
2. Verify the source/content of all unexpected messages.
   
3. Don't send text messages in response to Ads for free ring tones, jokes, horoscopes, etc.
   
4. Never provide any form of financial or personal information in response to an unsolicited message.

Companies like Norton and MacAffee, as well as freeware antivirus vendors are already developing new antivirus software for cell phone / PDA devices.  Versions of this have already been made available for PDA users.  Like the war that has raged over desktop computers for years, the war against portable devices will likely be just as brutal.

Google Office is not a solution. It is merely a set of virtual tools.

Google Office is not a solution. It is merely a set of virtual tools.

Can a small business afford to give up the high-level of functionality and integration offered by Microsoft Office? If you tell your controller they can no longer merge AR letters with Dynamics, the sales manager they can't analyze CRM data using MapPoint and HR/Payroll the time clock data will need to be re-keyed, what do you think they will say?

Google is NOT providing 'free' applications because they are a philanthropic organization. They have a plan to monetize any hosted application suite through advertising and mining the data for aggregate trend data. The first reason should be enough to keep any smart business person away. The second reason, in light of recent AOL privacy revelations, should be enough to make you run!

Today’s small businesses are looking for solutions that help them compete more effectively in local as well as global markets. They can not afford to be hobbled by inferior applications that offer little more than virtualized versions of non-integrated 1980’s-vintage shareware.

I look forward to the day when we can offer our clients hundreds; if not thousands of small business applications, designed to work together in a virtual cafeteria suite, with the same tight integration available in the networked Windows environment of today. Until then, we will continue to encourage companies that want virtual access to their systems to use solutions like
Terminal Services and Go-To-My-PC, complimented with web-based collaboration tools like SharePoint and Groove

http://blogs.ebay.com/probizteam

In Blu-ray vs HD-DVD Debate DRM is the Only Issue

Blue-ray vs. HD-DVD is a hot topic these days. Recent blog discussions have included posts that discourage Blu-ray adoption because Sony is promoting the standard. Other posters suggest that people stop "harping" on Sony's recent DRM debacle and not let it be a factor in the decision to support Blu-ray. That's like saying we should have ignored Watergate, Enron and the UN's Oil for Food Scandal, because:

• A) Other people were doing it too
• B) They promise to not do it again
• C) It really didn't harm me.

As for me, this was the first Christmas in years that I bought Zero (0) Sony products as gifts. Until I see some high-level (VP or greater) firings/"resignations" at Sony, I will continue to boycott their products and urge my family, friends and clients to do the same.

This being said, the functional differences between Blu-ray and HD-DVD are going to be invisible to most potential users. After all, how many consumers understand or care about the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R today?

A huge barrier to the rapid adoption of either standard will be content vs. cost. What type of content exists to drive either standard? Individual movies fit comfortably on a single DVD. Currently, the only reasonable purpose for greater video capacity would be for storing a series of related video titles, such as a complete season of a particular show or all the sequels of a movie. Although this might appeal to Star Trek and Harry Potter fans, the average consumer probably won't decide that this is worth the $500 - $800 price premium vs. a top-of-the-line multi-format DVD unit. After all $800 buys a LOT of DVD movies!

For most Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMBs) the extra data capacity won’t make a difference either. Most companies in this category generate far less archive-eligible data each year, than the 17GB available on a dual-layer, double-sided DVD. With the continual drop in cost-per-megabyte of RAID storage, many SMBs will find themselves replacing their servers before they run out of room! The rapid growth of broadband and economy of scale offered by online backup/storage vendors like Novastore is going to make it a much more attractive alternative than either tape or optical backup for the SMB users.

Here is the bottom line: Hollywood and other content producers want to replace current DVD formats to further their DRM ambitions. Consumers are NOT likely to invest in a technology that offers them less choice for 10x the price. SMB’s don’t need the extra cost or features and will likely embrace on-line backup and archive technology because it doesn’t depend on the same week link as tape, namely who changed it last!Until we have a truly compelling content-driven reason (3D Home Movies?) for the extra capacity offered by either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, both technologies are likely to languish for the next 3-5 years. By that time, someone will have figured out how to store 100G on a holographic crystal with no moving parts that costs less than $100.00 and comes pre-loaded with ALL the Star Trek movies / series ever produced! Now that’s something I’ll buy!