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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 121 declined, 109 accepted (230 total, 47.39% accepted)

Submission + - U.S. ISBN monopoly denies threat from digital publishing (oreilly.com)

Ian Lamont writes: "The Economist writes that self-publishing threatens the existence of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) regimen, which is used to track and distribute printed books. Self-publishing of e-books has experienced triple-digit growth in recent years, and the most popular self-publishing platforms such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing don't require ISBNs (Amazon assigns its own reference number to these titles). But Bowker, the sole distributor of ISBNs in the United States, sees an opportunity in self-publishing. The packages for independent authors are very expensive — Bowker charges $125 for a single ISBN, and $250 for ten. It also upsells other expensive services to new and naive authors, including $25 barcodes and a social widget that costs $120 for the first year. Laura Dawson, the product manager for identifiers at Bowker, insists that ISBNs are relevant and won't be replaced anytime soon: "Given how hard it is to migrate database platforms and change standards, I wouldn’t expect to replace the ISBN, simply because it is also an EAN, which is an ISO standard that forms the backbone of global trade of both physical and digital items. There are a lot of middlemen, even in self-publishing. They require standards in order to communicate with one another.""
Your Rights Online

Submission + - LendInk ebook lending service returns, quickly draws DMCA notice (facebook.com) 1

Ian Lamont writes: "Remember LendInk, the legitimate ebook lending community that got knocked offline at the beginning of August by a mob of misguided authors? The site's owner, Dale Porter, received a lot of support after the story went viral and last week was able to reactivate the site and his affiliate accounts with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Unfortunately, he also drew a DMCA complaint — even though the front page of the relaunched site clearly states "No books or artwork is maintained, sold or lent by Lendink.com" and the book artwork is supplied by the affiliate programs. Porter posted the text of the DMCA complaint on LendInk's Facebook page. The lawyer who sent the complaint apparently specializes in book piracy, and in 2010 claimed a 98% success rate of getting links removed within three days."
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Legitimate ebook lending community closed after copyright complaints (digitalmediamachine.com) 5

Ian Lamont writes: "LendInk, a community for people interesting in using the lending features of the Kindle and Nook, has been shut down after some authors mistakenly thought the site was hosting pirated ebooks. The site brought together people who wanted to loan or borrow specific titles that are eligible for lending, and then sent them to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to make the loans. Authors and publishers who were unaware of this feature of the Kindle and Nook, and/or mistakenly assumed the site was handing out pirated copies, were infuriated. LendInk's hosting company received hundreds of complaints and shut the site down. LendInk's owner says, "The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point. I have read the comments many of these people have posted and I don't think any form of communication will resolve the issues in their eyes. Most are only interested in getting money from me and others are only in in for the kill. They have no intentions of talking to me or working this out. So much for trying to start a business and live the American Dream.""
The Internet

Submission + - "Inventor of email" gets support of Noam Chomsky (reuters.com)

Ian Lamont writes: "Shiva Ayyadurai, who famously claims to have invented email as a teenager in the 1970s, is back. A statement attributed to Noam Chomsky offers support for Ayyadurai's claim while attacking "industry insiders" for stating otherwise. The statement reads:

Given the term email was not used prior to 1978, and there was no intention to emulate "...a full-scale, inter-organizational mail system," as late as December 1977, there is no controversy here, except the one created by industry insiders, who have a vested interest to protect a false branding that BBN is the "inventor of email", which the facts obliterate.

"

Submission + - City of Boston pays $170,000 to settle landmark case involving man arrested for (aclum.org) 1

Ian Lamont writes: "The City of Boston has reached a $170,000 settlement with Simon Glik who was arrested by Boston Police in 2007 after using his mobile phone to record police arresting another man on Boston Common. Police claimed that Glik had violated state wiretapping laws, but later dropped the charges and admitted the officers were wrong to arrest him. Glik had brought a lawsuit against the city (aided by the ACLU) because he claimed his civil rights were violated. According to today's ACLU statement:

As part of the settlement, Glik agreed to withdraw his appeal to the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel. He had complained about the Internal Affairs Division's investigation of his complaint and the way they treated him. IAD officers made fun of Glik for filing the complaint, telling him his only remedy was filing a civil lawsuit. After the City spent years in court defending the officers' arrest of Glik as constitutional and reasonable, IAD reversed course after the First Circuit ruling and disciplined two of the officers for using "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Glik.

"

Programming

Submission + - Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career (kalzumeus.com)

Ian Lamont writes: "Patrick McKenzie has written about the do's and don't's of working as a software engineer, and some solid (and often amusing) advice on how to get ahead. One of the first pieces of advice:

Don't call yourself a programmer: "Programmer" sounds like "anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo." If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired.

Although he runs his own company, he is a cold realist about the possibilities for new college grads in the startup world: "The high-percentage outcome is you work really hard for the next couple of years, fail ingloriously, and then be jobless and looking to get into another startup""

AI

Submission + - MIT-designed game used to train an AI system (mit.edu)

Ian Lamont writes: "MIT Media Lab and the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab have just released Improviso, an online game that is part of a research project to create a more realistic game AI. Improviso requires two players, a Lead Actor and Director, who pretend to shoot a low-budget science fiction movie about a government cover-up of aliens at Area 51. The goal of the project is to gather recorded improv from thousands of games, which can be used to train an AI system that will be able to play the role of NPCs. Jeff Orkin, the MIT researcher who led game development, says that the best time to play Improviso is between 7 pm and 10 pm. Orkin is also the creator of a game AI called goal oriented action programming, first used in F.E.A.R. in 2005 and later employed in F.E.A.R. 2 and Fallout 3."
Government

Submission + - Microsoft VP suggests 'Net tax to clean computers (itworld.com)

Ian Lamont writes: Microsoft's Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney, speaking at the RSA conference in San Francisco, has floated an interesting proposal to deal with infected computers: Approach the problem of dealing with malware infections like the healthcare industry, and consider using "general taxation" to pay for inspection and quarantine. Using taxes to deal with online criminal activity is not a new idea, as demonstrated by last year's Louisiana House vote to levy a monthly surcharge on Internet access to deal with online baddies.
Security

Submission + - Microsoft: Don't press F1 key in Windows XP (computerworld.com) 2

Ian Lamont writes: Microsoft has issued a security advisory that warns users not to press the F1 key in Windows XP owing to an unpatched bug in VBScript discovered by Polish researcher Maurycy Prodeus. The security advisory says that the vulnerability relates to the way VBScript interacts with Windows Help files when using Internet Explorer, and could be triggered by a user pressing the F1 key after visiting a malicious Web site using a specially crafted dialog box.
Programming

Submission + - "Logan's Run" syndrome in programming (infoworld.com)

Ian Lamont writes: InfoWorld has an interesting analysis of the reasons behind the relative dearth of programmers over the age of 40. While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out, in what the article describes as a "Logan's Run"-like marketplace. A bunch of factors are listed as reasons, including management's misunderstanding of the ways in which developers work:

Any developer can tell you that not all C or PHP or Java programmers are created equal; some are vastly more productive or creative. However, unless or until there is a way to explicitly demonstrate the productivity differential between a good programmer and a mediocre one, inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code. The very concept of viewing experience as an asset for raising productivity is a nonfactor — much to the detriment of the developer workplace.


Submission + - Superbowl tech ads, 1976 - present (computerworld.com)

Ian Lamont writes: Computerworld has put together a collection of interesting, funny, and just plain weird Superbowl television advertisements from tech companies — exluding Internet retailers. Everyone has seen the Macintosh ad that played during the 1984 Superbowl, but there are a bunch of other gems, starting with a long-winded ad for the Xerox 9200 from 1976. The funniest is probably EDS' "herding cats" ad from 2000, but there are some oddities, too, including a bizarre ad for Network Associates depicting a Russian nuclear missile launch, and a very dated ad for Sharp from the mid-1980s. Intel has one ad in the collection from 1997, and it turns out that it is returning with two ads this year that it says feature "geek humor".
Security

Submission + - Can you trust Chinese computer equipment? (itworld.com)

Ian Lamont writes: Suspicions about China slipping eavesdropping technology into computer exports have been around for years. But the recent Chinese spying attacks on Google and other Internet companies have revived the hardware spying concerns. An IT World blogger suggests the gear can't be trusted, noting that it wouldn't be hard to add security holes to the firmware of Chinese-made USB memory sticks, computers, hard drives, and cameras. He also implies that running automatic checks for data of interest in the compromised gear would not be difficult.
Communications

Submission + - Asterisk vishing attacks "endemic" (thestandard.com)

Ian Lamont writes: Remember the report last year that the FBI was concerned about a "vishing" exploit relating to the Asterisk IP PBX software? Digium played down the report, noting that it was based on a bug that had already been patched, but now the company's open-source community director says that attacks on Asterisk installations are 'endemic.' There have been dozens of reported vishing attacks in recent weeks, says the article:

The victims typically bank with smaller regional institutions, which typically have fewer resources to detect scams. Scammers hack into phone systems and then call victims, playing prerecorded messages that say there has been a billing error or warn them that the bank account has been suspended because of suspicious activity. If the worried customer enters his account number and ATM password, the bad guys use that information to make fake debit cards and empty their victim's bank accounts.

The article adds that businesses can prevent many of these attacks by changing the port they use for SIP connections on their VoIP systems, by blocking connections after a certain number of failures, and by simply using better passwords on their voice systems.

United States

Submission + - FCC to probe exclusive mobile deals (thestandard.com)

Ian Lamont writes: "The Federal Communications Commission is planning on launching an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers. In a speech on Thursday, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said the agency "should determine whether some of these arrangements adversely restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices, and it should take appropriate action if it finds harm." It's not hard to imagine who might be targeted — At a separate Senate Committee on Commerce hearing on Thursday, much of the discussion centered on AT&T's exclusive deal to carry the iPhone. AT&T claimed "consumers benefit from exclusive deals in three ways: innovation, lower cost and more choice," but carriers and senators from states with large rural populations disagreed, saying that their customers had no choice when it came to the iPhone — it's not available because AT&Ts network doesn't reach these areas. One panelist also brought up the Carterfone precedent (PDF), which concerned an "electrical acoustic coupling device" that a man named Tom Carter developed in the 1950s to let field workers make phone calls using a radio tranceiver connected to AT&T's phone network. AT&T, which was then a monopoly, claimed no foreign devices could be connected to its network, but lost when it challenged the Carterfone in court. The result spurred innovation such as the fax machine."
Security

Submission + - Investigators replicate Nokia 1100 banking hack (thestandard.com)

Ian Lamont writes: "Investigators have duplicated an online banking hack using a 2003-era Nokia mobile phone. Authorities had been aware for some time that European gangs were interested in buying the phone, and were finally able to confirm why: It can be used to access victims' bank accounts using "special software written by hackers." The hack apparently works by letting criminals reprogram the phones to use someone else's phone number and receive their SMS messages, including mTANs (mobile transaction authentication numbers) from European banks. However, the only phones that work are 1100 handsets (pictures) made in a certain factory. Nokia had claimed last month it had no idea why criminals were paying thousands of euros to buy the old handsets."

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