DygiScape

QTrax is a startup that allegedly had agreements with three large record labels to allow legitimate, free and legal music downloads for users via Peer to Peer (P2P) technology. The blogosphere buzzed about it, then once they found out the deals fell through, the recanted twice as fast.

[Qtrax Really Blows Its Launch, Link via Techmeme]

However, this small battle doesn’t justify declaring a total loss on the war against consumers with digital media. I think this illustrates that there’s still a strong interest among internet users to acquire legally-obtained music for free, in exchange for advertisements being shown. This service would be a direct threat to Apple’s iTunes, but I imagine that it would allow music companies to capture lost revenue from otherwise illegal downloads.

The main problem, which I can understand, is lack of accountability. Most numbers that are tossed around are purely anecdotal and speculative — think of “cooking the books” — in favor of getting deals from record companies. From the record company’s perspective, they’re spending money to “invest” into a new media with minimal proof that it made profit. At least with iTunes, they can keep track of inventory. Much like in court, prosecutors can’t prove that you didn’t do something, only that you did beyond a reasonable doubt.

I conclude with the fact that consumers are still in control. Music lovers will declare whether it’s profitable to go free. Users are ultimately the ones who pay. Is free P2P music sharing doomed, or is there still an opportunity yet to be seized?

Blogging, Geeky, Social Networking, Tech News music, News, Social Networking, technology

Street fights are nothing new — I know from my time in middle and high school, fights attract massive crowds due to the drama, the realism and the unpredictability. Now more attention is focused on the videos of these fights, since they are uploaded to popular video sharing Web sites and spread like wildfire, often syndicated, duplicated and reposted without the victim’s permission.

Even then, Bum Fighting became popular but it failed to garner the media coverage as it has now. (I suspect the studio that produced BumFights suppressed negative media attention by paying the “actors”.) This evening, on my local news, a local street fight was video taped and is likely to be uploaded YouTube along with the homogeneous spin went with it to scare parents. It didn’t surprise me, but I couldn’t help but notice in the report, law enforcement still isn’t fully equipped to handle this type of abuse on the Internet.

I’d like to think that YouTube cooperates with law enforcement and would be more than willing to remove the video and provide the uploader’s IP address, and an access log of the video. After reading YouTube’s Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, they don’t explicitly state that information is provided to law enforcement — but they don’t deny it either. I suppose they do… but if they fail to do so, they can’t be sued for it. (Psst! YouTube Employees, feel free to anonymously confirm this.)

I don’t think that further legislation is necessary, since if content is illegal and a Web site is failing to disclose it, it’s Obstruction of Justice. Yeah, yeah, I know CDA 230, but criminal activity is criminal activity. The way to solve the problems relating to assaults being posted on YouTube is to educate law enforcement to better understand how those Web sites work as well as understand IP addresses. Additionally, they must be willing to enact rapid-fire subpoenas to the uploaders and recent participants. (What does one do when doing something juvenile — they show their friends.)

On Craigslist, the popular free online classifieds Web site, a woman posted an advertisement for a hitman in the “freelancers” section to murder the wife of a man she engaged into an affair with:

“Linscott is accused of asking people who responded to her ad to “eradicate a female living in Oroville, California,” and she provided additional information on the intended victim, including her physical description, age and employment address. On two separate occasions following the November ad posting, she offered payment of $5,000 upon completion of “the eradication task,” according to court documents.”

[...]

“[Jim] Buckmaster said the arrest demonstrated the vigilance of Craigslist users, who are urged to report fraud and scams on the site to keep it clean.”

Craigslist credits the removal of content within their community thanks to the wisdom of crowds. A majority of their users are highly engaged and keep the site clean of any illegal, unethical, or otherwise “junk” content. Users can flag content accordingly, and if content is flagged enough, it is removed. At least in this case, it appears that the FBI and Craigslist cooperated to identify the poster and bring justice.

What’s the lesson here? Well, be mindful of the fact you can be tracked, identified, and arrested if you engage (or publish) illegal activity online just as if you left fingerprints on a murder weapon and a note. However, as social media brings about social problems; it will be a while until we can expect law enforcement to keep up with the demand due to lack of bandwidth.

Blogging, Geeky, Safety, Social Networking, Tech News discussion, internet, social media, youtube

Everything these days is wireless. But, rarely do we care how we connect, instead often just get online. A lot of wireless routers that are available offer very useful features that you probably didn’t know about. I’ll share a few of my favorites. Note: Not all routers are made alike, but many offer similar features described.

Read more…

Blogging, Geeky, Tips Help, internet, Security

Long ago, there was AM radio, which was the medium to broadcast news and information, as well as entertain millions of people. This was a reliable technology, but as technology advanced, FM was used. This newer medium is still used today because of the higher fidelity, higher bandwidth that it can deliver to people. People mostly enjoy FM for music, but when there is a large event, broadcasters unite and share information to their listeners. The same scenario is happening to social media.

Read more…

Blogging, Geeky, Social Networking internet, social media, web 2.0

Robert Scoble going to FastCompany.tv — Before you say he ’sold out,’ he lists his well-thought decision as well as addressing the benefits to his career change. Congrats, Scoblizer.

Gawker Media (the network of blogs like Valleywag, Gizmodo, etc.) Gets Owned by the Blogosphere.  Denton still has a smile for his page views earned. Facebook threatens to delete Denton’s account, Blogger from Gizmodo banned from CES, Denton gets owned when former staffer posts his IM conversation interview, Adverse feedback to Denton changing the incentives (raising the stakes) for posts that earn more page views.

Apple improved some products, released the new Mac Book Air.

Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL, in an effort to target enterprise solutions. Look out, Oracle.

Yahoo implements OpenID, big win for the project.

Library of Congress embraces Web 2.0, partners with Flickr to bring historical photos to the Web.

As the Internet grows larger, Ars Technica looks at the growth problems and solutions to address them at it pertains to Internet traffic and routing.

Blogging, Geeky News, technology, web 2.0

After watching the keynote, which Steve Jobs delivered a phenomenal presentation of five main Apple product (and service)  announcements.

1. Apple Time Capsule – Airport Extreme, 802.11n, 500G/1TB — $299/$499
   This improved product allows for easy data backups over wireless, high speeds and large capacity.
2. iPhone Software Update – Free
   iPhone users can download an update to obtain an updated Maps product, some UI enhancements (”Webclips”), a few additional enhancements. On a related note, Apple will release open SDKs for developers interested in taking advantage of the iPhone in February.
   
   
3. iTunes Movie Rentals – $2.99 (old) /$3.99 (new)
   iTunes has been expanded to compete with other online video distributors with a partnership with 9 movie studios, and Fox has been the front-runner in pushing for this innovation. Jobs continues, explaining the 30-day, 24-hour rule for downloads — which means you have 30 days to watch it, and from the moment you watch a film, you can watch it again for up 24 hours. Seems fair. I think this is what consumers want, fairness.
4. Apple TV – “Take 2″ — Price Drop — $229
   Jobs was humble in admitting the failure in attempting to dive into the TV market. He validates himself by listing all the companies that have attempted to bring the Internet to the traditional TV. He improved the Apple TV to be its own computer, with no dependencies (other than the Web). Boasting content to pair with HDTVs, the Apple TV offers more value for consumers.
5. MacBook Air – “Worlds Thinnest Notebook” — $1799
   It’s MacBook, but smaller, lighter, thinner and packed with the built-in Web cam, 802.11n and a very long-life battery (5hrs!). Jobs continued to describe the engineering that took place in shrinking the MacBook. I’m not so impressed, but a lot of other people are. I’d say if Apple tweaked the whole line of the MacBook, that would be more impressive.

You can read more about the announcements made at MacWorld at http://www.macworld.com/. Or you may choose to watch a video telecast of it as well, be warned, it’s an hour and a half long.

Who knows what’s next for Apple? I find this year’s MacWorld was mainly focused on improving their existing product line. Perhaps this was just the “interim” development and Apple is working on something so innovative, he replaces the human race with iHumans.

~Joe
P.S. Still a Linux/PC user.

Blogging, Geeky, Tech News

So, I wanted to see what happened today in technology. To my surprise, the only thing that happened was Apple’s MacBook Air release, which subsequently broke Twitter, and Engadget discovered that the battery is not self-replaceable. I’ve chronicled Apple’s Techmeme dominance below:

Personally, I think it’s good that Apple is working on refining their technology, but I believe this product release was weak, since it merely is a re-release of the MacBook, just lighter and thinner. I’d rather have a powerful laptop than a light one, especially when laptops these days are lighter than they were several years ago. Oh, and Netflix uncapped their online video rental service to compete with iTunes’ offerings.  Clearly, Apple is trying to hold their ground as consumers demands rise.

What do you think about today’s Apple news?

Blogging, Geeky, Tech News apple, internet, News, social news

What annoys you more on social networks? Spam friend requests, spammy comments or other junk? Well, that’s nothing compared to malicious Windows exploits being used to dupe MySpace users now. However, this raises interest into the larger problem at hand: Users are still naive/vulnerable to phishing, ten years after it’s peak.

A lot of social networks provided have absolved the password cracking problem (for now) with CAPTCHAs. (CAPTCHAs are images that are distorted to prevent bots from brute forcing their way into accounts.) However, there are several other ways that innocent Web users are being compromised — and don’t even know it! I’m fairly certain that social networks have taken the necessary steps protecting their facility, the user data and educating their employees, but who’s left? Users.

Users are constantly being phished for their accounts. The social connections (and trust) that users on social networks offers a very high value for professional phishers. Phishing relies on trust, and thus compromising one account enables half the work to be done. There’s very little that networks have done to inform users, from my analysis. Networks haven’t done enough to educate users on the behavior or the actual functions of their Web site, they cite to simply not give their password out. This results in a lot of account being compromised, spreading more malicious content, thereby threatening the network even more.

(Well, duh, no one just gives their password out, silly.) The problem is a lot of the phishing URLs used to prey on users are aimed in looking at their photo albums or some wild video. Everyone loves to look at pictures or video, it’s what we do online. When the victim clicks the link they are prompted with a fictitious login window to see it. Bam! The account is compromised, and guess who will be posting the spam link next?

It’s exploitation of word of mouth marketing (viral) and abuses the trust that people forged on these social networks. That is, if someone trusts their best friend, they will automatically open the link without questioning its cause or basis. Understand my spirit in this: Users aren’t stupid, they are human. Human problems require human solutions to address them.

Honestly, the best thing a social network can do, is educate users — from day one — on proper account security practices. That is, inform them on various ways to check the legitimacy of messages, educate users to receive security updates from their OS, recommend secure Browsers like [gasp!] IE7 or Firefox, and be their advocate in addressing spam and viruses. Don’t wait until you shut their account down to educate them because their primary objective is to get back online to chat with friends, not heed security warnings.

What makes this the largest threat to social networks? Phishing threatens users, data integrity, and users’ trust of social networks. There is very little networks can do to address the problem other than blacklisting IP addresses (which can be obfuscated with proxies), blacklisting URLs that gain popularity quickly (moderate URLs being posted), and simply educating users. There are many drawbacks to any step they take, mainly resulting in false-positives.

Do you run a social network? What steps are you taking to secure it from phishers?

Also check out Help: What to Do if Your MySpace Account is Phished at DygiScape and MySpace: Your Account Has Been Phished!

Blogging, Geeky, Safety, Social Networking, Tech News myspace, News, Security, Social Networking

Meh. I’m only 81% addicted. How addicted are you?
81%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Blogging, Funny, Geeky, Personal Blogging, Funny, internet, social media

Perhaps you’ve replied to a text message to a friend or family member, but soon that will be illegal in Virginia. Law makers are considering completely banning the use of text messaging while driving in an effort to make driving safer. I have a few thoughts on this legislation.

How can a police officer enforce this?
One of the most challenging pieces of this, is the fact that law enforcement has very few tools to actually enforce this. The technology involved is easy controlled by mobile phone users. When a person sees a cop, all they need to do is hit the End button. No message, no drafts, nothing. Nothing that would ever stand up in court. How would an officer witness texting? I know I hold my phone in my car like I’m texting when I am making a speakerphone call. Smartphone discrimination? I can see it now.

It’s already illegal to talk on cell phones (as a minor), use radar detectors, and additional penalties are sanctioned against VA drivers … how much more legislation does VA residents need against them?
While this is very conservative of me, law makers need to stop trying to protect and regulate every aspect of driving. I strongly doubt that text messaging on a cell phone is the highest cause of accidents, so “safety” is just a cover for revenue, just as it was for the ‘abusive driver fees,’ which has now been under more criticism since it had no effect on traffic fatalities.

“But how do we stop people from texting while driving, who risk everyone’s life when they get on the roads?”
First, you’re probably the problem when it comes to traffic safety; as you read your newspaper, brush your teeth, fail to turn your headlights on, tailgate and speed when you drive. Not only that, I’ve personally avoided several accidents because of driver’s lack of experience when merging lanes.  Further, depending on the state to provide a false sense of safety isn’t the answer. If you can tell me one time the state has enacted a law that actually resulted in fewer deaths, then please correct me. The only one who is responsible for your safety on the road is you, not the cops, not the legislators, not the courts. You should be an active, defensive driver who takes responsibility for the circumstances around them and not be a victim.

What do you think of this law? Will this actually save lives, protect others; or is it just infringing on the rights of all drivers in VA?

Blogging, Geeky, Personal, Tech News Government, Rants, technology, virginia