WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at the week's net and technology news and 
comment
by Alan Lenton
December 1, 2002

Well, after a couple of weeks of thin news everything happened at once. Story 
of the week has to be the massive identity theft case based in Long Island, 
but it seems like everyone else was trying to create some news too. How far 
does the long arm of the RIAA stretch? How do you (legally) get fifty per cent 
off the price of Microsoft software? How much did the UK Defence Ministry 
lose on its inventory system? How many security alerts has Microsoft issued 
this year? Inquiring minds who want to know, read on for the answers.


Story: 

After the big razamanaz* of publicity with the Feds announcing the break up 
of a massive identity fraud ring, a period of reflection has set in. Oh the main 
facts - crooked employee sells more than 30,000 credit reports to sundry 
'Nigerians' over a period of two year - are pretty well established. 

There are two mega-questions starting to be asked now. 

The first is obvious. How could a low level employee get access to all this 
information and how come the credit agency Experian didn't notice the scam 
earlier. They were flooded with complaints from victims, and credit references 
were being downloaded a hundred at a time, mostly to the same phone 
number. 

But that criminal carelessness pales before the second question. How are the 
victims going to retrieve their identities and re-establish their credit histories? 
Those who have suffered from identity theft in the past know that it takes 
years to get rid of false credit records - indeed it's usually not possible until the 
false records have expired after a set number of years. 

The cyber-privacy people, who've been warning about this danger for years, 
could be forgiven for a large dose of schadenfreude on this one. My 
congratulations that they haven't, in fact, indulged themselves.

Maybe, just maybe, though, something good might come of this. So many 
people have had their identities compromised that the Federal government 
may be forced to act to establish a procedure for people to clear their names 
in cases of identity theft. Procedures which are binding on the credit reference 
agencies and subject to penalties for those continuing to use compromised 
data. 

Of course, this won't just happen, and it won't be easy, especially with an 
election just having taken place. Sounds like the victims need to get a 
campaign going, and when they do, they will need support from everyone 
else. Remember, even if you escaped this time, you may not be so lucky next 
time.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28302.html
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,56593,00.html


Shorts:

News of a breathtaking piece of incompetence by the UK's Ministry of 
Defence (MoD) slipped out almost unnoticed this week. Last January 
development of the Defence Stores Management System (DSMS) was 
suspended by the MoD, who said that 20m UKP (about $30m US) had been 
spent on the project. But now, new information provided in a written 
parliamentary reply from Armed Forces minister Andrew Ingram reveals that, 
in fact, 140m UKP (about $220m US) was spent before they turned off the 
tap. Pretty good going, even for a government department, to spend seven 
times more than they thought without realising it. Presumably the government 
hoped by releasing the news as a written reply no one would notice. Oh, and 
by the way the developers were a consortium lead by IBM, but no one will be 
surprised to find that our old friends EDS were involved in the project which 
was supposed to -save- the UK taxpayers 650m UKP (about $1bn US).

I got surprisingly fast confirmation of one of last week's unsubstantiated 
statements. Regular readers will remember that in the piece on Microsoft's 
SEC filings I pointed out the 85 per cent profit margins on desktop Windows 
and suggested it was due lack of competition. Well... What should emerge this 
week, but an intriguing little story that if the Microsoft salesman thinks your 
company is about to jump ship to Linux he can get you a fifty - yes fifty - per 
cent discount. Not only that, but if you really push you can also get easy 
payment terms! This, to my mind, supports my contention that the only reason 
Microsoft can get away with profits that high is a lack competition on the 
desktop. As soon as there is competition the price drops by half. QED.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28348.html

OK guys. Get your act together. This morning Feedback had a whole slew of 
Klez viruses in its mailbox. Someone out there hasn't updated their anti-virus 
software for over a year. It's even possible that there are still some people out 
there who doesn't have anti-virus software. Let me make the consequences 
clear to whoever it is. When your friends discover you have been indulging in 
unprotected computing, and sooner or later they will, they will never IM you 
again. In fact, probably the only people who will ever communicate with you in 
the future are Nigerian con-men and spammers trying to sell you designer 
genitals. Do you really want to suffer this fate? No? Then go down to the 
nearest computer store and get yourself some up to date anti-virus software 
now.

This week Microsoft rolled out its 65th security warning of the year and a 
patch to fix problems with Windows 98, 98SE, ME and NT4. That's about one 
warning every three and a half working days this year. Of course Microsoft are 
by no means the only people issuing security warnings, but theirs are more 
serious because they issue nearly as many as the rest of the industry 
combined and because more people use their software than any other. The 
problem with patches is that they require a certain level of experience from 
users to know that they exist and when to use them. Even experienced user 
are leery of immediately downloading patches which have in the past screwed 
up existing applications. There's only really one solution - and it's not to 
download and install patches without asking the users. It's to produce 
software that is properly tested before it is released. But in these days of 
hustle to get a new version with even more (probably unused) features out, 
testing gets short shift in the halls of the purveyors. I suspect that what's really 
needed to sort this out is a new business model, and that will hurt. 

Yet another attempt to hammer the square peg of national jurisdiction into the 
round hole of international affairs is underway in Los Angeles. This time a 
federal judge has indicated that he supports an attempt by record companies 
and movie studios to sue the parent company of Kazaa, the on-line file 
swapping service. The company, Sharman Networks is headquartered in 
Australia, incorporated in Vanuata, a Pacific island, and has its servers 
outside the US. A pretty good case for throwing out the attempt, I would have 
thought. But, no, the media companies are arguing that because Kazaa have 
US users they should be subject to US law. Fascinating. I think the movie 
industry (and the judge) have been watching too many of their own courtroom 
dramas. This one is going to be well worth watching.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,56584,00.html

In my analysis of Digital TV a few weeks ago I mentioned that in the US 
people could wake up one New Years Day unable to receive broadcasts. Well 
this is exactly what is facing a quarter of a million households in Berlin. 
Analogue broadcasts are due to finish at the end of August 2003, less than a 
year away. So far the regional broadcasting supervisory council shows no 
sign of relenting. This is going to be really interesting. I don't think the 
broadcasters are going to be happy, let alone the viewers. Apart from 
anything else, Germany is in the grip of a major recession, and the federal 
government is massively jacking up taxes to compensate for its resultant loss 
of income. Between those people who weren't paying attention and those who 
have no money to buy expensive new digital receivers (and don't forget, there 
won't be any second hand digital receivers around) there could be a massive 
drop in viewer numbers. Less viewers = less advertising income for the 
broadcasters. Well, at any rate it will make for an interesting dry run on all the 
other up and coming switches to digital transmissions.

There was a neat move announced by AOL recently - pre-paid AOL access 
cards, just like the ones you get from the phone companies. That's a clever 
way of providing services for those who don't like handing over their credit 
card details, they work just like phone cards and you can buy refills for 325 
(who thinks up these numbers!), 700 and 1,200 minutes over the counter. You 
can't get an unlimited usage card, but I suspect that will come in time, if the 
cards take off. Nice one, AOL, now all you need is some compelling content. 
:)

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966795.html?tag=cd_mh

Good news from Spain where publicity put out by a group of activists 
managed to stop Madrid's cybercafes being classified as casinos. Had the law 
been passed minors - about 20 per cent of Spain's Internet users - would 
have been banned from the cafes. Being classified as casinos would also 
have put most of the cafes in violation of the planning (zoning) laws forcing 
them out of business. Spain has not been notable for paying attention to the 
rights of on-line users. So much so, in fact, that the activists were completely 
unprepared for the consequences of winning. When a journalist phoned them 
up for a quote, they couldn't think of anything to say, having not even 
considered the possibility that they might actually win! Clearly, not all 
hopeless struggles are hopeless...

http://go.hotwired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56577,00.html/wn_ascii


Scanner - Other Stories:

Boston Hospital computer crash
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/330/science/Got_paper_+.shtml

The best bureaucrats money can buy!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28298.html

FTC rejects legit mail as being 'spam'
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975473.html

Danish Kazaa user bill for transferred files
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28286.html

MPEG4 format hits the streets - for a price
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28312.html


Have fun on the web!

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
2 December 2002

* And talking of Razamanaz, if you you like hard rock and ever get a chance 
to pick up a CD of the 1973 album of that name by Nazareth, then do so. The 
CD contains two of their top ten singles, 'Bad, Bad, Boy' and 'Broken Down 
Angel' and a bunch of other excellent stuff. Sadly their other hit - a hard rock 
version of Joni Mitchell's 'This Flight Tonight' (yes really) isn't on this CD.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at 
http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.


