The short version: Some computer scientists have found a way to get web servers to do calculations based on the error detection features of the TCP/IP protocol. There's no need to hack the web server or take advantage of some kind of bug or misconfiguration in the server. Simply because of the way the TCP/IP protocol works, the web server's error detection calculations will give a client information about a problem the client is trying to solve.

You can read the full article in the 17 Nov 2001 issue of Science News. Below is an edited/condensed version of the article. The full article also has as short description of how the TCP protocol does error detection.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23080.html

The solution to this problem for carriers to configure their internet SMS gateways to accept only plain-text SMS messages. Then it doesn't matter how you hack the headers. The real security flaw is that the carrier forwards "raw" SMS messages constructed on the internet. Sheesh.

Brad Templeton's discussion of 35mm resolution has some interesting points:

Really good shots (good lens, good film, etc) will have 20 million pixels (7000 pixels across the frame), but more typical shots with a decent SLR will have resolution around 10 million pixels (5500 pixels across the frame).

Digital cameras have a contrast range of 255 to 1. Most color negative film has a contrast range of 1000 to 1. Prints have a contrast range of 100 to 1. The human eye has a contrast range of 10,000,000 to 1 (because of your iris).

Back in April I made this post on visual acuity.

Here is an interesting email exchange between Robert McNally and Scott Adams regarding piracy of electronic texts. Scott Adams released a book in an encrypted electronic form.

I loved these quotes from Robert Cringely's 27 September 2001 column on pbs.org:

Though many of his [J.P. Morgan's] tactics [in the early 1900's] would be illegal today, they weren't at the time he used them, and they built much of the world that we know today. Americans do things like that. They build slap-dash empires, then consolidate them by outlawing both the slap and the dash, closing the door behind them.

[Technological] revolutions are rarely fair, often unpredictable, but usually irresistible. The rise of electric money is no exception.

Link to original.

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An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists

By Nick Tredennick, with Brion Shimamoto, Dynamic Silicon

I first encountered venture capitalists (VCs) in 1987. Despite a bad start, I caught the start-up bug. In the years since, I have worked with more than 30 start-ups as founder, advisor, engineer, executive, and board member. It's a lot more than that if you count all the times I've tried to help "nerd" friends (engineers) connect with the "rich guys" (VCs). Naturally, I've formed opinions along the way. Many books and articles eulogize VCs. But here I want to present an engineer's view of VCs. It may sound like I'm maligning VCs. That's not my intent. And I'm not trying to change human nature. VCs know how to deal with engineers, but engineers don't know how to deal with VCs. VCs take advantage of this situation to maximize the return for the venture fund's investors. Engineers are getting short-changed.

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An interesting rant on the state of tech (mostly computer) journalism.

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The Failure of Tech Journalism
Posted by steve_gilliard
(August 26th, 2001, 12:54am)
As I write this, I'm watching a documentary called Breaking the News, commissioned by the Museum of Radio and Television. It's about the exploits of the big TV anchors, who, for some reason, seem to always wind up close to combat. I.e., Ed Bradley asking a Klansman whether black people should vote. The general question seems to be: "how close can you get to combat and not get killed"?

Journalism is serious business. It may not seem that way some days, but it is. Too bad the online journalists, with their big parties and their fancy offices, never got it. In the real world of journalism, people report from their homes, from foxholes, from hotels without water. No one needs $60 million in leases to be a good reporter.

In theory, there is no reason that a publication can't cover IT, make money and still function. The only reason that they didn't (Red Herring is about to chop half their staff) is that they forgot what business they were in.

As Online Journalism Review columnist Ken Layne says: journalists are fucking idiots. I would add, especially when it comes to money. Journalists are not good with money, don't much like it. Send them a paycheck and they'll kill for you. Journalists are most happy when they are kicking up dirt. And that is how it should be.

The hacks and weasels who worked for these sites filled their magazines and web sites with completely unaggressive, pathetic coverage of some of the biggest criminals of the last decade. They should hang their heads in shame. The reality is that everyone had their heads up their asses because they thought they were going to be rich. Call it the Almost Famous syndrome. They thought they were part of the news. Not even on his worst days did Dan Rather think he worked FOR the White House. He knew Nixon didn't sign his checks. Read More …

I liked this observation on the issues of increased surveillance technology (in private business and public areas):

Enhanced surveillance technology is almost never accompanied by enhanced accoutablility for the operators of that technology. (Be it governments, corporations or spies.) These systems are being deployed with no concern for the fact that they upset balances of interest that have been carefully formed over centuries.

I love this analogy. From Bruce Schneier's latest Crypto-Gram:

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Every time I write about the impossibility of effectively protecting digital files on a general-purpose computer, I get responses from people decrying the death of copyright. "How will authors and artists get paid for their work?" they ask me. Truth be told, I don't know. I feel rather like the physicist who just explained relativity to a group of would-be interstellar travelers, only to be asked: "How do you expect us to get to the stars, then?" I'm sorry, but I don't know that, either.

I am a scientist, and I explain the realities of the science. I apologize if you don't like the truth, but the truth doesn't change because people wish it would be something else. I don't know how authors and artists will make money in a world of easy copyability. I'm an author myself, personally concerned about protecting my own copyright, but I still don't know. I can tell you what will and won't work, technically. You can argue about whether my technical analysis is correct, but it just doesn't make sense to bring social arguments into the technical discussion.

If I had to guess, I believe companies will find a way to make money despite the prevalence of digital copying. Television stations figured out how to make money despite having to broadcast their programming to everyone. There are lots of financial models that don't require selling individual units to make money: advertising, patronage, pay-for-performance, pay-for-timeliness, pay-for-interaction, public funding. I started Crypto-Gram when I was a consultant; I gave the newsletter away and charged for my time. The newsletter was free advertising. The Grateful Dead gave away concert recordings but charged for live performances. Stephen King kept writing chapters of his electronic book as long as a sufficient percentage of his readers paid him to.

I don't know what model will become the prevalent one in the digital world. But I do know that technical methods to prevent digital copying are doomed to fail. (This is not to say that social methods, or legal methods, won't work.) Those companies that have business models that accept this reality are more likely to succeed than those that have business models that reject it. Complain all you like, but reality is reality.

My original analysis:
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0105.html#3

I liked this post on a slashdot thread about Dimitry Skylarov's case:

It seems to me that in this whole debate, we need to make clear the difference between COPYright and ACCESSright. That's the real rub about the DMCA, it legally transforms copyright into accessright, and gives the copyright holder new controls not previously granted.

It is supposedly about preventing unauthorized copying. But in reality does little to prevent it and puts the publishing industries in the driver's seat in a new way.

The REAL fear here is if we get to the point where all 'media player devices' (not necessarily related to Microsoft media player) play only DMCA-encumbered media – where you can't even play non-access-controlled media if you wanted to. Then free speech and discourse necessary for democracy are in deep trouble