NewsScan Daily, 11 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 11 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Comcast Proposes to Disney With a 'Bear Hug'
        Blockbuster Challenges Netflix With Movies-By-Mail
        Bipartisan Group Seeks to Extend Net Tax Ban
        Anonymous Service Masks File-Swappers
        'Doomjuice' Squeezes Microsoft

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Thomas Willis
        Mailbag: The World As We Find It

COMCAST PROPOSES TO DISNEY WITH A 'BEAR HUG'
      With Valentine's just a few days off, Comcast has sprung the question 
on an unsuspecting Disney, offering to acquire it for more than $54 billion 
in stock, plus assumption of $11.9 billion in debt. If Comcast's "bear hug" 
proposal is accepted, the merger would transform it into one of the world's 
largest media conglomerates, rivaling Time Warner and News Corp. with its 
combination of large programming assets and cable and satellite 
distribution channels. The offer comes amid internal turmoil at Disney, 
where former directors Roy Disney and Stanley Gold are working to oust CEO 
Michael Eisner, whom they accuse of mismanaging the company over the past 
decade. The company is hosting a meeting for institutional investors and 
analysts today in Orlando and one portfolio manager thinks the current 
climate may give Comcast the leverage it needs to pull the deal off: "The 
Disney board is under tremendous pressure from former dissident members Roy 
Disney and his supporters, which would indicate the board may be receptive 
to this buyout offer." (Reuters/CNet News.com 11 February 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-5157087.html?tag=nefd_top

BLOCKBUSTER CHALLENGES NETFLIX WITH MOVIES-BY-MAIL
      Blockbuster is planning to launch a service next fall based on the 
same business model that has proven successful for movies-by-mail 
entrepreneur Netflix. Netflix customers pay $19.95 a month to rent as many 
as three DVDs at a time. Once they return them in their prepaid mailing 
package, they can order more. Netflix doesn't limit how many times 
customers can reorder per month, and there are no late fees. Blockbuster 
hasn't announced the details of its mail-order service, but it will be 
competitive with Netflix, says one insider. Blockbuster already offers in 
some stores a subscription service that allows subscribers to borrow as 
many DVDs as they want for $24.99 a month (limited to three at a time). The 
company plans to integrate its mail-order service with the in-store 
service, allowing customers to order movies online or pick them up at the 
store, and return either by mail or dropping off at a store. That hybrid 
option would play to impulse renters, who wouldn't want to wait a couple of 
days to receive their movies in the mail. Meanwhile, the movies-by-mail 
market has attracted mega-retailer Wal-Mart, which is piloting its own 
online DVD rental service, with plans to expand it later this year. (Wall 
Street Journal 11 Feb 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107645765403826229,00.html (sub req'd)

BIPARTISAN GROUP SEEKS TO EXTEND NET TAX BAN
      A bipartisan coalition of U.S. senators is introducing a bill 
extending the ban on Internet access taxes for two more years. The previous 
moratorium expired late last year, but efforts to renew have been bogged 
down in a battle over whether to make the ban permanent and how much state 
tax revenue would be lost through such a measure. Sponsors Sens. Lamar 
Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) have said that 
eliminating taxes on all Internet-based transmissions would rob states of 
as much as $9 billion by 2006 because it would make VoIP telephony services 
tax-free. They have proposed making the ban applicable only to the fees 
paid to Internet service providers. Meanwhile, the two dozen states that 
tax DSL service would be allowed to continue doing so. DSL is taxed because 
the original moratorium went into effect before DSL was widely available to 
Internet users and many states decided that it was a phone service rather 
than an Internet access service. Cable modem service is not taxed. 
(Washington Post 11 Feb 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30201-2004Feb10.html

ANONYMOUS SERVICE MASKS FILE-SWAPPERS
      Wyatt Wasicek, a programmer whose day job is working for an Internet 
service provider, is offering music downloaders who use file-sharing 
programs such as Kazaa a way to do so anonymously. His service, AnonX, is 
available for $5.95 a month and provides protection by setting up a virtual 
private network between the user's computer and the company's servers. The 
AnonX computers act as proxies, so that the actual users' identities are 
masked. Wasicek has promised not to divulge the e-mail addresses of his 
7,000 subscribers and says he doesn't think he can be forced to do so 
because AnonX's official owner lives in Vanuatu, the Pacific island nation 
that also hosts Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks. AnonX's servers 
are located overseas as well. Wasicek says he decided to create AnonX to 
shield the occasional file-sharer who's unaware of copyright infringement 
ramifications. "I'm doing this to protect the family with the 13-year-old, 
not the 25-year-old with 25 movies he's sharing with his buddies. I wanted 
to go back to the good old days when people could surf anonymously," says 
Wasicek. (AP 11 Feb 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040211/D80KS2NG0.html

'DOOMJUICE' SQUEEZES MICROSOFT
      A new worm dubbed "Doomjuice," which some are describing as a variant 
of the earlier MyDoom worm, is piggybacking on the damage already done by 
its predecessor by targeting already-infected computers. "It's only looking 
for machines that are compromised by MyDoom A or B," says Vincent Gullotto, 
VP of the antivirus emergency response team at Network Associates. Its 
ultimate target is Microsoft's Web site, which it seeks to overwhelm with 
distributed denial of service attacks. Microsoft said its Web site is still 
up and running but the company has offered a $250,000 bounty for 
information leading to the capture of MyDoom's author. (Reuters 9 Feb 2004)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EWTEXKXGM5AKUCRBAEZSFFA?type=technologyNews&storyID=4319004

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Teaching is arduous work, entailing much grinding detail and boring 
repetition -- a teacher, it has been said, never says anything once -- 
interrupted only occasionally by moments of always surprising exultation. 
And I should like to add that I don't think I learned a thing from my 
students, except that, as one student evaluation informed me, I tend to 
jingle the change in my pocket." (Joseph Epstein)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: THOMAS WILLIS
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the 17th century English physician 
Thomas Willis (1621-1675), who made original contributions to medical 
knowledge in the areas of human anatomy and the function of the brain and 
the nervous system.
      Willis's pioneering work entitles him to be considered the father of 
neurology. Along with his scientific investigations, Willis conducted one 
of the largest medical practices in the London of his day. He also made 
time to participate in the meetings of the learned men's club that later 
became the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge. 
His anatomical dissections of the brain and associated nerves and blood 
vessels were artfully illustrated by drawings of the famous architect Sir 
Christopher Wren.
      Willis lived at the time when science was beginning to emerge from 
its alchemist origins, so he easily adopted the idea that the causes of 
disease should be sought in the chemistry of the body. His most important 
application of this theory was his identification of the typical symptoms 
of diabetes mellitus as thirst, increased urination, and the honey-like 
sweetness of the urine. His treatises on the anatomy of the brain and the 
pharmaceutical aspects of disease influenced the practice of medicine down 
to modern times, although many of the original treatment procedures changed 
radically over time.
      At age 16 he entered Oxford University's Christ Church College and 
while working on his B.A. and M.A. degrees he was engaged as servitor to 
one of the cathedral canons. He began his education with the intention of 
pursuing a clerical career, but the defeat of the Royalist cause in the 
English Civil War made medicine a more sensible career choice. He earned 
his license to practice in 1646, and enjoyed a successful practice, while 
engaging in research and writing. In 1659 he published a major work 
connecting fevers with the process of fermentation.
      In 1667, at the invitation of the archbishop of Canterbury, Willis 
moved to London and continued his scientific research, producing 
significant studies of diabetes and other diseases previously unknown to 
medical science. In 1667 he expanded his work on the anatomy of the brain 
to include important discoveries about the brain's pathology and 
neurophysiology. He developed a theory of epilepsy and other convulsive 
diseases, and put the treatment of mental disorders more on a medical than 
a psychological footing, opening the door to what would become psychiatry. 
Willis held that the afflictions of the hysterical, the melancholic, and 
the hypochondriacal patients can be traced to physical disturbances in 
their nervous systems.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743230388/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Carl Zimmer's "Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How it 
Changed the World" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate 
all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

JOBS ON THE FOOD CHAIN
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=9989
      Ha Ha Ha! Are these people as stupid as they think we are? "Larger 
market for U.S. products"? Read "larger profits for U.S. corporations." The 
actual *jobs* -- i.e. the benefits for ordinary folks much lower down the 
food chain than him and his fancy friends -- are elsewhere. How much of 
Ford's profit, for example, is generated by workers in the U.S. (as opposed 
to workers in Eastern Europe, South America, the Far East, god knows 
where)? Those ordinary folks don't have the share holdings in corporations 
that Griswold and his friends have, and they don't have the jobs either... 
Thanks for the food for thought, every day! (John Law, a UK citizen, but 
it's the same for us)

BACK TO THE TELEPHONE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=9993
      The article emphasizes how serious the spam problem is. The 
statement, "...in five years from now I do not think the Internet will be 
very popular," is a bit of an understatement. Just in my small circle there 
are those who no longer subscribe to an Internet provider, preferring to do 
without the Internet rather than try to cope with the steadily increasing 
mountains of spam, not to mention pop-ups and the increasingly destructive 
viruses now plaguing the Internet. In other words, the Internet has begun 
the process of self-destruction, which will continue and accelerate, unless 
a simple and effective solution is found. Who knows? We may have to go back 
to using paper and pencil, and the old postal system, or we may even start 
to use the telephone for communication again. (They don't seem to be quite 
as archaic as they used to.) (John McNulty, Halifax, Nova Scotia)

SPAM AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10019 
and http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10020
      Sometimes your mailbag greatly adds to my enjoyment of the news 
without taking it too seriously... Regarding "Prefer Not to Disclose," I 
think Mr. Chapelle does not fully appreciate the degree of sophistication 
that legitimate online retailers have developed. I recently read the 
instructions as I completed a purchase which stated that I should be sure 
to add the business's address to my spam filter accept list so that I could 
receive the order confirmation. Sure enough, when the confirmation arrived, 
there was a reminder in that e-mail that I needed to add their address, and 
if I had forgotten and did not receive the e-mail, I should look in my spam 
folder for it. As for "Spam Paradox": Different context, but a few years 
back, my employer sent out a printed newsletter reminding each of us that 
the group was behind in its yearly quota in paper recycling. Unfortunately 
there was some mistake in the newsletter, so they reissued it to everyone. 
I guess they made their point because we made our goal. (David L. Ritterbusch)

PROBLEM TRANSFERENCE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10019
      Regarding the message from Gregory Chapelle on the above topic 
stating that he uses 'bogus' e-mail addresses like 
[email protected] to prevent junk e-mail. Problem with this 
approach is that you have to be very careful that the domain you use (in 
this example disclose.com) doesn't exist (which in this case it does!), 
otherwise all you have done is transferred the problem. (Mark Bennison)

DATA IS A FORM OF INFORMATION
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10033
      The Cobbs' story about receiving a letter referencing out-of-state 
tickets resonated with me. In November 2003 I applied for a Connecticut 
drivers license, having recently moved from Illinois to the nutmeg state. I 
was denied a license because a computer search revealed that I had an 
unpaid ticket for driving a car with an out-of-date inspection sticker in 
Vermont in 1972 (sic). I had to pay a total of $70 to two Vermont 
jurisdictions to clear up the unpaid ticket before Connecticut would issue 
me a license. Note to Chey and Stephen: data is a form of information that 
doesn't need to be interpreted to have a very annoying affect--it just 
needs to entered into a searchable database. (David Dorman)

INFORMATION-POOR
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10033
      Boy, does Steven's "speeding habit" evoke a memory. About 3 years 
ago, I took my two teenaged sons to a couple of stores to buy shoes and 
clothing. We spent some $300 at the shoe store (ugh!) and then, as penance, 
went to a "second-quality" discount store to buy their clothing. We 
gathered a nice-sized grocery cart full of clothes, about $75 worth at that 
store. But we couldn't buy anything. You see, we tried to pay by check at 
both stores. Both stores subscribed to the same check veracity service. And 
one part of the risk assessment algorithm implemented on behalf of the 
second store was "If the same checking account was already used that day 
for more than $200, the check is probably no good, or stolen, etc." That 
information wasn't available to me at the second store, of course -- I had 
to make the 45-minute drive back home and call the service bureau to find 
that out. It didn't matter that we had, at the time, about $10,000 in our 
checking account. (Tom Williams)

IF IT SINGS, IT'S OPERA
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=10019
      I just can't see anyone making an ISP responsible for Spam, 
music/movie pirating, or any other "perceived illegal activity" until you 
start making SBC, Verizon and such responsible for obscene phone calls, 
automated dialing/messaging, or any other unwanted phone call. The same 
goes for FCC regulation of VoIP. If it's keyed text, it's information. If 
it's verbal, it's telecommunication, and should be subject to the same 
rules now in place for those media. (Michael H. Bell)

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