NewsScan Daily, 23 November 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 23 November 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Broadband Use Up, But U.S. Still Lags Far Behind
        Telcos Threatened by Municipal WiFi
        What Evil Lurks in Banner Ads?
        P2P Growing Like a Weed
        Kazaa Offers Free VoIP Calls

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: David Glasgow Farragut

BROADBAND USE UP, BUT U.S. STILL LAGS FAR BEHIND
      A Bush administration report, titled "A Nation Online: Entering the 
Broadband Age," notes that the number of Americans using broadband Internet 
connections doubled between 2001 and late 2003, but the country as a whole 
still lags far behind many other nations, including South Korea, Taiwan and 
Canada. The report also points to a widening gap between the digital haves 
and have-nots. Only 25% of rural households have a broadband connection, 
compared with 40% for urban areas, and only one-in-seven blacks and fewer 
than one-in-eight Hispanics lives in a household with high-speed Internet 
service. "It shows we continue to have a significant divide between urban 
and rural America in the infrastructure of the 21st century," says Gregory 
L. Rohde, a top telecom advisor during the Clinton administration. 
Significant numbers of rural Americans complained there were no broadband 
services available where they live. "This is lousy," says Harris Miller, 
head of the Information Technology Association of America. "We're just not 
keeping up with our competitors. We're not even keeping up with countries 
we don't consider competitors. It's not acceptable." (AP 23 Nov 2004)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041123/D86HL5SG0.html>

TELCOS THREATENED BY MUNICIPAL WIFI
      Dozens of municipalities around the country are installing WiFi 
networks in order to provide citizens with low- or no-cost wireless 
Internet access -- a phenomenon that has raised the ire of large telephone 
and cable companies, who see their lucrative broadband businesses eroding. 
In response, telcos and cable companies are pushing states to pass 
legislation that could make such municipal networks illegal. Last week, 
after intensive lobbying by Verizon, the Pennsylvania General Assembly 
passed a bill with a deeply buried provision that would make it illegal for 
any "political subdivision" to provide to the public "for any compensation 
any telecommunications services, including advanced and broadband services 
within the service territory of a local exchange telecommunications company 
operating under a network-modernization plan." Verizon is the local 
exchange operator for most of Pennsylvania and is planning a major 
fiber-optic cable rollout. Similar bills have passed in Utah, Louisiana and 
Florida. Critics say the telco giants' clout is stifling broadband 
expansion in the U.S., but the telcos argue it's unfair for them to have to 
compete against local governments, which have easy access to capital and 
pay no taxes. (Wall Street Journal 23 Nov 2004)
<http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110116864041881375,00.html> (sub req'd)

WHAT EVIL LURKS IN BANNER ADS?
      Versions of the MyDoom virus are showing up on banner ads, spreading 
their misery via compromised ad servers. The SANS Institute Internet Storm 
Center reports that a "high profile UK Web site" was among those affected 
and on Sunday, and The Register confirmed that "early on Saturday morning 
some banner advertising served for The Register by third-party ad serving 
company Falk AG became infected with the Bofra/IFrame exploit." Falk AG 
serves ads to many popular sites, including NBC Universal, ATOM Shockwave, 
The Golf Channel and A&E Networks. In addition to Bofra/MyDoom, two 
additional viruses are working their way through compromised networks: the 
first, called Virtumonde Adware, hijacks a server and directs users to 
different pages and searches than those they had intended. The other, 
dubbed Trojan.Agent.EC, can take control of a PC through the back door and 
direct it to upload and execute whatever code the attacker wishes. 
(Internet News 22 Nov 2004)
<http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3439011>

P2P GROWING LIKE A WEED
      Peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, the scourge of the music 
industry, can also be used to promote music through software programs like 
Weed, which allows fans to download a song and play it three times before 
they're prompted to pay for it. Songs cost about a dollar and can be burned 
to an unlimited number of CDs, passed around on file-sharing networks and 
posted to Web pages. "We're trying to take the problem of unauthorized 
music sharing and turn it into an opportunity for everyone to participate 
in the music business," says John Beezer, president of Shared Music 
Licensing, which markets the Weed software and channels payments to the 
artists and distributors. Weed also encourages sharing by offering a 
commission to users who pass a song onto a friend who then buys it. Under 
the distribution scheme, the copyright owner gets 50%, Weed gets 15%, and 
the fan who passes the music along gets 20%. [Note: The article failed to 
mention where the other 15% goes.] Weed is also a participant in the P2P 
Revenue Engine project sponsored by the Distributed Computing Industry 
Association, which seeks to demonstrate to entertainment firms how they can 
use P2P services to make money. (Wired.com 22 Nov 2004)
<http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65774,00.html>

KAZAA OFFERS FREE VOIP CALLS
      The latest version of Kazaa software, distributed by Sharman 
Networks, incorporates Internet telephony software from Skype Technologies, 
which is also owned by Kazaa founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. 
That means while people are downloading their music they can also make free 
online calls anywhere in the world. (Reuters/CNet.com 22 Nov 2004)
<http://news.com.com/Kazaa+offers+unlimited+free+Internet+phone+calls/2110-7352_3-5463440.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you 
are." (Thomas Carlyle)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: DAVID GLASGOW FARRAGUT
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American naval officer David 
Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870), who earned his place in history during the 
Civil War when he led the Union naval forces in the assaults upon New 
Orleans and Mobile Bay.
      Chosen by the Navy Department to capture New Orleans, then a major 
Union objective, Farragut boldly led his ships past the New Orleans 
defensive positions at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, paving the way for 
the city's occupation by Union forces. Besides putting the lower 
Mississippi under Union control, Farragut's victory also discouraged 
European intervention on behalf of the Confederacy. Farragut was promoted 
to rear admiral, the first officer to hold that rank in the U.S. Navy.
      Later in the war, Farragut succeeded in bypassing strongly defended 
forts in Mobile Bay to attack and destroy the Confederate warships 
defending Mobile, Alabama, effectively closing the Confederacy's last major 
Gulf port. It was in this action that in the face of Confederate mines 
(then called torpedoes) that Farragut shouted the memorable words: "Damn 
the torpedoes, full speed ahead." Following the war and before his death in 
1870, Farragut was advanced in rank to vice-admiral and then admiral, ranks 
created to reward and honor his service in the United States Navy.
      Farragut was born in a cabin near Knoxville, Tenn. His mother died 
when he was seven, and he was adopted by a family friend, David Porter, a 
commodore in the U.S. Navy, who had him appointed a midshipman at age 9. In 
the War of 1812 Farragut served under Porter on the frigate Essex, and 
while sailing the South Pacific at the age of 12 he was made prize master 
of a captured British ship being brought to port in Santiago, Chile.
      From 1815 until 1861, Farragut enjoyed the routine life of a naval 
officer, making his residence in Norfolk, Virginia. He fought pirates in 
the West Indies and took part in the war with Mexico. The day after 
Virginia seceded from the Union, Farragut, a nearly 60-year-old captain, 
left for New York, where he joined the naval forces loyal to the Union. He 
was given command of a fleet of heavy ships, gunboats, and mortar boats and 
sent south to begin blockading operations in the Western Gulf of Mexico. 
Later in offensive operations against New Orleans and Mobile Bay, he won 
the nickname of Old Salamander when he ran his boats under heavy gunfire 
from the forts guarding those locations.

[To find a library copy of a Farragut biography by Charles Lee Lewis visit 
RLG's RedLightGreen.com: 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=17639860&> 
-- or to purchase a copy go to: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0405130430/qid=1101142689/newsscancom/ref=nosim> 
Note:We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.]

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