NewsScan Daily, 5 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 5 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Red Hat Sues SCO over Linux Copyright Claims
        Linux Okayed for Use on 'Mission Critical' Computers
        Millions Hang Up on Landlines
        Study Says the Internet Is Good for Kids
        The Rest of the Story on CD Sales Decline

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Tax Rebates, Roman-Style
        Mailbag: The World As We Find It

RED HAT SUES SCO OVER LINUX COPYRIGHT CLAIMS
Red Hat, a leading U.S. distributor of Linux operating system software, has 
filed a lawsuit against SCO Group, seeking a court ruling on whether Linux 
software infringes on SCO copyrights or trade secrets. SCO has sued IBM and 
has been pressuring other Linux users to pay it licensing fees, claiming 
that they risk "running an operating system that is an unauthorized 
derivative of Unix." Red Hat's legal action is aimed at forcing SCO to 
disclose exactly what parts of the Linux code infringe its copyrights, 
something it has so far been unwilling to do. (Wall Street Journal 5 Aug 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB10600271129022700,00.html (sub req'd)

LINUX OKAYED FOR USE ON 'MISSION CRITICAL' COMPUTERS
Linux software has been certified for use on "mission critical" computers, 
including those used in U.S. government labs, espionage agencies and 
military supply chain operations. The certification, granted by the Common 
Criteria group, represents the industry's seal of approval and applies only 
to Linux from German vendor SuSE, installed on a particular line of IBM 
servers. Previously, Linux was certified only for "low to moderate" 
security computers and supporters say the new rating could give it a leg up 
in its uphill battle with Microsoft Windows. "It opens up new horizons and 
new venues that we'd been precluded from. Everyone has had this view of 
Linux as interesting but done by hackers on a part-time basis, a bathtub of 
a code," says IBM senior VP Nicholas Donofrio. (AP/Los Angeles Times 5 Aug 
2003)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-linux5aug05,1,7834460.story?coll=la-headlines-technology

MILLIONS HANG UP ON LANDLINES
Some 7.5 million Americans have cut the cord, canceling their landline 
phone service in favor of cell phone plans that offer free long distance 
and hundreds of minutes at competitive rates. Leading the way are students 
and young professionals who find that wireless devices mesh better with 
their mobile lifestyles. "It will be interesting to see if these young 
people who have abandoned landline phones will turn back to them as they 
grow older or if wireless will be able to serve all their needs," says a 
spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. 
According to figures from the International Telecommunication Union, cell 
phones now comprise 43% of all U.S. phones, up from 37% in 2000. Over the 
same period, the number of U.S. landline phones has dropped almost 3%, 
according to the FCC. The U.S. now has nearly one cell phone for every two 
Americans -- a penetration rate it took landline phones 100 years to 
achieve. (AP 4 Aug 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030804/D7SN9S080.html

STUDY SAYS THE INTERNET IS GOOD FOR KIDS
A three-year, $1.5-million Michigan State University study of children from 
90 low-income families has tentatively concluded that children introduced 
to the Internet at home improve their grades and perform better on 
standardized reading tests. A project administrator explained, "You have to 
read for everything you want to do on the Web, even if you want to download 
music. They were playing and happened to be learning, which is the way we 
learn most basic things in our first years... We need more good research on 
what this technology is doing to children and adults. We hear a lot of hype 
and anecdotes. We really don't know how much time kids are spending and the 
impact on their lives." The average age of the 140 children participating 
was 13, and nearly half the families reported household incomes of less 
than $15,000 a year. The children were online an average of 30 minutes a 
day. (Globe & Mail 4 Aug 2003)
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030804.wstud804/BNStory/Technology/ 


THE REST OF THE STORY ON CD SALES DECLINE
The Recording Industry Association of America has taken unprecedented steps 
to curb music piracy in the U.S., and blames file-sharing for the recent 
drop in CD sales. But he real culprit in the controversy over digital music 
is organized crime, whose activities are responsible for the 14% rise in 
counterfeit CD sales in 2002, according to a report by the International 
Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The pirate CD market has swelled 
over the last several years, making it "of greater value than the 
legitimate music market of every country in the world, except the USA and 
Japan," says the IFPI's Commercial Music Piracy 2003 report. At the same 
time, the U.S. music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs over the past two 
years, according to RIAA figures, and Jupiter Research analyst Mark 
Mulligan says the industry is suffering a hangover after the '80s and '90s, 
when fans were snapping up CD versions of their favorite vinyl oldies. "Now 
the CD replacement cycle has drawn to a close," says Mulligan. Finally, 
music has more competition when it comes to young people's discretionary 
spending. "Youths are no longer defining themselves by music in the same 
way they used to," says Mulligan. In addition to CDs, younger people are 
spending money on videogames, DVDs, clothing and lifestyle accessories. 
(BBC News 4 Aug 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3117505.stm

CORRECTION: In yesterday's issue the name of our hacker friend was spelled 
incorrectly. The correct name is maelstrom.

*****

FLASH CARD
      "An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives 
with, insists on boring future generations." (Charles de Montesquieu)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: TAX REBATES, ROMAN-STYLE
        Yale University professor Donald Kagan writes:
      "Tax collection from the poor in Roman times was not a matter of 
polite letters and, as a last resort, a legal action: beating up defaulters 
was a matter of routine, if they were humble people. A casual remark of the 
fifth century ecclesiastical writer Theodoret shows us what the procedure 
of tax-collection was likely to be in a Syrian village: 'At this time,' he 
says, 'collectors arrived who compelled them to pay their taxes and began 
to imprison some and maltreat others.' In Egypt the same brutal procedure 
can be seen at work: local officials would seize taxpayers whom they 
alleged (rightly or wrongly) to be in default, imprison and ill-treat them, 
and, with the aid of soldiers and local levies, burn down their houses. 
After quoting a particular example of such a procedure, from the reign of 
Justinian, Sir Harold Bell, historian of Graeco-Roman Egypt, remarked, 
'Such were regular accompaniments to the process of collecting arrears of 
taxes from an Egyptian village of the sixth century.' According to 
Ammianus, an Egyptian in the late fourth century would blush for shame if 
he could not show on his back scars inflicted by the tax-collector's whip. 
And it is worth repeating here the statement of Ammanius that the Emperor 
Julian realized it was no good granting remissions of tax arrears in Gaul 
in the 350s, because this would only benefit the rich; the poor would have 
been made to pay immediately and in full. There must have been many 
occasions, too, on which hapless peasants were forced to pay their taxes 
twice over, whether because the tax had first been extracted from them by 
the agents of a 'usurper,' or because their landlord, after collecting the 
tax, became insolvent before paying it over to the authorities to whom he 
was responsible."
                                                                   ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670032115/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Donald Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War" -- 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

GARBAGE IN
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8891
      I just read your piece about Spam. I was getting so much junk that I 
decided to change my email address! It was great for about a week and then 
the junk began to pour in again! I decided to play with the filters in my 
Eudora. But I must have done something wrong; however, my mistake ended up 
being a big help. Now ALL my email arrives in the "Trash" mailbox. Every 
few hours I just go to the "Trash," quickly scan for the 2 or 3 important 
emails, transfer them to my "In" box (if I want to keep them) and then 
empty the trash. It's faster than highlighting so may emails in my "In" 
box, moving them to the trash, and then emptying the trash. (Liane Reif-Lehrer)

CALLING ALL CARS
      Popular Mechanics celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and 
reader reminisces are logged at the URL below. Many concern Tom Cahill, who 
was my source of anecdotal car reviews in the 60's, before discovering 
Consumer Reports. However, I haven't been able to find anything on the Web 
about the '51 (or was it '53?) "Mexican" Lincoln he used to rhapsodize 
about. Maybe one of your astute readers knows of this car, and why Cahill 
thought it was so great. (Jim McGee)
http://popularmechanics.com/science/time_machine/2002/7/reader_stories_augus 
t/print.phtml

I AM A LITTLE CHURCH, NO GREAT CATHEDRAL
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8787
      Thanks for this Flash Card -- it has long been one of my favorite 
poems. In fact, during my ill-fated song-writing phase in college, I set it 
to music -- and it remains the only one of those creations to be worth 
remembering. (I've wanted to also set to music another cummings poem, "i am 
a little church / no great cathedral" -- but have never been able to get 
past that first phrase...) (Tom Gutnick)

BAYESIAN FILTERS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8891
      Paul Graham describes an innovative approach to eliminating spam: 
Bayesian filters. He makes a convincing case that this is superior to many 
other techniques. He has a low number of false positives, and I expect 
NewsScan would never be blocked with his technique; see 
http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html. (Philip Wadler)

POOR BABIES
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8882
      Wooie! As the husband of a reading teacher, I can tell you the first 
thing most parents would do is complain to the local school board about 
what and how the teacher was teaching and how he/she was treating their 
poor baby. Or if they're parents who really get upset by their kids' 
behavior, they'd just whack them thoroughly every day when they got home. 
Hard to see how that helps the kids, the teachers or the system. (Derek Davis)

MILLIONS WAITING FOR YOU
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8891
      Invariably, I find myself replying to the 419 Nigerian "millions 
waiting for you" scam. The reason is not because I'm a sucker, but because, 
I believe, if thousands of Internet users knowingly reply to these 
scamsters, we can make their operations unviable. Last night, I got a call 
at 4 am. (That was a mistake on my part; normally the phone is off the hook 
when I sleep...) I've also asked the scam operators to call me... and at 
least a couple have done. Let's make it costly for them to take the rest of 
us for a ride! My style is to write a brief quixotic line or two in reply. 
"Where are you based?" "Can I really get the money?" "This sounds real 
good... is it true?" "Send me the money soonest..." These lines make me 
sound like some sucker, I know. Of course, I include my signature below. No 
problem. Let them spend their money making phone calls and their time in 
replying to me. A letter to Mariam Abacha is waiting in my out folder. 
Let's see if we can make these guys' operations a little bit more 
difficult... if not entirely unviable. (Frederick Noronha)

THE HAZARDS OF OFF-SHORE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8880
      Concerning "Tech Exodus: 500,000 Jobs Moving Overseas" -- The recent 
articles about software development jobs moving overseas are overblown. The 
analogy between manufacturing and software engineering is a serious 
misunderstanding of how software is created. A better analogy is this: when 
you want to build a skyscraper, you hire an architect and work closely with 
him/her until you have the plans you want that incorporate your 
requirements. Then construction workers create what the architect designed.
      A good software developer is like the architect, not the construction 
worker, and certainly not the manufacturing worker who follows a repeatable 
process many times. Software isn't created by following a repeatable 
process. The software engineer works closely with users (internal business 
users or external customers) to determine the requirements and the best way 
to deal with compromises that invariably arise due to cost or other 
constraints. That process is highly interactive, and one often has to be 
physically present to see and understand what's going on; often it is an 
iterative process. Would you hire an off-shore architect who doesn't visit 
the site and can't meet with you to understand what you need, or try-out 
ideas to see what you like? Can any good software be developed offshore?
      Yes, of course, but it will either be used by offshore companies, or 
it will be only a small fraction of an overall project under close 
supervision of a local software engineer. Unless businesses realize the 
limitations of offshore software development, they will waste more money 
than they save, and be at a competitive disadvantage when their delivered 
software doesn't do what they need. (Alan Dossett)

SPAM-BOTS
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit
      Regarding the letter "Yet Another Cost Of Spam" in which Conn McQuinn 
questions whether "spam-bots scouring the pages and flooding the district 
networks with unwanted e-mails" is a legitimate concern, the answer is a 
resounding "Yes!" Using bots to "crawl" Web sites for e-mail addresses is a 
primary method for building spam lists. I am a columnist for the 
Information Technology industry and my work has been published on the Web 
for years. As a consequence, the volume of spam I get to the e-mail 
addresses I give for reader feedback (they are not used anywhere else) is 
huge, typically 100 to 200 per address per day. The biggest concern however 
for educational organizations is not the volume but the content. Spammers 
have absolutely no interest in whether the recipient is interested in their 
message or not and even less whether the content is suitable for the 
recipient. The rule is *never* publish the e-mail addresses of minors on 
Web sites and educate them to not use chat or other online services that 
result in public display of their addresses. (Mark Gibbs)

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