Secret Microsoft doc leaks, DMCA notice fails to contain it
It's no secret that online service providers cooperate with law enforcement agencies and will hand over personal information of various kinds when subpoenaed, subject to court order, or compelled by search warrant. What is secret has been exactly what information these companies store about their users, and what they will hand over to the authorities when required. In recent days a series of these documents have been leaked to whistle-blowing site Cryptome. The policies of (among others) Facebook, AOL, and Skype have all been posted to the site, and several more were posted last December, including those of Verizon, Sprint, and Yahoo.
While most companies have not responded to these leaks, Yahoo, back in December, and Microsoft, whose Global Criminal Compliance Handbook was posted on Saturday, both issued DMCA takedown notices to have the documents removed. In both cases, Cryptome refused to take any action. Yahoo's demand went no further, but Microsoft decided to take things to the next stage, and told Cryptome's ISP, Network Solutions, to take the site down. Network Solutions duly complied. Microsoft now has 14 business days to begin litigation, after which the site will be reinstated.
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Comcast starts public DNSSEC trial
Tuesday, Comcast announced a public trial that any Comcast cable Internet access user can participate in. And a year from now, DNSSEC validation will be rolled out throughout all of Comcast's DNS resolvers. Comcast will also be signing all of the domains it hosts, including comcast.com, comcast.net, and xfinity.com.
The DNSSEC extensions to the DNS protocol make it possible for a validating server or a validating host to determine whether information in the Domain Name System is legitimate or not, the same way that it's possible to determine whether a signed e-mail message did indeed come from the holder of the e-mail address. In the past, it was trivial to inject fake information in DNS servers.
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Chinese scientists worry about Google pullout
Google's threat to pull out of China may have been met with a shrug in some circles, but there's a population of Chineses citizens who appear to be genuinely worried about the prospect: scientists. Nature conducted an informal survey of Chinese researchers, and got nearly 800 responses. Well over 90 percent of those who responded say they use Google for searches, and 48 percent felt that the loss of Google would create a significant problem for their research.
There are a number of reasons for the scientists' attachment to Google. Although Baidu has done well by tailoring its search service to the sites frequented by the Chinese public, science has remained a field where most of the top research takes place in English. As such, Google's massive index of English-language material, especially works that have found their way into Google Scholar, provide the company's search offerings with distinct advantages. In fact, Google Search and Scholar were the services most often used by the respondents (Maps and Mail were also heavily used).
There are specialized scientific search services, such as the PubMed index, but these don't offer the same level of sophistication as Google. They also don't bring in a broad set of additional materials from outside the realm of academic publishing, such as faculty webpages and the sites of scholarly organizations. Although searching for papers accounted for the largest use of Google cited (at 82 percent of respondents), basic science news and information about other labs were cited by 57 percent, accessing databases by 46, and searches for conferences and meetings by 40 percent.
To be sure, some of those polled didn't feel that Google offered anything special—one told Nature that "It doesn’t matter whether we have Google for science—we have PubMed." But others were equally adamant that the company provides an essential service for researchers (one compared its loss to going blind), and the numbers seem to suggest this group is in the majority. Chinese scholars are increasingly engaged in the international scientific community, training, working, and publishing abroad with regularity. As such, they need access to services that provide full access to that community; the loss of Google would apparently limit their options when it comes to those services.
Nature, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/4631012a
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TV stations asked to yield 500MHz of spectrum for broadband
The Chair of the Federal Communications Commission unveiled a key component of the agency's impending National Broadband Plan on Wednesday: a program to free up 500MHz of spectrum over the next decade for the mobile wireless industry. The agency will propose a "Mobile Future Auction" that will allow television broadcasters in "spectrum starved" markets to "voluntarily relinquish" licenses in exchange for a cut of the auction proceeds.
Speaking at the New America Foundation, FCC chief Julius Genachowski gave yet another "looming spectrum crisis" speech, warning that mobile high speed Internet—which the government has clearly made the centerpiece of broadband development—must have more licenses to meet exploding demand. He cited figures from Cisco that by 2014, North American wireless networks will carry 740 petabytes of data per month.
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Yelp facing class-action lawsuit over extortive "ad sales"
Last year, business review site Yelp was the target of a scathing exposأ© that accused the company of promoting or even fabricating negative reviews in order to get businesses to pay to have them hidden or removed. Now, the company is facing a class action lawsuit over those practices, which attorney Jared Beck said amounted to "high-tech extortion."
In an in-depth article that appeared in East Bay Express last year, business owners said that Yelp sales agents would contact them whenever negative reviews appeared for their business. Representatives allegedly would offer to remove or hide the reviews in exchange for agreeing to buy an advertising contract with the site.
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Media Center, gaming fixes arrive for Windows 7
Microsoft has released a slew of nonsecurity updates on Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center, the majority of which are for the latest versions of the client and server operating systems.
Compatibility
The first release is for a game, application, or firmware that is either installed incorrectly, causes system instability, or has primary functions that do not work correctly. The update will either prevent incompatible software from running (hard block with third-party manufacturer consent), notify the user that incompatible software is starting to run (soft block), or improve the software's functionality (update). This month's update has changes for 209 applications on Vista/Server 2008 plus 329 applications on 7/Server 2008 R2. Here are the direct links: Windows Vista 32-bit (2.8MB), Windows Vista 64-bit (3.3MB), Windows 7 32-bit (1.8MB), and Windows 7 64-bit (2.0MB). Window Server 2008 and Itanium versions are also available.
The next issue occurs when 32-bit applications on 64-bit versions of Windows 7 run in a Windows Vista context and prompt the user with an unnecessary Program Compatibility Assistant warning. You can grab it for Windows 7 64-bit (418KB), Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit (418KB), and Windows Server 2008 R2 Itanium (2.0MB).
Windows Media Center
The first Windows Media Center update is the February 2010 Cumulative Update, which improves the overall experience for systems with digital cable card tuners, resolves backward compatibility issues for some legacy Windows Media Center extensibility applications, and resolves an issue with how recorded TV shows are managed when switching to a user locale that is based on the Hijri calendar. It is available for Windows 7 32-bit (4.2MB) and Windows 7 64-bit (5.2MB).
The second update fixes an issue where TV playback extensibility applications may stop responding if no tuner is available to handle a tune request: Windows 7 32-bit (2.1MB) and Windows 7 64-bit (2.1MB). The third update fixes an issue in which third-party extensibility applications in Windows Media Center may stop responding after starting DVD playback: Windows 7 32-bit (2.2MB) and Windows 7 64-bit (2.3MB).
Other
There's also a fix for how Windows Internet Explorer 8 encodes and decodes JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Microsoft has improved JSON interoperability by updating IE8 to the new "ECMAScript, fifth edition" standard specification on all supported versions of Windows: Windows XP 32-bit (784KB), Windows XP 64-bit (1.3MB), Windows Server 2003 32-bit (781KB), Windows Server 2003 64-bit (1.3MB), Windows Vista 32-bit (490KB), Windows Vista 64-bit (797KB), Windows Server 2008 32-bit (490KB), Windows Server 2008 64-bit (797KB), Windows 7 32-bit (492KB), Windows 7 64-bit (804KB), Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit (804KB), and Windows Server 2008 R2 Itanium (1.0MB).
When a user formats or checks the properties of a Secure Digital (SD) card larger than 32GB, the capacity is reported incorrectly. The fix is available for Windows 7 32-bit (239KB), Windows 7 64-bit (250KB), Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit (250KB), and Windows Server 2008 R2 Itanium (324KB).
Lastly, Microsoft also posted the optional Windows 7 antipiracy update; here are the direct links: Windows 7 32-bit (1.37MB) and Windows 7 64-bit (1.34MB). As promised, Microsoft is offering it on Windows Update but it won't be downloaded or installed automatically, even if Automatic Updates are turned on.
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Apple is a "mobile devices" company in post-iPhone world
Apple COO Tim Cook answered a round of questions during the annual Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference Tuesday and ended up discussing various aspects of Apple's business. A major thread throughout Cook's talk was the fact that Apple thinks of itself as a "mobile devices company," echoing Steve Jobs' comments at the recent iPad introduction that Apple competes with the likes of Nokia and Sony when it comes to revenue.
"If you look at Apple's December quarter results, which includes revenues of almost $15.7 billion dollars—which was a staggering result—as we compared ourselves to every other company in the world, including Sony and Nokia and Samsung, which now have huge mobile device businesses, we found out that we were the largest in the world by revenue," Cook said. "So yes, you should definitely look at Apple as a mobile device business."
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Host star caught sucking the atmosphere off a hot Jupiter
Although gas giants like Jupiter are incredibly massive, the residual heat from their gravitational collapse helps keep the atmosphere in a relatively low-density, gaseous state. A hotter gas giant would have even lower density, and a correspondingly higher radius, which is exactly what we've seen in a number of exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars. Now, researchers have spotted one that's so close and so hot that its host star has distorted its atmosphere into the shape of an American football and is gradually sucking it off the planet.
The planet was the 12th found by the Wide Angle Search for Planets project, and it's got some pretty unusual stats: 1.4 times Jupiter's mass, an orbital period of just over a day, and a distance from its host star's surface of only about three times the radius of the star itself. But the real surprise is that WASP-12b has a radius that's roughly 1.8 times that of Jupiter. It's close enough to its host star to get hot, but not that hot.
The authors apparently considered alternative sources of heat, and focused on the tidal forces that arise given its proximity to the host star. They calculated that, assuming properties similar to Jupiter, the tidal heating of WASP-12b would be strong enough to "drive ongoing envelope expansion." In other words, the atmosphere would blow up like a balloon. Thanks to the gravitational pull of the star, it wouldn't be spherical though; in the accompanying press material, comparisons were made to the balls used in rugby or US football.
In fact, the gravity would be so intense that the atmosphere would expand past the Lagrange point on the side closest to the star, allowing it to be sucked away from the planet. The authors calculate a rate of mass flow that's about 2 x 1020kg each year. They suspect that this mass forms a ring around the star before being pulled onto its surface, and that radiation from carbon monoxide present in the ring is just at the edge of being detectable with current instruments.
As with another planet discovered using WASP, this presents a bit of a conundrum. WASP-12b should only be stable in this configuration for somewhere around 10 million years before its atmosphere gets significantly drawn down. So, we're either very lucky to have imaged it, or we're missing something. In this case, the authors suggest that the "something" might be a super Earth that's orbiting within the disk formed from WASP-12b's atmosphere.
Nature, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/nature08715
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Great White North getting its own gigabit fiber trial
1Gbps remains a distant fantasy for most home Internet users, but 2010 is already proving a banner year for the ultra high speed tech. First, there was Google's big announcement that it would build a major 1Gbps fiber testbed serving up to 500,000 US customers... and at "competitive" prices. Within days of that announcement, a major Canadian ISP also announced is was entering a trial project with 1Gbps technology.
Shaw Communications is a Canadian cable ISP, but the company is becoming an all-fiber player for its new "1000 Mbps" testbed.
"This is game-changing technology," said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw. "We are on the leading edge of change with this trial—bringing blazing speeds and new network capabilities that will give us a springboard for future possibilities. It's really exciting to think how our customers could benefit from this technology."
It may in fact be "exciting" to "think" about this, but don't expect service soon, Canadians. Shaw's 1Gbps trial—the first in the country—begins in April, but Shaw hasn't even upgraded its network to 100Mbps service yet. Those lower speeds are only obtainable in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, so an actual deployment of a 1Gbps fiber line to your door is years away.
Still, such trials are promising. Well, at least until you consider countries like Japan, where 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home links could actually be purchased commercially as far back as 2008. The price? US$51.40 a month.
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Browser history hijack + social networks = lost anonymity
Simply joining a few groups at social networking sites may reveal enough information for hackers to personally identify you, according to some recent computer science research. In a paper that will be presented at a security conference later this year, an international team of academics describes how they were able to build membership sets using information that social networking sites make available to the public, and then leverage an existing attack on browsing history to check for personal identity. That information, they argue, can then be combined with other data to create further security risks, such as a personalized phishing attack.
The vulnerability of social networking groups is the product of a few decisions that require a balancing between security and usability. The first takes the form of providing unique identifying information for groups. Many social networking sites simply track groups (like "science writers" or "Ars Technica fans" by IDs in the form of integers. These IDs make their way into a browser's history because they're often incorporated into a URL via HTTP GET, which sends information to servers via variables incorporated into the URL.
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Metroid: Other M coming June 27, will be hybrid 2D and 3D
Nintendo is holding a media summit in San Francisco today, and dropped big news about some of its largest franchises. We'll have a round-up of the announcements and our thoughts on them tomorrow, but for now... let's talk about Metroid: Other M.
Announced at last year's E3, the game will be released on June 27, and will feature hybrid 2D and 3D gameplay. "While much of the game is reminiscent of 2D side-scrollers, players can switch the perspective into 3D at any time as they explore the twisting passages of a derelict space station and delve deep into a cinematic, never-before-told story of bounty hunter Samus Aran’s past," Nintendo explains.
The Wiimote is held sideways for the 2D sections, and then used as a pointer to "blast foes in first-person and hunt the world for clues and hidden passages."
The game is a collaboration between Nintendo and Team Ninja, the developer behind the recent Ninja Gaiden titles, and should prove to be... interesting.
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Super Mario Galaxy 2 hits 5/23: Yoshi! Drills! 2D gameplay!
Super Mario Galaxy 2 may have started life as an extension of the original game, but the content shown at Nintendo's San Francisco media summit makes it look much more like a full sequel... hence the numbering.
Take a look at the newest trailer and see what you think.
A drill attack, Yoshi, blimp-style Yoshi, and a weird mixture of 2D and 3D gameplay? Yes please. While detractors will surely say this is just more of the same, fans will most likely buy this one by the millions. Our vote? We can't wait until May 23.
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White House "IP Czar" demands good data from rightsholders
The new "IP Czar" in the White House is cooking up a "Joint Strategic Plan" to better enforce copyrights, trademarks, and patents—and she wants your help.
Victoria Espinel is the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a position created in 2008 by the PRO-IP Act. She took to the White House blog yesterday to introduce herself and her work, saying, "My job is to help protect the ideas and creativity of the American public."
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Tweets come to Yahoo search results and portals
Yahoo has begun to integrate Twitter posts into its search results, following in the footsteps of Google and Microsoft. The company began rolling out the first of a handful of Twitter-integrated features Wednesday, with most of the other offerings coming later this year. Eventually, Yahoo users will not only be able to see tweets in search results, they'll also see them on other Yahoo properties for specific topics and be able to use Yahoo portals to send tweets as well.
Yahoo says that the Twitter partnership will "transform Yahoo! into a highly customizable social experience that lets people bring together and unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web." The entire public stream from Twitter will be accessible through Yahoo, with Yahoo filtering it to show the most relevant results through search, Sports, Finance, Entertainment, and other areas of the site. Though the announcement doesn't specifically mention it, the Associated Press says Yahoo is paying Twitter for access to the data, just like Microsoft and Google.
On top of the public tweet integration, Yahoo users will also be able to send tweets from various Yahoo portals, including Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Sports. The idea here is clearly to keep users on Yahoo's site and interacting with Yahoo-specific elements while still allowing them to participate in the chitter-chatter going on elsewhere. This part of the partnership has yet to be implemented, and Yahoo did not give a time frame for when to expect it.
We here at Ars are curious as to whether search results in tweets are something users actually want, though. Some of us find their presence in our Google results to be annoying while others simply ignore them. What's your take?
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Steam's new look goes into open beta, with a few bumps
Valve has unexpectedly launched a user interface update for the Steam client, giving the service an updated look and feel. Currently in beta, the new and improved Steam features several enhancements and, as one might expect from an update like this, many users are having issues with the service.
Let's take a look at what has been changed, and what issues have been introduced.
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Wilmington, NC takes white spaces to swamp, ballparks
Wilmington, North Carolina was the first spot in the country to transition from analog to digital TV. Now, more than a year later, the city is again serving as a testbed, this time for unlicensed broadband operating in the empty channels ("white spaces") of the TV band.
But the goal isn't to bring broadband suddenly to everyone—not at first. White spaces gear first has to prove that it can save local government real money, and that means deploying somewhere unique: the swamp.
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