Madison Blog

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 01:13:23 GMT

Tufte on The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint

I attended a recent Tufte course on information design. His points on the degenerative effects (he used the term dementia) of powerpoint are right on.

His $7.00 booklet is a must read.

Some photos from the course:


Galileo's Book: Charts incorporated with text	Newton's Book - charts at the end	Chicago's flying saucer, soldier's field as seen from the 80th floor (AON bldg)

Edward Tufte	I-90 Sunset

Thu, 02 Oct 2003 22:44:28 GMT

NY Times Technology Editor Tom Redburn responded via email today to my earlier comments on their misuse of the term "piracy".

My initial email along with Tom's message is published with permission in full below:

Sept 26, 2003

I am writing to followup on our telephone conversation this morning. Please pass this along to Bill Keller.

I am a long time NY Times subscriber. I've lived in Denver, San Francisco, Dallas and now Madison and read the paper daily, but for overseas travel (IHT). I'm also co-founder of a growing software/services firm. My tech background makes me very familiar with IP (intellectual property) issues.

Consequently, I've been very disappointed to see your paper incorrectly use the term piracy on the front page the past few days (and in many articles over the past months).

Your headlines and articles fail to recognize legitimate fair use rights that the MPAA and RIAA are trying to kill. I'm astonished that in 2003, I cannot purchase a movie online and watch it at my leisure (on an airplane) on my laptop. You should publicize the fact that the Hollywood cartel cried wolf over the vcr, yet made billions from it.

There's an even larger issue looming. Your friendly publicity for the Hollywood folks has helped them cut deals with Intel, Microsoft and others leading to the creation of "trusted computing". This product, due with the next major windows release, will hand over far more control of personal computers to the hollywood cartel (and, naturally, a great target for hackers).

Fair use is largely dead for most consumer(s) at that point.

Your language also supports their efforts to sue grandmothers:

I urge you to explore the true fair use issues as frequently as you've pushed the incorrect use of the term piracy on your front pages. Customer friendly fair use is possible - see apple's itunes music service terms of use.

I've included some useful links below:

Berkman fellow Dave Winer on your headlines & the RIAA/MPAA:

The true reason for declining CD Sales (price increases & declining quality):

Musician Janis Ian has written a widely distributed article on the music industry's internet debacle:

One small voice in the wilderness, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is trying to save consumer's fair use rights:

"The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. Rather than working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file-sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love, it has chosen to sue people like Brianna LaHara, a 12 year-old girl living in New York City public housing. "

This is simply the vcr battle all over again....

There's so much more to this issue than hollywood's simplistic notion of "piracy".

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you,

Sept. 30, 2003

Dear Mr. Zellmer,

Diane <____>passed on your email message to me because I am the editor in charge of technology news coverage at The Times. You raise some important issues but I'm afraid that I have to respectfully disagree that we are misusing the shorthand term "piracy" in some of our references to the digital copyright fights between the entertainment industry and users.

We use a lot of words, "file sharing," "file swapping," "illegal downloading,'' etc. as well as music piracy, as terse phrases to describe the practice. They all carry connotations, some of which you might approve of, others not, but we do our best to be fair as we cover this controversy in full. Moreover I don't think using the word "piracy" is meant to convey support for the music industry; indeed some people might consider being labeled a "pirate" a badge of honor. It certainly carries some of that baggage from history.

On your other point that somehow we are shilling for Hollywood and the music industry, I don't understand how you can draw that conclusion from our extensive coverage. We've written many stories on other reasons besides file swapping that account for the decline in CD sales, we've written about labels and artists that welcome music piracy as a way of developing a broader audience and we quote the Electronic Frontier Foundation in many of our articles. And we have certainly pointed out, as you put it, that Hollywood cried wolf over the VCR and the DVD player.

But those aren't the only voices and viewpoints in the controversy and we would be remiss if we didn't try to explain to our readers as well as we can the point of view of people from inside the record industry, too. As journalists, that's our job. I don't think our coverage has been "simplistic" at all. I direct your attention to this page on The Times web site, http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/techspecial/, where we have compiled many of the stories we've written on the subject recently.

We've also written critical stories on Microsoft's trusted computing effort, most recently a major piece by John Markoff that appeared on the front of our Monday Business section, which I'm pasting below because I'm not sure you can easily access it from our Web site.

Thank you for your interest and I hope you continue to be an active New York Times reader.

Best,

Tom Redburn

June 30, 2003, Monday Late Edition - Final

Section C Page 1 Column 2 Desk: Business/Financial Desk Length: 2030 words TECHNOLOGY; A Safer System For Home PC's Feels Like Jail To Some Critics

By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO, June 29

Your next personal computer may well come with its own digital chaperon. As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also promising to keep information safe from tampering and help users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace.

Silicon Valley -- led by Microsoft and Intel -- calls the concept ''trusted computing.'' The companies, joined by I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others, argue that the new systems are necessary to protect entertainment content as well as safeguard corporate data and personal privacy against identity theft. Without such built-in controls, they say, Hollywood and the music business will refuse to make their products available online.

But by entwining PC software and data in an impenetrable layer of encryption, critics argue, the companies may be destroying the very openness that has been at the heart of computing in the three decades since the PC was introduced. There are simpler, less intrusive ways to prevent illicit file swapping over the Internet, they say, than girding software in so much armor that new types of programs from upstart companies may have trouble working with it.

''This will kill innovation,'' said Ross Anderson, a computer security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing opposition to the industry plans. ''They're doing this to increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large companies.''

Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are turning the PC into something that would resemble video game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers or service providers in control of which applications run on their systems.

In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy.

But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users.

''Microsoft's use of the term 'trusted computing' is a great piece of doublespeak,'' said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. ''What they're really saying is, 'We don't trust you, the user of this computer.' ''

The advocates of trusted computing argue that the new technology is absolutely necessary to protect the privacy of users and to prevent the theft of valuable intellectual property, a reaction to the fact that making a perfect digital copy is almost as easy as clicking a mouse button. ''It's like having a little safe inside your computer,'' said Bob Meinschein, an Intel security architect. ''On the corporate side the value is much clearer,'' he added, ''but over time the consumer value of this technology will become clear as well'' as more people shop and do other business transactions online.

Industry leaders also contend that none of this will stifle innovation. Instead, they say, it will help preserve and expand general-purpose computing in the Internet age.

''We think this is a huge innovation story,'' said Mario Juarez, Microsoft's group product manager for the company's security business unit. ''This is just an extension of the way the current version of Windows has provided innovation for players up and down the broad landscape of computing.''

The initiative is based on a new specification for personal computer hardware, first introduced in 2000 and backed by a group of companies called the Trusted Computing Group. It also revolves around a separate Microsoft plan, now called the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, that specifies a tamper-proof portion of the Windows operating system.

The hardware system is contained in a set of separate electronics that are linked to the personal computer's microprocessor chip, known as the Trusted Platform Module, or T.P.M. The device includes secret digital keys -- large binary numbers -- that cannot easily be altered. The Trusted Computing Group is attempting to persuade other industries, like the mobile phone industry and the makers of personal digital assistants, to standardize on the technology as well.

The plans reflect a shift by key elements of the personal computer industry, which in the past had resisted going along with the entertainment industry and what some said they feared would be draconian controls that would greatly curtail the power of digital consumer products. Industry executives now argue that by embedding the digital keys directly in the hardware of the PC, tampering will be much more difficult. But they acknowledge that no security system is perfect.

The hardware standard is actually the second effort by Intel to build security directly into the circuitry of the PC. The first effort ended in a public relations disaster for Intel in 1999 when consumers and civil liberties groups revolted against the idea. The groups coined the slogan ''Big Brother Inside,'' and charged that the technology could be used to violate user privacy.

''We don't like to make the connection,'' said Mr. Meinschein. ''But we did learn from it.''

He said the new T.P.M. design requires the computer owner to switch on the new technology voluntarily and that it contains elaborate safeguards for protecting individual identity.

The first computers based on the hardware design have just begun to appear from I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard for corporate customers. Consumer-oriented computer makers like Dell Computer and Gateway are being urged to go along but have not yet endorsed the new approach.

How consumers will react to the new technology is a thorny question for PC makers because the new industry design stands in striking contrast to the approach being taken by Apple Computer.

Apple has developed the popular iTunes digital music store relying exclusively on software to restrict the sharing of digital songs over the Internet. Apple's system, which has drawn the support of the recording industry, permits consumers to share songs freely among up to three Macintoshes and an iPod portable music player.

Apple only has a tiny share of the personal computer market. But it continues to tweak the industry leaders with its innovations; last week, Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, demonstrated a feature of the company's newest version of its OS X operating system called FileVault, designed to protect a user's documents without the need for modifying computer hardware.

Mr. Jobs argued that elaborate hardware-software schemes like the one being pursued by the Trusted Computing Group will not achieve their purpose. ''It's a falsehood,'' he said. ''You can prove to yourself that that hardware doesn't make it more secure.''

That is not Microsoft's view. The company has begun showing a test copy of a variation of its Windows operating system that was originally named Palladium. The name was changed last year after a trademark dispute. In an effort to retain the original open PC environment, the Microsoft plan offers the computer user two separate computing partitions in a future version of Windows. Beyond changing the appearance and control of Windows, the system will also require a new generation of computer hardware, not only replacing the computer logic board but also peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards.

Executives at Microsoft say they tentatively plan to include the technology in the next version of Windows -- code-named Longhorn -- now due in 2005. The company is dealing with both technical and marketing challenges presented by the new software security system. For example, Mr. Juarez, the Microsoft executive, said that if the company created a more secure side to its operating system software, customers might draw the conclusion that its current software is not as safe to use.

Software developers and computer security experts, however, said they were not confident that Microsoft would retain its commitment to the open half of what is planned to be a two-sided operating system.

''My hackles went up when I read Microsoft describing the trusted part of the operating system as an option,'' said Mitchell D. Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, and a longtime Microsoft competitor. ''I don't think that's a trustworthy statement.''

One possibility, Mr. Kapor argued, is that Microsoft could release versions of applications like its Office suite of programs that would only run on the secure part of the operating system, forcing users to do their work in the more restricted environment.

Microsoft denies that it is hatching an elaborate scheme to deploy an ultra-secret hardware system simply to protect its software and Hollywood's digital content. The company also says the new system can help counter global cybercrime without creating the repressive ''Big Brother'' society imagined by George Orwell in ''1984.''

Microsoft is committed to ''working with the government and the entire industry to build a more secure computing infrastructure here and around the world,'' Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told a technology conference in Washington on Wednesday. ''This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time.'' The critics are worried, however, that the rush to create more secure PC's may have unintended consequences. Paradoxically, they say, the efforts to lock up data safely against piracy could serve to make it easier for pirates to operate covertly.

Indeed, the effectiveness of the effort to protect intellectual property like music and movies has been challenged in two independent research papers. One was distributed last year by a group of Microsoft computer security researchers; a second paper was released last month by Harvard researchers.

The research papers state that computer users who share files might use the new hardware-based security systems to create a ''Darknet,'' a secure, but illegal network for sharing digital movies and music or other illicit information that could be exceptionally hard for security experts to crack.

''This is a Pandora's box and I don't think there has been much thought about what can go wrong,'' said Stuart Schechter, a Harvard researcher who is an author of one of the papers. ''This is one of those rare times we can prevent something that will do more harm than good.''

Images: Photos: A sample of the code for a more secure version of Microsoft Windows. (John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times)(pg. C1); Mario Juarez, left, the group product manager for Microsoft's security business unit, discussing with Aaron Verstraete their work on the ''trusted computing'' software within the Windows program. (John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times)(pg. C3)

Chart: ''A Panic Room for the PC''
Microsoft and several other companies are developing a more secure personal computing technology, called ''trusted computing,'' to help increase privacy and security and reduce the risk of identity theft. Critics say the technology will also unfairly constrict users and curtail innovation.

Windows remains the same . . .
The Windows operating system continues to function as it does now. Trusted computing software would operate alongside Windows, providing a more secure operating environment.

. . .and the trusted computing software offers certain protections. Processes data meant to be kept private on a secure, isolated block of memory.

Prevents information that is being entered or viewed by the user from being intercepted by hackers or viruses.

Verifies that an application accessing private data is the original, unaltered application that stored it before releasing the data.

Evaluates the integrity of the users system and any other system it may be communicating with before transmitting or accepting data.

Trusted computing hardware
A chip, placed on the computer's motherboard, acts as the key to the trusted computing software, encrypting and decrypting data. The encryption functions are hard-wired on the chip, to prevent others from cracking the code.

An example
Unknown to the user, a hacker breaks into the Windows operating system and tweaks some portion of an application, programming it to send confidential data back to the hacker.

When the user tries to run the application, trusted computing alerts the user that the application has been tampered with and access is denied.

(Source: Microsoft)(pg. C3)
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 14:15:47 GMT

NY Times misuse of the term piracy continues
I picked up my morning fishwrap copy of the NY Times to find, for the second day in a row, a front page article that misuses the term piracy.

Dave nails the issue:

"As long as the music industry labels all use of music on the Internet as piracy, and as long as pubs like the NY Times go along with this, the "problem" will never be solved. The music industry is insisting on a moral principle that they don't hold themselves to, that musicians should be paid for their work. They need to clean their house first, and that's going to mean disclaiming ownership of some of their supposed property, and deciding what they want to be paid for, and then asking for (and maybe receiving) help from the online community, in much the same way the US presidential candidates are."

Thu, 25 Sep 2003 19:58:36 GMT

Is public radio public?
Dave Winer asks some excellent questions regarding public radio. Dave also points out that streaming is a form of copy protection (most public radio services only stream their broadcasts, rather than provide easy to use/move mp3 files). This strategy also ignores the explosive growth of mp3 players such as the ipod.

Wisconsin Public Radio provides only streaming. I sent an email to Greg Schnirring (schnirring@wpr.org), Director of Radio requesting that they provide mp3 format audio files of their programs.

Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:33:20 GMT

The VOIP battle heats up
There are a number of articles on fast growing Voice over IP ("telephone" calls on the internet). PC World addresses the looming tax issue(s), while Dartmouth begins to provide soft phones to incoming students.

Packet8 and Vonage are two VOIP providers. (I use packet8).

Pulver.com has a useful summary of state activities on VOIP (including Wisconsin's ill advised regulatory moves).

Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:18:36 GMT

NY Times on Piracy
I'm a long time NY Times subscriber. I did a double take this morning when they featured a front page article on "Studios Moving to Block Piracy of Films Online".

I phoned NY Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (voice mail, of course) and expressed my disappointment that once again, they've drank the Hollywood Kool Aid on "fair use".

Much like Dave's questions regarding mp3 feeds from public radio, it seems absurd in 2003 that I cannot conveniently space and time shift purchased movies.

The recently launched word pirates site is quite useful in this respect.

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 19:46:30 GMT

15 Years at CDG
The New York Times interviews Merhan Karimi Nasseri, who has been living at Charles de Gaulle airport for 15 years. There have been several obscure french films made about his plight. Evidently, now Spielberg is on the case.

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:25:01 GMT

Hotwire
Dave finds a travel bargain on hotwire. I've used hotwire for years to book hotels and flights - if timing is not important. It's generally a great deal. I wonder when these deals will start to eat into higher end hotel's pricing power? I've stayed at some beautiful hotels for rock bottom prices via hotwire.

Tue, 12 Aug 2003 02:14:07 GMT

Great Service!
I did my weekly grocery shopping at Sentry Hilldale last weekend and ran into my sister's mother-in-law. After visiting a bit, two teenage boys who were collecting shopping carts (the real versions, not virtual) stopped and told her that her flat tire had been successfully replaced.

It seems that one of them noticed the low tire when she arrived at the store. They decided that she could likely make it home. Later on, one of the young men found her in the store and mentioned that they should probably change the tire. She gave them the keys and they took care of the problem.

I later complemented the store manager on this excellent example of customer service.

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 14:06:41 GMT

A view from Dallas

Just back from Dallas where I noticed that the Cowboys are starting to lobby the Dallas Mayor, Laura Miller (a University of Wisconsin alum) for a new ($1B!!) stadium. The model being pitched, similar to the scheme that financed Milwaukee's ill placed Miller Park is a hotel (up 3%) and rental car (up 6%) sales tax increase.

Given the many local and regional government spending priorities, it's difficult to see how public subsidies for such facilities make sense. Further, in the case of Miller Park, the pitch that public investment would lead to a competitive team has not worked out as advertised.

Having said that, I've always enjoyed observing the cowboy's atmosphere. Years ago, living in Dallas, we were offered Cowboys tickets. Arriving at the game (early in the Jimmy Johnson/Jerry Jones era), we purchased a couple of sodas. Typically, the plastics soda cups feature photos of the team stars (Troy Aikman and Emmit Smith come to mind). In this case, however, the cups included images of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson.

The cowboys are currently running ads featuring their new coach: Bill Parcells with the music of Laura Nyro (Wedding Bell Blues): "Marry me Bill".....