9/11/01: Remembering Nine Years Ago

I first published this two years ago. It brings back some not so good memories and the same raw feelings of 9 years ago.

I was walking into the office when our technician told me a plane had hit one of the towers - he said "they think it was a small plane" and I did not think too much about it. 20 minutes or so later I was in a meeting and the same tech came in saying it was an airliner. We all left the meeting and turned on a small television in our lab. I also made sure I had a computer close by so I could watch email.......

At the time we were running a national listserv for a large group of faculty and administrators involved in a Working Connections grant with Microsoft and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). I've pulled out a few emails that came to the list. Here's one of the first from Mete at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC):

11:50 AM, 9/11/01

It is chaos here, but everybody at BMCC is OK. We are closed for the day and the roads/subways to in/out of Manhattan are blocked. I am in Brooklyn (home) now and the sky is dark from smoke/ash/soot. I have a feeling it is going to take a long time to recover from this one.
Hope all is well with everyone around the country,

Mete

BMCC is on Chambers Street, next to ground zero and a college building was damaged from the attack. Mete was on the subway on his way in when the attack started and I believe he walked home to Brooklyn.

Here's a reply message from Lynn at the AACC in Washington, DC::

12:05AM, 9/11/01
We are ok here, but our office is closing so people can try to get home. The smoke from the Pentagon is visible from our 4th floor conference room. Most of the federal offices have now closed, a couple of subway stations near the Pentagon are closed, the streets are crowded with people driving and walking home from downtown offices, and cars with sirens go by every 5 minutes or so. Folks who live near Capitol Hill are sticking around the office until things calm down in that part of town.

Lynn

A flurry of emails went back and forth during the day from people all around the coutry. We were all worried, frustrated and upset about the attacks and our friends in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Here's a sample of the response from Paula at Richland College in Dallas:

11:50AM, 9/11/01
Thank you both for taking the time to provide us with an update of your safety. Our prayers are with you and all Americans during this tragedy. As in other states, thousands are donating blood. A major sports arena in Dallas has been setup as a blood donation facility. Churches are conducting special services. Please assist us to remain informed as to organizations/drives that are established that will provide direct support.

Paula

This came from Chris at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City a few days later:

10:50AM, 9/14/01
FIT is safe and sound and open for business but few classes are running normally. It is hard to describe the experience of walking south on Manhattan's avenues and seeing a column of smoke where the World Trade Towers should be. When the wind shifts, the smell of the fire comes to Chelsea with a light dusting of the cement that is ankle deep a few blocks away.

We are glad to hear that all are well at BMCC and in Washington.

Chris

Here's a followup from Mete that was also sent on September 14:

12:36AM, 9/14/01

The building that we (CIS) dept was suppose to move this Sept., (but did not because of delays) is quite damaged. They are using our main building as command/triage/morgue center. We will be closed until the end of next week. The cleanup is going very slowly and there is very limited access to downtown Manhattan.

The subways are not running and all the outer borough are choked with traffic with people bringing their cars and parking them as close to Manhattan as possible. The air quality is bad, there is possibility that some more buildings (including our own that was next to a collapsed building) may come down aggravating the situation.

There are a number people that I know, with families, that perished in the bombings (we were going go to a 10th bday party this weekend, but the mother is missing - what do we do now ??) from my daughter's school and our neighborhood. But they are defiant, and most of the businesses try to operate as usual with a backdrop of surrealism...

Thanks for all of your e-mails and good wishes. We appreciate it and find comfort in them.

Mete

Hundreds of emails went back and forth over the next few weeks and things slowly went back to as close to normal as they could get.

I’m Gabby and I’m a PC

[I know, I know the iPhone SDK will only run on a Mac but.... bear with me! And anyways.... any savvy Mac user is also running Windows using bootcamp or a virtual machine!]

I started writing this up on a flight back home from Tampa. I’ve been vacationing on the beach in Clearwater Beach, Florida for the past three weeks with my family, perhaps trying to catch one more little bit of childhood with our oldest daughter Gabby who is heading off to study computer science at Mount Holyoke College next week.

The past three weeks Gabby, Eva, Diane and I basically beach-bummed around. We swam, beachcombed, fished, snorkeled, scalloped….. I slacked off on my work these last three weeks like never before. I’m behind on just about everything – email, reports, proposals and Twitter follow-backs. I haven’t posted a blog since the end of July and the people I work with probably don’t remember what I look like! If I owe you something – I’ll catch up – it is coming!

It was worth it though - the best part of these three weeks by far has been the chance to take some time to watch, reflect and look back. It’s been an interesting and fun summer with Gabby, her sister Eva and Diane.

Like any parent will tell you, watching your kids grow up is pretty special. One event from this summer that will remain etched in my mind forever was watching Gabby presenting to a room full of college faculty at an iPhone SDK workshop with Mike Q (thank you Mike!) at the HI-TEC Conference. It was amazing to watch her and Mike teach, demonstrate, help people out and answer questions. The only way I can describe it – it was like watching her go from a teenager to an adult in about three hours. I got to relive that experience again watching her do a MATEC Networks Webinar on the same topic a couple weeks later. That pic up on the left is her during the webinar session.

A whole bunch of emotions for me pretty much boiled down to a huge amount of pride and just about as much sadness at the same time. She’s grown up.

It’s been a wonderful 18 years since Gabby was born, almost four weeks premature and so tiny. She’s always had a passion for computers, science, technology and math. Here’s an old video of her when she was 3 years old showing Dad how to use Windows 95. She’ll probably be upset that I posted it but I’ll take that chance. I call the video “I’m Gabby and I’m a PC”.

That little rascal in that video is off to college! Wow – where did the years go? And…… look out big sis – your younger sister is Eva moving up just as fast!

Remembering Seven Years Ago

I was walking into the office when our technician told me a plane had hit one of the towers - he said "they think it was a small plane" and I did not think too much about it. 20 minutes or so later I was in a meeting and the same tech came in saying it was an airliner. We all left the meeting and turned on a small television in our lab. I also made sure I had a computer close by so I could watch email.......

At the time we were running a national listserv for a large group of faculty and administrators involved in a Working Connections grant with Microsoft and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). I've pulled out a few emails that came to the list. Here's one of the first from Mete at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC):

11:50 AM, 9/11/01

It is chaos here, but everybody at BMCC is OK. We are closed for the day and the roads/subways to in/out of Manhattan are blocked. I am in Brooklyn (home) now and the sky is dark from smoke/ash/soot. I have a feeling it is going to take a long time to recover from this one.
Hope all is well with everyone around the country,

Mete

BMCC is on Chambers Street, next to ground zero and a college building was damaged from the attack. Mete was on the subway on his way in when the attack started and I believe he walked home to Brooklyn.

Here's a reply message from Lynn at the AACC in Washington, DC::

12:05AM, 9/11/01
We are ok here, but our office is closing so people can try to get home. The smoke from the Pentagon is visible from our 4th floor conference room. Most of the federal offices have now closed, a couple of subway stations near the Pentagon are closed, the streets are crowded with people driving and walking home from downtown offices, and cars with sirens go by every 5 minutes or so. Folks who live near Capitol Hill are sticking around the office until things calm down in that part of town.

Lynn

A flurry of emails went back and forth during the day from people all around the coutry. We were all worried, frustrated and upset about the attacks and our friends in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Here's a sample of the response from Paula at Richland College in Dallas:

11:50AM, 9/11/01
Thank you both for taking the time to provide us with an update of your safety. Our prayers are with you and all Americans during this tragedy. As in other states, thousands are donating blood. A major sports arena in Dallas has been setup as a blood donation facility. Churches are conducting special services. Please assist us to remain informed as to organizations/drives that are established that will provide direct support.

Paula

This came from Chris at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City a few days later:

10:50AM, 9/14/01
FIT is safe and sound and open for business but few classes are running normally. It is hard to describe the experience of walking south on Manhattan's avenues and seeing a column of smoke where the World Trade Towers should be. When the wind shifts, the smell of the fire comes to Chelsea with a light dusting of the cement that is ankle deep a few blocks away.

We are glad to hear that all are well at BMCC and in Washington.

Chris

Here's a followup from Mete that was also sent on September 14:

12:36AM, 9/14/01

The building that we (CIS) dept was suppose to move this Sept., (but did not because of delays) is quite damaged. They are using our main building as command/triage/morgue center. We will be closed until the end of next week. The cleanup is going very slowly and there is very limited access to downtown Manhattan.

The subways are not running and all the outer borough are choked with traffic with people bringing their cars and parking them as close to Manhattan as possible. The air quality is bad, there is possibility that some more buildings (including our own that was next to a collapsed building) may come down aggravating the situation.

There are a number people that I know, with families, that perished in the bombings (we were going go to a 10th bday party this weekend, but the mother is missing - what do we do now ??) from my daughter's school and our neighborhood. But they are defiant, and most of the businesses try to operate as usual with a backdrop of surrealism...

Thanks for all of your e-mails and good wishes. We appreciate it and find comfort in them.

Mete

Hundreds of emails went back and forth over the next few weeks and things slowly went back to as close to normal as they could get.

Microsoft Yahoo Round Two?

According to the New York Times, Microsoft has proposed a complex new collaborative deal with Yahoo that would not involve a full takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft. Microsoft had made an offer of $47.5 billion to outright take over Yahoo that was withdrawn a couple of weeks ago.

From the New York Times piece and in a statement released by Microsoft today - the company said it was “considering and has raised with Yahoo an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo.” Microsoft provided no additional details.

Here's more from the New York Times:

“Microsoft is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative depending on future developments and discussions that may take place with Yahoo or discussions with shareholders of Yahoo or Microsoft or with other third parties,” the company said.

It looks like Microsoft is scrambling, trying to head off a partnership deal currently in the works between Yahoo and Google, expected to be announced as early as this week.

Read the full New York Times piece here.

Microsoft Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE)

An article today in the Seattle Times describes a forensic device Microsoft started distributing last June to over 2000 officers in 15 countries. The device, referred to as a COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) is a USB thumb-drive loaded with software used in forensic investigations. According to the Seattle Times article:

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.

Microsoft COFEEs have been distributed to over 2000 officers in 15 countries including Poland, the Philippines, Germany, New Zealand and the United States.

MacBook Air Hacked

The ninth annual CanSecWest 2008 Conference was held last week in Vancouver, British Columbia. CanSecWest focuses on applied digital security, bringing together ndustry luminaries in a relaxed environment that promotes collaboration and social networking.

A crowd favorite at the conference has been the hacking contest and last week the tradition continued. This year's target machines were Ubuntu, Vist and OSX based. Here's details on the contest from the CanSecWest website:

Three targets, all patched. All in typical client configurations with typical user configurations. You hack it, you get to keep it.

Each has a file on them and it contains the instructions and how to claim the prize.

Targets (typical road-warrior clients):

• VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10
• Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1
• MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2

This year's contest will begin on March 26th, and go during the presentation hours and breaks of the conference until March 28th. The main purpose of this contest is to present new vulnerabilities in these systems so that the affected vendor(s) can address them. Participation is open to any registered attendee of CanSecWest 2008.

Once you extract your claim ticket file from a laptop (note that doing so will involve executing code on the box, simple directory traversal style bugs are inadequate), you get to keep it. You also get to participate in 3com / Tipping Point's Zero Day Initiative, with the top award for remote, pre-auth, vulnerabilities being increased this year. Fine print and details on the cash prizes are available from Tipping Point's DVLabs blog.

Quick Overview:

• Limit one laptop per contestant.
• You can't use the same vulnerability to claim more than one box, if it is a cross-platform issue.
• Thirty minute attack slots given to contestants at each box.
• Attack slots will be scheduled at the contest start by the methods selected by the judges.
• Attacks are done via crossover cable. (attacker controls default route)
• RF attacks are done offsite by special arrangement...
• No physical access to the machines.
• Major web browsers (IE, Safari, Konqueror, Firefox), widely used and deployed plugin frameworks (AIR, Silverlight), IM clients (MSN, Adium, Skype, Pigdin, AOL, Yahoo), Mail readers (Outlook, Mail.app, Thunderbird, kmail) are all in scope.

Here's the results according to Heiss Online:

Of three laptops to be hacked, the MacBook Air with Mac OS X 10.5.2 was the first to fall victim to crack attempts of participants in the PWN to OWN contest at CanSecWest. The laptops with Windows Vista SP1 and Ubuntu 7.10 remain uncompromised. According to information provided by organizers of the TippingPoint competition, Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff and Mark Daniel of security service provider Independent Security Evaluator were able to take control of the device through a hole in the Safari web browser. The vulnerability has supposedly not yet been made public and is still under wraps until Apple is able to provide a patch. In addition to $10,000 prize money, the winners also get to keep the MacBook as a bonus.

Here's more on the contest from ChannelWeb:

The vulnerability has been purchased by the Zero Day Initiative, and has been made known to to Apple, which is now working on the issue, TippingPoint said. "Until Apple releases a patch for this issue, neither we nor the contestants will be giving out any additional information about the vulnerability."

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! - Some Questions and Some Options

On Sunday. February 3, 2008 (yes, Super Bowl Sunday) David Drummond, Google's Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer published Yahoo! and the future of the Internet on the Official Google Blog page.

Drummond, never one to hold back, raises some questions regarding Microsoft's Yahoo! offer. He starts by saying the openness of the Internet is what made Google -- and Yahoo! -- possible. And goes on to say that, because of the openness, good ideas spread quickly and users benefit from the constant innovation an open system provides. According to Drummond, this is what has made the Internet a popular and exciting place. He also asks a few questions:

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?

Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?

Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?

Three very interesting questions depending on your position, perspective and opinion. Personally, I am amazed with Google's innovation - I use and encourage others to use their applications and would hate to see things slow down. Read Drummond's complete post (it's short) if you can.

Let's look at where Yahoo! is on this. The company has not had a good history with either Microsoft or Google and the offer has put them in a difficult spot. Most experts are saying if Yahoo! does not take the deal with Microsoft the company will have to form some kind of partnership with Google - most likely agreeing to have Google run their search engine and take revenue generated from ad clicks. Another option for Yahoo! would be to go private with a leveraged buyout. In an Associated Press Article titled Microsoft bid backs Yahoo into a corner , Stifel Nicolaus analyst George Askew is quoted, saying this option (leveraged buyout) would involve Yahoo! going into about $20 Billion of debt and having to layoff approximately 4,500 (31%) of their current employees. Neither of these appears to be a good option for Yahoo!

Where's Microsoft on this? They want Yahoo! to the point where the company may end up raising the bid on the current $41 Billion offer. Microsoft also may be financing a portion of the deal if it goes through which would be the first time the company has taken a loan to buy a another company.

Yahoo! may not have any other options at this time - other companies that may have the money (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc.) do not appear to be interested at this time...... In the same AP Article, investment banker Peter Falvey from Revolution Partners is quoted:

At the end of the day, I don't think they (Yahoo!) are going to be able to turn down Microsoft.

Yahoo!'s board has a difficult decision to make.

Some Quick Thoughts About Microsoft's Offer to Buy Yahoo!

By now most have heard about Microsoft's proposal toYahoo!'s board of directors to buy Yahoo! at $31 per share (Yahoo! closed yesterday at $19.18). Here's a piece from the letter Steve Ballmer sent to the Yahoo! board:

Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

-- Scale economics:  This combination enables synergies related to scale
 economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one
 competitor at scale.  This includes synergies across both search and
 non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value
 proposition to both advertisers and publishers.  Additionally, the
 combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.

-- Expanded R&D capacity:  The combined talent of our engineering
 resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search
 index and single advertising platform.  Together we can unleash new
 levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences,
 breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities.
 Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that
 today neither of our companies has on its own.

-- Operational efficiencies:  Eliminating redundant infrastructure and
 duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of
 the combined entity.

-- Emerging user experiences:  Our combined ability to focus engineering
 resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video,
 mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is
 greatly enhanced.

There's been rumors of this merger for the past couple of years so it comes as no big surprise to many. It's also no secret this is a direct move to try and head off Google. Each Yahoo shareholder will be able to choose whether to receive consideration in cash or in Microsoft common stock.

Microsoft is ready to move fast on this - we'll see what Yahoo does.

New York Times on Free Speech in China

On December 2, the New York Times published an editorial titled Yahoo Betrays Free Speech. The piece discussed how Yahoo helped the Chinese government find the identities of two Chinese journalists who both received ten years in jail for "disseminating pro-democracy writings".

Here's a quote from the editorial:

Yahoo’s collaboration is appalling, and Yahoo is not the only American company helping the Chinese government repress its people. Microsoft shut down a blogger at Beijing’s request. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft censor searches in China. Cisco Systems provided hardware used by Beijing to censor and monitor the Internet.

You may have seen the following YouTube piece on the Yahoo settlement (or something similar) last month:



I encourage you to read the New York Times editorial and watch the video clip - good classroom material for discussion from political, legal, business/financial and even technological (how do they do that?) perspectives.

Microsoft Buys a Piece of Facebook and Files for Social Network Firewall Technology Patent

On October 25, Microsoft filed for a patent titled Integration of social network information and network firewalls. For a number of reasons, primarily security based, many corporations block social networking sites like Facebook and mySpace.

You may have also heard that, on October 24 (one day before the patent application), Microsoft and Facebook announced that Microsoft has purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. According to Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web:

The amount invested is lower than expectations, which were around $500M. Microsoft's new deal with Facebook is all about bolstering their existing advertising arrangement - Microsoft will now sell Facebook's international display ads, in addition to the banner ads it already sells on the US site. However this deal leaves room for Facebook to run its own advertising network. Facebook's ad system will likely use social profiling to target ads, given the wealth of such data that Facebook has.

Lower than expectations..... still - do the math - $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook puts the value at $15 billion! The numbers are making me dizzy and I'm going off track.......

Seriously - after investing $240 million it does seem logical that Microsoft would apply for a patent on technology that would allow easier access to sites like Facebook from inside firewalls. In the patent application Microsoft proposes the problem with current firewall technology:

Internet protocol security (IPsec) allows the remote user or machine to be identified and is an additional mechanism for providing security to Internet traffic. A firewall may be programmed to require IPsec security on incoming connections. However, maintaining accurate connection information in a firewall can become tedious and prone to error. Detailed configuration knowledge may be required and the highest levels of protection may require frequent changes to the settings.

For example, broad application level exceptions may be authorized because it is too difficult or time-consuming to program a narrower, more appropriate, exception. Furthermore, due to the difficulty of configuring such elaborate settings, firewall configuration is generally statically set, wherein exceptions are configured once and then left unaltered thereafter. This decreases the security of the machine by causing the firewall configuration to not accurately represent the precise security requirements of a machine at a given moment, but instead represent the least restrictive superset of the needed configuration at all times.

And then the solution:

Instead of manually entering an allowed IP address or list of remote users to allow for setting a firewall exception, an invitation mechanism may be programmed to extract data about a connection invitation sent to an outside party and to appropriately program the firewall exception. The exception may be specific to the particular connection invitation, and, optionally, for limited duration. The invitation mechanism may be associated with an application, for example, an instant messaging program, or a game.

Alternatively, the invitation mechanism may be part of an operating system callable by an application or trapped by the OS itself. The firewall may receive an application handle and an identifier for the outside party, such as cryptographic material. The cryptographic material may be a public-key. The identifier for the outside party may be a handle, or pointer, to the public-key or an equivalent, such as a certificate. The exception may be timed corresponding to the type of application or invitation. For example, an exception for an e-mail-based invitation may be available for a period of hours, whereas an IP-based invitation for a game may be available for a minute or less. By making available the cryptographic material (e.g. public key) for an IPsec connection, the firewall can process the connection without interruption to the application, user, or OS.

Read/Write Web has also posted some web traffic stats regarding Facebook as compiled by Hitwise:

• Facebook.com was the ninth most visited website (as ranked by Hitwise) in the U.S. receiving .96% of all Internet visits for the week ending 10/20/07.
• U.S. traffic to Facebook.com has increased 102% YOY comparing the week ending 10/20/07 versus 10/21/06.
• Among a custom category of leading social networking websites, Facebook.com received 15% of U.S. visits for the week ending 10/20/07. That was second most among social networking websites behind MySpace.com, who received 76%. Windows Live Spaces received .40% for the same week.
• Facebook.com received '9.90%' of its U.S. traffic from Search Engines for the week ending 10/20/2007. Of that traffic, MSN Search and Live Search combined for .46% to Facebook.com last week. Google sent 6.82% percent of U.S. traffic while Yahoo! Search send 1.34% of traffic for the week ending 10/20/07.
• U.S visits for Facebook.com among users ages 35 and over have increased 19% comparing the week ending 10/20/07 versus 10/21/06.

Providing easier access to sites like Facebook from inside corporate firewalls has the potential to make these numbers even higher - at least that is likely what Microsoft is thinking.

Microsoft Loving Apple These Days?

I've written about my new Mac in the past and thought it was about time to write about it again. Prior to the release of the iPhone, Apple was running those ads with Justin Long, the hip young guy who used to be on the Ed show, and John Hodgman who (in the commercials) bears a rather strong resemblance to a tight cheap-suited/sportcoated, un-hemmed pants, bad hair day, chubby version of Bill Gates. I'm sure you've seen at least one of them - here's a collection of all 15 of them a user has put on YouTube.

Well done and yes they make me smile! Apple is really letting Microsoft have it huh? My first impression was yes but let's think about this a bit. Mike Q sent me an email last week saying that one out of every six notebook computers sold in the U.S. is now an Apple. I seriously doubt these are first time computer users and the majority of them are PC converts like Mike, myself and many of our academic and business/industry colleagues.

What's the first thing a PC convert asks when they decide to take a close look at the Apple machines? Does it run Windows?! The answer used to be no but today, with Intel processors and applications like Bootcamp, Parallels and VMWare, both the Apple and Windows operating systems can co-exist on the same machine. In the case of Parallels and VMWare, both operating systems can be used simultaneously.

Microsoft has to be loving this - the company doesn't sell hardware - they sell software. Let's take a look at what the average user will spend from a Microsoft product perspective starting with a new Mac user who is a Windows "convert" and still wants/needs Windows apps:

Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (non-Microsoft product): $79.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate: $209.79
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional for Windows: $499.95
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac: $399.00

[note: all Microsoft prices from Microsoft website]

Adding up just the Microsoft applications gives $1108.74! What's really interesting is the fact that many (including myself) actually purchase two versions of Office that run on the same machine. Of course people can get away with upgrade pricing or get academic pricing (yes I did) if eligible. This drops the price a bit but you get the idea.

Now again, from a Microsoft product perspective, let's take a look at the purchase of a new Dell notebook - let's say a new Business Class Lattitude.

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate: $209.79 (it's likely a lot less $ for Microsoft since Dell gets volume pricing from Microsoft)
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional for Windows: $499.95

[note: all Microsoft prices from Microsoft website]

Adding these numbers gives $709.74 - still a hefty sum but less.

Laugh at the ads if you wish - people at Microsoft have to be smiling. Of course the real threat to Microsoft is not Apple - it's the free webware apps like ThinkFree, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Zoho, etc......

****
Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Enterprise 2.0 linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
****

Internet Disruptions: Skype, Microsoft and Shotguns

On Thursday, August 16, Skype users experienced a critical disruption. The disruption was the result of a massive restart of Skype user computers around the world within a very short period of time. The reboot was the result of a series of Microsoft update patches that required a reboot. According to the Skype press release:

"The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact".

"Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days".

The press release continues:

"The issue has now been identified explicitly within Skype. We can confirm categorically that no malicious activities were attributed or that our users’ security was not, at any point, at risk.

This disruption was unprecedented in terms of its impact and scope. We would like to point out that very few technologies or communications networks today are guaranteed to operate without interruptions".

I've been away on vacation and have not been as connected as I usually am - as a result the outage did not really affect me. I do use Skype frequently and if I had been in the office it would have caused some problems. I find it interesting, and a little disturbing, that one of the first things Skype clarifies in the press release is the fact that the outage was not caused by any "malicious activities".

On Monday there was another incident that caught my attention - someone has been shooting (with a gun) fiber optic cables in the Cleveland area. As a result, Internet service providers in the entire country experienced a slowdown. You can read the Network World gunfire piece here. Here's a couple of quotes from the piece:

TeliaSonera AB, which lost the northern leg of its U.S. network to the cut, said that the outage began around 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night. When technicians pulled up the affected cable, it appeared to have been shot. "Somebody had been shooting with a gun or a shotgun into the cable," said Anders Olausson, a TeliaSonera spokesman.

The company declined to name the service provider whose lines had been cut, but a source familiar with the situation said the lines are owned by Level 3 Communications Inc.

Within the last week we've had both upper layer and physical layer major Internet disruptions. It certainly makes me think twice about our communications vulnerabilities.

Search Engine Privacy

As Mike Q and I travel around presenting on Web 2.0 technologies some of the most common questions we get are with regards to privacy. The questions are along the lines of:

- How private is my communications (text messaging, email, etc) on the web?
- How private are documents stored in places like Google docs and Spreadsheets?
- Can I securely delete things like search records from places like Google and Yahoo?
- Can anybody else access my stuff?

Yesterday the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) released a report that starts to give some answers and, more importantly, will continue to put pressure on Internet search companies and lawmakers to further strengthen privacy protections. In a report titled Search Privacy Practices: A Work In Progress (linked here as PDF) the CDT takes a look at how these companies delete old user data, strip personally identifiable information and give users the ability to delete old search records. There's been a lot of activity by companies recently so this report is very timely.

Specifically - the report takes a good look at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask.com and AOL and makes the following recommendations:

1. Search companies should continue to work towards providing controls that allow users to not only extend but also limit the information stored about them. As it becomes possible to tie more and more information back to an individual user account, users should control the correlation of their account information with records of their online activities.
2. Researchers, academics, and Internet companies should continue to pursue new and innovative methods for (a) improving the quality of search results, preventing fraud and otherwise meeting business needs without tying searches to particular users, and (b) safeguarding data that is stored for long periods.
   
3. Search companies should expand efforts to at balance the demands of the advertising marketplace with their users’ privacy needs. This should include the development of new standards and policies that take privacy into account from the beginning.
   
4. Internet companies should leverage their contracts with partners to promote privacy protections across the board. Consumers can also exert pressure to improve privacy practices by staying informed and making use of available privacy tools.a simple, flexible framework.
   
5. No amount of self-regulation in the search privacy space can replace the need for a comprehensive federal privacy law to protect consumers from bad actors. With consumers sharing more data than ever before online, the time has come to harmonize our nation’s privacy laws into a simple, flexible framework.
   

The report is short (6 pages including a Glossary) and easy to read with an excellent table on the second page that answers the following questions for the 5 companies studied:

1. How long after search data has been collected will it be removed?
   
2. How will search data be removed?
   
3. Is most or all search data shared with a third party on an ongoing basis?
   

This is an excellent look at current web search privacy - you will likely be surprised at some of the things you see. I look forward to more "persuasion" in the web privacy areas from the CDT and other similar organizations.

Why Verizon Rejected the iPhone

Most realize Verizon had the first shot at the iPhone and many have been scratching their heads (Why didn't Verizon take it?) since the January Macworld iPhone announcement. The Register has an interesting post here. The piece quotes Verizon Communications president and chief operating officer Denny Strigl as follows:

"The iPhone product is something we are happy we aren't the first to market with."

It looks like the deal killers for Verizon were Apple's demands for call revenue sharing, the control of distribution channels and also customer service. The Register also quotes another Verizon vice president, Jim Gerace:

"We said no. We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn't reach
a deal that was mutually beneficial."

According the The Register - Cingular claims this deal was cut two years ago when the iPhone was just a mock-up.

I'm going to stick my neck out and predict an announcement soon by Microsoft and Verizon......

Some Initial Thoughts on the iPhone

Yesterday afternoon, while driving home, Mike Q called me - he was in line at an Apple store waiting to pick up an iPhone when the store opened. He's blogged a bit about his experience already and has made some really interesting observations that I won't mention here because he is doing/will be doing so. I have not purchased one yet but will soon - I'm dealing with a current contract that expires in October and am in the process of trying to negotiate my way out of it.

I've been impressed with just about everything I've read, heard and seen so far. There are a few things that some are complaining/concerned about - here's my list:

- No Java or Flash support is no big deal for me - there likely will be soon.
- AT&T's (Cingular) EDGE network - it's 2.5G quad-band GSM based technology - a concern for some but I can deal with that. Most places I go now I find WiFi available. Steve Jobs has said 3G was not an option at this time due to battery consumption.
- Small storage capacity - 4G ($499) or 8G ($599) without an SD card slot. This could be an issue when watching video offline (iPod like).
- Lack of a keyboard - I think people will quickly adjust to multitouch and we'll see Bluetooth keyboards soon.
- Apple's Safari browser and no Firefox - how long do you think it will be before we see Firefox?

The fact that the iPhone is running Apples operating system OS X is key. The applications we're going to see will be impressive and we will see many.

Here's a list of some random questions running around in my head:

Microsoft - so far they are saying they will not respond with a similar product but the company really has to. Microsoft came from behind nicely with the XBox and will have to do the same with the Zune. It's going to be tricky - the Zune would have competed very nicely with the first generation iPod released in 2001. Unfortunately for Microsoft we're half way through 2007. Can Microsoft catch up? My opinion is definitely yes if they want to. Will Microsoft want to? I think they'll have to.

Other Smartphone manufacturers - Nokia, Motorola, Nokia, etc..... These companies also will have their work cut out for them and you can bet they all got them and have spent the last day taking them apart. If you want to see a gutted iPhone there is an interesting iPhone disection (with lots of pictures) link here.

When will Apple come out with a second generation product? Following the iPod cycle we will likely see something in the next 6-12 months.

Do I still want one? YES!!