Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader sent us a bit that's running over at CNet and talking about a wrapper for napster called Wrapster that allows distribution of files besides just the MP3s for which the software is known. Now suddenly it's a distributable filesystem... Wild.

Recently, Jay Maynard wrote: "According to this story in Computerworld, SCO is reorganizing to increase investment in its Tarantella software and Linux, and reduce investment in its core Unix business. They expect to report "significant losses" after reorganization costs. They blame Y2K delays for the slowdown. The story also appears in C/NET."

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

CitizenC writes "C|Net is running a story on really cool gadgets that we don't get here in the US or Canada. (At least, not yet anyway.) Included are an in car, dashboard mounted DVD player (VERY bad idea), a digital camera that stores images on a MiniDisk, the PlayStation 2 (Although we WILL be getting it this fall), colour LCD cell phones for web-surfing, and finally (my personal favorite), a digital fish tank!"

kerskine writes,"It seems that there's strong demand for Caldera's upcoming IPO CNET reported that they've raised their strike price to $10-$12. This news is in sharp contrast to more negative appraisals such as this article from Forbes.com." I only know of a small number of Linux Developers who got "The Letter" from Caldera on their IPO. Gotta wonder about that.

A few weeks ago we ran Keep It Legal to Embarrass Big Companies , detailing Peacefire's decryption of X-Stop's blacklist. Then just a few days ago, we noted that CyberPatrol's encrypted list had also been cracked. Well, Mattel, the maker of CyberPatrol and a Big Company, decided it didn't like to be embarrassed -- so it's filing suit against the coders in Canada and Sweden. In addition to demanding the removal of the decryption utility, Mattel is also seeking the logfiles of the Swedish ISP that hosts the decryption utility, to identify everyone who has downloaded it to date. Update: 03/16 6:50 PM EDT by J : Today's news was filled with Mattel's PR lies about their suit. Analysis follows.

Update: 03/16 6:50 PM EDT by J : The problems started with the AP story (cited above). The decryption software posted by the activists was described as "a method for kids to deduce their parents' password and access [pornographic] Web sites."

This was the spin that Mattel's PR people put on the story. They surely didn't want the news media reporting that activists had posted software that exposes their secret, hidden blacklist to the light of day. That wouldn't sound so good - it might get people to ask "why are these blacklists encrypted at all?"

Instead, Mattel's PR decided to say that the decryption software allows kids to view pornography. Predictable - this is the same smear that's always dragged out - but the media swallowed it uncritically. (The AP story was repeated on cnet, and everywhere else that uses the AP feed.)

Even the normally-critical Declan McCullagh wrote a story for Wired whose opening sentence was corporate propaganda. "Toy-maker Mattel has sued two programmers who revealed how to circumvent its CyberPatrol blocking software." Thankfully, the rest of his article gave the full story.

Mattel is not upset about CPHack's minor feature of circumventing the program when installed. Peacefire has been distributing their own instructions to disable Cyber Patrol for months now, and hasn't been sued. (They're pretty simple instructions, too.)

Mattel is upset that people can see the flaws in their software which were previously hidden by encryption. They want to continue selling bad software and will use the full force of law to prevent you from learning how bad it is. Legal papers have already been served and the proceedings will presumably begin shortly. Stay tuned - and don't trust press releases.

fReNeTiK writes, "RealNetworks have announced their licensing of the Microsoft Windows Media streaming format. That brings the number of codecs supported by RealPlayer to 9. CNet story here, Heise News (German) here. This, of course raises an important question: Realplayer being available under Linux, will the next version include the new codec, bringing WMF streaming to Linux and Unix in general?" Based on how slowly RealPlayer has ported their clients to Linux and Unix in the past, it may be a while until we find out. I would personally prefer an open source media player if the codec patent issues can be handled, but sometimes (sigh) you just have to make do with hand-me-downs because they're all you're going to get for a while.

Repton writes, "Another one from CNET's News.com: A commission set up by the government to look into ways to keep youngsters from Internet smut has realized that they have no funding. This is a sad state of affairs, but somehow I don't feel too much sympathy." Perhaps people "charged with evaluating high-tech tools and other methods to keep online pornography away from children," but on a beer budget, should enjoy a few hours reading through the Censorware Project's Web site. At a library in Utah, say.

KnobDicker writes "Wired News reports Symantec is pressuring the ISP that hosts the Peacefire anti-censorware organization." Peacefire's founder, Bennett Haselton, wrote a decryptor for Symantec's software's blacklist and posted just that. His tests found that 76% of its .edu blocks were incorrect and that the software violates its privacy policy. Symantec's response? Threaten a lawsuit. But Peacefire isn't backing down. More below...

Let's first get the facts straight. Peacefire has not posted copyrighted material. It has posted code to decrypt I-Gear's encrypted blacklist. This is exactly like the DeCSS case, except the goal is criticizing a product instead of space-shifting movies.

The criticism here is that 76% of the .edu-domain blocks are wrong. This is a huge number. This suggests that, for every time the product blocks you from offensive material at an .edu Web site, there are three other times it blocked you from perfectly ordinary material.

While there are some people (like Bruce Taylor of the National Law Center for Children and Families) who would like to deny it, nobody's making this stuff up. Censorware really does suck. In fact, Peacefire did the same thing to X-Stop, another blocking package, two weeks earlier, and found a 68% .edu error rate. (But its maker hasn't threatened to sue. Yet.)

So what did Peacefire learn about I-Gear? A description of a milking machine system written in Spanish - blocked. Tricks for a flight sim game - blocked. A page entirely in Latin - blocked. Volumes 4 and 6 of "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" - blocked (but you can still read Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 5, go figure).

Furthermore, Peacefire revealed that Symantec is apparently violating its privacy policy by sending information to its servers without telling the user. Your Windows-registered "real name" and "company name" secretly get sent back to Symantec.

You may recall Haselton's Slashdot story "Keep it Legal to Embarrass Big Companies," from two weeks ago. He wondered if these kinds of pressure tactics would be the response to his efforts. It's already started.

The legal issue appears to be whether Symantec's End-User License Agreement (EULA) can contain a clause prohibiting reverse-engineering - and whether that clause can be enforced. UCITA will be the thousand-pound gorilla here, providing real legal muscle behind onerous EULAs. Fortunately, the current legal situation is more iffy, and cnet's story talks about that a little.

Symantec wants to distribute I-Gear only on the condition that nobody looks under the hood or says anything bad about it. And UCITA would back that up - by sending people like Haselton to jail for revealing products' flaws.

And then there's the question of why Symantec is using lousy crypto in the first place. As KnobDicker concludes: "Rather than being thankful that Haselton has conducted testing and work that they should have done themselves in the first place (for *free*), Symantec is crying in their beer and threatening to break out the lawyers to quash the bad press. Chalk up another one for the Open Source model's system of thorough peer review instead of development in a proprietary vacuum."

KnobDicker writes "Wired News reports Symantec is pressuring the ISP that hosts the Peacefire anti-censorware organization." Peacefire's founder, Bennett Haselton, wrote a decryptor for Symantec's software's blacklist and posted just that. His tests found that 76% of its .edu blocks were incorrect and that the software violates its privacy policy. Symantec's response? Threaten a lawsuit. But Peacefire isn't backing down. More below...

Let's first get the facts straight. Peacefire has not posted copyrighted material. It has posted code to decrypt I-Gear's encrypted blacklist. This is exactly like the DeCSS case, except the goal is criticizing a product instead of space-shifting movies.

The criticism here is that 76% of the .edu-domain blocks are wrong. This is a huge number. This suggests that, for every time the product blocks you from offensive material at an .edu Web site, there are three other times it blocked you from perfectly ordinary material.

While there are some people (like Bruce Taylor of the National Law Center for Children and Families) who would like to deny it, nobody's making this stuff up. Censorware really does suck. In fact, Peacefire did the same thing to X-Stop, another blocking package, two weeks earlier, and found a 68% .edu error rate. (But its maker hasn't threatened to sue. Yet.)

So what did Peacefire learn about I-Gear? A description of a milking machine system written in Spanish - blocked. Tricks for a flight sim game - blocked. A page entirely in Latin - blocked. Volumes 4 and 6 of "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" - blocked (but you can still read Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 5, go figure).

Furthermore, Peacefire revealed that Symantec is apparently violating its privacy policy by sending information to its servers without telling the user. Your Windows-registered "real name" and "company name" secretly get sent back to Symantec.

You may recall Haselton's Slashdot story "Keep it Legal to Embarrass Big Companies," from two weeks ago. He wondered if these kinds of pressure tactics would be the response to his efforts. It's already started.

The legal issue appears to be whether Symantec's End-User License Agreement (EULA) can contain a clause prohibiting reverse-engineering - and whether that clause can be enforced. UCITA will be the thousand-pound gorilla here, providing real legal muscle behind onerous EULAs. Fortunately, the current legal situation is more iffy, and cnet's story talks about that a little.

Symantec wants to distribute I-Gear only on the condition that nobody looks under the hood or says anything bad about it. And UCITA would back that up - by sending people like Haselton to jail for revealing products' flaws.

And then there's the question of why Symantec is using lousy crypto in the first place. As KnobDicker concludes: "Rather than being thankful that Haselton has conducted testing and work that they should have done themselves in the first place (for *free*), Symantec is crying in their beer and threatening to break out the lawyers to quash the bad press. Chalk up another one for the Open Source model's system of thorough peer review instead of development in a proprietary vacuum."

dublin passed along this CNET article reporting that Apple Computer has settled its cases against both Daewoo and Emachines, filed in response to those companies' release of iMac look-alike PCs. Read below for more.

The settlements mean that the preliminary injunction granted by a Federal judge last November, which halted sales of the Emachines eOne on the grounds that it too closely resembled the industrial design of Apple's iMac, may be a taste of the future.

Apple's focus in these suites has been on violations of their "trade dress" -- essentially, seeking copyright which covers the appearance and design of a product rather than its functional aspect. The CNET article points out that "[h]istorically, the courts have not extended trademark protection to a product's design, but more recently, some have begun to grant trademark protection to 'stylized' items on the grounds that novel industrial design can communicate a distinctive idea or image."

Often, however, manufacturers file design patents as well, especially for products with new or unique industrial design. Given Apple's emphasis on ergonomics, color and ease of use, which concretize the abstract results of years of experimentation and testing, it seems likely that design patents will play an expanding role in the protection of their designs. But by no means will Apple be the only company fighting to establish brand identity with distinctive shapes and colors, and taking on imitators in court over trade dress or design patent violations.

dublin (the person who submitted this article) notes, "This could be ugly, because unlike regular patents (which can be readily challenged on the following grounds), design patents have no requirement for either 'utility' or 'non-obviousness to one reasonably schooled in the art.'" Can challenging or affirming a design patent, especially in the moving-target world of personal computers, be anything other than heavily subjective?

Even if the original decision was jutified, (no one is arguing that either the eOne or the Daewoo machines are based on anything other than the shape and color-appeal of the iMac), does this place us on a slippery slope? As dublin puts it, "Does Apple now have universal first dibs on anything wrapped in clear and aqua plastic? (If yes, then how about lime or the dreaded tangerine?)"

sheck was one of the first people to write about the release of Intel's 1 Ghz chip. Beating Intel to the punch, we already covered AMD's 1 Ghz Athlon. If you want more coverage check out C|Net. This corporate peeing match about who can release these machines first is pretty funny to watch.

ReviewSeek writes "According to this News.Com article, consumers will be able to buy Pentium III computers running at 1 GHz from Hewlett-Packard and IBM later this month. Volume production and sales aren't expected until third quarter though. " It's strange to me that for some reason that "One Ghz" thing seems important. But ya gotta love fast.

I just found this short news in C|Net which states that Tera Computer will buy Cray Research from SGI for an undisclosed amount of cash, stocks and notes (although the Wall Street Journal estimates the price that Tera pays is less then $100 million, which is a fraction compared to what SGI had to pay when they bought Cray - $740 million). Tera is going to change their company name to ... Cray.

Saidin writes, "According to this story at news.com, AOL plans to open access to their cable lines for all ISPs to share. Good will, or just an attempt to keep the anti-trust demons off their back?" Well, AOL and Time-Warner are testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today, so draw your own conclusion. But, motive aside, competition is good. The full text of the AOL/Time-Warner "memorandum of understanding" is below if you're into reading such things.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

Between Time Warner Inc. And America Online, Inc.

REGARDING OPEN ACCESS BUSINESS PRACTICES

February 29, 2000

1. This Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") sets out the commitments that AOL Time Warner will make to provide open access (i.e., to make a choice of multiple Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") available to consumers) on its broadband cable systems. It is the intention of the parties to enter into as quickly as possible a binding definitive agreement to provide broadband AOL service on Time Warner's cable systems, which will be used as a model for the commercial agreements that will be available to other ISPs.

2. AOL Time Warner is committed to offer consumers a choice among multiple ISPs. Consumers will not be required to purchase service from an ISP that is affiliated with AOL Time Warner in order to enjoy broadband Internet service over AOL Time Warner cable systems. AOL Time Warner intends to encourage actively other cable operators similarly to provide consumers with a choice of broadband ISP offerings.

3. AOL Time Warner will effectuate such choice for consumers by negotiating arms-length commercial agreements with both affiliated (such as AOL) and unaffiliated ISPs that wish to offer service on the AOL Time Warner broadband cable systems. Pursuant to such commercial agreements, AOL Time Warner will partner with ISPs to offer consumers a choice of competing broadband Internet service offerings.

4. AOL Time Warner will not place any fixed limit on the number of ISPs with which it will enter into commercial arrangements to provide broadband service to consumers. AOL Time Warner will provide its consumers with a broad choice among ISPs, consistent with providing a quality consumer experience and any technological limitations in providing multiple ISPs on its broadband cable systems.

5. The terms of the commercial agreements between AOL Time Warner and ISPs wishing to provide broadband service will not discriminate on the basis of whether the ISP is affiliated with AOL Time Warner. Thus, while the economic arrangements reached by AOL Time Warner and ISPs wishing to provide broadband service will vary depending on a number of factors (such as the speed, marketing commitments, and nature and tier of the service desired to be offered), AOL Time Warner will not discriminate in those economic arrangements based upon whether or not the ISP is affiliated with AOL Time Warner. In addition, AOL Time Warner will operate its broadband cable systems in a manner that does not discriminate among ISP traffic based on affiliation with AOL Time Warner.

6. AOL Time Warner will allow ISPs to provide video streaming. AOL Time Warner recognizes that some consumers desire video streaming, and AOL Time Warner will not block or limit it.

7. AOL Time Warner will allow ISPs to connect to its broadband cable systems without purchasing broadband backbone transport from AOL Time Warner.

8. Consistent with technological capability, AOL Time Warner will offer ISPs the choice to partner with it to offer broadband Internet service on a national (on all AOL Time Warner cable systems), regional or local basis, in order to facilitate the ability of consumers to choose among ISPs of different size and scope. AOL Time Warner is committed to bring the benefits of the Internet to all Americans, and will not allow ISPs to offer "redlined" service to only a portion of an AOL Time Warner cable system that is fully enabled to provide broadband service.

9. AOL Time Warner is also committed to allow both the cable operator and the ISP to have the opportunity to have a direct relationship with the consumer. Accordingly, both the cable operator and the ISP will be allowed to market and sell broadband service directly to customers. When AOL Time Warner's cable systems sell broadband Internet service to a customer, they will be entirely responsible for billing and collection. When an ISP sells broadband Internet service directly to a customer, it may, if it so chooses, bill and collect from the customer directly.

10. This MOU represents an initial step by Time Warner and AOL to articulate the terms, conditions and parameters under which a combined AOL Time Warner will offer consumers access to multiple ISPs on its broadband cable systems. It is the intention of the parties to continue to refine those particulars in a manner that is responsive to, and consistent with, the desire of consumers to have a choice among multiple ISPs offering broadband service and the still-evolving nature of the cable infrastructure.

11. All of the foregoing is subject to all pre-existing obligations of Time Warner, including without limitation Time Warner's agreements with Serviceco, LLC (d/b/a Road Runner) and its fiduciary and other obligations to its partners. However, Time Warner will endeavor to reach agreements and accommodations with third parties to which pre-existing obligations are due that would permit the full implementation of the commitments described herein as quickly as possible.

--------------------------
Stephen M. Case
Gerald M. Levin
America Online, Inc.
Time Warner Inc.
-----------------------------

Thanks to attorney Don Weightman for providing the above text.

A reader writes, "Caldera has priced its IPO. See here in Wideopen for what little there is to read about it. " Summary: $7-9 expected range of price, while selling 5 million shares. Update: 02/26 01:31 by R : Slightly deeper story at News.com.

Bender writes "CNet is reporting that Amazon has acquired the rights (at least in the USA) to 'Affiliate Programs.' This may have an adverse consequence on things like CDNow banners."

plaXion writes, "Here's a CNET.com story on how Lineo has taken major steps forward in its effort to sell Linux software for use in TV set-top boxes and other non-PC devices by signing agreements with six Taiwanese electronics manufacturers, Korean electronics giant Samsung, and Korean computing and communications firm DaiShin. In addition they have acquired Rt-Control, which is creating a version of Linux for devices even farther removed from regular computers such as cell phones, digital cameras and even cars. "

Maybe Peacefire's timing is bad. Two courts have recently said that the reverse-engineered DeCSS program is illegal to publish in the United States, and UCITA gets closer every second. Yet Peacefire today released a program that reverse-engineers the encryption on a list of sites blocked by a major censorware product. Maybe T-shirts that say 'X-Stop has a 68% error rate for blocking student homepages' will get classified as munitions next. Bennett Haselton shares his thoughts (below) on corporate crypto.

Bennett Haselton is the founder and head of Peacefire, an activist group to support the free-speech rights of young people. He suggests that you might want to download the X-Stop "smoking gun" evidence (4MB) before the company has a chance to remove it from their server.

The feature below was written by Mr.Haselton.

X-Stop is an Internet censoring program with an encrypted database of 370,000 URL's blocked under various categories: Sex, Drugs, Rock `n' Roll, etc. Their competitors like SurfWatch and Cyber Patrol also do not publish their blocked site lists; the officially given reason is to keep kids from using the lists to find smut on the Internet. This is silly, given how easy it is to find Internet porn without the aid of X-Stop's secret database (although if you still want to, you can download our codebreaker, follow the instructions to get the X-Stop list and decrypt it, and help yourself). But for the next part of our report, after we decoded the URL list, we looked at the first 50 URL's in the .edu domain that were still valid, and found that 34 of them were regular student home pages with nothing offensive (hence the "68% error rate" t-shirt slogan). None of those 34 students who responded to our e-mails could think of why X-Stop would want to block their pages.

X-Stop admits on their Web site that their database is put together by a Web spider called "Mudcrawler" and not by human reviewers, but even for a machine, a 68% error rate is pretty bad. And even though the real reason why these lists are encrypted is obviously to keep competitors from stealing them, this also makes it much harder for third parties to find out what the programs really block. In fact, X-Stop had once claimed that every URL on their list was reviewed by a human before getting blocked, but cyber lawyer Jonathan Wallace called them on it when he published "The X-Stop Files" in 1997, asking why X-Stop blocked several sites like the Quakers home page, the AIDS Quilt, and parts of Jonathan's own e-zine, The Ethical Spectacle. Peacefire also put up a page in 1998 about sites blocked by X-Stop, including an affirmative action site and a blind children's hospital. But these examples were all found through trial and error; today is the first day that the entire list of URL's has been made public. And to determine the 68% figure, it was necessary to have a copy of the entire list, so that the first 50 blocked sites could be used as a random sample.

So far, this is more or less the same story that took place in 1997 with another blocking program, CYBERsitter, right down to Jonathan Wallace posting a page about CYBERsitter and getting his site blocked. First, several people posted articles criticizing CYBERsitter's policies, and slowly CYBERsitter's public image deteriorated as word got out that they were blocking sites which criticized their company (even Time magazine got blocked, and then posted an article about how they found themselves on CYBERsitter's list). Then in April 1997, Peacefire released a program that broke the encryption on CYBERsitter's list of blocked URL's. CYBERsitter sent Peacefire a threatening letter demanding that we take down the program and remove all of our links to CYBERsitter's Web page. Jim Tyre, a volunteer lawyer and future founding member of the Censorware Project, sent CYBERsitter a reply telling them they had no case, and we never heard from them again. But UCITA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the two court injunctions against the right to post DeCSS, didn't exist in 1997. If we had released the CYBERsitter codebreaker today, would CYBERsitter actually file a lawsuit?

The outcome of the DeCSS court cases could, in fact, determine the rights of a private citizen to embarrass a big software company by reverse engineering their products and catching them in a lie. It's easy to forget the importance of legal protection for reverse engineering, because sometimes public opinion is enough: RealNetworks never sued Richard Smith when he revealed that copies of RealPlayer included a "globally unique identifier" to track user's listening habits, and Microsoft never sued Andrew Schulman when he discovered that Windows 3.1 threw up fake error messages about DR-DOS. These were large companies that would have been crucified if they had tried to sue someone for discovering something that the public thought they had a right to know anyway. But legal protections are still important, because sometimes public opinion isn't enough - when the software company doesn't have much of an online reputation to worry about, or when then they have a reputation but they don't care about it.

The RIAA, with their campaigns against MP3 technology and reverse-engineering SDMI, is an example of an organization that doesn't care about their online image - and why should they, since we all download our music for free anyway. CYBERsitter is another good example - they do care about their reputation, but in 1997 their image was that of a children's guardian angel and an ally in fighting government censorship, almost immune to criticism. It took an enormous amount of bad press - letters from CYBERsitter's CEO threatening ISP's and flaming people in general, and at one point actually mail-bombing a lady who sent them a complaint - before even advocates of blocking software started distancing themselves from the company. Even today, CYBERsitter's public image is fairly rosy, and their campaigns of legal harassment hardly affected their reputation at all. (What had you heard about CYBERsitter before you read this article?) It's hard to imagine Microsoft, for example, filing a similar lawsuit without embarrassing themselves and turning their intended target into a martyr. The real threat to "reverse engineering for the public good" is from medium-sized companies, small enough that not everything they do will get in the news, but still big enough to afford lots of lawyers.

This threat affects not just programmers, but even journalists who get anonymous tip-offs - like Brock Meeks and Declan McCullagh, who were threatened with an FBI investigation by CYBERsitter in 1996, after they published their "Keys to the Kingdom" article about sites that CYBERsitter and other "censorware" programs blocked. The part of the article that got them in so much trouble was this excerpt from CYBERsitter's bad- word file:

[up][the,his,her,your,my][ass,cunt,twat][,hole]
[wild,wet,net,cyber,have,making,having,getting,giving,phone][sex...]
[,up][the,his,her,your,my][butt,cunt,pussy,asshole,rectum,anus]
[,suck,lick][the,his,her,your,my][cock,dong,dick,penis,hard on...]
[gay,queer,bisexual][male,men,boy,group,rights,community,activities...]
[gay,queer,homosexual,lesbian,bisexual][society,culture]
[you][are][,a,an,too,to][stupid,dumb,ugly,fat,idiot,ass,fag,dolt,dummy]

If this now counts as a "trade secret" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then our list of the 50 .edu sites blocked by X-Stop - and the study that found the 68% error rate - could be declared illegal. And under UCITA, CYBERsitter could even claim the enforceability of these excerpts from their license agreement:

Reverse Engineering Prohibited
Unauthorized reverse engineering of the Software, whether for edcucational, fair use, or other reason is expressly forbidden. For the purposes of this license the term "reverse engineering" shall apply to any and all information obtained by such methods as decompiling, decrypting, trial and error, or activity logging.

Non-Disclosure
Unauthorized disclosure of CYBERsitter operational details, hacks, work around methods, blocked sites, and blocked words or phrases are expressly prohibited.

So any CYBERsitter user who even discusses what the program blocks, would be in violation. Not that CYBERsitter would enforce this against everybody, but they probably would have liked to enforce it against Brock and Declan.

At this point, we don't know how X-Stop will respond to our report. But we do know that for all of their bluster, CYBERsitter never actually sued Brock, Declan or Peacefire. Given that CYBERsitter pursued the matter for months (and the fact that Brock and Declan had actual money), if CYBERsitter gave up, it's because they had no case. If the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, UCITA, or the DVD court rulings change that situation, then it will become much harder to criticize blocking software - or any kind of software - except for the user interface and other things that users can "see" without looking under the hood.

Maybe Peacefire's timing is bad. Two courts have recently said that the reverse-engineered DeCSS program is illegal to publish in the United States, and UCITA gets closer every second. Yet Peacefire today released a program that reverse-engineers the encryption on a list of sites blocked by a major censorware product. Maybe T-shirts that say 'X-Stop has a 68% error rate for blocking student homepages' will get classified as munitions next. Bennett Haselton shares his thoughts (below) on corporate crypto.

Bennett Haselton is the founder and head of Peacefire, an activist group to support the free-speech rights of young people. He suggests that you might want to download the X-Stop "smoking gun" evidence (4MB) before the company has a chance to remove it from their server.

The feature below was written by Mr.Haselton.

X-Stop is an Internet censoring program with an encrypted database of 370,000 URL's blocked under various categories: Sex, Drugs, Rock `n' Roll, etc. Their competitors like SurfWatch and Cyber Patrol also do not publish their blocked site lists; the officially given reason is to keep kids from using the lists to find smut on the Internet. This is silly, given how easy it is to find Internet porn without the aid of X-Stop's secret database (although if you still want to, you can download our codebreaker, follow the instructions to get the X-Stop list and decrypt it, and help yourself). But for the next part of our report, after we decoded the URL list, we looked at the first 50 URL's in the .edu domain that were still valid, and found that 34 of them were regular student home pages with nothing offensive (hence the "68% error rate" t-shirt slogan). None of those 34 students who responded to our e-mails could think of why X-Stop would want to block their pages.

X-Stop admits on their Web site that their database is put together by a Web spider called "Mudcrawler" and not by human reviewers, but even for a machine, a 68% error rate is pretty bad. And even though the real reason why these lists are encrypted is obviously to keep competitors from stealing them, this also makes it much harder for third parties to find out what the programs really block. In fact, X-Stop had once claimed that every URL on their list was reviewed by a human before getting blocked, but cyber lawyer Jonathan Wallace called them on it when he published "The X-Stop Files" in 1997, asking why X-Stop blocked several sites like the Quakers home page, the AIDS Quilt, and parts of Jonathan's own e-zine, The Ethical Spectacle. Peacefire also put up a page in 1998 about sites blocked by X-Stop, including an affirmative action site and a blind children's hospital. But these examples were all found through trial and error; today is the first day that the entire list of URL's has been made public. And to determine the 68% figure, it was necessary to have a copy of the entire list, so that the first 50 blocked sites could be used as a random sample.

So far, this is more or less the same story that took place in 1997 with another blocking program, CYBERsitter, right down to Jonathan Wallace posting a page about CYBERsitter and getting his site blocked. First, several people posted articles criticizing CYBERsitter's policies, and slowly CYBERsitter's public image deteriorated as word got out that they were blocking sites which criticized their company (even Time magazine got blocked, and then posted an article about how they found themselves on CYBERsitter's list). Then in April 1997, Peacefire released a program that broke the encryption on CYBERsitter's list of blocked URL's. CYBERsitter sent Peacefire a threatening letter demanding that we take down the program and remove all of our links to CYBERsitter's Web page. Jim Tyre, a volunteer lawyer and future founding member of the Censorware Project, sent CYBERsitter a reply telling them they had no case, and we never heard from them again. But UCITA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the two court injunctions against the right to post DeCSS, didn't exist in 1997. If we had released the CYBERsitter codebreaker today, would CYBERsitter actually file a lawsuit?

The outcome of the DeCSS court cases could, in fact, determine the rights of a private citizen to embarrass a big software company by reverse engineering their products and catching them in a lie. It's easy to forget the importance of legal protection for reverse engineering, because sometimes public opinion is enough: RealNetworks never sued Richard Smith when he revealed that copies of RealPlayer included a "globally unique identifier" to track user's listening habits, and Microsoft never sued Andrew Schulman when he discovered that Windows 3.1 threw up fake error messages about DR-DOS. These were large companies that would have been crucified if they had tried to sue someone for discovering something that the public thought they had a right to know anyway. But legal protections are still important, because sometimes public opinion isn't enough - when the software company doesn't have much of an online reputation to worry about, or when then they have a reputation but they don't care about it.

The RIAA, with their campaigns against MP3 technology and reverse-engineering SDMI, is an example of an organization that doesn't care about their online image - and why should they, since we all download our music for free anyway. CYBERsitter is another good example - they do care about their reputation, but in 1997 their image was that of a children's guardian angel and an ally in fighting government censorship, almost immune to criticism. It took an enormous amount of bad press - letters from CYBERsitter's CEO threatening ISP's and flaming people in general, and at one point actually mail-bombing a lady who sent them a complaint - before even advocates of blocking software started distancing themselves from the company. Even today, CYBERsitter's public image is fairly rosy, and their campaigns of legal harassment hardly affected their reputation at all. (What had you heard about CYBERsitter before you read this article?) It's hard to imagine Microsoft, for example, filing a similar lawsuit without embarrassing themselves and turning their intended target into a martyr. The real threat to "reverse engineering for the public good" is from medium-sized companies, small enough that not everything they do will get in the news, but still big enough to afford lots of lawyers.

This threat affects not just programmers, but even journalists who get anonymous tip-offs - like Brock Meeks and Declan McCullagh, who were threatened with an FBI investigation by CYBERsitter in 1996, after they published their "Keys to the Kingdom" article about sites that CYBERsitter and other "censorware" programs blocked. The part of the article that got them in so much trouble was this excerpt from CYBERsitter's bad- word file:

[up][the,his,her,your,my][ass,cunt,twat][,hole]
[wild,wet,net,cyber,have,making,having,getting,giving,phone][sex...]
[,up][the,his,her,your,my][butt,cunt,pussy,asshole,rectum,anus]
[,suck,lick][the,his,her,your,my][cock,dong,dick,penis,hard on...]
[gay,queer,bisexual][male,men,boy,group,rights,community,activities...]
[gay,queer,homosexual,lesbian,bisexual][society,culture]
[you][are][,a,an,too,to][stupid,dumb,ugly,fat,idiot,ass,fag,dolt,dummy]

If this now counts as a "trade secret" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then our list of the 50 .edu sites blocked by X-Stop - and the study that found the 68% error rate - could be declared illegal. And under UCITA, CYBERsitter could even claim the enforceability of these excerpts from their license agreement:

Reverse Engineering Prohibited
Unauthorized reverse engineering of the Software, whether for edcucational, fair use, or other reason is expressly forbidden. For the purposes of this license the term "reverse engineering" shall apply to any and all information obtained by such methods as decompiling, decrypting, trial and error, or activity logging.

Non-Disclosure
Unauthorized disclosure of CYBERsitter operational details, hacks, work around methods, blocked sites, and blocked words or phrases are expressly prohibited.

So any CYBERsitter user who even discusses what the program blocks, would be in violation. Not that CYBERsitter would enforce this against everybody, but they probably would have liked to enforce it against Brock and Declan.

At this point, we don't know how X-Stop will respond to our report. But we do know that for all of their bluster, CYBERsitter never actually sued Brock, Declan or Peacefire. Given that CYBERsitter pursued the matter for months (and the fact that Brock and Declan had actual money), if CYBERsitter gave up, it's because they had no case. If the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, UCITA, or the DVD court rulings change that situation, then it will become much harder to criticize blocking software - or any kind of software - except for the user interface and other things that users can "see" without looking under the hood.

Palin Majere writes, "News.com is reporting that Intel is once again having problems with its RAMBUS memory chipsets. This time, it's affecting the i820 and i840 chipsets, and is located in the chipsets (MRH and MTH) that allow customers to use regular SDRAM memory instead of RAMBUS memory. It causes memory corruption and has already caused Intel to cancel three motherboard designs as a result. " With the continuing shortage of high-end Pentium processors, and stuff like this, it's no wonder that AMD has been doing better and better.

mTor writes, "Cnet.com is reporting in this story that Microsoft is willing to open the source to Windows to settle its case with government. " Personally I think this would be pretty sweet. It'd definitely be a boost for projects like WINE. Wonder what license they would use? *grin*. CT : several folks sent us this Yahoo story where Bill denies the cnet story linked above.

mTor writes, "Cnet.com is reporting in this story that Microsoft is willing to open the source to Windows to settle its case with government. " Personally I think this would be pretty sweet. It'd definitely be a boost for projects like WINE. Wonder what license they would use? *grin*. CT : several folks sent us this Yahoo story where Bill denies the cnet story linked above.

naasking writes, "A new desktop project has been started by former Apple and AOL employees. Their goal is to create a graphical environment for Linux that "your mother could use." The company doing it is called Eazel. " It also is supposed to be based on GNOME. CT: Several people noted that this shell is destined to be the GNOME 2.0 shell/file manager.

gregus writes "Cnet is reporting that SGI and Red Hat have released their Itanium compilers and will make them open source." Mentions the Trillian kernel porting effort, and other stuff. Kinda a fluff piece: any piece that explains what a compiler is is probably fluff ;)

gregus writes "Cnet is reporting that SGI and Red Hat have released their Itanium compilers and will make them open source." Mentions the Trillian kernel porting effort, and other stuff. Kinda a fluff piece: any piece that explains what a compiler is is probably fluff ;)

|0|4 writes, "There's a CNET article about Intel's demo of a Williamette processor running at 1.5GHz. " Mentions the 1ghz P3s and other odds and ends. As always with Intel, 'Demands exceed expectations' with their new chips, so it'll be awhile before they cost less than a compact car.

ochinko writes, "This is an interview with the German programmer who wrote TFN and TFN2K. Basically he says that it's quite easy to launch such attacks but extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the initiators to be tracked." Suck.com has a pretty good article on the attacks, as well. Maybe I should take credit for the DDoS attacks and become an international superstar.

Sc00ter writes "C|Net News reports 'RealNames, a company that substitutes complicated Web addresses with simple keywords, is warning its users that its customer database has been hacked, and that user credit card numbers and passwords may have been accessed.' Complete story here." Remember when NSI teamed up with Centraal, the creators of RealNames?

menthos writes "In this story on Cnet, the talk is about the latest speech from an AOL executive. Some of the most interesting things include that they are preparing to launch the Netscape-branded version of Mozilla "this spring", and it will be labeled Netscape Communicator 6.0. "

Beta Master writes "CNet reports that sales of Linux for servers are higher than sales for any other operating system except WinNT. IDG marketing group statistics are included. Full story here."

XGN writes "News.com has an article posted, quoting some of Linus Torvalds' keynote speech and getting into detail how business is boosting Linux. "Technologists often forget the general user," Torvalds said. "Technology is only as good as the user experience. That is something that technology groups very often forget." Linux companies aren't just parasites because they make sure much of the "boring" bug-fixing and other maintenance gets done. "

Now it's official. According to this story on C|Net, Dell is starting to sell notebooks with Linux preinstalled. The laptop models are the Inspiron 7500 and Latitude CPX models. The Latitude models will be available Feb. 4. Prices are the same as with Windows 9x preinstalled. Those models are certified by Linuxcare.

Doran writes "C|Net has this story about how the Canadian company iCraveTV.com has lost its latest battle in U.S. courts over whether it can rebroadcast TV signals over the Web. The broadcasters say it's theft, while iCraveTV sez it's just doing what's legal for other cable TV companies in Canada (ie. rebroadcasting TV). Of course, by framing the streaming video iCraveTV is doing more than just rebroadcasting, they're also adding more commercial content, which the broadcasters feel dilutes their TV commercials. "

C|Net is publishing a story about a Stanford University Senior who reversed-engineered the Napster server protocol. The story also mentions a Web page in SourceForge which gives links to various Napster clients for different OS's. I wonder how many new Napster servers clones we'll have soon.

Anonymous Coward writes "CNET's News.Com has a story about universities beginning to ban access for Napster users. The schools cited excessive use of bandwidth (with 5% of total bandwidth going to Napster) and the RIAA's lawsuit as reason for it. Take a look at the story here."

aibrahim writes "CNET's News.com is reporting Intel's attempt to ban VIA chips and chipsets from U.S. import. This does not yet include, but may be extended to, VIA's Joshua processor. The ban seems to be based on the violation of intellectual property agreements related to Intel's 'P6 bus.' " For more details on this case, read about their long-running legal battle.

aibrahim writes "CNET's News.com is reporting Intel's attempt to ban VIA chips and chipsets from U.S. import. This does not yet include, but may be extended to, VIA's Joshua processor. The ban seems to be based on the violation of intellectual property agreements related to Intel's 'P6 bus.' " For more details on this case, read about their long-running legal battle.

Scooter writes "News.com is reporting that Diamond Multimedia has announced a Web-Pad product based on Transmeta's 3120 processor. The report also mentions that NEC, and possibly a dozen other companies are investigating similar possibilities. It's nice to see things taking shape for Crusoe so quickly. " For more details on the chip itself, check out our recent story.S3 has also announced development work that will be done with Transmeta. They are working on a "Linux-based Internet appliance".

Scooter writes "News.com is reporting that Diamond Multimedia has announced a Web-Pad product based on Transmeta's 3120 processor. The report also mentions that NEC, and possibly a dozen other companies are investigating similar possibilities. It's nice to see things taking shape for Crusoe so quickly. " For more details on the chip itself, check out our recent story.S3 has also announced development work that will be done with Transmeta. They are working on a "Linux-based Internet appliance".

Deathlizard writes "CNet News.com reports that Microsoft has released their Rebuttal to the Findings of Fact. The full Rebuttal text can be found Here."

Deathlizard writes "CNet News.com reports that Microsoft has released their Rebuttal to the Findings of Fact. The full Rebuttal text can be found Here."

An anonymous reader pointed us to a CNet article that talks about Turbo Linux getting $50M in capital from a variety of investors including Dell, Compaq and others. Also talks about Caldera and Linuxcare and the whole Linux Market right now.

"AOL and Time Warner Merge" has been a huge front-page headline in most U.S. newspapers and on news Web sites everywhere, and it has been on the minds of many people in the media business both online and off. For reactions to the merger from a wide selection of journalists and other concerned people, please click below.

Jon Katz, Slashdot Columnist:

"There is absolutely nothing in Steve Case's background that suggests he is particularly well-equipped to lead a new kind of unimaginably complex media conglomerate into the 21st century, and Wall Street analysts who are so blinded by the hype surrounding this deal that they fail to consider it carefully are likely to be sorry. Along with some of the other arrogant lynchpins of the digital economy, AOL would rank tops among companies that have routinely exploited and mis-handled their dependent customer bases. Could there be anybody alive in America who hasn't personally experienced or known many people who have personally experienced the interminable cut-offs, waits and disconnections that have, from the first, been a staple of the way American Online has done business? How many times has Steve Case had to go on his own online service to apologize for delays and problems brought about by a company that prized growth well ahead of honesty and service?

"Are consumers really well served when one company controls more content and access than any other company in the world? Is individualism, free expression, diverse opinion advanced when the information economy breaks down into two or three "old and new" media conglomerates that control virtually all of the archived news and entertainment information online, and increasingly, the means to deliver it?"

- Wayne A. Martin, News Manager, Amiga.org:

"Smaller niche websites could be pushed further into the shadows by mega-media companies like AOL/Time Warner that have almost unlimited Internet and television promotion resources they can use to boost their own websites. But on the good side, the merger between AOL and Time Warner seems to go hand-in-hand with AOLs recent deal with Gateway to use Gateway's new Information Appliances based on Amiga technology. This could open the doorway to Information Appliances in the market place a lot quicker than many might have expected. With Gateway, Amino [now Amiga Coporation] and probably others able to produce this type of machine, this could possibly be the fatal blow to MS that many have been waiting for."

Brock Meeks, MSNBC correspondent:

"The bottom line of this proposed deal is nothing more than crass commercialism. What a huge advertising coup this is for Bob Pittman of AOL, he must be drooling at the thought of how to put AOL's nefarious 'pop-up' ads on CNN and print via Time magazine. From a public policy perspective, this venture is D.O.A. as well: no company should be allowed to own the content as well as the conduit. Despite the rosey promises from AOL's Steve Case that 'all comers' will be welcomed to compete on the new venture's cable Internet access system, it remains to be seen just how stalwart Case remains in backing up that promise. Remember, this is the same Steve Case that, under oath during his deposition in the Microsoft antitrust case, swore with a straight face that 'We are not a competitor to Microsoft.'"

David Cassel, Editor, AolWatch Newsletter:

"Here's a reason to fear AOL's control. AOL blocked delivery for the last edition of the AOL Watch newsletter. Did the newsletter's 25,000 AOL subscribers trigger an overzealous spam filter? Or was it that this edition was the first to remind users of the phone number for discontinuing service. (AOL had kicked the ACLU off the service after six years, and there was discussion about cancelling accounts en masse...) Either way, remember: Whoever controls the wires can control the content."

Marty Bass, Morning Edition co-host, WJZ TV (Baltimore):

"I can't imagine that this merger will in any way affect local news gathering or viewing. To duplicate the job we do would require setting up a newsroom. I mean, let's face it; with streaming audio and video you could do a 6 PM News, but this would require a ton of cash, and the local stations already have the major headstart, not only in style but in established viewing. This would be an expensive proposition that would not bear fruit for longer than the 'bean counters' could stand.

"Also lets just say that my station which is a CBS O&O, (CBS already provides news to AOL) put our newscast on-line. Would this change the way our competition does news? No, the primary audience is still watching over breakfast or dinner or in bed at 11. The smaller on-line audience would essentially be getting a big promo for the big shows."

Chris Johnson of airwindows.com:

"What with AOL consuming Time Warner and threatening the stability of the world and all, it seemed to me that it would be good and proper to seek the lighter side of the matter. Here is a short quiz. Identify the proper AOL Spokesmen for the following phrases...

'You've, I say, you've got mail, boy!'

'We are going to buy ICQ because it obstructs our view of Venus!'

'Nnnnyou've got mail, Doc!'

"These are of course restricted to classic WB cartoons. But the fun of it is, AOL now owns most of Western Media! :P - so the field of potential spokesmen is almost infinite!"

Alice Hill, Editor, CNET Online:

"We don't really view either company as a competitor. We did a major deal with AOL in 1999 to provide our content for the computing channels on AOL.com, netcenter.com, compuserve.com and the computing and Internet channels on the subscriber services AOL and CompuServe. Over the past year we have enjoyed the relationship, and the audience. At this point, the notion of adding Time Warner to the mix makes it even better."

Carl Steadman, columnist, The Industry Standard:

"The lesson is clear: send out enough pieces of direct mail and you, too, can own the world."

For links to many more opinions on the AOL/Time-Warner merger, please see this excellent page put together by long-time online writer amd media critic Steve Rhodes.

"AOL and Time Warner Merge" has been a huge front-page headline in most U.S. newspapers and on news Web sites everywhere, and it has been on the minds of many people in the media business both online and off. For reactions to the merger from a wide selection of journalists and other concerned people, please click below.

Jon Katz, Slashdot Columnist:

"There is absolutely nothing in Steve Case's background that suggests he is particularly well-equipped to lead a new kind of unimaginably complex media conglomerate into the 21st century, and Wall Street analysts who are so blinded by the hype surrounding this deal that they fail to consider it carefully are likely to be sorry. Along with some of the other arrogant lynchpins of the digital economy, AOL would rank tops among companies that have routinely exploited and mis-handled their dependent customer bases. Could there be anybody alive in America who hasn't personally experienced or known many people who have personally experienced the interminable cut-offs, waits and disconnections that have, from the first, been a staple of the way American Online has done business? How many times has Steve Case had to go on his own online service to apologize for delays and problems brought about by a company that prized growth well ahead of honesty and service?

"Are consumers really well served when one company controls more content and access than any other company in the world? Is individualism, free expression, diverse opinion advanced when the information economy breaks down into two or three "old and new" media conglomerates that control virtually all of the archived news and entertainment information online, and increasingly, the means to deliver it?"

- Wayne A. Martin, News Manager, Amiga.org:

"Smaller niche websites could be pushed further into the shadows by mega-media companies like AOL/Time Warner that have almost unlimited Internet and television promotion resources they can use to boost their own websites. But on the good side, the merger between AOL and Time Warner seems to go hand-in-hand with AOLs recent deal with Gateway to use Gateway's new Information Appliances based on Amiga technology. This could open the doorway to Information Appliances in the market place a lot quicker than many might have expected. With Gateway, Amino [now Amiga Coporation] and probably others able to produce this type of machine, this could possibly be the fatal blow to MS that many have been waiting for."

Brock Meeks, MSNBC correspondent:

"The bottom line of this proposed deal is nothing more than crass commercialism. What a huge advertising coup this is for Bob Pittman of AOL, he must be drooling at the thought of how to put AOL's nefarious 'pop-up' ads on CNN and print via Time magazine. From a public policy perspective, this venture is D.O.A. as well: no company should be allowed to own the content as well as the conduit. Despite the rosey promises from AOL's Steve Case that 'all comers' will be welcomed to compete on the new venture's cable Internet access system, it remains to be seen just how stalwart Case remains in backing up that promise. Remember, this is the same Steve Case that, under oath during his deposition in the Microsoft antitrust case, swore with a straight face that 'We are not a competitor to Microsoft.'"

David Cassel, Editor, AolWatch Newsletter:

"Here's a reason to fear AOL's control. AOL blocked delivery for the last edition of the AOL Watch newsletter. Did the newsletter's 25,000 AOL subscribers trigger an overzealous spam filter? Or was it that this edition was the first to remind users of the phone number for discontinuing service. (AOL had kicked the ACLU off the service after six years, and there was discussion about cancelling accounts en masse...) Either way, remember: Whoever controls the wires can control the content."

Marty Bass, Morning Edition co-host, WJZ TV (Baltimore):

"I can't imagine that this merger will in any way affect local news gathering or viewing. To duplicate the job we do would require setting up a newsroom. I mean, let's face it; with streaming audio and video you could do a 6 PM News, but this would require a ton of cash, and the local stations already have the major headstart, not only in style but in established viewing. This would be an expensive proposition that would not bear fruit for longer than the 'bean counters' could stand.

"Also lets just say that my station which is a CBS O&O, (CBS already provides news to AOL) put our newscast on-line. Would this change the way our competition does news? No, the primary audience is still watching over breakfast or dinner or in bed at 11. The smaller on-line audience would essentially be getting a big promo for the big shows."

Chris Johnson of airwindows.com:

"What with AOL consuming Time Warner and threatening the stability of the world and all, it seemed to me that it would be good and proper to seek the lighter side of the matter. Here is a short quiz. Identify the proper AOL Spokesmen for the following phrases...

'You've, I say, you've got mail, boy!'

'We are going to buy ICQ because it obstructs our view of Venus!'

'Nnnnyou've got mail, Doc!'

"These are of course restricted to classic WB cartoons. But the fun of it is, AOL now owns most of Western Media! :P - so the field of potential spokesmen is almost infinite!"

Alice Hill, Editor, CNET Online:

"We don't really view either company as a competitor. We did a major deal with AOL in 1999 to provide our content for the computing channels on AOL.com, netcenter.com, compuserve.com and the computing and Internet channels on the subscriber services AOL and CompuServe. Over the past year we have enjoyed the relationship, and the audience. At this point, the notion of adding Time Warner to the mix makes it even better."

Carl Steadman, columnist, The Industry Standard:

"The lesson is clear: send out enough pieces of direct mail and you, too, can own the world."

For links to many more opinions on the AOL/Time-Warner merger, please see this excellent page put together by long-time online writer amd media critic Steve Rhodes.