Slashdot Mirror

Long-time Slashdot reader dyork brings new from The Internet Society: IPv6 deployment hit a milestone this month related to the four major US providers (Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Sprint, AT&T): "IPv6 is the dominant protocol for traffic from those mobile networks to major IPv6-capable content providers."
A graph on their "World IPv6 Launch" site shows those carriers are now delivering close to 55% of their traffic over IPv6 to major IPv6-capable content providers -- up from just 37.59% in December. "This is really remarkable progress in the four years since World IPv6 Launch in 2012, and the growth of IPv6 deployment in 2016 is showing no signs of abating." In fact, the NTIA is now requesting feedback from organizations that have already implemented IPv6, noting that while we've used up all the 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses, IPv6 offers 340 undecillion IP addresses -- that is, 340 followed by 36 digits.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Computerworld: The U.S. says it will proceed with its plan to hand over oversight of the internet's domain name system functions to a multistakeholder body on Oct. 1. Computerworld reports: "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce, operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which enables the operation of the internet domain name system (DNS). These include responsibility for the coordination of the DNS root, IP addressing and other internet protocol resources. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Commerce Department, said in March 2014 that it planned to let its contract with ICANN expire on Sept. 30, 2015, passing the oversight of the functions to a global governance model. NTIA made it clear that it would not accept a plan from internet stakeholders that would replace its role by that of a government-led or intergovernmental organization or would in any way compromise the openness of the internet. The transfer was delayed to September as the internet community needed more time to finalize the plan for the transition. The new stewardship plan submitted by ICANN was approved by the NTIA in June. NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling said Tuesday that the agency had informed ICANN that 'barring any significant impediment,' NTIA intends to allow the IANA functions contract it has with ICANN to expire as of Oct. 1, said Strickling, who is also assistant secretary for communications and information."

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Computerworld: The U.S. says it will proceed with its plan to hand over oversight of the internet's domain name system functions to a multistakeholder body on Oct. 1. Computerworld reports: "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce, operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which enables the operation of the internet domain name system (DNS). These include responsibility for the coordination of the DNS root, IP addressing and other internet protocol resources. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Commerce Department, said in March 2014 that it planned to let its contract with ICANN expire on Sept. 30, 2015, passing the oversight of the functions to a global governance model. NTIA made it clear that it would not accept a plan from internet stakeholders that would replace its role by that of a government-led or intergovernmental organization or would in any way compromise the openness of the internet. The transfer was delayed to September as the internet community needed more time to finalize the plan for the transition. The new stewardship plan submitted by ICANN was approved by the NTIA in June. NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling said Tuesday that the agency had informed ICANN that 'barring any significant impediment,' NTIA intends to allow the IANA functions contract it has with ICANN to expire as of Oct. 1, said Strickling, who is also assistant secretary for communications and information."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: A U.S. agency has lined up broad support for its plan to end the government's oversight of the Internet's domain name system, despite opposition from some Republicans in Congress. The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on Thursday released statements of support for a plan to end its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Among supporters of a plan, developed by the ICANN community, to transition ICANN's domain name coordination functions to a multistakeholder governance model are Amazon.com, Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association. NTIA on Thursday announced it had reviewed the community proposal and found it meets the agency's criteria for allowing the ICANN privatization plan to move forward. The community plan maintains the openness of the Internet and maintains the security and stability of the DNS, said NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling. It does not replace NTIA's oversight with another government organization, he said, although that's been a fear of some critics of the NTIA plan. On Wednesday, Ted Cruz proposed a bill, the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, that would prohibit the U.S. government from relinquishing its role with respect to overseeing the web's domain name system (DNS), unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Times: Internet legislation proposed Wednesday in the Senate would prohibit the U.S. government from relinquishing its role with respect to overseeing the web's domain name system, or DNS, unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a division of the Commerce Department, currently oversees control of the DNS, a virtual phonebook of sorts that allows internet users to easily browse the web by allocating domain names to websites the world over. The NITA has long been expected to give up its oversight role to a global multi-stakeholder community, however, prompting lawmakers to unleashed a proposal this week that would assure the U.S. government maintains control unless Congress votes otherwise. The bill, the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, "would prevent the Obama administration from giving the Internet away to a global organization that will allow over 160 foreign governments to have increased influence over the management and operation of the Internet," according to a statement issued Wednesday by the office of the bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Ted Cruz. Specifically, the bill aims to ensure that the NTIA's relationship with the DNS doesn't terminate, lapse, expire or otherwise end up cancelled unless authorized by Congress, while a separate provision would guarantee that the U.S. government's exclusive control over .gov and .mil domains remains intact. In the UK, the controversial Snooper's Charter -- or the Investigatory Powers Bill as it's officially known -- has been passed through the House of Commons by UK MPs.

itwbennett writes: U.S. government agencies have stopped Intel from selling microprocessors for China's supercomputers, apparently reflecting concern about their use in nuclear tests. In February, four supercomputing institutions in China were placed on a U.S. government list that effectively bans them from receiving certain U.S. exports. The institutions were involved in building Tianhe-2 and Tianhe-1A, both of which have allegedly been used for 'nuclear explosive activities,' according to a notice (PDF) posted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Intel has been selling its Xeon chips to Chinese supercomputers for years, so the ban represents a blow to its business.

schwit1 writes with this excerpt from the Washington Post: "U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move likely to please international critics but alarm some business leaders and others who rely on smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance last year." Reader Midnight_Falcon points out this press release on the move from Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

New submitter globaljustin writes "According to a Washington Post report: 'Several months after calling for legislation to unlock cellphones, the White House filed a petition (PDF) with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday asking that all wireless carriers be required to unlock all mobile devices so that users can easily switch between carriers. ... the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said that allowing unlocked devices would increase competition and consumer choice, while also putting the burden of changing networks on companies rather than consumers.' This move should be met with universal acclaim from cell phone users, right?"

FuzzNugget writes "After the Economic Development Administration (EDA) was alerted by the DHS to a possible malware infection, they took extraordinary measures. Fearing a targeted attack by a nation-state, they shut down their entire IT operations, isolating their network from the outside world, disabling their email services and leaving their regional offices high and dry, unable to access the centrally-stored databases. A security contractor ultimately declared the systems largely clean, finding only six computers infected with untargeted, garden-variety malware and easily repaired by reimaging. But that wasn't enough for the EDA: taking gross incompetence to a whole new level, they proceeded to physically destroy $170,500 worth of equipment (PDF), including uninfected systems, printers, cameras, keyboards and mice. After the destruction was halted — only because they ran out of money to continue smashing up perfectly good hardware — they had racked up a total of $2.3 million in service costs, temporary infrastructure acquisitions and equipment destruction."

DavidGilbert99 writes "With a £400 transmitter, a laptop and a little knowledge you could bring down an entire city's high-speed 4G network. This information comes from research carried out in the U.S. into the possibility of using LTE networks as the basis for a next-generation emergency response communications system. Jeff Reed, director of the wireless research group at Virginia Tech, along with research assistant Marc Lichtman, described the vulnerabilities to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the White House on telecom and information policy. 'If LTE technology is to be used for the air interface of the public safety network, then we should consider the types of jamming attacks that could occur five or ten years from now (PDF). It is very possible for radio jamming to accompany a terrorist attack, for the purpose of preventing communications and increasing destruction,' Reed said."

An anonymous reader writes "With threats to network neutrality, such as Verizon's recent lawsuit, I've been thinking of creating a map plotting all the locations where telecommunications companies currently use public lands via right-of-way laws. It seems that this would convey just how much telecommunications depends on public infrastructure. However, it's been difficult identifying where these locations are. Short of crowdsourcing, does anyone know of resources that could be used to create such a map?"

mbone writes "The 'no cost' contract between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN over hosting the Internet Assigned Names and Number Authority (IANA) was supposed to be re-let this March. Now, it has been withdrawn, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) says that 'we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community.' This is a pretty stunning vote of no confidence in ICANN by the U.S. government, on the eve of the 43rd ICANN meeting in Costa Rica. Speculation is that this is related to the attempts of the ITU-T to take over Internet governance, but it also could be over the new global top level domains. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about this in the weeks to come."

New submitter mc6809e writes with news that Lightsquared might have just been killed. From the article: "A proposed wireless broadband network that would provide voice and Internet service using airwaves once reserved for satellite-telephone transmissions should be shelved because it interferes with GPS technology, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday. The news appears to squash the near-term hopes for the network pushed by LightSquared, a Virginia company that is majority-owned by Philip Falcone, a New York hedge fund manager." LightSquared, naturally, continues to deny that the interference is real.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The NY Times reports that an inquiry by the Commerce Department's inspector general has found no evidence that NOAA scientists manipulated climate data (reg. may be required) to buttress evidence in support of global warming after climate change skeptics contended that e-mail messages between climate scientists that were stolen and circulated on the Internet in late 2009 showed that scientists were manipulating or withholding information to advance the theory that the earth is warming as a result of human activity. 'None of the investigations have found any evidence to question the ethics of our scientists or raise doubts about NOAA's understanding of climate change science,' says Mary Glackin, the agency's deputy undersecretary for operations. The inquiry, requested last May by Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who has challenged the science underlying human-induced climate change, comes at a critical moment for NOAA, as some newly empowered Republican House members seek to rein in the EPA's plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, often contending that the science underpinning global warming is flawed. Inhofe says the report (PDF) was far from a clean bill of health for the agency, and that contrary to its executive summary, showed that the scientists 'engaged in data manipulation.'"

tanujt writes "David Willett, British minister for Universities and Sciences has called for a stronger partnership between Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and UK's space program. As of now, Willetts invited ISRO to partner the UK in its TechDemoSat program. TechDemoSat is an industry-led technology demonstration satellite which aims to provide a low-Earth-orbit test bed to help demonstrate the technical maturity and commercial viability of innovative new space technology. TK Alex, director of ISRO Satellite Centre, invited the UK to partner India in training space scientists through academic exchanges between the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and leading UK universities. This follows US President Obama's recent visit to India, wherein he signaled ending the ban on high-end technology exports and removal of Indian organizations, including ISRO and Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO), from the Entity List."

Taco Cowboy writes in with a report from The Register about a US policy shift away from keeping hands off the Internet. "According to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, Obama's top official at the Department of Commerce, the US government's policy of leaving the Internet alone is over. Instead, an 'Internet Policy 3.0' approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance." Here is the presentation in which Strickling enunciated these changes.

alphadogg sends along news that the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration has gotten plenty of feedback on its call for comments on securing the root zone using DNSSEC. The comment period closed yesterday, and more than 30 network and security experts urged the NTIA to implement DNSSEC stat. There were a couple of dissenting voices and a couple of trolls.

Ars Technica is reporting that while most people wouldn't know we have a national broadband policy in place, the president claims that not only do we have a plan, it's working spectacularly well. "That's the main conclusion of the just-released 'Network Nation: Broadband in America 2007' [PDF] report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). What's shocking about the report isn't what it covers [...], but what it leaves out: it doesn't contain a single extended discussion of the fact that the US has been slipping in a worldwide broadband rankings throughout the decade."

Glyn writes "The Register is reporting that the US government is holding a public meeting at the end of July over what should happen to ICANN when its contract is renewed in September. In the meantime, it has opened a public comment board where you are able to email comments for the US government and the rest of the world to see. The board is open now but comments need to be sent by this Friday, 7 July. The email postal address is DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov."

InklingBooks writes "An article in Foreign Affairs suggests that in a tersely worded statement the United States has issued a 'Monroe Doctrine' for the Internet. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral declaration by the U.S. that it would not permit European powers to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere." From the article: "Everyone understands that the Internet is crucial for the functioning of modern economies, societies, and even governments, and everyone has an interest in seeing that it is secure and reliable. But at the same time, many governments are bothered that such a vital resource exists outside their control and, even worse, that it is under the thumb of an already dominant United States. Washington's answer to these concerns -- the Commerce Department's four terse paragraphs, released at the end of June, announcing that the United States plans to retain control of the Internet indefinitely -- was intended as a sort of Monroe Doctrine for our times. It was received abroad with just the anger one would expect, setting the stage for further controversy."

jangobongo writes "A Commerce Department report, prepared in September, shows that the number of Americans using fast internet connections doubled from 2001 to late 2003. Experts are disappointed though, because even though 12 million households switched to broadband, the total amounts to about 19.9 percent of all U.S. households, lagging far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada."

MxReb0 writes "The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will host a half-day forum, entitled 'The kids.us Internet Domain: Developing a Safe Place on the Internet for Children.' kids.us is a new direction of the www, overseen by the Department of Commerce and now offering registration. The forum will address the current state of the kids.us domain and future content and applications for the space. Will only allowing .kids.us sites be the new direction for a kid-safe internet?"

Jay Maynard asks: "The project team is getting ready to release a new version of the Hercules IBM mainframe emulator. Part of the update is support for new instructions IBM added in their latest z/990 system, and two of those do encryption. The Bureau of Industry and Security (formerly the Bureau of Export Administration) changed their regulations on June 6, 2002 to grant a license to export open-source encryption code to anyone but the usual suspects (denied persons and banned countries). They went on to recently clarify that putting up code for download did not in itself constitute exporting to those banned countries or persons. There are many open-source projects that still host encryption code outside the US because of past rules. Is there still a reason for doing so?"

Jay Maynard asks: "The project team is getting ready to release a new version of the Hercules IBM mainframe emulator. Part of the update is support for new instructions IBM added in their latest z/990 system, and two of those do encryption. The Bureau of Industry and Security (formerly the Bureau of Export Administration) changed their regulations on June 6, 2002 to grant a license to export open-source encryption code to anyone but the usual suspects (denied persons and banned countries). They went on to recently clarify that putting up code for download did not in itself constitute exporting to those banned countries or persons. There are many open-source projects that still host encryption code outside the US because of past rules. Is there still a reason for doing so?"

SAH writes "Earlier today the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the United States Department of Commerce announced that they agreed to extend their joint Memorandum of Understanding for another year until 30 September 2003. Here's a link to ICANN's announcement, and here's a link to a statement from the DOC."

al3x writes "I attended the Digital Rights Management Workshop held this afternoon at the Dept. of Commerce in my home town of Washington, DC. Though there were a number of professional journalists present, some of whom have already gotten their story on the event out, I want to offer a view less constrained by the need for journalistic objectivity, and share the eye-opening experience I wasn't expecting." al3x's story follows; Grant Gross of Newsforge attended and wrote up his experiences; and besides the News.com story, Declan also took a bunch of photographs. However, he has misidentified Jay Sulzberger in the photographs and story - this is Jay Sulzberger, not the guy kneeling at the table. Update: 07/18 15:07 GMT by M : The kneeler is now identified as Brett Wynkoop.

al3x's report:

I arrived early, heeding the warnings of first-come, first-served seating. With the small room packed to standing room only, this paid off. In addition to the panelists, listed on the Workshop's site above, notable included Robin Gross, attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, and journalist and Politech list-founder Declan McCullagh. Lobbying groups distributing materials to the audience included New Yorkers for Fair Use and the American Library Association. Several interns from NIST and a couple of other young folks like myself showed up unaffiliated with any group, and the remainder of the crowd appeared to be typical Washington: lawyers, politicos, journos (professional and college), and think-tankers. A proper press kit was noticeably (and notedly, by said journos) absent.

As the talks began, I was brimming with the enthusiasm and anger of an "activist," overjoyed at shaking hands with the legendary Richard Stallman, thrilled with the turnout of the New Yorkers for Fair Use. My enthusiasm and solidarity, however, was to be short lived. The Workshop's effective chairman and moderator, Chief of Staff and Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Phillip Bond, offered some opening remarks touching on their previous meeting, held this past December, including noting that piracy has risen, particularly in the music industry. After further welcomes from James Rogan, Under Secretary for Intellectual Property, who acknowledged having worked with many members of the "roundtable." Rogan suggested that there were "no villains present," which drew the first of a number of chortles from the NY Fair Use crowd and their sympathizers. First on the table was a discussion of progress towards standards for Digital Rights Management (DRM henceforth).

This rather dry topic, upon which there appeared to be little consensus or definite progress, was dealt with relatively quickly, sparking only a handful of interesting and notable concerns. Here the clear divide between the tech industry and "content" industry (the movie studios , record industry, etc.) became apparent. Andy Setos of the Fox Entertainment Group called for attention to the "analog hole" in DRM standards, stating "from [the point content reaches analog televisions] it's a freeforall." The sentiment was echoed by several of the other content providers, and reiterated throughout the discussions. Oddly, with a number of opinions bounced around and no coherent conclusion, moderator Bond moved on, blessing the segment of discussion as having been productive.

Moving to discussions of business models, technological viability, and the government's role, the panelists took the gloves off and came out swinging. And as the discussion started to get juicier, so the "activists" got noisier. Comments from the RIAA's Mitch Glazier that there is "balance in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA), drew cries and disgusted laughter from the peanut gallery, who at that point had already been informed that any public comments could be submitted online. Even those in support of Fair Use and similar ideas began to be frustrated with the constant background commentary and ill-conceived outbursts of the New Yorkers for Fair Use and, to my dismay, Richard Stallman, who proved to be as socially awkward as his critics and fans alike report. Perhaps such behavior is entertaining in a Linux User Group meeting or academic debate, but fellow activists hissed at Stallman and the New Yorkers, suggesting that their constant interjections weren't helping.

And indeed, as discussion progressed, I felt that my representatives were not Stallman and NY Fair Use crowd, nor Graham Spencer from DigitalConsumer.org, whose three comments were timid and without impact. No, I found my voice through Rob Reid, Founder and Chairman of Listen.com, whose realistic thinking and positive suggestions were echoed by Johnathan Potter, Executive Director of DiMA, and backed up on the technical front by Tom Patton of Phillips. Reid argued that piracy was simply a reality of the content industry landscape, and that it was the job of content producers and the tech industry to offer consumers something "better than free." "We charge $10 a month for our service, and the competition is beating us by $10 a month. We've got to give customers a better experience than the P2P file-sharing networks," Reid suggested. As the rare individual who gave up piracy when I gave up RIAA music and MPAA movies, opting instead for a legal and consumer-friendly Emusic.com account, I found myself clapping in approval.

Though Jack Valenti proved he could stump with the best good ol' southern gentleman, deriding his intelligence before offering sweeping proclamations, the majority of the discussion was surprisingly consumer-friendly. All in the room, even Valenti, agreed that P2P technology was not inherently bad, but could merely be put to bad uses. Geeks should be happy to know that their voice is being heard by the tech industry: folks from Intel and IBM really seemed to "get it" along with Reid and the aforementioned crowd. There was clear animosity, however, between content providers and the techies. Elizabeth Frazee of AOL Time Warner, for example, was quick to say that "the content industry is looking for government help," and tech industry reps were quick to suggest that we're nowhere near even agreeing on standards or what needs to be enforced, much less imposing legislation. The general sentiment of the tech crowd appeared to be that piracy was a social issue and an everpresent one, and no amount of legislation or technological blocks (your Palladiums and whatnot) would stop it. The solution, the techs seemed to suggest, was competing well in the marketplace and offering consumers a good reason not to pirate content.

The session drew to a close, and a large bearded man in an ill-fitting suit quickly jumped up to say the NY Fair Use people would be giving a press conference of their own out front at 4:30. I followed a reporter from NewsForge to the motley band of activists, who preached largely to their own choir, with the exception of a few youths like myself and the remaining reporters. I confronted Richard Stallman for his thoughts on the "better than free" proposal that Reid had offered, to which he was happy to sermonize on the false construct of intellectual property. I suggested that perhaps artists could, if they so chose, license their music under a GPL-inspired copyleft like the Open Music License, and strike out an independent path, as he did in the software industry. I was informed that musicians needed the record industry for wide exposure, and of the record industry's various artist-related evils. I then inquired about how Stallman felt about downloadable music services like Emusic.com, which place no restrictions on how you use the music you've bought from them, though the music is copyrighted and the artists and labels are compensated. Stallman agreed, after having informed me minutes ago that intellectual property as a concept was bunk, that this sounded pretty reasonable.

I walked away from the afternoon's experiences feeling much more represented by the tech industry, though sympathetic to the activists' desire for more consumer representation in future Workshops. Notably, the EFF was explicitly shut out of this discussion, which is unfortunate; the NY Fair Use crowd, however, never bothered to request a representative, preferring to show up and disrupt the debate on their own terms, and for nobody's good but their egos, it seems. If the tenor of this discussion remains focused towards the marketplace, as the tech industry wants it to, then we as geeks and concerned consumers have little to worry about. However, if the content industry gets its way, we're looking at legislation mandating DRM, which is essentially subsidizing the slowly-failing record and movie industries like we've done with airlines and big steel. Our best hope, I'm surprised at myself to say, is in a Free Market, and not screaming, indignant geeks passing out buttons and shouting down Jack Valenti.

al3x writes "I attended the Digital Rights Management Workshop held this afternoon at the Dept. of Commerce in my home town of Washington, DC. Though there were a number of professional journalists present, some of whom have already gotten their story on the event out, I want to offer a view less constrained by the need for journalistic objectivity, and share the eye-opening experience I wasn't expecting." al3x's story follows; Grant Gross of Newsforge attended and wrote up his experiences; and besides the News.com story, Declan also took a bunch of photographs. However, he has misidentified Jay Sulzberger in the photographs and story - this is Jay Sulzberger, not the guy kneeling at the table. Update: 07/18 15:07 GMT by M : The kneeler is now identified as Brett Wynkoop.

al3x's report:

I arrived early, heeding the warnings of first-come, first-served seating. With the small room packed to standing room only, this paid off. In addition to the panelists, listed on the Workshop's site above, notable included Robin Gross, attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, and journalist and Politech list-founder Declan McCullagh. Lobbying groups distributing materials to the audience included New Yorkers for Fair Use and the American Library Association. Several interns from NIST and a couple of other young folks like myself showed up unaffiliated with any group, and the remainder of the crowd appeared to be typical Washington: lawyers, politicos, journos (professional and college), and think-tankers. A proper press kit was noticeably (and notedly, by said journos) absent.

As the talks began, I was brimming with the enthusiasm and anger of an "activist," overjoyed at shaking hands with the legendary Richard Stallman, thrilled with the turnout of the New Yorkers for Fair Use. My enthusiasm and solidarity, however, was to be short lived. The Workshop's effective chairman and moderator, Chief of Staff and Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Phillip Bond, offered some opening remarks touching on their previous meeting, held this past December, including noting that piracy has risen, particularly in the music industry. After further welcomes from James Rogan, Under Secretary for Intellectual Property, who acknowledged having worked with many members of the "roundtable." Rogan suggested that there were "no villains present," which drew the first of a number of chortles from the NY Fair Use crowd and their sympathizers. First on the table was a discussion of progress towards standards for Digital Rights Management (DRM henceforth).

This rather dry topic, upon which there appeared to be little consensus or definite progress, was dealt with relatively quickly, sparking only a handful of interesting and notable concerns. Here the clear divide between the tech industry and "content" industry (the movie studios , record industry, etc.) became apparent. Andy Setos of the Fox Entertainment Group called for attention to the "analog hole" in DRM standards, stating "from [the point content reaches analog televisions] it's a freeforall." The sentiment was echoed by several of the other content providers, and reiterated throughout the discussions. Oddly, with a number of opinions bounced around and no coherent conclusion, moderator Bond moved on, blessing the segment of discussion as having been productive.

Moving to discussions of business models, technological viability, and the government's role, the panelists took the gloves off and came out swinging. And as the discussion started to get juicier, so the "activists" got noisier. Comments from the RIAA's Mitch Glazier that there is "balance in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA), drew cries and disgusted laughter from the peanut gallery, who at that point had already been informed that any public comments could be submitted online. Even those in support of Fair Use and similar ideas began to be frustrated with the constant background commentary and ill-conceived outbursts of the New Yorkers for Fair Use and, to my dismay, Richard Stallman, who proved to be as socially awkward as his critics and fans alike report. Perhaps such behavior is entertaining in a Linux User Group meeting or academic debate, but fellow activists hissed at Stallman and the New Yorkers, suggesting that their constant interjections weren't helping.

And indeed, as discussion progressed, I felt that my representatives were not Stallman and NY Fair Use crowd, nor Graham Spencer from DigitalConsumer.org, whose three comments were timid and without impact. No, I found my voice through Rob Reid, Founder and Chairman of Listen.com, whose realistic thinking and positive suggestions were echoed by Johnathan Potter, Executive Director of DiMA, and backed up on the technical front by Tom Patton of Phillips. Reid argued that piracy was simply a reality of the content industry landscape, and that it was the job of content producers and the tech industry to offer consumers something "better than free." "We charge $10 a month for our service, and the competition is beating us by $10 a month. We've got to give customers a better experience than the P2P file-sharing networks," Reid suggested. As the rare individual who gave up piracy when I gave up RIAA music and MPAA movies, opting instead for a legal and consumer-friendly Emusic.com account, I found myself clapping in approval.

Though Jack Valenti proved he could stump with the best good ol' southern gentleman, deriding his intelligence before offering sweeping proclamations, the majority of the discussion was surprisingly consumer-friendly. All in the room, even Valenti, agreed that P2P technology was not inherently bad, but could merely be put to bad uses. Geeks should be happy to know that their voice is being heard by the tech industry: folks from Intel and IBM really seemed to "get it" along with Reid and the aforementioned crowd. There was clear animosity, however, between content providers and the techies. Elizabeth Frazee of AOL Time Warner, for example, was quick to say that "the content industry is looking for government help," and tech industry reps were quick to suggest that we're nowhere near even agreeing on standards or what needs to be enforced, much less imposing legislation. The general sentiment of the tech crowd appeared to be that piracy was a social issue and an everpresent one, and no amount of legislation or technological blocks (your Palladiums and whatnot) would stop it. The solution, the techs seemed to suggest, was competing well in the marketplace and offering consumers a good reason not to pirate content.

The session drew to a close, and a large bearded man in an ill-fitting suit quickly jumped up to say the NY Fair Use people would be giving a press conference of their own out front at 4:30. I followed a reporter from NewsForge to the motley band of activists, who preached largely to their own choir, with the exception of a few youths like myself and the remaining reporters. I confronted Richard Stallman for his thoughts on the "better than free" proposal that Reid had offered, to which he was happy to sermonize on the false construct of intellectual property. I suggested that perhaps artists could, if they so chose, license their music under a GPL-inspired copyleft like the Open Music License, and strike out an independent path, as he did in the software industry. I was informed that musicians needed the record industry for wide exposure, and of the record industry's various artist-related evils. I then inquired about how Stallman felt about downloadable music services like Emusic.com, which place no restrictions on how you use the music you've bought from them, though the music is copyrighted and the artists and labels are compensated. Stallman agreed, after having informed me minutes ago that intellectual property as a concept was bunk, that this sounded pretty reasonable.

I walked away from the afternoon's experiences feeling much more represented by the tech industry, though sympathetic to the activists' desire for more consumer representation in future Workshops. Notably, the EFF was explicitly shut out of this discussion, which is unfortunate; the NY Fair Use crowd, however, never bothered to request a representative, preferring to show up and disrupt the debate on their own terms, and for nobody's good but their egos, it seems. If the tenor of this discussion remains focused towards the marketplace, as the tech industry wants it to, then we as geeks and concerned consumers have little to worry about. However, if the content industry gets its way, we're looking at legislation mandating DRM, which is essentially subsidizing the slowly-failing record and movie industries like we've done with airlines and big steel. Our best hope, I'm surprised at myself to say, is in a Free Market, and not screaming, indignant geeks passing out buttons and shouting down Jack Valenti.

epeus writes: "The U.S. Commerce Department is holding a workshop on DRM today, and inviting 'stakeholders' to talk. The panel is loaded with the usual suspects -Jack Valenti, Mitch Glazier, Vivendi, Disney, Microsoft and Intel, with one 'customer' repesentative. Richard Stallman and the NY Fair Use group are going to protest and say that We are the stakeholders -- our computers are our stake, and DRM is theft. If you can't go, send in your comments or read mine"

epeus writes: "The U.S. Commerce Department is holding a workshop on DRM today, and inviting 'stakeholders' to talk. The panel is loaded with the usual suspects -Jack Valenti, Mitch Glazier, Vivendi, Disney, Microsoft and Intel, with one 'customer' repesentative. Richard Stallman and the NY Fair Use group are going to protest and say that We are the stakeholders -- our computers are our stake, and DRM is theft. If you can't go, send in your comments or read mine"

Syre writes: "On July 17, 2002, the Technology Administration will host a Public Workshop on Digital Entertainment and Rights Management. This Workshop will bring together leaders from the information technology and content industries to address the status of technical standards that provide the framework necessary to enable legitimate digital media distribution and the present state of strengths, weaknesses and availability of current and imminent technological solutions to protect digital content, barriers that are inhibiting movies, music and games from coming online." Read below for the scope of this meeting, and to find out where your comments might aim.

"In preparation for this workshop, the Technology Administration invites public comment on the following topics:

• The effectiveness of efforts to pursue technical standards or solutions that are designed to provide a more predictable and secure environment for digital transmission of copyrighted material;
• Major obstacles facing an open commercial exchange of digital content;
• What a future framework for success might entail;
• Current consumer attitude towards online entertainment."

ttyp writes: "The United States Department of Commerce Technology Administration (TA) announced a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management. They're taking public comments here according to the announcement, but they sure have hidden it well. Can anybody find the form? The deadline is July 11!!"

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article at CNET, India is building a country-wide High Speed Network. Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' silly !), its a feat for the Indians who have been bogged down by U.S. sanctions in the recent past -- besides, with a country as big as theirs, its one helluva project!"

michaeld writes "The U.S. Dept of Commerce reports that more than half of the nation is now online. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (54% of population) were using the Internet -- an increase of 26 million in thirteen months. 2 million more go online each month. Between August 2000 and September 2001, residential use of high-speed, broadband service doubled--from about 4 to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20 percent of Internet users. ZDNet has commentary as does Reuters, while the government has the Full report."

michaeld writes "The U.S. Dept of Commerce reports that more than half of the nation is now online. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (54% of population) were using the Internet -- an increase of 26 million in thirteen months. 2 million more go online each month. Between August 2000 and September 2001, residential use of high-speed, broadband service doubled--from about 4 to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20 percent of Internet users. ZDNet has commentary as does Reuters, while the government has the Full report."

michaeld writes "The U.S. Dept of Commerce reports that more than half of the nation is now online. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (54% of population) were using the Internet -- an increase of 26 million in thirteen months. 2 million more go online each month. Between August 2000 and September 2001, residential use of high-speed, broadband service doubled--from about 4 to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20 percent of Internet users. ZDNet has commentary as does Reuters, while the government has the Full report."

akb writes: "Most of the RF spectrum in use is licensed for exclusive use. What do we get? Inefficient use through spectrum hoarding, political finagling to abuse the regulatory system to gain competitive advantage and access to the airwaves for only a few players. A good article over at CNET picks up on the example of 802.11b in using spread spectrum technology and unlicensed bands and proposes that model be applied to the rest of the spectrum. For the hardcore check out NYU law professor Yochai Benkler's writings, particularly this article (pdf) and Durga Satapathy's papers for the tech end of things."

flatt writes: "The US Government picked NeuStar, the managers of the upcoming .biz registry, to manage the .us registry today. NeuStar has made a press release and there's an AP article over at Excite about it. Finally a country code that I'll register in." This has been brewing for a long time, and has been criticized as a giveaway.

PacketMaster writes: "The United States Commerce Department is accepting proposals to change how the .US domain is administered and registered. Basically they want to know why the .US domain is unpopular, what can be done with it, and who should administer it. According to this AP story on CNN.com even the U.S. Postal Service didn't want anything to do with .US. The request for comments on the changes is here. The .US domain is governed by RFC 1480. It sounds like they want to rekindle interest in the .US domain. I think this change is interesting because I wanted to register in the .US domain earlier this year. The organization that holds the administration function for my geographic 3rd level domain wanted $40 a year to register my 4th level domain. I got a .net cheaper elsewhere but I wouldn't have minded a .US if it was cheaper or free like many .US's are and also shorter -- www.domain.city.state.us anyone? Many other countries give out domain.ccTLD or domain.com.ccTLD; why can't the U.S.?"

Skipping, hopping (and bumbling amd wheezing) toward inevitable perfection, we're pleased to bring you another handful of updates, re-instatements, "that is no longer the operative statement" disclaimers and at least one general thought provoker.

After francokleptomania, restoring GNOME dignity. Bob Smith writes: "KDE beta was anounced but GNOME beta wasn't." Well, GNOME's latest freeze stage on the way to 1.2 was announced back in January, and Miguel answered questions about the state of GNOME in March, but point taken. With all the developments in GNOME, neither Miguel or his programs are likely to hurt for Slashdot coverage. You can grab the beta Bob mentions here.

Now, gentlemen, is there a way to perhaps merely maim this Golden Goose? Misch writes to point out this item on "ABCNews [which]reports that the House of Representatives has passed an extension of the Internet Tax Moratorium. Looks like it's tax free time on the Internet (depending on where you shop)."

Barely enough for a coven ... nullstar writes: "The NTIA has posted its report to Congress concerning the comments it received in regard to section 1201(g) of the DMCA, which deals with exceptions to the prohibition on circumventing encryption techniques intended to protect access to copyrighted materials. They basically claim, 'it's too soon to tell what effects the restriction will have on encryption research, etc., as the exception doesn't go into effect until October, so we're not yet recommending changes in the wording of the law.' Only 13 people submitted comments. "

Conflict of interest is an interesting term here ... full_tide writes "2600 has posted some news about how the MPAA is trying to get Martin Garbus (2600's hot-shot defense attorney) disqualified for a conflict of interest. Cryptome has posted a very long, but equally interesting, reply brief Mr. Garbus has writting in response to the injunction (damn, he's good). Also, the MPAA's web site is back up after a DDOS attack a few weeks back, and much downtime since. They appear to have added some fresh, juicy propaganda concerning the case."

Yessir, the gen-yoo-ine article, you betcha, mate. Jai From Insane Hardware writes: "Well, you may have heard all the rumours and whatnot about the Australian Fake Athlon deal and I confirm that it is true. But we have more info on the subject like on how they came about arriving in Oz and how they leaked thru the channel. This issue is very "close to home" for me so it's worthwhile reading for all the Aussies that go to your site. We also have exactly how the chips were modded. link " Meanwhile, Netsnipe wrote to point out that "Lucien Wells has updated his Web site Techwatch's coverage of the AMD Athlon tampering scandal. "Techwatch has now received press releases from two distributors involved, DMA and RTV Computers which claim that 'Neither RTV Computers Pty Ltd nor DMA (Direct Memory Access Pty Ltd) whom have their stickers on the CPU's knowingly at fault in this situation. At present legal action is underway to find the source of this problem.' At this stage AMD has not yet responded to Techwatch's requests for more information, says Lucien."

nullstar writes "The NTIA has posted its report to Congress concerning the comments it received in regard to section 1201(g) of the DMCA, which deals with exceptions to the prohibition on circumventing encryption techniques intended to protect access to copyrighted materials. They basically claim, 'it's too soon to tell what effects the restriction will have on encryption research, etc., as the exception doesn't go into effect until October, so we're not yet recommending changes in the wording of the law.' Only 13 people submitted comments. "

First submitted by AC: "VeriSign has announced the availability of their 128 bit global server IDs for the Covalent SSL module, Raven. This looks very promising for the Apache community especially with the easing of encryption export controls by the U.S. Bureau of Export Administration."

gumbo writes "The Commerce Department, ICANN, and NSI have announced their domain name agreements. " Well, of course, it's written in PR-ese, but AFAIK, it looks as if said parties have resolved their differences, and perhaps will start to some progress take place on the DNS front. Given the recent...disagreements and legal disputes this is a fairly sizeable shift.Interesting note - check out the (re)-opening of WHOIS.

Kathleen Ellis, editor of the Privacy News Portal, attended yesterday's press briefing about a proposed loosening of export restrictions, and wrote the following feature article about the current situation. Click below for more.

Actually, let me hit you with a few links before you get started:

• EPIC's page on the proposed Cyberspace Electronic Security Act
• Proposed text of the bill
• White House analysis of the bill - really an executive summary
• Wired coverage, by Declan McCullagh
• Update: Press statements, including briefing transcript

Encryption Exports: Small Step Forward, Big Step Back
by Kathleen Ellis
September 17, 1999

Prominent U.S. Government representatives yesterday announced at a White House press briefing that the President was proposing legislation on encryption policy, and that the Department of Commerce was revising its export restrictions on some encryption products. Last year, Vice President Al Gore vowed to further loosen restrictions and propose a solution to the encryption issue, which has been the subject of contentious debate for the past decade.

The legislation, known as the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act of 1999 (CESA), has been transmitted to Congress by President Clinton. The bill purports to strike a "compromise" between the needs of law enforcement for access to data and the needs of Internet users to secure and their e-mail, web transactions, and stored data from hackers or thieves. According to the text of the bill, "society's increasing reliance on information systems in this new environment exposes U.S. citizens, institutions, and their information to unprecedented risks." Despite this acknowledgement, the bill clearly gives consideration to the needs of law enforcement and intelligence agencies first; "The failure to provide law enforcement with the necessary ability to obtain the plaintext version of the evidence makes existing authorities useless."

One of the major provisions of CESA is to allocate $80 million dollars for an FBI "Technical Support Center", which would provide assistance to federal, state, and local law enforcement officials. The bill also reinforces the confidentiality of law enforcement intelligence techniques used to gather information about suspected criminals. "The Department of Justice has developed this legislation with the assistance of agencies in government," said Attorney General Janet Reno. "Law enforcement has tools at its disposal to fight crime, but those tools are rendered useless when encryption gets involved". Reno said that CESA "balances the needs of privacy and public safety".

Perhaps most the most noteworthy provision of the bill is the resurrection of key escrow, a solution long considered insufficient, insecure and obsolete by experts. Key escrow is a technology that entails entrusting one's private keys with a trusted third party, so that theoretically, a law enforcement official would be able to present that third party with a warrant in order to gain access to the plaintext of the encrypted data. Although the bill does not require domestic users to utilize an escrowed cryptosystem, the bill provides a legal framework to protect users from disclosure of their decryption keys by their trusted third party without a court order. The bill also proposes to implement strict guidelines outlining the circumstances under which a law enforcement agent may be granted access to a decryption key held by the third party.

This mention of key escrow worries privacy activists, who have heard the use of such language by the administration before. "This raises the specter of collusion between law enforcement and industry to build back door access into encryption products," says David Sobel, General Counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. According to EPIC's statement, the bill will eventually "provide a legal framework for access to decryption keys," a prospect which worries many activists and internet users alike.

Sobel would rather see the Security and Freedom through Encryption Act determine the U.S. Government's encryption policy. Authored by congressman Bob Goodlatte, SAFE would essentially force the government to reverse its stance on the encryption issue. Unfortunately, passage of the SAFE Act now seems unlikely, in light of Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre's remark during the briefing that if the SAFE Act passes the House and Senate, "the Department of Defense will ask the President to veto it".

Also announced at the press conference were revisions to the Department of Commerce's encryption export policy. According to a report released at the briefing, the export requirements will be revised to allow software exports of products of any key length, after the product is first submitted for review by the Commerce Department, and as long as the manufacturer of the product meets strict guidelines for post-export reporting of any user or distributor who obtains the software directly from the licensee. Secretary of Commerce William Daley announced that that the Bureau of Export Administration would streamline the revision and reporting process, but was unclear about specific changes to the current procedure.

Two prominent industry groups are very enthusiastic about this proposal. "Today's decision articulates a policy that is good for America, good for our nation's high-tech industry, and good for the tens of millions of Americans who use computers and want them to be secure" says a press release from Americans for Computer Privacy, a group that has lobbied for legislative reform and is funded primarily by technology companies. In a statement published by the Computer Systems Policy Project, Sun Microsystems President and CEO Scott McNealy (who made headlines on Slashdot for his remarks telling reporters that the privacy issue was a "red herring" and that "you have zero privacy anyway...get over it") said "we applaud the Administration's recognition that the universal use of strong encryption will promote the benefits of a networked world while protecting Americans' privacy, safety and security,". CSPP is comprised of eleven CEOs from major Information Technology companies, such as IBM, Dell, and Intel.

James Steinberg, Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs, opened the briefing by praising both groups for thier assistance in authoring the proposal, so it's no surprise that they're eager to ingratiate themselves to the Clinton Administration, while at the same time self-importantly emphasizing their effectiveness by declaring a victory. EPIC's David Sobel says "it appears that the FBI and large computer companies have reached an agreement on encryption, but that is not necessarily in the interest of the average computer user." Any compromise reached by these two groups could result in "less security than advertised, with hidden vulnerabilities the government can exploit".

Secretary Daley was repeatedly asked during the briefing what purpose the one-time review served, and under what circumstances an export license exception would be granted or denied; no clear answer was given. The U.S. Government may wish to allow exports only of flawed or escrowed encryption products using encryption above a certain key length, but have given up on explicitly pursuing that as a goal. Large software companies, the kind represented by ACP and CSPP, have lost a lot of business because of the export restrictions, and with each year that passes they may become less likely to object to making a few changes to their crypto modules in order to finally gain access to the foreign market.

In some ways, this proposal is good for the companies who have existed for so long without the ability to export their stronger security products at all until now, but for the rest of us, the proposal is neutral at best and abysmal at worst. As larger, wealthier proponents of crypto liberalization get what they want and contentedly back out of the debate on this issue (as American banks did when they were granted license exception to export security software to their overseas offices), further positive alterations to export policy start to seem less and less likely to happen. This is bad for American cryptographers who wish to discuss their work with their colleagues on the Internet. It's even worse for users, who may end up using insecure products without knowing it.

It's unclear what will happen at this point. The current congressional climate suggests that CESA will not pass without a significant push from the Clinton Administration. Even if the bill is defeated, however, Internet users around the world should continue to be cautious about purchasing commercial encryption products that originate inside the U.S.; you never know what may be lurking within.

Matthew Priestley has written an excellent essay on News in the Slashdot Decade. It talks about how The Internet is changing the way that news moves about, and discusses problems and advantages related to it. Interesting its a really excellent piece.

The following was written by Slashdot Reader Matthew Priestley, who, despite his email address, is a pretty cool guy Honest News in the Slashdot Decade
In this paper, we discuss the nature of biased and unbiased news in terms of 'trust decisions', using the cryptographic sense of that phrase. We examine the biases in modern media and identify their causes. Two examples of community news services are examined: Slashdot.org, and FreeRepublic.com. (0) From this analysis we derive a model of community news.

Disclaimer: The author of this paper works for Microsoft, but his opinions may not be the opinions of Microsoft. In fact, they aren't. The author hereby declares that nobody important at Microsoft is even aware of his existence, and that he is about as significant to Bill Gates as a single bacterium in your colon is significant to the weather in France.

0 Introduction
There is a malaise of distrust among news consumers. In recent years the number of news outlets has dwindled due to mergers and attrition, leaving information consumers with a scrawny range of choice. As the global quantity of information grows at a jaw-dropping rate, individuals increasingly despair of their ability to filter the news without aid from massive corporations.

Almost half of adults have little or no trust in media agencies (1), yet almost all delegate news collection to companies they will condemn if asked. When consumers knowingly act against their own interests, a form of coercion must be in operation. In the case of news, this coercion is a stranglehold enjoyed by media companies over filtered information. If their services are not accepted, the consumer sinks in a sea of data. In a world in which no one can process all the news and still enjoy a full life, having all information is as useless as having no information at all.

1 Nature and weakness of trust decisions
The selection of a news-filtering agency resembles what is called in cryptology a 'trust decision'. Briefly, a trust decision is a choice made by the user to validate another user's digital certificate. By assigning trust to the certificate, any content signed by that certificate becomes, in a limited sense, trustworthy. (2)

It is burdensome to evaluate the trustworthiness of every certificate, and a typical user lacks the expertise to investigate each exhaustively. For this reason, most users choose to trust a Certification Authority or CA, a central agency empowered to make trust decisions on their behalf. By endowing a single node with the power to filter certificates, the user is spared this chore. (3)

This process is analogous to the decision to accept news from an established information outlet. It would require an unreasonable effort and scads of time for any individual to audit all the news. Apart from sheer volume, appraising facts often requires background familiarity. Sources must be checked, viewpoints solicited, and impact considered. It becomes clear that this is no task for a person who hopes to conduct, for example, a life on the side. Hence the necessity of the trust decision.

Due to the exhausting claims of evaluating news, authority to filter information must be delegated.

2 Sources of bias in modern media
2.1 Opinion pollution
That trust decisions are subject to predation should be apparent. The most evident form of bias is opinion pollution, in which the subjective feelings of a reporter taint the news. Such bias may either systemic, or it may be the fault of "rogue" reporters, or both.

This form of bias is trivial to establish. In a July 8th article discussing a verdict against tobacco companies, the New York Times dwells on the volume of damning evidence presented by the plaintiffs. The deformities of the smokers are described, and the article drops a helpful tip about joining the suit. (4) Covering precisely the same event, the Wall Street Journal scrupulously avoids discussing the smokers, save to describe their organizers as 'flamboyant'. The spectre of a flooded court system and billions in costs is raised multiple times, and the guilty verdict categorized as a legal 'aberration'. (5)

This form of trust violation can be characterized in two ways. If the tolerance for personal beliefs in the news is not widespread, but isolated to a few reporters, then officials of the corporation have delegated their authority unwisely. An organization that is otherwise trustworthy will eventually correct this error. If the corruption runs throughout, however, then the consumer's initial trust decision was poor. In either event, ongoing opinion pollution can only be sustained by broad organization-wide consensus on the value of certain ideas.

Opinion pollution is a trait of homogeneous groups.

2.2 Advertising revenue and corporate ownership
Often overlooked as a source of bias is the murky relationship between news providers and advertisers. The age-old subscription model has fallen by the wayside, unable to compete with advertiser-funded services that appear to offer information for free. (6)

One fallacy is that advertising flows toward high readership, rewarding popularity with success. In reality, corporations are not interested in buyers, not readers. The Daily Herald, a worker's paper in 1960's England, boasted a readership of 4.7 million the year of its demise - nearly double that of the Times, the Financial Times, and the Guardian combined. (7) But the Herald's readers were demi-socialists, and failed to support the very businesses keeping their paper alive. The advertising money melted away.

A look at subscription income and advertising income emphasizes the dwindling importance of readers. A copy of The Washington Post costs as little as 24 cents a day. By contrast, one inch of black-and-white advertisement in the paper commands $257.55. (8) Economically, it would be more prudent for the Post to alienate 1000 readers than one business buying a daily inch of print. If the lost readership were confined to non-buyers, advertising rates would not even have to drop. When profit per advertiser squashes profit per consumer, the business of advertiser-funded information outlets becomes not the sale of information, but the sale of a receptive audience.

The situation is aggravated when a large corporation owns the news-filtering outlet. Most fans of TV news are unaware ABC is owned by Disney, NBC by GE with investment from Microsoft, and CBS by Westinghouse Electric. Stories critical to these interests are treated gingerly in the news. (9)

Reliance on advertising or corporate ownership selects for news that is business-friendly. High readership is no exemption.

2.3 Feeder authority
Any reader who has attempted to wrest information from the government is aware of its inertia. Similarly, the PR departments of businesses are known for their unhelpful volubility. In the first case the problem is information deficit, in the second it is disinformation glut, but ultimately the predicament is the same.

The situation is no different in a modern newsroom. Effective reporters are those who have established personal relationships with 'sources' inside various institutions who feed them privileged information. These reporters are superior information gatherers because they may ask questions that typically are rebuffed.

Without the goodwill of their 'feeders', even competent journalists drown in a sea of flack. Should an information gatherer alienate an important feeder, the gatherer is instantly severed from a pool of developing information. Pains are taken to ensure feeders are pleased with the treatment of their comments in published accounts. (10) This creates an unhealthy environment for the analysis of news. If an information outlet were to criticize the statements of a feeder, or if fallacies or lies were exposed in the feeder's reasoning, the potential effect on the outlet would be calamitous. This allows the feeder to make use of information outlets as occasional distributors of propaganda, knowing that refusal is unlikely.

Information from a small number of feeders may be propagandized.

3 News distribution over the Internet
Slashdot.org and FreeRepublic.com are representatives of a new class of news filter. While using these sites, consumers alter the fundamental structure of their trust decision. Rather than inhabiting a descending tree, in which trust is derived from progressively higher and fewer nodes, a Slashdotter or Freeper distributes their trust. In a distributed trust model, each consumer inhabits a single node in a formless but highly connected graph. Central authority is weak, participants are anonymous, and all nodes perform small amounts of voluntary labor.

3.1 Slashdot.org
Recently thrown mainstream as a gathering spot for Linux advocates, Slashdot.org has a large and devoted following of geeks and technophiles. Interestingly, because of its adherence to transparency and peer review, Slashdot has evolved a news system that defeats several of the biases described above. Slashdot is the conceptual descendent of the Internet newsgroup and the old-timer's BBS. Members log in to the web board and select one or more current items to discuss, then post their reactions.

3.1.1 Successes of the Slashdot model Participants on Slashdot are only identifiable if they wish to be. Widespread use of aliases insulates participants from real-world reprisal - a Slashdotter may criticize the government, their employer, or other feeders with small risk. Handle-use also renders a state of meritocracy on Slashdot. Comments and topic submissions are judged by their own merits, since little is known about their real-world source. Aliases grow trusted in the forum as a result of their owner's contributions. Deprecated aliases have only themselves to blame.

Members submit topics on Slashdot, and those with promise are posted to the forum. By distributing the labor of reporting, the process of information collection becomes inexpensive, and the likelihood of discovering important news increases - much like the 'Have you seen this child?' ads on milk cartons. (11) When the system requests voluntary labor, it is limited to tasks costing only a few mouse clicks. The decision of what is 'newsworthy' is also simplified, since an audience member has provided the item. If each registered Slashdot member contributed only 1 minute per day, their efforts would sum to 1083 work-hours of labor - absolutely free.

Relinquishing trust to anonymous lurkers appears foolhardy, but as randomness grows, so does quality. The web demographic is a straw poll in the worst sense of the term (12), but there are tide pools of demographic validity if groups are narrowly defined. When a site achieves a certain level of notoriety, Slashdot for example, a cross-section of users may fairly be said to represent its supporting community, in this case idealistic geeks. An information consumer is not interested in topics useful to the average person; rather they are interested in what is useful to people like themselves.

No opinion is authoritative until it runs the Slashdot gauntlet. Members comment on topics, share experiences, and take potshots at sloppy reasoning. This is more egalitarian than the feedback model of magazines, TV, or books. In those cases, if a retort is even possible, it is run in the following issue, with no guarantee to reach the original audience. On Slashdot, user comments frequently upstage the 'official' news, and it is a testament to their quality that reading the primary source is often unnecessary. Because most topics excite a gamut of opinions, Slashdot defeats the threat of opinion pollution.

To tame dull or off-topic comments, Slashdot members are randomly empowered to moderate the 'score' of remarks. Moderators are chosen by the system with a preference towards regular but not ubiquitous readers. Comments that gain the approbation of everyday participants gradually move up through statistical effects. Pointless comments sink into oblivion. Visitors to the forum may choose their own threshold of dependence on this ratings system. On Slashdot, the uniform opinions of classic information outlets are rare.

Finally, the scripts and HTML that run Slashdot are released to the community. This ensures, within reason, that the site truly operates as billed, as well as opening the code to all the benefits of open source.

3.1.2 Failings of the Slashdot model
Among its positive effects, anonymity damages credibility. If Secretary of State Madaleine Albright posted a remark on technology export limitations, her opinion would be more significant than had 'DrDeath' typed precisely the same opinion. Validation of real-world credentials can be desirable. One solution would be to support either the S/MIME or PGP signing standards as a user option. A hash of important messages could be included with the post, thereby validating the identity of the signer. (13)

No Slashdot participant receives a handle until they submit an e-mail address to the Slashdot central authority. Those who do not may participate as 'Anonymous Cowards'. AC's suffer numerous disadvantages, not the least that their posts begin at a lower score. Though this distinction discourages meddling from non-regulars, it is risky. Regular members are no less anonymous or even cowardly than AC's, save that they have disclosed their private information to the Slashdot central authority. This makes criticism of the authority more difficult, since critical remarks are safe only as an AC post from a lab computer, which is immediately scored down.

There is one departure on Slashdot from democracy. While consumers do submit the discussion topics, these are dropped into an administrative black box, unseen until a few emerge handpicked by the central authority. Inside the 'box', a small number of humans, vulnerable to self-interest, choose which of the topics will be news. In theory, the authority could even replace submitted topics with its own. A better system would be an open one, moderated in the same manner as user remarks. Along with their ration of remark-points, moderators would be given a supply of topic-points, which could be spent on proposed topics in a pool. Users could set topic thresholds in the same manner that they set thresholds for remarks. This method would be self-policing and eliminate tedious work for the central authority. (Update: 07/16 01:15 by CT : See the Slashdot FAQ for the reason that I've decided not to do this)

Slashdot is funded by banner advertisements, and on 6/29/99 announced that it had been acquired by Andover.net. (14) While there is little danger of the various Linux distros exerting pressure as yet on Slashdot, and while Andover rarely appeared on Slashdot in the past, nonetheless these developments cast a shadow on the impartiality of the community forum. Is it less likely that a story criticizing Sony will be run when an advertisement for the Sony AIBO adorns the top banner? What would become of stories damaging to Andover? Members should be alert for signs of conflicting interest.

3.2 FreeRepublic.com
Similarly evolved, although less highly automated, is FreeRepublic.com, a forum for the exchange of conservative commentary. FreeRepublic is similar to Slashdot in appearance and general design. We will focus on their differences.

3.2.1 Successes of the FreeRepublic model
FreeRepublic's most notable trait is the freedom members enjoy in topic selection. Power is so far in their hands that every member may post any topic they choose, resulting in dozens of discussed topics per day. A true distributed trust network has no single point of entry. Since the number of daily articles is finite, any given node in a sea of nodes has negligible influence. Individuals may be bought or coerced, but since the merits of each contribution are peer-reviewed and peer-diluted, successful corruption must be hugely widespread. The resources needed to influence a majority of users would be prohibitive, and only dubiously worthwhile. Once accomplished, the forum would cease to serve the needs of valid members and would naturally dissolve. Attempts to corrupt distributed news forums are by nature self-defeating.

FreeRepublic reaps no funding from advertisement or corporate ownership. The site is fed by out-of-pocket donations from participants. Though it should be noted that FreeRepublic's supporting community stereotypically has more disposable income than the average netizen, even so the site is accountable to none save its members. When the object of a news outlet is the aggregation of money, it should be unremarkable when money supersedes the pursuit of information. But in a community forum, participants have no aim other than valuable and convenient news.

Participants on FreeRepublic meet physically, organize in chapters, and crusade in the real world to accomplish their aims. There is little risk to anonymity, since there is no need to divulge onscreen handles. Provided chapters are small and independent, the inevitable discussion of principles will not even dampen diversity of opinion, which could expose the forum to opinion pollution. Participants also leave the meetings with a sense of community, which increases their voluntary labor.

3.2.2 Failings of the FreeRepublic model
Although a blessing, complete freedom of topic selection is also a curse. At times of peak activity, two successive clicks on Refresh may result in two completely different topic lists. Crackpots frequently post and their topics slide off the page untouched by regulars. There is much duplication as news breaks. Most topics receive fewer than twenty comments, reducing the effects of peer-dilution and peer-review. All these problems could be resolved if FreeRepublic were to transition to the scoring-based topic selection approach recommended previously.

FreeRepublic has no moderation method for comments, and consequently all remarks carry equal weight. In its absence, opinions win by volume or position near the top of the remark list rather than insight or appeal to the median qualities of the community. Corruption of an unmoderated forum is trivial given fifty aliases and sufficient time.

On FreeRepublic, community participants are not permitted to comment or post discussion topics unless they are logged on. This is an extreme case of Slashdot's Anonymous Coward dilemma. No contribution can be made to the forum without being noted by the FreeRepublic central authority. There is no guarantee the central authority will not terminate or diminish the accounts of those who criticize its practices.

Finally, FreeRepublic is closed source. Though the site is more static than Slashdot, what scripts it has are not disclosed to the forum. Members must take it on trust that no back doors lurk in the code.

4 Issues in Internet news distribution
4.1 The trouble with enthusiasm
One trait of both Slashdot and FreeRepublic is that their populations contain a percentage of zealots. This fact attracts the attention of non-members and ensures the continued participation of long-standing ones. While allegiance to a specific viewpoint is in no way an exclusionary criterion on Slashdot or FreeRepublic, most users share a common opinion on a few controversial issues. This may reflect the fact that contentious topics generate the most passionate interest.

Regrettably, this bond introduces a capacity for bias. Most information processed on a trust graph will lie outside the emotional boundaries, allowing peer-review and peer-dilution to ensure honest news analysis. But when discussion touches on a 'hot button' topic, rampant uniformity of opinion eliminates these safeguards.

FreeRepublic may safely be termed incapable of objective thought when the topic of President Clinton is broached. One recent post discussing Clinton's attendance at the World Cup bore the helpful keywords 'CLINTON RAPIST EVIL SLEAZY TRAITOR'. (15) Similarly, the high quality of discourse on Slashdot disintegrates when Microsoft enters the headlines. Both communities may be absolutely correct in their opinions on these topics, but the mere fact of consensus mimics the effects of corruption and degrades the community information filter. Whether it is desirable or even possible to generate a community forum without this sort of bias is a question for further debate.

4.2 Overcoming feeder bias
Although incisive analysis may overcome the flaws in a poorly written news article, community forums are ultimately limited by their feeders. These feeders are not usually primary sources, except in cases where significant documents are available online. Far more common is the linking of news articles from established information filtering corporations. The question arises whether community news efforts can surmount partiality on the part of the original reporters.

The answer appears to be yes. When CPU-maker AMD recently released comparisons between its chips and those of rival Intel, Slashdot was quick to dissect the biases in presentation and supply the necessary omitted background. (16) However, it should be noted that processors are a topic enjoying high familiarity among the technical elite who visit the site. Had the discussion been on the political condition of Nicaragua, results would be sketchy at best. Fortunately, community information forums are inherently unlikely to encounter this dilemma. Since the group as a whole selects topics, discussions lying outside the expertise of the majority are rare. A more difficult question is this: will community news replace traditional news outlets, or merely supplement them?

5 Conclusion
Community information filters are a novel approach to news. Trading on the principles of self-interest and distributed trust, they levy the expertise of thousands into producing honest, cheap daily news. In a world where command of information is rapidly becoming the root of institutional power, distributed trust graphs refocus information upon the needs of the citizen. While they remain in a state of infancy, the rise of sites such as Slashdot and FreeRepublic herald the demise of traditional information flows. We have entered the Slashdot decade, and only time will judge our success.

6 References
(0) http://www.slashdot.org, http://www.freerepublic.com
(1) http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990108.asp
(2) http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/faq/html/4-1-3-11.html
(3) E.g. http://www.thawte.com
(4) "Tobacco Industry Loses First Phase of Broad Lawsuit", New York Times, 6/8/99
(5) "A 'Class' Trial Finds Tobacco Firms Liable; Big Payments May Follow", Wall Street Journal, 6/8/99
(6) Cable is an exception. The means of distribution in cable are monopoly-owned, preserving cable from direct competition with TV.
(7) Herman & Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, Pantheon Books, p15, [cf.]
(8) As of July 1999, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/guide/sub/sub.htm, http://adsite.washpost.com/rates/retail/fullrun.html
(9) http://www.fair.org/media-woes/media-woes.html
(10) E.g. http://independent.org/tii/content/events/f_macarth.html
(11) http://www.missingkids.org
(12) http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide
(13) http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/faq/html/2-2-2.html
(14) "Slashdot Acquired by Andover.Net"
(15) "Clinton hopes for soccer diplomacy"
(16) "Athlon Benchmarks Out"

VAB wrote in to tell us that the RSA opened an Australian branch to get around the United States's stupid encryption export restrictions. They also hired SSLeay fame) and Tim Hudson to staff the new corp.

Dan Kegel sent us a letter reminding US citizens that they have until Sept 3rd to comment on the USPS' proposal for .us domain. A background document and questions are availible. If you want more info - and the submitted comments go here. For DNS News check this site out.

Dan Kegel sent us a letter reminding US citizens that they have until Sept 3rd to comment on the USPS' proposal for .us domain. A background document and questions are availible. If you want more info - and the submitted comments go here. For DNS News check this site out.

Kragen sent us this link to a paper covering the Clinton Administration's plans to privatize IPs, Domain Names, DNS servers, Protocols and Port numbering. With this accelerate implementation of IPv6?