Slashdot Mirror

slughead writes "Forbes Magazine is reporting that AMD will no longer compete with Intel to make faster, smaller, and more efficient processors. Just as Mac users would be worse off if Windows didn't exist, Intel users will be much worse now that AMD will no longer compete. You see, there's this thing called demand, and when there are no competing products in a market, a good or service will always increase the price to the economic equilibrium, unless forced not to by the state (forget that right now, communists!!). In English: you're going to get less new technology, and higher prices on existing technology." On the other hand, AMD is definitely not exiting the chip business -- they're just trying to branch out from chips for microcomputers.

tulanian writes "forbes.com has an interesting article on networked, intelligent sensors. It mentions an experiment done by DARPA where several dozen magnetic sensors were scattered along a road and passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."

tulanian writes "forbes.com has an interesting article on networked, intelligent sensors. It mentions an experiment done by DARPA where several dozen magnetic sensors were scattered along a road and passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."

An anonymous reader writes "Faced with dwindling sales, it looks like Transmeta needs Microsoft's new tablet PC to survive." Or, if not Microsoft, some company who can spark the long-overdue tablet-computing revolution.

Professor_Quail writes "A Forbes article supposed to be released tomorrow gives some details about the new PowerPC processor that IBM and Apple have been working together on; the chip is slated to be introduced at the end of next year. The introduction of this chip should put to rest any speculation that Apple is moving to an Intel platform."

David Mazzotta writes "Reading like an extended, Darin Morgan-penned episode of the X-files (Humbug, Bruckman, Coprophages, Chung), Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men uses alien abductions and UFO conspiracies as a backdrop for some of the surest and funniest satires in recent years." Read on for the rest of David's review; I tend to prefer books from William F. Buckley, but this one sounds fun. Little Green Men author Christopher Buckley pages 317 publisher Random House rating 8.0 reviewer David Mazzotta ISBN 0742963314 summary Political and social satire wrapped in a zany story of alien abduction.

John O. "Jack" Banion is a man of fearsome power. A combination of Larry King and Bill O'Reilly, he hosts a pompous Sunday morning "issues" talk show that is the hub of Washington media. Politicians hate him, but need him. The dowdy matrons of beltway society fall over themselves to get him to attend their dinner parties. He has the luxury of dismissing millions of dollars in endorsements as beneath his lofty station. In an early scene, the President appears on his show and gets treated with righteous disdain, about which he privately muses "Presidents come and go."

Banion's life is filled with stifling protocols that he has fully embraced. He has few passions -- his wife seems happily neglected, the arts bore him, he doesn't even truly care about the politics he is immersed in, except to the extent that he wields influence over it. Even his cynicism rings hollow.

Enter one Nathan Scrubbs, a frustrated, mid-level, black-ops bureaucrat and professional alien abductor for an unmentionable government program called MJ-12. For years, Scrubbs has located prime abductee candidates: those who are personally reliable and believable, yet have the social and educational standing that would cause the media to doubt their veracity -- that is to say, trustworthy rubes. He orders their abductions with bored detachment, then monitors the media reaction to ensure that there is just a subtle but consistent undercurrent of belief that can be used for various manipulative purposes (bolstering the defense budget, scaring the Russians, funding satellites, etc.).

But Scrubs is bitter. He dreams of being a CIA field op, but was rejected by the agency. His job is a dead end. He can't advance, can't transfer, can't even talk about it with anyone. So one Sunday morning, blind drunk on Bloody Marys, while watching Banion's talk show, he authorizes a rogue abduction of Banion.

Banion goes public about his abduction and finds himself outcast from his elite circles while Scrubbs flees for his life from his own agency. Not surprisingly, events spiral out of control and the fates of Scrubbs and Banion intertwine. No more hoaxing unsuspecting rednecks, or manipulating meaningless government policies; for the first time in their lives they find there are deadly serious consequences to their actions. The collision of the contemptuous gravitas of the political actors with the madcap world of UFO conspiracists provides ample opportunity to compare the two and leave us wondering which one is sillier.

As a former speechwriter for Bush the Elder, Buckley, the editor of Forbes FYI, is very assured in lampooning the Washington DC aristocracy he is undoubtedly familiar with. He perfectly captures the egos behind the noble facades in the degrade-or-be-degraded Capitol high society. After his on-air flaying of the President, Banion is greeted by other power players at an elite dinner party.

But here was Tony Flemm, host of the second-rated Washington show, trying not to look jealous. "Jack. Nice show."

"Do you think? I don't know."

That's right, torture the poor bastard, make him explain, make him elaborate in front of everyone on just why he though it was such a good show. But wait, here came Burt Galilee, beaming, shaking his head in mock horror at Banion's ruffling of presidential eagle feathers. And here, just behind him, came the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and behind him, the French ambassador. A triumph.

Buckley is equally sardonic with the abductee population, yet, perhaps because they are painfully sincere despite their silliness, they are treated with a bit less vitriol.

Another of [hypnotherapist Bart Hupkin's] regressees shared her breakthrough of wrapping herself in cellophane, which, like panty hose, made it more difficult for the aliens to drive home their vile phallic probes. She noted that this also helped with weight loss. Another abductee announced that she was depressed because she missed her alien children. The father had, contrary to their joint custody arrangement, taken them off to the Pleiades with a "slut" from Aldebran. Hupkin said she should not take this personally. Aliens were notoriously problematic when it came to commitment.

Banion left the workshop unable to shake the feeling that there was something lacking in these people's lives...Banion had to keep reminding himself that the early Christians must have been an odd bunch, too.

As with any satire of length, the droll commentary can only take you so far; then you need characters that can carry the story. Though both are essentially passionless cynics at heart, Banion and Scrubbs flesh out fairly well. A central irony: Banion finds zeal for the abductee movement that he never experienced in the "serious" world of politics, and Scrubbs finally gets a taste undercover agent life as he flees the wrath of MJ-12. The plot runs a bit low on steam towards the end, but by that time we are, if not sympathetic for, at least interested enough in Banion and Scrubbs to want to know how it all ends.

Buckley takes an unbiased approach to satire. He is non-partisan regarding politics or social standing; he punctures the pretentious and skewers the self-important wherever he finds them. If you would rather be amused than disgusted with the inanity you read in the news or see on TV, Little Green Men is for you.

You can purchase Little Green Men from bn.com; (Note the remaindered price of $3.99 for the hardcover). Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

shine-shine writes: "Forbes is running an article helping you figure out how to spend that spare billion you got laying around (don't you just hate when that happens?). Apparently, a geek would buy 500 black-market clones of himself, while the narcissist would most likely build "a monument similar in size and scale to Mount Rushmore, featuring his own face.""

shine-shine writes: "Forbes is running an article helping you figure out how to spend that spare billion you got laying around (don't you just hate when that happens?). Apparently, a geek would buy 500 black-market clones of himself, while the narcissist would most likely build "a monument similar in size and scale to Mount Rushmore, featuring his own face.""

jukal writes "Forbes.com writes: "Intel Corp. Monday announced plans to put some functions of analog and digital chips onto the same piece of silicon, its latest push into the communications semiconductor industry.", "which will be available early in 2004, could lead to a single-chip hand-held device that offers cellular phone, wireless-data-network and other connection services.", so, I quess this will be a competitor to the Texas Instruments' OMAP chip?"

jukal writes "Forbes.com writes: "Intel Corp. Monday announced plans to put some functions of analog and digital chips onto the same piece of silicon, its latest push into the communications semiconductor industry.", "which will be available early in 2004, could lead to a single-chip hand-held device that offers cellular phone, wireless-data-network and other connection services.", so, I quess this will be a competitor to the Texas Instruments' OMAP chip?"

gwizah writes: "A company by the name of Vialta is peddling a new product all you future loving geek's can enjoy, A VideoPhone! Yes, Im sure you can all remember the many attempts to bring video-phonecall technology into the home or office, but unlike the flying car, you can pick up a pair at Fry's today! According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised. A new way to call Grandma? Or just another silly little toy to collect dust in that hall closet."

Lots of newsbits about copyright infringement today - let's mash them all together with some egg whites and breadcrumbs and see what we get. marklyon writes "The DOJ announced that they are planning to prosecute filesharers under the The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act. John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, made the pronouncement at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual technology and politics summit Tuesday. Cnet has extended coverage." Reader M_Talon writes "According to this article on ZDNET the RIAA is using one of the DMCA's more nasty clauses...the right to subpoena an ISP for a suspected pirate's personal information. They want to force Verizon to reveal the customer's information, and Verizon is refusing on the grounds that the pirated material isn't on their servers." Reader MattW writes "Apparently some theaters are consenting to run anti-piracy ads before movies. After all, these are not a bunch of fat cats we're talking about -- piracy now threatens the livelihood of the rank and file workers of Hollywood. After all, the movie studios are having a terrible year, right?" Finally, the Washington Post (probably one of the last articles we post from their site, as they go registration-required) discovers spoofed files on Gnutella, and public radio is reporting that the RIAA will drop their suit against listen4ever.com, since it's, uh, gone.

mvdwege writes "It appears that Forbes is doing a Linux Special. Lots of nice articles showing off the state of the art in Linux development today. It's nice to see Linux get some good mainstream press without hype or FUD. A very objective treatment that might definitely make some people think."

NonSoftAntiCurve writes "Forbes.com has an interesting article about how too many patents are as bad as too few when it comes to incentives for innovation. 'The tension between the patent as a way to stimulate invention and the patent as a weapon against legitimate competition is inherent in the system.' There is a scary example of how this plays out in practice."

NonSoftAntiCurve writes "Forbes.com has an interesting article about how too many patents are as bad as too few when it comes to incentives for innovation. 'The tension between the patent as a way to stimulate invention and the patent as a weapon against legitimate competition is inherent in the system.' There is a scary example of how this plays out in practice."

dipfan writes "At last an explanation why you can't find a job: a report in the Washington Post says there were more than 500,000 tech jobs shed in the US during the last year, and (for the first time in several years) average IT workers pay is down by 11 percent - down from $71,000 to $63,000. There is some good news on the horizon - the survey of employers by the Information Technology Association of America says that more than a million IT jobs are going to be created in the coming year, taking employment back to pre-2001 levels."

Brian Stretch was among several who sent in this story about Merrill Lynch switching to Linux, this is interesting because it's actually companywide. Talks about Red Hat, Linux threatening Unix and so on.

burnsy and others sent in links to stories about 802.11b that are cropping up everywhere. The New York Times has one. (Well, two, actually.) Salon has one. InternetNews has a piece about Boingo, a new wireless start-up, that's also covered in this Forbes article. (The NYT article above also mentions Sputnik.) Both Boingo and Sputnik are trying to leverage the existing community wireless networks to speed their network build-outs. MIT's Tech Review has an interesting piece about a wireless start-up that has already tried and failed. Fixed wireless is also booming, according to an industry study.

Nepre writes: "Forbes.com is running a story about new research that suggests that the Human Genome Project may have missed tens of thousands of genes in the race to map the human genome. This is interesting given the intense competition between commercial and academic research. As my grandmother used to say, "The faster you go, the behinder you get!""

Nepre writes: "Forbes.com is running a story about new research that suggests that the Human Genome Project may have missed tens of thousands of genes in the race to map the human genome. This is interesting given the intense competition between commercial and academic research. As my grandmother used to say, "The faster you go, the behinder you get!""

An anonymous reader writes: "TI has officially invaded Intel's territory, having landed its OMAP chip in HP's Jornada 928. TI also landed a SmartPhone reference design agreement with Microsoft, but so did Intel. See the article, and a picture of the unit at Forbes.com."

Forbes Magazine has this story about the MIT Media Laboratory's current "burn rate" problem. It seems that the Media Lab is feeling the same big draft at its posterior that dot-com companies felt last year after years of go-go growth and seemingly unlimited funding. The Media Lab is particularly sensitive to this downturn due to its heavy reliance on corporate sponsorship, as well as its fondness for unconventional, even eccentric, research. Items that will no longer receive funding according to a January 5th internal E-mail from the Lab's Executive Director Walter Bender: cellular telephones, first-class air travel, food at internal Lab meetings, and furniture. Other more serious cutbacks for the Lab include layoffs for 29 staff members and reduced funding for students, including salaries for "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" (UROP) positions. The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving.

Forbes Magazine has this story about the MIT Media Laboratory's current "burn rate" problem. It seems that the Media Lab is feeling the same big draft at its posterior that dot-com companies felt last year after years of go-go growth and seemingly unlimited funding. The Media Lab is particularly sensitive to this downturn due to its heavy reliance on corporate sponsorship, as well as its fondness for unconventional, even eccentric, research. Items that will no longer receive funding according to a January 5th internal E-mail from the Lab's Executive Director Walter Bender: cellular telephones, first-class air travel, food at internal Lab meetings, and furniture. Other more serious cutbacks for the Lab include layoffs for 29 staff members and reduced funding for students, including salaries for "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" (UROP) positions. The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving.

Jeff writes: "CNN is reporting 'In a dramatic move, the new judge in the Microsoft case Friday ordered the government and the software maker into five weeks of intensive settlement talks, until Nov. 2.'" Other MS submissions coming in today: USAToday discovers the new upgrade scheme, designed to milk every last cent out of those who've locked themselves into Windows; tech-report.com goes a bit more in depth on the same subject; ZDNet hoists the black flag; MS discusses its plans to control how you compute (by the way, the license agreement for Windows Media Player now allows Microsoft to disable any software on your computer - you do read those license agreements, don't you?); Gates got $666,000 last year but won't have to apply for welfare just yet.

apsmith writes: "Some of the companies that were preparing for a race to commercialize space and return to the moon (like Idealab's "Blastoff.com") have vanished with the stock market meltdown. But TransOrbital, a privately held company, is still plugging away, and claims to be on schedule for launch in the 4th quarter of 2001. The funding model seems to be generating lots of pretty pictures and selling them. Though for just $2500 you can also send your business card to the Moon!" Sounds like they've pushed their schedule a little bit since last mention, but considering the scope of the project, nearly any launch date would still be respectable.

k-k-k-Ken writes: "Saw an interesting article in Forbes about Dinosaur Robots For Sale. While the bots are far from mass production, I can't help but wonder if this is another step in the direction of Jurassic Park meets the Terminator. Once the mobility has been worked out, the AI is the next logical step. Still, I can't help myself and would probably be one of the first to go get a 'Troody' ..." MIT also has a nifty article up about Dilworth and his robots, including links to the Leg Lab where the springy joints mentioned in the article are being developed.

k-k-k-Ken writes: "Saw an interesting article in Forbes about Dinosaur Robots For Sale. While the bots are far from mass production, I can't help but wonder if this is another step in the direction of Jurassic Park meets the Terminator. Once the mobility has been worked out, the AI is the next logical step. Still, I can't help myself and would probably be one of the first to go get a 'Troody' ..." MIT also has a nifty article up about Dilworth and his robots, including links to the Leg Lab where the springy joints mentioned in the article are being developed.

Ratteau writes: "Forbes is running a story about an innovative method Intel is using to deal with the economic slowdown. Everybody has heard about cutting jobs, but what about the people that had been hired, given signing bonuses, and were to start in the future? Intel is giving them money to forget the whole thing (although there is nothing that says if they refuse, they wont be laid off the day they get there...) If I were a current employee, it would certainly make me feel good to know that they weren't going to cut me just to get cheaper labor in the door."

ephraim writes "Forbes has an article by John C. Dvorak which summarizes the TiVo and similar devices as follows: "It's a way to steal programming." He justifies this remark by claiming that the main purpose of a TiVo is to "skip commercials" that pay for TV content. He also seems upset that people can use these devices to record content onto a hard drive without paying royalties to the content companies. Never mind the fact that the article has numerous factual errors (Dvorak claims that TiVo systems cost $500 and implies that the systems are difficult to use; he also makes a ridiculous comparison between MP3 file-sharing and TiVo). This guy seems to never have heard of the Betamax court case which legitimized time-shifting. "

ephraim writes "Forbes has an article by John C. Dvorak which summarizes the TiVo and similar devices as follows: "It's a way to steal programming." He justifies this remark by claiming that the main purpose of a TiVo is to "skip commercials" that pay for TV content. He also seems upset that people can use these devices to record content onto a hard drive without paying royalties to the content companies. Never mind the fact that the article has numerous factual errors (Dvorak claims that TiVo systems cost $500 and implies that the systems are difficult to use; he also makes a ridiculous comparison between MP3 file-sharing and TiVo). This guy seems to never have heard of the Betamax court case which legitimized time-shifting. "

An Anonymous Coward sent in this note: "There's an interesting article at Forbes.com discussing the issues scientists are finding in analyzing and sorting the DNA info now that it's been sequenced. It seems that the functional and useless DNA is all mixed up together. I like this line: "If you want an analogy, think Microsoft Windows: a big kluge of code containing long stretches of old subroutines and dormant bugs and all sorts of other stuff left over from past generations. It shouldn't work, but usually it does.""

An Anonymous Coward sent in this note: "There's an interesting article at Forbes.com discussing the issues scientists are finding in analyzing and sorting the DNA info now that it's been sequenced. It seems that the functional and useless DNA is all mixed up together. I like this line: "If you want an analogy, think Microsoft Windows: a big kluge of code containing long stretches of old subroutines and dormant bugs and all sorts of other stuff left over from past generations. It shouldn't work, but usually it does.""

LandlessGentry writes: "Market Oriented Genetic Manipulation takes a turn for the surreal as two Nigerian dwarf goats named Mille and Muscade have had their genes altered (or more precisely the genes of their parents) so their mammary glands produce spider "silk". The story is here on Forbes.com."

LandlessGentry writes: "Market Oriented Genetic Manipulation takes a turn for the surreal as two Nigerian dwarf goats named Mille and Muscade have had their genes altered (or more precisely the genes of their parents) so their mammary glands produce spider "silk". The story is here on Forbes.com."

santan writes: "We've all read countless stories describing the revolutionary and high tech jobs available at Internet startups nowadays but here's an article at Forbes listing the worst tech jobs out there. Some of them include packing dog excrements, chatroom monitoring and searching for the most disturbing porn on the net. So go to work next week with a smile."

santan writes: "We've all read countless stories describing the revolutionary and high tech jobs available at Internet startups nowadays but here's an article at Forbes listing the worst tech jobs out there. Some of them include packing dog excrements, chatroom monitoring and searching for the most disturbing porn on the net. So go to work next week with a smile."

hojo writes: "A really cool idea for an anonymous, distributed storage system is actively being worked on. Talk about a way around censorship and control--check out this article at Forbes for more." The article talks about a system dubbed "OceanStore," a high-concept application of the same massively distributed and replicated data idea behind FreeNet and some other projects. The availability of massive storage cheaper and cheaper will start to change exactly what we think is worth saving and where it makes sense to store it. (Do we want a data cloud full of the digital pictures millions of people couldn't bring themselves to delete?)

tregoweth writes: "A company (with no online presence that I can find) claims to have developed a way to make 'a completely functional digital disc that's five times thinner than a regular DVD or CD' and 'is also flexible enough to wrap around soda cans and be inserted into magazines without breaking,' according to Forbes.com. Does anyone else see floppy AOL CDs covering the landscape?"

Snatch Freedom writes "Peacefire has discovered a way to block censorware using Akamai's servers. For example you can see Yahoo! using http://a1.g.akamaitech.net/6/6/6/6/www.yahoo.com/. C|Net had a story about. Censorware cannot block akamai; that will piss off all the advertising people. Akamai says (in the cnet story) that they are not in the filtering business and they won't block anything. The makers of ``Bess'' wan't Akamai to filter it but Akamai says no. "

nostriluu writes " With the assistance of award-winning firm frogdesign (the geniuses behind the look of the early Apple and many of today's supercomputers and workstations), Forbes ASAP has designed and built (virtually, of course) the computer of 2010."

Alien54 writes "According to this Forbes Magazine article, the time for Fiberless Optical Networks may have arrived. Wireless optics have been given up for dead until very recently. But now better technology and lower product costs have enabled some to solve most of the problems. AirFiber (a company mentioned in the article above) is emerging as one of the favorites in wireless optics, and seems to have a set of good answers for the inevitable "bird and fog" questions: Can a flock of birds take down a network by flying through the lasers? Can a heavy fog send your precious information into the ether?"

Alien54 writes "According to this Forbes Magazine article, the time for Fiberless Optical Networks may have arrived. Wireless optics have been given up for dead until very recently. But now better technology and lower product costs have enabled some to solve most of the problems. AirFiber (a company mentioned in the article above) is emerging as one of the favorites in wireless optics, and seems to have a set of good answers for the inevitable "bird and fog" questions: Can a flock of birds take down a network by flying through the lasers? Can a heavy fog send your precious information into the ether?"

LL asks: "Altering the price of digital content is a common tactic to capture the time-preference characteristics of consumers (e.g. movie tickets for immediate first releases down to free-to-air a couple of years later). We would all like to get the latest and greatest, but are people willing to tolerate restrictions such as paying more for music that they can share with friends? The polarization of views from the share everything (FSF) to everyone is a selfish individual (digital distribution industry) is being contested through new business models on the Internet with players such as (AOL+InterTrust)|Sony willing to experiment with novel and more subtle forms of control. However, will prosumers protest over the increasing technological obsolescence if they purchase music/software and find out a few years later their hardware is not supported and their music/software collections become worthless? Are we buying a life-time's right to own or merely licensing access for a short time? If an individual/company releases/sells stuff, whether GPL or EULA, should they explicitly warn people of the downstream implications (e.g. if we discontinue hardware support you will be forced to pay for software upgrade fees)? Curious minds would like to know if there is a fairer system."

Zannah writes "An article on Forbes' website talks about the 'bullies of the Internet': the few providers who dominate much of the internet backbone, and who charge -- rightly or wrongly -- smaller organizations for access and peering to the backbone. It raises the question og whether the Net really *is* as open and distributed as touted, or whether it's in fact dominated by monopolies. As someone who works for one of the mentioned 'bullies' (UUNET), I think it's a bit one-dimensional, but certainly worth reading." This articles raises some interesting points, especially for rural customers and ISPs. Of course, in much of the world it's far worse anyhow.

Akilesh Rajan writes: "An article at Forbes talks about the firm that supplied Metallica with the software it needed to capture 335,000 users. It 'works like 5,000 humans sitting in a room doing Web searches' to identify user names. Demand for their services is enormous, especially since they also plan to expand into the videogame and movie protection businesses." This NetPD company is unrelated to the shareware program NetPD, which, ironically, helps protect user privacy.

weez wrote to us with a recent article in Forbes regarding the legal battle that Sun and Kingston Memory have gotten into. Sun is alleging that Kingston (You know - the people who make the after-market memory chips) violates some of Sun's patents and wants royalties. Anyone know a little more technical information than the article? Post below, please.

CJMClark writes "I am a university student working on a public policy analysis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and I am interested in (since the government's stance is pretty clear) the opinions of members of the computing community as regards this particular piece of legislation and its effect on the freedom of information. Has the government, in your opinion, gone too far or overstepped its bounds? Have you been affected by the DMCA? How is it that the government can prohibit an average U.S. citizen from decrypting encrypted files, and yet also attempt to force Kevin Mitnick to decrypt his personal files? Is this a blatant violation of the fair use clause of Title 17? All replies will be held strictly confidential, as I am simply trying to get a feel for how this legislation affects those citizens who, on the whole, are technologically oriented.

Please feel free to post replies to this post, or simply e-mail them to me at CJMClark@hotmail.com. I welcome any and all opinions on this matter.

Carl J. Clark
"Justice for All in the Digital Age" "

Monday, when we asked you to Grill John Vranesevich, we got mostly flames (as expected), but somehow we managed to extract 12 hard-nosed questions from the ashes. Sadly, Mr. Vranesevich chose not to respond to them directly, but sent an argumentative screed instead. Below you'll find the questions we sent, followed by Mr. Vranesevich's essay in its entirety (including his original HTML formatting), along with a link to a Forbes story that is, um, not exactly complimentary to him.

Question #1
by manitee

Having read many accounts of your interactions with the staff of attrition.org, it seems to me that your claims against them are generally unproven and rash. Their rebuttals are always filled with detailed fact and systematic, step by step analysis of the topic at hand. Please clarify why you feel that attrition.org is such a dangerous force, yet you have never been able to present HARD EVIDENCE to that point.

Question #2
by davidu

Many of us in the hacker community (not cracker) used the Packet Storm security site for information and research. You had it shut down for some alleged things in the /jp directory. Explain to us why you called [Harvard] to shut it down rather than dealing with the maintainer. What did you accomplish by threatening to sue other than futher harm your image and remove any creditbilily you had?

Question #3
by Kintanon

What is the basis for your attacks on security Experts such as Attrition.org?

To Clarify the question: Why do you proclaim them to be 'dangerous hackers' while they do essentially the same thing you claim to do, except that they do so better, faster, and more professionally?

Question #4
by mattc

Why did you deliberately block links from Slashdot, HNN, and any other site who criticized you during the closure of Packetstorm?

#5
by WH How do you respond to allegations that the FBI is investigating your knowledge of attacks before they happened and the accusations by some hackers who performed said attacks that you paid them or otherwise coerced them to do it in order to have coverage for your website?

#6
also by WH

Why do you feel that sites containing satirical humor based [on] antionline are not protected by law and therefore open to your threats of legal action?

#7
by Hard_Code

Are the rumors that you will be spinning off a sister site called Anti-Anti-Anti-Online to dispell the malicious accusations and deprecations of your obviously magnanimous professionalism and intellect and to further bolster the image of Anti-Online and your integrity as a computer- security- expert- guru- enthusiast, true?

#8 - #11
by Jeff -
(Heavily edited - RM)

I have several questions which I will ask within the narrative below. The narrative is important to understand the context of the questions, and to support my arguments.

Several months ago I was raided by FBI for supposed involvement with the "hacker" group gh. The extent of my involvement was participating, as a caller only, in illegally funded phone conferences. JP, who also participated in this conferences, labeled me as a hacker, and a member of gh on his "news" site. Neither of these accusations are true. He has many more ties to this and other hacker groups than I have ever had....

#8 - How can you pretend to be taking a stand against "hackers" while you are involved in the same activities?

#9 - My third question is in regards to your coverage of the situation. You posted unconfirmed information from an unreliable source in regards to the status of my employment at a prominent software development company. As a result of this I was contact by several news agencies, and immediately stereotyped as a hacker even though I have never illegally penetrated any computer system, nor had I been charged with, or accused of any crimes by the FBI. In response to this I granted one news agency an interview, which I thought went well, but also backfired. As a result of the negative press my former employer could not even consider allowing me to stay. My question being, Do you expect people to consider you as a reliable news source even though you report data which you receive through unreliable channels?

#10 - Did you ever stop to think what the impact of your coverage might be? It seems to me that in your rush for the big story you have failed to check for the correctness in your articles, and as a result of this you are hurting innocent people, such as myself. I'm sure this has gone on in other cases, but mine is the only one I have enough knowledge to comment on. I don't attribute these unfortunate events to you, but you certainly did not follow good news practices in reporting them. You have only served to injure my credibility and your own.

11 - Lastly, have you ever considered what legal action may be taken against you for your involvement with these criminals? Do you even recognize the hypocrisy of your stance on hackers being one yourself by your own definition?

Question #12
by sonoffreak

Why did you decide to let Slashdot interview you? How did the response you got compare to what you expected?

John Vranesevich's Response:

Greetings All

Well, I've seen many people say that I can't take criticism. Believe me, if that were true, I surely never would have opened myself up to a SlashDot inquisition. I knew before I even agreed to the interview, that things would be ugly. Needless to say, I was right on the money. However, I will say this. I was very disappointed in the downright lack of maturity that many of the posts showed. I like to believe that most people who frequent this type of forum are of an intellectual nature. I found it very disheartening to hear nearly every rumor ever voiced about myself or my company being regurgitated as if they were all fact. An educated bunch of people should understand that not everything that they hear is true at all, and that almost nothing that they hear is totally accurate. But, some of that could be my fault. Many posts pointed out the fact that I have never "given explanations of" or provided "blow-by-blow responses" to any of the things that have been written about me. This is true. If I spent my life defending myself from every individual who had a nasty thing to say about me, my life would end up pretty meaningless in the end. I think that's true for most people. I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't allow myself or my website to become dedicated to those who would seek to bring me down. I have a lot of goals in my life, and I'm not about to let nonsense get in their way. But, never the less, I saw this SlashDot invitation as the perfect opportunity to talk about some of those very issues. It's not that I feel that people who posted negative comments will read what I have to say, and then decide that they were totally wrong about me. Those who despise me for whatever reason will continue to do so no matter what I ever say or do. Even SlashDot faced the wrath of dozens of people who are "no longer going to visit this site" for one reason or another after reading the interview bio on Monday. So much for loyalty in this day and age I suppose.

Yours In CyberSpace,
John Vranesevich
Founder, AntiOnline


Now, On To The Questions

I received a list of "questions" from Robin earlier this week, and to put it bluntly, they were just stupid. I'm not going to waste my time writing up ridiculous answers to ridiculous questions that no one really cares about. For example, here is one of the questions posed to me

"Are the rumors that you will be spinning off a sister site called Anti-Anti-Anti-Online to dispel the malicious accusations and deprecations of your obviously magnanimous professionalism and intellect and to further bolster the image of Anti-Online and your integrity as a computer-security-expect-guru-enthusiast, true?"

Now how stupid is that? What would my answer be, something like "Um, no". Not a very stimulating Q&A if you ask me.

So, instead of wasting my time and yours, I decided that I'd simply cut to the chase, and answer what appear to be some of the major allegations, accusations, and other such tidbits that some people seem obsessed over.

AntiOnline & PacketStorm

First off, let me say that I didn't shut down PacketStorm, and neither did Harvard. Ken Williams is the sole person responsible for that site being shut down. He chose to take a popular forum which was designed to disseminate information related to computer security, and abuse his own creation in order to harass someone. Sure, post satire about myself or my website. I truly don't care, and in many cases, I have even promoted such websites on AntiOnline. One such satire site that I've linked to several times is "AntiOffline.com". Personally, I consider satire as one of the greatest type compliments one can get. However, what Ken did far surpassed simple satire. By posting a photo of my younger sister (who was a minor at the time), along with her full name and address, he successfully started a mass campaign of harassment against her and my family. This I wouldn't tolerate. I don't care how popular of a site it was, or how valuable of a resource it was. It was abused by Ken Williams for his own perverse sense of amusement, at the cost of my family.

As for all of this "threaten to sue" hype which soon followed. I never did any such thing. I'm not sure which University Official ever told Ken Williams that, if any, but he was certainly mistaken. I sent a simple one page e-mail to the provost's office asking them to review the contents of the site against their acceptable use policy. Despite Ken's claims that there wasn't any "offending" material on the site, the university reviewed it, and chose to shut it down. A major and prestigious university like Harvard wouldn't simply shut down a site because some pissant like myself sent them an e-mail, unless there was a very good reason to do so. Use your common sense people.

However, what Ken Williams did was a very successful campaign of pity afterwards. I will admit that. "A poor college student who's website was shut down by an evil corporation called AntiOnline. Who's college career has been ruined, and all of his hard work lost". Truth of the matter is that Ken is in his 30s, and isn't some naive little college freshmen. He got his site shut-down by harassing a 17 year old girl, which shortly after being shutdown, Ken sold for a reported $125,000 to Kroll.

Poor Ken.

AntiOnline & Attrition

This is even more stupid than Ken Williams. Despite all of the crap, and there really isn't a better word for it, which has pored out of Brian Martin and his Attrition.org site, I think I can sum up events in one small paragraph

AntiOnline was asked by the FBI to help investigate a group called "HFG" which broke into the New York Times' Website. AntiOnline does some digging, and turns over its findings. Shortly there after, Brian Martin, founder of Attrition.org, and someone that no one at AntiOnline had ever had any contact with before, was raided by the FBI. Ever since then, for some strange reason, Brian Martin has attempted to do anything and everything he can to discredit myself and AntiOnline. Wonder why? Is it because I'm an evil menace to society that threatens the very existence of the internet and all that is good? I wouldsubmit to you that Brian Martin's motivations are far more geared towards protecting his own ass, than they are geared towards protecting society's ass. Once again, use your common sense.


What exactly does AntiOnline Do?

That's something I see asked a lot on "underground" type webpages. To be frank, we're not a public company, and it really isn't anybody's business except those that we work with. I can, however, tell you this. The fact that nearly every malicious hacker (or cracker if you prefer the term) dislikes AntiOnline is actually good for us, and is the exact position I want to be in. Some people even "joke" that I intentionally try to "piss off large groups of people at a time". Well, it's not just a joke, it's the truth. I think I'm pretty good at doing it too. We average between 200-500 intrusion attempts against one of our systems AN HOUR, and every time I piss another segment of the cyber-population off, that number skyrockets. We probably have one of the most targeted networks on the internet today, and we take full advantage of that. Do you think that we let the type of data that we're able to collect and log just go to waste? I don't ;-)

Is AntiOnline Being Investigated By The FBI?

To tell you the truth, I doubt it, but I don't know for sure. But, there's a reason why I don't know for sure. The FBI doesn't talk to anyone about who they are/have investigated. Anyone that has ever worked with the FBI in any manner, can tell you that they, as a rule, keep quite in order to protect any investigation. If they were to deny reports about us being investigated, that would confirm in the minds of others that they are being investigated, when the FBI comes up with a "no comment" answer. Make sense?

Here's where things get funny. The person that "blew the lid off of the story" that AntiOnline was being investigated by the FBI is none other than, you guessed it, Brian Martin of Attrition. He told a reporter that an FBI agent "informed him" about the active investigation.

Common sense time. Would the FBI raid someone (like Brian Martin was), and then shortly there after begin telling that person about all of the other investigations that they are doing so that they could spread the word all over the Internet and ruin their case?

Personally, I would highly doubt that the FBI would consult with us if they suspected, or were investigating the possibility, that AntiOnline was some evil criminal empire that paid people off to break into high profile websites so that we could post an interview.

Get real people.

Does it bother you that everyone hates you. Why or why not?

This is something that I actually saw posted on the message board. To be honest, at this point in my life, my goal is not to become loved in the hearts of the masses. I'm not running for political office, so popularity doesn't count. I have goals in my life that I want to achieve. Some of these goals are short-term, some of them are long-term. Right now, at the age of 21 (as of October), I'm exactly where I want to be. My professional career is on track, financially I'm in good shape, my personal life is where I want it to be, and I can say that every day brings me closer to the goals that I have set for myself. Who could ask for more? Sure, I have to put up with a lot more flack and B.S. than the average 21 year old. But I'll tell you this, every minute is worth it.

To learn more about John Vranesevich as he was seen through the eyes of at least one reporter for a respected news outlet, read this Forbes article. - RM

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Next week a panel of antitrust experts headed by our friend Don Weightman will answer your questions about what might happen to Microsoft next. We've had many requests for this, but held off for a week to let all the "regular" media have their say first. This promises to be a hugely informative interview session!

Mike writes "Ever wondered why, no matter how hard you work, you are not getting any further towards getting on one of those Forbes Billionaire lists? Mike Cassidy at Mercury Center has the answer to why you are not on any Forbes lists via a Q & A he has prepared for all us working stiffs."

Fooster writes "According to this article in Forbes, Intel has indentified and solved the problems in the i820 chip for Rambus. Few details on the nature of the solution. " As Forbes points out, the challenge is getting OEMs back on board - I'd be skittish as well.