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SD-Arcadia writes to tell us that Theora 1.1 has officially been released. It features improved encoding, providing better video quality for a given file size, a faster decoder, bitrate controls to help with streaming, and two-pass encoding. "The new rate control module hits its target much more accurately and obeys strict buffer constraints, including dropping frames if necessary. The latter is needed to enable live streaming without disconnecting users or pausing to buffer during sudden motion. Obeying these constraints can yield substantially worse quality than the 1.0 encoder, whose rate control did not obey any such constraints, and often landed only in the vague neighborhood of the desired rate target. The new --soft-target option can relax a few of these constraints, but the new two-pass rate control mode gives quality approaching full 'constant quality' mode with a predictable output size. This should be the preferred encoding method when not doing live streaming. Two-pass may also be used with finite buffer constraints, for non-live streaming." A detailed writeup on the new release has been posted at Mozilla.

ya really notes a blog posting up at Wired reporting that foes of the Telecom Amnesty Bill have mounted a campaign on Barack Obama's own website. Though the group was created only days ago, on June 25, it has grown to be the fifth largest among 7,000 such groups, just short of Women for Obama. Although it is widely known that Obama changed his stance from opposing telecom immunity to supporting it, many have not given up hope of getting him to switch once again. Meanwhile, left-leaning bloggers and libertarian activists have joined forces to raise $325,000 in the fight against the legislation. "Their Blue America PAC is already targeting House Democrats who voted for the bill, including placing a full-page ad in the Washington Post [an image appears in the Wired story] slamming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who claimed credit for creating the so-called compromise bill. The coalition plans to follow-up with a Ron Paul-style money bomb, which will be used to target key Senators..."

Nathan Ramella writes "The ARCwelder project has released a technique dubbed 'Go Fighting Tabby!' which exploits an unquoted system() call through the Archos UI, providing the ability to execute arbitrary code with root access on the Archos 605 WiFi. In doing so, opening the platform up for further hacking. The Archos 605 WiFi runs embedded Linux on an ARM processor, but employs a variety of anti-hack techniques to keep users from modifying its firmware and operating system. Included is a cross-compiled sshd with configuration files to allow for passwordless ssh access to the Archos when it is connected to a WiFi connection. Bricks ahoy!"

jayintune writes "2old2play has an article about the resurgence of arcade games in the living room. The article shows that while large companies like MS and Nintendo can make a nice dollar, small developers can now make money off of low budget arcade games with far less monetary risk. Just like fashion, what was once cool is now cool again." That, combined with the Xbox Live arcade rollouts, do seem to be bringing back the oldies but goldies.

jayintune writes "An article from 2old2play looks at how the XBox 360 achievement system is bringing out the addictive qualities of console games by adding a whole new level of competition to 'single-player' games. At the same time, the achievements extend the life and replayability of the games. Do you actually get more for your money from a single player Xbox 360 Game then from another console? You be the judge."

J. Karl Rove writes "Nikita Borisov and Ian Goldberg (of many, many other projects) have released Off the Record Messaging for Gaim. Encrypt an IM, prove (at the time) that it came from you, and deny it later. The authentication works only when the message is sent; anybody can forge all the messages he wants afterwards (toolkit included). Captured or archived messages prove nothing. And forward secrecy means Big Brother can't read your messages even if he wiretaps you AND grabs your computer later on. All the gooey goodness of crypto, with none of the consequences! They have a protocol spec, source code, and Debian and Fedora binaries."

atari_kid writes "ScienceDaily is running a story about a researcher findings on the importance of eye contact in group communications. More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion. What is interesting about the study his how it will effect the design of the future communication devices, like for example: 'Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) which support communication between people and machines.' The research findings will be also used to facilitate user interactions with devices like PDA's and cell phones. I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media."

fitsy wrote to us that Philip Zimmerman, the creator of PGP ^[?] has left Network Associates. NA had bought PGP Inc back in December 1997, and PRZ has been working there since then - his depature marks an interesting turn in the life of PGP - but his message (below) has a lot more detail. One of cool links of things he's working on is the OpenPGP Consortium.

The message:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

A note to PGP users:

As most PGP users know, Network Associates Inc (NAI) acquired my company, PGP Inc, in December 1997. For three years after that, I stayed on with NAI as Senior Fellow, to provide technical guidance for PGP's continued development, and to ensure PGP's cryptographic integrity. But I can't stay on forever. In the past three years, NAI has developed a different vision for PGP's future, and it's time for me to move on to other projects more fitting with my own objectives to protect personal privacy.

Let me assure all PGP users that all versions of PGP produced by NAI, and PGP Security, a division of NAI, up to and including the current (January 2001) release, PGP 7.0.3, are free of back doors. In all previous releases, up through PGP 6.5.8, this has been proven by the release of complete source code for public peer review. New senior management assumed control of PGP Security in the final months of 2000, and decided to reduce how much PGP source code they would publish. If NAI ever publishes the complete PGP 7.0.3 source code, I am confident that the public will be able to see that there are still no back doors. Until that time, I can offer only my own assurances that this version of PGP was developed on my watch, and has no back doors. In fact, I believe it to be the most secure version of PGP produced to date.

While it is true that NAI holds the PGP trademark and the source code for the NAI implementation of PGP, I'd like to point out that PGP is defined by an IETF open standard called OpenPGP, embodied in IETF RFC 2440, which any company may implement freely into its products. I will be working with other companies to support implementations of the OpenPGP standard, to turn it into a real industry standard supported by multiple vendors. I think the emergence of more than one strong commercial implementation of the OpenPGP standard is necessary for the long term health of the PGP movement, and will, incidentally, ultimately benefit NAI.

To this end, I will be assisting the makers of HushMail, Hush Communications (http://www.hush.com), to implement the OpenPGP standard in their future products. They will be doing their own announcement of this new relationship.

In addition, I will be assisting Veridis (http://www.veridis.com), a recent spin-off of Highware (http://www.highware.com), to create other OpenPGP compliant products, including software for certificate authorities for the OpenPGP community.

I am also launching the OpenPGP Consortium (http://openpgp.org), to facilitate interoperability of different vendors' implementations of the OpenPGP standard, as well as to help guide future directions of the OpenPGP standard.

This coming June marks the 10 year anniversary of the 1991 release of PGP to the public. PGP was originally designed for human rights applications, and to protect privacy and civil liberties in the information age. By proliferating the OpenPGP standard, we can renew that promise, and continue the commitment to personal privacy that captured the imagination and participation of millions around the world.

Philip Zimmermann
19 Feb 2001
prz@mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/prz
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 7.0.3

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-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- --------------------------------------------------