Slashdot Mirror

jrepin writes "While the UK has seen the light, the EU has actually gone backwards on open standards in recent times. The original European Interoperability Framework required royalty-free licensing, but what was doubtless a pretty intense wave of lobbying in Brussels overturned that, and EIF v2 ended up pushing FRAND, which effectively locks out open source — the whole point of the exercise. Shamefully, some parts of the European Commission are still attacking open source."

timothy writes "For the last few years, I've been using Android tablets for various of the reasons that most casual tablet owners do: as a handy playback device for movies and music, a surprisingly decent interface for reading books, a good-enough camera for many purposes, and a communications terminal for instant messaging and video chat. I started out with a Motorola Xoom, which I still use around the house or as a music player in the car, but only started actually carrying a tablet very often when I got a Nexus 7. And while I have some high praise for the Nexus 7, its limitations are frustrating, too. I'll be more excited about a tablet when I can find one with (simultaneously) more of the features I want in one. So here's my wish list (not exhaustive) for the ideal tablet of the future, consisting only of features that are either currently available in some relevant form (such as in existing tablets), or should be in the foreseeable near future; I'll be on the lookout at CES for whatever choices come closest to this dream." Read below to see what's on Timothy's wish list. Here's my current mild-fantasy feature list; if you know of better ways to meet these desires, or even more compelling features you'd like to see, I'd like to hear them.

Integrated GPS navigation with built-in maps, not relying on an (always brittle, often expensive) ongoing data connection, or relying on a 3rd-party app. Even cheap standalone GPS units come loaded with maps, which means putting those maps on is possible, and (except from the standpoint of the companies who sell you data by the byte) it would be a good idea. Google's maps app provides a passable workaround, in the form of cached data, so you can load up the maps you need for a given route while you're sitting at a cheap and fast broadband connection, but in practice I'd found it iffy; sometimes the navigation refuses to recognize the maps I've loaded.

So long as you've got a data plan you don't mind dipping into, and are within cellular coverage range, that's fine, but large stretches of the Western U.S. in particular could leave you reliant on paper maps or a really good memory. If Garmin and company can put 6 million points of interest on pocket-sized GPS devices, and has been doing so for the last decade, shouldn't tablet makers do the same? (Not that freshly updated maps with handy chunks of crowd-sourced data are a bad thing; they just shouldn't be the only option. Graceful failure is reason enough to include a basic map set by default.)

(Two related pipe-dreams: 1) Future integration, too, with Gallileo and Beidou — the EU and Chinese equivalents to the U.S. made GPS constellation, and 2) integration with Open Street Maps. Every tablet should be a mapping tool, not just a map reader.)

A full sized USB port. Two of them, even better, but I'd settle for one. USB keys are the easiest way to transmit a certain size of file, close range, in particular when that's already the medium the file occupies. Things like Dropbox help, but don't pass the Mom test (at least in my family), and require extra steps if the document / podcast / video clip is right there in your pocket, just in an unusable form. The other reason I want a full-size USB port is that as impressive it is to have a tiny computer and display in a pocketable device, there is not yet a more efficient way for a sitting person to enter text than a keyboard, and tiny tablet-focused portable keyboards are a weak tool of convenience rather than actually *good,* generally. For light travel, sure. But I'd like to pop to the coffee shop to work for a while with a 1-pound tablet and a real keyboard. Workaround: There are Bluetooth keyboards, but the only true way to get a full-size USB ports for most tablets is by picking up a dongle from Amazon or Deal Extreme, but that's both an extra part to break or lose, and a hassle that it would be nice to skip.

A better "swiping" keyboard. Since I can't always carry a Model M keyboard, I want a keyboard as good as the Swype version that came with my aging but once high-end Samsung phone (Galaxy S). I've tried some Swype versions intended for tablets, but they made the mistake of making the control surface bigger (I suspect to "take advantage of all that space") rather than kept it sensibly small and fast. Being able to zip my finger around quickly is exactly why the one on the phone has totally changed my view of touch keyboards. The swiping keyboard that came with the newest versions of Android is a mixed bag: it's welcome, but at least in my experience so far suffers worse accuracy than does Swype. (On the other hand, the actual included vocabulary seems broader; I've had to customize the dictionary much less often.)

Daylight readable screen of some kind. Pixel Qi is the obvious one right now, but there's also one from Mirasol that I've seen demoed, but which seems unlikely (sorry) to see the light of day. Except for the impressive use of the same technology in the OLPC project's XO kid-centric laptops, Pixel Qi's screens have been mostly going into military and industrial displays, though, rather than into consumer tablets. There's a market waiting for daylight readable color screens!

Hardware toggles for cameras and all wireless capabilities. That is, anything which could betray privacy should be labeled and defeatable. Among other good reasons for this, it might make some devices more acceptable in workplaces with restrictive policies on personal technology. At the last CES, I saw a few Chinese Android tablets that had what looked from their icons like external Wi-Fi toggle switches, but wasn't able to quite confirm that with the vendors. Not every camera-equipped, Wi-Fi-equipped laptop has a physical toggle for either or both of these, but some do, and I'd pay a few more dollars for the capability.

HDMI out: This is common enough on recent tablets, but mostly in the form of a tiny mini-HDMI port. There are a few exceptions, but I'd like to see more. Just as with USB, I'd rather a slightly chunkier case if it means not needing a fistful of finicky cables and adapters. Being able to plug a tablet conveniently into any HDMI-equipped display would be handy; it's more computer than most of us had at all just a few years ago.

Decent in-built stereo recorder: Many tablets (and practically all smartphones as well as many feature phones) include a voice memo feature; that's handy, but it's a shame to waste the capabilities of the rest of the device on just that. Surprisingly good stereo recorders — included ones marketed as "business recorders," but severely overqualified — start at less than $100, and typical tablets have far more horsepower, not to mention a more flexible control surface for apps to control audio recording. In the iWorld, there are dozens of stereo input devices, as well as DI boxes for electric instruments, but not even Apple's devices come with a Just-Hit-Record stereo recording mic, which is too bad. Can you recommend any Android tablets with good built-in stereo mics, or third-party add-ons?

Bright LED light built in: This one, at least, is now the rule to which there are exceptions, rather than the other way 'round. It shows that sometimes the features-list game goes the right direction.

Alternative OS support. This isn't something I expect tablet makers to trumpet; they generally want you to run their choice of OS (whether the underlying tablet is from Apple, Microsoft, or the vast Google/Android conspiracy). But they don't have to; they just have to not make it impossible for others to do the work for them. In the last few months alone we've seen Linux (both Ubuntu for ARM and KDE Plasma Active) ported to the Nexus 7, and the Cyanogenmod developers have for years been making many handset and tablet makers' upgrade abilities look just plain silly. It's not just for novelty, either: right now, I'd like to be able to offload footage from my video camera to a tablet for uploading, which would mean I could stop carrying a laptop around quite so often. If I risk bricking my tablet by installing one of those Linux varieties, that might just be a practical option.

For now, don't think I'm ungrateful: I'm pleased and constantly amazed by how much has already been squeezed into a computer that takes less space than a trade paperback, and it's true that space trade-offs make it hard to squeeze in all the full-size ports I'd prefer. But most of these are features that exist in some form, and don't require anything to spring from the forehead of the Media Lab. I hope that by this time next year it'll be a smaller list of features I'm still looking for.

timothy writes "For the last few years, I've been using Android tablets for various of the reasons that most casual tablet owners do: as a handy playback device for movies and music, a surprisingly decent interface for reading books, a good-enough camera for many purposes, and a communications terminal for instant messaging and video chat. I started out with a Motorola Xoom, which I still use around the house or as a music player in the car, but only started actually carrying a tablet very often when I got a Nexus 7. And while I have some high praise for the Nexus 7, its limitations are frustrating, too. I'll be more excited about a tablet when I can find one with (simultaneously) more of the features I want in one. So here's my wish list (not exhaustive) for the ideal tablet of the future, consisting only of features that are either currently available in some relevant form (such as in existing tablets), or should be in the foreseeable near future; I'll be on the lookout at CES for whatever choices come closest to this dream." Read below to see what's on Timothy's wish list. Here's my current mild-fantasy feature list; if you know of better ways to meet these desires, or even more compelling features you'd like to see, I'd like to hear them.

Integrated GPS navigation with built-in maps, not relying on an (always brittle, often expensive) ongoing data connection, or relying on a 3rd-party app. Even cheap standalone GPS units come loaded with maps, which means putting those maps on is possible, and (except from the standpoint of the companies who sell you data by the byte) it would be a good idea. Google's maps app provides a passable workaround, in the form of cached data, so you can load up the maps you need for a given route while you're sitting at a cheap and fast broadband connection, but in practice I'd found it iffy; sometimes the navigation refuses to recognize the maps I've loaded.

So long as you've got a data plan you don't mind dipping into, and are within cellular coverage range, that's fine, but large stretches of the Western U.S. in particular could leave you reliant on paper maps or a really good memory. If Garmin and company can put 6 million points of interest on pocket-sized GPS devices, and has been doing so for the last decade, shouldn't tablet makers do the same? (Not that freshly updated maps with handy chunks of crowd-sourced data are a bad thing; they just shouldn't be the only option. Graceful failure is reason enough to include a basic map set by default.)

(Two related pipe-dreams: 1) Future integration, too, with Gallileo and Beidou — the EU and Chinese equivalents to the U.S. made GPS constellation, and 2) integration with Open Street Maps. Every tablet should be a mapping tool, not just a map reader.)

A full sized USB port. Two of them, even better, but I'd settle for one. USB keys are the easiest way to transmit a certain size of file, close range, in particular when that's already the medium the file occupies. Things like Dropbox help, but don't pass the Mom test (at least in my family), and require extra steps if the document / podcast / video clip is right there in your pocket, just in an unusable form. The other reason I want a full-size USB port is that as impressive it is to have a tiny computer and display in a pocketable device, there is not yet a more efficient way for a sitting person to enter text than a keyboard, and tiny tablet-focused portable keyboards are a weak tool of convenience rather than actually *good,* generally. For light travel, sure. But I'd like to pop to the coffee shop to work for a while with a 1-pound tablet and a real keyboard. Workaround: There are Bluetooth keyboards, but the only true way to get a full-size USB ports for most tablets is by picking up a dongle from Amazon or Deal Extreme, but that's both an extra part to break or lose, and a hassle that it would be nice to skip.

A better "swiping" keyboard. Since I can't always carry a Model M keyboard, I want a keyboard as good as the Swype version that came with my aging but once high-end Samsung phone (Galaxy S). I've tried some Swype versions intended for tablets, but they made the mistake of making the control surface bigger (I suspect to "take advantage of all that space") rather than kept it sensibly small and fast. Being able to zip my finger around quickly is exactly why the one on the phone has totally changed my view of touch keyboards. The swiping keyboard that came with the newest versions of Android is a mixed bag: it's welcome, but at least in my experience so far suffers worse accuracy than does Swype. (On the other hand, the actual included vocabulary seems broader; I've had to customize the dictionary much less often.)

Daylight readable screen of some kind. Pixel Qi is the obvious one right now, but there's also one from Mirasol that I've seen demoed, but which seems unlikely (sorry) to see the light of day. Except for the impressive use of the same technology in the OLPC project's XO kid-centric laptops, Pixel Qi's screens have been mostly going into military and industrial displays, though, rather than into consumer tablets. There's a market waiting for daylight readable color screens!

Hardware toggles for cameras and all wireless capabilities. That is, anything which could betray privacy should be labeled and defeatable. Among other good reasons for this, it might make some devices more acceptable in workplaces with restrictive policies on personal technology. At the last CES, I saw a few Chinese Android tablets that had what looked from their icons like external Wi-Fi toggle switches, but wasn't able to quite confirm that with the vendors. Not every camera-equipped, Wi-Fi-equipped laptop has a physical toggle for either or both of these, but some do, and I'd pay a few more dollars for the capability.

HDMI out: This is common enough on recent tablets, but mostly in the form of a tiny mini-HDMI port. There are a few exceptions, but I'd like to see more. Just as with USB, I'd rather a slightly chunkier case if it means not needing a fistful of finicky cables and adapters. Being able to plug a tablet conveniently into any HDMI-equipped display would be handy; it's more computer than most of us had at all just a few years ago.

Decent in-built stereo recorder: Many tablets (and practically all smartphones as well as many feature phones) include a voice memo feature; that's handy, but it's a shame to waste the capabilities of the rest of the device on just that. Surprisingly good stereo recorders — included ones marketed as "business recorders," but severely overqualified — start at less than $100, and typical tablets have far more horsepower, not to mention a more flexible control surface for apps to control audio recording. In the iWorld, there are dozens of stereo input devices, as well as DI boxes for electric instruments, but not even Apple's devices come with a Just-Hit-Record stereo recording mic, which is too bad. Can you recommend any Android tablets with good built-in stereo mics, or third-party add-ons?

Bright LED light built in: This one, at least, is now the rule to which there are exceptions, rather than the other way 'round. It shows that sometimes the features-list game goes the right direction.

Alternative OS support. This isn't something I expect tablet makers to trumpet; they generally want you to run their choice of OS (whether the underlying tablet is from Apple, Microsoft, or the vast Google/Android conspiracy). But they don't have to; they just have to not make it impossible for others to do the work for them. In the last few months alone we've seen Linux (both Ubuntu for ARM and KDE Plasma Active) ported to the Nexus 7, and the Cyanogenmod developers have for years been making many handset and tablet makers' upgrade abilities look just plain silly. It's not just for novelty, either: right now, I'd like to be able to offload footage from my video camera to a tablet for uploading, which would mean I could stop carrying a laptop around quite so often. If I risk bricking my tablet by installing one of those Linux varieties, that might just be a practical option.

For now, don't think I'm ungrateful: I'm pleased and constantly amazed by how much has already been squeezed into a computer that takes less space than a trade paperback, and it's true that space trade-offs make it hard to squeeze in all the full-size ports I'd prefer. But most of these are features that exist in some form, and don't require anything to spring from the forehead of the Media Lab. I hope that by this time next year it'll be a smaller list of features I'm still looking for.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Google tried to extend its influence to televisions, an effort that largely crashed and burned. Apple executives call Apple TV a 'hobby,' although it's been long-rumored that their company has a television set in the works. And Microsoft's made a muscular attempt to conquer the living room with the Xbox, which now does a lot more than just video games. If current rumors prove correct, you can soon add Intel to that list of IT giants with an eye on televisions. According to TechCrunch and SlashGear, the chip manufacturer is prepping to unveil a first-generation television system of some sort at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. TechCrunch suggests that Intel will debut the system on a city-by-city basis, similar to what Google's doing with Google Fiber, in order to maintain 'more flexibility in negotiating licensing with reluctant content providers.' (The publication's information comes from the ever-popular unnamed sources.) In essence, Intel is proposing a set-top box paired with a subscription service, which would provide a mixture of traditional programming alongside streaming content."

hypnosec writes "With Linux enthusiasts and distro publishers eagerly waiting for a solution to Microsoft's UEFI SecureBoot, there are those who have already looked at the viability of Linux on Microsoft Surface tablet. Matthew Garrett, a.k.a. UEFI-guru, has revealed that those who are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping to find run Linux on Microsoft's tablet are on an uphill walk and it doesn't seem to be an easy one. So why is this? The answer is in the manner in which Microsoft has restricted the Surface from loading non-signed software / binaries by implementing UEFI SecureBoot. Microsoft has loaded on the ARM based tablet its private key instead of the 'Microsoft Windows UEFI Driver Publisher' key, which is needed to sign non-Microsoft software like Linux distributions or loaders. So, no publisher key = no signed non-Microsoft binary = no Linux."

On Saturday, Pakistan briefly lifted the months-old ban on YouTube, spurred by the widely distributed U.S.-made video presented as a trailer for a film titled "Innocence of Muslims" and decried in many places around the world as blasphemous toward Islam. "After months of criticism of the ban, the government decided to allow Pakistanis to have access to YouTube again, saying steps had been taken to ensure that offensive content would not be visible. But those efforts apparently failed, and the authorities quickly backtracked," writes the New York Times. "Quickly" is right: access to YouTube was apparently open for just three minutes, which seems about right; it shouldn't take longer than that to discover things on the site to which adherents of any particular religion might take umbrage. What's surprising is that this took lifting the censorship on a wide scale, rather than just taking a smaller peek through tunneling software.

Yesterday, we ran a story with the headline "Free Software Foundation Campaigning To Stop UEFI SecureBoot." It's more complicated than that, though, writes gnujoshua: "We want computer manufacturers to implement Secure Boot in a way that is secure. If a user can't disable Secure Boot and they are unable to sign their own software (e.g., bootloader, OS, etc), then we call that particular implementation 'Restricted Boot.' We don't want computer makers to implement Restricted Boot. We want them to implement Secure Boot and to provide a way for individuals to install a fully free OS on their computers. Many computer makers are implementing UEFI Secure Boot in this way, and we want to continue encouraging them to do so." The complete text of the statement they'd like people to sign reads: "We, the undersigned, urge all computer makers implementing UEFI's so-called "Secure Boot" to do it in a way that allows free software operating systems to be installed. To respect user freedom and truly protect user security, manufacturers must either allow computer owners to disable the boot restrictions, or provide a sure-fire way for them to install and run a free software operating system of their choice. We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom, and we will actively urge people in our communities to avoid such jailed systems."

McGruber writes "Possibly the wierdest tax-writeoff of the year happened when Meg Whitman claimed that her US-based multinational corporation HP had been defrauded by British-software firm Autonomy; Ms. Whitman and HP claimed an 8.8 billion dollar write-down. As the Los Angeles Times explains, 'HP acquired Autonomy in 2011 for $11 billion, a move it hoped would turn it away from its dependence on sales of computer hardware with its low profit margins, and into the more profitable business of software. However, the price HP paid was widely criticized for being too high, and in part led to the subsequent ouster of Chief Executive Leo Apotheker.' The wierdness continues — in its annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, HP claims that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into HP's allegations that HP has uncovered widespread accounting fraud at Autonomy. However, The Guardian points out that former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch claims that HP 'is watering down the accusations it had levelled against him over the accounts filed by his old software company.' Mr. Lynch also says that he has not been contacted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which HP claims is investigating the alleged fraud. Perhaps Slashdot's users can help make sense of this mess and help explain it to me?"

Earth-like exoplanets have gotten a lot of attention in the last few years; it's exciting to think that there's life — or even just life-sustaining conditions — on planets other than Earth, whether near by (on Mars) or much farther away (orbiting Vega). Projects like NASA's Kepler, and the ground-based HARPS, attempt to spot planets outside our solar system of all kinds. These exoplanet discoveries have been ramping up lately, and so has sorting of the discovered planets by size and other characteristics; the odds are looking good, say astronomers quoted by Space.com, that an Earth-like planet will be found this year. Abel Mendez runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, and UC Berkeley astromer Geoff Marcy looks for planets as part of the Kepler team; they explain in the article why they think 2013 is an auspicious one for planet hunters.

Earth-like exoplanets have gotten a lot of attention in the last few years; it's exciting to think that there's life — or even just life-sustaining conditions — on planets other than Earth, whether near by (on Mars) or much farther away (orbiting Vega). Projects like NASA's Kepler, and the ground-based HARPS, attempt to spot planets outside our solar system of all kinds. These exoplanet discoveries have been ramping up lately, and so has sorting of the discovered planets by size and other characteristics; the odds are looking good, say astronomers quoted by Space.com, that an Earth-like planet will be found this year. Abel Mendez runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, and UC Berkeley astromer Geoff Marcy looks for planets as part of the Kepler team; they explain in the article why they think 2013 is an auspicious one for planet hunters.

Earth-like exoplanets have gotten a lot of attention in the last few years; it's exciting to think that there's life — or even just life-sustaining conditions — on planets other than Earth, whether near by (on Mars) or much farther away (orbiting Vega). Projects like NASA's Kepler, and the ground-based HARPS, attempt to spot planets outside our solar system of all kinds. These exoplanet discoveries have been ramping up lately, and so has sorting of the discovered planets by size and other characteristics; the odds are looking good, say astronomers quoted by Space.com, that an Earth-like planet will be found this year. Abel Mendez runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, and UC Berkeley astromer Geoff Marcy looks for planets as part of the Kepler team; they explain in the article why they think 2013 is an auspicious one for planet hunters.

theodp writes "Rudy Giuliani had John Gotti to worry about; Mike Bloomberg has Steve Jobs. Despite all-time lows for the city in homicides and shootings, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said overall crime in New York City was up 3.3% in 2012 due to iPhone, iPad and other Apple device thefts, which have increased by 3,890 this year. 'If you just took away the jump in Apple, we'd be down for the year,' explained Marc La Vorgna, the mayor's press secretary. 'The proliferation of people carrying expensive devices around is so great,' La Vorgna added. 'It's something that's never had to be dealt with before.' Bloomberg also took to the radio, urging New Yorkers who didn't want to become a crime statistic to keep their iDevices in an interior, hard-to-reach pocket: 'Put it in a pocket in sort of a more body-fitting, tighter clothes, that you can feel if it was — if somebody put their hand in your pocket, not just an outside coat pocket.' But it seems the best way to fight the iCrime Wave might be to slash the $699 price of an iPhone (unactivated), which costs an estimated $207 to make. The U.S. phone subsidy model reportedly adds $400+ to the price of an iPhone. So, is offering unlocked alternatives at much more reasonable prices than an iPhone — like the $299 Nexus 4, for starters — the real key to taking a bite out of cellphone crime? After all, didn't dramatic price cuts pretty much kill car stereo theft?"

mbadolato writes "On December 9, 2012, Slashdot reported that the FreeBSD Foundation was falling short of their 2012 goal of $500,000 by nearly 50%. For all of those that continued to echo about how FreeBSD is dying, it's less than three weeks later and the total is presently nearing $200,000 OVER the goal. Netcraft continues to be wrong." And reader hypnosec adds another crowdfunding success story: "The Wikimedia Foundation has announced at the conclusion of its ninth annual fund-raiser that it has managed to raise a whopping $25 million from 1.2 million donors in just over a week's time. ... As compared to last year's fund-raiser, which got completed in 46 days, this year's was completed in just nine days."

In January of this year, we posted news of a major pollution site in Texas that was the subject of some anonymous amateur sleuths with drones, who used their UAVs to document the release of a "river of blood" (pig blood, that is) into the Trinity River as it flows through Dallas. Now, garymortimer writes, that documentation has resulted in legal action in the form of an indictment from a Dallas grand jury. "The story went viral and continues to receive hits nearly a year later. I believe this is the first environmental crime to be prosecuted on the basis of UA evidence. Authorities had to act because of the attention the story was receiving."

theodp writes "Facebook is unlikely to make many new (non-investor) friends with reports that it paid Irish taxes of about $4.64 million on its entire non-U.S. profits of $1.344 billion for 2011. 'Facebook operates a second subsidiary that is incorporated in Ireland but controlled in the Cayman Islands,' Kenneth Thomas explains. 'This subsidiary owns Facebook Ireland, but the setup allows the two companies to be considered as one for U.S. tax purposes, but separate for Irish tax purposes. The Caymans-operated subsidiary owns the rights to use Facebook's intellectual property outside the U.S., for which Facebook Ireland pays hefty royalties to use. This lets Facebook Ireland transfer the profits from low-tax Ireland to no-tax Cayman Islands.' In 2008, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg cited 'local world-class talent' as the motivation behind Facebook's choice of tax-haven Dublin for its international HQ. Similar tax moves by Google, Microsoft, and others who have sought the luck-of-the-Double-Irish present quite a dilemma for tax revenue-seeking governments. Invoking Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous common sense definition of ethics ('Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do') is unlikely to sway corporations whose top execs send the message that tax avoidance is the right thing to do and something to be proud of."

theodp writes "Facebook is unlikely to make many new (non-investor) friends with reports that it paid Irish taxes of about $4.64 million on its entire non-U.S. profits of $1.344 billion for 2011. 'Facebook operates a second subsidiary that is incorporated in Ireland but controlled in the Cayman Islands,' Kenneth Thomas explains. 'This subsidiary owns Facebook Ireland, but the setup allows the two companies to be considered as one for U.S. tax purposes, but separate for Irish tax purposes. The Caymans-operated subsidiary owns the rights to use Facebook's intellectual property outside the U.S., for which Facebook Ireland pays hefty royalties to use. This lets Facebook Ireland transfer the profits from low-tax Ireland to no-tax Cayman Islands.' In 2008, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg cited 'local world-class talent' as the motivation behind Facebook's choice of tax-haven Dublin for its international HQ. Similar tax moves by Google, Microsoft, and others who have sought the luck-of-the-Double-Irish present quite a dilemma for tax revenue-seeking governments. Invoking Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous common sense definition of ethics ('Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do') is unlikely to sway corporations whose top execs send the message that tax avoidance is the right thing to do and something to be proud of."

theodp writes "Facebook is unlikely to make many new (non-investor) friends with reports that it paid Irish taxes of about $4.64 million on its entire non-U.S. profits of $1.344 billion for 2011. 'Facebook operates a second subsidiary that is incorporated in Ireland but controlled in the Cayman Islands,' Kenneth Thomas explains. 'This subsidiary owns Facebook Ireland, but the setup allows the two companies to be considered as one for U.S. tax purposes, but separate for Irish tax purposes. The Caymans-operated subsidiary owns the rights to use Facebook's intellectual property outside the U.S., for which Facebook Ireland pays hefty royalties to use. This lets Facebook Ireland transfer the profits from low-tax Ireland to no-tax Cayman Islands.' In 2008, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg cited 'local world-class talent' as the motivation behind Facebook's choice of tax-haven Dublin for its international HQ. Similar tax moves by Google, Microsoft, and others who have sought the luck-of-the-Double-Irish present quite a dilemma for tax revenue-seeking governments. Invoking Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous common sense definition of ethics ('Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do') is unlikely to sway corporations whose top execs send the message that tax avoidance is the right thing to do and something to be proud of."

Nerval's Lobster writes "When AppData first posted a graph showing a 25 percent drop in Instagram's daily active users, it sparked a flurry of discussion online—much of it focused on the recent controversy over the photo-sharing service's Terms of Use. The New York Post, for example, blamed the dip on a 'revolt' among Instagram users incensed over changes in the Terms of Use, including new legalese that some interpreted as blanket permission for the service to start selling user photos to advertisers. But a new statement from AppData, which tracks app traffic, suggests there's another cause behind the dip in daily active users: the season. 'The decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes,' read a statement the firm sent to The Wall Street Journal. 'The drop between Dec. 24 and 25 seems likely to be related to the holiday, during which time people are traveling and otherwise have different routines than usual.'" It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all. AppData only checks a subset of Instagram users, and the photo-sharing site itself has said the data represented there is not accurate. Another article points out that several other Facebook-related services showed significant drops, according to AppData, which could suggests a problem with the entire platform or with the data gathering methods.

Nerval's Lobster writes "When AppData first posted a graph showing a 25 percent drop in Instagram's daily active users, it sparked a flurry of discussion online—much of it focused on the recent controversy over the photo-sharing service's Terms of Use. The New York Post, for example, blamed the dip on a 'revolt' among Instagram users incensed over changes in the Terms of Use, including new legalese that some interpreted as blanket permission for the service to start selling user photos to advertisers. But a new statement from AppData, which tracks app traffic, suggests there's another cause behind the dip in daily active users: the season. 'The decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes,' read a statement the firm sent to The Wall Street Journal. 'The drop between Dec. 24 and 25 seems likely to be related to the holiday, during which time people are traveling and otherwise have different routines than usual.'" It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all. AppData only checks a subset of Instagram users, and the photo-sharing site itself has said the data represented there is not accurate. Another article points out that several other Facebook-related services showed significant drops, according to AppData, which could suggests a problem with the entire platform or with the data gathering methods.

Every years, McAfee Labs produces a list of predictions relating to computer security for the next 12 months. Last year (PDF) they said Anonymous would have to reinvent itself, and that there would be an overall increase in online hacktivism. This year's report (PDF) is not as optimistic for the hacking collective. "Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline." That's not to say they think hacktivism itself is on the decline, though: "Meanwhile, patriot groups self-organized into cyberarmies and spreading their extremist views will flourish. Up to now their efforts have had little impact (generally defacement of websites or DDoS for a very short period), but their actions will improve in sophistication and aggressiveness." The report also predicts that malware kits will lead to an "explosion in malware" for OS X and mobile, but that Windows 8 will be the next big target.

It looks like the long and winding road of the John McAfee saga is going to continue for at least a little longer. McAfee posted a detailed blog post about how he was able to elude Belizean authorities and sneak out of the country. From the article: "'It's visually interesting and it is mostly a happy story — in line with most Christmas stories,' he wrote. The former software executive describes an operation that was heavy in advance planning and trickery. He says he planted a lookalike ('my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee') and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he'd been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax."

It looks like the long and winding road of the John McAfee saga is going to continue for at least a little longer. McAfee posted a detailed blog post about how he was able to elude Belizean authorities and sneak out of the country. From the article: "'It's visually interesting and it is mostly a happy story — in line with most Christmas stories,' he wrote. The former software executive describes an operation that was heavy in advance planning and trickery. He says he planted a lookalike ('my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee') and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he'd been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax."

It looks like the long and winding road of the John McAfee saga is going to continue for at least a little longer. McAfee posted a detailed blog post about how he was able to elude Belizean authorities and sneak out of the country. From the article: "'It's visually interesting and it is mostly a happy story — in line with most Christmas stories,' he wrote. The former software executive describes an operation that was heavy in advance planning and trickery. He says he planted a lookalike ('my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee') and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he'd been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax."

A British plan to blast a path through more than two miles of ice to reach an Antarctic lake has been suspended because of technical problems. From the article: "In a move that clears the way for U.S. and Russian teams to take the lead, Professor Martin Siegert said technical problems and a lack of fuel had forced the closure on Christmas Day of the 7-million-pound ($11 million) project, which was looking for life forms and climate change clues in the lake-bed sediment. 'This is of course, hugely frustrating for us, but we have learned a lot this year,' said Siegert of the University of Bristol, principal investigator for the mission, which was headed by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). 'By the end, the equipment was working well, and much of it has now been fully field-tested,' he said on the BAS website."

theodp writes "After recent Slashdot discussions on Google's quest to unseat Microsoft Office in business and whether Google Docs and MS-Word are an even matchup, let's complete the trilogy by bringing up the inconvenient truth that numerous Google job postings state that candidates with Microsoft Office expertise are 'preferred' to those lacking these skills. 'For example,' notes GeekWire, 'when hiring an executive compensation analyst to support Google's board, the company will give preference to candidates who are 'proficient with Microsoft Excel."' Parents and kids at schools that have gone or are going Google are reassured that, 'it is more important to teach technology skills than specific programs' and that 'Google itself uses Google Apps to run its multi-billion dollar company.' Which, for the most part, is true. Just don't count on getting certain Google jobs with that attitude, kids!"

theodp writes "After recent Slashdot discussions on Google's quest to unseat Microsoft Office in business and whether Google Docs and MS-Word are an even matchup, let's complete the trilogy by bringing up the inconvenient truth that numerous Google job postings state that candidates with Microsoft Office expertise are 'preferred' to those lacking these skills. 'For example,' notes GeekWire, 'when hiring an executive compensation analyst to support Google's board, the company will give preference to candidates who are 'proficient with Microsoft Excel."' Parents and kids at schools that have gone or are going Google are reassured that, 'it is more important to teach technology skills than specific programs' and that 'Google itself uses Google Apps to run its multi-billion dollar company.' Which, for the most part, is true. Just don't count on getting certain Google jobs with that attitude, kids!"

A Google Fiberhood-style rollout in the U.S., says a Goldman-Sachs estimate, would cost in the neighborhood of $140 billion. Even for Israel, a country approximately the size of New Jersey, there's a high pricetag ("billions of shekels") for installing fiber optics dense enough to reach most of the population, but just a massive fiber-optic rollout is planned, with the project led by Swedish firm Viaeuropa. If the scheme succeeds, it will cover two thirds of the country over the next 10 years or so.

A Google Fiberhood-style rollout in the U.S., says a Goldman-Sachs estimate, would cost in the neighborhood of $140 billion. Even for Israel, a country approximately the size of New Jersey, there's a high pricetag ("billions of shekels") for installing fiber optics dense enough to reach most of the population, but just a massive fiber-optic rollout is planned, with the project led by Swedish firm Viaeuropa. If the scheme succeeds, it will cover two thirds of the country over the next 10 years or so.

An anonymous reader writes "The wireless patent wars don't pause at Christmas time, keeping numerous IP lawyers (and a certain litigation watcher) busy even at this time of year. No one seriously expected Samsung to turn the other cheek when Ericsson sued it and requested a U.S. import ban against a host of Galaxy devices. The Korean electronics giant, which is increasingly competing with Ericsson in the telecoms infrastructure market, just filed an ITC complaint of its own. The title of the complaint is Certain Wireless Communication Equipment and Articles Therein. That description would apply to dozens, no: hundreds, of patent lawsuits in the world. The complaint has not been published yet, but it would be out of character for Samsung not to assert some of its patents on wireless industry standards (and maybe some others, too)." (Also at the BBC.)

Lasrick writes "David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists analyzes the debris from North Korea's December 11th Unha-3 launch. From the article: 'According to press reports, traces on the inner walls of the tank show that the first-stage oxidizer is a form of nitric acid called "red-fuming nitric acid," which is the standard oxidizer used in Scud-type missiles. There had been some speculation that this stage might instead use a more advanced fuel with nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as the oxidizer. Since the Nodong engines believed to power the first stage are scaled-up Scud engines, the use of RNFA is not a surprise. There have also been claims that the stage uses a more advanced fuel called UDMH, but it appears instead to be the kerosene-based fuel used in Scuds. In his recent RAND study, Markus Schiller noted that a test Iraq performed using UDMH in a Scud engine gave poor performance, and that burning UDMH gives a transparent flame. The North Korean video of the launch instead shows an orange flame characteristic of Scud fuels (Figure 3 is an image from 12:44 into the video). These findings confirm that the stage is still Scud-level technology.'"

Nerval's Lobster writes "Software developer Jeff Cogswell writes: 'About a year ago, I decided to migrate my documents to Google Docs and start using it for all my professional writing. I quickly hit some problems; frankly, Google Docs wasn't as good an option as I'd initially hoped. Now I use LibreOffice on my desktop, and it works well, but I had to go through long odysseys with Google Docs and Zoho Docs to reach this point. Is Microsoft Word actually better than Google Docs and Zoho Docs? For my work, the answer is "yes," but this doesn't make me particularly happy. In the following essay, I present my problems with Google Docs and Zoho Docs (as well as some possible solutions) from my perspective as both a professional writer and a software developer.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Today China continued rolling out the future of high speed rail by officially unveiling the world's longest high-speed rail line — a 2,298-kilometer (1,428-mile) stretch of railway that connects Beijing in the north to Guangzhou in the south. The first trains on the new route hit 300 kph (186 mph), cutting travel time between the two cities by more than half."

wiredmikey writes "Iranian officials on Tuesday said a 'Stuxnet-like' cyberattack hit some industrial units in a southern province. 'A virus had penetrated some manufacturing industries in Hormuzgan province, but its progress was halted,' Ali Akbar Akhavan said, quoted by the ISNA news agency. Akhavan said the malware was 'Stuxnet-like' but did not elaborate, and that the attack had occurred over the 'past few months.' One of the targets of the latest attack was the Bandar Abbas Tavanir Co, which oversees electricity production and distribution in Hormuzgan and adjacent provinces. He also accused 'enemies' of constantly seeking to disrupt operations at Iran's industrial units through cyberattacks, without specifying how much damage had been caused. Iran has blamed the U.S. and Israel for cyberattacks in the past. In April, it said a voracious malware attack had hit computers running key parts of its oil sector and succeeded in wiping data off official servers."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recaps two court cases pending in the U.S. which will decide whether you're allowed to re-sell the things you purchase. The first case deals with items bought in other countries for resale in the U.S., such as textbooks. An unfavorable decision there would mean "anything that is made in a foreign country and contains copies of copyrighted material – from the textbooks at issue in the Kirtsaeng case to shampoo bottles with copyrighted labels – could be blocked from resale, lending, or gifting without the permission of the copyright owner. That would create a nightmare for consumers and businesses, upending used goods markets and undermining what it really means to 'buy' and 'own' physical goods. The ruling also creates a perverse incentive for U.S. businesses to move their manufacturing operations abroad. It is difficult for us to imagine this is the outcome Congress intended." The second case is about whether music purchased on services like iTunes can be resold to other people. "Not only does big content deny that first sale doctrine applies to digital goods, but they are also trying to undermine the first sale rights we do have by forcing users to license items they would rather buy. The copyright industry wants you to "license" all your music, your movies, your games — and lose your rights to sell them or modify them as you see fit."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recaps two court cases pending in the U.S. which will decide whether you're allowed to re-sell the things you purchase. The first case deals with items bought in other countries for resale in the U.S., such as textbooks. An unfavorable decision there would mean "anything that is made in a foreign country and contains copies of copyrighted material – from the textbooks at issue in the Kirtsaeng case to shampoo bottles with copyrighted labels – could be blocked from resale, lending, or gifting without the permission of the copyright owner. That would create a nightmare for consumers and businesses, upending used goods markets and undermining what it really means to 'buy' and 'own' physical goods. The ruling also creates a perverse incentive for U.S. businesses to move their manufacturing operations abroad. It is difficult for us to imagine this is the outcome Congress intended." The second case is about whether music purchased on services like iTunes can be resold to other people. "Not only does big content deny that first sale doctrine applies to digital goods, but they are also trying to undermine the first sale rights we do have by forcing users to license items they would rather buy. The copyright industry wants you to "license" all your music, your movies, your games — and lose your rights to sell them or modify them as you see fit."

New submitter Alex Belits writes "Users of the Instagram image sharing service owned by Facebook filed a class action against Facebook for the recent change in Terms of Service." The changes that were supposed to take effect on January 16, 2013 declared for Facebook an unlimited right to use and license users' photos, added an arbitration requirement for legal disputes, and more. Guess the lawyers involved here weren't impressed enough by Facebook's hasty back-pedaling on this front; the company did explicitly disclaim ownership interest in the uploaded photos after a wave of complaints, but left in place certain other clauses in the new terms.

New submitter Alex Belits writes "Users of the Instagram image sharing service owned by Facebook filed a class action against Facebook for the recent change in Terms of Service." The changes that were supposed to take effect on January 16, 2013 declared for Facebook an unlimited right to use and license users' photos, added an arbitration requirement for legal disputes, and more. Guess the lawyers involved here weren't impressed enough by Facebook's hasty back-pedaling on this front; the company did explicitly disclaim ownership interest in the uploaded photos after a wave of complaints, but left in place certain other clauses in the new terms.

retroworks writes "In August 2011, Acer Chairman JT Wang declared that the consumer affection for tablets had already begun to cool, basically labeling it a fad. What a difference a year (and a half) makes. Acer now plans to introduce a 'category killer' $99 tablet. 'In the past few months, we've made project roadmap changes in response to big changes in the tablet market,' according to a source at the Wall Street Journal. 'The launch of the Nexus 10 has changed the outlook for what makes competitive pricing.' Acer is aiming the new tablet at emerging markets, competing with Chinese 'white box' tablets (already available in Shenzhen at $45 each)."

Dupple writes with news of another tech patent thrown out for obviousness. From the article: "On Friday, the High Court of London issued a ruling that said that one of Motorola's patents covering technology to synchronize messages across several devices should be invalidated. Originally, the patent covered the synching of messages across multiple pagers, but recently Motorola has used the patent in lawsuits against Apple and Microsoft for using similar message-syncing services in iCloud and on the Xbox, respectively. The presiding Judge Richard Arnold declared Motorola's patent invalid and said it should be revoked because the patent (which has a priority date from 1995, but was issued in 2002) contained technology that 'was obvious to experts in the field at the time.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Clement Moore writes

'Twas the night before Christmas,
and while not a creature was stirring (not even an optical mouse),
/.'ers were posting & moderating with squeals of delight.
When out on the Internet there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my keyboard to see what was the matter.
I knew in a moment it must be Alek's Controllable Christmas Lights Webcam.
But remembered in previous years it was a hoax - /. said damn.
And then, in a twinkling, I realize Alek has done it for real — W'OH!
With 20,000 lights plus giant inflatable Elmo, Frosty, Santa, SpongeBob, and Homer Simpson — D'OH!
The X10 controls and 3 live webcams provide such clarity,
that it has raised over $70,000 for Celiac charity.
'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!'"

benrothke writes "When the IBM PC first came out 31 years ago, it supported a maximum of 256KB RAM. You can buy an equivalent computer today with substantially more CPU power at a fraction of the price. But in those 31 years, the information security functionality in which the PC operates has not progressed accordingly. In Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents, author Jean-François Blanchette observes that the move to a paperless society means that paper-based evidence needs to be recreated in the digital world. It also requires an underlying security functionality to flow seamlessly across organizations, government agencies and the like. While the computing power is there, the ability to create a seamless cryptographic culture is much slower in coming." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review. Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents author Jean-François Blanchette pages 288 publisher MIT Press rating 9/10 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 978-0262017510 summary Excellent overview and history of using cryptography to build a trust framework The so called Year of the PKI has been waiting for over a decade, and after reading Burdens of Proof, it is evident why a large-scale PKI will be a long time in coming. More than that, getting the infrastructure in place in a complex environment that exists in the USA with myriad jurisdictions and technologies may prove ultimately to be impossibility.

The irony is that an effective mechanism for digital authentication would seem to be an indispensable part of the digital age. The lack of such an authentication infrastructure may be the very reason that fraud, malware, identity theft and much more, are so pervasive on the Internet.

The premise of this fascinating book is that the slow decline from the use of paper from a legal and evidentiary perspective has significant consequences. For the last few hundred years, paper has been ubiquitous in modern life; from legal and health records, school, employment and everything in between.

The book details the many challenges that businesses and governments face in moving from a paper-based record society and the underlying trust mechanisms that go along with it, to a new digital-based record system, and how a new framework is needed for such a method. The book details part of that new framework.

The book opens with an observation on the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. While Blanchette is not a birther, he does note that if the moral authority of paper records has diminished, then the electronic documents replacing them, which are what the Obama administration provided, appear to be even more malleable. And that is precisely the issue that he addresses.

Blanchette details a compelling story and writes it as an insider. He was a member of a task force appointed in 1999 by the French Ministry of Justice to provide guidance on the reform of the rules governing the admissibility of written evidence in French courts, into a digital format.

The first few chapters provide an excellent overview of the history of cryptography. Chapter 3 – On the Brink of a Revolution– gives an excellent summary of cryptography from 1976 on, starting with seminal research that was done by Diffie and Hellman, and Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA).

In chapter 5, Blanchette details his narrative about how France embraced and moved to a more digital governmental framework. He notes that the challenge was that France was the country that gave bureaucracy its name, and is a place where citizens must carry at all times their papers d'identite and is a society enmeshed in paper. Blanchette writes of the many French bureaucracies that had to let go of their protectionist stances as they moved down the path to letting electronic documents have legal validity.

Blanchette writes that in France, one of the biggest impediments to moving to a digital framework were the French civil-law notaries or notaire. French notaries are much more powerful than a notary public in the US, and are closer to being what a paralegal does in the US.

The French notaire are a wealthy and powerful monopoly when it comes to issues of purchases, sales, exchanges, co-ownerships, land plots, leases, mortgages and the like. A notaire can form a corporation prepare commercial business leases and much more. The entire French notary profession had been dependent on its monopoly to grant authenticity, and no definition of electronic authenticity could emerge and succeed if it did not meet its criteria.

While paper trust may be intuitive now, Blanchette writes that it wasn't always the case. When documents were first created (whenever that may have been), they did not immediately inspire trust. As with other innovations, there was a long and complex period of evolution needed to gain accepted levels of trust.

In chapter 6, the books notes that many people assumed cryptography would be the mechanism that would inspire trust in the digital world. Blanchette writes that the mistake cryptographers made and sometimes continue to make; is that they often assumed that the properties of cryptographic objects will translate transparently into the complex social and institutional setting in which they are deployed in.

This was incisively noted in Why Johnny Can't Encrypt, which was a usability evaluation of PGP by Whitten and Tygar. The author's observed that user errors cause or contribute to most computer security failures, yet user interfaces for security still tend to be clumsy, confusing, or near-nonexistent. While the paper was written in 1999, most of its findings are still relevant.

Chapter 6 provides 3 fascinating case studies that show have different approach to security technology and cryptographic deployments are imperative in ensuring that they work.

In just under 200 pages, the books 7 chapters provide both a fascinating overview of the history of cryptography, in addition to showing how cryptography can be effectively used to authenticate digital documents. The book also has a high-level framework (a comprehensive framework would require at least 5 times as many pages) for an effective cryptographic framework for digital trust.

As Blanchette notes many times in the book, the challenge with getting digital signatures to work is not with the technology; rather it is with the underlying societal infrastructure in which to make it work. France was brought kicking and screaming into the age of electronic authentication, and is one of the few countries that have had such widespread success.

The book is a fascinating read that details how frustrating difficult it has been to create a comprehensive mechanism for digital authentication. The book raises many beguiling questions, and Blanchette is smart enough to notes that there are no simply answers to these multifaceted problems.

Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents is both a fascinating overview of the history of paper and electronic authentication, in addition to providing a synopsis of what it will take to make create a cryptographic culture, where digital evidence will be as accepted in the courtroom, as its antique paper cousin.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

You can purchase Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

benrothke writes "When the IBM PC first came out 31 years ago, it supported a maximum of 256KB RAM. You can buy an equivalent computer today with substantially more CPU power at a fraction of the price. But in those 31 years, the information security functionality in which the PC operates has not progressed accordingly. In Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents, author Jean-François Blanchette observes that the move to a paperless society means that paper-based evidence needs to be recreated in the digital world. It also requires an underlying security functionality to flow seamlessly across organizations, government agencies and the like. While the computing power is there, the ability to create a seamless cryptographic culture is much slower in coming." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review. Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents author Jean-François Blanchette pages 288 publisher MIT Press rating 9/10 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 978-0262017510 summary Excellent overview and history of using cryptography to build a trust framework The so called Year of the PKI has been waiting for over a decade, and after reading Burdens of Proof, it is evident why a large-scale PKI will be a long time in coming. More than that, getting the infrastructure in place in a complex environment that exists in the USA with myriad jurisdictions and technologies may prove ultimately to be impossibility.

The irony is that an effective mechanism for digital authentication would seem to be an indispensable part of the digital age. The lack of such an authentication infrastructure may be the very reason that fraud, malware, identity theft and much more, are so pervasive on the Internet.

The premise of this fascinating book is that the slow decline from the use of paper from a legal and evidentiary perspective has significant consequences. For the last few hundred years, paper has been ubiquitous in modern life; from legal and health records, school, employment and everything in between.

The book details the many challenges that businesses and governments face in moving from a paper-based record society and the underlying trust mechanisms that go along with it, to a new digital-based record system, and how a new framework is needed for such a method. The book details part of that new framework.

The book opens with an observation on the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. While Blanchette is not a birther, he does note that if the moral authority of paper records has diminished, then the electronic documents replacing them, which are what the Obama administration provided, appear to be even more malleable. And that is precisely the issue that he addresses.

Blanchette details a compelling story and writes it as an insider. He was a member of a task force appointed in 1999 by the French Ministry of Justice to provide guidance on the reform of the rules governing the admissibility of written evidence in French courts, into a digital format.

The first few chapters provide an excellent overview of the history of cryptography. Chapter 3 – On the Brink of a Revolution– gives an excellent summary of cryptography from 1976 on, starting with seminal research that was done by Diffie and Hellman, and Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA).

In chapter 5, Blanchette details his narrative about how France embraced and moved to a more digital governmental framework. He notes that the challenge was that France was the country that gave bureaucracy its name, and is a place where citizens must carry at all times their papers d'identite and is a society enmeshed in paper. Blanchette writes of the many French bureaucracies that had to let go of their protectionist stances as they moved down the path to letting electronic documents have legal validity.

Blanchette writes that in France, one of the biggest impediments to moving to a digital framework were the French civil-law notaries or notaire. French notaries are much more powerful than a notary public in the US, and are closer to being what a paralegal does in the US.

The French notaire are a wealthy and powerful monopoly when it comes to issues of purchases, sales, exchanges, co-ownerships, land plots, leases, mortgages and the like. A notaire can form a corporation prepare commercial business leases and much more. The entire French notary profession had been dependent on its monopoly to grant authenticity, and no definition of electronic authenticity could emerge and succeed if it did not meet its criteria.

While paper trust may be intuitive now, Blanchette writes that it wasn't always the case. When documents were first created (whenever that may have been), they did not immediately inspire trust. As with other innovations, there was a long and complex period of evolution needed to gain accepted levels of trust.

In chapter 6, the books notes that many people assumed cryptography would be the mechanism that would inspire trust in the digital world. Blanchette writes that the mistake cryptographers made and sometimes continue to make; is that they often assumed that the properties of cryptographic objects will translate transparently into the complex social and institutional setting in which they are deployed in.

This was incisively noted in Why Johnny Can't Encrypt, which was a usability evaluation of PGP by Whitten and Tygar. The author's observed that user errors cause or contribute to most computer security failures, yet user interfaces for security still tend to be clumsy, confusing, or near-nonexistent. While the paper was written in 1999, most of its findings are still relevant.

Chapter 6 provides 3 fascinating case studies that show have different approach to security technology and cryptographic deployments are imperative in ensuring that they work.

In just under 200 pages, the books 7 chapters provide both a fascinating overview of the history of cryptography, in addition to showing how cryptography can be effectively used to authenticate digital documents. The book also has a high-level framework (a comprehensive framework would require at least 5 times as many pages) for an effective cryptographic framework for digital trust.

As Blanchette notes many times in the book, the challenge with getting digital signatures to work is not with the technology; rather it is with the underlying societal infrastructure in which to make it work. France was brought kicking and screaming into the age of electronic authentication, and is one of the few countries that have had such widespread success.

The book is a fascinating read that details how frustrating difficult it has been to create a comprehensive mechanism for digital authentication. The book raises many beguiling questions, and Blanchette is smart enough to notes that there are no simply answers to these multifaceted problems.

Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents is both a fascinating overview of the history of paper and electronic authentication, in addition to providing a synopsis of what it will take to make create a cryptographic culture, where digital evidence will be as accepted in the courtroom, as its antique paper cousin.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

You can purchase Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

SchrodingerZ writes "The Venus, Steve Jobs' custom-made mega yacht, (valued at 137.5 million dollars), has been impounded in Amsterdam. Philippe Starck, the boat's main designer, had The Venus impounded by debt collectors, after supposedly Starck and his company, Ubik, were paid only 6 million of the 9-million-euro commission. Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer for Ubik, released in a statement that 'These guys [Jobs and Starck] trusted each other, so there wasn't a very detailed contract.' 'The Venus is a floating ode to both Jobs and Starck's minimalist aesthetic. Made entirely out of aluminum, with 40-foot-long floor-to-ceiling windows lining the passenger compartment and seven 27-inch iMacs making up the command center.' The ship was unofficially unveiled in late October, a year after Jobs' death. It now sits dormant in the Port of Amsterdam, until the payment dispute is resolved."

An anonymous reader writes "A Metro version of VLC, the popular free and open-source media player, is coming to Windows 8. On Sunday, the VideoLAN organization reached its funding goal on Kickstarter for its Windows 8-specific app. There are also plans to port it afterwards to Windows Phone 8. The project has now been funded by over 2,500 backers, who have pledged more than the £40,000 ($65,000) goal."

Techmeology writes "Just days after the UK Pirate Party was forced to kill its proxy service Pirate Parties in Argentina and Luxembourg have created their own proxies. In a statement, the Pirate Party in Argentina said: 'We wish the UK Pirate Party best of luck in their continued fight for free access to culture and knowledge. We have put up our own Pirate Bay proxy which is accessible from anywhere in the world, including the UK and other places where it has been censored.'"

An anonymous reader writes "After the rubber-banding, 'Steve Jobs' heuristics and pinch-to-zoom patents, another Apple patent in use against Samsung comes under pressure. An anonymous filer, most likely Samsung, has filed a reexamination request against Apple's RE41,922 patent on a 'method and apparatus for providing translucent images on a computer display.' It's not among the patents a California jury evaluated this summer, but one of four patents an ITC judge preliminarily found Samsung to infringe. The reexamination request features five new pieces of prior art (three U.S. patents from the early 1990s and two Japanese patents), all of which dealt with translucent images. The patent office will decide next year whether to grant or deny the request for reexamination. Expect more such petitions targeting Apple patents."

An anonymous reader writes "After the rubber-banding, 'Steve Jobs' heuristics and pinch-to-zoom patents, another Apple patent in use against Samsung comes under pressure. An anonymous filer, most likely Samsung, has filed a reexamination request against Apple's RE41,922 patent on a 'method and apparatus for providing translucent images on a computer display.' It's not among the patents a California jury evaluated this summer, but one of four patents an ITC judge preliminarily found Samsung to infringe. The reexamination request features five new pieces of prior art (three U.S. patents from the early 1990s and two Japanese patents), all of which dealt with translucent images. The patent office will decide next year whether to grant or deny the request for reexamination. Expect more such petitions targeting Apple patents."

An anonymous reader writes "After the rubber-banding, 'Steve Jobs' heuristics and pinch-to-zoom patents, another Apple patent in use against Samsung comes under pressure. An anonymous filer, most likely Samsung, has filed a reexamination request against Apple's RE41,922 patent on a 'method and apparatus for providing translucent images on a computer display.' It's not among the patents a California jury evaluated this summer, but one of four patents an ITC judge preliminarily found Samsung to infringe. The reexamination request features five new pieces of prior art (three U.S. patents from the early 1990s and two Japanese patents), all of which dealt with translucent images. The patent office will decide next year whether to grant or deny the request for reexamination. Expect more such petitions targeting Apple patents."

An anonymous reader writes "Last month, Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg quietly announced that the 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows would never see the light of day. After what he referred to as 'significant negative feedback,' Smedberg has announced he has reviewed that feedback, consulted with his release engineering team, and has decided on a modification to the original plan: Firefox 64-bit for Windows may still never be released, but nightly builds will live another day."

J. Dzhugashvili writes "As Slashdot noted earlier this week, AMD has a new line of mid-range Radeon GPUs aimed at notebooks. The chips are based on the Graphics Core Next microarchitecture, and they're slated to show up in systems early next year. While the initial report was limited to specification details, the first review of the Radeon HD 8790M is now out, complete with benchmark data from the latest games. The 8790M is about 35% smaller than its 7690M predecessor but offers substantially better gaming performance across the board. Impressively, the new chip has similar power draw as the outgoing model under load, and its idle power consumption is slightly lower. Notebook makers should have no problems making the switch. However, it is worth noting that this new mobile GPU exhibits some of the same frame latency spikes observed on desktop Radeons, including in games that AMD itself has sponsored."