conflux
9.17.2001
The Ecnonomist
The joy of text
"The success of text messaging is surprising given that it is fiddly to use a mobile handset as a keyboard - and that it costs an average of $0.10 to send a text message."
"The success of text messaging came as a surprise to operators. But they should now learn from their mistake. Mobile users will not use their telephones like PC s, to browse for information. They will use them to communicate with each other, and occasionally to request valuable chunks of information. The good news is that they are prepared to pay for it."
redux [03.19.01]
"Email is the gateway drug of the internet, because once email is in place, people begin to expect full interoperability."
"In fact, in a news flash that seems to have caught the entire telecommunications industry by surprise, people who buy mobile phones often like to communicate with one another. Had this not been such an absolutely unpredictable occurrence, maybe somebody at the WAP consortium could have predicted that when you add text to the phone, users might like to communicate with one another via text.
Access to email is the #1 feature customers want in a wireless text device (duh), and all those wireless auctions where the telcos spent 22 gajillion Zlotys to own the customer now look like a giant shell game, because the users don't want to get headline news. They want to talk to one another, and they will switch carriers until they are allowed to. Email is the thin end of the interoperability wedge, and this will be true of interactive TV as well."
redux [06.21.01]
"The Internet is used by almost three-quarters of U.S. teen-agers, a new report says. And nearly all of them are using instant-messaging technology in ways that may be transforming the manner in which kids deal with one another.
"It's kind of like having lots of telephones," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which conducted surveys late last year that were used in the 46-page report. "Because it's synchronous conversation, it's the quick-hit kind of stuff that a phone conversation would have, except you're having it in many cases with many, many people.""
redux [05.09.01]
"Conversations are an important part of our daily lives. For most people, in fact, they are the most important way to acquire and spread knowledge during a normal working day."
"Conversations provide a comfortable medium in which knowledge flows in both directions, and where contributors share an inherent context through their subjects and relationships. In addition to old forms of conversations--direct interaction and communication over the phone and in person--conversations are becoming an increasingly important part of the networked world. Witness the popularity of email, chat, and instant messaging, which enable users to increase the range and scope of their conversations to reach those that they may not have before."
"Still, little attention has been paid in recent years to the popular Internet channels that most naturally support conversations."
redux [02.18.01]
"The Internet is widely regarded as primarily a content delivery system. Yet historically, connectivity has mattered much more than content. Even on the Internet, content is not as important as is often claimed, since it is e-mail that is still the true "killer app."
The primacy of connectivity over content explains phenomena that have baffled wireless industry observers, such as the enthusiastic embrace of SMS (Short Message System) and the tepid reception of WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Combined with statistics showing low cell phone usage, this also suggests that the 3G systems that are about to be introduced will serve primarily to stimulate more voice usage, not to provide Internet access.
For the wired Internet, the secondary role of content will likely mean that the dangers of balkanization are smaller than is often feared. Further, symmetrical links to the house are likely to be in greater demand than is usually realized. The huge sums being invested by carriers in content are misdirected."
redux [02.04.00]
"Imagine the discussions that must have gone on around the invention of the telephone: a new medium for delivering content directly to households. Indeed, that was exactly how some people did use it. In Budapest you could pick up the telephone and listen to music and news until the first world war... It didn't turn out that way because people preferred listening to each other: they preferred "self-generated" content."
"Companies with a strategy that facilitates communication between people, a strategy that facilitates self-generated content, will prosper as the world becomes more interactive and broadcast becomes just one sector of a much richer media world."
9.14.2001
Red Rock Eater
Imagining the Next War: Infrastructural Warfare and the Conditions of Democracy
"War in the old conception was temporary: the idea was explicitly that the state of war would end, and that the normal rules of democracy would resume once their conditions had been reestablished. Civil liberties and the institutions of democratic government are not entirely eliminated during wartime; rather, they are reduced in their scope while retaining their same overall form. Even in conditions of total war mobilization, clear boundaries between the military and civilian sides of society are maintained. But war, we are told, no longer works that way. No such boundaries are possible. It follows, therefore, that "war" in the new sense -- war with no beginning or end, no front and rear, and no distinction between military and civilian -- is incompatible with democracy, and not just in practice, not just temporarily, but permanently and conceptually. If we conceptualize war the way the defense intellectuals suggest, then to declare war is to destroy the conditions of democracy. War, in this new sense, can never be justified."
"The danger of "total war" against the spectre named Osama bin Laden, then, is that it will reinforce the worst tendencies in our society, and that far from preserving the conditions of democracy it will undermine the cultural and institutional foundations upon which democracy rests. It will be war without end, without boundaries, without even a coherent conception of itself save as the expression of an impulse to vengeance."
"The elusive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, who is in some ways a modern-day Assassin, is being increasingly identified as the architect of Tuesday's attacks on the US. Like the ancient sect, he vows to evict foreigners from the Middle East and favors mountain hideaways. Without specifically referring to Mr. bin Laden, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised Wednesday to launch a "multifaceted attack on many dimensions ... to bring this scourge [of terrorism] under control."
But analysts say that an American duplication of the Mongols' success will not be easy. If bin Laden is, indeed, the source of the attacks, US retribution is likely to be geographically complex and replete with risks that could lead to a wider war."
"President Bush, vowing to "rid the world of evil," called 50,000 military reservists to duty, won power from Congress to wage war on terrorists, and waded into the ruins of Tuesday's attacks in a flag-waving, bullhorn-wielding show of resolve.
"I can hear you," Bush told hundreds of weary rescue workers Friday at the World Trade Center in New York. "The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these building down will hear all of us soon.""
"A state of war doesn't mean the end of law.
But in the wake of Tuesday's devastating terrorist attacks, some sobering new rules do apply. For the Bush administration, that will mean considerable leeway in retaliating for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center complex.
"In wartime," Johns Hopkins University professor Ruth Wedgewood said Wednesday, "you don't have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.""
9.13.2001
The New York Times Web Becomes Global Support Forum [requires 'free' registration]
"Internet discourse revolved Wednesday around trying to fathom, cope and communicate. Web sites and discussion groups urged blood donation, posted prayers and debated whether civil liberties may be curtailed.
"The Internet has proven to be a remarkably good way to form relationships and communities," said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "We go online to try to make sense of what happened, who to blame, who's in charge, et cetera."
Initially, Internet users went online to find out what had happened. Later, they used e-mail and other tools to find out about how friends and family were doing. The third phase -- finding meaning -- followed shortly."
"The difference between June 1914 and September 2001 isn't merely one of scale, or of potential consequence. Many of those who fought in WWI -- from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and myriad other nations -- had never heard of the Archduke, or his murder. But every soul bound for the battle surely followed the American attacks today, within minutes of this strange new war's beginning."
"Why were chat rooms a major focus for people seeking early information? Because many of the Net's major news sites were quickly crippled by massive traffic. The bigger the news event -- as if anything like today's nightmare could ever be reduced to such a term -- the less the major news sites are able to cope."
"With help from Dave and the Blogger Search Page , I've spent much of the last two days reading first-hand accounts of the horrible events in NYC and D.C. and personal reactions from people all over the world. Thank god for personal journalism because the coverage we're seeing in the mainstream media is painfully repetitive and barely scratches the surface. It feels very restrained and controlled to me which is probably best for the country at large right now. But it has been helpful for me to get a sense of what real people are thinking and dealing with."
[requires 'free' registration]
"The major news Web sites were quickly overloaded. Many links to the not-so-major news Web sites stopped working. But more than news, what people all over the world craved in the wake of yesterday's terrorist attacks was connection to each other, and many of them found that most easily achieved by going online.
"The need to connect is intense," said Donna Hoffman, a professor who studies the Web and Web commerce at Vanderbilt University. "While the network TV stations blather, the Internet carries the news and connects the masses in a true interactive sob.""
9.12.2001
BBC
US computers networks at risk
"One day after the terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, a congressional report has warned of the vulnerability of the country's computer networks."
""Despite the importance of maintaining the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of important federal computerised operations, federal computer systems are riddled with weaknesses that continue to put critical operations and assets at risk," he said."
redux [08.19.01]
""Taiwan has one of the world's largest computer software and hardware manufacturing bases," said D.K. Matai, managing director of the British-based Mi2. "The computer software programmers in Taiwan are world class. Our view is that getting involved in any kind of conflict with Taiwan, given the kind of intellectual capacity the country has, may prove detrimental."
The Chinese government has been quite open about its future strategic military objective. In paper appearing in the spring issue of China Military Science journal, a member of the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Industry of the System Engineering Institute, wrote: "We are in the midst of a new technology in which electronic information technology is the central technology. The technology provides unprecedented applications for the development of new weaponry...Military battles during the 21st century will unfold around the use of information for military and political goals.""
redux [03.01.01]
"Three years after declaring cyber-defense a national security priority, the United States government has won the trust of a once-skeptical tech industry, fortified security on military networks, and "created effective public-private partnerships" to combat computer attacks, according to a report released last week by the Critical Information Assurance Office (CIAO)."
"Despite the government's efforts, "Potential adversaries-be they nation-states, cyber-terrorist groups, criminal organizations, or disgruntled insiders-can easily develop effective cyber-attack capabilities" to disrupt the United States' economic power and national security, the report claims."
redux [09.06.00]
"The thesis of this think piece is that the information revolution will cause shifts both in how societies may come into conflict, and how their armed forces may wage war. We offer a distinction between what we call "netwar" -- societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication -- and "cyberwar" at the military level. These terms are admittedly novel, and better ones may yet be devised. But for now they illuminate a useful distinction and identify the breadth of ways in which the information revolution may alter the nature of conflict short of war, as well as the context and the conduct of warfare.
While both netwar and cyberwar revolve around information and communications matters, at a deeper level they are forms of war about "knowledge" -- about who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how secure a society or military is regarding its knowledge of itself and its adversaries."
redux [01.04.01]
"Scenes of street violence are played out day after day in Palestinian towns across Gaza and the West Bank. But another modern-day arena for battle between the Palestinians and the Israelis is growing ever more heated, so much so that the Internet war waged by computer-savvy political activists is being dubbed an "e-Jihad.""
redux [03.22.00]
"A group of Pakistani hackers has used the conflict in Kashmir as a reason to deface almost 600 Web sites in India and take control of several Indian government and private computer systems, according to the group."
"Unlike the majority of Web vandals, the MOS members say they secretly take control of a server, then deface the site only when they "have no more use" for the data or the server itself.
"The servers we control range from harmless mail and Web services to 'heavy duty' government servers," says the MOS representative. "The data is only being categorically archived for later use if deemed necessary."
"Take the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade several weeks ago. Rage spread across China and hackers from the mainland attacked the Web sites of the US Departments of Energy and the Interior, and the National Park Service. A subsequent attack brought down the White House Web site for three days. The attacks generated headlines across the country.
What the news media didn't report was that the US government had known for a long time that someone had been in its computer systems - they just didn't know who. Then, in a fit of anger, the Chinese hackers caused some real damage - and gave away the hidden "location" of several "backdoors" they had built in US government networks."
"The US Government Accounting Office estimates 120 groups or countries have or are developing information-warfare systems. According to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 23 nations have cyber-targeted the US."
<rhetoric>
""You?re not a designer, you?re not a writer, and you?re not an editor!"
Well, no, blogger, you?re not. And therein lies your gift. Because even if it?s true the vast majority of blogs would not be missed by more than a handful of people were the earth to open up and swallow them, and even if the best are still no substitute for the sustained attention of literary or journalistic works, it?s also true that sustained attention is not what Web logs are about anyway. At their most interesting they embody something that exceeds attention, and transforms it: They are constructed from and pay implicit tribute to a peculiarly contemporary sort of wonder.
...[T]he Web log reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the "discovery" of the networked world. And there are surely lessons for us in the parallel. For just as the cabinet of wonders took centuries to evolve into the more orderly, logically crystalline museum, so it may be a while before the chaos of the Web submits to any very tidy scheme of organization."
Feed [03.21.00]<search>
<et cetera>
valid xhtml 1.0?
This site designed by Eric C. Snowdeal III.
© 2000-2001