Truly the Internet Revolution

From Townhall.Com.

Egypt hits their Internet Kill-Switch

The Obama administration has been trying to pass a law giving the President an "internet kill-switch" to allow him to effectively shut down the internet in the case of a national crisis. Presumably, this is to allow us to resist an attack being coordinated over the internet. But as civil liberties groups have reminded us time and time again, the most-common use of such "kill switches" has been to stifle dissent.

Now, Egypt has flipped its "internet kill switch" in an attempt to disrupt protests convulsing the nation. These protests - like the ones in Tunisia last month and Iran last year - have largely been organized over social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) which allowed protesters freedom to communicate outside of traditional means.

Before we give our government the power to shut down such a powerful communication medium, we need to decide if there are enough "good" uses for such power to offset the many, many potential "evil" uses for it.

Does anyone actually use paper Yellow Pages anymore?

Found online. Could not find the original source. We put ours RIGHT in the recycling bin these days.

States try to tax the Internet, the Internet leaves

It is no secret that State tax collectors hate the internet. For years, they have been furious that they have been denied the sales taxes for internet sales that they collect from brick-and-mortar stores. And the Supreme Court has ruled that states can only tax internet businesses that had a "physical presence" in the state wishing to tax them.

But the States are not giving up, and now Illinois is ready to pass a law to tax Amazon.com and other companies that do business in the state. The only problem? Companies are ready to abandon Illinois entirely rather than pay taxes there!

After the Illinois law was passed yesterday, Amazon immediately fired off an e-mail to Illinois members of it “associates program” threatening to boot them from the program, which pays them marketing and referral fees on sales, should Quinn sign the bill.

Meanwhile, Scott Kluth, Founder and President of Chicago-based CouponCabin.com, told Forbes today that he would move his seven-year-old business and his 48 employees across state lines if Quinn signs the bill.

It should be noted that this would not only take sales from affiliates, but it would also take jobs out of Illinois. Not the best way to serve the people of your state in the middle of a Recession.

TV Execs hate Hulu

It is no secret that Hulu exists for one reason only - television companies are more afraid of an Apple iTunes monopoly than anything else. But it is still disconcerting to see comments like these from a Dish TV executive which disparage the service as "destroying the industry".

...broadcasters should instead reserve catchup episodes for authenticated TV Everywhere services, and only make them available freely after 30 days. “If people decide that they don’t have to pay for pay TV, then one of the pillars (of the TV industry) starts crumbling,” he said.

The reality is that Hulu isn't destroying the old TV industry, history is. It is now possible to deliver video directly via the internet, on-demand, and that will eventually allow us all to bypass cable and broadcast television. The question isn't how to stop the process, it is how to profit from it.

Just ask NetFlix. Build a better mousetrap and the world STILL will beat a path to your door.

The Future of Internet Video

If you're not a user of an iOS device - iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch - you may not be fully aware of the battle that is currently being waged over the future of Internet Video. A year ago, the "state of the art" was based on Adobe's Flash player. But with the rise of the iOS juggernaut and Steve Jobs's refusal to allow Flash on his mobile devices, HTML5 is on the rise. HTML5 includes a new "video" tag in the base specification, so Flash is no longer needed, but now the debate has shifted to which Codec (i.e. the way video is encoded into a file and transported across the internet) will be the future. The two top contenders for the moment are WebM/VP8 - a standard owned by Google and being pushed as royalty-free - and H.264 which is used today for YouTube, iTunes, and most hardware-based encoders.

Up until now, the primary argument against H.264 has been the number of patents involved, and the high licensing fees for people who want to include H.264 in their devices/software which would be prohibitive for Free Software/Open Source groups.

The newest move in this battle was an announcement yesterday from MPEGLA that H.264 would remain royalty-free "forever" for websites and customers to use. This was taken by some to cut the feet out from under WebM/VP8 proponents. But today, Mozilla reminded everyone that this does not mean it is free to software or hardware makers. And until it is, Free Software and Open Source browsers like Firefox may be unable to support it.

This is required reading for anyone interested in the future of TV and movies on the web.

Scott Adams predicts the end of paid written content

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame is known for being willing to float a crazy theory here and there. But usually, even when floated for comic effect, his theories have at least enough truth to make you go "Hmmmm..." So when he predicts the end of paid writing - and the possible end of quality writing - it is time to pay attention.

Those of you reading this blog are already savvy enough to find and download any content you want for free. But I'll bet the average 40-something user of the Internet still wouldn't know how to search the Internet for criminally free content. At some point, I assume, a Google search for any popular book title will return an illegal source at the top of the page. When that happens, Amazon.com will primarily be selling electronics, household products, and clothes.

I predict that the profession known as "author" will be retired to history in my lifetime, like blacksmith and cowboy. In the future, everyone will be a writer, and some will be better and more prolific than others. But no one will pay to read what anyone else creates. People might someday write entire books - and good ones - for the benefit of their own publicity, such as to promote themselves as consultants, lecturers, or the like. But no one born today is the next multi-best-selling author. That job won't exist.

What do Mod-Blog readers think? Is the role of paid novelist a doomed profession? The professional cartoonist?

The Internet banned from Courtrooms?

The last time my brother was called for Jury Duty, he was surprised to learn that his iPhone would be confiscated at the courtroom door (though returned when he was done for the day). CT judges had banned all cellular devices with cameras from even jury duty waiting rooms. Now, it appears all states may take the same step for any device capable of browsing the internet. While absolutely logical, and in line with the long history of controlling the information juries can see/hear to ensure justice, this is sure to be a shock to the internet-addicted public.

Specifically, those instruction spell out that jurors should not you should not consult dictionaries or reference materials, search the internet, websites, blogs, or use any other electronic tools to obtain information either before the trial, during deliberations or after until the judge instructs otherwise.

The instructions state jurors must not use cell phones, e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text messaging, or on Twitter, or communicate through any blog or website, through any internet chat room, or by way of any other social networking websites, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

It will be interesting seee how enforceable such a ban will be in the long term as our lives become more and more online. Will there be a new niche for "court-ready" devices which allow one to send and receive e-mail from spouses/children, but which edits out inappropriate details? Will there be a new "Courtroom Mode" on devices similar to the Airplane mode available today? Or will the salvation of the paper book be the fact that electronic books won't be permitted in courthouses?

The internet is kinda big...

At least that's the impression the Google folks gave when explaining the way they catalog the internet. The short version is

Even after removing...exact duplicates, we saw a trillion unique URLs, and the number of individual web pages out there is growing by several billion pages per day.

How many servers must they have to run to catalog all of that?

Is broadband saturation necessary?

I can understand the drive by internet content producers and providers to push for complete broadband saturation - they get more money from either fees or advertising. But I think that misses the point entirely. The push for broadband saturation seems like an issue of vanity for the tech crowd. I was listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago where the commentators were lamenting that US broadband usage is 'so' low. When I think about it, not everybody needs broadband - nor do they want it. If all you do on the internet is check your email and the weather, then broadband isn't really cost effective. Or perhaps keeping dial-up access is a way of limiting yourself from attachment to the internet. Either way its a good argument for not getting broadband access. On the other hand, if a person in the US wants to get broadband then they should have access to it - this is the only good reason I can see for pushing for broadband saturation. If we push for broadband saturation simply because we want to compare better with other countries then we've totally missed the boat and are not using our resources efficiently.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Are we ready to end Internet anonymity?

Ever since the "Web" went public and stopped being DARPANET, there has been an ongoing debate over the assumption of anonymity that is implicit in the web. The structure and standards of the web promote anonymity, which as lead to an explosion of creativity, free speech, and free thought on the Net which is nearly unimaginable in the real world. The Web is where you can badmouth your employer without being fired, give an honest critique of a book or movie without fear of being personally attacked by the author, and where you can leak documents critical to public safety without fear of your identity being immediately known.

But the Web has also become a place where sex predators can stalk children without fear of being caught, where a 50-year-old man can pretend to be a teenage boy and ruin the life of a teenage girl, or where anonymous bullies can drive a teenager to suicide.

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch thinks it is time to end internet anonymity in order to bring back responsibility and protect minors. But such an action would also effectively end many of the advantages of the Web as seen in whistleblowers being free to tell us what we need to know. Is Rep. Couch right, or are we throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Honestly, I think this would be a revealing issue to raise in the new debate in the Presidential campaign.

Netscape to be discontinued

The web browser that gave many of us our first taste of the web will be shutdown come Feb. 1. Most people stopped using the browser years ago, in favor of IE or Firefox, but in its heyday it was the best of the best. We won't miss Netscape, but we do owe the developers a debt of gratitude for showing us how beautiful the web could be by creating what we now know of as javascript and contributing to the development of CSS.

The Dangers of Social Networking for Kids

I have been amazed at my church and work to see the cavalier attitude many parents have toward MySpace and Facebook. The same parents would not allow their children to have an independent e-mail account will often allow them to spend hours unmonitored on social networking sites. You may have heard the stories about predators stalking children on MySpace, but what about stories like this one of stupid adults messing with the mind of an impressionable youth.

"(She) stated in the months leading up Meier's daughter's suicide, she instigated and monitored a 'my space' account which was created for the sole purpose of communicating with Meier's daughter.

"(She) said she, with the help of temporary employee named ------ constructed a profile of 'good looking' male on 'my space' in order to 'find out what Megan (Meier's daughter) was saying on-line' about her daughter. (She) explained the communication between the fake male profile and Megan was aimed at gaining Megan's confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people....

"According to (her) 'somehow' other 'my space' users were able to access the fake male profile and Megan found out she had been duped. (She) stated she knew 'arguments' had broken out between Megan and others on 'my space.' (She) felt this incident contributed to Megan's suicide...

Parents need to be reminded again and again that the internet is NOT a safe place for children. It should not be considered a fenced-in backyard, but a city square or busy mall in which a stranger can easily target your child, whether from malice or stupidity, and do damage that can never be recovered from. This is not a MySpace problem. It is a problem of naive parents.

Internet TV Today

A lot of buzz has been generated over TV-over-IP, or the ability to view television programs over the web instead of over the air or cable connection. If you are one of those who finds the idea intriguing this site might be worth a peek. It aggregates many of the existing TV-over-IP feeds into a single interface. And yes, it works on a Mac.

Joost - Yet Another VIdeo App

Joost is a new online video application designed to bring more and better video to your desktop than is allowed by YouTube or GoogleVideo. It has been embraced by a number of mainstream TV studios, as it has more control and higher quality than some other options. And now it has a MacOS X version of their Beta. If you are a Mod-Blog reader, and would like an invite, let me know. I can invite a number of people to join in and check it out.

Resolve Phishing Problems with .BANK TLD?

It amazes me how the tech press finds simple solutions for complex problems, and then decides that the beneficiaries are willing to pay big bucks for it. Consider this article on preventing Phishing.

Why do banks and other financial institutions operate under the public top-level domains, like .com? The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the body that creates new top-level domains, should create a new, secure domain just for this reason—something like “.bank,” for example.

Registering new domains under such a top-level domain could then be restricted to bona fide financial organizations. And the price for the domain wouldn’t be just a few dollars: It could be something like $50,000—making it prohibitively expensive to most copycats. Banks would love this. They would move their existing online banks under a more secure domain in no time.

"Banks would love this?" Has this guy ever worked for a bank? Banks understand that the best way to make money is to find ways to avoid spending money. This is why most banks are working on systems invented in the 1970s, and why the one I work for only retired their last Windows 98 computer last year. None of the banks I know would happily give up their $25 a year .COM address for a $50,000 .BANK address unless it were a regulatory requirments. And even then they'd be looking for a way out of it.

Note to the wise: When looking for solutions to problems, try to avoid solutions with costs you would not truly be willing to pay yourself.