Yes, this is the program for 10/10/10, which might also be represented as 101010, which is a nice binary number that has a certain amount of resonance with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book by Douglas Adams. In decimal, that binary number is 42, or (more appropriately) "the answer to life, the universe, and everything."

Cyber War: When?

What passes for "news" organizations have been all atwitter about "cyber war" for the past couple of weeks. If you have any doubt that public relations firms provide at least half of what passes for "news" from ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, and PBS, this should dispel those doubts. Everyone has been talking about the "rules of engagement" and "war crimes" and on and on and on as these topics pertain on online war. It's not that I feel they're wrong about cyber war, but I have to wonder where they've been for the past decade or more. This is a topic TechByter (and, before that, Technology Corner) discussed more than once starting well before 2001.

Media reports (I'm not identifying which media sources just as they're not identifying their "sources"):

Every "news" agency in the West has talked about cyber war in the past couple of weeks. Is this an effort by the Obama administration to get out in front of unilateral attacks by the US or Israel? It wouldn't be the first time that a government engaged in misinformation or disinformation.

But why are "news" agencies such easy targets? Why do they report without validation so many rumors?

Is it a fear that if they don't report something first they'll be seen as ineffective? A few decades ago, the mantra was "first and factual". That bothered me even then. "Factual" is more important than "first", yet it was listed second. If I'm the first one to tell you that the sky is falling when the sky isn't actually falling, I haven't done you any favors. On the other hand, if someone tells me that the sky is falling and I sit on the story until I can confirm it, I won't accidentally have spread misinformation or disinformation.

That seems to have been forgotten.

So will there be cyber war? Of course there will. Human beings being what they are (which, it seems, is inherently stupid) means that war will be extended to cyberspace. This was predicted 35 years ago by Star Trek (the original program). The crew became involved with a planet in which cyber missiles landed on a country and "killed" thousands of people. The people who had been "killed" were then required to report to a location so that they could actually be killed. Today's cyber war will shut down the electric grid or throw banking into crisis, so it's not quite the same as what Star Trek predicted.

The war probably won't be a US-versus-China affair because China depends on the economic well being of the United States. At least for now.

So I'm not suggesting that we discount the treat, but only that we understand that it's not a new threat or one that's necessarily more important than other threats.

When Eudora Thunder(bird)s

In the Internet's golden days (think of this in terms of television's golden days, when the equipment was primitive but a few dedicated producers attempted to create intelligent programming) one of the best e-mail programs was Eudora by Qualcomm. Over the years, those who wanted more power migrated to The Bat and those who wanted a Microsoft experience went to Outlook. Eudora was on life support until Qualcomm saved it by killing it. Eudora is now an open-source program and it's based on Thunderbird code. Old Thunderbird code.

The new Eudora doesn't offer all the flexibility of my favorite e-mail program (The Bat), but it might be a contender if you're thinking about migrating from older applications. But if you're thinking about doing this, why would you opt for the old copy (Eudora) instead of the new original (Thunderbird)?

Maybe it doesn't matter if you're seeking only the basics. Although applications can add a variety of extensions and useful functions, the operation of any mail user application (MUA) will be the same: Messages arrive on the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) server. Unless the MUA has access to the server's disk, messages are stored on a remote server and the MUA has to request them on behalf of the user. That is true for most e-mail applications.

I set up the "new" Eudora and found that it looks a lot like Thunderbird. In fact, the Eudora website says "Eudora OSE 1.0 is based on the Thunderbird 3.0.4 source code, so add-ons that do not work with Thunderbird 3.0.4 likely will not work with this version."

One significant advantage that comes to mind is the fact that Eudora works on Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. If you use multiple operating systems, this might be a worthwhile reason to try Eudora or Thunderbird.

I don't see a lot that's new in Eudora, but there are features that some other applications don't have. A "redirect" feature, for example. What happens when you receive a message that should have gone to somebody else? You forward it to the person who should have received it. That person replies and you receive the reply. Instead of forwarding, use "redirect" and the original sender's name will remain in the "from" field. This is a feature The Bat has and I've found it to be quite useful.

But overall I still have to wonder why. If you want an open-source e-mail application, there's Thunderbird and Thunderbird has moved on from version 3.0. Thunderbird 3.1 is available and includes tabbed mailboxes. You can load messages in separate tabs and then jump quickly from one to the other.

Eudora is an application that I will remember fondly, but I'm unlikely to use it again.

Copy Protection (aka "Digital Rights Management")

What does digital rights management protect? Let's say that you own a Kindle and that you buy (or borrow from the library) a DRM-protected Epub document. How can you read it? You can read it on the computer that you used to download the file. On the Kindle? Good luck with that! Amazon wants you to buy books, not borrow them from the library and Amazon doesn't use the Epub format. If you strip the DRM and convert the file to something the Kindle can use, you may be violating the law. There is, I would suggest, a distinction between "legal" and "ethical".

Whether purchased or borrowed from a library, that book should be available on any device that you want to use for viewing it. Does Jeff Bezos really believe that DRM gets in the way of crooks who find workarounds and then sell illegal copies of the books? If Bezos will be honest about the situation, he will admit that no DRM has ever stopped crooks. All it does is inconvenience the people who have purchased or borrowed books, records, or other media and want to use it on the device of their choice.

If you download a book from your local library and modify it (defeating DRM along the way) so that you can view it on your Kindle, who is harmed? If you read the book and then forget to delete it from your Kindle after 14 days, who is harmed? Would it be better if publishers and Amazon worked out a system whereby library books could be downloaded to the Kindle (as they can be downloaded to every other device) while maintaining their DRM so that they would cease to be available after 14 days? (Actually, wouldn't it be better if we just did away with DRM entirely?)

Who's protected? Who's inconvenienced?

I noticed that O'Reilly Books has an enlightened approach: "You get lifetime access to ebooks you purchase through oreilly.com. Whenever possible we provide them to you in five DRM-free file formats — PDF, ePub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, DAISY, and Android .apk — that you can use on the devices of your choice. Our ebooks are enhanced with color images, even when the print version is black and white. They are fully searchable, and you can cut-and-paste and print them. We also alert you when we've updated your ebooks with corrections and additions."

The O'Reilly site specifically takes note of Amazon's Kindle: "It's hard to dispute that Amazon's Kindle has sparked renewed interest in Ebooks, and we want to make sure oreilly.com customers with Kindles can read our Ebooks. The Kindle cannot currently read ePub files directly (though we hope that will change), so the Ebook bundle includes the Mobi file format, which can be read on the Kindle."

But it's absurd that publishers who are willing to provide DRM-free books must take the extra step of finding a way to make their books usable on what is arguably the "best" reader.

Let O'Reilly and other progressive publishers know that you appreciate their policies and let Amazon know what you think of their policies, too.

Should an electronic book cost more than its dead-trees equivalent? One publisher seems to think so. With electronic books, there is no inventory, no cost of printing, no cost of storage, no cost of fulfilment. But one publisher values some of its electronic books slightly higher than the cost of books that must be printed, warehoused, shipped, inventoried, and sold. Is this logical? Check out a New York Times article on the subject.

Short Circuits

AOL Buys TechCrunch

TechCrunch is now 5 years old. It's a news-like organization that concentrates on digital media. And now it will become part of AOL. I hope this works out better than AOL's "acquisition" of Time Inc. The merger agreement was signed this week in San Francisco at a 3-day TechCrunch conference.

Nobody was willing to talk about the cost, but analysts say AOL probably paid between $25 million and $40 million and the head of TechCrunch, Mike Arrington, agreed to stay with the company for at least 3 more years.

You may have noticed that I'm not a big fan of AOL, the company that showed millions of people how to use the Internet — incorrectly.

Two years ago, AOL tried to get into social networking and paid nearly a billion dollars to obtain Bebo. Smart move. This year AOL sold Bebo for less than $10 million. The secret of creating a small fortune: Start with a large fortune and then BUY HIGH AND SELL LOW.

Will TechCrunch be the next Bebo?

The Mother of All Patch Tuesdays

This coming week will see a Patch Tuesday that attempts to fix 49 vulnerabilities that affect Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, and Net Framework. If you're keeping track, this is a new record number that involves 16 security bulletins. Wow! The bulletins range from "critical" (4) to "important" (10) to "moderate" (2). Plan on a long download and a long installation. The previous record (August 2010) was 34.

Go, Microsoft, go!

The bugs affect just about every product Microsoft offers: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3, Office 2003 Service Pack 3, Office 2007 Service Pack 2, Office 2010, Office 2004 for Mac and 2008 for Mac, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, SharePoint Server 2007, Groove Server 2010, and Office Web Apps.

One of the vulnerabilities to be patched next week deals with the Stuxnet worm, but Microsoft isn't saying whether any of these bugs are currently being exploited. Last month's patches fixed other problems associated with Stuxnet, that's the threat that showed up on computers that are being used as part of Iran's nuclear program.

This large parade of patches is embarrassing and Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing, Scott Charney, suggests that what's needed is another approach: Computers could be certified based on whether they have the latest software patches, whether their firewalls are installed and correctly configured, whether antivirus programs are up-to-date, and whether they are free of malware. The computer's ISP could monitor this and notify the computer's owner if something was amiss.

This seems like a good idea. Some ISPs already try to monitor their users' computers and notify the users if there seems to be a problem. The Federal Communications Commission is considering whether ISPs should be more proactive in working with users who don't maintain their systems and thereby create a threat that affects all users.