Fergus Cassidy

MONDAY 31 MARCH 2003 23.40 (GMT)
-------------------------------------------------

NEW SEARCH ENGINE...
Robots from a new open source search engine have been busy crawling the web. They come from Nutch.org which announces:

"Nutch is a nascent effort to build an open-source web search engine, eventually to be backed by a non-profit corporation. Web search is a basic requirement for internet navigation. The number of web search engines is decreasing: today's oligopoly could soon be a monopoly, with a single company controlling nearly all web search for its commercial interest.

"Building a free alternative is a big challenge. It must:
- crawl several billion pages per month
- maintain an index of these pages
- search that index up to 1000 times per second
- provide high-quality search results
- operate at minimal cost

"Currently we're just a handful of developers working part-time to put together a small demo. Once this is complete we will start seeking donors to fund the non-profit.`'

MORE INFO: Nutch.org and SourceForge

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2003 23.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

SONIC BLUES...
US company SonicBlue, which makes digital video recorder ReplayTV, has filed for voluntary bankruptcy.

The company posted a net loss of $33.4m, compared with a loss of $52.6m in the same period last year. Sales declined to $67m, down from $79.6m a year ago. Last September, the company announced it was cutting its workforce by 25%.

However, SonicBlue has been defending a lawsuit brought by over two dozen entertainment companies who allege that ReplayTV owners are violating copyright law when they skip commercials.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SonicBlue was spending as much as $1m a month in litigation expenses.

The EFF said that the "bankruptcy sends a clear message to technology companies: you may not innovate without Hollywood's prior approval, on pain of enormous litigation expenses".

MORE: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

THURSDAY 20 MARCH 2003 23.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

HANG UPS...
IT'S not just the telcos that are looking over their shoulders when it comes to voice over internet (VoIP).

A US company, Pulver.com, has a VoIP application called Free World Dial-up (FWD). Recently Pulver petitioned the US telecom's regulator for an exemption from its authority. Basically Pulver is of the view that FWD is software and not a telecom service.

No way said a joint FBI/Department of Justice counter petition. They requested Pulver's petition be dismissed and expressed their concerns "that if certain broadband telecommunications carriers fail to comply with law enforcement requirements... criminals may exploit the opportunity to evade lawful electronic surveillance".

So new technologies must be certified by law enforcement agencies first from now on?

SUNDAY 16 MARCH 2003 22.30 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

GIDDY UP...
WHEN last I checked, the MegaLAN site told me there are only 33 days, 12 hours, 41 minutes and a reducing number of seconds left before one of the biggest gaming events takes place in Dublin.

The first MegaLAN will be hosted in the RDS in Ballsbridge over the Easter weekend 19-21 April. There will be 150 gaming slots an a BYOC (bring your own computer) 100Mbs network and a number of tournaments will be run with prizes.

The nifty site gives full details of schedule, admission prices and technical stuff and there's a forum to discuss accommodation and transport.

I am very reliably informed that Neil Sisson, Adam Jewell, Tom Murphy and Richard Smith are in the saddle for this event. There's enough experience and know-how here to make the weekend a success.

I also noticed a part of The Rules where it says 'No horseplay'. Horseplay in the RDS? You're killing me!!!!!


WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2003 23.15 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

LA GRECE DOUZE POINTS...
The Greek National Committee for Telecommunications and Post, a regulatory body, with the support of the Greek data protection authority, is to allow subscribers to request communications' providers to delete the traffic data referring to them, on the condition that the subscriber cannot challenge the payment after that. The provider is then obliged to delete the traffic data independent of the time period covered by law.

Niiiiiiiiice.

COMMISSIONERS SPEAK OUT (AGAIN)...
DATA Commissioners from European member states have again asserted that personal communications data should be held for no longer than six months. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, an EU data advisory group, which includes all the member states' Data Protection Commissioners, has followed up on a September 2002 statement by the EU Data Protection Commissioners on the same subject.

In an opinion statement [PDF 32kb] on 29 January 2003, the Working Party reports said that "traffic data should be kept for as long as necessary to enable bills to be settled and disputes resolved. Ordinarily this involves a maximum storage period of 3-6 months and longer in cases where bills have been paid and do not appear to have been disputed...".

As regards what constitutes data, the report points out that Directive 2002/58/EC, which the Irish goverment is atttempting to legislate later this year, is very clear that "...only data that are adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the billing purposes may be processed. This implies that if there is no billing for certain types of communications, no traffic data may be processed for these purposes".

The Working Party further states that it is of the opinion that any practices throughout the EU that go beyond holding data longer than is necessary for billing purposes are "prima facie, incompatible with the requirements of EC Data Protection Law".

In its final recommendation, the report states that "it is important therefore that steps be taken to interpret in a harmonised way, the limited period during which telecommunications service providers are authorised to process traffic data for billing purposes. The Working Party considers that a reasonable interpretation of the directives on data protection is that this should ordinarily involve a routine storage period for billing of maximum 3-6 months... . In addition, only traffic data that are adequate, relevant and non-excessive for billing and interconnection purposes may be processed. Other traffic data must be deleted".


TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2003 02.15 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

NEW ICANN CHIEF?...
ICANN, which runs the net's domain name system under a contract from the US commerce department, may soon have a non-US citizen at its head for the first time.

According to The Washington Post, Paul Twomey is the favourite to become the third president of ICANN.

Twomey served from 1999 to 2002 as chair of ICANN's Government Advisory Committee, which liasons between world governments and the ICANN board.

He was also Australia's Special Advisor for the Information Economy and executive general manager of the Australian Trade Commission. From 1998 until 2000, he headed Australia's National Office for the Information Economy.

FIRST AFGHAN SITES...
The Canadian Broadcast Corporation reports that Afghanistan officially activated its internet domain name - .af - last Monday. The UN Development Programme provided support.

The first two sites registered were the Afghan Ministry of Communications and the UN Development Programme.

The Minister of Communications said that "for Afghanistan, this is like reclaiming part of our sovereignty".


FRIDAY 7 MARCH 2003 01.15 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

DIARY DATA...
With legislation proposed in Ireland to retain personal communication's data for up to three years, a very timely seminar on the technical ins and outs of data retention is being held in Trinity College, Dublin, next Tuesday 11 March.

Organised by the System Administrators' Guild of Ireland, in association with Netsoc, the TCD Internet Society, the seminar is aimed at a non-technical audience and topics include: Internet basics; Internet traffic volumes; current network technology; current storage technology and costs incurred.

The venue is the Walton Theatre, 2039 Arts block, Trinity College, starting at 7pm.

WEB WETWARE...
Paul McFedries of The Word Spy collects unusual words and phrases in use, or creeping into use, on the web. He has an alphabetical listing of words and phrases, along with explanations and citations.

Words must appear in at least three different articles, in at least three different sources written by at least three different writers before The Word Spy will accept them.

Some words and phrases are well known, such as 'googled', but if you're ever wondering what an 'ignoranus' is... .


WEDNESDAY 5 MARCH 2003 02.15 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

CANDIDATE FOR RIPLEY'S...
A journalist who claims she was fired because she WOULDN'T broadcast misinformation, has had a court verdict vindicating her overturned.

TV news reporter Jane Akre won a court case - including $425,000 in damages - in August 2000, following her allegations that she had been pressured by a Tampa TV station WTVT to broadcast a story she knew to be false. She was researching a story about the use of growth hormones in dairy cattle.

But three weeks ago, the Florida 2nd District Appeals Court overturned that ruling and held that Akre had failed to show that WTVT, a Fox Television affiliate, had violated state laws. Fox's lawyers had cited the First Amendment in defence.

The Appeals court also held that the Federal Communications Commission, the US regulator, had only a "policy" concerning news distortion rather than a law or regulation.

SOURCE: The Associated Press (via The Tallahassee Democrat)


TUESDAY 3 MARCH 2003 00.15 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

VOTES AT 16...
A campaign is underway in the UK to lower the voting age to 16 for general elections held after 2006.

Alex Folkes, a spokesperson for 'Voting At 16', said: "We want to spread the word, encourage debate and get young people involved. We know this issue is of concern to the young. Opinion polls show that 70% of 14 to 25 year- olds think the voting age should be 16".

Voting at 16 is already the policy of the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru and Green Party.

The Electoral Reform Commission will examine possible changes to current regulations and will present a report to Parliament by the end of this year.

MORE INFO: Votes at 16 Campaign


MONDAY 28 APRIL 2003 23.30 (GMT)>
-------------------------------------------------

JOURNALIST FIGHTS BACK...
I wrote about a landmark internet defamation court case in Australia in December last year where Joseph Gutnick, an Australian mining magnate, won the right to have a defamation case heard in his home state and not where the article was published.

Gutnick claimed he was libelled in an online piece written by Barron's reporter Bill Alpert. Barron's is a business weekly and a subsidiary of Dow Jones which also publishes the Wall Street Journal.

Gutnick wanted to have the case heard in his home state of Victoria, which has some of the strictest libel laws in Australia. Dow Jones, however, had applied to have the case heard in the United States. It was supported by Amazon.com, Yahoo!, AP, CNN, The New York Times and News Ltd.

The court ruled that Victoria "is where the damage to his reputation of which he complains in this action is alleged to have occurred, if it is there that the publications of which he complains were comprehensible by readers".

In the latest twist to this important case for internet jurisdiction, Alpert has filed a writ with the UN Human Rights Commission, claiming he has been denied the right of free speech.

He said that "Australia has accepted the jurisdiction of the UN Human Rights Committee and would be obliged to modify Australia's libel laws should the committee find that those laws unduly restrict the right of free speech that's protected under Article 19 of the International Convention on Human Rights."

SOURCES: BusinessWire.com and Australia's The Age newspaper


MONDAY 21 APRIL 2003 10.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

MORE ON DATA RETENTION...
According to privacy watchdog EPIC, the Austrian Federal Constitutional Court held on 27 February 2003 that the statute that compelled telecommunication service providers (TSP) to implement wiretapping measures at their own expense is unconstitutional.

The Court held that: "the interest for obtaining information about crimes is of such an important public interest that it can be justified to compel TSPs to cooperate with law enforcement agencies.

"It is necessary to compel TSPs to implement adequate techniques of surveillance, because they are the ones most competent to conduct surveillance due to their technical expertise.

"However, this does not mean that TSPs have to abide by those obligations at their own expense. The imposition of expenses for obligations carried out in the public interest may only be justified in exceptional cases if they are proportionate."


SATURDAY 12 APRIL 2003 11.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

BROADBAND...
Analysts McKinsey have an interesting report (free reg.) out on the state of broadband throughout the world's major economies. This bit cheered me up:

"The number of broadband users around the globe rose impressively during the past 36 months. By mid-2002, we estimate, operational broadband networks had a reach of well over 300 million households in the world's 20 largest economies.
     "More than 40 million households and businesses actually subscribed to broadband, and more than 100 million people around the world had access to it.
     "It is actually on track to become one of the fastest-growing technology-based consumer offerings ever in certain markets. In the United States, broadband will likely reach the 25% penetration mark more quickly than either PCs or mobile telephones did."

Telephone companies should note that the reports says that "so far, faster and better access to the internet is the sole killer application of broadband". Not having the line tied up and always-on were highly ranked as well...




THURSDAY 10 APRIL 2003 11.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

DEVINITELY...
When a history of the internet in Ireland comes to be written, there should be a whopping amount of page references in the index to Boards.ie.

If Boards was a pub, it would be one of my favourite watering holes. DeVore, one of the proprietors, has a blog called Psychobabble: "the name came from a board games fanzine some friends and I wrote years ago".


IF ONLY...
A draft law, currently discussed in the Bulgarian parliament, will oblige all governmental institutions to use free software and open formats with their computer information systems within 2 years.

The proposed law addresses all state bodies, mayors of municipalities and regions, higher schools, medical establishments, non-profit legal entities as well as other bodies and entities that receive governmental funding.

A permit of exception from this obligation can only be procured on a case-by-case basis, if no free software is available for a specific purpose.

SOURCE: The European Digital Rights newsletter


MONDAY 7 APRIL 2003 01.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

EUROPE GOES TO THE MOON...
The European Space Agency has started final testing of a solar powered satellite which will go into orbit around the moon.

Set for launch in July, the SMART-1 craft is the first European scientifc mission to the moon, the centrepiece of which is the testing of solar electric propulsion known as the ion engine.

It is hoped tht SMART-1 will also shed more light on the formation of the moon, look for water and ice and analyse the mineral composition of the lunar crust.

Nine European countries and the United States are involved in the mission. SMART-1 weighs 815 pounds and cost Euro169m ($108m) to build.

The specific launch date will depend on the success of the Ariane 5G launch later this week following the failure of the last rocket launch in December.

MORE INFO: European Space Agency details on SMART-1 and Nasa details on the mission.

WEDNESDAY 2 APRIL 2003 01.40 GMT
-------------------------------------------------

LOOP HEADS...
A public seminar is being held titled 'The Development of ESB's National Fibre Optic Network' on Thursday 10 April in Dublin.

Talks will be given by Kieran Lynch and George Doherty of ESB FibreCo, and will cover the many aspects of the rollout of the fibre optic loop.

The seminar will take place at the Institution of Engineers of Ireland's headquarters at 22, Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Starting at 6pm.