Published in August 29th, 2007
Don’t let your boss catch you reading this
By Corinne Heller Reuters - 1 hour 46 minutes ago
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - If you are at work, chances are you are probably doing it right now.
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Walk into any large office, and you will most likely hear the telltale computer bleeps of chat programs and online games, accompanied by furious mouse-clicking. Employees may seem busy, but many are wasting time on the Internet, or "cyberslacking".
Studies worldwide suggest employees spend about a fifth of their work shifts engaging in personal activities. Their favourite time waster? The Internet.
Patricia Wallace, author of the 2004 book "The Internet in the Workplace: How New Technology Is Transforming Work", said employees have always found ways to avoid working too hard.
"The issue is now you have something that seems to be genuinely irresistible because it's such a gateway to the whole planet that's right there on your desk and easily concealed to people passing by," said Wallace, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Employees who cyberslack have been shown to spend most of their time emailing, and almost a third of their messages were not related to work, said James Philips, a psychology professor at Australia's Monash University.
Many workers manage finances or shop online. Popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are also common cyberslacking destinations. It is not uncommon to see a user write on his "status" report that he or she is "at work".
Some companies, which spend millions on Web access, have fired workers for cyberslacking, citing concerns about inappropriate activities. But hiding it has become easier — people can access the Internet through mobile phones, for instance.
Films and television shows have been focusing on the phenomenon.
Time-wasting at work was spoofed in the 1999 cult film "Office Space," while "The Office", a British TV comedy that now has a U.S. version, has shown characters playing a computer war game as part of what they described as a team-building exercise.
"YOU EAT LIKE A PIG!"
Walter Block, a professor of economics at Loyola University in New Orleans, pointed to similarities between employees who slacked off before the computer age and those who waste time in cyberspace.
"I think they do it for the same reason they did it before — some people, because they're cheating their boss, other people, because it helps them work," Block said.
Office-dedicated Web sites have been popping up.
Workers can go to www.overheardintheoffice.com to post and rate humorous quotes overheard at their workplaces. They can rant about office colleagues and bosses at www.annoyingcoworker.com — and email them anonymous messages through the Web site.
"UGH! You eat like a pig!" one person wrote. "Stop smacking your lips and licking your fingers and snorting while you eat chips two feet away from me! It's like feeding time at the zoo!"
A recent survey by online compensation firm Salary.com showed about six out of 10 employees in the United States acknowledged wasting time at work.
About 34 percent listed personal Internet use as the leading time-wasting activity in the workplace. Employees said they did so because they were bored, worked too many hours, were underpaid or were unchallenged at work.
Firms all over the world are concerned about potentially harmful effects of surfing they deem to be inappropriate may have on their company's image. Many firms use computer software to monitor Web activity and block certain sites or servers.
Almost a fifth of those surveyed in a 2006 Israeli-American poll said they accessed online sex sites at work.
U.S.-based electronics firm IBM once fired an employee for visiting an adult chat room at work. Last year, a New York City employee was sacked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for having a card game on his computer screen.
Some experts say private Internet use at work does not affect productivity and could even be beneficial.
"The so-called cyberslacking could be online shopping or arranging for your dog-sitter online or taking care of banking so you don't have to take a two-hour lunch," Wallace said. "In cases like that, you're actually helping employees save time".
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Published in August 29th, 2007
Police in China’s capital said Tuesday they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user’s browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.
Starting Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China’s top portals, including Sohu and Sina, and by the end of the year will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers, the Beijing Public Security Ministry said in a statement.
China stringently polices the Internet for material and content that the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening. Despite the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers.
The animated police appeared designed to startle Web surfers and remind them that authorities closely monitor Web activity. However, the statement did not say whether there were plans to boost monitoring further.
The male and female cartoon officers, designed for the ministry by Sohu, will offer a text warning to surfers to abide by the law and tips on Internet security as they move across the screen in a virtual car, motorcycle or on foot, it said.
If Internet users need police help they can click on the cartoon images and will be redirected to the authority’s Web site, it said.
“We will continue to promote new images of the virtual police and update our Internet security tips in an effort to make the image of the virtual police more user friendly and more in tune with how web surfers use the Internet,” it said.
China has the world’s second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online, and is on track to surpass the United States as the largest online population in two years.
The government routinely blocks surfers from accessing overseas sites and closes down domestic Web sites deemed obscene or subversive.
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Published in August 28th, 2007
A growing number of banks is encouraging customers to pay their bills, manage their accounts, and use other services from their cell phones.
The current issue of Consumer Reports Money Adviser discusses cell phone banking and whether it’s right for everyone.
Adviser Executive Editor Greg Daugherty told The Early Show’s Russ Mitchell Tuesday cell phone banking has only “been around about since the beginning of the year. But I think most consumers are probably hearing about it just about now.”
Why would someone want to bank by cell phone?
Basically, Daugherty says, convenience. For instance, “If you travel a lot, most of us have a cell phone with us even though we may not have our computer with us. You may not know where the nearest ATM is, that kind of thing. Travel, just convenience in general, late hours you can use it. They’re probably safer than using that computer in the hotel lobby that you don’t know who’s going on after you that might be able to get your passwords.”
And he predicted cell phone banking would get increasingly popular: “I think it really will. I think the convenience - everybody’s got a cell phone.”
What’s more, most banks don’t charge for cell phone banking - yet. But they may add fees at some point, Daugherty says.
One disadvantage, he observed, is that, “It’s like online banking, but it’s on that itty-bitty screen, the little keys. So, a lot of people are going to find it difficult to do in a way. But people who are sending text messages all the time they’ll probably be perfectly at home doing it.”
Meaning, Mitchell asked, young people will be the majority of early adapters?
“They’ll probably be first,” Daugherty answered, “but the rest of us will be along shortly.”
To get started, check with your bank. You’ll have to have Web access from your cell phone. And some banks require that you download their software.
Also check to see whether your phone is compatible with your bank’s service. In most cases, it probably will be, Daugherty says.
According to the Consumer Adviser, “AT&T says that it plans to include banking and other financial software with most of its new phones. The company has agreed with Wachovia Corp. and other institutions to offer banking services to its cellular customers.”
Daugherty pointed out that, among the things consumers can do from their cell phones is check their transactions, “which can be really helpful for people who overdraw their accounts a lot and find those $30 overdraft fees on their bank statements every month.”
In addition, many banks send alerts to cell phones advising consumers when their balance is running low, bills are due, etc.
So far, Daugherty says, cell phone banking is “very secure. They’ve got all kinds of passwords and encrypted things and so forth. You can figure the crooks are probably working on it right now, and there will be dangers to be concerned about, but I think, generally speaking, it seems pretty safe.”
Polices vary bank by bank, Daugherty noted, on customer liability if there’s a security problem with cell phone banking. “People should check with their banks,” he advised. “Some banks have zero liability policies, which means, if something goes wrong, the bank will pay for it and you don’t have to.”
If you lose your phone, call up your bank and get it to close the account or stop the online access, advised Daugherty. “Our understanding is if you lose your phone, there isn’t a lot of info they (thieves) will get.”
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Published in August 28th, 2007
Satellite-based GPS systems have been guiding drivers, ships and even hikers for years now. But CBS News Correspondent Nancy Cordes reports that old-fashioned radar still guides the nation’s airplanes.
“We’re operating old, 1960s’ technology, and you can’t just keep patching it up,” said Marion Blakey of the Federal Aviation Administration. “You’re going to have to make a total switch in the system.”
Every control tower and every jet must be retrofitted with GPS - at an estimated cost to taxpayers, airlines and the flying public of $20 billion.
“Everybody wants it, but no one wants to pay for it,” said aviation expert Peter Goelz. The payoff, he said, is accuracy.
Radar often requires flights to follow a jagged path from one radar station to the next. GPS lets planes signal their locations from anywhere, enabling them to travel more direct routes that save time and fuel.
“You keep the high level of safety, but you’re just getting better utilization of the airspace,” Goelz said. “And that’s really the wave of the future.”
It will also allow planes to take off and land closer together, Cordes reports, meaning less time sitting in line on the runway and less time circling above the airport.
Shipping giant UPS has already begun installing the technology on its cargo jets. But the high cost and the hype have turned some airlines and air traffic controllers into skeptics.
“You wanna double the aircraft in the sky? Do it,” said Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “We just need more controllers and more runways to land ‘em. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what whiz-bang stuff you got.”
The FAA says the only alternative to this expensive system is gridlock.
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Published in August 28th, 2007
CHICAGO - An ambitious plan to blanket the city with wireless broadband Internet will be shelved because it is too costly and too few residents would use it, Chicago officials said Tuesday.
ADVERTISEMENT“We realized — after much consideration — that we needed to reevaluate our approach to provide universal and affordable access to high speed Internet as part of the city’s broader digital inclusion efforts,” Chicago’s chief information officer, Hardik Bhatt, said in a statement.
The plan to blanket Chicago’s 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the Web.
Instead, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink Inc., have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing. The city had hoped to provide only infrastructure for the network.
Tuesday’s announcement makes Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives because of ballooning budgets and dwindling usage that’s led to scant revenue generated by the projects. About 175 U.S. cities or regions have citywide or partial systems.
“But given the rapid pace of changing technology, in just two short years, the marketplace has altered significantly,” Bhatt said.
Atlanta-based EarthLink, which had been negotiating with Chicago about the municipal network, has said it was studying the performance of its existing municipal wireless Internet networks before deciding how to move forward with similar networks elsewhere.
“We’re seeing this evolve as we learn more about these networks, and the city needs to think about this again from its own business perspective,” Tom Hulsebosch, a vice president of EarthLink’s municipal sales, told the Chicago Tribune.
Meanwhile, Chicago will be among the first three cities nationwide to have access to a new high-speed wireless network that’s part of an emerging technology called WiMax.
Sprint Nextel Corp. announced plans this spring to offer wireless Internet speeds that match DSL and cable TV modems.
WiMax is derived from the same technology as Wi-Fi. Unlike Wi-Fi, which provides wireless Internet access over a several-hundred-foot range, a WiMax signal can blanket a much wider area.
Published in August 28th, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: - )/span>. has asked a U.S. judge to dismiss a lawsuit attacking the Internet icon for cooperating with China’s communist government, arguing the case is a meritless attempt to meddle in another country’s legal affairs.
ADVERTISEMENTThe 40-page brief filed Monday in Oakland represented Yahoo’s first formal response to a 4-month-old lawsuit filed on behalf of two Chinese journalists serving 10-year prison sentences for engaging in pro-democracy efforts that the country’s authorities deemed subversive.
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo and its former subsidiary, Yahoo Hong Kong, helped the investigation by providing China’s authorities with personal information culled from the e-mail accounts and other online activities of the journalists, Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao.
Echoing earlier public statements about the matter, Yahoo said its employees had little choice but to comply with China’s laws, even if the rules contradicted the United States’ constitutional right to free speech.
“No matter how strenuous our disagreement, every sovereign nation has a right to regulate speech within its borders,” Yahoo’s lawyers wrote.
Morton Sklar, a lawyer representing Wang and Shi, maintains both U.S. and international law required Yahoo to react more responsibly and ethically than it has in China.
Human rights and free-speech advocates have also lambasted other U.S. companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., helping the Chinese government stifle the flow of ideas in exchange for greater access to the country’s rapidly growing Internet market.
But the convictions of Wang and Shi have focused the most strident criticism on Yahoo. Besides the lawsuit, Yahoo also is facing a Congressional inquiry into whether the company misrepresented its role in Shi’s arrest.
If the lawsuit is allowed proceed, Yahoo warned the case could poison the United States’ relationship with a major trading partner and provoke the Chinese government to punish dissidents even more harshly.
“It is a political case challenging the laws and actions of the Chinese government,” Yahoo’s lawyers wrote. “It has no place in the American courts.”
Sklar brushed off Yahoo’s concerns about the case hurting the United States’ foreign interests, calling the argument a “red herring” in a Tuesday interview.
A hearing on Yahoo’s dismissal request is scheduled Nov. 1 before U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken.
The lawsuit, initiated by World Organization for Human Rights USA, demands unspecified damages on behalf of Wang and his wife, Yu Ling, as well as Shi. The complaint also seeks an order that would force Yahoo to help free the jailed dissidents.
Since his July 2003 conviction, Wang has been subjected to “brutal treatment” while being given limited contact with outsiders, Yahoo acknowledged in its brief.
Shi, convicted in 2005, is jailed in a prison “known for abusive treatment of prisoners,” Yahoo’s lawyers wrote.
But Yahoo stressed the company shouldn’t be held responsible for the two men’s plight. “They assumed the risk of harm when they chose to use Yahoo China e-mail and group list services to engage in activity that they knew violated Chinese law,” Yahoo’s lawyers wrote.
Published in August 28th, 2007
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Google has become the exclusive provider of pay-per-click text ads on CNN.com, one of the most visited news Web sites in the world, displacing rival Yahoo.
ADVERTISEMENT Yahoo had been the provider of search-engine services and pay-per-click advertising for since 2004. At the time, Yahoo took that contract away from Google.
The deal announced Tuesday calls for CNN.com to use Google's AdSense advertising program exclusively for the contextually relevant, pay-per-click ads it runs on its pages, the companies said. CNN.com also uses Google's search engine.
"This is an important deal for Google because CNN.com has a lot of traffic and high-quality content. The agreement provides an opportunity for our advertisers to target CNN.com and get high-quality traffic for their ads," said Google spokesman Brandon McCormick.
However, CNN apparently still uses Yahoo's search engine and pay-per-click ads on the .
Yahoo didn't immediately reply to a request seeking comment. A CNN spokeswoman confirmed that Google replaced Yahoo as the text ad provider on CNN.com, but at press time, she hadn't replied to a subsequent inquiry about CNN International.
In the U.S., CNN.com ranked as the third-most visited news site last week, attracting 3.56 percent of all visits to sites in this category, according to Hitwise, which tracks the traffic of CNN.com's International edition separately.
Yahoo's site ranked first, with 7.78 percent of visits, followed by The Weather Channel's with 5.16 percent.
and rounded out the top 5 sites with 3.51 percent and 1.79 percent of visits, respectively, according to Hitwise.
The news of Google's win comes at a time when Yahoo's new Panama pay-per-click advertising platform has been in place in the U.S. now for a little over six months.
Yahoo, whose financial performance in the past year has been disappointing and has led to , is counting on Panama to help boost its pay-per-click advertising business.
Pay-per-click ads, which are matched to the topic of search-engine queries and of regular Web pages, make up the single largest segment of online ads, accounting for about 40 percent of all revenue. Google generates most of its revenue from sales of these text ads, which, when clicked upon, take people to advertisers' pages.
Advertisers pay only when people click on these ads. In other online ad formats, advertisers pay when ads are displayed.
According to Yahoo, Panama significantly improves on its ability to match ads to search queries and Web pages. The company has said that this improved targeting will increase the number of times users click on the pay-per-click ads it serves up in its search engine, Web pages and partner Web sites.
This story was updated on August 28, 2007
Published in August 28th, 2007
Hackers are coming out of the woodwork, taking aim at the Apple iPhone. Just this week, three Israeli hackers claimed they unlocked the iPhone, making it possible for iPhone owners to use their shiny new mobile devices without AT&T activation. The Israeli hacker coup follows closely on the heals of a similar story about 17-year-old George Hotz, the New Jersey teen who set iPhone users free from the tethers of AT&T.
ADVERTISEMENT Yet another group posting information at indicates users can break the iPhone's SIM lock and equip the phone with a SIM card that allows the operation of the phone on competing GSM networks.
In all, five hackers have laid claim to the iPhone-cracking crown since July, leaving AT&T out of the loop despite a five-year exclusive contract with Apple. AT&T could not immediately be reached for comment.
Making Hacking History
Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD Jon," was the first to crack the iPhone, a feat that might go down in history as "iPhone Independence Day." His hack job, which let users do everything on the iPhone but talk, paved the way for future hackers to take the next steps.
It's not just maverick hackers that are giving the iPhone programmers a red face. In July, a group of U.S. security researchers discovered an iPhone flaw that could open the door for malicious hackers to take control of the smartphone remotely.
The researchers at Independent Security Evaluators claimed it took them two weeks to discover a vulnerability and create a proof-of-concept exploit capable of delivering files from an iPhone to a remote attacker.
Security researchers say they are not surprised that the iPhone is garnering so much attention from hackers. Any manufacturer that releases a technology that touts interesting new features should expect a knock at the door, according to Ken Dunham, senior engineer and director of the rapid response team at VeriSign iDefense.
Reviewing Your iAssets
Dunham said he doesn't expect the news to put a dent in iPhone sales, but warned that the impact of iPhone hacks could be much graver in the future.
When new products are widely adopted, important assets are eventually tied to them. Few would have foreseen Internet banking decades ago, for example, yet today the Internet is connected in one way or another to many financial transactions.
"When you look at iPhones, you have to ask what the future is. Will it be doing asset management or have access to important proprietary information? The answer is yes," Dunham said.
"As we see the adoption of this type of technology, security will become a major factor because assets will be at risk," he concluded. "It won't just be hacking for fun or fame. It will be about monetary motives."
Published in August 28th, 2007
San Francisco (InfoWorld) - A recent federal court ruling pertaining to open-source software in model railroads could derail enforcement of open-source licenses altogether, according to Mark Radcliffe, general counsel for the
ADVERTISEMENT If allowed to stand, the decision could withhold an important and expected remedy from open-source licensors, that being the ability to get an injunction against license violations, Radcliffe said.
But the case does not necessarily set a precedent for other judges to follow, countered Eben Moglen, founding director of the .
In the case, the plaintiff, Robert Jacobsen, claimed that the defendant, Matthew Katzer, sought royalties from Jacobsen on software covered by invalid patents obtained on open-source software. The software in this case was from the JMRI (Java Model Railroad Interface) Project, with which Jacobsen is involved. The original complaint is viewable
According to court filings by Jacobsen, Katzer filed a patent application tailored to the capabilities of JMRI three days after the release of new JMRI software in 2002.
The plaintiff alleged breach of the obscure Artistic License for open-source software and copyright infringement due to the removal of original copyright notices and substituting the name of Katzen's company, Radcliffe said.
But in a ruling on the case in San Francisco on August 17, Judge Jeffrey S. White denied a motion by the plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction from infringing copyrighted open-source material. To establish copyright infringement, the plaintiff needs to show ownership of the copyrights and copying by the defendants, the judge said. Defendants, meanwhile, said they voluntarily ceased all potentially infringing activities, according to the judge's ruling.
"This is one of the first cases about enforcement of any open-source licenses," Radcliffe said. In his ruling, the judge said the Artistic License was a contract and the failure to include copyright notices was not a restriction on the scope of the license, according to Radcliffe.
Jacobsen sought to have Katzer put copyright notices in his software reflecting that it was open source. "What the court said was that remedy is not available," said Radcliffe.
The remedy for contract violations under US law is damages, not injunctive relief, in which the court would order a party to cease a violation, Radcliffe
The case, Radcliffe said, is a blow to the fundamental basis of open-source software, he said.
"Most people in open source believe if you violate the license, you're outside it, Radcliffe said. "What this case indicates is that expectation may be wrong," he said.
Assessing damages for use of open-source software is difficult because the software is given away free, according to Victoria Hall, attorney for the plaintiff.
"What are the damages for an open-source project? These aren't your typical contract damages," she said.
The case raises questions about the rights of those who release software via open source. "What rights do they have, and how strong are those rights?" Hall asked.
But she and Moglen pointed out that the case does not necessarily set a precedent for future cases.
"It seems to me a not very important ruling," said Moglen, who has not been involved in the case. The Software Freedom Law Center provides free legal services to those who make and distribute free and open-source software.
"I do believe that the use of a more carefully drafted and more industry-tested license will probably help courts and other parties to deal with software in a more informed and accurate way," Moglen said.
To avoid the lack of clarity in the Artistic License, the JMRI Project will switch to the GNU General Public License. "I think the big advantage [of GPL] is the automatic license revocation that is present in GPL that is not present in Artistic License," said Hall.
Jacobsen also plans to appeal the judge's ruling, said Hall.
Katzer declined to comment on the case. His attorneys did not return phone calls from InfoWorld.
The judge set a September 14 date for a case management conference to further deliberate on the matter.
Published in August 28th, 2007
Three months after it opened its platform to outside developers, Facebook Inc. is taking steps to prevent some third-party applications from engaging in what the social networking company considers inappropriate actions.
ADVERTISEMENT
Dave Morin, Facebook's senior platform manager, outlined late Monday in an official blog posting a series of changes in the capabilities it makes available to external developers.
In the blog posting, titled "Change is Coming," Morin states that the changes are designed to create an environment in which the popularity of applications is determined by how useful and entertaining they are.
For example, Facebook wants to stop developers from displaying big boxes in profiles that scream in capital letters messages like "ADD THIS APPLICATION!" to visitors, while hiding them from profile owners.
To that end, the latest release of the Facebook Markup Language– version 1.1– changes how profile boxes display content, removing applications' ability to display profile content to visitors and hide it from profile owners.
"We did this so that the user is always aware of how they are expressing themselves to their friends through your application. This means no more yellow boxes that display 'Add this app!' in the profile box without the user knowing about it," Morin wrote. "We think this will help users make more informed decisions about the profile boxes they choose."
Meanwhile, this week, Facebook will shift how it measures application popularity in its applications directory away from total users and toward user engagement. "This will help inform users as they make decisions on which applications to add," Morin wrote.
The company will also remove e-mail from a notifications capability for developers to contact users who have adopted their applications. The reason is to crack down on what Facebook considers the spamming of deceptive and misleading notifications to its members.
Earlier this month, Morin posted a blog item about this problem, stating that Facebook had noticed developers misleading users "into clicking on links, adding applications and taking actions."
Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
