Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

Here’s an example of a management style (not a good one, but a possible one!). Put out software that has gaping security holes and instead of putting $250,000 toward FIXING those holes, use it to put a bounty on someone’s head! Someone from MS obviously went to the G.W. Bush school of management!

Microsoft announced on Thursday that it would pay a $250,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the individual or group responsible for releasing the “MyDoom.B” computer virus that targets Microsoft. The Washington Post and others report that the bounty comes after a similar offer from SCO Group, which was the target of the initial “MyDoom” virus. Computers infected by the two viruses have been programmed to attack the Web sites of the two companies by Tuesday. MyDoom, also known as “Novarg” or “Shimgapi,” has infected computers around the globe and slowed Internet connections.

The Center for Public Integrity has expanded its Web-based, one-of-a-kind media ownership search to include network designations for television stations and information on the nation’s largest newspapers.

The search was built using FCC data and supplemented by hundreds of hours of research by Center staff. Simply plug in a zip code or city name and find the owner of every radio station, television station and cable television system in the area.

RFID, JetBlue… personal information and it’s protection has been on my mind since my parter sat in on several panels at ALA midwinter 2 weeks ago. Here’s an article from ZDNet that discusses radio frequency ID (RFID) and its implications for privacy: Does your data belong to you?.

Privacy has always been part and parcel of our civil liberties but in the name of security, the basics are always forgotten. If this type of “data mining” continues, privacy will be a privilege… no longer a right.

[thanks LISNews!]

Software patents ‘threaten Linux’. BBC News Friday, 23 January, 2004, interview of Perens by Clark Boyd.

We’re looking at a future where only the very largest companies will be able to implement software, and it will technically be illegal for other people to do so.

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Infiltration of files seen as extensive

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

Smells like Watergate to me!

WatchBlog: 2004 U.S. Election News, Opinion and Commentary

WatchBlog is a multiple-editor weblog broken up into three major political affiliations, each with its own blog: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Third Party (covering everything outside the two major parties).

Now here’s a good idea from Wired News: Open-Source E-Voting Heads West

“Unlike U.S. voting systems, which use proprietary, secret software written by private companies, the Aussie system was created by Software Improvements in conjunction with an independent government body. The government placed draft and final versions of the source code on the Internet so the public could review it and provide comments. ”

and…

“Ritchie said U.S. voting systems are too expensive. He joked to the panel that Florida’s Broward County spent $17.2 million on touch-screen voting machines, ‘and they all suck…. You give me $17.1 million, I’ll take the Australian code (and) make a machine that doesn’t suck.’”

Read on.

Check out RSS in Government. This is exactly what I was thinking about when I got an email yesterday from the California Research Bureau telling me that their reports would no longer be distributed in paper and asking if I wanted to be on their email list. If state agencies just had RSS feeds, our catalogers wouldn’t have to periodically check hundreds of websites for new content; the content would come to the library where we would be able to process it. Once that hurdle is passed, what would it take to get RSS feeds in MARC to be automatically dumped into our catalogs?!

Outsell, a content industry research firm, has just come out with their 2004 predictions. Among the hot trends, peer-to-peer, blogs and the open access movement. You heard it here first!

The Navy Tests Web Logging For Team Communications.

The Office of Naval Research and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) are testing out the idea that weblogs can be powerful communication tools to bring together teams of people. I guess blogs AREN’T just for teenagers!