Mitnick on Markoff

The most interesting thing about The Guardian’s Mitnick piece is that he doesn’t seem bitter – except maybe about Markoff:

My argument is not that I shouldn’t have been punished, but that the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” he says. “I wouldn’t have sat in prison for five years, I wouldn’t have been held without trial for four-and-a-half years, if it wasn’t for Markoff creating this fear… When you write a story and it ends up on the front page of the New York Times, the department of justice is reading that. The director of the FBI is reading that, the director of the CIA is reading that. The government needs to send a message that they can’t just have some desperado hacker on the loose who could start a nuclear war.”

Anyone give me odds?

This may be my weblog’s first authentic scoop. A ‘friend’ (picture removed) – an author and publishing insider – tells me, with some credibility, that Michael Crichton’s Nano-frightener Prey will be followed by two more books – each focused on extinction-level threats to humankind – from Robots and Geneticists respectively (but not necessarily in that order). The implication is that Crichton has made a close reading of uber-worrier Bill Joy’s 2000 Wired article in which he lays out the existential threat from nanotech nasties, self-replicating robots and out-of-control genetic engineering (He’s mostly wrong, of course). Joy’s paranoid-determinist vision will be published as a book next Autumn.

Moblogging without going out

kissinger.jpg
Update: like practically every post of this vintage on my blog, the links here are broken and the post is, as a result, incomprehensible. And whatever the Memory Hole actually was, when I linked to it here, it’s now ‘a lifestyle blog to remember‘.

I’m blogging this for several reasons. First, since I can now (sort of) moblog from my camphone I’m trying out a visual blogging technique where I pointlessly apply the principles of moblogging to ordinary blogging and take pictures of web sites I have visited instead of just linking to them. Second, I very much like the idea of getting a cease and desist notice from Henry Kissinger and third, I admire the mission of The Memory Hole. Thanks to Danny for the link.

Fraudster?

Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word 'fraudster'. One who commits fraud, esp. in a business transaction.
OED definition of the word ‘fraudster’

Update: looks like it’s been in use since 1975 – and the first use is from the revered Financial Times!

When did we all adopt the Daily Mail-ism ‘fraudster’ and abandon the perfectly serviceable noun ‘fraud’? I can find ‘fraudster’ in none of my dictionaries – even those supposed to contain ‘new words’ – so its origins are obscure. Google, inevitably, reports 14,900 instances, so it can’t be brand new.

Knocking Docherty

I think Danny’s wrong to knock David Docherty’s ‘Cookie Monster‘ analogy. David may have been on a hiding to nothing from the beginning at Telewest, but the nub of truth in his frustration is that the conduct of Internet users is important (how could it be otherwise?). As actors in the networked economy we have obligations and our good faith will be critical to the success or otherwise of digital music, film, whatever. If a whole generation of users really has decided that it’ll never pay for music again (which is arguable), then music will inevitably be driven off the net.

As usual, I’m mister middle-of-the-road. Where David and the suits see a field of high concept ‘broadband content’ and Danny and the geeks see an untenanted void waiting for settlers to fill it – I see a bit of both. In fact, I think it’s economic lunacy to suggest that either could be sufficient unto itself. No one but no one will bring dark fibre to my curb without some value added ‘content’ to subsidise the utterly commodified pipe and users will never accept the media owners’ vision of content-driven broadband heaven unless it looks a lot like the net. As usual, the outcome is more likely to be a messy ecology than a nice, clean monoculture.

BBC Online under the microscope

A long overdue enquiry into the BBC’s investment online should be a good thing for all parties but it must strike a delicate balance. If it turns into a mugging for the corporation orchestrated by its competitors it will not serve the interests of industry or citizens. Likewise, a whitewash that leaves the BBC’s hugely out-of-proportion investment unexamined will not answer vital questions about the proper role of a public service broadcaster in the networked era. If this enquiry is real, it presents an unlikely-to-be-repeated opportunity to straighten out the regulatory and funding context for BBC Online and to set some goals:

  • Hub for a new online content industry. The BBC’s massive investment in online content and infrastructure should stimulate a new downstream ecology of content and application creators – an online ‘indie’ sector like the one brought into being by Channel 4 in the 80s would be a good thing.
  • An engine for participation. BBC Online should invest in a new generation of content and applications that promote participation, connection and creativity amongst wired citizens – not just programme support material and one-way content.
  • Public service online. If BBC Online is to assume a statutory public service obligation (as it should), then the burden should be shared by other online businesses – and until the funding climate for private sector net businesses recovers, Government money may have to be made available to support them.

BBC Online should not fear the inquisition. It’s likely to be critical and may close off some of the department’s activities but the current uncertainty is more damaging. Lambert’s report on News 24 is hardly flattering but, by taking the project seriously, it has secured the channel’s future nonetheless. A close examination of BBC Online should have the same effect.


Expanding on the three goals:

  • Hub for a new online content industry. Azeem Azhar thinks he knows how to jump start this downstream ecology. He’s proposed the application of the GNU General Public License to BBC Online’s content and code. This is fresh thinking from the Internet’s intellectual property laboratory and I hope it’ll be a part of any serious inquiry into BBC Online’s future. To learn about Azeem’s idea, start here. I blogged the idea here and here.You could probably achieve the goal of opening up a secondary content industry around BBC Online using established methods like commissioning quotas but Azeem’s idea cleverly exploits one of the net’s efficiencies.
  • An engine for participation. An ambitious cadre within BBC Online is already working on applications like this. This serious-minded group could do the job if required to. I think a benefit of an enquiry would be to throw the spotlight on good work already being done by the corporation.
  • Public service online. I get more grumpy by the day about the way the Government continues to evade its obligation to help define what a ‘public service’ BBC Online should look like. The latest evasion is going to be embodied in law – the Communications Bill, now at second reading stage, explicitly forbids Ofcom to regulate the Internet, thus making it almost impossible for Ofcom to make a useful contribution to the debate. I’ve blogged this before here, here and here.

What were you doing in 1964?

Rachel Frank runs an online wine store called Arthur’s Bar. It’s a good site – excellent customer service, next day delivery, single bottles (most sites require you to buy a case or more) and they have lots of specially-sourced wines you won’t find elsewhere but there’s one product that really stands out. Rachel’s father, David Hallgarten, is a whisky blender and he bottles the only 35 year old blended Scotch whisky in the world. This stuff is gorgeous and very unusual. Most top whiskies are single malts. This is a blend – but to my taste it’s as good as any single malt I’ve tasted. The current batch was distilled in 1964, which is the year after I was born. You can’t buy it anywhere else and you’ll need to remortgage your house to buy a bottle (or move to a caravan and buy two) but if you’re trying to think what to buy me for Xmas, you can stop thinking now.