Every Internet user survey I have seen says that the thing users worry about most on the Net is not losing their credit card number, but losing their privacy. This concern among users is not a secret. So why do we keep seeing announcements of yet another company going out of its way to make sure Internet users continue to worry about this?
I got a call from a reporter the other day. He wanted to talk about the denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on prominent Internet sites, including Yahoo, CNN and eBay. He did have some idea what was going on (not always the case when I get such a call), but he seemed to want me to say that the architecture of the Internet needed to be changed to deal with such attacks. I declined to do so.
Every Internet user survey I have seen says that the thing users worry about most on the Net is not losing their credit card number, but losing their privacy. This concern among users is not a secret. So why do we keep seeing announcements of yet another company going out of its way to make sure Internet users continue to worry about this?
I got a call from a reporter the other day. He wanted to talk about the denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on prominent Internet sites, including Yahoo Inc., CNN and eBay Inc. He did have some idea what was going on (not always the case when I get such a call), but he seemed to want me to say that the architecture of the Internet needed to be changed to deal with such attacks. I declined to do so.
Well, that will teach me to rely on the mainstream press for accurate reporting!
Well, that will teach me to rely on the mainstream press for accurate reporting!
The US court system is beginning to enforce one of the more controversial provisions of the recent copyright protection legislation. It is far from clear whether the organisations that pushed for the inclusion of this provision ultimately will be badly hurt by its enforcement.
The field of intellectual property rights has not been made any easier by the advent of the Internet and of a world in which intellectual property (a different kind of IP than what I usually talk about) is increasingly digital in nature.
The U.S. court system is beginning to enforce one of the more controversial provisions of the recent copyright protection legislation. It is far from clear whether the organizations that pushed for the inclusion of this provision ultimately will be badly hurt by its enforcement.
A week before Christmas, Toys 'R' Us announced it was not going to be able to deliver all the toys that had been ordered over the Web in time for Christmas morning. The TV news shows played the story for all it was worth - and more - giving Toys 'R' Us quite a black eye. But if I put on my conspiracy theory hat, this sequence of events makes a lot of sense.
A week before Christmas, Toys 'R' Us announced that it was not going to be able to deliver all the toys that had been ordered over the Web in time for Christmas morning. The TV news shows played the story for all it was worth - and more - giving Toys 'R' Us quite a black eye. But if I put on my conspiracy theory hat, this sequence of events makes a lot of sense.
To start off the new year, President Clinton announced an ambitious plan to combat cyberterrorism called the National Plan for Information Systems Protection. In the announcement, he said all the right things.
To start off the new year, President Clinton announced an ambitious plan to combat cyberterrorism called the National Plan for Information Systems Protection. In the announcement, he said all the right things.
The beginning of a new year, decade and century seems to get we pundits looking back to history while at the same time trying to predict the future, and I am not immune.
At some random network conference over the last year, I signed up to get one of the magazines designed for the traditional telephone companies. I've now started getting the publication and am surprised about the amount of familiar information in it.