IN the debate over global climate change, there is a yawning gap that needs to be bridged. The gap is not between environmentalists and industrialists, or between Democrats and Republicans. It is between policy wonks and political consultants.

Among policy wonks like me, there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax. Q.E.D.

One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax - New York Times

If you were asked to name the biggest global-warming villains of the past 30 years, here’s one name that probably wouldn’t spring to mind: Jane Fonda. But should it?

Jane Fonda - Nuclear Energy - The China Syndrome - Three Mile Island - Power and Energy - Global Warming - Fossil Fuels - New York Times

Home of the House Price Index (HPI).

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight

Funny thing, though: based on the ratio of Windows and Macs actually in use, no gains can be seen for Apple.

The Mac’s share of personal computers has actually edged a bit lower since Vista’s release in January, and the various flavors of Windows a bit higher, according to Net Applications, a firm in Aliso Viejo, Calif., that monitors the operating systems among visitors to 40,000 customer Web sites.

A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close - New York Times

It's common to see reports that stress the economic importance of copyright and the content owners who benefit from it; the Copyright Alliance says that "core copyright industries" generated $819 billion in the US in 2005, for instance. What's less common is to find studies that look at the economic impact of fair use. That was the goal behind a new report (PDF) from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). Their provocative finding? "In 2006, fair use-related industry value added was $2.2 trillion, 16.6 percent of total US current dollar GDP."

Report: fair use adds $2.2 trillion to US economy each year

Here's the title of the press release: "The SCO Group Files Chapter 11 to Protect Assets as It Addresses Potential Financial and Legal Challenges"

Groklaw - SCO Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

By a 220-to-175 vote, the House endorsed an amended version of the Patent Reform Act, which has been in the works in various forms for several years but previously was stalled amid lingering disagreements among disparate companies.

House OKs revamp of patent system | CNET News.com

Computers inside pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's network are spamming the internet with e-mails touting the company's flagship erectile-enhancement drug Viagra, along with ads for knockoff Rolexes and shady junk stocks.

Zombie Pfizer Computers Spew Viagra Spam, Security Company Reports

Ross Anderson gave a TechTalk last week.

Computer security has recently imported a lot of ideas from economics, psychology and sociology, leading to fresh insights and new tools.

I will describe one thread of research that draws together techniques from fields as diverse as signals intelligence and sociology to search for artificial communities.

Evildoers online divide roughly into two categories - those who don't want their websites to be found, such as phishermen, and those who do. The latter category runs from fake escrow sites through dodgy stores to postmodern Ponzi schemes. A few of them buy ads, but many set up fake communities in the hope of having victims driven to their sites for free. How can these reputation thieves be detected?

Some of our work in security economics and social networking may give an insight into the practical effects of network topology. These tie up in various ways with traffic analysis, long used by the signals intelligence agencies which trawl the airwaves and networks looking for interesting targets. I'll describe a number of dubious business enterprises we've unearthed.

Recent advances in algorithms, such as Newman's modularity matrix, have increased the robustness of covert community detection. But much scope remains for wrongdoers to hide themselves better as they become topologically aware; we can expect attack and defence to go through several rounds of coevolution.

I'll therefore end up by talking about some strategic issues, such as the extent to which search engines and other service providers could, or should, share information in the interests of wickedness detection.

Ooh ... I went to that :)

Searching For Evil

The Windows Genuine Advantage plan became a genuine disadvantage over the weekend when the server that verified users went down and began to disable operating systems around the world. At least, it disabled the operating systems of computers that checked into the home base to affirm their legitimacy.

Dvorak on the WGA outage over the weekend and by extension, the big problem with "software as a service."

Don't Trust the Servers - Columns by PC Magazine