I think the future of advice is a cool topic because it turns out that there really are differences between advice and recommendations.

Michael Schrage on Ubiquity

Commetrix is Dynamic Network Visualization and Analysis Software that supports Community Moderators, Members, and Network Researchers. It provides exploratory yet comprehensive access to network data and allows for:

* Extracting virtual communities in electronic communication networks
* Visualizing dynamic network lifecycles, properties, and structures
* Creating rich expert network maps from communication logs
* Searching, filtering, navigating social corpora, like e-mail, discussions
* Understanding and utilizing your social networks
* Trace dissemination of topics or properties through the network
* Extendable to all sources of network data

Commetrix - Dynamic Visualization of Networks

Nicholson Baker, in the New York Review of Books:

It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks and puppy smoothies.

My advice to anyone who is curious about becoming a contributor—and who is better than I am at keeping his or her contributional compulsions under control—is to get Broughton's Missing Manual and start adding, creating, rescuing. I think I'm done for the time being. But I have a secret hope. Someone recently proposed a Wikimorgue—a bin of broken dreams where all rejects could still be read, as long as they weren't libelous or otherwise illegal. Like other middens, it would have much to tell us over time. We could call it the Deletopedia.

The Charms of Wikipedia

U.S. and many other national copyright systems have by statute or caselaw (or both) established rules engaging or excusing liability for facilitating (or, in commonwealth countries, “authorizing”) copyright infringement. Taken as a group, they share a goal of insulating the innovator whose technology happens, but was not intended, to enable its adopters to make unlawful copies or communications of protected works. The more infringement becomes integrated into the innovator’s business plan, however, the less likely the entrepreneur is to persuade a court of the neutrality of its venture. The US Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in MGM v Grokster, established that businesses built from the start on inducing infringement will be held liable; judges will frown on drawing one’s start-up capital from other people’s copyrights. Thus, the inferences entrepreneurs may draw from the Court’s elucidation of the elements of inducement may advise pro-active measures to prevent infringement from becoming a business asset. As a result, even businesses not initially built on infringement, but in which infringement comes to play an increasingly profitable part, may find themselves liable unless they take good faith measures to forestall infringements.

This article addresses the evolution of the U.S.’s judge-made rules of secondary liability for copyright infringement, and the possible emergence of an obligation of good faith efforts to avoid infringement. The recent announcements of inter-industry “Principles for User Generated Content Services” and of complementary “Fair Use Principles for User-Generated Video Content” suggest that proactive avoidance measures may become a matter of “best practice.” The article then turns to the statutory regime of safe harbors established for certain Internet service providers and considers whether the statute insulates entrepreneurs who would have been held derivatively liable under common law norms. Finally, the article compares the U.S. developments with recent French decisions holding the operators of “user-generated content” and “social networking” websites liable for their customers’ unauthorized posting of copyrighted works.

Separating the Sony Sheep From the Grokster Goats: Reckoning the Future Business Plans of Copyright-Dependent Technology Entrepreneurs

PIN entry devices (PEDs) are critical security components in EMV smartcard payment systems as they receive a customer’s card and PIN. Their approval is subject to an extensive suite of evaluation and certification procedures. In this paper, we demonstrate that the tamper proofing of PEDs is unsatisfactory, as is the certification process. We have implemented practical low-cost attacks on two certified, widely-deployed PEDs – the Ingenico i3300 and the Dione Xtreme. By tapping inadequately protected smartcard communications, an attacker with basic technical skills can expose card details and PINs, leaving cardholders open to fraud. We analyze the anti-tampering mechanisms of the two PEDs and show that, while the specific protection measures mostly work as intended, critical vulnerabilities arise because of the poor integration of cryptographic, physical and procedural protection. As these vulnerabilities illustrate a systematic failure in the design process, we propose a methodology for doing it better in the future. They also demonstrate a serious problem with the Common Criteria. We discuss the incentive structures of the certification process, and show how they can lead to problems of the kind we identified. Finally, we recommend changes to the Common Criteria framework in light of the lessons learned.

Thinking inside the box: system-level failures of tamper proofing

A conversation with Chris Anderson, Curator of TED Conference

A conversation with Chris Anderson, Curator of TED Conference - Charlie Rose

Orange is a component-based data mining software. It includes a range of preprocessing, modeling and data exploration techniques. It is based on C++ components, that are accessed either directly (not very common), through Python scripts (easier and better), or through GUI objects called Orange Widgets.

Orange

Last November, I recommended a profile of Aubrey de Grey in the Washington Post. To promote his new book, Ending Aging, he recently appeared on the Colbert Report.

About the book:

MUST WE AGE?

A long life in a healthy, vigorous, youthful body has always been one of humanity's greatest dreams. Recent progress in genetic manipulations and calorie-restricted diets in laboratory animals hold forth the promise that someday science will enable us to exert total control over our own biological aging.Nearly all scientists who study the biology of aging agree that we will someday be able to substantially slow down the aging process, extending our productive, youthful lives. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is perhaps the most bullish of all such researchers. As has been reported in media outlets ranging from 60 Minutes to The New York Times, Dr. de Grey believes that the key biomedical technology required to eliminate aging-derived debilitation and death entirely -- technology that would not only slow but periodically reverse age-related physiological decay, leaving us biologically young into an indefinite future -- is now within reach.

In Ending Aging, Dr. de Grey and his research assistant Michael Rae describe the details of this biotechnology. They explain that the aging of the human body, just like the aging of man-made machines, results from an accumulation of various types of damage.As with man-made machines, this damage can periodically be repaired, leading to indefinite extension of the machine's fully functional lifetime, just as is routinely done with classic cars.We already know what types of damage accumulate in the human body, and we are moving rapidly toward the comprehensive development of technologies to remove that damage. By demystifying aging and its postponement for the nonspecialist reader, de Grey and Rae systematically dismantle the fatalist presumption that aging will forever defeat the efforts of medical science.

And you thought today's universal health care was an expensive proposition ...

Aubrey de Grey on The Colbert Report

Occasionally smart people say pretty smart things. The computing world likes to call these pearls of wisdom laws. They also like to name each law after the person who coined it. Take, for instance, the most well-known of all the computing world’s laws, Moore’s Law, which is named after Intel founder Gordan E. Moore.

In the web industry we have no such laws. While computer software and engineering is a science, web work isn’t. I view web work as an amalgamation of a variety of crafts and disciplines, like behavioral psychology, art and design, information sciences - and, since the end medium depends on technology, part computer science.

Given that last bit, it makes sense that some computing laws would apply to the world of the web. Since I have an awful time remembering them, I figured I’d write down the ones that have been helpful to me in my career in the web industry.

The Immutable Laws of Web Design and Development

From urban centers to remote corners of Earth, the depths of the oceans to space, humanity has always sought to transcend barriers, overcome challenges, and create opportunities that improve life in our part of the universe.

In the last century alone, many great engineering achievements became so commonplace that we now take them mostly for granted. Technology allows an abundant supply of food and safe drinking water for much of the world. We rely on electricity for many of our daily activities. We can travel the globe with relative ease, and bring goods and services wherever they are needed. Growing computer and communications technologies are opening up vast stores of knowledge and entertainment.

As remarkable as these engineering achievements are, certainly just as many more great challenges and opportunities remain to be realized. While some seem clear, many others are indistinct and many more surely lie beyond most of our imaginations.

On February 15, we begin engineering a path to the future.

Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century