Microsoft Versus The Internet

The protocol that runs the Internet is called TCP/IP. These are the rules of the road for the information highway. Today, these rules are in the public domain. No individual, corporation or government owns the protocols or has the right to control them. Microsoft wants to change things. It would like to own the internet.  Robert X. Cringely  writes: Last August, I wrote of a rumor that Microsoft wanted to replace TCP/IP with a proprietary protocol -- a protocol owned by Microsoft -- that it would tout as being more secure. Actually, the new protocol would likely be TCP/IP with some of the reserved fields used as pointers to proprietary extensions, quite similar to Vines IP, if you remember that product from Banyan Systems. I called it TCP/MS in the column. How do you push for the acceptance of such a protocol? First, make the old one unworkable by placing millions of exploitable TCP/IP stacks out on the Net, ready-to-use by any teenage sociopath. When the Net slows or crashes, the blame would not be assigned to Microsoft. Then ship the new protocol with every new copy of Windows, and install it with every Windows Update over the Internet. Zero to 100 million copies could happen in less than a year. This week, Microsoft announced Palladium through an exclusive story in Newsweek written by Steven Levy, who ought to have known better. Palladium is the code name for a Microsoft project to make all Internet communication safer by essentially pasting a digital certificate on every application, message, byte, and machine on the Net, then encrypting the data EVEN INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER PROCESSOR. Palladium compatible hardware (presumably chipsets and motherboards) will come from both AMD and Intel, and the software will, of course, come from Microsoft. That software is what I had dubbed TCP/MS. (06/30/02)

Nonviolence or Nonexistence

Jim Douglass writes: Nuclear weapons--which represent the end not only of New York City and Washington, D.C., but of our entire world--are already accessible to small groups of people. No billion-dollar "missile shield" will stop a suitcase holocaust weapon from being carried into downtown Manhattan. We are living literally at the end of the world. Will we recognize that? Or will our talking heads take us blindly to Armageddon? Martin Luther King, Jr., understood our situation profoundly. He summed it up in his contingent prophecy for the rest of human history: "Nonviolence or nonexistence." King knew humanity had passed beyond the imaginable limits of violence at Hiroshima. Today, God and history challenge us to pass equally beyond the imaginable limits of nonviolence. King, like Gandhi and Jesus, felt there were in truth no limits to nonviolence. Like the prophets before him, King was a realist. By "nonviolence" he did not mean a world without conflict. He meant a deepening, widening commitment to meet every conflict with unflinching compassion, noncooperation with evil, and an effort to see through the eyes of one's opponent. "Love your enemies," Jesus said; see through their eyes while resisting all evil, Gandhi and King interpreted. In the nuclear age, this is not a counsel of perfection, but a ground rule of survival. (06/30/02)

Crisis in the Deep Blue

Denis Hayes writes: Several salmon and steelhead populations were recently listed as threatened or endangered in the Pacific Northwest. Similar collapses have affected many other major fisheries, from New England cod to Peruvian anchovies. In recent years, the global wild fish catch has fallen in all but two of the world's 15 major marine fishing regions. This bleak situation has been masked by two factors that have keep total worldwide fish "tonnage" relatively stable. From the mid-1980s to 2000, aquaculture production grew from 7 million metric tons to 36 million metric tons. Second, fishers are turning to smaller, less valuable fish (pilchard, mackerel, pollock, dogfish, monkfish and other species) that once were considered trash. They are fishing their way down the food chain; the South Pacific catch of orange roughy fell 70 percent in six years. Fish are at the top of the marine policy agenda because they are an important part of human diets and regional economies. Worldwide, humans obtain more of their animal protein from fish than either beef or pork. (06/30/02)

Nuclear Dumps Make Poor Neighbors

New York Times -- LAN YU, Taiwan, June 27 - Steep volcanic slopes carpeted with tropical vegetation vault out of crystalline waters and magnificent coral reefs here, while a peaceful tribe of aborigines, largely insulated from the outside world until the early 1970's, tries to cling to ancient ways. This island seems like a tropical paradise except for one problem: it is also home to one of the world's most troubled nuclear waste dumps. Up to 20,000 barrels of radioactive debris need to be fixed because chemical reactions inside are cracking the concrete with which the waste was mixed, the site's director says. The barrels are in seaside concrete trenches on the most windswept tip of this typhoon- and earthquake-prone island, at the base of a 1,500-foot-high bluff prone to rockslides. ... Construction of the dump was finished in 1982. Workers at nuclear reactors on the main island of Taiwan began mixing radioactive waste with concrete, sealing it in 55-gallon steel drums and shipping it here for storage in the 23 reinforced-concrete trenches. But until 1993, the drums were made of inexpensive steel that was not treated to prevent corrosion, and many of these barrels are now rusting, Mr. Wu said. ... Low-quality cement was mixed with the radioactive waste in many of the early barrels, and is now expanding and cracking the steel barrels, said Paul T.H. Huang, the director of the site. As a result, the government is preparing to grind up to a fifth of the 98,000 barrels here and remix them with fresh cement. ... "I've been catching crabs here since I was a kid," said one of the women, who said she was in her early 50's. "Before there were plenty of crabs and fish; now there are not so many." (06/30/02)

Fighting Fire With Fire

New York Times -- It was not an easy sell when the Forest Service came to people living among the crowded trees of the Rockies last summer and said it wanted to set the woods on fire. What the men in green had in mind was not just a little burn, but a big blaze, 8,000 acres of national forest land bordering some very expensive new houses. Homeowners were incensed. Suburban communities said the smoke would hurt people's health. Colorado politicians, from the governor to legislators, tried to stop it and other planned fires, citing fears of flames getting out of control. But this week, the biggest wildfire in Colorado history, the Hayman fire, dropped dead in its tracks when it met the boundary of the fire set deliberately by the Forest Service last year. ... But this summer's blazes show that controlled burns can be crucial in fire prevention. Forest Service officials note that these intentional blazes — one in Colorado and the other in Arizona — almost did not happen because of opposition from homeowners and politicians. (06/30/02)

Scorched-Earth Politics

New York Times -- A third dry summer in a row has brought another wave of forest fires to the American West. With two million acres already gone and summer just begun, it would seem logical for everyone to set differences aside and pursue the sound firefighting strategy devised by the Clinton administration and ratified by President Bush last year. ... In 2000, in the midst of roaring fires that eventually consumed 8.4 million acres, the Clinton administration and six Western governors agreed on a fresh approach. It consisted essentially of controlled burns plus an aggressive program to thin the underbrush, especially in vulnerable areas known as the "wildland/urban interface," where an increasing number of people have built homes near the forests. (06/30/02)

What Is The Indo-Pakistani Deadpool?

What do you get when you mix nuclear weapons and religious fanaticism? Two great tastes that taste great together! For the last several years, India and Pakistan have teetered on the very brink of nuclear holocaust. To the informed observer, it's clear that sooner or later, these bitter enemies are going to get in the ring again. (Remember, India and Pakistan have already fought three wars in the last sixty years.) Only this time, it's going to be one heck of a fireworks show. Their nukes are in control of the military and can presumably be used at the discretion of one or more commander(s) in the field. Just one loopy officer who's willing to die for Allah, or Vishnu, or his own personal three-headed goat god, and BLAMO! It's on, Baby! Seems it's not a matter of "if." It's only a matter of "when." Which brings us to The Indo-Pakistani Deadpool. "But," you ask, "what on earth is a deadpool?" It's really simple. It's a "pool" (like a sports pool) in which one bets on the exact instance of death. All you have to do is guess when the first Indian or Pakistani nuclear device will be detonated in anger to win fantastic prizes! Whoo-hoo! What could be easier? It's fun and exciting for the entire family! (06/30/02)