Beepcard

/ Media Technology

Cute security technology from Beepcard:

The Comdot™ solution is easy and convenient: Users simply hold the card in front of their PC, phone or other networked microphone and squeezes the Comdot™ — a flat button on the card — the card uses sound, carrying a one time 3DES encrypted code, to identify the user to the destination server.

Bruce Schneier’s comments:

This is perhaps the coolest security idea I’ve seen in a long time. They have a demo application where you go to a website and purchase something with a credit card. To authenticate the transaction, you have to put the card up to your computer’s microphone and press the button. The sound is captured using a Java or ActiveX control — no plug-in required — and acts as an authenticator. It proves that the person making the transaction has the card in his hands, and doesn’t just know the number. In credit-card language, it changes the transaction from “card not present” to “card present.”

Even cooler, they are making an enhancement to the system that also includes a microphone on the card. This system will require the user to speak a password into the card before pressing the button.

Why do I like this? It’s a physical authentication system that doesn’t require any special reader hardware. You can use it on a random computer at an Internet cafe. You can use it on a telephone. I can think of all sorts of really easy, really cool applications. If the price is cheap enough, BeepCard has a winner here.

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Sony & TOPPAN announce 25GB Paper Disc

/ Media Technology

Sony and TOPPAN have just announced a 25Gig Blu-ray Disc made out of 51% paper:

25G Paper Disc

Hideaki Kawai, Managing Director, Head of Corporate R&D Division, TOPPAN CO., LTD commented: “Using printing technology on paper allows a high level of artistic label printing on the optical disc. Since a paper disc can be cut by scissors easily, it is simple to preserve data security when disposing of the disc”.

Masanobu Yamamoto, Senior General Manager of Optical System Development Gp., Optical Disc Development Div., Sony Corporation said: “Since the Blu-ray Disc does not require laser light to travel through the substrate, we were able to develop this paper disc. By increasing the capacity of the disc we can decrease the amount of raw material used per unit of information.”

Details will be announced at the SPIE Optical Data Storage 2004 Conference next week.

TOPPAN is also working with E Ink to produce their paper displays.

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Gmail, privacy and centralization

/ Media Technology

There’s been a lot of hubbub over Gmail, Google’s new free (advertising-based) Not An April Fool’s Joke email service with 1Gig of disk space. The biggest issue is that Google hasn’t properly communicated where they stand on protecting email privacy, especially in relation to their plan to automatically scan email and present relevant advertisements as a sidebar. In response, a host of privacy organizations have written an open letter demanding that the service be suspended until privacy issues are addressed. The EFF has also been asking some important questions, and Google says they’re “batting about a number of options”.

On the surface, Gmail isn’t that different than existing online email services. It’s a free email account run on company-owned-and-operated servers, just like MSN Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. It automatically scans and annotate email, just like spam-filters do already. And in spite of criticism about Gmail’s privacy policy, it’s not that different (and in fact more explicit) than the ones you find at MSN or Yahoo!. But look just a little down the road and Gmail isn’t an email service at all, it’s a personal information archival service. This is the real service Google is looking to provide. As they put it: “Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want.”

My first reaction is “it’s about damn time someone’s doing this.” Since 1995 I’ve kept every email I’ve received or sent (yes, even spam), for a total of over 1.6 Gig and almost 200,000 non-spam email messages. I index it all with the Remembrance Agent (my PhD thesis project) so whenever I get email on, say, some hot new technology I also get links to what other friends, colleagues and mailing lists have said on the subject. (On a different note, when I write love letters I see what I’ve written to previous girlfriends, which is sometimes quite educational.) I’d love to have this kind of thing hooked up not only to my own email but also, say, my favorite 1000 RSS feeds that I’d like to read but don’t have time for. That’s clearly the direction Google is heading (they even cite me — I love it when that happens!)

Systems like Gmail face two problems, both of which are also strengths. The first is that my personal and work email archives contains some of the most sensitive information there is in my life. They include email confirmation of purchases, trips I’ve taken and investments I’ve made. They include love letters I’ve sent and later regretted, discussions of medical issues, and drunken emails complaining about people with whom I’ve lived and worked. They include research ideas not yet patented and drafts of papers not yet published. Often these emails are sensitive precisely because they are powerful and useful, but more often than not information that empowers me can also empower my enemies, competitors and parasites.

The second problem is Google’s centralized architecture, which is easier to maintain and deploy but requires me to trust them with my most sensitive assets. This is a general problem with indexing the Deep Web of proprietary data, and I suspect it was the main failure point for Autonomy’s short-lived Kenjin system and the main reason they moved to an inside-the-firewall search system. This is not to say a centralized approach is untenable; we already have institutions that are trusted with sensitive data, namely doctors, lawyers, and financial institutions. But what these three have in common are a combination of legal and institutional guarantees of privacy, security and longevity of the data they keep. By improving on the usual web-mail model Google plans to join these institutions in terms of trust required, but so far they haven’t improved on the old and inadequate web-mail privacy guarantee. It may not even be possible for Google to make the necessary guarantees without Congressional support, an unlikely prospect given the Justice Department’s current lust for total information awareness.

If Google manages to innovate new trust models as well they do technology, I suspect Gmail will be a good stop-gap technology, though it will never be as trustable as a combination of my personal local data cache, an encrypted backup service, and trusted friends or services who keep backup keys. Call me picky, but I’m still holding out for my personal server. How much longer before I can have the Web in my pocket?

References

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TV and paying attention (to the facts)

/ Science

A couple days ago the AP reported about a new study that links the amount of time one- and three-year-olds spend watching TV to subsequent attentional problems at age seven. The study, which was published in the April issue of Pediatrics, analyzed interviews from a U.S. Department of Labor longitudinal study and found that for every extra hour a toddler watched TV per day there was a 10% rise in the likelihood that the child would show attentional problems later. The study and accompanying commentary both suggest that, while Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is known to have a significant genetic component, early television viewing might make already susceptible children more likely to manifest symptoms, and they rightly suggest further study. They also point out, however, that one “cannot draw causal inferences from these associations.” For example, though most experts believe ADHD symptoms don’t manifest until well after age three, it is still possible that parents are more likely to park their fidgetty children in front of the TV. Since parents of ADHD children are more likely to have attentional problems themselves, it is also possible that the results are due to parents with attentional problems being more likely to use the television as a babysitter. The article and commentary are both good science: they present their hypothesis, describe their data in detail, and point out both why they think their data supports their conclusions and how they may still be wrong. Their conclusions are well measured given the data: additional research is needed, and if the results are confirmed then attentional problems should join increased aggression and obesity as reasons to limit television viewing in early childhood.

Unfortunately, since the AP broke with the lead that television might permanently “rewire” the developing brain, most of the editorials have not been so measured. WhiteDot (an anti-TV organization) declares “It’s Official: TV Linked to Attention Deficit” and presents the shocker “Are parents who use infant videos such as ‘Baby Einstein’ and ‘Teletubbies’ putting their child at risk for a lifetime of Special Ed classes, school ‘behavioral therapy’ and Ritalin?” The Boston Globe goes one step further, suggesting that “the passive baby sitter we let into the house turned out to be a drug dealer, altering the brain perhaps even more permanently than a bag of dope.” The Philadelphia Inquirer threw in the specter that even Sesame Street might not be safe: “And it had bad news for parents who congratulate themselves that their kids watch only ‘educational’ TV. It didn’t seem to matter what type of shows babies and toddlers watched — whether Sesame Street or Barney or Cartoon Network.” (Not true — the researchers have no information about what kind of TV the children watched, and only concluded that if educational TV isn’t bad then non-educational TV must be even worse to account for the differences found.)

I take away two lessons from this. First, it’s likely that ADHD is yet another condition where genetics and environment interact (ala Matt Ridley’s Nature via Nurture). Second, the guys writing these editorials clearly watched too much TV when they were toddlers — ’cause they just plain aren’t paying attention!

References

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Science of marriage

/ Science

This American Life had a fascinating show on marriage a couple weeks back (and have made an audio stream available). Most interesting was an interview (in act one) with Dr. John Gottman, a researcher who videotapes & bio-monitors couples discussing something they disagree about and codes their heart rates, expressions and how they speak to each other. From about 15 minutes of data he has an 85% chance of predicting if the marriage will last the next 4 years and whether they’ll be happy with it. If he records another hour or so of the couples talking about how they met & things they share, his success rate goes up to 94%.

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There’s no fool like an April Fool…

/ Media Technology

…and I’m one of them. Turns out the Wal*Mart purchase of online communities was an elaborate April fool’s hoax (dang it, these things are happening earlier every year!). From the owner of the board:

…And after reading thru the discussions the past week and all the frustration, concern, heated discussion and heartfelt conversation I came to realize one important thing.

THIS WAS THE BEST APRIL FOOL’S GAG YET!!!!! (Well it *could* have been)

Yeah, you got it. It was a scam, April Fool’s all completely bogus.

This was a carefully thought out and orchestrated prank from a group of truly demented geniuses, your moderators. Probably would have played out better had not a few people taken it as some declaration of war. We really had no idea some would be as hateful as to treat it that way.

Makes me wonder what else is a gag. Anyone taking bets on whether Richard Clark is going to jump up and yell April Fools?

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The problem with DRM on news

/ Intellectual Property

Mary Hodder over at Napsterization has a nice essay on how foolish it is for news media to hide their content behind Digital Rights Management (props to Dan Gillmor for the link). Her two main points: The most important reasons news media companies and creators should not implement DRM is because of fair use considerations of the content itself, as well as the maintenance of their positions as reporters of news, and authorities of information.

Her point on authority is an issue that can be expressed purely in business terms: don’t release your content and eventually you become irrelevant (and thus out of business). Her fair use argument is equally important, but harder to explain to all the large corporations that have bought up news organizations in recent years, but who didn’t grow up in the industry. Journalism is a social contract wherein the press receive special access to political leaders, special legal status, and strong constitutional protection, and in return provide the useful, trustworthy information our democracy needs to survive. Fair use may not improve shareholder value, any more than anti-bribery laws improve a congressman’s annual income, but it’s necessary for the press to continue their vital role as a public trust.

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