07 October 2002

How Do You Sue a Company You Cannot Find? NEW YORK TIMES -- Amy Harmon reports the Internet music-swapping firm KaZaA, which has assumed the successor role to now-defunct Napster, is being sued in a federal court in Los Angeles by the Recording Industry Association of America for copyright violations, but the RIAA has several problems to overcome. First, there is a question of geography, since KaZaA is everywhere and nowhere: its distributor, Sharman Networks, is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, it is managed from Australia, its computer servers are in Denmark, and its developers can't be found. Second, there is an issue of jurisdiction: Sharman's lawyer says, "What they're asking is for a court to export the strictures of U.S. copyright law worldwide. That's not permitted. These are questions of sovereignty that legislatures and diplomats need to decide." And third, there is the question of whether giving people the tools (KaZaA's service) to break the copyright law is itself a copyright violation, even if KaZaA itself did not misappropriate copyrighted music.

The Shape of the Net ECONOMIST.com -- Scientists at the University of Notre Dame have created a new model of the Internet that differs significantly from previous attempts that used graphs depicting routers as points and the links between them as lines. These older representations are misleading, says Albert-Laslo Barabasi, because they miss two important features: Links in the Internet are "preferentially attached" -- a router that already has many links is likely to attract many more; one that doesn't, won't. In addition, the Internet has more clusters of connected points than random graphs do. These two properties give the Internet a topology that is scale-free, i.e., a small part of the Internet will, when suitably magnified, resemble the whole. The scale-free aspect means that the Internet is resistant to random failures -- one reason it's proven so resilient over the years -- but it also puts it at risk for deliberate attacks on the most popular hubs -- the sort of thing cyberterrorists might attempt. Barabasi's research offers new insight on how best to stop the spread of a computer virus. Rather than attempting to block the infection by "inoculating" as many machines as possible, a scale-free model suggests that treating a relatively small number of the most popular hubs would be the most effective way to stamp out the virus entirely.

Know Your Flight Seat Dimensions SEAT GURU -- You need a seat-by-seat guide to the airlines so you can break down every plane in the fleets of American, United, Continental, Delta and US Airways, to see which seats have the best width and the most legroom. Did you know that seats towards the back have smaller distances between arm rests due to the curvature of the fuselage in the rear? Now you do.

Sony Clie Has Sweet Flash Player SONYSTYLE-- Sure, this is only the Flash 5 Player on the Clie. When the Flash 6 player hits the Sony Clie, we're going to see world-class connectivity and communications features carried around in your pocket.

Google May Charge for Searches TELEGRAPH.co.uk -- According to Simon Goodley, Google may charge for some targeted searches or for its newsfeed.

Who Is Going to .NET? LANCASTER, Pennsylvania -- If no one is investing in IT gear and everyone wants to squeeze more years out of what they have, wouldn't that mean Microsoft's .NET is trying to fill a hole that doesn't exist? I got that thought after reading the Washington Post Tech section today.

Hiding from CCTV NEW YORK TIMES -- Michael Naimark thinks he can hide from CCTV cameras with the the aid of a $1 laser pointer.