Linux contract treads on Microsoft ground. A deal with IBM and SuSE makes it easier for German government offices to begin using Linux, a move that may signal a break from the country's heavy reliance on Microsoft. [CNET News.com]

See also this more-recent announcement from Taiwan.

From the article: "'With the contract with IBM we meet three key targets,' Otto Schily, Minister of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany, said in a statement. 'We raise the level of IT security by avoiding monocultures; we lower the dependency on single software vendors; and we reach costs savings in software and operation costs.'"

I'm wholeheartedly in favor of the US Government spending some of its vast IT budget sponsoring Open Source projects.  As citizens (and as consumers), let's vote with our wallets.

5:23:21 PM   

Hollywood faces recurring Net nightmare. Film studios helped shutter a video-on-demand site earlier this year only to see a sequel start up that may be more difficult to stop. [CNET News.com]

Break out your eye patch.  These guys got kicked out of Taiwan only to relocate to Iran. 

Let's do the math, shall we?  Technology-based copy protection doesn't work at all.  The Internet allows these guys to cultivate an international audience instead of being restricted to a regional market.  And Iran doesn't recognise America's MPAA-owned government or their entertainment cartel-protecting IP laws, so legal restrictions are out.  I'm not sure the MPAA is going to find Iranian courts to their liking, either.

The only thing to stop these guys is the fact that they've got a closed solution.  RealPlayer?  You've got to be kidding.  They should be selling MPEGs or DIVX with no copy protection at all.

5:04:24 PM   

Andrew Huang: Keeping Secrets in Hardware: the Microsoft XBox Case Study. (PDF) [Hack the Planet]

Despite the fact this is an academic paper on cryptographic hardware, it's surprisingly easy to read.  Credit is certainly due the author.  And it's a worthwhile read, too.

Software people like me know that (as Schneier put it) making bits not copyable is like making "water not wet."  It just can't be done.  We're well aware of the limits of copy protection in software.  Software copy protection has a dismal track record.  But copy protection in hardware is scarier.  It's gotta be harder to defeat, right?

The XBox has been a bit of landmark in hardware copy protection.  Microsoft has the skills to make hardware copy protection work -- certainly as much as anyone else.  And it's an attractive target.  I was worried no one would break the XBox, and proponents of draconian Digital Rights Management schemes would be able to point to the XBox as a success story.

So the fact that a PhD candidate was able to break the XBox crypto hardware in three weeks in his spare time using less than $200 in equipment is a very good sign for those of us who treasure freedom.

Now when we tell the US Congress that their DRM legislation is worthless, we can point to the XBox as an example.  Good news, indeed.

12:17:03 PM   

The Register: Mass VoIP moves closer to reality. Why do I have the suspicion that VeriSign will screw this up? [Hack the Planet]

There's a great quote: "'It's a fairly controversial subject within the ITU,' said Conrad. 'A lot of telecommunications companies are very concerned about things such as call bypass.' Call bypass (VoIP rather than PSTN) could cost carriers, some of which are controlled by national governments, some of the revenue they get from terminating international calls."

Very concerned?  I should think so!  That's pretty much the killer app for VoIP, right?

12:00:29 PM   

The Joys of SSH. Brent Ashley writes about the joys of ssh. One of my favorite ssh-related things is scp. With one command I can back up my entire website (which lives somewhere in California) to my local hard drive. Easy and secure. [inessential.com]

SSH is a spectacularly cool tool.  It's one of those technologies that's so good you forget it's there.  I know what you're thinking: "Oh, yeah, I use that."  But if you use SSH as a replacement for telnet, you may not know about the other cool things it can do.  Read "The Joys of SSH" to find out.

11:48:09 AM   

I just don't know what to do with myself...I'm so incredibly in love with my XDA, Despite it being a total Microsoft/O2 product, with unavoidable lock-in, I've even started entering my calendar info..help! Send search party... [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

This is the latest in a series of about half-a-dozen posts detailing Adam's evaluation of the MS PocketPC-based XDA (a GPRS-enabled PDA).  This is really good news for Microsoft.  Adam didn't want to like the product, but it was compelling enough that he can't stop singing its praises. 

Now if they would only sell them in Austin.

11:15:27 AM   

WebGain to exit tools, Oracle to buy TopLink. Java IDE market up for grabs [The Register]

My first reaction: WebGain getting out of the IDE market? Sure, they got their lunch eaten by Open Source tools.  But get this.  They're going to become a licensing/IP company, but they're turning over the product development (and, presumably, the IP) to the Open Source community.  Huh?

This is an Open Source victory no matter how you look at it.  IDE's are non-trivial software.  WebGain bought market share through acquisition -- they are number one at 22% share.  The fact that OS did it so much better than a 120-person development staff is a real coup.

11:00:39 AM   

Net music mired in marketing woes. But as hardware manufacturers, retailers and online music services sign deals at a breakneck pace, the question remains: What will it take to get consumers to bite? [CNET News.com]

What will it take?  Sell them plain MP3s with no copy-protection.  They'll bite; trust me.

10:49:29 AM   

NY Times: "Hollywood studios seeking to impose electronic controls on digital television broadcasts suffered a setback yesterday as a coalition of technology and consumer electronics companies supporting their efforts crumbled in a cross-industry power struggle."  [Scripting News]

Excellent.  This effort (and attempts to recapitulate it in legislation) deserve to die.  Such "consensus" is anti-competitive; the free market can handle this problem.  Entertainment industry business plans will change eventually.

How amusing is it that only the New York Times got this story right?  I saw three other articles in the past couple of days with headlines like "Studios, tech firms near digital TV pact" backed up by quotes about "approaching consensus."

10:05:06 AM