Steven Levy’s scoop on the Microsoft Palladium project.

Standfirst reads:”An exclusive first look at Microsoft’s ambitious-and risky-plan to remake the personal computer to ensure security, privacy and intellectual property rights. Will you buy it? “

Sounds to me like Gates and Intel want to do Fritz Hollings’ dirty work for him, by pitching security as the upside. Or, as The Register puts it,

“According to Levy, Palladium is a hardware and software combination that will supposedly seal information from attackers, block viruses and worms, eliminate spam, and allow users to control their personal information even after it leaves their computer. It will also implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) for movies and music to allow users to exercise ‘fair use’ rights of such products. Palladium will essentially create a proprietary computing environment where Microsoft is the trusted gatekeeper, guard, watchstander, and ruler of all it surveys, thus turning the majority of computing users into unwilling corporate serfs and subjects of the Redmond Regime. ”

Mystery about Dave Winer’s health solved

“OK, here’s the deal. I did not have a heart attack, but it was close. I had bypass surgery, which I am now recovering from. It was my fault — I had classic warning signs that I ignored. No family history of heart disease. Most important — I wanted to keep smoking. The numbers are good if I quit smoking. If I don’t the numbers are totally awful. “

Phew! What with Dave suddenly going offline and Quentin moving house, there’s been precious little to read around here.

Reading this piece by Stewart Alsop I had the thought that TiVo+broadband = a P2P system for television content. But when I got to the end of the article, it seemed that Alsop had backed off the idea. Or maybe he just didn’t see it? But the phrase “file-served television” is good.

Intriguing review of new book on network thinking.

The book is Linked: The New Science of Networks by Elbert-Laszlo Barabasi. This “NYT” review was good enough to make me order it from Amazon anyway. Quote:

“The extensions of Professor Barabasi’s thinking go in many directions. What caused Cisco Systems and other technology companies that outsource much of their production to be so clobbered in 2000 and 2001? Cisco, in particular, had bragged that its Internet-based supply chain meant that it would never be surprised by having too much inventory. But, Professor Barabasi writes, Cisco did not understand network effects and had to pay for billions of dollars’ worth of components in its extended supply chain; oddly, Cisco, the master of the network, didn’t think in network terms.”

ISOC warns about threats to the Net

The Internet’s potential for promoting expression and empowering citizens is under threat from corporate and government policies that clash with the medium’s long-standing culture of openness, some leading Internet thinkers warned.

At the annual Internet Society conference this week in Arlington, the engineers who built the Internet and many of the policymakers who follow its development urged caution as governments try to exert control and businesses look to maximize profits.

“We’re at a turning point in the evolution of the Internet,” said William J. Drake, a fellow at the University of Maryland. A wrong turn means “robbing it of its real democratic potential.”

Vint Cerf, co-developer of the Internet’s basic communications protocols, worries that big, traditional businesses could gain unprecedented control through manipulating the high-speed services that are delivered over cable and phone networks.

Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it.

“That leads to a lot of peculiar effects,” he said. Two people “could each receive high-quality video but can’t send it. They can’t have high-quality videoconferencing.” [ more…]

Useful summary of current state of play on access to personal data under RIPA

So why did the government back off the proposal for extending surveillance powers under the RIP Act?

Interesting piece in Stand arguing that one important factor was the volume of email and faxes to MPs by cyber-activists worried about online liberties. Quote:

“As most of you will already have heard, the government has backed down from the RIP s22 Order that would have given access to traffic data to dozens of government departments. We thought you’d like to know that this U-turn was largely down to you. The FaxYourMP folk say that they relayed 1789 faxes from last monday, and estimate that around 1600 of those were related to the s22 RIP Order. That means that, on average, every MP received at least two messages expressing concern over the measure. We’ve received mail from constituents saying that their Member of Parliament called them directly to discuss the issue. We’ve had MPs mail us with advice. We’ve had TV companies and newspapers contact us after they’d been hassled by their readers and viewers. We’ve even had MPs writing letters to constituents explaining, mournfully, that there was nothing they could do – and then had their own voters explain to them how to attend Standing Committee debates, and who to get in contact with others to help fight this order. Ah, those apathetic votees. ”

What does the financial services industry do for us? Answer: Zilch.

“One expert, formerly an investment banker who lived through the good times and got out of the City before the decline, says: ‘The financial services business has failed the three basic tests – fund management returns are falling, mergers and acquisitions have been shown not to work, analysts’ forecasts nearly always turn out to be wrong. How can they claim to have added any value to the well-being of the nation after all that? It’s a bloody scandal.’ ” Frank Kane on Britain’s rip-off financial services industry.

Dave Winer disappeared from the Web for a few days and then returned with some enigmatic references to illness. Seems to be connected with smoking. He’s not telling — just hinting. That’s his privilege. Hope he’s all right. I’ve been reading him for years, and he’s wonderfully insightful about the Net and refreshingly humane about life.

Why do we buy such absurdly powerful computers when many of us could get by with a good abacus? Are we all geneticists working on decoding the human genome? My Observer column this week.