O'Reilly Digital Media

Zimran Ahmed: The future of Microsoft is built on massive interoperability where applications can serve up information (possibly over a network) to each other. So Outlook will serve addresses to Word, Access will serve numbers to Excel, and PowerPoint will send data to Visio.

Related link: http://www.techtv.com/products/software/story/0,23008,3349207,00.html

RealNetworks revealed their answer to Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 7 on Monday, with the release of RealOne, a platform that not only ties in their existing products, but is primed to become the single destination where customers can absorb every type of online media.

By just taking a quick look at the new player, I applaud Real for ditching their outdated player, and for finally tying the player and RealJukebox at the hip. Heck, they even made it extensible through a variety of software development toolkits. End users and content providers can create their own RealOne Player interface with the skins toolkit, add new visualizations, add new RealSystem compatible datatypes like MPEG-4 and connect to the latest portable devices.

Not so coincidentally, MusicNet (who RealNetworks has a large stake in) will be seamlessly accessible from the player for those who choose to subscribe.

Related link: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2813501,00.html

Microsoft has announced that .NET will allow third party identity providers to compete with Passport. This is a surprising move — I expected the company to wait until Passport was dominant before opening it to competition.

This move changes the landscape of their battle with AOL quite a lot. Before, Microsoft was pitting their web users, MSN users, and future XP users directly against AOL’s subscribers and AIM users. That’s still the case, but monopolization of the space is no longer possible. AOL’s long term prospects are looking better, as are all other third party identity sources, including mom and pop ISPs, Jabber, Yahoo IM, and SMS providers like France Telecom.

The strategic consequences are that Microsoft has given up one huge weapon, the potential for their vast user identity database to bludgeon AOL’s out of existence, in exchange for strengthening their presence web service (XP Messenger), strengthening the hold of their services and software infrastructure on next generation Internet providers, and strengthening the utility of Hailstorm (now patronizingly renamed “.NET MyServices”).

It remains to be seen how open the system will really be, and whether Microsoft will also allow third party providers to compete with Messenger. It is also possible that the company holds patent rights which federation members would have to license.

The company had hinted recently that this might happen but was still under discussion. This move shows that both strategy and technology related to .NET are still in flux, something unusual given how huge a bet Microsoft is placing on it. One possible cause of the switch is internal conflict between pro-Internet and pro-Windows factions. To the degree that access to third party identity datastores makes Hailstorm apps more useful, the move strengthens Microsoft’s PC software.

Three stories on the subject:

• ZDNet: MS: You don’t trust us? OK, we’ll open Passport, Hailstorm
• New York Times: Microsoft’s Passport Sign-On System Will Work on Rival Sites
• MSNBC: Microsoft to open Passport to rivals

Postscript:

According to Dave Winer on the [Decentralization] list,

I just got off the phone with Chris Payne and Hal Howard from Microsoft, and
think I can clarify.

Today’s announcement is about Kerberos only. They said that at this level
their system is open, meaning that users can choose a different server from
Microsoft’s to manage their identity.

Higher level issues, schema for user data, and protocols for connecting
desktop apps to clouds are not being discussed now; however they said that
they would be released with a similar philosophy.

They may have patents, and if they have them they will use them.

WSDL, UDDI and SOAP are the underpinnings of the next level(s) up.

We had a long wide-ranging discussion of what open means, and what level of
choice will be necessary for independent developers to be willing to invest
in Microsoft’s new platform.

A quick take on that news is that Microsoft is reserving the right to provide the server software for third parties that can compete with Passport.

Postscript #2, Sept 22:

The Register has this story, which gives the best overview I’ve seen of the incompatibilities between MS Kerberos and others.

Thoughts?

Related link: http://conferences.oreilly.com/p2p/

The O’Reilly P2P and Web Services Conference has been rescheduled with new dates and a new location. The conference will be held Nov. 5-8, 2001, at the Westin Grand Hotel in downtown Washington. You will need to make new reservations at the Westin. Information is here

Related link: http://www.msnbc.com/news/631517.asp

Microsoft announced today that it is converting its Passport authentication system to Kerberos 5.0. The switch should allow Hailstorm web services (now christened .Net My Services), to accept authentication from any number of Kerberos-compliant authentication vendors.

MS wants industry-wide cooperation on an “Internet trust network.” What’s your trust level?

While the broadcast media focused primarily on the hysteria of Tuesday’s events,
P2P networks proved to be the best sources of accurate information while playing a key role in connecting people together, locating survivors and keeping business going as usual.

Ultimately, the amateur reports and photographs from people at large proved to be the most accurate sources of information. Mailing lists, weblogs and collaborative discussion boards such as Slashdot and Metafilter provided a steady stream of reliable information.

Picking up where cell phones left off, Instant Messaging
and
Blackberry e-mail pagers were used to ease the worry almost immediately.
“There was no way I was going to stay frustrated by the non-knowledge of where everybody was,” recounts New Yorker Richard Laermer. “I got updates from everybody about everything, including how my friends were. I ticked them off, one at a time.”

“Web sites and chat rooms became meeting halls; instant messages and e-mails replaced phone calls,” explains USA Today writer Janet Kornblum. “People wanted two things: reassurance and information.”

IRC channels, such as #bomb_breaking_news at irc.indymedia.org, enabled users to compare notes from different news sources from all over the world. There was much discussion among bloggers, and numerous maps, photos and simulations emerged rapidly, and mostly from amateur sources.

“The most amazing, futuristic thing about the Current Situation is the amount of civilian-generated content and coverage, from amateur photos and videos to first-person accounts to grassroots survivor-lists to the passengers themselves, making wireless calls to the ground as they prepare to rush the cockpit,” writes Cory Doctorow, co-editor of
BoingBoing, a group weblog he co-edits with

Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz.

“The world has changed,” he declares. “The filpside of the Orwellian nightmare of the panoptic surveillance society is the voracious data-gathering and republishing of the distributed world, a weird utopia of ubiquitous information and observation.”

Weblogs were brimming with both information and commentary about other reports. An almost immediate backlash against some of the hysterical press allowed comfort before any snowballs had a chance to start rolling. Other weblogs, such as that of
Jason Kottke blogged some great first hand accounts fresh from New York City. Other bloggers, such as Jish Mukeji, provided palm pilot news drops that could be accessed via traditional browsers over Tuesday’s overloaded Web.

Brooklyn-based Science Fiction writer Bill Shunn started a New York City Bombing Check-In Registry focused specifically on providing a forum for survivors to notify their loved ones that they were ok, but had to remove it when his servers were quickly overloaded.
Other registers popped up for confirming
safety reporting
missing persons, including: Prodigy,
Boston Coop and
Viexpo.com, all in advance of efforts by the Red Cross or the
White House.

“With help from Dave and the Blogger Search Page , I’ve spent much of the last two days reading first-hand accounts of the horrible events in NYC and D.C. and personal reactions from people all over the world,” writes Cami Walker from her nutz’so weblog. “Thank god for personal journalism because the coverage we’re seeing in the mainstream media is painfully repetitive and barely scratches the surface. It feels very restrained and controlled to me which is probably best for the country at large right now. But it has been helpful for me to get a sense of what real people are thinking and dealing with.”

Resources

• New York City Bombing Check-In Registry
  
  Bill Shunn’s Weblog
  (http://www.shunn.net/okay/)

• Scripting.com
  
  Dave Winer’s Weblog
  (http://www.scripting.com)

• Nutz’so
  
  Cami Walker’s Weblog
  (http://www.nutzso.com/)

• Who Said the Web Fell Apart?
  
  By Leander Kahney    
Wired News
     (September 12, 2001)
  (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46766,00.html)

• Blogger Entries About Tuesday’s Incident
  
  Blogger
  (http://page.blogger.com/search_attack.pyra)

• BoingBoing: A Directory of Wonderful Things
  
  A blog edited by Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz   
  (http://www.boingboing.net)

• Cryptome’s Hazards of the World Trade Center page
  
  Cryptome.org   
  (http://cryptome.org/wtc-hazards.htm)

• Some reports from the scene, in NY
  
  By Jason Kottke    
Kottke.org
     (September 11, 2001)
  (http://www.kottke.org/notes/0109.html#010911)

• Simulations of Flight Paths and World Trade Center Demolition
  
  (http://www.elpais.es/multimedia/internacional/atentado.html)

• Jish Mukeji’s Weblog
  
  (http://jish.nu/2001_09_01_archive.php#5645477)

• Simulations and photos of the World Trade Center collapse
  
  USA Today    
  (http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gattack/index.htm)

• Instant messaging steps in for jammed phones

  
  By Jon Swartz and Michelle Kessler   
USA Today
     (September 13, 2001)
  (http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001/09/12/instant-messaging-usat.htm
  )

• After attack, the Net reassures and informs

  
  By Janet Kornblum   
USA Today
     (September 12, 2001)
  (http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001/09/12/net-reassures.htm)

• Internet Offers Lifeline
  
  Staff   
BBC News
     (September 12, 2001)
  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1539000/1539909.stm)

• Wired News Palm Pilot News Feeds
  
  
Wired News
  (http://www.wired.com/news_drop/palmpilot/)

Do you know a good source of news and reliable information? Please let us know.

Eric Raymond’s missive on the attacks is simply repulsive. The writing is a case of taking a good meme to bad extremes. The meme is decentralization, and the extreme is that decentralized everything is good. To see the absurdity of this line of thought one need only read the end of Raymond’s piece, although the whole piece is available here - http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/668.

“>Perhaps it is too much to hope that we will respond to this shattering
tragedy as well as the Israelis, who have a long history of preventing
similar atrocities by encouraging their civilians to carry concealed
weapons and to shoot back at criminals and terrorists. But it is in
that policy of a distributed response to a distributed threat, with
every single citizen taking personal responsibility for the defense of
life and freedom, that our best hope for preventing recurrences of
today’s mass murders almost certainly lies.

“If we learn that lesson, perhaps today’s deaths will not have been in vain.”

Arm every citizen and encourage them to shoot back at criminals and terrorists? This is Raymond’s lesson? This is what we want to become — a people living in fear and violence, a country based on instant reprisal and mutually assured destruction on a personal level? This is what decentralizing computer resources teaches us about how to run a society?

That would be a very regrettable “lesson” to learn.

What are the lessons, if any?

Related link: http://conferences.oreilly.com/p2p/

The O’Reilly Conferences group just issued this statement:

We are shaken, with the rest of the nation, by today’s tragic events.
We are currently assessing the effect on our upcoming Peer-to-Peer
and Web Services Conference in Washington, DC.

As soon as we have further information, we will post it on our web site
and send email to all of our registered attendees, speakers, and
conference partners.

Our thoughts are with the people and families affected by this disaster.

Sincerely,

The O’Reilly Conference Team

Related link: http://www.thalassocracy.org/soundmosaic/

“soundmosaic is a distributed system for constructing an approximation of one audio sample out of pieces of other samples — a kind of “photo mosaic” effect in sound. This is hackerware for the moment, so don’t expect to be able to use it without getting your hands dirty.

The soundmosaic algorithm is this: Split the original sample up into even-sized chunks. For each chunk of the original sample, find the closest match in the source sample, and replace. (The difference between two chunks is defined as the area between the waveforms.) In order to eliminate volume as a factor, the chunks are normalized prior to comparison, and the selected match is adjusted to the volume of the original chunk before it is written to the output file.

In order to find matches good enough to make both input samples recognizable, we need a tremendous source sample, and a tremendous amount of data storage and processing to go with it. Distributing the system helps to handle that load so that a decent result can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time. “

…

“each of these [13 second] mp3s represents something like a total of one day of processing split between my computer at home and my laptop”

I have never seen something like this before: a completely new functionality enabled by the kind of massive computing resource formerly available only to large projects becoming available to a project with no funding whatsoever. I wonder about what kind of wildly inventive things we may see as distributed computation becomes more widely available?

Related link: http://www.redherring.com/index.asp?layout=story&channel=80000008&doc_id=1260020…