Even hints at the truth bother some governments. Imagine how this would go over in North Korea...
http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/3/2006/09/22-134838-1.htm
The limits to diplomacy via blogging
22 Oct 2006 13:48:00 GMT
UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk runs a blog detailing the realities of peace negotiations in Darfur.
He's admirably open and last week reported that Khartoum-backed forces had been beaten in two major battles.
Predictably, the Khartoum government didn't like being accused of direct involvement in violence by a UN official. It asked for an apology, according to ABC news. Having received none, it has now told Pronk he has three days to leave the country.
Pronk's blog gives the kind of detail that mainstream media can rarely provide. But the ability of officials to pursue diplomatic methods to end conflicts has conventionally required them to display a degree of discretion.
Pronk is experimenting with the limits of diplomacy by blogging. He's doing so within an apparent UN vacuum -- the organisation has rules on what can be published in books by its employees but no guidelines on blogs.
The fate of Pronk's blog will be of interest not only to those watching the unfolding disaster of Darfur, but also to organisations struggling to balance the benefits of blogs' openness with their ability to damage reputations and constrain the room for manoeuvre.
...even though none of their citizens would see it.
October 23, 2006
The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
THE tragically backward, sometimes absurdist hallmarks of North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-il, are well known. There is Mr. Kim’s Elton John eyeglasses and strangely whipped, cotton-candy hairdo. And there is the North Korean “No! Yeeesssss ... No! O.K. Fear the tiger!” school of diplomacy.
... This is an impoverished country where televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only government-controlled frequencies. Cellphones were banned outright in 2004. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranked North Korea No. 1 — over also-rans like Burma, Syria and Uzbekistan — on its list of the “10 Most Censored Countries.”
... While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid.
Julien Pain, head of the Internet desk at Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group which tracks censorship around the world, put it more bluntly. “It is by far the worst Internet black hole,” he said.
That is not to say that North Korean officials are not aware of the Internet.
As far back as 2000, at the conclusion of a visit to Pyongyang, Madeleine K. Albright, then secretary of state, bid Mr. Kim to “pick up the telephone any time,” to which the North Korean leader replied, “Please give me your e-mail address.” That signaled to everyone that at least he, if not the average North Korean, was cybersavvy. (It is unclear if Ms. Albright obliged.)
These days, the designated North Korean domain suffix, “.kp” remains dormant, but several “official” North Korean sites can be found delivering sweet nothings about the country and its leader to the global conversation (an example: www.kcckp.net/en/) — although these are typically hosted on servers in China or Japan.
Mr. Kim, embracing the concept of “distance learning,” has established the Kim Il-sung Open University Web site, www.ournation-school.com — aimed at educating the world on North Korea’s philosophy of “juche” or self-reliance. And the official North Korean news agency, at www.kcna.co.jp, provides tea leaves that are required reading for anyone following the great Quixote in the current nuclear crisis.
But to the extent that students and researchers at universities and a few other lucky souls have access to computers, these are linked only to each other — that is, to a nationwide, closely-monitored Intranet — according to the OpenNet Initiative, a human rights project linking researchers from the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School and Cambridge and Oxford Universities in Britain.
A handful of elites have access to the wider Web — via a pipeline through China — but this is almost certainly filtered, monitored and logged.
Some small “information technology stores” — crude cybercafes — have also cropped up. But these, too, connect only to the country’s closed network. According to The Daily NK, a pro-democracy news site based in South Korea, computer classes at one such store cost more than six months wages for the average North Korean (snipurl.com/DailyNK). The store, located in Chungjin, North Korea, has its own generator to keep the computers running if the power is cut, The Daily NK site said.
“It’s one thing for authoritarian regimes like China to try to blend the economic catalyst of access to the Internet with controls designed to sand off the rough edges, forcing citizens to make a little extra effort to see or create sensitive content,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford.
The problem is much more vexing for North Korea, Professor Zittrain said, because its “comprehensive official fantasy worldview” must remain inviolate. “In such a situation, any information leakage from the outside world could be devastating,” he said, “and Internet access for the citizenry would have to be so controlled as to be useless. It couldn’t even resemble the Internet as we know it.”
But how long can North Korea’s leadership keep the country in the dark?
Writing in The International Herald Tribune last year, Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, suggested that North Korea’s ban on cellphones was being breached on the black market along China’s border. And as more and more cellphones there become Web-enabled, she suggested, that might mean that a growing number of North Koreans, in addition to talking to family in the South, would be quietly raising digital periscopes from the depths.
Of course, there are no polls indicating whether the average North Korean would prefer nuclear arms or Internet access (or food, or reliable power), but given Mr. Kim’s interest in weapons, it is a safe bet it would not matter.
“No doubt it’s harder to make nuclear warheads than to set up an Internet network,” Mr. Pain said. “It’s all a question of priority.”
Will higher resolution result in higher reliance? Over-reliance?
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4534073?source=rss
Space lens may refocus spy technology
Article Last Updated:10/22/2006 11:32:24 PM MDT
Air Force Academy - A researcher thinks he has found a new space-based tool to spy on enemy lands.
Using lightweight materials similar to aluminum foil, Geoff Andersen says it's possible to build a new type of satellite-borne telescope lens that would revolutionize spy satellites and open new vistas in the field of astronomy. Andersen said the new lens would zoom into targets hundreds of miles below with clarity that would allow operators to read newsprint.
Andersen is experimenting with technology used for microscopes called a photon sieve. It's the equivalent of using millions of pinhole cameras to focus light beams on a single point.
His 4-inch experimental model is thin as foil and uses 10 million tiny holes to do the job. So far, Andersen said, the model, which cost $1,000 to construct, works better than lenses that cost 10 times as much.
There should be at least a law journal article here. Perhaps a guidebook for bloggers?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/53815.html
Blogging for Better Customer Service
By Erika Morphy www.CRMBuyer.com Part of the ECT News Network 10/23/06 4:00 AM PT
Blogs are increasingly being used to shine a spotlight on companies that provide poor service or otherwise annoy -- sometimes enrage -- consumers. For consumer advocates, they are a true equalizer: Bloggers have been able to shame companies into fixing mistakes or changing policies, especially when they cause a mainstream media reporter to come calling.
What should companies do -- and what should they refrain from doing -- when reacting to blog postings about their products or services? Robert Cox, president of the New York-based Media Bloggers Association and a consultant to consumer packaged goods companies, has very specific ideas on the subject.
What they shouldn't do: Ignore the situation, or worse, try to intimidate bloggers into shutting up -- unless, of course, they are writing defamatory statements. More on that below.
"There have been some high-profile cases of companies ignoring complaints about their products on blogs and then having it blow up in their faces very publicly later on," he tells CRM Buyer.
There was, for example, the publicity about Dell's very poor customer service -- the catalyst for that PR firestorm was an unhappy blogger.
There was also the humiliating case of the Kryptonite lock. A blogger posted a video showing that its bike locks could be picked with a Bic pen in 30 seconds, confirming what had started out as a rumor. Within weeks, the video made its way into major media and the company wound up issuing a recall.
A More Positive Approach
Dunkin' Donuts, on the other hand, provides an example of a company thinking on its feet to handle a negative blog posting correctly.
A few years ago, Cox says, he came across a Web site that announced Dunkin' Donuts would ship a case of coffee to any relative of a soldier fighting in Iraq. The blog was a misleading in many ways, he recalls.
For starters, the site was designed to look like Dunkin' Donuts -- indeed, Cox though it was an affiliated Web site at first. Also, as it turned out, the information was not quite accurate. Cox believed that it was, though, and passed the link to other bloggers who began mentoining it on their sites.
Hours later, Cox, who has two nephews in Iraq, called Dunkin' Donuts to find out more. He spoke with a woman who told him the company was no longer backing the offer, because it had gotten too many requests. Cox related the conversation on his own blog and passed that information along to the blogosphere as well. It got exactly the reception one might expect.
Next, Cox received a call from an ad agency that monitored the blogosphere for mentions of its clients. "They said, before I write anything further they would like a chance to investigate what had happened -- and could I please hold off," said Cox.
They called back with an explanation -- and a press release tailored just for him. The offer to ship coffee had never been a formal one; apparently it was made ad hoc without much thought concerning the total cost to the company. However, Dunkin' Donuts did want to do something to support the troops and said it would ship cases of its coffee to different units every month, on a random but regular basis.
Consumer Complaints
Web logs, or "blogs" as they are called, are increasingly being used to shine a spotlight on companies that provide poor service or otherwise annoy -- sometimes enrage -- consumers.
For consumer advocates, they are a true equalizer: Bloggers have been able to shame companies into fixing mistakes or changing policies, especially when they cause a mainstream media reporter to come calling.
Companies, for the most part, are reacting well to this shifting balance of power with consumers. As a consultant, "How do I shut these people up?" was a typical request Cox received from companies.
"That is still out there, of course," he said, "but I have seen a change among smarter companies that are realizing that blogs represent opportunities to engage with their audiences on a very large scale."
Big Voice, Big Responsibilities
With the power of the blogger's voice, though, comes larger responsibilities -- not to mention potential liabilities. Many bloggers aren't aware of the danger zones.
A Louisiana woman was recently held liable for her blog posting about the service a Florida resident provided in a situation that involved her sons. What was unusual about the case was that the Louisiana native -- who lost her house in Hurricane Katrina -- had no money to pay the judgment, but the suit went forward anyway.
Legal observers expect to see such suits proliferate. "The interplay between the legal system and the blogging community is a developing one," Chip Babcock, a litigation attorney and partner at Jackson Walker tells CRM Buyer.
For the Record
Basically, bloggers are held to the same libel standard that any publisher is held to, Babcock explains. For bloggers unaware of what that standard is, a primer on the difference between a false statement and a statement of opinion -- which is protected speech -- is key.
Says Babcock: "If you want to call someone 'scum,' that is protected speech. You just can't say someone is scum because, say, they embezzle money," he advises, "unless of course that is true, and you can prove it."
More companies are monitoring the blogsphere, he notes, although many take a more adversarial stance than Dunkin' Donuts reportedly did. "I think corporate and legal strategies to deal with blogs [are] still very much evolving," he says.
Cease and desist letters are one tool -- but unless the blog is making false statements of fact, a blogger should have little to worry about.
"It is generally very difficult to prove defamation," Steve Smith, a partner at Preston Gates, tells CRM Buyer. "My guess is that for every ten lawsuits that are initiated for defamation, nine are eventually dropped once the person realizes how difficult it is to prove."
A tool for dealing with the previous article's threats?
http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6128340.html?part=rss&tag=6128340&subj=news
Putting blogs to work for Wall Street
By Michael Kanellos Story last modified Mon Oct 23 04:00:04 PDT 2006
Collective Intellect has a goal: Make bloggers work for The Man.
The company has created a service that combs through thousands of blogs, news sites, chat rooms and other Web sites every day and then surfaces rumors and news reports that might be of interest to traders or corporate public relations executives. Other start-ups like Monitor 110 provide similar services.
The idea is to give traders back the early and easy access to critical data that that they used to have when this information came through a lot fewer channels. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a Bloomberg terminal or subscriptions to news services could give you a jump on the hoi polloi. Today, it's the hoi polloi who often have the jump thanks to blogs and other tipster sites.
"They aren't sure where a story will break and how it will break," said Don Springer, Collective Intellect's CEO. "Traders are going crazy."
The system examines about 150,000 new postings a day. Then it analyzes them for sentiment--is it causing a stock to go up or down?--and credibility. The company then sends out data feeds and e-mails on stock activity and interesting news to subscribers.
Sites such as Digg and Google aggregate news and blog postings as well and for free, of course, but Collective Intellect can charge several thousand dollars, Springer said, because it filters out the critical information for its subscribers.
"Blogs have information, but there is no way to get at it easily," said Jim Armstrong, a partner at the venture capital firm Clearstone Venture Partners. Still, he added that companies in this space are going to have to figure out how to stand out from free services or competitors.
Does it work? The service finds breaking stories, but often at the same time as free services. The company says it had re-published news about the Dell battery recall on Aug. 14, a day before the New York Times published it on Aug. 15. However, several mainstream news sites posted the news on Aug. 14 as well. The system caught Dell's adoption of AMD notebook chips on Aug. 3, putting it only in a tie with free news sites.
The system, though, does summarize information, eliminating the time required to do independent searches.
"Google Blogsearch and Technorati look only at blogs. There really no good search engine that I know of for bulletin boards," Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in an e-mail. "It's an interesting idea, packaging the media aggregation and data for traders...The key is can they get news/insight sooner than others, and more importantly, be able to make sense of it."
Depending on the quality of the reports, these services could turn into a $50 million to $500 million industry.
Some of the more successful results have been with bits of information from obscure sites on stocks that aren't always in the limelight. In August, the system picked up information about a contract that Taser, the stun gun company, landed in France. The French contract was officially announced Oct. 5 and caused the stock to jump about 12 percent that day.
To maintain quality, the company says it monitors the performance and accuracy of the sources it combs. It also filters out spam blogs and tries to weed out sites that can influence opinion versus ones that are just new media also-rans. The company, in fact, hopes to be able to figure out if new media sources are actually surfacing and publishing new information, thereby fulfilling a new role in the media world, or just regurgitating stuff that's already out there.
Although accuracy is important, exact accuracy isn't always necessary. Traders often don't care, after all, if a rumor turns out to be true. The main issue is whether the information moves the stock.
Collective Intellect is trying to sell corporate America on the service too. Consumer electronics companies are starting to adopt it to track consumer feeling about the company. A public relations firm in the fourth quarter will also begin to use it to see how their releases get circulated in new media circles.
These companies pay, by the way. One sell-side firm pays $45,000 a year for a 10-seat subscription. Another firm paid $200,000 for a year's worth of data feeds. In 2006, it will book $400,000 in revenue. The company is currently trying to raise $6 million to $8 million in venture capital.
That's probably a little more than some people are getting from putting Google ad links on their sites. But will firms ante up for this service?
"It's the natural evolution with what you get out of two or three Technorati searches," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter. "But at those price points, it's hard imagining that this will last forever."
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6128305.html?tag=nefd.top
Google to unveil election mashup
By Elinor Mills Story last modified Mon Oct 23 05:29:26 PDT 2006
Google is expected to unveil on Sunday night a mashup that combines its popular Google Earth mapping program with information about the U.S. congressional races coming up in two weeks.
The Google Earth 2006 election resource tool indicates the country's 436 congressional districts with stars on the popular 3D map of the country. Clicking on a star pops open a bubble window that has information on the candidates in that race.
The window also includes links to news, images and Web search results on candidates, as well as to information on where and how to vote and campaign finance reform.
... On Tuesday, AOL launched an election-related blog called "The Stump."
The mid-term elections are scheduled for Nov. 7.
Raves in the comments, then the site was overwhelmed...
http://digg.com/design/Beautiful_Japanese_Fine_Art_Huge_Collection_7500_Hi_Res
Beautiful Japanese Fine Art - Huge Collection (7500+, Hi-Res)
noqualities submitted by noqualities 23 hours 37 minutes ago (via http://visipix.dynalias.com/search/search.php?q=japan&u=&l=en )
A huge collection of beautiful Japanese fine art, by artists such as Hokusai. All stored in high resolution, great for wallpapers!
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