TELECOM Digest     Thu, 6 Oct 2005 15:42:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 455

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    AOL Buys Blogs (Kenneth Li and Eric Auchard)
    Court Rules in Favor of Anonymous Blogger (Randall Chase)
    Microsoft Says Windows Safer Than You Think (Georgina Prodhan)
    MCI Shareholders Approve Verizon Deal (USTelecom dailyLead)
    MCI Accepts Verizon Offer (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours! (Kenneth P. Stox)
    Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation (Lisa Hancock)

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We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
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and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kenneth Li annd Eric Auchard <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: AOL to Buys Weblogs, Courts Bloggers
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:58:21 -0500


By Kenneth Li and Eric Auchard

America Online on Thursday said it will buy Weblogs Inc., a network of
Web sites focused on topics ranging from scuba diving to gadgets,
marking the biggest bet on unfiltered online commentary.

The deal, which is expected to close next week, is worth about $25
million, one source said on Wednesday. Financial terms were not
disclosed.

AOL's agreement is the biggest price paid for a network of blogs, or
Web journals, analysts said, although it is a smaller price compared
with recent Internet acquisitions by media companies such as News
Corp.'s $580 million deal to buy Intermix Media Inc.

Weblogs is one of the more successful attempts at weaving together a
network of individual blogs to attract a stable of advertisers and
cash in on the blogging phenomenon.

The purchase also marks the third acquisition in recent months for AOL
after the online unit of Time Warner Inc. restructured its business
this year to focus on boosting advertising revenue to offset a
declining dial-up customer base.

Once seen as the red-headed stepchild of Time Warner, whose portfolio
includes HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, and CNN, top executives
now view AOL as a major source of growth for the entire company.

Over the summer, AOL has made more of its once proprietary services
available for free on its Web site, including music videos and
e-mail. It scored a victory in July when more viewers watched
AOL.com's presentation of the Live8 concerts than on television in the
United States.

"AOL is strong at mass market programing. We needed to go down to the
next level and do it in a scalable community based way," said Jim
Bankoff, executive vice president of programing at AOL.

Web logs adds 85 new Web sites, including the popular Engadget,
Autoblog and Joystiq, with contributions from over 100 freelance
bloggers to AOL's group of properties. The company will be managed
separately from AOL, but will be featured throughout AOL and AOL.com's
existing services.

Engadget ranks as the Web's third most popular blog in terms of links
from other sites, according to data on traffic measurement site
Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/pop/blogs/)

"We've reached a milestone in the development of citizen media," Jason
Calacanis, co-founder and CEO of Weblogs Inc., said in a statement,
citing AOL's advertising expertise as a reason for the sale.

Calacanis is a dot-com impresario who in the second half of the 1990s
acted as the unofficial mayor of Silicon Alley, a hub of Internet
companies that formed in Manhattan's downtown.

A rival network known as Gawker Media is backed by Nick Denton,
another New York-based blog entrepreneur. The Gawker network focuses
on a smaller number of highbrow, gossip-oriented sites, including
Gawker and Wonkette.

"The concept of unfiltered content being on same level of major media
companies is revolutionary, but also appropriate," Calacanis said.

AOL on Thursday also said it made its AOL Instant Messenger software
and services available on several blogs and social network Web
sites. They include: Facebook, an online directory of high school and
college users; LinkedIn, a social network for job seekers; Six Apart,
which makes blogging software; and Glam.com, a fashion and beauty
site.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. 

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

------------------------------

From: Randall Chase <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Court Rules in Favor of Anonymous Blogger
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:59:57 -0500


By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press Writer

In a decision hailed by free-speech advocates, the Delaware Supreme
Court on Wednesday reversed a lower court decision requiring an
Internet service provider to disclose the identity of an anonymous
blogger who targeted a local elected official.

In a 34-page opinion, the  justices said a Superior Court judge should
have required Smyrna town councilman Patrick Cahill to make a stronger
case that  he and  his wife, Julia,  had been defamed  before ordering
Comcast  Cable  Communications  to  disclose the  identities  of  four
anonymous posters  to a blog  site operated by  Independent Newspapers
Inc., publisher of the Delaware State News.

In a series of obscenity-laced tirades, the bloggers, among other
things, pointed to Cahill's "obvious mental deterioration," and made
several sexual references about him and his wife, including using the
name "Gahill" to suggest that Cahill, who has publicly feuded with
Smyrna Mayor Mark Schaeffer, is homosexual.

In June, the lower court judge ruled that the Cahills had established
a "good faith basis" for contending that they were victims of
defamation and affirmed a previous order for Comcast to disclose the
bloggers' identities.

One of the bloggers, referred to in court papers only as John Doe
No. 1 and his blog name, "Proud Citizen," challenged the ruling,
arguing that the Cahills should have been required to establish a
prima facie case of defamation before seeking disclosure of the
defendants' identities.

The Supreme Court agreed, reversing and remanding the case to Superior
Court with an order to dismiss the Cahills' claims.

"Because the trial judge applied a standard insufficiently protective
of Doe's First Amendment right to speak anonymously, we reverse that
judgment," Chief Justice Myron Steele wrote.

Steele described the Internet as a "unique democratizing medium unlike
anything that has come before," and said anonymous speech in blogs and
chat rooms in some instances can become the modern equivalent of
political pamphleteering. Accordingly, a plaintiff claiming defamation
should be required to provide sufficient evidence to overcome a
defendant's motion for summary judgment before a court orders the
disclosure of a blogger's identity.

"We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill
potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak
anonymously," Steele wrote. "The possibility of losing anonymity in a
future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring
their comments or simply not commenting at all."

The standard adopted by the court, the first state Supreme Court in
the country to consider the issue, is based on a 2000 New Jersey court
ruling.

Under the standard adopted by the Supreme Court, a plaintiff must
first try to notify the anonymous poster that he is the subject of
subpoena or request for a court to disclose his identity, allowing the
poster time to oppose the request. The plaintiff would then have to
provide prima facie evidence of defamation strong enough to overcome a
summary judgment motion.

"The decision of the Supreme Court helps provide protection for
anonymous bloggers and anonymous speakers in general from lawsuits
which have little or no merit and are filed solely to intimidate the
speaker or suppress the speech," said David Finger, a Wilmington
attorney representing John Doe No.  1.

"Delaware cases are generally respected in other states, and we'll
have to see if this trend continues with these types of lawsuits, but
I expect the decision of the Delaware Supreme Court to be
influential," Finger added.

Robert Katzenstein, a lawyer representing the Cahills, did not
immediately return a telephone message left at his home.

"This is the first state Supreme Court to squarely decide the
standards to govern John Doe subpoena cases," said Paul Alan Levy, an
attorney for Public Citizen, a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy
organization, who helped argue the case for John Doe No. 1. "The
court's determination to require sufficient evidence before a critic
is outed will go a long way toward reassuring citizens that they
remain free to anonymously criticize public officials."

Steele noted in his opinion that plaintiffs in such cases can use the
Internet to respond to character attacks and "generally set the record
straight," and that, as in Cahill's case, blogs and chatrooms tend to
be vehicles for people to express opinions, not facts.

"Given the context, no reasonable person could have interpreted these
statements as being anything other than opinion. ... The statements
are, therefore, incapable of a defamatory meaning," he wrote.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.


NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

Other news and headlines from Associated Press available at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html

------------------------------

From: Georgina Prodhan <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Microsoft Says Wwindows is Ssafer Than You Think
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 14:01:41 -0500


By Georgina Prodhan

Microsoft Corp. launched a trust-building initiative on Thursday
designed to show its commitment and progress to date in making its
frequently attacked Windows computer operating system more secure from
hackers.

Microsoft, which is moving increasingly into the territory of
specialist security software companies such as McAfee Inc. and
Symantec Corp., said it planned a string of product launches designed
to combat cybercrime.

The world's biggest software company said it planned to release a
preliminary, or beta, version by the end of this year of new software
to protect corporate computers running Windows against viruses, worms
and other attacks.

"It's a unified product. You don't have to pick whose anti-virus
solution you think is the best," Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told a
news conference in Munich. "The threats we see do need more than
secure software."

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, which already offers security
software for networked server computers and desktops, said the new
software, called Client Protection, would be aimed at large companies.

It will offer tools for system administrators to keep users' computers
from being infected by viruses and other malicious software and would
be integrated with Microsoft's technology used to track user accounts
and logons.

But Mike Nash, Microsoft's vice president for security technology,
said the new software would not eliminate the need for other security
products.

"Does it mean that we're going to solve all problems immediately? No,"
he told Reuters in an interview. "There are customers that will choose
to use competitors' products."

Microsoft currently offers server-based security software to protect
corporate networks from hackers and is testing an anti-virus and
security software service called Windows OneCare.

The company also said it had set up an alliance of 30 firms including
Symantec and VeriSign to work on security products for the Microsoft
platform, uniting and expanding on previous partnerships.

CULTURE SHIFT

Microsoft has battled for years against the perception that its
software is not secure. It also presented data on Thursday which it
said showed Microsoft was safer than rival open-source operating
system Linux.

"This is an area we'll continue to invest in the long term," Nash
said.

He added he had seen a culture change since Chairman Bill Gates said
three years ago security would be a top priority.

"I used to be begging people to pay attention to security. Now they
get it.  Security is part of everyone's job."

He said the Blaster worm outbreak of 2003, which targeted Microsoft
software and devastated hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide,
was also a spur to action.

"When Blaster happened, I spent a lot of time on the phone. It was
very focusing for the company," he said.

In the last year, Microsoft has also bought a series of companies
including anti-virus software maker Sybari to shore up security in its
Windows and e-mail software.

Asked whether more acquisitions were in the works, Nash said: "There's
nothing specific in a plan."

But he said Microsoft asks the question: "Are there great things out
there that are important to our portfolio?"

Nash also said he was seeing cybercrime increasingly motivated by
financial gain rather than by pure vandalism as hackers use more and
more sophisticated tools to trick users into revealing personal
information or simply to steal data.

"Look at the guy who wrote the Sasser worm. He did it to see if he
could," Nash said. "It's different now."

(Additional reporting by Reed Stevenson in Seattle)

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:44:13 EDT
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: MCI Shareholders Approve Verizon Deal


USTelecom dailyLead
October 6, 2005
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/vohUatagCrheyVibXt

		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* MCI shareholders approve Verizon deal
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* Telcos' mergers could shake up wireless business
* Eircom denies Swisscom reports
* Motorola pares work force
* Spat between ISPs cuts off some customers
* Telephone, cable study blasts citywide Wi-Fi projects
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT
* Legg Mason to present financial conference at TELECOM '05
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* Company launches BPL service in Virginia
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* India says gear makers must set up shop there
* European telcos oppose ICANN proposal

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/vohUatagCrheyVibXt

------------------------------

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: MCI Accepts Verizon Offer
Date: 6 Oct 2005 09:49:18 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


MCI agreed to be bought by Verizon.  See:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VERIZON_MCI?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

"MCI Inc. shareholders voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve an
$8.4 billion acquisition by Verizon Communications Inc., despite some
lingering shareholder resentment over the company's rejection of a
higher bid."

I have no regrets to see MCI disappear.  IMHO, the company developed
its business unfairly by making up its own rules and litigating itself
customers instead of earning them.

Imagine two restaurants.  One follows rigid and expensive govt
regulations regarding sanitation and service, e.g. being open 24/7,
serving low-income customers below cost, having a wide variety of
foods available at all times, high quality food, have high capacity
for large crowds, all under prices set by the govt.  The other
restaurant is only open during peak hours, sells only profitable foods
when it can get them, uses the first restaurant's parking lot, and
ignores the govt mandates to provide comprehensive service at all
times to all comers.  Obviously the second restaurant has a lot of
advantages.

Or as someone correctly noted in this newsgroup, how many microwwave
towers atop mountains in heavy snow did MCI install and maintain?

I particularly object to people calling MCI the "hero" in taking on
AT&T.  The record is clear that long distance rates were continually
falling as a result of new technologies.  Interstate toll calls were
as low as 5c per minute.  Calls from payphones, collect, and calling
cards, conversely, have shot up to ridiculous levels.  While other
retail products require price labels, there is no such requirement for
toll calls.  The old AT&T gladly told you the rate before you made a
call, I could never get that info out of MCI and certainly not today.
But supposedly I, as a consumer, am better off.  No, the people who
are really better off are new folks in the telecom industry.

It should be noted that over the years MCI lost a number of lawsuits
as to its business practices.  Most recently:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MCI_SETTLEMENT?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-10-03-19-29-17

MCI Inc. has agreed to pay $331 million to 16 states and the District
of Columbia to settle accusations that it engaged in accounting fraud,
the company and the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said
Monday.

------------------------------

From: Kenneth P. Stox <ken@stox.org>
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Subject: Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours!
Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:39:32 GMT


Am I the only one who is ROFLMAO about this? There is nothing
preventing other nations and/or organizations from setting up their
own root servers. It amazes me how much press this issue has gotten
recently.

------------------------------

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation
Date: 6 Oct 2005 09:19:43 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Reuters News Wire wrote:

> Those infected with Odysseus' spyware have their search results
> corrupted as well, the FTC said. When they try to use a search engine
> like Yahoo or Google, they are steered to a look-alike page that
> prominently lists Odysseus clients in the results.
> Those who use an Odysseus software tool to remove the spyware only
> draw more unwanted programs on to their computers, the FTC said.

The practices described are outright fraud.

I wonder what kind of people work as programmers for these kinds of
outfits.  I used to think -- obviously incorrectly -- that computer
programmers had some level of ethics and would use their skills and
gifts for good, not evil.

It's too bad the programming profession never developed widely
recognized codes of ethics and professional standards like CPAs or
PEs.

I think the programmers ought to be prosecuted as accomplices in
creating of fraud.  Likewise for those who create spam systems.

Can anyone make a case to defend the programmers who do such garbage?

[public replies please]

------------------------------


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #455
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