Thus Williamson is advocating what he calls “Carpet bombing in cyberspace” (yes, really) or, essentially, countering botnet attacks on U.S. military computers with an even bigger, government-controlled bot-net.

Government and military computers in the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Kyrgyztan and India have all recently come under attack from hackers and zombie machines launching massive distributed denials of service (DDoS). The open, decentralized, fault-tolerant and largely unregulated and loosely controlled nature of the Internet does exhibit some weakness when it comes to preventing cyberattackers from entering the traffic stream. Indeed, a recent estimate puts the DDoS load on the Internet as about 3%, peaking at 5%. Compare this with email, which makes up about 1% to 1.5% of Internet traffic.

Colonel Williamson’s idea is to turn this weakness into a US advantage by building a massive botnet, a collection of distributed computers able to generate an enormous amount of Internet traffic targeted at those computers that first attack the US. Bot-nets are often used by spammers and other online criminals, who surreptitiously infect the insecure computers of naive users with zombies and other malicious software; Chinese criminals are believed to have infected 750,000 computers in the US. Colonel Williamson would build his bot-net out of the thousands of computers that the US military would normally discard every year, and link them to the current high-speed intrusion detection systems, to ensure that any attempted attack would be quickly and overwhelmingly counter-attacked.

Would it work? Probably. But a sustained counter-attack with sufficient traffic to overwhelm cyberenemies would consume huge bandwidth and limit the ability of ordinary Internet users to go about their business, in the US and around the world. Indeed, the need to explain to an allied government why computers in their country were “reduced to hunks of metal and plastic” shows why the biggest challenge will be political in nature.

Colonel Williamson believes that the US is not starting an arms race, but, rather, that “We are in one, and we are losing.” This is, though, an idea that would promote mutually assured destruction of the Internet’s utility.

On the day that Barack Obama won handsomely in the North Carolina primary but was edged out in Indiana by Hillary Clinton, there’s still much to play for in the dramatic contest for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The final decision is likely to depend heavily on the superdelegates, the 795 leaders and officials of the Democratic party who are automatically delegates to the National Convention to be held in Denver in late August.

You can be sure that both candidates are pursuing relentlessly each of the 250 or so of these superdelegates who have yet to declare for whom they will cast their vote. So Lauren Wolfe and Awais Khaleel, both from the College Democrats of America, are seeking guidance from those they represent, young people, and are using a most relevant and appropriate way of garnering their feedback; the Internet.

You just have to applaud their effort to seek, transparently and directly, input from those they are meant to represent. We hope though, that today’s college students - the YouTube-watching, iPod-wearing, plugged-in-switched-on generation - won’t get too distracted from their finals. Procrastination is, after all, the grave of opportunity, and so can be put off until tomorrow. Or the day after.

If the DataPortability project successfully negotiates a path through the seemingly conflicting demands of users and site owners, users will be able to:

• use usernames, passwords, and other identifiers across different social networking sites,
• choose the information shared, and with whom,
• aggregate content across sites,
• move, modify, and share data across sites as desired.

(But what about privacy concerns?)

We can hear some of you saying “Hey, how about these online addicts just not sign up for so many social networking sites?” Never gonna happen.

So, these objectives seem all well and good, but how will they actually make life easier for the multiply networked user? Let’s say you have a large collection of photos stored, with tags and other meta data, on one of the popular photo sharing sites; we’ll call this site A. A new site, site B, is launched, offering a superior editing capability that you’d like to use. With data portability you could have an account on each site, with a common ID and password, and you could either pull your content to be stored on site B, or develop a workflow that pulled content across to pass through the editor on site B before storing the edited photo back on site A. All without having to constantly re-supply login details. A second example would be to seamlessly autocomplete profile data as you signed up for a new site, keeping all profiles up-to-date. (But what about privacy concerns?)

There’s been some movement recently at popular social networking sites. MySpace announced the Data Availability Initiative, along with Yahoo, EBay, Photobucket, and Twitter. Shortly afterwards, Facebook announced their Facebook Connect, an extension of their existing APIs to permit 3rd parties to connect and access user data.

Which leads to the dark side of data portability, which nobody seems to be addressing. What about those privacy concerns? The easier it is for users to port their data - the easier it is for the sites to port - and export - for profit - their users’ data in a usable format.

Make no mistake about it - selling user data is a huge business and profit center for these sites, second only (or maybe even eclipsing) selling their users’ eyeballs to advertisers. (What, you think these sites aren’t in business to make money? Oh, my dear Pollyanna, let’s talk about a bridge I’d like to sell you.)

Now, how much do you think MySpace would pay to have the collected data of all of Facebook’s users if it were already in a format compatible with MySpace’s own data format?

Or some new upstart social networking site, MySpaceBook.com?

“Hey, Joe User, come activate your MySpaceBook.com account - we’ve already got it all set up for you, with all of your data already imported - you don’t have to do anything but come sign in!”

So while these are promising developments for end users, it needs work, as does the set of standards to be proposed by the DataPortability project. When the open standards are agreed, and sites develop to them, a true bidirectional interoperability of data, content and status will be possible - hopefully with stringent rules and controls in place to also protect, as well as to port, user data. This will both empower users and enable a whole new class of applications and opportunities.

This week is an important one for data portability, in which the ball should be moved forward considerably, as the Internet Identity Workshop is to be held May 12-14, and will be immediately followed by the Data Sharing Summit on May 15. Both events take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Uh oh, did you forget? If so, it’s not too late, and the Internet can help! Here are three fast ideas!

One of our dear friends and colleagues runs the most awesome service where you can get flowers and gift baskets, fast! It’s called, appropriately enough, a href=”http://theinternetpatrol.com/ref/flowers-fast” target=_blank>Flowers Fast. And even if the deadline has passed, they can do rush orders! Check out Flowers Fast now.

Here are some suggestions for gift baskets that any mother would love to receive! Whether for your own mother, or that special mother to whom you are married or dating, or someone who has been a special mother in your life, you’re sure to find a great gift here for her!

Hopefully these last-minute Mother’s Day gift ideas will help those of you who put off Mother’s Day shopping until the last minute!

Happy Mother’s Day!

While they are unlikely to ever get the iPhone Verizon really doesn’t need to worry about it - this newest of Verizon Wireless cell phones is sure to be the brightest star in the Verizon mobile constellation. As the only Verizon telephone to feature both a touch screen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard (the other Verizon phone with a touch screen and a QWERTY keyboard is the Verizon Voyager, which requires flipping the screen to access the keyboard), it’s easy to see why Verizon cellular phone fans have been clamouring for the release of the Glyde, and why those who up until now had eschewed Verizon Wireless phones are now considering a switch to Verizon phone service.

In short, this is one hot phone.

The first thing that strikes you about the Verizon Glyde is how it feels in your hand. Yes, sure, the way that the Glyde slides open to reveal it’s keyboard is slick, but the phone also just feels good in your hand. It’s small, yet feels sturdy - when you open the screen to type, it doesn’t feel as if the screen might snap off, as it does with so many screen+keyboard phones.

And speaking of the keyboard, it is a feat of engineering and design. Seriously - Samsung really got this right - a full QWERTY keyboard that is only 3 rows deep (how do they do that, you may ask? The space bar is in the middle of the zxcvbnm row, rather than dropped down below it.

And this is a hint at how it stacks up against the Voyager. The Voyager’s keyboard, although larger, inexplicably has the space button (not bar, button) up on the side of the keyboard! Worse than crazy - unusuable for anyone who actually knows how to ..you know ..type!

Glyde Keyboard:

Voyager Keyboard:

The next thing to note - well actually a couple of things to note - are about the touch screen.

First of all, by default it is set to a touch sensitivity of ‘medium’. Apparently, to Samsung, “medium” means “beat on it repeatedly until it finally detects the touch”. Don’t let this frustrate you. Just immediately, as the first thing you do when you get your Glyde, go to the touch screen settings, and change it from ‘medium’ to ‘high’.

Second, even with the touch sensitivy as sensitive as it will go - you will find times when you have to press the screen more than once. Fortunately, as the phone trains you (rather than the other way around), this seems to happen less often, but it doesn’t entirely go away.

On the other hand, the Glyde has this awesome haptic (basically that means you get touch feedback from a device) system so that you can have the phone give you feedback by vibrating whenever you interact with the touch screen, so you know, immediately, whether the screen has registered your touch.

Now, let’s take a moment to talk about the size of the Verizon Glyde. This is definitely a palm-sized phone - but only just. It’s noticabely smaller than the Voyager, and that is a happy thing for those of us who found the Voyager just a bit clumsy because it was just a tad too big to hold comfortably while actually using the phone for anything other than dialing.

The Verizon Glyde and the Verizon Voyager:

The Verizon Glyde and Voyager in profile:

The Verizon Glyde and the Verizon Voyager, each open:

The Verizon Glyde and Verizon Voyager - rear view:

Perhaps even more interesting is comparing its size to my all-time favourite candybar phone, the Sony Ericsson Walkman 810w phone (which is the older brother to my other all-time favourite candybar phone, the Sony Ericsson Walkman t616).

The Sonys are already diminutive while being just the right size to be fully functional. So check this out:

This phone is a great size, with many great features.

That said, it’s not without its issues, and while they may not be deal-breakers, it’s best to go into this relationship with your eyes wide open.

For example, astute observers will recognize the screen on the Sony in the above picture as the “unable to transfer a file by bluetooth to the other device” error message, and that brings me to one of my beefs with the Glyde:

There is no file transfer (other than v-card) supported by the Glyde’s bluetooth! Nor can you browse the phone - in fact, there seems to be no file system at all - at least not a usable one, on the phone!

How stupid is that??

Worse (to me), the phone is unable to support more than one bluetooth connection at a time. Meaning that in order to tether your laptop via your Glyde (which does work very well - seamlessly, in fact), you must manually disconnect your headset!

WTF?

Even if you can’t take calls with your phone while tethered (and with the Sony, you can), you shouldn’t have to go through three steps - each and every time - just to tether your laptop! (1. Disconnect headset, 2. tether laptop, 3. when done tethering,
reconnect your headset.)

(In fact, when tethered, you can’t do anything else on the phone at all! You are stuck in the data screen (although you can, from the data screen, get to your messaging (text, etc.) screen.)

Now, all that said, let’s talk about where that headset connection shines: voice commands.

The voice commands on the Glyde are superb.

And you don’t even have to train the phone (although you can, to refine it).

Just press your headset button (or the voice command button on the phone) and say any of the following: call, send, goto, check, contacts, play, followed by the object of your desire (i.e. “Call (contact name)”, or “Send text message”, or “Play (playlist name)”, and it will either do your bidding (such as playing the playlist you dictate) or set you up for the task you requested (such as sending a text message to so-and-so a contact).

Very sweet!

Even sweeter, the Samsung technology uses its superior voice system to automatically read you your text messages, should you so desire. Now that’s nifty!

Ah, but you ask, what about the camera? How is that?

You know what? For a 2.0 megapixel camera, it’s not bad! Perhaps the autofocus helps, but is really isn’t bad (for a phone - remember, this is a phone, not a digital SLR!)

But the really cool thing about this camera is the built-in zoom. Here are two things you need to know about that: The first is that when taking a picture, you can use the volume-control bar to zoom in and out! The second is that in order for the zoom to work, you have to set your resolution to something less than the 1600×1200 which it is set to by default.

By the way, you can instantly access the camera by pressing the shutter button from the home screen.

Here is a picture that I took with the Glyde for testing purposes, I call it “Still Life with Cup”:

Now, of course, any phone I test gets compared to my trusty T-Mobile Sidekick. For ease of photo taking and sending, the Sidekick just can’t be beat. But still, the Glyde isn’t bad. As soon as you snap a picture or video you are offered the option to “send”, and while “via email” is not an option, the “as text message” option does support sending to email addresses. Woohoo!

There are some things to really dislike about the phone, although not deal-killers. There is no way to calibrate the touch screen - very stupid. Also, the phone automatically locks the screen when you make a call - which means if you need to do any number entry during your call, you have to unlock your phone (and re-unlock it each time you want to do something else during the call) - there is no way to disable that locking ‘feature’.

All in all, and now this is day 3 of my using the phone, I can recommend it - it’s got some killer features (did I mention that it works with Verizon’s onboard VZW Navigator GPS program?? - GPS in your pocket, woohoo!).

By the way, I just noticed that you can now buy the Glyde through Amazon - shipped right to your door, at an obscene (as in low) price! Buy the Verizon Glyde through Amazon

[This review is being updated daily - stay tuned for more!]

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (XPSP3) contains updates, bug fixes and security updates, and is shortly to be released for public download. You should consider installing it to keep your operating system up to date with the latest security fixes. Before you do, though, identify which version of Internet Explorer you are currently using.

If you’re using IE6, you have nothing to worry about. XPSP3 will install an updated version of IE6, pulling all your browser data forward, and your browsing experience should continue unaffected.

But if you’re using IE7, and download XPSP3 on top of it, you will lose the ability to remove IE7 and downgrade to IE6. Why remove IE7? Read some of the comments to our IE7 - Should You Install It? thread, some of whom regret their installation of IE7, and all their resulting problems. Consider also that IE6 is still the most popular, with almost 70% of corporate IE users remaining on IE6.

• If you are currently using IE7 on XP Service Pack 2 (XPSP2), and you want to retain the option to downgrade to IE6 in the future, you should first remove IE7 (through the Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs); install XPSP3; and then re-install IE7.
• If you’re reading this after you’ve installed XPSP3 on top of an XPSP2/IE7 combination and want to downgrade to IE6 you’ve got a little more work to do. You must first uninstall XPSP3, and uninstall IE7. Then re-install XPSP3. Finally, if you wish, re-install IE7. If you don’t wish, you’ll still have the latest version of IE6 that was installed as part of your XPSP3 install.

If you’re beta testing IE8 Beta1, you are recommended to uninstall it before you install XPSP3, and then re-install it. Since you’re much more likely to uninstall beta software (for Beta2 or final released versions), we strongly recommend you follow this procedure.

So, Windows XP users, have you been tempted by the sleek new user interface of Internet Explorer 7, the tabbed and tiled browsing, and the much easier access to and management of your bookmarks, er, ‘favorites’? Or are you wrestling with lost data, instability and other problems. Give us your opinions and experiences, good and bad, at IE7 - Should You Install It?. And if you’re in the position to, consider alternative browsers, especially Firefox. It’s free. It’s fast. And it just plain works.

Oh, they will probably deny it, but what else can you call it when their Online Marketing Manager, Costas Kariolis, shows up at an article about Skype on the Internet Patrol, and posts a comment about the Vonage offerings, with an SEO-formatted link back to the Vonage site - and also posts the exact same comment to articles about Skype on other sites?

Shame on you, Vonage - don’t you know that comment spamming is the scourge of the Internet? This alone is enough to ensure that the Internet Patrol will recommend that people not use Vonage - we don’t support spammers.

Here is the comment spam that Costas Kariolis posted today (link disabled, of course) - the original article about Skype to which he posted his comment spam is here.

The introduction of these new call plans from Skype should prove beneficial for the internet telephony / VoIP sector generally. Anything that helps to bring internet telephone calling further into the mainstream is very welcome.

You can find out more about Vonage at .

It is interesting to note that Mr. Kariolis didn’t single out the Internet Patrol - he posted the exact same comment spam here today as well.

Faced with this email, would you attempt to comply with the instructions, and click the link?

If you did, you would not be alone. Almost 2000 of those who received the email are estimated to have clicked on the link, falling prey to a targeted “spear-phishing” attempt that downloads to their computer and those networked to it a virus designed to gather passwords, financial account and credit card details, and other similar private information.

A number of those targeted executives paused before clicking on the link and called the U.S. Courts Administrative Office for clarification, which responded by posting an alert on its web site, reminding readers that the Courts are a federal institution and therefore any email would come from a .gov and not a .com domain, and that in any case grand jury subpoenas delivered by email are not valid communications.

Verisign’s iDefense Labs, a cyber-security operation, has been keeping their eye on this and similar phishing attempts, appearing to come from other District Courts, from the Internal Revenue Service and from the Better Business Bureau. Working with law enforcement, network forensics investigators have followed the trail to a Singapore-based server, though no further information is available at this time.

While this particular group of criminals weren’t too literate, as their emails contained a number of waving red flags, among them gross grammatical errors and misspellings, sooner or later a well-written evil email will be sent. Let us remind our readers, regardless of position in company hierarchy, to always follow safe email practices.

• Never open, forward, or reply to suspicious-looking emails. Just delete them.
• Never open email attachments or click on a link in an email unless you’re confident you know exactly what they are; confirm with the sender if not completely sure.
• Keep your antivirus, firewall and adware-defense software updated.

The stated purpose of the site - to seek input from customers, from loyal to occasional, on how their interactions with Starbucks can be improved - cries out from every page. Not only can you post Your Starbucks Idea, but you can join in discussions on posted ideas with other customers and Starbucks Idea Partners, and vote for those that you think have merit. Finally, votes are tallied, with the most popular (and, let’s face it, those that assist most in the aforementioned glorious ongoing plan for world coffee domination,) that will be acted upon shared with the online community. Don’t expect compensation though, either monetary or in beverage form - you may get your name on the site, but that’s it as far as rewards go.

It’s a natural next step in the progression of asking the customer what they want. If “customer feedback version 1.0″ was the drab box marked “suggestions” in the corner of the lobby, behind the potted plants, and version 2.0 was the ubiquitous “info@domain.com” email address under the “contact us” tab of every web site ever created, then this, the My Starbucks Idea, is a rich and dynamic version 3.0. With a clean and uncluttered design and straightforward navigation, the site is easy on the eyes and easy to use, and information is easily accessible.

But feedback can be a double-edged sword, and sometimes wielded wildly against those who requested it. Remember how the crumpled paper in the suggestions box gathered dust until, just before the annual general meeting, it was opened so that the CEO could truthfully say he’d conducted a full and in-depth review of all input? And how rarely you got (think hard now - did you ever get?) a reply to any suggestions sent to the faceless drones behind the “info@domain.com” email address? Feedback is worthless unless it’s acted upon; to ignore it is to ask your customers their opinion and then to put your fingers in your ears and walk away while they’re talking to you, humming and stamping your feet. Hardly good business practice. Yet here, the transparency of conducting the collection, discussion, review and voting of ideas and suggestions on My Starbucks Idea gives us hope that, with continued community efforts, this could advance significantly active and ongoing customer-to-corporation and customer-to-customer communication. It’s a Very Nice Starbucks Idea.

Currently we are testing the Verizon Voyager (the LG VX10000), and specifically we have been testing the Mobile Email program. And that’s where the trouble started. Try as we might, we could not get the Mobile Email program to actually download email. It would always end up timing out, telling us “Communication error. Please try again later.” This even though every other email program we tried had no problem downloading the email.

We finally figured out what the problem was - and so now we are telling you: Verizon Wireless Mobile Email breaks if you try to set it up so that your outgoing server is different from your incoming server. It just can’t handle it.

Another thing that is just ridiculous is that once you set up an account, you can’t edit the settings! So, if you want to change the “from” name, or change it from POP to IMAP, or make just about any other changes, you have to set up a whole new account!

On the other hand, Vemail by Voice Genesis, which you can download to your Voyager, and which costs only $5.00 per month, allows you to fully customize your account, and allows you to send not only regular text emails, but allows you to dictate your email! To get Vemail, from your Voyager go to “Tools on the Go” > “Get New Applications” > “Email”

P.S. Once you have one account working in Verizon Mobile Email, with the outbound and inbound servers matching, sometimes additional accounts will work with disparate servers. But not always.