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Today's Topics:
1. Japan launches Sun 'microscope' (Greg Williams)
2. Chairwoman Leaves Hewlett in Spying Furor (George Antunes)
3. Click Fraud Is Growing on the Web (George Antunes)
4. Google Defies Order That It Publish Adverse Belgian Ruling
(George Antunes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 01:46:09 -0400
From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Japan launches Sun 'microscope'
To: Media News <medianews@twiar.org>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5371162.stm
Japan launches Sun 'microscope'
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
Solar-B's orbit gives it a near-continuous view of the Sun
Scientists have high hopes for Japan's Solar-B mission which has been
launched from the Uchinoura spaceport.
The spacecraft will investigate the colossal explosions in the Sun's
atmosphere known as solar flares.
These dramatic events release energy equivalent to tens of millions of
hydrogen bombs in just a few minutes.
The probe will attempt to find out more about the magnetic fields
thought to power solar flares, and try to identify the trigger that sets
them off.
The ultimate goal for scientists is to use the new insights to make
better forecasts of the Sun's behaviour.
Flares can hurl radiation and super-fast particles in the direction of
the Earth, disrupting radio signals, frying satellite electronics, and
damaging the health of astronauts.
Solar-B lifted off from Uchinoura, at the southern tip of Japan, at 0636
local time on Saturday (2136 GMT Friday).
"It will take two to three weeks to transfer the spacecraft into its
so-called Sun-synchronous polar orbit. From this position, Solar-B will
be able to observe the Sun without having any nights for eight months of
the year," said Professor Tetsuya Watanabe, of the National Astronomical
Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
As is customary on Japanese missions, the satellite will get a new name
once it is ready to begin its work.
The spacecraft, developed by the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) and the
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has scientific and engineering
contributions from, principally, the US and the UK.
'Fine detail'
The Sun behaves like a giant twisting magnet; and when contorted field
lines that have lifted up off the surface of the star clash, they
release a colossal maelstrom of energy.
A blast of intense radiation is emitted, and charged particles are
accelerated out into the Solar System. Some of these particles are
moving so fast they can cover the 149 million km to Earth in just tens
of minutes.
Whilst scientists understand the flaring process reasonably well, they
cannot predict when one of these enormous explosions will occur.
Solar-B is expected to transform our understanding.
It carries three instruments: a Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), an X-ray
Telescope and an Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer.
They will make continuous, simultaneous observations of specific solar
features, to observe how changes in the magnetic field at the Sun's
surface can spread through the layers of the solar atmosphere to
produce, ultimately, a flare.
"Solar-B acts essentially like a microscope, probing the fine details of
what the magnetic field is doing as it builds up to a flare," said
mission scientist Professor Louise Harra, from the Mullard Space Science
Laboratory, UCL, UK.
"What we don't know is what triggers a flare; we don't understand the
physics of that phase at all. Solar-B will show us how tangled the field
is, and how the field lines collide to produce all that energy."
Space dependence
Solar-B is but one of a fleet of spacecraft now dedicated to
understanding the relationship between the Sun and the Earth; and more
are set to follow.
Next month, the US space agency (Nasa) plans to launch its Stereo
mission - twin spacecraft that will make 3D observations of our star.
As we become more reliant on space-based systems - to provide us with
everything from timing and positioning services to the relay of telecoms
data - the need to understand the tempestuous Sun-Earth interaction just
gets more urgent.
Losing a satellite because of solar flare effects could prove costly,
not just in economic terms but in human lives.
Spacecraft like Solar B should give scientists the data they need to
make better "space weather" forecasts.
"The information that Solar-B will provide is significant for
understanding and forecasting of solar disturbances, which can interfere
with satellite communications, electric power transmission grids, and
threaten the safety of astronauts travelling beyond the safety of the
Earth's magnetic field," said John Davis, Solar-B project scientist at
Nasa's Marshall centre.
--
Greg Williams
K4HSM
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.twiar.org
http://www.etskywarn.net
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 01:11:45 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Chairwoman Leaves Hewlett in Spying Furor
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
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September 23, 2006
Chairwoman Leaves Hewlett in Spying Furor
By DAMON DARLIN and MATT RICHTEL
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/technology/23hewlett.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 22 ? The furor over Hewlett-Packard?s spying
operation claimed its highest-ranking victim on Friday with the immediate
resignation of its chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn.
The move was announced by Mark V. Hurd, the chief executive, who will now
succeed her. But even as he offered an account of an investigation gone
awry, and offered apologies to those whose privacy was invaded, he made it
clear that many questions had yet to be answered.
His voice shaking, Mr. Hurd said a review of the means used to trace leaks
from the company?s board had produced ?very disturbing? findings. He also
conceded that ?I could have, and I should have,? read a report prepared for
him while the operation was under way.
The investigators? zeal led them into a shadowy world of surveillance, and
in the end the giant computer company was embarrassed by its own use of
technology.
Two executives who supervised the effort were also reported to be leaving.
In addition to direct surveillance, the operation entailed the use of
possibly illegal methods to obtain phone records of board members,
journalists and others; an attempt to place software on a reporter?s
computer to track e-mail; and a study of the use of clerical workers and
cleaners to infiltrate two news organizations.
At a news conference at Hewlett-Packard?s headquarters here, Mr. Hurd said
it had been proper and necessary for Ms. Dunn to try to stem leaks of
confidential information. But he added, ?While many of the right processes
were in place, they unfortunately broke down, and no one in the management
chain, including me, caught them.?
It was the company?s first public discussion of the revelations that have
engulfed it for more than two weeks. Mr. Hurd took no questions, with the
company saying he did not want to pre-empt his testimony next week to a
House subcommittee looking into the Hewlett-Packard affair.
In a statement provided by Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Dunn said she had resigned
at the request of the board. But she said that while she had the
responsibility to identify the source of leaks, ?I did not propose the
specific methods,? and those who performed the investigation ?let me and
the company down.?
According to people briefed on Mr. Hurd?s plans, Kevin T. Hunsaker, its
senior counsel and director of ethics, and Anthony R. Gentilucci, its
Boston-based manager of global investigations, will leave the company. Mr.
Hurd did not speak to this issue, and the company declined to comment.
Some industry analysts had expected Hewlett-Packard to announce more
directly who it felt was responsible, inside or outside the company.
?A lot of us thought there was going to be a lot more,? said Jeffrey
Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean of the Yale School of Management. But he
added that Mr. Hurd apparently felt he needed more time to understand all
that occurred.
The initial reaction of investors appeared favorable. In after-hours
trading, Hewlett-Packard?s stock was up more than 1 percent.
The effort to find the source of the boardroom leak began in early 2005,
around the time of Carleton S. Fiorina?s dismissal as chairwoman and chief
executive, and yielded inconclusive results that year. A second phase began
in January 2006, as an account of a senior management meeting was being
prepared by the online technology news service CNET.
By May, the investigative efforts had identified one board member, George
A. Keyworth II, as a source of unauthorized disclosures. He refused an
initial request to resign, but another director, Thomas J. Perkins, quit
over the investigation. It was Mr. Perkins?s attempt to get the company to
acknowledge the reasons for his resignation that brought the entire
operation ? and deep animosities within the board ? into public view early
this month.
On Sept. 12, a week after the initial disclosures, Ms. Dunn said she would
step down as chairwoman effective in January, to be succeeded by Mr. Hurd.
Mr. Keyworth, her antagonist, then agreed to resign.
The moves by Hewlett-Packard on Friday were an attempt to get ahead of the
torrent of daily disclosures about the spying operation and an
acknowledgment of the irresponsibility, if not illegality, of the methods.
State and federal prosecutors are exploring whether any laws were broken by
anyone inside the company or those hired in an investigative chain
extending to Boston, Florida and the Midwest. A central element was the use
of pretexting, which involved impersonating someone to obtain that person?s
calling records from a phone company.
Mr. Hunsaker, the lawyer and ethics officer, directed the 2006 phase of the
investigation. Mr. Gentilucci, the Boston-based investigations officer, was
involved in both the 2005 and 2006 phases of the investigation.
Mr. Hurd said that on Sept. 8 he retained a law firm, Morgan Lewis, which
has concluded that the investigation team led by Mr. Hunsaker provided
regular updates to Ms. Dunn, and to a lesser extent to the general counsel,
Ann O. Baskins.
?Some of the findings that Morgan Lewis has uncovered are very disturbing
to me,? Mr. Hurd said.
Michael J. Holston, a partner in the firm, laid out some evidence to
reporters Friday after Mr. Hurd?s comments. While noting that the firm?s
review was not complete, he said Ms. Dunn had personally contacted and
engaged Security Outsourcing Solutions, a tiny Boston-area investigative
firm operated by Ronald R. DeLia, in the 2005 phase.
?For the first month or so of the investigation, Ms. Dunn worked directly
with Ron DeLia from S.O.S.,? Mr. Holston said, and it was only two months
later that the company?s own detectives were brought in.
In an interview two weeks ago, Ms. Dunn said she had turned to the head of
security to handle that investigation. Ms. Dunn?s lawyer, James J.
Brosnahan, reiterated that claim Friday. ?She went to the right people, and
she was assured that what they were doing was legal,? he said.
Mr. Hurd was briefed on the first phase of the investigation, called Kona
I, on July 22, 2005, Mr. Holston said. But he said Mr. Hurd attended only a
portion of that meeting, which included Ms. Dunn, Ms. Baskins, Mr. DeLia,
Mr. Gentilucci and Jim Fairbaugh, the head of global security. The
participants were told the investigation was inconclusive, and by late
summer it was inactive.
Kona II, the phase that began in January of this year, was far more
energetic. ?Over the next three months, regular updates were provided by
members of the investigation team to Ms. Dunn and, to a lesser extent, to
Ms. Baskins,? Mr. Holston said.
A crucial document was a March 2006 report prepared by the company?s
investigators and Mr. DeLia under the supervision of Mr. Hunsaker, a senior
company lawyer. Mr. Hurd was given a copy of that report, but he said he
did not read it. ?I could have, and I should have,? he said.
The report identified the source of the leaks and outlined techniques used
to get that information, including pretexting. It was also sent to the
company?s outside counsel, the powerful Silicon Valley firm of Wilson
Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, for review and comment, Mr. Holston said.
Mr. Holston noted that the Kona II report claimed that the techniques were
legal. But as e-mail messages disclosed this week have shown, Mr. Hunsaker
suspected early this year that the techniques might not be above-board.
When he asked Mr. Gentilucci about the legality, he was told that it was
?on the edge,? and Mr. Hunsaker replied: ?I shouldn?t have asked.?
Despite those assurances, Mr. Hunsaker never obtained a written legal
opinion, according to people briefed on the company?s review of its
investigation.
Mr. Holston also discussed other aspects of the operation, including the
use of surveillance software surreptitiously sent to the computer of a CNET
reporter.
Mr. Holston said the program had been designed to determine whether the
reporter would forward a misleading e-mail message, purporting to offer
inside information about the company, to her source on the Hewlett-Packard
board for confirmation.
The scheme did not work, Mr. Holston said, noting that the investigation
team never received an indication that the misleading message had been
forwarded.
Mr. Hurd affirmed that he had been informed of the plan to send a bogus
message and had approved of the ?naming convention? that was used. But he
said he did not recall knowing or approving of the tracking technology.
Neither Mr. Hurd nor Mr. Holston indicated why the chief executive did not
raise questions about the way the scheme was to be carried out.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:49:35 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Click Fraud Is Growing on the Web
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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September 23, 2006
Click Fraud Is Growing on the Web
By KAREN J. BANNAN
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/technology/23click.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
A year ago, DiamondHarmony.com, an online jewelry store, decided that it
had outgrown its sole source of advertising, which was eBay. The company
added an elaborate marketing effort on search engines that included a
pay-per-click advertising campaign based on keywords and phrases. For its
trouble, DiamondHarmony became ensnared in click fraud.
Instead of actual prospects, the clicks were coming from fraudulent
sources. The fraud, which cost DiamondHarmony $17,000 over seven months,
was uncovered through analytical software the company installed from
ClickTracks of Santa Cruz, Calif.
Click fraud most commonly happens when renegade partners, who get a portion
of the fees earned by a search engine each time a paid link is clicked,
deliberately generate excessive clicks with no chance that any of the
clicks will result in a sale for the business that is paying for them.
The spurious clicks can be generated through automated programs or by
paying people to spend time clicking over and over on a link.
As for DiamondHarmony, the company was initially spending about $45 to $50
a day on each of the eight search engines where it placed advertising, said
Joe Tedd, its manager for search strategies.
The week before Thanksgiving, however, Mr. Tedd started seeing a large
increase in clicks from one engine in particular, while its corresponding
conversion rate ? the number of sales in relation to clicks ? kept going down.
?In November, we saw the number of searches going up on all the engines we
had placement on,?? Mr. Tedd said. ?But while all the other engines were
seeing higher conversion rates, this one engine was doing so poorly, we
actually took the campaign offline.?
?The search provider was syndicating the keyword to partner publishers, but
while the clicks were being counted on the publisher?s site, they weren?t
coming through to our site,? he added.
Businesses can also fall victim to click fraud at their competitors? hands.
Companies vying for the same position on a list of paid search results may
click often enough on a competitor?s ad to push the rival over its spending
limit ? knocking them out of paid search listings temporarily.
Companies typically set a daily budget for individual search terms as well
as their entire campaign.
This year eMarketer Inc., a research firm, estimated that the overall
online advertising market for 2006 would be $16.7 billion; paid search was
expected to reach $6.9 billion by the end of the year. The company on
Monday will revise those figures.
The overall online market is being re-evaluated down by 3 percent to 6
percent. Search engine marketing?s share of that market, however, remains
constant.
The scope of the problem depends on who is describing it. Business owners
like Iain Burton, the chairman of Aspinal of London, a manufacturer and
seller of fine leather items, says click fraud is much more pervasive than
the search engines acknowledge. Mr. Burton, who spends about $50,000 each
month for paid search advertising, said he was amazed at how blatant it
could be.
?I used to make money on pay-per-click advertising; I?d say it used to be
really good. But it has become ridiculously expensive. I?ve lost tens of
thousands on click fraud over time.?
Search engine providers disagree and say the overwhelming majority of
fraudulent clicks were never seen by advertisers because they were
discovered and removed. A Yahoo spokeswoman, Gaude Paez, did say, however,
that click fraud is a serious, but manageable, challenge.
?We believe that our entire industry must be vigilant in staying one step
ahead of spammers,? said John Slade, senior director for Yahoo?s
Clickthrough Protection.
Click Forensics, a consulting firm based in San Antonio, puts the number of
fraudulent clicks at about 14 percent of total clicks, based on a recent
survey of more than 1,300 online marketers.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between, said Danny Sullivan, the
editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an online industry newsletter.
Google, the search leader, agreed to pay $90 million to settle a click
fraud class-action suit ? with up to $30 million of that allocated for
legal costs. In July, Google?s proposed settlement was approved by an
Arkansas judge who called the ruling ?fair, reasonable, and adequate.?
Still, 556 advertisers opted out of the class-action suit, leaving the door
open for additional lawsuits. And in June, Yahoo agreed to pay litigants?
legal fees, estimated at $4.95 million, and provide credits to any company
that could prove it was a victim of click fraud from January 2004 through
this year.
What makes the problem worse, industry followers say, is that many
instances of click fraud go undetected. ?We?re not at a point in Internet
history where we can easily point to a number and easily point to a
solution,? said Dana Todd, president of the Search Engine Marketing
Professional Organization. Moreover, ?the technology solutions out there to
combat the problem are neither free or easy, especially for small
businesses that are already overwhelmed by search engine marketing.?
Indeed, while larger companies expect ? and can usually afford ? to pay for
some measure of click fraud, smaller companies have no choice but to ferret
out inaccuracies, Mr. Sullivan said. The best way to start, he said, is to
measure conversions to see if the ads are working.
But for many smaller business, Ms. Todd says, the only way to monitor the
problem are either manually auditing clicks or using campaign management
software or services. And often that seems not worth the bother.
?You have to look through all your data and see what clicks came in from
where, and why they didn?t convert, which is fairly time-consuming and
technical,?? she said. ?You can use some of the freebie trackers, but they
may not give you the level of transparency to be able to understand what?s
happening on your site.??
?We believe that some of the biggest offenders,?? she added, ?are doing it
in such minuscule amounts that it stays below the radar ? a nickel here, a
penny there ? but it adds up in a huge way.?
Mr. Burton of Aspinal said he was forced to hire a professional
pay-per-click management company to address the issue, and found that he
had lost $10,000 over three months to click fraud.
?It?s a bigger problem with companies outside of Google,? he said. ?When
you look at your stats and find that ? with a popular keyword ? some
smaller engine is sending through 10 times more traffic than Google, which
gets by far the largest amount of traffic, then you know there?s a problem.?
Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google?s business product manager for trust and
safety, said a company?s search provider should do the sleuthing.
?We?ve got a system of real-time detection filters that constantly scan for
suspicious activity based on the rules we?ve set up,? he said. ?The vast
majority of invalid clicks are handled by them. We?re also manually
reviewing to detect publishers who might be generating fraudulent clicks.
When we do find out, we terminate that publisher.??
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:52:22 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Google Defies Order That It Publish Adverse
Belgian Ruling
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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September 23, 2006
Google Defies Order That It Publish Adverse Belgian Ruling
By ERIC PFANNER
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/technology/23google.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
LONDON, Sept. 22 ? A copyright dispute between Google and a group of
publishers in Belgium escalated on Friday as the company defied a court
order to publish a ruling that prevents it from running summaries of news
reports and links to articles in the country.
A judge rejected Google?s argument that the original decision had been so
widely reported that posting it on google.be, its Belgian Web site, and the
associated Google News site was unnecessary and ?disproportionate.?
The earlier decision required Google to stop displaying summaries of
French- and German-language articles from Belgian newspapers. Google faces
a fine of 500,000 euros ($640,000) for every day it fails to comply with
the order to publish the decision. It said it planned to fight the order,
issued Friday, as part of a broader argument, set for November, in which it
will seek to overturn the initial ruling.
?We will now further appeal this measure because we believe it is
disproportionate and unnecessary, given the extensive publicity the case
has received already, especially while its substance has yet to be debated
in court,? Google said in a statement.
The case has attracted widespread interest among news organizations across
Europe and beyond because of the implications for publishers struggling to
make money on the Internet. While many online publishers rely on Google and
other search engines to drive traffic to their sites, they complain that
they end up seeing little revenue as a result.
Google News, which displays headlines and summaries of articles, does not
include advertising, but Google?s search engine is the biggest ad generator
on the Internet.
While some publishers say the decision in Belgium could set an important
precedent across the 25-nation European Union, lawyers say the implications
remain unclear. Matthew Harris, a partner at the law firm of Norton Rose in
London, said copyright law was less harmonized across the union than other
aspects of intellectual property law are.
While Google faces another legal challenge from a news-gathering
organization ? this one filed in France and the United States by Agence
France-Presse ? some publishers say they would like to reach an agreement
that benefits both sides.
Copiepresse, the organization that brought the claim in Belgium, said it
would drop its case if Google agreed to adopt a technical solution being
developed by several publishers? groups, said Margaret Boribon, general
secretary of the group. The software-based system would allow publishers to
manage digital copyrights by attaching conditions of publication to
articles or other materials online. The system, set to be introduced next
month at the Frankfurt Book Fair, would inform the ?Web crawlers? used by
search engines of those conditions.
In the meantime, Ms. Boribon argued that the lawsuit had been necessary.
?The problem is that when you first contact them, they just ignore you,?
she said of Google. ?Suddenly, when there are millions at stake, they answer.?
The Belgian court, Ms. Boribon said, rejected Google?s argument that it had
not had enough time to prepare for an August hearing at which the initial
decision in the case was issued. While Google, in response to that ruling,
has stopped indexing the Belgian newspapers? content on Google News and has
removed the references from google.be, Ms. Boribon argued that the company
had not fully complied with the order by keeping links active from other
Google sites, which are accessible from Belgium.
D. J. Collins, a Google spokesman, noted that publishers could already
request that their content be removed from Google News or searches. Many
publishers? efforts are aimed in the other direction ? at pushing their
content higher in Google searches. Still, Mr. Collins said the company
would ?look carefully? at the proposal cited by Ms. Boribon.
?We welcome any initiative that enables search engines and publishers to
work together more closely,? he said.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
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