At the Stanford Spectrum Policy Conference

I'm here at the very interesting Spectrum Policy Conference.  The discussions are very very interesting.  Unfortunately, for the first 90 minutes, I couldn't really listen to the speakers (thank goodness they're archiving the feeds) because I was setting up an emergency Sputnik Network using the beta Sputnik-powered Access Point I brought.  I admit, I sort of figured that there would be some problems with Stanford's Cisco-based WiFi network, based on MAC address filtering.  Basically, to get a MAC address-based network to work well, you've got to have everyone at the conference pre-register their MAC address with the IT department.  Of course, this doesn't scale.  Some people will miss the preregistration email, some won't bring the WiFi card they registered, some will make errors in their reporting, perhaps even the IT staff will finger-slip a few of the addresses on the list (after all it is a gobbeldygook of 17 pseudorandom characters) or some people will register at the door, and thus won't be able to get access to the network.

Anyway, because of this, I pulled out my handy-dandy Sputnik-powered AP, grabbed a hub from one of the organizers, and within minutes had a custom captive portal set up for the conference.  A bunch of people are using the network or have written about it: Dan Gillmor, Cory Doctorow, David Isenberg, Dave Winer, and others. 

Now that the network is working and handling the load, I can get back to sitting back and grokking the conference. More to come.

Mr. Rogers has passed

It's a sad day in the neighborhood.  Fred Rogers, creator and host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, has died from stomach cancer.  He was 75 years old.  My daughter and I were just watching an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood together the other day, and I was proudly explaining to her that I grew up with Mister Rogers, and now she was growing up with him.  As a kid in the 70's, it was impossible to not be drawn into his world.  I hope PBS keeps reruns of his wonderful show going for years to come - I want to pass on the teachings of Mister Rogers to my kids.  He was always there, like a familiar blanket, a consistent friend.  Even the parodies (like Eddie Murphy's"Mr. Robinson") were classics.  It's like he was seeped into the dye of the fabric of my life - faded now, but just reappearing with new strands, as I'm sharing the joys of fatherhood with my daughter.  Good-bye, Mister Rogers.  You touched more lives so directly through the power of the tube than you know.  Here's another tribute.

BTW, PBS Kids has some great information on how to explain this to your kids.

"I'm taking care of you
Taking good care of you
For once I was very little too
Now I take care of you."
-- Fred Rogers

Cheap Digital Camera recommendations for use by a 3 year-old

This may sound a little strange, but I've gotten great advice from all of you folks out there on the web before, so here goes:

mel-thumbnail.jpgI've been thinking about getting a present for my daughter's 3rd birthday.  This morning I was struck with an idea - she already loves taking pictures with me, both as a model and as the photographer - she loves my Nikon 990 because it gives instant gratification when you share the photo thumbnail with each other right after the picture is taken.

Of course, the Nikon 990 is (a) too heavy, and (b) too expensive to let her use regularly, and besides, it's my camera.

But as an experiment, I would love to get her a cheap, kid-friendly digital camera that she can use and have as her own.  I think it would be incredible or her to go back to these photos later in life, and relive the perspective that she has now.  I'm sure that most of the shots will be total crap, but then again, so what?  Storage is cheap, and it is not like we're wasting film and burning cash.

Here's my requirements in a camera:

  1. Small enough to grip with kid's hands
  2. Lightweight
  3. Rugged enough to handle short drops, minor spills, etc.
  4. LCD screen on the back (this one is important, it gives instant feedback)
  5. Auto-exposure mode
  6. At least 640x480 resolution
  7. Approx. $100 or less
I don't really care if it is new or used (used is perfectly fine), or the number of megapixels as long as it can create web-ready pictures.  An auto-flash would be nice, but it isn't necessary. 

I went looking on e-bay tonight, but unless you know exactly what you want, it's really hard to wade through all the chaff.  I just don't want to be made into a sucker by buying a chintzy piece of crap.  Perhaps an older generation camera that has seen some wear-and tear and seen some love by someone who has now moved onto a next-gen camera would be perfect for my project. 

Any ideas?  Leave a comment below.

Stanford Spectrum Policy Conference

I'm really looking forward to the Spectrum Policy Conference going on at Stanford this weekend.  One of the highlights will be a panel with FCC Chairman Michael Powell, renowned economist Harold Demsetz, and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski.  Being on the west coast, I haven't been much involved with spectrum issues, but givenrecent rulings on the phone companies, not to mention the work that my own company is doing using unlicensed radios, using smart radios and more efficient use of the finite spectrum opens up a trapdoor from the monopolies and regulation that has slowed so much growth in the past.

I'll be doing a bunch of blogging from the conference, although I have a feeling there will be problems with the WiFi implementation, given Stanford's university policy towards 802.11, although I am interested in seeing how the university staff has implemented access control on a wide range of hardware. I've already offered to bring a Sputnik AP which will allow guest access and enforce access control and bandwidth shaping on the attendees, but haven't heard back yet from the organizers.  NB: I'm also looking forward to meeting Larry Lessig (why haven't you blogged lately, Larry?)  Also it'll be great to see local advocates like Tim Pozar, DeWayne Hendricks, and Doc Searls there.  If you're coming to the conference and you want to met up, drop me a line.

UPDATE: Looks like Dave is going to set up another one of his awesome Spicy Noodle parties (but this time in a different place) for Saturday night. I'll bring my camera.

Hey, that's my telephone number on Google!

Stalker PhoneHere's an interesting Google tidbit - it's now the world's largest reverse phone directory.  Simply type in a phone number, and chances are, you'll see a little telephone icon with your name, address, and convenient links to Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest so that anyone can find out where you live.

Here's a great example.  Simply type in a favorite phone number, say: (301) 424-6613.  That's total information awareness for you, and all brought to you by your friendly neighborhood search engine. with easy driving directions.

Am I the only guy that gets uncomfortable about this?  Is the genie already out of the bottle?  Will we be forced to live in a world without any privacy altogether?  Hey, I understand the tech behind this, and if Google abandoned the service, others would continue to expand their directories.  Is it too late for privacy?  Are we the victims of our own wish for transparancy and frictionlessness?

I wish I had the answer...

New Kiddie Porn extortion spam in the wild: Hoax?

UPDATE (2/19/02 5:15 PM): Since I haven't received any confirmed reports of this attack, I'm assuming for now that I've been duped, and that it is a hoax. I'll keep my eyes on the story, and if any new details emerge, I'll post them here. My apologies for the alarmism. Original post (plus update) follows:

There's a new, nasty attack out there on the web, and this time it involves an innocuous email, an Olympics website, surreptitious downloads of kiddie porn, and blackmailers from Bulgaria who threaten to "expose" innocent victims - unless of course, the victim pays $50 and hands over their credit card numbers.

The story broke in CSO magazine this month:

Between sobs, she explained that, a week earlier, she had gotten an e-mail about the upcoming Summer Olympics in Greece. Since her nephew was hoping to be on the U.S. track team, my coworker was hoping to learn something that might help him. It took a while for a webpage to open up, but when it did, she read all about Greece and the Olympics.

Two days later, she got an e-mail from an unknown address asking for $50 or they would tell her management that she had been surfing pornography sites. They even said they could prove she had downloaded child pornography!

"They even told me which directory it was in on my computer," she cried. "And sure enough, when I looked there, I found the most disgusting pictures."
South Africa's ITWeb picked up on it, and ran a more in-depth article about the scam.  This is the first scam I've heard of that uses an innocuous email, possibly combined with browser flaws, to download illegal material to a victim's computer without their consent. This takes some decent technical skills on the blackmailer's part, browser or OS bugs, and uneducated users.  The problem is that we've got lots of those prerequisites out there.

This does not bode well.  This is like diesel oil and fertilizer to trust on the net.  It is frightening, because it doesn't require malicious intent on the part of the victim - all he does is click on a link in an email from someone he doesn't know, and BAM, he's snared.  Law enforcement needs to be trained on this so that innocent victims aren't treated like sexual predators.

Hopefully, education will help to stamp this out.  If you get an email extorting money, contact your ISP or corporate security team.  Send them a link to this article.  And whatever you do, don't pay the bastards or give them your credit card numbers.  You're only opening yourself up to a wide range of further identity theft.

UPDATE (2/19/02 12:00PM): I'm investigating whether or not this is real or is a hoax. There are some other articles coming out that cover the story, but as Dan Gillmor eloquently points out, the original story in CSO is written under a pseudonym, so until I hear from others in the security community, I'm going to back off on my original alarmism.

Even if we look at this from a theoretical attack point of view (which I sincerely hope it is), it is a technically feasable attack. And the thing that really scares me is that when someone does implement this attack, the fallout and reaction from the general public - which is clearly at most risk from this attack - will be terrible and fierce, and it will be a knee-jerk reaction to control and "regulate" the net.

Either way, it's lose-lose. :-(

Word Bursts and Trend Spotting

Math geekout time:

An interesting article in The New Scientist, talking about how tracking changes in word frequency can be indicative of emerging trends.  For those of you with a mathematical bent, this is a rough approximate of what LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) of a set of documents over time does as well.  LSI allows you to "reduce the dimensionality" of the word frequency lists by taking advantage of the fact that some words and phrases are synonyms, or are in a variety of ways related to each other. 

The big problem with LSI over large data sets (like the web) is that the calculations required to perform it (SVD) are difficult to solve numerically as the document sets get larger.

The "word burst" idea gets around all of that because it just follows individual word or phrase frequency trends.  It's an interesting idea, something that would be cool to implement...  But not for now.  Right now, other tasks have higher priorities.  Could be a fun weekend project, though...

A VC with a clue

I've been enjoying Tim Oren's blog recently.  He's a VC at the Pacifica Fund, and it's obvious that he's on the cluetrain.  He's recently posted some great insights on:  Power Laws and the Amateur Scientist, Reverse subsidies for Solar Energy, Google+Pyra, and Joltage.  But if you're only going to read one of his essays, check out Ruminations on venture capital, trust networks, and information theory.  He nails it - what VCs do, how entrepreneurs get notices, and the importance of reputation and trust networks in moving plans ahead.  If you're an entrepreneur thinking about going for VC money, this is a must-read.  The more I work out here in silicon valley, the more I realize that it is a really small valley.  I've added Tim to my blogroll, and I'm looking forward to more of his insights and observations.  It's always cool to hear from someone who understands power laws, LSI (and SVD), and who subscribes to the BAWUG lists...