Vaguely McLuhanesque.

It is a neat coincidence — perhaps a wrapping up of things by the fates — that YouTube had its big payday exactly half a century after it was found that a sequence of action could be documented cheaply and easily, viewed immediately, disseminated widely and replayed endlessly. But it is also a sign of something America has lost; not our innocence, but instead our sense of awe — the idea that technology should be used to challenge our creativity rather than as a crutch for quick fame or easy laughs.

We Are a Camera

This paper argues that the benefits of information superiority in attaining military superiority may be vastly overestimated. The economics of ‘information-rich’ environments inherently inspire perverse incentives that frequently generate unhappy outcomes. The military must rigorously guard against the threat of ‘diminishing returns’ on its net-centric investments. Drawing on the author’s private sector experiences with net-centric transformations, several approaches for reassessing the military value of information transparency are suggested.

Perfect Information and Perverse Incentives: Costs and Consequences of Transformation and Transparency

This is the long-form preprint version of Andrew Odlyzko's article in a recent issue of IEEE Spectrum.

Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the size of the network. It is widely accepted and frequently cited. However, there are several arguments that this rule is a significant overestimate. (Therefore Reed’s Law is even more of an overestimate, since it says that the value of a network grows exponentially, in the mathemat- ical sense, in network size.) This note presents several quantitative arguments that suggest the value of a general communication network of size n grows like n log(n). This growth rate is faster than the linear growth, of order n, that, according to Sarnoff ’s Law, governs the value of a broadcast network. On the other hand, it is much slower than the quadratic growth of Metcalfe’s Law, and helps explain the failure of the dot-com and telecom booms, as well as why net- work interconnection (such as peering on the Internet) remains a controversial issue.

A refutation of Metcalfe’s Law and a better estimate for the value of networks and network interconnections

Reviewers often praise video games for their great graphics, cool sci-fi settings and replay value.

With "LocoRoco," heaps of cuteness, creativity and charm make what could have been another boring platformer into one of the year's most original and irresistible video games for the PlayStation Portable.

I am not a PSP owner, but this game sounds like it follows in the footsteps of Katamari Damacy.

LocoRoco is one of the year's most irresistible offerings

A blog on social software, collaboration, trust, security, privacy, and internet tools, by Christopher Allen.

I've had this blog in my NetNewsWire client for a few years now.

You may also recall that I recently blogged Mr. Allen's talk on the Dunbar number, although no one else either looked at it or seemed to find it worth recommending. Maybe you'd like to reconsider?

Life With Alacrity

As cellular data services and applications are being widely deployed, they become attractive targets for attackers, who could exploit unique vulnerabilities in cellular networks, mobile devices, and the interaction between cellular data networks and the Internet.

In this paper, we demonstrate such an attack, which surreptitiously drains mobile devices’ battery power up to 22 times faster and therefore could render these devices useless before the end of business hours.

This attack targets a unique resource bottleneck in mobile devices (the battery power) by exploiting an insecure cellular data service (MMS) and the insecure interaction between cellular data networks and the Internet (PDP context retention and the paging channel).

The attack proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, the attacker compiles a hit list of mobile devices — including their cellular numbers, IP addresses, and model information — by exploiting MMS notification messages. In the second stage, the attacker drains mobile devices’ battery power by sending periodical UDP packets and exploiting PDP context retention and the paging channel.

This attack is unique not only because it exploits vulnerable cellular services to target mobile devices but also because the victim mobile users are unaware when their batteries are being drained. Furthermore, we identify two key vulnerable components in cellular networks and propose mitigation strategies for protecting cellular devices from such attacks from the Internet.

Exploiting MMS Vulnerabilities to Stealthily Exhaust Mobile Phone's Battery

The defining conflict of the late 20th century, the Cold War, was all about technology. The emerging conflict against extremist terror may or may not have much to do with technology.

In the developed countries that the extremists are doing their best to terrorize, officials have launched research programs that will in coming years help determine how much of a role advanced technology can have in this struggle. In this three-part report, we consider that very issue from several different angles.

... programmers are writing computer simulations that attempt to model the minds, behavior, and networks of militiamen and terrorists ...

... nine ­terrorist-attack scenarios ...

Spending large sums on counterterrorism is illogical.

Perhaps we should establish a Department of Homeland Vulnerability to publicize our juiciest targets and call for legislation that would make them less attractive.

Terror: What's Next

Big Blue on Tuesday plans to unveil its IBM System Storage TS1120, designed to store and encrypt data on tape drives.

In other news: fast on the footsteps of a recent acquisition, IBM announces a new Punchcard Integrated Security System, making IBM punchcards among the safest of ways to store small amounts of data in large, climate-controlled warehouses.

IBM debuts encrypting tape drive

Even the most basic digital camera stores the date and time a photo was taken. Now the Sony GPS-CS1 gives photographers a way to record where they took their snapshots as well. Unlike some other devices that help with geotagging, as the process is known, Sony’s device is independent of the camera and has a clip for hanging it on a backpack or belt loop.

When switched on, the device automatically saves the G.P.S. coordinates of the photographer’s wanderings for up to 14 hours. Back at a computer, software supplied with the unit matches up the G.P.S. data with downloaded photos by using their date and time data. A separate piece of software can then plot the location of a photo shoot using Google Maps.

No Need to Take Kilroy at His Word; Now Get Photographic Proof

Alas, it turns out that even among the MySpace generation, there is such a thing as too much information.

That threshold was reached, unexpectedly, earlier this week when the social networking site Facebook unveiled what was to be its killer app. In the past, to keep up with the doings of friends, Facebook members had to make some sort of effort — by visiting the friend’s Web page from time to time, or actually sending an e-mail or instant message to ask how things were going.

Facebook’s new feature, a news "feed," does that heavy lifting for you. The program monitors the activity on its members’ pages — a change in one’s relationship status, the addition of a new person to one’s friends list, the listing of a new favorite song or interest — and sends that information to everyone in your circle in a constantly updating news ticker. Imagine a device that monitors the social marketplace the way a blinking Bloomberg terminal tracks incremental changes in the bond market and you’ll get the idea.

When Information Becomes T.M.I.