Jeff Ubois's blog

Jennifer Urban: "Digital Rights Management Is broken"

Jeff Ubois — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:07:25 +0000

Jennifer Urban: “Digital Rights Management is broken”:

Jennifer Urban and Cory Doctorow spoke in tandem at the December 14 DIY Media seminar. I will post separate entries, although their presentations were closely related.

“DRM is broken,” Urban declared, at the beginning of her talk about “Bits will never get harder to copy: the limits of copyright online.” (Apparently, according to a separate report, Bill Gates agrees) The problem, as the graphic below illustrates, is that until DRM started building legal restrictions on the use of cultural products into the hardware used to access those products, the relationship between technological capabilities, laws, and social changes was flexible enough to allow copyright laws to evolve with the times. When radio came along and enabled the broadcast of music that had previously been accessed through live performance or sheet music, the legal remedy of compulsory licensing enabled rights owners to be compensated and for a new medium for musical performance to grow. DRM, together with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalizes circumvention of DRM measures, puts an end to that flexibility by instantiating in technology a social agreement that used to be mediated by courts: “DRM stops the change process” that been evolving since the establishment of copyright laws.

“Fair use,” fundamental to education, scholarship, and the arts, is broken because the rights holder, not a legal process, determines the boundaries, and “DMCA makes breaking DRM to enable fair use illegal.”

In addition to the social damage caused by cutting the legal system out of the process of determining the limits of licenses for cultural products, Urban pointed out that DRM leads to disasters like the Sony rootkit fiasco, in which hundreds of thousands of Sony CDs were distributed with DRM protections that installed malware on the computers of people who simply wanted to listen to music—compounded later by the exploitation of the malware by hackers.

Jennifer Urban is a Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center and a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at USC. She teaches Intellectual Property and classes related to Technology Law and Policy. She also is the Director of the USC Intellectual Property Clinic, where students learn intellectual property law through hands-on work with cutting-edge, real-world projects. She is a faculty member of the USC Center for Communication Law and Policy.

Originally posted by Howard Rheingold from DIY Media Weblog, ReBlogged by yatta on Dec 19, 2006 at 12:08 AM

Flurry: email for cell phones

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:51:13 +0000

I’m a bit late reporting on Flurry, which offers a free application that will work on any Java-capable phone, and allow subscribers with a data plan to send, receive, and filter email, manage an address book, and read RSS feeds. Flurry highlights email addresses, telephone numbers, and links so that clicking will initiate a message, call, or web session. Given how many of the phones now given away with new subscriptions run Java, and can work with a data plan, this seems like a promising low cost alternative to higher end phones, at least for reading mail (sending without a real keyboard is painful). Flurry works with IMAP accounts, and in contrast to the Gmail mobile app, with any standard email service. Other Java-based clients that worth looking at include Renzoo, ProfiMail and Google’s GMail for mobile application.

Salutations & Sign-offs

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:28:30 +0000

A bit like trying to read tea leaves, but ‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations suggests that “The sign-off of an e-mail message can be a land mine involving the subtleties of relationships and hierarchies.”

Spam in Europe

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:10:59 +0000

The EU reports that more than half e-mails are spam:

AP - Unsolicited e-mails continue to plague Europeans and account for between 50 and 80 percent of all messages sent to mail inboxes, the European Commission said Monday.

Messaging Archiving Webinar Summit, December 6 Messaging Archiving Webinar, December 6 at 1 p.m. eastern

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:13:08 +0000

Osterman Research and three leading vendors will hold an interactive, one-hour webinar on messaging archiving on on Wednesday, December 6, 2006, at 1pm ET. Michael Osterman, President of Osterman Research, will share some of the key insights and findings from his recently published research report, Messaging Archiving Trends, 2006–2009. Executives from Infocrossing, Patron Systems, and Zantaz will also share their insights from leading customers and their perspective on where Messaging Archiving is today, and where it is headed for 2007.

Registration is free, and attendees will learn answers to questions like:

What are the most common reasons to archive email and how are organizations archiving today?
How can you archive to reduce storage costs, gain compliance, and reduce e-Discovery costs?
What is the difference between backup and archiving?
How pervasive and effective are today’s archiving solutions, and what are the trends for 2007?
How do messaging archiving strategies differ by types of organizations, including governments, financial services organizations, and public and private companies?

SharePoint 2007

Jeff Ubois — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:31:08 +0000

Brice Dunwoodie

Brice Dunwoodie points to a review of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, which is finally out this month. The dependence on Internet Explorer is gone, but there may be new dependencies on Office 2007.

Novell and Microsoft

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:53:55 +0000

Last week’s announcement of the new relationship between Microsoft and Novell took a lot of people by surprise. The promise of better interoperability between Windows and SUSE Linux, and between Microsoft Office and Open Office via Office Open XML, could increase Linux adoption in corporate environments.

Microsoft’s new willingness to back away from patent claims against Novell and open source developers and users (Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft noted “If you buy SUSE Linux, you also get a patent covenant from Microsoft”) may be driven by a desire to compete with Red Hat, which recently entered into a new agreement with Oracle. More details on the IP issues are in Jason Matusow’s blog.

Web-based Collaboration Services Market

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:11:27 +0000

Frost & Sullivan predicts the web collaboration and conferencing market will grow to $2.6 billion in 2010, up from $682.7 million in 2005. F&S notes “SMBs represent a particularly attractive target group since they need to access and harness the power of collaboration services but are unable to invest substantial amounts in complex technology or the skills to support it. For large global businesses, the key driving force is the need to communicate effectively across company boundaries and firewalls.” True enough.

Email Policy Management Webinar on November 1

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:30:28 +0000

Join Osterman Research and three leading vendors in an interactive webinar about one of the hottest topics in messaging today, Email Policy Management. This Webinar Summit is co-sponsored by Messaging News, the only publication that covers all news and issues related to messaging.

This 60 minute session will take place on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 at 1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT / 1800 UK Time and is available at no-cost but is limited to the first 250 attendees.

Michael Osterman will share some of the key insights and findings from surveys of your peers from Osterman Research’s just published research report, Messaging Policy Management Trends, 2006-2009. Product managers and email policy experts from EMC, MessageOne, and Symantec will also share their insights from leading customers and led their perspective on where Email Policy Management is today and where it is headed for 2007.

In this session you will learn answers to questions like:

What are the most common email policies and how are they enforced?
What are some email policies that reduce storage costs, increase security, and reduce liability?
What are organizations doing with outbound emails?
How pervasive and effective are email compliance training programs, what are some best practices?
How do email policies differ by types of organizations, including governments, financial services organizations, and public and private companies?

This webinar will give messaging professionals a primer on email policies today for effective messaging management. They will gain key strategies and tactics that they can use in their organizations. In addition to an interactive Q and A session, two lucky attendees will be chosen as live case studies. They will get strategies specific to their organization discussed by the moderator and all three panelists.

The Spamhaus case, a spam-savvy Illinois lawyer perspective

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 07:55:04 +0000

Matthew Prince offers useful insight on the Spamhaus case over at the Securiteam blog:

… 1. Make no mistake: this is serious. To make that point, consider what is likely to come next. When Spamhaus continues to operate, the plaintiffs will implore the court to enter criminal contempt charges against the company and its principals. It’s not clear how broadly such charges could be, but this judge has certainly not shied away from broad orders to this point. At the very least, this could mean that Mr. Linford will be at risk if ever he decides to pay a visit to the United States. The worst case, of course, is that U.S.-based volunteers could be criminally at risk as well….

Ferris Research on ISPs and Zombies

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:33:04 +0000

Richi Jennings has a nice piece on why ISPs need to pay attention to the zombie problem:

Why Should ISPs Fix the Zombie Problem?

Zombies (or bots) are PCs that have become infected with malware that allows malicious remote control of the PC. They are usually herded into botnets and sold to spammers or phishers for the purpose of quickly sending unwanted email. It’s a big problem, but ISPs are in a unique position to fix the problem and should be motivated to do their part. Here’s why:

An ISP can detect when one of its customer’s PCs starts sending spam, either by outbound content control or by spotting an unusual spike in volume. The ISP may even be able to detect the earlier signs of infection, such as connection to an IRC channel used to control the bots.

ISPs should be proactive in quickly fixing such problems. If they don’t, their reputations and the reputations of their customers may be damaged. The spam control industry is quickly waking up to the fact that reputation is a good way to filter incoming SMTP connections, without the expense of content scanning. As this view becomes more prevalent, ISP customers won’t want to be associated with an ISP that takes a cavalier attitude toward its reputation and that of its customers.

Ipswitch Offers Alternative Product to Exchange, Targets SMBs

Jeff Ubois — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:54:00 +0000

Earlier last week, Ipswitch announced the worldwide availability of Ipswitch IMail Server Plus 2006.1. The company says the newest addition to Ipswitch’s line of messaging and collaboration products continues the Ipswitch tradition of building software products that meet the unique needs of small to medium businesses (SMBs) - products that are easy to use, require little or no IT administration, and that deliver a clear and rapid return on investment.

“A lot of companies, particularly SMBs, can’t afford the overhead and support issues that accompany a product like Microsoft Exchange,” said David Karp, director of product marketing of Ipswitch. “That’s why our IMail and Ipswitch Collaboration Suite (ICS) family of products have been the leading alternative to Exchange for more than a decade.”

The anti-spam technology available in IMail Server Plus 2006.1 includes controls for the frequency of updates, image based spam and faster performance.

Pricing and Availability
IMail Server Plus 2006.1 is priced at US$995 for 25 users that includes a one-year service agreement and anti-spam bullet signature updates for one year. — Stephanie Jordan

CipherTrust User Conference and Industry Forum October 4-6

Jeff Ubois — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:53:16 +0000

Messaging Security 2006 is an educational and networking conference that details the framework for organizations to implement holistic approaches for comprehensive messaging security. The event will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel in Las Vegas October 4 - 6. Anticipated attendees at the conference include CEOs of both mature companies and start-ups, IT directors, network security professionals, messaging administrators, risk management and policy professionals, and other executives. If Messaging News readers are interested in attending, you can receive a special rate of US$895 by using discount code CTCUST06 when registering at: http://www.ciphertrust.com/conference/. — Stephanie Jordan

Designing for Mobile

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 15:59:42 +0000

Brian Fling, Principal & Director of Strategy at Blue Flavor has a nice slide deck on how to design services for mobile users.

Ferris Research on IronPort's Bounce Control

Jeff Ubois — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:45:20 +0000

My sometime colleague David Ferris offers this perspective on bounce control: IronPort’s Nice New Bounce Control:

Bounced spam is a big and growing problem. What happens is that the spammer sends out email purporting to have you as the sender. Many of the emails sent get bounced back — to you. These bounces-as-a-result-of-forgery are a major cause of irritating backscatter.

Controlling bounced spam is difficult. It’s hard for anti-spam products to tell what’s spam that’s being bounced, as opposed to bona fide email that ends up being bounced back because you mistyped the email address, for example.

IronPort has just released a very nice new feature that should significantly reduce the phony bounced spam that its customers receive, and help users receive the valid bounces that they want/need to see. It’ll also significantly reduce help desk calls — users get perplexed by bounce messages for email they didn’t send.

Simply put, IronPort automatically stamps outgoing email with a watermark*. It then checks incoming bounced email. If it’s got the watermark, the email is let through. It’s based on an IETF draft, Bounce Address Tag Validation (BATV). IronPort’s an early player to adopt this; expect others to do so…

Online Collaboration Tools And Resources: Kolabora Picks n.13

Jeff Ubois — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:18:51 +0000

Robin Good at Kolabora offers nice coverage of new collaborative tools. Today there’s a nice summary of recent picks:

Online Collaboration Tools And Resources: Kolabora Picks n.13:

Photo credit: Shared Results ThinkFree: web-based MS-Office compatible suite Gobby: collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat SnapJots: organize photos, video clips and communications within private group web …

Webinar on Emerging Messaging Technologies, August 16

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:35:15 +0000

EMERGING MESSAGING TECHNOLOGIES
Webinar. August 16, 2006
8:30am Pacific, 11:30am Eastern, 4:30pm UK, 5:30pm CET. One hour duration

This free event consists of short presentations from interesting new companies with promising and innovative technology - Anchiva System, Clearwell Systems, Consilient Technologies, and Foldera. Ferris Research Senior Analysts David Ferris and Nick Shelness comment on each of the technologies and then moderate a general discussion session.

For more information and registration, click here.

GotVoice: really useful tool

Jeff Ubois — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:17:43 +0000

Checking voice mail is tedious — it’s like email from the 1980s: dial a number, wait, enter a password, wait, and forget about easily referencing an archive of past messages. GotVoice changes that. While voicemail to email services have been around for at least a decade, GotVoice will retrieve messages from any voice mail system and forward them to your email as MP3 files, either on a scheduled or on dmeand basis. No need to get change your number, and the low end version of the service is free.

MessageLabs Seeks Buyer

Jeff Ubois — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:29:00 +0000

From the Ferris Research weblog:

Rumor has it that MessageLabs is looking for a buyer, and has engaged UBS as investment banker. We believe the rumor to be correct.

All in all, it’s probably a good time for MessageLabs stockholders to sell:

Generally,
plenty of M&A interest in the malware field — think of the recent
acquisition of BlackSpider by SurfControl, and of CipherTrust by Secure
Computing; and less recently, of FrontBridge by Microsoft.
MessageLabs is a leading hosted provider, with good technology and people.
So valuations should be good.
MessageLabs
management has many strengths, but it’s not been as good at generating
profits as shareholders have wished. Merging with another firm
facilitates the generation of wealth.

The prospectus asserts:

61% CAGR since FY02, resulting in an estimated ₤50 million ($92 million) in FY06, with positive growth outlook.
EBITDA margin of 15% and net income positive in FY06, projected to increase ahead of growth in sales.

One caution: It is easy to mistake the financials of the parent, MessageLabs Group,
with those of the MessageLabs business. That may make MessageLabs’
P&L look rosier. Nothing, however, that due diligence won’t
clarify. …

Texting a primary app for mobile phones

Jeff Ubois — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:39:10 +0000

The Carphone Warehouse, The London School of Economics, and Lord Philip Gould recently published the results of a survey of 16,500 people concerning their use of mobile phones. Among the findings, “people send 3.6 mobile text messages a day vs. making 2.8 voice calls a day…Among 18-24 year olds the texting revolution has had the biggest impact: for example, 51% of 18-24 year-olds send/receive at least six text messages a day - but only 15% have six or more mobile phone conversations a day.”

The study goes on to cover lifestyle issues, demographics, crime, citizen journalism, and the eclipse of traditional television.