Free Republic

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...

* Governments, corporations snooping on website visits... * Next big thing on Web is linked data...* Berners-Lee says future of Web is on mobile phones Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday. Tim Berners-Lee, whose proposal for an information management system at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research CERN 20 years ago led eventually to the World Wide Web, said tracking website visits in this way could build an incredibly detailed profile...

<p>It all began 20 years ago today with a frustrated 29-year-old programmer who had a passion for order.</p> <p>Tim Berners-Lee, now famous as the founder of the World Wide Web, was working as an obscure consultant at Cern, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in the suburbs of Geneva. Berners-Lee loved the laboratory. It was full of stimulating projects and creative people, but his work, and the work of his colleagues, was stymied by the lack of institutional knowledge.</p>

BBC News (09/15/08) Ghosh, Pallab Sir Tim Berners-Lee is helping to create the World Wide Web Foundation, a new organization that will certify Web sites it finds to be trustworthy and a reliable source of information. Berners-Lee says there needs to be a new system that will give Web sites a label for trustworthiness once they have proven to be a reliable source. “On the Web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable,” he says. “A...

Excerpt - Google have announced plans to take on Microsoft and Firefox with their own open-source browser, codenamed Chrome, by releasing a specially drawn comic by Scott McCloud explaining the app. Based on the existing Webkit rendering engine, Chrome will integrate not only tab-based browsing but Google Gears and a newly integrated search and address system called Omnibox. ~ snip ~

Excerpt - The organization that oversees Internet addresses is expected Thursday to approve a proposal to create an unlimited number of so-called top-level domains -- the familiar suffixes like ".com" at the end of Web addresses. Under the plan, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will allow organizations to apply for any top-level domain. Businesses, for example, could use brand names such as ".ibm" or ".ebay" in their Web addresses. Cities could sign up for names like ".nyc" or ".berlin." It will also be possible to apply to use more general terms, such as ".news" or ".sports," to...

Excerpt - Soon, Netscape Navigator - the first highly successful graphical web browser (yeah, yeah, I know Mosaic came before Netscape, but I don't remember seeing Mosaic floppy-disks bundled with my PC World and Macworld magazines in 1995, at least not under the name "Mosaic") - will be nothing more than a footnote in Internet history. Let's take a moment of silence for the big N. OK, that was long enough. AOL, the parent company of this blog and Netscape, has announced that they will cease support for the current version of Netscape as of February 1, 2008. Netscape, which...

Former Senator Fred Thompson topped the presidential campaign site traffic charts in September, surpassing all other presidential candidate sites. The TV star pushed Congressman Ron Paul out of the number one position held by his site among Republican candidates since May, while longtime site traffic leader Barack Obama maintained his top ranking among Democratic presidential hopefuls. Notably, according to exclusive information provided to ClickZ News by Hitwise, while Yahoo and Google drove about a third of the traffic to the top Republican and Democratic candidate sites, some site traffic to RonPaul2008.com actually arrived from the site of his opponent, Mitt...

Excerpt - We've now learned more about the outage at 365 Main's San Francisco datacenter that knocked some of the Web's most popular sites offline. The latest theory: An employee, reportedly drunk, hit the emergency-power-off switch in 365 Main's Colo 4 room. Other sites located in other rooms were unaffected. This isn't the first time 365 Main has suffered an EPO-induced outage; a major one still remembered by customers occurred back in April 2005, and another took place last year. After the jump, a gallery of the carnage caused, and a roundup of reactions. Some of the affected websites --...

6 back-to-back power outages hit the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco Tuesday afternoon causing major havoc with popular web services. 365 Main is down, along with craigslist, Netflix, Technorati, Yelp, AdBrite and SixApart. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is currently working on the issue. It is now estimated that over PG&E 51,000 customers are with out power. So the big question, where is the backup power at the data centers used by these services? UPDATE 1: Digg is still up UPDATE 2: Some services, like Technorati are starting to come back online.

Anyone over 40 can remember a time when you could count the available TV channels on the fingers of one hand. Now they come in the hundreds. But that's nothing compared to the Internet, with its millions - is it billions yet? - of sites that can do just about anything but wash the dinner dishes. Online, you can find any fact you need, and any lie you'd prefer to believe is true. You can make new friends and keep up with your old ones. You can buy and sell anything, make phone calls, import and export photos and movies,...

Pulitzer Prize winning Dana Priest is married to William Goodfellow. William Goodfellow is the Executive Director of the the Center for International Policy (CIP).Here is what Discover The Networks has to say about the Center For International Policy: Dana Priest on left.America’s Red ArmyOne of the most sophisticated of Fenton’s anti-war projects is the co-mingling of Win Without War and the Center for International Policy (CIP). Before 9/11, CIP, a Fenton Communications client, mainly acted as Fidel Castro’s greatest “think tank” ally. Much of its million-dollar budget was spent lobbying to end economic sanctions and travel restrictions against Cuba.Now, it...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular websites for the illegal downloading of films through filesharing, has said it wanted to buy its own island in a bid to avoid copyright laws. ADVERTISEMENT "It's not only about Pirate Bay, it's more about having a nation with no copyright laws,"

Norfolk-based sailor uses Web to channel opposition to war By LOUIS HANSEN, The Virginian-Pilot © November 5, 2006 NORFOLK - Jonathan Hutto graduated from Howard University with a degree in political science and a résumé of social activism. He worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International after college. He whipped up grass-roots protests against police departments and college administrators. One day in 2003, broke and seeking direction, Hutto enlisted in the Navy. The Navy couldn't have known it then, but they know it now: They had signed up a sailor strongly opposed to the Iraq war. Seaman...

Placing bets over the Internet was effectively criminalized by the federal government yesterday, as lawmakers work to eliminate an activity enjoyed by as many as 23 million Americans who wagered an estimated $6 billion last year. Attached to a port-security bill signed by President Bush yesterday was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits online gamblers from using credit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers to place and settle bets. The law puts enforcement on the shoulders of banks and other U.S. financial institutions, some of which fought the legislation. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), said...

"Legend has it that every new technology is first used for something related to sex or pornography. That seems to be the way of humankind." — Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web Last week, Playboy Enterprises, Inc. teamed with a Toronto-based specialist in gambling software to announce the launch later this year of the first Playboy-branded online poker website. CryptoLogic Inc.'s president, Lewis Rose, lauded Playboy as "one of the world's premier entertainment brands." And Christie Hefner, CEO of Playboy, blew an air kiss Rose's way, heaping praise on his firm's "technical and industry strength." In the United...

For some, the Internet it has become an addiction, adversely affecting their lives and their family's lives. While not yet defined as a true addiction, many people are suffering the consequences of obsession with the online world, warns Dr. Diane M. Wieland, who treats patients with computer addiction in her practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. For some people, the Internet may promote addictive behaviors and pseudo-intimate interpersonal relationships, reports Wieland in the journal, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. "Such cyberspace contacts may result in cyber disorders such as virtual relationships that evolve into online marital infidelity (cybersex) or online sexually compulsive behaviors,"...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- BellSouth Corp. confirmed Monday that it is pursuing discussions with Internet content companies to levy charges to reliably and speedily deliver their content and services. Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth (BLS: BellSouth Corporation, justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it. "Higher usage for broadband services drives more costs that we have to recover," he said in a telephone interview. He suggested that Apple Computer might be asked to pay a nickel or a dime to insure the complete and rapid transmission of a song via the...

NEW YORK - World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee has started a blog just in time for the 15th anniversary of his invention. In his first entry, Berners-Lee remarked on how the Web took off as a publishing medium rather than one in which visitors not only read but also contributed information. "WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship," he wrote. That has changed lately with the growing popularity of blogs, which are online diaries that often let visitors submit comments, and wikis, which are sites...

US endorses Internet Governance Forum The US has inked a broad agreement at WSIS but that does not mean it relinquishes its influence over Internet operations The Bush administration and its critics at a United Nations summit at Tunis in Tunisia have inked a broad agreement on global Internet management that will preclude any dramatic showdown this week. By signing the statement, the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an "Internet Governance Forum" that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the UN. The forum is meant to be a central point for global...

Efforts to replace U.S. oversight of the Internet with an international committee were defeated yesterday during U.N.-sponsored meetings. Hundreds of government, nonprofit and industry delegates meeting at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia, agreed to establish a new international forum to discuss Internet issues, but it would not have any policy-making power. "No new organizations were created," said David Gross, the State Department's Internet policy chief and head of the U.S. delegation. "No oversight mechanisms were established by anyone over anyone. There was also no change in the U.S. government's role in relation to the Internet,...

Unnoticed by the public the fight for control of the only allegedly anarchischen InterNet escalates far away. The fronts are clear: the USA against the remainder of the world. With the information summit in Tunis this week hard arguments are approaching. Who travels in these days after Tunesien, already in the airport terminal by Postern and posters with strange abbreviations one welcomes. The "gate to the Orient", admits spectacular excavation places and Kamel-safari, welcomed on it proudly and wide the participants of the "WSIS 2005", for the beaches by Djerba or Monastir, for its the world summit of the information...

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry."We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board.In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell...

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry. "We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board. In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer...The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby. Wal-Mart...

COMMENTS posted on a website praising a terrorist attack anywhere in the world could land a person in jail under tough new laws to be debated by state and federal leaders today. Australians could also find themselves in breach of federal law for distributing books or other literature urging people to travel overseas to kill coalition soldiers or for praising a terror attack as a brave act that should be repeated. New incitement and sedition laws on the table at today's Council of Australian Government terror summit could place some Australian organisations and businesses in danger of breaching the law....

An Arizona national guardsman serving in Iraq has been demoted for posting classified information on his blog, an army official said. Leonard Clark (40) was demoted from specialist to private first class and fined $1 640 said Colonel Bill Buckner, a spokesperson for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, on Monday. Soldiers in Iraq are allowed to maintain blogs but cannot post information about army operations or movements. They also are barred from posting information about the death of a soldier whose family hasn't yet been notified. "The intent of the policy is not to violate soldiers' rights, but to safeguard soldiers," Buckner...

A Web forum for Muslim extremists is calling on its members to organize an Islamist hackers' army to carry out Internet attacks against the U.S. government. The site has posted tips, software and links to other resources to help would-be cyber-warriors. The Jamestown Foundation, a District-based nonprofit with a history of extensive ties to the CIA, said that it has monitored postings on a new section of an extremist bulletin board called al-Farooq. According to Jeffrey Poole, a researcher for the foundation, the forum "represents a how-to manual for the disruption and/or destruction of enemy electronic resources, including e-mail, Web...

22 August 2005 By Hand and on the Web at http://www.w3.org/2005/08/22-w3c-prereg-standards-comments.html Office of the General Counsel U.S. Copyright Office James Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-401 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20559-6000 In Re: 37 CFR Part 202 [Docket No. RM 2005-9] The United States Copyright Office has requested [1] comment on whether a requirement that certain online forms be submitted only through the use of a single vendor's World Wide Web browser, to the exclusion of any other hardware or software product or service designed to conform with Web standards. Such a policy, even if implemented for a short...

John G. Roberts Jr. will end up the most-scrutinized Supreme Court selection in history, due in large part to the Internet, which has made it easier to look at his writings and to rally for or against his nomination. Thousands of pages of his writings are available on the National Archives' Web site, and every opinion that Judge Roberts has written during two years on a federal appeals court also is available. Unlike earlier nominations, this time the press is no longer the sole source of information. This time, senators, lawyers and laymen alike can dissect Judge Roberts' record firsthand...

Two Dutch men suspected of running sex Web sites killed in shootout with local police. 05/26 2:51:31 PM   MANILA (AP) - Two Dutch brothers suspected of running pornographic Web sites from their Manila house were killed in a shootout with government agents who were serving them arrest warrants, officials said Thursday. Willen Cornelis "Cheri" Van Engelenburg, 44, and his brother Hendrikus Erik Van Engelenburg, 38, resisted arrest and opened fire at police officers during a raid in suburban Quezon City late Wednesday, authorities said in a statement. The raid was one of two simultaneous operations against "cyber sex...

An influential congressional committee has dropped a political bombshell by suggesting that a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish American War could be extended to all Internet and data connections this year. The committee, deeply involved in writing U.S. tax laws, unexpectedly said in a reportThursday that the 3 percent telecommunications tax could be revised to cover "all data communications services to end users," including broadband; dial-up; fiber; cable modems; cellular; and DSL, or digital subscriber line, links. Currently, the 3 percent excise tax applies only to traditional telephone service. But because of technological convergence and the dropping...

TIM Berners-Lee, the man who invented and then gave away the World Wide Web, was picked today as epitomising the Greatest of Britishness – a quality finance minister Gordon Brown said was unique. His selfless act added to modesty and ingenuity were deemed by a panel of judges to make Berners-Lee the Greatest Briton of 2004 in the first of what organisers said they hoped would become an annual event. Mr Brown, who opened the glittering award ceremony, said Britons were a wonderful people and invoked the bulldog spirit of World War II leader Winston Churchill – which he said...

The United States was the 800-pound spam-spewing gorilla throughout 2004, a spot it held from wire to wire throughout the year, an anti-virus firm announced Monday. According to researchers at U.K.-headquartered Sophos, the U.S. accounted for 42.1 percent of the world's spam, more than three times the next-guiltiest nation, South Korea, which launched 13.4 percent of the globe's junk mail. China, Canada, and Brazil rounded out the top five. "When we first reported on the top spamming countries back in February 2004, the U.S. had the excuse that the CAN-SPAM Act had been in existence for a couple of months,"...

American internet link to Ken Bigley torture videosby SHARON CHURCHER, Mail on Sunday 11:44am 17th October 2004Terror: Hostage Ken Bigley blindfolded in Iraq The brutal videos of British hostage Ken Bigley begging for his life were distributed on the internet by a radical Islamic website hosted by an American firm with ties to the Bush administration. The Mail on Sunday began investigating the site, hostinganime, after it showed images of Mr Bigley being held in a cage, shortly before he was decapitated by the Al Qaeda cell known as Tahid wal Jihad. The site posted links to footage in...

OPINION -- There was something almost quaint about the Chicago Tribune’s editorial assertion August 24 declaring that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy surrounding John Kerry’s war record was over. Forgetting that we are in the midst of a “new media” revolution that allows everyday Americans to investigate truth claims on their own - without the clouded filter of biased journalists - the Tribune editors wrote, “That should be the end of the debate about John Kerry's experience in Vietnam.” Days before, the Tribune had injected itself prominently into the presidential campaign and the Swift Boat controversy by giving...

Looks like they are closing up at Joe Wilson's little shop of horrors. And the Keery wen search function returns nothing when Joe Wilson's name is entered.

Uncle Sam officially broke off relations with Havana under the 1961 Trading with the Enemy Act. Not so for Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who in 1991, using a Canadian connection funded by her Tides Foundation, linked the communist country up to the World Internet. The Toronto-based Web/Nirv, Canadian affiliate of the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) and its offshoot the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), used a 64 KBPS undersea cable IP link from Havana to Sprint in the United States, linking Cubans to the Information Highway. IGC and APC are one of the Tides Foundation’s largest ongoing projects. A massive, 24-hour,...

Creator of the web turns knight Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the world wide web, has received his knighthood from the Queen. The "father of the web", who already has an OBE, went to Buckingham Palace to get his reward for "services to the global development of the internet". In 1991, the knight of the web came up with a system to organise, link and browse pages on the net. Famously modest, he said he had just been "in the right place at the right time" and did not want his photo taken. During the hour-long ceremony held in...

KerryEdwards.com is getting a lot of attention, but you won't find any pictures of the Democratic presidential candidate and his running mate. The online address belongs to Kerry Edwards, a bail bondsman from Indianapolis, Indiana. He joined CNN's Carol Lin to discuss the coincidence and the Web site. (snip) LIN: Now, you voted for President Clinton. Why not help out the party again? EDWARDS: How do you mean? LIN: Sell it to the Kerry people for whatever they're willing to pay for it. EDWARDS: For whatever they're willing to pay for it? LIN: Yeah. EDWARDS: I don't think they're willing...

No, not Al Gore: Real internet inventor wins million dollar prize Tim Berners-Lee lauded, rewarded for decision not to commercialize or patent his contributions to the internet technologies he developed: "If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web" | by AP HELSINKI, Finland (AP) Tim Berners-Lee, who received a $1.2 million cash prize Tuesday for creating the World Wide Web, says he would never have succeeded if he had charged money for his inventions. "If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web," Berners-Lee, 49, said...

The man who invented the World Wide Web is finally to get some payment for having done so. Although many scientists were involved with the development of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee was the one who came up with the idea of the World Wide Web, says the Daily Mail. However because he insisted it should not be patented, so everyone could have free access to it, so far he has missed out on the kind of fortunes that have come to some dotcom millionaires. Now Briton Berners-Lee, who lives in America, is to receive the world's largest science prize, the...

Spanish Internet company Terra Lycos has retained investment bank Lehman Brothers to explore a possible sale of its U.S. Internet business, including its flagship Lycos.com Web site, according to a document obtained by CNET News.com. What's new: Terra Lycos has retained investment bank Lehman Brothers to sell Lycos.com in hopes of focusing on its Spanish-language businesses.Bottom line: The sale would unwind the $12.5 billion merger of Terra Networks and Lycos, struck during the height of the dot-com boom. A sale of the unit, which is based in Waltham, Mass., would unwind the $12.5 billion merger of Lycos and Terra Networks,...

<p>Tim Berners-Lee directs the World Wide Web Consortium, a forum established to lead the Web to its full potential.</p> <p>ESPOO, Finland (AP) -- The MIT scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has been awarded the first Millennium Technology Prize.</p>

ESPOO, Finland - The scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has been awarded the first Millennium Technology Prize. The award, a euro1 million cash prize, equivalent to $1.2 million, is among the largest of its kind, and was awarded for the first time. It was established in 2002 and backed by the Finnish government. Berners-Lee is recognized as the creator of the World Wide Web while working for the CERN (news - web sites) Laboratory in the early 1990s, the European center for nuclear research near Geneva, Switzerland. His graphical point-and-click browser, "WorldWideWeb," was the first...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Internet has played a significant role in the latest increase in cases of syphilis among gay men by introducing partners more likely to practice high-risk sex, according to a study released on Wednesday. About 22 percent of homosexual men diagnosed with early stage syphilis reported meeting one or more of their sexual partners through the Internet around the time they were infected, said the study by the Los Angeles Health Department. Researchers at a national conference in Philadelphia on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases also said they found gays who used the Web to meet...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Whitehouse.com Web site, one of the best examples that the Internet isn't always what it seems, is getting out of the pornography business. Its owner says he's worried what his preschool-age son might think.</p> <p>"He'll be going to kindergarten next year,'' said Daniel Parisi, who started the Web site in 1997 that is frequently confused with the official government site, www.whitehouse.gov. Parisi, 44, said he worried that his son's classmates might taunt him about the family's business.</p>

Web surfers battling "spyware" face a new problem: so-called spyware-killing programs that install the same kind of unwanted advertising software they promise to erase. Millions of computers have been hit in recent years by ads and PC-monitoring software that comes bundled with popular free downloads, notably music-swapping programs. The problem has attracted dozens of companies seeking to profit by promising to root out the offending software. But some software makers are exploiting the situation, critics allege, turning demand for antispyware software into a launch pad for new spyware attacks. A small army of angry Web users has set up a...

Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with the creation of the World Wide Web, will be anointed a knight by Queen Elizabeth. Berners-Lee, 48, is being knighted in recognition of his "services to the global development of the Internet" for helping to invent the Web. Buckingham Palace announced the news yesterday as part of its 2004 New Year's Honours list. Berners-Lee is a British citizen who lives in the U.S. and serves as director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which he also helped found. He will be officially made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). The rank...

Web's inventor gets a knighthood Sir Tim says his invention was 'just another program' The inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, has been awarded a knighthood for his pioneering work. Dubbed the "Father of the Web", he came up with a system over 10 years ago to organise, link and browse net pages. The famously modest man said he was "quite an ordinary person", and although it felt strange, he was "honoured". Sir Tim was recently reunited with the machine he used to invent the web when he e-mailed 80 schools from the UN's summit on the information...

NEW YORK - An idea that seemingly evaporated along with dot-com mania is back: that the Internet would realize its full grass-roots potential if Web surfers could pay small amounts for tidbits of online content. Several companies are again betting they can mine gold from ferrying around such "micropayments." Even credit card giant Visa USA is exploring the prospect. Boosters believe people could sell countless new creations on the Internet — from essays to advice — if only mechanisms existed to facilitate small payments. For authors of popular content, all those pennies would add up. The problem, as things currently...