Garance Franke-Ruta wrote in the American Prospect article Blogged Down that although Time magazine described the three writers for PowerLineBlog as “three amateur journalists working in a homegrown online medium [who] challenged a network news legend and won,” that In reality, its three writers are all fellows at the conservative Claremont Institute who attended Dartmouth College in the early 1970s and now work as attorneys; two of them have been writing articles as a team for conservative publications such as the National Review and The American Enterprise for more than 10 years.
In Power Line exposed "deacon" writes I love the use of the phrase "in reality" followed by a series of biographical facts that have nothing to do with the material the author purports to challenge -- i.e., whether we are amateur journalists, whether our medium is homegrown, whether we successfully challenged Dan Rather, and whether we were Time's blog of the year. The sloppy thinking behind the sloppy writing was captured brilliantly by a "Joe M" (what secret affiliations does he have?)who commented as follows on Kevin Drum's site:
Oooohh, scary. They are fellows at the Claremont Institute (meaning, they get to have their names on a masthead somewhere as thanks for their donations). They went to Dartmouth and work as attorneys! Clearly, these are not real "citizens." And they've even been known to publish articles in conservative magazines! Who would have ever thought that a blogger might be the type of person who is interested in writing! Has Powerline no shame? I can think of nothing more contemptible, really. To think, here they are posing as citizens who happen to be interested in writing their thoughts, when in reality they are Dartmouth-educated attorneys who have written for publications before!
Deacon does say In the interest of full disclosure, I should confess that I have never given any money to the Claremont Institute (which took me on as a Fellow only after I had established myself as a blogger). But that's only because I'm, um, frugal, not because it doesn't deserve my financial support. Our status with the Claremont Institute was best described by Rocket Man this way: 1) we write when we feel like it; 2) they print our stuff if they feel like it; and 3) alas, no money changes hands.
Franke-Ruta's approach to Power Line mirrors her approach to the other bloggers who come in for attack. She simply drops whatever biographical information she has without any analysis of how it might undercut the blogger's credentials as a "citizen," his or her ability to say valid things, or the truth and quality of what the blogger actually said
What a person writes should be evaluated on the truth and quality of what they say, how well they say it, what justification they give for their opinion, and how well they document their sources. Their background is immaterial, as are publications they have written for in the past.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Oooohh, scary
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Harvard does not know what a hacker is
Boston.com reports that Harvard Business School said on Tuesday it is rejecting applications from 119 would-be students it accused of hacking into a Web site to learn early if they were accepted, before the sending of official notifications.
According to Philip Greenspun
In the 1960s the term "hacking" meant smart people developing useful and innovative computer software. In the 1990s the term meant smart evil people developing and running programs to break into computer systems and gain shell access to those systems. Thanks to Harvard Business school the term now means "people of average IQ poking around curiously by editing URLs on public servers and seeing what comes back in the form of directory listings, etc."
Outside the Beltway comments So, essentially, the students are being denied entrance to business school for the crime of . . . backspacing?
Hat tip to Begging to Differ for the link to ComputerWorld which tells a slightly different story. Using the screen name "brookbond," the hacker broke into the online application and decision system of ApplyYourself Inc. and posted a procedure students could use to access information about their applications before acceptance notices went out. The hack was posted in a Business Week online forum mainly frequented by business students, said Len Metheny, CEO of the Fairfax, Va.-based ApplyYourself.
ComputerWorld explanation has NOTHING to do with HOW the 119 applicants got access to their results. In my opinion Philip Greenspun was right, and what they did was trivial (and in fact something I have done myself, and I don't consider myself a hacker). What ComputerWorld calls "hacking" was just that the person who discovered how to get the information, and who posted it on the Business Week online forum registered for the Forums & Message Boards (as well as access to Portfolio Manager, Magazine Archives, and Free Newsletters) using an alias.
Update 3/16 NYT published an OpEd by Lauren Weinstein entitled Harvard Needs More Hackers. The tease was Business schools should use the recent breach of their security by "hackers" to teach — and take — an ethics lesson. The article admitted On the scale of "hacks," this incident barely makes the needle quiver. Yes, the students shouldn't have done it, since they presumably realized that they were trying to gain access to information that wasn't intended for their eyes at that moment. On the other hand, they also knew that they were using their own accounts and would be looking only at their own status. They weren't trying to alter files or gain access to others' data. It also admits The students who used it first logged into their accounts, then entered a minor modification into a Web address - the same sort of alterations that curious surfers routinely make all over the Internet. As it turned out, many of those who tried this trick simply saw blank pages, but the schools could tell which students had made the attempts., and then goes on to conclude Instead of rejecting these applicants based solely upon this shared lapse, the business schools could ask them to become the focal point of much-needed ethical education courses. These students could then serve as ambassadors of this cause to other students, faculty and, yes, administrators. Instead of being relegated to the ranks of student rejects, these applicants could become superior managers and executives by virtue of this experience - that is, if they're permitted to continue their studies.
Let me be sure I understand.
- The students used a technique curious surfers routinely make all over the Internet
- they were looking only at their own records
- many of those who tried this trick simply saw blank pages
- on the scale of "hacks," this incident barely makes the needle quiver
Oklahoma near bottom of 'livable' list
NewsOK reports that the Morgan Quitno Press ranked Oklahoma the 43rd most livable state, down three spots from last year it it's
Livable State Award. We scored a 20.37 compared to the top ranked New Hampshire which scored 35.45, or the lowest ranked Mississippi which scored 16.11, according to 44 Positive and Negative categories listed here.
Oklahoma placed low in several categories:
- Fourth highest prison incarceration rate.
- Fourth highest percent of population without health insurance.
- Fifth lowest per capita gross state product.
- Fifth lowest state and local government outstanding debt per capita.
- Ninth most number of sunny days.
- 12th highest in legislative appropriations to art agencies per capita.
The Morgan Quitno Press also named Oklahoma the 46th healthiest state. But the state did well in other categories, such as a low percentage of people with AIDS (No. 18) and adult binge drinkers (No. 11).
Could Bush Be Right
By Dawn's Early Light has a FANTASTIC list of 18 articles from Europe, America and the Left in general about Could Bush Be Right (The Left Reconsiders)
In the Washington Post we seeThe tipping point came last week when Lebanon's pro-Syrian government fell. The international online media, much of which had been critical of Bush during his first term, had to acknowledge democratic developments on the American president's watch. Many commentators also cited free elections in Afghanistan last fall, Palestinian elections in early January followed by the Jan. 30 Iraq elections. Then came local elections in Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement of constitutional changes allowing his opposition to challenge him electorally.
Given Bush's insistence that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would lead to a democratic political order in the Middle East, many Europeans are "somewhat embarrassed" by these developments, Sorman wrote in Le Figaro.
"Hadn't they promised, governments and media alike, that the Arab street would rise up [against U.S. military forces], that Islam would burn, that the American army would get bogged down, that the terrorist attacks would multiply, and that democracy would not result nor be exported?"
"These dramas did not occur," Sorman says. "Either Bush is lucky, or it is too early to judge or [Bush's] analysis was not false."
Specter betrays GOP Leadership
In order to get the Judiciary chairmanship, Specter promised to support all of Bush's judicial nominees, but he did not promise the order in which he would send nominees to the floor. The first choice of Majority Leader Bill Frist and the other Republican leaders was Justice Janice Rogers Brown, a conservative member of the California Supreme Court. A Democratic filibuster stopped her in the last Congress. The spectacle of Democrats blocking an African-American woman from becoming an appellate judge is welcomed by Republicans. With no chance to get 60 senators supporting her, Frist would then make a point of order to be upheld by Vice President Dick Cheney, presiding over the Senate. If a simple majority upholds him, Brown is confirmed -- and the war is won.
But as RealClearPolitics reports Without consulting the Republican leadership, Specter launched a procedure that undercuts party strategy for confirming President Bush's judicial nominees. Specter, on his own, picked William Myers, a former cattle industry lobbyist, as the nominee blocked by Democrats in the last Congress who will go first in the new Congress. He did so because he figured that Myers, among 16 blocked Bush appellate nominees, had the best chance to get 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. But, as Specter is well aware, the Republican party is not interested in confirming judges with 60 votes. It wants to re-establish the constitutional principle that a simple majority of 51 votes is sufficient for confirmation.... The last outcome the Republican leadership wants would be a filibuster against Myers broken by 60 senators voting for cloture. That precedent would restrict what kind of Bush Supreme Court nominee could get through the Senate. Republican leaders want to use parliamentary procedures to confirm judges with a simple majority -- the so-called "nuclear option." which is the scary-sounding name for a simple Senate rule change to stop the filibuster of appeals-court nominees. Ending a filibuster requires 60 votes--rather than the simple majority of 51 that was sufficient to confirm judges for all of Senate history until this Presidency. The idea is that if the Democrats filibuster another nominee, Majority Leader Bill Frist would ask for a ruling from the Senate's presiding officer that under Rule XXII only a simple majority vote is needed to end debate on judicial nominations. Assuming 51 Members concur--and GOP nose-counters say they have the votes--the Senate would then move to an up-or-down floor vote.
Former Klansman and current West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd wants to scare the Republicans away from changing the Senate rules in this manner, and he got into hot water last week for introducing Hitler into the Senate's already acrimonious debate on Democratic filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominations. Speaking of the Republicans' threatened "nuclear option," he said, "We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men." LGF reported he backpeddled a little on the Hitler reference, but only a little.
Yet as GOP Bloggers noted, the Wall Street Journal reported that changing Senate precedents by majority vote would be nothing new to Mr. Byrd, who used the tactic to change Senate precedents on filibusters and other delaying tactics when he was Majority Leader in 1977, 1979, 1980 and 1987. This is documented in Harvard JLPP which is available in a PDF File
As the New Yorker noted The filibuster has been around in one form or another since 1806, when the Senate absent-mindedly neglected to readopt a rule allowing a simple majority to move the previous question. It has been a favored tactic of conservatives.... [and] liberals, historically, have passionately called for its abolition. Lately, the roles have reversed. Now it’s conservatives who indignantly denounce the filibuster as undemocratic.
Byrd once used the filibuster to block the Civil Rights Act, but he wants to use it to block minorities nominated to the federal bench if they are conservatives.
Worms and Viruses Infect IM and Phones
MSNBC reported on Kelvir, an Instant Message worm that began circulating Sunday.
MobilMag reports on CommWarrior, a new virus that attacks Symbian Phones via MMS (multimedia messaging) as well as Bluetooth. DataFellows and McAfee report on these new phone viruses.
TechTree, and ZDNet report on this new threat to cell phones.
E-Mail Phishing
The New York Times ran a story about E-Mail Phishing, which is a type of online fraud that collects victims' account passwords and other information, after they respond to an e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate business. I have provided a number of articles in the I/O Port, beginning in June, 2004, and continuing through July, August, December, and March, 2005.
Those articles showed how a person could identify Phising (Identity Theft) attempts; the NYT article, on the other hand, begins with a specific example where a coin collector and dealer who buys and sells on eBay had his identity stolen, and someone had used his eBay account to sell about $780,000 worth of coins - about five times the online business he had done over several years - and many of the coins offered for sale never existed. Adding insult to injury, fees for hosting photos for the fraudulent auctions had been financed with $300 from Mr. Alofs's account with PayPal, eBay's online payment service.
The article then describes how eBay has taken three steps recently to increase it's security:
- offering users of Windows-based computers a free toolbar that flashes a warning when a browser is pointed toward what it believes to be a fraudulent Web site,
- joining an effort organized by WholeSecurity to block fraudulent Web sites, and
- introducing a Web mail service called My Messages to get around the problem of junk mail filters blocking legitimate messages from the company to its users (the feature may evolve into a communications tool for users). The article indicated the introduction of My Messages was relatively low-key. I must agree with that, since I searched for quite a while, and could not provide a link to it, but eBay does have this page related to Online Security and Protection.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Dominos Falling
Power Line reports Demonstrations continue in Beirut
GOP Bloggers reports Around 500 Kuwaiti activists, mostly women, demonstrated outside parliament on Monday to demand female suffrage amidst tensions in the Gulf Arab state over a government drive to grant women political rights.
"Women's rights now," chanted the crowd, which included women dressed in abayas, or traditional long black cloaks. Some of the demonstrators wore veils over their faces.
"Our democracy will only be complete with women," said a placard written in Arabic. "We are not less, you are not more. We need a balance, open the door," said one written in English.
The dominoes are really falling
Click to enlarge
Dems Lean Left
The New Republic said Today Democrats find themselves in a similar predicament; yet those clamoring most loudly for change have turned to New Democrats not for inspiration, but for vilification. To the MoveOn activists, liberal bloggers, and Deaniacs on the rise within the party, New Democrats are shills for corporate America who, in the words of The Nation, "have hijacked 'centrism' to sell out America's middle class." New Democrats, they argue, are without principle; like their leader Bill Clinton, they triangulate their way from issue to issue, abandoning Democratic values in the process.
NDOL pushes a A Reform Insurgency to get on the offensive again as true progressives
NewDonkey favors a reform agenda [that] represents a return to our insurgent roots prior to the 1992 Clinton campaign
And yet their poster girl, Hillary Clinton, is racing to the center, trying to pretend that she is a New Democrat like her husband.
Sounds like schizophrenia to me.
A solution to private accounts
In their article on Social Security Choice says
But then in another article they say Teddy senses that President Bush and the Republicans can be “rolled” on Social Security Reform the way they were on Education Reform in 2001. His belief is not irrational. In 2001, Bush wanted school vouchers and Teddy wanted more spending. Bush decided that he had to have a bill that session and therefore had to compromise. The “compromise” was…more spending.
Now Bush wants Personal Social Security Accounts and Teddy [Kennedy] wants higher taxes. Bush says that Social Security is in crisis. He also (incomprehensibly) suggests that raising the wage “cap” on Social Security taxes is “on the table”. Can anyone not understand why Teddy Kennedy is now licking his chops?
They are right that Bush got Kennedy's support on Education Reform by swapping vouchers and testing for more spending, but the Dems are still complaining that he never fully funded the more spending they thought they were going to get.
But if Bush plays his cards right, he can sucker Kennedy (and others) into supporting Private Accounts in exchange for raising the cap, and if he plays his cards right he can offer to raise it a little, and when they want him to raise it more, he can counter with raising the $1000 cap on contributions to the PSSAs. Increasing the cap on taxes might hurt the economy, but establishing PSSAs and increasing the contribution cap will be an economic-growth-boosting cut in marginal tax rates, which should counter it, and we would have PSSAs in place, helping the transition to an "ownership society".
Social Security Tidbits
David Limbaugh reports that NBC's "First Read indicates
- The White House is willing to compromise so long as any compromise includes private accounts;
- congressional Democrats are willing to deal on tax increases and benefit cuts so long as private accounts are off the table.
Well I'm glad that is settled. NOT!!!
The Boston Globe looks at Bush's consideration of "a controversial new source of revenue to help fix Social Security: shutting off the exemption from Social Security taxes of future state and local public employees who otherwise would be contributing to public pension plans." While "labor unions are fighting hard to make sure the proposal doesn't materialize,... [c]ritics say the unions are trying to have it both ways: fighting the Bush plan on grounds that private accounts are too risky, while fighting to ensure that 5 million workers are exempt from Social Security and thus able to benefit from pension plans that rely on stock market investments."
Another interesting dichotomy. They have to support the Dems, so they have to oppose private accounts, yet all of their pension plans rely on stock market investments.
The only solution the Dems want is one that raises taxes. If they were not so frightened that Private Accounts would turn people into Republicans they could probably get some sort of tax increase together with private accounts.
The First Credentialed White House Blogger...
Michelle Malkin reports that Garrett Graff--contributing editor for Washington media blog FishBowlDC--will make history as "the first known blogger to be admitted to the White House press corps." Graff has apparently been trying to get a day pass for some time.
Matt Margolis says Quick look around site indicates to me that it’s a left-leaning blog… it is self-described as a “gossip blog.” Something tells me this is just a move to put water on the fire of GannonGate.
Shane Raynor says I’m betting that this news frosts more than one member of the traditional media establishment, considering the fact that their antics are Graff’s biggest source of blog fodder.
Bob at Civil Commotion asks a very good question: Does a White House press pass mean that, in Uncle Sam’s eyes, they’re legitimate journalists?
First Read revealed something I missed: as Graff himself notes in his bio, he was Dean's first presidential campaign webmaster.
A left-leaning gossip blog is entitled to a White House press pass. Will a right-leaning political blog also get a White House press pass?
Google launches Desktop Search 1.0
Vnunet.com reported Google has formally launched its desktop search application designed to allows users to search for information on local computers.
The full 1.0 release of the free downloadable tool, which was previously available as a beta test version, adds functionality including the ability to search the full text of PDFs and the meta-information stored with music, image and video files.
Additional enhancements include support for the Firefox and Netscape browsers, Thunderbird and Netscape email clients and new Chinese and Korean language interfaces.
BusinessWeek reports "Google Desktop Search brings the power of Google search to information on the computer hard drive," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management, in a statement. "It's like having a photographic memory of everything you've seen with your computer, right at your fingertips."
The product is available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above, the company said.
More People Turning To Online News
As WebProNews reported During the 2004 presidential campaign, six times as many people used the internet to get political news as they did in 1996.
... The influence of newspapers dropped to 39 percent last year, from 60 percent in 1996, according to the joint, telephone-based survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
BusinessWeek reports Americans who got campaign news over the Internet were more likely to visit sites of major news organizations like CNN and The New York Times (43 percent) rather than Internet-only resources such as candidate Web sites and Web journals, known as blogs (24 percent).
You can see the bias of the media, in that when they identify major news organizations they just list extreme left wing sites like CNN and The New York Times.
Fifty-eight percent of political news users cited convenience as their main reason for using the Internet. This group was more likely to use the Internet sites of traditional news organizations or online services.
But one-third of political news consumers cited a belief that they did not get all the news and information they wanted from papers and television, and another 11 percent said the Web had information not available elsewhere. These individuals were more likely to visit blogs or campaign sites for information.
And blogs, Rainie said, likely had an indirect influence on what campaigns talked about and what news organizations covered.... Blogs "are having a modest level of impact on the voter side and probably a more dramatic impact on the institutional side," Rainie said. "Blogs are still a realm where very, very active and pretty elite, both technologically oriented people and politically oriented people go."
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Niger cancels 'free-slave' event
BBC News reports that The government of Niger has cancelled at the last minute a special ceremony during which at least 7,000 slaves were to be granted their freedom.
A spokesman for the government's human rights commission, which had helped to organise the event, said this was because slavery did not exist.
It is not clear why the government, which was also a co-sponsor of the ceremony, changed its position.
At least 43,000 people across Niger are thought to be in slavery.
Representatives of the slaves, the government and human rights campaigners had been due to attend the event at In Ates, near the border with Mali.
A local chief had agreed to the release after the introduction of a new law, which punishes those found guilty of slavery with up to 30 years in jail.
Anti-Slavery International had described the ceremony as a historic step forward.
The British-based campaign group said the people who had been due to be freed made up 95% of the local population.....
In a ceremony in December 2003, dozens of slaves were liberated, many of them shedding tears of joy as they were given certificates showing they were free.
Hat tip to D. Rogers at The New Editor
Wayback Machine
LGF just called my attention to a FANTASTIC tool, the Wayback Machine, a wonderful tool, containing more than 30 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. It’s a good place to look for sites that no longer exist on the web, if you know the site’s former address.
Drag this link to your browser's toolbar: Wayback and then when you are on a page and want to see earlier versions of that page, just click that link on your toolbar.
LGF used the Wayback Machine to discover a page which was apparently removed from the Internet some time around July 2001 with a map of "The United States of Islam".
Free Flow of Information Act of 2005
Michelle Malkin points out that Dan Gillmor indicated that H.R. 581 (the "Free Flow of Information Act of 2005") sharply circumscribes the definition of who's a journalist -- and appears to explicitly exclude bloggers and other non-traditional online journalists.
Who's get the protection? The legislation would give it to:
A) an entity that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means and that--
(i) publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical;
(ii) operates a radio or television broadcast station (or network of such stations), cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier; or
(iii) operates a news agency or wire service;
(B) a parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such an entity; or
(C) an employee, contractor, or other person who gathers, edits, photographs, records, prepares, or disseminates news or information for such an entity.
In other words, bloggers need not apply unless they work for a major publication or broadcast.
See a pattern?
We're moving toward a system under which only the folks who are deemed to be professionals will be granted the status of journalists, and thereby more rights than the rest of us. This is pernicious in every way.
Mass media journalists and their bosses should be leading the fight against what's happening to bloggers. I fear they won't, because old media typically refuses to defend the rights of new entrants until the threats against the new folks directly threaten everyone.
beSpacific
points out that Rep. Mike Pence that introduced the Free Flow of Information Act of 2005 has .
Martin Stabe says Defining “journalism“ for the purposes of extending special protections is dangerous business — not because of who it protects, but, as we see here, because of who it excludes from that protection. and here he says Journalists should never forget that the First Amendment and the freedom of expression guarantees in other liberal democracies are not intended to protect and privilege professsional journalism, much less enterprises that sell commodified news.
Freedom of expression is intended for all citizens to discuss politics in public without threat of intimidation. The fact that the prohibitively high cost of participating in the public sphere has until recently confined the exercise of that right to professional journalists and moneyed publicists is purely incidental — a disfunction of liberal democracy arising out of economic reality not an intentional privilege to be defended.
Italy Rejects U.S. Version of Iraq Shooting
Yahoo! News says Italy Rejects U.S. Version of Iraq Shooting. Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers. She offered no evidence for her claim, and could the fact that she is a reporter for a Communist daily Il Manifesto have influenced her recall? Sgrena's newspaper, Il Manifesto, has been a fierce opponent of the war. Could that have had an affect as well? Also she remembered her captors' words, when they warned her "to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return." Could they have caused the Italian driver to ignore the soldier's signals to stop at the check point?
Sgrena claimed the soldiers fired between 300 and 400 bullets at if from an armoured vehicle.
Update: 3/8
LGF initially showed a photo of that AP identified as being the car, but subsequently they learned that it was not the car, and LGF quickly corrected the record.
I showed the photo initially in this article, but with LGF's retraction, I have removed it.
New era in Middle East
Australian Prim Minister credited the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a catalyst for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon and other promising democratic developments in the Middle East.
As Syria confirmed at the weekend that all of its forces in Lebanon would move to the border with Syria, Mr Howard said democracy was beginning to emerge in the Middle East.
He pointed to the 59 per cent turnout in Iraq, the election of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian leader and the "real prospect of some settlement" with Israel. Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia and a multi-candidate race for Egypt's presidency were also promising developments, he said.
"Now, these things wouldn't have been remotely possible a year ago," he told Channel Seven's Sunday Sunrise program.
"I have no doubt that one of the reasons - I am not saying all the reasons, but one of the reasons - is of course, or was, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein."
Charles Krauthammer said in the Washington Post Revolutions do not stand still. They either move forward or die. We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East. It was triggered by the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and televised images of 8 million Iraqis voting in a free election. Which led to the obvious question throughout the Middle East: Why the Iraqis and not us?
To be sure, the rolling revolution began outside the Middle East with the Afghan elections. That was followed by the Iraqi elections. In between came free Palestinian elections that produced a moderate, reform-oriented leadership, followed by an amazing mini-uprising in the Palestinian parliament that rejected an attempt to force corrupt cronies on the new government.
And it continued -- demonstrations in Egypt for democracy, a shocking rarity that led President Hosni Mubarak to promise the first contested presidential elections in Egyptian history. And now, of course, the "cedar revolution" in Lebanon, where the assassination of opposition leader Rafiq Hariri led to an explosion of people power in the streets that brought down Syria's puppet-government in Beirut.
Revolution is in the air.
Netscape 8.0
Netscape, the browser that dominated the Web in the 1990s until Microsoft’s Internet Explorer took over, has faded into obscurity since it was acquired by America Online in 1998.
But AOL is hoping for a Netscape comeback, starting today. The company is releasing a beta, or prerelease, version of an all-new edition of the storied browser, called Netscape 8.0. This new Netscape, which works only on Windows, sports some unusual features designed to help bolster security and compatibility on the Web.
We reported earlier how Firefox was gaining on IE in popularity. Firefox is based on Mozilla, which in turn was based on an earlier version of Netscape which was released to the Public Domain as open source software.
What goes around comes around, because Netscape 8.0 is based on Firefox, but it adds two major new features. First, Netscape rates every Web site for trustworthiness. This includes whether the site is genuine, and not a fake created by crooks for so-called "phishing" schemes; and whether it can be trusted not to secretly load spyware or other malicious programs onto your PC.
Second, Netscape has the capability to render a Web page in two ways: as Firefox would present it or as Internet Explorer would. This is useful because some Web sites don’t work properly in Firefox and rely upon special features available only through Internet Explorer. With the new Netscape, you can see the Internet Explorer version of a page without launching Internet Explorer.
If a site is considered trustworthy, Netscape automatically renders it using the Internet Explorer method, for maximum compatibility. Internet Explorer’s method for rendering Web pages opens security vulnerabilities that Firefox’s doesn’t. Netscape figures that, at trusted sites, it’s OK to take that risk.
On the other hand, if Netscape isn’t sure about the trustworthiness of a site, it uses the Firefox method for rendering the pages, which is safer but might have compatibility issues.
Netscape 8.0 beta can be downloaded here or here or here.
A Washington Post review said Netscape's new browser crashed twice during our four-hour test. Worse, it was painfully slow, taking much longer than Internet Explorer or Firefox to render streamlined sites such as Google News.
Another flaw is how America Online has cluttered the top toolbar and left-margin sidebar with links to AOL's own Web content, including CNN, MapQuest, Netscape News and AOL Yellow Pages.
The links across the top toolbars are the most annoying, because it is not as easy to change them as it should be. Users may have to dig deep into the help file to decipher how to add and delete links from this new, multi-level toolbar.
There are a number of comments from users that have tried the beta at BetaNews.
