Peter Sinclair: Welcome to world of cyber-robbers

By PETER SINCLAIR

As an ironic postscript to last week's column about Prudential's Egg, only a day or two later the trail-blazing internet bank apparently fell victim to some trail-blazing internet bank-robbers.

The web's first cyber-robbery may have been carried out by professional hackers, who reportedly made off with several hundred thousand pounds in cyber-savings. No balaclavas required.

Sad, really, to see the real world imposing its grimy realities on the Arcadian vision of the internet's founders, but it's happening more and more often these days - witness the resumption of the Napster case last week.

In the heat of battle, the wrath of the RIAA is waxing almost Churchillian. Sony senior VP Steve Heckler: "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your ISP."

Such threats, if carried out, would require some formidable technology as well as a scary degree of influence over the US Congress.

But the outcome of the Napster case is already almost moot - the free-source movement last week announced a new, user-friendly Gnutella interface with a new, spelling-friendly name: Newtella: "Welcome, Napster users! As you may already know, the RIAA (ie, the recording industry) has sued Napster to shut it down ... if you make the move to Newtella, you get guaranteed music-sharing. Welcome, Napster fans, to Newtella!"

Music, though, according to a National Research Council report last November, is just "the canary in the digital coalmine." Even more significant is the extension of the dispute into the field of video.

Here, the Motion Picture Association of America is leading the charge to litigation with a case against 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.

At the heart of the dispute is a programme known as DeCSS, which helps users circumvent the protective coding built into DVD movies.

In what some legal experts see as a profoundly disturbing decision, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has ruled that not only is the software itself illegal, but so are any links to it.

The implications of this strike at the very root of the internet, the hyperlink: the concept that created cyberspace and the stitches which hold it together. Download the judge's decision and read some background to both the above cases at Auckland University's Law and Information Technology page.

Flawed or not, the judgment is already being used by the MPAA in an attempt to extend the American legal imperium to other sovereign nations.

At 2600 Australia you'll find a letter from the tycoons which claims that the website is bound by the United States District Court injunction, and that "maintaining the DeCSS utility on your system or network violates the above injunction and risks court sanctions for contempt."

2600 Australia replies that the Wiretapped site hosting the code "is obviously Australian, and any links from this site to the material are clearly beyond their legal jurisdiction."

It argues that anyway there's a "legitimate" use for the code since developers can use it to produce their own DVD players for Linux and Unix-based systems.

Nonetheless, a craven Australian Federal Government is rushing the Copyright Digital Amendment Bill 2000 to the floor of the House in support of the MPAA.

But - to return to the point of this column - the most lethal gene in the life of the web may turn out to be human nature itself. A recent analysis of Gnutella traffic reveals that "70 per cent of Gnutella users share no files, and 90 per cent of users answer no queries."

It speculates that "free-riding leads to degradation of system performance and adds vulnerability to the system. If this trend continues, copyright issues might become moot compared to the possible collapse of such systems... "

Welcome, cyberspace, to the real world!

Bookmarks:

PUSHIEST: E-Loan

Credit giant E-Loan is now offering, like many financial sites, free one-on-one cyber-consultations with an actual person.

"Looks like an interesting development," mused the IT editor. The only financial question that really concerns your columnist is "Will I eat tomorrow?", but I clicked on the smiling face of an attractive girl and gallantly typed into the resulting pop-up:

"What's the best revolving credit deal in Auckland?"

Brief pause, then: "Hi Pete - this is Rebecca.

"I'll send you our current rates table with our lenders interest rates.

"I've pushed you the table." And push it she did, just like that. Nice.

Advisory: I couldn't help wondering, though, whether "Rebecca" mightn't in fact be some balding, overweight loan-jockey named Gus.

MOST EMPLOYABLE: AnywhereYouGo

The web's first wireless career centre - a venue for job-seekers and companies looking for workers in the fast-growing wireless industry.

Free for job-seekers; companies pay $US149.

Advisory: careers at the cutting edge.

Links:

Prudential's Egg

RIAA

Newtella

Motion Picture Association of America

2600: Hacker Quarterly

DeCSS

Auckland University: Law and Information Technology

2600 Australia

Wiretapped

Gnutella traffic

E-Loan

AnywhereYouGo

petersinclair@email.com