“E-bomb” may see first combat use in Iraq
Weapons designed to attack electronic systems and not people could see their first combat use in any military attack on Iraq.
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High Power Microwave (HPM) devices are designed to destroy electronic equipment in command, control, communications and computer targets and are available to the US military. They produce an electromagnetic field of such intensity that their effect can be far more devastating than a lighting strike.
Anonymizer.com Boosts Privacy Service
Version 2 further cloaks your Internet travels, and now tames JavaScripts.
Tom Mainelli
"The advantages of Anonymizer are clear for people, companies, and even governments that deal in highly sensitive information. But what do Joe and Jane Surfer have to hide?"
"It's more complicated than that, Cottrell says. It is true that subscribers can use the service to keep their employers from seeing what they're doing online at work. And it can help you hide a browser's true history from your significant other. But Anonymizer's mission is to protect your information from the outside world, he says. This is especially true with the explosion of spyware on the Web. "
While I do worry sometimes about machines eventually getting too much control (call it the Phillip K. Dick in me), this article makes some good points of them having insufficient control.
To Err Is Human
By GEORGE JOHNSON
THEY knew all along that human fallibility had contributed to the deaths of their children. There was the well-meaning tour operator in Moscow who had delivered the students to the wrong airport, causing them to miss an earlier flight to Spain. There was the Swiss air traffic controller who happened to take a break at just the wrong moment, leaving an overworked colleague struggling to guide five different planes through his small piece of sky.
Last week, the third, decisive element was revealed to grieving Russian parents: Ordered to climb higher by the electronic voice of the cockpit’s automatic collision detector, the pilot of the children’s plane obeyed the befuddled ground controller instead. The airliner dove head-on into a DHL cargo jet — a tragedy that might have been averted if people put more faith in machines.
Someday I gotta build one of these. It would put my electrical engineering skills to the test. 🙂
!@#$% DMCA….!@#$% RIAA….
Web Radio Fights for Survival
Webcasters rally against royalty ruling they say will yank many off the Net.
Stuart J. Johnston
The 1970s classic hit “The Day the Music Died” referred to the death of rocker Buddy Holly, but for many Internet radio stations and their listeners, doomsday is October 20.
By then, tens of thousands of Webcasters must pay millions of dollars in back royalties for the songs they stream to listeners online. Already, hundreds of Webcasters are shutting down operations, complaining that the fees exceed their annual revenues. The rates, set by the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office, are higher than those assessed to standard broadcast radio. The music labels’ trade organization, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is unsympathetic.