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Issue no. 4, 2004 Published: Feb 06, 2004
Row over GPS jamming still divides US and Europe
Google to open Swiss research centre
'Reasonable doubt' on GSM safety, say French authorities
Dutch judge blocks Lindows over trademark issue
Netherlands nabs Nigeria scammers
TV-style adverts arrive on web
How to make spam unstoppable
Are you just four steps away from a genius?

Row over GPS jamming still divides US and Europe
Talks to resolve a dispute between the EU and the US over how the EU's new satellite navigation system Galileo will provide its signal have ended without agreement in Washington. Galileo is scheduled to start operating in 2007 and the EU would like the standard, publicly available signal to use a modulation known as Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) 1.5,1.5. But the US argues that this would interfere with its use of an encrypted military signal, known as the M-code, from its Global Positioning System (GPS). During a military conflict, the US would try to jam all public satellite signals so that its enemy could not use satellite positioning. But jamming Galileo's signal would also disrupt the M-code, the US says. An alternative modulation, called BOC 1.1, has been suggested for Galileo by the US. But this would provide a slightly less accurate signal, prompting some observers to suggest that the US is trying to degrade Galileo for commercial reasons. Another meeting between the EU and US will be held later in February when officials will try to resolve the outstanding issues.
New Scientist Feb 03, 2004	back to top

Google to open Swiss research centre
Google, the world's most popular search engine, says it is opening a Swiss research and development centre in its biggest drive yet to recruit European engineers and computer scientists. A dominant force in the internet search sector, the privately-held Google is facing increasing competition from rivals Yahoo and Microsoft in the race to enlist the brightest young minds in the industry. In December, Google announced it would open an R&D centre in another technology hub, Bangalore, India. The Swiss centre, based in Zurich, and the Bangalore site will bring the number of research facilities to five for Google.
Yahoo / Reuters Feb 03, 2004	back to top

'Reasonable doubt' on GSM safety, say French authorities
After the publication of a book entitled 'Your GSM, your health: You're being lied to', the French agency responsible for protecting public health, Afsse, has revealed that it still stands by the theory of 'reasonable doubt' on the possible risks posed by mobile phones, despite what is says the absence of any evidence that mobiles are bad for you. The Afsse's words have been applauded by the book's authors, who are all overtly sceptical about the innocuousness of radio waves on health. On the issue of evidence, however, the Afsse and the book's authors disagree. The agency still says that apart from the 'reasonable doubt', there is no scientific argument proving the existence of real dangers. The authors, however, say studies from various countries around the world have shown that many mobile phone users and people living near masts are suffering from illnesses, such as insomnia, heart problems and hypertension and some studies suggest a possible link between exposure and higher death rates from neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
Silicon.com / ZDNet France Feb 02, 2004	back to top

Dutch judge blocks Lindows over trademark issue
Lindows, the open-source operator that has been battling with Microsoft over trademark infringement, has lost its legal battle in the Netherlands. After a similar defeat in Sweden, the Dutch courts have ruled that Lindows has to stop using its Windows-spoofing name. And the legal authorities in Luxembourg and Belgium are firmly in agreement, after it was found to be in violation of a Benelux law on brand names. The name itself is not the only issue for the open-source company - it is no longer allowed to sell or advertise its products, has to cancel all outstanding orders and cannot allow users from the Netherlands, Luxembourg or Belgium to access its site. Lindows.com said it intends to appeal the decision. Lindows is ramping up for the continuation of a similar trademark fight in the US courts, which is scheduled to begin on 1 March this year, and in which Microsoft has so far been beaten twice. Lindows also has plans to get its LindowsLive operating system onto more PCs this year - by distributing it for free over P2P networks.
Silicon.com Jan 30, 2004	back to top

Netherlands nabs Nigeria scammers
Dutch police have arrested 52 people suspected of defrauding gullible internet users in one of the largest busts of the infamous 'Nigerian e-mail' scam. Also known as an 'advance fee' or '419' scheme, the scammers sent spam emails asking for help in transferring a large sum of money out of a troubled country, in exchange for a generous percentage. A task force of 80 officers raided 23 apartments, seizing computers, fake passports and 50,000 euros in cash. The detainees were not identified under Dutch privacy rules, but most were believed to be Nigerian, police said. The suspects worked from their homes and sent more than 1 million e-mails. Nigeria has recently stepped up its efforts to eradicate the scam, which taints its image abroad. The Central Bank of Nigeria denies any connection to the scammers, and Nigerian agencies have been placing warning advertisements in international newspapers for years.
Wired News Jan 30, 2004	back to top

TV-style adverts arrive on web
Net users may have to get used to watching TV ads between webpages, if trials currently under way on high profile websites are successful. The new video ads are being tested on 15 sites, including MSN, ABCNews, Pepsi and Honda, over the next five weeks. They are the result of a collaboration between online ad developers, Unicast, and Microsoft. With the increasing commercialisation of the internet has come an explosion in advertising. Most people have got used to filtering out the sales pitches in the search for useful information. But 30 second-long TV ads that appear at random whenever you click on certain websites, will be harder to ignore than pop-up ads. Unicast's Video Commercial is a full screen online ad format that plays a 2MB, 30 second, broadcast quality video, regardless of connection speed. The format is based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series and uses Unicast proprietary pre-cached technology. Users stumbling across the trials on websites may find them overly distracting. But it is something net users all going to have to get used to, says Unicast.
BBC News Feb 03, 2004	back to top

How to make spam unstoppable
Good news for spammers, the smart filtering software used to catch spam can be beaten. With a little ingenuity it is possible to create messages that get past anti-spam filters every single time. The discovery has been made by anti-spam researcher John Graham-Cumming. To cut out the junk, many e-mail users use Bayesian filtering. When trained to spot what is spam these smart filters can catch, in many cases, more than 99 per cent of junk messages. The smart filtering has been so successful that it has already forced a change in the way spam messages are written. Random words are being added to some messages specifically to fool the filters. Graham-Cumming sent himself the same message 10,000 times but to each one added a fixed number of random words. When a message got through he trained an 'evil' filter that helped to tune the perfect collection of additional words. Soon he had generated a short list of words that would guarantee a safe passage into his inbox. Including just one of these words convinced a real spam filter that a message was not spam.
BBC News Feb 04, 2004	back to top

Are you just four steps away from a genius?
The world of science is a small one, according to a statistical analysis by a US physicist. Mark Newman at the University of Michigan studied the collaboration patterns between researchers and found that most scientists are separated from each other by only about 4 to 7 links. Newman took several large databases containing information about scientific papers that had been published in physics, maths and biology over a five-year period. He then constructed networks between the papers, in which the nodes are scientists. Two nodes are connected together if the corresponding scientists have co-authored one or more papers. Newman then undertook a statistical analysis of the data. It turns out that the degree of separation in the networks is very short. In biology, there are only about 4 steps from one scientist to another, in physics there are about 6 and in maths about 7. Newman noted that most people's connections to the rest of the research world go through only one or two collaborators. Finally, clustering - where two people are more likely to be connected if they are both linked to a third individual - was very apparent in Newman's study.
Physics web Feb 05, 2004	back to top