POSTS
Dispatches from the Wired frontier
here's a thought
Hey, Rush! Ever Heard of
the Creative Commons?
I I There are some things
[from my show) that we can't
Ipodcast] yet, like music because
of copyright problems.... But
I ¡ust want to tell you we're
continually working on it.... I
know the Millennium Copyright
Act is what this is all about, and
until that's changed, none of
this is going to change. 99
Front The Rush Limbaugh Show
June 14,2005
Rush Limbaugh, talk radio host
Juicy Emails Will
Always Get Leaked
I I Deploy DRM and you can
keep employees from forward-
ing embarrassing email to the
media. That sounds like the
answer to network-illiterate
managers' prayers, but if it's
juicy enough to leak, it's juicy
enough to write down and
retype.... Bill Gates pitchled]
DRM using the example of an
HIV test result, which is literally
one bit of information. If you
hired someone untrustworthy
enough to leak that but unable
to remember it, you don't
need DRM, you need to fix
your hiring process. J "
Posted on linuxiournal.com
Don Marti, editor in chief,
Unux Journal
THE POOR RICH
Bin Laden
i n 'Hell*
When it happens, the expulsion is so
genteel at first that you might not notice.
There is no warning, no email notification,
nothing. You think you're logging in to
aSmallWorld, the ultraexclusive social net-
working Web site favored by supermodels,
celebutantes, and Eurotrash. But instead of
a blue homepage and postings about polo
horses for sale or New Delhi nightclub rec-
ommendations, you see a green page and
the lamentations of those outcast. You have
b e e n banished to aBigWorld - the dread-
fully nonexclusive sister site of ASW.
"I log on every day to see if it's still
green, or if they've let me back into the
blue," confesses 22-year-old Talal bin
Laden of Geneva. Bin Laden, a recent
college grad, admits after some stammer-
ing that he's "distantly, distantly related to
that guy no one likes." He says that ASW
could definitely get ostentatious. "There
were posts like, 'I'm going from Monaco
to Lausanne tomorrow and need a private
jet for one person.'" Still, he used to love
hitting the site every day. "It's a great place
to network or learn about different cities."
But bin Laden ran afoul of ASW poli-
cies when he participated in a thread
that devolved into a flame war. "One guy
posted some anti-Arab racist slurs, and I
responded with a polite deconstruction of
why I felt that was inappropriate," says bin
Laden. "For that, I was evicted to hell."
"ABigWorld wasn't conceived of as a
penitentiary, but it does serve as one,"
says Erik Wachtmeister, the founder and
self-described "benevolent dictator" of the
ASW and ABW social networks.
Banishment to ABW occurs when mem-
bers don't follow ASW etiquette, the same
unwritten rules that govern the highest
spheres of polite society. No public com-
munication about its goings-on. No using
offensive language or pestering those
above one's station.
"WHY AM I IN ABIGWORLD?????" posts
Camillo Caltagirone, a student at the Inter-
national School of Monaco. He says that his
crime was inviting Paris Hilton, who was
just one degree of separation away, to join
his friend list. "Blondy decided to decline
me. I tried writing a letter to the aSmall-
World founder but they didn't reply!!!!!"
A former investment banker and the son
of a Swedish ambassador to the US, Wacht-
meister got the ASW idea during a boar
hunt at a friend's estate in Germany. "I was
crouched in the leaves, meditating alone,
and thought: Relationships are like assets.
Why not create a secure network where
people can share and develop them? People
in the upper echelon have a tremendous
need for trusted info. Not from a guidebook,
but from their peer group."
Dubbed Snobster by the masses, ASW
claims more than 68,000 globe-trotting
members. Since 2004, it's b e e n an online
hangout where princesses and barons
mingle with socialites like Frederic Fekkai
and Conrad de Kwiatkowski, where names
WIRED-0012005-071
 POSTS
such as Carrier and Versace waft around like
expensive scents, where business luminar-
ies like Charles Muirhead and Lili Zanuck
prowl about. No fake profiles allowed - "I've
deleted a few Bill Clintons," Wachtmeister
says."But a few dogs slip through."
Wachtmeister's greatest worry is that the
ASW site will expand too quickly. Last fall,
it was adding 1,200 people a day until he
closed the door to new members.Things
have relaxed since then. Social butterflies
who receive networking requests from at
least 50 other ASW users are now permit-
ted to invite people to the club. And Talal
bin Laden has been contacted by ASW,
asking the details of his "transgression ...
in the interests of eventual redemption."
Any such limitations on membership
would be unthinkable for a social network
like Friendster or Orkut, where the goal
seems to be to grow as big as possible, as
fast as possible. But in Wachtmeister's view,
those sites have become bloated free-for-
alls - so open and inclusive they're useless.
Or, as Cheray Unman, an ASW member and
former VC living in Mill Valley, California,
puts it, "If I'm trying to find someone to look
after my purebred Samoyeds while I'm in
St.Tropez, I'm not going to ask some naked
Burning Man hula-hooper on Tribe.net."
- X en i Jardín
IT PAGEANTRY
Miss Ethiopia,
Supergeek
There was a time when Atetegeb Tetfaye
Worku was content to b e perhaps the best-
looking network engineer on the Horn of
Africa. But this May afternoon Miss Ethiopia
is one of 81 beauty queens rehearsing in
Bangkok for the 54th Miss Universe
competition. The telecast, coproduced
by NBC and Donald Trump, will later b e
viewed by hundreds of millions of people
around the world.
Backstage, the contestants - or delegates,
as they are officially known - chatter in
dozens of languages. Worku, 24, is talking
about her job installing computer networks.
She's a willowy 5'9" with long black hair, a
blinding smile, and excellent posture. She's
dressed in what seems to be the unofficial
casual uniform for contestants - blue jeans,
midriff-baring T-shirt, and white pin-striped
blazer. In 2001, she earned a diploma in
computer science in Addis Ababa. "After
college, I was accepted into a program
organized by the United Nations Commission
for Africa," she says in lilting English. "Part
of that training was Cisco networking."
A nation of 73 million, Ethiopia has only
435,000 phone lines (plus 97,800 mobile
phones). IT workers are few; budding
supermodel IT workers fewer. That was
one of the challenges Worku faced in the
two years she spent as a manager for Nex-
Wave Ethiopia, a startup in Addis Ababa
launched by some friends. "When I'd go
in for a job - like working on systems for
pharmacies or for schools - they would ask
me, 'Are you sure you can really do that?'"
she says. "But then I could, and they were
surprised. You just have to keep on break-
ing the boundaries."
Worku also helped with an effort to
bring Internet access to 1 million Ethiopian
women. That program turned out to b e less
than successful. The state-owned telephone
company is the country's only Internet pro-
vider, and it has a reputation for inefficiency.
This summer the US is planning to assist
in the partial liberalization of the country's
telecom market. Will that make a difference?
•
Worku refuses to be drawn into debate. She
says only that Internet access is increasing.
Like many Miss Universe delegates, she
wants to improve the lives of others. (This
year's winner, Miss Canada, is devoting
herself to combatting HIV and AIDS.) "If we
•
can produce more computer specialists in
Ethiopia, then we can do what Singapore
and India are doing," Worku says, moments
•
before she is called away to rejoin the other
contestants for a rehearsal of the swimsuit
procession. "The more connectivity you
have in a country, the more development
you have." - Justin R. Silverman
DUCK AND C0UER
Four Minutes
of Fame
"Match will begin in three, two, one ..."
I race through the corridors of an aging
intergalactic freighter, grabbing a rocket
launcher and health packs as I go. For
45 seconds I feel confídent - then Fatality
locks onto me. Suddenly, the upper half
of my body vanishes, incinerated by the
discharge from a weapon I never see.
"First blood. One kill to nothing," says
the no-nonsense female announcer.
In a massive pavilion at the 2005 Elec-
tronic Entertainment Expo, Fatality (aka
Johnathan Wendel) holds court before 100
people. Only 24 years old, he is the Tiger
Woods of first-person-shooter videogames,
having won 13 international tournaments
and banking more than 5300,000 in prize
money. Onstage beneath giant flatscreen
monitors that display each player's posi-
tion, Fatall ty is taking on all comers in the
PC game Unreal Tournament 2004, offering
$2,500 to anyone who can best him.
I am his 11 th challenger. My predeces-
sors didn't fare well: 22 kills to nothing, 17
to nothing, 23 to -1 (suicide bombing costs
you points). But I was playing videogames
before this towheaded kid with the wide
grin and big ears was even born. When
the announcer introduced me, I firmly shook
Fatall ty's hand and stated, "I'll b e giving the
prize money to charity."
I shrug off the untimely bisection and
respawn, gathering weapons and listening
for footsteps. This fool is about to get 0wn3d.
Blam! My giblets spray across the wall.
"Two kills to nothing."
A lesser man would've quailed from
these early setbacks. Hell, a lesser man
would've withdrawn after watching the first
10 matches. Fatall ty's avatar - a faceless
character in sci-fi body armor - laid waste
to opponents with grenades, biorifles, and
lightning guns. Each virtual slaughter was
executed dispassionately, as if he were
dragging and dropping files to the trash.
But all that killing has given him a false
sense of security, making my job easier.
This guy thinks he's a rock star, and the
purpose of this open challenge is to help
him hawk his branded merchandise:
Fatall ty motherboards, Fatall ty graphics
cards, even mousepads and hoodies
bearing his logo ($r). I look up, and he
flashes me a toothy grin. I realize that it's
my destiny to take him down - 1 must stop
him before he's shilling burgers á la Tony
Hawk or releasing awful rap albums like
Shaq-Fu: Da Return.
I snag a chaingun and stagger into a room
where Fatality is bouncing around like a
gazelle. He's in front of me. No, wait, he's
behind me. I open up full bore, coating the
room in hot metal -
"Three kills to nothing."
With only two minutes to go, I set a more
realistic goal for myself: waste him at
least once. Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
Johnathan Wendel...
Aaaaaagh!
"Four kills to nothing."
Peeking around a corner, I spot the punk
near a steaming power generator and let fly
with my ¡ink gun, blasting him with a steady
stream of lethal, urn, green light. But wait, is
he out of range? He is. Little do ¡know that
my head - set in the crosshairs of Fatality's
long distance rifle - nils an entire spectator
monitor. He fíres, and my noggin bursts ¡ike
a melon tossed from a fourth-floor balcony.
The audience roars with laughter.
"Five kills to nothing."
/ shift to a new stratagem; run and hide. He
gets in a couple of extremely dishonorable
kills by shooting me in the back as 1 flee.
The match closes with a score of 8 kills
to nothing. Fatall ty would go on to rack
up 1,349 kills versus 74 challengers.
But through speed, cunning, and coward-
ice, I held him to his lowest body count
of the day. Later, he would b e defeated
by three up-and-coming pros - 22-year-
old "Esca," 19-year-old "CombatCarl,"
and 20-year-old "Lauke." I'm sure they
would have had a tougher time if a sea-
soned vet hadn't softened him up first.
- Chris B4ker
ONLINE PAPARAZZO
The Shiny,
Happy People
•
Ä faux Louis Vuitton belt cinches his plaid
Bermuda shorts, and two gold chains (one
: pulls out his camera - he's upgraded to a
with a cobra medallion) dangle over a
ratty T-shirt. We're standing outside New
York's Roxy nightclub while sweat soaks
the headband woven carefully through
his Garfunkel-like 'fro. Meet Mark Hunter,
a k a the Cobrasnake, the 20-year-old who
• claims he can get me into a music awards
show thrown by haute denim retailer
Diesel. I'm skeptical that anyone wearing
tube socks pulled up to his calves can gain
entree to this exclusive event, but before I
• At 10 pm, Hunter's still nursing his first
know it I have a VIP bracelet and the kid is
dispensing high fives, hugs, and air kisses
to everyone inside the club.
n he's also hoping to avoid a repeat of last
Los Angeles-based Hunter may b e the
first person to make a living off a photo-
blog. He started a year and a half ago by
sneaking into clubs with his point-and-
shoot digicam to document the night's
drunken festivities. Then he uploaded his
photos to TheCobrasnake.com, for every-
one to snicker at the next morning. It was
easy to garner buzz when shooting the
likes of Paris and Nicky Hilton, Beck, Johnny
Knoxville, Andre 3000, Jack Black, and
Jarvis Cocker. Soon his pics were showing
up in the LA. Weekly, and companies show-
ered him with schwag and party invites
("I'm a marketing genius," he says). He has
plied his trade at the South by Southwest
music fest, the launch party for Sony's Play-
Station Portable, and even the NME music
awards in London (with hefty stipends to
cover travel, of course).
TheCobrasnake.com is as self-consciously
crude as its proprietor's fashion sense,
with childish illustrations and hundreds
of pictures dumped onto pages without
annotation. "I don't like futzing. If the photo
doesn't look good, I don't mess with it in
Photoshop," Hunter tells me. The amateur-
ish look is all part of his brand. It's won
him a book deal, and he's taking meetings
with the producers of 77ie Real World and
The Simple Life, who are planning a reality
show about him. But he still hasn't hit the
big time - he can't afford a car, and he had
to go on Extreme Makeover to get the Lasik
eye surgery he wanted. When I meet him
that night, his laptop is broken and he can't
update his site. (He asks me if 1 can get him
some sort of Wired discount on computers.
As if!)
As we walk toward the cavernous dance
floor, Diesel's marketing xep talks logistics
with Hunter. The mission: to photograph
good-looking scenesters having fun. Hunter
S600 Canon PowerShot Pro 1 - and morphs
into the Cobrasnake. He runs around like
a coked-up paparazzo, shoving his camera
in people's faces and punctuating the dim
interior with photo flashes. His patter and
calculated dorkiness put everyone at ease.
He catches great candid moments, as well
as humorous subtleties, like the Levi's worn
by the dance-punk bandmates from Out
Hud as they accept their award from Diesel.
beer of the evening. "I don't want anyone
to think I'm here fucking around," he tells
me. "I have a job to do." He confides that
year's event - he got ejected for Heineken-
related offenses. Perched on a speaker and
snapping away at the stage, Hunter shouts,
"Hey, do I look like a real photographer
up here?"
Two hours later, as 300 partygoers dance
beneath giant disco balls in the VIP lounge,
a fight breaks out. Suddenly, eight guys
are swinging their fists and tumbling over
fashionably bulbous lounge chairs. I beat a
hasty retreat, only to see my escort running
toward the fracas, his camera flashing. As
bouncers carry the hooligans outside, the
Cobrasnake dashes to another photo op.
Later, when I log on to TheCobrasnake
.com, Hunter's shots of the awards show
make it look a lot more fun than the event
I attended. And yes, my mug is there: num-
ber 83 out of 240 JPEGs. I should b e excited,
but all I can think is "Why doesn't he use
Photoshop?!" - Sonia Zjawinski
WIRED >08|2005 -073

POSTS sterling
Risky-
Business
BY BRUCE STERLING
Dear M e m b e r of the
Radio-Frequency ID Industry,
Congratulations on your hard-charging
technological revolution! Back in 1999,
the notion of radio transmitters small and
cheap enough to sprinkle throughout the
universe of consumer products was only
a dream. Today, it's an economic savior.
The twin Godzillas of the US economy -
the Defense Department and Wal-Mart -
plan to use your little wonders to track
their enormous inventories. As makers
and users of RFID gear, you're putting
unprecedented horsepower behind the
wheels of commerce.
96
With the capacity to label 2 individual
objects, you're well on your way to giving
everything that matters its own unique ID
and IP address. It won't b e long before the
Internet is joined by what MIT has chris-
tened an Internet of Things - a network of
self-identifying artifacts that brings radical
improvements in industrial efficiency and
productivity. Rapid, accurate deliveries!
Less rot, counterfeiting, shoplifting, and
misplaced inventory! Businesses will
face fewer risks, and consumers will get
cheaper, more up-to-date, better-targeted
products. A logistical paradise on Earth!
But as the RFID volcano covers the
planet with a fine ash, there's bound to be
074-OB|2005>WIRED
&
other, less salutary fallout. People get
a heavy dose of future shock when they
discover that nerdy sorcerers beyond
their ken can treat them like cattle or
Wal-Mart inventory. Remember Philips'
doomed effort to install RFIDs in US
passports? Newspapers pointed out
that such a document would effectively
cry out to terrorists, "Potential kidnap
victim at 12 o'clock!"The Feds backed
off overnight.
The lesson: You've got to get ahead of
the perception curve. If you don't deal
with the public-relations aspects of the
technology increasingly known as "arfid,"
you risk ending up as demonized as your
colleagues in nuclear power and GMOs.
That's not to say you'll go away - those
two industries didn't - but who needs
decades of relentless grief? Let me sug-
gest a few standards of techno-hygiene
that will help you smell like roses when
the ordure hits the fan.
F r a m e the d e b a t e . If you operate
in an advanced liberal democracy
where you might get sued, boycotted,
or throttled in the stock market, you'd
better start spinning. Don't meekly refer
to your products as radio-frequency ID
transponders, or even tags. Your oppo-
nents sling much catchier terms, like
spy chips and terrorist beacons. You'd
better think up a user-friendly name
before some real comedian calls your
tags "Mai-Warts."
e B a a e B i B R S B a
Radio beacons in underwear?
Retailers using RFID tags could
face a crippling backlash.
Don't b e evil. There are reasons
why omniscient Google is beloved while
omnipotent Microsoft is hated and feared.
It's all about being part of a network of
mutually respected players, rather than
a giant Maypole where a geek clique
keeps everyone else tethered to the rib-
bons. Build an arfid panopticon for the
convenience of cops and spooks, and you
can expect a swift and violent Orange
Revolution. Approach the market as one
group of stakeholders among many and
you'll make lots of friends.
Leave k i d s alone. US schoolchildren
are not your inventory. Hang tags around
the necks of young children, and they
will chew the chips out of their plastic
cards while their parents accuse you
of installing the mark of the beast on
their progeny. Don't believe me? Take
a look at the circus that erupted at Brittan
Elementary School in Sutter, California
(see "Tagging Kids Like Cattle," Posts,
issue 13.06).
Invent the household arfid. There's
no such thing as a nuclear populist
because there's no such thing as a home
nuclear plant. Likewise, GMOs can't beat
a bad rap because genetic recombina-
tion is too intricate for hobbyists. Both
industries are seen as fearsome, remote,
and alien. By contrast, PCs succeeded
and the Internet boomed because they
let techies, users groups, and, eventually,
everybody take part in the game.
That's where the Arfid Shopping Wand
comes in. The idea is a handheld device
that would let consumers interface with
the world of arfids. A sweep of the wand
would help people search, shop, com-
ment, and blog by matching off-the-shelf
products with metadata immediately and
intuitively. Give people tools like this and
you'll get the popular support you need.
Bottom line: You RFID paladins are
forging a real revolution, and you'd better
B S B B B B B B a B B B
i n e n
b e ready for the consequences. This isn't
going to b e a clever industrial advance
made by a silent cabal of experts, as
barcodes were 30 years ago. Whatever
Scrooge-like acts you commit through
the new supply chain will drag you down,
like the chains of Joseph Marley. When
everybody's linked in a rattling, clanking
Internet of Things, it's going to take extra
effort to avoid whiplash.
Email bruces@well.com.
 RS VS. PENTAGO .A. VS. HOLLYWOOD

August 9,1995
Netscape Goes Public

Testing a Urine Recycling Machine

Backstage with Bono:
3 l "7$tf0"0¡i*59" 1 i