Webware

Today we have a new president to lead a new American path through what will be a tumultuous time. But President Obama won't be able to do it alone. He and his administration need to work together, and communicate with one another and the country, to ensure everything is running well.

That's why I've compiled a "cheat sheet" for the Obama administration, listing five services it should use in the White House. Sadly, it probably won't. Record-keeping laws and security concerns will ensure that none of my suggestions take effect.

AIM for White House staff

Why shouldn't the White House staff be able to communicate with one another over AIM? I'm sure many of them use it in their daily lives and bringing it to the White House to communicate quickly is, in my estimation, a pretty good idea.

Instead of forcing his staff to walk back and forth between wings and offices, what if President Obama was able to instant message his staff from the Oval Office. I can see it now: PrezObama312: "Where's the dossier on the Russian spy we've been tracking?" WHStaffer35: "IDK. BRB." PrezObama312: "K. G2G. L8r."

Wouldn't that be great?

BitTorrent for distributing government documents

I know BitTorrent has been the target of the RIAA and MPAA over the past few years due to its huge supply of copyrighted material, but why shouldn't the government embrace the technology and use BitTorrent to distribute information to the public?

Sure, there's always that issue of "pirates" running the service, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. Who will they tell? President Obama should look to BitTorrent as an ideal way to get the word out. The distributed network reduces the cost of running data centers by allowing all the network's users to share the load.

It makes sense to me.

Present.ly for internal microblogging in groups based on level

Aside from AIM, I think the Obama administration should use enterprise microblogging service Present.ly to allow White House staff and the president to communicate.

The real beauty of Present.ly is its ability to allow users to create groups. A top-level aide can put the president, vice president, and cabinet in one group so they can discuss world affairs in a Twitter-like format, and the rest of the staff can have their own group to take care of their own work.

Sure, someone might be able to hack their way into the president's Present.ly group ("Michelle10" is an easy password to crack, Mr. President), but it still would help the staff communicate far more effectively than walking back and forth between desks.

Did you see 24 Monday night? That's all they do.

Stickam for White House room streams

I don't know about you, but I'm not always convinced that White House staff is really working. I'm not even sure President Obama would ever really know if his staff is working. How could he? He's busy.

That's why he needs to install cameras throughout the White House and use Stickam to monitor his employees. At any given time, he can log in to Stickam, find the White House channel, and start viewing all the different rooms in the house.

I'll bet that would get everyone working.

Ustream with moderated chat for country-wide town hall meetings

Ustream is a fine video-streaming service that makes connecting with others simple and fun. It's also ideal for a White House town hall meeting where President Obama would be on camera and citizens from across the U.S. would have the opportunity to ask him questions in a moderated chat room.

I don't see any reason why the president shouldn't exploit Ustream in this way. He has shown time and again that he has a real desire to use technology to connect with the populace and capitalizing on Ustream to give citizens a voice would be just another example of him doing just that.

I realize that allowing citizens from across the U.S. to comment on the president's policies could be troublesome, considering millions would probably want to join in, but if the room had a cap on the number of people who could join, or an effective team that could moderate comments, I doubt it would be a problem.

I'd certainly like to join in on that chat.

Check out Don's Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.

The journey is over for Pirates of the Amazon, a new Firefox extension that let users illegally download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s for free by cross referencing Amazon.com's product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.

On Thursday, a day after Webware reported on the plug-in, lawyers for Amazon.com took action. They served the Internet service provider of the two students who released the extension with a take-down notice--and the students complied and removed the tool, according to The New York Times.

However, on their Web site, the students now say the plug-in was meant as an artistic parody, part of their research for a media design course at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool in Rotterdam Holland. "It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access, and currently debated issues in media culture," the students say.

And while that might seem like a convenient story concocted by the students to stay out of trouble, the NYT reports that they have backup from their teacher, Florian Cramer, who defended them on an Internet mailing list called Nettime.

Cramer said a majority of commentators failed to see the artistic nature of the experiment, and expressed concern that his students were being censored.

"With the take-down notice from Amazon.com, our students have been scared away from pursuing their art, research and learning in our institute," Cramer wrote. "We do not want a culture in which students have to preemptively censor their study because their work confronts culture with controversial and challenging issues."

While the extension was working, it showed up as a "Download 4 Free" link on the top of the Amazon product page if the content could be found on the Pirate Bay's search index. This linked directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to make a purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.

Never let it be said that software publishers ignore the demands of their users, at least in the case of BitTorrent client Vuze.

Back in June, the popular BitTorrent client Azureus underwent some serious reconstructive surgery. The familiar layout of top buttons and a spreadsheet interface was wrapped up in a Web 2.0 package, tied off with a bow of peer ratings and reviews and an emphasis on video content. The old UI was kept but de-emphasized, and the application was renamed Vuze 3.1.

Vuze 4.0 has been redesigned in response to user complaints.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Although it kept Azureus' blue frog logo, fans were not amused. Vuze 4.0 is a direct attempt to incorporate user concerns and still try to push the app forward, although in a blog post today, Chris on the Vuze blog confirmed that the new silhouetted look of the frog is not going anywhere.

On to the important stuff. The new Vuze follows in the footsteps of iTunes, so if you're new to torrents the learning curve will be less steep than it was in Vuze 3.1. There's a menubar on the top, with a sidebar on the left for managing torrents and videos. Where you might expect album art in the old iTunes 6 layout, you've got a Friends panel for adding people to share your torrents with.

The search bar at the top of the central pane leads the eye directly to the rolled-in playback controls, and feels modern and slick. ShareThis has been built-in, and the former Advanced tab has been renamed My Library. Newbies will appreciate the three-step tabbed tutorial that launches in the main pane, and even experienced torrenters should find it helpful for getting their bearings in an entirely new layout.

There are some other slick touches to the client interface. F7 toggles the sidebar, a useful arrow makes it easy to hide the Friend pane, and using the hotkey combo CTRL+ 2, 3, 4, or 5 reveals a series of otherwise hidden panes. My Tracker, My Classic-Shares, Console, and Statistics are also available under Tools on the menubar. These panes open organically in the main program window or on the sidebar, and have been baked in well. They don't look like afterthoughts or what-the-hecks.

There are several useful new features. First off, Vuze users can now search a multitude of torrent trackers from within the Vuze interface. In addition to the Vuze tracker, users will see results from MiniNova and other independent trackers. Customizable search templates are not available, but you can now set up a private tracker that supports usernames and passwords. Subscriptions have also been revamped, with the ability to share anonymously and the ability to find a file that's part of somebody's torrent, and subscribe to just that file in that torrent.

Memory usage has always been an issue with Vuze and Azureus. The old Azureus clocked in at around 50MB when going full bore, and the new Vuze is around double that. It's still not as slim as some of the other torrent clients out there, but very few offer similar features. If anything, the new Vuze is most similar to open-source Miro, which is more of a multimedia player with torrenting support features.

If you're not into toolbars, watch out during the installation process for the Vuze toolbar and the Ask.com toolbar--both are opt-out. Even with those hang-ups, the new Vuze works well, has a slick design, and should appeal to torrenters who are looking for a bit more panache in their BitTorrent client.

BitTorrent tracker Mininova has a cool and useful new feature that lets you download any file to your machine at home with just a click of a button from any remote machine. It works by using a new bookmarking option found next to the download link on any file in Mininova's directory. All that needs to be done on your part is to subscribe to a special RSS feed in your local BitTorrent application and it will automatically start downloading as long as you've got it running. You can also share this feed with others in case you want to start your own recommended files feed with friends.

Mininova's blog has a quick walkthough of how to set up your account and local client to do the heavy lifting. Keep in mind illegally sharing files you don't have rights to is a bad idea.

[via TorrentFreak via Lifehacker]

You can now add Mininova-hosted BitTorrent files to your bookmark feed, which will start downloads on remote machines that are subscribed.

(Credit: Mininova)

The torrent client Azureus changed its name and added some nifty social-networking features with the release of its latest upgrade. Now called Vuze, after the name of desktop video player it launched last year, the new client bundles the two together and throws in some new features.

The new Vuze torrent-searching Web site.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The two most notable things about Vuze 3.1 are the search engine and the social networking. It's rejiggered but still open source; users can spider across multiple torrent-tracking Web sites such as MiniNova while looking for content. The social-networking features let you share your favorite torrents directly with friends and create profiles, although more advanced features like chatting haven't been introduced yet.

Although Vuze has taken steps in the past few months that put it squarely in the path of the oncoming ISP juggernaut, taking on Comcast with the introduction of a plug-in that tracks and compiles statistics on ISP throttling behavior, it's not clear how many Azureus users welcome the jump to the new Vuze.

BitTorrent, one of the more useful file-sharing mediums out there is not without its complications. Software applications have come a long way, but there are still times when you want one less application running on your machine or simply want to grab a file without having to install anything.

Torrent Relay's got the same thing on its mind, with a browser-based BitTorrent downloader. Like Bitlet, which I checked out last year, Torrent Relay lets you plug in a download URL from any tracker site or a link from a friend, and it will convert it into a link you can simply click on to begin downloading it using your browser's download manager. This means the tool works on nonsoftware-friendly platforms too, such as game consoles (Wii and PS3) and mobile devices like the iPhone.

If a torrent file has multiple files in it, the tool will split them up. You can then click on the ones you want and download them one at a time. This works especially well for music albums where you might only want to grab a track or two (note: You could also just stream the music using this tool). One thing to note however, is that any single file is capped at 400MB, meaning you're going to have to rely on a software-based tool for those giant files.

[via TorrentFreak and Lifehacker]

Grab files from BitTorrent packages one at a time, like this Ubuntu installer ISO image.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

At a hearing in Cambridge, Mass., the five FCC commissioners question Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen on his company's practice of delaying peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic during congested times.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com )

Update at 3:10 p.m. PST: CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Federal Communications Commission chief Kevin Martin on Monday targeted Comcast's contention that delaying peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic serves user interests, appearing to sympathize with the cable company's critics.

Through pointed questioning at a public hearing at Harvard Law School here, Martin, a Republican, seemed to be pushing a two-pronged agenda: Internet service providers like Comcast should be as transparent as possible about manipulating network traffic, and consumers should have the freedom to, in effect, get what they pay for.

But at the end of the event, which, all told, lasted nearly six hours, Martin told reporters he still hadn't made up his mind about whether Comcast had done anything more than "reasonable" network management.

The chairman was also unable to predict when the Commission would reach a decision on Comcast's conduct and the broader question of constraints on network operators' traffic-shaping practices, except to say, "I think it's important we try to act very quickly."

The FCC convened Monday's hearing as part of an investigation into Comcast's practice of stalling uploads to BitTorrent protocol clients. It's considering two petitions--one from public-interest groups and one from the peer-to-peer video-sharing service Vuze--that ask the FCC to forcibly stop Comcast's BitTorrent throttling and to make new rules defining what constitutes "reasonable" network management by Internet service providers.

The whole debate is an extension of the years-old tussle over whether Net neutrality regulations, which would prohibit network operators from prioritizing traffic as they wish, are necessary to safeguard the Internet's historically open architecture.

Congress is also continuing to consider such moves. Democratic Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), whose district lies near the site of Monday's hearing, has proposed a new bill that would discourage, though not outright prohibit, Internet service providers from engaging in "unreasonable discriminatory favoritism" of content on their pipes. He warned commissioners in a speech at the start of Monday's event to take with a grain of salt any broadband providers' professions of "reasonable" network management in the interest of consumer welfare.

Martin has said in the past that he doesn't believe there's any need for new regulations, be he warned at the outset of Monday's hearing that the commission was taking the allegations against Comcast "very seriously." (Martin has been known to clash with the cable industry on other issues, namely the idea of offering channels "a la carte," in his day.)

Earlier in the day, Martin first asked a series of questions to Gilles BianRosa, the chief executive of Vuze, a video-sharing Web site, in an apparent effort to establish that the service involves transfer of lawful content and does not hog bandwidth.

Then, after hearing from a panel of academics, public-interest group representatives, and Comcast and Verizon executives, Martin asked a series of questions designed to determine whether consumers are getting enough information about the quality of Internet service they're getting and its potential limitations. (None of the panelists, for the record, has ever managed networks, though a second panel in the afternoon consists of people with such expertise.)

He then turned to Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and asked why his company "thinks it's necessary to block" peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic when its customers "are acting within the constraints you sold them."

"Doesn't that undermine the arguments you're making?" Martin asked.

"It doesn't undermine the argument," Cohen replied. "I don't think we're restraining the customers from using the service in accordance with the way we're selling it to them."

Cohen went on to read from a list of frequently asked questions for customers, which he quoted as saying, "Comcast may on a limited basis temporarily delay certain P2P traffic when that traffic has or is projected to have an adverse effect on other customers' use of the service."

Martin questioned whether that sort of disclosure is detailed enough to give both Internet surfers and application developers the information they need.

Definitely not, said Marvin Ammori, general counsel for the public-interest group Free Press, which has petitioned the FCC to declare that degrading any Internet applications is a violation of U.S. broadband policy.

"It's not clear when the high periods of congestion are, what they mean by delay, and if I were trying to design software to that...I'm not sure how I'd do it," he told Martin.

Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who have called for nondiscrimination rules, also pressed the Comcast executive to justify his company's practices.

"Comcast does not block any Web site, application, or Web protocol, including peer-to-peer services, period," Cohen responded. "What we are doing is a limited form of network management objectively based upon an excessive bandwidth-consumptive protocol during limited periods of network congestion."

Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate came the closest to voicing reservations about new antidiscrimination rules for Internet service providers. She indicated barring broadband operators from managing their networks for any purpose much beyond defeating spam and viruses, as some public-interest groups have suggested, would be unprecedentedly broad and could be better addressed by greater transparency by the companies.

Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican, like the others, didn't indicate whether Comcast's behavior is acceptable network management. He did, however, suggest the company's techniques may raise separate questions about competition for video content delivery.

"I think if Comcast did not also provide video services," he said, "we would not be here having this debate."

Martin ended the question-and-answer session, which lasted more than two hours, by asking whether the FCC even has the authority to go after Comcast, should it decide the company's network management violates its broadband policy principles. The FCC declared in 2005 that customers have the right to use the content, lawful applications, and devices they wish on the networks they use.

Comcast's Cohen said he doesn't believe the FCC has the power to fine his company. But as for whether the regulators can force the cable operator to stop treating file-sharing traffic the way it does, he said, "I'm not 100 percent sure; I'll get back to you."

Martin told reporters after Monday's hearing that he continues to believe the FCC already has sufficient power to crack down on incidents of Internet discrimination without the enactment of new laws, just as it did a few years ago when a small North Carolina telephone company was accused of degrading a rival's VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) traffic.

Continuing an aggressive campaign to defend his copyrights, pop star Prince is preparing to file lawsuits within the next few days in three countries--including the United States--against The Pirate Bay, CNET News.com has learned.

John Giacobbi

(Credit: Web Sheriff)

One of the world's best-known BitTorrent indexing sites, The Pirate Bay has defiantly linked to pirated copies of films, TV shows, music videos, and other content while often boasting that it ignores Hollywood's requests to remove them. The Pirate Bay does not host any unauthorized content, but the service is internationally famous for being a highly effective file-sharing tool.

Prince will file similar suits against The Pirate Bay in the U.S., France, a country with laws favorable to copyright owners, and Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is based. In addition, Prince is preparing to take civil action against companies that advertise on The Pirate Bay, many of which are headquartered in Israel, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince has hired Giacobbi and Web Sheriff, a service that protects copyright materials from Internet piracy, to coordinate the legal challenges against The Pirate Bay and others who the singer believes has violated his copyright.

Giacobbi said Web Sheriff is also helping to launch an investigation into The Pirate Bay's off-shore connections to determine whether the company is compliant with Swedish and international income and corporation tax laws.

The Pirate Bay has already weathered several attempts by the governments of Sweden and the United States to shut down the site. Yet, this is likely the largest civil challenge the Web site has ever faced.

At the core of Prince's lawsuits are his claims that the three founders of The Pirate Bay are profiting from the work of artists without compensating them. The Pirate Bay earns $70,000 a month in advertising revenue, Giacobbi alleged. The site's founders have previously denied that the operation makes money.

None of the three founders of The Pirate Bay could be reached for comment.

The Pirate Bay Founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

Prince, who Giacobbi said has the backing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, the group that represents the recording industry worldwide, is only adding to The Pirate Bay's legal troubles. The site founders also face criminal charges, according to a story published Thursday on the blog TorrentFreak.

A prosecutor in Sweden announced that he plans to press charges against five people involved with The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008, the blog reported. The five are being accused of infringing on intellectual property.

The copyright battle that Prince has waged the past two months has not been without its costs. He was widely criticized this week when three unauthorized fan sites accused him of trying to violate their free speech rights when his handlers demanded that they remove several photos of him.

It was widely reported this week that Prince had begun suing fans. His representatives denied this.

"Prince is not suing his fans, is not looking to penalize fans and nor is he looking to inhibiting freedom of speech in any way," said AEG, Prince's promoter.

Prince began making headlines in September after lashing out against sites he believed were violating his intellectual-property rights.

In September, the singer said he planned to take legal action against The Pirate Bay, YouTube, and eBay. As of Friday, Prince's lawsuits appeared to be solely targeted at The Pirate Bay.

By suing The Pirate Bay in three different countries, Prince is hoping to put financial pressure on the service, Giacobbi said. Copyright laws in the United States and France would also make it nearly impossible for a site like The Pirate Bay to triumph, he claimed.

"There is no way that they will have any defense because it's blatant piracy," Giacobbi said. "They'll either have to come out and fight or just try and ignore it. In that case, we're going to win a default judgment against them. This could be a ticking time bomb for them. They can't outrun this. We are very confident."

Peer-to-peer company BitTorrent is set to announce on Tuesday morning the availability of a new enterprise content delivery product, BitTorrent DNA. Designed for companies that use streaming video, large downloads or games over the Web, the launch of BitTorrent DNA marks yet another conscious move by the San Francisco-based software brand to move beyond its roots as the creator of file-sharing protocol that became nearly synonymous with digital piracy over the past few years.

BitTorrent described the new BitTorrent DNA product in a statement as "the ideal solution for publishers seeking ways to overcome the obstacles associated with centralized content delivery, such as slow downloads, choppy video streams, and inefficient use of network infrastructure." The inaugural client for the new content delivery network (CDN) is online video start-up Brightcove, which powers a number of large companies' broadband media operations.

BitTorrent DNA will be used to "accelerate" the delivery of the video hosted on Brightcove's platform.

With the rise of online video and large-scale media downloads, content delivery has become a crowded niche in the market. BitTorrent DNA will square off with industry leaders like Akamai Technologies--the force behind CBS' video distribution network as well as a host of others. BitTorrent is hoping, however, that its massive following (150 million downloads of its client, according to the company) will help give it an edge.

In addition, the peer-to-peer format has become increasingly popular in the streaming video space, with recent entries like Joost and Babelgum touting P2P technology as the backbone for their professional-quality video content.

In February, BitTorrent announced that it was creating a digital download store that would use that robust user base as a way to legally transfer large movies, games and other files. The company has also forged alliances with major movie studios for legal film downloads.

Meanwhile, the exhaustive battle over online piracy wages on.