Category: Main Page

A few weeks ago, (Canadian!) Clive Thompson had a piece in the New York Times Magazine about virus-writers. It was called the e-infectors. Neat piece. Should be more like them in mainstream media outlets. Thompson's piece generated significant response in terms of letters from readers last week and this week, there is a letter from a reader about those letters. Now, while I think virus writers are unambiguously criminals and should be punished, I'm inclined to agree with the viewpoint, reprinted below, of letter writer Danny Holstein:

Clive Thompson's article was well written and informative. The representative responses to it seemed to be uniformly negative and included descriptions like “reckless,” “criminal,” “Luddite,” “arsonists,” “extortion” and “terrorists” (word of the decade). In my opinion, these responses all miss the point. It is silly to believe that these kids are doing a disservice when they clearly describe how the viruses work and clearly show how susceptible computers are to attack. Being the cynic I am, I wonder who would listen if they merely complained to Microsoft. Do we believe anyone at Microsoft would take a call from an 18-year-old about why Windows isn't secure?
There are far more sinister forces out there: programmers who stand to gain from a computer breach will not boast about it on a Web site; most of the commercial victims (banks or insurance companies) would not even report the crime, being concerned about public loss of trust. I, for one, am glad that these kids are yelling, “Wake up and smell the coffee — your computers are not safe from attack!”

Comscore/Media Metrix is reporting today that Canadian Web surfers hang out more often at humour Web sites than Americans do. No idea why that would be but Comscore, which tracks online audiences in roughly the same that Nielsen's tracks TV viewers, says that one in three Canadian Web surfers visited a humour site in January while just one in five American Web surfers went to the Web for a laugh.
The kind of sites surfers in both countries preferred to hang out at was also different. Here's the top 3 for Canada:

1. MiniClip.com
2. FloGo.com
3. FunnyJunk.com

And here's the top 3 for American surfers:

1. FloGo.com
2. MiniClip.com
3. Comedy Central

CTV cameraman Lucien Millette accompanied me to Wilmington, Delaware last week to cover the Conrad Black trial. Turns out Lucien made almost as much news as I did for his run-in with some excitable security guards at the hotel that Black was staying at. There's a full report on Lucien's adventures in Wilmington here.

What's not very funny is how anyone with an ounce of authority in the U.S. — from customs officers to bouncers at nightclubs — is using the War on Terror (TM) as an excuse for arbitrary and silly invasions of privacy.

 

[The following is pretty much lifted from a press Press release but I've marked it up with some links.]
Canada's favourite columnist joins new Western-based magazine

CALGARY, March 1 /CNW/ – Mark Steyn, the popular columnist who was a reader favourite at the National Post and ranks as one of the most in-demand writers in the world, will be writing for Canadians once again, in the page
of the Western Standard magazine which rolls off the presses on March 12th.

Canadians who have come to love Steyn, who writes regularly for such
publications as the New York Sun, the Daily Telegraph of London, the
Jerusalem Post and National Review, know that his columns alone are worth
the price of a subscription, notes Ezra Levant, the Western Standard's
publisher.
“Mark Steyn's writing is admired around the world, but now he is coming
back to his native land,” says Levant. “The Western Standard is a Canadian
publication that is a good fit with his unique perspective on Canada and the
world.”

Steyn will be joining a team of pundits that consist of Canada's most
exciting columnists, including Ted Byfield, David Warren, Michael Coren,
Karen Selick and David Frum . . .
[Read the full release]

A conference is underway in Toronto this week called Wi-Fi Power Lots of companies in the Wi-Fi ecosystem, for lack of a better term, are participating in the event and many issued some announcements today about new services, partnerships and so on.

What follows below, though, is the release that caught my eye today — it's about a
national roaming agreement standard — and I'm curious to know if similar agreements have been reached in the U.S., Asia, or Europe.
From the press release:
——————————-

Canadian Wireless Industry Announces Wi-Fi(R) Roaming Agreement
Inter-carrier agreement creates common brand and allows for roaming between
Wi-Fi hotspots in Canada

OTTAWA, March 1 /CNW/ – Canada's national wireless carriers today announced they have signed an inter-carrier agreement that establishes common standards for roaming and interoperability of the public Wi-Fi(R) hotspots they operate. In addition, the carriers have joined together to create a common brand identifier for Wi-Fi hotspots in Canada. Today's announcement
by Bell Mobility, Microcell Solutions (Fido(R)), Rogers AT&T Wireless and TELUS Mobility serves as confirmation of the carriers' commitment to develop Wi-Fi in Canada.
Under the terms of the agreement, all public commercial hotspots operated by the carriers, and any other Canadian operator or hotspot owner who meets the minimum requirements and chooses to join the roaming alliance, will be
branded consistently with the common hotspot identifier location with the hotspot identifier, they can expect to be presented with an identical, browser-based login area, ensuring a simple, consistent and secure experience in all locations .. .

[Full press release]

Most of the world's spam comes the U.S., ZDNet UK reports.
The U.S. is number one with nearly 57 per cent of all spam originating
there, says Sophos, a U.K. anti-virus company. Canada is number two, though,
when it comes to spam country of origin. Mind you, Canada has long way to go
before it is as notorious as the U.S. for spam. The report says Canadian
spammers account for less than 7 per cent of the world's unwanted
unsolicited mail.

You may have chuckled over this one already. It was new to me, though, when
my brother passed it along.

Dear Tech Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband
1.0 and noticed a slowdown in the overall
performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications
that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other
valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5,
but installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. And
now Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and
House Cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've
tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but
to no avail. What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an
entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an
operating system. At the command line, try entering
C:\ITHOUGHTYOULOVEDME and download Tears 6.2 to install Guilt 3.0.
If all works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then
automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and
Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse can cause Husband
1.0 to default to GrumpySilence 2.5, HappyHour 7.0
or Beer 6.1.
Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will create
SnoringLoudly.wav files. Whatever you do, DO NOT
install Mother-in-Law 1.0 or re-install another
Boyfriend program. These are not supported
applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it
does have a limited memory and cannot learn new applications
quickly. You might consider additional software to improve memory
and performance. I personally recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie
6.9.

Regards,
Tech Support

I was in Winnipeg yesterday for the annual shareholders meeting of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The bank
has done pretty well by its shareholders. It posted some good numbers this
quarter and, compared to its peers in Canada, its
stock has done very nicely. But, as bank CEO
John Hunkin said at the meeting, while 2003 should go down in the bank's
history as a very good year, it won't. The bank, he said, stumbled when it
comes to maintaining its reputation.
I think Hunkin is being kind to himself. CIBC didn't stumble — it fell flat
on its face.
Consider this: In September, CIBC was ordered to pay $52-million (U.S.) to
investors who convinced a judge that CIBC tricked them into buying bonds in
a cosmetics company even those CIBC new the company was on the verge of
collapse. (CIBC is appealing this ruling).
Several weeks later, the bank paid $80-million
(U.S.) to settle allegations made by U.S. And Canadian investigators
that it aided and abetted the executives who perpetrated the Enron
scandal.
As soon as that cheque cleared, CIBC was back in the middle of another
scandal. This time it was the mutual fund scandal in the U.S. CIBC is
accused of lending $1-billion to the hedge funds which allegedly engaged in
the illegal mutual fund trades. Not only that, but New York State Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer says he has a memo from a CIBC executive which
described to others at the bank how to break the law and engage in this
illegal trading! The executive who wrote that memo was fired by the bank in
December and
now faces 27 counts of grand larceny and
fraud. Spitzer isn't done with the CIBC yet and the bank has put aside
another $50-million U.S. For fines it will likely have to pay.

Almost unbelievably, Hunkin, in his
speech to shareholders, suggested that the ethical breaches that led to
these fines was a result of being “encouraged” by shareholders and the media
to be aggressive. I suggest it was neither. It was nothing but greedy
investment bankers with not enough supervision who got the bank in trouble.

In the press conference after the meeting, Hunkin said that, as CEO, he had
to take responsibility for the harm to CIBC's reputation last year. What
Hunkin actually took last year wasn't responsibility but a $3.3-million
bonus, part of an overall pay packet worth $10.7-million. The guy who
actually took responsibility it seems was David Kassie, Hunkin's good friend
and number two at the bank. Hunkin fired him a few days after that other
exec was charged by Spitzer.
So, with all this background, I figured for sure Hunkin or his board would
face at least one angry shareholder at the annual meeting. Heavens to bets,
I've sat through dozens of annual shareholder meetings in Toronto for
companies large and small and, invariably, there's some retired pensioner
who gets up and gives it to the CEO for one thing or another.
Amazingly, though, not a single person put a question to Hunkin or his board
at the shareholders meeting.

And on a completely unrelated note, if you're travelling to Winnipeg I
highly recommend the Fairmont Winnipeg. The bank held their meeting there
and I stayed overnight there. The prices are very reasonable and the service
I had was top-notch. You'll also be surprised at the food. Very nice.

Canadian Wi-Fi service provider Spotnik Mobile announced
yesterday that its service is now up and running on VIA Rail trains
running between Montreal and Quebec City. I've used a VIA Rail train service
before, albeit from a different provider, but using the same basic network
architecture and it's pretty good. A satellite-based service takes the
network from the train into space and back down to a base station which
plugs into an Internet backbone. On the train itself, the satellite signal
is fed to a plain-vanilla Wi-Fi base station and the signal is then
broadcast to Wi-Fi equipped devices on board that train. So far, the service
is available only to travellers in VIA first-class cabins. And, even better,
the service is free to travellers for the time being.
VIA also offers a similar service in its first-class cars between Toronto
and Montreal and has either launched or will soon be launching a service on
runs between Ottawa and Montreal.

The folks at polling firm Ipsos-Insight say Americans (and, I presume,
Canadians) are becoming more and more aware of what Wi-Fi. The pollster says
that six out of 10 Americans know what the technology is, compared to four
in 10 during the same survey last year. Ipsos concludes that this broad
level of awareness means Wi-Fi is poised to move beyond the 'early adopter'
phase and into the mainstream.
Still, among those who had heard of the term Wi-Fi, more than half — 55 per
cent in the poll — said that was it: They'd only heard that term but
didn't know what the technology was all about. Just 8 per cent in the survey
said they were very familiar with the technology. You can become very
familiar with the press release here