If you've heard of HuddleChat at all, you already know about its demise. Put together by a few Google engineers in their spare time, the web chat application was used to showcase Google's newly-announced App Engine offering. There was just one problem: it was nearly identical to 37Signals' Campfire, a well-known SaaS web chat application. 37Signals gave some petulant quotes to ReadWriteWeb about the situation, and shortly thereafter Google pulled the app down.

As Om Malik has pointed out, this is all a bit ridiculous. AJAX/Comet chat is a fairly simple feature to implement. If my fellow participants in the Web 2.0 economy are counting on earning their keep via a collective conspiracy to make our jobs look harder than they are, we're all in deep, deep trouble. There's additional potential irony here, too, given that 37Signals has been accused of ripping off others' work to create Campfire in the first place.

But while this incident may prove portentous to the long-term prospects of the 37Signals business plan, it's hard to see how it could mean anything for Google. Breathless declarations that "many in the developer community [will] view Google App Engine as a Xerox machine for copycat product developers" are downright laughable. Google's decision to kill HuddleChat makes good PR sense, but it's inconceivable that many cost-conscious, Python-friendly startups would give up on App Engine over this minor blog imbroglio. As in many other respects, Amazon Web Services will likely provide the relevant template for these issues, and so far AWS has wisely avoided getting dragged into policing its users' apps.

Of course there's a lot of speculation that App Engine will include a free offering, and for that reason it may attract more troublesome users than EC2 currently does. But even if Google finds itself obligated to fight more griefers, phishers and spammers than Amazon does, it seems certain that they won't waste their time arbitrating squabbles over who called dibs on which trivial featureset. Sadly, that will remain for the courts to decide.

Tom Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tom Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

If you've heard of HuddleChat at all, you already know about its demise. Put together by a few Google engineers in their spare time, the web chat application was used to showcase Google's newly-announced App Engine offering. There was just one problem: it was nearly identical to 37Signals' Campfire, a well-known SaaS web chat application. 37Signals gave some petulant quotes to ReadWriteWeb about the situation, and shortly thereafter Google pulled the app down.

As Om Malik has pointed out, this is all a bit ridiculous. AJAX/Comet chat is a fairly simple feature to implement. If my fellow participants in the Web 2.0 economy are counting on earning their keep via a collective conspiracy to make our jobs look harder than they are, we're all in deep, deep trouble. There's additional potential irony here, too, given that 37Signals has been accused of ripping off others' work to create Campfire in the first place.

But while this incident may prove portentous to the long-term prospects of the 37Signals business plan, it's hard to see how it could mean anything for Google. Breathless declarations that "many in the developer community [will] view Google App Engine as a Xerox machine for copycat product developers" are downright laughable. Google's decision to kill HuddleChat makes good PR sense, but it's inconceivable that many cost-conscious, Python-friendly startups would give up on App Engine over this minor blog imbroglio. As in many other respects, Amazon Web Services will likely provide the relevant template for these issues, and so far AWS has wisely avoided getting dragged into policing its users' apps.

Of course there's a lot of speculation that App Engine will include a free offering, and for that reason it may attract more troublesome users than EC2 currently does. But even if Google finds itself obligated to fight more griefers, phishers and spammers than Amazon does, it seems certain that they won't waste their time arbitrating squabbles over who called dibs on which trivial featureset. Sadly, that will remain for the courts to decide.

Tom Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tom Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Ed Powell writes "On April 1, the online game NationStates, in which players create their own simulated nations, changed the name of its United Nations feature to World Assembly. It claimed that "The (real) United Nations has demanded NationStates 'immediately cease and desist from using the United Nations name and emblem,' as it 'is unauthorized and in violation of the provisions of international and U.S. laws.'" Having seen the previous April Fools' gags the site had pulled, I assumed it was a joke. But, time passes, I return to the site to find that it was not a joke. The UN did send an email to creator Max Barry, demanding that he cease and desist. Of course, it's no wonder the UN wanted to shut the operation down. The NationStates UN passed over 240 resolutions, promoting peace, tolerance, and equality throughout the (simulated) world. Why would the UN want to be associated with that?"

Why indeed? This is pretty strange, as NationStates has been around for many years (I remember seeing it early on and had forgotten that it still existed). Also, calling out the trusty moron in a hurry trademark test, it seems unlikely that anyone would believe that the real United Nations was being represented in an online game. Of course, a few years ago, we wrote about the UN (the real one) getting into the video game business, so perhaps it felt NationStates was a threat.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We all know that the RIAA has been pushing for a certain definition of what constitutes "distribution" online these days (which the courts are still in flux over). An anonymous reader points to a case in France that the RIAA may want to pay attention to -- where it may find itself siding with some strange bedfellows: open source developers. Apparently, some of open source developers have sued the large French ISP Free/Iliad for failing to offer up the software used in the 3 million routers that customers use, despite the fact that it includes GPLed software (which requires that any software you distribute also be available to others for free). The ISP has responded by claiming that it hasn't actually distributed the software, since the routers are still officially a part of its own network -- and therefore the software doesn't have to be offered up.

In other words, simply giving the routers to users doesn't count as distribution in his definition -- which would certainly go against the RIAA's "making available is distribution" claim). However, as the link above suggests, it could get even worse. If you follow the same definition that Free/Iliad is making, then an ISP could purchase a site license for certain applications or content and then let everyone on its "network" access it, since it wouldn't be "distributing" it. Thus, suddenly, it may be in the RIAA's best interest to side with a bunch of open source developers before the definition of "distribute" in France gets defined in a way that the RIAA wouldn't much appreciate.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We all know that the RIAA has been pushing for a certain definition of what constitutes "distribution" online these days (which the courts are still in flux over). An anonymous reader points to a case in France that the RIAA may want to pay attention to -- where it may find itself siding with some strange bedfellows: open source developers. Apparently, some of open source developers have sued the large French ISP Free/Iliad for failing to offer up the software used in the 3 million routers that customers use, despite the fact that it includes GPLed software (which requires that any software you distribute also be available to others for free). The ISP has responded by claiming that it hasn't actually distributed the software, since the routers are still officially a part of its own network -- and therefore the software doesn't have to be offered up.

In other words, simply giving the routers to users doesn't count as distribution in his definition -- which would certainly go against the RIAA's "making available is distribution" claim). However, as the link above suggests, it could get even worse. If you follow the same definition that Free/Iliad is making, then an ISP could purchase a site license for certain applications or content and then let everyone on its "network" access it, since it wouldn't be "distributing" it. Thus, suddenly, it may be in the RIAA's best interest to side with a bunch of open source developers before the definition of "distribute" in France gets defined in a way that the RIAA wouldn't much appreciate.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Back in February, we noted that Major League Baseball (MLB) was following the NFL down the extremely slippery slope of putting in place restrictions concerning how reporters could report on baseball online. This included things like only very short video clips could be posted online, no more than 7 photos, and all non-text content had to be removed in 72-hours. If that all sounds like preventing reporters from doing their job, you'd be correct. As I suggested at the time, the answer should be for newspapers to simply ignore the rules and if MLB pulls their press passes to buy their reporters tickets to the games (rather than using press passes) or see how the teams feel without press coverage. While it appears that newspapers certainly were upset about these restrictions, rather than doing anything serious about it, they've apparently negotiated a "compromise." The compromise allows newspapers to now host more video and audio content than the original restrictions, but everything still needs to be removed within 72-hours unless there's a special exemption.

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. While it's perfectly legal (reporters don't need to get press passes, so the team can restrict them), it sets a tremendously bad precedent that journalists are allowing any outside control over how they can report on a game. This is all stemming from MLB's incorrect belief that it "owns" everything having to do with Major League Baseball -- and then wanting to artificially limit it so it can sell it to fans. Note that we're not just talking about actual game data here -- but interviews with the players that are conducted by the journalists. There's simply no legitimate reason why newspapers should allow MLB to dictate what it can do with that content or how it can report on it. All that this will do is serve to limit the kind of innovative reporting and community building that the MLB should be encouraging. It's as top down approach by an organization who thinks that only it can decide how people get access to news and info about the game. But it's going to stop newspapers from putting in place their own, perhaps more useful, services for fans, and that will only serve to limit the fanbase. It's upsetting that MLB would even try to do this and it's a travesty that newspapers acquiesced, even to the supposed "compromise" solution. It's opening the door to the MLB telling them what they can report on and any newspaper person should know better.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Back in February, we noted that Major League Baseball (MLB) was following the NFL down the extremely slippery slope of putting in place restrictions concerning how reporters could report on baseball online. This included things like only very short video clips could be posted online, no more than 7 photos, and all non-text content had to be removed in 72-hours. If that all sounds like preventing reporters from doing their job, you'd be correct. As I suggested at the time, the answer should be for newspapers to simply ignore the rules and if MLB pulls their press passes to buy their reporters tickets to the games (rather than using press passes) or see how the teams feel without press coverage. While it appears that newspapers certainly were upset about these restrictions, rather than doing anything serious about it, they've apparently negotiated a "compromise." The compromise allows newspapers to now host more video and audio content than the original restrictions, but everything still needs to be removed within 72-hours unless there's a special exemption.

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. While it's perfectly legal (reporters don't need to get press passes, so the team can restrict them), it sets a tremendously bad precedent that journalists are allowing any outside control over how they can report on a game. This is all stemming from MLB's incorrect belief that it "owns" everything having to do with Major League Baseball -- and then wanting to artificially limit it so it can sell it to fans. Note that we're not just talking about actual game data here -- but interviews with the players that are conducted by the journalists. There's simply no legitimate reason why newspapers should allow MLB to dictate what it can do with that content or how it can report on it. All that this will do is serve to limit the kind of innovative reporting and community building that the MLB should be encouraging. It's a top down approach by an organization who thinks that only it can decide how people get access to news and info about the game. But it's going to stop newspapers from putting in place their own, perhaps more useful, services for fans, and that will only serve to limit the fanbase. It's upsetting that MLB would even try to do this and it's a travesty that newspapers acquiesced, even to the supposed "compromise" solution. It's opening the door to the MLB telling them what they can report on and any newspaper person should know better.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

There are so many data leaks these days that it's hardly even newsworthy every time some company reveals your social security number and credit card. However, would you believe that it's also impacting the economics for fraudsters? Matt Bennett alerts us to the news that the price of fraudulently obtained data is falling through the floor thanks to the glut of it on the market. There are so many collections of credit cards or bank account numbers that the crooks who are buying them are buying them in bigger batches at greatly deflated prices. By the way, the falling dollar has impacted this as well: European identity data is worth a lot more than American identity data. So, I guess there's that to be thankful for.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

In the last year or so, there's been a disturbing trend of companies to start adding absolutely ridiculous and counterproductive "security" questions on various sites. Most of these do absolutely nothing good in terms of security. In fact, it seems the more ridiculous these features are, the less secure a site actually is. I've been collecting some examples of the more bizarre "security" features I've been seeing lately, with the really ridiculous "security questions" being quite popular. This is when the site gives you a bunch of questions to choose from -- but often those questions are not the sort that have a single answer, or an answer that's easily memorable. For example, I just saw one that asked "What's a place you'd like to visit someday?" Well, there are a few, but I doubt I could remember the one I picked. And what happens if I do visit that place before the next time I need to answer that question?

I was recently discussing this with a colleague who told me that if I wanted to see the most ridiculous example, I should look at Sprint's system, as it had a bunch of security questions where it tried to pull information on you. Before I had a chance to check it out, it looks like the folks over at Consumerist decided to take on Sprint, and discovered not just how ridiculous the questions are but noticed some patterns that make it quite easy to get control of any Sprint user's account.

The way it works is Sprint asks you a series of "security" questions that it thinks only you would know the answer to. Things like "what type of car has been registered at your address?" and "which of the following people has lived at your address?" It sounds like some data collection company probably convinced Sprint to purchase access to their data to set up these questions in the name of "security." The problem is that if you know just a little about certain people, you can easily guess the answers. Even worse, a former Sprint employee notes that, mostly to avoid "accidentally" having two right answers, it's usually quite easy to figure out the actual answers. For example, on the automobile question, the incorrect answers are usually expensive luxury vehicles.

This isn't "security." It's barely security theater. It's a huge security hole. Hopefully with a little attention Sprint gets rid of it and puts something more reasonable in place. I just hope it doesn't involve asking me where I hope to travel some day.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

theodp writes "Thanks to IBM, the next time a crisis of 9/11 or Katrina magnitude strikes, you may have to worry about patent infringement. Just-published USPTO documents reveal that Big Blue has a patent application for Optimizing the Selection, Verification, and Deployment of Expert Resources in a Time of Chaos, which covers responding to 'episodes of profound chaos during hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, solar flares, flooding, terrorism, war, and pandemics to name a few.' If anyone from Homeland Security is reading, it's apparently this easy." Yes, this is actually a patent application for a computerized process (not, as theodp suggests, just for responding), but it still seems rather bizarre that you would patent such a thing. Does one firm really deserve to have a monopoly on a computerized system for responding to a chaotic event?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story