People seem really good at forgetting history. While most people realize that Google bought YouTube early on in that company's existence, they tend to forget that this was, in part, because YouTube was beating the pants off of Google's own online service called Google Video. The big difference? Google Video's launch focused very much on selling videos and using annoying DRM that had to check in with a server any time you wanted to watch. It was a complete and total failure, which probably cost an even larger amount when you realize it made Google more desperate to buy YouTube.

A few years later, Google tried again, playing up the ability to pay for videos... and once again it flopped pitifully. A 10 day test brought in just a little bit over $10,000 -- which is hardly worth the effort involved.

Perhaps the third time's the charm? People are reporting that YouTube is getting ready to launch a paywall feature, which may have 50 "channels" locked up behind the wall. The idea is to be more of a Hulu or Netflix-type competitor, though rather than a flat fee for access to all locked up content, YouTube thinks people will pay $1.99/month per channel. That seems... pretty high. Perhaps they're hoping that times have changed and what failed in the past is now okay because people are accustomed to paying for this kind of thing. However, I still have trouble seeing how this succeeds. If anything, this just seems like a tool with which Hollywood can hang itself. It may jump on this thinking that it's a great new way to build an online revenue stream, without realizing all the potential hazards.

Cable and satellite channels, which traditionally rely on a dual revenue stream model, are eyeing YouTube’s subscription service to generate revenue from older shows and new programming, according to another person familiar with the project.

I'm sure plenty of old school execs are thrilled about this idea... until they see the actual numbers. This isn't about helping the old industry adapt, but giving them the tools to see how unlikely they are to succeed with a paywall.

FBI Director Robert Mueller recently spoke at a cybersecurity conference where he reiterated his belief that so-called cybercrime will soon surpass terrorism as the biggest threat in America. Perhaps this means that the FBI plans to start manufacturing cyber-threats like they do with terrorist plots—or perhaps it means that, as some people have been saying for years, cybercrime is just crime. Of course, in a room full of professionals who stand to make more money if people are scared of online threats, he's not likely to get a lot of argument.

That's not meant to dismiss cybersecurity professionals—obviously they do a lot of important work, and obviously the FBI is going to need their assistance for plenty of things. But to call cybercrime the country's biggest threat is to lump together a whole bunch of unrelated crimes, most of which aren't even new:

"We are losing data, we are losing money, we are losing ideas and we are losing innovation,' Mueller said at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. 'Together we must find a way to stop the bleeding."

The dangers posed by organized cyber-crime, rogue hacktivists and computer breaches backed by foreign governments have become a focus for the FBI.

Counterterrorism is still the agency's top priority, but the agency has retooled to prepare for Internet-based aggressors, Mueller said. Cyber-squads in every FBI field office now monitor for crimes ranging from mortgage and health care fraud to child exploitation and terror recruiting, he said.

Presumably the FBI already has people specializing in mortgage and health care fraud, child exploitation and terror recruiting—so why portion off the "cyber" versions of these crimes into a separate "squad"? To then combine those things with hacktivism and online espionage just makes the category of "cybercrime" utterly meaningless. It is indicative of their struggle (which mirrors that of governments, the entertainment industry and others) to understand a core concept: the internet is not a separate thing. And even if there is a good administrative reason for organizing things in this way, it is highly misleading to call such a diverse array of crimes a single giant threat.

While the TSA continues to not catch terrorists, it is catching flak for its decision last month to confiscate a cupcake. Even more bizarre, the TSA is continuing to defend the confiscation, claiming that since this cupcake was in a jar it meant that the frosting was considered a gel and subject to the totally silly and pointless 3 oz. rule.

I wanted to make it clear that this wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake. If you’re not familiar with it, we have a policy directly related to the UK liquid bomb plot of 2006 called 3-1-1 that limits the amount of liquids, gels and aerosols you can bring in your carry-on luggage. Icing falls under the “gel” category. As you can see from the picture, unlike a thin layer of icing that resides on the top of most cupcakes, this cupcake had a thick layer of icing inside a jar.

In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry-on luggage, however, the officer in this case used their discretion on whether or not to allow the newfangled modern take on a cupcake per 3-1-1 guidelines. They chose not to let it go.

Or maybe they were just hungry. Either way, rest assured that terrorists who get through security won't be able to get fat on cupcakes.

Or... maybe they can. A bakery in Rhode Island, picking up on this ridiculousness and sensing a marketing opportunity, is now offering a TSA-complaint cupcake, complete with exactly 3 oz. of frosting... a plastic baggie, and a faux boarding pass declaring compliance: Yes, there's now a dessert menu for your airport security theater...

There have been an awful lot of stories of computer hacks and breaches lately, many of them high profile: Google, Citibank, Sony, the US Senate. It certainly feels like everyone's under attack. But is that really true? Bruce Schneier suggests that it's just a media sensation:

"I truly don't think there's a higher instance of hacking right now. I think there's been a wave of media coverage," said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer of BT and one of the most respected security experts around. "We saw the same thing with shark attacks. It's not that there are more shark attacks. It's that they made the news when people started looking for them."

It does make me wonder. The media can be quite efficient at finding evidence of an epidemic when things are actually occurring at a normal rate, but it certainly does sound like some of the attacks lately are landing on bigger name targets. Part of this may also be the more public attacks from groups like Anonymous and Lulz Security, who are doing what they do more for publicity reasons than as criminal enterprises. Either way, I'm curious to see what others think about the issue. Are we really seeing more attacks and breaches today, or is the press just picking up on it lately?

Okay, this post is going to take the extreme cynical view, which I don't believe is true, but since it's being suggested, we might as well flesh it out. In my post about how the US government's response to Wikileaks has caused more harm than anything actually in the leaks so far, one of the commenters pointed to a Larry Lessig talk from a few years back, where he mentioned a conversation with Richard Clarke -- the former anti-terrorism government official, who, more recently, has been selling his book on "Cyberwar" -- where he said that the US government has had an "iPatriot Act" sitting in a drawer, ready to go at a moment's notice whenever there was "an i-9/11 event."

Except there's been no such event.

Yet, in the last year or so, we keep hearing about folks trying to sell the public on the idea that we're facing a "cyberwar," which is always stated without any proof. In fact, it seems that the only thing that the whole "cyberwar" concept has been good for is to (a) make money for government contractors and (b) to give the government a reason to take away more online privacy.

As we've seen, there have been rumors over the past few months that the feds have been working on new legislation that would require backdoors in all internet communications -- which sounds sort of like a version of that iPatriot Act. But, of course, in order to get people to actually accept that kind of thing, the government would need to convince people that it's really for their own safety... But that's a lot tougher without any evidence of a real cyberwar. So... along comes Wikileaks (and, to a lesser extent, Operation Payback), and voila, suddenly the press is bubbling on and on about how this is a cyberwar.

Now, when this new wiretapping law is put forth, the government can claim that it's designed to stop things like having classified cables leaked to enemies of the US -- even though it would have absolutely no impact on such things. Of course, if Wikileaks is a "cyberwar" then what the hell were the Pentagon Papers? A wood pulp war? Whistleblowing and leaking documents, online or off, is not a "war." While I don't doubt some in the US government will try to use this to their advantage, I still really doubt that this is the main reason for the current reaction. I'd chalk it up to pure incompetence first.

A few months back, we pointed out how ridiculous it was that a child advocacy group had put out a scary press release claiming that child predators could use Google Street View to prey on children. They could also, you know, walk up and down the street. It's nice to see that the mainstream press is at least calling the group, Stop Internet Predators, out on how ridiculous this is. Nationally syndicated columnist Larry Magid sarcastically slams the group for such pointless fearmongering, not only pointing out that it's easier for predators to just walk up and down the street, but also making the following point:

Instead of banning Google Street View, maybe we should put up walls between streets and sidewalks so that predators can't see children walking home from school. And while we're at it, let's ban public outdoor parks and recreation areas or at least find ways to hide the children playing there. Or just keep children away from churches, schools and other places where pedophiles have been known to operate.

Considering how often we end up seeing the mainstream press simply parrot these sorts of press releases, it's good to see them hitting back against these more questionable attempts at creating moral panics.