Cisco's latest numbers are an ever further cry from what telecom sector lobbyists and think tankers were predicting in 2010 and before, when they were using a looming "exaflood" to scare regulators and the press and public into buying into bad telecom policy. Companies like Nemertes Research and The Discovery Institute (the latter a PR firm paid directly by carriers, the former long accused of having a rather cozy relationship with AT&T) insisted we'd be seeing Internet "brown outs" by this point courtesy of unsustainable growth rates of up to 100% or more.

The scary predictions were effective. Said lobbyists, think tankers, astroturfers and "fauxcademics" convinced many people that if the telecom industry wasn't given "X" (X being anything from fewer consumer protections and more subsidies to the right to bill by the byte or avoid network neutrality rules), that the Internet would collapse. That obviously never happened and intelligent engineers and networks adjusted, but few of the people who massaged data for their own financial ends over the last five to eight years were ever really held accountable.

The first shot was probably the release of Stuxnet sometime during or before 2009. Even though no one has officially claimed responsibility everyone knows who was behind it. Stuxnet hit with a bang and did a whole lot of damage to Iran's uranium-enrichment capabilities. The United States followed that up with Flame–the ebola virus of spyware.

What did the Iranians fire back with? A series of massive, on-going and ineffective DDoS attacks on American banks. This is a disproportionate response but not in the way military experts usually mean that phrase. It's the equivalent of someone stealing your car and you throwing an ever-increasing number of eggs at his house in response.

ProPublica reported yesterday that a widely cited Defense Department study claiming Iran's Intelligence Ministry constitutes "a terror and assassination force 30,000 strong" has been "pulled for revisions." It seems there's no proof whatsoever that the 30,000 number wasn't pulled out of thin air.

The word 3D is barely being uttered at CES 2013, but just about all the major TV makers are talking about 4K or ultra-definition HDTV that has four times the resolution of those 1080p sets many of us now own. That's a lot of pixels, which means the picture will be sharper not just when you're sitting several feet away from the set but even if you get up close.

But most us don't get all that close to big screen TVs. The 4K sets being shown at CES are big. Samsung has an 85 inch set, Sony is already selling an 84 inch model. About the smallest set you'll find is 55 inches but even with that size screen, people tend to sit a bit from the screen. I have a 55 inch 1080p set perched several feet in front of my living room couch so I rarely get close enough to my TV to notice any gaps between pixels.

Taking advantage of the fact that it owns its own movie studios, Sony is trying to jump start content by re-rendering some of its own films into 4K and encouraging short film makers to create content. But it will still be awhile before there is enough native 4K content out there to give viewers a lot of choice of programming.

Tastemakers heard it, then moguls who were de facto tastemakers, and it spread to listeners who knew nothing about the singer except this beautiful thing she'd written. They fell in love at first listen. They gushed. They sang along. They recorded karaoke videos and public swoon mobs and re-enactments of its summer-love video. They sent it to No. 1 for seemingly the entire summer and sent its singer to what looked an awful lot like dazed stardom.

This sounds counterintuitive; shouldn't it help Jepsen for thousands of people to remix, recreate and otherwise rejoice over her song? But the meme's not about Jepsen; it's about her song, and she is secondary... This is the problem Carly Rae Jepsen's facing: loving "Call Me Maybe" as a meme hasn't made people invested in her as a musician.

“The companies surveyed estimated they lost a combined $4.6 billion worth of intellectual property last year alone, and spent approximately $600 million repairing damage from data breaches,” the release said. “Based on these numbers, McAfee projects that companies worldwide lost more than $1 trillion last year.” The release contained a quote from McAfee’s then-president and chief executive David DeWalt, in which he repeated the $1 trillion estimate. The headline of the news release was “Businesses Lose More than $1 Trillion in Intellectual Property Due to Data Theft and Cybercrime.”

The trillion-dollar estimate was picked up by the media, including Bloomberg and CNET, which expressed no skepticism.

Among [the study's researchers] was Ross Anderson, a security engineering professor at University of Cambridge, who told ProPublica that he did not know about the $1 trillion estimate before it was announced. “I would have objected at the time had I known about it,” he said. “The intellectual quality of this ($1 trillion number) is below abysmal.”

.... The company’s method did not meet the standards of the Purdue researchers whom it had engaged to analyze the survey responses and help write the report. In phone interviews and emails to ProPublica, associate professor Jackie Rees Ulmer said she was disconcerted when, a few days before the report’s unveiling, she received a draft of the news release that contained the $1 trillion figure. “I expressed my concern with the number as we did not generate it,” Rees Ulmer said in an email. She added that although she couldn’t recall the particulars of the phone conversation in which she made her concerns known, “It is almost certainly the case that I would have told them the number was unsupportable.”

...The news stories got the worried attention of some of the report’s contributors because McAfee was connecting their names to an estimate they had no previous knowledge of and were skeptical about. One of the contributors, Augusto Paes de Barros, a Brazilian security consultant, blogged a week after the news release that although he was glad to have been involved in the report, “I could not find any data in that report that could lead into that number.... I’d like to see how they found this number.”

“Far from being broadly-based estimates of losses across the population, the cyber-crime estimates that we have appear to be largely the answers of a handful of people extrapolated to the whole population.”

During a classified briefing in the Office of Senate Security, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan showed lawmakers how a hacker could breach control systems of the city’s electric system and trigger a ripple effect throughout the population and private sector, according to a source familiar with the scenario.

“The fact that we could be subject to a catastrophic attack under the right circumstances and we now know some of the things that would help us to protect against such an attack, that’s why it’s important now for the Congress to take this up,” Napolitano said in an interview with POLITICO.

During the simulation, the hacker gains access to the electric supply’s control system through a simple “spearphishing” attack, in which a worker merely clicks on a link in an email that appears to be from someone they know.

The Senators stressed that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 in no way resembles the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, which involved the piracy of copyrighted information on the internet. The Cybersecurity Act involves the security of systems that control the essential services that keep our nation running—for instance, power, water, and transportation.

• Stop the apocalyptic rhetoric. The alarmist scenarios dominating policy discourse may be good for the cybersecurity-industrial complex, but they aren’t doing real security any favors.
  
  
• Declassify evidence relating to cyber threats. Overclassification is a widely acknowledged problem, and declassification would allow the public to verify the threats rather than blindly trusting self-interested officials.
  
  
• Disentangle the disparate dangers that have been lumped together under the “cybersecurity” label. This must be done to determine who is best suited to address which threats. In cases of cybercrime and cyberespionage, for instance, private network owners may be best suited and have the best incentives to protect their own valuable data, information, and reputations.

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In the digital world, it seems, there are two certainties: that every year the Business Software Alliance will put out a report that claims huge amounts of software are being “stolen”; and that the methodology employed by that report is deeply flawed.

So, here we go again:

The commercial value of software piracy grew 14 percent globally last year to a record total of $58.8 billion, according to the 2010 BSA Global Software Piracy Study.

Just six years ago, the commercial value of the PC software that was being pirated in emerging economies accounted for less than a third of the world total. Last year, it accounted for more than half — $31.9 billion.

Notice that immediately we have the phrase “commercial value”; just in case you had any doubts what this might mean, it is explained in the methodology section:

The commercial value of pirated software is the value of unlicensed software installed in a given year, as if it had been sold in the market.

“As if it had been sold in the market”: this is, of course, a meaningless figure. The very reason that people pirate software in developing countries - the main focus of the BSA report - is that they cannot afford Western-level prices. So there is no way that pirated software could ever be converted to sales at those prices - it is economically impossible. Using it as a measure is pure fantasy.

A more sophisticated study would attempt to establish at what price people would actually choose to buy from dealers rather than other sources: then that could be used to calculate a realistic estimate of how much revenue is lost in developing countries. To do that, a good place to start would be the recently-published Media Piracy in Emerging Economies, whose results can be summarised thus:

Based on three years of work by some thirty-five researchers, Media Piracy in Emerging Economies tells two overarching stories: one tracing the explosive growth of piracy as digital technologies became cheap and ubiquitous around the world, and another following the growth of industry lobbies that have reshaped laws and law enforcement around copyright protection. The report argues that these efforts have largely failed, and that the problem of piracy is better conceived as a failure of affordable access to media in legal markets.

Exactly the same forces are at work in the world of software: this is a market failure, not a failure of enforcement.

But even if the BSA report had attempted this more realistic analysis, it would still draw the wrong conclusions from its results. Summarised in a section called rather risibly “Anti-piracy equity” - as if Western holders of intellectual monopolies really cared about “equity” when it came to exploiting developing countries:

Reductions in software piracy produce widespread economic benefits. For example, the BSA-IDC Piracy Impact Study found in 2010 that reducing the global piracy rate for PC software by 10 percentage points — 2.5 points per year for four years — would create $142 billion in new economic activity globally by 2013 while adding nearly 500,000 new high-tech jobs and generating $32 billion in new tax revenues for governments. On average, more than 80 percent of these benefits would accrue to local economies.

I debunked this erroneous argument last year:

One thing that is always omitted in these analyses is the fact that the money not paid for software licences does not disappear, but is almost certainly spent elsewhere in the economy (I doubt whether people are banking all these "savings" that they are not even aware of.) As a result, it too creates jobs, local revenues and taxes.

Put another way, if people had to pay for their unlicensed copies of software, they would need to find the money by reducing their expenditure in other sectors. So in looking at the possible benefit of moving people to licensed copies of software, it is also necessary to take into account the losses that would accrue by eliminating these other economic inputs.

Thus the BSA's hypocritical plea for “equity” - how equitable is it trying to extract a month's wages from someone for a copy of Windows whose marginal cost is close to zero, say? - simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Eradicating piracy won't generate “new economic activity globally”, nor will it generate new tax revenues for governments. Again, as I pointed out last year:

One important factor is that proprietary software is mainly produced by US companies. So moving to licensed software will tend to move profits and jobs out of local, non-US economies.

...

Another factor that would tend to exacerbate these problems is that software has generally had a higher profit margin than most other kinds of goods: this means any switching from buying non-software goods locally to buying licensed copies of software would reduce the amount represented by costs (because the price is fixed and profits are now higher). So even if these were mostly incurred locally, switching from unlicensed to licensed copies would still represent a net loss for the local economy.

Similarly, it is probably the case that those working in the IT industry earn more than those in other sectors of the economy, and so switching a given amount of money from industries with lower pay to IT, with its higher wages, would again reduce the overall number of jobs, not increase them, as the report claims.

So, as expected, this year's BSA report rehashes all its old errors, simply introducing even more unrealistic figures in an attempt to frighten governments into even more disproportionate and unjustified attempts to enforce intellectual monopolies.

But to be fair, the 2010 report does sport one novelty:

this year’s study also adds a new dimension: Deeper and richer surveys of PC users in 32 countries, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, one of the world’s leading public-opinion research firms.

Here's the context to the first questions:

“The laws that give someone who invents a new product or technology the right to decide how it is sold are called intellectual property rights. Which comes closer to your view...”

Two options were then presented:

“Intellectual property rights benefit people like me by creating jobs and improving the economy.”

or

“Intellectual property rights hurt people like me by making products I need too expensive.”

Notice how this is framed in terms of “rights” - the word is used twice. This is a biased term, of course - it suggests that it is “right” to have that right. But really the question should have been:

“The laws that give someone who invents a new product or technology a monopoly on how it is sold are called intellectual monopoly rights. Which comes closer to your view...”

Similarly, the questions already bias the response by hammering home the idea that these are “rights”. Reframing the questions as

“Intellectual monopolies benefit people like me by creating jobs and improving the economy.”

or

“Intellectual monopnolies hurt people like me by making products I need too expensive.”

might well have produced results less favourable to the report's position. Nonetheless, it's interesting that only 61% thought intellectual monopolies benefitted ordinary people, while 37% thought they harmed them - hardly a resounding vote of confidence.

Another question gave these alternatives:

“Intellectual property rights allow companies to generate profits which in turn benefit local economies.”

or

“Intellectual property rights concentrate wealth in the hands of multinational companies that do not deliver significant local economic benefits.”

Here, there was even more scepticism about the benefits - only 59% agreed with the first, while 40% chose the second option. Imagine what the results would have been had they been phrased thus:

“Intellectual monopolies allow companies to generate profits which in turn benefit local economies.”

or

“Intellectual monopolies concentrate wealth in the hands of multinational companies that do not deliver significant local economic benefits.”

Here's a third set of alternatives:

“It is important for people who invent new products or technologies to be paid for them, because it creates an incentive for people to produce more innovations. That is good for society because it drives technological progress and economic growth.”

or

“No company or individual should be allowed to control a product or technology that could benefit the rest of society. Laws like that limit the free flow of ideas, stifle innovation, and give too much power to too few people.”

Of course, the first question is loaded: who doesn't think that it's important for people who create new products or technologies should be paid for them? No wonder 79% chose this option. But that's not the issue: the issue is whether Western companies can charge unrealistic prices for their products in developing countries - prices that are literally unaffordable by the majority of the population there - and expect them to be enforced by local governments against the interests of their citizens.

Despite the bias of these questions, it is, however, interesting that BSA is trying to bolster its case with this supposed support for monopoly-friendly policies from ordinary citizens. It suggests that it knows that the days of its old approach - claiming implausibly large damage to economies based on flawed methodologies - are numbered, and that it must find an alternative soon. Otherwise we may have to forgo the pleasure of reading those entertaining annual reports...

Cross-posted from Computerworld UK.

"Mark down the date: The age of stealing music via the Internet is officially over. It’s time for everybody to go legit. The reason: We won. And all you audiophiles and copyfighters, you know who fixed our problems? The record labels and online stores we loved to hate."

That's quite a whopper, isn't it?  Particularly from the same esteemed publication that brought you the news that the web is dead.  You'd have to imagine there would be something pretty substantial in his article to make the claim that the record labels had somehow fixed things so that online infringement no longer should exist, right?  Sadly, not so much.  He starts off by listing out a couple of the problems most folks had with things like DRM, transferring legit purchases to multiple devices, etc.  Then he tells us all why everything is okay now (and for a fun little game, see if you can spot the demeaning slight he sneaks in on music fans):

"Well played, protesters: In January 2009, Apple announced that it would remove the copyright protection wrapper from every song in its store. Today, Amazon and Walmart both sell music encoded as MP3s, which don’t even have hooks for copyright-protection locks. The battle is over, comrades."

So...because, after years of fighting, iTunes finally stood up and removed the DRM, followed by a few retailers, we're supposed to look to the record labels as our saviors?  For not treating us like criminals? And while they're still pushing for new laws and demanding money from ISPs (that will come out of consumers pockets anyway)? That doesn't really pass the smell test.  Paul then goes on to declare the joy audiophiles should feel now that MP3s are being sold with 256 Kbps audio quality, compared to the initial 128 Kbps offering, stating that if anyone wants quality better than that, "you can get a pretty good turntable for around $500" and go spin vinyl.  Oh, and he wants to make sure you know that if you steal vinyl records, that's called shoplifting.  Mmkay.  What else you got, Paul?

"That leaves one last war cry: Music should be free! It’s art! Friends, a song costs a dollar...Most download retailers send about 70 percent of each sale to the record companies that own the music. Artists with 15 percent royalty deals get 15 percent of that 70 percent, or about 10.5 cents per dollar of sales. Those who write their own music and own their own music publishing companies—an increasingly common arrangement—get another 9.1 cents in “mechanical royalties.” Every download sends almost 20 cents straight to the band."

Yup, you read that right.  This, of course, is pure nonsense.  That isn't the way royalties with modern day recording contracts work.  Through the magic of recording label accounting, the average musician makes roughly $23 for every $1000 in music sold -- and that's only if they actually recoup, which is difficult to do, thanks to the way the record labels account for things. For those of you who share my math skills and don't want to reach for a calculator, that's barely 2%.  Some of that result stems from necessary things the bands may need to spend on: managers, lawyers, taxes.  But a good deal of it also comes from neat little, and sometimes recoupable, charges from the record label, things like independent radio promotion, tour support, roughly fifty percent of the music video costs, etc.  Other times, the record labels flatout don't pay the royalties from truly successful albums.  Bottom line is, at the end of the day, record labels make money off of selling music, musicians do not.

And, even if we go with Paul's bogus number of 20 cents on the dollar, is that really that good of a deal? A musician today can use a service like Bandcamp, and get 85% of whatever money they bring in -- and can do so in more creative ways with pay what you want offerings, that can actually bring in much more money. The idea the "record labels" have solved "piracy" by offering musicians 20 cents that they'll never get because they'll never recoup is laughable.

But Paul chooses to ignore those things and instead offers up a pithy conclusion as to why music is still being pirated:

Uh huh.  Nuanced arguments would probably be more appreciated from the group of folks you're talking to, who actually spend more money on music than those who do not "pirate".  Funny definition of cheap you're working from...

In the end, there are many reasons why people still file share (and they are still file sharing in droves, which sort of debunks Paul's entire premise), but you don't learn any of that from Paul's article. Since when did Wired switch from thought-provoking analysis to pure trollbait?

Blumsack, Hines and Cotilla-Sanchez decided to contrast the performance of a topological model with one based on actual physics - specifically on Ohm's and Kirchoff's Laws governing the flow of electricity in the real world. They tried out both kinds of model on an accurate representation of the North American Eastern Interconnect, the largest and one of the most trouble-prone portions of the US grid, using real-world data from a test case generated in 2005.

The three engineers say that the physics-driven model was much closer to reality, and that this verifies what physics models show. The results showed that in fact it is major grid components through which a lot of power flows - big generating stations and massive transformers - which are the main points of vulnerability, not the minor installations scattered across the country.

It isn't so much that a minor event on a minor line or installation can't crash the network: such things do happen. But in general there have to be huge numbers of such minor events before one of them happens to hit the miracle weak point and bring everything down. It would be an impossible task for terrorists or other malefactors to know in advance just where and when a minor pinprick could cause massive effects.

"Our system is quite robust to small things failing," says Hines.

We surely need to improve our cybersecurity. But words have meaning, and metaphors matter. There's a power struggle going on for control of our nation's cybersecurity strategy, and the NSA and DoD are winning. If we frame the debate in terms of war, if we accept the military's expansive cyberspace definition of "war," we feed our fears.

We reinforce the notion that we're helpless -- what person or organization can defend itself in a war? -- and others need to protect us. We invite the military to take over security, and to ignore the limits on power that often get jettisoned during wartime.

If, on the other hand, we use the more measured language of cybercrime, we change the debate. Crime fighting requires both resolve and resources, but it's done within the context of normal life. We willingly give our police extraordinary powers of investigation and arrest, but we temper these powers with a judicial system and legal protections for citizens.

• Textaphrenia: thinking you've heard or felt a new text message vibration when there is no message.
• Textiety: a feeling of anxiety from not receiving or sending any text messages.
• Post-traumatic text disorder: injuries related to texting, such as walking into objects by not paying attention to your surroundings.
• Binge texting: sending massive amounts of texts to build self-esteem among peers.

Refuah says various internet giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been using the program for years, and now they will have to pay royalties to Netex.