BPN 1662: Google introduces new search algorithm

Under the name Hummingbird, Google has introduced a new version of het search algorithm. The introduction comes on the 15^th anniversary of Google.

The company started out with the search algorithm BackRub, which was based on search software available at Stanford University. The software worked with Boolean principles of AND, OR and NOT, including or excluding keywords. Besides the first searchers usually formed search arguments with a single keyword or more keywords. But as searchers become more sophisticated and are working with concepts and meanings, the search algorithm has become insufficient. In the meantime more than 90 per cent of the search questions are processed through the Hummingbird search algorithm.

This year it is 15 years ago that Larry Page en Sergey Brin incorporated their company and started to work in the garage of Susan Wojcicki, who is now a senior Google executive. On September 27^th, 1998 their index system had surpassed Yahoo’s search engine in indexed terms. Interesting is the fact that Google started to collaborate with Yahoo! In 2000 and became their standard search provider. In the same year Google announced the first index with a billion URLs, thus becoming the largest search engine in the world.

The founders of Google knew each other from 1996 onwards. As postdoc students of Stanford University they had started to work together on a search engine, which they called BackRub. The system, on which they based BackRub, was already in use on the servers of Stanford for more than a year, but was abandoned as it used too much band with. By 1997 Page and Brin decided that BackRub needed a new name. After a brainstorm, they selected the name Google, a pundit on the mathematical term googol, which stands for 1 followed by 100 zero’s. The new name also reflected their mission aiming at organising a sheer unending quantity of information on internet.

BPN 1661: Hopes reconstruction Philips Pavilion Expo ’58 dashed

Every competition has its winners and losers. In the European competition Cultural Capitals 2018 the Maltese capital Valletta and the Dutch city of Leeuwarden were the winners. Of course the capital of the Frisian province was very happy. In The Netherlands it had left the cities of Maastricht, The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven behind. All those cities had like Leeuwarden put together a bidbook (see bidbook Leeuwarden). 

Reconstruction Philips Pavilion Expo ‘58

In all those bidbooks you will find fascinating plans. The Eindhoven bidbook contains a plan to reconstruct the Philips pavilion of the Expo ’58 in Brussels and rebuild. The Foundation Reconstruction Philips Pavilion wanted to let the building arise in the Eindhoven neighbourhood of Strijp-S for 8,5 million euro. The reconstructed pavilion should serve as a living lab, where artists and designers could make use of the most advanced technologies. As Eindhoven did not win the bid, the municipality will not put up any money for the reconstruction. So the Foundation will have to collect the money itself. It will take a year to get the sum together; otherwise it will abandon the plan for reconstruction.

 Why reconstructing the pavilion?
You can ask why a building of 1958 has to be reconstructed again. There are pro’s and con’s. One reason against it would be that the Expo ’58 has already a monument in Brussels, the construction of aluminium spheres, the Atomium. But of course the pavilion is a landmark of futuristic architecture. Having such a retro building in the neighbourhood would be a tourist attraction. The pavilion was built by the design bureau of the famous French architect Le Corbusier, but the design was executed by his assistant Iannis Xenakis. However after the Expo ’58 the building was demolished with the permission of Le Corbusier as it had not been designed for eternity. The argument that the reconstructed building would serve as a living lab and as an inspiration to artists and designers is interesting destination, but also an expensive one. The real reason for reconstructing the pavilion should be that the pavilion plus the performance called Poème Electronique marks the beginning of multimedia and the transition from analogue multiple media to digital multimedia. 

Starting point of multimedia

In this bold architectural pavilion Philips presented its first large multiple media performance. At the World Exposition of 1958 Philips wanted to symbolise progress and innovation: light, sound, electronics and computing. The idea was generated by Louis Kalff, the art director of Philips. He gave the assignment to the design bureau of Le Corbusier, who involved the Greek architect Iannis (Yean) Xenakis and the French-American composer Edgar Varèse. Iannis Xenakis would design the pavilion, Varèse would take care of the music and Le Corbusier was in charge of the images and the sound and vision.

The ground plan of the pavilion took the form of the human stomach with a surface of 1.000 m2 and a height of 22 meter. The construction technology used was innovative, as it existed of a geometric construction with pipers and blocks of concrete. The interior was empty with standing room for 500 people.

The visitors got to see a slide show with images projected all around 360 degrees, supported by electronic music coming from 400 speakers. The multiple media show named Poème Electronique, lasted 480 seconds and demonstrated the history of mankind in sound and vision with images from nature, masks and old cultures, armoury, children, matures seniors, cities, birth, life and death.

The object of the project was to produce and present a show, in which sound and vision will mix into one entity and offer a gross spacious experience (Gesamtkunst). The spectacle started with the announcement: ‘Philips has designed automatic devices which introduces a new art form with borderless opportunities, namely the electronic cooperation of light, colour, image, word and music in space. The electronic poem shows how our mechanised civilisation strives after a future new harmony.  

‘However the cooperation between the artists was less than expected. Besides, the 75 year old Varèse got into conflict with the sound experts of Philips. Yet the visitors left the pavilion flabbergasted, overwhelmed by the images, sounds and technological pinnacles.

The pavilion, which had costed Philips 6 million Dutch florins (less than 3 million euro), was demolished after the World exposition and the creative production sank into oblivion. Poème Electronique was revived in 2005 and could be experienced at a conference in The Hague. The slide projectors were replaced by a few PCs, while the 400 speakers were replaced by a few surround boxes. The 480 seconds long performance can now be seen (but not experienced) on YouTube with a Dutch language introduction and on an English language internet site.

(Fragment in italics comes from the Dutch language book on Pre-internet: Toen digitale media nog nieuw waren – Pre-internet in de polder (1967-1997)).

BPN 1660: Every Dutch e-book buyer is a potential pirate

Dutch book publishers fear for piracy. Lagging behind the music, movie and game industries, it thinks that it will be able to eradicate e-book piracy. From now on, the data of every buyer of e-books with a watermark will be registered and kept in a database for at least two years. The watermark will have the name of the buyer on every page and a few invisible marks.

The Dutch entertainment police BREIN has made it mandatory for internet booksellers and book distributors, using the distribution platform eBoekhuis of CB , formerly Central Book House, to register e-book customer data  and to provide those to the foundation BREIN, when asked for. The booksellers in the Netherlands and Belgium will have to retain the data for two years.

Recently, a large number of Dutch e-book publishers disbanded DRM , the lock on e - books. They were convinced that the DRM lock hindered selling e - books hinders. E-books could not be copied to multiple devices. With a watermark in Adobe EPUB and PDF formats , distribution over more than one platform is possible. Through the watermark the book can be traced back to the original buyer, who does not need to be the uploader. The 2,500 participating booksellers in the Netherlands and Belgium are required to sign an agreement with the foundation BREIN to exchange the data in case of abuse .

This obligation seems to conflict with the privacy of the e-book buyer. BREIN says it will not chase private uploaders, but it will go after identifying (commercial) uploaders of particular torrent sites.

MP Astrid Oosenbrug of the Dutch Labour Party has asked parliamentary questions to the Minister of Security and Justice whether e-book shops are allowed to register personal data and keep these data for at least two years .

Doubts about the BREIN method

In the Dutch language book publishing world there is doubt as to the method BRAIN wants to apply . The largest e-book webshop Bol.com has already indicated is not sign the agreement. Academic publisher Springer SBM states that illegal copying and distribution of e – book, has not affected  sales. Also General publisher Meulenhoff Boekerij does not believe that  watermarking will eliminate piracy, but it may help to reduce piracy . On Tweakers.net a publisher of Meulenhoff Boekerij says: " Piracy often arises from dissatisfaction. You need to offer the buyer a good price and no hassle" .

The question is now whether the watermark , registration and data retention will deter pirates from copying and distributing. The e-book buyers , who have paid for an e - book copy , will not easily pass the book for duplication. In addition, most online webstores store purchases in personal libraries for the reader in case of loss.

The question is now whether e-book buyers will shy away from a purchase due to the registration and data retention. For now every Dutch buyer of a watermarked e-book  is a potential pirate. Besides you can wait for it: one day in the near future a collection of personal data  of buyers of a watermarked e-book will be found in a street on the street, just as happens to government and banking data.

BPN 1659: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (8)

Just imagine: one startup to almost 1000 Estonians. That is the remarkable statistic about the wave of startup activity in Estonia in the 10^th anniversary year of Skype. Their company names cover the full alphabet from A-Z. All these companies are located at the TechnoPol IT park in Tallinn. The Technopol IT park is a cooperation of the Estonian business community, the government and the university. The park is almost symbolically situated next to the international airport. The startups can and do fly out at short notice.

The success of the intensive business started in 2000 when the Estonian government began working on an e-government. But it the e-gov innovation did not take place in just a void. Estonia had already a fine IT infrastructure. The e-Cabinet was eventually shaped by four independent IT companies. But also businesswise IT was doing well. In fact Estonia became the cradle of Skype. When this company was sold to eBay in 2005 for 1.9 billion euro, part of the money was ploughed back in the country, creating a wave of startups. Skype, in the meantime part of Microsoft, has still a substantial subsidiary of 400 people in Estonia (see photograph).
 

Healthcare is an area of attention. The care sector has formed the eHealth Foundation, which develops health care solutions for in the hospital with tablets, but also mobile solutions, while on-the- go, for example in an ambulance.

The range of applications and systems is very wide. The firm Defendec has set apart the company IoT (Internet of Things), which creates machine-to-machine solutions, solving smart streetlight plans.  

One of the winners of the World Summit Award 2013 is GoSwift. This is an application for truckers who want to cross the border from Estonia to Russia. This used to be a problem with long waiting times, lots of waste and garbage as well as selling tickets to the highest bidder. By setting up a queu management system waiting times have been cut down, waste and garbage reduced and corruption cut out.

BPN 1658: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (7)

Estonia is a fine European example of e-government. As it has a short constitutional history, its government could choose new opportunities without lugging its history along. So having written its constitution, the Estonian government started looking at new methods to conduct its way of governing. By August 8, 2000 the government held its first e-Cabinet session in its government house, Stenbock. The system was procured by the Government Office and provided by by four Estonian IT companies. In the meantime the system has become a usual feature.

The system is used for public consultations, inter-ministerial consultations, submissions of drafts to the Government and the Parliament. For the citizens and organisations it offers opportunities to add their comments to drafts and keep themselves informed on new drafts and changes. The system is also linked to the State Gazette.

The e-Cabinet system is used for preparing the sessions of Government, sharing documents and information with ministries and in preparation of meetings. The e-Cabinet is also used for the sessions of the Government. And naturally the system is used to keep the digital archives of relevant documents. Users of the e-cabinet are members of the Government and roughly 500  officials involved in the preparation of the decisions; each user category has distinct privileges.

The ministers can find in the e-Cabinet session agendas, agenda items and documents in digital form since 2000. The minister can read documents, summaries and decisions, but also mark positions and add comments to each agenda item. And sign documents, electronically.

You can ask of course why the e-Cabinet was needed? Has the governance improved? From the perspective of the government the movement of information on paper documents was slow. There was occasional disorder of documents and puzzles on various versions. Most agenda items were discussed, while they could have been hammered through with a few annotations. This all lead to long meetings of 4 to 5 hours or more. But this has changed now. There is early information on agenda items, fast and simple access to all documents needed. Pre-session voting by expressing opinions before the meeting. And no paper dossiers.

 

It is clear that the e-cabinet is not just software, but that it addresses processes. Things have changed and new questions have emerged and answered such as digital archiving, data protection, user privileges. Besides the information does not stand alone, but has to work together with other systems. But the problem of one or many comes up: too many information systems may become a major issue. But the lesson learned is: KEEP IT SIMPLE. As a spin-off of the use by the ministers , officials are using the system, but also the citizens and organisations.

The digital tools have changed over the years. In 2000  every minister had its desktop computer, as can be seen from the photograph of the first e-Cabinet session on August 8, 2000. Now each minister has a portable computer, as can be seen from a photograph taken on August 30, 2013. But this will soon be history too. Before the end of the year the ministers will answer to the principle of BYOD, bring your own device.

Of course the Esonian story sounds like a fairy tale. However in 2007 Estonia was subjected to a major cyberwar during a dispute with neighbouring Russia. This led the country to put together a ‘Tallinn Manual’ on how to defend against cyberwarfare.
 The e-Cabinet is a success story. Coming from the Netherlands where we pride ourselves to be in the front of the digital movement, Dutch e-government can still learn a lot from Estonia. Of course we have an ID, the so-called DIGID, but we cannot sign documents using the digital ID. Of course we can take notice electronically of new legal proposals, however Dutch organisations and citizens cannot participate in the preparations or debates. The aim of this project was the development of an electronic e-participation system that enables citizens to submit ideas, discuss them and vote for them. It all started in June 2001 when the Estonian government launched a public participation portal named “Today I decide” (known under the Estonian acronym “TOM”). The TID+ project is inspired by the experiences with the TOM tool. The Dutch government meetings are still not completely digital; there is still a lot of paper involved.  But there are more differences. In Estonia they have 13 ministers for 1,4 inhabitants. In the Netherlands we have also 13 ministers, supported by 7 State secretaries, for 16 million citizens. In the Netherlands we abolished online voting as privacy was not guaranteed. In Estonia online voting facilities were implemented in Estonia in 2005, and accounted for a quarter of votes cast in the 2011 elections. Of course here the ID card is at the heart of the online voting. And no less than 95 per cent of the Estonian population files taxes online.

The e-Cabinet experience has a spin-off in the e-Governance Academy. The Estonians are now training officials in various countries in e-government such as Belarus, Haiti, Moldavia, Mongolia, Palestine and Tajikistan. The e-gov Academy also supplies master programs to universities. And the experience is also applied close to home in local and cross-border programs.  
 

BPN 1657: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (6)

No, it was not the 10^th year anniversary of Skype, nor the preparations of the soccer match between Estonia and the Netherlands that a group of 25 people from some 20 countries around the world arrived in Estonia. The 25 people formed the Grand Jury of the sixth edition of best content competition, the Grand Jury members of the World Summit Award which event had been invited to Tallinn, Estonia. The national Estonian expert, Katri Ristal, had been able to organise a three day program with the help of the Estonian government, Estonian IT companies and the European Union. And an interesting three days it has been. The schedule shows slots for judging the shortlisted 111 submission in the eight categories. But there was also an exchange between IT companies and the government.

The old city and ports in one picture

 

It was our first time in Estonia. Flying into the country it looked much like the Netherlands. It is flat and I am told that the highest point in Estonia is under the 400 metres. The driver that picked us up at the airport, hearing that it was the first time in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, made a detour in order to show the old city. It is a very compact walled city with towers, a lot of cobble stones and picturesque handy craft shops. From the window in the hotel room, we looked out on the seaport and the old city. Tallinn is a much visited city for people on a cruise on their way to Russian city of Saint Petersburg. Daily cruise ships arrive with hundreds of visitors, who crowd the city. Also every two hours a ferries arrive and leave for Finland, Sweden and other destinations.

 

Estonia is an interesting, fast growing country. It became independent in 1991 from Russia. This has given the country the advantage to become a new state with a new constitution. By August, 8, 2000 the cabinet became an e-cabinet, where the 13 ministers did not handles paper files any more, but digital files. Estonians citizens have a digital ID and they can use their ID card for placing signatures. The country also has an e-guard, a voluntary organisation defending the digital government and business systems. The country has also become a cradle for new technology. Estonia is the home of Skype, which was launched 10 years ago. The sale of Skype to Microsoft has brought its founders millions of euro, which have partly been invested in new companies in Estonia.  



The event started with a get-together at the Austrian embassy. As Austria was the initiator of the World Summit Award, the Austrian diplomatic corps often opens the event of a Grand Jury or an Award ceremony. Now it was the turn of the Austrian ambassador Ms Renate Kobler (3rd from the left) to be the host. Also the Dutch ambassador drs. Jos Schellaars was present.

web roi

BPN 1656: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (5)

Saturday, 31 August 2013 | CLOSING OF CONFERENCE
09:30–11:30 Closing plenary & feedback, Conference Centre
11:30-12:00 Coffee break , Conference Centre
12:00-15:00 Writing of Jury Evaluation Reports, , Conference Centre
* 2-3 Reports/ Jury Member

13:00-14:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant

16:00 Arab E-Content Award Plenary, Conference Centre (subset jury)

16:00 Sightseeing hop-on-hop-off bus tour around Tallinn

Sunday, 01 September 2013 | DEPARTURES

BPN 1655: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (4)

Friday, 30 August 2013
09:00–11:30 Business Breakfast, Tallinn Technopol Startup Incubator

* Presenting development trends in each category and development in certain country/region by the assigned jury member)

*Networking

* Bus leaving from hotel at 09:00

11:45-12:45 Visit to the Government Offices & e-cabinet

* greeting from the Prime Minister Mr Andrus Ansip

* Bus leaving from Government Offices for Conference Centre Hotel at 12:45

13:00-15:00 Plenary Round 2 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners Categories 3 & 4, Conference Centre

15:00-16:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant

16:00-17:45 Plenary Round 3 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners Categories 5 & 6, Conference Centre

17:45-18:15 Coffee break , Conference Centre

18:15-20:00 Plenary Round 4 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners in Categories 7 & 8, Conference Centre

20:30 Dinner hosted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Estonian Information System´s Authority meeting in the lobby at 20:15 Restaurant MEKK

BPN 1654: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (3)

Thursday, 29 August 2013 | Grand Jury and e-Estonia B2B Seminar at the Conference Centre of Sokos Viru Hotel

8:30-10:15 Online Jury 2nd Round, 4 Panels with 2 Categories, evaluating the short listed products

10:45-12:30 Online Jury 2nd Round 4 Panels with 2 Categories, evaluating the short listed products
11:00-11:30 Coffee break
12:30-14:00 Preparing 8 Nominations for each category for the voting
14:00-15:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant

e-Estonia seminar & B2B

15:00-16:00 The e-Estonia story by Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General – ICT
16:00-16:30 eGovernance Academy's experiences from the world by Mr. Hannes Astok
16:30-17:45 World-cafe-style B2B with Estonian ICT companies
17:45-19.00 Networking dinner Hotel restaurant
19:15 -21:15 Plenary Round 1 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners in Categories 1+2
21:15 -21:30 Coffee break
21:30-… Preparation for Business Breakfast

BPN 1653: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (2)

Wednesday, 28 August 2013 | Arrival of WSA Grand Jury and Welcome troughout the day

Arrivals

19:30 Reception by The Austrian Ambassador Ms Renate Kobler, Austrian Residence

-        Renate Kobler, Austrian Ambassador to Estonia

-        Prof. Peter A. Bruck, WSA Chairman

-        Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General - ICT of The Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications

21:30 Welcome Plenary, Presentation of Modus, Rules at the Conference Centre, room Grande 1

web roi

BPN 1652 : WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (1)

The World Summit Award organisation is ready to gather in Tallinn (Estonia) for its Grand Jury session of the sixth edition of the World Summit Award (WSA). There has been an online selection establishing the shortlist to be considered. Now the final five place are being decided upon in Grand Jury sessions. Besides Grand Jury duties, the WSA Grand Jury will be in sessions with Estonian organisations and visit the Business Accelerator Technopol and the site of the Estonian government, famous for its e-cabinet.

WSA Grand Jury Chair & Moderator
Prof. Peter A. Bruck, Chairman of WSA Board of Directors, Austria
WSA Grand Jury Members
Christian Rupp, Spokesperson e-Gov Digital Platform, Austria

Witman Hung, President iProA, China

Mihkel Tikk, Head of The Department of State Portal, Estonian Information Systems Authority, Estonia

Dorothy Gordon, DG, Ghana-India, Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, Ghana

Osama Manzar, Founder and CEO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, India

Anne Shongwe, CEO and Founder, Afroes, Kenya

Manar Alhashash, Secretary General Kuwait e-Award, Kuwait

Nibal Idlebi, Chief of the ICT Applications Section at UN-ESCWA, Lebanon

Ieva Zilione, Director, Information Society Development Committee under the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Lithuania

Jak Boumans, Managing Director, Electronic Media Reporting, Netherlands

Marta Tomovska, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Information Society and Administration

Macedonia, Anya Sverdlov

Managing Director, Actis Wunderman, Russian Federation

Mustafa Khan, Director of Center of excellence for Research and Development , Yesser, Saudi Arabia

Jasna Matic, Special Adviser for Competitveness and Knowledge Economy , Ministry of Finance and Economy, Serbia

Ralph Simon, CEO & Founder: Mobilium International; Chairman Emeritus & Founder: Mobile Entertainment Forum – Americas, USA/UK

Madanmohan Rao,  Chief Researcher Mobile Monday, Singapore/India

Chitranganie Mubarak, Senior Programme Head, e-Society Programme, ICTA, Sri Lanka

   
 

Update BPN 1649: E-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

14 August 2013

web roi Dutch eBook Sellers Mandated to Provide Customer Data to Anti-Piracy Agency

Archive for E-Book News

goodereader.com    

 

The Dutch eBook scene has grown up in the past few years and many companies have embraced the digital watermark. 62% of all digital publishers who produce digital books use this technology, while 24% use conventional DRM....

Update BPN 1649: e-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

14 August 2013

Presently more than 75 per cent of the Dutch e-books are DRM-free. This comes down to 8400 titles. Now the publishers still get another chance to move from DRM to DRM-free before September 1, 2013.

Most publishers will have DRM-free titles, but in the distribution things might be different. Bol.com and bruna.nl deliver e-books DRM-free, but with a digital watermark against piracy. E-books, distributed by Apple’s iBookstore and Kobo, still carry DRM. Also Google, since last month a new player on the Dutch e-book market, adds DRM to the e-books sold.

web roi

BPN 1651: On the ethics and law for robots

I am fascinated by the new area opening up on the rights of robots. So far I have not thought about it that much. But it is interesting to explore the area of ethics and law for robots. This is really different ethics from the course I took at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, La. (USA) in 1968. It looks like exploring a completely new terrain in ethics and law. It is not about ethics and law intended for humans, but do humans behave ethically over against robots and do robots have rights.

 

I have become interested in this field as my dear friend Christy Dena has been awarded Australia’s first ever digital writing residency to explore robot ethics at Queensland University of Technology's using high-end technology suites like The Cube, the world-leading, large scale, high-definition interactive display environment. She will be the creator of a project called Robot University.

 

This is the Facebook message she published today.



 

Christy Dena

Tomorrow morning (in Australia), I'll be on ABC radio talking a little about my "Robot University" project. The session is in interesting exploration of robots and their rights. The recording, and transcript, are online now.

The broadcast company ABC has put out this blur for advertising the radio broadcast:

Seattle-based Peter Remine is ready for the day when robots become so intelligent they start demanding their rights. In fact, he’s even formed an organisation in preparation for that time. It’s called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots.

It might seem far-fetched at this stage, but robot ethics and the law is a growing field of study. It’s about their rights, it’s about our ethics and it’s also about liability.

The broadcast lasts 29 minutes and can be listened to or downloaded.

Update BPN 1646: e-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (2)

1 August 2013

Recent GfK market research shows that of all Dutch language titles only 12 per cent is available as e-book. This is most likely a reason why the e-book market in the Netherlands is slow.

In the first half of 2013 e-books had a turn-over of 3,5 per cent of the total book sales. Last month another source claimed 4,1 per cent. Last year the percentage was 2,4.

In the first half of 2013 almost 800.000 e-books were sold in the Netherlands, good for 7,6 million euro; on average 9,50 euro per e-book. More than 80 per cent came out of fiction, while only a little bit more than a quarter of all Dutch language fiction titles are available as e-book.

BPN 1650: Government becomes hacker

This morning I was on Dutch radio (program OVT of VPRO). Using a radio fragment as flash back in history on the subject of hacking, I was asked to comment. Exactly to date, 27 years ago, on July 28, 1986 two 17 years hacked the Dutch consumer system Viditel.

The two high school boys got into the system and were able to reach travel shops and banks. It was an innocent hack. These days sentences for hacks are high and persons behind Anonymous and Wikileaks are seen and treated as top criminals.

The interview was cut short by the actuality of the death of Barnaby Jack. This US hacker was a good guy, who loved to demonstrate how ATM spit out money at wish without using a card at hackers’ conventions. More recently he got involved in medical devices and and showed how sensitive these were. He was able to hack a pace maker and send 380 Volt through a virtual heart. He worked in computer security for companies like McAfee and IOActive.

 

Viditel

Barnaby Jack was only eight years old when the Viditel hack took place in the Netherlands 28 July 1986. Viditel was the first online consumer system which was launched in 1980 on 7 August by the Dutch PTT, copying the British Prestel system. It used a central computer , telephone line, telephone and adapted television set for sending and receiving information.

 

 

The Viditelcomputer was a GEC 408 2 with an internal memory of 384Kb and had six disc units of 70Mb, good for 60.000 videotex pages.  The system could serve 192 concurrent users (something a present ISP would be unable to serve his clients with).

In 1986 the Viditelsystem was hacked by two boys, 17 years old. The hack was reasonably simple, no rocket science, no logarythms. You just call up people who have Viditel, tell them that you are representatives of the Dutch PTT and ask them for their access codes and passwords. The trick is still used by people representing themselves as Microsoft representatives who want to help you speeding up your PC.

It was not the first time the Viditel system was being hacked. IN 1983 it had been already hacked from London by Hugo Cornwall, alias Peter Sommer, the author of Hacker’s Handbook published in 1985. Hugo Cornwall visited an exhibition at which Prestel and Viditel were demonstrated. By carefully checking the finger movements of the British Telecom employeer, he was able to figure out the access code and password. Before the end of the day Higo Cornwall had penetrated the Dutch system. In fact it was not too difficult to crack the system, as the operator send on passwords by fax for everyone to be seen.

Hacking in the eighties

Hacking started with getting into the telephone system. One of the persons who did dthis was Susan Headley in 1977. Hacking the telephone system was partly a sport, partly a way to avoid telephone ticks tobe paid. From 1980 onwards computers were the subjects of hacks. An early example was the breaking into a live television broadcast by the BBC about computers, during which a small poem was projected on the screen.

This incident was rather innocent, but by 1984 more tseps wer made. The Hamburg based Computer Chaos Club (CCC) hacked the BTX system, the German counterpart of Prestel and Viditel. The hackers succeeded to enter a bank’s system and put in a routine which generated an access from the bank’s account to a CCC page every three seconds. As the page had been valued on 10 DM the CCC made 134.000 DM (roughly 75.000 euro). The bank had claimed before that the system was absolutely safe to use. The CCC showed that the bank’s BTX system could ruin any customer. The next day after publication the money was returned to the bank.

In the UK Prince Phillip’s e-mail box on Telecom Gold was hacked. The hackers were able to detect the safelty level of the Prince and discovered that the password consisted of the code 1234.

In the Netherlands also computers were being hacked. Jan Jacobs, a free-lance journalist, made contact from his study at home with the Government’s Institute for Health and Environment, RIVM. Jacobs was able to look into confidential medical dossiers of patients and many other data. An amateur hacker had lended the access code and password to the journalist.  

In the same year two Delft students penetrated into the network of the PTT with 14 connected computers. Names of bad paying clients, secret numbers, but also telephone numbers of private people, companies and government institutions became public. The students, encouraged by Bob Herschberg, professor operating systems, did not have bad intentions and only were willing to show the leaks in the system. Soon after this hack the Dutch government started a commission to research cybercriminality.

Criminal hackers

By the end of the eighties things became more serious. Hacking became ambivalent. You had ethical hackers and criminal hackers. It was shown by a group of hackers who accessed computers of the US government and companies for access codes and passwords. Once they had these codes they started to sell them to the Russian KGB. This was seen by Germany and the USA as cybercriminality.

In the late eighties and the beginning of the nineties criminal hacking could not be prevented. Police statements on hacking still were type on old fashioned typing machines. Even now criminal hacking is difficult to prevent as so many parties, choices and mistakes are involved. The Dutch organisation for computing the public transport ticket organisation chose for a low level security. Within no time the system was cracked. Besdies you can secure a system, but theer are always people who will transfer their codes to complete strangers. In order to fight this habit you will have to start an awreness campaign.   

Government as hacker

Hacking computer was a playful business beginning 1980. But with the banking incident in Hamburg in 1984 and the cybers espionage in 1989, hacking was beyond innocence. Hacking was more difficult to discern into ethical and criminal hacking by the day.  And as government is using various information systems, data can be compared and systems linked with each other. As such the systems can be used to spy and check on citizens. Whistle blowers like Assange, Manning and Snowdon have demonstrated that governments are becoming hackers. This will put hacking into another and higher gear of the ethical dimension: criminal and political.

If you speak Dutch, listen to the interview.

BPN 1649: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

Pirating of e-books in the Netherlands

Many publishers were afraid about the pirating of their e-book titles in the past. With reference to the music industry, they blatantly claimed financial damage from the pirating and download torrents. It is clear that there is piracy (copying e-books) and downloading from torrents for free. But by now there is some experience with piracy and this phenomenon is being quantified.

Pirating is not a phenomenon only related to the book publishing industry. Pirating has become a phenomenon in the music industry, movie and television industry as well as games industry. In all these sectors files have been shared, but with different experiences.

The music industry was the first industry to be confronted with piracy. When the Napster peer-to-peer file sharing was introduced in 1999, the music publishing and recording companies as well as the music collecting societies started to cry foul. But when iTunes and later Spotify came with their services it was clear that the business proposal (low prices and single or flat fee subscription) made a difference. In the Netherlands it can be said that for example Spotify with its flat fee subscription has decreased music piracy since 2008, according to the survey File sharing 2©12, Downloading from illegal sources in the Netherlands.

Interesting is also the conclusion that downloading or streaming from an illegal source usually comes  in third place. Purchasing physical formats in an offline or online store is still most common. In the Netherlands 69,0 per cent of the Dutch population had still bought at least one printed book offline or online. In the second place is free downloading or streaming of content from legal sources. In 2012 only 0,4 per cent of e-books were downloaded from an illegal source. Personally uploading purchased material is done by no more than 5 per cent of the Dutch population.

Not really surprising is the conclusion that for a substantial group of customers printed books and e-books are complimentary. Surprising is the conclusion that people who download e-books from illegal sources are also legal consumers of e-books. So legal and illegal e-book consumption is not mutually exclusive. People who are heavily in books are more inclined to download from an illegal source, but they also consume more legal content and pay for derived products.

Illegal e-book downloaders are also usually characterised as young men and less educated. The survey shows that in the case of books, the popularity of illegal content hardly declines with age up to 54. And yes men are more likely to use free legal sources and illegal sources than women. As for education no real statement can be made about that characteristic. Downloading from an illegal source , shows no significant correlation with the level of education.

By court order the file sharing site The Pirate Bay had to be blocked by the Dutch ISPs XS4ALL and Ziggo. The impression was given that by blocking the file sharing site the illegal downloading would diminish. However more than three quarters of the subscribers to XS4ALL and Ziggo had never downloaded from The Pirate Bay before the site was blocked. Of the remaining 23,8 per cent of XS4ALL and Ziggo customers about three quarters said the blockade had not affected their downloading habits and only 5,5 per cent said they now downloaded less or had stopped altogether.

 

BPN 1648: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (4)

The end of the e-reader

Overlooking the e-book landscape, there are some observations to be made and conclusions drawn. Two of the most dramatic conclusions are that the present e-reader will not have a long life and that the e-book will not remain just a pdf or digital word file with a black and white illustration.

The e-book started out on a mainframe computer as a digital file with words in capitals. E-books have grown along with technology of minicomputers and PCs as well as the (sub)notebooks. From 1985 CD-ROM was seen as a carrier for the digital book file. (The German software company Dataware used the slogan: Goodbye Gutenberg, Hello CD-ROM in 1987). In 1991 Sony started to  store books on minidisks and by 1997 the e-readers were launched amongst others by Franklin with the Rocket eBook. This concept has continued so far, till in 2010 the iPad and Samsung Galaxy tablet came around. This has led to a range of e-book delivery through internet:

- streaming through internet;
- storage of digital file on PCs as well as (sub)notebooks;
- storage of digital files on customised e-readers;
- storage of digital files on tablets.

Of these four ways of delivery the e-readers look to be losing the game in more than one sense. The e-book has on e-readers a pdf and e-pub format. The e-readers have either an e-Ink  screen or a TFT display. The stored file basically contains static information consisting of text and sometimes illustrations in black and white. In comparison with tablets which can play colour graphics, video and music, these devices are multifunctional. In comparison this means that tablets will be the winners as storage as well as streaming media for e-books (used by Dutch public libraries). So the end of e-readers is nigh.

E-readers are not only at the end of their life cycle because of their limited functionality (storage of digital file, black/white screen, special screen for reading in sunlight). But E-book will also develop from storing static information files into text files with moving graphic illustrations and movie fragments. And for this purpose tablets will be used.

In the World Summit Award competitions we have seen at least three e-book projects of the next generation to come: Hiboo, Rooftops at dawn and Oz Book.

From France comes Hiboo, books to explore. Hiboo is a collection of digital books for teenagers on the iPad. Each book is chosen according to editorial choices based on travel, adventure and fantasy. The approach is to offer tools for reading, an immersive environment, an interactive edge and community-based solutions for a new reading experience. 
 

From Hungary comes Rooftops at dawn - literative walk. The product, an application is a mixture of an book, a city walk and an exhibition experience – brought to you on location. The interactive urban walk provides a new way to experience classic literature as well as to experience the city as never before, along with being able to discover parts of local history embedded into a new digital framework.

From Lithuania comes the Oz Book.  “Oz Book”  is an interactive book for both children and the entire family, based on L. Frank Baum’s original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Sixty interactive illustrations featuring beautiful scenes, vivacious music, and special sound effects let children feel the spirit of the adventurous journey to Emerald City, together with all the engaging characters. By lighting candles in the dark, the child finds the sneaky Wizard, helps Scarecrow to whisk angry crows away, or sees Emerald City with green glasses. Powered by a realistic physics engine allowing fast content accessibility, the award-winning Oz Book features a user-friendly interface, magnificent particle simulations, accelerometer and aquatic and/or fire effects, as well as a memory game and magic pictures that come to life as users touch or tilt the iPad. OzBook can be accessed in four different languages including English, Lithuanian, German and Russian.

These are three examples of what is to come. No longer static text dictates the file ; no longer technology dictates storage; but now the interactive storyline and interactive assets will offer a range of opportunities. They will range from a fiction story illustrated with interactive drawings to texts with movies. Non-fiction e-books will become apps containing a storyline with interactive multimedia assets based on a timeline. With this new push the traditional e-reader, based on e-Ink technology, will disappear, while interactive apps take their place.   

Update 27 July 2013
I just saw the rendition of a classic children's tale: The Winds in the Willow. Produced for the iPad, this classic tale has been released by UK-based innovator of digital books BeyondTheStory® as part of its +Book range. Narrator Stephen Fry introduces readers to each chapter and reads selected extracts of the adventures of Mr Toad, Ratty, Mole, and Badger. In addition, colourful animations connect the reader to the wonderful world of the riverbank and Toad Hall – a world loved by many for more than one hundred years. BeyondTheStory®, which built its unique app platform in the UK, has a string of enhanced e-books with the revised version of Kings and Queens by David Starkey, binging to life two thousand years of Britain’s monarchy; the award-winning Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl.