The Times: Tech column - Slate gets scammed/CeBIT highlights/Saving Internet radio
By David Rowan
THERE is a famous New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner in which a dog, sitting at a computer screen, confides to a four-legged friend: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." It is a joke that has provoked a few wry smiles this week at Slate, Microsoft's online magazine, where a faked Internet identity has proved how easy it is for even the most sceptical journalist to fall for an online scam. The rest of us can only learn to raise our guard.
Earlier this month Slate published some diaries from Robert Klingler, who - according to his e-mails - is the head of BMW in North America. Although most of his correspondence with Slate's editors took place through his AOL account - robertgklingler@aol.com - Klingler also sent one from his corporate address, rk@ceo.na.bmw.com. That seemed to confirm his identity, and the diaries were published to some acclaim.
Except that, according to BMW, no Robert Klingler is employed by the company. "Slate got taken by an Internet dog," admits Jack Shafer, the magazine's editor, who has apologised to readers for the breach of trust. "You can never be too sure that your fascinating e-mail correspondent is not a barking imposter."
Slate had been "spoofed" - misled by an e-mail purporting to be from someone else. It is one of the easiest scams to perpetuate, and yet takes only a few seconds to detect. Embarrassed that in this case his staff failed to double-check, Shafer launched an investigation which concluded that one Ravi Desai was the likely culprit.
Shafer traced Desai by examining the "Internet headers" on his e-mails - lists of the paths they took to arrive at Slate's inbox. Every e-mail has one, and you can read them using your e-mail program (on Outlook Express, for instance, look under the View option). Unlike some people, Internet headers tell the truth. When you tell your e-mail package what your e-mail address is, you can in fact type anything - even, say, a fake address such as "tony.blair@gov.uk". This is what will appear on each e-mail you send. Of course, replies sent back to tony.blair@gov.uk will be returned as undelivered. But by then it may be too late.
The moral is, reply to any e-mail address you find suspicious and wait for a confirmation. Or look at the headers. Remember, it could always be a dog.
++++
IT HAS been geek heaven this week in the packed Hanover exhibition halls of CeBIT 2002, the world's largest technology trade fair. One of the sexier gadgets was a cheap British mouse-like device called the Soundbug that can turn any flat surface into a loudspeaker. It takes electrical pulses from, say, a Walkman and turns them into mechanical energy that thumps away on a window or table. Just hope no one is using one in your train carriage. But the main business is pushing the next-generation mobile-phone services, in particular General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the "2.5-generation" service.
Indications abounded of the sort of content the phone networks hope will earn back the vast sums they paid for their licences. One company is to offer the first European service of NTT DoCoMo's hugely successful i-mode. And, you guessed it, the "killer app" will be mobile soft porn.
++++
THE music fresh from having suffocated Napster, is now gunning for Internet radio stations. Under American copyright law, the labels are demanding backdated royalties of up to 10 pence per song per listener, working on the assumption of 15 songs per hour, 24 hours a day. According to www.saveinternetradio.org, many online broadcasters face a bill of around £400,000 for the past three years.
Sorry, lawyers. How many Web business can you think of that have made profits of £400,000? This is yet another licence for corporates to squeeze out enthusiasts who are the backbone of the Web.
(The Times, March 20 2002)
THERE is a famous New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner in which a dog, sitting at a computer screen, confides to a four-legged friend: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." It is a joke that has provoked a few wry smiles this week at Slate, Microsoft's online magazine, where a faked Internet identity has proved how easy it is for even the most sceptical journalist to fall for an online scam. The rest of us can only learn to raise our guard.
Earlier this month Slate published some diaries from Robert Klingler, who - according to his e-mails - is the head of BMW in North America. Although most of his correspondence with Slate's editors took place through his AOL account - robertgklingler@aol.com - Klingler also sent one from his corporate address, rk@ceo.na.bmw.com. That seemed to confirm his identity, and the diaries were published to some acclaim.
Except that, according to BMW, no Robert Klingler is employed by the company. "Slate got taken by an Internet dog," admits Jack Shafer, the magazine's editor, who has apologised to readers for the breach of trust. "You can never be too sure that your fascinating e-mail correspondent is not a barking imposter."
Slate had been "spoofed" - misled by an e-mail purporting to be from someone else. It is one of the easiest scams to perpetuate, and yet takes only a few seconds to detect. Embarrassed that in this case his staff failed to double-check, Shafer launched an investigation which concluded that one Ravi Desai was the likely culprit.
Shafer traced Desai by examining the "Internet headers" on his e-mails - lists of the paths they took to arrive at Slate's inbox. Every e-mail has one, and you can read them using your e-mail program (on Outlook Express, for instance, look under the View option). Unlike some people, Internet headers tell the truth. When you tell your e-mail package what your e-mail address is, you can in fact type anything - even, say, a fake address such as "tony.blair@gov.uk". This is what will appear on each e-mail you send. Of course, replies sent back to tony.blair@gov.uk will be returned as undelivered. But by then it may be too late.
The moral is, reply to any e-mail address you find suspicious and wait for a confirmation. Or look at the headers. Remember, it could always be a dog.
++++
IT HAS been geek heaven this week in the packed Hanover exhibition halls of CeBIT 2002, the world's largest technology trade fair. One of the sexier gadgets was a cheap British mouse-like device called the Soundbug that can turn any flat surface into a loudspeaker. It takes electrical pulses from, say, a Walkman and turns them into mechanical energy that thumps away on a window or table. Just hope no one is using one in your train carriage. But the main business is pushing the next-generation mobile-phone services, in particular General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the "2.5-generation" service.
Indications abounded of the sort of content the phone networks hope will earn back the vast sums they paid for their licences. One company is to offer the first European service of NTT DoCoMo's hugely successful i-mode. And, you guessed it, the "killer app" will be mobile soft porn.
++++
THE music fresh from having suffocated Napster, is now gunning for Internet radio stations. Under American copyright law, the labels are demanding backdated royalties of up to 10 pence per song per listener, working on the assumption of 15 songs per hour, 24 hours a day. According to www.saveinternetradio.org, many online broadcasters face a bill of around £400,000 for the past three years.
Sorry, lawyers. How many Web business can you think of that have made profits of £400,000? This is yet another licence for corporates to squeeze out enthusiasts who are the backbone of the Web.
(The Times, March 20 2002)
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