Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Saturday 21 June 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Psion Series 5 day! Delighted to find before the press conference that the company has set up the Web pages for the new PDA, and although it hasn't linked them in they're easy to find by poking around. Get a quick blast out on PC Daily News before anyone else. Then we ambush Guy Kewney as he arrives from the press conference clutching one of the beasts: we shackle him to his desk until he produces the first review - again, as far as we know, anywhere in the world.
Wonderful, this Web stuff! Think it'll catch on?
Tuesday
One of the great things about this job is meeting famous people. I know one's supposed to be journalistically objective, but anyone who claims to be unaffected by schmoozing at a party with Bill Gates (only once, a long time ago. I'm sure he remembers) or chatting with Tim Berners-Lee about Web design is having a wee porky-fest.
Today, I get to talk to Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka. OK, so he's over there and I'm in Pimlico, but the principle's sound. A boyhood hero. I can still remember the impact Childhood's End made on a young Goodwins; I'll never be able to talk to Asimov or Philip Dick, at least in this universe, but the inventor of the geosynchronous satellite and the creator of 2001 is on the line right now.
Only he's not. Indian accents say 'He's not in
Saturday 14 June 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Bonjour, mes amies. Aujourd'hui nous parlons Franglaise
Saturday 7 June 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Microsoft, my very favourite software company, has a big security announcement to make. In order to prevent people from downloading dangerous ActiveX components from the Web, the company says, the next issue of Explorer will classify Web sites into (I paraphrase) 'very safe', 'safe', 'dodgy' and 'don't touch'.
As an exercise in solving the underlying security flaws in ActiveX it's on a par with categorising areas of the UK as good, bad and indifferent. One wonders how AOL will cope with having its Web site stamped as 'don't touch'; under the proposed scheme, it's certainly impossible to say anything else about it, because AOL as a service provider has no way--and no interest--in filtering what its users put up. However, there are many good places on AOL where small companies and other groups can make some damn fine ideas available to all
Saturday 31 May 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Bank Holiday. Ate bacon sandwiches, wrote science fiction, nursed head after weekend of birthday celebration. It's nice to churn out words that don't have megabytes or baud rates attached
Saturday 24 May 1997, 9:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
"NEW PRICING PLAN FOR YOU!" screams my AOL mailbox, with an official looking ID claiming that even cheaper access is here. Click on the link, and you're taken to a Web page designed to look just like an AOL page. I know the difference; you'd know the difference; most AOL users wouldn't. The page invites credit card details and other stuff. I decline, and shortly afterwards AOL causes the page to go away.
This sort of thing is going to get worse, with better and better fakes populating the untrammelled frontier towns of the Internet. Lots of naïve users are going to be conned. You can either think of this as evolution in action, or an indication that as the Web gets more widespread the need for security isn't going to be limited to making sure data is safe in transit. Some mechanism for checking the validity of a Web site is going to be needed
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