The Online REPORTER
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
August 19 - August 23 1996 Issue No 12
W3C PROPOSES ADDING PICS APPROACH TO CODE-SIGNING
A new project, being considered by the Worldwide Web Consortium, would significantly extend the value of code signing. The problem with digital signatures today is that users have to judge an applet's merits entirely on the basis of its authorship. There's no way that the author can grade his or her work. The W3C committee is proposing a system which is the logical extension of the PICS system that allows Web sites to rate their risqué Web sites for the protect of children. Only here, it would protect sensitive users from risky code. The Consortium's members will vote on September 15th on whether the project will go ahead.
Microsoft has already committed itself to following the W3C's lead on code-signing, yet could find the results of the project painful, since it is already deploying its "Authenticode" system with Verisign (OR issue 11). If the project gets the go-ahead, it is likely to result in a system different from any of today's code-signing implementations but incorporating the best of each, according to Rohit Khare, W3C technical staff member. JavaSoft has also said it will abide by the W3C's recommendations.
If implemented, the project would produce a combined signing/rating architecture with wide applicability to content on the Net. The different signing authorities would be able to set up their own rating policies, and users would be able to choose what kind of code or content they wished to receive. A magazine, for example might decide to rate applets in terms of excellence and a user might decide to only accept applets given more than three stars.
LINUX JAVA PORT ON HOLD, BUT CLEAN-ROOM EFFORT CONTINUES
Concerns over Sun's Java licensing policy led the Linux community to freeze its porting activity last week. However a JavaSoft spokesperson said the problem appeared to have been caused by a misunderstanding. In a Java-Linux FAQ, the porting team described itself as "frustrated and uneasy at the behaviour and ever-changing licensing schemes presented by JavaSoft". It halted distribution of Java for Linux, based on Sun's Software Development kit. However, late last week, JavaSoft spokesperson Lisa Poulson, who has spent time trying to untangle the mess, said "it appears that there has not been a significant change" in the license.
The Linux camp's FAQ suggests that the SDK 1.0.2 license means that all ports of Java (including the Linux one) are now owned by Sun - "that is the essence of the misunderstanding, it appears", says Poulson. Though non-commercial ports do not require a licence and can be freely distributed, they can only be distributed via non-commercial means such as through a Web or FTP server. They may not be distributed on, say CD-ROM. Poulson said she was 75% sure that it was a mix-up that could be resolved swiftly. Sun's lawyers are reviewing the documents now.
At the same time that the port of the official Sun SDK has temporary stalled, a clean-room implementation is going ahead apace. The Jolt (Java Open Language Toolkit) project is being developed by an informal group at www.redhat.com/linux-info/jolt. At its heart is the Kaffe virtual machine built by Tim Wilkinson at City University in London. Release 05p3 runs on 11 operating systems including Linux, Windows 95, a range of Intel-based Unixes and SPARC-based Solaris.
The work already incorporates a just-in-time compiler and in general, says the FAQ, Kaffe is 10 times faster than Sun's interpreter, even before it has been optimised, says Wilkinson. The virtual machine is accompanied by a portable Java Compiler (Guavac) and a set of java.lang libraries called Kream is being constructed by Brian Lantz (brian@lantz.com).
NSI CHANGES DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE PROCEEDURE
Network Solutions Inc, the Domain name registrar for the InterNIC, once again tried to remove confusion over conflict between domain name and trademark holders last week. But no sooner was the new policy announced than it came under attack from trademark attorneys and others who said the new policy failed to fix the problems in the existing policy.
NSI's aim is very simple: it wants to prevent itself as far as possible from becoming embroiled in legal actions between trademark and domain name holders. So far it has found itself as co-defendant in 6 such suits. Whether the new policy will succeed in that aim is highly debatable.
The main change under the new policy is that domain name holders are no longer able to defend themselves by getting a "quickie trademark" from countries such as Tunisia after the trademark has been challenged. The NSI has also made it explicit that the trademark owner must give "unequivocal and specific notice" to the domain name registrant of a violation before running to the NSI. Furthermore NSI has removed the controversial clause that allowed it to demand an up-front, unlimited bond from a domain name holder to cover any NSI legal costs. Finally it clarifies that the only evidence NSI will consider is the trademark owner's certified copy of a federal registration certificate.
Trademark lawyer Carl Opendahl, who has defended domain name holders in a number of cases, is critical of the new policy, saying that NSI has set its own "quasi-judicial" system when it should be left to the courts. Just because a domain name is the same as a trademark doesn't necessarily mean that the trademark is being infringed, he argues. "It is cruelly unfair because in normal court [domain name holders] wouldn't need a trademark registration to protect themselves; mere non-infringing conduct would suffice." "NSI's policy should simply be that domain names are issued on a first-come first-served
ACTIVEX:A WINDOWS-ONLY LOCK-IN FOR THE WORLDWIDE WEB?
Can Microsoft transform the medium of World Wide Web from one that is essentially platform independent to one which can only be viewed effectively from a Windows machine? With ActiveX it is having a jolly good go.
Few people seem to have noticed, or at least commented on, Microsoft's sleight of hand in introducing ActiveX controls as a Web technology. The fact that ActiveX controls will need to be recompiled to run on non-Wintel platforms has hardly been mentioned. The fact that Web site owners will need to keep multiple copies of each ActiveX component - one for each browser platform, hasn't been murmured.
Even when the ActiveX control is written totally in Java, with just a skinny ActiveX covering, it is likely to need recompiling; so the benefits of coding for Java in the first place are lost. Mike Pryke-Smith, Microsoft's Internet tools product manager says that it is too early to know this for sure "but my hunch is it will need a recompile" he says. An ActiveX object is a binary COM object, no matter how much Java is packed into its heart. It will need to be recompiled to match the COM implemention in the non-Windows browser.
Microsoft's big claim to cross-platform compatibility has been based on its intention of getting Internet Explorer 3.0 out for Unix and Macintosh by year end. All the publicity and material from the company imply - and sometimes state that these versions will run ActiveX controls. This is true. The problem is that they won't run the controls that are shipping today. Those will need to be recompiled first, and that's not cheap or trivial.
RECOMPILING FOR MAC AND UNIX
Microsoft is working with Metrowerks in order to get ActiveX working on the Macintosh. As for Unix, it is working with two companies: Bristol Technology Inc of Ridgefield Connecticut; and San Francisco-based MainSoft Corp. Both are Windows Source-code licensees, both are in the business of providing tools that let developers recompile their Windows source code to run on various flavors of Unix. As such they offer fully featured cross-platform development tools for moving between Windows and Unix - and fully-featured does not come cheap.
Bristol's Wind/U package, for example, costs anywhere between $5,000 - $9,950, depending on volume. Each copy of the package produces binaries specific to a particular flavor of Unix. Let's assume that the ActiveX developer would like his or her work to be seen by browsers running on Sun, HP, Digital Alpha, IBM AIX, and SGI IRIX machines - are they going to want to pay
Poor old Brad Chase, VP of Marketing for Microsoft's Internet Platform and Tools division must have had a sore throat by the end of last week. Microsoft mobilized dozens of companies to announce ActiveX controls for the thing. Each press release was accompanied by a statement from Chase saying that "we see tremendous potential for ActiveX controls such as..."; or that he was "glad to see" company X supporting Explorer. He managed to say the latter three times, as he ran out of different ways to express his pleasure.
Frontier Technologies is making the latest version of WebDesigner, version 1.2, for free download from its Web site. It's a WYSIWYG designer catering for tables and frames. The company is using the product as a come-on for its Intranet Genie line of client-server development tools. www.frontiertech.com.
Blue Sky of La Jolla, California has come up with the idea of an ActiveX control that will link Web pages to Windows help files: click on the button on the page, and rather than jumping to another Web page, the user will be linked to any Windows help file. It's particularly meant for those building intranet applications and Blue Sky is bundling the SmartHelp ActiveX Control with a number of its help authoring tools. It should be ready on September 30, 1996. www.blue-sky.com
Tumbleweed Software has been struggling to push its EnVoy portable document system against the momentum built up by Adobe Acrobat. Now it's hit upon implementing it as an ActiveX control. The beta version is available for (surprise!) free from www.tumbleweed.com
Virtual Reality doyen Superscape used to sell its VR clients for lots of money, then it cut the price, now its giving them away free - the more viewers the more tempting the authoring tools. No surprises that it is making Viscape for ActiveX free from www.superscape.com. The system uses the company's own file format, claimed to be more interactive than possible with VRML 2.0.
Fulcrum Technologies has been touting its ActiveX front-end around for a while now, but decided to run it up the flag poll again. It claims to let users view documents on a server saved in over 80 file-formats, with all the original formatting intact. The control is used as the front-end to Fulcrum's Surfboard document indexing and search engine. Free demo at www.fulcrum.com/activex/ activex.htm, though the finished version next month will cost $995 for a pack of 20. The search engine costs $6,250 for "a typical configuration".
ACTIVEX IN BRIEF
$25,000? This isn't to criticize Bristol; the tool was designed for large scale-application porting, not the corner-shop developer who wants to make an animation applet work on all browsers. Bristol's director of strategic relations, Chane Cullens says the company is considering whether to produce a stripped-down tool just for this purpose. But since there won't be any demand for the tool until the Unix version of Internet Explorer ships, a firm decision has yet to made.
NETSCAPE NERVOUS
Assuming that ActiveX controls do get recompiled en masse, and assuming that Explorer becomes available across multiple operating systems, there is still the browser question. Netscape is currently adamant that it won't support ActiveX - its depth of feeling on the subject was demonstrated recently with the announcement of its ONE platform which specifically excluded the work.
Microsoft has circumvented this dislike by co-developing a plug-in with NCompass Labs of Vancouver. NCompass ActiveX Plug-in Pro bridges the competing worlds of Netscape's LiveConnect and ActiveX. But NCompass says it has no plans to port the plugin so that it works with non-Windows Navigators.
It is just possible that ActiveX controls will one day get Java's "write-once-run-anywhere" ability. Microsoft's Pryke-Smith says there is the possibility of using a virtual machine-type approach in future versions of Explorer. In the same way that Java code is interpreted today, ActiveX code would be interpreted within the browser platform. Pryke-Smith admits however that this is "a long way off".
The bottom line then. Developers who use ActiveX components in their Web pages are currently restricted to having those pages viewed by Windows clients running Explorer or Navigator plus plug-in. Even when Explorer becomes available on other platforms they will have to explicitly recompile and distribute variants of the control for each browser platform.
The upside is that in a Windows-dominated world, ActiveX offers faster and more flexible access to the browser's resources. Companies that have already sunk investment in OLE can re-use their code on the Web with the minimum of effort. Microsoft likes to quote figures from the GIGA Information Group showing that $240 million of components will be sold in 1996, to grow to $1 billion by 2000.
But without cheap recompilation tools and cross-browser support, ActiveX could transplant the Windows hegemony from the desktop to the Web. That might not be a bad thing from Microsoft's point of view, but it will be well worth watching how the prospective independent ActiveX standards group will handle the issue. And does it really fit with the ethos of the Web?
AS THE COMPETITION SHIPS, SUN'S JAVA WORKSHOP SLIPS
With Symantic announcing the third rev. of its Cafe Java development tool and Aimtech Corporation saying that its tool, Jamba is now shipping, the question remains: when will Sun ship its Java WorkShop development product?
Though Sun Microsystems' Website says that WorkShop "can be ordered immediately", SunExpress says that you won't actually get it until September. WorkShop was announced in March, amidst the sound and fury of Sun's Intranet strategy announcement, but the product's ship date has been pushed back.
According to IDC Research Manager, Evan Quinn, performance and maturity are the two main challenges WorkShop faces right now. This makes sense since Sun, unlike Symantic, has elected to write its offering entirely in a brand new programming language: Java. Add to this the fact that WorkShop will be distributed through the retail channel, a relatively new experience for Sun, and into an extremely competitive market and it starts to make sense that Cafe is the current market leader.
Symantic claims an 80% market share, with 400,000 units out there and it vows to be first to market with a visual development tool, Visual Cafe, which is expected within the week. SunExpress says the gold code version of Java WorkShop will be available on Sun's Website this August 26th. www.sun.com
WIN '95 GETS SERVER AS TUSSLE OVER NT LICENSING CONTINUES
As the legal bills pile up in Netscape's battle over NT Workstation Web Servers, the company announced last week that it was shipping a Windows 95 compatible version of its FastTrack Webserver.
According to Netscape Senior Product Manager, David Pann, right now the Win 95 license agreement says that an unlimited number of clients can connect to Windows 95. Netscape is billing FastTrack as an entry-level Webserver. So it seems that beginner Webmeisters will have an easier time setting up their home pages than those who are looking to harness the full power of Windows NT. Microsoft would not say whether it intended to impose an IP license restriction on Windows 95.
Interestingly, FastTrack is the first Netscape server to be sold through the retail channel. Pann says that the company that has practically defined Internet product distribution cannot deny that there is something warm and fuzzy about buying your software in a store.
While direct and OEM channels continue to dominate Netscape's strategy, Pann says customers can now approach sales clerks to say, Hey, what's in this box? www.netscape.com
NETSCAPE FOUNDERS SELL STOCK
Netscape insiders have sold more of their stock. Seems shortly before Microsoft unleashed Internet Explorer 3.0 chairman Jim Clark filed papers with the SEC disclosing that he had sold $76.5 million worth of his Netscape stock - 9% of his shares.
Clark got an average of $43.69 for the 1.75 million shares, sold between July 26 and August 8, leaving him with 18.8 million shares still in hand. In February he had sold 30,000 shares for $1.6 million, barely pocket money, but he got $54.13 a share back then.
Other Netscape execs have also been cashing in over the last couple of months, according to filings, adding to bank accounts already swollen by a series of cash-outs in March, shortly after various insider trading restrictions expired. President and CEO James Barksdale recently unloaded 200,000 of his 6.46 million shares for $8.7 million. Barksdale cashed in big time in March when he sold 1.28 million shares for $81 million.
Barksdale's son sold another 100,000 shares this summer. VP Marc Andreessen also sold 100,000 shares over the summer, making him $4.4 million richer and leaving him with 1.6 million shares. In March he too had cashed in in a much bigger way, reaping $21.9 million for 360,000 shares.
Bring up the rear, marketing VP Mike Homer sold 50,000 shares in the past month or so, bringing his stake down to 626,000 shares and increasing his bank account by $2.2 million.
BRITAIN, GERMANY, SINGAPORE, HONG KONG - BLOCK NET
It was either an excellent week for common sense and decency, or a bad week for freedom of expression. Britain, Hong Kong, Germany and Singapore all proposed, or imposed, differing degrees of net censorship. The UK Metropolitan Police Clubs and Vice Unit sent a letter to all of the UK's ISPs listing 134 newsgroups "which we believe contain pornographic material".
The letter does not specifically demand that the groups are removed, but states "we hope... to be moving quickly towards the eradication of this type of Newsgroup... we trust that with your cooperation and self regulation it will not be necessary for us to move to an enforcement policy". The vast majority of the groups listed are of the grimest, paedophile nature.
In Hong Kong 15 Internet providers, including IBM, Microsoft and Hong Kong Telecom IMS have signed a joint statement rejecting government proposals to block indecent Web sites, according to the South China Morning Post. Germany is currently considering its options after complaints about a site featuring a dismembered corpse.
But it is Singapore that has imposed the most draconian measures. Next month, all three Internet access providers in Singapore, Pacific Internet, SingNet and CyberWay, will have to ensure that all their subscribers are linked to new local proxy servers that will block access to all sites the Singapore government deems objectionable.
The Singapore system will check a request for access to an Internet site against a list of banned ones, and bar access if it is on the list. Grounds for banning will include pornography, hate literature and criminal activities, and access to some religious and political sites may be banned. Singapore has about 100,000 Web subscribers.
$100M FUND FOR JAVA HACKERS
Venture capitalist Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers is reported to be sitting on some $100m collected from technology companies that's being earmarked for investment in Java development shops. JavaWorld magazine believes ten companies have contributed to the fund, including Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM Corp, Netscape Communications Corp, Oracle Corp, Tele-Communications Inc and Cisco Systems Inc. And according to the story, the first to benefit from the fund are Marimba Inc and Active Software Inc. Mountain View, California-based Active Software Inc is the company behind SunSoft Inc's Java graphical user interface builder.
It was known back in April that Kleiner et al were one of three investors in Active, but it's not clear whether that money is counted in this $100m or not. The VC company was not returning calls all last wek and has even disabled its Web page for now. Java luminary Kim Polese's Marimba was equally reticent. The Mountain View, California start-up was still sorting out its financing last month, but it's not clear whether this money brings that issue to a close for the moment.
SCO GUTS ITS UNIX TO MAKE A NETWORK COMPUTER OS
Santa Cruz Operation Inc reckons that Network Computers should use x86-compatible processors and run a skinny version of Unix. To that end it has pulled all the pieces not wanted on voyage out of its Unix and filleted it down to 1.5Mb to create NC/OS, the Network Client Operating System.
The operating system is available to manufacturers and integrators now. NC/OS combines the 1.5Mb Unix with TCP/IP networking, Netscape Communications Corp's Navigator client software, and Java environment. The only manufacturer cheerleading for the development so far is Unisys Corp, which though appearing at the launch, does not actually go so far as to say it will use it.
TIME WARNER LAUNCHES FIRST "WIDE SCALE" INTERNET CABLE
In what is being billed as the first wide-scale launch of Internet access by a cable company anywhere in the world, Time Warner will bring its Road Runner online service to its 230,000 Northeast Ohio cable subscribers. Motorola, Inc. will provide CyberSURFR modems and routers for the service and Hewlett-Packard will furnish the back-end server software, in the form of its Broadband Internet Delivery System.
Ed Lewis, Marketing Manager with Motorola, says that if the service is a success, we should expect to see the cable companies moving very rapidly to bring this technology to all markets. For just under $40 per month, users will get access to local content sites like libraries and schools, some Time Warner entertainment fluff and a very fast Internet connection. CyberSURFR can receive information at up to 30 Mbps and pumps it out as fast as 768 Kbps.
Time Warner Cable is America's second largest cable operator with 11.8 million customers, 2,000 of whom are on the waiting list for Road Runner. Time's competitor, Internet provider @Home Network, and Telecommunications Incorporated (TCI) have a similar service planned for Sunnyvale California by year's end. www.pathfinder.com
STOP LINKING TO MY WEB SITE!
Purists may not like it, but walls continue to go up within the Internet. This week Maximized Software announced WebReferee, a Web server utility that prevents Webmeisters from linking other sites to their Web pages without athorization. WebReferee allows Webmasters to decide what other sites can access their own. The utility recognizes whether individual requests are authorized or not. Browsers from unauthorized sites are either greeted with an error message or redirected.
Do products like WebReferee signal the end of unimpeded and serendipitous Web browsing? Howard Fram, product manager for Maximized says that WebReferee were to be expected given the intense amount of development and funding brought by business interests to the Internet. And while Fram concedes that the "Internet won't be what the original creators set out to create", he points out that many of the people who speak idealistically about the Internet are simultaneously peddling their services to this booming market.
Maximized sees WebReferee as meeting a legitimate business need. Frum says that media companies have expressed particular interest, both in order to protect their intellectual property and to reduce the number of uncredited "hits" on their servers. The product is also available in Maximized's Site Shield bundle. WebReferee costs $129 per server. It is available for both Windows NT and Solaris.
INFOSEEK BETAS ULTRA ENGINE
A flurry of announcements came from Infoseek over the last week, but none of them managed to boost the company's gently-sinking share price. The company got its Ultraseek search engine (now renamed Infoseek Ultra) out of the door , however this is being called a "public beta". The engine's main claims to fame are its speed, its ability to keep itself updated and its ability to spot duplicate and dead links. When on its regular twice-monthly indexing sweeps, the Ultraseek spider records whether a page has changed or not, and gradually adjusts the frequency of its subsequent visits to keep the indexed pages in synch. In addition users can physically add their URLs to the database to be indexed. Ultraseek has a database of 80 million unique URLs, of which it has got around to indexing around 50 million. 10 million of these turned out to be dead, another 25 million were duplicates, leaving just 15 million intact. The service is set to be wrapped up into the mainstream INfoseek service "later this year".
The company also announced an elegant strategy for getting Web sites to include links from their pages to Infoseek. The "Infoseek Web Kit" consists of a set of buttons that developers can use on their Web pages simply by including the HTML and image which Infoseek publishes. Each button, which can be used a la carte links to a different Infoseek function.
The final announcement concerned the fact that Phillipe Kahn's Internet start-up Starfish Software has chosen Infoseek as a premier navigation site. The two companies will also undertake joint marketing.
STERLING WEBS OFFICEVISION
Sterling Software Inc's VM Software Division, of Reston, Virginia, has announced VM:Webserver for OfficeVision. VM:Webserver is a World Wide Web server for the VM/ESA operating system. The OfficeVision extension provides a Web browser interface for IBM Corp's OfficeVision/VM electronic mail and diary system giving global access to users on any computing system. VM:Webserver for OfficeVision enables users to attach documents, spreadsheets and other files to their electronic mail. Web browsers can be used to access OfficeVision/VM's diary capabilities. VM:Webserver for OfficeVision will be available in October; pricing was not given. The firm says that future products will address interfaces to DB2/VM and other widely-used applications, and also data security and data encryption.
Progressive Networks now says it will announce its new RealAudio Player Plus this Monday. Player Plus will feature preset Website "station" buttons and a scan option, not unlike a conventional radio. Users will also be able to preset their players so that Progressive Network's TimeCast Website can immediately identify their listening preferences. Other features include: Perfect Play, a caching feature that allows 14.4 kbps modems to play 28.8 kbps quality sound and Selective Record, which allows users to record Real Audio content to their local drive. Progressive Networks says that content providers worried about unauthorized recording can rest easy, because Selective Record can be disabled.
If you're going to sell the Internet, you've got to have a visionary. One week after HP appointed Ira Goldstein Internet technology officer, Xerox Corporation announced that it had appointed Dr. Mark Weiser as Chief Technologist at its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Previously, Weiser had headed up the PARC Computer Science Lab, and was involved in the creation of RSVP, Mbone and IPv6. He is also the drummer for the group "Severe Tire Damage", the first rock band to appear live on the Internet.
Sun Microsystems will be deploying Aspect Development, Inc.'s Explorer CSM system and VIP reference databases across its corporate intranet. The software will support Sun's CAD Component Library Management Program as well as Sun's preferred part and supplier programs. Explorer uses Java-based Web-clients and could work with Sun's Network Computing Prototype, though Aspect says that this is not the thrust of this deal.
One of the biggest come-ons for the Microsoft Corp Internet Explorer 3.3 is over $80 value of free subscriptions or exclusive access to widely-visited Web sites and access portions that are usually paid for :the free subscriptions until December are to ESPNET SportsZone, InvestorsEdge.com, and the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition. Netscape ripostes by saying that Navigator 3.0 will be out next week, and that it takes up less space on the hard disk than Navigator 2.0 or Internet Explorer and is quicker to download, and also has better security; while Explorer 3.0 can be used on Windows95 machines and by the end of the year under Unix, Mac OS and Windows 3.1, Netscape's offering runs in 16-bit environments already.
IN BRIEF
America Online Inc has reported fourth quarter net profits up at $16.1m, which includes an exceptional $5.3m charge from settlement of billing practices charge, on turnover that rose 120.2% at $334.5m last time; net profits for the year to June 30 were up at $29.8m, which includes the above charge, from losses of $35.8m on turnover that rose 177.4% to $1,094m. Net earnings per share rose 133.3% to $0.14 in the quarter, up to $0.28 in the year.
Auspex Systems Inc has reported fourth quarter net profits up 41.5% at $6.2m on turnover up 35.4% at $47.8m; net profits for the year to June 30 were up 60.0% at $19.8m on turnover that rose 40.7% to $162.6m. Net earnings per share rose 33.3% to $0.24 in the quarter, 51.0% to $0.77 in the year.
Bell Cablemedia Plc has reported a net loss for the six months to June 30 of £46.3m, up from a loss last time of £4.8m, on turnover up 15.5% at £33.3m.
BBN Corp reported fourth quarter net losses up at $11.0m, which includes a $20.7m exceptional write-off charge, from $5.9m, on turnover up 45.2% at $68.7m; net losses for the year to June 30 were at $56.6m, which includes above charge, from profits of $64.8m which includes a $105m exceptional gain from sale of assets, on turnover that rose 33.4% to $234.3m.
Netvantage Inc saw second quarter net losses at $1.6m down from losses of $2.1m in the same period last year, which included a $474,000 charge for extinguishing debt, on turnover at $4.8m up from $566,000 last time; mid-term net losses were at $3.0m up from losses of $2.8m the same period last year, on turnover at $5.8m up from $1.1m last time.
Object Design Inc reported second quarter net profits up at $283,000 from losses of $4.6m before on turnover up 28.4% at $9.1m; mid-term net profits rose to $428,000 from losses of $6.6m during the same time last year on turnover up 20.4% at $18.2m same time last year. Net earnings per share rose to $0.01 in the quarter, up at $0.02 in the half.
UUnet Technologies Inc's UUnet Pipex has bought a controlling stake in Belgian Internet service provider INnet, increasing the 14.9% bought by Unipalm Plc last year to 51.8%: the arrangement includes a capital injection of $1.6m to fund INnet's future business expansion, UUnet Pipex said.
FINANCIAL BRIEFS
A new project, being considered by the Worldwide Web Consortium, would significantly extend the value of code signing. The problem with digital signatures today is that users have to judge an applet's merits entirely on the basis of its authorship. There's no way that the author can grade his or her work. The W3C committee is proposing a system which is the logical extension of the PICS system that allows Web sites to rate their risqué Web sites for the protect of children. Only here, it would protect sensitive users from risky code. The Consortium's members will vote on September 15th on whether the project will go ahead.
Microsoft has already committed itself to following the W3C's lead on code-signing, yet could find the results of the project painful, since it is already deploying its "Authenticode" system with Verisign (OR
DOMAIN NAME DISPUTES
Network Solutions Inc, the Domain name registrar for the InterNIC, once again tried to remove confusion over conflict between domain name and trademark holders last week. But no sooner was the new policy announced than it came under attack from trademark attorneys and others who said the new policy failed to fix the problems in the existing policy.
NSI's aim is very simple: it wants to prevent itself as far as possible from becoming embroiled in legal actions between trademark and domain name holders. So far it has found itself as co-defendant in 6 such suits. Whether the new policy will succeed in that aim is highly debatable.
The main change under the new policy is that domain name holders are no longer able to defend themselves by getting a "quickie trademark" from countries such as Tunisia after the trademark has been challenged. The NSI has also made it explicit that the trademark owner must give "unequivocal and specific notice" to the domain name registrant of a violation before running to the NSI. Furthermore NSI has removed the controversial clause that allowed it to demand an up-front, unlimited bond from a domain name holder to cover any NSI legal costs. Finally it clarifies that the only evidence NSI will consider is the trademark owner's certified copy of a federal registration certificate.
Trademark lawyer Carl Opendahl, who has defended domain name holders in a number of cases, is critical of the new policy, saying that NSI has set its own "quasi-judicial" system when it should be left to the courts. Just because a domain name is the same as a
NEXT GENERATION WEBPHONE PACKS FEATURES
You didn't think that Internet Telephony was going to stop at Plain Old Telephone Service, did you? Make a note of NetSpeak Corp, Boca Raton, Florida. It is up to release 2.0 of its WebPhone software, which is already claimed to deliver a real-time business-quality full-duplex encrypted communication system with point-to-point communication to another of its ilk - but you expect that.
What it adds are integrated off-line voicemail, which means that if someone calls and you're not home, they can leave a message on your hard disk; call transfer for the Net; and the ability select your own MIDI hold music. WebPhone 2.0 uses a point-to-point architecture to provide "full-function reliable voice communication".
Conference calls and call transfers can be set up between users with a drag-and-drop function, and the product provides secure features such as password protection and party-specific call blocking.
It uses the TrueSpeech audio coder-decoder to improve speech quality, and auto-selects between TrueSpeech and Groupe Speciale Mobile audio coder-decoders. Party-specific ring through Do Not Disturb means that it will let through the call you are waiting for. There is a NoteBoard for interactive party-specific text chat and a Web browser help application to assist users when placing calls. WebPhone 2.0 costs $50 from NetSpeak via its home page at www.netspeak.com, and from over 500 Internet Service Providers.
MICROSOFT SKUNKWORKS TO SAVE APPLE WITH INTERNET TOOLS
Microsoft Corp has woken up to the fact that from an anti-trust point of view, its position would be severely weakened if Apple went away. The Wall Street Journal reveals that it last year formed a new unit whose role is to help and encourage small software companies write Internet-related software for the Macintosh. The unit, in San Jose, is expected eventually to have 60 employees, most of them long-time developers of software for Mac OS. Traditionally, Microsoft has required independent developers working with the company to write software for Windows as well as for Mac OS or other systems - but without software that is available only on the Mac, the latter becomes more and more superfluous. The new unit told Mac software houses that it is ready to help them in numerous ways, possibly including no-strings-attached cash grants of as much as $100,000. It has also helped start the Macintosh Internet Developers' Association trade group. It will be regarded as having failed if the Mac stays below 8% to 11% market share.
DOT Gossip
Microsoft has reportedly delayed the meeting of the first ActiveX Forum until at least September.
A Canadian company, Freeview Listings Ltd of Vancouver, has snapped up over 9,000 domain names in the last two months. It's trying to grab all the family names, hobbies, pets etc that it can, to lease back as vanity mailbox addresses to its users. 9,000 domain names will cost it $900,000 from the InterNIC in the first year - so it's an interesting, though somewhat risky, business model. Particularly so since e-mail accounts are $4.95 per year with an initial setup charge of $19.95. The company will need to get 10 accounts on each domain just to break even. www.freeview.com
Those with a penchant for tracking domain registrations should send a message to majordomo@pulver.com with "subscribe domains" in the body of the message (sans quotes). Every two weeks the server sends out a snapshot of the number of domains the InterNIC has registered. Currently between 45,000 and 50,000 international domains are being registered every month.
IBM has picked up two more customers for its World Avenue Internet shopping mall technology. Women's fashion retailer Express, a subsidiary of The Limited Inc, and Robert Waxman Camera - have opened their doors at http://shop.ibm.com/shopping/
How long until Microsoft has to release version 3.1 of Internet Explorer? Within an hour of using it, several people at this office came across the same annoying bug. Typing in a URL sometimes repeatedly refuses to take you to the requested page, instead taking you back to an earlier selection. Main gripe on Usenet? That the thing absolutely insists on being installed on the C drive.
Apropos of the above, typing www.w3.org into Explorer 3.0 on the editors machine, doesn't take him to the Worldwide Web Consortium - it takes him to Microsoft.
Fans of Apple Computer's pioneering hypertext software HyperCard can now deploy their existing card-stacks as server-side programs with LiveCard from Royal Software Inc's Heizer Software division. www.interedu.com/heizer/livecard.html
You aren't running the most up-to-date versions of Explorer and Navigator? Upgrade now. Princeton University's 'Safe Internet Programming Group' (aka Dirk Balfanz, Drew Dean, and Ed Felten) found serious Java security bugs in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0beta3 and one in Netscape Navigator 3.0beta5. They say the bugs are fixed in the current releases. A malicious applet could gain at least full read/write access to the victim's files. Full details of the holes are available at http://www.cs.princeton. edu/sip/News.html
Verisign Inc has published an exhaustive (and exhausting) formal description of the formal practise involved in using and managing its digital IDs. Its "Certification Practice Statement" sets out how Issuing Authorities are set up, how they will carry out their business and the exact role of IDs. The document can be found at www.verisign.com/repos itory/CPS/
Playing catch-up Microsoft Corp has also got a 128-bit encryption version of IE 3.0 up on its Web site. Like Netscape, it's for US residents only and an affidavit has to be signed. Checking is via reverse DNS lookup only. The code went up on the Web site for 2 hours on Tuesday, only to disappear and finally reappear late Wednesday evening.
So now you know: Microsoft Corp chairman and chief executive Bill Gates says launch of Internet Explorer 3 is "equally important" as the launch of its Windows95.
Brokers are warming up to the Internet as both a means of publishing and of commerce. The South China Morning Post reports that international brokerage houses are beginning to move their services onto the Internet. While security and identification remain issues of concern, houses like Morgan Stanley, Nomura Securities and Credit Lyonnais are increasingly providing customer services via the Web. Some sites provide only basic company information, while others supply complete access to analyst briefs or can even conduct transactions. The US alone now has 800,000 on-line brokerage accounts.
Spyglass will introduce a new version of its Spyglass Webserver SDK this week according to a report in C/Net.
Though both companies refuse to comment, rumors have been circulating recently that Netscape Communications Corp. is looking to take over Borland International Inc. According to a report in Computer Reseller News, Netscape is looking to acquire Borland's Delphi rapid application development tool and Borland is looking for... well, a profit.
Navigator Product Manager Edith Gong says that there was no scramble on Netscape's part to get Navigator 3.0 out one week after Microsoft's Explorer announcement. "We had been planning all along to release 3.0 at the end of August", she says. As for why Netscape expects people to shell out $49 for something that Microsoft is practically paying them to take, Gong says people will buy Navigator because it is quicker, smaller, more secure and not locked into a proprietary environment.
Hewlett Packard Co has signed with Netscape Communications to include SuiteSpot server software in its HP 9000 Web server line by the end of 1996. HP says that Netscape's FastTrack, Enterprise and Proxy servers are now shipping for the HP 9000. Pricing is $295, $995, and $995 respectively.
Quarterdeck Corp dismissed out of hand a BusinessWeek report that McAfee Associates Inc might buy it.
Nielsen Media Research has found that Internet access in the US and Canada has risen by 50 percent in the last year. Nielsen re-contacted the 2,800 respondents to its Internet Demographics Survey, conducted last year. They found that more than half the Internet users they contacted this time has signed on since the original study. It also found that 21% of those with Internet access had abandoned it. The most common reason for this: "no need".
The Australia Bomb Data Centre reports that bombings down-under have doubled in the last two years, with 315 being recorded in 1995. The Centre blames the Internet for distributing bomb recipes to the nation's youth and it says that restricting access to information on the Net is the only way to deal with the trouble. (Perhaps using the Internet to circulate pornography would be a more effective solution).
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
August 19 - August 23 1996 Issue No 12
W3C PROPOSES ADDING PICS APPROACH TO CODE-SIGNING
A new project, being considered by the Worldwide Web Consortium, would significantly extend the value of code signing. The problem with digital signatures today is that users have to judge an applet's merits entirely on the basis of its authorship. There's no way that the author can grade his or her work. The W3C committee is proposing a system which is the logical extension of the PICS system that allows Web sites to rate their risqué Web sites for the protect of children. Only here, it would protect sensitive users from risky code. The Consortium's members will vote on September 15th on whether the project will go ahead.
Microsoft has already committed itself to following the W3C's lead on code-signing, yet could find the results of the project painful, since it is already deploying its "Authenticode" system with Verisign (OR issue 11). If the project gets the go-ahead, it is likely to result in a system different from any of today's code-signing implementations but incorporating the best of each, according to Rohit Khare, W3C technical staff member. JavaSoft has also said it will abide by the W3C's recommendations.
If implemented, the project would produce a combined signing/rating architecture with wide applicability to content on the Net. The different signing authorities would be able to set up their own rating policies, and users would be able to choose what kind of code or content they wished to receive. A magazine, for example might decide to rate applets in terms of excellence and a user might decide to only accept applets given more than three stars.
LINUX JAVA PORT ON HOLD, BUT CLEAN-ROOM EFFORT CONTINUES
Concerns over Sun's Java licensing policy led the Linux community to freeze its porting activity last week. However a JavaSoft spokesperson said the problem appeared to have been caused by a misunderstanding. In a Java-Linux FAQ, the porting team described itself as "frustrated and uneasy at the behaviour and ever-changing licensing schemes presented by JavaSoft". It halted distribution of Java for Linux, based on Sun's Software Development kit. However, late last week, JavaSoft spokesperson Lisa Poulson, who has spent time trying to untangle the mess, said "it appears that there has not been a significant change" in the license.
The Linux camp's FAQ suggests that the SDK 1.0.2 license means that all ports of Java (including the Linux one) are now owned by Sun - "that is the essence of the misunderstanding, it appears", says Poulson. Though non-commercial ports do not require a licence and can be freely distributed, they can only be distributed via non-commercial means such as through a Web or FTP server. They may not be distributed on, say CD-ROM. Poulson said she was 75% sure that it was a mix-up that could be resolved swiftly. Sun's lawyers are reviewing the documents now.
At the same time that the port of the official Sun SDK has temporary stalled, a clean-room implementation is going ahead apace. The Jolt (Java Open Language Toolkit) project is being developed by an informal group at www.redhat.com/linux-info/jolt. At its heart is the Kaffe virtual machine built by Tim Wilkinson at City University in London. Release 05p3 runs on 11 operating systems including Linux, Windows 95, a range of Intel-based Unixes and SPARC-based Solaris.
The work already incorporates a just-in-time compiler and in general, says the FAQ, Kaffe is 10 times faster than Sun's interpreter, even before it has been optimised, says Wilkinson. The virtual machine is accompanied by a portable Java Compiler (Guavac) and a set of java.lang libraries called Kream is being constructed by Brian Lantz (brian@lantz.com).
NSI CHANGES DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE PROCEEDURE
Network Solutions Inc, the Domain name registrar for the InterNIC, once again tried to remove confusion over conflict between domain name and trademark holders last week. But no sooner was the new policy announced than it came under attack from trademark attorneys and others who said the new policy failed to fix the problems in the existing policy.
NSI's aim is very simple: it wants to prevent itself as far as possible from becoming embroiled in legal actions between trademark and domain name holders. So far it has found itself as co-defendant in 6 such suits. Whether the new policy will succeed in that aim is highly debatable.
The main change under the new policy is that domain name holders are no longer able to defend themselves by getting a "quickie trademark" from countries such as Tunisia after the trademark has been challenged. The NSI has also made it explicit that the trademark owner must give "unequivocal and specific notice" to the domain name registrant of a violation before running to the NSI. Furthermore NSI has removed the controversial clause that allowed it to demand an up-front, unlimited bond from a domain name holder to cover any NSI legal costs. Finally it clarifies that the only evidence NSI will consider is the trademark owner's certified copy of a federal registration certificate.
Trademark lawyer Carl Opendahl, who has defended domain name holders in a number of cases, is critical of the new policy, saying that NSI has set its own "quasi-judicial" system when it should be left to the courts. Just because a domain name is the same as a trademark doesn't necessarily mean that the trademark is being infringed, he argues. "It is cruelly unfair because in normal court [domain name holders] wouldn't need a trademark registration to protect themselves; mere non-infringing conduct would suffice." "NSI's policy should simply be that domain names are issued on a first-come first-served
ACTIVEX:A WINDOWS-ONLY LOCK-IN FOR THE WORLDWIDE WEB?
Can Microsoft transform the medium of World Wide Web from one that is essentially platform independent to one which can only be viewed effectively from a Windows machine? With ActiveX it is having a jolly good go.
Few people seem to have noticed, or at least commented on, Microsoft's sleight of hand in introducing ActiveX controls as a Web technology. The fact that ActiveX controls will need to be recompiled to run on non-Wintel platforms has hardly been mentioned. The fact that Web site owners will need to keep multiple copies of each ActiveX component - one for each browser platform, hasn't been murmured.
Even when the ActiveX control is written totally in Java, with just a skinny ActiveX covering, it is likely to need recompiling; so the benefits of coding for Java in the first place are lost. Mike Pryke-Smith, Microsoft's Internet tools product manager says that it is too early to know this for sure "but my hunch is it will need a recompile" he says. An ActiveX object is a binary COM object, no matter how much Java is packed into its heart. It will need to be recompiled to match the COM implemention in the non-Windows browser.
Microsoft's big claim to cross-platform compatibility has been based on its intention of getting Internet Explorer 3.0 out for Unix and Macintosh by year end. All the publicity and material from the company imply - and sometimes state that these versions will run ActiveX controls. This is true. The problem is that they won't run the controls that are shipping today. Those will need to be recompiled first, and that's not cheap or trivial.
RECOMPILING FOR MAC AND UNIX
Microsoft is working with Metrowerks in order to get ActiveX working on the Macintosh. As for Unix, it is working with two companies: Bristol Technology Inc of Ridgefield Connecticut; and San Francisco-based MainSoft Corp. Both are Windows Source-code licensees, both are in the business of providing tools that let developers recompile their Windows source code to run on various flavors of Unix. As such they offer fully featured cross-platform development tools for moving between Windows and Unix - and fully-featured does not come cheap.
Bristol's Wind/U package, for example, costs anywhere between $5,000 - $9,950, depending on volume. Each copy of the package produces binaries specific to a particular flavor of Unix. Let's assume that the ActiveX developer would like his or her work to be seen by browsers running on Sun, HP, Digital Alpha, IBM AIX, and SGI IRIX machines - are they going to want to pay
Poor old Brad Chase, VP of Marketing for Microsoft's Internet Platform and Tools division must have had a sore throat by the end of last week. Microsoft mobilized dozens of companies to announce ActiveX controls for the thing. Each press release was accompanied by a statement from Chase saying that "we see tremendous potential for ActiveX controls such as..."; or that he was "glad to see" company X supporting Explorer. He managed to say the latter three times, as he ran out of different ways to express his pleasure.
Frontier Technologies is making the latest version of WebDesigner, version 1.2, for free download from its Web site. It's a WYSIWYG designer catering for tables and frames. The company is using the product as a come-on for its Intranet Genie line of client-server development tools. www.frontiertech.com.
Blue Sky of La Jolla, California has come up with the idea of an ActiveX control that will link Web pages to Windows help files: click on the button on the page, and rather than jumping to another Web page, the user will be linked to any Windows help file. It's particularly meant for those building intranet applications and Blue Sky is bundling the SmartHelp ActiveX Control with a number of its help authoring tools. It should be ready on September 30, 1996. www.blue-sky.com
Tumbleweed Software has been struggling to push its EnVoy portable document system against the momentum built up by Adobe Acrobat. Now it's hit upon implementing it as an ActiveX control. The beta version is available for (surprise!) free from www.tumbleweed.com
Virtual Reality doyen Superscape used to sell its VR clients for lots of money, then it cut the price, now its giving them away free - the more viewers the more tempting the authoring tools. No surprises that it is making Viscape for ActiveX free from www.superscape.com. The system uses the company's own file format, claimed to be more interactive than possible with VRML 2.0.
Fulcrum Technologies has been touting its ActiveX front-end around for a while now, but decided to run it up the flag poll again. It claims to let users view documents on a server saved in over 80 file-formats, with all the original formatting intact. The control is used as the front-end to Fulcrum's Surfboard document indexing and search engine. Free demo at www.fulcrum.com/activex/ activex.htm, though the finished version next month will cost $995 for a pack of 20. The search engine costs $6,250 for "a typical configuration".
ACTIVEX IN BRIEF
$25,000? This isn't to criticize Bristol; the tool was designed for large scale-application porting, not the corner-shop developer who wants to make an animation applet work on all browsers. Bristol's director of strategic relations, Chane Cullens says the company is considering whether to produce a stripped-down tool just for this purpose. But since there won't be any demand for the tool until the Unix version of Internet Explorer ships, a firm decision has yet to made.
NETSCAPE NERVOUS
Assuming that ActiveX controls do get recompiled en masse, and assuming that Explorer becomes available across multiple operating systems, there is still the browser question. Netscape is currently adamant that it won't support ActiveX - its depth of feeling on the subject was demonstrated recently with the announcement of its ONE platform which specifically excluded the work.
Microsoft has circumvented this dislike by co-developing a plug-in with NCompass Labs of Vancouver. NCompass ActiveX Plug-in Pro bridges the competing worlds of Netscape's LiveConnect and ActiveX. But NCompass says it has no plans to port the plugin so that it works with non-Windows Navigators.
It is just possible that ActiveX controls will one day get Java's "write-once-run-anywhere" ability. Microsoft's Pryke-Smith says there is the possibility of using a virtual machine-type approach in future versions of Explorer. In the same way that Java code is interpreted today, ActiveX code would be interpreted within the browser platform. Pryke-Smith admits however that this is "a long way off".
The bottom line then. Developers who use ActiveX components in their Web pages are currently restricted to having those pages viewed by Windows clients running Explorer or Navigator plus plug-in. Even when Explorer becomes available on other platforms they will have to explicitly recompile and distribute variants of the control for each browser platform.
The upside is that in a Windows-dominated world, ActiveX offers faster and more flexible access to the browser's resources. Companies that have already sunk investment in OLE can re-use their code on the Web with the minimum of effort. Microsoft likes to quote figures from the GIGA Information Group showing that $240 million of components will be sold in 1996, to grow to $1 billion by 2000.
But without cheap recompilation tools and cross-browser support, ActiveX could transplant the Windows hegemony from the desktop to the Web. That might not be a bad thing from Microsoft's point of view, but it will be well worth watching how the prospective independent ActiveX standards group will handle the issue. And does it really fit with the ethos of the Web?
AS THE COMPETITION SHIPS, SUN'S JAVA WORKSHOP SLIPS
With Symantic announcing the third rev. of its Cafe Java development tool and Aimtech Corporation saying that its tool, Jamba is now shipping, the question remains: when will Sun ship its Java WorkShop development product?
Though Sun Microsystems' Website says that WorkShop "can be ordered immediately", SunExpress says that you won't actually get it until September. WorkShop was announced in March, amidst the sound and fury of Sun's Intranet strategy announcement, but the product's ship date has been pushed back.
According to IDC Research Manager, Evan Quinn, performance and maturity are the two main challenges WorkShop faces right now. This makes sense since Sun, unlike Symantic, has elected to write its offering entirely in a brand new programming language: Java. Add to this the fact that WorkShop will be distributed through the retail channel, a relatively new experience for Sun, and into an extremely competitive market and it starts to make sense that Cafe is the current market leader.
Symantic claims an 80% market share, with 400,000 units out there and it vows to be first to market with a visual development tool, Visual Cafe, which is expected within the week. SunExpress says the gold code version of Java WorkShop will be available on Sun's Website this August 26th. www.sun.com
WIN '95 GETS SERVER AS TUSSLE OVER NT LICENSING CONTINUES
As the legal bills pile up in Netscape's battle over NT Workstation Web Servers, the company announced last week that it was shipping a Windows 95 compatible version of its FastTrack Webserver.
According to Netscape Senior Product Manager, David Pann, right now the Win 95 license agreement says that an unlimited number of clients can connect to Windows 95. Netscape is billing FastTrack as an entry-level Webserver. So it seems that beginner Webmeisters will have an easier time setting up their home pages than those who are looking to harness the full power of Windows NT. Microsoft would not say whether it intended to impose an IP license restriction on Windows 95.
Interestingly, FastTrack is the first Netscape server to be sold through the retail channel. Pann says that the company that has practically defined Internet product distribution cannot deny that there is something warm and fuzzy about buying your software in a store.
While direct and OEM channels continue to dominate Netscape's strategy, Pann says customers can now approach sales clerks to say, Hey, what's in this box? www.netscape.com
NETSCAPE FOUNDERS SELL STOCK
Netscape insiders have sold more of their stock. Seems shortly before Microsoft unleashed Internet Explorer 3.0 chairman Jim Clark filed papers with the SEC disclosing that he had sold $76.5 million worth of his Netscape stock - 9% of his shares.
Clark got an average of $43.69 for the 1.75 million shares, sold between July 26 and August 8, leaving him with 18.8 million shares still in hand. In February he had sold 30,000 shares for $1.6 million, barely pocket money, but he got $54.13 a share back then.
Other Netscape execs have also been cashing in over the last couple of months, according to filings, adding to bank accounts already swollen by a series of cash-outs in March, shortly after various insider trading restrictions expired. President and CEO James Barksdale recently unloaded 200,000 of his 6.46 million shares for $8.7 million. Barksdale cashed in big time in March when he sold 1.28 million shares for $81 million.
Barksdale's son sold another 100,000 shares this summer. VP Marc Andreessen also sold 100,000 shares over the summer, making him $4.4 million richer and leaving him with 1.6 million shares. In March he too had cashed in in a much bigger way, reaping $21.9 million for 360,000 shares.
Bring up the rear, marketing VP Mike Homer sold 50,000 shares in the past month or so, bringing his stake down to 626,000 shares and increasing his bank account by $2.2 million.
BRITAIN, GERMANY, SINGAPORE, HONG KONG - BLOCK NET
It was either an excellent week for common sense and decency, or a bad week for freedom of expression. Britain, Hong Kong, Germany and Singapore all proposed, or imposed, differing degrees of net censorship. The UK Metropolitan Police Clubs and Vice Unit sent a letter to all of the UK's ISPs listing 134 newsgroups "which we believe contain pornographic material".
The letter does not specifically demand that the groups are removed, but states "we hope... to be moving quickly towards the eradication of this type of Newsgroup... we trust that with your cooperation and self regulation it will not be necessary for us to move to an enforcement policy". The vast majority of the groups listed are of the grimest, paedophile nature.
In Hong Kong 15 Internet providers, including IBM, Microsoft and Hong Kong Telecom IMS have signed a joint statement rejecting government proposals to block indecent Web sites, according to the South China Morning Post. Germany is currently considering its options after complaints about a site featuring a dismembered corpse.
But it is Singapore that has imposed the most draconian measures. Next month, all three Internet access providers in Singapore, Pacific Internet, SingNet and CyberWay, will have to ensure that all their subscribers are linked to new local proxy servers that will block access to all sites the Singapore government deems objectionable.
The Singapore system will check a request for access to an Internet site against a list of banned ones, and bar access if it is on the list. Grounds for banning will include pornography, hate literature and criminal activities, and access to some religious and political sites may be banned. Singapore has about 100,000 Web subscribers.
$100M FUND FOR JAVA HACKERS
Venture capitalist Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers is reported to be sitting on some $100m collected from technology companies that's being earmarked for investment in Java development shops. JavaWorld magazine believes ten companies have contributed to the fund, including Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM Corp, Netscape Communications Corp, Oracle Corp, Tele-Communications Inc and Cisco Systems Inc. And according to the story, the first to benefit from the fund are Marimba Inc and Active Software Inc. Mountain View, California-based Active Software Inc is the company behind SunSoft Inc's Java graphical user interface builder.
It was known back in April that Kleiner et al were one of three investors in Active, but it's not clear whether that money is counted in this $100m or not. The VC company was not returning calls all last wek and has even disabled its Web page for now. Java luminary Kim Polese's Marimba was equally reticent. The Mountain View, California start-up was still sorting out its financing last month, but it's not clear whether this money brings that issue to a close for the moment.
SCO GUTS ITS UNIX TO MAKE A NETWORK COMPUTER OS
Santa Cruz Operation Inc reckons that Network Computers should use x86-compatible processors and run a skinny version of Unix. To that end it has pulled all the pieces not wanted on voyage out of its Unix and filleted it down to 1.5Mb to create NC/OS, the Network Client Operating System.
The operating system is available to manufacturers and integrators now. NC/OS combines the 1.5Mb Unix with TCP/IP networking, Netscape Communications Corp's Navigator client software, and Java environment. The only manufacturer cheerleading for the development so far is Unisys Corp, which though appearing at the launch, does not actually go so far as to say it will use it.
TIME WARNER LAUNCHES FIRST "WIDE SCALE" INTERNET CABLE
In what is being billed as the first wide-scale launch of Internet access by a cable company anywhere in the world, Time Warner will bring its Road Runner online service to its 230,000 Northeast Ohio cable subscribers. Motorola, Inc. will provide CyberSURFR modems and routers for the service and Hewlett-Packard will furnish the back-end server software, in the form of its Broadband Internet Delivery System.
Ed Lewis, Marketing Manager with Motorola, says that if the service is a success, we should expect to see the cable companies moving very rapidly to bring this technology to all markets. For just under $40 per month, users will get access to local content sites like libraries and schools, some Time Warner entertainment fluff and a very fast Internet connection. CyberSURFR can receive information at up to 30 Mbps and pumps it out as fast as 768 Kbps.
Time Warner Cable is America's second largest cable operator with 11.8 million customers, 2,000 of whom are on the waiting list for Road Runner. Time's competitor, Internet provider @Home Network, and Telecommunications Incorporated (TCI) have a similar service planned for Sunnyvale California by year's end. www.pathfinder.com
STOP LINKING TO MY WEB SITE!
Purists may not like it, but walls continue to go up within the Internet. This week Maximized Software announced WebReferee, a Web server utility that prevents Webmeisters from linking other sites to their Web pages without athorization. WebReferee allows Webmasters to decide what other sites can access their own. The utility recognizes whether individual requests are authorized or not. Browsers from unauthorized sites are either greeted with an error message or redirected.
Do products like WebReferee signal the end of unimpeded and serendipitous Web browsing? Howard Fram, product manager for Maximized says that WebReferee were to be expected given the intense amount of development and funding brought by business interests to the Internet. And while Fram concedes that the "Internet won't be what the original creators set out to create", he points out that many of the people who speak idealistically about the Internet are simultaneously peddling their services to this booming market.
Maximized sees WebReferee as meeting a legitimate business need. Frum says that media companies have expressed particular interest, both in order to protect their intellectual property and to reduce the number of uncredited "hits" on their servers. The product is also available in Maximized's Site Shield bundle. WebReferee costs $129 per server. It is available for both Windows NT and Solaris.
INFOSEEK BETAS ULTRA ENGINE
A flurry of announcements came from Infoseek over the last week, but none of them managed to boost the company's gently-sinking share price. The company got its Ultraseek search engine (now renamed Infoseek Ultra) out of the door , however this is being called a "public beta". The engine's main claims to fame are its speed, its ability to keep itself updated and its ability to spot duplicate and dead links. When on its regular twice-monthly indexing sweeps, the Ultraseek spider records whether a page has changed or not, and gradually adjusts the frequency of its subsequent visits to keep the indexed pages in synch. In addition users can physically add their URLs to the database to be indexed. Ultraseek has a database of 80 million unique URLs, of which it has got around to indexing around 50 million. 10 million of these turned out to be dead, another 25 million were duplicates, leaving just 15 million intact. The service is set to be wrapped up into the mainstream INfoseek service "later this year".
The company also announced an elegant strategy for getting Web sites to include links from their pages to Infoseek. The "Infoseek Web Kit" consists of a set of buttons that developers can use on their Web pages simply by including the HTML and image which Infoseek publishes. Each button, which can be used a la carte links to a different Infoseek function.
The final announcement concerned the fact that Phillipe Kahn's Internet start-up Starfish Software has chosen Infoseek as a premier navigation site. The two companies will also undertake joint marketing.
STERLING WEBS OFFICEVISION
Sterling Software Inc's VM Software Division, of Reston, Virginia, has announced VM:Webserver for OfficeVision. VM:Webserver is a World Wide Web server for the VM/ESA operating system. The OfficeVision extension provides a Web browser interface for IBM Corp's OfficeVision/VM electronic mail and diary system giving global access to users on any computing system. VM:Webserver for OfficeVision enables users to attach documents, spreadsheets and other files to their electronic mail. Web browsers can be used to access OfficeVision/VM's diary capabilities. VM:Webserver for OfficeVision will be available in October; pricing was not given. The firm says that future products will address interfaces to DB2/VM and other widely-used applications, and also data security and data encryption.
Progressive Networks now says it will announce its new RealAudio Player Plus this Monday. Player Plus will feature preset Website "station" buttons and a scan option, not unlike a conventional radio. Users will also be able to preset their players so that Progressive Network's TimeCast Website can immediately identify their listening preferences. Other features include: Perfect Play, a caching feature that allows 14.4 kbps modems to play 28.8 kbps quality sound and Selective Record, which allows users to record Real Audio content to their local drive. Progressive Networks says that content providers worried about unauthorized recording can rest easy, because Selective Record can be disabled.
If you're going to sell the Internet, you've got to have a visionary. One week after HP appointed Ira Goldstein Internet technology officer, Xerox Corporation announced that it had appointed Dr. Mark Weiser as Chief Technologist at its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Previously, Weiser had headed up the PARC Computer Science Lab, and was involved in the creation of RSVP, Mbone and IPv6. He is also the drummer for the group "Severe Tire Damage", the first rock band to appear live on the Internet.
Sun Microsystems will be deploying Aspect Development, Inc.'s Explorer CSM system and VIP reference databases across its corporate intranet. The software will support Sun's CAD Component Library Management Program as well as Sun's preferred part and supplier programs. Explorer uses Java-based Web-clients and could work with Sun's Network Computing Prototype, though Aspect says that this is not the thrust of this deal.
One of the biggest come-ons for the Microsoft Corp Internet Explorer 3.3 is over $80 value of free subscriptions or exclusive access to widely-visited Web sites and access portions that are usually paid for :the free subscriptions until December are to ESPNET SportsZone, InvestorsEdge.com, and the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition. Netscape ripostes by saying that Navigator 3.0 will be out next week, and that it takes up less space on the hard disk than Navigator 2.0 or Internet Explorer and is quicker to download, and also has better security; while Explorer 3.0 can be used on Windows95 machines and by the end of the year under Unix, Mac OS and Windows 3.1, Netscape's offering runs in 16-bit environments already.
IN BRIEF
America Online Inc has reported fourth quarter net profits up at $16.1m, which includes an exceptional $5.3m charge from settlement of billing practices charge, on turnover that rose 120.2% at $334.5m last time; net profits for the year to June 30 were up at $29.8m, which includes the above charge, from losses of $35.8m on turnover that rose 177.4% to $1,094m. Net earnings per share rose 133.3% to $0.14 in the quarter, up to $0.28 in the year.
Auspex Systems Inc has reported fourth quarter net profits up 41.5% at $6.2m on turnover up 35.4% at $47.8m; net profits for the year to June 30 were up 60.0% at $19.8m on turnover that rose 40.7% to $162.6m. Net earnings per share rose 33.3% to $0.24 in the quarter, 51.0% to $0.77 in the year.
Bell Cablemedia Plc has reported a net loss for the six months to June 30 of £46.3m, up from a loss last time of £4.8m, on turnover up 15.5% at £33.3m.
BBN Corp reported fourth quarter net losses up at $11.0m, which includes a $20.7m exceptional write-off charge, from $5.9m, on turnover up 45.2% at $68.7m; net losses for the year to June 30 were at $56.6m, which includes above charge, from profits of $64.8m which includes a $105m exceptional gain from sale of assets, on turnover that rose 33.4% to $234.3m.
Netvantage Inc saw second quarter net losses at $1.6m down from losses of $2.1m in the same period last year, which included a $474,000 charge for extinguishing debt, on turnover at $4.8m up from $566,000 last time; mid-term net losses were at $3.0m up from losses of $2.8m the same period last year, on turnover at $5.8m up from $1.1m last time.
Object Design Inc reported second quarter net profits up at $283,000 from losses of $4.6m before on turnover up 28.4% at $9.1m; mid-term net profits rose to $428,000 from losses of $6.6m during the same time last year on turnover up 20.4% at $18.2m same time last year. Net earnings per share rose to $0.01 in the quarter, up at $0.02 in the half.
UUnet Technologies Inc's UUnet Pipex has bought a controlling stake in Belgian Internet service provider INnet, increasing the 14.9% bought by Unipalm Plc last year to 51.8%: the arrangement includes a capital injection of $1.6m to fund INnet's future business expansion, UUnet Pipex said.
FINANCIAL BRIEFS
A new project, being considered by the Worldwide Web Consortium, would significantly extend the value of code signing. The problem with digital signatures today is that users have to judge an applet's merits entirely on the basis of its authorship. There's no way that the author can grade his or her work. The W3C committee is proposing a system which is the logical extension of the PICS system that allows Web sites to rate their risqué Web sites for the protect of children. Only here, it would protect sensitive users from risky code. The Consortium's members will vote on September 15th on whether the project will go ahead.
Microsoft has already committed itself to following the W3C's lead on code-signing, yet could find the results of the project painful, since it is already deploying its "Authenticode" system with Verisign (OR
DOMAIN NAME DISPUTES
Network Solutions Inc, the Domain name registrar for the InterNIC, once again tried to remove confusion over conflict between domain name and trademark holders last week. But no sooner was the new policy announced than it came under attack from trademark attorneys and others who said the new policy failed to fix the problems in the existing policy.
NSI's aim is very simple: it wants to prevent itself as far as possible from becoming embroiled in legal actions between trademark and domain name holders. So far it has found itself as co-defendant in 6 such suits. Whether the new policy will succeed in that aim is highly debatable.
The main change under the new policy is that domain name holders are no longer able to defend themselves by getting a "quickie trademark" from countries such as Tunisia after the trademark has been challenged. The NSI has also made it explicit that the trademark owner must give "unequivocal and specific notice" to the domain name registrant of a violation before running to the NSI. Furthermore NSI has removed the controversial clause that allowed it to demand an up-front, unlimited bond from a domain name holder to cover any NSI legal costs. Finally it clarifies that the only evidence NSI will consider is the trademark owner's certified copy of a federal registration certificate.
Trademark lawyer Carl Opendahl, who has defended domain name holders in a number of cases, is critical of the new policy, saying that NSI has set its own "quasi-judicial" system when it should be left to the courts. Just because a domain name is the same as a
NEXT GENERATION WEBPHONE PACKS FEATURES
You didn't think that Internet Telephony was going to stop at Plain Old Telephone Service, did you? Make a note of NetSpeak Corp, Boca Raton, Florida. It is up to release 2.0 of its WebPhone software, which is already claimed to deliver a real-time business-quality full-duplex encrypted communication system with point-to-point communication to another of its ilk - but you expect that.
What it adds are integrated off-line voicemail, which means that if someone calls and you're not home, they can leave a message on your hard disk; call transfer for the Net; and the ability select your own MIDI hold music. WebPhone 2.0 uses a point-to-point architecture to provide "full-function reliable voice communication".
Conference calls and call transfers can be set up between users with a drag-and-drop function, and the product provides secure features such as password protection and party-specific call blocking.
It uses the TrueSpeech audio coder-decoder to improve speech quality, and auto-selects between TrueSpeech and Groupe Speciale Mobile audio coder-decoders. Party-specific ring through Do Not Disturb means that it will let through the call you are waiting for. There is a NoteBoard for interactive party-specific text chat and a Web browser help application to assist users when placing calls. WebPhone 2.0 costs $50 from NetSpeak via its home page at www.netspeak.com, and from over 500 Internet Service Providers.
MICROSOFT SKUNKWORKS TO SAVE APPLE WITH INTERNET TOOLS
Microsoft Corp has woken up to the fact that from an anti-trust point of view, its position would be severely weakened if Apple went away. The Wall Street Journal reveals that it last year formed a new unit whose role is to help and encourage small software companies write Internet-related software for the Macintosh. The unit, in San Jose, is expected eventually to have 60 employees, most of them long-time developers of software for Mac OS. Traditionally, Microsoft has required independent developers working with the company to write software for Windows as well as for Mac OS or other systems - but without software that is available only on the Mac, the latter becomes more and more superfluous. The new unit told Mac software houses that it is ready to help them in numerous ways, possibly including no-strings-attached cash grants of as much as $100,000. It has also helped start the Macintosh Internet Developers' Association trade group. It will be regarded as having failed if the Mac stays below 8% to 11% market share.
DOT Gossip
Microsoft has reportedly delayed the meeting of the first ActiveX Forum until at least September.
A Canadian company, Freeview Listings Ltd of Vancouver, has snapped up over 9,000 domain names in the last two months. It's trying to grab all the family names, hobbies, pets etc that it can, to lease back as vanity mailbox addresses to its users. 9,000 domain names will cost it $900,000 from the InterNIC in the first year - so it's an interesting, though somewhat risky, business model. Particularly so since e-mail accounts are $4.95 per year with an initial setup charge of $19.95. The company will need to get 10 accounts on each domain just to break even. www.freeview.com
Those with a penchant for tracking domain registrations should send a message to majordomo@pulver.com with "subscribe domains" in the body of the message (sans quotes). Every two weeks the server sends out a snapshot of the number of domains the InterNIC has registered. Currently between 45,000 and 50,000 international domains are being registered every month.
IBM has picked up two more customers for its World Avenue Internet shopping mall technology. Women's fashion retailer Express, a subsidiary of The Limited Inc, and Robert Waxman Camera - have opened their doors at http://shop.ibm.com/shopping/
How long until Microsoft has to release version 3.1 of Internet Explorer? Within an hour of using it, several people at this office came across the same annoying bug. Typing in a URL sometimes repeatedly refuses to take you to the requested page, instead taking you back to an earlier selection. Main gripe on Usenet? That the thing absolutely insists on being installed on the C drive.
Apropos of the above, typing www.w3.org into Explorer 3.0 on the editors machine, doesn't take him to the Worldwide Web Consortium - it takes him to Microsoft.
Fans of Apple Computer's pioneering hypertext software HyperCard can now deploy their existing card-stacks as server-side programs with LiveCard from Royal Software Inc's Heizer Software division. www.interedu.com/heizer/livecard.html
You aren't running the most up-to-date versions of Explorer and Navigator? Upgrade now. Princeton University's 'Safe Internet Programming Group' (aka Dirk Balfanz, Drew Dean, and Ed Felten) found serious Java security bugs in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0beta3 and one in Netscape Navigator 3.0beta5. They say the bugs are fixed in the current releases. A malicious applet could gain at least full read/write access to the victim's files. Full details of the holes are available at http://www.cs.princeton. edu/sip/News.html
Verisign Inc has published an exhaustive (and exhausting) formal description of the formal practise involved in using and managing its digital IDs. Its "Certification Practice Statement" sets out how Issuing Authorities are set up, how they will carry out their business and the exact role of IDs. The document can be found at www.verisign.com/repos itory/CPS/
Playing catch-up Microsoft Corp has also got a 128-bit encryption version of IE 3.0 up on its Web site. Like Netscape, it's for US residents only and an affidavit has to be signed. Checking is via reverse DNS lookup only. The code went up on the Web site for 2 hours on Tuesday, only to disappear and finally reappear late Wednesday evening.
So now you know: Microsoft Corp chairman and chief executive Bill Gates says launch of Internet Explorer 3 is "equally important" as the launch of its Windows95.
Brokers are warming up to the Internet as both a means of publishing and of commerce. The South China Morning Post reports that international brokerage houses are beginning to move their services onto the Internet. While security and identification remain issues of concern, houses like Morgan Stanley, Nomura Securities and Credit Lyonnais are increasingly providing customer services via the Web. Some sites provide only basic company information, while others supply complete access to analyst briefs or can even conduct transactions. The US alone now has 800,000 on-line brokerage accounts.
Spyglass will introduce a new version of its Spyglass Webserver SDK this week according to a report in C/Net.
Though both companies refuse to comment, rumors have been circulating recently that Netscape Communications Corp. is looking to take over Borland International Inc. According to a report in Computer Reseller News, Netscape is looking to acquire Borland's Delphi rapid application development tool and Borland is looking for... well, a profit.
Navigator Product Manager Edith Gong says that there was no scramble on Netscape's part to get Navigator 3.0 out one week after Microsoft's Explorer announcement. "We had been planning all along to release 3.0 at the end of August", she says. As for why Netscape expects people to shell out $49 for something that Microsoft is practically paying them to take, Gong says people will buy Navigator because it is quicker, smaller, more secure and not locked into a proprietary environment.
Hewlett Packard Co has signed with Netscape Communications to include SuiteSpot server software in its HP 9000 Web server line by the end of 1996. HP says that Netscape's FastTrack, Enterprise and Proxy servers are now shipping for the HP 9000. Pricing is $295, $995, and $995 respectively.
Quarterdeck Corp dismissed out of hand a BusinessWeek report that McAfee Associates Inc might buy it.
Nielsen Media Research has found that Internet access in the US and Canada has risen by 50 percent in the last year. Nielsen re-contacted the 2,800 respondents to its Internet Demographics Survey, conducted last year. They found that more than half the Internet users they contacted this time has signed on since the original study. It also found that 21% of those with Internet access had abandoned it. The most common reason for this: "no need".
The Australia Bomb Data Centre reports that bombings down-under have doubled in the last two years, with 315 being recorded in 1995. The Centre blames the Internet for distributing bomb recipes to the nation's youth and it says that restricting access to information on the Net is the only way to deal with the trouble. (Perhaps using the Internet to circulate pornography would be a more effective solution).
(c) 1996 May not be copied
online REPORTER, a sister publication of Unigram.X and ClieNT Server News, is published weekly in Europe by:
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