Revision3 Servers Brought Down By MediaDefender DoS Attack
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
This is a bit outside our typical topical content here on A+E, but I wanted to highlight it anyway, as it’s a disturbing example of an attack on a legit new media company.
Over the recent Memorial Day weekend, Revision3, a company specializing in producing ad-supported video podcasts (including the immensely popular Diggnation, of which we are big fans), fell victim to a denial of service (DoS) attack that knocked their website, RSS feeds, email and much of their content distribution offline for most of the weekend. These type of malicious attacks are not uncommon, particularly against well-known companies.
What makes the story particularly disturbing is that, according to Revision3’s CEO Jim Louderback, the DoS attack was launched by MediaDefender, an anti-piracy group employed in the past by the RIAA, MPAA and other old media companies. The DoS attack was apparently targeted at Rev3’s BitTorrent servers (BitTorrent is a popular peer-to-peer content distribution protocol, often utilized to disseminate copyrighted material such as music, movies, etc.). Revision3, however, only distributed their own content over the BT protocol, so there was no clear reason why MediaDefender would choose to target them (BTW, such vigilante DoS attacks are illegal).
The story gets murkier as Rev3 has investigated and apparently the FBI is looking into the matter as well. Clearly, Revision3 has done nothing but distribute their own content over a perfectly legitimate content distribution network, so they should in no way have to fear being targeted by such old-media industry “watchdogs”. MediaDefender has clearly overstepped their bounds, targeting a legit small business venture, and one can only hope that they pay a price for that. FBI involvement in the matter is certainly a good first step.
Get the full story direct from Revision3’s CEO Jim Louderback here.
Garmin Unveils Nüvifone, First Real Competitor to the iPhone?
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
When we say “first real competitor to the iPhone”, we aren’t alleging there are not better selling mobile phones than Apple’s iPhone (though selling more than 22,000 smart phones per day isn’t too shoddy). No, we’re speaking of UI; user interface design. Even many of those aren’t particular fans of Apple’s mobile device acknowledge the idea that many of the UI innovations introduced in the iPhone will begin making their way into other mobile phones in the coming months and years.
Verizon has marketed LG’s Voyager as very much the iPhone-style, touch screen-driven device, but the Voyager’s touch functionality is significantly limited and isn’t even the primary interface for the phone’s OS.
Garmin, however, producers of some of the best-selling hand-held GPS devices, is now entering the smartphone market later this year with the Nüvifone, and based some of the initial available screenshots, it may be the first competing smartphone to really give the iPhone a run for its money.
Electronista highlights just how the phone’s GPS core will integrate with its smartphone functionality:
Almost entirely controlled by a 3.5-inch touchscreen interface, the device centers around its native GPS unit: in addition to straightforward navigation, a host of Google apps allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic, and view nearby weather. Any photos or videos taken with the built-in camera are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services.
Of course, we’ve yet to see a working model of the Nüvi. As noted by John Gruber, the only “screenshots” we’ve seen thus far are entirely mocked up vector art; they are currently no legitimate screengrabs available. So who knows where this announcement falls on the vaporware scale, but assuming it does make its way to market at some point this year, Garmin may well have a hit on their hands.
RIM to (Finally!) Add HTML Email Support to Blackberry Platform
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
RIM has finally announced support for viewing of HTML emails on its Blackberry devices, via a press release last week. Given the percentage of business users regularly employing Blackberrys for viewing their email (back in October we discussed the latest numbers on mobile access as a primary means of email viewing for 37% of business users). This is a major step forward for those of us on the production side of email marketing, as RIM holds a significant share of the smart phone market and the addition of this feature set will make it easier for marketers to know they’re targeting Blackberry users with the full impact of the graphic/HTML campaigns.
Based on their release, it appears that the functionality will be added as a software/firmware update, meaning existing Blackberry users should be able to install the update and gain the functionality on their current devices, rather than necessarily needing to purchase a new Blackberry model.
(via Campaign Monitor)
2008 Macworld Keynote: The Small Business Perspective
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Yet another Steve Jobs Macworld keynote presentation is in the books and, as would be expected, the Apple faithful are all abuzz. As a major fan (and consumer) of Apple’s products, Jobs’ annual keynote is very much the equivalent of Christmas morning for (Mac) geeks. Present company included.
At the moment, most of the buzz coming out of this morning’s presentation is surrounding the new MacBook Air, Apple’s almost-but-not-quite-ultra-portable notebook computer. Weighing in at less than three pounds and barely 3/4″ inch, it’s clearly one sexy machine, and one that I’m sure will sell like crazy.
Sitting back and digesting this year’s event, I’m focusing on today’s announcements from the perspective of a small business owner; what did Steve Jobs unveil that we can really incorporate into our workflow to help us work better, faster and more efficiently for our clients?
Dreamhost Accidentally Charges Their Entire User Base for Hosting Services That Weren’t Yet Due
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Ouch. Glad I’m not in these guys shoes this morning.
The fine folks at Dreamhost, one of the better known (not always for the right reasons) low-cost shared hosting providers, managed to incorrectly bill all of their users for past-due web hosting services. For most of those users, though, their accounts weren’t past due. The billing happened because an automated billing system and one keystroke error: billing every as if today was 2008-12-31 (they intended to bill accounts that hadn’t paid up as of 2007-12-31).
You can see the fall out on their blog, the main posting for which currently has more than 1,000 comments (most of them none-too-happy).
This is just the latest in a long string of problems folks have experienced with Dreamhost’s shared-hosting services over the past couple years. We used to host our site and mail servers with Dreamhost, but their frequent outages (which always seemed to come at the most inopportune times) finally forced us to move on to our current hosts, MediaTemple (who do a spectacular job, btw!).
Script Leaked for Tomorrow’s Macworld Keynote?
Monday, January 14th, 2008
As with any Apple rumor, take this one with a grain of salt, but there’s been a supposed leaked copy of the script for Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote address (scheduled for tomorrow morning) that’s been making its way around the internet since first popping up on Wikipedia Friday.
It’s a fairly intriguing read, and seems to fall in realistic spot as far as expectations - this would be a good, though not earth-shattering set of announcements (hey, we can’t have the introduction of something as big as the iPhone every year).
The only item on this list that really makes me doubt it’s authenticity is the “one more thing”, which would simply be the ability to download Y0uTube clips (yawn). There’s no way Jobs is ending any Macworld keynote with an announcement that lackluster.
Still a good read though, whether it turns out to be authentic or simply a well-written fake.
Network Solutions Now in the Business of Domain Name Squatting?
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
A number of blogs in recent days have written up a rather disturbing practice implemented by Network Solutions, in which they apparently register domains that you search for (but don’t register) via their website. For instance, if I do a domain search for “ineedanewdomain.com” via the Network Solutions website, but decide not to register it at that time, I’ll no longer be able to purchase rights to that domain anywhere but Network Solutions. Any attempts to do so return a WHOIS search result listing “This Domain is available at NetworkSolutions.com” as the company name.
The practice is known as “front running”, scanning domain search records to find domains to purchase based on others having searched for them, and Network Solutions is claiming that what they’re doing is specifically designed to “protect customers from frontrunners.” By front running themselves. Of course, it makes perfect sense.
Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
We’re heading into the final days of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative allowing you to purchase one XO laptop to donate to a child in another country and one XO for your own personal use. The combo deal runs $399 and the retail value of the donated XO ($200) is tax deductible.
This offer was initially set to run only for a week last month, but due to overwhelming demand, has been held over through December 31st.
As if the chance to grab an XO for yourself isn’t enough of a hook, there are a number of additional offers added to sweeten the deal, including a complimentary one-year subscription to T-Mobile’s HotSpot wi-fi access, a $360 value.
For more info, go to www.laptop.org.
Chip Kidd on The Amazon Kindle
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
In the vein of our initial impressions of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, Chip Kidd sums it up in one sentence:
I’ve been asked to comment on what effect I think this will have, if any, on book design as we know it. Here goes.
None.
(via A Brief Message)
Best Buy Gets Snarky Regarding the iPhone
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Though I don’t make much use of it anymore, I’ve been a member of Best Buy’s Rewards Zone program for a number of years, and as such, receive Best, their pseudo-magazine each year at the start of the holiday shopping season. The magazine typically presents relatively “fluff” pieces covering the latest technology and highlighting brands and models available in-store.
This year’s edition features a write-up on various smart phones, and has an interesting side bar (p. 77) on Apple’s iPhone. Of course, Best Buy cannot sell iPhones, as the device is still only available either direct from Apple (via their online or brick-and-mortar stores) or via AT&T Wireless. Given Best Buy’s iPhone status (i.e., on the outside looking in), it’s not entirely surprising the snarky tone they take in assessing the iPhone’s value (or in their words, lack thereof) to the business user:
“But iPhone is not as smart as Apple thinks it is. Most glaring is iPhone’s current lack of compatibility with push Microsoft Exchange and Blackberry e-mail, essential components for corporate adoption. And AT&T’s slow and erratic EDGE network cripples Web surfing and e-mail downloads … iPhone is packed with a lot of distractions. After all, who wants to work when you can watch a movie, listen to music, or surf YouTube?”
Of course, while the EDGE network “cripples” surfing and downloads for iPhone, it apparently is perfectly sufficient for other AT&T smart phones, such as the Blackberry Curve and Samsung Blackjack (i.e., those that Best Buy can actually sell).
It’s not that they’re not raising some valid points (e.g., Exchange support is a non-starter for a fair number of business users), it’s the way in which they’re doing it, which comes off as little more than a case of sour grapes to the informed reader.