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Great words: "Pogo-sticking"

In her "Web Watch" column in Sunday's Washington Post , Leslie Walker reported on the new preview feature recently added to the Ask Jeeves search engine. For visitors who are using Internet Explorer on a broadband connection, search results now include thumbnail images of the sites returned in response to their queries. (To view the images, you position your mouse over an image of binoculars to the left of the site listing.)

Walker quotes Jim Lanzone, Jeeves's senior vice president of search properties, on the merits of the site preview feature:

It eliminates the need to go pogo-sticking around the Web to decide where you want to go.

What a great image: Jeeves the searchbutler, hopping around cyberspace with his little binoculars in hand, collecting screenshots so you don't have to.

A Hacker's Tale

Yesterday's edition of NewsScan Daily contains a letter from a hacker who calls himself maelstrom. maelstrom presents NewsScan's readers' with the heart-rending tale of a former-cop-turned-computer-security-administrator-turned-hacker and asks, "Was this justice?"

The tale begins when the hacker/hero's job at a large pharmaceutical company is outsourced to IBM. When IBM does not then hire him, he hacks into the pharma company's network and deletes the account of his former superior.

A company technician resolves the problem and identifies the former employee as its source -- work whose market value maelstrom estimates at $1500. To avoid similar problems in the future, the pharma company calls in IBM to "validat[e] tens of thousands of user accounts and [draw] up new policies and procedures for increased security" -- work for which IBM bills the pharma company $80,000. The pharma company calls in the FBI.

Four years later, in 2004, the case goes to court. Using the $80,000 figure, the government has charged the hacker under the federal computer crime statute, which applies when the alleged damage is worth $5,000 or more. Defense efforts to plea-bargain for a lesser charge have fallen on deaf ears.

At trial, the hacker does not deny his guilt, but argues that the value of the damage he actually committed was only $1500. He is quickly convicted and faces a large fine and up to 12 years in federal prison.

maelstrom wants to know, "Was this justice? What would you have done if you were a juror?"

Here's my response:

"What would you have done if you were a juror?" is the wrong question -- or at least a question distinct from issues of justice and punishments that do or don't fit the crime.

Jurors are sworn -- for good or ill -- to weigh the facts and testimony presented to them and decide whether an accused person has violated the law. As any Law and Order addict knows, jurors must make this decision without regard to their personal opinions of the law or the possible punishment that may result from their decision. (That's why potential jurors whose conscience would prevent them from voting to convict in a death penalty case are dismissed during the voir dire.) Since the hacker's guilt seems not to be in question here, I think jurors had no choice but to convict.

A more important set of questions involves whether the prosecutor properly exercised discretion in charging the hacker with the larger crime, how much latitude the judge has in imposing a sentence, and whether the judge exercises proper discretion. Computer crimes like this one are tried in a highly politicized context. What pressures are exerted on the prosecutor's office to take a hard line on security violations? How much influence do major players like IBM and Big Pharma have in a post-Enron world? What do the corporations gain by helping the prosecution build a stronger case?

For a related example, see this front-page article from the June 4 Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required): "Prosecutors' Tough New Tactics Turn Firms Against Employees." It concerns the government's prosecution of individuals employed by KPMG, the giant accounting and consulting firm, for marketing illegal tax shelters. In response to stiff federal sentencing guidelines governing white-collar crimes, KPMG is minimizing its own exposure to prosecution by "cooperating" in cases against its employees and former employees. Such cooperation entails waiving the attorney-client privilege, thereby giving prosecutors access to internal company investigations. According to critics, the guidelines induce companies to "break faith with their own employees" and protect corporate interests by "fir[ing] people, snitch[ing] on them, refus[ing] to pay their legal fees and withhold[ing] documents they need" in their own defense. The Frontline documentary "Tax Me If You Can," available online, takes a different slant on the same case. But it, too, demonstrates how white-collar criminal cases can attain sufficient notoriety to make prosecutors dig in their heels rather than plea-bargain.

A related issue is the political context in which legislation is drafted, debated, modified, and eventually passed. How were the financial limits that affect the hacker's case arrived at? What special interests, media pressures, or public outrages lurk in the legislative history of the applicable statutes?

While the hacker's behavior is unjustifiable, the outsourcing of his job reflects a burgeoning issue that has both tragic personal consequences and broad public policy implications. If outsourcing and offshoring had attained the same hot-button status as corporate white-collar crime, it is at least theoretically possible that the prosecutor would have been under pressure to go easy on those perceived to be its victims.

Finally, maelstrom asks of the hacker's conviction, "Was this justice?" -- an elusive question if ever there was one. Justice under the law is not necessarily equivalent to moral justice or simple fairness, and justice surely exists largely in the eye of the beholder. Without attempting to parse such philosophical questions, it may be said that the timing of the hacker's prosecution -- if not the crime itself -- could hardly have been worse from a public relations standpoint. Even in questions of justice, it seems, timing is everything.

More on newsreaders

Thanks to Cindy L. Chick of Law Library Tech for pointing out the excellent review of newsreaders (the software applications that bring blog postings to your desktop) in the July issue of PC World, "News On Demand" a jargon-lite review and comparison of seven newsreaders complete with an expanded comparison chart encompassing 18 newsreaders. Author Bob Stepno also offers a peek at the future of newsreaders.

Favorite Sites: Time Online's 50 Coolest Websites

The current issue of Time Magazine Online features an eclectic roundup of the year's 50 Coolest Websites -- that is, "50 nifty links" author Maryanne Murray Buechner thinks you should check out.

Actually, you'll find more than 50 links -- in the "Bloglines.com" entry, for example, which introduces three excellent newsreaders (also known as news aggregators, blog aggregators, or feed readers). If you're still receiving Metaforix@ Digest in your inbox, you may want to take this opportunity to experiment with receiving our pearls of wisdom as soon as they are posted to the Internet.

In addition to the online newsreaders Buechner mentions, you might also want to look at Pluck, a downloadable newsreader that's easy to use and incorporates some additional bells and whistles.

Some of my other favorites on the Time list:

-- Fedstats.gov, a treasure-trove of statistics from over 100 US government agencies

-- SSA.gov/OACT/babynames, a "cultural snapshot" of popular names from the 1880s to 2003

-- Wordswithoutborders.org, an online literary magazine of translated works by authors who write in languages other than English

-- Craigslist.org, an online community that I use just for classified ads that also offers "gossip, stories, and inspiration"

-- Tolerance.org, a site filled with ways to fight hatred and discrimination

-- A9.com, a new search engine from Amazon.com that supports Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature

I hope you'll explore some of the sites on Time Online's list and let me know what you think of them by posting a comment below or emailing editor @ metaforix.com. (Be sure to delete the spaces before and after the @ sign when you paste this address into the "To" line of your e-mail message.)

"What's in a (gmail) name?"

Online marketing whiz Debbie Weil is having second thoughts about Gmail.

She fesses up to buying a Gmail invite on ebay -- where they're still in some demand, despite the fact that Google, in an inspired bit of viral marketing, seems to have dramatically increased the supply over the last week or two. Although Debbie got the name she coveted, she's more critical of Gmail now that she's had time to test it and compare it with the new, improved Yahoo! mail.

Debbie is "not convinced gmail is the next new thing" -- and she may be right. But I'm still convinced it's the new thing of the moment.

Here's why.

For starters, if I learned anything at all from my Gmail contest, it's that cool, easy-to-remember user names are desirable and important to people, regardless of age or profession. Whether "cool" means a name that incorporates your given name, your brand, or your wannabe online identity, getting something as personal as the name you want makes it worth being the first on the block to have Gmail.

In addition, while I agree that the lack of a "save draft" function is a pain in the Gmail, Yahoo!'s cleaned-up mail interface still can't compare with Gmail's. For now, at least, the Gmail interface has nothing that blinks or otherwise intrusively distracts me from what I'm doing -- which is reading or writing messages. As I've said previously, I haven't paid much attention to the ads so far. In part, that's because they haven't demanded my attention the way blinking graphics do. I also think there has been an element of testing how easy it would be to ignore them. Granted, with all the time I spend online, I've had lots of practice at learning to avoid ads I don't want to see. But the Google ads have been genuinely unobtrusive.

One more thing: I'm delighted that Gmail, in particular, and Google's business activities, in general, have at least temporarily bridged the digital culture gap between geeks, financial analysts, marketers, general business users, privacy advocates, and other segments of the cyberuniverse. Regardless of how different users view Gmail or whether they're even interested enough to check out the site, the Gmail phenonmenon encourages conversations between different segments of the online population.

From my vantage point, such conversations can only be good. They increase our collective sense of ownership of the Internet and remind us that no citizen of a post-industrial democracy can opt out of the Information Age. They engage a more diverse group of people in the policy and business considerations that will shape the Internet's future.

From the standpoint of doing business online, the Gmail phenomenon should remind marketers, entrepreneurs, and wired professionals that a critical mass of exposure may be necessary for people to become familiar with what new digital technologies are available, how they work, and what personal or business benefits they offer. We may have underestimated the size of that critical mass and, as a result, we may not be reaching people who could benefit from our services -- or not reaching them in a comprehensible way.

People shouldn't need a college degree's worth of new vocabulary and technological skills to access the business benefits of the Internet. Which takes me back to where I started.

One reason Debbie Weil is an online marketing whiz is that she keeps the tech talk to a minimum and the high-value ideas to a maximum. Check out her upcoming online event, the Uncool Blogging Seminar, to see what I mean.

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Cool tools: WebEyes

For the past month or so, my online eyestrain quotient has been pleasantly reduced, thanks to a wonderful piece of software called WebEyes. WebEyes is a plug-in that works with your web browser to adjust the size of the type on almost any website you visit, from 4 point to 144 point.

Now, I'll admit that my eyes are not as young and spry as they used to be. But people of all ages who are heavy Internet users, in addition to people with limited vision, are finding WebEyes a great boon.

In addition to adjusting type size, WebEyes has a feature called "Read Like a Book" that allows you to covert the appearance of the page from a scrolling document to a book-like format, with or without graphics. Columns of type appear in the size and font of your choice. To turn the page, you click on a page-counter icon. You can try an interactive WebEyes demo here. A fifteen-day free trial is also available, here.

When you install WebEyes to your browser -- which must be Internet Explorer, version 5.5 or higher -- a toolbar is added below your Links toolbar that allows you to control the WebEyes functions. (To check the your version of Internet Explorer, click on the Help menu, select About Internet Explorer, and look for the version number in the Microsoft pop-up window. If you do not have version 5.5 or higher, you can visit the Microsoft site for a free upgrade of your present version.)

If you have ever used the Windows options for changing font size, you will find WebEyes a much more flexible and reliable solution. Because the software "redraws" each character, it overrides the coding on many web pages that normally prevents Windows from changing the font size without distorting the appearance of the page.

WebEyes does have some limitations. I have found that it works on most, but not all web pages. If I forget to click on the web text after changing the font size, the size continues to increase as I try to scroll down the page. (This became a minor inconvenience once I recognized the problem -- and it may have something to do with my particular mouse controls.) When you print a page you have been reading, the point size and font do not reflect the on-screen changes made by WebEyes. And I would like to have WebEyes move seamlessly between Internet Explorer and desktop applications like Microsoft Word nad Outlook.

I spoke with WebEyes executive Tom Thomas, first about an installation support issue and later about who is using WebEyes and how it is being marketed. Tom and his colleagues provide friendly, responsive, rapid support by both phone and e-mail. The aura is Missouri Main Street, as opposed to Anonymous Call Center.

Tom acknowledged that a spike in sales had resulted from Walter Mossberg's positive review in the May 5 Wall Street Journal. As might be expected, many individuals who gladly fork over $19.95 for WebEyes are older people with failing eyesight and, at times, limited computer literacy. However, Tom has also seen a spate of accountants purchasing WebEyes to improve the visibiity of their Excelspreadsheets. (To do so, users need the skills to view their spreadsheets within Internet Explorer.)

Tom believes the accountant boom is an initial recognition that WebEyes is fundamentally a productivity tool. Testimonials on the WebEyes site come from a lawyer, a software developer, and a college student, among others -- in addition to several professional software reviewers. I, myself, purchased a copy of WebEyes for a young lawyer with vision problems. She is just as pleased with it as I am.

The take-home message: If you spend a great deal of time online or suffer eye strain associated with computer use, I heartily recommend WebEyes. Take the test drive and let me know what you think.

And the Gmail winners are . . .

Thanks to all who participated in the Gmail invitation contest. The winners, in alphabetical order, are Adam, Joao, and Nash.

Runners-up are Jake, Julie, and Nanky. If any other invites come my way, they're yours.

For the record, Nanky, we kept the contest open until 12:00 midnight Samoa time (11:00 a.m. EDT on June 19) to encompass the westernmost U.S. time zone. Next time we have a contest, we'll make sure to use Greenwich Mean Time for the deadline.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! has matched Gmail's 1 gigabyte of storage and word is that Hotmail may soon follow suit. So all is not lost.

In addition, just as I was about to post this, gmailer posted a new comment (see the most recent comment here) that may be the answer to your prayers.

UPDATE, 6/24/04: According to two readers who contacted gmailer, his/her invitations are only available for trade or for sale. I have removed his/her comment.

If you are still interested in a Gmail invitation, e-mail editor@metaforix.com with GMAIL INVITE in the subject line. If any more invitations come my way, I'll contact you.

Harvesting or hiding your traces online

As I travel through cyberspace, I constantly find articles and sites that might interest my business associates, family, and friends -- and I'm contantly e-mailing links. More and more often, though, the recipient of the link must register for free access to the gem I have found -- especially on newspaper sites like NYTImes.com and WashingtonPost.com.

This drives my son Doug, for one, absolutely crazy. He hates registering for sites that he accesses only infrequently, wants to limit the number of passwords he deals with, and would rather forego a site entirely than set up a new profile.

One way around the problem is for the sender to copy and paste the article's text into an e-mail. Another is to remember to choose the "Send full text and link" option if it is available. But for regular and direct access to a profile-protected site, the only choice has been to create a genuine or imaginary profile and an associated password.

That is, until the inception of BugMeNot.com , a site "created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information."

Here's how it works: You go to BugMeNot.com and enter the Internet address of a profile-protected site you want to access. If a prior visitor has entered a user name/password combination for that site, the login information pops up and you use it as though it were your own. If the site you're looking for is not yet in the BugMeNot database, you create a (presumably false) profile at that site and then add the login information to BugMeNot.

According to Jon Gordon, who interviewed him this week on Minnesota Public Radio's Future Tense, BugMeNot's creator is an Australian web developer named "Guy" who thinks that "forced registration goes against the very fabric of the Internet." The site's FAQ page is a manifesto that expands on that comment, but declines to address the ethics of BugMeNot's deceptive practices. (Guy does shrink from posting logins to paid access sites and claims to remove them if he finds them in his database.)

The flip side of individuals' providing false information to site operators is the large-scale tracking of online consumer behavior. Building on the keyword advertising concept that has been so successful for Google and Yahoo, several companies are now offering sophisticated behavioral targeting products.

These new technologies combine data collected during site registration with other clues such as the user's IP address and cookies placed on the computer during visits to let advertisers follow visitors around the Web, serving up the same set of targeted ads at every destination. At least one behavioral targeting company, Revenue Science Inc., says the current products are just the beginning. "We can't afford to rush," says senior VP Omar Tawakol, "and then have the privacy backlash."

Indeed.

Jakob Nielsen and I hate our remote controls

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen trumps me in any number of areas. He's more famous, more accomplished, and undoubtedly richer.

But let's get down to the really important stuff: My living room television is connected to a TiVo DVR, a DVD player, and a cable box. Nielsen's "modest home theater" adds a VCR and an audio amplifier to the mix. My system has only four remote controls; Nielsen's has six.

I think I'm Nielsen's peer, though, in the level of my frustration at getting all these gadgets to work together. He calls it "Remote Control Anarchy." I call it a pain in the neck.

Nielsen's remote controls, like mine, are similar in size and shape, making it hard to grab the right one in a darkened room. His have a total of 239 buttons, two thirds of which he never uses. Many of the buttons could be eliminated by substituting one rocking switch for two paired buttons -- for example, one switch instead of a volume increase button and and a volume decrease button, or one switch to replace a channel up button and a channel down button.

Even the rockers that do exist on Nielsen's remotes don't always operate intuitively: as he describes it, they don't "create the most direct mapping between the control's shape and the target operations" by using a vertical rocker for an up/down command and horizontal rocker for a forward/backward command. Nielsen's amplifier remote, for example, does exactly the reverse.

You might think that the buttons' labels would provide some clues. But some of the terms are obscure -- do you know what "FQ+" and "FQ-" mean? I sure don't! Other labels use familiar words that become indistinguishable because they all appear on the same device -- for example, "Info," "Help," and "Guide." Which one do you push to find out what time Law and Order comes on?

In addition to the ideal of a single remote that would operate all six home theater components, Nielsen's recommendations for increased usability are all variations on the theme of minimizing complexity. Tie fewer features to the remote. Assign consistent positions to basic functions such as on/off and adopt the standard telephone layout for numeric keypads. Use a consistent color scheme to signify similar functions. Above all, design each component as though the consumer planned to connect all six of them into a single system.

In other words, manufacturers should accept joint responsibility for supplying the consumer with "a single movie-playing user interface." Nielsen refers to his prescriptions for simplification as "cognitive interoperability." He admonishes the consumer electronics industry to recognize that "cognitive interoperability is just as important as technical interoperability" if it wants to "sell more boxes." The same simplication prescription applies to website design.

Anyone who can conduct such an elegant analysis of "remote control anarchy" is far better equipped than I am to figure out how to make the system work reliably or to determine whether a technical or a cognitive malfunction has turned the movie's stirring climax into an anticlimax. I'll bet Nielsen can even understand the instruction manuals in a pinch, though their usability scores are probably no higher than the products'.

For someone like me -- a technophile with few technical skills -- it's a great comfort to know that inscrutable remote controls push Nielsen's buttons. Wouldn't it be wonderful if consumer electronics manufacturers were wired to respond to his commands!