Aardvark Daily aardvark (ard'-vark) a controversial animal with a long probing nose used for sniffing out the facts and stimulating thought and discussion.

NZ's leading source of Net-Industry news and commentary since 1995
Australasia's "New Economy" News And Commentary Site
Headlines | XML feed | Contact | New Sites | Press Bin | Job Centre | MARKETPLACE | For Sale
Note: This column represents the opinions of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
Lighten Up 22 March 2002 Edition
Previous Edition

Million $ Ideas
At last, the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook are revealed for all to see!
Click To See
Time to end the week with a laugh or at least a look of stunned amazement thanks to Aardvark's regular "Lighten Up" feature.

George Bush
A Flash animation that must surely have been created by the man himself.

Stackable Humans
And who said that modern kids can't amuse themselves without video games or TV?

Alison's PantsCam
An interesting project in which a young lady has fitted a webcam to her knickers. The technology is far more interesting than the results achieved -- the actual video feed wasn't working when I checked.

Aardvark's Web-site Survey Service
If you're launching a new website, upgrading an existing one, or just frustrated that your web-presence isn't performing as it should then maybe you need an Aardvark Site Survey. Read more...

Scientologists Say Linking Breaches Copyright
And Google Seems To Agree!
The long standing debate over whether linking to someone's website is a breach of their intellectual property rights under copyright law has taken another twist.

Google, one of the Net's most popular search engines, has yielded to legal threats made by the Church of Scientology and pulled entries for a website criticising the church.

Why did they do this?

Because the Scientologists threatened to sue Google for an alleged infringement under the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Readers Say
(updated hourly)
  • Google... - Sam
  • Have Your Say

    The Church of Scientology has always been very proactive in identifying and prosecuting its critics but to drag Google into the battle seems very much over the top and effectively sets a dangerous precedent in respect to the accepted liabilities associated with hypertext links.

    Although there may be absolutely no merit to the threats made by the church, think of what this might allow unscrupulous operators to do to competitors...

    If you run "Joe's Web Design" and find that a competitor, say "Bob's Web Design", is far more highly ranked in Google's database than you then just drop the search engine an email claiming that you believe Bob is infringing your copyright and therefore they must remove all links to his site or risk prosecution under the DMCA.

    Okay -- unlikely I know -- but the principle is the same.

    The Church of Scientology doesn't appear to have proven that Xenu.net has actually infringed its intellectual property rights -- it's simply making an allegation. Never the less, Google seems happier to simply yield to these legal threats rather than demand what most people would consider to be a burden of proof on the part of the Church.

    If we accept (as Google appears to be doing) that linking to a site represents a violation of that sight's copyright then we must acknowledge that search engines and directories which build their databases by unsolicited spidering rather than user-submission are all living on the wrong side of the law.

    Such an implicit admission would seem to be a dangerous thing for any search engine to make.

    While I can understand Google's reticence to get involved in a court-room battle with an organisation as fanatical and well-funded as the Scientologists, I must say that I'm very worried by the way it has allowed a bully to effectively compromise the integrity of its search engine.

    Now, while my philosophy on religion is to "live and let live" and not judge anyone by their religious beliefs, one can't help but wondering exactly why Scientologists are so very sensitive to criticism. I would have thought that all good religions would easily withstand robust scrutiny and examination in a public forum.

    And now I suppose they'll try to sue me.

    Speaking of which -- have you ever wondered what happened to ING's sabre-rattling and threats of legal action against Aardvark? Perhaps their process server was about as lame as their marketing tactics.

    Have your say.

    Aardvark's Garage Sale
    It's time to clear out the closet here at Aardvark's country residence so I'm having a bit of a garage sale. I need to spend a whole lot more time and money on my jet engine R&D activities (now that the defense industry has shown a very real interest) -- so I'm trying to scrape up some more cash.

    First up -- I'm selling my pulsejet manufacturing business. This would be perfect for either a semi-retired engineer/machinist who wants to earn some pretty good money building these things and exporting them to the world -- or an established engineering shop who want to break into a new (very export oriented) market. I can provide an ongoing stream of orders through my website and since I've run out of time to meet the demand, the sale will include a growing "waiting list" of new customers ready to place their orders.

    Second up -- I've still got 30,000 7am.com shares (representing about 30% of the company) that I'm looking to unload. I'm afraid I can't offer much information on the state of the company -- they haven't spoken with me for ages so it's a bit of a pig in a poke. However, they survived the most critical part of the dot-com crash and are now claiming to have nearly 250,000 websites in their ticker network so that's got to be worth something. Any sale would be subject to other shareholders exercising their preferential rights -- but all offers will be considered.

    Thirdly -- I have an RC model helicopter here that I have built but never flown. It's a Robbe Mosquito Basic with a JR X-3810 radio, JR piezo gyro, OS46FSH engine and a Dave Brown flight simulator. Everything was purchased brand-new a couple of years ago and is in pristine condition (having spent all that time in a box in the storeroom). Since I haven't had any time to fly it in the past two years I figure there's little chance I'll find time to fly it in the next two years, so out it goes.

    Anyone interested in any of these things should drop me a line.

    Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
    Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or page?

    Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

    Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

    Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

    Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!

    Latest
    Security Alerts
    Second Java hole poses Windows risk (CNet - 20/03/2002)

    Microsoft offers patch for Java software (CNet - 06/03/2002)

    CERT Warns of Flaws In RADIUS Implementations (InternetNews - 6/03/2002)

    Webmasters Urged To Plug PHP Security Hole NewsBytes - 27/02/2002)

    MP3 Files Not Always Safe With Top Media Players (NewsBytes - 25/02/2002)

    Latest
    Virus Alerts
    Gibe worm poses as a Microsoft update (ZDNet - 6/03/2002)

    German worm makes PCs kaput (The Reg - 20/02/2002)

    New MSN Messenger Worm (NewsBytes - 14/02/2002)

    Bookmark This Page Now!

     

    MORE NEWS
    NZL Sites
    IDG.Net.nz
    NZ Netguide
    NZ Herald Tech
    PC World NZ
    Scoop
    NZOOM Technology WordWorx

    AUS Sites
    ZDNet
    Fairfax IT
    Australian IT
    AUS Netguide
    NineMSN Tech
    APC Magazine

    USA Sites
    Wired.com
    CNet
    CNNfn Tech
    TechWeb
    Yahoo Tech
    ZDNet Tech
    USA Today Tech
    7am.com SciTech

    UK Sites
    The Register
    BBC SciTech

     

    The Day's Top News
    Open in New Window = open in new window
    New Zealand

    Open in New Window Late concern privacy code may aid e-crims
    InternetNZ's submission to the Privacy Commissioner on the draft Telecommunications Privacy Code will focus on its reservations about telecomms user anonymity and the destruction of traffic records...
    IDG

    Open in New Window Virtual Visa pin
    ANZ Visa cardholders are now able to use a password to verify online purchases from participating e-tailers...
    Stuff

    Other

    Open in New Window New Zealand 'Interception' Laws To Cover ISPs
    New Zealand telecommunications network operators and Internet service providers will be legally obligated to install a system that will allow police or the secret service to eavesdrop on phone calls or e-mail messages...
    NewsBytes

    Open in New Window 'Microsoft' E-Mail Trojan Harvests New Victims
    Flaws in the W32/Gibe mass-mailing worm have prevented it from becoming anything like the Internet epidemics of Melissa and LoveBug. But the recent malicious code has introduced a new technique that could help future worms spread fast and wide...
    NewsBytes

    Open in New Window Yahoo tacks fees onto e-mail, storage
    Yahoo said Thursday that it will soon implement new fees in once-free areas on its service, marking the Web portal's latest effort to boost non-advertising revenue...
    CNet

    Open in New Window Spam Showdown at Battle Creek
    Home to Froot Loops and various flakes, this Michigan town is earning a new notoriety among anti-spammers. The town wants to jail an anti-spam activist who crashed its system for 24 hours...
    Wired

    Open in New Window Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites
    Google used to include sites critical of the Church of Scientology. Now it doesn't, because Scientology is claiming copyright violations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...
    Wired

    Australia

    Open in New Window Telstra's ADSL time runs out
    THE competition watchdog has given Telstra notice it could face imminent fines worth millions of dollars, after saying it was "fed up" with waiting for the giant telco to encourage broadband competition...
    Australian IT

    Open in New Window Telstra faces a splitting headache
    Telstra has admitted that several hundred thousand customers will also be unable to use Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology because of the "pair gain" line-splitting technology...
    SMH

    Other

    Open in New Window Spam flood forces companies to take desperate measures
    Chris Lewis walks a tightrope every day as leader of a spam-eradication team at a major telecommunications company...
    CNet

    Open in New Window JavaOne: Gosling hits 'Jackpot' with futuristic tools
    Based on a theory that software code might be better represented as an image rather than as millions of lines of text, the Sun vice president and research fellow has embarked on a research project that eventually could change the way developers edit code...
    InfoWorld

    Open in New Window MS judge in shock MSWord to WordPerfect defection
    In among yesterday's procedural and admin discussion from the Microsoft trial lurks a minor triumph for the non-Microsoft camp which we hope will go a little way to helping Michael Copeland, formerly of Corel, pay off some of his fines...
    The Register

    Open in New Window XBox 2 'designed with AMD processor'
    Microsoft engineers are busy designing the second version of Xbox around an AMD CPU, according to Fechtor Detwiler, the Boston-based investment bank...
    The Register

    Open in New Window 'Social Engineering' Spreads New Plague of Web Chat Attacks
    The enticements of pornography, free software and security -- otherwise known as "social engineering" -- that have been common among e-mail-borne computer viruses now have spread to instant messaging and Internet Relay Chat (IRC)...
    NewsFactor


    Looking For More News or Information?

    Google
    Search WWW Search Aardvark

    Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2001, Bruce Simpson, republication rights available on request

    jet engine page