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Three MIT students are disputing the Massachusetts transit agency’s version of the events that led to the state filing a lawsuit last week–and obtaining a restraining order against their talk on subway card security scheduled for Sunday.

The latest dispute originates in comments made by to CNET News by Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokesman Joe Pesaturo in in a report published Monday. In his e-mail to us, he said the students “agreed to provide the MBTA with a copy of the presentation” scheduled for the Defcon hacker conference on Sunday but never did.

It’s unclear who’s telling the truth; if the lawsuit continues, e-mails and spoken testimony will probably answer these questions. But it does seem likely that the MBTA requested a copy of the Defcon presentation–they knew it was scheduled; why would they not want to see it?–and never received it. The defendants would have had a very good reason for this; the slides are prepared with a hacker audience in mind and include warnings like “AND THIS IS VERY ILLEGAL!”

A response posted Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the students, said MBTA “misrepresents” the situation:

[Update: See our related story on a court hearing scheduled for Thursday in this case, and what both sides plan to ask the judge.]

(It is undisputed that the students–Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan, and Alessandro Chiesa–wrote a separate analysis (PDF) for the MBTA marked “confidential” and presented it to the agency.)

Oops. This is what lawyers call an “admission against interest.”

One reason is that the judge in this lawsuit has until August 19 to renew the restraining order (by turning it into a preliminary injunction) or let it expire. Whoever can reasonably claim to have acted in good faith will have a better chance of prevailing.

Opposing parties in lawsuits often tell different stories. Human memories are imperfect. People may honestly remember the same sequence of events differently. So why is this particular dispute important?

After the Monday meeting, the students understood that the MBTA’s concerns were resolved, and that the students were to provide a confidential vulnerability assessment by the end of the week. Contrary to the MBTA statement, the students did not believe that the MBTA wanted to see a copy of the presentation slides, and they did not agree to provide them to the MBTA.

Another bit of unresolved intrigue is that the MBTA told us on Monday that it wanted to meet with the students again. EFF has steadfastly refused to say whether it would consider such a meeting–making it, uncharacteristically, even less forthcoming than a bunch of government bureaucrats.

The primary problem is that Facebook has no way of determining what someone’s university status is. The company is only able to verify that the user has a valid .edu e-mail address, which could mean that the person is a student, staff member, professor, or alumni. As a result, Facebook asks users to self-report this information.

This sounds like a great idea, and should be a significant benefit to those students who find that their Facebook-advertised parties were busted by police who found out about the events through the social-networking site.

Facebook's new privacy controls

There is, however, a significant design flaw present in this new feature. Facebook users can select which types of strangers can view their profile. That is, a student at Stanford University can decide to allow other undergrads to view their profile, while specifically forbidding staff and professors who have not been made a friend from viewing it.

To test this out, I changed my own status at Indiana University to that of an undergrad, a staff member, and an alumni before switching back to being a graduate student. Facebook’s system didn’t complain once, and I was able to verify that the updated status was indeed reflected on my own profile.

Disclosure: I am a part-time technology policy fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, where one of my projects involves social-networking privacy issues.

At least under the old controls, Facebook users (in theory) knew that their profiles could, by default, be viewed by any other Facebook user at the same university. This new system provides little in the way of real additional protection, yet may give users a false sense of security, leading the millions of users to post even more stupid and embarrassing things to the site than they currently do.

This is a fairly significant security flaw in Facebook’s fancy new privacy controls, and frankly, there isn’t too much the company can do to fix it. In the real world, it’s perfectly possible for an administrative staff member to go back to school (and thus become an undergrad), or for a grad student to become a professor. The status controls need to be modifiable.

I spoke with a Facebook spokesperson shortly before press time, who told me that she could not comment on the specific issues I raised.

The new privacy settings allow users to customize which friends can view specific details in their own profile. Users can lock down specific bits of information to their friends, friends of friends, or even particular individuals.

Changing status in Facebook

Facebook launched a bunch of new privacy controls today, and has received a significant amount of positive press as a result. The praise is perhaps not so deserving–as the new privacy controls can be easily evaded.

Given an example situation where a student doesn’t wish for the Facebook-using professors at their university to be able to view their profile, it would be trivially easy for a professor to log in, and change his or her own status to that of an undergrad.

Cars and the Nintendo DS will soon be a less dangerous, and more education experience.

(Credit:
CNET Networks / Josh Lowensohn)

Soon drivers manuals made out of paper will be a thing of the past. At least that’s what DreamCatcher Games and JoWooD Productions are hoping with the upcoming Nintendo DS title Drivers Ed Portable.

DS owners who purchase the title will get a complete training system for the written portion of their state’s driving exam, along with three smaller gaming elements that have been designed to put those skills to use in a safe, virtual environment. The game isn’t limited to the U.S. either–there are also training modes for Canada and most of Europe with localized rules that are then reflected in the mini-games.

DreamCatcher Games might be most well known for its shooter series Painkiller, which helped spawn gaming celebrity Johnathan Wendel, also known as Fatal1ty. Presumably Drivers Ed Portable involves less shooting and more parallel parking.

News release (@ Gamespot)

[via OhGizmo]

It’s something Google could do a whole lot better if it harnessed every single publicly shared item and put them on a page. ReadBurner’s solution it to gather its shared items from several hundred (hand-picked) influential Google Reader users in order to show what they think is noteworthy, similar to what TechMeme does with news stories.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

[via Mashable]

See who's sharing a story on Google Reader and how many folks are doing it with ReadBurner.

Think of it like Del.icio.us, but instead of browser plug-ins or voting from the content originator’s site, the system picks up on items automatically–that is, assuming people are clicking the little share button underneath a story in Reader. There’s even an upcoming section for the items that aren’t quite “front page” material but are picking up steam. The hope is that you’ll be able to find some great, read-worthy content and keep an eye on the “pulse” of what people are sharing.

A lot of folks would like a memetracker for Google Reader (myself included), and if the big G’s not going to provide one, it’s up to third-party developers to attempt to build their own. One of the results has been ReadBurner, a service that tries to determine what items (not just feeds) are gaining in popularity at any given time based on the number of people sharing them on Google Reader.

In a chat with Mashable, developer Alexander Marktl noted that the site’s in its very beginnings and open to change. If I could suggest anything it would be community inclusion–the option to add your own shared feed into the mix. Right now ReadBurner’s working off its own list (which is currently down), that leans towards technology aficionados. It would be nice to be able to add your own to feel as if you’re a part of it.

Q: As the concept of the platform as a service becomes more of a reality over the next decade, do you think that Microsoft has an opportunity to be one of the big platforms?
Benioff: The evidence is that history, more or less, will repeat itself because there is no acknowledgment to some of the core tenants of this new paradigm. I think only in the cases where they will be dragged, kicking and screaming, and I think the best example probably is Gmail.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News)

Microsoft has been slow to adopt the multitenant architecture. The company is prepping Dynamics CRM 4, also known as CRM Live, to go after Salesforce.com, as well as bringing other products in the Dynamics family into a hosted, multitenant environment. Phil Wainewright pointed out in his ZDNet blog post, Microsoft hasn’t publicly put services fully at the forefront of its strategy:

Charlie Cooper and I interviewed Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff last week. Following is part of the exchange, where I asked Benioff for his thoughts on Microsoft. He has called Microsoft a dinosaur, incapable of innovation, and a monopolist.

Microsoft’s oligarchs and other large software companies recognize that the shift to the cloud is a critical path. Benioff better run even faster, before the dinosaurs catch up a la Jurassic Park. You can bet that if the dinosaurs start to close in, he will run into the arms of one of the older dinosaurs, including Microsoft, or the new breed, such as Google.

Q: In 2005 you said that Microsoft was a dinosaur facing the obsolescence of a technology and a business model. Fast-forward to 2008 and Microsoft just had a big event in Las Vegas, where Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie got up onstage and articulated a vision that had a lot of similarities to what you’re talking about vis a vis platform as a service, such as its SQL Server data services. So, has your opinion changed?
Benioff: No. If we had waited for Microsoft to create any of those, nothing would be created yet. Look at the whole software service phenomenon. Where are they? I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur.

Disparaging large competitors is part of Benioff’s marketing offensive. He has taken shots at SAP, Oracle, Siebel, and others, dismissing them as 20th century fossils who are making feeble attempts to adapt to Web and cloud computing.

But, if you listen to Ozzie carefully, he is sending clear signals that point to software services and synchronization across all devices, online and offline. It’s not a pure services model, because users do want to work offline at times. Even Salesforce.com and Google recognize the hybrid working model with their efforts to provide offline access.

Following is a portion of the full interview:

During the interview Benioff said of Microsoft, “…there is no acknowledgment to some of the core tenets of this new paradigm.” He is not overly impressed by Microsoft’s newfound and aggressive focus on the Web as a platform, as driven by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff

Q: But what I’m asking today is whether you have changed your opinion. Do you think that Microsoft is still a dinosaur?
Benioff:I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur. More than ever, it tries to hold onto its monopolistic position around technology that they hold, whether it’s SQL Server, whether it’s NT, whether it’s Windows, whether it’s Office–these are their cash cows they don’t want slaughtered.

Q:Right, but we’re talking about SQL Server. We’re talking about their software-as-a-service strategy, and so on. Can we consider those monopolistic?
Benioff: Well, not in the same way, of course. But the point is that they’re trying to hold onto their past more than trying to create their future. This has been the great failing of Microsoft over the last 10 years. I haven’t seen the level of innovation from them that we see from other vendors.

His braggadocio has garnered Salesforce.com loads of attention since its inception nine years ago. What’s somewhat mystifying is how competitors have stood by while Salesforce.com heads toward $1 billion in revenue for its next fiscal year, ending January 31, 2009.

Publicly, Microsoft talks up the merits of its ’software-plus-services’ strategy. In my view, the message is bunkum, even though it reflects the reality of Microsoft’s business today: mostly software, with a few early-stage service offerings. But Microsoft has its message back-to-front. Until Microsoft reverses the software-plus-services mantra and puts services at the forefront of its vision, it will continue to disappoint.
I know many people want to believe Microsoft still remains in charge of its destiny and won’t let cloud rivals walk all over it. But time after time, history shows that it’s fresh startups, not incumbent giants, that gain leadership in new technologies and markets. I guess we’re just wired to expect those who wield power to stay in place. But the truth is that, at times of change, it takes a change of leader to adapt to the new circumstances.
Recent pronouncements by chief strategy officer Ray Ozzie suggest that, despite the public bluster, Microsoft’s top brass already secretly realize that they must put services, not software, at the center of their worldview (the world of the mesh, Ozzie calls it).

Q: With Ozzie taking over as chief software architect, Microsoft is talking more about how to take the plunge in software services. So where do you see the chief obstacle preventing them from turning this into a success? They’ve got all the developers in the world.
Benioff: I am not the CEO of Microsoft so I don’t really know. You’d have to ask them why they haven’t delivered on the vision. We’re not unique in saying that it’s the end of software. That’s our phrase, but Microsoft has not delivered on the promise. They haven’t used their power to innovate in the way that others have.

Q: But are those cash cows monopolies?
Benioff: Well, I think one was ruled a monopoly.

Google is doing really well with Gmail. I think that’s why now you will see Microsoft have to respond with a multitenant e-mail solution. They have Hotmail, but not Hotmail for business per se. They’re definitely going to have to do that.

Whether they will do that or not remains to be seen. Now with HD DVD out of the way and Sony’s game console strategy vindicated, what will be interesting in the months to come is where it goes with standalone players.

HD DVD’s demise gives new perspective. Sony doesn’t break out how many standalone players it has sold from the number of PS3s, but according to DisplaySearch shipment estimates, in the third quarter of 2007, Sony accounted for nearly 96 percent of Blu-ray devices worldwide. In conjunction with point-of-sale data collected by the NPD Group that shows Sony and Samsung collectively accounted for 87 percent of Blu-ray Disc standalone player sales in December alone, Sony is already the dominant player. Samsung is its closest competitor, but the royalties earned on manufacture of the discs and players give Sony much more room to be competitive.

It’s a change in fortune for the company whose gaming and electronics divisions were struggling throughout the past year. Suddenly the company’s
PlayStation 3 strategy appears smarter than previously thought.

Sony’s strategy of seeding the market with PlayStation 3 game consoles that came with Blu-ray Discs playback ability looks fairly prescient now, though it didn’t at the time.

After a boffo market entrance–fans queuing up for days to buy the next-generation consoles–in late 2006, Sony had to deal with a lot of bad press for product shortages and the success of the
Xbox 360, and the sudden popularity of the
Wii from Nintendo. Blu-ray’s inclusion in the PS3 was a major reason for product shortages and was responsible for the high price of the console.

Sony won’t comment on any future business plans for the company, but it can now move full-speed ahead on its HD strategy in the living room, which it’s been laying out over the last year or so.

Toshiba had a lot of success last fall lowering its prices dramatically on HD DVD players, but Sony faces different challenges. Unlike Toshiba, which was the sole producer of standalone players in its format, Sony is not the only producer of standalone Blu-ray Disc players. Samsung, Philips, Panasonic, and others will now begin to compete with Sony, and each other, over features and pricing of Blu-ray players.

“I’m not sure Sony is going to be as aggressive on player prices because they’re attacking the market on two fronts (PS3 and standalone players),” he said. “PS3 pricing is not going to be governed by Blu-ray Disc (player) prices; it’s judged by competitiveness with Xbox 360…There’s not as much impetus for them to be hyper-competitive on standalone player prices.”

Pricing of Blu-ray players is what is most up in the air. So far, it’s the biggest reason that most consumers have not purchased high-definition video players.

It said as much in this statement it issued Tuesday: “We believe that a single format will benefit both consumers and the industry, and will accelerate the expansion of the market.

Sony was able to claim in January 2007 that it had 1 million Blu-ray players sold. But those were largely PS3 sales. At the time, since the battle with HD DVD was still in full swing, it wasn’t clear that Sony’s strategy on Blu-ray had worked.

Tuesday’s announcement from Toshiba that it is pulling its support of the HD DVD format and ceasing production of the video players effectively stamps Sony as the new standard bearer of high-definition video.

“The majority of Sony’s success in the Blu-ray Disc market hasn’t been because of their standalone player business–it’s been the PlayStation 3,” noted Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for DisplaySearch.

The fall of HD DVD gives Sony a chance to really extend its high-definition strategy with the pieces it already has in place: It’s the only major consumer electronics player with a real presence in every high-profile consumer market: HDTVs, cameras, notebook PCs, gaming, and even a film studio that creates high-definition content. It has positioned itself so well that it would have to really screw up to not seamlessly ascend the throne as king of HD.

Sony already owns the largest chunk of market share of Blu-ray devices, but it’s not because millions of people are buying Blu-ray Disc players as replacements for standard DVD players.

One of the key’s to Sony’s success is undoubtedly the royalty structure–Sony, Philips, Panasonic, and Warner Bros. all own patents on Blu-ray technology and they get paid when anyone manufactures a Blu-ray player or disc. But it’s not the only thing. The company’s brand legacy and the most important weapon in its HD arsenal, the PlayStation 3, mean Sony has a leg up on all other participants in the world of high definition.

“Blu-ray has been and will continue to be a core part of Sony’s HD strategy. We will continue to promote the benefits of HD throughout the value chain including Blu-ray products, Bravia LCD TVs, PlayStation 3, Vaio PCs, camcorders, entertainment content, and broadcast and professional.”

But just because HD DVD is dead does not mean Sony will automatically make its standalone player prices more competitive, said DisplaySearch’s Erickson.

Ross Rubin, an analyst with the NPD Group, doesn’t anticipate any major moves by Sony quite yet. “I don’t suspect we’ll see any imminent price drops, but there could be this holiday season.”

Sony has long been associated with the Blu-ray Disc format, but HD DVD’s demise brings new opportunity for the Japanese electronics maker to effectively take control of the future of high-definition in consumers’ living rooms.

Imagine that. Studies have shown that peer-to-peer downloaders tend to pay more for music, but I think the larger trend is that many of us simply want easy ways to consume digital goods and that forcing us into an offline purchase was a losing strategy.

Apple has made it easy to buy music online and has an 85 percent market share as thanks.

The music industry now needs to continue its experimentation with digital downloads, making it ever easier to discover and consume online media. That’s the future.

Ars Technica has the dirt on an admission from Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy: digital music downloads might not be evil, after all.

Clay Shirky, a new media professor at New York University, recently noted that the music industry is the “skull on a pikestaff as a warning to others about how not to deal with the Internet.” Finally, however, things may be changing.

As Ars Technica reports, Universal’s music business is up 3 percent, halting a long-term slide toward oblivion:

Just in case you don’t know, Universal Music Group–one of the Big Four record labels–is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi. So this is a big deal.

commentary

Digital, of course, is the big driver of better economic performance. At Warner, for instance, it made up 20 percent of total revenues in the second quarter and generated 39 percent more income that it had a year before. Universal notes that its growth is fueled, in part, by “the momentum of digital sales growth.”

A New York lawmaker wants you to have the choice over whether Internet companies can serve up ads based on your actions online and who you are.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has proposed voluntary guidelines that would have consumers opt-out of information gathering for advertising purposes. The Federal Trade Commission guidelines go further and say behavioral advertising should be opt-in for consumers.

Given all the concerns U.S. lawmakers and others had about privacy issues with Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, it’s likely the matter won’t be going away anytime soon.

Companies like Microsoft and Yahoo are already serving ads that reflect your interests, such as Web sites you visit, and even your geography. Behaviorally targeted advertising is the vanguard of online marketing because it can lead to more sales than random ads can.

Further north, a bill was introduced in Connecticut that deals with data collection by ad networks, which serve the ads on other companies’ sites, the article says.

Privacy advocates say that Web surfers don’t understand how much they are being tracked online, and that if they did they wouldn’t like it.

With this in mind, Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has sponsored a bill that would require consumers’ consent before Internet companies could use personal information about them for advertising, according to The New York Times.

Keep management and human resources out of it. In my experience, no good has ever come of bringing conflicts to management or HR. All that does is brand both parties as troublemakers or at least pains in the butt. Figure out how to resolve it yourselves, live with it, or get out. Those are your viable options.

Employees compete for promotions, raises, and recognition. There are conflicts between employees and their bosses, bosses and their bosses, among executive staffs, boards of directors, divisions and programs for funding…it goes on and on.

Bottom line
Learn these five lessons, and you’ll be surprised at the results. You’ll be happier and your career will benefit, as well. These techniques do take commitment and practice, though, so keep it up and be patient.

Try being open and honest. Sometimes we’re guilty of all the things we complain about in others. Try being honest about your own issues and faults. It’s often the case that you’re doing more to inflame the situation than you realize. Be open and honest with the other person, too. Tell her how you feel, what’s bothering you, and ask for the same in return.

Intel chief Andy Grove drove a culture of "constructive confrontation".

In fact, the workplace is a veritable petri dish for conflict. It makes you wonder how anything gets done at all. Really.

(Credit:
Intel )

Why can’t we all just get along? Because it doesn’t work that way. There are lots of reasons why folks don’t get along. There are cultural differences, gender differences, style differences, all kinds of differences. And that’s just the beginning.

Embrace conflict. Conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it’s open and direct, it helps in dealing with issues and building consensus. Intel’s famous for having a culture that embraces conflict. It’s called “constructive confrontation,” and it’s helped Intel to become the world’s most powerful chip company.

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Remember, your tormentor is human, too. Offline, try to understand what motivates him, why he might feel the way he does. Then during a one-on-one (face-to-face meeting), literally ask for his perspective and try to articulate it back to him. If he does the reverse, you’ll be seeing eye-to-eye in no time.

Got any lessons or stories you’d like to share?

In any case, here are five techniques that will help you get along in the workplace. Sure, I’ve had conflict resolution training, but more important is decades of experience in dealing with every kind of conflict you can think of, and some you couldn’t even imagine.

According to a number of studies, at least 10 percent of the U.S. population has some sort of personality disorder. That includes depression, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder, to name a few. That can’t help.

Focus on the issues, not the person. You can waste your entire career whining about “he does this” and “she does that.” Forget it. Everyone’s different. Get over yourself and stop worrying about the other person. Focus on the real issues–technology, products, customers–you know, what the company’s actually paying you to do.

In the workplace, it gets even worse. There are bullies, jerks who want to stab you in the back, and folks you just plain don’t like. My personal favorite are people who are passive aggressive–they openly agree to something and then do the opposite.

As an Apple fan boy I find it hard to believe that this could even happen, but anyone who has dealt with AT&T should have expected something crazy to occur. Someone in the office here mocked me for running out and buying
Leopard when it came out, but at least then I knew I was just dealing with Apple–no horrific cellphone carrier experience to deal with.

Matt points out that maybe this is greed on Apple’s part, it’s insane that Apple refused to let customers purchase the phone directly from Apple stores. And it’s even crazier that the company hasn’t yet released a statement explaining it.

I can’t even believe what an unbelievable debacle the new iPhone sales/activation process has been.