Alexandria on the web?
Does capitalism create good archivists? The way executives in firms such as Credit Suisse First Boston reach for their document shredders suggests not. But there are commercial libraries around, such as LexisNexis, which archives thousands of newspapers. The trouble is that their objective is not to preserve a record of human activity but to find the optimal point between spending to maintain an archive and charging for access to it.
In short, the profit motive prejudices the creation of open, comprehensive archives. So it is perhaps fortunate for historians that a number of grand archives are being built by the non-profit sector. The best of these is Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive (www.archive.org). Kahle has a big vision. He wants to create a repository of all human knowledge. His archive is already larger than that of the Bodleian or the Library of Congress. And he has achieved this in less than a decade.
The Internet Archive has a repository of the web dating back to 1996, with snapshots taken every two months. And Kahle intends to add music, movies and books as they move out of copyright. The archive currently stores one petabyte of data - equal to about 1m gigabytes (a gigabyte holds about 90 minutes of television-quality video or about a thousand books). It grows at about 2 per cent per month. Access is free: the project is funded by donations and Kahle's personal wealth.
But there are legal hurdles to overcome. Copyright laws prevent Kahle from keeping certain records, such as copies of software for defunct computer systems, or books from the last few decades. Much of this is what Kahle calls "orphan works," where the copyright owner is no longer interested in the work, as is the case for the vast majority of books, but the law says librarians must receive explicit permission to keep copies.
In typical American fashion, Kahle is suing John Ashcroft, the attorney general, to revise existing copyright legislation. Meanwhile, he is soliciting donations of movies, music, books and software from copyright owners. Contributions are welcome.
Broadband Britain bumbles
According to the latest figures from the European Competitive Telecommunications Association, broadband in Britain is more sputter than sprint. Only 13 per cent of British households have broadband access, ranking us 12th in the EU.
The new model seems to be Italy, where a company called FastWeb is giving Telecom Italia a run for its money. FastWeb is on course to do something most economists considered impossible: create a real competitor to an incumbent, fixed-line telephone monopoly. Most alternative phone companies connect to their customers by renting the wires that run into their homes from the incumbent telephone company. FastWeb normally eschews this arrangement in favour of installing its own connections from its network to homes and offices. What's more, many of FastWeb's connections are optical fibre, the high-capacity grail of broadband networks, rather than the puny copper wire that Telecom Italia and its ilk use.
Such an infrastructure investment is discouragingly expensive, as NTL and Telewest in Britain discovered to their cost. FastWeb seems to have found a way around this. Silvio Scaglia, the firm's boss, says it costs around $3,700 to run fibre to a home, a sum he can recoup in two and a half years thanks to FastWeb's wealth of services. Sadly, in Britain, BT's rivals have not been as ambitious. Most broadband investment over the next five years will continue to come from our dominant phone company. And the absence of true competitive pressure will keep us fumbling behind our continental neighbours.
The Trojan wars
According to network management firm Sandvine, 80 per cent of spam email is sent by "zombie" PCs - computers that have been infected by "Trojan horses." Trojans sit innocuously on the PC like a sleeper agent until the command comes in to start sending spam. Nick Ray of Prevx, a security firm, reckons Trojan horses may have infected as many as 7m PCs in Britain. A large chunk of these will be primed for spam. On some estimates, spam cost British businesses £3bn in 2003; expect it to be worse this year.
Meanwhile, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) made its first arrest for "phishing" in April. "Phishers" send emails masquerading as bank missives asking users for their account details in return for some scarcely credible benefit. They are more sophisticated versions of the comical, and well known, Nigerian 419 scams. But phishing is getting more commonplace - the culprits often use the spam infrastructure created by zombie PCs.
The NHTCU has also been investigating "rogue diallers": software that installs itself on internet users' machines and calls premium rate numbers, leaving the unwitting user with phone bills that can reach thousands of pounds. The all-party parliamentary internet group is thinking about recommending toughening the relevant laws. Until this happens, Prospect is happy to provide its readers with a guide to cyber-safety:
Never give your bank details to anyone who emails you, even if she is the estranged wife of an African dictator.
When viewing pornography, stick to trusted brands, such as Private and Fleshbot.
If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Happy surfing!
