I had the best time last week at The O’Reilly P2P and
Web Services Conference.

Here’s the one weblog I’ve written so far covering the event: RIAA President Hilary Rosen Speaks to P2P Community . I created an HTML version of her speech. (Which was quite an eye opener.)

More coverage on the way…

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has issued its Considerations for Distinguishing Influenza-Like Illness from Inhalational Anthrax.

CDC has issued guidelines on the evaluation of persons with a history of exposure to Bacillus anthracis spores or who have an occupational or environmental risk for anthrax exposure (1). This notice describes the clinical evaluation of persons who are not known to be at increased risk for anthrax but who have symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI). Clinicians evaluating persons with ILI should consider a combination of epidemiologic, clinical, and, if indicated, laboratory and radiographic test results to evaluate the likelihood that inhalational anthrax is the basis for ILI symptoms.

Some other good links are provided at the end of the report:

Additional information about anthrax is available at
<http://www.hhs.gov/hottopics/healing/biological.html> and
< ttp://www.bt.cdc.gov/DocumentsApp/FactsAbout/FactsAbout.asp>. Additional information about influenza, RSV and other
viral respiratory infections, and pneumococcal disease is available at
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/flu/fluvirus.htm>, <http://www.cdc.gov/nip/flu/default.htm>,
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/index.htm>,
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/streppneum_t.htm>, and <http://www.cdc.gov/nip/diseases/Pneumo/vac-chart.htm>.

Here’s a pretty vague account of how three journalists were killed in Afghanistan over the weekend: CNN.com – Blame disputed in journalist killings – November 12, 2001

I’m trying to find a better account of the details of the situation. (Something better than “Those who managed to stay on the machine survived, those who jumped or fell died”.)

The journalists — two French, one German — were killed Sunday when the Northern Alliance military convoy in which they were traveling was ambushed by Taliban troops, about 30 minutes outside of this northern town, near the city of Taloqan.

Those killed were part of a group of six journalists who were riding on the back of an armored personnel carrier with alliance forces going toward the front lines.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Satinder Bindra, Northern Alliance Gen. Atiqullah Baryalai said those killed were “assassinated.”

But Paul McGeough, a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, disagreed.

“I don’t think they could have discerned that in the pitch dark, there were six journalists on top of this machine,” said McGeough, one of the three journalists who survived.

He said Baryalai’s claim was biased “spin” and noted that “it’s funny how in war, people want to make the appalling more appalling.”

Another plane tragedy in NYC (this time it appears to be an accident).

See: CNN.com – American Airlines jet crashes in New York – November 12, 2001

Uh oh. Looks like defeating the Taliban might be a little tougher than we thought. But you wouldn’t know it from what’s been in the American press lately. The India Times’ Taliban fought off US commando raid: Report provides a scary account indeed.

“NEW YORK: Twelve Delta Force commandos were wounded — three seriously — when they encountered stiffer-than-expected Taliban resistance during the October 20 raid on Mullah Mohammad Omar’s compound outside Kandahar, the New Yorker magazine reported. The fiasco has triggered a review of special forces operations in Afghanistan.

But a top US general has denied the report.

Top US military officials are re-assessing future special forces operations in Afghanistan after the nearly disastrous October 20 raid, according to the Monday edition of the magazine.

The elite Delta Force, “which prides itself on stealth, had been counterattacked by the Taliban, and some Americans had to fight their way to safety,” according to the article.

The ferocity of the Taliban response “scared the crap out of everyone,” a senior military officer told Seymour Hersh, the article’s author.

Looks like the incredible potential of peer-to-peer networks is finally starting to see the light of day.

Here’s a Washington Post article by Leslie Walker: Uncle Sam Wants Napster! (washingtonpost.com).

Some analysts think the peer-to-peer concept could lead to a more powerful Internet if large corporations, fearing the loss of control over intellectual property, don’t squash them first. Last month, 28 record and movie companies sued new file-sharing networks with names like MusicCity, Grokster and Kazaa. And last week the big three television networks filed suit against SonicBlue, which is preparing to launch avideo recorder that allows people to swap their recorded TV programs online.

Other entrepreneurs are fashioning similar tools for legitimate use in the workplace. Their makers report a spike in interest from corporate customers in the past month, as well as a revival of interest from venture capitalists, who largely withdrew funding for peer-to-peer systems in the wake of February’s court decision shutting down Napster.

Now the military is sending a message that it, too, is shopping for cutting-edge software with some of the $40 billion in emergency spending Congress authorized to beef up national defense.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command last week began testing new commercial software called Groove, developed by the creator of Lotus Notes. About 20 large corporations also are using the program, which allows people to create ad hoc computing groups, send instant messages, mark up files and do other collaborative work online without help from system administrators.

The U.S. Government is getting serious about XML! There’s an XML.gov website that details its strategy and a separate website for the US House of Representatives XML and Legislative Documents.

Peter Fromherz and colleagues in the Department of Membrane and Neuro Physics at Munich’s Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry have created the world’s first living silicon circuit.

See the Popular Science article It’s alive! Brain cells and silicon learn to get along, by Katie Green.

Here’s a chuckle to start off your day: BBspot – RIAA Wants Background Checks on CD-RW Buyers from BBspot’s Technology news.

RIAA Wants Background Checks on CD-RW Buyers
Washington DC – The RIAA is lobbying for vendors of CD-RW drives to conduct background checks and require a 3 day waiting period before the drive can be sold.

The extensive background check would include cross referencing credit card numbers with local merchants sales logs looking for purchases of dual-cassette decks between the years of 1980 and 1987. It would also include checking for installation of file sharing software, knowledge of the Internet, and the ability to hum. Any of which would bar the purchaser from receiving his drive.

“A CD-RW can be a dangerous weapon when it falls into the wrong hands,” said RIAA President Hilary Rosen, “You wouldn’t sell a gun to a convicted felon and you shouldn’t sell a CD-RW drive to a Gnutella user. The 3 day waiting period gives us time to verify that no copyrighted material is on the purchasers hard drive and to make sure they have a membership in the Columbia House CD club.”

Various members of our Military Infrastructure are starting to move forward with their own agendas, including the creation of a global command that would commit us to a War that may last longer than we do.

See Global command considered
, by Rowan Scarborough for The Washington Times.

Giving Gen. Holland, or
another four-star officer, command
of the anti-terror war would avoid
shifting responsibility from
commander to commander as
anti-terror operations move from
region to region. The principal
war-fighting commanders, known
as commanders in chief, or cincs,
are assigned their own turf, such as
Pacific or European command.

The Bush administration is in
the early stages of discussing
covert intelligence operations or
actions by U.S. commandos, or
their foreign surrogates, around the
world. These actions likely would
not come until President Bush
meets his first objective: ousting
the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan
and eliminating Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
The locations include:

• South America