Thursday, October 23, 2003

by Scott Blaha and Evelyn Khoo
Gazette Reporters

The debate about the internal Diebold memos being hosted on the Why-War? website
took a crucial turn yesterday during a meeting organized by the Dean of the
College, Bob Gross.

Although Dean Gross informed Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons (SCDC)
and Why-War? that “we can’t take a political position that’s not directly
related to the mission of the College,” he supported the students’ desire
to expose these voting flaws. However, despite Dean Gross’ expression of support,
Nelson Pavlosky ’06 of SCDC had hoped for a better reaction from the College:
“It’s not as bad as it could be but we’re very disappointed in the college’s
position. Other colleges like Rice and Johns Hopkins, when faced with similar
situations, have taken a stand and called their bluff, so we had hoped that
Swarthmore would have done the same.” Pavlosky notes that the files in
question were removed from the Swarthmore network yesterday.

After some passionate discussion, the group decided that there were two courses
of action to take. Micah White ’04 of Why-War? decided to continue civil disobedience,
switching the hosting of the memos with every new take-down notice. History
professor Timothy Burke, who was also present at the meeting, suggested that
the group expand its action to include other schools and Internet activists.

Branen Salmon ’04 of SCCS offered a legal perspective on the issue: people
issued take-down notices via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have a counterclaim
wherein one must take down the material but can contest the take-down notice.
Diebold would then have 14 days to either back down or go before a judge to
enforce the take-down. In the past, Salmon said, Diebold has backed down before
these kind of challenges.

In a press release jointly issued by SCDC and Why-War? the groups announced
that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit group that works
to protect digital rights, has already issued a public declaration to defend
the ISP Online Privacy Group (OPG) for San Francisco IndyMedia, a website that
hosts links to the memos and received a takedown notice from Diebold.

by Ken Patton
Gazette Reporter

From late Monday night until around 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning many students
on campus once again found themselves unable to access the internet. Students
received a reserved-students email on Tuesday describing the basic problem facing
the network: it appeared that peer to peer applications were to blame for creating
thousands of extra connections that flooded the campus firewall.

On Tuesday, ITS enacted a temporary fix of the problem by clearing all connections
every 20 minutes and extending the previous policy of limiting peer to peer
applications to completely disabling the internet access of all such applications.
Mark Dumic, Manager of Networking and Systems for ITS, identified the initial
batch of applications that were disabled as Kazaa, Gnutella, WinMX, Edonkey,
and AudioGalaxy. This improved the network status, but did not fully solve the
problem. After analyzing the remaining traffic emerging from dorm rooms, ITS
disabled the peer to peer clients BitTorrent, Blubster, and Emule on Wednesday.

In addition, ITS staff members suspect that virus traffic may have once again
popped up after break due to students bringing viruses back to the campus after
connecting to the internet at home.

However, Dumic said that ITS staffers have also started to identify the machines
generating the most traffic and have been talking to the owners. He stressed,
the “first priority is to keep the network up for academic and administrative
use; once the problem is understood, then go back and take the blocks off of
peer to peer”.

*****

by Ken Patton
Gazette Reporter

On Wednesday evening F. M. Scherer, a former Swarthmore professor, presented
the second in a series of economics lectures for introductory economics students.
The topic of the lecture was the antitrust case brought against Microsoft by
the Department of Justice in 1997.

In the first half of the lecture, Scherer talked about the history of Microsoft
and the events leading up to the antitrust case. The history of Microsoft was
important to expose the motivation behind the antitrust suit. Scherer described
how Microsoft became the dominant operating system company in the 1980’s with
up to 70% of the market share.

Yet control over most of the industry by itself does not constitute a monopoly;
Microsoft could not be faulted for simply creating a good product. However,
Scherer went on to describe many of the anti-competitive actions taken by Microsoft
to monopolize other areas of computer software through its leverage with the
Windows operating system.

In the mid 1990’s, Microsoft eventually gained control over 90% of both the
operating system and office tools markets. The market control of these and other
areas of the computer were due in part to the fact that Microsoft insiders had
better knowledge on how to interoperate with the operating system than outside
firms, and could create products that ran better.

After the advent of the Internet, Microsoft became worried that its operating
system would become obsolete with emerging internet browser technology such
as Netscape Navigator. After approaching Netscape with a deal, which Netscape
refused, Microsoft began to run Netscape out of the industry through strong-arming
other companies such as IBM, Compaq, Apple, and AOL to use Microsoft’s Internet
Explorer as an alternative to Navigator and integrating Internet Explorer into
the operating system. This forced Internet Explorer upon Windows users and made
Netscape compete with an essentially free product already incorporated in Windows.

In 1997, before the release of Windows 98, the Department of Justice filed
a suit against Microsoft to prevent the physical incorporation of Internet Explorer
into the operating system. After appeal Microsoft reversed an earlier injunction,
however, this caused the Department of Justice to bring a new broad suit against
Microsoft for its anti-competitive behavior.

After an original ruling breaking up the company was appealed, both sides negotiated
a new settlement that was much weaker than the first. As Scherer described it,
“Microsoft got out of the case with a slap on the wrist.” Still, after
the lawsuit Microsoft has resumed its old business practices through bundling
its Media Player with the operating system and claiming that .Net technology
has better interoperability with Windows servers, indicating that Microsoft
is withholding information about the interface of the .Net component of Windows.
Part of the court settlement requires that Microsoft disclose all information
about the interfaces for Microsoft Window’s components so that rivals can develop
competing software for the operating system.

Although Microsoft may have gotten off easy in the United States, Scherer said
that currently “Microsoft is in big trouble in Europe” since there
is a new antitrust lawsuit pending that will most likely result in harsher consequences
than before. In addition the Israeli government has declared Microsoft a monopoly
and suspended all government contracts with the company, plus Massachusetts
has declared that all government spending will be only for open standard operating
systems, which eliminates Microsoft products as they are now.

However, according to Scherer, “Yogi Berra said it all: It ain’t over
till it’s over” indicating his belief that there is still a possibility
that Microsoft may once again emerge unscathed.

*****

* The College Board announced the results of their latest tuition survey on
Tuesday. The survey showed that the United States’ public universities increased
tuition by 14 percent in 2003, the largest rise in at least 25 years. The average
tuition for a public university is now $4,694. Community colleges raised tuition
by 14 percent as well, bringing the average total to $1,905, while private universities
raised tuition by 6 percent for an average tuition of $19,710. The increases
at public universities and community colleges are blamed on cuts in state spending
on education. According to the New York Times, similar increases have not occurred
since the more prosperous economy of the mid-1980s.

* Iran consented on Tuesday to impose more stringent international inspections
of its nuclear sites and to cease the manufacturing of enriched uranium, a substance
that can potentially be used to develop nuclear weapons. However, Iran did not
specify when uranium enrichment would be stopped, nor did it sign a treaty that
would allow surprise inspections. The agreement was made during a visit by three
European foreign ministers, Dominique de Villepin of France, Jack Straw of Britain
and Joschka Fischer of Germany. Hassan Rowhani, a “powerful middle-level
cleric” who was Iran’s chief negotiator, commented that the accord must
first be approved by Iran’s elected Parliament.

* Florida Governor Jeb Bush stepped in and ordered the feeding tube of brain-damaged
woman Terri Schiavo be reinserted. Schiavo has been the subject of a battle
between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
Michael Schiavo claims that she had told him in the past that she would never
want to be “kept alive artificially,” while her parents are fighting
to keep her alive in her vegetative state. Bush’s unusual move came after the
Florida Legislature gave Bush the go-ahead, and many are angry that the Legislature
has violated the separation of the executive and legal branches. Mr. Schiavo’s
lawyers are seeking an injunction in the Sixth Circuit Court.

*****

Student Council Open-Mic
Outside Kohlberg Coffee bar, 12:00 p.m.

Presentation by Washington and Lee Law School
Bond, 12:30 p.m.

“The Woman Who Wasn’t There: The Fantastic as the Alternative Confessional
in Kurahashi Yumiko.” Guest Talk by Atsuko Sakaki of the University of
Toronto
Kohlberg 115, 4:15 p.m.

Coming Out Week Screening and Discussion: “Trembling before G-d”
LPAC Cinema, 6:00 p.m.

Career Services Networking Workshop
Kohlberg 115, 6:30 p.m.

Fireside Chat with Student Council, Al Bloom, Bob Gross, Maurice Eldridge,
and members of the faculty
Kohlberg Coffee Bar, 7:00 p.m.

“Walking the Way of Peace” Panel Discussion
Science Center 101, 7:30 p.m.

Prayers for Peace
Common Worship Room in Bond, 9:00 p.m.

Ring Discussion: “Should civil unions be legalized? What about gay marriage?
Can you support queer people without supporting the queer agenda?”
Mephistos, 10:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

The Garnet broke a five match losing streak as they beat Bryn Mawr 30-23, 33-31,
30-27 to improve to 13-16 overall and 4-3 in the Centennial Conference. Senior
Katrina Morrison led the team with 11 kills and three blocks. Sophomore Emily
Conlon contributed 38 assists and nine kills. Emma Benn ’04 and Natalie Dunphy
’05 each contributed nine kills as well.

*****

Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.

Tomorrow:
There are no contests scheduled for tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
–Seneca

*****

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