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S’pore firm claims patent to image search
By Eileen Yu, ZDNet Asia
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 07:22 PM

Singapore company says it owns patent to technology used by millions of online sites worldwide to link graphics and pictures to other Web pages.

SINGAPORE–A local company has laid claims to a technology that Web sites across the globe deploy to link images to other Web pages, and sent out notification letters to several companies demanding to be paid licensing fees.

Dubbing itself “pioneers of visual search technology”, Vuestar Technologies said it owns the patent to the technology that enables “Internet searching via visual images”.

In sum, the company implied that any Web site that uses pictures and graphics to link to another site or Web page will need a license from Vuestar.

“Those who use visual images which hyperlink to other Web pages or Web sites…whether on the first page or subsequent pages of a Web site require a Vuestar ‘license of use’,” the company said on its site.

Singapore law firm Keystone Law issued a note to its clients Tuesday, urging those that intend to take up a licensing agreement with companies such as Vuestar, to “carefully examine the terms of such licenses and the claims of the licensors”.

Bryan Tan, director at Keystone Law, said in an e-mail interview: “Always examine such claims carefully and take legal advice if you are not familiar [with the company’s claims]. Even if you decide to settle a claim, make sure you know what ‘rights’ you are paying for.” Keystone specializes in technology law.

In his note to the firm’s clients, Tan added: “We understand that Vuestar has sent invoices for around S$5,000 (US$3,676) to various parties in Singapore asking them to enter into such license agreements, or to cease allowing images on a parties’ Web site to be downloaded or used in Singapore.”

“We believe that this development would have a wide-ranging impact on the Internet community in Singapore, given the wide claims made by Vuestar on the intellectual property covered by the patents,” he said. “Parties operating Web sites, offering Web services or developing Web-based and WAP-based products and services need to be especially careful.”

Vuestar said it does not intend to claim licensing fees from charities and government agencies. The company added that its patent extends beyond Singapore and to “several parts of the world”.

According to Tan, Vuestar’s patent–tagged under publication number 95940–appears also to have been granted in Australia, New Zealand and United States.

It is not clear how the company’s patent will impact other visual search technology companies such as Like.com, which claims to have developed the “first true visual search engine”.

Established in August 2004, Like.com also said it owns almost 12 patents in the areas of visual recognition and search.

———————————————————-

Patent breach by ‘virtually all websites’? Pay up, firm demands
[2008] 27 May_ST

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Title:        Patent breach by ‘virtually all websites’? Pay up, firm demands
Source:        Straits Times
Author:        Chua Hian Hou

Legal News Archive

A SINGAPORE firm has threatened to sue websites that use pictures or graphics to link to another page, claiming it owns the patent for a technology used by millions around the world.

In a move that has come under fire from the online community, VueStar Technologies has sent ‘invoices’ to local website operators asking for thousands of dollars in licensing fees.

The company, which said ‘virtually all websites’ are infringing on its patent, is also planning to take on giants like Mircosoft and Google.

It is a battle that could, at least in theory, upend the Internet, though intellectual property experts have some doubts that VueStar can actually enforce its claims.

The company said it has been awarded a patent here and in several other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States, for the method of ‘locating Web pages by utilising visual images’.

In other words, clicking, scrolling or streaming over a visual image to connect with a website or Web page is an infringement, the company claims on its website.

The technique is the de facto method used to connect websites across the globe, from personal blogs to the biggest search engines.

VueStar managing director Paul Smith said if sites want to keep using images as links, they will have to pay his company - located in a single-unit office at The Adelphi off Coleman Street - between ‘$200′ and ‘millions’ annually.

It is a claim, however, that has its doubters.

Technology and intellectual property lawyer Bryan Tan of Keystone Law Corporation said that while VueStar has been granted a patent, it is an extremely wide one.

In fact, ‘if the patent is allowed to stand, it will probably bring the (Internet) industry to its knees’. And VueStar’s patent may be contested and overturned in court, he said.

The firm has been sending out invoices to Singapore companies since last week asking them to pay up, said Mr Smith. He declined to say how many have gone out, but there have been ‘enough to keep my phone busy’.

Those who do not pay up, warned Mr Smith, face legal action, and his company is ‘highly confident that (a court decision) will be in our favour’.

Mr Alvin Koh, who runs the non-profit Arrowana fish website arofanatics.com, received one of VueStar’s invoices last week for $5,350. He does not intend to pay up and said: ‘I would rather close down the site’.

Mr Smith recognises that Mr Koh’s stand will likely be a popular one, and his firm is already girding up for a public backlash.

‘Website owners are just upset because they never had to pay for it before,’ said Mr Smith.

VueStar will begin enforcing its patent claims in Australia and the US ’soon’, he said, and the firm is also working on invoices for Internet heavyweights like Google and Microsoft.

While governments and charities will need a licence, VueStar will not be asking for payment from these parties, he said.

Mr Tan urged companies to contact their lawyers before ‘paying VueStar anything’.

Source: Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Permission required for reproduction.
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BT in court to enforce hyperlink patent

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* Internet Patent News Service
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BT Group PLC will appear in a New York federal court on Monday to try to enforce a patent it says covers all hyperlinking. BT claims it invented the hyperlink in 1976, and anyone who uses the World Wide Web owes them money.

If upheld, the patent would give BT the right to collect royalties from any Internet Service Provider.

BT sued Prodigy Communications after the ISP refused to purchase a license for the right to use hyperlinks, the clickable links that connect one web page to another. If Prodigy loses the case, other ISPs would also be charged royalties.

BT was granted the US patent back in 1989. It had been filed when the then-Post Office was developing an online information service, called Prestel. Patents were also granted in other countries, but have since expired.

BT sent letters to 16 ISPs in June of 2000 after someone in the company rediscovered the patent in its files. The patent expires in 2006 but, if upheld, ISPs could owe huge back royalties.

“We believe we have a duty to protect our intellectual property and we would expect companies to pay a reasonable royalty based on the revenues that they have enjoyed through the use of that intellectual property,” a BT spokeswoman told Reuters.
Exclusive right

But critics say the patent claim is overly broad and could drive up the cost of the internet access for users. It could even allow BT to decide who gets to use the web and who does not, they say.

“Is it good public policy to allow patents like this? I think this claim illustrates the problems you’ve got with the patent system,” says James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a Washington-based advocacy group. “They would have an exclusive right, the right to stop you cold from using the Web.”

Other critics do not think the patent will hold up. Gregory Aharonian, publisher of the Internet Patent News Service, has written that the patent will probably be invalidated because some people were using similar technology before 1976.

One potential piece of “prior art” can be seen on a 1968 video clip, where Stanford researchers demonstrated an online editing system that uses hyperlinks.

Apple’s MacBook Air, iPhone and iPod may be all the rage, but the company’s desktop computers are still relative rarities: although analysts’ figures vary, Apple desktops certainly comprise less than 10 per cent of the worldwide market.

This low market share is often attributed to the relatively high prices of Apple computers. However, another reason could be the fact that users rarely have an opportunity to experience Mac OS before buying a computer. This would require a visit to one of the Apple retail stores or an accommodating Mac-owning friend. But there is another way: for some time, various different images of Mac OS X have been available on the internet that have been modified to circumvent its tight coupling to Apple’s hardware. These allow the operating system to be installed on a standard PC. To date, Apple has taken no action against such activities, which perhaps indicates that the ‘buzz’ around its OS is not entirely unwelcome.

However, Apple’s licence agreement does state that Mac OS X should only be installed on Apple hardware, so this is a controversial subject. The versions available for download that we discuss in this article are unauthorised. You might feel morally justified in using one of these after you’ve bought a legitimate copy of Mac OS X Leopard, but you will still be breaking copyright law. Combine that with the dangers of downloading software from unofficial sources, and it’s clear that taking this route is only for the adventurous, on securely isolated test computers. We certainly don’t recommend you do this — however interesting the results may be.

In the best case, Mac OS X Leopard on standard PC hardware can use full graphics acceleration (Quartz, Core Image) and all of the CPU features

Motherboard, CPU & chipset

Modified Mac OS X Leopard images called Kalyway and Iatkos are ideal for Intel-based systems, while PCs with AMD processors are best served by the Zephyroth variant. A recently published image that covers all platforms well is Leo4All. A successful installation of Mac OS X Leopard is by no means guaranteed, but it is very likely.

For the Intel platform, the closer the components are to those in a real Mac, the greater the chances of success. Specifically, this means a motherboard with an Intel CPU/chipset combination that supports SSE3. However, there can still be problems. In our tests, for example, we couldn’t convince the Esprimo P5925 with Intel’s Q35 chipset to cooperate with Mac OS. Perhaps the Q35’s integrated vPro technology for remote client management is the culprit. However, we were successful with motherboards using Intel’s 975, 965 and X38 chipsets.

When it comes to the Zephyroth image for AMD platforms, some limitations must be accepted. For example, it’s not possible to execute 64-bit programs with an AMD processor. Nor are the extensions of virtualisation programs such as Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMware supported. We also failed to install Leopard on AMD’s quad-core Phenom processor, although some users report success if EFI emulation is bypassed.

It’s also important to note that hard disk and DVD drive installation may be problematical. Success is most likely if both components use a Serial ATA (SATA) interface. This is because modern Intel chipsets no longer integrate an UltraATA controller, so motherboard makers use an additional chip from JMicron or another manufacturer. However, these solutions are far from compatible with the Parallel ATA (PATA) specification (older chipsets, such as the Intel 975, have a PATA-compatible interface, and the installation succeeds). In addition, all input devices such as keyboard and mouse, must attach to USB ports.

There are stability issues with some motherboards. For example, in our tests the Gigabyte 965P-DS3 crashed with more than 2GB of RAM fitted. However, once AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) is enabled on the SATA controller, the 965-DS3 runs Mac OS with 4GB of RAM without any problems. For a stable operation, you should also ensure that the CPU extension for protecting against buffer overflow (No Execute/Execute Disable or NX/XD) is enabled in the BIOS.

Network, sound and graphics cards

Hardware support for network, sound and graphics cards is generally good, although problems can still arise. Realtek and Marvell network chips generally work, but some newer Intel chips can prove troublesome. Drivers are not usually available, so an additional network card will be needed. The same is true for Wi-Fi: Atheros and Broadcom chips are mostly OK, but Intel’s 3945ABG is not supported. Some manufacturers, including Ralink and ZyXEL, now even offer Mac OS drivers for download.

Integrated audio, as often used on motherboards, is supported by default in the latest images. Drivers for a number of ALC88x-family chips are on the setup DVD. However, with Sound Blaster products, you’ll have to accept some reduced functionality. Frequently, the 5.1 analogue output does not work, although the digital output does support this standard. Also, the sound inputs only rarely function.

Mac OS X is particularly animation-rich, so support for graphics chips is critical. Drivers are present, but work only rarely for newer ATI and Nvidia GPUs (Graphics Processing Units); older graphics chips from the Radeon X1000 series give fewer problems. With newer graphics chips it’s best to perform the installation without selecting a graphics driver, so that Mac OS starts in VGA mode. In our test with an ATI HD 2600 X, however, even that failed. Installation is successful with some compatible graphics cards, though. We succeeded with ATI’s X1400, X1600 and X1900, while newer graphics cards with HD 2600 XT, HD 2900, HD 3850, HD3870 and HD 3870X2 chips required Mac OS to be started in VGA mode.

After starting Mac OS X Leopard with a X1000 graphics card, drivers can be installed to ensure that newer GPUs offer full graphics acceleration. You can even use an ATI HD 3870 X2, although Mac OS X will not make use of the second GPU in this high-end card. Nevertheless the second chip is recognised and you can use the (four) DVI outputs to connect further monitors — similar to a Mac Pro with two graphics cards. Almost all graphics drivers in circulation support digital LCD connections, although it’s possible that in some setups only the analogue VGA mode will be active. Multi-screen operation is no problem: after connecting a second monitor, Mac OS extends the desktop area automatically.

Installing Leopard on a standard PC

For our test installation of Leopard on a standard PC, we used the Gigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6 for the Intel platform, and the GA-MA790FX-DQ6 for the AMD platform. The hard disk was a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 with a SATA interface and 750GB capacity, while the DVD drive was an ASUS DRW1814BLT, also with a SATA interface. Both systems used the Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card and both were fitted with 4GB of memory from Aeneon.

We installed Mac OS X Leopard from the Leo4All image, which provides excellent hardware support and works with both Intel and AMD processors. Leo4all also integrates many updates, including Leopard 10.5.2. The Kalyway image also works well for Intel systems.

Setup DVD
About five minutes after starting the installation, a graphical setup mode appears where you choose, among other things, the partition into which Mac OS is to be installed. Mac OS initially finds no partition in a new drive, and Disk Utility must be used to create one or more partitions. Thanks to EFI emulation, hard disks can be partitioned using the GUID scheme; GUID is the successor to the MBR (Master Boot Record), supporting more partitions and providing greater flexibility. However, most Windows operating systems do not support the GUID partition scheme: you’ll need to install the GRUB bootloader and jump through some hoops to get both Windows and Mac OS onto a GUID-partitioned hard disk — something that’s beyond the scope of this article. With an MBR-partitioned drive, it’s relatively straightforward to install Mac OS alongside Windows.

The setup process takes a good 30 minutes. Thanks to Leo4all’s good hardware support, network and audio devices are immediately available after the installation. However, you’ll need to install a graphics driver later. After completing the installation, Mac OS plays a short video and asks for a user name and password.

It’s worth noting that, using the Netkas EFI emulation, you can install the original ‘vanilla’ Mac OS kernel. However, this is not advisable, as you’re likely to encounter shutdown/reboot problems. Instead, it’s better to use the modified Netkas kernel 9.2.0.

Tips and tricks

As already mentioned, you may encounter difficulties either during setup or installation. For example, if the system hangs shortly after the start of the setup DVD, or if an error message appears, the following switches for the Darwin bootloader can be helpful: - f, - x, -v, -legacy. Also, switching off one of a dual-core processor’s cores in the BIOS can be helpful.

After installation, a flashing cursor can appear on-screen, followed by nothing much at all. In this case, the partition was probably not marked as active, which prevents startup. You can retrieve this situation manually by starting again from DVD, calling up the Terminal program and entering the following instructions:

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (If a hard disk is in the system)
p (Show partitions)
f 2 (Make partition 1 active (GUID), for MBR enter 1 here instead of 2)
w
y
exit

Post-installation problems: orange disk icons
In many cases, the Leopard hard drive is identified as a removable device — especially if the disk controller is an Intel ICH9 in AHCI mode. Accordingly, the disk’s icon is orange instead of grey. That not only looks bad, but can also cause problems with access rights. This can be resolved by replacing two kernel extensions (’kexts’). The Kext Helper tool, which is often installed by the modified image, lets you easily install the AppleAHCIPort.kext and IOAHCIFamily.kext in /System/ Library/Extensions without being in Terminal with super-user rights (sudo -s).

‘About this Mac’
Apple has no conventional desktop processors in its systems (the Mac mini, iMac and notebooks use Intel’s mobile processors, while the Mac Pro is equipped with server CPUs), which means that Mac OS usually misrecognises standard PC processors. In the ‘About this Mac’ info box, it simply says ‘Unknown Processor’. The memory complement is also often not properly recognised, while the CPU functions supported by Leopard no longer appear.

To correctly display processor and memory information, you need to edit the AboutThisMac.strings file. To do this, go to /System/Library/Core Services/loginwindow.app, right-click on the program and select Show Package Contents. Then open another Finder window and navigate to the /Contents /Resources/German.lproj folder. Here you should find the AboutThisMac.strings file, which you can copy to the desktop and open with TextEdit. Scroll down to the line “ABOUT_BOX_MULTIPLE_PROCESSOR_FIELD_FORMAT” and, after the equals sign, replace the two operands “% @” with the correct CPU string — for example, “Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU X9650″. For a single-processor system, do the same for the “ABOUT_BOX_SINGLE_PROCESSOR_FIELD_FORMAT” line, and enter the correct memory information at “ABOUT_BOX_MEMORY_FIELD_FORMAT”. Then save the file and replace the original with the modified version.

With a little judicious editing, you can get Mac OS X to display CPU and memory information correctly.

Assistance, drivers and instructions for installing Mac OS X on standard PCs are available on the internet. The most comprehensive forum is insanelymac.com; there are also useful tips and tricks at osx86scene.com and hackint0sh.org.

Performance

As far as performance is concerned, there’s no difference between Mac OS on a standard PC and an official Apple Mac — so long as the CPU and graphics card are properly supported. The Intel platform manages this better than AMD, as the latter cannot operate in 64-bit mode and lacks the appropriate CPU extensions for optimising virtualisation performance. By contrast, the overclocked 3.6GHz Penryn quad-core (Intel Core 2 Extreme X9650) works in the Gigabyte motherboard with a frontside bus speed of 1600MHz and is fully supported by Mac OS: all CPU extensions can be used.

As our tests show, Mac OS Leopard running on a single 3.6GHz quad-core Intel processor compares very well to its performance on a Mac Pro’s pair of 2.8GHz quad-core chips. It even outperforms Apple’s high-end workstation in some areas — particularly the memory benchmarks. This is partly the result of the Intel system’s 1,333MHz DDR3 non-ECC memory (Aeneon DDR3 1333) and higher 3.6GHz clock speed, compared to the Mac Pro with its fully buffered DIMMs and 800MHz DDR2 memory. More serious, however, is the fact that with two memory modules installed in the Mac Pro, only two of the four available memory channels are used, cutting the theoretical maximum bandwidth by half. As a result, even the AMD system matches Apple’s high-end workstation in the memory benchmarks. With pure arithmetic operations, however, the dual quad-core Mac Pro is superior to the Intel system, despite its lower clock speed.

Mac Pro: 2 x 2.8GHz quad-core. Intel PC:1 x 3.6GHz Penryn quad-core. Longer bars are better.

Mac Pro: 2 x 2.8GHz quad-core. AMD PC: 1 x 3.0GHz Athlon 64 dual-core. Intel PC:1 x 3.6GHz Penryn quad-core. Longer bars are better.

Conclusion

With the right hardware components, a standard PC running Mac OS X Leopard is, at first sight, no different from a genuine Apple Mac. Special CPU extensions such as Intel VT-x provide support for software solutions like Parallels Desktop for Mac. Even Adobe Photoshop, which queries a Mac to verify its authenticity, runs fine on a standard PC thanks to EFI emulation. You can also use .Mac accounts and the integrated Time Machine backup feature, which didn’t work with earlier Mac OS images. Graphics acceleration is no longer an issue, and nor is the digital control of LCD screens. However, you will have to accept some reduced audio functionality, and will look in vain for drivers for most PCI add-on cards.

Although the modified Mac OS images exhibit no stability problems on optimal hardware under normal conditions, not all functions are supported. Sleep mode — which puts the system into a state that consumes only a few watts of power — works only in exceptional cases, when all the relevant kernel extensions are available.

You’ll need to be careful with software updates, too. Although most Mac OS updates work, those affecting the core operating system (kernel) are often incompatible. For instance, the automatic update to version 10.5.2 caused a system crash, which is very difficult to repair. Changes to key drivers following an update may also prevent Mac OS from starting up on a standard PC. Installing Windows using Boot Camp does not work either. Whatever the difficulties involved in installing and setting up Mac OS on a desktop PC, the situation is usually exacerbated on a notebook — for example, it’s not usually possible to replace a graphics accelerator or a network chip.

Installing a modified Mac OS image on a standard PC is unlikely to be a productive exercise for most users because of the technical obstacles likely to be encountered. However, it can be a rewarding experience for enthusiasts and specialists with Unix expertise. As mentioned at the start of this article, this is a legally questionable pursuit that is definitely not to be undertaken without first purchasing a legitimate copy of Mac OS Leopard.
Running Mac OS X on standard PCs

Kai Schmerer ZDNet Germany

Published: 14 May 2008

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who’s using an open wireless connection–and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.

Roderick Vosburgh, a doctoral student at Temple University who also taught history at La Salle University, was raided at home in February 2007 after he allegedly clicked on the FBI’s hyperlink. Federal agents knocked on the door around 7 a.m., falsely claiming they wanted to talk to Vosburgh about his car. Once he opened the door, they threw him to the ground outside his house and handcuffed him.

Vosburgh was charged with violating federal law, which criminalizes “attempts” to download child pornography with up to 10 years in prison. Last November, a jury found Vosburgh guilty on that count, and a sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 22, at which point Vosburgh could face three to four years in prison.

The implications of the FBI’s hyperlink-enticement technique are sweeping. Using the same logic and legal arguments, federal agents could send unsolicited e-mail messages to millions of Americans advertising illegal narcotics or child pornography–and raid people who click on the links embedded in the spam messages. The bureau could register the “unlawfulimages.com” domain name and prosecute intentional visitors. And so on.

“The evidence was insufficient for a reasonable jury to find that Mr. Vosburgh specifically intended to download child pornography, a necessary element of any ‘attempt’ offense,” Vosburgh’s attorney, Anna Durbin of Ardmore, Penn., wrote in a court filing that is attempting to overturn the jury verdict before her client is sentenced.

In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Durbin added: “I thought it was scary that they could do this. This whole idea that the FBI can put a honeypot out there to attract people is kind of sad. It seems to me that they’ve brought a lot of cases without having to stoop to this.”

Durbin did not want to be interviewed more extensively about the case because it is still pending; she’s waiting for U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage to rule on her motion. Unless he agrees with her and overturns the jury verdict, Vosburgh–who has no prior criminal record–will be required to register as a sex offender for 15 years and will be effectively barred from continuing his work as a college instructor after his prison sentence ends.

How the hyperlink sting operation worked
The government’s hyperlink sting operation worked like this: FBI Special Agent Wade Luders disseminated links to the supposedly illicit porn on an online discussion forum called Ranchi, which Luders believed was frequented by people who traded underage images. One server allegedly associated with the Ranchi forum was rangate.da.ru, which is now offline with a message attributing the closure to “non-ethical” activity.

In October 2006, Luders posted a number of links purporting to point to videos of child pornography, and then followed up with a second, supposedly correct link 40 minutes later. All the links pointed to, according to a bureau affidavit, a “covert FBI computer in San Jose, California, and the file located therein was encrypted and non-pornographic.”

Excerpt from an FBI affidavit filed in the Nevada case showing how the hyperlink-sting was conducted.

Some of the links, including the supposedly correct one, included the hostname uploader.sytes.net. Sytes.net is hosted by no-ip.com, which provides dynamic domain name service to customers for $15 a year.

When anyone visited the upload.sytes.net site, the FBI recorded the Internet Protocol address of the remote computer. There’s no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn’t tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

With the logs revealing those allegedly incriminating IP addresses in hand, the FBI sent administrative subpoenas to the relevant Internet service provider to learn the identity of the person whose name was on the account–and then obtained search warrants for dawn raids.

Excerpt from FBI affidavit in Nevada case that shows visits to the hyperlink-sting site.

The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any “computer-related” equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any “addressed correspondence” sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements.

While it might seem that merely clicking on a link wouldn’t be enough to justify a search warrant, courts have ruled otherwise. On March 6, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada agreed with a magistrate judge that the hyperlink-sting operation constituted sufficient probable cause to justify giving the FBI its search warrant.

The defendant in that case, Travis Carter, suggested that any of the neighbors could be using his wireless network. (The public defender’s office even sent out an investigator who confirmed that dozens of homes were within Wi-Fi range.)

But the magistrate judge ruled that even the possibilities of spoofing or other users of an open Wi-Fi connection “would not have negated a substantial basis for concluding that there was probable cause to believe that evidence of child pornography would be found on the premises to be searched.” Translated, that means the search warrant was valid.

Entrapment: Not a defense
So far, at least, attorneys defending the hyperlink-sting cases do not appear to have raised unlawful entrapment as a defense.

“Claims of entrapment have been made in similar cases, but usually do not get very far,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a professor at George Washington University’s law school. “The individuals who chose to log into the FBI sites appear to have had no pressure put upon them by the government…It is doubtful that the individuals could claim the government made them do something they weren’t predisposed to doing or that the government overreached.”

The outcome may be different, Saltzburg said, if the FBI had tried to encourage people to click on the link by including misleading statements suggesting the videos were legal or approved.

In the case of Vosburgh, the college instructor who lived in Media, Penn., his attorney has been left to argue that “no reasonable jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Vosburgh himself attempted to download child pornography.”

Vosburgh faced four charges: clicking on an illegal hyperlink; knowingly destroying a hard drive and a thumb drive by physically damaging them when the FBI agents were outside his home; obstructing an FBI investigation by destroying the devices; and possessing a hard drive with two grainy thumbnail images of naked female minors (the youths weren’t having sex, but their genitalia were visible).

The judge threw out the third count and the jury found him not guilty of the second. But Vosburgh was convicted of the first and last counts, which included clicking on the FBI’s illicit hyperlink.

In a legal brief filed on March 6, his attorney argued that the two thumbnails were in a hidden “thumbs.db” file automatically created by the Windows operating system. The brief said that there was no evidence that Vosburgh ever viewed the full-size images–which were not found on his hard drive–and the thumbnails could have been created by receiving an e-mail message, copying files, or innocently visiting a Web page.

From the FBI’s perspective, clicking on the illicit hyperlink and having a thumbs.db file with illicit images are both serious crimes. Federal prosecutors wrote: “The jury found that defendant knew exactly what he was trying to obtain when he downloaded the hyperlinks on Agent Luder’s Ranchi post. At trial, defendant suggested unrealistic, unlikely explanations as to how his computer was linked to the post. The jury saw through the smokes (sic) and mirrors, as should the court.”

And, as for the two thumbnail images, prosecutors argued (note that under federal child pornography law, the definition of “sexually explicit conduct” does not require that sex acts take place):

The first image depicted a pre-pubescent girl, fully naked, standing on one leg while the other leg was fully extended leaning on a desk, exposing her genitalia… The other image depicted four pre-pubescent fully naked girls sitting on a couch, with their legs spread apart, exposing their genitalia. Viewing this image, the jury could reasonably conclude that the four girls were posed in unnatural positions and the focal point of this picture was on their genitalia…. And, based on all this evidence, the jury found that the images were of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and certainly did not require a crystal clear resolution that defendant now claims was necessary, yet lacking.

Prosecutors also highlighted the fact that Vosburgh visited the “loli-chan” site, which has in the past featured a teenage Webcam girl holding up provocative signs (but without any nudity).

Civil libertarians warn that anyone who clicks on a hyperlink advertising something illegal–perhaps found while Web browsing or received through e-mail–could face the same fate.

When asked what would stop the FBI from expanding its hyperlink sting operation, Harvey Silverglate, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. and author of a forthcoming book on the Justice Department, replied: “Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of ‘entrapment,’ and so expansive in their definition of ‘probable cause,’ there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit.”

A new kind of flash memory technology with potentially greater capacity and durability, lower power requirements, and the same design as flash NAND is primed to challenge today’s solid-state disk products.

Fremont, Calif.-based Nanochip Inc. said it has made breakthroughs in its array-based memory research that will enable it to deliver working prototypes to potential manufacturing partners next year. Three investors, including Intel Capital, recently put $14 million into the company, which has been developing the technology since its founding in 1996.

“It’s a technology that doesn’t depend on Moore’s Law,” says Gordon Knight, CEO of Nanochip. “This technology should go at least 10 generations.”

Knight was alluding to the decades-long trend in which the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit roughly doubles every two years. Current thinking is that flash memory could hit its limit at around 32 to 45 nanometers. That describes the smallest possible width of a metal line on the circuit or the amount of space between that line and the next line. The capacity of an IC is restricted by the ability to “print” to a smaller and smaller two-dimensional plane, otherwise known as the lithography.

And that, according to Stefan Lai, is where Nanochip’s technology shines. “Moore’s Law is driven by lithography,” says Lai, a member of Nanochip’s technical advisory board, as well as vice president of business development at Ovonyx Inc. and former vice president of Intel Corp.’s flash memory group. “Every two years, you need to buy this new machine that allows you to print something that’s smaller and finer.”

Array-based memory uses a grid of microscopic probes to read and write to a storage material. The storage area isn’t defined by the lithography but by the movement of the probes. “If [Nanochip] can move the probes one-tenth the distance, for example, they can get 100 times the density with no change in the lithography,” says Lai. “You don’t have to buy all these new machines.”

Lai said that in principle, Nanochip could develop the ability to move the probe a single atom at a time. The company said its current generation of probes has a radius smaller than 25nm, but it projects that eventually the probes could be shrunk to two or three nanometers apiece. That scale, said Knight will enable development in 10 to 12 years of a memory chip greater than 1TB. For a first generation, anticipated in 2010, Knight says he expects a small number of chips to be in excess of 100GB, but a more realistic number is “tens of gigabytes” per integrated circuit, a capacity comparable to the current generation of flash devices.
A cutaway of a MEMS chip
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Reusing the old equipment for new chips

Knight sees a market for Nanochip’s technology in USB drives, solid-state disk drives and even enterprise servers. In each case, he believes, there are advantages with array-based memory.

Unlike flash NAND, where the frequently-changing lithography requires construction of ever-pricier manufacturing plants, Nanochip can manufacture its chips on existing low-cost semiconductor equipment, according to Marlene Bourne, head of analyst firm The Bourne Report. “They’re using used equipment [and] adapting to their needs,” she says. “Same machinery, same equipment, same materials, same basic processing steps. You’re just creating three-dimensional objects instead of a flat [integrated circuit].” That will hold true, she says, even as the company increases the density of its chips. That could provide a cost advantage over solid-state drives, which are currently in the range of $15 to $18 per gigabyte.

Like solid-state drives, array-based memory requires no motor, which reduces its power consumption and heat output in comparison with spinning disk hard drives, says Lai. The mechanism used to move the probes is very low power, he says. Because they don’t require “a hundred pieces to make the hard drive work,” Lai says he believes Nanochip products will be more rugged.

Unlike traditional disk drives in servers, says Knight, his company’s technology prevents the queuing problems that surface when multiple users try to access data. “When you have an array of these chips, you have many, many points of access,” he says. An internal controller inside the Nanochip sends the tips down to locate specific data, which is returned in multiplex form and output in serial form, “just like the output of a NAND flash drive or disk drive — but in fact, the data is spread out over a few hundred tips.”
Nanochip’s probe and tip
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Array-based technology isn’t something new and unique, says Bourne. Nanochip is simply applying it in a slightly different way. “The tips that form the core of this memory technology are what’s being used in atomic force microscopes,” she points out.
IBM’s first attempt with Millipede

IBM first showed a similar technology in the late 1990s. The millipede project, which is no longer in active research at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory, used microelectrical mechanical system (MEMS) components. In MEMS, the electronics or “brains” of the chip are usually fabricated using integrated circuits, while the moving parts are microscopic components etched from silicon in a micromachining process. Millipede itself was based on nanoscale research in which individual iron atoms were arranged with atomic precision on a special copper surface. That research won two IBM scientists the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics.

Millipede works by using a microscopic probe to make an indent in a polymer material. Each indent represents a single bit as part of the write operation. The indentations can then be removed from the material surface during an erase operation.

By using thousands of such probes in parallel, array-based memory achieves high data rates, with each probe able to read, write and erase in its own data field.

Where millipede puts “dents in plastic,” Nanochip has found a better material for the read-write process to occur, according to Knight, though he declines say what that better material is. A year and a half ago, Knight says, the company made a breakthrough on a new media type that could be infinitely rewritable. “The media never wears out,” Knight claims. “That’s really what got the company rolling fast.”

In-Stat analyst Steve Cullen believes Nanochip has licensed a material that uses chalcogenide glass from Ovonyx. Knight acknowledges that his company has worked with that kind of recording material but is unwilling to say more on the topic.

Lai, who works for Ovonyx, declines to comment on the material being used by Nanochip but points out that the phase-change semiconductor work being done by Ovonyx has more to do with reducing the size of current circuit technologies. “We will continue to follow Moore’s Law.”

A potential stumbling block for Nanochip’s technology is that the tips on the probes, which have a radius smaller than 25nm, could wear out quickly.

Tip wear is particularly relevant if array-based probes are adopted as storage mechanisms in servers. “Obviously, you have a lot of tip wear that goes into an enterprise server that’s operating 24/7, for five, six or seven years,” says Knight.

Lai concurs. The tip is a problem, he says, because it touches the surface of the material.

Knight declines to specify how Nanochip has resolved the tip wear dilemma, but he insists the company has had a breakthrough in its research that has addressed the problem.
Probe-based storage in the real world

In-Stat’s Cullen claims the new technology will find a home as a replacement for hard drives in notebook computers. “The thing that strikes me about 100GB is that it’s a nice size for something to replace a disk in a notebook PC,” he says. “All they’ve got to do is come close to the price of a disk and then offer some other advantage. It may consume less power than a disk. It could be more rugged.”

Nanochip is confident in its ability to produce a product with the same size as existing drives. “We’ll make the interface so it’ll just plug and play,” says Knight. “It’s a new technology, but you want it to fit right in.”

Lai believes that the new memory could herald breakthroughs in mobile devices and biotechnology. “You now need your whole life history stored in your mobile device,” he says. “If you want something to store your genome in, it may take a lot of memory, and you’ll want to carry it with you.”

The big question that remains for Nanochip is whether the company can create working prototypes with the cost advantages that array-based technology is supposed to offer over conventional forms of memory. The fact that IBM appears to have moved on from its Millipede research doesn’t alarm Bourne. In fact, she points out, several people from the IBM team have joined Nanochip’s board of advisers. Knight said the company has 50 engineers and scientists working around the world on the prototypes, either as part of Nanochip itself or within the companies that his firm is partnering with.

IBM last publicly shared details of its probe-based storage research in a gathering of companies and organizations involved in a joint research project called ProTeM, for “probe-based terabit memory.”

According to Evangelos Eleftheriou, an IBM fellow and manager of IBM Labs’ storage technologies group, the company built a prototype that achieved a storage capacity of a terabyte per square inch. He says that research will be published in an article appearing in a couple of months in the “IBM Journal of Research and Development.” But the group doesn’t have plans to develop any products. It will leave that to other companies that might choose to license the research, he says.

The challenge for adoption of any new type of memory, points out Eleftheriou, is that flash itself isn’t standing still. “In 2010, it’s going to be $1 per gigabyte … so hopefully the cost per gigabyte [of probe-based arrays] is going to be low.”

Now, he says, the areas of interest for probe-based technology at IBM have moved onto topics including archival storage and maskless lithography, a technique that separates individual molecules and places them precisely onto a surface.

“The focus of our research is [to] explore ways to enhance the speed in probe sensing and the way we modify the surface — how fast we can do those things… There are many things that come together, from positioning control, to materials to micro-machining, micro-fabricating, so it’s extremely fascinating altogether.”

(AP) — An Internet committee investigating suspicious domain name transactions has found no evidence that insider information is being used to snatch desired Internet addresses to make money off the individual or business that actually wants to register them.

The committee said the 120 claims of “domain name front running” it reviewed generally resulted from misunderstandings about how the domain name industry works.

“When Internet users are unable to distinguish among different market activities, they often appear to conclude that they have fallen victim to a domain name front runner,” the committee said in a new report.

In some cases, however, the committee found that a separate practice of domain name tasting may be causing problems. That refers to someone testing the financial viability of a name for up to five days and then returning it for a full refund, using a loophole in registration policies. Domain tasting can tie up millions of Internet addresses, including ones someone checks but does not buy.

The Security and Stability Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which has oversight of domain name policies and is known by its acronym ICANN, recommended better education so consumers know what to expect.

The report, brought before the ICANN board in New Delhi on Friday, did not examine a controversial practice by domain name seller Network Solutions LLC of grabbing names that people search for on its Web site but don’t immediately register.

The company said it did that to keep the names from front runners. But the practice shared similarities with what Network Solutions was trying to prevent. It has made some changes in response to complaints, and its discussions with ICANN continue.

The ICANN committee said cases suspected of front running often turned out to be coincidence, with multiple parties interested in the same names.

Separately, ICANN has floated a proposal to charge its existing fee of 20 cents per domain name even if the name is returned, making tasting masses of names more expensive.

During ICANN meetings in New Delhi this week, many parties complained that the fee would penalize legitimate returns, such as ones to correct for typos, said Paul Twomey, ICANN’s chief executive. The board took no action Friday.

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