On The Net - Computing News

with Chris Goh

A few months ago I watched the Roman Polanski movie The Pianist and I was so moved, because although I could never fully comprehend the atrocities of the Nazi regime I could appreciate the sheer tragedy that befell the Jewish culture and the Jewish people. One of the most symbolic images I remember from that movie was the way the Nazis isolated the Polish Jews slowly. First the Jews were made to wear the Star of David to make them recognisable, and then they were slowly moved into the ghettos. Walls were built around them and to pass from one ghetto to the next, German troops manned a large gate, whichwhen opened (very few times in a day) would stretch to the other ghetto, never allowing them to leave their confines, all under the pretence of security. Even this became intolerable to the Germans, who finally built a bridge across the road from one ghetto to the next so the Jews would never touch the free ground of Poland.

Last weekend I accidentally stumbled onto a story about the walls the Israelis were building around Palestinian towns, taking land from the rightful owners (that even the Israelis recognise), and locking Palestinians behind large concrete walls and barbed wire gates, which are opened at irregular times maybe twice a day, maybe twice a week. All Palestinians are marked, as are their vehicles, and they are now forced to live in the ghettos created by these walls where there is 60% unemployment and terrible poverty; where many rely on the free communities to pass food through the fences. And so I asked myself, how can this happen? How can a race that had suffered such humiliation, such genocide, such evil, turn around and perpetrate such inhumanity. How could they think that the excuses their fathers' persecutors used to segregate and demean them would be okay to use against their enemy?

I'd always thought that in this information age, where children can learn so much from history, history's mistakes would not be repeated, but how wrong one can be. How I underestimated the capacity of human fear, frailty and hatred to drive them into such clearly inhumane acts. How those drivers create selective hearing, education, propaganda and blindness.

The exasperating thing is that people easily buy into the notion of fear, as it's better to be secure than to trust the unexpected. Especially if the unexpected are monsters that those in power create for you. We now live in troubled times where creating monsters are the pastimes of those who lead us, a la Lord of the Flies.

HotNews

The iPod has been so successful that Apple has thought it prudent to create a separate division for it. Jon Rubinstein, who headed the engineering team that created the iPod, will now run the division.

How would you feel about a computer program that grabs a database of the population and based on various elements, guesses who are likely terrorists (we're not talking just people with criminal records here). Well, enter the Matrix, the new US Multi-state Anti-Terrorism Information eXchange that is designed to do just that - to forecast the propensity for individuals to become terrorists. The program was run post September 11, which led to the arrests of five of the terrorists implicated in 9/11, 45 under investigation due to the FBI knowing about them already and 30 people who none of the agencies knew.

Microsoft is attempting now to break into the mainframe arena previously dominated by Unix/Linux machines. Microsoft figured that if Linux can break into the desktop market, surely it can compete in the mainframe. The new operating system to take this on is Windows Server HPC Edition. Unlike Linux however, Microsoft will have to battle the stability issue that plagues the operating system at a desktop level.

JetStar is upping the anti on Virgin with news that it will launch an SMS booking service by the end of June. This will allow registered JetStar users to easily book their ticket to any destination from their mobile phone.

Apple has released security patches to a flaw found in Mac OS X using Safari.

Earlier on this year we saw George Bush being Google bombed. What this means if enough people put a particular term and link it to your page, Google will spit out your page when those terms are used. If you searched for 'miserable failure' the Biography of President Bush comes up. To prove no side of politics is immune, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will come up if you look for 'waffle'.

In October last year Mr Du Daobin was detained by Chinese officials after posting 30 articles on the Internet about freedom of speech (and they were mostly articles from others). To prove the Chinese Government was a fair and kind regime, they held the trial on the 18th of May, but only informed Mr D Daobin's lawyer four days before, who couldn't get to the trial in time.

HotSites

www.pictureaustralia.org

One of the most comprehensive image libraries in the world of Australia. This site has pictures old and new, not just photos but comic strips of culture, heritage, anything - just try it out. It is one of the best Australian sites I've seen for a long time.

www.webbyawards.com

This year's webby award announcement has been made, with less fanfare. The nomination list is also a bit weak showing the normal nominees. No real surprises but all the sites listed are well done. The Queensland government website made the nominee list of best Government website.

www.searchsystems.net

This site is an excellent portal for public records. Though the really good content is in the US, the webmaster has gone to great lengths to ensure the other countries are well represented, including Australia.