Author: David Bradley

Cornell University researchers are working hard to ensure P2P systems work as they should. Assistant professor in Computer Science, Emin GÜ® Sirer, for instance is working on various programs such as Credence, which he hopes will counter P2P pollution.

He’s also spotted a serious vulnerability in the Limewire P2P program, which runs on the Gnutella file sharing system and triggered Limewire to send out a patch to its approximately 35 million users.

Maybe this is a naive question, given the sheer number of users out there, but what are Cornell researchers doing improving systems that are commonly used to propagate copyright material illicitly across the net? Are there actual legitimate reasons why people would be using Limewire and other P2P software? Presumably, business users and academics wishing to share their information would do so through an intranet, ftp, or by email, rather than allowing all and sundry to access their files through a P2P network.

I could understand it if the academic community were working with the copyright holders on techniques to prevent copyrighted materials being propagated in this way, but this seems to be an odd way to spend research funds, or am I missing something here?

A chemistry student in the US has beaten software giant Microsoft to a legal pulp, according to a report in The Register. David Zamos of Kent State University re-sold on e-bay some MS software bought at an educational discount rate. MS sued and then Zamos counter-sued says The Register. The funniest thing about the article though isn’t Zamos’ contorted retort to the MS legal claims (“Microsoft purposely established and maintained a sales and distribution system whereby rightful rejection and return of merchandise that is substantially non-conforming is either impossible or practically impossible due to the ineptness of its employees, unconscionable policies malicious intent and deceptive practices,” he wrote in the countersuit, reports The Register), but that the webzine then asks, “What’s this kid doing messing around with Chemistry?”

Well…if Zamos is clever enough to out-do MS in legalese, he could only be a boon to the chemical industry and ought to be given a high-level position as soon as he graduates…

My mentioning Joel Shurkin’s blog brought forth some sarcastic comments because of my quoting his remark on cancer cause and cure. One blog made the quite obvious comment in joannejacobs.com that “make a mouse drink enough water, it’ll develop cancer from it”. I wasn’t sure if that entry was being sarcastic or not, but I think Joel himself was being ironic…science writers see dozens of research papers that swing both ways on such matters as cancer cause and cure. Equally we see headlines proclaiming “[insert favourite chemical here] Causes Cancer” and just as many saying, “Scientific Breakthrough in Cancer Fight”.

Any compound can be demonstrated to be cytotoxic under the right conditions and so kill cancer cells or cause cancer in healthy cells. It’s the “right conditions” that matter though. Nevertheless we should heed the warnings about some chemicals: DHMO.org

How to maintain a healthy Windows System. This page does what it says on the tin, providing a run down of what you need to do to maintain your Windows set up and cut down on the old Bluescreen of Death. One thing though lots of the text on this page is very pale and impossible to read if there’s a lot of glare on your screen…so here’s a quick tip to make any “too pale” text easily readable: “Control A” (Selects all). All text on the page then becomes white on a nice dark blue background. Much easier on the eyes if browsing in bright conditions…