HOWZAT

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
Islam online

Unregulated blogging terrifies repressive regimes. In particular, the Iranian blogger Saena claims that “blogs are the one weapon that even the Islamic republic cannot beat”. Iran has jailed and whipped bloggers — Omid Sheikhan, who blogs as Shurideh, was sentenced in October to 124 lashes of the whip — yet online dissidence shows no sign of abating. On the other hand, as the hate-peddler Dr Mohammed Al Massari said in the excellent BBC documentary The New Al-Qaeda, the internet is vital for terrorists. Without it, “the process of dissemination and mobilisation will take, instead of one year, 50 years”. Extremist sites deploy propaganda, teach internet fraud and glorify suicide. More moderate sites, such as www.islamonline.net, are both a forum for Muslims and a superb way for non-Muslims to learn about Islam. RH

WEB MARSHAL’S STAR
Collins Stewart Tullett

The cyber-marshal has arrived, making the internet feel less like wild old Dodge City. The landmark libel settlement in favour of the London stockbroker Collins Stewart Tullett has exploded the myth that comments made in chat rooms can stay anonymous. Jeremy Benjamin, the fund manager from whom damages were won, now knows that an invented nickname cannot protect you from the long arm of jurisprudence. NP

PIPING UP FOR QUALITY GOLD CUP
Advertising Standards Authority

A pat on the back for the ASA, which, in March, slapped down a frankly insulting boast by AOL, the internet service provider, that its highly compressed online music service, Radio@AOL, contained “CD-quality radio stations”. In fact, the AOL service offered streams at 64kbps. A normal CD plays at 1,378kbps. AOL’s risible defence was that the average consumer ... would be unable to tell the difference”. What utter horse. Doors bets that the head honchos at AOL wouldn’t drink “champagne-quality” table wine on the same basis. Compressed audio has many other good points, but full marks to the ASA for speaking up for sound quality at a time when many legit music downloads are still as expensive as CDs, yet are almost as compressed as Radio@AOL. AP

LEADER OF THE SWARM TROPHY
Bram Cohen

The devilishly talented American Bram Cohen created BitTorrent, a wildly innovative means of distributing fat digital files by sharing them among many computers. It spawned a new breed of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, known as “swarms”. Freely available to all, BitTorrent has become a honeypot to downloaders as it is faster than conventional P2P software and uses bandwidth more efficiently. Last month, BitTorrent accounted for 30% of all UK consumer internet traffic, much of it illegal, sighed the chief technical officer of Cache Logic, an ISP traffic monitor. The real potential of swarming technology is that, for instance, publishers can distribute new games online — as did Valve, developer of the seminal title Half-Life 2, for whom Cohen briefly worked. Legitimate swarming has also been embraced by the BBC, Sky, and Microsoft. Cohen may not have invented the swarm, but he has given it wings. AP

CONNECTED BYSTANDER MEDAL
Eyewitnesses to disaster

Londoner Mike Hughes heard the bus bomb in Tavistock Square on July 7 and took a photo “by instinct”, he said. “I had the phone in my hand.” Instinct, maybe, but this is a new, learnt instinct. With the Asian tsunami, the July bombings and Hurricane Katrina, bystanders have come into their own as an active source of pictures, comment and assistance. Digital technologies assumed central roles: hastily created websites and text messages were mobilised to call for help, identify loved ones and organise relief operations. On 7/7, witnesses with camphones were dubbed “citizen journalists”, a label most rejected later, on the basis that they were unwilling participants simply doing their bit. Technology has not turned citizens into journalists, but it is changing journalism by making citizens more active. RH

ONE-MAN WATCHDOG
Mark Russinovich

While idling through his computer’s nether regions, Mark Russinovich, based in Texas, found spyware with serious security implications. Surely this couldn’t be a clumsy effort by Sony to stop fans making backup copies of their CDs? Seemed so. After a public-relations disaster, Sony said it would withdraw nearly 5m discs and abandon the “rootkit” software, though tangible action has been hard to observe. “Utterly inexcusable,” says Mark at www.sysinternals.com/blog. SM

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