IGnatius T Foobar writes on Slashdot:

“Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that “may have been used in crimes.” It basically bypasses all of the Windows security (decrypting passwords, etc.) in order to eliminate all that pesky privacy when the police have physical access to your computer. Just one more reason not to run Windows on your computer.”

Think of how easy then it would be for Microsoft to provide backdoor access into its programs for the American government, definitely in the case if the US gets its hands on a Chinese laptop, but even more scary for the Chinese government, over the Internet with various programs that Microsoft provides to the American government.

Think of how easy it is already for other software makers to put in hidden software through rootkits as Sony previously did. This would make it quite easy for keystroke logging, password retrieval, and other tracking systems in order to get information on other governments.

Then again, how many people are gullible in just clicking on a friend’s IM link that opens up an .exe file?

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China’s prominence is rising in the high-tech world on a variety of fronts as China’s Alibaba.com has enjoyed a massive 340 percent gain in net profit tied to China’s fast-growing economy. The number of unique visitors (as of October 2007) is second only to the US (yes, China’s large population has helped), however, their presence is being felt all around the world from World of Warcraft users having to sell their characters at a cheaper rate to compete with the Chinese ones to within China as homegrown sites such as TenCent, Baidu and Sina all reach more native Web surfers than Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo.

Nonetheless, one should be careful to equate fast growth, large numbers, and impressive actions with that of how China will overtake other first world nations in the near future. Strong growth now, does not mean it will continue to do so in the future.

Even more so, one should always be careful about making predictions of country growth with innovation and new tech centers. A new book called Silicon Dragon by Rebecca Fannin notes:

It’s going to be years before it becomes very pronounced, but China is slowly emerging as the next Silicon Valley.

If you look at venture capital money flowing in, it’s a phenomenal rate. China has been the fastest-growing target for venture capital in the last four years: far faster than anywhere else in Asia or the U.S. or Europe.

Venture capitalists used to say they’d never invest outside a 30-mile radius of their offices. Now VC firms like Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Accel Partners are all focused on China. Virtually all of the major venture capital firms in the U.S. have teams and funds there. It’s been a huge shift. And for every startup that’s funded in China, there’s a startup that’s not funded somewhere else.

Yes, the growth and money put into China has been tremendous, but if its going to be years in the future, we can only imagine how long China’s growth and strength can last. The Asian Tigers were seen as phenomenal and Japan itself was seen as going to overtake the US back in the 1980s, but as we all saw, some fundamental economic instabilities became too pronounced to avoid leading to stagnation within.

Keep in mind one important point from all this:

We have to ask: what innovation has the new China produced already? [B]eing a manufacturing powerhouse is quite different from actually [originating] the products, let alone inventing novel ones.

In other words: Look beyond how fast the growth is, beyond how much money is being invested, but dive into how stable is this system? Is this growth based on sound principles? Is the country able to adapt to economic downturns? Are there any intrinsic problems that will prevent future growth during the hard times? Lastly, what is actually being created and not just mimicked?

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Sometimes the brightest people can come off as completely clueless and say the strangest things. This week’s winner goes to Aaron Wall at SEOBook about how a company could try to make money by limiting the number of people who can freely see buzz-worthy items, and then later charge people for it.

I predict that if that limited syndication model is available to the masses, a future media pricing system will allow publishers to offer free video for the first X views and then the videos are turned to private / members only / payment required after they get a certain number of views. All the free views build the perceived social value, while being easy to market since the content is originally free.

Now, I have to admit I already have a bias in that the Internet will be free and always open as people can create content for prestige or attention that in turn can lead to a job or money elsewhere.

So, what’s the problem then with the idea of a limited syndication model? Simple: you are already giving out something for free–which means anyone can pick it up and freely distribute it elsewhere. Therefore, the minute you remove it into a private/paid area, every new person then goes to another website that is still displaying it, thereby driving down the price of what you can make with something behind a wall (hence why the New York Times finally opened itself up–the money to be made through traffic was far greater than the subscription revenue it generated behind a wall that was leaked elsewhere around the web).

In the same way, I feel that online subscriptions are a joke unless it offers information that is extremely unique and cannot be distributed elsewhere. Sure, it may take me a couple days to find what I need, but once I have done so, I no longer need to continue to continually pay for information I now have for free. Yes, it cost me some time, but with the right researching abilities, then the initial cost of my time is not nearly as high as a continual payment of cash.

So, how does this then affect the word of mouth strategy? Quite poorly really, people hear about a great product or video, try to see it and get frustrated when they have to sign up they will just quickly go elsewhere in their busy lives. Then, the minute another word of mouth campaign comes up about a site that does not hide their content and takes the content hidden from elsewhere leaving it open, they will just permanently go there instead. Sure the site will only last as long as the other sites keep hiding their content as it is not generating unique content, but this is the same way as paid links work–as long as Google continues to erroneously think that linking popularity is relevance for SERPs, the free market will be there to exploit a niche.

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I happened upon a podcast interview over at Thomas Crampton’s blog of Duncan Hewitt, veteran China correspondent and best-selling author of Getting Rich First, who thinks that money and angry people will play a growing role in the battle against China’s Great Firewall. Though I agree with his commentary, I think the biggest thing he neglects to mention is how technology could really change the outcome of Chinese Internet censorship (USBs are already a favorite in Cuba to spread information). First watch the interview below and then read further into what I think is missing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-k2MXgwrOM

So, what’s missing? Global Satellite Internet. I’m seeing it already on BART, on TV for commercials, and it’s been tested to work all the way in Africa.

Imagine a world where any foreign nation’s corporation can sell their satellite Internet to any person around the world for an affordable price with basic to no set-up required on the consumer’s end. Get a new computer, acquire the bootleg software (that’ll get the government to really crackdown on bootleg VCDs, EVDs, etc.), and suddenly you have 1 billion Chinese online with no government censorship, no government watchers, and no website around the world being blocked.

Sure, the government could try to prevent its distribution, force computer makers to make their computers incompatible with satellite Internet, but with the ingenuity of Chinese bootlegging and IPR violations, I’d be loathed to side with the government’s ability to really control new technological advances such as these.

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Hah! Good luck on achieving this.

The future of the net will stay open, will stay independent, and will stay around the interactiveness and interoperability of people all around the world. Sure there will be forces trying to undermine it or take advantage of a variety of idiots out there, but there will always be places that will crop up to fight back. We see that already with free anti-virus software makers whom develop credibility through what they offer and then sell other services or upgrade features.

The Internet is the closest thing we have to a free market ever with brilliant people all around the web taking up the charge to make a buck knowing how to use the idea of one thing being free while selling other services or upgraded products.

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To understand the future of the Internet, definitely read this article at Wired on freeconomics.

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Here’s a list of annoyances future kids of mine would have to listen to on the “When I was you’re age…:”

•  … I had to lug a 20 pound computer to my friend’s house with other friend, get a router, get cords/wires, make sure we didn’t blow out the electricity, just to play games against each other. And that does not even count having to bring the monitor which weighed just as much as the computer itself.
• … I had to sit and listen to dial-up in order to get on the Internet at the same rate a snail crawls. The minute the phone rang or someone picked up the phone, my Internet connection would be disconnected.
• … I played games that were entirely text-based called “MUD” games.
• … I thought fax machines were actually useful.
• … I knew the difference between a web “site” and the later web “blog.”
• … I could reach the end of the Internet.

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Everything I learned about Google and the Internet, oh wait, Google is wanting to be the Internet…:

Breaking Down Their “Tools”, and Their Purpose

1. E-Commerce
   1. Google Checkout - There is no business that makes money like the money business. Stepping into Paypal’s shoes, this service is not massive…yet. I have an odd feeling the plans for this are future-based
   2. Froogle - An invasion upon the various comparison shopping websites(remember when MySimon was huge?).
   3. Google Base - Call it CraigsList2.0. It even has personal ads.
   4. Music Search - Try Searching for “The Decemberists Album”. You’ll see yet another top bar ahead of the search results. This is their way of driving traffic to Google Base. But it once again shows that they’re gaining some decent AI about product searches. Not only searching information, but understanding it.
   5. Google Pages - Google’s free hosting setup. Why is this under e-commerce? Read the next section and you’ll understand…
2. Information Centralization
   1. Google Reader - A central location to access all websites you would not normally have to search for. Takes the place of (well, other RSS readers), but also type in traffic and bookmarks.
   2. Local Search - Invalidates the need for a small business website(in the eyes of many). At the top of any search result, it shows business addresses, phone numbers, and busienss names.
   3. Knols - Brings the information of Wikipedia into the “Google” fold. With the information they have organized and indexed, it’s easy to bring it together. Ties in lovely with the define: Function
   4. Question and Answer - Everyone, open a new tab, and search for “What is the population of China?”, or “What time is it in Dayton, Ohio?”. Surprised? Yeahhhh. By having users go straight to them for this information, once again, increased marketshare, no webmaster participation involved.
   5. Define:keyword Search - Perhaps the first sign that Google was doing more than just indexing information. They were organizing it, extracting meaning from it. It’s the first step necessary to being able re-create information.
   6. GMail - You’ll notice this little gem(and it is a gem by the way) got introduced when a significant portion of the middle-aged adults were getting more acquainted with the internet. This particular group has a tendency towards e-mail; it’s safe and requires no credit card number. Not only did it cut into Hotmails market share, but in doing so the people not overly familar with the internet became familiar with Google, and became potential crossovers from the default Live.com search.
   7. Google Print - Google’s project aiming to scan as many books as possible into their database. Using OCR, they’re text-searchable. Click one, and surprise surprise, we see a familiar bar at the left allowing us to purchase this book from a variety of sources…once again, read the next section to realize the implications here.

Scary implications really and I couldn’t say it any better on what Google wants to do and change the Internet unto its own image.

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I think the following article by Kevin Kelly titled “Better Than Free” is a great article about Internet Economics and is in my view lays out perfectly the points on how the Internet is changing how content (really any type from written to music) is perceived–from cost-based to free except in the unique areas.

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For the economics / international affairs elite, this is a rather big news story in my opinion. The WTO, actually ruled against the US (a primary sponsor / benefactor of and for the WTO) and for Antigua plus some other Caribbean countries over the United States’s illegal banning of online banning. As a result:

The WTO’s recent ruling on Antigua’s complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO’s compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws - legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year.

It remains to be seen as to whether the US will actually compromise now with Antigua, but nonetheless any enterprising firm *coughs* Pirate Bay *coughs* could easily set up shop and start legally ignoring American copyright laws.

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