Serious Questions Raised About CNN's Use Of Stealthy P2P Video For The Inauguration

from the security-risks-abound dept

CNN got a lot of attention on inauguration day as being the online site of choice for people to watch the streaming video of the events. However, as reader Jim Wood alerts us, many people are probably unaware that they agreed to do so by sharing their bandwidth via a P2P application. Now, first off, I actually think this is a good general use of P2P and have wondered in the past why more streaming apps don't make use of bandwidth sharing P2P in a similar manner. However, it does appear that there are many, many issues with how this was implemented. CNN told people they had to install Octoshape Grid Delivery to watch the video -- and it turns out that wasn't true. You only had to install it if you wanted to make use of the more efficient bandwidth sharing. Also, it doesn't appear that it was clearly explained to users at all what they were agreeing to. This is especially problematic at a time when more and more ISPs are using broadband caps that often include upstream traffic. Users might not realize at all that they were giving up a significant amount of their bandwidth.

Separately, the EULA for the software contains some totally ridiculous clauses, including: "You may not collect any information about communication in the network of computers that are operating the Software or about the other users of the Software by monitoring, interdicting or intercepting any process of the Software." Yes, if you install the software, you can no longer monitor your own traffic usage, at least according to those terms.

There are also serious concerns about potential security problems associated with the software, since the software can automatically be activated by visiting any "Octoshape-enabled" website. That seems like a zombie-scammer's dream setup: a secretive P2P network that people don't even know they have that can use up a ton of bandwidth, can't be sniffed (legally) and uses an unexpected port.

Again, there are definite useful ways to make use of P2P to spread out the bandwidth, but it needs to be done in a much more transparent, reasonable and safe manner. Unfortunately, this implementation doesn't seem to have done that -- and millions of trusting CNN users may now run into problems because of that.

Filed Under: eula, inauguration, p2p, security, video
Companies: cnn

Don't Erase Incorrect News Reports

from the that-just-causes-problems dept

If you've been paying attention to the political blogosphere or any news about the recent horrific attacks in Mumbai, you may have heard the story that made the rounds about a couple supposedly blaming CNN for potentially giving away their location to the terrorists. It was a hit among CNN-haters, and it got picked up by a variety of mainstream sources, including the NY Times. The only problem? The story is totally bogus. It originated in the publication Wales Online, but after CNN reviewed their footage and couldn't find anything to match the story, it asked the site for an explanation... at which point Wales Online admitted that the story was "not valid," blaming the Press Association from which it got the story.

However, as E-Media Tidbits points out, rather than post an update explaining the error, Wales Online took a different approach: it just made the article disappear. If you go to the original link for the story, you just get a blank page. This isn't helping the process of correcting errors. Well after the story was discovered to be a fake, plenty of sources were still repeating it.

Sure, it's embarrassing to make a mistake -- especially one that ends up getting so much attention. But simply "disappearing" the story and pretending it never happened is a dreadful solution. If anything, leave the original story up with a clear retraction placed at the top. Hell, maybe use the experience to explain how it happened and what the publication is doing to prevent similar things from happening in the future. The last thing you should do is just pretend the whole mess never happened in the first place. That just makes Wales Online look even less trustworthy.

Filed Under: mistakes, mumbai attacks, news
Companies: cnn, wales online

CNN Looks To Take On The Associated Press

from the here-comes-competition dept

With the Associated Press bizarrely focusing on competing with its own members, it hasn't been much of a surprise at all that those member newspapers have been leaving in droves. While the AP recently announced that it was going to rethink its strategy, it appears that plenty of other news operations see the AP's self-destructive decisions as an opportunity. We already noted in that earlier story that some newspapers were banding together directly to share content, and now CNN is announcing its own wire service that newspapers can tap into. Clearly, newspapers value being able to get content from other sources (especially for international coverage), and it seems that news operations like CNN see the AP's problems as a big opportunity.

Filed Under: competition, newspapers, wire services
Companies: associated press, cnn

Latest Fear Mongering Report: Parents! Pedophile Teachers Are Text Messaging Your Kids! Be Afraid!

from the fear-fear-fear-fear dept

Every few months someone has to put up some scary news article about something horrible that's putting our children at risk. Sometimes it's video games. Sometimes it's the internet. Sometimes it's social networks. CNN is the latest to join the pack with an article going a bit overboard on how mobile phones are providing a "secret path" for teachers to prey on your kids. It's based on some recent stories of teachers who had affairs with students, which they covered up via messages on their mobile phones. Is this happening that widely? Who knows? Are there any stats to show that this is a major problem? Stats? Who needs stats when we have a few scary anecdotes! Instead, you just tell the story, and then say, matter-of-factly: "Now, teachers have weeks, months and years to secretly undermine a child's parents and get a student to go along with sexual contact." Actually, that doesn't sound like it's mobile phones that are the problem, but teachers! I say we ban them all.

Filed Under: fear mongering, mobile phones
Companies: cnn

Getting Millions Of People Listening To Your Music, With Many Giving You Money Voluntarily, Is Dumb?

from the please-explain dept

Karl writes in to point out that on Fortune/CNN's somewhat bizarre list of 101 Dumbest Moments in Business, number 59 is about Radiohead's decision to offer a name-your-own-price offering for its downloaded music. As CNN notes, "Can't wait for the follow-up album, 'In Debt." Ha ha. It then quotes the disputed Comscore numbers, suggesting that since only 38% of downloaders agreed to pay anything for the album, this is somehow a dumb move. I would argue that the only thing "dumb" here is the inclusion of this move on the list. CNN seems to think that Radiohead expected everyone to pay for the album, when even the band has clearly stated that this was a promotional move. Is CNN "dumb" for putting this article online for free? Of course not -- because they make money through other means, such as advertising. In the same way, Radiohead did quite well even if people downloaded the album for free. After all, even if the Comscore numbers are accurate, Radiohead still pulled in millions, distributed millions of tracks to fans all over the world with no promotional budget, got its name and its music talked about around the globe and found at the top of popular playlists everywhere, and got a tremendous amount of free advertising for its upcoming tour and CD box sets. Can you name a single band in the world that would turn that down? Hell, can you name a single Fortune/CNN editor who would turn that down if he were in Radiohead's shoes? Not unless he was pretty dumb. In fact, if Radiohead did anything dumb it was shutting off the download site.

Filed Under: business, dumb, economics, free, radiohead
Companies: cnn

It's Time To Redefine News

from the about-time dept

Last week, we suggested that newspapers need to stop defining themselves as newspapers. That's defining themselves by a specific product, not the benefits people get from the offering. Instead, we felt that newspapers should start thinking of themselves as news organizations -- more broadly defining what they do. However, that leaves open a really important question about how do you then define "news." We recently covered the somewhat controversial report about how user-curated news aggregation sites tend to highlight different stories, compared to editor-managed news sites -- which really does open up the question of what really is news for people these days. Luckily, Jeremy Wagstaff has taken a fantastic stab at answering that question with a new column on how "news" is being redefined. He notes that the entire concept of "news" no longer fits with what many journalists think news is. It used to be about delivering important information from the source to the people who could make use of that information. News, he notes, is simply information. It's information that is new and/or useful and interesting to each individual. And, in a hyper-connected world with so much information flowing all the time, there's "news" all around, but it's different for everyone and it doesn't involve having a single professional determine what is news.

"What we're seeing with the Internet is not a revolution against the values of old media; a revolution against the notion that it's only us who can dictate what is news. What we're seeing is that people get their news from whoever can help them answer the question they're asking. We want the headlines, we go to CNN. But the rest of the time, "news" is for us just part of a much bigger search for information, to stay informed.

So, if we're redefining newspapers as news organizations and then redefining news itself as the information that's most important to any individual at that time, it starts to open up a lot of possibilities for where newspapers should be headed (though, it doesn't seem like many are looking in that direction).

Filed Under: newspapers
Companies: cnn