Byte by Bite

Internet search engines have come a long way

by Marv Dealy

Published February 20, 2004

Thanks to an alert reader in Idaho I learned of an excellent article by Joel Achenback, Washington Post staff writer, entitled "Search for Tomorrow." In this well-written and sometimes humorous article, Achenback discusses the impact search engines -- in particular Google -- have made on us all.

All 14 of you regular readers will remember that we've looked at Google from time to time, watching it grow from its humble beginnings when it first linked up with Yahoo to today, when it claims to search more than 3.3+ billion pages in a couple of seconds.

Achenback ponders the changes from what he terms "pre googlian" days -- also known as the Dark Ages -- when we all had to go to the library to look things up, or if it was a school paper that was nearly overdue how we had to crib from the World Book Encyclopedia.

He makes what I think are some valid points -- much of the information on the Internet is either wrong or stale, a fact that a human librarian could filter for us. Yet, most of us are quite willing to accept what we find in a search result list, particularly if the website is listed at the top of the pile.

Achenback also points out that most of the Library of Congress isn't available digitally, which means that vast collection of millions of volumes and books and other pieces of information aren't available to people who only do on-line searches.

The article also examines where search technology is going -- a pretty hopeless task, I'd guess. I mean, who really knows what some bright people sitting in a room somewhere thinking about the future of search technology will come up with?

When Google first appeared, it seemed so, well, blank. All there was on the screen was a box to type words into, when in comparison Yahoo was offering everything from email, IM, airplane tickets, stock quotes to news updates. What might the really bright people be coming up with next?

How about technology that guesses what you want to search for? Achenback ponders an intelligent agent so smart that it becomes a digital doppelganger, saying "it's like your personal digital Borg, having absorbed your thoughts and melded them with an existing software program."

He points out that Amazon already has a primitive intelligent agent that makes suggestions when you buy a book based on what books others who have bought that book also buy. In the end, Achenback ponders the utter unpredictability of what will happen in the future of the Internet. He imagines that people in the 1900s were pondering where all the people in 100 years would get enough horses to pull them around, and what in the world would they do with all the horse droppings.

Check out this excellent article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42885-2004Feb14.html

Music Downloads -- Those of you out there who still haven't gotten the message that the recording industry doesn't want you to download free music files listen up.

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed another batch of lawsuits against computer users who are illegally distributing songs on the Internet. The latest batch, totaling 531 lawsuits, is on top of the batch of 532 the RIAA filed last month.

In the lawsuits the accused are only identified by their numeric Internet protocol addresses, but by working through the courts the true identities will be determined and each will be contacted to negotiate a settlement.

Past cases have seen an average settlement of about $3,000 per individual, making the music downloads anything but free.

In an article by Roy Mark at Internetnews.com (http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3295051) a new study is quoted as saying that online music file-swapping has declined by 50% in the last six months, indicating that the music industry's court battles to identify and prosecute file-swappers is paying off.

On the other hand, websites that offer inexpensive (but legal) song downloads are seeing increasing traffic. The reborn Napster saw 3.2 million visitors last November and Apple's iTunes drew another 2.7 million visitors.

Wal*Mart, already the world's largest retailer, jumped into the pay-to-play game in December, followed by Sony and RealNetworks in January. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, claimed in his Macworld keynote speech in January that their iTunes website had captured 70% of the music download market, and said further the website was well on its way to 100 million songs downloaded by April of 2004.

The bottom line is that there appear to be lots of you out there still jonesing to download music. You need to get used to the fact that it is going to cost you a little money, or you might find your name on the next batch of lawsuits filed by RIAA.

New Blaster-type Virus Attack Imminent -- Warnings are circulating of a malicious code that is set to cause denial-of-service attacks by exploiting a component of Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft has already downloaded a "critical" patch update -- read more at (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-007.asp) or simply use your Windows Update feature to check to see if you need to download the patch.

Unprotected computers will be liable to remote manipulation, which means someone "out there" can use your computer to join in a DOS attack. Read more about this latest good news at InternetNews.com (http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3313531).

In other virus news, Symantec reports the outbreak of W32.Netsky.B@mm on the 18th of February, preceded on the 17th by W32.Beagle.B@mm and on the 11th by W32.Welchia.B.Worm. If you aren't keeping your Windows program up to date, combined with keeping your anti-virus program's virus definitions up to date, then you're running the risk of bad things happening to your computer.

Macintosh users, of course, can smugly ignore this news as there are very few viruses written to attach Macs.

Marv Dealy is a lifelong computer enthusiast and businessman in Tuolumne County. Reach him by e-mail at marv.dealy@throck.com