Status-Q

John and I haven’t been the only ones concerned about AIM’s new Terms of Service. Apparently, enough people have been upset that they’re going to change them.

Thanks to Dave Hill for the link

Follow-on from yesterday’s post…

This topic has been ranted about on Slashdot, discussed rather more intelligently on MacSlash and brought up on several other blogs. The key points seem to me to be:

• It is possible to establish direct peer-to-peer connections between AIM clients for chatting. iChat attempts to do this whenever you send a file, picture etc. It remains in direct-connection mode afterwards. You can also ask it to establish a direct connection using the ‘Buddies’ menu. After establishing such a connection, AOL would be unable to snoop on the data, though, legally, they probably still have right to it if you send it using an AOL product. iChat, Adium, etc are not AOL’s, though the initial connection would have been established using their services. Mmm…
• If you hang on for a couple more months, the version of iChat that comes with Tiger will have some new features. It supports the Jabber protocol, making it easy for you to set up your own server for sensitive communications, and the new Mac OS X Server edition includes such a server.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from downloading and using Skype, MSN messenger or a Jabber client now. It’s just that, if you’re like me, far fewer of your friends can be found on those systems, and the software is generally inferior from a user-interface point of view.

I’ve just read in John’s blog the rather worrying news that AOL have changed the Terms of Service for their instant messaging service, in a way which basically gives them carte blanche to do what they like with any content sent over AIM (and hence over iChat, which uses the same service).
The terms of service can be found here and does contain the rather blunt phrasing about content you post:

AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

This will stop a lot of people from using AIM, including me, which is a real pain. The logical alternative is Skype, and while it has better audio facilities than iChat, it’s markedly inferior for chatting. I really miss iChat when I use anything else.

This can’t be allowed to slip by unnoticed. If it gets enough publicity, AOL may be persuaded to change their minds. Tell your friends – bring it up with Apple, etc and see what we can do. Until then, I don’t think I can continue to exchange draft documents with my colleagues using iChat… or at least, I’ll have to be very careful that I’ve got a direct connection rather than one going via AOL’s servers.

See follow-up…

The upcoming Nokia 6680. What? Your phone only has one camera in it? Oh, my dear, that’s so passé!

FORTUNE’s take on blogging.

E-mail is for old people, says Irving; kids prefer to communicate by phone and IM, and, now, by keeping blogs.

It’s nearly three months now since I moved Status-Q from Radio to WordPress and I have no regrets at all. One of the nicest things about WordPress is that, since it’s entirely web-based, I don’t need to run any separate software if I want to make a quick post. I always have a browser running, and everything I need is on my bookmark bar:

Installing it on your web server is pretty simple, if you’re a bit of a geek and not phased by things like MySQL databases. If not, a Google search will turn up a large number of sites offering WordPress hosting.

Since I moved, the frequency of my posts has definitely gone up, and since I helped John make the change, so has his.

In my case, as the quantity has gone up, the quality may have gone down, but that’s because I’m spending all my time writing patents at the moment and it has a numbing effect on the brain.

Picasa 2 looks as if it may be competing with Flickr to be the e-shoebox of choice….

There’s a great talk by Larry Lessig over at IT Conversations. If you can afford a full hour and a half (and I recommend it), it’s also well worth listening to the questions & answers at the end. As I’ve mentioned before, IT Conversations is a site worth pointing your iPodder at, and especially since they have AAC versions available – a big advantage for this kind of audio.

One thing Larry talks about is the end-to-end nature of the internet, what that has enabled, and how service-providers are trying to subvert it. I was reminded of this when reading this post about how the FCC have stopped one North Carolina broadband provider from blocking VoIP ports.

The dangers of buying a PC from WalMart…