Missoulian Sunday Technology Columns

My 5/15/11 Missoulian column

There’s an interesting thing going on right now in the world of digital music; it’s moving into the “cloud.”

By digital music I mean music that is bought online (or converted from CDs) and stored and played on PCs, laptops, smartphones and the many kinds of MP3 players.

And by cloud computing I mean decentralized computing, a trend that is all the rage right now. Using cloud computing means that your files are stored on the Internet and not only located on one device at home or office. As a result, your data is available wherever you connect to the Internet with a PC, tablet, laptop or smartphone.

For example, if you use Google’s Gmail service, you’re using the cloud, as your email and contacts are not on your PC or laptop: they are stored at Google, in bits spread out on servers all over the world. That’s the cloud: your data – and music – is everywhere and nowhere.

The creative and business aspects of music have already changed drastically in the past 10 years, and the cloud is another logical step, following personal computing’s move toward the cloud.

Music in the cloud has been dreamed of by listeners for some time because of its anticipated convenience. It’s a lot of work to sync a music collection between lots of different devices. If your music was in a “locker” and accessible over the Internet, you could listen wherever you could connect.

The convenience of a music locker in the clouds is the business motivation behind Amazon.com, Google, Apple and some other players moving into cloud music.

Amazon is already a major retailer of music and opened up its Cloud Player last month. Google Music is in limited beta (testing) mode by invitation right now. And Apple, the online music leader with iTunes, is readying a cloud service that will be officially announced soon.

Industry analysts say that Apple has been working on details and waiting to release its service, for a reason. That’s because there are legal ramifications with music lockers in the cloud.

Amazon and Google don’t have licensing agreements with the record labels; they went ahead and launched without them. Apple is said to be reaching agreements with the labels.

The legalities of music in the cloud might turn out to be the deciding factor for which music service becomes the most popular and profitable.

This week in Mac Q & A: Apple Security Alert scams

My 5/08/11 Missoulian column

Sometimes, it’s tough to find out anything. And I’ve been trying to find out more about the Coreflood “botnet” takedown that I wrote about a few weeks ago. But without much luck.

I’m interested because of the unprecedented nature of the Department of Justice’s action against the owners: The FBI took over the central computers that were once controlled by unknown criminals. The FBI replaced those servers with their own, with the help of the nonprofit Internet Systems Consortium, based in San Francisco. http://www.isc.org

Once that happened, the FBI and Internet Systems Consortium were able to turn off the malware on people’s PCs when those PCs contacted the central servers. And at the same time, the FBI has been able to determine very accurately which PCs were infected, via individual Internet protocol addresses.

In the past, the FBI has limited itself to what can be deemed defensive actions against malware and botnets; now, they are on the offensive.

But how far can – and should – the FBI go? What are the limits to what law enforcement should do?

My calls to the FBI and the Department of Justice were not very successful. I did hear from one public relations specialist, who said several times she couldn’t say anything.

Barry Greene, the president of Internet Systems Consortium , the nonprofit that is involved with the FBI in the Coreflood takedown was a bit more forthcoming after a few emails and calls, but careful in what he said via email:

“ISC is doing what we believe all private industry needs to do – aggressive collaboration with our peers in the industry to protect our mission, business, and organization (and) adding collaboration with Law Enforcement throughout the world. As such, we work with our peers in the industry and the FBI when ever we see threats to our mission. In this case, the public-private team working together on this case asked for our help. We were fortunately in a position to be of service.”

The public-private team he means is the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, whose website describes the organization as a “a joint partnership between law enforcement, academia, and industry.” http://www.ncfta.net

Greene referred me to a special agent at the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance named Tom Grasso, a member of the FBI’s Cyber Division. But Grasso couldn’t comment and referred me to the same FBI public relations specialist, who once again couldn’t comment.

I suppose more will be said at some point about “aggressive collaboration with our peers.” But what? And when?

This week in Mac Q & A: Archive and Install with Snow Leopard