Our story so far:  Security expert Frank Adversego comes under suspicion when the Library of Congress is hacked by a mysterious cracker with motives unknown and a taste for the bizarre; to protect himself, Frank had better get to the bottom of things.  Read the first chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

Back in his cube again, Frank powered up his computer and reflected on what he’d just learned, which was both not much and a lot.   Not much, in that he still had no idea who was behind the attack, or what he was trying to accomplish.  But a lot because the only people targeted besides himself were George and Rick, and because only the files in one directory had been affected.  That meant that what had hit the Library of Congress was no virus unleashed against Web sites generally, bent on spreading random mayhem.  Instead, it was obviously an attack targeted just at the LOC.  And once it had made its way through the LOC firewall, the attack had  been manually controlled rather than automated. 

As you may recall, the Linux Foundation last year ran a video contest that drew a lot of entries, many of which were not only entertaining, but had surprisingly high production values as well.  Last year's invitation was to use the popular "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ad series as an inspiration, and you can see the winning videos here (all of last year's entries can be found here).

Well, it's that time again, and LF has just annnounced this year's contest theme, rules and deadline.  The announcement is here, and also pasted in at the end of this blog entry.  This year, the invitation is to submit what a Super Bowl ad for Linux might be like, if there was ever to be such a thing.

As you may recall, the CodePlex Foundation indicated in January that it expected to name a permanent Executive Director within a few weeks' time.  That has now happened, and in the "small world" department, the new ED happens to be Paula Hunter - someone I've known for years, and worked with several times in the past.  The full press release is below.  Paula is someone I like and respect a lot, and a great choice for CodePlex.

As you'll see from the announcement, one of Paula's prior jobs was as the Executive Director of UnitedLinux.  UL was a client of mine, and that's where I first met Paula.  And if you've never heard the saga of UL, it's a rather fascinating story.

Our story so far:  Security expert Frank Adversego has been passed over to lead a major project at the Library of Congress, but discovers that the Library has been hacked by a mysterious cracker with motives unknown; now, Frank learns that he may be coming under suspicion.  Read the first chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

Monday morning Frank arrived at work early.  He scooped up the office copies of the daily newspapers from the pavement outside the staff door of the Library of Congress and noticed that the Washington Times was missing.  No need to wonder who arrived first today – that would be Rick - the only employee that wouldn’t bother to bring in a paper for anyone other than himself.

Sure enough, as Frank strode up the half-lit corridor in Cube City, there was Rick standing next to his cubicle, coffee cup in hand.  His face lit up as soon as he saw Frank.  “Morning, Frank,” he called out.  “Recovered from your big Saturday night yet?”  He raised his coffee cup in a mock toast and leaned casually against his cube so Frank could barely squeeze past. 

But to Rick’s surprise, Frank gave him a hearty welcome as he wedged past.  “Great to see you, Rick, 'ole fella!  Only 70 more security-filled days till February 28, huh?”  Frank smiled as he sauntered down the aisle to the sound of coffee spraying from Rick’s mouth.  Frank wondered just how long it would be before Rick showed up, shamefaced, to ask for help.  A week at most, he thought.

The last issue of Standards Today focused on XML - the underpinning of ODF and hundreds of other standards - and one of the most important standards ever developed.  Here is the editorial from that issue.

One of the many intriguing concepts mooted by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, a French philosopher and Jesuit priest with polymathic insights (his academic explorations range from paleontology to the meaning of the Cosmos) is the "noosphere." In de Chardin's vision, the reality of the world encompassed not just the geosphere (inanimate matter) and biosphere (all forms of life), but an ever expanding nimbus of knowledge representing the fusion of the minds and knowledge of all humans.

Our story so far:  Security expert Frank Adversego has been passed over to lead a major project at the Library of Congress, but discovers that the Library has been hacked by a mysterious cracker with motives unknown.  Read the first chapters here.

Frank wondered how long his phone had been buzzing.  He was about to turn it off when he saw that it was his daughter Marla calling.

“Hi Kid,” he said, “Listen...”

His daughter jumped in.  “Hey, Dad, thanks for picking up.  I considered worrying about you for a second, and then figured you’d never really jump out the window – you’re only on the second floor, after all, and broken bones don’t solve anything.  I mean, you’re just much too logical not to think of that.  

“So how’s your big morning-after-the-night-before coming along?”

Frank tried to escape again, “Listen, Marla, this just isn’t a good time.  I’m in the middle of something, and…”

“Right.  Fat chance YOU got lucky last night.  I’ll be right over.”  She hung up.

Frank looked helplessly at the phone.  He started to call her back, and then snapped the phone shut.  She wouldn’t answer anyway. 

What's all this about?  Find out here

On the morning of Sunday, December 12, a morbidly obese Corgi named Lily was sniffing a tree on 16th street, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  A cold, insistent drizzle was falling, but Lily didn’t care, because Lily was sniffing at her favorite tree.  Indeed, the meager processing power of Lily’s brain was wholly occupied with sampling the mysterious scents wafting up from the damp earth, for this was the favorite tree of every other dog in the neighborhood as well. 

Something more annoying than the rain was nagging at the edge of her senses, though.  At last the sounds began to penetrate.

“C’mon, Lily!  Hurry up!”

Read Chapter One of The Alexandria Project here

Those that know me know that I firmly believe that there is a Monty Python vignette, or at least a catchphrase, for every occasion.  And on this occasion, that catchphrase is, “And now for something completely different!”

How completely different, might you ask, as if on cue?  Glad you asked.  Quite completely different.  More specifically, I’m in the process of writing a cybersecurity novel called The Alexandria Project, and I’m going to share it here in serial form, in the grand tradition of yesteryear, when authors like Charles Dickens presented their latest works in weekly or monthly (often cliff hanging) chapters.  

Except in this case, there will be a few twists.  For one, in between installments you’ll be able to follow Frank Adversego, our erstwhile cybersecurity hero, on Twitter.  He’ll share his mordant view of the day’s events (real and fictional) with you, and perhaps provide the occasional clue as to what might happen next.

Think of the words "standards war," and unless you're a standards wonk like m...oh, never mind...you're likely to think of the battle between the Betamax and VHS video tape formats.  That's because videos are consumer products that just about everyone uses, and therefore the bloodshed in that standards war was not only shed in public view, but the some of the blood that was shed was shed by the public (i.e., those that bought video players supporting Betamax, the losing, but arguably superior, format).  Fast forward (pun intended) to the present, and the trademarks "HD DVD and "Blu-ray" may ring a bell - and that's no coincidence.

Why?  Because different industries have different business models and strategies that involve standards, and these often perpetuate over time - decades, in this case.  In the case of the consumer electronics sector, that culture has too often been one of a patent-based, winner take all effort to cash in big time while your competitors take it on the chin.  And it's not just media formats, either.  As I noted in a blog entry a few weeks ago, we're seeing the same type of behavior in eBook readers.  Since there's only one market, and the market demands one format to win in the end, that means that the camp that owns the bundle of patents underlying the winning format standard wins a bonanza. 

Why? because the losers must pay through the nose for the license rights to build the players that implement the format standard that wins.  The winners, on the other time win twice: once, by receiving the royalties, and again, because their own players have a lower cost to produce, because they don't have to pay royalties to themselves.

So guess what?  Here we go again, but with a bit of a twist this time.

Earlier this week, I noted the fact that the 100 day mark for the CodePlex Foundation had passed (on December 19) without any comment from the Foundation on how they had fared against their aggressive goals for that time period, including the replacement of the founding, interim Board of Directors, with a permanent board. 

That blog entry sparked a call from the Foundation's PR firm, and an opportunity for me to spend an hour on the phone with Sam Ramji, the interim President of the Foundation, and Foundation Deputy Director Mark Stone during which we covered a lot of ground, including what's been accomplished so far, what the Foundation has learned so far, how that has affected its planning, and what we can expect to be announced in the short term and long term future.  They also informed me that a press release covering some of the same topics would be issued today.  That announcement was posted to the Foundation Web site at Noon, and you can find it here (as usual, it's also pasted in at the end of this blog entry).

With that as prelude, here's what we talked about, and here's what I learned.