Year2000.com: The Gateway to the Third Millennium

Announcement List Mailing, March 27, 2000

by Jon Huntress and Cliff Kurtzman jon@year2000.com

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In this edition:

From the Producer's Desk The News Online EURO2002 Discussion List How to change your subscription e-mail address

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********** From the Producer's Desk: The e-Commerce Revolution

Y2K is officially over! The government is shutting down their office and everyone else is too. There are still a few doomers who have yet to throw in their towels. Some of them seem to still be thinking that there actually are lots of problems but the government is covering them up. Of course if this was the case, it would be just another example of our tax dollars being well spent because it sure did work! I never felt a thing. One of the benefits of Y2K is that there is a large number of "experts" who got it so wrong we don't have seriously consider their opinions anymore. You can tell them "I told you so." Remember this the next time you're tempted to accept the beliefs of a frightened fringe group.

As Damon Runyan said, "It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that is the way to bet." And the neat thing is that whenever someone comes up to you in the future to tell you the sky is falling, you can nod knowingly, smile and ask them, "And what did you do for Y2K?" This question will save you hours of useless conversation during the next ten years and by itself makes Y2K worth the price.

Dr. Barnett of the US Naval War College was another expert who called it right. But he took it seriously, seeing Y2K as the first of a series of systemic perturbations that would ripple through our society in the coming years as we become more and more interconnected and more dependent on those connections. This seems to be happening right on cue. There are almost no Y2K stories in the press anymore, but there are increasing numbers of stories about security violations and hacking incidents. I am seeing roughly the same numbers as the Y2K stories two years ago.

And I am posting these stories. If you want to find out about hacking, security and privacy problems, just go to http://www.year2000.com/y2karticles.html and check out the stories for the last several days.

Did you know that there is a piece of software that is currently on 17 million PCs that automatically downloads ads to your hard drive and can send information about you back to a master server? The software has a daemon running in the background that does all this, and will continue to run even if the host program is idle or deleted. The story is from Infoworld.com and we have it in the Clippings section under March 17.

The e-commerce revolution is underway and we are just beginning to see the changes that will affect us all. But what are these changes? This can be anybody's guess, but a few things are coming clear to me. One is that the Internet is a potential threat to anyone who makes their living as a middleman- anywhere. The Internet promise is one-to-one marketing, matching the people who want to buy with the people who produce that product. Some industries such as new and used cars, buying and selling stocks, insurance and almost everything in Japan are heavy with middlemen. Tenagra is in Houston, Texas, and we are the only state where you can't really buy a new car online. The laws forbid it. It probably is no coincidence that the car dealers in Texas are one of the major sources of PAC money for state politicians. There is a lot of profit in new cars and up till now car dealers have had an easy time doing business as usual. They buy oceans of ad space in the papers and have a large presence on radio and TV. But the last time I had a pleasant experience buying a car at a dealer was fifteen years ago and I will do almost anything to avoid buying from a car dealer today.

The last time I had a bent car I got two quotes for repair and they were identical to the penny. The different companies were using the same adjuster software and it was the also the same software the repair shop used. If everyone comes up with the same answers, why do we need separate adjusters? If insurance becomes a commodity, why do we need individual people to sell it?

The big stock brokers are all pushing ads on how they are experienced and more knowledgeable but everyone knows it's a big crap shoot so why do we need them? Is it ony because they know enough from their experience to avoid the dumb mistakes? Have you ever seen an ad for these people saying, "Invest with us. We can assure you the minimal level of competence!"? It's no wonder many people think they can do as well. But middlemen are just one aspect of the changes that are starting now. There are many more.

The net is changing Journalism too, and Y2K was the first obvious example of this. Most of the journalists who write for the major print publications and less so with the online publications, never understood the Y2K issues they were writing about. They just didn't have enough of a technical background to understand how software works or how it integrates with the hardware. This problem will continue, and will require a new breed of writers who actually know how web sites work, both front and back end. Writing style is changing too. Writing for the web is more personal and experience based because it is the experience that people want. The press experience of Y2K taught us all to be very skeptical of what we read in the press. Let's not forget this lesson.

Year2000.com is going to start reporting on the opportunities problems and trends and all the day-to-day stories of the e-commerce revolution. This is the big story for the next ten years. As Mickey said at the close of the old Mickey Mouse Club - "Tune in tomorrow. Big Doings!"

Jon Huntress jon@year2000.com

********** The News Online

We've only listed below a few of the clippings added to the year2000.com press clippings page in an effort to keep the length of this newsletter manageable. You can find links to all the clippings in our archive at:

http://www.year2000.com/y2karticles.html

Jon's Picks:

---------- If you wondered how "Denial of Service" hacking works, here is the answer.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-1546362.html

---------- And these are the people who are doing it!

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1546425.html

---------- The Future's so bright- we have to wear shades!

http://www.amcity.com/washington/stories/2000/02/14/smallb2.html

---------- Asleep at the security wheel?

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0214/web-asleep-02-15-00.asp

---------- CIA: China, Russia develop cyberattack capability

http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/000224EF6A

---------- Leap Day Ends Y2K Watch

http://currents.net/newstoday/00/03/01/news1.html

---------- With Y2K history, it's time to address e-commerce

http://www.amcity.com/seattle/stories/2000/03/13/smallb4.html

---------- Reader Survey -- Is Security the Next Big Thing?

http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?NWC20000320S0020

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SO SUE ME! Legal News on the Net

---------- McCain Proposes Another Net Tax Ban

http://currents.net/newstoday/00/03/22/news2.html

---------- State Lawmakers Okay Anti-Spam Bill

http://currents.net/newstoday/00/03/20/news2.html

---------- Bill would form privacy commission

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth567.htm

---------- Software company files lawsuit against 'hackers'

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?ID=cnniw&story_id=9479511

---------- Lawyers win one for the spammers

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/zd/zd2.htm

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********** EURO2002 Discussion List

Many are predicting that the European conversion to a unified currency over the period of 1999 to 2002 will create an even larger software challenge than the Year 2000 conversion. To create a forum to discuss Euro-related issues and events, as well as issues related to electronic commerce in Europe, Tenagra runs the Euro discussion list.

To subscribe to the EURO2002 list, send an e-mail message containing just the word SUBSCRIBE in the body of the message to:

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------------------------

The Year 2000 Information Center

This newsletter is a service of the Year 2000 Information Center, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Tenagra Corporation.

In Houston, Texas, USA:

Cliff Kurtzman (cliff@year2000.com) -- Year2000.com Producer Jon Huntress (jon@year2000.com) -- Year2000.com Associate Producer

The Tenagra Corporation is an Internet marketing agency that helps organizations build successful online ventures. Named one of the Top 100 Internet agencies worldwide by ChannelSeven, Tenagra is fortunate to be routinely involved in many more of the most interesting happenings and developments in the online world. Tenagra publishes another e-mail newsletter that goes out once every two months with the latest agency news, information about interesting projects Tenagra is participating in online, and some tips on Internet marketing. You can subscribe and/or request a brochure by filling out the form at:

http://www.tenagra.com/contact.html

or visit the Tenagra Homepage at:

http://www.tenagra.com/

and for a list of job openings at Tenagra, see:

http://www.tenagra.com/hiring.html

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Copyright 2000 The Year2000 Information Center, Inc.

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), March 29, 2000

Answers

wow, Flash, thanks.

That information regarding spammers was interesting.

Thanks for posting it.

~*~

-- (Ladylogic@....), March 29, 2000.