The Guardian’s “free our data” series reports on a team of researchers including a Cornell professor who wanted to test their receiver with the publically funded Galileo geo-location satellite system. They first discovered that the signals were encoded. Then, when they requested access, they were told to wait. So, naturally, they instead cracked the codes:

Galileo’s spokesman downplays the significance of Psiaki’s code-breaking efforts. “We expected this,” he says, “because the codes on the test satellite are easy to crack. In the Galileo system satellites will use different codes and to crack them I would say they will need 100 years.”

In that case, why not publish them in the first place? The more significant question is the incident’s impact on private investors. It is unclear how a commercial service can make money competing with a free service. Galileo’s spokesman argues that subscribers will be attracted by the system’s guaranteed reliability.

Psiaki, however, says: “It always seemed to me a little odd that you could get enough subscribers to a paid service when the free one is pretty good to begin with.” He can sympathise if Galileo does want to charge “a nominal fee” for the open service. But one thing he says Galileo can’t do is protect the open service with more secure codes, because of that EU-US agreement. In the end, he says, “these simpler codes may be the ones that are the most valuable commercially, because these are likely to be the preferred codes for mass-market receivers”.

Hard to know what the giant coffee company wanted to happen when they distributed a coupon via email for free coffee. The coupon was a simple image file and was quickly forwarded to a wide audience. Viral marketing or botched campaign? Their “rumor response” page claims that the coupon was not intended to be so successful:

An email offering a free Starbucks iced coffee was distributed to a limited group of Starbucks partners (employees) in the Southeast United States on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 with instructions to forward to their group of friends and family. Unfortunately, it has been redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks control. Effective immediately, this offer will no longer be valid at any Starbucks locations.

We apologize for any confusion and inconvenience as a result of this offer.

At more than $5.00 for a large (grande) iced beverage, I could be convinced that this was a mistake. However, when you look at the announcement above (“group of friends and family”) as well as the fine text of the coupon, the rules just seem too unsophisticated to be unintentional. I mean, it does not even say something obvious like “Southest Starbucks Employees only”. They clearly used the word “person”, instead of a more specific term like associate employee, or staff member. The only thing worse might have been “per life-form”. I can just imagine people bringing their pets to Starbucks — “here’s my coupon and, let’s see, my fish wants an espresso and my dog would like a latte”:

Oh well. I guess you could ask your “Barista” for discount code 114 instead and they might just be so impressed (could they be sequential?) they will punch it in without question. Of course, you will have to try not to look surprised then they give you a ceramic candle-stick holder for half price.