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Clips July 25, 2002

Clips July 25, 2002

ARTICLES

Senate Panel Shapes Homeland Dept. Bill
Could Hollywood hack your PC?
Cyber Service attracting students
Microsoft Tries to Explain What Its .Net Plans Are About
Cable costs soar faster than rate of inflation
Official: Security won't hurt privacy
Chicago tracking fleet with GIS
Two in five college students would consider federal service
House panel jousts over information-sharing bill
Web Labors of Jobless Man Were of Love, a Judge Rules
Critics blast Web registration group, call for changes
ANALYSIS: The economics of spam-II
Tech pros: Cyberbomb's ready to go off
******************
Washington Post
Senate Panel Shapes Homeland Dept. Bill
Intelligence Unit, Worker Rights Stressed
By Bill Miller and Walter Pincus

A Senate committee began crafting changes to President Bush's homeland security plan yesterday, giving a higher profile to an intelligence unit inside the proposed Department of Homeland Security and protecting the civil service and collective bargaining rights of the 170,000 employees who would staff the new department.

For the most part, members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee agreed with the White House's proposal to merge all or part of 22 federal agencies into a new department focused on protecting the nation from terrorism.

The Democratic-led committee, which is putting together a version of the bill for the full Senate's consideration next week, appears ready to sign off on most elements of the plan when it reconvenes today. The full House will also begin debate today on its own homeland security package.

Congressional leaders hope to approve the legislation by the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But the Senate committee also made some significant changes to the plan, including raising the profile of the Homeland Security Department's intelligence unit by making it a separate directorate, with its own undersecretary. The Bush administration's proposal would put intelligence responsibilities at a lower level in the organizational hierarchy.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the committee's chairman, said that Bush's proposal views the new department as "an information clearinghouse" but that he wants it to more actively use intelligence to grapple with all domestic terrorist threats.

During yesterday's markup, the Senate panel watered down some of the authority that Lieberman originally proposed for the new department. Lieberman would have given the department's undersecretary for intelligence the ability to direct the CIA and FBI to carry out information-gathering on terrorism either domestically or abroad, unless that direction was specifically rejected by the president.

The CIA, in particular, opposed that proposal on the grounds that only the president should be able to direct intelligence collection, which is otherwise handled by the director of central intelligence. The Lieberman language was amended to say that the new department could request special activity with presidential approval.

Lieberman said he was willing to "tone down" the language because he "did not intend to give the [homeland] secretary the right to direct the CIA and FBI."

The issue of employee rights is among the most difficult to emerge in the recent debate over the department, with the White House seeking a "flexible" and "contemporary" management system that would give the department greater ability to recruit, reward, discipline and move employees. Led by the Democratic majority, the Senate committee rejected that language yesterday and called for maintaining the status quo by protecting all current civil service rights.

The panel also voted to limit the president's ability to take away the bargaining rights of the roughly 50,000 employees now covered by contracts negotiated by 18 labor unions.

On another sometimes contentious issue, the committee sought to clarify how the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) would apply to the new department.

Responding to concerns from the White House and industry, the committee voted to exempt sensitive information voluntarily provided by businesses concerning their vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks. But it also ensured that records provided by businesses to other agencies would remain subject to the FOIA.

Environmental groups and other advocates had expressed fears that industries might use the Homeland Security Department's FOIA exemptions to avoid disclosing information about chemical spills and other incidents that they said should be available to the public.

Under the unusually fast timetable set for the two bills, Senate leaders are trying to pass their bill by Aug. 2, and the House is trying to approve its bill by Friday. During the August recess, staff members would begin work on a final draft of the bill for consideration when members of Congress return in early September.

The Republican-led special committee that wrote the House bill gave the Bush administration considerably more flexibility to manage the workforce and largely adhered to the White House blueprint.

House leaders yesterday began sifting through more than 100 amendments that members hope to offer on the floor today. The proposals include directing federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share warnings of terrorist threats with state and local officials, keeping the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of the Homeland Security Department, and preserving the union rights of employees.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) negotiated into the evening over which amendments would make it to the House floor. Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) said GOP leaders did not plan to let members offer all 102 amendments, saying they were hoping to strike a fair compromise with Democrats that accommodates the major concerns.

For the second consecutive day yesterday, Bush met with members of Congress from both parties to push his plan. But at least one senator questioned whether Congress will be able to achieve its goal of approving the package by Sept. 11, saying that more study might be needed. Others warned that the new department faces monumental challenges once it gets up and running.

"One of the members of the administration told me he thought it would be miraculous if we got this done by September 11th," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). "Those were his words, and I think he's right. I think taking a little more time and doing it right is in the best interests of our nation's security."

Despite that concern, Durbin said, "the positive side is we are clearly on board with the president to get this job done and create this department in a timely fashion."
**********************
MSNBC
Could Hollywood hack your PC?
By Declan Mccullagh

WASHINGTON, July 24 Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file trading. A draft bill seen by CNET News.com marks the boldest political effort to date by record labels and movie studios to disrupt peer-to-peer networks that they view as an increasingly dire threat to their bottom line.
SPONSORED BY REPS. HOWARD BERMAN, D-Calif., and Howard Coble, R-N.C., the measure would permit copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a "reasonable basis" to believe that piracy is taking place. Berman and Coble plan to introduce the 10-page bill this week.
The legislation would immunize groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America from all state and federal laws if they disable, block or otherwise impair a "publicly accessible peer-to-peer network."
nyone whose computer was damaged in the process must receive the permission of the U.S. attorney general before filing a lawsuit, and a suit could be filed only if the actual monetary loss was more than $250.
According to the draft, the attorney general must be given complete details about the "specific technologies the copyright holder intends to use to impair" the normal operation of the peer-to-peer network. Those details would remain secret and would not be divulged to the public.
The draft bill doesn't specify what techniques, such as viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks, or domain name hijacking, would be permissible. It does say that a copyright-hacker should not delete files, but it limits the right of anyone subject to an intrusion to sue if files are accidentally erased.
Because Congress only has about five work weeks left before it is scheduled to adjourn for the year, the outlook for the draft bill is uncertain.
But because its sponsors include top Republican and Democratic committee chairmen, it could receive a warm welcome in the House of Representatives at a hearing tentatively scheduled for this fall. Coble is the chairman of the House subcommittee on intellectual property, and Berman is the top Democrat on the panel.
Berman wrote in an opinion article this month that "currently, copyright owners are unable to use some useful technological tools to deal with P2P piracy because they face potential, if unintended, liability under a variety of state and federal laws."

'VIGILANTE JUSTICE'?
"It's a good bill," Gene Smith, a spokeswoman for Berman, said on Monday. "It's always hard to defend theft and piracythis bill just puts into the hands of the copyright owners technologies that are already being used by the pirates."
Smith said the purpose of the draft bill was to "fight fire with fire, fight technology with technology."
Jessica Litman, a professor at Wayne State University who specializes in copyright law, said the draft bill improperly encourages "vigilante justice."
"I think it's wildly overreaching," Litman said. "Copyright owners are in essence asking Congress to say that peer-to-peer file trading is such a scorch, is so bad, that stopping it is more important than enforcing any other laws that federal or state governments may have passed on computer security, privacy, fraud and so forth."
Litman said that even if a copyright holder accidentally deleted a home video titled "Snow White," the owner of that PC could be out of luck. "Unless I can show economic harm, I can't even be compensated," Litman said. "Even if I want to be compensated, I have to jump through procedural hoops."
The film and music industries already are developing tools to use against rogue file swapping, though they've remained mum on the details. The RIAA says its members have the right to use any "lawful and appropriate self-help measure."
Fritz Attaway, the MPAA's senior vice president for government relations, endorsed Berman's approach on Monday, stressing that law-abiding Internet users should not be concerned.
"No one in the motion picture industry has any interest in invading your computer or doing anything malicious with your files," Attaway said. "The idea is to make unauthorized file sharing sufficiently inconvenient or at least unsuccessful."
The MPAA and RIAA did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation condemned the draft bill as a sop to Hollywood and the recording industry.

DIGITAL LOCKDOWN?
"This is part of a greater strategy that's being implemented by the entertainment industry to lock up and control digital information in general," said Robin Gross, an EFF staff attorney. "The rights that we've enjoyed in the analog space are now being taken away from us because we're entering a digital realm"
Gross said she was concerned by the broad grant of immunity to copyright holders who become computer intruders. "When they screw up, they don't want you to be able to get some sort of retribution from them," she said.
Other sponsors listed on the draft bill include key legislators such as Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the full Judiciary committee, Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chairman of a crime subcommittee, and Robert Wexler, D-Fla. Currently there is no companion legislation in the Senate.
The next step for the draft bill is the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property. A representative for Coble said earlier this month to expect a hearing starting in September, when Congress returns from its August recess.
Berman announced plans for the legislation during a speech to a Washington trade association last month. He represents California's San Fernando Valley, adjacent to Los Angeles and Hollywood's cluster of entertainment companies.
Coble and Berman have jointly written a second draft bill that could sharply limit Americans' rights relating to copying music, taping TV shows, or transferring files through the Internet. But they have said they do not necessarily endorse the plan's details.
*******************
Federal Computer Week
Cyber Service attracting students

The Federal Cyber Service program, which offers scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students to study information assurance in exchange for two years of federal service, could have as many as 200 to 300 students by the end of the year, said Sujeet Shenoi, professor of computer science at the University of Tulsa.

The University of Tulsa, which is one of six universities that received Cyber Service scholarship money last year, expects to increase its own roster to 50 students up from the current 23. About half are undergraduate students and half are graduate students, Shenoi said.

Here's what the overall cyber corps looks like now:

Sixty-six students are finishing their first year in the program. The students are from ages 20 to 64, and they include three married couples, a rock singer and a former NASA employee who worked on the Apollo missions. The students have summer internships at various agencies, including NASA, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Treasury Department.

Students at the 2002 Cyber Corps Symposium this week praised the program and the opportunities it provides, but said there are some kinks in the system that need to be worked out. For instance, many federal agencies still don't know about the Cyber Service program and students were offered little help by the government in finding summer internships, some students said.

"We need to get the word out," said Dan Blair, deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM plans to work with the Human Resources Management Council and the Partnership for Public Service to increase awareness, he said at the symposium.
**************************
Chronicle of Higher Education
University Offers Islamic Studies Online
By ANDREA L.FOSTER

A new online Islamic university based in the United States is seeking approval for its programs from leading Islamic universities in Egypt, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.

The nonprofit college, called Internet Islamic University, awards diplomas and bachelor's degrees in Islamic disciplines, says the president, Zahir Uddin. He is executive director of a research group, the Center for American Muslim Research and Information.

The institution, which opened last August, has about 55 students. Most of them live in the United States, says Mr. Uddin. He says that all courses are taught in English. Faculty members are affiliated with American and foreign universities.

The university's Web site says its mission is "to help shape the destiny of the Muslim [people] through the opening of the vistas of Islamic knowledge for young Muslims that are inquisitive and deeply attached to Islam."

Though other distance-learning universities are focused on teaching Islam, Mr. Uddin says his is the first to conduct all classes live. They are offered in the evening during the week and on Sunday mornings. Exams, too, are conducted over the Internet, except for the final exam, which is offered at Islamic centers across the country.

The institution's administrative office is in Richmond Hill, N.Y.

Mr. Uddin says the university expects within about a year to receive accreditation from three Islamic universities: Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Umm Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia, and International Islamic University in Malaysia. The accreditation would allow graduates of Internet Islamic University to continue their studies at these institutions, Mr. Uddin says.
**********************
New York Times
Microsoft Tries to Explain What Its .Net Plans Are About
By JOHN MARKOFF

REDMOND, Wash., July 24 Two years into its quest to create a new kind of Internet-enabled computing it describes as .Net, Microsoft found it necessary to pause today and try to explain what it meant.

One day before its annual conference for financial analysts, the company assembled its top executives before several hundred reporters and industry analysts and engaged in a tutorial that one participant referred to as ".Net for Dummies."

The .Net brand (pronounced dot-net) is Microsoft's approach to a computer industry market called Web services. It has two basic ideas: to create standards that allow all sorts of information to be transmitted and acted upon in uniform ways, and to move the software that performs those actions to the Internet, where programs may now span multiple computers.

Microsoft is now locked in competition with small start-up companies that originally pioneered the Web services field, as well as with software and hardware giants like I.B.M., Oracle and Sun Microsystems, all of which are developing their own Web services.

Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, Bill Gates, said that he gave his company good marks so far for creating the basic software infrastructure for .Net, but acknowledged that the company had more work to do in explaining its mission.

"We still get people saying to us, `what is .Net?' " said Mr. Gates. He said that the idea of the .Net infrastructure was clear, but acknowledged that the company had not created a clear view of what it intended for its customers. Many customers have yet to accept Microsoft's contention that computer software should be subscribed to as a Web-based service rather than purchased as a product they own and use, as most is today.

Jim Allchin, one of the company's top vice presidents, acknowledged the shift in focus in the industry from personal computers to plumbing, and bemoaned the difficulty of getting Microsoft's traditional consumers to care about its new vision.

"It's hard to get sexy about protocols," he said. "It really is about plumbing and concrete and protocols."

Moreover, the challenge that Microsoft faces in explaining and promoting a new style of computing that is intended to harness millions of disparate large and small computers is complicated by a growing consensus in the computer industry that few new software ideas will be realized until large corporate customers resume spending on the infrastructure of information technology.

Mr. Gates took some time in his review of the company's technology to recalibrate the industry's expectations about how quickly its .Net strategy will take effect.

"Phase 1 is essentially behind us, with things that went well and not so well," he said. "This is a long-term approach. These things don't happen overnight."

Microsoft sketched out an abbreviated road map today of how it will introduce products that offer .Net capabilities. One example was a communications server program with the code name Greenwich that is intended to enable advanced multimedia conferencing features for desktop and hand-held computer users. Another example was the next version of the company's database product, SQL Server, named Yukon, which is intended to make it easier to manage distributed data.

Finally, a brief demonstration was given of Windows Media Center a PC-based television that is intended to bring .Net-style information to the television in the living room.

Mr. Gates indicated, however, that the company's software promised land would be a new version of its Windows operating system with the code name Longhorn, which is still at least two years off.

Microsoft also warned today that the era of "open computing," the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending.

The company is trying to influence an industry consortium called the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, which has been trying to create a new standard that will build a cryptographic key system into future personal computers.

The idea has been challenged in the past by both civil liberties and consumer groups, who argue that it could potentially undercut privacy and intellectual property fair-use rights.
***********************
Seattle Times
Cable costs soar faster than rate of inflation

WASHINGTON Cable rates have shot up far more than inflation despite the government's effort to deregulate the telecommunications industry and foster competition, consumer groups say.

Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine, says rates have risen 45 percent since 1996, when the Telecommunications Act passed, ordering the deregulation of the cable industry.

Industry officials dispute those numbers because deregulation didn't actually begin until 1999. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association says cable rates have increased about 17 percent during the three years since deregulation.

Either way, the numbers dwarf the rates of inflation. From December 1995 through March 1999, between passage of the act and deregulation, prices rose 7.5 percent, federal statistics show. From March 1999 to June this year, inflation was at 9 percent.

Competitive pricing leading to lower cable rates was a key goal of the hard-fought legislation. But Consumers Union says that hasn't happened, in part because cable companies have tried to dominate the market and edge out competitors.

The group, which bills itself as an unbiased consumer service, called on Congress to shift oversight of cable companies to local regulators. "When you look at the price hikes and the broken promises to compete, it is clear that there needs to be stricter public accountability in the cable industry," said Gene Kimmelman, director of Consumers Union's office in Washington.

AT&T, which acquired cable provider TCI in 1999, is the major cable provider in the state. Spokesman Steve Kipp said prices are higher now because programming costs what the channels charge the cable companies have skyrocketed, especially in sports.

"When you look at what sports teams are paying in salaries, what networks are paying to carry games, the money keeps going higher, and the money's got to come from somewhere," Kipp said. "It eventually trickles down to the consumer."

Kipp did not have information on cable rates for 1996. The company lists its standard cable package in Seattle at $42.99 a month.

But Kipp said prices are not going up any more than they would have under government regulation. And customers are paying more because they are getting more, he said. In the mid-1990s, cable systems offered up to 50 channels. Now customers can get 260 channels.

Consumers Union rejects claims that the increases reflect rising costs. The group said revenue from other sources, such as increases in advertising, more than cover the costs.

Seattle Times business reporter Frank Vinluan contributed to this story.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Official: Security won't hurt privacy

Devising better ways to accurately identify individuals is a key part of the Bush administration's homeland security strategy, but a senior Bush aide promised July 23 that high-tech identification systems won't be allowed to undercut civil liberties.

Steve Cooper told a gathering of congressional staffers and technology company representatives that the Bush administration does not favor any use of technology that undermines personal privacy or the openness of American society.

Still, he said, the administration embraces biometric identification technologies to improve security at the nation's borders, in air travel, in federal buildings and elsewhere. Cooper is chief information officer in the Office of Homeland Security.

Plans for extensive use of biometric identification, data mining, among other technologies, set off alarms last week when they were spelled out in President Bush's National Homeland Security Strategy.

The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, denounced Bush's call for the federal government to help the states develop uniform driver's licenses and licensing procedures. The ACLU warned, "This plan proposes a national ID -- an internal passport -- pure and simple."

But Cooper said the Bush administration is "not in favor and currently will not support a national ID card."

"We are at war, and the war on terrorism requires a balance" between civil liberties and homeland security, Cooper said. It is "tough" to balance the two, but the administration will not sacrifice civil liberties for homeland security, Cooper vowed. "We will get it right."

However, Cooper made it clear that the administration foresees a nation that relies much more heavily on high-tech identification for purposes that range from gaining access to the country to gaining access to a computer.

The homeland security national strategy calls for creating "smart borders" that rely on biometric identification systems to identify terrorists and criminals. Biometrics should also be used to combat fraud in travel documents, the strategy says.

Fingerprints and facial recognition technology are the favored biometric technologies at present, Cooper said. But retina and iris scans and other technologies are likely to grow more capable and gain wider acceptance, he said. The administration's policy is not to favor any particular biometric technologies, but to develop identification systems that can accommodate multiple technologies.

To be acceptable to the federal government, smart cards, for example, would have to be able to accommodate more than one biometric identifier. That's because different agencies have already adopted favorite technologies, Cooper said.

The State Department has invested heavily in facial recognition as its primary identification system, but the FBI is wedded to fingerprints. And neither is likely to give up its favorite, Cooper said. So a government smart card that is can be used to control building access should be able to accommodate both, he said.

And the card that gets government workers into their buildings should also control their access to computer systems, serve as a trusted traveler card and perform other identification-dependent functions, he said.
************************
Federal Computer Week
Chicago tracking fleet with GIS

Chicago's huge fleet of government vehicles will be watched over and controlled by a Web-based geographic information system starting in September, when the second phase of a project to upgrade the city's automated vehicle location (AVL) system is completed.

The new system also will be a critical piece of Chicago's homeland security strategy, something that was only a minor consideration in the project's initial planning but has become "a very big deal" after Sept. 11, according to Scott Stocking, a GIS analyst for the city.

As part of the upgraded system, fleet managers will get real-time security alerts if vehicles stray from their normal routes and operating procedures. It will also allow them to disable any vehicles.

"A card-swipe security feature has always been a part of the AVL to ensure only authorized users will drive the vehicles," Stocking said. "But we decided to beef up the alert notification in Phase 2, and now all of our [fleet vehicles] will have this feature."

Chicago's vehicle management system was based on a traditional client/server approach, with all of the difficulties and costs associated with maintaining that sysFrom goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fri Aug 23 14:44:22 2002 -0400
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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 390
Date: August 23, 2002

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Top Stories for Friday, August 23, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"She Wants P2P for the People"
"Firms Team to Push OLED Displays"
"IBM To Build Network to Link Emergency Services in Crises"
"Linux, the Cheap Chic for Computer Fashionistas"
"Rivals Envy Chinese Mix of High Tech, Cheap Labor"
"Secret Service Expands Cybersecurity Task Forces"
"White House Officials Debating Rules for Cyberwarfare"
"A New Way to Type With Your Eyes"
"As Threat of Cyber Attacks Grows, Security Specialists Blame
Faulty Software"
"Cyberterrorism Scenarios Scrutinized"
"DOJ to Prosecute File Swappers"
"'Bell Telegraph' May Enable Cosmic Communications"
"Vaunted Technologies That Don't Measure Up"
"Doing It With Meaning"
"The Approaching Age of Virtual Nations"
"Faking Intelligence"
"How to S+m+a+s+h Your Strategy"
"The Mod Squad"
"Out of Their Minds"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"She Wants P2P for the People"
Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), who has publicly opposed peer-to-peer
(P2P) file sharing networks, will face competition when he runs
for reelection.  His opponent is Tara Sue Grubb, a real estate
agent running as a Libertarian candidate who has established a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item1

"Firms Team to Push OLED Displays"
Intellectual property company Cambridge Display Technology (CDT)
and chip-design firm MediaWorks will embark on a joint venture to
help device manufacturers incorporate polymer organic light
emitting diode (OLED) displays into future products.  This will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item2

"IBM To Build Network to Link Emergency Services in Crises"
IBM has been awarded a $20-million contract to develop a wireless
network that will link about 40 different organizations in
Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., to help agencies
communicate in cases of emergency.  The project, which is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item3

"Linux, the Cheap Chic for Computer Fashionistas"
The semiannual LinuxWorld conference has confirmed that corporate
IT departments are embracing the rogue operating system as a way
to drive "business value," in the words of Doug Elix, chief of
IBM Global Services, who delivered a keynote address at the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item4

"Rivals Envy Chinese Mix of High Tech, Cheap Labor"
Zhang Hongjiang of Microsoft Research Asia's Beijing Laboratory
says that China's high-tech effort and educational investment of
the last two decades has produced an exceptionally skilled and
inexpensive  domestic workforce that may have no other ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item5

"Secret Service Expands Cybersecurity Task Forces"
Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTF) set up by the Secret Service
will facilitate quarterly meetings where corporate IT experts can
convene and confer on their companies' cybersecurity strategies.
Secret Service members say their involvement will ensure that the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item6

"White House Officials Debating Rules for Cyberwarfare"
In an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters,
Office of Cyberspace Security head Richard Clarke declared that
the real threat of cyberattacks comes from nation-states rather
than terrorist groups, and this danger has sparked an internal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item7

"A New Way to Type With Your Eyes"
Cambridge University researchers have developed software that
could significantly aid disabled and mobile computer users
because it enables text to be entered without the need for
fingers.  Dasher, created by David MacKay and David Ward of the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item8

"As Threat of Cyber Attacks Grows, Security Specialists Blame
Faulty Software"
When it comes to why the United States has become even more
vulnerable to electronic attacks after Sept. 11, experts list bad
software as the No. 1 reason.  Watts Humphrey, formerly of IBM,
attributes more than 90 percent of security holes to faulty ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item9

"Cyberterrorism Scenarios Scrutinized"
Government and industry IT professionals hashed out plans to
prevent terrorists from harming critical Internet communications
at the first-ever SECTOR5 conference held in Washington, D.C.
Representatives of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item10

"DOJ to Prosecute File Swappers"
Speaking at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual
technology and politics summit on Tuesday, deputy assistant
attorney general John Malcolm announced that the Justice
Department is ready to start prosecuting people who swap illegal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item11

"'Bell Telegraph' May Enable Cosmic Communications"
Using telegraph-like dots and dashes, a quantum mechanic device
may one day allow people to communicate with each other from
across the galaxy at speeds faster than light.  Einstein himself
said the quantum mechanic properties enabling this communication ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item12

"Vaunted Technologies That Don't Measure Up"
There are a number of technologies that promise more than they
can actually deliver in terms of reliability and performance.
Although firewalls can repel 99 percent of computer intrusions,
relying on them as a sole means of protection is folly, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item13

"Doing It With Meaning"
More companies are turning to semantics-based integration tools
to resolve conflicting meanings among diverse data sources, which
can hamper effective interpretation by conventional middleware.
Many of the tools boast state-of-the-art cognitive technologies, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item14

"The Approaching Age of Virtual Nations"
Virtual nations (v-nations) are online masses of individuals,
unified by a common cause or ideology, that mirror real nations
in the inclusion of and progression toward leadership, laws,
power, security, monetary systems, and other elements.  They will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item15

"Faking Intelligence"
Pseudo-smart robots are not really intelligent, but are capable
of feigning intelligence.  Carnegie Mellon University's
Entertainment Technology Center has created Horatio "Doc"
Beardsley, an animatronic robot made from off-the-shelf ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item16

"How to S+m+a+s+h Your Strategy"
IBM's simple, many, self-healing (SMASH) strategy involves
splitting computer systems into small, interchangeable elements
that have specific goals, watch their own performance, and solve
hardware or software problems as they occur.  This biological or ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item17

"The Mod Squad"
A community of hackers who like to tweak PC games to their own
tastes has been a financial windfall to the gaming industry,
since the mods, although usually free, cannot be played without
the original game CD-ROM.  A major development in the mod ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item18

"Out of Their Minds"
Artificial intelligence (AI) advocates and startups are touting
AI and its supposedly lucrative applications, but past experience
has taught others--sometimes to their detriment--that the
technology has yet to match the hype.  AI remains too esoteric a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0823f.html#item19

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