Clips July 30, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips July 30, 2002

ARTICLES

Senate to Delay Voting On Homeland Department
ICANN ordered to open records
The legal crackdown hasn't squelched MP3 trading
Workers' downloading puts employers at risk
Attack disables music industry Web site
Chinese dissidents publish 'declaration of Internet users' rights'
Microsoft to disclose secret code
Lawmakers, staffers seek perfect PDA
Princeton Apologizes for Web Breach
Retailers test paying by fingerprint
You, too, can rock on the Web
States spar over UCITA act
Companies Must Protect Their Employees' Info, Too
Internet-Scam Sweep Targets 19 Online Fraudsters

**************************
Washington Post
Senate to Delay Voting On Homeland Department
Goal of Passing Bill by Sept. 11 Unlikely to Be Met
By Bill Miller and Helen Dewar

The Senate will not vote on its bill to create a Department of Homeland 
Security until it returns from a summer recess after Labor Day, all but 
dashing the hopes of congressional leaders who had hoped to establish the 
new counterterrorism agency by the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 
attacks.

The measure will be the first order of business when the Senate returns, 
according to Ranit Schmelzer, spokeswoman for Majority Leader Thomas A. 
Daschle (D-S.D.).

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) first advanced the idea 
to create the new department in time to commemorate the attacks on the 
World Trade Center and Pentagon. The plan quickly won bipartisan support 
and encouragement from the White House.

But the Senate, which wraps up deliberations for the summer Friday, still 
must vote on its bill and then begin negotiations with the House to develop 
legislation for votes in both chambers.

The House raced to pass its version of the bill late Friday, just before 
its own recess began. Many lawmakers had hoped the Senate would follow suit 
this week.

"If they don't get it done, that's disappointing," said Richard Diamond, a 
spokesman for House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). "We did our 
part."

Even with the revised timetable, President Bush's plan, announced June 6, 
to merge all or parts of 22 federal agencies into a single department 
remains on an accelerated schedule.

Daschle had said repeatedly that he hoped to bring up the legislation 
before the recess, which begins this weekend. But he ran into several 
obstacles, including a backlog of other legislation and efforts by Sen. 
Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and others to delay action for further study.

Lined up ahead of the legislation to create the department are bills to add 
a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, defense and other appropriations 
measures, and a House-Senate compromise on legislation to expand the 
president's trade negotiating authority.

Even if the Senate began debating the homeland security bill by Thursday, 
Byrd's objections could delay action for two days, meaning that the Senate 
would have to postpone the start of its recess, which members of both 
parties are reluctant to do.

As a result, Schmelzer said, Daschle will take the first procedural step by 
the end of the week: filing a motion for a vote to end any delaying 
tactics. There may be a vote on this "cloture" motion before the weekend, 
but no further action on the bill is planned until Congress returns, 
Schmelzer said.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Majority Whip Tom 
DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday criticized Daschle's decision to put off action 
until September.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman 
(D-Conn.), last week put together the bill awaiting Senate consideration. 
It differs sharply in some key areas from the legislation that passed the 
House, and it was opposed by most Republicans on the committee because it 
includes a provision protecting the civil service and union rights of the 
170,000 employees who would staff the new department. The White House has 
threatened to veto the bill over those provisions.

Lieberman said yesterday that the prospects of getting a bill to Bush by 
Sept. 11 are "dimming, but it's not impossible." He noted that the Sept. 11 
target was always a goal, not a deadline.

In the House, Republicans prevailed in giving the White House new 
management flexibility. They also inserted language that gives the nation's 
airports an additional year, to Dec. 31, 2003, to install devices that can 
detect explosives in baggage. Largely over those issues, many Democrats, 
including Gephardt, voted against the bill, which passed 295 to 132.
***********************
MSNBC
ICANN ordered to open records
Board member's access had been blocked by ICANN officials
By Brock N. Meeks

WASHINGTON, July 29 A board member and frequent critic of the secretive 
practices of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 
ICANN, the governing body overseeing domain names and policies, won the 
right Monday to inspect the group's confidential records and internal 
financial statements without first having to agree to nondisclosure rules 
that ICANN officials had previously demanded be met.
       A CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR court judge ordered California-based ICANN to 
open its books to Karl Auerbach, an outspoken critic of the group to which 
he was elected to the board of directors via the first ever Internet-wide 
election process. One of Auerbach's first moves after being installed as a 
board member was ask to see ICANN's financial records and internal policy 
making directives.
       But ICANN officials stonewalled Auerbach's request for 18 months, 
insisting he first agree to not publicly disclose any information he had 
access to. Auerbach refused to sign. The ensuing stalemate resulted in 
Auerbach filing suit seeking to force ICANN to open the books.
       Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled from the bench Monday that ICANN must 
deliver all non-confidential, electronic-formatted records delivered to 
Auerbach by Aug. 2. That all paper-based, non-confidential documents be 
made available to Auerbach for inspection by Aug. 9 at the group's Marina 
del Rey, Calif. offices and that all confidential documents, in any format, 
be available to Auerbach for inspection at the group's office.
       Judge Janavs held Auerbach to one caveat: he cannot disclose any 
"confidential" information without first giving ICANN at least ten days 
notice during which ICANN can ask the court to stop any such disclosure.
       The judge also ruled that Auerbach doesn't have to sign any 
nondisclosure document.

TIMELY DECISION
       The decision Monday comes amid a flurry of activity that always 
seems to be swirling around the controversial ICANN. First, Auerbach's term 
as a board member ends Oct. 31. And although Auerbach was the first of five 
outside board members chosen by the Internet users in the first ever global 
election, ICANN officials have since decided that such an election process 
is unworkable and nixed future elections for board members.
       Second, ICANN, which is an independent non-profit organization, 
carries out its mandate under contract to the Department of Commerce and 
that contract also is rapidly coming to an end. Some members of Congress 
and Internet advocates are pressing Commerce to dump ICANN and take bids 
from other groups.
       Judge Janavs was "quite concerned about the passage of time since 
Mr. Auerbach first made his request [to see the books] and the fact that he 
would be 'legislated out of office' in October," Bret Fausett, a California 
lawyer attending the hearing Monday, wrote in his ICANN related blog.
       Fausett said the judge appeared particularly disturbed that it took 
ICANN ten months to simply come up with procedures for viewing the 
documents. When the judge found that no other directors had looked at the 
records before Auerbach's request, Fausett records Judge Janavs as saying: 
"That's a sad statement."
       When ICANN's lawyer responded that outside directors are "entitled 
to rely on the work of outside consultants," Fausett noted the judge's 
incredulity at that remark, especially in wake of recent corporate scandals 
surrounding Enron and WorldCom.
       "Yeah, we know how far that goes," Fausett quotes the judge saying. 
"Taking one's duties seriously means taking, from time to time, the 
initiative to look at things" and that the reason businesses have outside 
directors is to allow "independent inspections."

EVERYTHING AND NOTHING CHANGED
       But ICANN sees the judge's ruling differently.
       "The procedures we had in place are really no different now" from 
the judge's ruling today, said Mary Hewitt, ICANN's director of 
Communication, "it's just that the court's are involved."
       However, the judge Monday ruled that those procedures "unreasonably 
restrict directors' access to corporate records and deprive directors of 
inspection rights afforded them by law."
       Hewitt insists that ICANN offered Auerbach full access any time he 
wanted it, "with the caveat that he just not run amuck with everything that 
might be confidential."
       Now if Auerbach decides to make any confidential information public 
"it's going to be up to a judge actually to decide if we have a problem," 
Hewitt said.
       That statement infuriates Auerbach.
       "I am not making any confidential information public, four 
exclamation points! I am not making any confidential information public, 
four exclamation points," Auerbach repeated, nearly yelling into his cell 
phone as he spoke to MSNBC.com from a noisy restaurant. "I'll keep saying 
it," Auerbach insisted, "because ICANN keeps saying I'm going to and ICANN 
keeps lying."
       The trial record shows that Auerbach was the one who first proposed 
a notification period, said his lawyer James Tyre. The only difference is 
Auerbach initially proposed a seven-day notification period instead of the 
10 days the judge ordered Monday, Tyre said.
       Auerbach told ICANN that during the notification time "you're more 
than welcome to talk to me and it's very likely that I'll listen to your 
advise and if for any reason we can't come to an agreement you'll have time 
to go to court and get an order to prevent me from releasing the 
information," Tyre said of Auerbach's early attempts to "break the logjam."
       For his part, Auerbach says he never had any intention of making 
confidential information public.
       "I am getting this information for my own purposes, for my own use, 
to make better decisions and they've known that from day one," Auerbach 
said. "This whole 18-month delay, this whole sham they've put me through, 
has been nothing but them causing delay," he said. And as a result, 
"they've destroyed the public representation of ICANN by their 18 month delay.
       "There should be crow eaten at ICANN," said James Love, director of 
the Consumer Project on Technology, a Washington-based Ralph Nader group. 
"One has to wonder, why has [the Department of Commerce] sat by and watched 
ICANN act like Enron or WorldCom?" Love said. "Why can't we insist that the 
word accountability be spoken in the same sentence" as control over the 
Internet's core computer systems, Love said.
************************
Government Computer News
Justice plans new network, PKI

By Wilson P. Dizard III
GCN Staff

The Justice Department intends to consolidate its data networks and 
implement a public-key infrastructure, according to a plan it issued Friday.

Attorney general John Ashcroft has approved the plan and the department 
will begin implementing it immediately, said Andy Anderson, special 
assistant to Justice CIO Vance Hitch.

The department's IT Strategic Plan points out that Justice runs more than 
250 systems, most of them legacy applications developed by component 
organizations to meet specific needs.

"This approach has introduced an unnecessary level of cost, complexity and 
risk, and inadvertently created technical barriers to sharing information," 
the plan said. To impose order on the department's IT, the plan proposes 
adopting an infrastructure architecture to assure interoperability and 
create technical standards for Justice systems.

The proposed single, national data network would replace existing systems 
such as the Justice Consolidated Network, which relies on Sprint Corp.'s 
public-switched backbone. According to the plan, the department operates a 
potpourri of networks to serve its components around the nation and the 
headquarters in Washington region.

The new network would use TCP/IP. "It will emphasize promoting information 
sharing, providing enhanced security across the board and ensuring 
continuity of network operations," the plan said. An appendix to the plan 
recommended that Justice outsource the operation of the new network.

To improve systems security, the department has developed a database that 
tracks the remediation of security weaknesses, the plan said. "This 
database is a single repository of findings and corrective actions 
identified through the component certification and accreditation 
activities, [inspector general] audits, penetration testing and other 
reviews (including the self-assessments required under the Government 
Information Security Reform Act)."

The plan for a PKI calls for Justice to implement the technology to 
strengthen security and promote information sharing across organizational 
boundaries. The PKI initiative also would promote the department's 
e-government plans by establishing a framework for communicating with law 
enforcement agencies across federal, state and local governments.

"A departmentwide PKI effort will ensure consistency in approach, minimize 
duplication of effort, and reduce requirements for cross component 
verification and validation," the plan said.

The plan also endorses common systems for use departmentwide where 
duplicate systems serve similar needs, a strategy for business process 
re-engineering, an e-government plan, a strengthened role for the 
department's CIO and a IT work force plan.
*************************
News.com
Independent label waives Web radio fees


By Reuters
July 29, 2002, 3:35 PM PT


Artemis Records, home to such artists as country-rock singer Steve Earle 
and heavy metal group Kittie, said on Monday it would waive fees charged to 
Internet radio stations that play music from the independent label's 
catalog for one year.
Artemis' decision, which Webcasters say is the first of its kind from a 
record label, comes against the backdrop of a struggle over royalty rates 
with the record industry that Internet radio stations say threatens their 
livelihood.

"We're a small company with a lot of music that doesn't get played on 
commercial radio," Artemis Chief Executive Danny Goldberg said. "I 
appreciate the Webcaster. In terms of the future, the diversity they offer 
is valuable to a label like ours. I wanted to make a gesture of support."



Conventional radio stations have long been exempt from paying royalties to 
recording artists and anyone else who owns the rights to the "sound 
recording" of a song, but Congress said sound-recording owners should get 
paid for Internet transmissions when it updated copyright laws for the 
digital era.

The Library of Congress established a rate of 0.07 cent per listener per 
song in June, which means that Webcasters ranging from the small 
independents to giants like Clear Channel Communications that broadcast 
music over the Internet would be charged 70 cents for each song played to 
an audience of 1,000 listeners.

Internet radio stations have argued that the royalty rate would require 
them to pay far more in royalties than they could take in from advertising. 
The record industry argues that artists and labels should be compensated 
for their intellectual property.

"I don't pretend to have a crystal ball to see how the economics are going 
to play out in many years to come, but it seemed to me that there was an 
asymmetry between the record companies' need for exposure and the tone of 
the negotiations," said Goldberg, who ran three major record labels and 
managed a number of acts like Nirvana, Bonnie Raitt and Beastie Boys before 
starting Artemis.

Jonathan Potter, executive director of Digital Media Association, which 
represents Internet radio stations, lauded Artemis' move.

"Danny Goldberg is ahead of his time in every way," Potter said. "He 
recognizes that Internet radio listeners are more intense music fans and 
they buy more music than traditional music fans. I hope this is the first 
of many such announcements."

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major 
labels, had no objection to Artemis' move. "From the beginning, we have 
always argued that the copyright holder should have control over how their 
music is used," a representative said. "That's what's happening here."
*************************
Salon.com
The legal crackdown hasn't squelched MP3 trading -- it's just made it more 
of a pain.
By Farhad Manjoo

But the music industry would still rather fight than give its online 
customers what they want.

The fight against online music piracy entered the realm of the bizarre last 
Thursday, when Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., proposed giving the recording 
industry sweeping new powers to do what, for the rest of us, would be 
illegal: hacking computer networks.  For the complete story, see: 
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/30/file_trading/print.html
**************************
USA Today
Workers' downloading puts employers at risk
By Stephanie Armour

Workers using company computers to download music and movies are exposing 
employers to lawsuits and computer viruses.

Worried employers are disciplining workers and barring them from 
downloading copyrighted entertainment. Experts say bootlegged music and 
movies are also a drain on corporate tech resources.

Some workers download songs at the office because of the high-speed Net 
connections there. Downloading a song at the office can take 20 seconds, 
compared with 20 minutes at home.

Tempe, Ariz.-based technology and business consulting firm Integrated 
Information Systems paid $1 million to settle a lawsuit with the Recording 
Industry Association of America over downloaded music files. The 
association said the company allowed workers to access and share thousands 
of copyrighted MP3 music files over its network. Works included songs by 
Ricky Martin, Aerosmith and The Police.

"It's a huge risk," says Jim Garvey, CEO of Integrated Information Systems. 
"One employee can rack up millions and millions of dollars in liability on 
your network."

More companies are buying Internet filtering software to restrict 
downloads. San Diego-based Websense reports that 30% of 250 companies 
polled are blocking access to music download sites. Nearly 15% had resorted 
to disciplining or reprimanding workers.

The risk grows as Web sites that allow entertainment to be downloaded 
proliferate. Sites allowing file sharing and transfer grew more than 535% 
in the last 12 months, according to Websense, to nearly 38,000 Web pages. 
"This is going to become an ever increasing problem," says Harold Kester, 
chief technology officer at Websense.

He's seen it firsthand. At a previous company, Kester said employees 
downloaded an episode of Star Wars and watched it at work  even serving 
popcorn.

Besides legal concerns, downloaded files gobble up bandwidth, draining 
reserves. And they may contain viruses or create an opening into company 
networks.

Lawyers say companies that don't take action could find themselves facing 
more lawsuits from groups such as the RIAA.

Louisville-based Thornton Oil blocks sites where music and movies can be 
downloaded. "If the radio and music industry can prove a Thornton employee 
is downloading material, that's a risk," spokesman Matthew Embury says.
*************************
News.com
Attack disables music industry Web site
By Declan McCullagh

WASHINGTON--The Recording Industry Association of America's Web site was 
unreachable over the weekend due to a denial-of-service attack.

The apparently deliberate overload rendered the RIAA.org site unavailable 
for portions of four days and came after the group endorsed legislation to 
allow copyright holders to disrupt peer-to-peer networks.

The malicious flood started on Friday and did not involve any intrusion 
into the RIAA's internal network, a representative for the trade 
association said on Monday afternoon. Nobody has claimed credit for the 
denial-of-service attack, which ended at 2 a.m. PDT on Monday.



"Don't they have something better to do during the summer than hack our 
site?" asked the RIAA representative, who asked not to be identified. 
"Perhaps it at least took 10 minutes away from stealing music."

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm an Internet site by enlisting hundreds 
or thousands of other machines that attempt to make simultaneous 
connections. The resulting overload resembles a physical traffic jam: Few 
people can get through.

On Thursday, the RIAA endorsed a bill written by Rep. Howard Berman, 
D-Calif., that would authorize copyright holders to begin "blocking, 
diverting or otherwise impairing" peer-to-peer networks.

RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen said in a statement that Berman's bill was "an 
innovative approach," adding that "it makes sense to clarify existing laws 
to ensure that copyright owners--those who actually take the time and 
effort to create an artistic work--are at least able to defend their works 
from mass piracy."

Berman's bill, co-authored with Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., would allow the 
RIAA to engage in precisely this kind of denial-of-service attack against 
peer-to-peer networks where illicit copies of music are traded.

The RIAA, which receives connectivity through WorldCom's UUNet subsidiary, 
said it would not speculate about the reason for the attack. A 
representative said it appears to have been the first time the group's site 
had been knocked offline.
************************
Nando Times
Chinese dissidents publish 'declaration of Internet users' rights'

BEIJING (July 29, 2002 4:44 p.m. EDT) - A group of 18 Chinese dissidents 
and intellectuals published on Monday a "declaration of Internet users' 
rights" in protest at new website self-censorship rules.

The declaration demands the freedom to put together Internet pages, with 
the only restrictions placed on "evident and real" slander, pornography or 
certain "violent attacks or behaviour".

The document also calls for complete freedom for Chinese people to surf the 
Internet.

"The government is threatening freedom of expression on the Internet, which 
was already more restricted than necessary," Liu Xiaobo, a dissident living 
in Beijing but whose writings are not allowed to be published in China, 
told AFP.

Among the other signatories are independent economist Mao Yushi, who is 
permitted to write for the official press, and young writer Yu Jie.

According to a list compiled by the Internet Society of China, a 
self-regulatory body for mainland web firms, more than 300 companies have 
signed up for the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet 
Industry.

It compels signatories - which include the Chinese arm of US Internet giant 
Yahoo - to remove "harmful information" from their pages, "so as to ensure 
that the content of the network information is lawful and healthy".

"If the main websites submit to the will of the Chinese government, that 
will considerably weaken the capabilities of non-governmental organizations 
which have found space for expression on the Internet," Liu said.

Previous measures to control Internet content had been undertaken quietly, 
but the latest initiative was widely publicized, Liu said.

This was because Beijing "is seeking to reinforce its control on public 
opinion ahead of the 16th Congress" of the ruling Communist Party.

The Congress this autumn could well see power handed to a new generation of 
younger leaders, who could govern the world's most populous nation for the 
next decade.
**********************
Seattle Times
Microsoft to disclose secret code
By Brier Dudley

In a striking departure from its secretive approach to software 
development, Microsoft is making some of its prized, secret compiler code 
available to university researchers as part of an effort to improve its 
relationship with academia.

Compilers are the equivalent of the transmission in a car. They translate 
software languages into the digital ones and zeroes understood by computer 
processors.

Developing compilers is complex and time-consuming so it's unheard of for 
large private software companies to share the code underlying their 
compilers, said Craig Chambers, an associate professor of computer science 
at the University of Washington.

But Microsoft is on a campaign to improve its reputation at universities 
and in corporate computing centers, where competition from products based 
on Linux and other collaboratively developed software is growing.

Under pressure from antitrust regulators and foreign governments, Microsoft 
is also allowing more governments, academic researchers and major customers 
to view its crown jewels, the Windows source code.

The compiler project, known internally as Phoenix, will be announced this 
week at Microsoft's third annual "research summit," a gathering of computer 
scientists from universities around the world that started today.

Some 325 academics are learning about research taking place at the 
company's 680-employee advanced-research division, which operates like a 
laboratory and mini-university on the Redmond campus and at facilities in 
Silicon Valley, Beijing and Cambridge, England. The company plans to 
increase the division by 10 percent this fiscal year, adding most of the 
new jobs abroad.

They are also learning how to apply for grants from the company, which 
spent $4.5 million last year sponsoring university projects.

Chairman Bill Gates said the company's relationship with universities is 
crucial and that more collaborative projects are planned.

"There's no doubt that the strength of the commercial software industry 
really comes because of the great work that goes on in the universities," 
Gates said. "And so we're getting smarter about how we can work together 
all the time."

Gates announced a new academic advisory board to provide input into the 
company's security, privacy and reliability efforts, but the Phoenix 
project was to be announced separately.

"We have an active project we're working on with universities to improve 
our compilers, compiler technology, working with them to make our code 
available to them for their work, their experimentation as well," said Rick 
Rashid, director of Microsoft's research division.

Chambers, the UW professor, would not discuss Phoenix until it is formally 
announced, but he said such a project could partly replace an effort to 
collaboratively develop a compiler in the 1990s that dwindled when the 
federal government cut off its funding.

Among the goals in building better compilers is to improve computing 
performance and build better programming tools, he said.

Rashid said Microsoft Research already works on numerous collaborative 
projects with universities, but the company is going further with Phoenix 
and the advisory board that Gates announced.

"We're trying to make sure we get a lot of perspective from all sides if 
they're key issues, that at least those issues have been heard through, 
talked through," he said.

Rashid said Microsoft has always had to come from behind in academia, where 
people are more familiar with the Unix operating system created by AT&T's 
Bell Labs than with Microsoft's technology. Microsoft is working to make 
sure universities "have the tools they need to teach Windows and Visual 
Studio and our other tools, in addition to using Unix and Java and whatever 
else they're doing," Rashid said.

The company also wants to broaden the use of its .NET software platform. 
Gates told academics yesterday that Microsoft is "feeling very good about 
the direction but it's another four or five years before all the promise of 
.NET really gets pulled together."

But competition is intense. Computer-science students in general are 
graduating with more expertise in Sun Microsystem's Java language, 
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told financial analysts last week, 
"and we need to get after that in the academic arena."

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Lawmakers, staffers seek perfect PDA
House needs wireless devices for keeping in touch on the road

The House of Representatives is seeking the next generation of wireless 
personal digital assistants that would combine wireless phones, pagers and 
e-mail. The problem, it seems, is that lawmakers may have to wait for 
vendors to develop their dream machine.

Since Sept. 11, the House has ordered 1,900 BlackBerry handheld devices, 
made by Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), to help members communicate with one 
another and their staffs. But many members carry equipment besides the 
BlackBerry on a "flak belt," including two wireless phones (one for 
official business and one for campaigning), a pager and a Palm Inc. handheld.

"We're still waiting for the Holy Grail of devices," said Reynold 
Schweickhardt, director of technology for the House Administration Committee.

In the meantime, committee members are working with Microsoft Corp. and 
Cisco Systems Inc. to come up with a solution. They also have issued a 
request for information about off-the-shelf products that could provide 
secure wireless access to the House intranet, and they are evaluating 
various handheld devices already on the market.

But conducting congressional business on Capitol Hill or in the home 
district without high-tech handheld devices is a growing problem, 
Schweickhardt said.

Lawmakers want a device they can use in between meetings as well as in 
their home offices. But one-third of the ZIP codes in the United States 
currently have no access to BlackBerry coverage, according to 
Schweickhardt. However, RIM is working to expand BlackBerry coverage 
nationwide.

"We have members who take their BlackBerries home and go through 
withdrawal," Schweickhardt said. "We would like a member to use it when 
they go home."

Vendors say it is possible to connect every member of Congress with 
wireless technology. "The bottom line is, wireless connectivity is doable," 
said Jay Vollmer, a major account manager with Cisco Systems federal 
operations. "It is available, stable, standard out there today."

And encrypted wireless technology is available that can turn an e-mail into 
a voice message or vice versa. "If the [House] speaker wanted to broadcast 
to every member, we know how to do that securely," said Bob Cook, chief 
executive officer of Sigaba Corp., which provides secure Internet 
communications.

"We are working to help them evaluate mobile technologies," said Keith 
Hodson, a spokesman for Microsoft, which is coming out with a "smart phone" 
that will be able to perform some of the actions that lawmakers seek.

RIM also is working with the House to fulfill the requirements.

"We have a very compelling architecture for providing additional 
application requirements as they evolve over time," said Mark Guibert, 
RIM's vice president of brand management.

" The thing to take note of is that wireless solutions are not just about 
the device and not just about the network, but also about the back-end 
server software," Guibert said. "When you start thinking about wireless 
applications, and you start talking about PDAs, the audience has to update 
its thinking about what a PDA is."

The House Administration Committee is trying to come up with an 
architecture they can put in place by the end of 2003 or early 2004. And it 
won't be a moment too soon.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers experienced 
firsthand being denied access to their offices when a round of 
anthrax-tainted mail forced some congressional office buildings to close 
for months, in some cases. And even today, congressional offices are still 
on alert for tainted mail (see box, Page 22).

"There is a need for this type of technology," said Kathy Goldschmidt, 
director of technology services for the Congressional Management 
Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "People are thinking more 
about continuity of operations. If there is another disaster, having access 
to office files, Web sites, e-mail and other communications methods will be 
very important."

Even the management of their daily work cycle is a problem without 
technology, Goldschmidt said. Members are rarely in their own offices, and 
it is sometimes hard to track them down as they race from hearing to 
hearing and to the House floor for votes.

"Here in Washington, staff can be much more productive if they are able to 
be mobile," she said. "Even on the House campus, staff can keep in touch 
with members no matter where they are."

Congress may be seeking technology already used by the Defense Department 
to provide highly secure communications among various types of portable 
devices in a tactical environment.

"The technology is certainly feasible," said Warren Suss, president of Suss 
Consulting Inc. "The challenge is to find a true commercial off-the-shelf 
version of the technology. If you get something that is too 
government-specific, it becomes obsolete."

Suss said vendors are working to improve technology in consideration of the 
glaring problems that first responders faced Sept. 11 when firefighters and 
police in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area could not 
communicate with one another. Rescue workers everywhere found that wireless 
phones jammed and landlines didn't work.

"The demand isn't going to go away  the demand is going to increase," Suss 
said. "If the government can leverage forces of the commercial marketplace, 
they can influence the folks who are putting out the next generation of 
PDAs to include the capacity of more robust communications."

***

Wiring congress

The wireless handheld device is just one high-tech solution under 
consideration by lawmakers. Here are other programs the House 
Administration Committee is developing:

Mail scanning  The committee is developing a pilot project to scan mail 
into computers and electronically deliver it to members. Independent 
contractors would open the mail. About 50 House members and two committees 
will participate.

Web content management  The committee is seeking ways to manage the content 
of Web sites using software that would not require every office to dedicate 
one employee to the job. A site could be managed through a central location 
or using content management tools that require less technical training.

Alternate computing system  The committee is studying to develop an 
infrastructure capable of operating without the systems on Capitol Hill.
**********************
Washington Post
Princeton Apologizes for Web Breach
By Michael Barbaro

Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman apologized yesterday for 
snooping by at least one Princeton admissions officer into online files of 
high school seniors who had applied to Ivy League rival Yale University.

"Basic principles of privacy and confidentiality are at stake here," 
Tilghman wrote in an e-mail to Princeton students and faculty. "Violations 
of these principles therefore must not, and will not, be tolerated."

A preliminary Yale investigation has concluded that computers at Princeton 
were used in April to access the admissions accounts of 11 high school 
seniors who applied to Yale. Yale has asked the FBI to determine whether 
any federal laws were broken and Princeton has hired a former federal 
prosecutor to investigate the incident.

The university placed its director of admissions, Stephen LeMenager, on 
administrative leave last week after he admitted to peeking into the Yale 
admissions Web site, which was set up to allow Yale applicants to learn 
whether they had been admitted.

However, a Princeton spokeswoman said yesterday that the university 
believes that it was not responsible for security breaches in three of the 
cases.

Two of those cases involve siblings of Yale applicants who checked the 
files from a computer outside the Princeton admissions office, said 
spokeswoman Marilyn Marks. In the third case, a Yale applicant who was 
visiting Princeton in early April used a school computer to check his 
admissions status at Yale, she said.

The Yale report found that 14 breaches of the admissions site, involving 
eight students, occurred inside Princeton's admission office, a number 
Princeton officials have not disputed.

Princeton's Web site shows that seven of the students whose names are 
contained in Yale's confidential report have been admitted to Princeton as 
members of the class of 2006. They include fashion model Lauren Bush, 
president Bush's niece, whose online account was visited four times in a 
single afternoon from a computer at the Princeton admissions office.

Princeton began to notify the students named in the report over the weekend.

Tilghman, who just completed her first year as president of the 
256-year-old school, told students and faculty in her e-mail that "students 
who apply to Princeton, or any other university, have every right to expect 
that information they provide in good faith will be used only for the 
purposes for which they provided it, and that their privacy and 
confidentiality will be respected."
*************************
USA Today
Retailers test paying by fingerprint
By Lorrie Grant, USA TODAY

Major retailers are putting in payment systems that let your finger do the 
paying. Paying for products with a fingerprint, rather than checks, cards 
or electronic devices, is among the newest cashless options at checkout.


Biometric access, as the process is called, might have a Big Brother 
feeling, but it is expected to speed customer checkout and cut identity fraud.

In some ways, biometric access tests consumers' willingness to give up some 
privacy to gain convenience.

A customer signs up by having a finger scanned into a database by special 
machines and designating a credit or debit card to which purchases will be 
charged.

To make a purchase, consumers have their finger read at checkout, often on 
a pad incorporated into a console that also reads swipe cards and provides 
for personal identification number (PIN) entry.

Food retailers are leading the way in trying out the devices. Among them:

West Seattle Thriftway. The gourmet grocery store's cashiers scan the 
goods, then customers scan their right index finger to activate the payment 
process.
A code selected by the customer, usually a telephone number, is keyed and 
the transaction charged to the credit, debit or state-benefits card that 
has been registered with the store.

"This looked like the way of the future, positively identifying people with 
their accounts and making the transaction for customers that much easier," 
says owner Paul Kapioski.

Kroger. The No. 1 supermarket chain has tested the technology for the past 
month in three stores in Houston.
"Any time we can speed up the front-end operation, we save money, and it 
will reduce the number of fraudulent checks," says Gary Huddleston of Kroger.

Customers' fingerprints are linked with their driver's license, the store's 
loyalty card and a method of payment. The customer touches the finger-image 
pad, loyalty discounts are automatically deducted, and the account charged.

McDonald's. A location in Fresno, Calif., took fingerprints for payment 
from January through March. Other methods are now being tested.
"If we're able to handle people speedier, then they're likely to come to 
our restaurants," says Lisa Howard of McDonald's.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based chain is also joining forces with companies using 
other cashless payment methods.

For example, about 400 restaurants accept Speedpass. The device is a tiny 
key ring wand issued by oil giant ExxonMobil, originally just for its gas 
pumps.

When waved over a sensor, at the pump or elsewhere, it bills the consumer's 
credit or debit card.

And two restaurants on Long Island, N.Y., allow paying at the drive-through 
with E-Zpass, the car device that lets motorists to pass through tollbooths 
without stopping and bills a prepaid account.

"When it comes to drive-through, speed is of the essence," Howard says.

In each case, McDonald's pays the issuer a transaction fee for using their 
technology. The amount was not disclosed.

Wal-Mart. The discount giant, and leading food seller, is studying 
biometric technology.
Though once only commonplace in legal situations, fingerprinting is being 
used more in commerce. Institutions from banks to pawnshops are 
fingerprinting to authenticate transactions. Some gas station convenience 
stores only cash checks for those who ante up a fingerprint.

"We wanted to eliminate the hassle of writing down all of the information: 
driver's license number, telephone number, Social Security number," says 
Ritesh Shah, owner of a Citgo station in Hapeville, Ga., that cashes up to 
900 checks a week.

Transaction processing time is less than 30 seconds, compared with three 
minutes before using the technology, he says.

The increase in interest in biometric access stems from an increase in 
fraud involving more money, as well as a decline in the cost of the 
technology. The system costs about $10,000, experts say.

"The whole key to biometrics is selling it to the public, convincing them 
to give up some privacy for greater security," says William Rogers, 
publisher of the Biometrics Digest, a newsletter devoted to the technology 
of "human recognition."

But critics deride it as the "technology of surveillance and control." They 
fear companies that collect the fingerprint data, such as BioPay in 
Herndon, Va., or Indivos in Oakland, will be pressured to divulge data to 
law enforcement.

"It's like E-ZPass, which tracks you but is pitched as more convenient," 
says Philip Bereano, chairman of the national committee on databases and 
civil liberties for the ACLU.

"The protection of civil liberties means less efficient convenience is the 
way to go."
*************************
Nando Times
You, too, can rock on the Web

By MICHAEL OSEGUEDA, Fresno Bee


(July 30, 2002 12:30 p.m. EDT) - Perhaps 17-year-old Mike Garcia is the 
future.

He's a rapper who records in his own studio. He mixes his own songs and 
makes his own CDs. He sells the CDs on his own or uploads the songs to his 
own Web site.

And he does all this at a low cost from his bedroom, with his computer and 
the Internet.

Not bad for a kid who still goes to high school.

The Fresno, Calif., youth, who emcees under the name Mic The Mos Confident, 
is an example of what the Internet age has done for music.

It has given anyone the chance to be an artist. Anyone can sign up for a 
free spot on a site such as MP3.com or Soundclick.com and put a song on the 
Internet. Anyone in the world can then log on and listen to that song.

It offers instant distribution, free promotion and, sometimes, even cash 
compensation.

"I built a huge fan base just from the Internet in the span of a year," 
Garcia says. "There's still a long way to go. I (have) lots more songs to 
make, battles to enter and lyrics to write. But the Internet gives people 
the chance to go their own route."

While record labels are scurrying, trying to find ways to deal with the 
technology and protect their products, artists who just are trying to make 
it are using the Internet and MP3s to their advantage.

Look at Garcia. He has a bedroom cluttered with equipment. He has a small 
microphone that came from a karaoke machine. He has software on his 
computer to record and mix; it's worth $500, but he got it free from a friend.

He carries a book of rhymes with him everywhere he goes, where he jots down 
a witty line if it pops into his head. Then he'll get a beat from a 
producer through e-mail - like Nonsence, a New York-based beatmaker he met 
on the Internet, but never has seen face-to-face - and download it to his 
computer.

After he has his rhymes in order, he hangs his microphone from his ceiling 
fan, connects it to the computer, stands in the front of the dangling 
microphone and records his vocals.

He mixes the song next and if he's satisfied, he can upload it to his Web 
site.

Once he has the beat and the rhymes written, the whole process takes about 
an hour and a half.

Garcia's route never was available to John Clifton. When he was 17, you 
could have told him about the Internet and it would have been as 
far-fetched as flying automobiles.

Clifton, now 38 and a member of the Mofo Party Band, remembers back when it 
took at least $5,000 just to get in the studio; then you had to get a 
record or cassette pressed.

He and his friends didn't have that kind of money, so they put a microphone 
in a room, started playing and recorded it to cassette or eight-track. It 
was far from professional, but Clifton made do with what he could.

Today he doesn't use the Internet too much for music. He's more 
old-fashioned, he says. Plus, he never has been able to get an MP3 on the 
Internet. He registered at MP3.com and had a song ready on his computer, 
but never could figure out how to upload it.

It doesn't bother him much. He's of the belief that the Internet world of 
music has become oversaturated.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be good because it's so easy to do," 
Clifton says. "Anytime there's an abundance, there's always waste. You can 
make music without even being musical."

That doesn't mean Clifton is against the technology. He just finds that 
with a group like his, that likes to get together and play a lot, putting 
on a memorable stage show is the best means of promotion. That's how he 
wants to sell his CDs.

But what if he had grown up with the Internet at his disposal and he was an 
expert on the technology?

"If I had the stuff they have now," Clifton says, "I'd be doing it. Sure."

Jamie Nelson has been rapping since 1995. Two years ago, he started using 
the Internet to promote his music. On the microphone, he's Nomadic of the 
group Soul Components. On the Internet, the 25-year-old adopts various 
handles on different message boards, where he puts up his MP3 links and 
tries to stir interest.

"A lot of it was to expose the music to people who otherwise wouldn't get 
it," Nelson says. "I knew we'd done things in Fresno, but I wanted to see 
how it would appeal to people in other states."

The response from listeners mostly has been positive, but the response that 
means more to Nelson comes from other artists.

He has a list of five artists with whom he's really wanted to work. Through 
the Internet, he has connected with four, and three will be on his next album.

Felix finds the biggest asset is the ability to do shows in other areas.

"We play in Bakersfield and L.A., and it helps us get connections with 
other bands," he says. "Other bands e-mail us all the time, 'Wanna do a 
show with us?'

"Everything we've got out of town has been connections through the 
Internet. We'd probably be going in a different direction if we didn't have 
the Internet."
************************
News.com
States spar over UCITA act
By Paul Festa

A controversial initiative to standardize U.S. state laws on software 
licensing faces a crucial vote this week, as battle-weary consumer 
advocates and tech companies pin their hopes on a legal gathering in Arizona.
The National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) is 
devoting part of its current annual meeting in Tucson to debating 
amendments to its Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), a 
proposed code to govern software licenses and other digital information 
transactions.

The amendments come as momentum leeches from the beleaguered initiative, 
which is meant to bring the 50 states' various and conflicting software 
licensing laws into alignment. Should they be approved, the amendments may 
further diminish UCITA's chances for widespread adoption as both the 
software publishers and the consumer advocates balk at the proposed 
compromises.


UCITA has met with fierce criticism since its introduction three years ago. 
Consumer groups, legal associations and library organizations have 
excoriated the proposed act for the freedom it would grant software makers 
to restrict the use of software and dictate the terms of settling conflicts.

About half of the U.S. state attorneys general have come out in opposition 
to the law, joining the Consumer Project on Technology, the Consumers 
Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free Software Foundation. 
Supporters include Microsoft, America Online and the Business Software 
Alliance.

Under the lash of vocal opposition, early versions of the act have 
languished in state legislatures. Virginia and Maryland approved versions 
shortly after it was first proposed, but elsewhere it has died in committee.

"I think that everyone's growing weary," said Carol Ashworth, the UCITA 
grassroots coordinator for the American Library Association (ALA), which 
has called the amendments insufficient and loophole-ridden. "There's still 
a tremendous difference of opinion about the amendments among the 
commissioners themselves. They spent the first two hours (on Monday) 
talking about just the first three amendments."

The approximately 350 commissioners resume debate on the amendments Tuesday 
afternoon and expect to vote on them Thursday. States get one vote each, 
regardless of how many commissioners they send to the meeting. Once 
measures and amendments make it to the final vote, it is extremely rare for 
them not to be approved.

Even if the amendments sail through a Thursday vote, it would not spell the 
end of UCITA's challenges. At that point, the amended act would still face 
the state-by-state battle where it has languished until now.

Amid Monday's debate, NCCUSL representatives reached by phone sounded less 
than optimistic about the act's progress.

"We're all in a kind of wait-and-see mode," said John McCabe, NCCUSL's 
chief counsel. "We have hopes, but that's it. Even if your own conference 
accepts the amendments, that's not a slam dunk. We'll see where they go 
from here."

Among the amendments being debated in Tucson:

? Self-Help: As UCITA now stands, software licenses can thwart lawsuits 
against vendors by outlining binding alternatives to litigation. These 
so-called self-help measures have let software companies shut down a piece 
of software if they have not been paid for or if they claim a breach of 
contract. According to NCCUSL, a proposed change to UCITA would abolish 
provisions for self-help. The ALA claims it would still permit loopholes 
for self-help.

? Opting In, Opting Out: A proposed change removes a section of UCITA that 
limited licensees' ability to opt in or out of UCITA.

? Known Defects: Critics lambasted UCITA for relieving software vendors of 
liability for selling software with known defects. A new section "expressly 
clarifies the applicability of other law to provide appropriate remedies 
for cases where known material defects are undisclosed," according to NCCUSL.

? Consumer Protection: Consumer advocates charged that UCITA would strip 
people of legal protections they enjoy under current state law. A new 
section would spell out that existing consumer protection law trumps UCITA 
when the two come into conflict.

? Public Criticism: Free-speech advocates complained that UCITA let 
software makers prohibit public criticism of their products. A new section 
says that any provision limiting criticism rights is not enforceable, 
according to NCCUSL.

? Reverse Engineering: A new section spells out that reverse engineering is 
permissible for the purpose of making products interoperable with each 
other. The amendment was a sine qua non for Sun Microsystems, NCCUSL said.

On Thursday, the NCCUSL concludes its meeting and will make a final 
determination on the amendments. But there was some question of how closely 
the industry will be watching the outcome of the amended act.

"The software industry quite strongly supported this because in the 
beginning it had all the things they wanted," NCCUSL's McCabe said. "When 
you lose the self-help remedy, there's a loss they don't feel is in their 
interest. If the proponents lose something like that, they become less 
excited about it."
******************
InformationWeek
Companies Must Protect Their Employees' Info, Too
Hackers don't just want to steal business data; they may want to nab your 
workers' identities
By David Post and Bradford C. Brown

Gov. Gray Davis of California has had a few tough years. First it was the 
state energy crisis. Now hackers have evidently stolen the Social Security 
numbers of almost all employees on the state government's payroll -- 
265,000 people had their personal and financial information nabbed. It was 
widely reported that state IT workers took more than a month to detect the 
problem. Worse yet, officials allegedly didn't tell employees what had 
happened for another three weeks. Reports indicate that Davis, too, had his 
personal information stolen.

For the whole story see: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020725S0004
********************
Reuters Internet Report
Internet-Scam Sweep Targets 19 Online Fraudsters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal and state law enforcement authorities said 
Tuesday they had taken action against 19 Internet-based scams that they say 
collectively bilked consumers out of millions of dollars.



Work-at home schemes, auction fraud, deceptive use of junk e-mail, 
securities fraud and other schemes were targeted by a broad Internet 
law-enforcement effort including state attorneys general, local law 
enforcement authorities and a passel of federal agencies.

Several cases have been settled already, with punishments ranging from 
seven-year jail sentences to agreements by defendants to stop their schemes.

While many of the perpetrators live in the Midwest, the crimes targeted 
consumers nationwide through junk e-mail solicitations or fraud on eBay, 
Yahoo and other popular Internet auction sites, according to a spokeswoman 
for the Federal Trade Commission.

In one case, a Florida company named Stuffingforcash.com told consumers 
they could earn up to $2,000 per week stuffing envelopes at home after 
paying an initial $45 deposit, but then failed to send the promised 
envelope-stuffing materials.

The scheme likely cheated tens of thousands of customers out of more than 
$2 million over the past year, the FTC said in court filings.

Auction fraud was a common charge. In a typical case, the Illinois attorney 
general charged Chicago resident Tim Engle with advertising merchandise for 
sale on eBay but failing to provide the goods after payment was received.

The head of the FTC's consumer-protection division said the Internet 
enabled scam artists to reach a wider audience than before.

"Scams on the Internet spread very quickly," said the FTC's Howard Beales. 
"That's why the FTC and our partners are moving aggressively to shut these 
schemes down."
***********************

Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 510
2120 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037
202-478-6124
lillie.coney@xxxxxxx