[no subject]

The Bush administration's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is
assembling a committee to focus on information-systems security in the
executive branch and formalizing the panel's responsibilities. The move is
aimed at helping the board and the White House Office of Homeland Security
focus on steps necessary to protect the government's computer systems. 

The committee will consist of members from federal agencies that have a role in
security and will be chaired by the Office of Management and Budget. 

The administration's e-government chief, Mark Forman, told a House subcommittee
on Wednesday that most of the committee's work will be performed by individual
issue groups that will be dissolved once their work is completed. 

The National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) is one agency that will
be added to the committee "soon," NIST Director Arden Bement said during the
hearing. 
****************
Government Executive
March 6, 2002 
FEMA outlines e-government goals 
By Liza Porteus, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The technology chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday
outlined several initiatives that his department is working on to aid the
implementation of the Bush administration's e-government plan. 

The White House has identified 24 e-government initiatives for the Office of
Management and Budget to spearhead under the president's management agenda. OMB
has directed federal agencies to streamline their programs and use technology
to make their government services more accessible. 

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks underscored the need for the federal government
to provide fast and easy access to disaster-related information to citizens,
FEMA Chief Information Officer Ron Miller said at a conference sponsored by
E-Gov. He noted that FEMA's Web site received 3.5 million hits soon after the
attacks. 

To better aid the public, FEMA has established Disasterhelp.gov, a site designed
to serve as a one-stop portal for citizens to obtain disaster-relief
information and assistance, Miller said. 

FEMA has specific e-government projects it must finish to reach its government
management goals. They include modernizing the National Emergency 
Management Information System, establishing publicly accessible map services on
the Web, and placing registration and information forms for Bush's Citizen
Corps program on the Web. Enhancing distance-learning programs also is part of
the agenda. Disasterhelp.gov will consolidate federal and other disaster-relief
programs under one portal and provide links to state and local
emergency-management groups. 

The site will require a secure network for information sharing and an automated
transaction-processing system to deal with disaster-relief transactions. It
also will require a database to serve as an information repository. 

Miller stressed that FEMA does not want to put large batches of personalized
information into a centralized database--an idea that privacy advocates heavily
criticized during debates over a national identification system tied to such a
database. 

Meanwhile, Eligibility Assistance Online, a program currently under FEMA's
purview that aids in citizens' disaster benefits, will be moved to the Labor
Department. 

Miller said state and local CIOs will work with FEMA on various e-government
initiatives to aid the homeland security effort. Such initiatives include
online loan applications, e-grants and e-authentication, the latter being a
requirement for most e-government initiatives underway in all agencies, Miller
said, given the vast amounts of information being put on the Web. 

"There are a lot more privacy issues out there than there were before so many
government services were online," Miller said. 

A key priority for FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh, Miller said, is creating a
public-safety wireless network, which is the "single-most critical information
technology need." "First responders" to emergencies and government officials
have said they need access to a priority network to effectively communicate
with each other during emergencies. 

"Whatever the solution is, we've got to solve it and solve it now," Miller
said. 
**************
The Washington Post
Russian Spies, They've Got Mail 
Thursday, March 7, 2002 
By Sharon LaFraniere,
Washington Post Foreign Service 

MOSCOW ? Nail Murzakhanov, an Internet provider in Volgograd, knew he might
lose his business license four years ago when he told the Federal Security
Service, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, that he would not give it
access to the e-mail traffic of his 1,500 subscribers. 

When the Communications Ministry suspended his license for failure to cooperate
with the intelligence agency, known as the FSB, Murzakhanov filed suit. 

Surprisingly, in August 2000, he got his license back. "In the end, I was left
in peace," he said in a phone call from an office filled with brightly colored
computer games. 

The standoff was surprising not so much because Murzakhanov won, but because it
occurred at all. Typically, Internet providers in Russia say they do all they
can to satisfy the state security services, even if it means turning over the
password of every client. 

That is one telling barometer of the security services' continuing power in
Russia's 11-year-old democracy. In theory, Russians are entitled to as much
privacy in their communications as Americans. Both the Russian constitution and
a 1995 law prohibit law enforcement agencies from monitoring phone calls, pager
messages, radio transmissions, e-mails or Internet traffic without a court
order. 

But in practice, critics say, court orders are little more than legal niceties
in Russia. An obscure set of technical regulations issued in the late 1990s
permits total access without ever approaching a judge. 

The regulations are known as SORM, the Russian acronym for System for
Operational-Investigative Activities. They require Internet providers to give
their local FSB office whatever hardware, software and fiber-optic lines may be
needed to tap into the provider's system and all its users. 

While U.S. law is based on the premise that law enforcement agencies must be
held in check, Russian civil rights advocates say the premise of SORM is that
Russian law enforcement can be trusted to keep itself in check. 

"They have all the conditions to abuse their power," said Yuri Vdovin, who
heads Citizens' Watch, a St. Petersburg human rights organization funded by the
Ford Foundation. "The system is on purpose constructed in such a way that there
is no way anyone can control them. A Russian citizen is not protected at all." 

Internet providers don't like the system, especially since they promise clients
in their contracts that their e-mail will be kept confidential. But a decade
after perestroika, Russia is still a country where people are not inclined to
fight city hall, much less what was once the secret police. 

Eugene Prygoff is the former marketing director of Kuban.net., an Internet
provider in the southwestern Russia city of Krasnodar. He said the vast
majority of providers are simply not willing to risk their licenses to test the
principle of privacy. "They see no sense in putting up resistance. So they work
out a deal with the FSB," he said. 

And compared with their counterparts in the West, civil rights organizations
are still scarce and often too weak to challenge the state. Citizens' Watch,
for instance, is working with a group of Russian lawyers to prepare a legal
complaint against SORM. At the same time, the group's 12 employees are working
on issues of freedom of the press, racial discrimination, juvenile crime,
military reform and state secrecy. 

Not every provider ends up installing a direct line to the local FSB office,
according to Mikhail Yakushev, head of the legal department at Global One, an
international firm andone of Moscow's biggest Internet providers. Each one
works out its own confidential agreement with the security service, he said. He
stressed that his comments reflected the views of an Internet providers
association, where he heads the legal working group, not Global One. 

"In practice SORM is not as abusive as it could be, because the FSB doesn't
have enough qualified staff or special equipment to be as active as they
could," he said. 

"But then again, who knows what will happen next year, or next month? The
biggest problem is no one to control them. If there is a line, and equipment
that allows them access, then no one can track them." 

Until a Supreme Court ruling in late 2000, the FSB was not even required to
tell providers that its agents were tapping the system. The complaint in that
case was filed by a 26-year-old St. Petersburg journalist, who said he got
tired of waiting for civil rights groups or providers to protest. 

Murzakhanov, now 36 and the director of Bayard-Slavia Communications in
Volgograd, 575 miles south of Moscow, is the only provider to publicly raise a
fuss. Murzakhanov said that in 1998, a year after the company opened, FSB
agents presented the firm with a plan to hook up the local FSB offices. 

Besides $100,000 worth of hardware, software and computer lines, Murzakhanov
said, the FSB wanted all the tools that he had, as the administrator of the
system. "They could very easily have read all the clients' passwords. And once
they learned the passwords, they could have controlled online all the e-mail
traffic," he said. "They could have read or rewritten an e-mail even before the
receiver got it, and the user would never know." 

His refusal to sign the FSB's plan brought untold headaches. He said his
business was audited or inspected at least 15 times for compliance with fire,
epidemiological, sanitation, labor protection and tax codes. 

The FSB also switched off his main data transmission line, he said, forcing him
to rely on low-quality, dial-up channels. His business license was suspended
for six months. Only after Communications Ministry officials failed to show up
for four court hearings did he recover it. 

Murzakhanov said the ministry deliberately punted. "They didn't want to expose
the entire system of pressuring providers. They decided it was better to lose
and to keep the cover on the system." 

So far, no other provider is eager to follow the Volgograd example, said
Anatoly Levenchuk, an Internet expert in Moscow who first revealed the SORM
requirements. 

"They all say his case shows all the trouble you can have if you try to oppose
the authorities," he said. 
*************
The Washington Post
Charges Of the Site Brigade 
By Leslie Walker

Thursday, March 7, 2002; Page E01 

Hold on to your wallet: This may go down in Internet history as the year
millions of people started paying for online content. My digital radar shows a
blip of activity in electronic subscriptions, enough to make me think real
online businesses are finally being born.

In case you hadn't heard, fee replaced free as the Internet's rallying cry last
year after advertising sales hit the skids. Hundreds of Web sites slapped
subscription gates on their content or began charging for premium services.
Advertising-supported content did not totally disappear. Rather, it
increasingly coexists with paid services.

But the trend raises two huge questions -- how much people are willing to pay,
and who will be the chief money collectors for new media.

Analysts are watching closely to see whether some content owners will be able
to bypass America Online, Yahoo and other Internet networks to collect
subscription fees directly from consumers, as magazines and newspapers do. The
outcome has major implications for both traditional media and the
telecommunications industry, which controls the Internet transmission pipes.

It seems every day another company announces plans to charge for all or part of
its Web content. This week the British-based newspaper Financial Times said it
will soon stop giving away much of its online edition. As part of a redesign of
its Web site, FinancialTimes.com plans to ask users to pay as much as $140
annually for access to its best content, including detailed analyses and
reports on particular industries and countries.

"It's a critical piece of our revenue plan for 2002," said Zach Leonard, chief
operating officer for FinancialTimes.com.

The company will not go to a fully paid model, in part because ad revenue
jumped 26 percent at the site last year, despite the global decline in
advertising. "With advertising being so critical to us, it would be risky
business to put the entirety of the site behind the veil," Leonard said.

Indeed, several American newspapers saw a drop in traffic to their sites after
they started charging for access.

Tulsa World, an Oklahoma daily, reports that nearly 3,000 non-print subscribers
have signed up for its $45-a-year Web subscriptions. But traffic to its Web
site dropped 25 percent after it switched to paid access last summer, according
to online publisher Dilene Crockett. The Albuquerque Journal made a similar
move and reported a Web traffic drop of about 40 percent.

At larger news sites that still rely on advertising, the prevailing trend is to
add premium content. The New York Times Digital, for example, collected $1.4
million last year from special Web products such as bundles of articles and
electronic crosswords, which have 35,000 subscribers. Another 2,200 people are
paying to receive an electronic edition that visually replicates the printed
New York Times. (So far, washingtonpost.com, the Web edition of this newspaper,
doesn't offer premium content.)

CNet Networks, a technology news publisher, plans to start charging soon for
some of its e-mail newsletters and Web games.

"One of the surprises now is that you are seeing the beginning of traction
around providing paid content and services," said Shelby Bonnie, chief
executive of CNet Networks.

Who would have guessed, for example, that 900,000 people would ante up $12 for
the privilege of sending e-mail greetings? That's how many people American
Greetings Corp. says have bought annual subscriptions to one of its three
sites, BlueMountainArts.com, AmericanGreetings.com and eGreetings, since they
began charging for some greetings last fall.

The four largest online portals -- America Online, Microsoft's MSN, Yahoo and
Terra Lycos -- have been adding paid services of their own to supplement their
revenue from advertising and Internet access. AOL, MSN and Yahoo now offer one
of the two new Internet music subscription services, MusicNet and PressPlay,
with monthly prices ranging from $10 to $25. MSN, meanwhile, reports that
300,000 people are already paying extra for its premium services, such as the
$12 a year it charges for e-greetings, $6 a month for bill payments and $20 a
year for extra storage at Hotmail.com.

Perhaps more interesting than the paid content at the portals, though, is a new
subscription service from streaming-media pioneer RealNetworks. Few analysts
would have guessed that RealNetworks would get half a million people to pay $10
to $20 a month to watch the streaming music and video service it rolled out in
December. One of the most closely watched experiments, the RealOne bundle
features video clips from major-league baseball, entertainment news, FoxSports,
CNN news and commercial-free versions of ABC's World News Tonight. RealNetworks
reported last month that its paid subscriptions had broken the half-million
mark.

"This is a watershed moment for the growth of video on the Internet," said
Bernie Gershon, general manager of ABCNews.com, citing improvements in the
quality of Internet video and the increasing willingness of people to pay for
video on demand.

To make sure its paid video is exclusive, ABC News recently yanked the free
video footage it had been distributing through Yahoo.com. While Yahoo pays
little or nothing to license content, RealNetworks is paying content providers
in a subscription-sharing model that is based partly on usage and resembles the
model for cable TV.

Fox Sports made a similar move, stripping free video off its Web site to
enhance the likelihood that people would pay for it. Even CNN, until now the
leader in distributing free news video online, announced this week that it,
too, will remove most of its free video from CNN.com so it will be exclusive to
paid services such as RealOne.

All of this must disappoint those who believe the Internet's essence is about
the free sharing of information. The reality is the Internet affects almost
every imaginable human activity -- research, personal communication, education,
medicine, government and, of course, the money-obsessed corporate world. That
makes it highly unlikely any one financial model will prevail.
*********************
Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / TECHNOLOGY
Computer Virus Hits UBS PaineWebber
Bloomberg News

March 7 2002

UBS PaineWebber's computer network was infected with a virus that has hindered
brokers' ability to execute trades and retrieve client data.

The firm said it was working to repair the problem and was investigating how
the virus made its way into the internal browser-based system, blocking access
to data and trade execution methods. The virus forced brokers to use back-up
systems and phone trades to the NYSE. 

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to
www.lats.com/rights. 
********************
USA Today
Official: U.S. studying Cuba's ability to disrupt Net

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Bush administration has begun a review of Cuba policy
that will include an assessment of whether Cuba can disrupt U.S. military
communications through the Internet, a senior official says.

That issue will be examined along with others to determine Cuba's potential to
damage U.S. interests, the official said.

The senior official, asking not to be identified, said Cuba's involvement in
international terrorism also will be part of the review.

In addition, the administration is examining the possibility of seeking an
indictment against President Fidel Castro in the 1996 shootdown by MiG jet
fighters of two Miami-based private planes near Cuban air space, the official
said.

Thus far, the centerpiece of President Bush's Cuba policy has been support of
the U.S. embargo against Cuba. But the official's comments suggested the
administration has a more proactive agenda in mind for countering Castro.

A year ago, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, told a congressional hearing that Cuba has the potential to use
"information warfare or computer network attack" to disrupt "our access or flow
of forces to the region."

Wilson declined to discuss the matter further in open session, and the
administration has not commented publicly on the subject since then. The senior
official said Cuba's ability to engage in cyberattacks is part of the policy
review. Castro has dismissed Wilson's comments as "craziness."

Richard Clarke, the White House technology adviser, said in testimony in
February before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, that the United States could
respond militarily against a foreign government in the event of a cyberattack.

"We reserve the right to respond in any way appropriate: through covert action,
through military action, any one of the tools available to the president,"
Clarke said.

He said Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Russia and other countries already have
people trained in Internet warfare. He did not mention Cuba.

Cuba is on the State Department terrorist country list, a designation based on
ties Cuba maintains with other countries on the list, including Iraq, and the
haven Cuba provides for foreigners linked to alleged terrorist organizations.

As a result of the policy review, the Cuba section of the next State Department
terrorism report, due next month, may add to the rationale for keeping Cuba on
the list.

Castro argues that Cuba has been the victim of a Miami-based terrorism campaign
that dates back 40 years and has claimed, he says, thousands of lives.

As for the embargo, Bush has said he will oppose "any effort to weaken
sanctions against the Cuban government until it respects Cubans' basic human
rights and civil rights, frees political prisoners and holds free and
democratic elections."

But there is strong sentiment in Congress to lift restrictions on travel by
Americans to Cuba. The worst nightmare of pro-embargo stalwarts is the specter
of Americans filling Cuba's tourist hotels and, in the process, leaving behind
hundreds of millions in dollars for Cuba's cash-starved government.

The senior official raised the possibility of a presidential veto if the travel
restrictions are eased. At present, travel is permitted by journalists and some
other categories of Americans who have a professional interest in Cuba. But
tourism has been barred for years.
*****************
USA Today
Digital cinema still a galaxy away
By Andy Seiler, USA TODAY 

LAS VEGAS ? Rick McCallum knew he had the hottest ticket at the ShoWest movie
industry convention when he hosted a showing of exclusive Star Wars footage at
the ShoWest convention Tuesday night. So McCallum, who produced Episode II:
Attack of the Clones, wasted no time in making his pitch.

George Lucas shot this film digitally, without film, McCallum told the crowd of
theater owners and operators. It's the best way, and theater owners need to
switch.

"Does anyone think we would be reckless enough to use $100 million of our own
money" unless it were the wave of the future? he asked. McCallum's remarks were
later called a defining moment in the history of movies.

Yet theater owners were not relishing it. Some said they couldn't see why they
should switch and wondered who would pay for what could be the biggest change
since the movies learned to talk.

With digital distribution, movies would be sent by satellite, the Net or on
high-definition DVDs instead of on film, eliminating cumbersome reels and high
shipping costs. Proponents also say the technology would result in
crystal-clear pictures that would remain pristine week after week. Seems like
an obvious improvement, but there are obstacles.

"There are a host of questions on digital cinema that have prevented a massive
roll-out," says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater
Owners, which sponsors ShoWest. "The need for uniform global technical
standards" is one problem, he said. "We can't have incompatible,
non-interoperable systems."

Quality is another issue. "It is very good, some say it is as good as
35-millimeter film," he says. "So what? It has to be better. There's no reason
to make the biggest transition in the history of the theater business unless
the quality is better."

And there's the cost. "A top-of-the-line film projector costs $30,000 and will
last 20 years," he says. A digital film projector costs $150,000 and will last
for two "until the next generation comes out."

Even McCallum says he has no idea who will pay for a digital switch. Some have
suggested that the movie studios, coming off their best year ever, should chip
in and help the financially strapped theater chains, some of which are emerging
from bankruptcy protection.

Will digital cinema arrive before the final installment of Star Wars in another
two years? It doesn't seem likely.

Fithian says it will happen ? but in good time.

"We at NATO have been accused of trying to stall the onset of digital cinema,"
he says. "This one ticks me off. We just want to get it right."
***************
Federal Computer Week
Agencies outline security changes 
BY Diane Frank 
March 7, 2002Printing? Use this version. 
Email this to a friend. 
Federal agencies are reviewing old security programs and kicking off new ones
in response to the deficiencies discovered during the self-assessments required
by Congress, officials testified March 6.

Energy and Defense department officials outlined several major changes in their
information security policies and practices as they testified before a hearing
of the House Government Reform Committee's Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee.

The changes include new system certification, employee training and policy
compliance programs. 

At Energy, that means increasing security education and awareness programs to
ensure that "every member of the department's infrastructure is aware that
cybersecurity is an integral part of his or her job," said Karen Evans, the new
chief information officer at Energy.

The department also is developing new programs, such as a departmentwide
certification and accreditation process for all of its unclassified systems to
complement the process already in place on the classified side, she said.

All of these programs are being developed by a working group made up of
officials from every portion of the department to ensure buy-in at all levels,
she said.

The DOD assessment found that while the department has good security policies,
practices and procedures, it does little verification of compliance despite
initiatives such as the DOD Information Technology Security Certification and
Accreditation Program (DITSCAP), said Robert Gorrie, deputy director of the
Defensewide Information Assurance Program. 

The problem will not be solved by stricter audits and enforcement of the
DITSCAP, he said. Instead "non-compliance is more a symptom of the complexity
of that process and the clarity of its implementing policy," Gorrie said.

So now the DITSCAP is undergoing a "dramatic modification in policy as well as
implementation," he said. The department is also looking at possible automated
tools to ease the documentation burden on security and system administrators,
he said
************
Federal Computer Week
USPS cancels secure e-mail biz 
BY William Matthews 
March 7, 2002Printing? Use this version. 
Email this to a friend. 
The U.S. Postal Service has decided to get out of the secure e-mail business
and is pulling the plug on its PosteCS service.

Unable to make money on the service or find a buyer for it, USPS will
discontinue the e-mail initiative, said Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan.
PosteCS is a Web-based service designed to deliver digital files that are too
large for some commercial e-mail services and to deliver electronic documents
that require timely receipt and assurance against tampering. Documents could be
stamped with an electronic postmark to verify the time, date and place of
origin and receipt.

The service was intended mainly for commercial customers such as those who
transfer sensitive legal documents or large graphic files. But it never
generated revenue.

"The issue of profitability is a huge issue for us now," Brennan said.

During 2001, the Postal Service experienced $1.7 billion in operating losses
and faces an additional $5 billion in losses because of the October anthrax
attacks and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

As a result, the Postal Service is re-evaluating all of its e-commerce
initiatives, Brennan said. They include an online store that sells stamps,
T-shirts, coffee cups and other souvenirs; an online billing and bill-paying
service; an electronic greeting card store; and a money transferring service.

PosteCS was launched in May 2000, at a time when Internet industry analysts
were predicting an explosion of online commerce, Brennan said. Instead, they
were confronted with the dot-com meltdown. 

"Demand has changed," Brennan said. 

"We are pleased that they are discontinuing it," said Jason Mahler, vice
president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. The CCIA has
been critical of the Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service and other
government entities that have ventured into online services that compete with
commercial ventures.

However, it is questionable whether PosteCS actually competed with the
commercial sector. "We were somewhat befuddled that they were trying to make a
go of this business because we didn't foresee any significant demand for
electronic postmarks," Mahler said. "There are various other means of verifying
that kind of information if you are desirous of doing so."
************
Federal Computer Week
DOD advancing high-tech projects 
BY Dan Caterinicchia 
March 6, 2002Printing? Use this version. 
Email this to a friend. 
The Defense Department has approved funding for 15 new technology projects,
ranging from miniscule unmanned aerial vehicles to homeland security
coordination among the nation's first responders, as part of a program designed
to rapidly field these advanced concepts. 

Sue Payton, deputy undersecretary of Defense for advanced systems and concepts,
announced the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) projects for
fiscal 2002, and said about 30 past ACTD products are supporting the nation's
counterterrorism initiatives. 

"The primary role of my team at the Pentagon is to rapidly transition
technologies from the defense and commercial developers into the hands of the
warfighter," she said during a March 5 Pentagon briefing. 

One new program that will be tested soon is a homeland security package
designed to coordinate the efforts of state and local first responders with DOD
personnel. 

The ACTD homeland security project will provide secure, interagency network
connectivity to ensure that emergency workers don't face the radio, telephone
and digital communications breakdowns that occurred after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, Payton said.

"This is basically a communications project, but it's also about getting data
together for situational awareness," Payton said. She added that a
demonstration would take place next month in New Orleans with assorted
government agencies responding to a terrorist attack scenario. 

Three ACTDs selected for initiation in fiscal 2002 are classified, but Payton
identified three others as being the most likely to be fielded in the next six
months to a year: 

* Micro Air Vehicle  An autonomous 6- to 9-inch disposable vehicle designed to
provide small ground combat units with situational awareness of enemy activity,
which could be especially useful in urban areas.

* Pathfinder  An integration of unattended ground vehicles, unmanned air
vehicles and smart sensors in a mobile network providing enhanced situational
awareness, command, control and communications to commanders and assault forces
for urban reconnaissance.

* Agile Transportation  A system that shows transportation requirements and
assets, similar to the commercial capabilities of companies like Federal
Express.
The remaining information technology-intensive ACTD projects include:

* Coalition Information Assurance Common Operational Picture  Details the
information system security status of all mission-critical systems on a near-
or real-time basis in support of commander-in-chief and coalition missions.

* HYCAS  A hyperspectral collection and analysis system with sensors integrated
onto operational platforms and into existing architectures in support of
deception intelligence operations.

* Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal-Knowledge and Technology Operational
Demonstration  A system that provides a new integrated capability for joint and
coalition explosive ordnance disposal forces and will include an always-on
telelink from field officers to experts via a handheld device.

* Language and Speech Exploitation Resources  A system that automates the
translation of spoken or written languages, for quickly translating documents,
debriefing witnesses and supporting communication in coalition operations.

The total funding for the 15 approved ACTD projects is $159 million from the
advanced systems and concepts office but will significantly increase when the
military services decide what their contributions will be, Payton said.
******************
Federal Computer Week
New fiber net may be lifesaver 
BY Dibya Sarkar 
March 5, 2002 
Had the new 100-mile high-speed fiber-optic network been in place in Arlington
County, Va., on Sept. 11, communications in response to the attack on the
Pentagon would have been smooth and effective, said the county's chief
information officer, Jack Belcher.

"On Sept. 11, we were totally disorganized from a communications standpoint,"
said Belcher, referring to phone congestion problems. But with I-Net, which
stands for Institutional Network, the county's infrastructure can handle voice,
video and data 650 times faster than it could before, and it is redundant and
secure.

"When will this network be saturated? Regrettably, we won't be alive to see
it," he said.

The network is so fast, said Barry Kane, executive vice president for Signal
Corp., that it takes only 11 seconds to transmit 11M of information, something
that would have taken 11 minutes on the old network. 

The system, which has been in development since 1998, was created through a
partnership of Signal, Verizon Communications, Cisco Systems Inc. and Comcast
Corp. Kane said such an arrangement is unusual for such a large project, where
a prime contractor usually subcontracts work out to other companies. "I had my
doubts, but it's worked extremely well," he said, adding it could serve as a
model for how other projects are done in the future.

So far, all the county's fire stations have been connected. By July, the county
hopes to connect all 41 county buildings and 39 school buildings, Belcher said,
adding that the county also is reaching out to hospitals and the public health
community. Discussions also are under way to connect to the Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport. The cost to link up all county facilities is
estimated at $2.4 million.

Last week, the county demonstrated the network's possibilities with a mock
bioterrorism scenario, Belcher said. Several county officials spoke with one
another in real time from different locations through "theater quality"
videoconferencing, supplied by Norway-based Tandberg LLC, he said. If a patient
in a hospital had a suspicious lesion on his or her arm, hospital personnel
could convey that image in real time through videoconferencing to experts in
other parts of the country, he explained.

Users also could use the network for Internet telephony, saving the county
about $2 million a year in leased T1 lines and annual telephone fees. In an
emergency, Belcher said the system would not be congested.

We're going to "enable government in ways unimagined before," said Belcher. 
"I have not yet found a jurisdiction that approaches the capacity that we have
laid down," he said.
**************
Federal Computer Week
County targets enterprisewide GIS 
BY Brian Robinson 
March 4, 2002 

Will County, one of the fastest-growing counties in Illinois, will use
geographic information systems to build a virtual network of geographical data
users and producers that will not only include the government's departments and
agencies but, eventually, all of the county's towns and municipalities.

SD.I, a Chicago-based IT consulting firm, is conducting a needs assessment that
could be delivered to the county's executive council by July. It also will
develop an implementation plan that will lay out a three- to five-year program
for deploying the system.

"We've had a base map of the county prepared for a long time, and our
departments have been chomping at the bit to use [countywide GIS]," said Bruce
Freifeld, executive special assistant to the executive council. "But we need to
get data into the system, and there's been no overall architectural plan about
how to develop it to meet those needs."

The county also will develop a cost and data-sharing program between all of the
system's users.

The enterprisewide GIS likely will be a distributed system rather than one
organized around a central database, said Doug Roberts, the SD.I project
manager, because government departments and other organizations have indicated
they would like to keep their own GIS databases. Power uses would be linked to
the system directly through desktop computers, he said, and "light" userswill
access it via the Web.

A menu of user privileges will decide who has the ability to write to and
manipulate the GIS data layers.

GIS has become "such a dominant player" that Freifeld believes it could
eventually consume other information technology and management information
systems functions and become the major driver for technology development in the
county.
*****************
Federal Computer Week
States round up 511 resources 
BY Dibya Sarkar 
Eight states, from Alaska to Maine, are pooling resources and expertise to
develop a 511 voice-enabled phone service for travelers.

Led by the Iowa Department of Transportation (www.dot.state.ia.us), the
multistate consortium received $700,000 from the Federal Highway Administration
to help pay for system design and software development. Each state also is
providing a 20 percent matching fund that should boost total funds to nearly
$900,000.

John Whited, the Iowa DOT's project manager of advanced transportation
technology, said the participating states currently deliver traveler
information in various forms, including via the Internet and telephone hot
lines. 

He said the states would use Voice XML (Extensible Markup Language) standards
and technology to create a voice-enabled traveler service similar to what Utah
unveiled in December. Once connected with that system, callers find information
by speaking keywords instead of punching numbers.

Whited added that by outsourcing calls to call centers in participating states
? thus spanning several time zones ? high call volumes during peak times can be
shifted throughout the system, reducing congestion and costs.

In addition to Iowa, the participating states are Alaska, Kentucky, Maine,
Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont. Kentucky, which has
established a 511 system in the northern part of the state ? in the Cincinnati
metropolitan region ? joined the consortium most recently. 

In 1999, Iowa was among four states ? Minnesota, Missouri and Washington were
the other ? that formed a partnership to develop the Condition Acquisition and
Reporting System. CARS gives access to data on road conditions, work zones and
incident management information collected via the World Wide Web. He said the
511 consortium was built on that initial partnership and is always seeking new
members. 

Iowa, which currently offers a toll-free telephone number and a Web site for
road conditions and construction, plans to unveil a 511 system next winter,
Whited said. He added that the system also could provide information on special
events, trip planning and local tourist sites. He said each state would deploy
the 511 service in some form within a year. The Federal Communications
Commission designated 511 as a traveler's information number in July 2000, but
it allowed each state to develop its own system. The FCC plans to review the
national progress of 511 in 2005.

In related news, Virginia recently launched 511 service in the western part of
the state, providing traffic and road condition updates from both landline and
wireless phones. The system eventually will be deployed statewide.

Virginia's system is built on an Internet-based telecommunications network by
Tellme Networks Inc., which helped develop Utah's voice-enabled 511 system.
***************

Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 507
1100 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036-4632
202-659-9711