Clips September 13, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips September 13, 2002

ARTICLES

E-mail a weapon in file-swap fight
Anti-spam lists bar Yahoo stores
Judge rejects PayPal arbitration
China Ends Google Search Block
Cecom pitches virtual environment
Homeland IT office reaching out
OMB wants to find two replacements for Haycock
Army is nearly ready to unify its network operations
Petitions unite the like-minded online
Security flaw discovered in Microsoft Word
Speak up, I'm out of range of the palm tree
Brazil Arrests Americans for Selling Amazon Land

******************************
News.com
E-mail a weapon in file-swap fight
By John Borland
September 12, 2002

Hoping for a repeat of Napster's legal flameout, the record and movie trade 
associations are using file-swapping company executives' own words against 
them in the attempt to close the Kazaa and Morpheus networks.
In court documents filed Monday, and kept under seal until Thursday, the 
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture 
Association of America used internal e-mails, message board postings, and 
interviews with executives in hopes of persuading a federal judge to shut 
down the file-swapping networks. The trade associations are asking for a 
summary judgment, or a quick end to the case before going to trial, against 
Morpheus parent StreamCast Networks, Grokster, and Kazaa parent Sharman 
Networks.

"The uncontroverted facts all point to the inescapable conclusion: 
Defendants' systems were designed and intended first to emulate Napster and 
then to surpass it," the trade associations wrote in their legal brief, 
which remained under seal until Thursday. They "have succeeded beyond their 
wildest dreams."


The trade associations' 67-page legal brief provides the first details of 
exactly what the latest file-swapping legal wars will be fought over. At 
their core, the legal issues are the same ones that appeared in Napster's 
case--but the judge in this case will be ruling on a very different set of 
circumstances, technologies and internal communications.

Indeed, the two sides at this point are struggling to define what the case 
is about. StreamCast and the other file-swappers want the focus of the case 
to be about the legality of peer-to-peer software, a technology that 
certainly has many other uses beyond copyright infringement. The record 
labels and movie studios are trying to narrow the case, seeking to prove 
that the companies involved deliberately built their business to take 
advantage of widespread piracy.

As with Napster, record and movie companies are seeking to prove that the 
file-swapping companies knew of the widespread copyright infringement going 
on using their networks and that they had the ability to stop it.

The groups draw from the file-swapping companies' internal communications, 
along with Web site text, sales pitches and advertisements, as evidence 
that the companies created their networks with the intention of 
facilitating piracy. Individual employees for StreamCast Networks 
(originally called Music City) acknowledged downloading copyrighted works 
by Billie Holliday and Britney Spears and used screen shots showing 
copyrighted works to demonstrate their system, the trade associations say.

Picking up where Napster left off?
The brief cites StreamCast Networks' (then called Music City) former CEO 
telling a board member that their software would be "the logical choice to 
pick up the bulk of the 74 million users that are about to 'turn Napster 
off.'"

The record labels and movie studios also cite communications between Music 
City and Kazaa, the company that created the file-swapping technology, that 
show both companies were thinking about trying to figure out ways to 
monitor trades of individual files.

"The activity we want to monitor if possible are the files that users 
download, so that we can track copyrighted material for royalties," an 
unnamed Music City representative is quoted as saying in one exchange. 
Details about whether this exchange was e-mail, chat or another medium are 
not given.

"OK," responds an unnamed Kazaa representative. "As I've mentioned, we've 
designed a system for this, but it's not yet implemented. It could be 
quickly, however."


Attorneys for Streamcast Networks say this exchange, and other bits of 
evidence like it, mean little. Neither Music City nor any other software 
company is required to build in specific copyright protection features 
simply because the capability exists, they say.

"Owning copyrights doesn't give you the right to dictate to people how to 
build their products," said Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier 
Foundation attorney who is representing Streamcast. "If that were the rule, 
it would make Microsoft, with Internet Explorer and Outlook, an infringer. 
It would make virtually every software company liable for copyright 
infringement."

The trade associations' brief goes into specific technological details 
about the file-swapping software, trying to show that the peer-to-peer 
companies had a direct role in maintaining the networks, instead of simply 
distributing software. However, the documents lump all the file-swapping 
companies together, making it difficult to discern exactly which company 
had which alleged role in building and maintaining the networks.

The evidence now beginning to filter out into the public eye will reach 
court Dec. 2, when a federal judge in Los Angeles will hear each side argue 
that the case should be brought to an immediate close.
******************************
News.com
Anti-spam lists bar Yahoo stores
By Troy Wolverton
September 12, 2002, 5:01 PM PT


Yahoo's storefronts site has made its way onto two more lists of suspected 
junk e-mailers.
London-based Spamhaus, which runs a spam-blocking service, added Yahoo's 
stores site to its list of suspected spammers on Wednesday, some two weeks 
after the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) took a similar step. Although 
Spamhaus removed the stores site on Thursday after talking with the 
company, the site is still included on another blocking list run by Spews.org.

Spamhaus took the Yahoo site off its list after hearing from the Web portal 
that it plans to have a new team in place next week to respond to spam 
complaints, said Steve Linford, director of the Spamhaus Project.


"Thousands of people were complaining. They just weren't being acted on," 
Linford said. "They didn't have sufficient staff to deal with them. These 
complaints were just piling up."

Yahoo was removed from the Spamhaus list after the company worked with the 
anti-spam group to resolve the issue, company spokeswoman Linda Pederson 
said in a statement.

"Yahoo Store's license agreement explicitly forbids spamming. We take this 
matter very seriously," Pederson said.

Pederson did not return calls seeking comment about the company's listing 
on the Spews.org site and about what specific steps Yahoo took to have its 
storefronts site removed from Spamhaus' list.

Inundated by e-mail, many companies and organizations have begun to take 
drastic steps to stem the flow. Many have turned to block-listing 
companies, which research spam complaints and list the IP (Internet 
Protocol) addresses of suspected spammers. Companies who subscribe to the 
block lists then have the option of restricting access to those IP addresses.

That's what happened last month when MAPS, a popular anti-spam group, added 
Yahoo's stores to its list of suspected spammers. The action came after 
Yahoo allegedly didn't respond to repeated notices about a suspected junk 
e-mail that had been circulating since February and that pointed to a 
storefront hosted by Yahoo. MAPS later removed Yahoo from its block list 
after the Web portal contacted it.

Some critics of block lists have charged that these methods are 
unsophisticated, because they tend to restrict access not only to suspected 
spammers, but also to innocent sites that happen to share the same or 
similar IP addresses.

Spamhaus, for instance, added Yahoo's stores site to its block list in 
response to an alleged spam pointing to a Web site called GoInk4Less.com, 
which is hosted by Yahoo, said Spamhaus' Linford. But GoInk4Less is just 
one among thousands of storefronts hosted by Yahoo, many of which 
presumably never sent spam.

GoInk4Less did not respond to requests for comment.

But many other Yahoo stores were sending spam, Linford said. Because spam 
complaints seemed to be falling on deaf ears at Yahoo, the company was 
becoming known as a haven for spammers, he said.

"They were allowing spammers to host their sites on Yahoo stores," Linford 
said. "It was very significantly attracting other spammers to Yahoo stores. 
That's something that no other European or North American provider does, 
and it's something that Yahoo stores shouldn't have allowed either."

A posting on Spews.org cited similar reasons why the Yahoo stores site is 
still on Spews.org's block list.

"Complaint volume way up, site termination volume way, WAY, down," the post 
said. "Hosting at Yahoo is a dirty, little secret more spammers are 
discovering."

Spews.org representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
****************************
News.com
Judge rejects PayPal arbitration
By Troy Wolverton
September 12, 2002, 2:31 PM PT

PayPal customers who sued the online billing company, charging that it 
illegally froze their accounts, cannot be forced into arbitration to settle 
the dispute, a federal judge has ruled.

In a ruling dated Aug. 30, the U.S. District Court for the Northern 
District of California denied PayPal's motion to have the claims asserted 
in two lawsuits resolved by individual arbitration, the company said in a 
regulatory filing on Thursday. Although PayPal's user agreement calls for 
the arbitration of disputes, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that 
the arbitration clause in the agreement is unenforceable, PayPal said. 
Though the online billing company said it could appeal the decision, it did 
not say whether it would.

"PayPal will continue to defend these lawsuits vigorously, and believes 
that it has meritorious defenses," the company said in its filing.


PayPal representatives did not return calls seeking comment about the 
ruling and the lawsuits.

Disgruntled customers filed a class-action suit against PayPal in 
California Superior Court in February. Plaintiffs' attorneys have filed 
several other class-action claims against the billing company, including at 
least two that are pending before the Northern California U.S. District Court.

The claims charge PayPal with, among other things, illegally converting 
customer funds for its own use and with not responding promptly to error 
reports from customers, a violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. 
The suits seek punitive damages and injunctions against PayPal.

The courts decision to deny PayPal's arbitration request is significant, 
said Steve Sidener, a plaintiffs' attorney with San Francisco law firm 
Gold, Bennett, Cera and Sidener. With corporations believing that 
arbitrators will be more favorable to them than juries, companies have been 
increasingly inserting arbitration clauses into user agreements and 
contacts, Sidener said. Courts have generally upheld those agreements, but 
the decision in the PayPal case may mark a turning point, he said.

"There's a question of whether it's fundamentally fair to force people into 
arbitration," Sidener said. "The problem here is that the pendulum has 
swung too far. Corporations have taken too much advantage of court rulings 
and have been trying to insert arbitration clauses in all aspects of 
corporate life."

PayPal has seen its share of legal disputes in recent months. Last week, 
First USA Bank filed suit against the online payments company charging that 
PayPal infringed its patents on "cardless payment" systems. In May, 
Tumbleweed Communications sued PayPal in separate patent case. And the 
company settled a third patent suit with online security company CertCo in 
April.

Meanwhile, at least five lawsuits have been filed on behalf of PayPal 
shareholders against the company and eBay seeking to derail the companies' 
proposed merger. The suits charged that the companies' violated fiduciary 
duty to shareholders and that the price that eBay is paying for PayPal is 
unfair and inadequate.

PayPal shareholders are scheduled to vote on the merger next month.
******************************
New York Times
A Simple Click Stirs a Lot of Outrage
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12  For some time, travelers browsing the State 
Department Web site for helpful tips about Guadalajara, Mexico, found much 
more than they bargained for when they clicked on a photograph of President 
Bush.

The click transported them to a partisan playground, where they were told 
how to get involved with the Republican Party and even how to donate money 
to it.

The State Department site, it turns out, had been providing a link to a Web 
site run by the Republican National Committee despite federal laws 
prohibiting government resources from being used for partisan purposes.

The link was not removed until late this afternoon, after a reporter asked 
about it. State Department officials said they were not sure how long the 
link had been operating. But one person who noticed it said it was 
operating as early as Sept. 5.

The Republican Party Web site made no bones about its aims, recounting 
President Bush's record and even offering Republican memorabilia, including 
mugs, ties, scarves and ballpoint pens, for sale.

The site, which had a red, white and blue Republican National Committee 
logo, also gave visitors an opportunity to register to vote, sign up as a 
party volunteer and donate money, all with a click of the mouse.

"Help the R.N.C. support the Republican Party and win elections 
nationwide," the Web site said. "Help us give President Bush a stronger 
working majority in Congress."

The discovery of the link on the State Department site prompted protests 
from politicians and good-government advocates, who called it blatantly 
political and demanded an investigation into who was behind it.

Claire Buchan, a spokeswoman for the White House, referred questions about 
the Web site and its link to the State Department but added, "I understand 
that that is being fixed and removed."

Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman, called the link to the 
Republican Party's Web site a "mistake" and emphasized that agency 
officials were unaware of it until a reporter pointed it out.

"We have corrected it," Mr. Reeker said. "We thank you for bringing it to 
our attention."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said party officials had 
no idea that a government agency's Web site had a link to the party's site.

It is unclear whether other government Web sites provide such links, though 
critics have long maintained that government sites themselves are often 
thinly veiled promotional tools for politicians.

"We've been saying for years that the principal purpose of many 
Congressional Web sites is just to promote members of Congress," said Gary 
Ruskin, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Accountability Project.

Election law experts say the link to the Republican site may violate 
several laws, including the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees 
from engaging in partisan activities "while on duty or in government offices."

The experts also say the Web site and its link may also violate campaign 
finance laws that impose penalties for soliciting campaign contributions 
from government property.

"Somebody has made a horrible mistake," said Trevor Potter, a Republican 
who is a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. "It just 
doesn't make any sense. I can only think that this is some kind of terrible 
mix-up because it is so clearly prohibited by law."

The situation has prompted Representative Robert Menendez, Democrat of New 
Jersey, to send a letter to the White House urging the administration to 
remove the link to the site.

Mr. Mendendez, the ranking Democrat on a House committee that oversees the 
State Department, also called for an investigation by the Federal Elections 
Commission, the Justice Department and the State Department's inspector 
general.

In an interview this afternoon, Mr. Menendez scoffed at the State 
Department's contention that the link was a mistake.

"You cannot create a link like this by accident," he said. "No way. It 
takes a lot of thought to create such a link. It cannot be inadvertent."

To get to the Republican Web site from the State Department site, 
www.state.gov, a user had to click on a heading entitled Embassies and 
Consulates. That led to a page listing the nation's embassies and 
consulates around the world.

Once there, the Web user could click to the posting for the United States 
Consulate in Guadalajara. That posting contains, among other things, an 
official photograph of President Bush. A click of the mouse on the 
president's name, beneath the image, would linked the user directly to the 
Republican National Committee's Spanish-language site, "Abriendo Caminos."

That site leads to all sorts of information about the party, in Spanish and 
English.

In his letter to the White House, Mr. Menendez dismissed the link as 
"egregious political material that hardly qualifies as official State 
Department business."

But Mr. Reeker, the State Department spokesman, said the link was probably 
created by people working in the Guadalajara consulate without the 
knowledge of officials in Washington. "I'm amazed that somebody caught it," 
he said. "None of us knew about it."
***************************
Government Computer News
Defense data expert: Follow amazon.com's data sharing lead

By Dawn S. Onley
GCN Staff

Sharing information effectively requires more than interoperable systems; 
it requires gleaning knowledge from the data.

That's the opinion of Brig. Gen. Mike Ennis, the Marine Corps director of 
intelligence, who spoke at the Homeland Security and National Defense 
Symposium in Atlantic City, N.J.

"Interoperability begins at the data level, not the systems level," Ennis 
said. "Have a common language, common tagging. Data is our most important 
product."

The Defense Department should take a commercial approach, and follow 
examples of businesses such as Amazon.com, Travelocity.com and 
Mapquest.com, Ennis said, and the ways they search for knowledge. Databases 
for these sites go into several operating systems to tag and pull 
information for their customers. When data is collected, it needs to be 
authored in Extensible Markup Language and tagged, Ennis said.

This method is a quick way to get past the interoperability problems that 
plague DOD. Military systems often are unable talk to one another, and 
Defense agencies fare poorly in sharing information, Ennis said.

Sept. 11 illustrated both intelligence failures and process failures in 
interoperability, Ennis said.

"Most of the failures are intelligence failures," Ennis said. "But I think 
it's a process failure as well. There is an unwillingness on behalf of some 
agencies to share information. The information was out there, but we just 
didn't have access to all of the data to identify the trends and do an 
analysis."

This problem would be magnified in the Office of Homeland Security because 
each of the agencies that will make up the new office have separate 
databasesmore than 20,000, Ennis said.

Lt. Gen. Peter Cuviello, the Army's CIO, said DOD officials must change 
their thinking. DOD focuses too much on which system data belongs to, he said.

"We shouldn't worry about that," Cuviello said. "Knowledge is not about 
having all the systems talk to each other, because you'll never get there. 
The only way to get there is for everyone to be using the same product."

Rather than having all Defense agencies use the same products, Ennis and 
Cuviello said, the key to sharing information is in searching for 
knowledge, pulling data, and tagging it so others can find, access and use it.
****************************
Associated Press
China Ends Google Search Block
Thu Sep 12, 8:56 AM ET
By MARTIN FACKLER, Associated Press Writer

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - As mysteriously as it began, blocking by Chinese 
authorities of the Internet search engine Google ( news - external web 
site) was suddenly lifted Thursday.



Users in Shanghai and Beijing reported that they could once again view 
Google, widely used by China's 30 million-plus Net users because it has a 
powerful feature for finding Chinese-language material online.

Starting about Sept. 1, those trying to reach the site began finding 
themselves rerouted to heavily censored, less effective search engines run 
by private Chinese Internet companies.

"I'm thrilled that Google is back," said one user in a chat-room on the Web 
site of the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper. 
"Google, I love you!" said another posting.

Chat-room users had bitterly criticized the ban. Analysts said popular 
outcry and pressure from businesses that rely on Web tools like Google for 
research may have persuaded Beijing to reverse the restrictions quickly.

"The Internet has seemed to prevail," said Duncan Clark, managing director 
of BDA China Ltd., a Beijing-based Internet consulting firm.

AltaVista, another U.S. search engine that had been similarly rerouted, 
remained blocked on Thursday, though rerouting had ended.

In its usual secretive way, Beijing made no announcement of the new 
measures and refused to confirm their existence, or their lifting.

But analysts and users linked the interference to a Communist Party 
congress in November.

Dissent is usually more tightly muzzled before political events of this 
size. This congress is particularly sensitive because a new generation of 
leaders is expected to begin taking over.

Authorities apparently targeted Google and AltaVista because they don't 
filter material deemed subversive from their search results, as the Chinese 
sites must.

Still, analysts said the brief period of rerouting had demonstrated 
authorities' growing technological capabilities.

Another new censorship technology remained in place. Users this week have 
begun complaining of an increase in selective blocking  being able to visit 
Web sites but not being able to see specific articles or other content of a 
politically sensitive nature.

Both new technologies appear an effort by authorities to strengthen 
Internet barriers to subversive and pornographic material  China's 
so-called Great Fire Wall.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Cecom pitches virtual environment
Sept. 12, 2002

The Army has many technologies and ideas that could help first responders 
do their jobs better in disaster situations, and the service thinks it has 
found the perfect place to collaborate with the entire homeland security 
community: cyberspace.

A "Web-based homeland security integrated virtual environment," could be 
used to bring together federal agencies, state and local governments, 
Defense Department commands, academia and industry players to work through 
obstacles facing the nation's first responder communities, said Michael 
Albarelli, director of homeland security at the Army 
Communications-Electronics Command (Cecom), Fort Monmouth, N.J.

Speaking Sept. 11 at the Homeland Security and National Defense Symposium 
in Atlantic City, N.J., Albarelli said the integrated virtual environment 
could be used not only to collaborate on ideas, but for system engineering 
work focused on interoperability, modeling and simulations, and more.

Cecom has kicked off the effort by beginning work with the New Jersey 
National Guard's battle laboratory in a Web-based collaborative 
environment, Albarelli said.

"If we could do this right, we could get federal, state and local 
communities...doing exercises and training together," he said, adding that 
could eventually eliminate the need to do tabletop examples before 
launching live exercises, and enable interested parties to participate from 
anywhere, even at their home computer, depending on the nature of the 
information.

Albarelli said he realizes that funding is an issue, and will remain one in 
the future, "but money does not equal success; focused investment does." He 
added that the integrated Web-based homeland security environment could 
help drive down costs through the increased collaboration of all the 
involved parties determining needs and requirements before deciding on 
acquisitions and actions.

The symposium sponsors are Cecom, the Association of the U.S. Army's Fort 
Monmouth, N.J., chapter, the Association of Old Crows' Garden State 
chapter, and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's 
Fort Monmouth chapter.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Homeland IT office reaching out
BY Diane Frank
Sept. 11, 2002

The Office of Homeland Security's information technology office soon will 
begin a big outreach to public- and private-sector entities not yet 
directly involved in the homeland security effort, officials said Sept. 10.

Starting Sept. 24, officials from the office will be meeting with chief 
information officers at the federal agencies not tapped to move into the 
proposed Homeland Security Department, said Jim Flyzik, former CIO at the 
Treasury Department and now on detail to the Office of Homeland Security as 
an IT adviser.

While the IT projects at those agencies have not been affected by the 
Office of Homeland Security's efforts to integrate systems and processes, 
many projects and initiatives throughout government will be involved in 
homeland security in some way, Flyzik said.

Federal homeland officials have been working with the National Association 
of State CIOs (NASCIO) for some time, but on Sept. 24 that contact will 
expand to the non-IT groups as officials plan to meet with a gathering of 
every possible state, local and tribal organization, Flyzik said.

The list includes the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors, the National Governors' Association and the National Association of 
Counties.

The role of state and local officials has been made clear in the National 
Strategy for Homeland Security and other documents over the past year. 
However, the private sector also has an important role to play, if only 
because of the vast amounts of information held in private systems, Flyzik 
said.

"A lot of the information we need isn't in government databases, it's in 
private databases," he said.

Because of this, the Office of Homeland Security will reach out to 
private-sector entities, meeting with them next month at a Gartner Inc. 
conference in Orlando, Fla., Flyzik said.
***************************
Government Computer News
OMB wants to find two replacements for Haycock
By Dipka Bhambhani

The Office of Management and Budget will replace chief architect Bob 
Haycock with two workers.

The agency is seeking a temporary replacement for Haycock, whose detail 
will end in October, as well as someone to take a permanent position as 
OMB's chief architect, said Norman Lorentz, OMB's chief technology officer.

OMB's plan is to have one person hold a permanent position as chief 
architect, and rotate other officials through an equal position on 
temporary detail to create a balance, Lorentz said.

Haycock, who accepted a temporary detail in May, will remain with OMB 
through this month, Lorentz said, although "he's accomplished his 
objectives and more."

Haycock replaced Debra Stouffer, who became the Environmental Protection 
Agency's chief technology officer at the end of May.

Haycock's permanent and temporary replacements will lead the 
still-developing Federal Enterprise Architecture Working Group, a 24-member 
committee that represents the enterprise architecture needs of each of 
OMB's Quicksilver e-government initiatives.
**************************
Government Computer News
Army is nearly ready to unify its network operations
By Dawn S. Onley

The Army is only weeks away from bringing together all its network 
operations under a single command, the service's CIO, Lt. Gen. Peter 
Cuviello, said today at the Homeland Security and National Defense 
Symposium in Atlantic City, N.J.

The Army's transformation initiative includes the Network Enterprise 
Technology Command, which will be based in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., beginning 
Oct. 1. It will be headed by Major Gen. James C. Hylton, the commander of 
the Army Signal Command.

"We have to run the Army's networks as an enterprise," Cuviello said. "This 
was the means to bring it together. All the Army networks will now migrate 
under the watchful eye of NETCOM."

NETCOM will oversee all Army major command networks, as well as Reserve and 
National Guard systems. The systems will be managed by IT specialists in 
NETCOM's Enterprise Systems Technology Activity.

The group will oversee the Army Knowledge Online portal, handle spectrum 
management issues, and secure Army networks, Cuviello said.

There are 1.1 million Army personnel using Army Knowledge Online, including 
active-duty, Reserve, civilian and National Guard members, Cuviello said. 
Once the Army signs up another 500,000 employees, everyone will be signed 
on, he said.
***********************
USA Today
Petitions unite the like-minded online
September 13, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)  If you're an activist, have an ax to grind or feel 
strongly about, well, almost anything, the job of trying to get something 
done may become a lot easier if you go online.

Take petitions, for example. They're time-intensive, require small armies 
of supporters to take up posts outside movie theaters, grocery stores and 
shopping malls, and enough paper to accommodate thousands of signatures 
advocating that action be taken on any given issue. It's no small task.

But take them to the Internet, spread the word via online petition, e-mail 
and "viral marketing," and the task suddenly doesn't seem so overwhelming.

Online activism seems to be gaining popularity. A search for "online 
petitions" via the Google engine yields 9,340 results.

A glance at the online petitions available for people to sign turns up no 
shortage of issues.

Petition-them.com is focused on petitions in England. Leading their site, 
with more than 9,000 "signatures," is "Legalise Cannabis in the UK Now."

The most popular petition on another site, PetitionOnline.com, with 2,441 
people registering their opinions, don't want marijuana legalized. They 
wanted a fifth season of the science-fiction television show Farscape.

A letter to Vivendi Universal, USA Networks and the Sci-Fi Channel, which 
air the show, argues that by canceling it, "the Sci-Fi Channel is showing 
great disrespect to Farscape's loyal fans."

Ah, the Internet.

Not all online petitions, however, are concerned with legalizing drugs or 
crying foul when a favorite TV show is axed.

For example, the most popular petition at ThePetitionSite.com urges a halt 
to what it describes as the "Bush Administration's Radical Assault on the 
Environment." As of Sept. 8, it listed more than 22,400 signatures.

Whatever their cause, supporters say it's exciting and gratifying to see 
the number of signatures on their petitions grow throughout the days and 
weeks they've been in cyberspace.

"There's nothing like seeing those numbers come up," said Fred Santino, who 
put up a petition free of charge on PetitionOnline.com in the last two 
weeks. "It's serving its purpose and it's getting the names."

Santino said he lost his wife to colon cancer in May 2001. Although she was 
not able to get the experimental cancer drug Erbitux, he and others are now 
asking ImClone Systems and Bristol-Myers Squibb, an ImClone partner, to 
make the drug, which has not won regulatory approval, available to cancer 
patients through a compassionate use program.

In the two weeks or so since the petition went up, the list of signatures 
has grown to more than 750 with no special publicity. Santino said that 
number was reached solely by word of mouth, e-mail, and asking friends and 
acquaintances to log on and sign it.

"I've been around the Internet a while and I don't see that we could ever 
go back to trying to fight things on our own," said Santino, who teaches 
Information Technology at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. "Because of 
the Internet, the world's gotten a lot smaller."

To be sure, Santino said he is aware that an online petition isn't the only 
thing that needs to be done. After collecting even more signatures  he said 
he doesn't yet know how many  he plans to print them all out and deliver 
them to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ImClone, Bristol-Myers and 
U.S. Congressional representatives to help plead his case.

"I don't think the petition on its own is very viable," Santino said. "It's 
up to people to go out and publicize it."

So, after thousands of "signatures" are gathered in an online campaign, 
what happens then? Do they really work? Moreover, there is the question of 
who is behind an online petition.

"The biggest question with regard to online petitions, however, is who is 
sponsoring them and why. This is where it gets a little slippery," says the 
Web site TruthOrFiction.com in a section devoted to online petitions, 
adding that in some cases it may be a way for individuals or companies to 
put together marketing mailing lists.

Moreover, there's something to be said about good old-fashioned paper 
petitions.

"The biggest problem with e-mail petitions is that they do not really carry 
the weight of a personally signed petition," TruthOrFiction.com writes. 
Paper petitions carry more weight because real people have signed with real 
signatures and, presumably, real addresses.

In light of these concerns, there's even been an online petition 
petitioning the petition Web site to stop posting online petitions. Got that?

"Online petitions have no effect on the real world," reads the petition on 
PetitionOnline.com, whose authors did not identify themselves. "Any person 
with access to a computer can easily create a petition full of thousands of 
fake and/or stolen names."

So far, that petition had garnered 246 "signatures"
*******************************
USA Today
Security flaw discovered in Microsoft Word
September 13, 2002

WASHINGTON (AP)  Microsoft's flagship word processor has a security flaw 
that could allow the theft of computer files by "bugging" a document with a 
hidden code, the company disclosed Thursday. It was exploring how to fix 
the problem and whether to extend the repair to an older version of the 
software still used by millions.


The attack begins when a bugged document goes out, usually with a request 
to be revised and returned to the sender  a common form of daily 
communication. When the document is changed and sent back, the targeted 
file accompanies it.

"It has the potential of allowing people to get at data that they are 
explicitly not allowed to get to," said Woody Leonhard, who has written 
books on Microsoft's Word and Office software.

The flaw would most likely occur in the workplace, where Word is the most 
prominent word processing program. Potential targets for theft are 
sensitive legal contracts, payroll records or e-mails, either from a hard 
drive or computer network, depending on the victim's access to files.

"The issue appears to affect all versions of Microsoft Word," Microsoft 
said in a statement in response to questions by the Associated Press. "When 
the investigation is completed, we will take the action that best serves 
Microsoft's customers."

Word 97, an earlier version of the program, is most susceptible to the 
attack. But Word 97 will not be repaired because Microsoft no longer 
supports it, the company said.

A research firm reported in May that about 32% of offices have copies of 
Word 97 running, according to a survey of 1,500 high-tech managers worldwide.

Analyst Laura DiDio of the Yankee Group said the companies are taking a 
risk by using such old software. But she said Microsoft should correct the 
problem because of its severity. "These are paying customers," DiDio said.

Leonhard said Word 97 users "bought the package with full faith in 
Microsoft and its ability to protect them from this kind of exploit."

Word 97 users may be able to get some help through Microsoft's telephone 
tech support, company spokesman Casey McGee said. But, referring to 
Microsoft engineers, McGee said "there's only so far back they can go."

The flaw involving Word 97 was discovered by Alex Gantman of cellular phone 
company Qualcomm and was released on the Internet last month.

An attacker only has to place hidden codes in a Word document, which is 
sent to a would-be victim with a request for a response. If the recipient 
has Word 97 and revises the Word document, any file sought by the attacker 
will be hidden inside the Word document and sent back to the attacker.

If the intended target uses Word 2000 or 2002, the most recent versions, 
the attack will only work if the Word document is printed first before a 
reply goes out to the attacker.

After seeing Gantman's work on a public security e-mail forum, Leonhard 
found a similar flaw that affects recent Word versions even when a document 
is not printed. In this case, the stolen file is visible within the 
document, although the attacker can make it hard to find.

Microsoft says that in both security flaws, an attacker would have to know 
the exact file name to be stolen and its location. But many critical 
files  an address book or saved e-mails, for example  are usually in 
obvious or predictable places on every Microsoft Windows computer.

Microsoft suggests users view hidden codes in every document they open. In 
Word 2002, the latest version, that can be done by selecting tools, 
options, then checking the "field codes" box. Many companies, however, use 
such codes for legitimate and harmless purposes.

Leonhard said that if an attacker tries to steal a very large file, the 
victim might notice it when saving or e-mailing the bugged document. A 
smaller file might not get that attention.

"It's very much dependent on the greed of the person fishing for a file," 
Leonhard said.
*************************
USA Today
Speak up, I'm out of range of the palm tree
September 13, 2002

TUCSON (AP)  Take a closer look next time you drive past a palm tree, a 
grain silo or a water tower. That might be a camouflaged cell phone tower 
you're seeing.

And that penthouse facade atop a downtown city building? Or a saguaro 
cactus in Arizona? Them, too.

It's just the latest fabricating wizardry from Larson, which pioneered 
realistically looking artificial rock formations, animal habitats and 
seascapes a quarter century ago for zoos, museums, parks and aquariums.

Larson produced its first camouflaged and trademarked Tree Pole in 1992 for 
a wireless carrier.

It has since built about 300 "tree" towers and other structures to conceal 
cellular antennas.

Competition has pushed carriers to dramatically increase their capacity, 
yet communities routinely ban ugly cellular towers as visual pollution. 
That's produced a greater need for the faux towers, which sell for $20,000 
to more than $100,000, said Andrew Messing, the company's president and 
chief executive.

Tower Ventures of Memphis is one customer.

One 130-foot-tall Larson-camouflaged pine tree bristles with antennas for 
six cellular carriers. Tree branches made of fiberglass disguise the 
antennas without degrading their signals.

"We're very happy," Tower Ventures owner Billy Orgel said. "They do nice work."
****************************
Reuters Internet Report
Congress, Domain Manager Clash on Kids Web Zone
Thu Sep 12, 6:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The manager of the United States' Internet domain 
asked Congress on Thursday not to interfere with its efforts to set up a 
kid-friendly zone free of violence, pornography and other adult material.



The Senate should not pass a law requiring NeuStar Inc. to set up a ". 
kids.us" domain because it would disrupt the company's own efforts to set 
up the domain in a commercially viable manner, a NeuStar official said.

Lawmakers greeted the request with skepticism, wondering whether NeuStar 
would ever get around to rolling out the ".kids.us" Internet domain if they 
are not required by law to do so.

"If we don't put the pressure on, I don't know that it's ever going to 
happen," said Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican who has co-sponsored 
legislation that would require NeuStar to have the domain up and running 
within a year of passage.

The hearing marked the first public disagreement between NeuStar and 
Congress, which for years has sought unsuccessfully to keep children away 
from violent and sexually explicit material on the Internet.

NeuStar, based in Washington, promised to set up a kids-only area when it 
won the right to manage the United States' ".us" Internet domain last fall.

Congress sought to set up parameters for the ".kids.us" subdomain after 
giving up on efforts to force international Internet regulators to set up a 
top-level ".kids" domain alongside ".com" and ".org."

The House of Representatives in May voted to bar chat rooms, instant 
messaging ( news - web sites), or other interactive ( news - external web 
site) features from the subdomain unless NeuStar could certify that they 
were free of pedophiles or other online predators.

Such restrictions would likely discourage commercial development, a NeuStar 
official told the Senate subcommittee on science, technology and space. Jim 
Casey, NeuStar's director of policy and business development, also said the 
bill would not give the company enough time and freedom to set up the 
subdomain properly.

"Legislation at this point would probably do more harm than good," Casey said.

NeuStar had an obligation to work with Congress after it won control of the 
".us" domain for free, said Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus, who 
sponsored the House bill.

"I have never seen a sweeter deal than the one NeuStar has received," the 
Illinois Republican said. "Creating and operating the .kids.us domain is a 
perfectly appropriate cost of doing business."

NeuStar has registered 300,000 names in the domain at $5.50 each since 
April, company officials say.
***************************
Reuters Internet Report
Brazil Arrests Americans for Selling Amazon Land
Thu Sep 12, 9:03 PM ET

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian ( news - web sites) court on Thursday 
ordered three U.S. citizens to be held in custody on suspicion of selling 
land in the Amazon over the Internet under the name of an environmental 
fund founded by the British rock star Sting.



U.S. couple Donald and Mary Davis and Brazilian-born Joao da Cruz Veloso, a 
naturalized American, allegedly sold bonds worth $25 to $100 through a Web 
site called Rainforest Foundation, the name of Sting's nongovernmental 
organization.

Donors were told their money would buy parcels of protected land in the 
world's largest rainforest, where huge areas are being cleared by illegal 
loggers.

Tipped to the suspected scam by a U.S. businessman who said he donated $1 
million, police arrested the three on Wednesday in the northern state of 
Para. Police chief Geraldo Araujo said they are accused of fraud and may be 
deported.

Araujo said the land being "sold" was public.

Donald Davis, who described himself as a missionary, denied the allegations.

Police also seized a stack of apparently forged land documents, receipts of 
bank deposits and propaganda for the Rainforest Foundation. The Web site 
was not registered and had no links with Sting's foundation, police said.
****************************

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