Clips 3/20/02

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips March 20, 2002

ARTICLES

CIA chief discusses threats to national security 
Patent office inefficiencies hamper competition, experts say
Wireless Technology to Get Test in Area
Chicago Sun Times Tech Briefs
Aimster Suits on Hold After Bankruptcy Filing
Roving reporter on battlefields could be a robot
FBI record handling blamed
FAA opens contract for bids
Firms undergo NSA infosec rating
Justice appoints new CIO
Marines name NMCI manager
In Aircraft Safety Effort, New Technology Tests Its Wings
Microsoft Warns of Java Security Hole in Windows
North American Chip Equipment Orders Rose in Feb.
EBay to Drop Proposed Privacy Change
Technology Briefing: Internet
House Leaders Delay Vote On Government High-Tech Bills
New priorities in IT spending mix
INS chief pledges to speed up management reforms
Battle for more wireless channels looms
Computerized system tracks convicts
Global Police Can't Cope with Savvy Cyber Criminals
Chip Equipment Companies Look to China
Broadband Use Faces Knowledge Gap Hurdle
Broadband gets popular
Sony reveals singing robot
Chips a risky business
Lockheed chief cites IT?s growing role
11 products win FOSE honors
Dell plans to increase operations in India
*******************
Government Executive
CIA chief discusses threats to national security

Commercially available information technology will play a stronger role in
"asymmetric" threats from terrorist groups and enemy states over the next
decade, the nation's top intelligence officials told the Senate Armed Services
Committee Tuesday. 

"As demonstrated by September 11, we increasingly are facing ... adversaries
whose main goal is to cause the United States pain and suffering, rather than
to achieve traditional military objectives," said CIA Director George Tenet,
during a hearing on global threats to U.S. national security. "Their inability
to match U.S. military power is driving some to invest in asymmetric niche
capabilities." 

Tenet said those capabilities include access to "a tremendous amount" of
open-source information on how to produce weapons of mass destruction.
"Terrorist groups worldwide have ready access to information on chemical,
biological and even nuclear weapons via the Internet, and we know that al Qaeda
was working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical agents and toxins,"
he said. 

Tenet added that the United States' space-based advantages are eroding as
adversaries gain access to openly marketed, high-resolution imagery from
commercial satellites. "Foreign military, intelligence and terrorist
organizations are exploiting this -- along with commercially available
navigation and communications services -- to enhance the planning and conduct
of their operations," Tenet said. 

Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said
threats stemming from information operations will "expand significantly" over
the next decade, as potential enemies use inexpensive technologies to attack
the United States on many fronts. 

"Information operations can employ a range of capabilities, including
electronic warfare, psychological operations physical attack, denial and
deception, computer network attack and the use of more exotic technologies such
as directed energy weapons or electromagnetic-pulse weapons," Wilson said. 

Wilson said the global availability of hacking software over the Internet, for
example, could provide "almost any interested U.S. adversary" with basic
computer network attack capabilities. 

"Although our classified networks are relatively secure from these kinds of
attacks, most of our unclassified networks -- including some that host
sensitive information -- are not," Wilson said. "The opportunity for terrorists
to take advantage of attack tools is escalating very rapidly." 

Tenet agreed that cyber warfare will become an "increasingly viable option" for
terrorists and other adversaries as they become more familiar with potential
critical infrastructure targets, and more adept at using technologies that
could damage them.

"Although the September 11 attacks suggest that al Qaeda and other terrorists
will continue to use conventional weapons, one of our highest concerns is their
stated readiness to attempt unconventional attacks against us," Tenet said,
noting that as early as 1998, Osama Bin Laden had publicly declared that
acquiring unconventional weapons was a "religious duty." 
****************
Government Executive
Patent office inefficiencies hamper competition, experts say 

Inefficiencies in the federal government's process for granting intellectual
property rights for new inventions is a major factor contributing to concerns
over whether the patent system stifles competition, a panel of experts said
Tuesday. 

During the first day of a two-day conference convened by the Federal Trade
Commission and the Justice Department on intellectual property and antitrust
issues, patent experts from industry, academia and the consumer protection
sectors highlighted growing problems with the quality of patents issued by the
Patent and Trademark Office. 

Ill-qualified patents can lead to antitrust problems, particularly in the
information technology field where a minor innovation exclusive to one firm can
lead to its domination in a market sector, panelists said. In order to halt
potential anti-competition problems stemming from patents, policy makers should
address the way those patents are issued. 

Panelists cited court cases where federal judges render patents invalid because
PTO examiners fail to find "prior art" before issuing a patent for an invention
that may not be new. 

One panelist said the PTO "is less rigorous" in its examination of patent
applications than counterparts in the European Union or Japan. 

Still, some panelists said factors beyond the PTO's control have impaired the
agency's ability to achieve its mission. For example, the number of
applications has outpaced PTO staff, and a lack of resources has hampered the
agency's recruitment efforts. 

"While I believe the U.S. PTO can do a better job conferring the quality of its
work, I have not seen sufficient evidence to suggest that overall quality of
patents issued by the office are poor," said Ronald Myrick, chief patent
counsel for General Electric. He pointed to Congress for its consistent failure
to fully fund the PTO and provide it with necessary resources and incentives to
improve the quality of its work, a theme echoed by other panelists. 

Though key lawmakers from both parties support legislation that would guarantee
the PTO could keep the fees it charges for processing patent and trademark
applications, Makan Delrahim, chief minority counsel of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, said the bottleneck for the issue rests with congressional
appropriators. 

Appropriators often divert agency funds to balance the deficits in other areas.
PTO fees are one source from which they can pull extra cash, he said. 

But Brian Kahin, director of the Center for Information Policy at the
University of Maryland, expressed skepticsm over the need to add to the PTO's
budget to boost its staff or technology. He argued the agency relies on the
wrong metrics to drive its performance. 

"Intellectual property is far too critical to be left to an agency that styles
and conducts itself as an advocate and measures its effectiveness on how ex
parte applicants judge it and how many patents it grants," he said, suggesting
instead that there is a role for the FTC and the Justice Department to oversee
some of the PTO's process. 

Despite their criticisms of the agency's process, many of the panelists
applauded the efforts of PTO Director James Rogan to modernize the agency's
filing systems and provide better incentives to obtain skilled examiners. 
***************
Washington Post
Wireless Technology to Get Test in Area 

ORLANDO, March 19 -- Verizon Wireless and Lucent Technologies Inc. announced
today that they will begin trying out a technology in Tysons Corner and
Rockville next month that could offer businesses advanced wireless Internet
connections close to the speeds available via cable modems or digital
subscriber lines.

The network will be capable of data transmission speeds up to 2.4 megabits per
second -- about 100 times current wireless speeds. If successful, this
third-generation, or 3G, technology may be installed throughout Verizon's
network.

But whether it will be successful is uncertain. The lack of capital to expand
networks, spotty coverage even in areas where many people already use wireless
connections, and transmissions that rarely get up to the advertised speeds are
some of the roadblocks the industry faces.

Yet every gadget maker and cell-phone carrier at the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association's annual convention here talked of a
future in which it will be possible to send home videos over a cell phone and
enjoy a high-speed Internet connection from a laptop on a park bench. The
industry has invested billions of dollars to offer customers a kind of
superconnected existence, one that eventually will make it possible to buy a
soft drink out of a vending machine with a swipe of one's cell phone.

Lucent has spent the past 12 to 18 months researching wireless data and
interviewing the chief technologists at Fortune 100 companies. That research
showed that "3G is it," said Scott Erickson, senior vice president of marketing
at Lucent's wireless division.

That kind of 3G enthusiasm is everywhere: Companies such as Sony Ericsson, a
joint venture between the Japanese and Swedish giants, are displaying tiny
phones that have built-in video cameras, and Compaq Computer Corp. has an array
of phones with larger screens that make them function more like small
computers.

But there is one big problem: Cell-phone providers aren't up to speed. Still,
the vast majority of people use their cell phones to talk, not to e-mail or
surf the Web. More importantly, wireless data services so far generate only a
tiny fraction -- 2 percent to 5 percent -- of cell-phone carriers' revenue,
according to executives at those firms. Even though those companies all
envision a brave new world in which wireless phones transform every commercial
and personal transaction, it is not clear what kind of services people will be
willing to pay for.

The carriers "are spending billions to build [3G] out at the same time that
they are getting pressure to push prices down, even to a flat rate," said Eddie
Hold, an analyst with Current Analysis Inc., a market-research firm in
Sterling. If carriers cave in to that price pressure, they may have to write
off all the money they have spent on that infrastructure, he said.

People still use cell phones almost entirely to make calls, so the main benefit
of high-speed technology is that it has made room on cell-phone networks for
more calls, Hold said.

That sentiment was echoed by the cell-phone executives, who seem to be
justifying the billions of dollars spent on upgrading their networks by talking
about their advantages for voice services, not the much-touted wireless data.

Sprint PCS has budgeted "$1.5 billion for its high-speed upgrades, and we've
doubled our network capacity," which has been important to the company because
its subscribers are using their cell phones more and more every month, said
Chuck Levine, Sprint's president. "If we never got a data user, it will still
be a good investment," he said.

Barry West, chief technology officer for Nextel Communications Inc. in Reston,
said data revenue accounts for less than 5 percent of revenue at Nextel, a
company that is spending a lot of time and marketing dollars on developing data
applications that its corporate customers can use to do business off-site. "The
main benefit for 3G is the importance for voice capacity," he said.

****************
Chicago Sun Times Tech Briefs
European Net sales

European retail sales over the Internet will grow by 48 percent this year,
helped by a rise in subscribers to the Web, a market researcher said. Shopping
over the Internet in Europe will grow to 97.8 billion euros ($86.4 billion) in
2002, compared with 66.2 billion euros in the year-earlier period, GartnerG2, a
unit of Gartner Inc., said in a Business Wire statement. Online shopping will
account for 2.3 percent of total retail sales in Europe this year, it said.
***************
Chicago Sun Times Tech Briefs
New Rayovac battery

Rayovac Corp., the largest U.S. maker of rechargeable batteries, said it has
developed a battery that can be charged in 15 minutes or less instead of an
hour. The quicker-charging batteries are scheduled to be introduced in the
United States in about a year and may boost sales and profit, Rayovac Chief
Executive David Jones said. Madison, Wis.-based Rayovac, which got about 5
percent of its 2001 sales of $675.5 million from rechargeable batteries,
expects the figure to double in the next few years after the new line reaches
stores, Jones said. Rechargeable products are gaining favor with consumers
because they are less expensive to use than disposable batteries in high-drain
devices such as digital cameras. Shares of Rayovac rose 25 cents to $15.10. The
stock has fallen 23 percent in the past year.
*****************
Los Angeles Times
Aimster Suits on Hold After Bankruptcy Filing

A federal judge in Chicago called a temporary halt to the music and movie
industries' legal assault on Madster, the online file-swapping service formerly
known as Aimster. The move came shortly after two of the targets of the
industries' copyright-infringement lawsuit--BuddyUSA Inc. and AbovePeer Inc.,
which operate Madster--filed for bankruptcy protection .

Matt Oppenheim, an attorney at the Recording Industry Assn. of America,
predicted that Madster would meet the same fate as song-sharing service
Napster, which a federal judge in San Francisco slapped with a pre-trial
restraining order.

Aimster creator Johnny Deep, who runs BuddyUSA and AbovePeer, said the lawsuits
and "unfair business practices" forced him to seek protection in U.S.
Bankruptcy Court. Deep said he plans to defend Madster by accusing the record
companies of antitrust violations and copyright misuse, just as Napster's
lawyers have done.
*****************
USA Today
Roving reporter on battlefields could be a robot

An al-Qaeda fighter is pinned in a ravine by a torrent of American bombs and
bullets. He can feel the 101st Airborne cinching tighter around him.

Suddenly, a movement catches the corner of his eye. He stiffens. He turns and
sees what looks like a motorized bathroom scale mounted on four lawn mower
wheels.

It trundles over rocks as it moves closer. He raises his gun to shoot, then
decides the thing is cute. On its tail is a tiny flag bearing a peace sign.
Sticking up from the front is an aluminum pole, about 4 feet high, topped by
what appears to be a Palm VII with Mickey Mouse ears. The ears, he realizes,
are camera lenses.

The thing stops in front of the fighter, as if it's looking at him. The tiny
screen lights up. On it is a face he's seen before, probably on Western TV. And
it begins to speak.

"Hi. I'm Geraldo Rivera. We're on the air live. Tell me, what's it like to be
on the receiving end of a U.S. military onslaught?"

Could happen soon.

The robot news hound is the Afghan Explorer. The first one should be ready in
two months. It's being built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media
Lab by scientist Chris Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced CHEEK-sent-me-HIGH-ee).

Csikszentmihalyi wants to improve the information we get during wars.

Obviously, reporting in a hostile zone is dangerous, a point driven home by the
murder of The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl. Other journalists have died
in Afghan battle zones.

When reporters go to Afghanistan, they try to get closer to explosions and
gunfire. That's not exactly the way people behave in most professions. When is
the last time you saw a vice president of marketing hitch a ride to the front?

Aside from the danger, the U.S. military restricts journalists' access to
battle zones, preferring to keep it hush-hush when we land a daisy cutter in a
family's bedroom. So as hard as war correspondents try, they can't always get
the whole story.

That bothers Csikszentmihalyi. "The fact that none of the existing media can
actually get me battlefield footage of the level that existed during Vietnam
means that there's been a huge failure in the system," he says.

As Csikszentmihalyi points out, if the military can send drone spy planes over
the Afghan mountains, why can't citizens or news organizations send in drone
reporters? I mean, besides Dan Rather.

Csikszentmihalyi figures that he can use technology such as the Internet,
satellite communications and global positioning satellite (GPS) systems to send
a robot into enemy territory. He could control it remotely using a personal
computer and a Web browser. A Web camera would provide two-way
videconferencing.

If it works, anyone could sit at home in their jammies eating Cap'n Crunch, and
chat with Osama bin Laden loyalists who are about to get blown up.

Csikszentmihalyi built on existing research. The vehicle design is based on
NASA's Mars Explorer. A scientist at the University of California at Berkeley
has created a similar robot called PROP, or personal roving presence. It's
intended to go into corporate settings.

The Afghan Explorer costs about $10,000 to make. The motors are from old Xerox
machines. The wheels are, literally, from a lawn mower catalog. The whole thing
is 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, runs on two solar panels and can travel 30 to
40 miles a day. Its brains are the guts of a laptop computer, and it
communicates using a satellite phone.

It is intentionally cute. Csikszentmihalyi worries that the potential
interviewees on the al-Qaeda side "have been conditioned to equate technology
with autonomous killing machines." So the Afghan Explorer needs to look cuddly,
or it will get shot full of holes its first day out.

If he was going for lovability, maybe Csikszentmihalyi should've based his
robot reporter on the Sony Aibo digital dog. Although, that might not turn out
so well if the next war zone is in North Korea, where villagers being starved
by leader Kim Jong-Il might make Aibo soup.

"My guess is that we have two months before the robot can be deployed,"
Csikszentmihalyi says. "So we're reading the press releases to understand
whether we'll be sending it to Iraq, Somalia, Indonesia or somewhere else on
the 'axis.' "

MIT plans to send the Explorer on a trek across Afghanistan, just to see if it
can be done. The project is not sponsored by any particular media company,
although the MIT Media Lab is funded by dozens of media companies, including
Gannett, the publisher of USA TODAY.

For the record, USA TODAY's war editor says he has no plans to use a robot. But
I could see him calculating how much money he'd save on bar tabs alone.

Actually, Csikszentmihalyi insists that the Afghan Explorer and its descendants
will never replace human reporters. Robots won't be able to analyze events or
put an interview into context.

Instead, a news robot could be a tool for journalists, gathering information
and images from places either off-limits or too perilous for reporters.

And robots could be used in entirely new ways, creating a different kind of
news experience. A Web operation could buy dozens of robots and deploy them
around the world. Visitors to the site could temporarily control a robot and,
perhaps, guide it through a Palestinian neighborhood, "interviewing" people who
would never wind up on the network news.

If journalists feel threatened by news robots, this is a lot like what
accountants faced in the 1920s. Businesses started adopting the first
"electronic accounting machines"  old punch card machines made by IBM and
Remington Rand. Accountants worried they'd be replaced.

Instead, the machines automated low-level tasks, allowing accountants to rise
above drudge work and develop into the respected, vital professionals that
contribute so much to business and society today.

Technology is good, no?
******************
Federal Computer Week
FBI record handling blamed

The FBI's computer systems are "antiquated," but it was poor performance by
personnel that led to the FBI's failure to disclose more than 1,000 documents
to lawyers defending Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Justice
Department has concluded.

An exhaustive investigation of the failure points to chaotic record handling,
repeated failures by FBI field offices to respond to headquarters requests for
documents and lax oversight by senior FBI managers.

Computer systems, which had been blamed, were found to be "in need of
substantial improvement," but in his March 19 report Justice Department
Inspector General Glenn Fine said, "We found that human error, not the
inadequate computer system, was the chief cause of the failure to provide the
defense with these items."

Fine recommends that the "FBI consider discipline" for senior agents  not for
losing the documents but for failing to respond effectively when the loss was
discovered.

The FBI learned as early as January 2001 that hundreds of documents had not
been turned over to prosecutors. But the two agents  Danny Defenbaugh, who was
in charge of the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, and Mark White, who was
supervisory special agent during the investigation  failed to notify
prosecutors or FBI headquarters until May 7, a week before McVeigh was to be
executed. 

The execution was postponed until June 11 so defense lawyers could review 1,033
documents the FBI had failed to turn over during the 1997 trial. U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft asked Justice's Fine to investigate the failure last
summer. 

In an investigation report that runs nearly 200 pages, Fine describes FBI
computer systems that are "antiquated and inefficient." The report says the
FBI's 7-year-old Automated Case Support (ACS) system is "so difficult to use
that many agents and supervisors have abandoned the effort."

But outdated technology was not the main problem. Document management was
chaotic.

For the most part, documents were kept in paper form and stored in file
cabinets. "Documents could easily be lost or placed in the wrong filing cabinet
drawer and the error would not be noticed," Fine wrote. 

In addition, each FBI field office assigned its own set of serial numbers to
the documents it generated related to the bombing investigation. The practice
made it impossible for agents on the bombing task force to tell by looking at
the serial numbers whether documents were missing.

In early 2001, when field offices were asked to search for bombing documents,
many responses were "untimely, and in some cases offices did not respond at all
to urgent requests for information," Fine said.

The lax responses "raise serious questions about the FBI's attention to detail,
managerial accountability and the reliability of information sent by field
offices to headquarters and to other field offices," Fine reported.

Fine said technology offers hope for improvement. "The FBI is trying to develop
upgraded information technology systems as part of a project it calls Trilogy,"
he wrote. 

In part, Trilogy is supposed to equip the FBI with a computer network to
interconnect FBI offices and provide agents with access to information and
applications at their desktops.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the FBI is overhauling its records management
systems and is reorganizing "to recognize that the creation, maintenance, use
and dissemination of our records is a core function that must be fully
supported by management as a priority."

Mueller said that in December, the FBI created a records management division
and is replacing "the now-antiquated" ACS with a "near paperless virtual case
file" that should reduce the likelihood of misfiled or lost documents.
*******************
Federal Computer Week
FAA opens contract for bids

The Federal Aviation Administration has opened competition for an air traffic
modernization project, potentially worth $1 billion, that was the subject of a
contract protest.

The screening information request (SIR), released March 15, came nearly a year
after the FAA Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition upheld a protest by
Raytheon Co. against the decision to make a sole-source award to Lockheed
Martin Corp. to modernize the computer hardware and software at the agency's 20
en route centers. The centers take over air traffic control after an aircraft
leaves an airport's airspace.

This time around, the contract for the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM)
program is out for bid. The FAA plans to narrow the field to two vendors, then
award a final contract in the second quarter of 2003, said Tammy Jones, a
spokeswoman for the agency.

Raytheon objected after the FAA announced on its Web site in February 2001 its
intent to go with Lockheed in a move to save time and money. Lockheed has
previous experience replacing displays and updating hardware in the en route
centers. 

Raytheon also has FAA contracts, including the development of its
satellite-based navigation system.

"We are definitely interested and responding to the SIR," said Judy Gan, a
spokeswoman for Lockheed. "Our real interest in this is because we believe ERAM
is a national upgrade program. It will address airspace capacity issues while
enhancing safety."

The FAA still hopes to complete the modernization by 2008, the year the
center's IBM Corp. mainframes will be unable to run the agency's software.

"We still want to move as quickly as possible to get the upgrades done," Jones
said, despite the lost time.

"There is a sense of urgency here," Gan said.

Qualified vendors have until March 22 to turn in a written notice of their
intent to submit a proposal and to identify a subcontractor point of contact.
**************
Federal Computer Week
Firms undergo NSA infosec rating

The National Security Agency last week announced the first companies to undergo
an appraisal of their information security practices in a program aimed at
helping government and commercial organizations improve their systems security.

According to the Infosec Assessment Training and Rating Program, organizations
that need to assess their vulnerability can call on companies that are
qualified to perform such assessments within NSA-defined guidelines and
standards, according to NSA.

This marks the first time civilian agencies have been able to access security
assessment companies that have undergone this type of government evaluation and
it enables customers to judge whether a provider is capable of meeting its
requirements.

Many agencies are using the General Services Administration's Safeguard
contract, which offers more than 25 vendors who perform such cybersecurity
assessments, but GSA does not provide any standard evaluation of the vendors'
capabilities.

NSA established the program because it does not have the resources to perform
all the Infosec assessments requested. The training part of the program teaches
NSA's standardized Infosec Assessment Methodology, which is a systematic way of
examining cyber vulnerabilities. Then, providers undergo an Infosec Assessment
Capability Maturity Model appraisal and receiving a rating.

Seven companies agreed to have their Infosec vulnerability assessment
capability appraised: Backbone Security.com Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton, Computer
Sciences Corp., EDS, Lucent Technologies, SRA International Inc. and TrustWave
Corp. (formerly NetSafe).

All the companies use either the NSA-developed Infosec Assessment Methodology
or a similar assessment methodology, and their ratings can be found at
www.iatrp.com.

Paul Holmes, director of assessment operations at EDS, said the company had
participated in the program since it was piloted in 1998. In September 2001,
NSA completed its review of EDS' security assessment processes and the company
already has performed those services for government and commercial clients, he
said.

Holmes said the cost and time needed to perform an assessment varied by client,
and he would not go into further detail. He did say that inclusion in the NSA
program has been a "valuable credential to have," and he considers the effort
"an ongoing, continuously improving process." 

The program's long-term goal is to assist in the protection of sensitive data
by increasing the information assurance levels of national and defense
information systems, according to NSA. The program also enables compliance with
the Presidential Decision Directive 63 requirements for vulnerability
assessments.

PDD-63 requires agencies to protect the information systems that support the
nation's critical infrastructure, including transportation and banking. It also
directed industry to form information sharing and analysis centers to
collaborate on security incidents and to work with government.
*****************
Federal Computer Week
Justice appoints new CIO

He developed Maryland's Information Technology Strategic Plan and automated
Philadelphia's records department. Now the Justice Department wants Vance Hitch
to oversee its troubled IT.

From dysfunctional computer systems at the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to the antiquated systems of the FBI, the Justice Department is plagued
by technology problems.

Attorney General John Ashcroft appointed Hitch March 19 to solve them, naming
the former Accenture executive as Justice's chief information officer.

"A critical element in our battle against the terrorist threat is the effective
use of information technology to share information across law enforcement,"
Ashcroft said. 

In a statement issued by the department, Hitch agreed that "technology is a
tremendous asset in this new war." He said he would work with law enforcement
"at every level to ensure that they have the right tools" to battle terrorism.

Justice is struggling with computer system problems such as developing an INS
visa tracking system to alert law enforcement agencies when suspected
terrorists try to enter the country and when visitors remain after their visas
have expired.

In November, when Ashcroft announced a departmentwide "wartime reorganization,"
he said Justice needed an IT strategic plan to guide future investments.

Developing that plan will be one of Hitch's tasks.

Hitch was a senior partner at the consulting firm Accenture and has 28 years of
experience working on major government projects. He has worked with the State
and Defense departments, the National Security Agency, the CIA and multiple
state and local governments, according to a Justice statement.
***************
Federal Computer Week
Marines name NMCI manager

The Marine Corps has named Richard Glover as its program manager for the Navy
Marine Corps Intranet.

Glover had been serving as the acting program manager, but Brig. Gen. James
Feigley, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, officially named Glover to
the post.

Glover will be responsible for all program management aspects of the Marine
Corps' transition to the NMCI, including cost, schedule, technical performance
and "sustainment activities" associated with the program, Marine Corps
officials said.

Glover will work in conjunction with Rear Adm. Charles Munns, who was recently
named the director of the Navy NMCI Program Office. Marine Corps Col. Robert
Logan serves as Munns' deputy.

Unlike the Navy, which has had many people involved in NMCI decisions, the
Marines have had a more streamlined and clearly delineated leadership approach.

NMCI officials have said that EDS will begin rolling out NMCI seats for the
Marines later this year. The timing depends on Defense Department chief
information officer John Stenbit lifting the strategic pause that limited the
number of seats until the concept is demonstrated.

Glover previously worked as the assistant program manager for telecommunication
and networks, where he led the Marine Corps' Base Telecommunications
Infrastructure Upgrade and Network Infrastructure programs. Over the past five
years, both programs have focused on improving the information technology
infrastructure at every Marine Corps base around the world.
******************
New York Times
In Aircraft Safety Effort, New Technology Tests Its Wings

SEATTLE, March 19  A mile above the clouds, Michael Carriker, who is what
Boeing (news/quote) used to call a test pilot, drew a bead on the rocky summit
of Mount Rainier and then began easing his new 737 down to 12,500 feet, almost
2,000 feet below the peak. "Ought to be some nice skiing up there today," he
mused aloud.

But Captain Carriker's attention was not really on Rainier, 60 miles away. He
was instead focused on a screen in his cockpit that showed the plane and the
mountain range from the side, as if he were watching himself from a vantage
point 10 miles to the south. An airplane symbol was pointed at a profile of the
mountains ahead, and one of the peaks, clearly rising above the airplane's
path, was turning red. 

In the computer-generated image, a line was projecting from the plane's nose,
pointing out the path it would take if its nose-down pitch did not change. That
line showed it intersecting with the ground somewhere short of Rainier, on a
mountain that was nameless on the screen. 

Through the cockpit windshield, the situation was less clear. But the computer
display was unmistakable. "An awake pilot would find it awfully hard to hit
that mountain," the captain said as he swung the plane away.

The technology that provided that side view is one of several new electronic
products being tested on the plane. The products  in various stages of
research, development, government approval and commercial deployment  are an
effort by the Boeing Company and its suppliers that is mostly meant to squeeze
out the remaining bits of uncertainty in the cockpit, bringing the precision of
computer navigation and data presentation to an industry that already has
highly reliable engines and aircraft structures. The computers could contribute
significantly, aviation experts say, to meeting the government's goal of
cutting accidents by 80 percent.

One product, which technicians call the flying Nintendo (news/quote), provides
a computer-generated flight path that puts up a series of boxes for the plane
to pass through  like hoops for a tiger at the circus  so it will stay on track
to the runway. 

Another, for post-landing use, puts up virtual traffic cones on an outline of
the runways and taxiways, to show a pilot which way to steer on the ground;
another uses an infrared camera to peer through the drizzle and fog of a
typical day here, to spot a truck that is blocking the plane's route over a
taxiway. Yet another displays an airport map with a green dotted line showing
the plane's intended route over runways and taxiways to its gate.

"We can land the plane in zero visibility today, and then how do you get to the
gate?" said Gregory L. Bowlin, senior vice president of Jeppesen Sanderson, a
Boeing subsidiary that prints airport maps for fields around the world.

The company has now turned that information into a computer database that is
used with the virtual- traffic-cone program, called a Surface Guidance System.
The plane locates itself using a Global Positioning System receiver, and the
system turns the plane into a "you are here" dot on a computer-generated map,
using Jeppesen's data.

The sideways profile of the mountains, called vertical situation display, uses
a similar concept, with the aircraft's location found by the Global Positioning
System and applied to a database of the earth's surface.

The new Boeing 737-900 in which the technologies are being tested has most of
its interior filled with computers and screens. The plane will eventually be
fitted with a standard interior and delivered to Alaska Airlines, which is
based here but serves a rugged territory that causes it to be a leader in
adopting advanced navigation techniques.

Captain Carriker, an engineering project pilot for Boeing who shuns the test
pilot's silk scarf in favor of a necktie in subdued paisley, is not
demonstrating derring-do. In fact, it is just the opposite: the goal is
ultimate safety, not reckless abandon. 

The traffic cone system, for example, would avoid accidents like the Singapore
Airlines (news/quote) crash 16 months ago in Taipei, where a pilot hampered by
poor visibility chose the wrong runway and made his nighttime takeoff roll into
a concrete barrier and a construction crane. The virtual traffic cones are part
of a system being developed by Jeppesen Sanderson, Rockwell Collins and Smiths
Aerospace.

A second system that could have prevented that accident, which killed 83
people, is "synthetic vision," by Rockwell Collins: the computer paints an
animated picture of the plane's surroundings and, using the Global Positioning
System, moves the airplane through them. 

Synthetic vision does not show objects that are not in the database, like a
fuel truck. For that there is infrared, which CMC Electronics and Max-Viz Inc.
are working on. The companies share the development costs with Boeing.

Synthetic vision and vertical situation display would protect against the
world's most common kind of aviation accident, in which a properly functioning
plane flies into a mountain. Boeing wrote the vertical situation software, and
many planes already have the hardware to run it.

Some of these technologies may never be commercially deployed. Some will not
work without improvements in ground-based equipment by the Federal Aviation
Administration. And in the short term, at least, most of Boeing's customers,
already losing money, may not be in a position to spend for new technology.

But the F.A.A. forecasts that commercial aviation traffic, reduced sharply as a
result of recession and terrorism, will be rebounding, and some of the new
products are tailor made for the crowded skies and runways that prevailed a
year ago. Using such technologies to cut a few seconds off each landing would
permit more traffic without new runways. 

"We allow for a ton of error," said Kenneth S. Hiebert, a Boeing salesman. "If
we close that up a little bit, we can put more airplanes on the pavement."
*******************
New York Times
Microsoft Warns of Java Security Hole in Windows
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (news/quote) (MSFT.O) has released a
bulletin advising of a second vulnerability in software that allows Windows
users to run programs written in Java, a Microsoft program manager said on
Tuesday.

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Inc. (news/quote) (SUNW.O), creator of the Java
programming language, released a joint bulletin about the first vulnerability
affecting the Java Virtual Machine code on March 4. They released a subsequent
bulletin on Monday, according to Christopher Budd, security program at the
Microsoft Security Response Center.

Both vulnerabilities were rated ``critical'' because of the harm they could
cause, however there have been no known attempts to exploit the
vulnerabilities, he said.

An update to Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine released on March 4 fixes both
vulnerabilities, Budd added.

The first vulnerability could allow a malicious Java applet on a Web site to
monitor a visitor's Web surfing until the browser window is closed. The second
vulnerability would allow a malicious Java program to run outside a restricted
area on a users' computer.

Users are only at risk if they go through a proxy server to access Web sites as
is common in corporations but not homes. Proxy servers are commonly used to
cache content on frequently accessed Web sites, housing it on a server closer
to the end user so that the downloading is faster.
*****************
New York Times
North American Chip Equipment Orders Rose in Feb.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - North American makers of equipment that builds and tests
microchips saw orders rise in February for the fourth month in a row, an
industry trade group said on Tuesday, indicating a potential lift from a sharp
industry downturn.

Orders rose 10 percent in February to $711.6 million from revised January
orders of $645.2 million, according to figures released by Semiconductor
Equipment and Materials International. Chip equipment revenue was $822 million,
up 3 percent from revised January revenue of $800 million.

Monthly orders have risen each month since November, when chip equipment makers
reported orders of $588.9 million.

Semiconductor equipment makers had seen orders dry up and profit sink last
year, as a drop in demand for computers and electronics sent a shock wave of
pain through much of the technology sector.

February's ratio of orders to revenue, also known as the book-to-bill ratio,
was 0.87, up from 0.81 in January. A ratio of 0.87 means that $87 worth of new
orders were received for every $100 of revenue recognized in the month.

The trade group last month switched its method of reporting shipment figures to
keep to the standards set by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The group now measures revenue, which can be recognized only when customers
accept delivery of their orders, instead of shipments, which could still
potentially be canceled or returned.

Some analysts have complained that the change makes historical comparisons of
the book-to-bill ratio impossible.

OPTIMISM ABOUNDS

Chip equipment companies manufacture the devices that convert discs of silicon
into the tiny and powerful microchips that power the world's electronic
devices. Chip makers spent $28 billion on semiconductor equipment in 2001.

The industry exploded two years ago as chip makers pushed factories to the
limit in order to feed expectations for what seemed like endless demand for
computers, mobile phones, and handheld devices.

Those expectations, in hindsight, were overblown. Store shelves piled up with
unsold phones and computers, and chip makers watched unused chips collect dust.
Orders for new chip-making equipment screeched to a halt.

At an industry conference here, companies and analysts predicted that the worst
was over for the industry. Chip makers, many said, have begun to spend more on
the next-generation technologies that should make powerful chips cheaper to
make.

Don Mitchell, the chief executive of chip equipment maker FSI International
Inc. (news/quote) (FSII.O), told investors assembled here on Monday that the
industry's future is bright, with inventories of unsold chips dwindling and a
sharp upturn in demand from China hovering on the horizon.

Research firm Infrastructure said orders for equipment could rise 17 percent
this year. But with accounting rules that delay the recognition of revenue,
industry revenue could still fall 30 percent, Infrastructure said.

Given the time it takes to make some types of chip equipment, new orders booked
in the second half of the year might not show up as revenue until 2003.
*****************
New York Times
EBay to Drop Proposed Privacy Change

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Bowing to protests, online auctioneer eBay Inc.
(news/quote) said Tuesday it will drop a proposed privacy policy change that
privacy advocates claimed would weaken the rights of eBay users.

The San Jose-based company had proposed an amendment that essentially would
have repudiated privacy policy summaries in various sections of its Web site,
forcing users to rely instead on the company's main privacy policy.

It stated: ``If there is a conflict between the terms and conditions in this
privacy policy and other privacy representations that may appear on our site
... you agree that the terms and conditions of this privacy policy shall
control.''

Privacy advocacy groups protested, contending eBay was creating a loophole that
would have allowed the company to misrepresent its privacy policy throughout
the Web site.

``It's unfair of companies to put up rosy pictures of their privacy practices
in one place or in their PR materials, and then disclaim them in their fine
print,'' said Jason Catlett, a privacy advocate with Junkbusters Corp. ``This
would have eroded consumer rights.''

EBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said the company never intended to mislead or
confuse users but agreed to modify the provision. Instead, the new privacy
provision will tell users who have questions about the privacy summaries to
review the full policy.

``The message we heard was that the paragraph dealing with the conflict of
terms could be clearer and more to the point,'' Pursglove said. ``But our
intent all along was to follow the recommendations from the (Federal Trade
Commission) for Internet sites to make their user agreements and privacy
policies more user friendly and less dominated by legalese.''

The new privacy policy changes will be posted on the Web site by Wednesday,
Pursglove said. They will be effective immediately for new users and on April
19 for current registered users, he said.
*******************
New York Times
Technology Briefing: Internet

GAME-PLAYING BY SUBSCRIPTION Terra Lycos (news/quote), the Internet arm of the
giant Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica S.A., introduced a
subscription-based games Web site yesterday that lets users play PC games
without having to buy the software normally required to do so. On the Web site,
Gamesville on Demand, access to a single popular PC game like Slingo and
Centipede costs $4.99 a week. A package of five games is $7.99 a month and all
20 games offered on the site can be played for a monthly fee of $14.99. "We
feel our unique offering will attract a whole new audience of users who are
looking to take advantage of their high-speed connections with premium
services," Meredith Hanrahan, Terra Lycos vice president for entertainment,
said in a statement. Jupiter Media Metrix (news/quote), the technology research
firm, expects online game revenue to grow to $2.5 billion by 2006 from $210
million in 2001. Most other portal sites offer some form of online games, but
do not charge a fee.   Andrew Zipern (NYT)
*********************
Newsbytes
House Leaders Delay Vote On Government High-Tech Bills

The House leadership has postponed a floor vote on a bill that would establish
an information technology worker exchange program between the federal
government and the private sector. 
The House had been scheduled to vote on the measure on Wednesday, less than a
week after the bill was passed by the House Government Reform Committee.

Earlier today, however, the House leadership canceled the vote after the
chairmen of the House Judiciary and Ways & Means committees expressed their
desire to weigh in on the proposal. 

Under the revised schedule, the two committees will mark up the legislation on
Wednesday, but the final vote on the measure will be postponed until after the
House returns from its spring break on April 9. 

According to an aide to the bill's main sponsor, today's maneuver was "more of
a flexing of jurisdictional muscle" than anything else. 

Judiciary and Ways & Means committee staff members could not be immediately
reached for comment. 

The leadership also delayed a vote on H.R. 3924, the "Freedom To Telecommute
Act," which would prohibit federal agencies from denying jobs to contractors
who allow their workers to telecommute. 

The House had been set to consider the bill today under suspension of the
rules, a procedure used for relatively non-controversial bills that limits
debate and bars lawmakers from offering amendments. Suspension bills typically
are agreed to by a voice vote, but if a roll-call vote is demanded, two-thirds
approval is need for passage - unlike normal bills, which requirea simple
majority. 

The leadership decided today to pull the bill from the suspension calendar and
bring it up for a vote on the House floor on Thursday, under normal rules. 

The legislative package has the support of the House leadership and would
codify the Bush administration's plans to increase the level of federal
outsourcing by a fixed percentage each year. 
*****************
Federal Computer Week
New priorities in IT spending mix
Despite budget shortfalls, increased Medicaid costs and unexpected homeland
security spending, information technology spending for states will hold steady,
according to a market research firm specializing in the public sector.

"Over the long term, this is a very attractive market," Jim Kane, president of
McLean, Va.-based Federal Sources Inc., said March 18 at FSI's eighth annual
State of the States Conference. The event is aimed at IT vendors seeking to
find out what opportunities are available in the state and local government
market.

State and local government IT spending for fiscal 2002 is estimated at $39.9
billion  a $1 billion increase from the last fiscal year, Kane said. For fiscal
2003, FSI estimates $40.4 billion in spending, and $41.5 billion the following
year. 

The company forecasts that in fiscal 2003, 30 percent of the total state and
local IT spending will be on services ($12.3 billion), followed closely by
personnel ($11.7 billion), then hardware ($8.2 billion), telecommunications
($5.3 billion) and software ($2.9 billion). 

Because of budget shortfalls  42 states are projecting a combined $40 billion
in lost revenue  state officials likely will use their relationships with
vendors to further develop existing programs and will be less likely to fund
larger projects, Kane said. 

But states also have new priorities with homeland security, including public
health, public safety and law enforcement. Kane said federal funding will flow
to state and local governments, but he wasn't certain which level would get
more funding. However, he said, "we think relatively more of that funding is
going down to the local level."

Local officials have voiced approval for direct federal funding for homeland
security initiatives.

Opportunities in public safety include communications networks and equipment,
integrated justice systems and surveillance. In regard to health and human
services, projects will include child welfare and support enforcement systems,
online vital records, and requirements mandated by the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Kane said. Other areas  education,
economic development, and finance and administration  will remain stable, while
the environment and natural resources will decline as a priority.

Rock Regan, president of the National Association of State Chief Information
Officers and Connecticut's CIO, said NASCIO is focused on homeland security,
cybersecurity, privacy issues balanced with security issues, and enterprise
architecture. 

Costis Toregas, president of Public Technology Inc., a technology arm of
several national associations of counties and cities, also said homeland
security is a concern and an area of growth for vendors. He said that area
includes energy, environment, transportation and public safety matters.

Toregas also said PTI plans to announce a partnership with the federal Critical
Information Assurance Office to design and deploy an information sharing and
analysis center (ISAC) for local governments. And Regan said the states are
developing a state-level ISAC.
******************
Government Executive
INS chief pledges to speed up management reforms

The head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Tuesday that the
agency will move faster on much-needed management reforms after last week?s
discovery that a contractor sent a flight school copies of visa approvals for
two terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. The flight school received the
letters just last week. 


The agency?s new electronic student visa tracking system, which requires the
INS and schools to process all change-of-status applications for foreign
students within 30 days, will be fully implemented by the end of this year, INS
Commissioner James Ziglar said during a speech at the National Press Club. The
agency now uses a paper-based system.


?Changes in INS operations were already being proposed, but last week?s
incident prompted us to move more swiftly and more publicly,? Ziglar said. ?I
take responsibility for not doing a good job letting the public know how much
the agency is doing to improve operations.? The 30-day limit for processing
applications was supposed to take effect in October, but a new contract and a
substantial backlog put the reform on the back burner, Ziglar said. 

An INS contractor just recently sent out letters confirming the agency?s
approval of student visas for terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi to
attend a Venice, Fla., flight school. The INS had approved the visas before the
Sept. 11 attacks, but schools typically get confirmation letters months later,
after an agency contractor enters the data manually into a computer system. The
incident prompted President Bush last Thursday to order a broad review of INS
operations, including record-keeping and mailing procedures.


Ziglar said he is working closely with Congress and Attorney General John
Ashcroft to reorganize the INS into separate law enforcement and service
bureaus to increase accountability and improve agency performance. On Friday,
the INS replaced four top senior executives at the agency with other career
employees. The officials were reassigned to other positions within the Justice
Department, according to an INS spokesman. The personnel changes will increase
accountability and ensure the agency has the best management team in place,
Ziglar said.


The agency also plans to create a chief information officer position and
implement an electronic entry and exit system at seaports and airports to track
foreigners whose visas have expired, Ziglar said. In 1996, Congress passed a
comprehensive immigration reform act that included a provision directing the
agency to develop such a system, but the measure has not yet been fully
implemented.


?The INS has made substantial progress in the last few years; the situation is
not as bad as people believe, but it?s also not good,? Ziglar told his
audience. Ziglar acknowledged the agency?s antiquated information technology,
which is ?too big on information,? and ?too small on technology,? but he also
defended the agency contractor who sent the confirmation letters to the flight
school.


The terms of the contract called on the contractor to keep copies of student
visa approvals 180 days before sending them to schools for their records,
Ziglar said. ?It doesn?t appear that the contractor did anything wrong,? Ziglar
said. ?But it is an understatement to say that the terms of the contract were
inefficient and illogical.? 

Ziglar also acknowledged that the contractor, who processed the documents in
October, might not have recognized Atta and Alshehhi as terrorists responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks. Foreigners apply for visas in this country through
the State Department and the INS approves any changes in the status of their
visas while they are here. Both Atta and Alshehhi applied for changes in
status.


The Bush administration is expected to recommend merging the Customs Service
and the INS to form a new border security agency, the Washington Post reported
Tuesday. Customs is now part of the Treasury Department and INS, which includes
the Border Patrol, is part of the Justice Department. Homeland Security
Director Tom Ridge has indicated his support for such an idea since Bush
appointed him after Sept. 11.


When asked if he would support a new border agency that would merge the INS and
Customs, Ziglar said he supported the president. ?I think George W. Bush will
go down as one of history?s greatest American presidents, and I support great
American presidents,? Ziglar declared. 

Ziglar refused to speculate on how a new border security agency could affect
INS employees and their jobs. 
**********************
Boston Globe
Battle for more wireless channels looms

FCC chairman sees long fight

ORLANDO, Fla. - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael
K. Powell, warned wireless phone companies yesterday to expect a long battle
for additional airwave channels. 


Powell also told thousands of wireless industry executives attending the
Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association annual convention here that
because wireless phones have grown from a premium service to one millions of
Americans rely on daily, the industry will face tougher demands to provide
better service and more reliable access for public-safety purposes.

Over the last two days, the industry's demand for more spectrum, or
FCC-licensed airwaves, has been a major theme of the wireless sector's largest
global convention. Industry leaders said they need action soon to ensure
adequate airwaves to cover future demand for phone calls and high-speed data
services.

A day after President Bush's ''spectrum czar'' cautioned that the industry may
face years of wrangling to get a 60 percent increase in spectrum, Powell also
warned that the fight will not be easy.

''It's just messy,'' Powell said of the pressures to remove existing Defense
Department, public-safety, and licensed commercial users from airwaves that
cellphone companies want.

''There's nothing clean about it. It is an infantryman's crawl to keep finding
more spectrum,'' Powell said. 

Powell reiterated that rather than going through protracted negotiations, the
FCC wants to find ways to use market-based approaches to allow wireless phone
companies to buy out spectrum owners who want to sell.

''One of the biggest problems, I think ... is that we can't get spectrum to its
highest and best use quick enough,'' Powell said, adding that the FCC wants to
''create much more flexible market mechanisms, including secondary markets''
for trading licensed airwave channels.

''No one is as competitively healthy, from our perspective, as the wireless
industry,'' Powell said. But he added that Americans' growing reliance on
wireless phones - a poll earlier this winter by USA Today and CNN found 18
percent of Americans call their cellphone their primary phone - ''puts it in
another focus, both good and bad.''

Without going into details, Powell said, ''I think you'll see a lot more
attention to the industry, a lot more attention to the technology, and a lot
more attention to the policy.''

Some industry critics are calling on wireless companies to disclose more fully
where they have service gaps and give annual call-reliability reports to the
FCC.

Wireless carriers are showing some signs of struggling to meet a new federal
demand that they provide precise information about the location of people using
cellphones to make emergency 911 calls so police and rescue workers can find
them. Such systems are to be phased in, with full 911 location identification
in place by 2005.

AT&T Wireless and Cingular, however, already have asked for an exemption for
some of their older network segments, prompting the FCC enforcement bureau to
begin considering possible sanctions. Limited 911-location services, including
a Sprint PCS system in Rhode Island that requires special handsets, have been
launched.

The industry also is grappling with how to meet an FCC call for systems giving
public safety authorities priority access to wireless networks in emergency
situations, an issue that took on new urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
**************
MSNBC
Computerized system tracks convicts

PORTLAND, Ore., March 19   Ronita Sutton, whose 17-year-old son was murdered in
1998, has something that gives her comfort: a toll-free number that she can use
to reassure herself that her son?s killer is securely behind bars. When she
dials the number, a recording tells Sutton whether convicted murderer Michael
Gill has been transferred to another prison and whether his legal status has
changed.

?MY LIFE IS SPENT MAKING sure he serves all of his sentence for what he did to
my son,? said the 38-year-old mother.
       Oregon has joined a growing number of states linked to a computerized
network that allows crime victims, their friends or relatives to keep tabs on
offenders.
       If a prisoner escapes, the system automatically calls people who could
be in danger. The system calls every 30 minutes until the person responds.
       Known as the Victim Information Notification Everyday system, the free
service is available 24 hours a day.
       Supporters say the system has saved lives.
       Authorities in Jefferson County, Ky., said a woman whose husband was
jailed for abusing her was notified by VINE of her husband?s release on bail.
The woman did not go home and instead contacted police, who later found the man
hiding in the woman?s closet with a knife.
       It has not always been easy to keep track of someone once he has been
sent to prison. Often, victims have had to wend their way through the
bureaucracy of the prosecutor?s office or the state prison system, and in many
cases there were no procedures for notifying victims about an offender?s escape
or early release.
       ?We strongly favor this, because it makes victims? rights a reality,?
said Susan Howley, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Victims of Crime
in Washington.
       
14 STATES USE SYSTEM
       The VINE system was created in 1994 by two computer engineers in
Louisville, Ky., after pleas by relatives of a woman who was shot to death on
her 21st birthday by a former boyfriend who had been charged with kidnapping
and raping her a few weeks earlier. The slaying occurred after the man was
freed on bail without the victim?s family?s knowledge.

The VINE network has been growing ever since. Fourteen states and 1,200
communities around the country are now tied into the system, which takes calls
from and makes calls to thousands of crime victims each day.
       ?If you talk with a crime victim, the biggest frustration they have is
the lack of information. This empowers them to keep track of that information
themselves,? said Rick Jones, spokesman for Appriss Inc., the Louisville-based
operator of the system.
       The other states linked to the system are Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois,
Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North
Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island. States pay Appriss an annual fee based on the
size of their jail populations and other factors. Oregon is paying $338,000 a
year.
       In Oregon, the newly launched system includes data on more than 41,000
felony and misdemeanor offenders under state supervision, including those on
parole and probation. By October, the system will add 7,500 juveniles and
criminals who are in county jails.
Sutton said she has called VINE several times to check on Gill?s status since
she became the first Oregon resident to register for the system earlier this
month.
       Sutton?s son, Christopher, was shot to death in 1998 weeks before he was
to begin his freshman year at the University of Alabama on a football
scholarship. Police said it was a case of mistaken identity. The killer is
serving a life sentence without parole.
       Sutton said she is afraid that the law might be changed someday to allow
early release for people like Gill.
       ?He?s put me in a position where I always have to know where he is,? she
said. ?I?m always going to find out if he?s up for parole or if his time has
been reduced.?
       Julie Hedden?s father, Paul Rivenes, 63, was stabbed to death in 1996
during a robbery of the family?s grocery store. The Portland woman has
immediate access to information on the three men convicted in the slaying.
       ?You feel so lost for such a long time,? she said. ?This system gives
the victim some sense of power. I know for me personally, it?s helping me find
my way back.?
*******************
Reuters
Global Police Can't Cope with Savvy Cyber Criminals

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Global law enforcement cannot cope with savvy cyber
criminals, who are quick to exploit technology to create havoc, top officials
at the U.S.'s Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday. 
  
"Technology permits cyber crimes to occur at the speed of light and law
enforcement must become more sophisticated in uncovering them," FBI (news - web
sites) assistant director Ronald Eldon told a conference on fighting organized
crime in Hong Kong. 

Eldon said international protocols and procedures relating to cyber crime
investigations was inadequate. 

"Government must respond not at government time but at Internet time," said
Eldon. 

"Legal procedure varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and the availability
of resources and equipment to deal with encryption is another issue," he said. 

Mark Pollitt, chief of the FBI computer analysis response team, told Reuters in
an interview the volume of digital evidence which the FBI has to ferret through
has ballooned. 

"In the past two years, we have looked at ten times more digital evidence," he
said. 

As information crosses borders with the increased use of handheld devices and
Web-enabled mobile phones, enforcement agencies and governments need to find
quicker ways of working with each other to take care of legal requirements and
diplomacy. 

"Cyber crime is truly a global security issue as fundamentally, we all share
the same vulnerabilities," he said. 

"As an example, if there is a problem with a piece of software, it will affect
a Hong Kong bank as much as a New York bank as all banks talk to each other,"
he said. 

Eldon called for an expansion of a round-the-clock system for cyber contacts
that currently links only the most advanced industrialized nations. "We need to
build partnership with private industry and academics in order to keep our
technical capabilities at the cutting edge," he added. 
****************
Reuters
Chip Equipment Companies Look to China

NEW YORK (Reuters) - China could become one of the world's top suppliers of
computer chips within a few years, but only if the country puts in place tough
laws to prevent piracy of advanced technology, U.S. semiconductor industry
executives said on Tuesday. 

  
China's emerging economy is increasingly seen within the high-tech industry as
the most favorable destination for future expansion, based on its potentially
massive consumer market, a low-cost and highly skilled labor force and falling
tariffs. 

Global computer companies, mobile phone makers and the components suppliers
that serve them have been eyeing China for nearly two decades for its long-run
potential to become the epicenter of high-tech manufacturing. 

But speakers at a two-day industry conference of semiconductor equipment
suppliers here said that China remains a mixed bag of seemingly endless
potential, but significant structural flaws. 

China, the fastest growing major world economy, is holding itself back from
further high-tech breakthroughs because of its failure to shore up intellectual
property protections that are so important to potential foreign investors, some
industry insiders said. 

Concerns over intellectual property rights rival many other factors in
importance, including China's antiquated industrial infrastructure and the
restrictions that the United States puts on exports of technologies into China
with potential military applications. 

"It's so critical that you understand that what's written down in law is not
necessarily what's practiced," said Bruce Freyman, vice president for
manufacturing and product operations at Amkor Technology Inc. . 

Freyman said Amkor, which specializes in putting computer chips into plastic
packages and performing initial quality testing, has been following its
customers into China, despite the problems. 

Last Wednesday, the company announced an alliance with Shanghai-based Grace
Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., which is building a factory to produce
silicon wafers. 

Freyman said Amkor has had to do its "homework," working hard to stay on top of
what laws are on the books as well as new laws that will be passed. 

Michael Luttati, chief operating officer of chip equipment maker Axcelis
Technologies Inc. , agreed, saying a key issue for semiconductor companies is
how to protect intellectual property "as you start to do more development
globally." 

TREADING CAREFULLY 

Dan Del Rosario, senior vice president for Asia at Photronics Inc. , which
makes the quartz plates that act as templates for making chip circuitry, said
his company has taken a different route than Amkor. Photronics has stayed away
from Chinese joint ventures, he said, opting instead for wholly-owned foreign
enterprises, which it can control. 

Del Rosario said joint ventures with Chinese firms often involve entities
affiliated with the Chinese government. And even with a minority local
ownership, he said the local firm can control key management positions, and
ultimately, the firm. 

"In China, as well as in many countries in Asia, the chairman of the board is
all powerful," he said. 

Before semiconductor firms move to China, they must overcome the hurdles of two
decades of U.S. export controls aimed at keeping advanced U.S. technologies
that could be used for nuclear weapons production out of the hands of the
Chinese military. 

"I think the 900-pound gorilla for this industry is U.S. export controls," said
Karen Sutter, director of business advisory services at the U.S.-China Business
Council. Sutter also said chip makers should be concerned that valuable chip
designs brought to China could be stolen and show up at the factory down the
street. 

Foreign firms, she said, should keep critically important intellectual property
away from China and other countries with weaker enforcement of intellectual
property theft. 

Even labor, often touted in China as abundant and skilled, faces shortages in
certain niche technology areas, Sutter said. 

Distribution networks in China are highly fragmented, posing another problem
for foreign chip makers, she said. 
******************
Reuters Internet Report
Broadband Use Faces Knowledge Gap Hurdle

LONDON (Reuters) - Roll-out of high-speed Internet services in Britain may be
complicated by a lack of basic computing knowledge among potential subscribers,
according to a survey due to be published on Wednesday. 

  
With less than two weeks to go before landmark broadband price cuts from
leading phoneline wholesaler BT Group , the survey of existing users indicated
that setting up a faster connection could confuse even online "experts." 

The survey, commissioned by a U.S. firm selling online customer service and
trouble-shooting software, found that while less than 10 percent of those
surveyed considered themselves Internet "beginners," almost two-thirds
experienced difficulties getting started with high-speed connections. 

These struggles result in expensive queries to call centers, with one third of
the 362 broadband users surveyed saying they had phoned up to three times per
month, the survey said. 

Despite widespread adoption of Internet access in Britain, less than one
percent of the population has the broadband access needed to download the large
amounts of data required for video and audio files. 

"This survey suggests that much work still needs to occur in order to achieve
'Broadband Britain'," said Donald Tait, research analyst at consultancy Frost &
Sullivan. "Crucially, services providers need to resolve these basic service
issues. Otherwise, broadband will be stifled before it reaches critical mass." 

Survey sponsor Motive Communications, a Texas firm founded in 1997 which has
already sold its technology to major U.S. broadband players, said its software
would help pre-empt calls by new users by automatically providing advice via
the computer. 

Former UK state telecoms monopoly BT, which has already automated much of its
customer service and plans to close many of its call centers as a result, is
aiming for one million broadband customers on its network by the middle of
2003. BT's wholesale price for broadband will be halved in April. 
*********************
BBC
Broadband gets popular

The number of UK users subscribing to broadband has doubled since BT introduced
its cheaper, self-install service. 
Interest in the high-speed internet service has shot up since its Plug & Go
service was launched last month, says BTopenworld's chief executive, Alison
Ritchie. 

Between 8,000 and 10,000 customers a week are now subscribing to BTopenworld's
new product. 

Other ISPs have also seen an increase in demand in recent weeks following BT's
decision to cut the cost of wholesale ADSL. 

Price cut 

Last week, Zen Internet announced that it was cutting its price to £29.99 per
month and Freeserve plans to launch DIY broadband in Dixon's electrical stores
next month. 

"BT made a fantastic move with their price cuts and we wholeheartedly commend
them on this bold step," said Zen's marketing manager Ian Buckley. 

"This new pricing will enable us to roll out ADSL to the mass market and should
really push the UK up in the broadband league tables," he said. 

DSL, which allows high-speed internet services to run through existing
telephone lines, is now the number one broadband technology according to data
from analyst firm Point Topic. 

DSL vs cable 

More than 18 million people across the globe had a DSL connection at the end of
last year, five million more than those with a cable connection. 

The DSL Forum hopes to have connected 200 million homes and businesses by the
end of 2005. 

The recent growth of broadband will come as a welcome relief to European
governments desperate to compete with the US in the hi-tech arena. 

At a European Parliament meeting in Barcelona, getting broadband into homes and
businesses was high on the agenda. 

Figures so far have been disappointing, with just 6% of European homes with a
high-speed net connection. 

Easy to do 

Roy Latham is a sole trader offering information technology consultancy
services to small businesses in the UK. 

He installed BTopenworld's Plug & Go himself and has been very impressed with
the service. Like many users, speed is the key benefit for him. 

"Before installing broadband, I would literally spend hours and hours waiting
for files to download. 

"If the connection crashed, the whole process would have to begin again.
Similar files now download within a matter of minutes," he said. 

As for installing broadband himself, he found it a doddle. 

"The hardest part was crawling under a desk to plug in the filter boxes," he
said. 
************************
BBC
Sony reveals singing robot

Japan's Sony Corporation has unveiled a prototype robot that can sing and
dance. 

The human-shaped SDR-4X can sing in four-part harmony, shake its hips and wave
its arms in tempo. 

The company says the robot can also recognise faces, voices and names, hold
simple conversations and pick itself up when it is pushed over. 

But it is an expensive toy that a company executive says will cost as much as a
luxury car. 

Company officials say they hope the robot will be able to provide entertainment
and companionship for its owners. 

"This robot was designed to live with people in homes," said Sony Corporate
Executive Vice-President Toshitada Doi. 

Sony hopes the robot, which is 60 centimetres (24 inches) tall, will come on to
the market at the end of the year. 

Robot with 'personality' 

The creators say the appeal of the SDR-4X is its personality, like Sony's
hot-selling Aibo robotic pet, which uses much of the same software. 

Drawing from its vocabulary of 60,000 words, an SDR-4X can ask a guest in a
high, squeaky voice: "Please hold still for a minute while I memorise your
face." 

It can also walk on uneven surfaces and come when it is called. 

Equipped with two cameras, it can tell the difference between the edge of a
table and patterns on the floor - a distinction that was harder for Aibo, with
only one camera "eye", to make. 

"By inputting music and lyrics data into the robot, it can produce a singing
voice with vibrato," Sony said. 

The company added that the robot could carry out "complicated, personalised
[dancing] performances."
*************
San Francisco Chronicle
Chips a risky business

The semiconductor industry -- the companies that produce the processors, memory
and other chips that drive all things digital -- may finally be ready to
confront a shadow that has hung over it for decades. 

The issue: health risks the industry's workers face as a result of exposure to
powerful chemicals used in production processes. 

Fragmentary evidence suggests there could be serious problems -- in particular,
unusually high rates of miscarriage, birth defects and cancer -- among some of
the industry's million workers. 

Yet the major chip manufacturers and their trade organization, the
Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in San Jose, have a long record of
resisting proposals for a comprehensive study of the situation, according to
academic experts who have sought their cooperation. 

In 1999, however, the SIA responded to its critics by setting up a Science
Advisory Committee to look into the problem. Even though it has been in
existence for more than two years, it hasn't done actual epidemiological
research of its own, just carried out feasibility studies and reviewed existing
evidence, according to SIA spokeswoman Molly Tuttle. 

Recently, the committee finally submitted recommendations to the SIA's board of
directors on whether further research is needed. The board considered the
advice at its meeting last week but didn't announce a decision. They may
disclose it this week. 

I trust that announcement will come soon, and I hope that the group will
promise support for a comprehensive study of the health of its workers
worldwide. 

After all, according to an article in next month's International Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Health, semiconductor production is "one of the
most chemical-intensive industries ever conceived." It depends heavily on known
carcinogens and other toxic materials. Its famous "clean rooms" and bunny suits
are designed to protect pricey products from particulate pollution, 

not to eliminate fumes from the air workers breathe. 

And yet "no broad epidemiological study has been conducted to define possible
risks," and the industry has a record of "continued resistance to any sort of
serious scrutiny" over these issues, according to the paper. 

Titled "Cancer Risk in the Semiconductor Industry: A Call to Action," the
article -- a survey of the meager literature on the subject -- was written by a
team of occupational-health activists and academic experts from around the
world, including Dr. Joseph LaDou of the University of California School of
Medicine in San Francisco. 

I spoke last week with LaDou, who directs the UCSF's International Center for
Occupational Medicine, and he was scathing about the industry's record. Among
his other observations: 

-- "I've been involved with the SIA on these issues for over 30 years, and
they've traditionally had to be dragged kicking and screaming into health and
safety issues. Unfortunately, things don't appear to be any better now." 

-- "This is an industry with a lot of highly intelligent and progressive people
-- it's disappointing that it's not doing much better than asbestos, tobacco or
lead (industries)." 

-- "I'm a moderate. There's never been anything radical or crazy in what I've
recommended, which is to do a health study." 

The SIA did conduct one study in the early 1990s that showed an unusually high
rate of miscarriage among workers exposed to a chemical called glycol ether,
and that, together with two other studies showing the same pattern, resulted in
the elimination of the chemical from the industry's processes. 

But, LaDou says, the industry set narrow limits on the scope of that study,
effectively barring researchers from examining the related issues of birth
defects and cancer and even blocking follow-up studies on miscarriage. 

The same pattern has continued. A few years ago, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, working with the California Department of Health Services,
proposed a study of cancer rates among electronics workers. It was under the
auspices of the EPA's Common Sense Initiative, a program to promote industry-
government cooperation on environmental issues. 

But the industry -- led, according to the impending journal article, "by
representatives of Intel and IBM" -- rejected the proposal and "gave the EPA
little hope of further cooperation." 

The long-awaited report of the SIA's scientific advisers gives the industry a
chance to turn over a new leaf, however belatedly. Given its history, I can't
say I'm confident it will do the right thing, but I've got my fingers crossed. 

By the way, if you're interested in reading more about this problem, the April
issue of Mother Jones magazine has a very readable article on it by Susan Q.
Stranahan. Titled "The Clean Room's Dirty Secret," it focuses on the stories of
employees who fell ill after working at IBM semiconductor production facilities
in California, New York and Vermont. Highly recommended - - and easier to find
than the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health. 

PLATFORM WARS REDUX: I learned long ago that any comparison between Macs and
Windows PCs is bound to generate controversy, to put it mildly. My review here
last week of Apple's new iMac and Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion 780n was no
exception. 

As usual, most of the heat came from Apple partisans -- even though I concluded
that the Mac was easier and more fun to use for the kinds of digital- media
applications Apple is now emphasizing. 

First, some readers felt that I didn't make it sufficiently clear that the
Pavilion, at the $1,599 price I cited, doesn't come with a monitor, whereas the
$1,799 iMac has a beautiful flat-panel display attached. Some pointed out that
HP's own 15-inch LCD monitor goes for $600, which would make the combination
$400 more than the iMac. 

I didn't think I had left much room for confusion, but let me clarify: If you
want or need a new monitor to use with the Pavilion, you will have to spend
more for the whole package than for the iMac (except in the unlikely event that
you're willing to settle for a cheap CRT). 

But you don't have to pay $400 more. Even though flat-panel prices have been
rising in recent months (as I warned here in December), you can still get
excellent 15-inch models from major-brand vendors such as NEC-Mitsubishi and
Viewsonic for $350 to $400. 

That would make the HP system about $200 more than the iMac, and my conclusion
that the PC offered "more bang for the buck" took that cost into account. I
think that for people who can afford this range of product, the Pavilion's
benefits (faster performance, twice the memory and storage space, dual optical
drives, etc.) justify the premium, as long as you don't mind Windows. 

And for those who don't need a new monitor, there's no contest, in terms of
hardware specs. 

A slew of readers also pointed out that my spec chart listed only one FireWire
port for the iMac, when there are actually two. In fact, I screwed up royally
on that issue. Not only did I undercount on the Mac, but I gave the Pavilion
credit for four when it really has only three of these convenient connections
(two in back, one in front). My apologies for the errors. 

The nastiest attacks, as well as some polite criticism, involved my assertion
that the high-end iMac's DVD burner doesn't work with rewritable DVD- RW discs.
The critics have a point, but only with some important qualifications. 

In preparing the review I didn't even try a DVD-RW disc on the iMac -- in the
first place because I didn't have one, but also because Apple's specs and
reviewers' guide don't include that format in their list of media types with
which the iMac burner works. I had even checked with a company spokeswoman, who
confirmed that "Apple does not support DVD-RW." 

I wrongly assumed that meant rewritable discs couldn't be used at all on the
machine, even though Apple's "SuperDrive" is actually a Pioneer mechanism
that's capable of rewriting. When I finally went out and bought a DVD-RW disc
($11) and inserted it in the iMac's maw, I confirmed what my critics charge:
the Mac offered to format the disc, then let me burn data files on it. 

But consider the limitations: Once you have burned the disc, you can't modify
or add to its contents -- your only choice is to launch a utility that lets you
erase it, then start all over again. And as for digital media, forget it --
Apple's iDVD and iTunes programs refuse to have anything to do with DVD- RW
discs in any form. 

In short, there's good reason Apple doesn't claim to support DVD-RW: Its
software lets you use such media to back up files, but not for anything else. 

There's at least one third-party product -- Roxio's Toast Titanium ($90) --
that overcomes most of these limitations, though it doesn't integrate DVD
rewriting with other Mac applications in the same way Windows XP and HP's
software do with DVD+RW. And you don't have to spend extra time and money -- it
all comes on the Pavilion. 

Finally, a number of readers complained about the vagueness of my assertion
that the Pavilion's performance advantage in MPEG2 encoding was "pretty
dramatic." They're right -- I had fudged the point because the movies I had
prepared on the two machines were different in length and content, and I wasn't
sure there was a valid way to compare them. 

But when a couple of Mac fans insisted my conclusion couldn't be true, I went
back, loaded a short digital-video clip on both machines, and encoded and
burned it on both. On the iMac, processing the 2-minute, 51-second sequence
(including encoding in iMovie, then transcoding in iDVD) took 21 minutes, 55
seconds in all. 

On the PC, using Pinnacle Studio 7 to encode, then MyDVD to transcode and burn
the same clip, the whole process took 12 minutes, 6 seconds -- almost twice as
fast as the iMac. 

Moral of the story: Sometimes megahertz do matter.
**********************
Government Computer News
Lockheed chief cites IT?s growing role

Agency IT workers have become more important than ever as the government seeks
to ensure secure operations under the ?new normal? conditions of post-Sept. 11,
said Vance Coffman, chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. ?My view is that
we will be living with the ?new normal? essentially for the rest of our lives,?
Coffman said during a keynote address at FOSE 2002 in Washington yesterday.
?The job of the IT professional is more critical than ever before. IT permeates
virtually every system, every process, every action the government undertakes,?
he said. ?Consequently, the resultswhether it?s a missile hitting its target or
a commercial airliner taking off on time or a satellite being placed in its
proper orbitvery much depends upon the performance of the individual IT
professional.? Lockheed Martin is particularly familiar with technology?s
function in defense systems. ?IT plays an ever-growing role in virtually every
platform used by the Department of Defense,? Coffman said. For example, he
said, the first F-117 Stealth Fighter in the early 1980s had an onboard
computer with about 100,000 lines of source code; the new F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter?s system will have about 5 million lines. While the Pentagon was still
ablaze after Sept. 11, Lockheed Martin sent some of its IT workers in to bring
up a network connecting 25,000 top policy and military leaders. Defense also
uses Lockheed?s Theater Battle Management Core Systems, which give a complete
picture of the battlefield to warfighters, pilots, navigators, weapons control
officers, planners and intelligence officers. The system is used in Afghanistan
to aid war efforts. In addition to its Defense work, Coffman said, Lockheed
Martin works with federal civilian agencies modernizing the Social Security
Administration?s IT systems, developing client and server software for the
Patent and Trademark Office, creating data match architecture for the Office of
Child Support Enforcement and other projects.
*****************
Government Computer News
11 products win FOSE honors

GCN today honored 11 products for IT innovation at FOSE 2002. Each product was
announced either at the show or shortly before, and each stood out in its
category for usefulness and affordability to federal buyers. Two products took
top honors this year. GCN?s Best-in-Show designation went to the KnightStar
Firewall/VPN from CyberGuard Technologies Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. GCN?s
Top-of-the-Wish-List designation went to the Mobile Data Wireless Display from
Panasonic Computer Solutions Co. of Milwaukee. ?The top award winners this year
show two key trends in the government market: mobile connectivity and
security,? said Thomas R. Temin, vice president of editorial for Post Newsweek
Tech Media. ?Our judges found that both the KnightStar Firewall, with its
excellent user interface, and the Mobile Wireless Display, which frees users to
move about the work environment without lugging a system, meet the government?s
needs in functional and innovative ways.? A panel of 13 GCN editors judged each
entry for its innovation, value and importance to the federal market. The
double-blind judging narrowed the number of entries to 36 finalists, from which
the winners were chosen. These products won Best New Technology at FOSE awards
in their categories:
Desktop PCs: Cstation L1000 from 2C Computing Inc. of Huntsville, Ala. 
Enterprise application software: Client Management Suite from Altiris Corp. of
Lindon, Utah 
Enterprise infrastructure software: Hewlett-Packard OpenView Performance
Insight 
Network peripherals: PowerStruXure from American Power Conversion Corp. of West
Kingston, R.I. 
Networking hardware: Dell PowerVault 755N 
Portable computers: Dell Latitude C400 
Presentation devices: CML 181 from Hitachi America Ltd. of Westwood, Mass. 
Security hardware: KnightStar Firewall/VPN from CyberGuard Corp. 
Security software: SSH Secure Shell 3.1 from SSH Communications Security Inc.
of Palo Alto, Calif. 
Servers: Snap Server 1100 from Quantum Corp. of Milpitas, Calif. 
Wireless and handheld devices: Panasonic Mobile Data Wireless Display.
*****************

San Jose Mercury News
Dell plans to increase operations in India

Dell Computer plans to increase its investment in India by having more of its
software development and routine office functions done from its Indian center,
Chief Executive Michael Dell said Tuesday.

``We will increase our investment as our business and need grow, but I cannot
give you the figure,'' said Dell, chairman and chief executive of the
Austin-based company. He was making a one-day visit to Bangalore, considered
India's technology hub.

Dell refused to divulge specifics about investment or recruitment, but said
there would be a significant increase in the Indian staff of 800 people.

The company runs a customer contact center in Bangalore to serve Dell's
customers in the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Dell also has
software developed in India for bundling in the company's computers and for
internal use.
*****************

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