Clips May 29, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips May 29, 2002

ARTICLES

'Carnivore' Glitches Blamed for FBI Woes
State Seeks to Fine Online Pharmacy
Hearing Set on Hacked State Computers
Chronicle of Higher Education
Former Student Is Charged With Sending Racist E-Mail Messages
Ted Waitt takes on Hollywood
Scientists enlist themselves in war on terrorism
Instant messaging at work can open door to hackers
Liberty Alliance expands membership
FCC OK Unleashes XtremeSpectrum
Net Governance Chief Will Step Down Next Year
Proposed legislation renews debate about value of a national ID card
Mixed Messages (Polls on American Opinions on National ID)
A critical difference (Attempts to Frame the debate on a National ID System)
Will privacy be protected?
Weldon envisions virtual hearings
Anti-terror bills march forward
FAA workers to get smart cards
DOD tech pushed for first responders
Intrusion-detection net revived
Industry opposes security standards
To protect and serve
E-gov security gateway in works
DOD adjusts its plans on hiring foreign workers
Senate awards $100 million IT services contract
Being wired helps you connect
Turkey tightens controls on the net
FBI wants more surveillance power
Eminem CD shows piracy patterns
Modem owners pay more for AT&T
EU aims to boost broadband
Picture slowly changes for TV buyers
Gates Foundation gives nearly $3 million to kids in China
Web sites let survivors celebrate loved ones
Retired tennis star wins case against Microsoft
New York attorney-general sues spammers
Guide helps digital users stay honest
US Programming Competition Organizer Adds China to Developer Community
FCC delays auction of upper UHF TV band spectrum
Microsoft faces EU privacy probe
Privacy worries with EU online policing bill











*********************
Washington Post
'Carnivore' Glitches Blamed for FBI Woes
Problems With E-Mail Surveillance Program Led to Mishandling of al Qaeda 
Probe in 2000, Memo Says
By Dan Eggen

The FBI mishandled a surveillance operation involving Osama bin Laden's 
terror network two years ago because of technical problems with the 
controversial Carnivore e-mail program, part of a "pattern" indicating that 
the FBI was unable to manage its intelligence wiretaps, according to an 
internal bureau memorandum released yesterday.

An attempt in March 2000 to secretly monitor the e-mail of an unidentified 
suspect went awry when the Carnivore program retrieved communications from 
other parties as well, according to the memo, which was obtained by the 
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington-based advocacy 
group opposed to the technology.

Carnivore, which has been renamed DCS1000, is a computer program that 
allows investigators to capture e-mails sent to and from criminal and 
terrorist suspects. But the newly released memo indicates that, in at least 
one case, the program also retrieved e-mails from innocent people not 
involved in the investigation.

The incident joined a rapidly growing list of alleged FBI mistakes made 
before Sept. 11, including evidence that FBI headquarters bungled the quest 
for a search warrant in the Zacarias Moussaoui case and ignored pointed 
warnings from an Arizona field agent about terrorists in flight training. 
It also invited fresh criticism of Carnivore, a program already derided by 
civil libertarians, and cast doubt on repeated FBI assurances that the 
program provides a "surgical" ability to grab targeted e-mails out of 
cyberspace.

"Carnivore is a powerful but clumsy tool that endangers the privacy of 
innocent American citizens," said David Sobel, general counsel for EPIC, 
which obtained the memo through a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of 
Information Act. "We have now learned that its imprecision can also 
jeopardize important investigations, including those involving terrorism."

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said yesterday that the case was a rare 
mistake that resulted from technical problems encountered by an Internet 
service provider, not by the FBI.

"This is an uncommon instance where a surveillance tool, despite being 
tested and employed with the assistance of a service provider, did not 
collect information as intended," Collingwood said.

The one-page memo at issue, dated April 5, 2000, and sent via e-mail, was 
intended to outline the problems that had arisen in a Denver terrorism case 
for Marion "Spike" Bowman, the FBI's associate general counsel for national 
security. Yesterday, Bowman declined to comment and authorities declined to 
identify the memo's author or provide further details about the case.

The probe involved the FBI team that investigates suspected operatives of 
the al Qaeda network. It is known as the Usama bin Laden, or UBL, unit for 
the agency's spelling of the al Qaeda leader's name. The same unit has come 
under congressional scrutiny in recent weeks over its role in shelving a 
July 2001 memo from Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams, who had suggested 
that al Qaeda members might be infiltrating aviation schools and requested 
that the FBI canvass them for Middle Easterners.

In the latest case to come to light, the UBL unit acquired in March 2000 a 
warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for use 
against a suspect in an investigation based in Denver, according to the 
memo released yesterday.

The names of the suspect and all others in the memo, except for Bowman's, 
were redacted from the copy provided to EPIC.

The memo says that on March 16, 2000, the Carnivore "software was turned on 
and did not work properly," capturing e-mails involving both the target and 
others unconnected to the case.

The memo goes on to say that "the FBI technical person was apparently so 
upset that he destroyed all the E-Mail take, including the take" from the 
target. Collingwood, the FBI spokesman, said that the memo is incorrect and 
that the e-mails gathered in the operation were kept and remain under seal 
in the court that administers secret wiretaps.

The memo makes clear that the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence 
Policy and Review (OIPR), which oversees FISA warrants, was enraged by the 
blunders in the case, in part because the Justice Department office was 
allegedly not told that Carnivore was considered experimental at the time.

Referring to an official at OIPR, the memo's author says: "[To] state that 
she is unhappy with [the International Terrorism Operations Section] and 
the UBL Unit would be an understatement of incredible proportions."

The memo also refers to an electronic communication outlining other "FISA 
mistakes" and alleges "a pattern of occurrences which indicate to OIPR an 
inability on the part of the FBI to manage its FISAs."

One law enforcement official said last night that the passage may be 
referring to the ongoing problems with the affidavits submitted by the FBI 
to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves surveillance 
requests. The court barred one FBI agent from submitting affidavits in late 
2000 because of misrepresentations, and a broad review found similar 
problems in other cases, sources said.

The FBI has been using the Carnivore system for almost three years, subject 
to court authorization, to tap into Internet communications, to identify 
e-mail writers online and to record the contents of messages. It does so by 
capturing "packets" of information containing those details.

Civil liberties advocates and some lawmakers have expressed concerns 
because the system could scan private communication on the legal activities 
of people other than those under investigation. But agency officials have 
said repeatedly in response to criticism that the system poses no threat to 
privacy because it can take narrow, targeted slices of communication.

That's what FBI officials told Congress in the summer of 2000, only a few 
months after the botched surveillance effort in the Denver case.

Shortly before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an FBI spokesman said the 
agency rarely used Carnivore because Internet service providers had become 
so adept at meeting the technical demands of approved surveillance of 
suspects' Internet traffic. The agency said it had used Carnivore only 
twice from January through mid-August.

Since then, the agency has repeatedly declined to discuss the number of 
times the system has been used in recent months, saying that the records of 
Carnivore's use are exempt from disclosure laws.

Staff writer Robert O'Harrow Jr. contributed to this report.
***********************
Los Angeles Times
State Seeks to Fine Online Pharmacy
Medicine: A Los Angeles drugstore could face an $88.7-million penalty for 
allegedly selling drugs without examinations.
By RONALD D. WHITE

In what probably would be the largest fine ever for illegal prescription 
drug sales over the Internet, California state regulators said Tuesday that 
they have proposed an $88.7-million fine against a Los Angeles pharmacy for 
selling medications directly to consumers without requiring a doctor's 
examination.

The state Board of Pharmacy's sanction against Los Angeles-based Total 
Remedy & Prescription Center II, pharmacist-in- charge and co-owner Barry 
Irvin and pharmacist William Packer must be approved by the 11-member state 
medical board. The fine amounts to the maximum $25,000 for each of about 
3,500 prescriptions allegedly filled illegally.

The case represents the first use of a law passed in 2000 that requires a 
"good faith prior medical examination" by a doctor licensed in California 
before a prescription can be filled. Irvin said the charges were "crazy, to 
say the least," and came as a complete surprise.

"I'm just trying to maintain my normal routine," he said in a telephone 
interview, adding that the prescriptions were legitimate.

He has 30 days to appeal the sanctions.

The pharmacy is operated at its Los Angeles location like any other 
drugstore, said Patricia Harris, executive officer of the California Board 
of Pharmacy.

Harris said the pharmacy's operators also ran a Web site called 
CyberHealthServices.com that specialized in so-called lifestyle drugs such 
as Viagra for impotence, Propecia for hair loss and Xenical for weight 
loss. It is accused of filling prescriptions from out-of-state doctors who 
did not examine the patients.

State officials said the Web site was advertised mostly through unsolicited 
blanket e-mails. Harris added that the Web site also showed up on Web 
searches for Viagra and other drugs.

California officials were made aware of the site in 2001 by the 
Pennsylvania attorney general's office, which was working on a case 
involving the Web site.

Pennsylvania officials told California officials that the building that 
handled the credit card calls and shipping was in Glendale, but it had 
moved, Harris said.

The medications were mailed in a professional fashion, in standard vials 
and accompanied by literature, Harris said.

That's not always the case with Internet drug sales, according to the 
National Assn. of Boards of Pharmacy, a professional organization 
representing pharmacy boards in all 50 states. The association said Web 
sites and associated boiler room operations began proliferating five years ago.

Many are set up and dismantled within a matter of months or weeks and offer 
sales of all manner of drugs with minimal requirements and without a 
doctor's advice, leaving consumers to self-medicate without any instruction.

"It scares the heck out of us," said Carmen Catizone, executive director of 
the association.

Catizone recalled the recent story of a Florida woman who contacted an 
Internet drug sales site and asked for a medication to help her lose weight.

The woman was sent a powerful amphetamine called Didrex that quickly sent 
her blood pressure soaring. Catizone said the woman stopped taking the 
drug, but the Internet drug seller would not refund her money.

Catizone said the operators of such sites in the U.S. and overseas often 
mail unpackaged pills in an envelope or a plastic sandwich bag, without any 
information such as dosage, possible interactions or, sometimes, even the 
name of the drug.

The association maintains a Web site, www.nabp.net, with a link to its 
Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites, which lists the pharmacy sites 
that meet its 17 criteria for trustworthy and safe service.

Harris said she was aware of a California case in which a woman received 
Prozac from another Web site and went into shock when she self-medicated.

When asked why a state law passed and signed in 2000 was only now being 
used to target a serious problem, Harris said the task was undertaken 
without a boost in her budget.

Harris said she had a staff of 55, about half of them field inspectors, to 
police the state's pharmacies and Internet drug sales sites. She added that 
her offices "could always use more resources."

"We have other irons in the fire now. We're working on it," Harris said.
**********************
Associated Press
Hearing Set on Hacked State Computers
Tue May 28,11:02 PM ET
By DON THOMPSON

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - State senators said Tuesday they would 
investigate why it took weeks for 260,000 government employees to be 
notified that a hacker accessed a computer system containing their personal 
financial information.


"There's a lot of people screaming," said Dennis Alexander of the 
Professional Engineers in California Government.

Democratic Sen. Steve Peace said his committee on privacy planned a hearing 
next month into how a hacker or hackers could break into the state database 
April 5, why it wasn't discovered until May 7, and why employees weren't 
notified until Friday.

Authorities don't know what, if any, information was taken or used. The 
database included employees' last names, first and middle initials, Social 
Security (news - web sites) numbers and payroll deduction information.

The 7,000-member California Union of Safety Employees blamed Controller 
Kathleen Connell.

Connell's office shut off the compromised computers and notified the 
Sacramento Valley Hi Tech Task Force the day the breach was discovered, 
said John Harrigan, chief deputy state controller for administration.

The task force advised against notifying the public because it would hamper 
the criminal part of the investigation, Harrigan said.
********************
Chronicle of Higher Education
Montana Allows Public Colleges to Monitor Computer Use
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

A new policy in Montana permits officials of public colleges and 
universities to monitor activity and copy data from computers and networks 
owned by the institutions for the purpose of investigating misuses. Some 
professors and students worry that the policy is too broad and could lead 
to invasions of their privacy.

The policy, approved Friday by the statewide Board of Regents of Higher 
Education, allows university officials to "periodically, routinely, or for 
a specific purpose monitor activity on its computers and network" as long 
as the monitoring is part of their "legitimate job duties" in managing the 
computer network or investigating misuses.

Some professors are concerned that the policy could allow university 
officials to act as Big Brother.

"We still have some concerns," says Erik Burke, director of public policy 
for the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers, a 
union. The union had sought amendments to the policy that would have 
specified which officials could monitor computer activity and would have 
limited how much monitoring they could do, he says. Those amendments failed.

"Right now, the policy pretty much allows ... anybody on campus to have 
access to electronic records," says Mr. Burke. "We were trying to define 
who it was and how much they could go into it."

Heather O'Loughlin, a senior at the University of Montana who is the 
business manager for the Associated Students of the University, its student 
government, worries that the policy could lead officials to restrict 
Internet access in university libraries, many of which are also public 
libraries.

"My one concern is to make sure that students still have access to what 
they need," says Ms. O'Loughlin. "The policy gives them the right to block 
Web sites. It's not necessarily something they will do, but it's something 
that they now have the right to do."

State officials say that the policy is a necessary tool to keep university 
networks running and to root out abuses of acceptable-use policies and laws.

"We're talking about employees and students who are using state machines on 
a state network, and we have an obligation to make sure that they're using 
them for work-related purposes and education-related purposes," says LeRoy 
H. Schramm, chief legal counsel for the Montana University System.

Mr. Schramm says one goal of the policy is to "put people on notice" that 
their activity could be monitored.

"If in fact something is so private that you can't even take a 
one-in-a-million chance that a monitor could come upon this, then I think 
you should find a different medium to convey that message or work," Mr. 
Schramm adds, noting that the policy prohibits university investigators 
from sharing information they find.

"We put in appropriate assurances on the books that say this is in no way 
meant to allow random joyriding through a person's history," he says.

A growing number of colleges and universities are considering creating a 
"workplace investigation policy" for computer networks, says Tracy B. 
Mitrano, a policy adviser in Cornell University's information-technologies 
office, which has not yet created a specific policy. Some other 
universities have established similar rules on computer monitoring as part 
of their acceptable-use policies, she says.

Ms. Mitrano says universities should establish guidelines for computer 
searches before an incident occurs, to help protect the privacy of professors.

"In the heat of the moment, people sometimes do rash things unless guided 
by policy," she says, adding that "it should be an absolute last resort of 
workplace investigation to monitor" specific computer use.

"It does not have to be Big Brother," Ms. Mitrano says, adding that a 
university should seek a balance between protecting privacy and protecting 
college resources. "It is, I think, only through policy that you achieve 
that balance."
*******************
Chronicle of Higher Education
Former Student Is Charged With Sending Racist E-Mail Messages
By DAN CARNEVALE

A former student who had been expelled from Indiana University-Purdue 
University at Indianapolis was arrested last week based on accusations that 
he had sent more than 100 racist e-mail messages to students, professors, 
and staff members on the campus.

The former student, a white male named Joseph C. Belzer, 54, was charged 
with three counts of intimidation, a Class D felony, and 18 counts of 
harassment, a Class B misdemeanor. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in 
police custody, with bail set at $50,000.

The e-mail messages were sent over the course of a year from public-access 
computer terminals, such as those located in the campus libraries. The 
recipients were mostly members of racial minority groups, although some 
white people received the racist messages as well.

None of the messages made any specific threats, administrators said, but 
they were filled with obscenities and racial slurs, and one warned a black 
student to "watch your back."

Police investigators worked with the university's information-technology 
department to track down the source of the e-mail messages. After 
determining that Mr. Belzer was the suspect, the university expelled him on 
April 26. The police arrested him on Friday.

Rich Schneider, a university spokesman, said the campus was relieved that 
the police had made an arrest. "This was a serious and very unusual act 
that occurred on this campus," he said. "It shocked people here, but 
everyone was pleased at how the campus pulled together to track this person 
down."
****************************
Tech News
Ted Waitt takes on Hollywood
By Charles Cooper
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
May 28, 2002, 12:00 PM PT


newsmakers If he finds himself dining at Spago anytime soon, Gateway CEO 
Ted Waitt isn't likely to receive any bear hugs from the Hollywood moguls 
who favor this perennial Los Angeles hot spot.
That's because Gateway's chief executive officer finds himself on the other 
side of a bitter digital divide from the entertainment industry over the 
issue of digital music downloads. Throw in an opportunity for a 
grandstanding politician or two, and you have the makings of a grand 
donnybrook.

Last month, Gateway began to campaign against a proposal by Sen. Ernest 
"Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., that would shift the burden for copyright 
protection onto the shoulders of hardware manufacturers such as Gateway. 
The company, which has ambitions to become a larger player in music 
publishing and distribution, responded with a series of tongue-in-cheek 
television advertisements and public statements promoting legal digital 
downloading.



The entertainment industry was not amused. Music and movie studios are 
worried about the potential loss of billions of dollars due to illegal 
digital downloads.

But Gateway, which operates a site where people can legally download 
certain individual songs, says the wording of the Hollings bill threatens 
the future of CD burners. If there's a ban on this popular accessory device 
that allows people to burn downloaded music files to CDs, Gateway and other 
computer makers say it may reduce computer demand.

CNET News.com recently chatted with Waitt on why the two industries are 
butting heads and whether it's at all possible to find a compromise that 
would satisfy both camps.

Q: What made you decide to step out in front of other tech companies to 
take on the music industry?
A: It wasn't our intention to take on the industry; it was our intention to 
speak out on behalf of consumers.

A risky move?
It was a bit of a risk. We were looking for ways to revitalize the Gateway 
brand and get back to being a voice for the consumer. It was funny: When we 
ran the radio ads, we had a line about copyright laws in there. Then we got 
a letter from an attorney who was involved in the music industry--and he 
was ecstatic about what we did. Only later was it that the industry got 
uptight. But we don't support stealing music. We wanted to educate them.

Did you expect the ferocity of the reaction?
No, not really. We thought it was the right thing to do.

What's to account for the response then?
You saw the same thing with digital music. I think (the music studios) 
could double their music sales with very targeted solutions, and we're 
willing to sit down and help them. But it's not our job to help them solve 
their business problems. I'm not in favor of stealing music. Technology 
people have as much interest in protecting patents as the entertainment 
industry.

They've criticized your commercials and the appeal to oppose Hollings' bill 
as a declaration of war. Have you felt any backlash?
Nothing you could point to specifically. But we didn't view this as a 
declaration of war. They do everything in an adversarial way because it's 
in their nature. They're trying to play defense to protect the old way of 
doing business, which has to evolve.

How do you expect to create a music service of your own if you have 
alienated the music companies?
We're working with EMusic and others. It might help get us to the table--if 
(the studios) can stop viewing us as the enemy. We want a solution as much 
as they do.

Do you see the Hollings bill as a serious threat, or a Trojan Horse for 
more piecemeal approaches.
It's not the end of the world, but it's also not the way to solve the 
problem. Our solution is that the music industry has got to get together 
among themselves and find a common way to do this. They'll have to get 
hardware people in, the Internet people in--and start building a new 
business model instead of saying, "Stop this." You can't stop it. CD 
burners shouldn't be considered contraband.

Hollywood is asking Congress to block DVDs with copy protection and is 
suing to stop sales of digital VCR and MP3 players. The technology people 
respond that's an antiquated--and useless--response. Why don't Hollywood 
and Silicon Valley better understand each other?
They speak different languages. The entertainment industry always chooses 
to fight things out through the courts and legislation. Technology people 
always think there's a business solution. Everybody has tried a variety of 
things, but it won't work until they get together and people can go to one 
place for all the music that's out there. Consumers don't know what label 
their favorite artist is on. It's irrelevant. Go back to the VCR analogy. 
They fought the VCR, but at the end of the day, the VCR created a whole new 
revenue stream for every movie release.

Is that all there is to it--just a difference in point of view? That is, 
Silicon Valley saying, 'Dudes, you just don't get it; there is no way to 
stop digital piracy?'
The technology industry thinks there's a way to solve it, but it's not to 
say all digital music is bad, so let's keep using CDs.

Do you think music downloading from a Kazaa or Morpheus site is stealing?
I never said that. I don't think that's necessarily right, but all digital 
music isn't bad. If you buy a CD and want to put your favorite songs on one 
CD, you should be able to do that. The Hollings bill wants to redefine fair 
use. But I have never advocated stealing music.

But if I download music from Kazaa, am I in violation of the law?
Not all (downloading) is illegal. Wouldn't it be great if you could go to a 
service and say, "Here's my 100 CDs, and I want to listen to them in mixed 
format anywhere. Now, teach me about new music in streaming format, and if 
I like it, I can click and buy in a radio format." There are other ways of 
doing it, but nobody wants to go and listen. Last weekend, I was going on a 
trip and went to two stores looking for CDs. I couldn't find them, so I 
went to the Web, looking a legal way to download, but it wasn't there. I 
didn't do it personally, but a friend loaned me a copy--and then I lost the 
CD anyway. That was the only way I could get the song. But I was willing to 
pay for it.

Do you download and then burn music CDs?
I don't spend a lot of time doing it, but I have done--just from a research 
standpoint.

Do you plan to continue your campaign?
We're going to do a variety of things. It's more about the public education 
of the issue. We'll have more things in July, utilizing our training 
facilities to educate people about what's legal and what's not.

OK, a couple of business questions. For a lot of this year, you've been 
cutting prices and sacrificing profits to build market share. IDC had you 
flat in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter. I'm not 
bringing any news when I say it's a still a tough market. Will the success 
of your strategy depend upon a real turnaround in the economy?
Our strategy's not based on share. It's growth based on fixed cost 
structure. We're pricing products as if we were twice our size. Our 
consumer business was sequentially up in the quarter for the first time in 
the history of the company, and we're continuing that momentum. What's 
going on with HP and Compaq means there's share up for grabs. I could 
debate the IDC numbers, but we feel real good about momentum in the business.

If the turnaround stalls, will you consider closing the rest of the Gateway 
stores to contain your costs?
We're committed to the stores. We're looking at each one on a 
store-by-store basis...If the economy stalls, it will just take longer, but 
we'll keep plugging away.
************************
MSNBC
Scientists enlist themselves in war on terrorism
Data networks can help thwart attacks, scientists say

WASHINGTON, May 28   Seismologists are looking to shake up the war on 
terrorism by using the vast amounts data collected by their "always on" 
research networks. The same devices that can pinpoint the epicenter of an 
earthquake also can used to determine the "signature" of a car bomb or 
nuclear test explosion, and in turn, help law enforcement and intelligence 
networks to better understand the origin of terrorist events, scientists say.

    ALTHOUGH THESE RESEARCH networks have been tapped for investigative 
work in the past they remain a critically under-utilized tool in the war on 
terrorism, seismologists said in a briefing Tuesday.
       Joining the seismologists are thousands of other researchers, 
across several scientific disciplines, who maintain a global network of 
monitoring devices and sensors. Those networks record everything from 
earthquakes to weather patterns to astronomical occurrences.
       For example, "near surface geophysical" techniques involving 
"surface wave imaging" could "routinely monitor the shallow subsurface 
along the U.S. borders to recognize changes in physical earth properties 
likely related to tunneling," says a written presentation to be delivered 
Tuesday during a Geophysics vs. Terrorism seminar at a meeting of the 
American Geophysical Union.
       But the scientific community remains a nearly forgotten resource 
for helping detect the "signatures" of terrorist activity, said Greg van 
der Vink, director of Planning for the Incorporated Research Institutions 
for Seismology (IRIS) consortium.
       Acts of terrorism or potential terrorism  such as the testing of a 
small nuclear device  is likely to first appear on a data collection 
network operated for other purposes, van der Vink said.
      There are some 10,000 seismologic monitoring devices worldwide. 
"These are our ears to the ground," said Terry Wallace, professor of 
geosciences at the University of Arizona. Such networks are capable of much 
more than simply monitoring earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, Wallace 
said. They also provide records of industrial explosions, clandestine 
nuclear weapons testing and terrorist bombings.
       Operating in this capacity these networks create a kind of 
unblinking, apolitical neighborhood watch for the global village, Wallace said.

FORENSIC SEISMOLOGY
       The use of seismic data for more than earthquake monitoring can be 
traced back to 1915 when, during World War I, the English used crude 
seismic data to figure out the location of the enemy's artillery pieces, 
Wallace said.
      A new discipline, called "forensic seismology" has grown up around 
the verification of small nuclear explosions. "But it clearly is also 
useful in putting constraints on terrorist bombs," Wallace said. Reason: 
Each bomb blast has a unique "signature," that is recorded and cataloged by 
the seismic instruments.
       Using these bomb signatures, scientists working with law 
enforcement can help pinpoint what type of bomb or bombs were used and 
identify points of origin for previous explosions.
       Coupled with other intelligence data, the seismic information can 
make for a compelling and damning trail of evidence. This type of analysis 
was used in the 1998 truck-bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. 
Seismologists were able to pinpoint the exact time of the explosion and the 
size of the bomb. The data proved invaluable to the FBI, which was sent to 
the country to investigate the bombing. By the time the FBI arrived, the 
crater had already been filled in, making it impossible for the agents to 
carry out their usual crime-scene investigation.
       And sometimes the data collection is important for its ability to 
prove what wasn't. In the immediate, terrifying chaos that enveloped the 
events of Sept. 11th, rumor mixed with fear that quickly became a swirling 
cauldron of conspiracy theories, especially with regard to the fate of 
American Airlines flight 93 that went down in Pennsylvania.
       One early, favored myth was that the government had been forced to 
shoot down the plane to save potentially thousands of other lives. On a day 
when the world turned upside down, such a rumor, however unfounded, was 
easy for many to swallow.
       But Wallace and others were able to prove that the plane had not 
been shot down, nor had it exploded, but had, in fact, impacted the ground 
intact.
       "The seismic signature we saw [of flight 93] matched the signatures 
we already had on record of other plane crashes," Wallace said. "We could, 
therefore, say without a doubt that the plane hadn't been shot down."
       And in 2000, seismic data was used to prove that the Russian 
nuclear submarine Kursk sunk because of an explosion rather than a 
collision, as the Russian government originally claimed.

CONNECT THE DOTS
       Despite the high profile successes of using scientific data to 
augment various investigations, the scientific community is hardly on the 
radar screen when it comes to the U.S. government's efforts to combat 
terrorism.
       In truth, organizations like the CIA and FBI are "operational" and 
busy with the task at hand, Wallace said, whereas researchers "are pushing 
the frontiers of science" to come up with "new ways of looking at data."
The various intelligence communities have their own specialized networks, 
but as recent news events show, officials of the agencies tasked with 
protecting against terrorism didn't heed the warnings of their own agents 
let alone tap the resources of other agencies. Getting these agencies to 
now bring the scientific community into the fold to help augment the war on 
terrorism "is a challenge" said van der Vink.
       But the intelligence community simply "may not have had ways to 
connect the dots," van der Vink said, referring to the array of networks 
represented by the scientific community.
       And there lays the Gordian Knot when trying to mesh the data from 
the intelligence and scientific communities. "Coherent integration and 
analysis of these large installations of diverse networks" begs the 
question, "How do we connect the dots?" in the first place, van der Vink asked.
       The move by the scientific community to raise their profile by 
enlisting in the war on terrorism isn't entirely without a self-serving angle.
       Monitoring networks are complex, high-tech and high maintenance; 
they are costly to install, maintain and manage. Getting law enforcement 
and intelligence communities to depend more on scientific data means higher 
visibility and that visibility translates directly into cash by way of 
government grants or contracts, said van der Vink.
       But that turns out to be a win-win situation, van der Vink 
asserted. Maintaining monitoring networks "provide a baseline" of data that 
makes it possible to test future events to gauge whether they are terrorist 
activity or not, he said.
*********************
USA Today
Instant messaging at work can open door to hackers
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO  That instant message you send from work could put your 
company's computer network at risk.

That's because popular free IM systems, such as AOL Instant Messenger and 
MSN Messenger, lack basic security features needed to protect corporate 
networks. That wasn't a problem when the systems, geared to consumers, were 
used for chitchat. But this year, 54 million people will use consumer IM 
systems on the job, research firm IDC says.

Security is kept lax so that they are easy to use. "They're this huge 
gaping security risk for companies," says Dan Ingevaldson of Internet 
Security Systems. Making changes:

Web company NetPOS.com stopped using free messaging when it realized 
"anybody sniffing the Net could see what we were doing," says Chief 
Technical Officer Chris Kaltwasser. Most free IM systems don't scramble 
messages as they travel via the Internet. The company now uses a secure 
service from Imici.
American Puzzles recently removed AOL Instant Messenger from its computer 
servers after suspecting that hackers were using it to try to break in. 
Co-owner Albert Farrell uses it to communicate with vendors but keeps it on 
a less crucial computer.
This fall, students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will access the 
college's network through a portal that blocks consumer IM systems. They 
can use a secure system from tech firm Bantu. Chief Information Officer 
Marty Smith says many of the school's 20,000 students set up free accounts, 
creating a security risk.
First Community Credit Union of Houston put in a secure IM system from 
WiredRed two years ago because workers used the free ones.
AOL and Microsoft say the systems were never intended for sensitive 
messages. AOL says it is building a secure IM service for companies. 
Microsoft and others sell similar products. Costs vary. Some run about $35 
a user.

Many firms think consumer IM systems are secure, says IDC analyst Robert 
Mahowald. He expects use to decline as more companies become aware of the 
risk. More than 50% of companies using IM use free systems  not more secure 
ones that cost money, says INT Media Research.

Other companies don't know that employees install their own IM systems, 
which often bypass network safeguards such as anti-virus software and 
firewalls. That can create back doors for hackers.

The fallout can be huge. Last year, hackers stole hundreds of sensitive 
instant messages from the CEO of start-up eFront and posted them on the 
Net. Five executives resigned from eFront, which has gone under.
*******************
Tech News
Liberty Alliance expands membership
By Mike Ricciuti
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
May 28, 2002, 9:00 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-927232.html

The Liberty Alliance Project gained five new members Wednesday, boosting 
Sun Microsystems' effort to outgun Microsoft's Passport online 
identification system.
The Liberty Alliance Project seeks to establish a standard method for 
online identification, so a computer user can log on to a Web site once, 
then have other sites recognize that user as authenticated. Microsoft 
already offers a single sign-on technology called Passport.

New members include Cingular Wireless, i2 Technologies, Nippon Telegraph 
and Telephone, SAP and Wave Systems. The companies join the Liberty 
Alliance as sponsors, meaning they can attend and vote in meetings. The 
Alliance, launched last September, now has more than 40 members, including 
United Airlines, Sony, Fidelity Investments, AOL Time Warner and others, 
according to Michael Barrett, who is vice president of Internet strategy at 
American Express and a member of the Liberty Alliance management board.

The Alliance also announced a new "affiliate" level of membership intended 
to boost representation among government agencies and nonprofit 
organizations, and an "associate" level membership that targets small 
companies. Affiliate-level membership is free of charge; associate members 
pay a fee of $1,000 per year, Barrett said.

The Alliance has yet to release a specification for how its technology will 
work. Barrett said the specification will be available this summer, as was 
originally planned.

In contrast, the number of Microsoft Passport users jumped to 14 million, 
from 7 million, between last August and February, according to a survey by 
market researcher Gartner.

Sun and other Microsoft competitors have waged a steady campaign against 
Microsoft's Passport as a way to give people a digital identity on the 
Internet. Sun instead favors a neutral method that's not controlled by a 
single company. Microsoft in September said it would retool Passport and 
open it to the broader business market, which could include rivals.

Critics of Passport, including AOL, Sun, privacy groups and state 
trustbusters, have challenged Microsoft's use of Windows XP and other 
desktop or Web products to drive Passport adoption.

Barrett downplayed competitive issues between the Liberty Alliance members 
and Microsoft, saying that board members have invited the software giant to 
join the Alliance. "Nothing has been decided. But we have built a very good 
working relationship with the Passport team," Barrett said.

Barrett also said that American Express, which took part in Microsoft's 
launch of .Net My Services, a consumer Web services plan that uses Passport 
extensively, is still debating how it will support both Passport and .Net 
My Services, in addition to the Liberty Alliance specification. "Companies 
that represent consumers tend to be more agnostic as far as things that go. 
It could be that over time, will see their (Passport's) lower level spec 
and our higher-level business concerns combined," he said.

Microsoft executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
******************
Washington Post
FCC OK Unleashes XtremeSpectrum
By Michael Bruno
Washtech.com
Wednesday, May 29, 2002; Page E05

It's been a long wait for Vienna-based XtremeSpectrum Inc.

The company has been developing semiconductor technology for wireless 
transmission of information since it was first funded in November 1998. But 
the ultra-wideband technology, caught up in a 3 1/2-year examination by the 
Federal Communications Commission, was just approved a month ago. The 
company now plans to ship its ultra-wideband chips to its business partners 
in the next two months.

The move means that by Christmas 2003, consumers may be able to wirelessly 
transfer movies, digital photos, MP3 clips and other large multimedia files 
between their computing devices at speeds 10 times faster than the current 
leading technology.

It also means that XtremeSpectrum hopes to become a leading provider of 
consumer-focused UWB technology, a field some analysts believe will burgeon 
soon.

UWB is the latest technology to take on the personal-area-network market, 
the mass of cables and electronic devices that pervades many homes and 
small businesses. For the past few years, users have had the option to go 
wireless, but the trade-off was that their data transfer speeds were not as 
fast.

Devices such as digital TVs, personal data assistants and MP3 players all 
use data formats where the speed of the data flow ranges from thousand of 
bits per second, such as MP3 at 320 Kbps, to millions of bits per second, 
such as DVDs at 10 Mbps.

Up to now, users had to choose from three formats -- Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 
(802.11b) or 802.11a -- to connect their equipment, and each has a 
downside. Bluetooth, once promoted by big-name tech companies, requires 
little power but offers speeds of only around 1 Mbps. Wi-Fi, the most 
prominent of the three technologies, offers speeds of 11 Mbps but needs 
more power. And 802.11a offers speeds of 54 Mbps but requires lots of power.

On the other hand, UWB promises speeds up to 100 Mbps and requires low 
power. A stand-alone device can be powered with a single AA battery, 
according to XtremeSpectrum.

The difference is in how the technology works. Traditionally, a carrier, 
such as a radio station, has an assigned frequency. UWB operates across a 
wide gamut of spectrum -- 3.1 to 10.6 gigahertz and 24 GHz -- and pulses 
the information instead of carrying it.

"We believe this will be a serious threat to Bluetooth and 802.11," said 
David Hoover, an analyst at the Precursor Group in Washington.

Gemma Paulo, a wireless analyst with Arizona-based market research firm 
In-Stat/MDR, is less sanguine. She said UWB could complement Bluetooth but 
that it is "not really" a serious threat because federal regulations say it 
must limit its effectiveness to within 10 meters -- although that 
limitation could be loosened.

According to In-Stat, the home networking market is expected to reach $3.5 
billion in 2004 and $4.9 billion in 2006. The wireless portion of that 
market should hit $2.5 billion in 2004 and grow to $3.7 billion in 2006.

Neither Precursor nor In-Stat provide consulting or investment banking 
services, the analysts said. Their respective research groups also do not 
have financial relationships with the companies they cover.

The UWB concept was first developed in the 1950s but didn't get anywhere 
until the late 1970s when the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency, a 
research and development organization for the U.S. military, became 
interested. In other forms, UWB can be a radar technology that can "see" 
through walls, forests and under ground.

"They got very interested in ultra-wideband because of its very low cost," 
said Robert J. Fontana, president and founder of Germantown-based 
Multispectral Solutions Inc.

Multispectral Solutions has completed 64 contracts on UWB systems, such as 
ground-penetrating radar, with the military since late 2000. The 15-person 
company has been profitable from the start, and Fontana predicts that 
annual revenue will grow from almost $3 million to $4.5 million or $5 
million as the federal government beefs up homeland defense efforts.

But before UWB could be applied commercially, the FCC had to approve it, 
and that was a long and controversial process. Since UWB spans a range of 
frequencies already used by wireless phone carriers and various federal 
agencies, including the global positioning system community, several 
established interests saw UWB as competition or merely interference. It 
took the National Telecommunications and Information Administration from 
September 1998 to February 2002 to negotiate a compromise. The FCC 
finalized its approval on April 23.

Because UWB pulses a low-power signal across a swath of radio spectrum, 
rather than streaming a signal on a specific frequency, it would not 
interfere with broadcasts on any one band.

"It probably produces less interference than a hair dryer being turned on," 
said Rich Doherty, an analyst at the Envisioneering Group of Seaford, N.Y.

Still, the FCC is permitting its use in stages; the radio-frequency noise 
from a UWB device must be2,000 times lower than that emitted by a personal 
computer, baby monitor or garage door opener. If that produces no 
interference with other systems, higher levels of power -- and increased 
range of effectiveness -- may be approved.

Likewise, because UWB does not boost a signal on a particular frequency, 
UWB providers do not have to use equipment needed to carry a signal, which 
in turn knocks down the cost of UWB products.

XtremeSpectrum invested heavily in winning approval of UWB. Although Martin 
Rofheart, XtremeSpectrum chief executive and co-founder, declined to 
discuss how much was spent lobbying the government, the company hired 18 
people for the effort.

"It was huge," said analyst Hoover. "They spent a good portion of their 
[money] on lobbying."

It was worth it, Rofheart said. Because XtremeSpectrum -- formed a month 
after the regulatory debate began -- was so intimately involved in the 
regulatory process, its chipsets were ready as soon as the FCC gave the 
final go-ahead.

"We're trying to beat everyone to market," Rofheart said.

"They basically designed their [chipset] around how they thought the FCC 
was going to rule," analyst Paulo said.

Rofheart won't discuss revenue projections for 57-person XtremeSpectrum, 
but he said the company won't start counting sales until next year when its 
manufacturing partners start selling their consumer products during the 
holidays. He expects profitability in 2004.

Meanwhile, the company will rely on its venture capital. Funders include 
Cisco Systems Inc., Motorola Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Alliance 
Technology Ventures, Granite Ventures and Novak Biddle Venture Partners. 
XtremeSpectrum officials have declined to discuss how much they have raised 
but plan to announce more funding, including new investors, within a month.

That's good news since the competition is growing. Multispectral Solutions 
is expanding from government sales to the commercial market. Fontana said 
his company would introduce geolocation services and audio networking, such 
as audio systems in churches and arenas, over the next six months.

XtremeSpectrum's leading rival, Time Domain Corp. of Alabama, has said its 
PulsON chipsets also will be available to its partners this year. Time 
Domain, which has an office in the District, is focusing on wireless 
broadband links and precision radar products.

According to analyst Hoover, Time Domain and XtremeSpectrum are sitting 
pretty: They are the leading companies in a marketplace that looks to take off.

"They definitely have their foothold," he said. "They're going to be around."

Paulo with In-Stat said XtremeSpectrum has the edge.

"Time Domain wants to be in the consumer space, but they don't seem to have 
an organized focus," she said. "XtremeSpectrum is the only company that 
seems to know how to play in the commercial realm. The other companies seem 
to be a little bit more disorganized."
*******************
Washington Post
Artesia Software to Track DreamWorks Files


By Nicholas Johnston
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 29, 2002; Page E05


Artesia Technologies Inc., a developer of software that helps companies 
manage large amounts of digital information, is going Hollywood with its 
latest software sale to entertainment studio DreamWorks SKG.

"It's not the biggest deal we've ever done, and it's not the smallest," 
said Artesia's president and chief operating officer, D. Scott Bowen. But 
it charts new territory for Artesia among entertainment companies.

"Adoption of technology like ours is really in its infancy" among many 
entertainment companies, Bowen said. "In terms of Hollywood studios, this 
is our first."

Rockville-based Artesia does count Discovery Communications Inc. in 
Bethesda and Home Box Office as other entertainment customers. Discovery 
uses Artesia's information management software to keep track of audio and 
video files. DreamWorks will use Artesia's technology for more efficient 
storage and online distribution of marketing materials such as movie 
trailers, pictures and promotional graphics.

"Typically things go back and forth to foreign territories quite a bit," 
said Tom Kotlarek, head of information technology at DreamWorks. "When you 
have to put those things on a disk and overnight express them around the 
world, costs can potentially add up."

Initially the software will be used only for still images and text 
documents, but Kotlarek said DreamWorks plans to expand use of the software 
to video clips and movie trailers and possibly to other non-marketing uses.

"We're starting with one department and we'll expand both in the types of 
assets and in the number of departments," he said.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bowen said the type of 
software platform DreamWorks bought costs $175,000 on average. There is 
also a yearly support fee that varies but is usually about 20 percent of 
the purchase price.

Artesia raised $26 million in venture capital financing in September 2000. 
The round was led by private equity firm Warburg Pincus Ventures and 
included other institutional investors and technology firms. Bowen said the 
company has plenty of cash available and should approach break-even status 
early next year.

"Capital-wise, we're fine right now," Bowen said. "Warburg Pincus has 
committed to fund the company operationally through that break-even point."

Bowen expects the company to do more fundraising in the next 60 days, with 
additional cash coming from Warburg Pincus and other strategic investors.

More stories in SOFTWARE online at Washtech.com.
*******************
Washington Post
State Cybersecurity Center In Doubt


William Welsh
Washington Technology
Tuesday, May 28, 2002; 8:43 PM


The plan for a national information sharing and analysis center to support 
cybersecurity at the state government level has not yet materialized, 
despite hopes that it would be ready soon.

Rock Regan, president of the National Association of State Chief 
Information Officers (NASCIO) and Connecticut CIO, said May 23 that the 
group remains determined to establish such a center and may issue a request 
for proposal soon.

"There are still a lot of unknowns. We don't know if it is doable or not," 
Regan said.

Chris Dixon, NASICO's digital government coordinator, said the principal 
matters to be addressed before the project can move forward concern funding 
and whether information provided by the states to the federal government 
would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Dixon said the organization is confident it can secure adequate funding, 
but the funds might come from multiple sources, depending on the amount 
required. These sources might include federal and state funding as well 
other public and private funding, he said.

Aldona Valicente, a NASCIO past president and Kentucky CIO, said the 
federal government has encouraged the states to proceed with the project.

An information sharing and analysis center would record and report security 
breaches across state IT enterprises, provide early warnings to other 
states of network breaches, offer patches to fix violated systems and act 
as a clearinghouse for sharing best practices among states.

Reported By Washington Technology, http://www.wtonline.com .
********************
Washington Post
Net Governance Chief Will Step Down Next Year
By David McGuire
Washtech.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 28, 2002; 3:53 PM

The president of the organization that manages the Internet's global 
addressing system plans to retire next year.

At a closed-door meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
Numbers (ICANN) this weekend, Stuart Lynn announced that he will retire 
from his duties as ICANN president next March, when his first term is set 
to expire.

Lynn cited the stress and demands of his job as key factors influencing his 
decision not to seek reappointment by the ICANN board of directors.

"I'm 65. This is a 7-by-24 job and I've got to take care of myself and my 
family," Lynn said.

Lynn said he will continue to spearhead a controversial effort to reform 
ICANN, which he said he hopes to complete before his departure next year.

"I plan to put as much of my energy as I can into making that successful," 
he said.

At a meeting in Ghana in March, ICANN voted to restructure itself, in the 
process abandoning plans to establish a global mechanism to allow ordinary 
Internet users to directly elect some of ICANN's leaders.

Instead, the ICANN board of directors ordered an internal committee to 
develop a plan to reform the organization, drawing on a proposal drafted by 
Lynn.

Lynn's retirement announcement came at an ICANN board meeting in Garden 
City, N.Y., over the Memorial Day weekend that was convened to discuss the 
efforts of the internal committee charged with mapping the reform process.

A key issue is how the ICANN board is comprised. The board currently 
includes five members (out of 19) who were elected by the Internet public 
in a pilot election two years ago.

Lynn and other ICANN insiders have questioned the reliability of 
large-scale online elections, saying that they are vulnerable to "capture" 
by special interest groups. Lynn said that officials elected by world 
governments would do a more comprehensive job of representing public 
interests online.

Public interest groups and ICANN critics have responded that public 
elections are the only way to keep ICANN's internal bureaucracy in touch 
with the needs of ordinary Internet users.

The ICANN reform committee is slated to issue its final report on Friday.

Lynn's retirement announcement coincided with the resignation this weekend 
of ICANN Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Andrew McLaughlin.

McLaughlin, who has been with ICANN since 1999, will stay on as a part time 
adviser.

Sometime in the next month, ICANN will covene a search committee charged 
with finding Lynn's replacement, ICANN spokeswoman Mary Hewitt said today. 
The committee will search for candidates internally and from the Internet 
community at large, she said.
******************
Federal Computer Week
Identity crisis
Proposed legislation renews debate about value of a national ID card

Shane Ham looks forward to the day when he can make a credit card purchase, 
borrow a library book, board an airplane, enter his locked office building 
or pay a parking lot fee all with one card  his driver's license.

An encrypted biometric identifier would protect his license, making it 
utterly useless to anyone else  thief, computer hacker or dishonest waiter.

When Barry Steinhart contemplates the same card, he is aghast.

The idea is dangerous for America as a society, Steinhart said. "It would 
facilitate the creation of the surveillance society that Americans have 
always resisted," he said.

Before long, Steinhart fears, the card will be demanded at doctors' 
offices, gas stations and highway tollbooths. It will be required not only 
for boarding airplanes, but for boarding subways and buses as well.

Every time a police officer, a security guard or a store clerk scans the 
card, Steinhart worries it will add to a database that keeps track of where 
the holder has been and what he or she has been doing.

To Ham, a technology policy analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute, 
the multiuse, smart card driver's license offers a neat technological 
solution to the glaring weakness of current identification documents  and 
it throws in the benefit of promoting e-commerce and e-government.

To Steinhart, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the 
idea is simply a national ID card disguised as a high-tech driver's license 
and is likely to evolve into an "internal passport."

Debate over national ID cards dates back decades. The Reagan administration 
briefly considered them as a way to discourage illegal aliens from entering 
the country  an ID would be required to get a job. Then, during the 1990s, 
various versions of national ID cards were considered as ways to track 
"deadbeat dads," distribute health care benefits, control gun sales and 
reform Social Security.

All were rejected. "This idea has failed several other times," said Ari 
Schwartz, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

But since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, calls for national ID cards are 
being heard again. "This is an attempt to push national IDs under the 
national security banner," Schwartz said.

Proposals in Play

In January, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators 
launched the effort that now has the most momentum. AAMVA is urging 
Congress to require  and fund  the creation of more secure, nationally 
uniform driver's licenses. Driver's licenses, the association said, "have 
become the most requested form of identification in North America."

AAMVA wants all states to be required to adopt uniform and stricter 
standards by which states verify the identities of people applying for 
licenses. The association wants licenses to include a "unique identifier," 
such as a fingerprint or eye scan, as well as other security features. And 
it wants state databases to be linked so authorities in any state would 
have virtually instant access to the driving records of all other states.

Legislation introduced by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) would fulfill AAMVA's 
wishes and then some. Drafted with help from Ham, Moran's Driver's License 
Modernization Act of 2002 would require states to issue driver's licenses 
with embedded "smart chips" to hold encrypted biometric data, such as a 
digitized fingerprint or eye scan.

A driver's data would take up only a fraction of the chip memory. The extra 
space could be partitioned to hold additional applications, from credit 
card accounts and digital food stamps to voter registrations and fishing 
licenses. The license could also hold a digital signature, enabling license 
holders to verify their identities online.

That feature, the Progressive Policy Institute contends, "will jump-start 
the New Economy, making off-line and online transactions more convenient 
and more secure than ever before."

AAMVA asked for $100 million to fund the uniform license initiative, but 
Moran has proposed spending $315 million. He introduced his bill May 1 with 
Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), decrying that terrorists had been "able to weave 
into the fabric of American society" by fraudulently obtaining driver's 
licenses. He said his legislation "could make a profound difference in 
personal and national security."

Moran ensured that his legislation would prohibit using the new driver's 
licenses to track individuals. The bill contains "very strict controls for 
privacy," he said.

National ID or Not?

Ham, who explained the technical details of the bill, insisted, "This bill 
does not create a national ID card in any sense."

That's a claim the ACLU and others dispute. "It clearly establishes a 
national ID system," said Katie Corrigan, the ACLU's legislative counsel. 
And a committee of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences agrees.

In a report in April, the committee said the "AAMVA proposal to link state 
motor vehicle databases is a nationwide identity system. So is the recent 
proposal to create a traveler ID and database to expedite security checks 
at airports."

A "trusted traveler card" for frequent airline passengers is being 
developed by the Transportation Department. Like the smart driver's 
license, the trusted traveler card would contain a biometric identifier and 
personal information in digital form.

To qualify as trusted travelers, individuals would have to be thoroughly 
screened by law enforcement agencies to ensure that they pose no security 
threat. Then, with trusted traveler cards in hand, they would be allowed to 
move quickly through airport security checkpoints while other travelers are 
subjected to more thorough searches.

But shortening lines at airports and ensuring the identities of driver's 
license holders is just a fraction of what the ID cards and their 
associated computer systems can do, according to the National Academy of 
Sciences' Committee on Authentication Technologies and Their Privacy 
Implications.

Every time a driver's license or trusted traveler card is used, it could 
create another footprint in an electronic trail left by its owner, 
compiling a record of individuals' travel, purchases and other activities. 
The cards would permit "a tremendous amount of tracking," said Stephen 
Kent, the committee's chairman.

To Kent, that raises serious questions: "Under what circumstances would you 
be required to present the ID? Every time you use a credit card? When you 
pay for something with a check? When you use cash to make certain purchases?"

From a law enforcement perspective, the enormous amount of data that could 
be collected might open a vast front for investigation. Data mining could 
detect "abnormal or suspicious patterns of behavior that accompany the 
planning or execution of a terrorist act," the committee wrote.

An unusual series of gun purchases, atypical sales of explosive materials 
or suspicious money transfers uncovered by data mining could point police 
toward potential terrorists or criminals, Kent said. It could also, 
however, cast suspicion on entirely innocent activity. Such data collection 
and analysis would also constitute an enormous invasion of privacy that 
"the country as a whole would have to buy into," Kent said.

Personal Protections

To alleviate worries about high-tech driver's licenses, AAMVA officials are 
urging Congress to strengthen the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 
to prohibit private entities from collecting data from the smart licenses, 
according to Jay Maxwell, president of AAMVA.net, a telecommunications 
affiliate of the association.

For example, a bar might require patrons to swipe their smart driver's 
licenses through a card reader to verify that they are old enough to drink. 
But while the electronic card reader is checking the holder's age, it can 
also record name, address and other personal information. Using the card 
for age verification is fine, Maxwell said, but AAMVA wants to make 
collecting other information illegal.

AAMVA officials also want states to do a better job of verifying the 
accuracy of personal information license applicants submit before licenses 
are issued. That means more thorough background checks. Over time, making 
driver's licenses more secure could improve the reliability of other 
documents as well, Maxwell said. Social Security numbers, passports and 
other official documents are issued, in part, on the strength of 
identification provided by driver's licenses.

But today, driver's licenses can be bought on street corners and the 
Internet. "A tremendous amount of counterfeiting goes on now," Maxwell 
said. "The average slob in his basement can whip [up a driver's license] in 
a moment, and they do. We've got to close that down."

Still, the current driver's license debate never strays far from the 
subject of national security.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who also intends to introduce legislation 
based on AAMVA's plan, said better driver's licenses are needed to "help us 
seal some of the cracks in our internal security systems."

"We learned that some of the terrorists who were responsible for the Sept. 
11 tragedy carried driver's licenses issued to them by states that had 
extremely lax application processes," Durbin told Senate colleagues last 
winter.

"A driver's license is a key that opens many doors," Durbin said. "In 
America, anyone who can produce a valid driver's license can access just 
about anything. It can get you a motel room, membership in a gym, airline 
tickets, flight lessons and even the ability to buy guns, all without 
anyone ever questioning you about who you are. If you can produce a 
driver's license, we just assume that you are legitimate and you have a 
right to be here.

"My bill is about making the driver's license, which some consider a de 
facto national ID card, more reliable and verifiable as a form of personal 
identification than it is today."

Durbin's law would have AAMVA set standards that states would follow to 
verify identities before issuing driver's licenses. He would also give 
state motor vehicle officials limited access to Social Security 
Administration and Immigration and Naturalization Service databases to 
check identifications.

National Security

But will better ID cards really improve national security?

"No one really knows if a nationwide identity system could detect or deter 
terrorism," the National Academy of Sciences committee wrote. "Unless the 
database of suspects includes a particular individual, the best possible 
identity system would not lead to apprehension."

Better identification probably would not have prevented the Sept. 11 
attacks, conclude computer scientists from Computer Professionals for 
Social Responsibility, a public interest alliance.

Most of the terrorists were in the United States legally, most had no 
records to trigger suspicion of the FBI or other security agencies, and the 
terrorists apparently made no effort to hide their identities, the group 
said. Thus, verifying their identities would not have aroused suspicion or 
led to their arrests.

"Knowing the identity of people will not prevent crime," the group said.

Ironically, high-tech driver's licenses themselves could create new 
opportunities for crime, according to Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel 
for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Greater use of driver's 
licenses  not just as permits to operate motor vehicles, but for access to 
government and commercial services  "dramatically raises the incentives to 
forge or steal such credentials," Hoofnagle said.

"The economic incentive to counterfeit these cards could turn out to be 
much greater than the economic incentive to counterfeit U.S. currency," 
warns the National Academy of Sciences committee.

But there is another reason Moran's proposal to use chip-bearing smart 
cards as driver's licenses is alarming, Schwartz said. "Smart cards can be 
easily hacked." In May, two computer security researchers disclosed that 
they were able to retrieve protected information from smart cards using a 
camera flashgun and a microscope.

And there is a constant game of "hack and patch" played in the chip card 
industry, Schwartz said. Suppliers of satellite TV service, for example, 
have found that they must frequently switch smart cards to foil hackers. 
"It's one thing if a hacker is getting free satellite TV. But once 
someone's biometric is stolen, that's major trouble," he said.

Consider what would happen if one person's personal information was stolen 
and linked to another's biometric identifier. "It would be extremely 
difficult for victims of identity theft to prove their identity once a 
biometric other than theirs is associated with their driver's license," 
Hoofnagle said.

Licenses using magnetic stripes and other forms of memory, electronic chips 
and even biometric identifiers are all, to some degree, susceptible to 
forgery, the National Academy of Sciences committee said. Even if the cards 
themselves were foolproof, the large numbers of state employees needed to 
create the cards and maintain the databases would offer numerous 
opportunities for error and fraud.

But Kent said his committee is not ready to recommend against smart 
driver's licenses, trusted traveler cards or even national IDs. "We 
expressly did not take sides in this debate," he said, but called for much 
greater public scrutiny and a thorough engineering analysis of any proposed 
national ID system.

"We felt that the right thing to do was come up with set of questions," 
Kent said. Thus committee members, who include university faculty members 
and industry researchers and executives, raised dozens of questions about 
matters ranging from legal to technical concerns:

When must the ID be carried? When must it be presented to a government 
official? What happens if the holder refuses to present it?

May only the government use or request an ID? Under what circumstances? 
Which branches of the government? May any private person or commercial 
entity request presentation of an ID within the system? May any private 
person or commercial entity require presentation of an ID?

What happens if the ID has been lost or stolen? What if the infrastructure 
is down and the ID cannot be verified?

So far, there are few answers. "We felt at the time we were preparing the 
report that hardly any of the questions had been addressed," Kent said.
 ******************
Los Angeles Times
Ventura County to Go Live on the Web
Technology: Computer users will be able to view the weekly Board of 
Supervisors meetings. Only a handful of local governments in the state 
offer such a service.
By CATHERINE SAILLANT
TIMES STAFF WRITER

May 28 2002

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors meetings are going global.

Starting next week, anyone with an Internet connection can watch the five 
politicians hash out county policy, set sewer rates and, occasionally, 
trade insults.

Ventura County joins only a handful of local governments in California that 
have put live sessions on the Internet, said Matt Carroll, the county's 
chief information officer. The county may be particularly well-suited for 
the technology because it ranks No. 1 in the state for homes with 
high-speed Internet connections, Carroll said.

The board's weekly Tuesday meeting, which begins at 8:30 a.m., will be 
relayed live with sound and pictures.

"Maybe we should call it 'Tuesday Morning Live!'" Chief Deputy Executive 
Officer Bert Bigler said, joking.

A copy of each meeting will be available on the county's Web page for three 
months. That way, someone who wants information on a particular issue can 
download previous meetings to see what happened, Carroll said.

Meetings will also be available to the public on compact disc.

To find the link to live board meetings, go to the Web page, at 
www.countyofventura.org.

The public's first chance to check out a live meeting will be June 4.
******************
Federal Computer Week
Mixed messages

In March, a poll of 1,120 Americans by the research organization Gartner 
Inc. concluded that "U.S. citizens remain wary of a national ID 
system...even though virtually all U.S. citizens already have a de facto 
national ID in the form of a driver's license."

Researcher Richard Hunter said his poll revealed that 41 percent of 
Americans oppose the idea of national identification cards and only 26 
percent support it.

Yet just two weeks later, a poll by the American Association of Motor 
Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) found that 87 percent of Americans favor a 
nationwide plan to issue driver's licenses with biometric identifiers. And 
88 percent of those polled favor linking state motor vehicle databases so 
that law enforcement officials anywhere could check records on anyone with 
a license.

AAMVA concluded that the "American public overwhelmingly favors cooperative 
state and federal efforts" to replace current driver's licenses with 
high-tech licenses and a national system of linked driver databases.

Why such different findings?

The answers depend a lot on what questions are asked and how they are 
asked, according to the National Council on Public Polls. "Polls usually 
are not conducted for the good of the world. They are conducted for a 
reason  either to gain helpful information or to advance a particular 
cause," according to a council report.

Gartner researchers asked poll participants about "national ID cards" and 
"national ID databases" as part of its ongoing research into technology and 
national security, said Hunter, who headed the Gartner effort.

AAMVA, on the other hand, asked about a plan that "strengthens the current 
system of issuing a driver's license or ID card," closes "loopholes" in 
license issuing and makes licenses "more resistant to tampering and 
counterfeiting."

Gartner's findings:

* Opposition to a national ID database is particularly strong in the South, 
West and Midwest.

* Americans trust banks and credit card companies more than government 
agencies to manage databases of personal information.

* The agencies that Americans trust the least are state motor vehicle 
departments and the Internal Revenue Service.

* The public strongly supports the use of national ID cards for airport 
security and for foreigners seeking entry into the country.

* Overall, "people are quite suspicious of what governmental agencies might 
do" with ID cards and personal data.

AAMVA's findings:

* 65 percent of Americans believe it is too easy to obtain a false ID card, 
such as a fake driver's license.

* 77 percent favor modifying the current system of issuing driver's 
licenses and ID cards.

* 87 percent say driver's licenses should be made more resistant to 
tampering and counterfeiting by using biometrics such as fingerprints and 
holograms.

* 88 percent say states should be allowed to search one another's records 
to verify the identities and driving histories of those applying for 
driver's licenses.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
A critical difference

Talk of data mining and electronic tracking exasperate officials at the 
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

"The only thing we're interested in tracking is driver information," 
insisted Jay Maxwell, president of AAMVA.net, a telecommunications 
affiliate of the association.

"People confuse what the technology is capable of doing with what we're 
planning to do with the technology," he said. "If we don't design a system 
to track, it won't track."

More secure driver's licenses are not national ID cards, Maxwell said. He 
outlined several differences:

* National ID cards would be mandatory, but no one is required to get a 
driver's license. Licenses are issued only to those who can pass driving tests.

* When asked for an ID, people can use something other than a driver's 
license.

* A national ID, presumably, would have to be carried at all times. A 
driver's license can be revoked for poor driving, failure to pay child 
support, theft of gasoline and other offenses.

"The purpose we're pursuing is only tangentially related to terrorists," 
Maxwell said. "We're primarily interested in highway safety."

Smart cards with biometric identifiers and security features such as 
holograms would make driver's licenses harder to counterfeit, and 
interconnected driver databases would give police access to driving 
records. That would make it much harder for bad drivers to get new 
licenses, according to AAMVA. And better driver's licenses could reduce 
underage drinking and alcohol-related crashes, Maxwell said.

Those who fear electronic tracking should be more concerned about credit 
card companies, telephone companies, Internet businesses and other 
corporate entities that already collect, analyze, store and sell vast 
amounts of personal data, Maxwell said. "To a certain extent, we already 
have tracking with private-sector data warehouses."
********************
Federal Computer Week
Will privacy be protected?

Since the events of Sept. 11, some commentators and a few government 
officials have begun calling for the collection, analysis and use of ever 
more information on American citizens and others who are legally in the 
country. At first blush, this may seem reasonable. However, these efforts 
could represent a severe threat to individual privacy interests, depending 
on how they are implemented.

The chief protection for personal information collected by the U.S. 
government is the Privacy Act of 1974. Under this law, government agencies 
in general are prohibited from disclosing any "record" on any individual 
that is "contained in a system of records," including computerized 
information and databases, without that person's consent.

The law includes numerous procedural safeguards to ensure compliance and 
stipulates that any government employee who knowingly discloses private 
information in violation of the law is subject to criminal penalties.

Because the law is designed to protect individual privacy interests, 
agencies are allowed to release information they collect if they first 
delete from the records all identifying features that would enable the 
information to be associated with particular individuals.

The Privacy Act applies to many government contractors "when an agency 
provides by contract for the operation by or on behalf of the agency a 
system of records to accomplish an agency function." Moreover, the law 
explicitly states that the contractor's employees are subject to the same 
criminal penalties for improper disclosure of private information as are 
government personnel.

All of this sounds like a lot of protection for the personal information 
collected by the government and its agents. However, there are a number of 
exceptions, some of which are big enough to drive a truck through.

Most important is an exception that allows agencies to disclose personal 
information to anyone at any time for any "routine purpose." A "routine 
purpose" in this context is any purpose that is compatible with the one for 
which the information was collected in the first place, as long as the 
agency has previously published in the Federal Register a notice that 
information of that sort might be disclosed.

For example, a court recently found that the exception allowed an agent of 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to inform a condominium 
association that one of its members was requesting a gun dealer's license, 
because the disclosure was compatible with the bureau's need to verify 
information on the member's application.

Allowing federal agencies to collect and keep the kinds of extensive 
information on Americans that some people are advocating is not necessarily 
a clear solution. One thing is clear, however. If Congress is going to 
allow this, it should first strengthen the Privacy Act in order to ensure 
that the information is not used to the detriment of innocent Americans.
********************
Federal Computer Week
Great expectations
Editorial

The 6-month-old Transportation Security Administration has an opportunity 
to do what many agencies likely dream about: build an agency and an 
information technology infrastructure from scratch.

TSA is preparing to launch a $1 billion-plus contract to give it the latest 
and greatest technology it needs to equip and connect its far-flung offices 
and airports around the country.

Many agencies would love to toss out their legacy systems and aging 
applications and construct a gleaming new IT infrastructure that would 
propel them into the interactive world of e-government. What's more, TSA, 
with its homeland security role, is attracting procurement, technology, 
security and other experts from across government who want to make the 
agency's vision a reality.

But creating an agency from scratch under any circumstance is no easy task. 
Thousands of moving parts must come together.

Sharing information with other agencies still struggling to replace their 
aging systems will be a challenge. Add to that the pressure of the schedule 
that governs TSA's every move and its central role in securing air travel, 
and it's clear that the road ahead is a long one.

It appears, however, that TSA is on the right track. According to its most 
recent update to Congress, the agency is incorporating the items in the 
President's Management Agenda to make it a truly performance-based 
organization.

For instance, it will be able to automatically tie resource requirements 
and expenditures to performance and results. In accordance with the 
Government Performance and Results Act, TSA has laid out specific goals, 
such as improving customer satisfaction, and ways to measure progress. On 
April 25, the agency launched an initial system that collects performance 
data and presents the information via Web-based reports.

TSA must make sure this work continues. Agency officials can't let their 
desire for a quick fix distract them from doing it right the first time 
around. This is an opportunity that can't be missed.
*********************
Federal Computer Week
Weldon envisions virtual hearings

If one Congressman has his way, a virtual hearing room on Capitol Hill will 
help transform the legislative process.

Imagine this: The United States has suffered an embarrassing military 
blunder on a base in the Pacific Rim and members of Congress want answers. 
The House Armed Services Committee is demanding a hearing on the gaffe and 
has given the commander of the installation less than 24 hours to prepare a 
brief on the events.

Without hesitation, the commander, seated in his office halfway around the 
world, agrees and soon begins briefing the full committee  seated 
comfortably in a Capitol Hill hearing room.

Right now, this hearing scenario is impossible. But Rep. Curt Weldon 
(R-Pa.) has made it a priority for next year to create a virtual hearing 
room on Capitol Hill.

Speaking last week at the International Quality and Productivity Center's 
Network Centric Warfare 2002 conference, Weldon said the key to getting 
Congress' support for funding military transformation initiatives is 
educating members and making them adapt.

Most members of Congress do not understand network-centric warfare  which 
seeks to make data available to those who need it across the organization 
or on the battlefield  or consider it a priority because there is not a 
natural constituency for the concept as there is for building more 
warships, he said.

"Legacy systems have the attention of Congress; transformation doesn't," 
said Weldon, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's 
Military Procurement Subcommittee. "If we expect to win the battle of 
network-centric warfare, we have to have a transformation of the Congress 
as well."

To do that, Weldon said he'd like to see a virtual hearing room built in 
one of the congressional buildings on Capitol Hill. The room would be 
equipped with secure workstations for all the members and enable real-time 
programming to locations around the world.

For example, if the engineers at the Army's Communications-Electronics 
Command in Fort Monmouth, N.J., developed a revolutionary piece of 
technology and wanted to brief Congress on it, they could do so without 
having to come to Capitol Hill, Weldon said.

John Garstka, assistant director of concepts and operations in the Office 
of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said 
that he's seen similar capabilities, specifically videoconferencing and 
visualization tools, used in comparable settings and does not see why it 
couldn't work on Capitol Hill.

"I would not see any technological challenges," Garstka said, adding that 
politics and resources would be the main obstacles. "If Congress wanted to 
do it, they could fund it."

If funding is made available, other issues would need to be addressed, such 
as security and bandwidth capabilities.

When asked if Congress could do something similar, Fredric Lederer, 
chancellor professor of law at the College of William and Mary, said, "It's 
a cinch, but it depends how high-tech you want to go. The concept of 
[virtual] hearing rooms on Capitol Hill is a very fine idea because it 
allows Congress the opportunity to take testimony from those that can't 
travel and replicate things" that aren't easily done in Washington, D.C.

Still, security would be a major concern, especially for members wanting to 
conduct briefings on top-secret subjects.

"The key word is 'secure' as far as the setup goes," Lederer said, adding 
that the defense and intelligence communities have defined levels of 
security to meet, and even that might not be enough. "I'd assume there are 
subjects they couldn't ever talk about in that room."

If security and bandwidth issues were addressed, a virtual hearing room 
could be set up in about a week, he said.
*******************
Federal Computer Week
Anti-terror bills march forward

Congress is moving forward to put money and muscle behind programs to fight 
terrorism and protect the homeland.

The House passed a bill early this morning to provide $29 billion to fight 
terrorism at home and abroad. Billions would be showered on information 
technology projects to tighten security systems and fund such tools as 
devices that detect explosives at airports. The Senate is considering a 
bill with even more money  $31 billion.

The money is the second installment of anti-terrorism funding in fiscal 
2002 since the Sept. 11 attacks. Late last year, lawmakers approved $40 
billion for fiscal 2002. Lawmakers are working on other spending packages 
for fiscal 2003.

The House approved several other anti-terrorism measures, which still await 
Senate action, including:

* Approving a bioterrorism package that would give authorities more clout 
in preparations for and responding to public health emergencies.

* Authorizing $9.1 billion for the Customs Service to purchase and deploy 
anti-terrorism detection equipment along the Canadian and Mexican borders.

* Authorizing $100 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs to 
develop four new research centers, with at least one focused on biological 
terrorism, one on chemical and one on radiological threats.
********************
Federal Computer Week
FAA workers to get smart cards

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to equip all of its employees 
with smart cards as part of a new pilot program.

"This will be the second-largest agency rollout," said Bill Holcombe, 
director of e-business technologies at the General Services Administration. 
"That's significant. With these congressional mandates, if the FAA does it 
first, we'll all be watching very closely."

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal officials have pushed 
agencies to bring secure identification technologies into the public 
sector. The Aviation Security Act requires the Transportation Department to 
develop a universal transport worker ID system.

"The FAA is mirroring the pressure that all the government agencies have," 
said Randy Vanderhoof, president and chief executive officer for the Smart 
Card Alliance, a nonprofit association of 185 firms that promotes the use 
of smart card technology.

The Defense Department began handing out the Common Access Card, a secure, 
multi-application smart card, in October 2001. Delaying its target delivery 
by a year, DOD now hopes to get the cards to each of its 3.5 million 
workers by October 2003.

Meanwhile, the FAA is getting ready to launch its own smart card program. 
Although the agency is much smaller than DOD, with about 51,400 employees, 
it will serve as a model for the entire Transportation Department, 
including the high-profile Transportation Security Administration.

The FAA expects to release a request for proposals for the pilot in the 
next couple weeks, said Tammy Jones, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The cards initially will have holograms and eventually will include some 
type of biometric technology, said Jones, adding that workers will use them 
to gain physical and systems access. The FAA anticipates benefits that 
include standardizing the process for handling badges, reducing the number 
of IDs issued and being able to deactivate cards when employees leave, she 
said.

A top priority is ensuring interoperability throughout DOT, said Dan Mehan, 
FAA's chief information officer, speaking May 22 at the Information 
Technology Association of America's E-Security and Homeland Defense 
conference in New York City.

GSA already has developed smart card interoperability specifications. A 
final version will be out this summer, Holcombe said.

"We think it's critical agencies follow the specifications to avoid ending 
up with proprietary systems that can't talk to each other," he said. "The 
government has a great foundation for them to depart from."

DOD, which began its program before the specifications were out, said it 
would align with GSA's specifications, he added.

The FAA "will be wise to follow that standard," Vanderhoof said. "The 
challenge is very significant. The issue is to marry the policy decision 
along with the technology decision so the architecture is workable within 
the way the government does business."******************
Federal Computer Week
DOD tech pushed for first responders

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) included an amendment in this year's Defense 
authorization bill that would enable the nation's firefighters and other 
emergency response personnel to use DOD-developed technologies to help them 
do their jobs better and safer.

Speaking May 22 at the International Quality and Productivity Center's 
Network Centric Warfare 2002 conference in Arlington, Va., Weldon said he 
didn't see why a firefighter shouldn't have access to the same thermal 
imaging unit or other tools that soldiers in the battlefield use if 
civilian agencies could use them to save lives.

"Why is the life of a firefighter less important than the life of a 
soldier?" Weldon asked.

To help put appropriate military-driven technologies in the hands of 
civilian personnel who need them, Weldon said he would like to establish a 
National Technology Transfer Center. (The center would be different than 
the organization of the same name that is designed to help government 
contractors transfer their technology into the commercial market.)

The amendment calls for DOD to find "an independent, nonprofit, 
technology-oriented entity that has demonstrated the ability to facilitate 
the transfer of defense technologies, developed by both the private and 
public sectors, to aid federal, state and local first responders."

Specifically, it calls for DOD to establish an outreach program in 
coordination with the Interagency Board for Equipment Standardization and 
Interoperability and first responders to develop an awareness of available 
technology and equipment to support crisis response.

"The idea is to take cutting-edge military technology and transfer it to 
the civilian community," Weldon told Federal Computer Week, adding that the 
focus will be on firefighters, emergency medical workers and other first 
responders because DOD has already begun sharing with the law enforcement 
community.

Weldon said he would like to see the center serve as a "central operations 
center" and run by a nonprofit organization. He intends to meet next week 
with representatives of one such organization, Battelle, to discuss the 
project.

The amendment calls for the secretary of Defense to enter into an agreement 
with a technology partner by Jan. 15, 2003, and to submit a report on the 
actions taken and strategic plan developed to the House and Senate Armed 
Services Committees by March 15, 2003.
********************
Federal Computer Week
Intrusion-detection net revived

The General Services Administration and Carnegie Mellon University this 
fall will start testing a new technology to analyze and report on patterns 
in the cyber intrusion information gathered across government, an idea that 
was first floated and eventually sunk two years ago.

The data analysis capability (DAC) being developed by the CERT Coordination 
Center for GSA's Federal Computer Incident Response Center will analyze 
data already being collected by intrusion- detection systems at many 
agencies, said Sallie McDonald, assistant commissioner for information 
assurance and critical infrastructure protection at GSA.

Those systems typically report on unusual or unauthorized network activity 
that might indicate that someone is attempting to attack or break into 
agency systems. The DAC will gather data from the sensors or from agencies' 
own analyses at a central point within FedCIRC for identification of 
potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

That analysis will then be shared with participating agencies, along with 
steps to protect against, react to or recover from any incidents, McDonald 
said. FedCIRC is the overarching source for security incident warnings and 
analysis for all civilian agencies.

The idea of a governmentwide system for analyzing intrusion-detection data 
first emerged in 1999 as part of the Clinton administration's National Plan 
for Information Systems Protection.

Privacy concerns raised by advocacy groups and Congress after erroneous 
reports that the analysis would be performed on private-sector networks as 
well as government networks forced GSA and the administration to withdraw 
the proposed Federal Intrusion Detection Network in 2000.

Even as more agencies turn to vendors for intrusion data analysis within 
their own networks, this type of centralized analysis capability is a 
necessary tool for raising the entire government's information security 
posture, said Amit Yoran, a former director of the Defense Department 
CERT's Vulnerability Assessment and Assistance Program.

And it is technically feasible to analyze the vast amount of information 
that the DAC will have to handle from all of the civilian agencies, said 
Yoran, co-founder of Riptech, a managed security services company. Riptech 
handles approximately 2 terabytes of incident information every day from 
all of its government and industry clients, he said.

As an incentive for agencies, GSA will allow participants in the pilot 
project to use the technology to analyze their own incident information in 
real time, McDonald said. That analysis will then be sent to FedCIRC to map 
the governmentwide incident and vulnerability status.

If the pilot project is successful, the DAC is expected to reach full 
operating ability in fiscal 2003, she said.
************************
Federal Computer Week
Industry opposes security standards

The private sector has signaled its opposition to language requiring the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop benchmark 
security standards for federal agencies. The wording was added May 17 to a 
bill passed by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Industry representatives said last week, however, that they hope to work 
with the committee to resolve their opposition to the amendment to the 
Cyber Security Research and Development Act (S. 2182), which seeks to 
improve federal information security.

Working through NIST and the National Science Foundation, the act would 
inject more than $900 million into security research, grants, training and 
education during five years. A companion bill passed the full House in 
February.

Educators and researchers have often called for such rates of federal 
funding in recent years, and researchers in industry and academia have 
praised the act since it was introduced in the Senate this year and in the 
House at the end of last year.

The amendment, offered by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John Edwards 
(D-N.C.), increased the funding level. But it also added a requirement for 
NIST to establish benchmark security standards for federal agencies 
developed in conjunction with industry, academia, the Office of Management 
and Budget and the CIO Council. Under the amendment, those standards would 
be reviewed and updated at least every six months.

The standards would be "a baseline minimum security configuration for 
specific computer hardware or software components, an operational procedure 
or practice, or organizational structure that increases the security of the 
information technology assets of a department or agency," according to the 
amendment.

Other requirements in the amendment include reports by the National Academy 
of Sciences and the CIO Council (see box).

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Information Technology 
Association of America (ITAA) oppose the idea of standards. According to 
both organizations' statements, establishing such standards would hinder 
efforts to quickly respond to changing security threats and could possibly 
spill over to impose standards on the private sector.

Officials for both organizations said they are working closely with the 
committee staff, and BSA officials are "optimistic that we can get 
something resolved before the bill gets to the floor," said Jeri Clausing, 
director of public relations for policy at the alliance.

However, only the complete removal of the standards language would be 
acceptable to ITAA, said Shannon Kellogg, vice president for information 
security programs at ITAA.

"The bill as originally proposed is something that we've been supportive 
of," Kellogg said. "But anything that's in the bill that focuses on the 
standards area is unacceptable."

The committee's intention was not to set technology-specific standards that 
could block innovation or new technologies, according to a staff member who 
asked not to be named.

If agencies were not already paying attention to the problem of 
accountability and standards, and were not already working internally to 
address those issues, then congressional action might help raise awareness, 
said Harris Miller, president of ITAA.

But since agencies are in fact taking action on their own, any standards 
will only cause confusion or harm, he said. Any accountability measures 
should focus more on performance, and such measures are already included in 
the bills to reauthorize the Government Information Security Reform Act of 
2000, Miller said.

***

Reporting on standards

An amendment to the Cyber Security Research and Development Act submitted 
by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) would mandate several 
studies to determine whether requiring agencies to adopt benchmark security 
standards would benefit or harm the agencies

.
For one report, the National Academy of Sciences would examine the impact 
of the security standards on agencies. That study, which would have to be 
completed within three months after the bill becomes law, would look at the 
following issues:

* The extent to which an agency's security would be improved by the 
adoption of benchmark standards.

* The operational benefits, costs and consequences of adopting such standards.

* The effect of agencies' different security needs on determining and 
adopting standards.

The CIO Council would be required to submit a report to Congress within 
three years providing details on three issues:

* The status of the adoption of benchmark standards at each department and 
agency.

* The costs associated with such adoption.

* Any barriers to adoption and recommendations for overcoming such barriers.
***********************
Federal Computer Week
To protect and serve
Web content management software protects servers against hackers

Paranoia can be a healthy trait when it comes to Web security. Most Web 
sites, including those at federal agencies and departments, are far more 
vulnerable than even most Webmasters believe.

Hackers recently compromised a system hosting thousands of "parked" domains 
that, instead of showing the usual "Under Construction" banner, featured an 
image of a mutilated rag doll along with a taunting message indicating that 
the site had been pirated.

It could happen to you. A recent study by Gartner Inc. predicted that 50 
percent of all small to midsize enterprises would be hacked by 2003, with 
almost 60 percent of those not even knowing they had been hacked.

The increasing vulnerability can be attributed to a rise in hacking 
activity, but it is also caused by the ever-increasing complexity of Web 
sites today. Not so long ago, manual methods could be employed, such as 
looking at each piece of content and repairing it as needed. The complexity 
of today's Web sites  including numerous pages, images and associated 
features  make this manual method ineffective.

Fortunately, there is a solution: Lockstep Systems Inc.'s WebAgain Version 
2.5. By acting as an intermediate server, the software ensures that content 
is staged and preserved before deployment on the Web site. At configurable 
intervals, the staging server will query the Web site and compare files for 
differences. Should one be found, the contents and/or files are captured 
and quarantined on the Lockstep server, and the original content is 
restored. The sofwware puts an entry in a log and sends a message to the 
administrator.

Although many products on the market today, such as Tripwire for Web Pages 
from Tripwire Inc. and Watchguard AppLock from Watchguard Technologies 
Inc., offer similar protection, only WebAgain is able to tout self-healing 
capabilities via content restoration without human intervention.

In addition to protecting against deliberate hacker attacks, the solution 
is a great way to eliminate the threat of accidental content corruption by 
well-meaning but perhaps technologically deficient employees. Moreover, it 
also serves as a wonderful audit trail for all changes made to the Web 
site. What makes it even better is that, should you decide to implement it, 
the only change in process is that you publish to the WebAgain server 
rather than directly to your Web server.

New features in this release include increased security via support for 
virtual private network tunnels and virtual directories, faster 
performance, a Japanese version and compliance with Microsoft Corp. Windows XP.

Installation and setup of the application was easy and straightforward. 
Upon completion of installation, the software immediately guided me to the 
Web site management wizard, where I quickly configured the solution to work 
with a simple Web site consisting of three main pages and six subpages. 
Within this interface, I defined the way the content would be transferred 
(FTP, shared folder, etc.), whether it would sit behind a firewall and the 
number of times the site would be tested.

By making adjustments such as simple price changes on static pages, 
replacing images and putting additional files on the Web server, I was able 
to create a nice test bed from which to operate. Because I had previously 
set the frequency of scans to 15 minutes, I needed to wait that amount of 
time to see whether my changes were recognized.

As expected, the solution caught my changes, informing me of each 
infraction via my selected method, e-mail. Should I have wanted, a Simple 
Network Management Protocol event could also have been generated and 
transmitted to an administrator.

During testing, I found very little to complain about. The only concern is 
that the server runs as a Windows NT service, making it less than ideal for 
agencies that are pure Unix shops.

Aside from that, I found WebAgain to be an excellent tool, and I highly 
recommend it. Its low price, ease of use and extra protection make it a 
must-have tool in any situation where content security is important to 
Webmasters.

Fielden is a freelance writer based in St. Paul, Minn. He can be reached at 
tfielden@xxxxxxxxxx
*********************
Federal Computer Week
Wireless on the battlefield
Commercial products not always best security solution for Defense Department

Concerns over battery life, the need for ruggedized machines and 
ever-present bandwidth issues are among the many obstacles that the Defense 
Department faces as it attempts to outfit soldiers with reliable, 
interoperable wireless communications on the battlefield.

But securing those communications is still far and away the biggest 
challenge the department must overcome. And despite a push to use 
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions to do it, those solutions may not 
be the best answer, according to some academic and industry experts.

Marine Corps Lt. Col. J.D. Wilson, team leader for tactical wireless in the 
program manager's office for communications systems, said the military has 
a "burning need" for tactical wireless communications and asked the private 
sector to develop the technologies necessary to make that happen. He spoke 
at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association information 
technology conference earlier this month in Quantico, Va.

The problem for the military in using COTS solutions on the battlefield is 
that the solutions are being used in environments  and exposed to 
threats  for which the developers never planned, said John McHugh, senior 
member of the technical staff at the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie 
Mellon University in Pennsylvania. "The information I've seen says we're in 
a lot of trouble," McHugh said.

Eugene Spafford, director of the Center for Education and Research in 
Information Assurance and Security at Indiana's Purdue University and a 
participant in a separate forum on wireless security in Washington, D.C., 
agreed. The issues surrounding security for wireless communications, he 
said, connect to a higher-level issue in government procurement: an 
over-reliance on COTS products.

Spafford said that although COTS products may be inappropriate for certain 
situations, the fact that they are more affordable than the alternatives 
means the government will buy them anyway.

"It's a symptom rather than a feature," he said. "Why would you use a COTS 
product for a high-reliance, high-risk environment" if it wasn't developed 
for that purpose? Instead, DOD should use a long-range architecture plan to 
accommodate systems on the battlefield, rather than buying COTS solutions 
and altering them, Spafford said.

Wilson said the Marine Corps uses traditional radios to send encrypted 
"data grams" through modems on voice networks to reach a destination, but 
would like to move to a wireless, peer-to-peer environment that would also 
enable multicasting and avoid "manual intervention."

The solution may come through DOD's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), 
which is essentially a computer with a radio front end. The 
software-programmable, multiband, multiuse radio will permit communications 
across DOD services, something that has been difficult or impossible 
because of radio frequency problems, Wilson said.

DOD is requesting $172 million for JTRS in fiscal 2003, up from $165 
million in fiscal 2002.

Still, there will be a time in the near future when traditional radios work 
side-by-side with software-programmable models, "and we'll need to be able 
to route and secure them properly," Wilson said.

Stephen Orr, a systems engineer for Cisco Systems Inc.'s DOD northeast 
division, said that even if industry comes up with a new form of encryption 
or other security device, it usually takes more than two years to get DOD 
approval.

That lag time means that hackers and other adversaries probably have 
figured out a way to beat it, McHugh said.

***

Solution seekers

A recent wireless forum brought together leading security experts from 
government, industry and academia to identify leading security problems 
associated with wireless proliferation and propose solutions.

The forum, "A Roadmap for a Safer Wireless World," was closed to the 
public, but the resulting recommendations will be released as a report 
"definitely by the end of June, if not before," said David Black, security 
technologies manager for Accenture, who moderated the event. "It's not 
necessarily going to be a consensus, but it will identify the major themes."

Accenture and the Center for Education and Research in Information 
Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Indiana's Purdue University sponsored 
the event, held in Washington, D.C.

In addition to representatives from Accenture and CERIAS, roundtable 
participants included the Justice Department's Computer Crime Unit, the 
National Security Agency, the universities of Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
AT&T Labs, Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.
***********************
Federal Computer Week
E-gov security gateway in works

The General Services Administration this fall plans to take bids on the 
development of one of the linchpins of the Bush administration's vision for 
e-government: a security gateway that would provide a single point at which 
users can sign on to access services that require passwords or other means 
of authentication.

GSA is the lead agency on the e-Authentication initiative, one of two 
crosscutting initiatives under the administration's e-government strategy.

The initiative aims to provide whatever level of authentication is deemed 
appropriate  a password, online digital certificate or smart card  for 
services offered as part of the other 22 e-government initiatives. The 
other initiatives include services such as online grant applications and 
electronic disaster benefits payments.

Not everyone or every service will require authentication. Many people 
visit Web sites only to search for information and others may choose to 
authenticate themselves only when they get to the site where the 
application resides, said Sallie McDonald, GSA's assistant commissioner for 
information assurance and critical infrastructure protection.

"But if you want to engage in a transaction with government, and you want 
to authenticate at the gateway, then you can do that and only authenticate 
yourself once," she said.

Most of the initiative services will be accessed through the FirstGov Web 
portal, and GSA plans to release a request for proposals (RFP) in September 
for an authentication gateway that will be attached to FirstGov, according 
to McDonald, speaking last week at the E-Security and Homeland Defense 
conference in New York City.

Before GSA issues the RFP, Mitretek Systems Inc. will define the 
requirements and start developing a pilot program, said Steve Timchak, 
program manager for the e-Authentication initiative.

Citizens, vendors and government employees will provide their 
authentication when they sign on through FirstGov. A password will provide 
access to services with relatively low security requirements. For every 
higher level of authentication, a broader range of services will be 
available, McDonald said.

The gateway takes authentication technology to a height that few have tried 
to reach before, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS 
Institute, a security education and consulting organization.

"This is an example of the government leading by example," Paller said. 
"The best part of this is it's a demo [of authentication technology] and 
it's a wonderful use of FirstGov."

For the gateway, GSA will analyze the security risks associated with four 
of the initiatives that are the farthest along to identify what 
authentication might be needed, Timchak said.

GSA will perform the analysis using the Operationally Critical Threat, 
Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE) tool developed by the CERT 
Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

OCTAVE is intended for use on mature systems, so GSA is waiting for the 
center to modify the tool for use on systems during the 
requirements-development phase, Timchak said. The modifications should be 
completed within the next month.

***

E-Authentication timeline

Now: Mitretek Systems Inc. is determining technical options.

June 18: General Services Administration briefs vendors.

Summer: Request for information released.

September: Request for proposals released.

Sept. 30: Mitretek gateway pilot project reaches initial operating capability.

Sept. 30, 2003: Vendor prototype gateway reaches final operating capability.
**************************
Government Computer News
DOD adjusts its plans on hiring foreign workers
By Dawn S. Onley

The Defense Department has rethought plans to disqualify foreign nationals 
from jobs that include handling unclassified but sensitive IT.

If would-be workers pass background investigations and get letters of 
approval from the agency chiefs seeking to employ them, the department will 
allow the hires to proceed, senior DOD managers said.

Defense agency chiefs are encouraged to hire U.S. citizens first for 
sensitive IT positions, said Pete Nelson, DOD's deputy director for 
personnel security. Foreign nationals can still work on systems within DOD 
provided they are "properly vetted for the material to which they have 
access," he said.

When DOD issued its no-foreigners proposal in March, some industry 
officials expressed concern that the rule would call for foreign employees 
to be removed from positions in which they would handle sensitive but 
unclassified information. Such data includes personnel data and information 
on weapons systems.

"There is no per se rule to disqualify foreign nationals other than to 
encourage use of U.S. citizens in [sensitive but unclassified] positions, 
but that is ultimately up to the system owner or agency head," Nelson said.

He said DOD would require U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals to 
pass background investigations to gain access to secure data.

It is still unclear how many contractors would be affected by the proposal.

DOD expects to issue a final policy by September.
*******************
Government Computer News
Senate awards $100 million IT services contract
By Jason Miller

The Senate Sergeant of Arms recently awarded Signal Corp. a $100 million 
contract for systems services at all Senate offices in Washington and at 
450 field offices across the country.

The Fairfax, Va., company will provide help desk support, IT installation 
and maintenance, and hardware and software products. The contract, which 
has one base year and five one-year options, begins June 1 and covers 9,000 
desktop computers and 1,000 servers nationwide.

Signal's team includes Hewlett-Packard Co. and Interstate Relocation 
Service Inc. of Springfield, Va. HP will install new equipment and provide 
on-site technical support. Interstate Relocation Service will supply 
inventory and transportation services.

The Senate might expand the contract to include LAN design, threat and 
vulnerability analyses, network performance monitoring, security and 
systems administration, Signal officials said.
**********************
BBC
Being wired helps you connect


Quite the opposite, argues Professor Keith Hampton, an expert in 
cyber-sociology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The social impact of new communications technologies is a greater number 
of social ties, more diverse social ties, more support," he said.

"It doesn't cut into your phone communication. It doesn't interfere with 
your face-to-face contact. It just increases communication," Professor 
Hampton told the BBC programme, Go Digital.

Binding communities

Various studies have suggested that people who spend time online are more 
vulnerable to unhappiness and loneliness.

One report by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggested that even 
spending an hour a week surfing the internet could increase depression.

But in his research on the relationship between technology, social 
relationships and the urban environment, Professor Hampton has found that 
the internet can serve to bind a community together.

"It's all garbage," he said of studies labelling net users as depressed or 
lonely individuals.

He argues that the key difference between his research and other studies is 
that he sees the internet as part of people's everyday lives.

"The internet is just another communication medium that any of us use to 
communicate with friends and family," he said.

"If you look at it as just another technology that provides you with access 
to people, you see that communication online leads to more communication, 
in person or on the phone."

Unique neighbourhood

Professor Hampton is a pioneer of cyber-sociology.

For his doctorate, he spent two years as a member of the Netville project, 
a wired neighbourhood in the suburbs of Toronto.

The community was built from the ground up with a high-speed computer 
network - offering fast internet access - a videophone, an online jukebox, 
online health services, local discussion forums and entertainment and 
educational software.

Professor Hampton found that living in a wired community encouraged greater 
community involvement, strengthened relationships with neighbours and 
family, and helped maintain ties with friends and relatives living farther 
away.

"Netville was a unique situation," he said. "It allowed people to form 
social relationships when they moved in and solve all sorts of problems you 
encounter when you move to a new suburban community.

"When you move into a new home, one of the first questions is where can I 
find a babysitter, where can I find the best pizzeria? All these questions 
were answered online with information by existing residents."

Ironically, once the research project was over, the companies that had 
provided the technology that went into people's homes decided to take it 
all out.

Faced with the loss of their technology infrastructure, the residents 
pulled together to replace what they had lost.

"They now all have cable modem access and they have replicated their 
neighbourhood e-mail list," said Professor Hampton.

"These were the most important technologies to them - broadband access to 
the internet and simple e-mail technology that allows you to communicate 
with your neighbours."
********************
BBC
Turkey tightens controls on the net


Controversial new controls on the internet in Turkey have provoked protests 
from websites which fear they may be driven out of existence.
The new measures are part of a new wide-ranging broadcasting law which 
place the internet under the same legislation as the rest of Turkey's media 
for libel and an offence called "lying news".

Under the new law, websites could face having to be officially registered 
and send copies of their material to the authorities.

The measures have been condemned by much of the internet sector, from 
service providers to users, who warn that the whole future of the net in 
Turkey could be at stake.

Impact on internet sector

Savas Unsal, Managing Director of Superonline, Turkey's largest internet 
provider, is furious, describing it as a "dirty law".

"There's not going to be a certain direction, no freedom of speech and this 
is going to impact the local content and local hosting services and 
eventually the whole internet sector," he said.

"They might easily put me and my chairman out of business."

With around a million subscribers, Superonline has been part of the 
country's rapidly growing internet sector.

Many burgeoning Turkish internet websites carry criticism of ministers, 
including material newspapers dare not publish.

But Dr Oktay Vural, Minister of Transport and Communications, insists the 
measures are not intended to stiffle sites.

"There are no restrictions. It is only that there have been several things 
which have been forbidden by the law," he said.

"So if these actions were taken through the internet, then the regulations 
will cover for those actions only. We cannot be an eye in the chatrooms; 
that is not the aim of that law.

"Let's see what happens. I don't think it will affect the internet. I think 
time will show the truth," he said.

Media controls

The new law puts the internet under the control of Turkey's Supreme Radio 
and Television Board.

According to Savas Unsal, that opens the door to the internet facing the 
similar restrictions as the rest of the country's media.

"A judge can tell you to bring a copy of your website whenever you update 
it to be approved by the local authorities," he said.

The law is unclear what it actually covers. According to Fikret Ilkiz, 
media lawyer for the Turkish daily newspaper, Cumhuriyet, internet 
providers could be liable for prosecution for anything written, even in 
chatrooms.

He also argues that the notion of "lying news" is too ambiguous.

"The biggest problem is that the law is very unclear. The law forbids fake 
or lie news. But what is this?" he asked.

"The law doesn't define what it is. It just says it's forbidden. And this 
could apply to chatrooms.

"The way the law is now, it will be defined by many court cases. For now, 
there is great uncertainty. No one knows what is legal and what is not. It 
is chaos."

'Ambiguous law'

Reaching a definition of the law by court cases could well be an expensive 
process for internet providers and users, with fines of up to $195,000 for 
each offence.

But some critics of the law argue it is deliberately ambiguous. Much of 
Turkey's legislation governing the control of the media is characterised by 
catch all phrases.

The internet until now has been largely exempt from such legislation. Such 
freedom has allowed it to become a powerful forum for criticising politicians.

Many journalists publish articles on the internet which neither television 
nor newspapers dare print, due in part to existing legislation.

The European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, has strongly condemned 
such legislation. This latest law has also drawn the ire of the EU, with 
officials calling for its repeal.

That could well happen because Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has 
sent the law to the Constitutional Court, accusing it of breaching the 
constitution.

The court could take up to a year to make a ruling. In the meantime, the 
law remains in force.

Internet slowdown

The uncertainty created by the new legislation could prove most damaging of 
all to Turkey.

Professor Haluk Sahin, who teaches media studies at Istanbul's Bilgi 
University, warns that Turkey risks repeating the mistakes of the past

"A lot people in Turkey realize that Turkey must not make the mistake of 
200 years ago," he says.

"Some 200 years ago, the Ottoman Empire missed the Industrial Revolution. 
Now, we believe that the internet, and computers in general, provide us 
with a second chance.

"A new train has arrived. Whether we embark on that train or not is up to 
us and the younger generations seem determined to do that.

"Unfortunately, the older generations and the politicians do not seem to be 
of the same mind," he said.

You can hear more about how Turkey is controlling the internet on the BBC 
World Service programme, Go Digital.
*******************
USA Today
Schools taking high-tech approach

WASHINGTON (AP)  When architects turned a former Safeway grocery store into 
a public charter school in 1999, they ditched the dusty chalkboards.

Instead, each of the 17 classrooms at the SouthEast Academy of Scholastic 
Excellence got a glossy whiteboard and set of colored markers  to the 
delight of special education teacher JoAnne Anthony.

"I love it because I have allergies and I don't like chalk," said Anthony. 
"I don't like it on my hands and on my clothes."

While the old-fashioned chalkboard remains a fixture in most U.S. 
classrooms, school designers have all but eliminated it.

Taking a page from the business world, they're outfitting most new and 
remodeled schools with whiteboards, in some cases installing high-tech 
devices that turn them into virtual computer screens.

Teachers can surf the Internet in front of class, save and print out 
lessons or even create animated diagrams that students can review on a home 
computer.

"It's helped us to teach the way we've always wanted the class to go," said 
Albert Throckmorton, director of curriculum technology at Episcopal High 
School in Alexandria, Va.

Even before such gee-whiz devices came along, educators say, the chalkboard 
was on the way out, killed by computers. Chalk is compressed dust, after 
all, and dust is the enemy of computers. To a lesser degree, schools also 
worry about dust allergies.

Nancy Myers, an Indiana school planner, said that people in her firm "don't 
even consider chalkboards in most cases" and that schools like the modern, 
businesslike look of whiteboards.

The dust-and-computers problem might be a bit overblown, she said.

"The truth is, unless the computers are sitting right on top of the 
chalkboards, there isn't going to be an issue."

First used widely in the United States in the mid-1800s, the schoolroom 
chalkboard was itself revolutionary, replacing the handheld slate as 
schools began educating large numbers of students, said Peggy Kidwell, a 
curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

While the popularity of plastic-coated whiteboards took off in the 1990s, 
these days most are actually made of the same stuff as chalkboards  a thin 
coating of porcelain over steel. Chalkboards get a satin finish so the 
chalk will bite, while whiteboards get a glossy finish.

A few companies have turned whiteboards into oversize computer screens. One 
company sells a $10,000 plasma screen that teachers can use to project 
images from a computer  the teacher's hand becomes the computer mouse on 
the touch-sensitive screen.

For about $3,500, schools can buy a device that allows teachers to draw on 
a board, hit a button and print copies on a laser printer  or save text and 
drawings to a hard drive or Web server.

An even cheaper device simply sticks to a whiteboard with suction cups, 
each of its four markers fitted with a computer stylus. The mimio Xi, 
manufactured by Massachusetts-based Virtual Ink Corp., saves words or 
drawings stroke-by-stroke into a computer file, allowing teachers to create 
a digital movie of a lesson. Students can download and review it using a 
VCR-like program.

At Episcopal, a coed boarding school near Washington, Throckmorton bought 
four mimio Xis for $1,500. He said students are now "liberated to 
participate and understand more in class" because they know they can replay 
the lesson  especially helpful in understanding mathematical proofs, 
supply-and-demand curves, cell diagrams and electron cycles, he said.

"In the classes where the board is used frequently, especially in our 
science department, we've discovered that students are more interested in 
participating in class and not be so bound to the manual task of note 
taking," he said. A few schools use a microphone so the teacher's comments 
accompany the animation.

Even with such advances, said Henry Ruggiero, president of New York 
Blackboard of NJ, a major blackboard manufacturer, teachers often plead 
with him not to replace their chalkboards. The grit offers just enough 
resistance for writing.

"It seems to help the children with their handwriting," he said.

Indeed, a common complaint of whiteboards is that they're so slick students 
end up writing faster than their brains can think.

Ohio industrial designer Sandy Kate said many teachers simply like the feel 
of chalk. "I think it's just one of those things," she said. "People get 
used to something and don't want to give it up."

Kate gives chalkboards five years at most  making for a brighter, whiter 
future, but without the simple joy of clapping dusty erasers on the side of 
the school building.

"I do wonder what's going to happen to all the youth who were sent forward 
to clean erasers," Kidwell said. "That always seemed like a good use of 
youthful energy."
***************
MSNBC
FBI wants more surveillance power
Report: Bureau asked telecom firms to change networks
By Ben Heskett

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has asked telecommunications companies 
to make changes in their state-of-the-art networks to make it easier for 
the FBI to conduct surveillance, according to a report.

      THE FBI, WHICH hopes to gain the same access to voice communications 
that it has gained with e-mail through use of its controversial Carnivore 
snooping technology, made the request in a 32-page document sent to telecom 
companies earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
       The FBI's request was in the works before the Sept. 11 terrorist 
attacks, according to the report, but those events have lent new credence 
to the issue. Expanded law enforcement capabilities have been a priority 
since the attacks, with the new Patriot Act giving law enforcement broad 
powers amid criticism from civil libertarians.
      The request encompasses both land-based and wireless networks, 
potentially including companies such as Qwest Communications International 
and AT&T Wireless, for example.
       The FBI is concerned about technological developments in networks 
and their ability to keep up with accompanying surveillance techniques, the 
report said.
       In recent years, a new wave of communications based on "packet" 
technologies has changed the way telecom companies transmit phone calls, 
allowing a voice call to be broken down into numerous bits and reassembled 
at its destination. That makes surveillance and tapping of such 
transmissions more difficult.
       The FBI's request was made under the 1994 Communications Assistance 
to Law Enforcement legislation, which requires phone companies to tweak 
their networks so authorities can conduct surveillance.
***********************
 MSNBC
Eminem CD shows piracy patterns
By John Borland

May 28  Well before rapper Eminem's new record hit store shelves Sunday, it 
had already become the second-most-played CD in computer drives around the 
world, according to one closely watched measure. That figure comes care of 
Gracenote, a company whose window into computer users' listening habits 
offers a sobering look at the changing patterns of Internet piracy and 
traditional music bootlegging.
      GRACENOTE MAINTAINS A huge online database that can identify CDs by 
calling up the exact list and length of songs. Most of the popular music 
software programs for computers, such as Winamp or Windows Media Player, 
check this database when a new CD is put into a computer, allowing the 
software to tell a listener the name of the CD and its song titles.
       Generally, this high-tech "Top 40" holds few surprises. But last 
week, Eminem's "The Eminem Show," which was yet to be released, cracked the 
chart at No. 2. Although pirated versions of the album were widely 
acknowledged to be online in MP3 format, Gracenote's figures look only at 
physical CDs, not downloads played on a computer.
       "It's pretty safe to say that it's all CD-Rs that people have 
bought off the streets or burned from friends," said Gracenote CEO David 
Hyman. "This is the first time anything unreleased has shown up at No. 2."
       Eminem's label, Vivendi Universal-owned Interscope, twice moved up 
the album's release date, citing widespread Internet piracy. Some retailers 
reportedly began selling it Friday in advance of Sunday's last-minute 
official release date. But the direct link between pre-release online 
song-swapping and bootlegged CDs has rarely been drawn as clearly as with 
this album.

GET IT EARLY, JUST $5
       The Friday before the Eminem album's long-awaited release, a busy 
street corner in New York was dotted with bootleggers' card tables and 
blankets, each strewn with pirated copies of CDs and movies for sale.
       "The Eminem Show," priced at just $5 a copy, sat next to videotapes 
of "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones," released into theaters two weeks ago.
      Bootleggers, who declined to be identified by name, said the Eminem 
CDs came from the Internet, although they didn't give details about how 
they downloaded, burned or bought the copies.
       The Internet "is the only place where we can touch it," said one 
street vendor, who didn't want to be identified.
       Gracenote's data shows a few patterns that may lie behind these 
bootleggers' business, however.
       The company's database examines CDs' tables of contents down to 
slices just one-seventy-fifth of a second long. Copies that look identical 
at that scale almost always come from the same master copy, the company says.
       In the case of the Eminem CD, eight slightly different versions 
accounted for most of the traffic. That means there's likely "eight major 
guys doing most of the pressing of this," Hyman said.
The company did a little detective work to figure out where most of the 
traffic originated. About 86 percent of the CD listening came from inside 
the United States. Los Angeles was the top listening location, and New York 
was second, Hyman said. The company hasn't crunched the numbers enough to 
figure out whether each location had its own dominant version of the 
bootleg, he said.
    Gracenote doesn't give exact figures on traffic, but it said the No. 2 
slot in its charts represented a total figure of listeners in the "mid-tens 
of thousands" over the course of the week. Because most major music 
software stores song information on the computer after checking Gracenote's 
database once, many or most of those tens of thousands represent individual 
listeners, rather than multiple listens by the same person.
       Will listeners buy the real thing?
       Eminem's previous album, "The Marshall Mathers LP," set sales 
records in 2000, with more than 1.7 million copies sold in the first week 
after release. The industry will be watching the new release closely, both 
as a sign of the health of the struggling music business and as an 
indicator of the effects of early Internet piracy on major releases.
       Analysts caution, however, that the real result of the early piracy 
will be impossible to untangle, whether sales figures are high or low. The 
online versions and bootlegging could serve as a marketing vehicle, 
whetting fans' appetite for the real thing, noted P.J. McNealy, research 
director for GartnerG2, a division of the Gartner research firm. Or it may 
cut into sales.
       "We've yet to see hard numbers on what the marketing effects of 
piracy are," McNealy noted. "This could be like "Attack of the Clones." 
People may have pirated that, but they still went out and saw it in the 
theater."
       Sales figures for the first two days of the Eminem release weren't 
yet available.
       Gracenote would not comment on whether it has been contacted by 
Interscope as a result of its information. An Interscope representative 
could not immediately be reached for comment.
       Hyman said the company didn't keep enough information in its 
database to be useful to anti-piracy investigators. The technology does log 
Internet addresses and count CD titles, as well as keep a username for 
people checking the database, but it does not correlate this data, he said.
       "We don't keep the data" that antipiracy investigators might want, 
Hyman said. "The last thing we'd ever want to do is become some kind of 
policing entity."

       News.com's Jim Hu contributed to this report from New York.

       Copyright © 1995-2002 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
*******************
MSNBC
Modem owners pay more for AT&T

May 28  A new pricing structure from AT&T will result in modem owners 
paying an extra $7 for their high-speed Internet service.

      AT&T BROADBAND INTERNET will announce several changes to the way it 
charges for its cable modems. AT&T marketing executives framed the changes 
as price reductions based on the decreasing cost of hardware, but the end 
result will be higher costs for roughly 162,500 AT&T customers who own 
their own cable modems.
       Almost all AT&T broadband customers now pay $35.95 per month for 
high-speed Internet service. Those who lease modems through AT&T pay an 
additional $10 per month for a total of $45.95, and those who own their own 
modems pay no additional fee.
       Starting on June 1 in most regions, AT&T will increase the monthly 
service rate to $42.95. Customers who lease their modem from AT&T will have 
their lease fee reduced by $7, paying an additional $3 per month for the 
modem. That will make their monthly bill come to $45.95the same price they 
paid last month.
       But bills will increase for the 10 percent of AT&T's 1.63 million 
customers who own their own modems. Their monthly service fee will also go 
up to $42.95, which means they're going to pay $7 per month more than they 
paid last month.
       Although the price restructuring will appear in customers' next 
statement, modem owners won't feel the sting for six months. AT&T will 
include in the next statement six coupons for $7 off monthly service, 
letting modem owners off the hook for the new rates until January. New 
subscribers who own their own modems will pay $42.95 per month as soon as 
they sign up.
       Darrel Hegar, vice president of Internet services for Englewood, 
Colo.-based AT&T Broadband, said the changes reflected price reductions for 
cable modems. When home broadband access became popular in the late 1990s 
and in 2000, cable modems cost $300 or more. But in the past two years, the 
price has dropped to $100 or less, thanks in part to aggressive marketing 
promotions at computer hardware stores.
      Hegar also noted that AT&T's service is still priced lower than 
alternative broadband service from DSL (digital subscriber line) providers, 
which typically charge $50 or more per month. Although connection speeds 
for cable modem users aren't as consistent as those for DSL subscribers, 
cable modem users generally report faster upstream speeds.
       "If you look at the price of our service, it really still reflects 
one of the best values in the marketplace," Hegar said Tuesday morning. 
"Cable Internet continues to be the best way to access broadband vs. DSL or 
satellite. If you look at availability, speed and price, we are still a 
value leader."
Based on the number of people paying an additional $7 per month, AT&T 
stands to gain $1.14 million in monthly revenue from the restructuring. But 
it's unclear why AT&T representatives announced the restructuring as a 
break for modem leasers as opposed to a simple price hike for 10 percent of 
customers.
       The decision to increase prices for modem owners could be due to 
the fact that owners have sunk more of their own money into the service and 
would be less likely to switch to DSL or another broadband alternative, 
according to Mark Kersey, broadband industry analyst for La Jolla, 
Calif.-based research group ARS.
      "People who own their modems are pretty much locked in to staying 
with AT&T," Kersey said. "It's a way to extract a little more money out of 
a small percentage of people. That's a fairly politically smart thing to do 
because it doesn't affect the vast majority of customers."
       The restructuring could also be an effort to make AT&T's broadband 
unit more attractive to smaller rival Comcast, which in December announced 
its intention to purchase the AT&T unit for about $37 billion. The combined 
company, AT&T Comcast, would be the No. 1 U.S. cable TV operator with more 
than 22 million subscribers. But the structure of the new company recently 
came under fire, and shareholders are beginning to question whether to 
approve the deal.
       Despite efforts to boost revenue, AT&T cannot raise monthly 
broadband rates indiscriminately. Although demand for high-speed Internet 
connections is still growing, the economic slump has slowed growth somewhat 
and has resulted in a growing number of broadband defectors. And the 
industry is still reeling from the painful collapse of former front-runner 
Excite@Home.
       The company's demise caused cable partners, particularly AT&T, to 
scramble to migrate consumers to independent networks, causing customer 
service nightmares for millions of people. Before its collapse last fall, 
Excite@Home had 4.1 million customers and controlled about 45 percent of 
the U.S. home-broadband market.
       Customers are already grumbling that the government should regulate 
broadband service and access rates, which have risen steadily in the past 
year. An ARS study determined that cable broadband Internet prices rose 12 
percent in 2001, from an average of $39.40 per month in January to $44.22 
per month in December. Consumer DSL prices rose 10 percent during the same 
time frame from $47.18 in January to $51.67 in December.

       Copyright © 1995-2002 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved
**********************
CNN
EU aims to boost broadband

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) -- The European Commission will for the first 
time this week suggest that European Union governments use regional aid or 
other financial incentives to boost high-speed Internet, a draft report 
showed on Monday.

In its "eEurope 2005" report on how to foster information technology -- to 
be unveiled on Wednesday -- the European Union executive will put 
high-speed broadband Internet access on top of its agenda to raise the 
bloc's competitiveness.

Although competition is driving Internet connection costs down, broadband 
remains generally expensive in the EU, with less than two percent of 
households having fast Internet connections against 13 percent in the 
United States.

Without broadband, which is 25 times faster than a standard phone line, 
industry cannot easily offer consumers advanced multimedia Internet 
services such as videos, graphics or musical files.

The report stresses that any aid should be targeted to remote and 
underdeveloped areas where the creation of a broadband network would not be 
commercially viable.

"Member states in cooperation with the Commission should support, where 
necessary, deployment (of broadband) in less favored areas and where 
possible may use structural funds and/or financial incentives," the draft 
document, obtained by Reuters, said.

Structural funds, accounting for roughly a third of the nearly 100 billion 
euro EU budget, are given to help economic development in poorer and 
peripheral regions of the 15-nation bloc. The EU already supports IT 
projects in all member states.

The strategy, the first comprehensive plan to foster broadband, is expected 
to be endorsed by EU leaders when they meet at a summit in Seville, Spain, 
in June.

Aid to rural areas
State support for fast Internet access would help telecoms operators that 
are struggling under the burden of huge debts incurred to pay governments 
for third-generation cell phone licenses.

In the document, the Commission says any incentive should be in line with 
existing EU competition policy. But member states should intervene where 
the market forces are not sufficiently driving development.

"Competition is expected to drive investment, generate innovation and lower 
prices," the document said. "Therefore, public policy should focus on 
issues where competition is not effective or where political objectives, 
e.g. territorial coverage with a view to cohesion, need to be ensured."

In the document, the Commission calls on member states to set the examples 
by starting investing in broadband for their own administrative 
infrastructure.

The document says governments should aim at having broadband connections 
for all public administrations and schools by 2005.

As part as the EU's project to create a common health card to allow EU 
citizens access to healthcare anywhere in the bloc, governments should aim 
to develop high-speed data connection between points of care such as 
hospitals and laboratories.

In the document the Commission looks at building a network infrastructure 
that is secure to boost consumers' confidence.

Europe's efforts to increase broadband Internet access to bridge the gap 
with the United States have so far focused on liberalizing the last mile of 
telecoms networks, a process that was kicked off in January 2001 but which 
has proved slow.
***********************
Nando Times
Picture slowly changes for TV buyers

By NOEL C. PAUL, Christian Science Monitor


(May 28, 2002 10:12 a.m. EDT) - Those "next generation" televisions you've 
been reading about are showing up in Americans' homes - today.

Credit falling prices.

Sharp, for example, offered its 20-inch, liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV 
for $5,000 last year. It has since cut the price of the small, wall-mounted 
unit in half. That's far from cheap, but it may be low enough to lure some 
"early adopter" consumers.

Sales of LCD TVs this year have begun to stir at Flanner's Audio and Video, 
for example, where even affluent videophiles had been holding off on buying 
the futuristic sets for the past few years.

"More people replacing their older TVs are buying up," says Lance 
Zabrowski, a salesman at the Brookfield, Wisconsin, electronics store. 
Zabrowski partly credits the surging interest to improved picture quality. 
"Every year we notice they've all gotten better," says Zabrowski.

Experts say prices will have to drop much further, however, before these 
new sets appear in most living rooms.

"Americans are less willing to pay a lot, even when the product is of a 
high quality," says Geoffrey Hughes, director of communications for Samsung 
Corp.

High-definition televisions (HDTV), which broadcast crystal-clear picture 
and sound, have long been touted as the most important TV innovation since 
color. Last year, however, Americans only bought 900,000 HDTV sets, 
compared with 21 million standard color sets.

HDTV models range in price from about $1,500 to $4,000, but experts predict 
that prices will drop below $1,000 within a few years as broadcasters offer 
more high-definition programming.

"Historically, prices drop rapidly," says Jenny Miller, a spokesperson for 
the Consumer Electronics Association. "It's all about economies of scale."

While HDTVs offer an upgrade in picture and sound, most new products 
address the TV's traditional clunky frame.

LCD screens are the marquee innovation. The transmission in LCD sets is not 
carried through a tube, but through a layer of liquid crystal. Because the 
material takes up very little space, the entire TV can be very thin - as 
little as 6 inches deep - so users usually mount them on a wall.

They also weigh much less. A traditional 45-inch set weighs about 500 
pounds; an LCD set of a similar size weighs 30 pounds.

While the picture is not as sharp as that of a standard TV, experts say, 
the screen is brighter and uses less power. A battery connected to the back 
runs most LCD sets. Larger sets must be plugged in.

Sizes range from 5 inches to 30 inches with prices ranging from $280 to 
$8,000. Next year, Samsung plans to introduce a 40-inch model.

Projection TVs offer a mix between a standard TV and LCD, without the main 
drawbacks of each. The projection technology sends light through liquid 
crystal and then magnifies it with a lens. Thinner than a standard set, it 
also offers better picture resolution than an LCD. The spectrum of colors 
is more limited, however, and the picture blurs from side angles, according 
to Hughes. Prices are competitive with HDTV models. Toshiba, for example, 
offers a 50-inch model for $1,400.

Plasma sets have screens that look similar to LCD models, but represent a 
significant jump in quality and price. The plasma is an ionized gas 
contained in a chamber. Unlike other types of televisions, it lights each 
TV pixel instantaneously, eliminating even split-second flickering. Plasma 
sets are as thin and light as LCD units, but the picture quality is nearly 
equal to that of traditional sets. Because of the higher resolution, plasma 
screens can be much larger than LCDs.

For most consumers, the price is prohibitively high. Philips' 42-inch 
plasma set costs $7,000. But observers agree the plasma display will likely 
be standard in less than 10 years.

In a few years, consumers can also expect three-dimensional programming to 
be common on their TVs, experts say. Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD) in Santa 
Monica, Calif., is developing a technology that would allow viewers to 
switch from 2-D to 3-D with the click of the remote.

Americans' growing interest in video games is partly responsible for the 
3-D push. Game players are increasingly demanding realism in characters and 
dimension. "They want real depth. They want to tell how far the characters 
are from each other," says Andrew Millin, a DDD engineer.
******************
Nando Times
Gates Foundation gives nearly $3 million to kids in China

RENTON, Wash. (May 28, 2002 2:24 p.m. EDT) - A $2.9 million grant from the 
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will enable a suburban Seattle group to 
open a center for physically disabled children in China.

The center is set to open Saturday in Luoyang in Henan Province, 450 miles 
south of Beijing, said Janice Neilson, executive director of the World 
Association for Children and Parents.

Operating in partnership with the Chinese government, the Children's Center 
of Luoyang is intended to help disabled children living in an adjacent 
orphanage as well as those who remain with their families. The disabilities 
range from heart disease and cleft palates to poor motor skills,

"The children who will come to the center are ... oftentimes kids who have 
been really hidden in Chinese society," Neilson said. "We believe we are 
preventing the abandonment of children and, hopefully, allowing kids to 
stay with families when that is possible."

The association has been helping to arrange adoptions in China since 1990, 
and Neilson said the center also should make it easier for disabled orphans 
to find adoptive homes.

Full funding for the program from the Chinese government is expected when 
the three-year Gates grant runs out, she added.

The foundation is endowed by Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates and his 
wife, Melinda.
******************
Nando Times
Web sites let survivors celebrate loved ones

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (May 27, 2002 10:21 p.m. EDT) - The year since Memorial 
Day 2001 has seen more memorials than usual. The deaths of more than 3,000 
Americans in the Sept. 11 attacks filled newspapers with obituaries.

But for those who've lost someone, every death is momentous. And the 
effects of that death, and the memory of the deceased, last long after an 
obituary has been printed or a memorial service has ended.

Which is one reason memorial Web sites are a fast-growing segment of the 
online world. Beingremembered.com, legacy.com and americanmemorials.com are 
just a few of the dozens of online memorial services that have sprung up in 
recent years.

Each offers a slightly different service, at different prices, but the 
common element is the opportunity to create a memorial for a loved one that 
will live beyond the normal life of an obituary.

Perhaps the most successful of these Web sites is legacy.com, a 
Chicago-based site that offers mourners a chance, through posting their 
thoughts in an online "guest book," to feel connected to their loved ones, 
and to other people who knew their mother, or grandfather, or child.

"It's a way of showing what the person meant to you," says Scott Stuart of 
Sacramento, whose mother, Barbara Stuart, died in January. At the 
suggestion of a friend, she was honored with a legacy.com guest book.

"I wasn't going to put anything in, it was too hard," says Stuart, 38. "But 
one day I was reading other entries, and I decided to say a lot of stuff. 
That way I can let other people know how much she meant to me. She deserved 
that."

For these reasons, in less than four years, legacy.com has grown 
dramatically, and is now posting some 60,000 guest book entries a month. 
The guest books are accessible at legacy.com or through links with the 
funeral notices sections of more than 1,000 newspapers around the country.

"It has taken off in ways we could not have imagined," says Hayes Ferguson, 
a former journalist with People magazine who is chief operating officer of 
legacy.com.

"We thought people would use it the way they use a guest book at a funeral, 
just sign their name," she says. "But we find people writing to their loved 
ones, people coming to the site to mark special occasions, anniversaries, 
to talk to their loved ones. It was very rare at first, but it has become 
common."

Stuart is certainly one of those people.

"I miss my mother, we were very close, so this is a place where I can sit 
down in private time, and talk to her," he says. "It's a way of showing 
what the person meant to you."

And he is particularly happy about the dozens of guest book entries he's 
been able to read. His printouts of the entries filled 18 pages.

"I can read each of those letters and know what they're talking about," he 
says. "It means a lot to me."

Reading through online memorials at the different sites can be an emotional 
experience, as friends and relatives pour out their sadness and sympathy, 
along with memories of a person that would never fit in a standard funeral 
notice.

Even on the pages of complete strangers, little bits and pieces of distant 
lives take on a resonance.

Thus, we hear about Alice Stringham's love of garage sales in a memorial on 
memoriesofme.com, or view Robert Lee Peace's photos from his days as a bush 
pilot in Africa on virtual-memorials.com.

"The guest books offer a lot better insight into people's lives than the 
actual notice does, because a notice is just the facts of their life," 
Ferguson says. "It adds a lot of dimension to the people."

Prices vary. The guest books on legacy.com are free for the first 30 days. 
To keep the guest book open permanently, legacy.com charges $49. To create 
a Legacy Life Story, a deluxe package that includes up to five photos, 
tributes, suggestions of charities for donations and a guest book, 
legacy.com charges $195.

Of course, because this is on the Internet, it's open season for anyone who 
wants to say anything, in good taste or not. Ferguson says that one of 
legacy.com's functions in running the site is to keep an eye on the entries 
to make sure that anything inappropriate doesn't sneak in.

"We delete 1 to 3 percent of the messages that are posted," Ferguson says. 
"Some are inappropriate, and we're sensitive that these will be read by 
family members. We've seen efforts by folks who have tried to proselytize 
with religious messages, or tried to sell things. And we get kids or 
mean-spirited people writing not very nice things."

And even the nice things that are written are unlikely to guarantee the 
immortality that the sites seem to promise. Many of the sites are small and 
run by a single person, and even the big sites such as legacy.com, which is 
expected to post a profit this year, are subject to the vagaries of the 
Internet economy.

But if these collections of memories and wishes survive into the future, 
they may serve as a valuable resource for those looking back, giving loving 
detail to the portraits of ancestors who were once just names on a 
gravestone or photographs in albums.
*****************
Euromedia.net
E-learning in the spotlight at education conference
27/05/2002  Editor: Lisa Gardner

E-learning initiatives were at the forefront  and Europe in the 
spotlight  last week at the Lisboa Congress Centre in Lisbon, Portugal, 
where more than 1,700 people gathered from more than 930 organizations 
worldwide for the World Education Market's (WEM) third International 
Exhibition and Conference Program.

Speaking on the developments in education within the international 
marketplace, Claudio Dondi, president of Scienter, a non profit 
organization based in Bologna specializing in European innovation of 
education and training said that " probably the most important trend is the 
growth of relative weight of education and training in the policymaking 
area, thanks to a new generation of information society programmes and 
initiatives in which e-learning often plays an important role."

With its emphasis on educational ICT, broadcasting and software, the UK 
demonstrated its 30 years' experience in educational technology as world 
leader in this field through vast representation.

British participants ranged from educational broadcasters such as 4 
learning, BBC Worldwide and Pearson Broadband, to software providers such 
as New Media, Sherston Software and Birchfield Interactive.

Also on display was Promethean's interactive White Board, which allows 
instructors to combine their personal tutoring skills with the newest ICT.

Partnering with the European Institute for E-Learning (EIfEL) , the Total 
E-learning Experience (TE-LE) Village designed a three-day series of 
exhibits and events to clarify and outline the opportunities presented by 
e-learning.

"The idea behind the concept of the TE-LE Village is simple," explained 
Serge Ravet, President of ElfEL. "We wanted to bring both exhibitors and 
visitors of e-learning events into a process that can lead to a much deeper 
understanding of the e-learning value chain.

That means developing a partnership with the leading e-learning companies 
to illustrate the steps involved in creating and deploying truly effective 
learning tools."
********************
Nando Times
Retired tennis star wins case against Microsoft


BERLIN (May 28, 2002 1:01 p.m. EDT) - Former tennis star Steffi Graf won a 
court case against Microsoft Germany on Tuesday over fake nude photos of 
her that were posted on a Web site run by the company.

The state appeals court in Cologne upheld a ruling last October by a lower 
court, which had ruled that Microsoft Germany was responsible for the 
content of the site and must ensure that such pictures don't appear there.

The company would have to pay a fine if similar photos emerge on the site 
in future, court spokesman Christian Grueneberg said.

The photos - computer manipulations that put Graf's head on a nude body - 
appeared last year on the site operated by Microsoft Germany where users 
could post pictures and texts to share with others.

The photos were taken down in June at Graf's request, but the company 
declined to sign a formal agreement that they wouldn't appear again, and 
Graf sued.

Microsoft Germany spokesman Bernhard Grander said the company disagrees 
with the court's decision and said it "endangers the existence of live-chat 
and private (Internet) communities."

Grander said Microsoft is "examining further legal steps."
*******************
Sydney Morning Herald
New York attorney-general sues spammers
Albany, New York

New York Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer is suing a firm he says sent more 
than 500 million messages to computer users, many of them unwanted "spam" 
advertisements.

Spitzer said MonsterHut.com of Niagara Falls sent hundreds of millions of 
the ads through emails since March 2001 to people who didn't want the 
messages or specifically tried to block the stream of commercial offers. 
MonsterHut.com had told its clients that the recipients wanted the messages 
through "permission-based" agreements, according to court records.

About 750,000 computer users complained about receiving MonsterHut.com 
spam, or junk mail, Spitzer said.

Spam comes from many sources worldwide and increasingly clogs email systems 
with pitches that include ways to lose weight, earn extra income or to view 
pornography.

MonsterHut officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 
It's website no longer is active.

Since the mid-1990s, Internet service providers America Online, EarthLink 
and others have won millions of dollars in settlements and judgments 
against spammers under trespass, computer fraud and other laws.

Spitzer is suing under the state's traditional deceptive practice and false 
advertising statutes that could exact civil penalties of $US500 ($A900) for 
each offence.

Nineteen other states now have anti-spam laws that prohibit false messages 
or headers in email messages, require labels in subject lines or the option 
of declining a marketer's future mailings.
********************
Sydney Morning Herald
Guide helps digital users stay honest
By Jenny Sinclair
May 28 2002

Users of digital content in Australia will get a custom-made guide to help 
them negotiate the minefield of copyright, intellectual property rights and 
paying for what they use.

The Federal Government will pay a national consortium just under $90,000 to 
produce the guide, which will be aimed at smaller organisations and sole 
operators who may not have the resources to pay for their own legal and 
copyright advice.

The Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association will work with 
law firm Gilbert and Tobin, digital rights consultants IPR Systems and 
security company Securenet to create the guide. It is expected to be 
available later this year.

The association's executive director, Lynne Spender, says the five-part, 
Web-based guide will cover everything from basic information to providing 
tools for managing digital property.

She says that rather than take the "enforcement" view of ensuring each 
creator is paid, the association wants the guide to make it easier for 
creators of all kinds of digital material to use Australian content.

Part of the guide will help content creators put the right metadata in 
their work, which, in turn, will make it simpler for would-be users of 
their images, music or other digital content to ensure they are paid. There 
are three basic questions, Spender says: "Who owns it, how much is it, and 
can you use it?"

The publication will include a guide to commercial digital rights 
management. It will give case studies of how digital rights work in 
Australian companies and productions.

"Since the industry (has been) producing CD-ROMs, one of the biggest 
headaches has been identifying the (digital) rights and paying for the 
rights," Spender says.

A spokesman for Information and Communications Minister Richard Alston says 
that although no specific event has triggered the decision, Alston's 
department received complaints about the use of copyright material online 
"from time to time". He says the changes to Australia's copyright laws last 
year have created more of a need for the guide.

Victoria's Cinemedia (now the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) 
created a guide to digital rights for performers and artists in 1999, 
noting that the flexibility of digital material created a minefield of 
copyright problems.

Spender says the association is in contact with the authors of that guide.
*********************
Sydney Morning Herald
Phone radiation limits raised
By Rachael Quigley
May 28 2002
Next





Australia has raised the allowable level of mobile phone radiation 
emissions, despite CSIRO fears that they could pose a health risk.

The new standard raises limits on human exposure to radio-frequency (RF) 
radiation from a range of sources, including mobile phones and base 
stations, and changes the way the emissions are measured.

The guidelines, which bring Australia into line with international 
standards, were approved by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear 
Safety Agency on May 7.

The agency and the CSIRO agree that there is no scientific proof that 
low-level exposure to mobile phone radiation causes health problems, but 
the CSIRO maintains that it cannot be ruled out.

Agency CEO Dr John Loy said that because low levels of exposure had not 
been proved to cause health problems, potential adverse effects of 
low-level radiation had not been considered when setting the basic 
restrictions in the new standard.

The standard is modelled on the guidelines recommended by the World Health 
Organisation and the international Mobile Manufacturers Forum, which take 
into account "proven health risks".

Dr Loy said the new Australian standard "is more detailed than the 
international guidelines" and "technically superior to earlier (Australian) 
standards". It includes a comprehensive rationale and a question-and-answer 
guide for consumers.

The CSIRO, which had been involved in the technical and scientific 
development of all previous Australian RF radiation standards, opposed the 
adoption of the new one.

In its submission to last year's Senate inquiry into electro-magnetic 
radiation, the CSIRO argued that the acceptable limits of exposure should 
not be relaxed because it "is not possible at present to conclude that 
exposure to RF radiation, even at levels below national guidelines, is 
without potential adverse health effects".

Dr Stan Barnett, the CSIRO representative appointed to the working group 
that drafted the new standard, resigned after the first meeting. He said 
the committee "was intent on adopting the (new) guidelines without proper 
consideration of all the available evidence".

The CSIRO maintains: "There are no clearly demonstrated and compelling 
technological, economic or sociological reasons to justify relaxation of 
the (previous) Australian standard."

Democrats Senator Lyn Allison, who chaired the Senate inquiry, said: "The 
new standard reflects the needs of the telecommunications industry rather 
than the need to protect human health."

She said the need to develop a standard for shielding products had been 
ignored.

Allison said that as long as there was no standard or requirement for 
independent testing and labelling of hands-free devices in Australia, 
consumers would be kept in the dark about their effectiveness in reducing 
exposure to radiation.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association supports the idea of a 
national standard, testing and labelling for hands-free devices, but says 
guidelines will be hard to develop. Both the AMTA and the Mobile 
Manufacturers Forum have endorsed the new standard.

AMTA CEO Ross Monaghan said: "The industry supports the inclusive 
scientifically robust way in which the standard was developed."

MMF secretary-general Michael Milligan said: "I think that it is important 
to stress that these safety limits are based on guidelines developed by an 
independent committee of experts who are leaders in this field.

"The other key benefit to Australians in adopting a standard which is 
harmonised with most other major nations is that mobile phone products can 
now be designed once, tested once and sold in all of these countries . . . 
in a more timely and efficient manner."
**********************
Peoples Daily
US Programming Competition Organizer Adds China to Developer Community

TopCoder, a U.S. company organizing computer programming competitions for 
college students and professionals, said Tuesday that it has expanded 
eligibility to its online and onsite contests to include citizens of China, 
New Zealand and Ireland.

TopCoder, a U.S. company organizing computer programming competitions for 
college students and professionals, said Tuesday that it has expanded 
eligibility to its online and onsite contests to include citizens of China, 
New Zealand and Ireland.

These three countries alone have more than 300,000 professional developers 
in residence, said TopCoder, quoting a report published in 2001 by market 
researcher International Data Corporation

The company launched its competitions in February 2001, and citizens of 
Canada, Australia, India and the United Kingdom are also eligible to 
compete with the primarily U.S. member base. After incorporating Australia 
and India at the end of 2001, TopCoder has added close to 9,500 new members 
in the first five months of 2002.

Each year, hundreds of software jockeys in the United States -- usually 
students -- battle each other in competitions, often sponsored by tech 
vendors and trade associations. The winners can earn big bucks. Sponsors 
also can win by building brand loyalty with top minds of the 
next-generation IT worker. And business- technology managers get an early 
look at potential members of their future workforce.

TopCoder organizes and hosts such competitions for its members. The best 
performing members are invited to compete in annual tournaments.

Hosted by TopCoder and Sun Microsystems, the latest contest was held in 
April for a prize of 150,000 U.S. dollars. Stanford University junior 
Daniel Wright beat out 15 programmers from some of the U.S. most prominent 
schools for computer science and won a prize of 100,000 dollars.
********************
New Zealand Herald
Porn was for software filter test says defendant

29.05.2002
By PETER GRIFFIN
A man convicted of importing more than 100,000 illegal pornographic images 
says he was gathering the pictures to test filtering software that would 
block the material.

Computer specialist Bryce Coad said an error of judgment that led him to 
bring the electronic images across New Zealand's border would probably 
destroy his career in the IT industry.

Yesterday, in the Manukau District Court, he lost a request for discharge 
without conviction and was fined $750 after pleading guilty to importing 
material deemed objectionable under the Films, Videos and Publications Act 
1993 and the Customs Act.

He had earlier sought to defend himself on a range of charges but changed 
his plea on agreement that other charges would be withdrawn.

The Customs Service, acting on a tip-off, had seized a laptop and two hard 
drives belonging to Coad.

They contained objectionable images, including some depicting children 
being sexually exploited.

The computer hardware was seized in June 2000 as Coad came through Auckland 
Airport after a business trip to Israel, where, he said, he downloaded the 
images from the internet for use in developing his Moderator net-filtering 
software.

Coad said the software was designed to go beyond mainstream 
content-filtering software such as Net Nanny by targeting newsgroups and 
internet relay chat channels where the worst porn-trading was taking place.

"It specifically targets the most evil news groups that are there, using 
information from the people that are posting images, as well as the images 
themselves," he said.

Moderator would then compare information about the images stored in a 
database with downloaded pictures to determine whether they were 
objectionable and should be blocked.

Judge David Harvey said that while the software Coad was developing was 
legitimate and if commercialised would be useful for safety-conscious net 
users, the large number of images and the fact that Coad had not declared 
them as he went through Customs warranted a conviction.

"The number of images would probably justify a higher penalty. [But] the 
development of such a utility should be encouraged," the judge said.

Previous porn prosecutions are believed to have resulted from the seizure 
of up to 80,000 objectionable images, so the Coad case is one of the 
biggest in New Zealand history.

Coad said the implications of the conviction would go far beyond the $750 
fine.

"It's equivalent to [the judge] chopping off my left hand and telling me to 
be a concert violinist," he said.

Last night, he tendered his resignation as chief technology officer and 
board member at software specialist and internet provider Zombie. He said 
the reputation of his own firm, Lookitup, would be irreparably damaged.

He had no immediate plans to continue work on Moderator, and said he would 
probably appeal against the conviction.
************************
Computerworld
FCC delays auction of upper UHF TV band spectrum
Faced with the fact that digital television is unlikely to be widespread in 
the U.S. for years, the Federal Communications Commission has delayed for 
seven months an auction of a portion of the UHF TV spectrum to cellular 
carriers.
The FCC announced (download PDF) last Friday that it plans to delay a 
multibillion-dollar auction of the spectrum occupied by TV channels 60 
through 69 until Jan. 14, 2003, while proceeding with a June 19 auction in 
the 698-746-MHz band currently occupied by TV channels 52 to 59.

Congress mandated the auctions in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 in an 
effort to pump billions of dollars into the U.S. Treasury, with a deadline 
for selling the spectrum space of this month. That left the FCC little 
wiggle room to delay the auction -- despite a concerted campaign in the 
past three months by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet 
Association (CTIA), which has wanted the auction postponed indefinitely.

President Bush's current federal budget does allow the FCC to delay the 
747-MHz to 806-MHz band auction until 2004, and FCC Chairman Michael Powell 
said in a statement (download PDF) that while he doesn't support an 
indefinite delay, he does see "compelling reasons" to postpone the 
upper-band auction until January.

The House of Representatives has already passed a bill allowing a delay 
despite the 1997 law. A similar bill is stalled in the Senate.

But, Powell added, he couldn't ignore existing law based on "the prospect 
of legislative change". He said the commission couldn't put off the 
auctions any longer because "Congress has passed a statute -- signed into 
law by the president -- that directs this agency to auction this spectrum 
by specific dates and for specific purposes."

The Washington-based CTIA sought the delay because TV stations don't have 
to vacate their channels until they convert to digital TV operations. The 
earliest date for such a conversion is Jan. 1, 2007, effectively tying up 
the substantial payments cellular carriers are expected to make in the two 
upcoming auctions. (The carriers can, however, negotiate with the 
broadcasters and compensate them for giving up their channel spectrum 
before 2007, a process known as "band clearing.")

FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin disagrees with Powell's interpretation 
governing the FCC's oversight of spectrum auctions. He said in a statement 
(download PDF) that the FCC has a mandate to "manage the radio spectrum 
effectively and efficiently in the public interest."

Martin said that from his perspective, "the public interest would best be 
served by delaying the 700-MHz auctions indefinitely," while the FCC 
examines the best frequencies and bands to support a number of wireless 
users and applications, including cellular and pubic safety communications.

Tom Wheeler, CEO of the CTIA, said in a statement that "moving forward with 
the auction of the lower 700-MHz band sacrifices important spectrum 
management opportunities."

Nancy Udell, a spokeswoman for Paxson Communications Corp., a West Palm 
Beach, Fla.-based broadcaster, said the company "wants the auctions to 
proceed." She added that Paxson considered court action to force the FCC to 
conduct the auctions, but it abandoned that option after realizing that any 
court ruling wouldn't come until next January, the new date for the upper 
UHF band auctions.

The FCC has already begun to gear up for the June auctions by notifying 
bidders they must make upfront payments for the June auction by Thursday. 
The FCC plans to auction 758 cellular licenses in the lower UHF TV band and 
has put the value of the minimum bids for all the licenses at $303.1 million.
********************
Computerworld
Microsoft faces EU privacy probe

BRUSSELS -- The European Commission is investigating whether Microsoft 
Corp.'s .Net Passport breaches European privacy laws, a spokesman for the 
European Commission confirmed yesterday.
The commission, the executive body of the European Union, began to examine 
Microsoft's .Net Passport last year, spokesman Jonathan Todd said. Data 
protection authorities from the EU's 15 member nations are also examining 
the authentication system.

Concerns about the authentication system include the problem of Internet 
users who don't sign up for .Net Passport and are denied access to some 
Microsoft online services.

"The commission is ... looking into this as a matter of priority, in 
concert with national data protection agencies, as regards the system's 
compatibility with EU data protection law," wrote Frits Bolkestein, 
European commissioner for the internal market, in a letter to Erik Meijer, 
a member of the European Parliament, dated May 7.

Microsoft senior counsel for Europe John Frank described the examination of 
the .Net Passport as "a routine ongoing dialog."

"There is no indication that there are special concerns about noncompliance 
with European data protection laws," Frank said.

Microsoft's .Net Passport authentication system is still very basic, Frank 
said. "It will evolve. There will be more elaborate ones over time," he 
added. The original plan was to create a platform around .Net and attract 
companies to locate their Web sites on it. "We tried without success to get 
companies to gather round," Frank said.

Microsoft now tries to license its .Net Passport system to companies so 
they can carry it on their own Web sites. "It is early days for online 
authentication. It is important to get it right, not just the letter but 
also the principle of privacy law. We think we do a good job with that," 
Frank said.

Microsoft signed up to the EU/U.S. safe-harbor agreement in 2000. The 
agreement grants immunity to U.S. companies from some of Europe's more 
stringent privacy laws. In return, the companies agree to abide by EU laws, 
including the 1995 data protection directive, which requires that 
organizations collecting personal data about a user must tell that person 
who they are, why they are collecting the data and grant the user full 
access to the information.

The probe into .Net Passport is unconnected to the ongoing antitrust 
investigation being conducted by the European Commission.
*******************
News.com
Privacy worries with EU online policing bill
By Reuters

The European Union is on the verge of adopting an Internet bill that could 
give police forces greater power to keep records of personal communications 
such as phone calls or Web surfing, a key legislator said Wednesday.
The bill is the final element of a package to modernize EU 
telecommunications law and aims to protect the confidentiality of 
electronic communication to boost confidence in e-commerce. But it also 
contains provisions to allow police access to phone, fax and e-mail 
records, something that governments view as a useful tool to fight crime 
and terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Marco Cappato, the Italian parliamentarian who is guiding the legislation 
through the European Parliament, says these provisions risk opening the 
door to large-scale storage of personal data for long periods.



"The priority in the fight against terrorism should be to invest in experts 
that can analyze the data" as and when needed, Cappato, a member of Italy's 
Radical Party, told a news briefing. "Instead, we risk giving carte blanche 
to member states to open the door to undiscriminating data retention."

Despite strong opposition from civil liberty groups and the industry, the 
bill is likely to include the data retention rules because of support from 
the European Socialist Party and the European People's Party, the 
assembly's main political groups.

The bill is potentially damaging for the European Union's prized privacy 
rights and could lead to costly storage requirements for companies.

"We are very worried that we will be faced with new heavy obligations to 
log all this data," said Sjoera Nas of Dutch-based Internet service 
provider XS4all.

The 626 member assembly is due to cast its final vote on the bill Thursday. 
To become law, the bill needs joint approval by Parliament and the 15 EU 
governments.

Toeing the line
The text Parliament will vote on calls for immediate erasure of electronic 
data after the period needed for billing purposes. But it says governments 
can force operators to store data for a longer period--even years--if 
deemed necessary for security reasons.

Parliament had earlier amended the law to limit access to electronic data 
by public authorities to the strict minimum. But this move was criticized 
by member states, notably Britain, which wanted greater power to monitor 
the Internet. U.S. officials also criticized the bill, fearing that the 
request to erase data would hinder prosecution of criminals.

Fearing that this legislative clash would ultimately kill the bill, the two 
biggest parliamentary groups have now aligned themselves with the member 
states.

The European Commission, which drafted the legislation, said it could 
accept the new version.

"We can live with it," European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen told reporters.

He said the privacy rights of EU citizens were guaranteed by the European 
Convention of Human Rights, which all member states have signed.

Liikanen said he would be ready to launch infringement procedures if member 
states abused their power to retain data.

The bill also contains EU-wide provisions against unsolicited e-mails, or 
spam. It calls for an opt-in system, whereby online marketing companies may 
only send commercial e-mails if customers explicitly ask them to do so.

The bill prohibits the placement of files such as cookies, which are 
written to a hard drive by some Web sites when the computer user views them 
in a browser, on a computer without the person's explicit permission.

Previously, the Parliament had opposed the bill, saying that a total ban on 
spam could hamper freedom of expression and fair commercial practice, 
without preventing professional spammers from sending illicit and often 
offensive electronic messages.

Story Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
*********************

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