Clips May 31, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips May 31, 2002


ARTICLES

Security tightening burdens cross-border students
Hackers V. Colleges: Security Bolstered for University Computer Systems
Airport Switches Face-Recognition Systems Over Accuracy Concerns
Air Force on consolidation course
Army running University of IT
Feds Charge Woman With Internet Auction Fraud
Priest's Wrestling Web Site Shut
Judges Strike Down Internet Filtering Law
VeriSign Tells Staff To Take a Vacation
Hackers Crack Copy Protection CD's
Technology Helps Search for Abducted Children
Hi-tech security flaws exposed
Eminem CD sales impressive despite music sharing
'Industry-standard' Linux to be created
Online film piracy cuts into industry profit
The computer wore a turban and played chess
Indian government to restore Internet service in Kashmir
Media giant Disney plays modest mouse
World Cup sites swamped by flood of fans
Australian firm sues over spam complaint



*****************
Washington Times
Security tightening burdens cross-border students

     BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP)  Canadian and Mexican students will no longer be 
allowed to enroll part-time in U.S. colleges under a government policy 
change that has taken schools and students by surprise.
     The change, which took effect without notice last week, is the result 
of an Immigration and Naturalization Service decision to begin enforcing a 
statute that has been on the books for years.
     Under federal law, immigrants coming to the United States to study 
cannot be classified as visitors, but they can't be called students unless 
they carry a full course load of at least 12 credits.
     For years, border points such as Buffalo have made exceptions for 
part-time Canadian students, but after the September 11 attacks the Buffalo 
field office of the INS sought a clarification of the policy.
     "Since 9/11, there's been a lot more stress on following the letter 
of the law," said Francis Holmes, the Buffalo office's district director.
     On May 22, Mr. Holmes was told to enforce the policy. The office 
notified about 20 regional colleges and NAFSA, the National Association of 
Foreign Student Advisers.
     It is unclear how many Canadian and Mexican students will be affected 
by the change.
     Administrators said that while there had been rumblings about policy 
changes involving foreign students since September 11, they were taken 
aback at the lack of notice.
     "This was just sort of sprung on all of us," said Elizabeth White, 
assistant director of international admissions at the University at Buffalo.
     D'Youville College in Buffalo, near the Peace Bridge to Fort Erie, 
Ontario, has recruited students for its nursing and education programs from 
Canadian hospitals and other work sites for 15 to 20 years.
     "As it stands now, we can't recruit part-timers," said Robert Murphy, 
vice president for student affairs. He estimated that 160 of the private 
college's 2,300 students were Canadians studying part time during the 
spring semester. Most are nursing students.
     Students enrolled in courses that began before May 22 will be allowed 
to complete the summer session, Mr. Holmes said. But they will have to stop 
at INS offices to check in, meaning they must give themselves more time to 
get to school.
     Miss White said the change would affect a small percentage of the 
university's 3,000 international students, perhaps 30 to 40 people.
     "But it's still significant for those students who began their 
studies here with the assumption they could complete the program part-time 
and now, in the middle for some of them, they're being told 'sorry you 
can't do it that way anymore,'" Miss White said.
     The INS said it is working with Congress to allow an exemption for 
part-time commuter students residing in border countries.
     In the meantime, D'Youville administrators are discussing ways to 
allow part-time Canadian students to finish their degrees. Internet courses 
are a possibility, Mr. Murphy said, as is an exchange program that would 
allow students to take classes at a Canadian college and receive D'Youville 
credit.
     "Our desire is not to leave them out in the cold," he said. "Many 
have invested a lot of money to be here."
**********************
News Factor
Hackers V. Colleges: Security Bolstered for University Computer Systems

College officials said the threats are not just from smart and 
sophisticated pranksters and criminals, but also from mischievous teens who 
have figured ways to capture computers.
For the complete story, see 
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17991.html#story-start
**********************
Los Angeles Times
Airport Switches Face-Recognition Systems Over Accuracy Concerns
Security: Fresno Yosemite International stops trial use of Viisage product 
in favor of passenger verification unit by Visionics.
By EDMOND LOCOCO
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Fresno Yosemite International Airport, the first U.S. airport to try 
Viisage Technology Inc.'s face-recognition technology, stopped using the 
system because of concerns about its accuracy, officials said.

The Viisage system was deployed at the airport in October, but it stopped 
using the system by January. It was removed by Feb. 1 and replaced by one 
from rival Visionics Corp., said Ron Cadle, vice president of closely held 
Pelco, the contractor running the airport's trial of facial-recognition 
systems.

Fresno was one of four airports that had agreed to try the Viisage system, 
which compares the faces of ticketed passengers against a database of 
terrorists' photos. "We started off with Viisage but dropped Viisage and 
went with Visionics because it had a higher accuracy rate," airport 
spokeswoman Patti Miller said.

Face recognition is an experimental technology being tried at airports in 
California, Massachusetts, Texas and Florida as part of an effort to boost 
security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. airports are 
expected to spend $100 billion on security in 2003, and Viisage and 
Visionics are counting on their systems to grab a share of that market.

"This is totally new news to me," said Viisage Chief Executive Tom 
Colatosti after he was informed Thursday of the system's removal by 
Bloomberg News. "I'm stunned by that."

In an interview last week, Colatosti identified the Fresno site as one of 
the airports now using the Littleton, Mass.-based firm's system.

Cadle said Viisage was notified orally around the time of the removal but 
not in writing. He didn't say whom he notified. Cadle declined to provide 
data on the relative performance of the systems from Viisage and Visionics, 
and said only that the airport got better results from Visionics.

Colatosti said Viisage received no negative feedback from Fresno on the 
system and no notification it had been removed.

"I've never heard that we had a performance problem" in Fresno, Colatosti 
said. "The last I heard, they were very pleased with it."

He said the manner of removal was inappropriate and unprofessional.

Viisage announced a contract with New Hampshire's Manchester Airport on May 16.

The company news release didn't disclose that the airport paid nothing for 
the Viisage system, which was presented by an independent foundation as a 
gift, according to airport and foundation officials.
*****************
Federal Computer Week
Air Force on consolidation course


The Air Force is about one-third through the process of consolidating its 
information technology resources in the hopes of building a greater 
enterprise infrastructure, the service's chief information officer said May 29.

The goal is to have the process completed by fiscal 2004, said Air Force 
CIO John Gilligan, although the initiative has been hindered by a lack of 
funding necessary to buy the larger servers that are needed to replace the 
service's smaller ones.

The goal is to improve reliability, improve security and reduce cost, 
Gilligan said.

"We don't have the outages that we used to have," he said. The initiative 
also is freeing up a lot of people who used to do system administration 
work part time, enabling them to get back to being pilots and doing other, 
more mission-critical tasks, he said.

The Navy has undergone a much-publicized effort to consolidate hundreds of 
networks across its shore-based sites under its Navy Marine Corps Intranet 
initiative. The Air Force effort differs from NMCI because it is not a 
top-down approach, Gilligan said. Instead, the bases have been given a 
mandate, standards and architecture, but they own the task.

The current program goes through fiscal 2004 because bases have had trouble 
finding the money to purchase larger servers. Gilligan said the Air Force 
is considering a proposal that would accelerate that schedule.

The consolidation includes servers for e-mail, Web access, data and files. 
It is also an effort to bring together functions, such as financial and 
personnel data.

As part of the effort, the Air Force is also trying to reduce the number of 
applications the service uses, he said.

Gilligan spoke May 29 at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics 
Association's Washington, D.C., chapter lunch.
*********************
Federal Computer Week
Army running University of IT

The Army is conducting a University of IT pilot project in an attempt to 
get information technology experts out of the classroom and into the field 
faster.

The project, which is being run out of the Army Signal Center at Fort 
Gordon, Ga., is a new business process based on "assignment-oriented 
training," said William Dates, deputy principal director for enterprise 
integration in the Army's Office of the Chief Information Officer, speaking 
May 29 at Army IT Day in McLean, Va.

That concept involves training personnel at Fort Gordon on the equipment 
they are going to use at their home installation. If the person requires 
more diverse training later, it can be done through distance learning, said 
Edmund Kieloch, deputy director for workforce development in the CIO's office.

For example, Kieloch said, if an individual is training to be a computer 
operator at Installation X, does he or she need to be familiar with all of 
the Army's systems? If not, the operator will only be trained on necessary 
systems, and the rest of his or her future training can be done by distance 
learning, he said.

"It shortens their time in residence...sometimes they only need about half 
as much time at Fort Gordon," Kieloch told FCW.

Dates said the University of IT project has produced other benefits including:

* It lowers personnel and equipment costs.

* It requires fewer instructors.

* It standardizes training.

* It gets soldiers in units faster.

* It decreases personnel training costs.

Dates said the University of IT program was submitted to the Defense 
Department's Business Initiatives Council for approval, but was not 
adopted. The BIC decided that the Army needs more time to study and refine 
the assignment-oriented training idea, he said.

The BIC was established in June 2001 by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
to improve DOD's business operations and save money. Pete Aldridge, 
undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, 
oversees the council.

Army IT Day was sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and 
Electronics Association's Northern Virginia chapter and the Signal Corps 
Regimental Association's Greater Washington, D.C.-Albert J. Myer chapter.
********************
Newsbytes
Feds Charge Woman With Internet Auction Fraud

Internet auction fraud ranks among the top online scams, according to 
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) figures, but there are signs that 
authorities are beginning to catch up with at least some of the perpetrators.
This type of fraud is often simple. The scammer registers items for sale on 
Internet auction sites and makes off with the victim's payments without 
shipping the goods.

Investigators charged a 46-year-old woman Wednesday for allegedly offering 
laptop computers for sale on Internet auction sites and never sending them 
to buyers.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and brought 
to the federal court by inspectors and U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan.

Sharon Hunt of Windsor Locks, Conn., was charged in an indictment with 14 
counts of mail fraud.

Hunt allegedly offered laptop computers for sale via online auction sites, 
according to a statement issued by Sullivan Wednesday. But over 30 winning 
bidders never received their computers after forwarding payment to Hunt's 
mail box address in Massachusetts, the indictment alleges.

It is further claimed Hunt failed to provide refunds for the incomplete 
sales, "except in one case where the victim threatened criminal action."

Sullivan said conviction could result in up to 5 years' imprisonment and a 
$250,000 fine.

The FTC recently said it received more than 20,000 consumer complaints 
about Internet auction fraud in 2001, making it one of the biggest online 
scams.

Reported By Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com
*****************
Los Angeles Times
Priest's Wrestling Web Site Shut
Religion: Internet project showing photos of bare-chested youths was meant 
to raise funds for an O.C. teen. Ex-Placentia pastor had a similar set-up.
By WILLIAM LOBDELL

A Web site run by a Roman Catholic priest in Pennsylvania that sold videos 
of bare-chested teenage boys wrestling--ostensibly to raise funds for a 
severely injured Orange County man--was closed down voluntarily Wednesday.

A similar site started by a former Orange County priest shut down last year.

Although the founders of both sites had said the proceeds would go to help 
Tomas Mejia of Lake Forest, the man's family said they have received no 
charitable funds during the last several years. A director of one of the 
groups running a Web site said the materials on the site are an innocent 
spoof of wrestling, and the group has sent money regularly for the Mejia 
family.

An initial fund to help the family was set up in 1994 by Father James 
Curran, who worked in the Diocese of Orange then. Tomas Mejia, a former 
prep star at El Toro High School, was paralyzed and suffered severe brain 
damage in a 1994 traffic accident before his sophomore year. His family had 
no insurance.

Curran said through an attorney Thursday that he met Father Glenn Michael 
Davidowich in 1997 or 1998 on the East Coast and told him about Mejia's plight.

The Pennsylvania priest offered to help.

Davidowich, pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Byzantine Catholic Church 
in Mont Clare, Penn., founded the Junior Professional Wrestling Assn. in 
1999. In filings seeking nonprofit status, he said the purpose was to help 
pay continuing medical bills for Tomas Mejia.

For the last three years, the association's Internet site has featured 
photos of youthful grapplers--some as young as 16--with such nicknames as 
"Corporal Punishment" and "Johnny Heartbreaker."

It also peddled a long list of its own wrestling videos, such as 
"Back-to-School Bash," "Heat Stroke 2" and "Cabin Fever 2," some shot in a 
church rectory. The videos sold for roughly $20 apiece. The nonprofit did 
not file required tax returns that would have indicated how much money it 
brought in and gave away.

Davidowich sent Curran "one or two checks" totaling about $1,500, said 
Richard Leamy, an attorney for the Claretian Missionaries, the order of 
priests to which Curran belongs. Leamy said Curran severed fund-raising 
ties with the wrestling organization several years ago after viewing its 
Web site and finding the photographs distasteful.

Curran, now an associate pastor at a church in Stone Mountain, Ga., 
declined to comment.

But public documents show that Curran undertook a similar enterprise about 
the same time Davidowich did.

He listed himself as owner of Con Ganas Sports Entertainment in 1999 
fictitious-business-name statements, and gave, as an address, St. Joseph 
Church in Placentia, where he was an associate pastor. Con Ganas is Spanish 
for "with desire" or "with enthusiasm."

The Con Ganas Web site featured fund-raising pleas for Tomas Mejia, along 
with beefcake poses of high school wrestlers, videos of prep wrestling 
matches and unofficial tussles featuring athletes named "Y2K Hunk" and 
"Surfin' Superboy." Video titles include: "The Future Looks Good" and 
"Class Act."

The site, which listed a Placentia post-office box as the organization's 
address, signed off last summer with this notice:

"Con Ganas Sports began in the summer of 1999 as a not-for-profit sports 
entertainment entity, specializing in professional wrestling with the sole 
purpose of generating funds for the Tomas Mejia Fund.... Con Ganas has 
decided to discontinue production indefinitely, while we consider more 
cost-efficient ways of accomplishing our original purpose."

When told late Thursday of Curran's former Web site and business, attorney 
Leamy said, "That's news to me. I can't really comment."

Curran left the Orange diocese last summer. A diocesan spokeswoman said the 
church had no knowledge of the business and wouldn't have allowed it if it 
had. She also noted that Curran had only complimentary reviews in his 
personnel file.

Marcella Mejias, who along with her husband, cares for her son in a 
two-bedroom apartment, said this week that she had never heard of any 
wrestling associations designed to raise money for Tomas and hasn't 
received a check from any group for years. She said the initial fund 
started by Curran, a priest she admires, has been closed down.

"My life is taking care of my son and that's it," she said. "We don't have 
any idea of what [the wrestling association] is about."

Tony Karl, director of the Pennsylvania group, said in a written statement 
that his organization each year sent a check for about $2,000 for Mejia to 
Curran, though the last check was returned because the priest had moved 
from Orange County.

Karl said the site has been criticized by Davidowich's parishioners as 
sexually suggestive and unseemly for a church-connected organization. The 
wrestlers are scantily dressed and earlier photographs showed some of them 
in dog collars and chains.

Davidowich allowed a few wrestling matches, which were videotaped, on St. 
Michael's property during the summer of 2000, Karl wrote in an e-mail 
response to reporters' questions.

"In August 2000, Davidowich realized it was poor judgment to film on parish 
property" and halted the practice, Karl wrote.

Karl said Davidowich resigned from the wrestling association after meeting 
with his bishop in February 2001. Still, he was featured prominently on its 
Web site up until it closed this week, and he was listed until recently as 
the nonprofit's director.

Bishop Andrew Pataki of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic in West 
Patterson, N.J., did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Law enforcement officials in Pennsylvania said they haven't received any 
complaints about the Web site and are not investigating.

Karl contends that the site's photographs have been misconstrued. "[We] 
provide sports entertainment, and nothing more," he said. "It's a makeshift 
attempt to mimic and spoof pro wrestling."
********************
Washington Post
Judges Strike Down Internet Filtering Law
By Brian Krebs

A federal appeals panel today struck down a law that required libraries to 
shield minors from pornographic or otherwise "harmful" content on the Internet.

A three-judge panel in Philadelphia overturned the "Children's Internet 
Protection Act" (CIPA), a two-year-old law that would require public 
libraries and schools to use Internet filtering software on their computers 
in order to qualify for millions of dollars in federal funding. The law's 
enforcement mechanism was set to take effect in July.

"Any public library that adheres to CIPA's conditions will necessarily 
restrict patrons' access to a substantial amount of protected speech in 
violation of the First Amendment," the judges wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association, 
the lead plaintiffs in the case, claimed that filtering technology unfairly 
restricts adults' access to constitutionally protected material and fails 
to protect kids from the thousands of new adult sites that debut on the Web 
each week.

The groups presented evidence that filtering technologies block material 
that is not related to pornographic content or hate sites, and that almost 
all filters let at least some of that content through.

Defending CIPA, the Justice Department argued that the new law did not 
violate the First Amendment because it gave local communities ultimate 
control over how the technology should be used.

The ruling comes just in time for an estimated 5,000 public libraries that 
receive federal "e-rate" funding to subsidize their Internet connections. 
Under CIPA, libraries are required to decide whether to install filters by 
July 1, 2002, or forgo funding for the coming fiscal year.

Today's ruling forbids the government from withholding funds for any 
libraries that do not install filters.

Any appeal sends the case directly to the Supreme Court. A Justice 
Department spokesman said government attorneys are reviewing the ruling and 
have not made a decision on whether to appeal.

Nationwide, roughly half of the nation's public libraries use Internet 
filters, according to a recent survey of 355 libraries published in the 
Library Journal. Of those, almost all filter children's terminals, while 
roughly half also filter adult PCs.

In Virginia, almost a third of the state's 90 public library systems 
receive e-rate funding, totaling more than $1.1 million in the most recent 
fiscal year. Thirteen of those libraries that receive e-rate funds already 
filter connections on at least some of their computers.

But many Virginia libraries have already indicated they plan to forgo the 
subsidies for a mix of ideological and practical reasons, said Audrey 
Kelley, a technology consultant for the Library of Virginia, which offers 
professional advice to public libraries across the state.

"Nearly everybody was waiting to see whether or not this law would stand," 
Kelley said. "There are several libraries who just won't apply for e-rate 
funds, because for them it's just not worth the cost, time and effort," she 
said.

The board of trustees that crafts policy for the 27 public libraries in the 
District of Columbia has so far opted not to install filters. If the law is 
ultimately upheld and the board continues its opposition, the city's public 
libraries stand to lose more than $1.3 million in annual subsidies.

"We monitor children's use of the Internet, but we don't filter because the 
technology is not that good and it gives parents a false sense of security 
that their kids are being protected when they aren't," said Elaine Clein, 
assistant director for the District of Columbia Public Library.

Clein said the board is also concerned about endorsing what it calls an 
unfunded mandate: CIPA does not allow libraries to use e-rate funds to 
purchase, install or maintain the content filters.

"That's money that has to come out of existing programs," she said. "The 
opportunity cost would be books we don't purchase, or new computers that we 
would have otherwise bought."

According to the Library Journal study, the average cost of using filters 
was $1,772 per library system. Smaller libraries were far less likely to 
use the technology, and those that did spent an average of $360 on the 
technologies annually.

The law also covers millions of dollars set aside each year for Internet 
connections through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), a 
federal grant program run by the states.

Many states have used some or all of their LSTA funding to create statewide 
networks that libraries, public schools and community colleges can used to 
gain access to electronic databases and subscriptions to various periodicals.

The decision marks the third time the Philadelphia court has rejected an 
attempt by Congress to shield children from pornography on the Internet.

In 1996, the court overturned the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which 
sought to ban many different types of speech on the Internet based mainly 
on its sexual or graphic nature.

The court also struck down the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a 
narrower version of CDA that sought to restrict minors' access to explicit 
material online by requiring Web sites to hide their content behind 
age-verification screens.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that ruling. But earlier 
this month, the U.S. Supreme Court partially upheld the statute, and 
ordered the 3rd Circuit to address some of the broader free-speech issues 
raised by the lower court.
******************
Washington Post
VeriSign Tells Staff To Take a Vacation
Cost-Cutting Strategy Follows Loss, Layoffs
By David McGuire

Employees of Internet addressing and security giant VeriSign Inc. will go 
on vacation this summer, whether they want to or not, as the company cuts 
costs.

"We're looking, as many companies are, to control our expenses as tightly 
as possible," VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin said.

VeriSign ordered its employees to take three vacation days in the second 
quarter, which ends June 30, and three more in the third quarter. The 
company will close most of its offices during the week of July 1 and 
encourage employees to take their mandatory third-quarter vacation at that 
time, Galvin said.

Employees who haven't accrued enough days off to meet the mandatory 
vacation requirements will have to borrow against future time off, Galvin 
said. No employee will go without pay during the mandatory holiday, Galvin 
said.

VeriSign's Dulles office, which houses the global database of dot-com 
Internet addresses, will remain staffed by essential personnel over the 
July 4 holiday week, Galvin said.

Galvin said the mandatory vacations will help VeriSign control costs by 
reducing its financial obligations. Galvin did not say how much the company 
hopes to save.

Among cash-strapped high-tech companies, forced vacations are not unheard 
of. As it did last year, Sun Microsystems Inc. will close its offices the 
first week of July, forcing employees to take either vacation or unpaid 
leave every day except for the 4th. Hewlett-Packard Co. is closing its U.S. 
offices from June 30 through July 6.

VeriSign has had problems this year, posting a steep first-quarter loss and 
cutting 350 employees as part of a restructuring.

Scott Phillips, a Merrill Lynch & Co. vice president who tracks VeriSign's 
stock, said he sees no immediate end to the company's financial woes.

"The near-term forecast for VeriSign is all negative," Phillips said. "It's 
not the high-growth, leading tech company that people had traditionally 
thought of it as."
******************
New York Times
Hackers Crack Copy Protection CD's
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Some music fans are trying to fake out CD copy 
protection technology with the stroke of a felt-tip pen.

The tactic is being used in Europe, where Sony is trying out a copy 
protection method. That model won't be coming to America, the company says.

The crack in the copy protection is the talk of the town on Internet 
message boards, though Digital Audio Disc Corporation, Sony Corp.'s CD 
manufacturing unit, is not amused.

``Consumers should be aware that attempting to circumvent copy control by 
writing or attaching anything to the disc can result in permanent damage to 
the disc, and possible damage to the playback device,'' Sony DADC said in a 
statement last week.

All five major recording labels are in trials with various copy protection 
schemes, mostly in the European market.

Word of cracks in Sony's copy protection first surfaced on a German Web 
site, www.chip.de. The new technology is contained on all of Sony's CD 
latest releases in Europe from performers including Celine Dion, Shakira 
and Jennifer Lopez.

The protection is supposed to thwart users from ripping CD tracks to MP3 
files by placing a small bit of computer data on the disc. A computer reads 
the data track and ignores the audio tracks, preventing a computer playback 
of the music. Home stereos and portable CD players can still recognize and 
play the audio tracks.

But a felt-tip marker easily broke the protection on a CD of Dion's ``A New 
Day Has Come'' bought in Berlin. An ink line drawn across the 
copy-protection data portion of the CD allowed the disc to be copied 
digitally. The original CD, however, no longer worked in a standard CD player.

Some CD customers also reported breaking the protection by attaching a 
small piece of paper to the protected data portion.

Sony Music Entertainment labels have yet to unleash copy-protected CDs in 
the U.S. market. To sate U.S. consumer's appetite for digital-format music, 
Sony plans to release music CDs containing a second digital format. A 
computer will be able to read the so-called second session on the disc, but 
won't be able to copy the music on the hard drive or share it over the 
Internet.
***************
New York Times
Technology Helps Search for Abducted Children
By REUTERS

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Technology and the Internet have become 
powerful weapons in the search for missing and abducted children, raising 
recovery rates of the most serious and urgent cases in the United States to 
more than 90 percent.

Andrew and Jonathan Norton, aged 8 and 3, were abducted by their father 
from their home in Dutchess County, New York, in July, 2000. He bought a 
camper and they began a long trek that took them across the entire country, 
never staying more than a few days in any one place.

``They were in every state west of the Mississippi and Mexico as well. My 
ex-husband paid for everything in cash. Then, nine months later, they 
turned up in a recreational vehicle camp in California, 20 miles south of 
San Jose,'' said their mother, Elizabeth Norton.

A woman in the next camping spot became suspicious because neither boy went 
to school and they seemed angry and confused. She knew one was called 
Jonathan so she connected to the Internet and did a search on the words 
``missing kids.'' She was instantly directed to the National Center for 
Missing and Exploited Children, based in Alexandria, Virginia.

``She typed in 'Jonathan' and the site brought up all the Jonathans listed 
as missing. My Jonathan was one of them. She called the sheriff and that's 
how I got my kids back. Without that technology, I believe I'd still be 
looking,'' said Norton.

Last year, some 723,000 children were reported missing in the United 
States. Many cases are children who go astray for short periods and are 
quickly located. But around 160,000 children a year are abducted by other 
family members, usually embroiled in child custody disputes. A small 
number, probably 4,000 to 5,000, are abducted by non-family members, many 
for sexual purposes.

``In the search for a missing kid, time is of the essence. The longer a 
child is missing, the lower the chances are of a safe recovery,'' said the 
center's president, Ernie Allen.

IMAGES GO WORLDWIDE WITHIN MINUTES

In years past, when a child was reported missing, it could take weeks to 
disseminate pictures around the country. If a child was taken overseas, the 
chances of identification and recovery were slim. Today, a picture can be 
scanned into a computer and sent around the world within minutes.

The center's Web site, Missingkids.com, receives 3 million hits a day and 
operates a 24-hour hotline. The results have been dramatic.

``In 1990, our recovery rate for the most serious and urgent cases was 62 
percent, which was pretty good for that time. Now, the recovery rate is up 
to 94 percent and the overwhelming cause of that improvement is 
technology,'' said Allen.

In the center's computer laboratory, former police composite artist Steve 
Loftin works on digitally aging the images of children who have been 
missing for several years.

``Using pictures of the parents when they were young where available or of 
older siblings and employing our knowledge of hereditary factors and the 
aging process, we can stretch, cut, paste and air brush images, turning a 
5-year-old into a good likeness of what that child might look like as a 
17-year-old,'' said Loftin.

Sometime, when a child is recovered, the computer image is remarkably 
similar to the actual child, despite the fact that Loftin has to make 
educated guesses about factors like hairstyle and tooth development.

Such images placed on milk cartons or postcards can breath new life into 
long moribund cases.

An age-enhanced image helped in the recovery of Johnny Tello, six years 
after he was snatched by his father from his home in Illinois in 1993 when 
he was only 3.

After six years and many fruitless leads, the center received a new tip 
from an anonymous caller in August 1999 suggesting the child was enrolled 
in a school in Texas.

AGE-ENHANCED PICTURE RECOGNIZED

Police showed school personnel age-progressed photographs of Johnny. One 
staff member recognized a photo that resembled ''Huber,'' a student living 
with his single father. When confronted by police, the father confessed and 
Johnny was reunited with his mother.

In another case last year, Katrina Maltson, who was abducted by her mother, 
was recognized from an age-enhanced image printed on a post card six years 
later.

``We have recovered 331 cases where an age progression was done,'' said Loftin.

One woman recognized an age-processed photograph as herself. She had been 
abducted years before and one of her parents was still looking for her.

In another case, a golfer at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, 
carried an image of a missing child on his golf bag. Someone recognized the 
image when it flashed on the screen. The abductor was arrested and the 
child reunited with his parents.

Technicians also rebuild images from skeletal remains. In one case, Nevada 
police found an unidentified skull believed to be of a teen-age male. When 
the face was reconstructed and shown on television, a man called in saying 
he thought it was his missing son. DNA tests confirmed the identification.

Elizabeth Norton looks back on the nine months without her sons as a time 
of indescribable agony. But at least the story had a happy ending.

``Thank God we had the technology to bring them back to me,'' she said.
********************
BBC
Hi-tech security flaws exposed

It has been a bad week for biometric computer systems.
A series of exposes and tests have exposed the shortcomings of systems that 
use face recognition, iris scanning and fingerprints to improve security.

Experts have found that the systems can be fooled using very simple 
techniques.

An American civil liberties group has condemned plans to use biometric 
systems to protect some US landmarks from attack.

Poor performance

Following the 11 September attacks many organisations have been looking for 
better ways to verify identities or even to try and pick out known 
terrorists or criminals from crowds.

Before now biometric systems had been seen as a good candidate for vetting 
people, but recent trials and tests are casting doubt on their effectiveness.

A report into the use of a Visionics face scanning system tested for eight 
weeks at Palm Beach airport in Florida only managed to correctly identify 
people 47% of the time.

The system is intended to scan crowds and pick out the faces of people it 
knows.

The airport tested the system by asking it to pick out the faces of 15 
employees who were passing through the terminal.

The system struggled to identify people if there were wearing spectacles, 
if the lighting was wrong or if they moved their heads too much.

The poor performance has convinced the airport's authorities to abandon 
plans to use the face scanning system for security.

Despite the critical report the Visionics system is now being trialled at 
some American landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty.

"The facts show that under real-world conditions, Osama Bin Laden himself 
could easily evade a face recognition system." said Barry Steinhardt, 
director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, in a statement 
condemning the trials.

Fooling with photos

German technology magazine c't had more bad news for sellers of biometric 
systems when it carried out tests on 11 gadgets that used face and 
fingerprint recognition as a security measure.

The journalists found that they could fool some facial recognition systems 
by holding up a laptop showing a video of someone's face to the camera or 
even with a still image of a face.

They found it was possible to fool some fingerprint sensors by simply 
breathing on the prints left on sensors or by resting a small bag of water 
on the sensor.

Last month engineering professor Tsutomu Matsumoto revealed how he and his 
colleagues had managed to fool 11 commercially available fingerprint 
sensors using household ingredients.

By making false fingers out of moulds made from real fingers and digitally 
enhanced images, Professor Matsumoto managed to fool the fingerprint 
sensors 80% of the time.

The series of experiments led security researchers to declare that 
fingerprint sensors were too insecure to use seriously.

In defence, biometric experts say that the systems are good when ensuring 
small populations of people are who they claim to be, such as employees 
entering an office block.

But they fare badly when asked to pluck identities out of a crowd.
******************
USA Today
Eminem CD sales impressive despite music sharing

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Eminem's record label was so nervous about music pirates 
cannibalizing sales of the rapper's latest CD that it released The Eminem 
Show nine days early, disrupting well-laid marketing plans.

But when the CD hit stores Memorial Day weekend, it still managed to debut 
at No. 1 in record time.

Some industry observers say the CD's success in the face of widespread 
bootlegging proves that online music swapping doesn't crush legitimate 
retail sales and can actually generate better buzz for a new release.

"The jury is still out on how significantly file sharing actually effects 
record label revenues," said Michael Goodman, a senior music analyst with 
Forrester Research in Boston. "But to a certain extent, file sharing can 
actually prime the pump for sales."

SoundScan, which gathers sales data from more than 17,000 retailers across 
the United States, said 284,534 copies of The Eminem Show were sold 
nationally during the long weekend.

"We've never had a record debut at No. 1 on the SoundScan chart that hasn't 
had the benefit of a full six days of sales behind it," said Mike Shalett, 
chief executive of SoundScan.

But Interscope Geffen A&M, the label behind Eminem, insists that illegal 
copies, made from one of three closely guarded master copies sent to 
manufacturers, hurt the release.

"I absolutely believe that the bootlegs and downloads have a huge negative 
effect on sales," said Steve Berman, head of sales and marketing at 
Interscope, a division of Universal Music Group.

Individual songs from the CD became widely available online in mid-May, and 
bootlegged copies of the entire CD began appearing on street corners around 
the same time.

It's impossible to calculate how many sales were lost in the process, 
Berman said.

Interscope took a number of steps to counter the impact of the downloads, 
beyond moving up the release date.

Two million of the 3 million copies of The Eminem Show were shipped with a 
complimentary DVD that featured interviews and live footage of Eminem.

The record label also pursued Web sites posting the CD, persuading some of 
them to remove it, Berman said.

But some analysts said the music industry continues to take the wrong 
approach to counter online downloads.

Web surfers downloading music files are the same people who go out and buy 
the CDs, and music companies need to treat them like customers, not 
criminals, said Sean Baenen, managing director of Odyssey, a market 
research firm in San Francisco.

"It's not a group of pirates looking to steal," Baenen said. "It's a group 
of people who want more choice and control over the music they receive."

The early success of The Eminem Show in the wake of widespread file sharing 
and bootlegging provides some understanding to an industry trying to come 
to terms with a new marketplace.

"What's happened to Eminem is going to be a real learning point for the 
industry and artists," said Michael Bracy, a Washington lobbyist with the 
Future of Music Coalition, which represents artists' interests.

"Part of the puzzle is offering consumers some entertainment value that 
they're not going to get through file sharing," he said.
*******************
USA Today
'Industry-standard' Linux to be created

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)  Four Linux companies announced plans Thursday to 
create a common business version of the open-source operating system. 
Industry leader Red Hat, however, was not among them.

Caldera International, Turbolinux, SuSE and Conectiva will jointly develop 
the distribution called UnitedLinux, and sell it by the end of the year 
under their own brand names.

Previously, each company released its own flavor of the operating system 
and, for the most part, software designed for Linux usually ran on all 
distributions with minor tweaking.

The group  also called UnitedLinux  hopes to speed further business 
adoption of Linux by releasing a single version that will be supported by 
all. The companies will fund joint research and development.

North Carolina-based Red Hat, which now sells about 50% of Linux software, 
has launched its own alliance with various other software and hardware 
companies.

Ransom Love, chief executive of Caldera, said Red Hat and other major 
distributors have been invited to join. Mark de Visser, Red Hat's vice 
president of marketing, said his company has made no decision.

"We are not sure what to make of it, because they called us yesterday and 
have been working on it for four months," he said. "We cannot join anything 
we don't understand."

In a survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe, about 40% 
said they were either using or testing Linux in their organizations, 
according to the research firm IDC.

Linux, a derivative of Unix created by Finnish college student Linus 
Torvalds, is developed by a community of programmers around the world. Its 
source code is shared and freely available.

Though individual companies charge for the operating system, tech support 
and services, versions can be downloaded legally for free on the Internet. 
Many companies and governments have turned to Linux as a low-cost 
alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

"You can't help but compete against Microsoft," Love said. "When someone is 
trying to be all things to all people, you can't help but bump into them. 
... I think this does provide a feasible business alternative."
********************
The Mercury News
Online film piracy cuts into industry profit
BOOTLEG COPIES BEING TRADED AT INTERNET SPEED
By Dawn Chmielewski
Mercury News

The release of the summer's first blockbuster movies has sparked an 
unprecedented frenzy of film piracy, sending nearly 10 million people 
online to download bootleg copies of ``Spider-Man'' or ``Star Wars: Episode 
II -- Attack of the Clones.''

Even as box-office sales soar -- with the top 12 movies grossing a record 
$193 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend -- Internet film piracy 
is growing even faster, according to a new report from Viant, a 
Boston-based researcher specializing in digital entertainment. As many as 
400,000 to 600,000 illicit copies of films are downloaded every day -- a 20 
percent increase over a year ago.

``It's getting clear -- alarmingly clear, I might add -- that we are in the 
midst of the possibility of Armageddon,'' said Jack Valenti, president and 
chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America.

The film industry has kept a wary eye on online piracy since Napster 
popularized file-swapping three years ago -- and made it possible for 
millions of strangers to freely exchange billions of bootleg songs. A new 
generation of file-swapping services -- including Morpheus, Kazaa, Limewire 
and iMesh -- has allowed computer users to find and trade movie files with 
similar ease.

But the brisk trading of big-budget, high-adrenaline films like 
``Spider-Man'' and ``Star Wars'' represents a new high-water mark in film 
piracy, Viant says.

The twin blockbusters appeal to ``the right demographic'' -- primarily 
adolescent and 20-something males -- and come at the right time -- the end 
of the school year -- to ignite a powder keg of online piracy, said Andrew 
Frank, Viant's chief technical officer.

Much of the activity is on Internet Relay Chat -- a sophisticated network 
of servers that requires users to know pass codes and basic code language 
and offer something to barter as the price of admission. Traffic on IRC 
swelled to 2.5 million users, about five times the norm, Frank said. IRC is 
considered a place where hard-core pirates hang out and swap wares.

The vast majority of the bootleg activity, however, is occurring on 
well-known file-swapping sites.

At its peak, Viant estimates nearly 10 million computer users scoured IRC, 
Morpheus, Kazaa and other online services for pirated copies of ``Star 
Wars'' and ``Spider-Man.'' Indeed, traffic spiked 300 percent during the 
weekend of May 11, when trading of grainy, jerky illicit ``cam'' versions 
of the films -- captured by a video camera at pre-release screenings -- 
became widespread.

That doesn't take into account file trading done directly over 
instant-messaging services provided by America Online, Yahoo and Microsoft; 
or on college campuses, where a single bootleg copy sitting on the campus 
network could potentially serve thousands of students.

Valenti worries that digitally pilfered film copies -- packaged into file 
sizes that can fit on and be burned to a standard CD or DVD, then traded, 
shared or sold -- will not only undercut box-office sales, but erode the 
lucrative rental market.

``Only two out of 10 movies ever get their money back from theatrical 
exhibition,'' Valenti said. ``Eight out of 10 have to go to airlines, to 
hotels, to Blockbuster, to HBO, then to basic cable -- to get their money 
back. If you are ambushed in the early days of your theatrical exhibition, 
the chances of you recouping in a world that is mostly broadband would be 
very, very different.''

Frank estimates only one in four people who attempted to download illicit 
copies of these movies were successful. ``Star Wars,'' for instance, comes 
in four separate files -- ranging in size from 70 million to 180 million 
bytes of information each -- requiring more than six hours to download over 
a high-speed Internet connection.

And in the case of Morpheus, where a user simply enters a search term such 
as ``Spider-Man,'' one doesn't always get what was expected -- the movie 
can be mislabeled, blank or missing audio.

It would be easier, and less painful, to stand in line and buy a ticket at 
the theater, Frank said.

``The fact that people are doing this, despite how challenging and 
frustrating it is, really does indicate there's a whole lot of demand,'' 
Frank said. ``We hope this will encourage Hollywood not only to try to take 
combative measures to shut it down, which is certainly a worthwhile pursuit 
of theirs, but to try to address demand by accelerating their licensing of 
content for online distribution.''
********************
MSNBC
Where piracy and profits converge

Are satellite TV hackers a tool in a global conspiracy?

By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC

May 30  It's just a thin slice of plastic that's stuck into your satellite 
TV set-top box when you first bring it home. To viewers, the card is the 
key that unlocks pay-TV. To corporations, smart cards are much more  80 
million of them currently unlock one of the world's most influential and 
lucrative industries. But now, the plastic cards are at the center of a 
global conspiracy theory  a cutthroat corporate battle, some say, to 
control the world's living rooms through deception, cheating, and intimidation.
       THE STORY COMES COMPLETE with alleged corporate-sponsored hacking, 
a $1 billion lawsuit, mysterious cash payoffs shipped in hollowed-out VCRs, 
and even a suspicious death.
       The cloak-and-dagger world of pay-TV piracy is a fountain of rumor 
and innuendo that befits a Michael Crichton book or a James Bond movie. But 
it was all just that  a dramatic story line  until March, when a French 
firm filed a lawsuit that shined a harsh public light on this secretive 
world. Public filings in the case have, for the first time, pierced its 
veil of secrecy, linking real-world programmers, executives and companies 
to the murky nicknames and alter egos of piracy.

EYE ON MURDOCH SMART CARD MAKER
       And at least at the moment, the controversy swirls around a small 
British company owned by one of the world's most powerful media magnates.
      That company, NDS, makes smart cards which unlock 28 million of the 
world's satellite set-top boxes. Owned by News Corp. and its flamboyant 
owner Rupert Murdoch, NDS now finds itself on the receiving end of a $1.1 
billion lawsuit filed in March by French rival Canal Plus Technologies. 
Canal Plus comes with its own heavyweights attached  Vivendi Universal, and 
its now embattled CEO Jean-Marie Messier.
       The Canal Plus lawsuit claims NDS paid hackers to break the code in 
Canal Plus smart cards, then gave the information away on the Internet, all 
to undermine Canal Plus business. It's probably the largest computer 
hacking lawsuit ever, and one of the biggest accusations of corporate 
espionage.
       An NDS motion to dismiss the case was heard by a federal court in 
San Francisco Thursday, although the judge did not immediately issue a 
ruling  that could come in the coming days or weeks. Meanwhile, depositions 
are set to begin next month. With Canal Plus lawyers vowing to wage a very 
public court battle, the next few weeks will likely raise the curtain on a 
5-year drama, unraveling a complicated world where the interests of small 
time TV-pirates and moguls bent on dominating the world's media have at 
times overlapped rather neatly.

1997: MURDOCH AND ECHOSTAR
       Back in 1997, Murdoch's News Corp. was in negotiations to acquire 
EchoStar Communications Corp., operator of the DISH Network in the U.S. 
EchoStar would be a perfect puzzle piece for Murdoch, whose powerful 
portfolio of TV firms was missing a distribution channel in the lucrative 
U.S. market. EchoStar was a distant second to DirecTV in the U.S. market, 
but a rising star that appeared to have staying power.
     The deal stalled, however, and a dispute over smart cards was part of 
the problem, says one source familiar with the talks.
       News Corp.'s NDS had only one real competitor in the global smart 
card market  a Swiss company named Kudelski Group which makes cards under 
the "Nagra" name. Nagra cards protected EchoStar systems, but News Corp. 
expected EchoStar to switch to NDS after any deal. NDS already had DirecTV 
under contract, so a pact with EchoStar would give the firm a stranglehold 
on smart cards across the U.S. But EchoStar resisted, according to a 
source, insisting that it keep the option to use Nagra cards after the deal.
       Not long after, the deal was scrapped, in part because EchoStar CEO 
Charles Ergen insisted on staying with whatever the best security 
technology happened to be, the source said. EchoStar later sued for breach 
of contract and settled out of court.

1998: HACKER FOUND DEAD
       The following year, in 1998, NDS went looking for more smart card 
expertise and contacted brilliant German hacker Boris Floricic. Known as 
"Tron" in the computer underground, Floricic was the author of a 
well-regarded research paper about reverse engineering smart card technology.
       A few weeks later, in October of 1998, Floricic was found dead, 
hanging from a tree in a Berlin park. The death was ruled a suicide by 
authorities  a ruling many hackers reject.
       There has never been any assertion that NDS was somehow involved in 
the death. But the fact that Floricic's father found a letter from NDS in 
his son's belongings indicated the company's willingness to consult the 
computer underground for security expertise. The incident also shocked the 
hacker community, which wondered if computer curiosity could now have 
deadly consequences.
1999: DIRECTV DEAL SET TO EXPIRE
       Nagra cards and security issues continued to nag NDS the next year, 
as the firm's most important contract  with DirecTV  came up for renewal. 
NDS was planning an initial public offering to raise $150 million later in 
the year, so a renewal of its pact with DirecTV was critical. The only real 
NDS competitor: the Swiss firm, and Nagra cards.
       It's at this critical moment that the story heads underground. At 
the height of the DirecTV-NDS renegotiations, a now-infamous computer file 
named Secarom.zip appeared on a pirate Web site DR7.com on March 26, 1999.
       Secarom.zip was the master key to European satellite provider Canal 
Plus, a slice of code that allowed pirates to create fake smart cards that 
foiled the security measures built into those systems. At the time, Canal 
Plus was chief rival to BskyB, Murdoch's European satellite broadcast 
system. In no time, a cottage industry for Canal Plus pirate cards formed 
and at one point, nearly three million of four millions users in Italy were 
pirates, according to Canal Plus.
       In its lawsuit, Canal Plus alleged NDS was ultimately behind the 
hacking of its system, and the cottage industry that formed later, costing 
Canal Plus over $1 billion in lost business.
       According to the lawsuit, an NDS lab in Israel cracked the Canal 
Plus cards, which Canal Plus had developed in-house. Then, the company made 
sure the crack was published on the Internet in a place where pirates were 
sure to find it. NDS denies Canal Plus' the claims.
MORE HACKING ALLEGATIONS?
       But there were other accusations flying around in the hacker 
community, too.
       Around the same time the code to Canal Plus' smart cards appeared 
on the DR7.com Web site, so did the a master key to pirating EchoStar 
television and their Nagra smart cards, according to a former administrator 
of the site. In fact, the code was published by the same cast of characters 
who released the Canal Plus code, suggesting a link between the two acts of 
piracy. If, as Canal Plus suggests, NDS was behind the Canal Plus card 
piracy, it was behind the EchoStar piracy too, the administrator says.
       E-mails to the administrator of the current DR7.com Web site went 
unreturned.
       At any rate, with the secret codes to both NDS and Nagra smart now 
public, the playing field in the smart card business was level. By August 
of 1999, NDS had a new four-year contract with DirecTV. However, the 
contract contained an important escape clause  that DirecTV could develop 
its own in-house smart card technology and dump NDS at any time.
       NDS declined to comment on the accusation that it was somehow 
connected to the EchoStar hack. NDS spokesperson Margot Field said the 
company "does not respond to rumors or supposition."
       Nagra card maker Kudelski Group and EchoStar also declined comment.
       But a spokesperson for Canal Plus said the company had talked with 
EchoStar about the incident, and EchoStar had expressed interest in joining 
its $1.1 billion lawsuit against NDS.
       "We have been contacted by many entities that have been harmed by 
NDS activities, seeking to either assist us or to join in the lawsuits, and 
that would include EchoStar," said the spokesperson, who requested anonymity.

CASH STUFFED IN VCR
       The months following March of 1999 were the glory days for TV 
pirates, with trade in pirate cards clipping along at a multi-million 
dollar pace. A "fresh hack" could be worth up to $5 million, according to 
one estimate. Pirate dealers in Canada could sell the cards with relative 
immunity, since a quirk of law made piracy legal north of the United 
States. But money flowed back into the U.S., too, evidenced by a series of 
high-ticket lawsuits NDS and DirecTV brought against individual dealers. In 
one case alone, DirecTV won a $19 million judgment against Quebec residents 
Reginald Scullion and his wife, Frances Callan for selling pirate equipment 
to a set of 80 dealers inside the U.S. during the late 1990s
       Rumors about the thriving pirate smart card trade abound. The most 
popular involves the discovery later that year of a VCR stuffed with 
$50,000 cash that was stopped at the Canadian border by U.S. Customs 
officials.
       The payment is now legend  never proven publicly  in the TV pirate 
community. The money was one installment of cash headed from Canada to the 
U.S., allegedly sent by the operator of DR7.com. It was headed for a hacker 
named "Von," payment for supplying the code to hack a major pay-TV system.
       But the VCR caught the attention of customs officials, who began 
investigating. No arrests were made in connection with the incident, and 
there are no public records indicating it ever happened. But soon after, 
things got dicey in the pirate-TV world.

CANAL PLUS INVESTIGATION
       At almost the same time, lawyers from Canal Plus Technologies began 
their own investigation. Why were Canal Plus smart cards hacked so fast? 
Who would have the technological know-how to crack the cards, and the 
incentive to see their technology exposed? The answer, according to Canal 
Plus lawyers: NDS. Giving away Canal Plus smart card secrets was the same 
as giving away their pay-TV for free. It would ruin the company, and clear 
the way for Rupert Murdoch's competitive offering BSkyB.
       In filings connected to its lawsuit, Canal Plus identifies Von as 
Chris Tarnovsky, the NDS employee. Von, also known as "Big Gun" to pirates, 
was a bit of a legend in the underground. He designed the so-called 
"battery card" in the early 90s, the first technology used to steal direct 
broadcast satellite signals. Tarnovsky, like Floricic, was an expert in 
smart card technology who lived in Germany. But like many hackers, he spent 
considerable time researching in the hacking underground, and now many 
accusations say he spent a good deal of time on the wrong side. And 
apparently, Tarnovsky's murky background didn't scare off his future employer.

2001: MURDOCH WANTS DIRECTV
       While Canal Plus lawyers researched the possible unholy 
alliance  and according to some sources, while EchoStar did its own 
fruitless investigation into NDS  piracy against DirecTV ramped up. 
According to one informed source, piracy rates nearly doubled as the year 
2000 drew to a close.
       Drastic measures were necessary: NDS and DirecTV planned a massive 
electronic counter-measure designed to zap pirate cards sitting in set-top 
boxes. The "code bomb" exploded on what pirates know as "Black Sunday," 
just before the 2001 Super Bowl. Some 300,000 pirates were zapped. But 
within months, according to the source, most were back stealing signals, 
and DirecTV's frustration with NDS grew. But at the same time, NDS' parent 
was about to make a bid to buy DirecTV.
       Only a few weeks before that Super Bowl Sunday, Murdoch indicated 
he was ready to make another aggressive move to acquire a U.S. satellite 
broadcaster. This time, Murdoch's News Corp. launched a $30 billion bid to 
pluck DirecTV from Hughes Electronics in January. The deal would have made 
Murdoch's SkyGlobal  already with assets in Europe, Asia, and Latin 
America  the largest television platform in the world.
       As the technology stock market began its southern migration, the 
purchase price for U.S. market leader DirecTV became more reasonable, and 
negotiations heated up between the two firms. Once again, Murdoch was on 
the brink of a deal, and once again, it was snatched away  and once again, 
smart cards could be blamed.
       Nine months after word leaked out of Murdoch's bid, U.S. rival 
EchoStar swooped in with a last-minute offer that trumped News Corp. The 
pot had been sweetened by a $1 billion kick-in from Kudelski Group, the 
Nagra card maker. The kick-in made sense; if Nagra could wrestle DirecTV's 
business away from NDS, it would add some 40 cents per share to the 
company's bottom line.
       The deal was approved by the two companies in October 2001, but it 
faces an uncertain regulatory future  because it would create one firm that 
overwhelmingly controls the U.S. direct broadcast market, the Federal Trade 
Commission is reviewing the deal.

2002: DIRECTV MOVES TO DROP NDS
       But already, there is apparently fallout for NDS. In April, DirecTV 
announced it would sever ties with Murdoch's smart cards, saying it would 
exercise the "out" included in their 1999, four-year pact. DirecTV will 
develop its own smart cards, the announcement indicated. It would also 
immediately act to replace all current customer smart cards, a swap-out 
that's expensive and time-consuming.
       The news trounced NDS stock, coming hardly two weeks after Canal 
Plus filed its lawsuit against NDS.
       DirecTV spokesperson Bob Marsocci said the timing of the 
announcement had nothing to do with the Canal Plus lawsuit; and NDS 
spokesperson Margot Field, in an e-mail, said "NDS continues to have a good 
relationship with DirecTV," and noted that NDS will continue to earn 
revenue from its DirecTV relationship through August 2003.
       However, a source familiar with the situation told MSNBC.com that 
DirecTV has been frustrated with NDS for some time, and that NDS employees 
were barred last year from working on any DirecTV conditional access 
systems related to smart card production. Another source confirmed that 
DirecTV's relationship with NDS had grown increasingly rocky over recent 
years, as DirecTV became more frustrated with NDS' apparently inability to 
keep hackers from stealing signals.

FEARS FOR HIS LIFE
       Back to the present, where pirates, TV companies, and journalists 
are closely watching developments in the Canal Plus case. More answers, and 
more entanglements are bound to emerge as discovery proceeds in the Canal 
Plus lawsuit. But one thing seems clear  in this high-stakes story, fear 
has kept many potential sources hidden behind nicknames or away from the 
lawyers and journalists altogether.
       Oliver Kommerling, another German smart card expert, has emerged as 
a whistleblower and key witness so far. Kommerling, who runs a firm 
half-owned by NDS, has filed papers in support of Canal Plus' lawsuit, 
directly accusing Tarnovsky of publishing the rogue code on DR7.com. 
Kommerling and Floricic have a common friend, Marcus Kuhn  both have 
written papers with Kuhn on reverse engineering smart cards. Floricic is 
now dead, and Kommerling has told MSNBC.com he has felt "pressure," since 
filing his assertions with the court.
       And if Canal Plus security manager Gilles Kaehlin is to be 
believed, Tarnovsky is scared, too. In a written statement to the court, 
Kaehlin says Tarnovsky admitted to him NDS was behind the smart card hack, 
and that he was prepared to tell the truth in court. But, the filing says, 
Tarnovsky refused to be the the whistleblower on NDS' illegal activities, 
"because he feared too much for his life and that of his family," Kaehlin said.

QUESTIONS REMAIN
       There are still many questions surrounding the current allegations 
against NDS. Why would such a successful security firm take such as 
incredible risk, in fact risking its entire reputation, to interfere with 
competitors?
       In the computer underground, conspiracy theories are rampant. 
Unlike most hobbyist computer hacking, pirated pay-TV cards are a lucrative 
business, cards can sell for hundreds of dollars each. Complicating matters 
further, the legality of sales in this "gray market" is somewhat murky in 
Canada, and there's suspicion that satellite dealerships, distributors, and 
even company insiders profited from aiding Canadian "gray market" dealers. 
There's also a long-standing notion that piracy is good for the business. 
In an odd twist, tacitly allowing people to watch pirated TV is a way to 
gain market share, since many pirates eventually give in and convert to 
paying customers.
       TV pirates generally can't make new smart cards  they have to use 
real, corporate-issued smart cards, which are then altered via software. 
Millions of extra smart cards seem to have somehow gotten into pirates' 
hands over the years. Who made all those extra piece of plastic  and how 
did they get out of the hands of manufacturers or legitimate dealers?
       In fact, some say, firms like DirecTV and Canal Plus have gotten 
what they deserve  tacitly allowing piracy was a mistake that got out of 
hand. Now, all these firms must have security departments that cozy up to 
hackers to keep up with the pirates, and employees who have 
less-than-perfect backgrounds. NDS' troubles, they say, are just the first 
to see the harsh light of a courtroom.
***********************
MSNBC
Cannibals in cyberspace
 Internet governing body feasts on itself
 OPINION
By Brock N. Meeks
MSNBC

WASHINGTON, May 30  The issue of Internet governance has all the appeal of 
a rare intestinal disease and less political clout than an orphan drug. 
There is no Julia Roberts waiting in the wings to testify before Congress 
on behalf of democratic values in cyberspace. So as the private body tasked 
with overseeing the stability of the Internet hovers on the brink of 
disaster it comes as no surprise that few are aware of the situation and 
that even fewer care.
       THE INTERNET CORPORATION for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is 
the non-profit organization tapped by the U.S. government nearly four years 
ago to shepherd control of the Internet from a government centric network 
and mainstream it into the hyperbolic world known as "the New Economy."
       ICANN, however, has served only to become a real-time parody of its 
acronym.
       The brutal truth is, ICANN can't. It can't handle the task 
initially given to it, can't handle the tasks it usurped along the way in 
classic Washingtonian mission creep style, can't keep its promises and 
can't manage to stay away from controversy. ICANN has eaten itself and then 
proceeded to ask for seconds and thirds.
       But don't take my word for it. Stuart Lynn, ICANN's CEO admits that 
his organization "is viewed by many key stakeholders as more of a debating 
society than as an effective operational body. Thus, ICANN as it now stands 
is, at best, an incomplete experiment."
       Maybe it's just me, but I find it odd that with the stability of a 
global resource, the Internet, at stake, ICANN sees fit to reduce its 
fundamental mission so off-handedly to merely an "experiment."
       Perhaps that's because ICANN has forever been held ideologically 
hostage by the big moneyed, commercial interests, looking to protect their 
own assets in cyberspace and making sure any rules or procedures adopted by 
ICANN were stacked in their favor.
       Or perhaps ICANN is perceived as a failure because, despite a 
governmental mandate that it do business and create policy in a transparent 
and open manner it continues to hold secret meetings and votes and only 
informs the public afterward of its decisions. Such criticism has dogged 
ICANN from its very beginning. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., during an ICANN 
oversight hearing said, "We know more about how the Cardinals select a new 
Pope at the Vatican than we do about ICANN's internal affairs."
       One of ICANN's elected board members is in fact suing to gain 
access to its financial records after ICANN officials stonewalled his 
repeated requests to have a look at them. ICANN counters that this director 
can look all he wants, as long as he promises to sign a confidentiality 
agreement and keep his mouth shut about anything he sees or uncovers.
       ICANN officials bristle just at claims they aren't transparent. Joe 
Simms, ICANN's lawyer and de facto Washington power broker, defended the 
organization's penchant for closed door meetings in a recent public mailing 
list comment saying that transparency shouldn't be interpreted to mean 
"discussion and actions have to be taken in full public view. Why this is 
so is not intuitively obvious."
       Simms rambled on that, "Transparency to me means that all actions 
taken are disclosed and explained on the public record, for all to see and 
react to, not that they can only be done in a stadium or on a web cast."
       The fact that many would like an active, participatory voice in a 
group that is supposed to operate, by its own bylines, from a "bottom up" 
approach, leaves Simms to simply scratch himself and bleat about ICANN's 
critics: "The fact that they would like to listen in to every conversation 
does not rise to the level of a condition precedent to openness."

SO NOT FOR THE PEOPLE
      ICANN experimented with a global voting process in which it elected 
five "at large" members to its board of directors. The process was less 
than fluid; there were some warts, but the elections were held and those 
elected came from the vast sea of "stakeholders" known as Internet users.
       Could the process have been smoother? Yes. Were there allegations 
of voting impropriety? Yes, but compared to the last presidential election 
ICANN's at-large vote was a show of a hands at a PTA meeting to elect the 
next bake sale chairman.
       But these pesky representatives of the people have just, well, 
become a bother it seems for the ICANN power structure. And so over a few 
bottles of moderately expensive wine ICANN officials recently 
decided-though did not make it "official" to simply do away with further 
public elections preferring instead to throw over the process for a 
nomination and selection exercise that becomes the purview of governments 
not the grassroots.
       And now just as the going gets real tough Lynn announces that he is 
abandoning ship in March of next year due to health and personal reasons. 
But before he jumps from this sinking ship, Lynn has left behind a major 
policy paper in which he lays out his ideas for how ICANN might reform itself.
     The reforms boil down to this: toss most of the responsibility back 
to government. This idea is so bereft of intellectual heft that even 
members of the U.S. Congress can grok the dangers in such a plan.
       "It is our belief that such proposals will make ICANN even less 
democratic, open and accountable than it is today," wrote House Energy and 
Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., along with ranking member 
John Dingell, D-Mich., in a letter to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans. The 
Commerce Department has the ultimate authority over ICANN by means of a 
contract or "Memorandum of Understanding" it signed with the organization 
that gave ICANN whatever power it has today.
       That contract is coming up for renewal and a group of 14 different 
organizations that have kept track of ICANN's travails weighed in on the 
subject Wednesday in a letter to Secretary Evans asking him to "re-bid" the 
contract a move that would put ICANN's future in doubt.
       "Requiring ICANN to compete against qualified bidders will provide 
a strong incentive for ICANN to engage in a thorough housecleaning and 
become more genuinely responsive to the comments of stakeholders," the 
letter says. "It will also ensure that, if ICANN cannot put its house in 
order, the Department will have alternatives."
       Billions of dollars in electronic commerce and the fate of the 
electronic global community hang in the balance and depend on those decisions.
*******************
CNN.net
The computer wore a turban and played chess
An 18th century marvel is described in 'The Turk'

(CNN) -- It was the chess computer Deep Blue of its time, a turban-wearing 
automaton that defeated all comers.

Contemporaries in 18th- and 19th-century Europe were baffled. They examined 
the intricate gears and precisely wrought machinery of "The Turk" -- as 
they called the strange machine -- and many concluded that it was, indeed, 
an incredible achievement, a machine that could think.

It was an incredible achievement. It was also a hoax.

But it was an incredibly influential hoax.

Charles Babbage, the godfather of the computer, played two games against 
the Turk. Edgar Allan Poe, the creator of the modern detective story, wrote 
an notable essay about it. Magicians based illusions on it. And it provoked 
questions about what we now call "artificial intelligence."

So, even after someone finally figured out how the Turk worked -- that, 
yes, there was a man inside this contraption -- its place in history was 
secure.

Except that, aside from books about oddities and curiosities, the Turk has 
been mostly forgotten by history. Tom Standage seeks to correct that 
oversight with his new biography of the machine, "The Turk" (Walker & Co.).

"I loved the idea that this machine prompted a debate, in the late 18th 
century, about whether a machine could think or not," says the British 
author, 32, in an e-mail interview.

"We like to think that the 'artificial intelligence' debate is a modern 
phenomenon, but it's not."

An effective illusion
"The Turk" isn't the first book Standage, who is technology correspondent 
for The Economist, has written about Industrial Age innovation. An engineer 
by education, his two other books, "The Victorian Internet" and "The 
Neptune File," dealt with 19th century developments with parallels to 
modern inventions.

"I'm rather fond of this kind of thing -- historical precursors of modern 
scientific and technological breakthroughs," he says. "I only have one 
joke, but I like to think I tell it quite well."

The story of the Turk begins in 1769 with a Hungarian nobleman named 
Wolfgang von Kempelen. Challenged to come up with something better than 
what he had seen at a conjuring show, he produced the Turk, a mechanical 
man positioned over a chessboard.

At performances, Kempelen would open the doors and cubbyholes in the 
platform underneath the chessboard, revealing a latticework of gears and 
machinery, then challenge audience members to play the Turk. Almost all 
were defeated.

Though some people suspected there was a trick involved, nobody could 
figure it out, and the automaton attracted crowds wherever Kempelen took 
it. And, with his pedigree, he took it to royal courts all over Europe.

Eventually, the Turk passed into the hands of inventor Johann Maelzel, who 
took it to America for several years. (At one point, Maelzel met up with 
the up-and-coming P.T. Barnum and told him, "I see that you understand the 
value of the press, and that is the great thing.") It drew huge crowds in 
the United States as well.

Maelzel died in 1838, 12 years after coming to America. It wasn't until 
1857 -- three years after the Turk had been destroyed in a fire -- that the 
son of the machine's final owner revealed its secret: an expert chess 
player hiding in its cleverly adjustable innards. New players would be 
drafted at points during the Turk's travels. The Turk wasn't "thinking" -- 
but it was an effective illusion.

Standage followed the Turk's trail through some of Europe's great 
libraries, blowing dust off scientific volumes that hadn't seen the light 
of day since the Turk was playing Napoleon. He also tapped into the "Turk 
mafia," a group of people around the world interested in the automaton.

One of the most striking experiences, he says, was visiting the workshop of 
John Gaughan, a Los Angeles magician and prop-maker who built a Turk 
reconstruction.

"He has this amazing old workshop full of automata; it was like stepping 
back in time to the workshops of Kempelen and Maelzel," he says.

"I was in L.A. to interview Danny Hillis, a pioneering computer scientist. 
... So, one day I spent talking about massively parallel computers and AI 
with [Hillis], and the next day I was talking about automata with John. And 
it's really all the same subject."

The magic hasn't changed
It's a subject that continues to fascinate today. Almost-human computers 
are staples of science fiction. Indeed, in the movie "2001: A Space 
Odyssey," the HAL 9000 computer may be the most "human" character in the film.

Meanwhile, in real life, technology brings computers ever closer to 
artificial intelligence.

In "The Turk," Standage recounts the 1997 chess match between Deep Blue and 
world champion Garry Kasparov. At one point, Kasparov was convinced the 
machine had made a startling move only a human could conceive. He implied 
that the machine had cheated -- that its programmers had suggested the move 
-- but that was only because the move seemed all too "human."

Which brings up the old question the Turk prompted 200 years ago: Can 
machines "think"? Standage defers to the British mathematician Alan Turing.

"[Turing] defined a thinking machine as one that can convince someone that 
it is a human in a written question-and-answer session," he says.

So if the machine appears intelligent, then for all practical purposes it 
is intelligent. In the case of Deep Blue, its sheer memory power helped it 
make surprising moves.

Which makes the success of the Turk all the more surprising. Even with a 
human inside, it seemed like a machine, with all its gears and movements.

"Those early automata seemed like magic to the people of the time," says 
Standage.

"It really looked as though anything was possible, provided the mechanism 
was complex enough. The logical conclusion was a mechanical man that could 
think."

Standage's chronicle draws James Burke-like connections between the Turk 
and modern artificial intelligence, and he expects that AI will only get 
better in the coming years.

That's more than he can say for his chess prowess. The man who wrote "The 
Turk" says he's "terrible" at the game.

"I know the rules, but I'm just too impatient to play it well," he says. 
"Even my Palm Pilot beats me."
*******************
Nando Times
Indian government to restore Internet service in Kashmir

NEW DELHI, India (May 31, 2002 9:46 a.m. EDT) - The Indian government said 
Friday that it has decided to restore Internet services in Kashmir cut off 
in December for security reasons.

"The government has taken a decision to open up Internet services in Jammu 
and Kashmir," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters 
after a cabinet meeting.

Long-distance telephone calls from public phone booths and all Internet 
connections were blocked Dec. 28 amid rising tensions between India and 
Pakistan.

New Delhi cited national security as the reason for the move, which came as 
it imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions against Pakistan after 
accusing it of supporting militants who attacked the Indian parliament on 
Dec. 13.

Long-distance calls were restored earlier this month.

In another decision, the cabinet also decided to reconnect inter-city and 
international phone connections in three districts of Rajasthan state that 
border Pakistan.

They had been cut in Barmer, Jaiselmer and two areas of Jodhpur during the 
same month because of the heightened India-Pakistan tensions.
******************
News.net
Media giant Disney plays modest mouse
By Reuters

Walt Disney, which just two years ago touted Go.com as its Web portal to 
the 21st century, has set more modest goals for its online unit in a new 
era of diminished expectations.
Since laying off its staff of 400 people about a year ago, the once-hyped 
Go.com has become a shell of its former self, acting as an automated 
jump-off point for headlines and promotional material from ABC, ESPN and 
other Disney units.

In its place, a leaner, more profit-oriented outfit has emerged in the 
North Hollywood, Calif., headquarters of Walt Disney Internet Group, which 
oversees content delivery for all of Disney's Web- and wireless-based 
initiatives. That Internet group intends to report at a strategic planning 
session Friday that its Web-based ventures, such as the ABC.com, ESPN.com 
and Disney.com Web sites, are on target to collectively post a profit next 
year, said group President Steve Wadsworth.



"The hype of the Internet from three or four years ago wasn't all wrong. It 
was just way too early," Wadsworth said at a Thursday interview in the 
unit's headquarters. "Now people are looking at it and saying, 'This will 
happen. It's going to happen down the road. We just need to be prudent and 
smart.'"

Prudent and smart are two words that have come to define Disney Internet's 
approach to online offerings. In addition to the 400 layoffs at Go.com, the 
group also laid off more than its share of other workers as part of a 
broader companywide restructuring last year.

The group's revenue goals are relatively modest, in the tens of millions of 
dollars per month for some of the latest cell phone technologies compared 
with much grander visions for the Web as a whole at the height of the 
dot-com boom.

Profitability is also key, with the group setting strict timetables for 
ventures to turn a profit in place of the vague talk of future wealth 
espoused in earlier times.

Wadsworth said the majority of the group's Internet-based revenues come 
from advertising. Subscription and licensing income are the second biggest 
source, followed by commissions from various forms of commerce such as 
auctions.

While Internet-based business looks set to turn a profit, another promising 
area lies in entertainment, information and other services delivered via 
wireless phones.

In that arena, Disney Internet brass proudly point to their experience in 
Japan, where the company has developed a revenue-rich relationship with the 
largest Japanese wireless phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo. As part of that 
relationship, Disney offers an array of services, such as customized ring 
tones, screen savers and video games, to about 2.5 million DoCoMo subscribers.

At subscription fees of 81 cents to $2.43 (100 yen to 300 yen) per month, 
the venture generates a monthly revenue of about $3 million, Wadsworth said.

"That's the only place we have a big, robust revenue model" for wireless 
phone services, he acknowledged, explaining that most other markets lack 
the sophisticated delivery and billing systems need to provide such 
services. "But we feel pretty good about some other markets."

One of those is Disney's own home turf, the United States, where three of 
the nation's top wireless carriers--Verizon Communications, Sprint PCS 
Group and AT&T Wireless Services have either begun launching new high-tech 
systems or will do so in the near future. The new systems will offer 
sophisticated billing capabilities, as well communication channels that are 
always open similar to broadband and significantly higher data transmission 
speeds.

Disney has yet to sign a deal with any of the three U.S. carriers, but it 
expects to have agreements with all by year's end, said Larry Shapiro, the 
group's executive vice president of business affairs.

Disney Internet also has wireless phone agreements in several other places, 
including Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Germany, where new high-tech 
delivery systems could be released in the not-too-distant future.

Cell phones and the Internet aside, the group is looking for other growth 
opportunities through devices such as personal digital assistants and 
Research In Motion's BlackBerry line of wireless e-mail devices. But 
Wadsworth acknowledged that none of those technologies look like a sure bet 
just yet and that Disney Internet is holding back from pumping major 
investments into them.
*******************
News.net
World Cup sites swamped by flood of fans

Senegal's surprise victory over world champions France was not the only 
upset at the opening of the soccer World Cup, as millions of European 
office workers on Friday had trouble logging onto Internet sites to check 
the score.
The official Web site for the Federation Internationale de Football 
Association (FIFA), hosted by U.S. Web portal Yahoo, slowed to a crawl, and 
two hours after the referee blew the final whistle there were still parts 
of the site saying the match had not yet started.

Senegal won 1-0 with a 30th-minute goal by Pape Bouba Diop.



"There was a clear overload of users. It was almost like Sept. 11," said 
analyst Jaap Favier at Internet research group Forrester in Amsterdam, 
referring to the U.S. attacks when news sites around the world froze under 
an avalanche of visitors.

Yahoo Europe was not immediately available for comment.

Most other key European news sites slowed as office workers scrambled to 
follow the game on their desktop computers. Because the tournament is 
hosted in South Korea and Japan, most of the games are during European 
office hours.

Computer servers of Britain's BBC Sport World Cup Web site clocked up some 
8 million page impressions, triple the usual daily hit rate. The soccer 
match coincided with a cricket test match between England and Sri Lanka, 
which drew another 4 million page views.

During the game it could take several minutes to open Web pages on 
well-known news sites from the BBC, France's TF1, and Football 365.

"It was a very frustrating experience. There must have been some 50 million 
office workers around Europe trying to follow the game at work," Favier said.

No Web sites, including FIFA's own site, are allowed to show live video 
images, the rights of which are controlled by German media conglomerate 
KirchMedia. Few people would know this, and they increased Internet traffic 
by surfing in search of moving images.

"All these people check out the usual suspects such as BBC, RAI, FIFA, ZDF, 
SportTV and RTL. These sites were especially busy, and hence slow," Favier 
said.

The BBC said it had increased the capacity of its computer servers for the 
sports site by a factor of five in anticipation of the World Cup.

The main Internet research agencies, ACNielsen, Gartner and Forrester, had 
no European Internet traffic statistics immediately available.
*****************
News.net
Australian firm sues over spam complaint
By Rachel Lebihan

An alleged Australian spammer is suing an anti-spam advocate after being 
blacklisted by a Web site that aims to prevent junk e-mail, in what is 
believed to be the first case of its kind.
Direct-marketing company T3 Direct is seeking compensation of $24,600 
(AU$43,750) from Joseph McNichol, who it alleges caused the company to be 
blacklisted on the Spews.org Web site. While several blacklisted companies 
have struck back with lawsuits against anti-spam groups, this is apparently 
the first time an individual has been sued for complaining about alleged spam.

Blacklist sites distribute lists of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses online 
that are believed to be involved in spamming activities, enabling Internet 
service providers to block traffic from such addresses, which consist of a 
unique string of numbers that identifies someone's computer on the Internet.


IP addresses associated with Perth, Australia-based T3 are still listed on 
Spews.org; it is unclear when the addresses were added to the group's 
blacklist. Because other blacklist sites have been sued and shut down, 
SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early Warning System) does not list contact details. 
It is a nonprofit organization.

A writ of summons was filed against McNichol on May 24, upon receipt of 
which he was given 10 days to confirm his awareness of the charges. Nichols 
aired his view about T3 Direct's activities on his Web site.

"It's only the second spam-related lawsuit in Australia and the first of 
its kind worldwide," said Troy Rollo of the Coalition Against Unsolicited 
Bulk E-mail, who is in the midst of establishing a Web site where a legal 
defense fund will be set up for McNichol. "It's the first time someone has 
gone and sued someone else just for saying they are a spammer."

T3 is seeking loss and damages for replacing blocked or compromised IP 
numbers, labor costs of technicians to establish an alternative e-mail 
system, the purchase of a new server computer, and loss of income it claims 
to have incurred over a 20-day waiting period for a new Internet connection 
to be installed.

Jeremy Malcolm, an independent Perth-based solicitor who specializes in IT 
law and is representing McNichol, said he wouldn't be putting in a defense 
straight away and would be applying for a summary judgment in the hopes of 
not having to go to trial.

Malcolm described the statement of claim against his client as a "fairly 
weak claim...brought about to intimidate a critic of T3 Direct."

"We will defend it as strongly as we can," he said.

T3's legal representatives, Perth-based Tan and Tan Solicitors, did not 
immediately return calls for comment.

Mark Reynolds, president of Western Australia Internet Association, says 
the group has received many complaints about T3 over the years. He said the 
case is the first of its kind he has heard of.

"It's the first time a known spam organization is suing an end user who 
made public complaints about receiving spam," he said
******************

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