Clips June 6, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips June 6, 2002

ARTICLES


U.S. to Track Visitors Deemed a Security Risk
Plan to control alien entry raises concerns
Rights groups condemn visa plan
State Security Chiefs Face Roadblocks
Ridge lacks clout, critics say Some suggest security chief should wield 
Cabinet-level power
Fans: Music Should Rock, Not Lock
CERT warns of BIND problem; Sun patches Solaris flaws
Why Doctors Don't E-Mail
FEMA Will Oversee All Wireless Efforts
Administration Touts Smart Cards, but Some Agencies Are Skeptical
Tech factors in port protection
INS broadens fingerprint scanning
Questions over net snooping centre
Browser war veteran comes of age
Homeland Security Department plan is unveiled
DOD will accept comments on electronic payment rule
FCC looks into cell phone positioning systems
Tech giants throw weight behind Linux
India crisis puts damper on tech industry
Big brokers pulling plug on online trading
New ATMs offer up more than cash
Broadband by the bootstraps
U.S. could step into digital TV mess
Consumers Want New Digital Features
Spam fuelling consumer backlash: study
American pretender inflames e-commerce locals
Spam threatens to choke internet
Australian spammers plunder net names
Dead Men Tell No Passwords
Suit filed over ReplayTV features
Online summer school to be offered in Carroll
Internet helps find missing children






**********************
Washington Post
U.S. to Track Visitors Deemed a Security Risk
By a Washington Post Staff Writer

The Justice Department announced plans yesterday to fingerprint and 
photograph more than 100,000 visa holders who pose "national security 
concerns," taking another major step in its efforts to keep track of 
foreign visitors to the United States.

Officials said they would initially focus on visitors from five countries 
where terrorists are known to operate -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria 
-- prompting immediate complaints that the system amounted to racial 
profiling of Middle Eastern visitors.

But Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said the National Security Entry-Exit 
Registration System would eventually cover any of the 35 million people who 
visit the United States each year if they pose a security concern. The 
criteria for determining that threat will be largely kept secret.

Ashcroft said terrorists are moving unnoticed through the United States, 
violating the terms set by their visas "with impunity." He said the new 
system "will expand substantially America's scrutiny of those visitors who 
may pose a national security concern and enter our country. And it will 
provide a vital line of defense in the war against terrorism."

Citing an oft-repeated justification for the new precautions, Ashcroft said 
"on September 11th, the American definition of national security changed 
and changed forever."

Yesterday's announcement comes after previously declared government plans 
to shorten some visa stays andimpose stricter terms on student visas. 
Congress has ordered the INS to establish a system to track the entry and 
exit of all visitors beginning in 2005, and Ashcroft said the new system is 
the first phase of that effort.

All of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington 
entered the country on valid visas, though some overstayed the time limits 
imposed by those visas.

The initiative immediately angered immigrant groups and some members of 
Congress, who accused the government of racial and ethnic profiling of 
hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern students, workers and tourists.

Cecilia Munoz, vice president of policy for the National Council of La 
Raza, a pro-immigration group, said the plan will not help in the fight 
against terrorism.

"This is going to lead to enormous racial profiling," Munoz said. "The 
people who are going to come forward and try to comply are the law-abiding 
people we want here."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), said he was "deeply concerned" that the 
regulations will unfairly target Muslim and Arab nationals. "This is a 
troubling and poorly thought out regulation," Kennedy said. "It does little 
to provide real protection against terrorism."

But Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) applauded the proposal, calling it "a step in 
the right direction."

"Entrance into the United States is not a guaranteed right," Foley said. 
"We need to require all people who want to come to the United States from a 
country proven to sponsor terrorism to register before they even think 
about getting on a plane or boat."

The initiative, which will take effect in the fall after a public comment 
period, will require visitors over age 14 who hold non-immigrant visas and 
are deemed security risks to be fingerprinted and photographed before they 
are allowed into the United States, Ashcroft said.

Those who stay in the country more than 30 days will be required to 
register with the INS and provide proof of employment or enrollment at a 
school, or information on where they are living. They will be required to 
register again once a year or risk being turned over to authorities, fined, 
jailed or deported. They are also required to notify the INS when they 
leave the country.

Officials said the new checks would affect 100,000 new visitors in the 
first year. Non-immigrant visitors already in the United States who pose 
security risks will be asked to register, as well.

The checks would affect foreign nationals whom the INS and State Department 
believe to be an "elevated national security risk" and those who INS 
inspectors believe fit certain criteria. The criteria have not been 
determined, Ashcroft said.

Some of those affected will not be told ahead of time that their 
fingerprints will be taken at the port of entry, according to senior 
Justice Department officials.

Under the new plan, fingerprints of "high-risk" foreigners coming into the 
country will be matched against a database of suspected or known terrorists 
at the port of entry. Information on these foreigners also will be put into 
the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a database maintained by the 
FBI and used by U.S. law enforcement to identify wanted felons.

Angela Kelley, deputy director of the Washington-based National Immigration 
Forum, an immigrant advocacy group, said the measure goes too far.

"The most law-abiding immigrant will now find himself a law breaker and 
deemed a security threat," she said. "It makes me worry about what kind of 
nation we're becoming."
*******************
Government Computer News
Plan to control alien entry raises concerns
By Wilson P. Dizard III

The Justice Department plan announced today to fingerprint and photograph 
aliens of "national security" concern, in Attorney General John Ashcroft's 
words, has prompted concerns about the ability of the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service to handle the job.

The registration plan calls for aliens who meet an as-yet-undefined 
criterion to be photographed and fingerprinted as they enter the country 
with valid visas. Some foreigners now in the country holding visas in good 
standing also would be asked to provide fingerprints and photographs, 
Ashcroft said.

Justice attorneys who framed the proposal were not aware that the INS' 
Computerized Applicant Information Management System already holds 
photographs of aliens and actually has been modified to hold fingerprints, 
an official with oversight responsibilities in the area said.

But "the INS logistically isn't staffed to implement Ashcroft's proposal," 
the official said. INS lacks the staff and systems resources to operate the 
system at all 300 ports of entry to the United States, he said.

He added that the State Department has a system, operated by bonded 
contractors, of biometric identification cards for Mexican nationals who 
are allowed to enter parts of the United States at will. The system 
operates under a special agreement with Mexico and gives about 6 million 
people legal access to the United States. "The question is, why doesn't he 
just extend this?" the official said.

Under the plan Ashcroft described in a press conference today, state and 
local law enforcement officials would be requested to help Justice 
implement the program and track down aliens who fail to abide by its 
requirements. Several municipal police departments have recently said they 
would not cooperate with broad sweeps for aliens who do not hold valid visas.

Ashcroft said that Justice would enter the names of those who fall afoul of 
the requirements into the FBI's National Crime Information Center system.

Authority for the new regulations stems from the Immigration and 
Nationality Act of 1952, which requires aliens in the United States to 
register annually via the U.S. Postal Service. Enforcement of that 
requirement lapsed in the early 1990s as the INS leadership shifted 
resources to other areas and the flow of illegal immigrants into the 
country increased, sources said.

But thousands of aliens continue to send in postcards annually verifying 
their visa status and residence, the official said. The INS has not 
maintained databases of the residual flow of alien registration documents, 
the official added.

Reports that the proposal would only apply to nationals of Middle Eastern 
and Muslim countries prompted outcries by representatives of the Arab 
American community, who charged that it was discriminatory. Ashcroft said 
that almost anyone entering the United States from any country could fall 
under the photographing and fingerprinting requirement if they met the 
criterion for national security concern.
******************
SFGate.com
Rights groups condemn visa plan
Ashcroft says crackdown is essential for U.S. security
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, June 6, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/06/06/MN137154.DTL


Washington -- The Justice Department's new plan to fingerprint and 
periodically register an estimated 100,000 visa holders mainly from the 
Middle East is but the beginning of a major tightening of immigration rules 
spawned by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The sweeping plan, announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft on 
Wednesday, reinstates procedures that the United States used for foreign 
visitors from the 1950s through the early 1980s and that are in wide use 
throughout Europe today. But they drew an outcry from national and Bay Area 
civil rights advocates who contend that the procedures will unfairly target 
law-abiding Muslims and do little to stop terrorists.

Other groups praised the effort as a small step toward tightening lax 
borders -- and as a precursor of coming legal requirements for biometric 
identifiers such as eye scan on all visas, passports and other travel 
documents.

But even these groups questioned whether the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, already overwhelmed by paperwork and lacking sophisticated 
computer technology, is up to the task.

Nonetheless, Ashcroft contended that the government has the technological 
capacity to implement the plan -- according to pilot fingerprinting 
currently conducted at some ports of entry -- and that the post-Sept. 11 
era demands it.

"On Sept. 11, the American definition of national security changed and 
changed forever," Ashcroft said. "A band of men entered our country under 
false pretenses in order to plan and execute murderous acts of war. . . . 
Once inside the United States, they were easily able to avoid contact with 
authorities and to violate the terms of their visas with impunity."

1,400 ARRESTS ALREADY

Stating that "fingerprints don't lie," Ashcroft said the pilot 
fingerprinting program has led to the arrest of about 1,400 wanted 
criminals trying to enter the country in the past five months.

The new plan, called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, 
is provided for in a law passed in 1952 and will initially require aliens 
"who fall into categories of elevated national security concern" to be 
fingerprinted and photographed as they cross the border.

Fingerprints will be checked against a database of suspected terrorists or 
other criminals, collected in part by the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

If these foreigners stay more than 30 days, they must register with the INS 
and register again every 12 months thereafter.

The Justice Department said all citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and 
Syria must meet the new requirements.

As the plan is phased in, Ashcroft said the number of countries will be 
expanded but that the list will remain fluid depending on intelligence 
information. Eventually the list is expected to include all 26 nations on 
the State Department's list of nations suspected of harboring terrorists, 
but Ashcroft said "no country is totally exempt."

Other "risk factors" such as age and gender will be used, but the Justice 
Department will keep those criteria secret.


TRACKING 35 MILLION PEOPLE
Under the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act, signed by President 
Bush last month, the government is required to add biometric identifiers to 
all official travel documents by Oct. 26, 2004. By 2005, it must put in 
place an automated entry-exit system that will track nearly all of the 35 
million tourists, students, business travelers and other foreign visitors.

But immigrant advocates blasted the new fingerprinting plan as a witch-hunt 
and a law enforcement diversion that eventually will target as many as 1 
million mainly Middle Eastern visitors.

The National Immigration Forum, an immigrant lobbying group, said the plan 
will "undermine core democratic values, will waste and divert local, state 
and federal law enforcement resources, and is out of step with a White 
House that enjoys a well-deserved reputation for targeting terrorists, 
rather than targeting Muslims and/or immigrants."

Ameena Jandali, a board member of Islamic Networks Group, a San Francisco 
nonprofit that aims to eliminate stereotypes against Muslims, said the 
rules are a step down a very slippery slope.

"What's going to be next? Are all Muslims going to have to wear a yellow or 
green crescent or something?' said Jandali, 41, of El Cerrito. "This 'Let's 
go out and track all Muslims and Arabs' isn't going to bring about the 
necessary results and it may harm or at least humiliate some innocent 
people. We didn't do the same thing with the Timothy McVeighs of the world 
and target all white males."

Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers 
Association, said the reason the government stopped registering aliens in 
the early 1980s was because it created a useless information glut and will 
do the same now.

"To imagine that, with that glut of information, that we're somehow going 
to be able to take that and correlate all that and figure out who among 
those people are the ones we should be concerned about, and go and locate 
them when they don't register, I think is ludicrous."


FEINSTEIN ON RACIAL PROFILING
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, could 
not be reached for comment. Feinstein had said on national news shows 
Sunday that concerns over racial profiling have been partly to blame for 
the failure of the FBI to use information it had to more aggressively 
pursue suspected terrorists before Sept. 11.

Feinstein, a chief sponsor of the new border security bill, said that to 
stop terrorists, "one isn't going to look for blonde Norwegians. . . . I 
think the racial profiling debate has . . . had a chilling impact."

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration 
Studies, a think tank calling for tighter immigration laws, called the new 
plan "a kind of triage, maybe the sort of thing we have to do in an 
emergency, but the long-term solution is of course that we should have been 
doing it for everyone all along. The technology exists. There is no 
impediment to taking photographs and fingerprints."

Noting that two recent suspected terrorists were carrying European 
passports -- Zacarias Moussaoui held a French passport and suspected shoe- 
bomber Richard Reid a British passport -- Camarota added, "Whenever you 
single out one ethnic group for enforcement, it should make us 
uncomfortable. The solution is you should do it for everyone. Many 
terrorists in Kashmir are holding Indian passports, Chechnya terrorists 
hold Russian passports, there's the whole separatist movement in the 
Philippines. We want to be gathering as much data as possible from every 
visa applicant from every country."

Chronicle staff writer Heather Knight contributed to this report. / E-mail 
Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*****************
Associated Press
State Security Chiefs Face Roadblocks
Wed Jun 5, 8:25 PM ET
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - Around the country, many of the state homeland security 
directors who were quickly hired in the aftermath of Sept. 11 are finding 
they have little authority or resources and say they are not getting much 
cooperation or direction.

An Associated Press review of all 50 states' homeland security chiefs found 
that some have little or no staff. Many face legislatures that are balking 
at funding requests. And most are encountering roadblocks to sharing 
information with other agencies.

These domestic preparedness chiefs  culled from the ranks of the military, 
law enforcement, public safety and other sectors  are looking for direction 
from national Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who has faced many of 
the same problems on a federal level.

"The designation as `chief state czar for domestic preparedness' was about 
as effective as the piece of paper it was written on," said Juliette 
Kayyem, executive director of the Executive Session on Domestic 
Preparedness at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Ridge, who meets with his state counterparts twice a month by conference 
call, plans to announce a national homeland security plan this month.

While they await word, the state directors are working on ways to adapt old 
resources to new demands: the military to something that isn't quite war; 
police departments to crimes they have never fought; doctors to detect 
diseases that had nearly been eradicated; emergency managers to 
catastrophic possibilities.

Tim Daniel, a retired Army colonel who is Missouri's homeland security 
adviser, is one of the lucky ones: He has a salary, a few assistants and 
access to the governor.

But he also has a list of frustrations. Among them: He does not know what 
the FBI (news - web sites) wants from state and local law enforcement. And 
he does not have enough money to pay for a radio network that lets police, 
firefighters, paramedics and other first responders talk to each.

"We're not where we need to be," Daniel said. "It's because we don't have 
an understanding of where we're going."

Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker has hired a new homeland security director 
and asked for $200 million to fight terrorism. But he hasn't received all 
the money yet. And New York's anti-terrorism chief, retired FBI agent James 
Kallstrom, who led the investigation into the 1996 TWA Flight 800 crash, 
already has left the post.

In Massachusetts, acting Gov. Jane Swift named a new security chief at 
Boston's Logan Airport, where the flights that brought down the World Trade 
Center originated.

But she left the new Office of Commonwealth Security  the homeland security 
director's agency  unfunded in her next budget proposal. Instead, she said 
she would pay for the agency's operations out of her own executive office 
budget. The Massachusetts security chief planned to borrow staff from other 
agencies.

At least 40 homeland security directors had the new responsibilities added 
to existing jobs. They include 11 adjutant generals or military chiefs, 11 
public safety commissioners, nine emergency directors, four political aides 
and three lieutenant governors. New Hampshire named its fire marshal, Texas 
its land commissioner and Wyoming its attorney general.

Many state directors have faced skepticism from legislatures that have 
balked at paying for homeland security offices without a clear definition 
of what they are supposed to do.

"I have yet to see a coherent or comprehensive approach to this," said 
Colorado state Sen. Penfield Tate (news, bio, voting record).

A lack of information from the federal government has also frustrated the 
homeland security czars.

"We have 36 federal intelligence gathering agencies, most of whom aren't 
talking to each other," said Dallas Jones, director of the Governor's 
Office of Emergency Services in California.

In Tennessee, homeland security director Wendell Gilbert, a former Army 
general, cannot be briefed on sensitive national security information by 
the FBI because he is still awaiting a security clearance.

"I would give the federal government a C-minus or a D-plus in providing 
information," New Mexico's public safety director and homeland security 
liaison Tom English testified at a legislative hearing.

Ellen Gordon, Iowa's homeland security adviser, advises patience.

"It's going to take time for homeland security to grow and mature and 
become a viable organization," she said. "I go back several years and look 
at the emergency management structure and how it's grown to where it is 
today. It wasn't like this 20 years ago."
******************
USA Today
Ridge lacks clout, critics say Some suggest security chief should wield 
Cabinet-level power
By Kathy Kiely and Jim Drinkard

WASHINGTON -- Tom Ridge arrived as the nation's first homeland security 
director last fall with a résumé so sterling, the buzz was that he might 
one day replace Vice President Cheney. A Vietnam veteran, former 
congressman and governor with friends in both parties, he seemed typecast 
to soothe America's post-Sept. 11 jitters.

Eight months later, some lawmakers think Ridge is looking more like a 
victim himself -- the target of sharp-elbowed bureaucrats at least as 
worried about protecting their fiefdoms as the American people. Members of 
Congress, among them leading Democrats, say the anti-terrorism mission 
can't succeed unless Ridge is given greater clout and stature. Even the 
White House is re-evaluating the job's structure.

Though he coordinates the work of 40 to 50 federal agencies that have a 
hand in homeland defense, Ridge is probably best known for a color-coded 
national security alert system that has generated complaints from local law 
enforcement officials and jokes on Saturday Night Live. He doesn't even 
choose the colors; primary responsibility for that rests with Attorney 
General John Ashcroft. And though the burly former infantryman insists he 
never wanted to pick the ''color of the day,'' some lawmakers say that's a 
sign of Ridge's lack of authority.

The homeland security director's most sweeping recommendation so far -- a 
proposed merger of the Border Patrol, Customs Service, Coast Guard and 
Department of Agriculture's inspection service -- has been languishing on 
President Bush's desk since late last year. Many in Congress say the 
recommendation is being held up by Cabinet secretaries who would lose power.

''Turf wars are endemic and epidemic in Washington,'' says Sen. Arlen 
Specter, R-Pa., one of nearly 40 lawmakers who want to make Ridge the head 
of the first new Cabinet department since Veterans Affairs was created in 
1989. ''He lacks the necessary authority to accomplish what needs to be 
done,'' adds Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., a sponsor of a bill that would 
give Ridge a Cabinet post.

Legislation to create a federal Department of Homeland Security is gaining 
momentum in Congress. The administration, initially resistant to the idea, 
may be warming to it. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch 
Daniels has told Congress a Cabinet agency is being considered. ''My sense 
is that the White House is going through a lot of internal debate,'' says 
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. At the administration's request, he 
postponed a hearing his panel had planned to hold on the subject today.

The moves to give Ridge more power come as the government is being 
criticized for not following up on possible clues to the terrorist attacks 
on Sept. 11. The White House also has been criticized for refusing to let 
Ridge testify before Congress about how the administration plans to spend 
billions of anti-terrorism dollars.

Ridge recently told the graduating class at Carnegie Mellon University in 
Pittsburgh that he had done a computer search and found that the phrase 
''impossible job'' or ''impossible task'' had been used in the same 
sentence with ''homeland security'' at least 73 times. At the moment, Ridge 
has no significant budget to call his own and no direct authority over 
others. As a presidential assistant, he is answerable only to the 
president, not Congress -- and some in the administration want to keep it 
that way.

Republicans, long the party of smaller government, are reluctant to create 
a new bureaucracy. Ridge's defenders say his friendship with President Bush 
gives him all the authority he needs. Unlike any Cabinet officer, the 
former Pennsylvania governor, who cut short his second term to take the 
job, has an office in the White House.

''He sees the president every day,'' says Ron Kaufman, a lobbyist who 
roomed with Ridge when he was a congressman.

Ridge's backers say he doesn't get credit for his accomplishments because 
he's not a showboat. ''We're working quietly, behind the scenes,'' says 
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the homeland security director.

Among Ridge's innovations:

* A new operations hub about 3 miles from the White House. When fully 
staffed, it will enable as many as 180 representatives of federal agencies 
to share intelligence and coordinate responses to terrorist incidents in a 
super-secure ''bullpen.'' Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., a frequent critic of 
the administration's homeland security efforts, took a tour recently and 
said, ''We're further along than I thought.''

* A twice-daily, high-security conference call in which CIA, FBI, National 
Security Agency and other intelligence and law enforcement officials swap 
information.

* New accords with the governments of Canada and Mexico to coordinate law 
enforcement and security. Before Ridge's appointment, individual federal 
agencies, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs 
Service, worked out their own agreements with those countries.

If Ridge feels frustrated by his lack of authority, he's not saying. Ever 
the good soldier, he told reporters recently, ''I'm not authorized to be 
frustrated. I'm authorized to be patient and persistent. I'm both.''

The administration is completing a study on how homeland security should be 
managed and wants Congress to wait for its recommendations. But even 
Republicans who support the White House say Ridge's office will need more 
power.

''We will reach a point in time when we need to enact legislation,'' says 
Rep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chairman of a House panel on terrorism.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, one of the House sponsors of the bill that 
would create a Cabinet-level department, says he believes Bush may be 
coming around to his point of view. After recent weeks' revelations about 
clues the government had and failed to connect before the attacks Sept. 11, 
''there was a lot of frustration at the White House,'' Thornberry says. ''I 
think it does point out the importance of coordination and integration.''
*******************
SFGate.com
ESCAPE FROM HOLLYWOOD
Internet site beams U.S. movies from Iran
Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 6, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/06/BU154153.DTL

An Internet company that lets viewers watch pirated hits like "Harry 
Potter" and "The Mummy Returns" for $1.50 or less has set up shop in a 
place that might be out of the film industry's long reach -- Iran.

Film88.com, the apparent sequel to a similar Web venture called Movie88.com 
that was quickly shut down by Taiwanese authorities in February, is the 
latest example of Hollywood's increasing problems with online movie piracy.

Representatives of the Motion Picture Association said the international 
trade group is pursuing several legal avenues to pull the plug on Film88.com.

But legal and technology experts said Hollywood will be hard-pressed to 
reel in a Web site based in a country that is not a party to international 
copyright treaties and that has not had diplomatic ties to the United 
States since 1979. In fact, tensions surged again early this year when 
President Bush lumped Iran in with Iraq and North Korea as part of an "axis 
of evil."

"It will make it pretty near impossible," said Whitney Broussard, a 
copyright law attorney with Selverne, Mandelbaum & Mintz LLP of New York.

According to a note posted on the Web site, Film88.com is "operated by 
Broadband Universal Corp. Ltd. under the laws and jurisdiction of Iran, 
with our servers in Iran."

Film88.com streams full-length feature films via the Internet to a viewer's 
computer. The service requires a high-speed Web connection and RealNetworks 
Inc.'s RealPlayer multimedia playback program.

Although it's technically possible to save a streamed video, the process is 
difficult. And a note on Film88.com's site reads, "No downloading. 
Downloading will only create piracy. This is not our intention."

On Wednesday, the site featured "The Mummy Returns" and "Harry Potter and 
the Sorcerer's Stone" as free samples.

A long list of other movies that have also been released on DVD, including 
"Shrek," "American Pie 2" and "Moulon Rouge," could be rented for three 
days for between 50 cents and $1.50, depending on the film's length and the 
streaming speed chosen.

Representatives with Film88.com did not respond to several e-mail messages. 
Although it remained unclear if there is a relationship between Taiwan's 
Movie88 and Film88, their business models are almost identical.

But a note on the site said, "Fighting to preserve this concept and service 
will not be easy. One of the main issue (sic) is copyright. For this reason 
and for the advancement of technology and innovation, we are prepared to 
consider paying a percentage of our rental price to copyright owners as 
compensation."

The Motion Picture Association, the worldwide film industry group, and its 
U.S. counterpart, the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a 
statement that they are preparing to take "swift and immediate action to 
stop the illegal activity."

"While the site claims to be located in areas outside the United States, 
the MPA has several legal options available to prevent the site from 
distributing films without authorization of the copyright owner," the 
statement said.

The Internet has opened the door for digital copies of feature films to be 
distributed online, frequently before they hit the theaters. Although movie 
trading isn't nearly as widespread as music swapping, one research firm 
estimates 400,000 to 600,000 pirated films are downloaded each day.

This year alone, the MPA has mailed more than 40,000 letters warning 
Internet service providers around the world that they have members or host 
Web sites that offer pirated movies.

The motion picture group has also been involved in successful court suits 
that in the past three years have shut down similar sites, such as 
iCrave.com, that streamed TV programs and movies.

In February, Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau, following complaints 
by the MPA, shut down Movie88.com, which also offered streaming movie 
rentals for $1 and free samples.

Analyst P.J. McNealy had expected a similar venture to pop up somewhere 
else in Asia but was surprised to see Film88.com appear in Iran.

"This is the first big test for the MPA to see how strong their 
international enforcement will be," said McNealy, who is research director 
for GartnerG2.

"They got good cooperation from the Taiwanese authorities, but we'll have 
to see what level of cooperation they will get at the local and national 
level with Iran," McNealy said. "On their (movie industry's) list of 
worst-case scenarios, this one's got to be near the top."

If Hollywood is not successful, Broussard said other Internet file-sharing 
firms could follow Film88.com's lead.

"It will be interesting to see how this plays out," he said. "Iran could 
have a booming Internet business. It could be like the Switzerland of 
Internet hosting."
********************
Wired News
Fans: Music Should Rock, Not Lock
By Brad King

Matthew Davidian loves music.

He's got 550 albums that he's bought over the years and has since ripped 
into digital files. He doesn't use file-sharing applications like Kazaa 
unless he's checking out some new music. Admittedly, Davidian, 32, doesn't 
buy many CDs, but it's not because he's not willing to part with the cash. 
It's just that nothing much on the radio interests him.


No, Davidian feeds his new love for dance music with regular visits to 
MP3.com, one of the plethora of sites where independent and unknown artists 
post their music for anyone to download legally for free.

In short, he's the type of guy the recording industry should be salivating 
over. He's into exploring new music, he's into legal sites, he's had a 
history of purchasing albums and says he has no problem with the concept of 
paying for music.

There's just one problem: He hates digital rights management (DRM), the 
security systems being used to control how consumers can listen to music 
they legally purchase.

Dividian's story is not unique, and his distaste for DRM is a big problem 
for record companies and movie studios. Without that security on CDs and 
DVDs, the industry thinking goes, no online business can survive. But no 
consumer wants to buy protected content.

The federal government is listening -- at least to the entertainment 
industry. The House Judiciary Committee continues its hearings to determine 
if there should be a mandated security system that comes with all digital 
content and consumer electronics products.

"There is one way to deal with information pirated and sold without DRM 
protection, and in concept it could be a tech mandate," said Rep. Howard 
Berman (D-California) before postulating that technology applied from the 
production stage through distribution could solve the file-sharing problem.

This is the latest in the debate over Senate Commerce Chairman Fritz 
Holling's (D-South Carolina) Security Systems Standards and Certification 
Act legislation that would force electronic devices to come with copy 
protections built directly into the systems.

While the digital rights management companies understandably believe 
security is paramount to the success of online business, none want the 
government mandating a standard.

"Imposing broad technical measures simply to address a specific issue would 
stifle innovation and certainly result in higher consumer costs with few, 
if any, corresponding benefits," said Will Poole, Microsoft's vice 
president of new media platforms.

There's the rub. Entertainment companies, terrified about digital piracy, 
must partner with technology companies to create an open security standard 
that Dividian doesn't want on his product in the first place.

But piracy concerns aren't going away. Billions of music files a month are 
swapped using Kazaa, Morpheus and Gnutella, three of the most popular 
file-trading networks, while up to 500,000 films a day are shared using 
those same networks according to a recent report by Viant Media, which 
predicted movie piracy will steadily rise in the coming years.

"Spurred by this summer's blockbuster movies, we believe it may currently 
be undergoing a period of rapid expansion," Viant analysts conclude in The 
Copyright Crusade II report. "If the current capacity and interest levels 
remain intact, we would estimate that this represents roughly a 20 percent 
increase over traffic levels observed a year ago."

Despite the doomsday predictions, the entertainment industry is doing just 
fine. The movie industry, after a stellar summer, is on pace to shatter 
last year's box office record by 16 percent, reaching $9 billion in 
revenues despite the rise in piracy.

The music industry presents a much more murky picture. Worldwide sales 
dipped this year, prompting a rash of finger-pointing among executives. 
Some claim online piracy has killed sales, others look to sagging sales 
from its major stars, while others blame the economic downturn. Some point 
to all three.

The piracy bit took a hit when rapper Eminem's latest release, The Eminem 
Show, was rushed up a week after tracks began appearing on file-trading 
services. The album climbed to the top of the chart in four days.

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

Berman's attitude, which is prevalent within Hollywood and the music 
industries, has forced the entertainment industry to begin looking for ways 
to attract Dividian and other consumers to buy products that are so secure 
they offer little incentive to use them.

Centerspan Communications, which runs the multimedia-sharing network Scour, 
distributes a limited number of songs and movies from Vivendi Universal. 
The catch is that the content comes with DRM, a stark difference from the 
mega-popular services that allow people to exchange files without 
restrictions.

Even Kazaa, the single largest sharing community, has decided to get into 
the security business. While Davidian can still download any song he wants 
on that network, soon he will receive a different type of file. Kazaa will 
be distributing Altnet, a new service that allows entertainment companies 
to deliver secure content to users ahead of the free files.

"Altnet ... allows us to deliver files from content creators and owners and 
enables them to establish direct relationships with their end users," said 
Kevin Bermeister, CEO of Altnet.

The question Centerspan and Altnet -- and the entertainment industry -- is 
about to have answered is how willing consumers will be to use DRM. If 
Dividian is any gauge, the answer won't be pleasant for Hollywood.

On recent visits to the House of Blues and Liquid Audio, two sites that 
offer music in encrypted formats, he found much more frustration than 
fascination.

"Score minus one for HOB.com (for) not making it clear to downloaders that 
they may render music downloaded from their site unplayable at any time," 
Davidian wrote in an e-mail. "Score minus one for not even giving listeners 
an option to purchase said music to continue listening to it."
****************
MSNBC
Broadband by the bootstraps
How a group of neighbors built their own high-speed network

June 5   If you've ever dreamt about wresting control of your lousy 
Internet Service Provider, or wished you could give the phone or cable 
companies a giant piece of your addled-by-crappy-customer-service-mind, you 
will love the following story about some kindred spirits in the mountains 
of Summit County, Colo.

       THE NEIGHBORHOOD is called Ruby Ranch, and just weeks ago, the 
people who live in these homes built on a former cattle ranch  where moose 
roam amid picture postcard mountain views  got their very own DSL service 
up and running. That's because the phone company, Qwest, had no intention 
of providing it to the remote community. Exasperated by their snail-like 
26K dial-up connections (there's no copper connection to the central phone 
office) residents decided the only way they'd get high-speed access was to 
start a service themselves.
       "After ten months of frustration, including litigation, we got them 
to allow us to use unused wires in our neighborhood," said Carl Oppedahl, a 
patent attorney by day and one of the masterminds behind the service.
       By law, phone companies are not allowed to say no to such an 
arrangement, but they don't exactly make it easy for those who ask.
       "How jerk-like can they be," Oppedahl said, characterizing it as an 
ingrained corporate culture defined by the maxim, "never do something fast 
if there's a way to drag it out." Since he'd successfully fought the phone 
company back when he lived in New York, Oppedahl was undaunted by this battle.

HIGH-TECH IN A HORSE BARN
       all the fighting is water under the proverbial bridge now, though, 
as the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association is online with a 
vengeance. It has but 12 subscribers, just about what the group needed to 
break-even at the start. (There are 40 homes in the neighborhood, some only 
occupied part-time as vacation places.)

      Residents ponied up the $12,000 to purchase the necessary equipment, 
which Oppedahl points out has already come down in price. (Thanks, in part, 
to all those third-party DSL providers that have gone belly-up, the 
necessary parts to build a system are plentiful on eBay.)
       Each subscribing home paid an upfront charge of $300, plus $60 a 
month, a fee which Oppedahl says will eventually drop as costs get paid 
down. The non-profit cooperative isn't about making money; it's about 
providing a service.
       The main equipment that operates the system is housed in a horse 
barn in the neighborhood, Oppedahl said. The first thing he did on the day 
the service launched was to send an e-mail announcing to Ruby Ranch 
subscribers, "You are now connected." Then, he walked the ten minutes from 
his home over to the horse barn to peer at the blinking green lights on the 
DSLAM.
       "Each green light means a happy subscriber," he said.
      Users of the DSL service in Ruby Ranch range, as they do elsewhere 
in America, from casual Net surfers to those who work from home. Though a 
report released this week by Pricewaterhouse Coopers says that adoption of 
broadband has been slower in this country than predicted, anyone who has 
used a fast connection knows it changes the online experience forever from 
one of frustration and drudge to zippiness and fun. It makes the Internet 
more of a real medium, and less of a chore.

RURAL FRUSTRATION
       It doesn't, however, erase the inevitable frustrations one has with 
utility companies  and particularly as hellish stories of the Adelphia 
bankruptcies of the world fill the headlines, it makes sense why consumers 
might not be clambering to sign up. Another problem, as Oppedahl puts it: 
If you throw a dart at a map of the United States, much of the nation can't 
access broadband even if they wanted to.
     Though availability and use are greatest in the most populated areas, 
that is not the case in rural America. A report in February from the 
Federal Communications Commission found, "High-speed subscribers were 
reported in 97% of the most densely populated zip codes and in 49% of zip 
codes with the lowest population densities."
       Though he helps to protect people's intellectual property for a 
living, Oppedahl said nothing would make him happier than if frustrated 
others in low-bandwidth communities ripped off the Ruby Ranch cooperative 
idea. To make it easier to do that, he's built a Web site that details how 
he and his neighbors did it: http://www.rric.net.
       He also poses and answers the questions true gear-heads will 
inevitably have about why Ruby Ranch chose to go the DSL route, and not use 
wireless, broadband satellite, or burying their own cable. Once the 
neighborhood decided to investigate starting their own service, they 
methodically studied and then discarded those ideas.
       "There's a great feeling of satisfaction, on an emotional level," 
Oppedahl said, as he was getting ready to help plan a celebratory party 
this weekend at the home of a neighbor and fellow subscriber. "Everybody 
would like to put one over on the phone company." Kudos to Ruby Ranch 
residents for taking matters into their own hands.
********************
Los Angeles Times
Teen Settles Latest Fraud Claims by SEC
From Bloomberg News

June 6 2002

A Mission Viejo teenager, in his second securities-fraud case, turned over 
$93,731 to settle charges he manipulated stocks with false chat board 
messages, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

Cole Bartiromo, a 17-year-old high school student, surrendered $91,000 in 
gains plus interest made by driving up stock prices of 15 publicly traded 
firms in a "pump and dump scheme," the SEC said.

Bartiromo previously turned over more than $1 million he raised from some 
1,000 investors with promises of guaranteed returns in sports betting 
touted on an Internet bulletin board named "Invest Better 2001," the SEC 
said. "Cole just wants to get this thing over with and get on with his 
life," said his attorney, David Bayless of Morrison & Foerster in San 
Francisco. Bayless said Bartiromo agreed to settle the pump-and-dump 
charges, without admitting or denying guilt, before the case was filed in 
federal court April 29.

The SEC alleged Bartiromo posted more than 6,000 false messages on Internet 
chat boards last year to drive up share prices and sell his holdings at a 
profit. The stocks included F2 Broadcast Network Inc. and Call Solutions 
Inc., both most recently trading for less than 1 cent a share.
********************
Computerworld
CERT warns of BIND problem; Sun patches Solaris flaws

A flaw in a software tool used to translate text-based Internet domain 
names into numerical addresses could make parts of the Internet vulnerable 
to denial-of-service attacks, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) 
warned yesterday.
The flaw is in certain versions of the Berkeley Internet Name Domain 
(BIND), a widely used piece of Domain Name System (DNS) software, CERT said 
in an advisory.

DNS servers running BIND 9 prior to Version 9.2.1 are vulnerable. An 
attacker could shut down the DNS service on that server by sending a 
specific DNS packet. The service will then remain unavailable until 
restarted, CERT said.

BIND 9.2.1 was released May 1 by the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), 
which distributes BIND free of charge. It is a so-called maintenance 
release that fixes a number of bugs in 9.2.0 but has no new features, 
according to the ISC Web site.

DNS servers translate text-based domain names into numeric IP addresses. 
When those servers go down, users who type Web addresses can't connect to 
the intended servers, and e-mail sent to affected domains will bounce back.

"If you can trigger something that shuts down the name server, than that is 
a serious matter," said Petur Petursson, CEO of Men & Mice Inc., a DNS 
consultancy firm in Reykjavik, Iceland.

"It is normal for a company to run two name servers. If you manage to shoot 
both of them down, the company will disappear from the Internet," said 
Petursson.

BIND 9.2.1 is available for free download from the ISC Web site. BIND is 
also often part of software sold by server software vendors. These vendors 
may offer their own patches, according to CERT, which urges users of BIND 9 
to either upgrade or apply a patch.

In an unrelated security move yesterday, Sun Microsystems Inc. released 
patches to close two security holes in its Solaris operating system. The 
holes could have allowed an attacker to take control of vulnerable systems.

The vulnerabilities affect the snmpdx and mibiisa agents that are 
components of Versions 2.6, 7 and 8 of the company's Solaris operating 
system, according to an alert from Sun. The two affected agents both run 
with root privileges, the highest level of access on systems, and are part 
of the operating system's Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) 
capabilities. The capabilities allow for device configuration and 
administration. The snmpdx agent monitors SNMP requests and information 
from the system and forwards relevant information on to mibiisa, Sun said.

The vulnerabilities come in the form of a format string vulnerability in 
snmpdx and a buffer overflow in mibiisa, Sun said. Both vulnerabilities can 
be exploited locally and remotely, the company said.

The flaw is mitigated because the vulnerabilities exist only on systems 
running Sun Solstice Enterprise Master Agent, snmpdx and mibiisa, Sun added.

The patches for affected operating systems are available online.

For CERT Advisory, see http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-15.html

********************
Associated Press
Microsoft: Web Services Technologies to Come in '03
Thu Jun 6,12:11 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. will release new technologies 
next year designed to allow companies to easily share information about 
customers, employees and other common users of applications and networks, 
the company said on Thursday.


The announcement is the latest from the Redmond, Washington-based software 
giant in its push into the nascent Web services market and marked a more 
cooperative approach to a rival effort led by Sun Microsystems Inc.

Under Web services, the goal is to enable companies to share information 
with each other, customers, partners and suppliers, across disparate 
applications and networks.

The new Microsoft technologies, code-named "TrustBridge," will appear in 
products next year, but which products will use it has yet to be 
determined, said Steven VanRoekel, director of Web Services technical 
marketing for Microsoft.

"We have people working on it in the Windows group," he added.

TrustBridge will "give you single sign-on access to multiple companies' 
information," said VanRoekel. "So basically two companies can trust each 
other and one company can give access to resources to users in another 
company in a very simple way."

For example, a corporation outsourcing human resources functions to an 
outside company could easily allow its employees to go to the outsourcer's 
Web site to access benefits and other information. The two systems would 
share user identity information and data on which users are able to access 
which applications.

The announcement illustrates Microsoft's commitment to openness and 
interoperability, VanRoekel said.

The company has been criticized in the past for pushing proprietary 
technology that does not work with products from other vendors.

That history prompted Sun Microsystems to spearhead an alternate Web 
services effort, dubbed the Liberty Alliance, which is long on members but 
short on specific technology plans.

"We did a lot of talking about ... how Liberty fit into the model," 
VanRoekel said. "This is a first step" toward interoperability.

The TrustBridge announcement also "sends our Windows customers a clear 
message about how we're going to evolve Windows and our other products into 
the Web services world," he said.
*******************
New York Times
Why Doctors Don't E-Mail

DR. ADAM SCHNEIDER, an internist in Austin, Tex., is as computer-adept a 
doctor as you are likely to find. He uses a Compaq iPaq hand-held for quick 
access to reference materials and medical records and to navigate the Web. 
He has three computers at home, and he is the one who configures all the 
computers for his practice.

Yet Dr. Schneider, 36, draws the line at electronic interaction with his 
patients. When they ask for his e-mail address, he demurs, telling them he 
prefers the telephone.

"There are too many variables with e-mail as opposed to a patient picking 
up the phone," he said. "It's not, in my mind, as effective as the telephone."

As Internet use became commonplace, some experts held up e-mail as a 
promising new medium for communication between doctors and patients. Many 
saw it as the potential bridge for a widening gap in communication, 
accessibility and familiarity.

Indeed, many doctors have added e-mail to their daily rounds. But reality 
has fallen short of the predictions. Physicians, it turns out, are largely 
reluctant to exchange e-mail with patients. According to the results of a 
survey conducted in April by Harris Interactive, while roughly 90 percent 
of patients want to exchange e-mail with their doctors, a much smaller 
percentage of doctors  about 15 percent, by one expert's estimate  do so.

The doctors' concerns are many. Some are worried about the risks to 
doctor-patient confidentiality, while others are concerned that an 
electronic paper trail might increase their exposure to malpractice liability.

Other concerns go to the heart of medical practice in an era of managed 
care, when doctors find time for patients increasingly scarce and 
reimbursement rates diminishing. Give patients your e-mail address, some 
doctors say, and you are inviting trouble: they will overtax your already 
burdened day, and one sympathetic response could cascade into a flow of 
demands and questions.

"There's clearly an opportunity for a patient to overwhelm the doctor's 
time," said Dr. Norman Chenven, 57, medical director of a clinic in Austin. 
"There's an opportunity for a mismatch between the expectations of the 
patient and the response of the physician."

Doctors who do exchange e-mail with patients say that while such fears are 
understandable, they are not borne out by their experience.

Dr. Richard Parker, 45, who practices at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical 
Center in Boston, is one such doctor, having traded e-mail with patients 
for nearly three years. On a typical day, he said, he receives 6 to 10 
e-mail messages from patients and spends about two minutes responding to 
each. That compares with 8 to 10 phone calls a day, averaging three to five 
minutes apiece, not including the time spent playing phone tag, he said.

"It's definitely a time-saver," Dr. Parker said. "Otherwise I wouldn't do 
it, and neither would any other doctor."

Many doctors who regularly exchange e-mail with patients say their patients 
do not abuse it. "One of the misconceptions is that patients will e-mail 
doctors all the time," said Dr. Daniel Sands, 40, an assistant professor at 
Harvard Medical School who studies electronic communication between 
patients and their doctors, a practice in which he estimated that 15 
percent of doctors engage. Dr. Sands said he has 600 patients, about 20 
percent of whom send him e-mail. He said he gets perhaps one e-mail message 
a day.

The computer might seem an unlikely way to bring doctors closer to their 
patients, but physicians who use e-mail say that staying in touch 
electronically does precisely that.

Dr. Parker said he recently had a patient with pancreatitis. "I told him to 
e-mail me every day with his symptoms and progress, or lack thereof," Dr. 
Parker said. "I think the patient felt cared for and attended to. I think 
he felt relaxed and comfortable about communicating frequently without 
feeling like he was burdening me."

Part of the hesitation among doctors who are reluctant to use e-mail may be 
its relative newness as a means of communication. For all its popularity 
and pervasiveness, e-mail remains a medium in the making. For some it is an 
invitation to write in shorthand, while for others it is something meant to 
be mulled over and composed with an eye toward precision and perfection.

Dr. Sands and others say that doctors must be careful to avoid the 
possibility of misinterpretation or confusion but that that should not 
deter them from using e-mail as a way to communicate.

"It's important to understand that it can lead to misunderstandings," Dr. 
Sands said. "So it is incumbent on doctors to read over what they've 
written a few times before hitting the Send button."

Two years ago, the American Medical Association adopted a set of guidelines 
for e-mail between doctors and patients. Doctor are advised to tell 
patients whether anyone else will be reading the message, refrain from 
sending group e-mail on which other recipients are listed, establish with 
patients what method of communication they prefer and archive the messages.

The demand among patients for e-mail contact with their doctors is 
pronounced. According to the recent Harris Interactive survey, 90 percent 
of patients with access to e-mail said they would like the ability to 
communicate with their physicians online, and more than a third said they 
would be willing to pay for it.

Patients want their doctors to spend more time communicating with them, Dr. 
Sands said. Further, he said, when patients know there is an open line of 
communication with a physician, the need for constant communication 
diminishes.

"It's a calming thing," Dr. Sands said. "People get stressed out when they 
don't have access to their physician."

Such reassurances are not enough to convince Dr. Harold Weinberg, a 
50-year-old neurologist in New York.

Dr. Weinberg uses instant messaging throughout the day to keep in touch 
with family members, but he shuns e-mail with patients.

"All the questions require me to ask them more questions," Dr. Weinberg 
said. "The doctor-patient interaction is so dynamic that e-mail is like a 
fossil. It's too slow."

Still, physicians like Dr. Parker say e-mail can occasionally eliminate the 
need for an office visit.

Two months ago, Carol Butt, a 59-year-old retired nurse who lives in 
Winchester, Mass., and is a patient of Dr. Parker's, developed a large 
bruise on her arm. She decided not to drive 30 minutes into Boston to see 
him. Instead, she had her husband take digital photos of the bruise and 
send them by e-mail.

"I thought it would be ever so much easier to take a picture of what it 
was, and I figured he could get a good enough idea of what was going on," 
Ms. Butt said. Dr. Parker ended up sending her to a dermatologist, a step 
he would have taken had she driven to his office. "It saved me five or six 
hours," she said.

Many doctors who are reluctant to send e-mail also point to liability as a 
major concern. But that is another unfounded fear, e-mail partisans say.

"It's well documented that those who communicate a lot with their 
physicians are less likely to sue," said Dr. Sands, who also has a private 
practice in Boston. Dr. Sands said he knew of no malpractice lawsuits that 
had been filed in which e-mail played a role.

Further, Dr. Sands said, the e-mail trail can be more an asset than a risk. 
"E-mail is self-documenting," he said. "If you say something stupid, 
whether it's on the phone or by e-mail, it's not a good thing. And it 
should be there for review."

Patients who have grudgingly accepted the realities of managed care see 
little hope for patient-doctor e-mail.

"I would love to e-mail my doctor," said Don Archer, a 47-year-old lawyer 
who lives in Berkeley, Calif., "but it seems to run against the grain of 
managed health care, which is to impose barriers to access to doctors."

The Permanente Medical Group  the clinical group that serves Northern 
California patients of Kaiser Permanente, the largest nonprofit health plan 
in the nation  has long encouraged its doctors to send e-mail to patients 
according to guidelines it has developed. Some 25 percent of the 4,200 
doctors in the group are using e-mail to correspond with patients.

"My sense is that 90 percent of our physicians will embrace this 
technology," said Dr. Robert Pearl, executive director and chief executive 
at the Permanente Medical Group.

The major concern among the group's physicians, Dr. Pearl said, is 
patient-doctor confidentiality. To address that concern, he said, Kaiser 
Permanente is in the process of putting a Web-based, secure messaging 
system in place.

Until secure e-mail is established throughout the organization, physicians 
are being asked to adhere to certain guidelines, Dr. Pearl said.

"They shouldn't be communicating sensitive diagnoses or sensitive pieces of 
medical information and they shouldn't be communicating any specific 
details to a patient that would potentially pose a risk if read by other 
members of the family," Dr. Pearl said.

Dr. Pearl says he believes that the e-mail adoption rate among physicians 
will accelerate as younger doctors join.

"We've hired a huge number of young physicians  500 last year," he said. 
"And all of these physicians grew up with computers. They believe very 
strongly that they can not only improve the efficiency of their practice 
but the lives of their patients. A lot of them are saying, `Bring it out 
more rapidly.' "
*********************
Washington Post
FEMA Will Oversee All Wireless Efforts
Thomas R. Temin
Government Computer News

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will coordinate all federal 
wireless communications projects in a bid to ensure interoperability and 
standards while avoiding stovepiped systems.

FEMA will take over Project SAFECOM, an Office of Management and Budget 
e-government initiative, according to FEMA CIO Ron Miller.

The purpose of Project SAFECOM is to bring wireless project managers 
together. But, concerned that wireless projects were sprouting all over the 
government, Mark Forman, OMB's e-government point man, said a letter will 
go out to every federal agency doing wireless projects. To underscore OMB's 
determination to rein in the wireless efforts, the letter will cite the 
Clinger-Cohen Act's provision giving authority to OMB to reprogram agency 
money.

"OMB agreed to help consolidate so we could pull in" various wireless 
projects, such as the Commerce Department's National Wireless 
Communications Infrastructure Program, Miller said. The decision to change 
SAFECOM's governance was made at a late-April CIO Council meeting, and was 
suggested by deputy Treasury CIO Mayi Canales.

A joint Justice and Treasury department wireless infrastructure effort that 
was part of SAFECOM will stay there, Miller said, but now under FEMA's 
guidance.

SAFECOM will have four deputy program managers - from Commerce, FEMA, 
Justice and Treasury - to oversee initiatives, Miller said. It also will 
have a steering committee composed of representatives from user groups such 
as the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
*****************
Washington Post
Administration Touts Smart Cards, but Some Agencies Are Skeptical
Dipka Bhambhani
Government Computer News

While the Office of Cyberspace Security prepares a governmentwide security 
plan for release this summer, Paul Kurtz, its senior director for national 
security, is urging agencies to think seriously about using smart cards to 
protect their systems against a terrorist attack.

The Cold War model won't work this time, he said at a conference sponsored 
by the Smart Card Alliance. "We can't use those radars in Alaska to find 
that cyberattack," he said.

"Smart cards obviously will be a part of the solution set," he said. "We 
need to connect all agencies and private-sector operating systems."

Theresa Schwarzhoff, senior computer scientist and program manager at the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, said her agency is 
developing a road map to help agencies understand their security needs.

The technology exists for smart-card adoption, but individual agency policy 
can be a barrier to governmentwide adoption of the card. "Even though there 
are standards, there are different ways standards can be implemented," she 
said.

Version 2.0 of the Government Smart Card Interoperability Specification 
will include standards for agencies to store biometric templates on the 
smart cards. "We want to see smart cards with security in mind," Kurtz 
said. "We want security built in up-front."

Freda Paintsil, an information security analyst at the General Accounting 
Office who is working on a report that could be released as early as 
August, said the government will have to overcome at least three barriers 
to smart-card adoption.

The biggest barrier is that civilian agencies, unlike the Defense 
Department, do not have a mandate - or the funding that goes with it - to 
adopt smart cards.

And because there are no technical standards for smart-card readers for 
physical access, agencies can only use cards for network access.

Some Defense offices in commercial buildings have the added pressure of 
convincing commercial owners to install smart-card readers at building 
entrances.

"There's no federal legislation," Paintsil said. "That's probably the 
biggest barrier."
****************
Federal Computer Week
Tech factors in port protection

The House passed legislation June 4 that would give the Coast Guard greater 
powers in the war against terrorism and would rely on the Customs Service 
to help protect U.S. ports, using technology to do it.

The Maritime Transportation Anti-Terrorism Act authorizes $83 million 
annually in grants for enhanced facility security at U.S. ports for the 
next three fiscal years. These grants will help cover the cost of 
anti-terrorism improvements and fund projects to determine which 
technologies will improve port security the best.

"Shipping containers are particularly adaptable to use by terrorists," said 
Rep. Ken Bentsen (D-Texas). "Our port security gap is as simple as not 
enough equipment, men and inspections. Improving this security situation 
will cost a large amount of money."

The legislation, approved by voice vote, would give the Coast Guard the 
authority deny entry to vessels from foreign ports with inadequate security 
and dispatch "sea marshals" to respond to terrorist threats. The bill still 
must be reconciled with a Senate bill passed in December, but lawmakers 
appear intent on tightening security at the nation's ports.

The government must do more to protect "the nation's largest and perhaps 
most vulnerable border," said Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), chairman of the 
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Coast Guard panel.

Customs and law enforcement officials currently check about 2 percent of 
the containers arriving at the nation's 361 ports. The legislation requires 
the government to develop anti-terrorism cargo identification and screening 
systems for container cargo, a program already under way with the Customs' 
modernization program.

Also on June 4, the Customs Service announced an agreement with Singapore 
under which it will inspect U.S.-bound cargo containers in Singapore's 
seaport. Customs already has a similar arrangement with Canada and has 
worked out deals with major manufacturers to quicken the pace of border 
crossings in exchange for their cooperation in conducting their own 
security checks.
*******************
Federal Computer Week
INS broadens fingerprint scanning

This summer, the Immigration and Naturalization Service plans to begin 
using electronic fingerprint scanners to check the identities of tens of 
thousands of foreign visitors as they arrive at airports in the United States.

The fingerprints of visitors will be compared to databases of fingerprints 
of known and suspected criminals and terrorists in an effort to intercept 
terrorists trying to enter the country, Attorney General John Ashcroft said 
June 5.

A smaller version of the system is already quietly at work at several U.S. 
airports, Ashcroft said. Since January, the INS has caught an average of 67 
people each week whose fingerprints matched those in the databases. About 
1,400 individuals have been apprehended, Ashcroft said during an 
announcement of plans to expand the system to all airports where foreigners 
arrive.

The fingerprint scanners and fingerprint databases are one part of a 
three-element National Security Entry/Exit Registration System that 
Ashcroft has ordered to begin keeping better track of foreign nationals who 
are in the United States.

Besides fingerprinting tens of thousands of arriving visitors, Ashcroft 
said some foreign visitors also will be photographed. Aliens who are deemed 
to pose a potential threat to national security will also be required to 
register with the INS after they have been in the United States for 30 
days, and once a year thereafter. And certain visitors will be required to 
notify the INS when they depart.

The names of those who fail to register will be entered into a nationwide 
police database, increasing the chances they will be discovered during 
minor encounters with police, such as during a traffic stop.

And those who fail to notify the INS of their departure will be ineligible 
to re-enter the United States, Justice Department officials said.

The fingerprinting part of the plan, in particular, is consistent with a 
Justice Department effort to better employ technology in the war against 
terrorism.

"We have the technical capability to do this," Ashcroft said. "We need to 
deploy this as soon as possible to protect American lives."

At the airports where the system is already being used, scanning 
fingerprints of arriving visitors and comparing them to fingerprints stored 
in databases takes about three minutes, Ashcroft said.

Initially, at least, only a fraction of the foreign visitors would be 
subject to fingerprint scans. "We don't have the capacity to get 
fingerprints from all" visitors, a senior Justice Department official said. 
"That takes an enormous amount of infrastructure, and we don't have it."

Visitors from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria all would be 
fingerprinted. Those countries are considered sponsors of terrorism.

Beyond those visitors, the Justice Department is developing "criteria" that 
INS inspectors will use to decide which visitors must undergo fingerprint 
checks.

The collection of fingerprints of suspected terrorists has "increased 
substantially" in the months since U.S. troops began operating in 
Afghanistan, Ashcroft said. U.S. personnel have recovered many latent 
fingerprints from captured al Qaeda documents and objects, he said. Those 
are fingerprints without a name, Ashcroft said. They are now stored in a 
database and are presumed to be the fingerprints of terrorists. If visitors 
entering the United States have fingerprints that match, "we won't have a 
name, but we will have a body," Ashcroft said.
*******************
BBC
Questions over net snooping centre

A controversial internet snooping centre to be opened in the summer by the 
UK Government could cause more problems than it solves, experts say.
The National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC) will decrypt computer data 
and intercepted internet and e-mail traffic as part of a drive against 
cyber-crime, reports the technology news magazine, Computing.

It follows a much-criticised law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers 
Act, which came into force in October 2000 and gave law enforcers sweeping 
powers to spy on internet communications.

However, government plans to foil cyber criminals could backfire, according 
to a member of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), Stephen 
Dyer.

"It could prove counter-productive. If the government is being seen as 
taking encryption seriously then it will drive criminals to use encryption 
more," he said.

"Modern encryption is almost uncrackable, especially in the timescale 
needed to stop a crime," he added.

Much to do

NTAC is also running into other obstacles, as the RIP Act it is designed to 
enforce undergoes some serious rewrites.

Experts argue that the law was rushed through parliament without 
consultation with industry and as a result is unworkable.

Earlier in the year, the government admitted that the complex process of 
obtaining encryption keys had not yet fully been worked out and a public 
consultation would be necessary.

Without a quick and easy way of getting hold of encryption keys, NTAC would 
"be dead in the water", said Mr Dyer.

Black boxes

NTAC will also depend on a controversial network of black boxes, installed 
in internet networks and feeding directly into the MI5 building, where the 
centre will be based.

The idea of such boxes caused outrage when it was suggested. Despite being 
included in the RIP Act, no internet service provider (ISP) has yet been 
required by government to install such a surveillance system.

Officials now admit that secondary legislation will be necessary before 
ISPs can be made to install black boxes.

Even then, ISPs will have recourse to an independent body if they feel it 
is too costly which could mean significant delays.

Without such boxes, it will be impossible for NTAC will get its hands on 
web communications.

Ultimately, the government's plans for NTAC might be just too ambitious, 
said Mr Dyer.

"The government wants to plug into the internet and grab everything they 
want from it. That might work for the intelligence services but I'm not 
sure it will for law enforcement," he said.

Loss of intelligence

Despite this the government insists that NTAC is a necessary tool in its 
fight against cyber-crime.

"Without an appropriate response, rapid developments in information 
technology with communications increasingly travelling from 
computer-to-computer and information protected by encryption will lead to a 
considerable loss of intelligence from lawfully intercepted communications 
and evidence from lawfully seized material," read a Home Office statement.

Much of NTAC's resources will go into tracking terrorist activity and 
paedophiles, both of which use the web to communicate.

The drive to step up surveillance of the internet has increased since the 
terrorist attacks on 11 September.

In May, the European Parliament voted in favour of forcing phone companies 
and internet service providers to retain for years logs on what all their 
customers are doing.
********************
BBC
Browser war veteran comes of age

An alternative browser based on open source software which has been more 
than four years in the making is now available to download from the net.
Test versions have been available for years but this is the first time that 
the ambitious project team have felt happy enough with their creation to 
call it Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla is quick, stable, and virtually free of the default links to 
manufacturers' products that feature so prominently in commercial browsers.

Its developers aim it at companies wanting a browser to put in their own 
products.

But there is nothing to stop ordinary users downloading it to replace 
Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Netscape's Navigator.

Open recipe

Mozilla is a high-profile example of open source software.

Developers of open source software give the public access to the hundreds 
of thousands of lines of instructions used to build their product.

Anyone with the right skills can change or improve the way the software works.

This way of doing things undermines the traditional way companies make 
money from selling licences to use their software.

But it does not stop firms making money from installing, supporting and 
configuring the software, and, its supporters argue, leads to higher 
quality software.

Opponents like Microsoft's Bill Gates say open source software deprives 
companies of intellectual property and governments of tax revenue.

War veteran

Mozilla was born in 1998, when, as the Microsoft-Netscape browser war was 
at its height, Netscape decided to open up the computer code it used to 
build its browser, Netscape Navigator.

A team of programmers, some volunteers, many sponsored by Netscape and 
other companies, set out to overhaul the code and make the browser more 
compatible with emerging internet standards.

The deeper they looked into the code, the more apparent it became that they 
would have to throw much of it away and start from scratch.

"This was a tough decision and it meant re-writing a large portion of the 
code," explained Mitchell Baker of mozilla.org, the site home to the 
Mozilla project.

Grappling with Gecko

The team rewrote the guts of their browser, the part which turns web page 
code stored into HTML files into text, images and layout on screen.

This component, the rendering engine, has a crucial impact on the speed and 
stability of the browser software.

The Mozilla team are fond of lizard references and codenamed their engine 
Gecko.

Netscape were so pleased with it that they put it and a test version of 
Mozilla at the heart of their Netscape 6 series of browsers.

So Mozilla has a familiar feel for Netscape 6 users, and its developers are 
conscious of what it will have to compete with.

Industry adoption

"It won't be judged by standards generally applied to the first release of 
products," Ms Baker told BBC News Online.

"Mozilla 1.0 will be compared against the fifth or sixth generation of 
commercial browsers," she said.

AOL, part of Netscape's parent company, AOL Time Warner, is testing a 
browser based on Mozilla's Gecko and may use it to replace its current 
version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Compuserve, part of the same conglomerate, already uses Mozilla.

The Mozilla release comes not long after the release of OpenOffice 1.0, a 
suite of office software produced to rival Microsoft Office, backed by Sun 
Microsystems and similarly free to download.

Both products run not just on Windows, but on a range of other operating 
systems.
*******************
Government Computer Week
Homeland Security Department plan is unveiled
By Wilson P. Dizard III

The White House today took the wraps off its plan to create a new 
cabinet-level agency to combine existing homeland defense activities of 
other agencies. Creating the Homeland Security Department will require 
legislation by Congress, which Homeland Security Office director Tom Ridge 
will shepherd through the lawmaking process.

President Bush will address the nation at 8 p.m. about the plan, which 
comprises a major restructuring of the U.S. government.

The new department will have four components, press secretary Ari Fleischer 
said:


Border and transportation security
Emergency preparedness and response
Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures
Information analysis and infrastructure protection.

The new department will draw primarily from eight cabinet agencies, he 
said, and some parts of departments and agencies will also be included.

The Bush Administration has not announced who will be nominated to be 
Homeland Security secretary. Ridge will be the "voice and face" of the 
process to create the new department, Fleischer said.

Vice President Richard Cheney and others briefed members of Congress about 
the proposed department today.

"This is a major restructuring of the federal government, the biggest 
restructuring of the federal government since 1947,"¨ Fleischer told 
reporters. "The 1947 restructuring was as a result of the need to fight and 
win a Cold War, to recognize the differences in moving from World War II to 
fight in the Cold War.

"This is a restructuring of government recognizing the need to fight an 
enduring war against terrorism on a permanent basis, because it's the 
creation of a cabinet department, which is permanent."

The cost of the new department will be "essentially budget-neutral" because 
it will be pieced together from existing agencies, Fleischer added. The 
missions of the FBI and CIA will stay the same, he said, while a small part 
of the FBI will be shifted to the DHS, according to the plan. The Homeland 
Security Office in the White House will remain in operation, he said.

The Bush administration seeks to secure passage of the legislation this year.
********************
Government Computer News
DOD will accept comments on electronic payment rule
By Dawn S. Onley

The Defense Department is asking for the public's input on a proposal to 
amend the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to require 
contractors to submit payment invoices electronically.

In accordance with the Government Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, DOD 
wants to add the new contract clause to implement Section 1008 of the 
fiscal 2001 National Defense Authorization Act.

The proposal would require contractors to submit payment requests via the 
Web Invoicing System run by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service; the 
Wide Area WorkFlow Receipts and Acceptance site run by the Defense 
Information Systems Agency; or the American National Standards Institute's 
electronic data interchange formats.

The secretary of Defense could exempt contractors from the requirement if 
it is deemed "unduly burdensome," or for five other reasons spelled out in 
the proposal.

Respondents may submit comments at 
emissary.acq.osd.mil/dar/dfars.nsf/pubcomm until July 30. Respondents must 
cite DFARS Case 2002-D001 in the case number line of the comment form.
*****************
Bayarea.com
FCC looks into cell phone positioning systems
By John Dorschner
Knight Ridder

It seems simple enough: If global positioning systems can tell exactly 
where a car, boat or plane is, why can't police know the exact location of 
a cell phone?

Everyone agrees it's a crucial need, to locate the elderly driver who 
crashes into a rural Wisconsin snow bank and doesn't know where he is, or 
the injured robbery victim who dials 911 but then faints before she can 
give details.

Yet six years after the Federal Communications Communications mandated that 
wireless companies move to provide cell phone location for Enhanced 911 
(E911), most companies have fallen behind the interim deadlines, and the 
FCC has launched an investigation into what's taking so long.

The need is enormous because about 50 million calls a year are made to 911 
from wireless phones, according to the National Emergency Number 
Association, a group that brings together governmental 911 agencies and 
telecommunications firms.

Nationwide, one in four emergency calls now come from cell phones.

``Drivers see an accident, and everyone calls 911,'' said Jim Goerke, 
interim director of NENA. ``That's put a huge burden on emergency agencies.''

If nothing else, automatic cell phone locators will be able to quickly tell 
operators at a glance which callers are reporting an already-known-about 
accident.

Back in 1992, directors of 911 services asked the FCC to mandate cell phone 
locators. In 1996, the federal agency set out a schedule with a series of 
deadlines extending to December 2005 for full implementation.

Phase I requires that emergency operators be able to tell which cell tower 
a caller is using a standard that will give a location within perhaps 300 
yards. Most wireless firms now provide this capability though many local 
911 centers don't yet have the technology to read the location.

Phase II requires 911 centers to be able to pinpoint a location. It 
originally was supposed to be available for use in October, but at the 
moment it's operational in only a half-dozen locations, the most notable of 
which is Rhode Island, which has the advantage of compact size and one 
centralized 911 center.

All the major wireless companies asked for deadline extensions, saying they 
were having problems getting equipment from vendors. Regulators thought 
that AT&T Wireless was slow to ask for an extension, and have threatened 
the company with a $2.2 million late fee.

AT&T Wireless said its problems was getting the proper equipment from its 
vendors. ``We're as frustrated as anyone by these vendor delays, but we are 
fully committed to bringing this service to our customers,'' said Rochelle 
Cohen, AT&T Wireless spokeswoman. ``We have pledged to beat the FCC's 
full-compliance deadline by one year.'' That means the firm will be done 
with its conversion by December 2004.

The GPS-capable phones are just the first step, however, because wireless 
firms must also reprogram network software and 911 agencies must add 
software to read the new information.

All these E911 changes are a big-ticket expense, but Goerke said that no 
one has yet come up with an estimate on how much the conversion will cost.

``We're working very, very closely with the 911 people,'' said Nanci 
Schwartz of Sprint. But before we go ahead in an area, we need a letter 
from them saying they're ready to go ahead.''

``It's really quite a technological challenge to accomplish this,'' said 
Michael Lanman of Verizon.

Regulators, however, aren't so sure if it should be this complicated. ``The 
FCC has expressed concern,'' Goerke said. ``They've started an 
investigation. The results may be public before the end of the summer.''

What's already clear, however, is who will pay for the new technology. 
Goerke said 40 states have started a monthly levy on cell phone bills 
averaging 60 cents a phone to pay government agencies and wireless 
companies for implementing the transition, however slow it may be.
********************
Bayarea.com
Wireless computers strike a cord at home and work
By Julio Ojeda-Zapata
Knight Ridder

Wireless means more than cell phones. Think computers.

A variety of technologies allow laptop and desktop computers to perform 
routine tasks -- such as accessing the Internet and talking to printers or 
each other -- without wires.

While the likes of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have been around for a few years, 
they are only now gaining traction.

Other wireless variants, such as 802.11a and 802.11g, are not yet 
established but point to a promising future.

What does this all mean? With the right gear, you can impress your friends 
and co-workers with feats of wireless derring-do.

More important, you can get serious work done while freeing yourself of the 
cords and cables that have long been synonymous with personal computing.

None of the technologies described here is essential. But, for certain 
users in particular situations, they can be godsends.

Here are a few basics to get you started:

Bluetooth

What is it? A so-called ``cord replacement'' technology for tying together 
computers and related devices, such as printers and handheld organizers, 
into wireless ``personal area networks.''

How does it work? Gizmos equipped with low-power Bluetooth radios can 
interact at distances up to 33 feet.

A desktop PC sends jobs to a printer; a Palm device synchronizes with a 
Macintosh laptop; a Mac and a PC exchange sets of files -- all without wires.

Cell phones have a role to play here, too. Bluetooth-capable handsets can 
function as wireless modems if paired with Bluetooth-ready PC or Mac 
laptops, allowing users to check e-mail and browse the Web just about anywhere.

How well does it work? Not as well as it should. Because Bluetooth is 
relatively new, getting Bluetooth devices to interact remains a quirky process.

It's much easier to plop a Palm handheld into a cradle and hit the 
synchronization button, for instance, than trying to sync up using a 
Bluetooth connection.

Who makes Bluetooth products? From IBM laptops and Palm handhelds to Sony 
video camcorders, an Ericsson cell phone and an HP printer, a growing 
assortment of gadgets are getting Bluetoothed. Some devices have Bluetooth 
built in, others rely on add-on Bluetooth adapters.

Little about Bluetooth currently screams, ``Buy me!'' -- except perhaps for 
people in certain situations. Laptop users may be eager to get online via 
cell phones while on the go, for instance. If Bluetooth is right for you, 
you should know it.

More info: www.bluetooth.com

802.11b or Wi-Fi

What is it? High-speed access to the Internet and computer networks without 
wires, giving computer users the flexibility to move around while staying 
connected.

How does it work? Think ``access point.'' Such a Wi-Fi device physically 
hooks up to the Internet or a computer network, either via a phone line or 
an Ethernet link.

One or more computers with Wi-Fi attachments or built-in Wi-Fi capabilities 
then link to the access point without wires. This can occur over distances 
of 150 feet or more.

Presto! Wireless surfing, typically at speeds of about five megabits a 
second, with a top theoretical speed of 11 megabits per second.

How well does it work? Wi-Fi already has legions of ardent users despite 
some kinks.

Wi-Fi-based Net access is increasingly available for a fee in public places 
such as coffee shops, hotels and airports. Free access also is available 
around the country via ad-hoc networks that blanket buildings or parts of 
neighborhoods.

Wi-Fi products for home and business have proliferated. But setting up such 
gear can sometimes be a headache. As Glenn Fleishman of the 802.11b 
Networking News Web site recently put it:

``It's been more than a year since home users started buying Wi-Fi in huge 
amounts, and the software cycle still (favors) the techiest-of-the-techie. 
And even we can't figure it out.''

Who makes Wi-Fi products? Browse the company directory at 802.11b 
Networking News (http://80211b.web

logger.com) or see www.wi-fi.org/certified-products

.asp.

Wi-Fi can be an enjoyable and affordable way to join multiple laptop or 
desktop computers into high-speed home networks, assuming all glitches are 
ironed out.

Roving laptop users with Wi-Fi networking cards can seek out wireless 
access in public places. Browse the ``hot spot'' directories at 
www.80211hotspots.com.

Spawns of Wi-Fi

Higher-speed 802.11 variants are coming on the scene.

One is dubbed 802.11a, or Wi-Fi5, with advertised top speeds of 28 to 54 
megabits per second. Despite its similar-sounding designations, the 
technology is incompatible with Wi-Fi equipment.

Still, Wi-Fi5 represents an opportunity for those wanting higher-speed 
wireless networks and are willing to pay a premium for the Wi-Fi5 gear now 
becoming available.

Another higher-speed Wi-Fi alternative is 802.11g. While still in 
development, it is said to have the raw speed of 802.11a as well as 
compatibility with existing Wi-Fi gear.

This means 802.11g access points would supposedly work with 
802.11b-equipped computers (though at sub-802.11g speeds).

It's unclear which of the above technologies -- or combinations thereof -- 
represent the future of high-speed wireless computer networking. This 
should become apparent in the next few years.
***********************
USA Today
EBay has secret weapon against fraud

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)  Internet auction leader eBay is trying to fight 
fraud on the site with a new software program that scans for suspicious 
listings and alerts company investigators, Chief Executive Meg Whitman said 
Wednesday.

The Fraud and Abuse Detection Engine, or FADE, was deployed this spring to 
help the company crack down on con artists who misrepresent their 
merchandise or dupe buyers into paying for goods that never arrive, Whitman 
told investors at eBay's annual shareholder meeting.

Though Whitman said fraud makes up less than one-tenth of 1% of all 
transactions on eBay, the company worries that high-profile cons damage the 
site's reputation.

In the last two years, for example, authorities have arrested eBay users 
who sold a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting for $135,000 and a man who made 
thousands unloading baseball bats he claimed had been used by major league 
stars.

FADE is programmed to raise alarms about listings with telltale signs of 
potential trouble. As an example, Whitman said a first-time seller in 
Romania offering a laptop computer starting at $1 would be a likely target.

Once the system alerts eBay of a potential con artist, company staff 
examines the listing and the personal information the seller has provided. 
If the humans are as suspicious as the computer, eBay will call or e-mail 
the seller to verify certain information, Rob Chesnut, eBay's deputy 
general counsel, said after the meeting.

Comparing FADE to systems used by credit card companies that monitor for 
suspicious spending patterns, Chesnut said it already has helped prevent 
potential fraud, though he would not elaborate.

During the sparsely attended shareholder meeting, which lasted less than an 
hour, Whitman reaffirmed earlier forecasts that eBay will earn 73 cents to 
75 cents a share this year, though the consensus estimate on Wall Street is 
76 cents.

Separately Wednesday, a wireless-technology company called InPhonic 
launched a service that can alert eBay buyers on their cell phones when 
they've been outbid on an item and let them increase their bid by typing in 
a message on the keypad.

There have been other wireless trading services for eBay users, but none 
has proven popular.
******************
USA Today
Tech giants throw weight behind Linux

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters)  Dell Computer, Oracle and Red Hat Wednesday 
said they had teamed up to help large corporations run more of their 
business software on Linux, a low-cost operating system.

Under the technology companies' partnership agreement, Dell has certified 
and bundled Red Hat's new Linux Advanced Server software  its first version 
for large corporations  and the latest version of Oracle's 9i database 
software on its PowerEdge servers.

That Dell product is currently available. Pricing starts at $11,900.

The companies' announcement comes as large corporations look for ways to 
save money on technology. Running a nonproprietary Linux operating system 
is seen by some corporations as one way to do that.

"Over the last six months, we have seen a significant increase in Linux 
interest from our corporate customers," said Russ Holt, vice president of 
Dell's Enterprise Systems Group.

On other fronts, Hewlett-Packard said it would ship a certified 
configuration of the new Red Hat and Oracle offerings on its ProLiant DL580 
servers this summer.

Oracle's latest database software includes a feature called "clustering," 
which enables users to tie servers together, rather than replacing that 
hardware with bigger, more expensive boxes.
*******************
USA Today
India crisis puts damper on tech industry

BANGALORE, India (AP)  With India and Pakistan poised on the verge of war, 
the leaders of India's booming high-tech sector worry that a current spate 
of canceled business trips will extend into a slowdown in foreign 
investment or sales.

U.S. companies with Indian operations, such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun and 
Intel, have banned nonessential travel to India or raised security 
alerts  or both. H-P has told its 2,600 employees, mainly Indian nationals, 
that they can leave the country if they feel at risk.

"We are beginning to see some customers and prospects canceling their 
business visits to India," said Kiran Karnik, president of India's National 
Association of Software and Service Companies. "If the tension prolongs, it 
could hit business opportunities abroad for our software companies."

Fears of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan have escalated in 
recent weeks  although Wednesday brought some easing of tensions when 
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called on Pakistan to jointly 
monitor their disputed Kashmir border.

India's powerhouse software sector  worth 370 billion rupees ($7.7 billion) 
in the year ending in March  has two-thirds of its customers in the United 
States. As tensions worsened between India and Pakistan, the State 
Department last week urged the 60,000 U.S. citizens in India to consider 
leaving.

Karnik, who did not have precise figures on cancellation of visits by 
prospective customers, said they had not yet led to any drop-off in new 
orders. However, he said that could change in the face of a drawn-out standoff.

"We only hope for an early end to this," he said.

Top Indian software firm Infosys Technologies  based in the southern city 
of Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley  also said some customers were calling 
off planned visits.

"We have not seen any material impact on our business so far, but if the 
situation worsens, there may be concerns," said Nandan Nilekani, Infosys' 
chief executive officer.

Senior officials at high-tech firms say they are making contingency plans, 
such as copying data and programs to enable them to operate from "mirror 
locations" abroad in the event of a catastrophe.

The Sept. 11 attacks  coupled with that of Dec. 13 on India's 
Parliament  were a wake-up call on the need for disaster planning, said 
Karnik. "By now, we know how to cope with such uncertainties," he said.

Hewlett-Packard spokeswoman Rebeca Robboy said H-P permits employee travel 
to India only if critical to the business, and an H-P general manager must 
sign off on any such trips.

Intel has told its 1,200 Bangalore-based employees, mainly Indian 
nationals, about the State Department advisory last week, and is 
discouraging travel there, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.

Security at Sun Microsystems' India operations, which employ 400, is on 
high alert, said spokeswoman Kelly Long, declining to discuss details.

None of the three companies said employees had been evacuated.

India's fast-growing business process outsourcing sector, which handles 
tasks such as salary accounting and support, is experiencing some concerns, 
said L.S. Ram of Crossdomain Solutions.

"If it goes on for more time, we may be driving away business opportunities 
in this sector," Ram said. "Some clients are already on the pause mode as 
far as decisions to hire Indian companies are concerned."

Like others in the industry, Ram predicted a short-term crisis would prove 
a mere blip, with customers moving ahead with plans to do business in India 
as soon as tensions ease.

However, high-tech leaders  and the Indian public  were skeptical that the 
current conflict would escalate into nuclear war.

U.S. investment in India is a factor behind continuing U.S. pressure on 
Pakistan to cool things off, said Ram.

"Both countries are playing games by talking of their nuclear strengths, 
but there is no real danger," said Karnik. "India and Pakistan will not 
want it. Neither will external powers."
*******************
USA Today
Big brokers pulling plug on online trading

NEW YORK (Reuters)  Cut your losses and move on. That's the mantra adopted 
by most Wall Street firms that have dabbled in the online stock trading 
business.

With individual investors showing no sign of regaining their once voracious 
appetite for online stock trading, financial giants like Merrill Lynch & 
Co. and Morgan Stanley have decided to shed online units to cut costs and 
focus on more traditional forms of investment service.

The retreat amounts to a vote of no confidence for the online banking and 
stock trading sector, which has fallen from favor since the bull market 
ended in 2000.

"While we were riding the curve of a rising market, it was easy for all 
participants to say 'We would like a piece of this business,"' said Karen 
Vernamonti, chief financial officer of J.P. Morgan Chase's online brokerage 
arm, Brown & Co.

The move reflects a shift in strategy by some of the major players on Wall 
Street as they try to focus harder on profitable business lines while 
walking away from others.

"You're seeing an industry in consolidation and an industry where scale is 
incredibly important, with certain firms making decisions that they are not 
going to be long term players in that scale game," said Vernamonti, who 
also was finance chief at the online brokerage unit of Credit Suisse First 
Boston before the investment bank sold it.

Last month, Merrill pulled the plug on a two-year-old, $1 billion online 
bank and brokerage joint venture with global banking giant HSBC Holdings. 
Merrill had trumpeted the move as one that would "create the model for 
client service in the 21st century" and "reinvent the manner in which 
quality banking and investment services are delivered."

Morgan Stanley, for its part, sold its online trading accounts to Bank of 
Montreal for $106 million last month in an acknowledgment that it saw no 
future in online stock trading.

"A lot of these guys were late to the game to begin with and sort of felt 
forced to have an online offering to supplement their offline practice," 
said an industry analyst who wished to remain anonymous. "But the efforts 
have never really paid off for them to the extent they had hoped."

Merrill, the nation's biggest brokerage, still offers online trading at a 
discount through a special Web site but barely advertises its existence. 
And you would never know about Brown & Co. from J.P. Morgan's main Web 
site. The same relative obscurity goes for the Cititrade arm of Citigroup 
Inc., the No. 1 U.S. financial services firm.

"At this point, scale has become so important that if the Wall Street firms 
didn't retrench, they would continue losing money in those ventures," said 
Justin Hughes, an analyst at Robertson Stephens.

Other heavy-hitters on Wall Street, such as Goldman Sachs Group and Lehman 
Brothers Holding, stayed focused on their institutional business and 
decided against high-profile online ventures.

That has left only a committed few, like Charles Schwab and E*Trade Group, 
as major online players. And their stock prices have been languishing for 
many months at levels far below their all-time highs.

"I think the biggest beneficiary from the consolidation would be Schwab, 
but it certainly doesn't hurt E*Trade and Ameritrade," said Hughes.

Downtrodden

The once high-flying online brokerage industry has fallen on hard times 
over the last two years, as markets have swooned and individual investors 
have moved to the sidelines.

"The one overriding theme so far is lack of profitability," said Steven 
Pierson, a managing director at Putnam Lovell Securities. "These businesses 
had rapid growth, threw off a lot of profits, and then people built 
platforms and technology and call centers to support perpetual growth. But 
growth stopped."

Revenue from trading commissions has fallen sharply industrywide, making 
the online brokerage business less appetizing for Wall Street titans 
focused on fee-based advisory services.

Stock trades funneled through the Internet accounted for 15% of overall 
volume in U.S. equity markets during the first quarter, down from a high of 
30% in the first quarter of 2000, according to J.P. Morgan.

The average number of online stock trades fell to about 680,000 a day from 
more than 1.2 million in the first quarter of 2000, the bank estimates.

Most analysts agree that long-term prospects are bright for online 
brokerages and electronic financial services in general. They cite the 
benefits of low costs from operating over the Internet and point to 
continuing growth in the number of online accounts.

The number of online brokerage accounts has nearly tripled since late 1998, 
to more than 20 million today, and customer assets in Web accounts stood at 
$920 billion at the end of the first quarter, according to J.P. Morgan. Yet 
profits remain elusive.

"The big Wall Street firms are largely focused on profitability  and this 
wasn't making money for them and their clients weren't demanding it," 
Hughes said. "Of the big brokers, nobody is really left."
********************
MSNBC
New ATMs offer up more than cash


June 6   Banks and other ATM operators have already equipped their machines 
so users can purchase stamps, long-distance telephone minutes and even 
theater tickets. Now comes a new generation of high-tech ATMs that allows 
customers to sign up for credit cards or overdraft protection, even view 
the stock-market ticker.
      BANK OF AMERICA, the country's largest ATM operator, recently 
introduced about 500 machines that allow customers to pre-set preferences 
for cash-withdrawal amounts and whether or not a customer wants a receipt. 
FleetBoston allows customers to tap funds from home-equity loans through 
its 3,700 ATMs. 7-Eleven is testing 98 machines that cash checks and send 
wire transfers.
       Still, the changes may be a mixed blessing for those who want 
nothing more from their ATM than quick cash. Banks plan to run 
advertisements on their ATMs that will be targeted to the specific personal 
financial situation of each customer. At FleetBoston, some customers will 
have to respond to a pitch  say, for a new credit card  before continuing 
with their transaction. In addition, some other banks fret that all-in-one 
machines could result in slower lines, alienating customers.
      The new bells and whistles stem from big changes in ATM technology. 
Most cash machines today run on International Business Machines' aging OS/2 
operating platform, which banks say is expensive to operate and to program. 
However, IBM isn't selling OS/2 to new customers, and many banks already 
are switching to the more flexible Microsoft NT operating system.
       The banking industry hopes the new-fangled machines will offset a 
sharp drop in transactions per ATM. While the number of ATMs nearly has 
quadrupled to 324,000 nationwide over the past decade, the number of 
monthly transactions per machine has fallen by nearly half since 1997. 
Banks, which have been jacking up ATM fees anyway, believe the new features 
will allow them to squeeze more revenue out of each machine and 
differentiate themselves from the competition.
      It isn't just banks. 7-Eleven, which currently has traditional cash 
machines in some 5,300 stores across the country, is going after consumers 
who don't have credit cards or banks accounts. The Dallas-based 
convenience-store chain is currently testing in Texas and Florida what one 
spokeswoman calls an "ATM on steroids," which can cash checks and transfer 
money. 7-Eleven plans to roll out even more advanced functions later this 
year allowing consumers to order event tickets, scan the weather or lottery 
results, get travel directions or shop online.
       The banking industry has talked for years about how ATMs would 
replace human tellers, and it hasn't happened. Now, banks have better 
technology and better information on their customers.
       Still, some banks are being cautious about souping up their ATMs 
with new features or product pitches. Wachovia says it won't run targeted 
ads, which ask customers to respond "yes" or "no" to get more information 
about a product, during peak ATM usage periods like lunchtime or after work 
hours. "We didn't want someone standing there trying to make up their mind, 
holding up the line," says Gary Bargeron, senior vice president of the 
bank's ATM group. Mr. Bargeron emphasizes that the ads are only 
"milliseconds" longer than the normal time consumers wait for their cash.

SPEEDING THINGS UP
       Other banks are keeping their ads short and hoping that customized 
settings will keep visits to the cash machine speedy. Bank of America will 
have 2,000 machines with targeted ads and personalization options by 
year-end. The ads appear while customers wait to get their dough and range 
from five to seven seconds, mimicking the time frame users usually wait to 
get their cash back. To speed up things, customers can pre-set 
cash-withdrawal preferences.
       Not everybody is raving about the new high-tech ATMs. "I was 
distracted by the video," says Dianne Wright, a management consultant from 
Miami who recently used a Bank of America ATM that showed a video of a 
blind woman doing martial arts to promote talking ATMs for the visually 
impaired.
PAY YOUR BILLS
      FleetBoston is rolling out similar customization features and 
targeted ads at all of its 3,700 machines, which are located in the 
Northeast. In the fall, customers who use its online bill-pay program will 
be able to pay their bills through the ATM.
       Wells Fargo, meanwhile, already is using targeted ads for 
everything from home-equity loans to overdraft protection on 1,700 of its 
6,400 ATMs. "What we're leveraging is the ability to pin-point the product 
to you," says Bob Chlebowski, executive vice president of distribution 
strategies for Wells Fargo. If a customer doesn't have enough cash in his 
or her account for a withdrawal at a Wells Fargo ATM, a screen pops up 
suggesting overdraft protection. The bank isn't just being helpful. Any 
overdraft ends up on the customer's Wells Fargo credit card, generating 
fees for the Bank.
       First Union has used its ATMs to pitch customers on the benefits of 
converting their ATM card into a check card, which functions more like a 
credit card. First Union says that response to targeted ATM ads has been 
13% better than direct mail. As a result, Wachovia, the bank formed by last 
year's merger of Wachovia and First Union, is planning on extending the ad 
campaign to 1,200 additional ATMs by year end.
       Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
***********************
MSNBC
Broadband by the bootstraps
How a group of neighbors built their own high-speed network

June 5   If you've ever dreamt about wresting control of your lousy 
Internet Service Provider, or wished you could give the phone or cable 
companies a giant piece of your addled-by-crappy-customer-service-mind, you 
will love the following story about some kindred spirits in the mountains 
of Summit County, Colo.


       THE NEIGHBORHOOD is called Ruby Ranch, and just weeks ago, the 
people who live in these homes built on a former cattle ranch  where moose 
roam amid picture postcard mountain views  got their very own DSL service 
up and running. That's because the phone company, Qwest, had no intention 
of providing it to the remote community. Exasperated by their snail-like 
26K dial-up connections (there's no copper connection to the central phone 
office) residents decided the only way they'd get high-speed access was to 
start a service themselves.
       "After ten months of frustration, including litigation, we got them 
to allow us to use unused wires in our neighborhood," said Carl Oppedahl, a 
patent attorney by day and one of the masterminds behind the service.
       By law, phone companies are not allowed to say no to such an 
arrangement, but they don't exactly make it easy for those who ask.
       "How jerk-like can they be," Oppedahl said, characterizing it as an 
ingrained corporate culture defined by the maxim, "never do something fast 
if there's a way to drag it out." Since he'd successfully fought the phone 
company back when he lived in New York, Oppedahl was undaunted by this battle.

HIGH-TECH IN A HORSE BARN
       all the fighting is water under the proverbial bridge now, though, 
as the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association is online with a 
vengeance. It has but 12 subscribers, just about what the group needed to 
break-even at the start. (There are 40 homes in the neighborhood, some only 
occupied part-time as vacation places.)
      Residents ponied up the $12,000 to purchase the necessary equipment, 
which Oppedahl points out has already come down in price. (Thanks, in part, 
to all those third-party DSL providers that have gone belly-up, the 
necessary parts to build a system are plentiful on eBay.)
       Each subscribing home paid an upfront charge of $300, plus $60 a 
month, a fee which Oppedahl says will eventually drop as costs get paid 
down. The non-profit cooperative isn't about making money; it's about 
providing a service.
       The main equipment that operates the system is housed in a horse 
barn in the neighborhood, Oppedahl said. The first thing he did on the day 
the service launched was to send an e-mail announcing to Ruby Ranch 
subscribers, "You are now connected." Then, he walked the ten minutes from 
his home over to the horse barn to peer at the blinking green lights on the 
DSLAM.
       "Each green light means a happy subscriber," he said.
      Users of the DSL service in Ruby Ranch range, as they do elsewhere 
in America, from casual Net surfers to those who work from home. Though a 
report released this week by Pricewaterhouse Coopers says that adoption of 
broadband has been slower in this country than predicted, anyone who has 
used a fast connection knows it changes the online experience forever from 
one of frustration and drudge to zippiness and fun. It makes the Internet 
more of a real medium, and less of a chore.

RURAL FRUSTRATION
       It doesn't, however, erase the inevitable frustrations one has with 
utility companies  and particularly as hellish stories of the Adelphia 
bankruptcies of the world fill the headlines, it makes sense why consumers 
might not be clambering to sign up. Another problem, as Oppedahl puts it: 
If you throw a dart at a map of the United States, much of the nation can't 
access broadband even if they wanted to.
     Though availability and use are greatest in the most populated areas, 
that is not the case in rural America. A report in February from the 
Federal Communications Commission found, "High-speed subscribers were 
reported in 97% of the most densely populated zip codes and in 49% of zip 
codes with the lowest population densities."
       Though he helps to protect people's intellectual property for a 
living, Oppedahl said nothing would make him happier than if frustrated 
others in low-bandwidth communities ripped off the Ruby Ranch cooperative 
idea. To make it easier to do that, he's built a Web site that details how 
he and his neighbors did it: http://www.rric.net.
       He also poses and answers the questions true gear-heads will 
inevitably have about why Ruby Ranch chose to go the DSL route, and not use 
wireless, broadband satellite, or burying their own cable. Once the 
neighborhood decided to investigate starting their own service, they 
methodically studied and then discarded those ideas.
       "There's a great feeling of satisfaction, on an emotional level," 
Oppedahl said, as he was getting ready to help plan a celebratory party 
this weekend at the home of a neighbor and fellow subscriber. "Everybody 
would like to put one over on the phone company." Kudos to Ruby Ranch 
residents for taking matters into their own hands.
********************
MSNBC
U.S. could step into digital TV mess
 House spokesman warns industry heads to reach agreement

WASHINGTON, June 5  U.S. lawmakers could mandate a copy-protection standard 
for digital television if media and technology firms cannot reach an 
agreement on their own, a House of Representatives committee spokesman said 
Wednesday. Lawmakers had hoped that Hollywood and Silicon Valley could 
settle on a method to prevent digitally broadcast TV shows and movies from 
being traded Napster-style over the Internet and have indicated that any 
agreement would likely form the basis of a federal law.

      INDUSTRY HEADS told Senate and House of Representatives committees 
this spring that an agreement was imminent, but a long-awaited report 
issued by a working group late Monday acknowledged that many issues had yet 
to be resolved.
       "Frankly, we're a little surprised by the report because we were 
led to believe that more progress had been made," said Ken Johnson, a 
spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
       The committee will meet privately with industry representatives 
next week to try to iron out the differences, Johnson said, but would 
eventually develop legislation whether or not all the players had reached 
consensus.
      INDUSTRY HEADS told Senate and House of Representatives committees 
this spring that an agreement was imminent, but a long-awaited report 
issued by a working group late Monday acknowledged that many issues had yet 
to be resolved.
       "Frankly, we're a little surprised by the report because we were 
led to believe that more progress had been made," said Ken Johnson, a 
spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
       The committee will meet privately with industry representatives 
next week to try to iron out the differences, Johnson said, but would 
eventually develop legislation whether or not all the players had reached 
consensus.
       In the Senate, South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings has already 
introduced a bill that would prevent computers and other digital-media 
devices from playing back files that do not contain an industry stamp of 
approval. The bill has been strenuously opposed by consumer groups and tech 
companies.
       In the working group's report, media companies and 
consumer-electronics makers agreed to implement a digital marker, called a 
"broadcast flag," that would allow consumers to record broadcasts for 
personal use, but prevent them from sharing those files over the Internet.
       Negotiators disagreed on a number of issues, including the precise 
definition of what constitutes personal use, and whether the format should 
be compatible with existing DVD players.
      Some firms, like Philips Electronics and Microsoft Corp., objected 
to the way the working group conducted its business.
       The broadcast industry has until 2006 to switch to digital 
broadcasts, but progress has been slow so far.
       Media companies have been hesitant to embrace free, over-the-air 
digital broadcasts, worrying that perfect digital copies of TV shows would 
be subject to the Internet-based bootlegging that has plagued the music 
industry since file-sharing programs like Napster first emerged three years 
ago.
       Electronics makers, for their part, worry that they would be forced 
to turn out DVD players and other devices laden with so many restrictions 
nobody would want to buy them.
************************
TVinsight.com
Consumers Want New Digital Features

TV viewers across the country are adopting digital cable and satellite, 
with penetration rates approaching 40 percent of multichannel households, 
Horowitz Associates Inc. president Howard Horowitz said last week.

But to get to the next level of penetration, "digital cable has to offer 
something new" beyond more channels and an interactive programming guide, 
Horowitz added.

Features such as video-on-demand, subscription VOD and digital video 
recorders can help drive recent subscriptions to digital cable, according 
to results of a Horowitz Associates study released last Wednesday.

For its State of Digital and Interactive Television report, the research 
firm surveyed 805 cable and satellite television customers in markets where 
digital cable is available. Of those polled, 25 percent subscribe to 
digital cable, and another 17 percent said they were likely to subscribe to 
digital cable.

In the study, 43 percent said a VOD service offering older titles for $1 to 
$2 per movie would increase their likelihood of buying digital cable or 
upgrading to a more robust digital cable package. And 41 percent said a VOD 
service that charges $3.95 per movie would also increase their likelihood 
to subscribe or upgrade.

When the Horowitz survey asked consumers if they would be interested in 
paying $4 extra per month for SVOD basic programming or $6 extra per month 
for SVOD premium services, 28 percent and 25 percent, respectively, said yes.

The study suggests that at least some consumers would be willing to pay a 
premium for other new digital cable products, including video games and a 
la carte sitcoms and do-it-yourself videos.

While the study indicates that direct-broadcast satellite providers could 
be at risk of losing customers to digital cable, the survey did not specify 
which providers were in a better position to offer VOD or SVOD to their 
customers.

"We usually don't editorialize in the surveys," Horowitz said.

One half of digital cable and direct-broadcast satellite customers said a 
DVR device for $6.95 per month would appeal to them.

Currently, DirecTV Inc. customers pay a monthly fee for DVR service from 
TiVo Inc., but EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network customers pay 
no monthly fee for the company's own digital video recording service.

Digital cable customers and DBS subscribers show a higher level of interest 
in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound through their set-top box than the 
overall cable population. They also demonstrate a greater interest in DVRs, 
VOD and high-definition television.

Horowitz said that as television viewers become accustomed to their new 
digital services, "we have to address the geography of the television 
household." He explained that it's not enough to deliver one digital 
set-top box to each subscriber.

"Digital compatible devices have to be ubiquitous in the home," he said.
*******************
Sydney Morning Herald
Spam fuelling consumer backlash: study
Berlin

A rising tide of Internet junk mail is sparking a backlash among consumers 
and turning them off to nearly all electronic mail from companies, a German 
study released yesterday showed.

Although most consumers say they are interested in receiving some 
information about company offers online, some eight million German email 
users are being bombarded, or "spammed", with unsolicited and unwanted 
messages from companies that have bought their Internet addresses.

The study by the German Electronic Commerce Forum (ECO), released at 
Berlin's Internet World congress, found companies were turning away from 
Internet banner advertising and towards electronic mail as a marketing tool.

But it showed that spamming potential customers with unwanted email annoys 
more recipients than it wins over and leads many to delete everything in 
their "in-boxes" that is not from a colleague or friend.

"There are marketing directors who have stopped using email marketing 
entirely because they are afraid of alienating consumers," said Torsten 
Schwarz, the head of the online marketing division at ECO.

Germany has a law requiring companies to have the explicit permission of 
consumers before they can send them information online.

Schwarz said ECO had pushed to have a similar measure introduced on the 
European Union level and expected the European Commission to approve it 
later this year.

However, because the Internet crosses international borders, such 
restrictions will only immediately affect European companies and not those 
firms who spam European consumers from abroad.
******************
New Zealand Herald
American pretender inflames e-commerce locals
06.06.2002
By CHRIS BARTON IT editor

E-commerce developer e-Media says an American rival is claiming e-Media's 
work as its own during a seminar sales pitch in Auckland.

"They are most definitely passing off. It's blatantly fraudulent and we're 
taking legal advice," said e-Media director Carl McNeil.

The Utah-based StoresOnline has been running free seminars at Auckland's 
Sheraton hotel for the last week, promoting its web-shop building and 
hosting services.

People are asked to pay $99 to register for a day-long internet workshop to 
be held on June 18 and 19, where they will be offered a hosted cyber store 
to sell their wares over the internet for $2400 a year.

Alex Cowdell and Susie Anderson, who attended a seminar, said they were 
impressed with the sales pitch by presenter Leland McKay.

But on checking some of the website examples used in the presentation they 
found that several sites did not appear to be StoresOnline sites. One, Beer 
in Mind, is hosted by Dunedin-based e-Media.

Shane Walls-Harris of Webtech International, a reseller of e-Media's web 
storefront, attended a seminar on Tuesday to verify what StoresOnline was 
saying.

He said the presenter used Beer In Mind as an example of a New Zealand site 
that was not doing well until it was taken over by StoresOnline, and 
attracted big orders.

Site owner Martin McDowell said he had no dealings with StoresOnline and 
Beer in Mind continued to be hosted by e-Media.

Walls-Harris has complained to the Commerce Commission alleging passing off 
and a breach of the Fair Trading Act. In his complaint, he said 
StoresOnline claimed its system and expertise "will drive traffic to your 
site and therefore sales which equals lots of money".

Fine print on their registration form states: "We cannot guarantee the 
success of any business you might put on the internet".

Walls-Harris said: "It's a very hard road out there as it is without having 
rogues like this making inferences of success using someone else's work and 
suggesting they can do the same for the seminar attendees."

Walls-Harris estimates that from six seminars, the company has collected 
$20,000 to $30,000 in registration fees. Should half of those attending buy 
the product, StoresOnline stands to collect about $200,000.

McNeil said calls and email to StoresOnline had gone unanswered. 
StoresOnline did not return Business Herald phone calls.

Cowdell and Anderson also did some background checks on the company which 
threw up further concerns including a news story ThePittsburghChannel.com 
alleging StoresOnline has an unsatisfactory record with the Utah Better 
Business Bureau concerning its selling practices, contractual disputes and 
refund issues.

The web research also brings up a Dateline NBC investigation MSNBC.com in 
January when the company was known as Galaxy Mall.

In the article customers discuss how they felt cheated and wished they had 
known you can go online or to bookstore to learn about creating an 
marketing a web site.
*******************
New Zealand Herald
Spam threatens to choke internet

05.06.2002
By ALISON HORWOOD
Spam. Not a rich and meaty product, the spam we are talking about is the 
endless stream of junk email that clutters in-boxes every day.

It's the mail you didn't ask for, and it comes from people you don't know, 
offering Nigerian get-rich schemes, female Viagra cream, and Asian babes 
doing unnatural acts.

The scourge of every business, it is endemic and it is threatening to choke 
the internet.

The cost of spam worldwide runs into the billions as businesses and 
internet service providers fine-tune their systems to block it, and workers 
take time out from a busy day to dump it.

Best estimates suggest the volume has increased between five and ten-fold 
in the last year.

Brightmail, a UK company that specialises in blocking spam, estimates the 
unwanted irritants make up between 15 and 30 per cent of all e-mail handled 
by internet service providers (ISPs).

In New Zealand, two of the bigger players among the country's 80-odd ISPs - 
Telstra Clear (Clearnet and Paradise) and Xtra - say spam makes up at least 
10 per cent of their incoming mail.

While the cost worldwide is impossible to quantify, a British MessageLabs 
survey of 200 companies found the average worker took 10 minutes a day to 
clear spam.

That's £470 ($1534) a year in lost time for someone on a salary of £25,000 
($81,618) - so for Britain alone, the bill runs into the billions.

The European Commission estimates that spam costs European consumers US$8.6 
billion ($19.5 billion) a year.

New Zealand internet commentator and editor of Aardvark Bruce Simpson says 
spam has been a problem here for four or five years, with volumes 
increasing markedly in the past year.

"A number of people have said that they are now receiving more than twice 
the level of spam they got just a year ago," he says.

The increase may come down to economics and software. The cost of sending a 
million messages is marginally more than sending 10.

The acquisition of e-mail addresses is relatively easy with the use of 
software robots that trawl the web looking for addresses.

For the spammer, although the response rate may be low - figures of 2 to 3 
per cent have been suggested - big money can be made if enough mail is sent.

Internet Society executive director Sue Leader says the society is "well 
aware of the issue" and plans to address it at a strategic planning meeting.

"I think everyone is aware of the nuisance value and one thing that has 
been quite obvious is the increase in the last couple of months, especially 
from Asia," she says.

She cleared her in-box recently and found that 150 of 220 new pieces of 
mail were spam.

So what's the answer?

Legislation looks like a weak option. The European Commission is 
considering laws that would block companies in the EU from sending e-mails 
without having specific permission from the potential recipients.

The State of Washington has had laws against unwanted e-mails for some 
years. Despite successful lawsuits, the flow has not been stemmed.

Laws are often ineffective because spammers send their mail via servers in 
the Far East and Asia - which can often be hijacked - and so remain outside 
their home countries' legislation.

Nothing is planned by our own Government. Simpson suggests the only way to 
stamp out spam would be to introduce global cyberspace legislation.

Separate legislation against spamming in New Zealand would fail because 
almost all the mail arrives from countries over which we have no jurisdiction.

Simpson says many messages arriving here are US-based, but are sent via 
insecure computers in countries such as Korea, Taiwan, China or the former 
Soviet states.

The cost to New Zealand is manifold.

There is the wasted bandwidth the spam consumes - some users pay for each 
megabyte of data received over a certain level.

There is the wasted time spent wading through a mailbox. There is the extra 
computer and disk capacity that ISPs install to cope with the traffic.

Not only is spam a waste of time and money, says Simpson, but almost 
everyone pays for it - except the spammer.

ISPs pass on the extra costs of having to deliver it to users' mailboxes 
and users have to cover the cost of time wasted deleting it.

Xtra spokesman Matt Bostwick describes spam as a "scourge" that "chews up 
system resources", so legitimate mail is delayed while the spam is processed.

Xtra has a dedicated security team of five to filter spam, but some does 
get through.

Telstra Clear spokesman Ralph Little says that while it is difficult to put 
a figure on the cost to the company, it uses valuable resources including a 
round-the-clock team.

The team looks for features typical of spam such as large quantities of 
mail coming from a particular address.

Customers are encouraged to implement their own steps to cut down spam, 
such as using filters.
******************
New Zealand Herald
Australian spammers plunder net names
04.06.2002
By ADAM GIFFORD

Attempts by New Zealand domain name registry Domainz to shut out Australian 
spammers Internet Registry proved short-lived, as the company shifted to a 
.com address.

Internet Registry has a similar methodology to fellow Melbourne company 
Internet Name Group, which is under investigation by the Australian 
Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Both companies have a copy of the Domainz' "Whois" database of .co.nz name 
owners, which they cross-referenced against the .com database.

They then contact name owners to tell them that the www."yourname".com name 
is unregistered, and invite them to pay an inflated sum to register it.

Domainz chief executive Derek Locke said using the Whois database for this 
sort of commercial activity breached Domainz rules.

"These people are scumbags. They are preying on people's fears and 
technical ignorance."

While some companies may have commercial reasons for buying up their name 
or trademark in multiple domains, most .nz nameholders only want or need 
the one address.

If they want to buy other addresses, competition among legitimate .nz 
registrars means they can do so for as little as $29.95.

Internet Registry sent out a spam email to its database last Wednesday 
inviting .nz nameholders to go to www.internetregistry.co.nz to register 
the corresponding .com name for $198 for a two-year period.

On Thursday Domainz removed the site because the company was in breach of 
the Whois rules.

"They threatened us with all sorts of law suits, but we haven't heard 
anything from any lawyers yet," Locke said.

"We also complained to the Commerce Commission, which says it wants to work 
with the ACCC on this."

Early yesterday morning Internet Registry re-sent the spam, pointing to 
www.internetregistrynz.com.

Locke said Domainz was not able to shut down a .com-registered site.

Internet Registry claims to be physically based in the 16th floor of the 
ASB Centre in Auckland.

But the Australian who answered the 0800 line yesterday was not aware it 
was a public holiday in New Zealand. Identifying herself only as Sally, she 
said the .co.nz address was down because of "server problems".

She refused to give a contact number for managing director David Critchley, 
saying it was company policy he could be contacted only by fax or email.

Critchley did not call back.

The Internet Registry site advertises all domains, including .co.nz, for a 
minimum two years.

Sally said this minimum was also "company policy".

Locke said .nz names could only be registered for 12 months.

That might not worry Sally, Critchley and Internet Registry.

According to the terms of service on its website, on accepting an order for 
domain registration, "Internet Registry acts only to apply for renewal of 
the registration when required and takes no responsibility if ... the 
relevant registrar fails to renew the domain name."

If clients try to cancel an order, they will incur a $100 fee.

Locke said Internet Name Group is back in the New Zealand market, faxing 
firms with what looks like an invoice giving them 48 hours to register the 
.com variation for "only $125".

He said ING had promised a federal court in Melbourne in April it would not 
imply it had a pre-existing relationship with a person by such ploys such 
as describing its notices as "Renewal Advices" or inviting people to 
"confirm" a renewal.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Domainz
**********************
Wired News
Dead Men Tell No Passwords
By Michelle Delio
12:08 p.m. June 5, 2002 PDT

The man in charge of archiving and maintaining electronic copies of 
Norway's most important historical documents is dead and so is access to 
those archives.

So the director of the Norwegian cultural center is pleading for hackers to 
help him crack the center's password-protected database.

The problem started when the technician responsible for the archives at 
Norway's National Center of Language and Culture never divulged the 
password before he died a few years ago.

Since then, employees at the center have been unable to access some of the 
password-protected archives that contain data on a collection of thousands 
of documents and books. A national database that allowed researchers access 
to those documents is also partly inaccessible.

So center director Ottar Grepstad sent out an appeal Tuesday on a national 
radio broadcast, asking for hackers to help crack into the system and 
discover the programmer's password.

A spokesman for the center said they have received many more replies than 
they expected, and are now trying to select the code wizard who can best 
help them solve the problem.

Helpful hackers are hoping that the technician wasn't heavily into security 
and used an obvious password, instead of the random jumble of letters and 
numbers that security experts advise.

"It would be great if the password is his dog's name," said Marco Pasquale, 
a Toronto programmer who volunteered to hack the center's database. "If 
it's a gibberish password it'll be a real challenge."

The center's dilemma has sparked discussion among some techies who wondered 
if there were any way to ensure that their projects would not suffer if 
they were to die unexpectedly.

Some have decided to use Aryeh Holzer's "Dead Man's Switch," a program 
intended to avoid any postmortem problems or embarrassment.

The switch, if not regularly reset, automatically carries out a series of 
pre-designated tasks. It can post pre-composed messages to a geek's 
favorite discussion groups, send e-mails to pre-selected addresses, and 
protect sensitive files by encrypting or destroying them.

But some who have used the program advise caution.

"I went on vacation, and forgot all about the switch," said Kenny 
LaGuardia, a Web designer from Los Angeles. "When I returned home, the 
program had posted, 'So I guess I'm dead' messages to all the newslists I 
subscribe to, and destroyed all my adult entertainment files."
*******************
Computerworld
CERT warns of BIND problem; Sun patches Solaris flaws

A flaw in a software tool used to translate text-based Internet domain 
names into numerical addresses could make parts of the Internet vulnerable 
to denial-of-service attacks, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) 
warned yesterday.
The flaw is in certain versions of the Berkeley Internet Name Domain 
(BIND), a widely used piece of Domain Name System (DNS) software, CERT said 
in an advisory.

DNS servers running BIND 9 prior to Version 9.2.1 are vulnerable. An 
attacker could shut down the DNS service on that server by sending a 
specific DNS packet. The service will then remain unavailable until 
restarted, CERT said.

BIND 9.2.1 was released May 1 by the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), 
which distributes BIND free of charge. It is a so-called maintenance 
release that fixes a number of bugs in 9.2.0 but has no new features, 
according to the ISC Web site.

DNS servers translate text-based domain names into numeric IP addresses. 
When those servers go down, users who type Web addresses can't connect to 
the intended servers, and e-mail sent to affected domains will bounce back.

"If you can trigger something that shuts down the name server, than that is 
a serious matter," said Petur Petursson, CEO of Men & Mice Inc., a DNS 
consultancy firm in Reykjavik, Iceland.

"It is normal for a company to run two name servers. If you manage to shoot 
both of them down, the company will disappear from the Internet," said 
Petursson.

BIND 9.2.1 is available for free download from the ISC Web site. BIND is 
also often part of software sold by server software vendors. These vendors 
may offer their own patches, according to CERT, which urges users of BIND 9 
to either upgrade or apply a patch.

In an unrelated security move yesterday, Sun Microsystems Inc. released 
patches to close two security holes in its Solaris operating system. The 
holes could have allowed an attacker to take control of vulnerable systems.

The vulnerabilities affect the snmpdx and mibiisa agents that are 
components of Versions 2.6, 7 and 8 of the company's Solaris operating 
system, according to an alert from Sun. The two affected agents both run 
with root privileges, the highest level of access on systems, and are part 
of the operating system's Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) 
capabilities. The capabilities allow for device configuration and 
administration. The snmpdx agent monitors SNMP requests and information 
from the system and forwards relevant information on to mibiisa, Sun said.

The vulnerabilities come in the form of a format string vulnerability in 
snmpdx and a buffer overflow in mibiisa, Sun said. Both vulnerabilities can 
be exploited locally and remotely, the company said.

The flaw is mitigated because the vulnerabilities exist only on systems 
running Sun Solstice Enterprise Master Agent, snmpdx and mibiisa, Sun added.

The patches for affected operating systems are available online, see 
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/patch-license&nav=pub-patches
.
****************
News.com
Suit filed over ReplayTV features
By Lisa M. Bowman
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 6, 2002, 11:55 AM PT

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing for your right to record TV 
programs and skip the commercials.
The online civil liberties group has filed suit in federal court in Los 
Angeles against more than two dozen entertainment companies on behalf of 
five consumers who own ReplayTV recorders, asking a judge to declare 
activities such as recording and fast-forwarding legal.

The complaint filed Thursday said court action is needed because an 
"Entertainment Oligarchy" made up of the networks and studios has 
repeatedly called consumers' use of the ReplayTV 400 "theft" and "stealing."



The plaintiffs hope their case will be consolidated with an earlier suit 
involving ReplayTV and will help bring the interests of consumers to the 
forefront in litigation. The major TV networks and movie studios have sued 
ReplayTV maker Sonicblue, alleging the device infringes their copyrights by 
letting people do things like skip commercials and send shows to other 
people who own the machine.

Attorney Ira Rothken, who's joining EFF in filing the suit, said there's a 
"need to reduce the personal apprehension and fear" ReplayTV users have 
that Hollywood studios will sue them over actions that previously have been 
legal.

Plaintiffs in the case include individuals who say they like to skip 
commercials during shows their children watch and record shows to watch at 
a later time or on another device.

Craig Newmark, one of the plaintiffs in the case and operator of the 
Craigslist.org online community, called his participation in the case an 
act of "community service."

"To oversimplify, the Hollywood lawyers are telling us that when we view 
TV, skipping commercials is a copyright violation...and it gets worse from 
there. Craig and others are telling them that this ain't okay," Newmark 
wrote in a letter to the Craigslist community in explaining his decision to 
join the suit.

Representatives from entertainment industry companies said they were 
reviewing the suit and would have a statement later Thursday.

EFF attorneys said the case deals with issues that are broader than just 
ReplayTV use. They're hoping a decision in their favor will chip away at 
some previous decisions that have eroded people's fair use rights. "It's 
time, frankly, that the users' voices be heard," EFF attorney Fred von 
Lohmann said.

The original ReplayTV suit already has caused a number of headaches for 
users of the device, including concerns the case could lead to privacy 
violations. Last month, a federal magistrate ordered Sonicblue to monitor 
its customers' viewing and recording habits, an action the company compared 
with spying. However, a judge overturned that decision amid an outcry from 
consumers and privacy advocates.

The latest suit is the second time in recent years that the EFF has sought 
court permission to perform a particular action. Last summer, the EFF 
helped Princeton professor Ed Felten seek court permission to give a talk 
on his research. Felten had earlier faced entertainment industry threats 
that caused him to back down from giving the talk on how his research team 
cracked protections on music. The entertainment industry said that it would 
violate certain copyright laws. In addition to getting permission for 
Felten to speak, the EFF also hoped to test the constitutionality of new 
Hollywood-backed laws designed to protect copyright in the digital age.

However, a judge dismissed the suit because entertainment industry 
companies said they had no plans to sue Felten.
************************
Sunspot.net
Baltimore, MD
Online summer school to be offered in Carroll
Computer-based courses set at six county sites

In a cramped classroom just outside Westminster, some unconventional 
students are working toward their diplomas in an unconventional way.
They are doing coursework and reading texts in more than a half-dozen 
subjects, taking quizzes and completing homework - all of the things that 
go on in a regular classroom. But these students are doing it online.

This summer, Carroll County will use the same setup at each of its six high 
schools, becoming the first school district in the Baltimore area to offer 
online summer school to any student who needs to make up a failed course.

The switch to computer-based classes will eliminate most of the headaches - 
long drives for students and finding teachers to work during their 
vacations - associated with summer school, students and district officials 
said.

"With [online] summer school, there will be more motivation because you're 
not going to want to sit here for six weeks. If you can get done in three 
weeks, you can get done in three weeks," said Kelly Criss, 17, a 
Westminster High senior who is finishing work for her diploma at the 
county's computer lab for students who have dropped out or face long 
suspensions.

"It makes summer school less of a punishment and more about learning what 
you didn't learn before."

From Columbia to Crofton and Towson to Taneytown, summer school presents 
the same tedium for tens of thousands of students across Maryland. (In 
Baltimore City, between 35,000 and 46,000 students will be required to go 
to summer school this year after tough, new standards are making it more 
difficult to pass to the next grade.)

Classrooms are often hot. Repetition of material that students do not need 
to relearn can be mind-numbing. And worst of all for students, summer goes 
on without them while their friends work summer jobs, go to the beach and 
otherwise enjoy their break from school.

Typically, the only difference from district to district is the cost of the 
make-up courses: free in Baltimore City but $150 per course in Carroll and 
Baltimore counties, $180 in Howard, $190 in Anne Arundel, $230 in Harford 
and $650 in Prince George's. Some districts let students get ahead by 
taking classes for original credit, though often at a higher cost.


Online benefits

In Carroll, administrators are certain they've found a way to make summer 
school more effective - and more palatable - for students and staff alike.

They promote the benefits of offering online summer classes at all six of 
the county's high schools through the same arrangement they've used for 
three years at the county's distance-learning lab.

There, students who have dropped out or been suspended for weeks or months 
at a time have been able to continue - and in many cases, finish - their 
schoolwork in the crowded computer lab tucked away in the county's 
alternative school. The program has graduated about 30 students in three 
years.

The school system won't need to hire the administrators or the secretary 
that were needed for the summer program.

And with instructors manning the computer labs as class facilitators, 
administrators won't have to hunt for teachers in specific content areas, a 
task that often required hiring out-of-county educators because it was so 
difficult to find teachers willing to give up their summer.

Best of all, according to Gregory Eckles, the district's director of high 
schools, students will be able to take nearly any course they need to make 
up. Summer school classes typically required at least 10 students enrolled.

"We dropped a lot of kids by the wayside because they needed something we 
couldn't offer," Eckles said. "They then had to take it the next year, 
which is a shame. It puts them behind because they can't take the next 
class, especially with sequenced classes, like math, and that just pushes 
them farther and farther down."

At the computer lab outside Westminster, the students studying two dozen 
courses, from consumer math and earth science to American history and 
geometry, are certain that online classes will lessen the dreadfulness of 
summer school.

"In regular school, sometimes it's rushed and sometimes it's too slow," 
said Heather Janocha, a 15-year-old sophomore from North Carroll High 
School. "Here, if you're really smart, you can go faster."

"And if you're not really smart," Kelly Criss added, "you don't have to go 
as fast. You don't move on until you comprehend what you're working on, so 
you have to learn it."

The courses begin with students taking a computerized assessment. A 
software program pinpoints exactly what units of a class students did not 
learn en route to earning a failing grade and tailors an online lesson plan 
based on the results.

Rather than sitting through the entire course again - as students must do 
in traditional summer school - the online software lets students retake 
only the units they flunked.


Monotony

"These students have been through the course, the actual entire course," 
said Amy Day, who taught English and schooled bed-ridden students before 
taking on Carroll's distance-learning lab in February 1999. "To send them 
through the entire course again for some can be quite monotonous."

Each course has a 300-page online textbook, homework assignments, quizzes, 
tests, and midterm and final exams. Teachers hand-grade essay questions, 
but everything else is graded and returned within minutes by the software 
program.

Eckles animatedly discusses what he sees as the possible uses for the new 
software and computer program.

Beginning in the fall, teachers will use the same summer school computer 
labs for students to retake failed courses before and after school.

Special education instructors can use the program to supplement their 
classroom lessons. Teachers can direct students to the program's tutorials 
for extra help.

One day, students might take online courses from their home computers 
rather than having to come to school for summer courses or extra practice 
during the school year.

"We're putting our toe in the water with online courses," Eckles said, "and 
we'll see where things go."
*******************
Sunspot.net
Internet helps find missing children
Web speeds information to authorities nationwide

NEW YORK - Elizabeth Norton immediately suspected an abduction when her 
ex-husband failed to return on time with their two children. So she quickly 
contacted authorities and began circulating photos.
Ultimately, it was the Internet that reunited the mother with Andrew and 
Jonathan nine months later. A woman who got suspicious about her new 
neighbors searched a Web site on missing children, where she found 
Jonathan's photo.

"The Internet absolutely provided a convenient vehicle that very moment she 
wanted to confirm her suspicions," Norton said. "Without that, I don't know 
what would have happened."

Organizations that help locate missing children are praising the Internet 
and other new technologies for speeding and increasing recoveries.

Without the Net, the neighbor would have had to call a hot line and try to 
make a match using descriptions. Or she would have had to spot a flier at a 
Wal-Mart or on a utility pole.

Jenni Thompson of the Polly Klaas Foundation, a missing-children 
organization in Petaluma, Calif., said that while parents often worry about 
molesters making contact with kids online, "we need to remember that the 
Internet can be used for good things as well."

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children credits the Internet 
for directly finding 48 children since 2000. That's greater than two other 
primary methods - 44 through Wal-Mart posters and 19 through postcards sent 
with bulk mailings.

The Internet and other technologies play a contributing role in thousands 
of other missing-children cases each year.

"In one way or another, we use the Internet in every case," said Mike 
Gibson, president of Operation Lookout in Everett, Wash. "It's just too 
valuable a tool to not use whenever possible."

Internally, investigators use online resources such as reverse phone 
directories - where entering a number gets you a name and address - to 
track down family members suspected of abducting a child. Law enforcement 
also has its own network for sharing confidential details on suspects.

At the national missing children center, forensics imaging specialist Steve 
Loftin uses Photoshop software to show what children might look like now, 
years after they were last seen. The age-progression photos are credited in 
111 recoveries since 2000.

In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sherry Friedlander runs an automated dialing 
service where computers can place 1,000 calls in five minutes, asking 
neighbors to watch for a runaway or other missing child.

"If you had to go to 500 doors and knock on them, that would take you more 
than two hours," Friedlander said, adding that every minute counts when an 
abduction is involved.

E-mail allows groups to send out thousands of alerts instantly, and it lets 
people submit tips from home.

"Some people are just intimidated talking to police," said Rod Hegman, 
manager of the Delaware State Police's Missing Children Information 
Clearinghouse.

Of course, using the Internet won't guarantee success, nor will it 
completely replace such traditional methods as milk cartons, grocery bags, 
fliers and bulk mail inserts.

And unlike posters in the neighborhoods, a Web site needs to be visited to 
be seen. Web sites for the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and other organizations 
link to a searchable database at www.missingkids.org, but they aren't 
always prominent or even on the home page.

E-mail alerts can get a photo out quickly, but they can also linger for 
years, continually forwarded by well-intended Internet users long after the 
child is found. A few hoaxes also have been circulating online.

Still, the Internet can spread information farther and faster.

Though Norton had posted pictures of Andrew and Jonathan in her and her 
ex-husband's neighborhoods in New York state, he had left the area with the 
kids and eventually ended up in a trailer park near San Jose, Calif.

The neighbor who spotted them contacted the sheriff's office in Dutchess 
County, N.Y., using a number listed with Jonathan's online photo. 
Authorities in California arrested the ex-husband, who later pleaded guilty 
to felony custodial interference.
*******************

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