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Clips June 26, 2002
- To: "Lillie Coney":;, Gene Spafford <spaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, Jeff Grove <jeff_grove@xxxxxxx>;, goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>;, CSSP <cssp@xxxxxxx>;, glee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, Charlie Oriez <coriez@xxxxxxxxx>;, John White <white@xxxxxxxxxx>;, Andrew Grosso<Agrosso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, computer_security_day@xxxxxxx;, ver@xxxxxxxxx;, lillie.coney@xxxxxxx;, v_gold@xxxxxxx;, harsha@xxxxxxx;, KathrynKL@xxxxxxx;, akuadc@xxxxxxxxxxx;
- Subject: Clips June 26, 2002
- From: Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 14:32:40 -0400
Clips June 26, 2002
ARTICLES
U.S. Warns of Computer Infiltration
FBI sifting through applicants
FEMA pointed toward outsourcing
Paying to Junk TVs, Monitors
Kids Targeted by Internet Gambling Ads - FTC
IT Experts Say Government Not Ready for Cyber Attack
US House OKs Rewritten Internet Child-Porn Ban
Critics Take Aim at New Filtering Service
Site clues consumers into identity theft
Wireless service lets you find other users
Hackers play with the Xbox
Army releases second AKM memo
Military, FEMA test communications
Awards honor model e-gov efforts
Bush official urges agencies to upgrade homeland security systems now
GIS experts: Keep it simple
Army inks deal for new software-driven radios
Giuliani: ID cards won't curb freedoms
Fighting back against PC invaders
A New Twist on Light Speed
****************************
U.S. Warns of Computer Infiltration
By PAUL WILBORN, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The government has issued an alert about identity and
credit card theft on U.S. campuses, saying individuals linked to the
Russian mob tried to tap into at least five college computer systems.
The warning, which was issued Friday, followed the arrest a Russian-born
man at Pasadena City College and another incident at Arizona State
University. Schools in Texas and Florida have also been targeted, college
officials said.
Officials at the Pasadena campus said the man was arrested last month as he
tried to install keystroke recording software that could capture computer
users' credit card numbers and other personal data.
Brian Marr, a spokesman for the Secret Service ( news - web sites), said
Tuesday he could not comment on what he called an ongoing investigation.
The security alert was issued by the Secret Service along with the
Education Department.
"The United States Secret Service has been investigating several nationwide
computer intrusions/hacking incidents," according to the alert issued by
the agency. "The motives of the perpetrators and the number of computer
systems compromised remains unknown."
At Arizona State, a program was apparently installed that allows students'
credit card numbers, passwords and e-mail to be stolen, though it wasn't
known if any student accounts had been compromised, according to campus police.
Hard drives were seized from 20 ASU computers, said Lt. John Sutton of the
ASU Department of Public Safety. He wouldn't say how the scam was linked to
organized crime and declined to identify any suspects.
Technology administrators for the University of California said they were
warned about Russian organized crime. The incidents are not a threat to
entire computer systems, administrators said.
"It's basically like rifling through one person's mailbox and hoping a
credit card is being sent at that time," said Ross Stapleton-Gray of
University of California technical services.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
FBI sifting through applicants
It seemed like an ambitious undertaking when FBI Director Robert Mueller
announced in January that he wanted to hire 900 more special agents by
Sept. 30. At the top of his list were computer and information technology
specialists.
Now it seems the hard part may be narrowing down the number of applicants.
Since launching a $1 million Internet, radio and newspaper advertising
campaign in January, the FBI has received 47,000 applications, Mueller told
a House subcommittee June 21. Many of the applicants have applied through
an electronic form posted on the bureau's Web site.
In December, the FBI began reorganizing to improve its ability to prevent
terrorist attacks. Part of the effort was setting up a Cyber Division to
handle investigations into Internet crimes and computer systems and
networks that are targeted by foreign intelligence agents and terrorists.
But the FBI was woefully short of computer specialists. In its online ad,
the bureau said it was searching for applicants with bachelor of science
degrees in computer science or a related field, or bachelor's degrees in
any discipline and certification as a "Cisco certified professional" or
"Cisco certified Internetworking expert."
The FBI also wanted engineers, scientists, linguists, foreign
counterintelligence specialists, investigators, counterterrorism experts,
pilots and applicants with military intelligence experience.
Bureau pay starts at $43,705 and increases by $10,000 to $15,000 depending
on where agents are assigned after they complete a 16-week training course.
Mueller's effort to overhaul the FBI may be changed slightly by President
Bush's plan to create a Homeland Security Department and move some FBI
assets there.
The president announced plans June 7 that called for the National
Infrastructure Protection Center to be shifted from the FBI to the Homeland
Security Department. Mueller said that has since changed. Now only two of
three NIPC divisions will be transferred.
The Computer Investigations and Operations Section will stay in the FBI and
the Analysis and Warning Section and Training, Outreach and Strategy
Section will move to the Homeland Security Department, he said.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
FEMA pointed toward outsourcing
The Federal Emergency Management Agency likely will turn to outsourcing
in the coming years, FEMA chief information officer Ron Miller said June 24.
Miller said he received results last week from the first phase of a Gartner
Inc. study that analyzed FEMA's information technology environment. Gartner
found that the agency has a lot of obsolete and nonuniform equipment, high
operating costs and poor asset management, Miller said in an interview with
Federal Computer Week.
"Outsourcing may be the quickest and most efficient way for us to get to a
state-of-the-art infrastructure," he said.
The Transportation Security Administration has taken that tack. Earlier
this month, TSA issued a $1 billion statement of objectives for its IT
infrastructure that has managed services at its core.
The statement came a week after Bush unveiled his proposal for a
Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department that would house several
existing agencies, including TSA and FEMA. The Immigration and
Naturalization Service would also go into the mix, along with its $157.5
million ATLAS program, which is intended to fix infrastructure shortfalls,
solve connectivity problems and improve information assurance throughout
the agency.
"We're all going to be one big family," Miller said. "We need to work together.
"What should happen [is] we should come together and do an integrated
procurement," he added.
TSA is charging forward, however, with its own procurement and plans to
make an award July 25.
Meanwhile, Gartner is expected to finish the second phase of the FEMA study
and provide recommendations by the end of the summer, Miller said. "I
anticipate they're going to recommend we go to outsourcing," he said.
Planning and acquisition for outsourcing would take place in the first half
of fiscal 2003, with implementation in fiscal 2004, he said.
Miller sees it as a potential way to establish standardization and to
institute a life cycle replacement program. "I'm looking [at it] much more
broadly," he said, although "a lot of sensitive missions we may want to
keep within government."
Miller doesn't anticipate that outsourcing would eliminate jobs at FEMA
because of the agency's ever-growing IT to-do list, particularly since the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
One high-priority task is getting DisasterHelp.gov a Web portal that is
one of 24 cross-agency e-government initiatives highlighted by the Bush
administration off the ground.
An initial release of the site, which will be largely an information
resource to start, is slated for Aug. 31.
In September or October, FEMA will issue a statement of objectives for
DisasterHelp.gov for services that include developing the site's
architecture and design concept and integrating multiple technologies,
specifically wireless capabilities, Miller said.
The estimated $50 million to $100 million project will use open standards,
Java and Extensible Markup Language, he said.
Miller hopes to have a fairly mature capability by the end of fiscal 2003.
FEMA could also fold a disaster warning system into the site, he said.
**********************
Reuters
EU Asks Citizens for Views on Data Privacy
Tue Jun 25, 2:12 PM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission ( news - web sites) is asking
citizens whether they feel the privacy of personal information is
sufficiently protected to see if the EU's privacy laws need to be tweaked
or their enforcement toughened.
Citizens will be able to spell out their views by answering a questionnaire
the Commission has published on its official Web site, such as whether
bosses should be able to read e-mails received at work or whether people
are happy buying on the Net. The poll will run through September 15.
Under European Union ( news - web sites) laws, personal data ranging from
sensitive medical records to phone numbers or e-mail addresses can be
disclosed or transferred to third parties only after the individual's
explicit consent.
But few European citizens seem to be aware of their rights, said Sue Binns,
a Commission official in charge of the privacy dossier, at a press briefing.
"We feel there is a problem of awareness," Binns said. "We would like to
have a better idea of what is going on on the ground."
The Commission is also seeking views from industry, which has complained
that the rules have not been implemented uniformly in the 15 member states.
Binns said three countries, France, Luxembourg and Ireland, had not yet
even incorporated the EU law on data protection into their national
legislation.
The privacy rules also have put the EU at odds with the United States,
which has a more relaxed approached to the issue.
In order to exchange data freely with the EU, U.S. companies are asked to
sign up to the so-called Safe Harbor agreement by which they make a formal
pledge to respect EU laws.
But only 205 companies are on the list to date, possibly due to the fact
U.S. firms perceive the risk of legal action by the EU as being low, EU
officials say.
*************************
Reuters Internet Report
S.Africa Sticks to Plan to Take over Internet Names
Tue Jun 25, 3:39 PM ET
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A hotly contested bill to encourage e-commerce and
take control of the South African domain name passed its final hurdle on
Tuesday and will become law as soon as President Thabo Mbeki signs it.
The Electronic Communication and Transactions Bill was adopted by the
National Council of Provinces -- equivalent to a senate -- after the
National Assembly passed it earlier in June.
"The bill enables us to have a secure environment for electronic
communications and transactions, whether these be person-to-person,
business-to-business, business-to-consumer or government-to-citizens,"
Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri told legislators.
The bill also proposes to take over the administration of South African
Internet domains, identified by the .ZA suffix in addresses, without
seeking approval from the international authority which administers the
Internet roadmap.
Domain names -- the .com and .uk type suffixes of addresses and Web sites
-- are the foundation of Internet navigation. They have been subject to
fierce competition, with early users trying to claim addresses and domains
which might become valuable.
The .ZA domain name is administered under a mandate from the international
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ( news - web
sites)) by local Internet pioneer Mike Lawrie.
Lawrie told Reuters recently he had moved the key domain-name file -- a
computer file of less than 200 lines of code -- offshore to keep it safe
from efforts to take it over.
He said management of the domain, which is key to the whole South African
Internet network, could only be reassigned if government, the current
administrator and the domestic Internet community agree.
An informal online poll recently showed overwhelming opposition to the
government's plan to take over the administration of the domain through a
non-profit company.
Matsepe-Casaburri told legislators the government wanted to ensure
equitable access to the Internet for all, including black South Africans
largely excluded from the economy until the end of white minority rule in
1994.
"There is no intention whatsoever to control the use of mechanisms such as
the Internet, which are essential for electronic commerce and
transactions," she said.
A key provision of the bill will be to give full legal recognition to
electronic documents and signatures.
***********************
Reuters
SEC Sues Teen over Fake Bloomberg Internet Story
Tue Jun 25, 1:01 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Tuesday sued a 17-year-old who
posted a phony story on Internet sites under a Bloomberg journalist's name,
hoping to boost the stock price of a drug company in which he had just
invested.
Benjamin Snyder, from Lawrenceville, Georgia, confessed to stealing the
pen-name of the financial news company's John Rega to try to inflate
Viragen International Inc.'s shares, the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission ( news - web sites) (SEC) said.
"He didn't make any profits but we still sued him because his conduct was
outrageous. We will come down hard and fast on anyone who tries to exploit
the Internet to defraud investors," said John Stark, the SEC's head of
Internet enforcement.
U.S. regulators issued a cease-and-desist order, prohibiting the teenager
from a repeat performance. Stark said they had not fined the student
because he had confessed to his misdemeanors and no investors had been
involved.
In the fake article, the high school student revealed Viragen had been
working on a top-secret anthrax treatment called Vivox, which had just
received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( news - web
sites).
"As publicity around Vivox increases, so will share price. It is now
expected to multiply 6-7 times, giving shareholders a potential goldmine,"
he wrote.
Using a computer in a public library to try to escape detection, Snyder
posted his article on eight popular online investor message boards on the
evening of May 13, just hours after he had purchased 785 Viragen shares for
60 cents each.
The following day, just 20 Viragen shares had changed hands, and the stock
fell to 55 cents so on May 15 Snyder republished his fictitious Bloomberg
article.
But again, he was unsuccessful, with the stock standing at 60 cents on May
16 -- the price he had originally paid.
************************
Los Angeles Times
Paying to Junk TVs, Monitors
Legislation: Bills would have California collect money at the time of sale
to cover disposal.
By MIGUEL BUSTILLO
SACRAMENTO -- SACRAMENTO -- California would become the first state to
impose a fee on the sales of computers and televisions to pay for their
future disposal, under sweeping legislation aimed at managing hazardous
electronic waste.
Beginning in 2004, the state would assess a fee of as much as $30 on the
sale of every new computer and TV set to help cities and trash companies
finance collection and recycling. The legislation also would require a
warning label on every new computer and television to disclose the
hazardous materials contained inside, and would establish a public
education campaign to persuade consumers to recycle them.
Unknown to many consumers, TV sets and personal computers contain numerous
toxic materials. Discarding the growing heaps of outdated models in an
environmentally safe manner poses a challenge across the country. Last
year, California quietly prohibited landfills from accepting any more TVs
or computer monitors, after concluding they constituted hazardous waste.
Most such items contain four to eight pounds of lead apiece. About 10,000
of them are discarded in the state every day and only an estimated 5% to
15% are recycled. Yet California, like all other states, lacks a strategy
for getting rid of them.
Measures by state Sens. Byron Sher of Stanford and Gloria Romero of Los
Angeles, both Democrats, would treat the discarded devices like used
bottles, cans and tires.
"If you walk into Circuit City or Good Guys today, you are going to find
the latest, fastest computer and you know, two or three years from now, it
is going to be in the trash somewhere," Romero said. "We all want the
newest technology. It's out with the old, in with the new. But until the
new becomes environmentally friendly, we are ending up with a stockpile of
hazardous waste."
Both measures have cleared the Senate and are in the Assembly, but they are
opposed by an array of business interests, leaving their prospects for
final passage uncertain.
This week, in fact, both measures nearly died in the Assembly Natural
Resources Committee, which passed the bills only after stripping them of
most details and ordering opponents and supporters to reopen negotiations.
Several computer and television trade groups are working to defeat the
bills (SB 1523 and SB 1619), arguing that the state should wait for a
national electronics recycling standard. And some in-state manufacturers,
such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard, worry that a California fee would give an
edge to out-of-state competitors, such as Gateway and Dell, whose Internet
sales might be outside the state's reach.
'A Fairness Issue'
"Consumers who purchase computers at retail outlets in California will pay
this $30 fee, and consumers who choose to purchase their computers over the
Internet will not," said Heather Bowman of the Electronics Industries
Alliance, a Washington trade group active in the California fight.
"That's a fairness issue. California retailers are already at a
disadvantage because of the sales tax [which is not charged on out-of-state
Internet purchases], and this would only make it worse."
Supporters of a state recycling fee, although acknowledging that a national
solution would make more sense, say California may have to act first, as it
has done on other environmental issues.
They say it is time for computer makers to embrace what they believe is a
moral obligation to ensure that the products they sell do not contribute to
pollution.
The fee, supporters say, would nurture a growing computer recycling
industry and end the technology world's dirty little secret about what
happens to the detritus of the Information Age.
Much of America's electronic waste now makes its way to China, India and
Pakistan, where computers and TV sets are crudely disassembled and scrapped
for parts by untrained peasants, polluting ground water and endangering
human health, environmentalists assert.
A recent documentary on the practice shot by environmental groups,
"Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," showed Chinese villagers,
including children, scavenging old computers with ID tags from the city of
Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The footage surprised Los Angeles school officials, who said they did not
know how their computer junk had made it across the Pacific.
"This is an issue that should already have been addressed," said Sher, who
represents much of the Silicon Valley area. "This is a problem that is
giving this industry a black eye, not only here but throughout the world."
Since its inception, one of the central tenets of the computer industry has
been that equipment will be replaced early and often as better technology
becomes available.
The side effect of that constant turnover--piles upon piles of obsolete
computers--is only now attracting government scrutiny.
For years, many consumers handed old computers down to relatives or donated
them to charities or schools. But as computer use has skyrocketed and
technological progress has continued to soar, those outlets for older
computers have begun to disappear.
Many thrift shops have stopped accepting computers and televisions
altogether, concluding that chances of finding new users are slim and the
cost of discarding them is too steep.
As a result, trash companies report increasing numbers of computers and
televisions being discarded. Officials also say there is a "silent
stockpile" of millions more in garages and attics around the country,
waiting to be discarded.
A recent report by the state's Integrated Waste Management Board estimated
that, in California households alone, there are 6 million computer and TV
monitors collecting dust.
"What has become clear in the past decade is that electronics are
disposable goods," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians
Against Waste, chief sponsor of the measures.
"In practice, computers and televisions are disposable products that, in a
few years, become completely worthless."
Several Western European nations have passed laws requiring electronics
recycling, and the European Union has begun to address the problem more
broadly, with legislation requiring manufacturers to pay for take-back
programs. Japan already has such a law for televisions and appliances.
But the United States, by far the world's largest consumer of electronic
goods, lags behind.
A coalition of industry leaders, environmentalists, recyclers and
government officials is working to develop a nationwide solution that would
include front-end fees, like those proposed in California. However, the
group, the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative, is not
expected to reach consensus for at least another year.
Like several other companies, Panasonic has been working to reduce the
number of toxins in its televisions and building them with more reusable
materials, as well as forming partnerships with recyclers and government
agencies to sponsor take-back programs.
A recent report commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
found that 40% of the lead found in the nation's landfills is suspected to
have come from electronic equipment, most from the cathode ray tubes found
in TV and computer monitors. Lead can leach out of landfills, government
studies have shown, polluting surrounding soil and ground water.
Computers also contain small amounts of mercury, cadmium and barium, among
other potentially hazardous materials.
While many environmental groups praised California for following the
example of Massachusetts and banning TVs and computer monitors from
landfills last year, the move surprised many cities and waste haulers, who
suddenly found themselves footing the bill for tons of hazardous waste they
had no place to send.
"We've got this prohibition to send them to landfills, yet there is no
place for them to go and they are piling up. It's leading to a lot of
illegal dumping, unfortunately," said Denise Delmatier, vice president of
government affairs at Norcal Waste, one of the state's largest trash companies.
Norcal is spending $35 to $40 per unit to send computers and televisions to
HMR Group, a company that breaks them down and sends the scrap to various
recyclers, but Norcal cannot afford to do that forever, Delmatier said.
At HMR Group's cavernous central processing facility in Sacramento,
business is clearly booming since the California landfill ban. Discarded
computers and televisions arrive by the trailer load from Los Angeles and
San Francisco.
The $30 recycling fee proposed in California is intended to finance grants
that would help cities, trash haulers, nonprofit groups and others cover
the cost of collecting TVs and computers and, possibly, recycling them. The
state would collect the fee and dole out the grants. But San Francisco
officials say it costs them nearly $60 just to prepare a wood-paneled
television for recycling.
Legality Questioned
Opponents, meanwhile, question whether the state could legally levy such
fees on Dell and other out-of-state companies that do business over the
Internet.
A recent letter from a state Board of Equalization staff member to a
lobbyist for the computer industry lent credence to that argument,
concluding there were legal as well as practical problems with collecting
fees from companies with no physical presence in the state.
Nonetheless, supporters insist the fee is legally sound and they stress
that something must be done to address a problem that is only likely to get
worse. "It should be as easy to recycle a computer as it is to buy one. And
it should be free," said Robert Haley, recycling coordinator for the San
Francisco Department of the Environment. "Because, otherwise, people are
going to continue taking the easy way out, which is to leave these things
on a street corner."
************************
Washington Post
Kids Targeted by Internet Gambling Ads - FTC
By Robert MacMillan
About 20 percent of children-oriented online game sites sport Internet
gambling advertisements, according to a report released today by the
Federal Trade Commission.
The report also showed that children encounter few barriers to sites
featuring Internet wagering, and that most sites "did not adequately
disclose warnings about underage gambling prohibitions."
Another 20 percent of online gambling sites "contained no warning at all,
and where warnings were disclosed they were difficult to find," the FTC
said in a statement.
The result of a 200-Web site sweep, the FTC report said that sites popular
among teenaged online gamers contain a disproportionate number of gambling
ads. Included are gaming sites that specialize in action/adventure, sports
and other "non-gambling" computer games, the commission said.
The report also said that most gaming sites lack "effective" blocking
mechanisms to keep children away from online gambling, and some don't have
any blocks. Many blocks were easy to circumvent, the report added.
The FTC released the report a week after a House committee approved a bill
that would ban most forms of online gaming. Several efforts to enact an
Internet gaming bill have failed in Congress over the past four years.
Net gambling has been identified not only as a source for gambling
addiction and other ills that affect offline gamers, but as a venue for
terrorists to launder money.
The report was conducted with the American Psychiatric Association.
*******************
Washington Post
IT Experts Say Government Not Ready for Cyber Attack
By Ellen McCarthy
Government officials know that cyber-threats exist, but they are not acting
fast enough to prevent a serious attack, according to a survey of
technology professionals that was released yesterday.
Almost half of information technology workers who participated in the
survey think a major cyber-attack in the United States is likely to occur
in the next 12 months. And nearly three-quarters think there is a gap
between the likelihood of a major cyber-attack in the United States and the
government's ability to defend itself.
"These are really sobering results. It really underscores the need for
cooperation between the public and private sectors," said Robert Holleyman,
president and chief executive of the Business Software Alliance, which
sponsored the survey. "It shows that there is a real sense of urgency about
this mission."
That sense of urgency is something the Business Software Alliance hopes to
raise through meetings with industry and political officials. Holleyman
said the organization is pushing for a cyber-security unit to be a clearly
defined part of the Homeland Security Department, if one is created. The
organization is also urging policymakers to increase federal funding for
network security projects.
Released in conjunction with this week's E-Gov conference in the District,
the survey sought the opinions of technology professionals because they are
"living and breathing this stuff every day," Holleyman said.
Fifty-five percent of the tech workers surveyed said they think the risk of
a major cyber-attack has increased since Sept. 11. Eighty-six percent
believe the government needs to spend more time and resources preparing for
such an attack than it spent on Y2K-related issues.
"Y2K absorbed a vast amount of time and effort, and it was a one-time
event. But the need for cyber-security is ongoing," said Holleyman. "We
have to ensure that we are secure from the attacks that have happened in
the past and will happen in the future."
Securing sensitive content and information stored in computer systems
should be a top priority, according to 88 percent of those surveyed.
Corporations must also increase the rate at which they disclose
cyber-attacks on their own systems, said Bill Conner, president and chief
executive of Entrust Inc., an Addison, Tex., company that provides Internet
security services.
"Two-thirds of companies are not reporting cyber-attacks and breaches. It
breaks the trust model," Conner said. "Until we understand where we're at,
it's going to be difficult to get the sense of urgency we need."
The BSA-sponsored Internet survey of 395 information technology workers
from a variety of sectors was conducted between June 5 and 7 and has a 5
percent margin of error. The study was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs of
Washington, a subsidiary of Ipsos Research of Paris, according to a BSA
news release.
BSA member companies include Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Sybase, Symantec,
Hewlett-Packard and Entrust, most of which seek or hold federal government
contracts. Companies like Entrust and Symantec specialize in security
products and services, which are in greater demand than ever throughout the
government.
***********************
Washington Post
US House OKs Rewritten Internet Child-Porn Ban
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON -- Barely two months after the Supreme Court struck down a ban
on "virtual" child pornography, the House Tuesday passed another attempt to
update child-porn laws for the Internet age.
The House passed 413-8 a bill that would outlaw pornographic digital images
of children, unless they were proven to be computer-generated simulations
that did not portray actual underage sex.
The Supreme Court struck down a similar law on free-speech grounds in
April, saying it was too broadly written and could outlaw mainstream films
like "Traffic" and "Romeo and Juliet" that use adult actors to portray
teenage sex.
Backers said a rewritten bill was necessary to effectively prosecute the
child-pornography trade, which has migrated to the Internet over the past
several years.
Without a virtual-porn ban, prosecutors must prove that child pornography
seized from Web sites and computer hard drives portrays actual children, a
difficult proposition once a picture has been scanned into a computer and
passed around the Internet, said bill sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas
Republican.
The Supreme Court's decision has made existing child-porn cases harder to
prosecute and could throw previous convictions in jeopardy, others said.
"With every passing day another pedophile escapes prosecution because of
the flawed ruling of this high court," said Florida Republican Rep. Mark
Foley, a bill co-sponsor.
But Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, said Congress was wasting its
time with another effort that would not survive a courtroom challenge.
"This bill just reiterates the mistakes in the original legislation," Scott
said.
The Bush administration issued a statement supporting the bill's passage,
saying it "would be an important step in protecting children from abuse by
ensuring effective child pornography prosecutions."
The issue now must be taken up by the Senate, where similar but separate
bills have been introduced by Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and Missouri
Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan. A hearing is scheduled in the Judiciary
Committee in the summer, a Carnahan spokesman said.
COURTS STRUCK DOWN EARLIER ATTEMPTS
Congress has so far had little success writing laws that limit pornography
on the Internet that do not infringe on free-speech rights. Federal courts
have struck down three previous attempts to regulate online smut on First
Amendment grounds.
The rewritten bill, drafted by the Justice Department in response to the
Supreme Court's ruling, applies only to computer images that are
"indistinguishable" from child pornography, not just material that "appears
to be" child porn. It does not apply to mainstream movies, cartoons,
drawings or other works that are not realistic digital images.
Pornography involving prepubescent children would be outlawed entirely,
"virtual" or not.
The bill would flip the burden of proof so that the defendant would be
required to prove that the image was a computer-generated fake, rather than
requiring prosecutors to prove that it involved real, identifiable children.
Bill sponsors said they were confident that their new bill would pass
judicial review, and that without such an "affirmative defense" they would
be incapable of prosecuting digital child pornography.
But Scott and Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Republican, said most child
pornography could be prosecuted under existing obscenity laws. The bill
still could be struck down on First Amendment grounds because it would
threaten documentary filmmakers, therapists and others who use computer
images for legitimate purposes, they said.
"The government may not suppress lawful speech to suppress unlawful
speech," Nadler said.
The House also approved 409-3 a bill that would allow judges to require
lifetime monitoring of sex offenders after they serve their prison terms.
*************************
Washington Post
Critics Take Aim at New Filtering Service
By David McGuire
New filtering software that relies on Web site operators to label their
content has found favor with some of the Internet's most popular portals,
but developers of commercial filtering products question the value of the
system's voluntary approach.
The nonprofit, industry-backed Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA)
today released ICRAfilter, a free software product that works in
conjunction with electronic "meta-tags" installed by Web site operators.
At a press conference to unveil the product, executives from America
Online, Microsoft's MSN service and Yahoo announced that they had labeled
93 percent of the sites under their control with ICRAfilter-compatible tags.
"Since they are the most trafficked sites, anytime they show leadership in
an effort, it encourages others to participate," ICRA North America
director Mary Lou Kenny said. "When the leaders in any segment label their
sites and encourage others to do the same, it begins a viral effect of
labeling."
But sellers of Internet filtering products question the value of self-labeling.
"The problem is getting the worldwide Internet to adapt to rating their
sites," said Mark Kanter, vice president of marketing for the company that
sells Cybersitter. "It hasn't been able to be done and in our view it won't
be able to be done."
Although ICRAfilter is new, Kanter points out that Web site operators have
had the option of labeling their sites by ICRA standards for several years
through ICRA's Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) standard.
Susan Getgood, vice president of marketing for SurfControl Inc., added that
while "good guys" like AOL, MSN and Yahoo may willingly label themselves,
smaller online "bad guys" have no incentive to label honestly, if at all.
"There will always be an inherent problem with self-labeling," Getgood said.
Kenny acknowledged some of the problems inherent in relying solely on
self-labeling and said that those concerns led ICRA to develop "templates"
that can be used in conjunction with ICRAfilter.
Templates are lists, developed by outside entities, of Web sites that could
offend certain sensibilities. The Anti-Defamation League has developed one
such template that lists known hate sites.
ICRAfilter users can download templates that suit their preferences and
block those sites as well as self-labeled sites that are outside of their
pre-approved criteria, Kenny said.
Kenny said that she does not see ICRA filter competing with commercial
filtering products. "There's enough room for everybody. We're all doing the
same thing. We're trying to give parents tools to protect their children."
Some civil liberties advocates say that those tools could lay the
groundwork for further government censorship.
If ICRA achieves the "viral" labeling effect it seeks, "it would only be a
matter of time before some government somewhere decided to criminalize the
mislabeling of content," said Electronic Privacy Information Center General
Counsel David Sobel.
Kenny said that governments already leaning in the direction of greater
censorship wouldn't be helped or hindered by ICRA's software.
ICRAfilter is available at www.icra.org.
*************************
Washington Post
Lawmaker Tries To Foil Illegal File-Sharing
By Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 25, 2002; 4:07 PM
Copyright holders would receive carte blanche to use aggressive tactics to
stop the illegal distribution of their works on online services like
Morpheus and Kazaa under legislation outlined today by Rep. Howard Berman
(D-Calif.).
Berman's bill, to be introduced in the next several weeks, would attempt to
minimize the illegal trading of copyrighted songs and other content on
"peer-to-peer" (P2P) networks by permitting copyright holders to use
technology against pirates.
While content owners now can try to block access to intellectual property
pirates, they cannot use the range of technological options that they want,
chiefly because some tactics are illegal under state and federal law.
Berman's bill would legalize some techniques over the protests of
file-sharing advocates.
Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee's
intellectual property and Internet panel, represents a California district
adjacent to Burbank and Hollywood -- major capitals of the entertainment
industry that have long clamored for better online piracy deterrents.
Despite the passage in 1998 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, piracy
continues to nag at copyright holders and businesses. The DMCA has been
used to threaten suspected copyright violators, but questions about what
constitutes legal sharing and illegal piracy continue to dilute the law's
power.
Following the court-ordered shutdown of the popular file-sharing service
Napster, P2P systems like Morpheus have become popular because they make it
harder for the entertainment industry to detect copyright infringement. Two
people sharing music through the Morpheus service establish connections to
each others' computers instead of using a Napster-like central server.
Berman said such P2P networks should not be "cleared out," but "cleaned up."
His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other
techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off
the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that
would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems.
Destroying, crashing or damaging people's computers, software or other
technology systems is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as
are many of the ideas Berman is suggesting should be available to content
owners - though he said that viruses should not be used as defense mechanisms.
"A copyright owner should not be allowed to damage the property of a P2P
file trader or any intermediaries, including ISPs," Berman said. "(I)
wouldn't want to let a particularly incensed copyright owner introduce a
virus that would disable the computer from which copyrighted works are made
available ... "
Ellen Stroud, spokeswoman for Morpheus' parent company StreamCast Networks,
said that Berman's proposed bill would legalize tactics that currently are
considered illegal because they allow online misrepresentation.
"(Berman) has called for a posse of copyright vigilantes," she said.
Howard Coble (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Courts, the Internet and
Intellectual Property subcommittee, said in an interview that he likes
Berman's proposal, but said it could be "tweaked."
Coble also said that he is awaiting approval from the House Judiciary
Committee to hold a July hearing on Internet copyright violations.
"My philosophy, and I think Howard's philosophy, is to prevent larceny and
to prevent piracy," Coble said.
The Recording Industry Association of America said in a statement that it
supports the Berman proposal, adding that "Internet piracy undermines the
growth of legitimate online music sites and hurts all consumers in the long
run."
***************************
USA Today
Site clues consumers into identity theft
WASHINGTON (AP) An anti-fraud education group that tipped federal
authorities to a major Internet credit card scheme has opened a Web site
that will let Americans check to see if their card numbers are in the hands
of thieves.
The database of stolen credit card numbers, which became available on the
Web late Tuesday, was created over the last seven weeks and has already
identified nearly 100,000 credit card numbers, the group said.
The group, CardCops, collected the information from Internet chat rooms
where thieves have been checking whether stolen card numbers are still good
to use or have been deactivated.
The group alerted the Secret Service to the scheme and turned over its
database to investigators. It then decided to create the Web site so
Americans can check their numbers and possibly prevent fraudulent charges.
"We're creating a situation where Joe Consumer can check his card on the
Internet to see if it's been possibly abused," said Dan Clements, founder
of CardCops.
Cardholders can check their numbers by going to www.Cardcops.com and typing
in the number. If it comes back positive, cardholders should alert their
financial institution.
CardCops say they have secured the database, and as an extra precaution it
is asking cardholders who check their numbers not to enter the expiration
date that is ordinarily required to complete a purchase.
Secret Service Special Agent Donald Masters of the Los Angeles High Tech
Crimes Task Force said his team is in the preliminary stages of
investigating the most active Internet card thieves discovered in the
database provided by CardCops.
He would not discuss the investigation's progress or other details, but
Masters praised Clements for alerting authorities.
"We need the general public to be aware of this kind of stuff," Masters said.
Many card numbers are stolen by hackers who break into databases of Web
commerce sites. Another method is for con artists to trick unsuspecting
computer users into providing card numbers.
The goal of the new Web site is to cut down the time between the theft of a
card number and the cardholder's discovery of fraudulent charges made by
the thieves, possibly saving money for consumers and companies.
"Consumers usually get their statements two months or three months after
it's compromised," Clement said. "During that 60 to 90 days, that card has
floated around the Internet. They're the ones who are out on a limb."
Clements said the thieves use Internet chat rooms which are separate from
the World Wide Web and largely unregulated to verify that the cards are valid.
This is done by posting the number and expiration date into the public
room, where an automated program charges a small amount to the card to see
if it is a valid card. The program is built and maintained by fellow thieves.
The small amount charged is not likely to tip off cardholders, Clements
said, and the charge comes from an unrelated merchant who is not privy to
the scam.
Clements has been monitoring several of these rooms, which scroll
constantly with new card numbers, and recording card numbers entered by the
thieves. To help authorities, Clements also collects the Internet address
of the thief who submitted the card.
CardCops offers information and tools to protect electronic commerce
companies from credit card fraud. It has more than 1,000 paying members,
mostly small and medium-size merchants.
Stolen credit card numbers and identity theft affect up to 700,000
Americans each year, the Justice Department says. In 2000, credit card
companies Visa and Mastercard reported that fraud losses topped $1 billion.
Last month, Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal prosecutors
nationwide to speed up investigations and trials of people accused of
stealing identities.
Legislation that would set harsher penalties for such crimes is moving
through Congress.
Most credit card companies won't charge cardholders for fraudulent
purchases, although it is important to contact the issuing bank promptly.
Federal law limits the customer's liability to $50.
***************************
USA Today
Wireless service lets you find other users
NEW YORK (AP) A new feature from AT&T Wireless lets customers use a mobile
phone to find the approximate location of another cell phone user the
nation's first taste of "location-based" service after years of industry hype.
The company also introduced an application that enables Microsoft Outlook
and Lotus Notes users to forward e-mail in real time from an office
computer to a cell phone, even if the corporate network isn't set up for
e-mail forwarding.
Both of the new services are only available in the 18 markets where AT&T
Wireless has upgraded its network with a wireless technology known as GPRS.
Similar offerings are expected from other carriers as they upgrade with
next-generation technologies and comply with government requirements to
pinpoint the location of any person making an emergency 911 call from a
mobile phone.
The new "Find Friends" feature is being offered as part of AT&T Wireless'
mMode service, which provides access to an assortment of Web information,
messaging and entertainment options.
The location service is set up in much the same way as the "buddy lists"
used for instant messaging on a computer. Each cell phone user can decide
on a person-by-person basis if and when to be "findable" by another AT&T
Wireless customer.
If two people agree to be able to find each other, the nearest cellular
tower will determine the proximity of either one's handset to, for example,
a nearby intersection. The two people can then exchange messages, make a
voice call or choose from a list of nearby eateries and stores where they
might meet.
The fee for mMode ranges from $2.99 per month plus 2 cents for each
kilobyte of data sent or received to $12.49 per month for up to 2 megabytes
of use. A location query would usually consume from 1 to 3 kilobytes, or
about the same as a typical short e-mail, the company said.
The new Office Online e-mail service, which costs an additional $2.99 per
month plus usage, redirects e-mail from Outlook and Notes on an office
computer connected to a corporate network and sends it to a wireless phone.
The service is based on the latest version of an application from ViAir
that is also available through VoiceStream and Nextel. The version offered
by VoiceStream and Nextel forwards e-mail in batches every 15 minutes
rather than sending each message as it arrives. While none of the three
services allow cell phones to open or send e-mail attachments, the new
offering by AT&T Wireless adds attachment capabilities for handheld
computers and laptops.
************************
BBC
Hackers play with the Xbox
Microsoft's Xbox console may not be overpopular with computer game players
but it is rapidly winning fans in the hardware hacking world.
Computer scientists, smart amateur engineers and others are taking the
console apart and creating modification chips and software for the machine
to make it do things Microsoft never intended it to.
The modifications mean the console can play movies, pirated games and music
files.
Microsoft is currently investigating ways to stop the hardware hackers.
Modified machine
One of the most comprehensive investigations of the insides of an Xbox was
done by Andrew Huang, a graduate student from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
In early June Mr Huang released a 15-page report on the three weeks it took
him to find out about the security system built in to the Xbox.
He also showed how to interrupt its start-up sequence so it can be made to
run other operating systems.
Mr Huang's investigations have been followed by others who have produced
modification, or mod, chips for the device to change what it does and how
it does it.
The chips, some of which go by the name of Xtender and Enigmah-X, let
owners use their console to play pirated games, run PC software or games
from other regions.
Many of the games produced for the Xbox use a regional coding system to
help game makers manage the release of their titles.
The mod chips let keen gamers play imported games that they would otherwise
have to wait months to play.
Board room
Although there are new mod chips being developed for the Xbox few think
they will be widely used.
The chips have to be soldered onto the circuit board of the console, a feat
most game players are unlikely to attempt.
Other Xbox tinkerers are working on other ways of modifying the console
without needing to resort to soldering wires onto a circuit board.
Add-on programs are now starting to appear that work with a modified
console. One of the first makes it possible to play movies on the console
provided they are encoded using the Divx format.
Many of the movies being shared in online networks use Divx because it does
a good job of preserving image quality but the resulting files are a
fraction of the size of the original film and can be downloaded in a
reasonable amount of time.
Also recently moved to the Xbox is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
(Mame) which lets players run old style arcade games on the console.
Mame is hugely popular online because it authentically recreates many of
the games that people spent hours playing in their youth.
Microsoft is known to be looking into ways of stopping the spread of mod
chips with legal action or by ensuring future Xbox games will not work with
a modified console.
But it too also has plans to extend what the Xbox can do. Reports this week
suggest that Microsoft is planning a hybrid device that uses the internal
hard disk of the machine as a video recorder.
***********************
Federal Computer Week
Army releases second AKM memo
The second Army Knowledge Management guidance memorandum was formally
released last week and implores the commands to be "ruthless" in reducing
the number of servers and applications.
AKM Guidance Memorandum No. 2 was released June 19 by Secretary Thomas
White and Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, about two months after being
passed on to the service's leadership for approval. It states that the
Army's progress to date has been good and has laid the foundation for
future successes, but indicates that the service has "a long way to go" to
reach its goals.
The new memo's goals for major command and other components include:
* Making server reductions of 30 percent by the end of fiscal 2003.
* Making application reductions of 50 percent by fiscal 2004.
* Submitting a report to the Army chief information officer by Aug. 1
stating baseline assessments to track the progress toward those application
reductions, as well as a separate report on information assurance status
and initiatives.
* Mandatory participation in the Army's Business Initiatives Council and
the AKO Configuration Control Board.
The memo states that the Army chief information officer will provide
implementing instructions for the baseline assessments and information
assurance reports within 30 days.
The Army CIO, along with the assistant secretary of the Army for Financial
Management and Comptroller and the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Operations and Plans (G-3), will also establish a reporting process to
track the progress of the new goals and provide the metrics through the Key
Performance Metrics Monitor and Strategic Readiness System, according to
the memo.
The Army's original five AKM goals were issued in August 2001 and included:
* Governance and cultural change.
* Knowledge management through best business practices.
* Enterprise management.
* Establishing the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) portal.
* Increasing workforce.
**********************
Federal Computer Week
Military, FEMA test communications
Technology not first solution
As part of a month-long communications exercise focused on interoperability
among U.S. armed forces and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an
Army Reserve unit on June 24 successfully completed a video teleconference
with FEMA personnel halfway across the country.
Grecian Firebolt, which began June 1 and is scheduled to conclude today,
has been testing interoperability among the Army, the Air Force and FEMA's
Mobile Emergency Response communications teams. It includes reserve and
active Army units, and Army and Air National Guard units connecting more
than 30 sites throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
The 311th Theater Signal Command (TSC), an Army Reserve unit headquartered
at Fort Meade, Md., led this year's exercise, which was designed, in part,
to test the communications piece of a homeland defense scenario, said Maj.
Gen. George Bowman, commander of the unit.
The homeland defense scenarios have included dealing with such things as
potential mail bombs and protestors attempting to foil activities and
influence soldiers, said Lt. Col. Thomas Chegash Jr., communications
systems control element branch chief in the 311th TSC.
Those scenarios did not include attacks against communications or
information technology systems, but did include reports of real-world
situations, like virus updates, that participants had to deal with on the
fly, said Maj. Anthony Britton, an action officer at Joint Forces Command,
who was on hand to observe the exercises and the joint communications
capabilities of the Army and Air Force.
The 311th TSC conducted a video teleconference with a FEMA office in
Denton, Texas, as part of an exercise to ensure that the agency "has the
bandwidth available in case we're faced with another" Sept. 11, said Ozzie
Baldwin, FEMA's telecommunications manager of information processing in Denton.
Baldwin said that Grecian Firebolt has also helped FEMA establish
procedures for communicating via e-mail on both secure and nonsecure
networks with the Defense Department in a homeland defense scenario.
"We have established the procedures, and now they will be published and
used in any deployment," he said. "In case of incident, we can immediately
exchange e-mails," and that includes a Secret Internet Protocol Router
Network (SIPRNET) connection between FEMA headquarters and DOD that was
recently installed and tested during the exercise.
"Now, we can say for the next incident, we are ready," Baldwin said.
Grecian Firebolt, which cost more than $1.2 million to execute, focuses on
the oversight and management of the tactical and strategic networks the
Army and its partners use to communicate during a homeland security
mission. It includes satellite links, line-of-sight tools, e-mail and
videoteleconferencing (VTC), Chegash said.
"Overall, our base goal is training," Chegash said, adding that
establishing the VTC link was one of the most difficult challenges in the
exercise. "We have been troubleshooting for days. The equipment we have is
old, not operator-friendly and difficult to set up."
************************
Federal Computer Week
Awards honor model e-gov efforts
A Web-based unemployment insurance application in Kansas and a
state-of-the-art military medical supply system were among a half dozen
innovative e-government programs honored in the third annual Digital
Government Awards June 25.
Sponsored by Accenture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School
of Architecture and Planning, the awards (www.digitalgovawards.com)
recognized best practices using the Internet and technology in six
categories: federal, state, local, higher education, prototype program, and
agent of change. This year's winners were selected from 125 finalists.
They include:
* The Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support. With a $2.5 billion
medical logistics supply chain, the Defense Department program
(www.tricare.osd.mil/dmlss) employed Web-based technology and handheld
wireless remotes to more efficiently deliver pharmaceutical and medical
supplies to customers, negating the need for large inventories at depots
and military treatment facilities.
* Kansas Department of Human Resources. The state agency launched a
Web-based and interactive voice response unemployment insurance program
(www.kansasjoblink.com), enabling citizens to file online claims and
employers to gain around-the-clock access to services.
* Montgomery County, Md., Department of Technology Services. The department
provided its citizens with a multichannel approach a portal
(www.eMontgomery.org), kiosks and interactive voice response to gain
access to more than 180 services and communicate with the government.
* University of Washington's Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology.
To help educators make use of technology, the center created a Web-based
suite of resources, training, tools, templates and support. The Catalyst
Initiative (http://catalyst.washington.edu) is an information
clearinghouse, providing technology workshops for instructors and
personalized consulting for faculty for the entire campus.
* Rhode Island Department of Administration. The department (www.ri.gov)
was honored in the prototype category for an electronic payment engine
developed in conjunction with New England Interactive, a subsidiary of
e-government company NIC. The e-payment application, which is free to state
and local agencies, will permit credit card payments via the Internet. The
program is self-funding, meaning no tax dollars were used to develop the
application. Investment will be recouped by charging convenience fees to users.
* Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh. He was recognized in the agent
of change category for introducing the Kansas Online Uniform Commercial
Code filing system in July 2001, replacing manual and paper-based
procedures. Built at no cost to his office (www.kssos.org), the system made
is faster, easier and cheaper for businesses to file. To date, the adoption
rate is about 80 percent.
Maryland chief information officer Linda Burek and Mark Forman, associate
director of information technology and e-government at the Office of
Management and Budget, were among the 16 academic, government, nonprofit
and industry experts who judged the entries.
***********************
Government Executive
Bush official urges agencies to upgrade homeland security systems now
By Liza Porteus, National Journal's Technology Daily
Federal agencies should not wait for the creation of a new Homeland
Security Department to upgrade their information technology systems to
better protect the nation, a Bush administration official said Tuesday.
"We think we cannot only improve security but improve performance" in
airports, at the nation's borders and ports, and elsewhere, Jim Flyzik,
White House Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge's senior adviser, told the
E-Gov 2002 conference. Flyzik said it is imperative that agencies build
from each other's modernization efforts.
Flyzik is a member of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection
Board and sits on the Federal CIO Council. He previously served as the
Treasury Department's chief information officer. Now he advises Ridge on
information-security issues, among other things.
While the nation waits to see what Congress does with an administration
bill to create a Homeland Security Department, however, Flyzik said
agencies and states need to continue implementing their plans. "We're all
confident there will be a Department of Homeland Security," but the details
must be worked out, Flyzik said.
Ridge's office is crafting a national homeland security strategy that is
due to President Bush in July. The administration is writing the
information-sharing and systems-integration chapters. Flyzik said other
pieces will address strategies for drug control, money laundering and cyber
security. The cybersecurity strategy is separate from the strategy being
crafted by Richard Clarke, Bush's cyber-security adviser, Flyzik said.
"I have a gut feeling it will be before Sept. 11, 2002," when the national
strategy will be made public, Flyzik said.
The new department would focus on four areas: border and transportation
security; emergency preparedness and response; chemical, biological,
radiological and nuclear counter measures; and information analysis and
infrastructure. Legislation to create the department includes the new job
of undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection.
Flyzik said CIOs from various agencies that may be included in the
department are meeting with Homeland Security CIO Steve Cooper, and they
are being grouped together based on the four areas of focus.
But the federal government needs to coordinate with state and local law
enforcers and other officials "like it's never been done before," Flyzik
stressed. He added that the administration is working with what is known as
"the Big Seven"--the major state and local organizations, such as the
National Governors Association, National Conference of State Legislatures,
National Association of State Chief Information Officers and U.S.
Conference of Mayors.
"In many cases, the locals are already ahead of us" in homeland security
efforts, Flyzik said, noting that 23 states already have statewide wireless
networks in place while the federal government is still working on its own.
Flyzik also said that an Office of Homeland Security portal soon will be
offered as a gateway to other efforts and that the administration wants to
increase the use of information-sharing systems.
***********************
Government Computer News
GIS experts: Keep it simple
By Patricia Daukantas
Three geography experts yesterday urged agencies to strive for simplicity
and time-saving strategies in their geographical information systems.
Agencies recognize the need for adopting geographic data standards but
still have a lot of work to do, said the Federal Geographic Data
Committee's John Moeller at the E-Gov Conference in Washington.
Roughly 80 percent of government data has some sort of geographic
component, Moeller said.
GIS development and use in the United States is similar to most 20th
century technology in that it evolved through partnerships among companies,
the government and universities, said Brady Foust, geography professor at
the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.
For example, after the automobile was invented, the government took on
massive road-building efforts. "Neither one of them would have prospered
without the other," Foust said said.
Private-sector software is like the automobile and the Census Bureau's
Topographically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system the
roads, Foust said. TIGER amounted to a national street map, and yet the
government gave it away for free, leading to the development of commercial
map services on the Web, he said.
"In Europe this information is incredibly expensive," so online GIS
services on that continent haven't taken off in the same way, Foust said.
"Users value their time a great deal," said Patrick Anderson, principal of
the Anderson Economic Group LLC of Lansing, Mich. "If you don't value your
users' time, they will stop using your systemif they ever started."
Anderson encouraged agencies to consider developing simple interactive maps
based on the Extensible Markup Language. With an XML version called
Scalable Vector Graphics, agencies can create pop-up maps that users can
adjust without repeated calls to the server, he said.
*************************
Government Computer News
Army inks deal for new software-driven radios
By Dawn S. Onley
The Army has awarded an $856 million contract to Boeing Co. to build at
least 10,000 software-dependent radios for the Joint Tactical Radio System.
The JTRS architecture will let soldiers and other service memberson the
battlefield, in combat vehicles and at command postscommunicate with one
another across different channels and legacy systems. The JTRS software
will let the Defense Department's Joint Program Office program and store up
to 10 waveforms on user radios.
"This provides technology we can enhance very quickly," said Army Col. Mike
Coxe, deputy program manager for the program office.
JTRS furthers the Army's transformation goal because it is an interoperable
system and is easy to upgrade, he said.
Boeing, which beat Raytheon Co. to win the contract, will build and field
JTRS by 2006, Coxe said. If DOD exercises all its options, the contract
ultimately could be worth more than $2 billion.
************************
Sydney Morning Herald
Qld police get high-tech terminals to fight crime
Brisbane
June 26 2002
Queensland police are set to receive a new weapon in the fight against
crime with 100 Maverick mobile computer terminals destined for the state's
police vehicles.
The new Maverick terminals will allow police to access registration,
licence, persons of interest and marine details from inside their vehicle.
The Queensland transport department chose Logica, a private global IT
solutions company, to supply and manage the terminals which enable law
enforcement personnel to receive critical information in under five seconds.
"The Maverick terminals will be a major weapon in the fight against the
increasing number of unlicensed vehicles and drivers occupying the states
roads," Queensland Transport director of information technology Paul
Summergreene said.
Queensland is the first law enforcement organisation in Australia to
provide mobile computing capabilities.
Maverick's processing unit sits in the boot of the car and is contained
within a tough purpose-built case.
The units, designed and built by Logica in Australia, have been
specifically designed to cope with rugged conditions and high temperatures.
*************************
News.com
Giuliani: ID cards won't curb freedoms
By Margaret Kane
WASHINGTON--U.S. citizens may need to carry national identification cards
someday, but that doesn't need to translate into a loss of fundamental
freedoms in the name of safety, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said
Wednesday.
"We need a better way to properly ID people that's more effective (than
current means). There's a trade-off we have to make between privacy and the
protection of everybody...in society," said Giuliani, following a keynote
speech at the E-Gov 2002 conference here. More than 10,000 people are
attending the four-day conference, which concludes Thursday.
A national ID system has become a hot-button issue within the tech industry
and nationally. Technology experts and privacy advocates have been debating
the merits of national ID cards and other identification systems and trying
to figure out how to make sure they wouldn't be abused.
Giuliani said ID cards do not necessarily equal a loss of freedom, adding
that other democratic countries require citizens to carry ID cards.
"We have to separate fundamental freedoms...from those things that we had
the luxury to do in the past," he said.
Giuliani's speech was met with standing ovations and flag waving from the
crowd at the show, which included employees of federal, state and local
governments. The conference here is being run jointly with one on "homeland
security," reflecting a new focus from the technology world and the
government of using IT for defense.
Giuliani discussed ways that technology aided him as mayor, including
helping him handle the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
Before those attacks, Giuliani's best-known achievement had been lowering
the city's crime rate, a feat he said was greatly helped by the use of
technology to conduct daily monitoring of crime.
The city had previously analyzed crime statistics on a yearly basis, but he
initiated a program that helped track crime at the precinct level on a
daily basis and plotted that data on geographic and time bases to more
efficiently deploy police officers.
Similar programs were used in the city's correctional facilities to help
reduce violence at Riker's Island by 80 percent, he said.
Technology also helped open up the city to citizens, he said, making their
lives easier. For instance, New York has put in place ways for citizens to
use the Internet to pay parking tickets and apply for permits for
everything from opening a restaurant to tackling new construction.
"One of the great complaints about government, certainly in New York City,
was that it was unusable...and unmanageable," he said. "E-government is a
way to change that."
Giuliani's Emergency Management System, created in 1996, used technological
simulations to train for emergencies including terrorist attacks, fires and
other crises, Giuliani said.
"I can't emphasize more how important that it is to prepare for the worst
thing you can imagine," he said. "Using technology to try and play games
for what might happen, even if they're not exactly right when the
emergencies occur," is an important way to prepare.
Giuliani cautioned attendees to prepare for the unexpected but to remember
that "life goes on."
"At home, we have to do everything we can to be better prepared," he said.
"At the same time, we have to get people to relax and go about their daily
lives."
Giuliani disagreed with the notion that the world is now a more dangerous
place.
"It was as if a curtain was in front of us; we saw the world the way we
wanted to see it. Now the curtain has been lifted, and we can see the world
the way it really is," he said. "Having said that, and recognized that,
even before doing anything about it we're safer."
Asked if he would be interested in becoming secretary of the proposed
Department of Homeland Security, Giuliani said that he hadn't decided on
his future but that the job that he really wanted was to become "general
manager of the (New York) Yankees."
*************************
ZDNET
Fighting back against PC invaders
By John Borland
By day, Paul Kurland runs an innocuous pool maintenance business in Miami,
but don't be fooled: Online, he's armed with the digital equivalent of an
atomic bomb in the arms race against annoying advertising and spying software.
The SpyBlocker program he created can wipe out any targets in its path. In
doing so, however, it also completely blocks access to large portions of
many popular Web sites.
Some call it an overreaction, but Kurland isn't at all apologetic.
"To me, it's like picking my pocket," he says, criticizing the
controversial practice of monitoring and harvesting personal information,
often without people's knowledge. "The way I look at it, these sites can do
it right. Just show me the ad, and if I'm interested I'll click on it."
Kurland is part of a grassroots movement fighting back against intrusive
ads, software that tracks online behavior, and other mechanisms that
quietly co-opt consumers' computers for marketing and other business
purposes. These activist programmers are stepping in with such technologies
to help fill a void left by regulators and legislators who are just
beginning to examine this emerging area.
The techno-rebellion follows a long tradition of code-slingers who have
turned first to their own programming skills to solve problems or combat
Net abuses, dismissive of government's power to keep up with the fast pace
of change online. Their efforts seem to be making headway: Driven by the
recent Kazaa controversy and other fears, use of their programs is climbing
well beyond that of previous generations of Web privacy tools.
More than 17 million people have downloaded ZoneAlarm, a free personal
firewall that prevents any software from communicating with the Internet
unless given approval. More than 10 million people have downloaded
Ad-aware, which scours computer hard drives for adware or spyware
components and deletes them free of charge. And Kurland said he distributed
more than 5 million free copies of SpyBlocker before he began charging for it.
As impressive as those numbers are, these technologies are well short of
ubiquitous on the Internet. Although such blocking software is a familiar
part of the computer desktop for many tech-savvy surfers, it is far less
clear whether these tools will become popular in the mainstream market.
Indeed, without government mandates or adoption by large companies such as
ISPs (Internet services providers) or computer manufacturers, these
technologies may never reach new or inexperienced computer users--the
portion of the public most susceptible to software that might spy on them
or take over their PC resources without adequate explanation.
"I've found there is a certain amount of people who will fight back using
all the technology at their disposal. Then there's another group of people
who just don't care," said Steve Gibson, a technology researcher and
entrepreneur who wrote one of the first anti-spyware software programs.
"What (this trend) is going to do is accentuate that division."
**************************
Wired News
A New Twist on Light Speed
By Mark K. Anderson
If light is the standard messenger in communications technology, the
messenger just got a bigger saddlebag.
A recent discovery by five physicists from Scotland has opened the door to
packing more information into a beam of light.
The new discovery promises faster ways to send and receive quantum
information, although right now, only through empty space. Nevertheless, it
could lead to faster and better quantum cryptography and communications,
with many more applications if it can be adapted for fiber optics.
Photons -- those indivisible particles of light that carry every telephone
and Internet communication for at least part of the journey -- have long
been subject to clever tricks that enable them to carry as much information
as possible.
Currently the bits in data, audio or video traffic are sent through fiber
optic cables as brief pulses of light. A pulse is a value of one; the
absence of a pulse equals zero. Between splitting the wavelengths of light
into a hundred or more channels, and making each pulse millionths of a
second or less, standard fiber optic lines now typically run 2.5 billion to
10 billion bits (2.5 gigabits to 10 gigabits) per second. Faster ones -- 40
gigabits to 3.2 terabits per second -- are now in the pipeline.
Optical data traffic can also be increased by splitting the light in each
channel into its separate polarizations -- the direction of a light wave's
oscillations. Thus, a horizontally polarized pulse can carry one bit and a
vertically polarized pulse can carry another. Previously only one bit could
fit.
Practically, great effort is required to prevent the polarization of light
pulses from drifting while traveling through a fiber optic line. However,
that's not to say that polarization-encoded bits aren't being considered in
fiber optics.
Finally, one other trick would greatly speed up optical communications. It
involves sorting photons by a property called orbital angular momentum.
Picture a ray of light as a spiral, twisting as it moves through space like
a strand of DNA. Recent experiments by the Austrian scientist Anton
Zeilinger have shown that such twisting photons can have multiple "strands"
going at once.
So, for instance, looking head-on at a three-stranded photon -- for which
the orbital angular momentum is three units -- one would see three lines
separated by 120 degrees (like a clock with minute hands pointing at 12, 4
and 8) as they all moved in a circle together.
Theoretically, a photon can have any positive integer value of orbital
angular momentum. Therefore, a method for creating and observing n
different orbital states of a photon is also a method for sending and
receiving a number between 1 and n using only one photon. Instead of bits,
this new optical communication technique traffics in entire alphabets.
Technically, the general unit of information is called a "nit," named after
the above n. Indeed, because individual photons obey the laws of quantum
mechanics, the information carried in photon orbital states is quantum
information -- a new breed of data that can take on multiple values at
once. Whereas before photons could only carry qubits, this new technique
enables the photon to be a messenger of "qunits."
"We can, in principle, with 100 percent efficiency tell you that this
photon is n=15 -- or if it's ten we can tell you it's ten," said Johannes
Courtial of the University of Glasgow.
Courtial is one of five Glasgow scientists who measured a single photon's
orbital angular momentum for the first time. Their results appear in the
June 24 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
"This experiment offers a real improvement," said Gabriel Molina of the
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona. "You can now fit more
information in a single photon."
The drawbacks, he said, are both in the instrumentation -- currently too
finicky for any application outside the lab -- and implementation.
Indeed, Molina's group is already working on the latter problem,
investigating ways to transmit photon qunits through fiber optic lines.
*************************
Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 510
2120 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037
202-478-6124
lillie.coney@xxxxxxx