Clips July 18, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips July 18, 2002

ARTICLES

Music Companies Seek New Piracy Protection
E-mail frappuccino fraud fools customers
Albany Chosen as Research Hub for Next-Generation Chips
Delaware student charged with hacking
HP fires two, suspends 150, for email abuse
A Wireless 911 System Finds Those in Need
Web Friend or Faux? Digital 'buddies'
Computer-Generated Stamps Are Approved
War, the Mother of Inventions
Powell Cracks Down on E-Mails Mocking Republicans
Some Beijing Internet Cafes Reopen After Fire
Hang on tight More laptops means more are getting swiped
FBI's Trilogy progress slow
Roster change (New federal appointments and job changes)
Public-private team agrees on Windows security benchmark
National strategy for protecting cyberspace due Sept. 11
Marines name Gen. Thomas CIO
GSA taps Rutherford, Fox for leadership positions
Congress raps self, agencies for 9/11
War on terror aids IT market
Technology leaders tell Hollywood to shoulder piracy burden
Study shows spammed e-mail messages seldom get response
Tech activists protest anti-copying
Tough talk on Web radio copying
U.S. cybersecurity plan set for September release

***************************
Los Angeles Times
Music Companies Seek New Piracy Protection
Technology: Recording group wants to develop a way to prevent Internet 
radio songs from being redistributed online.
By EDMUND SANDERS and JON HEALEY

WASHINGTON -- Opening a new front in the war against digital music piracy, 
major record companies are asking computer and electronics manufacturers to 
help stop consumers from sharing songs copied from online radio broadcasts.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America, the industry's main trade group, 
wants to develop an "audio performance flag," similar to the "broadcast 
flag" technology being developed to protect digital television programs, 
Mitch Glazier, senior vice president of the RIAA, disclosed Wednesday at a 
Commerce Department meeting on piracy.

The goal is to prevent music transmitted by an Internet radio station from 
being redistributed over the Internet. The flags would act as markers that 
tell devices not to move any part of the broadcast back onto the Internet. 
This approach would require changes to millions of computers and other 
Internet-connected devices. Because computers convert digital audio files 
to analog in order to play them, it may be impossible to stop pirates from 
making fresh recordings with no digital protections.

Internet radio is not a significant source of piracy today, in part because 
of its inferior sound quality when compared with CDs. But as high-speed 
Internet connections proliferate and broadcasting costs drop, online 
stations are expected to shift to higher-fidelity feeds.

Glazier said the RIAA has held "very limited, preliminary discussions" with 
people in the consumer electronics and information technology industries, 
but the talks haven't progressed far. The next step, he said, is to ask 
industry groups and companies more formally to get involved.

The latest effort is one of half a dozen or more by the labels and 
Hollywood studios, which are eager to deter piracy with technology. Others 
include inter-industry efforts to stop digital movie files from being 
copied and to prevent digital TV programs from being transmitted online.

Yet another set of discussions is expected to start in the next few weeks, 
as the Hollywood studios hold high-level talks about piracy with a group of 
leading computer and information technology companies. The companies 
offered to meet with the studios if the discussions also included 
non-technological approaches to piracy, such as giving consumers a 
legitimate source of movies online. The Motion Picture Assn. responded late 
Tuesday with an offer to meet "with no preconditions."

Under federal copyright law, online broadcasters can automatically obtain 
licenses to the labels' music if they follow certain rules for playlists. 
They have to pay royalties, but the amount--0.07 cent per song per 
listener--is much lower than they would have to pay for an on-demand service.

If users record those broadcasts and send the songs over the Net, Glazier 
said, it undermines the distinction between free or low-cost online radio 
and on-demand services. That's why the RIAA wants to put some kind of 
digital marker into Webcasts to prevent them from being redistributed, he said.

Although streams aren't a major piracy problem, the RIAA has an interest in 
preserving a range of distribution options, said Jonathan Potter of the 
Digital Media Assn., which represents online audio and video services. "Our 
industry is all in favor of there being several different types of business 
with several different price points," said Potter, DiMA's executive director.
**************************
Mercury News
E-mail frappuccino fraud fools customers
By Donna Kato
Mercury News

The coupon for a Starbucks Creme Frappuccino promised, ``Cool, creamy, 
complimentary.'' It neglected to say: counterfeit.

Thousands of customers around the country were duped Wednesday when a 
printable coupon circulated via e-mail for the frothy freebie turned out to 
be a fake.

``I had set aside time all day to go so I was disappointed when I got there 
and was told the coupon was no good,'' said Manpreet Komal, an engineer for 
Sun Microsystems who went to the Starbucks at the Great Mall in Milpitas. 
``But I was more upset that I had e-mailed about 15 people and couldn't get 
to them all soon enough to warn them.''

Even employees were fooled into accepting a few before the coffee chain 
said they were bogus.

``Yeah, we got a whole bunch of these today,'' said Lucky Nguyen, a 
supervisor at the Starbucks in North Park Plaza in San Jose whose baristas 
saw about 100 of the coupons Wednesday.

The company said it suffered only ``minimal loss'' and is investigating.
************************
News.com
Yahoo Mail puts words in your mouth
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 17, 2002, 4:00 AM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-944315.html

What does Yahoo Mail have against mocha?
That's what users of the company's free e-mail service may be wondering if 
they try to send a message using the word "mocha" and discover that while 
in transit, "mocha" mysteriously changes to "espresso."

To protect users from malicious code, Yahoo uses an automated filter to 
swap out a handful of words such as "mocha" that pertain to Web code known 
as JavaScript.

The reason is that e-mail sent in a form known as "Web enhanced" can 
contain JavaScript instructions that can run programs on the recipient's 
PC. JavaScript is a Web language that can issue commands such as telling 
the browser to open up other windows or to prompt a service to change a 
password, for example.

"Mocha" is one of those special commands that can be run from Web-enhanced 
e-mail--typing "mocha:" into the location bar of the Netscape browser will 
open up a screen with a display area and a text box underneath, in which 
commands can be entered.

A malicious hacker could, for example, use the command line to run a 
program to change a person's password without their knowledge.

To prevent such attacks on its customers, Yahoo searches and automatically 
replaces key terms--a step that is not disclosed to users and that goes 
beyond what other companies are doing.

While acknowledging that it searches and replaces certain words, a Yahoo 
representative would not say when it started the practice.

For example, Yahoo's filter changes the term "eval"--a JavaScript command 
used to evaluate a string of code--to "review." So an HTML message sent to 
a business acquaintance with the word "evaluate" would change to the 
curiously formed "reviewuate."

"Medieval" also is tweaked to become "Medireview." Although the new word is 
not found in Merriam-Webster's dictionary, it results in 1,150 related 
matches when typed into the Google search engine--an indication of how many 
e-mails Yahoo has tweaked.

Yahoo's intentions are not to confuse subscribers or play e-mail Big 
Brother, but to protect against potential security risks, the company says.

"To ensure the highest level of security for our users, Yahoo employs 
automated software to protect our users from potential cross-scripting 
violations," said Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako.

Security experts said it is common for Web-based e-mail services such as 
Yahoo and Hotmail to filter JavaScript from HTML e-mail, given that 
malicious hackers can use the code to hack into a person's computer or 
change passwords. But, they say, Yahoo's methods are odd.

Outer limits of filtering?
"This is kind of in the twilight zone," said Richard Smith, a security and 
privacy expert who runs a Web site called ComputerBytesMan.com.

"You don't need to change text of e-mail; you just need to change the 
script tags. That's what everybody else does," Smith said.

MSN's Hotmail, for example, filters out JavaScript commands, or tags, in 
HTML e-mail without changing words, according to an MSN representative.

Many other Web-based services, such as bulletin boards and chat rooms, 
filter out JavaScript commands too.

"If you don't filter JavaScript, then you can have malicious 
JavaScript-coded messages that start messing with somebody's e-mail 
account," Smith noted.

The software that Yahoo uses automatically scans Web-enhanced e-mail and 
replaces terms that can be confused with Web code. For security reasons, 
Yahoo's Osako would not disclose which terms are replaced. But an 
independent test by CNET News.com showed that the terms "eval" and "mocha" 
and "expression" were replaced with "review," "espresso" and "statement," 
respectively.

British newsletter site NTK, which first reported the use of the filter, 
lists other terms that are replaced through Yahoo Mail, including 
"JavaScript" to "java-script" and "livescript" to "live-script."

"Yahoo is always reviewing and updating our filtering and security systems 
as part of our ongoing efforts to continually enhance our service," Osaka 
said.

But as far as Yahoo's filters go, "it just looks like buggy software," 
Smith said.
*********************
New York Times
Recyclers Find Profit in Printer Ink Cartridges
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER

AN increasing number of schools and nonprofit groups are collecting empty 
ink cartridges from computer printers for recycling. But the trend is being 
driven by more than environmental friendliness. There is a surprising 
amount of money in those hunks of plastic, some of which ends up paying for 
things like school computers and famine relief.

What makes the cartridges valuable is strong demand from an emerging 
industry of companies called remanufacturers, many of them started by 
entrepreneurs who spotted a market niche. These companies overhaul and 
refill inkjet and laser cartridges and sell them to consumers at prices 
considerably lower than what printer manufacturers charge for new 
cartridges. By rewarding schools, charities and other groups for sending in 
the empties, the industry has enlisted an army of cartridge hunters.

One of the largest cartridge recycling programs is run by the Funding 
Factory, which says it has signed up 22,000 institutions, most of them 
schools, that send in used cartridges and, more recently, cellphones. The 
Funding Factory provides promotional material for school fund-raising 
campaigns and boxes with prepaid shipping labels that schools can use to 
send the collected materials to the company. Participants can log on to 
www.fundingfactory.com to track a tally of reward points and redeem those 
points for cash or computers and other school supplies.

Participants say they are happy with the program's simplicity and with the 
money it generates. Joy Hogg, technology director at St. Ann School, a 
parochial school in Cadillac, Mich., said she had set up an "inkjet route" 
for picking up cartridges from local banks, the sheriff's office, the 
county courthouse and the parish church. "I don't go through any red tape 
to pay for shipping," she said, "and there is no paperwork for the school." 
The school has acquired 40 headphones worth about $15 each through the 
Funding Factory project.

The simplicity of the program has its price. Funding Factory is a division 
of ERS Imaging Supplies of Erie, Pa., a broker that assembles batches of 
cartridges for sale to remanufacturers (www.ers-imaging .com). Although the 
Funding Factory site does not advertise that option, people who are willing 
to forgo the free boxes and other conveniences of the program can send 
their cartridges directly to ERS and get about twice as much money for 
them. ERS pays about $4 for inkjet cartridges and up to $20 for some laser 
cartridges.

David Steffens, a senior vice president of ERS and head of the Funding 
Factory program, said the difference in the amount paid was partly related 
to the higher cost of running the school program. For example, he said, the 
Funding Factory pays for all shipping and packaging, even though it is 
unable to resell a quarter of the cartridges it receives. But even those 
are recycled, he said.

"We bring in a lot of cartridges that have no market value," Mr. Steffens 
said, "and for the most part we ship them back to the original 
manufacturers" for recycling. The program has given schools about $3 
million in cash and equipment so far and is likely to distribute up to $2 
million more by the end of the year, he said.

Larger groups can get more out of their cartridges by setting up their own 
programs. Food for the Poor, an international relief organization based in 
Deerfield Beach, Fla., developed one by working with M.B. Sales, a 
cartridge broker in Canoga Park, Calif. Businesses or individuals who sign 
up at www.foodforthepoor.org /recycle get postage-paid boxes they can use 
to collect cartridges. The boxes go directly to M.B. Sales, which covers 
all the costs of the program and pays the group up to $22 for laser 
cartridges and $2 to $4 for inkjets, depending on the model.

The program started in April and, after little more than an announcement in 
the group's newsletter, is now bringing in a few thousand dollars a month, 
said Glen Belden, director of corporate and planned giving at Food for the 
Poor. He said he expected a big expansion as several large companies 
started participating.

"You send me four of your laser cartridges, and I've just fed a family of 
five for a year," Mr. Belden said. "It's environmentally conscious, and 
it's a great awareness builder."

The only potential losers in this recycling equation are printer 
manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, which have generally sold printers at 
low prices in hopes of profiting from the sale of pricey replacement 
cartridges. "It's a classic razor-and-blades business model," said Jim 
Forrest, an analyst who follows the imaging industry for Lyra Research.

Cheap blades  or cartridges  could dim the luster of that model. 
Remanufactured and cloned cartridges are now available from many major 
office supply chains. Office Depot's Web site offers a Hewlett-Packard 
inkjet model for $29.99, while a remanufactured version sold under the 
Office Depot name is $21.99. Recycled products and clones now account for 
16 percent of the inkjet market, and that figure is expected to come close 
to doubling by 2006, Mr. Forrest said.

Printer makers have added complex features, like ink-measuring chips, to 
their cartridges in what remanufacturers say is an effort to make their 
work harder. The printer makers argue that the modifications are product 
improvements. They also question the quality of the remanufacturers' 
offerings and the sincerity of their environmental pitches.

Douglas Vaughan, a spokesman for Hewlett-Packard, said that remanufactured 
cartridges gave customers more options and that "choice is good." But he 
added, "At the end of the day, the quality that you're going to get from a 
refilled or remanufactured ink cartridge is extremely low in relation to 
what you'll get from HP." Mr. Vaughan said that his company's ink was 
superior and that the cartridges' print heads and other parts were not 
designed for reuse.

Hewlett-Packard offers its customers a "take-back program" for all of its 
cartridges. The company pays for shipping, but it does not pay for the 
returned cartridges and does not reuse or refill them, Mr. Vaughan said. 
Instead, they are broken down into their component materials, and about 65 
percent of that material can be recycled.

Paying for cartridges might open the company up to antitrust charges from 
the remanufacturers, Mr. Vaughan said. But unlike Hewlett-Packard, the 
remanufacturers cannot guarantee that returned cartridges are going to be 
recycled and not tossed out, he said. "A cartridge does not have an endless 
life," he said. "If a large percentage of them are going to a landfill 
because they are not reusable, that may make me think twice about whether I 
want to contribute to that."

Cartridge remanufacturers dispute those claims about quality and the extent 
of their recycling. Ian Elliott, a senior vice president at Nu-kote 
International, a major remanufacturer based in Bardstown, Ky., said his 
company's remanufactured cartridges were tested in printers and were fully 
guaranteed. He acknowledged that the company had thrown out many cartridges 
that could not be resold, but said it now threw out 10 to 15 percent of 
them and was working hard to reduce that figure to zero. For example, it is 
now working with a company that can grind up unusable cartridges and turn 
them into plastic wheels for garbage cans.

Most people who donate cartridges to recycling programs probably have no 
idea that they are handing over materials that bring significant profit to 
an upstart industry  one that is generally not welcomed by the cartridges' 
original manufacturers. David Wood, who campaigns for waste reduction as 
program director of the GrassRoots Recycling Network, said there was "some 
need for better accountability throughout these emerging recycling sectors 
in terms of what's happening to the materials."

But just about any recycling is good recycling, Mr. Wood said, especially 
when the long-term environmental impact of discarded cartridges is unknown. 
"The more stuff we can divert from landfills, the better," he said.
***************************
New York Times
Albany Chosen as Research Hub for Next-Generation Chips
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

ALBANY, July 17  The world's largest computer chip makers plan to build a 
major center for research and development on the next generation of chips 
here, at the State University of New York, a plan that state officials hope 
will bring thousands of jobs to the Hudson Valley.

State officials and a consortium of the chip manufacturers are to announce 
the $400 million project on Thursday, after almost a year of intensive, 
secret negotiations between the industry and Gov. George E. Pataki's office.

Despite the weak economy and a slumping technology sector, state and 
industry officials, as well as people who follow the industry, say the 
project could draw investments worth several times the cost of the project 
to the region.

The only other such center created by the computer chip consortium, 
International Sematech, was built in the late 1980's in another state 
capital and college town, Austin, Tex. Over the next decade, Austin became 
one of the best places to be in the high-tech world: It experienced 
explosive economic growth, drawing makers of chips, related materials, 
manufacturing tools and software to the region.

"I would expect it to have the same transformational impact on the regional 
economy here," Mr. Pataki said. "I honestly think this could be the most 
important economic development for upstate New York since the Erie Canal."

While such talk may be hyperbole, the announcement could be a political 
boon to Mr. Pataki, a Republican. As he runs this year for a third term, he 
can cite the center to counter his Democratic opponents, who are blaming 
him for the weak state of the upstate economy.

Though the economy in Albany, with its government offices and college 
campuses, has remained strong, and the Hudson Valley has by far the 
healthiest economy in New York State, officials say the center could create 
a multitude of jobs within commuting distance of struggling cities like 
Schenectady and Troy.

Members of the industry consortium include seven United States firms: 
I.B.M., Intel, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, Advanced Micro 
Devices and Agere Systems, until recently a part of Lucent Technologies.

There are also five overseas companies: Royal Philips Electronics, the 
Dutch giant; Infineon Technologies of Germany; STMicroelectronics of 
France; Hynix of Korea; and TSMC of Taiwan. Officials of the consortium 
declined to say much about the deal before the announcement.

American chip makers, with the support of the federal government, created 
Sematech in the 1980's, when they feared that Japan would become the 
dominant force in chip manufacturing. Foreign makers were allowed into the 
consortium in the 1990's. Sematech plays the leading role in developing the 
basic architecture for computer chips. Individual manufacturers still 
compete to improve on that architecture, but the industry standards set by 
Sematech ensure that their products are compatible, even interchangeable.

Sematech also leads in developing the materials and tools needed to produce 
chips, and tests products. Officials say the Albany center's first task 
will be to develop improved methods of chip lithography, the etching of 
minute patterns into chips, particularly with ultraviolet light.

In describing the undertaking, New York officials repeatedly referred to 
the experience of the Austin area, which gained about 100,000 tech-related 
jobs and saw its population double in the decade after Sematech located 
there. Much of that growth, particularly in chip manufacturing, was 
directly related to Sematech's presence, according to economists and 
industry analysts.

"Sematech coming here will make Albany the lead R.&D. hub in the world for 
this industry," said Alain E. Kaloyeros, dean of the School of Nanosciences 
at SUNY Albany.

But several analysts cautioned that while the development was almost 
certain to boost the regional economy, Albany in 2002 is not Austin in 
1988, and there is no guarantee that the effect will be the same.

For starters, the tech sector of the economy is slumping, as is Sematech 
itself; the consortium has been cutting its workforce. Any benefits to the 
industry or to New York from the new center could be delayed until a 
rebound, and analysts are split on whether to expect one soon.

Kenneth Flamm, a professor of economics at the University of Texas in 
Austin who studies the semiconductor industry, said, "Sematech being here 
drew a lot of companies here, because Austin became the logical place to do 
the materials manufacturing. But our growth was due to other factors, as 
well, though it's hard to attribute cause and effect for much of it."

Austin's great advantage, he said, was a a large, first-rate engineering 
school at the University of Texas that supplied a steady stream of 
professors and graduates to high-tech industries. It remains to be seen 
whether SUNY and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in nearby Troy, can be a 
similar source of talent.

The upper Hudson Valley's relatively low cost of living "is very much in 
its favor" in attracting new investment, said Richard A. Shaffer, principal 
of Technologic Partners, which advises venture capitalists on high-tech 
investments.

"To develop that kind of a regional economy like in Austin is a slow 
process that requires a gradual change in outlook among the people, the 
banks that do the lending, everybody," he said.

In its 1987 search for a home for its first center, Sematech considered 
offers from 36 states  New York was one of the finalists  trying to top 
each other in financial sweeteners. In the end, the chip makers contributed 
$125 million and the federal government $100 million. Texas put up $62 
million to buy an existing factory for Sematech to convert and use, and 
made low-interest mortgages available to Sematech employees. But money 
alone did not carry the day  New York had offered $80 million and 
Massachusetts more than $200 million.

This time, the consortium negotiated seriously with only New York and a few 
foreign governments. And while the state will put up $210 million over the 
next five years for the new center  Sematech will supply $193 million  it 
did not agree to give the consortium any tax breaks or loans, a frequent 
element of the state's deals with private industry.

The State Legislature will have to approve the $210 million allocation, but 
representatives of both the Assembly and the Senate said yesterday that 
there was widespread support. Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Assembly 
speaker from Manhattan, is scheduled to appear at the announcement of the 
agreement.

Talks began last summer, when the Semiconductor Industry Association held a 
meeting at Lake George, where the governor addressed the group and met many 
of the industry leaders for the first time. Industry officials and analysts 
said that I.B.M., based in Armonk, N.Y., heavily influenced the decision to 
focus on New York. They also said that the companies were impressed by the 
growing high-tech sector in the Hudson Valley.

As recently as 1995, I.B.M. was considering leaving New York State, but Mr. 
Pataki persuaded the company to stay, in part with a generous package of 
financial incentives. I.B.M. then decided to build a $2.5 billion computer 
chip plant, now nearing completion, in East Fishkill, in Dutchess County. 
It will be the only major chip factory in the state and one of only a 
handful in the world to carve chips from wafers 300 millimeters wide, soon 
to be the new industry standard; this is expected to allow cheaper 
production than the long-used 200-millimeter wafers.

Mr. Pataki and the Legislature have invested more than $100 million in 
making SUNY's Albany campus a center for computer chip research, including 
early work on 300-millimeter wafers, and last year the governor established 
a "center of excellence" in nanotechnology there. The effort has drawn a 
$100 million commitment from I.B.M., as well as a number of grants from the 
federal government and other chip makers.
******************************
USA Today
Delaware student charged with hacking

NEWARK, Del. (AP)  A University of Delaware student broke into the school's 
computer system and gave herself passing grades in three courses, police said.

Darielle Insler, 22, allegedly changed her grades in a math and a science 
class from Fs to As. She also is accused of changing an incomplete grade to 
a passing one in an education class.

According to an affidavit filed by Officer Charles Wilson, Insler called 
human resources employees at the school and requested a new password for 
each instructor, then logged into the system.

Insler also gained access to the system by guessing another teacher's 
password, according to court documents.

Insler is charged with multiple counts of identity theft, criminal 
impersonation, unauthorized access of a computer system and misuse of 
information on a computer system.

She is free on $5,500 bail awaiting trial in Delaware Superior Court.

Insler, a junior from Leonia, N.J., declined to comment Monday.

"The case has not gone to court yet, so I'm not speaking about it," she said.

Bruce Raker, manager of the university's management information service, 
said his office has now installed an e-mail procedure that will notify an 
employees when their password is changed.

However, Raker said human resources should not have changed the password 
over the phone. Cynthia Cummings, associate vice president for campus life, 
said the university's security measures are being reviewed.
*************************
USA Today
HP Fires Two, Suspends 150, for Email Abuse
Wed Jul 17, 1:12 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. has 
suspended approximately 150 staff in Britain and Ireland and dismissed two 
for inappropriate use of company email, the company said on Wednesday. It 
would not say in detail what they did wrong, but the move comes as firms 
are widely cracking down on employees' use of email to distribute 
pornography and tasteless jokes.
The fate of the suspended full-time employees will be determined following 
a company investigation, a spokeswoman said. HP said approximately 60 
permanent employees and 90 contract staff have been suspended.

A majority of the contract employees, many of which were outsourced from 
other companies, have been asked to leave HP offices, the company said.

"HP can confirm that this involves the viewing and sharing of unauthorized 
and inappropriate material," a statement from HP said.

Jim Kent, general manager for HP in the UK and Ireland, said two employees 
in a Scotland office have been dismissed so far. He added that HP considers 
it a company violation, but not a criminal matter.

 *************************
New York Times
A Wireless 911 System Finds Those in Need
By JIM LOUDERBACK

AS an elderly couple drove through southwestern Illinois last fall, their 
car suddenly caught fire. They had no idea where they were, even what 
county they were in, said the local director of 911 services, Norm Forshee. 
Luckily, though, they were in St. Clair County, the first county in the 
nation to install an advanced cellphone-locator system for its emergency 
service. When the couple called 911, dispatchers pinpointed where they 
were, and help arrived a few minutes later.

This is one of the success stories to emerge since last October, when St. 
Clair County and Verizon Wireless introduced the first enhanced 911 system 
for wireless phones. Now any 911 call made in the county by a Verizon 
customer or someone roaming on Verizon's network can be located to within 
about 300 feet, and often even closer.

The system in St. Clair, a partly rural county near St. Louis, is part of a 
nationwide program known as Wireless E911 that is meant to allow emergency 
workers to determine a wireless caller's location. Location detection 
systems are already common for land line calls, but an increasing number of 
911 calls are being placed from cellphones. In St. Clair County, Mr. 
Forshee said, the figure is about half.

The early gains have mostly been in the few areas  just a handful of the 
more than 3,000 counties in the United States  that upgraded their cellular 
networks to locate callers.

Putting the system in place requires an investment not only by carriers to 
make their equipment produce the location data, but also by the local 
governments so that their law enforcement or other rescue personnel can 
make use of it. The early-bird counties achieved their status by upgrading 
equipment and arm-twisting the wireless carriers. It is expected to be 
years before the rest of the country follows suit, but the F.C.C. has set 
December 2005 as a target date for completing the introduction.

A few days after St. Clair County's system began operating, Lake County, 
Ind., completed installation of a similar wireless E911 system. Within a 
month, the system had scored its first big success.

"On Nov. 17, I tried to play golf, and you couldn't see 10 feet in front of 
you," said Scott Musgrove, emergency communications director for the the 
Lake County Sheriff's Office. "But some guy  what he did was so stupid, he 
wouldn't tell us his name  went boating on Lake Michigan and called 911. He 
had no idea where he was." The dispatchers quickly determined his location, 
within about 60 feet as it turned out, and then called the Coast Guard. The 
man was rescued unharmed, Mr. Musgrove said.

York County, Va., has reported similar results since adopting the system in 
April, said Terry Hall, the county's emergency communications manager. 
"During a domestic assault, a lady ran into the backyard of her residence 
and screamed her address into her cellular phone," Mr. Hall said. But the 
woman had just moved, and it was her old address. Using the location 
information, Mr. Hall said, "The dispatcher was able to say `No, I don't 
believe that's where you're at, the tower is showing you at another 
location.' " The police reached her in just a few minutes  instead of 
showing up at the wrong house, four miles away.

York County's system is particularly useful because the county is adjacent 
to Colonial Williamsburg, which draws tourists unfamiliar with local 
geography. In the past, 911 callers who gave their location as Williamsburg 
were often miles away.

Wireless E911 can also help solve crimes. In St. Clair County, two bomb 
threats were phoned in to Collinsville High School using 911. Using phone 
number and location information, Mr. Forshee said, the caller was found and 
prosecuted.

The new technology is also believed to have helped track down Lucas J. 
Helder, a suspect in pipe bombings in five states. As soon as Mr. Helder 
activated his cellphone on May 7, F.B.I. agents figured out that he was 
between two small towns in Nevada and, after a high-speed chase on 
Interstate 80, arrested him. "The F.B.I. won't get into how they did it," 
said Gary Berks, communications officer for the state's Emergency 
Management Division, but as for whether E911 data was used, "it sure seems 
likely."

Introducing E911 technology nationwide will take some time. Cellular 
carriers can choose one of two methods: a network-based approach using 
triangulation to determine the location relative to cellular towers; or a 
handset-based solution using Global Positioning System technology to 
pinpoint the phone itself. Most carriers have chosen the handset solution, 
and the Federal Communications Commission has given them until the end of 
2005 to replace 95 percent of phones on their networks with units that work 
with G.P.S.

Even then, there is no guarantee that when you call 911, the emergency 
response center will be able to receive and translate that location data, 
but the phones are at least available. In Rhode Island, the entire state 
can now locate Sprint and Verizon customers who have G.P.S. phones. But 
because those phones are so new, few customers have them, so most of the 
expensive location technology installed at the 911-dispatch center remains 
idle.

No owner of a phone equipped with G.P.S. has run into a problem in Rhode 
Island. Even in Lake County, Ind., the only notable rescue was that of the 
wayward boater. So is all this technology worth it?

"Absolutely, positively, 199 percent yes," said Mr. Hall of York County. 
"That very first call we answered, everything we've gone through made it 
worthwhile."

What about privacy? A cellphone that continually divulges the user's 
location makes some people queasy. Most of the new G.P.S. phones will let 
owners disable the location feature, except when calling 911  and there is 
a way around that, too.

"If you don't want 911 to find you," said Raymond LaBelle, emergency 
communications manager for the state of Rhode Island, "just don't call us."
***********************
Los Angeles Times
Web Friend or Faux?
Digital 'buddies' are elaborate marketing tools, but their lifelike 
responses in online instant messages can be misleading.
By CHRISTINE FREY
TIMES STAFF WRITER

July 18 2002

When none of her friends is online, 11-year-old Olga Szpiro sends her 
artificial ones an instant message to chat.

"hey ... welcome back!" one replies. "what can i do for u?"

But unlike Olga, these friends don't just socialize. They sell. One markets 
movie tickets. Another talks up a reality television show. A third pushes 
magazine subscriptions.

In a culture inundated with advertising, companies have discovered a new 
way to connect with consumers and make their messages stand out amid the 
din. They are using digital "buddies" to spread word of their products on 
the Internet.

The buddies are software applications also known as "bots." They're 
programmed to make friends and small talk, and they're eerily good at it. 
They take cues from a human acquaintance's questions and answers and search 
databases for conversational fodder. Bot-speak can be formulaic and 
stilted. It can also be witty, provocative and startlingly lifelike.

Buddies are not mere motor-mouths. The more elaborate ones have quirks, 
preferences, yearnings--virtual personalities.

Their presence on the Web represents a powerful new dimension in marketing. 
It's easy to ignore a billboard or flip past a magazine ad, and many TV 
viewers reach for the remote the instant a commercial appears.

Web-based buddies, on the other hand, make a direct, even intimate, 
connection with people. They allow companies to reach potential customers 
one on one, typically in the privacy of their homes. The marketing message 
need not be heavy-handed or obvious: It can be artfully insinuated into 
light badinage between buddies.

At least a dozen companies have deployed bots, using software developed by 
ActiveBuddy Inc., a New York firm. Hooking up with human pals through 
instant message services, they urge people to buy Ford trucks, check out 
the eBay auction site and take in "The Lord of the Rings."

Appearing in Szpiro's personal message list every time she goes online to 
chat with one of her San Fernando Valley classmates, they are indefatigable 
and ever-present.

Most buddies are programmed with personalities that appeal to their target 
audiences. ELLEgirlBuddy, the Internet ego of teen magazine ELLEgirl, is a 
redheaded 16-year-old who likes kickboxing, the color periwinkle and French 
class.

GooglyMinotaur, a buddy for the British progressive rock band Radiohead, 
affected a British demeanor with words like "mate." The Austin Powers 
buddy, which promotes the summer film "Goldmember," interjects the movie 
character's favorite phrases--"yeah, baby" and "grrr"--into conversation.

Some buddies are even programmed to express emotions--sadness, frustration, 
desire. In the year since it debuted, people have told SmarterChild, the 
demo buddy for ActiveBuddy, "I love you" more than 9 million times, the 
company reports. Every time, it's responded: "I love you."

Though most users understand they are communicating with a computer, some 
engage in deep conversation with buddies, talking to them as they would to 
friends. College students look them up late at night. Teenagers consult 
them about fashion faux pas and weight problems.

Such exchanges reveal how technology can assume a lifelike character in 
people's minds, even when it's just an elaborate advertisement.

"People forget in very profound ways that they are talking to nothing," 
said Sherry Turkle, director of MIT's initiative on technology and self.

Talking Back

Computers first chatted in the mid-1960s, when MIT professor Joseph 
Weizenbaum created a software program called Eliza. Designed to converse in 
the manner of a psychotherapist, Eliza asked people questions by rephrasing 
their previous statements. The "patient" typed questions on a keyboard. 
Eliza's answer appeared on the screen moments later.

In a typical exchange, a user said that she was "depressed much of the time."

"I am sorry to hear you are depressed," Eliza replied.

"It's true. I am unhappy," the person typed.

"Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?" Eliza asked.

Some of Eliza's chat partners thought they were communicating with a human 
being. A few even formed emotional bonds with the program. Disturbed by 
these reactions, Weizenbaum lost his enthusiasm for artificial intelligence 
and wrote a book warning of its potential dangers.

The technology has only grown more sophisticated since then.

Today's buddies operate through instant message services such as America 
Online's AIM and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Messenger, which allow people to 
communicate in real time at their keyboards. A buddy can't crash into 
someone's cyberspace; they have to be invited. Users maintain online lists 
of friends and send them instant messages by clicking on their screen 
names. People add digital buddies to their lists after learning of them by 
word of mouth or from Web sites.

When a user clicks on a buddy's screen name, a computer server receives the 
message. By analyzing key words, it interprets what the user is saying and 
formulates an appropriate response.

Typically, a buddy's spiel is tailored to the products or services of its 
sponsoring company. TheSportingNews offered sports scores. TattleTeller 
dished Hollywood gossip. Agent Reuters looks up stock quotes.

Bots can promote causes as well as companies. The Virginia Tobacco 
Settlement Foundation recently launched an anti-smoking buddy that says, 
among other things, "Smoking can really make you sick."

Buddies can also serve as research tools. Rather than scour a Web site for 
a particular fact, a user can send a buddy an instant message--"What is the 
weather in Los Angeles?"--and receive an answer in seconds.

When developers created the software for buddies, they focused on 
delivering information, not making chitchat, said Stephen Klein, 
ActiveBuddy's chief executive. But after launching their demo buddy last 
year, company officials discovered that users engaged it in lengthy chat 
sessions, sometimes submitting more than a hundred messages in one sitting. 
So programmers tweaked the software to improve its chat capabilities.

Buddies don't always understand a user's submission and sometimes ask for 
clarification, but their responses often seem quite human. Tell 
SmarterChild that you are sad, and it replies that "there are plenty of 
things to feel good about ... listen to music, go for a walk, learn 
something new, read a book, be creative." Use vulgar language and it asks 
you to "play nice." Request a kiss and it obliges with three Xs.

The buddy can recite lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" and, with a human 
partner for a straight man, perform Abbott and Costello's famous comedy 
routine, "Who's on First?"

More than 8 million people have added SmarterChild to their personal 
message lists, creating almost a cult following. Hundreds of users have 
posted their conversations with the bot online, including propositions for 
cyber sex and at least one fake suicide attempt.

One fan Web site, Imaddict.com, displays portions of several dozen 
conversations with the buddy.

"So will you go out with me?" one user asked.

"You're human, I'm a machine," the buddy replied. "I don't think that would 
work out."

After reviewing logs of conversations, company officials were surprised by 
the intimacy of some chats. "Some people are very, very close to it," said 
Chris Bray, ActiveBuddy's vice president of application development.

During one chat with SmarterChild, Megan Romigh, 21, of Massena, N.Y., told 
it she was lonely and wanted to be friends. Romigh was kidding. But the 
Columbia University student recalled that she became upset with the buddy 
when it responded: "Maybe, maybe not. You know how it is."

"With a computer, you don't know what's on the other side," Romigh said. 
"You have the emotion, but the computer doesn't."

ActiveBuddy's bots save details about each user--names, birth dates, even 
instances when the person used offensive language. When the buddy recalls 
these facts, it could appear to the user that it is taking a genuine 
interest in him or her.

"We're programmed to respond to certain signals as though in the presence 
of a life form," said MIT's Turkle. "These objects are pushing our buttons."

Almost the Real Thing

ELLEgirlBuddy lives in San Francisco with her mother, father and older 
brother. Her favorite book is "Catcher in the Rye." Her favorite television 
show is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." And her favorite band is No Doubt. When 
she grows up, she wants to design handbags, own a bookstore cafe and work 
overseas as a foreign correspondent.

"i looove making my own clothes," ELLEgirlBuddy says in an instant message. 
"i use gap tees a lot. you just shrink em and add ribbons. insta-chic! i 
like kickboxing (major crush on gabe, my kickboxing instructor! :-*). 
reading... i like 2 curl up with a book and an extra-chocolaty mocha. yum!"

The buddy--launched in mid-February to drive users to the Web site for 
ELLEgirl magazine--responds to questions as a 16-year-old girl would. It 
has programmed answers to questions about ELLEgirlBuddy's family, school 
and aspirations. The bot's personality is so developed that some girls see 
it as a cyber confidant, writing to it about bad haircuts and image problems.

"It's something you wouldn't ask a computer," said Judy Koutsky, senior 
director of ELLEgirl.com. "It's almost like a girlfriend."

Almost.

The buddy provides information on fashion, beauty and horoscopes, often 
including links to features on ELLEgirl.com. While gabbing about lip gloss 
and prom gowns, it interjects occasional promos for the magazine, urging 
girls to click on a link and "give the gift of beauty--give a gift 
subscription to ELLEgirl magazine, get billed for it later!"

Online subscriptions to the magazine were seven times higher in May than 
the month before the launch, in part because of the buddy, Koutsky said.

New Line Cinema released its RingMessenger buddy in November to promote 
"The Lord of the Rings." Besides detailing the movie's plot, it provided 
show times and links to New Line's online store. The buddy was such a 
success that New Line recently introduced an Austin Powers bot to drum up 
interest in this month's opening of "Goldmember."

"It's a completely different type of marketing," said Gordon Paddison, 
senior vice president of worldwide interactive marketing and business 
development for New Line. "You follow people around, and they can share 
[the application] with their friends. It's a very unique tool, and it's 
sexy, and that's what is fun."

The buddies' cute screen names and chatter may confuse some users as to 
their true purpose. Olga Szpiro's father, Joe, said he knew that his 
daughter played with the buddies but didn't know that some of them were 
pushing products.

ActiveBuddy logs all instant message conversations with its buddies. 
Company officials say they use the logs to ensure that the bots answer 
questions appropriately, not for marketing. User names are removed to 
protect identities, the company says.

But it's only a matter of time before such conversations are collected and 
analyzed for marketing purposes, said Paul Saffo, director of the Institute 
for the Future in Menlo Park. "People are interested in trying it now, but 
the tools aren't there yet," he said.

Though instant message services are regulated to some degree by the 
companies that provide them, Saffo said that "people worse than 
advertisers" could create their own buddies, to serve their own aims.

"Where advertisers have started, everyone else is going to go," he said.

The Thinking Computer

People tinkering with bots--researchers and hobbyists as well as 
professional programmers--look to something called the Turing Test to judge 
their success. The test is named for the late Alan Turing, a British 
mathematician who in a 1950 journal article raised the idea that machines 
could think.

Under the Turing Test, a person communicates with a computer and a human 
being, both unseen, and tries to tell from their responses which is which. 
If the tester cannot distinguish man from machine, the computer is judged 
to be intelligent.

Long before ActiveBuddy's buddies had been unleashed on the Web, countless 
bots had been developed at research labs and universities to chat--even 
flirt--with people. For more than a decade, programmers have competed in an 
annual contest to put their bots to the Turing Test.

Their innovations seem certain to make these digital creations even more 
clever and convincing. The technology may become so sophisticated that 
buddies will be able to talk among themselves.

ActiveBuddy is working on a personal buddy capable of responding to instant 
messages for its owner when he or she is not online. Potentially, two 
buddies could schedule meetings or lunch dates without having to bother 
their owners.

After all, unlike people, buddies are always online.

"ELLEgirlBuddy is right smack there next to Susie and Tommy and Johnny," 
said ActiveBuddy's Klein. "[It's] there 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
*********************
Los Angeles Times
Computer-Generated Stamps Are Approved
From Times Wire Reports

Americans will be able to print out sheets of postage stamps on their 
personal computers, using a system approved by the Postal Service. 
Currently, individual stamps can be printed using computer software 
supplied by private vendors. That process was introduced in 1999 and the 
post office said there are 390,000 registered customers now using it.

Stamps.com, based in Santa Monica, is the first company approved to offer 
the service, called NetStamps.
****************************
Los Angeles Times
War, the Mother of Inventions
Billions in new spending for homeland security inspire the retooling of 
devices, from aerial whale drones to cargo snoopers.
By MARK FINEMAN
TIMES STAFF WRITER

-- A year ago, the Navy gave Anthony Mulligan's company a small grant to 
build a cheap aerial drone for whale watching. The idea was to make sure 
marine mammals weren't around during sonar tests.

Then came Sept. 11. And, with the help of an Arizona congressman, Mulligan 
transformed the drone into a potential weapon in the new war on terrorism.

The congressman arranged for Mulligan to testify at a House hearing, where 
he talked about flying entire squadrons of whale-watching drones to spy on 
enemy territory or loading one with a pound of C-4 explosives and ramming 
it, kamikaze-style, into an enemy target. Though the drone had only been 
tested for whale watching off the Hawaiian coast, Mulligan's company won 
the support of key Capitol Hill politicians, a new $500,000 grant to ramp 
up his drone production and the prospect for $5 million more to mass 
produce it.

"I think the Navy is interested in buying tens of thousands of them," 
Mulligan said.

Mulligan's drone is one of hundreds of products being repackaged as 
counter-terrorism devices and pitched to the federal government, makeovers 
inspired by billions of dollars in new defense and homeland security 
spending. Federal agencies have been papered with proposals. More than 
12,500 applications have flooded one little-known agency that specializes 
in funding counter-terrorism research--more than 10 times the usual traffic.

With competition fierce, companies with products in the pipeline and 
political patrons on the Hill have an advantage in lining up federal grants 
and contracts. Mulligan was among a select group invited to showcase its 
products at the House Military Research and Development Subcommittee 
hearing in March. Subcommittee aides said the hearing was designed to bring 
in small, innovative manufacturers who lack the clout and political war 
chests of America's multinational defense contractors.

One executive had artificial blood, not yet approved by the federal 
government, that he said could save lives on the battlefield or in 
terrorist attacks. A cargo inspection machine, previously rejected by 
government agencies as too big, costly and slow, got a second look as an 
anti-terrorism device.

"It's just a market moving to serve a need," said Richard Hollis, another 
hearing participant, who is developing a radiation protection drug for the 
military with technology that originally targeted AIDS and hepatitis. "When 
there is a need, the beauty of our system is that companies will move to 
fill that need."

When Congress throws billions of dollars at a new effort like homeland 
security, the response from America's revenue-seeking marketplace is 
predictable, said John Pike of globalsecurity.org, an independent defense 
policy group in Washington.

"No leap of the imagination is required to guess the result," he said. "For 
Congress, that's like hanging out a sign that says, 'Free money.' "

Mulligan, however, said he's driven by patriotism rather than profit.

"In reality," he said, "if these drones get the bad guys, it would be worth 
the entire company."

From Whales to War

The relatively brief history of Mulligan's counter-terrorism entry is not 
without irony.

The 38-year-old Tucson entrepreneur had scored some early successes in his 
career, making and marketing products for the disabled, then an unusual 
line of dog seat-belts, poop scoopers and chew toys for Kmart.

Mulligan had set up Advanced Ceramics Research with a Defense Department 
grant that he has parlayed into a new generation of earth penetrators and 
fighter jet components. He won millions of dollars in federal military 
contracts.

Then in the fall of 2000, Mulligan recalled, a scientist at the U.S. Naval 
Weapons Center had asked if his company could develop an unmanned craft for 
counter-terrorism--"to fly around a Navy ship and prevent a USS Cole-type 
disaster," Mulligan said, citing the October 2000 terrorist bombing of the 
American warship in Yemen.

But there was no money to fund it.

"Before 9/11, there wasn't that much interest in counter-terrorism, even 
within the military," Mulligan explained. "The earth wasn't shaking for 
terrorism. The earth was shaking for whales."

Meanwhile, the Office of Naval Research "had a very pressing need to locate 
whales and other marine animals before they do their Navy testing," 
Mulligan said, and that's what the drones were designed to do when the Navy 
ordered one last July.

In fact, the first prototype was doing just that--watching for whales off 
Hawaii--the week before Mulligan sat before the House Military Research and 
Development Subcommittee to pitch his modules as unique, affordable and 
disposable weapons in the war on terrorism.

The company's local congressman, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), had introduced 
Mulligan to key staff members of the Armed Services Committee, who then 
secured his slot on the subcommittee's March 12 agenda, Mulligan recalled. 
Federal election records show that Mulligan and other Advanced Ceramics 
employees have given nearly $10,000 to Kolbe's campaign fund in the last 
couple of years.

And when Mulligan unveiled his firstprototype in the packed subcommittee 
hearing room, it was an instant hit.

Mulligan conceded to the subcommittee members that his drones had never 
been tested for combat. At top speed, they lumbered along at 60 
mph--sufficient for whale watching but no match for antiaircraft guns. And 
researchers had never tried to fly them longer than 45 minutes at a time, 
although Mulligan told the committee that his projections indicated that 
the unmanned aircraft is capable of flying up to 30 hours without a 
refueling stop.

"You said you build this drone, this little unmanned aerial vehicle, for 
2,000 bucks?" asked one subcommittee member who was unidentified in the 
hearing transcript.

"Yes," Mulligan replied. "We believe that when we start producing them that 
it'll actually be $2,000 or less."

"Well, we're all pretty hot on this, obviously, the unmanned aerial vehicle 
idea in the wake of the Predator performance and Global Hawk coming on line 
now," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), the subcommittee chairman.

He was referring to the recent successes of CIA-bought drones during the 
U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. Those drones travel long distances 
at twice the speed and altitude and cost several million dollars apiece.

Hunter called Mulligan's drones "transformational," citing their low-cost, 
high-volume battlefield potential.

The hearing, Mulligan said in a recent interview, was "the pinnacle of my 
career."

The Army Aviation Technology Directorate requested a prototype from 
Mulligan to feature at a military drone convention in May in Nashville. And 
that's just the beginning. In a recent interview, Mulligan said the Navy's 
$500,000 grant came through in May to produce a squadron of whale-watching 
drones. He credited Kolbe and Hunter for including $5 million more in the 
defense authorization bill to begin mass producing counter-terrorism drones.

"Now it's up to the Senate," he said.

Battlefield Blood

Another apparent early winner in the post-attack marketplace is Biopure Corp.

Carl Rausch, company co-founder and chief technology officer, cited the 
anthrax poisonings and the Afghanistan war in a recent Capitol Hill appeal 
for federal money to research military uses for Biopure's experimental 
blood substitute, which uses cow blood as its basic ingredient.

The product has been in development since 1984, when AIDS rather than 
terrorism dominated front pages and fears of tainted blood supplies ran 
higher than those of tainted mail.

After 18 years, a $345-million deficit and a recent rash of shareholder 
lawsuits, the company has yet to market its product, Hemopure, according to 
Biopure's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The stockholder suits accuse Biopure of securities fraud and assert that 
the company's failure to apply for a Food and Drug Administration license 
for Hemopure by its own Dec. 31, 2001, deadline drove down its stock price 
and raised questions about the reliability of the company's clinical 
trials. So far the blood substitute has been approved for sale only by the 
government of South Africa.

The company, which has filed to dismiss the lawsuits, said the charges are 
"without merit."

Company officials say that they plan to apply for an FDA license before the 
end of July to sell the product in the U.S. as a blood substitute for 
elective orthopedic surgery.

The quest for artificial blood has confounded centuries of science. For 
decades, the world's largest drug companies have tried to produce a blood 
substitute. The U.S. military has spent more than $100 million on the effort.

But Rausch insists Biopure has found the key, and the company's efforts 
received a big boost after Rausch appeared before Hunter's subcommittee.

Rausch's sponsor at the hearing was Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.), a 
subcommittee member. Spratt was sponsoring a $7-million military research 
grant for Biopure, which has pledged to build a factory to manufacture the 
artificial blood in Spratt's district.

Rausch testified that his company's blood substitute could provide 
lifesaving first aid on battlefields and at terrorism scenes.

Hunter called the product "great-looking stuff," again offering a personal 
endorsement.

"And you could put that, literally, in your combat pack," Hunter said. "And 
you could carry that in the field, and when you get fired up, you get some 
blood loss, your medic or your colleagues there in your fire team or your 
squad can give you some blood. And it doesn't have any of these 
preservation requirements that regular blood has."

"You want to give this [presentation] for me?" Rausch asked Hunter. "It's 
great!"

When asked about the cost, Rausch noted Hemopure's price tag would be from 
$500 to $1,000 a unit--5 to 10 times that of real blood, which is now 
considered far safer, less expensive and more readily available than it was 
in 1984.

The comparison did little to dampen enthusiasm. The subcommittee members 
subsequently signed off on a defense authorization bill that included full 
funding for Biopure's $7-million military trauma study. The House Armed 
Services committee approved the bill in May.

The hearing may also have given a boost to Biopure's efforts to raise new 
capital. Rausch's testimony took place one day after Biopure filed with the 
SEC to sell up to $30 million worth of stock. Company officials say the 
timing was completely coincidental. The company completed its stock sale in 
late April.

Super-Sized Snooper

Before Sept. 11, the federal government had sunk more than $35 million into 
development of the Ancore Cargo Inspector, mostly in the name of the war on 
drugs.

And, for more than a decade, Tsahi Gozani and his team of scientists in 
California's Silicon Valley used the money to design the Superman of drug 
enforcement on the United States' borders: a machine that could instantly 
see anything, inside anything, hidden on board the millions of trucks and 
ships that enter America every year.

But when Ancore unveiled its product in the 1990s, the federal agencies 
that had funded it mainly for narcotics detection flatly rejected it. They 
wouldn't even pay for a testing site for an Ancore prototype.

At $10 million apiece, the inspection machines were too costly. The size of 
a carwash, they took up far more space than most U.S. border crossings and 
seaports could afford. And they were just as slow as the lower-tech 
X-ray-based machines already in use, the agencies said.

What is more, a report by the General Accounting Office, Congress' 
investigative arm, quoted from Defense and Treasury Department findings in 
1998 that the machine also had "detection limitations regarding other 
contraband, such as explosives, nuclear weapons and materials and chemical 
agents."

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) interceded on Ancore's behalf. He said he 
was so impressed with the machine during a 1999 tour of Ancore that he had 
strongly supported a test site in his El Paso district ever since.

The California company has also supported Reyes since 2000, with $3,500 in 
campaign contributions from corporate officers and representatives, federal 
election records show.

Reyes said his Ancore visit convinced him that the machine "has the ability 
to dramatically change the way we enforce our immigration and drug laws and 
facilitate trade and commerce along the border."

Ancore's proponents finally tasted success on Sept. 12, when the Federal 
Aviation Administration agreed to pay up to $23 million to build and 
install a machine at an air cargo facility that has yet to be named.

The contract was in the works before the Sept. 11 attacks, Ancore officials 
said. But after the attacks, Ancore promoted the machine as "the newest 
weapon in our war on terrorism."

And on March 12, the Customs Service finally signed off on a $5-million 
commitment to install the Ancore Cargo Inspector at a border test site. The 
same day, Gozani was among the select group that testified at Hunter's 
subcommittee hearing, in an appearance arranged by Reyes, a subcommittee 
member.

Reyes repeated his endorsement during Gozani's hearing testimony in March.

Subcommittee Chairman Hunter sounded persuaded. He called the machine a 
"magnificent breakthrough." And, whether unaware of the GAO's previous 
findings or undeterred by them, Hunter pledged to support the purchase of 
dozens more of the machines.

"We just want to buy a couple billion dollars worth of these from you," 
Hunter said. "You won't hold that against us, will you?"

"No," Gozani said. "Absolutely not."

In mid-June, the Pentagon, which along with the Customs Service had 
rejected the machine in the late 1990s, committed an additional $5 million 
to install the Ancore test bed, most likely at the original El Paso border 
crossing.

In recent interviews, company officials cited Sept. 11, Reyes' support and 
the hearing for their newfound success.

Earlier approval had been stalled by the federal government's "typical 
reluctance to be the first adopter of new technologies," Gozani said.

"Nine-eleven changed everything," he said.

As for the machine's alleged shortcomings in explosives detection, Ancore 
Chief Operating Officer Patrick Shea said that the initial tests the GAO 
cited were to measure the cargo inspector's drug-detection capability and 
that the machine is being recalibrated to better display the presence of 
nuclear, chemical and conventional weapons as well.

Shea added that, after last year's terrorist attacks, "there was a 
realization that we do have people trying to blow us up. Certainly, customs 
has changed its mind, to the extent that they're now willing to put up 
money for it."
********************
Reuters Internet Report
Powell Cracks Down on E-Mails Mocking Republicans
Wed Jul 17, 5:36 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department on Wednesday announced a 
crackdown on casual in-house e-mails by employees poking fun at the 
conservative Republican lawmakers who approve the department's budget.



"The secretary (Secretary of State Colin Powell ( news - web sites)) has 
made very clear to everybody in this building that gossip, innuendo, 
slander ... are not going to be allowed in this organization," spokesman 
Richard Boucher told a daily briefing.

The State Department hierarchy has reprimanded two State Department 
employees who wrote derogatory e-mails about Benjamin Gilman, the New York 
Republican who chairs the House of Representatives International Relations 
Committee, he said.

According to extracts in the Washington Times on Tuesday, the e-mails 
suggested that Gilman, who is 79 and is planning to retire, would announce 
that he "died back in 1992, but that no one noticed until now" and that he 
had "no brain, like the Scarecrow" in the Wizard of Oz.

Powell brought up the Gilman e-mails at a meeting of senior staff last week 
and told them to spread the message that the State Department has to work 
with Congress, Boucher said.

Because Congress holds the purse strings for government departments, 
secretaries treat senior members with great respect and discourage open 
conflict at lower levels.

"The secretary ... asked everyone to use it as an object lesson for their 
troops. One is to recognize the importance of working with members of 
Congress, and the second is just to have a little common sense about these 
things and not start sending e-mails that don't reflect the kind of 
responsible attitude we're supposed to have toward our jobs and toward the 
people's representatives," Boucher said.

Many conservative Republicans see the State Department as a bastion of 
liberal views about the world because of its contacts with non-Americans 
who do not share their values. Powell, a Republican himself, is often 
portrayed as the lone multilateralist in a unilateralist administration.

The conflict has been particularly intense in recent weeks over the 
procedures for granting visas to Saudi citizens. Fifteen of the 19 
hijackers who attacked the United States on Sept. 11 obtained their visas 
in Saudi Arabia.

Conservatives have accused the State Department of giving Saudi travel 
agents authority to approve U.S. visas and of failing to interview enough 
Saudi applicants. The State Department strongly disputes the allegations.
************************
Reuters Internet Reports
Some Beijing Internet Cafes Reopen After Fire
Wed Jul 17,10:02 PM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A few Beijing Internet cafes have reopened -- minus 
violent video games and smoking -- a month after a cybercafe fire that 
killed 25 people prompted China's capital to shut them all, newspapers said 
Thursday.



Some 30 Internet cafes reopened Wednesday after publicly pledging to refuse 
entry to people under 18, ban smoking and close between midnight and 8:00 
a.m., the official China Daily said.

The cafes also took fire safety measures such as unlocking doors and 
windows, removing barriers that blocked exits and installing fire fighting 
equipment, the Xinhua news agency said.

Gambling, violent video games and noisy behavior were also banned, Xinhua 
said.

City authorities closed some 2,400 Internet cafes last month after the 
city's worst fire in more than 50 years tore through an unlicensed cafe, 
killing 25 people.

Police detained two teenage boys accused of starting the fire because the 
owners would not let them in.

Authorities said some 90 percent of Internet cafes in Beijing were unlicensed.

Beijing had also set up a Web site, telephone hotline and postal address 
for people to report illegal Internet cafes or violations of the new 
measures, Xinhua said.
*************************
BBC
Barcodes get smart

The goods on supermarket shelves are about to get a lot smarter.
The University of Cambridge has just opened a centre dedicated to 
researching smart labelling systems that can hold much more information 
than the humble barcode.

The centre is working on AutoID systems, using tags fitted with radio links 
that can transmit data.

If widely used, the tags could help large companies speed up production 
lines and fine tune their supply chains.

Speed reading

Barcodes have proved enormously useful to almost every business since they 
were first invented more than 25 years ago.

However the big problem with barcodes is that they have to be scanned with 
a reader to find out the information they contain.

By contrast smart tags that can be interrogated by radio can be read from a 
distance vastly speeding up the process of checking for almost anything.

Currently any warehouse wanting to check deliveries has to unload lorries 
and go through pallets of supplies one-by-one.

If all the boxes, cases and pallets were fitted with radio tags, the whole 
truck could be checked in a few moments as each box would report its 
contents automatically.

The technology magazine, Computing, speculates that the radio tags could 
remove the need to have check-out desks at supermarkets, could see the 
arrival of ice-cream that tells your fridge the temperature is too high or 
jars that warn you when they are out of date.

Smart and cheap

The AutoID centre at Cambridge, and its partner institution at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is refining the tag system and the 
language it would use to swap information with reading devices or household 
appliances.

The work of the centre is sponsored by Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, 
Unilever, Tesco and Wal-Mart.

Unilever is already trialling the smart tag system in its supply chain.

The centre is still working on ways to make the technology cheap enough for 
mass use.

The researchers say the chips and gadgets that read them need to cost three 
pence and £65 respectively.

Currently they are a long way off that. The readers that interrogate the 
smart labels currently cost around £1400 and the labels 65p each.

But the researchers believe that once the smart tags are widely used 
economies of scale will rapidly bring the price down.
*************************
Mercury News
Hang on tight More laptops means more are getting swiped
By Doug Bedell
Dallas Morning News

There were times when W. David Lee couldn't get much attention when he 
pitched ideas for ``laptop security.''

No more.

From the corporate boardroom to the lowliest telecommuter, notebook 
computer users are learning that theft of their portables -- and, more 
important, the data on their hard drives -- can be devastating.

``Unfortunately, people are usually driven to it by an experience,'' says 
the CEO of Caveo Technology, maker of an innovative PC-card-based 
anti-theft mechanism.

And the experiences are mounting. In recent years:

An IBM Thinkpad owned by Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs disappeared from a stage 
where he was speaking. What was on it? ``Everything,'' he told reporters. 
Financial statements, secret corporate data, years of e-mail, digitized 
pictures of his grandchildren -- all of it irreplaceable.

A U.K. Ministry of Defense laptop with sensitive fighter pilot research was 
stolen from the luggage rack of a London Heathrow-bound train.

The notebook used for highly classified information about arms 
proliferation vanished from a conference room in the U.S. State 
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Those high-profile cases belie a broader criminal trend. Safeware, an 
insurance firm that sells laptop theft insurance policies, estimates that 
591,000 notebooks were stolen last year, a 53 percent increase over 2000. 
According to the 2002 Computer Security Institute/FBI Computer Crime and 
Security Survey, the theft of laptops led to an average financial loss of 
$89,000 among responding corporations and government agencies.

This year the problem may be getting worse, exacerbated by tightened 
airport security measures put in place after Sept. 11, experts say. As 
travelers are being asked to pull laptops from bags at checkpoints, many 
computers are being lost, forgotten or stolen on the other side of the 
confusion caused by intensified searches.

In response, software and hardware safety accessory makers are churning out 
products designed to protect laptops used for work and leisure. They 
include fingerprint identifiers, motion detectors, lock-and-cable 
mechanisms, data-scrambling techniques and software that stealthily ``calls 
home'' when connected to the Net.

Two of every five laptop thefts occur inside a company's doors, according 
to a recent survey conducted by Kensington Technology Group. Addressing 
this type of theft are an assortment of cable locks, lockdown enclosures 
and docking stations. Retailing for $50 or less, these mechanisms are the 
most affordable solutions, but many can be defeated with a simple bolt-cutter.

Leading manufacturers include Anchor Pad International (www.anchorpad.com), 
Kensington (www.kensington.com), Computer Security Products 
(www.computersecurity.com), PC Guardian (www.

pcguardian.com), Kryptonite (www.kryptonitelock.com) and Targus Group 
International (www.targus.com).

Cable locks are increasingly showing up as standard equipment at conference 
centers and conventions where laptops play important roles for participants.

Modern motion-detection technologies and high-pitched sirens are being 
added to locks, PC cards and safety cables for another layer of protection.

For example, Targus makes a $50 version of its Defcon alarm system that 
attaches to the computer via the security slot and also comes with a cable 
for physical locking.

Another version is integrated into a carrying case ($130). Arming and 
disarming is done by entering a combination or via remote control.

The $59.95 TrackIt (www.trackitcorp.com) uses a transmitter installed in or 
attached to a laptop case to maintain a continuous radio signal with a 
mobile sensor carried by the owner. If the laptop is moved beyond a set 
distance, an alarm sounds and the mobile unit is alerted.

Kensington's SonicLock ($39.95) lets out a squeal when its padlock and 
shackle are disturbed.

And Lee's company, Caveo (www.

caveo.com), has just released the $99 Anti-Theft PC Card, which combines 
motion detection, data encryption and password protection. Not only does it 
sound an alarm when someone is walking off with a notebook, it will also 
immediately lock down the operating system to prevent data loss.

Recent advances in biometric technology have allowed fingerprint 
identification mechanisms to proliferate in security devices. Targus is now 
selling the $120 Defcon Authenticator, a USB-connected thumb pad in lieu of 
an operating system password.

Targus also makes the $199.99 Defcon PC Card Fingerprint Authenticator, 
which is mounted in a laptop's PC card slot and features a retractable 
thumbprint pad.

If a thief absconds with a laptop, a new generation of software can help in 
the recovery. Like the LoJack vehicle recovery systems for stolen cars, 
these products can broadcast the location of a missing computer -- 
providing it is hooked into a dial-up or broadband Internet connection.

Leading products include Computrace (www.computrace.com), Secure PC by 
Lucira Technologies (www.

lucira.com), Stealth Signal (www.

stealthsignal.com) and Cyber Angel from Computer Sentry Software 
(www.sentryinc.com).

Hidden files on the purloined portable turn off the modem sound and 
periodically dial into a security monitoring service run by the software 
companies. Using the data and help from police, recovery rates are as high 
as 90 percent, manufacturers say.

These products, however, require help from police jurisdictions with widely 
disparate policies and procedures. In areas where police give low priority 
to laptop recovery, it may be hard to persuade officials to act on the 
software's information, experts say.

The annual cost of monitoring a single computer ranges from about $50 to $60.

As Internet connectivity has grown, so have the features of these software 
packages. Several will now encrypt data and lock down access in addition to 
locating a stolen laptop by telephone number and Internet address.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
FBI's Trilogy progress slow

During the past year, the FBI bought new desktop computers for its 56 field 
offices, but it will take until 2004 to install the systems, software and 
networks that enable agents to share information and easily search 
databases during investigations, a senior FBI official told senators July 16.

The technology upgrades are part of a $400 million project called Trilogy 
that is designed to bring up-to-date computer capabilities to the FBI. But 
Trilogy's progress is slow.

"Frankly, that's unacceptable," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). "I find 
it impossible to believe that we cannot, for the safety of our nation, 
implement Trilogy any faster."

Schumer said, "The problems with the FBI's technology infrastructure have 
taken on a new urgency" since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Despite new computers, printers and scanners, FBI agents still cannot tap 
into five investigation databases from their desktops, cannot send and 
receive e-mail, and not all have access to the Internet, said Sherry 
Higgins, Trilogy systems adviser.

Trilogy would move the FBI "an enormous step forward," Schumer said. "We 
need it today, not tomorrow. We needed it yesterday." Schumer described FBI 
technology as "dinosaur-era" and "fossil technology."

After floundering for nearly a year, the FBI hired Higgins in March to take 
over Trilogy. She is a former chief information officer and chief 
technology officer at Lucent Technologies. Before that, she held technology 
posts at AT&T

In the four months she has worked for the FBI, Higgins said she has "been 
given a whole lot of reasons why the FBI is where it is" technology-wise, 
"and I have asked not to be given history as excuses."

After the terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered officials 
to speed up Trilogy, but in written testimony presented to a Senate 
Judiciary subcommittee, Higgins said the date for completing "phase two" of 
Trilogy has been moved back from this month to March 2003 "to allow 
additional time to test and deploy a secure, operational system."

Higgins told Schumer that it will take longer to install "the right 
solution" than it would take to install "a solution. Deciding what is right 
takes time." So does recreating documentation for old systems for which 
supporting documentation has been lost, she said.

A computer system that gives FBI agents better access to investigation 
files and other information would help them do their jobs better, but it 
also poses serious danger from a security standpoint, warned Sen. Jeff 
Sessions (R-Ala.).

Sessions, a former U.S. attorney, said, "There are people who would be 
dead, would disappear tomorrow" if information from FBI investigation files 
is made too freely available.

Recalling Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who for years sold intelligence 
information to the Soviets, Sessions warned against providing too much 
access to staff members, clerks and even agents.

Schumer suggested that the FBI work with "an advisory group" made up of 
computer systems experts from private companies to speed up the Trilogy 
project.

"I totally support that, and the director supports it," Higgins said.
************************
Federal Computer Week
Homeland bringing job changes

Presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card asked government executives July 16 
to be flexible and told them that there would be changes in jobs and their 
descriptions when the Homeland Security Department becomes a reality.

Card spoke at an Excellence in Government conference in Washington, D.C., 
where he outlined the changes in government that workers could expect once 
Congress passes legislation creating the proposed agency.

The department is being put together to meet the nation's security needs, 
he said. It will "require some of you to change maybe where you work, maybe 
how you work. It will certainly change some of those people you know in 
government in terms of how they do their jobs," he said. "But understand 
that Sept. 11 invited this change, and it is necessary."

Card said the administration believes it can create a new department that 
will be effective with existing resources allocated to the departments that 
will be pulled under the homeland security umbrella. However, he said the 
Bush administration wants each department to contribute.

"We're going to do it right. We're not going to do it fast. We're not going 
to do it cheap. And we need your help," Card said.

The new department will house about 170,000 workers from other federal 
agencies, but many of the jobs will be transferred from Washington, D.C., 
to locations that need to be secured, including port and border sites.

In the coming months, Card said the administration wants to make sure it 
manages the workforce correctly, uses competitive sourcing and creates a 
technologically advanced department and management that reflects budget and 
fiscal discipline.

"You have to be part of that solution," Card said.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Roster change

Darwin John, the information and communications chief of the Mormon Church, 
has been hired to be the FBI's chief information officer. John, who 
replaces Bob Dies as CIO, helped the Mormon Church set up a FamilySearch 
Web site, which gets up to 8 million hits a day for information from a 
database of 900 million names. The Mormon Church, known formally as the 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a major source for 
genealogical information.

For more information, see "FBI hires CIO from Mormons" [FCW.com, July 10, 2002]

***

Neal Fox has been appointed as assistant commissioner for commercial 
acquisition at the General Services Administration's Federal Supply 
Service, FSS announced July 12.

FSS plays a key role in the acquisition of services and supplies, including 
computer and telecommunications equipment, for the federal government.

A retired Air Force colonel, Fox most recently served at Gunter Air Force 
Base in Alabama as the director of information technology. In that 
position, he was responsible for providing commercial IT products and 
services to Air Force customers worldwide.

At FSS, Fox replaces Carolyn Alston, who retired in December 2001 ["Alston 
retires from FSS," FCW.com, Jan. 2, 2002].

***

The White House has officially presented the Senate with the nomination of 
Frederick Gregory, astronaut and associate administrator for space flight, 
as the next NASA deputy administrator.

Gregory is a veteran space shuttle commander and former Air Force combat 
pilot and currently leads NASA's human space flight endeavors.

If confirmed as deputy administrator, Gregory will serve as the chief 
operating officer for the agency.

***

Scott Charbo has been appointed as director of the Office of Business and 
Program Integration at the Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency, 
the agency announced July 15.

He will be responsible for working with other top FSA officials in 
planning, developing and administering the agency's programs and policies. 
He will also provide leadership in the agencies' e-government initiatives.

Charbo is the former president of mPower3 Inc., a ConAgra Foods company 
that provides information and solutions to the agriculture and food 
production communities.

***

R. James Woolsey, former CIA director, has joined Booz Allen Hamilton as 
vice president, the company announced July 15.

Woolsey will head Booz Allen's Global Strategic Security team, which will 
help companies protect themselves from potential threats and 
vulnerabilities, including direct risks to personnel, information, property 
and equipment as well as indirect risks to business markets and channels, 
supply chains and external infrastructure.

In addition to serving as CIA director, Woolsey has served as ambassador to 
the negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, undersecretary of 
the Navy, general counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and 
delegate at large to the U.S./Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.
*************************
Government Computer News
Public-private team agrees on Windows security benchmark
By William Jackson

A consortium of security experts from government and the private sector 
today released a set of baseline settings for Windows 2000 Professional 
workstations.

The configuration, announced at a press conference in Washington, 
establishes a minimal security benchmark for the operating system that 
should not interfere with operating commonly used services and 
applications, said Clint Kreitner, president of the Center for Internet 
Security. It will not result in a fully secured, locked down system, he said.

CIS hosts the benchmarks and a tool for measuring compliance on its Web 
site at www.cisecurity.org.

Benchmark security settings already have been produced for Windows and 
other products by a number of organizations. What distinguishes this set is 
the breadth of the consensus it represents. It is the product of 
cooperation by dozens of agencies and private organizations, including the 
Defense Information Systems Agency, the General Services Administration, 
Microsoft Corp., the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the 
National Security Agency and SANS Institute.

Work on the baseline settings began in April.

"This is something a year ago I would not have believed possible," Air 
Force CIO John Gilligan said. "It is a post-Sept. 11 phenomenon."

Gilligan said the consortium intended that the benchmarks, and subsequent 
products, would become congressionally mandated standards for government 
systems.

Presidential adviser Richard Clarke, who heads the president's Critical 
Infrastructure Protection Board, said the benchmarks represent a model for 
how security standards should be developed. He said that under the proposed 
Homeland Security Department, the standards-setting process would not be 
turned over to law enforcement, or to the defense and intelligence communities.
**************************
Government Computer News
National strategy for protecting cyberspace due Sept. 11
By William Jackson

The President's Critical Infrastructure Board plans to release its National 
Strategy for Defending Cyberspace Sept. 11 in the Silicon Valley, board 
chairman Richard Clarke said.

The document, which will outline a broad agenda for protecting national and 
global information resources, will be a companion piece to the president's 
National Strategy for Homeland Security, released yesterday.

The strategy is being developed largely from input from the private sector, 
which owns and operates the vast majority of the nation's information 
infrastructure. It will stress the need for cooperation between the public 
and private sectors in establishing standards and best practices for 
securing information, systems and networks.

The strategy is expected to be completed by the end of this month. Clarke 
said the current draft contains 77 recommendations for action in five 
areas. "We'll see how many of those survive," he said.

Areas covered in the strategy are: home users and small businesses;  major 
enterprise networks; economic sectors, such as government, financial 
services and transportation; national and global issues.
**************************
Government Computer News
Marines name Gen. Thomas CIO
By Dawn S. Onley

Brig. Gen. John Thomas, the former Marine Corps deputy director for 
command, control, communications and computers, has been named the 
service's CIO.

Among the major IT systems that Thomas will oversee are the Marine Corps 
Tactical Network and the Marine Air Command and Control System. The 
tactical network collects information from many systems, including 
satellites, and pulls the data into a single network, providing Marine 
commanders with a digital picture of the battlefield.

His appointment comes a year before the Marine Corps will begin switching 
over to the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, a $6.9 billion outsourcing program 
that will combine all Navy and Marine Corps systems into a single voice, 
video and data network managed by contractor Electronic Data Systems Corp.

Thomas, a graduate of Appalachian State University, will replace Brig. Gen. 
Robert Shea. Thomas earned a master's degree in business administration 
from Prairie View A&M University and a master's in national security and 
strategic studies from the Naval War College.

Shea, the former CIO and director of C4 in the Marine Corps, has accepted a 
job as the deputy commander of U.S. Forces in Japan, according to Col. 
Robert G. Baker, chief of the Network Plans and Policy Division.
************************
Government Computer News
GSA taps Rutherford, Fox for leadership positions
By Jason Miller

Stephen Perry, administrator of the General Services Administration, today 
named Boyd Rutherford to be the point man for changes to the Federal Supply 
Service and the Federal Technology Service.

Rutherford becomes the new assistant commissioner for the Performance 
Improvement Office and will remain in his current role as the associate 
administrator for GSA's Office of Enterprise Development.

Rutherford will work on diminishing overlapping tasks that was found 
between GSA's two most successful services. Accenture LLP of Chicago in May 
released a three-month study on FTS and FSS, reporting that some 
consolidation and realignment of services could be helpful, especially in 
sales and marketing.

He also will direct GSA's progress on President Bush's five Management 
Agenda items and the Government Performance and Results Act.

GSA last week also named Neal Fox to be the new assistant commissioner for 
Commercial Acquisition at FSS. He will be responsible for managing 
commercial service and product initiatives under the $16 billion program.

Before coming to GSA, Fox was the director of the Commercial IT Product 
Area Directorate at Gunter Annex-Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., where he 
provided commercial products and services to department customers 
throughout the world.
************************
Washington Times
Congress raps self, agencies for 9/11
Audrey Hudson

     The first congressional report on pre-September 11 intelligence 
failures laid some of the blame at the lawmakers' own feet yesterday, 
saying lack of funding and poor oversight by Congress contributed to a 
"catastrophic" intelligence breakdown.
     "The failure of the intelligence community to provide adequate 
forewarning was affected by resource constraints and a series of 
questionable management decisions related to funding priorities," said the 
report, the first out of Capitol Hill on the intelligence failures since 
terrorists struck the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
     The review was conducted by the House Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security and was made 
public yesterday.
     Among the other causes cited by the review for the pre-September 11 
intelligence-gathering failures by the CIA, FBI and National Security 
Agency, were:
     ?Leaks by the intelligence agencies themselves.
     ?Low priority given to anti-terrorism efforts.
     ?Preference for funding bureaucracy over field work.
     ?Laws against dealing with human rights abusers.
     ?Duplication in congressional oversight authority.
     The bipartisan panel headed by Chairman Saxby Chambliss, Georgia 
Republican, and Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat and ranking member, 
was created in January. The panel first was told to recommend ways to 
improve counterterrorism and homeland security and later was asked to 
investigate intelligence deficiencies.
     The panel found that CIA managers used money intended for field work 
and analysis to enlarge the central bureaucracy. This emphasis on staffing 
at CIA headquarters "hurt the CIA's capabilities prior to 9-11."
     The report also said internal CIA guidelines that limited the 
agency's cooperation with people suspected of human rights violations had a 
"chilling effect on operations." In undemocratic nations, analysts have 
noted, the kind of people who might be useful to the CIA as spies or agents 
are likely to have committed human rights violations.
     "These guidelines are still in place despite congressional direction 
that they be repealed," the report said.
     Additionally, the CIA "chronically lacks" foreign language skills and 
training specific to counterterrorism, where knowledge of such languages as 
Tajik, Pashtun and Arabic is necessary but rare.
     At the FBI, the report said, its mission as a law enforcement agency 
meant that preventing terrorism mattered less and that the agency was 
"culturally incapable of sharing information."
     Counterterrorism did not get enough priority in the competition for 
limited funds at the NSA, the report charged. The agency was "chronically" 
short of linguists.
     Prophetically, the report said, leadership within the intelligence 
community concluded at a high-level meeting on Sept. 11, 1998, that 
"failure to improve operations management, resource allocation, and other 
key issues within the [intelligence community], including making 
substantial and sweeping changes in the way the nation collects, analyzes, 
and produces intelligence, will likely result in a catastrophic systemic 
intelligence failure."
     The panel recommended that Congress create senior staff positions in 
both parties' leadership because "congressional oversight of 
counterterrorism is highly duplicative and inefficient."
     Several leaks from the agencies "have done major damage" to 
intelligence gathering, and the panel recommended prosecuting leakers.
     In a statement, FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood said the 
bureau already had responded to many of the congressional panel's criticisms.
     "A new set of priorities are in place, and since 9/11 the FBI has 
devoted every resource needed to prevent another attack," he said.
     The statement cited an increase in the number of CIA officials 
working with the FBI, a quadrupling of the number of Arabic linguists under 
contract and command changes made by Director Robert S. Mueller III.
     Meanwhile, key House committee leaders completed their work to create 
President Bush's Homeland Security Department and presented their findings 
to a select panel assigned with wrapping the measures into an omnibus bill.
     House Majority Leader Dick Armey is chairman of the Select Committee 
on Homeland Security and plans to send a measure to the full House by 
tomorrow combining the bills from 10 committees that merges 22 federal 
agencies into the new department.
     "When people wonder how Congress can possibly complete such a large 
task in a short amount of time, they forget the strength that can be found 
in our committee system," said Mr. Armey, Texas Republican.
     The House is expected to take up the bill by the middle of next week, 
coinciding with a Senate committee vote on its version.
     Disagreements centered on civil-servant rights and protections, the 
inclusion of the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management, and 
congressional control and oversight.
*************************
Computerworld
War on terror aids IT market

The war on terrorism is fueling a much-needed economic boost of the IT 
market, according to analysts and corporate executives. And slump-weary 
vendors are scrambling for a piece of the action.
Of the $38 billion earmarked for homeland security in the Bush 
administration's fiscal 2003 budget proposal, as much as $6.5 billion could 
be spent on new cybersecurity programs, estimated John Pescatore, an 
analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.

The potential windfall has many traditional IT companies expanding their 
offerings from strictly commercial applications to encompass homeland 
security.

The Bush administration's focus on using the nation's IT brain trust to 
tackle homeland security has attracted a wide range of mainstream IT 
companies, such as American Management Systems Inc., IBM, MicroStrategy 
Inc., Oracle Corp., Symbol Technologies Inc. and Xerox Corp., to name just 
a few. All of these companies, and dozens more, are actively pursuing the 
homeland security market.

"Government has not had a shortage of security-related data and 
information," said Jeff Bedell, chief technology officer at MicroStrategy, 
a business intelligence software vendor in McLean, Va. "Its fundamental 
problem has been in making sense of the data, in drawing links between all 
the disparate sources of the data. Those weaknesses can be directly 
addressed by the strengths of business intelligence software."

Major Players

Last month, IBM Global Services unveiled five technology suites designed 
specifically "to address broader and emerging safety and security issues in 
industry, global commerce and society," said Rusine Mitchell-Sinclair, 
general manager at IBM Global Services' safety and security practice.

At its Institute for Electronic Government in Washington, IBM showcased 
mobile communications network technologies for emergency responders, 
biometric authentication systems, integrated physical and cybermonitoring 
systems, and wearable PCs for emergency first responders.

Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox is working with the FBI to conduct "knowledge 
assessments" to identify where the agency's corporate knowledge exists and 
the best way to communicate and share that data securely, said Jim Joyce, 
president of Xerox Connect.

Xerox has developed several technologies applicable to the broader homeland 
security effort, said Joyce, including data glyphs that can be embedded in 
paper documents as tracking devices and ContentGuard software that lets 
companies track who accesses what information on their Web pages.

Meanwhile, Symbol is providing a bar code reader that the U.S. Department 
of State uses to conduct physical security checks abroad, said Tom Roslak, 
vice president of security at Holtsville, N.Y.-based Symbol. The bar codes 
are strategically placed around facilities. Security guards then scan them 
with a handheld device that verifies that the checks were conducted at the 
proper time and place.

Companies such as Fairfax, Va.-based American Management Systems, known 
best for its systems integration work in the financial services sector, and 
database provider Oracle have gone one step further than most by 
institutionalizing homeland security into their corporate structure. For 
example, AMS established a Homeland Security Lab, where research is being 
conducted in link analysis, identity verification, hazardous materials 
management and other areas.

Likewise, Oracle has added homeland security solutions to the title of 
Steve Perkins, senior vice president of Oracle Public Sector. Perkins said 
the full line of Oracle applications will be positioned to help the 
"Department of Homeland Security consolidate its operations, much like a 
corporate merger, to work more efficiently."
******************************
MSNBC
Hacker mailing list goes corporate
Symantec buys BugTraq for $75 million
By Bob Sullivan

July 17  The most influential e-mail list among computer hackers is going 
corporate. BugTraq, the place where most of the world's most influential 
computer hazards are made public, was purchased Wednesday by Symantec Corp. 
for $75 million cash.
      FOR YEARS, HACKERS have sought publication on Bugtraq for prestige 
and attention  and to dress up their resumes, since BugTraq is the computer 
security world's equivalent of a professional journal.
       Most computer security workers subscribe to the list as an early 
warning system to hear about new flaws, and to learn how to guard systems 
against them.
       Most computer criminals subscribe too, since the list is a constant 
source of new methods for breaking into computers.
       Big-name flaws like Code Red and Nimda were first published on 
Bugtraq, along with thousands of other flaws in Windows, Linux, and Unix 
software.
       "This acquisition will broaden Symantec's leadership in Internet 
security response with the addition of the world's first global threat 
management system, the most complete vulnerability database and 
customizable alert services," said John W. Thompson, Symantec chairman and 
chief executive officer, in a press release.
      The list has been a thorn in the side of software makers, thanks to 
its so-called "full disclosure" policy. Generally, that means publication 
of flaws  and the recipe for exploiting them  even before corporations have 
time to repair the products. Publish all the information, to both hackers 
and security professionals, and at least both are on even footing, the 
thinking goes.
       But the policy has come under fire in recent years, as companies 
like Microsoft claimed it helped cause outbreaks like Code Red. Microsoft 
has argued that detailed descriptions of flaws shouldn't be made public 
until companies involved have time to fix them.
      The list has been a thorn in the side of software makers, thanks to 
its so-called "full disclosure" policy. Generally, that means publication 
of flaws  and the recipe for exploiting them  even before corporations have 
time to repair the products. Publish all the information, to both hackers 
and security professionals, and at least both are on even footing, the 
thinking goes.
       But the policy has come under fire in recent years, as companies 
like Microsoft claimed it helped cause outbreaks like Code Red. Microsoft 
has argued that detailed descriptions of flaws shouldn't be made public 
until companies involved have time to fix them.
************************
Nando Times
Technology leaders tell Hollywood to shoulder piracy burden
Copyright © 2002
Agence France-Presse

 E-mail this story

By MATT BEER, Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO (July 17, 2002 1:34 p.m. EDT) - High-technology and Hollywood 
executives came to an impasse this week over who shoulders the 
responsibility of keeping pirates from stealing digital movies, music and 
other artistic works.
The debate possibly holds the future of the Internet as a key distributor 
of such works, which many believe is the next frontier for the online world.

On Monday, technology executives, including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Dell 
Computer's Michael Dell and Intel's Craig Barrett, said in an open letter 
to entertainment industry executives that they were not about to create 
technology that limits computer users ability to copy and play digital media.

The letter was in response a missive from executives from Disney, News 
Corporation and others, urging curbs on technology that lets users freely 
copy digital movies, music and other content.

The debate was touched off in February, when the technology executives 
urged entertainment executives to cooperate in an effort to create 
standards for the safe distribution of digital works.

"We write to you to urge inter-industry cooperation to ensure that digital 
content can be distributed to consumers efficiently through a variety of 
means."

The letter, addressed to then Vivendi Universal chief Jean-Marie Messier, 
Disney head Michael Eisner, News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch and 
others, vowed to come up with technology that would guard copyrights and 
trademarks for online content. These efforts include encryption and other 
technologies.

In April, the entertainment executives replied, saying they would cooperate 
if the technology industry reign in what's called "peer-to-peer" - or 
P-to-P - practices.

P-to-P allows consumer computers to easily share digital content over the 
Internet. It was the central technology that fueled Napster, the free music 
file swapping web site the courts shut down for allowing users to engage in 
wholesale copyright infringement.

P-to-P has been a sales boost to the ailing computer markets, as consumer 
buy more computers to copy movies and music in a burgeoning illegal 
worldwide file swapping network.

"This practice (P-to-P) harms existing theatrical, home video and 
subscription outlets, and discourages legitimate on-line services which 
cannot sell access to movies, music and other entertainment content that 
are available for free," the entertainment executives wrote.

The technology leaders, however, are not ready to rein in P-to-P practices.

"Peer-to-peer technologies constitute a basic functionality of the 
computing environment today and one that is critical to further advances in 
productivity in our economy," wrote back the tech titans on Monday.

Jennifer Greeson, a spokeswoman for the technology executives, said the 
debate is expected to continue.

"This is going to be a continuing process," she said.
*************************
Nando Times
Study shows spammed e-mail messages seldom get response
Agence France-Presse

PARIS (July 17, 2002 1:31 p.m. EDT) - If you hope to get a good response 
from an emailed question, send it to one individual at a time rather than 
en masse, a study reported in New Scientist says.
The research, by Technion technology institute in Haifa, Israel, gives 
scientific backing to what everyone has suspected for years - the more 
people you copy an email to, the likelier it will be ignored.

The researchers set up a Yahoo! account for a fictitious student called 
Sarah Feldman and wrote an email from her to 240 researchers, students and 
administrative staff, asking whether the school had a biology faculty.

Half of the recipients received the email with only their own address in 
the "To" box.

Nearly two-thirds of these individually-targeted people replied. Almost a 
third of the group sent back a helpful response, often providing useful 
additional information to the fictitious Feldman.

The other recipients received messages that had four other individuals in 
the "cc" box.

Only 16 percent of them sent back a helpful response, and many of the other 
replies were irritable, including "Find the Web page and look it up 
yourself." Half didn't even bother to reply, once they spotted they were 
among a group of people who had been asked the same question.

Lead researcher Gred Barron said a spammed question, however innocent it 
may be, has the same effect as having multiple bystanders at a crime scene: 
individuals feel less obliged to help if many others are present.

"If you're an advertiser trying to get hits on a website, or a secretary 
asking for a volunteer to bring a cake to Monday's meeting, then using an 
automatic email sent to many people might not be the best way to go," he 
told the British weekly.

The study appears in a specialist journal, Computers in Human Behavior. New 
Scientist carries the report in next Saturday's issue.
*************************
News.com
Tech activists protest anti-copying
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 17, 2002, 5:55 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-944668.html

WASHINGTON--Enthusiasts of free software disrupted a Commerce Department 
meeting Wednesday, insisting on their right to debate the entertainment 
industry over anti-copying technologies.
About a dozen vocal tech activists in the audience challenged speakers, 
including Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America 
(MPAA), who equated piracy with theft and applauded digital rights management.

"I'm going to accord you the utmost respect," Valenti said. "I'm going to 
listen to you, but let me finish...The first thing we ought to exhibit is 
good manners."

The activists, mostly from New Yorkers for Fair Use, interrupted Valenti 
with hoots and jeers from the back of the room until the former 
presidential aide offered them the chance to reply.

"I'm going to give you the opportunity to do that out of deference to Jack 
Valenti," said Phillip Bond, Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology. The 
Commerce Department organized the roundtable as a way for about 20 industry 
representatives to discuss plans for wrapping Internet content in encrypted 
layers of anti-copying technology.

Earlier, Jay Sulzberger of LXNY.org managed to sneak up to the end of the 
table, squat next to one of the invited panelists, and be called on during 
the discussion. LXNY.org is a grassroots group in New York City that 
supports free software.

Besides Valenti's MPAA, the groups represented included Walt Disney, the 
Recording Industry Association of America, Microsoft, Intel, News Corp., 
the Home Recording Rights Coalition, and digitalconsumer.org.

Absent from the panel were representatives of the free software community, 
which irked the tech activists so much that they rented a van, left at 1 
a.m. PDT for Washington, D.C., and made their presence known at Wednesday's 
panel. Joining them was hacker-hero Richard Stallman of the Free Software 
Foundation, who was already in town.

Public outcry
After the roundtable was over, a Commerce Department spokeswoman said that 
she could not recall such public outcry during a government roundtable. 
Security guards were called during the meeting, but stayed outside the room.

Probably the loudest activist was Vincenzo, who says he works in the 
environmental movement and uses no other name. After Valenti yielded to 
Vincenzo, the New Yorker denounced the panel as unfairly stacked with big 
corporations.

"That was not planned," Vincenzo said afterward, describing his impromptu 
presentation. "That was in response to some statements that (Valenti) made. 
I was at the boiling point and had to respond. The end user is the true 
stakeholder on this issue, and the end user is not being represented on 
that panel."

After a brief statement, Vincenzo tried to turn the floor over to Stallman, 
but the Commerce Department's Bond vetoed that idea, saying that the rest 
of the audience could submit comments via the Web instead. "We have a 
structure here," Bond said.

The assembled band of free software devotees said later that they believed 
they had won a commitment from the Commerce Department to include a 
representative in a future roundtable. But Bond did not seem to agree. "I'm 
not going to be dictated to," he said.

Valenti predicted the U.S. government would need to intervene in the debate 
over digital content and set security standards. The MPAA has welcomed a 
bill, written by Senate Commerce Chairman Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., that 
restricts technology not adhering to government-approved "standard security 
technologies."

The legendary lobbyist also said that he never "wanted to abolish the VCR" 
but acknowledged he had used vivid language during the debate in Congress 
in the 1980s. In 1982, he told a House committee that "the VCR is to the 
American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is 
to the woman home alone."

"I think the word injunction was mentioned in the lawsuit," replied Bob 
Schwartz, an attorney with the Home Recording Rights Coalition. "In the 
legislative context, the modest royalty fee was $25 to $50" per blank 
videotape.

Preston Padden, the top lobbyist for Walt Disney, joined Valenti in 
endorsing legislation.

"I don't believe we're going to solve the problem until we have the 
transparency and discipline of a government" solution, Padden said.

Elizabeth Frazee, a vice president at AOL Time Warner, agreed. "The content 
industry is going to be looking to the government for help."

Lobbyists for Intel, Microsoft and the Digital Media Association urged 
restraint. A representative of Philips Electronics said, "We're at the cusp 
of a discussion," and a resolution is far away.

Also during the roundtable, the RIAA said that it has begun pressing for 
anti-copying technology in future digital radio standards.
***************************
News.com
Tough talk on Web radio copying
By Declan McCullagh

WASHINGTON--The Recording Industry Association of America said Wednesday 
that it has begun pressing for anti-copying technology in future digital 
radio standards.
Mitch Glazier, the association's top lobbyist, said the RIAA is contacting 
IT and consumer electronics groups to ask them to consider a "broadcast 
flag" for digital music sent through the Internet, satellite or cable.

The RIAA's move seems likely to escalate a bitter war of words between the 
entertainment industry, some hardware makers and open-source aficionados. 
On Monday, CEOs of some of the largest tech companies including Intel, IBM 
and Microsoft in a letter to their counterparts in Hollywood stressed a 
"market-based approach to standards-setting" instead of new government 
regulations.



Glazier mentioned the new initiative during a roundtable discussion hosted 
by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Wednesday afternoon and elaborated on 
it during an interview afterward. "The device would say this is broadcast 
material not meant for redistribution," he said.

The idea is straightforward: Future hardware and software would treat music 
differently if it were designated as broadcast-only, preventing users from 
saving it or uploading it. Currently programs like StreamRipper or 
StreamCatcher can record streaming music distributed through Webcasting.

But because people might not use these new kinds of music receivers if 
given a choice, new federal laws likely would be necessary to compel 
software and hardware manufacturers to abide by the broadcast-only 
designation. Senate Commerce Chairman Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., introduced a 
related bill earlier this year that would restrict technology that does not 
adhere to government-approved "standard security technologies."

Webcasters appeared to be taken aback by Glazier's announcement, saying 
that they had not been contacted.

Rob Reid, chairman of Listen.com, said his company was "one of the 
Webcasters that's not aware of this new initiative."

Reid wondered how big of a problem the recording of Webcasts really was, 
saying that most pirated music he's seen appears to have been ripped from 
CDs instead of intercepted from streaming audio.

Glazier, the RIAA's senior vice president of government relations and a 
former House aide, said the broadcast flag "would basically prevent people 
from using new technologies like StreamCatcher and StreamRipper."

StreamRipper, included with FreeBSD--an open-source version of Unix--is 
free software released under the GNU General Public License. StreamCatcher 
glues a Mac OS X interface onto StreamRipper and, according to 
StreamCatcher, allows people "to download an entire station of music."

Glazier said the conversations with industry standard groups, which he 
declined to name, were preliminary but positive and started a few weeks 
ago. "It's really the same model for what's already been happening on the 
video side," Glazier said.

A standards body called the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group is in the 
process of devising standards for digital television. It's been criticized 
by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and open-source activists for 
limiting the creation and distribution of legal copies of digital TV 
broadcasts.

Cindy Cohn, the EFF's legal director, says that "they're trying to cram 
this idea of a broadcast flag down the throats of the consumer electronics 
devices."

"You'd see that fair use would pretty much go away," Cohn said, referring 
to the RIAA's new initative. "If you get content and it's marked 
broadcast-only, your device won't let you cut and paste or do anything the 
copyright holder doesn't want you to do."
*************************
InfoWorld
U.S. cybersecurity plan set for September release
By Cara Garretson
July 17, 2002 1:41 pm PT

WASHINGTON -- PRESIDENT George W. Bush's plan for protecting the nation's 
electronic networks from terrorist attacks will be released Sept. 19, 
according to a top presidential advisor.

The plan will detail how critical infrastructures in the U.S., such as 
financial trading networks and power grids, will be secured from 
cyberattack, said Richard Clarke, special advisor to the president for 
cyberspace security, who spoke at the Congressional Internet Caucus' 
meeting with European Parliament members here Wednesday. The plan is part 
of Bush's larger national security vision that he outlined Tuesday.

"It was written largely by people outside of the government," Clarke said 
of the plan, so that the administration could leverage the expertise of 
private companies that run these networks. "They have all written their 
chapters."

Instead of attempting to regulate how the private sector should protect 
networks from potential attacks, the Bush administration believes that the 
government should play the role of facilitator. "The role of the federal 
government should be to remove barriers" and to give companies the tools to 
facilitate cooperation between them and the government, Clarke said.

Because the nation has come to rely so heavily on the Internet and other 
electronic networks, preparing to defend them against hackers and 
terrorists has become paramount, Clarke said.

"There will probably be a series of major cyberattacks in the 21st 
century," the advisor said. "It would be nice this time to be prepared."

The nation must learn from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 not to assume 
that just because an assault of a certain size or magnitude hasn't happened 
in the past means it won't happen in the future, Clarke said. "We have to 
realize we do have vulnerabilities and deal with them now. That's why 
President Bush wants a national plan."

International coordination is also required to protect networks from 
intruders, since the Internet is a global network, Clarke added.

"We cannot secure the global Internet ... unless we work together," he 
said. Specifically, the Bush administration will call upon other countries 
to make available national cybersecurity contacts, Clarke said.

Such coordinated preparation can only help other nations, he said. "Every 
country that runs a sophisticated economy today is increasingly reliant on 
networked systems," Clarke said.
*************************

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