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Clips July 1, 2002
- To: "Lillie Coney":;, Gene Spafford <spaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, Jeff Grove <jeff_grove@xxxxxxx>;, goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>;, CSSP <cssp@xxxxxxx>;, glee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, Charlie Oriez <coriez@xxxxxxxxx>;, John White <white@xxxxxxxxxx>;, Andrew Grosso<Agrosso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, computer_security_day@xxxxxxx;, ver@xxxxxxxxx;, lillie.coney@xxxxxxx;, v_gold@xxxxxxx;, harsha@xxxxxxx;, KathrynKL@xxxxxxx;, akuadc@xxxxxxxxxxx;
- Subject: Clips July 1, 2002
- From: Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 14:32:22 -0400
Clips July 1, 2002
ARTILCES
FTC: Disclose Paid Search Listings
Acquisition councils seek input on applying 508
Arab spelling slows inquiries in terror war
U.S. struggles with outdated databases
In-Q-Tel, Investing In Intrigue
E-learning site to debut next month
'Digital Divide' Less Clear
China Threatens Internet Cafe Owners
A Dispute Over Wireless Networks
Web publishers sue over pop-up ads
Real-life hacker writing unreal account
FBI Computer Upgrades Will Not Be an Easy Fix
Computers reach one billion mark
DOD officials push real-time intelligence
Homeland HR plan criticized
FBI gets records management act together
Senate passes bill to create e-government office
***********************
Associated Press
FTC: Disclose Paid Search Listings
Fri Jun 28, 4:34 PM ET
By D. IAN HOPPER, AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Internet search engines that take money from Web sites in
exchange for prominent placement should make that practice clearer to Web
users, federal regulators said Friday.
Many search engine Web sites, including AltaVista, LookSmart and AOL
Search, give preferred placement to paid advertisers. The Federal Trade
Commission said that prime space can confuse Web users who are looking for
the best response to their search, rather than ads for sites that paid up
front.
The commission's decision came in response to a complaint from consumer
advocacy group Commercial Alert, which is backed by activist Ralph Nader (
news - web sites).
Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, said his group is
"defending the advertising-editorial line from the aggressive commercialism
of corporate advertisers."
"When the search engines show that ads are ads, we're hoping consumers will
flee these search engines," Ruskin said.
While the FTC said it doesn't plan to file suit against the search engines,
it will send a letter to each calling for "clearer disclosure of the use of
paid inclusion, including more conspicuous descriptions of paid inclusion
itself."
The FTC said it will send the letter to AltaVista, AOL Time Warner, Direct
Hit Technologies, iWon, LookSmart, Microsoft and Terra Lycos.
Since Internet advertising dollars started becoming scarce two years ago,
sponsored links have become popular among search engines. But they are not
always clearly marked.
For example, a search on AltaVista for "wine" will result in four links at
the top of the results under the heading "Products and Services." In tiny
letters, without an underline that is customarily used in Web links, is the
word "info." If a user clicks "info," AltaVista said the links were
"reviewed by editors" for their relevance. Only later in the disclosure
does AltaVista admit they are paid advertisements.
All of LookSmart's search results are paid links, ranked by how much the
company paid for the listing. But nowhere on the page is there a clear
disclosure that the links were purchased.
An AltaVista spokeswoman said they have not yet received the FTC letter,
and declined to comment on the disclosure of paid links. Neither LookSmart
nor Microsoft immediately returned calls seeking comment.
AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said AOL and Netscape, an AOL property, have
adopted the term "Sponsored Link" to flag paid ads in search results.
Weinstein said the company changed its policy after the complaint. The same
language is used by search engine Google ( news - external web site), which
Ruskin praised in his FTC complaint.
A recent survey by Consumers Union found 60 percent of Internet users
polled had no idea that certain search engines were paid fees to list some
sites more prominently than others.
The FTC said search engine companies should clearly distinguish between
paid and non-paid results. Regulators said there is no determination the
search engines broke the law, and it plans no other action.
**********************
Government Computer News
Acquisition councils seek input on applying 508
By Jason Miller
The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition
Regulatory Council are asking agencies and vendors for comments on how to
be more consistent in implementing the accessibility features mandated by
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998.
The councils yesterday published in the Federal Register an advance notice
of their proposed rule-making. Comments are due by Aug. 26.
When Section 508 took effect a year ago, the councils amended the Federal
Acquisition Regulation to incorporate usability standards developed by the
Access Board. They did not, however, require vendors to certify that their
products meet the standards. Some officials suggest that a clause in the
FAR that better details the requirements of 508 would supply more specific
guidance.
The councils have asked agencies and vendors to comment on:
The need for more guidance and the advantages and disadvantages of an
acquisition clause
Whether the guidance should be a FAR rule, a solicitation provision or a
nonregulatory instruction
The content of the guidance.
To see a copy of the notice, visit
frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-15976-filed.
*************************
San Francisco Chronicle
Security analysts dismiss fears of terrorist hackers
Electricity, water systems hard to damage online
Despite growing government concern that al Qaeda and its allies may try to
use computers to disrupt electrical power grids, transportation systems and
emergency communication networks, many experts on terrorism and computer
security are skeptical about the overall menace of cyber-terrorism.
"The notion that somebody armed with a laptop in Peshawar, Pakistan, could
bring down California's power grid is pretty far-fetched," said Kevin
Terpstra, communications director for the California Department of
Information Technology, an agency responsible for assessing the security of
the state's computer systems.
"There is reason to be concerned about computer security and critical
infrastructure vulnerabilities . . . but the likelihood of this type of an
attack is very small."
Cyber-terrorism has become one of the hottest buzzwords among national
security officials, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks. The subject has
been the topic of numerous legislative hearings in Washington, D.C., and
more than 560 newspaper and magazine articles using the term have been
published in the past year alone.
In January, the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center warned that
information on the Internet about power plants, toxic waste dumps and other
sensitive sites could be used by foreign extremists to launch attacks on
the United States.
And last week, the Business Software Alliance, a trade association,
released an industry survey in which 59 percent of the information
technology specialists polled said they considered a major terrorist
computer attack likely in the next 12 months.
Underscoring the possible danger, several newspapers reported that computer
operators in the Middle East and South Asia had attempted to penetrate
computer systems in Northern California last fall.
However, experts interviewed by The Chronicle said the vast majority of
these computer intruders are trying to steal information -- not shut down
electrical utilities, release water from dams or engage in other dangerous
acts of sabotage.
It is difficult, the experts say, for a hacker to launch an attack on an
infrastructure control system because very few of these systems are
accessible through the Internet.
In March, CIO magazine, a journal for computer system professionals,
published a detailed article on information security that debunked the
cyber- terrorist threat.
The magazine quoted Marcus Kempe, the director of operations for the
Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, as saying a cyber-terrorist intent
on tampering with his utility would have to make three complicated
intrusions to gain access to the necessary control systems.
And he would have to break into a highly secure building in Massachusetts
in order to make them because the system is not connected to the Internet.
This would present a problem for the terrorist who thinks he can sabotage
the utility by using his laptop in Pakistan.
"Could a computer attack get us to a high-consequence event? Probably not,"
Kempe told the magazine.
David Wagner, a computer science professor at UC Berkeley who specializes
in information security, said some utilities do have operations that are
controlled by means of the Internet, "but not all of them and maybe not the
most critical ones."
"There are some crucial vulnerabilities," Wagner said, "but if you want to
rank how serious those vulnerabilities are, they are less serious than what
you can do with explosives and much less serious than what you could do
with chemical or biological agents.
"I used to be concerned about cyber-terrorism, but I think in the past year
I have come to realize that it is not the most serious thing we have to
worry about."
Dorothy Denning, the director of the Georgetown University Institute for
Information Assurance, testified before the House Judicial Committee two
years ago that cyber-terrorism, while worthy of concern, was overrated as a
threat to the American public. Denning told The Chronicle that her opinion
has changed little since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"To get noticed, they would have to do something very dramatic, like flood
a dam or something," she told The Chronicle. "Those kinds of actions are a
lot more difficult to engineer with a computer than they would be with a
bomb -- and whether they would work or not would be a lot less certain."
John Pike, a weapons systems analyst and director of Globalsecurity.org, a
defense policy organization in Washington, D.C., stressed that terrorists
use simple, direct methods for operations because they are less likely to
fail.
He said the Sept. 11 attacks were a perfect example. "You had 20 people get
on four planes to attack two targets," he said. "Only 19 made the flights,
and only three of the planes reached their targets. But the plan succeeded
anyway because it was simple."
He said cyber-attack scenarios are too complex to have much appeal for
terrorist groups. Furthermore, they are likely to fail.
"If you pitch a bad script in Hollywood, the worst that can happen is you
get thrown out of the office," he said with a chuckle. "If I were some guy
from al Qaeda pitching a (complicated and risky) cyber-terrorism plot to
Osama bin Laden, I would be a little nervous about making it out of his
office alive. "
E-mail Bill Wallace at bwallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*************************
USA Today
Arab spelling slows inquiries in terror war
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON As U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies try to
prevent the next terrorist attack, they have a basic problem to solve: how
to spell the enemy's name.
Computerized databases at the FBI, CIA, Immigration and Naturalization
Service and other agencies bulge with lists of suspected terrorists. Some
of the names identify actual terrorists. Others are aliases, misspellings,
alternative spellings or misidentifications of putative bad guys. And
without extensive fieldwork, there is no way to tell them apart.
The confusion over names poses an obstacle for a law enforcement and
intelligence community trying to track obscure terrorist operatives in
scores of countries and thwart the next attack on the United States.
Problems cited publicly by the FBI and privately by CIA and INS officials:
Conflicting methods used by agencies to translate and spell the same name.
Antiquated computer software at some agencies that won't allow searches for
approximate spellings of names.
Common Arabic names such as Muhammed, Sheik, Atef, Atta, al-Haji and
al-Ghamdi.
"I can't tell you how many Mohamed Attas we've run across," said one
intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was referring
to the name of the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"These people generally don't wear 'Hello, My Name Is' nametags."
In the weeks after Sept. 11, Justice and Treasury officials compiled a list
of some two dozen alleged al-Qaeda operatives and financiers. The officials
asked that Secretary of State Colin Powell pass the list on to the Saudi
foreign minister with a request that the bank accounts of the individuals
be frozen.
A State Department official with knowledge of the episode said the list
amounted to a bunch of nicknames, Arabic versions of mobster handles such
as "Vinny the Chin."
There were also several named "Mohammed al-Haji," not a family name but a
term of honor indicating a person has made the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
When the State Department passed on the list, the Saudis greeted the
request with laughter. They said the "names" were of no help in finding
terrorist bank accounts, the official said.
Days after the attack, Waleed al-Shehri, a pilot and son of a Saudi
diplomat, threatened to sue a U.S. network for televising his picture as a
suspect. The FBI had said that a man with the same name was on one of the
hijacked planes.
To illustrate the problem, one CIA official searching a database on Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi found more than 60 different published spellings of
his name confusing when the subject is a known figure, dangerous when he's
an obscure terrorist.
*************************
USA Today
U.S. struggles with outdated databases
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON Since the attacks on Sept. 11, the Bush administration has been
scrambling to increase funding for computer hardware and software to
organize a flood of terrorism-related information.
The FBI's computerized storage and search capability was so woeful that the
bureau went to the Mormon Church for help this year. The Mormons maintain a
database containing millions of names, including alternate spellings, used
by people doing genealogical research on European ancestry.
Government databases with names such as the Modernized Digitized
Intelligence System and Joint Virtual Intelligence Architecture remain far
behind their private sector counterparts.
"It's a 30-year-old, archaic system," one senior intelligence official
said. "You can't find anything in there."
Tracking thousands of obscure individuals from countries not known for
their record keeping is a relatively new challenge for an intelligence
community that came of age counting missile silos and bomber bases in the
Soviet Union.
The CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have been developing
sophisticated computer programs to expand the government's search
capability. The capture of hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda members in
Afghanistan and the arrest and questioning of more than 2,000 terror
suspects around the world has helped authorities develop a "biometric"
database fingerprints, photographs, DNA samples. Biometric data can help
determine an identity more reliably than "biographic" information, such as
names and birthplaces, which can be falsified.
The INS has developed a forensic document lab with a growing body of
information on terrorists, including standardized procedures for
translating and spelling names. Translating names to English from Arabic
can result in a variety of spellings. But these procedures aren't always
used by other U.S. agencies.
The CIA, meanwhile, has developed a "link analysis system" in its
Counter-Terrorism Center that can help investigators determine family
relations among suspected terrorists.
At the FBI, computer systems lag years behind the latest industry standard.
"The CIA is ahead of us," FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate hearing
last week. "One of the deficiencies is, if I put my name in (the FBI
computer) you have to put it in exactly, M-u-e-l-l-e-r, you have to put it
in explicitly. It will not pull up any variations."
A U.S. intelligence official describes how glitches can occur: The National
Security Agency intercepts communications among suspected terrorists that a
"Khalid" will be attending a key meeting. But was that "Khalid" or perhaps
"Khalad"? And given that the name is about as common in the Arab world as
Smith is in the USA, how can intelligence operatives identify the participant?
Adding to the difficulty is the flood of al-Qaeda suspects that U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement must follow.
In the three months before Sept. 11, the CIA forwarded an average of 300
names per month to U.S. agencies watching for terrorist activity. In
September, the number spiked to nearly 1,000. In October, it peaked at
1,400 names. It has leveled off at less than 900 new names per month. And
that's only the names being gathered by the CIA. The FBI, INS and other
agencies have their own lists.
One former national security official questions the focus on individuals.
"Surveillance of the means that terrorists could employ is potentially more
important than surveillance of persons who might be terrorists, and raises
far fewer civil liberties issues," Ashton Carter, a senior Pentagon
official in the Clinton administration who is now at Harvard, told senators
at a recent hearing.
Keeping tabs on all Middle Eastern males in the USA would be excessive,
Carter said.
"But inquiring after all those who take flying lessons but are not
interested in learning to take off or land, who rent crop dusters, or who
seek information on the antibiotic resistance of anthrax strains or the
layout of a nuclear power plant is feasible and extremely useful," Carter said.
The government already is tracking individuals who appear interested in
breaking into sensitive government computer networks. The Pentagon and
other agencies try to lure out potential cyber-terrorists using "honey
pots," Web addresses with titles that might attract plotters by including
references to a senior official's personal files or words that suggest they
might contain classified information. The government can track who logs
onto such sites and pursue their identities.
**************************
Washington Post
In-Q-Tel, Investing In Intrigue
CIA Unit Scours Country For Useful Technologies
By Shannon Henry
Like "Q," the gadget-maker who keeps James Bond perpetually ensconced in
the latest high-tech gear, Gilman Louie is looking for technologies and
ideas to give American spies an edge.
Louie is the founding chief executive of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital unit
of the CIA that -- no kidding -- named itself after the movie character.
The group, created in 1999, has made about a dozen investments in
technologies that could potentially be used in information gathering and
analysis of America's enemies.
It was always a controversial concept -- the U.S. intelligence community
openly investing in pieces of commercial technologies. Why wouldn't it just
buy a technology outright or develop it themselves? But the benefits of
having In-Q-Tel's fingers in a lot of commercial technology pies were
demonstrated after Sept. 11, when In-Q-Tel found itself a go-to group.
Suddenly, it was necessary to scour all parts of the country for
technologies that could be used for counterterrorism and homeland defense.
A vital concept could come as easily from a Las Vegas entrepreneur intent
on catching crooks in casinos as a government researcher toiling away in a
laboratory.
Government agencies came to the organization for technological advice and
expertise. Companies' executives began deluging In-Q-Tel's Rosslyn offices
with business plans -- two to three times the number before the attacks,
about 150 a month.
In no time, In-Q-Tel became a sort of anti-terrorism matchmaker,
introducing those with problems to those with high-tech detective
abilities. Several federal agencies, including the Army, the Navy, the
Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
also are studying whether it is possible to replicate the In-Q-Tel model or
partner with the enterprise in some way, Louie said.
"Everybody is watching and trying to figure out how it will fit into their
culture," Louie said.
In-Q-Tel's development marks a stark departure from the way government
research and development often is conducted, often in secret and distinct
from the commercial sector.
Louie spends half his time in Washington, meeting with politicians,
lobbyists, government administrators, local technologists and financiers.
He spends the other half in Silicon Valley, where he networks with venture
capitalists and tests out ideas for new technologies.
"The fun part is going into [CIA headquarters at] Langley and talking to
national security people and giving them tools to get their jobs done,"
Louie said.
So what is he looking for these days?
Because the organization is part of the CIA, after all, Louie will not get
into specific details of what he is looking for or why. But In-Q-Tel is
focusing much of its energies on tracking terrorists, finding links between
criminals and even guessing what they might do next.
Over all of these efforts is the apparent lack of information sharing and
some crucial lapses in analysis that took place before Sept. 11, when
different parts or offices of the CIA and the FBI were not able to pursue
leads that might have led to the hijackers. Technology, or the lack of it,
in FBI field offices has been cited frequently as an issue in these failures.
Solving such "knowledge management" problems is top on Louie's list,
particularly using technology to see patterns and massive amounts of data.
"How do we make information overload our friend?" he said. "Can you be
predictive?"
He also is looking closely at distributed computing systems -- how networks
can be linked and how people in different places can share information.
Louie said he gets many of his tips for promising technologies from
traditional venture capitalists. "They have my laundry list, and I have
theirs," he said. He found one investment, Attensity, a
natural-language-processing company in Salt Lake City, when a venture
capitalist suggested he take a look.
He compares Attensity's software, which extracts common threads of
information out of documents, to a kind of high-tech sentence diagramer.
In-Q-Tel often will invest in companies like Attensity, which have created
products for the commercial market that might also have government application.
Although it would not say exactly what they were doing with it, In-Q-Tel is
now piloting Attensity's software, which was created to comb through vast
databases to help large corporations understand more quickly what their
customers are telling them. For example, do customer complaints about a
certain toaster suggest design changes, or is a recall warranted? Todd
Wakefield, chief executive of Attensity, compares those customers with
field agents of a government office.
"The intelligence community's issue isn't gathering data, it's analyzing
it," Wakefield said. "Their biggest problem is free-form text."
For Wakefield, In-Q-Tel's attention was a company-saver. A huge commercial
deal that was to be signed Sept. 12 fell through after the attacks. He
thought about getting on the General Services Administration schedule to
sell to the government but figured it would take too long to get
established. In-Q-Tel's interest helps build credibility.
David Gilmour, chief executive of Tacit Knowledge Systems in Palo Alto,
Calif., said it had never occurred to him to market his software to the
government. His customers were huge pharmaceutical and aerospace firms that
wanted their employees, often working in widely dispersed satellite
offices, to share information better by understanding who was working on
what. In-Q-Tel heard about Gilmour and invested $1 million, and is actively
using Tacit technology.
"It translates directly to the problems we read about every day in the
headlines" about the FBI's management problems, Gilmour said. He said so
much important information, such as informal notes, is not easily
searchable online.
And then there was the Las Vegas inventor who created "link analysis" for
casino owners to use to spot illegal activity among gamblers and dealers.
Louie, who talks quickly and excitedly, said: "Casinos want to catch these
guys in real time." And so do spies.
So Systems Research and Development of Las Vegas became one of In-Q-Tel's
investments. SRD claims to be able to show up to 30 degrees of separation
from any person -- a banker in Tucson knows a broker in Dallas who knows a
hotel owner in Miami and so on. "We deliver an investigative clue," said
John Slitz, chief executive of SRD. Company founder and chief scientist
Jeff Jonas says the software in three minutes can find if a person is a
known terrorist or linked to one by entering a name in a database.
About 20 percent of SRD's current business is with the government, and
company officials hope to see it jump to 50 percent in the next year.
In-Q-Tel is building an extensive portfolio, but there are still many
challenges, not the least of which is the shock of the new in the culture
of the CIA. Louie said it was difficult to convince everyone, commercial
and government types alike, that investment in computer infrastructure, not
just spying gadgets, is necessary.
"It's a real funding issue," Louie said. Right now, In-Q-Tel has a $30
million annual budget and 45 employees. But the venture capital model
allows In-Q-Tel to stretch those dollars across many technology bets.
In-Q-Tel judges investments differently from most venture capitalists, who
look toward a company "exit strategy," usually an initial public offering
or a merger. Louie said obviously they want to invest in successful
companies that will not disappear, but candidates more importantly need to
show a technology that works, one that can solve a problem at a government
agency, or even address a problem no one had perceived before. Through
these investments, In-Q-Tel becomes a special customer with a greater
knowledge of how the technology can work for government agencies, and
encourages innovation that might otherwise fade away. Louie said In-Q-Tel
does not ask for exclusivity arrangements because the organization's whole
point is to leverage commercially available technology.
"We are casting a big, high net and we are talking to everybody and
anybody," Louie said. "We can't afford to get it wrong."
**************************
Government Executive
E-learning site to debut next month
By Brian Friel
bfriel@xxxxxxxxxxx
Federal employees will be able to take free courses about sexual
harassment, diversity, ethics and other topics on a new e-learning Web site
that will debut next month, Office of Personnel Management officials said
Thursday.
The new site is an attempt by the Bush administration to use the purchasing
power of the 1.8-million federal employee user base to lower the costs of
training and to reduce redundant training efforts across the federal
government.
Norm Enger, OPM's e-government program director, and Mike Fitzgerald, the
agency's e-training director, said OPM and the Transportation Department's
Administrative Services Center plan to launch the new site on July 23. The
site was going to be called the National Learning Center, but officials
decided Thursday to chnage the name to the Gov On-line Learning Center. The
site will be available at www.golearn.gov when it debuts.
To run the site, the agencies have awarded a contract to GeoLearning, a
West Des Moines, Iowa-based learning management system provider. The
GeoLearning system handles online enrollments, course management and
tracking reports. Courses will be provided by Nashua, N.H.-based SkillSoft,
Naperville, Ill.-based NetG and San Antonio-based Karta Technologies.
The Bush administration's plan to unify training across the government
comes after many federal agencies have spent years developing their own
e-learning programs. The National Security Agency, for example, runs a
program called FasTrac, through which 56 agencies, including the Navy,
Health and Human Services and Labor departments, provide online training to
their employees. The Treasury Department's Franchise Business Activity in
San Antonio, Texas, handles contracting for the NSA program.
While up to 40 courses will be free to federal workers on the new
e-learning portal, OPM and the Transportation Department will start
charging federal agencies for more extensive online training programs
offered by the new site in November.
Enger said agencies will not be required to use the e-learning portal, but
officials say they hope that federal e-learning managers will decide that
they can get the best service and prices through the OPM-Transportation
site. FasTrac administrators say they have lower prices than
Transportation, but that they're willing to work with the
OPM-Transportation officials.
Some e-learning vendors said they don't like the plans for the new site, in
part because it may cost them business in the federal market. "On the
surface, I think it's a good idea," said Matt Adams, public sector vice
president for Saba, a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based competitor of
GeoLearning. "It's just how they have adopted it. It wasn't a full and open
competition. The other question is, what do you do with all the investment
that agencies have already made. Do you throw the baby out with the bathwater?"
OPM and Transportation selected the site's contractors from among companies
that were awarded spots on an existing Transportation contract more than a
year ago. Fitzgerald said companies had the opportunity to compete then.
Companies will also have opportunities in the future to participate in the
contract as the scope of the site expands, Fitzgerald said. "We're not
locked into any one vendor," he said. "With this industry, today's players
are sometimes not tomorrow's players. This doesn't lock anyone out."
Fitzgerald said he has talked with officials from other agencies that have
created similar sites. "We're open to forming partnerships with them," he
said.
OPM officials decided to work with Transportation after its Virtual
University project won accolades from the federal Chief Information
Officers Council and other groups. Transportation officials also
volunteered to help administer the new site.
Over the past few years, the Air Force, Navy and Army have developed their
own extensive online training programs for military personnel and civilian
employees. Veterans Affairs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and the Bureau of Prisons are among other agencies that have
e-learning programs under way.
*************************
Washington Post
'Digital Divide' Less Clear
As Internet Use Spreads, Policy Debated Anew
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
LOS ANGELES -- Researchers mining the data from their survey of 2,000 U.S.
households recently came across an interesting fact about the "digital
divide." There isn't one. Or, at least, the divide that once was clear
seems to be disappearing.
A team from the University of California at Los Angeles found that the gap
between those who have Internet access and those who do not is closing when
measured by the degree of education computer users have attained.
A separate government report showed the gap disappearing between urban and
rural users, and the Pew Research Center said its analysis of Internet use
found that the division is narrowing between whites and African Americans.
The conclusions have prompted a political fight. The Bush administration
has seized upon the findings as a reason to reduce funding for programs
that bring computers to low-income Americans. That has riled advocates for
disadvantaged communities, who say reports that the digital divide has been
closed are premature.
Each side accuses the other of twisting the statistics to support its position.
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and others argue that the studies are
inconsistent. And even if more disadvantaged people have access to
computers now than before, that does not necessarily mean that they have
the skills to use the Internet to do things like find jobs, look up medical
information or find information to help them make financial decisions, she
said.
Last month, Mikulski joined 100 community, labor and professional
organizations -- including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the
AFL-CIO and the National Education Association -- to fight for more funding
to close the digital divide.
The government has proposed to cut two programs from the fiscal year 2003
budget that once called for a total of $110 million in funding: the
Education Department's Community Technology Centers program, which builds
labs for after-school and adult-education use; and the Commerce
Department's Technology Opportunities Program, which helps local groups
install computer networks.
The Bush administration argues the programs no longer are necessary and
that, since Sept. 11, the government has other priorities. Congress is
likely to decide this fall whether to resurrect the projects.
The Commerce Department program, which provided Internet consulting
services, "was created when the Internet was not very understood," Office
of Management and Budget spokeswoman Amy Call said. "It was a foreign land
to most people. Obviously, now there has been a dramatic rise in Internet
familiarity."
Michael F. Gallagher, deputy director of the National Telecommunications
and Information Department, said the administration "recognizes and
appreciates the critical importance that we have Internet connections for
the entire country."
"Where we differ with some people is how we address the issue," he said.
Gallagher said the government prefers to cut taxes and provide more general
education programs so that people can buy and use computers without subsidies.
The national studies from UCLA, the Commerce Department and Pew all report
evidence that the gap between the high-tech "haves" and "have-nots" is
closing in three areas:
? Education. The UCLA study shows that in 2001, about 65 percent of those
who did not graduate from high school used the Internet, compared with 60
percent of high school graduates and 80 percent of those with some college
education. The previous year, 60 percent of those who did not graduate from
high school used the Internet, compared with 54 percent of high school
graduates and 70 percent of those with some college education. The
telephone survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
? Geography. The Commerce study shows that about 54 percent of the total
population had access to the Internet in 2001; in rural areas alone, 53
percent of the population had access. The statistics were taken from the
U.S. Census Bureau surveys and are based on interviews with 57,000
households and have a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points.
? Race. A 1998 Pew study found that 23 percent of blacks and 42 percent of
whites had Internet access. In 2000, the percentage of black adults who
have Internet access grew 13 percentage points, to 36 percent; for whites,
the online population grew 8 percentage points, to 50 percent. Pew surveyed
2,500 adults; the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
But the Benton Foundation, which is part of the coalition trying to save
the government-funded digital divide programs, argues that the government
is interpreting the studies with what it calls "a glass half full"
approach: They are focusing on the gains made by certain groups rather than
the gaps themselves.
Norris Dickard, a senior associate at Benton, said his analysis of the
Commerce data shows that the gap in terms of race, income and education is
widening, not shrinking. Dickard said there is a new digital divide
emerging between those who have access to high-speed Internet and those who
have access only to slower dial-up services, with poor, rural and ethnic
communities particularly at a disadvantage.
"Soon there will be all these exclusively broadband applications out there
that will be really important for the growth of communities," Dickard said,
citing telemedicine, in which doctors remotely diagnose and treat patients,
as an example.
Mark Cooper, director of research for Consumers Union, said assertions the
digital divide is fading are "simply wrong." Cooper said the government's
conclusion was based on looking at numbers about people's computer use in
the wider community when it should be focusing on the availability of
access in the home.
"This is America and we do our business at home. This is not a cafe
society," he said.
If you count computer use at home and at work, fewer than half of those
with annual incomes of $15,000 to $25,000 can get onto the Internet,
compared with about 90 percent of those with annual incomes more than
$75,000, according to the Commerce survey. If you count Internet access
only at home, less than a quarter of those with annual incomes of $15,000
to $25,000 have access, compared with more than 80 percent of those with
incomes more than $75,000 a year.
Only 32 percent of Hispanics and 40 percent of blacks had Internet access
at home in 2001, compared with 60 percent of whites.
Jeffrey Cole, head of the UCLA study, stands by his interpretation that the
most basic divide -- access -- is narrowing by most measures. But he also
believes that a divide remains when it comes to how people use the
Internet. For example, new users on average spend more of their online time
on entertainment, while experienced users spend more time doing things such
as banking and professional work. That, Cole said, suggests that some
minority and low-income families haven't yet developed the skills to use
the Internet as effectively as others.
"There are still significant differences between those who have been online
five years and more and those who just went online," he said.
************************
Associated Press
China Threatens Internet Cafe Owners
Sat Jun 29, 3:09 AM ET
BEIJING (AP) - China has threatened the operators of unlicensed Internet
bars with criminal prosecution as part of a safety crackdown launched after
a fire at an Internet cafe in Beijing killed 25 customers, state media
reported Saturday.
From July 1 to August 31, unlicensed cyber cafes will be shut down and the
owners prosecuted, Xinhua News Agency quoting Ministry of Culture official
Liu Yuzhu as saying. No new Internet bars will be allowed to open during
that period, the report added.
Legal cafes have to reregister by Oct. 1, Liu said, and will have to pass
safety inspections. According to the Ministry of Culture, only 46,000 of
China's 200,000 Internet cafes are registered.
Cyber cafes across the country were ordered closed for safety inspections
after a June 16 fire at an illegal Internet bar in Beijing killed 25
customers and injured 12. The closures coincided with a nationwide
crackdown in which thousands of cafes have been shut over the past year for
failing to install software to track the sites visited by users.
China's communist government tightly controls content on the Internet,
blocking sites considered subversive or obscene.
*************************
New York Times
Grudgingly, Music Labels Sell Their Songs Online
By AMY HARMON
Increasingly desperate to woo customers away from an Internet music piracy
party that shows no signs of abating, several major record labels have
resolved to make more music legally available for less money online even
if it means sacrificing lucrative CD sales.
For the music industry, it is a turning point. For consumers, it means the
advent of new ways to buy music, including the closest approximation so far
of a "celestial jukebox," where they can search for and listen to a vast
range of recorded music at low cost.
Three years after Napster unleashed the first wave of music-trading over
the Internet and a full year after the company was shut down by a court
order the labels are coming to terms with the notion that Internet
file-sharing is reshaping their business, and they must compete with piracy
or risk losing a generation of customers.
The Universal Music Group plans to announce today that it has licensed its
catalog to Listen.com, making Listen.com the first to provide customers
access to the catalogs of all five major labels over the Internet for under
$10 a month. Other services are making individual songs cheaper to get and
easier to burn to CD's legally.
"We could be 100 percent correct morally and legally that it is wrong to
trade copyrighted files, but from a business standpoint it doesn't matter,"
said Larry Kenswil, president of the eLabs division of Universal. "We need
to construct legal alternatives."
A Justice Department investigation into whether the five major recording
companies are trying to control electronic music distribution may have
spurred Universal's agreement with Listen.com, which took 16 months to
negotiate. Two separate groups of music companies control the two leading
online services, MusicNet and Pressplay, but they have stumbled in part
because neither of them has licenses for each others' complete catalogs.
But the chief driver of the music labels' new willingness to take more
risks online is the 5 percent decline in worldwide sales last year and a
continuing slump this year, which they attribute in large part to digital
piracy. As the successors to Napster multiply and file-sharing gains
cultural acceptance, the record labels are beginning to fear that music
will be permanently devalued.
Recorded music "will be used to promote the artist, and the labels will
need to find other sources of revenue," predicted Starling D. Hunter III,
an assistant professor at M.I.T, who studies the impact of technology on
established industries.
It was in part to avoid that from happening that the labels have kept a
tight grip on the legitimate distribution of their music online. They have
also been determined not to cede potential profits to aspiring Internet
distributors as they did to MTV in the early 1980's in establishing a
licensing model that many music executives view as the costliest error in
the industry's history.
As a result, they have been slow to license their catalogs to online
subscription services. They have charged upwards of $2 for an individual
song through their own download services. They have experimented with
copy-protection on CD's, imposed strict limits on recording songs to blank
CD's and almost unanimously declined to license music for transfer to MP3
players.
But now, industry executives are considering the paradox that in order to
control music distribution more tightly in the long term, they may have to
loosen their hold over it in the near term.
"This really represents a turning point in the approach and attitude of the
major music companies toward digital distribution," said Chris C. Gladwin,
chief executive of Full- Audio, which plans to announce today that Warner
Music has agreed to let it sell its songs for CD burning for around 99
cents a download. "They're beginning to see it as a big part of their future."
In the last few weeks, Warner has quietly agreed to allow the MusicNet
subscription service it co-owns with the BMG division of Bertelsmann the
EMI Group and RealNetworks to let customers record the tracks they download
onto CD's. Warner is also selling songs from artists like the Red Hot Chili
Peppers, Brandy and others for 99 cents through a "Digital Singles" pilot
on America Online. Those songs are in MP3 format, which means they can be
copied to portable players or over the Internet.
Universal, the biggest of the labels, said it planned to offer its catalog
for download later this summer at 99 cents a song, or $9.99 an album. And
Sony recently lowered the price of its copy-protected downloads to $1.49
from $1.99. Still, critics argue that the recent steps are too little and
that it may soon be too late for the labels to rescue their position as the
gatekeepers of popular music if they refuse to more aggressively embrace
online distribution.
Selling songs for 99 cents online gives the labels about the same profit
they make per track on a CD, industry executives said. But many believe the
price must drop to 25 cents to persuade customers to pay for music instead
of stealing it. Some executives who run online music services say all of
the labels need to make their catalogs more broadly available, with fewer
security restrictions.
To judge from the online discussion boards at Pressplay, that is what
customers think too.
"All I have to say is the Aimster has a lot more to choose from, and it's
free!" read one recent message, referring to a file-trading network now
known as Madster, where copyrighted music is traded for free.
None of the online services offer a central location where customers can
download any song from any label. The Rhapsody service of Listen.com
enables customers to listen to an unlimited number of songs for $9.95 a
month, but they must be connected to the Internet. With Pressplay and
MusicNet, customers can download songs to a computer, but they can no
longer play them once they stop paying the monthly fee. Pressplay allows
customers to burn 10 songs to a CD each month, but only two songs from the
same artist.
Even when music labels agree to license their catalogs, many songs from
popular artists are not included because the labels cannot come to terms on
how much they should be paid for digital distribution.
With such restrictions, leaders of subscription services say they will
never be able to attract customers who can get online music for free
elsewhere. "Besides, what's Plan B? said Alan McGlade, the chief executive
of MusicNet. "If the legitimate services blow up, everyone is still
stealing from you."
In the utopian view of online music distribution, everyone wins. The
industry will prosper by reselling its catalog just as it did with cassette
tapes and CD's. A broader range of artists will benefit because the labels
will be more inclined to promote albums that may only sell 200,000 copies,
rather than devoting limited shelf space to sure hits. The ability to
easily preview songs online will induce people to try new bands and buy
more music in both digital and physical form. As a result, more people will
listen to more kinds of music in more ways than ever before.
But advocates of such radical change within the labels face the hurdle of
persuading cash-strapped executives whose quarterly goal is to sell more
CD's to put even more of their bottom line at risk.
At 25 cents a song, the labels would make only about 10 cents a download,
said one record executive who declined to be identified and that is
assuming the music publishers agreed to take less than the 8 cents a
reproduction that they are entitled to by law. The labels make about $5
profit on a typical CD sale, which means in order to maintain the same
margins they would have to sell 50 digital downloads for every CD that
someone doesn't buy because they purchased a song online.
Of course, some people who pay for a song online may still buy the CD, and
others who may never have purchased a CD may buy digital downloads. If even
a small fraction of the files traded for free over the Internet each day
were instead purchased for 25 cents, the record industry would stand to
make hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The effect on retail sales referred to in the record industry as
cannibalization is the current preoccupation of many record executives as
they search for the right balance to strike between presenting appealing
alternatives to piracy and risking future profits.
"Everyone tells us to get a new business model but no one has told us what
it is," said Doug Morris, the chairman of Universal. "It would be easy to
say to Chevrolet, `Sell your cars at a lower price, you'll sell more.' But
I'm not sure that means anything. We're not going to price at a point where
we devalue music. That wouldn't be fair either to us or to the artist."
The difference is, no one is giving Chevrolets away around the corner.
Thirty-one million Americans have shared music files on their computers
with others, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. Such
numbers still inspire outrage among record label executives who resent
having to adjust to a situation that seems fundamentally unfair.
"The hardest thing for the music industry to wrap its head around is how do
we compete against free, even though you know intuitively that free isn't
what's supposed to be happening," said Ted Cohen, vice president for new
media at EMI.
But that, increasingly, is what they are trying to do.
"It was self-interest," said Sean Ryan, the chief executive of Listen .com
of what broke the 16-month logjam in his negotiations with Universal. "It
wasn't because they were nice people."
***************************
New York Times
A Dispute Over Wireless Networks
By PETER MEYERS
Time Warner Cable sent some of its New York City cable-modem subscribers
letters last week warning that operating wireless networks and inviting
others to freely share them violated their subscription agreements.
The company's action highlights a potential conflict between a small number
of advocates of free, wireless networking and the broadband providers who
supply their Internet connections.
Fewer than a dozen letters were sent, according to the company, a unit of
AOL Time Warner. The letters cited a clause in the subscription agreement
prohibiting redistribution of the company's Internet connection service.
Barry Rosenblum, president of Time Warner Cable of New York City, said he
had no problem with users who share a wireless network within their own
homes. What the company objected to, he said, were subscribers who used
their networks to provide Internet access at no charge to others outside.
"We're trying to keep people from redistributing the service we sell them,"
Mr. Rosenblum said. "Our concern is when people specifically bolster the
signal to share with others outside."
That is the aim of the so-called free wireless network groups that have
emerged in many large American cities. These groups, including NYCWireless
in New York, encourage individual users to establish, publicize and share
wireless networks.
At the heart of the conflict lies a technology known as Wi-Fi, for wireless
fidelity. Wi-Fi networks use radio signals to broadcast an Internet
connection as far as 300 feet, permitting users with properly equipped
computers to connect to the Internet at high speeds without wires.
Many Wi-Fi networks, intentionally or otherwise, allow passers-by to use
the networks without any password. And there are tools that amplify the
Wi-Fi radio signal, enabling it to be delivered over an even larger area,
like a park.
Many broadband providers fear that every user of a free wireless network is
one less paying customer. "Our goal is just to protect our customer base,"
said Mr. Rosenblum, adding that Time Warner Cable currently had no plans to
extend this enforcement campaign to other areas that it serves.
Mr. Rosenblum acknowledged he had no way of knowing how many of these free
wireless networks were being operated, or how much money, if any, they were
costing the company. Among the sources Time Warner Cable consulted to track
violators were public Web sites that promote the existence of these
networks, including one operated by NYCWireless.
In at least one case a letter was sent to a user who said he had not
actually set up a wireless network. "I don't actually have any wireless
equipment; I've never had any wireless equipment," said Justin Cobb, a
Manhattan resident who had indicated on the NYCWireless Web site that he
was potentiality interested in some of the group's future projects.
Mr. Cobb said he understood Time Warner's need to prevent nonpaying users
but was also "really bothered by the fact I'm being accused of criminal
activity." He said he was considering switching Internet service providers.
For the moment, most publicly available wireless networks are limited to
small areas such as sidewalk cafes and parks, but several groups have
discussed finding ways to create a free wireless "cloud" that would offer
Internet access to larger areas.
More immediately, broadband providers worry about situations in which one
person pays for a broadband connection, then sets up a Wi-Fi network and
shares it with a neighbor. Such an agreement would be illegal under the
terms of Time Warner's current policy.
There are, however, some smaller Internet providers that have promoted
themselves as friendly to free wireless in the hope that the customers
gained will offset potential revenues lost through freeloading.
Arkady Goldinstein, chief executive of Acecape, a digital subscriber line
provider based in New York, said it was "purely a cost-benefit analysis" to
allow his customers to set up free networks. Mr. Goldinstein added that out
of his firm's "several thousand" subscribers he believed "less than a
dozen" have set up free networks.
*************************
Washington Post
Web publishers sue over pop-up ads
NEW YORK (AP) Complaining of parasitical behavior, some of the nation's
largest news publishers are suing Internet advertising company Gator over
software that triggers pop-up ads when surfers visit their Web sites.
"We make all the investment to gather and collect news and set up an
attractive Web site," Terence Ross, an attorney for the publishers, said
Friday. "Gator, without making any equivalent investment, reaps the profits."
The lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va.,
by a group that includes parent companies of The New York Times, USA Today
and USATODAY.com, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well
as the digital arms of Knight Ridder and Conde Nast.
In it, the publishers call Gator "a parasite on the Web that free rides on
the content of others." They seek an injunction and unspecified damages.
Gator, based in Redwood City, Calif., runs an ad network that claims 22
million active users and 400 advertisers.
Internet users get Gator advertising software when they install a separate
product for filling out online forms and remembering passwords.
Gator also comes hitched with free software from other companies, including
games and file-sharing programs.
As users surf the Web, Gator runs in the background and delivers
advertisements on top of what the surfer would normally get at a site.
Though the Gator ads are marked "GAIN" for Gator Advertising and
Information Network many consumers won't know the difference and will
instead blame the site for an unpleasant experience, Ross said.
He acknowledges that some of the publishers, including the Times, do
deliver pop-up ads, but he said their timing, frequency and nature are
typically controlled.
"What if in a story covering the tragic event of Sept. 11, Gator suddenly
popped up an advertising for a flight training school?" Ross said. "That
would be wholly inappropriate."
In some cases, the lawsuit charges, Gator's ads are for services that
compete with the publishers' for example, a Travelocity.com ad appears
while surfing CondeNet's concierge.com. Both provide travel-related services.
In a statement, Gator pledged to vigorously defend the lawsuit. To Gator,
its pop-up windows are no different than what happens when a user runs
instant messaging, e-mail or other programs in separate windows while
surfing a Web site.
"While we understand why these publishers of advertising-supported Web
sites feel threatened by us, we are certain that being a strong and
thriving competitor is not illegal," said Jeff McFadden, the company's
chief executive.
In response to questions via e-mail, McFadden said Gator may file its own
lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that consumers have the right to
decide what is displayed on their computer screens and that Gator's
practices constitute lawful competition.
Responding to the publishers' claims of copyright and trademark
infringements, Gator said its practices do not involve copying of the
publishers' site or using their trademarks.
But Ross said Gator could be held liable because ads block copyrighted
material and hence its presentation and could confuse visitors into
thinking the pitches were authorized by the Web site.
Gator's advertising practices have come under fire before.
Last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau threatened to file a
complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Gator's selling of ads
that block out the ads displayed on other Web sites. Gator responded with a
federal suit against the trade group. Gator ultimately agreed to stop the
practice.
*************************
USA Today
Real-life hacker writing unreal account
NEW YORK (AP) Barred by the terms of his probation from messing with
computers, ex-convict hacker Kevin Mitnick has turned to writing about
them, baring the tricks of his former trade in a forthcoming book.
An advance copy of the book, The Art of Deception, describes more than a
dozen scenarios where tricksters dupe computer network administrators into
divulging passwords, encryption keys and other coveted security details.
But it's all fiction. Or so says Mitnick.
Those seeking Mitnick's version of his lawless escapades will have to wait.
Personal details are carefully expunged from the book, which uses
fictitious names of hackers, victims and companies.
"It's not the Kevin Mitnick story," said Mitnick, 38, of Thousand Oaks,
Calif., who served five years in federal prison for stealing software and
altering data at Motorola, Novell, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and the
University of Southern California.
He was released in January 2000 and is currently on three years' probation.
"This book isn't about my cases, it's creating fiction stories with the
same techniques I've used and others have used," he said.
Mitnick says his message is aimed at computer security professionals, to
help them stop people like him. But he agreed his tricks would also make
good fodder for the dishonest.
"The information can be used for good or bad," he said.
The book's contents, to be released in October, are probably too tame to
interest a malicious hacker, said Bruce Schneier of Counterpane Internet
Security in Cupertino, Calif.
"The bad guys don't need to read this book," Schneier said. "But the good
guys need to know what the criminals are doing."
Mitnick is best known for leading the FBI on a three-year manhunt that
ended in 1995 when agents collared him in an apartment in Raleigh, N.C.
with the help of a top academic security expert.
During the chase, the bespectacled outlaw continued to break into computer
networks. He was considered a cult hero among hackers and a slippery felon
by the federal judge who finally sentenced him.
"We've had a terrible, terrible time with this defendant," U.S. District
Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said during a June 2000 hearing.
In his hacking heyday, Mitnick was described as an overweight, pimpled
young man obsessed with fast food.
He has since undergone an image makeover. He's slimmed down, sports a
stylish haircut and has appeared on television, in the courtroom as an
expert witness and even before Congress.
Mitnick's life still revolves around weekly visits to Larry Hawley, his
federal probation officer, who declined to return calls seeking an
interview. Hawley is said to be keen to read his client's forthcoming book.
"He will be going over it in some detail," said a probation official in Los
Angeles who spoke on condition of anonymity.
To be able to prevent the government from handing the book's earnings to
his victims, Mitnick said he navigated between his probation roadblocks and
the court-imposed restrictions on profiting from tales of his crimes.
"We've been very careful, we have nothing in the book that discusses my
hacking," said Mitnick, who co-authored the book with tech journalist
William Simon.
Terms of Mitnick's three years of probation which ends in January require
that he keep his hands off all computers, software, modems, cell phones and
any devices that would give him access to the Internet. His travel and
employment are also restricted.
Although some of his requests have been denied especially those relating
to travel Mitnick received permission to carry a cell phone, to visit his
book's New York publicist and to type the manuscript on a computer that is
not connected to the Internet.
The probation official said the office hadn't been informed of Mitnick's
plans for a six-city book tour in November, and wasn't sure whether the
ex-convict would be permitted to travel.
The book's veneer of fiction appears quite thin except perhaps where it
veers into boasting. Behind their hokey aliases, the characters sound quite
like the author.
In one anecdote, Mitnick writes of a hacker who downloads a server's
encrypted password file and uses a cracking program to perform a
"brute-force attack." The hacker soon gains the keys to the company network.
In another episode, a rogue caller tricks a company's IT help desk into
believing he's an employee stuck at home in a snowstorm. The swindle ends
with the hacker palming a password.
In another, a con man talks a night watchman through the motions of
creating an account for him on a company computer network. In another, a
smooth-talking caller dupes an employee into downloading a "Trojan horse"
program that gives the hacker remote access to the network.
Several of these fictitious scenarios resemble schemes Mitnick confessed to
when sentenced in 1999, according to court documents provided by the former
assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, Christopher Painter.
The confession, signed by Mitnick, describes how the hacker deceived
operators at dozens of real companies and stole computer source code as
well as services like phone calls and Internet server space using many of
the same ruses.
Painter, now deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property
Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, described Mitnick's tactics as
closer to those of the old-time con man than of a computer scientist.
Since his release from prison, Mitnick has made a living by using his
ill-gotten skills as the basis for magazine articles, speaking engagements
and a recent AM radio talk show in Los Angeles.
Mitnick swears that he'll never hack again but not because prison taught
him anything.
"Prison had nothing to do with my rehabilitation," Mitnick said. "I grew
out of my hacking. Now I'm 38. There are no 38-year-old hackers out there."
**************************
USA Today
ICANN becomes an exclusive club
BUCHAREST, Romania (Reuters) The group that oversees the Internet's name
system voted on Friday to exclude ordinary Web surfers from its board in a
move that critics say allows mainstream interests to tighten their grip on
the online world.
ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
unanimously passed the resolution at its quarterly meeting, clearing one of
the most controversial issues in the development of the four-year-old
organization.
Under a radical new system, the online election of individual Internet
users to the group's executive board has been abolished.
Instead, the 19-member board of directors will be drawn from
representatives of technical, business, government and non-profit
organizations. It will have ultimate say over future policy matters that
govern the fundamental domain name system for the Internet.
ICANN, a non-profit group, oversees the process of doling out domain names
with suffixes such as .com to businesses and individuals.
Its chief executive, Stuart Lynn, said the vote was an important step for
the global body as it would demonstrate to lawmakers that ICANN is
committed to reform. ICANN has also faced criticism that it is overly
influenced by American groups.
Some ICANN members questioned the move. Youn Jung Park, a member of the
non-commercial domain name holders group from South Korea, called the
decision to exclude the Internet community at large an "unsatisfactory
development."
"The Internet is supposed to be about people power," she said,
acknowledging there are problems finding participants to represent an
Internet community that exceeds 425 million active users globally.
ICANN has also suggested a controversial 25-cent tax on all new domain name
registrations to boost funding. Critics have called the new funding and the
abolition of online elections a case of "taxation without representation."
Lynn rejected that criticism, saying individual Net users would be
represented by a number of board member constituencies, including
politicians and community groups.
The board also sought to address a criticism that has dogged ICANN since
its inception in 1998: the perception that American members have a
disproportionate influence.
"This is a California-based company and most of the staff are from the
U.S.,"said German board member Andy Mueller-Maguhn. "I don't think that's
necessarily bad, but I also don't think it represents the cultural
diversity it should."
ICANN, created to assume control of the Internet's domain name system from
the U.S. government, has been accused of favoring U.S. business and
political interests in the past.
Those concerns were re-ignited earlier this month when U.S. lawmakers vowed
to step up supervision of ICANN before it commits to fully turning over the
domain name system to ICANN and its international members.
The board said a reformed ICANN would work to include input from the
lesser-developed Net regions, including Africa and the Middle East.
In a separate vote, ICANN approved the introduction of a 30-day grace
period, giving current domain name owners extra time to renew their domain
name contracts to prevent it falling into the hands of speculators.
A separate measure to introduce a waiting list for coveted domain names is
on track for approval later this summer.
*****************************
New York Times
FBI Computer Upgrades Will Not Be an Easy Fix
By REUTERS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Harold Hendershot joined the FBI two decades ago,
agents used three-by-five index cards to organize their case information.
The U.S. crime fighting agency has since bought computers, Hendershot
reassured a crowd of tech enthusiasts at a trade show in New York recently,
but it's still far from wired.
``The system is broken,'' said Hendershot, chief of the counterintelligence
computer intrusion unit at the National Infrastructure Protection Center, a
division of the FBI charged with protecting U.S. infrastructure.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation remains plagued by a lack of basic
technology the average office worker takes for granted -- the ability to
search text using more than one term or the ability to run even the
7-year-old computer operating system Windows 95.
Indeed, FBI Director Robert Mueller has unveiled plans for a massive
make-over that includes overhauling the way agents share information and
the technology they use to do it. That move comes as critics question
whether the FBI and other agencies missed signs that could have warned
authorities of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.that connect
those agents, the databases that store the information, and the software
used to comb through the data, analysts say the FBI will be better off.
But if the FBI can solve those cultural and technical issues -- it still
files some casework on paper -- it may find out that building a modern-day
information technology network can be just as tricky as busting a terrorist
network.
SOFTWARE NO PANACEA
Observers say the FBI has to be careful not to make the same missteps of
some large corporations undertaking similar overhauls -- relying on
computers to fix problems that have more to do with how the organization
operates than technology.
``More often than not, management doesn't really understand their own
processes and they think of software as a panacea, exactly the same way I
think the government is looking at software as panacea,'' said Josh
Greenbaum, an independent software analyst in Daly City, California.
The increased focus on the FBI's technology comes amid a slump in the
technology sector -- when companies that sell computer systems are
particularly hungry for new business.
The pressure on the FBI to change quickly could cause it to make the kind
of errors in judgement that companies made during the Internet craze of the
1990s, Greenbaum warned.
The state of California learned a hard lesson from its deal with Oracle
Corp. (ORCL.O), the database software maker known for its aggressive sales
tactics, saying in April it spent $41 million more on software licenses
than it should have over six years.
Chocolate bar maker Hershey Foods Corp. (HSY.N) and athletic shoe maker
Nike Inc. (NKE.N) have both in recent years blamed missed earnings and lost
sales on software that had originally been implemented to make them more
efficient and save them money.
SCRAPING OFF THE BARNACLES
The FBI's overhaul includes modifying its usually secretive operations so
that agents share information with each other and with outside groups, such
as the Central Intelligence Agency or President Bush's proposed Homeland
Security Department.
FBI's Mueller testified to Congress that in order to collaborate with each
other and outside agencies, the FBI needs to revamp its database hardware
and software.
This is no small undertaking.
Data that are now kept on tons of paper or stored in old computers running
software programs dating back decades needs to be moved to today's
easy-to-use systems.
At the same time, the FBI has already begun upgrading the computer systems
in its nearly 500 locations around the world, where some of its 27,000
employees work on pre-Windows personal computers that connect on a
low-speed communications network.
``The FBI is a battleship that needs to have its barnacles scraped and its
hull repainted. It has a very significant need for technology refresh,''
said Mike Gibbons, a senior manager at KPMG Consulting who worked at the
FBI for 15 years and headed the computer investigations unit.
``Not even a year ago they still couldn't run Windows 95 on 13,000
computers,'' Gibbons said.
MONEY NO OBJECT?
If resources were the FBI's problem in the past, analysts say they aren't
an issue this year or next year. The FBI's budget for technology has nearly
tripled to $507 million budgeted for this year, according to Federal
Sources, a group in McLean, Virginia that tracks government technology
spending.
For fiscal 2003, the FBI has requested $336 million for spending on
information technology.
The 2002 number includes some emergency funding that the FBI received
following the attacks and other monies earmarked for a three-year
technology upgrade project known as ``Trilogy,'' Federal Sources' Ray
Bjorklund said.
Trilogy is a several hundred million dollar project that would help field
offices communicate with each other and headquarters by upgrading PCs to
machines based on the latest microchips, more powerful server computers,
and faster networks.
In addition to problems of communicating from field offices to the
headquarters, FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley has told Congress that the
current FBI database system can't process searches of more than one term --
something most simple search engines can do.
``The government is definitely lagging the commercial market in using this
technology. It's a different situation then back in the Cold War days when
the government was pushing the latest and greatest technology,'' said Allen
Shay, president of NCR Government Systems Corp.'s Teradata division, a unit
of former AT&T unit NCR Corp. (NCR.N).
Shay said the databases the government needs are similar to those of the
largest corporations, such as Wal-Mart Corp. (WMT.N). The retail giant has
two machines that store more than 100 terabytes, 100 trillion bytes of
information -- enough to fill 200 million books.
Hendershot, who manages a 60-terabyte database for the National
Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) that contains information from
multiple agencies, says the FBI technologists working on the overhaul of
the case information system may use the NIPC system for ideas.
``They're looking at a lot of what we do,'' Hendershot said.
****************************
BBC
Computers reach one billion mark
One billion personal computers have been sold across the world, according
to hi-tech consultancy Gartner Dataquest.
And the number of computers is set to explode in the next few years,
reaching the two billion mark in by 2008.
The greatest growth is expected to be in areas such as China, Latin
America, eastern Europe and India, predicts Gartner.
"With over half the world's population residing in Asia Pacific, we can
expect a significant contribution from this region towards the next billion
PCs sold," said Gartner Dataquest's Ian Bertram.
From chunky to sleek
Computers have come a long way since the launch of the first commercially
successful and widely available PC, the Altair, in 1975.
Click here to tell us about your first PC
Back then, computers were big and chunky, with simple programs like
word-processing.
Today, the PC comes in all shapes and sizes and computing power has
progressed in leaps and bounds.
For many people, they have become a part of everyday life, used to send
e-mail, browse the internet, edit home movies and play games.
"The PC is so versatile and so good at so many things, it's become
something that almost everybody has to have," said Gartner Dataquest's
Martin Reynolds.
Humanising PCs
Nearly half of all the households in western Europe have a PC.
In the UK, a computer can be found in 40% of homes, compared with 13% in 1985.
"Today, humans have to work with computers on the computers' terms,"
explained Intel's Chief Technology Officer, Pat Gelsinger.
"We want to make computers work with humans on their terms. That vision
includes developing PCs that can recognize speech, gestures and video."
************************
Federal Computer Week
DOD officials push real-time intelligence
Getting the right intelligence information to the warfighters who need it
as quickly as possible is the key to transforming the Navy and Marine Corps
and succeeding in the war on terrorism, according to a pair of service leaders.
"The intelligence aspect of this effort has become of the utmost
importance," said Rear Adm. Joseph Krol Jr., assistant deputy chief of
Naval Operations for plans, policy and operations, during a June 28 hearing
of the House of Representatives' Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism. He
added that sharing intelligence among the armed services and with U.S.
allies has exposed "seams" that must be addressed.
Krol said that much of the intelligence being collected in Afghanistan in
caves and from computers there has direct relevance to domestic homeland
security efforts. "There's loads of intelligence that needs to be shared
across the many seams because it has an effect on our homeland."
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Emil Bedard, deputy commandant for plans, policies
and operations, said that real-time intelligence sharing has improved
throughout the course of operations in Afghanistan, but there it could
still be improved.
Bedard said that Operation Enduring Freedom has illustrated the great
"reach-back" capabilities that technology provides. He used the example of
an Afghanistan-based Marine commander receiving terrain, landing zone,
route and the latest enemy situation data from intelligence officials in
Quantico, Va., in less than four hours.
"Having direct feeds, to the intelligence-gathering platform to the people
working the mission, we need to get better at that," he said.
Tools like the Air Force's Predator, a vehicle that uses a TV camera, an
infrared camera and radar for surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting,
have worked well in Afghanistan, but still do not "go down to the units who
need it instantaneously," Bedard said. He added that is partially because
the Marines and other services are still largely working on legacy systems,
which makes the Defense Department's ongoing transformation efforts of the
utmost importance.
"The transformation path we're on is critical," Bedard said. "The
technology and platforms coming are critical."
Krol agreed, and said that includes sharing reconnaissance and other
necessary information with U.S. allies.
"Speed is where we need to concentrate on," he said. "Our in-theater
ability to operate with our allies has been successful, but needs to get
better. We need more plug-and-play situations."
Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.), chairman of the terrorism panel, and ranking
member Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas) both expressed concern about the
military's ability to share information with the intelligence community,
namely the CIA.
Krol said that the Navy receives information collected by spies
"eventually, but we're not 100 percent sure what the source is." He added
that the service works that data into operations when it can, but that
process takes longer than it should due to the unknown source of the
information.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
Homeland HR plan criticized
The part of President Bush's proposal for the new Homeland Security
Department that would create a human resources system with broad authority
to hire, retain and fire employees has drawn the ire of both federal
employees' unions and members of the House and Senate committees studying
the proposal. The blueprint for the new department, which Bush delivered to
Congress June 18, would give the new secretary and the director of the
Office of Personnel Management authority to create "a modern, flexible and
responsive [human resources] program."
"Those are absolutely meaningless words," said Jacque Simon, public policy
director for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).
"They're just code for taking away the entire merit system that's the basic
foundation of the civil service. We're going to do everything we can to
take this part out of this bill."
Not only is the proposal for the human resources program vague, but "when
we ask [the administration] what they want to do, their response is,
'Provide the new secretary with maximum flexibility,' which doesn't really
tell us anything," said Colleen Kelley, national president of the National
Treasury Employees Union. "We would welcome the opportunity to work with
them, but we're not going to sign a blank sheet of paper."
Members of the House Government Reform Committee and the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee also sharply questioned Office of Homeland
Security Director Tom Ridge about the human resources part of the proposal
when he testified at hearings on the new department that both committees
held June 20.
Senate Governmental Affairs member Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) told Ridge that
he was concerned about the need for "enhanced management flexibility" in
the bill.
The workforce challenges that the flexibilities are supposed to address are
not new, and agencies already have the tools to address 90 percent of those
needs, according to the General Accounting Office comptroller general,
Akaka said.
Ridge said that the president believes the new secretary needs managerial
flexibilities to organize the department, reprogram money and transfer people.
Finding intelligence analysts to staff the new department will be a "unique
challenge," however, Ridge added, because the new agency will be competing
for analysts with the FBI and CIA. Filling the analyst ranks may require
hiring retired federal employees and recruiting from the private sector.
"Giving the [new] department the requested flexibilities will only help
this effort," he said.
When Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.) asked during the House committee hearing about
how to handle the interoperability problems with the new department's
information technology, Ridge said that the flexibilities would give the
new secretary the ability to move both the IT systems and the people who
would be using those systems.
"The new Cabinet secretary's got a lot of work to do?to improve the
information flow among and between agencies," he said.
Ridge also said that the proposal doesn't actually mandate a new system but
simply gives the new secretary the authority to use flexibilities for
accountability, performance rewards and salaries that will contribute to
better retention.
AFGE's Simon argued, however, that the proposal clearly states that the
existing terms and conditions of employment including pay that employees
would bring with them would be maintained only for a transitional period of
no more than one year.
"Then the clear implication is they would take away the right to collective
bargaining," she said.
"Nothing this major has happened since the Pendleton Act in 1883," which
established the Civil Service Commission, Simon added. "This proposal is
that sweeping."
Diane Frank contributed to this story.
***
Agility is crucial
Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge testified before the House
Government Reform Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
June 20 that the new Homeland Security Department "must be an agile,
fast-paced and responsive organization that takes advantage of 21st-century
technology and management techniques to meet a 21st-century threat."
According to Ridge, those techniques include:
* Great latitude in redeploying resources, both human and financial, "to
respond to rapidly changing conditions."
* Broad reorganizational authority "to enhance operational effectiveness,
as needed."
* Significant flexibility in hiring processes, compensation systems and
practices, and performance management "to recruit, retain and develop a
motivated, high-performance and accountable workforce."
************************
Government Computer News
FBI gets records management act together
By Patricia Daukantas
The FBI has a new awareness of the importance of records management, the
assistant director for its new Records Management Division says.
Preventing acts of terror takes a different skill set from the bureau's
traditional role of catching lawbreakers after the fact, William Hooton
said last week at the E-Gov conference in Washington. Criminal evidence in
itself is not an official bureau record, he said, but any analysis of the
evidence is a record.
For 90 years the bureau had an efficient paper filing system, mostly
because of longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, Hooton said. Special agents
used whatever filing approach made them comfortable, such as filing
cabinets under their desks.
As long as the agents were solving their cases, bureau officials were
reluctant to force any change, Hooton said. More recently, events combined
to drive changes, from the post-Sept. 11 need to collaborate with other law
enforcement agencies to the last-minute discovery of documents related to
the Timothy McVeigh case, which delayed execution of the convicted Oklahoma
City bomber for several weeks.
"We basically stumbled on some things we didn't know we had," Hooton said.
"Congress went ballistic."
Records management is getting strong support from director Robert S.
Mueller III, Hooton said. The Records Management Division has brought in
1,000 staff members from other divisions and has become the largest
division at Washington headquarters. Hooton said Mueller also has
authorized five new positions at the Senior Executive Service level.
*************************
Government Executive
Senate passes bill to create e-government office
By Maureen Sirhal, CongressDaily
The Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a measure that aims to boost
initiatives to make government information more accessible online.
The measure is co-sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and
Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the chairman and ranking Republican of the
Governmental Affairs Committee, and Montana Republican Conrad Burns. The
bill, S. 803, aims to create a systematic approach to managing technology
in the federal government, both for online services to citizens and in
using technology to enhance business practices.
The legislation would create an office of electronic government under the
White House Office of Management and Budget and authorize $345 million for
the office and its e-government initiatives.
"Today we come a step closer to achieving the important goal of providing
Americans the same 24-7 access to government information and services that
is now available to them from the private sector," Lieberman said in a
statement Thursday.
The proposed e-government office also would act as a clearinghouse for
related matters, such as security and privacy of federal Web sites and
online initiatives. It also would call upon federal entities, such as the
courts, to post certain documents on the Web. And it would establish a fund
for innovative interagency projects, proposing funding of $45 million in
fiscal 2003 and increasing to $150 million by fiscal 2006.
"The e-government bill's guiding philosophy is a simple and practical one,"
Burns said in a statement. "The federal government should take advantage of
the tremendous opportunities offered by information technology to better
serve its constituents. The passing of this bill is a major milestone
toward this goal."
In addition, the measure would provide a statutory foundation for the
federal Chief Information Officers Council, which is composed of various
agency CIOs. The council would serve as the "principal interagency forum"
for improving the management of government technology.
The bill also would lift the sunset provisions of the 2000 Government
Information Security Reform Act, which outlines strategies for protecting
government computer security and incorporates provisions to address privacy
concerns and workforce-development issues.
The Center for Democracy and Technology praised the measure, calling it the
first federal mandate to offer government services via the Internet. The
measure now heads to the House.
**********************
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