Clips August 19, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips August 19, 2002

ARTICLES

Record Labels Sue Internet Providers over Site
NIPC Asks for Help on Cyber Alerts
IBM enlisted for defense role
Pentagon May Get New Intelligence Chief
Web site seeks to create virtual library of Sept. 11 images, communications
EarthLink software banishes pop-ups
FAA pay raise issue lingers
Revising expectations [Homeland Security Department]
News briefs: INS' Ziglar to resign
DOD computer security breached with ease
Defense chief outlines challenges of information age warfare
California county opts-in for tougher privacy law
Defense Contractors Prosper Since 9/11
Afghanistan Look to Rewire Country
Slumping music industry vexed by Net downloads, illegal copying
Electronic Data Can Help Unlock Criminals' Secrets
Teachers Learn High-Tech Skills on Summer Jobs
Judge lets DVR users join lawsuit
Modern pirates bootleg films
Digital copying rules may change
Smile, you're on surveillance camera
New copyright bill causes confusion says NewsClub [Germany]

***************************
Reuters
Record Labels Sue Internet Providers over Site
Sat Aug 17,12:18 PM ET
By Gail Appleson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world's largest record companies sued major 
Internet service and network providers on Friday, alleging their routing 
systems allow users to access the China-based Listen4ever.com Web site and 
unlawfully copy musical recordings.

The copyright infringement suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks a 
court order requiring the defendants to block Internet communications that 
travel through their systems to and from the Listen4ever site. The suit 
says the plaintiffs have not been able to determine who owns the Web site.

Plaintiffs in the suit include such major labels as UMG Recordings, a unit 
of Vivendi Universal , Sony Music Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp ( news 
- web sites) .; The RCA Records Label, a unit of Bertelsmann AG ( news - 
web sites)'s BMG; and Warner Brothers Records, a unit of AOL Time Warner .

Defendants in the suit are AT&T Broadband Corp., a unit of AT&T ; Cable & 
Wireless USA, a unit of Cable & Wireless , Sprint Corp ., Advanced Network 
Services and UUNET Technologies, a unit of WorldCom .

The suit alleges that the Listen4ever site enables Internet users to 
download music from a centralized location containing thousands of files. 
This allows them to make unlawful copies of as many recordings as they choose.

The suit alleges that Listen4ever uses offshore servers located in the 
People's Republic of China to host the Web site through which the illegal 
copying occurs. The plaintiffs allege that Listen4ever provides its 
services to Internet users in the United States through backbone routers 
owned and operated by the defendants.

According to the suit the artists whose works are being unlawfully copied 
and distributed through Listen4ever are: Christina Aguilera, Bruce 
Springsteen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eric Clapton, Barbara Streisand, Lenny 
Kravitz and Whitney Houston.

The suit alleges that the Listen4ever site also features albums that have 
not yet been commercially released. For instance, it alleges that the most 
recent album by artist Mary J. Blige, "Dance for Me," was available on the 
site before released to stores on August 13.

The suit states that the Listen4ever operators also seem to be based in 
China. However, the plaintiffs said that "strikingly absent" from the site 
is any indication of the persons or entity who owns it.

The recording companies said the only information they have been able to 
find is that the domain name appears to have been registered to an 
individual in Tianjin, China. Even the site's links for contacting 
operators sends e-mail to an anonymous Yahoo! e-mail account.

The suit states that despite Listen4ever's connections to China, the site 
uses a U.S. domain name, is written entirely in English, appears to target 
an American audience by focusing on U.S. works and does not appear to 
feature Chinese music.

"Listen4ever has clearly located itself in China to avoid the ambit of 
United States copyright law," the suit said.

The suit is the latest in a long-term attack by record labels on Web sites 
and services that allow trading of digital music files. Such offerings, 
like Napster ( news - web sites) and Scour, have been hit with massive 
lawsuits claiming billions of dollars in damages from violated copyrights.

The labels have blamed file-sharing on weak sales and lower profits, and 
the music business has, over the last year, started making its own heavy 
forays into digital music as a way to try and capture some of the cost 
savings of online distribution while still generate revenue for their works.
**************************
News Factor
NIPC Asks for Help on Cyber Alerts

Security expert Ryan Russell told NewsFactor that the NIPC is known for 
trailing other cyber security groups, such as CERT, in putting out alerts 
and warnings.

The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the government's main 
cyber protection agency, is seeking outside help with tracking Internet 
threats and incidents and generating alerts
[For the complete story see: http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19059.html]
***********************
News.com
IBM enlisted for defense role
By Ian Fried

Uncle Sam is calling on IBM to help prevent enemy missiles from ever 
reaching U.S. soil.
IBM plans to announce Monday that it has won a deal to supply the Defense 
Department with 66 high-end p690 "Regatta" Unix servers to be used as part 
of the country's ground-based missile defense program.

About 20 of the servers will go to Boeing, which is managing the testing 
and simulation part of the missile defense program, while the remainder 
will be used by TRW, which is handling the command and control part.


Instrumental to the deal was certifying that AIX, IBM's version of Unix, 
complied with a Defense Department program that puts a common user 
interface across many different types of Unix-based systems. The effort to 
move to a so-called Common Operating Environment, which began in the 
mid-1990s, is aimed at saving millions of dollars in training costs.

IBM said it had already decided last year to do the work necessary to 
qualify AIX for the common interface, said Greg Lefelar, federal manager 
for IBM's eServer unit.

Because of the amount of testing and documentation involved, it cost IBM 
more than $1.5 million and took more than a year to get qualified, but 
having done so could mean even more business down the road, Lefelar said.

"It opens up our ability to compete in a number of programs within the 
Department of Defense," he said.

When the common interface program began, the Defense Department ported the 
common interface to the most prevalent Unix flavors of the time--HP's HP-UX 
and Sun's Solaris. With some urging from IBM, they added Big Blue's AIX, 
but dropped support about a year later.

"They simply felt the demand did not justify the increased workload," 
Lefelar said.

That meant that for a number of years IBM was basically shut out of many 
military contracts. At the same time, IBM did not always have the most 
competitive Unix systems on the market, Lefelar said.

With Regatta, IBM has the strongest Unix product lineup in its history, 
Lefelar said. IBM introduced the 32-processor Regatta server last October.

Sun Microsystems is the top seller of Unix servers, with Hewlett-Packard in 
second place and IBM in third. However, IBM has gained share since it began 
a concerted effort in 1998 to reclaim Unix sales.

In May, IBM announced a deal to sell dozens of Unix servers, including some 
Regatta machines, to run Colgate-Palmolive's core global business software. 
The same month, the company inked a deal with the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) worth up to $224 million to supply 
clustered Regatta servers to produce forecasts for the National Weather 
Service.

News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
******************
Washington Post
Pentagon May Get New Intelligence Chief
Undersecretary Post Wins Hill Support
By Walter Pincus

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's plan to create a new post, 
undersecretary of defense for intelligence, picks up a 10-year-old idea 
that failed most recently during the Clinton administration but now appears 
on the verge of gaining congressional approval.

It was discussed during the first Bush administration and in 1998, 
then-Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre tried to get Congress to 
approve the position. He, like Rumsfeld, wanted to give intelligence a 
higher profile within the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Rumsfeld put it more directly last week. He wanted one senior person "to 
see that the [intelligence in the Pentagon] is a bit more laser-like than 
it tends to be" and to interact with the director of central intelligence 
(DCI) "in a way that is more effective and more responsive and more 
constructive."

Hamre dropped the idea in the face of congressional objections that stemmed 
in part from concern at the CIA that the new Pentagon official would have 
too much power, according to a former senior Pentagon official.

At issue then and now, both inside the Pentagon and at the CIA, is control 
over funds. While the CIA director, wearing his hat as DCI, can exercise 
control over authorization of intelligence programs run by the Pentagon, 
the Defense Department alone manages the funds Congress appropriates for 
intelligence programs handled by the Pentagon. For fiscal 2003, that is 
scheduled to be more than 80 percent of the entire U.S. intelligence budget 
of some $35 billion.

That money goes to the Defense Department for three different Pentagon 
agencies involved in collecting intelligence: the National Security Agency 
(NSA), which intercepts electronic messages; the National Imagery and 
Mapping Agency (NIMA), which develops and manages imagery satellites, and 
the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which develops, builds and 
manages intelligence satellites. Also funded are the Defense Intelligence 
Agency (DIA), which analyzes military intelligence, and the separate 
intelligence activities of the four military services.

The heads of NSA, DIA and NIMA, under current practice, report directly to 
Rumsfeld or Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. The NRO director 
has traditionally been an assistant secretary of the Air Force. Although 
the assistant defense secretary with prime responsibility over command, 
control and communications today has responsibility for overseeing the 
Pentagon's enormous intelligence operation, he exercises little direction 
over NSA, NIMA and DIA.

"The heads of those agencies are like heads of regional commands," one 
former senior uniformed official said.

"My commander was the secretary of defense," a former head of one of those 
agencies said recently. "I talked directly to the secretary. My tasker was 
the DCI, who gave me a list of prioritized tasks which I used to build my 
budget."

This former officer said of the proposal for a new undersecretary, 
"Rumsfeld is entitled to have a staff officer to look after intelligence 
and confer with the agency directors. But if [the officer] tries to act as 
my commander, it would be different."

Rumsfeld told a group last week he wants a single "more senior person 
overseeing those aspects of intelligence that are in the Department of 
Defense." Today, either Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz work with George J. Tenet, 
who in his DCI role must make key budget decisions on intelligence programs 
across the entire intelligence community.

Rumsfeld has apparently been able to do what Hamre could not. He sent 
proposed legislation to the Senate in late June along with his special 
assistant, Stephen A. Cambone, who met with Armed Services Committee 
members and staffers to explain the measure.

An amendment authorizing the new position, which specifies the new 
undersecretary must be someone "appointed from civilian life," was proposed 
during the floor debate on the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill by 
Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

The Senate approved the new position Aug. 1 as part of the entire 
authorization bill. A senior administration official said recently that 
Tenet has no objection to the proposal. A House-Senate conference could 
approve it this fall.

A former senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration said, "It 
would be a step forward" if the new undersecretary "serves as an action 
officer for the department's intelligence budget." Trying to work out 
different budget issues "takes a huge piece of the defense secretary's 
time, which he often doesn't have," he said. "It's unanswered how well this 
process will work," he added, noting that the DCI's staff and the Pentagon 
are "still competitive" in budget matters.

In settling those issues, the DCI in the past "has not wanted to deal with 
subordinates of the defense secretary," this former official said.

Some Pentagon and intelligence officials have seen Rumsfeld's push for the 
new undersecretary as his way to check any diminution of the Pentagon's 
preeminent position in any future reorganization of the overall U.S. 
intelligence community.

Reorganization of the community was one stated purpose of the joint 
House-Senate intelligence committee investigation into the inability to 
stop or disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and 
Pentagon. Key members of that panel have talked about giving the DCI more 
power over the intelligence budget -- and therefore over Pentagon spending.

Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory 
Board, has been pressing to give the DCI more power by making the CIA an 
agency under the DCI's control but not directed by him. NSA, NRO and NIMA 
would then be taken from the Pentagon and put under the DCI.

The Scowcroft approach has been openly opposed by Rumsfeld and criticized 
months ago by Vice President Cheney. He told a group last February, "It's 
important for us to avoid a situation in which we spend so much time moving 
the boxes around on the chart and redrawing wiring diagrams."

One thing about the new Pentagon position appears fairly certain. Rich 
Haver, a former Navy officer who now serves as Rumsfeld's special assistant 
for intelligence, is the favorite to get the job. Almost 10 years ago, when 
Cheney was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, there was an 
early discussion of creating the position of an assistant defense secretary 
for intelligence and putting into that new job Cheney's special assistant 
for intelligence. That person was the same Rich Haver.
********************
Mercury News
Web site seeks to create virtual library of Sept. 11 images, communications

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) - After a long walk uptown to escape the unfolding 
disaster at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, Lisa Beaty made her way to 
a Manhattan office, sat down in front of a computer and e-mailed two words 
that friends and relatives were anxious to see: ``I'm OK.''

That message and hundreds of other e-mails, photographs and video images 
are part of a virtual library of the attacks being compiled by scholars in 
Virginia and New York.

The September 11th Digital Archive ``will serve as a new platform in which 
people can make their own history,'' said Jim Sparrow, one of the 
organizers of the project, which is accessible online.

Chrissie Brodigan, a graduate student working with Sparrow on the site at 
the Center for New Media and History at George Mason University in Fairfax, 
Va., said the goal is to create a national memory of the attacks.

Sparrow and his colleagues at George Mason, which is about 20 minutes west 
of the Pentagon, started the project in January by visiting victims and 
families in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa., where one of the 
four hijacked planes crashed.

Since then, the researchers have collected hundreds of e-mail and chat room 
messages, photos and online personal diaries from people nationwide 
relating to their Sept. 11 experiences.

Also sought are text messages transmitted by beeper that day from people 
trying to reassure friends and loved ones.

Beaty and her husband, Kirk, already had spoken by phone after the attacks 
started. At 12:18 p.m., more than three hours after the first plane struck 
the World Trade Center, she sat at a computer and wrote the e-mail that 
would be relayed to worried friends and relatives.

After telling them she was all right, she detailed the chaos:

``Had I made the train I was trying to this AM, I would have been in the 
WTC when the plane hit. Pays to be late sometimes,'' she wrote.

``Was standing next to some people that were in the building across from 
the Tower -- they saw the plane (1st plane) hit and then saw people jumping 
out the windows. It was absolutely the most horrible thing I have ever 
witnessed in my life.''

Kirk Beaty said he submitted the e-mail to the archive because it 
``represented an unaltered view of events of that day from people who were 
personally involved, instead of a professionally edited form of the same 
news.''

Keith Riggle was working at the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 
slammed into the building. The subject line of his e-mail, sent three days 
later, reads ``We're fine.''

``I think we all know that these attacks will have a profound impact on 
life in the US and how we see ourselves and the world. ... I know I'll 
never feel comfortable flying again,'' he wrote.

Projects like the archive represent a new way to take snapshots of 
historical events and record how America reacts to them, said Lee Rainie, 
director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Dozens of other sites have similar functions, though few store e-mails or 
text messages, as the digital archive does, Rainie said.

For instance, a separate site, The September 11 Web Archive, tracked and 
stored government, media and other Web pages related to the attacks as they 
were viewed on Sept. 11 and in the months after.

``One of the learning experiences from Sept. 11 is that the Internet is a 
great way to catalogue and pull together these communications shortly after 
they occur,'' Rainie said. ``Almost any major news event that occurs in the 
future, you will see similar sites develop.''

George Mason is working with the American Social History Project at the 
City University of New York Graduate Center. The archive was funded by a 
grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The group is also working with organizers of the Smithsonian Institution's 
exhibition of the attacks, which will open this Sept. 11 in Washington.

``The hardest part is convincing ordinary people that they are part of 
history,'' Sparrow said.
*****************************
News.com
EarthLink software banishes pop-ups
By Reuters

EarthLink's arsenal to lure away subscribers from its online rivals 
includes a multimillion dollar marketing campaign and new access software 
that will let Web surfers banish pop-up ads--one of the most-often cited 
annoyances on the Web.
The Internet service provider on Monday will unveil a major upgrade of its 
access software that will include pop-up blocker software and a $10 million 
plus ad campaign as it steps-up its efforts against rivals Microsoft's MSN 
and AOL Time Warner's America Online.

"The whole notion is really around switchers and providing a better 
Internet experience with fewer drop-offs, pop ups and spam," said Karen 
Gough, EarthLink's executive vice president of marketing.


The pop-up blocker software, which eliminates all pop-up and pop-under ads, 
is expected to help EarthLink differentiate itself as it tries to gain 
market share from market leader AOL.

Both Atlanta-based EarthLink and MSN have been aggressively trying to woo 
away dissatisfied AOL users with tools, for example, aimed at reducing spam 
and pop-up ads--two things some AOL members have complained about.

"It makes a lot of sense for EarthLink because it helps to differentiate 
them from their more 'commercial' competitors, specifically AOL, MSN and 
SBC/Yahoo," said Rob Lancaster, analyst at Yankee Group. "Those other ISPs 
all get part of their revenue from ad and commerce. It would be difficult 
(for them to do the same). Their advertisers would not like subscribers 
having that option."

A preview of the pop-up blocker software will be available beginning Monday 
through EarthLink's Web site and it will soon be incorporated into the 
latest incarnation of EarthLink's access software, TotalAccess 2003.

"The pop-up blocker is the most exciting feature. About 4.1 billion pop-up 
ads are served on the Internet and we have had consumers tell us that is 
the most annoying experience on the Internet. We are happy to give 
customers the ability to control their Internet experience," said 
EarthLink's vice president of product development Jim Anderson.

"It prevents new windows from spawning and users have the ability to turn 
it on or off because there are some sites where the user may want pop-up 
ads," Anderson said. "It is specifically aimed at consumers who would like 
to regain control of their Internet experience."

TotalAccess 2003, the first major upgrade of EarthLink's access service 
since 1999, has new e-mail features that lets users reach stored e-mail 
address books from any Internet-connected computer and a task panel that 
enables quicker access to services including games and Google's search engine.

EarthLink, which has about 4.9 million subscribers, will spend more than 
$10 million in its ad campaign with television and radio spots, print and 
online ads and direct mail.

While the company's earlier ad campaigns tried to build awareness, Gough 
said this one aims to differentiate EarthLink from other Internet service 
providers.

Most Internet service providers, including AOL and EarthLink, have been 
struggling with slowing dial-up growth and growing their high-speed 
subscribers. High-speed services are seen as the next major growth engine 
for Internet companies as Web surfers seek out faster connections and 
services such as the digital delivery of music.

The latest version of EarthLink's Internet access service was largely 
developed with high-speed subscribers in mind, Anderson said.

EarthLink plans to have more frequent major upgrades of the service in the 
future, possibly two a year, a spokesman said.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
FAA pay raise issue lingers

Computer specialists at the Federal Aviation Administration continue to 
fight for the governmentwide information technology pay raise issued by the 
Office of Personnel Management last year.

In June, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2282 
won an arbitration decision against the FAA's Mike Monroney Aeronautical 
Center in Oklahoma City, a ruling the agency has appealed.

"The agency offers no reason or explanation as to the disparate treatment 
accorded its engineer employees and its IT employees, other than [that] it 
has the power to do so," arbitrator Ed Bankston wrote in his opinion and award.

In the past, the FAA has argued that new regulations, such as the OPM 
directive, don't automatically apply under the agency's personnel 
management system and that its own core compensation plan provides 
competitive salaries. In some cases, FAA employees are paid more than their 
counterparts at other agencies.

However, many of the agency's computer specialists don't receive core 
compensation because they are part of collective bargaining units that 
negotiate their own contracts. The real concern with the FAA position is 
that "a lot of the employees feel like they're second rate," said Keith 
Bennett, a computer specialist at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center and 
secretary of AFGE Local 2282.

The OPM raise, which ranged from 7 percent to 33 percent for workers in the 
GS-334 series, went into effect Jan. 1, 2001. When the FAA chose not to 
adopt it, the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union filed a 
grievance on behalf of about 100 computer specialists in the agency's 
Flight Standards unit.

PASS and the FAA agreed to arbitration, and a year ago, arbitrator Suzanne 
Butler ruled the agency was required to give the raise to computer 
specialists not covered by the negotiated pay system. The FAA subsequently 
filed an exception.

With that appeal pending before the Federal Labor Relations Authority 
(FLRA), AFGE Local 2282 brought its own case forward.

"We're glad that people are successfully fighting to get some pay equity," 
said Phillip Kete, supervisor of AFGE's Office of Labor Management 
Relations. "They are just a very successful local unit."

AFGE has advised bargaining units to first work with management to 
implement any possible improvements, and then turn to arbitration, Kete 
said. AFGE Local 2282 is the only unit to win an arbitration decision, 
according to Kete. Workers stand to gain $2,500 to $9,000 a year if the pay 
raise were to take place, according to Bennett.

"It's a significant pay raise," he said, adding that his annual salary 
would increase $4,421.

FAA officials are still waiting to hear from the FLRA, which is handling 
both appeals, before commenting.

"It makes us want to look elsewhere for work," Bennett said. "The FAA just 
said, 'Hey, you IT people just go across town and work for Tinker [Air 
Force Base].' I got a lot of people waiting to see what happens."

AFGE officials are optimistic. "We're pretty sure the local is right, and 
that usually counts for something," Kete said.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Revising expectations
Commentary

Here's a heretical prediction: The Homeland Security Department, at least 
how it's envisioned, will never come to pass.

The initial obstacles  labor issues, appropriations complications, 
integration complexities and the general tendency to fear change  are 
likely to force the administration to reassess the entire concept. The key 
issue is timing.

If we don't have the legislation passed by Sept. 11, the Bush 
administration's deadline for obvious reasons, the only other way to force 
legislators to overcome obstacles and push the bill through is to make it a 
political issue during the November elections.

But that is unlikely to happen, given the lack of political interest among 
the general public. Also, it seems unpatriotic to lambaste legislators for 
taking a methodical approach to such a momentous task, so it won't pass the 
litmus test of political efficacy.

Why has this grand idea lost its way? In part, it's because the idea is too 
grand.

The impetus for the department was to bolster security by centralizing and 
integrating the disparate bureaus and agencies responsible for preventing 
or reacting to a reprise of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But when it 
comes to molding the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, 
the Customs Service and the 20 or so other offices into one agency, it 
quickly gets messy.

The administration finds it necessary to rewrite or relax civil service 
laws and personnel regulations, because the new department will need 
flexibility. Office of Management and Budget officials mandate systems 
architecture and standards and expect everyone to follow their lead, even 
though such Draconian measures have not worked well in the past. And 
President Bush asks Congress to redistribute the appropriations clout 
quickly and fairly.

Ultimately, it puts Congress in a tough spot. The folks on Capitol Hill 
have to be willing to take the heat from employee unions for sacrificing 
job security. They must act without malice or bias as they hand the purse 
strings to fellow  or opposition  control. They must fund an expensive and 
disruptive reorganization in the midst of a recession, absorbing the costs 
in a budget already in deficit.

I believe our legislators would be willing to put aside self-interest  and 
constituent interest  for the good of the country, but only if the timing 
is right. Congress is certain to miss the Sept. 11 deadline, and if 
Congress cannot garner the necessary votes during the November election 
season, interest in the issue will slowly fade.

It's still possible that Congress, with a flurry of activity, could enact 
legislation before the elections. But the administration is likely to end 
up with a much less ambitious plan than originally conceived, with maybe 
one major agency and a half-dozen or so smaller groups pulled out of their 
current departments. As it stands, it's a case of too many obstacles and 
too few returns.

Arnold is national vice chairman of the Industry Advisory Council and vice 
president of government programs for E-Gov, which is part of FCW Media Group.
***********************
Federal Computer Week
News briefs: INS' Ziglar to resign

James Ziglar, commissioner of the troubled Immigration and Naturalization 
Service for a little more than a year, announced Aug. 16 that he will step 
down at the end of December.

Ziglar has been at the center of a storm over INS, which was already 
struggling before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks put it under a harsh 
spotlight.

Both Congress and Attorney General John Ashcroft developed plans to abolish 
the agency, but the plans are on hold while Congress decides whether to 
create the Homeland Security Department, which would probably absorb INS.

Under Ziglar's tenure, however, INS began modest reforms. The agency is 
ready to begin fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors who are 
deemed a threat to U.S. security and is deploying an automated system for 
tracking foreign students in the United States.

FBI taps two

The FBI has appointed a new director for investigative technologies and a 
chief for the cybercrime section.

Thomas Richardson has been named assistant director of the Investigative 
Technologies Division. An FBI agent for 27 years, Richardson moves to the 
technology post after serving as acting deputy assistant director of the 
Criminal Investigative Division's Financial Crimes, Integrity in 
Government/Civil Rights, Operational Support and Administrative Branch.

Keith Lourdeau has been named chief of the cybercrime section, part of a 
new division created this year to improve the FBI's ability to investigate 
Internet and computer system crimes.

Lourdeau, a 16-year FBI veteran, most recently worked with the CIA to 
establish greater cooperation between the agency and the FBI in targeting 
international organized crime groups, according to the FBI.
**************************
Government Computer News
DOD computer security breached with ease
By Dawn S. Onley and Susan M. Menke

While working for a client, ForensicTec Solutions Inc. of San Diego this 
summer broke into dozens of military computer systems and found sensitive 
data, company president Brett O'Keeffe said today. He said he has alerted 
military officials and that "they need resources and funds. This needs to 
be a top priority."

Barry Venable, a spokesman for the U.S. Space Command in Colorado, said the 
vulnerabilities are under investigation.

O'Keeffe said company employees gained access to one computer at Fort Hood, 
Texas, that held an air support squadron's radio encryption techniques. 
Another computer held the personnel records of hundreds of military 
personnel, including their Social Security numbers, security clearances and 
credit card numbers. Company employees also roamed a NASA computer file, 
which showed vendor records with company banking information.

ForensicTec stumbled on the military computers in June when they were 
checking network security for a private client, O'Keeffe said. "All we did 
was expose a vulnerability that others could exploit," he said. "We didn't 
create a vulnerability, we just showed it."
***********************
Government Executive
Defense chief outlines challenges of information age warfare
By Molly M. Peterson, National Journal's Technology Daily

The increasing availability of commercial, off-the-shelf technology to 
terrorist groups and enemy states is creating new challenges for the U.S. 
military, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday in his annual 
report to the president and Congress.

"Maintaining the U.S. technological edge has become even more difficult as 
advanced technology has become readily available on the world market," 
Rumsfeld wrote. "Technologies for sensors, information processing, 
communications, precision guidance, and many other areas are rapidly 
advancing and are available to potential adversaries."

Rumsfeld said some adversaries are using those high-tech tools to develop 
"offensive information operations" that could disrupt military information 
systems, such as those that enable U.S. troops to engage in 
"network-centric" warfare with other combat units and foreign allies.

"In a networked environment, information assurance is critical," Rumsfeld 
said. "Information systems must be protected from attack, and new 
capabilities for effective information operations must be developed."

Noting that network-centric warfare relies heavily on satellite 
communications and other forms of space-based technology, he said the U.S. 
military must be vigilant in preventing terrorists and enemy states from 
gaining access to space.

"No nation relies more on space for its national security than the United 
States," he said. "Yet elements of the U.S. space architectureground 
stations, launch assets and satellites in orbitare threatened by 
capabilities that are increasingly available."

Rumsfeld said the fiscal 2003 Defense budget would provide $2 billion to 
improve the security of the department's space-based information and 
intelligence systems. That would be a 15.6 percent increase over fiscal 
2002 spending. He added that the Pentagon also plans to invest about $200 
million in space-related "transformation" programs in fiscal 2003, "with 
significantly more planned in the future."

"Transformation" refers to the military's efforts to redefine its approach 
to warfare, by moving from the industrial age to the information age, and 
shifting its defense strategy from the predictable threats of the Cold War 
to unpredictable, "asymmetric" threats such as those posed by the al Qaeda 
terrorist network.

Rumsfeld said transformation initiatives would be funded at about $21 
billion in fiscal 2003, which would be about 17 percent of Defense's total 
spending on procurement and research and development programs. He added 
that the investment would rise to 22 percent by fiscal 2007.

Defending the nation against high-tech, asymmetric threats also requires a 
"robust" investment in science and technology (S&T) programs, according to 
Rumsfeld. "U.S. armed forces depend on the department's S&T program to 
deliver unique military technologies for the combat advantage that cannot 
be provided by relying on commercially available technology," he wrote.

The Pentagon's fiscal 2003 budget would provide $9.9 billion for S&T 
programs. That would be about 2.7 percent of next year's total Defense 
budget, but Pentagon officials have said they hope to increase that 
investment to 3 percent in future years.
************************
Government Executive
Pentagon restrictions on wireless devices expected soon

By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily


The Defense Department is expected to finalize its new policies restricting 
military use of wireless devices next week, a department spokesman said Friday.

"There's no question it's going to happen," the spokesman said. "I would 
expect it sometime next week" when Pentagon Chief Information Officer John 
Stenbit returns from leave.

The expected policy will cover Pentagon-area wireless use. Stenbit also has 
submitted for formal consideration a second policy on wireless devices used 
in Defense's global information grid. The policies are part of a broader 
military-wide effort to bolster communications security. The effort 
includes the use of public-key infrastructure technology in military 
electronic communications so they can be traced, according to the 
department spokesman.

"As we move more and more toward a paperless age and have access to 
classified information ... if that is associated with any public-key 
infrastructure codes, [they] can't be removed from traffic back and forth," 
he said. "It's going to be very evident that when we have a leak of 
targeting Saddam Hussein's outhouse, we'll know who accessed the 
information down to the individual."

The draft Pentagon-area wireless policy would prohibit wireless 
connectivity to a classified network or computer, as well as 
synchronization with unapproved information technology devices. The policy 
would require punitive action for repeated violations that threaten 
Pentagon security, with military, civilian agency and contractor violations 
likely to be treated differently, the spokesman said.

The policy includes a conditional exception for unencrypted classified 
information where there is "documented operational need." For instance, 
earlier this year, the Pentagon put on the Internet images gathered by 
unmanned Predator vehicles flying over Bosnia so allies who did not have 
access to the information otherwise could see it, the spokesman said.

The department-wide policy would call for development of a process for 
sharing wireless technology capabilities, vulnerabilities and strategies. 
It also would encourage interoperability of communications systems through 
the use of open standards at Defense.

A security analyst predicted that the new policies would make operations 
more difficult and might cause a backlash later.

"There is an enduring tension between security and efficiency," said Steven 
Aftergood, senior research analyst at the Federation of American 
Scientists. "The new policy would shift the balance a bit in the direction 
of increased security. This is probably an appropriate step, but it will 
come at the expense of convenience and ease of operation. In all 
likelihood, therefore, the balance will need to be shifted once again in 
the not-too-distant future."

The policy also would apply to personal digital assistants (PDAs), but an 
exception might be made for a special model of encrypted Blackberry PDAs. 
However, the Defense spokesman said "there might be other factors involved" 
if a large contingent of workers who use Blackberries are outside the 
United States, if the signals can be reached outside the country or if 
people take them to insecure overseas locations, such as Afghanistan.
**************************
Computerworld
California county opts-in for tougher privacy law

WASHINGTON -- In what may be more evidence of an emerging national backlash 
against "opt-out" financial privacy laws, California's San Mateo County 
this month approved a law requiring banks to get customer permission before 
sharing their data with third parties.
The federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley law allows financial services groups to 
share customer data unless the customer says no. But the law allowed states 
to set a tougher standard, by first requiring customer consent or "opt-in." 
And that's what's been happening in other locales. In June, voters in North 
Dakota overwhelmingly voted to tighten financial privacy laws (see story). 
Vermont officials have imposed similar restrictions.

Those separate actions for stronger privacy protections, from west to east, 
"show it is a movement across the country," said Ari Schwartz, a policy 
analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. He sees 
it as a signal to politicians "that this is something that people care about."

As part of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley law, customers received privacy notices 
explaining their rights. But the notices were criticized for being too 
complicated and difficult to understand.

The federal law, however, doesn't prevent states or local communities from 
imposing their own standards.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin said his decision to spearhead the 
measure grew out of frustration with the California state legislature, 
which, in the face of heavy opposition from financial trade groups, failed 
to pass a proposal sponsored by state Sen. Jackie Speier, a Daly City 
Democrat, that would have required statewide "opt-in" rules.

"I wish the whole state and the country would have the same kind of 
opportunity for privacy," said Nevin. "With all the pluses that have come 
out of the computer and information age, one of the downsides is privacy."

The law, which could face a court challenge, takes effect Jan. 1, said Nevin.

Financial services groups have repeatedly opposed such measures, arguing 
that they will raise business costs to adapt systems that can comply with 
varying state and local privacy laws.

A Bank of America Corp. official said today that the San Mateo law could 
create problems with its ability to share information with affiliates and 
subsidiaries.

"Our customers don't have to worry about opting in or opting out, but even 
with that very strong privacy policy we still have very deep concerns about 
this patchwork of laws," said Harvey Radin, a spokesman for the Charlotte, 
N.C.-based bank.

The San Mateo ordinance, Radin said, would prevent the sharing of customer 
data internally and with other lines of businesses, such as credit card 
operations. Adapting systems to comply with these laws, "would require a 
lot of additional systems infrastructure," he said.
**************************
Washington Post
Defense Contractors Prosper Since 9/11
By Mark Weinraub

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. defense contractors 
have benefited from sales of exotic weapons such as combat aircraft that 
fly without pilots as well as mundane equipment like airport luggage scanners.

Armed with a rising number of orders from the U.S. government, defense 
contractors have reported robust profits as the United States went to war 
in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In the most recent earnings season, Lockheed Martin Corp. , the top U.S. 
defense contractor, reported a doubling of profits. Smaller rivals grew 
too. CACI International Inc. , a provider of technology services to the 
government, said profits rose 22.1 percent from the same period last year.

Defense industry profits are expected to get even better if Congress goes 
along with the $48 billion increase in the defense budget President Bush 
has requested for next year. Growth in security funding has already been 
seen in airport safety programs, with money being paid to companies like 
InVision Technologies Inc., which make explosive detection equipment.

The increased defense spending has drawn investors to what they see as a 
safe haven in a weak market.

Makers of traditional weapons and other companies, including providers of 
software that links law enforcement networks, are expected to benefit as 
the United States acts to combat terrorism abroad and protect its citizens 
at home.

"The growth will be very surprising," said Tom Gallagher, head of Wachovia 
Securities' defense and aerospace group. "It'll be in places where you 
least expected it. The defense contractor, the defense supplier may very 
different than the defense supplier of today."

Traditional suppliers are the key to the offensive in places like 
Afghanistan, where U.S. forces used high-tech weaponry such as pilotless 
aircraft made by companies like Northrop Grumman Corp. and bombs made by 
Lockheed and National Forge that penetrate deep into mountain caves.

At the same time, makers of bomb detection equipment are on the front lines 
at home, where millions of Americans have braved long lines at airports to 
pass through security checkpoints and airports will be required to examine 
every piece of checked luggage.

With the war on terrorism at home and abroad prominently in the news, 
defense industry stocks have been climbing. So far this year, the Standard 
& Poor's Aerospace and Defense index <.GSPAERO> has risen more than 10 
percent while the S&P 500, a broad measure of U.S. stocks, has fallen 
nearly 21 percent.

To be sure, the defense industry was seen in a positive light even before 
Sept. 11.

Even before the 2000 election put a Republican in the White House for the 
first time since 1993, the military had been working to transform itself 
into a more mobile fighting force instead of one geared to a European land 
war with the Soviet Union. But a continuing focus on the development of 
costly new technologies such as a missile defense system has often left 
smaller companies out in the cold.

"Now, there is some element of that remaining but the spigot has been 
opened, said Jon Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners Inc. 
"There's no clear finish line."

That shift in strategy has given the smaller companies some chips in the 
big game and forced the larger companies to buy up rivals to make sure all 
bases are covered. The biggest deal was Northrop's pending $7.8 billion 
acquisition of TRW Inc. , which will gives the firm a leading position in 
the market for military space equipment and missile defense.

BUDGET BOOM

None of the expected growth will be possible without help from Congress, 
which provides funding for defense projects. But support for the defense 
industry from both sides of the aisle has been broad with the memory of 
Sept. 11 still fresh.

President Bush has proposed a $379 billion defense budget, the largest 
since Ronald Reagan was president. The budget includes money to build up 
homeland security and $7.6 billion to develop the missile defense system.

And some industry watchers are predicting even greater budget increases 
next year, when members of Congress will not be facing an election at a 
time when economic weakness has caused uneasiness about government spending.

"The current budget environment in Washington continues to give me 
assurance of a growing market," Northrop Chairman and Chief Executive Kent 
Kresa said on a recent conference call with analysts. "There is widespread 
bipartisan support for increases in defense and homeland security for the 
next several years."

NO BLANK CHECK

But the budget growth is not a blank check for the defense companies.

The Pentagon is still committed to making the military more mobile, as 
witnessed by its recent cancellation of United Defense Industries Inc.'s 
Crusader, an $11 billion howitzer artillery system. Crusader was axed 
despite opposition from Congress, which was looking to save jobs in 
districts where the weapon would have been built.

No matter how strong the sentiment is to firm up defense right now, the 
arms makers still have to prove their worth to a fickle Congress every 
budget cycle.

"Defense contractors have a been there, seen that kind of attitude," 
Quarterdeck's Kutler said. "There have often been situations like this 
where Washington is intrigued by something for a year and there's a lot of 
rhetoric behind it, and even some money, but then it falls by the wayside."
*************************
Washington Post
Lie-Detecting Devices: Truth or Consequences?
Unproven but Popular, Mainstream Systems Can Be Used Without Subject's 
Knowledge

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 18, 2002; Page A01


NEW YORK -- "Lie detectors," those controversial assessors of truth, are 
making their way into everyday life.

Insurance companies use them to help catch people filing fraudulent claims. 
Suspicious spouses use handheld versions to judge whether their significant 
others are cheating. U.S. government interrogators use them to double-check 
analyses of who might be a terrorist.

Polygraphs, which have been used for decades, have been joined by new 
systems that purportedly analyze a person's voice, blush, pupil size and 
even brain waves for signs of deception. The devices range from costly 
experimental devices that use strings of electrodes or thermal imaging to 
$19.95 palm-sized versions.

No studies have ever proven that lie detectors work. Many show that they 
assess truth as accurately as a coin flip; in other words, not at all. 
Still, some people have come to depend on them.

Liz Saul, a radio-station ad executive, got a call from a man who said he 
was from an Internet lottery company and wanted to buy $315,000 worth of 
advertising. He was eager and charming, but Saul thought that something was 
not quite right.

Her worries grew as he tried to cancel the contract and then reactivate it, 
and cancel and reactivate it again. Saul was in a quandary: If the ads 
started running and the man never paid, she would have wasted her time and 
her company's. But if she dropped a sincere customer, she would have missed 
out on thousands of dollars in commissions.

She decided she needed a second opinion -- from a machine.

As she and the man talked one day, Saul screened his voice with a "truth 
phone," which, its maker says, measures inaudible microtremors in a 
person's voice to determine the likelihood that he was lying. The digital 
numerical display that indicates stress level hit the danger zone. The guy 
was a faker, according to the machine.

Saul politely ended the call, and the contract.

"I don't have to waste my time or build my hopes up thinking about 
something anymore. It helps me to live in a world of reality," said Saul, 
36, a Manhattan resident who bought the $3,000 device made by CCS 
International Ltd. from a local spy shop.

The recent proliferation of lie detectors has reignited a decades-old 
debate over the ethics and politics of when and how they should be used and 
whether such important questions as guilt or innocence should be left to 
machines.

With the help of a grant from the CIA, Lawrence Farwell developed a 
technology called "brain fingerprinting" that he says can determine whether 
an image triggers someone's memory. But he has mixed feelings about the 
power of his invention. "Science is always a double-edged sword," he said. 
"In our country, truth and justice are highly correlated. In another place, 
maybe not, and I wouldn't want that kind of regime to have this technology."

An Elusive Test
Mankind has looked for centuries for a physical indicator that would expose 
a liar. The Romans studied the entrails of suspected liars. In China, rice 
was shoved into the mouths of interviewees to measure how dry they were -- 
the drier the mouth, the more likely the person was lying, it was thought. 
Other cultures tried various chemical concoctions or "truth serums," but 
they worked no better than chance.

Especially since Sept. 11, law enforcement agencies consider lie-detection 
systems critical to their investigations. The CIA, FBI and Defense 
Department have spent millions of dollars on them.

In an unusual plea made soon after the terrorist attacks, the government 
asked for the public's help in building counterterrorism technologies, 
among them a portable polygraph.

Polygraphs, developed in government labs and in use for decades, measure 
blood pressure, perspiration, heartbeat. The machine's operator interprets 
the results to try to determine whether the subject is lying.

In the United States, there is a double standard when it comes to the use 
of polygraphs. Although the so-called lie detector is considered an 
important law enforcement tool, polygraph data are inadmissible as evidence 
in a court of law. The U.S. Supreme Court forbade private companies from 
using them to screen job applicants, but allowed the government to use them 
for the same purpose.

Recent proposals to expand the use of polygraphs face resistance.

The International Cricket Council found itself under fire last fall when it 
proposed using them to try to catch players who are fixing matches. After 
protests, the council abandoned its proposal.

The Energy Department and FBI got a similar reaction when they announced 
that they would greatly increase polygraph screening of their employees.

Paul Ekman, a psychology professor at the University of California in San 
Francisco, is one of the researchers studying the validity of polygraphs 
for national security applications for a National Academy of Sciences 
report due out in late fall. He said the government's faith in polygraphs 
is misplaced and that it should instead spend its money on better 
interrogation training for its agents.

"We are gadget-crazy in this country. We think we're coming in with a magic 
technological solution to the terrorism problem. But what if these things 
don't work as well as we hope? We may be doing more harm than good," Ekman 
said.

Real-Time Analysis
As debate about polygraphs rages, the devices are being phased out in favor 
of voice analyzers, which are more portable and easier to use.

A voice analyzer device typically consists of a telephone and microphone 
attached to a computer that packs neatly in a briefcase, or attached to any 
PC with the proper software installed.

Most of the analyzers can be used in person or over the phone. 
Conversations can be tested in real time or recorded for later analysis.

First, the questioner asks an interviewee about something he or she would 
have no reason to lie about, such as, "When's your birthday?" Then he asks 
what he really wants to ask. The device makes an assessment about whether 
the subject is telling the truth based on the differences between the 
inaudible microtremors in the voice during the first round of questioning 
and those in the the second.

For each sound sample, the program might offer assessments like "false 
statement," "inaccuracy," "subject is not sure" and "truth," or it might 
display a numerical reading of the subject's stress level.

"Even an experienced interrogator might be fooled by a guy who is well 
dressed and talks in a confident manner. But the machine might tell you 
he's not at all sure of what he's saying or even that he might be lying," 
said Naaman Boury, president of Risk Technologies Innovative Solutions, 
which markets a voice analyzer.

The federal government officially says it does not use these voice lie 
detectors. After a series of studies dating from the mid-1990s, the Defense 
Department concluded that they do not work.

In one study, researchers asked some participants to take $50 from a wallet 
in a locker and then try to convince an interviewer they did not do it. The 
voice system was correct 52.2 percent of the time in differentiating 
between guilty and innocent. Still, the voice technology has its true 
believers, among them more than 1,200 police departments nationwide, 
traveler's check issuers, and tens of thousands of consumers.

Several car, home and travel insurers in Britain recently began 
experimenting with similar technology to detect fraudulent claims.

One, Direct Line, discontinued trials after concluding that the system did 
not help. But Highway Insurance marketing manager Michelle Holt said the 
company's tests went well and it hopes to install a comprehensive system in 
the next few months.

Banks in the Netherlands concerned about money laundering and embezzlement, 
and retailers in Canada worried about diverted shipments are among those 
using the technology without their customers' knowledge.

"Just about everyone's asking about lie detectors -- spouses, law 
enforcement, hotel loss prevention, lawyers," said Shaed Khan, who works at 
the Counter Spy Shop on Connecticut Avenue NW in the District.

While high-end professional models range from $1,000 to $20,000, there are 
devices for as little as $19.95.

Truths told to the gimmicky Handy Truster produce an apple on the machine's 
screen, while lies produce a worm; 911 Tech Co., which manufactures the 
gadget, says it has sold 20,000 a year for the past few years.

The slightly more sophisticated Truster software program that runs on a 
desktop computer gives text ratings of truthfulness. The companies that 
market these technologies say they are more than 80 percent accurate.

Rick Garloff, a 35-year-old who lives in Galt, Calif., is skeptical. Still, 
he said, even if the systems are not great lie detectors, they are 
wonderful lie deterrents.

Garloff once used the Truster on his 9-year-old son, to see if he had 
forgotten to close a door, accidentally letting the dog in. The dog tracked 
dirt all over the floor and knocked over furniture.

His son claimed no. But the lie detection system said yes.

When confronted, his son 'fessed up.

Truth Phones
The truth phone used by ad executive Saul is a mid-range system and looks 
like something out of a spy movie: It's an 18-pound silver-colored 
briefcase that opens to reveal a phone and a digital readout display.

She bought it last spring after two small business owners who each promised 
to buy $40,000 worth of ads defaulted on their bills after the ads ran. She 
lost $6,000 in commissions.

She now uses the phone a few times a month, usually when a contract is 
large -- say, $100,000 or more -- or when a client sounds suspicious.

She begins each test by asking basic questions, to get a baseline reading 
of the person's stress: Today's Tuesday, right? What is the address of your 
company again? Then come the real questions: Are you serious about starting 
a contract? When do you expect to begin to pay? She watches the numerical 
display to see how significantly the first readings differ from the later ones.

Most of the time, she said, the device confirms her assessment.

"Most people want to do right, but sometimes they can't and they are 
embarrassed and they don't want you to hate them and that's when the fibs 
come in," she said.

Saul has gone against the machine only once, choosing to believe a client 
when the device advised otherwise.

The client, a longtime New Yorker, owned a chain of self-service laundries. 
He seemed to be smart and nice and honest, Saul said, and the paperwork on 
his $15,000 order looked fine.

The ads ran, and so did he. She lost $2,250 in commissions that month.

The new devices don't require interrogators to hook wires and sensors to a 
subject. As a result, they can be used more covertly -- which leads to 
touchy questions on whether the subjects should be told their words are 
being analyzed.

Debbie Pelletier, who manages a spy shop in Madison, Ala., says she's sold 
several dozen voice-stress analyzers to small-business owners and she 
doesn't know of any who tell job applicants that their interview responses 
are being scrutinized for signs of deception.

That's legal as long as they don't make employment decisions based on the 
results but use them only to flag suspicious responses that they later 
investigate.

Adam, 32, a freelance writer for a sports Web site who asked that he not be 
fully identified, is in the middle of a divorce. He said he trusts his 
wife, but he needs extra assurance that if she gets custody of their son, 
she'll fulfill her end of the bargain by staying in the state and letting 
him visit regularly.

For the past few months he has been secretly taping their conversations (he 
lives in a state where that is legal) and running her voice through a 
stress analyzer. So far, he said, the device indicates that she's been 
sincere and that gives him comfort.

He said he sometimes worries about the ethics of what he's doing, but 
alerting her would defeat the whole purpose. Plus, there is her temper to 
deal with.

"She would not be happy," he said.
*****************
Washington Post
Afghanistan Look to Rewire Country
By Regan Morris
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan  There are only 12,000 functioning telephones for nearly 
2 million people in Kabul. And most calls never go through.

The situation is worse in the provinces.

Wiring Afghans is a colossal challenge that has only just begun.

For starters, the government is scrambling to lure investors to build 
private cellular networks. The bigger challenge will be repairing and 
extending the rudimentary, bomb-damaged wireline phone network.

After years of war, Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, 
and many Afghans have never made a phone call or even heard of the 
Internet, let alone sent an e-mail.

"We have a big technological gap because no investment has come into this 
sector over the past two decades apart from very limited investment in 
telephones," Communications Minister Mohammad Masoom Stanakzai said during 
a recent interview.

He has big plans to install digital phone lines and fiber optic cables in 
the war-scarred country  even though he doesn't even have an Internet 
connection in his office.

Already, the Afghan government and New Jersey-based Telephone Systems 
International have formed a partnership, Afghan Wireless Communication Co., 
and began offering cell phone service in April when President Hamid Karzai 
called an Afghan refugee in Germany.

But the service from Afghan Wireless works best in Kabul and the cities of 
Herat and Kandahar. Its links with other Afghan cities and the outside 
world are tenuous, analysts say.

Outside Kabul, communications are bleak.

"There's no functioning national backbone network," said Ken Zita, 
president of New York-based Network Dynamics Associates, a consultant to 
the Afghan Ministry of Communications.

Building one is a delicate job akin to laying oil pipelines, with cables 
crossing hostile territory still governed by warlords, he said.

The country now has two wireline networks, one dating to the Soviet 
occupation that began in 1979, the other a newer, Chinese-built system.

Neither extends beyond Afghanistan's borders or interconnects reliably.

The country relies entirely on satellite bandwidth for telephone calls and 
data transmission to the outside world  and between most cities inside the 
country, said Zita and Stephan Beckert of the Washington, D.C., research 
firm TeleGeography.

Internet access isn't any better.

"It's only for rich people," said Mohammad Sharif, an Afghan who was 
instant messaging his 14-year-old son in Pakistan and sending e-mail from a 
new Internet cafe in the basement of the Intercontinental Hotel.

Afghan Wireless, in partnership with the government, opened that cafe  the 
country's first  in July. The government plans to open a second by 
September and hopes competition will bring access prices down.

Sharif, who works for the United Nations, said it's now much cheaper to use 
the Internet in neighboring Pakistan, where he lives. Access at the Kabul 
cafe costs $5 per hour.

"Most of our customers are foreigners," Rameen Aziz, the 20-year-old cafe 
manager, said as he e-mailed friends and an uncle in the United States. 
"It's very expensive."

Nonetheless, wealthier Afghans are wild about the communications network in 
the capital, and foreign investors have noticed: Telecommunications is the 
only sector of the economy attracting private foreign investment.

Though investments have been modest thus far, Stanakzai expects more as he 
struggles to develop a communications policy for Afghanistan and standard 
licensing that he says "should not change with political change."

On July 31, the Ministry of Communications announced that two mobile phone 
licenses would be granted to private bidders in the coming months, opening 
competition with Afghan Wireless. The deadline for bidding is Sept. 19.

Stanakzai is hoping that foreign competition will make cell phone service 
available to more people.

It can cost up to $350 to start up a mobile phone account  a fortune by 
local standards. If a major telecommunications company like Siemens or AT&T 
bids for the license, it would likely make mobile phones much more 
accessible to Afghans.

In the United States or Singapore, people can get mobile phones in the 
airport when they arrive for as little as $100.

But even new companies might find establishing  and maintaining  services 
in Afghanistan a struggle.

Stanakzai's phone has been ringing off the hook with people calling to 
complain about digital phone lines they paid for but can't use, because 
cables were bombed or cut during fighting in Kabul, a medieval-looking city 
of crumbling mud buildings where horse-drawn carriages compete for cratered 
road space with cars.

Many people paid for the phones during the Taliban rule and are wondering 
if they'll ever get phone services, he said.

Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry is perhaps a sign of hope: With two 
satellite dishes for Internet connections and 135 computers, it's one of 
the most wired places in Afghanistan.

"We're now teaching 138 students," said the ministry's director of 
technology, Fawad Muslim, who was a software engineer in Virginia for Leros 
Technology before returning to Kabul in December.

"But it's going to take a long, long time to get Afghanistan connected."
************************
USA Today
Slumping music industry vexed by Net downloads, illegal copying

COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters)  For the record industry it is the 
billion-dollar question: how to make money when ever more consumers are 
turning to free Internet downloads and copies of pirated CDs to hear their 
favorite music.

At the "Popkomm" pop music trade show in the western German city of 
Cologne, music industry executives meeting on Friday glumly acknowledged 
they were under serious threat.

"We are in a very difficult, dramatic situation in the market," Thomas 
Stein, president of BMG Europe, told Reuters. "The general mood can't be 
very positive if we have had a decreasing market the past two years."

Total world music sales fell 5% last year to $33.7 billion, according to 
the London-based International Federation of the Phonograph Industry 
(IFPI). They estimate that nearly 40% of all CDs and cassettes sold 
worldwide last year were pirated, translating into losses of $4.3 billion 
worldwide.

"What we are seeing is a decrease in the new CD sales and an increase in 
blank CD sales and an increase in reported piracy," said Chris Montgomery, 
chairman of MP3.com Europe, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal. "I think we 
are getting to a point where it is potentially dangerous."

The German Phonograph Association announced at the conference that total 
music sales in Europe's largest economy were down more than 10% in the 
first half of this year.

"Right now we are in a deep trough," said association director Gerd 
Gebhardt. "The big record companies have to come together and offer their 
music on single Internet platforms."

Pirate's feast

The greatest threat to the music business in Germany came not from the 
Internet but from copies of legal CDs, he said. Last year German consumers 
bought 182 million blank CDs, more than the 177 million CDs with 
pre-recorded music.

"I think the German market has the highest penetration of CD burners," he said.

Gebhardt hailed the launch of a new German service last week by Universal 
that charges 99 euro cents per track downloaded at www.popfile.de. However, 
recent visitors to the site were told that the main way to pay, via your 
telephone bill, was not available for technical reasons.

Popfile.de is one of a series of new music subscription services, but 
critics complain it is often harder to pay for and download music legally 
than to turn to a pirate site.

All but 1% of music files on the Internet last year were unauthorized from 
pirate sites, the IFPI reported.

"Popfile will not solve the crisis in the German pop business," said 
Joachim Kirschstein, Universal Music Group marketing director. "It is not 
digital music's final solution."

He added that the telephone billing option now worked.

Many industry officials envisage the eventual emergence of giant online 
music supermarkets where vast amounts of music will be available for a fee.

"There may be 100 subscription services that are launched but not all of 
them will be successful, and the market will shake out the ones that 
aren't," said MP3.com's Montgomery.

Stein at BMG, whose label was heavily promoting Elvis Presley at Popkomm on 
the 25th anniversary of his death, said he expected a future Internet 
warehouse to offer individual songs to be paid via phone bills. Others see 
charges for music access coming in as part of cable or Internet bills.
**************************
Los Angeles Times
Electronic Data Can Help Unlock Criminals' Secrets
Law enforcement: But learning how to find the files and preserve them can 
be tricky.
By CONNIE CASS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Not since the glory days of letter-writing, before the advent of the 
telephone, have people committed so much revealing stuff to written form as 
they do in the age of computers.

All those e-mail messages and electronic files are a treasure trove of 
evidence for law enforcement officers, whether they are targeting 
terrorists, crooked CEOs or local drug dealers.

The challenge for police and prosecutors is learning how to dig up and 
preserve these electronic gems.

"Any agent can come in and look through papers, but not every agent can do 
a thorough computer search," said David Green, deputy chief of the Justice 
Department's computer crime section, which helps train federal and state 
investigators.

Green teaches that a mistake as simple as turning off a computer can wipe 
away valuable evidence. Knowing such basics, and the ins and outs of 
privacy law, is essential when electronic evidence may play a role in so 
many cases.

"It's like the gift that keeps on giving," said Tom Greene, a deputy 
attorney general in California, one of the states suing Microsoft Corp. in 
an antitrust case built largely on computer messages. "People are so chatty 
in e-mail."

E-mail revealed the shredding of documents at Arthur Andersen and exposed 
Merrill Lynch analysts condemning stocks as a "disaster" or a "dog" while 
publicly touting them to investors.

Anti-American sentiments in messages Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and 
shoe bomb suspect Richard Reid sent to their mothers were gathered as 
evidence against them.

And when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed 
in Pakistan, investigators used e-mails from his abductors to track them down.

When drug dealers are arrested, police search their electronic organizers 
and cell phones for associates' names and telephone numbers. When someone 
is accused of molesting a child, his computer is searched for child 
pornography. When a company is sued, it can be forced to turn over 
thousands of employee messages.

"E-mail has become the place where everybody loves to look," said Irwin 
Schwartz, president of the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

One reason is that computer data is difficult to destroy. Just clicking 
"delete" won't do it, as Oliver North learned during the 1980s Iran-Contra 
probe, one of the earliest investigations to rely on backup copies of 
electronic messages.

Deleted files can linger, hidden on a computer's hard drive until that 
space is overwritten with new information.

"The best way to get rid of computer data is to take the hard drive and 
pound it with a hammer and throw it in a furnace," said John Patzakis, 
president of Guidance Software, which makes forensic software that helps 
police find hidden files.

Even that might not work with e-mail, which investigators also may be able 
to track down in an employee's office server, stored by Internet service 
providers or in the recipient's computer.

To go hunting through computer data, law officers need a search warrant 
issued by a judge. Winning legal permission to eavesdrop on e-mail as it's 
transmitted is more difficult because that is considered the same as 
wiretapping a telephone.

Investigators generally need a court order based on probable cause that the 
wiretap will reveal evidence of a felony.
*************************
Los Angeles Times
Teachers Learn High-Tech Skills on Summer Jobs
Education: Employers say they get good communicators, and the educators get 
great information to take back to school.
By KAREN ALEXANDER
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

MOUNTAIN VIEW -- With a Hello Kitty poster on the wall and daily 
motivational messages taped to the window, the tiny office that E'Leva 
Hughes and Patti Forster share looks more like a cheery classroom than a 
hard-driving Silicon Valley technology company.

That's because Hughes and Forster are middle-school English teachers. But 
come September, these two will have plenty to tell their students about 
what they did on their summer vacations--thanks to an unusual program that 
puts Bay Area teachers to work at technology companies.

Despite the dramatic downturn in the region's high-tech economy, the 
Silicon Valley nonprofit Industry Initiatives for Science and Math 
Education found jobs for 130 teachers this summer, a record for the 
18-year-old program.

Hughes and Forster work for Synopsys Inc., an electronic design firm.

Teachers say they learn scientific and technological skills as well as a 
better understanding of how corporate America functions. That's valuable 
insight that they can take back to their students.

For employers, the teachers bring a breath of fresh air and useful 
approaches to training and communicating with other employees.

In the case of Hughes and Forster, that has meant promoting their Synopsys 
Web site for information technology and training employees to use it. To 
get out the message, they launched a "road show" within the company, 
complete with massage therapists to help employees relax in the face of so 
much new information.

Hughes, a first-time fellow in the program who teaches eighth-grade 
language arts at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in San Francisco, 
will use her experience to create a more realistic business environment for 
her students.

She believes business skills will help them as they study social problems 
such as homelessness and drug abuse and try to come up with solutions.

To create a businesslike environment, she even plans to set up a 
teleconference between her students and the school principal.

"This gives me the opportunity to be the liaison between the corporate 
world and school. I want them to have options," Hughes said.

Forster teaches seventh-grade English at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School 
in Moraga. This summer marked her fourth year as a fellow in the program. 
In addition to her work for Synopsys, she created a Web page to help other 
teachers make their information more accessible on the Internet, and she 
filmed a documentary about Hughes' experience at the nonprofit.

Each teacher in the program is paired with a mentor from a host company. 
The teachers also spend about five hours a week developing lesson plans for 
their school classrooms.

Those who want to participate in the program post their applications on the 
nonprofit's Web site. Employers select their own fellows. This year there 
were three times as many applicants for the program as there were positions.

The program pays participants as much as $7,000 for their summer work, 
which is meant to help them meet the high cost of living in the Bay Area.

The extra income has enabled Charles Mosher, a sixth-year fellow who 
teaches high school technology in San Jose, to qualify for a mortgage on 
his Scotts Valley home.

"I think this program is more important than ever," Mosher said. "After the 
baby boom of the 1950s, we hired a bunch of teachers. Now they're all 
retiring. Those are the folks that got cheap houses. Now, we're looking at 
a bunch of new teachers who are renting because they can't afford homes."

Teachers say they enjoy interacting with other adults for a change, but, by 
the end of the summer, most are eager to get back to their classrooms. A 
cubicle, no matter how cheerfully decorated, is a poor substitute for the 
lively give-and-take of a high-energy classroom, they said.

"You go from being in your own classroom, where you get to make all the big 
decisions about what's going to happen in the course of the day, to the 
corporate world, where you're generally just one little piece of the whole 
office," said Deborah Frazier, a high school math teacher in Cupertino.

She just completed her third consecutive summer as a fellow at NASA's Ames 
Research Lab in Mountain View.

"Other jobs don't have the same emotional return as teaching," Frazier said.

Kevin Guichard, a high school math teacher from Livermore who worked at 
Intel in Santa Clara this summer, agreed. "With kids, you're always needed 
and you're always moving," he said. At a company, "it's a lot more about 
the product."

Nonetheless, when the product is a giant underground machine for smashing 
atoms, the product can be pretty cool. A San Jose high school chemistry 
teacher, Earl Roske, spent the summer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator 
Center, a facility he always wondered about as he drove past on the highway.

After spending a week at a training lab in Chicago, he's been working with 
two physicists who are studying how a certain part of the accelerator's 
equipment is aging.

"These guys don't work individually; they work together. They're just so 
geared toward solving problems and working in a group. That's the kind of 
philosophy I want in my classroom," Roske said.

"I began to think about how I can get my kids to work together to see lab 
as more of a collaboration."

"It's a win-win situation on our end," said Rhodora Antonio, a recruiter 
for National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara, which hired 11 teacher 
fellows this year.

"These people are very good communicators, both written and verbally. 
They're used to having an audience every day, and communicating information 
in ways that people will understand."
**************************
San Francisco Gate
Judge lets DVR users join lawsuit



Five users of ReplayTV digital recorders can defend their commercial- 
skipping ways in a legal dispute between the entertainment industry and 
ReplayTV-maker Sonicblue, a judge ruled Friday.

Originally, entertainment companies including Paramount Pictures and Disney 
sued only Santa Clara's Sonicblue, not individual users of its digital 
video recorder. The plaintiffs say ReplayTV is committing "contributory and 
vicarious copyright infringement" by giving the owners of the device the 
means to fast forward through commercials and e-mail shows to one another.

But Craig Newmark of San Francisco and four others complained that the 
lawsuit indirectly accuses them of copyright infringement. They filed a 
suit asking that the judge specifically clear users of wrongdoing.

On Friday in Los Angeles, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper 
denied the industry's request to throw out the owners' suit and instead 
consolidated both cases into one.

"The Entertainment Defendants have, with a great deal of specificity, 
accused the Newmark Plaintiffs (and other ReplayTV DVR owners) of 
infringing the Entertainment Defendants' copyrights," the judge wrote in 
her order.

Representatives for the entertainment industry did not return repeated 
calls Friday.

Newmark, who runs the popular Bay Area Web site Craig's List, said he is 
committed to participating in the Los Angeles court precedings.

"This means we're in for a long process. I'm told it will mean I'll be 
deposed," he said.

The owners of the devices will probably be asked in detail about which 
ReplayTV functions they use, and their devices could be examined to see how 
they have been used, said Robin Gross, intellectual property attorney for 
the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

The five owners and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is 
representing them in court, have brought the suit because they believe that 
using ReplayTV to skip commercials and record and share shows is legal 
according to the "fair use" provisions in the Copyright Act of 1976, which 
allow consumers to make copies of protected works for personal use and 
other specific purposes.

Sonicblue interim Chief Executive Officer Gregory Ballard echoed that 
sentiment in a statement released Friday, saying: "Our ReplayTV product is 
designed to give consumers control over how and when they enjoy their home 
entertainment, and we don't believe there is anything illegal about that."

E-mail Carrie Kirby at ckirby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
****************************
San Francisco Gate
Modern pirates bootleg films

Washington -- Todd Kluss downloads bootleg copies of movies off the 
Internet. Movie executives would call him a thief, but he says he's not in 
it for the money, despite the fact that the bootleg market is a 
multibillion-dollar industry.

He first ventured down this dark path six months ago, when he grew 
enchanted with the film "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." 
After paying about $8 to see it on opening weekend, Kluss knew: "I liked 
the movie, but I wasn't going to see it in the theater more than a few 
times. (Downloading) was a nice way of having it until the DVD comes out."


CALLS BOOTLEGS 'SAMPLERS'
Kluss, 25, admits he doesn't always buy the DVD. He calls much of his 
contraband "samplers." And how he has sampled.

Kluss located, downloaded and burned onto compact discs "Star Wars: Episode 
II -- Attack of the Clones" a day prior to the theatrical release; he saw 
M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" a full week before reviewers had even caught a 
sniff of it; and he has opted to watch "Austin Powers in Goldmember," 
"Reign of Fire" and "Minority Report" at home.

He says: "People who go through the trouble of downloading these movies are 
die-hard fans who would buy it on DVD anyway. . . . It's a way to sort 
through what I want to buy."

A self-described film buff with a full-time job and a master's degree, 
Kluss doesn't feel like an Internet bad boy. "I'm not in it to save the 
money, " he says. "Basically what I do is like a tide-over" until the DVD 
release.

Kluss is the walking embodiment of a fear that has caused studio executives 
to clamor for congressional protection and the chairman of the Motion 
Picture Association of America to bemoan the decline of the "moral rubric 
in this country."

In February, Michael Eisner, the CEO of the Walt Disney Co., and Peter 
Chernin, president of News Corp. (parent company of 20th Century Fox), 
testified before Congress on the need for greater enforcement of copyright 
laws in the face of, say, a double-hard-drive PC with hundreds of megabytes 
of RAM and the latest Pentium processor wired into a DSL connection.

Eisner stated: "There must be a reasonably secure environment to prevent 
widespread and crippling theft of the creative content that drives our 
economy. "

The theft appears only to be gaining momentum. A recent report issued by 
Viant Media and Entertainment says "the beginning of May 2002 established a 
new high-water mark for online film piracy activities." The report 
estimated that somewhere between 400,000 to 600,000 films were being 
downloaded by Internet users per day.

Jack Valenti, chairman of the MPAA, describes this as "a terrible threat."

Kluss argues differently. He downloaded the latest "Star Wars" installment 
early, but he wanted to see it first on the big screen, quaking in digital 
sound and surrounded by fellow fans.

It's also a way to find films he can't buy. In a chat room, Kluss heard 
about the now-shunned 1946 classic "Song of the South," which features the 
hit song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." After civil rights groups complained that 
Uncle Remus and other black characters in the film promoted negative 
stereotypes, Disney stopped further distribution. The movie is no longer in 
release, except as a bootleg.


FILE-SHARING PROGRAMS
To find the latest in pirated Hollywood goods, Kluss relies on newsgroups 
or file-sharing programs much like Napster, which was shut down last 
summer. The file-sharing programs are available on the Web for free. Kluss 
selected one called Kazaa, which has no central server but directly links 
users' PCs to each other.

The quality varies depending on the source of the bootleg. For films not 
yet released, the most desirable option is a dub of an advance-review copy, 
generally sent to the media. Beyond that, you're limited to an assortment 
of reproductions that come from someone in the theater, perhaps the 
projection booth, pointing a video camera at the screen.

As of now, the quality of the bootlegs is roughly on par with a worn VHS 
tape. Colors are often faded, images aren't crisp. When an acceptable copy 
is found, it can be downloaded and then copied onto compact disc.

Film industry folks aren't buying it.

Valenti calls it stealing.

"It's a question of how one conducts oneself. Taking something from the 
owner is theft."
**************************
Nando Times
Digital copying rules may change

By NOEL C. PAUL, Christian Science Monitor


(August 18, 2002 10:23 p.m. EDT) - In a few years, Americans may not be 
able to copy a song off a CD, watch a recorded DVD at a friend's house, or 
store a copy of a television show for more than a day.

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission approved 
regulations that would require television manufacturers to include 
anticopying technology in the next generation of televisions. The 
technology would identify programs that broadcasters do not want consumers 
to copy without first paying a fee.

And in Congress, lawmakers are considering a bill that would require all 
digital devices, and the software that runs them, to include a copyright 
protection system. The system would make it impossible for consumers to 
make unauthorized copies of music, movies, and television programs.

Such protections, proponents say, would give Hollywood an incentive to 
offer more entertainment in digital format, thereby spurring consumers' 
adoption of such technologies as high-definition TV and broadband services.

"The entertainment industry historically has been very, very slow to 
embrace technology because of concerns about piracy," says Mark Kersey, a 
broadband analyst with ARS, a market research firm in La Jolla, Calif.

Millions of consumers, for example, already watch pay-per-view movies and 
undoubtedly would pay for the ability to download digital movies onto their 
set-top boxes. But consumer advocates argue that the flood of digital 
entertainment for the home would come at a high cost, both in terms of 
money and consumer flexibility.

Currently individuals can legally record TV shows, make digital audio files 
of CDs, and lend books to friends. Such activity is protected under a 
federal "fair use" statute, which takes into consideration most consumers' 
need for flexibility.

New regulations being discussed significantly erase fair-use rights in the 
name of piracy prevention. Ultimately, the entertainment industry hopes to 
charge consumers for what they now do free of charge.

"The only way they can charge you, they realized, is to first take away 
your legal right, and then sell that right back to you," says Joe Kraus, 
president of DigitalConsumer.org, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

If certain antipiracy measures pass in Washington, Mr. Kraus says consumers 
may have to pay extra to play a CD in more than one player; be no longer 
able to transfer music from a CD to an MP3 player; and be unable to watch a 
program recorded onto a DVD on a separate machine.

Allowing consumers access to media, but restricting them from adapting it 
is similar to teaching people to read but not allowing them to write, says 
Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University. "To say we must make a 
device that does not do one of those functions is saying that the device is 
no longer a computer any more," says Mr. Shirky.

The entertainment industry's greatest concern is that the proliferation of 
digital technology and high-speed Internet access may let consumers 
download a movie, for example, and send it to thousands of users before it 
even exits the theaters.

According to Viant, a Boston-based market-research firm, 400,000 to 600,000 
films are illegally downloaded from the Internet each day. "(These films) 
are innocents in a jungle, ready to be ambushed by anyone," says Jack 
Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, a trade 
association in Washington.

Mr. Valenti believes consumers should still be able to record copies of 
films from television onto VHS and DVD formats. He is primarily concerned 
with consumers making additional copies of films, even if just for a neighbor.

"It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing 
legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow," says Valenti.
*************************
Information Week
Making [Privacy] Work

The privacy policy is written and posted on a company's Web site. The 2002 
privacy-policy notice, a complicated statement required of 
financial-services companies under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, is in the 
mail. Top executives and perhaps even the board of directors have reviewed 
the policy to make sure it will protect the company's good name. So it's 
mission accomplished on the privacy front. Or is it? [For the complete 
story see: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020816S0010]
***************************
MSNBC
Smile, you're on surveillance camera

NEW YORK, Aug. 18   As if there weren't enough reasons to look over your 
shoulder in New York City these days, take a walk through Midtown with 
surveillance camera tour guide Bill Brown. He'll give you dozens more 
excuses to be anxious.
      "I'M JUST AN AVERAGE PERSON who is trying to figure out what is 
going on in the city I was born in and love," explained Brown, a Brooklyn 
native. "I don't think I'm paranoid  I think the people who are paranoid 
fill the streets with cameras."
       Part performance artist, part privacy advocate, Brown, 43, a 
free-lance copy editor, has been giving free walking tours of Manhattan's 
most camera-dense neighborhoods on Sundays for the last two years.
       Focusing on such areas as Times Square, Chelsea, the United 
Nations, Washington Square Park and Fifth Avenue, Brown tells his tour 
groups there are roughly 5,000 cameras watching the streets of Manhattan. 
And those are just the ones he can see.
       Standing on 16th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, he points 
out 16 cameras  some that swivel, some cone-shaped, some encased in a box. 
Most are easy to spot.
       "This block is a kind of an open-air museum of different cameras," 
he said.
       Brown says 90 percent of Manhattan's surveillance cameras belong to 
private companies concerned about protecting property and lower insurance 
rates.
       Others, he claims, are police cameras  such as one at Eighth Avenue 
and 14th Street, which at first glance looks like a streetlight.
       Police don't dispute his claim, but won't discuss their methods. 
"Any security-related issues we don't comment on," said Officer John 
Sullivan, a spokesman.

MONITORING INDUSTRY GROWING
       On a recent Sunday, Brown did a little dance in front of one 
camera, holding up a copy of the Constitution  which he claims outlaws such 
surveillance. He then smacked an eye-level sticker on the pole that read: 
"You Are Being Watched, Surveillance Camera Notice."
       He went through a similar routine in front of the city's traffic 
light-scofflaw cameras at Ninth Avenue and 20th Street, and yet again 
outside an office of American District Telegraph, a 130-year-old 
international electronic security provider.
      Robert Volinski, Manhattan sales manager for ADT, is unabashed, of 
course, about surveillance cameras. He says the closed-circuit TV 
monitoring industry is growing by 15 percent a year. Companies install 
cameras primarily to let employees know someone is watching and to record 
activity in and around their premises, Volinski said.
       "I can show you equipment through which you can look in at what's 
going on at your company's Puerto Rican or California headquarters  not to 
mention your own front door," he said.
       Brown's tours, which are free, attract only a handful of people; 
even on his best days, Brown says, he draws only about a dozen people. He 
doesn't advertise, but he does place items in local newspaper calendars and 
publicizes the tours on his Web site.
       Pat Volpe of Brooklyn, who signed up for Brown's tour after seeing 
his Web site, was dismayed by the surveillance. "It's disturbing. It's 
symptomatic of our civil liberties and privacy being encroached upon," 
Volpe said.
       The same tour group included a German television crew, portraying 
Brown as a lonely voice of outrage against the Patriot Act, a post-Sept. 11 
law that broadened government surveillance powers.

LOSS OF PRIVACY?
       Brown said his tours are partly based on a list of surveillance 
cameras compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union [See, 
http://www.mediaeater.com/cameras/].
       "When you can't walk down the block without someone capturing you 
on camera you lose your anonymity, your privacy, whether it's from the 
government or private entities," said NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman.
      "The line between the two is blurred when the U.S. attorney general 
is telling people on television to spy on their neighbors," she said, 
referring to the Justice Department's new Terrorism Information and 
Prevention System, known as TIPS.
       Everyone, Brown said, has something they'd rather keep to 
themselves, whether it's a tryst, a political opinion, a cry or a drunken fall.
       In defense of the developing TIPS program, Homeland Security chief 
Tom Ridge said recently that the program is not supposed to be an intrusion.
       "We just want people to use their common sense," Ridge said. "The 
president just wants people to be alert and aware. ... We're not asking for 
people to spy on people."
       Brown is not reassured.
       One large camera, pointing down on 16th Street, particularly 
disturbed him during a recent tour.
       "This one is predatory, raptor-like," Brown said. "It epitomizes 
what is even the aggressive language of cameras  you 'shoot' something, you 
'capture' something."

       © 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not 
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
*************************
MSNBC
Bar-Coding Patients
How supermarket-scanning technology could be used to prevent medical errors 
and save lives

Aug. 16   We've known the dismal statistics for a while now. Each year as 
many as 98,000 Americans die as a result of human errors made in hospitals.
MORE THAN 7,000 of thema higher number than those lost to workplace 
injuriesare killed because of mistakes in their medication. But what's been 
done to fix the system since the Institute of Medicine reported these 
numbers three years ago?
      The Veterans Administration Medical Center of North Chicago may have 
found a smart answerand it involves just simple technology. This military 
vets' hospital has been part of the national VA effort to implement a 
program called Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA). The program works 
as follows: each patient is given a wrist band with a bar code, the same 
type used on magazine covers, food packages and other goods so that 
cashiers can scan them for the correct price.
       The same thing happens in this bar-coded medication system. First, 
all patients who enter the hospital are given a specialized bar-coded wrist 
band that can transmit their relevant identifying information to a hospital 
computer. Then, a doctor enters the patient's prescription into the 
computer, and that information is sent to the pharmacy. The pharmacist 
picks up and verifies the order to make sure that there are no glaring 
discrepancies like doses that are too high or multiple medications that 
could interact adversely. Once everything checks out, the information is 
sent to a large automated machine that spits out the medications in a 
special bar-coded package that's earmarked for individual patients.
       To complete the circle of technology, the patient's medication is 
delivered to the hospital ward and is stocked on the medication cart the 
nurse uses to make her rounds. Each cart is especially equipped with a 
laptop computer and a scanner. The nurse scans the patient's wrist band, 
and then scans the bar-coded medication package. When the computer confirms 
that both match, it displays a signal giving the go-ahead to administer the 
drug. If it's the wrong medication or the wrong patient, an error message 
appears instructing the nurse to hold off. According to Kay Willis, chief 
of pharmacy for the North Chicago VA center, this system has reduced their 
medication errors by as much as 87 percent. "There's been an improvement in 
medications administered on time," she says. "We have eliminated 
wrong-patient errors, we have eliminated wrong-drug errors and wrong-dose 
errors."
       So why hasn't this program been implemented at hospitals around the 
country? As always, solving one part of a problem can raise a new one. 
Assigning bar codes to patients may remove the potential for errors caused 
by names that are similar or misspelled. But it doesn't solve the issues 
raised by how the medications themselves are bar-coded. Right now, 
hospitals like the VA are receiving drugs from the manufacturermost of 
which don't come bar codedseparating them into unit doses and affixing 
their own bar codes. This, of course, takes more time and money, and more 
importantly, increases the chance of mistakes by the pharmacist who is 
sorting and labeling the medications.
       That's why healthcare experts like Gary Mecklenburg, CEO of 
Northwestern Memorial Healthcare System and former chairman of trustees for 
the American Hospital Association, thinks bar-coding is a great idea and 
important for patient safety but needs to be worked out more 
comprehensively. He believes it's going to take collaboration on the part 
of hospitals and manufacturers to make the system effective and efficient, 
something he considers critical before rolling the program out nationally. 
"I think we need a uniform bar-coding system that everyone adopts and is 
implemented at the manufacturing level for every dose of medication that's 
going to be administered at the hospital," he says. "Without that we will 
not have uniform standards and we will have multiple systems that probably 
will add to both cost and errors rather than solving the problem."
        For now, drug manufacturers seem to agree that patient safety and 
preventing these medication errors is also their priority. They've been 
looking closely at ways to incorporate these changes and applying bar codes 
right as medications roll off the assembly line. A universal system like 
that eliminates the potential of an error by an individual pharmacist. 
Getting all manufacturers to bar-code their medications, however, is not 
something that will be done overnight. The Pharmaceutical Research and 
Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) estimates that it will take a few years to 
implement all of the necessary changes. The FDA has already held hearings 
on the need for bar-coding, and now the real work begins as hospitals and 
manufacturers hammer out the details. If the VA system is an example of the 
potentials of national bar-coding system, this technology could help 
hospitals reclaim thousands of lives that otherwise might have been lost to 
error.
*****************************
Euromedia.net
New copyright bill causes confusion says NewsClub

The German Government has released a new draft law for regulating copyright 
in the information society, according to a directive from the EU, which is 
causing some confusion.

Among other things, the government clarifies the rights of reporting daily 
news in online media  but unfortunately, according to NewsClub.de, the 
controversally discussed article 87b of German copyright law 
(Urhebergesetz, "UrhG") has not been changed, which is the German 
interpretation of the EU database directive.

The news search engine NewsClub.de has been accused of copyright 
infringement by the German company that publishes the newspaper Mainpost. 
The argument put forward is that NewsClub violates article 87b of German 
copyright law by setting website links to their news articles, which they 
call a "database".

Currently, there are several parallel lawsuits in Europe against search 
engines, such as Newsbooster.com, Paperboy.de and Net-Clipping.de.

NewsClub is a search engine for news. Currently, it covers more than 100 
different news sources. The user can search by news category and headline, 
being relegated by a web site link to the publisher's web page containing 
the desired article. The user receives the page directly from the 
publisher's server, including all contents, advertising banners, etc. There 
is no in-frame linking, and each news headline includes the publisher's name.

In addition, the news web site gains accesses by the inflow of users that 
come from NewsClub. Apparently, says NewsClub, the complaining publisher 
did not understand that this gives it a material benefit. It has filed a 
suit against NewsClub by using the exceptional rule in copyright for 
"databases".

Article 87a UrhG defines "databases" as follows:
"A database within the meaning of this Act is a collection of works, data 
or other independent elements arranged in a systematic or methodical way 
the elements of which are individually accessible either by electronic or 
by other means, and the obtaining, verification or presentation of which 
requires a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial investment."

In article 87b UrhG the rights of the Maker of the Database are defined: 
"The maker of the database has the exclusive right to reproduce, to 
distribute and to communicate to the public the whole data base or a 
qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part thereof. The repeated or 
systematical reproduction, distribution or communication to the public of 
qualitatively and quantitatively insubstantial parts of the database shall 
be deemed as equivalent to the reproduction, distribution or communication 
of a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the database 
provided that these acts run counter to a normal exploitation of the 
database or unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the maker of 
the database."

So, asks NewsClub, does pure linking (brokering) of internet websites 
violate copyright law? If that is true, it states, search engines like 
Google, NewsClub, Altavista etc. could have to shut down their servers.

The German government wants to clarify the situation with the introduction 
of two new articles into German copyright law - article 44a UrhG and 50 UrhG:

By article 44a, "temporary copying acts" such as searching engines do are 
going to be allowed:

"Temporary copying acts which are non-permanent or accompanying and 
represent an integral and essential part of a technical process and whose 
solely purpose is to provide a transmission in a net between third parties 
by an intermediary, or
to provide lawful use of a work or other subjects of protection, and which 
do not have commercial relevance by itself, are permitted" (non-official 
translation)

The proposal for the revised form of article 50 UrhG also seems to be 
advantageous for search engines: "For reporting current-events by radio or 
by other similar technical media, in news papers, magazines and other 
printings or by other data media which essentially accommodate daily 
interests - as well as in the movies - the reproduction, distribution or 
communication to the public of works that are perceivable in the course of 
these events is permitted in a scope, which is appropriate for the 
purpose." (non-official translation)

But, says NewsClub, it is yet unclear if legislation comes to the position 
that these both articles are valid for databases as well  because article 
87b has not been modified.

If the reasoning of Munich Upper Court (OLG München), which currently deals 
with the NewsClub case, is followed, that article 87b would regulate 
searching engine activity regarding databases in a terminatory way, 
NewsClub assert that one could assume that the legislator used different 
terms for just one kind of redistribution, namely "copying".

Then, say NewsClub, you have a forked term of copying, as searching 
engines, that quote and link information from databases, already perform 
"copying" when the quoted text is stored in memory. According to article 
44a, such a temporary, technically needed storage should not be illegal.

The main subject-matter in the lawsuit against it, claims NewsClub is, 
primarily: Is there a right to retrieve information from public sources? 
May a search engine enable the internet user to find the location of 
desired information?

It is a matter of fact, states the search engine, that the complainer's 
website is publicly accessible. They have not taken any precautions - 
neither legally nor technically  to limit access by the public and 
searching engines.

Whoever posts a document on the internet, says NewsClub, without 
undertaking provisions such as password-secured access, or a clear "don't 
link me" statement (robots.txt, Meta-Tags etc.), declares that he wants to 
be found by searching engines. Any other construction seems to be 
controversial and inconsistent. Not only the consitutionally but also the 
logically conformable interpretation leads us to the conclusion that 
article 87b is not really meant as a general linking ban.

It is even more astonishing, states NewsClub, that the news publisher is 
complaining, because it removed the company's web site from its crawler 
already in 2000, right after NewsClub received notice to cease and desist.

The damage is incalculable for all internet users, because, in NewsClub's 
view, the internet is not operable without search engines.

Furthermore, NewsClub claims that the publisher in the lawsuit, "wants to 
herd its readers like cattle along all the advertising banners, from the 
starting page down to the page containing the news article, hoping that the 
user clicks on one of them. That way, the publishing company wants to 
refinance its website."

In its statement NewsClub concludes that if newspapers exclude search 
engines, they will lose readers and advertising income.
***************************


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