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Clips July 17, 2002

Clips July 17, 2002

ARTICLES

Bills Seek to Delay Baggage-Screening Deadline
FTC Seeks Greater Authority Over Telecom Sector
Radio Stations Appeal Ruling on Web Fees
Harris wins FAA telecom deal
US software firm aids Saudi censors
Computer Security Standards Ready
ICANN to Finish Governance Reform in Oct.
FCC Delays Cell Number Deadline
Tech support: Not quite at our beck and call
Maker of Web pop-up ads loses ruling
White House's IT strategy emphasizes info sharing; pilot projects named
Navy steams forward on XML standardization
FBI says it's making progress on technology upgrade
FBI expects two-year wait to replace old computers
Bush plan supports states in developing driver's license standards
Government to the cyber rescue?
Switch on for state snooping
E-vote election 'by 2006'
Computers more costly due to recycling laws
Getting a Pixel Fix on the Enemy
Consumer Federation Warns that FCC Policies Threatens ISPs
No Changes to FCC's "Universal Service" Definition
A Conversation With The Inventor Of Email
New Sun Products Comply With Liberty Alliance Standards
Euro lawmakers discuss Net issues with Congress
Why ICANN can't (IEEE Newsletter Opinion Piece)
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Washington Post
Bills Seek to Delay Baggage-Screening Deadline
By Sara Kehaulani Goo

House and Senate lawmakers proposed legislation yesterday to extend a key deadline to inspect every airline passenger's luggage for explosives by year's end, saying the rush to install thousands of bomb-detection machines could choke major airports and result in three-hour delays for travelers.

The deadline is required as part of an airport security law passed by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but a growing number of lawmakers and airport directors doubt that the Transportation Security Administration will meet it.

Bills filed yesterday by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.) and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) would delay the deadline for the 25 percent of the nation's 429 airports that have more complicated terminal designs. It would direct the TSA to come up with permanent plans to install the machines, such as in the terminals' baggage area, out of sight and out of the way of passengers.

"Let's not impose an artificial deadline that's not going to accomplish what we want to accomplish," Granger said.

Both Democratic and Republican aides said the legislation will be difficult to pass on its own because TSA officials and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta insist they can meet the deadline. Delaying the deadline may be viewed by voters as cutting corners on airport security, the aides said.

"Absent the administration saying it, I don't see the political will there" to move the deadlines, said Peter Rogoff, staff director for the Democrats on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation.

Rob Chamberlain, Republican counsel to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the nation's airports cannot afford to wait any longer for better security. "The bottom line is we don't have anything in place right now" to detect explosives, Chamberlain said.

House supporters said they intend to try to pass the measure as an amendment to the bill creating a Homeland Security Department or to an appropriations bill.

Some airlines and a large group of airport directors, including those who oversee Washington's three major airports, predict that the difficulties in installing bomb-scanning equipment will create chaos for airports at the end of the year.

Some airport directors worry that the long lines will create a greater security risk. The fatal shooting incident July 4 at Los Angeles International Airport exposed a security weakness in lobby areas outside of security checkpoints.

"You're creating a worse security program than you intended," Randall H. Walker, aviation director at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport, said at a meeting of airport executives Monday and yesterday in Washington.

At the same meeting, the TSA's Mike Robinson, associate undersecretary for aviation operations, disagreed that the push to meet the deadline would result in major delays. "None of our modeling suggests what we intend to do is going to crash the system at any place," Robinson said.
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Washington Post
FTC Seeks Greater Authority Over Telecom Sector
By Brian Krebs

The Federal Trade Commission is pressing Congress for authority to regulate the nation's largest telecommunications providers in an effort to shield consumers against aggressive telemarketers and questionable billing practices.

The FTC has long been excluded from regulating the telecom sector, a job traditionally left to the Federal Communications Commission.

But the FTC now says it needs to be freed from that exception to build its proposed national anti-telemarketing registry. The FTC's concern is that without added oversight powers, the agency could lack the authority to rein in egregious telemarketing practices among local and long-distance phone companies.

Consumer groups support the FTC move, arguing that the agency responsible for policing the industry - the FCC - has failed to crack down on carriers accused of billing consumers for unauthorized services and "slamming," the illegal practice of changing a consumer's telephone service without permission.

The added oversight is especially needed in the face of industry consolidation at a time when the FCC is taking steps to deregulate the telecom sector, said Gene Kimmelman, Washington director for Consumers Union.

"This barrage of existing and potential market abuses in a time of deregulation makes it most important to apply traditional competition and consumer protection rules to telephone companies," Kimmelman said.

The FTC's proposal is opposed by the telemarketing industry and many state officials who fear the national do-not-call registry could preempt stronger state laws.

"This effort simply duplicates what the industry and states are already doing, and just seems like a ridiculous use of public resources," said H. Robert Wientzen, president of the Direct Marketing Institute.

Nationwide, 20 states have adopted do-not-call laws, and the direct marketing industry maintains a voluntary registry of roughly 4.5 million Americans.

The telecommunications industry also is strongly against the move.

"To add another federal regulator to the mix would only cause confusion that would not be constructive," said Larry Sargeant of the United States Telecom Association. "No one has identified a particular deficiency with respect to FCC enforcement."

All five FTC commissioners plan to push for the changes at a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.

Sources familiar with the matter say draft legislation that would grant much of the FTC's request focuses on funding for new consumer protection measures, and does not seek to involve the commission in telecommunications merger and competition proceedings, which are currently decided by the FCC in consultation with the U.S. Justice Department.

But Mozelle Thompson, one of two Democratic commissioners on the FTC, said he hopes the commission can use the added authority to weigh in on competition proceedings within the telecom sector.

"I support a lifting of the common carrier exemption because I think we can provide substantial expertise on both the consumer protection and competition sides," Thompson said in an interview.

It remains unclear whether separate legislation stands a chance of passage this year, particularly given Congress' preoccupation with the Bush administration's homeland security proposal.

Barry Piatt, spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee hosting Wednesday's FTC reauthorization hearing, said his boss remains ambivalent about the FTC's request.

"He's neither for or against it at this point," Piatt said. "He's willing to listen to both sides and make a decision when the time comes."
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New York Times
Radio Stations Appeal Ruling on Web Fees
By BLOOMBERG NEWS

PHILADELPHIA, July 16 (Bloomberg News) Clear Channel Communications and other radio operators have asked an appeals court to review rulings forcing them to pay record companies royalties for songs played on the Internet.

The appeal, filed on Monday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by the National Association of Broadcasters and several radio operators like Clear Channel and Cox Radio, challenged a ruling by a federal court in Philadelphia that allowed the Copyright Office to set the royalty rates.

Record companies and stand-alone Web sites will have to pay 0.07 cent a song for each listener for retransmitting music on the Web, according to a ruling from the Copyright Office last month. At stake are millions of dollars in fees to record companies. The Recording Industry of America, a trade group, wants the court to reject the appeal.
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Mercury News
Yahoo, eBay fraud nets man 12-year sentence

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A man who defrauded Internet auction shoppers out of more than $100,000 was sentenced to 12 years in prison Tuesday in what prosecutors said could be the stiffest penalty ever for such an offense.

Prosecutors said Thomas Houser bilked 268 eBay and Yahoo! shoppers.

Houser, of Fairfax, offered electronics, watches, paintball guns and other goods on both Web sites through the ``Houser Family Store.'' The items did not exist, prosecutors said.

Houser, who would operate out of motel rooms and move around to avoid capture, had checks sent to a private postal box in Fairfax, according to court records. He was captured in February in Georgia.

Investigators said Houser was awaiting sentencing when he was arrested after pleading guilty on Dec. 13 to similar charges. He had been released on $50,000.

Authorities have seized from Houser nearly $50,000 in cash and a 1993 Nissan sports car worth about $6,000. The money will be used to repay those defrauded.

Department of Justice officials said Houser's 12-year sentence is the longest handed down for Internet auction fraud. His punishment was compounded by a lengthy criminal record and the fact he committed the new crime after pleading guilty to the first fraud.
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Federal Computer Week
Harris wins FAA telecom deal
The Federal Aviation Administration announced July 15 that it has awarded Harris Corp. the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) contract, potentially worth $3.5 billion over 15 years.

FTI will integrate the management of multiple telecom networks, including satellite and phone services, for air traffic operations and administrative systems that are reaching the end of their lease terms or useful lives.

The FAA is taking a performance-based approach to the procurement that emphasizes results rather than detailed specifications and gives vendors room to come up with a best solution to meet an agency's mission.

"We look forward to putting an FTI network into place that meets the FAA's unique telecommunications services and security requirements, and support its critical role of managing the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS)," Phillip Farmer, chairman and CEO of Harris, said in a July 15 news release.

Harris has teamed with several subcontractors, including BellSouth Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc., Raytheon Co., SBC Communications Inc., Sprint and Verizon.

"The FAA has a need to upgrade their nationwide infrastructure, not just airport activity but really all of their facilities," said Tony D'Agata, vice president of the government systems division at Sprint. "It's a major undertaking initiated a few years ago and it's finally coming to fruition."

Two other groups, led by Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management and WorldCom Inc., competed for the services contract, which has a five-year base.

"FTI is a critical element of our overall plan to modernize the national airspace system," FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said in a July 15 news release. "The FAA and the Harris team are forming a long-term partnership to ensure that the U.S. airspace remains the safest in the world." The telecom network that currently supports the nation's air traffic control system eventually will become part of FTI.

The Leased Interfacility NAS Communications System (LINCS) -- used to transmit radar, weather and other data -- links 5,000 locations and carries more than 14,000 connections, enabling air traffic controllers to communicate with one another and with pilots.

The FAA awarded a follow-on contract to WorldCom in February to continue operating LINCS to smooth the transition to FTI.

WorldCom's original contract, which was competitively awarded in 1992, ended in March. The new five-year deal could bring as much as $604 million.
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USA Today
S. Korean activists plan cyber attack against USA

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) Activists threatened on Tuesday to launch cyber attacks on the White House, U.S. Embassy and military Web sites to protest the deaths of two South Korean girls fatally struck by a U.S. armored vehicle.

The South Korean activists planned to try to incapacitate the Web servers by flooding them with a massive number of simultaneous "hits" or visits of the sites on Wednesday.

"Our aim is to temporarily shut down the servers to show our anger," said Yoon Su-keun, an organizer of the anti-U.S. protest.

Yoon said activists want an apology from President Bush and punishment for the two soldiers who were in the vehicle that struck the girls on a narrow road north of Seoul on June 13.

Anti-U.S. protests have taken place almost daily since then.

About 130 student activists, shouting "Yankee go home," rallied on Tuesday near the U.S. Embassy, demanding that the two soldiers be tried in a South Korean court.

About a dozen protesters briefly scuffled with riot police, who blocked them from entering the embassy building to deliver a protest letter. No arrests or injuries were reported.

Earlier this month, the U.S. military indicted Sgt. Mark Walker and Sgt. Fernando Nino on charges of negligent homicide for trial in a U.S. military court in South Korea. If convicted, they could face up to six years in prison.

The U.S. military had initially said it had no plan to court-martial the two soldiers. Lee Ferguson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military command in Seoul, said enough evidence was later found to prosecute them on criminal charges.

Maj. Gen. Russel L. Honore, commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, visited the victims' parents Tuesday and said the U.S. military would build a memorial near the accident site to honor the two girls.

Walker and Nino, both from the 2nd Infantry Division, were on a training mission near the border with North Korea when their armored bridge carrier hit two 14-year-old girls on a public road. The soldiers' home towns were not released.

South Korea last week requested that the U.S. military give up jurisdiction over the two soldiers. The military has yet to respond.

Under a treaty, the military can allow South Korea to try American soldiers involved in accidents while on duty. If convicted in a South Korean court, the soldiers could face up to five years in prison.

Occasional accidents and crimes by U.S. soldiers have prompted demands from South Korean activists that Washington give Seoul more legal power in cases involving American troops. Some activists have also demanded the withdrawal of the U.S. troops.

Since the 1950-1953 Korean War, about 37,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against the communist North.
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Boston Globe
US software firm aids Saudi censors
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 7/17/2002



It's no surprise that the government of Saudi Arabia blocks its citizens' Internet access to pornography. But Saudis also are prevented from viewing hundreds of Web sites on topics ranging from Christianity to gay rights. And an American software company is helping the Saudi censors in their work.

A report from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School found that of about 64,000 sites tested, over 2,000 were blocked in Saudi Arabia. Of these, only 795 contained sexually explicit materials. Of the remaining blocked pages, 246 were on religious topics, among them 45 sites related to Islam, the official religion of Saudi Arabia. Also blocked were 76 humor sites, 70 music sites, 43 movie sites, and 13 dealing with homosexuality.

For instance, Saudis can't get access to the iVillage Web site for women; the Jewish site Israel

.com; Submission.org, an Islamic information site; Answering Islam, a site promoting Christian evangelism among Muslims; the gay Web site Queernet.org; and Amnesty International's reports on human rights in Saudi Arabia. In addition, Saudi authorities block access to Internet services that translate Web pages from one language to another. Such sites could be used to translate objectionable Web pages into Arabic.

On the other hand, the study found that many major news sites, such as CNN, are freely available to Saudis. And some blocked sites, such as the humor publication The Onion, were later unblocked.

Berkman Center co-director Jonathan Zittrain, who helped conduct the study, said that Saudi government officials who oversee Internet access in the country assisted him in his research. The Saudi Internet Services Unit gave him full access to the country's network of ''proxy server'' computers that filter Internet data before it enters the country.

''I think they are quite open about what they do and why,'' Zittrain said. ''I don't think they feel this is anything to be embarrassed about. They might feel differently now that our study is out.''

According to the ISU's Web site, the Saudi government relies on commercial filtering software to filter out pornographic sites. Such products include a list of known pornographic Web sites; updates to this list are regularly sent to customers. Filtering programs also allow users to add their own lists of sites to be blocked. The ISU says that it blocks non-pornographic sites when it ''receives orders to block them from related government bodies.''

The basic filtering software used by the ISU is SmartFilter, produced by Secure Computing Corp. of San Jose, Calif. Executives for Secure Computing declined to be interviewed.

This isn't the only instance in which American companies are aiding efforts by foreign countries to limit their citizens' Net access. The Associated Press reported yesterday that major Web portal Yahoo has agreed to voluntary censorship of its Chinese site. Under the agreement, Yahoo pledged to avoid ''producing, posting or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.'' A spokeswoman at Yahoo stressed the new policy applies only to Chinese Yahoo and will have no bearing on Yahoo's US operations.

But Zittrain said the Saudi and Chinese strategies could help transform the Internet from a borderless global network to a host of national Internets, each with its own rules.

''I think that it would be a lost opportunity if the Internet were to become cantonized, if it were to become a series of countrywide Webs,'' he said. ''I believe that keeping something like the status quo, where you have an all or nothing Internet, may be best.''

The Berkman Center report can be seen at cyber.law.harvard

.edu/filtering/saudiarabia.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@xxxxxxxxxx
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Washington Post
Computer Security Standards Ready
U.S. Agencies, Technology Firms Set Guidelines to Protect Against Hacking
By Shannon Henry

In a high-tech, high-powered version of a neighborhood watch, a group of government agencies and private businesses plan to announce today a common set of standards and software to fight computer hacking.

The Pentagon, the National Security Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other agencies are joining forces with such corporations as Intel Corp., Allstate Insurance Co., First Union Corp., Visa and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to agree on technical actions to stem computer fraud and theft.

"It's support for the homeland security strategy," said Clint Kreitner, president and chief executive of the Center for Internet Security (CIS), the nonprofit group of agencies and companies that is coordinating the effort. "We forged a technical consensus."

The announcement comes as there is increased concern over computer security since Sept. 11. Computer hacking, much of which has been caused by mischievous teenagers, has become more pervasive and destructive. The perceived threat of cyber-terrorism from countries or terrorist groups has raised the stakes. Richard Clarke, who was appointed the nation's cyber-security adviser late last year, has said he worries about a "digital Pearl Harbor," where the country's vital networks could be attacked.

While some government agencies and corporations have installed rigorous security provisions, others lag behind, failing to use even commonly available patches. There has not even been a commonly agreed-upon set of fixes to install; the decision about how a computer system will be protected usually falls to the person in charge of installing the protection.

Representatives of those agreeing to the standards had an initial meeting on April 18, said Kreitner, that was followed by a flurry of e-mails.

"The challenge here is to get the significant experts in this field to agree on the steps to achieve security," Kreitner said. He admits that it's not an easy task, which is why so few such agreements have been reached. "Everybody has their own opinion," he said.

What the group came up with is a series of specific technical actions designed to heighten security, recommended to all organizations that use Microsoft Windows 2000, a common operating system, although not the newest one. A software "scoring" program has been created by CIS members that would then check to ensure those settings are in place. The software, which also checks to see if patches are up to date, will be available free to anyone who wants it, said Kreitner, although it's not currently aimed at individuals. All CIS members, which cover many industries, were invited to participate in the creation of the standards.

Several of the top technology executives in America, including Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates and Oracle Corp.'s Larry Ellison, this year have said they are also working to make their products tougher to break into.

Shannon Kellogg, vice president of the Information Technology Association of America, a trade association, cautioned that the agreement would only be successful if it concentrates on performance-based standards, not on specific technologies that could stifle innovation. And, he added, it requires much more communication.
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Washington Post
ICANN to Finish Governance Reform in Oct., More Tech Policy Briefs...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will finalize its plans for gutting and replacing its existing governance structure in October. In a status report issued today, the internal ICANN committee charged with steering the changeover said it would publish a preliminary "implementation report" on or around Aug. 1, followed by an Interim report Sept. 1, and a final plan due out Oct. 1. At a meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month, ICANN voted to replace its board of directors, in the process abandoning a structure that allowed ordinary Internet users to elect a portion of the ICANN board. An internal committee will elect most of ICANN's board under the resolutions approved by ICANN in June. ICANN manages the Internet's worldwide addressing system. The status report is online icann.org.
-- David McGuire (07/16/02)
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Washington Post
FCC Delays Cell Number Deadline
By David Ho
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 16, 2002; 11:16 AM

WASHINGTON Cell phone users will have to wait longer to keep their phone numbers when they switch carriers, federal regulators decided Tuesday.

The Federal Communications Commission for the third time extended the deadline requiring carriers to allow consumers to keep their numbers. The new date is Nov. 24, 2003, one year later than the previous deadline.

Congress said in 1996 that people can keep their traditional local phone numbers when they change phone companies. The FCC said that year that wireless carriers also would have to offer "number portability."

Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless are among the major cell phone companies opposing the requirement, citing cost and technical hurdles. But others, such as Nextel Communications and San Diego-based Leap Wireless, support the measure as a way for them to gain customers.

The FCC decision Tuesday was prompted by a request from Verizon Wireless, which petitioned the commission last year to eliminate the requirement. Much of the wireless industry supported the petition.

The four FCC commissioners denied the petition, but had to compromise on the length of the extension.

Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said she wanted a delay that stretched into 2004 to give companies more time and to avoid draining their resources. Commissioner Michael Copps said he wanted a shorter delay.

About 137 million Americans subscribe to cell phone services and about a third change carriers each year, according to industry figures.

Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, said those numbers show that not being able to keep phone numbers is not preventing people from switching.

"Competition is alive and well," Larson said before the decision. His industry group supported eliminating or delaying the FCC requirement.

But consumer advocates say not being able to retain numbers is one of the biggest barriers preventing even more cell phone users from switching in search of better service and prices.

"The idea that this won't benefit consumers is ludicrous," said Chris Murray, an attorney for Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Gilbert Crowell, an agricultural products salesman from San Marcos, Calif., said not being able to keep his cell phone number hurts his ability to do business.

"They hold you hostage," he said. "I'm wedded to AT&T now and if I decide Verizon or somebody else has a better deal for me I have to go through some horrendous process of attempting to get people to know my new cell phone number."

The wireless industry estimates that implementing portable numbers will cost more than $1 billion in the first year and $500 million each year after that.

"Maybe consumers would prefer that money be spent in building up networks, filling in dead spots and reducing busy signals," Larson said.

Larson said the portability requirement was originally intended to increase competition among traditional wireline carriers and should not apply to wireless services, which already have a competitive market.

In 1996, the FCC required that wireless companies let cell phone users keep their numbers in the top 100 U.S. cities by June 1999. But the agency gave the carriers extensions, setting the deadline for later this year.

Many cell phone users outside the United States in places such as Britain, Australia and Hong Kong already have the option of keeping their numbers when they switch carriers.



On the Net:

FCC wireless bureau: http://wireless.fcc.gov

CTIA: http://www.wow-com.com

Verizon Wireless: http://www.verizonwireless.com/
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USA Today
Tech support: Not quite at our beck and call

Tom Mariam boasts an Ivy League education, but by his own admission is no techie. So when the owner of a Port Chester, N.Y., communications firm booted up his Dell and received a warning relating to a possible virus, he hit "terminate" and attempted to boot the PC again. The same error message popped up. Mariam wasn't sure what to do next.

Permit me to present to the court yet more evidence, if needed, of the woeful state of support.

Mariam became an unwilling participant in the Blame Game. He called Dell, which told him it was a software issue and he'd need to contact Symantec, maker of the Norton AntiVirus software on his machine. But, Mariam says, "You can only get help from Norton online. How do I contact Norton if I cannot boot up my computer?"

Mariam finally used an old laptop to reach the Norton site, where he was referred to a chat room "of people with similar but not the same problems. It's useless, at least to an amateur like me," he says. "Eventually, after many forced steps, you can send an e-mail to Norton, but there was a warning that it could take several days to get back to you by e-mail" and possibly longer, because of July 4.

Only after all this did Mariam stumble upon actual tech support phone numbers and the fact that he would have to pay either a flat fee of $39.95, or $3.95 per minute, to solve his problem that way. Mariam had recently paid more than $20 to upgrade his virus protection for a year, so he wondered, "Why should I pay for help?" He didn't. A friend eventually bailed him out.

Sadly, most of us have been in Mariam's sorry shoes.

For all the steady advancements that have been made in personal computing over the years, tech support still lags and might even be slipping. As PCs evolve into digital darlings that do music, pictures, video and home networking, the likelihood of a meltdown would appear to increase.

"People end up buying the cool toys that have a lot more functionality built in, which makes them a lot more complex and (makes it) harder to figure out what's wrong," says analyst Tony Adams with research firm Gartner puts it. He believes, and I agree, that tech support staffers should be involved in product planning and design processes. "What's missing is a lot of advance thinking," he says. "That is the crime of the century."

The aptitude test

When I informed Chris Monnette, who heads tech support for Symantec, about Mariam's episode, he was surprised Dell didn't handle it. "Our arrangement with them is that they would provide that support." (Blame Game, round two.) Though the company provides free phone support for installation problems or known defects, handholding on how to use or interpret the program will cost you. "There's a certain level of computer savvy that we expect the customers to have when using our products, and if they need help beyond that, we have to charge for it," he says.

Come again? Folks should pass an aptitude test before pulling out their wallets?

I'm certainly not out to finger Symantec its issues are emblematic of an industrywide problem. Microsoft charges $35 per incident for phone help with Windows or Office, though since the arrival of Windows XP, the fee only kicks in on the third support incident. (You also get unlimited free support during the installation.)

Microsoft reports that 97% of customer support contacts take place on the Web these days. But "if you're a relative novice, you won't get near the (Web) knowledge base," concedes Matt Fingerhut, director of Windows client support, who says phone help is free on most Microsoft entertainment and reference titles.

I am not naive. I recognize that providing phone support (and the requisite manpower and infrastructure) is extremely expensive, and it doesn't help that the economy is in the toilet. Indeed, Monnette says the average support call dealing with just one particular virus last year exceeded 79 minutes and the longer the call, the more it hurts the business financially. That's why most companies would rather have you seek assistance on the Web. And for some lucky customers, that works out just fine.

But try explaining that to the poor schnook who paid for a working product, only to get milked the moment the thing starts acting up.

I hear stories of frustration all the time. Having worked with countless products over the years, I've experienced more than my share of problems issues no sane person should be expected to comprehend. I'm certain if I didn't have corporate contacts to harangue, and if those same contacts hadn't been trying extra hard to make nice with me, I'd have spent hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours keeping things running.

Fewer repairs needed

And yet there is some reason for optimism. Industry execs are mindful of negative press and recognize the correlation between user satisfaction and repeat business. "We know that if we spend a dollar on support, it comes back to us in reduced marketing expenses," Gateway CEO Ted Waitt told me recently.

The latest PC Magazine service and reliability reader survey, due on newsstands in the next few days, reports that the average overall satisfaction rating among desktop PC users (on a scale of 1 to 10) registers a respectable 7.9.

Fewer machines require repair these days. Editor in chief Michael Miller says increasingly stable operating systems, integrated motherboards, fewer separate components, easier connections and color-coded ports are all leading to improvements. "I'm not going to tell you it's perfect," he says. "I don't think it is good enough."

By itself, desktop PC tech support rated a mediocre 6.7. That may reflect a more dire condition when you consider that PC Magazine's readers are more technically proficient than the market at large.

Among desktop PC makers, Dell continues to be the perennial service and reliability champ. But even Dell is slipping: Its notebooks dropped to a B+ from last year's A, and some respondents complained that Dell's phone staffers speak English poorly. (In an effort to cut costs, many companies "outsource" phone centers overseas.)

Dell also received worse than average scores on "in-warranty" repairs. I've noticed that Dell is scrimping on the length of warranties supplied with some models.

The results are even more daunting for the newly combined Compaq and HP. Measured separately in the survey, Compaq received an E (failing) for its desktops, with HP a barely better D-.

What kind of service should an end user ultimately expect? Says Waitt: "What's realistic is that if you have a problem with a PC, you have some great tools online and get it resolved quickly, (or) if you engage in a chat session you get a response very quickly. If you want to pick up the phone, your call should be answered within five minutes, guaranteed."

Waitt says Gateway is besting those marks already, on average, with most people (but certainly not everyone) getting their issues resolved on the first call. I trust those of you who haven't been rescued quite as swiftly will let Gateway (and any other company) know loudly.
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USA Today
Maker of Web pop-up ads loses ruling

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) A California software company must stop delivering ads that pop up unauthorized when surfers visit the Web sites of several prominent media companies, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria, Va., issued the preliminary injunction Friday in a lawsuit that 12 media companies filed last month against Gator of Redwood City, Calif.

The plaintiffs, including parents of The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today, accused Gator of parasitic behavior.

No date has been set for trial.

Janet Collum, an attorney for Gator, said company officials were considering an appeal of the injunction, confident it will win the case at trial. "We believe strongly that the facts and the law are on our side," she said.

Gator, which runs an ad network that claims 22 million active users and 400 advertisers, produces pop-up ads that appear when computer owners with its software browse Web sites targeted by Gator's advertisers.

Internet users get Gator advertising software when they install a separate product for filling out online forms and remembering passwords. Gator also comes hitched with free software from other companies, including games and file-sharing programs.

As users surf the Web, Gator runs in the background and delivers advertisements on top of what the surfer would normally get at a site.

Terence Ross, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the court injunction "is an indication that the judge thinks our case does have merit."

The publishers claim Gator's practices lower their advertising revenue by directing Web surfers to competitors' sites, hiding legitimate ads and offering deals that directly compete with those of the site's paid advertisers.

Ross said Gator's practice also "causes a loss of content control," noting that Gator ads might conflict with stories on Web sites and potentially create an appearance of journalistic bias or incompetence.

But Gator likens its practice with having multiple windows from multiple applications open at once: To ban its ads would be to ban running instant messaging and a Web browser at the same time.

Last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau threatened to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Gator's selling of ads that block out the banner ads displayed on other Web sites.

Gator responded with a federal suit in California against the trade group, seeking the court's declaration that the practice was legal. Gator ultimately agreed to stop the practice, and the lawsuit was dismissed.

The 12 plaintiffs in the current case against Gator are Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, Gannett Satellite Information Network, Media West-GSI, the New York Times Company, the Boston Globe Newspaper Company, Dow Jones, Smartmoney, the Chicago Tribute Interactive, Condenet, American City Business Journals, Cleveland Live, and Knight Ridder Digital.
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Government Computer News
White House's IT strategy emphasizes info sharing; pilot projects named
By Joab Jackson
Washington Technology Staff

Information sharing and data mining will be integral IT components of the White House's newly released national strategy for homeland security, said Steve Cooper, chief information officer of the Homeland Security Office, during a July 16 administration briefing. Cooper also said three new pilot projects have already been identified by the office to ramp up new technologies.

In this briefing, Cooper stressed the need for information sharing and data mining tools to track potential terrorist behavior.

Cooper said the administration is looking to a "capture once and reuse many" approach to data gathering, meaning data will be shared among agencies. The proposed office would employ a business-focused enterprisewide architecture to facilitate data sharing within the department and with other agencies.

Cooper said the department would develop guidelines for other agencies acting as "primary guardians" of data. Data mining would also be a central IT function for homeland security, according to Cooper. "What we're talking about is pattern recognition, or the use of software intelligent agents to peruse data, [which are] driven by algorithms and rules that define themselves over time," Cooper said. Such tools "can marry statistically derived outcomes from known events to predictive models."

Cooper said the proposed department would take on several pilot projects to test emerging technologies for large-scale use. Three projects have already been approved "by the equivalent of the deputies and assistant secretaries in the relevant agencies," he said. They are:

*A project led by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for law enforcement agencies across 10 states as well as federal agencies to share criminal information. Analytical tools would also be incorporated into this system. This project would have an estimated cost of around $10 million.

*A consolidation of lists of suspected terrorists that are kept by civilian and defense agencies. Cooper said this project would cost under $1 million.

*A homeland security portal for states and local law enforcement agencies to obtain more information on topics such as critical infrastructure. This project would likely cost in the range of "a couple hundred thousand dollars," Cooper said.

Cooper did not have an estimate of the proposed department's IT budget, though Mark Forman, associate director of information technology and e-government for the Office of Management and Budget, said at the conference that budget could be estimated as being between $1 billion and $2 billion.

The national strategy, unveiled by President Bush, describes the defense mechanisms the United States should put in place to defend against nuclear, radiological, biological, chemical and cyberattacks. It also further defines the duties of the administration's proposed Department of Homeland Security.

A copy of the report can be found at www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/book/nat_strat_hls.pdf.
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Government Computer News
Navy steams forward on XML standardization
By Patricia Daukantas

Less than a year into the Navy's effort to standardize the use of Extensible Markup Language, the service's XML working group recently published the second edition of its developers' guide.

Since May 1, Navy developers have had Version 1.1 of the 41-page guide that the working group published last November as Version 1.0. Both are available online at quickplace.hq.navy.mil/navyxml.

The Navy is committed to participating in XML standards organizations, said Michael Jacobs, data architecture project lead for the Navy CIO's office. The service has already joined the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards and is applying for membership in the World Wide Web Consortium.

Jacobs spoke yesterday at a government-industry meeting for XML developers hosted by Mitre Corp. of Bedford, Mass.

It's critical for the Navy to stay involved in development of the standards, because the Defense Department has a history of having to modify off-the-shelf applications after they are acquired, Jacobs said.

The Navy's XML group, established in August 2001, attracts 50 to 60 Navy personnel to its meetings, Jacobs said. The group's near-term goals include drawing up an XML implementation plan and documenting the requirements for a Navywide repository of XML schemas and code.

In the developers' guide, the Navy aims to present a balance between being overly restrictive and being so loose that developers use nonstandard components at their discretion, said Brian Hopkins, an engineering consultant working with the Navy CIO's office. It's supposed to provide general guidance on XML component selection, component naming conventions and design of XML schema.
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Government Executive
FBI says it's making progress on technology upgrade
From National Journal's Technology Daily

The FBI is nearing completion on two of three major steps to improve its information infrastructure, FBI project management executive Sherry Higgins said in written testimony at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Administrative Oversight Subcommittee.

The agency has purchased new printers, scanners and workstations, and updated Microsoft Office software at all field offices as the first part of its "Trilogy" program, Higgins said.

The second part, which involves the creation of a higher-speed network both between and within FBI buildings as well as new encryption programs, is scheduled for completion in March 2003, back from a previous date of July 2002.

Under the final component, the agency will merge five software applications into a Web-based virtual case file aimed at easing navigation.

Higgins said the program would improve methods for manipulating documents and sharing information. The first part of the Web application should be released by December 2003.
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Computerworld
FBI expects two-year wait to replace old computers

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is moving aggressively to replace an antiquated computer system that uses green screens with no click-and-point capability, but it will still take two years to complete the project, a bureau official told a Senate committee today.
The two-year estimate is better then the original timeline that put the completion date at three years. But June 2004 is still too long to wait for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.

"Given that this should be one of the highest priorities that America has, it's still going to take us a couple of years," said Schumer. "It seems like an awfully long time given how important this is."

Sherry Higgins, who was appointed last March to head the FBI's IT project upgrade initiative called Trilogy, agreed that it was an "extremely long time" but said, "The right solution takes a longer time then to just get a solution."

The FBI was nonetheless working to get some upgrades completed quickly, including improving the ability of agents to search databases. The FBI system's search engine can't handle complex searches with multiple words.

One problem hurting a speedy implementation is a lack of documentation on existing systems, said Higgins.

Higgins, in her testimony and by demonstration, showed what the FBI's new interfaces would like -- point-and-click interfaces, with pull-down menus, an interface that would look familiar to anyone who shops online.

The FBI's effort would also link all of its major criminal databases, and Higgins, a former CIO at Lucent Technologies Corp., said talks were under way with other federal agencies to ensure that the systems architecture would facilitate interoperability.

Schumer also called for a private-sector advisory board, comparing it to the oversight now sought for accountants. "It's good for the accountants to have somebody else looking over their shoulders, giving advice," he said. Higgins said she "totally supports" the idea, as does the FBI director.

The FBI is receiving $507 million in this fiscal year for IT, an increase of 127% from the previous year's budget of $223 million.
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Computerworld
Bush plan supports states in developing driver's license standards

WASHINGTON -- The White House's new homeland security strategy calls for uniform standards for driver's licenses but doesn't offer the road map that technology companies and the police would ultimately need for accessing license data.
Instead, the National Strategy for Homeland Security report, released today, calls on the federal government to support a state-led effort to develop minimum license standards.

As increasing numbers of states encode data on driver's licenses, more businesses are scanning encoded data to authenticate the card and the holder, although the technologies vary. Business groups want a single standard for encoding that data.

"Without a single standard, you have a real interoperability problem," said John Hervey, chief technology officer at the National Association of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Va. Different standards can mean "a nightmare for retailers in terms of equipment and software."

The White House report said that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups have exploited the absence of standards for content, format and issuance of licenses. About 45 states use magnetic stripes, bar codes or both technologies on driver's licenses.

It's unclear what effect the White House's push for more secure driver's licenses will have on existing efforts to improve driver's license security. Since Sept. 11, there has been strong interest in developing a driver's license that includes a biometric component, possibly a fingerprint.

In January, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators in Arlington, Va., said it had begun work on unifying licenses and is developing a recommendation. And in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) has introduced legislation seeking minimum uniform standards for a driver's license. In the House, two Virginians, Reps. Tom Davis, a Republican, and James Moran, a Democrat, have introduced legislation calling for a biometric-enabled smart card. Their bill seeks more than $300 million to help fund that initiative.

With time running out in this session, however, lawmakers aren't expected to act on either bill this year.

Despite the absence of federal action, there are clear technology trends among states.

Two-dimensional bar codes are gaining ground over magnetic stripes, with 37 states using them, according to the motor vehicle administrators association. Twenty states use magnetic stripes, but some use both technologies.

Advocates of 2-D technology, such as Dennis Nussbaum, a top official in Wisconsin's Division of Motor Vehicles, say the bar codes are more durable than magnetic stripes, hold more data and can be easily used on other documents.

Pennsylvania last year added 2-D bar codes to its driver's licenses but is continuing to use magnetic stripes to give technology options to law enforcement agencies and retailers, said Joan Nissley, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Symbol Technologies Inc. in Holtsville, N.Y., developed the 2-D technology standard. One of the attractions of 2-D bar codes is their storage capability; each can hold 1,108 bytes of data. Magnetic stripes have a maximum capacity of 210 bytes. With the likelihood that states will move to biometric identifiers -- possibly as a result of a federal law -- 2-D bar codes might be more appealing because of their storage capacity.

But the magnetic stripe may not be out of the running.

MagTek Inc. in Carson, Calif., has developed a higher-density standard for magnetic stripes that would increase capacity to 1,836 bytes. The standard has already been submitted to various approval bodies.

Kiran Gandhi, vice president of marketing at MagTek, said the appeal of magnetic stripes is that most businesses have readers for them.

Magnetic stripes put data on three tracks; the data that businesses scan is on Tracks 1 and 2. The high-density standard uses six tracks, and a new reader would be needed to access that data, but the first two tracks would be backward-compatible, said Gandhi.

A smart card, which contains a microprocessor, can hold up to 64,000 bytes of data and can offer high security, as well as storage for many other applications, such as health and motor vehicle insurance. But states say the technology would cost millions to deploy and would take a push in Congress for funding, said Randy Vanderhoof, CEO of Smart Card Alliance Inc. in Princeton Junction, N.J.
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MSNBC
Government to the cyber rescue?
Computer security standards unveiled
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, July 16 Creating a "Good Housekeeping" approval seal of sorts, the government is releasing standards and a software program that will help computer users configure their systems for maximum security against hackers and thieves.

THE PROGRAM will be made available free to anyone and mandated for some federal agencies.
The Pentagon, National Security Agency and other agencies will join with private partners Wednesday in announcing the security standards for computers that run Microsoft's Windows 2000. The operating system is commonly used by businesses and government.
The seal of approval comes in the form of a small program that probes computers for known security flaws and makes suggestions on how to eliminate holes used by hackers.
The unprecedented effort will have immediate impact.
All Defense Department computers will have to meet the standards immediately. The White House is considering making the rest of the government follow suit.
Experts say the keys to success will be extending the standards to home and business users, making them simple enough for the public to understand and ensuring they stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated computer attackers.
"If it's just government, it won't have as much value as if it's government and the private sector," said Richard Clarke, President Bush's computer security adviser.
The private partners in the project have their eyes set on broadening the standards to other operating systems, including the Windows products most commonly used at home.
"It's a massive problem," said Clint Kreitner, head of the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit partnership of companies and American and Canadian government agencies. "They slap their systems on the Net and get ready to go, then wonder why they get breached in the next 10 minutes."
The effort has brought together some of the biggest names in business, including computer chipmaker Intel Corp., Chevron and Visa part of the group that helped create the standards and is encouraging their use.
Microsoft, which is embarking on its own efforts to makes its software more secure, has reviewed the standards and made suggestions.
The standards have developed slowly, in part because security in the past frequently has been handled through technical security bulletins written for engineers.
"You'd give a 200-page document to a system administrator, and say, 'Have a nice day,"' Clarke said. "So no one did it."
The breadth of the problem is staggering. The technology research firm Gartner recently projected that through 2005, 90 percent of computer attacks will use known security flaws for which a solution is available but not installed.

WORRIES OVER TERROR CYBERATTACKS
Most recent attacks were written and released by bored youngsters testing their skills, but the government is becoming more concerned about organized attacks against federal computers from terrorists or foreign governments.
Several government agencies have had their own security standards for some time. What is new about Wednesday's announcement is that the various agencies have agreed on a single standard a difficult task that occurred about three months ago.
Experts at the CIS, the NSA and Commerce's National Institute for Standards and Technology had three different candidates for standards at first. On April 18, the authors met in a room at NIST offices in Maryland.
"They were told they could leave as soon as they came to an agreement," said Alan Paller of the Sans Institute, a research and education group involved in the announcement.
That night, they had a document several hundred pages long describing how to make Windows 2000 secure, but still usable.
That was only half the battle, though. Clarke, the White House adviser, said they wanted to make it easy for federal network engineers to make the changes.
To fix that, the government created the software tool that grades computer security so that everyone, from the engineers to top executives, understands how secure their computers are. The tool then recommends changes.
Some government agencies, including the Air Force, plan to use their procurement power to require that vendors offer more secure versions of their software based on the standards.
"Now we can go to Microsoft and others to say that this is our common set of expectations," said Jhn Gilligan, the Air Force's chief information officer. "Right now, we're doing the work."

© 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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BBC
Switch on for state snooping

From August net service providers in The UK will be legally obliged to carry out automatic surveillance of their customers' web habits.
Controversial laws passed in 2000 oblige large communications companies to install technology that allows one in 10,000 of their customers to be watched.

The information gathered about the websites that people visit, who they exchange e-mail with and who they call on the phone will be passed to the police or a government monitoring station.

The demands have been criticised by experts who say the law conflicts with basic guarantees of privacy and that the government is not doing enough to help pay for the installation of the surveillance systems.

Data hoover

The controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was passed in October 2000 and gave law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop on the electronic lives of citizens.

The Act demands that organisations it dubs Communication Service Providers (CPS) - broadly anyone that helps people keep in touch via the web, fax machine or phone - install technology that can automatically monitor what many of their customers are doing.

It also demands that service providers start monitoring a customer within 24 hours of being told that the police or other investigation agencies want to snoop on them.

The information collected must also be passed on electronically to the agency which asked for the snooping to start.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said 1 August was the day on which the new surveillance regime would start, even though the snooping systems are yet to be installed.

"It will just mean that police can go to CSPs and say we want information on this person," she said.

Data delivery

Roland Perry, public policy director for the London Internet Exchange which interconnects the networks of net service companies, said the government was still working out how best to put the surveillance systems in place.

"It's a very long-term project," he said. "The whole thing will be done on a one-to-one basis with the individual companies concerned."

The government is also currently working out what types of information it wants from CSPs and how it will be delivered.

"In theory, an interception capability would deliver all the data," said Mr Perry. "It's the internet equivalent of a telephone tap."

The government is hoping that its work on automatic surveillance will become a European standard and be widely adopted.

Costly communication

Service providers have asked for help to buy the equipment needed to set up the permanent interception capability.

"The Home Office has said it would contribute £20m to this but the net industry has said it will cost a lot more than that," said Ian Brown, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research.

The Internet Service Providers Association has warned about the potentially huge costs of installing surveillance equipment to meet the demands of the RIP Act and the recently passed Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.

A spokesman for the organisation said it was still seeking clarification over the types of data its members were supposed to be catching, how long it had to be stored for and who would pay for the storage.

Mr Brown said one of the few safeguards on the snooping system was the fact that the agencies asking for the surveillance to be carried out will be charged to use it.

"This means agencies have to make a judgement whether it's worth making a request if costs a few hundred pounds to do it," said Mr Brown.
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BBC
E-vote election 'by 2006'

E-voting could replace the traditional ballot box by 2006, a UK Government report has suggested.

Online polling, accompanied by postal votes and voting by telephone, would replace ballot papers and ballot boxes under the plan.

Commons leader Robin Cook has put the proposals, which would mean all votes being counted electronically, out for consultation.

Cash was made available in Chancellor Gordon Brown's spending review to develop e-voting with a series of pilot projects over the next three years.

The report says: "A programme to achieve successful implementation of e-voting is under way to ensure that robust systems can be in place for an e-enabled general election after 2006."

Pilot projects over the next two years could involve voting via digital TV, telephones and text messaging.

The report says action needs to be taken to encourage more people to vote amid fears about political apathy.

'Invigorate'

In last May's local elections, turnouts increased in areas where voters were given the chance to vote by post, at the weekend and electronically.

Mr Cook said he hoped the proposals would "invigorate debate" on using technology to aid the democratic process.

He said the Green Paper would set out the government's aim of using new technologies to "promote, strengthen and enhance our democratic structures".

"Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide a means to increase public participation, and we hope that with an active government policy the potential benefits can be maximised," he said.

A spokesman for the Work Foundation's iSociety project welcomed the news.

'Sickly politics'

"This paper is an important step forward, and puts Britain in pole position to capitalise on opportunities to use new technology to improve the workings of democracy.

"However, the government now needs to think even bigger.

"eDemocracy needs to be more than an elastoplast for a sickly politics."

Technology alone could not reignite interest - there was a need for "genuine new thinking and changing the way that politics is run" the spokesman added.

"Basically, if people don't want to vote, and aren't interested in participating, the fact that they could do it online will make no difference at all."
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Euromedia.net
Computers more costly due to recycling laws
12/07/2002 Editor: Cathy O'Sullivan

A European directive that will make the manufacturers of personal computers responsible for what happens to old machines when customers upgrade, could result in computers becoming more costly.

Experts fear that the cost of disposal and recycling and research into new ways to dispose of the obsolete hardware could push up the price of computers. Some in the industry warn of E50 hike per computer when the EU environmental laws come into force.

According to the BBC, officials at The Department of Trade and Industry estimate that the total bill to British industry of the directives could top GBP3bn (E4.7bn).

The Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive covers recycling of equipment such as computers, and the Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive would ban certain substances used in the manufacturing of IT equipment.
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Wired News
Getting a Pixel Fix on the Enemy
By Erik Baard



Our culture thrives on simultaneously preserving data over eons and cramming it through a pipeline in a blink. Now two mathematicians working for the U.S. Navy have developed an algorithm that promises to do a bit with both, aiding experts who need to see the world through the eyes of old artistic masters and killer robots alike.

The Office of Naval Research is funding the work of Guillermo Sapiro, of the University of Minnesota, and Andrea Bertozzi, of Duke University. The Navy is motivated to dispel the "fog of war" -- making sure visual intelligence is complete and in a form suitable to the human eye, as well as available in real-time.

Transmission troubles can corrupt the data of digital images and video, leaving images blurry or blotchy. Compression to save bandwidth can also degrade images. Sapiro and Bertozzi, an expert in fluid dynamics, recover lost information in its most probable form by extrapolating on the color, shading, lines, and other qualities of the region surrounding the gap.

"The algorithm is automatic. It looks at the gray values and gradients (edges) of the pixels surrounding the hole," Sapiro said in an e-mail. "In simpler words, both the color/intensity and the borders. These borders are continued inside the hole."

Art restorers often deal with images made incomplete by stains, rips, scratches or flaking paint. These experts take days or even months to "inpaint" a bridge across the gaps to create a consistent image, using knowledge and subjective intuition in what is an ancient craft.

In the world of mathematics, that's called "partial differential equation-based interpolation of lost image regions," and it's done at lightning speed and utterly objectively. By contrast, a software program like PhotoShop digitizes the process but doesn't change the essentials of inpainting.

For the Navy, apart from correcting faulty images, this new form of inpainting could dramatically cut back bandwidth demands in the field by having crude blocks of basic information sent from a source, with a machine on the receiving end sharpening and filling the image with the algorithm. In what's sure to get them e-mailed images of UFOs, grassy knolls and Nessie, the researchers say the technique might be applied to photo enhancement.

But some of Sapiro's image alterations leave the viewer wanting to reach for his or her Photoshop stylus. The larger a filled-in gap is, the smudgier it seems to be. The program ably removes text from a distant image, revealing a clean photo underneath, because details are hard to discern anyway. But close-ups of larger obstructions or gaps leave a ghostly blur, almost as if the neighboring pixels are watercolors bleeding into the void.

"In many cases (we) perform perfect, in many not. We follow basic rules used by restorators. But in (a) half-minute/minute, we do not get always what restorators do in days/months. Sometimes, the restorator has to briefly go over our results, and use them just as a hint or as a starting point. "It can be a fully automatic tool for some cases and a helping tool in others," Sapiro said. The program sees only pixels - it still takes organic intelligence to discern an artist's intent, or to mimic style like the scintillation of a Klimpt or the folds of fabric in a Vermeer.

"This is a really interesting question," Bertozzi said. "My group at Duke is just starting to explore, on a more rigorous mathematical level, how to quantify this more precisely. The methods we are using are based on very nonlinear processes for which such questions are an active area of research in ... the physics community."

But there can still remain a sore need for human judgment - in one image a bungee cord is removed so the subject appears to be flying over river. Sadly, the jumper still has a pronounced wedgy lifted toward the camera.

"We never claimed, not in our publications and not in our talks, that we perform 100-percent perfect," Sapiro concedes.

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News.com
11 vie for .org name
By Paul Festa

A key Internet decision-making body is weeks away from naming the new guardian of one of the Internet's oldest and most popular domains.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is poring over 11 applications to decide who will take over the .org registry from VeriSign.

VeriSign's Network Solutions division has had custody of .org since the U.S. government awarded it the contract for domain name administration a decade ago.


Applicants to take over .org include the Internet Society (ISOC), in partnership with Afilias, IBM, Ultra DNS and DSI Technology Escrow Services; the Register.com subsidiary Register Organization; and the Union of International Associations, which is affiliated with VeriSign.

ICANN, a nonprofit, private-sector corporation, was formed in 1998 with the mandate to introduce more competition into the market for domain names. That involved breaking Network Solutions' monopoly control over the three primary top-level domains: .com, .net and .org.

In March 2001, VeriSign agreed to relinquish .net and .org. ICANN subsequently issued a call for applications to take over .org as of Jan. 1, 2003.

Through the end of the year, VeriSign retains control of the .org registry, essentially giving it wholesale rights over .org addresses. Its rights to the .com registry are good through 2007.

VeriSign's successor in controlling .org will be chosen by ICANN's board of directors. Advising the board is ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization, in particular that organization's noncommercial domain name holders' constituency.

ICANN is scheduled to post evaluations of the 11 applications on July 22 and to announce a successor to VeriSign on Aug. 1.
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Network Digest
Consumer Federation Warns that FCC Policies Threatens ISPs

The FCC's broadband proposals threaten to wipe out independent ISPs, according to a new study by the Consumer Federation of America. The report highlights anti-competitive practices in advanced networks, including architectural barriers and restrictions on services imposed on the independent ISPs by the incumbent operator.
http://www.consumerfed.org/backpage/070102_broadband_release.html
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Network Digest
No Changes to FCC's "Universal Service" Definition

The FCC received a recommendation that no new services should be added or removed from the definition of services supported by "universal service." The main issue under discussion had been whether advanced or high-speed services should be included within the list of core services supported by a federal universal service fund. A Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, which was composed of three state regulatory commissioners and three FCC commissioners, found that no new service satisfies the statutory criteria of the Communications Act of 1934. The Board concluded that the public interest would not be served by expanding the scope of universal service at this time. The Board reasoned that high-speed service is not "essential" to consumers because online resources are available by voice telephone, dial-up connections and in public libraries and schools. Moreover, a substantial majority of consumers so far have chosen not to subscribe to high-speed services where they are available. The Board further cited a heavy federal financial burden to include high-speed access as part of universal service, especially in rural areas. An expansion of universal service would also violate the principle of competitive technology neutrality (DSL vs. cable). However, the Board was split on the issue of equal access of fundamental telecommunication services to all Americans.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02J-1A1.pdf
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Earthweb
A Conversation With The Inventor Of Email
By Sharon Gaudin

Ray Tomlinson gave society one of the greatest communication tools in history. He invented email back in 1971 -- essentially fostering global business communication and turning the Internet into a digital kitchen table for far-flung family members.

The MIT grad is one of the forefathers of the Internet, working on ARPANET, the forerunner to the Internet, along with workstations, super computers and a slew of protocols.

But email may be his greatest legacy -- if not the toughest project he's ever worked on. Alexander Graham Bell became a household name -- someone children learn about in school -- because he invented the telephone. But consider that in this high-tech era there are more emails sent every day than telephone calls. That definitely gives Tomlinson his own place in history, if not a life of fame and fortune.

In this Q&A, the man who was honored earlier this year for a lifetime of innovation by Discover magazine, says he's irked by spam and hopes for a technical solution. He also talks about his vision for the future of email, dismisses claims that he's changed society and updates us on the distributed computing project he's working on today at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Mass., where he's worked for the past 35 years and is their much-lauded principal engineer.

Q: What was your vision for email, and has the reality of it lived up to your expectations?

I'm not sure there was a vision there. It was a hack -- a neat thing to try out. ...It probably took four, five, six hours to do. Less than a day spread over a week or two -- when I had a spare moment. The idea was this facility had proved its usefulness sending messages to the same computer. What about when someone was on another computer, maybe across the country? It would be like the telephone but they wouldn't have to be there to answer the phone.

Q: When did you realize how big email was going to be?

It never seemed big at the beginning because there weren't many computers. It was only as big as the network. It depended upon having people with access. As an idea, it caught on right away, but there were so few people on the network... We didn't call it email. If we called it anything we called it mail or messages. The contrast with snail mail wasn't necessary then... I never documented the creation of the program. In 1993, someone started to ask where email started. I knew I had done the program... but later various people came along and there were a lot of additional ideas that went into it.

Q: How many email addresses do you have?

I have three that I use and three that I don't. They're three come-along-for-the-ride email addresses that you get from an ISP.

Q: How do you feel about spam and what should be done about it?

I get irked when I get spam. It's a tough problem and I'd like to see a solution come along. So far the solutions aren't working. Either they filter too much or they're not effective when they should be. They don't do what humans would do. Why did that email come through? And why didn't that legitimate one get through? No, I don't think legislation will work. I hate legislative solutions. It just doesn't sit well. I'd like to think people have the common sense not to spam, but obviously they don't. It's still possible we may have a technological solution for it. I would like to see that. I'm not spending any time on it myself. The other stuff I'm working on now is more interesting to me. I didn't have any association with email after the late '70s. I watched it from afar but I didn't participate.

Q: How do you see email evolving? What will it look like 10 years from now?

If it doesn't get killed off from spam, it probably won't be a lot different. You may see it more closely integrated with other forms of communication, though, like instant messaging. Once email is answered, you could continue the conversation more immediately, like with instant messaging. Simultaneous correspondence is a lot better than a few emails in a few hours. Or maybe you'll get an email and press a button and make a phone call... not with Verizon, but over the Internet. People would like more seamless interaction between the tools. They don't like being in a particular mode and having to switch to another. I want to specify what I want to do. I don't care how it happens... Bandwidth will go up. DSL is becoming more common. Cable modems are more common. Technology there will improve those services.

Q: What do you think of instant messaging?

I don't use it myself. I got turned off when I installed some browser that insisted with cluttering my screen up with instant messaging. The closest I've come to IM is some chat services. They were not fast enough. They weren't instant to me. I think people who use it are very happy with it. It fills an important niche.

Q: What can be done to make email more secure and cut down on the distribution of viruses and worms?

The insecure part of email is not something you can fix with technology. It's just so convenient. You can have an attachment in an email that does something for you. The attraction with that tempts people to click on an application... and get a virus. Anything you can think of to tag that as a virus is not going to be used. You'd have to have the cooperation of the hacker for that to work. And if your ISP threw away every attachment, that wouldn't work because email would lose its utility as a communication tool.

Q: A lot of people say email has changed society. Do you buy into that?

I think there will never be an answer to that. It's had an effect. I don't think people are fundamentally different now than they would have been. They simply communicate more. Maybe they've made friends and maintain relationships that they wouldn't have. But bad guys are still bad guys. Good guys are still good guys. Friendly people are still friendly. Just because they can be friendly over email and not a telephone [isn't that much of a difference]. You just have a larger community to draw from. If you have problems or are looking for answers, you have additional opportunities to find those answers. It's like having a library in your hometown or not. If it's not there and you have to make a trip to another town, you might not do it. You can tap into resources more readily. People have found answers to questions and email has been part of that solution.

Q: Is high-tech research as exciting to you now as it was back in the late '60s and early '70s when you were working on ARPANET and email?

Yeah, the subjects are different. This may be more exciting because there's so much happening all at once. We have this wonderful tool - the Internet. It's been around in one form or another since about '74. That's when the first networks were hooked together. It's just a wonderful resource. Think of ways to hook things together. Think of ways to get information.

Q: What are you working on now?

Distributed systems that use tools in various places around the country and work out solutions to problems. Trying to get it to happen is a challenge, but getting it to happen is tremendous. The system is based on agents, which are software applications that have certain expertise to work out solutions, like scheduling. Other agents know how to take a problem and break it down into smaller problems. They talk with each other and give each other answers. One agent will have access to specific information so it will be able to answer specific questions. We're actually working on solving the Department of Defense's logistical problems. We have a particular focus, but the overall techniques are general and could be adapted to other scenarios... We're working on both Linux and Windows and it's written in Java so it's relatively platform independent.

Q: Does it bother you that Ray Tomlinson is not a household name despite the contributions you've made?

No, it doesn't bother me. It's a geek thing. Computer nerds know that I've done this. I've gotten emails from individuals who've run across this fact. They say, 'It's great what you did. Why don't you do something about spam?' I'm not a household name. I wouldn't say it has brought me no fame and fortune, but it's not what most people think of when you say those words. It's kind of neat to have people talking about what you did and have people interested in it. It's not the center of my life.

Q: What is the center of your life?

I'm not sure I have a center. I just do what I do. I play around with computers and do some music and a little golfing.

Q: Was email the biggest thing that you've worked on?

I think there were bigger things -- things that took more effort. The workstation that I designed and built back around 1980 -- that was the biggest single thing I've done. It was a two-year effort. And it worked and it was useful. We never tried making a product out of it but it did serve our researchers... It was fun playing around with the super computer design. It didn't pan out, but it expanded my own knowledge. Everything has been interesting. I can't single out any one thing.

Q: What else interests you right now?

I read about anything I can get my hands on, from biology to archeology. I see none of these as something I'll directly work on... but biological computing is intriguing. And I'm interested in quantum computing too.
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InformationWeek
New Sun Products Comply With Liberty Alliance Standards





Identity Server 6 and Directory Server 5.2 are compatible with the specifications, which promise interoperability between systems to enable opt-in account linking and simplified user sign-on capabilities.
By Larry Greenemeier



Sun Microsystems on Tuesday introduced Sun One software and services that are compliant with the new network-identity specifications disclosed Monday by the Liberty Alliance Project.
Sun's Identity Server 6 and Directory Server 5.2 are compatible with the specifications, which promise interoperability between systems to enable opt-in account linking and simplified user sign-on capabilities. The specifications encourage technology providers to use Security Assertion Markup Language to exchange user credentials between applications that exist within a company or between companies. Sun is also providing Security Hardening Service and Security Assessment Service for Firewall DMZ as part of its new Sun One network identity solution.

The new identity and directory servers are part of the Sun One Platform for Network Identity, which is sold in Enterprise and Internet editions. The Enterprise Edition, which was unveiled in March, is designed to manage up to 10,000 online identities inside the firewall, and the Internet Edition is designed to manage up to 250,000 online identities outside the firewall. The Enterprise and Internet Editions are priced starting at $149,995 and $999,995, respectively.

The primary advantage to standards-based single sign-on technology is that it lets users access multiple applications while signing on once, says Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current Analysis. For example, anyone logging on to an airline Web site to book reservations can move easily to rental car and hotel reservation sites without interrupting the online transaction because the user data is available to each site.

It's unclear when this will become the pervasive model for E-business. Sun's membership in the Liberty Alliance positions it to move quickly to adopt the organization's recommendations. By the end of the year, Novell will have network-identity management software code-named Saturn that's based on Liberty Alliance specifications. IBM's plans are not clear, and Microsoft has no plans to join the Liberty Alliance. Willett says Microsoft's participation in the Liberty Alliance would help companies that want to use Microsoft Passport in conjunction with the Sun One platform. "Otherwise, you set up two camps--with Sun on one side, Microsoft on the other, and IBM in between."
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Info World
Euro lawmakers discuss Net issues with Congress
By Cara Garretson

WASHINGTON -- A group of European Parliament members are in Washington, D.C., this week to discuss with U.S. regulators and lawmakers areas where the governments can come closer together on matters of Internet policy.

On Monday the European group met with several U.S. agencies here including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Department of Commerce, and U.S. Department of Justice, as well as vice president Richard Cheney. The group's goal is to promote trans-Atlantic communication on key Internet issues such as privacy, security and intellectual property, said Arlene McCarthy, a European Parliament member from the U.K.

"The purpose of this visit is to have a debate," McCarthy said. Expectations are not that the two approaches to Internet policy will become identical, but that they can be compatible enough to help facilitate global commerce and enforcement. "The issue is not harmony, but outcome," McCarthy said.

On Tuesday afternoon, congressmen and members of the IT industry joined the group for panel discussions on privacy and security, sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers working to promote Internet education and tackle various issues.

While U.S. lawmakers said their views differ from those of many Europeans on matters such as data privacy, they expressed an interest in working with their European counterparts. "For the last several years we've been building closer ties with the European Parliament," said Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia and co-chair of the caucus. "Our differences of opinion on privacy led to efforts to bridge that gap."

"The Internet is [one of the] only areas where good cooperation exists" among the many commerce issues that the two governments must work on together, said Erika Mann, a European Parliament member from Germany.

Nonetheless, there are a number of areas where the two governments' Internet policies diverge, as Europe in general takes a more regulatory approach while the U.S. favors market forces. For example, legislation has already passed in Europe that strictly limits how spam and Internet contact directories are used.

Under European Union law, spam must almost always be an "opt-in" option, meaning a consumer must give expressed consent to receive it, said Elly Plooij-van Gorsel, a European Parliament member from the Netherlands. Internet-based directories that list names and contact numbers must receive approval from consumers before including them, she added.

One point that representatives from both governments agreed on is the need to heighten information security without trampling on consumers' privacy rights.

"I think there is a sense of understanding that clearly we need balance ... to work together and find the right balance between security and privacy," Mann said.

The group will reconvene on Wednesday to discuss intellectual property and broadband issues.
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IEEE Newsletter Opinion Piece
Why ICANN can't

By regarding itself as a technical priesthood, this Internet naming bodyhas failed as an international policymaking institution

By Milton Mueller, Syracuse University

An Internet domain name, like a license-plate or bank account number, is one of those things that we all take for granted. You type in a name like syracuse.edu, ieee.org, or ibm.com, and within seconds the correct page pops up on your computer screen, whether the bits come from Tonopah or Tokyo. That ease-of-use and dependability is one of the most important reasons why the Internet blossomed in roughly a decade to become the global phenomenon that it is today.

But who chose .com, .net, .org, and the several dozen other top-level names? Why isn't there a .xxx domain for porn, or a .kids domain for child-safe content? How many top-level names are enough? What if the name you registered happens to be the trademark of an Argentinian company, which wants to take it away from you?

Such decisions have to be made by someone, and in 1998 the U.S. Department of Commerce authorized the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to make them. This nonprofit organization establishes the policies that govern the domain name system. It decides what new top-level domainssuch as .biz or .infoto add to the name system, when to add them, and who will be in charge of them. It settles disputes over name assignments and oversees the dozens of companies, called domain-name registrars, that sell and control domain names.

But ICANN is floundering. Last April, computer industry observer Esther Dysona former chair of ICANN's boardcalled it "a real cesspool." The organization, based in Marina Del Rey, Calif., has never won over the managers of the country code top-level domains in the rest of the world, such as .uk (United Kingdom) and .de (Germany). Its relations with the root server operators are also strained. The latter maintain the 13 computers around the world in which copies of the key records for the top-level domain names are stored along with their corresponding Internet protocol addresses [see "Striking at the Internet's Heart," IEEE Spectrum, December 2001, pp. 66-67].



A broken pledge
Most disturbingly, ICANN recently abandoned its pledge to create a membership structure to elect its powerful, 18-member board of directors. Currently, outside views are in effect excluded because agencies within ICANN, called Supporting Organizations, select most of the board members. This flawed structure dates back to the 1998 establishment of the institution, when the Commerce Department handed it over to a small group of Internet pioneers, including Vinton Cerf, Mike Roberts, and the late Jon Postel.

Nevertheless, the Commerce Department did some things right when it created ICANN. It had the foresight to call on individuals and private-sector entities to forge a consensual approach to governing the assignment of Internet addresses and domain names. I was among the people who greeted the challenge enthusiastically. We really thought we were going to forge a new, nongovernmental form of international organization. That heroic experiment has been sabotaged, however, by the ruling faction's fear of losing control and its unwillingness to share power and incorporate dissenting views.

At the root of ICANN's troubles is a paralyzing clash of visions of what the organization should be. One view of ICANNthe one that prevails among its current leadershipis of a private technical organization. In this view, the leadership (the board) regards itself as a kind of technical priesthood. The other conception, to which I and many other critics subscribe, is of ICANN as a public policymaking institution, a regulatory body of quasi-governmental character.

It was the priesthood view that the founders clearly embraced. Throughout its brief existence, ICANN has described itself as a technical coordination body. The claim is partly self-serving: if all ICANN does is technical coordination, then it is perfectly fine for its management to run it like a private corporation and insulate itself from political constituencies that it doesn't like.



Politics at work
That's where the founders went astray. They did not understand, or refused to accept, that the seemingly technical function of domain name administration had become a public and politically charged endeavor. ICANN's contracts with the Department of Commerce give it regulatory authority similar to that of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which few people would argue is a purely technical body.

ICANN puts price caps on the cost of registering a domain name, and controls the supply of those names by accepting or rejecting applications for top-level domains (.com, .net, and the like). It imposes technical standards on the domain-name registration industry, for example, for methods of sharing access to registration databases. It fosters and limits certain kinds of competition, by, for example, determining which companies get certain kinds of businesssuch as those involving the registering of names. It also decides which businesses must divest themselves of existing enterprises. It strengthens or weakens the scope of intellectual property rights by setting up the rules by which officials must resolve trademark conflicts over domain names. It routinely affects consumers of domain name registration services, by deciding which companies to accredit to register names and interact with consumers. Finally, it can even strengthen or undermine personal privacy rights: it determines what information about domain-name holders is released for all to see on the Internet.
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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