Clips September 3, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips September 3, 2002

ARTICLES

If terror hits, computers will be on rescue front line
As stalkers go online, new state laws try to catch up
Hollywood reaps record summer profit
FBI will tap into personal profiles
Identity thief gets harsh term (8/30/02)
For radio on the Internet, coming royalties mean dot's all, folks (8/30/02)
Behind China's internet Red Firewall (BBC)
Hack attacks on the rise (BBC)
Computer recycling bill sent to Davis
Spam and Ughs [Anti-Spam laws]
Campaign Reform Sponsors Oppose Internet Exemption
Suit Alleges AT&T Ignored Minorities [Broadband Access]
Malaysia to Launch Nationwide Crackdown on Piracy
Proposed office on shaky ground
Customs: E-filing helps port security
Waging a war on Internet crime
Shedding light on the problem [Internet Crime]
Career Channels [Federal Computer Week]
Roster Change [Federal Computer Week]
Supercomputing 2002 will test badges that can track attendees' activities
Feds plan cybersecurity center
Chinese Government Keeping Up With Online Dissidents
Governments, technologists battle over Net censorship
Car-crash recorders [Black Boxes for Cars]
You're not paranoid, you are being watched  [Privacy]


***************************
Detroit Free Press
If terror hits, computers will be on rescue front line
BY MIKE WENDLAND

It's only a computer simulation, but it still causes public safety planners 
to shudder.

Terrorists have attacked a train on the northeast side of Detroit, blowing 
up a chemical tanker car and releasing a deadly cloud of methyl isocyanate, 
which even in minute amounts kills by inhalation and skin absorption.

Police, fire, EMS and rescue workers scramble to respond. One after 
another, amazingly detailed maps appear on a computer screen, giving 
authorities the accurate, thorough information they need to make 
life-or-death decisions in a hurry.

Fortunately, it's just a planning exercise run by Environmental Systems 
Research Institute (ESRI), a Redlands, Calif., company that has designed 
information systems for the Detroit Police Department and other Michigan 
law enforcement agencies. But it's an exercise with a purpose: to show how 
technology can help save lives if terrorists strike again.

The technology is called Infotech, the merging of vast amounts of data from 
many different sources into detailed maps that help officials swiftly 
visualize a problem and devise a response. It's one of the most promising 
tools public officials have found as they try to manage homeland security 
after last year's terrorist attacks.

"It's not about pretty maps," says Lew Nelson, ESRI's law enforcement and 
criminal justice solutions manager. "It's about making fast decisions that 
will rescue people and save lives when, God forbid, it happens again."

The heart of the Infotech process is something called the geographic 
information system, or GIS, a sophisticated mapping process that uses the 
power of computers to display and illustrate multilayered data on maps.

For years, police departments have been using GIS to pinpoint high crime 
areas, lifting out crime scene locations specified in individual crime 
reports, compiling them in databases and then showing the worst areas in 
color-coded displays. Traffic safety officers have done the same with 
traffic accidents.

"Anything that has happened or could happen can be mapped," says Eric 
Nischan, the GIS specialist with the Michigan State Police emergency 
management division in Lansing. "When it's mapped, patterns and solutions 
emerge that allow first responders to be most effective. And when you add 
intelligence about terror threats and surveillance and satellite imagery to 
GIS, then you have a very powerful homeland security tool."

In ESRI's Detroit simulation, for instance, operators could immediately 
superimpose National Weather Service data on a map of the east side. That 
showed them a 6 m.p.h. wind was pushing the toxic plume due south, straight 
toward Detroit City Airport and the neighborhoods around it.

After a couple of mouse clicks, another map appeared with the location of 
every affected home, school and business. A couple of clicks more could 
activate a "reverse 911" system -- a computer program that would call every 
telephone number in the path of the moving cloud and deliver a recorded 
warning telling people how to protect themselves.

"With just a few keystrokes, emergency responders can tell which direction 
the wind is blowing and how large of an area to evacuate, where the biggest 
concentrations of people are, what roads to direct emergency crews to, what 
routes people should take in fleeing," says Nelson.

Law enforcement officials like what they see in simulations like this and 
are making Infotech a key part of emergency response preparations.

At the State Police emergency operations center, huge television monitors 
can display maps and geographic data for all 83 counties in Michigan, in 
many cases right down to individual blocks. Those maps can be layered with 
different displays from federal, state and local governments.

State police are reluctant to discuss just what data they have at their 
command. But Nelson says typical information archived in a homeland 
security system might include the locations of sewers, electric lines and 
other utilities; weather data; traffic flow and road information from 
automated traffic light systems, like the one in Oakland County, and real 
estate records, hospital staffing information, fire hydrant locations and 
current ambulance dispatch data from public service agencies.

Those data were vitally important in the hours and days after the World 
Trade Center attacks -- data often inaccessible or that had to be 
painstakingly re-created because original documents were lost in the rubble.

While helpful GIS maps were turned out within the first few days of the 
attack, Nelson says the lessons from those horrendous days have been 
learned. A terrorist assault, he said, "is felt on a highly localized 
level, and the key to minimizing that effect is in measuring it and 
responding to it."

That means not only having reliable processes to sort and visualize 
information, but systems to communicate it to rescuers in the field. And in 
situations where rescuers from more than one city respond, that means 
having systems in place that sort through overlapping communications and 
avoid confusion.

When a gunman went on a shooting rampage at the Ford Wixom plant in 1996, 
for example, police agencies from several surrounding communities answered 
the call, only to find that they often couldn't communicate because their 
radios operated on different frequencies or used different and incompatible 
modes.

As Oakland County officials reviewed emergency planning after Sept. 11, it 
became clear that a better system was needed.

Last month, Oakland County signed a $32-million contract with M/A Com, a 
Massachusetts electronics firm, to install a new radio communications 
system that, for the first time, will link Oakland's 81 public safety 
agencies.

Among the system's capabilities are audio, video and data communications 
that could allow a fire chief at the site of a building collapse to receive 
an architectural drawing of the structure while talking with officials back 
at the operations center who in turn are looking at live pictures from the 
scene.

Contact MIKE WENDLAND at 313-222-8861 or mwendland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx You also 
can hear his technology reports Monday through Friday at 6:26 p.m. on 
WWJ-AM (950).
****************************
Christian Science Monitor
As stalkers go online, new state laws try to catch up
One of the first trials for 'cyberstalking' in the US opens in Illinois 
this week.
By Terry Costlow | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

CHICAGO  Angela Moubray used to love her hobby of chatting about wrestling 
and soap operas with others in an Internet chat room at night. Then, one 
day, a regular participant sent her a menacing e-mail. And then another. 
Soon, she says, he barraged her with a stream of threats such as "I hope 
you get raped."
Over nearly two years, the Virginia resident received unrelenting messages 
from a person whom she had never met, culminating in the missive: "I will 
kill you Ang, I mean it."

Angela Moubray is one of a growing number of people who have become a 
victim of an emerging new crime  cyberstalking. Upwards of 100 new cases 
are reported each week of someone using the Internet to intimidate another 
person.

"Probably two-thirds of the cases involve revenge; someone loses an 
argument or is turned down romantically," says Colin Hatcher, president of 
SafetyEd, one of a handful of private groups that help victims of Internet 
stalking.

Despite the prevalence of such incidents, arrests are rare. This week, 
however, one of the first cases of cyberstalking in the US will be played 
out in a suburban Chicago courtroom. The trial offers a window into how 
difficult such cases are to prosecute, but also signals that authorities 
are beginning to take the crime seriously.

All but six states have cyberstalking statutes on the books, but the 
Illinois case is "one of very few arrests I've heard of," says Jayne 
Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA).

Legislators and policemen acknowledge the seriousness of the problem, but 
more pressing offenses often force them to overlook a crime that can be 
time-consuming to prosecute. Not to mention difficult. The global nature of 
the Internet means that the culprit could live in another state or country, 
and is unlikely to be extradited for what's usually a misdemeanor.

the Illinois case is the state's first arrest for cyberstalking since a 
statute was passed a year ago. Profirios Liapis scheduled to go on trial 
this week for allegedly e-mailing death threats to another man. Police say 
that Mr. Liapis  who could face three years in prison if convicted  is a 
former boyfriend of the victim's ex-wife. He is accused of sending 
threatening e-mails under the pseudonym of "MYSALLY17" to the victim at his 
workplace. Liapis also allegedly mailed the victim photos of his house and 
car to prove he was watching him.

In many instances, those who are threatened by e-mail have little idea 
whether their Internet stalker will make good on a threat.

In Ms. Moubray's case, the warnings she received terrorized her so much 
that she had to take safety into her own hands. "I started carrying pepper 
spray, and I wouldn't go anywhere alone. My Dad bought me a gun," she says.

More often than not, police don't want to get involved in cases of Internet 
harassment until a physical crime occurs. Most cyberstalking laws, however, 
allow for prosecution if someone receives repeated e-mails threatening 
violence.

Even so, "the majority of police departments, district attorneys, and 
attorneys do not understand this, and the laws do not really protect you 
from this type of problem," says Mr. Hatcher.

Today, educating Internet users and lawmakers is the primary focus of 
groups like SafetyEd, WHOA and WiredPatrol. Each site has advice such as 
recommending use of a free e-mail account in chat rooms and a private 
address for friends.

Stalkers often stop once police or private agencies come to them with 
evidence that ties them to the threatening messages. In Moubray's case, the 
perpetrator lived in another state, so WHOA linked her up with a policeman 
in the stalker's hometown. One visit ended the Internet stalking.

"People can be very cool while they sit at their computer. Traditional 
stalkers have to be very angry to get close and threaten the victim, since 
there's a chance they will get punched in the nose," said Susan Catherine 
Herring, a fellow at Indiana University's Center for research on Learning & 
Technology.

Antistalking activists also say that for every case they take to police, 
scores more fail to meet the legal definition of cyberstalking. "One woman 
I know is getting 20,000 e-mails per day that say 'I love you'.... but 
there's no threat, so it's not a crime," Hatcher says.

While many cyberstalkers fit the profile of loners with low-level jobs, the 
crime can be committed by anyone who lets an obsession take over part of 
his or her life. "You'd be surprised who does this; it's often doctors or 
lawyers," Hitchcock says. She adds that "only a handful" persist after 
being contacted by authorities.

For most victims, including Moubray, an end to the harassment is usually 
enough. "A big part of me is relieved; I will go places by myself now," she 
says. But, she adds, "I still carry my pepper spray."
*******************************
Baltimore Sun
Hollywood reaps record summer profit
By Labor Day, domestic ticket sales will have totaled about $3.15 billion 
since Memorial Day weekend, surpassing the record of $3.06 billion set last 
summer.

Hollywood delivered a nice blend of big, dumb popcorn flicks and 
smarter-than-average summer fare, adding up to an all-time revenue high but 
falling short of a ticket-sales record.

By Labor Day, domestic ticket sales will have totaled about $3.15 billion 
since Memorial Day weekend, surpassing the record of $3.06 billion set last 
summer, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Factoring in higher ticket prices, movie admissions this summer likely will 
come in slightly lower than last year's 542 million and well below the 
modern record of 589 million set in 1999, said Paul Dergarabedian, 
Exhibitor Relations president.

Summer 1999 benefited from a late-season surge as "The Sixth Sense" and 
"The Blair Witch Project" hit theaters. This summer was more typical, with 
ticket sales fading in late July and August as audiences moved on to other 
preoccupations than the next movie blockbuster.

"I truly believe it's cultural. Our world changes by the seasons," said Tom 
Sherak, a partner in Revolution Films, which produced the summer hit "XXX." 
"School is starting, the weather changes and you start staying in more. The 
leaves change, and you just go into a different mode that affects what you 
do for leisure time."

Topping the summer bill was "Spider-Man," which smashed opening-weekend 
box-office records in early May and hit No. 5 on the all-time list with 
$404 million domestically.

"Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" grossed $300 million, the 
first installment of George Lucas' sci-fi franchise that failed to become 
the year's biggest hit.

Beyond "Spider-Man" and "Star Wars," lowbrow comedies and explosive action 
pictures led the way, among them "Austin Powers in Goldmember," "Men in 
Black II," "Scooby-Doo," "Mr. Deeds" and "XXX."

Smarter, edgier films also clicked with audiences, with "Signs," "Minority 
Report," "The Bourne Identity" and "The Sum of All Fears" offering a good 
mix of action and quality.

"Road to Perdition" was the summer's class act, a critical and commercial 
success that earned solid Academy Awards buzz.

"It was a pretty high quality summer," Dergarabedian said.

On the down side, Eddie Murphy delivered the season's biggest bomb, the 
sci-fi comedy "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." Al Pacino starred in one of 
early summer's sleeper successes, "Insomnia," but he tanked later with the 
Hollywood satire "Simone."

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" proved the most out-of-the-blue sleeper hit in 
years, an independent film shot on a tiny $5 million budget that opened in 
limited release in April and continues to gather steam nearly five months 
later. The film, about a Greek-American woman's raucous nuptials, has a 
shot at topping $100 million.

"I've been in this business for 15 years, and it's the most amazing film 
I've worked on," said Rob Schwartz, head of distribution for IFC Films, 
which released "Greek Wedding." "The thing is, you could substitute almost 
any ethnicity and it works. It could be an Italian wedding, a Jewish 
wedding. It speaks to everyone."

"Spider-Man" paced distributor Sony to its own record year. In August, Sony 
shot past the $1.27 billion the studio grossed domestically in 1997, the 
previous annual revenue record by a studio.

Sony's total stood at $1.32 billion last weekend, and it could climb to 
$1.6 billion or more with the studio's fall lineup, which includes Eddie 
Murphy's "I Spy," Jennifer Lopez's "Maid in Manhattan," and Adam Sandler's 
"Punch-Drunk Love" and the animated "Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights."

The studio's summer hits included "Men in Black II," "XXX" and Sandler's 
"Mr. Deeds."

"We started off great with `Spider-Man' and ended great with 'XXX,' and we 
had a lot of fun in between," said Jeff Blake, Sony head of distribution.

The studio's big disappointment was "Stuart Little 2," which took in just 
$60 million, compared with $140 million for the 1999 original. It was part 
of a wave of family films that performed poorly amid a glut of wholesome fare.

"I guess there was just so much family product in the market place and 
pictures that played to families, like 'Spider-Man,'" said Chuck Viane, 
head of distribution for Disney, which scored a family hit with "Lilo & 
Stitch" but had disappointing returns for "The Country Bears." "There was a 
streak of three or four weeks there where family films were 
underperforming, and we got caught up in that."
*****************************
Union Tribune - San Diego
FBI will tap into personal profiles
No legal basis for suspicion needed
By Bruce V. Bigelow
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

When direct marketing consultant Mike DeCastro gets hired to plan a 
campaign pitching vacations in Mazatlan or cell phone service in San Diego, 
one of his first moves is to consult an online catalog of customer lists.

Such lists are the lubricant that keep the wheels of our consumer society 
spinning. If you applied for a loan or used a credit card, your name is on 
a list. They identify almost everyone who has attended school, subscribed 
to anything, or bought anything from a catalog, direct mail or online 
merchant.

Ultimately, such lists also provide the raw material used to build 
sophisticated computerized databases that have become a multibillion-dollar 
industry.

"Just about anything that you want to know about anybody is available in a 
commercial database," said DeCastro of San Francisco.

Most people don't have a clue that such databases compile information from 
a variety of sources, linking their names to their Social Security numbers, 
credit profiles, employment histories, travel records, court records, 
personal interests and chronic health conditions.

And now, under changes ordered by Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI 
is moving to use commercial databases in its efforts to prevent acts of 
terrorism in the United States.

The change was part of a broader decision, announced by the Justice 
Department May 30, to loosen the internal policies that guide federal 
terrorist investigations.

Now, even if they don't have a specific suspect or legal basis for 
suspicion, "FBI agents under the new guidelines are empowered to scour 
public sources for information on future terrorist threats," Ashcroft said.

The attorney general did not specify how the FBI would use commercial 
databases, and a Justice Department spokesman did not return calls seeking 
elaboration.

Experts say the FBI would likely use special software and advanced 
"data-mining" techniques that can sift through enormous fields of data to 
identify patterns and characteristics of potential terrorists.

Given the potential threats to American security, some say the changes were 
long overdue.

"The computer systems that were available to the general public were not 
available to agents like me," said Darwin Wisdom, a former FBI agent who 
runs the Baker Street Group, a San Diego investigative firm. "I was always 
dismayed by our inability to access information that was available on 
computer just about everywhere else."


'Dragnet-style'
Before Ashcroft changed the guidelines, the FBI could not even use standard 
Internet search engines such as Google to look for information concerning 
terrorist activity, said Mitch Dembin, who resigned two years ago as a 
federal prosecutor specializing in computer crimes. Investigators first had 
to have suspicion.
"The guidelines cannot be so strict that they shut out from law enforcement 
the very tools that are available to you and me," Wisdom said. "That's 
preposterous."

Ashcroft's changes have stirred some opposition. The American Civil 
Liberties Union says the new FBI guidelines reversed many self-imposed 
restraints the Justice Department adopted in the 1970s after revelations of 
FBI illegal spying.

"For over a decade, the commercial data collectors have promised Americans 
they would not turn this data over to law enforcement," said Chris 
Hoofnagle, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in 
Washington, D.C. "This was a guarantee that has staved off legislation and 
allowed this data collection to continue."

The new capabilities of these technologies now allows "suspicionless, 
dragnet-style investigations of all Americans," Hoofnagle said.

FBI agents could use commercial databases before Ashcroft changed the 
guidelines, but only after indications of criminal activity were 
established, Hoofnagle said. A prosecutor would then obtain a warrant that 
allowed a search, as well as electronic eavesdropping.

"Under the old guidelines, they were not allowed to engage in prospective 
searches  meaning they could not sit down and say all Protestant men 
between 20 and 24 are likely terrorists and print out a suspect list," 
Hoofnagle said.

By using commercial databases, DeCastro said, the FBI could generate lists 
of potential suspects based on a profile using such criteria as race, 
religion, travel, bank accounts and even grocery-store purchases.

"It's a disaster," said John Perry Barlow, a fellow at Harvard Law School's 
Berkman Center and a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 
"This information has been gathered with an assurance to the consumer that 
his privacy was being protected, except when warrants were issued for a 
specific release."

Said Barlow: "We have increasingly what strikes me as the foundation for a 
police state in the United States."

But Wisdom, who spent 27 years as an FBI agent before retiring in 1995, 
said it's premature to become alarmed about potential abuses.

"The key is not whether the FBI can access databases," Wisdom said. "The 
key is what they do with it. You have to trust your law enforcement 
community that even though they have access to privileged information, that 
they have the good judgment to use it properly."


Troubling tactics
Privacy advocates and others, like DeCastro, who are knowledgeable about 
the industry say they are alarmed by the consumer marketing industry's 
practices.
Many people would be horrified if they understood the scope of personal 
information collected in commercial databases, said Beth Givens, director 
of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego.

Much of that personal data comes from supermarket loyalty-club programs and 
credit-card purchases, which can be used to build customer profiles, Givens 
said. Other data comes from consumer surveys offering giveaway merchandise 
and from product warranty cards that can mislead consumers into believing 
they must complete the form to activate the warranty.

Using advanced computing capabilities, many companies then "enhance" their 
database by combining data from public records and other sources, Givens said.

Acxiom Corp. of Little Rock, Ark., compiles information from many sources, 
then uses advanced data-mining techniques to produce specialized marketing 
lists. In this way, Acxiom can identify thousands or millions of people who 
fit particular profiles: for instance, 18-to 28-year-old men who purchase 
certain products or drive certain cars.

Such profiles can be highly specific, but Givens said they also can 
generate misleading and bogus information.

Larry Ponemon of Privacy Council, a Dallas consulting firm, said in an 
interview in June that one study reportedly done on the 19 airline 
hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks found a pattern in their orders 
for pizza.

"Most college kids order pizza all the time," Ponemon said. "But most 
people pay cash for pizza. These guys paid with a credit card. That was an 
odd thing. That became one of the correlates for doing a profile."

Other major companies, such as Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, have long 
used data-mining techniques to assess and score consumers' credit risk, 
detect fraud and conduct other data-crunching services.


Off-limits data
Another goliath, ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Ga., has emerged in recent 
years as the nation's biggest job-screening concern. The FBI and 
Immigration and Naturalization Service also have used ChoicePoint to find 
fugitives, illegal immigrants and other subjects of investigations.
Prospective employers use ChoicePoint to compare job candidates' names 
against a database of 14 billion records, including arrest records and 
credit data.

DeCastro said such databases also can turn up information that employers 
are legally prohibited from asking job candidates, such as an applicant's 
age, marital status or HIV diagnosis.

Much of the information collected in databases also is wrong, said Givens, 
who notes people are not always truthful when they fill out consumer 
surveys and product warranty cards.

"By trolling through such a large amount of data from disparate sources, 
the FBI is likely to add one and one and get three," Givens said.

There also are disturbing examples of how information in databases gets 
misused, such as the personal example that Ponemon described in the April 
2000 issue of CIO  magazine.

In 1995, when Ponemon was part of PricewaterhouseCooper's compliance risk 
group, he provided information about his family to a Jewish organization 
building a database to reunite families who had moved or changed their 
names after the Holocaust.

While conducting an audit of a direct marketing company's database 21/2 
years later, Ponemon discovered the organization to which he had given his 
information had sold its database to a direct marketing group to raise 
money. That marketing firm integrated the information with its own data, 
and the compiled information was bought, added to and sold at least 10 
times after it left the marketer's hands.

Ultimately, the database, which by then included enhanced details about 
Ponemon's family, credit and occupational history  and thousands of 
others  went to a neo-Nazi group in Idaho.

DeCastro said many organizations sell their membership rosters and 
enrollment lists. Some even count on income from selling their lists as a 
regular source of revenue.
********************
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Identity thief gets harsh term
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer

For two years, North Philadelphia's Darryl Brown promised people he could 
get them a new car even if they had bad or no credit.

Yesterday, Brown could not even get himself credit for helping prosecutors 
convict him and 11 associates in an identity-theft ring that trashed the 
credit records of 59 people and defrauded 11 car dealers in Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey of 80 vehicles worth $2.8 million.

Brown, 36, was sentenced to a 15-year no-parole prison term - the region's 
longest federal fraud sentence in recent memory - by a judge who said Brown 
"wreaked havoc on an awful lot of lives."

U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin departed from the seven- to 
nine-year sentence recommended for Brown under federal sentencing guidelines.

The judge said Brown deserved no credit for pleading guilty and cooperating 
with federal prosecutors because he later lied and falsely implicated a 
codefendant and because the U.S. Sentencing Commission never envisioned 
someone with 11 previous fraud convictions.

McLaughlin also ordered Brown to pay $1.2 million restitution to seven auto 
dealers, five insurance companies, and six financial institutions that lost 
money on vehicles he helped his clients buy but that were seriously damaged 
or never recovered.

Brown, in federal custody since his April 2001 arrest, told McLaughlin: "I 
created this scam... . I have nobody I can blame but myself, and I have to 
pay the price."

Brown also apologized to the three victims who testified for the 
prosecution during the trial. "I came into their lives, and I almost ruined 
their lives through my greed," he said.

"I won't accept your apology," one victim, Francis P. Ferris Jr., muttered 
as he left the witness stand after telling McLaughlin how he learned three 
years ago that his identity had been hijacked when Cherry Hill Nissan 
called to say the car he never bought was ready for pickup.

"It's been an embarrassment and a constant nuisance, and this will probably 
go on to the day I die," said Ferris, a retired city worker from the Northeast.

Ferris said he cannot make a spot retail credit purchase without having to 
first call a credit agency and obtain a code to let the store process the 
charge.

"I'm tired of telling the same story because someone with no conscience 
damaged a credit record it took me 69 years to maintain," Ferris said.

The Federal Trade Commission has said that identity theft victimizes 
500,000 to 750,000 people annually, a crime wave that experts say costs 
billions of dollars and leaves the victims with credit records that can 
take years to clear.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Pease urged the longest sentence possible, 
saying Brown had "no hope of rehabilitation. He is utterly corrupt and 
completely incapable of conforming to the laws of civilized society."

"All he can say is that 'I'm sorry and I won't do it again,' and it's not 
good enough," Pease added.

In 1998 and 1999, Brown's D.B. Auto & Home Locater boasted to his 
financially troubled clients that, for $500 to $700 down, he could qualify 
them for a new car. The secret, Brown told one client, according to federal 
court testimony, was a network of retirees living in a local nursing home. 
The retirees no longer needed much credit, and Brown said they were willing 
to loan their credit to his clients for a small fee.

In reality, prosecution witnesses testified, Brown got credit records from 
a friend who stole them working at the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union.

Brown then created bogus identification documents based on the stolen 
records and took clients to local car dealers, where his network of seven 
commission-hungry car salesmen winked at the charade to boost their sales 
bonuses.

All the defendants were convicted - all but one pleaded guilty - of various 
fraud and conspiracy-related charges. Pease said all but two of the car 
salesmen had been sentenced.
***************************
Cleveland Plain Dealer
For radio on the Internet, coming royalties mean dot's all, folks

Some people see Sunday, the day after tomorrow, as the day the music dies. 
That might be premature, or at least an overstatement. But the date, Sept. 
1, certainly will go down as the day the volume diminished.

It starts the clock ticking on the death sentence facing the infant 
business of Internet radio - even before it can become a true business or 
be sampled by more than the 17 percent of Americans who used it in the last 
month.

The blame rests with flawed legislation, false hopes of the dot-com mania 
and, especially, the big forces and cartels that dominate other segments of 
media. It is less about money than about power and control of a medium 
whose beauty is its freedom and access.

Sunday is when performance royalty rates set by the U.S. Copyright Office 
take effect for Internet radio stations, or webcasters. As described 
previously in this space, the rate for commercial webcasters is 
seven-hundredths of a cent per song, per listener, and is two-hundredths of 
a cent per song, per listener, for noncommercial outlets like public and 
college stations.

The payments - which go to record companies - don't come due until Oct. 20, 
but they are supposed to be retroactive to 1998. That doesn't sound like 
much, until you look closer.

Traditional broadcast radio stations are required to pay no such 
"performance" fee to record labels and performers because Congress decided 
about 75 years ago that radio airplay has compensatory promotional value. 
Broadcasters and webcasters do pay royalties to composers, but it's about 3 
percent of their revenues, not calculated per-song, per-listener.

The performance fee would exceed $9,000 a year for a small Internet station 
that plays 15 songs an hour and averages 100 listeners and would exceed 
$92,000 for 1,000 listeners - a fraction of most broadcast stations' audience.

For most of this fledgling business, the fees would exceed revenues.

Anticipating the fees, hundreds of Internet-only stations and conventional 
radio stations that simulcast on the Web have shut down. More will stop 
streaming music this weekend.

Kurt Hanson, editor of the respected Radio and Internet Newsletter, thinks 
most of the 10,000 webcasters catering to a staggering variety of tastes 
and preferences will follow - with the exception of "the big guys," like 
AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo, and "offshore" stations outside the United States.

Congress gets original blame. In 1998, it passed the Digital Millennium 
Copyright Act to update copyright law for e-commerce. Under lobbying from 
the record industry, the bill included the performance fee to record labels 
- on the incorrect assumption that Internet radio, whose often-spotty 
signals cannot be downloaded or stored, provides "perfect digital copies" 
of music.

Then the fee structure was built on a deal that Yahoo made with record 
labels when it paid $5.7 billion for the Broadcast.com service - a deal 
that Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban said was designed to kill small 
webcasters.

Yahoo was hardly a business model. It ended up writing off the deal.

"The labels saw a huge source of revenue, and now they're trying to squeeze 
blood out of a rock," said Mike Hilber, president of the adult-rock 
webcaster ClevelandHits .com. "A royalty should be revenue based, for 
anybody who's making a profit. Let this industry unfold. Why drive out of 
business the people who eventually are going to pay?"

Congress could save the industry by passing the Internet Radio Fairness Act 
or repealing parts of previous legislation. But webcasters have no lobby. 
The record industry - which would like to block Internet audio from 
overseas, something even China doesn't do - has one of the largest.

"The greatest reason for the Internet is it's borderless," said John 
Gorman, founder of the Cleveland-based entertainment portal RadioCrow.com. 
He's hopeful "cooler heads eventually will prevail, and labels will see 
Internet radio is their new best friend, exposing new music and making it 
easier to buy."

"But the history of the music business has been that it has always resisted 
new technology," he said, "to when they thought the player piano would hurt 
sheet-music sales."


Contact this Plain Dealer columnist at:

tferan@xxxxxxxxxx, 216-999-5433
*******************************
BBC
Behind China's internet Red Firewall

China actively promotes the internet for economic use and to spread the 
communist government's views.
But it has worked hard to muzzle the web as a forum for free information 
and discussion.

One of the ways it does this is by blocking access to foreign websites such 
as Google by what has been called the Great Red Firewall.

The main contact points connecting China's internet with the worldwide 
system consist of nine Internet Access Providers that control the physical 
lines to the outside world.

Traffic over the lines can be restricted through the use of internet 
filters, software that can deny access to specific internet addresses.

Filtered content

Beijing routinely uses filters to block access to sites run by the banned 
spiritual movement Falun Gong, human rights groups and some foreign news 
organisations.

But Chinese surfers often use proxy servers - websites abroad that let 
surfers reach blocked sites - to evade the Great Red Firewall.

Such techniques are routinely posted online or exchanged in chat rooms.

But China's 45 million internet users face considerable penalties if they 
are found looking at banned sites.

According to human rights activists, dozens of people have been arrested 
for their online activities on subversion charges.

Legal web

Since 1995, when Chinese authorities started allowing commercial internet 
accounts, at least 60 laws have been passed aimed at controlling content 
online.

Among the measures, all internet users have to register with a police 
bureau in their neighbourhood within 30 days of opening a web account.

Human rights activists say more than 30,000 people are employed to keep an 
eye on websites, chat rooms and private e-mail messages.

A fire in a Beijing net cafe in June that killed 25 people led to a broader 
government crackdown. Since then, 150,000 unlicensed internet cafes 
nationwide have been closed.

Those remaining have had to install software that prevents access to up to 
500,000 banned sites with pornographic or so-called subversive content.

One programme, the Filter King, not only records attempted hits on banned 
sites, but is also said to send daily reports to local police net units.

Self-control

There is also a degree of self-censorship, as Chinese internet portals have 
been warned that they will be held responsible for sites they host.

One of the main portals, Sohu.com, has appointed censors to monitor the 
chat rooms and delete unsuitable material, say human rights activists.

In internet cafes, managers are reported to have people who patrol the 
monitors checking what material appears on the screen.

A Chinese internet industry body recently unveiled what it called the 
Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry.

The pledge has been signed by 130 major web portals, including the search 
engine Yahoo.

The signatories agree not to post information that will "jeopardise state 
security and disrupt social stability".
*********************************
BBC
Hack attacks on the rise

August has been a record breaking month for malicious hackers with 2002 set 
to become the worst year for digital attacks on record, according to 
security firm mi2g.
The number of hack attacks in August reached 5,830, it reported.

The total for the first eight months of 2002 reaching over 31,000 - more 
than the total for the whole of 2001.

Digital attacks have been steadily rising. Conservative projections suggest 
there could be up to 45,000 hack attacks across the globe in 2002.

Infrastructure in danger

If the US attacks Iraq then expect farther chaos in cyberspace, warned mi2g 
Chairman DK Matai.

"It would seem highly likely that the launch of a physical attack on Iraq 
will see counter-attacks from disgruntled Arab, Islamic fundamentalist and 
anti-American groups," he told BBC News Online.

Cyber terrorism has been an increasing threat to digital security since the 
Balkan war and China-Taiwan stand-off in 1999 saw offline conflicts 
mirrored online for the first time.

According to mi2g, organised cyber terrorism groups have become 
increasingly sophisticated in 2002.

It says they have now begun to gather detailed information on economic 
targets within financial services, manufacturing, transport and utilities.

Employees in these sectors are increasingly being asked security questions 
about their networks on bulletin boards, said Mr Matai.

He urged firms, especially those in sensitive industries, to look at 
detailed personnel vetting and to keep a close eye on voice and data 
communications.

Political tensions

Critical national infrastructure such as power stations, water and sewage 
treatment plants as well as major communication and transportation hubs 
could be the next targets.

The US war on terrorism and heightened tension between Israel and 
Palestine, and India and Pakistan, has prompted pro-Islamic hacker groups 
to come together to launch digital attacks on the US, the UK, Israel and 
India.

"Despite laws that have been passed which qualify digital attack as 
terrorism," said Mr Matai, "we could see the US and its allies supporting 
the war on terrorism attacked digitally as we head towards 11 September and 
the weeks building up to the proposed attack on Iraq."
**************************
Mercury News
Computer recycling bill sent to Davis
By Noam Levey

SACRAMENTO - California moved to the forefront of the national movement to 
recycle electronics Saturday as the Legislature became the first in the 
country to pass a bill placing fees on new computer monitors and televisions.

With the support of Silicon Valley lawmakers, the Legislature rejected 
pleas from high-tech manufacturers that even the smallest fees would drive 
business out of state and weaken an already struggling industry.

With just hours to go before the end of the legislative session, the state 
Senate joined the Assembly in approving a measure that environmentalists 
and local government officials hope would begin raising the millions of 
dollars needed to safely dispose of tons of so-called e-waste accumulating 
in Californians' homes.

The bill now goes to Gov. Gray Davis, who has not indicated whether he will 
sign it.

``This is a very important step for California, the birthplace of 
high-tech,'' said Mark Murray, director of the Californians Against Waste 
Foundation, which has lobbied all year for the bill.

The Senate action, like the very close vote in the Assembly the night 
before, was made possible in large part by strong support from most of 
Silicon Valley's legislators, who lined up behind the bill's sponsor, Sen. 
Byron Sher, D-San Jose.

But it represented a blow to the valley's high-tech industry, which fought 
hard to head off the plan to place a $10 fee on new monitors and 
televisions, arguing that such a move would put local businesses at a 
competitive disadvantage.

``It's just mind-boggling that Silicon Valley legislators could support a 
bill like this,'' said Gary Fazzino, vice president for governmental 
affairs at Hewlett-Packard. ``There just seems to be a disconnect this year 
between Sacramento and the valley.''

Hewlett-Packard, other companies and influential trade groups in the end 
could not defuse the growing concern that obsolete electronics pose a 
serious environmental threat locally and worldwide.

For years, groups like the Californians Against Waste Foundation have been 
issuing dire warnings about the toxic materials in many electronics, 
including lead, which is used extensively in computer monitors and televisions.

During the impassioned legislative campaign, environmentalists showed 
pictures of used American electronics being tossed into ditches in East Asia.

And local government officials warned that they have no way to pay for 
recycling the estimated 6 million obsolete computers piling up in garages 
and attics across California that cannot be dumped legally in landfills.

$500 million price tag

To date, few cities have implemented recycling programs because they are 
too costly. Cleanup costs statewide have been estimated at as much as $500 
million.

City officials, including representatives from San Jose and San Francisco, 
and waste companies joined environmentalists in lobbying for passage of an 
e-waste bill.

Across the nation, numerous states are wrestling with so-called e-waste but 
only a handful have passed laws addressing the issue.

According to the Californians Against Waste Foundation, no state has 
assessed fees on new electronics to pay for recycling programs, in much the 
same way that the state collects fees for recycling other waste such as 
motor oil.

The bill's opponents, led by tech manufacturers and industry organizations 
such as the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, complained that the state 
would not be able to collect the $10 fee on electronics purchased from 
out-of-state companies.

That would put local companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, at a competitive 
disadvantage against companies like Texas-based Dell Computer, which sells 
many of its products over the Internet, opponents said.

``We are once again going after our own businesses,'' said Sacramento 
Assemblyman Anthony Pescetti, one of many Republicans who opposed the 
e-waste bill.

Fazzino said most tech companies favor a federal bill that could deal with 
e-waste on a national scale. In the end, only Apple Computer supported the 
legislation.

But the bill's proponents argue that the fees would be assessed on 
out-of-state manufacturers. They point to parts of the law that would 
penalize companies that try to circumvent the fees by preventing them from 
bidding on state contracts.

And the bill's supporters said it included provisions that would suspend 
the fee if a court finds it illegal.

That was enough to convince almost every member of the Silicon Valley 
delegation, whose support made it possible for the bill to squeak though 
the Assembly in an extremely tight vote just before 1 a.m. Saturday.

For hours Friday night, the fate of the bill hung in the balance, a few 
votes short of the 41 needed for it to pass. But Sher worked his way around 
the floor of the Assembly for hours, cajoling legislators to support the 
measure.

In the end, Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn, D-Campbell, was the only valley 
lawmaker not to vote for it. But she changed her vote after the bill was 
passed by a single vote, joining the majority who passed it.

``It wasn't easy,'' said Sher, who helped shepherd passage of the 
California bottle bill more than a decade ago. ``Obviously, there were some 
very powerful forces working against us.''

On the Senate side, there was little doubt of the outcome. The upper house 
already had passed a stricter version of the bill, as well as another 
e-waste recycling measure sponsored by Los Angeles-area Democratic Sen. 
Gloria Romero.

Next hurdle

It is unclear whether Davis will sign the legislation, however.

Murray said the Californians Against Waste Foundation was optimistic and 
planned to press its case to the governor in the upcoming weeks. ``I think 
we have a fighting chance,'' he said, arguing that Davis could have killed 
the legislation in the Assembly if he had wanted to.

But tech manufacturers, many of whom have given generously to Davis in 
recent years, also plan to fight.
***********************


Washington Post
Spam and Ughs
As Unsavory E-Mail Bloats the In-Box, Fed-Up Recipients Turn to the Law

Lose 10-12 pounds in two days! Sexy teen sluts! Why not turbo-boost your 
sex life? Need help with money problems? Save 75 percent on your term life 
insurance!

Look familiar? You've got spam!

These non sequiturs of seamy sensationalism are a sampling of nearly 200 
commercial messages that inundated Dave Rubenstein's e-mail in-box the week 
he was away from his U Street office last month. Of about 250 e-mails, 
nearly 80 percent were annoying, unwanted and uninvited intrusions called 
unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) -- commonly referred to as spam.

"It really is unbelievable how much crap I get," says Rubenstein, 44, using 
another common name for it. The D.C.-based consultant to nonprofit groups 
usually races through his in-box deleting obvious spam unopened before 
attending to his real e-mail. But lately, he has become outraged over the 
deluge of spam that interferes with the convenience and pleasure of e-mailing.

"Every month for the last five, I've gotten more than the month before," 
says Rubenstein.

In September 2001, spam made up about 8 percent of all e-mail volume; in 
July 2002, it reached 35 percent, according to Brightmail Inc., the San 
Francisco-based supplier of anti-spam services to many of the biggest 
Internet service providers (ISPs) and large corporations that track spam 
volume.

"We saw 2.3 billion messages go through all of our customer sites in July 
and 825 million were spam," says Enrique Salem, Brightmail's president and 
CEO. "The amount of spam has skyrocketed. That's a real problem and people 
are seeing it."

Why the spam glut? Why now? One reason is that bulk spamming -- sending the 
same ad to thousands, even millions, of e-mail addresses -- is dirt-cheap. 
Each spam costs a fraction of a penny. Once you have a Web-connected 
computer, "you can get into the spamming business for just a few hundred 
dollars," says Ray Everett-Church, co-author of "Internet Privacy for 
Dummies" and chief privacy officer for ePrivacy Group, a Philadelphia-based 
consulting firm.

The going rate for e-mail address lists on CD-ROM is about $5 per million, 
and spamming software ranges from free to just a couple of hundred dollars, 
he says. "If you don't want to go to all that trouble, there are more than 
enough folks out there who will do it for you -- guaranteed delivery of 50 
million e-mails for under a thousand bucks. The sad part is that you only 
need one sucker in a million to recover your start-up costs."

New technology such as high-speed DSL and T1 lines have made spamming 
easier and faster -- able to reach millions of people almost 
instantaneously. Creative programming has come up with sci-fi-like ways for 
spammers to find e-mail addresses, from robotic "scrapping" programs that 
mechanically prowl through Web sites, news groups, chat rooms and 
subscriber lists, grabbing anything that looks like an e-mail address, to 
"dictionary attacks" that automatically make up e-mail addresses and 
mass-spam them. Sign up for a new e-mail account on any major ISP using a 
guessable address, say experts, and the spam starts arriving within minutes.

But Everett-Church also attributes the recent spike in spam to the economy. 
So much spam content advertises fringe-economy products, like 
get-rich-quick schemes and quack cures. "The people hardest hit when the 
economy turns down start looking for things to augment their income. 
Selling herbal Viagra begins to look attractive," he says.

What irks Dave Rubenstein is that people tend to discount the cost of spam 
on the receiving end. "These spammers are forcing me to use my time and my 
money to receive things that I don't want," he says. "And they are 
basically dishonest. Now you can have a bigger penis -- guaranteed? Right!"

Many Internet experts agree. Everett-Church notes that since a single spam 
is a fraction of a penny in online costs and takes only a second of time, 
it's easy to ignore the cost across a huge base of people. Never mind 
productivity costs or hard-drive space. "That really adds up when you go 
away for a couple of weeks and you sense how much of your life is spent 
dealing with this unwanted stuff," he says.

"No other kind of advertising costs the advertiser so little and the 
recipient so much," says John Levine, who runs abuse.net, a system that 
helps Internet users report and control network spam abuses. "The closest 
analogy I can think of is auto-dialing junk phone calls to cellular users 
who pay for incoming calls. You can imagine how that might be received."

Legitimate companies are also complaining about spam's impact. "Companies 
are having a hard time getting their e-mails read," says Ben Isaacson, 
executive director of the Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM) in 
New York, who helps responsible businesses differentiate their e-mail 
marketing "from the bad actors."

The increase in spam has made that difficult. Legitimate commercial e-mail, 
updates and ads get deleted in the daily shuffle. Consumers who've gotten 
smart about not replying to spam aren't replying to his members' e-mails. 
"It's not getting read, it's getting deleted," he says.

About 20 states now have spam-related laws. Since 1998, California has 
required spam delivered to California residents by California-based 
Internet providers to include opt-out instructions. And certain spam ads 
must display "ADV" on the subject line; adult spam must warn "ADV:ADLT." 
Virginia prohibits sending bulk spams in-state that contain falsified 
routing information. Maryland enacted a similar law this past spring and 
also bans using false subject lines if the spam is sent from Maryland or 
the spammer knows that the recipient is in Maryland. But few spams comply 
with state requirements, say anti-spam experts, who estimate that more than 
half of all spam mailings have forged headers to conceal the sender.

At the federal level, similar technical bills have been introduced in 
Congress. And since 1998, the Federal Trade Commission has monitored about 
16.5 million spams for fraud and deception that people sent to its spam 
mailbox (uce@xxxxxxx). It now receives about 50,000 spams per day. "There 
is no current law that prohibits all unsolicited commercial e-mail, but the 
Federal Trade Commission Act does prohibit unfair and deceptive practices," 
says FTC staff attorney Brian Huseman.

So far, the FTC has brought charges against spammers involved in pyramid 
schemes, moneymaking chain letters, credit card scams, credit repair scams, 
bogus weight loss plans and fraudulent business opportunities. Discovering 
one wicked scheme, it found that most "unsubscribe" links at the bottom of 
spams were bogus and often landed consumers who clicked them onto more spam 
lists.

Meanwhile, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) 
proposes that Congress amend current federal law prohibiting unsolicited 
commercial faxes to include unsolicited commercial e-mails. "While you 
still get junk faxes, it isn't nearly what it was back in the early '90s," 
says CAUCE founder and board member Everett-Church. "By giving people legal 
recourse, that alone will drive a lot of spammers out of the business and 
stop others from engaging in it in the first place. You're probably never 
going to completely do away with the problem, but you can get it down to 
some sort of manageable level."

While most major ISPs are employing anti-spam filters and software makers 
are now making home-use spam filters, some Internet users take on the spam 
problem themselves. Spamcop.com -- with more than 50,000 registered users 
-- is one of a cottage industry of Web sites that assist people in tracking 
down spammers and putting them out of business.

"Spamcop tries to detangle all of the forgeries that are usually there and 
report the spam to the correct parties and ISPs," says Julian Haight, the 
Seattle-based Internet consultant who created Spamcop.com. "It makes it 
easier for average Joes to do this."

But most people deleting spams aren't willing to bother to report spammers. 
Life's too short, they say.

John Suler, a professor of psychology at Rider University in Lawrenceville, 
N.J., who studies the psychology of cyberspace, says the glut of spam can 
takes a psychological toll on frequent Internet users. "Some people 
experience their computers as sort of an extension of themselves, of their 
own psyche and mind," he says. "And to have this much spam come into that 
space is a real violation," says Suler, who recently returned from a 
two-week vacation to find more than 600 e-mails, 90 percent of them spam.

"There is truly a feeling of being overwhelmed," he says. "Some people will 
give up and delete chunks of e-mails -- including some they would want to 
see."

Perry Chapman's e-mail address, which was shared by her Garrett Park family 
-- including her 15-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son -- was being 
bombarded by more than 25 spams a day. And many of them were graphically 
promoting adult Web sites.

"Imagine if you answered the phone at dinner and the caller was selling 
nude photos of celebrities or sex with children. And if the telemarketer, 
once politely told no, then called another 30 times," says Chapman, 48, an 
art historian who teaches at the University of Delaware.

Like other Internet users, Chapman couldn't figure how spammers got her 
e-mail address. She wondered why smutty spams targeted her. "I was 
thinking, 'My God, what has my 14-year-old been up to?' " she says. "But I 
found everybody gets pornographic e-mail, even the grade school computers. 
It's so appalling."

For Chapman, porn spams were the limit. This past spring she switched 
Internet servers and changed her e-mail address. Now she's holding her 
breath until the first trickle of spam becomes a flood. "They haven't 
discovered me yet," she says.

Some experts think the porn spams that now make up about 10 percent of all 
e-mails and are increasing in number and boldness (some porn spams now 
display XXX-rated photos in the e-mail) will test the limits for the public 
at large. "So many people can't believe that it is legal," says Levine, 
coauthor of the "Internet for Dummies" series. "People are getting really 
upset over the porn. And that will make people angry enough to do something 
about it. Porn is what will put spam on people's radar as not just an 
annoyance but a serious problem."
***************************
Washington Post
Campaign Reform Sponsors Oppose Internet Exemption
By Brian Krebs

The authors of a new campaign finance law are worried that federal election 
regulators will create a loophole for online political ads that would 
weaken the law's intent.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and other lawmakers who 
crafted the statute contend that Internet-based political communications 
should follow the same rules that soon will govern most forms of political 
advertising.

While the lawmakers said they agreed that some Web-based communications - 
such as private e-mail or conventional Web sites  should not be subject to 
the law, "the commission should leave open the possibility of including 
communications that are, or may be in the future, the functional equivalent 
of radio and television broadcasts," such as interactive television 
services like Microsoft's WebTV

The Federal Election Commission yesterday began public hearings on its 
interpretation of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, including how 
the statute should apply to online political advertisements.

The FEC has proposed that the law should regulate political messages 
delivered via broadcast, cable and satellite services, but not Internet ads 
and Web broadcasts. Online political ads simultaneously broadcast through 
television or radio would be regulated under the proposed FEC rules.

Some political watchdog groups worry that by exempting most forms of online 
communications from disclosure laws, the FEC may be creating a safe haven 
for such ads.

"The flat exemption for the Internet proposed in the regulation is too 
broad-brush a treatment of this issue, which requires a more particularized 
approach," said attorney Donald Simon, in written comments submitted to the 
FEC on behalf of Common Cause and Democracy 21.

But other groups, including the majority of those invited to speak at this 
week's FEC hearings, are applauding the commission for its proposal to 
exempt Internet-based political ads.

Subjecting emerging interactive technologies to the restrictions could 
produce confusing results if, for example, a broadcast created with an 
organization's funds were posted on a Web site by a well-meaning individual 
not associated with the organization, according to the Sierra Club and the 
Alliance for Justice, an association of civil rights, environmental, 
mental-health, consumer, women's and other advocacy groups.

"Because WebTV is, for most purposes, simply another method for accessing 
the Internet, we believe that the commission should exclude it" from 
regulation, the groups said.

FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith bristled at the notion of expanding the law 
to include Internet-based ads.

"The statute makes no mention of that," he said at Wednesday's hearing.

Robert Alt, a campaign finance expert at the Claremont Institute, said that 
expanding the law to include Web-based political ads could unlawfully 
restrict speech and raise "serious constitutional concerns."

"It would be going beyond the authority of the commission to issue a 
regulation which would include the Internet," Alt told the panel.

Constitutional questions aside, FEC Vice Chairman Karl J. Sandstrom said 
the commission might have only limited authority to punish individuals or 
groups who violate reporting requirements.

"I would personally like someone to enlighten us if they believe there is 
such authority," Sandstrom said. "It would be nice to have it. Maybe we 
need a technical amendment to provide it to us, but I don't see [that] the 
commission has any authority to punish anyone for a violation of these 
provisions."

Whether the FEC will ultimately heed the advice of the law's authors is 
anyone's guess. FEC watchers say tensions have been high between Congress 
and the FEC ever since President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold bill into 
law this year.

The commission "is going to pay zero attention to what Congress has to say 
about this now," said one person familiar with the process.

But former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter said lawmakers are merely trying to 
help the commission steer clear of roadblocks with the law as new 
technologies emerge.

Potter served on the commission from 1991 to 1995, in the days before the 
FEC was forced to begin interpreting how 30-year-old election laws should 
apply to the Internet and other new technologies.

Since then, he has represented clients like AOL Time Warner before the FEC, 
and has been a vocal opponent of proposed FEC regulations that would affect 
political communications online. Most recently, he was general counsel for 
McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, which raised a record $6 million in 
online contributions.

"What McCain and others are saying is leave yourself an open door in the 
event that it turns out that Internet technology turns into something 
different than what people and campaigns are using it for now," Potter 
said. "Members are just giving them good advice as to how to avoid problems 
in the future, and from coming back to Congress for new legislation to 
cover it."

Recently, the FEC has shown a willingness to spare new technologies from 
campaign disclosure laws. Last week, the FEC approved a request to exempt 
text-based wireless ads from the disclosure requirements.

In a hearing earlier this year on the use of the Internet for 
campaign-related activity, the FEC considered whether private Web sites 
that contain candidate information, commentary or hyperlinks to candidate 
Web sites should be regulated. The commission later backed away from that idea.

The McCain-Feingold law, which takes effect immediately after this year's 
elections on Nov. 6, bars political parties from using so-called "soft 
money" to pay for ads that attack or support candidates for federal office. 
The law also bars corporations and many groups from airing ads that 
identify federal candidates within 60 days of a general election or within 
30 days of a primary.
****************************
Associated Press
Suit Alleges AT&T Ignored Minorities
Fri Aug 30,11:51 PM ET
By JILL BARTON, AP Business Writer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A lawsuit against AT&T Broadband alleges the 
company intentionally denied high-speed Internet access to minority and 
poor neighborhoods and overcharged other customers for services.

Two Broward County residents, Gwen Hudson and Cynthia Martin, are named in 
the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status and was filed Monday at the 
U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach. The suit claims AT&T Broadband 
bypassed poor neighborhoods while offering high-speed access to more 
affluent areas, a practice known as redlining.

In a statement, AT&T Broadband rejected any claim of redlining and said it 
would oppose the lawsuit.

The company said it was confident the lawsuit wouldn't affect the expected 
October close of its merger with Comcast Corp.

Christopher Larmoyeux, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit 
aims to stop the sale until AT&T Broadband provides service to poor and 
minority neighborhoods as federal law requires. It also seeks monetary 
damages.

"Really this is about leaving people with Model T's as opposed to jet 
airplanes because of economic well-being and the color of their skin, and 
that's just wrong," he said.

Larmoyeux said that in Broward County, where AT&T Broadband holds several 
franchises, one percent of eligible black households have access to 
high-speed broadband Internet service as opposed to virtually 100 percent 
of eligible white households.

One plaintiff had high-speed cable Internet access but moved to another 
area and couldn't get service. The other plaintiff has had repeated 
problems with her service.

The suit claims AT&T Broadband falsified customer satisfaction claims and 
billed for services that were not provided.
****************************
Reuters
Malaysia to Launch Nationwide Crackdown on Piracy
Sat Aug 31, 3:11 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia will begin a nationwide crackdown on the 
use of pirated software by businesses on Sunday, declaring war on the 
rampant use of illegally copied programs, the official Bernama news agency 
reported on Saturday.



"Operation Genuine" will involve some 300 officers from the Domestic Trade 
and Consumer Affairs Ministry as well as software experts from the Business 
Software Alliance (BSA), which represents U.S. software publishers, it said.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates that U.S. trade 
losses due to the piracy of movies, music, software and publishing 
materials in Malaysia last year rose to $316.5 million from $140 million in 
2000.

"We have declared an all-out war," said Mohamed Roslan Mahayudin, the 
ministry's Enforcement Division Deputy General.

"Previously we focused on companies, but this time around we will also take 
action against their senior management if it is found that they have failed 
to take appropriate measures to curb the use of pirated software by their 
companies," he told Bernama.

Bernama did not say how long the crackdown will last, but the authorities 
have periodically conducted raids on pirated entertainment compact discs 
and computer software in capital Kuala Lumpur.

In a sweep up and down the country last year, officials seized more than 
2,000 street vendors of illegal CDs, VCDs and DVDs.

Bernama said companies and senior managers found guilty of using pirated 
software could be fined up to 10,000 ringgit ($2,631) or jailed for up to 
five years. They could also receive both punishments.

U.S. officials say Malaysia has good piracy laws but is not rigorously 
enforcing them.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Proposed office on shaky ground

Congress may be thinking about cutting a key information- sharing 
technology initiative out of the fiscal 2003 budget, but it must be 
performed somewhere by some part of government, experts say.

The Bush administration proposed creating the Information Integration 
Office in February as part of the homeland security effort. The office, 
which would design and help roll out an information architecture that would 
enable agencies to share information across their technology systems, is 
supposed to be located at the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office in 
the Commerce Department.

The office's role would include helping identify the appropriate technology 
standards and enforcing their use across the government, administration 
officials said in February.

No matter what happens with the proposed Homeland Security Department, 
"eventually, we're going to have to do this integration," said James Lewis, 
director of technology and public policy at the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies.

But the way things are looking in Congress, the office may never exist, 
according to Steve Cooper, senior director of information integration and 
chief information officer for the Office of Homeland Security.

Earlier this year, Congress removed the funding request from the fiscal 
2002 supplemental funding bill submitted by the White House, so the Bush 
administration placed the funding request for the office in its fiscal 2003 
budget released in February.

But now Congress is getting ready to cut the administration's request for 
the second time "because they don't think it can be done," Cooper said Aug. 
19 at the Government Symposium on Information Sharing and Homeland Security 
in Philadelphia.

This move has raised concerns in industry as well as the administration. 
One industry group moved quickly to speak with members in the House and 
Senate, but so far the response has not been terribly encouraging, said an 
official who asked not to be named.

The House apparently has cut the $20 million request in its entirety, and 
although the Senate is keeping the money, it will be used for an altogether 
different purpose  to increase public/ private partnerships.

Meanwhile, both sides seem surprised that industry is concerned about the 
fate of the office, the industry official said.

Private-sector leaders must step forward and show their support for the 
administration's plans for the office, the official said. But most 
importantly, industry officials must help Congress understand that the 
information integration standards that will potentially come out of this 
office are important not only to the proposed Homeland Security Department, 
but also to efforts to create an e-government, he said.

However, even if the office does not exist, "someone else will pick up the 
function," Lewis said. The administration may not be satisfied with a 
different structure for the proposed department, but the government will 
still need to establish integration standards, he said.

Part of the problem may be that although the executive branch has been 
slowly but surely moving toward enterprise management of its 
functions  particularly for information technology  they have not done a 
good job selling the idea to Congress, according to Lewis.

"I think some of it is Congress just not understanding the requirements for 
what you're going to need to make an information-based approach work," he said.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Customs: E-filing helps port security

In the latest move to tighten security at the nation's borders, the Customs 
Service plans to require that every ship heading to the United States 
electronically transmit a list of cargo at least 24 hours before it is 
loaded at a foreign port.

The move is intended to help track the enormous traffic of imported goods 
across the seas to the United States and to ensure that 
contraband  including weapons of mass destruction  is not smuggled aboard 
ships.

In a speech Aug. 26, Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said the proposed 
rule, which could take effect by year's end, is part of the effort to 
target suspicious cargo and make it tougher for terrorists to slip their 
weapons into the United States.

"Good targeting depends on complete, accurate and timely information about 
containers being shipped  what is in it, who is shipping the goods, where 
it originated and so on," Bonner said in a speech to the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies. "Such information is essential to U.S. 
Customs' Automated Targeting System," a program initiated after Sept. 11 to 
scrutinize the goods arriving in more than 500 ships a day.

Sam Banks, a former acting Customs commissioner, said that 80 percent of 
all vessels already send their cargo lists to Customs 48 hours before 
arriving at a U.S. port. Tightening the rule to 24 hours before loading at 
a foreign port will make it harder for importers, he said, but shipping 
companies are likely to comply because they want to swiftly unload their 
cargo on arrival.

"It's to their advantage to do this, but it's going to change the 
dynamics," Banks said.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Waging a war on Internet crime
Law enforcement cracks down on crimes against kids

After chatting with a 13-year-old girl over the Internet for a month, a 
North Carolina man recently crossed state lines with the expectation of 
having sex with her. It was short-lived.

"Unfortunately for him, he was met by big, hairy policemen," said Captain 
Rick Wiita of the Bedford County Sheriff's Office in Virginia, where a 
cybercop posed as the minor. "We haven't done total forensics yet, but we 
have reason to believe he was actively involved with other children."

Whether it's soliciting sex from minors or distributing child pornography, 
such crimes against children have risen dramatically in the past several 
years as Internet usage has soared.

"With the growth of the Internet, we are confronted with many new potential 
opportunities, but also new risks, especially with children," said Rep. Bob 
Goodlatte (R-Va.) via e-mail. Goodlatte has supported law enforcement 
efforts against such crimes.

"Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown discovered in 1998 that 20 percent of 
missing teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 disappear because of 
someone they met while chatting on the Internet," Goodlatte said. "This 
link is disturbing, to say the least, and illustrates the growing problem 
of Internet crimes against children."

To keep pace with the problem, the federal government, in conjunction with 
state and local law enforcement agencies, has established task forces 
geared toward investigating crimes, training personnel and reaching out to 
the community.

That effort, coupled with advances in technology, such as a secure portal 
to exchange extremely sensitive information and expertise from the private 
sector, may help stem the increasing tide of such incidents, officials said.

Leading the high-tech crackdown are the Internet Crimes Against Children 
(ICAC) task forces, regional programs funded by the Justice Department.

Justice launched the task force project after then-FBI Director Louis Freeh 
and Ernest Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children (NCMEC), testified in Congress that the federal 
government couldn't do it alone. They said state and local law enforcement 
agencies needed to be enlisted in the fight.

State and Local Cyber Units

Congress provided $2.3 million in special appropriations to create what 
amounted to "law enforcement cyber units" around the country, said Ron 
Laney, director of the child protection division at the Office of Juvenile 
Justice and Delinquency Programs, which oversees the ICAC task force program.

Every year since then, the government has increased funding to create and 
sustain the ICAC task forces.

This year, funding grew to $6.5 million, said Laney, adding that the Bush 
administration's proposal for the next fiscal year is $12.5 million. Thirty 
task forces have been set up nationwide, including one in Bedford County. 
Another six have been proposed for development by the end of the year and 
possibly another four or five next spring, he added.

Laney said he doesn't foresee funding for ICAC task forces drying up 
anytime soon. The task forces not only investigate Internet crimes, but 
also help train and provide technical assistance to other state and local 
law enforcement agencies. In fact, the federal government also provided 
start-up money to those satellite law enforcement agencies for computer 
equipment, training and sometimes personnel, Laney said. Nearly 90 such 
agencies have received funds.

"The issues of child exploitation are exploding and getting bigger," said 
Ruben Rodriguez, director of NCMEC's exploited child unit. "More 
individuals are using the Internet to entice children to disseminate 
illegal content, child pornography. Obviously, this communication medium is 
facilitating the exploitation of the world's children."

The exploited child unit provides leads to federal agencies, such as the 
FBI, Customs Service and U.S. Postal Service, state and local task forces, 
and other agencies through a cyber hot line, and acts as a resource center.

Operation Blue Ridge Thunder

The impetus for cracking down on Internet-related crime could hardly be 
more compelling. In 1998, the 82- employee Bedford County Sheriff's Office, 
located in southwestern Virginia, came across an Internet-related child 
pornography case. Poking around the Internet, deputies found even more 
disturbing images, prompting one investigator to take on a part-time role 
of cybercop.

"Decent people have no idea what child pornography is," Bedford County's 
Brown said. "The images are the most horrendous images, horrible images you 
can find. We download them by the thousands. It's amazing the images that 
are out there on the Web and are available for anyone who wants to go into 
that particular arena."

His office then applied for and was awarded a Justice grant  about $200,000 
each year for the past four years  to create and maintain an ICAC task 
force. That money funded an additional investigator, administrative 
assistant, supervisor and necessary computer and other technologies. The 
undercover cyberspace patrol is called Operation Blue Ridge Thunder.

Bedford County has had a 100 percent conviction rate, prosecuting 28 cases, 
Brown said, while referring more than 600 cases to other agencies 
nationally and internationally.

In many cases, such as the recent capture of the North Carolina man  called 
a "traveler" in law enforcement parlance  investigators pose as children in 
cyberspace to establish contact with individuals with less than law-abiding 
motives. Every keystroke is logged, Wiita said, and all evidence is 
collected meticulously to perfect a case.

But despite the many successes across the nation and the world, law 
enforcement and other officials said it's not getting easier.

"We're just inundated with cases," said Wiita, who is in charge of 
Operation Blue Ridge Thunder. "My people are just running ragged."

New technology, however, may help ease the burden.

Better Information Sharing

The ICAC board of directors, composed of the heads of each of the task 
forces and other participating groups, have recently begun testing a new 
secure Web portal called the Law Enforcement Data Exchange, or LEDX.

They hope LEDX will enable task forces and other agencies to securely share 
sensitive information files and photos in developing investigations, 
training practices and even educational tools for parents and children.

"The idea also is to put a lot of their Web content in LEDX so they can 
exchange information of best practices, standards, safety presentations," 
Rodriguez said.

One of the biggest problems ICAC groups had was securely communicating with 
each other and other agencies, said Larry Hunt, chief engineer and chief 
executive officer of the Manassas, Va.-based Integrated Digital 
Systems/ScanAmerica Inc., which created LEDX based on technology developed 
by Xerox Corp. (see box, Page 44).

"And because there was not a methodology of technology that they were using 
to do that, cases would be lost, they got too long, information couldn't be 
exchanged," said Hunt, who also is a sworn officer in Virginia and a 
lieutenant in the Bedford County Sheriff's Office. "People who may have 
been in someone's custody would be let go because [officers] didn't know 
there was a pedophile case pending or pornography case."

The portal is hosted and designed by his company, all at no cost to ICAC 
task forces. LEDX can read 256 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, and 
50 of those can be opened natively inside the repository, he said. Access 
to that information is tightly controlled.

To users first entering LEDX, the site appears to be only two pages deep. 
Users will be able to access or edit other pages based on the privileges 
assigned to them. Until they log on, information is not visible.

"So if someone was to hack [into] the Web page, there's nothing for them to 
see," Hunt said. "All the files are encrypted. There's no file structure. 
There's no name. There's no way for you to go in to say, 'Oh I'm looking 
for this  there it is,'" he said.

The system also has a high-level search engine that can provide law 
enforcement officers with excerpts or specific information on an 
individual, such as aliases, for example.

Besides ease of use and better information sharing to speed along cases, 
the system can eliminate mishandling of extremely sensitive and graphic 
case material.

"We had people go ahead and FedEx us cases, which is pretty standard," 
Wiita said. "And the next thing you know, the secretary two doors down gets 
the package, opens it on up. They open up images of child pornography and 
our evidence. OK, so what happens to our chain of evidence now? It's 
contaminated.

"It happened one time. It was a nightmare. We didn't want it ever to 
happen" again.

The portal may have a significant impact on investigations, but testing is 
still in the "embryo stage," said NCMEC's Rodriguez.

"In the long run, what you're hoping to do, if you want to put case-related 
information in there, you want to make sure nobody has access to that 
information other than the contributing parties and members of the group," 
he said. So one of the selling points is "encryption within encryption 
within encryption."

Integrated Digital Systems/ScanAmerica is absorbing ongoing expenses, 
including design fees, to keep the site running. The company also provides 
LEDX members with Incident Document Management Software Edge 3.0, a case 
file management system and a way for agencies to transfer paper records and 
files into LEDX.

"One thing I'm looking for is that I want this to remain free," said Hunt, 
adding that the private sector should do more to help law enforcement. Hunt 
has even more incentive to ensure the success of LEDX  he and his wife have 
been foster parents for 15 years. "Law enforcement does not have the budget 
to pay for this type of capability."

Reaching Out to Kids

Law enforcement officials are also trying to reach out to parents and 
children about the dangers of the Internet.

Operation Blue Ridge Thunder has created the Safe Surfin' Foundation, in 
which representatives from the foundation visit schools to teach children 
and parents about the dangers of the Internet. Brown said they've given 
presentations to up to 6,000 children from fourth to seventh grades.

"In other words, how do you safely surf the Internet," he said. "What 
should you be concerned about, what should you be aware of? And we've also 
taken a similar program that was developed a little differently and 
addressed different issues to the parents.

"The Internet is just a tremendous educational tool, but it's got a dark 
side. And the dark side is getting bigger in this particular area."

Not only do parents have to wake up, but industry also has to help out, 
Hunt said.

"It's amazing how many parents and how many people, when they hear this, 
they don't want to hear it," he said. "They don't want to believe this is 
happening. But we've created a monster here. A monster that gives people 
that prey on children the ability to get to our kids. And I don't want to 
preach, but [at] some point in time, the industry needs to take on some 
liability for this."

***

By the numbers

Late last year, the Crimes Against Children Research Center interviewed a 
nationally representative sample of 1,501 children ages 10 to 17 who used 
the Internet regularly.

Their findings include:

* Very few episodes were reported to authorities such as the police, an 
Internet service provider or a hot line.

* Only 17 percent of kids and 11 percent of parents could name a specific 
authority, such as the FBI, the CyberTipline or an Internet service 
provider, to which they could report an Internet crime, although more 
indicated they were vaguely aware of such authorities.

* In households with Internet access, one-third of parents said their 
computers had filtering or blocking software.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Shedding light on the problem

Law enforcement officials take a grimly pragmatic approach to Internet crime.

"A computer is nothing but a tool used by a sexual predator to abduct a 
child," said Ron Laney, director of the child protection division at the 
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs, which oversees the 
Internet Crimes Against Children task force program.

"And that is exactly what we look at it as  a tool  and how can we keep up 
technically with them," he said. "As a matter of fact, we have to be more 
advanced than them so that we can catch these individuals preferably before 
they do anything."

According to a 2000 national survey of young people ages 10 to 17, about 
one in five had received a sexual solicitation over the Internet in the 
past year, while one in 33 received an "aggressive sexual solicitation," 
meaning an individual had asked the kid to meet him somewhere, phoned, or 
mailed money or gifts. (For more details, see box on Page 46.)

Also, one in four received unwanted "pictures of naked people or people 
having sex," and one in 17 was threatened or harassed.
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Advisers fuel HR debate
Bush advisory group recommends more drastic measures for homeland department

The Bush administration did not go far enough when it recommended giving 
the proposed Homeland Security Department extra flexibility in hiring, 
retaining and firing department staff, according to President Bush's 
Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Despite already heated opposition to Bush's proposal in the Senate, the 
council, which draws its members from the public and private sectors, 
suggested several ideas in a meeting last week, including that senior 
executives and managers slated to join the proposed department be required 
to apply for the new positions they would hold.

Using this tactic, the administration, employees and the public can be sure 
that the department's leaders are really the best people for the job, not 
just the people who held certain titles before, said council member Ruth 
David, president and chief executive officer of Analytical Services Inc.

Measuring the performance of people, as well as systems and programs, is 
important throughout the department, council members agreed.

The council was especially concerned with the role of middle managers. For 
example, they proposed evaluating managers on their ability to make their 
staff members work as a team  and replacing managers if they fail.

"Culture is an asset, but it can never be an excuse," said Norm Augustine, 
former chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp., whom the council 
called in to share ideas on integration. Augustine also served as a member 
of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, a bipartisan 
group established by Congress that called for a homeland security 
department in its final February 2001 report. Members acknowledged that 
many of the flexibilities the council suggested do not easily fit within 
the government structure. "We're having to invent an entirely new process 
of integration," said Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, a council member.

But all agreed that past experience merging agencies shows that working by 
old management rules will cost critical years while trying to bring 
together all the pieces of the proposed department.

"We do not have the time to repeat those patterns," said council member 
Lydia Thomas, president and CEO of Mitretek Systems Inc.

Council members said management flexibility was critical to the success of 
the department. But the concept still faces a fierce debate in Congress.

Although the House passed its version of the Homeland Security Department 
bill July 26 with the management flexibilities intact, the battle in the 
Senate, which is still deliberating the bill, is heating up.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs 
Committee, sent a letter last week to members of Congress highlighting the 
differences between the president's bill to create the proposed department 
and the Senate version. Lieberman's committee leads the Senate's work on 
the bill.

In the letter, he said that the Senate is already giving the administration 
"all the power it needs to create and run an effective, performance-driven 
department."

"In my view," Lieberman wrote, "the administration has blurred the focus of 
its bill and risked dragging this common cause into a quicksand of 
unnecessary controversy by taking on significant but vague new executive 
powers that are uncalled for and in some cases unprecedented."

Meanwhile, in a report last week, Bobby Harnage, national president of the 
American Federation of Government Employees, maintained that "pretty much 
what the administration is pleading for already exists." Flexibility, 
Harnage said, is another word for "gutting the civil service merit system 
and busting employee unions."

A push for more power

President Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council highlighted several 
management flexibilities that its members consider essential to the 
proposed Homeland Security Department, including the ability to:

* Pick managers based on the new department's structure rather than on 
employees' old titles and positions.

* Give the department's chief information officer control of every portion 
of the information technology budget.

* Identify an independent group or person who can observe the management 
practices of the agency and highlight where and when problems occur.

* Make quick personnel changes when managers are not successful in bringing 
their groups together into one culture and promote managers who support the 
department's goals.
*************************
Federal Computer Week
Career Channels

Series/Grade: GS-335-9
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Luke Air Force Base, AZ (S) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02AUG282290
Closing Date: Sept. 12, 2002
Contact: Department of Air Force, Pers, HQ AFPC/DPCTDC, 550 C St., West 
Suite 57, Randolph Air Force Base, TX 78159-4759;( 800) 699-4473

Series/Grade: GS-854-12
Position Title: Computer Engineer, Fort Huachuca, AZ (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: DI-JITC-05-02
Closing Date: Sept. 10, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DFAS-PSO/IQRSF, 8899 E. 56th St., 
Indianapolis, IN 46249-6470; Patricia Briggs (317)510-5022

Series/Grade: GS-1550-12
Position Title: Computer Scientist, Fort Huachuca, AZ (NS) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: DI-JITC-05-02
Closing Date: Sept. 10, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DFAS-PSO/IQRSF, 8899 E. 56th St., 
Indianapolis, IN 46249-6470; Patricia Briggs (317) 510-5022

Series/Grade: GS-2210-5/7
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Washington, D.C. (NS) 
(Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-090
Closing Date: Sept. 12, 2002
Contact: Commodity Future's Trading, Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st St. 
NW, Washington, D.C. 20581; Larry Mack (202)418-5003

Series/Grade: GS-2210-15
Position Title: Supervisory Information Technology Specialist, Washington, 
D.C .(S) (Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: SEDS-02-181 (DH)-MPP
Closing Date: Sept. 13, 2002
Contact: Department of Justice, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Room 1175, 
Washington, D.C. 20530; Dot Hawkins (202) 616-3742

Series/Grade: GS-2210-14
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Miami, FL (S) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: OPR-JJ425-02
Closing Date: Sept. 12, 2002
Contact: Department of Treasury, Secret Service, Please Fax (202)406-9996, 
Washington , D.C. 20223; (202) 406-5800 Ext. 6420

Series/Grade: GS-335-5
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Throughout, GA (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: ARS-D2S-2336
Closing Date: Sept. 9, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, ARS AFM HRD SSB, 5601 Sunnyside Ave. 
#31208, Beltsville, MD 20705-5105; Dalma Dickens (229) 386-3498

Series/Grade: GS-2210-7/9
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist (Customer Support), Ames, 
IA (S) (Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 687-2002-0040
Closing Date: Sept. 9, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, APHIS, 100 N. 6th St., Suite 510C, Attn 
HR, Minneapolis, MN 55403; Brian Zingler (612) 370-2210

Series/Grade: GS-2210-12
Position Title: Computer Specialist, Indianapolis, IN (NS) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 03-DEU-2002-0011Z
Closing Date: Sept. 13, 2002
Contact: Housing and Urban Development, HR, The Wanamaker Building, 100 
Penn Square East, Philadelphia, PA 19107; (215)656-0593 Ext.3120

Series/Grade: GS-2210-11
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Middlesboro, KY (NS) 
(Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 153288
Closing Date: Sept. 18, 2002
Contact: Department of Interior, Russell Federal Building, 75 Spring St. 
SW, Suite 1000, Atlanta, GA 30303-3309; (404) 331-4541

Series/Grade: GS-854-12/13
Position Title: Computer Engineer, Aberdeen, MD (S) (Request vacancy; must 
address ranking factors)
Announcement #: NEAG02120767
Closing Date: Sept. 11, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, NE Staff Division, 314 Johnson St., Aberdeen 
PG, MD 21005-5283; Lisa Irving (410) 306-0072

Series/Grade: GS-1550-12/13
Position Title: Computer Scientist, Aberdeen, MD (S) (Request vacancy; must 
address ranking factors)
Announcement #: NEAG02120767
Closing Date: Sept. 11, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, NE Staff Division, 314 Johnson St., Aberdeen 
PG, MD 21005-5283; Lisa Irving (410) 306-0072

Series/Grade: GS-335-5/6
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Lakeview, OR (S) (Request vacancy; must 
address ranking factors)
Announcement #: FWS1-02-152
Closing Date: Sept. 11, 2002
Contact: Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife, Pers Mgmt., 911 11th 
Ave. NE, Portland, OR 97232-4181; (503) 231-6136

Series/Grade: GS-1550-12
Position Title: Computer Scientist, Fort Eustis, VA (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: X-SP-02-4241-HW
Closing Date: Sept. 13, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, DEU, SC-CPOC Building 5304, Attn 
DAPE-CP-SC-B-X, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35898; Gayle Powell (757) 878-1144

Series/Grade: GS-854-13
Position Title: Computer Engineer, Falls Church, VA (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-352AK
Closing Date: Sept. 12, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DISA, Pers Division, 701 S. Courthouse 
Road, Arlington, VA 22204-2199; Arleen Knight (703) 607-4412

Series/Grade: GS-335-6/7
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Throughout VA (S) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: FWS5-02-110
Closing Date: Sept. 11, 2002
Contact: Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife, 300 Westgate Center 
Drive, Hadley, MA 01035-9589; (413) 253-8251

Jobs on this page are excerpts from thousands of listings in the FedJobs 
searchable database. Job information is available on the Web 
(www.fedjobs.com) or as a printed report, "Federal Career Opportunities." 
To subscribe, contact Federal Research Service, P.O. Box 1708-FCW, 
Annandale, VA 22003-1708.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
Roster Change

Robert Frye, executive director of the Standard Systems Group (SSG), is 
retiring effective Sept. 3.

Frye said he would be staying in Montgomery, Ala., as an independent 
consultant to government contractors. He is being replaced by Frank Weber, 
a member of the Senior Executive Service and deputy director for logistics 
and business operations at Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Frye, who has been SSG's executive director since 1995, has been 
responsible for the 2,400-person organization that acquires, develops and 
maintains combat support information systems for Air Force and Defense 
Department components. SSG is responsible for $14 billion in contracts and 
more than 100 programs.

For more, please see "Retiring SSG director hails AFITC"

***

Scott Charbo, a former agribusiness executive, is the new chief information 
officer at the Agriculture Department. He started the new position Aug. 26, 
replacing Ira Hobbs, the deputy CIO who had been the acting CIO for a year 
and a half.

Since July, Charbo had been serving as the head of the Office of Business 
and Program Integration in the USDA's Farm Service Agency.

As the USDA CIO, Charbo will oversee more than 4,000 information technology 
professionals and $1.7 billion in physical assets.

Before joining the USDA, Charbo held a variety of jobs in the agriculture 
field. He previously was president of mPower3 Inc., a ConAgra Foods company 
that provides information and solutions to the agriculture and food 
production communities. The company has announced that it will cease 
operation on Oct. 1.

For more, please see "New CIO starts at 
USDA"/fcw/articles/2002/0826/web-usda-08-28-02.asp

***

Gary Cox began work last month as the program manager for the Outsourcing 
Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN). He replaces Karen Smith.

Cox previously was the ODIN project manager for Goddard Space Flight 
Center, the first NASA center to implement ODIN.

Under the outsourcing initiative, NASA seeks to transfer responsibility for 
managing computers and other information technology assets to the 
commercial sector, leaving the space agency free to have its IT personnel 
focus on core missions.

***

James Brooke has been named president of the new federal systems division 
at EADS Telecom North America, a provider of turnkey telecommunications 
networks.

Brooke is the former director of operations and business development for 
BAE Systems Mission Solutions' operations in Colorado Springs, Colo.

A retired Navy pilot, Brooke had been with BAE Systems since 1998 until 
assuming his new position with EADS in July. He was responsible for 
initiating a new business development strategy for the company's field site 
in Colorado Springs, which will be home to DOD's Northern Command beginning 
Oct. 1.

Brooke said EADS new federal division will focus on the defense and 
homeland security communities.

For more, please see "EADS Telecom forms fed division"

***

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta on Aug. 29 announced the selection 
of eight federal security directors who will assume responsibility for 25 
airports. To date, the Transportation Security Administration has named 145 
federal security directors who are responsible for 380 airports.

* Julian Gonzales, Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field, Idaho. He also will 
assume responsibility for Friedman Memorial and Joslin Field Magic Valley 
Regional airports in Idaho.

* Alan Anderson, Cherry Capital Airport, Mich. Also, airports in Manistee, 
Emmet Alpena and Chippewa counties in Michigan.

* Robert Johnson, Detroit Metro Wayne County Airport, Mich.

* John Hursey, Duluth International Airport, Minn. Also, Falls 
International, Bemidji City, Brainerd-Crow Wing and Chisolm-Hibbing 
Municipal airports in Minnesota.

* Hugh Ford, Billings Logan International Airport, Mont. Also, Gallatin 
Field, Bert Mooney and Yellowstone airports in Montana.

* Dempsey Jones III, Lehigh Valley International Airport, Pa. Also, Reading 
Regional, Lancaster and Williamsport Regional airports in Pennsylvania.

* Gerald Chapman, Columbia Metropolitan Airport, S.C. Also, Florence 
Regional and Bush Field airports in South Carolina.

* Ronald Hays, Tri-Cities Pasco Airport, Wash. Also, Walla Walla Regional 
Airport and Yakima Air Terminal-McAllister Field in Washington, and Eastern 
Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton.
*************************
Government Computer News
Supercomputing 2002 will test badges that can track attendees' activities
By Susan M. Menke

Using tracking technology developed for Defense Department materiel 
logistics, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications has designed 
optional radio frequency badges that will track the interests and movements 
of attendees at November's Supercomputing 2002 trade show in Baltimore.

Dan Reed, the show's program chairman and director of the Champaign, Ill., 
center, said the IntelliBadges are "fully optional" and can be used at 
several levels. For example, technical program attendees can withhold their 
identities but still see on dynamic kiosk displays where people with 
similar interests are gathering. Or they can identify themselves by the bar 
code from their registration cards, enter queries and profile their 
interests at kiosks. Attendees could also find out, for example, how many 
miles they have walked by the end of the show. Reed said there are "lots of 
potential opportunities" in personnel logistics.

NCSA budgeted about $70,000 for the tracking infrastructure, writing most 
of the software in-house. The reusable, silver dollar-sized RF badges come 
from Savi Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif., a DOD and Postal Service 
contractor. Savi operates a global RF identification network for Army 
depots in Europe and elsewhere.

The badges work for about two years, Reed said, and the resolution is 
"reasonably coarse." The signal radius of about 75 feet can be increased by 
adding more stations to track the RF signals.
**************************
Computerworld
Feds plan cybersecurity center
The White House is denying it's looking to monitor data as part of the 
president's National Plan for Protecting Cyberspace.
By DAN VERTON

As the White House last week began putting the final touches on its 
long-awaited National Plan for Protecting Cyberspace, administration 
officials took issue with a press report that suggested the plan would 
include provisions to expand the government's data collection and 
surveillance.

The plan, which is scheduled to be released Sept. 18 during a ceremony at 
Stanford University, does include a provision to build a cybersecurity 
network operations center. However, a published report suggesting that the 
NOC would collect and examine e-mail and data traffic from major Internet 
service providers and other private-sector companies is misleading and 
inaccurate, said Tiffany Olson, an assistant to Richard Clarke, chairman of 
the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and the principal 
force behind the strategy.

Olson said the published report is necessarily inaccurate because the plan 
hasn't even been finished.

"There were many initial drafts, and many organizations provided input," 
she said. "But we've just started to finalize it this week."

The concept of developing a federal NOC is definitely in the strategy, but 
not with the aim of gathering e-mail data or expanding government 
surveillance, Olson said. Rather, the federal NOC would be modeled after 
the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute's Incidents.org Web site and 
Internet Storm Center, a virtual organization of advanced 
intrusion-detection analysts, forensics experts and incident handlers from 
across the globe.

Howard Schmidt, co-chairman of the Critical Infrastructure Protection 
Board, told Computerworld last week that the plan is to simply ask for 
greater voluntary data sharing on matters such as viruses and worms. He 
also stressed that establishing a central NOC isn't part of a plan to 
increase the government's surveillance of private data.

Schmidt said the need for a central government NOC stems from the lack of a 
single collection point where government security can be analyzed. This 
central NOC would collect data from other government NOCs, such as the 
FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center and the Pentagon's Joint 
Task Force for Computer Network Defense.

These NOCs, in turn, would function in a fashion similar to the private 
sector's Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC) - alliances formed 
within vertical industries to improve information sharing about security 
vulnerabilities and threats.

The SANS Storm Center uses advanced data correlation and visualization 
techniques to analyze data collected from more than 3,000 firewalls and 
intrusion-detection systems in more than 60 countries. "We're hoping the 
[ISACs] one day establish their own independent Storm Center network," said 
Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute.

And that may be much easier to do now that Redwood City, Calif.-based Check 
Point Software Technologies Ltd., which operates more than 63% of all 
firewalls worldwide, is adding a Storm Center client in every one of its 
260,000 gateways, said Paller. "That means anyone who wants to set up a 
Storm Center network can just tell their members to turn on the client and 
point it to their network node," he said.

A Work in Progress

Although "sworn to secrecy" about the specific contents of the 
administration's plan, Harris Miller, president of the Arlington, Va.-based 
Information Technology Association of America, said last week that the plan 
remained "in a state of flux" and that any information made public to date 
"may or may not still be in the document when it is released."

The Bush administration also plans to release a revision of the forthcoming 
plan as early as January, Schmidt said during a recent press briefing at 
the White House. The revision will include details on "definitive 
programs," he said. In addition, plans call for another seven town hall 
meetings to be held around the country after the Sept. 18 release, to 
gather more feedback from both the private sector and the general public, 
he said.

Officials underscored the voluntary nature of the public/ private 
partnership, noting that the White House isn't legally capable of forcing 
any sort of data-sharing agreements on the private sector. What the 
government can and plans to do, however, is "create government as a model," 
said Schmidt.

In an interview with Computerworld last month, Clarke said the plan may 
include a governmentwide policy that requires all IT purchases to be 
independently certified for security prior to approval. Such a policy, 
which is currently in effect at the Defense Department, was being "looked 
at carefully," but at that point no decision had been made, he said.
*****************************
Washington Post
Chinese Government Keeping Up With Online Dissidents,
Though Battle Is Escalating
By D. Ian Hopper

WASHINGTON  Chinese dissidents are doing their best to use the Internet to 
bring democratic change to their society, but government crackdowns and the 
nation's rural demographics mean that more freedoms are unlikely to come 
soon, says a private study.

Released by Rand Corp., the report, "You've Got Dissent," said that while 
dissidents use the Internet for liberation, the Chinese government uses the 
same tools to keep an eye on activists.

"There was a lot of very loose talk about how the Internet was going to 
bring down all the authoritarian regimes," said James Mulvenon, one of the 
authors of the report released this week. However, he said, "the Chinese 
government has proven surprisingly nimble over the past five or six years 
in surpassing the technological challenges the dissidents have presented them."

About 33 million Chinese were online as of January 2002, the authors said, 
though there is a significant Chinese "digital divide." Most Chinese 
Internet users are young, well-educated men in eastern cities like Beijing 
and Shanghai. Only two percent are rural peasants, although peasants make 
up the bulk of China's population of 1.2 billion.

In comparison, the Commerce Department reported that 143 million Americans, 
more than half of the population, were online as of last year.

Chinese dissidents  whether Tibetan exiles, democracy activists or members 
of the banned Falun Gong meditation sect  use many different methods to 
spread their messages.

Some, particularly Chinese expatriates, use unsolicited e-mail to 
recipients in China. While such e-mail, known as "spam," is a nuisance in 
the United States, in China an e-mail to hundreds of thousands of 
recipients gives readers plausible deniability if they are harassed by 
government officials.

Using the Web has become more difficult thanks to government measures. 
Chinese Internet surfers used to use "proxy sites" to visit banned Web 
sites, though Mulvenon said the government  which has complete control over 
Internet access in China  is quick to block off those proxies within hours 
of their use.

The Chinese government has been cracking down on unlicensed Internet cafes, 
particularly after a June 2002 fire in a Beijing cafe that killed 24 
customers. Officials said cafes in Beijing and other cities were shut down 
for safety reasons, though thousands have been closed over the past year 
for failing to install surveillance software.

According to the Rand report, at least 25 Chinese have been arrested in the 
past two years due to their online activities.

Some Chinese non-governmental organizations have hacked Falun Gong Web 
sites in order to take them offline, the report said.

China has used regulatory measures to get Chinese companies to censor their 
own customers as well. Internet providers in China are responsible for the 
activities of their customers, Mulvenon said, so these providers have hired 
employees, known as "big mamas," who monitor chat rooms and kick out 
subversives.

Chinese dissidents have started to find new weapons in their guerrilla war. 
File-trading networks, the same technology that gives American music and 
movie companies fits, can help dissidents communicate. Since modern 
networks like Gnutella and Kazaa have no central source, they would be 
harder to turn off.

"You find people very quickly using something that could be a forum for 
political dissent and using it to trade music and pornography," Mulvenon said.

The Rand authors believe time is on the dissidents' side. They say many 
Chinese look to their Korean and Taiwanese neighbors and want economic 
prosperity before political freedoms, but the Internet is gradually 
bringing both.
****************************
USA Today
Governments, technologists battle over Net censorship
By The Associated Press

Vietnam's government tries to block its citizens from such U.S.-based Web 
sites as the one run by expatriate Pham Ngoc whose pro-democracy rantings 
it considers dangerous and subversive.


The ruling Communist Party doesn't like the dissident writings and other 
postings on his Thong Luan site, shortened from the Vietnamese for 
"information debate."

No matter. Third-party Internet gateways known as proxies have long allowed 
Vietnamese citizens to bypass government filters by masquerading the sites 
they are trying to reach.

But lately, governments in such countries as Vietnam, China and Saudi 
Arabia have gotten smarter about blocking those proxies as well. And that's 
forcing technologists to devise new ways of evading the censors.

"It's like a game," said Pham Ngoc, a Vietnamese expatriate who operates 
the Thong Luan site from San Jose, Calif. "If they discover this is a new 
proxy, they will spread the word to friends. But if they know, the police 
know."

Say what you want about the Internet as the Wild West, where information 
flows freely and the masses are in control.

Internet censorship is on the rise.

A February 2001 report from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders found 
censorship in 58 countries, including China, Vietnam and Tunisia. The group 
expects to list about 40 more in a January update.

And longtime censors have gotten even more aggressive in the past year or 
so as they play what amounts to a digital version of Whac-a-Mole.

They have poured countless resources and hired the brightest technicians to 
find and close the technical loopholes through which people can get 
forbidden content, including Western news outlets, dissident writings, and 
in the Mideast, pornography and other sites deemed anti-Islam.

They have largely succeeded.

"Most of these governments are not as worried about the elite," said Jack 
Balkin, an online speech expert at Yale Law School. "It's about making sure 
the vast majority don't get unfiltered access."

Early this year, the Chinese government took 24 hours to discover new 
proxies as they circulated through online discussion groups or chat rooms, 
said Greg Walton, a San Francisco researcher who provides technical support 
for a Tibetan-freedom organization.

"Then it gradually went to 12 hours, six hours, now it's 15 minutes," he said.

And when technical measures fail, the Chinese government can encourage 
self-censorship by sending police to cybercafes and imposing lengthy prison 
sentences for downloading "subversive" materials.

Vietnam, meanwhile, concedes it can't afford the estimated $400 million 
needed to fully block sites and keep up with proxies. But that won't stop 
censorship: It recently proposed to severely punish cafe owners who let 
customers access porn or anti-government sites like Pham Ngoc's.

Other countries like Cuba and Iraq make accessing the Internet so expensive 
and difficult that it is effectively censored for the majority. China, too, 
has tried to limit access, closing thousands of cybercafes following a 
deadly June fire at one.

When access is available, users can turn to proxies to fool filters into 
thinking they are visiting innocent sites. After governments caught on, 
technologists developed dynamic systems to keep proxies hidden.

Two commercial proxy services, Anonymizer and Megaproxy, are among those 
that frequently change domain names or numeric Internet addresses.

With help from the U.S. government's Voice of America, technologists have 
even adopted some of the same techniques that have frustrated the 
entertainment industry's campaign to stop piracy of its songs and films.

"By moving fast and keeping proxy sites moving around, we hope to be able 
to move faster than they are blocked," said Ken Berman, a program manager 
with VOA parent International Broadcasting Bureau.

SafeWeb developed Triangle Boy, in which hundreds of volunteers in open 
societies serve as proxies for the SafeWeb proxy. If a government discovers 
and blocks one, another volunteer would come along.

Other systems in development include Peekabooty and Flyster, which 
incorporate peer-to-peer technologies. The idea is to clone a sensitive Web 
site on numerous, networked computers, frustrating those manning the filters.

Other systems such as Camera/Shy, Tangler and Freenet are also being built 
to slip sensitive documents through filters.

Money is the biggest obstacle for the volunteers and start-up companies 
involved.

Congress allocated $10 million last year for the Voice of America and 
sister organizations to better reach audiences in China and Russia. But 
only a small amount is going to fight Internet censorship in China, through 
partnerships with Anonymizer and SafeWeb.

In fact, SafeWeb has all but abandoned its anti-censorship efforts outside 
China to focus energies on moneymaking security products.

Stephen Hsu, SafeWeb's chairman and co-founder, said building a full-blown 
service for China alone could cost up to $5 million.

From the censoring government's perspective, finding proxies is trivial 
with enough resources.

Websense, one of several Western companies the Saudi government is 
considering for future filtering services, already makes daily searches of 
filter-avoidance systems for its corporate clients.

To fight back, Peekabooty, Anonymizer and others are now developing ways to 
prevent one source from discovering all the alternative addresses at once.

Anti-censorship activists will never match a totalitarian government's 
virtually unlimited coffers but Hsu and others hope to make it expensive 
enough for censors to give up.

"If they are outspending us 10-to-1 or 100-to-1, we're just going to lose," 
Hsu said. "The goal of good software is to make that ratio 1,000-to-1 so 
they have to spend this much resources to block that guy out."

By continually adding ranges of addresses that must be blocked, 
technologists also believe governments risk losing foreign investors who 
require an open Internet.

"That's the option we're trying to force them into," said Lance Cottrell, 
Anonymizer's president and founder. "Either they have to allow unfettered 
access or in effect they have to deny all access."
**************************
San Francisco Gate
Car-crash recorders
'Black boxes' are moving from airliners to autos

Most people know that electronic flight data recorders -- also known as 
"black boxes" -- are a critical source of information to aircraft crash 
investigators.

Yet most motorists don't realize that if they're driving a newer model car, 
especially from General Motors or Ford, chances are good that their vehicle 
also has a device that can record accident data.

Now, traffic safety experts and makers of these types of devices are 
pushing for more widespread use of this technology, which they say can lead 
to safer cars, better drivers, lower insurance rates and faster accident 
investigations.

Information downloaded from the data recorder of a 2000 Chevrolet Camaro is 
playing an important role in the case of a Livermore woman charged with 
vehicular manslaughter in connection with a crash in February.

And next month, a Southern California firm will go a step further by 
selling a black box to parents who want to monitor the driving habits of 
their teenage sons or daughters.

Although privacy and legal experts warn there's a danger that data from 
these black boxes could be misused, the devices appear on track to become a 
standard item in cars within a few years.

"That's small solace to the 'Big Brother' conspiracy theorists, but if it 
saves some people's lives, I think there are ways to do it so that the 
rights of the owners of the vehicles are protected," said Philip Haseltine, 
president of the Automobile Coalition for Traffic Safety Inc., an 
Arlington, Va., group whose members include the biggest automakers in the 
United States, Japan and Germany.

The National Transportation Safety Board has advocated use of electronic 
data recorders in motor vehicles since 1997. Numerous studies, including a 
report released last August by the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, have since noted the potential benefits of car black boxes. 
Integrating data recorders with wireless technology such as global 
positioning systems or cellular telephones could help speed emergency help 
to victims of a serious accident.

"Event Data Recorders (EDRs) offer great potential for improving vehicle 
and highway safety," the report said.

"A measurement is worth a thousand opinions," said Dr. Ricardo Martinez, 
former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.


PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE
Martinez, an emergency room physician, said he wants black boxes mandated 
for all vehicles and says gathering proper data from crashes, which killed 
42, 116 people in 2001, is as important a public health issue as medical 
research.

"You can't attack any problem until you understand the cause," said 
Martinez, who now heads an Atlanta firm involved in an effort with the 
Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a data recorder and accident 
reporting device called the MacBox.

Martinez said that while he was at the safety administration during the 
Clinton administration, he was astounded by the lack of data gathered from 
real crashes.

Air bags, he said, were originally designed based on controlled laboratory 
crashes, not real-world crashes.

"They're not for protecting (crash) dummies -- they're for protecting 
people," he said.

The agency experimented with black boxes in cars as early as 1974, and 
since the early 1990s, automakers have quietly installed EDR devices in 
cars along with the air bags.

General Motors began installing EDRs in some 1990 models to glean 
information about how air bags were being deployed.

By 1994, GM's Sensing and Diagnostic Module began measuring the severity of 
crashes that triggered an air bag. And in 1999, GM designed the module to 
save data for about five seconds before a crash. The data includes the 
car's speed, engine revolution rate, throttle opening and application of 
the brakes.


HELPING BOTH SIDES
Haseltine noted that the sensors helped GM win a lawsuit filed by the 
family of Jerome Brown, the NFL star killed in a 1992 accident. The family 
contended the air bag in his Chevrolet Corvette had deployed early.

But sensors also helped owners of Pontiac Sunfires and Chevrolet Cavaliers 
who complained that the air bags were deploying at a low speed, Haseltine 
said.

Sensor model data revealed a programming problem, and the models were 
recalled.

Ford, meanwhile, began installing a Restraining Control Module in 1997 to 
control air bags and seat belts. It has since upgraded the module to record 
vehicle information five seconds before a crash, including front and side 
acceleration, driver and passenger air bag deployment and whether seat 
belts were buckled.

"More and more, we're going to see manufacturers who have been thus far 
hesitant to follow GM's lead," Haseltine said.

All new GM cars and almost all Fords have data recorders, said Don Gilman, 
a business manager for Vetronix Corp. of Santa Barbara. His firm has struck 
deals with both GM and Ford to make hardware and software that allows third 
parties, such as accident reconstruction firms and law enforcement 
officers, to download the black-box data.

Gilman said most other automakers have quietly installed some level of data 
recording in their cars but do not allow third parties to download the 
information.

Vetronix has sold about 1,000 of its black-box downloading systems to 
customers who include the California Highway Patrol.

"It's an unbiased witness," Gilman said. "It will tell you information, and 
if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

Other private companies, like RoadSafety International Inc. of Camarillo 
(Ventura County) and Independent Witness Inc. of Salt Lake City, are 
marketing black-box data recorders. DriveCam Inc. of San Diego markets a 
camera that captures the video and audio from inside a car, along with 
braking, accelerations and cornering before a crash.


FLEET OPERATORS
Operators of fleets have been the main market for black boxes. Mike Lyons, 
presidemt of Independent Witness, said his firm's crash data recorders are 
in nearly all cabs in the Las Vegas area. And after the death of star Dale 
Earnhardt, NASCAR ordered the videotape-size boxes installed in every race 
car to compile data from crashes during the 2002 season.

The company is also trying to persuade insurance companies that the devices 
can lower costs and rates, possibly using them to monitor high-risk 
drivers. Lyons said, "The vision of our company has always been to affect 
insurance rates."

RoadSafety President Larry Selditz said his company has installed about 10, 
000 black-box systems in 10 years, mainly in "high-risk" fleets such as 
ambulances. The mere existence of a box monitored by a fleet manager is 
often enough to change unsafe driving habits, such as the surprising 25 
percent of paramedics who were not buckling up, he said.

"Our focus changed as we started to do emergency response (vehicles)," he 
said. "We saw a real need to change driving behavior."

Next month, RoadSafety plans to start selling a scaled-down, $280 version 
of its commercial box to parents worried about setting their teenagers 
loose behind the wheel.

The box, which plugs into the computerized diagnostic system present in 
cars sold since 1996, sets off an alarm for speeding, burning rubber, 
braking hard or unbuckled seat belts. The box also stores seven days' worth 
of data on a memory card that parents can plug into a home computer.

"Our system is like being able to sit next to your teenager when they 
drive, " Selditz said.

However, he agreed lines must drawn to preserve privacy. "My concern is, 
who is going to get the data and how's it going to be used?" he said. "None 
of us wants Big Brother watching. I don't want an invasion of my privacy. I 
never want to see this mandated."

The international Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 
Standards Association has launched a project to create a universal standard 
defining the data that a motor vehicle's black box should record, including 
date, time, location, velocity, direction, number of occupants and whether 
seat belts were buckled.

Most proponents of black boxes agree laws should be written to make the 
data stored in the devices the legal property of a vehicle's owner, and 
mandating a court order and other legal checks and balances when the 
information is sought by law enforcement.


PANDORA'S BOX
However, the spread of black boxes could unlock a Pandora's box of privacy 
and legal issues if safeguards aren't addressed now, said David Sobel, 
general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in 
Washington, D.C.

Sobel is especially concerned about future black boxes that can report a 
person's location.

"Once you've created some kind of a database, it's difficult to anticipate 
the potential future uses of that information or anticipate who could be 
interested," he said. "It could be an employer or a spouse, or any number 
of people who might want some information about where a person was at a 
particular time."

Black-box proponents say the devices provide objective information about a 
crash that can help speed resolution of insurance disputes or court suits.

But Livermore attorney Timothy Rien said the data he has seen so far in one 
case raise questions about their reliability.

Rien is defending Nicole LaFrenier, a Livermore woman accused of causing a 
Feb. 24 crash in which three young men died when her Camaro slammed into a 
tree. A preliminary hearing is scheduled later this month.

Rien, who had never used data from a car black box, obtained a court order 
and had an accident reconstruction firm download information from the car's 
Sensing and Diagnostic Module. Although police investigators determined 
LaFrenier was the only one in the car wearing a seat belt, the black box 
indicated she was not, Rien said.

"There are two or three things we know that are wrong that are contradicted 
by police," Rien said. He said the data recorders "are not infallible."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DOWN TO EARTH
Technology commonly thought to be limited to airliners is used to monitor 
automobiles. Two products are:

.

THE WITNESS BLACK BOX: From Independent Witness Inc. of Salt Lake City, 
Utah, the battery-powered device has sensors that monitor the motion of a 
vehicle. In the event of a crash, the device records the time, date, 
direction and severity of impact. The firm also designed a box to record 
the seismic impact on buildings during an earthquake. .

ROAD SAFETY TEEN DRIVER SYSTEM: From Road Safety International Inc. of 
Camarillo, the device is marketed to parents of teenage drivers. The box 
plugs into a car's computer diagnostic system to monitor factors like 
speed, brakes, engine RPMs, and G-force. An alarm sounds for speeding, hard 
turns or stops, or an unbuckled seat belt. A "spotter switch" also reminds 
the driver to look behind the vehicle and at the rearview mirrors before 
backing up. Flash memory stores seven days' worth of data.

E-mail Benny Evangelista at bevangelista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*******************************
MSNBC
You're not paranoid, you are being watched
As tracking tools improve, true privacy may be lost

      NEW YORK, Sept. 1   Computer databases already have a lot on us: 
Credit cards keep track of airline ticket purchases and car rentals. 
Supermarket discount programs know our eating habits. Libraries track books 
checked out. Schools record our grades and enrollment. On top of that, 
government agencies generate amass information on large cash transfers, our 
taxes and employment, driving history  and visas, if we're a foreign 
citiz       WHAT IF COMPUTERS become smart enough to link all those 
government and commercial resources and discern patterns from people's 
electronic traces? Could they help predict behavior? Prevent terrorist attacks?
       One of many technology projects begun or accelerated after Sept. 
11, an effort headed by former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, 
is trying to find out.
       Such new tools are meant to make us feel safer and more secure. But 
they also stir concerns that we are unwittingly building a surveillance 
society.
       The latest security-driven technologies include camera systems that 
compare faces with police mug shots and identification systems based on 
fingerprints, retinal scans or other biometrics. Already, a computerized 
profiling system means more screening for some airline passengers based 
partly on whether they paid cash or bought one-way tickets.
       Individually, such technologies appear benign. But taken together, 
civil libertarians and some technologists say, they open the door to 
unprecedented intrusions into our lives.
       Computers linked to cameras could one day allow profiling based on 
movement: "Are you walking funny? Whistling funny?," suggests David 
Holtzman, former chief technology officer with Network Solutions.
       We're still a long way from a society where government tracks and 
records our every move. Poindexter's work at the Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency is just that  research. His group is working with 
simulations, deferring decisions on what databases to include and how 
governments would get industry's cooperation. He acknowledges the privacy 
concerns and says policy-makers are beginning to discuss how to address them.

AFTER SEPT. 11, A NEW ATTITUDE
       So far, potentially intrusive security measures have been limited 
in their use.
       Identix Inc. loaned police face-recognition cameras to help scan 
visitors to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island during the Memorial Day 
weekend, and only a few U.S. airports, including Boston's Logan 
International, have so far tried out such systems from Identix and its 
competitor, Viisage Technology Inc.
       Airports and airlines, meanwhile, have also been exploring 
biometric ID systems to control employee access and give frequent travelers 
faster security clearances. But they are largely awaiting guidance and 
standards from the newly formed Transportation Security Administration, 
which is still accepting proposals for pilot programs.
       What has changed most since Sept. 11 is the threshold for tolerance 
among citizens.
       "Things that maybe were going nowhere before Sept. 11 got a lot of 
push," said Lee Tien, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
       The technologies' defenders say privacy fears are often overblown 
while capabilities are inadequate for monitoring and recording everybody's 
whereabouts.
       Nor, they say, is there interest.
       But technologies have a way of starting out narrowly focused then 
slowly expanding in functions and capabilities.
       In the San Francisco area, for instance, a system for collecting 
tolls electronically will soon be used to monitor motorists' commuting 
patterns. A satellite positioning system designed to assist in navigation 
was used by a rental car company to fine drivers for speeding.
       In Washington, D.C., police are linking traffic camera systems and 
video networks that already exist or are being installed by various public 
agencies. The police have about a dozen cameras now, but ultimately the 
system could include more than 1,000 cameras on city streets, subways and 
schools.
       Private companies like LexisNexis, meanwhile, are trying to help 
government agencies perform background checks more quickly using 
authentication techniques developed for the financial industry.
WHO DECIDES HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
       Norman Willox, chief privacy officer at LexisNexis, said privacy 
concerns are valid and can be addressed by building in safeguards. But 
others say elected officials  not technologists  should be deciding how 
much such tools should pry.
      Ultimately, such systems could be so thorough  and trusted  that 
innocent people could be committing the "crime of being the wrong person at 
the wrong place at the wrong time," said Barry Steinhardt, associate 
director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
       Maurice Freedman, president of the American Library Association, 
said authorities seizing Internet usage logs and computerized records of 
books currently checked out could try to infer  not always correctly  one's 
political beliefs based on what one reads.
       Dozens of such seizures were made after Sept. 11, though libraries 
aren't legally allowed to elaborate  or even disclose the request, Freedman 
said.
       Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of Harvard Law School's Berkman 
Center for Internet & Society, warns of a "deadbeat dads syndrome". Though 
tax returns were initially meant for taxes, the IRS now uses them to 
collect default student loans and child support payments.
       "Once we have an ability, it's so hard to say, 'No,"' Zittrain 
said. "In recent times, the best protections for civil liberties have been 
to simply prevent the deployment of the technologies."

Articles "The New Surveillance Society": 
http://www.msnbc.com/news/SURVEILLANCE_Front.asp
 ***************************
MSNBC
Grids promise computing power leap

Gamers drool at the thought, but practical uses as well




SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1  If the next big thing in computers, the grid, comes 
true, war will know no boundaries. Virtual war, that is. A grid is a kind 
of hypernetwork that links computers and data storage owned by different 
groups so that they can share computing power. By comparison, today's 
Internet, allows independent users to trade data, not computer resources.

       IF COMPUTER OWNERS would agree how to share their machines in a 
kind of hypernetwork, and the computers, disk drives, and parts could talk 
with one another, that would give all those involved more computers to draw on.
       Ideally, if they are linked well enough, then the individual 
computers melt into a bigger picture.
       To David Levine, that sounds like a perfect world for computer 
games. He is the chief executive of start-up Butterfly.net, Inc., which is 
developing a grid for online computer gamers.
       "If there is a large-scale war, a campaign could be going on across 
server boundaries," he enthuses. Right now each powerful server computer 
handles a few thousand players, but the players cannot leap among machines.
       "I can't interact with the other quarter million people who are 
playing," Levine says. If his project works, grid will unleash bigger and 
better fights.
       Grids are serious business outside the gaming world, although it 
may be one of the first to use the technology to make money.
       "I absolutely believe grid engine will be the time machine of the 
21st century," says Wolfgang Gentzsch, grid chief at high-end computer 
maker Sun Microsystems Inc .
       Sun, along with International Business Machines Corp. , which works 
with Butterfly.net, sees the technology as key to its future.
       Gentzsch likens it to "time machines" such as the internal 
combustion and steam engines, which sped up the world when they were 
introduced. "On the grid you can do things much, much faster, and you can 
do things you never were able to do before," he says.

WHAT IS A GRID?
       The definition of a grid is a subject of debate.
       "Grid technology is the means of sharing in a reasonable fashion," 
Ian Foster, co-leader of the Globus project, which is developing grid 
standards, said in a recent interview.
       He suggests a grid coordinates resources owned or controlled by 
various groups, using open standards, to give a big improvement in 
computing power.
       That could mean universities sharing computers, for instance, or 
even different groups of users in a company, who jealously guard their 
machines, beginning to share.
       Auto makers, biotechnology companies and others that have lots of 
work that could be broken up into chunks, such as running many car crash 
simulations or virtual tests of new drugs, are seen as top candidates for 
grids.
       Plexxikon, Inc. a private drug discovery company, has used Sun 
software to link about 70 microprocessors in a number of different servers 
can all be called upon for any given task.
       While Foster might argue that the Plexxikon network is not a true 
grid since it is controlled by a single company, the Sunsoftware it uses 
schedules and manages jobs for a number of computers, which is a key grid 
technology. Sun says its software can keep a processor working 80 percent 
to 90 percent of the time, rather than the 20 percent normal in small systems.
      Plexxikon uses computers to simulate chemical reactions, which take 
enormous amounts of time to set up. Because the grid software handles 
farming out jobs, though, it allows engineers to standardize tests that on 
different systems might run different ways.
       "It's only when you have a lot of horsepower and the ability to 
manage it, that you want to automate it," Rick Artis, senior director of 
informatics, said in an interview.
       Foster warns not to expect too much too soon. There are security, 
accounting and technical issues to be tackled before companies will open up 
their resources to each other.
       But IBM's Dan Powers, vice president of grid computing strategy, 
sees grid computing as a step toward a future where computer power will be 
used just like electricity or water, as one needs it.
       "The longer term vision of what grid is is basically about 
virtualization of IT (information technology) resources," he said.
*******************************

Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 510
2120 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037
202-478-6124
lillie.coney@xxxxxxx