Clips September 6, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips September 6, 2002

ARTICLES

Web May Hold the Key to Achieving Artificial Intelligence
Most Support Gov't Web Action [Internet Censorship]
Most e-gov initiatives are ready to take off
Cell Phone Records Playing Key Role in Criminal Cases [Privacy]
Army issues FCS requirements
VeriSign adopts new e-commerce anti-fraud system
New front opens in war on spam
Engine trouble [Internet Censorship]
Brussels seeks bidders for running EU domain
PBS censors its own site [Internet Censorship]
No silver bullet against piracy
Hatfill was fired after LSU got e-mail from Justice Dept.
Bush Administration to Call for Privacy Czar [Privacy]
Feds Online [Security]
Who Goes There? [National ID]
Scientists join war on terror
House lacks worst-case scenario plan
Broward official fears chaotic elections office will torpedo primary [E-Voting]


*******************************
Washington Post
Web May Hold the Key to Achieving Artificial Intelligence
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page A01

If you ran into him online, you might first be struck by the kid's 
prodigious memory. He calls himself "SmarterChild" and can recite a litany 
of facts -- this season's entire baseball lineup, every word in the 
dictionary, and the weather in major cities across the country.

But other queries provoke odd responses.

A question about SmarterChild's age returns, "One year, one month, 11 days, 
16 hours, 7 minutes, 47 seconds!" Asking where he lives gets, "In a clean 
room at a high-tech hosting facility in California."

SmarterChild, a computer program, is part of a new species of "chatterbots" 
that are renewing debate about the extent to which computers can achieve 
intelligence.

The electronic personalities of this generation use the vast repository of 
information on the World Wide Web as their memory bank, not just some rigid 
database. To answer questions about baseball, for instance, SmarterChild 
scours the Web site of SportsTicker Enterprises LP; for spelling, it goes 
to the American Heritage Dictionary online; for the weather, it visits 
Intellicast.com.

The company that conceived SmarterChild, Active Buddy Inc., created the bot 
as a marketing tool that would engage people in conversation and then tell 
them about various products or services.

Other companies have begun using these systems to help with customer 
service or Web searching. Eventually, however, some believe that 
technicians will be able to turn programs like SmarterChild into more 
intelligent systems. That is, the network will naturally begin to evolve 
into a sort of global brain, one made up of the constellation of the 
roughly 1 billion computers comprising the Internet.

Such a system might automatically offer advice on city planning based on 
demographic patterns or recommend that printing cease on a novel that 
hasn't sold a copy in weeks. It might even pinpoint the outbreak of a 
disease based on the health complaints people are searching for information 
about online.

The idea that computers might serendipitously comb through troves of data 
to produce useful bits of information faces numerous political, economic 
and social hurdles, such as privacy concerns, not to mention enormous 
technical obstacles. And skeptics abound.

Push Singh, who runs an artificial intelligence project for the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's fabled Media Lab, scoffs at the 
notion that such AI systems are likely to develop any time soon.

"Intelligence," he said, "is not a simple thing, and it's not going to 
arise accidentally."

Scientists have worked to create an artificially intelligent agent for as 
long as there have been computers. Yet every revolution in power and 
processing speed has only pushed AI further into the future as science 
smacks up against the complex biology of intelligence.

But the infinite nature of the Web echoes the infinite mystery of the 
brain, raising the possibility of success with artificial intelligence at 
some level.

Singh said he recognizes that. "The Web as it stands is not the future," he 
said. "There will be something that comes after the Web, something that I'm 
sure will be built on AI technologies."

Virtual Boy Scout
Created by engineer Timothy Kay, SmarterChild began popping up in instant 
messaging systems last summer. Since then, close to 9 million people have 
talked to him.

Chatterbots, which converse with people through real-time text messages, 
have existed on the Internet for years. Underneath their friendly exterior, 
they are basically databases built by humans that link typical questions to 
stock responses.

SmarterChild is different. Its database is limited only by the reach of the 
Web. Scientists are beginning to capitalize on the way the global network 
converts "knowledge," or at least reams of data, into a digital language 
computers can understand.

"The Internet starts to make things possible again," said Michael Kearns, a 
computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former 
director of artificial intelligence at AT&T Labs.

To be sure, SmarterChild often spits out gibberish and non sequiturs just 
like its predecessors. But its ability to access and digest online 
information represents a major step for artificial intelligence.

So potent are the possibilities that researchers at a diverse group of 
academic, nonprofit and government-backed and corporate centers such as 
MIT, the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium, the Los Alamos National Laboratory 
and Microsoft Corp. are embarking on projects to tap information already 
available on the network.

For the most part, bots like SmarterChild are able to talk only about 
certain established topics. But some have been able to reach a touchstone 
of artificial intelligence -- passing the Turing Test, in which researchers 
ask humans to guess whether they are communicating with a person or a 
machine. If people can't tell the difference, the machines are deemed to 
have passed the test.

Some scientists believe that by fusing the many systems of the Internet, an 
artificial being with the combined knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, 
Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born.

But before that happens, the AI community must overcome two huge barriers.

The first is that computers have a hard time reading Web pages because the 
files are labeled in different ways, some more unconventional than others. 
That's why Active Buddy programmers need to tell SmarterChild where to look 
for the weather; it would be a significantly more difficult task to let him 
find it.

A group led by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web and director of the W3 
Consortium, hopes to fix some of that by assigning keywords or tags to 
text, sounds and images. The task of renaming pages, however, must be done 
manually and will take years to complete.

Another wall that AI projects have hit is that while online entities like 
SmarterChild can regurgitate and process information more accurately and 
faster than any human, they lack common sense, a basic grounding of 
knowledge that is obvious to any young child. The computer mind, for 
instance, has had difficulty understanding concepts like "once people die, 
they stop buying things" or "trees don't grow in cars."

MIT's Singh and others are trying to create a "knowledge base" that can be 
implanted into AI projects by using human volunteers. People who want to 
help the project, called the Open Mind Initiative, can go to its Web site 
and type whatever comes to mind (and makes sense) when they are flashed 
certain photographs, diagrams or sentences.

A Global Brain
Another project, led by researchers at the Free University of Brussels in a 
loose collaboration between nearly a dozen scientists, psychologists and 
biologists around the world, attempts to help computers understand 
relationships between people, objects and ideas by studying how humans 
access information online.

It all began one evening in 1999, when a graduate student named Johan 
Bollen created an early version of software that gives Web sites the 
ability to automatically reorganize the content on their pages.

Using the "cookies" that sites use to identify and track Web users, the 
program analyzes the routes people take to get information and tries to 
simplify them. The software mimics the human brain, strengthening, 
dissolving and even creating hyperlinks on a page based on patterns of use; 
the Web pages act like neurons, and the links act like the synapses between 
them.

If it finds that people often go from A to B to C, it will create a path 
directly from A to C. For instance, if many people are hopping from the 
main Yahoo page to the Finance section and then to the page about WorldCom 
Inc., the program might create a new link from the main Yahoo page to the 
telecommunications company's Web site.

"It's about helping people find the connections between information," said 
Bollen, 30, now an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in 
Norfolk. "You have so much junk on the World Wide Web there's no guarantee 
that the information is good and fits what you desire. What I'm talking 
about is a Web that bends itself to the actions of its users."

Bollen's technology is already being used as part of a library search 
engine at Los Alamos called the Active Recommendation Project. The program 
can offer people a list of links that may include relevant material, even 
if the links don't contain the word the user entered. The more people use 
the system, the smarter it becomes.

One of the central ideas of researchers who believe in the vision of a 
"global brain" is that the earth can be seen as a single organism with many 
complementary parts that must work together to succeed.

Francis Heylighen, a professor at the Free University who oversaw Bollen's 
initial project, likes to use insects such as ants, bees and termites as 
examples. "Individually dumb, but capable of surprisingly intelligent 
behavior when functioning as a group," he said.

The ant analogy is exactly what frightens some of his peers.

They worry that a "hive mind" might stifle freedom and individuality. 
Already, some efforts to reorganize Web sites based on the preferences of 
the majority end up drowning out the voices of the minority.

Others are concerned about privacy issues, that computer networks will 
become all-knowing. Still others worry about the Internet becoming 
all-powerful.

Los Alamos scientist Luis Rocha, who is heading up the digital libraries 
project, said he doesn't know whether the Internet could ever become a 
malevolent, intelligent, self-aware being.

Still, he said: "A lot of times science is moved by far-fetched goals. You 
aim for the moon and hit London. And a lot of times, that's somewhere you 
haven't gone before."

Staff researcher Richard A. Drezen contributed to this report.
***************************
Associated Press
Study: Most Support Gov't Web Action
Thu Sep 5, 5:46 PM ET
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - More than two-thirds of Americans say it's OK for 
government agencies to remove public information from the Internet, even 
though many didn't believe it would make a difference in fighting 
terrorism, a new study finds.



But Americans were evenly divided on whether governments should be able to 
monitor e-mail and Web activities, with 47 percent opposed and 45 percent 
in support.

"When it gets close to common, everyday things they do, their guard gets a 
little higher," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American 
Life Project, which conducted the telephone-based survey released Thursday.

Since Sept. 11, several federal and state government agencies have removed 
documents, maps and other resources from the Internet out of concern the 
materials could aid terrorists.

The stricken items include federal environmental reports on chemical plants 
and their emergency response plans; mapping software showing communications 
infrastructure in Pennsylvania; and data on drinking water and natural gas 
pipelines in the United States.

Many of the removed documents remained available offline in government 
reading rooms or even online, housed at other, nongovernment sites. Some 
items have since been restored by the government.

According to the Pew survey, 67 percent of Americans believe the U.S. 
government should remove information that might potentially aid terrorists, 
even if the public has a right to know. Twenty-three percent believe the 
government should leave the information up, with the remainder not knowing 
or not answering.

Of those favoring removal, 36 percent said doing so would have no effect on 
terrorism. Overall, 47 percent of Americans felt that way, compared with 41 
percent who thought it would help hinder terrorism.

Internet users were more likely to oppose monitoring and believe that 
information removal would not make a difference.

"It certainly is significant that our society which has always prided 
itself on open access of information is now so scared of what open access 
to information means," said David Greene, executive director of the 
nonprofit First Amendment Project in Oakland, Calif.

Greene said Americans may not believe the information is personally useful.

"People think, `I'm not going to poison the water supply system, so what do 
I need to know about the water supply system?'" Greene said. "But if all of 
a sudden they are part of an effort to restrict development of a watershed 
and need that data ... all of a sudden they realize it's important."

Meanwhile, the Pew study found that the attacks continued to affect 
Internet behavior a year later.

Eighty-three percent of Americans who used e-mail to renew contact with 
family and friends soon after Sept. 11 maintained those relationships 
throughout the year.

Internet users have also obtained news, visited government sites and made 
donations online more frequently, with a large number citing the attacks as 
the major reason for change.

The telephone survey of 2,501 adults, including 1,527 Internet users, was 
conducted June 26 to July 26. The margin of sampling error was 2 percentage 
points for the full sample, 3 percentage points for questions asked of 
Internet users only.
******************************
Government Computer News
Most e-gov initiatives are ready to take off
By Jason Miller

Mark Forman and his colleagues at the Office of Management and Budget 
expect to be busy over the next four months with the launch of up to 21 
first or second iterations of the 24 Quicksilver e-government initiatives.

OMB's associate director for IT and e-government yesterday discussed how he 
sees agency projects moving over the next six to eight months at the 
Interagency Resources Management Council conference in Hershey, Pa.

"The first cycle was getting up Web sites, simple tools to show that the 
government can provide integrated customer-centric focus," Forman said. 
"Virtually all the projects will have that first iteration done with some 
neat tool. Now we are about to start or, in some cases are already into, 
the second iteration. It is all about re-engineering; it is all about 
changing the way we do work, fixing the management problems to make it 
simpler."

Forman said the first version of the Transportation Department's Online 
Rulemaking system and the second iteration of the Interior Department's 
Recreaction.gov Web site will be unveiled in late September. The General 
Services Administration's E-Authentication prototype will launch in 
mid-September, letting citizens perform transactions with three or four 
projects, including some that are not among the 24 e-government 
initiatives, Forman said.

The Small Business Administration is planning to release the second version 
of its Business Compliance One-Stop by early November, Forman said.

Two other projects came online earlier this summer, Forman said. The Health 
and Human Services Department put an E-Grants portal prototype online, and 
the Treasury Department's Simplified and Unified Tax and Wage Reporting 
project put the 94x series of forms on the Web.

Forman said Disasterhelp.gov moved past its initial problems after Joe 
Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the agency 
leading the effort, sorted out several obstacles to the project with the 
head of another agency, which Forman declined to name. Forman said the site 
should be up in the next two months.

The Defense Department is working with the State and Commerce departments 
to launch an e-government project outside of the 24 Quicksilver 
initiatives. Forman said U.S. Export, a joint business case the three 
agencies will submit later this month, will let agencies conduct 
complicated paper processes for some licenses online.

"I'm very happy with the change we are seeing," Forman said. "We have to 
continue to focus on the Web. This is the fundamental way we are dealing 
with the public."

Forman said that by next summer OMB will give the projects' managing 
partners the choice of two Web service platforms that will let the 
initiatives more easily share similar transactional processes. He said the 
platforms will be the IBM Grid Computing Platform and Microsoft .Net.

"Not every organization that does that transaction will have to own a piece 
of software to do that," he said. "This is one of big reasons we focused on 
enterprise architectures so we can sync this up across agencies. This is a 
revolution in IT industry that we have to be in the forefront of and free 
up resources to focus on it."
**************************
News.com
Tech firms urged to aid security efforts
By Declan McCullagh

WASHINGTON--Technology companies should work more closely with federal 
agents to defend against electronic intrusions, a liaison to the FBI's 
InfraGard program said Thursday.
Phyllis Schneck, the co-chairman of the InfraGard executive board, said 
that if an online attack takes place a business will benefit from knowing 
which FBI agents to contact.

"The people that you want to call, the people you want to contact, are the 
ones you trust," Schneck told about 200 attendees at the InfoWarCon 
conference. Created in 1996, InfraGard is an information-sharing alliance 
between the FBI, the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, 
universities, state and local police, and private companies.


The two-day InfoWarCon event was less a trade show and more an extended 
show-and-tell session, with speakers sharing stories of how they have 
created "cybersecurity" centers in their agencies or companies and what 
obstacles they encountered.

About half of the attendees were from the government, mostly military, and 
the other half were from large corporations such as airplane maker Boeing 
and drug developer Pfeizer. All, however, seemed to recognize that after 
last year's terrorist attacks, politicians and CEOs have become far more 
willing to hand over money to thwart potential electronic miscreants.

Jill Warren, the former assistant attorney general for Texas, said her 
manager had responded to the attacks by creating a special committee that 
recommended the creation of a Texas Infrastructure Protection Center. The 
goal is to exchange information between government offices and corporations 
regarding "physical and cyber assets that are critical to the health, 
safety and welfare of Texas residents."

"The best strategy for defending against attacks requires the cultivation 
of an alert network, both government and businesses," said Warren, who is 
now at the Bracewell and Patterson law firm.

As CNET News.com recently reported, it is possible for electronic 
intrusions to damage infrastructure and threaten physical danger, but 
taking control of those systems from the outside requires specialized 
knowledge and the intruder often must overcome noncomputerized fail-safe 
measures.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, it took less than 24 hours for concerns of 
cyberterrorism to emerge as the next great threat, triggering calls for new 
legislation to broaden the authority of law enforcement agencies. Privacy 
advocates, the Green and Libertarian parties, and others have criticized 
laws such as the USA Patriot Act as overreaching and overly intrusive.

Philip Lago, deputy executive secretary at the CIA, said the "civil 
libertarians just went crazy."

Because the CIA's records are classified, "I can't share with you the 
successes, and there have been literally hundreds of them," Lago said at 
the conference.

Lago said that while the intelligence community is sensitive to concerns 
about overly broad surveillance, laws can complicate effective 
intelligence-gathering. "The National Security Agency is working on the 
Fourth Amendment thing," Lago said. He added that legal restrictions 
against spying on U.S. citizens are not controversial, but those same 
limitations pose a problem when immigrants and tourists can benefit from 
the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable" searches.

"I wish we could make every single member of this country--there goes this 
democracy thing, right?--read those New York Times articles (about victims 
of the World Trade Center) and realize what this is about," Lago said.

Anyone who wishes to participate fully as a "secure" member of InfraGard 
must complete a 10-page application and undergo an FBI background 
investigation. "General" members of InfraGard do not need to do so, but 
Schneck said she was campaigning for background checks on all participants.

InfraGard's Schneck, a vice president at an Atlanta intrusion-prevention 
firm called SecureWorks, said InfraGard members who frequently travel are 
encouraged to report suspicious behavior to the FBI. "Think of the things 
you're seeing," she said. "You're the eyes and ears."

Last month, the Bush administration halted a related program called 
Operation TIPS, citing concerns that America would become a nation of 
informants.
***************************
Los Angeles Times
Cell Phone Records Playing Key Role in Criminal Cases
By ANNA GORMAN
September 6 2002

The staples of criminal investigations are well-recognized. Fingerprints. 
Weapons. Eyewitnesses.

Now detectives are relying on a new tool: cell phones.

Because more than 40% of Americans own mobile phones, law enforcement 
personnel see them as a powerful resource in investigations and trials. 
Detectives say phone records, from both suspects and victims, can provide 
key evidence in murder, robbery, drug and rape cases.

Records of cell phone calls are more useful than those of regular phones 
because they not only show what numbers were called and when, but also 
reveal the area where the caller was when the call was made. That allows 
police and prosecutors to track suspects' movements--sometimes even while a 
kidnapping is in progress.

The records also can destroy alibis or attack a suspect's credibility if 
his statements contradict the phone data. And murder victims' phone records 
can pinpoint when and where they were killed, and connect the victim to the 
suspect.

"The sooner we get those records, the better," said Det. Mike Berchem of 
the Los Angeles Police Department. "They're invaluable."

He said he has used cell phone records in every one of his investigations 
during the last few years, finding suspects, witnesses and accomplices. 
"It's hard evidence; it doesn't lie," he said.

High-Profile Cases

Cell phone records have proved important in several high-profile cases, 
including the following:

* Prosecutors used David Westerfield's cell phone records to track his 
erratic movements in the days after Danielle van Dam disappeared from her 
San Diego home. Within 48 hours, Westerfield drove to the desert, the beach 
and back to the neighborhood where he and the Van Dams lived. He told 
police he was in the desert scouting for places to take his son camping. 
Last month, Westerfield was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the 
7-year-old girl.

* Alejandro Avila said he was at an Ontario mall when 5-year-old Samantha 
Runnion was kidnapped from her Orange County condo complex. But authorities 
said his cell phone records showed that he was near where the girl's body 
was found, off a mountain road near Lake Elsinore. Avila is awaiting trial 
on murder, kidnapping and sexual assault charges.

* The day that LAPD Rampart Division Officer Rafael Perez stole cocaine 
from an evidence locker, prosecutors said, he made cell phone calls from 
near where the drugs were stolen, including one call to his drug dealer 
girlfriend. "It was extremely compelling and significant evidence," said 
former prosecutor Richard Rosenthal. Though a jury deadlocked, Perez later 
pleaded guilty to cocaine theft and was sentenced to five years in state 
prison.

Targeting Accomplices

Cell phones can also be used to connect suspects with their accomplices. 
Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Hum recalled the case of 
Rebecca Cleland, accused of hiring two cousins to kill her 43-year-old 
husband, Bruce. Cell phone records showed 11 calls between Cleland and her 
cousins in the hours leading up to the murder, including one last call 10 
minutes before the shooting.

Cleland said a carjacker had knocked her unconscious. But cell phone 
records placed her cousin Alvaro Quezada about a block from the murder 
scene, despite his claim that he was at a restaurant 20 miles away. "We 
could basically prove that he was lying," Hum said. "Without the cell phone 
records, it would have been extremely difficult to convict him."

All three were convicted of first-degree murder in 2000 and sentenced to 
life terms without parole.

At trial, phone company representatives are called to explain to jurors how 
the data are collected and what the records mean.

Each cell phone sends a distinct signal. When a call is made, the cell 
phone signal immediately attaches to the closest cell tower, which 
transmits the call. As the caller moves into a different area, the cell 
tower hands off the call to a new tower. Each tower handles an average of 
150 calls and reaches a half-mile to two miles in urban areas and up to 50 
miles in rural areas, said Jim Righeimer, who owns an Orange County company 
that leases space for cell towers.

Computers keep data on which tower is being used for calls. If the cell 
towers are closely spaced, the data can nearly pinpoint where the caller 
was at the time of the call.

Defense attorneys sometimes challenge the evidence because cell phones can 
be passed around and often are used by more than one person. Some drug 
dealers have beat the system by buying cheap phones, using them for one 
transaction and discarding them.

To obtain phone records in criminal cases, law enforcement must get a 
search warrant from a judge, who must determine that there is probable 
cause to believe the target has committed a crime.

The requests put companies in a tough spot, said Michael Altschul, senior 
vice president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Assn. "They 
have a legal obligation to be responsive to law enforcement, but on the 
other hand, there are privacy expectations of their customers," he said.

As a result, companies will only release records if they have received a 
court order, Altschul said. But in kidnapping cases, when every second is 
valuable, companies will make exceptions.

Privacy Concerns

The increased use of cell phone records worries privacy advocates.

"We believe that typical users of cell phones have a reasonable expectation 
of privacy when it comes to their location," said David Sobel, general 
counsel for the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "That kind 
of collection of information is really uniquely invasive."

Sobel, who studies the privacy implications of new technology, said he also 
fears that records will be sought more regularly in civil litigation and 
divorce cases.

LAPD Det. Dennis English said that as more people buy cell phones, the 
records will become even more important. "They will probably play a greater 
role in present and future crime scene investigations because of the 
multitude of cell phones out there," he said.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Army issues FCS requirements

With the recent release of the operational requirements document for the 
Future Combat System (FCS), the Army has taken its next step toward 
fielding the Objective Force by the end of the decade.

The Army's Training and Doctrine Command issued the FCS document Aug. 30, 
and it represents a fundamental shift of where the Army will focus - moving 
from conceptual development to materiel solutions - said Lt. Gen. John 
Riggs, director of the Objective Force Task Force, speaking Sept. 4 at an 
Association of the U.S. Army conference in Falls Church, Va.

The Objective Force will transform the Army's forces to make them better 
able to survive an all-out fight. The service's vision for FCS is to create 
an integrated information and communications battlespace in information 
technology-equipped vehicles that enable soldiers to conduct missions that 
include command and control, surveillance and reconnaissance, direct and 
indirect fire, and personnel transport.

"The conceptual foundation for FCS and the Objective Force has been 
established," Riggs said, adding that the operational requirements document 
should be viewed as a "baseline document."

Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, said now that the FCS requirements 
are in, it's time for the acquisition community and industry to take the 
lead and develop a system to meet those requirements. He added that the FCS 
advanced collaborative environment will bring users, in this case soldiers, 
to the front of the process and help to shape the product that the 
engineers develop from the start.

"The FCS advanced collaborative environment will change what me mean about 
shared concepts," Shinseki said. "It will break down walls. ur current 
processes are slow and cumbersome, and [this will be] more responsive for 
what we have to do."

Col. William Johnson, Objective Force project manager, said the document 
takes user requirements and states them in terms of threshold and objective 
capabilities.

"The threshold is the 2010 timeframe, and the objective is a point in the 
future when the technology and operational concepts mature to the point 
where we can add them," Johnson told Federal Computer Week. "We know the 
minimum and where we want to go, and we can develop architectures with 
growth in mind."

The FCS lead systems integrator team, Boeing Co.'s Space and Communications 
Group and Science Applications International Corp., was awarded a $154 
million contract in March. In June, the team added eight more companies to 
the mix.

Jerry McElwee, vice president and program manager for FCS at Boeing, said 
the integrator team "is on schedule to meet the [Army's] milestone decision 
point this spring."

Johnson said that the integrator team represented a new way of partnering 
with industry for the Army and that the team played a part in developing 
the user requirements.

"Now we have an understanding of what the user expects, and we can go 
through and analyze the requirements and turn them into performance 
specifications for systems," Johnson said. That process will go on through 
December, and a systems integration request for proposals is due in January.

Following successful development of performance specifications, the next 
phase will be to build prototypes to use for testing, but that will require 
funding approval from the Defense Acquisition Board, Johnson said.

Brig. Gen. Donald Schenk, FCS program manager, will seek that funding 
approval in the third quarter of fiscal 2003. He said the timeline to have 
the first unit equipped and ready for operational tests by 2008, with 
initial operational capability in 2010, will require much testing and 
evaluation along the way because the Army still doesn't know what FCS will 
look like or what its requirements will be.
***************************
Computerworld
After 9/11, cops walk the beat against terrorism
By DAN VERTON
SEPTEMBER 05, 2002

NEW YORK -- Thousands of bridge and tunnel officers and police in New York 
are being asked to watch for known or suspected terrorists that may still 
be living in the Manhattan area, without any IT support to automate the 
process of checking suspects against terrorism watch lists, Computerworld 
has learned.
The site of the worst terrorist disaster in history, New York is also home 
to some of the most tantalizing targets for future terrorist attacks, 
including the United Nations headquarters and Wall Street. In addition, the 
Manhattan metropolitan area and its surrounding boroughs are known to be 
the location of a high concentration of suspected al-Qaeda sleeper agents, 
so called because they enter the U.S. legally or illegally and lay in wait 
until they receive orders to carry out attacks.

However, a law enforcement source in Manhattan who requested anonymity said 
the lack of IT support for cops on the ground and at the bridges, across 
which millions of travelers enter and leave Manhattan daily, has almost 
certainly allowed suspected or known terrorists to escape justice.

"Most people that come into Manhattan do so by crossing one of those 
bridges in a car," the source said, pointing to the Queensboro Bridge, 
which connects Manhattan to Queens. "And people are stopped all the time 
who fit the profile of wanted or suspected terrorists. The names and 
descriptions of the suspects are then called into headquarters using a 
radio, and the desk officer is often forced to check a name that might have 
five different aliases against a bulletin board of printed 
'be-on-the-lookout' sheets," the source said. "It's a joke."

The joke gets worse, the law enforcement source said, when it comes to 
dealing with individuals who present international driver's licenses. 
According to state law, foreign nationals who enter the country with 
international licenses have 30 days before they must apply for a New York 
state driver's license. However, international driver's licenses are 
paper-based and can easily be forged, the law enforcement source said.

"So if and when a terrorist is pulled over for speeding, he just shows the 
officer his international driver's license, and the officer has no way to 
check who he is through the Department of Motor Vehicles," said the source. 
"We usually write them a summons for driving without a license and tell 
them to have a nice day. Then they change their name on their international 
license using a computer, rent a new car and start the process all over 
again."

The source also confirmed what other law enforcement officers around the 
country are saying: that the FBI and various terrorism task forces aren't 
sharing information with bridge and tunnel officers, housing officers or 
other cops on the beat in a timely manner.

"The FBI is the central repository of all counterterrorism intelligence, 
[contained] in the most archaic database," said Steven Jackson, a 
counterterrorism investigator with the Houston Police Department. "However, 
they're not disseminating anything.

"The bureau's philosophy is that if there's a problem, we'll come into your 
office and tell you what it is," Jackson said at a recent 
government-sponsored conference on homeland security. "The bureau doesn't 
have the Internet -- they have their own intranet, and they're not in touch."

Jackson's division within the Houston Police Department, which is 
responsible for the only area of the country that has all nine critical 
infrastructure sectors in one place, as well as the second-largest oil 
refinery in the world, was forced on Sept. 16 to build its own database to 
log and track hundreds of suspicious-event reports that began coming in 
after Sept. 11. Critical industries include banking, chemicals, energy, 
transportation, telecommunications, shipping and public health.

"Before that database, it took millions of dollars in man-hours" to find 
the "very few" reports that actually pertained to terrorist cells in the 
U.S., said Jackson. The FBI "doesn't disseminate analytical and predictive 
intelligence reports. That level of information-sharing is no longer 
acceptable."

Meanwhile, in May the Boston Police Department completed the deployment of 
a new integrated criminal identification system called the Criminal Alien 
Identification System (CAIS). It integrates existing databases and 
electronic fingerprinting technology and transmits identification 
information to a judge prior to a suspect's appearance in court, said 
William Casey, Boston's deputy chief of police.

"Prior to electronic fingerprinting, it could take months before the FBI 
would get back to us with an identification," said Casey. Now it takes 
between 20 minutes and two hours for most identifications to be made, he said.

As an indication of the success of the CAIS system, Boston made more than 
3,500 arrests in one 57-day period, including hundreds of individuals who 
were subject to deportation or who had overstayed their visas, said Casey.
****************************
Computerworld
Microsoft patches core cryptography interfaces in Windows
By John Fontana, Network World
SEPTEMBER 05, 2002

Microsoft Corp. today released a patch that plugs a security hole in its 
cryptography software that allows hackers to use bogus digital certificates 
to hijack secure communications and forge digital signatures.
The hole, discovered early last month by an independent researcher, is in 
the Windows Cryptography API (CryptoAPI), which provides the operating 
system framework that programs use to obtain cryptographic services. The 
CryptoAPI provides support for encryption, decryption, digital certificate 
handling and other tasks.

"This is one of those things where you will have to touch every machine [to 
apply the fix]," said Russ Cooper, editor of the NT BugTraq Web site and 
surgeon general at TruSecure Corp. in Herndon, Va.

The patch applies to multiple versions of the Windows operating system and 
three programs for the Macintosh: Office, Internet Explorer and Outlook 
Express. The affected versions of the operating system include Windows 98, 
98 Second Edition, Me, NT 4.0, NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, 2000 and XP.

Since exploit code has already been published, Microsoft is releasing 
versions of the patch as they are completed, so all the patches for all of 
the affected software aren't yet available. The patches currently available 
are for Windows NT 4.0 and XP. The fix has been listed as "critical."

The problem is that the CryptoAPI doesn't check a "basic constraints" 
parameter within a digital certificate used to validate digital certificate 
chains, the hierarchy of trust that cascades from top-level certificate 
authorities such as VeriSign Inc. That means bogus certificates can be 
created and used as trusted certificates without being detected by 
Microsoft software.

The bogus certificates can be used to support a variety of attacks commonly 
known as "man-in-the-middle" attacks.

The bogus certificates could be used to verify the identity of the sender 
of an e-mail or the identity of a server. They also could be used to hijack 
IPsec sessions, spoof certificate-based authentication systems or digitally 
sign malicious code using Microsoft's Authenticode technology to trick 
users into believing the code came from a trusted source. Microsoft says 
the attacks require a high level of sophistication to be carried out, but 
critics contend that the attacks are possible.

"These man-in-the-middle attacks work best locally where you can lodge 
yourself on the wire, or if you are one hop away on the network," said 
Eugene Schultz, principal engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 
in Berkeley, Calif. "It's gets a lot harder when there are many hops. It is 
a timing issue."

Last month, independent researcher Mike Benham discovered that Internet 
Explorer, which uses the CryptoAPI to validate certificate chains, was 
susceptible to attack by hackers who could forge digital certificates, 
hijack connections secured by the Secure Sockets Layer protocol and 
intercept data.

This week, Benham provided proof that Outlook's Secure/Multipurpose 
Internet Mail Extensions, a standard for secure mail created by the 
Internet Engineering Task Force, is susceptible to the flaw. The Outlook 
attack lets hackers create a phony security certificate that can be used to 
digitally sign e-mail. When a user of Outlook opens the mail, the software 
doesn't check the validity of the certificate and presents the e-mail as a 
digitally signed communication.

CryptoAPI is also used by many third-party applications to provide security 
services for their programs. Any that use digital certificate validation 
are exposed to the vulnerability, according to Microsoft.

A plug-in for Outlook called MailSecure has already been found vulnerable. 
The product was originally marketed by Baltimore Technologies PLC but was 
sold earlier this year to SecureNet Ltd., an Australian security software 
vendor.
**************************
USA Today
VeriSign adopts new e-commerce anti-fraud system
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Online payment processor VeriSign has embraced an 
anti-fraud system that promises to decrease merchants' losses from stolen 
credit cards but could increase the checkout time for Internet shoppers.


Mountain View-based VeriSign believes its adoption Wednesday of the credit 
card identification system developed by MasterCard will boost e-commerce by 
strengthening the protections against credit card fraud.

The proliferation of bogus credit card transactions has dampened the growth 
of e-commerce by exposing merchants to substantial losses and unnerving 
security-conscious shoppers.

Credit card fraud accounted for $1.2 billion, or just under 2%, of total 
online sales of $65 billion last year, according to Gartner Research. 
Merchants pay for most of those losses.

To offset the costs of credit card fraud, banks also charge an average fee 
of 2.5% for online transactions compared with 1.5% for in-store purchases, 
Gartner said.

The MasterCard system - called a "Universal Cardholder Authentication 
Field" - depends on a technology that enables merchants to verify online 
shoppers are using credit cards that actually belong to them.

The system verifies cardholders' identities through a special password that 
serves as the equivalent of a signed receipt issued in a brick-and-mortar 
transaction.

VeriSign's endorsement is significant because it processes about one in 
every four online transactions in the United States. About 75,000 merchants 
that accept MasterCard use VeriSign to process online transactions.

Merchants have had to buy special software to use MasterCard's anti-fraud 
system. VeriSign is removing that hurdle by installing the technology on a 
common gateway that will open in November.

"We think this is a major step forward to building greater trust in 
commerce on the Internet," said Barry McCarthy, general manager of 
VeriSign's payment services.

VeriSign wouldn't say whether it planned to raise its processing fees under 
the new program. The company reported losses of $4.8 billion while taking 
in $645 million during the first half of this year.

Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard is providing merchants with a powerful 
incentive to sign up for the anti-fraud program.

Merchants who verify transactions through the anti-fraud system won't have 
to pay for any losses should the transaction turn out to be illegitimate. 
The liability instead will fall on the credit card issuer, an about-face 
from the rules governing most online transactions.

The MasterCard system and a similar program developed by Visa requires 
banks to issue special passwords to consumers, a concept likely to draw 
mixed reactions, said e-commerce analyst Avivah Litan of Gartner Research.

Survey after survey shows many consumers remain reluctant to shop online 
because they fear their credit card account numbers will be heisted.

At the same time, surveys also have shown that consumers want to check out 
of online stores as quickly and easily as possible, a process that could 
become more cumbersome if additional security measures require shoppers to 
enter additional data.

"There are still a lot of barriers to overcome," Litan said. "You would 
think people wouldn't mind putting in another (password), but if they 
become frustrated, they might just go shop somewhere else."

The familiarity of automated teller machines should help most consumers 
quickly adapt to payment security systems requiring passwords for online 
credit card transactions, predicted Stephen Orfei, MasterCard's senior vice 
president of e-commerce.

"We believe this will open up the Internet and help it deliver on its full 
potential," Orfei said.
***************************
San Francisco Chronicle
New front opens in war on spam
Consumer groups lean on FTC

Facing dim prospects for a tough federal anti-spam law, three consumer 
groups asked the Federal Trade Commission Wednesday to crack down on junk 
e- mail by broadening the definition of "deceptive" messages, which the 
agency is already authorized to stop.

The groups want the FTC to punish e-mailers who misrepresent who they are 
or what the message is about, or who make it difficult for recipients to 
get off their mailing lists. The proposal comes as the ever-increasing 
volume of spam has both consumers and corporations concerned.

The FTC said it would review the petition, submitted by San Francisco's 
Consumer Action, and the Telecommunications Research and Action Center and 
the National Consumers League, both in Washington, D.C. But the agency 
doesn't yet know whether it will go along with the suggestion, said FTC 
staff attorney Brian Huseman.

The FTC has already brought numerous cases against spammers in the past 
year, but the agency has so far limited itself to attacking junk mailers 
whose messages contain fraudulent offers, like pyramid schemes.

"We've focused on deceptive content of the e-mail, because most of that is 
what causes economic and other harm to consumers," said Huseman.

While this initiative wouldn't completely eliminate spam, it's an 
attainable step that would reduce the problem, said Ken McEldowney, 
executive director of Consumer Action.

"Legislation has been tied up in Congress for three years. What's needed is 
some really quick action," he said.

Some corporations, and the Direct Marketing Association, have opposed a law 
banning unsolicited e-mail. The DMA could not be reached for comment 
Wednesday.

An analyst at a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, said the 
proposed rule would threaten free speech.

"There is a place in our society for certain types of unsolicited 
communications," said Adam Thierer, Cato's director of telecommunications 
studies. "Commercial speech does deserve some free speech protection."

The consumer groups also launched a Web site Wednesday, banthespam.com, 
where people can submit complaints about how spam has affected them, 
whether by wasting their time or subjecting their children to nasty come-ons.

The groups plan to submit these testimonies -- with the senders' permission 
-- to the FTC as evidence that spam is harming people. The Web site has 
already received 350 testimonies, said Telecommunications Research and 
Action Center Chairman Samuel A. Simon.

However, in an embarrassing glitch on the site, users who clicked on a 
button stating they did not want to receive future e-mails from the group 
were told, in fact, that they would be getting e-mail news updates.

After the Associated Press pointed out that the anti-spam group was 
effectively promising to spam people, the site was corrected within 20 
minutes,

Simon said.

"No e-mail went out to anybody," he said.

SPAM TO BAN
Consumer groups want the FTC to ban an e-mail message as deceptive if it:

-- Misrepresents the sender. For example, an e-mail would be banned if it 
has fake routing information on top that makes it seem to come from 
somewhere it didn't.

-- Misrepresents the content of the e-mail. For instance, if an e-mail is 
labeled "your password" and it contains a link to a pornographic site that 
you have not registered for, it could be banned.

-- Fails to provide reliable contact information. Often, unsolicited 
messages are sent from e-mail addresses that are inactive by the time 
recipients reply to them.

-- Fails to provide a reliable opt-out system. Many spam messages contain a 
link that will supposely let you get off the mailing list, but an FTC 
investigation found that two-thirds of these links don't work at all.

-- Is sent to someone who opted out or resigned from sender's list.

E-mail Carrie Kirby at ckirby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
****************************
Guardian [UK]
Engine trouble

In the mid 1990s, two Stanford university dropouts dreamed up a search 
engine with a unique cataloguing system. Now Google is the biggest on the 
web. But not everyone is a fan - some say it unfairly favours certain 
websites. The latest critic is China, which has blocked it completely

Oliver Burkeman
Thursday September 5, 2002
The Guardian

Repressive regimes fear little so much as mockery and derision, and so 
maybe the Chinese government's apparent decision this week to block the 
internet search engine Google had something to do with the 14th result it 
throws up when you search for the name of that country's president. It is 
an interactive, animated game called Slap The Evil Dictator Jiang Zemin, 
and for China's 46 million internet users, it just became a little harder 
to track down.
With an important congress of the Chinese communist party scheduled for 
November, Beijing's crackdown on dissent - and especially on the banned and 
persecuted spiritual movement, Falun Gong - hardly came as a surprise. But 
targeting Google did. The company released a statement explaining that it 
was "currently... working with Chinese authorities to resolve the issue". 
It was phrased in the bland language of international diplomacy, but it 
failed to address the most obvious question: what was a search engine doing 
conducting international diplomacy in the first place? And how, exactly, 
did a Californian firm founded by a couple of university dropouts, using 
old doors for office furniture, wind up striking panic into the core of an 
authoritarian world power?

The answer is not immediately clear to those who visit Google's 
headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View. Everything about 
it is a near-perfect incarnation of new-economy stereotypes: the 
multi-coloured rubber exercise balls rolling around the floor, the table 
football and the video games, the plentiful bagels and smoothies, the 
massage room, the roller-hockey games in the car park and the food cooked 
by the Grateful Dead's former chef. Famously, a scrolling display in the 
reception area is updated, second by second, with phrases that users are 
searching - "Googling" - for. The office even has the required 
cute-but-also-nerdy nickname, the Googleplex. For an internet company in 
late 2002, there is only one really strange thing about it. It's still there.

The internet bubble may be an embarrassing memory today, but Google - which 
started out as just as speculatively as any other web firm - has rapidly 
achieved monolithic status on the web. Though it has never paid for 
advertising, word of mouth has made it, by far, the world's most popular 
search engine, with more than 150 million searches a day. Two billion web 
pages are indexed on its servers, and users can search in 66 languages. 
Former competitors - AltaVista, Yahoo, Lycos, Excite - have fallen by the 
wayside, locked in desperate attempts to reinvent themselves. It has 
spawned a dedicated, self-appointed watchdog site, Google-watch.org.

Veteran web users nostalgic for the old, pre-commercial days of the 
internet love its spare, white search screen and its refusal to follow its 
rivals by branching out into lonely hearts adverts, or travel services, or 
online car dealerships. And yet, simultaneously, it makes plenty of money - 
it pulled in an estimated $65m last year, in advertising and in selling its 
searches to other websites, including AOL. "There is this core techie 
audience, and they love what the web used to be, and they like Google 
because it's clean and fast," says Danny Sullivan, proprietor of the 
respected news website SearchEngineWatch.com. "But I suspect that the 
majority don't go there because it's fun. They go there because it gives 
them the answers that they're looking for."

Like the recipe for Coca-Cola, the precise mathematical formulas that 
Google uses to sort and sift through the billions of pages on the web - 
most of them profoundly irrelevant to anyone searching for any of the words 
they contain - are jealously guarded secrets, but the basic principle is 
not. It came to the company's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, when 
they were computer science students at Stanford University in the mid-90s: 
instead of just cataloguing web pages according to the number of times that 
a word or phrase appears on them, Google ranks pages depending on how many 
other pages on the web link to them.

"Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for 
page B," the company says. "But Google looks at more than the sheer volume 
of votes, or links that a page receives: it also analyses the page that 
casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh 
more heavily and help to make other pages 'important'." It is a "uniquely 
democratic" method, Google claims, making it easiest to find pages other 
people have declared worth finding.

Andy Bechtolsheim, a founder of the software giant Sun Microsystems, was 
impressed. "We met him very early one morning on the porch of a Stanford 
faculty member's home in Palo Alto," Brin recalls. "We gave him a quick 
demo. He had to run off somewhere, so he said, instead of us discussing all 
the details, why don't I just write you a cheque? It was made out to Google 
Inc, and was for $100,000."

The legendary science-fiction writer H G Wells spent much of 1937 
travelling around the United States and Australia promoting a scheme that 
was pretty eccentric even by his accommodating standards. His "World 
Brain", he told lecture halls filled with thousands of people, would be an 
utterly new kind of organisation - a "social organ", he called it - that 
would be nothing less than a vast repository containing every piece of 
knowledge in the world. The details were a bit vague, but in short, the 
World Brain, freely accessible to everyone, would eliminate the ignorance 
that sustains tyranny and thus liberates humanity.

"It is only [in] such a permanent organisation of knowledge, systematically 
assembled," he wrote, "continually extended and renewed and made freely and 
easily accessible to everyone, that there is the slightest hope of our 
species meeting the serried challenges of destiny that are advancing upon 
it." The audience response was good, but nothing practical happened. Until 
Google, anyway.

Google knows things. Not only does it index more of the web than any of its 
competitors, offering makeshift translations of pages between languages - 
it remembers, too. The company archives millions of web pages on its own 
computers, giving them a life beyond their creators, which provides another 
potential motive for the Chinese block: even if the computer hosting a 
Falun Gong website is seized and destroyed, the page persists in Google's 
collective memory. In 2001, Google bought the rights to thousands of old 
postings on the Usenet system on online message boards. They are now 
catalogued on its database, and your past obsessions with Dungeons and 
Dragons or ornithology cannot be erased. For a while in the late 1990s, the 
practice of running searches on potential romantic dates became known as 
"Googling".

As it has grown, the site has harnessed its searching formulas to develop 
other skills that can seem almost sinister. Type in a person's name and a 
US city, and Google will assume that you might want a phone number, so it 
will search its directory of phonebooks. Go to labs.google.com /sets, and 
enter two or three items in a list - "orange, banana, pineapple", say - and 
it will come up with tens of other items: "apple, strawberry, grape..." 
without being told that you are looking for fruit. During the last US 
presidential campaign, the first result in a search on the words "dumb 
motherfucker" was an online store of pro-Bush merchandise, but that was a 
mistake.

As the engine has become celebrated for taking users directly to the 
information they want, though, a question has emerged in the minds of 
internet entrepreneurs who are no longer the recipients of millions of easy 
dollars: could it be manipulated for much-needed profit? One of Google's 
advantages has always been its refusal to sell placements in its rankings 
to the highest bidder, but the PageRank system, some argue, has its 
loopholes. Because Google measures how many pages link to a site, what if 
you set up thousands of web pages solely for the purpose of linking to one 
commercial site?

Some have accused Bob Massa, proprietor of a "search optimisation" service 
called Searchking, of doing just that. "All I want is for webmasters with 
small sites to get rewarded fairly," he says. "This is a chance to see that 
those guys get visitors and put up good content. Google wants good content. 
I can't see any problem."

Others have criticised Google for caving in too swiftly to threats from the 
likes of the Church of Scientology, which demanded that it remove from its 
index links to an anti-Scientology website, Operation Clambake 
(www.xenu.net). The Scientologists said the site was breaching copyright. 
(Operation Clambake suspects that the organisation is more worried by its 
publishing of what it says is a secret document known only to senior 
Scientologists, in which founder L Ron Hubbard is said to describe how an 
alien galactic ruler called Xenu is the root of all human woe.) Now, where 
links have been removed, Google appends a note informing searchers that 
some results are missing.

Daniel Brandt, who runs Google-watch.org, argues strenuously that Google's 
"crawlers" - software which creeps daily through the web to monitor and 
catalogue new and changing websites - are prejudiced in favour of larger 
sites, and that Google is now so powerful that it should be regulated like 
a public utility company. (He has a vested interest: his own political 
site, at www.pir.org, shows up poorly in Google searches.) Still others 
allege that Google has given low page-rankings to those it wishes to 
persuade to buy advertising, a charge the company denies.

"There is this obsession with Google now," says Danny Sullivan, at 
SearchEngineWatch. "But you can go to other sites - to Teoma.com, to 
Alltheweb.com - and you can get similar results. Google is a leading way to 
search, but its competitors are not dogs. They can connect people to 
subversive information in China just as well as Google can." Or maybe even 
better, depending on what you're looking for. On Alltheweb.com, Slap The 
Evil Dictator Jiang Zemin comes out fifth.
****************************
 News Factor
Spam Versus Technology: The Battle Rages On

Unsolicited e-mail, called spam, has permeated in-boxes so thoroughly that 
efforts to stop the flow have become extreme. The U.S. Congress has hotly 
debated measures to alleviate the burden of overstuffed digital mailboxes, 
and software makers are scrambling to churn out newer, sharper products for 
stemming the influx. Still, spam seems to persist with all the resilience 
of a plague of mosquitoes. Are those who yearn for a spam-free existence 
ever likely to see their wish granted? Unfortunately, say some analysts, 
the answer may be a resounding no.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19319.html
*****************************
News.com
File-name flaw threatens PGP users


By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 5, 2002, 5:07 PM PT


For more than a decade, the United States government classified encryption 
technology as a weapon. Now that label might actually apply.
Security-consulting firm Foundstone said Thursday that e-mail messages 
encrypted with the Pretty Good Privacy program can be used as digital 
bullets to attack and take control of a victim's computer.

Because of a flaw in the way PGP handles long file names in an encrypted 
archive, an attacker could "take control of the recipient's computer, 
elevating his or her privileges on the organization's network," Foundstone 
said in an advisory.



The company classified the vulnerability as a high risk "due to the 
trusting nature of encrypted attachments in e-mail, its relative ease of 
exploitation and the large amount of corporations and military and 
government agencies that rely on PGP encryption for secure communication."

The flaw affects PGP Corporate Edition 7.1.0 and 7.1.1. Software maker 
Network Associates has posted a patch on its site. The company recently 
sold all PGP assets to a start-up, PGP Corp., but appears to still be 
providing support for the program. Neither company could be reached for 
comment.

The flaw occurs in the way PGP handles long file names in encrypted 
archives, Network Associates said on its site. PGP runs into problems when 
it tries to encrypt or decrypt files that have names longer than 200 
characters. When PGP attempts to decrypt the files, a buffer overflow 
causes it to crash.

The long file names aren't readily apparent to a recipient of such an 
e-mail, said Foundstone CEO George Kurtz.

"It is just like a ZIP file," Kurtz said. "You can name a file with eight 
characters, but archived in the file are several other (files) with long 
file names."

The danger, Kurtz said, is that the flaw could be used to attack users who 
have the most to protect. "Most users of PGP have some level of security 
sophistication. It makes it that much more of a high-level attack," Kurtz 
said. An attacker could "obtain that very valuable information that was 
meant to be protected by encryption."

The flaw is unrelated to another theoretical vulnerability discussed by 
security experts last month. Exploiting that flaw, someone could fool the 
sender of a PGP-encrypted e-mail into decoding their own message. Unlike 
the current flaw, that vulnerability wouldn't give the attacker control of 
a computer.

The current vulnerability resembles another flaw in the PGP plug-in for 
Outlook, found in early July.
****************************
Euromedia.net
Brussels seeks bidders for running EU domain
04/09/2002  Editor: Cathy O'Sullivan
The European Commission is looking for an organisation to run its .eu 
domain name, which Brussels hopes to create for companies and individuals 
in EU member states.

The Commission, this week, called for submissions from organisations 
interested in running the domain. To be considered, applicants have to be 
non-profit organisations incorporated under the laws of one of the EU's 
member states. The deadline for applications of interest is October 25.

Applicants will be selected based on a number of factors including quality 
of service, human and technical resources, financial stability, and the 
increase of market competition. They will be required to charge fees based 
on costs, and provide mechanisms for other companies to become .eu-accredited.

Plans in for the launch of the .eu domain, will first have to be approved 
by the global internet address authority , ICANN.
*********************
Sydney Morning Herald
PBS censors its own site
September 6 2002

The US Public Broadcasting Service has censored information on its website 
connected to a documentary it is airing in connection with the fallout of 
the September 11 attacks. The documentary deals with the predicament 
Arab-Americans found themselves in after the attacks.

The material, which comprised part of a companion Web site to the TV 
program "Caught in the Crossfire: Arab-Americans in Wartime", was removed 
following criticism of the PBS Web site in the New York Sun though it is 
unclear if this was cause and effect.

The site has the following sections: The Story, The People, Their 
Homelands, Arab Anmericans, After 9/11 Stories, Talkback, The Filmmakers, 
Resources and Broadcast. All information in the Their Homelands section has 
been removed with the following replacing it:

"The purpose of this Web site is to be a companion piece to CAUGHT IN THE 
CROSSFIRE: Arab Americans in Wartime, a documentary which looks at the 
lives of three Arab Americans living in New York City following the events 
of September 11.

The "Homelands" section of the site drew attention away from the message of 
the film. Our goal was to provide background information that 
contextualized the cultural histories of the people whose lives are 
chronicled in the film. In an effort to keep the focus on the current 
experience of Arab Americans, we have removed that section of the site."

The New York Sun report on the PBS Web site on September 3 quoted "Israelis 
and American Jewish groups" as lambasting PBS "for offering an inaccurate 
and one-sided history of the Arab-Israeli conflict."

The article had quotes from a number of Israeli and Jewish leaders. No Arab 
leader was canvassed for his or her comments.
*************************
New Zealand Herald
No silver bullet against piracy
By PETER GRIFFIN
September 3, 2002

Microsoft's project to better secure the desktop and server with a hybrid 
of software and hardware has been given the stamp of approval by Intel. But 
the chip-maker warns the recording industry that technology alone will not 
stamp out rampant digital piracy.

Both Intel and AMD are understood to be developing new versions of their 
X86 chipsets to support Palladium - Microsoft's scheme to build security 
functions into the architecture of the PC.

Palladium would allow for new computer chips and software to encrypt the 
data on a PC's hard drive, making it less susceptible to hacking, viruses 
and copyright abuse.

A software component built by Microsoft works in conjunction with the 
computer's processor to encrypt information so that it is unreadable if 
moved to another computer without authorisation.

Intel's Craig Barrett said PC users wanted to get to the stage where the 
internet could be used for any trusted communication or application and 
Palladium would make progress towards that.

But Palladium was not a "cure-all" for digital piracy, which has 
proliferated with peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks and is costing 
the recording industry dearly in lost revenue.

"The [recording industry] is looking at our industry with the hope that 
we're going to give them the silver bullet to solve all those issues," said 
Barrett.

"But the solution is far beyond security technology, it's about creating 
viable business models [for online content services], cracking down on 
piracy and educating consumers."

The major studios in the music and film industries would have to adopt 
these models for Palladium to be effective in digital rights management, 
said Barrett.

While Palladium has no firm date for release, Microsoft believes it could 
be incorporated into PCs across the board, allowing everything from the 
decrypting of songs downloaded to your hard drive to the blocking of spam 
email and viruses.

Palladium's critics have responded with horror scenarios the technology 
could make possible. A popular one is the US Government being able to 
switch off other countries' computers remotely.

Some fear the hardware technology could prevent Microsoft's competitors 
from running their software on a Palladium-enabled machine - a scenario 
that Microsoft strongly rejects.
*************************
Sunspot.net
Hatfill was fired after LSU got e-mail from Justice Dept.
University denies a link to cease-desist message


WASHINGTON - Dr. Steven J. Hatfill's firing from Louisiana State University 
came after the Justice Department told the school it could not use him on 
projects funded by grants from the agency, which has called Hatfill a 
"person of interest" in the anthrax attacks.

Hatfill's supervisor, Steven Guillot, received an e-mail Aug. 1 directing 
him to "cease and desist" from using Hatfill on the projects, LSU spokesman 
Gene Sands said yesterday.

The next day, Hatfill was placed on administrative leave as director of 
LSU's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training. The center 
receives most of its money from the Justice Department.

Sands said Guillot did not alert senior administration officials to the 
e-mail until Tuesday, when Hatfill was fired by the university. Sands said 
the decision to put Hatfill on administrative leave and later fire him was 
not connected to the e-mail.

Justice Department officials declined comment on the e-mail, though a law 
enforcement official confirmed it was sent.

LSU Chancellor Mark A. Emmert did not mention the e-mail in a statement 
Tuesday announcing Hatfill's firing. That statement referred to the ability 
of the university to "maintain its academic integrity," a possible 
reference to Hatfill's past claims to have a Ph.D. he never earned.

Pat Clawson, Hatfill's spokesman, said Hatfill learned of the Justice 
Department e-mail yesterday. Clawson said Hatfill's attorneys have filed 
Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information on the e-mail.
***************************
Earthweb.com
Bush Administration to Call for Privacy Czar
By Thor Olavsrud

The Bush administration is expected to recommend the appointment of a 
federal "privacy czar" as part of its forthcoming National Strategy for 
Securing Cyberspace (NSSC), according to an eWeek report.

The NSSC is part and parcel of the Homeland Security bill Congress is 
scheduled to begin debating this week, and is expected to come under fire 
for proposals that largely expand the government's electronic surveillance 
capabilities, including the establishment of a centralized facility that 
would collect and examine data traffic for security threats.

The decision to promote the creation of a federal chief privacy officer is 
intended to help deflect some of that criticism, according to eWeek. The 
privacy czar, who would be assigned to the proposed Department of Homeland 
Security, would be charged with vetting all government data gathering and 
security initiatives for potential privacy issues. The czar would oversee a 
privacy advocate posted to each federal agency. Those advocates, in turn, 
would be responsible for an annual review of each agency's compliance.

The draft plan calls for the advocates and privacy czar to collaborate with 
a national advisory group to "ensure broad input into, and consideration 
of, privacy issues in implementing the national strategy to achieve 
solutions that protect privacy while enhancing network and host security."

At the same time, the plan also calls on the government to find ways to get 
members of the private sector to beef up their privacy protections without 
resorting to legislation.
**************************
Spectrum Online
Feds Online

New FBI computers promise access, but will they be mole-proof?

Some day, surely, historians looking back on this era in intelligence will 
divide their subject into pre- and post-9/11. But before-and-after changes 
do not come swiftly to sprawling bureaucracies, even when their business is 
spying. So the dividing line, like so much about this shadowy world, will 
be murky.

The terrorist attacks exposed troubling shortfalls at U.S. intelligence 
agencies. Many of the most fundamental problems have nothing to do with 
technology; too few case officers and spies work in Islamic countries of 
concern, for example, and too few analysts and linguists have expertise in 
the languages and cultures of southwest Asia.

But big technology-related problems were also exposed, such as the 
inability of the National Security Agency (NSA) to process promptly the 
immense flood of communications it intercepts every day and the woefully 
antiquated computer systems of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 
The inadequacy of the FBI's computers is linked to another basic weakness: 
too little cooperation and data sharing among intelligence agencies, such 
as the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the NSA.

If intelligence organizations fail to fill in these gaps, it won't be for 
lack of funds. The total U.S. intelligence budget, which is always secret 
and yet always somehow widely known, jumped from $30 billion in 2001 to 
about $33 billion this year and is expected to reach $35 billion next year.



Finding fanatics
One of the biggest initiatives in the proposed 2003 federal budget is 
almost $1 billion for the NSA to extend and improve its powerful 
computer-based systems, which analyze transcripts of intercepts, look for 
certain words or phrases, and automatically route any hits to prespecified 
intelligence agencies in the United States or abroad. At issue are two 
telephone conversations on 10 September that the NSA reportedly 
intercepted. In one, a militant is heard saying "the match begins 
tomorrow." In the other, an operative says "tomorrow is zero day." 
Transcripts of the conversations were not translated and distributed until 
12 September, accounts said.

Granted, the conversations were too vague to have given officials any idea 
of what exactly was about to happen. Yet the intercepts might have been 
more enlightening if analysts could have seen them in context with the many 
other related bits and pieces of information that had been gathered by 
other agencies.

For the FBI's part, its problematic computer systems and networks run 
primitive proprietary software, have no multimedia capabilities whatsoever, 
lack secure connection to networks at other government agencies (or even 
within the FBI), and do not give even FBI insiders easy access to all the 
files on a particular case.



Coming: the "virtual case file"
According to Robert M. Blitzer, a former chief of the FBI's domestic 
terrorism and counterterrorism planning sections, the bureau is still 
getting used to the idea of computer-based recordkeeping. The centerpiece 
of its current investigative recordkeeping system is the seven-year-old, 
mainframe-based Automated Case Support (ACS) system. An internal U.S. 
Justice Department review earlier this year led by William H. Webster, who 
at different times led both the FBI and the CIA, found that one of the few 
fans of ACS was the spy and computer whiz Robert Hanssen. He trolled the 
system for classified information to sell his Soviet handler and even 
searched ACS for evidence that the bureau had discovered his perfidy.

The FBI is in the midst of a $379 million upgrade of its information 
technology (IT) systems, now scheduled to be finished by the end of this 
year. The project, called Trilogy, encompasses not only the bureau's 
computers and software, but also its networks. Trilogy aims to shift the 
bureau from a hodgepodge of proprietary, mainframe-based systems to a 
Web-based one that will provide secure connections to the FBI's 500 
facilities worldwide. ACS is to be replaced with a "virtual case file" that 
will let agents store and retrieve text files as well as images, sound 
bites, and other multimedia data.

Testifying before Congress on 6 March, the FBI's director, Robert S. 
Mueller III, described several huge IT projects. One will install systems 
that will let the FBI securely share data with other intelligence and law 
enforcement organizations. Another project will set up the bureau's 
first-ever system to let its own agents e-mail each other securely.

Although the Trilogy program is still months away from completion, Justice 
Department investigators who were assessing the Hanssen fiasco have already 
criticized it on security grounds. "Given the FBI's current computer 
security posture, the present course is problematic; even the very rush to 
complete the upgrade project could enable a compromised insider to 
introduce holes in the system that could be exploited later," said the 
commission.

Clearly, the FBI is struggling with one of the hard truths of the 
intelligence business: the more widely you share sensitive data, the more 
likely it is to do some good-and the more likely it is to fall into the 
wrong hands.
***************************
Spectrum Online
Who Goes There?

High-tech personal identity systems make us more secure than a year ago, 
but not by much

Just a few years ago, getting to work involved a nod to someone in the 
building lobby or a wave to an office receptionist. Today, those friendly 
greetings have been replaced in many offices by smart cards.

Soon the use of smart cards at these sites is expected to make way for 
biometric identifiers: handprints, fingerprints, eye scans, or 
face-recognition signatures. On the way to work, too, one's face or car may 
be scanned or photographed at traffic signals, bank machines, shopping 
malls, parks, and sidewalks.

The past year has been a busy one for identity systems and biometrics-based 
security. An initial surge of interest, support, activity, and even funding 
has given way to harder looks at whether cutting-edge systems, especially 
for face recognition, are ready for prime time. It turns out they are not. 
And second thoughts about the potential loss of privacy abound.

A good example-of both the initial interest and the second thoughts-is the 
creation of national ID cards in the United States, an idea long rejected 
by citizens and legislators alike. In the weeks after 9/11, many people, 
including noted Harvard University law professor, civil liberties lawyer, 
and activist Alan Dershowitz, were newly ready to favor security over 
privacy. Jumping on the bandwagon, Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison proposed 
a national ID database-accompanied by an offer to contribute his company's 
flagship software for free-but the idea struck many as a self-serving, 
the-razors-are-free-but-the-blades-are-gonna-cost-ya idea, and was rejected.

Nevertheless, standards were soon proposed for state driver's licenses that 
would be machine-readable and include biometric data and space for other 
digitized personal data. Corollary proposals calling for states to share 
information with each other and the federal government would yield licenses 
that have all the qualities of a national card.

The threats to privacy do not stem just from the government. For example, 
boarding a subway or shopping at a supermarket has traditionally been a 
relatively anonymous activity. But, according to one newspaper account, 
soon after 9/11, an employee at an unnamed U.S. grocery chain supplied law 
enforcement authorities with customer databases built from 
preferred-customer-card shopping activity. With standardized smart card 
driver's licenses containing nongovernmental identification information, it 
could be even easier to track people through their commercial transactions. 
What's more, combining hitherto separate identity systems could maximize 
the potential harm of identity theft.

Many countries already have national IDs in one form or another, and others 
are adding them. In Japan, an 11-digit numeric code for residents, 
established in 1999, is the cornerstone of a new, highly controversial, 
smart card-based ID system, using software from Microsoft and Oracle and 
hardware from NTT, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM Japan, and others. The absence of 
privacy laws governing the system has provoked rare-for-Japan civil 
disobedience, and several cities have opted out of the program entirely. 
Less contentiously, Australia began a trial program to incorporate 
biometric data in passports.

As methods of identification, however, biometric technologies are still 
immature, and one, face recognition, has been especially disappointing. In 
a test this spring of a leading system, that of Jersey City, N.J.­based 
Visionics Corp. (now merged with Identix Inc., Minnetonka, Minn.), over 
half the faces in a mock terrorist database used at the Palm Beach (Fla.) 
International Airport were let through unflagged, while one person in every 
hundred to pass through the system was falsely labeled "terrorist."



Older, but not wiser
Older ID and document systems have their own problems. Credit card theft is 
a perennial, and apparently growing, problem. Even smart credit cards, such 
as the American Express Blue card, can be hacked, as two researchers in the 
United Kingdom recently proved. And in New Jersey, an investigation by the 
Bergen County Record found that, among other things, security failings 
allow driver's licenses to be issued despite the presentation of inadequate 
identifying documents. New Jersey was home to at least four of the 11 
September hijackers, two of whom reportedly had valid state driver's licenses.

Even with valid documents, problems arise. In recent years, the U.S. Social 
Security Administration routinely issued tens of thousands of Social 
Security numbers to noncitizens who presented insufficient or counterfeit 
identification.

Adding biometric information to driver's licenses may not be enough. 
Researchers at Yokohama National University in Japan have found they were 
able to replicate fingerprints with a cheap artificial "skin." They 
photographed a fingerprint left on a drinking glass, enhanced it with 
photo-editing software, and then used a photosensitive sheet to transfer it 
three-dimensionally to a sheet of copper. From there they could move the 
image onto a highly elastic food-based gelatin. The fingerprint was 
recognized by a variety of security systems about 80 percent of the time.

That may be more work than is really needed. A recent book by three German 
researchers told how they defeated a fingerprint scanning system by 
breathing "gently upon the sensor's surface." They reported that on the 
screen of the biometrically protected computer, "we were able to see the 
contours of an old fingerprint slowly reemerge." In all, the team tested 11 
biometric security systems and, by a variety of means, defeated each of them.
***************************
Boston Globe
Scientists join war on terror
New chemical, biological threats spur nation's top minds
By Gareth Cook , Globe Staff, 9/6/2002

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - As the world fell apart more than half a century ago, a 
group of scientists was summoned to this remote outpost, tucked against a 
chain of long dormant volcanoes in the New Mexico desert.


The scientists watched as Hitler assaulted London with frighteningly 
advanced rockets. They knew he was also working on a bomb fueled by the 
power of the atom, and they understood the profound consequences - the end 
of the Western democracies - should he succeed before they did.

Now the great minds are being called, once again, to battle. Deeply aware 
that new scientific ideas - from radar to the atomic bomb - gave America a 
crucial edge in World War II, scientists at the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory and across the country are working on weapons for the war 
against terrorism. And for those who have thought deepest about the march 
of technology, the mission is as urgent as the Manhattan Project.

''People here really believed that one day they would pick up the paper and 
read that London was gone,'' said Terry Hawkins, a top scientist at the 
lab. ''Today it is the same sort of thing. I have come to believe we are in 
this race, and the only certainty is that one side will win and the other 
will lose.''

The scientific effort taking shape is utterly different from the Manhattan 
Project because the conflict itself is so different. The enemy today is 
exceedingly difficult to locate or identify. His means of attack are 
unknown. The front lines are ephemeral - one day it could be a ridge in 
Afghanistan, the next an emergency room in Tulsa, Okla.

The world felt uncomfortably small when German V-2 rockets raced over the 
English Channel to explode in downtown London, yet that generation could 
not have imagined how interdependent the modern world would become, with 
fears of such dangers as computer viruses and genetically engineered 
plagues. Terrorists see potential weapons in every fixture of the modern 
world, from running water to subways to electronic banking.

''These are the conveniences of the information-rich service economy that 
characterize our everyday life today,'' said John Marburger, the 
president's science adviser. ''But these same systems increase our 
vulnerability to terrorism.''

A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation's antiterrorism research 
effort is a sprawling, impressive, and in some cases disorganized, affair. 
At national labs such as Los Alamos, researchers are accelerating work in 
traditional areas such as countermeasures for chemical, biological, and 
nuclear weapons. At academic laboratories, scientists are hard at work on a 
dizzying array of technologies, some wildly impractical, for an alphabet 
soup of government funding agencies. And Congress has authorized a 
multibillion dollar initiative to study potential biological agents.

Science is being invigorated by the new attention, and a sense of patriotic 
mission that evokes the Apollo program, but some scientists say there are 
troubling signs. On campuses, they worry about pressure to classify some 
types of research and to limit contact with foreign scientists and 
students, moves that could threaten the foundation of academic work. Others 
say they are not sure where to go with their ideas. And many say the 
government's failure to set up a single coordinating institution for 
antiterrorism research could mean that some of the new money will be 
squandered.

''It is like drinking out of a fire hose,'' said James Tour, a Rice 
University chemist whose research has been sponsored by the defense 
establishment and many other government agencies.

Yet step behind the security fences of Los Alamos and there are the 
glimmers of scientific progress. On bench tops and in tool shops are new 
devices that have captured the public's eye, such as handheld radiation 
detectors and automated systems to detect pathogens in the air.

Some of the most important work, though, comes in areas of complex 
engineering that the public has hardly considered: tracking disease 
outbreaks in real time, finding slivers of data in a flood of intelligence, 
understanding the dynamics of an electric power grid that allow the failure 
of a single generator to bring the system down.

Data mining

Soon after the first passenger jet slammed into a tower of the World Trade 
Center, a satellite began surveying Manhattan's landscape.

As the data streamed, researchers at Los Alamos realized they could use the 
images collected by the satellite to test an advanced software package, 
called GENIE, built to discern subtle patterns in overwhelming masses of 
data. Taking in the chaotic landscape of lower Manhattan, with its long, 
dark shadows, the software was able to draw an accurate map of where ash 
had fallen across the city, important information when assessing the 
environmental damage.

GENIE is part of a largely unpublicized research program, some of it highly 
classified, to combat one of the most profound problems posed by the 
technological war on terrorism: how to find the vital clues in the vast 
seas of information. Called ''data mining,'' the work could use computers 
to spot dangerous items in baggage X-rays, monitor streams of suspicious 
Internet chat and email, or call attention to emerging intelligence patterns.

In the year since the attacks, it has become clear that the country's 
ability to gather information has far outstripped its ability to combine 
and analyze it. Several FBI agents in field offices were concerned about 
suspicious characters at flight schools, but the agency's computer system 
did not allow a search for the term ''flight school'' across field-office 
files. The Immigration and Naturalization Service did not have a systematic 
way to track those who overstayed their visas. And the National Security 
Agency reportedly intercepted messages on Sept. 10 warning of trouble, but 
they were not translated in time.

Defending the homeland against diffuse and nearly invisible enemies is a 
problem that makes the Cold War - with its concerns about East Bloc tanks 
and the positioning of theater nuclear weapons - seem almost quaint.

''We are no longer just interested in the Fulda Gap between East and West 
Germany,'' said Steven Brumby, a scientist at Los Alamos working on GENIE. 
''Now we are interested in the whole world.''

GENIE uses an ingenious approach called a ''genetic algorithm'' in which a 
computer evolves software to solve a problem, the way animals evolve over 
eons to adapt to their environment. An analyst points to a place in the 
image with a target - ash on the ground, a gun in a piece of carry-on - and 
the computer writes hundreds of tiny software programs to see which are 
best at picking out the target from the background.

Yet as important as this work is, it would be powerless if the threat is 
invisible. When the National Academy of Sciences convened a panel to 
determine what science can do to help, one of the most urgent areas 
identified was the need for new sensors capable of detecting biological, 
chemical, and radiological attacks.

The number of new devices needed is overwhelming: a machine to spot highly 
enriched uranium in one of thousands of shipping containers, an alarm that 
sounds when anthrax spores hit a building's ductwork.

But the state-of-the-art lags. For example, to detect chemicals, the ''best 
broad-spectrum high-sensitivity sensory systems'' are ''trained dogs,'' the 
academy reported in June.

Scientists understand how to detect many things, but the challenge now is 
to engineer solutions that are automated, reliable, and affordable, said 
Thomas Bevan, who coordinates homeland defense research at Georgia Tech.

Bevan is designing promising chips that detect E. coli and salmonella and 
is testing them at a poultry factory in Georgia. In a well-equipped lab, it 
is easy to pick out salmonella, for example. But Bevan and other 
researchers are working to build little machines that won't break down and 
won't set off a mass panic at the detection of something harmless. 
Shrouding this microscopic world, where many bacteria look alike and an 
innocuous chemical trace might look like mustard gas, is the new fog of war.


Defending the infrastructure

Ray Gordon seems as if he would have been at home in any of the great wars 
of the last century. A former Green Beret with graying, close-cropped hair, 
Gordon spends his spare time riding rodeo bulls, wearing proof of the 
hobby's danger in the form of a cast around his shattered lower left leg.

But in his office at the Los Alamos lab, Gordon summons up the battlefield 
of the future: a computer-generated map of Florida with a complex web of 
electric and gas lines. The two systems depend on each other, with 
gas-powered turbines generating electricity in some places, and electricity 
powering gas compressors in others. Millions depend on the grid.

''We start taking out components to see what will crash the system,'' said 
Gordon, showing the cascade of effects when an electric substation on the 
Gulf Coast is taken down in the computer model. ''It is a tightly coupled 
system of systems.''

The modern American lifestyle is made possible by a vast, interconnected 
network of infrastructure that moves water, power, goods, people, and 
information around the country. It is a network so complex that nobody 
really understands how it behaves. Everyone knows it is filled 0with 
individual vulnerabilities, but nobody knows what might make large swaths 
of it freeze up, the way a computer sometimes does.

Gordon, part of the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center 
run in cooperation with Sandia Labs, is working to defend the nation's 
infrastructure from surprise attack. But scientists also hope to understand 
how the sprawling system works so that they will be better prepared for 
other types of attack.

In one simulation, cars move around downtown Portland, Ore., meticulously 
modeled down to the level of individual drivers choosing the best way to 
get to work. Then a yellow cloud is released near the Willamette River, 
representing a cloud of anthrax spores. Exposed people are followed home, 
and at the end of the day there is a map, with the hardest hit suburbs 
colored crimson.

Such models as these can be used to plan responses, to help guide emergency 
workers as they decide strategy, or even to suggest changes in the 
infrastructure that would make a crisis easier to handle.

To some, work like this may sound mundane, but it is no more mundane, and 
no less important, than keeping a Boeing 777 in the air. Inside a 777 are 
hundreds of systems that interact with one another. To make the plane 
reliable, Boeing uses an approach known as ''systems engineering,'' which 
focuses on how individual pieces - from equipment to training - affect the 
system as a whole.

''Inevitably the public becomes enamored with specific devices,'' said 
Marburger, the president's science adviser. ''But devices can't work in 
isolation.''

What is needed, scientists say, is a searching, constructive paranoia that 
propels us to find the weakest links in the country's defenses, no matter 
how hum-drum, and strengthen them.

Tour, the Rice University chemist, said he has been stunned at how 
difficult this can be to accomplish. The recipes for horrifying nerve 
agents are so widely available, on the Internet and elsewhere, that there 
is no hope of keeping them out of the hands of terrorists, he said.

The chemicals needed to make them are easy to purchase, a point Tour made 
by ordering the ingredients - all on one order form - from a prominent 
chemical supplier and having them sent, overnight, to his office. (Total 
cost, including overnight shipping: $217.) Tour estimates he could have 
made 300 grams of sarin, soman, or cyclosarin and sent thousands of people 
twitching to their deaths.

Since his experiment two years ago, he has been trying in vain to persuade 
the government to regulate the sale of even small amounts of about 35 
chemicals.

''You can never stop everyone, but you can put a roadblock in the obvious 
places and hope it stops the villain,'' Tour said. ''I have become so 
frustrated that I just don't talk about it as much any more.''

Information proliferation

In July, scientists announced they had created the polio virus from 
scratch, using information and materials that are readily available. The 
report highlighted one of the greatest vulnerabilities scientists now see 
facing society: biological warfare. Although the anthrax attack killed only 
a few people, it caused mass disruption, a mere hint of the chaos that 
would come with a more successful act. Protecting the nation from 
biological attack will be the most active area of antiterrorism research in 
the coming years.

Biological weapons represent the extreme case of the new kind of war: a 
fight not for territory, but for information. In World War II, there was 
never any question whether an attack was underway, but now scientists must 
devise ways to pick out subtle clues from the environment that a pathogen 
is on the march. Such attacks cannot be defeated with brute force. The 
sprawling public health system will need a system to share information and 
coordinate their response.

And the threat itself - biological agents, engineered to maximize harm - is 
a product of increasing knowledge, and its ready availability on the 
Internet. As some scientists think past the immediate threat of terrorism, 
it is the unforeseen consequences of this proliferating knowledge that 
cause them the most anxiety.

''The long-term threat may not come from people who are motivated, but from 
people who are like the computer hackers right now - just doing it because 
they can,'' said Murray Wolinsky, a scientist at Los Alamos. ''Twenty or 
thirty years from now a small group of people, or an individual, may be 
able to jeopardize significant fractions of the world's population.''

Already, in the frustrating investigation into the anthrax attacks, 
scientists are finding they are themselves prime suspects, because they 
have the knowledge and such direct access to the means. Scientists find 
themselves in an awkward position: potential suspect, potential savior. 
When Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the atomic bomb project, saw the 
searing light from the desert, he paraphrased from the Bhagavad-Gita in a 
declaration that is still famous as a warning of technology's spectacular 
capability for both good and evil: ''Now I am become death, the destroyer 
of worlds.''

Perhaps, some fear, the biotech revolution is releasing a new, even more 
powerful genie. Even if, somehow, politicians are able to bring an 
unprecedented amount of stability to the world, advances in biological 
engineering will make new means of mass destruction available.

It is an era of great hope, promising enormous steps forward from 
agriculture to human health. But now it is hard to foresee a time when the 
country will not need a dedicated team, some in universities, some 
cloistered in a desert lab behind barbed wire, working to contain the worst 
that science can devise.

''If we can't get this right,'' said Wolinsky, ''then what good does the 
rest of it do?''

Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@xxxxxxxxxx
****************************
Times-Picayune
House lacks worst-case scenario plan
Group looks for ways to replace House members after attack
09/06/02

By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau/The Times-Picayune

WASHINGTON -- The rubble has been cleared from ground zero, and the 
Pentagon has been repaired, but the House of Representatives is still 
struggling with what it would take to rebuild the government itself after a 
catastrophic attack on the Capitol.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers including Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, 
has been meeting mostly behind closed doors for several months to discuss 
the gruesome prospect of a terrorist strike wiping out the federal 
government. But as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks nears, the group 
has not reached a consensus on how to get an obliterated Congress back up 
and running.

Although the Constitution spells out steps to replace the president and 
senators quickly, House members can be replaced only through local 
elections, a process that could take months and effectively bring 
legislative operations to a halt during a national crisis.

If the House weren't functioning, experts say, emergency financing could be 
delayed, public confidence could be undermined, an important check on 
presidential power would be lost, and a wrench would be thrown into the 
presidential line of succession, which designates the speaker of the House 
to take over if the president and vice president are killed or incapacitated.

"The most powerful nation on Earth should not have doubts about who is in 
charge and who would control the nuclear weapons in time of national 
crisis," said Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., a clinical psychologist who began 
nudging House leadership to plan for a direct hit the day after the attacks 
last year. "It boggles my mind that the leadership of the Congress has not 
yet fixed this."


Precautions taken

The House and Senate have developed some contingency plans with an eye 
toward another terrorist strike. It is widely believed that hijacked 
American Airlines Flight 93 was being steered toward a government building 
in Washington before it crashed in rural Pennsylvania after an apparent 
passenger uprising. The October anthrax mailing to the Capitol Hill office 
of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., further heightened fears 
that future terrorists will target the seat of federal government.

House members have been given portable BlackBerry communications devices to 
send and receive messages if the Capitol is destroyed. Plans are also in 
the works to outfit a secure congressional meeting place outside 
Washington, according to Capitol Hill aides who said details are top-secret.

Before the August recess, House and Senate leaders quietly authorized 
substitutes to reconvene Congress outside the nation's capital in the event 
of an attack.

But there has been little progress on some of the thornier constitutional 
issues. So far, the only proposal to emerge from the bipartisan group is a 
draft resolution, expected to be taken up Sept. 11, merely urging states to 
expedite special elections in times of crisis.

"There is a fundamental tension involved," Vitter said. "The most effective 
solutions are the most difficult to pass."


Governors' choice

Baird has offered a constitutional amendment that would have each House 
member draw up a confidential list of potential successors. The governor 
from each member's state would select a replacement from the lists and 
could restore the 435-member House within days. Former House Speakers Tom 
Foley and Newt Gingrich have said that a similar approach can be 
accomplished with a simple change in House rules because it would only be 
an interim step until special elections could be called.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., has introduced a constitutional amendment that 
would, in the event of the loss of 50 percent of representatives, allow 
governors to choose successors in the House, as they do now for senators. 
Replacements would have to be from the same party as the deceased member.

However, constitutional amendments, which require approval from Congress 
and then three-fourths of state legislatures, will take time to put in 
place. House leaders have urged the bipartisan working group to come up 
with something soon.

Between 1940 and 1962, the prospects of homeland attacks spurred Congress 
to introduce more than 30 constitutional amendments to replenish Congress 
quickly. Three proposals passed the Senate in that period, but all died in 
the House.

"Let's face it, no one likes to consider possibility of their own demise, 
and the House is proud of its status as probably the only elected body in 
the world that has never had a member appointed," said Norman Ornstein, a 
scholar advising the bipartisan group. "To put that into jeopardy is a big, 
big step."


Majority rule

The prospect of chemical and biological attacks has raised a further 
complication for the House getting back on its feet. Constitutional 
interpretations since the Civil War have said that the House can only 
operate with a quorum, or majority, of members who are "chosen, sworn and 
living." There is no provision for members who are missing but not 
confirmed dead or who are incapacitated due to, say, anthrax infection. If 
a majority of members were unable to show up to vote, the House could be 
frozen awaiting their return.

Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., has suggested developing the framework for an 
"e-Congress" that could have members voting from remote locations through 
electronic connections, obviating the need for them to show up in the 
Capitol. But at a hearing on the proposal in May, constitutional scholars 
attacked the idea, saying that members can't have a genuine exchange of 
ideas in online chat rooms and the U.S. Constitution calls for Congress to 
"assemble" at least once a year.

Vitter said he hopes the working group can come up with some solutions 
short of constitutional amendments by early next year. He said that House 
rules could be a changed to define when a member is unable to serve. He 
also said that a 1947 law on presidential succession could be reopened to 
consider whether the current line of successors -- which after the vice 
president include the speaker of the House, the president pro-tem of the 
Senate and then Cabinet officials starting with the secretary of state -- 
is the most prudent. One idea under consideration is adding an elected 
official from outside Washington.
********************
Sun-Sentinel
Broward official fears chaotic elections office will torpedo primary
By Scott Wyman and Buddy Nevins
September 6, 2002

Even as election officials sought to reassure voters that next week's 
primary will go smoothly despite turmoil over new polling places and 
inaccurate registration cards, the leader of the Broward County Commission 
charged the area is careening toward another election disaster.

Commission Chairwoman Lori Parrish, who serves on the three-member 
Canvassing Board that certifies the election results, said Thursday that 
the process has been too rife with problems to run properly on Tuesday.

She lost her last bit of faith when she learned that the mayor of Sunrise 
received the wrong ballot when he voted and that there have been cases 
where poll workers used the wrong ballots during accuracy tests on the new 
ATM-style machines. She fears it's a sign that voters could be given the 
wrong ballots when they go to the polls next week.

"I have no confidence we can have an error-free election," Parrish said. 
"We have a new supervisor of elections, new voting equipment and new 
precinct locations. I just have to hope that it isn't a formula for 
disaster. I'm worried and concerned."

Broward's embattled supervisor of elections, Miriam Oliphant, faced another 
major blow in her election planning Thursday when the state Division of 
Elections said she misinterpreted state law on how to organize her polling 
precincts.

The Republican Party complained she would not guarantee that each precinct 
will be staffed by Republican and Democratic poll workers. She thought only 
that the overall makeup of the 5,000 workers had to reflect the community, 
but the state sided with the GOP.

The opinion could open the primary to a legal challenge unless Oliphant 
shuffles poll workers around between today and Tuesday to ensure a balance 
at each of the 809 precincts. Her spokesman said Oliphant was reviewing the 
letter late Thursday.

Republican leaders said they are exploring their options if Oliphant does 
not relent and said they will definitely head to court if the issue is not 
addressed by the November general election.

Despite that, Florida's top election official, Secretary of State Jim 
Smith, stood side by side with Oliphant on Thursday and said he is 
convinced Broward is ready for Tuesday's vote. During a visit to Broward's 
poll-worker training session, he said the problems arising here are not out 
of the ordinary.

"Everyone just needs to take a couple deep breaths," he said. "I think 
similar problems have occurred in other places, but for whatever reason, 
here it's been more confrontational. People don't realize how complicated 
it is to put on an election."

Tuesday will mark the first major election since South Florida came under 
national scrutiny for its role in the 2000 presidential election debacle. 
Although the state has reformed its election laws and Broward has replaced 
punch-card ballots with touch-screen voting machines, problems have plagued 
preparations for the 2002 primary.

Voters have complained about new polling places and inaccurate registration 
cards, and the concerns are continuing to mount.

Sunrise Mayor Steve Feren was stunned when he voted absentee last week and 
received a ballot that contained the legislative race for state Sen. Mandy 
Dawson. Feren, who lives about six miles outside her district, immediately 
questioned poll workers about the ballot.

Feren said a poll worker agreed he had been given the wrong ballot and then 
set up the right one on his voting machine. But Feren said he is concerned 
other voters are less astute about which legislative, congressional, school 
board and county and city commission districts they live in and would go 
ahead and vote if given the wrong ballot.

"It's going to be ugly," he said.

Similar problems were seen in this week's testing of the new voting 
machinery by the Canvassing Board. The board determined the machines work 
properly, but two of the five errors that occurred while testing 100 
machines happened because poll workers chose the wrong ballot.

Parrish attempted to raise questions about the possibility of similar 
mistakes, but lawyers told the board that it could only assess whether the 
machines work properly. Poll worker training, they said, was Oliphant's 
responsibility.

Oliphant denied that Feren could have received the wrong ballot. She said 
the errors in this week's testing were tracked and corrected quickly.

Voters attempting to vote early as Feren did are facing long waits even 
though Oliphant urged people to take advantage of Florida's new election 
law that allows early voting. Waits at the Government Center in downtown 
Fort Lauderdale and at satellite offices have been as long as an hour.

The problem is that even though Broward is a heavily Democratic county, 
Oliphant set aside three machines at each office for early voting - one for 
Republicans, one for Democrats, and one for people of other parties or no 
party affiliation.

Aleida Waldman, of Coconut Creek, said it took her almost an hour to vote 
even though there were only two people in line in front of her. "It was a 
mess. They didn't know what they were doing," Waldman said.

Oliphant blamed the long waits on the County Commission, saying the 
commission didn't buy her enough voting machines. The rest of the 5,000 new 
ATM machines are being set up for Tuesday and can't be used for early 
voting, she said.

Oliphant urged voters who have questions or find problems with their new 
registration cards to call her office or check her Web site. Both options, 
though, continue to be problem-plagued themselves.

Voters report being unable to get through to the supervisor's office on the 
phone.

"I have been dialing them for a week, several different numbers. Every 
number I call is busy, busy, busy," said Ruth Cohen of the Palm Aire 
condominium complex in Pompano Beach.

Cristina Pudwell lives in Margate, but her voting card placed her in the 
wrong city. After a lengthy wait on the phone, Pudwell said the employee 
told her, "I'm doing you a favor answering your call." When she explained 
her problem, Pudwell said she was told: "Can't you read? All the 
information is on the card."

Oliphant blames the phone problems on crank callers clogging her phones.

She also said inaccurate information on her Web site has been fixed, but a 
spot check Thursday afternoon of complaints reported to the South Florida 
Sun-Sentinel of precinct changes and inaccurate registration information 
showed those details still listed.

And voters can't expect the traditional sample ballot that many use to sort 
out who they will vote for before going to the polls.

Oliphant's predecessor, Jane Carroll, mailed out a sample ballot, but 
Oliphant dropped it in a cost-cutting move. She decided the money could be 
better spent on demonstrating the new voting machines and sending 
educational material to voters.

"I didn't know who to vote for. It took me much longer," said Myron Ross, 
who voted as part of the early voting program. "I can only imagine what 
will happen Election Day."

Staff Writer Christy McKerney contributed to this report.

Scott Wyman can be reached at swyman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or 954-356-4511.
****************************

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


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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the September 9, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 396
Date: September 9, 2002

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Top Stories for Monday, September 9, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Year After 9/11, Cyberspace Door Is Still Ajar"
"Bush Mulls Internet Security Fund"
"Archaic Computer Systems Hamper War on Terror"
"HP to Unveil Nanotech Breakthrough"
"Some Environmentalists Worry About Nanotechnology Risk"
"Almost Organic"
"10 Choices That Were Critical to the Net's Success"
"The High-Tech Rebels"
"Lack of Cybersecurity Specialists Sparks Concern"
"Breakthrough Gives Diamond Electronics Sparkle"
"New York State Wins Top Semiconductor R&D Lab"
"Businesses Gird for Grid Computing Breakthroughs"
"Lining Up for Jobs"
"Who Should Own What?"
"Tech Frontiers"
"In Pursuit of the 'Everywhere' Computer"
"Joining the Third Generation"
"Research That Reinvents the Corporation"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"Year After 9/11, Cyberspace Door Is Still Ajar"
Despite hopes from cybersecurity specialists that American
companies and governments would implement better network
protection in response to Sept. 11, there is little indication
that progress has been made.  Giga Information Group VP Steve ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item1

"Bush Mulls Internet Security Fund"
Internal documents from the National Strategy to Secure
Cyberspace imply, among other things, the creation of a
technology fund "to address those discreet technology areas that
fall outside the purview of both industry and government and yet ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item2

"Archaic Computer Systems Hamper War on Terror"
The U.S. government is unable to capitalize on its IT
budget, largely because of the lack of coordination, complex
purchasing requirements, and standalone technology.  Analysts say
the pace of change in the federal government is glacially ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item3

"HP to Unveil Nanotech Breakthrough"
On Monday in Europe, Hewlett-Packard scientists will announce a
breakthrough that brings HP one step closer to its goal of making
smaller, speedier, and less expensive chips using "molecular
grids," in which crisscrossing molecular strands are arrayed in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item4

"Some Environmentalists Worry About Nanotechnology Risk"
Environmental organizations such as the ETC Group want
governments to declare a moratorium on nanotechnology development
until its health and environmental risks are more thoroughly
assessed.  Despite experts' assurances that nanotech's benefits ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item5

"Almost Organic"
Drawing insights on robot evolution and human-robot interaction
is the purpose of the Public Anemone, a robot that resembles a
sea anemone and exhibits unusual abilities.  Such interactive
robots could lead to the incorporation of robotics into people's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item6

"10 Choices That Were Critical to the Net's Success"
Harvard University senior technical consultant and Internet
standards development guru Scott Bradner listed 10 major
decisions that led to the Internet's rise in prominence at a
Massachusetts telecom conference last week.  Multiple existing ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item7

"The High-Tech Rebels"
Sun Microsystems co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy says IT
is too server-centric and that more robust software will help set
it free.  Meanwhile, Xerox chief scientist John Seely Brown adds
that Web services promise to set entire markets free, while ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item8

"Lack of Cybersecurity Specialists Sparks Concern"
The United States faces a disturbing lack of skilled workers to
protect critical infrastructures from electronic attack, said
experts at a recent cybersecurity conference in Washington, D.C.
As a result, the demand for people with IT skills will rise, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item9

"Breakthrough Gives Diamond Electronics Sparkle"
An international team has synthesized a thin film of diamond
better suited for high-performance electronics than natural
diamond and other artificial forms of diamond, because it is
composed of a single crystal and has few impurities.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item10

"New York State Wins Top Semiconductor R&D Lab"
The New York branch of International Sematech will reside in a
$403 million research center located at the State University of
New York (SUNY)--Albany.  Sematech was drawn to the area by
SUNY's plans to construct several research facilities dedicated ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item11

"Businesses Gird for Grid Computing Breakthroughs"
Industry experts say that widespread commercial grid computing
could be made available in about five years, allowing
manufacturers to design products, drug companies to develop new
medicines, and businesses to share complex data sets and software ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item12

"Lining Up for Jobs"
Short-term IT job prospects for the latest crop of computer and
engineering graduates are slim, as many companies are cutting
entry-level hirings and scaling back their internships.  An April
survey of employers conducted by the National Association of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item13

"Who Should Own What?"
In an interview with Todd Datz of Darwin magazine, Stanford Law
School professor and author Lawrence Lessig explains that he
understands the impulse to "patent everything under the sun" so
that one can remain competitive against both legitimate and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item14

"Tech Frontiers"
Four sectors are poised to drive future technological
advancements in the next five to 10 years:  Chip fabrication,
software programming, security, and entertainment.  Chip
production is, by its nature, paradoxical--materials costs are ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item15

"In Pursuit of the 'Everywhere' Computer"
Former Hewlett-Packard Labs director Joel Birnbaum is a staunch
advocate of pervasive computing, the establishment of an
invisible, all-encompassing information system that can be
harnessed for virtually any function by ubiquitous sensors and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item16

"Joining the Third Generation"
Cellular networks could be significantly enhanced with
third-generation wireless technology, but differing levels of
acceptance around the world and limited spectrum availability
remain formidable obstacles.  Its potential benefits include ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item17

"Research That Reinvents the Corporation"
In the August issue of Harvard Business Review, the journal
revisits John Seely Brown's 1991 article "Research That Reinvents
the Corporation."  In the paper, Seely argues that to stay
competitive, corporations must do more than just create new ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0909m.html#item18


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From mnpalmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Fri Oct 25 11:47:19 2002
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To: "Hilderbrand, Terry" <terry.hilderbrand@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
  "Cannady (E-mail)" <james.cannady@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
  "Goodman, Sy" <goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Navathe, Sham" <sham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
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From: Mike Nelson Palmer <mnpalmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: FW: Cybersecurity
Cc: "Nelson-Palmer (E-mail)" <michael.nelsonpalmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
  "DeMillo, Rich" <rad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
  "Thompson, Mary Claire" <thompson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
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Terry--Thanks for the news..............

All--FYI...............

Mike N-P

At 09:23 AM 10/24/2002 -0400, Hilderbrand, Terry wrote:
> FYI
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Maguire, John F.
> Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 12:17 PM
> To: Hilderbrand, Terry
> Subject: Cybersecurity
>
> Senate passes bill to bolster cybersecurity research
> By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily
> The Senate late Wednesday passed by voice vote a bill that would authorize 
> $903 million over five years for cybersecurity research in what proponents 
> said is an attempt to address a deficiency in expertise in that area.
> "America needs to sharpen its expertise and deepen its bench in terms of 
> cybersecurity knowledge and talent because the threats to our networks are 
> growing," bill co-sponsor Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a Thursday statement. 
> He said the bill would create "a new generation of experts to meet 
> tomorrow's threats."
> The bill, H.R. 3394, now moves to the House. The House passed its first 
> version of the legislation by a margin of 400-12 in February.
> House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, the sponsor of the 
> original bill, has been working with leadership throughout the process, 
> his spokeswoman said. "This is Chairman Boehlert's top priority," she 
> said. "We are confident that it will pass" when the House returns.
> "Neither the danger of cyberterrorism nor the importance of this 
> legislation can be overstated," Boehlert, R-N.Y., said in a Thursday 
> statement, adding that the measure "serves as a call to arms to the 
> high-tech community and the nation's science and technology enterprise."
> House and Senate staffers negotiated a compromise before the Senate vote. 
> That process led to a reduction in the Senate proposed authorization from 
> $978 million to $903 million.
> The bill would authorize grants through the National Science Foundation 
> and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It also 
> would mandate a report to Congress on critical infrastructure weaknesses 
> and require the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to 
> develop strategies for greater coordination of research and development 
> activities.
> Boehlert's office called the bill "virtually the same" as the House 
> version. The biggest change for the House was the addition of a $25 
> million program to increase the number of faculty qualified to teach 
> college-level cybersecurity courses. The House originally authorized $878 
> million.
> The Senate also included language that would direct NIST to develop 
> checklists of security measures for use by federal agencies. The list 
> would set forth security settings and options available on federally 
> procured hardware and software.
> Another new provision seeks to ensure that students and universities 
> participating in the program comply with immigration laws. And the Senate 
> made some minor changes to make the measure's language fit with the 
> House-passed bill to create a Homeland Security Department, H.R. 5005.
>
> JOHN MAGUIRE,GTRI BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
> MANAGER, FEDERAL PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
> PRINCIPAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
> CENTENNIAL RESEARCH BLDG--ROOM 329
> 400 TENTH ST NW
> ATLANTA,GA 30332-0838
> PHONE: (404)894-7742      FAX: (404)894-4316
> E-MAIL: john.maguire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx