Clips October 18, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 18, 2002

ARTICLES

Justice Made Limited Use of New Powers, Panel Told
Visa Glitch Delays Trial for Russian Software Firm
Digitally inserted ads pop up more in sports
Bill would ease gun info-sharing
Energy's e-gov plans advance with new e-signature software
Study disproves e-mail hoax linking antiperspirants, cancer
Webcaster Royalty Measure Stalls in the Senate
Universal Said to Up Royalties for Internet
South Korea has shown the world what the broadband future looks
Developer's Dilemma: Perl vs. PHP
Bogus Yahoo Email Picks Up Credit Card Numbers
Senator McCain Proposes Telecom Ownership Diversification Act

***************************
Washington Post
Justice Made Limited Use of New Powers, Panel Told
By Dan Eggen
Friday, October 18, 2002; Page A11

The Justice Department has made relatively limited use of new powers 
granted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the changes have 
proven invaluable in key terrorism and criminal cases, according to 
correspondence released yesterday.

Intelligence information gleaned from criminal grand juries has been shared 
with other agencies on 40 occasions in 38 jurisdictions nationwide, 
Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant told the House Judiciary 
Committee. The cases are fewer and more widely dispersed than had been 
predicted by critics.

In addition, authorities did not use any provisions of the USA Patriot Act 
to detain suspects as part of the FBI's Sept. 11 investigation. And they 
have shared information from regular criminal wiretaps only twice, Bryant 
wrote.

These and other examples contained in letters to House Judiciary Committee 
Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. 
(Mich.), the committee's ranking Democrat, provide a detailed glimpse into 
the Justice Department's largely secretive use of new surveillance and 
intelligence-gathering powers. Bryant said new provisions in the law, as 
well as reforms by immigration officials and others, have helped 
authorities capture fugitive criminals, stop a handful of potential 
terrorists at the U.S. border and speed the process for obtaining secret 
search warrants and wiretaps. At the same time, many of the answers to 
questions posed by Sensenbrenner and Conyers were classified and were not 
included in the letter released yesterday.

Sensenbrenner, who had threatened to subpoena Attorney General John D. 
Ashcroft for a lack of cooperation in answering his questions, said in a 
statement yesterday that he was "satisfied that the Department of Justice 
has produced answers that are sufficient for the committee's oversight and 
legislative efforts."

Sensenbrenner also said that a review of classified material by the 
Judiciary Committee "has not given rise to any concern that the authority 
is being misused or abused" in terrorism cases involving secret wiretaps 
and searches.

But the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Justice officials for 
classifying much of the Patriot Act information.

According to the information released yesterday, Ashcroft has not used one 
of the broadest powers granted to him under the act, which would allow him 
to personally designate an individual as a terrorist.

Bryant's letter identified at least two cases in which the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service captured people with possible connections to 
terrorism, including a Pakistani man stopped at Niagara Falls, N.Y., in May 
who was questioned "about possible 9/11 involvement and his ties to 
Pakistan." The manfaces up to five years in jail on immigration charges, 
Bryant said.

The correspondence outlined steps being taken to improve security along the 
Canadian border and to capture criminals. The use of electronic fingerprint 
records has allowed the INS to arrest 1,800 fugitives, including those 
wanted for murder, rape and drug crimes, Bryant wrote.
****************************
Washington Post
Visa Glitch Delays Trial for Russian Software Firm
Thu Oct 17, 9:17 PM ET
By Elinor Mills Abreu

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The trial date for a Russian software company 
accused of violating the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web 
sites) (DMCA) was pushed back on Thursday after a defendant and a witness 
were denied visas to come to the United States.

Trial for ElcomSoft Co. Ltd., set to begin Monday, is now scheduled to 
start Dec. 2 in federal court in San Jose, California, officials said.


The delay is designed to give the U.S. Attorney's office time to work on 
getting ElcomSoft President Alexander Katalov and employee Dmitry Sklyarov 
visas to come to the United States, said Judy Trummer, spokeswoman for the 
defense team.


Katalov is named as a defendant, while Sklyarov is expected to be a witness 
in a trial that will focus on U.S. efforts to force greater copyright 
protections in the fast-growing world of digital media.


A spokesman for Consular Affairs at the State Department confirmed that 
U.S. officials denied Katalov and Sklyarov visas under a section of 
immigration law frequently invoked when officials see a risk that visitors 
will immigrate to the United States rather than just visit.


He declined to comment further, saying visa applications and the decisions 
on rejecting them are confidential.


"We are working with both the State Department and the Department of 
Justice (news - web sites) on this issue," Marina Serebreyanaya, an 
immigration lawyer who is helping the defense, said in a statement. 
"Obviously, not having Dmitry and Alex here in the U.S. is a problem for 
both sides."


Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross Nadel said he could not comment on the visa 
situation beyond confirming that the trial was postponed.


SOFTWARE UNLOCKS ELECTRONIC BOOKS


ElcomSoft is charged with selling software that allows people to unlock the 
digital locks on electronic books in violation of the controversial DMCA.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
Governors form homeland division
BY By Dibya Sarkar
Oct. 17, 2002

The National Governors Association announced Oct. 16 the formation of a 
Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, a move the group said 
would better help state governments design and implement defense, response, 
and recovery plans.

The new division is a reorganization of sorts, shifting efforts and studies 
done previously -- on emergency management since the 1980s and domestic 
terrorism preparedness since 1996 -- from the natural resources division.

Internally, the move signals a natural response to the issues of homeland 
security and emergency management since Sept. 11, said Ann Beauchesne who 
is heading the new division. From the governors' perspective, the move 
means "homeland security is not going away" and that it's a top priority 
for them, she said.

The new division will focus on prevention of and response to natural 
disasters, as well as agricultural, biological, chemical, cyber, nuclear 
and radiological terrorism. It will also closely monitor the creation and 
organization of the proposed federal Homeland Security Department and its 
interaction with state and local agencies.

Beauchesne said the division is presently working on an initiative 
announced last month. It involves a pilot project including about eight 
states that would focus sharing information with the federal and local 
governments in three areas -- justice, public health, and homeland 
security/first responders.

She said she's working on a paper outlining the initiative, which will be 
explained in greater detail by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt when he briefs newly 
elected governors in mid-November. Leavitt is heading the initiative for NGA.

In addition to the pilot project, the NGA  whose membership includes the 
governors of the 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths  last 
month announced the formation of a task force to improve driver's licenses.
***************************
USA Today
Digitally inserted ads pop up more in sports
By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY

NEW YORK  Cash-hungry sports broadcasters are expanding use of 
controversial "virtual" ads.

The digitally inserted ads, such as logos that appear painted on the field, 
don't exist outside TV screens. TV viewers will be seeing more of them on 
major sports events such as the World Series.

"You'll see more experimentation as the technology becomes more 
sophisticated," predicts Mike Aresco, senior vice president of programming 
for CBS Sports.

Why? The cost of broadcast rights for sports events is going up faster than 
ad income. And the extra bucks can subsidize popular gimmicks such as 
virtual "first-down lines" in football telecasts.

Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, call the high-tech ads 
an "Orwellian" blurring of the line between ads and programming. Albert 
May, chairman of the journalism department at George Washington University, 
asks: "Where will it stop? Will they fill the empty seats with artificial 
people?"

But David Sitt, co-chief executive officer of PVI, the leading producer of 
such digital effects, says virtual ads enable advertisers to get inside the 
game  and "inside people's minds."

Virtual ads this fall:

World Series. Fox Sports announced Thursday that starting Saturday, home 
viewers watching the Series between the San Francisco Giants and Anaheim 
Angels will see virtual ads behind home plate. The ads will pitch Major 
League Baseball sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi and MasterCard as 
well as Fox TV shows such as The Bernie Mac Show and Boston Public.

Fox's goal is to have "virtual signs" that look like the real rotating ad 
signs behind home plate in many ballparks, says David Hill, chairman of Fox 
Sports. Fox is trying to avoid a repeat of last year's World Series flop, 
when its first attempt at virtual home plate ads  for Fox shows such as 
Ally McBeal  was criticized as obviously fake and obnoxiously large.

College football. CBS Sports and PVI are creating "branded first-down 
lines" for Southeastern Conference college football games this fall. Logos 
for Pontiac and DuPont have "appeared" on the gridiron so far.

Testing.The NHL, NBA and NFL are all kicking the tires on virtual ads. The 
NHL tested virtual ads in local broadcasts during the pre-season, but has 
no plans yet for the regular season, says spokesman Jamey Horan. The NBA is 
"currently looking at it," says spokesman Mike Bass. The NFL is inserting 
virtual ads into international, but not domestic, broadcasts of the Super Bowl.
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Bill would ease gun info-sharing
BY Judi Hasson
Oct. 16, 2002

As the nation's capital region reeled from sniper attacks, the House passed 
legislation to make it easier for states to share information with a 
federal database of people prohibited from owning guns.

The legislation was approved unanimously Oct. 15 as law enforcement 
officials continued their manhunt for the sniper who has terrorized the 
Washington, D.C., area.

The legislation requires states and federal agencies to provide the FBI 
with all relevant records to conduct a criminal background check.

The bill establishes a nationwide grant program to state law enforcement 
agencies and state courts to automate and transmit records to be included 
in the federal instant background check database. The bill would provide 
more than $1 billion during the next three years to help states get records 
into a database.

Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.), who represents the area in suburban Maryland 
that was the site of several of the shootings, said authorities don't know 
how the sniper got a high-powered gun.

But, she said, "Ten thousand people who shouldn't have, got guns because of 
incomplete records. We don't know if this depraved killer would be 10,001."

The bill now moves to the Senate, where supporters hope it will pass before 
Congress recesses in advance of the November election.

With the mood in Congress grim over the sniper attacks, lawmakers as 
diverse as Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has been a leading 
foe of expanded gun control laws, and Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a 
National Rifle Association board member, support the legislation.
***************************
Government Computer News
Energy's e-gov plans advance with new e-signature software
By Wilson P. Dizard III

With the flourish of an electronic signature, Energy secretary Spencer 
Abraham yesterday took the wraps off the department's action plan for 
e-government.

The strategy describes progress in the department's Idea program for 
launching 19 e-government projects as well as several other programs.

Abraham used a plug-in from Entrust Inc. of Dallas to sign the document in 
Adobe Acrobat. Users across the federal government will be able to use the 
plug-in for digital signatures under Energy's license with Entrust.

Abraham was joined at the plan's introduction by Office of Management and 
Budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., OMB's associate director for IT 
and electronic government, Mark Forman, and Energy CIO Karen Evans.

Forman said DOE's digital signature project is integrated with the General 
Services Administration's E-Authentication effort, a Quicksilver 
initiative. The plug-in license cost Energy $200,000.

Energy launched the Idea plan earlier this year in the spirit of OMB's 
Quicksilver program, which has highlighted 25 e-government projects that 
can serve multiple agencies.

"We have taken this project very seriously, and these results demonstrate 
that," Abraham said.
**************************
Government Executive
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.
*************************
USA Today
Study disproves e-mail hoax linking antiperspirants, cancer

WASHINGTON (AP)  A new study, prompted by an urban myth spread on the 
Internet, shows there is no evidence that antiperspirants or deodorants can 
cause breast cancer.

The study, appearing this week in the Journal of the National Cancer 
Institute, examined the personal hygiene habits of 813 women with breast 
cancer and 793 women without the disease and found no link between cancer 
and body odor control cosmetics.

"Antiperspirant and deodorant use did not differ whether or not a 
participant (in the study) had breast cancer," said Dana K. Mirick, an 
epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. 
This indicates, she said, that use of the personal products does not cause 
the disease.

Mirick, first author of the study, said that the data was collected 
starting in 1992 as part of a larger study testing if other common 
exposures might be factors in breast cancer.

"About that time, these rumors (about antiperspirants and cancer) started 
to pop up on the Internet," said Mirick. "So we threw in these additional 
questions."

Other results from the large study were published earlier, but nothing was 
done about the antiperspirant question until Mirick and her co-authors 
realized that women were still concerned about the issue, even 10 years 
after it was first raised on the Internet. The American Cancer Society and 
the National Cancer Institute were so concerned that both put out notices 
on the Internet stating there was no evidence linking the personal products 
with cancer.

"On the main Fred Hutchinsonline they still occasionally get phone calls 
from women who are concerned about this," said Mirick. "Even though no 
researchers believed there was a connection, there were no published 
studies on it."

Since they had the data, she and her co-authors decided to write up a paper 
and, perhaps, lay to rest a persistent myth.

"It is important for people to have correct information ... that can 
eliminate fear about a deadly disease from an exposure that is quite 
common," said Mirick. "These myths induced fear because this is a product 
that almost everybody uses."

Mirick said the original rumor started more than 10 years ago, probably 
from a widely distributed, anonymous e-mail.

She looked for a Web site that carried the myth, but found nothing.

"I don't know if there was ever a Web site, or if it just came from a round 
robin e-mail," said Mirick. "But I do know the question was raised before 
1992. ... People were concerned."
***************************
Los Angeles Times
Webcaster Royalty Measure Stalls in the Senate
The bill, said to have been blocked by Sen. Helms, would have slashed 
payments to labels and artists.
By Jon Healey
October 18 2002

A bill designed to save small Internet radio stations from bankruptcy 
foundered Thursday, failing to win final approval from the Senate before 
lawmakers adjourned until after the November elections.

Many Webcasters face a potentially ruinous day of reckoning Sunday, when 
four years' worth of back royalties are due to be paid.

The bill by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. 
(R-Wis.), which was passed by the House last week, would have slashed 
royalty payments that small Webcasters must make to record labels and artists.

The Copyright Office is expected to rule today on requests from Foster 
City, Calif.-based Live365 and college radio stations to delay the 
royalties, while other Webcasters have appeals pending in federal court. 
The Senate leadership also may revive the bill if all outstanding 
objections are removed.

A source close to the proceedings said the bill was blocked unexpectedly by 
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) at the request of unidentified over-the-air 
broadcasters. Representatives of Christian radio stations had voiced 
concerns about the bill's potential impact on the royalties they pay to 
songwriters, among other issues.

Helms could not be reached late Thursday.

But the measure had disappointed or displeased many interest groups, 
including the radio industry's main trade association, telecommunications 
firms, college radio stations, Webcasting hobbyists and mid-size and large 
Webcasters. They complained that the bill either set a bad precedent or 
failed to provide enough relief.

The main proponents were a group of small commercial Webcasters, the 
Recording Industry Assn. of America and artists' unions. Expressing 
surprise and disappointment at the bill's failure to pass, Hilary Rosen, 
chief executive of the RIAA, said, "We hope that the Senate will work this 
out quickly. All parties who support this legislation should contact their 
senators to urge passage of this bill."

At issue were the royalties for record labels and performing artists that 
the librarian of Congress set in July. Basing his ruling solely on an 
agreement between Yahoo Inc. and the record labels, the librarian called 
for commercial Webcasters to pay about $100 annually per listener, and 
noncommercial stations to pay nearly $30 annually per listener.
*************************
Los Angeles Times
Universal Said to Up Royalties for Internet
Reuters
October 18 2002

Universal Music Group has increased the royalties it pays artists on 
downloaded music, sources close to the firm said.

Universal, a division of Vivendi Universal, also stripped out some charges, 
helping to effectively double payments to artists for songs downloaded on 
the Internet, the sources and experts said.
*****************
The Guardian [UK]
South Korea has shown the world what the broadband future looks like. Jack 
Schofield finds out how
Thursday October 17, 2002

Not many people would have bet on South Korea becoming the world's leading 
nation for broadband internet use, but it is. Comparisons with the UK are 
embarrassing. Some 67% of Korean households now have broadband: the UK 
figure is about 4%. What's more, their broadband is better than ours. 
Koreans typically get 2Mbps connections, which are four times faster than 
BT Openworld's standard 512kbps. Korea's "pro" service is 16 times faster 
than that.
Having got broadband internet, Koreans use it much more. Dr Heejin Lee, a 
lecturer at Brunel University, says Koreans rack up an average of 1,340 
minutes per month, which compares with the UK average of 382 minutes. The 
high usage stems partly from it being fast enough for video on demand: 
people can use it to time-shift TV programmes, or catch up with episodes of 
soaps they have missed. Also, 54% of Koreans play online games.

Nor is broadband an isolated example of Korea's success: it claims to be 
the first country to launch a 3G phone service. Strictly speaking, that may 
have fewer than 10,000 users, but more than 10 million people use 2.5G 
services that are faster than anything available in the UK. Almost everyone 
in Seoul, the capital, seems to have a phone with a colour screen that can 
show photos and play games.

Korea has even overtaken the US in generating a greater proportion of its 
income from information technologies. In 2000, the IT industries 
contributed 13% of Korea's GDP, against only 8.3% for the US. Korea has 
become a leading manufacturer of flat TV and computer screens, including 
plasma displays, and is rapidly becoming a force in mobile phones.

Lee, a Korean, went back this summer as a member of a Broadband Mission, 
sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, to find out what the UK 
could learn from the hermit kingdom's success. Last week, they published a 
report highlighting a number of Korea's advantages. These include the 
government's vision and commitment, the people's belief in the value of 
education, the high housing density and the craze for PC games.

Opinions may vary, but I can't see any of these being reproduced in the UK. 
In fact, to get the same feeling of technology's potential to transform 
society, you would need to go back to the early 80s, when Kenneth Baker 
became minister of information technology in the Thatcher government and 
spearheaded a national drive for computer literacy. The launch of the 
Prestel service (which could make every TV an online terminal), the 
privatisation of British Telecom, the Computers in Schools project, the 
craze for Sinclair Spectrum games - it was surely the dawn of a new age. 
Korea got into the chip manufacturing business in the 1980s, but it didn't 
really settle on its current vision of a knowledge-based economy until 
January 1998, with the founding of KISDI, the Korea Information Society 
Development Institute.

The Korean government has enjoyed some striking successes in its 
"superspeed" programme to develop an information economy. These include 
subsidising PC purchases by the less well off, and a huge drive to 
transform education. About 50,000 students from low-income families were 
given PCs and free internet services. More than 10,000 schools were 
connected to the internet, and 330,000 teachers and 210,000 classrooms 
provided with PCs. Students were asked to submit homework by email.

In 2000, the government launched its Cyber 21 programme, to train a million 
housewives in IT use in 18 months. The 20-hour, week-long course was 
offered at a discount price of 30,000 won (£15), and 70,000 signed up in 
the first 10 days. More than 10 million Koreans have now been trained in PC 
and internet use, with the drivers being education and entertainment, not 
business uses. The next step is to turn Seongnam - a suburb of Seoul with a 
population of about a million - into the world's first digital city.

All this is particularly impressive because Korea started from a much worse 
position than the UK. In 1997, tens of thousands of Koreans were thrown out 
of work by a foreign exchange crisis, and soup kitchens were opened in 
Seoul's city parks. On November 21, the government had to ask the 
International Monetary Fund for $58bn in emergency loans, and put itself 
under the IMF's financial management. However, the crisis must have 
reinforced the "digital or die" mentality that helped the nation change 
course.

Things look different today. You arrive at the ultra-modern Inchon airport, 
which opened last year, to find a motorway system clogged with Korean-made 
cars. (Seoul is also a world leader in traffic congestion.) The cities are 
full of high-rise apartment blocks and underground shopping malls. And, at 
least in the centre of Seoul, it is not hard to find a Starbucks, Burger 
King or McDonald's.

The apartment blocks are part of the secret of Korea's success. According 
to Antony Walker, who went on the DTI-Brunel mission, 49% of Korea's 47.7m 
population live in apartment blocks, defined as having six or more storeys; 
more than 90% live within 4km of a Korea Telecom exchange. Running a fibre 
optic cable into an apartment block's comms room is a quick way to deliver 
high-speed internet to 600 homes. "They wouldn't have been able to roll 
[broadband] out so rapidly if they hadn't had these economies of density," 
says Walker.

Easy access also enabled rival phone companies to compete with KT. 
"Consumers are incredibly price sensitive, and Hanaro Telecom offered 
broadband for half the price of KT," says Jed Kolko, a senior analyst with 
Forrester Research in San Francisco. Hanaro now has 2m users and 26% of the 
broadband market, against KT's 49%.

Another less visible factor is the popularity of "PC bangs" (PC rooms). 
These can be found almost everywhere in Korean cities, but particularly in 
student areas. PC bangs are games-oriented cybercafes, the nearest UK 
equivalent being the Playing Fields, in London, which closed earlier this 
year. In Korea, at the peak, more than a thousand were being opened every 
month. Seoul-based Max Hwang, from NetValue, an internet monitoring 
company, says there are now 22,000.

British teenagers hang about on street corners or, when they are old 
enough, congregate in pubs. In Korea, they go to PC bangs and spend about 
$1 an hour playing Legion, a medieval multiplayer game where players 
cooperate to storm castles. The malls have posh PC bangs, but more 
typically, they are badly lit basement rooms with, on average, 35 fast PCs. 
They are regarded as cool places to hang out.

PC bangs got going in 1998, before the broadband roll-out, but they have 
not lost their attraction. Kids go there because they can play for hours, 
because they can smoke, and because they can chat up members of the 
opposite sex, all of which might be frowned on at home. The chatting up is 
done online, but if anything develops, you can message someone to tell them 
where you are sitting, and they can decide whether or not to introduce 
themselves in person.

PC bangs have a dark side. As one Singaporean newspaper headline put it: 
"S. Korean youths turning into broadband zombies." Teenagers are, it is 
said, becoming addicted to games, dropping out of school and traditional 
group activities, and becoming uncommunicative or even violent. Last week, 
a 24-year-old South Korean collapsed and died after spending 86 hours 
playing games in a PC bang without eating or sleeping properly.

On the other hand, PC bangs provided crash courses in computer literacy for 
people who did not have access to a PC at school or at work, and 
kick-started the market for broadband content, albeit mostly for games. 
They also ensured that for millions of people, their first experience of 
the internet was a broadband internet. It meant the service providers did 
not have to sell them the idea. As Kolko says: "There was a lot of pent-up 
demand for broadband because people who had already experienced it in PC 
bangs wanted to do the same things at home."

Multimedia broadband should also stimulate the demand for more advanced 
mobile phones. Dr Park Tong Wook from KISDI says: "We have very high 
broadband internet and mobile phone penetration, and this forms a demand 
base for mobile internet. Data is only 8 or 9% of mobile [operators'] 
revenues - it's small, but it is growing fast."

Eventually, of course, most people in industrialised countries should have 
broadband internet connections and 3G phones. Once the market is saturated, 
there is not much more you can do, except offer even higher speeds - Korea 
is hoping to have 20Mbps broadband delivering high-definition television by 
2005. And, by pioneering the manufacturing of advanced technologies for the 
domestic market, Korean companies hope to have lots of prestige products to 
export to the rest of us.

It could work. One thing Korea's World Cup football squad demonstrated was 
that you should never underestimate the underdog - especially when it's 
playing at home and has the support of the whole nation.

Hot news for your fidge
To add to its other accomplishments, South Korea could be the first country 
where home networking becomes widely used. LG Electronics Digital Appliance 
Company (LGE DAC), a $4.5bn white goods manufacturer with more than 20,000 
employees, is already shipping products that can be controlled remotely. 
These include refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens and air 
conditioners.

The core of the system is an internet refrigerator, which combines a fridge 
with a touch-screen LCD with a PC running Microsoft Windows 98. It works as 
a PC, a TV, a digital photo album, calendar/diary, an MP3 music player and 
a home controller. You can touch the screen to turn your air conditioner on 
and off, for example, and change settings.

LGE DAC is using its own protocol, LnCP (Living network Control Protocol), 
to send signals over the home's mains wiring. However, it says it will 
continue developing its system to work with things such as the PC 
industry's UPnP (Universal Plug & Play), Sony's HAVi (Home Audio-Video 
interoperability), Sun's Jini, and so on, to meet global standards as 
required.

The multimedia fridge is not going to find many takers at £8,000 a throw. 
However, LGE is also developing an LCD TV with a built-in PC, which will 
also control networked appliances. This widescreen TV can display a PC 
screen and TV pictures side by side at the same time.

Powerline signalling has been around since the 1970s with products such as 
the UK-developed X10. Systems have never caught on, partly because of the 
need to buy a controller for each device. LG's approach could work because 
it can ship devices with control capabilities built in, and sell the 
controller later.

LG's advantage is that it is a giant chaebol, or conglomerate. It can build 
its own office blocks complete with LG escalators, LG lifts, LG air 
conditioners, giant LG flat screens, LG IBM personal computers and LG 
phones connected to LG Telecom.

Apart from that, it doesn't much matter if the internet fridge does not 
sell very well: it has attracted huge publicity. As LG DAC's Dennis Ahn 
says: "Sales are small but the prestige is huge." The company's strategy is 
to raise the level of innovation and the image of its products, because it 
faces price-oriented competition from high-volume suppliers in nearby China.

· Jack Schofield has just returned from a British press trip to Korea 
hosted by LG Electronics.
**************************
News Factor
Developer's Dilemma: Perl vs. PHP

Perl -- the programmer's putty that helps paste together disparate Web 
technologies -- may be in a jam, threatened by obsolescence and an eager 
replacement patiently waiting to pounce: PHP. "The pool of Perl talent will 
shrink over time, while the PHP pool will continue to grow," said Bret 
Levy, CTO of Third Millennium On-Line Products, Stanford University 
computer science professor John Koza's online gaming company. [Full Story 
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19716.html]
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Reuters Internet Report
Bogus Yahoo Email Picks Up Credit Card Numbers
Thu Oct 17, 8:23 PM ET

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news) said on 
Thursday that some of its customers had been tricked into giving their 
credit card numbers to an unaffiliated third party that had posed as Yahoo 
in a mass e-mail.

Yahoo, which has a billing relationship with more than one million 
customers who pay for such services as expanded e-mail and online 
matchmaking, sent out its own mass e-mail Thursday morning advising 
customers not to respond to the bogus request.


A company spokeswoman said less than 24 hours had transpired between the 
time the fraudulent e-mail went out and the time that Yahoo sent out the 
advisory.


She said some customers had fallen for the e-mail request and supplied 
credit card information, but the majority had not.


The source of the fraudulent e-mail was not known.


Yahoo used to provide all of its content and online services for free, but 
has increasingly been charging for some enhanced services as a way to 
reduce its dependence on Internet advertising.
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Broadband News Online
Senator McCain Proposes Telecom Ownership Diversification Act

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) proposed a Telecommunications Ownership 
Diversification Act of 2002 (S. 3112) aimed at leveling the playing field 
between small business owners and CEOs of huge corporations trying to 
purchase a telecommunications business. The proposed legislation would give 
sellers of telecommunications businesses a tax deferral when their assets 
are bought for cash by small business telecom companies. It would also 
encourage the entry of new players and the growth of existing small 
businesses by enabling the seller of a telecom business to claim a tax 
deferral on capital gains if it invests the proceeds of that sale in 
purchasing an interest in an eligible small telecom business.
http://mccain.senate.gov/taxcerttelecom.htm
Senator John McCain, 16-Oct-02


Senator John McCain is the ranking Republican member of the Senate's 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
In August, Senator John McCain proposed the new Consumer Broadband 
Deregulation Act of 2002 (S.2863) that would deregulate the retail 
provision of residential broadband services and dictate a hands-off 
approach to the deployment of new facilities by telephone companies while 
maintaining competitors' access to legacy systems. The senator said the 
proposed legislation would put the federal government in the role of 
stimulator, rather than regulator, of broadband services. The bill would 
also seek to ensure that local and state barriers to broadband deployment 
are removed, to facilitate wireless technology as a platform for broadband 
services, to encourage deployment of broadband services to rural and 
underserved communities, to ensure access to broadband services by people 
with disabilities, and to enhance the enforcement tools of the FCC. 
http://www.convergedigest.com/regulatory/regulatoryarticle.asp?ID=4533
*****************************

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