Clips October 16, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 16, 2002

ARTICLES

Border tracking off to slow start
World Cybercrime Experts See Need for Laws, Ties
Finns Investigate Bomb Chat Room
Study: Amount of spam, virus-infected e-mails rising
Spam Masquerades as Admin Alerts
Secret Military Spy Planes Enlisted in Hunt for Sniper
Bush Opposes Gun 'Fingerprinting'
High-tech tools get push by sniper case
Sniper victim was on FBI's cybercrime team
NIST drafts security buying guides
IT has stake in EPA homeland plan
Career Channels Federal Computer Week
Human, technological limitations threaten INS tracking
In the Net age, governments question open records policies


*******************************
Arizona Republic
Border tracking off to slow start
System called far from ready
By Sergio Bustos
Gannett News Service
Oct. 15, 2002

WASHINGTON - When President Bush signed into law a sweeping border security 
bill to fight the war on terrorism this year, the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service was assigned an ambitious task: track the arrival 
and departure of every foreign visitor to the country.


To screen more than 331 million foreigners annually, the INS is counting on 
a sophisticated network of computer and database systems. But the agency is 
not off to a promising start. Consider:


? College and university officials complain that the INS has yet to train 
them in using a new system to track more than 500,000 foreign students. The 
system is supposed to be up and running at thousands of schools in less 
than three months.


? At the U.S.-Mexican border, the INS has yet to install scanners that can 
read the high-tech border-crossing cards or "laser visas" issued to 
millions of Mexican nationals. The scanners were supposed to be installed 
by Oct. 1, but the INS was to begin testing some of them today, including 
at the border checkpoint at Nogales. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said the 
failure to have scanners installed at all Southwest border checkpoints 
"raises serious questions" about the ability of the INS to guard the 
nation's borders.

"There is no excuse for a failure to comply with federal requirements that 
are designed to keep the American people safe," he said.

At a Senate hearing last week, Kyl and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., 
both harsh critics of the INS, did not hide their frustration.

"The agency is still using paper files, archaic computer systems, often 
non-functioning," said Feinstein, who said the INS was still "in the 
technical dark ages."

Kyl charged that the INS is moving too slowly in putting the tools in place 
to track foreigners.

"Protecting our nation's borders from terrorist infiltration is a serious 
enterprise, and it should be treated as a top priority," he said.

Kyl and Feinstein were key sponsors of the Enhanced Border Security and 
Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, which received unanimous support from the 
House and Senate. President Bush signed it into law in May.

Among other provisions, the law requires the INS to track the entry and 
exit of foreign visitors and share information among several agencies. It 
also requires the INS to clamp down on foreign students who fail to enroll 
in colleges or universities.

In recent weeks, INS officials testifying before Congress said they are 
meeting deadlines and requirements under the new law.

Michael Cronin, INS assistant commissioner for inspections, told Congress 
last week that the INS has "redoubled" its efforts since last year's 
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to share its 
data with federal law enforcement agencies. He said more than 3,100 wanted 
criminals had been caught in the past year as a result of the agency 
sharing information with the FBI.

He also said the INS had taken the first steps in developing an entry-exit 
system for foreign visitors and will meet its January deadline to build an 
Internet-based system to keep tabs on foreign students at all schools.

But David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, which 
represents 2,000 colleges and universities, said the INS has no "meaningful 
plan" to train college and university workers on using the new system. For 
years, schools submitted such records on paper to the INS.

"We are afraid that this is a public policy version of musical chairs," 
Ward told Congress last month. "And when the music stops and the compliance 
date arrives, colleges, universities and exchange visitor programs will all 
be left without a seat."

Janis Sposato, a top INS official responsible for overseeing the 
foreign-student tracking system, told lawmakers recently that she is 
confident the system will be workable.

"I can never say a system won't have glitches, but the system's been up now 
since July," she said. "So we're pretty confident about the way the system 
will work."

That's not the case at the U.S.-Mexican border, where the INS is behind 
schedule in installing scanners that can read new border-crossing cards 
issued to more than 5.6 million Mexicans. The cards allow qualified 
Mexicans to enter the United States on trips of up to 72 hours at a time. 
Most use it to visit relatives or to shop.

Embedded on the card is biometric (biological measurement) information, 
containing the cardholder's fingerprints and photograph.

Besides Nogales, the INS is to start testing the new scanners today at 
airports in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Atlanta, and at border checkpoints 
in San Ysidro, Calif., and Falcon Dam, Texas, according to INS spokesman 
Bill Strassberger.

Even before passage of the border legislation, federal auditors and 
investigators had warned Kyl and other lawmakers that the INS had a poor 
record in tracking the arrival and departure of foreigners, especially 
criminals.

A 1998 report by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General 
found that the INS was entering less than two-thirds of the names of 
illegal immigrants apprehended at the border into IDENT, a national 
database with biometrics, fingerprints and photographs of all people who 
come in contact with the INS.

In 2000, the same office reported that the INS had failed to enter the name 
of Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, a Mexican national later convicted of several 
murders in the United States, into the IDENT database. Border patrol agents 
had nabbed him trying to enter illegally, but returned him to Mexico 
because they were unaware he was wanted by police.

In June, Glenn Fine, the Justice Department inspector general, told 
Congress that the INS had made little progress in linking its IDENT system 
to a similar one used by the FBI to track criminals.

"Full integration of (both computer systems) remains years away," he told 
lawmakers.
*****************************
World Cybercrime Experts See Need for Laws, Ties
Wed Oct 16, 5:54 AM ET
By Kim Yeon-hee

SEOUL (Reuters) - Top international cyber-crimebusters wrapped up a 
three-day conference in the world's most wired country on Wednesday with a 
call for greater global cooperation to fight online offences.



Senior cyber-crime police officers from 37 countries agreed at a meeting in 
South Korea (news - web sites) that worldwide investigations were needed to 
chase online criminals who operate with little regard for state frontiers.


"Cyber crimes are global crimes, using global IT networks," said Des 
Berwick, an executive officer of the Australasian Center for Policing 
Research, on the sidelines of the fifth Interpol conference on computer crime.


Interpol -- which promotes international police cooperation and does not 
deal with crimes involving just one country -- is based in Lyon, France, 
and has 179 member countries.


It was the first time Interpol had held its computer crimes conference 
outside its headquarters and it was no coincidence South Korea was chosen 
as the venue. South Korea has the world's highest number of high-speed 
broadband Internet users, and has cyber-crime statistics to match.


Interpol has had a unit, the High Tech Crime Unit, in charge of online 
crimes since 2000.


"A large component of this conference in Interpol activity is the 
encouragement and establishment of cooperative mechanisms. So you have 
communication liaison," said Berwick. "They can investigate simultaneously 
around the world."


A lack of laws covering online crimes has hindered international 
investigations into the growing number of crimes on the Internet.


About 50-60 countries have their own laws against cyber crimes, but more 
than 100 countries have no laws on computer offences, said Marc Goodman, a 
representative of Interpol's U.S. operations.


"Having laws on the book is the first step," said Berwick.
********************************
Wired News
Finns Investigate Bomb Chat Room

HELSINKI, Finland -- A 17-year-old boy known as "Einstein" in an Internet 
chat room dealing with explosives was held for questioning Tuesday in a 
deadly bombing at a suburban shopping mall.

Police said the teenager had contacts with Petri Gerdt, the 19-year-old 
college student suspected of making and planting the explosive device that 
killed him and six others Friday evening outside a McDonald's restaurant in 
the mall in Vantaa, about 10 miles north of Helsinki.

Investigators were still searching for a motive, but said they believed 
Gerdt acted alone and ruled out any links to terrorist groups.

Police questioned several people on Monday, releasing all except the 
17-year-old from the southern Finnish town of Hameenlinna. No charges have 
been filed against the youth, police said, refusing to identify him other 
than to say he went by the name "Einstein" in visits to the Web chat line.

Police say Gerdt, an avid Internet surfer, had visited the chat room, known 
as the "bomb forum," and may have used the knowledge he acquired there to 
make the explosive device, which contained gunshot pellets and metal pieces.

Investigators have reconstructed the scene of the explosion and released 
photographs of the suspect, appealing for information about his movements 
in his final hours.

Finns struggled to come to terms with the blast -- a rare act of violence 
in the nation of 5.2 million people.

The government ordered public offices to fly flags at half-staff and urged 
private citizens to do the same on Tuesday as part of a national day of 
mourning.

Interior Minister Ville Itala described the blast as "a shocking and 
extremely exceptional crime in Finland."

"I am sure that this incident will leave its mark on every Finn," Itala 
told Parliament.

Itala also said the government had set up a working group to study how to 
stop the spread of criminal material on the Internet. After his address, 
lawmakers held a moment of silence.

Police said Gerdt had no criminal record, affiliations to political 
movements or any known problems with alcohol or drugs.

A lanky youth who played basketball, Gerdt studied chemical engineering at 
a technical college near the blast site. From a well-off family in Vantaa, 
he was a lonely figure with few friends, fellow students said.

Gerdt's last known message on the Web site on Oct. 8 said he dreamt that a 
police car arrived "at the explosion site."

"Luckily, I was already 'floating' in the other direction," Gerdt, known as 
'rc' on the chat line, wrote three days before the blast.
******************************
Los Angeles Times
Education Is Put in Hands of Teenagers
Youths in Palmdale are given Palm Pilots to help with assignments. But some 
researchers say gadgets won't improve student performance.
By David Pierson
Times Staff Writer

October 16 2002

Zera Sanford holds her education in the palm of her hand--with a Palm Pilot.

As part of a technology experiment, Highland High School in Palmdale gave 
her and 31 other students hand-held computers to keep track of homework, 
download research material and complete classroom assignments. They are 
part of a growing national trend at high schools to use similar devices, 
the size of a calculator with a 2 1/2 inch-by-2 inch screen.

With a pencil-sized pointer, users can write on the screen or tap on it to 
open programs and issue commands. At close range, messages can be beamed 
from one hand-held computer to the next, much like a wireless pager. The 
computers can store textbooks, even though some say the screens are too 
small to read.

"It's not just an expensive notebook," Sanford said while beaming a message 
to a friend. "I don't see why anybody would pass the opportunity to use one 
of these."

School spending on hand-held computers, whether Palm Pilots, Handsprings or 
other brands, is predicted to increase from $5 million during the 2000-01 
school year to $310 million by 2005-06, according to a study by 
International Data Corp., a market research company.

Hand-held computers cost as little as $99 and are considered a less fussy 
option to lap-tops, which generally cost more than $1,000. Highland's 
hand-held program cost $4,000 for 35 devices and was paid for by the 
Antelope Valley Union High School District's educational technology office.

"The way you get productivity out of technology is when it's ubiquitous," 
said Elliot Soloway, a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor 
who has developed educational software for the hand-held computers.

"Education changed when every kid was given a paper book," he said. 
"Education will change again when every kid has a computer, and the only 
way to do that is with a hand-held computer" because of its low cost.

At Highland High, the Palm Pilots are being tested on students in Spanish 
teacher Jim Trumps' class. The instructor has the technological savvy and 
passion that experts say is essential to getting new computer programs up 
and running. Trumps, who pitched the hand-held computer idea to the school 
district, designed his own Web site where students can check their grades 
and download assignments.

"The problem with lap-tops is students have to carry them from class to 
class and they already have 70 pounds of books ... ," Trumps said. "But 
kids don't mind holding Palm Pilots. You can do most of the work on a 
hand-held that you would do on a lap-top."

The Antelope Valley district has had a lap-top program for five years. 
Currently, 600 of the district's 20,000 students carry lap-tops they own or 
borrow from the schools. Kent Tamsen, director of educational technology, 
said the Palm Pilots might replace lap-tops, but a study first must 
determine the effects both technologies have on student achievement.

In the four weeks since Trumps distributed the hand-held computers for 
students to keep for the school year, he's had them draw a comic strip on 
the device with dialogue in Spanish. He's beamed questions and answers for 
quizzes. And every day the children plug their Palm Pilots to a platform 
connected to a desk-top computer that downloads media Web sites and study 
guides.

"I've been reading a lot more," said 14-year-old Danielle Edwards. "When 
I'm bored, I study my Spanish vocabulary [on the Palm Pilot]. I also never 
used to check the news and weather, but now I do it all the time."

But some researchers say the technology is doomed to disappoint because not 
enough teachers will be properly trained to use the devices. They warn that 
some schools have spent lavishly on technology in the past -- such as on 
educational television -- without ever showing higher achievement.

Teachers "are hardly given any technical assistance and professional help 
to integrate the technology into daily classes," said Larry Cuban, 
professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and author of 
"Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom."

Educational psychologist Jane M. Healy , the author of "Failure to 
Connect--How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds," questioned whether the 
hand-helds would improve children's behavior. She said hiring qualified 
teachers and reinvigorating marginalized programs such as the arts and 
athletics are "far more important than an electronic toy."

Palm Inc., which manufactures the devices used by Trumps' class, says it 
holds 82% of the education market. Since 2000, the Milpitas, Calif.-based 
company has given out $2.3 million worth of the equipment to learn more 
about how to market the product. Though not at Highland, the hand-held 
computers have been given to schools in Berkeley and Lennox, Calif., as 
well as to schools in New Jersey, West Virginia and Nebraska.

Mike Lorion, vice president of education at the company, said teachers can 
use the Palm Pilot to see what class a student wandering the hallways 
should be in. Teachers can follow text displayed on a hand-held being read 
aloud by a student and highlight words that were mispronounced. Instantly, 
the child has a note of what needs improvement.

However, Bob Moore, vice chairman of the Consortium of School Networking, a 
Washington, D.C., organization that promotes computer technology in 
schools, thinks the computer that works best for students will have to be a 
happy medium between a hand-held and a lap-top.

"It's a promising technology," he said of hand-helds. "The one thing I'm 
concerned with is the small screen. How usable is it? It's good for 
calendars and contacts, but how useful is it for kids and teachers?"

Predictably, students have found their own uses for the devices.

Though this has not happened in Trumps' classroom, stories abound about 
students elsewhere downloading software that enables them to switch on and 
off televisions and power VCRs to the dismay of unsuspecting teachers. They 
download games such as "Dope Wars," a strategy game in which the player 
must outsell computer opponents in make-believe drugs.

Trumps warns his students that if he finds one of them playing games in his 
or another teacher's class, he'll take the device away.

The computers also have created a social fabric. One of Trumps' first 
assignments was for the class to exchange phone numbers. Students who never 
spoke to each other before now call each other several times a week to 
gossip and talk about schoolwork.

"We're more organized," said 14-year-old Clarrisa Camacho. "We're learning 
new stuff while communicating with each other."
****************************
Computerworld
Study: Amount of spam, virus-infected e-mails rising
By Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
OCTOBER 15, 2002

A new report analyzing e-mail messages sent last month found that the 
problem of viruses and unsolicited e-mail continued to grow, hitting 
manufacturing, banking and finance, and health care particularly hard.
The report, prepared by e-mail security company MessageLabs Ltd., reviewed 
e-mail messages scanned by the company during the month. MessageLabs 
scanned 196 million e-mail messages for viruses and 63 million messages as 
part of its SkyScan AS (Anti-Spam) service. Among the company's findings, 
released in a statement outlining the study:


Spam, as unsolicited e-mail is commonly known, accounted for 17% of the 63 
million e-mail messages scanned as part of the antispam service, a 15% 
increase over August.

Spam made up more than a quarter of all e-mail messages sent to companies 
in the manufacturing and engineering sector using MessageLabs services.

The finance and banking, legal and health care industries also recorded 
high levels of spam, ranging from 9% (banking) to 20% (health care) of all 
e-mail sent, according to MessageLabs.

The number of e-mail messages infected with computer viruses grew 15% from 
August to September, accounting for about 1 million or one half of 1% of 
the 196 million e-mail messages scanned by MessageLabs. Of those, more than 
half were attributed to one virus, Klez.h.
Companies in the leisure and retail industries were most often targeted by 
virus-laden e-mail, with almost 2% of all incoming e-mail messages 
infected. Computer systems operated by city and local governments were also 
found to be common targets of e-mail viruses.

In contrast, computer systems operated by state and federal government 
along with companies in the legal and construction sectors were the least 
likely to be the targets of computer viruses, according to the figures 
compiled by MessageLabs.

Increased spam could have an adverse affect on productivity in the targeted 
sectors if employees become bogged down by excessive unsolicited messages, 
MessageLabs warned.

But others in the computer security industry aren't so sure that spam is as 
big a threat to productivity as the report suggests.

"I think most people look for e-mail messages from people who they already 
know and read those first," said Russ Cooper, surgeon general at TruSecure 
Corp. in Herndon, Va. "They get back to those other e-mail messages when 
they have time, so either they're going to take a break and get coffee, or 
they'll read through their in-box."

Cooper agreed that the proliferation of spam is a problem and pointed to 
the decentralized nature of the Internet and increased use of free, 
Web-based e-mail accounts as two reasons there is more spam.

To solve the problem, he recommended a coordinated approach.

"We have a problem in that we don't have a sophisticated system for dealing 
with [spam]. Internet service providers need to solve it with a peering 
arrangement in which people caught spamming will be shut out," he said.

MessageLabs is part of Start Technology Group Ltd. of Gloucester, England. 
Officials at the company couldn't be reached for comment on the study.
****************************
Wired News
Spam Masquerades as Admin Alerts

A new breed of pop-up ads is appearing mysteriously on Microsoft Windows 
users' computers. The so-called "Messenger spams" have security experts and 
system administrators scratching their heads -- and recipients fuming.

Some of the ads, which hit Windows systems through backdoor networking 
ports and not by e-mail or Web browsing, appear to have been generated by 
Direct Advertiser, a $700 software program developed by Florida-based 
DirectAdvertiser.com.

By tapping into Messenger, a Windows service originally designed to enable 
system administrators to send messages to users on a network, Direct 
Advertiser can deliver "completely anonymous and virtually untraceable" ads 
"straight to the screen of your client," according to the company's website.

"Now somebody on the other side of the world can sit there and pop up 
messages on your screen," said Gary Flynn, a security engineer at James 
Madison University, where users have recently reported receiving pop-up 
spam selling university diplomas.

The Messenger service, not to be confused with Microsoft's MSN Messenger 
chat client, is enabled by default on Windows 2000, NT and XP systems, 
according to Lawrence Baldwin, operator of the myNetWatchman computer 
intrusion reporting service. Baldwin said potentially millions of systems 
may be vulnerable to the pop-ups, also known as "NetBIOS Spam."

According to DirectAdvertiser.com's lead developer Lenard Iszak, the 
program can generate about 5,000 pop-up messages per hour, hitting more 
than one recipient per second. A demonstration of the Direct Advertiser 
software enables users to target a range of Internet addresses, such as 
those assigned to a specific ISP or a particular country.

Zoltan Kovacs, founder of DirectAdvertiser.com, said the company has sold 
about 200 copies of the program since launching two months ago. According 
to Kovacs, the software is ideal for advertising 900-number and other 
telephone services.

"I have customers who call me back and tell me they love it and it 
generates hundreds of calls right away," said Kovacs, who noted that Direct 
Advertiser is a good alternative to bulk e-mail because its messages are 
not regulated by spam laws.

According to Flynn, many network administrators are puzzled over how the 
ads have weaseled through firewalls onto users' computers. While Windows 
Messenger traditionally uses commonly protected ports 137 and 139, Flynn 
said the recent pop-ups appear to use port 135, which is often left 
unprotected by a firewall because it's a vital conduit for communicating 
with a Microsoft service called RPC.

Since mid-September, numerous myNetWatchman participants have received 
repeated probes on port 135 from a handful of Internet protocol addresses 
assigned to Everyones Internet (EV1.net), an Internet service provider in 
Houston, according to Baldwin. The numeric addresses translate into 
"NetBIOS machine names" that begin with WEBPOPUP and that have appeared in 
several recent ads, he said.

EV1.net officials, who did not respond to interview requests, are 
investigating the issue, according to Baldwin.

Now that spammers have pioneered the Windows Messenger technology, worm 
writers may be next to target the service, according to Harlan Carvey, a 
security engineer with a financial services firm.

"I'm sure we're going to see spyware or malware that makes use of this," 
Carvey said.

Carvey and other security experts said users can protect themselves from 
unwanted pop-ups by disabling the Windows Messenger service and/or properly 
configuring their firewalls.

According to Kovacs, he hasn't promoted Direct Advertiser aside from 
touting it in a link from the control panel of StealthMail Master, a 
program he also markets that promises to hide bulk e-mailers' IP addresses.

In December 2001, DirectAdvertiser.com's Iszak lost a dispute with America 
Online over the domain ICQmultipager.com. According to an archive of the 
site, ICQ MultiPager enabled users to broadcast ads to users of AOL's ICQ 
chat service.
*****************************
New York Times
Secret Military Spy Planes Enlisted in Hunt for Sniper
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15  The Pentagon agreed today to patrol the skies over the 
nation's capital with secret surveillance planes  now used to combat drug 
lords in Colombia and track military movements in North Korea  as part of a 
broadening effort to catch the sniper in the Washington area.

Responding to a request from the F.B.I, Defense Secretary Donald H. 
Rumsfeld agreed to deploy a handful of the aircraft, known as RC-7 Airborne 
Reconnaissance Low planes. The planes are equipped with special sensors and 
detection capabilities and appear similar to commuter airplanes to avoid 
easy detection. Although details of the deployment were shrouded in 
secrecy, federal authorities plan to use the planes for surveillance to 
help pinpoint and respond to sniper attacks, officials said. The planes are 
equipped with high-resolution sensors, whose data can be analyzed on board 
and shared with agents on the ground.

The intensified efforts reflect a growing frustration among law enforcement 
personnel over the sniper's ability to elude detection  despite the 
multipronged investigation and the wide dragnet that was cast in suburban 
Washington after Monday night's shooting.

The number of law enforcement personnel working on the manhunt grew to more 
than 1,000 today, with at least 14 different federal, state and local 
agencies in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia involved in the 
investigation, officials said. Even the C.I.A. has begun lending 
assistance, using its explosives-sniffing canine units for traffic stops.

The investigation "is extraordinary in terms of the diversity of federal 
involvement," said a Justice Department official who spoke only on the 
condition of not being identified. "The urgency we're seeing grows out of 
the fact that every day that passes without catching this guy, another 
innocent person may be murdered," the official said. "Everyone shares a 
high level of frustration over that fact."

Indeed, the two-week-old sniper investigation became more personal for the 
F.B.I. on Monday when the bureau lost one of its own. The victim, gunned 
down in the parking garage at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va., was Linda 
Franklin, a 47-year-old intelligence analyst at the bureau's headquarters 
in Washington. She became the ninth victim to be killed by a sniper in the 
area in the last two weeks.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, who has kept a low profile in 
the sniper investigation and has allowed the Montgomery County police 
chief, Charles Moose, to take the lead, said the bureau was "deeply shocked 
and angry" over Ms. Franklin's murder. He vowed to "track down the person 
responsible for these coldblooded killings."

The deployment of the Army's Airborne Reconnaissance Low planes is the 
latest and perhaps most dramatic tactic in the sniper investigation. 
Military and Justice Department officials wrestled for much of the day 
today with the question of how and whether the Pentagon could aid in the 
sniper investigation without violating an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus 
Act, which restricts military personnel from taking part in domestic law 
enforcement operations. Lawyers ultimately decided that the military could 
offer equipment in the manhunt without violating the law.

"Every step in this process is taken so that we remain within the limits of 
all laws including Posse Comitatus," said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon 
spokesman.
While senior Pentagon officials considered a range of aircraft, including 
unmanned drones like the Predators used in Afghanistan and Navy P-3 Orion 
surveillance planes, military officials settled on the unusual Army plane 
because of its technical capabilities and because it blends in with 
civilian aircraft flying in the Washington airspace.

The aircraft is a four-engine turbo-prop DeHavilland DHC-7 equipped with an 
array of special sensors that can provide high-resolution imagery as well 
as other detection capabilities.

The military operates only a handful of the all-weather, specialized 
planes, with some based at Fort Bliss, Tex., to support counterdrug 
operations in Latin America, and a few others in South Korea to monitor 
activity in and around the demilitarized zone with the North.
Under a plan worked out today between military and Justice Department 
officials, an F.B.I. agent aboard the plane would direct the surveillance 
mission and coordinate with law enforcement officials on the ground.
"We're just providing the equipment and the operators," a senior military 
official said.

As part of their expanded role in the investigation, the F.B.I. and the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have committed a total of nearly 
800 employees to the investigation, aiding with ballistics testing, 
forensic analysis, psychological profiling and other areas in which they 
have special expertise.

The F.B.I. has begun sending agents from field offices along the East Coast 
to aid in the investigation, and the A.T.F. has been adding personnel as 
well, as the shootings have continued, officials said.

"We are bringing in agents like you wouldn't believe," said Larry Scott, an 
A.T.F. special agent based at the joint command post in Montgomery County 
in suburban Washington.

Some Congressional officials have suggested that because the shootings have 
spread to a widening area that includes two states, five counties and the 
District of Colombia, the F.B.I. should consider taking the lead. But 
bureau officials have resisted that idea, saying that the Montgomery County 
police have done an admirable job and that the bureau is comfortable with 
its support role.

The bureau's position is part practical and part political. On the 
practical side, having the local authorities lead the investigation could 
make it easier to seek the death penalty against the sniper by bringing the 
case in state court if and when he is apprehended, officials said.

Both Virginia and Maryland have the death penalty, although Maryland 
declared a temporary moratorium this year. Federal law allows for capital 
punishment in certain circumstances, like murder of a federal agent or 
employee in the line of duty, but it probably would not apply in the case 
of Ms. Franklin or the other sniper attacks, officials said.

From a political standpoint, the F.B.I. is also wary of taking over the 
case because of the tensions that could create with the local police, 
officials acknowledged.

The bureau has developed a reputation over the years for bullying local 
police departments and other agencies, and William Baker, a former senior 
official at the bureau, said, "It's wise at this point for the F.B.I. to 
play a supportive role," adding, "They can be just as effective, and they 
won't risk harming their relations with the local police." He went on to 
say that "if it looks like this could be a terrorist attack, then and only 
then would I say that should be reconsidered."

The authorities are not treating the shootings as terrorist attacks because 
they say they have no evidence to suggest an organized, politically 
motivated operation.

Tom Ridge, head of the White House Office of Homeland Security, said today 
that while the families of the victims and many residents in the Washington 
area no doubt felt terrorized, it "remains to be seen" whether the attacks 
will fall under the standard definition of terrorism.

"I don't think we can foreclose that," he said.
****************************
Associated Press
Bush Opposes Gun 'Fingerprinting'
Tue Oct 15, 9:08 PM ET
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites) does not support the 
recent days' push for firearms "fingerprinting" that has grown from the 
Washington-area sniper shootings, a spokesman said Tuesday, saying Bush is 
unconvinced of the technology's accuracy and is concerned about gun owners' 
privacy.

Besides, added White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web 
sites), when it comes to new gun controls generally, "how many laws can we 
really have to stop crime, if people are determined in their heart to 
violate them no matter how many there are or what they say?"


But White House officials sensitive to Bush's image amid the local sniper 
crisis later called a meeting with officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms and asked them to study technological and feasibility 
issues that would be involved in a national fingerprinting system, as well 
as the experiences of the only two states  New York and Maryland  that 
currently require such ballistics data to be kept on handguns sold in those 
states.


A sniper has struck in the Washington area 11 times in the past 13 days, 
killing nine people and seriously wounding two others at random. The rifle 
attacks have revived interest in a national system of "fingerprinting" for 
guns  requiring gun makers to file into a law-enforcement database the 
distinct markings that each gun leaves on a test-fired shell casing. Police 
could then possibly use the recorded etchings to trace crime-scene slugs to 
the weapon that fired them.


"Ballistic fingerprinting increases the chance of you getting a lead that 
can take you one step closer," said Eric Gorovitz, who tracks gun laws for 
the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.


Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Rep. Robert Andrews (news, bio, voting record), 
D-N.J., are among those in Congress trying to pass legislation to create a 
national system. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights 
lobbyists oppose such a system, fearing it is one step down a path to a 
national database of gun owners.


Bush, too, is resistant as long as he has questions, Fleischer said.


"There are some issues that are raised with this that deal with the 
accuracy of the ballistic fingerprinting that need to be explored and 
reviewed before any final determination can be made," Fleischer said in 
response to three days of questions from reporters.


Federal and state law officers investigating the Washington-area sniper 
killings have used such markings to confirm the linkage among the 11 
shootings.


Bush also has concerns about privacy and liberty questions surrounding a 
national database, which Fleischer likened to the prospect of 
fingerprinting every American.



"There is an issue about fingerprints of course as a very effective way to 
catch people who are engaged in robbery or theft," Fleischer said. "Is that 
to say that every citizen in the United States should be fingerprinted in 
order to catch robbers and thieves? And these same issues are raised here. 
The president does believe in the right of law-abiding citizens to own 
weapons."

Maryland state Sen. Christopher Van Hollen, who pressed for passage the 
Maryland law and now is a Democratic candidate for Congress, countered that 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms itself testifies to the 
technology's usefulness. He blamed Bush's resistance on an alliance with 
the NRA.

A July 2001 report by ATF found that even the limited computerized 
ballistic fingerprints currently available to federal law enforcement 
officials had produced during the preceding 15 months 8,800 matches linking 
17,600 crime scenes.

Gary Mehalik, a spokesman for the Newtown, Conn.-based National Shooting 
Sports Foundation, elaborated on the gun lobby's accuracy concerns that 
Bush evidently shares.

"Fingerprints and DNA don't change, but the interaction of firing a 
cartridge under terrific pressure with high temperatures and forcing one 
piece of metal through another changes the metal with each pull of the 
trigger," said Mehalik. "Every time you fire a gun you change the barrel."

Gorovitz said such changes are inconsequential, and the value of ballistic 
imagery has been proved repeatedly in trials.

As for the assailant terrorizing Washington and its suburbs, the 
president's spokesman said: "In the case of the sniper, the real issue is 
values. These are the acts of a depraved killer who has broken and will 
continue to break laws and so the question is not new laws."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said he is open to having the Senate 
look at a national fingerprinting system. "I don't think there's any 
question that it's important for us to review all of those laws and find 
ways to ensure that law enforcement has every tool available to them," said 
Daschle, D-S.D.
***************************
USA Today
High-tech tools get push by sniper case
By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY

Police agencies hunting the Washington-area sniper have seen the future, 
and it is technology.

Investigators are analyzing images from video cameras mounted at gas 
stations and shopping centers where shootings have occurred. A federal 
computer database has quickly established that slugs recovered from several 
crime scenes were fired by the same rifle. Crime mapping and psychology are 
profiling where a suspect may live and what personal demons are driving him.

The Washington area is the home of the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms and respected state crime labs in Virginia and Maryland.

"It is the hub of forensics," says Susan Narveson, director of the Phoenix, 
Ariz., police crime lab and president of the American Society of Crime Lab 
Directors. "They have available the very best there is in investigative 
technology."

But the available methods haven't caught the sniper yet. And that, 
criminologists say, points up the need to step up development of scientific 
tools to combat future menaces to public safety.

"This case is going to cause a big push for research and for implementation 
of new technologies," says Cecil Greek, an associate professor of 
criminology at Florida State University. "The public is saying that we 
really have to stop this type of crime and therefore that we should use 
every technology at our disposal, even those that have been considered 
somewhat invasive, such as surveillance."

Video cameras could play a bigger role in spotting the sniper, depending on 
where he goes. Since the early 1990s, more than 2 million surveillance 
cameras have been installed at ATMs and convenience stores, and at traffic 
signals and on high-crime streets in more than 100 cities. If the sniper 
shoots in downtown Washington, he's likely to be seen by police monitoring 
hundreds of government cameras aimed at streets, subways and federal 
buildings. Downtown Baltimore has 64 cameras that have cut street crime up 
to 15%, according to the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, a business group.

Other tools being shaped for the future don't quite have the sci-fi sweep 
of "Minority Report," the recent movie in which Tom Cruise plays a 
Washington detective in the year 2054 who solves murders before they 
happen. But concepts are promising. Measures include:

Spy satellites in space. The FBI can request high-resolution photos from 
the Pentagon's National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Neither agency will say 
whether they've used satellites to try to pinpoint the sniper's van. Police 
in many localities buy photos from the commercial IKONOS satellite to map a 
shooter's line of sight. One drawback: Satellites can't read a license 
plate. "You could use aerial drones, unpiloted vehicles like Global Hawk, 
with high-resolution cameras," NASA spokesman David Steitz says. The 
Pentagon has agreed to use its surveillance aircraft to help solve the 
sniper case.
More sophisticated methods of identifying a suspect from the DNA of blood, 
sweat, tears, saliva, hairs and teeth. "Advances in DNA analysis are the 
most dramatic," Narveson says." We can look at smaller, more degraded DNA 
fragments." Future mobile crime labs may include a portable device that can 
collect DNA and quickly link it with a convicted offender whose 
characteristics are stored in a database.
Scanners. Those in development could use chemistry, lasers or infrared 
energy to establish the composition of a hard-to-identify bit of evidence 
without destroying it, as frequently happens now.
Countersniper systems. These systems, sold to the military by various U.S. 
and European companies, try to detect a sniper by picking up muzzle flash, 
blast or a bullet's shock wave with infrared or sound sensors. Infrared 
sensors also try to estimate a bullet's trajectory by its heat signature 
and backtrack to the sniper's location. Tests have produced mixed results.
Devices using radar, X-rays and other methods to spot a suspect or a weapon 
behind a building's walls. The Justice Department is funding several of 
these projects. One government lab is working on a system that would 
electronically "tag" a person carrying a weapon in a crowd.
Controversial "brain fingerprinting." Police show a suspect a crime-scene 
photo while he's hooked up to scalp sensors that allegedly can tell whether 
he's seen the place before.
Better communication among law enforcement agencies is "less glamorous, but 
absolutely paramount" in terror incidents, says Richard Chace, spokesman 
for the Security Industry Association. Different agencies use a host of 
radio frequencies. If a street cop could send a pager or cell phone message 
that everyone could read at once, many agencies could converge on a crime 
location, he says.

Technology is no panacea, at least not now, he says. He believes that the 
sniper case "is going to be broken by dumb luck  the person slipping up, or 
eyewitnesses."
******************************
Government Computer News
Sniper victim was on FBI's cybercrime team
By Wilson P. Dizard III

FBI employees today reacted with shock and grief to the sniper murder of 
their colleague Linda Franklin, 47, an analyst in the Cyber Division.

"Everyone is stunned," said an FBI systems specialist, speaking on 
condition of anonymity. "How could they not be?" The source said Franklin 
had been with the bureau since 1998.

The sniper shot Franklin at a Home Depot store in the Seven Corners area of 
Northern Virginia. She was the ninth victim killed in the sniping spree.

The bureau's Cyber Division investigates computer hacking, fraud and 
destruction of information.
****************************
Federal Computer Week
NIST drafts security buying guides
BY Diane Frank
Oct. 11, 2002

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Computer Security 
Division has released three new draft guides for agencies on buying 
security technologies and services.

The three draft guides, released Oct. 9, approach security acquisition from 
different directions. All of them are necessary to ensure security when 
implementing an information technology network or solution. The guides are 
available on NIST's Computer Security Resource Center site 
(http://csrc.nist.gov). Comments are due back by Nov. 11.

The first, "Special Publication 800-36: Guide to Selecting IT Security 
Products," looks at hardware and software specifically for security needs, 
such as identification and authentication, intrusion detection, virus and 
malicious code protection, and forensics.

The draft doesn't just focus on the specifications of the products, it also 
recommends how managers should take into account the user community, the 
agency's mission, the ease of use, and the ability to get upgrades in the 
future as part of the acquisition decision.

The guide also outlines the responsibilities of officials throughout an 
organization in choosing a security product for a network. That includes 
not just the security manager and chief information officer, but also the 
program manager, the contracting officer and the agency's IT investment 
review board.

Comments can be sent to sp800-36@xxxxxxxxx

The second draft, "Special Publication 800-35: Guide to IT Security 
Services," focuses on evaluating and procuring the many security services 
now available. These range from helping to develop a security policy to 
outsourcing the management of an agency's firewall or intrusion detection 
system.

This guide outlines all of the security services now available, and also 
the different
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
IT has stake in EPA homeland plan
BY Megan Lisagor
Oct. 11, 2002

Information technology has a stake in the Environmental Protection Agency's 
new Strategic Plan for Homeland Security.

The security road map, unveiled Oct. 2, identifies four main areas that 
include communication and information. The following IT-related goals fall 
under that category, according to EPA chief information officer Kim Nelson:

* The EPA will use reliable information from internal and external sources 
to ensure informed decision-making and appropriate response.

* The EPA will effectively disseminate timely, quality environmental 
information to all levels of government, industry and the public, allowing 
them to make informed decisions about human health and the environment.

* The EPA will exchange information with the national security community to 
prevent, detect and respond to terrorist threats or attacks.

* The EPA will continuously and reliably communicate with employees and 
managers.

The plan "we are releasing today is designed to ensure that this agency is 
doing what it should to meet its responsibilities as part of [the homeland 
security] effort," EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said in announcing 
the strategy.

Agency officials hope to tie those responsibilities to the agency's core 
mission of protecting human health and safeguarding the environment.

Meanwhile, the EPA intends to award a contract on a sole-source basis to 
the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council to review its 
homeland security program and make recommendations, according to an Oct. 1 
presolicitation notice on FedBizOpps (www.fedbizopps.gov).
 **************************
Federal Computer Week
Career Channels Federal Computer Week
Oct. 15, 2002

Series/Grade: GS-854-7
Position Title: Computer Engineer, Sierra Vista, AZ (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-406LS
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DISA, 701 S. Courthouse Road, Arlington, VA 
22204; Janet Fadden 703-607-4425

Series/Grade: GS-1550-7
Position Title: Computer Scientist, Sierra Vista, AZ (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-406LS
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DISA, 701 S. Courthouse Road, Arlington, VA 
22204; Janet Fadden 703-607-4425

Series/Grade: GS-335-6/7
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Arcata, CA (NS) (Request vacancy; must 
address ranking factors)
Announcement #: PSW-TERM-728-02
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, Forest Svc, Pers Management, 800 
Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710; Patricia Steverson 510-559-6353

Series/Grade: GS-2210-13
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Sacramento, CA (S) 
(Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: W.NWS.W.030009.M13.MJB
Closing Date: Oct. 31, 2002
Contact: Department of Commerce, NOAA, HR Div WC2, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, 
Seattle, WA 98115-6349; Marion Bobsin 206-526-6201

Series/Grade: GS-2210-14
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Denver, CO (S) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-395CG
Closing Date: Oct. 22, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DISA, Civ Pers Div, 701 S. Courthouse Road, 
Arlington, VA 22204-2199; Carolyn Graves 703-607-4458

Series/Grade: GS-1530-9/12
Position Title: Agricultural Statistician, Washington, D.C. (S) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: NASS-M3M-3425
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, ARS, HRD MSB, MS 0308, 1400 
Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-0308; Carolyn Violett 
202-720-6539

Series/Grade: GS-2210-13
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Washington, D.C. (NS) 
(Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-EOUSA-71
Closing Date: Oct. 23, 2002
Contact: Department of Justice, Attorneys Office, 600 E St. NW, Bicn Bldg 
Room 8017, Washington, D.C. 20530; Michelle J. Martin 202-616-6812

Series/Grade: GS-2210-9
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Washington, D.C. (S) 
(Request vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 03-0033
Closing Date: Oct. 24, 2002
Contact: Department of State, HR/CSP/S, 2401 E St. NW, Room H-1104 SA-1, 
Washington, D.C. 20522-0108; 202-663-2176

Series/Grade: GS-1530-7/12
Position Title: Statistician, Chicago, IL (S) (Request vacancy; must 
address ranking factors)
Announcement #: CH-02-129-BLS-B
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Labor, 230 S. Dearborn St., Room 1026, Chicago IL 
60604; 312-886-5379

Series/Grade: GS-2210-7/11
Position Title: Information Technology Specialist, Hines, IL (S) (Request 
vacancy; must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 03-05H
Closing Date: Oct. 21, 2002
Contact: Department of Veterans Affairs, GLHRMS (05S), Box 5000, Hines IL 
60141-5005; 708-202-8387 X21653

Series/Grade: GS-335-5
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Fort Riley, KS (S) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: SWEM02142023
Closing Date: Oct. 24, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, SW Staff Div, Bldg 301 Marshall Ave., Fort 
Riley KS 66442; 785-239-6004

Series/Grade: GS-1530-7/13
Position Title: Health Statistician, Bethesda, MD (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: CPSC-002-03
Closing Date: Nov. 05, 2002
Contact: Consumer Product Safety Comm, 4330 E. West Hwy, Room 523, 
Bethesda, MD 20814; L Ghebresillassie 301-504-0100

Series/Grade: GS-335-7
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Gulfport, MS (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: AFRH-G 02-124 RKP
Closing Date: Oct. 23, 2002
Contact: Soldiers/Airmen Homes, Pers Div, Box 29237, Washington, D.C. 
20017; 202-730-3207

Series/Grade: GS-1550-15
Position Title: Computer Scientist, Falls Church, VA (S) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: 02-405ST
Closing Date: Oct. 22, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, DISA, Pers Div, Attn 02-405ST, 701 S. 
Courthouse Road, Arlington, VA 22204-2199; Shannon Teates 703-607-4404

Series/Grade: GS-1550-15
Position Title: Director, Dahlgren, VA (NS) (Request vacancy; must address 
ranking factors)
Announcement #: CAPNWD02-XXXX-625-DE
Closing Date: Nov. 8, 2002
Contact: Department of Navy, Go to www.donhr.navy.mil, Silverdale, WA 
98383; 888-763-8143

Series/Grade: GS-335-5
Position Title: Computer Assistant, Colville, WA (NS) (Request vacancy; 
must address ranking factors)
Announcement #: COLTEMP-003-03T
Closing Date: Oct. 22, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, -COLVILLE NF, 765 S. Main, Colville, WA 
99114; Susan Solberg 509-684-7162
****************************
USA Today
Human, technological limitations threaten INS tracking
By Sergio Bustos, Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON  A sweeping border security bill that President Bush signed into 
law earlier this year assigned the Immigration and Naturalization Service 
an ambitious task: Track the arrival and departure of every foreign visitor 
in the country.

To screen more than 331 million foreigners annually, the INS is counting on 
a sophisticated network of computer and database systems. But the effort is 
not off to a promising start.

College and university officials complain that the INS has yet to train 
them to use a new system for tracking more than 500,000 foreign students. 
The system is supposed to be up and running at thousands of schools in less 
than three months.

The INS also has yet to install scanners at the U.S.-Mexico border to read 
new high-tech border-crossing cards  or "laser visas"  issued to millions 
of Mexican nationals. The scanners were supposed to be installed Oct. 1.

At a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing last week, two of the harshest 
critics of the INS did not hide their frustration.

"The agency is still using paper files, archaic computer systems, often 
nonfunctioning," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. She said the INS is 
still "in the technical dark ages."

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., charged that the agency is moving too slowly in 
putting the tools in place to track foreigners.

"Protecting our nation's borders from terrorist infiltration is a serious 
enterprise and it should be treated as a top priority," he said.

Kyl and Feinstein were key sponsors of the Enhanced Border Security and 
Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, which received unanimous support from the 
House and Senate. President Bush signed it into law in May.

The law requires the INS to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors 
and share information among several agencies. It also requires the agency 
to clamp down on foreigners who enter the country on student visas but fail 
to enroll in colleges or universities.

In recent weeks, INS officials, testifying before Congress, said they will 
meet deadlines and requirements under the new law.

Michael Cronin, INS assistant commissioner for inspections, told Congress 
last week that the INS has "redoubled" its efforts since last year's 
terrorist attacks to share its data with federal law enforcement agencies. 
He said more than 3,100 criminals have been apprehended in the last year as 
a result of the agency sharing information with the FBI.

He also said the INS has taken the first steps in developing a system for 
tracking foreign visitors and will meet its January deadline for building 
an Internet system to keep tabs on foreign students at all schools.

But David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, which 
represents 2,000 colleges and universities, said the INS has no "meaningful 
plan" for training college and university workers on using the new system. 
For years, schools submitted such records on paper to the INS.

"We are afraid that this is a public policy version of musical chairs," 
Ward told Congress last month. "And when the music stops and the compliance 
date arrives, colleges, universities and exchange visitor programs will all 
be left without a seat."

Janis Sposato, a top INS official responsible for overseeing the foreign 
student tracking system, told lawmakers recently that she was confident the 
system will work.

"I can never say a system won't have glitches, but the system's been up now 
since July," she said. "So we're pretty confident about the way the system 
will work."

That's not the case at the U.S.-Mexico border, where the INS is behind 
schedule in installing scanners to read the new border-crossing cards 
issued to more than 5.6 million Mexicans. The cards allow qualified 
Mexicans to enter the United States on trips of up to 72 hours at a time. 
Most use it to visit family or shop.

Embedded on the cards is biometric information  unique biological 
measurements relating to each cardholder  as well as the cardholder's 
fingerprints and photograph.

The INS was to start testing the new scanners this week at six sites around 
the country, according to INS spokesman Bill Strassberger. He said the test 
sites are at airports in Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Atlanta, and at 
border checkpoints in San Ysidro, Calif., and Nogales, Ariz., and at Falcon 
Dam in southern Texas.

Under the border security law, the INS was supposed to have the scanners in 
place by Oct. 1 at every point of entry along the border.

Arizona's Sen. Kyl said the failure to have scanners installed at all 
Southwest border checkpoints "raises serious questions" about the ability 
of the INS to guard the nation's borders.

"There is no excuse for a failure to comply with federal requirements that 
are designed to keep the American people safe," he said.
******************************
USA Today
In the Net age, governments question open records policies

CINCINNATI (AP)  Jim Moehring knows firsthand the pros and cons of making 
public court records available online.


A general manager at the city's hockey arena, Moehring has used the 
Hamilton County court's Web site to check out potential hires. He's even 
turned away a few because of what he found.

But someone used the site to pull Moehring's Social Security number and 
other details from a 1996 traffic ticket, opening seven credit cards in his 
name and charging $11,000.

"It was absolutely terrifying," Moehring said. "I got smoked in a bad way. 
The information is way too accessible."

That information is no different from what is found in public documents 
filed away, largely gathering dust, in courthouses around the country.

Before the Internet, though, public records were essentially private 
because of their obscurity. Now governments are examining what information 
should be made public, or whether different rules should apply to 
electronic documents.

Since the late 1990s, courts have posted various records online to manage 
cases more efficiently and provide easier access. But complaints soon 
followed.

Crime victims, jurors and witnesses fear assailants can easily identify and 
find them. Others worry about identity theft. Reformed criminals want their 
pasts hidden, not publicized. Divorcees grumble that their neighbors now 
know their business.

Though officials knew records would be made more available, "there was an 
underestimation of the impact that was going to have on the individuals 
whose documents now were online," said John Bessey, a Franklin County judge 
and chairman of the Ohio Supreme Court's technology committee.

Later this month, a coalition that includes the National Center for State 
Courts in Williamsburg, Va., is to recommend guidelines for states drafting 
online policies.

The federal court system decided last year that documents in civil and 
bankruptcy cases  but not criminal cases  should be available 
electronically without personal information, such as Social Security 
numbers, birth dates and names of minors.

The Florida Supreme Court, meanwhile, is considering a moratorium on online 
court records while lawmakers review a 2000 Florida law that requires 
courts to post by 2006 scanned images of all official records, including 
property documents and birth certificates.

Beth Allman, a spokeswoman with the Florida Association of Court Clerks and 
Comptroller, said some of the 30 courts already posting the images also 
made civil and criminal case files available online.

"The lawmakers then said 'Wait, is this what we really meant?' " Allman said.

Other states, including Ohio, New York, Arizona and Wisconsin, have task 
forces studying the issue.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of 
the Press, said any public information that is kept in a file cabinet 
should be available online.

That's why states may have to consider revamping open records laws now that 
court records have become "digital dossiers" of people's lives, said Chris 
Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information 
Center in Washington, D.C.

"The answer isn't simply turn off the Web sites," Hoofnagle said. "The 
answer is to determine exactly what should be appearing in public records 
no matter how they are kept, paper or electronic."

Some fear lawmakers might use the Internet as an excuse to deny the public 
access to information offline.

"I'm deeply suspicious of anyone tinkering with open records laws because 
they're usually doing it for a specific, self-serving reason," said Timothy 
Smith, director for the Ohio Center for Privacy and The First Amendment at 
Kent State University.

The better solution, he said, would be to limit the amount of personal 
information that many public documents require.

So far, the only bills introduced in state legislatures concern blacking 
out certain information, such as Social Security and credit card numbers, 
before posting documents online, according to the National Conference of 
State Legislatures.

Jim Cissell, clerk of the Hamilton County court, said he was following 
Ohio's open records law when he started posting records online in 1999. The 
site is considered among the most comprehensive in the nation.

Critics say he opened the door too widely, providing a gold mine for nosy 
neighbors and potential predators.

Cincinnati divorce attorney Randal Bloch often hears complaints from her 
female clients. Most are concerned, she said, that criminals may surf the 
Web for names and ages of children, addresses and the layouts of their homes.

She now asks judges to issue orders prohibiting her clients' cases from 
being posted on the Internet.

"People don't have good intentions, and the county is laying a road map for 
them," Bloch said. "It goes beyond stolen identity. It speaks to personal 
safety."
****************************

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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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 412
Date: October 18, 2002

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Top Stories for Friday, October 18, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Tech Will Be Back, Past Slumps Suggest, as Innovators Revive It"
"Town Hall Meeting on Cybersecurity"
"Senate Approves Almost $1B for Cybersecurity Research"
"Living In an Artificial World"
"A Chip of Rubber, With Tiny Rivers Running Through It"
"XML Spec Moves Ahead Despite Complaints"
"Study Reveals Nanoscale Structure in Amorphous Material"
"EU Debates Skills Shortage"
"Chemists Brew Tiny Wires"
"Lucent, Rogers Look for Nano for Innovation"
"Laptops and Mobile Users: Everything Old is New Again"
"MIT: Smart Tech Ideas Mean Biz"
"Claude E. Shannon: Founder of Information Theory"
"Clubs Foster Computer Skills for Young Girls"
"Privacy Algorithms"
"Wired For Success"
"Maintaining the Internet"
"Scaling Agile Methods"
"The Great Liberator"

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

"Tech Will Be Back, Past Slumps Suggest, as Innovators Revive It"
The technology industry is likely to reinvigorate itself, even if
it takes some time, and if history proves to be an accurate
guide.  Since the introduction of the first personal computer in
1975, the technology industry has experienced several periods of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item1

"Town Hall Meeting on Cybersecurity"
The White House is soliciting feedback to its National Plan to
Secure Cyberspace by holding a series of town hall-style
conferences across the nation.  One of them recently took place
at MIT, where presidential cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item2

"Senate Approves Almost $1B for Cybersecurity Research"
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved the Cyber
Security Research and Development Act, which authorizes a
five-year cybersecurity research budget of approximately $978
million.  The bill would apportion funding to initiatives ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item3

"Living In an Artificial World"
The chief subject at the annual PopTech conference is
technology's effects on society and culture, as well as the
reverse, notes conference co-founder Anthony Citrano.  Roughly
400 CEOs, academic figures, entrepreneurs, and innovators will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item4

"A Chip of Rubber, With Tiny Rivers Running Through It"
The emerging technology of microfluidics involves circuits that
feature rubberized channels instead of silicon pathways along
which pressurized fluids, rather than electrons, flow; Dr.
Stephen R. Quake of the California Institute of Technology ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item5

"XML Spec Moves Ahead Despite Complaints"
XML version 1.1 was approved by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) this week despite accusations from critics that IBM has
unfairly influenced the new XML specification to fit its own
purposes, adding backward-compatibility for an IBM-specific ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item6

"Study Reveals Nanoscale Structure in Amorphous Material"
Experiments indicating that the structure of amorphous materials
may not be as disordered as previously thought, especially at the
nanoscale level, could pave the way for new engineered materials
with diverse industrial applications, according to University of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item7

"EU Debates Skills Shortage"
Ministers, academics, IT sector representatives, and public
sector organizations have gathered for a two-day eSkills summit
this week to address a IT skills shortage among European Union
member states and the threat it represents to their position in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item8

"Chemists Brew Tiny Wires"
Self-assembling electronic components, or nanoelectronics, will
supposedly revolutionize the industry by offering a cheap way to
manufacture devices in mass quantities, but unfortunately,
self-organizing materials are not very conductive.  However, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item9

"Lucent, Rogers Look for Nano for Innovation"
Lucent's nanotechnology research at its Bell Labs facilities will
likely be spared from funding cuts, says Nanotechnology Research
Director John A. Rogers, because the group is already applying
ground-breaking research to Lucent products.  He adds that much ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item10

"Laptops and Mobile Users: Everything Old Is New Again"
Laptops may be bulkier and less power-efficient than PDAs, which
continue to become more popular and sophisticated, yet they
remain the most oft-used tool of mobile users.  The size of
laptop displays, for example, is optimal for tasks that require a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item11

"MIT: Smart Tech Ideas Mean Biz"
This week marks the launch of MIT's new Deshpande Center for
Technological Innovation, which is designed to address what MIT
professor Charles Cooney describes as "a gap between early-stage
ideas and a point at which small companies and venture ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item12

"Claude E. Shannon: Founder of Information Theory"
As today's computer scientists pioneer quantum computing, the
landmark digital computing work of Claude E. Shannon still
lingers.  Shannon was the first, in 1948, to describe information
passed over a variety of channels in mathematical terms, either ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item13

"Clubs Foster Computer Skills for Young Girls"
Former lawyer Eileen Ellsworth decided to create a program to
teach computer skills to middle-school girls after seeing
national statistics on female students' lack of interest in
technology.  Also contributing to her decision was the fact that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item14

"Privacy Algorithms"
Government control over the exploitation of personal information
by business is a source of controversy, but a group of computer
scientists has been trying to solve the problem of data privacy
by developing software that maintains the secrecy of personal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item15

"Wired For Success"
The problem of maintaining the performance of computer chips as
they shrink is one reason why scientists are investigating
smaller-scale solutions such as carbon nanotubes, but
difficulties in controlling their composition to yield precise ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item16

"Maintaining the Internet"
When WorldCom's UUNet backbone experienced system software
problems on Oct. 2, the effects on the Internet were widespread.
Critics link the problems to poor network maintenance and the
incident has intensified concerns that the federal government is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item17

"Scaling Agile Methods"
SMGlobal President Sanjay Murthi writes that he finds agile
development methods to be very useful; he discovered that
employing eXtreme programming (XP) in a large project encouraged
more enthusiasm among staff and resulted in early problem ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item18

"The Great Liberator"
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig has become a
leading figure of cyberlaw and the Internet copyright debate,
thanks to his groundbreaking work through such books as "The
Future of Ideas" and the Creative Commons project.  He ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1018f.html#item19


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