Clips October 11, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 11, 2002

ARTICLES

ID-theft ring broken
Taiwan rejects U.S. copyright demands
Hollywood chases down campus pirates
Nigeria Vote: Peace Through Tech?
Lions Gate Puts Kazaa Net to Use [P2P]
DOD grant funds cyberterror research
Spam indigestion worsens
Political parties: In Web we trust
Microsoft warns of 'critical' flaw in Outlook Express
Asia Bests U.S. in Broadband Race
China Bars Minors from Web Cafes
MIT offers all its courses free online

**********************************
Rocky Mountain News
ID-theft ring broken
14 charged in largest bust of its kind in Colorado history

By Michael Bedan, Rocky Mountain News
October 10, 2002

An eight-month investigation led to the largest bust of an identity-theft 
ring in state history, Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter said Wednesday.

An Oct. 2 grand jury indictment charged 14 people with 54 criminal counts, 
including racketeering. Eight people have been arrested, including Edward 
Ivan Carr, who investigators say helped lead the operation.

"He's one of the principal players, if not the lead player, in the 
indictment," said Mark Wilson of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

The investigation identified 48 suspects who are accused of negotiating at 
least 790 fraudulent checks. Ritter said the group stole more than $358,000.

"It's fair to say that it's as big as any ring," he said.

The group's methods ranged from sophisticated counterfeiting to scavenger 
hunts in dumpsters.

The "convenience checks" credit-card companies mail out provided easy 
access to credit accounts.

"People say, I don't want to use these, and they throw them away," Ritter 
said. "(The suspects) were dumpster-diving."

Another method included paying people for copies of company paychecks, 
which the group would then use to glean information and create counterfeit 
checks. A number of local businesses were victimized, but Wilson said he 
doesn't believe any high-ranking company officials were involved in the scam.

"What you have is an employee who may find a chance to make money by 
selling his check and giving the account information," Wilson said.

Carr is accused of using "computers and computer peripheral equipment to 
create counterfeit payroll checks," according to the indictment, and is 
also named as "the primary source of stolen credit-card convenience checks 
passed by himself and other members of the enterprise."

Identity theft is taking up more and more time and resources of the 
district attorney's economic crime unit. In 1998, only 5 percent of the 
unit's casework involved identity theft. That figure grew to 36 percent 
last year.

"What it takes for people to prevent this is to realize how vulnerable they 
become," Ritter said. "If you are not shredding documents, if you are 
having new checks mailed to your home or mailing bills in a mail slot 
rather than a post office mailbox. . . . Do all you can to keep people from 
accessing information about your checking account or credit-card account."
****************************
Mercury News
Taiwan rejects U.S. copyright demands

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan has turned down a U.S. demand on Friday to extend 
copyrights on works including earlier Walt Disney movies for another 20 
years as negotiators on both sides held talks on intellectual property rights.

Taiwan told a delegation led by Joseph Papovich, assistant U.S. trade 
representative, that it would not extend copyright protection to 70 years 
from 50 years, a Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs official said.

The U.S. Supreme Court considered on Wednesday whether Robert Frost poems 
and Mickey Mouse movies made more than 75 years ago should become public 
property or remain in the hands of their owners for another 20 years.

At issue is the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which 
extended the exclusive period that artists and corporations can control 
their creative works by 20 years.

As a result, thousands of well-known works, from the earliest Disney films 
to the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald, were prevented from passing into the 
public domain. Billions of dollars of entertainment-industry profits are at 
stake.

``Taiwan is the first country the United States chose to discuss the issue. 
We need not rush into concession,'' legislator Chen Chi-mei of the ruling 
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) told Reuters by telephone.

Negotiations continued over whether Taiwan should make copyright violation 
a public offence, Lu Wen-hsiang, deputy director of the Intellectual 
Property Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, told reporters 
during a break.

Outside the Board of Foreign Trade where the negotiation was held, dozens 
of college students protested against the U.S. demand, shouting ``Knowledge 
can't be monopolised.''

``Why should we be blamed for pursuing knowledge?'' a student protester 
said on television.

Legislator Chen said Washington has used Taiwan's desire to sign a free 
trade agreement (FTA) with the United States as a bargaining chip.

The Bush administration has not taken an official position on Taiwan's 
interest in negotiating a free trade zone but a senior administration 
official said in July Taipei ``has a lot of work to do'' before such an 
accord would be possible.

Intellectual property right protections and government procurement have 
been cited as areas on which Taipei must make progress.

Washington, Taiwan's main trading partner and arms supplier, has said the 
island's failure to protect intellectual property rights is causing 
hundreds of million dollars damage annually to U.S. recorded music, 
software and motion picture industries.

Taiwan's intellectual property rights laws are largely in line with 
international standards, although the entertainment industry has criticised 
enforcement efforts as pirated music and movies are easily available in the 
island's night markets.
****************************
CNET News.com
Hollywood chases down campus pirates
By John Borland
October 10, 2002, 1:23 PM PT

Trade groups for the movie and recording industries are putting new 
pressure on universities to crack down on file-swapping by students using 
high-speed campus networks.
In a letter sent to more than 2,000 university presidents, the Recording 
Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of 
America (MPAA) and other copyright owner trade groups told university 
officials that large numbers of students were using college resources to 
violate federal law.

"We are concerned that an increasing and significant number of students are 
using university networks to engage in online piracy of copyrighted 
creative works," the trade groups wrote in a letter sent to universities 
this week. "We believe there must be a substantial effort, both disciplined 
and continuous, to bring this piracy under control."

 Universities, many of which now offer high-speed Internet connections to 
students in dormitory rooms and computer labs, have been quietly at the 
center of file-sharing debates since the emergence of Napster in late 1999. 
Several were sued by rock band Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre in 2000 in an 
effort to force the institutions to cut off students' access to Napster.

College administrators have also been grappling with the issue for purely 
technological reasons, however. Almost as soon as Napster's existence 
became widely known on campuses, network administrators found that students 
were using huge swathes of campus bandwidth to download songs--and later 
even more bandwidth-intensive files such as movies and games.

The letter, which the trade groups asked college presidents to send to 
university legal, financial and technological executives, stops short of 
threatening any kind of legal action. Indeed, the trade groups have rarely 
targeted Internet service providers with legal action, aside from a recent 
case in which the RIAA is suing Verizon Communications for information to 
identify an alleged file-trading subscriber.

However, the copyright groups strongly pressed the universities to 
implement consistent policies prohibiting copyright infringement, to 
monitor students' compliance with the policies, and to impose "effective 
remedies" against students or staff who violated the policies.

Sharing or stealing?
"Students must know that if they pirate copyrighted works they are subject 
to legal liability," the trade groups wrote. "It is no different from 
walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out 
with a textbook without paying for it."

This time around, the movie and recording trade groups have weighty allies 
in their approach to the universities. In preparation for the new campaign, 
they recently met with a group of university presidents and education trade 
group officials to make their concerns known.

A coalition of six higher education trade groups is now sending its own 
letter to universities, asking them to take the copyright holders' concerns 
seriously, although it stops short of advocating specific policies.

"Given our responsibility as educators to help students make ethical and 
lawful choices, we encourage you to make efforts to educate students, 
faculty and staff about appropriate and inappropriate uses of (copyrighted) 
materials," the education trade groups' letter said. "While this is a 
vexing issue with no simple solutions, we hope you will join us in 
addressing the inappropriate use of campus facilities to disseminate 
(copyrighted) materials."

Groups signing the letter included the American Association of Community 
Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the 
American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, 
the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and the 
National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

Previously, many universities received cease-and-desist letters from the 
MPAA and smaller copyright holders warning them that students are violating 
copyrights. University responses have varied widely, with some implementing 
bandwidth management tools that block or restrict file swapping, and some 
taking a hands-off approach to students' online activities.
*****************************
Wired News
Nigeria Vote: Peace Through Tech?

Nigerian officials are investing $30 million in technology that they hope 
will allow the country to have a peaceful presidential election next April.

The upcoming election will be the first to be conducted by a civilian 
government in Nigeria's 42 years of statehood, and officials are 
particularly anxious to ensure that all goes well.

But United Nations observers report there is a "growing sense of dread 
among Nigerians as the polls draw nearer."

Nigerian officials realized they needed to modernize their system after a 
trial run of the voter registration process in late September. The trial 
run resulted in riots when people were told that local officials had run 
out of registration forms.

There were also reports of shootings, lootings and takeovers of government 
and business facilities. Local militants still occupy several oil pumping 
stations belonging to ChevronTexaco in a protest against what they claim 
are unfair voter registration procedures, according to Nigerian journalist 
Ghali Adesanya.

Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission hopes that 
fingerprint-scanning technology will help smooth the process.

INEC told U.N. representatives that problems during the trial run were 
caused by "widespread hoarding of forms by lower-level officials, possibly 
in collusion with other unscrupulous persons for purposes other than those 
for which they are meant."

An INEC spokesman also said there were many cases of people registering 
multiple times, and registration of those who are legally unable to vote, 
such as children. The government had printed 70 million forms for the 
country's estimated 60 million voters.

Registering to vote will now require each prospective voter to undergo a 
fingerprint scan, using technology from U.S. security firm BioLink.

The prints will be stored on a BioLink Authenteon server where each will be 
compared with all previously scanned prints to prevent individual voters 
from registering more than once and using multiple identities.

"Our solution was planned long before the riots erupted and INEC 
experienced the voter registration form shortages," BioLink CEO Gene 
Chayevsky said. "Our technology does not address the problem of collecting 
registration forms from all voters. We'll just prevent multiple 
registrations by (the) same individual under different names."

"We are confident that INEC is doing the best they can in collecting all 
the registrations and that our technology will ensure that there are no 
duplicate votes allowed," Chayevsky added.

The BioLink system is capable of processing over 2.4 million 
single-fingerprint matches per second and will make a total of more than 
4.7 trillion matches over the 40-day enrollment period.

After all voter applicants are enrolled, and all duplicate enrollment 
attempts are eliminated, each approved applicant will receive a voter's 
card. The cards, which will include a copy of the voter's thumbprint, will 
be optically scanned at the polls.

INEC plans to enroll Nigeria's entire voter population within a 40-day 
period, the dates of which have not yet been determined, in preparation for 
the April elections.
**************************
Los Angeles Times
Lions Gate Puts Kazaa Net to Use
Media: Other studios hate the file-sharing service; the independent 
distributes trailers on it.
By JON HEALEY
October 11 2002

To the world's largest entertainment companies, the controversial Kazaa 
file-sharing network is Public Enemy No. 1--a wildly popular source of 
free, downloadable music and movies.

But to Lions Gate Entertainment, an independent film studio based in Marina 
del Rey, Kazaa is the means to a more profitable end. Breaking ranks with 
mainstream Hollywood, the company is using Kazaa to promote its big fall 
film through the Internet--with the financial help of Microsoft Corp.

Kazaa's software connects tens of millions of users to one another's 
computers through the Internet, enabling them to easily find and copy 
digital songs, movies, games and other files. Major film and record 
companies call it the online equivalent of shoplifting, and they are 
seeking an injunction against Kazaa from a federal judge in Los Angeles.

Lions Gate faces the same piracy problem, with unauthorized copies of the 
film "Frailty," episodes of the TV program "The Dead Zone" and many of its 
other productions freely available on Kazaa. Nevertheless, it has been 
using the network to distribute up to 10,000 trailers each day for its 
forthcoming film "The Rules of Attraction," a satirical look at sex and 
drugs on an affluent college campus.

There's no direct relationship between Lions Gate and Kazaa. Instead, Kazaa 
users are being steered to the "Attraction" trailer by Altnet, a Los 
Angeles-based service that helps copyright holders deliver files securely 
over the Kazaa network.

Nor is Lions Gate paying Altnet for its services, said Tom DeLuca, Lions 
Gate's vice president of new media. The undisclosed tab is being picked up 
by Microsoft, which provided the software Lions Gate used to digitize the 
trailer.

"You can't ignore these networks," DeLuca said. "The audience for 'Rules of 
Attraction,' they're the ones on the peer-to-peer networks."

Altnet's pitch to entertainment companies is simple: It offers cheap 
distribution while deterring piracy. By relying on Kazaa users to transmit 
more than 90% of its files to other users, Altnet can distribute files 
virtually for free. And by wrapping those files in electronic locks, it can 
protect against piracy and give copyright owners a way to demand payment.

To Lions Gate, using Altnet is a form of counterattack. "We know that 
piracy is a problem, and this is our move to try to take control of the 
situation," DeLuca said.

Microsoft declined to comment about its dealings with Altnet, a subsidiary 
of Brilliant Digital Entertainment of Woodland Hills. Altnet also is partly 
owned by Joltid, a company owned by the developers of Kazaa's network.

The major studios and record companies have kept their distance from 
Altnet, in part because they don't want to complicate their lawsuit against 
the companies that created and maintain Kazaa. Kazaa's backers are trying 
to convince U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson that the network has a 
substantial legitimate use, which is a defense against contributory 
copyright infringement.

About 35 other companies have used Altnet to distribute independent label 
music, games, software programs, adult content and promotional material 
through Kazaa, said Kevin Bermeister, chief executive of Brilliant and Altnet.

Kazaa and Altnet collect a small fee each time one of these files is 
downloaded, and Altnet also makes money by placing files on the network and 
earning commissions when they are purchased.

About 150,000 secure music and video files are being delivered daily with 
Altnet's assistance, Bermeister said. Only 1.5% to 2% of the free downloads 
are being converted to purchases.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
DOD grant funds cyberterror research
BY Dan Caterinicchia
Oct. 10, 2002

The Defense Department recently awarded Carnegie Mellon University a 
five-year, $35.5 million grant to develop technologies and policies focused 
on combating cyberterrorism.

Pradeep Khosla, head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Electrical and 
Computer Engineering and director of the Center for Computer and 
Communications Security, said the research will focus on four key areas:

* The availability and security of the nation's information infrastructure.

* The availability and security of the communications infrastructure, 
including optical and wireless networks.

* Secure access to devices and physical spaces using biometric tools.

* The integration of policies and technologies, particularly privacy and 
confidentiality issues.

"We're going forward on all four at different levels of investment," Khosla 
said. "The one we're ramping up is the multimodal biometric authentication."

Because no single method is accurate enough, he said, research is being 
conducted on the use of fingerprints, thumbprints, facial- and retinal- 
recognition technology, and voice scans to confirm the identity of 
individuals attempting to access computers or physical locations.

"None by themselves offer high enough [levels of authentication], but by 
combining them all together, we can get really great accuracy," Khosla 
said, adding that the combined biometrics approach eventually could be used 
to allow only approved pilots access to the cockpits of aircraft.

Even before receiving the new financial backing, the Center for Computer 
and Communications Security, which is a multidisciplinary research program 
and collaborative effort between Carnegie Mellon's Department of Electrical 
and Computer Engineering and the CERT Coordination Center, was recruiting 
students to work on the cyberterrorism projects. Ten researchers already 
are involved and another 10 are expected to join as the projects ramp up, 
Khosla said.

The DOD grant was awarded Sept. 1, and the first-year funding is $3.6 
million, he said.
*************************
Government Computer News
Legislation introduced to make GISRA permanent

By William Jackson
GCN Staff

A bill under consideration by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee 
would prevent the lapse of the Government Information Security Reform Act 
at the end of the month.

GISRA, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2001, requires 
agencies to assess and report on the security of IT systems and to include 
security requirements in budget requests. The Office of Management and 
Budget reports to Congress on the state of the executive branch's IT security.

Under a sunset provision in the act, GISRA's provisions expire Nov. 29. S 
3067, introduced late Monday by ranking committee member Sen. Fred Thompson 
(R-Tenn.), would repeal the expiration and make the requirements permanent. 
It also would officially rename that portion of the authorization act the 
Government Information Security Reform Act.

Provisions to make GISRA permanent have been included in a number of other 
bills, including an e-government bill in the House and the Homeland 
Security bill. But that legislation may not pass before the 29th.

"We view this bill as a safety net," said committee staff member Michelle 
Semones. If other bills are not enacted in time, S 3067 could be quickly 
discharged from committee and acted upon.
***************************
Government Computer News
Information is as effective a weapon as a bomb, IT brass say

By Dawn S. Onley
GCN Staff

One of the best ways to strip an enemy force of battlefield control is to 
take away its command of information. The enemy won't know where U.S. 
forces are or when they will strike, a panel of senior military brass said 
yesterday at the MILCOM 2002 conference in Anaheim, Calif.

Defense Department agencies are working to develop command and control 
systems that can accomplish this goal, said Air Force Brig. Gen. William T. 
Lord, director of communications and information systems for the Air Combat 
Command.

"We in the Air Force sometimes get wrapped up in the kinetic piece. We 
think the investment is a $220 million" weapons system, Lord said. "But 
information operations can clearly shape the battlefield without requiring 
so much kinetic force."

Dawn Meyerriecks, chief technology officer at the Defense Information 
Systems Agency, said information operations are "as much a part of the 
fight as the folks dropping the weapons on targets. We're betting the farm 
on IT."

Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., director of DISA, led a panel 
discussion on the future of joint command and control operations within DOD.

"Suppose you could make the enemy think you are already there" when you 
aren't, Lord said. "This will provide us with a force-multiplying effect. 
If you've scrambled the enemy's ability to wage war, you've just reduced 
your [need to use force], without sending your kids off to strange places 
to fight strange folks."

U.S. forces rely on command and control systems more than ever, Defense 
officials said. Ten years ago, it was no big deal if a defense network went 
down. Today, Lord said, a network failure could have devastating consequences.

The next step, Raduege said, is to develop Defense systems that are faster, 
more secure and seamlessly connected. Industry can help by developing 
applications that are easy to use, Lord said.

"It has to be more intuitive. It has to be quick, it has to be easy," Lord 
said. "There are wonderful tools, but some require a rocket science degree 
to use it."
**************************
Government Computer News
Navy envisions integrated information systems

By Dawn S. Onley
GCN Staff

The Navy's road map of the future is guiding it toward integrating its 
information systems and testing new technologies, pushing them faster to 
the fleets, said Vice Adm. Richard W. Mayo, commander of the Naval Network 
Warfare Command in Norfolk, Va.

"It's an effort where we align, organize, integrate and transform the Navy 
to a capabilities-based force," Mayo said yesterday at the 2002 Military 
Communications Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

The IT component that unifies the plan, known as Sea Power 21, is FORCEnet, 
the Navy's architecture for integrating IT systems. FORCEnet represents the 
networks, sensors and communications needed to give the Navy a global 
reach, Mayo said.

"This is our Navy's future," Mayo said. "We are going to get to one naval 
network, afloat and ashore."
****************************
Government Executive
Virginia senators push homeland security contractor liability bill
From National Journal's Technology Daily

Virginia Republican Sens. John Warner and George Allen have introduced a 
stand-alone bill that would exempt government contractors from liability 
involving technologies and services sold to the government for homeland 
security purposes.

The bill, S. 3076, is identical to language that the two previously 
included in a Republican-backed alternative to the Senate's version of a 
measure, H.R. 5005, that would create a Homeland Security Department, 
according to Warner spokeswoman Meredith Moseley.

The new bill would add homeland security technologies and services to an 
existing executive order, allowing the president to indemnify contractors 
for national security reasons. It would cover contracts with federal, state 
and local governments.

Moseley said the separate bill is just another way to push the issue. The 
measure has been referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which 
Warner is the ranking Republican.
**************************
San Francisco Chronicle
Spam indigestion worsens

So I get back after taking a week off and find my office e-mail basket 
spilling over with more than 700 messages. Several dozen were legitimate 
missives from readers and whatnot, and the rest . . . well, you know where 
I'm going with this.

I spent an hour deleting message after message offering to improve my 
sexual prowess, titillate me with all manner of porn and help deposed 
Nigerian potentates get back on their feet, to name just a few of the more 
common themes.

And those were only the ones I could read. My volume of non-English spam is 
soaring.

I'm not breaking any new ground when I whine that junk e-mail is way out of 
control. The question I have is this: What can be done to stop it?

Not much, I'm sorry to say. At least not enough.

First, some raw data:

-- Spam now accounts for 38 percent of all e-mail traffic, up from just 8 
percent last year, according to San Francisco's Brightmail, which 
intercepts unsolicited messages on behalf of corporate clients

-- Brightmail blocked a record 5.3 million junk e-mails last month, 
compared with 1.5 million a year earlier.

-- An average 31 billion e-mail messages now traverse the Net every single 
day, according to market researcher IDC. That amount is expected to double 
by 2006.

-- If current trends continue, more than 20 billion junk e-mails will be 
swamping inboxes each day within the next few years, clogging electronic 
arteries and overwhelming the machines that keep the Net running.

"It's a big problem and getting bigger by the day," said Ken McEldowney, 
executive director of Consumer Action, a San Francisco advocacy group. "A 
lot of e-mail systems can't even handle it."

Consumer Action was one of several groups that called on the Federal Trade 
Commission recently to crack down on spam, primarily by going after junk e- 
mailers using "unfair or deceptive acts" to lure Internet users into 
clicking open messages.

In fact, the FTC has been successful in the past in suing some bulk e- 
mailers. But the commission maintains that it can't go after all spammers 
without the go-ahead from Congress.

Congress, for its part, has yet to pass any legislation setting limits on 
how spammers can operate. It prefers to have the states take the lead in 
consumer-protection affairs.

Thus, a number of states, including California, have enacted tough anti- 
spam laws requiring junk e-mail to include valid contact info for 
opting-out purposes and a straightforward subject line.

California goes so far as to require the letters ADV to precede the subject 
so that spam becomes easier to filter out before reaching one's inbox.

Yet while Attorney General Bill Lockyer is already suing a Southern 
California firm for violating the state's anti-spam rules, how aggressive 
will he be in going after spammers in Wyoming or New Jersey or Florida?

What, for that matter, will he do about all those Koreans who have become 
such diligent cyberhucksters?

"You can't really control spam at the source," said Margaret Jane Radin, a 
professor at Stanford Law School specializing in technology matters. "It 
gets you into all sorts of jurisdiction problems."

Even if the United States followed the European Union in adopting sweeping 
anti-spam legislation, the fact of the matter is that the Internet knows no 
bounds.

For example, what's to stop Uganda or Uruguay or Uzbekistan from setting up 
extensive server facilities and refashioning themselves (for a piece of the 
action) as spam central?

What will we do when they ignore international spam conventions? Go to war?

Ambitious as various anti-spam laws might be, a determined junk e-mailer 
will always find a way to get through. "Everything can be gotten around," 
Radin said.

Meanwhile, attempts to regulate spam in this country run up against thorny 
First Amendment issues, and any attempt to limit free speech is a slippery 
slope indeed.

"Whether we like it or not, commercial actors have a right to free speech 
too," said Anita Ramasastry, associate director of the Shidler Center for 
Law, Commerce & Technology at the University of Washington School of Law.

It would be nice if filters and other technological solutions could stem 
the tide of spam, but as of right now (and for the foreseeable future) 
available countermeasures will halt only a fraction of all junk e-mail on 
the loose.

"At the end of the day," Ramasastry said, "there's always going to be spam."

Depressed? Me, too.

The only hope I see is that the economics of spam finally go our way as 
fewer and fewer people take the bait. This in turn causes junk e-mailers to 
go out of business because they're no longer able to attract clients.

The experts say I'm being optimistic. But I have another week off coming, 
so I'll just hope for the best.

UPDATE: One e-mail I was glad to receive the other day concerned my recent 
column on Skyway Freight System, a Watsonville shipper that left employees 
high and dry when it went bust in 2000. The workers sued the company's 
owner, San Francisco's Genstar Capital, for alleged fraud.

Sources close to the case say a $4 million settlement has been reached and 
that the bankruptcy court is expected to approve the deal by December.

Genstar's treatment of the Skyway employees was not the investment firm's 
finest hour. Settling the lawsuit is the right thing to do and a big step 
toward restoring Genstar's honor.
*********************************
CNET News.com
Political parties: In Web we trust
By Lisa M. Bowman
October 11, 2002, 10:43 AM PT

Political parties are using the Web more aggressively to reach voters and 
gather personal information such as e-mail during this election season, an 
indication of the Internet's growing importance on the campaign scene.
A new study by political consultants PoliticsOnline and RightClick 
Strategies praised the major political parties for their continuing 
embracement of the Web as a vehicle for getting their message out. The 
report examined how official sites of the Republican and Democratic parties 
are communicating, fund raising and organizing this campaign season.

Researchers found that the Democratic National Committee did a better job 
of collecting e-mail addresses of voters, but the Republican National 
Committee excelled in selectively targeting and sending more information to 
people whose e-mails it had.



However, the study criticized the parties' sites overall for several 
shortcomings, including not providing search features, being difficult to 
navigate, and failing to keep their sites fresh.

"With the election approaching, and the political arena a hotbed for news 
in general, it is not for lack of material that the committees do not 
provide daily updates to their respective sites," researchers wrote. "It 
was not uncommon during the course of this study for material on home pages 
to be more than two weeks old."

The Web has been slowly encroaching upon the political scene since it 
became a mass medium.

Back in 1996, even the presidential candidates posted little more than 
political pamphlets on their sites. Things, and fortunes, changed by the 
2000 election--which took place amid the backdrop of the go-go dot-com era. 
Much ballyhooed sites such as Pseudo.com exploded onto the scene, taking 
their place in political convention skyboxes next to the networks, offering 
voters features and access only possible via the Web. Citizens could chat 
with candidates online, get a behind-the-scenes 3D view of political 
events, and organize real-time get-out-the-vote efforts.

However, many of the sites' political ambitions flamed out soon after they 
appeared on the scene, their fortunes declining as the dot-com bubble 
burst. Some even shut their doors before voting day.

Now, with sites such as Pseudo.com little more than a footnote in campaign 
history books, political consultants are looking back at the era--and 
examining how the Web has evolved since then--to try to figure out what works.

Campaigns are finding that the Internet provides a more efficient tool to 
narrowly target voters than television, and the Web can make fund-raising 
efforts cheaper and easier.

The PoliticsOnline study offered a lengthy list of methods to improve 
campaign sites. Many of them draw upon the latest Web marketing techniques 
from the corporate world.

Researchers suggest making it extremely easy for voters to submit their 
e-mail and other personal information by providing them with sign-in boxes 
as often as possible. The sites also need to inform voters about the 
frequency and content of any e-mails they will receive. In addition, the 
study suggests capturing e-mail address through two tried-and-true features 
in the corporate word: sweepstakes and the "e-mail to a friend." The study 
praised the Web as a fund-raising platform, proposing that parties take 
advantage of the feature by asking for donations on every page.

Researchers also suggest that campaigns personalize communications as much 
as possible with individually tailored greetings (such as "dear Mrs. 
Smith") and by letting people sign up for e-mails based on their interests 
in topics such as the economy or education.

On the content front, the report makes several suggestions for a robust 
campaign site, including offering television and radio ads for downloads, 
updating the site frequently, providing links to archival material, and 
options that make it easy to find personalized information about a 
candidate such as a calendar of events and a search-by-zip-code feature.
***********************
Info World
Microsoft warns of 'critical' flaw in Outlook Express
By Paul Roberts
October 11, 2002 5:17 am PT

MICROSOFT RELEASED A security alert Thursday acknowledging a serious 
security hole in its Outlook Express e-mail client. The vulnerability, 
which was found in Outlook Express Versions 5.5 and 6.0, could allow a 
remote attacker to take control of machines running Outlook Express using 
malicious code embedded in an e-mail message. [see 
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/11/021011hnoutlook.xml?s=IDGNS]
**************************
Wired News
Asia Bests U.S. in Broadband Race

The broadband revolution is finally taking hold.

But as asymmetric DSL emerges as the leading high-speed connection 
technology in North America, a newer -- much faster -- flavor of DSL is 
sweeping Asia.


Very high data rate DSL, known as VDSL, was originally developed to carry 
digital television signals in addition to standard Internet traffic, so it 
can pump data over a standard copper telephone wire at speeds up to 25 
megabits per second. ADSL signals max out at 8 Mbps -- although most ADSL 
services average about 1.5 Mbps.

However, ADSL has a range advantage because the data signals can travel up 
to 5 kilometers from the telephone switching station over standard copper 
phone wires. VDSL traffic is limited to 1 kilometer.

That makes VDSL ideal for very dense urban areas, where the consumer is 
located close to the switching station, which is why many in the industry 
see Asia as the hottest market for the technology.

"Korea is ahead right now, but soon China will be the world leader," said 
Steven Haas, director of Ethernet access product marketing for Infineon 
Technologies, one of the early suppliers of VDSL components. "One big city 
in China can overtake almost all of the deployment in Korea. It's just 
taking a little big longer to get the Chinese dragon going."

Infineon and its system partners are currently supplying VDSL gear to 
several Chinese telecom vendors. Haas forecasts over a million VDSL lines 
in operation in China by the end of this year, and said he expects to see 
another 2 million new lines by 2003.

One of the main reasons for this impressive growth rate is China's 
underdeveloped phone system.
Pat Hurley, DSL analyst for market research firm TeleChoice, says China is 
making a big push to upgrade its telecommunications infrastructure. 
Carriers in the rest of the world push ADSL connections that work on 
existing copper phone lines, but China lacks basic copper wiring in many of 
its major markets.

To upgrade the country's technology, Hurley says the Chinese are bypassing 
copper wiring and laying fiber optic lines instead. Bringing fiber 
connections to within a kilometer of users' homes and businesses solves the 
problem of VDSL's shorter range.

And while demand for that much bandwidth may be limited now, China wants to 
future-proof its network by building in enough capacity to support 
data-intensive applications like digital television and online gaming.

"China is attempting (to) leapfrog their technology and skip over ADSL," 
said Hurley. "They are moving from what the United States looked like 30 
years ago directly to what the U.S. will look like in another five years."

Despite its promise in Asia, VDSL occasions little notice in the United 
States.
SBC Communications has launched trials of the technology, and Qwest 
Communications is market-testing it with 50,000 subscribers connected to 
VDSL in Phoenix, Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Qwest's test customers 
account for about half of all American VDSL lines.

All the factors that make VDSL appealing in Asia work against it in the 
United States: Few users live within a kilometer of the central telephone 
office, and only the newest housing developments have fiber-optic links.

"There are technical barriers for deploying any type of DSL, and VDSL has 
the additional barrier of a limited range," said Matthew Davis, director of 
broadband access technologies at market research firm The Yankee Group. 
"VDSL is definitely in the nascent stage in this country."
**************************
Reuters Internet Report
China Bars Minors from Web Cafes
Fri Oct 11, 9:32 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has barred minors from going into Internet cafes, 
issuing new rules on Friday to govern the shops hugely popular for video 
games and Web services but blamed by state media for poisoning the minds of 
urban youth.



The regulations, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, came four 
months after a fire at a Beijing cybercafe killed 25 people -- mostly 
students -- locked inside and shocked the nation's leaders.

The new rules also prevent the construction of cybercafes within 650 feet 
of elementary and middle schools, said Xinhua's Web site (www.xinhuanet.com).

Offenders risk a fine of up to $1,800 and may have their operating licenses 
canceled, Xinhua said. It said Web cafes now could only operate between the 
hours of 8 a.m. and midnight.

China forced thousands of Internet cafes across the country to close for 
inspection in a drive to clean up the unregulated industry after the June 
blaze. Two juveniles were later sentenced to life in prison for lighting 
the fire.

In the wake of the fire, state media printed volumes of commentary and 
letters from angry parents across the country, some of whom claimed their 
children had become "zombies" who wasted their time and money in cybercafes 
and video game parlors.

At the time, authorities said some 90 percent of Internet cafes in Beijing 
were unlicensed.

The new regulations were formulated by the State Council, or cabinet, 
signed by Premier Zhu Rongji at the end of September and take effect on 
November 15.

China's Communist Party also tries to keep a tight grip on Internet sites 
it deems unwholesome and blocks several Web sites.
***************************
MSNBC
MIT offers all its courses free online
 University: 'We are fighting commercialization of knowledge'
 By Paul Festa

Oct. 10  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has decided to publish 
online all its course materials  a $107,840 value. The MIT OpenCourseWare 
project launched two weeks ago with a preliminary pilot that just scratches 
the surface of MIT's publishing ambitions. As of Sept. 30, people with an 
Internet connection and a Web browser have been able to access the 
syllabus, lecture notes, exams and answers, and in some cases, even the 
videotaped lectures of 32 MIT courses.

       SO FAR, MORE THAN 130,000 Web visitors from around the world have 
plugged into the pilot, tapping into a vein of information for which MIT 
undergraduates pay $26,960 per year for tuition.

       "This material is out there for the good of mankind," said Jon Paul 
Potts, an MIT spokesperson. "There is no attempt to charge for this. There 
is no revenue model."

       By the 2006-2007 school year, MIT plans to publish the course 
materials for virtually all of its 2,000 graduate and undergraduate courses.

       The move to put the materials online stems from a multiyear effort 
by the MIT faculty to forge a unified approach to online access to its 
classes. The faculty's efforts picked up pace while two related Internet 
phenomena  distance learning and open-source software  were gathering steam.

       MIT embraced a comparison to the open-source model, in which the 
source code for both grass-roots and corporate software titles is 
published, developed and licensed free of charge.
       "We are fighting the commercialization of knowledge, much in the 
same way that open-source people are fighting the commercialization of 
software," Potts said.

NO FREE DEGREE
       MIT has stopped short of offering its degrees with a similarly free 
pricing scheme. The university insists that its online course 
materials  even when the full 2000 courses' worth are published  are not 
meant to be a substitute for an MIT education, much less an MIT degree. No 
course credits are available online.

       "We have always stated that we are not in any way, shape or form 
trying to replicate an MIT education," Potts said. "An MIT education 
happens in the classroom, by interacting with other students and with 
faculty, not by reading some Web pages or downloading some materials, or 
even watching a video lecture."

     That philosophy hasn't kept students from getting an increasing 
amount of their MIT education in the privacy of their own dorm room, rather 
than attending live lectures.
       "I see the numbers of students at my lectures going down," said 
Gilbert Strang, an MIT math professor who publishes his lectures online in 
a video format. "They figure they can get it online at midnight when 
they're ready, instead of one in the afternoon when I'm ready. I wish they 
came to the actual live lectures, because I put a lot of energy into it, 
but if the videos are good for them, that's OK."

'OPEN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS'
       Just putting the courses online has been an education in 
technology, according to MIT. While the pilot was published using hand 
coded, "brute force" methods, the school is now evaluating a number of 
content-managing systems it hopes will ease the process of publishing the 
remaining 1,968 courses.

       Like open-source projects, MIT has placed some restrictions on how 
its materials can be used. One can't repackage the information and sell it, 
for example. But the faculty does intend for the materials to be used by 
other schools and teachers.

      While there are no current plans for publishing except in English, 
the project is encouraging the translation of the materials for speakers of 
other languages.

       MIT President Charles Strang called "open knowledge systems" the 
wave of the academic future.

        "The computer industry learned the hard way that closed software 
systems ... did not fit the world they themselves had created," the 
president said in last year's annual report. "Higher education must learn 
from this. We must create open knowledge systems as the new framework for 
teaching and learning."
***************************

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


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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the October 16, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews,
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 411
Date: October 16, 2002

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Top Stories for Wednesday, October 16, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"In the High-Tech Sector, Optimism Is Just a Faded Memory"
"Stress Tests Go Atomic at MIT"
"Media Seek to Limit Digital Copying"
"Net Security Chief Leaves Too Many Questions Unanswered"
"Asia Marches on Technology Frontier"
"University of Florida Researchers Make Progress on Tiny Battery"
"Thanks for the (Digital) Memories"
"Tech-Crash Threatens to Take Down SETI@home"
"Before Instant Messaging--Awareness"
"Wearables: More Than Sci-Fi Stuff"
"Vint Cerf Talks About Internet Changes"
"Drowning in a Deluge of Data, Data, Data..."
"New Telecom Connections for the Deaf"
"Nanoelectronics Run Deep in the Heart of Texas"
"Will Big Business Dictate Public Interest?"
"Designed For Life"
"Slight Bump in 2003 IT R&D Spending Expected"
"The Next Web"
"Controlling Robots With the Mind"

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

"In the High-Tech Sector, Optimism Is Just a Faded Memory"
Pessimism has replaced optimism in Silicon Valley, as reflected
by the prevailing mood at this year's Agenda conference; speakers
foresaw little economic growth in the technology sector, and a
few leading technologists implied that the United States' global ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item1

"Stress Tests Go Atomic at MIT"
Scientists hope that a predictive model developed by MIT
researchers could be used to anticipate the earliest
manifestation of defects in materials that range from the
sub-microscopic to the super-macroscopic.  Subra Suresh, head of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item2

"Media Seek to Limit Digital Copying"
Speaking at an Associated Press conference, Electronic Frontier
Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann protested legislation from
Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) that would require consumer
electronics manufacturers to install "copyright chips" that would ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item3

"Net Security Chief Leaves Too Many Questions Unanswered"
Boston Globe technology columnist Hiawatha Bray agrees with
critics of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace that the
policy does not appear to take the issue of cybersecurity as
seriously as it should, given the many critical systems that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item4

"Asia Marches on Technology Frontier"
Shahid Yusuf, co-author of the World Bank report "Can East Asia
Compete?," says the region has made progress in the technology
arena:  Some countries such as Japan, Korea, and China are doing
well, while Southeast Asian nations such as the Philippines, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item5

"University of Florida Researchers Make Progress on Tiny Battery"
Batteries used in portable electronics could be improved while
power packs for microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices could
become a reality thanks to research being conducted by University
of Florida scientists.  A team led by chemistry professor Charles ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item6

"Thanks for the (Digital) Memories"
Digital memory development has managed to keep pace with the
evolution of computation, despite predictions that its growth
would be severely limited 20 years ago--in fact, it has outpaced
Moore's Law.  For example, there are few major differences ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item7

"Tech-Crash Threatens to Take Down SETI@home"
The SETI@home project needs more funding if it is to continue,
and chief scientist Dan Werthimer told SETI Australia Chairman
Dr. Frank Stootman that the installation of radio data recording
gear at the Parkes telescope observatory would be postponed until ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item8

"Before Instant Messaging--Awareness"
AT&T Laboratories' "Hubbub" instant messaging experiment shows
how presence technology makes co-workers more effective through
collaboration.  The study compared collaboration enabled by
Hubbub with the way office workers would normally communicate at ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item9

"Wearables: More Than Sci-Fi Stuff"
Students from MIT and Georgia Tech attending last week's Sixth
Annual International Wearable Computer Symposium tried out new
technologies at the University of Washington campus.  One
technology, augmented reality (AR), involves a see-through ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item10

"Vint Cerf Talks About Internet Changes"
ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf addresses how the Internet is changing
during an online question-and-answer session.  In his opinion,
anonymity is an important topic for discussion, because it
carries both good and bad uses; he is also concerned about ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item11

"Drowning in a Deluge of Data, Data, Data..."
Data storage requirements have grown at a compound annual rate of
90 percent for the last two years, leaving companies struggling
to figure out what to do with all their information, according to
a recent Meta Group survey of 328 IT executives in the U.S.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item12

"New Telecom Connections for the Deaf"
A number of new Internet-enabled technologies for phone
conversation are making deaf and hard-of-hearing people more
effective and mobile in the workplace and enabling them to more
easily communicate with the hearing world.  Whereas previously, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item13

"Nanoelectronics Run Deep in the Heart of Texas"
The University of Texas at Austin is working on commercializing
its nanotechnology research, and Renee A. Mallett of The Office
of Technology Licensing and Intellectual Property says both the
local community and investors have an interest in nanotech.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item14

"Will Big Business Dictate Public Interest?"
The Internet Society (ISOC), despite promising to manage the .org
domain for the public benefit, can be viewed as an organization
representing major technology companies, because top ISOC members
include WorldCom, IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item15

"Designed For Life"
Northwestern University computer science professor and author
Donald Norman, who wrote "The Design of Everyday Things,"
believes it is taking designers too long to create more usable
computing products, which he attributes to a lack of business ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item16

"Slight Bump in 2003 IT R&D Spending Expected"
A slight increase is expected for government spending on
information technology research and development in the next
fiscal year.  The Networking and IT research and development
(NITRD) program's proposed budget for fiscal 2003 is $1.9 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item17

"The Next Web"
Search engines are very limited when it comes to sifting through
a mountain of data that is increasing steadily, but the Semantic
Web could make finding information easier; such a development
would make employees more productive and companies easier for ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item18

"Controlling Robots With the Mind"
Researchers are hard at work developing technology that could
enable people to control machines by thought; potential
applications include more responsive prosthetics for paralysis
victims, while further advancements carry the promise of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1016w.html#item19


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