Clips October 23, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 23, 2002

ARTICLES

What's the effect of the budget impasse?
Budget, homeland battles leave INS tech future up in the air
Large-Scale Attack Cripples Internet Backbone
Microsoft Cites Software Piracy Hotspots
ID Chip's Controversial Approval
Customs planning classified net
AOL Launches Kids' Safety Campaign
Mormons give roots to online 1880 Census
IE holes open up Web booby traps
Army mobilized on Objective Force
Bill casts out old voting machines
Federal Computer Week Career Channels:
Air Force applies knowledge
NTIS sets up homeland security site
Recycling cell phones to charities, not landfills
Assault on Net servers fails
Watchdog wants more coherent laws on Net race hate [AUS]
Electronic polls win vote of confidence [Brazil]
New computer lab will help trace child porn
Prototype glass sheet computer unveiled

**************************
Government Computer News
What's the effect of the budget impasse?
By Jason Miller

House and Senate appropriations committees want to know how well agencies 
can meet the President's Management Agenda goals if they must operate under 
a long-term continuing resolution. Congress this week passed a continuing 
resolution to fund the government through Nov. 22, and some observers 
believe the fiscal 2003 budget will not be settled until February or March.

By Dec. 6, agencies must tell the committees whether they are meeting 
administration goals for budget and performance integration, competitive 
sourcing, e-government, financial performance and human capital management.

"What is better than [the Office of Management and Budget's] categories to 
see the effects of the continuing resolution?" asked John Scofield, a House 
Appropriations Committee spokesman. "We oppose any long-term continuing 
resolution, and we want to show how a longer one will affect these programs."

A spokesman said OMB is working with agencies to meet the requirements in 
the continuing resolution, but he would not go into detail.

An OMB official said the impasse should not affect the 25 e-government 
initiatives or other high-priority IT projects because most of the spending 
is scheduled to take place between April and September.
****************************
Government Executive
Budget, homeland battles leave INS tech future up in the air
By Shane Harris
sharris@xxxxxxxxxxx

The Immigration and Naturalization Service has had a rough year.


The agency has suffered stinging criticism from Congress for the 
dilapidated state of its technology systems and its inability to share 
anti-terrorism information with other agencies. It has been overwhelmed by 
hundreds of proposals to fix the problem. But the agency's plans for a 
complete upgrade of its technology infrastructure are murky because INS 
officials don't know yet how the agency will fit into the proposed Homeland 
Security Department.


In an interview with Government Executive, Scott Hastings, INS' chief 
information officer, talked about how he's dealing with the situation, 
which has been complicated by the fact that Congress has yet to pass a 
fiscal 2003 budget for the agency. As a result, it's difficult to know 
whether the INS' ongoing projects will be enhanced or curtailed.


"To say it's not clear to me would be an understatement," Hastings said.


The INS' effort to upgrade its technology infrastructure, known as ATLAS, 
is one of Hastings' top priorities. The agency is in "dire need" of buying 
new hardware, he said. Personnel are using desktop computers so old they 
support only low-end programs.


The upgrade received an initial round of funding in the fiscal 2002 budget, 
and is slated for $100 million more in fiscal 2003. However, the Office of 
Management and Budget has halted all spending on new infrastructure 
projects like ATLAS in agencies likely to move into the new Homeland 
Security Department.


Another high-profile project that has stalled is the entry-exit system, 
which would log a physical recordsuch as a fingerprint or eye scanof every 
foreigner entering or leaving the United States. President Bush requested 
$326 million to fund the system this fiscal year, but there are lingering 
doubts that it could be set up at every point of entry without causing 
massive backups of people and vehicles at border crossings.


"It's a hugely complicated, mammoth undertaking," Hastings said, comparing 
the task to creating an air traffic control system. He's unsure when a 
request for proposals might be issued, because the agency is still 
reviewing the feasibility of the plan.


Hastings has also been busy working with CIOs at other homeland security 
agencies to develop a matrix of the administrative systems, such as e-mail 
programs or financial management software, that each agency is using. The 
goal is to find the brands most widely used and make them the standard.

Hastings likens the effort to the computer game Tetris, in which a player 
has to make a jumble of differently shaped boxes fit together. "It's a very 
dicey thing," he said.


Once the homeland security agencies find common ground on systems, they'll 
start looking for ways to share information electronically. So far, 
information sharing has been a matter of physically putting officials from 
different agencies in a room together, Hastings says. It's had little to do 
with linking groups together on networks.


The government is largely dependent on private industry to build the 
systems that will make electronic information sharing happen. Hastings 
challenged companies to do a better job devising practical solutions on how 
to share and, more importantly, analyze data. So far, he hasn't seen many.


"My question to industry is, what are the knowledge management techniques 
to do this?" Hastings said, referring to technologies that sift through 
mounds of data and pull out what's relevant to a user.


Hastings said he's concerned that as agencies begin moving data out of 
their home systems to share with others, the information could be worthless 
unless its put in context. For example, it's of little use to hand a police 
officer a name from a list of terrorist suspects if the name hasn't been 
checked against multiple sources to make sure the suspect is really a threat.


The IT challenge in homeland security is complicated by the fact that the 
costs of failure are much higher than just wasted budget dollars. With one 
mistake, "suddenly you've brought down Kennedy Airport," Hastings said.


But CIOs can't afford not to act, either. And therein lies their dilemma, 
Hastings said. When taking a chance on a new idea, he said, "you're either 
the goat or the hero."
*****************************
Washington Post
Large-Scale Attack Cripples Internet Backbone
By David McGuire and Brian Krebs
Wednesday, October 23, 2002; Page E05


An apparently coordinated attack on the computers that act as the backbone 
of the Internet briefly crippled some of them Monday evening, but despite 
the scale of the attack, Internet users were largely unaffected.

The FBI said it was investigating the "distributed denial of service" 
attack. David Wray, a spokesman for the FBI's National Infrastructure 
Protection Center, would not speculate on who might have carried out the 
attack.

Such attacks overwhelm networks with data until the networks fail. Seven of 
the 13 servers failed Monday, and two others failed intermittently during 
the hour-long attack, which began about 5 p.m., said officials who operate 
some of the root servers. The root servers, located around the world, serve 
as a master directory for the Internet, converting numeric codes into the 
words and names that form e-mail and Web addresses.

Safeguards built into the Internet's architecture require eight or more 
root servers to fail before ordinary users observe slowdowns.

"It's not something that you see every day, but it's not something that 
couldn't be handled," said Louis Touton, vice president for the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Internet's key governing 
body. "There was no service interruption from anyone we've talked to."

The attacks are some of the most common and easiest to perpetrate, but the 
size and scope of Monday's strike set it apart from others, with some 
sources saying it was the largest such attack on the Internet root servers.

Internet Software Consortium Inc. Chairman Paul Vixie, who called this 
attack "the largest in recent memory," noted the rarity of an attack 
against all the root servers at once.

In February 2000, such attacks halted Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo and other 
big-name e-commerce sites for several hours. In August 2000, four of the 13 
root servers failed briefly because of a technical glitch. A more serious 
problem occurred in July 1997 after experts transferred a garbled directory 
list to seven root servers and failed to correct the problem for four 
hours. Traffic on much of the Internet ground to a halt.
****************************
Reuters
Microsoft Cites Software Piracy Hotspots
1 hour, 54 minutes ago
By Wong Choon Mei

CYEBERJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday software 
piracy was on the rise worldwide and China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and 
Indonesia were the "hotspots" in Asia where major counterfeiting activities 
thrived.



Katharine Bostick, Microsoft's senior corporate attorney, said penalties 
imposed by many governments were not tough enough, resulting in the growth 
of large-scale manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit products.


"It involves organized crime," Bostick told a technology conference in 
Cyberjaya, Malaysia's software hub.


"When you are dealing with high-end counterfeits, you are talking about 
organizations that have a full supply chain, a full distribution chain, 
full manufacturing tools all in place, and it is all based on profits."


Bostick said data from watchdog body Business Software Alliance, in which 
Microsoft is a member, showed that the global piracy rate rose by one 
percent to 40 percent of software products sold in 2001.


She said software firms stood to lose $11 billion in sales a year.


"Two out of five business software applications were pirated in 2001, which 
is the second consecutive year that the piracy rate has increased."


"And again the focus on Asia is that, in Asia alone, the loss (of sales) is 
$4.7 billion."


Microsoft is the world's largest software maker, famous for its Windows 
program for personal computers, and rakes in sales of about $30 billion a year.
****************************
Wired News
ID Chip's Controversial Approval

A surprise decision by the Food and Drug Administration permits the use of 
implantable ID chips in humans, despite an FDA investigator's recent public 
reservations about the devices.

The FDA sent chip manufacturer Applied Digital Solutions a letter stating 
that the agency would not regulate the VeriChip if it was used for 
"security, financial and personal identification or safety applications," 
ADS said Tuesday.

But the FDA has not determined whether the controversial chip can be used 
for medical purposes, including linking to medical databases, the company 
added. In the United States, ADS has principally marketed VeriChip as a 
life-saving tool, saying, for example, that unconscious patients brought to 
emergency rooms could be scanned to determine their medical histories.

Repeated phone calls to the FDA's press office were not returned Tuesday, 
and ADS refused to provide the media with a copy of the agency's letter.

The decision comes five months after ADS made international headlines by 
implanting three members of a Florida family with the VeriChip, which is 
slightly larger than a grain of rice and emits a 125-kilohertz radio 
frequency signal that can be picked up by a scanner up to four feet away.

In an interview earlier this month, FDA investigator Wally Pellerite said 
he was unaware of any implantable device that was not regulated by the FDA. 
Cosmetic implants - including breast and penile enhancers - undergo a 
rigorous FDA examination to determine their effect on the human body 
despite having no medical function.

Although ID chips have been used in animals for years, they may have 
"inherent risks" when used in humans, Pellerite said in the interview.

On Tuesday, Pellerite referred questions to the FDA press office.

"At this point, I can't say anything other than to represent what the 
official agency opinion is in this matter," he wrote in an e-mail. 
"Previously I was free to give you both sides of the argument and to point 
out the pros and cons to each. I am no longer free to do that."

Applied Digital Solutions has gotten into hot water in the past for issuing 
conflicting statements to the media and to the FDA about the VeriChip's 
intended use. In May, the FDA launched an investigation into the VeriChip 
when the company repeatedly referred to the chip as a medical lifesaver in 
the media, yet assured officials it was merely an identification device.

Tuesday's press release was also confusing, with ADS repeatedly referring 
to VeriChip as a medical device despite the fact that the FDA has not ruled 
whether the chip may be used for health purposes.

ADS president Scott Silverman did not comment on the release, but said he 
was pleased with the FDA's decision.

"We'll now go into high gear with our sales, marketing and distribution 
plans in the U.S.," he said, adding that the company would be focusing on 
the security and ID aspects of the microchip.

Silverman said security applications could include using the chip to 
control access to sensitive structures such as nuclear power plants, 
government buildings or private businesses. An example of an ID application 
could include "chipping" an Alzheimer's patient who suffers memory loss and 
wanders away from home, he added.

Richard Smith, a privacy expert who follows the VeriChip, suggested the 
device should have been subjected to a full FDA review to determine its safety.

"Does ADS have any data for complications of VeriChips being installed in 
animals?" Smith asked. "Are there ever infection problems or auto-immune 
rejections? Since the FDA has chosen to not test the device, the next best 
thing is to try to understand if there have been health-related problems in 
animals."

Meanwhile, Leslie Jacobs, the matriarch of the Florida family chipped in 
May, said she hoped the FDA would approve the VeriChip for medical use. 
Both her husband and son experience ongoing health problems.

"People who need this should be able to elect to have it," she said. "The 
VeriChip could help saves lives."
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Customs planning classified net
BY Judi Hasson
Oct. 22, 2002

The U.S. Customs Service is looking for vendors with security clearances to 
build a classified network for sensitive law enforcement data.

Customs is expected to issue a draft proposal Oct. 25 that will be 
available only to vendors that already have certified they have a 
top-secret facility security clearance and personnel holding valid security 
clearances.

S.W. "Woody" Hall, the chief information officer at Customs, described the 
project as a "classified network allowing agents to move information around 
that we don't want anyone to get hold of."

"Customs requires secure, computer-to-computer connectivity among its 
intelligence components and field activities for the purpose of moving 
classified and selective law enforcement sensitive data," according to a 
request for information for the project.

The network would provide a scalable infrastructure, capable of supporting 
Customs' growing mission in the fight against terrorism, according to the 
request for information on the project. Its architecture will be based on 
commercial off-the-shelf products and software applications whenever possible.

The contract award is expected in March 2003, but Customs warns that 
"vendors should realize that this is a funded effort with limited 
resources." No estimate on cost was available from Customs.
*******************************
Associated Press
AOL Launches Kids' Safety Campaign
Tue Oct 22, 3:10 PM ET
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - America Online is launching a new Internet (news - web 
sites)-safety campaign for kids built around an automated instant-messaging 
"buddy" that dispenses advice in real time.

Kids can add "AOLSafetyBot" to their buddy lists of friends on AOL Instant 
Messenger. It's programmed to answer, within seconds, such questions as 
whether kids should agree to physical meetings with online acquaintances or 
reveal such personal information as their address and age.


Some experts wonder, however, whether a scripted program can always be an 
appropriate guide in a complicated online world, given varying age groups 
and parental preferences.


The SafetyBot campaign, being launched Wednesday, also includes a Web site 
at AOL's SafetyClicks.com, where kids can play a trivia game and watch a 
video featuring characters from the Cartoon Network (news - web sites), a 
unit of AOL Time Warner.


People who don't use AOL's instant-messaging software can also find the 
SafetyBot buddy on the SafetyClicks site.


Automated instant-messaging buddies, or bots, are not new, but past ones 
have been mostly devoted to marketing and promotions. Internet safety 
resources also exist elsewhere as Web sites, among them Disney's 
SurfSwellIsland.com.


AOL said it created SafetyBot to bring safety resources to a forum with 
which kids are already familiar. The company's instant-messaging software 
is the most popular on the Internet, with more than 150 million registered 
users.


According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 40 percent 
of teenagers on the Internet use instant messaging (news - web sites) on a 
given day, compared with 11 percent for online adults.


"Instant messaging clearly is a form of communications that they enjoy so 
there was a natural predisposition to using a bot," said Tatiana Gau, AOL's 
senior vice president for integrity assurance.


According to a 2000 study by Crimes Against Children Research Center at the 
University of New Hampshire, one in five youths aged 10 to 17 received 
unwanted sexual solicitations over the Internet within the year. Only a 
quarter of them told a parent.
****************************
USA Today
Mormons give roots to online 1880 Census
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

Folks interested in their roots get a huge boon today when the 1880 U.S. 
Census  the first searchable, complete Census  goes online.

Volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is 
renowned for its genealogical research facilities, spent 17 years inputting 
the 50 million entries into computers. The result can be found at 
familysearch.org.

The Mormon Church calls this database, the latest addition to the wealth of 
genealogical data already available via the Net, the easiest way to date of 
finding ancestors born in the USA.

"Censuses are among the most significant of family records," says church 
spokesman Richard Turley.

The 1880 Census is particularly significant, because it is the first online 
Census to include former slaves, and the second Census in history to record 
blacks as individuals rather than as pieces of property.

That year's Census also is highly regarded "because it's the first one that 
told us the names and birthplaces of the parents, which give genealogists 
more data to follow in their research," says Cyndi Howells, who runs the 
popular Web site Cyndislist.com, which links to some 170,000 pages.

Famous names in the Census: writers Mark Twain and Herman Melville, Western 
star "Buffalo Bill" Cody, tycoon John D. Rockefeller, inventors Thomas 
Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, educator Booker T. Washington and 
abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Besides the year of birth and the birth state of his or her parents, 
entries in the 1880 Census include neighbors.

"That's a clue to connect to previous generations," says Turley. "In the 
1880s, relatives often lived together in a broad neighborhood."

Genealogy is among the most popular online pastimes, thanks to the Net's 
easy access to databases worldwide as well as to numerous other sources, 
such as bulletin boards, for leads.

While the pay site ancestry.com is the most popular with 3 million visitors 
a month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, such free sites as 
ellisisland.org and the Mormon Church's familysearch.org often are 
overwhelmed with traffic whenever new databases are posted.

Genealogy is a major component of the Mormon religion: The church is known 
for having the most extensive system of research facilities  3,700 in all 
worldwide  open to all.

While other commercial sites, such as ancestry.com, heritagequest.com and 
genealogy.com have bits and pieces of the 1880 Census, they're not searchable.

"You have to put in state and country and look through page by page, just 
like looking at microfilm," Howells says.

The Mormon Church previously released the 1880 Census on a set of 56 CD-ROMs.

Howells expects familysearch .org "to be bombarded" today.

The church expected 100,000 visitors the day in 1999 that it launched the 
familysearch site. Instead, it ended up with 1 million.

"We portioned out quarter-hour segments to users to keep pace with the 
traffic," Turley says. "This time, we're better prepared."
******************************
CNet News.com
IE holes open up Web booby traps
By Robert Lemos
October 22, 2002, 1:21 PM PT

An Israeli Web-application company has warned users of Internet Explorer 
that nine related security flaws in the program could be used by malicious 
hackers to gain access to a victim's computer files.

GreyMagic Software said Tuesday that the vulnerabilities--eight of which it 
deemed critical--could be exploited using a specially coded Web page that 
would run malicious programs on a victim's computer if the victim visited 
the page.

"Using these flaws in combination with other known flaws that can silently 
deliver files to the user's disk could result in full compromise of the 
client's computer," said Lee Dagon, head of research and development for 
GreyMagic.


In addition to letting Net vandals steal private local documents, the flaws 
could let malicious hackers copy clipboard information, execute arbitrary 
programs and fool IE users by forging trusted Web sites, the company said 
in its advisory.

GreyMagic said Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6 are affected by the flaws but 
that the latest service packs to each of these versions of IE plug the holes.

The bugs appear in how Internet Explorer caches Web objects. GreyMagic 
found the flaws after researching three different aspects of the Internet 
Explorer object model earlier this month, Dagon said.

"In each session we found more vulnerabilities," he said.

Seven of the flaws can grant an attacker full access to the victim's PC, 
while another makes the currently loaded document readable and the last 
lets an attacker read and write to the clipboard.

"The attacker would need to know the name and exact path to (a) file," 
added Dagon, pointing out that the vulnerabilities don't let a vandal 
browse a victim's machine for files. "However, Windows has several 
sensitive files in relatively static locations, these could be grabbed and 
used against the victim." For example, the Windows password file is in the 
same location on every Windows computer and could be copied using the flaws.

Upgrading Internet Explorer 5.5 to Service Pack 2 plugs the security holes, 
the company said. Patching Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1 will fix 
the problems in that version of the program as well. The latest updates for 
both versions of IE can be found through Microsoft's Windows Update page.

Flaw-reporting flawed?
GreyMagic Software released the news of the flaws at the same time it gave 
the information to Microsoft, saying that in the past "notifying Microsoft 
ahead of time and waiting for them to patch the reported issues 
proved...nonproductive."

Because Microsoft only received news of the holes on Tuesday, the software 
giant couldn't confirm the existence of the vulnerabilities. Testing the 
demo code provided by GreyMagic Software, however, showed that the flaws 
apparently were real.

The Israeli Web company's refusal to notify Microsoft first, however, 
earned it the software giant's ire.

"We are concerned by the way this report has been handled," a Microsoft 
representative said in a statement e-mailed to CNET News.com. "Publishing 
this report may put computer users at risk--or at the very least could 
cause needless confusion and apprehension."

For more than a year, Microsoft has been fighting to rein in the public 
disclosure of flaws, issuing criticism of what it deems to be irresponsible 
reporting and sponsoring the formation of a group to set standards for 
disclosing vulnerabilities.

In the past, software makers haven't been very responsive to security 
issues, but that's changing. Most researchers still believe that releasing 
information about flaws is the best way to warn the public. However, the 
same researchers increasingly believe that giving the software's creator a 
fair amount of time to create a patch is the most responsible way to handle 
such incidents.

Interpretations of what's fair, however, can vary--from a few days to a few 
months.

According to Dagon, previous advisories that the company brought to the 
software titan's attention took anywhere from 3 months to more than 6 
months to fix. Since then, he said, GreyMagic has lost patience.

"Microsoft takes quite a while to plug even the simplest security issue, 
leaving users exposed to risks for months at a time instead of letting them 
know about temporary workarounds," Dagon said.

But Microsoft isn't the only one to voice concern about reports such as 
GreyMagic's. The open-source community was not happy when security company 
Internet Security Systems dropped a bomb by posting an advisory about a 
major flaw in the Apache Web server just hours after it had notified the 
development group.
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Army mobilized on Objective Force
BY Dan Caterinicchia
Oct. 22, 2002

The Army is using new training, acquisition and development techniques in 
an attempt to meet its aggressive timetable for fielding the Objective 
Force by the end of the decade.

The Objective Force is a strategy to develop advanced information 
technology tools, vehicles and weaponry to make the Army's armored forces 
more agile and lethal and better able to survive an all-out fight.

"The good news is that we have all the support of our leadership," said Lt. 
Gen. Peter Cuviello, during an Oct. 21 press conference at the Association 
of the U.S. Army's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. But the flip side of 
that is "we're not moving fast enough on transformation or getting 
capabilities in the field now."

Cuviello said that the Army is addressing training through its Advanced 
Distributed Learning program and other Web-based methods that not only 
supplement traditional classroom instruction but also serve to refresh 
soldiers already deployed.

And as the service increasingly adopts commercial technologies, training 
becomes easier on those systems than on the military-specific tools, 
Cuviello said. He added that the commercial strategy is also reflected in 
the Army's recent request for proposals, in which "you don't see a lot of 
R&D because we're hoping to save it all for procuremen

The Army has devoted 97 percent of its fiscal 2003 science and technology 
budget to the design and development of Objective Force, including Future 
Combat Systems, a key component of the effort. FCS will equip Army vehicles 
with information and communications systems to enable soldiers to conduct 
missions, including command and control, surveillance and reconnaissance, 
direct and indirect fire, and personnel transport.

The FCS lead systems integrator team, Boeing Co.'s Space and Communications 
Group and Science Applications International Corp., was awarded a $154 
million contract in March and is tasked with coming up with an operational 
architecture that will link the communications components of systems so 
that the Army can determine platform requirements, Cuviello said.

"We don't know what the platforms are," he said. "We have an architecture 
to tie those together, but there's no meat to it," because such things as 
bandwidth and information exchange requirements have not been sorted out. 
"We can't tell if there's massive needs for each [ground or airborne] 
platformÖ. We don't know yet."

One thing that has been established is the importance of the Joint Tactical 
Radio System in FCS' future, Cuviello said. JTRS uses software-centric 
radios that can be programmed to patch users into various radio 
frequencies. Radios in use today were designed to work in a specific 
frequency range, with each service using its own frequency.

"We know JTRS is the key to this thingÖand will be embedded in all of these 
platforms," he said.

The Objective Force's intelligence capabilities will require 
synchronization with the other military services and national security 
agencies, and the problem there is not technological, but in establishing 
new tactics, techniques and procedures, said Lt. Gen. Robert Noonan Jr., 
deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

Noonan said he has been conducting high-level meetings with various 
intelligence stakeholders to explain the Army's needs so that policies can 
be changed in order to declassify information at a certain level and push 
it to a commander in the field as soon as possible, he said.

"It's a policy issue, not a technology issue," Noonan said. "My goal is 
Google with a clearanceÖto just get what I need for my portion of the 
battlefield" as opposed to current methods that flood commanders with 
superfluous data from numerous sources.

There has been some resistance from security personnel concerned with the 
implications of declassifying and sharing intelligence, but the feedback 
from leadership has been overwhelmingly positive, he said.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
Bill casts out old voting machines
BY William Matthews
Oct. 22, 2002

Each state is guaranteed at least $5 million to buy new voting machines and 
improve voting procedures, and some will receive considerably more from a 
$3.9 billion election reform bill Congress passed before members went home 
to run for re-election.

The law targets punch card and lever voting machines for elimination, 
earmarking $325 million for "buying out" those machines over the next three 
years. Problem-plagued punch cards, with their troublesome chads, were at 
the center of the disputed 2000 presidential election.

"This legislation will help America move beyond the days of hanging chads, 
butterfly ballots, and illegal purges of voters and accusations of voter 
fraud," said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who sponsored the bill in the 
Senate.

Another $325 million is intended to improve election administration, and at 
least that much is expected to be doled out to states for developing 
computerized statewide databases to improve the accuracy of voter 
registration rolls.

The registration systems are expected to be able to compare voter 
registration data against other government databases, such as state 
driver's license databases, Social Security data and other electronic 
identification information, said Doug Lewis, director of the Texas-based 
Election Center, an association for election officials.

The computerized registration systems, which are to be in place in 2006, 
should substantially improve the integrity of voter rolls by keeping 
legitimate voters on the rolls, removing ineligible or deceased voters and 
making it possible to instantly check identifications, Lewis said.

By providing funding for new voting equipment and better registration 
systems, Congress hopes "to make certain votes are counted properly and to 
make voter fraud more difficult," said Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) Lugar 
was instrumental in including the provision for computerized voter 
registration systems in the bill.

Lawmakers set aside another $100 million to be used by states to ensure 
that at least one voting machine per precinct can be used by people with 
disabilities. That probably means buying electronic touch screen voting 
machines, which for now are the most accessible type, Lewis said.

The election reform law allots $20 million for developing new voting 
technology and $10 million for testing it. And it calls for more education 
for voters, poll workers and election officials. Lewis said some money 
should be spent to study how people learn so that more effective brief 
training courses can be developed for voters and poll workers.

But the bulk of the $3.9 billion will probably be spent on new voting 
machines, Lewis said. "There's no question the nation has too much 
antiquated voting equipment."

The bill awaits President Bush to sign it into law.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Federal Computer Week Career Channels:
Federal IT job openings
Oct. 22, 2002

Supervisory Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-14
Location: Gunter AFB, Ala.
Announcement #: 02-403CG
Closing Date: Oct. 29, 2002
Contact: Department of Defense, Civ Pers Div, 701 S. Courthouse Road, 
Arlington, VA 22204-2199; C Graves, 703-607-4458

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-12
Location: San Diego, Calif.
Announcement #: VA-1-03-0014
Closing Date: Oct. 28, 2002
Contact: Department of Veterans Affairs, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Bldg. 258 
Room 128, Los Angeles, CA 90073; 310-268-4150

Information Technology Specialist (Application Software)
Series/Grade: GS-2210-13
Location: Martinez/Mare Island, Calif.
Announcement #: 2002-229DD
Closing Date: Oct. 28, 2002
Contact: Department of Veterans Affairs, HR (05), 150 Muir Road AB6 Room 
26, Martinez, CA 94553; 925-372-2120

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-13
Location: Colorado Springs, Colo.
Announcement #: 02OC2210A13
Closing Date: Oct. 31, 2002
Contact: Department of Air Force, 21 MSS/DPCS, USNC, 135 Dover St. Suite 
1055, Peterson AFB, CO 80914-1142; Patricia Conner, 719-556-6391

Information Technology Specialist (Internet)
Series/Grade: GS-2210-5/12
Location: Washington, D.C.
Announcement #: UK157438
Closing Date: Nov. 13, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, FSA, 6501 Beacon Drive, Kansas City, MO 
64133; 478-757-3000

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-7/13
Location: Washington, D.C.
Announcement #: OIG-2002-73
Closing Date: Nov. 1, 2002
Contact: Department of Justice, Inspector General, 1425 New York Ave. NW 
Suite 7018, Washington, D.C. 20530-2003; 202-616-4501

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-7/11
Location: St. Petersburg, Fla.
Announcement #: 2002-364-SP
Closing Date: Nov. 4, 2002
Contact: Department of Veterans Affairs, VBA, 1600 E. Woodrow Wilson Ave., 
3rd Floor, Jackson, MS 39216; 601-364-7270

Supervisory Agricultural Statistician
Series/Grade: GS-1530-15
Location: West Lafayette, Ind.
Announcement #: NASS-A2M-4090
Closing Date: Nov. 5, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, ARS, 1400 Independence Ave. SW, MS 
0308, Washington, D.C. 20250; Elizabeth Suggs, 202-690-3694

Computer Assistant
Series/Grade: GS-335-5
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Announcement #: 14DF0118Y3
Closing Date: Oct. 30, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, SW Staff Div, Bldg. 301, Marshall Ave., Fort 
Riley, KS 66442; 785-239-6004

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-11/12
Location: Boston, Mass.
Announcement #: NATLA/02-015KW
Closing Date: Nov. 13, 2002
Contact: Department of Treasury, Customs Service, HR, Box 14560, 
Washington, D.C. 20004; K. Washington, 202-927-3703

Information Technology Specialist (Policy/Planning)
Series/Grade: GS-2210-13
Location: Riverdale, Md.
Announcement #: 962-2003-0005
Closing Date: Oct. 28, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, APHIS, 100 N. 6th St., Suite 510C, Attn 
HR, Minneapolis, MN 55403; Eric Keene, 301-734-5413

Supervisory Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-14
Location: Baltimore, Md.
Announcement #: GEU300095
Closing Date: Nov. 15, 2002
Contact: Department of Army, NE Staff Div, 314 Johnson St., Aberdeen PG, MD 
21005-5283; 410-306-0031

Computer Engineer
Series/Grade: GS-854-12/13
Location: Patuxent River, Md.
Announcement #: de-pax-01-08-am-nr
Closing Date: May 2, 2003
Contact: Department of Navy, HRSC-NE, Code 52, 111 S. Independence Mall 
East, Philadelphia, PA 19106; 215-408-5261

Computer Scientist
Series/Grade: GS-1550-12/13
Location: Patuxent River, Md.
Announcement #: de-pax-01-08-am-nr
Closing Date: May 2, 2003
Contact: Department of Navy, HRSC-NE, Code 52, 111 S. Independence Mall 
East, Philadelphia, PA 19106; 215-408-5261

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-9
Location: St. Paul, Minn.
Announcement #: NESC-RM-03D-01
Closing Date: Nov. 7, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Bill Mannion/Personnel, 
11 Campus Blvd. Suite 200, Newtown Square, PA 19073; Helen Maiocco, 
610-557-4247

Information Technology Specialist
Series/Grade: GS-2210-5/9
Position Title: Nevada, Mo.
Announcement #: UK157925MO
Closing Date: Nov. 7, 2002
Contact: Department of Agriculture, FSA, 6501 Beacon Drive, Kansas City, MO 
64133; 478-757-3000

Jobs on this page are excerpts from thousands of listings in the FedJobs 
searchable database found at (www.fedjobs.com).
******************************
Federal Computer Week
Air Force applies knowledge
BY Dan Caterinicchia
Oct. 21, 2002

The Air Force has progressed in making data available worldwide via ground- 
and air-based systems. However, the critical task of managing information 
and getting it to the people who need it as quickly and securely as 
possible is proving to be more difficult.

"Knowledge management is one of the most significant challenges we face," 
said John Gilligan, Air Force chief information officer. "Air Force 
knowledge is managed in pockets, and we have not yet figured out how to 
grow it beyond the pockets" and apply it in areas such as warfighting 
capabilities.

As an example, Gilligan said the Air Force has put battlefield reports from 
Afghanistan online, but those reports lack video clips and other multimedia 
features. They also lack a searchable format that would make them more 
useful to the service's worldwide audience.

Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting Inc., said that to overcome the 
knowledge management challenge, the Air Force must first understand the 
needs of its various "communities of interest."

"Knowledge management is more than just a technology issue.... It's not 
just pipes and systems, it's a question of understanding the user 
community," Suss said. "There are tremendous costs associated with 
capturing information...and too often our industry uses one-size-fits-all 
grand system solutions, and these don't work for knowledge management."

The Air Force must tailor the solution to the community requesting the 
"different information in different formats at different times to address 
different requirements," but that places an enormous burden on the people 
gathering and managing the data and can lead to information becoming 
outdated, Suss said. "That moves data away from the people who need to be 
using it."

The Air Force must first get a handle on the various users requesting 
information, and then it becomes a matter of "making pretty complicated 
trade-offs...and finding the appropriate levels of investment dedicated" to 
each area, he said.

Top-level support is essential, said French Caldwell, vice president and 
research director at Gartner Inc. The Air Force's top-level officials 
should ensure that the service's main mission of being "able to put 
ordnance on a target anywhere in the world within 48 hours of a national 
command decision" is integrated into each command's knowledge management 
initiatives.

"The Air Force [leaders] must ask, 'What are the various steps, and what do 
I need to know at each step?' " Caldwell said. "Then, they must [identify] 
the supporting organizations that supply that information and decide what 
they need from each organization."

As long as the service's top-level mission serves as the "guiding view" for 
the various commands' knowledge management initiatives, the Air Force will 
reap the benefits, he said.
*******************************
Government Computer News
NTIS sets up homeland security site
By Vandana Sinha

The National Technical Information Service has launched the Homeland 
Security Information Center for the public, at www.ntis.gov/hs. NTIS, a 
reference unit of the Commerce Department, wants the site to serve as the 
public's go-to guide for counterterrorism, emergency preparedness and 
health information.

The NTIS site has best picks in five areas: health and medicine, food and 
agriculture, biological and chemical warfare, preparedness and response, 
and safety training. It includes relevant studies, statistics and reports 
from other federal agencies, contractors and universities. The collection 
ranges from a pre-Sept. 11 defense strategy report to conference 
transcripts on food pathogens to a 17-minute video describing weapons of 
mass destruction.

Dozens of homeland security reports are available, priced from $9 by 
download up to $27 on paper for more than 20 pages. They come from NTIS' 
inventory of 3 million government-funded references on more than 350 topics.
******************************
USA Today
Recycling cell phones to charities, not landfills

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)  With customers methodically switching mobile 
services and upgrading to newer models, discarded cell phones are hitting 
incinerators and landfills in record numbers, contaminating the environment.

But now users have the option of donating unwanted phones to non-profit 
groups, developing nations, or for recycling the components in 
environmentally safe ways.

"With a phone from last year donated to CARE (international aid 
organization) you can probably feed somebody for a month with the revenues 
generated," said Seth Heine, president of Atlanta-based Collective Good, 
which runs a cell phone collection program at www.collectivegood.com.

"The simple act of recycling your cell phone can have profound 
ramifications," Heine said. "The money can be used for immunization to keep 
a child from dying from a disease, or you can save 1,000 square-feet of 
rain forest forever."

More than 128 million people in the United States use cell phones, 
typically replacing them after 18 months, according to a recent study by 
INFORM, a New York-based environmental research organization.

By 2005, the group predicts that about 130 million cell phones weighing 
about 65,000 tons will be "retired" annually in the United States.

Toxic threat

Not only do those phones add to the volume of landfill waste but, experts 
say, the toxins they emit are particularly damaging to the environment.

The phones contain persistent and bioaccumulative toxic chemicals, or PBTs, 
which have been associated with cancer and other reproductive, neurological 
and developmental disorders, INFORM said.

The toxins do not degrade, but "accumulate in the environment and can cause 
damage to the ecosystem," moving up the food chain as people eat plants, 
livestock and seafood, said Eric Most, director of INFORM's Solid Waste 
Prevention Program.

Lead, cadmium, mercury and other toxic substances leak into groundwater 
supplies from landfills, while toxins from incinerated phones pollute the 
air and eventually come back down to earth in rainwater, he said.

The situation is so dire that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 
given INFORM a grant to study cell phone collection and donation programs.

To address the situation, the wireless industry started its own recycling 
effort through the Wireless Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Cellular 
Telecommunications and Internet Association trade group, which represents 
wireless phone manufacturers and carriers.

The foundation, through its Donate a Phone program, www.donateaphone.com, 
collects used cell phones and resells them, sharing proceeds with charities 
and non-profit groups such as Goodwill, Boy Scouts and Habitat for Humanity.

The Wireless Foundation also donates phones and air time to organizations 
that help victims of domestic violence, schools and neighborhood watch 
groups. Phones deemed unusable are recycled by ReCellular under strict EPA 
standards.

Where to donate phones

People can donate old cell phones at Radio Shack, The Body Shop and Sprint 
PCS stores, said David Diggs, executive director of the Wireless 
Foundation. And, Motorola is collecting phones at certain NFL football 
games, he said.

Sprint PCS donates part of its proceeds to the National Organization on 
Disability and Easter Seals. Cingular Wireless works with the Wireless 
Foundation and Verizon Communications has a similar program called HopeLine.

AT&T Wireless Services is starting a program to donate proceeds from the 
sale of old phones to charity or donating phones themselves to officials 
and groups that respond to emergency situations, like the American Red Cross.

Some carriers also offer trade-in and rebate programs at various times of 
the year.

Founded in 2000, Collective Good is a private effort that allows people to 
recycle cell phones over the Internet.

Donors have a choice of more than 120 organizations  from environmental and 
children's medical groups to international aid and animal rights organizations.

Collective Good purchases the phones, has them recycled in keeping with EPA 
standards, or refurbishes and resells them, mostly to Latin American 
countries, said Heine.

Last year's $200 cell phone, for example, could be purchased for about $35 
by someone in a country where the cost of cell phones is not subsidized by 
the service providers as it is in the United States, he said.

"When you're a Guatemalan farmer and you make $600 a year, you'll never be 
able to buy a new mobile phone," Heine said.

Working Assets and NPI wireless are signed up to recycle customer phones, 
and Heine said he is talking to other carriers as well as major retailers.

A newly founded effort, www.trashphone.com, pays from $1 to $20 per phone, 
depending on the model, to organizations that want to raise funds, said Tim 
Leach, founder of the San Diego-based company.

Local groups offer their own recycling programs, like the Animal Humane 
Association of New Mexico, the Cerebral Palsy organization of Colorado and 
Oxfam in the United Kingdom.

No standardization

As noble as recycling is, reducing the amount of waste should also be a 
goal, says INFORM. Most discarded cell phones are still usable, but people 
toss them out when they change service or providers introduce newer models, 
said Most.

To minimize phone "churn" and reduce waste, cell phone companies should 
offer take-back plans and discounts on new phones in exchange for returned 
equipment, INFORM said. Vendors should also standardize their adapters, 
chargers and other components, the group said.

"We're hoping to get manufacturers to think about making phones more 
durable, easier to disassemble, easier to recycle and that contain less 
toxic materials," Most said.

Despite industry arguments that standardization would hinder innovation, 
Heine of Collective Good points out that built-in obsolescence guarantees 
future sales.

Cell phone manufacturers "don't want to see people recycling mobile phones, 
and the government doesn't want to make them responsible for their waste," 
he said.
*******************************
CNET News.com
Assault on Net servers fails
By Robert Lemos
October 22, 2002, 7:40 PM PT

An attempt to cripple the computers that serve as the address books for the 
Internet failed on Monday.

The so-called distributed denial-of-service attack sent a barrage of data 
at the 13 domain-name service root servers beginning around 1 p.m. PDT 
Monday, and as of Tuesday afternoon, it appeared to be continuing, 
according to Matrix NetSystems, an Austin, Texas, company that measures 
Internet performance.

Traffic from several Internet service providers has been slightly delayed, 
but because the domain name system, or DNS, is spread out and because the 
13 root servers are the last resort for address searches, the attack had 
almost no effect on the Internet itself.

"There was never an end-user that said there was a problem," said Paul 
Vixie, chairman of the Internet Software Consortium, a group that supports 
the open-source software on which many domain name servers run.

The group also administers one of the 13 computers--specifically, the "F" 
server--that routinely match Internet addresses. Like a telephone book, 
domain name servers link a name with a number, in this case a Web site name 
such as "cnet.com" with its numerical Internet Protocol address. The system 
also works in a layered manner, so that someone who wants to go a specific 
address is first directed to a local server. If the domain is not found, 
then the request gets bumped up to a domain name server for the top-level 
domain, such as ".com."

Requests only rarely consult the root servers. Most requests that the ISC's 
"F" server sees, Vixie said, are from poorly designed networks that don't 
cache earlier answers to requests for information.

"We answer a request and then two milliseconds later get another request 
from the same user for the same domain," he said.

The "F" server responds to more than 270 million domain-name service 
queries each day, according to its site.

While Vixie took issue with reports that the attack had been the "largest 
ever," he did say that aspects of the data flood made it unusual. "There 
have been (previous) attacks against the root domain servers--yes," he 
said. "But it is rare to have attacks against all 13 at the same time."

Still, the results were not severe. The attack, at its peak, only caused 6 
percent of domain name service requests to go unanswered, according to 
Matrix NetSystems. The DNS system normally responds almost 100 percent of 
the time.

The 13 domain-name service root servers are designated "A" through "M." The 
most affected servers, according to Matrix NetSystems, were the "A" and "J" 
servers owned by VeriSign Global Registry Services in Herndon, Va.; the "G" 
server owned by the U.S. Department of Defense Network Information Center 
in Vienna, Va.; the "H" server at the U.S. Army Research Lab in Aberdeen, 
Md.; the "I" server, located in Stockholm; the "K" server, located in 
London; and the "M" server, located in Tokyo.

About 4,000 denial-of-service attacks hit the Internet in the average week, 
according to data collected by the Cooperative Association for Internet 
Data Analysis. Many of those are aimed at domain name servers.

Attacks that broadly affect the Internet are rare. In April 1997, a 
misconfigured router advertised itself to the Internet as the quickest 
gateway to every other server and caused a ripple that affected 
communications for several hours.
*********************************
Sydney Morning Herald
Watchdog wants more coherent laws on Net race hate
Canberra
October 23 2002

Australian laws covering race hate on the Internet needed to be more 
coherent, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission said today.

The human rights watchdog said there were inconsistencies between the 
content classification regime which governs the Internet in Australia and 
the racial discrimination act.

The commission yesterday hosted a symposium on cyber racism with 
representatives from government regulatory bodies, the IT industry, legal 
experts, and community groups.

Committees will now look at ways of tightening regulations and providing 
education on racial vilification on the internet.

"The issue of online race hate raises questions about retaining the 
internet's enormous capacity to share information freely and provide a 
public space to discuss controversial issues, and about the responsible use 
of that public space in a manner which does not undermine basic human 
rights," the commission said in a statement.
******************************
Sydney Morning Herald
Electronic polls win vote of confidence
By Lia Timson
October 22 2002

How does a country of 180 million people, of which 67 per cent must vote, 
overcome geographical, technological and social difficulties to deliver 
fraud-free national election results in less than 24 hours?

The answer lies in a purpose-built electronic ballot box containing locally 
developed hardware and software that can operate independently of power or 
telecommunications infrastructure.

About 30 per cent of Brazilians are illiterate. Some 17,000 voting 
locations in remote school classrooms - including indigenous reserves - 
have no access to power.

Voting is compulsory for literate citizens aged 18 to 70, while it is 
optional for people aged 16, 17 and over 70, as well as for those deemed 
illiterate.

On October 6 Brazil conducted its largest general election and the first 
one to be fully automated. More than 18,880 candidates vied for 1655 posts, 
including those of president, senators, state governors, federal and state 
house of representatives members.

Two presidential candidates, Luis Inacio da Silva, a former metal trade 
worker of the Workers' Party (PT), and Jose Serra, candidate of an alliance 
between two democratic parties (PSDB and PMDB), will dispute a second round 
on October 27, because neither was able to secure 50 per cent of all votes 
plus one.

Manual vote counting in the past had been marred by fraud but this year's 
first round was declared fraud-free by the Brazilian Superior Electoral 
Tribunal's chief information officer, Paulo Camaro.

This was all possible thanks to the electronic ballot box developed by the 
TSE in conjunction with IT experts from local universities, the army, navy 
and air force, and manufactured by Unisys and self-services system company 
Diebold Procomp.

The first Brazilian ballot boxes were used for municipal elections in 1996 
in 57 cities. Since then the technology has been fined-tuned, the Windows 
CE operating system adopted and the number of units gradually increased to 
culminate in the 406,000 boxes used this year. Remarkably, fewer than 1 per 
cent (3549) presented technical problems and were substituted during 
voting. In only 111 cases, voting had to be continued on printed tickets.

Camaro said the ballot boxes were unique because they catered for Brazil's 
illiterate and semi-literate population by registering voting preferences 
numerically and according to candidates' photos. Voters followed prompts to 
press candidates' numbers on a pad next to a screen. As each name and photo 
appeared, the voter was prompted to confirm their numerical choice.

Printing modules were used for the first time alongside 23,000 ballot boxes 
to allow voters to double-check that they had made their intended choice. 
Once sighted, printed cards were automatically deposited in a locked bag.

Camaro said the exercise served as a test of accuracy of the system and 
proved the ballot boxes were 100 per cent reliable in registering choice.

Unisys won the $A180 million federal contract to supply this year's 
additional 51,000 ballot boxes, as well as printing modules and technical 
support by 10,000 staff in 5500 localities.

The company reported IT chiefs from the United States, Japan and Venezuela 
were among those in Brazil watching the elections with interest.

Votes were encrypted, digitally signed and registered on a disk and two 
flash cards within the ballot boxes. When voting closed, disks were removed 
under strict supervision and transported to the nearest Regional Electoral 
Tribunal. Data was then transmitted via dial-up, leased line or satellite 
to the Superior Tribunal for final compilation.

"The ballot boxes can function either on electricity or on a built-in 
battery. They have no modem because 17,000 electoral zones have no power. 
Some 335,000 classrooms have no telephone lines," Camaro said.

Three Internet service providers worked on the data transmission with the 
country's telecommunications corporation Embratel, which deployed 750 staff 
to the project. The first results were published within four hours of 
voting closing. Within 24 hours the need for a second round was confirmed.

However, Camaro said the technology was constantly under review and could 
one day allow voting online, provided the identity of voters could be 
established beyond doubt.

"But we will have to resolve logistic, security and identification problems 
before it happens," he said.

The author is a Brazilian national among more than 150,000 who voted in 
Brazilian consulate missions around the world using printed forms. The 
electronic election has not yet been extended to overseas posts.

The evolution of electronic elections in Brazil

March 1995: TSE and partners start work on an electronic ballot box after 
ascertaining no suitable example is available worldwide.

November 1995: Government tender for box and software manufacturer.

October 1996: First electronic municipal elections. 33 per cent of 
population votes on 77,000 electronic boxes in 57 cities. (Unisys contract.)

October 1998: 58 per cent of population chooses president and other 
candidates electronically in 537 cities using 167,000 ballot boxes. 
(Procomp contract.)

October 2000: 110 million voters, including indigenous reserve residents, 
use 354,000 ballot boxes for municipal elections nationally. (Diebold 
Procomp contract).

October 6, 2002: 406,000 ballot boxes used exclusively for the first time 
to register 115 million voters' preferences on 18,882 candidates for 1655 
posts in all government levels. (Unisys contract.)

October 27, 2002: Second round of voting (president only). By law, exactly 
the same technology and logistics as used in the first round will apply.
*****************************
New Zealand Herald
New computer lab will help trace child porn
17.10.2002

A new computer laboratory was opened today to help the unit that tracks 
down illegal pornography on the internet.

Internal Affairs Minister George Hawkins said the Wellington laboratory had 
state of the art computer equipment which would be used by the Censorship 
Compliance Unit to find child pornography and trace the people trading in it.

The laboratory will also dismantle computers seized by inspectors and 
search for encrypted material.

Mr Hawkins said the unit's work was vital because prosecutions succeeded or 
failed on the strength of evidence the inspectors found inside computer 
systems.

"The unit is frequently commended by overseas agencies for its ability to 
work in well with them, the quality of information provided and the many 
successful prosecutions that have resulted," he said.

Since the unit was established in 1996 it has investigated more than 480 
New Zealanders involved in child pornography, resulting in 101 convictions.
**************************
New Scientist.com
Prototype glass sheet computer unveiled
18:28 22 October 02

A transparent computer processor has been printed on to a flat plate of 
glass by researchers at Sharp's Japanese laboratory. Their success suggests 
ultra-thin computers and televisions could in future be built entirely on a 
single sheet of glass. [story: 
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992954]
***************************

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 23, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
week.  For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this
service, please see below.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 414
Date: October 23, 2002

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Top Stories for Wednesday, October 23, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Attack on Internet Called Largest Ever"
"Is Your Congress Member Tech-Friendly?"
"Sharp Unveils 'Computer-On-Glass' Display"
"Researchers Predict Worm that Eats the Internet in 15 Minutes"
"China's Next Challenge: Mastering the Microchip"
"Smart Fatigues Hear Enemy Coming"
"IT Circa 2008: Spin Your Crystal Balls"
"Nano Organization Tries to Put the Valley Back on Washington's Map"
"Where Are All the IT Jobs?"
"Professor's Case: Unlock Crypto"
"Fighting Back"
"Dan Gillmor: Software Idea May Be Crazy Enough to Work"
"Fractals Help UCLA Researchers Design Antennas for New Wireless
Devices"
"Indian Scientists Draw Top Dollar in US IT Research"
"Bioinformatics: Bringing It All Together"
"The PC Changes Shape"
"A Better Ballot Box?"
"Grid Iron"
"Pocket Pictures"

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

"Attack on Internet Called Largest Ever"
What key online backbone organization officials are calling the
largest and most sophisticated attack ever on the Internet's root
servers disrupted eight or nine of the 13 computers that control
global Internet flow late Monday afternoon for about an hour.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item1

"Is Your Congress Member Tech-Friendly?"
Nearly one-third of Congress is "tech-friendly," or in favor of
the technology sector's program, according to the Information
Technology Industry Council's (ITI) high-tech voting guide issued
on Monday.  Technology bills Congress passed as law were positive ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item2

"Sharp Unveils 'Computer-On-Glass' Display"
Japanese liquid crystal display (LCD) manufacturer Sharp today
disclosed a prototype display with microprocessor circuitry
placed directly onto the glass, using the company's continuous
grain silicon (CGS) technology.  The company says the screen, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item3

"Researchers Predict Worm that Eats the Internet in 15 Minutes"
A two-month-old research paper theorizes next-generation computer
worms that could overrun the Internet in a matter of minutes;
such worms would use "hit lists" of vulnerable systems, rather
than scan blindly, and also carry payloads that would facilitate ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item4

"China's Next Challenge: Mastering the Microchip"
The Chinese government wants China to become a global competitor
in the semiconductor industry, and is offering a raft of
incentives to foreign companies to set up shop in the country and
offer expertise to domestic workers.  China's semiconductor ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item5

"Smart Fatigues Hear Enemy Coming"
Scientists at Virginia Tech and the University of Southern
California have combined state-of-the-art electronics and
traditional weaving techniques to develop a fabric that can
detect and relay sounds from great distances, which could be ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item6

"IT Circa 2008: Spin Your Crystal Balls"
Gartner Research recently unveiled its 10 predictions for
computing in the year 2008, eliciting a number of opinions from
IT-savvy readers.  Gartner predicted that increased network
capacity will allow businesses and consumers to draw their ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item7

"Nano Organization Tries to Put the Valley Back on Washington's Map"
The NanoScience Exchange (NSE) founded by software entrepreneur
Jim Hurd is a young organization that aims to bridge the
communications gap between Washington legislators and Silicon
Valley, which suffered a blow to its credibility as a result of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item8

"Where Are All the IT Jobs?"
Recent studies from Challenger, Gray & Christmas and the
Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) report a
drop in the number of IT layoffs, but there are indications that
hiring has also dropped:  ITAA reports that new hires between ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item9

"Professor's Case: Unlock Crypto"
Professor Daniel Bernstein of the University of Illinois is
waging a court battle with the U.S. government to make
cryptographic software code freely available to the American
public.  In 1995, he filed suit against the State Department, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item10

"Fighting Back"
Media companies are estranging consumers, tech companies, and
creative artists by pushing for legislation that would increase
their control over copyrighted works even further, cutting into
fair-use rights in their quest to stamp out digital piracy.  Such ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item11

"Dan Gillmor: Software Idea May Be Crazy Enough to Work"
Lotus Development founder and cyber-activist Mitch Kapor and his
team have spent more than a year developing Chandler, an
open-source Interpersonal Information Manager software program
that encrypts data such as personal email, calendars, and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item12

"Fractals Help UCLA Researchers Design Antennas for New Wireless
Devices"
UCLA researchers are using fractal mathematical models of various
topographies in order to design antennas that can function in
multiple ways on multiple frequencies for use with new cell
phones and other wireless communications devices, according to a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item13

"Indian Scientists Draw Top Dollar in US IT Research"
Three out of the seven highest grants awarded by the U.S.
National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Information
Technology Research (ITR) program went to research projects led
by Indian scientists and professors.  "This proves the point that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item14

"Bioinformatics: Bringing It All Together"
Bioinformatics is the acquisition, storage, analysis, and
visualization of biological information via computational tools,
and Jim Golden of 454 Corporation says that this can be
accomplished by integrating data across myriad databases, a task ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item15

"The PC Changes Shape"
PCs have not changed much in the last seven years, but
manufacturers and vendors looking to jump-start the tepid PC
market will be rolling out PCs will new technologies in the near
future.  Dell, IBM, and HP are all developing "transformer" PCs ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item16

"A Better Ballot Box?"
The debacle of the November 2000 presidential election in Florida
has prompted election officials around the world to consider
alternative technologies, such as electronic voting, that promise
to eliminate mistakes and improve reliability and count accuracy. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item17

"Grid Iron"
Distributed or grid computing is designed to harness the idle
computing power of machines spread out over a decentralized
network, enabling customers to solve complex problems without
running up costs for new equipment.  IBM's Irving ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item18

"Pocket Pictures"
Telecommunications companies such as NTT DoCoMo and AT&T and
manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, and Fujitsu are
working--often in collaboration--to develop embedded devices and
applications that support wireless 3D graphics.  3D-enabled ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item19


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