Clips October 25, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 25, 2002

ARTICLES

Panel Says Terror Defenses Weak in Many Areas
IT spending forecast strong
Changes in store at Treasury
Legal Scholars and Library Groups Seek Clarification From Court [Fair Use]
Voting Machines Can't Help Disabled
Last Bell Tolls for Online School
Blind May Get Look at Digital Pictures
Forman: Turn policy into reality
Architecture for homeland security agencies coming together
Commerce official supports computer security office move [NIST]
Spam: Arriving en masse to an e-mail address near you
Met widens net for Bali terrorists

**************************
Washington Post
Report: U.S. Still Vulnerable
Panel Says Terror Defenses Weak in Many Areas
By John Mintz
Friday, October 25, 2002; Page A01

A prestigious task force led by two former U.S. senators has concluded that 
the American transportation, water, food, power, communications and banking 
systems remain easy targets for terrorists despite the government's efforts 
at tightening the nation's domestic security in the past year.

The panel, sponsored by the private Council on Foreign Relations and 
chaired by former senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), 
suggests that the task of protecting the nation is so complicated and 
expensive that the government's multibillion-dollar efforts will barely 
dent the problem.

The panel's report comes a week after CIA Director George J. Tenet warned 
Congress that the terrorist threat is as grave now as it was just before 
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"A year after 9/11, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and 
respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil," the commission 
says. "In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater 
casualties and widespread disruption to our lives and economy."

Among the looming crises that the task force says require immediate 
attention are these:

? Only a minuscule fraction of the containers, trains, trucks and ships 
entering the country are searched, which means the chances of detecting a 
weapon of mass destruction are almost nil.

? The nation's 650,000 state and local police officers operate "in a 
virtual intelligence vacuum" because they are denied access to terrorist 
watch lists compiled by the State Department for use by U.S. immigration 
and consular officials.

? Local police, fire and emergency medical personnel can't communicate with 
each other in an emergency because their radios are incompatible, and they 
lack the training and protective equipment in the event of a chemical or 
biological attack.

? Numerous legal barriers exist that discourage major industries from 
addressing security concerns: most private water systems avoid checking 
water for signs of sabotage because of fear of litigation; and energy 
business executives fear convening to discuss emergency back-up procedures 
out of concern about antitrust litigation.

? The National Guard, trained mostly for deployment overseas, is 
ill-equipped and ill-trained to respond to a major terrorist strike.

President Bush has proposed creating a Department of Homeland Security that 
would consolidate the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs 
Service, the Coast Guard and many other agencies. An Office of Homeland 
Security, headed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, is working to 
coordinate the functions of these agencies as Congress debates the creation 
of the new department.

Ridge's office said yesterday that the new report is out of date and 
doesn't recognize the administration's efforts. "We've been actively 
implementing what we can, while waiting for Congress to act on the 
president's homeland security proposals made in February, such as increased 
funding for first responders, bioterrorism and critical infrastructure 
protection," said Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

The panel's leaders said they do not intend to criticize the Bush 
administration, but rather to focus the nation's attention on what they 
consider a crisis.

"Starting from the point that nobody took any of this seriously [before 
Sept. 11], the Bush administration has made an adequate start," Rudman said 
yesterday. "But I think Tom Ridge and his staff have been so involved in 
process, so distracted by the security alerts and by the pending 
legislation, that they do have a ways to go. . . . Our message is, for 
God's sake, do it."

Seven months before the suicide attacks in New York and on the Pentagon, 
Rudman and Hart released a congressionally ordered report that warned that 
the threat of terrorism was so severe that the government should create a 
homeland security agency. The study received little attention, and some 
members of Congress scoffed at it as an irrelevancy. But after Sept. 11, 
2001, Bush used the recommendations as a blueprint in planning the new 
homeland agency.

Besides Hart and Rudman, the other members of the 15-member task force 
include former secretaries of state George P. Schultz and Warren 
Christopher; retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. and retired Adm. William J. 
Crowe Jr., both former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; William H. 
Webster, former director of the FBI and the CIA; and Harold Varmus, former 
director of the National Institutes of Health.

One of the new panel's main points is that the government must act to 
reduce the incentive for terrorists to act, not only by making it harder 
for them to kill or destroy but also by minimizing the economic impact of a 
terrorist strike.

The report cites the nation's 361 ports as examples. While the government 
responded quickly to the hijackings of four jets in the Sept. 11 attacks by 
tightening security for commercial passengers, it has made little headway 
in inspecting the cargo at U.S. ports, the report said.

Since 43 percent of all maritime containers flow through only two ports, 
Los Angeles and Long Beach, the cost to the economy of the detonation there 
of a weapon of mass destruction would "bring the global container industry 
to its knees," the report says.

Port officials estimate the cost of securing U.S. ports at $2 billion. Only 
$92 million in federal grants has been authorized.

"This screams at us as a top national priority," said Stephen Flynn, the 
task force's director and a former Coast Guard officer. "So few resources 
are being expended on this."

Despite the millions of dollars earmarked to train and equip local fire, 
police and emergency medical personnel, much more money needs to be devoted 
to the task, the report says -- as of July, $2.6 billion in requests for 
training and equipment for 18,000 local fire departments remained unfilled.

The report recommends that local, county and state law enforcement officers 
be given access to the State Department's terrorist watch lists, which are 
given to immigration and consular officials, so they will have a better 
chance to keep track of the nation's 8.5 million illegal immigrants and 
300,000 fugitive aliens. "When it comes to combating terrorism, the cops on 
the beat are effectively operating deaf, dumb and blind," the report says.

Federal agencies need to act to free radio frequencies to allow police and 
fire personnel to communicate in an emergency, and those personnel should 
be provided with gear that will allow their different radio networks to 
communicate with each other, the report says.

On another front, the task force notes that there is no agency that 
corresponds to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in oversight 
of the safety of the food supply, nor is there a communications network 
among the states and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Confusion over 
reporting obligations [and] who has jurisdiction . . . [promises] to 
seriously compromise our ability to contain the consequences of attacks on 
American crops and livestock," the report says.

There are not enough laboratories in the country to test water for 
contamination, and many private water companies avoid testing for dangerous 
contaminants because of fear of litigation, the report says.

That was only one of many instances in which the panelists proposed the 
lifting of laws or regulations that discourage firms from joining the war 
on terrorism. Energy executives, for example, fear that they will be sued 
for antitrust violations if they develop industry-wide plans for responding 
to attacks on the energy infrastructure, the report notes.
*****************************
Federal Computer Week
IT spending forecast strong
BY Judi Hasson
Oct. 24, 2002

It has been a very good year for information technology vendors in the 
federal sector, and next year should be strong too, according to the latest 
study by Input, a technology think tank.

Government IT spending continues to grow, according to Input. In fiscal 
2002, the government spent $19.3 billion in the civilian sector alone. In 
fiscal 2003, which began Oct. 1, the sector is expected to spend $20.5 
billion and, in fiscal 2004, spending is estimated at $22.9 billion.

The projections are similar for defense spending too. In fiscal 2002, the 
defense sector spent $17.8 billion. In fiscal 2003, it's expected to spend 
$19.8 billion and in fiscal 2004, $21.8 billion.

The study said vendors have many opportunities to help government.

On the homeland security front, vendors can help government identify 
solutions. In electronic government, they can present full solutions, not 
quick fixes. In information assurance, they can make security a part of 
every solution, and in procurement, they can track the preferred buying 
vehicles, Input said.

"There are opportunities for vendors in all these areas," said Kevin 
Plexico, Input's executive vice president, at the company's annual FedFocus 
conference Oct. 23 in Reston, Va.

Still, chief information officers are well aware they must get the biggest 
bang out of the government's buck.

"The last thing we want to do is create new costs," said Mayi Canales, the 
outgoing acting CIO at the Treasury Department who spoke via a video 
presentation.
***************************
Federal Computer Week
Changes in store at Treasury
BY Judi Hasson
Oct. 24, 2002

Fred Thompson, a longtime information technology official at the Treasury 
Department, is leaving the federal government in the midst of a 
reorganization that resulted in cuts to the IT staff.

Thompson, assistant director for consulting and marketing at Treasury's 
Office of the Chief Information Officer, is the latest IT official to 
announce his departure. Last week, Mayi Canales, the acting chief 
information officer, said she was leaving her job in government effective 
Oct. 25 to start a consulting business.

In an e-mail sent to his friends and colleagues on Oct. 24, Thompson said 
he decided to end his 30-year federal career on Nov. 1 after 30 years in 
the government. His first plan is to take a vacation in Hawaii and then 
look for a job in the private sector.

"I appreciate the support and encouragement that I have gotten from my many 
friends and colleagues at Treasury during my (almost) five years here as 
well as during the 10 years that I served in the Internal Revenue Service," 
Thompson said in his e-mail.

A strong believer in making government an employer of choice for IT 
workers, Thompson, working with the National Academy of Public 
Administration, helped draft a study released last year of alternative pay 
systems and other human resources issues. The study called for solving the 
federal IT workforce crisis by using innovative programs such as 
pay-banding and special salary rates; beefing up training programs; and 
awarding bonuses.

It also called on agencies to offer a balanced work/life program and invest 
the time and resources needed to implement change.

In another move, Mike Parker, currently the director of Enterprise IT 
Business Planning and Assurance for Treasury's CIO office, will become the 
interim acting CIO while officials look for a permanent candidate. Parker 
began his tenure at Treasury as director of financial management for the 
CIO office in 1999.
******************************
Chronicle of Higher Education
Legal Scholars and Library Groups Seek Clarification From Court on Software 
Licenses
By ANDREA L. FOSTER
Washington

Law professors and academic-library groups are asking a federal appeals 
court here to modify a recent ruling to make it clear that established 
copyright provisions, like fair use, sometimes trump software-licensing 
agreements that would otherwise narrow consumers' rights.

The case in question, Harold L. Bowers v. Baystate Technologies Inc., 
involves the shrink-wrap license on a piece of software Mr. Bowers created 
to improve computer-aided-design software. Mr. Bowers, of Memphis, said 
Baystate had purchased a copy of his software and then "reverse-engineered" 
the product -- figuring out how it worked and then creating a similar 
product for sale under Baystate's name.

Mr. Bowers told the court that Baystate had violated the terms of his 
software's shrink-wrap license, which prohibits purchasers from 
reverse-engineering the software. Such licenses are typically found inside 
the box containing the software, and are printed on the envelope containing 
the CD-ROM or disk. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 
agreed in August that Baystate, based in Marlborough, Mass., had breached 
its contract with Mr. Bowers.

Baystate had argued that the Copyright Act pre-empted the shrink-wrap 
license's ban on reverse engineering, as well as other restrictions in the 
license. Such restrictions prevent fair use of copyrighted material, the 
company said.

The scholars who are seeking clarification from the court don't necessarily 
agree with Baystate that the Copyright Act overrules Mr. Bowers's 
shrink-wrap license. Rather, they say, they are concerned that the court's 
decision is a "blanket rule" that shrink-wrap licenses "are never 
pre-empted." Because the terms of the licenses are written by the sellers 
and vary widely from product to product, the scholars are worried that the 
licenses do not necessarily recognize longstanding assumptions of copyright 
law, such as fair use.

Computer-science researchers are also concerned about the provision in Mr. 
Bowers's license banning reverse-engineering, which the researchers say is 
an important technique in their discipline.

"What we want is for the court to acknowledge the importance of 
reverse-engineering, and to change its opinion so that it doesn't hold that 
shrink-wrap licenses can automatically ban reverse-engineering," says Mark 
A. Lemley, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He 
says reverse-engineering promotes scientific progress.Mr. Lemley wrote the 
brief that was submitted to the appeals court last month on behalf of, 
among others, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library 
Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. Association for 
Computing Machinery, and 33 professors of intellectual-property law.

The brief (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free) states that the 
court's ruling has repercussions that go beyond reverse-engineering. It 
could mean that by using a shrink-wrap license at the behest of a 
publisher, consumers waive all their privileges under the Copyright Act, 
the brief reads.

"A scholar could lose his fair-use privilege to quote a novel ... A library 
could lose its ability under the first-sale doctrine to lend books."

The argument is reminiscent of that made by academic-library groups that 
oppose the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, or Ucita, a model 
law intended to make software-licensing agreements uniformly enforceable in 
all 50 states. (See an article from The Chronicle, September 13.)

Frederic M. Meeker, a Washington lawyer representing Mr. Bowers, declined 
to comment on the case.
****************************
Washington Post
Voting Machines Can't Help Disabled
Lack of Staff Leaves New Technology Unusable for Now
By David Nakamura
Thursday, October 24, 2002; Page DZ03

Advocates for the disabled had hoped to unveil high-tech machines in the 
general election to make voting easier for District residents who are blind 
or have limited hand dexterity. But that will have to wait.

The 150 machines, costing $1.2 million, are in place. Volunteers needed to 
operate the equipment are not.

Several advocacy groups were supposed to recruit the volunteers under a 
court settlement this year of a lawsuit brought by the groups against the 
D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. The suit alleged that the city's 
current balloting system requires many disabled people to have assistance 
in the voting booth, denying them the right to cast ballots in private.

The city bought the machines, about 30 of which were used in demonstrations 
during the September primary elections. The machines were demonstrated more 
widely -- at all 140 polling places -- for the general election Nov. 5, but 
the advocacy groups could not find enough volunteers to run them, officials 
said.

So the machines will sit dormant this year. They are scheduled to be used 
for actual voting in the presidential primary of May 2004.

"We weren't able to reach as many people as we'd hoped," said Linda 
Royster, executive director of the Disability Rights Council of Greater 
Washington. "We're unable to pull together enough volunteers to make the 
demos worthwhile. The board will not assist or provide us with the people. 
To be fair, it's not malicious on their part. They just don't have the people."

Under the court settlement, which affects more than 16,000 District voters, 
the city was not required to recruit volunteers or train them for a 
demonstration next month, city officials said.

However, the city will be responsible for recruiting and training in 2004. 
Board of Elections spokesman Bill O'Field said city officials will try to 
demonstrate and publicize the new machines before the 2004 primaries.

Using them, voters who can see but cannot read or write English will 
receive audio instructions and make selections by touching a screen on a 
desktop-size computer that can handle as many as five languages. 
Sight-impaired voters or those with limited hand movement will receive 
audio instructions and make their selections by pushing a button on a 
separate electronic box attached to the computer.

Royster said her organization and the American Association of People With 
Disabilities, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, could not offer a stipend 
to volunteers this November. In contrast, the city will pay poll workers a 
$100 daily stipend.

"Oh, how I wish," Royster said. "We are a very small nonprofit. We don't 
have that kind of money."

Board of Elections officials said they will pay workers a stipend to 
operate the new machines in 2004 but cannot afford a demonstration next month.

"We have always been on the same page," said Kenneth McGhie, general 
counsel to the elections board. "We wanted further [voter] participation. 
To that extent, [the new machines] are what we both wanted. The only thing 
we ever disagreed on was the timing. The timing was a problem because we do 
not have enough money."

Royster said that both nonprofit organizations asked members to volunteer 
but that many people said they were too busy. She said she does not foresee 
a problem getting the machines running by the 2004 primary.

The District will be the nation's only jurisdiction to use both the 
optical-scan voting and computerized systems. The city replaced its 
punch-card system with optical-scan balloting last year.
***************************
Wired News
Last Bell Tolls for Online School

MORRISVILLE, Pennsylvania -- Embattled cyberschool Einstein Academy is 
slated to go offline for good.

On Wednesday the Morrisville school board voted overwhelmingly to revoke 
Einstein's charter, potentially pulling the plug on a controversial academy 
whose launch ignited a firestorm of political debate over virtual education.

Board President Ken Junkins said board members voted 8-0 in favor of 
revoking the charter, with one abstention. "We felt that the problems with 
the school were so great that the education of these students was 
imperiled. There was more danger to these children from attending the 
school than not attending," he said.

The decision comes after the board held two months of hearings prompted by 
allegations of financial irregularities, mismanagement and numerous 
violations of state education guidelines.

Einstein Academy started its second school year in September with 
approximately 670 students, down from 2,700 at the beginning of the 2001-02 
school year. Einstein's students are given a computer and free Internet 
access, and receive all instruction and coursework online.

Junkins said that while parents testified at the hearings claiming both 
satisfaction and concern about the school's effectiveness, the 
"disenrollment of those 2,000 students speaks strongly." He said the 
school's failure to provide services to special education students who 
can't participate in public education -- a primary justification for 
chartering the virtual school -- was its most glaring violation.

Einstein can appeal the decision, which would allow it to stay online until 
the Pennsylvania Department of Education renders a decision, which usually 
takes 30 to 45 days.

Calls made to Einstein for comment were not returned -- which may not be 
surprising for a school without a leader.

According to Morrisville school superintendent John Gould, who helps to 
oversee the school's operations, the school has had three chief executives, 
including two in the past three months. Barry Delit, chairman of the board 
of directors at Einstein, is now the de facto president.

Gould said Einstein hasn't received most of the funds the school district 
had earmarked for it for this year because it failed to file the proper 
paperwork, resulting in mounting bills and unpaid teachers.

Einstein was one of the first online schools in the state to receive a 
charter. The school met with immediate opposition in the form of lawsuits 
from school districts and school boards (PDF) that sought to shut down the 
school because it could enroll students from across the state and was 
operating outside the control of the Department of Education.

Junkins said Pennsylvania rewrote its cyberschool law in July to move 
chartering authority from individual districts to the state board of 
education, largely due to the experience with Einstein.

Nevertheless, Junkins said, he believes that "cybereducation has great 
potential for the commonwealth."

Gould, who was instrumental in getting Einstein's charter approved, said 
everyone involved has learned valuable lessons.

"We tell kids, 'It's good to learn from your mistakes,' and that's what 
we're doing," he said.
****************************
Washington Post
Blind May Get Look at Digital Pictures
Technology Lets Users 'See' by Touch
By Mike Musgrove
Friday, October 25, 2002; Page E05

The National Institute of Standards and Technology unveiled a prototype of 
an appliance yesterday that could one day help blind people "see" digital 
images.

The device, which has been in the works for more than a year, translates 
the images from a personal computer to a grid of 3,600 pins. The pins rise 
from their normal position into a copy of the image, and users can "read" 
that pattern with their fingertips.

Dubbed by its creators a "tactile graphic display," the appliance will now 
spend another year or so getting road-tested by the National Federation of 
the Blind, a 50,000-member advocacy group based in Baltimore.

At the heart of the prototype is a ten-year-old Hewlett-Packard "XY 
plotter" -- a printer-like appliance typically used by engineers to graph 
equations. Though the plotter was designed to produce its results as ink on 
paper, the NIST team has re-engineered the device. An inspiration for the 
invention was a "bed of nails" toy usually sold at novelty stores, in which 
a flexible grid of steel pins can take the shape of a hand or anything 
placed under it.

Marc Maurer, NFB president, said viewing images in this manner "is so 
uncommon that it does not come naturally" at first. Maurer added that once 
people learn how to use it, the device could be a useful tool for students 
in thousands of schools for the blind.

John Roberts, leader of the project at the NIST, estimated that the device 
could start at about $2,000 when it eventually debuts on the market. While 
the device now can be used to communicate large shapes to blind people, 
Roberts said he hopes to eventually tweak the product to enable the blind 
to effectively "see" digital pictures this way.

Deputy Commerce Secretary Sam Bodman, who was on hand to unveil the device, 
said that blind people tend to have lower incomes and that 70 percent of 
Americans with disabilities are unemployed, he said. Tools such as the 
NIST's new graphic display have "the potential to change the income pattern 
of this sector of society," he said.

"This looks like Texas," Curtis Chong, director of technology at the NFB, 
said as he passed his fingertips over the device, which was displaying an 
outline of the Lone Star State.

"This would be great for geography class. That's one I used to fail all the 
time," he joked.

The announcement was timed as part of National Disability Employment 
Awareness Month and the NFB's National Meet the Blind Month.
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Forman: Turn policy into reality
BY Judi Hasson
Oct. 24, 2002

One year away from the congressional mandate calling for federal agencies 
to offer digital forms and accept electronic signatures, and it still isn't 
clear whether the government will meet the deadline, according to Mark 
Forman, the federal e-government chief.

Forman said government is still "thinking in terms of passing paper." 
However, he said the issue is not just achieving a paperless system, but 
eliminating the redundancies in government agencies that produce a plethora 
of similar electronic forms that citizens and businesses must fill out.

During the coming year, Forman said agencies would have to turn policy 
initiatives into reality, including the Government Paperwork Elimination 
Act, which goes into effect in October 2003.

"We cannot think of IT just in terms of IT anymore," said Forman, assistant 
director for information technology and e-government at the Office of 
Management and Budget.

In the past, vendors took one solution and sold it many times over to many 
departments. Now, the drive is to find one solution and integrate it 
throughout government, he said.

"We are no longer going to buy one solution multiple times," he said. 
"There are dramatic implications for not buying multiple times."

Agencies will have to make a credible business case to purchase information 
technology. And they will have to provide real milestones, not just say 
"they will fix it" once the contract is in place, he said.

Speaking at the Input FedFocus 2002 conference in Reston, Va., Oct. 23, 
Forman told vendors that they are "the engine of our innovations."

He also said government would continue working with the Government 
Information Security Reform Act even though the law is expected to expire 
next month and Congress has not yet extended it.

GISRA calls for agencies to do annual self-assessments of their security 
management practices and submit a report to the Office of Management and 
Budget.

In addition to submitting an annual report to Congress on agencies' 
compliance with GISRA, OMB is using the law as an important management 
enforcement tool for the White House.
**************************
Federal Computer Week
Forman: Turn policy into reality

Although the debate over creating a Homeland Security Department is stalled 
in Congress, officials have quietly drawn up a list of their top priorities 
to jump-start the agency if and when lawmakers approve it.

Jim Flyzik, a senior adviser at the Office of Homeland Security, said Oct. 
23 that the first priority would be consolidating the 58 government watch 
lists of suspected terrorists into one list.

One of many errors disclosed in the wake of last year's Sept. 11 terrorist 
attacks was that the names of suspected terrorists had been available on 
one classified watch list, but the information was not shared with other 
agencies that might have been able to stop the terrorists before they 
entered the United States. "How fast we can move depends on the 
legislation," Flyzik said, referring to the stalemate over labor issues and 
the bill that would create a new department, moving 22 departments or parts 
of agencies under its umbrella.

"Right now, we do not have that money in the bank," Flyzik told attendees 
at the annual Input FedFocus conference in Reston, Va.

Nevertheless, Flyzik and agency chief information officers have been 
meeting every Thursday to hammer out a plan for the new department. In 
addition to consolidating the watch lists, he said officials hoped to develop:

* A single portal for the agency.

* Secure videoconferencing for federal, state and local officials.

* Secure Internet expansion so law enforcement across the country can share 
information.

* A classified collaborative environment.

"This is not about Washington, D.C., and the federal government. This is 
about a national effort," Flyzik said. "The goal is to get the right 
information to the right people at the right time."
****************************
Federal Computer Week
Roster Change
Oct. 22, 2002

Mayi Canales, the acting chief information officer at the Treasury 
Department, is leaving her government job Oct. 25 to start a consulting 
firm. The company will do strategic planning and contract management, 
focusing on both federal and state customers.

For more, see "Treasury CIO headed to industry"

***

Gary Christopherson, CIO at the Veterans Health Administration, has stepped 
down following a reorganization that stripped him and two others CIOs of 
the authority to make independent information technology decisions.

In a memo to his staff, Christopherson said he would become a senior 
adviser effective Oct. 21, working on HealthePeople, a project across 
several federal agencies.

Robert Kolodner, a psychiatrist who has worked for the Department of 
Veterans Affairs for more than 20 years, will replace him as acting deputy 
CIO for the VHA.

For more, see "VHA CIO loses power, leaves job"

***

Paul Schneider has joined the National Security Agency as a senior 
acquisition executive, NSA officials announced Oct. 8. Schneider will be 
leading the agency's efforts in acquisition reform.

He brings to NSA more than 35 years of acquisition-related experience 
within the defense arena. He previously was with the Navy, serving as the 
principal deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development 
and acquisition.
**************************
Government Computer News
Navy gets more time for intranet rollout

By Dawn S. Onley
GCN Staff

The Senate passed a bill last week extending the $6.9 billion Navy-Marine 
Corps Intranet contract from five years to seven years.

Introduced by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government 
Reform Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy, the bill gives 
the Navy more time to prepare and implement NMCI before the agency decides 
whether to continue the contract during the three one-year option years.

"Davis and a number of bipartisan colleagues introduced the legislation to 
authorize an extension of the NMCI contract because they believe this is an 
extremely important project that would be jeopardized without the 
extension," said David Marin, spokesman for Davis.

The bill is awaiting approval by President Bush.

A Navy official said the extension would not affect the contract costs. 
Electronic Data Systems Corp. is the lead vendor.

"They can amortize their costs, and we can decide whether we want to deal 
with the option years," the official said.

For months, the Navy has lobbied for legislators to extend the contract 
beyond the five-year base period to give the Navy time to use NMCI before 
officials were forced to consider entering into the contract's option periods.

Although the contract was awarded in October 2000, it has suffered from 
delays partly attributable to Office of Secretary of Defense testing 
demands and to cutover problems at some sites because of tens of thousands 
of legacy applications, Navy officials said.

The Navy had anticipated having 100,000 seats cutover to the NMCI 
environment at this point in the contract. They have 39,000 seats cutover.

NMCI is an enterprisewide system that will link voice, video, and data 
communications throughout the Navy Department.
***************************
Government Computer News
Architecture for homeland security agencies coming together
By Jason Miller

Technology officials in the White House's Office of Homeland Security 
transition planning office have detailed the IT platforms for all 22 
agencies that would be included in the new Homeland Security Department.

Jim Flyzik, senior adviser to Homeland Security director Tom Ridge, 
yesterday said his team finished the technical reference model and an 
application inventory for all the proposed agencies that could move into 
the new department. The technical reference model outlines the technology 
used to support the business lines.

Flyzik said much of this system architecture work would help the new agency 
start work immediately, which will be 90 days after Congress passes the 
legislation. Congress and the administration are at odds over work force 
issues and Flyzik said he believes the time frame of the legislation 
passing depends on which way the Senate goes in the November election.

"Unlike most mergers where there is a buyer and a buyee, this is an actual 
start-up," Flyzik said. "We have broken up our mission into short-term 
projects and Day 1 projects."

The enterprise architecture approach Flyzik's team is taking will let the 
department finish four initiatives during the transition period. The 
projects include:


Consolidating the criminal and terrorist watch lists
Deploying a Homeland Security Department portal
Setting up secure videoconferencing
Setting up secure Internet expansion to share information with state and 
local authorities.

Flyzik delivered the keynote address at the FedFocus 2003 conference 
sponsored by Input of Chantilly, Va., in Reston, Va.
*******************************
Government Executive
Commerce official supports computer security office move
From National Journal's Technology Daily

Despite opposition to the idea from the technology industry, a senior 
Commerce Department official voiced support last week for a proposal to 
transfer the Computer Security Division of the National Institute of 
Standards and Technology to the Homeland Security Department.


"There's no doubt that the new ... department will require technical 
competence and the encryption of computer information," Deputy Secretary 
Samuel Bodman said in an interview, noting that the division specializes in 
those areas.


"Therefore, having that groupor a group that does that kind of workas part 
of a Department of Homeland Security makes every sense and probably should 
take place."


The House-passed homeland security bill, H.R. 5005, would block the 
transfer, and industry lobbyists have argued that the Senate version should 
be amended to do the same.


In a recent letter to Senate leaders, Business Software Alliance President 
Robert Holleyman said the transfer is unnecessary.
***************************
Computerworld
Spam: Arriving en masse to an e-mail address near you
By Brian Fonseca and Cathleen Moore, InfoWorld
OCTOBER 24, 2002

Shifting from daily nuisance to serious IT and business concern, 
uncontrolled spam is prompting customers to arm themselves with tools to 
fight back against productivity loss, potential liability and 
bandwidth-clogging consequences that unsolicited commercial e-mail can 
bring to an enterprise.
Targeting a growing concern on the antispam battlefront, IronPort Systems 
Inc. yesterday introduced technology designed to prevent legitimate e-mail 
messages from being weeded out by antispam filters.

IronPort rolled out two e-mail delivery appliances based on the company's 
Virtual Gateway technology, which allows users to assign a specific 
outbound IP address to each message based on campaign or message type. The 
technology, in essence, creates a separate virtual machine for each 
mailing, separating critical transaction confirmation messages from other 
marketing messages that might be snared by a spam filter, according to 
Scott Banister, chairman and chief technology officer of IronPort, in San 
Bruno, Calif.

"Companies are finding that if they send out e-mail marketing newsletters, 
increasingly Internet service providers are deploying antispam systems that 
often inadvertently trap messages that are legitimate," Banister said. "No 
one wants to be throwing out babies with the bath water."

IronPort's Virtual Gateway ensures that even if a marketing message is 
trapped by a filter, other traffic being sent from the same infrastructure 
will be unaffected, he said. The two new delivery appliances, the A60 and 
A30, are designed for high- and low-volume requirements, respectively.

Similarly, Postini Inc. and BrightMail Inc. last week introduced new 
antispam products and services designed to help end users restore normalcy 
to workplace operations being hampered by hundreds upon thousands of e-mail 
messages targeting random in-boxes and servers over the Internet.

In fact, most corporate customers and service providers are oblivious to 
the massive amount of spam proliferation caused by automated e-mail address 
"harvesting" over the Web, said Joyce Graff, vice president and research 
director of Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.

Spam "is burning your resources; it's keeping your message transfer agent 
busy doing stupid things; it's clogging bandwidth, clogging disk space and, 
most important, stealing people's time," said Graff. "Even more important, 
it's creating a very upset work environment."

Graff said tools capable of launching a myriad of spam-related attacks are 
becoming readily available over the Internet. This enables even beginners 
to send out spam and fuels con artists to perpetrate hoaxes, identity 
theft, fraud, bulk junk mail and mass-market advertising. Spammers can 
easily set up and dispose of multiple free e-mail accounts to hide their 
tracks.

According to Graff, many spam attacks bombarding enterprises feature 
increasingly vulgar and insensitive content. This raises the question of 
whether a company is legally responsible for blocking inappropriate spam 
messages viewed by its employees.

Postini customer Lee Rocklage, IT manager at Redwood City, Calif.-based DPR 
Construction, estimated that about 40% of his company's daily e-mails at 
one time were spam. Before deploying Postini's Security Manager product, he 
noted that offensive e-mail proved a major distraction and was "the biggest 
complaint" from his employees.

"It became a concern," said Rocklage. "We're a service-oriented company, 
and having to sort through all of the unnecessary e-mails each morning to 
identify those that were important or required a quick response can be very 
time-consuming."

Last week, Postini announced the availability of Postini Perimeter Manager, 
Postini Security Manager and Postini Resource Manager, three new service 
offerings to heighten e-mail protection against spam, viruses and directory 
harvest attacks.

BrightMail, which offers a software license as well as a services model, 
made noise on the spam battlefield last week with the launch of BrightMail 
Anti-Spam 4.0 Enterprise Edition. Designed to support Microsoft Windows 
2000 and Sun Solaris environments, the new version can remove randomness 
inserted by spammers in the header of an e-mail message body to reduce 
polymorphic spam attacks and can generate rules against slightly altered 
attacks, said Ren Chin, director of product development at San 
Francisco-based BrightMail.

Albert Rodriguez, president of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based ImageMaster Financial 
Publishing, said the annoyance of unwanted e-mails forced him to seek out a 
product such as SurfControl's Anti-Spam Agent, which could not only filter 
spam, but also provide his staff with the ability to flag or isolate 
e-mails for further inspection.

"The product is blocking spam, but it's doing it by allowing us to have 
control of exactly what comes through and what doesn't. If it weren't for 
that, we wouldn't have gotten it," said Rodriguez, who said a queue has 
been set up to flag key phrases, Web addresses and redirection attempts.

Graff said it is critical that customers stay away from generating false 
positives that could prevent legitimate business or e-mail messages from 
getting through even if it appears off-color.

Toward that concept, IronPort offers a Bonded Sender program, designed to 
integrate with the appliances, which lets companies use a financial bond to 
stand behind valid e-mail messages. Described as a kind of first-class 
postage stamp for e-mail, the Bonded Sender service signifies to Internet 
service providers and corporations that the message sender has a legitimate 
business relationship with the recipients, Banister said.
*****************************
USA Today
Former professor found guilty of attempting to seduce minor online

SANFORD, Fla. (AP)  A former professor at the University of Central Florida 
has been found guilty of attempting to seduce a 12-year-old girl.

Jurors needed about two hours Thursday to decide that Madjid Belkerdid, 49, 
knew his partner in online explicit chat sessions was underage. Belkerdid, 
who will remain at Seminole County Jail without bond until his Dec. 2 
sentencing, faces up to five years in prison.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Arthur Baron said Belkerdid 
believed an adult was behind the lusty conversation. Baron also suggested 
computer evidence had been tampered with.

In a conversation that was taped and played for jurors on the opening day 
of the trial, the girl tells Belkerdid that she was 13 and asked him if 
that mattered. Belkerdid went ahead with plans to meet the girl in a park, 
where he was arrested by police.

Belkerdid, an electrical engineering professor, resigned from UCF shortly 
after his 1999 arrest.
****************************
Guardian Online
Met widens net for Bali terrorists
Lewis Williamson
Friday October 25, 2002

The Metropolitan police has turned to the internet in the search for 
information about the terrorist bombings in Bali.

In a bid to reach travellers who may have been on the Indonesian island at 
the time of the attack on October 12, an appeal for information has been 
launched through the web-based email services Hotmail and Yahoo.

The services are popular with travellers because they enable users to 
access their inboxes from internet cafes anywhere in the world.

Metropolitan police press officer Angie Evans said it was the first time 
the Met had used such a method to reach possible witnesses.

"It's a unique situation and it is possible that people who were in Bali at 
the time of the attacks and may have useful information have now moved on 
to other parts of the world," she said.

The police appeal appears only in the email accounts of users who signed up 
for Yahoo and Hotmail in the UK, but it will be seen by those users 
wherever they are when they access their email.

The appeal says that officers are keen to speak to anyone who has returned 
from Bali in the last few days "and believes they may have seen something 
suspicious", particularly in the Kuta beach resort where the explosions 
occurred.

People with "home video footage or photographs" of the area are also urged 
to get in touch on a free hotline number.

However, one possible flaw in the appeal, which was launched on Monday, is 
that there is no email address for users to reply to.

Ms Evans said there was as yet no information about the response to the 
strategy or the number of click-throughs to the appeal from Hotmail and Yahoo.
***************************


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