Clips November 6, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips November 6, 2002

ARTICLES

Glitch bedevils Tarrant vote tally [E-Voting]
Glitches Hit High-Tech Voting Systems [E-Voting]
VNS Unable to Deliver Exit Polls
Pick Six Probe Widens
Italy Police Shut Internet Piracy Ring
China's Cyberwall Nearly Concrete
Bank error exposes e-mail addresses
Study: Net Credibility Gap Gapes
S.Korea to invest $10.9 billion in broadband networks
Cablevision Speeds Up Access to Digital-TV Service
Online resumes create quandary for employers
OPM guides IT manager career track
DOD removes restrictions on IT buys
Removal of Web info concerns Democrats
New center reaches out to private firms to protect infrastructure
Information-sharing partnerships seen as anti-terror model
Agencies to test technology for digitizing documents
Va. court denies AOL's attempt to protect user identity
Hacking syndicates threaten banking
Homeland Security Department Will Need Time To Come Together
Watch the Vote on VoteWatch  [E-Voting]
Critics wary of 'trusted computing'
Online job listing an ID theft scam
DOJ Backs SBC Entry Into California Long Distance Market
Distrust Rampant Between Corporate Users, IT
High-Tech Voting Going Smoothly

*****************************
Dallas Morning News
Glitch bedevils Tarrant vote tally []
Several races up in air until today; Bexar, Collin also affected
11/06/2002
By DEBRA DENNIS and LINDA STEWART BALL

FORT WORTH  Major ballot-counting problems in Tarrant and Bexar counties 
threw dozens of state and local election results into a tizzy Tuesday in 
the largest multicounty voting mishap in recent memory.

Winners were not expected to be declared until sometime Wednesday.
Election officials said early Wednesday morning that their count would not 
be completed before 9 a.m.

The Tarrant County problem stemmed from a computer programming glitch that 
prevented straight party votes from being tallied.

A crushing volume of early voters slowed the count to a turtle's pace in 
San Antonio's Bexar County.

Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican incumbent, declared victory  but his 
Democratic rival, Tony Sanchez, said he would not give up until all the 
votes were counted.

The tight race for lieutenant governor between Democrat John Sharp and 
Republican David Dewhurst also was up in the air because of the tabulating 
snag.

By 9 p.m., the secretary of state's office reported significant return 
numbers from just two of Texas' six most populous counties. Lesser ballot 
glitches occurred elsewhere, including Collin and Harris counties.

Republican-dominated counties such as Tarrant held the key to certain races 
that remained too close to call. By midnight Tuesday, officials had counted 
only a small portion of votes. They expected to work throughout the night 
with leaders from both parties monitoring the returns.

"They'll want to wait until Tarrant County comes in to see if they have 
enough votes to put that candidate over the top," said Dr. Cal Jillson, a 
political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

Found during check

Robert Parten, elections administrator for Tarrant County, said no straight 
party votes were initially tallied Tuesday because of the programming 
error. The error, which election officials discovered early Tuesday during 
a routine check of ballot-counting scanners, caused the computer to read 
any straight party vote as simply an office and not a ticket.

"So if a person makes a straight party vote, they were just voting for a 
party and nobody in that party was given a vote, and that's what we have to 
correct," Mr. Parten said early Tuesday.

In Bexar County, a large number of early votes was expected to delay the 
final results for the San Antonio area, said Elections Administrator Cliff 
Borofsky. He said the two-page ballot, combined with about 128,000 early 
votes, slowed the counting. He said the county expected to get through the 
early votes between midnight and 2 a.m. Wednesday, then start counting 
ballots that were cast Tuesday. He said final tallies probably would be 
done by about 8 a.m. Wednesday.

More than 360,000 votes were expected to have been cast in Tarrant County. 
But all the votes cast Tuesday, as well as the 17,000 absentee ballots, 
needed to be recounted. Those ballots were cast using older optical 
scanning machines, which had the faulty software, Mr. Parten said.

After the problem became apparent, elections officials decided to take the 
ballots from the polling places to the central downtown Fort Worth office 
to be recounted. A high-speed scanner that usually reads 400 ballots per 
minute was slowed to half that pace to make sure it didn't miss anything, 
Mr. Parten said.

About 130,000 votes were cast in early voting. Mr. Parten said the county's 
new electronic voting machines had no problems counting early votes that 
were cast in person. However, different machines were used on Election Day.

Terri Moore, the Democratic candidate for Tarrant County district attorney, 
railed against the vote-tallying problems, saying that they undermined the 
election process. She and longtime incumbent Tim Curry faced off in the 
county's highest-profile race.

"What the hell's going on over there?" she said. "After what happened in 
Florida, how could this happen? We've been using the same machine for a 
while, and I'm a little confused and upset that this happened on Election 
Day. It causes people to be disillusioned with the whole process."
Ms. Moore said her supporters were concerned about the integrity of the 
county ballots if they're kept watch over by a Republican sheriff.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Parten said ballots would be counted "accurately 
and as expeditiously as we possibly can."

Tarrant County Democratic Chairman Art Brender said his party was confident 
that every vote would be counted, and he encouraged voters to continue 
going to the polls.
'Error in testing'

"This is going to be a delay in returns," Mr. Brender said. "This was not 
an error in the machines. This was an error in the testing that was done. 
We have been back there, and representatives of each party have gone 
through and tested the machines that will make the count. They're all 
working correctly. They're all calculating the votes correctly."

County Republicans, meanwhile, sent in a team of monitors to watch the count.

"Tarrant County is probably the most Republican county in Texas," said Pat 
Carlson, the GOP party's local chairwoman. "In 2002, Tarrant County had 
more Republican ballots cast for George Bush than any other county in the 
state. We're the crown jewel for the Republican Party, as far as votes go."

Tarrant County, which has 876,576 registered voters, is the state's 
fourth-largest county.
State Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican running for his second 
term in the Texas House, said he was frustrated that he could only sit and 
watch election returns in other races Tuesday night.

"I guess I'll wake up in the morning and find out how everything came out," 
Mr. Geren said. "The Tarrant County election administrator did a really bad 
job. They didn't test the machines until today. They should have tested 
them well before today. If I were a county commissioner, I would fire him 
on the spot. Now, there's nothing we can do. I appreciate the fact that 
they are staying there all night counting votes, but if he was working for 
me, he wouldn't be working right now."

Staff writers Linda Stewart Ball, Laurie Fox and Jason Trahan and the 
Associated Press contributed to this report.
*****************************
Associated Press
Glitches Hit High-Tech Voting Systems
Tue Nov 5,11:55 PM ET
By ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press Writer

Scattered problems, a few serious but most described as hiccups, marred the 
debut of touchscreens and other high-tech voting machines Tuesday, 
including in all of Georgia and in Florida's most election-challenged 
counties.



Worse snags delayed results in two Texas counties where paper ballots were 
read by older-style machines.


The most serious of the high-tech problems appeared in two Georgia counties 
where officials said they could result in contested elections and lawsuits. 
The state has the nation's largest deployment: 22,000 touchscreens.


In southwest Terrell County, ballots in at least three precincts for a time 
listed the wrong county commission races. In Bryan County near Savannah, a 
county commission race was omitted from a ballot.


Elsewhere, some machines froze up and others had to be rebooted. Dozens 
were misprogrammed or not accurately calibrated, and cards voters need to 
access machines malfunctioned.


"They are locking up, and we have to turn them off and turn them on. The 
voting is taking a little longer," said Mary Cranford, election 
superintendent in Georgia's Coweta County.


But those troubles did not look to have the potential to cascade into the 
meltdown seen during the Sept. 10 primaries in Florida, where Democratic 
gubernatorial contest results were delayed for a week.


Analysts said better planning and training of poll workers in operating the 
machines paid off, though some cautioned that the new systems' reliability 
can't be guaranteed.


"A lot of these products were rushed to market," said Rebecca Mercuri, a 
Bryn Mawr College computer science professor and expert on election 
technology.


The addition of more than 200 brings to 510 the number of counties 
nationwide with electronic voting systems, according to Election Data 
Services, a Washington, D.C., research company. That's 16 percent of 
counties representing one in five registered voters.

Analysts expect 75 percent of counties to have such systems within six 
years, boosted largely by a new $3.9 billion federal law to help states 
replace outdated equipment.

Election officials were anxious heading into Tuesday, given problems with 
touchscreens during September primaries in Florida and Maryland. They 
stepped up poll-worker training to better cope with any machine failures.

"It was definitely an open question on September 10th whether the problem 
was the machines or the people running them. Now, it's leaning toward the 
explanation that it was the people," said Dan Seligson, spokesman for 
Electionline.org, a nonpartisan election-reform group.

In Florida's Miami-Dade County, one of two most troubled during the 
primaries, machines were misprogrammed at one precinct, meaning voters had 
to use substitute paper ballots for the first three hours.

Forty to 50 touchscreen machines scattered among more than 5,000 in Broward 
County had to be taken offline because of incorrectly loaded software or 
the wrong ballot, officials said.

No troubles were reported in the nation's largest county to go 
all-electronic: Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Harris' 
system uses a dial to highlight names rather than a touchscreen.

But in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, a lengthy ballot combined 
with large turnout during early voting meant final tallies likely wouldn't 
be available until Wednesday morning, said Cliff Borofsky, county elections 
administrator.

In Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, officials said a programming 
error that failed to tally straight party votes could delay results until 
Wednesday night.

Both counties use optical scanners, the most common U.S. voting system, to 
read paper ballots.

It's the lack of a paper component in the new touchscreen systems that 
worry some experts. Mercuri believes they are ultimately unreliable because 
they lack paper backups for double-checking ballots.

Diebold Election Systems, which supplied machines for Georgia and Maryland, 
said election officials never asked for such features.
****************************
Associated Press
VNS Unable to Deliver Exit Polls
Wed Nov 6, 4:00 AM ET
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The debut of Voter News Service's rebuilt system ran into 
severe problems, as the consortium was unable to deliver exit polls 
designed to help explain results and struggled to count the vote quickly.

The failures in Tuesday's midterm elections were a major setback for VNS  a 
consortium consisting of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and The Associated Press. 
VNS had completely overhauled its system in response to the 2000 election, 
when television networks twice used its information to make wrong calls in 
the decisive Florida vote for the presidency.


The exit poll information was intended to help media organizations explain 
why people voted as they did. But because of technical problems, VNS said 
it could not guarantee the accuracy of its information and did not release it.


"We're disappointed that VNS wasn't able to provide this material," said 
Jonathan Wolman, senior vice president of the AP. "Polling place interviews 
provide an invaluable glimpse at voters' mood and priorities."


The VNS exit poll was of particular importance to broadcasters and 19 
newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA 
Today, that had contracted with the consortium to receive that information 
to report on Election Day trends.


VNS was able to provide limited information from the exit poll surveys that 
gave its members guidance in projecting winners for individual races.


As in the past, AP called election winners in a process that involved an 
analysis of actual vote returns.


VNS' separate vote-counting operation started the evening well, but an 
automated system overloaded and caused delays, said Ted Savaglio, VNS 
executive director.


"It's functioning and it's running, but it's not running at peak 
efficiency," he said late Tuesday night.


At midnight, he said, "We're catching up."


CBS, CNN and NBC complained that vote totals were coming in so slowly that 
they stopped using the VNS count. Instead, they relied on a backup 
operation provided by the AP. ABC said it was using both vote counts and 
had no complaints with this part of the VNS operation.

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the network had prepared for the 
possibility that VNS would not be ready on Election Night. It put the 
emphasis on "good, old-fashioned reporting" to tell what happens, he said.

Fox, anticipating possible problems with the exit polls, had arranged to 
conduct Election Day telephone polls of voters in 10 states with key races 
for Senate or governor, and used some of those findings on the air.

Bill Wheatley, executive vice president of NBC News, said there was still a 
possibility that the VNS exit poll data would be available in the next few 
days. Meanwhile, NBC and CBS had conducted their own joint poll of voter 
attitudes last weekend using the same survey questions as VNS.

"This was a midterm for (VNS), also, literally," said MSNBC editor-in-chief 
Jerry Nachman. "This was going to be the night for them to troubleshoot and 
fine-tune the process that everyone expects to be perfect in 2004."

CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson said his network was relying on political 
reporters across the country to provide texture for its coverage.

"There is a good side to it, which is we'll have a great lesson in civics 
as people watch real votes being counted," he said.

Angered by the networks' performance in the 2000 election, Congress brought 
news media organizations to Washington last year to explain their 
performance and was watching to see if there was a repeat this year.

VNS hired Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based company, to help build 
a new system after its members decided against scrapping VNS entirely. VNS 
had been in touch with Battelle about updating its service even before the 
2000 election.
******************************
Washington Post
Pick Six Probe Widens
More Bettors Named; Tote System Criticized
By Greg Sandoval And John Scheinman
Wednesday, November 6, 2002; Page D01


Less than two weeks after the $14 billion horse racing wagering industry 
was rocked by allegations that a winning $3 million bet was rigged, 
investigators have been told that the possible wrongdoing could be more 
widespread than first believed.

Industry observers also have raised questions about the vulnerability of 
older computer equipment used by the companies that process bets. Two years 
ago, a proposed overhaul of those systems "fell apart" when "the scope and 
cost of the plan became an issue," according to Tim Smith, president of the 
National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

Don Groth, president of Catskill Off-Track Betting Corp, the OTB site where 
Derrick Davis placed his winning wager, said yesterday that he has turned 
over to authorities the names of two Catskill OTB account holders, one of 
whom made a winning Pick Six wager prior to the Breeders' Cup. Groth said 
he told authorities that he believes the two are friends of Christopher W. 
Harn, the senior software engineer fired by Autotote, a computer wagering 
company, for his alleged role in the Pick Six bet.

"Following the Oct. 31 announcement by Autotote [that it had fired Harn], I 
was able to connect the dots and determine that both individuals are 
friends of Chris Harn," Groth said.

Harn's lawyer, New York-based Daniel Conti, maintained his client's 
innocence. Neither Davis nor Harn has been charged.

"As far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed," Conti said. "My client is 
out of a job with a large mortgage and a two-year-old daughter at home. And 
no one involved in the investigation has produced any evidence that he's 
done anything wrong."

Investigators believe Harn and Davis, both 29, worked together to 
manipulate the winning wager. The two were housemates and members of the 
same fraternity at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

The New York State Racing Board would not comment on Groth's allegations, 
spokeswomen Stacy Clifford said, adding that "the backgrounds of the 
individuals involved are part of the investigation." Clifford said the 
investigation, which is being led by the board and includes the New York 
State Police and the FBI, includes a review of multiple bettors and many 
different races.

The betting scandal has led to questions about the quality of the 
industry's tote system. When wagers like a Pick Six are made from off-track 
sites, there is a delay in the time they are reported because the volume of 
information is too much for current systems to handle. But banks and other 
financial service companies have paid to upgrade systems so that larger 
amounts of data can be moved much faster, said Steve Surdu, director of 
Consulting for Foundstone Inc., a computer security firm in Mission Viejo, Ca.

"In general the parimutuel wagering industry's technology infrastructure is 
relatively arcane compared to other technology heavy industries," said 
Michael Tew, a Bear Stearns analyst who follows the industry.

Racing officials concede a plan to upgrade the industry's tote system was 
unsuccessful in 2000. The NTRA and IBM proposed creating an Internet-based 
network that would run through a fiber-optic system. That deal 
disintegrated due to technology issues, such as simulcasting, networking 
and standardizing, said Smith.

"The IBM plan did not go forward for a variety of reasons," Smith said. 
"The scope and cost of the plan was an issue."

The NTRA formed a task force last week charged with finding ways to improve 
security at the wagering companies. The task force, which has enlisted the 
systems security unit of Ernst & Young, will attempt to address the lag 
time between when Pick Six wagers are made and actually sent to the host 
system. In a Pick Six, bettors try to choose the winning horse in six 
consecutive races. To avoid overloading computer systems, information is 
divided and recorded at different times. The amount of a wager and the time 
the bet is made is transferred through computer systems. Details such as 
which horses bettors choose is held back at the off-track site or at 
"wagering hubs."

The task force will also examine the ability of a tote company employee to 
compromise the system, and the potential for hackers to get into the system

"Technology has changed so fast that some things that were problems then 
aren't now," Smith said. "The cost of accessing bandwidth has gone down 
considerably.

"There needs to be industry-wide standards; to get that done will take the 
cooperation of tracks, tote companies and regulators."

As the investigation continues, the possibility that other tainted bets 
have been placed in the past has moved to the forefront. A former Autotote 
employee who worked closely with Harn said there were more than a dozen 
people with access to Autotote's computer system who could have manipulated 
wagers.

"I'll bet [Autotote executives] are working 24-7 on finding out if somebody 
has done this before," said the former Autotote employee. "It doesn't make 
sense that somebody would do $3 million right off the bat."

Harn worked in Autotote's research and development department, assigned to 
maintain the company's computer system. Many of the 19 people in the unit 
have the same computer access as Harn, according to an Autotote executive 
who requested anonymity.

"The other companies have a lot of people with the same level of 
clearance," said one industry analyst. "[They] could do the same things 
that Autotote accused Harn of doing."

An executive at Autotote said that during 2000 Harn also worked at another 
tote company, AmTote, one of only three companies that handle national 
parimutuel wagering.

"He [told people] he was leaving for a position that had more managerial 
potential," the executive said, adding that he did not know why Harn 
returned to Autotote.

A spokesman at AmTote denied this week that Harn had ever worked there.

Reached this week, Harn refused to comment.

Two of his former Autotote colleagues said Harn was well-respected and 
traveled often on company business. One on trip, he met his future wife, 
Mercedes, in Peru.

Davis placed his wager 20 minutes before the start of the first race. After 
the fourth race and after the winners of those races had been announced, 
Harn allegedly plucked the wager from the electronic hub and changed 
Davis's picks to the winning horses. Davis put money on every horse in the 
final two races.

The ticket cost Davis $192 to cover all of the combinations at $2 each, and 
Davis placed the bet six times at a cost of $1,152. Davis's six winning 
tickets were worth $428,392, and he had 108 of the 186 consolation tickets.

The consolation payoff for hitting five of six races was $4,606.20. Each of 
the 72 other holders of those tickets stand to collect an additional 
$35,699 if Davis's tickets are nullified. The tickets are frozen during the 
investigation.
*******************************
Government Computer News
11/05/02
Homeland Security staff studies data analysis tools
By Jason Miller

HERSHEY, Pa.The Homeland Security Office is evaluating applications to let 
agencies analyze links and relationships among information sets without 
breaching privacy laws or sparking interagency turf battles.

Steve Cooper, the office's CIO, said yesterday the goal of the current 
tests is to validate a data-sharing concept. The premise is that to better 
track information on possible security threats, agencies must at minimum 
share information about their data, he said at the Industry Advisory 
Council's Executive Leadership Conference.

But fear of breaking privacy laws and the sense of ownership many agencies 
exhibit toward their data often keep the government from consolidating or 
even tracking information in useful ways, Cooper said.

The actual pooling of data might not be necessary because simply knowing 
what types of data agencies are gathering ought to help intelligence 
analysts identify information sources related to possible threats, Cooper 
said. Then, as the need arises, officials could obtain court orders or 
agencies could negotiate with one another to obtain the data, he said.

"We can create a map of what exists and where it exists using this 
technology," Cooper said. "The data might represent locations or people or 
facilities. We don't need to know what the content of the data is, but by 
analyzing what is interrelated to what, we can see patterns and see if it 
needs an additional look by intelligence analysts."

He added that the type of software his staff is reviewing could help make 
associations between information that might have been overlooked.

Cooper also emphasized that the term data goes beyond electronically stored 
information and that Homeland Security officials also want to use software 
tools to track paper files, intelligence tips and other information sources.

The office is looking at an assortment of government 
research-and-development efforts as well as industry products that could be 
adapted for use by homeland security workers, Cooper said. Some packages 
that vendors tout as data-sharing solutions at best would fulfill only part 
of the information tracking function envisioned by the Homeland Security 
Office, he said.

Cooper said he expects that the planned Homeland Security Department will 
earmark $1 million to launch a three- to six-month pilot to study such 
efforts.

"We are working with the intelligence community to start this project in a 
classified environment," Cooper said.
*******************************
Associated Press
Italy Police Shut Internet Piracy Ring
Tue Nov 5, 1:12 PM ET

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian finance police and a technology watchdog group 
have broken up an online piracy ring that allegedly traded millions of 
euros worth of bootlegged software, music and films, the industry group 
said on Tuesday.



Guardia di Finanza and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) have teamed up 
on a year-long investigation, resulting in the arrest of one group member 
and the seizure of more than 100,000 counterfeited software and 
entertainment products.


The BSA announced the news on Tuesday after receiving clearance from 
Italian authorities to discuss the ongoing investigation, which could be 
one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Separately, the Guardia di 
Finanza confirmed the matter on Tuesday.


The rampant distribution of pirated materials via the Internet has hit the 
software, music and movie industry hard in the past three years.


Research commissioned by the BSA showed software piracy in Europe rose 3 
percent in 2001 on the previous year to 40 percent of all software in 
Western Europe, equating to revenue losses of around 2.9 billion euros for 
the European software industry.


The Italian group is suspected of selling more than 60 million euros ($60 
million) worth of pirated software and other pirated goods through a host 
of Web sites, the BSA said, making it one of the largest software piracy 
rings in Europe.


One person, arrested in Milan earlier this year, has been formally charged 
and another 10 are under investigation after police simultaneously raided 
locations in nine Italian cities including Milan, Bologna, Naples and Trieste.


The last of the raids occurred in September, officials said.


The BSA nor police disclosed the suspects' identity, nor the name of the 
group.


Police seized goods including 100,000 software products prepared for 
duplication onto CD, DVD and computer hardware, as well as 4,000 
pornographic images, the latest film releases and video games and 
information for TV smart card duplication, which were sold through a 
network of sites.

The network marketed itself via anonymous emails, sometimes using encrypted 
messages.

The BSA is a global industry group that cracks down on the distribution of 
pirated software on behalf of its clients, which include Microsoft Corp., 
Symantec Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc..
*****************************
Wired News
China's Cyberwall Nearly Concrete
02:00 AM Nov. 05, 2002 PT

WASHINGTON -- While the Great Wall no longer deters would-be invaders from 
entering China, experts meeting in Washington on Monday said the Chinese 
government continues to maintain a nearly rock-solid cyberwall.

At a panel discussion held by the Congressional-Executive Commission on 
China, experts warned that China has recently improved its censorship 
technology -- much of which is provided by U.S. companies. The panel also 
claimed that China now employs some 30,000 "Internet police" to monitor its 
citizens, and that is has increased arrests of dissidents and journalists 
posting illegal content on the Internet.

Congress created the China commission in October 2000 to monitor human 
rights in the Communist country.

"I was the first victim of Chinese censorship on the Internet," said Lin 
Hai, a Shanghai computer scientist who spent 18 months in a Chinese prison 
for distributing forbidden e-mail addresses to an online dissident magazine.

Hai, who now lives in the United States, said China last year arrested 10 
people for distributing forbidden information on the Internet. He has since 
developed software to help Chinese citizens get around the most recent 
government effort: blocking access to free Web-based e-mail accounts such 
as Hotmail and Yahoo.

Panelists said the Chinese censors have become adept at spotting new 
circumvention measures -- and quickly thwarting them.

"China has developed the largest and most sophisticated IP-blocking and 
content-filtering system in the world," said Bill Xia, president of 
Asheville, North Carolina-based Dynamic Internet Technology. The company's 
DynaWeb product, launched in March, attempts to skirt Chinese Internet 
censorship.

In no small part, the panelists came to Washington to ask for more funding 
to take on the Chinese government. Companies that make anti-censorship 
software can't continue developing products without government funding, 
they said.

The Global Internet Freedom Act (H.R. 5524) introduced in the House of 
Representatives on Oct. 2 would provide $50 million a year in 2003 and 2004 
to help private companies develop new ways to circumvent censorship by 
foreign governments.

"The bottom line is that there is an arms race between censorship and 
anti-censorship measures," said Aviel Rubin, co-founder of Publius, a 
Web-publishing system that evades some censorship technology and provides 
anonymity for publishers. "It's not clear who the winner is. We need new 
research."

Several panelists warned that the U.S. government is the only agency 
powerful enough to stop Chinese censorship -- and that if it doesn't act 
soon, China could cement its grip for good.

"The Chinese government is already on its third generation of firewall 
technology, and we haven't even started version one of our counter-strategy 
yet," said Paul Baranowski, chief architect for the Peekabooty project, 
which develops circumvention software.

"If we do not do something soon, they may be able to close off the country 
completely and obtain absolute monitoring and control of their Net before 
we can do anything about it," he said.

Baranowski also urged the U.S. government to support open-source solutions 
to encourage innovation from the largest universe of programmers.

Meanwhile, Hai said the U.S. government should also look within its own 
borders when considering the problem of Chinese censorship. For example, 
Yahoo recently agreed to certain Chinese government censorship requests, 
and U.S. manufacturers of Internet routers have also cooperated with 
Chinese officials to stay within their censorship parameters.

"The American companies are helping China to build censorship firewalls," 
Hai said.

But Rubin cautioned against arbitrarily restricting U.S. companies from 
selling certain software or equipment to China.

"Such export restrictions have fallen on their faces before," he said, 
noting that China could always buy similar equipment from non-U.S. 
companies. "I'd worry that we'd be hurting our businesses without stopping 
censorship."
*****************************
CNET News.com
Bank error exposes e-mail addresses
By Troy Wolverton
November 5, 2002, 2:00 PM PT

Bank of the West exposed the e-mail addresses of thousands of its online 
banking customers Monday, in a mistake it blamed on "human error."

In an e-mail message sent Monday to alert customers that its banking system 
would be out of service for maintenance this weekend, Bank of the West 
included the e-mail addresses of more than 3,300 of its customers in the 
"To" field, company spokesman John Stafford confirmed Tuesday. Stafford 
said the company mistakenly placed the e-mail addresses in the "To" field 
instead of masking them by placing them in the blind carbon copy (BCC) field.

"It was an inadvertent mistake," Stafford said.


Bank of the West e-mailed affected customers Tuesday to apologize for the 
error.

"We deeply regret that due to a human error your e-mail address was not 
masked. We have put the necessary procedures in place to make sure that 
this will not happen again," the company said in a note to customers. "We 
sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you."

Bank of the West is only the latest in a long line of companies whose sites 
have exposed customers' e-mail addresses and other sensitive personal 
information due to mistakes, system glitches or hacker attacks. Last year, 
a hacker attack at Amazon.com-owned book service Bibliofind exposed nearly 
100,000 customers' records, including their credit card numbers.

Two years ago, Ikea closed down its Web site temporarily after a problem on 
its site exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses 
of tens of thousands of customers who had ordered catalogs from the home 
furnishings retailer. Several years ago, AT&T and Seagate Software made 
mistakes similar to Bank of the West's, exposing thousands of customers' 
e-mail addresses.

The confidentiality of e-mail addresses has become a more pressing concern 
in recent years as the amount of spam, or unsolicited e-mail, has 
skyrocketed. Although spammers can buy millions of e-mail addresses on a 
CD, many of the addresses are stale or wrong. In contrast, a list of good, 
confirmed addresses, especially those of a specific interest group, such as 
the Bank of the West customer base, is valuable.

Bank of the West sent its initial e-mail to customers who connect to its 
online banking service via Microsoft Money or Intuit's Quicken, Stafford 
said. The company was concerned that those customers wouldn't see an 
announcement about upcoming downtime posted on Bank of the West's Web site, 
he said. The company discovered Monday afternoon that the e-mail had 
exposed those customers' e-mail addresses, he added.
******************************
Wired News
Study: Net Credibility Gap Gapes
02:00 AM Nov. 05, 2002 PT

A prominent consumer advocacy group says most informational websites don't 
do enough to assure visitors that their data is credible -- or make clear 
their ulterior motives for offering that data.

In a study released Monday titled "Credibility on the Web," researchers for 
Consumers International found broad lapses in the disclosure practices of 
websites providing financial, health and comparison-shopping information.

Based on a sample of 450 large sites in 13 countries, the study found 
common omissions include absence of privacy policies, poor disclosure of 
commercial interests and insufficient information about the credentials of 
people providing advice.

"The overall impression is it is like asking a mechanic whether your car 
needs work," said Anna Fielder, director of Consumers International's 
Office for Developed and Transition Economies. "Operate with extreme caution."

Although savvy Web users already know to take much information gleaned 
online with a grain of salt, Consumers International and Consumer WebWatch, 
which worked on study, say better standards for disclosure would make it 
easier to evaluate individual sites.

To improve sites' credibility, the groups recommend that publishers clearly 
post as much information about their business as possible, including a 
physical address, phone number, credentials of contributors and any 
commercial or sponsorship agreements. A clearly written privacy policy is 
also a must.

Fielder said Consumers International is not necessarily pushing for new 
legislation to regulate information sites. Most countries already have laws 
in place that address fairness and accuracy in claims that businesses make.

Information sites seeking voluntary standards are also well-advised to 
apply the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's 
guidelines for e-commerce to their own businesses, Fielder said.

Left to their own devices, researchers found that sites aren't doing a good 
job disclosing information about how they operate.

In the 450-site sample, researchers found that one-fourth did not give any 
clear information about ownership. One-third listed no phone number, while 
30 percent had no published address.

Surveyors found that the majority of sites that collected personal 
information did not have a privacy policy to inform visitors how their 
information is used and protected.

Moreover, only 40 percent of sites in the study made any mention of the 
relationship between their commercial interests and their content.

Often, sites present what appears to be objective information, but they 
actually have a commercial motive. Researchers cited the example of a life 
insurance site that purports to offer objective rate comparisons, but 
instead only functions as a referral site for agents of the company that 
operates it.

Researchers also criticized comparison-shopping sites for failing to 
disclose the fact that vendors could pay for top-rated results. The study 
cited the popular price-comparison site BizRate.com for putting sponsored 
links at the top of its pages, while often placing the lowest-priced 
merchants at the bottom of its rankings.

BizRate said such criticism is deceiving because the site ranks merchants 
based on the quality of their service, and not just the price of their 
goods, said spokeswoman Helen Malani.

In addition, Malani said, users can opt to eliminate sponsored rankings by 
searching for a specific data point, such as price.

"You can pay for placement, but at the end of the day we always insist the 
consumer can sort the data however he or she wants," Malani said.
********************************
Mercury News
S.Korea to invest $10.9 billion in broadband networks

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean telcos plan to invest 13.3 trillion won 
($10.9 billion) in broadband networks by 2005, as a growing number of 
people gain access to high-speed Internet services, the Ministry of 
Information and Communication said on Wednesday.

KT Corp, South Korea's largest telecoms company, and other Internet service 
providers (ISPs), would make the investment, including 258 billion won in 
government loans, from this year through to 2005.

The ministry did not provide a breakdown of the investment plans.

``By 2005, all the households across the country will be able to get access 
to the Internet at a data rate of at least one megabits per second,'' the 
ministry said in a statement.

South Korea boasts having the world's highest Internet penetration rate 
with more than one fifth of the population having access to high-speed 
Internet services.

The ministry said South Korea had 10 million high-speed Internet lines at 
the end of October, accounting for 21 percent of its total population of 48 
million.

The figures were up 28 percent from 7.8 million broadband subscribers at 
the end of December 2001.

South Korea had spent 11 trillion won on building Internet infrastructure 
since June 1988 when Korea Thrunet Co, now the country's third largest ISP, 
launched a high-speed Internet service via cable network.

The ministry said the country would have 13.5 million subscribers of 
broadband Internet services by 2005, with an average data rate of 20 
megabits per second.

At the data rate, it takes one second to transmit data equivalent to 370 
pages of a newspaper, the ministry said.

South Korea ranked first with a penetration rate of 17.2 percent in 2001, 
according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 
(OECD). Canada ranked second with 8.4 percent.

If Internet services via slower dial-up modems are counted, almost 60 
percent of South Koreans regularly surf the Internet, the ministry said.

KT Corp, the country's largest ISP, had 4.6 million broadband subscribers, 
or 45.8 percent of the domestic broadband market as of October 10, the 
ministry said.

Hanaro Telecom Inc, the number-two ISP, had 2.86 million users, or 28.6 
percent, followed by Thrunet, which had 1.3 million or 13.1 percent.

The ministry data included broadband subscribers of smaller regional ISPs 
which offer high-speed Internet services using leased lines from bigger 
Internet network operators such as KT.
*******************
New York Times
November 6, 2002
Cablevision Speeds Up Access to Digital-TV Service
By SETH SCHIESEL

Cablevision Systems, the nation's No. 7 cable provider, announced yesterday 
that it had significantly accelerated its deployment of digital-television 
service and that a New York City investment firm had agreed to invest $75 
million in the company.

While Cablevision has been one of the industry's leaders in introducing 
high-speed cable modem access in recent years, the company has been a 
laggard in introducing digital service, which can provide additional 
channels, superior sound quality and on-demand video services.

Of the 4.3 million homes the company can serve, barely 1.5 million had 
access to digital television before last month. Cablevision announced 
yesterday that it extended its digital capability to 750,000 additional 
homes last month and plans to offer the service to close to 1 million more 
homes this month. By the end of November, it plans to offer digital 
television to about 3.3 million homes in its service area, in and around 
New York.

Apparently, that sort of growth attracted the Quadrangle Group.

Cablevision announced that Quadrangle, a private investment firm, had 
agreed to make its investment in the company in exchange for preferred 
stock. People close to the deal said that the interest rate associated with 
those securities had not been determined and that the investment would give 
Quadrangle the equivalent of less than 2 percent of the company's equity.

Steven Rattner, who was a reporter for The New York Times in the early 
1980's before becoming an investment banker, is now one of Quadrangle's 
managing principals. He is to join Cablevision's board.

"We think the market has grievously undervalued the cable industry in 
general and Cablevision in particular," Mr. Rattner said in an interview 
yesterday. "We think Cablevision has great assets and that the market has 
not realized that." The stock, which traded as high as $76 early last year, 
closed yesterday at $12.99.

In what appears to be a coincidence, Quadrangle last year tentatively 
agreed to invest in the new YES cable network, which carries Yankees games, 
before pulling out of that deal at the last minute. Now, Cablevision is the 
only cable provider in the New York area that is not carrying YES.
********************************
USA Today
Online resumes create quandary for employers
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

Federal rules requiring many companies to keep job applicant data for a 
year or more are creating severe hassles for employers inundated with 
online resumes.

The surge in online applications because of the Internet and rising 
unemployment has made it more cumbersome for companies to store and track 
resumes. As a result, the government is developing guidelines that could 
change how millions of companies handle online recruiting.

It's a tough issue. The current policy is aimed at making sure companies 
don't discriminate based on gender, ethnicity or race. Critics fear 
relaxing regulations could lead to hiring bias.

"It's a huge issue for companies, and it's a hot button," says Barbara 
Murphy, a spokeswoman at Boeing, which received 790,000 resumes last year.

More than half of job seekers use fax or e-mail to send resumes according 
to a survey this year by online recruitment resource CareerBuilder, which 
is partly owned by Gannett, the owner of USA TODAY. Thirty-three% send the 
resumes via e-mail. Currently:

Companies with 15 or more employees generally must keep application forms 
submitted by job seekers for a year. Federal government contractors with 
more than 150 employees have to keep the information for two years.
Employers must categorize applicants by gender, race and ethnicity. That 
allows companies and the government to be sure screening processes don't 
discriminate.
The Labor Department may take enforcement action against a company that 
fails to comply.
But critics say the rules set up in the 1970s don't work in the Internet 
age, where it's tough to know the race of faceless online applicants.

"It's difficult," says Washington lawyer and former U.S. deputy assistant 
secretary of Labor Larry Lorber, who calls the current policy outmoded. "A 
lot of (employers) don't consider online job seekers applicants."

New guideline proposals are expected this year  marking the first time the 
government has addressed the definition of a job applicant in the Internet 
age. Changes could alter how long companies must store resume data received 
from online job seekers.

"Employers do have a tremendous record-keeping burden," says Cari 
Dominguez, chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "But 
we have to balance interests. We have to protect the rights of applicants."

Unable to find what it needed on the market, Boeing developed its own 
system to streamline hiring processes and meet government rules.

Job applicants are asked for gender, race and other data that are 
maintained indefinitely to ensure compliance. In April, the system 
processed 92,000 resumes  a pace that would result in more than 1.1 million 
resumes this year.
******************************
Federal Computer Week
OPM guides IT manager career track
BY Diane Frank
Nov 5, 2002

Recent draft guidance from the Office of Personnel Management intended to 
help agencies identify leaders for information technology projects extends 
the project leadership role into upper management and eventually will lead 
to guidance for other executives deemed vital to e-government, officials 
said Nov. 4.

Traditionally, project managers have been limited to the upper general 
service classification levels, often being bumped into general management 
positions once they moved past the GS-13 or GS-14 level. That is where OPM 
and the CIO Council started when they were discussing the definition of 
project managers in today's environment.

However, the draft guide for classifying project managers pushes the 
position into the GS-15 level, and even the Senior Executive Service, to 
ensure that agencies can continue to take advantage of the people with the 
special skills for managing increasingly complex and interagency 
e-government projects, said Ira Hobbs, co-chairman of the CIO Council's 
Human Capital Committee and deputy CIO at the Agriculture Department.

This, for the first time, creates a full-fledged job track for project 
managers and the basis for an inventory across government of the people 
with different levels of these skills, he said.

"We will create the infrastructure to guarantee that we have the right 
people in the right jobs," he said.

Agencies have turned in their comments on the draft to OPM, and final 
guidance on the role of IT project manager is expected to be released 
before the end of the year, Hobbs said.

The CIO Council is looking at using the final guidance to help agencies 
identify internal project managers, but also to create a cadre of project 
managers that can move from organization to organization for large and 
cross-agency projects, he said. Right now there is no timeframe for when 
that cadre might be created, he said.

Eventually this guidance will be adapted for other disciplines, including 
financial management and acquisition.

The guidance also will be the starting point for guidance on another role 
considered essential for e-government by the Office of Management and 
Budget, that of solution architect -- people with more technical skills, 
but who are still able to look across agency needs. This is still in the 
initial discussion phase because "solution architect is a little bit harder 
for us to get a handle on,' Hobbs said.
*********************************
Federal Computer Week
DOD removes restrictions on IT buys
BY Christopher J. Dorobek and Dan Caterinicchia
Nov. 4, 2002

A controversial provision that would restrict Defense Department time- and 
labor-hour service buys using the General Services Administration's 
schedule contracts did not make it into a final rule designed to boost 
competition on the department's multiple-award contracts.

In the Oct. 25 Federal Register, the Defense Department published a final 
version of a rule that implements Section 803, which references the 
citation in the fiscal 2002 Defense authorization bill.

The final rule does not include a provision that would have restricted DOD 
buys using the GSA schedule to firm, fixed-price task orders. The Office of 
Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy attempted to 
add the provision but ran into opposition from industry groups.

The final version of the rule notes that OFPP intends to "work with the 
other [Federal Acquisition Regulation] Council members to develop 
appropriate revisions to the current FAR" regarding labor-hour contracts.

"In terms of all the possible 803 outcomes, this is the best one we could 
have hoped for," said Larry Allen, executive vice president of the 
Coalition for Government Procurement, one of the industry groups that 
lobbied against the GSA schedule restriction.

And if that provision is revisited in the future, "it will be in an open 
format where everybody's voice can be heard," Allen said.

The final rule includes a section on training so that contracting officers 
and vendors understand the implications of Section 803. Deidre Lee, 
director of Defense procurement, said DOD will offer courses and training 
sessions, including one that will be available online.

DOD will post training courses on the Defense Procurement Web site at www. 
acq.osd.mil/dp.

The rule essentially requires that DOD put service task orders of $100,000 
or more out for bid, except under certain circumstances. Contracting 
officers should try to get responses from at least three contractors and 
make sure all offers are fairly considered.

The rule also allows blanket purchase agreements to be established against 
Federal Supply Schedules, but contracting officers must monitor them 
carefully, including reviewing BPAs at least annually to determine whether 
they still represent the best value.

Allen said many procurement officials likely were following 803 without 
documentation, "and now they will document it."

"There's a nice balance because the government gets competition, but the 
government procurement process is not unduly burdened with extra time- 
consuming steps," he said.

***

Buying requirements

The Defense Department issued a final rule that implements Section 803 of 
the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2002.

The rule:

* Requires that DOD compete service task orders of $100,000 or more, except 
under certain circumstances.

* Requires contracting officers to try to get responses from at least three 
contractors that can fulfill the work and make sure all offers received are 
fairly considered.

* Allows blanket purchase agreements to be established against Federal 
Supply Schedules, but contracting officers must monitor them, including 
determining whether they still represent the best value.

* Includes a section on training so contracting officers and vendors 
understand the implications of Section 803.
******************************
Federal Computer Week
Removal of Web info concerns Democrats
BY William Matthews
Nov. 4, 2002

Valuable scientific information is being stricken from government Web sites 
because it does not support the Bush administration's political agenda, a 
dozen House Democrats have charged.

In recent months, agencies that are part of the Department of Health and 
Human Services have removed information related to condoms, HIV and 
abortion from some of their Web sites, say the Democrats, led by Rep. Henry 
Waxman (D-Calif.).

The disappearance of material from Web sites operated by the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, both part 
of HHS, prompted Waxman and 11 colleagues to question "the administration's 
commitment to the tradition of scientific excellence and science-based 
decision-making at HHS."

In a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, the group complained about the 
removal of three items: National Cancer Institute information debunking the 
claim that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer; a CDC fact sheet 
stating that condoms are effective in stopping the spread of HIV; and a CDC 
report that described programs deemed effective in preventing tobacco use, 
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among young people.

"Removal of this information strongly suggests an ideological rather than a 
scientific agenda at work," Waxman and the other Democrats wrote Oct. 21.

HHS officials said the Democrats' claim is baseless.

Outdated data, not political ideology, prompted the removals, said William 
Pierce, an HHS spokesman. "This goes on all the time in science. When we 
get new reports," old reports are stricken, he said. "Our goal is to make 
sure [agency Web sites] reflect the most up-to-date scientific thinking."

Striking two items from among the tens of thousands on the CDC Web site 
hardly constitutes a political purge, a CDC spokeswoman said.

A lot of new research has been done on the effectiveness of condoms against 
diseases since the fact sheet was posted on the Web. "It was taken down in 
order to update it," she said.

Politics appears to have played a role in the removal of information from 
the National Cancer Institute Web site, but it may have been as much 
congressional politics as the Bush administration's.

Nicole Gottlieb, a spokeswoman for the National Cancer Institute, said the 
information on abortions and breast cancer was taken off the Web earlier 
this year after the agency received a letter from Congress asking that it 
be removed.

Gottlieb said she did not know who sent the letter. An HHS official said he 
could not find it.

For now, the stricken information is being reviewed for accuracy, Gottlieb 
said. "Obviously, abortion is a highly charged issue. Several people have 
looked at it internally and externally. There have been a lot of remarks 
that something should be changed or that it should not be changed."

According to Waxman, removal of the abortion and breast cancer information 
prompted a bipartisan group of representatives to write to Thompson in 
July, asking him to contact the National Cancer Institute and have the 
information returned to the Web. So far there has been no response, the 
Oct. 21 letter says.

The battle over Web content is just part of an ongoing struggle between the 
Bush administration and organizations such as the Gay Men's Health Crisis 
and Human Rights Watch over sex education and the administration's 
preference for an "abstinence only" policy.

But the removal of scientific information from government Web sites raises 
new concerns about the Internet and government openness, said Darrell West, 
a political science professor and Internet expert at Brown University.

"This is new," he said. "The whole thrust of e-government and the Internet 
has been to put more information online." Until recently, "agencies were 
rushing to put everything they had online."

The rush slowed dramatically after last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 
After the attacks, agencies launched sweeping purges of Web information 
they judged hazardous to homeland security.

"The homeland security issue has been broadened far beyond what homeland 
security could validly be considered to be," said Sean Moulton, a senior 
policy analyst at OMB Watch.

The Office of Management and Budget is considering a new category of 
government information that is "sensitive but unclassified" and should be 
withheld from the public.

But banning information because it conflicts with a political agenda would 
be a step beyond that, West said. "Essentially, e-government is now 
entering the political realm."

"The danger is that if information on government Web sites gets 
politicized, people will develop the same cynicism about e-government that 
they have about traditional government," he said.
******************************
Federal Computer Week
Customs plays homeland role
Modernization project may become platform for proposed Homeland Security 
Department
BY Judi Hasson
Nov. 4, 2002

Officials mapping out the proposed Homeland Security Department are 
considering expanding the Customs Service modernization project to help 
fight the war against terrorism.

The multibillion-dollar program, called the Automated Commercial 
Environment (ACE), is designed to put Customs' systems on one unified 
network that will connect every U.S. border and port entry point. The 
system would make it easier to track imports and exports, which exceed $1 
trillion a year.

Homeland security officials now want to develop ACE so the system's 
functionality could be shared with other agencies that would become part of 
the new department.

"While this was sized for Customs in mind, some of the capacity could be 
shared," said S.W. "Woody" Hall Jr., Customs' chief information officer. 
"The infrastructure piece can be used for anything.... The savings comes 
from everyone deciding to do it the same way and to build off the same base."

For example, Hall said ACE could be used by the Transportation Security 
Administration to check the passenger lists from international flights 
before travelers arrive in the United States. It could be used by 
intelligence agencies to spot trends or to automate non-intrusive 
inspection equipment for both ports and people. "It would not be as 
expensive as trying to run multiple networks everyplace," Hall said.

Officials from the 22 agencies that would become part of the new department 
are meeting weekly at the Office of Homeland Security to draw up plans for 
the department, which still must be approved by Congress. ACE has become an 
important part of the discussion about how to build the new agency.

"ACE has some really strong components in place," said Jim Flyzik, a senior 
adviser to Tom Ridge, who heads the Office of Homeland Security.

Besides the Customs infrastructure, officials also are looking at the Coast 
Guard's Deepwater modernization project and pieces of TSA's recently 
awarded Information Technology Managed Services (ITMS) contract, according 
to Flyzik.

The Deepwater program would replace an aging fleet of cutters, aircraft, 
sensors and the supporting command, control, communications and 
surveillance systems. But Deepwater and TSA's ITMS are in their early 
development compared with ACE, which was awarded to IBM Corp. in April 2001 
and was designed to develop one system to handle billions of dollars' worth 
of import and export data.

ACE has become an important component of the expanding mission to protect 
the country as well as streamline and create more efficient systems.

"The infrastructure consolidation is going to occur with or without the 
department," said Mark Forman, associate director for IT and e-government 
at the Office of Management and Budget.
****************************
Government Computer News
11/05/02

OMB replaces two e-gov project managers

By Jason Miller and William Welsh
Post Newsweek Staff

The Office of Management and Budget last month replaced a pair of 
e-government project managers leading Quicksilver initiatives under the 
aegis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

To run the Disaster Management project, OMB tapped Mark Zimmerman, who is 
on detail from the Marine Corps. He replaced FEMA's Dennis Green. To 
supervise Project Safecom, the wireless public-safety effort, OMB selected 
Susan Moore. On loan from the Agriculture Department, Moore replaced Tom 
Ringer

Mark Forman, OMB's associate director for e-government and IT, recently 
said he is not pleased with the progress of the two projects. Forman also 
said the Geospatial Information One Stop initiative is falling short of its 
objectives.

Zimmerman's experience with the Marine Corps, which is far along in 
developing its own disaster management processes, will help speed progress 
on the comparable e-government project, Forman said.

Zimmerman will have to get the project on track quickly, however. FEMA CIO 
Rose Parkes said yesterday that her agency plans to launch disasterhelp.gov 
Nov. 25.

"We are modeling it after the Army's and Navy's knowledge online portals," 
said Parkes during a discussion on homeland security at the Industry 
Advisory Council's Executive Leadership Conference in Hershey, Pa.

Moore's job may even be more difficult than Zimmerman's. Parkes compared 
Safecom to herding cats.

"There are a lot of solution sets within the communities," she said. "Our 
objective is to build a road map that allows us to review all the solutions 
sets and determine best practices. We want to survey the systems so we know 
what is out there."

FEMA will not dictate standards, but provide guidance to see what is needed 
or lacking in certain areas to make wireless systems interoperable, Parkes 
said.
*************************
Government Executive
November 5, 2002
New center reaches out to private firms to protect infrastructure
By Bryan Bender, Global Security Newswire


A new center dedicated to assessing terrorist threats to critical U.S. 
infrastructures is reaching out to other institutions to help mitigate the 
risk of attacks against strategic U.S. industries and government services, 
according to U.S. officials.


The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, or NISAC, 
located at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, has joined in recent 
months with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University, 
Cornell University, Lucent Technologies and Argonne National Laboratory, 
among others, the officials said recently.


NISAC, which is jointly supported by nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory, 
is seeking new strategic partners in establishing itself as the primary 
national facility capable of simulating how catastrophic terrorist attacks 
could disrupt critical infrastructure, how attacks on one node might affect 
other elements of national infrastructure and how to recover quickly from 
such events.


"Right now we are developing the expertise," Steve Rinaldi, NISAC's joint 
program manager, said in an interview. "As we need information on specific 
infrastructures, we will collaborate with those organizations, in the 
government or private sector, that are willing and able to work with us."


The USA Patriot Act of 2001 chartered NISAC, which opened its doors April 1 
this year. It is designed as the "source of national competence to address 
critical infrastructure protection and continuity through support for 
activities related to counterterrorism, threat assessment and risk 
mitigation," the legislation says.


The center, which is slated to be transferred from the Energy Department to 
the proposed Homeland Security Department, should help determine which 
critical infrastructuresfrom nuclear and electric power, oil, gas, 
transportation, water, communications, banking and finance, emergency 
services, law enforcement, government continuity, agriculture and health 
servicesare most vulnerable to attack.


The simulation and analysis center will also assess how such attacks may 
affect other infrastructures and outline ways to prevent interdependent 
nodes from suffering a "cascading effect" following a successful attack. 
For example, according to Rinaldi, the center will look at how electric 
utilities rely on natural gas and how an attack on one would likely affect 
the other.


"NISAC's unique niche is the interdependency piece of the infrastructure," 
Rinaldi said.


Indeed, government officials have increasingly warned that the 
interdependency of national infrastructures poses a new strategic threat to 
national security.


"Disruptions in any one of them could jeopardize the continued operation of 
the entire infrastructure system," Samuel Varnado, director of 
infrastructure and information systems at Sandia, told the House Committee 
on Energy and Commerce's investigations subcommittee in July.


"In the past, the nation's critical infrastructures operated fairly 
independently," he added. "Today, however, they are increasingly linked, 
automated, and interdependent. What previously would have been an isolated 
failure could cascade into a widespread, crippling, multi-infrastructure 
disruption."


According to Janice Stevens, director of business development for 
Management Technology, a firm that is discussing a possible partnership 
with Sandia on nuclear power plant security, a successful attack on today's 
infrastructure "will cause unacceptable national impacts."


"The events of 9/11 underscored the growing awareness that terrorist groups 
are far more capable of mounting critical infrastructure attacks within the 
United States than previously recognized. These groups may be able to 
coordinate activities among multiple terrorist cells for planning and 
executing relatively sophisticated attacks."


Officials agree that to determine infrastructure vulnerabilities and to 
derive mitigation strategies, NISAC needs outside help and private sector 
expertise in particular.


"We realize the industry is the owners and operators" of much of the 
critical infrastructure, according to Rinaldi. "They know the assets they 
have and how they are hooked together. If you want to model you have to 
know how the networks are put together."


He said NISAC is seeking private firms "for their expertise and their data."


However, private entities are not always willing to divulge what they deem 
sensitive information and in some cases such reluctance could hold back 
NISAC's assessment work.


"Help is needed in working with private industry," Varnado told Congress in 
July. "Many of the private owners of the infrastructure feel that 
identification of critical nodes and vulnerabilities is sensitive 
information, and they are reluctant to share it with the government."


He called for government action "to create a process under which sensitive 
information can be shared among those in government and industry with a 
need-to-know."


As NISAC develops the capabilities required to conduct the necessary 
simulations and models, it has set some ambitious goals. With $20 million 
in fiscal 2002 and more coming for fiscal 2003, Rinaldi said he hopes to 
provide four "business lines:" policy analysis to help policy-makers 
develop better risk reduction strategies; mitigation planning that best 
utilizes limited resources; education and training tools for first 
responders; and real-time assistance in the event of a major infrastructure 
attack or disruption.


NISAC is also looking to demonstrate a biological surveillance simulation 
system that will provide an initial capability to examine movement of 
disease through mobile urban populations and intervention strategies.


By 2005, "NISAC will be fully functional with advanced modeling and 
simulation capabilities to provide policy analysis, mitigation planning, 
education and training support, and real-time crisis assistance for a wide 
variety of users," according to NISAC literature.
******************************
Government Executive
November 5, 2002
Information-sharing partnerships seen as anti-terror model
By Molly M. Peterson, National Journal's Technology Daily


Information-sharing partnerships that helped the federal government and the 
private sector combat cyber attacks such as the "Code Red" and "Nimda" 
viruses have served as a valuable model for protecting other critical 
infrastructures from potential terrorist attacks, a top cyber-security 
official said Tuesday.

"Prior to [Sept. 11, 2001], we really focused in on cyber threats," Ronald 
Dick, director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center 
(NIPC), said during the first annual conference of the Infrastructure 
Security Partnership.

Dick noted that when the Code Red virus spread rapidly across the Internet 
in 2000, the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Secret 
Service worked with software giants such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems to 
identify system vulnerabilities and determine ways to mitigate the threat.

"Code Red was a great example of how we were able to bring together all of 
those resources, make public statements about what the vulnerability was 
... and get a message out as to what to do," Dick said. "Because of those 
actions, the impact of Code Red and Nimda were greatly reduced."

Dick said the lessons learned from those partnerships have helped NIPC 
prevent tech-savvy terrorists from disrupting critical physical 
infrastructures, such as the electrical power grid, the water supply and 
the telecommunications system.

"What changed after Sept. 11 was that instead of having the demand be one 
of cyber information, the private sector began to demand physical-threat 
information," Dick said. "So because of what we had done in the cyber 
environmentbasically, building a portal to the private sectorthere was a 
great need and desire for us to harvest physical threat information ... and 
push it out through those same information-sharing mechanisms."

But Dick said the public and private sectors still face "huge" challenges 
breaking down institutional barriers. Agencies such as the FBI and CIA, for 
example, worry that alerting industry to potential terrorist threats could 
compromise valuable intelligence sources. And private companies worry that 
sharing proprietary information with the governmentand other companiescould 
lead to economic harm and falling stock prices.

Many companies also fear that notifying the government of infrastructure 
vulnerabilities could lead to lawsuits if that information is made public 
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). House and Senate bills that 
would create a Homeland Security Department include provisions to limit 
that type of liability.

But Joel Slaughter, manager of corporate security for American Electric 
Power (AEP), said potential terrorists already have easy access to a large 
amount of critical infrastructure information.

"Because of FOIA, much of the information on critical infrastructure is out 
there in public today," Slaughter said. "Today, you can go on the Internet, 
and for less than $100, you can buy a map of the electrical grid in this 
country."

Slaughter added that it is "virtually impossible" for AEP to protect every 
inch of its 38,000 miles of electrical transmission lines. "It's going to 
come down to deep cooperation between state and federal agencies and 
industry to protect these facilities," he said.
************************************
Government Executive
November 4, 2002
Agencies to test technology for digitizing documents
By Maureen Sirhal, National Journal's Technology Daily

Several federal agencies are eyeing a new technology product from Adobe 
that can fully digitize documents. The technology would help them meet an 
impending mandate for conducting more business electronically.

The Internal Revenue Service and Agriculture Department have been 
participating in a test program launched by the San Jose, Calif.-based 
software maker. The technology will allow citizens to download and save 
portable documents known as PDF files.

Three agencies within AgricultureRural Development, the Farm Service Agency 
and the National Resource Conservation Serviceare weighing whether to adopt 
the platform known as the "Adobe Document Server For Reader Extension," 
said David Pfaffenberger, a computer specialist with Rural Development at 
the department.

We've had "a lot input from the public that they wanted to take the PDF 
files and save them to their machines and fill them out," he added.

Most federal agencies distribute official forms and documents using Adobe's 
PDF software. The system only allows individuals to access those forms 
online for printing, preventing them from actually completing the forms and 
saving them electronically. But pending deadlines under laws that require 
agencies to move more of their services online are forcing agencies to find 
ways to create interactive documents.

Adobe's system would allow agencies to license the technology and then 
encode their online forms. Consumers would be able to complete the document 
electronically, annotate it, e-mail copies of it and save it to their 
personal computers without having to print a page.

The technology is not entirely new, but most firms pay premium costs for 
interactive PDF documents. Adobe began developing the "free" version in 
response to government inquiries. Twenty-five agencies are participating in 
the pilot project.

Consumers would not have to buy Adobe's software to complete a transaction. 
"You couldn't put that burden on the end user ... so we figured a way out 
[where] the government can actually pay," said Sydney Sloan, 
group-solutions marketing manager for Adobe. By year's end, the latest 
version of Adobe PDF-reader software will contain those components.

While the technology would provide substantial benefits, Pfaffenberger 
cautioned, "one of the hurdles" agencies face is guaranteeing the integrity 
of the forms. "We realize there is a big need to people being able to save 
their form online," he said. "But when you get into legal forms and the 
amount of money we deal with in loans and grants and assistance to the 
public ... we have to really make sure those forms cannot be changed."

In January, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also 
plans to begin outlining requirements for accepting PDF documents for 
archiving purposes. NARA computer specialist Mark Giguere cautioned that 
each agency will have to reach a contract with NARA to specify minimum 
criteria for storing online documents.

Still, the move likely will be a boon to agencies trying to advance their 
online services, Pfaffenberger said. "I still think a lot of people are 
going to want this [product]. It just makes the whole process much more 
efficient."
********************************
Computerworld
Technology: Behind the balloting on election day
By LINDA ROSENCRANCE
NOVEMBER 05, 2002

From touch-screen voting machines to online repositories of voting 
irregularities, technology could be one of the winners on this election day.
Various organizations, as well as cities and towns across the nation, have 
implemented a variety of technologies designed to ensure that every vote 
counts.

According to published reports, voters in almost one-fifth of all U.S. 
counties will be casting ballots on electronic voting machines, either by 
touching special screens or pushing buttons.

In Cook County, Ill., where paper ballots are still used, officials have 
implemented vote-recognition technology to make sure all votes are counted 
correctly. After a person votes, he puts the ballot into an electronic 
counter that can determine whether the ballot has been properly marked.

With an eye on the evolving nature of voting technology -- and mindful of 
the problems that occurred during recent primary elections -- private 
citizens and national organizations have set up Web sites to capture and 
monitor information about election day voter turnout and potential voting 
irregularities.

Steven Hertzberg said he and several other politically independent citizens 
launched www.votewatch.us, a new online service that allows voters to 
immediately report voting machine errors and other voting irregularities.

The Web site uses discussion board technology from San Francisco-based 
Ezboard Inc., which also hosts the site, and has a forum where voters can 
monitor, report on and discuss problems at polling places across the U.S. 
in real time, Hertzberg said.

One such problem cropped up last month in Texas with the new touch-screen 
voting machines. Voters in Dallas complained that when they touched the 
screen for one party's candidate, the box for another candidate was being 
tallied incorrectly. Voters said that they had voted for Democratic 
candidates but their votes were registered as being for Republicans. (In 
Texas, residents were allowed to begin voting on Oct. 19 in an early voting 
period that ran through Nov. 3.)

Reports today indicated that similar problems were occurring in Georgia. 
Apparently, although voters were touching the screen for a Republican 
candidate, the box was incorrectly checked for the Democratic candidate.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is monitoring today's 
election with a speech-enabled Web site designed to keep tabs on voter 
turnout and voting irregularities nationwide. VoterLink Data Systems in 
Bala Cynwyd, Pa., chose speech-recognition technology from Cincinnati's 
Convergys Corp. as part of its Vote411.net.

The Web site, which will operate from 7 a.m. today until 3 a.m. tomorrow, 
will take voice information about election-related issues or problems from 
a toll-free number, (866) VOTE-411, and then post that information to the 
site to be viewed in real time by the DNC.

"Several high-profile incidents in recent national and local elections 
demonstrate the need to identify election problems while they're occurring 
and respond to them before the polls close," Ken Smuckler, president of 
VoterLink Data Systems, said in a statement. "For us, Convergys was the 
best choice to help deploy a dependable, interactive solution with the 
advanced features and reliability the DNC needed to support its poll 
monitoring activities nationwide."

One tidbit of technology getting less attention this year is the Voter News 
Service (VNS), which is used by major TV networks and news organizations to 
collect data on races across the country to help them determine a winner 
before all votes have been counted.

The VNS -- and the news organizations -- ran into problems two years ago 
with returns from the state of Florida, first calling that state's 
electoral votes for Vice President Al Gore and then for Texas Gov. George 
W. Bush, before declaring that the state was too close to call for either 
one. The back-and-forth nature of the predictions soured the networks -- 
and viewers -- on how election returns were reported.

This year, network anchors and new organizations have pledged to rely more 
on actual vote counts than on projections when declaring winners after the 
polls close tonight.

Although Florida had problems during its September primary (see story), 
there were no early reports of serious ballot problems in the sunshine state.
********************************
Computerworld
Va. court denies AOL's attempt to protect user identity

In a case that could shape how free speech is perceived online, the 
Virginia Supreme Court has ruled against America Online Inc. in its latest 
effort to protect the anonymity of one of its subscribers.
The ruling against AOL Friday came as part of a nearly 2-year-old case 
filed by electronics design and manufacturing company Nam Tai Electronics 
Inc., alleging that 51 unknown individuals committed libel, trade libel and 
violations of California's unfair business practices statutes by posting 
defamatory messages about the company's publically traded stock on an 
Internet message board.

One of the individuals was revealed to be an AOL subscriber, and Nam Tai 
acquired a subpoena requesting that the world's largest Internet service 
provider (ISP) hand over the person's identity. AOL filed a motion to quash 
the subpoena, contending that the disclosure would "infringe upon the 
well-established First Amendment right to speak anonymously."

The California court handling the case denied the motion, and Dulles, 
Va.-based AOL appealed the ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court. The 
court's decision Friday to uphold the lower court's ruling is significant 
in that the ISP's home state decided not to get involved in what could be a 
sticky free speech issue, experts say.

An AOL spokesman said today that the company was disappointed with the 
court's decision.

"We feel very strongly that there are critical, important First Amendment 
issues at stake in this case," said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham.

David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, 
said that the Virginia Supreme Court had "punted on a very controversial 
issue" by upholding the California court's ruling.

If AOL is eventually forced to turn over the identity of its subscriber, 
Sobel said that the move could have a potential chilling effect in how 
users view free speech online.

AOL was given 10 days to ask the Virginia Supreme Court to reconsider its 
opinion, and if the request is denied, the case could be appealed to the 
U.S. Supreme Court.

The company is still "in the process of considering options," according to 
Graham.
***********************************
Computerworld
Hacking syndicates threaten banking
By DAN VERTON
NOVEMBER 04, 2002

The number of organized hacking syndicates targeting financial institutions 
around the world is growing at a disturbingly fast rate. And so is the 
number of banks willing to pay these high-tech extortionists hush money to 
protect their reputations, according to a security expert at The World Bank.
Cases in which banks, brokerage firms and other financial institutions have 
quietly paid hacking syndicates extortion money are "extremely widespread," 
said Tom Kellermann, senior data risk management specialist at The World 
Bank in Washington. Kellermann, who co-authored a study on the electronic 
security risks facing the global financial community, presented the 
findings during an Oct. 29 online seminar sponsored by Cable & Wireless 
Internet Services Inc. in Vienna, Va.

The 127-page study details the growing security challenges facing the 
financial sector as a result of the industry's unprecedented dependence on 
the public telecommunications system, rapid adoption of wireless systems 
and outsourcing of operations to third parties.

And the growing dependency on Internet technologies that are linked to 
sensitive back-end systems, such as customer databases and real-time stock 
data, has made online extortion a major "safety and soundness issue" for 
the financial markets, Kellermann said.

80% Go Unreported

Kellermann cited reports from Framingham, Mass.-based IDC and Stamford, 
Conn.-based Gartner Inc. that indicate that roughly 80% of cybercrime 
incidents in the financial sector go unreported to law enforcement agencies.

Moreover, he contends that IT employees keep many of these incidents from 
senior banking executives "due to the reality that they may be fired." 
Banks don't report these incidents mainly because they want to maintain 
customer and investor trust, according to Kellermann.

At the same time, massive underreporting has created a vicious catch-22 for 
an industry that continues to struggle with dwindling budgets. "It has a 
magnifying effect because there's no actuarial data to justify the extra 
expense on security," said Kellermann. "We are losing this war."

Budget issues have also led banks and other financial companies to 
outsource operations. But that can have disastrous consequences for 
hundreds of banks at once if the hosting company doesn't implement proper 
security protections, Kellermann said. He cited an incident last year in 
which hackers penetrated the systems run by S1 Corp., an Atlanta-based 
provider of electronic finance services to the financial industry. The 
incident led to the compromise of more than 300 banks, credit unions, 
insurance providers and investment firms simultaneously.

Coverups Not Common

Security experts and banking officials contacted for this story agreed that 
the vast majority of incidents go unreported. However, they said they 
aren't convinced that internal coverups by bank IT personnel are widespread.

"I don't think that security incident coverups are common," said Joe Busa, 
an IT manager at Citizens Bank in Providence, R.I. "It is very hard to 
cover a mistake completely from your peers."

According to Gartner analyst John Pescatore, all publicly traded companies 
are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission to report all events 
that could have a material effect on the business. However, "there have 
been very few computer security incidents serious enough to be classified 
as a material event," said Pescatore.
*****************************
New York Times
November 4, 2002
A New Cryptography Uses the Quirks of Photon Streams
By JOHN MARKOFF

The quirky world of quantum physics, where mathematical elements can hold 
multiple values and objects can be in several places at once, is heading 
toward commercial products.

A start-up company, MagiQ Technologies, plans to announce today a 
cryptogaphy  or code  system that uses a technology called quantum key 
distribution to thwart eavesdropping on a fiber optic communication 
channel. The company, based in New York, says it has a working model of its 
system and will have a commercial version available in the second half of 
next year.

With the system, keys to the code are transmitted as a stream of photons, 
sent over a fiber optic cable. Because of the properties of quantum 
physics, the mere act of observing the transmission would alter the 
photons, rendering their information useless to any eavesdroppers.

A limit of the system is that it would not work on the Internet, only over 
dedicated fiber cables in which the photon transmission can be carefully 
controlled. But outside researchers say that quantum cryptography does make 
possible electronic conversations that would be immune to eavesdropping.

"MagiQ seems to be ahead of the research community in terms of making this 
affordable and practical," said Dr. Burton S. Kaliski Jr., the chief 
scientist of RSA Laboratories, one of the leading developers of 
conventional cryptographic systems.

Research in quantum cryptography goes back into the 1980's. But MagiQ 
(pronounced as magic) and a Swiss competitor, ID Quantique, are the first 
to attempt to develop commercial systems based on the technology. ID 
Quantique's system has not yet reached the market.

MagiQ was founded in 1999 by Robert Gelfond, a former securities trading 
executive for D. E. Shaw & Company who was also a first-round investor in 
Amazon.

The company has raised $6.9 million from investors who include Amazon's 
founder, Jeff Bezos; Walter Riley, the chairman of Guaranteed Overnight 
Delivery; and Neal Goldman, the president of Goldman Capital Management.

Industry analysts say that military applications would probably be the 
primary use for quantum cryptography. "The Defense Department is going to 
care, and that's big money for a small start-up to survive on," said Laura 
Koetzle, a computer security analyst at Forrester Research.

MagiQ also plans to explore other commercial applications from quantum 
physics, including quantum computing. Some scientists predict that 
computers based on quantum principle are possible and will be able to 
perform specialized tasks far more quickly than computers can.
******************************
Information Week
Homeland Security Department Will Need Time To Come Together
By Eric Chabrow
Nov. 5, 2002

Management expert says merging 22 federal agencies into single department 
could take five to 10 years.

One of the nation's leading management experts told the government's top IT 
officials on Tuesday that it could be five to 10 years before the merger of 
22 federal agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security will 
completely take hold.

[Story http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021105S0003]
****************************
Wired News
Watch the Vote on VoteWatch
02:00 AM Nov. 05, 2002 PT

Voters on Tuesday don't have to wait for the pesky media to digest stories 
of suspicious goings-on at the polls.

A new website called VoteWatch [URL http://www.votewatch.us/]  will share 
voters' concerns in real time (or at least as soon as they can get home and 
log on).

Frustrated by the media's focus on dangling chads in 2000 while 50,000 
voters in Florida were erroneously listed as felons and prevented from 
voting, Steven Hertzberg has launched VoteWatch as a "repository of voter 
complaints."

"VoteWatch.US is a new website allowing voters to register concerns about 
their vote immediately -- an important development, because by the time 
anybody catches most election errors, it's too late to remedy," said a 
press release from Hertzberg, who did not respond to interview requests.

The website provides a forum organized by state and topics of discussion. 
It's designed to allow voters to report issues regarding access to polls, 
intimidation, questionable vote counting and discrepancies in tabulation.

With so many close races in Tuesday's elections, and with the margin of 
Senate party control so slim, VoteWatch could act as a watchdog. With 
Voter.com and Citizens for True Democracy websites now defunct, it 
certainly fills a void.

Rashad Robinson, field director for the Center for Voting and Democracy, 
thinks grassroots efforts like VoteWatch are important at a time when 
citizens are skeptical of the election process.

The media don't always do the best job of uncovering voting problems and 
sometimes takes too long, he said. By the time issues bubble to the 
surface, especially when votes are being counted, it may be too late to 
take action.

"The media is not necessarily a great place to start as a filter, because 
they're looking for a story and looking for something sexy in many cases," 
Robinson said.

Although VoteWatch says the people behind the project are politically 
independent, sites that rely on input directly from the public can present 
objectivity problems, according to Poynter Institute faculty member Aly Colón.

The "media filter" is often key in revealing hidden biases, he said.

"Depending on the experience of the people involved in these sites, their 
own perspective, where their funding comes from, who they support, who they 
are trying to advocate for -- you have to have all that kind of information 
at hand in order for you to understand the agenda a particular site might 
have," Colón said.

Robinson agrees it's essential for sites like VoteWatch to remain 
nonpolitical for the public to consider them a credible source.

"The idea of giving people an opportunity to express concerns and 
complaints about what's happening at the polls is part of our democracy," 
Robinson said. "Giving people the opportunity to oversee what happens in 
their community is part of the process -- especially if it's done in a 
nonpartisan, nonpolitical way."
*****************************
MSNBC
Critics wary of 'trusted computing'
Computer firms promise better security, but at what price?
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 5  To thwart hackers and foster online commerce, the 
next generation of computers will almost certainly cede some control to 
software firms, Hollywood and other outsiders. That could break a 
long-standing tenet of computing: that PC owners ultimately control data on 
their own machines.
      MICROSOFT CALLS ITS technology "Palladium." Intel dubs it 
"LaGrande." An industry group that includes these companies, IBM, 
Hewlett-Packard and 170 others terms it "trusted computing."
       (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
       Though the initiatives have technical differences, they share the 
goal of hardwiring security into silicon and related software  a leap 
beyond today's less-secure mechanisms, which are coded into programs to 
protect data.
       "This is a fundamentally new approach as opposed to taking a 
software-only, Band-Aid approach," said Narendar Sahgal, a software 
planning manager at Intel.
       The efforts would help protect movies and other digital content 
from piracy and even personal copying, and critics see few benefits for 
consumers.
       "I don't think the kind of trustworthiness they seek to deliver is 
at all desirable," said Ross Anderson, a security researcher at Cambridge 
University. "It's not security for me. It's security for them."

PLATFORMS, NOT POLICIES
       The companies and content providers behind the initiative claim 
that by protecting data from external attacks and unlawful trading they'll 
be able to unlock the potential of computing itself.
       The key is creating a realm in computing where each bit of 
communication  an e-mail, an online purchase, a check of a database, the 
reading of a document  can be achieved only by interacting with secured, 
uniquely identified hardware through "trusted agents."
       Each agent would enforce policies set by senders, recipients, 
copyright holders or a combination that would decide how the content can be 
used.
       In this realm, Hollywood could safely release its works. The health 
care and financial industries could communicate with clients without fear 
of leaks. And ordinary users could rest assured that critical information 
won't be stolen or wrecked by the virus du jour or hackers.
       "There are certain transactions and certain businesses where you 
need to understand and trust the device you're talking to," said Scott 
Dinsdale, executive vice president of digital strategy for the Motion 
Picture Association of America.
       Developers of the new technology say they're just building trusted 
platforms, not setting any policies for using them.
       All emphasize that specific tasks  such as managing digital 
rights  can be built on top of their technologies but are not part of the 
initiatives.
       Peter Biddle, Microsoft's product manager for Palladium, said it 
would not empower copyright holders to reach into consumers' computers and 
make "untrusted" documents  such as music files  disappear.
       In fact, he said, users could use Palladium to protect content from 
scans and hacks by copyright holders, who have lately employed intrusive 
methods in a bid to curb piracy.

VIRTUAL VAULTS
       Computers with the new capabilities are not expected for several 
years, but critics say the details released so far do not bode well for 
open computing.
       Trustworthiness would be achieved by giving users two choices: 
trusted and untrusted. On a computer running in untrusted mode, information 
would be shared just as it has been for the past 20 years. It's also still 
vulnerable to attack.
       The trusted realm, however, would be immune from such attack. Data 
and memory would be contained in a virtual vault. Keys would be held by a 
chip that lets in only trusted software.
      Content creators could write and enforce rules that determine 
whether a file could, for instance, be distributed or printed. They could 
prohibit untrusted machines from accessing a trusted document.
       Palladium, LaGrande and others are being designed to enforce 
existing rules and ones devised in the future.
       Scott Charney, Microsoft's chief security strategist, said users 
and providers will set the rules  just as they do today. The difference, he 
said, is that the new technologies will create a secure environment for 
enforcing those rules.
       Critics fear, however, that it will be the end user who might end 
up being trusted the least in the brave new world of trusted computing.
       Creators of trusted programs could resort to draconian tactics to 
ensure their policies are enforced, Anderson said.
       Programs found to be illegally copied could be rendered useless 
remotely. Sensitive e-mail, which might be useful in investigations, could 
vanish. And e-books could be subjected to virtual book burnings.
       Industry pioneer David P. Reed, formerly the chief scientist at 
Lotus Development Corp., called the initiatives "booby traps."
       "I'm personally angry and disgusted that ... companies that grew up 
because of the personal computer revolution, which empowered users, are now 
acting to harm the users," Reed said.

OPTING OUT
       Supporters, however, argue that the new architecture will create 
more opportunities than it limits, as more and more consumers and content 
providers try things they now avoid because of insecurity.
       Biddle said laws and regulations that now protect sensitive 
documents from shredding also should bar the destruction of e-mail or other 
computer-generated material.
       Moreover, users will continue to have control, because they can 
always choose not run the security features, Charney and other 
trusted-computing supporters say.
      But those who refuse risk limiting choices, just as people who 
refuse to buy the Windows operating system are closed out of a computing 
world dominated by Microsoft, Anderson said.
       Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation, said incompatibility is the biggest threat posted by the 
trusted-computing initiatives.
       "I don't think anyone can absolutely compel you to do anything in 
particular," he said. "What they can do is create an incompatibility or 
refuse to deal with you unless you meet a particular condition."
       Charney promised that Microsoft will not misuse the technology.
       "Listen to what we say and watch what we do. Actions speak louder 
than words," Charney said. "And then if we're saying 'X' but doing 'Y,' not 
only will we lose trust but our brand is hurt and we lose market share."

       © 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not 
be published, broadcast
**********************************
MSNBC
Online job listing an ID theft scam
'Background check' used to steal full slate
of personal info

Nov. 4   It was just the job lead Jim needed: a marketing manager position 
with Arthur Gallagher, a leading international insurance broker. And only 
days after Jim responded to the job posting on Monster.com, a human 
resources director sent along a promising e-mail. We're interested in you, 
the note said. The salary is negotiable, the clients big. In fact, the 
clients are so valuable and sensitive that you'll have to submit to a 
background check as part of the interview process. Eager for work, Jim 
complied  and sent off just about every key to his digital identity, 
including his age, height, weight, Social Security number, bank account 
numbers, even his mother's maiden name.
       IT WAS ALL JUST an elaborate identity theft scam designed to prey 
on the most vulnerable potential victims  the increasing ranks of the 
unemployed.
       Job seekers don't have a lot of leverage when they are asked to 
jump through hoops by prospective employers  not now, anyway, with 
unemployment continuing to rise at a menacingly slow, steady rate. October 
saw the highest rate of job cuts since January, and the national 
unemployment rate now sits at 5.7 percent.
       Online job classifieds seem the like the perfect antidote for those 
in the job market, like Jim, who began his search in August after he 
learned his company is involved in a big-ticket merger, with layoffs likely.
       So Jim didn't really consider rejecting a request for a background 
check from William T. Levinski, who identified himself as Arthur 
Gallagher's human resource director. After all, Arthur Gallagher is a 
billion-dollar-a-year insurance firm with locations in eight countries.
       "I'm sure they have a lot of sensitive client information, so it 
made sense," he said. Plus, it was a great opportunity. Jim, who requested 
his identity be withheld for this story, filled out the extensive 
background check form.

SINISTER SCAM
       The scam is thorough, and sinister. The form Jim showed MSNBC.com 
even asked applicants to supply a four-digit number that would act as a 
password, promising access to a special Web site full of potential company 
projects. The request sounds innocent enough, but it's clearly designed to 
take advantage of the fact that most people use the same passwords for all 
their personal accounts, so any 4-digit number supplied by an applicant 
would likely double as the PIN attached to their debit card.
       Jim is no fool: He was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, and has 
nearly 20 years of management experience. But it all happened so fast. He 
responded to the Monster.com job listing the weekend of Oct. 12. By Monday, 
he'd received the alleged response from Arthur Gallagher. Levinski's note 
suggested urgency, music to any job-seeker's ears.
       "The position will start in 3 weeks," the letter read, so please 
start the background check process immediately. "They usually take a few 
days to get them done, so if you could get it done by Wednesday I would 
appreciate it."
       Naturally, Jim submitted the form almost immediately. But by 
Wednesday, he hadn't heard anything, so he called Levinski and left a 
message. The call was a bit unnerving; Levinski's voice-mail message was 
bare-boned and impersonal: "Leave a message and I'll call you back."
       A day later, the phone line had been disconnected and the job 
listing on Monster.com had been withdrawn. So Jim called Arthur Gallagher 
headquarters. No one with the name Levinski works here, he was told. 
Finally, a sympathetic human resources employee told Jim that the job 
posting was a fraud.

'IT'S ALL OUT THERE NOW'
       "I feel so stupid," he said. "I spent the rest of the afternoon 
canceling all my credit cards and setting up fraud watches with the credit 
bureaus. ... I'm checking my account balances every day.
       "But it's all out there now. They've got everything, down to my 
height and weight. I'm just telling you about it so no one else falls for 
this."
       It's not clear how many victims there are, but Jim is not the only 
one. An employee at Arthur Gallagher told Jim that the firm had gotten a 
number of calls from other victims who were also looking for Levinski. The 
company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
     And in a note to Jim, Monster.com said it was "currently working with 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in several jurisdictions and several 
state law enforcement authorities which are investigating certain parties 
who have placed fraudulent job postings on the Monster Job Database."
       Company spokesman Kevin Mullins wouldn't comment on the incident or 
the investigation, saying only that incidents of fraud are "very, very 
infrequent" on the site. He said the firm quickly removes suspicious job 
postings when it receives complaints from users.
       "Protecting job seekers is a a top priority for us and we devote 
resources to that," he said.
       But Jim complained that he didn't receive any warning from 
Monster.com when it removed the job listing.
       "They withdrew the listing because they knew there was a problem, 
but they didn't notify me," he said. "When I talked to them, I said 'I 
think you have a responsibility to do a little better checking on the 
people (who post jobs),' but their response was that their terms of service 
say 'We're not responsible.' "

DON'T GIVE OUT SSN
       On the "frequently asked questions" section of its Web site, 
Monster.com does warn users not to "give your Social Security number to any 
prospective employer even if they suggest that it is for a "routine 
background check." The same section also advises users not to give out 
credit card numbers or bank account numbers. "Monster's Terms of Use 
prohibit job postings which require job seekers to pay any funds prior to 
employment," the note says. But the advice is listed on a page with nearly 
50 other questions and answers, and Jim didn't get the warning until it was 
too late.
       This is not the first time that the privacy perils of online 
job-seeking have been exposed. Putting a resume online can expose critical 
personal data such as former employers, date of birth, even Social Security 
numbers. Experts recommend leaving personal information off a resume that's 
posted online  even omitting detailed work history  to protect against 
identity thieves who use resume Web sites to mine data.
       Monster.com is the 800-pound gorilla of the online classified 
business, claiming a database of 17 million resumes and a promising list of 
800,000 jobs. But that means it's also the subject of additional scrutiny. 
A year ago, the Privacy Foundation issued a report critical of 
Monster.com's privacy practices. The report, written by Pam Dixon, 
indicated Monster.com had considered selling its vast reams of private data 
to marketers and stored resume information even after job seekers removed 
their listings. The company rejected both claims and vowed it would never 
sell customer data to marketers.

SPOTTING THE SCAM
       Like many online scams, bad spelling, grammar mistakes, and awkward 
sentence structures are often a tip that something is amiss. The note Jim 
received is fairly well crafted, but there are several sentences with 
missing words, and in some cases, the name "Arthur Gallagher" is 
misspelled. The scam artists also requested communication at a private 
e-mail address, rthurgalagherhrdir@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  outside of company 
e-mail. A real human resources employee would never do that. In retrospect, 
Jim realized that the area code for the fax number where he sent his 
background check information actually pointed to a Las Vegas location, 
contradicting the address atop the form, which suggested a Washington D.C. 
address. That should have raised red flags


TEXT OF THE SCAM LETTER:
       Thank you for applying for the Marketing Manager position with 
Arthur Galagher.
       I just had a chance to review your resume and am going to send your 
application through for hiring. If you are not interested in the job please 
let me know no later than Wednesday so I can look at other candidates.
       The position will start in 3 weeks, and pay is negotiable so you 
will need to start thinking about your salary requirements so we can 
discuss them later this week. I would like to give you a call, what's the 
best time to reach you and at what number? You can email me at my personal 
account, which is arthurgalagherhrdir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx My office line is 
1-310-388-5791.
       The position will require a background check because of the nature 
of the high level of security that we have with several of our clients. I 
am attaching the form in this email. Just open it up, fill it out, and fax 
it back to 1-775-923-7229, that's a secured fax line to the company that 
handles all the screening. They usually take a few days to get them done, 
so if you could get it done by Wednesday I would appreciate it. Email me 
when you're through, and we can go from there.
       The payment code, which goes on, the application is: 
2545-2251-3629-8907. If you don't put that on there they wont process it, 
or maybe they will get in touch with you and try to get you to pay for the 
screening, so make sure you don't forget to put the payment info on there 
so they can bill us for it.
       I will need to also set up an in person interview with you, and 
would like to get it done by Friday. Are there any days that don't/ won't 
work for you? If there are any problems email them to me, and either me or 
my assistant, Hanna Andrews will get back with you.
       I look forward to meeting you and I will talk to you early next week.
       Sincerely,
       William T. Levinski
       Human Resources Director
       Arthur Galagher Insurance
       PS. I am going to set up an account for you on our secure server so 
you can access our site and projects. Email me a four digit (have to be 
numbers no letters) so I can set it as your pass code. Your username will 
be your first middle and last name. You can change it once I set the 
account up. Email that to me as well if you would. Thanks again and have a 
great week.

******************************
Broadband Networking Regulation
Converge! Network Digest, 29-Oct-02
DOJ Backs SBC Entry Into California Long Distance Market

The U.S. Department of Justice will recommend that the FCC approve SBC's 
entry into the California long distance market. At the same time, the 
Department urged the FCC to review carefully an issue involving SBC's 
pricing of unbundled network elements (UNEs). The FCC must make a decision 
on SBC's application by December 19. SBC said the government's own 
statistics show that 85% of zip codes in California have competitors 
offering local phone service and nearly 50% have at least four competitors. 
The company said 3.7 million local access lines in California are currently 
being served by competitors.
http://www.usdoj.gov
******************************
Earthweb
Distrust Rampant Between Corporate Users, IT
By Sharon Gaudin

A lot of users simply don't trust their corporate IT shops to take care of 
their systems and help them when problems arise, creating an atmosphere of 
bitterness and a lack of cooperation that hurts the business, according to 
a new report from the Gartner Group.

"There's this huge lack of trust on both sides and it's creating a great 
divide," says Susan Dallas, a research director at Gartner. "I talk to 
about four clients a day and it's a topic almost everyone touches on. In 
most organizations, users rank their IT departments as 'OK to bad.' If one 
is the worst score and 10 is the best, most come out with a two or a three. 
That's a problem."

Most anyone working in a corporate environment knows there's a strain of 
contention between the IT department and workers in most every other 
department. There's grumbling on both sides -- IT jobs not finished, users 
who don't understand simple procedures, helpdesks that don't seem to help 
anyone, and users who impatiently install their own devices and muck up the 
system.

And Dallas says the problem goes beyond grumbling, turning into a 
bitterness and distrust that derails projects, hinders communications and 
ultimately costs a company money.

"You get this inherent hostility and it starts to affect everything," says 
MJ Shoer, president of Jenaly Technology Group Inc., a Portsmouth, 
N.H.-based outsourced IT firm covering small- to mid-sized businesses in 
New England. "It hurts productivity and efficiency. It's basically a 
vicious cycle that makes it hard to get anything good done."

Shoer says poor IT credibility affects IT workers, projects and the users 
themselves.

"Something may be wrong with a user's computer but he'll just live with it 
because he thinks IT won't get it fixed," Shoer adds. "And when IT needs to 
do something to a user's computer, theres all this hostility theyve got to 
work around."

And Gartner's Dallas says the blame -- just as the effects -- falls on both 
sides.

Slashed IT budgets and layoffs have left many shops woefully unable to 
complete some projects that they had been planning. And just because 
there's less money in the till doesn't mean theres less projects to take 
care of. It simply means that more projects will be left undone...and more 
expectations won't be met.

"Their supply side abilities have been severely cost constrained and they 
can't live up to the unlimited demand on the client side," says Dallas. "In 
some organizations, it's almost to the point where there's a rough rule 
that only 10% of requests will be fulfilled. They figure they might as well 
ask for 1,000 things and get 10% of that, than ask for two things and get 
very little."

Users don't always know about the new restrictions that are tying about the 
IT department, and many CIOs and administrators fail to explain it. That 
lack of communication about the need to curb expectations during a down 
economy can cause a lot of frustrations -- frustrations that tend to last 
for months or years.

"Administrators need to manage expectations," says Dallas. "They need to 
let people know about the budget constraints they're working with. They 
need to say that they have to reduce their support costs, or they can't 
afford to keep spare PCs on hand so will have to order one when it's 
needed, and that will take more time In most organizations, these 
principles haven't been clearly articulated so users' expectations are 
clearly out of control."

In addition to more communications, Dallas suggests that IT administrators 
and technicians learn to simply communicate better, trading in techno speak 
for plain English. Users often complain of IT workers who talk over their 
heads or even talk down to them, leaving them feeling ignorant and out of 
control of their own system.

"When you speak to these groups, they don't want to listen to the geek 
speak or the techno babble," says Russ Schadd, a network specialist at 
Lysle, Ill.-based Wallace Computer Services. "They just want to hear that 
you're going to do it or you're going to look into it. They also don't 
understand that what they're asking for is multiplied over and over again 
by x number of users and x number of groups. When you're in IT, everybody 
is your customer."

But some IT administrators and analysts say a good part of the problem 
arises from users who come to the office armed with a little knowledge of 
their home computer, wielding demands like swords.

"A user simply doesn't get to make the decision that she's going to use a 
Mac at work because she uses one at home," explains Dallas. "A business 
leader doesn't get to decide he's going to use SAP instead of Oracle. The 
notion that technologists are wizards of black magic is kind of going away. 
Suddenly, these folks think they're entitled to make these decisions or at 
least want a very strong input into big decisions. Then they're disgruntled 
when that doesn't happen."

Russ says users don't understand the complexities that go into migrations 
and technical implementations.

"I get a lot of groups -- engineering, marketing, sales, manufacturing -- 
and they all want to do certain things but they don't understand the issues 
involved with the technology, security and implementation aspects of it."

Jenaly's Shoer agrees, adding that again it's a problem of communication.

"People don't understand all that ties into it...It's difficult to 
communicate how complex something is or how it affects something else. And 
I have to say that IT people don't do a good job about testing their fixes. 
Users come back and find that there are still problems and get justifiably 
frustrated."

The trick for IT technicians and administrators, according to Shoer, is to 
get past their own frustrations with users.

"Try to understand the situation from the user's perspective," says Shoer. 
"You can't react with a hair trigger when a user calls up with a complaint. 
If they do, it screws up the IT workers productivity and it screws up the 
user's work."
**************************
Washington Post
High-Tech Voting Going Smoothly
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, November 5, 2002; 2:47 PM

Although some devices crashed or need to be reprogrammed, touchscreen and 
other high-tech voting machines experienced few problems Tuesday as they 
made their full-scale debut in more than 200 counties nationwide.

Anxious to avoid the kind of snags that created Florida's primary mess and 
lesser troubles in Maryland in September, election officials had spent 
countless hours training poll workers and educating voters on how the new 
digital tallying machines work.

The biggest general election debut for touchscreen machines was in Georgia, 
where some 19,000 were deployed across the state and voters offered good 
reviews.

One voter, Tracy Yandle of Atlanta, said it was "as easy as using an ATM."

"It's great. I've been voting for a lot more years than I care to say," Joe 
Penley of Barnesville raved. "It's almost too simple. My 4-year-old 
granddaughter could do it. It's hard to make errors if you just follow 
instructions."

Technical problems characterized as minor were reported in three of 
Georgia's 159 counties, with two machines failing in one.

One touchscreen machine locked up and crashed as Mary Perdue, the wife of 
Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue, was casting her 
ballot. Officials rebooted the computer, and she continued with ease.

Only a few problems, meanwhile, were reported in the Florida counties of 
Miami-Dade and Broward where difficulties with high-tech machines had 
thrown the Sept. 10 primary into confusion. Former Attorney General Janet 
Reno not only lost the Democratic primary for governor on that day. She was 
also turned away from her suburban Miami polling station when machines 
weren't ready.

This time was different.

"It was smooth," said Reno. "They were prepared for me this time."

Miami-Dade and Broward election officials had stepped up poll worker 
training and added hundreds of workers to troubleshoot the machines.

"It was definitely an open question on Sept. 10 whether the problem was the 
machines or the people running them. Now, it's leaning toward the 
explanation that it was the people," said Dan Seligson, spokesman for 
Electionline.org, a nonpartisan election reform research group.

Three touchscreen machines were misprogrammed at one South Miami precinct 
Tuesday, but Miami-Dade County Manager Steve Shiver said no voters were 
turned away. Paper ballots were used for three hours while the machines 
were fixed.

"You're never going to have a flawless opening," he said. "The backup 
system worked."

For Tuesday's elections, 510 of the nation's counties  or 16 percent  were 
using electronic voting systems, up from 293 counties in 2000, according to 
Election Data Services, an independent research company in Washington, D.C.

In Montgomery County, Md., which uses the same machines as Georgia, voting 
appeared to go smoothly although officials said a programming error caused 
machines at 30 precincts to display a ballot with a header reading 
"Democratic."

The header is usually blank, but the glitch wouldn't affect how ballots 
were cast or tabulated, said Margie Roher, an elections administrator.

Delays in tallying votes occurred in Montgomery County on Sept. 10 when 
election judges were told to bring memory cards from the machines to 
election headquarters. In fact, the machines are designed to send in their 
results by computer modem. Instead of removing just the cards, some judges 
even hauled entire machines to headquarters. The results of a tight 
congressional race weren't known until 1 a.m.

Montgomery County officials subsequently hired an additional 1,000 poll 
workers and equipped most polling stations with modems.

Voting also went well Tuesday in the nation's largest county to go 
all-electronic: Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Harris' new 
system uses 5.2-pound machines that look like personal digital assistants 
on steroids. Voters use a dial to highlight names.

Other states with counties debuting high-tech equipment included Louisiana 
and Mississippi.

Many counties rushed to replace outdated equipment to avoid a balloting 
fiasco like the one that besmirched the 2000 presidential vote in Florida. 
And that meant that machines were deployed more quickly than reasonable, 
analysts say.

If there were major problems Tuesday, it could foreshadow trouble for 2004, 
when more states will have high-tech machines thanks to a new $3.9 billion 
federal law to help states replace outdated equipment.
*****************************

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 November 6, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews,
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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 420
Date: November 6, 2002

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Top Stories for Wednesday, November 6, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Is Our Infrastructure Open to Online Terror?"
"Tech Money Fueling Campaigns"
"Dreaming of a Digital Democracy"
"Text Software Spots Intruders"
"SETI@home Yields to Pressure to Curb Cheating"
"Hackers Fight China's Internet Curbs"
"Why Microchips Weigh Over a Kilogram"
"Texas Program Hopes to Fuse Nano and Manufacturing"
"How Paper is Becoming Super Smart"
"Old Industry Legends Partner for Next-Generation Displays"
"Dust-Sized Sensors Could Monitor Weather"
"Speech Technology Loses its Kooky Luster"
"Meet the New Silicon Speed Demon"
"Piggybacking Creates Supercomputer"
"Distributed Computing: Power Grid"
"The Mobile Home of the 21st Century"
"Making Life Better, Fuller, Safer, Longer"
"Structuring Stray Data"
"Holograms in Motion"

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

"Is Our Infrastructure Open to Online Terror?"
Sept. 11 and the threat of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida have
spurred government and industry to push for better security for
critical infrastructure, which is relying more and more on
electronic control.  One particular area of emphasis concerns ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item1

"Tech Money Fueling Campaigns"
Although the tech industry has made less donations to political
campaigns this year than last year, it is contributing much more
than it did 10 years ago:  The Center for Responsive Politics
reports that the tech sector gave $18.2 million to federal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item2

"Dreaming of a Digital Democracy"
Internet voting, which would enable citizens to cast their votes
electronically anytime and anywhere, would eliminate the need for
polling booths, as well as lines and glitches, according to Mike
Alvarez of the California Institute of Technology.  Many states ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item3

"Text Software Spots Intruders"
Computer security researchers at the University of California at
Davis are improving on anomaly detection schemes by using text
characterization to categorize system calls.  System calls are
generated when software programs on the computer talk with one ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item4

"SETI@home Yields to Pressure to Curb Cheating"
In response to complaints of rampant cheating in the SETI@home
project, administrators have promised to clamp down on such
practices.  More than 800 of the project's major contributors
signed a petition after participant Max Nealon revealed last week ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item5

"Hackers Fight China's Internet Curbs"
Recent Washington legislation aims to battle Internet censorship
in China by creating an Office of Global Internet Freedom, which
would apportion $100 million over two years to support
anti-censorship initiatives.  The proposal was introduced by Rep. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item6

"Why Microchips Weigh Over a Kilogram"
A team led by Eric Williams of United Nations University in Tokyo
has conducted a study concluding that the amount of energy and
materials that go into the manufacture of a typical microchip is
hundreds of times greater than the final product's mass.  Using ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item7

"Texas Program Hopes to Fuse Nano and Manufacturing"
The University of Texas system is working to create a coalition
of academia and industry that will make Texas a strong player in
nanomanufacturing.  The Integrated Nano Manufacturing Technology
(INMT) program is a new extension of the university's existing ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item8

"How Paper is Becoming Super Smart"
The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is attempting to
commercialize an electronic paper product called SmartPaper,
which consists of polymer beads 100 microns in diameter that are
black on one side and white on the other, suspended in an oily ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item9

"Old Industry Legends Partner for Next-Generation Displays"
DuPont Displays, Sarnoff, and Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs will
team up to develop flexible organic thin-film transistor (TFT)
technology that could be incorporated into the next generation of
displays.  The project will marry DuPont's expertise with organic ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item10

"Dust-Sized Sensors Could Monitor Weather"
Researchers are looking at micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)
to act as airborne environmental sensors that could gather
real-time data for meteorological and military purposes.  By
dispersing hundreds of networked, micron-sized sensors from miles ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item11

"Speech Technology Loses its Kooky Luster"
Speech recognition technology is moving from a niche market to
much wider applications, including voice authentication for a new
generation of wireless devices; progress is also being made
toward the goal of enabling computers to take dictation, although ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item12

"Meet the New Silicon Speed Demon"
A 15-year development effort bore fruit recently as IBM announced
the creation of the world's fastest silicon-based transistor, a
device made from silicon germanium (SiGe) that operates at 350
GHz per second, four times as fast as current leading commercial ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item13

"Piggybacking Creates Supercomputer"
In an unprecedented move, the University of Alberta has created a
virtual supercomputer that links over 1,200 machines across
approximately 19 Canadian learning institutions, according to U
of A computer science professor Paul Lu, who designed the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item14

"Distributed Computing: Power Grid"
Grid computing, an offshoot of the distributed computing
initiative, is breaking out of academia and expanding into the
commercial sector.  Notable grid computing efforts include the
$53 million TeraGrid, which the U.S. National Science Foundation ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item15

"The Mobile Home of the 21st Century"
The proliferation and increasing sophistication of wireless and
voice networks is transforming living environments, particularly
households, and several companies are hoping to capitalize on
this transformation by studying how people interact with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item16

"Making Life Better, Fuller, Safer, Longer"
Electronic advancements are likely to have a revolutionary impact
on virtually every aspect of life, leading to dramatic
improvements in comfort, entertainment, security, and health
care.  Carbon nanotube-based cathodes currently being employed in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item17

"Structuring Stray Data"
Laura Ramos of Giga Information Group estimates that about 80
percent of all corporate data is unstructured, and tapping into
this dormant information could give companies a strategic
advantage, although the cost and work commitment is considerable. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item18

"Holograms in Motion"
Initiatives are underway to make advancements in holography, the
creation of three-dimensional images whose potential applications
range from surgical planning to ultra-realistic video gaming and
other forms of entertainment.  A team led by Ken Perlin at New ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1106w.html#item19


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