Clips April 23, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips April 23, 2003

ARTICLES

Forest Service wants to ignore mass e-mails
Hollywood Faces Key Court Battle Over DVD Copying
'No Fly' List Is Challenged in a Lawsuit
Court raps Interior on American Indian trust system
Job Site Drops Disfavored Nations  
'Do Not Call' List Operator AT&T Leads in Complaints
Schools Look to Wireless to Boost Learning
Anteon acquiring homeland security firm
Recycled equipment aids at-risk cities
Data volume slows CIA operations in Iraq 
Homeland department gets into the cyberwar game
Web portal expands technology available to agencies 
Homeland tech chief to specify areas for more research 
White House cybersecurity chief resigns 
Science agency seeks place at 'cutting edge' of data mining 
Standards body plans to update government smart cards 

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Mercury News
Forest Service wants to ignore mass e-mails
By Paul Rogers
 
In a move that could dismantle an increasingly popular type of citizen activism, a federal agency is proposing to ignore form letters sent by the public via e-mail that provide feedback on pending rules and regulations.

Since the late 1990s, hundreds of advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, the National Rifle Association, the AARP, and the National Right to Life Committee have used bundled e-mail and their Web sites to lobby Congress and federal agencies.

In most cases, interested people simply go to a group's Web site, type their names on a form letter, and hit a button, sending an electronic letter to Washington, D.C.

But leaders of the U.S. Forest Service, who propose the new rule, say they are bombarded by thousands of identical cyber-appeals that have little value in shaping policy on logging, wildlife, forest fires and other issues they oversee.

``My view is that we're not counting votes anyway,'' said Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. ``But it always ends up becoming an issue. People say, `If you have 1.6 million comments on an issue and 95 percent of them went one way, then how can you possibly do something different?' It just distorts the picture.''

But groups that use the tactic worry that if the Forest Service enacts the rule, other agencies will copy it, and that could reduce public input on administrative regulations, providing an edge to monied interests.

``When the government starts preventing its citizens from speaking to it, there is a constitutional problem,'' said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group in San Francisco. ``This needs to be addressed right away. We are seriously considering suing.''

The issue has particular import in the West. The Forest Service manages logging, mining and grazing on 192 million acres of public land. The agency owns 20 percent of California, including much of the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur and dense forests along the Oregon border.

Typically, Congress passes laws but agencies then write the specific rules to put them into practice. When those rules are drafted or changed, agencies must collect public comments and consider them.

Environmentalists mounted an unprecedented e-mail and Web campaign three years ago when the Clinton administration was proposing rules to ban the construction of logging roads on 58 million acres of national forests. Now, as they try to keep the Bush administration from rolling back the rules, they regularly advertise that the Forest Service received 1.6 million comments on the policy, with more than 90 percent in support. They don't advertise that most of those comments were identical e-mails and preprinted postcards.

The Forest Service's proposed rule, which it could finalize in the fall, also would allow the agency to ignore such postcards.

The proposal has received little notice because it was tucked into a 48-page item in the Dec. 6, 2002, Federal Register as part of a wider proposal to eliminate rules dating to the 1970s that require the government to write regular environmental impact studies on national forests. That wider proposal received broad news coverage and is opposed by 107 members of Congress.

Some organizations support deleting the mass e-mails.

``If we are relying on e-mail postcards to manage our national forests, that's a problem,'' said Bruce Blodgett, director of national affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation. ``You should have to invest the time to write an original letter.''

The Forest Service still could reverse the proposed policy, Bosworth said Tuesday.

``It doesn't seem right,'' said Ian Walters, a spokesman for the American Conservative Union, which sends out 120,000 e-mail messages a year to Congress and federal agencies advocating lower taxes, fewer gun laws and other causes. ``If you have thousands of people who are compelled to reach out to the government, they should be listened to.''
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Associated Press
Hollywood Faces Key Court Battle Over DVD Copying
Tue Apr 22,11:48 AM ET

By Bob Tourtellotte 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's movie studios face a key test in their battle to defend copyright holders from digital pirates, when a federal court in California this Friday hears a case filed by a maker of software that allows users to copy DVDs. 

At stake for the studios are potentially billions of dollars in revenues that would be lost if nearly perfect digital copies of movies on DVD were sold in large quantities on the black market or circulated on the Internet in digital files. 

But the privately held software maker, St. Louis-based 321 Studios, argues that its software is designed to protect DVD owners by allowing them to make backup copies in case their DVDs, which can cost as much as $30, get damaged or are lost. 

The case, which will be heard in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, tests the limits of 1998's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), lawyers said. 

The studios claim 321's software violates a portion of the act that makes it illegal for anyone to sell software used to break or bypass digital encryption codes. 

But 321 argues that the DMCA allows software owners to get around encryption when copies are made for an owner's sole use. 

"This is a very interesting, cutting-edge case," said 321's San Francisco-based attorney Daralyn Durie. "The first issue is what does the DMCA mean, and does it prohibit all circumvention of encryption, or does it only prohibit the circumvention when it's being done to engage in copyright infringement." 

Durie contends that copying DVDs, for example, to use excerpts in critical reviews or by a teacher in a presentation to students, falls under the legal concept of protected "fair use." 321's software, called DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy, aids (news - web sites) in the "fair use" of copyrighted content, she said. 

Not so, say the studios. "321 isn't making any fair use. They are stripping my copy protection," said Russell Frackman, the attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's major film studios. 

"The law has never provided you have the right to get two-for-one" when you buy a DVD, Frackman said. 

BILLION DOLLAR BABIES 

The MPAA estimates that filmmakers already lose $3 billion a year in old-style, analog piracy, which is copying videotapes or taping movies in theaters or movie production offices with small video cameras and then reselling them on the black market. 

While the MPAA has battled analog piracy for years, the practice has proved nearly impossible to stop. The industry has taken some solace in the fact that tape quality generally is bad and the distribution of tapes can be tracked. 

The equation changes in the digital world, however, where copies are exact and can be put on the Internet for downloading to computers around the world. 

Illegal copying and Web-based free swapping of digital music has wreaked havoc on the record industry. Global music sales in 2002 fell 7.2 percent from 2001 to $32.2 billion. 

The MPAA is determined to avoid the same fate. To some extent, the free swapping of digital movies has been limited by the hours it takes to download a film with dial-up connections. 

High-speed broadband links, however, reduce that time to minutes. California-based Adams Media Research expects broadband-linked homes to number 24.3 million by the end of 2003, up 41 percent from 17.2 million at the end of 2002. 

The MPAA estimates as many as 400,000 to 600,000 digital movies are currently being downloaded everyday from file swap sites like KaZaa, Gnutella (news - web sites) and Morpheus. 

"The (quality) of it gives me a Maalox moment," MPAA Chief Jack Valenti said at the ShoWest industry gathering in March. 

Defendants are various film studio divisions of Sony Corp (news - web sites)., AOL Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney Co., Vivendi Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Pixar Animation Studios Inc. and Saul Zaentz Co.
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New York Times
April 23, 2003
'No Fly' List Is Challenged in a Lawsuit
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, April 22  Civil rights advocates demanded today that the federal government explain how hundreds of people  some of them vocal critics of the Bush administration  have ended up on a list used to stop people suspected of having terrorist links from boarding commercial air flights. 

In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco, the American Civil Liberties Union said government officials had improperly withheld information about how people wind up on the "no fly" list, what steps are taken to ensure its accuracy and how people who are erroneously detained at airports can get their names off the list.

"Without even basic information about the no-fly list or other watch lists," the lawsuit said, "the public cannot evaluate the government's decision to use such lists."

Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the F.B.I. and federal transportation officials have generated secret lists of people suspected of having terrorist ties who should be stopped and questioned if they try to board an airplane. 

Law enforcement officials say the policy is a necessary safeguard to prevent the type of security lapses that allowed two of the Sept. 11 hijackers to board a plane even though intelligence officials had reason to suspect they were terrorists. 

But the so-called no-fly lists have generated criticism. Many people have been mistakenly stopped, while others assert they were on the list in part because of their strong liberal politics.

In a well-publicized incident last year, some two dozen members of a group called Peace Action of Wisconsin, including a priest, a nun and high school and college students, were detained in Milwaukee en route to a "teach-in" and missed their flight.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams, two self-described peace activists who help run a publication called War Times that has been critical of the administration's terrorism policies, were detained on their way to Boston. An American Trans Air employee told them their names appeared on a no-fly list, according to the A.C.L.U. lawsuit, which includes both women as plaintiffs.

Officials insisted they were not seeking to single out legitimate political critics. Ms. Adams's name may have been similar to that of another person on the no-fly list, they said.

Ms. Adams said in an interview that "it strains my credulity" to think that her longtime role as a political advocate did not play a part in the incident. "It's bad enough that the government is stopping people in these vast quantities," she said. "But then to learn that you can't even find out why they did it is just an additional injury."

In its lawsuit, the civil liberties union said it had documented 339 cases since the Sept. 11 attacks in which people at San Francisco International Airport were stopped and questioned because they were thought to be on the no-fly list. While the group's investigation has focused on San Francisco because of complaints there, it said the situation there offers a window into what is happening at airports around the country, based on anecdotal evidence the group has collected.

"There's every reason to believe this is happening at airports around the country," said Jayashri Srikantiah, staff lawyer for the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.

The civil liberties union brought the lawsuit under the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act after federal officials turned down several months of requests for information on the passenger lists. 

The F.B.I. told the group in a letter last December that it found "no records pertinent" to the no-fly issue. But A.C.L.U. officials said records from the San Francisco airport showed that the F.B.I. was contacted about many of the airport detentions. 

Officials at the Transportation Security Administration, named as a defendant in the suit, did not return calls seeking comment. Officials at the F.B.I., also named as a defendant, said they could not comment because the lawsuit was pending.

But a law enforcement official, who would speak only if not named, acknowledged that there was confusion in the public about how the no-fly lists were created and executed. The official said the F.B.I. provided intelligence on people suspected of links to terrorism, which was relayed to the transportation security agency. Transportation officials then provide airlines and airports with lists of people to look for at airports. 

The security agency "needs to do a better job of explaining what this list is," the official said.

The official insisted that politics had nothing to do with who makes the list, saying that "people that are expressing their constitutional rights of free expression would not come to the attention of the F.B.I." 
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Government Computer News
04/22/03 
Court raps Interior on American Indian trust system 
By Wilson P. Dizard III 

The attorney appointed by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to oversee the Interior Department?s efforts to overhaul its Indian trust fund accounting systems charged that the department and its contractor collaborated to hide flaws in the system. 

Special master Alan Balaran?s report released yesterday said the department withheld information about the Trust Assets and Accounting Management System when it filed a mandatory report with the court in January of last year. 

The department did so ?to conceal infirmities in the TAAMS system and misleading and inaccurate representations in previous quarterly submissions,? Balaran noted. 

Security flaws in Interior?s systems for tracking American Indian trust funds prompted Lamberth in December 2001 to order Interior to disconnect almost all its systems from the Internet. Interior has restored most of its Internet links, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs remains offline. 

In the new report, Balaran said the department?s submissions to the courts ?were contrived to present a gilded portrait of the TAAMS system and avoid adverse consequences arising from contempt proceedings pending at the time.? 

Last September, Lamberth found Interior secretary Gale Norton and former assistant secretary for Indian affairs Neal McCaleb in contempt of court in connection with the seven-year-old lawsuit. 

Balaran also questioned the behavior of Interior?s contractor, EDS Corp.: The January 2002 report ?represented a collaborative effort by two organizations with ulterior motives. For EDS, the motive was to persuade Interior to buy more EDS. For Interior, it was to avoid liability at all costs.? 

?We are trying to track down the report. Until we see a copy of the report we can?t comment," an EDS spokesman said. 

Interior spokesman Dan Dubray said the department is reviewing the report and would not have a response for the media. Interior's response will be "in the context of the court," he said. 

Balaran said Interior and EDS failed to act in the best interest of the public, court and trust fund beneficiaries. 

The plaintiffs in the litigation are seeking $137 billion in compensation from the government. Members of Congress, including Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), have pressed unsuccessfully for the parties to negotiate settlement.
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Wired News
Job Site Drops Disfavored Nations  
01:41 PM Apr. 22, 2003 PT

In what it described as an effort to comply with government regulations, Monster.com will soon begin deleting certain references on users' resumes to nations not in good diplomatic standing with the United States. 

Starting on Thursday, the job site will remove listings selected from its scroll-down menus -- used when creating or modifying a resume -- that refer to seven countries: Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

In an e-mail sent to affected account holders, Monster said it was making the changes to comply with the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and some states, that "maintain sanctions which prohibit U.S. companies from conducting certain business activities with organizations located in or residents of" the seven countries. 

"We just want to be in full compliance with federal regulations," said Kevin Mullins, spokesman for Monster.com, which has more than 26 million resumes in its database. He said the change will affect fewer than one percent of the site's users. 

Mullins said the policy change is meant only to apply to selections entered into drop-down menus on the Monster.com site, where members choose from a pre-set list of countries in response to questions about their job history or employment goals. Users who selected those nations in the past will have the references deleted. 

However, members will be able to include references to the seven countries in other sections of the resume-building site meant for storing more detailed information about their education or work experience, Mullins said. 

Ali Moayedian, who helps run a website for Iranian Americans, said many Monster users were led by the company's e-mail message to believe that they could not have any references to the seven sanctioned countries on their resumes. 

"It says if the nation is on your resume it will be deleted," he said. 

Richard M. Smith, an Internet security consultant, said he believes Monster.com is "misinterpreting the intention of the sanctions" by removing names of countries from its members' records. 

"My impression is that sometimes legal departments in companies go overboard and do things that are not in the interests of the company," he said, adding that the new policy could alienate users. 

Mullins said that's not Monster.com's intent. 

"We're not trying to discriminate against people who are originally from those countries or have an education in those countries," Mullins said. 

Rather, he said, the company wants to make sure people do not use its site to do business with companies or individuals in countries that are subject to U.S. sanctions. 
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CNET News.com
Group questions state site-blocking law 
By Declan McCullagh 
April 22, 2003, 6:50 PM PT

A civil liberties group is again trying to gain access to a secret list to determine if Pennsylvania's attempt to block access to child-pornography Web sites is affecting innocuous sites. 
On Tuesday, the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) appealed the Pennsylvania attorney general's recent decision not to disclose the list of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to sites suspected of featuring child pornography. CDT is seeking the list because it suspects the government's campaign is overly broad and has forced Internet service providers (ISPs) to cordon off unoffending sites as well. 

"We're trying to determine what other sites have been implicated by this law that have nothing to do with the intent of this law," said Ari Schwartz, a lawyer at CDT, which filed its request under a state open-government law. "We want the IP address to find out how many sites unrelated to the site that is meant to be blocked are also being blocked." 


A Pennsylvania state law that took effect last year permits the attorney general to order ISPs to block access to Web sites suspected of featuring child pornography. 

As the result of such an order from Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher, WorldCom said in September that it would block customer access to some offshore Web sites. 

But some say the technique that's used to block sites is problematic. It prohibits access by making specific IP addresses off limits. IP addresses are the numeric locators, such as 12.345.67.890, that computers understand, whereas easy-to-remember domain names such as Amazon.com are what most people use to navigate the Web. 

A study released in February by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society concluded that because modern Web standards permit thousands of domain names to share one Internet address, blocking illegal sites tends to lead to innocuous ones being targeted as well. It said the practice of Web sites sharing IP addresses is so commonplace that Yahoo hosts 74,000 Web sites at one address and Tucows.com uses one address for 68,000 domains. 

In addition to that problem, backbone provider WorldCom said that because it doesn't have the technical ability to stop residents of only one state from viewing specific Web sites, it would block the sites for all of its North American subscribers. 

Fisher's office has sent 313 secret blocking notices to ISPs as of April 1 and has refused to disclose the addresses of the allegedly illegal sites, saying such disclosure would make illegal images accessible. A redacted version of a Dec. 18, 2002, letter to AOL that Fisher released tells the company to "disable access to those items identified as child pornography to your subscribers to your service...within five business days of receipt of this notice." 

A spokesman for Fisher did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Sean Connolly, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, said in an interview earlier this year that the state's law "has been very successful" and has led to few complaints. "We've worked with Web hosting companies and ISPs to ensure that the illegal and offensive material is taken down and not any legal sites that may share that space," Connolly said. 

No other state appears to have enacted the same sort of law, and it has not been tested in court. The list of ISPs being contacted by Pennsylvania includes EarthLink, Microsoft's MSN, Terra Lycos, Verizon, and Comcast Communications. 

If CDT's administrative appeal is denied, it has the option to sue in state court. The group said it has not made that decision yet. 
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Washington Post
'Do Not Call' List Operator AT&T Leads in Complaints
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 23, 2003; Page E01 


When the federal government recently decided to go after unwanted telemarketing calls, it sought bids from companies to set up a nationwide "do not call" list. 

AT&T Corp.'s technology and low bid helped one of its subsidiaries win the 10-year, multimillion-dollar contract -- even though federal records show that AT&T has drawn the most consumer complaints for telemarketing practices in recent years. 

According to Federal Communications Commission data, 5,714 complaints were lodged against AT&T's telemarketing practices in 2001, 2002 and the first three months of this year. That was 22 percent more than the number of complaints received about MCI, which generated the second-highest number of complaints, and more than three times the number received about third-ranked Sprint Communications Co. 

More than one-fifth of the complaints lodged against AT&T were allegations that AT&T did not honor requests to be placed on the company's do-not-call list, the same sort of list that AT&T's Government Solutions subsidiary is being asked to run on a national level. 

The number of complaints increased from 406 in 2001 to 644 last year. For the first three months of 2003, 163 complaints were filed, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Although the FCC publishes overall data on complaints, it does not list them by company unless asked to do so. It tracks telemarketing complaints only against telecommunications firms. 

Another government agency, the Federal Trade Commission, is running the national do-not-call list. In February, the FTC awarded a six-month, $3.5 million contract to AT&T's Government Solutions subsidiary to run the registry. The contract is renewable for up to 10 years, and although there is not a firm price -- it will depend on how many people sign up and how many complaints are filed -- it is expected to run into several million dollars a year. 

Eileen Harrington, who as associate director of marketing practices in the FTC's consumer protection bureau is in charge of the do-not-call list, said she was not surprised that AT&T topped the telemarketing complaint list. It is the largest long-distance phone company and "the two areas we have said are particularly problematic for consumers are telephone companies and banks," she said. 

The contracting process "is driven by pretty strict rules; the decisions are made solely on merit, and AT&T had the best proposal at the best price," Harrington said. "The irony of the fact that it was an AT&T subsidiary that won the contract was not lost on us." 

AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern said the number of complaints filed against the company reflect its size. "We have more than 40 million long-distance subscribers and we're one of the largest telemarketers around," he said. "We handle tens of millions of records and occasionally and regrettably, a request to be placed on a do-not-call list is missed." 

Richard Callahan, who as client business manager for the AT&T Government Solutions subsidiary was responsible for the FTC contract, said his company won after "excruciatingly competitive" bidding involving at least five other firms. 

"We won on technical merit and pricing, and we're very proud of it," Callahan said. "Our job will be to protect consumers from unwanted telemarketing calls, and I don't care if they are from a bank, a retailer or a telecommunications company. They will be reported and the fines will be the same for all." If any company, even AT&T, "is violating the rules, they are violating the rules." 

For now, AT&T is not required to observe the rules of the national do-not-call list because telecommunications companies are regulated by the FCC, not the FTC. The FCC is reviewing its telemarketing rules to see if they should be revised to make telephone companies subject to the same rules as most other firms. 

Under orders from Congress, a decision must be made by early September.
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Reuters
Schools Look to Wireless to Boost Learning
Tue Apr 22,12:00 PM ET
By Yukari Iwatani 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Sarah Wille didn't get sick when she dissected a fetal pig in science class, because she'd seen its innards before.


The 12-year-old had studied the diagrams ahead of time on the Internet over a wireless (news - web sites) laptop computer. 


"Lots of kids were nervous about what the pigs were going to look like and pretty confused because we'd never looked at the inside of anything. It was much easier when we knew what to expect," Sarah said. 


On Mondays, she uses the same laptop to work on math quizzes structured for her ability level on a Web site. 


Sarah is a student at Winston Campus in the Chicago suburb of Palatine, which is part of a growing number of schools that are incorporating laptop computers and wireless Internet technology into their buildings and classrooms. 


Most U.S. public schools are equipped with desktop computers and computer labs, but the relatively new wireless Internet technology called WiFi gives pupils instant access to the Internet to help with any subject in any classroom. 


WiFi is already available in many universities, which generally have more resources, but now the technology is trickling down into lower-level schools. It is one of the fastest-growing budget items for technology. 


LEARNING WHEREVER AND WHENEVER 


WiFi, or 802.11b, is an ultra high-speed wireless Internet connection usually available within a radius of a few hundred feet. By setting up multiple access points or "hot spots," schools can make wireless Internet access available throughout their campuses. 


"A big part of what wireless makes possible is the flexible reconfiguration of classrooms, so students can take with them whatever tools they need and use them wherever they happen to be," said Chris Dede, a professor specializing in learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 


WiFi technology is already used in many businesses and homes, and wireless operator T-Mobile (TMOG.UL) (DTEGn.DE) offers the service in Starbucks (2712.OJ) cafes, Borders bookstores and airports. 


At Independence High School in San Jose, California, where sophomores were assigned laptops to use for the school year, Principal Cari Vaeth said she sees students with their laptops open at picnic tables outside during lunch time. 


"It really has expanded the amount of time they really can be learning," said Vaeth. "The work they're doing is in greater depth and has involved more critical thinking and research." 


Such technology can level the playing field among students of different abilities ranging from learning-disabled to advanced, said Drex Maggio, a librarian at Winston Campus. 


"You can have Web sites that are a little easier and some that are more challenging, so you individualize the class ability-wise," Maggio said. 


"NEXT-GENERATION AT A LOWER COST" 

Over 90 percent of students attend the 110,000 public schools throughout the United States from kindergarten through 12th grade. 
   
These schools combined spend about $6.2 billion a year on technology needs, including hardware, software, networking equipment and staff development, according to EduVentures, the leading U.S. educational consulting firm. 

Of that, about $500 million was spent on wireless technologies in the 2001-2002 school year, but that is expected to double in 2002-2003 and quadruple the following year. 

Companies such as IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) have honed in on the potential of this niche market, establishing teams that specifically help schools like Winston and Independence. 

"I'm spending more time, energy and resources in this area," said Norm Korey, vice president of wireless services at IBM. 

Korey said schools find wireless networks to be significantly cheaper to install than wired connections, which are limited to areas with power outlets and other necessary equipment. 

Even schools with fewer resources in rural or urban areas managed to find funding for it through government measures such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was reauthorized in 2001 to close the achievement gap between the so-called "haves" and "have-nots." 

TREMENDOUS CULTURAL SHIFT 

While installing WiFi connections appears to be a no-brainer for schools, EduVentures analyst Matt Stein said the technology also raises a whole set of new issues. 

"It takes a tremendous cultural shift for (teachers) to start thinking of giving students this power in their hands," Stein said, adding schools might also be overwhelmed by the complexity of the technology and its rapid pace of change. 

Some teachers have also complained about greater student distraction as they use their laptops to play games or surf the Web during class. Others simply object to seeing a sea of laptops with faces down instead of looking at them. 

Even students themselves have admitted to their grades suffering as a result of too much e-mailing or instant messaging (news - web sites) during class. 

For that reason, the more cutting-edge schools are turning to personal digital assistants, which they prefer because they are smaller, cheaper and less disruptive. 

At Wake Forest University in North Carolina teachers "beam" a question to students' PDAs during class, so they can get immediate feedback on their comprehension level, Stein said. 

Stein believes schools might eventually move toward slate-like tablet PCs that allow users to write directly onto the screen with a pen-like device. 

"People within schools are continually feeling that pressure to prepare students for what they're going to face after high school and college and wireless technology is certainly becoming a bigger piece," he said.
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Federal Computer Week
Anteon acquiring homeland security firm
BY Michael Hardy 
April 23, 2003

Anteon International Corp. announced today that it is acquiring Information Spectrum Inc. (ISI), which provides defense and homeland security solutions.

ISI is a $130 million company with headquarters in Annandale, Va. It specializes in credential card technologies, military logistics and training systems, according to Anteon's announcement. 

It is the prime contractor for secure identification and access management solutions for the Homeland Security Department's Permanent Resident Card and the State Department's Border Crossing Card programs. ISI also provides logistics, training and engineering solutions for the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command.

Fairfax, Va.-based Anteon, a leading provider of information technology solutions to the federal government, will pay $90.7 million in cash. The companies expect the deal to close by the end of next month.
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Federal Computer Week
Recycled equipment aids at-risk cities
BY Judi Hasson 
April 22, 2003

As part of a pilot project for cities considered at risk for a terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department and the Energy Department have shipped refurbished radiological detection equipment to first responders in Los Angeles and San Francisco, officials said April 22.

The Los Angeles Fire Department hazardous waste unit, the Los Angeles Port Authority and the San Francisco Department of Public Health received the equipment, worth an estimated $60,000, under a joint project called the Homeland Defense Equipment Reuse Program.

The program is designed to provide surplus radiological detection instruments and other homeland security devices to state and local emergency first responders.

To date, the program has refurbished more than 1,500 radiological detection instruments valued at more than $700,000 and distributed them to seven cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. The other cities are Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Detroit and Washington, D.C., all urban areas considered at higher risk for potential terrorist targeting.

The program "is an excellent example of federal agencies working together to address a critical homeland security issue," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in a statement.

The recycled equipment comes from Energy sites across the country and includes a variety of tools to measure the presence of radiation. First responders who receive the equipment are trained to use it.
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Government Computer News
04/23/03 
Data volume slows CIA operations in Iraq 
By Dawn S. Onley 

The volume of foreign intelligence data collected each day in Iraq by the CIA has put the agency in a bottleneck: The information is good, but the time it takes to extract it from the heap of files has slowed operations. 

Deputy CIO Bobby W. Brady said the agency ?has a lot of data sitting around today that probably has a lot of [information] on terrorists.? But it takes time to retrieve the data because it?s lodged in several sources, Brady said. 

?This is a major deal for this agency,? Brady told a group of vendors today at a breakfast presented by Input, a Chantilly, Va., research company. ?We will be spending a lot of money dealing with this particular issuestandardizing how we do our work.? 

The agency expects to see some results when the Terrorist Threat Integration Center starts operating next Thursday, Brady said. TTIC, which was mandated by the White House, will serve as the central hub in the United States for foreign and domestic terrorist threat information. 

The center will wrestle with the problems of data collection and data sharing that continue to plague the CIA and other intelligence agencies nearly two years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Brady said. 

?TTIC will break down a lot of barriers,? Brady said. ?The organizations dealing with TTIC have to be on the same page when dealing with data.? 

John Brennan, the CIA?s deputy executive director, has been named director of TTIC. 

The center, which will be housed at the CIA compound, will mesh terrorism intelligence gathered by the CIA, FBI, NSA, NIMA and Homeland Security Department, among other agencies, into one data source. 

Brady also used today?s keynote address to ask vendors to help the CIA move towards centralizing servers in foreign embassies and in developing language translation technologies. 

Agents all over the world are collecting information in several languages, Brady said, and that information needs to be more quickly translated and disseminated.
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Government Computer News
04/23/03 
Homeland department gets into the cyberwar game 
By Wilson P. Dizard III 

The Homeland Security Department is simulating cyberattacks and biological assaults to help prepare for the possibility of the real thing, deputy secretary Gordon England said. 

?A week ago, I participated in a war game with the Business Roundtable,? England told attendees at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?s Conference on Critical Infrastructure and Homeland Security today. The Business Roundtable is an association of corporate chief executive officers that makes policy recommendations for economic growth. 

Part of the war game involved a cyberattack on financial institutions ?that sucked money out of the financial system,? England said. 

Another part of the game simulated a biological warfare attack on Chicago, he said. 

?The business community needs to act predictably to restore confidence? in the wake of such attacks, England said. 

He endorsed the Business Roundtable?s approach of periodically reviewing its members' plans for recovery from attacks and urged the Chamber of Commerce to adopt similar plans. 

In response to a question about the department?s approach to regulation, England said, ?I would like the Homeland Security Department to have as few regulations as possibleour job is to coordinate the work of other federal agencies.? 

Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa) told the conference that scanty federal funding has hampered security activities in his state. While the state?s federally approved homeland security plan calls for expenditures of $48 million, the federal government has provided Iowa only $12 million, Vilsack said. 

?Our plan calls for expenditures of $32 million for an interoperable [radio] communications system? alone, Vilsack said. He added that the funds given to the states have been designated by Congress for particular programs, which impedes the states? ability to put security measures in place. 

Vilsack said Iowa?s plans for the year 2000 date rollover included ranking the importance of state agencies? functions and are proving useful in homeland security preparation and response.
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Government Executive
April 23, 2003 
Web portal expands technology available to agencies 
By Maureen Sirhal, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The operator of the federal government's Internet portal announced on Wednesday that it is bolstering efforts to leverage its technology tools across government by allowing agencies to use the products to manage their own Web sites. 


As part of the effort, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that it has awarded a contract to Reston, Va.-based Vignette to purchase content-management software for the FirstGov.gov portal, which links to nearly every federal entity. 


GSA's Office of Citizen Services and Communications, which manages FirstGov, found that other agencies could use some of the capabilities that it purchased for FirstGov, said Associate Director M.J. Jameson.

In keeping with the "buy once, use many" motto advocated by Bush administration budget officials, GSA in 2001 began offering its search-engine software to other federal agencies so they could utilize the technology. "We've got about 500 government entities using our search engine, and they don't pay anything for that," she said. 


Over the past two years, GSA has sought to capitalize on the success of that program by offering across the federal government other Web services that it has licensed. Last year, for example, Jameson's group started letting other agencies host their Web sites through FirstGov. And GSA's newest contract for online content tools will enable government agency Webmasters to post information on their sites more quickly and easily, she said.

That initiative "can allow [agencies] to have added functionality and make their products better" without duplicating the purchase of IT Web tools, Jameson said. "There are a lot of other benefits, such as [increased] security," she said. 


Some agencies may pay incremental costs for some GSA Web services, Jameson said, but those costs will be far less than if the agencies licensed the products on their own.


Although the effort began in 2001, she said it has been evolving, and now GSA officials are attempting to formalize a division within the Office of Citizen Services to serve as a clearinghouse for the shared Web-services program. 


"We're looking at how to put that together right now and what that will look like," she added. 


Jameson cautioned, however, that not all agencies may need the GSA services. "When there's a fit and it makes sense, that's when you want to do it." 
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Government Executive
April 22, 2003 
Homeland tech chief to specify areas for more research 
By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The official in charge of science and technology at the Homeland Security Department has joined the State and Defense departments in an effort that will lead to an upcoming announcement on as many as 40 homeland security "areas of interest," such as radiation and biological detectors.


Industry, universities and others typically respond to these announcements with proposed solutions, and an evaluation team chooses which proposal to fund. 


The announcement is dependent upon congressional approval of a reprogramming request, expected when Congress returns from recess, Charles McQueary said. The requested reprogramming would move more than $200 million from a fiscal 2003 Defense Department appropriation of $420 million for biological countermeasures and put it in the radiological and chemical areas as well as some systems engineering areas. 


McQueary, Homeland Security undersecretary for science and technology, also said his office is looking for new technologies, but he wants researchers and companies to explain how it fits with the larger system of security for the nation.

He said the office has not yet acquired a technology, and his directorate will move in the next few weeks to an as-yet undetermined site with more space to evaluate technologies. Regardless of the location, he said his preference is "when you have something of interest, to go and see things."

"If that's not workable, then have presentations," he said. "Show me some results, don't show me pictures. I like to see results." 


"What I'm saying to people that I talk to both within the labs as well as in industry is the following: This issue of homeland security is a very large systems engineering problem, it's a very complex one, and we in Washington don't have all the intellectual capacity to determine exactly what needs to be done," McQueary said in an interview last week with National Journal's Technology Daily.

"What we need are the very best and brightest minds [working on] the problem, so when people have a potential solution ... I'm asking them and will continue to ask that people come in ... [and] describe to me how it would fit in the larger systems context," McQueary said. "We need people thinking about the total systems solution, and not so much about just one little element that they would like to sell to us."

On cybersecurity, his office will play a supporting role to the information analysis and infrastructure protection directorate, he said. That fits with his directorate's mandate not to do anything that is already being done elsewhere. "Our job is to try and fill holes," he said.

McQueary also said he met last week with Paul McHale, Defense assistant secretary responsible for homeland defense. The two agreed to establish working relationships "down in the organization" as well as meet on a quarterly basis to review the relationship, he said. 


"I think the important thing is, if they're doing it, we should be using it, and if we're doing it, I'm sure they won't want to have overlap either," he said. 
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Government Executive
April 22, 2003 
White House cybersecurity chief resigns 
By Shane Harris
sharris@xxxxxxxxxxx 

The top White House cybersecurity official has announced he will resign from public service at the end of the month.


A White House spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday that Howard Schmidt, who succeeded Richard Clarke as the nation?s ?cybersecurity czar? in January, is leaving government to pursue a career in the private sector. 


In an e-mail sent to colleagues in government and industry, Schmidt said that ?the nation as a whole is much better at responding to cyberattacks then at anytime in the past.? He cautioned, though, that ?cybersecurity cannot now be reduced to a ?2nd tier? issue. It is not sufficient to just respond to attacks, but rather proactive measures must also be implemented to reduce vulnerabilities and prevent future attacks.? 


Some close to the administration believe that there still isn?t enough senior level focus on promoting better security standards and getting tough on companies that don?t manufacture secure products. Numerous software vendors have taken criticism for years over not fixing vulnerabilities in their products that allow the systems running them to be exploited. 


Schmidt?s admonition echoes the philosophy of a number of administration cybersecurity officials, including his predecessor Clarke, that the White House should lend its gravitas to the cybersecurity issue in order to raise its profile. Clarke left the government in January after more than a decade of service, which included a stint as President Clinton?s national counterterrorism coordinator. The future of the cybersecurity office is now in question. 


Critics have said some of the White House office?s rhetoric was alarmist and have called for using the market to force companies to build better security standards into their products. The Office of Management and Budget has urged federal agencies to use their massive buying power to demand that manufacturers deliver stronger products. 


But some technology experts favored the forceful, high-level approach of Schmidt and his colleagues. With Schmidt gone, ?we are concerned that the cybersecurity issue is losing visibility inside the White House,? Harris Miller, the president of the Information Technology Association of America, told the Associated Press Monday. ?In this case, the ?bully pulpit? opportunity to influence the development of a truly secure cyber infrastructure and associated best practices will be lost.? 


In the e-mail announcing his resignation, Schmidt said industry must take the lead in implementing an effective national cybersecurity strategy, one made up of ?solutions, not just reports and plans that take years to implement [and] that have limited value in dealing with the tremendous vulnerabilities that exist here and now.? 


Before joining the White House, Schmidt served as chief of security for Microsoft Corp. Schmidt did not respond to messages requesting comment about his resignation. 

The Homeland Security Department consolidates many of the government?s cybersecurity organizations, which previously were housed in agencies as disparate as the General Services Administration and the FBI. Some White House cybersecurity officials are moving to the department, buoying hopes among some observers that the overall profile of the officials? work will be raised again. 
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Government Executive
April 18, 2003 
Science agency seeks place at 'cutting edge' of data mining 
By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The National Science Foundation funds research "right at the cutting edge of discovery," Director Rita Colwell said in a recent interview. So it is only fitting that the foundation announced on Friday that it is funding eight projects that go beyond the technologies currently being developed to mine large amounts of data.

The projects are being supplemented by $4 million over two years as part of the Management of Knowledge Intensive Dynamic Systems (MKIDS) program, which is part of NSF's charter to support science and engineering research related to national security. 

"The systems envisioned by the MKIDS program go beyond even today's leading-edge data-mining systems, which attempt to monitor vast streams of data and pinpoint events of interest," the agency said in a release.

The projects are examining ways to use technology to help organizations make better decisions. An MKIDS system would use tools to help decision-makers use the information mined from databases to allocate physical resources, technology services and human resources. It also would have controller functions to monitor the organization's response to those decisions and provide ways to fine-tune the process, NSF said. 

In one project being developed at Carnegie Mellon University, external data sources such as e-mail, phone calls and personnel databases will be fed into computational models. The models will extrapolate an organization's structure and highlight likely "failure points." 

"We want to develop computational tools to help managers design organizations the way engineers design bridges," said Ray Levitt, who is managing another project at Stanford University. "There is so little predictive ability for organizations in this area. It's all based on managers' experience and intuition." 

NSF uses 95 percent of its roughly $5 billion annual budget to fund grants and contracts. It funds research at nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. It receives about 30,000 requests for funding every year and makes about 10,000 funding awards. It has long been involved in Internet-related issues, having brought the Internet to the nation's universities through the .edu domain. 

NSF has put its focus in recent years on interdisciplinary research in new areas, Colwell said. "I would say right now, the interface between nano, bio, info and cognotechnology is where the exciting discoveries are occurring, and I would urge you to keep an eye on those developments in the future," she said. 

NSF is the lead agency on two interagency initiatives, on information technology and nanotechnology. The foundation is targeting new software development and moving toward providing access to high-end computing through cyber infrastructure in the next few years, Colwell said. It is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on developing technologies to move from data to "wisdom" by mining large databases, she added. 

Colwell also offered a glimpse of what the future may hold thanks to nanotechnology. "Some of the bright information technology folks tell me that when we get to molecular computers," she said, "we will have computers a hundred-billion times faster than our current computers." 
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Government Executive
April 22, 2003 
Standards body plans to update government smart cards 
By Molly M. Peterson, National Journal's Technology Daily 


The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plans to release an updated version of its interoperability specifications for government smart cards, a senior NIST computer scientist said Tuesday.

"Historically, there has not been much interoperability in the smart card world," Jim Dray, principal scientist for NIST's Government Smart Card program, said during in information security conference sponsored by the MIS Training Institute. 

Dray said lack of interoperability has been a stumbling block for many federal agencies that have sought to deploy smart cards as an access control and information security tool. He explained that smart cards manufactured by different vendors often require different types of software and card readers, making it difficult for agencies to link different brands of smart card systems. "You sort of end up getting tied to one vendor's card," Dray said.

Recognizing an industry-wide trend toward smart-card interoperability, NIST released its first government-wide smart card interoperability specifications (GSC-IS) in 2000 and created a Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board.

Dray said NIST published an updated version of those specifications last June, and plans to update them again later this year as GSC-IS version 2.1. The newest specifications will align with other international smart card standards, such as those being developed by the European Union's Global Interoperability Framework (GIF).

"Version 2.1 will be the federal government's bridge to the formal standards world," Dray said, adding that the Interoperability Advisory Board was recently restructured to focus less on contracting issues, and more on "what it really takes to get government-wide deployment of smart-card technologies." 

Steve Cooper, chief information officer of the Homeland Security Department, has agreed to chair that advisory board, according to Dray.

Dray said the newest government smart card specifications will address biometric applications, as well as "contactless" cards, which can be read from a distance through radio frequency communications. 

Many federal agencies are interested in using smart cards for fast, efficient physical access control, "so they're pushing very hard to get a contactless [smart card] technology into the interoperability specifications," Dray said. 
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