Clips April 7, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

ARTICLES

Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powers
Marketer Challenges Anti-Spam Crusader 
Military Battling Junk E-Mail
Molecular might Nanotech 'battle suits' could amplify soldiers' powers
High-Tech Army Division Heads to Iraqi
Akamai Cancels a Contract for Arabic Network's Site
FBI Picks Another Outsider for Key Post 
Penn State Provost Warns Students
Worms grow in first part of 2003
Federal IT market: More demand, but less growth 
Online Phone Monitoring Sticky for FBI 
Iraqis, U.S. Restrict Satellite Phones 
Al-Jazeera Site Among Most Sought-After 
Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee  
Chairman Davis: Let executive branch alone
DOD intelligence unit will begin operating in June


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New York Times
April 7, 2003
Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powers
By DEAN E. MURPHY

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., April 4  The humming noise from a back room of the central library here today was the sound of Barbara Gail Snider, a librarian, at work. Her hands stuffed with wads of paper, Ms. Snider was feeding a small shredding machine mounted on a plastic wastebasket.

First to be sliced by the electronic teeth were several pink sheets with handwritten requests to the reference desk. One asked for the origin of the expression "to cost an arm and a leg." Another sought the address of a collection agency.

Next to go were the logs of people who had signed up to use the library's Internet computer stations. Bill L., Mike B., Rolando, Steve and Patrick were all shredded into white paper spaghetti.

"It used to be a librarian would be pictured with a book," said Ms. Snider, the branch manager, slightly exasperated as she hunched over the wastebasket. "Now it is a librarian with a shredder."

Actually, the shredder here is not new, but the rush to use it is. In the old days, staff members in the nine-branch Santa Cruz Public Library System would destroy discarded paperwork as time allowed, typically once a week.

But at a meeting of library officials last week, it was decided the materials should be shredded daily. 

"The basic strategy now is to keep as little historical information as possible," said Anne M. Turner, director of the library system.

The move was part of a campaign by the Santa Cruz libraries to demonstrate their opposition to the Patriot Act, the law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that broadened the federal authorities' powers in fighting terrorism.

Among provisions that have angered librarians nationwide is one that allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation to review certain business records of people under suspicion, which has been interpreted to include the borrowing or purchase of books and the use of the Internet at libraries, bookstores and cafes.

In a survey sent to 1,500 libraries last fall by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois, the staffs at 219 libraries said they had cooperated with law enforcement requests for information about patrons; staffs at 225 libraries said they had not. 

Ms. Turner said the authorities had made no inquiries about patrons in Santa Cruz. But the librarians here and the library board, which sets policies for the 10 branches, felt strongly about the matter nonetheless. Last month, Santa Cruz became one of the first library systems in the country to post warning signs about the Patriot Act at all of its checkout counters.

Today, the libraries went further and began distributing a handout to visitors that outlines objections to the enhanced F.B.I. powers and explains that the libraries were reviewing all records "to make sure that we really need every piece of data" about borrowers and Internet users.

Maurice J. Freedman, president of the American Library Association and director of the library system in Westchester, N.Y., said only a handful of libraries had posted signs or handed out literature about the Patriot Act. Warning signs are posted in the computer room at a library in Killington, Vt., and the library board in Skokie, Ill., recently voted to post signs, Mr. Freedman said.

Many other libraries, he said, including those in Westchester, decided that warnings might unnecessarily alarm patrons. 

"There are people, especially older people who lived through the McCarthy era, who might be intimidated by this," he said. "As of right now, the odds are very great that there will be no search made of a person's records at public libraries, so I don't want to scare people away."

At the same time, though, thousands of libraries have joined the rush to destroy records.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said libraries were not breaking the law by destroying records, even at a faster pace. The spokesman, Mark Corallo, said it would be illegal only if a library destroyed records that had been subpoenaed by the F.B.I.

Ms. Turner, the library director here, said librarians did not want to help terrorists, but she said other values were at stake as well.

"I am more terrified of having my First Amendment rights to information and free speech infringed than I am by the kind of terrorist acts that have come down so far," Ms. Turner said.

Library officials here said the response to the warning signs had been overwhelmingly positive, and visitors interviewed today had nothing but praise. Several of them noted, however, that Santa Cruz was not necessarily a microcosm of America.

Santa Cruz is a community well known for its leftward leanings and progressive politics. Last fall, city officials allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes to be distributed from the steps of City Hall. The City Council also passed a resolution condemning the Patriot Act.

"That is the nice thing about living in this town," said Elizabeth Smith, a waitress, who dropped by the central library today to use the Internet. "They call something like this to our attention that is being ignored in so many other parts of the country."


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Washington Post
Marketer Challenges Anti-Spam Crusader 
By Jonathan Krim
Monday, April 7, 2003; Page E01 

Every day, dozens of spam e-mails land in computer in-boxes advertising instant wealth, quick weight loss and cheap pornography.

Francis Uy, a self-described computer geek from Ellicott City, decided to fight back by employing a tactic increasingly used by a small cadre of e-mail users fed up with spam: Outing spammers by posting their addresses and phone numbers on the Internet, enabling network operators to block their e-mail or to sue them.

But Uy's target is counterattacking, resulting in a court date today in one of the more personal and unusual spam litigation cases to date. George Allen Moore Jr. of Linthicum argues that Uy's site is harassment and wants it pulled off the Internet. 

Some anti-spam vigilantes use the information to give spammers a taste of their own medicine, bombarding them with e-mail, signing them up for catalogues and products they did not order and flooding them with phone calls.

In court filings, Moore claims he received about 70 packages and 200 magazines at his house because of Uy's site, as well as numerous phone calls with threatening messages such as "we are watching you" and "don't start your car."

"I contacted him, but he would not take the pages down," said Moore, whose Maryland Internet Marketing Inc. sells anti-virus software and the kinds of products that often are advertised by unsolicited e-mail: Extreme Colon Cleanser, FAT-N-EMY and Extreme Power Plus.

Moore insists he is not a spammer, because he contracts with other companies to market his products.

Moore, who uses an e-mail moniker of Dr. Fatburn, said in an interview that Uy broadcast the presence of his Web site on numerous Internet discussion areas, which incited others to harass him. In his filing in Anne Arundel County District Court, he also accuses Uy of making some of the calls. 

So Moore contacted Howard County police, and secured a temporary court order that generally is reserved for keeping spouse abusers away from their targets.

But while the order prevents Uy from going near Moore or his property, it does not require Uy to pull down his Web site. And Uy vows a court fight for his First Amendment right to publish it.

"My Web site doesn't say anything about harassing him," Uy (pronounced Wee) said. He denies ever contacting Moore directly, except through an initial phone call when he first got an unsolicited e-mail advertising some of Moore's software products. 

"I told him I didn't appreciate spam, and he hung up on me," said Uy, though Moore later called back. 

Uy, a self-described "Web geek" who does tech work for a distance learning center at John's Hopkins University, said he remembers the exact date he first saw electronic spam and resolved to fight back.

It was April 12, 1994, before e-mail even existed in its current form.

"I had a chill," said Uy, who said he is in his thirties. "It was a feeling that this is what the Internet will be like."

Uy said he never imagined he would be engaged in a legal battle with a major alleged spammer in court. 

"I see myself as a Netizen" who fears that the growing spam epidemic is damaging the Internet, he said. "They say you should think globally and act locally. Well, the Internet is my neighborhood. We all need to pitch in and keep the place clean."

He said had been considering exposing a spammer for some time, but was waiting for a "strong case." 

Software that attempts to filter out spam from e-mail are not adequate and are too easily circumvented by spammers, he said.

"I like filters, but they're not going to solve the problem," he said. "Solving the problem means getting rid of the spammers and making them stop doing what they're doing."

His site urges people to consider filing small claims suits against bulk e-mailers, under Maryland's spam laws.

Uy acknowledged that some Internet providers have, at Moore's urging, taken his site down because it is critical of another person. The site is currently being hosted by an anti-spam sympathizer. 

Uy added that he did not know the address he posted was for Moore's home, since it had been listed on public records as Moore's business address.

Moore is no stranger to battles over his activities. He is identified as a prolific spammer by Spamhaus.org, which maintains a worldwide directory of notorious bulk e-mailers that serves as a blacklist for Internet network operators trying to reduce spam. 

Meanwhile, Symantec Inc., makers of Norton anti-virus software that Moore sells at cut-rate prices, claims that the versions that he provides are pirated.

"We're aware of the guy and we know what he's doing," said Chris Paden, director of corporate communications for the company. 

Paden said Symantec bought copies of Moore's products online, and determined they were counterfeit. He said the matter has been referred to the company's attorneys.

Moore said he sells official versions of the software, and has never been contacted by Symantec.

"If I was doing something wrong, I think I would have heard," Moore said.
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Los Angeles Times
Military Battling Junk E-Mail
Unsolicited ads pester troops checking for messages from home. Some advertisers use patriotism to lure the unsuspecting.
By P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writer

April 5, 2003

When the 5,500 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf get their daily half-an-hour allotment of Internet time, they savor each precious second to connect with the world back home.

Apparently, it's a world full of folks cooking with the ultimate pasta pot, making six-figure incomes selling junk on EBay and using anti-snoring spray to sleep quietly through the night.

Such are the wares touted in millions of e-mail messages. The unsolicited advertisements -- contemptuously known as spam -- have been clogging corporate computer systems and home PC in-boxes for years, costing an estimated $8.9 billion annually, according to technology market research firm Ferris Research.

And now the ads have followed U.S. troops to the Middle East.

"Spam is bad enough when you're here in the States on a high-speed connection," said Enrique Salem, chief executive of San Francisco-based Brightmail Inc., a leading provider of anti-spam software whose clients include the military and the government.

"It's painful when you're in the middle of a war."

Even with the best software filters the military can deploy, marketing pitches for dubious products and questionable financial schemes are slipping into the mix with letters from family and friends back home.

It's not that the military hasn't tried to fight it.

Over the last few years, the Defense Department has issued guidelines to each of the branches of the armed services, advising that unnecessary communication and misuse of military bandwidth are to be avoided at all costs.

The Defense Information Systems Agency also has established general technical standards for filtering spam.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard are responsible for setting up and managing the filters and firewalls designed to block e-mail marketing campaigns on their own computer networks, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Keck.

By obstructing spam, the barriers can prevent networks from slowing down or crashing.

"We don't tell them what programs to buy," Keck said. "Whatever they want to do is fine, as long as it works."

Military officials won't talk about the specific tools they use to fight spam, citing concerns about alerting hackers and other potential attackers. That makes it impossible to judge whether they're any better at killing spam than corporate America is.

But both often turn to the same technology for help.

Air Force officials say they have installed off-the-shelf filtering and firewall software at their U.S. bases, hoping that will protect their servers and prevent spam from reaching the branch's men and women overseas.

The Air Force also avoids listing its proxy and domain name server addresses in public directories to make it more difficult for e-mail marketers to target its systems, said Maj. Stephanie Holcombe, an Air Force spokeswoman.

"If you're reading your e-mail off our servers and you're over there" in the Persian Gulf, Holcombe said, "the chances of getting spammed are lower. But if you're over there and using Yahoo or Hotmail, you're going to be spammed, no doubt."

The wave of unsolicited marketing e-mail seems unstoppable, rising about sixfold last year alone. This year, spam is expected to reach the milestone of accounting for half of all corporate e-mail, according to researchers with Aberdeen Group.

"Everyone has to deal with spam, even the military," said Karl Jacob, chief executive of Cloudmark Inc., a provider of anti-spam software. Last month alone, the San Francisco-based firm saw a 20% increase in use of its desktop program, SpamNet, by people whose e-mail addresses have the ".mil" suffix.

Increasingly, spam is hiding behind a patriotic shield. Cloudmark executives found two recent e-mails that tried to lure recipients by referring to the war in the subject line.

One, with the subject line "Support America," is an ad for T-shirts. Another, labeled "Iraqi peasant crashed in an American helicopter," is actually a solicitation for an X-rated Web site.

Fears of a backlash against online pitches recently prompted the Direct Marketing Assn. to issue its members a list of "common-sense strategies" to guide them during the war in Iraq.

"Don't mail commercial messages to soldiers during the conflict," the list advises. "Although it probably goes without saying, mailing commercial messages to our nation's servicemen and women during the conflict is not appropriate."

Aboard the Abraham Lincoln, crew members cram into the Library Internet lounge throughout the day. Cramped but clean, the metal partitions between the PCs create a semblance of privacy on the bustling ship.

As Seaman Mariliz Sambrana, a 19-year-old mess specialist from Puerto Rico, sits down at the keyboard, a sign nearby warns that eating, drinking and littering are prohibited.

Also not allowed, states the post, is using the computer for financial gain, fund-raising, gambling, partisan political activity, pornography, pirating, proselytizing -- and sending spam.

Though the military tries mightily to block spam from its own computers, it has found some redeeming value in the pesky e-mails.

In January, the U.S. flooded the in-boxes of Iraqi military and civilian leaders, urging them to turn against President Saddam Hussein. Titled "Important Information," the Arabic messages urged readers to "protect their families" and reveal the location of any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The Iraqi government responded by temporarily shutting down Internet access throughout the country.

"When you are at war, e-mail becomes a different form of a weapon," said Salem of Brightmail. "Think of all the leaflets we've dropped on Iraq. There's no difference between that and sending e-mails."
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San Francisco Chronicle
Molecular might Nanotech 'battle suits' could amplify soldiers' powers

As hollow-eyed troops laden with 75-pound packs slogged through a downpour before shipping out to Kuwait, nine MIT professors watching them in the rural Louisiana training field were asking questions like: How could those loads be made lighter? 

And what about making the soldiers impervious to infection? Invulnerable to bullets? Able to leap small buildings in a single bound? 

For these self-described "crazy MIT guys," those questions are not wild geek imaginings inspired by some superhero comic. It's their job. 

The professors who visited the Fort Polk training center in January are at the vanguard of a military initiative to harness the potential of the emerging field of nanotechnology. Its object is to make U.S. forces vastly more mobile, more flexible, and more invincible. 

"One of our goals on the nano side is to make miniaturized stuff that won't weigh as much and can do lots of things," said Edwin Thomas, director of MIT's year-old Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies, funded last year by a $50 million, five-year Army grant. 

Nanotechnology, the art of precisely controlling the molecular composition of materials down to the level of a few nanometers, or billionths of a meter, is expected to yield products with unprecedented properties and power. Consumers may already be aware of a few commercial nanotech products -- Eddie Bauer pants that can survive a splash of ruby-red Merlot unmarked; or clear sunscreen that may replace the lifeguard's white-coated nose. 

The MIT group is experimenting with nanotech fibers and patches that could one day trap bioweapon germs on the outer surface of a uniform, capture the energy of the sun, transmit signals on the medical condition of troops, or even confer superhuman strength. 

Although the military is carrying out research on other nanotechnology applications, such as durable coatings for navy ships, the MIT institute focuses on the equipment of the individual, dismounted soldier who needs to be as light and self-sufficient as possible. 

Thomas said a future "battle suit" could be more like a car than mere camouflage-and-khaki clothing -- with options like radio communication, heating and air conditioning, bulletproof shields and bionic-man-like tools built in. 

Some of those features could work automatically, like air bags, at the instant they're needed, by a soldier who may be under fire or injured. 

"You don't have to push a button to activate them," Thomas said. 

One MIT project group is tinkering with simulated muscles -- a ribbon of accordion-folded polymer fibers that bend at a series of molecular "hinges." The bend can tighten and relax in response to electrical impulses, a property that could some day help combatants hoist heavy loads. Right now, the action is more like a slow twitch than the rapid contraction of human muscle. But they're working on it. 

Other fibers that could be woven into battle dress might form a tight network impenetrable to shrapnel. Sleeves might be designed to stiffen when needed to act as a splint or reinforce an arm to deliver a karate chop. 

"You'd want (the stiffening) to be reversible," Thomas said. "We don't know how to make it reversible, but we have some ideas about how to make it reversible." 


POWERFUL FABRIC
Similar research is going on at private companies like Palo Alto's Nanosys Inc., whose $6 million in grants this year comes mainly from military agencies, 

said President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Bock. 

Nanosys is developing wearable photovoltaic cells that could be incorporated into uniforms or tent fabrics, feeding power to soldiers' equipment and relieving them of having to carry heavy batteries, Bock said. 

In another Nanosys project, thermoelectric devices could capture soldiers' body heat as an energy source for either equipment or for cooling the soldiers themselves. Bock said the unique ability of nanoengineered molecules to reflect precisely calibrated wavelengths of light could be harnessed as a signaling system to help U.S. troops distinguish friend from foe. 

The MIT researchers have suggested that molecular energy might some day be stored in combat boots, enabling soldiers to leap up buildings to a better firing position. 

Such potential power is enticing, but even nanotechnology proponents will admit it could be troubling. Some high-tech insiders have been debating for several years whether the pace of research in the field should be controlled so its possible impacts on society can be studied. 

In a statement that was the talk of the tech community three years ago, Sun Microsystems chief scientist Bill Joy argued in Wired magazine that the convergence of three 21st century technologies -- robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology -- could spawn inventions that might proliferate at the risk of human life. 


U.S. DOMINANCE
Christine Peterson, president of Foresight Institute in Los Altos, said the U.S. military dominance that exists now may already be influencing the nation's policies and its image in the world. 

"America is regarded as the only superpower, and it's becoming the focus of enormous distrust," Peterson said. "The U.S. is going it alone in military actions." 

But Peterson, a nanotechnology supporter, said it's already too late to talk about forgoing progress in nanotechnology. While government agencies, including the Defense Department, spent nearly $800 million on nanotech research in 2002, with a larger amount requested for 2003, other developed countries like Japan are keeping pace, Peterson said. 

Foresight Institute is recommending that Congress approve a joint effort among international democracies to develop cutting-edge nanotech processes -- and decide on policies to control their use. 

Peterson acknowledges, however, that nanotech will yield products of such sweeping commercial appeal that control of weapons applications could be almost impossible. For example, surveillance instruments so small they could be invisible to the naked eye may be as commercially available to the neighbors in years to come as video cameras are now, she said. 

The same combinations of nanotech and genetic engineering that can produce sensitive detector systems against bioweapons could also be used to tailor poisons intended to work on people of a given genetic background, such as racial or ethnic groups, she said. 


USES MAY BE DECADES OFF
But many of these applications, including the most far-reaching visions of the Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies, may not exist for decades, Peterson and other experts say. 

"It's a long way off," said Philip Coyle, who reported to Congress on military testing during the Clinton administration and is now based in Monterey. "There have been many devices that looked good in the lab and didn't work out in the field." 

A prime example Coyle witnessed was the first test of the B-2 bomber, the futuristic bat-winged aircraft whose stealth coatings and sealing tapes absorb radar frequencies so they can fly undetected. 

"The first time they took them out in the rain, the stealthy coatings and tapes were falling off," said Coyle, now a senior adviser to the private Center for Defense Information in Washington. 

At MIT, Thomas said the Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies is making progress on each of its 45 projects. Industrial partners like DuPont and Dow Corning have signed on to help turn MIT inventions into a usable battle suit or kit. 

"It has to be robust and reliable," Thomas said. "It's going to be operated by 18- and 19 year-olds, not by Ph.D. scientists doing delicate experiments." 

Before MIT's work yields dramatic advancements, Thomas said, it will probably yield interim improvements that will benefit not only soldiers but the much larger numbers of police, firefighters and emergency responders who have many of the same needs. 


'WATERPROOF EVERYTHING'
The professors have already attacked one simple request made by the rain- drenched unit at Fort Polk: "Waterproof everything." 

Noting that the soldiers' 16-pound Kevlar vests were not waterproof, the scientists exposed some vests to a fine mist of fluoropolymer molecules that deposited a layer one molecule thick. Now they show generals a video of blue- dyed water rolling off the bullet-resistant vest. That means an outer waterproof nylon wrapping theoretically could be removed from Kevlar vests, eliminating an increment of weight, Thomas said. 

For good measure, the researchers figured out how to bind "biocide" molecules to the waterproof layer, so the inside of the Kevlar vest could also protect soldiers from infections in open scratches. 

But Thomas said it may be years before nanotechnology puts a really powerful new invention into a grunt's kit bag. 

"It's visionary, it's revolutionary, it's hard, and therefore it's not likely to pop out tomorrow morning," he said. 

E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
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Washington Post
High-Tech Army Division Heads to Iraqi
By David McGuire
Thursday, April 3, 2003; 8:39 AM 

When the Army said it would deploy its 4th Infantry Division to the Middle East, media reports called it "elite," "high-tech," "powerful." Military experts have another way to describe it: the deadliest, most technologically advanced armored division on earth.

Originally set to invade Iraq from Turkey in the north, the 4th Infantry Division (mechanized) is scrambling to move its heavy equipment to Kuwait, with the first troops arriving over the past several days. It brings to the conflict a formidable force of 16,000 troops, about 250 Abrams tanks, more than 200 Bradley fighting vehicles and technology that gives them an unprecedented ability to see and move throughout the battlefield.

The 4th "could probably take on the Republican Guard by itself," said Dan Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington-based military think tank. "It's the most technologically advanced armored division in the world."

An Army official would not say whether any of the division's units already are engaged in combat or are in Iraq. Once it is there, however, it can use its technology to coordinate maneuvers and fire to deadly effect, said Col. John Antal, chief operations officer of the Army's III Corps, which includes 4th Infantry.

"Precision fire freezes the enemy maneuver. When he tries to move large formations we're able to kill them with precision fire pretty quickly," Antal said. "You place the enemy on the horns of a dilemma. He has to disperse to stay alive, fight us individually, surrender or die."

Goure said that the combination of the 4th's targeting and communications technological superiority makes it as much as four times more lethal than the 3rd Division, which has already successfully engaged enemy forces in Iraq.

Its arsenal includes the M1A2 SEP (Systems Enhancement Package) tank. An improvement over the M1A1 and the standard M1A2, the M1A2 SEP has more powerful gun sights and an independent thermal viewer that allows a tank commander to look in a different direction from his gunner.

"They can fire on the move at 40 to 50 miles per hour and kill with 85 percent accuracy," Goure said.

The 4th Infantry's main claim to technological superiority are cutting-edge tools designed to tell armored unit commanders where they are, where their friends are and where the enemy is.

The Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on technologies designed to improve "situational awareness" after friendly fire claimed the lives of 35 American troops during Desert Storm.

The 4th Infantry tested the Army's Force 21 Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) System, which allows Abrams and Bradley commanders to follow the movement of friends and foes from computer screens inside their vehicles.

While the Army is outfitting all of its armor with that capability, the 4th was the first division to have it, has the most experience with it, and has the greatest percentage of vehicles equipped with the technology, Antal said.

"In warfare, most of your time is spent in trying to tell people what's going on and trying to get them to do what you what you want them to do," he said.

With technology that allows them to see exactly where their comrades are, "forward commanders will be able to spend more time on maneuvering to fight and win the battle," he added.

David McIntyre, deputy director of the Arlington-based ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, said the 4th will have a big advantage with the technology, having tested it extensively during the research and development phase.

"There's been an investment in learning the equipment that hasn't necessarily happened in other units," said McIntyre, who served as an M1 commander patrolling the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

Antal, a former tank commander, likened traditional armored warfare to a fistfight in a darkened room, in which combatants had to feel around with one hand and deliver blows with the other.

In the 21st century, the room is still dark, but advanced fighting forces like the 4th can see clearly and deliver pinpoint blows with both hands, he said.

While the Army has tested its situational awareness tools extensively, McIntyre said that the results of the 4th's deployment will show whether the Pentagon's money has been well spent.

"They've spent years in the field with this [but] it is the first time that this will go up in combat," he said. "They've got the same problem you have with your home computer. Is it reliable? That's the biggest question of all; you don't know that until you get in the dust storm and somebody shoots at you."
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New York Times
April 4, 2003
Akamai Cancels a Contract for Arabic Network's Site
By WARREN ST. JOHN

In a move sure to complicate the efforts of Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, to get its English-language Web site running, Akamai Technologies abruptly canceled a contract on Wednesday to provide Web services for the site.

Employees at Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said they were frustrated by the decision, though not entirely surprised. "It has nothing to do with technical issues," said Joanne Tucker, the managing editor of the English-language site. "It's nonstop political pressure on these companies not to deal with us."

Akamai, based in Cambridge, Mass., would not comment on the reason for the cancellation. But Jeff Young, a company spokesman, issued a statement confirming that Akamai would no longer do business with Al Jazeera.

"Akamai worked briefly this week with Al Jazeera to understand the issues they are having distributing their Web sites," he said. "We ultimately decided not to continue a customer relationship with Al Jazeera, and we are not going to be providing them our services."

The English version of Al Jazeera's Web site was shut by hackers roughly 12 hours after it went online on March 25. For a time, Web users trying to gain access were directed to a Web page bearing an American flag. Akamai, whose clients include MSNBC and CNN, maintains a broad network of servers that provide protection from hacking attempts. It was for that reason, Ms. Tucker said, that Al Jazeera hired the company.

"Basically this was our answer to the hacking that has been nonstop and pretty aggressive," she said. "We had a done-and-dusted deal on March 28. Then yesterday, we get a letter from them terminating the contract."

Akamai's decision is one in a series of headaches for Al Jazeera since the start of the war. Defense Department officials criticized the network for showing images of dead and captured American soldiers. After that episode, the network's American financial correspondents were banned from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. On Wednesday, Iraqi officials expelled one Jazeera correspondent from Baghdad and barred another from reporting there. American officials have also accused the network of unduly emphasizing civilian casualties in Iraq.

Al Jazeera contends that much of the traffic that shut down its site was from Web users simply curious about its coverage. The search engine Lycos reported yesterday that "Al Jazeera" was its most-searched-for term last week.

Ms. Tucker said that Al Jazeera hoped to have its English site up within 24 hours, but that without Akamai's many servers, the site would be more vulnerable to hacking attempts.

The site went live just after 7 p.m. last night.

"It doesn't derail us," she said. "We can withstand the hacking up to a point, but if they focus it all on one server it would put a lot of pressure on that server.

"We hope that won't be the case," she added. "We're working on it all the time."

Ms. Tucker called the hacking attempts "pathetic." "It's a narrow, pro-censorship attempt to silence a news site," she said.

This is not the first time that Akamai has had to deal first-hand with tensions between the Arab world and the United States. The company's co-founder and chief technology officer, Daniel Lewin, 31, was on American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001, when the plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
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Washington Post
FBI Picks Another Outsider for Key Post 
NSA Official Will Oversee Intelligence 
By Dan Eggen
Friday, April 4, 2003; Page A19 


The FBI announced yesterday the appointment of a new top executive from the National Security Agency, marking the latest example of the continued influx of outside officials into the traditionally insular bureau.

Maureen S. Baginski, who is currently signals intelligence director at the NSA's Central Security Service, will become the highest-ranking woman at the FBI as executive assistant director for intelligence, officials said.

The new position was created by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III as part of an effort to improve the collection and analysis of information on suspected terrorists and spies. The FBI's intelligence operations have come under harsh criticism over the past two years in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Robert Hanssen spy scandal.

Mueller said the FBI's new intelligence division "will ensure that this sort of information is systematically collected and examined for its big-picture implications."

Under Mueller, the FBI has aggressively sought top executives from other U.S. intelligence agencies and the private sector as part of a massive reorganization effort.

In addition, the FBI's counterterrorism division will soon move to a new location, along with the CIA's counterterrorism operations and the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which was formed by President Bush to collect and analyze all information about major threats against the United States.

The FBI also announced yesterday the appointment of Steven C. McCraw to head the bureau's Office of Intelligence under Baginski. McCraw, a 20-year FBI veteran who heads the San Antonio field office, previously oversaw the FBI's massive database effort to track suspected terrorists.
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Chronicle of Higher Education
Penn State Provost Warns Students That They Could Go to Prison for Illegal File Sharing
By SCOTT CARLSON

An administrator at Pennsylvania State University at University Park has sent a stern e-mail message to students, warning that sharing copyrighted material through the Internet could lead to fines and imprisonment under federal law. The message has some students at Penn State wondering if the university is stepping up its efforts to stop file sharing, and if it is bending to pressures from the recording industry in doing so.

The message, which is signed by the provost, Rodney A. Erickson, details various punishments that students could face if they are caught downloading music or movies. The loss of Internet privileges, a standard punishment at many colleges, is mentioned, but the message also threatens expulsion, $250,000 fines, and the possibility of facing federal perjury charges. The message also mentions cases in which students have been sent to jail for copyright infringement.

"The bottom line is that there is a potentially high price to pay for an illegally copied computer program, movie, or recording," Mr. Erickson writes in the message, sent on Monday. "Messing up your future is a steep price to pay for music or a video."

Mr. Erickson dispatched his message about a month after a hearing on illegal file sharing, held by a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, at which Graham B. Spanier, the president of the university, was scolded by lawmakers who insisted that universities weren't doing enough to solve the problem (The Chronicle, March 14). Mr. Spanier also recently helped set up a committee of university administrators and entertainment-industry executives to discuss the file-sharing issue.

But Mr. Erickson said his message was not a reaction to those events. Rather, it is merely a standard part of the university's educational campaign on file sharing.

"This is not the first message that I have sent out about the issue," he said, adding that he sent out a letter in 2000, when Napster was popular. "This is part of our continuing efforts to inform students about copyright and to make sure they understand that there are consequences for illegal file-sharing activity."

Mr. Erickson said that the university was suspending the Internet accounts of students who were found downloading protected music or movies. He said the university would not give the names of students to the entertainment industry for prosecution unless so ordered by a court.

However, the tone of the message struck some students. "It was a rather stern e-mail," said D. Joshua Troxell, a junior who is the president of the student Academic Assembly. Mr. Troxell said he was going to talk to administrators about the message and ask whether the university was going to increase penalties for file sharing, or if the university was working with the industry. "That was one of my greatest concerns."

Some students in his office were worried about the message. "The few people that I discussed it with said, Does this mean that I'm under investigation? It says here that there is prison time. That tone was meant to definitely shock some people, but it may have caused some confusion."

Justin J. Leto, a senior majoring in computer engineering, sent the note to Politech, a technology-oriented online discussion forum. He thinks the message is the result of pressure from the recording industry, and notes that Barry K. Robinson, senior counsel for corporate affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America, sits on Penn State's Board of Trustees.

"The stakes are rising," he said. "They are threatening imprisonment and fines. This is not what we were talking about a month ago. A month ago we were talking about a slap on the wrist and having your Internet account taken away."

"We have heard stories about the RIAA monitoring and tracking people's online use, identifying people who have downloaded copyright material, and prosecuting them," Mr. Leto said. "I'm waiting for the day when we'll see network administrators at Penn State doing the grunt work for the RIAA."

Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the industry group had nothing to do with e-mail warning at Penn State, but was enthusiastic about its contents.

"This is welcome news," he said. "We are gratified when colleges like Penn State take steps to educate their students that downloading or offering copyrighted music off a pirate peer-to-peer network is against the law and has consequences."


The text of Mr. Erickson's e-mail message follows: http://chronicle.com/free/2003/04/2003040201t.htm
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ZD Net
Worms grow in first part of 2003
 By Robert Lemos 
CNET News.com
April 3, 2003, 1:32 PM PT

The number of security events detected by companies in the first quarter of 2003 jumped nearly 84 percent over the preceding three months, according to a report that network-protection firm Internet Security Systems plans to release Monday. 
The increase in events, which can include minor probes for holes in network security as well as major attacks, stems mainly from an increase in worms and automated attack software, the company said in a summary of the report, which was seen by CNET News.com. 

"The large increase in mass mailing, highly persistent worms and (in) security events indicates that this year will be challenging for security officers and administrators around the world," Chris Rouland, director of ISS's research and development team, said in the summary. 


The study tallies the network events detected by ISS sensors deployed by some 400 clients around the world and outlines potential malicious online activity from Jan. 1 to March 31. 

That period includes the attack of what many consider to be the first flash worm, an automated attack program that spreads so quickly that the responders can't react fast enough. The worm, SQL Slammer, infected 200,000 computers running Microsoft's SQL Server software that hadn't had a 6-month-old patch applied. The worm is thought to have spread to 90 percent of all vulnerable servers in the first 10 minutes after it had been released on the Internet. 

The report found that weekends accounted for only 26 percent of all events and that Friday was the most active day, with some 2.3 million events, on average, categorized as "anomalous activity." Such events are not attacks, but mainly--in nearly three-quarters of the cases--suspicious activity. An additional 11 percent were classified by ISS as unauthorized access attempts. Slammer started spreading late on a Friday night PST. 

ISS also found that online vandals are putting more effort into exploiting existing flaws than finding new ones. According to ISS data, 606 vulnerabilities were made public in the first three months of the year, while 752 new threats were identified. The company considers threats to be programs or code that make exploiting vulnerable systems easier. 

Hackers are also using unknown flaws to attack systems. In March, the military detected that a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system was being exploited by online intruders. Microsoft released a patch for the security hole five days later, but the incident acted as a reminder that there are a whole host of security flaws of which companies are not aware. 

The report is scheduled to be available from ISS' Web site on Monday. 
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Government Executive
Federal IT market: More demand, but less growth 
By Shane Harris
sharris@xxxxxxxxxxx 

According to a report released Tuesday, a larger discretionary budget for information technology is proof of the federal government?s demand for IT products and services. But at the same time, the report said, the overall annual growth rate of the IT budget has shrunk and agencies are feeling more pressure to justify their spending and prove they can manage their investments. 


Those were the conclusions of an annual IT market outlook released by Federal Sources Inc. (FSI), a technology market research firm in McLean, Va. The group found that technology spending accounts for 7.2 percent of the fiscal 2004 discretionary budget, which amounts to $819 billion. That?s a 0.5 percent rise over last year, and reflects a ?shift in our national priorities toward information technology,? said James Kane, the firm?s president. 


Shifts in priorities rather than dramatic increases in funding characterize the budget, Kane said. In particular, the Office of Management and Budget?s demand that agencies write business cases to support spending requests has become ?institutionalized,? he said. Agencies that fail to make their cases may lose their IT funding. 


In light of that enforcement, the rapid growth rate of the budget that fueled the IT market in the late 1990s has dissipated. FSI predicts a 4.7 percent compound annual growth rate from 2003 to 2005. In previous years, that rate fluctuated between 8 and 9 percent. 


The slowdown also can be attributed to a decrease of new IT contracts. New contracts accounted for only about 12 percent of transactions worth $5 million or more in fiscal 2002, the analysis found. Kane also noted that money has been reallocated to support initiatives at the Homeland Security Department, which already has the second highest IT budget of any civilian agency, at more than $3.5 billion. Money has been funneled away from the Justice and Treasury Departments toward Homeland Security as components of those department move into the new organization, he said. 


Rather than initiate many new deals, agencies are spending more money through task orders on governmentwide contracts. Those orders have become ?the preferred method of government buying,? Kane said. In fiscal 2002, task orders comprised about 55 percent of contract transactions over $5 million, FSI concluded. 


One governmentwide contract set in place, the General Services Administration?s schedules program, saw fiscal 2003 IT spending of $15.5 billion, FSI estimated. Fiscal 2004 will see an 8 percent growth in IT schedule sales, and services will account for two-thirds of transactions, the firm predicted. 


INPUT, a competing research firm in Chantilly, Va., also released a study Tuesday that said schedules sales overall, not just for technology, increased 24 percent from 1997 to 2002. 


INPUT?s analysis ?shows a notable trend of increased spending on [schedules] with a corresponding decrease in the use of full and open competitive procurements,? an INPUT statement said. Schedule contracts are essentially precompeted: a company wins a schedule and may then sell to the government through task orders. Agencies are supposed to solicit offers from multiple companies when making a buy, but federal investigations have shown that some agencies just buy from one preferred company. 


The FSI report also showed that the constricting market is dramatically impacting companies. The last 12 months saw more than 70 mergers and acquisitions among federal technology providers, the analysis found. Those transactions were all valued at $50 million or more, and most of the acquired firms were privately held, it said. 


Companies that hoped to cash in on security spending have learned that bigger firms and those with more experience selling to the government win most contracts. Kane said that smaller firms or those that haven?t distinguished themselves from the pack face two choices: ?Get acquired or die.? 


So many companies are pitching themselves as one-stop providers for all the government?s technology needs that traditional business sectors have become meaningless, Kane argued. Whereas in years past, companies characterized themselves as systems integrators or services firms, for example, now the ways in which those firms are all that different from each other have blurred, he said. 
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Associated Press
Online Phone Monitoring Sticky for FBI 
Thu Apr 3, 3:45 PM ET

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 

NEW YORK - Wiretapping takes on a whole new meaning now that phone calls are being made over the Internet, posing legal and technical hurdles for the FBI (news - web sites) as it seeks to prevent the emerging services from becoming a safe haven for criminals and terrorists. 

   

The FBI wants regulators to affirm that such services fall under a 1994 law requiring phone companies to build in surveillance capabilities. It is also pushing the industry to create technical standards to make wiretapping easier and cheaper. 


But privacy advocates fear that because online eavesdropping technology is crude, tapping into the data stream for voice means getting more than what a court ordered  including possibly e-mail and other digital communications. 


Service operators also question who should pay. 


The increasingly popular "Voice over Internet Protocol," or VoIP, technology breaks phone conversations into data packets, sends them over the Internet and reassembles them at the destination. 


Such calls, made on handsets or using computer microphones, are more efficient and cheaper than traditional calls, which require that a dedicated circuit remain open. 


The technology creates gray areas in applying the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. That law required that then-emerging digital phone technologies, which are more difficult to wiretap than analog circuits, be designed so authorities could monitor them. 


Lawmakers exempted information services like the Internet, but didn't anticipate Net-based voice calls. 


Now, as the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) considers the extent that high-speed Internet services through cable and DSL should be free of regulation, the FBI and the Justice Department (news - web sites) want assurances that those services also build in surveillance functions. 


Because VoIP is so new, standards don't exist for setting up networks, let alone for eavesdropping. Several groups, including the Telecommunications Industry Association, are working on VoIP surveillance standards. 


In January, the FBI convened a summit for law enforcement and industry representatives to identify core issues. 


"We're seeing major changes in the network, and we are trying to be ahead of the curve," said Les Szwajkowski, the FBI's unit chief for electronic surveillance. 


On its face, the debate is less about law enforcers' surveillance authority and more about whether Voice over Internet companies need to provide capabilities ahead of time. 


Authorities should be the ones providing and paying for such capabilities on a case-by-case basis, said Michael Altschul, general counsel for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. 


Although Szwajkowski said law enforcers are merely applying existing authority to emerging technologies, David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center worries about an expansion in wiretaps. 


Some court orders cover only call information  who called whom and when  but not what they said. But Sobel said the call contents and data on other subscribers could get mixed in by FBI surveillance tools. 


In addition, he said, once capabilities are enabled for voice calls, they could easily be extended to cover e-mail, Web traffic and more. 

   



Sobel, at this week's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, also noted that under draft legislation from Justice, dubbed Patriot II, legal wiretap authority for phones would automatically cover e-mail and electronic calendars. 

Szwajkowski said he was mostly worried about voice communications online, but acknowledged that the FBI later might be "potentially looking at other things as well." 

So far, the FBI has not publicly cited any case in which VoIP impeded a wiretap. Szwajkowski indicated his efforts were more about looking ahead. 

Some services, like Vonage and Net2Phone, say they are already working to incorporate surveillance capabilities, even though they believe they are under no legal obligation. 

But the Internet poses challenges not found in phone networks. 

For one, intercepting a voice stream means diverting it, making a copy and sending it along again, and tech-savvy criminals might be able to tell that the call was relayed through an intermediary. 

___ 

Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org 

___ 

On the Net: 

The FBI's page on the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994: http://www.askcalea.com 

The Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap 

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Associated Press
Iraqis, U.S. Restrict Satellite Phones 
Thu Apr 3, 6:38 AM ET

By ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press Writer 

Both sides in the Iraq (news - web sites) war are now restricting the use of satellite phones. 

The U.S. military sees units from an Arab-owned provider with built-in satellite positioning as potentially betraying the location of its units while Iraq's government apparently wants to be able to ferret out American agents and commando units. 


Iraqi television on Wednesday carried an official appeal to the population to hand over their satellite phones so it is easier to identify "infiltrating" transmissions. 


The Pentagon (news - web sites) said Wednesday that U.S. commanders were expanding to all of Iraq a ban on the use of satellite phones from the Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. of the United Arab Emirates, a Persian Gulf state. 


The indefinite ban applies both to U.S. units and the journalists traveling with them, said Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan in Washington. He said the decision was made for security reasons but that he did not know the technical details. 


U.S. commanders had imposed a ban late last week in some areas, calling it temporary and saying they feared the Iraqis could pinpoint the location of front-line units with Thuraya phones. 


Satellite telephones have been a lifeline for reporters in the region and are also routinely carried by U.S. troops. 


Unlike other major satphones, Thurayas can use the U.S. military's global satellite positioning system, or GPS, for navigation purposes. The GPS system relies on radio signals from a constellation of more than two dozen satellites and has broad military and civilian uses. 


Jamal Aljarwan, Thuraya's executive director of business development, said Tuesday from Abu Dhabi that the Pentagon's concerns appeared to result from "a misunderstanding," probably about the phones' features. 


Thuraya says its phones are accurate to within 100 yards, but company chairman Mohammad Omran says subscribers must activate the phones' GPS function to be tracked. With the GPS function activated, the phone can send a short message with location details. 


It is theoretically possible to locate a satphone that lacks GPS functions by measuring the direction of its signals from at least two locations. 


It would be "expensive but feasible" for the Iraqis to acquire the equipment do so, said Michel Fattouche, chief technology officer at Cell-Loc Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, company that makes locating equipment for cellular networks. 


They could conceivably locate satellite phones within about 6 miles of the locating equipment, with an accuracy of 300 feet to 1,000 feet, he said. 


Fattouche called Iraq's banning of unapproved satellite phones crucial, since they would otherwise have no way of telling which transmissions come from the enemy. 


The Iraqi statement said a "not small" number of Iraqis have satellite phones. 


It appealed to those "working with the enemy" to surrender such sets to authorities. Failure to do so, it warned, would leave authorities with no choice but to treat offenders as spies. 


Wayne Madsen, a former U.S. National Security Agency analyst now with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that what little locating capability the Iraqis may have had has probably been destroyed. 

   



Last week's initially limited ban by the U.S. military left news organizations scrambling. 

Many journalists have had to replace Thurayas with phones from rival carriers, including Iridium Satellite, an Arlington, Va.-based company whose biggest single client is the U.S. Department of Defense (news - web sites). 

"We sent journalists into the region with several kinds of sat phones to give them the greatest possible flexibility," said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated Press. "Being unable to use Thurayas is an inconvenience, but our folks have so far still been able to file stories, photos and audio from the field." 
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Associated Press
Al-Jazeera Site Among Most Sought-After 
Wed Apr 2,12:21 PM ET

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer 

In spite of being mostly knocked offline, the Web site of Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera was among the most sought-after on the Internet last week. 


The Web portal Lycos reported that "Al-Jazeera" and variant spellings became its top search term last week, with three times more searches than "sex." 


Al-Jazeera drew intense interest from Web surfers after it carried Iraqi TV footage of dead and captive U.S. soldiers in Iraq (news - web sites). U.S. television networks had decided not to air footage of the corpses. Al-Jazeera later honored a U.S. request to stop until families could be notified, a statement from the network said. 


The Internet's leading search engine, Google (news - external web site), said "Al-Jazeera" was the term that showed the greatest increase in the week ending March 31. Google does not report absolute rankings of search terms. 


Hackers also homed in on Al-Jazeera, bringing down its Web site early last week in what the Web host called an attack characterized by a flood of bogus traffic. 


Hackers calling themselves the "Freedom Cyber Force Militia" later diverted visitors to the English site to a page with a U.S. flag. 


The managing editor of Al-Jazeera's English site, Joanne Tucker, said it would be back up by Wednesday and that steps were being taken to make the Web pages impervious to hacking attempts. 


Al-Jazeera is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. It is funded by Qatar's government but is an unusually independent voice in the Arab world. Its English Web site launched last week with the aim of giving Western audiences an Arab perspective. 


At least one other regional site, Arabia.com of the United Arab Emirates, was blocked by hackers last week, said Duri al-Ajrami, the site's marketing manager. 


U.S. Internet users are visiting foreign sites in huge numbers for news on the war, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project released Tuesday. 


In the conflict's first six days, 10 percent of Americans who use the Internet visited the sites of foreign news organizations, the study said. This compared to 32 percent who visited Web sites of U.S. television networks for war news. The telephone poll surveyed 999 Internet users and had a 4 percent margin of error. 


Besides Al-Jazeera and Arabia.com, there are plenty of English-language news sites with an Arab perspective. 


Jennifer Salan at the Arab American Institute in Washington said they include Lebanon's privately owned Daily Star newspaper, as well as The Jordan Times and Saudi Arabia's Arab News, both government-owned. 


As the Web troubles mounted last week, Al-Jazeera launched a subscription service that sends brief news items in Arabic or English as text messages to cell phones. 


Text messaging is a popular form of communication in Europe and Asia, but has yet to catch on in the United States. The service was not accepting subscriptions to U.S. cell phone numbers. 
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Federal Computer Week
RAINS showcases secure info
BY Brian Robinson 
April 2, 2003  

Officials from the Oregon Regional Alliance for Infrastructure and Network Security (RAINS) say the group is making big strides in its campaign to become a major player in the nation's homeland security agenda.

Its secure communications initiative, called RAINS-NET, will be a central feature of the Defense Department's anti-terrorism Homeland Security Command and Control Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration scheduled for May.

The joint business, academic and government entity has also begun recruiting states as licensee "chapters" of the RAINS technology. Virginia has already signed an agreement, and the inaugural meeting of the Washington RAINS chapter is set for May 14 in Seattle.

The "perfect number" of licensees would be about 10 states, said Charles Jennings, chairman of RAINS chairman and chief executive officer of Swan Island Networks Inc., an Oregon technology company. 

Collaboration among RAINS chapters would show how states could work together to pass information securely among one another, he said. It also could show the advantages of such information sharing.

"The focus many people have had when they've talked about information sharing is how much they would have to give away," Jennings said. "The surprise is that it's actually much more about the information that they get back, and there's a need for people to realize that."

A pilot project version of Oregon RAINS was launched in early March and now has about 25 nodes at various public and private organizations. It uses networking and security technologies from several Oregon companies, but is designed to grow in sophistication and services based on feedback and evaluation loops built into the system.

Jennings said the first production version of RAINS-NET should be up and running in two to four months, as the workflow of the Portland 911 system is integrated into RAINS-NET. It could be the first such statewide system in the country that will be able to send emergency alerts securely online, he said.


Robinson is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. He can be reached at hullite@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Wired News
Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee  

Friends of an Intel programmer who is being held in a federal prison can't help but shake their heads in disbelief. They've also launched a website pushing for his release and collecting donations for his defense. 

The most salient explanation for the arrest seems to be a link between the programmer, Maher "Mike" Hawash, and a charitable organization to which he donated a fairly large sum three years ago. The U.S. government has subsequently tagged the charity as having ties to terrorism.

Hawash, a U.S. citizen, was arrested last month by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. For nearly two weeks, he has been held as a so-called "material witness" in solitary confinement in a federal lockup in Sheridan, Oregon. The designation allows authorities to hold him indefinitely without charging him with a crime. 

The Department of Justice has required a federal court to seal Hawash's case. He has only limited access to his family and lawyer. 

A friend and former colleague at Intel, Steven McGeady, is championing Hawash's case. McGeady, a former vice president at the chipmaker who hired Hawash as a programmer in 1992, was a high-profile witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial. 

"People say this doesn't happen in this country," McGeady said, "but one of my neighbors has been disappeared. It's not what he might have done that matters to me -- they disappeared him. They need to question him and let him go, or charge him. It's like Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka." 

McGeady set up a website, Free Mike Hawash, that urges supporters to write politicians and donate to a legal defense fund. The site is drawing considerable attention online, climbing the charts on Daypop and Blogdex. 

Because of the campaign, the office of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has promised to contact the FBI about the case, McGeady said. 

Authorities have detained at least 44 other material witnesses in probes following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to an investigation by The Washington Post. 

Hawash, an Arab American, was arrested by FBI agents at about 7 a.m. March 20 as he arrived for work at the Intel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. During his arrest, a squad of armed agents in bulletproof vests stormed his home, seizing computers and files. His wife, Lisa, and their three children were asleep at the time. 

Neither the FBI, which arrested Hawash, nor the U.S. Marshals office, which is responsible for his detention, would provide any information about the case, citing a gag order. 

"Due to court rules I can't answer any questions," said Beth Ann Steele, a spokeswoman in the FBI's Portland office. 

Calls to the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland requesting comment were not returned. 

An FBI press release concerning Hawash's arrest says simply that four federal search warrants were executed in the Hillsboro area as part of an "ongoing investigation." There are no hints about the nature of the investigation, except that it is unrelated to the war in Iraq, or the number of people detained. 

Though he's guessing, McGeady said it was possible Hawash was targeted because of charitable donations he made in 2000 to the Global Relief Foundation, a Muslim charity that purported to fund mosques and schools in the United States, as well as West Bank medical facilities. 

However, two years after Hawash made his donations, the Illinois-based charity was accused of links to terrorist organizations, and the Treasury Department froze its assets. The charity denies the accusations and is fighting the pending extradition of one of its founders. 

According to a story in The Oregonian newspaper, Hawash donated about $10,000, which the paper uncovered by examining the foundation's federal tax returns. 

Hawash made the donations after a representative solicited funds at a local mosque or Islamic center, the paper said. "The organization is legit," Hawash told a reporter. "We believed that they are doing good work. It's a well-known organization."

But McGeady said Hawash's detention could easily be related to something else. 

"I'm completely puzzled," he said. "He has family in the West Bank, but he's not political. He worked at Intel Israel for two years, for heck's sake. His most political act was setting up an ISP on the West Bank, and in my opinion that's not political. I don't know. Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity. Maybe it's something beyond my comprehension." 

Hawash, 38, was born in the West Bank but became a U.S. citizen in 1988. His wife, two of his children and his stepchild are all American-born. 

Hawash co-authored a book on multimedia programming. He was laid off from Intel in 2001, but was later rehired as a contract programmer. 

According to The Washington Post's November investigation, at least 44 people have been arrested and detained as material witnesses in post-Sept. 11 terrorist probes. The paper was unable to determine hard numbers because of secrecy surrounding the cases. 

The 1984 material witness statute was designed to coax testimony from unwilling witnesses or those likely to flee the country. But since Sept. 11, authorities have made widespread use of the statute to detain suspects indefinitely without charging them with any crime. 

According to the Post, none of the 44 witnesses held was charged, and nearly half were not called to testify before a grand jury. Most were held in maximum security for periods ranging from days to "several months or longer." At least seven were U.S. citizens, the Post reported. 

In early 2002, Jose Padilla was detained as a material witness for allegedly plotting to explode a "dirty" nuclear device. The U.S. government subsequently designated him an "enemy combatant" and has held him in a Navy brig in South Carolina. Padilla has not been tried and is denied access to a lawyer. 
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CNET News.com
100 million copyproof CDs sold? 
By John Borland 
April 2, 2003, 3:13 PM PT

Copy-resistant CDs may still be scarce in the United States, but signs are growing that the technology is becoming increasingly mainstream elsewhere and may finally break into the American market this year. 
Silicon Valley company Macrovision said Wednesday that its anticopying technology had now been applied to more than 100 million CDs worldwide, the bulk of them released in Europe and Japan. Over the last six months, the company has seen shipments of 10 million discs a month distributed across those markets, it said. 

"People are getting used to the idea (in those areas,)" Macrovision CEO Bill Krepick said. "I think the sense is that consumers in those countries tend to be a little less vocal than American consumers." 


Technology companies touting copy-protection wares--and, to a lesser extent, record labels themselves--have been promising for two years the impending release of CDs shielded against unauthorized computer copying. But the progress of the technology to market, particularly in the United States, has been slow and bumpy, and the technology companies themselves have repeatedly been forced to retrench and rethink their techniques. 

Early versions of the technology rendered albums unplayable in many CD players or computers, even breaking some machines. Several versions of copy-protection technology proved to be easily broken, some using tools as low-tech as a felt-tip pen. In addition, record label concerns about universal playability and consumer reaction have helped slow the CDs' pace to market substantially. 

The development of so-called second session technology, which allows two versions of the same album to be stored on the same CD, has helped win label support, however. When this technique is used, the ordinary CD music files are accompanied by a music file--typically an encrypted MP3 or Windows Media Audio file--meant to be copied to and stored on a computer hard drive. Most, if not all, future copy-protected discs are expected to contain this type of computer-ready file. 

Macrovision's announcement appeared to come at least partially in response to a research note from J.P. Morgan analyst Sterling Auty, who predicted that the first big shipment of copy-protected CDs in the United States could come from Arista Records as soon as May or June. The CDs would be protected using a product from Macrovision rival SunnComm Technologies. 

In that note, Auty downgraded Macrovision's stock, saying that SunnComm's potential relationship with Arista didn't bode well for its rival. 

"We believe the initial copy-protection contract in the music industry will fall out of Macrovision's hands, which we believe will be a huge blow to investor sentiment," Auty wrote. "Our concern also lies with the chance that other labels at (Arista parent) BMG Music will rapidly follow Arista's lead." 

A BMG spokesman said that the company's policy--which would affect Arista--had not changed, however. BMG is "conducting trials only," and has not announced any plans to go to market in the United States, the spokesman said. 

Macrovision said Wednesday that it hoped to begin seeing sales in the Unites States by late this year, but that it had learned to be patient in its home market. 

"There's only so much we can do to show the record labels what's going on in the rest of the world," Krepick said. "At some point they have to take a bit of risk and step out and do something." 
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Federal Computer Week
Chairman Davis: Let executive branch alone
BY Judi Hasson 
April 3, 2003  

It is time for Congress to give up some of its power and let the executive branch reorganize itself for the 21st century without congressional interference, politicians and policy experts said today.

At a hearing on making it easier for the federal government to consolidate departments and eliminate redundancies, lawmakers and government experts agreed that Congress should step out of the way and let the executive branch take care of its own operations.

"In the long and arduous debate on the creation of [the Homeland Security Department], one thing is clear?it is exceedingly difficult for Congress to undertake even the simplest reorganization of the executive branch," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, which held the hearing.

In the wake of the creation of the Homeland Security Department (DHS), lawmakers and policy experts realized that the White House should have the authority to take care of its own structure without congressional meddling. 

But Davis wants to short circuit the process by giving the executive branch reorganization authority.

"It was a fiasco with Homeland Security last year" as Congress worked to authorize 22 federal agencies be moved to the new department, Davis said. And it could be a fiasco with other departments, according to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

DeLay noted that 45 offices at the Energy Department have awarded separate contracts for the same computer database programs. The Department of Health and Human Services manages seven separate agencies that fund programs to prevent child abuse.

The federal government has lagged behind the technology revolution "clinging to an organizational model developed between the 1930s and the 1970s," he said.

"Failing to exploit the benefits of a modernized organization -- a mistake that would bankrupt any business in our competitive economy -- has riddled federal programs with expensive and inefficient bureaucracies," DeLay said.

In testimony it submitted on the issue, the General Accounting Office warned that Congress must have a say in any reorganization plan.

"Only Congress can decide whether it wishes to limit its power and role in government reorganizations," GAO said. "Congress must agree with any restructuring proposals submitted for consideration by the president in order to make them a reality."
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Government Computer News
Defense wants tool for fast access to enemy data systems 
By Dawn S. Onley 

The Defense Department has awarded a research contract for a ruggedized portable system that warfighters would use to extract data from enemy forces? captured computers. 

Ideal Technology Corp. on Friday received a DOD Small Business Innovation Research six-month contract to begin work on the portable tool. The first phase is worth $65,000. If Defense awards the company a second-phase contract, the value of the deal could grow to $750,000. 

Officials of the Orlando, Fla., company said they will work with the Army?s Communications-Electronics Command in Fort Monmouth, N.J., on the Forward-Area Portable Forensics System, which will run Linux and other open-source software. 

Defense wants a system that will let U.S. forces assess whether a captured computer contains information critical to battle operations. When warfighters seize an enemy computer now, they must send it to a remote computer forensics lab for data analysis. DOD officials said the data is often not useful for commanders on the battlefield because remote analyses can take days, even weeks. 

With the planned system, users would search the data on the spot, Ideal officials said in a statement. 

Through its Small Business Innovation Research Program, DOD provides early-stage R&D funding directly to small technology companies and individual entrepreneurs.
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Government Computer News
04/04/03 
DOD intelligence unit will begin operating in June 
By Dawn S. Onley 

Stephen A. Cambone, the Defense Department?s former director of program analysis and evaluation, will on June 1 set up an organization to better share intelligence information across DOD and with other federal agencies. 

Cambone was sworn into his new post as the military?s first undersecretary of intelligence in mid-March after Senate confirmation. 

Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the position to emphasize the importance of intelligence gathering. Officials said the need for a DOD intelligence unit was underscored by the 2001 terrorist attacks against the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and the ongoing war against terrorism. 

Cambone also has served as principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy and as director of research at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University.
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Government Computer News
04/04/03 

Biometric standards gain more overseers 

By Susan M. Menke 
GCN Staff

The International Committee for Information Technology Standards this week named four new task groups to rein in the proliferating methods and formats of biometric authentication. 

Fernando Podio, chairman of the INCITS technical committee, said the work ?will support government and commercial applications.? Podio works in the Convergent Information Systems Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology?s IT Laboratory. 

The four INCITS groups will work on: 


Standardizing the reporting formats for finger, face, iris and signature products 


Ironing out interfaces between biometric components and other subsystems 


Drawing up application profiles for interoperability and data interchange 


Testing performance metric definitions. 

NIST last month released its own study of facial recognition products (http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/21408-1.html). It concluded that men are recognized with more accuracy than women and older people more so than younger ones. Although facial recognition has improved substantially in the last two years, NIST said, lighting changes affect accuracy. 

The standards agency also said last year that no single biometric method works well enough to be used alone, and that fingerprint methods need to become more accurate before they can be widely adopted (http://www.gcn.com/21_25/news/19773-1.html)
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