Clips March 7, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips March 7, 2003

ARTICLES

Appeals court strikes down Net porn law 
Judge Discards F.B.I. Evidence in Internet Case of Child Smut
T-Shirt, Web Site Spark Challenges to U.S. Rights
Ashcroft insists rights being upheld
Oregon bill opens doors to open source 
Data thieves nab 55,000 student records 
DISA: DMS on track [DOD e-massage]
Treasury names Ladner new CIO
Investors shut out as firms fail to broadcast meetings 
Filling the cybersecurity void
Witnesses call for help at E911 hearing
Kellogg describes cyber battlefield
House appropriators back tech programs Bush seeks to eliminate 
House chair questions Ridge on cybersecurity plans 
Disaster scenario reveals private-sector misperceptions, concerns
U.S. government agencies hop aboard Liberty Alliance
IDC: Internet traffic to keep doubling each year
Battle lines drawn in digital TV copy protection

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CNews.net
Appeals court strikes down Net porn law 
By Declan McCullagh 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 6, 2003, 6:07 PM PT

WASHINGTON--A federal law aimed at curbing Internet pornography violates Americans' free speech rights and is unconstitutional, an appeals court ruled Thursday. 
For the second time, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia struck down a law that would imprison commercial Web site operators who do not cordon off sexually explicit material from minors. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) "is not narrowly tailored to proscribe commercial pornographers and their ilk, as the government contends, but instead prohibits a wide range of protected expression," the court said. 

"The analysis is the one we were making from the very beginning, which is that the law makes it a crime to communicate speech that is clearly protected (by the First Amendment) to adults," said Ann Beeson, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who litigated the case. "The only way someone can avoid prosecution is to set up burdensome screening systems. The impact is so great it violates the First Amendment." 

 

This decision is unusual because it's the second time the 3rd Circuit has rejected COPA as violating the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. In May 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the case, but said the 3rd Circuit's earlier decision was insufficient to establish that COPA was unconstitutional. 

In its opinion, released Thursday, the 3rd Circuit adopted a far more exhaustive approach, ruling that COPA was not narrowly tailored to target only pornography and that legitimate Webmasters would be unfairly targeted. COPA makes it a crime to publish "any communication for commercial purposes that includes sexual material that is harmful to minors, without restricting access to such material by minors." The maximum penalty is a $50,000 fine, six months in prison and additional civil fines. 

"COPA will likely deter many adults from accessing restricted content, because many Web users are simply unwilling to provide identification information in order to gain access to content, especially where the information they wish to access is sensitive or controversial," the court said. "People may fear to transmit their personal information, and may also fear that their personal, identifying information will be collected and stored in the records of various Web sites or providers of adult identification numbers." 

The U.S. Justice Department, which is defending the law, could appeal its loss to the Supreme Court a second time. A representative could not be reached for comment Thursday. 

In the previous round, in 1999, the 3rd Circuit relied primarily on COPA's definition of "community standards," concluding that Web sites that would be perfectly legal in liberal areas of the United States could be viewed as unlawful in more conservative jurisdictions. 

The Supreme Court rejected that as an insufficient argument against the law. A plurality opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas said, "If a publisher chooses to send its material into a particular community, this court's jurisprudence teaches that it is the publisher's responsibility to abide by that community's standards. The publisher's burden does not change simply because it decides to distribute its material to every community in the nation." 

In fact, said Thomas, "If a publisher wishes for its material to be judged only by the standards of particular communities, then it need only take the simple step of utilizing a medium that enables it to target the release of its material into those communities." 

Only Justice John Paul Stevens thought that the problems with variable "community standards" were by themselves sufficient to eviscerate COPA. "In the context of the Internet...community standards become a sword, rather than a shield," Stevens wrote in his lone dissent. "If a prurient appeal is offensive in a puritan village, it may be a crime to post it on the World Wide Web." 

Plaintiffs in the COPA case include the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Salon.com, ObGyn.net, Philadelphia Gay News and the Internet Content Coalition. CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, is a member of the Internet Content Coalition. 

COPA represents Congress' second attempt to restrict sexually explicit material on the Internet. The Supreme Court in 1997 rejected the Communications Decency Act, which covered "indecent" or "patently offensive" material, as unconstitutional. On Wednesday, the court heard oral arguments on a separate law that requires libraries accepting federal funds to install controversial filtering software.
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New York Times
March 7, 2003
Judge Discards F.B.I. Evidence in Internet Case of Child Smut
By BENJAMIN WEISER

A federal judge in Manhattan has thrown out the government's evidence in an Internet child pornography case involving a Bronx man, in a ruling that could imperil scores of related prosecutions around the country.

The judge, Denny Chin of Federal District Court, ruled that the F.B.I. agents who had prepared a crucial affidavit had "acted with reckless disregard for the truth." The ruling, dated Wednesday, was released yesterday, the same day that a federal judge in St. Louis, Catherine D. Perry, ordered evidence suppressed in a related case. Judge Perry, too, cited false statements in the affidavit.

The F.B.I. affidavit claimed that anyone who had signed up to join the Internet group at the center of the investigation automatically received child pornography from other members through an e-mail list.

This claim was used to obtain search warrants for the homes and computers of people who had joined the group, known as Candyman. The bureau later conceded that people who had signed up for the group  which also included chat sites, surveys and file sharing  could opt out of the mailing list and did not automatically receive pornography.

As a result, Judge Chin ruled, investigators would not have been justified in searching the home and computer of the Bronx man, Harvey Perez, who had signed up for the Candyman group but did not send or receive e-mail messages containing images.

"In the context of this case, a finding of probable cause would not be reasonable," Judge Chin wrote. Most subscribers to the group  part of a larger site known as eGroups  elected to receive no e-mail, Judge Chin said. The eGroups site, which was acquired by Yahoo, and the Candyman group are no longer in operation.

Operation Candyman was announced with great fanfare a year ago by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Thus far, more than 1,800 people have been investigated, and more than 100 arrested, an F.B.I. spokeswoman said. There have been around 60 convictions, many as a result of guilty pleas, she added. Some defendants have admitted to molesting children, officials have said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Casey Stavropoulos, said yesterday that the two court rulings were being reviewed. "The department remains committed," she said, "to vigorously investigating and prosecuting the purveyors and distributors of child pornography."

Defense lawyers in the cases praised the rulings. Nicole Armenta, who represents Mr. Perez, said: "The fact that someone visited a Web site, and you don't know if they did anything wrong, can't be a reason to go into their home and seize their computer."

Daniel A. Juengel, a lawyer for Gregory Strauser, the defendant in the St. Louis case, called the rulings "a major victory for the Fourth Amendment," which protects against illegal searches and seizures. Mr. Juengel said he believed the decisions would significantly change how the Justice Department handled search warrants involving Internet crime, and how judges looked at affidavits in such cases.

The F.B.I. spokeswoman had no comment on the rulings, or on the agents' actions, and said that the agents would also have no comment. One agent, Geoffrey Binney, has left the F.B.I., and did not return a message left at his office seeking comment.

It could not be learned yesterday how many Candyman prosecutions have relied on the affidavit in question, but it appears that there could be many challenges.

Judge Chin noted that 700 copies of a draft version of the affidavit were sent to F.B.I. offices around the country for use in the investigation. In New York, federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn announced last July that 10 people, including Mr. Perez, were being charged in the Candyman investigation.

Without the false statement in the affidavit, Judge Chin said, all that remained was the allegation that Mr. Perez had subscribed to a Web site where unlawful images of child pornography could be downloaded.

"If the government is correct in its position that membership in the Candyman group alone was sufficient to support a finding of probable cause, then probable cause existed to intrude into the homes" of several thousand people, merely because their e-mail addresses were entered into the Web site, Judge Chin wrote.

"Here, the intrusion is potentially enormous," the judge added. "Thousands of individuals would be subject to search, their homes invaded and their property seized, in one fell swoop, even though their only activity consisted of entering an e-mail address into a Web site from a computer located in the confines of their own homes."
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Reuters
T-Shirt, Web Site Spark Challenges to U.S. Rights
Thu Mar 6, 4:07 PM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Free speech, a key tenet of the U.S. Constitution, is facing unusual challenges in pre-war, post 9/11 America -- where wearing an anti-war T-shirt prompted an arrest and lampooning the vice president's wife drew a letter from a White House lawyer. 


The creator of a satirical Web site that took aim at Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), said he felt a chill when the letter on White House stationery arrived. 


"I read it very carefully and while I could see that technically it was a request ... the overall tone of it and the citing of various and sundry cases was obviously threatening in nature," John Wooden said by telephone from Brooklyn, New York. "You don't get just a request from the vice president's office." 


The letter from David Addington, a counsel to the vice president, asked Wooden to remove pictures and a "fictitious biography" of Mrs. Cheney from the site, www.whitehouse.org. 


Instead, Wooden added red clown noses to pictures of Mrs. Cheney, over the word "CENSORED," and posted Addington's letter. A Cheney aide who asked not to be identified said neither the vice president nor Mrs. Cheney were aware of the letter before it was sent and consider the matter closed. 


The New York Civil Liberties Union has taken up the case and is waiting for a reply from the White House, since it considers this matter typical of an atmosphere of repression in the United States. 


"It's clear that the Bush-Cheney administration has put the blocks in place for a repressive climate on even the most fundamental and obvious of issues, like the right to have a Web site that satirizes the vice president's wife," said Donna Lieberman, the group's executive director. 


Lieberman said another sign of the times was the arrest earlier this week of a lawyer at a public mall near Albany, New York. The lawyer was charged with trespassing after refusing to take off a "Give Peace A Chance" T-shirt he had just bought at the mall. 


The New York group's parent, the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), has reported a 15 percent surge in membership since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijack attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites). 


Civil libertarians raised concerns soon after the attacks that the wish to find the guilty might result in violation of individual rights. They continue to chafe at the USA Patriot Act, passed 45 days after the attacks, which gave the government greater powers to eavesdrop and detain immigrants.

The ACLU launched a campaign against new legislation being drafted by the Justice Department (news - web sites) that would create a terrorist identification database and limit the disclosure of certain information and allow pretrial detention of suspected terrorists without bail. 


In full-page advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Times, the ACLU said the Patriot Act makes it legal "for government agents to break into your home when you are away, conduct a search -- and keep you from finding out for days, weeks or even months that a warrant was ever issued?" 


The ad said the new legislation, dubbed Patriot II, would give the government "even broader authority to search our homes, learn what we read, find out where we vacation and monitor what drugs our doctors prescribe." 


Justice Department officials confirmed that the new legislation was being drafted in February, but Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said at a congressional hearing this week that the legislation had not been finalized. 


Constitutional law expert Neal Katyal of Georgetown University said the Patriot Act and its possible sequel are not in and of themselves dangers to individual U.S. rights, but said various moves by the Bush administration since 9/11 add up to "a dramatic attack on civil liberties in this country."
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Washington Times
Ashcroft insists rights being upheld
Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 7, 2003

     Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday told a House committee the Justice Department, in its pursuit of terrorists since the September 11 attacks, had not violated civil liberties and remained intent on "protecting and nourishing an environment of freedom."
     "The only thing worth securing, if we are seeking security, is securing freedom. And we must not abandon freedom in the pursuit of security," Mr. Ashcroft told members of the House Appropriations Committee at the start of a hearing on the department's $23.3 billion budget for fiscal 2004.
     His comments came after Rep. Jose E. Serrano, New York Democrat, expressed concern about whether the Justice Department's global efforts to confront terrorists, including the rounding up of suspected illegal immigrants in this country, threatened civil liberties.
     "I have the highest regard for the Justice Department and all the important work it does. The response to the attacks of September 11 was and is deeply appreciated by New Yorkers, especially this one," Mr. Serrano said.
     "On the other hand, some of the policies the department has proposed to combat terrorism are deeply troubling, and I fear some officials are so intent on fighting against terror that they forget what we are fighting for," he said.
     Mr. Serrano said he and others feared that during times of crisis, some steps could be taken by the department to cause "long-term harm to the values we stand for," adding that other crises had led to civil rights abuses in the past, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
     "I don't like people reading my e-mails or listening to my phone calls. The books I buy are my own business. I don't like people poking around in my personal life, for my personal life is not a threat to my country," he said. "And my constituents feel the same."
     Mr. Serrano acknowledged a "very delicate balance" between protecting the United States from terrorists, finding them, bringing them to justice, preventing further acts of terrorism and preserving civil liberties, and that maintaining that balance was "extremely difficult."
     "But we must never tip the balance away from the rights and freedoms that make us Americans and make the United States a beacon to the world," he said. "After all, our struggle is about freedom. ... It's about our freedom, it's about other people's freedoms.
     "If we forget who we are and behave badly here or in other places, then they won, the September 11 crowd would have won," he said.
     Mr. Ashcroft described the safeguarding of civil liberties as "the single most important task we have."
     "At the beginning of this republic, when there were but four Cabinet agencies, there was the Department of State to deal with foreign powers; a Department of War to wage war and defense; a Department of the Treasury to look after financial matters; and it is no shock to learn that the Attorney General's Office became the office which developed a focus on protecting and nourishing an environment of freedom," he said.
     "That's why we have a special sensitivity to it. And we always need to be reminded and welcome reminding that the pursuit of civil liberties is the responsibility of the Justice Department," he said. "And we will continue to make that our highest priority."
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News.com
Oregon bill opens doors to open source 
By Robert Lemos 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 6, 2003, 4:56 PM PT

Oregon could become the first state to require that open-source software be considered by its agencies as an alternative to any proprietary solution, if a bill introduced this week passes muster. 
The Open Source Software for Oregon Act would mandate that any state government agency consider open-source software for all new software acquisitions and make purchasing decisions based on a "value-for-money basis." Moreover, under the act, state workers would have to avoid buying products that don't comply with open standards.

"Long term, my hope is we will get computer systems away from proprietary operating systems and towards open standards," said Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Ore., who introduced the bill. "The benefits are about maintaining privacy...and access to open information on the Internet." 


The bill is the latest point scored by the Linux and open-source communities after the fallout from Microsoft's aggressive licensing tactics of last summer. Governments worldwide have started recognizing the decade-old Linux operating system as a viable, and often preferable, option to the software giant's products. 

The Redmond, Wash.-based company angered many in Oregon, including Rep. Barnhart, when it called for major school districts to confirm that they had licenses for all their Microsoft products. Such requests could have cost the school districts tens of thousands of dollars to fulfill, said Barnhart.

"The cost of doing that kind of audit can be enormous," he said. "And the large districts have been having fiscal problems for longer than the current statewide problems." Oregon is in the middle of a massive budget shortfall, he said, adding that open-source software could help cut costs. 

Barnhart hopes that greater adoption of open-source technologies could also future-proof the state's information technology infrastructure. 

"I have been hearing about the limitations that Microsoft and others might put on the capacity of their software," he said. "If I should be concerned about it, I don't know yet. But I do know that if you use open source, you know exactly what you are getting." 

Oregon isn't the only state that is considering open-source legislation. A more stringent bill has been introduced to the state legislature of California. 

That bill, the Digital Software Security Act, requires open-source code and relaxed licensing for software before the products would be considered for government applications. Open-source software meets all the requirements, while products from proprietary companies for the most part do not. 
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CNews.com
Data thieves nab 55,000 student records 
By Robert Lemos 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 6, 2003, 1:44 PM PT

Online attackers stole information on more than 55,000 students and faculty from insecure database servers at the University of Texas at Austin, the school said on Wednesday. 
Discovered Sunday night, the attack used millions of randomly generated Social Security numbers to request records from the school's database, resulting in 55,200 matches, Daniel A. Updegrove, the university's vice president of information technology, said in a statement. In addition to Social Security numbers, the data includes names, addresses and e-mail addresses. 

"U.T., in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies, has focused its efforts since Sunday evening on identifying the perpetrator of the break-in and recapturing the stolen data," Updegrove said in the statement. "To date there is no evidence that the stolen data have been distributed beyond the computer of the perpetrator." 


The data heist comes after several major thefts that have put a spotlight on the inadequate protection of consumer data. In February, a data processing center in Nebraska revealed that 8 million credit card numbers had been stolen from its servers, and, in January, the University of Kansas acknowledged that online attackers had snagged the records of 1,400 international students. 

Updegrove could not immediately be reached for comment, nor could representatives at the Austin, Texas, offices of the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney General. 

Past and present students, faculty, staff and job applicants could be affected, according to the statement. Officials at the university are discussing the best way to inform those whose data is at risk. The university stressed in the advisory that student academic records and personal health information were not disclosed.
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Federal Computer Week
DISA: DMS on track
BY Dan Caterinicchia 
March 6, 2003

Despite some nagging rumors that it is behind schedule and potentially technologically obsolete, the Defense Department's system for secure electronic messages is actually on schedule and has recently seen a "modest" usage increase, Defense Information Systems Agency officials said.

The Defense Message System (DMS), which is designed to support secure communications worldwide, will replace the aging Automatic Digital Network (Autodin) when it is shut down Sept. 30, said Verlin Hardin, DISA's DMS program manager.

DMS messages travel over the Defense Information Systems Network, which distributes voice, video and data messages. The system is designed to provide writer-to-reader message services for classified and top-secret information to all DOD users at their desktops and, if needed, to other federal agencies and contractors.

Most DOD employees have a Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook client for e-mail. DMS messages look slightly different because of the strict security parameters. However, users can compose DMS messages at their desktops and then use a Fortezza card, which has a cryptographic token for securing messages, to sign and encrypt it, said Diann McCoy, DISA's principal director for applications engineering. 

DOD approved DMS 3.0 Gold -- the software's latest version -- for deployment last summer, and "that milestone drove a stake in the ground" that showed the capabilities were in place "to make DMS a good, solid messaging solution," Hardin said.

However, last summer's milestone also included some "exit criteria" required by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (ASD-C3I), including directory and security enhancements, which DISA is now testing and completing before Autodin is shut down, Hardin said.

McCoy said DOD periodically reviews commercial messaging solutions to compare them to what is available in DMS. DMS requires National Security Agency-certified cryptography to ensure that military users have the best available service. 

She added that the only thing that could delay the program from meeting its next milestone would be "real-world events," such as a potential war in Iraq or other operations associated with the global war on terrorism.

DISA officials refuted any claims that DMS is technologically obsolete, but did acknowledge that the capabilities the system provides could be folded into other services as DOD continues its transformation into a network-centric enterprise. In a net-centric environment, data is made available as quickly as possible to those who need it across the organization or on the battlefield.

McCoy said DISA is doing ongoing tests between now and when Autodin is scheduled to be turned off, to ensure that DMS' enhanced capabilities, including emergency messaging requirements, are ready to meet DOD users' expectations and needs.

ASD-C3I and DISA officials have identified nine "core enterprise services" that will form the foundation of that environment, including two that could affect the future of DMS: messaging and collaboration, McCoy said. "Functions that DMS provides could be transformed as part of what happens with net-centric services."

Still, DMS is not going away anytime soon, and Hardin said it might be 10 years or more before the system's features became part of other net-centric services. He added that decision will ultimately be made by ASD-C3I, which "gives requirements and then DISA provides the capabilities." 

DISA's biggest remaining hurdles are training and cultural issues to ensure that DOD users understand and take advantage of what DMS has to offer, Verlin and McCoy agreed.

Another challenge involves keeping all the military services and DOD agencies' addresses current, McCoy said, adding that each organization has its own schedule for updating its users' addresses and that as more users come online, DMS traffic will increase. 

World events are already resulting in a "modest increase" in DMS traffic, with 5.9 million messages passing through the systems last month, she said. Lockheed Martin Corp. holds the prime $1.6 billion DMS contract. That, however, is only a potential ceiling value. To date, DISA has spent about $550 million on DMS, agency officials said.

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin refused to comment and deferred all questions to DISA.
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Federal Computer Week
Treasury names Ladner new CIO
BY Diane Frank 
March 6, 2003

The Treasury Department has named a new chief information officer, Drew Ladner, who will start March 10, according to a department spokeswoman.

Treasury could not provide any additional details, but a search found that in 1999 and 2000 Ladner co-founded two technology start-ups in Seattle, Clique.com and Ripcord Systems Inc. 

Mike Parker has been serving as acting CIO at Treasury since November 2002, when then-acting CIO Mayi Canales left for a private-sector consulting job. 

Ladner will face some challenges as the department's new CIO. Treasury has lost many senior information technology officials in the past year and now is losing even more staff because of the government reorganization for the Homeland Security Department. 

Three of Treasury's biggest organizations -- the Secret Service, the Customs Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- have been shifted to the Homeland Security and Justice departments. At the department level, officials expect to lose more than 50 IT people to the reorganization.
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Boston Globe
Blue Cross to pay doctors for online advice
By Liz Kowalczyk, 3/7/2003

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts will begin a pilot program this summer to pay doctors for consulting with patients online, an effort to increase patients' access to their physicians for nonurgent medical problems.

The state's largest health insurer said it's the first health plan in Massachusetts to reimburse doctors specifically for responding to members' e-mails, although Blue Cross plans in other states also are testing the strategy. 

Doctors, who have not embraced e-mail consultations partly because insurers generally don't pay for them, will receive $20 per online visit from Blue Cross plus the member's copayment of $5, $10, or $15. About 500 doctors from across the state will participate initially, and Blue Cross or the doctors' offices will provide their e-mail addresses to patients.

Dr. James Fanale, Blue Cross's chief medical officer, said not every e-mail will qualify as an electronic office visit. For example, quick questions about how often to take a medication won't. But when a person is coming down with the flu or experiencing a flare-up of chronic back pain and wants advice, that will count as an online visit. Doctors will be required to respond within 24 hours.
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Blumberg News
Investors shut out as firms fail to broadcast meetings 
By Peter Robison

Tyco International, General Electric and Walt Disney may be shutting shareholders out of a chance to learn more about the companies they own. 
These companies and hundreds of others in the United States don't broadcast their annual meetings over the Internet or hold teleconferences, making it impossible for investors to monitor the gatherings without flying to places like Pembroke, Bermuda, where Tyco met yesterday. 

Some shareholders say that's unacceptable at a time of unprecedented concern about corporate ethics. Investors shaken by scandals at Enron and WorldCom have proposed a record 899 resolutions be put to vote at annual meetings this year, covering everything from how much companies pay their executives to who audits financial statements. 

"It's somewhat shocking that Webcasting meetings isn't universal practice," said Patrick McGurn, vice president of Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises U.S. investment funds on corporate governance and shareholder proposals. "Directors represent shareholders; that's their only job." 

Only a handful of the largest U.S. companies Webcast their shareholder meetings, according to Chris Lotterer, general manager of Bestcalls.com, which tracks corporate conference calls. The meetings account for less than 1 percent of the events scheduled this quarter and next, he said. 

Alcoa, 3M, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Xerox, United Technologies, International Paper, ITT Industries and Federated Department Stores are among those that said they don't plan to broadcast their meetings. 

Some, like Alcoa and International Paper, said most of their investors are institutional and prefer more intimate meetings with management. Others, such as Federated, said Webcasts aren't warranted because the meetings rarely are newsworthy. 

Joanne Dowdell, director of corporate responsibility at the $1 billion Citizens Fund in Portsmouth, N.H., said she would like to make her own decisions about what is important. 

"It's difficult to get to meetings and this would really open the doors," she said. 

The idea makes sense to Harvey Goldschmid, a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the primary author of an October 2000 rule that required companies to stop giving important information to select investors. 

"Some of the companies have opened them to the Web, and even have taken questions from those outside the meeting room," he said. "And this seems to be a good practice." 

Microsoft, Intel and Wal-Mart are among those that do conduct Webcasts. They cost from $675 to $5,000 and can reach unlimited viewers, according to Boston-based CCBN, the largest provider of Webcasts. Shareholders should "receive this vital information in a very easy and direct way," said Megan Numrich, a Microsoft spokeswoman. 

The SEC's 2000 rule, called Regulation FD, required companies to distribute information that might influence share prices to all investors at the same time. As a result, executives' speeches are now often broadcast over the Internet or available on teleconferences. 

Tyco, for example, will hold a meeting with analysts in New York Thursday and Webcast the event. 

Regulation FD doesn't necessarily apply to shareholder meetings, because companies rarely use them to make financial forecasts or reveal new details about their businesses. 

Shareholder proposals are typically nonbinding on management. Gadflies often dominate meetings, pressing issues of little concern to other investors. 

This year may be different. Weightier matters are on many meeting agendas. Shareholders including the largest U.S. pension fund, California Public Employees' Retirement System  or Calpers as it is known, are taking a more active role after the scandals. 

The 899 resolutions proposed so far in 2003 compare with 802 for all of last year, and include 659 related to corporate governance, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks proxy issues. 

Shareholder proposals that do win support can force companies to alter behavior. Seattle-based Airborne, the third-biggest U.S. air- freight carrier, last month bowed to a proposal to elect directors annually after the measure won 85 percent of the vote at its 2002 meeting. 

Access via the Web "is essential for a fund like ours, with holdings in over 2,000 public companies," said Brad Pacheco, a Calpers spokesman. 

Calpers and other pension funds that hold $1 trillion in assets supported a resolution for Tyco to move its headquarters back to the United States from Bermuda, where it relocated in 1997 to take advantage of lower tax rates. 

"The meeting is open to shareholders who want to attend in person," said Gary Holmes, a spokesman for Tyco. 

"Come to Bermuda?" asked Ron Luraschi, senior vice president of Amalgamated Bank, which owns 800,000 Tyco shares. "There are virtually no shareholder rights in Bermuda, and that's why they're there." 

Federated spokeswoman Carol Sanger said the company has never broadcast its annual meeting, partly because little happens other than the routine business of electing directors and endorsing the auditor. 

That attitude irks Calpers spokesman Pacheco. 

"There are probably some meetings that are sleepers," he said, "but with Webcasts, that might change." 
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Federal Computer Week
Filling the cybersecurity void
BY Diane Frank 
March 6, 2003

Bush administration officials are considering the creation of a special coordinating committee to replace the now-defunct Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, which was eliminated in a recent executive order.

Meanwhile, the House Select Committee on Homeland Security created a subcommittee to examine cybersecurity issues.

On Feb. 28, the White House issued a new executive order that, among other things, completely eliminated the board  a group that brought together top officials from every agency throughout government to address cybersecurity issues. The board also led the development of the administration's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, the final version of which the White House released last month.

Officials in industry, particularly the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), expressed concern that the elimination of the board would diminish agencies' participation in critical infrastructure protection efforts.

Although the board is gone, officials are discussing creating a critical infrastructure committee on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, said David Wray, a Homeland Security Department spokesman. The administration also is likely to continue to have a cybersecurity adviser to the president, although details on both issues are still under development, Wray said.

"When people go through change or see change, there is a lot of concern that things will drop between the cracks, and there is a feverish work going on to make sure that doesn't happen," said Sallie McDonald, a senior official with the department's new Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.

The House Select Committee on Homeland Security's new cybersecurity subcommittee is one of five panels created March 4 in an organizational meeting. The cybersecurity subcommittee also will look at science and all forms of research and development, and many in industry praised the move, including ITAA and the Business Software Alliance. 

Other subcommittees will focus on border security, counterterrorism, emergency preparedness and internal committee rules.
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Federal Computer Week
Witnesses call for help at E911 hearing
BY Dibya Sarkar 
March 5, 2003

In 1993, David Koon's daughter, Jennifer, was abducted and killed in Rochester, N.Y. The family had installed a wireless telephone in her car in case of emergencies, and Jennie had managed to call 911 for help. However the dispatcher was unable to locate her.

"The dispatcher listened helplessly to the last 20 minutes of Jennie's life," said Koon, a New York state assemblyman who testified before the Communications Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Enhanced 911 (E911) issues.

The March 5 hearing followed last week's launch of the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional E911 Caucus to raise awareness of the issue among federal lawmakers. While 99 percent of the country's population has access to basic and enhanced 911, there are still gaps and deployment of a wireless system is slow.

Reasons, said several congressional witnesses, include lack of political will, poor coordination among the groups needed to implement the complex system and little money.

"This is an issue of political will and funding," said John Melcher, president of the National Emergency Number Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to E911 deployment. "And where the former is present, the latter will follow." 

Since 1991, New York has been collecting monthly surcharges  now totaling $200 million  on wireless telephone bills to finance the deployment of a wireless E911 system. However, not one cent has been disbursed, Koon said, and that may be due to the current budget woes.

To remedy this, Koon introduced legislation to change how the state funds deployment of wireless E911 technology. Modeled after Virginia's program, his legislation, which passed the state assembly Feb. 24, would create the Wireless 911 Local Incentive Funding Enhancement (LIFE) Program.

LIFE would require local Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs)  emergency dispatch centers in 911 parlance  to submit a written and financial plan with an implementation timetable to the New York State 911 Board for approval. 

Once approved, the local centers would be eligible for funding for system equipment, software and hardware. Bonds would be issued and debt service would be paid from the existing state wireless surcharge. The current legislation will allow localities to receive funds prospectively to achieve quicker access to technology, he said.

Two commissioners from the Federal Communications Commission testified that their agency is absolutely committed to wireless E911 deployment and would step up enforcement of wireless carriers to comply with rules.

"There's no higher calling or higher priority at the FCC than E911," said Jonathan Adelstein, adding that the commission could use more resources for enforcement.

However, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the FCC previously "sent the wrong message" by granting waivers to carriers to delay compliance. 

The commissioners announced the launch of an Enhanced 911 Coordination Initiative and scheduled an April 29 meeting that would bring together representatives from the public safety community, wireless industry and other stakeholders to devise strategies for deployment.

S. Mark Tuller, a vice president and general counsel with Verizon Wireless, said his company is committed to deploying E911 by working with local dispatch centers and selling E911-capable phones to their customers.

However, he said that when his company has been ready to implement the service, local dispatch centers have not. "Additionally, we found the PSAPs have frequently requested service on the expectation that they would be ready in time for us, and yet in reality they did not have the proper funding or resources to go live. This means our effort was misprioritized or wasted."

He added the method for funding E911 is inadequate, unfair and wasteful and requested that Congress do something to resolve the funding and other problems.

"To be blunt, the diversion of funds that we must collect from our customers under the label of '911 tax' is akin to false advertising by some governments," he said referring to New York and several other states.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Kellogg describes cyber battlefield
BY Dan Caterinicchia 
March 5, 2003

The war on terrorism is being fought not only in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also on a cyber battlefield where terrorists are using information technology to their advantage.

However, the Defense Department is also using IT and is attempting to "connect the dots" before the next attack is carried out, according to one member of the Joint Staff.

Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Kellogg Jr., director of command, control, communications and computers for the Joint Staff, said the cryptology being used by terrorists to protect their data and communications is as good, if not better, than DOD's solutions. 

He added that terrorists also have the capability to use steganography to pass instructions and other information. Steganography involves hiding a message or image within another image, a sound file (or musical composition) or some other unlikely document location.

"They are hiding stuff in pictures and embedding them in places we can't get to...like porn sites," Kellogg said during a March 5 panel at the Homeland and Global Security Summit in Washington, D.C.

DOD also is leveraging IT to "connect the dots" to ensure that there is never a repeat of the type of terrorist attacks that occurred Sept. 11, 2001, he said. "The best counter in asymmetric war is information and how you use it."

Asymmetric warfare is any means by which a generally inferior force can gain advantage over mightier opponents. On the asymmetric battlefield, Kellogg said, "The primary [thing terrorists] are using to their advantage is information technology."

In an interview with FCW, Kellogg made clear that no DOD personnel are accessing porn sites looking for hidden terrorist messages. But he added that other government agencies and organizations are able to do it and that DOD would use and act on any "legally vetted information" that is uncovered.

Kellogg also said that last week's capture of al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was significant not only because he is in custody and can be interrogated, but also because "they got his computers," and even deleted files may hold valuable information for DOD and intelligence agencies.

Northern Command (Northcom), which is responsible for ensuring homeland defense capabilities and supporting civilian authorities when directed by the president or secretary of Defense, doesn't yet have the integrated battle command capabilities of its fellow worldwide DOD combatant commands, but IT solutions are starting to make it happen, Kellogg said. 

He added that Northcom must share information with all of the military services and DOD agencies as well as federal agencies and state and local law enforcement and first responders, which makes the task even harder.

Northcom will have about 600 people at its headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo., when it achieves full operational capability Oct. 1, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Lloyd Dodd, the command's chief surgeon. He added that as of last week, the headquarters staff included 258 people.
*******************************
Government Executive
March 6, 2003 
House appropriators back tech programs Bush seeks to eliminate 
By Bara Vaida, National Journal's Technology Daily 

Members of the House Appropriations subcommittee that drafts the budget for the Commerce Department on Thursday let Commerce Secretary Donald Evans know that they are unlikely to approve President Bush's request to eliminate funding for some technology programs in fiscal 2004.

Both Virginia Republican Frank Wolf, chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee, and ranking Democrat Jose Serrano of New York noted that the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), two of the programs Bush targeted for elimination in his budget, have wide support in the committee and are likely to receive funding in next year.

"You proposed once again that ATP and MEP should be on the chopping block," Serrano said, "yet you must know that this committee seems to favor these programs and will work hard to put them back in again. ... When you present a budget that makes us then have to pay for it again, you put us in a holea hole that doesn't allow us to address some new initiatives."

Bush proposed that ATP funding be curtailed to minimal levels necessary to finish existing projects and that MEP receive $12 million to fund two remaining centers for seven years, after which time they would be on their own. In the past two budget cycles, Bush has requested that those two programs, as well as the Technology Opportunities Program (TOP), be eliminated, but Congress has supplied funding anyway. 

Evans testified that while both ATP and MEP are successful programs, Bush has made other areas related to homeland and economic security higher priorities, so he had to cut money elsewhere. "These are worthwhile programs," Evans said. "But this is about the president's budget and his priorities, and the administration's position is that this is a difficult period and we are managing a very tight budget and these [programs] just didn't make the list." 

Evans also noted in testimony to the subcommittee that the department is working to eliminate the practice of using fees collected by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for unrelated federal programs. Many in the technology community have said the practice has stymied PTO's ability to review patent applications, as well as to make quality decisions about what products and ideas should receive patents.

Further, Evans outlined a request for $10.3 million to be allocated to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to both develop standards for biometrics systems used to identify visitors to the United States and to test radiation standards. Some $7 million would be used to complete a NIST study on the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. 

When asked why NIST is researching biometrics given that the Homeland Security Department's research and development division also is expected to conduct such research, Evans said NIST's team of scientists "are set and ready to go" while Homeland Security is still developing. In future budget years, the NIST research on biometrics may move to that department, he said. 
*******************************
Government Executive
March 6, 2003 
House chair questions Ridge on cybersecurity plans 
 From National Journal's Technology Daily 

A House committee chairman on Wednesday requested information from Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge about his department's plans to "lead the government-wide cybersecurity coordination effort."


In a letter to Ridge, Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., expressed concern over the administration's decision to eliminate the position of White House special adviser on cybersecurity and to move portions of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board from the White House to the Homeland Security Department.


"It is unclear how the administration will continue its focused approach to cybersecurity," Davis wrote. "It is imperative that the department has a senior-level adviser in place to coordinate the federal government's cybersecurity efforts."
*******************************
Computerworld
Disaster scenario reveals private-sector misperceptions, concerns
By DAN VERTON 
MARCH 06, 2003

On the eve of military action by the U.S. and with terrorist attacks against the private sector still possible, CIOs and IT managers remain confused about the roles and missions of various organizations involved in response and recovery efforts stemming from a major disaster, according to former CIOs and experts. 
In a Computerworld poll taken last week, just after 158 CIOs and IT managers watched security experts role-play responses to a fictional disaster involving both physical and cyber-based attacks, 55% of respondents assigned blame for the IT disaster to the various private-sector Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC). Only 13% blamed the government for not providing more physical security or not insisting on more secure IT products, and just 12% blamed the fictional software developer whose products enabled hackers to compound the impact of the physical disaster. 

The role-playing and poll took place at the Computerworld Premier 100 conference (see story). 

"This suggests a complete misconception as to what ISACs are and do," said a chief security officer at a major financial firm who requested anonymity. The CSO, who is also a former member of the board of the financial-sector ISAC, said ISACs provide information to their business members on security threats, vulnerabilities and incidents. They also represent a public/private cooperative relationship, since they are government-sponsored and facilitate information exchange with the government, he said. 

ISACs are not, however, regulating bodies that can force companies to take specific actions, the source said. 

Roger Cressey, the former chief of staff of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board who took part in the fictional exercise, said the survey data indicates that CIOs either don't know what the ISACs are about or they do know but expect more from them. "I think it's the latter," said Cressey. "That's encouraging, because it means the CIOs understand that this is principally a private-sector challenge, one where government can help but can't solve it alone." 

Sateesh Lele, chairman of Global Data Systems USA in San Jose and a former CIO at General Motors Corp., PepsiCo Inc. and Avon Products Inc., said the most immediate problem is a lack of close coordination and training between the government and private sector. Lele played the role of a fictional Internet service provider/operator during the disaster scenario discussion. 

"At the moment, it appears that the only group that has the focus of the nation's attention for combating terrorism and disaster recovery is the Department of Homeland Security," said Lele. But disaster recovery in the private sector is "ultimately a matter of being able to quickly assemble intelligence as it is emerging, piece it together by the minute, make decisions and then take quick action with the relevant people," he said. 

In his experience that has often meant having to "personally call the operations technicians, vice presidents and chairmen of Sprint, Verizon [or] AT&T and hardware and software vendors to get our operations on stream again," he said. 

The difficulty of trying to do something similar on a national level could be insurmountable without a cooperative framework that everybody understands, said Lele. "Unless you have a directory of contacts and a process of escalation [and] resolution and a habit born of many rehearsals of scenario-playing and postmortems, we will continue to bumble along with each incident." 

That, coupled with reluctance by the private sector to fully take part in and support the ISACs, could mean worse things for companies down the road, said the financial firm CSO. 

Industry tends not to take these things seriously enough," he said. "It's very important for industries to help demonstrate that public/private cooperation works. If that experiment is not successful, then you're going to see more regulation. The government wants to make sure the information is shared. If we don't do it, they will legislate it." 
*******************************
Computerworld
U.S. government agencies hop aboard Liberty Alliance
By Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service
MARCH 06, 2003

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Department of Defense have become some of the latest members to join the Liberty Alliance Project for implementing open standards for identity management on the Web. 
The government agencies' support, announced yesterday, brings the alliance's total members to more than 160 companies and organizations seeking to deploy open standards for federated network identity. Although the Liberty Alliance continues to garner support, the project, which was begun by Sun Microsystems Inc. in 2001, has yet to see widespread implementation. This is partly due to the weighty competition it faces from Microsoft Corp., which has its own authentication system, dubbed Passport. 

However, a poll released by the Liberty Alliance earlier this year indicated that over half of the members polled plan to implement IT projects this year using standards set forth by the group. 

The GSA and the Defense Department hope that by joining the project, they will be able to more readily meet one of the government's 24 e-government initiatives of "eAuthentication," which will verify the identities of both citizens and companies doing business with the government over the Internet, according to Liberty Alliance. 

Meeting this goal is especially important for the GSA, which is responsible for developing and implementing an infrastructure for common authentication services across the federal government. 
*******************************
Computerworld
IDC: Internet traffic to keep doubling each year
By David Legard, IDG News Service
MARCH 06, 2003

The amount of information transmitted globally over the Internet will continue to double each year over the next five years, according to research released yesterday by IDC. 
In 2002, the traffic volume was 180 petabits per day (1 petabit equals 1 million gigabits). This will increase to 5,175 petabits per day by 2007, the Framingham, Mass.-based firm said. 

The main driver will be a move to broadband access by current users rather than growth in subscribers to the Internet, IDC said. Broadband adoption by consumers will be the largest and fastest-growing sector of the Internet traffic market by 2007, it said. 

By that time, consumers will account for 60% of all Internet traffic, compared with 40% for business users. Mobile Internet users will have a minimal effect on traffic volume, IDC said. 

The strong growth pattern has interesting implications for the telecommunications industry as a whole and for telecommunications equipment suppliers in particular, according to IDC. First, the current malaise in the telecommunications market cannot be attributed to slowing growth of Internet traffic, as some industry observers have suggested. 

Second, as traffic continues to grow strongly, carriers will be looking to buy next-generation optical equipment that is faster and more efficient than equipment based on today's Synchronous Optical Network (Sonet) technology. 

This may include the Optical Transport Networks (OTN) standard, which has been adopted by the International Telecommunication Union as a proposed standard, to be known as ITU-T-G.709. OTN aims to increase network bandwidth, reducing the need to convert optical signals into electrical signals. 
*******************************
USA Today
Battle lines drawn in digital TV copy protection
WASHINGTON (AP)  Hollywood and Silicon Valley carried their battle over Internet piracy to Capitol Hill on Thursday, debating the need for technology to prevent the illegal trading of movies and television shows online. 

The entertainment industry told lawmakers that without copy protection the threat of extensive piracy will force the industry to move its best programming to pay services such as cable and satellite TV. 

"Over-the-air television as we know it today will be a thing of the past," said Fritz Attaway, an executive vice president with the Motion Picture Association of America. He testified before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Internet. 

The entertainment industry has proposed technology called a "broadcast flag," an electronic marker in digital programming that could thwart or limit copying or distribution of pirated broadcasts over the Internet. Many in the industry fear high-quality broadcasts could be sold online. 

The Federal Communications Commission is studying whether to require the marker, but it is unclear when its review will be finished, said Kenneth Ferree, chief of the FCC's media bureau. 

Congress has set a goal of December 2006 for TV broadcasters to switch from analog to digital signals, which offer more vivid pictures and crisper sound. The FCC is concerned the piracy issue could slow that transition. 

Opponents of the broadcast flag say it won't prevent piracy, but will restrict consumers who want to make copies for personal use. 

"The more we restrict how our customers can use our products, the more likely they are to be annoyed," said Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. The association represents technology companies, including one that develops software used by people who share music files online. 

Attaway used a laptop computer and a projector to show lawmakers excerpts from an episode of the television show 24, which his staff downloaded from the Internet the day before the hearing. He said the Internet allows for "effortless and costless worldwide distribution of copies." 

Critics of the entertainment industry say downloading movies and television programs from the Internet is much more difficult. 

It is easier and cheaper to record a movie on a VHS tape and send it through the mail than to record a digital broadcast and transmit it over the Internet, said Edward Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton University. Felten made his comments in a filing with the FCC. 

Felten said digital piracy requires computer equipment that can contain the massive files used for high-quality video. Such files can take days to upload and download through file sharing networks and are too big to send by e-mail. 

Attaway said it's only a matter of time before the process becomes easier. 

"If you make the assumption that there will be no technological progress above and beyond the technology that exists today, I would agree with them," Attaway said. "But I don't think it's reasonable or even rational to make that assumption." 
*******************************


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 472
Date: March 21, 2003

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Top Stories for Friday, March 21, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Will War Swap Privacy for Security?"
"W3C Unveils Its Patent Plans"
"Where Girls and Tech Make a Match"
"Cyberspace an Invisible Front in War on Terrorism"
"Biology, Robotics and More Inside Intel's Labs"
"War Worms Inch Across Internet"
"Internet Traffic Cops Could Foil Web Attacks"
"Researchers Develop Ultrafast Internet Protocol"
"Nanotechnology: Congress Thinks Big About Small Tech"
"Whatever Happened to Internet2--And Why You Can't Touch It"
"Leading Computer Science Professional Organizations to Present
 MobiSys '03"
"IETF Meets to Tackle Fundamental Problems"
"Easing a Skills' Shortage"
"Making Mountains Out of Molecules"
"New ICANN Head Promises Greater Openness"
"Will Open Source Force a Sea Change in IT?"
"The Revenge of Geography"
"The Sad and Increasingly Deplorable State of Internet Security"
"Recent Advances in Computer Vision"

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

"Will War Swap Privacy for Security?"
A pair of Washington, D.C., conferences on technology and
homeland security held on Thursday focused on how to strike a
balance between security and privacy, an issue being reinforced
by the U.S.-led war against Iraq.  Paul Rosenzweig of the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item1

"W3C Unveils Its Patent Plans"
For over three years, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has
been struggling to develop a patent policy that satisfies both
open source proponents who want royalty-free standards and
proprietary software companies who demand payment for the use of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item2

"Where Girls and Tech Make a Match"
Women account for half of the current workforce, yet only 20
percent of technology professionals; in addition, College Board
records indicate that the number of female students who took the
Advanced Placement exams in computer science fell from 17 percent ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item3

"Cyberspace an Invisible Front in War on Terrorism"
Despite a tremendous multi-year push by both the public and
private sectors to improve their computer security at a cost of
billions of dollars, security experts and government officials
admit that cyberattack preparation is basically impossible, and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item4

"Biology, Robotics and More Inside Intel's Labs"
Intel is working to find new growth fields by carrying out
research in robotics, biotechnology, and ubiquitous computing.
The company's research division is participating in the Robotic
Engineering Task Force (RETF), a joint effort between government, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item5

"War Worms Inch Across Internet"
At least three email attachments related to the current Iraqi war
are circulating on the Internet, and computer security firms
report a rash of Web site defacements as well.  Messages are both
for and against the war, and the most prolific war-related virus ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item6

"Internet Traffic Cops Could Foil Web Attacks"
Intel engineers David Putzolu and Todd Anderson claim they have
devised a technology that automatically blocks distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attacks by tweaking the routers that channel
Internet traffic along the shortest path to respond to alerts ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item7

"Researchers Develop Ultrafast Internet Protocol"
Caltech researchers demonstrated an ultrafast Internet protocol
that can send an entire DVD movie in less than five seconds by
sending the data via 10 paths simultaneously.  The Fast Active
queue management Scalable Transmission Control Protocol (FAST) ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item8

"Nanotechnology: Congress Thinks Big About Small Tech"
Legislation pending in the House and Senate would provide over $2
billion in the next three for nanotechnology research and
development.  U.S. Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) expects the
House Science Committee to pass H.R. 766 by May.  Committee ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item9

"Whatever Happened to Internet2--And Why You Can't Touch It"
Internet2 continues to grow and further innovative technologies
that filter down to today's commercial Internet and promise to
shape the future Internet as well.  The network now includes 202
universities and a number of other corporate research ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item10

"Leading Computer Science Professional Organizations to Present
 MobiSys '03"
The top mobile system researchers in the world will present their
latest work at the First International Conference on Mobile
Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys '03) in San
Francisco on May 5-8.  "MobiSys is a conference about [mobile] ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item11

"IETF Meets to Tackle Fundamental Problems"
The basic problems plaguing the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) will be the focus of a "birds of a feather" (BOF) session
on Friday that will concentrate on a recently published document
that takes issue with the organization's opaque agenda, its ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item12

"Easing a Skills' Shortage"
Ann Swain, CEO of the UK-based Association of Technology Staffing
Companies, predicts the United Kingdom will face a shortage of
skilled IT professionals when the global economy rebounds.  She
believes the problem is complicated by the low number of women in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item13

"Making Mountains Out of Molecules"
Phaedon Avouris, who manages IBM Research's nanoscale science and
technology group, coordinates his team's efforts into designing
chips, storage devices, and other systems using molecular
strands, and contends that the hype surrounding nanotechnology ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item14

"New ICANN Head Promises Greater Openness"
New ICANN President Paul Twomey says the organization's three
main objectives include being "open and consultative" with
stakeholders, and believes that ICANN should now look beyond OECD
nations and to the global Internet community.  He criticized the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item15

"Will Open Source Force a Sea Change in IT?"
Open source, combined with the advent of service-oriented
architecture, could seriously impact solutions providers that
rely on operating system licensing fees for most of their
revenue.  As a result, software companies will have to re-orient ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item16

"The Revenge of Geography"
The increasing interest that high-tech companies and researchers
have for location-finding technology shows that the Internet did
not signal the "death of distance."  Researchers are looking to
develop technologies that link the physical and virtual worlds, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item17

"The Sad and Increasingly Deplorable State of Internet Security"
Core Competence President David Piscitello and BBN Technologies'
Dr. Stephen Kent write that the current state of Internet
security is execrable, and warn that this situation is likely to
worsen before it improves.  The 2002 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item18

"Recent Advances in Computer Vision"
Computer vision technology is being developed to usher in
sophisticated, human-centered applications for human-computer
interfaces (HCIs), augmented perception, automatic media
interpretation, and video surveillance.  Computer vision is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0321f.html#item19


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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the April 11, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 481
Date: April 11, 2003

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Top Stories for Friday, April 11, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Standards Group Beats Back Patent Foes"
"Senate Introduces Bill to Can Spam"
"Patriot Act Extension Considered"
"Databases Ripe for Attacks"
"After Three Years of Wi-Fi, Hurdles Still Remain"
"Focus on Software Piracy Problem"
"Designing New Handhelds to Improve Human-Computer Interaction"
"India Builds Tflops Computing Cluster"
"A Self-Powered DNA Computer Redefines Small"
"Supply Chain Reaction"
"The Lowdown Download Blues"
"Benefits of Future Displays Debated"
"War on Electronic Privacy"
"Tech Giants Put Chips on Security Alliance"
"Painted LEDs Make Screen"
"The Ins and Outs of IT"
"Continuing the Fight Against Worms"
"The PC Factor"
"Rogue IT"

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

"Standards Group Beats Back Patent Foes"
The Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) intellectual
property rights working group has concluded there is no immediate
need to recharter rules allowing patented technologies in IETF
standards.  Rules currently on IETF books allow for reasonable ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item1

"Senate Introduces Bill to Can Spam"
Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a
bill on Thursday that aims to reduce the amount of spam clogging
Internet users' in-boxes by requiring online marketers to include
valid return addresses in the messages, giving consumers the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item2

"Patriot Act Extension Considered"
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reportedly wants to permanently extend
the Patriot Act beyond its 2005 sunset provision, a development
that is opposed by civil liberty proponents and others.  Privacy
Rights Clearinghouse director Beth Givens says a permanent ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item3

"Databases Ripe for Attacks"
Reported online security incidents and confirmed attacks climbed
37 percent from the fourth quarter of 2002 to the first quarter
of 2003, according to a report from Internet Security Systems
(ISS).  ISS' Pete Allor says the Slammer worm outbreak in late ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item4

"After Three Years of Wi-Fi, Hurdles Still Remain"
Many of Wi-Fi technology's promised advantages have yet to be
realized, and the nonprofit Wi-Fi Alliance acknowledges that
security shortcomings, differing standards, product
incompatibilities, and a lack of Wi-Fi "hot spots" need to be ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item5

"Focus on Software Piracy Problem"
Hollywood's battle against digital piracy may have grabbed most
of the attention, but that does not make software piracy any less
significant, asserts Business Software Alliance (BSA) VP of
enforcement Bob Kruger.  He is concerned that college students ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item6

"Designing New Handhelds to Improve Human-Computer Interaction"
Professionals in the field of human-computer interaction gathered
in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., this week to discuss the latest research
projects involving handheld devices.  The annual ACM conference on
human-computer interaction, CHI 2003, gave the world a glimpse of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item7

"India Builds Tflops Computing Cluster"
India has entered the international supercomputing arena with
last week's announcement of the Param Padma, a 1-teraflop
computing cluster developed by the Center for the Development of
Advanced Computing (C-DAC).  The cluster incorporates up to 248 1 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item8

"A Self-Powered DNA Computer Redefines Small"
DNA computers combine the advantages of minuscule size and
potentially massive storage capacity, and now researchers at
Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science have tweaked that model
with a device that uses data as a power source.  An earlier DNA ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item9

"Supply Chain Reaction"
Pervasive computing was first promoted as a technology that would
create hyper-networks of interconnected devices, but a lack of
practical applications indicated that the idea was ahead of its
time.  However, some companies now plan to give the concept a new ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item10

"The Lowdown Download Blues"
The fall of online song-swapping service Napster, which helped
fuel the current battles copyright holders are waging against
technology companies and consumers, was predicated on a lack of
common sense and a cohesive business plan.  Shawn Fanning's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item11

"Benefits of Future Displays Debated"
Proponents and backers of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)
have claimed that the technology will lead to display screens
that are thinner, lighter, and more power-efficient than liquid
crystal displays (LCDs), but the current crop of commercial and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item12

"War on Electronic Privacy"
Nearly 300 people from around the world--lawyers, activists,
technology enthusiasts, and others--gathered in New York City to
attend ACM's 13th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP)
Conference, whose underlying theme was the protection of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item13

"Tech Giants Put Chips on Security Alliance"
Members of the Trusted Computer Platform Alliance (TCPA) declared
on April 8 that they have retooled their organization and renamed
it the Trusted Computing Group, which will license and
commercialize security hardware and software to be embedded into ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item14

"Painted LEDs Make Screen"
A Munich University research team led by Klaus Meerholz has
devised a process to fabricate full-color flat-screen displays by
covering a surface with light-emitting polymers and exposing them
to 125-micron spots of ultraviolet light, thus generating sharply ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item15

"The Ins and Outs of IT"
Enterprise technology is shifting like the sands of the desert,
says Cap Gemini Ernst & Young chief technologist John Parkinson.
He says one of the most distinctive and important shifts will be
toward a pervasive utility architecture, where approximately 100 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item16

"Continuing the Fight Against Worms"
The sophistication and speed of computer worms, as demonstrated
by recent outbreaks such as Slammer/Sapphire, is growing, as is
their potential for inflicting damage.  Detailed analysis of worm
behavior, both expected and established, is key to understanding ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item17

"The PC Factor"
Computer chip and PC manufacturers are investing astronomical
sums in the redesign of their products' form factor and
functionality.  But a cool-looking device is no guarantee of
marketability, especially in a climate characterized by frugal IT ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item18

"Rogue IT"
Corporate executives are taking a dim view of "ghost IT"
projects--technology ventures carried out independently by
business units without the CIO knowing about it and often without
company approval--in order to avoid the burden of cleaning up ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0411f.html#item19


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