Clips March 31, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips March 31, 2003

ARTICLES

Activists Alarmed by Measure Aimed at Blocking Encryption
Cybercrime inquiry announced
Plugged In: Phone Numbers Are Soon to Go Mobile Too
911 Calls by Cellphone Swamp California Patrol
Cell Phones' Flaws Imperil 911 Response 
Californians can soon muzzle telemarketers 
China mounts fresh round up of Internet dissidents
Teen Technology Goes to Battle
Hackers Condemn Arab Site Hack  
War Diary Spins Web of Intrigue
Worker tuning in to news of war may be tuning out job
Military Families Find Closeness Online
Overtime pay for some federal workers could change 
Agencies set e-gov health standards
New architecture makes security tricky
Government's security advantage
GSA releases rules for .gov domain

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Washington Post
Activists Alarmed by Measure Aimed at Blocking Encryption
They say a penalty proposal targeting criminals could ensnare innocent users.
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press

March 31, 2003

NEW YORK -- Cheating on income taxes or neglecting to pay sales taxes on online purchases could get you five extra years in prison if the government succeeds in restricting data-scrambling technology, encryption-rights advocates fear.

Such a measure, they worry, also may discourage human rights workers in, say, Sri Lanka from encrypting the names and addresses of their confidants, in case they fall into the wrong hands.

Draft legislation circulating in the Justice Department would extend prison sentences for scrambling data in the commission of a crime, something encryption advocates fear would achieve little in catching terrorists and hurt only legitimate uses of cryptography.

"Why should the fact that you use encryption have anything to do with how guilty you are and what the punishment should be?" said Stanton McCandlish of the CryptoRights Foundation, which teaches human rights workers to use encryption. "Should we have enhanced penalties because someone wore an overcoat?"

Such law enforcement tools sought after the Sept. 11 attacks are expected to be among top discussion items at the annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, which begins Wednesday in New York.

The measures are sought by police and intelligence agents who worry that criminals who use encryption will commit crimes that will be tougher to solve or prevent.

Law enforcement hopes the threat of added penalties -- up to five years for the first offense and 10 years after that -- would make criminals think twice before scrambling their messages. Longer sentences already have been approved for using guns in robberies, for instance.

"If you went the extra step to keep us from getting evidence, you should pay an extra price," said Jimmy Doyle, a former computer crimes investigator with the New York Police Department.

It's not the first time encryption is under assault.

For years, the government restricted the export of high-strength encryption. It also sought to require software developers to create a backdoor and hand investigators a set of keys upon request.

Encryption advocates, supported by the technology industry, resisted and thought they had won in September 1999, when the Clinton administration relaxed the export controls over the objections of his attorney general and FBI director.

Then came Sept. 11.

The new proposal is part of legislation dubbed Patriot II and comes after the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which gave law enforcers broad new powers.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has said any draft circulating at the Justice Department is far from official policy and has yet to be submitted to Congress. But when he was a senator, Ashcroft in 1998 introduced a similar bill, which never passed.

The latest proposal would apply only to individuals who willfully and knowingly use encryption to commit a federal felony.

But critics worry that the language could cover almost all conduct online as encryption gets incorporated in Web browsers for e-commerce, virtual private networks for telecommuters and other day-to-day applications.

A mistake on an electronic tax return, if it leads to a conviction, could mean longer prison terms, warns Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor.

Or in the extreme, someone who neglects to pay a state tax for online shopping -- few people do -- could be prosecuted for federal mail fraud and face five extra years "for avoiding two dollars' worth of taxes," Rasch said.

"If suddenly I find myself facing this big criminal penalty because I happen to use encryption, will that discourage people from using it?" asked Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
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Australian IT
Cybercrime inquiry announced
Wires
MARCH 31, 2003  
 
THE federal Government will hold a parliamentary inquiry into fraud and national security threats associated with the internet.

The parliamentary committee on the Australian Crime Commission today called for submissions into cybercrime with public hearings to be held later in the year. 
MPs will specifically focus on child pornography and associated paedophile activity; banking, including credit card fraud and money laundering; and threats to national critical infrastructure. 

Committee chairman Bruce Baird said cybercrime was such a growing concern, efficient methods of crime detection had to be found. 

"In a society which is becoming almost entirely reliant on technology for conducting business at every level and increasingly so in our personal lives, the potential for large scale criminal activity is growing exponentially," Mr Baird said. 

"There is growing concern that technology is being used to assist in organised crime activities such as money laundering and fraud as well as other crimes such as paedophilia." 

The committee is seeking submissions from people involved in the application of cyber technology in business, banking and finance, communication and those who are involved in protecting internet and computer based data. 

It will look at recent trends and potential limitations on the Australian Crime Commission's ability to perform its duties effectively. 

The committee will also examine whether the existing legal framework for combating cybercrime and related offences is adequate. 

Submissions close on May 9. 

*******************************
Associated Press
Plugged In: Phone Numbers Are Soon to Go Mobile Too
Sat Mar 29,10:29 AM ET
By Yukari Iwatani 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Life is about to get a little simpler for mobile phone users, who may soon avoid the hassle of changing phone numbers when switching wireless service providers, making it easier to take advantage of discount calling plans. 


Sure, it's not quite the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's a change that will make it easier for people to keep in touch, no matter who manages the calls. 


Starting in November, U.S. regulators will enforce a rule that requires wireless operators to offer "number portability," the ability to switch carriers without making consumers give up their telephone number. 


"We're changing the way we think about phone services," said independent telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan. 


"Traditionally, we've always called a place and asked for a person. Now we're calling the person no matter where they are. Everyone will have a phone ... Moving forward, you'll keep the phone number," he said. 


That means consumers will face less of an obstacle when moving to cheaper service plans or switching services if they're not happy with their current provider, said David Heim, deputy editor of Consumer Reports magazine. 


"The cell phone companies use the phone number like crazy glue," said Heim "You get the number, and it sticks with that particular cell phone company. If you want to change to a different company -- too bad." 


In a recent survey conducted by Consumer Reports, about one-third of respondents said they wanted to switch wireless services. But a significant number of them didn't because they were unable to take their phone number with them, Heim added. 


That is precisely the reason why wireless operators are fiercely objecting to this rule. 


They argue that nearly a third of consumers already change carriers on a regular basis, and the new rule will only cause the provider-switching phenomenon to grow and, in turn, lead to more loss of customers and more damage to their bottom lines. 


"I'm not sure why we need it, as 30 some odd percent of the customers in this country switch carriers every year without this grand and glorious number portability opportunity," said Richard Lynch, Verizon Wireless chief technology officer. 


With about 143.8 million mobile telephone subscribers, the United States is the world's largest mobile phone market in terms of sales, according to Gartner Dataquest. To win new customers, carriers have offered huge bundles of minutes at low prices as well as discounts on phones, contributing to a high turnover rate. 


Providers also said the cost for revamping their networks could run as high as $1 billion in the first year alone. 


The Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites), which regulates the telecommunications industry, has extended the deadline once, but FCC (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell said earlier this month, he expected to keep the Nov. 24 deadline. 


Wireless operators continue to protest the rule and industry group Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association is expected to argue against it in court next month, but companies like Verizon Wireless (VOD.L) (NYSE:VZ - news) and T-Mobile (DTEGn.DE) have committed to meeting the deadline. 


In addition to being able to take their phone number, analysts said consumers will also likely benefit from even more attractive price plans and new features as wireless operators work harder to keep customers and attract new ones. 


Wireless operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless (NYSE:BLS - news) (NYSE:SBC - news), which have ties to traditional telephone companies, may even try to bundle their services to keep customers, analysts said. 

   



"Consumers are the big winners on this issue," said Rudy Baca, a wireless analyst with Precursor Group. 

Baca expects wireless operators to charge consumers to keep their phone numbers, but he doesn't expect that to cover all of the costs to make it happen. 

Other analysts said they don't expect companies to charge much if at all, given the intense competition in the industry -- if one operator decided to offer the service for free, customers would flock to that company. 

However, in the end, number portability may ultimately help the wireless industry in their competition with traditional telephone service because customers will be more likely to make their cell phone their main phone if they know the number will stay the same. 

"Number portability is the last hurdle," Kagan said. 

(The PluggedIn column appears weekly. Comments or questions on this one can be e-mailed to yukari.iwatani@xxxxxxxxxxx) 

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New York Times
March 28, 2003
911 Calls by Cellphone Swamp California Patrol
By JONATHAN D. GLATER

LOS ANGELES, March 27  It happens when there is an accident on the freeway, when a home is burglarized or a child is missing, Deanna M. Mora says: Hundreds of people dial 911 on cellphones. The result is a tidal wave of calls to operators at the California Highway Patrol.

"We just answer until they stop," said Ms. Mora, a supervisor at the agency's Los Angeles County dispatch center. 

Nearly all cellular 911 calls are answered by the highway patrol as a result of a law passed almost two decades ago, when cellphones were primarily in cars. Now the calls are overwhelming the agency's call centers, resulting at times in long waits for callers and delays in getting calls to the appropriate agency, like local police or fire departments. 

"Everyone's dispatch centers are being overloaded," said D. O. Helmick, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol. The problem of the number of calls is complicated by the difficulty of determining where each caller is, to determine how to forward the call  to the police department in Los Angeles or to the fire department in Orange County, for example.

"Clearly we are trying to get the technology there to better identify where the call is being made from," Mr. Helmick said. "Hopefully in time that will be solved."

The explosion of cellphone use in recent years has resulted in a corresponding boom in the number of emergency calls fielded by the patrol. The agency's dispatch centers received more than 7 million 911 calls last year, half of them to its Los Angeles County center.

Under a pilot program in San Francisco, computers sort cellular calls and if the caller is not near a highway, the call is transferred automatically, Mr. Helmick said. But not all municipalities want such technology adopted because they do not have the resources to handle additional calls. So for most 911 cellular calls, highway patrol operators must ask callers where they are and what their cellphone numbers are. 

"The most important thing is locating where they're at," said Kim O'Donnell, a trainee operator at the Los Angeles County dispatch center for the highway patrol. She received a call recently from a child who said his mother had been stabbed, and then the line went dead, she said. She forwarded the telephone number of the cellphone that the child used to her supervisor, who could use it to get a home address from a cellphone service provider. That time the procedure was straightforward because the cellphone number appeared on Ms. O'Donnell's caller identification screen; often, cell numbers do not appear.

California's situation is not unique, though it is extreme. Other states have different call centers set up and do not have as many cellphone users. As of June 2002, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association in Washington, California had 15.8 million cellphone subscribers  nearly half of the state's 34.5 million people. At that time the United States had about 128 million cellphone users nationwide.

In New York City, police operators forward 911 calls to the fire department, hospitals or whatever agency might be relevant.

In most states, a routing system determines the rough location of a caller and directs the call accordingly, said Kathryn Condello, vice president for industry operations at the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association in Washington. In some counties, she said, cellular 911 operators can tell what cellular tower is closest to a caller and see that caller's cellphone number; that is known as Phase One capability. 

With Phase Two technology, the location of a caller can be determined more precisely, but few parts of the country have such a system, Ms. Condello said. Rhode Island has Phase Two in effect, as do districts around Chicago and Houston. 

Upgrading costs money, though, and often the money collected from cellular users by service providers to maintain and upgrade 911 service is used for other purposes, Ms. Condello said. In 2002 California's 911 surcharge fund accrued $131 million, according to the state's General Services Department. In his current budget Gov. Gray Davis of California has proposed allocating $41 million from that fund to the highway patrol, $3.5 million to the Department of Forestry and $3.6 million to the Department of Health Services.

Money alone is not the problem, though, operators said; many people are simply too quick to dial 911. People make calls by accident, some people call seeking directions or simply to complain about heavy traffic, they said. When it rained in Los Angeles this month the dispatch center received about 27,000 calls, Ms. Mora said.

"I've heard people on roller coasters" through cellphones, Ms. Mora said. Nearly a third of calls received are "dead air," the result of someone dialing 911 by accident without realizing, she added. "It's in the purse, it's in their back pocket," she said. 

There are of course also real emergency calls, like one from the pilot of a private plane that crashed in California. The pilot in that case did not know where she was, recalled Thomas A. Prigatano, another supervisor at the Los Angeles County dispatch center. The pilot gave her cellphone number to operators, who used the number to find her cellular service provider, which in turn could identify the cellular tower in Simi Valley that relayed the call.

All the passengers were found with only relatively minor injuries, Mr. Prigatano said. In that instance he said, "We were able to get enough information."

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Washington Post
Cell Phones' Flaws Imperil 911 Response 
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 31, 2003; Page B01

When the windows shattered in the little white house in Chillum and flames lapped upward to the children's bedrooms, a neighbor grabbed her cell phone and dialed 911. Her call flew through the skies of Prince George's County -- only to land at the wrong fire department, miles away in the District.

For several minutes, the caller and the 911 operators frantically tried to figure out what was going on. The operator didn't recognize the address, but the woman kept repeating it and asking for help, according to the D.C. fire department's analysis of the 911 tapes. 

The Feb. 3 blaze, which spread quickly inside the small wood-frame house, killed a woman and two of her children. But it was not the first time that the response to a life-threatening -- and ultimately fatal -- emergency was delayed because a cell phone call to 911 didn't work the way it was supposed to.

There are no figures available on how many rescue efforts go awry because of trouble with wireless 911 calls, but the problem is national in scope. In January, four teenagers sank in a boat in Long Island Sound after making a desperate call for help from a cell phone. Emergency workers had been unable to pinpoint where the call had come from. 

The roots of the problem are both technological and man-made.

First, there are the glitches that often accompany any kind of cell phone call -- the static, the echo, the inability to make a connection and, in the Chillum case, the fact that a wireless signal can get picked up by the wrong cell phone tower. A recent study by Consumer Reports showed that about 15 percent of the 911 calls made on cell phones during a test didn't get through. 

And even when the calls are successful, most 911 call takers do not have access to automatic addresses or call-back numbers, as they do with calls from traditional phones, so they don't immediately know where to send help. Those features are called enhanced 911, or E911, and making cell phones compatible with the system is a lumbering regulatory task that has already missed one key deadline on the road to implementation, set for 2005.

Although these problems may be more common now as the number of cell phones continues to multiply and many people give up their traditional phones, the issue first gained widespread attention about 10 years ago, when an 18-year-old woman called 911 on her cell phone after she was abducted from a mall in Rochester, N.Y.

Operators listened as Jennifer Koon was sexually assaulted, as she pleaded for help -- and as she was killed. But they had no way of finding her.

Late last month, her father, New York State Assemblyman David Koon, helped pass legislation there providing money to help create a 911 system that could have located his daughter. "That technology wasn't around for Jenny's case," said Koon, whose entry into politics was spurred by his daughter's death. "But it's available now, and we should be able to use it." 

The issue particularly resonates because many people treat cell phones like modern-day life preservers, clutching them on dark streets, keeping one in the car and working them into emergency plans for coping with a terrorist attack. Nearly 30 percent of all 911 calls nationwide are made from cell phones, said Jim Goerke of the National Emergency Number Association, and that figure climbs to about 50 percent in big cities, including Washington.

But the image of security is sometimes illusory. In the case of the Chillum fire, the neighbor's urgent call for help was transmitted into the night air to be captured by a nearby cell tower. The problem was that Chillum is so close to the District that the signal was up for grabs by whichever tower caught it first. In that case, it happened to be the D.C. tower, and District police received the call.

The 911 dispatcher sent the call to D.C.'s fire department. By the time authorities figured out that the fire on 17th Avenue was in Maryland, the blaze had ripped through much of the house, said Alan Etter, spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Services Department. Killed in the blaze were 8-year-old Christian Romero; his 13-year-old sister, Veronica; and their mother, Maria Romero, 42. The children's 10-year-old brother managed to leap out a second-story window but suffered severe burns. He still has nightmares of his sister's screams for help, a relative said.

Misdirected emergency calls are common in the District, which shares borders with numerous jurisdictions, said Peter Roy, a deputy to the District's chief technology officer. In Friendship Heights, "calls usually go to both Bethesda and D.C. 911, and both agencies end up responding," he said.

If the Chillum caller had dialed 911 on a traditional phone, police and fire departments would have been able to pinpoint the location and send help to the address that automatically popped up on their computer screens. This is the safety net created for 911 years ago, so that even if the caller passed out or was attacked before talking to police, rescuers still knew where to go.

The safety net for 911 calls via cell phones has many more holes.

In 1999, the FCC tried to fix the discrepancy, enacting regulations over a period of years that would give cell phone 911 calls the same safety features as land-line calls. First, cell phones would be required to have the technology to display their numbers when they pop up on caller ID. In turn, 911 call centers would be required to upgrade their phones so they can read these numbers. It's a feature present in most new household and business phones, but it's not part of the old 911 system.

The second, more sophisticated requirement mandates that cell phone companies start making their phones with Global Positioning System technology that can pinpoint a phone's location within about 100 yards, and local governments must have the equipment to read that information. Both phases were to be completed by 2005. But most carriers missed last October's deadline for making their call-back numbers always show up on 911 calls. Although many of the companies -- including Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Sprint Corp. and AT&T Wireless -- have the technology to comply, they were granted waivers after they told the FCC that their compliance wouldn't do much good because many local governments don't have the necessary upgrades.

Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgomery, Anne Arundel and Frederick counties can capture the number of any 911 call made on a cell phone within each jurisdiction, but they still cannot pinpoint the location of the call, said Larry McDonnell, a spokesman for Sprint PCS. The District will not be able to capture calls until November, McDonnell said. Currently, no jurisdictions in the Washington region can locate a cell phone calling for help.

In fact, very few places across the country have the capacity to pinpoint calls made from wireless phones -- the state of Rhode Island and Spartanburg, S.C., are two in a handful.

"Although the current 911 system covers 99 percent of the U.S. population, only 1 percent of the nation's emergency jurisdictions can identify the location of calls made from wireless phones," John Melcher, president of the National Emergency Number Association, said this month in testimony before the Senate communications subcommittee. The association is a nonprofit group dedicated to implementing 911 as the nation's universal emergency number.

But Roy, of the District's technology office, cautioned that even those two improvements will not offer a "technological panacea." Cell phone calls to 911 likely will still be vulnerable to problems. 

In rural Montana, for example, pinpointing a call within 100 yards would typically identify the caller. "But that's useless in a dense, urban location like the District," Roy said. "Let's say you can determine that the call came from the Farragut North Metro stop. That's a lot of ground to cover before you can find one person calling for help."

Indeed, the pinpointing ability might not have helped a resident of a densely populated District neighborhood who collapsed in the hallway of his apartment building last month after he was stabbed while trying to quiet a fight.

For 30 minutes, relatives and friends of Yong Chen, a 20-year-old Chinese immigrant who lived in Chinatown, frantically dialed 911. But an ambulance arrived only after one of the few residents in the building who still uses a land line called 911.

It was too late. Chen died shortly after arriving at the hospital. His attacker fled, and police have not been able to find him, although they have named a suspect.

City officials said they cannot disclose what happened to the cell phone calls in the Chen case because the records are part of the homicide investigation. But his family members said they ache at the memory of Chen bleeding to death while their calls for help repeatedly failed.

In addition to the pinpointing issue, which is likely to persist in some areas even when Global Positioning System advances are made, there are other problems that likely won't go away when the new rules are implemented.

As Roy noted, some buildings always get bad reception, and there are gaps between cell phone towers where signals can rarely be harnessed.

But there are steps that cell phone callers to 911 can do to help themselves. One critical piece of advice: Provide the cell phone number and location to the 911 operator in case the signal is lost.

"And when you accidentally dial 911 on your cell phone, don't just hang up," said D.C. police Inspector Ira Grossman, head of emergency/non-emergency communications. "Say: 'Sorry, I dialed by mistake,' so we're not wondering what happened to the call."
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San Francisco Gate
Californians can soon muzzle telemarketers 
Laws let consumers sign 'do not call' list to stop sales pitches

Sacramento -- Richard Knapp lives in Orinda, which means that a lot of people figure he's rich, including aggressive stockbrokers who "cold call" him incessantly to pitch the latest hot item. 

"Let the market go up 2 points, and they start at 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.," said Knapp. 

Knapp wants to be the first Californian to sign up Tuesday for a new "do not call" list designed to muzzle such telemarketers. Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he will begin taking the names and phone numbers of people who are "sick and tired of having their homes invaded" by unwanted phone calls. 

Under new federal and state laws, telemarketing firms face fines of $11,000 per violation if they call anyone on the list after Oct. 1. The California government Web site -- nocall.doj.state.ca.us -- is expected to be operational Tuesday, Lockyer's office said. 

Few issues generate as many complaints as telemarketing. Consumers say they feel invaded and ripped off, that unwanted calls are stressful because they often require a nasty confrontation with a stranger -- several times a night -- 

so the consumers can be left alone. 

Terry Seligman, who owns a computer sales company in Mill Valley, said she recently rejected a call without hearing the full sales pitch. The telemarketer called back, incensed, and yelled in a nasty tone, "Just exactly what are you not interested in?" followed by five more calls every two minutes hanging up on Seligman's answering machine. 

For many, the only solution is to buy call-screening equipment, such as "zappers" that hunt down computer-generated calls, making their homes even more of a fortress against the outside world. This whole scenario leads to resentment of telemarketing firms and the companies they represent, consumers say. 

"I just will not do business with anyone who subjects my family to these kinds of aggressive tactics," said Alameda resident Sharon Powell, who endured three or four calls a night, even on Easter Sunday, and finally bought call- screening equipment last month. 

Powell and Seligman said they also want to sign up immediately on California's "do not call" list. Lockyer and state Sen. Liz Figueroa, D- Fremont, author of the bill creating the state list, plan to be at the head of the line as well. 


IMPACT ON TELEMARKETING
Figueroa said she expects many telemarketing firms will go out of business and predicted that tens of millions of California phone numbers will be listed. 

Two-thirds of Missouri residents registered on that state's do-not-call list soon after it was created, she said. 

"The timeliness of this is perfect," Figueroa said, "because everybody has been so negative about government, at the state and federal level, and this is one nice thing that we can say we are doing, and it doesn't cost them a dime." 

The government has been closing in on telemarketing firms over the past few years. President Bush signed a law last March creating the national do-not- call registry, which is expected to begin operating in July. 

The state Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis created the state-only registry in 2001, but its full implementation is being abandoned in favor of the national list run by the Federal Trade Commission. 

Lockyer said he expects the state to save up to $8 million by relying on the federal system and avoiding duplication. 

Lockyer will forward the names and phone numbers he collects to the FTC, and then direct people to the federal Web site, starting July 1. Telephone registration and an FTC Web site should be available by then as well. The service is free, and phone numbers stay on the list for five years. 

In September, telemarketing firms will be required to purchase the national list. They will have 30 days to remove names from their call sheets. From then on, they must purchase the list every three months and remove any new names within 30 days. 


LAWSUIT
The Direct Marketing Association, a major trade group that represents telemarketing firms, has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop the national registry on free-speech grounds. They also are challenging new federal rules to reduce the number of hang-up calls and regulations against charging people's credit cards for products without explicit permission. 

"The recently proposed actions raise grave concerns about regulation of constitutionally protected commercial free speech," H. Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of the marketing association, said recently. "The FTC is singling out this form of advertising now. What will be next?" 

But telemarketing firms and the marketing association, which operates its own do-not-call list for members, suffered a legal setback last week. A federal judge in Oklahoma refused to block the start of the law, citing "a strong public interest against abusive and invasive practices." 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'DO NOT CALL' LIST
Californians tired of unwanted telemarketing calls can place their names on a "do not call" list starting Tuesday. 

-- What is it? A free "do not call" registry managed by the Federal Trade Commission. In October, telemarketing firms will face $11,000 fines per violation for calling anyone on the list. 

How to sign up: California starts taking names Tuesday through the Internet. 

The site is nocall.doj.state.ca.us -- click on "pre-register" and follow the directions. There is no ability to register by mail, but phone registration is expected by July. 

Is the information secure? The registry requires a name, telephone number and zip code. Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the information can be used only by telemarketing firms to purge your number from their lists. Violators can be prosecuted. 

Who is exempted? Charities, political candidates and groups, businesses with fewer than five employees, and companies that have an existing relationship with a consumer during the previous 18 months. All of these groups can continue calling, even if the person appears on a "do not call" list. 

How is the law enforced? The FTC collects complaints and makes them available to state attorneys general for possible prosecution. Consumers also can bring complaints in small claims court. 
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Associated Press
China mounts fresh round up of Internet dissidents
Sat Mar 29,10:46 PM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - Police in central China's Hunan province have arrested a cyber-dissident for allegedly passing online information on other jailed web activists and demanding their release, police and a New York-based rights group said. 


"Yes, I've heard of this case, but I don't have any details," a police officer at the State Security Bureau in the provincial capital Changsha told AFP. 


According to the China Labor Watch, Yuan Langsheng was arrested Tuesday night by state security police who searched his house and confiscated his computer. 


Yuan, who went by the Internet moniker "Chinese Ignoramus," had earlier joined a growing online chorus demanding the release from jail of celebrated democracy campaigner Liu Di, a 22-year old Beijing student arrested in November for posting pro-democracy articles on the web. 


Yuan also allegedly passed on information concerning the arrests this year of cyber-dissidents Cai Lujun and Luo Changfu, who disappeared into police custody after seeking Liu's release, the China Labor Watch said in a faxed statement. 


The arrest of Liu, a female student at Beijing Normal University who went by the web name "Stainless Steel Mouse," has stirred vocal opposition in Internet chatrooms, with many people posting messages adopting "stainless steel" as part of their online names. 


Besides Yuan, Cai and Luo, other online activists known to be in police custody include Li Yibin in Beijing, Ouyang Yi in southwest Sichuan province, Jiang Lijun in the northeastern city of Liaoning and Tao Haidong in the western province of Xinjiang. 


Liu herself had been vocal in seeking the releases of jailed cyberdissidents, including Huang Qi, a campaigner who sought to overturn the official "counter-revolutionary verdict" on the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests and a group known as the "New Youth Society." 


The four members of the society, Xu Wei, Yang Zili, Jin Haike and Zhang Hongkai were arrested in April 2001 after they posted a manifesto on the web pledging to build a civil society in China based on democracy and law.
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Los Angeles Times
Teen Technology Goes to Battle
Peer-to-peer systems, which let computer users connect directly with one another, are being used to plan operations in Iraq.
By Joseph Menn
Times Staff Writer

March 29, 2003

A technology made famous by teenage digital music fans and since adopted by some of the world's biggest companies is making headway with the U.S. military.

Various forms of peer-to-peer technology, which allows computer users to bypass central servers and connect directly with one another, are being used to plan battlefield operations in Iraq and deliver humanitarian aid.

Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting software and programs from Groove Networks Inc. and Appian Corp. are part of the military's shift away from massive central computer servers toward more flexible models that let users work on joint projects and share information -- even when they are cut off from high-speed communication links.

Commanders in the Persian Gulf use collaboration software to chart progress, drawing on one another's maps during videoconferences several times a day, said J.P. Angelone, who heads the enterprise capabilities center at the Defense Information Systems Agency.

The data are kept on individuals' computers instead of a central server. When one person disconnects from the network, he can keep working on a personal version of the material. Logging in again automatically sends updates to the other participants.

"It's helpful because you reduce the physical distance to connect," Angelone said. "If you've got a command or a tactical unit in the area of responsibility, there's no sense coming all the way back to tap into a server."

The technology is largely off the shelf, relying on NetMeeting and audio and video add-ins for computers.

"Peer-to-peer" is a catchall phrase that describes a general approach; the actual systems vary widely in the way they're set up and in how decentralized they are.

The defunct song-swapping service Napster, for example, was a hybrid system that used central servers to direct its users to one another and then dropped out of the picture. A successor service, Gnutella, is more purely peer-to-peer, with no central index. Individuals use the Internet to find one another through small hubs, without a single point of failure that could crash the entire system if it shutdown.

The military is likewise employing a range of designs. The NetMeeting system used by commanders in the Iraq war falls somewhere in the middle.

The most decentralized so far may be in Army war games, which have thousands of participants connected to one another through phones and other hand-held devices.

"In the last couple of years, we've been able to go beyond relatively small peer-to-peer environments to massively large-scale ones," said Michael Macedonia, chief technology officer for the Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation command.

Groove's systems rely less on central machines than the NetMeeting system does. Nongovernmental aid workers from several countries are using Groove software to coordinate with one another and the military in southern Iraq.

"Usually, the people in the field are not connected to the Net," said Groove Senior Marketing Director Andrew Mahon. "But they can fill out electronic forms, answering questions about whether the water is polluted, whether there are any doctors in the area. When they get back to a communications vehicle, even with low bandwidth, they can send the information to [U.S. operations in] Kuwait and to others in the decision-making process."

A side benefit, Mahon said, is that no one controls the data: They are not all stored at the Pentagon or at an aid organization such as Save the Children. "Since no one owns the data, the dynamics of the space are fairly trust-engendering."

Groove is being tested by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program in hopes it will allow intelligence and law enforcement agencies to analyze data together.

Even the military's rank and file have access to some collaboration tools through such massive intranets as Army Knowledge Online, which has more than 1.2 million users. Officers and enlisted personnel can create virtual areas for information that are open to anyone, to just one unit or to those with appropriate security clearances.

Army Knowledge is highly centralized. The information is stored on servers, lessening the worry if troops' machines fall into enemy hands.

Another reason for not installing file-sharing software for most Army Knowledge subscribers is that "there's no way the Army could have afforded to upgrade 1.4 million desktops," said Mike Beckley, general partner of Appian, which is the lead contractor on the project.

But some are pressing for more independence from the main servers, especially the Navy. The Navy has ships with intermittent or narrow-bandwidth connections, so it plans to test a version that permits off-line collaboration similar to Groove's system, Beckley said.

Even in the Army, he added, "there are constant discussions about how performance would be improved if a unit could take Army Knowledge Online with them and synchronize back to central AKO later."

Coordinating the efforts toward decentralized computing is the Defense Information Systems Agency, which has installed basic collaboration tools at more than 63 sites worldwide. The Defense Collaboration Tool Suite already includes half a dozen commercial programs, and companies backing 17 more have asked to be considered, said the agency's Angelone.

"We want to help everyone inter-operate and be able to share information across the networks so they can collaborate with other commands with the tools of their choice," he said.

Angelone and others said peer-to-peer's progress toward the battlefield would continue because such systems are more resistant to attack and can be faster and easier to use than traditional, server-based setups.

"There are prototypes in development right now," said Stanley Manoski, a military technology advisor at Mitre Corp. "There are issues of security that still have to be dealt with, but within five years, I would think you would see systems that have more peer-to-peer ideas embedded in them."
*******************************
Wired News
Hackers Condemn Arab Site Hack  
02:00 AM Mar. 31, 2003 PT

Don't blame hackers for the attacks that recently took down Arab news network Al-Jazeera's website. 

Technically the site was hacked. But hackers, who say they abhor breaking into systems for fun or profit -- as opposed to malicious crackers and the amateurs known as script kiddies -- believe shutting off access to information is distinctly un-hackerlike behavior.

Al-Jazeera's website was downed by relentless denial-of-service attacks early last week. Then, on Thursday, site visitors were automatically redirected to a page bearing an American flag logo and the words "Let Freedom Ring." 

"The individual(s) who did this are committing a computer crime and causing censorship," said Oxblood Ruffin, executive director of Hacktivismo, a group that develops tools to circumvent censorship. "The former would not be tolerated by American courts; the latter is in part why America went to war in the first place. Either way, it's not good." 

"There is no difference between the White House censoring (longtime political reporter) Helen Thomas and packet wankers taking down Al-Jazeera," Ruffin added. "They're all cut from the same cloth. Bullies, cowards, hypocrites." 

Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for Al-Jazeera, vehemently agreed that the attacks on his station's site were a strike against freedom of speech and the press. "Now, especially, it is very important to make a real effort to protect the freedom of the press," he said. 

Ruffin believes the attacks were the work of someone with moderate computer skills. Attacks against websites are often performed by script kiddies, which Jargon: The New Hacker's Dictionary defines as "the lowest form of cracker." The dictionary continues, "script kiddies do mischief with scripts and programs written by others, often without understanding the exploit." 

"Cracker" is a term hackers coined hoping the media would use it to refer to people who use their programming skills in an unethical manner. 

Some hackers advised Al-Jazeera not to assume there is any real method to the madness that fueled the Internet attacks. 

"Every time there is a political target of opportunity, some kiddie will use it as justification for a defacement or DOS (denial-of-service attack)," said Robert Ferrell, a security researcher. "Most of them have no clear grasp of the causes they're supposedly supporting or fighting against. They just want to appear to be 'hacktivists' because that's a cool label to have. 

"On the off chance that the persons responsible are politically aware and are Americans, then I can only assume they haven't read the Bill of Rights, or don't remember what the First Amendment said," Ferrell added. 

Ferrell also noted that website redirects and defacements are common. 

"This kind of thing goes on constantly. The only reason it's news at all is because of the graphics involved and the fact that we happen to be at war with Iraq," he said. "Al-Jazeera may be a major news service, but a website is a website, whether it belongs to Billy Bob or Time Warner. Knocking one off the Internet isn't a difficult proposition."

According to Ballout, an employee of Network Solutions was tricked into giving the culprit a confidential password that allowed the hacker to temporarily assume total control of Al-Jazeera's domain. Apparently, the request was faxed on Al-Jazeera stationery. The site is expected to be back online on Monday. 

Most news reports have indicated that the attacks were meant as retaliation for Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war, noting that they began shortly after pictures of dead and captive U.S. soldiers in Iraq were displayed on Al-Jazeera's website. 

Last week, in an interview on National Public Radio, Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war, saying the news service "magnifies the minor successes of the (Iraqi) regime and tends to portray our efforts in a negative light." 

Also last week, Al-Jazeera received an award "for its courage in circumventing censorship" from British-based Index on Censorship. The index cited the network's "apparent independence in a region where much of the media is state-run." 

Tarek Faiz, an Egyptian living in New York City, said he depends on Al-Jazeera for unbiased news of the Middle East. Faiz, who owns several newsstands in Manhattan and says he reads a dozen newspapers daily, believes reports from American and European news services are deliberately softening war news. 

"I watch the U.S. TV news and I see a pretty sky over Baghdad and a few explosions that look like a big firework show," said Faiz. "I watch Al-Jazeera and I see blood, death, tragedy, suffering for all. Which is more true? Maybe neither. But without both, I cannot find the truth that lives in the middle." 

Not all hackers interviewed for this story felt hacking Al-Jazeera's site was patently wrong. 

"I have very mixed feelings toward Al-Jazeera's site being hacked," said Mike Sweeny, owner of security information site Packet Attack. "If their reporting was a bit more balanced, it would be a no-brainer, but given their historical bent of slanted reporting, I'm torn. 

"I do like the fact they show uncensored pictures, which I think more Americans really need to see," Sweeny added. "War is not pretty, and the wounded do not fall down gracefully and expire with a sigh and a cigarette in their mouth." 

Hasnain Maurya, a self-described "reformed hacker" from Palestine who lives in New York, said he once felt it was good to attack "opponent government websites and such," but that he has recently changed his mind. 

"You cannot demand freedom while at the same time you take actions that restrict others' freedom," Maurya said. "But it is so confusing for kids who now see reports on TV about how the U.S. government is bombing Iraq's TV station. They think they can help by taking websites like Al-Jazeera offline." 

*******************************
Los Angeles Times
War Diary Spins Web of Intrigue
A mystery man's descriptive dispatches about life in Baghdad grip Internet denizens. But is Salam Pax really in Iraq, or is he a hoax?
By Charles Piller
Times Staff Writer

March 31, 2003

A few days after the U.S.-led bombing of Baghdad began, the words of a mysterious man known as Salam Pax raced across the Internet.

"One of the buildings I really love went up in a huge explosion," Salam Pax wrote. "I was close to tears.... It does look that the hits were very precise but when the missiles and bombs explode they wreck havoc in the neighborhood where they fall.... Iraqi TV says nothing, shows nothing. What good are patriotic songs when bombs are dropping."

Amid the ceaseless flow of news reports, video clips and propaganda, the dispatches from the unidentified Salam Pax -- "peace" in Arabic and Latin -- have riveted the denizens of the Internet, becoming one of the most intensely read electronic diaries of the war.

The dispatches began late last year as the bemused ramblings of a supposedly twentysomething gay Iraqi architect living in Baghdad. But through the months of military buildup, and now the war itself, the diary has blossomed into a cultural touchstone of the Internet's avant-garde -- and a mystery that rivals some of the greatest Internet puzzles of the past.

Blog postings appear in reverse chronological order. "Compared to the TV media in particular, the blog allows an historic ordering of the facts," said Alan Nelson, co-creator of "Command Post" (www.command-post.org), a war news blog that's rocketed to the top of the ratings despite being established only recently. "Whatever is at the top of the page is what's happening now."

*

Anxiety at Bombings

Unlike many of the blogs of war, Salam Pax's shows equal disdain for both sides -- an unfiltered view of an individual caught in the crossfire of war and culture.

"I know saddam is a nutcase with a finger on the trigger," he wrote Nov. 15.

He is no less contemptuous of the Bush administration and United Nations.

"Thank you for keeping sanctions which you knew only weakened the people and had no effect on the government," he wrote Dec. 3. He concluded with an obscenity.

As the war began, Salam turned his attention to the anxiety and spectacle of the bombings.

"The smoke columns have now encircled Baghdad, well almost," he wrote. "The wi[n]ds blow generally to the east which leaves the western side of Baghdad clear. But when it comes in the way of the sun it covers it totally.... We are going to have some very dark days, literally."

Fans from around the world posted Internet messages expressing relief that Salam Pax had survived the first days of bombing.

"Salam Pax is back!" wrote one blogger who goes by the Web handle Sappho. "Go read him. And keep praying for his safety."

Ohad Barzilay, a 27-year-old Israeli blogger and computer graphics researcher, has been a supporter of Salam for months, posting a "mirror," or replica, of the diary on his Jerusalem-based site -- just in case the original should be sabotaged by Iraqi or American authorities.

"I am for the war [and] I know what war is like," he said. "Now that I know someone who's in there, being attacked, I'm quite concerned....[People] can be pro war, but they still care about him."

Beneath the concerns about Salam Pax's safety has been an undercurrent of suspicion: Does he even exist?

Salam's careful though understandable effort to hide his identity has fueled suspicion among bloggers. His site has been described as a plot by the CIA or Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, although it is not clear how his postings could help the intelligence agencies. His status as the only known blogger in Baghdad has raised eyebrows.

Doubts about his authenticity stem partly from the case of Kaycee Nicole, a girl who wrote a heart-rending personal diary about her struggle with leukemia. The blog wove an elaborate tale that ended with Kaycee's "death" in May 2001.

It was all a hoax. A 40-year-old Kansas woman admitted fabricating the blog, although she denied malicious intent.

On the surface, the diary of Salam Pax has the feel of an eyewitness account because it is so rich with detail.

On March 21, for example, he wrote: "We bought fresh tomatoes and zucchini for 1000 dinar a kilo which would normally be 250. And most amazingly the garbage car came around. The Iraqi Satellite Channel is not broadcasting anymore. The second youth TV channel (it shows Egyptian soaps in the morning and sports afterwards) also stopped transmitting."

He has answered critics with a simple entreaty: "Please stop sending emails asking if I were for real, don't believe it? Then don't read it. I am not anybody's propaganda ploy, well except my own."

As for the even more mysterious Raed, Salam Pax posted Raed's Yahoo e-mail address. Raed did not respond to a request for an interview. Raed's Yahoo profile notes him as Raed Jarrar, an architect in Amman, married, age 24. The description could not be confirmed. Salam Pax's e-mail box is full and rejects new messages, although several people say they have corresponded with him.In an effort to uncover obvious deception, freelance journalist Boutin, a former network manager, began a search for the real Salam Pax.

He asked the Baghdad resident by e-mail for a photo or a phone number. Salam Pax refused.

He then attempted to trace the origin of the electronic information sent by Salam Pax's Web address.

While Boutin did not have enough information to pinpoint Salam Pax's location, he said the computer addresses he was able to trace were in the same range as those previously used by Uruklink, Iraq's state-run Internet provider. Another electronic trace followed Salam Pax's postings as far as Transtrum, a unit of the Lebanese Internet provider TerraNet.

Absent any obvious ruse, the blog seemed plausible, Boutin said.

"In the end, it's still a matter of faith," Boutin wrote in his own blog. "Yes, I think he's really in Baghdad. And so far, he's still alive and well."

Purported details of his life have begun to leak out. With the deepening of the war, some of his supporters have urged him to stop posting for his own safety -- saying the Iraqi secret police may already be on his trail.

The bombings have gone on every day, and in the blogging world there is a fear that amid the destruction of the war, Salam Pax's cyber monologue will simply stop -- and that they will never know what happened.

"Is he going to post again, or is someone going to put a 2,000-pound bomb in his neighborhood?" Nelson asked.

Since March 24, Salam Pax has been silent.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Internet dispatches

The dispatches from the unidentified Salam Pax, supposedly a twentysomething Iraqi living in Baghdad, have become popular reading on the Web. Below are passages from his electronic diary, "Where Is Raed?":

Sept. 24, 2002: "Raed are you really going to stay in jordan and miss all the action?? don't get married come here and let's get bombed."

Oct. 12, 2002: "Don't expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new Colonists.... and how does it differ from Iraq and Britain circa 1920. the civilized world comes to give us, the barbaric nomadic arabs, a lesson in better living and rid us of all evil."

Oct. 23, 2002: "Excuse me but I need to listen to some angry-boy-music and bang my head against a wall and bleed, it will make me feel better I'm sure. have I told you already that I hate the world?"

Jan. 12: "Sorrow is never singular. It always comes in multiples. Raed's aunt has passed away yesterday.... Raed, I can't reach you. Your cell phone has been turned off for days and you don't answer emails. I wish I could be there with you. Today a colleague at the office came to our house to tell us his son has died of brain hemorrhage this morning.... his son is two years younger than me.

March 16: "A whole nation, a proud and learned nation, was devastated not by the war but by sanctions. Our brightest and most creative minds fled the country not because of oppression alone but because no one inside Iraq could make a living."

March 20: "Today the Ba'ath party people started taking their places in the trenches and main squares and intersections, fully armed and freshly shaven. They looked too clean and well groomed to defend anything. And the most shocking thing was the number of kids. They couldn't be older than 20, sitting in trenches sipping Miranda fizzy drinks and eating chocolate (that was at the end of our street) other places you would see them sitting bored in the sun."

March 21: "We also saw the latest Sahaf show on Al-Jazeera and Iraq TV, and the most distressing minister of Interior affairs with his guns. Freaks. Hurling abuse at the world is the only thing left for them to do. On BBC we are watching scenes of Iraqis surrendering. My youngest cousin was muttering "what shame" to himself, yes it is better for them to do that but still seeing them carrying that white flag makes something deep inside you cringe."

March 23: "We start counting the hours from the moment one of the news channels report that the B52s have left their airfield. It takes them around 6 hours to get to Iraq. On the first day of the bombing it worked precisely.... While buying groceries the woman who sells the vegetables was talking to another about the approach of American armies.... If Um Qasar is so difficult to control what will happen when they get to Baghdad? It will turn uglier and this is very worrying."

Source: http://dearraed.blogspot.com/
*******************************
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Monday, March 31, 2003
Worker tuning in to news of war may be tuning out job
By KARIN RIVES, VICKI LEE PARKER
THE (RALEIGH) NEWS & OBSERVER

As the war in Iraq escalated last week, millions of Americans turned their attention away from work to get updates from radios, televisions, the Internet and co-workers.

"I just wasted 45 minutes," conceded Maria Winslow, a business analyst for a Raleigh, N.C., technology consulting firm, after tuning in to a White House news conference on her radio.

The report she was working on for a client had to wait.

At an advertising firm, Williams Massey had difficulty focusing on the phone calls he had to make. 

Instead, he spent much of the day responding to e-mail and listening to his colleagues speculate about Saddam Hussein's whereabouts. 

Massey, a director of business development and a Vietnam war veteran, said he felt anxious.

The outbreak of a war, like any other crisis, has a way of slowing work in many offices and factories. But this military conflict, especially if it drags out, could have a more profound effect on workplaces than wars normally do, experts warn.

"There's a higher level of distraction, especially since we keep hearing we should expect terrorist attacks," said Joyce Gioia, president of the Herman Group, a management consulting firm. 

"That's got to be taking its toll on people."

A recent non-scientific poll by ComPsych, an employee assistance provider in Chicago with clients nationwide, found that 55 percent of workers surveyed think about war or talked about it with fellow employees several times a day. 

ComPsych questioned almost 1,000 workers, and one in five reported reading online news about the Iraq situation throughout the day.

Just in the past two weeks, ComPsych saw calls from managers jump 15 percent. Most were triggered by disruptions in the workplace when people argued about the war or said they had difficulty concentrating, the firm reported.

Employers worry for a reason.

"Given our current economic circumstances, companies are already asking employees to do more with less," said Richard Chaifetz, ComPsych's chief executive director. "Companies can't afford to have lagging productivity at this time, so employees' preoccupation with war is particularly troublesome."

Whether or not companies will, in fact, see productivity erode because of the war is uncertain. 

That will depend on how the economy as a whole is doing, and less on worker psychology, said Mark Vitner, a senior economist for Wachovia Securities in Charlotte, N.C.

"Getting this war out of the way will more than offset any short-term drop in productivity," he predicted. "I don't think we'll ever see it in the numbers. And it's not as if anybody's paying 100 percent attention to this war. People are still working."

A quick war and resolution of the Iraq crisis would bring a sense of relief and possibly increase worker output, said John Challenger, the chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an international outplacement consulting firm based in Chicago.

"But if it drags on, I think we'll begin to feel as if this is one more thing we've got to deal with," he said. "The economy is a mess; there's fear of terrorist attacks; the war isn't going well. That could begin to wear on people and ultimately affect productivity."

Some companies encourage employees to channel their anxiety into special projects to help them cope. Others make efforts to keep workers informed.

But employers should also be on the lookout for problems that can crop up over time, the Herman Group's Gioia said.

Even as we try to focus on work, a part of us remains distracted, she said. That tension can show up as headaches and other stress-related illnesses that affect productivity. Because this war has a new element -- fear of attacks on U.S. soil at any time -- employers should be especially tuned into signs of distress, Gioia said.

Linda Crandall, a self-employed marketing communications consultant, doesn't have a boss looking out for her -- or keeping her focused on work. So she tries to police herself, limiting her trips to the television in her kitchen to five minutes each time.

"I used to check CNN only during lunch," she said. "Now I'm checking three times a day."

She has been unable to shake her fear of another terrorist attack and worries about family and friends in places that could become targets.

"My brother works in the Empire State Building," she said. "I'm particularly concerned about him."
*******************************
New York Times
March 31, 2003
Military Families Find Closeness Online
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER

As the mother of a Marine corporal serving in Iraq, Nancy Walker of Chickasha, Okla., keeps an eye on the latest developments in the war. And she shares her thoughts and feelings not just with family or friends, but with her virtual neighbors on the Internet.

Ms. Walker is one of many military spouses and parents who publish journals on the Web, forming a network that they say has been a source of strength during the war. 

"Most of the sites I visit are just women kind of like me, and several of them are military wives," said Ms. Walker, whose journal is part of her site, nhisgarden.com. "We'll visit each other's journals and leave a comment, like `I'm thinking of you.' "

Journal-keepers with family members in the Persian Gulf area say they have received supportive messages from people who seem eager for a more personal connection with the troops. Ms. Walker's son Cliff, who is in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, was adopted by a fifth-grade class in Texas after the teacher read about him on the site. Ms. Walker sent the class a large photo of Cliff to hang on their wall.

Michelle Decker, whose husband, Lee, is with an Army tank unit, said some readers had offered to send him care packages after reading her journal, at fortdecker.com, which she calls "Letters From the Homefront." Ms. Decker, who lives at Fort Stewart, Ga., with her three children, directed them instead to sites like usafreedomcorps.gov that coordinate volunteer support for the troops. 

Ms. Decker recently began transcribing letters from her husband and posting them in her journal. The letters often deal with logistical matters like requests for Pop-Tarts, coffee and newspapers, but they can also be quite personal, as when he recently wrote, "Well it is going to be another dark and lonely nite in the desert without you in my arms."

Posting the letters was "the best way I came up with to let people know who he is," Ms. Decker said. Her husband does not yet know about the posts but she said that he probably would not mind them. Some readers have said the letters brought them to tears, she said.

Ms. Decker's journal does not mention politics, but other military wives wrestle publicly with their feelings about the war, especially their frustration with antiwar demonstrators.

The wife of a soldier in the gulf, who asked to be identified only as Michelle, wrote an essay on her site, backbite.net, in which she addressed the protesters outside the base where she lives in the Puget Sound area. 

"I don't have an inside line to the Pentagon or the White House to tell them they are doing right or wrong," Michelle wrote. "You are waving signs at young wives who are suddenly single mothers, scared and alone and, usually, far from home and family. Do you think your signs and accusations are helping alleviate her fears?"

Julia Hayden, an office manager in San Antonio who spent 20 years in the Air Force, publishes letters to her daughter, who is in Kuwait, on a Weblog called "Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing" at sgtstryker.com.

Ms. Hayden, who calls herself Sgt. Mom online, wrote last week: "I was so glad to get your messages yesterday. Everything going on in Iraq sounds so uncertain at times. I'm going to just try and watch some ordinary TV tonight. I planted some Dutch iris in the fall. They are about to bloom."

Her daughter, a 23-year-old marine whose online name is Cpl. Blondie, replied, "That sounds so blessedly normal, the bunker dive has become a way of life around here."

The Internet also offers places for military families to share their thoughts and feelings.

One is militarywives.com, a site run by a retired marine and his wife that includes links to similar sites for each branch of the military. A note on the site, which last night was inoperable because of a hardware failure, explained the "wives" part of the name, saying that the relatively few military husbands "do not go looking for the support that the women do when separated."

One participant asked how often other wives heard from their husbands in Iraq and Kuwait. "I have a friend who talks to her husband on the phone every day," a participant responded. "I am so happy for her, but it's hard to stop your green-eyed monster from popping out."

In at least one case, the site has brought about face-to-face meetings. Brandi Clewis of Houston, whose boyfriend is in the Navy, organized a dinner for seven site participants. Ms. Clewis said the gathering was needed because Houston lacked the focal point of a major military base.

"Since that day we call each other to see what's going on, and I e-mail them all to let them in on the latest news," Ms. Clewis said. "We want to reach out to a community that we can support on a more personal basis than just the Internet."

*******************************
Government Executive
March 28, 2003 
Overtime pay for some federal workers could change 
By Brian Friel

Overtime pay rates for some federal workers could change if the Office of Personnel Management follows the Labor Department?s lead in revising its overtime regulations. 


On Monday, the Labor Department will propose a series of regulatory changes covering overtime pay under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers use the regulations when deciding whether workers are due overtime pay. Private sector employers have long complained that the 50-year old regulations are outdated, confusing and difficult to administer. Federal agencies and employees have been locked in numerous battles over who is and who is not due overtime under the act. 


Among the department?s proposed changes is a plan to rewrite the criteria that employers use to determine if employees fall into administrative, professional and executive categories. If employees fall into those categories, then they aren?t eligible for overtime pay. Employees ineligible for overtime pay are called ?exempt? employees under the law. Employees who are eligible for overtime pay are called ?nonexempt.?


The Labor Department?s regulations apply to private sector employers. In 1974, Congress applied the Fair Labor Standards Act to the federal government and put the Office of Personnel Management in charge of overseeing overtime rules for executive branch agencies. OPM?s criteria for deciding if an employee is exempt or nonexempt are based on the Labor Department?s criteria.


OPM spokesman Edmund Byrnes said Thursday that OPM is studying the Labor Department?s changes. He also said that OPM was not involved in the Labor Department?s revision efforts. But because OPM?s rules are so similar to Labor?s, it?s possible that OPM will follow Labor?s suit. OPM would have to propose its own regulatory changes for federal agencies to be affected.


Joe Goldberg, an attorney for the American Federation of Government Employees, said union officials are worried that changes could reduce overtime pay for some federal workers. 


?AFGE is concerned that the proposed weakening of Fair Labor Standards Act protections in the private sector will be taken by OPM as justification for similar weakenings of the act?s protections in the federal sector,? Goldberg said.


While Goldberg views the Labor Department?s changes as weakening protections, private sector human resources experts view the changes as modernization, simplification and clarification. Deron Zeppelin, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management, said the Labor Department is cutting its regulations from 30,000 words to 13,000 words.


?We?re looking at a potential win for employers because they will know what their obligations are more clearly,? Zeppelin says. ?Because of simplicity, the employees are going to know what their rights are and the Labor Department can enforce the regulations on a more even basis.?


Under current Labor Department criteria, if an employee exercises ?discretion and independent judgment,? then he is exempt from overtime. That wording would be eliminated under the Labor Department?s proposed changes. Instead, an employee would be exempt from overtime if he performed ?work of substantial importance? or ?work requiring a high level of skill or training.?


Zeppelin said the proposed changes still leave some ambiguity, but the Labor Department provides definitions for the new terms that would be used. ?It?s not perfect,? Zeppelin said. But he noted that the regulations in place today were written 50 years ago, when the workplace was not automated and the line between management and rank-and-file employees was clearer. The proposed rules recognize changes in the workplace over the past half century, he said.


The current OPM regulations have led to numerous battles between employees and their agencies over overtime pay. Twelve Navy employees won $200,000 in back overtime pay last year because the Navy improperly classified them as exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation employees won a similar case in 1998, as did Social Security Administration workers that year.


The Postal Service is covered by the Labor Department regulations, but Labor spokeswoman Yvonne Ralsky said postal workers would be largely unaffected because they are covered by collective bargaining agreements. The Library of Congress, Tennessee Valley Authority and Postal Rate Commission are also covered by the Labor Department regulations as well, not by the OPM regulations. 


Much of the legislative branch is covered by the U.S. Office of Compliance?s regulations on overtime. The Office of Compliance oversees several workplace protection laws for the House, Senate, Architect of the Capitol, Capitol Police, Congressional Budget Office and a few other agencies. An Office of Compliance official said the agency has yet to determine whether it will change its regulations to mirror the Labor Department?s changes. 

Link to the changes recommended: http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541_Side_By_Side.htm
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Agencies set e-gov health standards
BY Sara Michael 
March 31, 2003

The federal government has taken the lead in adopting standards for exchanging electronic health information in hopes that the rest of the health community will follow suit.

The departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Defense announced this week the first five of 24 health informatics standards, dictating how, for example, patient prescription information and lab results are shared. The standards are part of the Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) initiative, one of the president's 24 e-government initiatives.

"It enables us to share information we need appropriately to understand what's happening to a patient," said Jared Adair, project manager for the CHI initiative. "It is a very important step for the federal government to be taking the leadership in."

A CHI council, with members from several agencies, determined the target areas to be standardized and examined the standards used in the health care industry. From there, they decided which standards made sense for all agencies, with the intention of making them national standards.

"We're swimming in the mainstream of what those standards should be," said Gary Christopherson, senior adviser to the VA undersecretary for health.

Standards will improve patient safety, reduce error rates and save administrative costs. Currently, agencies use different coding systems.

"Either we moved paper or we didn't get data at all or spent of lot of money to get a solution to tie the systems together," said Robert Kolodner, deputy chief information officer for health at the VA. 

The idea, Adair said, is that by establishing standards, agencies can build them into the technology architecture, so when it comes time for changes and upgrades, software and hardware companies can follow the standards. 

Previous data that does not conform to the standards will likely remain in its native form, because converting high volumes of information can be costly, Kolodner said.

***

Health data framework 

As part of the Consolidated Health Informatics e-government initiative, agencies have introduced the first five of 24 standards for exchanging health information electronically:

* Health Level 7 messaging standard to ensure that each agency can share information such as order entries, scheduled appointments and tests, and admittance, discharge and transfer of patients.

* National Council for Prescription Drug Programs standards for ordering drugs. The standards were adopted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and the new announcement will ensure that parts of the three agencies not covered by the act use the same standards.

* IEEE 1073 standards to enable providers to connect medical devices to information systems.

* Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine standards to enable images and diagnostic information to be retrieved using various devices.

* Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes to standardize the exchange of clinical results.

*******************************
Federal Computer Week
New architecture makes security tricky
BY Brian Robinson 
March 31, 2003

It might not be a showstopper, but security is shaping up to be one of the thorniest issues in the federal enterprise architecture hopper. 

The issue is not the security of the enterprise architecture models themselves (although that is important), but rather security for the information technology systems that will be built using the federal enterprise architecture as a blueprint. That's because these systems -- many based on standard components -- potentially will be used by a large number of agencies and might involve unprecedented levels of information and technology exchanges within and among agencies. 

"It's immensely difficult," said Tim Hoechst, senior vice president of technology for Oracle Corp.

An enterprise architecture can help because it describes all of the business and transaction flows that need to be secured as well as links among physical assets, he said. But the problem is in coming up with the "architectural consistency" that establishes all of the interrelationships among these so that necessary end-to-end security can be installed throughout the enterprise.

It's not an issue that can be fudged or worked around, according to Valerie Perlowitz, president and chief executive officer of Reliable Integration Services Inc.

"How you protect information going from one agency to another in government is essential for all of this working," she said. 

However, with even the basic reference models that will describe the federal enterprise architecture still not defined, security will be an important issue but one that gets addressed later, she said.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Government's security advantage
BY Rutrell Yasin 
March 28, 2003

Although there may be gaps in some federal agencies' information security strategies, agencies do have a framework that gives them some advantages over the private sector, according to a leading Homeland Security Department (DHS) official.

Government and industry face some of the same challenges in the battle to protect against cyberthreats and -attacks, said Sallie McDonald, who oversees the Federal Computer Incident Response Center at DHS.

But federal agencies have the Office of Management and Budget to provide oversight, ensuring that they comply with security legislation such as the Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA) of 2000 and its successor, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, she noted. McDonald was speaking March 27 at a forum conducted by The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) on the government/industry partnership in securing cyberspace.

"We're both in the same situation," she said, but "we are being [forced] to look at what we are doing in cybersecurity and improve our posture." Securing businesses and agencies "is not a technology problem; it's a problem of people and processes," she added.

Industry could benefit from having a framework like the federal government, which sets guidelines agencies must comply with, said Dan Burton, vice president of government relations for security vendor Entrust Inc. He said talks are under way in the private sector about establishing security guidelines and an organization that oversees compliance.

While the federal government has made some headway in giving high priority to cybersecurity, it is not time to rest on "our laurels," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of House Science Committee. He also spoke at the ITAA forum.

"We're still not devoting anything like a sufficient amount of money to cybersecurity," Boehlert said. "And, as has been the case for years, it's hard to tell from the budget exactly what federal money is going into cybersecurity, especially into" research and development (R&D).

He pointed out that the National Science Foundation has received funding for cybersecurity, but so far doesn't appear to be implementing the Cybersecurity Research and Development Act. There must be oversight of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's security budget as well as DHS's cybersecurity efforts, he added.

Boehlert said "DHS does not seem to be organized or funded in a way that focuses sufficiently" on cybersecurity vulnerability. He acknowledged, however, that the department is still getting organized.

Moreover, he said, "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is actually reducing its funding." He noted that in its public programs, DARPA this year will spend less than half on defensive cybersecurity R&D than it spent just two years ago. "The agency is planning to eliminate its funding for this area of research entirely," he said.

Boehlert said he was "laying out a call to arms," noting that government had the best chance ever to finally devote the resources and attention to improve cybersecurity significantly.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
GSA releases rules for .gov domain
BY Colleen O'Hara 
March 28, 2003  

The General Services Administration released a final rule March 28 that lays out a new policy for registering .gov domain names. 

GSA was delegated jurisdiction of the .gov domain in 1997. The domain is used by federal agencies and some nonfederal entities such as the states and Native Sovereign Nations to promote government services and increase the ease of finding those services. 

In the final rule, posted in the Federal Register, GSA said it "reserves the right to charge for domain names in order to recover cost of operations." 

Currently, GSA does not charge a fee, but it "has the authority to employ a system of collection that includes a one-time setup fee for new registrations, which will not exceed $1,000, depending on the level of assistance that may be provided by GSA, and a recurring annual charge that will not exceed $500 for all .gov domains." 

The rule also explains naming conventions for Native Sovereign Nations, states, cities and other entities wanting a .gov domain. For instance, examples of acceptable names for states include virginia.gov, tennesseeanytime.gov, wa.gov, nmparks.gov, mysc.gov, emaryland.gov, and ne-taxes.gov. 

The chief information officer of the government organization must authorize the domain name, according to the rule.

Registration can be done online at GSA's Web site at www.nic.gov.
*******************************


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Welcome to the March 31, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 476
Date: March 31, 2003

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Top Stories for Monday, March 31, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Freedom, Technology and the Net"
"Ubiquitous Computing: Slow Going"
"What Hyperthreading Can (and Can't) Do for You"
"Out of the Shadows"
"Battling 'Surveillance Society'"
"An Engineer by Any Other Name"
"Software Bug May Cause Missile Errors"
"IEEE USA Presses Congress on Visa Curbs"
"University of Minnesota Researchers Develop Surveillance Software"
"Flash Forward"
"Email Traffic Patterns Can Reveal Ringleaders"
"HP Thinks in 3D for Web Browsing"
"Wave Propagation"
"Are We Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks?"
"ICANN Ready to Chart a New Course?"
"Computing at the Atomic Scale--and Below"
"Cybersecurity Downgraded?"
"Snags Remain as Grid-Lock Eases"
"Right Game, Wrong Team"

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

"Freedom, Technology and the Net"
Amid the dragging war against Iraq, the rollback of civil
liberties through legislation, and copyright holders' push to
expand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, one of the few
bright spots is this week's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item1

"Ubiquitous Computing: Slow Going"
Computer and network engineers continue to envision rooms and
buildings of ubiquitous computing environments as they did 15
years ago, but moving this theoretical design to commercial
reality has taken longer than expected. Intel senior researcher ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item2

"What Hyperthreading Can (and Can't) Do for You"
Although many may view hyperthreading (simultaneous
multithreading) as a marketing ploy for Intel, it does offer
performance benefits to users, and is expected to become a
standard feature of software applications, according to Aberdeen ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item3

"Out of the Shadows"
Open-source software is now being perceived as more useful and of
higher quality than in the past, and companies are making a
profit by offering services to those who use open-source
software, or by packaging the software with their own commercial ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item4

"Battling 'Surveillance Society'"
Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU has long championed the fight
against a "surveillance society" in which the government is
constantly privy to the movements, opinions, and thoughts of all
citizens, a trend that could endanger people's right to free ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item5

"An Engineer by Any Other Name"
Texas' narrow legal definition of what constitutes an engineer
could hamper the growth of the state's high-tech industry because
it shuts out a large portion of the workforce, according to
Steven Kester of the American Electronics Association.  Current ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item6

"Software Bug May Cause Missile Errors"
Glitchy software may be the reason why Persian Gulf-based Patriot
missiles targeted friendly aircraft twice in the past week, in
one case with fatal results.  A Patriot battery fired and
destroyed a British Royal Air Force Tornado GR-4 on Sunday, while ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item7

"IEEE USA Presses Congress on Visa Curbs"
Cheap foreign labor continues to have a huge impact on the
prospects of U.S. workers for gaining high-tech jobs, says
IEEE-USA President-Elect John Steadman.  The industry group has
called on Congress to investigate abuses in the H-1B and L-1 visa ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item8

"University of Minnesota Researchers Develop Surveillance Software"
A new layer of security could be added to military computer
systems thanks to the work of researchers at the University of
Minnesota.  The Minnesota Intrusion Detection System, which was
developed by University computer scientists in collaboration with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item9

"Flash Forward"
With flash memory chips expected to reach their physical limits
within two years, Intel, Motorola, and other manufacturers are
exploring alternative materials and designs, although their
projected market impact is a matter of debate.  Flash memory's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item10

"Email Traffic Patterns Can Reveal Ringleaders"
Hewlett-Packard researchers have devised a new method of
analyzing the flow of email traffic for patterns that could
reveal online communities and their leaders, and HP's Joshua
Tyler says law enforcement officials could employ the technique ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item11

"HP Thinks in 3D for Web Browsing"
Hewlett-Packard has introduced a new tool for creating
three-dimensional views of online stores, similar to Doom and
other video games.  Called the VEDA (virtual environment design
automation) project, the application is used as a visualization ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item12

"Wave Propagation"
Innovations around the Wi-Fi standard 802.11 are still picking up
pace, and World Wide Web Consortium founding member and IBM
veteran John Patrick says Wi-Fi will emerge as a leading Internet
access tool and leading mobile phone technology.  In fact, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item13

"Are We Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks?"
The current conflict with Iraq might spur more hacking and
cyber-terrorism, forecasts David Kirkpatrick.  U.K. consulting
firm mi2g says that so far in 2003, confirmed digital attacks
have caused $16 billion in losses, nearly double that of a year ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item14

"ICANN Ready to Chart a New Course?"
Incoming ICANN CEO Paul Twomey sees ICANN's primary
mission as reaching out to all Internet stakeholders in order
to involve them in the ICANN process, especially stakeholders
from less-developed countries.  ICANN will move forward with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item15

"Computing at the Atomic Scale--and Below"
In about 10 years it may not be possible for today's
semiconductor components to continue to follow Moore's Law, but
new computing techniques likely will allow engineers to keep
improving performance dramatically.  Spintronics researchers have ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item16

"Cybersecurity Downgraded?"
The information technology industry has gone from having a
cybersecurity czar in the White House to perhaps not having a
cybersecurity representative in the Bush administration.  After
cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke left his post Feb. 21, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item17

"Snags Remain as Grid-Lock Eases"
Grid computing could gain acceptance this year as new software
makes the technology easier to use and implement and helps
companies take advantage of excess computing power.  WorldCom,
for example, is investigating grid computing services as a way to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item18

"Right Game, Wrong Team"
The test-driven approach followed by extreme programming (XP)
teams can be applied to management, which often overlooks the
important process of articulating financial and organizational
objectives to the teams, resulting in software that misses these ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item19


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