Clips June 10, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips June 10, 2003

ARTICLES

Panel to resolve spectrum debate
DHS looks to combine agency biz cases
Lawmaker pushes for fed leadership on 911
FAA officially launches STARS in Philadelphia 
Security holds its ground in IT crime survey 
Lawmaker decries 'disconnect' between intelligence, security 
Plan for new entry-exit system falls short, report says 
Enough Already: Curbing Info Glut  
Stress test for airport security
BIG DEAL: DOD puts millions of smart cards in play 
U.S. Warns Banks of Virus-Like Infection 
In search of profitable connections
Cursive is no longer the write stuff among students 
Federal grants give tribes on-ramp to broadband
Microsoft to Develop Software for Radio Tags
IBM, Infineon Claim Memory Breakthrough
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Federal Computer Week
Panel to resolve spectrum debate
BY Sara Michael 
June 9, 2003

The Bush administration announced an initiative June 5 to resolve a long-standing dispute between the public and private sectors about radio airwave availability.

A new approach is intended to balance the often competing interests of the Defense Department, law enforcement and other agencies that rely on satellite-based communications, with the economic interests of mobile phone, satellite television and other service providers.

Industry groups, seeing explosive growth in business, have been pressuring the federal government to open up segments of the radio spectrum currently reserved for defense, transportation and public safety.

But DOD and other government users worry that commercial use could interfere with vital communications, such as air traffic control or satellite-based Global Positioning System applications.

"Recent years have witnessed an explosion of spectrum-based technologies and uses of wireless and voice data communication systems," according to a White House memo issued last week. "The existing legal and policy framework for spectrum management has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in technology and spectrum use."

The initiative, led by the Commerce Department, includes two actions: developing an interagency federal spectrum task force to recommend policies, and convening public meetings to focus on use by state and local governments. Commerce officials could not be reached for comment.

"You had a resource and now it's very crowded," said Jim Lewis, senior fellow and director of the technology program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The president has initiated a study to find ways to use spectrum more efficiently. This is a good thing."

Historically, Congress has bullied DOD to give up space for industry use, Lewis said. But the department's recent technology advances in spectrum use and an improving political position have eased that pressure. 

A DOD spokesman said officials "don't automatically go into a defensive crouch every time someone suggests spectrum can be allocated more efficiently." 

DOD officials work hard to ensure the department uses spectrum efficiently, the spokesman said. When possible, they cooperate with those from other agencies and industries to find effective ways to manage the spectrum while keeping in mind their mission. "National security is our paramount concern," he said.

***

Shifting lanes

Think of the radio spectrum as a swimming pool with roped-off lanes, said Jim Lewis, senior fellow and director of the technology program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the past, the government has managed spectrum by dividing it into paths, leaving space between each frequency to guard against interference. A reorganization of spectrum use offers the possibility that the large spaces between paths  or the lanes  are unnecessary, Lewis said.
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Federal Computer Week
DHS looks to combine agency biz cases
BY Judi Hasson 
June 9, 2003

In one of the first steps to consolidate the nearly two dozen agencies that were brought together to create the Homeland Security Department, agency officials are considering combining fiscal 2005 budget requests to fund common missions instead of investing in separate and often disparate systems.

Steve Cooper, DHS' chief information officer, last week asked industry officials what they thought about consolidating the requests of the 22 agencies that make up DHS when he spoke via videoconference to a California gathering sponsored by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and FCW Media Group.

He said consolidating the business case for information technology expenditures would create a single integrated environment and likely would significantly affect those supplying and supporting services.

The IT business case, more technically known as Exhibit 300 of an agency's overall budget request, is a key element in the push toward performance-based budgeting, which links a program's funding to how well it meets identified goals and supports the agency's mission. Exhibit 300s must be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in September as part of OMB's development of President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget.

For the first time, DHS will seek money this year as a department as it attempts to eliminate redundancies caused by the biggest government reorganization in history.

Scott Hastings, CIO at DHS' Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the department is identifying investments that might be related. "We're looking for broad portfolios where components may be reused or leveraged to prevent multiple investments in the same components," he said.

Hastings said DHS is looking at case management, alerts and warnings, and credentialing and identity as some common portfolios that could be shared. "I don't think it necessarily means that all individual agency investments will stop," he said. "There may be redirection, reorientation and realignment."

Patrick Schambach, CIO at the Transportation Security Administration, said the agency is participating in identifying redundancies within its boundaries as well.

Although it may seem that the intent is to spend less money, the consolidation move may simply mean "better organization and better responsiveness," said Larry Allen, executive vice president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, an industry group. 

Harris Miller, ITAA president, said consolidating Exhibit 300s would create opportunities for industry. "It sounds like an innovative approach to try to solve a major challenge, which is to combine a lot of different agency departments in relatively quick order," he said.
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Federal Computer Week
Lawmaker pushes for fed leadership on 911
BY Dibya Sarkar 
June 9, 2003 Printing? Use this version. 
Email this to a friend. 
  
A congressman last week called for the creation of an office within the Homeland Security Department to spearhead and help fund the installation of Enhanced 911 (E911) systems across the country.

A DHS office would provide "crucial, unified federal leadership and coordination," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, during a hearing last week on wireless E911 implementation.

With E911, emergency personnel can view a caller's phone number and address on screen so they can quickly dispatch help to the right location. E911 is the basis for wireless E911, which makes it easier to locate mobile phone callers.

Upton also said DHS should establish a block grant program to help state and local governments complete their E911 systems.

"One of the starkest observations made in the Hatfield Report is that no matter how well the wireless carriers succeed in upholding their end of the bargain, if funding problems persist, deployment will be thwarted," Upton said. "Hence, federal investments are crucial."

The push is based on a recommendation in a report sanctioned by the Federal Communications Commission and released last October by Dale Hatfield, an adjunct professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Communications at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Hatfield, one of the panelists at the hearing, said that although he didn't know whether such an office would fit within DHS, strong federal leadership could bring attention to the initiative. "I am even more convinced [of] the need for such an office," he said.

Although basic 911 covers most of the population, E911 is still being implemented in many parts of the country. 

E911 must be available in an area before wireless E911 can be implemented. The wireless version makes it possible to view mobile callers' phone numbers and, based on the access point they dial into, their general location. Officials said many wireless phone users mistakenly believe such a service already exists throughout the country.

More than 140,000 wireless 911 calls are made daily, representing more than half of all 911 calls, said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who several months ago formed a bipartisan E911 caucus with fellow committee member Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and others. In their testimony, government telecommunications representatives and other panelists said progress is being made; however, deployment has been hampered by a lack of funding and coordination.

In his recommendations, Hatfield said the FCC should encourage each state to develop harmonized deployment through an E911 coordinator or equivalent. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said it boils down to "can we take the 'search' out of search and rescue? The search is the costliest part of the equation. Bottom line is, we can't wait much longer for E911 to be fully implemented."
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Government Computer News
06/09/03 
FAA officially launches STARS in Philadelphia 
By Mary Mosquera 

The Federal Aviation Administration today commissioned its long-awaited advanced air traffic control system at Philadelphia International Airport. 

The event signaled that FAA is ready to deploy nationwide its Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, which had been plagued early on with cost overruns and program glitches. 

STARS is a key part of the agency?s modernization program. ?A significant part of our nation?s future airspace system has arrived today in Philadelphia,? said FAA administrator Marion Blakey. 

Philadelphia, the first airport to operate STARS outside of the original test airports in El Paso, Texas, and Syracuse, N.Y., has operated officially with STARS for seven months. The union that represents the FAA?s information systems workers, the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, signed off on STARS? technical performance before it went operational in Philadelphia. But it was up to the air traffic controllers to reduce any real-world glitches. 

Air traffic controllers have embraced the system. ?The only reason STARS is finally succeeding after a long and difficult history is because controllers have moved the technology forward every step of the way in the program's development, testing and implementation process,? said National Air Traffic Controllers Association president John Carr. STARS is in the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) center. Controllers use the system to separate and sequence arriving and departing aircraft and provide traffic alerts and weather advisories. 

The system can integrate data from up to 16 separate radars, capture accurate local weather information and track as many as 1,350 aircraft in a 60-mile radius, giving controllers a more detailed and accurate picture of passenger airline traffic, the FAA said. 

Philadelphia?s airport also has installed a new Airport Surveillance Radar Model 11 that supplies digital data to STARS; a runway safety alerting system called the Airport Movement Area Safety System; the Precision Runway Monitor radar that allows pilots to perform precision approaches; an automated predeparture flight clearance system called Tower Data Link Service, and a new TRACON facility featuring innovative design features for air traffic control. 

Under a joint FAA and Defense Department program, STARS will replace computers and displays at 74 airports and air traffic facilities through 2008, although even that schedule is in doubt. 

FAA said today it switched the Portland, Ore., airport to STARS. Through the remainder of the year, STARS is scheduled to be installed at airports in Boston; Miami; Milwaukee; Port Columbus, Ohio; San Antonio, Texas; and Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.
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Government Computer News
Security holds its ground in IT crime survey 
By William Jackson 

The eighth annual IT crime survey by the Computer Security Institute of San Francisco and that city?s FBI?s computer intrusion squad shows a dramatic drop in financial losses caused by computer attacks. And a former chief of the FBI?s cybercrime squad said government systems showed significant improvements. 

The number of significant security incidents appears to have leveled off since last year, according to the survey, which produces some of the most widely quoted numbers about the state of IT security. 

But CSI editorial director Robert Richardson cautioned against reading too much into the apparent good news. 

?The survey raises a lot of questions it doesn?t answer,? Richardson said. 

The 530 security professionals who responded to the survey were self-selected, and many of them might not have been totally frank about financial losses. 

Even so, said Patrick Gray, former head of the FBI cybercrime squad, ?Their numbers are pretty good. For security practitioners, it?s a pretty valuable barometer.? 

Gray now heads emergency response services for Internet Security Systems Inc. of Atlanta. 

Only 7 percent of the respondents in the latest survey worked for the federal government. About 5 percent were in state governments and 3 percent in local governments. Seventeen percent came from high-tech sectors, 15 percent were from financial and 11 percent from manufacturing sectors. 

Still, Gray was particularly positive about the state of government security. 

?As a 20-year FBI veteran who retired two years ago, I am amazed at how well the government has responded,? he said. ?Sometimes the government moves glacially, but I think this administration is serious about getting where it should be.? 

Gray discounted persistent government reports about the sorry state of federal IT security, including a congressional report card that gave it an overall failing grade. 

?I don?t know that those grades are meaningful,? he said. 

Low performance might be caused by agencies? focus on a handful of critical systems, he said. The biggest job still undone is enforcing proper policies and standards. 

When Richardson analyzed by sector, he found no statistically significant differences between the various industry and government groups. 

The biggest shift in this year?s numbers was in total reported losses, which dropped by more than half from $455 million last year to $202 million this year. Only 56 percent of respondents reported unauthorized use of IT systems this year, compared with 60 percent last year. 

Richardson said that the drop from last year?s numbers was steep, but figures for financial losses were in line with those reported earlier. 

?You have to be careful what you draw from those numbers,? he said, because fewer than half of the respondents reported money figures. Given the small sample, a few large losses in any given year could sharply swing the totals. 

?People don?t know how to account for a loss very well,? Richardson said. ?The information security industry has just begun to talk to economists.? 

The downward trend in unauthorized systems use has held steady for the last three years, reaching a high of 70 percent in 2000. Reported insider attacks have trended downward for four years, with a corresponding increase in attacks from the Internet. 

Almost all respondents said they used antivirus software and firewalls. Intrusion detection technology came up fast, however, reported by 73 percent of respondents this year compared with 60 percent last year. 

Biometric authentication still has not taken off, however, hovering around 11 percent this year. 

Only 30 percent of the respondents who had security breaches reported them to law enforcement. Seventy percent said they wanted to avoid negative publicity, and 61 percent were afraid of revealing such information to competitors. Surprisingly, 53 percent said they were not aware they could report incidents to law enforcement.
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Government Executive
June 9, 2003 
Lawmaker decries 'disconnect' between intelligence, security 
By Siobhan Gorman, CongressDaily 

House Homeland Security ranking member Jim Turner, D-Texas, is planning to send a letter to President Bush Monday to decry what he sees as significant inadequacies in the intelligence branch of the Homeland Security Department. 


"Hopefully this office [of intelligence] will get the attention internally that it needs," Turner said Monday in an interview with CongressDaily. Turner said he hoped the administration would "take immediate steps to beef up" the department's information analysis operation. A copy of the letter was not available at presstime.

Turner's letter follows up on revelations from a hearing before the committee last Thursday that the department has only one individual designated to assess the threat of bioterrorism and 26 working in its information analysis wing.


Inspired by what he described as the "disturbing" testimony of Paul Redmond, the Homeland Security Department assistant secretary for information analysis, Turner said he is dismayed that Redmond's office is not receiving much top secret intelligence because the computer systems aren't secure. 


"They're not really getting the real stuff," Turner said. Turner also said there is "a disconnect" between the department and the intelligence community. Earlier that day, representatives from the NSA, FBI, CIA and DIA told committee members at a private briefing that they are providing the department with all the intelligence it needs.


"What it does suggest to you is that the department has been mired down in the expected challenges of merging 22 agencies and has not come to grips with the core function of that department, which I think resides in the Office of Information Analysis," Turner said. 
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Government Executive
June 9, 2003 
Plan for new entry-exit system falls short, report says 
By Tom Shoop
tshoop@xxxxxxxxxxx 

The plan to create a new entry-exit system to collect information about foreigners who visit the United States lacks key information, such as what the system will cost and how immigration officials at the Homeland Security Department will manage the acquisition process, according to a new General Accounting Office report.


The report (GAO-03-563), said the preliminary plan for the entry-exit system shows it is being designed to meet functional and performance standards set by Congress. But the plan ?does not adequately disclose material information about the system, such as what system capabilities and benefits are to be delivered, by when, and at what cost,? GAO found.


GAO also said immigration officials have yet to meet Office of Management and Budget requirements to develop a security plan and assess the system?s impact on individuals? privacy.


In 2002, more than 440 million people entered the United States at about 300 land, air and sea ports of entry. Congress first required the Immigration and Naturalization Service to begin developing an entry-exit system to track such visitors in 1996. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act required that the system rely on biometricssuch as fingerprints, eye shapes and voice patternsand be capable of interfacing with systems of other law enforcement agencies. Earlier this year, the entry-exit system was renamed the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indication Technology (U.S. VISIT) system.


In a response to GAO?s report, Michael Garcia, head of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Homeland Security, said GAO?s conclusion that immigration officials did not provide sufficient information about the system ?fails to consider that the lack of specific detail is attributable to a number of policy decisions that are pending, all of which directly impact the features of the system.?


Such pending issues, Garcia said, include whether biometric information will be captured for all people entering and exiting the United States, whether official documents will be required of all visitors, and whether exit control procedures will be based on law enforcement interviews and biographic information about visitors, or rely on biometrics and direct observations to determine that people actually leave the country.


The GAO report said such uncertainties should have been noted in the plan itself, and ?notwithstanding these undecided policy matters, the plan could still have provided more detailed information, such as addressing how the acquisition was to be managed.?
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Wired News
DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire
02:00 AM Jun. 10, 2003 PT

The Justice Department's statements -- and what it did not say -- in a congressional inquiry on the use of broadened surveillance powers authorized after the Sept. 11 attacks is raising a red flag among civil liberties groups. A central concern is the lack of clarity regarding the scope of Internet surveillance powers granted in the controversial USA Patriot Act.

In response to testimony last week by Attorney General John Ashcroft before the House Judiciary Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union published a memo criticizing the government's attempts to apply the methodology for tracing phone calls to tracking Internet use. 

Timothy Edgar, an ACLU legislative counsel and the report's author, argued that so-called "trap and trace" devices, traditionally used to capture telephone numbers but not the content of conversations, could potentially violate a subject's privacy if it's used to watch Web activity. 

On the Internet, investigators use "trap and trace" technology to monitor e-mail, Web surfing and other activity to search for clues about potentially illegal activity. 

The problem, according to Edgar, is that a URL, unlike a phone number, provides detailed information about the content a person is obtaining. "It isn't always technologically feasible to separate content information from routing information," said Edgar. 

An overly intrusive application of tracing devices online was one of several Internet-related red flags raised by civil rights advocates following Ashcroft's testimony and the release last month of a Justice Department document answering lawmakers' questions about the Patriot Act. 

Another Net-related concern in the ACLU memo is the potential use of Web-surfing records in data-mining projects, allowing investigators to fish for illicit activity unrelated to the original inquiry. 

The ACLU also criticized the paucity of information provided by the Justice Department regarding what Internet content it considers off-limits in searches. It also questioned the application of some surveillance technologies in garden-variety criminal cases. 

The critique comes as the Justice Department is expected to seek an extension of authorities granted under the Patriot Act. 

The agency has not said when it will seek Congressional approval of a Patriot Act extension. But a draft proposal laying out a wish list of new powers, nicknamed "Patriot II," surfaced earlier this year, indicating that the Justice Department has already expended considerable effort planning its appeal. The proposal would broadly expand the government's surveillance and detention powers, including extending authorization periods for secret wiretaps and Internet surveillance. 

The Justice Department has a limited time to seek a follow-up bill. Many of the authorities granted under the original Patriot Act -- enacted two months after the Sept.11 attacks -- expire at the end of 2005. 

But before approving broad new powers for federal investigators, civil rights groups say Congress must ensure that the government is doing what it can to see that existing powers are applied responsibly. 

That could be a difficult task, considering that thus far the Justice Department has been tight-lipped about Patriot Act-related activities, said Lee Tien, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

As far as Internet surveillance is concerned, Tien said the Justice Department's preference for minimal disclosure is aided by the fact that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act covers authorization for communications monitoring in anti-terrorism cases. Under FISA, investigators obtain authorization to conduct surveillance through a secret court, leaving the public out of the loop. 
"What we're concerned about is you have a situation where the government, because there is less accountability, can engage in more surveillance without people knowing about it," Tien said.
The ACLU, meanwhile, says it would like to see more disclosure regarding the amount and types of data investigators obtain when monitoring Internet use. So far, the Justice Department has provided limited guidance on this subject. A memo (PDF) authored last year by Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson states that the policy of the Justice Department is to use "reasonably available technology" in order to avoid collection of any content when trap and trace devices are employed. If content still gets collected, the memo states that "no affirmative investigative use may be made of that content." 

But the ACLU's Edgar maintains that the Patriot Act does not clearly define what constitutes content in the context of the Internet. For example, he notes, it is unclear whether an investigator, without probable cause, would find out only that a subject has visited the Google website, or also that he or she entered the search terms "Bush" and "Halliburton," or "Clinton" and "Whitewater." 

Edgar said the Department of Justice also failed to clarify whether or not it considers subject lines in e-mail messages to be content, as he has recommended. Moreover, the ACLU notes that trap-and-trace powers have not been limited to terrorism investigations, and have been applied to track Internet use in drug- and fraud-related cases. 

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said that in the overwhelming majority of cases, powers granted under the Patriot Act have been used for the purpose of combating terrorism. And while the act does address monitoring of Internet activities, it does not provide a blank check to federal investigators to spy on ordinary Americans. 

"What the Patriot Act allows us to do is to go to the FISA court and seek a warrant from a judge to monitor the Internet usage of the target of an investigation," he said. "It doesn't authorize the FBI to just go to the Internet and look at who's looking at what."
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Wired News
Enough Already: Curbing Info Glut  
02:00 AM Jun. 10, 2003 PT
Information can save lives, but it can also drive people nuts. 

Rescuers working at the World Trade Center said they often struggled to spot important information in the deluge of non-critical data posted on private emergency service networks. Military commanders can be bombarded with thousands of reports from satellites, ground sensors and other sources.

"It was great to have access to so much info but your brain can become data-fatigued very quickly," said retired Marine Communications Specialist Thomas Castro, who served in the first Persian Gulf War. "All of a sudden you're flooded with information, and frantic that you'll miss the one bit that could save lives. It's a truly horrible feeling." 

But new open-source software developed by a team of university researchers may help soldiers and emergency workers avoid information overload and handle threats more efficiently. 

CAST, which means Collaborative Agents for Simulating Teamwork, makes computers part of a military unit or team, according to Pennsylvania State University researcher John Yen, one of CAST's developers. 

Using software agents -- semi-autonomous, adaptive "personal assistants" -- CAST can predict what kind of data humans will need to handle a specific situation, then deliver that information on a need-to-know basis. 

Yen is working with Army Research Lab to develop battlefield applications of CAST under the U.S. Army's stated plan for the Objective Force, a new, more technically savvy (PDF) army. He is also working with Lockheed Martin to develop a Homeland Security application for CAST. 

CAST was originally developed by researchers at Texas A&M as a tool to train military and emergency workers to work well in teams. The project has been further refined through a collaboration between Yen, a faculty member at Penn State's School of Information Sciences and Technology, and Richard Volz and Michael Miller from Texas A&M. 

CAST is based on what Yen refers to as "shared mental models" -- the software is programmed with the ideas, goals and concerns that a particular team of workers has regarding a project, and is taught how to best behave in a particular situation. 

"The inspiration came from psychologists studying the behavior of human teams who were required to process incoming information under the pressure of time constraints," Yen said. "CAST is modeled on the behavior exhibited by the higher-performing teams." 

Teams that did well in crisis situations anticipated others' needs and intuitively knew what information needed to be shared with what other team members. They then made sure the information was easily accessible to those who needed it. 

Besides being programmed to act as a perfect team member, CAST can sort through information more quickly than humans can. It excels at searching for common, connected chunks of data. The more common a thread is, the more importance CAST assigns to that kind of data. 

The CAST system kernel is composed of a set of algorithms that CAST software agents use to decide what actions they will take as circumstances progress. All these kernel algorithms rely on a computational model of the team's mental processes -- a sort of data map of what everyone is thinking about and working toward. 

Two of the key algorithms used by CAST are dynamic role selection, or DRS, and dynamic inter-agent rule generator, DIARG. 

DRS dynamically assigns CAST agents to carry out specific jobs based on constraints specified in the evolving overall plan. DIARG is the team's psychic friend -- it identifies information needed before human team members know that they need the data. 

The two algorithms work together to figure out the best way to send the best data to the human best equipped to make use of it. 

CAST development was funded through a Department of Defense grant to Texas A&M, Wright State University and Penn State. The project has also been awarded grants from National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office and the Army Research Lab.
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Austrialan IT
Stress test for airport security
Karen Dearne
JUNE 10, 2003  
 
AIRPORT biometric identity checks alone would not have averted the two hijack scares in the past two weeks on domestic flights, an aviation security expert says.

In the first incident a man was subdued aboard a Qantas flight after trying to enter the pilot's cabin with sharpened stakes. In the second, a man was arrested at Melbourne airport after passengers became alarmed by statements he made. 
Ken Hyams, chief executive of Brisbane-based P-7 Corp, said the incidents showed that not enough was being done to protect air travellers from disaster. 

"Technologies like the SmartGate face recognition system only look at a person's appearance in terms of the identifiers," he said. "We've always believed that the only way you're going to catch a sleeper - somebody you don't know much about and who has always been an upstanding citizen - is through biometric indicators." 

Thermography, for example, could be used to look at blood flow in a person's facial capillaries as a physical measure of stress. 


"You can store a baseline stress level from the last time you saw them and compare that with how they look now," Mr Hyams said. 

"This would have worked on September 11, because exactly two weeks prior those terrorists all took the same flights on a trial run. 

"Even if they had not been worried about dying on that morning, they would have been worried about failing - and that changed condition would have been picked up." 

Mr Hyams said, P-7 had developed and patented some "very specialised methodologies" in the area of biometrics, as applied to aviation security and border control. 

"The idea that the only way we can prevent hijackers getting on board planes is by frisking everybody is nonsense," he said. 

"There are technologies that can assess people's condition in a non-intrusive manner and without subjecting old ladies with pins in their hips to humiliating pat-downs." 

Imaging systems could measure changes in physical characteristics and mannerisms, and pulse rates could be read remotely. 

Meanwhile, the federal Public Accounts and Audit Committee is to conduct a review of aviation security in Australia. 

The inquiry, announced last week, will examine compliance with Commonwealth requirements at major and regional airports. 
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Government Computer News
BIG DEAL: DOD puts millions of smart cards in play 
By William Jackson 

Common Access Card leads the way toward a new deal for smart-card use 

The Defense Department has about 2.4 million Common Access Cards in use and is issuing about 10,000 more daily. 

?DOD is leading in identity management,? said Brett Michaels, head of government sales for RSA Security Inc. of Bedford, Mass., speaking at a recent conference in San Francisco. ?Their effort, funding and conviction have blazed a trail for the rest of the public sector.? 

The CAC program is ?far and away the largest U.S. government application of smart-card technology,? said Dave Ludin, North American vice president of sales and solutions at Gemplus Corp. of Redwood City, Calif. ?It has spurred interest throughout the government. You can see it in the Transportation Security Administration,? which is testing a Transportation Worker ID Credential, or TWIC. 

Ludin said smart cards would be among the technologies tested this year for the Transportation Workers ID Credentials at the Philadelphia-Wilmington port on the East Coast and the Los AngelesLong Beach port on the West Coast. Gemplus will be supplying cards for the pilot program. He said the cards probably would be used in contact mode, in which they are inserted in a reader, for access to networks and databases; and in contactless mode, using radio frequencies, for physical access to buildings and sites. 

In addition to TWIC, the Treasury and State departments also are rolling out smart-card programs using the same card stock as the Common Access Card, said Neville Pattinson, director of business development and technology for Schlumberger Ltd. of New York. 

?Many other government agencies are using the experience of the DOD and the Common Access Card Office,? Pattinson said. 

Watershed event 

Smart cards for years have been on the brink of acceptance in the United States, but have been slow to catch on. DOD?s decision to forge ahead with the cards, with plans to integrate multiple applications on IDs held by about 4 million service members, contractors and civilian employees, was a watershed for the industry. Rolling out the Common Access Card required innovations in both the physical card and in the technology inside it. The card uses the Java Card run-time environment on a 32K chip. Before DOD could put it into use it had to be certified as meeting FIPS 140-1 Level 2 cryptographic requirements. The certification process took seven months, Pattinson said. 

Creating the card that holds the chip also was a challenge. There has traditionally been little personalization beyond an embossed name and account number when commercial smart cards are issued. But almost all of the information on the Common Access Cardphoto, personal information and bar codeshas to be printed on the card when it is issued. 

The blank cards contain a liquid crystal variable image of the DOD seal and are laminated on only the front because there is a magnetic strip on the back. That created a another minor challenge. Cards laminated on one side ?tend to bend like a banana,? Pattinson said; Schlumberger had to develop a card that would stay flat. Eight months after receiving a CAC contract in December 2000, cards were ready for issuing. 

Military personnel enroll and are issued cards at 900 sites around the world. The number of sites speeds up the issuing process, but creates major management challenges. TSA is looking at a more centralized system to save money, Pattinson said. Transportation workers, including truck drivers and port and airport employees, would be able to enroll for TWIC locally, although the cards probably would be issued from a central location. 

Even before the TWIC pilot is complete, DOD will begin issuing its first round of replacement Common Access Cards late this year. Options for the next-generation cards could include contactless chips to replace magnetic stripes on current cards and biometrics, Pattinson said. 

One lesson learned from the Common Access Card is that ?there still are opportunities to do it better,? Ludin said. 

One of the most obvious improvements would be to tie together back-end systems for physical and logical access, he said. 

If the same card is used to enter a base or a building and to log onto a network, integrating the systems that control access to both would allow more complete tracking and improved security, he said. 

Industry and government representatives are in the process of writing standards that would allow integration of the two kinds of systems.
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Associated Press
U.S. Warns Banks of Virus-Like Infection 
Mon Jun 9, 7:38 PM ET
By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer 

WASHINGTON - The government is warning financial institutions about a virus-like infection that has targeted computers at roughly 1,200 banks worldwide, trying to steal corporate passwords.


The FBI (news - web sites) is investigating what private security experts believe to be the first Internet attack aimed primarily at a single economic sector. 


Virus experts studying the blueprints for the latest threat to Internet users were astonished to find inside the software code a list of roughly 1,200 Web addresses for many of the world's largest financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., American Express Co., Wachovia Corp., Bank of America Corp. and Citibank N.A. 


The destructive infection, known as "BugBear.B," has spread to tens of thousands of consumer computers across the Internet since last week, but investigators and industry experts said they were unaware if any financial institutions had been significantly affected. 


Industry executives told Treasury Department (news - web sites) officials and other banking regulators during a meeting Monday in Washington that while they were concerned that the infection targeted them, they were unaffected because of tight corporate security. 


The infection "was hammering the outside servers but it was being rejected," said Suzanne Gorman, head of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a bank cybersecurity organization that works with the government. "People weren't reporting that it got through to their personal organizations." 


The analysis center distributed information from the Homeland Security Department to the nation's banks using its highest-priority alert on Thursday, Gorman said. The discovery of the banking Web addresses inside the software code "raised a lot of eyebrows," she said. 


FBI spokesman Bill Murray confirmed the agency was trying to trace the author of the attacking software. 


Experts said the BugBear software was programmed to determine whether a victim used an e-mail address that belonged to any of the 1,300 financial institutions listed in its blueprints. 


If a match was made, it tried to steal passwords and other information that would make it easier for hackers to break into a bank's networks. 


The software transmitted stolen passwords to 10 e-mail addresses, which also were included in the blueprints. But experts said that on the Internet, where anyone can easily open a free e-mail account using a false name, knowing those addresses might not lead detectives to the culprit. 


"Depending on how those e-mail boxes are used, it could make investigating this a little easier," Murray said. "But it's not that easy. Those addresses may be blind boxes." 
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BBC Online
In search of profitable connections
By Briony Hale 
BBC News Online business reporter, Accra, Ghana 

In the latest in a series on Africa's web ambitions, BBC News Online's Briony Hale asks whether the internet is delivering on the promise of increased prosperity 

Astonishingly, Ghana's capital city of Accra boasts about 500 internet cafes, roughly six times as many as London. 

"They're dating, they're being entertained, they're sourcing educational materials," says Mark Davies, founder of Ghana's biggest cyber cafe, when asked how surfers are making use of his 100-terminal facility. 

Later, he adds that many are desperately trying to find a way of getting themselves out of Ghana, whilst others are engaged in the notorious, fraudulent activities more usually associated with Nigeria. 

And the vast majority of Ghanaians are logging on for the sole purpose of e-mail, using the internet as a much-needed alternative to the expensive and frequently dysfunctional phone system. 

Such anecdotal evidence throws serious doubt on the promise that being connected to the world wide web can help alleviate poverty. 

False hope? 

"There are lots of assumptions that being connected to the internet will in some way create a more equitable life," says Dr Robin Mansell, new media fellow at the London School of Economics. 

"But there is little proof that the people who have internet access are striding ahead of their non-connected peers." 

Many experts are starting to agree that the digital divide - when defined as mere access to the internet - has been vastly overstated. 

While the home and office connections enjoyed by Westerners is unparalleled, a reasonable proportion of African city-dwellers have some sort of access to the web. 

The explosion in the number of internet cafes - admittedly sometimes home to just two or three terminals - in Accra is testimony to that. 

But the goal of improved prosperity, greater business opportunities and increased participation in the global economy - promised by UN secretary general Kofi Annan amongst others - is still a rarity. 

'Beautiful internet' 

Linda Yaa Ampah, a clothes designer and entrepreneur who last year exported $40,000 worth of stock to Africans living in the US, is an exception to the norm.

She was advised to get an e-mail address after handing out international mobile phone numbers to American customers at a fashion show in Accra. 

"I went to an internet cafe and I couldn't believe it when I realised I could get an address for free," she says, adding that she had little knowledge of computers and presumed e-mail accounts were very expensive. 

A few years later, Linda employs an army of 50 tailors to meet her orders and attributes her success to her humble hotmail account. 

Americans are wary of long distance telephone calls, she says, but perfectly happy to e-mail their orders. 70% of business is now generated through e-mail from the US. 

"The internet is beautiful, easy and clear," she says, "I wouldn't have got nearly so far without it." 

Empowering? 

In addition to such financial success stories, there are also many intangible benefits of the internet for developing countries. 

There is the empowerment that comes from being able to research any subject and the increased knowledge of the wider world, helping poor people become what development agencies call "information rich". 

But this improved knowledge has also contributed to the exodus of many of Africa's most skilled workers in search of better opportunities abroad, the so-called brain drain that is frequently mentioned in debates about Africa's economic problems. 

And the internet has also cemented Africa's image of corruption, the image it is trying so hard to ditch. 

Broken promises 

At Ghana's biggest internet cafe, BusyInternet, there are signs by every terminal prohibiting the wide array of illegal cash-seeking activities that first emanated from Nigeria. 

But the cafe's owner admits that, in the early hours of the morning, the fraudsters are almost certainly to be found amongst his customers. 


Dr Richard Heeks, a lecturer on Information Systems and Development at the University of Manchester, is amongst those who believe that the problem of the digital divide is over-estimated. 

But he is equally adamant that, where the internet has arrived, it is being used for social rather than productive reasons, and doing absolutely nothing to alleviate poverty. 

For Ghana's 500-strong internet cafe owners, there is at least a new business opportunity to exploit. 

But for the vast majority of people, the internet is failing to deliver on its promise of prosperity. 
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 Seattle Times
Cursive is no longer the write stuff among students 
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press  
SAN MATEO, Calif.

SAN MATEO, Calif.  Monique McGowan sharpens a No. 2 pencil, straightens her posture and sharply slants her notebook to prepare for her weekly lesson in cursive. 
She and other third-graders at Horrall Elementary School have perfected ascenders and descenders, and their letters' tails and legs hit the appropriate base lines  even the tricky capitals G, Q and S. 

But Monique, who plays games on her dad's laptop at home, says she'd rather punch a keyboard than write cursive. 

"Computers are better," the 9-year-old says. "With typing, you don't have to erase when you make a mistake. You just hit delete, so it's a lot easier." 

Such attitudes worry a growing number of parents, educators and historians, who fear that computers are speeding the demise of a uniquely American form of expression. Handwriting experts fear that the popularity of e-mail, instant messages and other electronic communication, particularly among kids, could erase cursive within a few decades. 

At technology-savvy Horrall Elementary  where students take keyboard lessons in third grade, precisely when they learn cursive  Monique's teacher, Ed Boell, is fighting the trend. He refuses to give extra points when students turn in laser-printed homework assignments with fancy computer fonts, and he urges kids to send handwritten letters to parents and friends. 

A cherished style 

Still, about half his students use computers for assignments, up every year since the late 1990s. He ends his cursive lesson with a warning: 

"The truth is, boys and girls, even if you write a lot of e-mail on the computer, you will always need to write things down on paper at some point in your life," Boell says. "The letters you write to people are beautiful, and they'll cherish them forever. Have any of you ever received an e-mail that you cherished?" 

The students eagerly shout, "No!" and return to loops and curves. 

Since switching from print to the more free-flowing handwriting earlier this year, Boell's students are writing faster and more legibly. 

  
  
But in many other classrooms, traditional cursive, developed in the 20th century by Austin Norman Palmer, is on its way out. So many students have trouble with it that teachers are increasingly adopting a simpler style known as Italic or "print cursive." 

Online discussion forums for teachers estimate that as many as 7 percent of third-graders are using Italic, whose printed letters are "semi-connected" with small tails. Sue Bolton at Kings Mountain Elementary School in Woodside, Calif., teaches the Palmer Method to her second- and third-graders, but many of her students turn in homework with touches of Italic they've picked up from siblings or other teachers. 

"They've got good handwriting now, and they love cursive," Bolton says. "But it wouldn't surprise me if they just walked around with their little keyboards and typed everything a few years from now." 

Using computers 

According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 use computers. It's not uncommon for kids to type 20 or 30 words per minute by the time they leave elementary school. 

The trend pervades Silicon Valley, where many schools have computer labs and kids gravitate toward careers in the computer industry. But some say students' struggles with cursive have reached alarming proportions nationwide. 

Michael Sull, a 54-year-old artist in Overland Park, Kan., says today's third-graders have not developed proper forearm and hand musculature, seated posture or mental discipline. The former president of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting says keyboards, joysticks and cellphone touch pads have ruined kids' ability to hold a pencil properly, let alone write legibly. 

"If you need to relay information immediately and have just a half-second to grab anything, maybe just a napkin, penmanship is so valuable," Sull says. "It doesn't rely on batteries or power. It's like breathing  it's always with you." 

Clearer past 

Parents who pride themselves on their penmanship often bemoan their children's cursive  particularly when they can't read sloppy notes or notice that their kids increasingly turn in homework via e-mail. Many adults pine for a return to the Palmer Method or even its fancier predecessor, Spencerian. 

"Cursive was so character-defining when I was in school," says Amy Greene, whose 9-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son prefer keyboards to cursive in their Palo Alto, Calif., classrooms. "The way you wrote something was considered part of your inner being, your core, your worth. ... Now it's considered an anachronism." 

Nabeel Khaliq, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Mississauga, Ont., comes from a family of cursive enthusiasts and can't imagine not writing. 

He took first place in his age category in the 2002 World Handwriting Contest, sponsored by the Albany, N.Y.-based Handwriting for Humanity club. 

"It must be a natural thing that my family has, except for my brother," Nabeel says. "I write all of my rough drafts by hand." 

Still, Nabeel's cursive is rivaled only by his typing. He types 40 words per minute  he was the fastest typist in fifth grade, a close second this year to a classmate who hit 50 words per minute.
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USA Today
Federal grants give tribes on-ramp to broadband
June 10, 2003

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP)  American Indians in rural areas across America will get some help surfing the Web, thanks to the federal government. 

A $20 million grant announced Monday for high-speed connections to the Internet includes $8.2 million for Indian tribes. The Coeur d'Alene tribe will get $2.7 million, the largest single amount. 

"It's almost like when our tribe got the horse," said Valerie Fast Horse, who is overseeing the project. "People couldn't imagine what we would do with the horse when we got it. Then we got the horse, we jumped on its back and we took off." 

The grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Division will allow rural tribes to get broadband Internet access. 

In Washington, the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe received $498,503 from the grant. In Alaska, the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes received $294,590 to build a broadband network. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Warm Springs, Ore., received $695,832. 

The Coeur d'Alene tribe will use its money to build a wireless network that will reach customers who may not even have access to phone lines. 

The tribe is also building a Tribal Community Technology Center that will house 40 computers and give all residents free Internet access. 

Hilda G. Legg, head of the USDA's Remote Utility Service, presented the grant at a ceremony in the Kootenai Medical Center. She said the Coeur d'Alene tribe stuck out because of its plan for a commu~ity technology center. 

"If you do not educate your community to the usage of the Internet and how that usage makes them better, then you only have a bunch of wires," Legg said. 

Coeur d'Alene Tribal Chairman Ernie Stensgar said high-speed Internet will make the reservation more appealing to business. 

"We have a hard time bringing industry to our reservation," he said. "The freeway is going by, and this is the onramp to the freeway." 

Customers on the reservation will be able to subscribe to the high-speed connection for a fee that is not much more than that of a standard dial-up account, Fast Horse said. Equipment required for access will be provided by the tribe. 

Tribal organizations such as the Fire Department, hospital and the police will also use the broadband connection. 
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Reuters
Microsoft to Develop Software for Radio Tags
2 hours, 42 minutes ago

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) said on Tuesday that it would develop software and services that will help retailers, manufacturers and distributors use radio tags to track and manage goods within stores and factories.


Radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology is gaining ground as a better way to label items ranging from cereal boxes to car parts, since the low-cost tags can be tracked by remote radio receivers, unlike bar codes, which must be visible to be read by laser scanners. 


Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news), the world's largest retailer, told its top suppliers last week to have all their products "chipped" or tagged with RFID modules. 


Microsoft said that it would work to make its desktop, server and applications software work with RFID and also develop programs specifically designed to use the new retail tagging technology.
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NewsFactor
IBM, Infineon Claim Memory Breakthrough

IBM and Infineon Technologies say they have accomplished a breakthrough in computer memory technology with a new chip that lets users boot up computers as quickly as flipping a light switch. Unveiling what they contend is the most advanced MRAM (magnetic random access memory) product to date, the partners said the new chip could replace existing memory technologies in an array of devices by as early as 2005. MRAM has been highly touted as an improvement for laptops, PDAs and next-generation mobile phones, as well as for PCs. [Full Story http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21696.html]
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