Clips June 3, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips June 3, 2003

ARTICLES

Software Piracy Said to Decline in 2002 
California Senate OKs new bid to recycle e-waste
GAO denies Recruitment One-Stop appeal 
U.S. Looks to Save $100M on Computers 
Air Force forms council for IT buys
Law school serves spam as main course 
Government takes the lead on voice over IP 
Internet emergency alert service designed for government use
Report says IRS computer security weaknesses compromise tax data 
Pentagon Project Could Put Powerful Software in Private Hands 
Chinese journalist goes on hunger strike

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Associated Press
Software Piracy Said to Decline in 2002 
2 hours, 22 minutes ago
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 

NEW YORK - Worldwide piracy of business software products like Microsoft Office declined slightly in 2002 because of better education and more aggressive tactics in stopping Internet piracy, software industry officials say.


The downturn follows two years of increases blamed in part on the rise of distributing illegal copies online, according to a study released Tuesday by the Business Software Alliance. 


The study estimates that 39 percent of business software products in use last year were not legally obtained. Though the global piracy rate had steadily dropped from 49 percent in 1994, the year of the first study, to 36 percent in 1999, it rose to 40 percent in 2001. 


The main source of software piracy remains businesses buying one copy of software legally and then installing it over several computers, said Robert Holleyman, president and chief executive of the Business Software Alliance. 


To combat that, the alliance continued circulating brochures on piracy and conducting amnesty campaigns encouraging businesses to pay for additional copies without threat of civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution, which could lead to fines and even imprisonment. 


"Our educational efforts are really paying dividends," Holleyman said. 


Last year, the software group also began using an automated software "robot" to find sites for downloading pirated software and computers that share such programs over Kazaa and other file-swapping networks. Previously, investigators looked for such piracy manually. 


Though piracy rates have decreased, the amount of money lost has risen partly because software prices have gone up, according to the study. 


Comparable figures for music and movie piracy are not available, but representatives for those industries say the problem is growing given the ease of sharing pirated files over the Internet. 


Software manufacturers have had a head start, Holleyman said. 


"Technology through the Internet is only now beginning to facilitate the very easy, illegal copying of music and movies," he said. "And for software, because every PC is a software copying machine, since inception we have had a problem." 


Rob Enderle, a technology analyst with Forrester Research, added that while music and movies remain stand-alone products, software is increasingly packaged with technical support and regular updates. He said a pirated copy is sometimes worthless without those services. 


Companies like Microsoft have begun trying to prevent single copies from being used on multiple computers by requiring special activation codes tied to a specific computer. Holleyman said it was too early to tell how well such moves have worked in reducing piracy. 


The study was conducted for the Business Software Alliance by International Planning and Research Corp. The piracy rate was calculated by comparing the researchers' estimates on demand with data on actual software sales. 


The study looked only at business software  general applications like the Office suite and antivirus programs as well as niche software titles like AutoCAD for architects and designers. Games, personal finance and other consumer programs were not included. 


By region, North America had the lowest piracy rate, at 24 percent, and Eastern Europe the highest, at 71 percent. Vietnam topped the list of countries, at 95 percent, followed by China, at 92 percent, and Indonesia, Russia and the Ukraine, all at 89 percent.
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Mercury News
California Senate OKs new bid to recycle e-waste
June 3, 2003

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Legislation requiring manufacturers to implement plans to recycle their televisions, computer monitors and other electronic devices containing lead was approved Monday by the California Senate.

The bill by Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford, targets so-called e-waste, which Sher described as a rapidly growing waste disposal problem.

His bill, sent to the Assembly by a 26-13 vote, would require manufactures either to develop recycling plans for their electronic devices or pay a fee to the state to cover the cost of collecting and recycling them when their wear out.

Gov. Gray Davis vetoed a Sher bill last year that would have put a $10 recycling fee on each of the millions of televisions and computers sold in California. That measure was expected to raise $240 million a year to cover recycling costs.

``We should compel industry to solve this problem,'' he said in his veto message.

Sher responded with this year's legislation, which he said was modeled on a plan used by the European Union and that wasn't opposed by California companies.

A report released in January by the Computer TakeBack Campaign, an advocacy group, said U.S. companies trail foreign rivals in reducing hazardous materials in electronic equipment and encouraging recycling.

Meanwhile, the Assembly on Monday approved a bill by Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, that would ban the intentional use of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, in packaging materials, starting in 2006. Incidental use would be banned by 2008.

The four heavy metals have been linked to cancer and other health problems.
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Associated Press
Work on U.S. Do-Not-Call List Speeds Up 
Mon Jun 2, 7:39 PM ET

By DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators are speeding up the launch of a national do-not-call list that will block many unwanted telemarketing calls. 

   

The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that telephone registration for the free service will be available nationwide in early July, nearly two months earlier than originally planned. 


The FTC plans to launch a Web site on July 1 so consumers can register online. Telephone registration in states west of the Mississippi River will begin at the same time. Nationwide registration should begin a week later. 


Beginning in September, telemarketers will have to check the list every three months to determine who does not want to be called. Those who call listed people could be fined up to $11,000 for each violation. Consumers would be able to file complaints by phone or online to an automated system. 


The government said consumers should see a decrease in telemarketing calls after it begins enforcing the do-not-call list in October. 


More than two dozen states already have their own do-not-call lists or legislation pending that would create them. Most states plan to add their lists to the national registry, which will be financed by fees collected from telemarketers. 


Telemarketers say the registry will devastate their industry and have sued the FTC on grounds the registry amounts to an unlawful restriction on free speech. 


There are exceptions to the FTC's do-not-call protections. 


A company may call someone on the list if that person has bought, leased or rented from the company within the past 18 months. Telemarketers also can call people if they have inquired about or applied for something from the company during the past three months. 


Charities, surveys and calls on behalf of politicians also are exempt.
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Government Computer News
05/30/03 
GAO denies Recruitment One-Stop appeal 
By Jason Miller 

The General Accounting Office has pushed the Office of Personnel Management closer to recompeting at least part of the Recruitment One-Stop contractone of the 25 Quicksilver e-government projects. 

The audit agency late last month denied OPM?s appeal for reconsideration after GAO determined the award to TMP Worldwide Government Services of New York for revamping www.usajobs.opm.gov was improper. 

?We looked at the issues OPM raised and declined to modify our decision,? said Sharon Larkin, GAO?s attorney. 

Symplicity Corp. of Arlington, Va., protested the award, and GAO recently ruled in its favor. The audit agency said OPM should re-evaluate all bids to determine whether the proposed services are within the scope of the winning company?s schedule contract. GAO also recommended that OPM reopen discussions with all bidders in the competitive range and re-evaluate their revised offers. 

OPM argued that TMP modified its General Services Administration?s Federal Supply Service schedule contract to include the two labor categories that GAO said were an issue. Because these two labor categories were added to TMP?s schedule, OPM said, it made GAO?s decision moot. 

GAO disagreed, saying ?the agency?s failure to consider whether the two labor categories were on TMP?s schedule contract was a symptom of a larger evaluation flaw, namely that the agency failed to perform any analysis of whether TMP?s proposed services, labor categories or other direct costs were within the scope of TMP?s contract.? 

GAO said TMP?s modification does not address whether OPM evaluated the vendors? services included in their Federal Supply Service contracts. 

?The fact that one vendor, TMP, has been permitted to make a change affecting the acceptability of its quotation only underscores the need to treat competing vendors comparably,? GAO said in its decision. ?Thus, OPM has provided no basis to modify our recommendation.? 

?We have just received the decision, and we are reviewing it,? a senior OPM official said. ?We are now assessing our options.? 

OPM in January awarded a five-year contract to TMP Worldwide, the company that runs Monster.com. Officials said the contract could be extended to 2013 through option years. The potential value would be $62 million over 10 years. 

(Posted May 30, 2003 - Updated 4:29 p.m. June 2, 2003)
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Associated Press
U.S. Looks to Save $100M on Computers 
Mon Jun 2, 3:36 PM ET

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration began a government-wide purchasing program for computer products Monday, in part to keep agencies from overpaying for software. 

   

More than $100 million could be saved each year through joint agency use of the best-price software, the administration said. 


The program will end the practice of agencies negotiating separate licenses to buy software, department chiefs were told in a memo by Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget. 


Different agencies paid between $200 and $500 for the same desktop software, the government found. Another problem was created when agencies bought different versions of computer products. 


"The broad mosaic of different software versions ... increases the difficulty and cost of securing federal computers," Daniels said. "There can be no doubt, therefore, that the federal government can become a smarter buyer of commercial software." 


The "SmartBUY" initiative will have a team to negotiate new technology licenses by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The goal is "to assure that the federal government is leveraging its immense buying power to achieve the maximum cost savings and best quality" of software, Daniels said. 


The purchases will include commercial off-the-shelf software that currently is acquired through license agreements that vary in terms and price, according to volume. 


"Agencies should, to the maximum extent practicable, refrain from entering into any new or renewal software licensing agreements pending a review by OMB and the SmartBUY initiative team," Daniels' memo said. "These steps are necessary to better manage information technology resources and save taxpayer dollars. " 
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Federal Computer Week
Air Force forms council for IT buys
BY Dan Caterinicchia 
June 2, 2003  


In an effort to take advantage of its overall buying power, the Air Force is forming a council to develop servicewide strategies for buying and managing information technology products.

The Air Force Standards Systems Group (SSG) will lead the new Air Force Information Technology Commodity Council, whose initial focus will be on developing buying strategies for desktop and laptop computers, followed by IT peripherals. Eventually, the council will form strategies for all aspects of commercial IT, according to the Air Force. 

Once the strategies are approved and contracts are in place, Air Force users can order what they need, when they need it through Air Force Way, the service's online system for purchasing and tracking IT products.

SSG provides and sustains combat support information systems for the Air Force and Defense Department. The group procures IT products that are used by almost every organization on Air Force military bases worldwide, with more than 200,000 users and 3 million transactions daily.

John Gilligan, Air Force chief information officer, and Charlie Williams, the service's deputy assistant secretary for contracting, jointly selected SSG to lead the new council, which includes representatives from across the Air Force's major commands and air staff. 

Ken Heitkamp, the newly appointed director of the commodity council, said SSG is the "ideal place to form the nucleus of the [council]?the IT, integration, standardization and enterprisewide mission support for the Air Force are found here at SSG."

By bringing together experts from across the Air Force to establish IT procurement strategies, the service can focus on its enterprise needs and reduce the unit cost of goods and services, Gilligan said.

"The Air Force currently buys IT at the organization level and does not take full advantage of the overall buying power of the Air Force," Williams said in a statement. "The strategies the commodity council develops will allow the Air Force to make better use of acquisition resources and fully leverage [its] buying power. The lessons learned and best practices of this council will be carried forward to other commodity councils that will be established by the Air Force for other commodities." 

The council will begin daily operations in mid-June using collaboration tools through the Air Force portal and virtual meetings, according to service officials.
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CNET News.com
Law school serves spam as main course 
By Paul Festa 
June 2, 2003, 4:21 PM PT

Law students at Chicago's John Marshall Law School are getting a new dose of spam--on their course schedule. 
The spam serving comes courtesy of John Marshall associate professor David Sorkin, who's offering what he and his peers say may be the first law school course devoted to the subject of unsolicited commercial e-mail. 

"This seminar will investigate legal and policy issues raised by e-mail marketing and spam," Sorkin wrote in describing the summer seminar, titled "Current Topics in Information Technology Law: Regulation of Spam and E-mail Marketing." "Topics to be addressed include litigation and legislation involving spam and e-mail marketing; the application of tort law and other traditional doctrines to spam; concerns related to constitutionality, jurisdiction, extraterritoriality, privacy, content and public policy; regulatory perspectives; issues faced by Internet service providers and legitimate e-mail marketers; legal aspects of blacklisting and other antispam measures; and other relevant issues."

 

Sorkin, who in 1995 taught one of the first courses devoted to Internet law and who maintains a Web repository of passed and pending spam laws, has long touted the applicability of traditional law to the Internet. He has warned against legislation drafted specifically for online contexts, saying that new spam bills, in particular, have the potential to worsen the problem they're designed to alleviate.

Sorkin's summer students will be able to bone up on a fresh batch of spam legislation. At the federal level, a bill gathering steam on Capitol Hill would impose steep fines and prison terms on spammers. House and Senate members are in the process of drafting several other bills.

At the state level, the California Senate this season advanced its own antispam legislation. And major Internet corporations, including Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL Time Warner, have stepped up their antispam efforts on the litigation, legislation and education fronts.

In an e-mail exchange, Sorkin said his course was "probably" the first law school seminar focused on spam, an assertion one colleague at a competing law school backed up.

"Yes, that would be a first," said Eric Goldman, an assistant professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wis. "It looks like a nicely constructed course. David is one of the leading academics on the spam topic."

As an indication of how fast the spam law landscape is developing, some documents on the course's preliminary syllabus are less than a few weeks old, including the Direct Marketing Association's Anti-Spam Working Strategy and the House's Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act of 2003.
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Government Computer News
Government takes the lead on voice over IP 
By William Jackson 
06/03/03 

ATLANTA?Switched circuit is dead,? Neal Shact says. 

Shact can be forgiven his bias. In addition to being chief executive officer of CommuniTech Inc., an Elk Grove, Ill., manufacturer of IP telephony equipment, he also is a founding member of the Voice Over IP Council, a promotional trade group. 

Whatever the market status of switched circuit, the traditional telephone switching technology, VOIP is definitely alive and healthy. Vendors at the SuperComm trade show this week said government is leading the way in moving voice services onto IP networks. 

?VOIP is hot in government,? Shact said. ?The federal government is one of the few places with money to spend right now.? 

BroadSoft Inc. of Gaithersburg, Md., makes VOIP software for managed service providers. Scott Wharton, the company?s vice president of marketing, said government outsourcing of VOIP services is starting to take off. 

?We just started seeing some deployment to the government this year,? Wharton said. ?Right now, they?re ahead of the curve. We see most of the adoption in the university and government market.? 

Economy, continuity of operation and disaster recovery are big selling points for the service in government, he said. 

CommuniTech and BroadSoft operate at opposite ends of the VOIP spectrum. CommuniTech is announcing new software for its Clarysis mobile IP phone, designed to be used with a notebook PC on the road. BroadSoft is touting its BroadWorks software, which provides the functionality of an IP public branch exchange at the network level. 

?Our application is more like a Class 5 switch, built to be carrier class,? Wharton said. 

Voice over IP has evolved from a geeky way to avoid long-distance charges to a mainstream technology that adds functionality and economy to a phone system. An IP voice system can be easier to manage, cheaper to administer, and can bring added features to a desktop handset. And because it is IP, anyone with a network connection can remotely access an office phone system, including all the functions it offers. 

That is the purpose of Clarysis. It is a compact one-piece phone that connects to a notebook through a Universal Serial Bus port. Used with VOIP software on the notebook and an Internet connection, Clarysis has the same features on the road as the desktop handset in the office once a user is connected to a network. Calls to a office extension will ring to the remote phone, and calls from the remote phone are dialed out as they would be in the office. 

Because of low long-distance rates on government contracts, the ability to make calls remotely through the office system can be an attractive feature to federal workers. It also can provide emergency backup during times of crisis. 

?During the Iraq War, a lot of places at the highest level of government ordered Clarysis phones,? including the White House, Shact said. He does not know how the phones were used. 

SoftPhone VOIP software from Cisco Systems Inc. supports Clarysis. CommuniTech announced at SuperComm new middleware that will let Clarysis work with VOIP software from Avaya Inc. of Basking Ridge, N.J. 

At the other end of the spectrum, BroadWorks software from BroadSoft is being used by Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. to offer hosted services to federal agencies. BroadWorks, which can scale to support millions of users, is deployed by the service provider in data centers. At the customer site, IP phones are plugged into the LAN. No other equipment or management is needed if IP phones are used. A gateway can be used to link analog phones to the IP network. 

Wharton said office or enterprise voice over IP, using an IP PBX, is a maturing technology now moving into the mainstream. Network-based VOIP offered as a service is still in the early adopter phase, he said. 

He said he hopes the government?s continuing emphasis on outsourcing and its present relationships with network service providers who could add VOIP to their portfolios will quickly move network-based telephony into the mainstream.
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Government Computer News
Internet emergency alert service designed for government use 
By William Jackson 
06/02/03 

ATLANTAFine Point Technologies Inc. of New York is working on a system that would let government communicate with citizens over the Internet, pushing alerts and warnings directly to desktop PCs. 

This would be a new approach to emergency warnings. Except for a few instances such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?s Weather Radio system, which broadcasts weather conditions and alerts, government has traditionally depended on commercial media to distribute such information. The Emergency Alert System, for example, is used by government to send alerts via broadcast stations and cable systems. 

The CyberTruck Emergency Notification System would let agencies bypass service providers to communicate with any constituent who is online. 

?We?re not really sure how this is going to play out,? said Fine Point spokeswoman Emily Etherington. The company has just begun making contacts with state, local and federal organizations to gauge interest. 

The most obvious targets for government use are homeland security agencies, weather alerts and national Amber Alerts for missing children. 

The Emergency Notification System is a reworking of the company?s Direct Messenger, part of its CyberTruck product line. Direct Messenger is used by ISPs to communicate with subscribers. Another product, Direct Update, is used by ISPs to push software upgrades to subscribers. The government version is expected to be available this month and will be based on the Direct Update Server being introduced by Fine Point at the SuperComm trade show this week. 

Direct Messenger lets ISPs broadcast messages to subscribers that appear in pop-up screens when the user is online. Unlike instant messaging, it is a one-way link and does not maintain an open connection with the server. The client software queries the server at preset intervals to check for messages. 

The company got the idea of offering the technology to governments when some ISPs began using Direct Messenger to broadcast Amber Alerts to subscribers, said marketing vice president Antonia Townsend. Company officials thought, why not cut out the middleman and let agencies broadcast their own alerts? 

Fine Point is bundling the software with a simplified management interface in a rack-mounted Dell PowerEdge server, ?so we could market it to government agencies that don?t have large IT staffs,? Etherington said. 

The server runs Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server. The client software runs on PCs running Windows 95 or later operating systems and on Macintosh computers with the PowerPC processor running Mac OS System 7.6 or Mac OS X. Access to the server is password protected. Messages can be customized through a Web interface or can be selected from a catalog of existing messages. Recipient lists can be defined according to a variety of criteria. 

The client is a lightweight application that regularly queries the server via an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer link. When a new message is found on the server, the client loads the HTML engine and displays it. The engine is unloaded when the user closes the message box. 

In addition to law enforcement, weather and security bulletins, the system could be used by school districts to distribute school closing information, transportation agencies to give notice of schedule changes or traffic conditions, or any other agency with a need to push information down or out. 

Participation in the system would be voluntary for citizens, who would have to install the client on their computers. 

?It couldn?t become spammy because no one else could access? the client, Townsend said. 

Pricing has not been determined, but the company envisions the server selling in the $5,000 price range. Client software probably would be offered in an unlimited license. Agencies probably would distribute client software free, either by CD or by download from a Web site.
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Government Executive
June 2, 2003 
Report says IRS computer security weaknesses compromise tax data 
 From National Journal's Technology Daily 

Weaknesses in the Internal Revenue Service information security systems compromise the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive systems and taxpayer data, although the IRS has made progress toward improving its systems, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Monday. 


An underlying cause of the weakness is that the IRS has not fully implemented certain elements of its agencywide information security program. The IRS has not adequately identified or assessed the risks it faces and consequently has not determined which security measures are necessary nor implemented compliance programs.


The GAO recommended that the IRS commissioner direct the chief information officer and manager of each division to assess information security risks and implement policies to boost security awareness among employees and to monitor the effectiveness of its new controls. 
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Washington Post
Pentagon Project Could Put Powerful Software in Private Hands 
By Michael J. Sniffen
Tuesday, June 3, 2003; 1:57 AM 

WASHINGTON  A Pentagon project to develop a digital super diary that records heartbeats, travel, Internet chats  everything a person does  also could provide private companies with powerful software to analyze behavior.

That has privacy experts worried.

Known as LifeLog, the project aims to capture and analyze a multimedia record of everywhere a subject goes and everything he or she sees, hears, reads, says and touches. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has solicited bids and hopes to award four 18-month contracts beginning this summer.

DARPA's research has changed lives far beyond the U.S. military before; it developed what became the Internet and the global positioning satellite system. The LifeLog research is unclassified, so its components could eventually be used in the private sector.

DARPA is also developing new anti-terrorism tools but says LifeLog is not among them.

Rather, the agency calls it a tool to capture "one person's experience in and interactions with the world" through a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user.

More importantly, LifeLog's goal is to create breakthrough software that "will be able to find meaningful patterns in the timetable, to infer the user's routines, habits and relationships with other people, organizations, places and objects," according to Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

DARPA's Jan Walker said LifeLog is intended for those who agree to be monitored. It could enhance the memory of military commanders and improve computerized military training by chronicling how users learn and then tailoring training accordingly, officials said.

But defense analyst John Pike of Global Security.org is dubious about the project's military application.

"I have a much easier time understanding how Big Brother would want this than how (Defense Secretary Donald H.) Rumsfeld would use it," Pike said. "They have not identified a military application."

Steven Aftergood, a Federation of American Scientists defense analyst, said LifeLog would collect far more information than needed to improve a general's memory  enough "to measure human experience on an unprecedentedly specific level."

DARPA rejects any notion LifeLog will be used for spying. "The allegation that this technology would create a machine to spy on others and invade people's privacy is way off the mark," Walker said.

She said LifeLog is not connected with DARPA's data-mining project, recently renamed Terrorism Information Awareness. Each LifeLog user could "decide when to turn the sensors on or off and who would share the data," she added.

But James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates online privacy, fears users ultimately won't control LifeLog data.

"Because you collected it voluntarily, the government can get it with a search warrant," he said. "And an increasing amount of personal data is also available from third parties. The government can get data from them simply by asking or signing a subpoena."

He notes that traffic and security cameras and automated tollbooth pass records are already used by police to trace a person's path. Dempsey questions how LifeLog's analytical software, in the hands of other government agencies or the private sector, will interpret such data and how Americans will be protected from errors.

"You can go to the airport to pick up a friend, to claim lost luggage or to case it for a terrorist attack. What story will LifeLog write from this data?" he asked. "At the very least, you ought to know when someone is using it and have the right to correct the 'story' it writes."

Dempsey does, however, see a silver lining in the government taking the lead.

"If government weren't doing this, it would still be done by companies and in universities all over the country, but we would have less say about it," he said. With the government involved, "you can read about it and influence it."

DARPA's Web site says the agency investigates ideas "the traditional research and development community finds too outlandish or risky." But wearable sensors similar to those envisioned for LifeLog are already being researched by well-heeled outfits.

Professor Steve Mann of the University of Toronto has spent 30 years developing a wearable camera and computer, progressing from intricate metallic headgear to dark frame eyeglasses and a cellphone-sized belt attachment. He's working with Samsung on a commercial version.

And Microsoft's Gordon Bell scans his mail and other papers and records phone, Web, video and voice transactions into a computerized file called MyLifeBits. The company may include the capability in upcoming products.

Neither Mann nor Bell intends to bid on DARPA's project. Bell said DARPA wants to go further than he has into artificial intelligence to analyze data.

Pentagon contracting documents give a sense of the project's scope.

Cameras and microphones would capture what the user sees or hears; sensors would record what he or she feels. Global positioning satellite sensors would log every movement. Biomedical sensors would monitor vital signs. E-mails, instant messages, Web-based transactions, telephone calls and voicemails would be stored. Mail and faxes would be scanned. Links to every radio and television broadcast heard and every newspaper, magazine, book, Web site or database seen would be recorded.

Breakthrough software would automatically produce an electronic diary that organizes the data into "episodes" of the user's life, such as "I took the 08:30 a.m. flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Boston's Logan Airport," according to the documents.

Walker said DARPA has no plans to develop software to analyze multiple LifeLogs. But DARPA advised contractors that ultimately, with proper anonymity, data from many LifeLogs could facilitate "early detection of an emerging epidemic."
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USA Today
Chinese journalist goes on hunger strike

BEIJING (APOnline)  A journalist sentenced to prison last week for criticizing China's government on the Internet has gone on a hunger strike, his lawyer and a human rights group said Tuesday. 

Xu Wei began his hunger strike last Wednesday after a Beijing court sentenced him to 10 years on subversion charges, said the New York-based group Human Rights in China, or HRIC. Three others were sentenced in the same case to terms ranging from eight to 10 years. (Related story: China sentences four in Internet dissent)

HRIC said Xu was protesting beatings and abuse in custody, though his lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said the hunger strike was meant to protest his conviction. 

Mo said he visited Xu on Saturday at the request of jail officials and asked him to eat. Mo said jail officials told him that Xu had started drinking water, but the lawyer said he didn't know whether his client resumed eating. 

The Ministry of State Security, which is holding Xu at a detention center in Beijing, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Activists abroad say Xu and his three friends, all aged about 30, are among more than 30 people detained in Chinese efforts to stamp out online dissent. 

China encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block online criticism of communist rule. Filters installed by the government bar access to Web sites abroad run by dissidents, human rights groups and some news organizations, and the content of domestic sites is monitored and sometimes censored. 

Xu and his friends have been held for more than two years since their March 2001 arrest, and HRIC said Xu has complained of beatings and electric shocks to his genitals that he said caused long-term numbness in his lower body. 

Xu and his three friends set up the New Youth Society in May 2000 to discuss social and political reforms, according to HRIC and other groups. They were arrested after posting essays online. 

Those works bore such titles as "China's democracy is fake," and "Be a new citizen, remake China," according to a copy of the indictment against them released by the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong. 

Sentenced with Xu Wei were geologist Jin Haike, who received a 10-year term, and Internet engineer Yang Zili and freelance writer Zhang Honghai, who received eight years, according to HRIC. 

Court officials have refused to confirm details of the case or the sentences. 
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 498
Date: May 21, 2003

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

"Pentagon Details New Surveillance System"
"Has Copyright Law Met Its Match?"
"E-Mail's Backdoor Open to Spammers"
"Leave Me Alone!"
"The Crisis of Computing's Dying Breed"
"A Spy Machine of Darpa's Dreams"
"Congressional Caucus Targets Piracy"
"New System Developed by Pentagon Identifies Walkers"
"Viruses Learn How to IM"
"Bugged Out"
"Nanopits for Nanostorage"
"GPS Data Could Stop Wireless Network Attacks"
"State of the Art: Wasted Chip Power"
"Ultra Wideband: Gaining Momentum"
"Digital Solutions to Government Challenges"
"W3C Readies New Tech Patent Policy"
"Open Source Gets Secure"
"Where Are Your New Ideas Coming From?"
"Surveillance Nation--Part Two"

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

"Pentagon Details New Surveillance System"
The Pentagon released a comprehensive report about the proposed
Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) program (previously known
as Total Information Awareness) to legislators on Tuesday, but
the details about the computer surveillance system--its projected ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item1

"Has Copyright Law Met Its Match?"
Disabled consumers and their proponents complain that the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) severely restricts their access
to reading material because most available electronic books lock
out text-to-speech software.  Advocates such as the American ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item2

"Email's Backdoor Open to Spammers"
Routing junk email through unwitting third parties, usually home
and office Internet users, is the No. 1 distribution method
spammers use, and ISPs such as America Online estimate that over
200,000 computers around the world have been exploited in this ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item3

"Leave Me Alone!"
Brightmail estimates that spam will account for about 50 percent
of all Internet mail sent this year, while Ferris Research
reckons that dealing with junk email will cost American
businesses $10 billion.  Many businesses are hesitant to use ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item4

"The Crisis of Computing's Dying Breed"
IT workers knowledgeable in mainframe operations are a dying
breed, although the hardware they run has proven surprisingly
resilient to extinction.  IT pundits had predicted server systems
would make the mainframe obsolete, but many companies are loath ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item5

"A Spy Machine of Darpa's Dreams"
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa)
is sponsoring a new project that aims to record every movement,
consumed media, transaction, and action in a person's life.  The
LifeLog project could be used as a computer training tool, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item6

"Congressional Caucus Targets Piracy"
Florida Reps. Robert Wexler (D) and Tom Feeney (R), along with
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), are organizing the Congressional
Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention,
which is likely to cause Congress to narrow its focus on ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item7

"New System Developed by Pentagon Identifies Walkers"
One possible element of the Defense Advanced Projects Research
Agency's (DARPA) proposed Total Information Awareness (TIA) U.S.
citizen surveillance database could be "gait signatures"
extracted by a device developed by Georgia Institute of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item8

"Viruses Learn How to IM"
Computer viruses are adapting IM bot behavior to spread, as
demonstrated by the recent Fizzer worm, which can receive hacker
commands if it can link to the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
network and the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network.   ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item9

"Bugged Out"
Ellen Ullman, author of "Close to the Machine: Technophilia and
Its Discontents," drew upon real-life experience for her new
novel "The Bug," a parable about a computer programmer confronted
with a bug that thwarts all attempts to lock it down.  The basis ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item10

"Nanopits for Nanostorage"
Scientists are looking for alternative data storage media that
offer greater density than magnetic systems, and separate
European research efforts have yielded significant breakthroughs
in nanoscale indentation.  A team at the IBM Zurich Research ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item11

"GPS Data Could Stop Wireless Network Attacks"
Carnegie Mellon University's Yi-Chin Hu and Adrian Perrig, along
with Rice University's David Johnson, furnished a report
presented at the 12th World Wide Web conference detailing a
new wireless network security threat and a possible defense ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item12

"State of the Art: Wasted Chip Power"
Despite the marketing hype coming from AMD and Intel, 64-bit
computing is unlikely to make an immediate, dramatic impact on
corporate IT operations.  Even if companies adopt 64-bit
computing platforms, much of the possible processing power will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item13

"Ultra Wideband: Gaining Momentum"
Supporters of ultra wideband (UWB) are predicting a surge in home
networking products based on the technology thanks to the FCC's
February 2002 ruling authorizing commercial, unlicensed UWB
implementation.  The agency supposedly approved the authorization ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item14

"Digital Solutions to Government Challenges"
This year's National Conference on Digital Government Research
(dr.o2003) on May 19-21 showcased an array of digital
government projects.  UrbanSim from University of Washington
researchers simulates city growth so that policymakers in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item15

"W3C Readies New Tech Patent Policy"
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) director Tim Berners-Lee recently
announced that a decision on the organization's technology patent
policy--one that addresses patent claims that could be a
hindrance to interoperable Web standards development--is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item16

"Open Source Gets Secure"
The government sector is pushing for official security
credentials for open-source products.  A coalition involving the
Open Source Software Institute, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and other
groups, is working to certify an encryption technology commonly ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item17

"Where Are Your New Ideas Coming From?"
The closed innovation model, in which companies build central
labs to research and develop technology and products that pay for
continued R&D, is still valid for certain industries, but is no
longer applicable for many more, writes Henry Chesbrough in his ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item18

"Surveillance Nation--Part Two"
As the United States ramps up widescale surveillance initiatives
with little grumbling from citizens, technologies are being
developed that carry both the promise of better security and the
threat of privacy invasion.  But personal privacy may not ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0521w.html#item19

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