Clips May 29, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips May 29, 2003

ARTICLES

Howard U. Plans Genetics Database 
Enlisting the Young as White-Hat Hackers
Bishes lead day of hope, remembrance [Amber Alert]
Online Divorce Growing in Popularity
Ridge endorses upgraded public warning system 
Study finds CIA falling behind in IT know-how
Real Networks, Like Apple, Starts Online Song Service 
Suit alleging deceptive Internet advertising banners settled
Home Schooling in Cyberspace
More Web sites yearn to charge fees 
Study: More than half of Web users willing to pay for content 


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Washington Post
Howard U. Plans Genetics Database 
School Says Data on African Americans Could Lead to Better Medical Care 
By Avram Goldstein and Rick Weiss
Wednesday, May 28, 2003; Page A06 

Howard University officials yesterday announced plans to create the first large-scale collection of genetic profiles of African Americans, an endeavor they described as a bid for a "place at the table in genetic research" and a pathway to improved medical care for blacks.

The DNA data would be collected in the form of laboratory samples from thousands of patients at Howard University Hospital, which serves a predominantly black and medically underserved population in the District. The confidential information on 25,000 Howard patients would be stored in computers by a Chicago-based private company that pledges to keep it safe from hackers and inquisitive health and life insurance companies, officials said. Later, the recruitment drive would tap Howard alumni, they said.

Promoters of the project contend it could supply important knowledge about health patterns in a racial minority group that has mostly shied away from participating in medical research for a half-century even as its members have endured starkly higher rates of chronic diseases and preventable deaths than whites. The incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure and prostate cancer, among other diseases, is far higher among African Americans than whites. It is sharply higher than the rate of those diseases among Africans, too, a point that Howard researchers want to study. 

"Africa is the trunk of the human genetic tree," said Charles N. Rotimi, a genetic epidemiologist at Howard's National Humane Genome Center. "This can give us a more complete picture of human evolution and history."

However, other genetics experts question the premise that the program can help as much as Howard officials say.

Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist who has focused on issues of race and genetics, said he is not convinced that blacks have been overlooked in the genetics revolution and expressed skepticism that a database such as the one Howard wants to create would reveal much of medical value to blacks.

The first disease to have its genetic underpinnings identified was sickle cell disease in 1949, he noted -- a disease that primarily strikes blacks and that remains beyond the curative powers of genetic medicine. Because race is a sociological construct rather than a biological or genetic category, Duster said, it will be difficult to make connections between diseases, treatments and race.

Duster said such studies have the potential to exacerbate social misunderstandings by strengthening the misguided notion that race is defined by one's genes, when there is more genetic variation within races than between them.

"The real danger here is of reifying race at the genetic level," Duster said. "A good study of race, genetics and medicine would look at a fact, like blacks have a higher rate of prostate cancer, and not just look for genetic variants to explain that" but instead how the rate may be affected by lifestyle and environmental factors. 

"Do they live near toxic waste dumps?" he asked. "Do they have more stress problems and hypertension? Why focus just on DNA? With race we're looking at a complex picture that includes genes, cells, development and all the social and cultural factors that make a group."

Gilbert S. Omenn, a professor of medical genetics and public health at the University of Michigan, agreed that it will be crucial to include lots of non-genetic information in the database, including neighborhood environment, history of smoking, and use of medicines and dietary supplements -- all of which have cultural associations and can affect race-based studies of health. 

But if the research were conducted ethically and openly, the Howard effort could help minorities, even though diseases are not segregated cleanly along race lines, he said.

Medical geneticists "are in a Catch-22," Omenn said. "We're accused of neglecting the black population when we do clinical studies, but if we include them it carries all these perceptions of racism, so it's tricky."

He said it would be best if the database were not used to study certain traits or behaviors "like IQ or criminal behavior, which are super-sensitive for obvious reasons and where we know environment plays a big role," Omenn said. "It would be wise to focus instead on medical problems that have been neglected."

Georgia M. Dunston, director of Howard's genome center, said everyone at the university understands the challenge of persuading black patients to entrust them with the collection and storage of genetic data. She said she is constantly asked by African Americans about the revelation in 1972 that black men in Tuskegee, Ala., were not given treatment for syphilis over four decades of research.

She said she would appeal to patients to authorize the use of their genetic information as a way to benefit their race.

"We have to learn from the past," she said. "This knowledge is critical, and there is no substitute for participation."

Rotimi described the data bank as a way to help scientists develop more effective drugs and preventive advice customized for America's black population. 

"If you want your clothes to fit you, you'd better go to the tailor to be measured," he said. 

The creation of the Howard repository, in partnership with First Genetic Trust Inc., of Chicago, is not unprecedented in the United States; various U.S. hospitals and medical schools have them, but none is devoted to a single population group on this scale. 

Iceland has aggregated individualized genetic information on distinct populations, and Japan has plans to do so. In Britain, government and public interest groups are planning UK Biobank for support of medical and drug development. UK Biobank will collect DNA samples, medical records and lifestyle information of 500,000 people between 45 and 69 years old. It will follow the participants' health status for more than 10 years. The Biobank will provide researchers chances to correlate genetic traits with common diseases.
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New York Times
May 29, 2003
Enlisting the Young as White-Hat Hackers
By JULIE FLAHERTY

ESTBROOK, Me. -- ON a Wednesday evening, in an office suite appointed with Pentium II's and little else, 10 teenagers were doing Andrew Robinson's bidding. Fortified by pizza and soda, they studied a computer system's weaknesses, looking for ways to break in and steal information. Mr. Robinson urged them on, like a modern-day Fagin goading his band of pickpockets.

Mr. Robinson, 38, who runs a small information security company in nearby Portland, had less-than-nefarious plans in mind, however. His free after-school program is intended to teach teenagers the basics of ethical hacking, or protecting a company's computer system from attack by learning how to attack it yourself.

The program, called Tiger Team, named for the professional consultants who analyze system security risk, teaches young hackers to use their skills for good instead of evil. Working as two teams, the teenagers play a virtual game of capture the flag, trying to crack the other team's network and do damage while defending their own. An honor code keeps them from creating mischief outside their labs.

Mr. Robinson got the idea for this "information security sandbox" three years ago at a job fair, where he met a teenager who had been arrested for low-level hacking. Mr. Robinson saw his setbacks as a waste, considering the constant demand for information security professionals. So he created a nonprofit organization, the Internet Security Foundation, dedicated to educating the public about information security. Its pilot project, Tiger Team, began last month.

"Here's how you can do this legally, within a moral and ethical framework, and make a good amount of money doing it," Mr. Robinson said. "It fills the need of the companies, and more and more since 9/11, it fills the need of the country for cybersecurity."

It could also fill a need for the state of Maine, which loses many of its skilled young people to jobs in other states. Mr. Robinson estimated that someone with five years of experience in information security could command a salary of $70,000 to $90,000 here.

"That's in the top 1 percent of wage earners in the state," he said. "For at least a few hundred kids, perhaps we can provide an alternative to leaving. They can do this from their homes, and a lot of people do."

Finding participants was easy. About 50 teenagers from southern Maine contacted Mr. Robinson after reading about his idea in the local newspapers. More than a third said they had done something that could be construed as hacking.

"There were a couple who refused to answer the question about whether they had been in trouble for it," Mr. Robinson said. "I think most of that was just bravado."

He doubts he will convert anyone truly attracted to hacking's antisocial side. "Somebody who was sort of the Elite Hackzor, or whatever you want to call it, would probably not have applied for this program." he said. "If they were already in the dark side, they would probably not come here."

The teenagers, boys who average about 16 years in age, do wield some power. All were required to have experience configuring different kinds of operating systems, including a Mac or Unix-based one, and writing computer programs.

"They weren't script kiddies," Mr. Robinson said, referring to system crackers who wage attacks with programs written by savvier coders, often without understanding them. "They have all the skills that they need to cause trouble, and some of them may have even started doing some of those things just for fun."

The most serious breaches the applicants confessed to were outwitting a Web site's access controls to view content that they shouldn't have. "You can use your imagination for what that might be for, in this case, all teenage boys," Mr. Robinson said.

In the second week of the seven-week program, the students sat patiently through two presentations on the business side of information security, from creating a risk assessment to securing management support. But the third speaker had trouble getting through his talk on finding a system's weaknesses because the students interrupted with questions.

"We put the interesting things last," said Justin Smith, 27, a Tiger Team volunteer and a network analyst in Mr. Robinson's company, NMI InfoSecurity Solutions. Mr. Smith said the students had performed so well that the instructors had to accelerate the instruction.

"I kept saying that we were going to have a hard time staying ahead of these guys," he said. (Indeed, they were bright enough to cajole Mr. Robinson into ordering them pizza.)

Between lectures, the two teams zipped off to their separate lab rooms, where competition was already building.

"There's been a little bit of window spying," said Tristan Fisher, 18.

Perhaps some shifty scouting technique employing Microsoft Windows?

Not quite.

"We're on the first floor," Mr. Fisher said, pulling aside the blinds to reveal the parking lot. "Every now and then we'll see someone walk over to our window and peek in."

An unclosed lab door is also fair game. Mr. Robinson, who is careful to turn all important paperwork on his desk face down before receiving visitors, teaches students that not all hacking is done electronically.

Scott Anderson, 18, a high school senior, is giving serious thought to going into the information security profession. "This is probably the only link I have to getting a job when I graduate," he said, adding that he had barely passing grades.

Good grades are not a requirement for the program. Mr. Robinson, who related that he himself had excellent standardized test scores but poor grades, said he empathized with students who say they are bored with school. It was not until an uncle who taught computer science at the University of Maine got him into some college-level classes, he said, that he saw his own future open up.

Bill Seretta thought the program was just right for his son Will, a 10th-grader with computer inclinations and "grades all over the map."

"If he didn't have to go to school he wouldn't," Mr. Seretta said. "The structure doesn't interest him."

Although all the participants count computing as a hobby, Mr. Seretta considers the format - hands on, fast-paced - more important than the subject. "This is about learning and not technology," he said.

The office space, the computers and the Internet connection have all been donated, mostly by banks and other organizations that recognize the need for information security. But Mr. Robinson met with some initial qualms.

"Some of them grilled us pretty heavily on the concept of, 'Well, aren't you training hackers?' " he said. "I go, yeah. I have a black belt in martial arts. If I wanted to be a bad guy, I could go and hurt people. But I don't do it. That's not the emphasis of the program."

The students are getting a good dose of ethics along with some sobering words about legal repercussions. Scheduled guest speakers include a lawyer and a police officer, and Mr. Robinson is hoping to recruit a speaker from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Yes, we are teaching them to be hackers," he said, "but wouldn't you rather have them on your side?"
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Boston Globe
Bishes lead day of hope, remembrance
Join others who seek answers on missing children
By Cynthia Roy and Peter Demarco, Globe Correspondents, 5/29/2003

As the search resumed in Palmer yesterday in the woods where a bathing suit similar to one worn by Molly Ann Bish was found, her parents spent the day at the State House taking part in an emotional Missing Children's Day ceremony.

While John and Magdalen Bish hosted an often tearful remembrance of missing children in Massachusetts, about a half-dozen search dogs went back into the woods to canvass parts of an 8-acre area surrounding the spot where the suit was recovered May 15. Bish had been working 5 miles away as a lifeguard at Comins Pond in Warren when she disappeared three years ago.

Speaking at the site of the search in Palmer, Worcester District Attorney John Conte discussed the investigation, which this week has included seeking DNA samples. On Tuesday, State Police detectives asked as many as 20 people related to the case to volunteer samples.

''We're not talking suspects necessarily. But we are acquiring DNA for one purpose or another from several individuals in the Warren area,'' Conte said.

''We do, however, [already] have DNA from suspects in the case,'' Conte added. ''Hopefully, if we're successful here, we will be able to match up that DNA if we find DNA on that bathing suit.''

Conte said last week that investigators have DNA samples from local sexual offenders who previously have been incarcerated. So far, his office has not sought search warrants to obtain anyone's DNA.

''Let's take it one step at a time and see how it goes,'' he said.

Eleven people have failed polygraph tests during the investigation -- Conte will not release other information on them -- and John Bish said yesterday that he is certain some of those people are now submitting DNA.

The bathing suit was tested for DNA at the State Police Crime Lab in Sudbury before being sent to Bode Technology Group, a private DNA-testing laboratory in Springfield, Va. Conte said he hopes to have test results from both laboratories by the end of June.

''We're very concerned that they haven't turned anything else up yet,'' Bish said of the search. ''But it's a really big area -- lots of ravines and rocks.''

Investigators continue to receive tips and information about the case almost daily, and are pursuing a possible lead in Belchertown, Conte said. Authorities plan to carry out a larger search on Tuesday, when Environmental and State Police officers will be joined by volunteers from the Central Massachusetts Search and Rescue team.

In all, Bish said, about 75 searchers are expected to comb the woods.

On Beacon Hill, meanwhile, it was a bittersweet day for the Bishes. Not long after arriving at the State House, the couple unexpectedly ran into BJ McKinnon, the midwife who helped deliver Molly 19 years ago.

The Bishes said it had been a number of years since they had seen McKinnon. While they kept in touch with her when Molly was young, they had not spoken with her since before their daughter's disappearance. McKinnon was on Beacon Hill to testify on a midwife license bill.

The brief meeting with McKinnon came as a welcome surprise on an emotionally difficult day, John Bish said.

''We're thrilled -- we were so surprised to see her,'' he said in an interview later. ''There was all this hustle and bustle and all of a sudden there she was. It's great.''

Bish said he and his wife are trying to get used to the idea of thinking about a funeral. He said they feel lucky to at least have some evidence of something they are convinced was Molly's. They shared their memories with other families who gathered yesterday to honor their own missing children during the third annual ceremony on Beacon Hill.''They were our visions of hope,'' Magdalen Bish said of the children. ''They were our vision, and somehow our visions have been shattered.''

During the two-hour ceremony, parents and siblings sang songs, read poems, and shared stories and pictures to remember their loved ones who have disappeared.

US Senator Edward Kennedy, US Representative Richard Neal, state Senator Stephen M. Brewer, state Representative Reed V. Hillman, and members of the Massachusetts State Police Response Team and Massachusetts Child Amber Alert Committee received awards for their work in protecting the Bay State's children.

At the end of the ceremony, two bunches of white balloons were released and drifted up toward the darkened sky, each tied to tags carrying the names and pictures of Massachusetts' 33 missing children.

As the balloons rose, Magdalen Bish quietly recited a prayer in memory of all the lost children and their families.

''This is for hope and vision,'' she said as tears welled in her eyes.
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Associated Press
Online Divorce Growing in Popularity 
Wed May 28, 2:13 PM ET
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer 

NEW YORK - Offering a simpler and cheaper path to divorce, an ever-growing array of dot-coms, computer-savvy lawyers and state court officials are encouraging unhappily married Americans to arrange their breakups online. 


For fees ranging from $50 to $300  a small fraction of what most lawyers charge even for an uncontested divorce  couples are being provided with the appropriate forms and varying degrees of help completing them. 


The phenomenon is spreading. Rival firms CompleteCase.com and LegalZoom.com each say they have served 20,000 clients nationwide in less than three years of operation. Hits on the divorce section of the California court system's do-it-youself Web site soared from 6,800 in May 2002 to about 15,000 last month. 


"It's similar to the growth of online travel services and online stock trading," said Brian Lee, president of Los Angeles-based LegalZoom. "People are learning they don't need a travel agent or a stockbroker or a lawyer  they can do it themselves." 


Many clients may still have to appear in court, but  in theory, at least  they will have all required paperwork with them and will be able to represent themselves. 


"For me, it was a purely economic decision," said John Chang, 33, of South Pasadena, Calif., who paid LegalZoom $300 to help him obtain an uncontested divorce last year. 


"I filled out the forms in the course of a night  it took three hours  and saved $2,000," he said. "When you don't have children or a lot of assets, it's the way to go." 


But reactions to the trend vary. Some religious leaders are dismayed that divorce can be made even easier. The American Bar Association wants to ensure that dot-coms don't engage in the unauthorized practice of law, and is studying how its members can serve divorcing couples without high fees. 


"A lot of what's happening is a very understandable rebellion against how expensive it is to go through the court process," said Sandra Morris, a San Diego lawyer who is president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. 


"Divorce lawyers view online services the same way doctors view self-help health books," she said. "If it's a minor problem, maybe it's OK to use over-the-counter remedies. But if there's any possibility of it being more complicated, it's a substantial risk to do it yourself." 


The do-it-yourself services acknowledge that online divorce doesn't work when spouses disagree on any substantive issue. Linda Elrod, a professor at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan., said couples who have children, complex finances or even a pension plan to be divided should consult a lawyer. 


Even in a supposedly uncontested online divorce, each spouse should be cautious, Morris advised. 


"Very often in a marital relationship, there's not a complete balance of knowledge and power," Morris said. "In an effort to settle in an amicable way, they may be settling more in one person's way than the other." 


Some dot-com services simply provide forms for clients to fill out  MyLawyer.com, for example, charges $49.95 for most state divorce forms. CompleteCase gathers information from clients through its own questionnaires, and its employees then complete the official forms for $249. 


"When it comes out of your computer, it looks like a lawyer prepared it," said CompleteCase CEO Randy Finney. 


The major online companies all state on their Web sites that they are not law firms and don't sell legal advice. 


However, the ABA's eLawyering Task Force has questioned whether some online clients may falsely conclude  based on sales pitches  that their divorce forms will undergo substantive review by a lawyer. 

   



Richard Granat, a Maryland attorney who founded MyLawyer.com, says the ABA should encourage its members to provide less expensive, divorce-related services that can compete with non-law online companies. 

Trying to force online divorce outfits out of existence will just reinforce the "negative image of the legal profession," he said. 

Finney, an attorney himself, said traditional divorce lawyers shouldn't be worried by competition from companies like his CompleteCase. 

"The bread and butter for divorce lawyers is the contested case, where the fees start at $3,000, $4,000," he said. "A little uncontested case is not that big a piece of the action." 

For leaders of the Marriage Movement  a coalition of religious and other groups seeking to promote strong marriages  online divorce is part of a lamentable trend. 

"Almost everything we've done in the last 200 years has made divorce easier," said Mike McManus, founder of a Potomac, Md., organization called Marriage Savers. "You want to slow down the process, not speed it up." 

___ 

On the Net: 

American Bar Assn.: http://www.abanet.org 

MyLawyer.com: http://www.mylawyer.org 

CompleteCase.com: http://www.completecase.com
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Government Computer News
05/28/03 
Ridge endorses upgraded public warning system 
By Wilson P. Dizard III 

Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge today pledged his department?s support for media companies? efforts to improve existing emergency warning methods and promoted the idea of a warning system that would reach cell phones, pagers and other mobile communications systems. 

Ridge spoke at the biannual meeting of the Media Security and Reliability Council at the Federal Communications Commission. The council, a 41-member federal advisory committee, is due to recommend by June 18 best practices for emergency communications. In its first 23 months of work, the council has reviewed ways that local and national media companies cope with natural disasters, terrorist attacks and power outages, among other crises. 

FCC chairman Michael Powell said, ?The most important responsibility the government and media share during times of crisis is to ensure the safety and well-being of our citizens.? The recommendations we have seen today address some of the biggest challenges we must face regarding delivery of a reliable public warning system.? 

Executives representing the radio, TV, cable and satellite industries described how they have reviewed their emergency preparedness plans and identified areas for further industry and government action. The Public Communications and Safety Working Group of the council, for example, called for a single federal entity to be responsible for public warning and all-hazard risk communication. 

Ridge said the Homeland Security Department would work with the PCSWG to refine and harden emergency communications. 

After the meeting, Ridge said, ?At the end of the day, [we need] an emergency alert system that communicates to telephones, wireless systems, pagers and the like. There are a lot of opportunities for a national system that would go into every office and school. 

?There is a sense of urgency to get it done,? he added. ?We have to accept the responsibility we have.? 

Ridge said he was not familiar with the technology that could be used to deploy such a system. While he endorsed public and private cooperation in the field, Ridge did not say that the Homeland Security Department would fund a nationwide electronic alert system.
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Computerworld
Study finds CIA falling behind in IT know-how
It called the agency's networking and information-searching abilities "primitive" 
By Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
MAY 28, 2003

A new unclassified report, titled "Failing to Keep Up With the Information Revolution," offers a withering assessment of the CIA's use of IT for intelligence analysis, calling its networking and information-searching capabilities "primitive" and saying that the agency's emphasis on secrecy fundamentally discourages IT use and adoption by CIA analysts. 
The study was conducted by a scholar working with the CIA's Sherman Kent Center for Intelligence Analysis, a think tank attached to the analyst training center in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence (DI). 

The report appeared in the most recent edition of the intelligence-community publication Studies in Intelligence and is posted on the agency's Web site. 

The CIA didn't respond to a request for comment, but the report is said to have been circulating widely within the DI since its completion about six months ago, according to Barbara Pace, editor of Studies in Intelligence. 

The study's author, Bruce Berkowitz, interviewed almost 100 CIA employees involved in producing national security analysis, including intelligence analysts, technicians and managers. He asked them about their work and use of technology, soliciting their ideas for using IT more effectively, according to the report. 

Berkowitz served as scholar in residence at the Sherman Kent Center in 2001 and 2002, the period covered by the study, and is a former CIA employee and currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. 

Among other problems, Berkowitz found that CIA analysts must bounce among multiple, isolated systems to gather information, including separate systems on each desk for accessing the CIA's classified network and using the public Internet. 

DI agents have no easy way to share classified information with authorized intelligence personnel outside of the CIA or to access information stored in other classified information networks within the government, such as those at the U.S. Department of Defense. "The result is that DI analysts work in an IT environment that is largely isolated from the outside world. If they need to do work that is classified in any way, there is virtually no alternative other than to use the CIA's own, restricted system," the report said. 

Contrary to popular depictions of CIA agents using cutting-edge information-gathering technology, Berkowitz found that DI analysts lack access to even the most common information-searching technology for conducting intelligence analysis, such as Web-based search engines. instead, they rely largely on a 1970s-era database called CIRAS, for Corporate Information Retrieval and Storage. 

Perhaps the most telling sign of the DI's archaic information-gathering capabilities is the continued importance of DI analysts' "informal source network" of contacts within other organizations or agencies. Those sources provide analysts with the information they need -- essentially the job that search engines such as Google and AltaVista already perform in an automated fashion, according to Berkowitz. 

Although the glacial pace of government IT purchasing is partly to blame for the slow rate of technology adoption within the agency, it isn't the primary source of the CIA's troubles, Berkowitz said. 

Instead, he put most of the blame on the CIA's obsession with security, which he charged with creating an approach of "risk exclusion" as opposed to "risk management" regarding technology adoption. 

As examples of this approach, Berkowitz noted that Palm handheld devices were forbidden in CIA facilities until recently, and it took the agency years to get Internet access to analysts' desktops. 

Like the CIA, private companies and other government agencies also have a need to protect information and intellectual property, but they have found ways to do so without hampering their ability to take advantage of new technology. 

The agency's policies are causing DI analysts to fall behind their counterparts outside the CIA in knowing how to apply IT to their work, said the report. Berkowitz estimated that DI analysts are, on average, five years behind their counterparts in the private sector and other agencies in terms of their knowledge of IT and services. Even more corrosive, however, is the implicit message such policies send to DI analysts: that IT is dangerous and isn't essential for intelligence analysis, Berkowitz said. 

The lack of up-to-date IT for information analysis and dissemination also affects the CIA's relationship with its "customers" -- the consumers of intelligence data within the U.S. government, Berkowitz added. The agency's tradition of applying multiple layers of managerial review to each item of intelligence is out of step with changes wrought by the Internet and the expectations of information consumers, the report said. 

Better technology could allow DI analysts to communicate directly with intelligence-information consumers in the government through Web pages or other secure network channels. Instead, even seasoned intelligence analysts must pass their communications up through several echelons of bureaucracy before they reach the people requesting the information. 

Berkowitz recommended a host of changes at the DI, starting with integrated desktop environments that enable analysts to move easily among databases and resources on classified and nonclassified networks. Other suggestions include implementing "simple IT" such as Google-style appliances to search through intelligence files and a task-tracking system to manage analysts' assignments. 

Longer-term solutions could include creating IT "SWAT teams" to develop specialized information capture and analysis tools and "Mod Squads" of newer, younger analysts to think up new ways to use IT for intelligence analysis, Berkowitz said. 
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Washington Post
Real Networks, Like Apple, Starts Online Song Service 
By Frank Ahrens
Thursday, May 29, 2003; Page E01 

CARLSBAD, Calif., May 28 -- Real Networks Inc., the Internet media player company that is evolving into a major content provider, announced today that it is launching an online digital music store, only weeks after Apple Computer Inc. started a similar service.

For a monthly subscription of $9.95, Real Networks customers can access the company's newly acquired Rhapsody music service and listen to 330,000 songs in their entirety. For another 79 cents per song, customers can download tracks and "burn" them onto CDs.

The move appears to be a strike against Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who to much fanfare earlier this month launched Apple's iTunes Music Store, where customers can sample more than 200,000 songs for 30 seconds, then buy them for 99 cents each.

Real Networks' announcement came at a two-day digital technology conference at this seaside resort. 

Apple's online music store has been praised as the first service that may present a viable alternative to online music piracy, which the record industry has blamed for slumping CD sales in recent years.

Real Networks Chairman Rob Glaser said his service will be more complementary than initially competitive to Jobs's, because Real's system uses the Microsoft Windows operating system, which dominates the market.

"We've got a product for 95 percent of the market; he's got a product for 5 percent of the market," Glaser said today, referring to Apple's share of the personal computer market.

When Apple launched its service, Jobs said he would make it available to the Windows platform by the end of this year.

Glaser said he and Jobs spoke earlier in the day about the Rhapsody launch, characterizing it as a friendly conversation. "We agreed that we need to get consumers to see the benefits of legitimate music services," Glaser said.

Jobs, also in attendance at the conference, declined to comment.

In recent years, Real Networks has been adding subscription content to its popular media player. For instance, if baseball fans want to listen to major league games on the Internet, they must subscribe to Real Networks. Before Real Networks signed a contract with baseball, fans could listen to many games free on the Web sites of the radio stations that broadcast the games.

The five major record companies have been battling online music piracy on two fronts: legal action that shuts down file-swapping services such as Napster and goes after individual song-sharers, and attempts to launch their own online pay services.

The first tries, such as MusicNet (owned by AOL Time Warner Inc., Bertelsmann BMG, EMI and Real Networks), and Pressplay, a joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, met with critical scorn and consumer indifference. The services often rented rather than sold music; songs would vanish from hard drives after a certain time period. Song catalogues were limited. And most were complicated to use.

Real Networks is the major shareholder in MusicNet and recently renewed its commitment with a new investment of more than $8 million. In some ways, Real Networks' Rhapsody will be competing against Real Networks' piece of MusicNet.

But Glaser said the two are not competitive, because his company sees its investment in MusicNet as a business-to-business proposition -- MusicNet is the online music store for AOL customers who want to buy songs over the Internet. Glaser said Rhapsody deals directly with consumers.

Glaser hopes his service can at least initially coattail on Jobs's, referring to Apple's expensive advertising campaign tied to iTunes' launch, which he said has "already educated" consumers. 
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USA Today
Suit alleging deceptive Internet advertising banners settled
Posted 5/28/2003 12:32 PM

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)  A California software manufacturer has agreed to place the word "advertisement" and make other changes in Internet popup banners that impersonate computer error messages, an attorney says. 
Darrell Scott of Lukins & Annis, a Spokane law firm, last November sued Bonzi Software of San Luis Obispo, Calif., alleging the company's popup advertising was deceptive. 

The lawsuit contended Bonzi "commandeered" tens of millions of computer users to its commercial Web site. 

Viewers who clicked an "OK" button, thinking it would make the dialogue box disappear, were instead sent to a commercial Web site promoting Bonzi software for preventing Internet intrusions or to speed up Internet connections. 

Joe Bonzi, Bonzi Software's chief executive officer and president, and Kenneth Shaw, chief financial officer, did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday. 

Scott represented people from eight states who complained about the company's popup ads. 

The banners have headings that read "Security Alert," "Warning" and "Message Alert" with such messages as: "Your computer is currently broadcasting an Internet IP address. With this address, someone can immediately begin attacking your computer." 

In the agreement approved May 23 by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerry Leveque, Bonzi agreed to place the word "advertisement" prominently in its advertising banners and dialogue boxes. 

Bonzi also agreed to discontinue using "fake user interfaces,"  for minimizing, maximizing or closing boxes  that don't perform their intended function. 

The settlement also calls for Bonzi to stop representing that the user's computer is "broadcasting" its IP address. The warnings give users the false impression that their computers were indiscriminately disseminating the computer's address to the Internet, Scott said Tuesday. 

Bonzi agreed to pay attorney fees and court costs, about $170,000, Scott said. 

The lawsuit was settled before the court could decide whether it was a class action. Had a judge declared the case a class action, Scott estimated hundreds of thousands of computer users who were tricked by the advertising banners could have sought compensation. 

The law firm's Web site garnered more than 1.7 million "hits" and thousands of messages from computer users, Scott said. 

"I knew there were lots of people out there who were angry," Scott said. "I'm happy with the settlement. It sets a benchmark for the industry." 

Bonzi is among the world's most prolific issuers of Internet advertising banners. Its Web site has been ranked as one of the most frequently visited. 
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New York Times
May 29, 2003
Home Schooling in Cyberspace
By BONNIE ROTHMAN MORRIS

MADELINE NELSON of Steubenville, Ohio, has been in the third grade since last fall but has met her teacher only a few times. She has plenty of schoolwork to do, including book reports and her favorite, art projects.

She gets her assignments online through the Ohio Virtual Academy, which she attends along with her sister Therese, 7, and brother Gabriel, 5, from the dining room table at home.

If Madeline, 9, were a traditional home-schooled student, her mother, Gretchen, would be instructing her (her father, Mark, works full time outside the home). But even though Mrs. Nelson believes home schooling is best for her children, she does not feel capable of teaching them.

"I don't have any training," said Mrs. Nelson, who majored in English in college but never got her degree. "I wasn't sure what they should be learning and at what age." 

So the Nelsons enrolled their children in the academy, a public charter school for kindergarten through fifth grade that exists only in cyberspace. (Charter schools are publicly financed but independently operated.) The academy is chartered by the state and run by K12, a for-profit education company based in McLean, Va. The package includes an online curriculum, an online attendance and grading program, a loaned computer and a teacher who is reachable online, by phone and occasionally in person.

While there are a few online universities, and many traditional colleges and high schools offer some courses over the Internet, online education is only just beginning to spread to the lower grades. There are fewer than two dozen virtual elementary and middle schools nationwide, in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and a few other states. Some are run by for-profit companies like K12, which has 7,000 students nationwide, or Sylvan Ventures, based in Baltimore, which teaches 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade through its Connections Academy subsidiary. Others are operated by state education officials themselves. 

Unlike most online high school offerings, which are viewed as supplements to in-school classes, virtual elementary and middle schools are stand-alone programs. And because of increasing dissatisfaction with conventional schools and increasing acceptance of so-called distance learning at the high school and college levels, the number of virtual elementary and middle schools is expected to grow substantially in the next five years.

School districts consider such schools a way to offer families who choose to school their children at home another option - one with a curriculum intended to be aligned with state standards. 

"Every state in the union is exploring or has begun to develop a virtual school program, whether on their own or through a third-party provider," said James McVety, senior analyst at Eduventures, a Boston-based consulting company specializing in education. 

Not all educational experts think online elementary schools are a good idea. Critics say the quality of the education suffers and that, as with conventional home schooling, it is no substitute for the schoolroom experience. Even some conventional home schoolers criticize online schools, saying they offer less of what is most important: independence.

Typically, parents who school their children at home choose the curriculum from various sources, including online providers. But virtual schools let parents off that hook. They offer a complete curriculum for each grade, aligned to state standards that help children tackle standardized tests. 

"All I have to do is go in and, boom, the lessons are prepared," said Janine Tomlin of Santee, Calif., who enrolled her two youngest children, Olivia, 6, and Zachary, 8, in the California Virtual Academy, also run by K12, after schooling her eldest two by pulling the courses together herself. (The older children now both attend brick-and-mortar schools.) 

Those who operate virtual elementary and middle schools point out that the students are not glued to computer screens all day long. In the early grades, parents say, students spend about 30 minutes online daily, getting assignments and sometimes doing research or additional work on the Internet. (Even small children are sent to Web sites for research.) 

And parents generally have to stay involved rather than do the laundry or balance the checkbook while the children are studying in the dining room. For the most part, students, especially the youngest ones, need help with the assignments. 

Because these schools are publicly financed, they require about 900 hours of school time during the year, follow state curriculum guidelines and require children to take state standardized tests. Parents use special software that records attendance, lessons completed and the answers to their children's quizzes if the children are not yet reading. The software is programmed to assess each child's progress and customize lessons according to the student's strengths and weaknesses. 

A loaner computer loaded with school software (and usually a program to allow safe searching of the Internet) is provided as part of the package. Since curriculum developers for the online schools do not suggest that little children can learn solely from a computer, students receive books, too, as well as equipment like safety goggles for science experiments, tambourines for music lessons and little slate chalkboards. Everything (even the Internet connection in some states) is free. 

Then there is the teacher, who works out of a central office or school and mostly communicates through e-mail, the occasional phone call and sometimes home visits. Thomas Scullen, superintendent of the Appleton, Wis., school district, which chartered the Wisconsin Connections Academy, a virtual elementary school run by Sylvan, said that sometimes this "communication is truly electronic."

This concerns some educators. "If you had a school building but not live teachers interacting with students and instead have nonqualified people who can call experts when they need help, I don't think anyone would call that an appropriate configuration for education," said Barbara Stein, a senior policy analyst for the National Education Association.

Sam Foat, 6, of Waukesha, Wis., is a kindergartner at the Wisconsin Connections Academy. He has met his teacher only three times; she lives and works two hours away. Now, Sam's mother, Laura, says her son "rushes to the computer" to read his teacher's e-mail notes. "He loves mail," she said.

Mrs. Foat, a former preschool teacher, said she chose to have Sam schooled at home after observing him play with modeling dough one morning with great concentration.

"If I home schooled him I could take any subject he enjoyed and do it as long as he wanted and not have to be interrupted," Mrs. Foat said. She said she chose the Wisconsin Connections Academy because it uses the Calvert curriculum, a traditional home-schooling curriculum that she trusts. The free materials and computer were also a draw, she said.

But that circumscribed curriculum may well be preventing Mrs. Foat from veering off into new directions. "We follow the curriculum, pretty much as it's written," she said. "He's getting all different kinds of subjects."

Mrs. Tomlin said of her virtual academy: "It may not be as flexible as some other modes of home schooling. Since it's a charter school, they expect a certain number of lessons to be completed to say you've passed that grade."

With any home school model, there are worries that children are not socializing enough.

"The issue with the so-called cyberschool is the issue of untested extremism that steals away a child's proper childhood, which should involve a huge amount of interaction with human beings face to face," said Jamie McKenzie, a former elementary school principal who is the editor of From Now On, an online journal about educational technology.

Online elementary schools acknowledge that children talking to children is a part of schooling. To that end, Connnections Academy has established message boards on which students from its schools solve math problems together, take part in a virtual science fair, or just gab.

Online schools also have detractors among parents who school their children on their own and who say that a set curriculum discourages independence. 

"Look at the sample lesson plan for K12; it's very Pavlovian,'' said Larry Kaseman of Stoughton, Wis., who schooled his four children at home "all the way through" in the 1970's and is still active in the home-schooling movement. "Young kids are being encouraged through technology to run a maze, ring a bell and eat the cheese." 

There are also concerns that the amount of time most students spend on the computer will only increase. "A half an hour on the computer is going to expand because it's easy for everybody and it's prepackaged and convenient," said Jane Healy, an educational psychologist and the author of "Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children and What We Can Do About It" (Simon & Schuster, 1998). 

It is a safe bet that children who attend virtual elementary schools spend more time online than their peers in brick-and-mortar schools. But William J. Bennett, the chairman of K12 and former secretary of education, said that was not necessarily a bad thing. "The technology is there to eliminate the noise and get the child to the substance of education as fast and as quickly as possible," Mr. Bennett said. "Kids are spending too much time on computers doing stuff that isn't worth doing." 

Lisa Graham Keegan, president of the Education Leaders Council, an organization that supports initiatives that widen the ability of parents to choose schools, said, "With any school, regardless of how it's presented, content matters most." 

Other educators would argue that it is the teacher who makes the difference. "The true art of teaching and education has been shown over and over again to lie in some kind of magical interaction between the child, teacher and the material," Dr. Healy said.

In all forms of home schooling, it is the parent who bears most of the teaching burden, and sometimes the pressure proves to be too much. Since it opened last September, 25 students have dropped out of the Wisconsin Connections Academy, said Barbara Dreyer, president of Connections Academy.

"When we started up, parents didn't always have as much information about how much was really going to be required of them," Ms. Dreyer said. In some cases, both were working parents. "They were convinced they could do school in the evening," she said.

Parents say that even with the help of an online curriculum, home schooling is hard, and the days can be stressful. "I pray a lot," Mrs. Tomlin said.
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MSNBC
More Web sites yearn to charge fees 
Study: More than half of Web users willing to pay for content 
By Jane Weaver
 
May 29  The fee frenzy is on. Consumers who rejected anything that wasn?t free on the Web are showing interest in paying for online content. In fact, online subscription revenue will jump over 500 percent in the next few years as Web companies steal market share from their offline rivals, according to new research.

      ONLINE SUBSCRIPTIONS will increase from $517 million in 2003 to $3.5 billion in 2007, a 578 percent jump, according to technology research firm GartnerG2 in an upcoming report on consumer spending on media subscriptions. 
       Compared to the $34 billion Americans spent on cable TV last year or the $6.9 billion they paid for magazine subscriptions in 2001 (the most recent figures available), the online market is still small. 
       But as the number of homes with high-speed Internet connections continues to grow, online consumers will become more willing to pay for the special content, video and entertainment they access, Net analysts project. Earlier this month Pew Internet reported that 31 percent of Internet users go online with broadband connections, a 50 percent growth over last year. People who use broadband log on more often and spend more time online, making them good potential customers for paid content, researchers say. 
       In 2001, 52 percent of consumers said they were not willing to pay for Web content, Gartner found. By the end of last year, that number dropped to 45 percent of wired folks still not willing to pay up.
     ?People are becoming less resistant to paying for content online,? said Denise Garcia, the analyst who worked on the Gartner study. 
       The Gartner study excluded subscription fees from pornography, gambling or Internet access. 
       In particular, online subscriptions will steal market share from newspapers and magazines as people choose to subscribe to online versions of their favorite publications, Gartner projects. Online will grab a 12 percent share of the print subscription market by 2007. 
       Other industry experts counter that news and information sites will get only about five percent of of their revenues from subscriptions, with the bulk coming from advertising. 
       ?Instead the publishers will be developing premium services that will live off a solid bedrock of free content,? said Michael Zimbalist, executive director of Online Publishers Association. 
       Major online newspapers have already begun adding premium services. On Thursday, The New York Times said it will convert its free e-mail news alerts into a subscription service, starting June 13. The Times will charge the 500,000 readers who use its year-old News Tracker service $19.95 a year. With the premium service readers will be able to receive alerts on 10 separate topics of their choosing, up from the current three. The Times already charges for its online crossword puzzles and for access to stories more than seven days old. 
       
WHERE THE MONEY IS
 Personals

       Looking for love on the Web is big business. Personals generated $302 million in revenue in 2002, or 63 percent of all paid content online, according to research from comScore and the Online Publishers Association. For example, personals helped drive Yahoo!?s first-quarter paid subscription revenue up 61 percent to $63.7 million. Rival Match.com generated $125.2 million from over 766,000 members last year. ?Consumers will pay for content that delivers meaningful value to their lives,? said Trish McDermott, vice president of romance for the online dating service. The category shows no sign of slowing or of being limited to American lonelyhearts. Match.com, which is owned by USA Interactive, grew to 25 international sites last year. 
 Movies
       Online movie rentals are successful for Netflix, which has over a million subscribers paying $20 per month to watch as many DVDs as they want. Blockbuster plans to offer online DVD rentals as well, which could put pressure on the monthly rates. By 2006, the digital movie market will finally reach the mainstream as technology allows consumers to watch downloaded films on TV rather than the PC, Gartner projects. In the meantime, premium Web services like Movielink or CinemaNow, which charges $9.95 a month to watch movies, will remain experimental. Cable operators will dominate the filmed entertainment market with subscription video-on-demand services where consumers pay about $10 per month for access to the entire season of ?The Sopranos,? for example. 
 Games
       Online game subscriptions are expected to remain a small market despite a push from giants like Microsoft, Sony, Walt Disney Co. and Yahoo!, Gartner said. Yahoo! charges $9.95 a month, $19.95 a quarter or $59.95 a year for users who want to set up games tournaments with multiple players. Online gamers are rabid players, but the subscription market will reach only $7.3 million in 2007.
      Microsoft?s Xbox Live, which launched last year with an initial yearly subscription fee of $49.99 or $5.99 a month, will command almost half the market with $3.4 million in subscription revenue by 2007, according to Gartner. Just over 13 million people are expected to subscribe to online games by 2007, the report forecasts. ?There are many avid gamers, but they won?t necessarily subscribe,? said Garcia. ?Subscriptions are a smaller part of the overall [online] games market.? 
 Music
       The various subscription music services on the Web have attracted barely over 100,000 paying members, industry analysts estimate.
       Although Apple Computer?s new pay-per-song service has galvanized a desperate music industry, most rivals are clinging to the monthly subscription model. By 2007, online music subscriptions will cut into offline record clubs, gaining 30 percent of the market. 
       
FEE FATIGUE
       After paying the cable TV, cell phone and Internet access bills, is there any money left? Some wonder if consumers will collapse from fee fatigue. 
       ?The challenge is, how many different subscriptions will a person hold before they?re tapped out?? asked Zimbalist.
       Even though people will accept paying for content on the Web, finding the right price will remain a challenge, said Garcia.
       Many services charge almost $10 per month, such as Yahoo!?s Platinum audio and video product. The online music service Pressplay, which has been bought by Roxio, charges as much as $17.95 for a full range of song downloads. However, most services woo customers with free trials. 
       ?Online will struggle with being able to charge higher prices as they try to convert people from getting free content to paying for it,? said Garcia.
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Sydney Morning Herald
New team of researchers to study identity fraud
Sydney
May 29 2003





Researchers from five different universities have been issued a $531,000 ARC Linkage Grant to investigate identity fraud in conjunction with the AUSTRAC Proof of Identity Steering Committee. 

Associate Professor Rodger Jamieson from the University of NSW leads the team which includes Dr Suresh Cuganesan (Macquarie Graduate School of Management), Associate Professor Peter Luckett (University of NSW), Professor Kim Langfield-Smith (Monash University) and Associate Professor Warwick Sarre (University of South Australia). 

Dr Henry Pontell from the University of California will also contribute to the research. 

The group contains world-renowned experts in the fields of IT, financial management, criminology and law. 

Ass Prof Jamieson said he is excited about the project's chances of success. 

"We have some of the best thinkers in their area in the country and a leading US identity fraud specialist involved in this project," he said. 

"The funding will also support four full-time PhD students dedicated to the project ... we are looking forward to the challenge ahead." 
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