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Clips May 28, 2003
- To: "Lillie Coney":;, Gene Spafford <spaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, John White <white@xxxxxxxxxx>;, Jeff Grove <jeff_grove@xxxxxxx>;, goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>;, glee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;, Andrew Grosso<Agrosso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;, ver@xxxxxxxxx;, lillie.coney@xxxxxxx;, v_gold@xxxxxxx;, harsha@xxxxxxx;, KathrynKL@xxxxxxx;, computer_security_day@xxxxxxx;, waspray@xxxxxxxxxxx;, BDean@xxxxxxx;
- Subject: Clips May 28, 2003
- From: Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 11:28:12 -0400
Clips May 28, 2003
More U.S. Airwaves Sought
DISA adds threat intelligence tools to its cybersecurity toolkit
OMB plans top-level pressure to move agencies out of 'red'
College plans virus-writing course
Agencies show security progress
DOD proposes systems security amendment to DFARS
Defense, Justice report on surveillance activities
HP takes new pricing path for utility-based computing
Symantec to provide DOD with threat information
Safety Patrol Readied for Dot-Kids
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Washington Post
More U.S. Airwaves Sought
FCC Urged to Release Spectrum for Public-Safety Use
By Yuki Noguchi
Wednesday, May 28, 2003; Page E05
A division of Northrop Grumman Corp. said yesterday that it is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to free up more airwaves so that the Department of Homeland Security and public-safety agencies can set up advanced wireless communications systems.
Northrop Grumman's information technology division, based in Herndon, last month asked the FCC to consider reallocating 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 700-megahertz frequency range for public-safety use, so that those airwaves can be developed for a more advanced network to handle high-speed Internet, video and voice calls simultaneously.
Northrop is hoping to eventually profit from the federal government's increasing appetite for a more sophisticated, faster way to coordinate the communications between various branches of the government. FCC officials declined to comment on the proposal.
The spectrum that Northrop is requesting for government use is now used by television broadcasters, although they are expected to abandon it when they adopt newer digital technology. Eventually, most of the spectrum in the 700 megahertz range will be vacated and auctioned off; Northrop wants the additional spectrum to go to the government without getting auctioned off to commercial service providers.
"We're trying to create a playing field to put in wireless broadband," said Royce Kincaid, Northrop's wireless project manager. The physical properties of existing spectrum allocated for public-safety use do not allow for really high-capacity transmissions, which is important to secure borders, monitor customers and coordinate law enforcement. The 700-megahertz band covers more territory and can transmit within buildings, he said.
Several wireless-service operators are lobbying or planning to lobby the FCC to free up spectrum for homeland security use -- all in the hopes that they will benefit from increased business with the government, said Ronny Heraldsvik, director of marketing for Flarion Technologies. The New Jersey firm developed the wireless technology that Northrop is jointly marketing to the government. The spectrum Northop is asking for is "cleaner" because it could be made available nationally and is near the existing public-safety spectrum, Heraldsvik said.
The Northrop proposal is likely to spark opposition from television broadcasters, who don't have to give up the spectrum until at least 2007. The National Association of Broadcasters said its members won't be rushed off the airwaves.
"Once the transition to digital is complete, this issue goes away, because broadcasters will not be using those channels," said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the association. "We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that during times of crisis, local broadcasters provide breaking news and information to citizens better than any other technology."
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Government Computer News
05/27/03
DISA adds threat intelligence tools to its cybersecurity toolkit
By Dawn S. Onley
The Defense Information Systems Agency has added two software tools to its cybersecurity arsenal that will give it early warnings about potential attacks and recommend ways to respond.
DISA?s Computer Emergency Response Team will use Symantec DeepSight Threat Management System and Symantec DeepSight Alert Services to get threat and vulnerability intelligence reports.
DISA contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. awarded the three-year contract. The company would not release the value.
The DeepSight Threat application creates custom intelligence updates by aggregating attack data from 19,000 sensors in more than 180 countries, according to the company. DeepSight Alert tracks vulnerabilities in 13,000 versions of 3,200 products and will send alerts to DISA via e-mail, fax and voice communication.
?Incorporating worldwide attack intelligence and vulnerability discoveries into ongoing infrastructure protection effectively manages risks posed by novel and sophisticated threats,? said Mark J. Bogart, chief of contracts for DISA?s National Capital Region, in a statement.
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Washington Post
FCC Plan to Alter Media Rules Spurs Growing Debate
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 28, 2003; Page A01
Substantial grass-roots resistance to the Federal Communication Commission's plans to relax or eliminate several major media ownership rules has been building in recent weeks, turning a number-crunching bureaucratic process into a growing debate on free speech.
On June 2, the five-member commission is scheduled to vote on changes that would allow broadcast networks to buy more television stations and would lift the 28-year-old ban preventing newspapers from buying television stations in the same city.
Hundreds of thousands of e-mails and postcards are urging the FCC to put off a decision.
Those who favor relaxing and lifting the rules -- mainly, media corporations and the FCC's three Republican members -- say the regulations are no longer legally enforceable and have been made obsolete by the explosion of cable television channels and Web sites, which provide consumers with more sources of information than when the ownership rules were crafted years ago.
On the other side are the two Democratic commissioners, Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein, several public-interest groups and organizations that say what is at stake is nothing less than the health of the democracy. More consolidation, they say, will lead to fewer voices, making it difficult for minority viewpoints to be heard. Unexpected alliances have formed between liberal and conservative groups, opposing further deregulation.
In recent days, the FCC has been inundated with hundreds of thousands of e-mails and e-petitions. MoveOn.org, a public-interest organization founded by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, says it has collected 170,000 signatures on a petition to the FCC, urging the agency to keep the rules in place.
The group is joining forces with the public-interest group Common Cause, and this week it launched a $250,000 newspaper and television advertising campaign against the changes, including ads in the New York Times and The Washington Post.
Members of the National Rifle Association have sent 300,000 postcards demanding the same. The FCC's Web site has received more than 9,000 e-mail comments over recent months from individuals who claim no affiliation with corporations or associations. Of those, according to a musician's group that recently tallied the filings, only 11 comments support relaxing the media rules. Members of Congress are reporting that their offices are receiving substantial e-mail traffic as well.
"It seems to me that instead of serving the public interest, you are really serving the interests of a few corporate fiefdoms that want to control more of what we see and hear," one person wrote in an e-mail to FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell.
"The airwaves are open to the public and should not be controlled by a few very rich and powerful media moguls who are only interested in their own gain and/or political influence," wrote another.
Others have spoken out as well. USA Interactive chief executive Barry Diller, who controlled broad media holdings before focusing on Internet businesses, favored keeping ownership limits in a speech before the April convention of the National Association of Broadcasters. "The conventional wisdom is wrong," said Diller, a director of The Washington Post Co. "We need more regulation, not less."
The outcry is in part a response to the public comments of FCC chairman Powell and fellow Republican commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin, who have said they favor changing the ownership rules. Many of the regulations were crafted when there were three commercial television networks, no Internet and no cable. The GOP commissioners argue that by selectively culling agency rules they can preserve the viability of free, over-the-air television while protecting certain markets. FCC staff, for example, has recommended lifting the ban on newspaper-television cross-ownership in all but the smallest cities, where there tends to be little competition to begin with.
Even if media ownership rules are relaxed, proposed mergers would still have to meet the FCC's public-interest standard and pass the Justice Department's antitrust test.
"Nobody believes any more strongly than I do that unfettered consolidation is not a good thing," Powell said in an interview Friday. "When we're done, we're going to have significant and meaningful limits on concentration."
The FCC has spent the past 18 months collecting data, and the proposed changes to the media rules are based on detailed statistical analysis. For instance, currently a broadcast network cannot own a group of television stations that reaches more than 35 percent of the national audience. FCC staff has concluded that maximum coverage should be raised to 45 percent.
Prodding the agency has been the U.S. District Court in Washington, which has tossed out five of the FCC's ownership rules in recent years after saying they were based on faulty rationale.
Reconsideration of the rules has renewed questions about whether bigger is inherently better.
The questions played out Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee, which is chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch was called to testify on his $6.6 billion attempt to buy controlling interest in the DirecTV home-satellite system, adding a distribution network to his Fox cable television and broadcast network.
Murdoch quickly became a proxy for all powerful media barons in the eyes of some committee members.
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) cited a radio study that examined the nation's 44 top-rated stations over a week and found that they broadcast 312 hours of conservative talk programming, compared with 11 hours of liberal shows.
Dorgan pointed out that these stations are owned by only five companies, a fact he said demonstrates that fewer owners means less diversity of opinion. He asked Murdoch what he thought.
"Apparently, conservative talk radio is more popular," Murdoch replied.
Fellow witness Kent W. Mikkelsen, an economist who has worked for the broadcast industry, testified that "there is no evidence that a variety of owners equals a variety of voices," a claim disputed by those who oppose relaxing the ownership rules.
The FCC grants lucrative television and radio broadcast licenses to transmit over the public airwaves. In return, the stations are expected to broadcast programming in the public interest. What that is exactly has always been a cause for debate. Networks argue that highly rated shows such as Fox's "American Idol" are in the public interest because they're popular. Educational and consumer groups argue otherwise, saying that broadcasters are sidestepping their legal obligation if they do not air worthy yet low-rated programming.
Although Powell said public-interest programming is necessary, he's uncomfortable with the five commissioners deciding what it should be. "If you're using the government will to impose 'castor oil' or 'eat your vegetables' programming, you'd better be a little bit concerned that you're going to allow three of five unelected officials to unduly impose what they prefer to see on TV," he said.
The Senate exchange between Dorgan and Murdoch highlighted the philosophical split between media owners and those who oppose them, said fellow witness Gene Kimmelman, the Washington director for Consumers Union, the advocacy group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine. "Owning broadcast stations carries public responsibilities, like providing a diversity of points of view for the community," Kimmelman said.
Powell, though, believes that the pending changes are in the public interest. In situations where a newspaper has received a waiver to own a television station in the same city, that station has produced more and better local news, Powell said. Network owned-and-operated television stations typically produce more local news than those not owned by networks, other data show, he said.
As for allowing networks to buy more stations, Powell points to the ascendancy of cable, which for the first time this year attracted a greater aggregate prime-time audience than the networks.
If cable continues to eat away at broadcast, Powell said, public-interest programming will be jeopardized because cable channels are under no FCC obligation to provide such programming. Allowing media companies to buy more stations, which typically return profits of 20 to 50 percent, would help ensure continued free, over-the-air public-interest broadcasting to the roughly 15 percent of viewers who do not have cable or satellite television, he said.
Some believe the FCC's economic arguments are flawed.
"The only justification for deregulation is that with the rise of the Internet and [cable and satellite] TV, you no longer have to worry about monopolies in the media marketplace," said Robert W. McChesney, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy." "If the Internet has created so much power, you would expect the value of [television and radio stations] to plummet, but it has increased well ahead of the rate of inflation."
If the FCC votes to ease and abolish the ownership rules next month, several media analysts have predicted a rush of media deals will follow. But some media barons have played down such a buying spree. Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin recently said that his company would not pursue newspapers in cities where it owns television stations, because papers "are not a growth industry." Murdoch said his company would not look to substantially add to its station group.
However, a report by Merrill Lynch & Co. predicted that companies such as Gannett Co., which has said that FCC ownership restrictions have pinched its growth, would acquire more television stations; likewise with Tribune Co. and Media General Inc. Merrill Lynch expects "targeted acquisitions" of television stations by the Walt Disney Co., Viacom and News Corp. in larger cities, as opposed to "wholesale, transforming" buys.
While Powell said he values public input on the rules, it ultimately will be of little help in crafting ownership laws that stand up in court.
"You don't govern just by polls and surveys," he said. "We have to exercise difficult judgments and abide by the law. If all of our rulemaking was just a case of put them out and take a referendum, things would be a lot easier."
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Government Executive
May 27, 2003
OMB plans top-level pressure to move agencies out of 'red'
By Jason Peckenpaugh
jpeckenpaugh@xxxxxxxxxxx
White House pressureincluding pressure from the chief executive himselfwill prod agencies to step up progress on the five items of the Bush administration?s management agenda over the next 13 months, according to Clay Johnson, nominee to be deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget.
In a May 22 speech to a group of federal managers, Johnson outlined his view that most agencies now believe in the management agenda, and are on track to achieve substantial gains by July 1, 2004, when OMB hopes most agencies will no longer be at ?red,? or failing, on the administration?s traffic light-style management scorecard.
?The management agenda has taken hold and not just with the political [appointees],? he told managers at a Washington conference held by the National Academy of Public Administration. ?I get a lot of anecdotal evidence [of] the career employees, many of whom have been with their agencies 15, 20, 25 years, being able to see how this is so very good for the functioning of their agency.?
But if progress slows, Johnson believes the traffic light ratingsand the stigma associated with a ?red? rating inside the Bush administrationwill motivate agencies to take action. He said President Bush regularly asks department heads about their progress on the agenda during Cabinet meetings, and agencies are loath to report little activity.
?He asks, without prompting, I noticed that you?re still at red. And [department heads] don?t like to hear that. So that is a very not-to-be-underestimated motivation for these agencies.?
Agencies have ample room for progress. Of the 26 agencies graded on the scorecard, only the National Science Foundation has earned ?green,? or top marks in any of the five areas. The agency has received green ratings in financial management and e-government. But even the NSF has a red markon competitive sourcingbecause the agency has done little on that initiative to date. ?Progress in competitive sourcing was downgraded because the agency has still not committed to competing any of its commercial positions, and has not developed a competitive sourcing plan,? said the administration?s fiscal 2004 budget proposal.
Johnson said White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card initially was surprised to learn that OMB planned to publish the scorecard ratingswhich publicly criticize some agenciesbut OMB Director Mitch Daniels and former OMB management chief Mark Everson explained that the scorecard would goad agencies into action. ?They said, well yes, that?s kind of the way it?s going to work. But that?s the point. Nobody likes to be red,? said Johnson.
OMB is planning to pressure agencies to move programs off of the General Accounting Office?s ?high-risk? list of management challenges as well. Over the past few weeks, OMB officials have met with their counterparts at GAO to determine what it would take to make progress on the 25 ?high-risk? items, and to eventually move programs off the list. And in an exercise that mirrors OMB?s ?Proud to Be? review, which sets July 1, 2004, as a deadline for making targeted improvements on the five management agenda items, OMB and the agencies have set July 1, 2004, as a target date for making progress on ?high-risk? items as well.
?The goal is not to get off the high-risk list in July 1, 2004, but ? to make sure they are committing amongst themselves and with us to progress this far down the pike,? Johnson said after his speech.
George Stalkup, a GAO official who has met with OMB staffers, said Johnson?s initiative is the most ?focused and aggressive? effort by OMB to date to make progress on the high-risk items.
Other observers were struck by OMB?s effort to move items off GAO?s high-risk list, which they saw as a first. ?OMB in particular has never in my recollection publicly acknowledged or embraced GAO?s high-risk list, and for an official document to acknowledge the high-risk list, let alone have a meeting to talk about how to demonstrate progress on it is, I think, a huge step,? said Donald Kettl, a professor of public affairs and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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CNET News.com
College plans virus-writing course
By Ian Fried
May 27, 2003, 5:40 PM PT
While many students would be expelled from their computer science programs for writing a virus, the University of Calgary plans to make writing such malicious programs a part of the curriculum.
This fall, the Canadian school is offering a class for fourth-year students titled "Computer Viruses and Malware," in which students will write and test their own viruses. The move has touched off a wave of criticism within the antivirus community.
Ken Barker, head of the school's computer science department, contends that such a class is needed to better understand what motivates those who write malicious software, which he says is a growing problem. In just the past 24 hours, McAfee has discovered some 190,000 new infected files, Barker said.
"Somebody who is suggesting we are doing enough really has their head in the sand," Barker said. Plus, school officials note that information on how to write viruses is already easily accessible.
Both those in favor of the class and those opposed agree that virus infections are costing corporations billions, particularly in the lost productivity that comes when an infection brings e-mail servers to a halt.
But David Perry, global director of education for antivirus software maker Trend Micro, said encouraging people to write more viruses is a bad idea.
"Why not have classes in hacking?" Perry said. "Why not have classes in all kinds of malicious computer activity?"
Perry rejects the idea that such training could lead to better bug fighters.
"I don't see there to be any educational value at all," Perry said. "You don't send somebody out to shoot someone so they understand what happens when somebody gets shot."
On the other hand, computer virus expert Fred Cohen contends that it makes sense to let students interact with viruses firsthand--even creating their own--provided that enough safeguards are in place to make sure that the computer bugs don't leave the classroom. A class of graduate students taught by Cohen did just that this past semester at the University of New Haven.
Cohen said that, by writing their own viruses--as well as antivirus software to stop their creations--his graduate students learn how easy it is to create such bugs, how quickly they spread and other knowledge of how such code operates.
At the same time, he rejected the University of Calgary's notion that students can get in the mind frame of those who distribute malicious code by writing viruses of their own.
Cohen's main focus is assuring that schools like the University of Calgary that offer such classes make sure to set up safeguards to prevent the students' work from getting out of the classroom.
"It's not--in general--a very safe thing to write viruses," said Cohen, who also works for market analysis firm Burton Group. "It's easy to make a mistake."
Calgary officials say the school has taken appropriate precautions, with plans to use a closed network and prohibiting students from removing disks from the virus-infected labs, which will be secured 24 hours a day.
For his part, Trend Micro's Perry said there is little need to study virus writing at all, given the simplicity of most malicious code.
"Generally speaking, the people that release viruses into the wild are not very good computer programmers," Perry said. "If you are a very good programmer, somebody hires you to write programs."
But it is that very financial motive that Barker said will keep his school's students focused on preventing viruses rather than launching them.
"They are not really employable as virus writers," Barker said.
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Federal Computer Week
Agencies show security progress
BY Diane Frank
May 27, 2003
In the fiscal 2002 report on their information security status and practices, agencies for the first time showed measurable progress on governmentwide security needs and agency-by-agency efforts.
Overall, agencies made progress on the significant problem areas identified by the Office of Management and Budget in fiscal 2001, such as a lack of performance measures and the inability to integrate security measures into the capital planning process. However, agencies still have a long way to go, according to the report, dated May 16 and released late last week.
For example, the number of systems with an up-to-date security plan rose from 40 percent in fiscal 2001 to 62 percent in fiscal 2002. That is a big jump, but it is still quite a way from the 100 percent requirement.
This is the last report under the Government Information Security Reform Act of 2000. From now on, agency security efforts will be outlined as part of GISRA's follow-on legislation, the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, which passed as part of the E-Government Act.
Both GISRA and FISMA require agencies to submit annual security evaluations to the Office of Management and Budget, and for OMB to submit a summary report to Congress.
The fiscal 2001 evaluations provided a baseline by determining the current state of agency's security practices, problems and solutions. In the fiscal 2002 report, OMB highlighted the changes, including the significant improvements agencies are making towards governmentwide goals and the distance agencies still have to go to actually meet the goals.
In the fiscal 2002 guidance, OMB set out detailed governmentwide performance measures, including the number of systems that have been through a risk assessment, the number of systems with security control costs integrated into their lifecycle costs, and the number of systems with a contingency plan.
An automated self-assessment tool developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology played "an important role" in helping agencies through the collection of these and other metrics, according to the report.
The reports also revealed several new governmentwide challenges:
* Many agencies are finding the same security weaknesses every year.
* Some chief information officers and inspectors general have different views in their separate evaluations of an agency's security.
* Many agencies are not prioritizing security for existing systems before seeking funding for new systems.
* Not all agencies are reviewing all of their systems, despite the law's requirement that they do so.
* Agencies are still not incorporating security responsibility and accountability into every position across the agency.
OMB already has measures in place to address many of these problems, including working the changes into agencies' processes through the budget.
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Government Computer News
05/27/03
DOD proposes systems security amendment to DFARS
By Dawn S. Onley
The Defense Department plans to remind its acquisition workers that they must adhere to two new policies for securing systems and networks.
DOD acquisition officials need to comply with directives 8500.1 and 8500.2 when buying technology, according to a proposed amendment to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement that addresses information assurance requirements related to IT acquisition.
Both directives implement the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Committee?s Policy No. 11, which requires information assurance be added to all Defense systems used to enter, process, display or transmit national security information.
?For all acquisitions, the requiring activity is responsible for providing to the contracting officer statements of work, specifications or statements of objectives that meet information assurance requirements,? said the proposal, which the department released Friday.
The directives also require that vendors provide or use IT that has been accredited as meeting the appropriate requirements. Vendors must submit documentation proving accreditation.
The government can choose to ?conduct additional tests to ensure that IT delivered under a contract satisfies the information assurance standards,? the amendment added.
Directive 8500.2, released in February, is the second part of a strategy to address the changing systems security needs within the department. DOD issued the first part, 8500.1, in October. The directives create a framework for DOD to follow to protect its information systems.
The policies cover several areas, including access control and firewall protection. They also place Defense systems in four categories:
Automated applications enclaves, which include networks
Outsourced IT
Platform IT interconnections, such as weapons systems
Sensors.
DOD will accept comments about the proposed amendment until July 22.
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Government Executive
May 28, 2003
Defense, Justice report on surveillance activities
By Drew Clark, National Journal's Technology Daily
In the 20 months since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, civil libertarians have had two overarching complaints about the federal government's surveillance regime: the breadth of its powers and the secrecy of its capabilities. Now the latter criticism may be changing.
Under sustained pressure from privacy advocates within Congress, the legislative branch has forced the federal executive branch to account for the details of its technologies and law enforcement efforts. Last week, both the Defense and Justice departments issued reports to Congress that alternately attempted to justify surveillance activities yet minimize any threats that efforts such as data mining and more liberal wiretapping rules pose to privacy.
In a report, executive summary and appendices totaling 108 pages, Defense attempted to deflect criticism of a data-mining program designed to collect immigration, travel, governmental and potentially financial and medical information on millions of Americans. And as evidence that it is being both aggressive in using its surveillance powers to combat terrorism and determined in its protection of privacy, Justice presented 60 pages of answers to aggressively worded questions about the 2001 anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act.
Information Awareness Minus The 'Total'
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was contrite about its data-mining project. Once dubbed Total Information Awareness, or TIA for short, the program's longhand name was changed to Terrorism Information Awareness in the report.
The agency repeatedly emphasized three main points about TIA: that data collection would only be done under existing privacy laws, that the agency is developing new privacy technologies, and that current testing uses only foreign intelligence information or "synthetic," artificial data created purely for research purposes.
The report did not satisfy privacy critics. Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who authored the language requiring the report, "sees nothing in the report that changes his opinion that Congress needs to retain strong oversight of the program," spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said. "The report doesn't contain specific information about how the rights of regular Americans will be protected," she said, adding that "there is no evidence that Americans would have even the same rights that suspects are given."
Because the report was delivered on time, the Bush administration can continue its $54 million in research of technologies for TIA, but Wyden said any deployment of the technologies must be explicitly approved by Congress.
Other privacy advocates are not so sanguine. Promises by DARPA to abide by existing privacy laws are "an empty assurance," according to an analysis produced last week by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). "Under existing law the government can ask for, purchase or demand access to most private-sector data."
The dated 1974 Privacy Act can be easily circumvented under TIA, CDT concluded. "It is no answer to concerns about government access to commercial databases to assert that agencies will comply with all existing privacy laws" because those very laws have become outdated by the creation of private-sector databases, according to the report.
A Time For Dirty Legislative Hands?
Even defenders of TIA research said that for all of lawmakers' recent oversight activity, Congress should become more active in setting rules.
Heritage Foundation senior legal research fellow Paul Rosenzweig compares the current historical moment for data mining to how the nation addressed wiretapping in the 1960s. The technology to electronically tap phones had been available from the early years of the 20th century, but the Supreme Court did nothing to curtail its rampant use (and abuse) by the police and the FBI until a 1967 decision potentially rendered the practice illegal.
"This is a new era and Congress needs to get its hands dirty," much as it did in a landmark 1968 anti-crime bill in which it "finally was compelled to provide a wall with respect to wiretapping," Rosenzweig said. "They had to address the fact that police could use this with significant benefits to fight organized crime and drug traffickers, but the technology drove them to the necessity of sitting down and thinking about what the right regulatory regime should be."
"This would be so powerful that it would have the power to change the power relationships within society," Jay Stanley, communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program said of TIA.
"As the TIA's own slogan on their long-lost logo said, 'Knowledge is power.' When you have the amount of knowledge about people's activities that this program would create, it increases the amount of power that the government would have over individuals."
In Defense Of Broader Surveillance
In its report, Justice officials answered 28 of the 38 questions posed by House Judiciary Committee members, deferring eight questions about immigration to the new Homeland Security Department and agreeing to provide the committee with classified answers to the other two questionsincluding one about how many times it has used a new surveillance authority.
Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and committee ranking Democrat John Conyers of Michigan both commended Justice for replyingits first substantive answer to questions about PATRIOT Act compliance. Conyers and the Democrats noted, however, that many of the law's powers are being used in "run-of-the-mill criminal cases" rather than the anti-terrorism orientation promised by the administration.
Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, widely regarded as the mastermind behind the statute, said it was inevitable that some cases originally suspected to involve terrorism would ensnare common criminals. He also said the low number of investigative activities at Islamic mosquesfewer than 10 FBI field offices have conducted such workdemonstrates that Justice is committed to acting with restraint.
Dinh, who on Friday is set to leave the Justice Department after a two-year absence from his position as a law professor at Georgetown University, refused to answer questions about the existence of the so-called PATRIOT Act II, a draft proposal for further law enforcement power.
But CDT Executive Director Jim Dempsey said that whether intended or not, the original PATRIOT Act created a loophole that could dramatically expand the executive branch's power to conduct data mining on Americans irrespective of whether they are suspected criminals or terrorists.
"Previously, the FBI could get the credit-card records of anyone suspected of being a foreign agent," he told a House Judiciary subcommittee last week. "Under the PATRIOT Act, broadly read, the FBI can get the entire database of the credit-card company." Although never justified in the context of data mining, he said the law's changes "seem to provide compulsory power should the government want to obtain the data and bring it into their systems."
Links: Report http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/tia_report_page.htm
Justice Department Response to Questions: http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/tia_report_page.htm
US Patriot Act Law http://rs9.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162:
Total Information Awareness Program under a new name Terrorism Information Awareness Program http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm
1974 Privacy Act http://www.usdoj.gov/foia/privstat.htm
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Computerworld
HP takes new pricing path for utility-based computing
It plans to measure on-demand IT services with a 'computon' metric
By THOMAS HOFFMAN
MAY 26, 2003
Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. are developing a new pricing approach for the outsourced capacity-on-demand computing services the company offers. But several IT managers said they're worried that the plan is too complex.
Under HP's scheme, prices would vary based on factors such as the overall demand placed on servers, storage devices and other IT resources, said Bernardo Huberman, an HP fellow and director of the systems research center at the company's HP Labs unit.
He added that a new unit-of-computing metric, which is being called a "computon" inside HP, would be akin to the pricing models that utilities use to charge customers for kilowatt-hours of electricity based on the ebb and flow of power demand.
Huberman acknowledged that the computon effort is complicated. For instance, HP will have to account for variables such as how well its data centers perform and the amount of computing resources that customers require, he said. HP also needs to figure out a way to build in pricing provisions to cover the possibility that companies will use more or less of a specific IT resource, like CPU cycles, than they have contracted for on a monthly basis.
Analysts said new IT pricing approaches are needed to support the emerging utility-based computing capabilities being offered by HP and rivals such as IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. Those two companies said they also have pricing updates in the works.
But the computon concept, which is due for initial testing within HP early next year, did not wow IT executives interviewed last week.
"It sounds too complicated to me," said Malcolm Fields, CIO at HON Industries Inc., a maker of office furniture and fireplaces in Muscatine, Iowa.
"The last thing that we need is another complicated licensing scheme," Fields said. "What we need is a quick and easy way to buy more computing power, and I need to be able to buy it in very small, inexpensive increments."
"I'm not sure I would like it at all, and I don't think it would fly," said Tim Cronin, manager of IT at Nobel Biocare USA Inc., a Yorba Linda, Calif.-based maker of dental implants. "How in the world would you calculate all the variables?"
HP probably will be able to "come up with some matrix that will look very impressive," Cronin added. But he also questioned whether IT managers would be able to measure their computon usage and whether the plan would provide cost benefits to users.
Evolutionary Step
Some analysts were more positive about HP's plan, describing it as an evolutionary step in the development of utility-based computing.
"We will eventually get to a point where [IT vendors] charge for usage in real time," said Thornton May, a futurist in Biddeford, Maine, and a Computerworld columnist. "If you want electricity on a hot day, you pay more. If you want bandwidth on a busy pipe-traffic day, you pay more."
Efforts by IT services vendors like HP, IBM and Sun to develop new methods of pricing for utility-based computing "are well placed," said Howard Rubin, executive vice president at Meta Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
But Rubin said the task won't be an easy one. "When true physics aren't involved, it's hard to come up with something meaningful, auditable and defensible for pricing," he noted.
In addition, Rubin said that he doesn't think rival vendors will work together to develop a standard capacity-on-demand pricing metric.
A spokesman for IBM said it's now offering mainframe Linux hosting customers a "service unit" pricing approach. The pricing is based partly on the cost of the hardware being run by IBM, as well as its IT labor costs. IBM also factors in the average amount of hourly mainframe CPU capacity used over a 24-hour period and then tracks monthly utilization rates to come up with the service unit cost, the spokesman said.
In April, Sun introduced a pricing metric called the Sun Power Unit, which sets prices based on factors such as CPU utilization and the storage capacity used by customers, said Jay Littlepage, vice president of IT operations at Sun and head of its utility-based computing program.
Littlepage said Sun is testing the new approach in four pilot projects, including one that's aimed at determining how to price applications shared among multiple users.
As part of its computon effort, HP is developing separate pricing mechanisms for the different types of computing services it offers, such as network bandwidth, application hosting and data center activities, Huberman said.
Service-level agreements will reward HP's biggest customers with preferential pricingas long as they guarantee a certain level of usage, Huberman said. He added that HP is also weighing the idea of sharing the computon formula with customers so they can use it to calculate internal chargebacks for IT services.
*******************************
Computerworld
Symantec to provide DOD with threat information
The department wants 'actionable intelligence' from the company
By Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
MAY 27, 2003
Adding a twist to the notion of public/private partnerships, a deal between Symantec Corp. and the U.S. Department of Defense will provide the government with intelligence gathered from the Cupertino, Calif., company's DeepSight threat and vulnerability alert services (see story).
The three-year deal will provide "actionable intelligence" from Symantec about computer vulnerabilities and incipient computer attack activity to the DOD's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). That information will then be used to create security recommendations for protecting IT assets within the department, Symantec said.
The CERT is run by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), a combat support agency within the Pentagon. Officials at DISA weren't immediately available for comment, and Symantec declined to say how much the contract is worth.
The DOD is subscribing to both the DeepSight Threat Management and Alert Services, according to Symantec.
DeepSight Threat Management uses a network of more than 19,000 sensors such as firewalls and intrusion-detection sensors worldwide to track evolving computer attacks. DeepSight Alert Services track software vulnerabilities in 3,200 commonly used software products, sending vulnerability alerts to subscribers using a variety of electronic means such as e-mail, fax and Short Messaging Service.
Despite the sensitive nature of its work, the Pentagon will receive the same information as Symantec's other DeepSight subscribers, according to Tom Resau, a spokesman for Symantec.
Although it may seem strange for a leading defense agency to contract with a private company to provide intelligence information, Resau said DISA won't rely solely on DeepSight for cyberprotection. Instead, the DeepSight information will complement other proprietary and off-the-shelf security systems that are already in place at the agency.
"[The DOD] has a huge base of assets to preserve and protect. They're looking at every new technology that comes down the pipeline," he said.
The DeepSight services will give the department more timely information on emerging viruses and enable it to confirm whether attacks they're seeing are also affecting organizations in the private sector, according to Brian Finan, director of strategic programs and homeland security at Symantec.
"DISA will receive information from DeepSight alert and notify [military departments] what they need to be aware of," he said.
In cases where vulnerabilities are actively being exploited, the DeepSight service will give the department a head start on protecting or patching vulnerable systems, Finan said.
The DOD was already a Symantec customer, tapping the company for antivirus technology and information from the Bugtraq software vulnerability discussion list, which Symantec acquired with its purchase of SecurityFocus Inc. in July, Finan said.
The new arrangement will tie together those services more closely, while adding a managed security services component from Symantec's acquisition of Riptech Inc., also in July.
Symantec worked through defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. to get the contract, relying on that company's status as a DOD information assurance contract holder and its extensive relationship with the agency to get the DeepSight technology evaluated for the program.
Despite the fact that DeepSight isn't a "military grade" intelligence service, Symantec is hoping that its relationship with the DOD will open the door to similar contracts with other federal, state and local agencies looking for better vulnerability and attack alert information, Resau said.
The new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also a likely candidate for Symantec's DeepSight services, Finan said.
Like the DOD, some of the agencies that now make up the DHS are already Symantec customers for services such as antivirus protection or managed security services, Finan said.
*******************************
Washington Post
Safety Patrol Readied for Dot-Kids
Two Washington-Area Firms Team Up To Stave off Porn, Other Inappropriate Material
By David McGuire
Wednesday, May 28, 2003; 8:00 AM
Children will soon have an Internet neighborhood of their own, designed to be free of pornography, hate speech, gambling, discount tobacco sales and other content deemed inappropriate for young audiences.
But the company charged with operating the new kid-friendly domain faces a daunting technological challenge to keep it "G"-rated.
Starting in September, Web site operators who want to run sites for children will be able to buy special "kids.us" addresses carved out within the United States's existing dot-us domain, such as washingtonpost.kids.us.
Before they can establish a dot-kids Web site, buyers will have to show that their content follows rigid guidelines. They'll also be barred from linking to sites outside of kids.us, and will have to obey a federal law that requires them to get parental consent before asking children under 13 years old for personal information.
Washington, D.C.-based NeuStar Inc., which owns the government contract to operate dot-us, plans to use a combination of technology and human supervision to patrol the kids.us space. The company has enlisted Arlington, Va.-based Cyveillance to perform routine scans of kids.us addresses using its "spidering" technology. Cyveillance will flag questionable material and send it to NeuStar for review. Depending on how badly the material violates the rules, NeuStar either will shut down the offending site immediately or give operators a few hours to remove the material on their own.
Spidering technology typically is used by companies to conduct deep searches of the Internet, approaching the task in a much different way than consumer-oriented search engines like Google. NeuStar is the first company to use the approach to patrol a single domain, but other corporations are beginning to use spidering tools to police their large Web sites.
Even the most advanced spidering technology has limited ability to distinguish content appropriate for children from pornography or other adult content.
"Sooner or later the nipples are going to start falling through the cracks," said Ross Rader, director of innovation and research for Toronto-based Tucows Inc., one of the world's largest domain name retailers.
NeuStar employees could be forced to make thousands of decisions that can't be left to a computer, said Ram Mohan, chief technical officer for Dublin-based Internet addressing firm Afilias LLC and a former spider software developer.
"There is no automated way to differentiate between a glazed doughnut and a suntanned breast," he said.
Cyveillance's Paul Burden conceded that spider technology would be hard pressed to distinguish innocuous content from photos or text officially banned from kids.us sites, but he said that Cyveillance crawlers rely on other written data and file characteristics to identify targeted material.
NeuStar and Cyveillance employees will vet any material flagged by the automatic scans, Burden added. While that could mean a lot of work for NeuStar and Cyveillance, Burden said that the company will refine its search criteria and streamline its reviews as more kids.us domain names are sold.
NeuStar hopes that the high price of kids-us domain names will make them less likely to be abused. To foot the bill for site surveillance, NeuStar will charge an annual $250 content review fee for each kids.us address. The company also has set the wholesale price of a kids.us domain at $65 a year, more than 10 times the $6 wholesale cost of a dot-com address.
Operators who have their sites taken down for content violations will have to pay $400 to get back online.
NeuStar Director of Business Development Melinda Clem said the kids.us prices create "thin, basically nonexistent margins" for the company but should be sufficient to cover the cost of policing the space.
NeuStar is not making hard predictions about how many people or companies will register dot-kids addresses, but Clem expects registrations to number in the thousands.
Tucows's Rader said his company has not decided yet whether it will sell kids.us addresses, but said that he has so far seen "zero demand from our channel partners."
*******************************
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 501
Date: May 30, 2003
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Top Stories for Friday, May 30, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers Is Challenged"
"Search-Rescue Robots Test Their Mettle in Tournaments"
"Making It on Their Merits"
"PGP Encryption Proves Powerful"
"Enlisting the Young as White-Hat Hackers"
"File Swapping Shifts Up a Gear"
"Innovation on Hold"
"Falling Off of the Cutting Edge"
"Study: CIA Behind the Times in IT"
"Blazing the Trail for Tech"
"Disease-Causing Proteins May Create Nanotech Circuits"
"Working Remotely, Robots in Place"
"Simulated Evolution Gets Complex"
"Can ICANN Meet the Needs of "Less Developed" Countries?"
"Putting IT on the Map"
"Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998-2002"
"Never Too Thin"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers Is Challenged"
With IT employment numbers weak, U.S. technology workers are
upset over the use of L-1 visas, which allow companies to
transfer foreign employees to U.S. offices. Far fewer foreign
workers are being issued H-1B visas and Congress will likely let ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item1
"Search-Rescue Robots Test Their Mettle in Tournaments"
As former chief of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's
Tactical Mobile Robotics program, John G. Blitch, dissatisfied
with the performance of robots at the site of the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing, made it a federal priority to see if more versatile ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item2
"Making It on Their Merits"
The U.S. high-tech sector is still predominantly male, but women
have made significant progress in attaining prominence in tech
companies thanks to a merit-driven corporate culture fostered by
Silicon Valley. Up-and-coming women are filling the executive ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item3
"PGP Encryption Proves Powerful"
In March, Italian authorities captured several Psion PDAs from
terrorists in a shoot-out, but have been unable to glean valuable
information from the devices because of the powerful encryption
used to mask the data. The PDAs, seized from the Red Brigades ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item4
"Enlisting the Young as White-Hat Hackers"
Tiger Team, a free after-school class that teaches ethical
hacking to teenagers, is the pilot program of Andrew Robinson's
nonprofit Internet Security Foundation. Tiger Team students are
arranged into opposing groups that attempt to hack into each ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item5
"File Swapping Shifts Up a Gear"
Popular file-swapping tools such as Sharman Networks' Kazaa and
Streamcast Networks' Morpheus are finding competition in
next-generation products such as BitTorrent and eDonkey, which
aim to boost efficiency and transfer speed for movies and other ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item6
"Innovation on Hold"
The rollout of promising technologies is being impeded by a
sluggish economy, which could cause employee productivity to
stagnate and lead to the demise of promising technologies.
Business spending on IT in 2003 is likely to remain the same or ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item7
"Falling Off of the Cutting Edge"
Information technology is no longer a strategic advantage for
businesses, wrote Harvard Business Review Editor at Large
Nicholas Carr recently. His thesis elicited an excited response
from people in the IT sector, but the main premise also has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item8
"Study: CIA Behind the Times in IT"
An unclassified report furnished by Bruce Berkowitz of the CIA's
Sherman Kent Center for Intelligence Analysis finds that the
CIA's reliance on outdated technology has put Directorate of
Intelligence (DI) analysts about five years behind their ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item9
"Blazing the Trail for Tech"
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
has pursued new technology frontiers since its establishment
in 1958 as a response to the Soviet Sputnik launch. Today,
the group funds academic and corporate research projects ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item10
"Disease-Causing Proteins May Create Nanotech Circuits"
Researchers from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
and the University of Chicago have demonstrated that prions, the
distorted proteins responsible for Alzheimer's and other
neurodegenerative diseases, could be used to help build nanoscale ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item11
"Working Remotely, Robots in Place"
Hewlett-Packard researchers have built with available technology
a prototype robot designed to act as a surrogate for people who
cannot physically attend meetings. "You control [the machine]
the same way you would your car, only remotely," explains HP ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item12
"Simulated Evolution Gets Complex"
Michigan State University researchers have employed
self-replicating digital organisms to simulate evolution and
validate Charles Darwin's theory that complex functions can
evolve from small mutations over thousands of generations, a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item13
"Can ICANN Meet the Needs of "Less Developed" Countries?"
ICANN has come under criticism for not actively encouraging
representatives of less developed countries to participate in
ICANN's development of global domain name and Internet policy.
"ICANN, through its actions and inactions, has succeeded in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item14
"Putting IT on the Map"
The increasing refinement and affordability of geographic
information systems (GIS) is driving the technology's penetration
into the business and government sectors. Roto-Rooter employs
Gearworks' eTrace to better manage its mobile workforce; ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item15
"Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998-2002"
Analyzing major trends in the public Web's development over the
last five years not only provides insight on the current state of
affairs, but also helps anticipate future progress. The most
recent survey conducted by the OCLC Office of Research Web ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item16
"Never Too Thin"
Flat panel displays are gaining ground thanks to improved image
quality and falling prices, coupled with already established
advantages such as low power consumption and small size.
Although liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are the flat panel ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0530f.html#item17
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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:
Welcome to the June 2, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 502
Date: June 2, 2003
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Top Stories for Monday, June 2, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"In Computing, Weighing Sheer Power Against Vast Pools of Data"
"The Gray Area Around Green PCs"
"North Korea's School for Hackers"
"Do PDAs Pose a Security Risk?"
"Mimicry Makes Computers the User's Friend"
"A Little Less Conversation"
"File-Sharing Program Slips Out of AOL Offices"
"Visualizing the Future of Face Recognition"
"Transparent TVs From Invisible Circuits"
"Grim Outlook for Grads"
"Asia Running Out of IP-Address Room"
"Flexible Display Slims Down"
"Domo Arigato, Linux Roboto"
"The Third Era Starts Here"
"Canning Cyber Spam Won't Be Easy"
"Ethernet's Power Play"
"The Race for the Messaging Cup"
"A Wider Field of View"
"The Future of Personal Computing"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"In Computing, Weighing Sheer Power Against Vast Pools of Data"
Microsoft Bay Area Research Center scientists Gordon Bell and Jim
Gray argued at a May meeting of the National Research Council's
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board that the federal
government should fund the construction of massive data-storage ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item1
"The Gray Area Around Green PCs"
Although some electronics manufacturers appear to be making a
greater effort to design more environmentally-friendly products,
environmentalists criticize the industry for merely paying lip
service to such issues. "As much as these companies want to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item2
"North Korea's School for Hackers"
South Korean intelligence officials have claimed for nearly a
decade that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea
(DPRK) is training people in the arts of hacking, virus-writing,
and other forms of cyberwar at the so-called Automated Warfare ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item3
"Do PDAs Pose a Security Risk?"
Experts concur that computer viruses written for personal digital
assistants (PDAs) hardly constitute a threat for the moment, but
Symantec's Laura Garcia-Manrique has no doubt that such malware
will emerge within a few years as handheld deployments reach ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item4
"Mimicry Makes Computers the User's Friend"
Noriko Suzuki, a researcher at ATR Media Information Science
Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, believes computers and robots can
become more user friendly if they imitate how people speak. He
tested this theory by asking volunteers to help a computerized ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item5
"A Little Less Conversation"
Technology analyst Bill Thompson does not think social software
will induce any radical societal changes over the next year and a
half, and thinks that people should arm themselves against its
overhyped promises. However, he argues that the issue of social ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item6
"File-Sharing Program Slips Out of AOL Offices"
Nullsoft, the renegade software development firm bought by AOL in
1999, has released an encrypted file-sharing application called
Waste that allows groups of about 50 people to swap files
undetected by outside groups. The application is designed to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item7
"Visualizing the Future of Face Recognition"
Dr. Christoph von der Malsburg of the University of Southern
California says that facial recognition technology has made
machines "as good as people" in their ability to identify faces
based on photographic comparison; this means that computers are ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item8
"Transparent TVs From Invisible Circuits"
Oregon State University electrical engineer John Wager says the
laptop industry and other flat-panel display markets could
receive a serious boost with the advent of transparent circuitry
composed of invisible transistors, and reported that Japanese ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item9
"Grim Outlook for Grads"
The job forecast for new college graduates is particularly gloomy
for IT majors. The National Association of Colleges and
Employers says computer science degree holders will be offered
mean salaries almost 8 percent lower than those offered last ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item10
"Asia Running Out of IP-Address Room"
Asia's pool of available Internet addresses is shrinking to a
point where the region may run out of IPv4 room soon, especially
because under the region's original allocation, Asian countries
were assigned less IPv4 space than most countries elsewhere. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item11
"Flexible Display Slims Down"
E Ink engineer Yu Chen reports that company researchers have
created a prototype 0.3-millimeter-thick electronic display that
can be rolled into a 4-millimeter cylinder while maintaining 96
dots per inch resolution. The display consists of a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item12
"Domo Arigato, Linux Roboto"
The Linux open-source operating system is penetrating the
robotics arena, partly spurred by Intel's effort to develop
standardized hardware and software for researchers and
manufacturers that marries Linux 2.4.19 and open-source drivers ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item13
"The Third Era Starts Here"
The programmable Web is gaining currency as major IT vendors
agree on Web services standards. At the same time, a much less
structured Web services effort is going on in the developer
community, where individual programmers are using free ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item14
"Canning Cyber Spam Won't Be Easy"
In an effort to clamp down on Internet spam, or unsolicited
emails, the Federal Trade Commission has taken several steps such
as its fourth state-assisted Netforce sweep targeting online
scams. The FTC currently receives about 130,000 spam messages ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item15
"Ethernet's Power Play"
The IEEE task force on Power Over Ethernet (POE) technology has
released a draft standard supporting what analysts say will become
the first international power standard ever. Besides the potential to
eliminate portable conversion devices for power outlets, POE also ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item16
"The Race for the Messaging Cup"
Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence
Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) and eXtensible Messaging and
Presence Protocol (XMPP) are competing to emerge as the standard
for enterprise messaging. Microsoft, IBM, Novell, and Sun ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item17
"A Wider Field of View"
The Sensors Expo 2003 show in early June will showcase offerings
from 128 companies and demonstrate the full range of sensor
technologies. Products on display will include a line of low-g
accelerometers from Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item18
"The Future of Personal Computing"
Kirk Kirksey forecasts that the personal computer will eventually
evolve into a robust, wireless machine about as thin as a sheet
of paper, driven by floating molecular processors linked together
by transparent, conductive plasma and powered by kinetic energy. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0602m.html#item19
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Subject: ACM TechNews - Wednesday, June 4, 2003
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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:
Welcome to the June 4, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
week. For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this
service, please see below.
ACM's MemberNet is now online. For the latest on ACM
activities, member benefits, and industry issues,
visit http://www.acm.org/membernet
Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion
magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 503
Date: June 4, 2003
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Top Stories for Wednesday, June 4, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Telling of Terrorist-Tracking Tech Tools"
"Overseas Tech Jobs Proliferate"
"Honors Program Showcases IT's Role in Making a Better World"
"Security Standards Could Bolster File-Sharing Networks"
"Pentagon's Super Diary Project Could Put Powerful Software in
Private Hands"
"Imagine Machines That Can See"
"Corporate Computing Tries to Find a New Path"
"New Software Helps Teams Deal With Information Overload"
"Pentagon Launches Internet Voting Effort for Overseas Americans"
"Industrial Evolution"
"Superhero Server Takes War on Hackers to Mythic Level"
"In Future, Foot Soldier Will Be Plugged Into a Massive Network"
"Clash Over Java Standard Heats Up"
"Net Attack Overwhelms Computers With Complexity"
"The Hidden Cost of Software"
"The Next Ethernet"
"Enclosing the Digital Commons"
"Are You Ready for Social Software?"
"Maximize Color and Contrast in Multimedia Images"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Telling of Terrorist-Tracking Tech Tools"
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently
furnished Congress with a report on its Terrorism Information
Awareness (TIA) program, which has come under fire from critics
as a tool that would be used to spy on innocent Americans and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item1
"Overseas Tech Jobs Proliferate"
The attraction of transferring technology operations overseas
where labor is cheaper, especially during a recession, is
transforming Silicon Valley and eroding its role as a low-end
software developer. Forrester reckons that 3.3 million ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item2
"Honors Program Showcases IT's Role in Making a Better World"
Winners of Tuesday's Computerworld Honors awards stressed their
dedication to improve people's lives through information
technology. E Entertainment Television received an award in the
Media, Arts, & Entertainment category for a digital asset ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item3
"Security Standards Could Bolster File-Sharing Networks"
Harvard University researchers postulate that anti-copying
safeguards suggested by the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance
(TCPA), ostensibly to curb digital piracy, could actually make
peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing programs stronger. The TCPA ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item4
"Pentagon's Super Diary Project Could Put Powerful Software in
Private Hands"
Pentagon documents state that the goal of the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) LifeLog project is to develop
software that deduces behavioral patterns from monitoring
people's daily activities, and DARPA officials say the initiative ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item5
"Imagine Machines That Can See"
Biomimetics researchers are designing robots programmed to
operate the same way biological systems do, and a major
biomimetics push involves the development and refinement of robot
vision. Boston University's Active Perception Lab is working on ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item6
"Corporate Computing Tries to Find a New Path"
The IT explosion and its promised transformation of business have
been victims of their own hype, as demonstrated by today's
unwieldy, overcomplicated corporate information systems. "It's
almost as if the technology took over," observes IBM's Irving ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item7
"New Software Helps Teams Deal With Information Overload"
Collaborative Agents for Simulating Teamwork (CAST), a software
program co-developed by John Yen of Penn State University's
School of Information Sciences and Technology, is designed to
improve teams' decision-making process and augment cooperation ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item8
"Pentagon Launches Internet Voting Effort for Overseas Americans"
American civilians and military personnel living overseas will be
able to vote electronically in the 2004 elections through the
Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE),
according to a Pentagon announcement on Monday. Voters will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item9
"Industrial Evolution"
The life sciences field is investing heavily in IT equipment and
services in order to handle a flood of biosciences data as well
as make the pharmaceutical development process more efficient.
International Data (IDC) estimates that the biosciences ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item10
"Superhero Server Takes War on Hackers to Mythic Level"
The Hydra server operating system is impervious to electronic
attack by viruses or hackers, according to Bodacion Technologies.
Former Motorola software engineers Eric Uner and Eric Hauk say
Hydra is written completely from scratch and has several ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item11
"In Future, Foot Soldier Will Be Plugged Into a Massive Network"
The "Scorpion ensemble" under development at the U.S. Army
Soldier Systems Center is intended to increase mobility by
reducing the amount of equipment troops must carry while boosting
both safety and effectiveness in the field through numerous ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item12
"Clash Over Java Standard Heats Up"
JBoss Group, a small firm whose open-source server software
programming tools capitalize on the Java Enterprise Edition
(J2EE) standard, is being accused by Sun Microsystems of abusing
the J2EE brand. Sun says the open-source, aspect-oriented JBoss ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item13
"Net Attack Overwhelms Computers With Complexity"
Rice University researchers Scott Crosby and Dan Wallach have
outlined a form of cyberattack that can put Web-connected
computers out of commission by sending data packets that force
the system to carry out highly complex hash functions that eat up ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item14
"The Hidden Cost of Software"
Estimating software's total cost of ownership (TCO) to a company
can be a challenging proposition, given the many factors
involved, writes Tim Chou. Maintenance costs, which can often
surpass the cost of software, also need to be gauged, studied, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item15
"The Next Ethernet"
Even as Ethernet pioneers celebrate Ethernet's 30th anniversary,
quiet talk is going on about the ambiguous future of the
technology. Ethernet is now available at 10 Mbps, but past
trends have indicated a tenfold increase every four years, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item16
"Enclosing the Digital Commons"
Experts are worried that the Internet's development and benefits
are endangered by people trying to enforce patents on widely used
Web methods, such as hyperlinking and the GIF file algorithm.
"There is a tension between the view that says that the Internet ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item17
"Are You Ready for Social Software?"
A Working Model managing director Stowe Boyd predicts that social
software will effect dramatic changes in businesses' marketing
strategies and customer interplay, and transform internal and
external communication and collaboration. Boyd assumes that the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item18
"Maximize Color and Contrast in Multimedia Images"
The goal of color management is to develop methodologies that
allow multiple digital devices to accurately reproduce colors.
The International Color Consortium (ICC) founded 10 years ago by
Eastman Kodak, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Silicon ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0604w.html#item19
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- To review Monday's issue, please visit
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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:
Welcome to the June 6, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
week. For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this
service, please see below.
ACM's MemberNet is now online. For the latest on ACM
activities, member benefits, and industry issues,
visit http://www.acm.org/membernet
Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion
magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 504
Date: June 6, 2003
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Top Stories for Friday, June 6, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"SCO Suit May Blunt the Potential of Linux"
"Mass. Could Be Fifth State to Adopt Anti-UCITA Law"
"Packet Tracking Promises Ultrafast Internet"
"Senator Wants Limits on Copy Protection"
"You Make It, You Take It: PC Law"
"What Internet2 Researchers Are Dreaming Up"
"Storage Methods Come and Go, But Tape Holds Its Own"
"Putting a Lid on Spam"
"Cybersecurity Report Card--Serious Improvements Needed"
"New Nanoscale Device Reveals Behavior of Individual Electrons"
"Group Drafts a Truce in Flaw Dispute"
"California Law Raises Bar For Data Security"
"IT Boom Reverses Brain Drain"
"India Fears Impact of Bid to Curb Jobs Exports"
"Taking Technology to Extremes"
"World's Smallest Robot"
"Adolescent Angst"
"Battle-Tested Tech"
"The Post-OOP Paradigm"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"SCO Suit May Blunt the Potential of Linux"
SCO Group's insistence that Linux contains proprietary Unix code
owned by the company has dampened corporate enthusiasm for the
free Linux operating system while angering thousands of
open-source programmers. Gartner recently warned firms to limit ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item1
"Mass. Could Be Fifth State to Adopt Anti-UCITA Law"
Massachusetts may join Iowa, North Carolina, Vermont, and West
Virginia in the adoption of "bomb-shelter" legislation designed
to shield citizens and businesses from the Uniform Computer
Information Transaction Act (UCITA). A hearing on the anti-UCITA ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item2
"Packet Tracking Promises Ultrafast Internet"
Fast TCP from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is
a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) refinement designed to
dramatically speed up the sending and receiving of data over the
Internet without having to install new equipment on recipient ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item3
"Senator Wants Limits on Copy Protection"
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ky.) has written a bill that aims to
regulate digital rights management (DRM) systems, effectively
limiting how copyright owners can control the distribution of
digital content through copy-protection technology. "The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item4
"You Make It, You Take It: PC Law"
A bill authored by state Sen. Byron Sher (D-Calif.) and approved
by the California Senate on June 4 would require electronics
producers to formulate and fund a system for collecting,
transporting, and recycling unwanted computers and monitors, and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item5
"What Internet2 Researchers Are Dreaming Up"
Internet2 (I2) researchers are experimenting with technologies
that could radically enhance the network and open up a plethora
of new applications. I2, which is supported by a nonprofit
consortium of universities and corporate research and development ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item6
"Storage Methods Come and Go, But Tape Holds Its Own"
Many storage experts predict that tape has a long and healthy
life ahead of it, despite advances in hard disk drives, DVDs, and
holography. One of tape's advantages over these alternate media
is its storage space, thanks to the material's extreme thinness ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item7
"Putting a Lid on Spam"
Thirty-three U.S. states have enacted anti-spam legislation, but
Utah's stands out for the amount of litigation it has spurred.
The Utah statute classifies spam as any commercial email sent to
people with no prior business relationship with the sender, and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item8
"Cybersecurity Report Card--Serious Improvements Needed"
Dan Farber has furnished a report card gauging the progress made
by the various parties working either for or against
cybersecurity over the last year, and hackers received an "A-"
thanks to their growing capability to thwart detection, the ease ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item9
"New Nanoscale Device Reveals Behavior of Individual Electrons"
A new nanoscale device developed at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison allows researchers to observe the behavior of
electrons in detail not possible before. Just 100 nanometers
wide, the device is a thin membrane stretched over a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item10
"Group Drafts a Truce in Flaw Dispute"
The Organization for Internet Safety (OIS) issued a draft of bug
disclosure guidelines on Wednesday in the hope of settling a
dispute between software companies and security researchers over
the best time and methods for publishing software vulnerability ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item11
"California Law Raises Bar For Data Security"
A California law requiring U.S. firms to notify Californians in
writing if their personal data has been compromised or corrupted
as a result of database intrusions will go into effect on July 1.
"It's a law that on its face purports to cover those outside ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item12
"IT Boom Reverses Brain Drain"
As a result of the weakening U.S. IT sector, many Russian
programmers and engineers are returning to their native country
to seek jobs. Experts say 10 percent of high tech job seekers in
Russia are recently retuned from aboard, including those who held ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item13
"India Fears Impact of Bid to Curb Jobs Exports"
India is apprehensive about recent efforts by U.S. trade groups
and legislators to stem overseas IT outsourcing as IT sector
unemployment rises in the United States. More than 472,000 IT
jobs will be relocated to foreign countries by 2015, according to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item14
"Taking Technology to Extremes"
Using a combination of off-the-shelf products and customized
solutions, adventurers to the world's most remote places are
using technology to keep connected. Smaller and lighter,
technology today is becoming vital to exploration because it does ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item15
"World's Smallest Robot"
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories' Intelligent Systems
and Robotics Center say they have developed the smallest
untethered robot ever. Standing 1cm high, the robot features
tank-like tread wheels that propel the robot at a speed of just ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item16
"Adolescent Angst"
An InformationWeek Research poll of 274 business-technology
executives who have been using the open-source Linux operating
system for 12 months finds that the number of respondents who are
extremely satisfied with the OS has fallen over the past year ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item17
"Battle-Tested Tech"
Advanced commercial IT for enterprises is being put through its
paces in the military; recent conflicts in the Middle East were a
testbed for various technologies that emphasized a reversal of
the technology development cycle, which traditionally moved from ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item18
"The Post-OOP Paradigm"
Computer programming's sophistication has evolved from binary
notation to assembly languages to structured programming to
object-oriented programming (OOP), which has been the reigning
programming paradigm for about 20 years. The wide adoption of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0606f.html#item19
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