Clips June 9, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips June 9, 2003

ARTICLES

The Man Pushing America to Get on the Internet Faster
Health data mandate gives tech a boost
Iowa voter database to help candidates
Internet Via Power Lines Works, but Years Away
RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION
Math Wiz Claims Piracy Solution
DHS poised for mock terror attacks
Homeland Security unveils new cybersecurity division, seeks chief 
E-gov leader says trust is key to online government 
Defense Department OK's open-source software
Symantec Says Spam Reaches Most Children 
You'll pay the price if you're still living in the paper-ticket age
Tough Talking for Marines in Iraq  

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New York Times
June 9, 2003
The Man Pushing America to Get on the Internet Faster
By MATT RICHTEL

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 3  The United States, where the Internet was invented, now falls behind Japan, Korea and Canada in deploying high-speed Internet access in homes and businesses. But advocates for quicker transfer of e-mail, Web site content and music files, take note: Peter K. Pitsch is on the case.

Mr. Pitsch is a self-described staunch free-market Republican who once served as chief of staff for the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Today, he is the top lobbyist for the Intel Corporation and a coalition of the technology companies in their efforts to press the government for a national policy as crucial to general economic growth  one that would accelerate the spread of broadband, or high-speed, Internet access. 

Of course, the technology industry has a particular interest in this issue, aside from wanting to see increased American productivity. 

It sees much of its future growth connected to the deployment of high-speed access, and the entertainment, music and software that will be able to reach consumers on upgraded networks. 

The topic of a national broadband policy will be central to discussions held at the annual conference and trade show of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association in Chicago, which ends June 11, with participants including executives like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Richard D. Parsons of AOL Time Warner and Mel Karmazin of Viacom.

The industry coalition had a recent success in persuading the F.C.C. to modify its rules so that telecommunications companies will not be forced to lease their high-speed access lines to competitors. But it continues to face a difficult battle to get Congress to grant tax credits to companies building next-generation Internet access networks.

For telecommunications companies, making the investment in broadband access is not without risk. The costs for building high-speed networks are enormous, whether through wires on the ground or through wireless networks. Moreover, the companies must market the concept to consumers who are already paying monthly fees for home telephone, cellphone and cable television service and may not want to pay yet more for high-speed access. To mitigate the risk, the industry has turned to the government for help, and Mr. Pitsch has led the charge.

"He is the godfather of telecom policy among technology companies in Washington," said Bruce P. Mehlman, the assistant secretary for technology policy in the Commerce Department, and a former lobbyist for Cisco Systems Inc. 

People who know Mr. Pitsch say he is point man in the lobbying push because of his Washington background, personality and energy. But his ability to lead can also be credited to Intel's neutral role in this competitive field. Whereas cable, telephone and wireless companies are competing against one another to deploy high-speed access, Intel has no stake in which particular technologies will thrive. Thus it appears to have more credibility with federal regulators.

But that does not mean broadband growth is less important to Intel's future. For Intel, more high-speed access means more consumer demand for fast computers and that means greater demand for the microprocessors that Intel makes. 

"One of the fundamental drivers for faster and faster microprocessors will be high-quality, affordable broadband," Mr. Pitsch said during a recent interview at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara. 

The bottom line, he said, is that Intel thinks high-speed Internet users will make up its future customer base. "The effect on us is indirect. But its huge," he said.

Today, about one-third of American households with Internet access have high-speed service  an increase of 50 percent over a year ago, according to a report issued last month by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research group. But the report also found that the rate of adoption of broadband was unlikely to remain as high as it has been because many people are content with the slower telephone dial-up connections to the Internet.

Whether the current rate of adoption is fast enough depends on whom you ask.

The F.C.C., which is charged by Congress with reporting periodically on the status of technology adoption, concluded in its most recent report, in February 2002, that high-speed Internet adoption was on pace. "Over all, we find that advanced telecommunications is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely manner," the report said, adding that subscriber levels had increased "significantly."

As of the end of 2002, the cable industry had invested some $70 billion in upgrading its networks to provide advanced digital service, including high-speed Internet access. And it is expected to invest an additional $10 billion this year, said Robert Sachs, the chief executive of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, an industry trade group.

The technology industry is not alone in pushing for faster broadband adoption. Charles H. Ferguson, a Brookings Institution scholar, is working on a book about what he calls the United States broadband problem. He said that he thought American industry's slowness in deploying broadband access would hamper productivity and even national security.

"The broadband story is a general disaster," Mr. Ferguson said. Broadband access to homes is still too limited, he added, "but the business broadband picture is just as important, and even more disastrous."

Mr. Pitsch hopes to correct that situation. As chief of staff from 1987 to 1989 to Dennis R. Patrick, the chairman of the F.C.C., he provided counsel on a host of regulatory issues and was frequently a target of lobbyists himself.

Though he is now Intel's director of communications policy, Mr. Pitsch, 51, is still very much a Washington denizen. He lives in Great Falls in Northern Virginia with his wife, and in sartorial matters and demeanor, he is all inside the Beltway, down to his polished loafers and leather suspenders. Even on a recent trip to Intel headquarters, he did not give in to Silicon Valley's casual style. "My compromise was that I took off the tie," he joked.

When Mr. Pitsch started working for Intel in 1998, the company already had deemed high-speed Internet access to be pivotal to its growth.

In February 2002, Intel helped form the High Tech Broadband Coalition, an alliance of six technology and telecommunications industry trade groups whose dozens of members were already lobbying on their own. Grant Seiffert, vice president for external affairs and global policy at the Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group that includes Intel and is part of the High Tech Broadband Coalition, said Mr. Pitsch and Intel pushed for the coalition and played a leadership role.

"He's high energy and he doesn't waste a lot of time," Mr. Seiffert said. He added that Mr. Pitsch's drive may at times be off-putting. "Sometimes he's a little aggressive for some people, but you have to respect what he does."

The coalition scored what is widely considered a major victory in February when the F.C.C. decided that telecommunications companies that build high-speed access lines are not obliged to lease those lines to competitors. The broadband coalition had argued for such a position, asserting it would spur investment.

Indeed, when the F.C.C. announced its decision, Commissioner Kevin J. Martin of the F.C.C. stated, "We endorse and adopt in total the High Tech Broadband Coalitions for the deregulation of fiber to the home and any fiber used with the new packet technology." 

F.C.C. officials say Mr. Pitsch's lobbying is effective because he knows the technical issues very well, and because Intel's position is neutral as to which telecommunications companies or technologies win out. The coalition is also pushing the F.C.C. on issues like freeing up more radio frequencies for use in wireless Internet access. 

But the coalition has been less successful in gaining passage of legislation in Congress. Bills have been introduced in the House and Senate that would provide tax relief for companies creating the broadband infrastructure. The House measure, for example, would create a 10 percent tax credit for building high-speed access in low-income and rural areas.

Other versions of the legislation would offer 20 percent tax relief to companies that build advanced networks that are even faster than the current broadband networks. 

Even by Mr. Pitsch's assessment, the bills have a tough road ahead since many industries are seeking tax relief, and President Bush has already earmarked much of his tax cuts for other interests.

While Mr. Pitsch lobbies lawmakers, some have questioned whether his free-market philosophy is consistent with giving tax relief to huge companies. 

He says tax relief will spur investment and lead to higher productivity and job growth. But even his friends on Capitol Hill say it is a tricky line to walk. 

"A rural tax credit would not be consistent with a true free-market ideology unless you determine there has been a market failure in those areas," said Mr. Mehlman, from the Commerce Department.

But Mr. Mehlman said it was too soon to say whether there was a market failure. 

In any case, broadband is rolling out as fast, or faster, than any technology has ever been rolled out, he said. And Peter Pitsch plans to keep it rolling along. 
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USA Today
Health data mandate gives tech a boost
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY

SANTA ANA, Calif.  It is no Y2K, but a mammoth data protection mandate for the health industry is surfacing as a miniboom for a slice of the tech industry.
Health insurance companies, doctors and hospitals are spending millions on new PCs, networking gear and software to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. 

It requires health care companies to keep patient records secure. And the stacks of files in most doctors' offices fall far short of meeting its mandates. A doctor's office may spend $75,000 to upgrade systems for HIPAA, while hospitals need to spend millions, tech analysts say.

That's created a small health care tech boom. "There's a lot of money being spent," says Gartner analyst Wes Rishel.

Gartner estimates that most health care companies will spend 0.1% to 0.5% of annual revenue on new tech products for HIPAA. Large companies usually spend 3% to 4% of revenue on technology.

HIPAA spending is likely to fall far short of the more than $100 billion analysts estimate U.S. firms spent preparing computers to adjust to the change from 1999 to 2000. Still, it comes at a good time for tech companies attempting to recover from one of the industry's worst downturns and weak corporate spending.

The Santa Clara, Calif., health system, for one, plans to spend $4.2 million on HIPAA compliance from July 2002 to June 2004. Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services in Louisville plans to spend $3 million to $4 million.

Partners HealthCare, a Massachusetts group that represents nine hospitals, will spend about $10 million on HIPAA-related projects this year, though some were previously planned. No. 1 health insurance company Aetna has already spent $33 million on HIPAA, mainly on new data-handling software. Kaiser Permanente is still writing its budget but will likely spend tens of millions, it says.

That's affecting:

? No. 1 computer maker IBM. It says health care sales have grown more than 10% in each of the past two years, thanks to HIPAA and other health initiatives.

? Hewlett-Packard. Its health care business is up "in the midsingle digits," says Vice President Paul Gerrard.

? No. 1 computer reseller Ingram Micro. It expects 10% to 12% growth in its health care business this year.

? Small health care specialists Sierra Computers and Govplace. They've seen business jump 30% and 10%, respectively.

? Security software start-up MEDePass, based in San Francisco. It expects to book several hundred thousand dollars in revenue this year, up from just a few thousand in 2001 "entirely because of HIPAA," says President Terry Fotre. 

HIPPA spending could last for several more years. Some HIPAA requirements don't go into effect until 2005.

Not everyone is thrilled. Some doctors argue that HIPAA regulations are burdensome and expensive.
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Washington Times
Iowa voter database to help candidates
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

    When the Democratic nominee for president in 2004 courts Iowa voters, he will have at his disposal the most extensive and detailed profiles of voters ever assembled in the state's history. 
    The Iowa Democratic Party's massive computer database of 1.8 million voters is so detailed that it allows candidates to target people based on their specific voting history and pet issues, such as abortion or the environment. 
    "It revolutionizes grassr-oots campaigning," said Mark Daley, spokesman for the state party. 
    Ronald A. Faucheux, editor of Campaigns & Elections Magazine, said while other state parties  including the Republican parties in Georgia and Colorado  are developing similar databases, he's not aware of any as advanced as Iowa's. 
    The foundation of Iowa's database is the basic voter rolls compiled by the Secretary of State's office. The additional  and most valuable  information was compiled through interviews with mostly independent voters conducted by more than 160 staffers around the state during the past three years. 
    The canvassers went door-to-door interviewing people and tapping the information into specially-programmed Palm Pilots. Each night, the information was uploaded from the Palm Pilots to a central database available to anyone with a password and access to the Internet. 
    Still in its early stages, the database proved crucial in last November's election, Mr. Daley said. 
    In a year when Republicans dominated nationally, Democrats won seven of Iowa's eight statewide elections. 
    "For the first time in Iowa history, a Democratic governor and a Democratic senator were elected on the same day," Mr. Daley said. "We were able to reach all these people with the click of a button." 
    So successful was the effort in the 2002 election that state Democratic parties across the country have begun compiling similar databases. And last month, Iowa Democrats came to Washington to discuss their strategy with national party leaders. 
    Realizing its value, six of the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination  Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Florida Sen. Bob Graham  have shelled out $65,000 each for access to the database. 
    In addition to basic information such as a voter's mailing address, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, the database also includes added information such as a person's voting history and specific information about issues of importance to the voter. 
    Purchasers not only pay a lump-sum for access, they also must continuously update the database with any new information they learn along the way. 
    "That's what makes the database so valuable," Mr. Daley said. 
    These specifics, called "activist codes," allow candidates to target specific people with mailings or e-mails. 
    If a candidate takes a stand on, for instance, protecting a river in Iowa, he can write a detailed letter outlining his position and send it only to environmentalists at just a fraction of the cost of a mass mailing. Incidentally, it also prevents the politician from annoying voters who don't care about a specific topic. 
    "It's about knowing as much as we can about the voter," said Mark Sullivan, the Democratic strategist credited as one of the primary developers of Iowa's database. "We're starting to use marketing tools that corporations have used for years." 
    The database has been particularly effective for capturing Democratic-leaning voters who often skip elections  the very swing voters who often determine the outcome of an election. 
    Using the database, Democrats went to the homes of these voters and signed them up for absentee ballots. They then monitored the voter to make sure he filled out his ballot and sent it in. 
    If he didn't, Mr. Daley said, the party sent "ballot-chasers" back to his house until the ballot was put into the mail. 
    It was just such voters in Iowa who determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential race in their state. 
    Republican George W. Bush won 7,000 votes more than Democrat Al Gore on the day of the election. But, Mr. Gore won Iowa by 4,000 votes after the absentee ballots were counted. 
    Mr. Faucheux compared the computer program to the old ward and precinct system where bosses "knew everyone, remembered what favors everybody owed and got everybody out to the polls." 
    "It's old-fashioned grass-roots technique using new technology," he said. 
    Mr. Sullivan said: "It's still ultimately about personal contact. It's about someone knocking on your door and feeling obligated to go vote." 
    "It's not enough to spend a gazillion dollars sending junk mail to people who don't want it," he said. "It's not enough to blast their living rooms with TV ads. We have to be more personal."
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Reuters 
Internet Via Power Lines Works, but Years Away
Sat Jun 7, 7:32 AM ET
By Chris Reese 

BRIARCLIFF MANOR (Reuters) - High-speed Internet access via power lines is as close as an electrical outlet in a house north of New York City, but bringing it to the rest of the world may be a long way off. 


Under a research project by Consolidated Edison Inc. (NYSE:ED - news) and Ambient Corp. (OTC BB:ABTG.OB - news), a few modifications allow Internet data to race over decades-old power lines. 


The companies hope the technology can bring cheap, fast Web access to any standard household electrical outlet. 


"People have been sending signals ... through power lines for a long time," said George Jee, manager for ConEd's power line communication project. "Utilities used to send audio signals across lines to check service." 


In the year-old ConEd program, Internet signals are taken from overhead transmission lines through a magnetic coupler and a communications box no bigger than a computer hard drive, both of which are attached to a common power pole. 


Data is sent through the lines at a much higher frequency than electricity so neither the power nor the data flow interferes with each other. 


"Our focus is on not messing with the electricity, but we can ride on it, the two can co-exist," Jee said. 


DECADE AWAY 


While European and U.S. utilities have been working since the 1990s to move Internet data on power lines, including a PPL Corp. (NYSE:PPL - news) project in Pennsylvania, it may be a while before the average household can simply plug in and log on. 


Although there is a huge worldwide infrastructure of power lines, the expense of adding necessary equipment could make power line communications comparatively expensive to other methods of feeding data, like wireless (news - web sites) technologies. 


"Generally they have proved out the theoretical viability of having broadband communications over power lines," said Dylan Brooks, principle analyst with Telluride, Colorado-based Independence Research, a broadband advisory company. 


"The big question is, is this the most cost effective way of bringing a communications alternative to the home, especially at a time where the technology around wirelessly providing these things is proceeding at a more rapid pace? 


"It is probably going to be closer to a decade in terms of when you are going to see anything in the mass market," he said. 

TRANSFORMER BYPASS 

ConEd, New York City's main power provider, and Ambient have built a magnetic coupler that bypasses power transformers -- the trash can-shaped equipment perched on power poles that covert medium voltage energy from transmission lines to low voltage levels distributed to local neighborhoods. 


Without the coupler, the Internet data signals would be absorbed by the transformers. 

At a small back office in a household garage here in Briarcliff Manor, an affluent suburb 20 miles north of New York City, a computer is receiving both electricity and data from a standard wall-mounted power outlet. 

A cord from the socket runs to an electronic box about the size of a brick, which in turn is linked to the computer modem and which powers the computer. 

The Internet data is tapped into the power line at a ConEd office about a mile from the test site. 

The computer works just like any other with a fast Internet connection, including streaming video. 

ConEd and Ambient claim their power line communications experiment has a bandwidth of about 4 megabytes a second, compared with 1.5 megabytes a second through a cable modem (news - web sites) and roughly 0.05 megabytes a second from a dial-up service. 

"Our connection is faster, and we expect higher speeds once we start working with even better (computer) chips," said Ram Rao, chief network architect for Ambient. 

In Briarcliff Manor, a coupler and communications box would have to be installed on a power pole for every three to eight homes to maintain a strong data feed. 

They are also required at some transmission intersections, with the amount of equipment required per user dependent on the layout of the local power line system. 

ConEd will not say how much all this equipment costs but is hoping to keep the cost of Internet access down to about $30 a month, less than the $42 most people pay for cable Internet. The average monthly cost of a dialup connection is $18.
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Boston Globe
RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION
Tiny tracking chips surface in retail use
Retail uses for ID chips surfacing
By Chris Gaither, Globe Staff, 6/9/2003

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Tom Pounds waved his overflowing grocery basket at the wall and offered a glimpse of our shopping future. The coffee cans, razor blades, and other items in his basket each carried a stowaway -- a tiny chip, the size of a fleck of black pepper, coupled with an antenna. Each emitted a short burst of identifying data that streamed via radio waves to a sensor on the wall.

''These chips have enough smarts in them that they can sort themselves out in a field of others,'' said Pounds, a vice president with Alien Technology Corp., the Morgan Hill-based company that makes them.

Within fractions of a second, a computer translated those received signals onto a monitor as images of each product in the basket.

The circuit-and-antenna packages that enable this prototype in Alien's office here, 15 miles south of San Jose, are called radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. More primitive versions of the technology enable some current wireless payment methods like Mobil Speedpass for ringing up gas purchases and Fast Lane, the Massachusetts toll collection system.

But the chips are getting smaller all the time, creating visions of one in just about everything. Manufacturers predict that they will one day produce these RFID tags so cheaply that retailers can cost-effectively build them into the packaging of items with low profit margins, like candy bars or toilet paper.

In 15 or 20 years, futurists predict, the pervasive RFID tags will link to massive computer networks, enabling speedy checkout from the grocery store, medicine cabinets that tell you when to take pills, and milk cartons that inform your fridge when to add another gallon to the grocery list.

In the meantime, as they wait for prices to come down and set technical standards that allow these devices to communicate with sensors, stores and their suppliers are beginning to use RFID technology in their warehouses and store shelves.

''Retailers have a real challenge in making sure products are on the shelf when consumers want them,'' said Christine Overby, a senior analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge. ''Plain and simple, that's the goal with RFID.''

Some huge retailers are leading the charge. By 2005, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants RFID tags on all the pallets and cartons of products that pass through its warehouses to help streamline the supply chain -- the flow of products from its distributors to the store shelves.

Rather than manually scanning the bar codes on each pallet of meat passing through Wal-Mart's food distribution centers, for example, Wal-Mart wants its workers to roll the pallets off the truck past sensors that recognize the identifying numbers streamed from the RFID tags. That way, Wal-Mart can see exactly when the meat arrived and how long it took to get the meat into the next freezer, then track it all the way to the store.

''Right now the pallet and carton [approach] seems like something that's going to bring us some efficiencies,'' said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, the Bentonville, Ark., chain that has become the nation's largest discount retailer by cutting costs wherever it can to lower prices.

Wal-Mart, whose support for bar codes helped establish them as a standard two decades ago, has started to push its suppliers to adopt RFID technology, which Overby described as ''bar codes on steroids.''

Boston-based Gillette Co. is one of the most aggressive, launching several pilot programs to test ways to use RFID technology to better track its batteries, razors, and oral care products. It recently ordered 500 million RFID tags from Alien.

Gillette is experimenting with the next step after more efficient warehouses -- ''smart shelves'' that can signal when product is running low on a shelf or when a shoplifter might be grabbing a handful.

As early as this week in its Brockton store, Wal-Mart will put RFID sensors on a shelf stocked with RFID-tagged Gillette products to test the concept. Other retailers and suppliers, including Procter & Gamble Co., Home Depot Inc., and Johnson & Johnson Inc., are supporting RFID's development.

Much of the RFID technical work is done by the Auto-ID Center, a research group in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its founder, MIT professor Sanjay Sarma, said a recent breakthrough in improving RFID tags involved adding not more functions, but fewer. Attach only a simple unique number to each tag, the thinking went, then use networked computers to identify and track each tagged object.

They don't even need a battery; the radio waves sent out from RFID readers emit just enough power to fire up the tags when they're within range of a few feet. And the less information they carry, the less power the tags consume.

''Minimalism led to this virtuous cycle,'' Sarma said.

Though they're only being used to track bundles through warehouses now, the thought of these RFID tags making their way into everything has concerned privacy advocates who worry about being tracked -- or recognized and solicited by advertisers -- by the tags in their clothes.

The transmisssion range of RFID tags today is limited to only a few feet, so manufacturers couldn't track people even if they wanted to (and they say they don't). But Sarma said the Auto-ID Center instructs retailers to tell consumers when RFID tags are in use, and to offer to ''kill'' the tags upon checkout.

At the grocery counter, Pounds said, that might result in an unusual question to go with the usual ones: ''Paper or plastic? Dead or alive?''
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Los Angeles Times
Math Wiz Claims Piracy Solution
A software developer is set to unveil technology he dreamed up after finding that visitors were copying from his Web museum's jukebox.
By Jon Healey
June 8, 2003

When Internet users started ripping off songs from the online Museum of Musical Instruments, they angered the wrong guy: millionaire mathematician Hank Risan.

Risan's unorthodox museum is a Web site devoted to guitars and their role in music history, reflecting his personal interests as a collector, restorer and musician. The original version of the site boasted a virtual jukebox with thousands of songs from various musical eras and genres.

Then, early last year, the Recording Industry Assn. of America called to complain that Risan's site was letting users play songs on demand without the record labels' permission  a no-no under copyright law. Worse, visitors could copy songs with just a few clicks of a computer mouse.

Risan, who had used his computing skills to make a fortune in the financial markets in the 1970s, was mortified. 

So he fought back. 

He unplugged the site's music and, dipping into his sizable bank account, put together a team of 16 software engineers in Santa Cruz. After more than a year of research and development, his venture  called Music Public Broadcasting  has developed a set of products that it says can give record companies, Hollywood studios and other copyright owners unprecedented protection against piracy.

Risan's conversion from guitar collector to software peddler illustrates something important about the battle over online piracy: It's a fluid technological arms race, with innovations coming from unexpected places on both sides of the fight. Just as entrepreneurs around the globe exploit piracy to build their businesses, so too do clever programmers try to profit by developing ways to protect copyrighted works.

Naturally, other anti-piracy companies are skeptical about Music Public Broadcasting's claims, and it remains to be seen whether any of its products will make a dent in the piracy that's rampant on the Internet. The company has just started trying to sell its wares, and it has yet to announce any customers. 

Risan's museum is expected to show off one piece of the technology next month when it launches an online radio service featuring songs from 160 different genres and time periods. The music will be transmitted in a manner that Risan says will defy digital recording on today's computers, something that the leading vendors of anti-piracy software haven't been able to do for other services.

The company also has been demonstrating products designed to deter copying of CDs and DVDs, promote file sharing without piracy and beef up existing protections on the labels' downloadable songs.

Many executives at the major record and movie companies say that though they're eager to use the Internet to distribute their works, they're daunted by the risk of piracy. They have kept pressing technology suppliers such as Microsoft Corp., Macrovision Corp. and RealNetworks Inc. for tools that are not only more effective but also more flexible.

Music Public Broadcasting is trying to capitalize on that demand. 

"I was shocked at how easy it was to strip [electronic locks] off of copyrighted material," Risan said. Although many people have told him that piracy can't be stopped with software alone, he said, "That, to me, [says] Aha! I have a new challenge in life."

As he tells it, Risan's personal history is replete with self-imposed challenges and you're-not-going-to-believe-this experiences. 

Risan (pronounced rih-ZAHN) says his fascination with music began when he was a toddler, sitting under the piano bench at his San Fernando Valley home while his mother played classical music and jazz. At age 15 he became an apprentice to a guitar maker in Los Angeles, who taught him how to build and repair instruments, and by 17 he'd started rounding up vintage Martin six-strings.

He also was a mathematical prodigy, drawn in particular to topology  a sophisticated approach to characterizing and understanding shapes in multi-dimensional space. This interest spilled over into biology in the mid-1970s while Risan was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, where he studied such things as the topology of hemoglobin. 

"He was among the most brilliant students that I ever had as an undergraduate," said Leo Ortiz, chairman of the university's ecology and evolutionary biology department. "He never ran out of gas."

Risan learned to use mainframe computers to power his research in math and biology, which he continued while seeking doctorates simultaneously at Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley. But a brief stint at the London School of Economics in the late 1970s prompted him to apply his computing skills in another arena: finding and capitalizing on patterns in financial markets. 

Risan said he made and lost millions of dollars trading securities. He was 30 and comfortably in the black when he was severely injured while training for a bicycle race, which got him to slow down  briefly  and shift gears. He became a dealer in rare musical instruments, collecting, restoring and selling 19th and 20th century guitars.

The move paid off handsomely, as Risan proved adept at selling instruments at premium prices.

"He is a very flamboyant guy, and he does things with a level of style that I don't think is duplicated in the fretted-instrument industry," said Stanley Jay, president of Mandolin Bros. Ltd., another elite dealer of stringed instruments. "In this industry, to make yourself stand apart, you need to be self-promotional. And he does that extremely well."

Risan said the inspiration for the Museum of Musical Instruments was his desire to catalog and share his personal collection, which has grown to about 750 instruments, most of them guitars. The virtual galleries include photographs and essays about dozens of guitars, about 75% of which come from Risan's collection.

After launching the museum three years ago, Risan hired a company in Scotts Valley, Calif., to add a virtual jukebox to the site. "The system that was put in place, I was assured, was secure," he said.

He assumed the jukebox's songs couldn't be copied digitally because they were "streamed" to users, meaning that they arrived in small pieces that weren't meant to be stored on the computer. Those pieces also could be scrambled as they were transmitted from the Web site.

But as piracy experts are fond of saying, anything that can be played on a computer can be recorded, regardless of how it's protected. Encrypted streams and downloads must be unscrambled to be heard on a computer's speakers or shown on its screen. And there are several programs that can intercept music or video on its way to the speakers or screen after it's been unscrambled. 

Microsoft tried to address the problem with a technology known as Secure Audio Path, which it built into two recent versions of the Windows software that runs personal computers. This technology is designed to stop an unscrambled audio file from going anywhere on a computer other than its speakers.

The main drawback is that only computers with Windows XP or Me can receive music that uses the Secure Audio Path technology. That's why none of the online music services are using it  they don't want to exclude the large part of their audience that uses Windows 98 and earlier programs.

Theory Into Practice



Risan drew on his mathematical skills to come up with a different approach to the problem of unauthorized recording. Drawing on a branch of topology known as network theory, Risan said he could look at the networks a computer uses to move data internally and "visualize how to protect the copyrighted material as it transfers through those networks."

The firm claims that its technology controls those pathways, letting copyright owners dictate what can and can't be copied. "We control pathways that don't even exist yet," Risan said.

Music Public Broadcasting uses the same basic approach to prevent CDs and DVDs from being copied, protect downloadable songs from piracy and deter music and movies from being copied through file-sharing networks without the copyright owners being compensated. In order for it to work, though, the company must put software in users' computers to control those internal networks. Risan acknowledged that consumers won't accept such controls unless they're allowed a reasonable amount of freedom, but he said his technology can strike that balance.

The company, which has spent millions of dollars on development, hopes to license its technology to online music and video services, record companies and movie studios. It also will try to persuade consumers to pay $10 to $12 a month for the new radio service, or twice as much as other services that don't let users request specific songs. Risan said the radio transmissions would use much less digital compression than competitors do, raising the company's costs but delivering better sound quality.

Overcoming Skepticism

Russell G. Weiss, an attorney at Morrison & Foerster who represents Music Public Broadcasting, said the company also has asked the RIAA for a discount on the royalties the radio service pays to record labels and artists because of the extra protection it provides against copying. If it succeeds, Weiss said, that could prod other Webcasters to license Music Public Broadcasting's technology and seek the same discount.

Zach Zalon of Radio Free Virgin, the online radio arm of Virgin Group, said he would love to license technology that prevented his stations' Webcasts from being recorded by "stream ripping" programs. Stream rippers break through every anti-piracy program on the market, Zalon said, "so if you could somehow defeat that, it's fantastic."

An executive at a major record company who's seen the technology for protecting streams and CDs said he was impressed, although he's not sure the demonstration can be duplicated in the real world. "If it's not snake oil, it's pretty awesome," he said.

Lawrence Kenswil, president of Universal Music Group's ELabs, said the labels' goal isn't to come up with a perfect defense against piracy, just one that's hard for the average person to defeat. "The question is, would the typical consumer bother to defeat it, not whether it's defeatable."
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
DHS poised for mock terror attacks
BY Judi Hasson 
May 6, 2003

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- The information technology team at the Homeland Security Department (DHS) will be working around the clock next week to monitor an exercise simulating a terrorist attack on Seattle and Chicago, the department's chief information officer said today.

Steve Cooper said his team of top-level IT officials would be looking for any cybersecurity lapses and actions that should have been taken but were not.

"We'll be watching for lessons learned: Is there something we missed? Do we need to fill a gap?" he told Federal Computer Week at the semiannual CIO Summit, sponsored by FCW Media Group.

The five-day exercise, known as TopOff 2 (Top Officials 2), will begin May 12. It will include DHS and the State Department working in conjunction with federal, state, local and Canadian officials. The exercise will analyze the response to a terrorist attack.

The operation includes a sequence of events that would happen in a terrorist campaign with weapons of mass destruction. The operation will simulate a radiological device explosion in Seattle and a covert biological attack in Chicago, and evaluate how authorities respond to these incidents.

Some 25 agencies and the American Red Cross will be involved in the exercise, DHS Secretary Tom Ridge said May 5 in discussing the event.
*******************************
Government Computer News
06/06/03 

CIO Council firms up roles of system architects 

By Jason Miller 
GCN Staff

The CIO Council later this month will release a white paper to set standards for the job responsibilities of a solution architect, an enterprise architect and a chief architect. 

Ira Hobbs, deputy CIO at the Agriculture Department and co-chairman of the council?s Work Force and Human Capital for IT subcommittee, said the Enterprise Architecture subcommittee and Norman Lorentz, chief technology officer at the Office of Management and Budget, have approved the definitions. The council will share the definitions with state and local governments, industry and academia. 

?The notion of enterprise architecture is starting to take hold in the federal government,? Hobbs said. ?But as you find out how people define enterprise architecture and the skill sets of enterprise architects, solution architects or chief enterprise architects, they are all different. We have to figure out how the positions are structured. We need to agree on the scope and responsibilities of these positions.? 

Reviewing IT job definitions every two years is part of the CIO Council?s charge under the Clinger-Cohen Act, Hobbs said. 

The council, which recently named Office of Personnel Management CIO Janet Barnes to be the new subcommittee co-chairwoman, came up with the definitions after consulting with federal and private-sector CIOs and federal employees holding such titles, Hobbs said. 

?We want to continue to advance a common frame of reference for each of these positions, so that when we talk about the job of solution architect, we know where they fit in the scheme of things,? Hobbs said. ?We would like to advance to the point where OPM creates a new class of worker. If you look at the GS-2210 job series, there is no mention of enterprise architect.? 

OPM set up the 2210 series in 2001 to better define IT employees? jobs. 

Hobbs added that the subcommittee will brief OMB after reviewing the results of a project management survey that concluded a new definition was also needed for project managers. Hobbs would not comment on the new definition. 

The subcommittee?s work on Project Roadmap, an online tool to help employees draw up their own training and career advancement strategies, is close to completion. Hobbs said the subcommittee is working with OPM to resolve some final issues before releasing the tool. 

(Updated June 9, 2003 9:41 a.m.)
*******************************
Government Executive
June 6, 2003 
Homeland Security unveils new cybersecurity division, seeks chief 
By Bara Vaida, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The Homeland Security Department on Friday officially unveiled its cybersecurity division to focus on securing the nation's computer networks, but the unit still lacks a chief.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Robert Liscouski called the new division "the feet" to implement the administration's strategy to secure cyberspace and said his goal is to name a director within the next 30 days. 

"I want a private-sector person who can be a visionary," Liscouski said at a news briefing. "We will kick off an aggressive search to find a director." 

The question of who will oversee cybersecurity within the Bush administration has been an open issue since March 1, when the White House dissolved its Office of Cyberspace Security as part of the process of creating Homeland Security. Several high-ranking cybersecurity officials declined to take jobs in the new department, spurring speculation that the administration was not going to put the new cybersecurity adviser in a senior position. 

"I think what you saw was confusion about where the new division was going to be placed in the department," Liscouski said. "If this organization were anywhere else [but here], then it would be dysfunctional. ... This is a peer office ... and the secretary [Tom Ridge] has a laser-beam focus on cyber security." He added that Ridge knows the importance of technology to the business community.

Liscouski outlined the office's goals, which include prevention, protection and mitigation of cyber attacks. He emphasized that cyber security is a key part of physical security, part of the department's overall mission. As part of the effort of prevention and protection, the division will oversee a Cybersecurity Tracking, Analysis and Response Center (CSTARC), which will serve as a central point for detecting, coordinating and responding to cyber attacks. 

Liscouski emphasized that the cyber division would not regulate but would "act as a bully pulpit" for creating a culture of cybersecurity.

He noted that department officials are discussing ideas, such as creating cyber-security standards, providing cybersecurity insurance or requiring companies to publicly state their cybersecurity efforts in their financial statements. "But these ideas are in a discussion stage" and nowhere near a policymaking stage, he said. 

Liscouski said his division works so closely with Paul Redmond, assistant secretary for information analysis, that the line between the two divisions is "blurry." Redmond is also working with the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), which is to be the center point for that nation's intelligence gathering. 

TTIC, which is being housed within the CIA, is to have a "cyber capability," Liscouski said, and is to help them his department with mapping cyber vulnerabilities. He said the new cyber-security division at Homeland Security would not have investigative abilities, as that remains the FBI's primary responsibility to follow up on cyber crimes.

The Business Software Alliance, Entrust, Information Technology Association of America and the security firm VeriSign all expressed public support for the new division.
*******************************
Government Executive
June 6, 2003 
E-gov leader says trust is key to online government 
By Chloe Albanesius, National Journal's Technology Daily 

Government agencies must foster trust in order to reach the average citizen and business via information technology, a top White House official said on Friday.

"Getting agencies to use modern, trustworthy technology is critical," Mark Forman, e-government administrator at the Office of Management and Budget, said at an e-government conference. "Business won't take it up unless they trust it. We must make it much simpler for the business community." 

Once that relationship has been established, Forman said government and businesses must work together on making their online efforts "responsive to the citizen's needs."

"We have got to do a better job at simplifying federal government by reducing paperwork," he said. This will help with "how we interface with business. Simplify and unify [are the words that] really define this."

Forman's comments reflect the second version of OMB's business-reference model, which officials expect to release next week. That model is one of five interrelated reference models designed to help OMB and other federal agencies keep tabs on federal IT investments and formulate the fiscal 2005 budget. The first version of those models was released in July 2002. 

Tad Anderson, OMB's manager of government-to-business (G2B) online initiatives, outlined the agency's plans for the future. He said the short-term focus will be on simplifying technology, and the mid-term emphasis will be on information sharing by "leveraging XML," an Internet platform that allows communications between agencies that do not have common systems. 

"In the long term, we'll be focusing on the reengineering of government," Anderson added. That includes looking at what information the government collects and why, how to collect that information, and ways to consolidate and streamline efforts around customer needs, he said.

"The reality is that we have to work through as a community," Forman said. "It's about architecture, it's about focus on the customers, and it's about results," he said. 

One way to get those results is to request audits from all federal agencies, said Clay Johnson, who President Bush has nominated to be OMB's deputy director. "Twenty-one of 24 federal agencies have had clean opinions this last year," he said, "and we think everyone but the Department of Defense [will] have clean audits by the end of this year."

Forman closed his comments by stressing the need to evaluate other successful business models. "There are good solutions out there, and we don't have to come up with totally new solutions," he said. "We can build on what's out there." 
*******************************
Computerworld
Defense Department OK's open-source software
Policy should pave the way for other government use 
By Joris Evers, IDG News Service
JUNE 06, 2003

The U.S. Department of Defense has issued a policy that officially authorizes the use of open-source software at the department, a move open-source pundits said opens the door to more government use of open-source software. 
Open-source software within the Defense Department is acceptable as long as it complies with departmental policies for commercial and government off-the-shelf software and meets certain security standards, according to a memo outlining the policy written last week by John P. Stenbit, assistant secretary of Defense and CIO at the department. 

The policy is significant and sets an important precedent, said Tony Stanco, director of the Center of Open Source & Government and associate director of the Cyber Security Policy & Research Institute at George Washington University in Washington. 

"This is the first time the federal government in the U.S. has given an official policy toward open-source," he said. "The policy puts it at a level playing field with proprietary software, and that is exactly the way it should be. Open-source before wasn't discussed, and that makes people wonder if they should use it." 

Stanco heralded the Pentagon policy as a victory for the open-source movement and said it's a precedent that will lead to a jump in usage of open-source software at the Defense Department and government organizations worldwide. 

"Open-source has gone legitimate; the U.S. government was being lobbied very hard not to go this way by the software industry," he said. "This policy legitimizes the use of open-source right around the world." 

Breaking the silence on open-source doesn't mean that the DOD is picking favorites, said Lt. Col. Ken McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman. 

"This memo sets out an even-handed approach to software acquisition, and that is what it has always been [at the DOD]," he said today. 

Lack of a policy hasn't held back adoption of open-source software at the Pentagon, according to a study The Mitre Corp. released early this year. In fact, the U.S. military to a large degree depends on free and open-source software for infrastructure support, software development, security and research, Bedford, Mass.-based Mitre found. 

One paragraph in the short Defense Department memorandum is reserved for an explanation of open-source licensing, particularly General Public License (GPL) requirements. Under the GPL, the most prevalent open-source license, users have to make public any changes to the source code when they distribute the software. For example, Linux is licensed under the GPL. 

Stenbit in his memo tells those in charge of acquiring software at the DOD to comply with all licensing requirements and "strongly" encourages them to consult a lawyer to make sure that the implications of the license are fully understood. 

One expert said the GPL shouldn't be a major hurdle for the Pentagon. Confidential software code should be built on top of open-source code and not be part of the core code, circumventing the public release requirement, said Bruce Perens, an open-source advocate. 

"That means that ultrasecret software should probably be a user-mode application and not be part of the kernel," he said. "Simple decisions like that need to be made when developing software." 

According to Perens, the DOD considered banning GPL software, but decided against doing so because it's already widely used in the department. Furthermore, there is a clear benefit for the Defense Department to have full control over the software, he said. 

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software vendor, has faced increased competition from open-source products in markets around the world, especially in emerging countries. In a memo sent earlier this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called noncommercial software and Linux in particular a "competitive challenge" (see story). 

"IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability, although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, investing in the health and growth of non-commercial software or innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security," Ballmer wrote to highlight why he thinks Microsoft's products are superior. 

In a statement yesterday, Microsoft said it's "committed to working with the DOD to deliver products that meet its requirements and deliver cost-effective, value-based solutions." The company said it's "notable" that the Defense Department's policy says that people need to be aware of the software licenses they use. "Licensing terms are important but sometimes overlooked," according to Microsoft, which itself has come under fire from users over its licensing restrictions and cost. 

A copy of Stenbit's memo can be found at the Center of Open Source & Government's Web site. 
*******************************
Washington Post
Symantec Says Spam Reaches Most Children 
Reuters
Monday, June 9, 2003; 8:56 AM 

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Four out of every five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, loan programs and pornographic materials, according to a study released Monday by Internet security provider Symantec Corp.

A majority of 1,000 children ages 7 to 18 interviewed for the survey said they felt "uncomfortable and offended when seeing improper e-mail content."

"Parents need to educate their children about the dangers of spam and how they can avoid being exposed to offensive content or becoming innocent victims of online fraud," said Steve Cullen, Symantec's senior vice president for consumer products.

One in five children opened and read spam, the study found, and more than half of the them checked e-mail without parental oversight.

Among the other findings in the survey:

-- 80 percent of the respondents said they are bombarded by sweepstakes messages.

-- 62 percent received spam touting dating services.

-- 47 percent received e-mails with links to pornographic Web sites.

-- 34 percent have felt uncomfortable receiving spam.

Symantec commissioned Applied Research, a market research firm, to conduct the study.
******************************
Los Angeles Times
You'll pay the price if you're still living in the paper-ticket age
Airlines have been steadily raising fees for passengers who don't make use of the Web and other technology.
Jane Engle

June 8, 2003

As it has every year since 1997, Southwest Airlines last week renewed a promotion that allows customers who book on its Web site to earn a Rapid Rewards ticket after four round trips. 

Those who book by any other means require eight round trips for their freebie. 

Southwest's promotion is one of the oldest, but not the only, example of ways in which a technophobic air traveler is placed at a disadvantage. 

In recorded phone messages, major airlines typically say you may find lower fares on their Web site. And tech-heads can bypass long lines at ticket counters by checking in for flights at airport kiosks or from home on the Web. 

Now a slew of fees is making it even costlier to do business with the airlines by phone or in person or to get a paper ticket. Among the disincentives:

?  Award travel: Northwest Airlines earlier this year began charging a $50 service fee when customers change award tickets, unless they use its Web site or its self-service airport kiosks to do so. Then it's free, if done at least 30 days before travel, or $25 if it's less than 30 days. 

On July 1, Air Canada will begin charging its frequent fliers $25 Canadian (about $18 U.S.) to book award travel through a reservations agent. Online booking is free, at least until the end of the year. 

?  City ticket offices: If you prefer to do business face to face, you'll need to pay for that personal attention at Continental Airlines.

The company in April began a $10 service charge per transaction when customers visit its city ticket offices  neighborhood satellite airline counters  to buy tickets or to make changes in tickets for which change fees are not assessed. 

The fee is waived for purchases made on Continental's Web site or at its airport ticket counters.

Continental says the fee "is competitive and in line with those charged by most travel agencies."

In fact it's less than many travel agents charge. 

Left unsaid: Continental, like most major airlines, stopped paying regular commissions to travel agents a little more than a year ago, prompting many agents to add or increase service fees.

The real challenge may be finding a city ticket office. Continental closed six such offices, including two in Los Angeles, earlier this year and plans to close six more by the end of this month. Thirty-five will remain open. Closures have been an industry trend since at least 2001, when the majors shuttered more than 160 city ticket offices.

?  Paper tickets: American Airlines last month stopped issuing paper tickets on domestic itineraries that are eligible for e-tickets. Paper tickets continue to be available through travel agents for a fee, which was increased from $25 to $50, or from American for international travel for the same fee.

The paper-ticket fee increase is designed to "maximize the cost savings associated with e-ticketing," the company says. In the view of Richard M. Copland, president of the American Society of Travel Agents, the airline is "shifting its costs directly to the consumer." 

The increase means the airline's fee is five times what it was two years ago, when American and Continental began charging. (About the same time, Alaska Airlines increased its paper-ticket fee from $10 to $20.) As recently as December 2001, most major airlines didn't have such a fee. Now it's commonplace.

Most of these new fees are part of a carrot-and-stick approach to get more customers to embrace technology. The carrots, of course, are extra frequent-flier points and other perks awarded for online bookings, plus cheaper Web fares. Whether the Internet consistently produces lower fares is the subject of contradictory studies, although it clearly does so some of the time.

For cash-strapped airlines, the motive for migrating to the Web is mainly money, although their representatives also point to customer convenience. Direct Web bookings let airlines reduce staff or reserve them for more complicated inquiries and get rid of the middlemen and associated expenses.

"Airlines continue to drive as much of their total sales as possible through the Internet to reduce costs," the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a report last year. 

Southwest, which says in 1995 it was the first major airline to establish a home page on the Internet, has been a leader in direct Web bookings. This year more than half its tickets are being booked at its site, http://www.southwest.com , compared with a quarter three years ago, spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.

The percentages are lower for most other airlines. About a third of air ticket sales this year to leisure and "unmanaged" business travelers (those who don't use the corporate travel agency) will be through either the airlines' own Web sites or those of third-party sellers such as Expedia and Travelocity, according to a forecast by Jupiter Research, a technology research firm based in Darien, Conn.

Clearly the figure is destined to increase; it's already up 6% from last year.

That's not good news for the 46% of Americans who aren't online. Such people are, on average, poorer than Internet users, the U.S. Commerce Department reported last year  and so are more affected by added fees. 

But even the Net literate can get caught in the disadvantages of offline air bookings.

Freelance writer Richard Showstack of Newport Beach was happy to get a $160 travel voucher from United Airlines last year and planned to apply it to a round trip to Philadelphia.

He was less thrilled when he learned that voucher travel couldn't be booked on the Web.

"The problem is that the fare quoted me on their 800 number was $80 higher than the fare that was offered on their Web site," he said. "Voilà! A $160 travel voucher instantly lost half its value."
*******************************
Wired News
Tough Talking for Marines in Iraq  
02:00 AM Jun. 07, 2003 PT

Don't tell the members of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force about information overload. They already know all about it. 

During Gulf War II, members of the force often had to use a helmet headset, four radios and two laptops at once to communicate with their comrades and commanders -- all while crammed into light armored vehicles crawling across the Mesopotamian desert.

An analysis of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force's experience in central Iraq has yielded a number of important lessons about what gadgets worked and what high-tech equipment flopped in Gulf War II. 

The primary finding, according to the field report (PDF) by Marine Corps Systems Command: "Marines were overwhelmed with the high number of varied communications equipment they were expected to use." 

During the war, U.S. chieftains and military analysts talked with wide-eyed wonder about how quick and how perfectly seamless communications between U.S. troops had become. In a matter of minutes, they crowed, a tip about Saddam Hussein's location became an assault on a Baghdad restaurant. 

Now, it seems, that flawless network is at least equal parts Rube Goldberg and Henry Ford. 

"They had a communication system for every eventuality, and for every issue," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with the defense think tank Globalsecurity.org. "But they really didn't integrate them all together." 

Take, for instance, a Marine riding aboard a light armored vehicle. According to the field report, he'd use a headset to talk on the intercom to his buddies inside the vehicle. When his squad leader called, the Marine would have to remove his helmet and grab a hand-held radio to chat. To speak to a group of Marines nearby, he'd have to grab another radio. And to rap with the Navy SEALs, he'd need yet another radio. He would manage all this while keeping an eye on two different laptops showing the positions of friendly and hostile forces. 

In "C3" (command, control, communications) vehicles, which relay orders and battlefield intelligence to grunts, the clutter was even worse. 

"I personally saw that every 'shelf' was taken up by a radio and seat space and floor spaces were taken up with open computers," the report's anonymous author said. 

"When I read this, I got déjà vu," said Jim Lewis, an analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "(The military) has been working since (1983's invasion of) Grenada on these issues. I thought they had made more progress." 

The problem may be more about logistics than technology, however. Any single system to talk or share information would have worked fine. But "units never seemed to receive enough of one communications asset, forcing them to rely on a 'hodgepodge' of assets," according to the report. 

Marine Corps Systems Command did not respond to repeated calls to comment on the report, found by Wired News on Col. David Hackworth's website, Soldiers for the Truth. 

To share text messages and digital files, one unit of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force would have the Blue Force Tracker communications system. Another would have the MDACT (Mobile Data Automated Communications Terminal) program. The two have the same functions, essentially. But they can't talk to each other. So when the Marines sent reconnaissance photos to their commanders, they often would use a courier with a Memorex hard drive to carry the pictures by hand to headquarters. 

MDACT has other problems as well. Like many of the Marines' communications systems, it relies on UHF and VHF radio frequencies. But these are "line-of-sight" bands. So if a hill or the curve of the horizon keeps two people from seeing each other, they can't talk. And in the quicksilver push to Baghdad, units often lost sight of one another. 

Satellite-based systems, on the other hand, don't have such limitations. Rather than send their signals directly, these systems bounce them off of "birds" in space. As the war progressed, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force increasingly turned to Iridium satellite phones to talk. They also used Blue Force Tracker for text messaging and positioning information. They were the "only consistently reliable means of communication," according to the report. 

"Satellite phones proved to be the big winner," Garrett said. "If I had money, I'd drop some of it into Iridium." 

However, Iridium and all of the other military communications systems eventually are supposed to be replaced. The Joint Tactical Radio System (called JTRS or "Jitters" in military circles) is a software-based package for voice, data and images. It's supposed to work across every slice of the spectrum used by the armed forces and talk to every sort of old-school military radio now in use. 

The idea, Lewis said, is that the Jitters operator "won't have to switch (frequencies). The system will do that for him." 

A team of defense contractors, led by Boeing, is developing Jitters. It's supposed to be ready by 2005. 

"It's in the works, but it's been in the works for years," Lewis noted. 

Until then, Marines will have to rely on a patchy, cumbersome, jury-rigged system to keep in touch.

Links Marine Exerience in Iraq http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/templatereleaseview1/053FD7F29570092785256D390036A8D0?opendocument
Field Report http://www.sftt.org/PDF/article05122003a.pdf
*******************************


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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 506
Date: June 11, 2003

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Top Stories for Wednesday, June 11, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire"
"Who's in the Loop? USC Tool Maps the Email Labyrinth"
"Online Service Pairs Students, Mentors"
"Should Web Be a Copyright-Free Zone?"
"'Biomimetics' Researchers Inspired by the Animal World"
"A Passion to Build a Better Robot, One With Social Skills and a
 Smile"
"Attack of the Two-Headed Scientists"
"Global Summit on New Internet Protocol"
"Beyond WiFi: Airwaves Used in Creative, Lucrative--and
 Unregulated--Ways"
"Bell Tolling for PNG Graphics Format?"
"Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Says There's Much Work to Do"
"Glass That Glows and Gives Stock Information"
"World Radiocommunication Conference Takes Up Fight Over Frequencies"
"The Grand Unified Theory of Spam"
"Artificial Beings Evolve Realistically"
"Bell Labs Eyes Broadband's Future"
"Taming the Beast"
"A Psychologist in Cyberspace"
"Exploring the "Singularity""

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

"DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire"
Civil liberties groups are criticizing a May 2003 report from the
Justice Department and last week's testimony by U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft at a congressional hearing as being too
vague in regards to the Internet surveillance powers authorized ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item1

"Who's in the Loop? USC Tool Maps the Email Labyrinth"
A new tool developed at the University of Southern California
could relieve historians, archivists, and other researchers of
the burden of painstakingly sifting through huge email databases
for specific data by making such collections easy to systematize ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item2

"Online Service Pairs Students, Mentors"
MentorNet, based at San Jose State University, is a nonprofit
program to help more women penetrate the science and engineering
workforce by pairing students with mentors over the Web.  The
program is the brainchild of veteran educator Carol B. Muller, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item3

"Should Web Be a Copyright-Free Zone?"
Speakers at the recent Progress and Freedom Foundation
conference, "Promoting Markets in Creativity: Copyright in the
Internet Age," aired their views on whether the Internet should
or should not be subject to copyright law, and questioned whether ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item4

"'Biomimetics' Researchers Inspired by the Animal World"
Biomimetics researchers design robots based on animals in an
effort to enhance the machines' versatility, capability, and
robustness.  Federally-funded biomimetics research efforts
currently taking place in the Boston area include BigDog, a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item5

"A Passion to Build a Better Robot, One With Social Skills and a
 Smile"
MIT researcher Dr. Cynthia L. Breazeal has dedicated herself to
developing "sociable" robots that appear to respond both
physically and emotionally to people.  Breazeal notes that many
people's attitudes toward real-life robots are rooted in science ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item6

"Attack of the Two-Headed Scientists"
The New Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence (NLCSAI) announced in May integrates MIT's
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Laboratory for Computer
Science under the leadership of current AI Lab head Rodney Brooks ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item7

"Global Summit on New Internet Protocol"
Computer scientists and technology companies will be able to get
an in-depth look at the next-generation Internet Protocol,
version 6 (IPv6), and its ramifications for applications and
services at the North American IPv6 Global Summit in late June.   ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item8

"Beyond WiFi: Airwaves Used in Creative, Lucrative--and
 Unregulated--Ways"
A recent FCC report outlines the current situation surrounding
the nation's unlicensed spectrum and the technology innovation it
has inspired.  The FCC has made some adjustments to spectrum
allotment rules, allowing license owners to lease and trade ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item9

"Bell Tolling for PNG Graphics Format?"
The patent providing the foundation of the highly popular
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) design, the Lempel-Ziv-Welch
(LZW) compression algorithm, is scheduled to expire June 20;
Unisys is not planning to extend the patent, either in the United ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item10

"Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Says There's Much Work to Do"
Former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke applauds the
national cybersecurity strategy he helped flesh out, but notes
that a lot more needs to be accomplished.  Awareness of the
country's vulnerability to cyberspace-based attacks has spread ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item11

"Glass That Glows and Gives Stock Information"
Researchers and companies are developing unobtrusive display
devices that relay general information to users, such as a glass
sphere from Ambient Devices that can be programmed to change
color to indicate changing stock market conditions, for instance. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item12

"World Radiocommunication Conference Takes Up Fight Over Frequencies"
The U.N.-sponsored World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-03),
held every three years, will discuss global standardization of
Wi-Fi bandwidth allocation, broadband Internet for aircraft, and
more powerful GPS satellite signals.  The 172-person U.S. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item13

"The Grand Unified Theory of Spam"
CipherTrust is in the business of developing hardware and
software that counteracts viruses and worms, but chief technology
officer Paul Judge acknowledges that early on he may have not
fully understood the problem of unsolicited commercial email.   ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item14

"Artificial Beings Evolve Realistically"
University researchers are studying the transmission of genetic
code using simple computer programs that self-replicate in a
contained environment.  Michigan State University associate
computer science professor Charles Ofria says the goal is to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item15

"Bell Labs Eyes Broadband's Future"
Bell Labs President Jeff Jaffe says many of the presentations at
this year's Supercomm 2003 conference ape Lucent's tact of
providing end-to-end services for telecom customers.  He says
that even as Lucent continues to enhance hardware, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item16

"Taming the Beast"
Maintaining outmoded systems can devour as much as 80 percent of
IT budgets, according to Gartner's Dale Vecchio, and many
companies are attempting to overcome the problem by switching
from mainframe applications to Web services.  However, Web-server ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item17

"A Psychologist in Cyberspace"
MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle has become an expert on the deep,
emotional connections human beings make with the technology they
use.  She explains that computers, robotic toys, and other kinds
of technology support such connections because they dovetail with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item18

"Exploring the 'Singularity'"
Exponential technological development is expected to lead to the
Singularity, a point where the results of technological change
will become impossible to predict; the projected signs of the
Singularity range from the integration of biological and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item19

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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the June 16, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 508
Date: June 16, 2003

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Top Stories for Monday, June 16, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html


"Computing's Big Shift: Flexibility In the Chips"
"ROI, Security Driving IT Employment Trends"
"TSA Modifies Screening Plan"
"Your Blink Is My Command"
"Hacker Alert"
"Government to Investigate IT Visas"
"Poker Playing Computer Will Take on the Best"
"Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's"
"Java Should Be Open-Source, Creator Says"
"Bend It Like Robo-Beckham"
"Shock Waves Tune Light"
"Pentagon to Move to Next-Generation Internet"
"Info With a Ball and Chain"
"Lessons From Building the "Spatial Web""
"A Game of Chance"
"Supercomputers for the Masses?"
"Getting In on the (Copyright) Act"
"Self-Repairing Computers"


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

"Computing's Big Shift: Flexibility In the Chips"
Adaptive computing employs chips with circuitry that changes on a
moment's notice; chips with this ability can handle several
functions that otherwise would require separate chips, and would
be ideal for wireless devices that have to interoperate with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item1

"ROI, Security Driving IT Employment Trends"
The IT market is showing signs of stabilization, despite mass
layoffs and little elevation in salary last year, as indicated by
studies from META Group, International Data (IDC), and the
Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).  IDC ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item2

"TSA Modifies Screening Plan"
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), partly in
response to hundreds of written complaints from people and
organizations, has revised plans for a second-generation Computer
Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) in order to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item3

"Your Blink Is My Command"
Ted Selker of MIT and Roel Vertegaal of Ontario's Queen's
University are focused on the development of context-aware
computers that can pick up on "implicit communication" relayed
through eye or body movements to carry out commands.  Much of the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item4

"Hacker Alert"
July 1, 2003 will mark the enactment of a precedent-setting
California law requiring companies to immediately notify
California residents of online intrusions that may have
compromised their personal information and made them vulnerable ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item5

"Government to Investigate IT Visas"
The National Audit Office (NAO) and Work Permits (UK) will
independently evaluate the UK's method of providing visas for
overseas IT workers.  At issue is how firms place ads for
positions at low wages and hire foreign workers when people fail ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item6

"Poker Playing Computer Will Take on the Best"
A team of artificial intelligence researchers at the University
of Alberta has spent the last 10 years developing a computer
program that can play poker, and they believe the program could
conceivably outclass all human players within a year.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item7

"Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's"
Banking service company technician Claude M. Policard has
transformed his hobby, collating an archive of digital music on
his PC, into a two-in-one desktop that is secure against computer
viruses, a design that was awarded a patent last week.  The PC is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item8

"Java Should Be Open-Source, Creator Says"
Sun Microsystems vice president and Java creator James Gosling
says the strength of the developer community and the variety of
interests behind Java are robust enough for Java to become
open-source.  "My personal feeling is that we're over the edge, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item9

"Bend It Like Robo-Beckham"
Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Manuela Veloso
ascertained that true advancement of robotics technology cannot
take place without collaboration.  This was her motivation for
organizing RoboCup, an effort to spur research and development by ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item10

"Shock Waves Tune Light"
MIT researchers have discovered through computer models that
exposing a photonic crystal to shockwaves can induce a dramatic
Doppler shift and narrowing of bandwidth in lightwaves passing
through the crystal.  The findings could lead the way to quantum ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item11

"Pentagon to Move to Next-Generation Internet"
The Pentagon on Friday announced that it will move to an
IPv6-based Internet infrastructure by 2008 in order to overcome
IPv4's limited numbering system, security shortcomings, and
packet-loss problems.  Pentagon CIO John Stenbit says today's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item12

"Info With a Ball and Chain"
An era of online content restriction is emerging, thanks to the
advancement of digital-rights-management (DRM) software.  David
Weinberger, author of "Copy Protection Is a Crime Against
Humanity," alleges that DRM by itself is not evil, but its ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item13

"Lessons From Building the "Spatial Web""
Members of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) are committed to
interoperability for computer processes that are carried out by
geospatial technology users.  OGC members believe that people and
organizations cannot adequately deal with the concept of space if ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item14

"A Game of Chance"
The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) certified by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2000 may not live
as long as originally conceived, according to a cryptic
disclosure last year.  Schlumberger-Sema cryptographer Nicolas ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item15

"Supercomputers for the Masses?"
High-performance computing clusters (HPCCs) are replacing
monolithic water-cooled machines as the supercomputer of choice
for technical computing tasks.  By making use of off-the-shelf
components and the Linux operating system, HPCCs cost less to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item16

"Getting In on the (Copyright) Act"
Rep. Rich Boucher's (D-Va.) Digital Media Consumers' Act attempts
to amend the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) in order to satisfy critics who complain that the law's
provisions allow copyright owners to strangle innovation and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item17

"Self-Repairing Computers"
The growing complexity of computer systems adds up to their
increased fragility and unreliability, which is why
recovery-oriented computing (ROC) is so important, write Armando
Fox of Stanford University and David Patterson of the University ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item18


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