Clips June 16, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips June 16, 2003

ARTICLES

TSA Modifies Screening Plan 
Cyberspace: Last Frontier for Settling Scores?
Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's
OPM rule offers hiring flexibilities
DHS poised for mock terror attacks
Homeland, Defense compatibility needs work
Homeland budget clears House panel
Funds for states, ports announced
Tech industry doubts about focus on cybersecurity linger 
Defense looks to new tech to improve information network 
New legislation would allow spammers to be sued
'Little Brother' could be watching you, too
Florida woman arrested as French fugitive, DNA clears her [false positive]
Guilty plea in al-Jazeera site hacking
GPS to Help the Blind Navigate  

*******************************
Washington Post
TSA Modifies Screening Plan 
Computerized Analysis Changed in Response to Criticism That It's Intrusive 
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Saturday, June 14, 2003; Page E01 

The Transportation Security Administration has altered plans for a computerized passenger screening system, in part because of criticism that earlier proposals would have been overly intrusive, according to documents and interviews with government officials.

Under the new approach, the system known as CAPPS II would draw less personal information about passengers into the government computers, the documents show.

Instead, the system will rely on commercial data services that will authenticate passenger identities using mathematical models developed by the TSA and a wealth of personal details collected for marketing and business purposes. 

The data services will provide a coded response that the agency will then factor into a risk score that indicates whether passengers are who they claim to be and have verifiable roots in the community.

An earlier version of the system would have used a more intensive mix of government computers and artificial intelligence to analyze passenger records. Previous plans also suggested that officials wanted far wider latitude in how they used records about passengers' lives. The government and business officials behind those efforts are no longer involved in the project.

New details about the system are expected to be included in a Privacy Act notice to be published in the Federal Register next week.

The notice comes after more than 200 people and organizations wrote letters to complain about earlier plans that would have allowed officials to keep information about some individuals for up to 50 years and share it broadly with law enforcement and other agencies.

According to a draft of the document, the notice will sharply narrow how officials intend to collect and share personal information about passengers. It also probably will describe plans for a "passenger advocate" for handling complaints about inaccurate scores or other problems.

The new notice is intended as a signal that officials are committed to finding the right balance between security and privacy. "We care about those issues, and we're addressing them," one senior government official said. 

Persistent doubts about the earlier proposals' effectiveness and impact on civil liberties have knocked the program significantly behind schedule. 

Officials now leading the initiative -- a group in the new Office of National Risk Assessment who took over late last fall -- believe they have made headway in improving the technology and limiting how it will be used. 

These officials, who describe themselves as "privacy-centric," have met with an array of privacy activists in recent months to discuss CAPPS II, which is short for the second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. 

A draft of the privacy notice due out next week says the system under development will be influenced by "issues raised in the comments received, particularly the accuracy, efficiency, and privacy impact of the proposed CAPPS II system."

Even with the new approach CAPPS II may be the largest domestic surveillance system the government has ever created, and some privacy specialists remain skeptical, saying much about the program remains clouded in secrecy.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center in the District filed a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on Wednesday, alleging that the TSA has not complied with recent requests for details about the program's impact on civil liberties.

Among the unanswered questions is how the government will deal with inaccurate passenger scores, particularly in light of the fact that information services have a long history of maintaining flawed data, said David L. Sobel, the group's general counsel. 

"Millions of air passengers may soon have vast amounts of their personal data scrutinized by CAPPS II," Sobel said in a prepared statement. "It is time for the government to be more forthcoming about this system and its likely impact on privacy rights."

Lara Flint, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, also in the District, said she welcomes the announcement but wants to "see proof they're standing by the commitments they have made." 

"It's important that TSA go forward with an open process in order to gain trust," Flint said.

The latest model for CAPPS II would require every passenger to share a name, address, birth date and home telephone number. The TSA also would obtain the PNR, or passenger name record, containing travel details. 

Selected details about every passenger would be fed to commercial services, including Lexis-Nexis and Acxiom, a few days before a passenger's scheduled flight. After delivering the authentication score, the commercial providers would not be allowed to retain any of the result in a "commercially usable form," the draft privacy notice says.

"This will enable TSA to have a reasonable degree of confidence that each passenger is who he or she claims to be. TSA recognizes that inaccuracies in the commercial data may exist and that the CAPPS II system must allow for and compensate for such inaccuracies," according to the draft privacy notice.

The TSA-developed computer models aim to determine whether someone is "rooted in the community" by examining such details as where they live, how long they have owned a car, whether they own a house and how their personal details match up against similar individuals.

Passengers might show up as a potential threat -- someone who merits extra screening at an airport -- if for example they were born decades ago but do not show up in commercial systems until recently. 

All passengers also will be screened by a classified "black box" system containing intelligence about would-be terrorists. Officials expect that fewer than 100 cases would be referred to law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities each year.
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Los Angeles Times
Cyberspace: Last Frontier for Settling Scores?
By Steve Hymon
June 15, 2003

In hindsight, John Henningham wishes he had never visited http://www.johnhenningham.com . 

The journalism professor in Brisbane, Australia, gasped when the site filled his screen in January. He was looking at his own photo. Underneath was a vulgar description of a sexual act in bold letters preceding his name. There were accusations that Henningham had committed academic fraud and had been fired from his previous job "for selling degrees for cheap sex or some other price." 

The Web page was signed by a Los Angeles man named Bill White. 

In the last four years, from his apartment near skid row, White, 60, has published more than 180 Web pages attacking 60 people across the globe, accusing them of being liars or frauds, corrupt and much worse.

Many of his targets have some connection with a small Roman Catholic university in Papua New Guinea where White worked briefly as a teacher before leaving in 1997 after accusing the president of being involved in a sex and blackmail scandal.

As his targets have learned, White's activities demonstrate one of the realities of the Internet: For all its omnipresence, it remains frontier territory, laden with traps for the unwary.

Web sites established to air a grievance or attack an enemy are a growing issue as more people discover they can settle old feuds and grudges in cyberspace, according to lawyers and Internet experts. Katya Gifford, program manager of CyberAngels, a Pennsylvania group that helps people deal with online abuse, said her organization receives 200 e-mails and up to 30 phone calls a week from people who say they are being harassed over the Internet.

"This is exactly the problem posed by this technology," said Gail Thackeray, an assistant attorney general in Arizona and the state's top cyber-cop.

"Whatever someone's agenda is," whether a political cause or a personal grudge, the Internet "gives him powerful tools because of the worldwide reach," she said.

"The physical stalker has to sleep sometime, but these guys never do," Thackeray added. "That's what makes them so menacing There are endless ways to be creative with this stuff."

In White's case, many of the people he has targeted say they have watched helplessly as he used information gleaned about them on the Internet  a resume, a photo from a baby christening, a research paper  and turned it against them. 

Some say White' s allegations have cost them jobs and money. Others fear for their reputations. Henningham, for example, worries that prospective students looking for information about his private journalism school will instead stumble on White's sites about him. 

"When I go to conferences, people ask me 'Who is this bloody nut case?' " said Trevor Cullen, a professor of journalism at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, who has been the subject of several of White's Web sites and who sued White for defamation.

Many of White's targets have complained to Internet firms that host his pages, only to be told that there is nothing they can do. His activities do not appear to violate cyber-stalking laws, which now exist in 45 states, including California  most laws apply only to people who physically threaten someone, and no one has accused White of doing that.

Defamation laws are also of little assistance. One of the notions underlying libel laws is that people who can afford to distribute potentially defamatory statements widely  by publishing a newspaper, for example  have resources that a victim can go after in a lawsuit. In the Internet world, that assumption falls apart. Posting a Web site  even scores of Web sites  costs almost nothing.

A judge in Australia recently ruled that White had defamed Cullen, who concedes there is little chance he will ever collect a penny.

White has acknowledged creating these Web sites and others. In a series of e-mail exchanges and Internet postings and in an interview, he referred to himself as a "whistle-blower" trying to expose a sex scandal at the Papua New Guinea college.

"In the Old West, they called the six-shooter, 'the great equalizer,' " White recently wrote. "Well, in the 21st century and the Information Age, the Internet is the great equalizer."

*

Bill White's adventure began in 1996 when he left behind a long legal career in Long Beach and Orange County to go to Papua New Guinea to teach. 

"I had wanted to do something like this from the time President Kennedy announced the Peace Corps," said White, who attended Stanford as an undergrad and the Hastings School of Law in San Francisco, according to State Bar of California records.

White practiced civil, tax and real estate law through the early 1990s, working mostly out of his two-story home on a cul-de-sac in suburban Fullerton, according to state bar records.

He learned about the overseas teaching opportunity through a Roman Catholic church he attended in Orange County, church officials said. The Lay Mission Helpers  a branch of the Los Angeles Archdiocese  sent White to Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea to teach law.

White has contended that, once he was there, in 1996, he discovered that several faculty members were blackmailing the president of the school, Father Jan Czuba. White began writing letters to the L.A. Archdiocese, accusing Czuba of having had sex with a student, having impregnated a hairdresser and possibly of having been involved with "a pregnant nun." He said that he quit the school in 1997.

Czuba has denied White's accusations and said that students reported that White was behaving strangely in the classroom.

Czuba said that school officials thought White was suffering from culture shock. They offered White a counselor, Czuba said, but White insisted it was the counselor who needed counseling. Finally, White was given a plane ticket and told to leave the country, Czuba said. 

White returned to Los Angeles in February 1997 and was told by the Lay Mission Helpers that he would not be sent overseas again, officials said. The mission went to court to have him evicted from its dormitory that fall, court records show.

White said he began using the Internet at public libraries in Los Angeles around that time. He soon found a Web site that had been created by an attorney who was suing the Boston Archdiocese over allegations of sex abuse. That gave him an idea.

"I said, 'Hey, this is a great way to get information out,' " White wrote in an e-mail. "And I never forgot it." 

Over the next few years, White obtained several personal computers, which he keeps in his apartment in downtown Los Angeles. He said he spent "lots of time" on his sites. Many of those sites include information about people that White apparently found while combing the Internet. "This is what is so nice about the Internet," he wrote. "You can do most of it without leaving your desk." 

*

In 1999, Daniel Smith-Christopher said, he received an e-mail from White urging him to stop teaching Bible classes for the Lay Mission Helpers. If Smith-Christopher didn't stop teaching, White said, he would post a Web page about the teacher. 

Smith-Christopher knew White, who had taken a Bible study class from him while preparing for the job in Papua New Guinea.

"I had no idea what he meant," said Smith-Christopher, a professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. "Then two days later, another e-mail came. It said, 'Your Web page is up Daniel.' " 

On the page  the first of several to appear  White alleged that Smith-Christopher had AIDS. Another page urged readers to send a contribution to a memorial fund for Smith-Christopher at Loyola Marymount. 

Smith-Christopher said he doesn't have AIDS. He tried to have the sites removed, but finally gave up, he said, after discovering that one Web host company was in Pakistan. 

Around the same time, Sir Peter Barter, a government minister in Papua New Guinea, heard of White's Internet campaign against Divine Word. Barter sent White e-mails telling him to stop.

White constructed several sites about Barter, including one that incorporated the logo of Barter's travel firm and urged prospective customers to boycott the business, which specializes in taking foreigners to Papua New Guinea.

Barter said he believes the sites cost him millions of dollars in lost business. In 2001, Barter traveled to Los Angeles in hopes of stopping White's Internet activity. Barter asked officials from the Los Angeles Archdiocese to sue White in civil court over the Web sites. The archdiocese declined, deciding that a suit would be "an exercise in futility," said a spokesman, Tod Tamberg.

And today, when Sir Peter Barter enters his name in a Google search, the first 10 sites found are usually Web sites created by Bill White.

*

People attacked by White can ask the firms that organize or sell space on the Internet to remove or ignore White's pages. Google, among other search engines, has refused to remove White's sites. Company officials don't want to be judge and jury over the approximately 3 billion Web sites that are searched by Google, according to a company spokesman, David Krane.

The companies that sell White the names of his Web sites  such as http://www.trevorcullen.com  say they can't take back a name unless there is a legal judgment against White in the United States.

Federal law gives the companies protection against liability for content that customers might post on Web sites, including defamatory material. 

Several Internet site providers shut down some of White's Web sites after receiving complaints, but he has always been able to find a new provider.

In fact, White is now suing the Los Angeles Archdiocese, saying it wrongly pressured an Internet firm to remove some of his sites.

Catalina Hosting, based in Avalon on Catalina Island, now hosts the bulk of White's sites. A company employee said in an e-mail responding to an inquiry from The Times that the company has received complaints about White's sites but has chosen not to remove them.

"We are glad he has the time [to] spend his money with us," the employee said in the e-mail.

*

White remains a mystery to many of the people he has attacked. Few have met him or spoken to him or even know what he looks like.

Henningham, the journalism professor, has never met White. Henningham said he was attacked because he refused to bend to White's demands and flunk one of his students  Trevor Cullen, according to Henningham and White's Web site. Henningham has since set up a site about White.

Cullen, now a journalism professor in Perth, said he had taught at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea at the same time White was there. Cullen said White was upset with him because he refused to confirm White's story of the alleged sex scandal.

White has tenaciously guarded details about his personal life and has made sure they don't surface on the Internet. In an e-mail exchange, he said he is divorced and has no children, but otherwise declined to provide personal information.

A few weeks ago, White agreed to meet a Times reporter at the cafeteria at the L.A. County Superior Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. 

"If I meet you there, you can be sure that I have been through the search to get into the building, and am not 'armed,' " he wrote in an e-mail.

White  wearing a Cincinnati Bengals jacket and a button-down shirt  refused to speak on the record about his activities. But in subsequent e-mails, he repeatedly expressed astonishment that The Times was focusing on him instead of on the alleged scandal he said he is trying to expose.

Then, five days after the meeting, White posted a Web site about the reporter, followed soon by sites about two Times editors. 

"I think I would give up eating to maintain my sites," White wrote when asked about his endgame. "Well, almost. Well, maybe I would eat less."
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New York Times
June 16, 2003
Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's
By SABRA CHARTRAND

LIKE many people, Claude M. Policard has a day job that is strikingly different from his hobbies. He works for a banking service company, where he is a technician helping to maintain check-processing computers. But he devotes his spare time to music  playing piano and synthesizer, acting as a disc jockey at parties and building a digital archive of music on his personal computer.

A few years ago, his work and his hobby converged in a moment of casual thought. His company had been hit by a nasty computer virus, and Mr. Policard remembers feeling glad he did not have to worry about virus-infested e-mail contaminating his home computer.

"I had two computers at home," Mr. Policard, who is 65 and lives in Newark, Del., remembered last week. "My sister used one, and I used one. My personal computer I used only for my music, so it will never be attacked by a virus.

"Right then it came to my mind," he continued. "I thought, so why don't I combine the two computers together, but keep them in one case?"

Mr. Policard, who was born in Jacmel, Haiti, and grew up in Port-au-Prince, won a patent last week for a two-in-one desktop computer with its own internal barrier to Internet-transmitted viruses.

One hazard of Internet access is the constant vulnerability to viruses that can infect a computer through e-mail. Some viruses are malicious enough to corrupt everything on a hard drive and wipe out operating systems. For many, the first line of defense against viruses is the refusal to open unexpected or unknown e-mail attachments. But even that strategy is not foolproof.

So Mr. Policard created a personal computer that runs with two independent operating systems, two hard drives and two memory banks. The separate systems isolate personal computing files from Internet data. A user installs software programs and creates word-processing or spreadsheet files on one hard drive, but gains access to Internet downloads and e-mail on the second.

 From the outside, the computer looks like a conventional desktop model. It has one keyboard, one monitor and one mouse. But when it is turned on, the computer automatically starts up two separate systems. A toggle function allows a user to move between the master computing system and the Internet computer system.

Mr. Policard came to the United States in 1970 after earning a civil engineering degree at the University of Haiti. Because his real interest was electronics, he also took a correspondence course in computers to learn I.B.M. keypunch and basic programming. Once he moved to New York, he began a career as a computer technician.

In his patent, Mr. Policard describes his invention as having the "advantages of two systems without having two desktop computers." His computer has "a case, power supply, motherboard, disk drive, disk drive interface, monitor, keyboard and can additionally include mouse, printer and CD-ROM-like devices."

While both internal computing systems share the hardware, the Internet computer is in contact only with "components that cannot be affected by malicious software."

"Let's call it a computer with a virus-trap inside," Mr. Policard wrote in an early draft of promotional material for his invention. The Internet computer system can have conventional antivirus software to detect known viruses. But because new viruses emerge all the time, Mr. Policard's system is designed to act as a trap for those viruses the computer cannot identify.

"The big advantage of the patent is that any new virus will not pass into the main computer system," Mr. Policard said last week.

His patent says "toggling between the two systems can be accomplished by a switch which can be incorporated into the PC case, or by a third microprocessor using some keyboard key sequencing to switch between the systems."

The third microprocessor could also "monitor the state of both operating systems."

"If one crashed because of an application software bug or a computer virus, it would not affect the other, because the other system's basic instruction set and stack would still be intact," he wrote.

Even though the computer runs on separate systems, its users are able to transfer data between the master computer and the Internet computer, Mr. Policard said.

He is not the first inventor with the idea that one computer should have dual systems. But previous patents cover single systems designed to duplicate data and processing functions, creating backups so that nothing is lost in the event of either a system or power failure. Mr. Policard cites these earlier patents, which were awarded before the Internet became a direct pipeline into personal computers for e-mail containing viruses.

Mr. Policard said he wanted to sell or license his invention.

"I talked to one computer company, but they told me they won't look at my idea until I have the patent," he said. Now he has patent No. 6,578,140.
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Federal Computer Week
DOD moving to IPv6
BY Dan Caterinicchia 
June 13, 2003

Beginning in October, all Defense Department assets acquired for the Global Information Grid must be compatible with the next-generation Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), according to DOD's top information technology official.

The GIG is a massive DOD network designed to connect warfighters anywhere in the world. Moving to IPv6 will help the department achieve its goal of network-centric warfare and operations by the end of the decade, said John Stenbit, assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration.

Stenbit signed a policy memorandum June 9 that outlines DOD's transition to the new protocol by 2008. That year was chosen because most experts estimate widespread commercial adoption will take place from 2005 to 2007, he said.

"We want to make it clear to our programs' major development activities that come on line in the 2008-2010 timeframe that the IPv6 standard, as it evolves, will be the department's standard," he said during a Pentagon press briefing today.

Stenbit, who also serves as DOD chief information officer, said the current protocol, IPv4, has been in use for almost 30 years. He noted that its fundamental limitations hinder network-centric operations, which link together disparate portions of the battlefield and increase the lethality of U.S. forces by providing situational awareness and knowledge superiority.

Stenbit said IPv6 is designed to meet future commercial and DOD requirements, including:

* Improved end-to-end security, which is critical for DOD intranets that contain large amounts of classified information and traffic.

* Improved quality of service through work-arounds that will eliminate packet drops and instability on video teleconferences and voice-over-IP systems.

* Facilitation of mobile communications.

* Better system management.

* Expanded IP address space, which is a major problem in Europe.

DOD is in the process of selecting three large programs to serve as early adopters of the new protocol, and the "results of those three experiments will [determine] if we pull the switch in 2008," he said.

One pilot program per year will launch between 2005 and 2007 and they will be large enough, but also controlled enough, so that DOD can properly analyze results for possible enterprise use, Stenbit said. 

He added that either the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) or the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET) might be one of the programs switched over to IPv6, and that the Navy Marine Corps Intranet also is being considered. Definitive choices will be made within 30 days.

"NMCI has a large population of users. . .and when they get to [a suite] of standard applications, there's a technology refresh in the contract in a couple of years," he said, noting that could be the time to make a switch to IPv6.

Vendors, including Cisco Systems Inc., already are producing equipment that is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6, and as competition heats up in the next few years, costs should level out, Stenbit said. However, routers, software and other tools that run on both standards will probably perform slower, prompting Stenbit to note, "We believe that to be a real cost, but that doesn't keep me awake at night."

A draft DOD IPv6 transition plan will be released within one month and completion of the plan is expected by early September, according to Stenbit's memo.
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Federal Computer Week
OPM rule offers hiring flexibilities
BY Colleen O'Hara 
June 13, 2003

The Office of Personnel Management released an interim rule June 13 that would make it easier for agencies to assess job candidates and to hire people for hard-to-fill positions, among other workforce flexibilities.

The rule implements governmentwide flexibilities that were contained in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. 

Specifically, the rule provides agencies with:

* Flexibility in assessing job applicants using category rating instead of the "rule of three," which uses a numerical ranking.

* Ability to select candidates using direct-hire procedures where there is a severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need exists, such as in cybersecurity.

* Authority to pay or reimburse the costs of academic degree training.

* Increased flexibility to use academic degree training to address agency-specific human capital requirements and objectives.

None of those flexibilities are totally new, OPM Director Kay Coles James wrote in the Federal Register notice. Category rating "has been used successfully by some agencies for a decade or more," she wrote. The flexibilities were "proposed after broad consultation with a variety of stakeholders, including employees, managers and the human resources community."

As a result, James asked that the regulations be made effective immediately. OPM will consider public comments submitted before Aug. 12.

OPM also issued separate interim regulations in the Federal Register today that explain how an agency requests authority from OPM to offer voluntary early retirement to its employees. This flexibility was also contained in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
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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.
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Federal Computer Week
Homeland, Defense compatibility needs work
BY Matthew French 
June 13, 2003  

More needs to be done to ensure compatibility between the Homeland Security Department and the Defense Department, according to Peter Verga, special assistant to the secretary of Defense for homeland security.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, DOD's role in helping first responders and directly defending the country has changed dramatically, Verga said June 12 at FCW Media Group's E-Gov 2003 conference in Washington, D.C.

"DOD is not, and is not meant to be, involved in internal security," he said. "But our role in homeland defense is to deter, prevent and defeat attempted attacks such as the one carried out on [Sept. 11]."

Verga said DOD now responds to homeland defense threats on four scales:

* Routine. These responses include a standard deployment of troops -- most often National Guard -- on a requested basis.

* Temporary. These generally include specific events, such as the Olympics, the Super Bowl and political party conventions.

* Emergency. These responses generally follow an incident and include riot control or assisting local law enforcement in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. 

* Extraordinary. These responses involve deploying troops on U.S. soil, such as the use of military air patrols over major cities following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But one of the main problems that remains, Verga said, is the area of communications interoperability.

"That is probably going to get solved in the near future," he said. "But we still have to overcome procedural, cultural, training and standardization barriers.

"A great deal of work is needed in that area, because when DOD is called to respond to an incident, we have to have a unity of effort in dealing with that situation," he said.

Beyond simple communications, getting the different agencies responsible for protecting the homeland to share data is a much larger hurdle to overcome. There is no plan to develop a true "enterprise architecture" to link DOD and DHS, but Verga said a meeting will take place next month to discuss how information can be shared.

The meeting will include the Defense secretary's office, the Joint Forces Command, Northern Command and DHS.

"We have to develop the ability to have a whole bunch of disparate systems talk together," he said.

"I think we have a huge advantage in the technology we have and that will go a long way to help dealing with the threat," Verga said. "The brilliance of industry will lead to innovations that will make us more secure."
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Federal Computer Week
Homeland budget clears House panel
BY Judi Hasson 
June 13, 2003

A House subcommittee on June 12 approved a $29.4 billion budget for fiscal 2004 for the Homeland Security Department that includes more money for first responders, high-threat areas and airline passenger screening.

The bill, approved by the House Appropriations Committee's Homeland Security Subcommittee, is $1.04 billion more than President Bush's proposal and $535 million more than the fiscal 2003 budget. More than $4.4 billion is earmarked for first responders, an increase of $888 million from the amount Bush proposed.

"The bill recognizes that, while DHS has the led in developing our national homeland security strategy, implementation of the strategy requires the active participation of state and local governments and the private sector," said Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), the subcommittee's chairman.

Among the highlights:

* $9 billion for border protection, including $2 billion for the Coast Guard's homeland security activities.

* $5.2 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, including help for cargo, intercity bus and transit security, and $1.67 billion for passenger screening.

* $5.6 billion over 10 years to encourage commercial development and production of medical countermeasures against bioterrorism, including $890 million that would be available in fiscal 2004.

* $500 million for high-threat, high-density urban areas.

The appropriations bill now goes to the full committee and the Senate, a process likely to take months, before the budget is finalized.
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Federal Computer Week
Funds for states, ports announced
BY Dibya Sarkar 
June 12, 2003

The Homeland Security Department this week awarded millions of dollars to assist first responders and improve port security.

DHS announced today that 10 states have been given nearly $400 million for first responder preparedness and response capabilities:

* Texas  $78,238,000.* Florida  $62,655,000. * Illinois  $50,005,000.* Washington  $29,971,000.* Wisconsin  $27,985,000.* Minnesota  $26,690,000.* Louisiana  $25,037,000.* Arkansas $19,585,000.* New Mexico  $16,956,000* Maine  $15,232,000.

Since March 1, DHS has released more than $4.4 billion in grants from the federal fiscal 2003 budget, according to the department. The funds have been distributed to cities and states to pay for planning, equipment, training and exercises.

On June 12, DHS Secretary Tom Ridge announced $170 million in port security grants for the second phase of the Container Security Initiative and $58 million in funding for Operation Safe Commerce.

The latter pilot program, in partnership with the Transportation Department, protects cargo from packaging through delivery by fostering research and development of emerging technologies that monitor movement along the supply chain and ensure container integrity. The ports of Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; Los Angeles; Long Beach, Calif.; and the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey are pilot participants.

Container Security Initiative grants are supposed to improve dockside and perimeter security. The Transportation Security Administration has distributed grants to 199 state and local governments and private companies, which will be used for new harbor patrol boats, surveillance equipment, and construction of new command and control facilities.

DHS is providing an additional $75 million through the Office of Domestic Preparedness for infrastructure security protective measures, security enhancements, training, exercises, equipment, planning and information sharing.

Ridge said in a statement that the four elements of the Container Security Initiative program are:

* Identifying high-risk containers through advance information, even before they're loaded onto ships bound for the United States.

* Pre-screening such containers at their international ports of origin.

* Using detection technology such as radiation detectors and X-ray imaging equipment.

* Using "smarter, tamper-evident" containers to better detect any breach at a U.S. port.

"Currently, about 90 percent of all world cargo moves by container. In the United States alone, almost half of incoming trade (by value) arrives by containers aboard container ships. That means that almost 7 million cargo containers arrive and are offloaded at U.S. seaports each year," Ridge said. "Let me be clear: This is not just a response to terrorism. We believe it's a deterrent."
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Government Computer News
06/13/03 

DOD EMall looks to Web services 

By Patricia Daukantas 
GCN Staff

The Defense Logistics Agency is considering Web services on its Web portal for Defense Department procurement, an agency official said this week. 

Donald O?Brien, program manager for the DOD EMall portal, spoke at a panel discussion about Web services during this week?s E-Gov 2003 conference in Washington. 

The phrase Web services refers to a set of software specifications, including Extensible Markup Language, that let computer applications talk to each other. 

DLA officials want the EMall to be the Defense customer?s first choice for purchasing supplies, O?Brien said. Unlike most other shopping portals, which have a single seller, ?we think of ourselves as like the phone company,? bringing customers and sellers together, O?Brien said. 

The agency wants to move EMall to a service-oriented architecture, O?Brien said. DLA officials hope for a cascade effect as suppliers and manufacturers add Web services to their catalogs. 

Issues that will affect how fast DLA moves to Web services include organizational resistance, security, and the need to build and extend supplier relationships, O?Brien said. 

?I?m really excited about the potential for applying Web services to my project,? he said. 

Panelist Tamer Ali, product management director for VCampus Corp. of Reston, Va., said computerized training systems could benefit from Web services because they often must interact with other agency systems, such as financial reporting and human resources. 

When getting involved in Web services, agency officials should start simple and find a process where Web services can improve the experience, Ali said. They shouldn?t feel pressured to use Web services just because of the hype. 

?Web services is the best technology we have today,? said Brian R. Carroll, senior director of architecture for Merant Inc. of Hillsboro, Ore. ?Standards are still evolving, but a solid core exists.? 

Merant and several other companies support the creation of a working group to manage changes in Web services that interact with each other, Carroll said. The companies will submit their proposal to the Organization for Structured Information Standards of Billerica, Mass. 
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Government Executive
June 13, 2003 
Tech industry doubts about focus on cybersecurity linger 
By Bara Vaida, National Journal's Technology Daily 

For some lobbyists, the fact that the Homeland Security Department chose to outline its new cybersecurity division's place on the bureaucratic ladder on a Friday afternoon last week was not a coincidence. It signaled to them that cybersecurity issues are not the highest priority as the department's leaders work to morph 22 agencies into a working organization. 


"They always seem to make their cyber announcements at the very last minute on Fridays, when no one is paying attention and members are out of town," said one high-tech lobbyist, who noted that the final strategy on cybersecurity also was released on a Friday afternoon in February, with little notice to press or industry. 


The timing of the announcement comes after other developments on the cybersecurity front that have concerned such lobbyists.

On March 1, when the White House dissolved the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board (CIPB), which wrote the cyber strategy, no replacement for the board's leadership was named. Cybersecurity experts in the high-tech world were left guessing the direction of the administration's cybersecurity policy for months. Some lobbyists said it was because the administration originally had no plan to create a cyber division within Homeland Security. 


Also in March, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told Congress that cybersecurity is important but that he sees it as intertwined with physical security. According to sources, Howard Schmidt, then co-chair of the CIPB, met with Ridge to argue that a senior person was needed within the department to oversee cybersecurity alone, but Ridge's staff was not convinced of that need, one lobbyist said. Schmidt left his position at the White House last month to join eBay. 


"There was a group of senior officials ... that believed cybersecurity is no different than water or energy security ... and that cyber shouldn't be given some special carve-out," one lobbyist said. That source added that some people in the administration believed that cries about impending technology problems, like the outcries about the Year 2000 computer glitch, were overblown. 


Meanwhile, high-tech lobbyists and several prominent lawmakerssuch as House Government Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va. continued to push the administration and Homeland Security officials to create a senior cybersecurity position. 


In the end, the two met in the middle. The department created a 60-person cyber divisionbut not at the senior level that the tech industry had wanted. 


Robert Liscouski, the assistant Homeland Security secretary for infrastructure protection, said last week that the cyber division would have been "dysfunctional" anywhere else within the department and assured the high-tech sector that Ridge will be actively involved in cyber policy.


Now lobbyists are guessing who will be named as director of the division. That speculation has centered on: Michael Aisenberg, VeriSign's director of public policy; Julia Allen, technical staff member of the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University; Kathy Burton, a former National Communications System official; Computer Sciences Corp. Vice President Guy Copeland; and Oracle Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson. 
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Government Executive
June 13, 2003 
Defense looks to new tech to improve information network 
 From National Journal's Technology Daily 

A senior Pentagon official on Thursday announced the implementation of the next-generation Internet protocol to facilitate the integration of sensors, weapons, information systems, and other elements of the Defense Department's "global information grid." 
The next generation of the Internet's operating system, known as Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), will replace Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), which the Defense Department has used for nearly 30 years. The new protocol's benefits include expanded IP address space, improved network security and enhanced mobile communications capabilities, according to John Stenbit, the Pentagon's chief information officer.

"Enterprise-wide deployment of IPv6 will keep the warfighter secure and connected in a fast-moving battle space," Stenbit said. Stenbit signed a policy memorandum earlier this week that, beginning in October, requires all network systems purchased by the department to have IPv6-based capabilities, but also to be interoperable with existing IPv4-based systems. 
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Computerworld
New legislation would allow spammers to be sued
Sen. Charles Schumer unveiled his long-awaited bill yesterday 
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
JUNE 13, 2003

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been promising for weeks to introduce an antispam bill, and yesterday he unveiled one that would allow recipients of unsolicited commercial e-mail to sue the senders. 
He also received support from a group he's never worked with before, the Christian Coalition of America. In announcing the bill, Schumer and the Christian Coalition called themselves a "political odd couple." 

"The avalanche of pornography being sent to kids by spammers makes checking e-mail on par with watching an X-rated movie," Schumer said in a statement. "Parents need to be able to keep offensive material out of the family room, and I'm working with the Christian Coalition to do just that. The bottom line is that America's children have been under attack for a long time -- from violent TV shows, racy music videos and now pornographic spam." 

A Christian Coalition spokeswoman said today that Schumer's bill, called the Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing (SPAM) Act, appeals to the group because of its focus on eliminating adult-themed spam. "It's good legislation," said spokeswoman Michele Ammons. "We're all about the family. We have received quite a few calls and e-mails from members complaining about pornographic spam." 

Schumer and the Christian Coalition cited several statistics in touting the need for the legislation. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reported that adult-themed pictures appear in almost one out of every five e-mails that spammers use to advertise adult Web sites, and in a survey this month by Symantec Corp., 47% of children reported receiving junk e-mail with links to pornographic Web sites. A 2001 U.S. Department of Commerce study found that 75% of 14-to-17-year-olds and 65% of 10-to-13-year-olds used the Internet. 

Schumer's bill would allow state attorneys general, Internet service providers and e-mail recipients to file civil suits against spammers. Antispam groups, including the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), have called for the ability of e-mail recipients to sue spammers. This is the first bill of seven introduced in Congress this year that would directly allow private lawsuits. 

Others, including Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), co-sponsor of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, argue that private lawsuits would be more of a boon for lawyers than a spam deterrent. 

Schumer's bill would also: 


Require e-mail marketers to label commercial e-mail with "ADV." Schumer argued that this would allow ISPs and e-mail users to filter unwanted e-mail, but some antispam advocates suggest that such a label will only harm legitimate marketers, because those sending illegal spam won't comply. 

Require commercial e-mail to have accurate subject headings and header and router information. 

Require commercial e-mail to have functional unsubscribe instructions. Some antispam advocates have criticized such "opt-out" legislation, saying that unsubscribing can legitimize the first round of spam sent to an e-mail user. Groups such as CAUCE have called on Congress to require all commercial e-mail to be sent only after a customer has opted in to receive it. 

Prohibit spammers from "harvesting" e-mail by using software to mine addresses on Web sites and other Internet areas. It also prohibits dictionary attacks, a practice that generates e-mail addresses by the random compilation of names and numbers. 

Create a national no-spam registry, maintained by the FTC. Parents will have the option of putting their children's e-mail address in the registry with a special designation prohibiting adult-themed e-mail. Spammers not abiding by the no-spam registry would be fined, and Schumer's bill would protect the list with "military-caliber encryption."
FTC commissioners have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of a national do-not-spam list, saying it would be difficult to maintain because of the large number of e-mail addresses in the U.S. FTC Chairman Timothy Muris, while testifying before a Senate subcommittee this week, also questioned if spammers would abide by the list. 

"We're dealing with people who are already breaking the law," Muris said of fraudulent spammers. "I would personally, at the moment, be very reluctant to have my e-mail on a do-not-spam list because I'd be very afraid the spammers would get it." 

But Schumer argued that his bill would give consumers and law enforcement multiple tools in fighting spam, with a do-not-spam list a way to justify fines for spammers. "My bill fights spam e-mail on two fronts -- it gives parents the ability to regulate the e-mail sent to their kids and gives law enforcement the ability to go after those spammers that send this unwanted material out," he said in a statement.
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USA Today
'Little Brother' could be watching you, too
By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

Next time you go out for a walk, don't forget to smile for the camera. In these times of heightened security awareness and rapidly falling technology costs, it's no longer just banks and grocery stores that are using hidden surveillance cameras  a growing number of Americans are installing them, as well as using secret "nanny-cams" in their homes and even carrying tiny cameras in cell phones and other devices. 
It once was just Big Brother that privacy-minded people had to worry about, but now "it's Little Brother," says Howard Rheingold, a technology watcher and author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. "It used to be that you thought only the state had the power and technology to do surveillance. But now that's democratized. It could be your neighbor, your relative."

These days, miniature spycams are so small and inexpensive that they could be anywhere: someone pointing a cell phone or a pen at you might have one; they can even be hidden in sunglasses. Tiny cameras can be purchased in stores or over the Internet for as little as $100, and easily hidden in boom boxes, Kleenex boxes, and other items. 

cell phone cameras, still somewhat of a novelty in the USA, have become so popular elsewhere that gyms in Australia and Hong Kong are reportedly banning them from pools and locker rooms for fear of secret pictures being taken and transmitted to anyone on the planet.

Security cameras also are becoming ubiquitous. 

San Jose police last week disseminated pictures from a neighbor's home surveillance camera showing a man following 9-year-old Jennette Tamayo into her home and then screeching off in a car. While the video did not necessarily play a major role in the arrest of the suspect, it did show that cameras are now watching even when humans are not.

Privacy experts are still more concerned about government surveillance, but Big Brother can get ahold of private images, too. While law enforcement officials have to safeguard the public's constitutional rights, private companies and individuals can focus their cameras in public spaces without the same worries, says David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

Whether you can use legal means to stop somebody from taking pictures of you depends on the circumstances. But "when you're in public and in plain view  particularly when the person taking the picture is a private person  there's not a lot of recourse," he says.

"You can't assume any place you go is private because the means of surveillance are becoming so affordable and so invisible," Rheingold says. "The idea that your spouse or your parents don't know where you are at all times may be part of the past. Is that good or bad? Will that make for better marriages or worse marriages? I don't know."

It is the classic trade-off  security vs. privacy, says James Katz, a professor of communications at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Right now, security is winning.

"The good that comes from safety and security outweighs the losses to freedom of speech and freedom of association that tend to be dampened when people are monitored," Katz says.

Ever since British au pair Louise Woodward was convicted in 1997 of killing her 8-month-old charge, parents have been snapping up "nanny cams" at the Counter Spy Shop and Spyzone's seven stores worldwide, says spokeswoman Arielle Jamil. "It woke up the baby boomers and parents who don't have the money to hire a permanent nanny (with full background checks) but can buy a $500 covert video system."

Many systems are simply there to catch a thief. Even churches have security cameras, says Rich Maurer of New York security firm Kroll Inc.

Whatever the reason, Americans are certainly filming each other.

Kent, Wash.,-based X10 Wireless Technology, Inc., whose ads for its wireless camera pop up when you surf the Web, says that more than a million of its cameras are in circulation. (Intended for home security use, the cameras also can be used to spy.) 

And while home systems are not nearly as common as business surveillance, experts say they will proliferate as prices drop to as little as $75 for a camera that works with a cheap computer. 

Not everybody thinks this will necessarily make society safer. 

"Rather than make us more secure, this is going to pander to our security obsession," says Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. 

But like it or not, cameras are a fact of life. Maurer estimates that in a 10-mile stretch in any major city, your image will be captured on 30 to 40 private security cameras. That doesn't include cameras in homes or those carried by individuals.

"We're being spied on all the time," Saffo says. "Not only are we spying on each other, we're spying on ourselves. And we're all going to discover that we've all become unwitting stars of our own really boring reality TV program."
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USA Today
Florida woman arrested as French fugitive, DNA clears her
June 13, 2003

MIAMI (AP)  Thinking they had caught a French fugitive who had kidnapped her two children from their father, authorities held a mother in jail for six nights until DNA tests proved them wrong. 
When officers brandishing guns ran toward her car, Nona Cason thought they were after somebody else. Instead, they arrested Cason, accused her of being fugitive Nadine Tretiakoff, and seized her children. 

"People kept calling me, and made me sign things saying I was her," she said. 

"I'm not Nadine Tretiakoff. I'm Nona from Macon, Georgia," she said Thursday, with no trace of an accent. 

She continued, "I guess I just look like her. Thank goodness for DNA tests." 

Apparently, both French and U.S. federal authorities mistook her for Tretiakoff, accused in France by ex-husband Pierre Fourcade of kidnapping their children. 

Cason spent the next six nights in jail. Arrested on a Friday, she said she had no knowledge of the whereabouts of her children until the following Monday, May 19. On that day, she stood "three feet" in front of Fourcade in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom where he testified repeatedly that she was his ex-wife. 

Finally, the state ordered a DNA test. The results eviscerated any possibility of a blood link between Fourcade and Cason's two children. She was subsequently released. 

"I was sure it was her," Pierre Fourcade said Thursday from France. "The French authorities assured me this was the woman, these were my kids. 

"It's a horrible situation. I haven't seen my family in six years, and she really does resemble my ex-wife. I'm furious with the French officials." 

Cason's lawyer, Marc Shelowitz, said, "If the feds who had been tailing her for the last year had just done their homework, they would have seen that [Carson ] had her baptism records, her passport, her birth certificate, her kid's birth certificates. "Somebody dropped the ball." 

Just who may or may not have dropped it remains unclear. Matthew Dates, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said that the department was working with French information. 

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children works with Interpol on international kidnappings through a Hague treaty and an agreement with the Department of Justice. Kathleen Ruckman, a supervising attorney in its international division, said, "We really just had to go on what the local police told us." 

Spokespeople for Interpol and for the U.S. Marshal for Southern Florida did not return phone calls. A photograph of Tretiakoff was unavailable late Thursday in Miami. 

Cason, 39, said that she was arrested by U.S. Marshals in front of her children. 

"I was in traffic and I see this row of police cars in front of me and behind me. They came at me with guns. I'm sitting there just trying to be a good mom," she said. 

Carson moved to Florida in March seeking nontraditional medical treatment for an autistic daughter. She also decided to home-school both children. Her lawyer surmised that authorities may have found the lifestyle "strange," but said he did not believe that was any reason to arrest her. 

He also said that there's a 12-year-age-difference between Cason and Tretiakoff, and that Tretiakoff's children are a bit older than Cason's children. Cason said the father of her children is a Spaniard with whom she has severed ties. 

Despite Carson's release, doubts remain in the French camp. Fourcade said that he has faith in the American justice system and in the DNA results, but that a group of friends and family, including his 25-year-old son, vehemently believe that Cason could still be Tretiakoff. The DNA mismatch could have been a result of possible infidelity during the marriage, they say. 

"I met [Cason's 11-year-old son ]," he said in French, "and he wouldn't even look at me. I suppose that at this time I do not believe they are my children. But I keep hoping I'll find them." 

Carson reunited with her children last Thursday. Fourcade returned to France. 

The whereabouts of Nadine Tretiakoff and the two Fourcade children, 10-year-old Clara and 12-year-old Francois, remain unknown. 
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USA Today
New attempt to recycle TVs, computers passes Senate
June 3, 2003

SACRAMENTO (AP)  Legislation requiring manufacturers to implement plans to recycle their televisions, computer monitors and other electronic devices containing lead was approved Monday by the California Senate. 
The bill by Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford, targets so-called e-waste, which Sher described as a rapidly growing waste disposal problem. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The four heavy metals have been linked to cancer and other health problems. 

The bills, SB20 (the Senate version) and AB455 (the Assembly version), can be read at www.senate.ca.gov. 
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MSNBC
Guilty plea in al-Jazeera site hacking
Los Angeles man rerouted Arab news page to pro-U.S. site 
  
LOS ANGELES, June 12  A Los Angeles man pleaded guilty Thursday to carrying out a cyber-vandal attack on the al-Jazeera Web site during the Iraq war because the Arab satellite TV network had shown pictures of dead and captured American soldiers. Web designer John Racine II, 24, admitted diverting traffic and e-mails from al-Jazeera?s Arabic Web site to a site he had designed called ?Let Freedom Ring? and bearing the U.S. flag, federal prosecutors said.

AL-JAZEERA, ONE OF the most popular news networks in the Arab world, raised the ire of the United States and Britain in March when it showed footage from Iraq of dead and captured American and British soldiers. The pictures were not shown in Britain or the United States.

      U.S. and British officials said at the time that displaying such footage went against international conventions.

       Both its Arabic and English-language sites were hacked into or shutdown frequently during the war and two of its reporters were banned from New York?s stock exchange.

       Prosecutors said Racine gained control of the al-Jazeera.net domain name by forging photos and signatures and faxing them to domain seller Network Solutions Inc to give him control of the account.

      ?He was apparently upset that al-Jazeera was showing pictures of prisoners of war servicemen and women killed in action,? said Los Angeles U.S. attorney?s spokesman Thom Mrozek.

       Racine, who contacted the FBI himself in late March admitting he had hijacked the Web site, pleaded guilty to two charges of wire fraud and unlawful interception of an electronic communication. Under a plea agreement, he is expected to be sentenced to three years probation, community service and a fine of $1,500.
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Wired News
GPS to Help the Blind Navigate  
June 14, 2003

The European Space Agency and other organizations are testing a personal GPS-based navigation system that helps blind people get around better on their own.

The handheld device, dubbed "Tormes," was unveiled in Madrid in early June. It weighs less than one kilogram (about 2 pounds), comes with a Braille keyboard and a voice synthesizer, and taps the global positioning satellite system to provide verbal directions. Added software and a database of city maps give immediate feedback about the users' surroundings.

While the device -- which is likely to debut in 2004 -- is not intended to replace traditional tools the blind use to get around, it can help them navigate new or unfamiliar areas.

"We don't say that it should replace the guide dog, it complements it," said Dominique Detain, communication manager at the European Space Agency.

Current navigation systems based on GPS provide accuracy that ranges from a couple of meters to as many as 15 meters -- too wide a range for safety, given Tormes' purpose. They also lose contact with overhead satellites when surrounded by tall buildings or other solid obstacles (the so-called "canyon effect"). 

To increase accuracy, Tormes taps the space agency's own satellite navigation system, called Egnos, which verifies that signals received from GPS satellites are accurate. With Egnos, accuracy improves to about 2 meters, and users are alerted about any signal problems. To get around the canyon effect, ESA engineers created Sisnet, which relays the signals over the Internet using wireless networks.

Even with the increased accuracy, though, the device cannot alert the blind to small obstacles like stairs or street curbs. Walking canes or guide dogs won't become obsolete.

Said Richard Long, orientation and mobility specialist at Western Michigan University, "We don't tend to envision these GPS devices as primary aids."

Instead, Tormes will help people navigate to specific addresses, locations or places like bus stops, and it could help people orient themselves if they are in a taxi, for example, and need to give directions.

Long said devices based on GPS have given people like a blind friend of his freedom and mobility that wasn't possible before, letting them do things other people take for granted, like navigating large open areas or parking lots. 

"Best of all," Long said, "he can use his device to tell if his wife is speeding on the way to work."

Egnos http://www.esa.int/export/esaSA/GGG63950NDC_navigation_0.html
Sisnet http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/egnos/estb/sisnet/sisnet.htm
Richard Long http://www.wmich.edu/hhs/blrh/index.html#specializedprograms
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