ACM TechNews - Monday, December 9, 2002

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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 432
Date: December 9, 2002

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Top Stories for Monday, December 9, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Communications Executives Endorse Security Regulations"
"E-Mail Overload Is a Myth, Study Says"
"Wanted: a Few Good Hackers"
"Wireless Research Senses the Future"
"Digital Copyright Law Up for Challenge"
"Lawmaker Reviving Failed E-Waste Bill"
"I.B.M. Plans to Announce Tiny Transistor"
"ICANN At-Large Reps Can Keep Jobs"
"Robot Space Cowboys"
"Software Giants 'Trample Freedoms'"
"New Year to Bring Nastier Viruses Yet"
"Clothes Make the Network"
"Is Big Brother Our Only Hope Against Bin Laden?"
"When the Web Starts Thinking for Itself"
"Feds Spark High-End Computing Resurgence"
"Took a Licking, Kept on Ticking"
"England Tests E-Voting"

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

"Communications Executives Endorse Security Regulations"
A 300-item to-do list released on Friday by the Network
Reliability and Interoperability Council recommends what the
communications sector should do to ensure network security
against terrorist attacks.  The panel said that these suggestions ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item1

"E-Mail Overload Is a Myth, Study Says"
The Pew Internet & American Life Project says not as many U.S.
workers feel overwhelmed by email as is widely thought.  In all,
around 60% of 1,003 workers surveyed by telephone reported
getting 10 or fewer email messages per day.  Just 4% of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item2

"Wanted: a Few Good Hackers"
The federal government is eyeing hacking as a way to solve some
of its computer security problems, including helping it find
critical software vulnerabilities and stopping the trade of
pirated digital content.  White House cybersecurity advisor ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item3

"Wireless Research Senses the Future"
Deborah Estrin, director of UCLA's Center for Embedded Network
Sensing, foresees future applications of wireless technology that
will dramatically change the way people handle resource
management, transportation, and medicine, to name a few areas.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item4

"Digital Copyright Law Up for Challenge"
With the deadline for submitting public comments on the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to the Copyright Office coming up
in less than a week's time, experts are advising people on how to
best present their case for exemptions.  Computer programmer Seth ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item5

"Lawmaker Reviving Failed E-Waste Bill"
California Sen. Byron Sher (D-San Jose) intends to reintroduce a
bill that would attach a $10 fee to the purchase of new computers
monitors and TVs in order to fund national e-waste recycling
programs.  This comes on the heels of Hewlett-Packard's change of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item6

"I.B.M. Plans to Announce Tiny Transistor"
IBM researchers this week will report on a transistor that
measures just nine nanometers long; a typical human hair is at
least 3,000 times wider than a nanometer.  The researchers, led
by Meikel Leong, will present their work at the annual ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item7

"ICANN At-Large Reps Can Keep Jobs"
ICANN will extend the terms of its elected board members into
early 2003 as part of the ICANN reform transition process.  ICANN
board member Karl Auerbach says that ICANN is doing so for
appearances only, and he predicts that elected board members will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item8

"Robot Space Cowboys"
Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will of the University of Southern
California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) have proposed a
project in which robots using "hormonal" software would assemble
a space station without human intervention.  Under the aegis of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item9

"Software Giants 'Trample Freedoms' "
Richard Stallman continues to call for an end to proprietary
software, and as president of the Free Software Foundation he is
also leading an effort to develop the Gnu operating system that
can be used without restriction.  The open source movement has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item10

"New Year to Bring Nastier Viruses Yet"
Virus expert Daniel Zatz, a consultant at Sydney-based Computer
Associates, predicts that next year's viruses are likely to be
more dangerous than ever.  Some 250 viruses have emerged every
month in 2002, while 400 per month were released in 2001, but the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item11

"Clothes Make the Network"
Wireless wearable technology could spur the formation of what
Lancaster University's Gerd Kortuem calls "ad hoc communities" in
which people with similar interests and tastes can network and
participate in social activities--resource sharing, gaming, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item12

"Is Big Brother Our Only Hope Against Bin Laden?"
The U.S. Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA)
program is an ambitious effort to collate all personal
data--business transactions, relationships, registrations,
etc.--on foreigners and citizens in an effort to spot suspicious ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item13

"When the Web Starts Thinking for Itself"
The semantic Web of Tim Berners-Lee is viewed as a way to
fundamentally improve searching and data exchange on the Web.
Using technologies such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML),
Resource Description Framework (RDF), ontologies, and intelligent ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item14

"Feds Spark High-End Computing Resurgence"
Speakers at ACM's recent Supercomputer 2002 conference said that
federal agencies are focusing and investing in projects that
could lead to renewed demand for supercomputers. Moreover, National
Science Foundation (NSF) Director Rita Colwell emphasized that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item15

"Took a Licking, Kept on Ticking"
On Oct. 21, the Internet's 13 root servers received a flood of
useless information that was intended to crash the servers by
boosting traffic levels to about 1000% above normal
traffic.  The four U.S.-based root servers--some of which are ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item16

"England Tests E-Voting"
Nine jurisdictions in the United Kingdom tested remote electronic
voting systems in May, and the results were generally
satisfactory, according to Thomas Barry of the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister.  The technologies used included ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item17


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