ACM TechNews - Monday, March 31, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 476
Date: March 31, 2003

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Top Stories for Monday, March 31, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Freedom, Technology and the Net"
"Ubiquitous Computing: Slow Going"
"What Hyperthreading Can (and Can't) Do for You"
"Out of the Shadows"
"Battling 'Surveillance Society'"
"An Engineer by Any Other Name"
"Software Bug May Cause Missile Errors"
"IEEE USA Presses Congress on Visa Curbs"
"University of Minnesota Researchers Develop Surveillance Software"
"Flash Forward"
"Email Traffic Patterns Can Reveal Ringleaders"
"HP Thinks in 3D for Web Browsing"
"Wave Propagation"
"Are We Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks?"
"ICANN Ready to Chart a New Course?"
"Computing at the Atomic Scale--and Below"
"Cybersecurity Downgraded?"
"Snags Remain as Grid-Lock Eases"
"Right Game, Wrong Team"

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

"Freedom, Technology and the Net"
Amid the dragging war against Iraq, the rollback of civil
liberties through legislation, and copyright holders' push to
expand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, one of the few
bright spots is this week's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item1

"Ubiquitous Computing: Slow Going"
Computer and network engineers continue to envision rooms and
buildings of ubiquitous computing environments as they did 15
years ago, but moving this theoretical design to commercial
reality has taken longer than expected. Intel senior researcher ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item2

"What Hyperthreading Can (and Can't) Do for You"
Although many may view hyperthreading (simultaneous
multithreading) as a marketing ploy for Intel, it does offer
performance benefits to users, and is expected to become a
standard feature of software applications, according to Aberdeen ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item3

"Out of the Shadows"
Open-source software is now being perceived as more useful and of
higher quality than in the past, and companies are making a
profit by offering services to those who use open-source
software, or by packaging the software with their own commercial ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item4

"Battling 'Surveillance Society'"
Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU has long championed the fight
against a "surveillance society" in which the government is
constantly privy to the movements, opinions, and thoughts of all
citizens, a trend that could endanger people's right to free ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item5

"An Engineer by Any Other Name"
Texas' narrow legal definition of what constitutes an engineer
could hamper the growth of the state's high-tech industry because
it shuts out a large portion of the workforce, according to
Steven Kester of the American Electronics Association.  Current ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item6

"Software Bug May Cause Missile Errors"
Glitchy software may be the reason why Persian Gulf-based Patriot
missiles targeted friendly aircraft twice in the past week, in
one case with fatal results.  A Patriot battery fired and
destroyed a British Royal Air Force Tornado GR-4 on Sunday, while ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item7

"IEEE USA Presses Congress on Visa Curbs"
Cheap foreign labor continues to have a huge impact on the
prospects of U.S. workers for gaining high-tech jobs, says
IEEE-USA President-Elect John Steadman.  The industry group has
called on Congress to investigate abuses in the H-1B and L-1 visa ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item8

"University of Minnesota Researchers Develop Surveillance Software"
A new layer of security could be added to military computer
systems thanks to the work of researchers at the University of
Minnesota.  The Minnesota Intrusion Detection System, which was
developed by University computer scientists in collaboration with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item9

"Flash Forward"
With flash memory chips expected to reach their physical limits
within two years, Intel, Motorola, and other manufacturers are
exploring alternative materials and designs, although their
projected market impact is a matter of debate.  Flash memory's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item10

"Email Traffic Patterns Can Reveal Ringleaders"
Hewlett-Packard researchers have devised a new method of
analyzing the flow of email traffic for patterns that could
reveal online communities and their leaders, and HP's Joshua
Tyler says law enforcement officials could employ the technique ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item11

"HP Thinks in 3D for Web Browsing"
Hewlett-Packard has introduced a new tool for creating
three-dimensional views of online stores, similar to Doom and
other video games.  Called the VEDA (virtual environment design
automation) project, the application is used as a visualization ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item12

"Wave Propagation"
Innovations around the Wi-Fi standard 802.11 are still picking up
pace, and World Wide Web Consortium founding member and IBM
veteran John Patrick says Wi-Fi will emerge as a leading Internet
access tool and leading mobile phone technology.  In fact, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item13

"Are We Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks?"
The current conflict with Iraq might spur more hacking and
cyber-terrorism, forecasts David Kirkpatrick.  U.K. consulting
firm mi2g says that so far in 2003, confirmed digital attacks
have caused $16 billion in losses, nearly double that of a year ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item14

"ICANN Ready to Chart a New Course?"
Incoming ICANN CEO Paul Twomey sees ICANN's primary
mission as reaching out to all Internet stakeholders in order
to involve them in the ICANN process, especially stakeholders
from less-developed countries.  ICANN will move forward with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item15

"Computing at the Atomic Scale--and Below"
In about 10 years it may not be possible for today's
semiconductor components to continue to follow Moore's Law, but
new computing techniques likely will allow engineers to keep
improving performance dramatically.  Spintronics researchers have ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item16

"Cybersecurity Downgraded?"
The information technology industry has gone from having a
cybersecurity czar in the White House to perhaps not having a
cybersecurity representative in the Bush administration.  After
cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke left his post Feb. 21, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item17

"Snags Remain as Grid-Lock Eases"
Grid computing could gain acceptance this year as new software
makes the technology easier to use and implement and helps
companies take advantage of excess computing power.  WorldCom,
for example, is investigating grid computing services as a way to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item18

"Right Game, Wrong Team"
The test-driven approach followed by extreme programming (XP)
teams can be applied to management, which often overlooks the
important process of articulating financial and organizational
objectives to the teams, resulting in software that misses these ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.html#item19


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