ACM TechNews - Wednesday, April 9, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 480
Date: April 9, 2003

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Top Stories for Wednesday, April 9, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Ex-Officials Urge U.S. to Boost Cybersecurity"
"Is There Life After Silicon Valley's Fast Lane?"
"Military Battling Junk E-Mail"
"Digging Through Data for Omens"
"Wireless Rivals Emerge"
"Companies Seeking Software Are Finding a Buyer's Market"
"Studios Take Piracy Battle to the States"
"Larry Ellison's Sober Vision"
"Survey: Blue Moods in IT Shops"
"Sans Takes Team Approach to Computer Security"
"Visas and the West's 'Hidden Agenda'"
"Reinventing the Media Lab"
"Afghan Women Hope Computer Will Bring New Dawn"
"Frontier of Military Technology Is the Size of a Molecule"
"SETI@home Flaw Could Let Invaders In"
"Dream Code"
"Some Rights Reserved"
"Quantum Dots For Sale"

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

"Ex-Officials Urge U.S. to Boost Cybersecurity"
Former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard A. Clarke told a
House Government Reform subcommittee yesterday that the Homeland
Security Department is ill-equipped to effectively implement the
White House's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, which he ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item1

"Is There Life After Silicon Valley's Fast Lane?"
The lean economic times provide Silicon Valley workers, many now
laid-off, a chance for reflection on their industry, especially
the frenetic pace at which it has been driven.  Observers note
that even in sectors not immediately dealing with semiconductors, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item2

"Military Battling Junk E-Mail"
U.S. military email inboxes are being hit with spam even though
military systems are installed with anti-spam filters.  The
Defense Department Information Systems Agency has established
general standards for having anti-spam filtering, and the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item3

"Digging Through Data for Omens"
Although the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has
begun using data mining technology to verify the identity of
travelers, privacy fears hinder the government from extensively
mining personal information in order to nab terrorists.   The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item4

"Wireless Rivals Emerge"
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will soon face challenges in wireless
connectivity and networking with the emergence of WirelessUSB and
ZigBee, respectively.  Millions of consumers experienced
Bluetooth for the first time last year, using the technology to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item5

"Companies Seeking Software Are Finding a Buyer's Market"
The grim economy is forcing companies to maximize their budgets
for computer software, a market that has retrenched for the first
time in 40 years.  Companies are carefully scrutinizing the way
they use software; they are using fewer programs, switching to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item6

"Studios Take Piracy Battle to the States"
Movie studios are trying to convince state legislators to widen
the scope of laws governing theft of cable and phone services to
include new digital devices and Internet-based products, thus
giving the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) "an ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item7

"Larry Ellison's Sober Vision"
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison believes the computer industry has
reached the limits of its growth, and predicts the failure of
1,000 tech companies thanks to consolidation and increasing
standardization of products.  He expects the biotechnology sector ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item8

"Survey: Blue Moods in IT Shops"
A recent Meta Group survey of North American IT managers
indicates sinking morale among IT workers despite salary raises.
Maria Schafer, author of Meta Group's annual IT Staffing and
Compensation Guide says 71% of respondents consider IT ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item9

"Sans Takes Team Approach to Computer Security"
Sans Institute research director Allan Paller believes
computer security problems can be solved more effectively through
teamwork, and has made it his job to build security projects
that rely on consensus.  He reports that demand for Sans courses ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item10

"Visas and the West's 'Hidden Agenda'"
The Indian software and IT services industry is facing a
toughened global environment as other nations raise non-tariff
barriers to limit competitiveness.  Even in liberal countries
such as the Netherlands, one Indian software company, I-Flex, has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item11

"Reinventing the Media Lab"
MIT has named School of Architecture and Planning Dean William
Mitchell, 57, as the new head of its Program in Media Arts and
Sciences, which is responsible for the school's Media Lab.  In
his new leadership position, Mitchell will be charged with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item12

"Afghan Women Hope Computer Will Bring New Dawn"
The recent certification of 17 domestically-trained Afghans as
computer networking specialists is a watershed for Afghanistan, a
country that is a decades-long laggard in information technology,
and whose recently-ousted Taliban government virtually eliminated ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item13

"Frontier of Military Technology Is the Size of a Molecule"
The U.S. Department of Defense has been a major supporter of
nanotechnology research for over 20 years, and this year will
spend $243 million on nanotech R&D; the total federal budget for
nanotech this year is $774 million.  The technology promises to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item14

"SETI@home Flaw Could Let Invaders In"
The SETI@home project released a new version of its distributed
client software on April 4 in order to close a buffer overflow
flaw that could allow hackers to commandeer the computer systems
of SETI@home volunteers.  SETI@home is a distributed computing ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item15

"Dream Code"
The European Physical Journal recently accepted a paper by
Stefano Bettelli of Paul Sabatier University detailing his and
his colleagues' efforts in creating a programming language for a
quantum computer.  A quantum computer's bits, or qubits, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item16

"Some Rights Reserved"
Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has given scholars,
scientists, artists, photographers, and writers an opportunity to
share their works more easily on the Internet via the Creative
Commons.  Last December, Lessig and several other cyber-activists ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item17

"Quantum Dots For Sale"
Several startups are readying products that use semiconductor
quantum dots, first for the biotechnology industry and later for
tunable lasers, telecommunications, and light-emitting diodes
(LEDs); this commercialization is fueling basic research in the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0409w.html#item18


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