ACM TechNews - Wednesday, April 16, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 483
Date: April 16, 2003

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

"Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Offline"
"Will Patents Kill IT Innovation?"
"Cutting the Cord"
"Cyberattacks With Offline Damage"
"Quest for Power, Speed Drive the Latest Technologies"
"Research Shows Hazards in Tiny Particles"
"Tiny Bubbles Are Key to Liquid-Cooled System for Future
 Computers"
"Apple Patches Flaws in Mac OS X"
"Are Privacy Expectations Changing?"
"Homeland Security Needs More Tech Funds"
"Honeypots Get Stickier for Hackers"
"Military Fashioning High-Tech Combat Suits"
"Open-Source Team Fights Buffer Overflows"
"'Please Step to the Side, Sir'"
"Indian Software Industry Worried by Arrests, Protectionism"
"Holographic Data Storage: The Light Fantastic"
"ISOnews Co-Founder Does Time for DMCA Violation"
"Open Source Versus Open Standards"
"The Next Material World"

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

"Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Offline"
Although minorities, the elderly, the handicapped, and persons in
low income brackets account for most of the people who are not
online, a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life
Project estimates that 17 percent of Americans are Internet ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item1

"Will Patents Kill IT Innovation?"
One of the most vocal critics of the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office is open-source consultant Bruce Perens, who says that
allowances to patent "anything under the sun that is made by
man," as decreed by the Supreme Court in 1980, could become a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item2

"Cutting the Cord"
An increasing number of American homes have multiple PCs
connected by wireless networks as users seek to share broadband
Internet connections and files between machines.  International
Data (IDC) says the number of such homes has doubled in the last ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item3

"Cyberattacks With Offline Damage"
Aviel D. Rubin of Johns Hopkins University's Information Security
Institute recently presented a paper suggesting that a
cyberspace-based attack can have real-world ramifications, and is
relatively simple to carry out.  All that is needed are tools ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item4

"Quest for Power, Speed Drive the Latest Technologies"
Wireless technologies will soon allow people to be almost
completely free of copper strands.  Bandwidth barriers have
prevented technologists from using wireless technology to
transfer information such as live video, but those obstacles are ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item5

"Research Shows Hazards in Tiny Particles"
A new study by Dr. Vyvyan Howard of the University of Liverpool
concludes that nanoscale materials are likely to constitute a
health risk--especially to laborers manufacturing such
materials--because their small size makes them easy to inhale, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item6

"Tiny Bubbles Are Key to Liquid-Cooled System for Future
 Computers"
The heat output of microprocessor chips is expected to increase
by a factor of four within three years, necessitating the
development of new cooling systems that are far more efficient
than fan and heat-sink technology currently in use, according to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item7

"Apple Patches Flaws in Mac OS X"
Apple Computer has issued an updated version of its Mac OS X
operating system in order to address seven major security flaws
that @Stake alerted the company to.  Accompanying Apple's advice
that users upgrade to Mac OS X 10.2.5 was a notification that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item8

"Are Privacy Expectations Changing?"
Scarlet Pruitt writes that the prevailing mood at ACM's annual
Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP) conference appeared to be
one of calm resignation rather than enthusiastic opposition to
proposed and enacted legislation and initiatives that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item9

"Homeland Security Needs More Tech Funds"
Charles McQueary of the Department of Homeland Security presented
a request for a 43 percent annual budget increase to cover
various technology initiatives to Congress on April 10.  The
projects that the department aims to fund through the expanded ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item10

"Honeypots Get Stickier for Hackers"
Speaking at the CanSecWest security show, Honeynet Project
founder Lance Spitzner announced changes to his group's
open-source honeypot technology that will hopefully make it more
palatable to security companies and other businesses.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item11

"Military Fashioning High-Tech Combat Suits"
The Army's Soldier Systems Center is the focus of research to
build more sophisticated yet comfortable uniforms, body armor,
and other protective systems for troops to wear on the
battlefield, and the center's Maurice N. Larrivee attributes much ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item12

"Open-Source Team Fights Buffer Overflows"
The OpenBSD project will release new security features next month
that virtually eliminate the threat of "buffer overflow" attacks,
which have been the bane of computer security professionals for
decades.  Speaking at the recent CanSecWest conference, OpenBSD ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item13

"'Please Step to the Side, Sir'"
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA) released documents last month
confirming that there is indeed a federal "no-fly" list of people ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item14

"Indian Software Industry Worried by Arrests, Protectionism"
Recent international arrests and U.S. legislation are cause for
concern throughout the Indian software industry, which is
interpreting such incidents as a sign of fear among other nations
that Indian engineers are encroaching on their job markets.  In ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item15

"Holographic Data Storage: The Light Fantastic"
The promised advantages of holographic data storage include
greater storage capacity, faster data retrieval, and new search
methodologies; but it is only now that practical applications
have begun to appear on the market, partly because of the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item16

"ISOnews Co-Founder Does Time for DMCA Violation"
ISOnews.com co-founder David Rocci has been sentenced to five
months in prison for selling microchips that enabled Xbox
computers to play bootlegs, back-up copies, and other
unauthorized games.  Rocci was sentenced as part of a plea deal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item17

"Open Source Versus Open Standards"
Open standards, open source, developer communities, and licensing
models have all used the term "open," but users need to know
exactly what the moniker means in each instance, according to Sun
Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz.  Of the four groupings, open ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item18

"The Next Material World"
Materials and society's mastery over them determines the path a
civilization follows, and most experts agree that nanotechnology
is shepherding civilization toward a design age marked by radical
shifts in materials and manufacturing processes.  "As we continue ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0416w.html#item19


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