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ACM TechNews - Wednesday, August 20, 2003
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 535
Date: August 20, 2003
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Top Stories for Wednesday, August 20, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Next Big Thing in Computing: It's Not About the Technology"
"Head of FTC Opposes Bills To Curb Spam"
"Skulls Gain Virtual Faces"
"Bugging the World"
"Geeks Grapple With Virus Invasion"
"Are You a Good or a Bad Worm?"
"Media Groups Appeal P2P Ruling"
"Nanotech Puts Tiny Chips in Reach, Researcher Says"
"Classical vs. Quantum Computers: And the Winner Is..."
"DNA Sparks a Computer Revolution"
"First Game-Playing DNA Computer Revealed"
"Patching Becomes a Major Resource Drain for Companies"
"Project Searches for Open-Source Niche"
"Attack Reveals GNU Project's Vulnerability"
"Profile of the Superworm: SoBig.E Exposed"
"Real-Time Java Takes Flight"
"Demystifying the Digital Divide"
"Patching Things Up"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Next Big Thing in Computing: It's Not About the Technology"
The next computing revolution will not center around any single
technology, but will be about how technology is implemented to
better suit business needs. Aberdeen Group CEO Tom Willmott says
that, since the dot-com bust, no so-called killer app or radical ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item1
"Head of FTC Opposes Bills To Curb Spam"
In a speech to attendees at a yearly technology-policy forum in
Colorado, FTC chief Timothy J. Muris sharply criticized a number
of anti-spam measures currently being debated in Congress,
describing them as "largely ineffective." He placed special ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item2
"Skulls Gain Virtual Faces"
Max Planck Institute for Computer Science researcher Kolja Kahler
says that the reconstruction of human faces for forensic
investigation and anthropological research could be significantly
accelerated with a new computerized technique. Manually ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item3
"Bugging the World"
Great Duck Island off the coast of Maine represents the next
stage of computing. Intel is sponsoring a project on Duck Island
involving sensor networks, in which 200 tiny computers are
scattered across the island in an effort to track everything ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item4
"Grappling With Virus Invasion"
Security experts such as Sophos' Chris Belthoff speculate that
the rapid spread of the Blaster worm has inspired other virus
authors to wreak havoc on the Internet by unleashing their own
malicious code, as evidenced by recent outbreaks. Analysts ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item5
"Are You a Good or a Bad Worm?"
Machines affected by the recently released MSBlaster worm are
being cured and patched by a variant, AntiMSBlaster, but although
many computer users welcome this development, experts warn that
there is no reason to think the new worm is benevolent. "Some ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item6
"Media Groups Appeal P2P Ruling"
Movie studios and record labels are appealing a federal court
ruling in April that supported the legality of certain
file-swapping software--the first ruling ever to favor such a
viewpoint. Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item7
"Nanotech Puts Tiny Chips in Reach, Researcher Says"
Andre DeHon of the California Institute of Technology used
Stanford University's Hot Chips conference to forecast that chips
with wires 30 times smaller than current chips could emerge in
three to five years thanks to progress in nanotechnology. Taken ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item8
"Classical vs. Quantum Computers: And the Winner Is..."
The long-running battle between classical and quantum computing
may have reached an impasse with a paper indicating that
classical computers boast far greater energy efficiency and lower
error rates than quantum computers. This is in direct contrast ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item9
"DNA Sparks a Computer Revolution"
NASA, the Pentagon, and other federal agencies are funding
research projects that seek to tap DNA as the fundamental
building block of a new generation of powerful computers.
University of Southern California computer scientist Leonard ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item10
"First Game-Playing DNA Computer Revealed"
MAYA, a DNA computer that plays unbeatable tic-tac-toe using
enzymes, was devised by Columbia University's Milan Stojanovic
and the University of New Mexico's Darko Stefanovic. The human
player makes a move by depositing one of nine DNA strands into a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item11
"Patching Becomes a Major Resource Drain for Companies"
Keeping computer systems secure against worms and viruses through
regular software patching is putting a strain on companies'
limited resources. Banner Health System security analyst Dave
Jahne warns, "The thing about patching is that it is so darn ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item12
"Project Searches for Open-Source Niche"
The Nutch project is developing open-source software for finding
documents on the Internet, but the Nutch methodology differs from
those of major search providers in that it will not be kept
secret, says lead architect Doug Cutting. He insists that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item13
"Attack Reveals GNU Project's Vulnerability"
A hack attack in March compromised the GNU Project's chief FTP
download server, but the flaw was not detected until late July,
according to a statement from the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
The FSF advises anyone who has downloaded from the affected ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item14
"Profile of the Superworm: SoBig.E Exposed"
Internet security experts say that the SoBig.E variant poses a
serious long-term threat to the Internet because it has opened up
so many computers to hackers. SoBig.E, which is primarily spread
via shared files on corporate networks and secondarily through ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item15
"Real-Time Java Takes Flight"
The Goldengate Project is a joint venture between NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, TimeSys, Sun Microsystems, and Carnegie
Mellon University to develop a Java-enabled Mars Rover prototype
by leveraging new and pending specifications designed to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item16
"Demystifying the Digital Divide"
A widely-shared view of a "digital divide"--a gaping
socioeconomic chasm between those who have access to computers
and the Internet and those who do not--fosters technological
determinism, which assumes technology's very presence will lead ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item17
"Patching Things Up"
The growing number of software patches released every year is
threatening to become a costly administrative nightmare for
companies, which are turning to automated patch management
products to ease the process--but these tools can only work in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0820w.html#item18
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