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ACM TechNews - Friday, August 22, 2003
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 536
Date: August 22, 2003
Top Stories for Friday, August 22, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Marketers Say They Intend To Join Effort To Fight Spam"
"Record Computer Infections Slow U.S., Private Work"
"Technology Key to Anticipating Outages"
"Strong Attackers, Weak Software"
"The Global State of Supercomputers"
"The Quiet War Over Open-Source"
"Three Companies Reach Second Phase of Pentagon's Supercomputer
Competition"
"IT Security in Energy Sector to Come Under Scrutiny"
"Patent Awarded for Method of Making Nanobatteries"
"CIOs, Experts Cite Urgent Need for U.S. Infrastructure Upgrade"
"Privacy Advocates Call for RFID Regulation"
"Internet, Communications Networks Survive Massive Blackout"
"Spam Technology Seeks Acceptance"
"Total Information Overload"
"Quantum Cryptography's Reach Extended"
"Totally Random"
"Information in the Holographic Universe"
"Helping the Group to Think Straight"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Marketers Say They Intend To Join Effort To Fight Spam"
The Direct Marketers Association (DMA) is appealing to members
for extra funds for Operation Slam Spam, which would provide
federal, state, and local law enforcement with reinforcements in
their fight against spammers. In the letter to members, the DMA ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item1
"Record Computer Infections Slow U.S., Private Work"
Computer viruses that have proliferated at record rates over the
past 10 days appear to be tapering off slightly, according to
security firms such as MessageLabs. However, this news hardly
breeds optimism for federal agencies--the Small Business ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item2
"Technology Key to Anticipating Outages"
It is hoped that the antiquated national grid will be upgraded to
anticipate power failures such as those that caused the recent
cascading blackout with the deployment of sophisticated
monitoring technology, although such a vision is 10 years away ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item3
"Strong Attackers, Weak Software"
Computer security experts posit that the recent upswing in
fast-spreading virus epidemics is the apex of a long-gestating
trend as the skills and daring of virus programmers increased,
while the quality of software security decreased. A rise in ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item4
"The Global State of Supercomputers"
Supercomputing projects are proceeding apace, partly thanks to
NEC's Earth Simulator, which currently owns the title of the
world's fastest supercomputer. Designed to model climate, the
Earth Simulator takes up three floors and is comprised of 5,120 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item5
"The Quiet War Over Open-Source"
The general public is oblivious to a fierce battle being waged
amongst companies, technologists, academics, and government
officials over the place of open-source software in the world of
intellectual property. This acrimonious debate flared recently ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item6
"Three Companies Reach Second Phase of Pentagon's Supercomputer
Competition"
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded
approximately $150 million to Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Cray to
separately develop a high-productivity computer system that is
faster, more versatile, and more powerful than any other machine. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item7
"IT Security in Energy Sector to Come Under Scrutiny"
The recent cascading power failure that blacked out much of the
northeastern United States and areas of Canada has added
credibility to security experts' persistent warnings about the
power grid's susceptibility to cyberattacks. Congress is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item8
"Patent Awarded for Method of Making Nanobatteries"
University of Tulsa chemistry professor Dale Teeters and former
students Lane Fisher and Nina Korzhova have been awarded a patent
for a process to fabricate, charge, and test nanoscale batteries.
Thus far the research team has manufactured nanobatteries small ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item9
"CIOs, Experts Cite Urgent Need for U.S. Infrastructure Upgrade"
Executives of energy companies and industry analysts are
currently offering their opinions about what steps should be
taken to prevent a repeat of the blackout that left millions of
customers in Canada and the United States without power. First ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item10
"Privacy Advocates Call for RFID Regulation"
Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Calif.) state legislative subcommittee chair
on new technologies, recently held a hearing on radio frequency
identification (RFID) technology and its privacy implications in
the commercial sector. Allusions to the futuristic movie ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item11
"Internet, Communications Networks Survive Massive Blackout"
The massive cascading power failure that blacked out most of the
northeastern United States and parts of the Midwest did not
seriously affect the Internet and communications networks in
those regions. The majority of IT systems were undamaged for the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item12
"Spam Technology Seeks Acceptance"
Sieve, a proposed IETF standard filtering technology designed to
organize email and mitigate message overload, is being tapped by
vendors such as Brightmail and ActiveState as a tool that enables
customers to write personalized spam filters. Sieve author Tim ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item13
"Total Information Overload"
Privacy advocates allege that the Defense Department's Terrorism
Information Awareness (TIA) project would merge public and
private databases into a vast "metabase" that would be mined to
gather data on innocent American citizens, but Robert L. Popp of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item14
"Quantum Cryptography's Reach Extended"
Quantum cryptographic researchers are developing techniques to
extend the range of entangled photonic devices, which leverage
the strange physics unique to the quantum world to protect
encoded messages. By repeating the entangled signal, researchers ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item15
"Totally Random"
Encryption by randomization is the linchpin of computer security,
but producing the random number sequences that uphold data
encryption is an arduous process that requires a random number
generator (RNG). Existing computers are characterized as ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item16
"Information in the Holographic Universe"
The holographic principle proposed in 1993 by Gerard 't Hooft of
the University of Utrecht theorizes that the universe is akin to
a hologram: The universe, which appears to be three-dimensional,
could actually be composed of alternative quantum fields and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item17
"Helping the Group to Think Straight"
Group decision support systems (GDSS)--software tools designed to
enhance collaboration and boost productivity in face-to-face
meetings--are growing more popular and rewriting the rules of
decision-making on the executive level. GDSS encourages equal ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0822f.html#item18
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