Clips February 13, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips February 13, 2003

ARTICLES

U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis  
Legislators drop amendment banning outsourcing targets 
Tech Insider: Homeland security buying game 
Europe Proposes Rules on Phone Competition
Software Success Has India Worried
More Fallout Over Greek Game Ban  
Linguists mixed on spillover effects of text messaging


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Wired News
U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis  
02:00 AM Feb. 13, 2003 PT

A campaign to reach out and touch the Iraqi people through e-mail apparently hasn't been as successful as the United States had hoped, because the Iraqi government censors all e-mail coming into the country. 

Over the past month, the U.S. military has periodically sent e-mail to Iraqi military and government officials urging them to protect their families by helping U.N. inspectors and turning away from Saddam Hussein.

U.S. government officials won't comment on the campaign, but according to sources in Iraq and Iraqis living in the United States, each time the e-mails are sent, Internet access all over Iraq soon suffers a "service outage." Service resumes after the U.S. military missives have been purged from inboxes. 

The e-mails, written in Arabic with the subject line "Important Information," are a new twist on the standard psychological war games conducted by U.S. special operations teams. 

Such messages warning citizens of targeted countries about impending military actions are typically disseminated by way of leaflets or recordings broadcast from planes flying over the target country. 

"This is the first acknowledged use of e-mail as part of an offensive information operation," said William Knowles, senior analyst with C4I.org, a security and intelligence site. "I suspect it's been used in the past in countries whose infrastructure included the Internet. 

"While it's a neat tool, there's only so many times it can be used before the Iraqi leadership considers it as much of a nuisance as the Nigerian 419 scam mail," Knowles added. 

The most recent e-mails, sent in early February, urge Iraqis to disobey any orders they may receive to deploy chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and encourage them to identify instead the locations of such weapons to inspectors or to destroy the weapons. 

Officially, e-mail and Net connectivity in Iraq is only available through the government-owned, heavily censored uruklink.net service. 

Iraqi scholars, scientists and government officials pay $50 a year for e-mail subscriptions with uruklink, which in theory allows them private access to the Net and e-mail communications through their home or work computers. 

The rest of the population gets online at one of about three dozen Internet centers across the country. 

But according to sources who have lived in or who have family living in Iraq, obtaining Internet access in Iraq isn't difficult. All you need is a phone line, a government ID card and cash. 

"It's the cash that gets in the way of people getting e-mail service. And the fact that Iraq is not a very computer literate land," wrote Salam, a blogger who claims to live in Baghdad. 

Web-based e-mail accounts from U.S. providers are officially prohibited by U.N. sanctions, but Iraqis seem to have no problem signing up for Yahoo and Hotmail accounts. 

However one connects, e-mail is neither private nor reliable in Iraq. Users expect the service to go down frequently, and assume that Iraqi officials are reading at least some of their e-mail. 

According to Salam and other sources, within 15 minutes of the e-mails from the U.S. military arriving in inboxes, uruklink "went down while the contents of mailboxes were deleted." 

"Everyone wants to see what was that e-mail like," Salam wrote in a recent blog entry. "Me thinks the entire Internet service will be axed soon."

Iraqis living in the United States also fear that Internet service might be shut off in Iraq soon. They said it has been particularly difficult to reach their families over the last week by e-mail. 

Sharar Pachachi, an Iraqi living in New York, attempts to keep in touch with his sisters in Iraq by e-mail, but said that out of a dozen e-mails, only two or three typically get through.

"Lately it is even worse," he said. "I cannot say much to my sisters by e-mail, as I know it will be read by other eyes, but at least I can know they are alive and as well as God wills. But this week, I get no replies to any e-mails." 

Iraq now blocks virtually all e-mail originating from U.S. Internet addresses. Some Iraqi immigrants sign up with non-U.S. ISPs to get around the policy. 

Iraq also blocks access to vast portions of the Web using content-filtering software from 8e6 Technologies, an American company. The company has repeatedly denied selling the software to Iraq, but reporters and Iraqis said the Access Denied message that pops up on screens when they attempt to connect with forbidden websites contains a reference to 8e6 Technologies. 

Iraq began offering its citizens access to the Internet three years ago. Before that, Iraqi newspapers described the Internet as "the end of civilizations, cultures, interests and ethics," and officials claimed the United States uses the Internet "to dominate the world by entering into every household," according to an Associated Press translation of an editorial in the Iraqi government newspaper Al-Jumhuriya. 

Nevertheless, the Iraqi government wired the country's larger cities with high-speed fiber optic cable several years ago. 

At Iraqi Internet centers, sending and receiving e-mail costs about 15 cents per message; an hour of Web browsing costs $1. The average Iraqi's salary is about $120 a month. 

Despite sanctions prohibiting their import, personal computers are widely available in Iraq. A decent computer costs about $500. 
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Government Executive
February 12, 2003 
Legislators drop amendment banning outsourcing targets 
By Jason Peckenpaugh
jpeckenpaugh@xxxxxxxxxxx 

In a victory for the Office of Management and Budget, lawmakers have dropped language from the fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriations bill that would have curtailed OMB?s drive to let private contractors bid on federal jobs. 


House and Senate conferees scrapped a House-passed provision that would have prohibited OMB from setting numerical targets for competitive sourcing, potentially halting the entire initiative. Instead, they approved a Senate-passed measure, sponsored by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., that prohibits ?arbitrary? targets but is not a threat to OMB?s program.


Conferees also signed off on language requiring OMB to explain how it developed the competitive sourcing targets to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, according to Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who sponsored the House-passed measure. Specifically, OMB will have 30 days to report on the analysis used to set the targets after the bill becomes law, he said. 


?It?s not what we wanted, but it puts the administration in the position of having to do a true in-depth analysis, and if it is not done well, they will need legislative language to continue [with competitive sourcing],? said Moran. In Moran?s view, the new language requires OMB to halt the competitive sourcing initiative while officials prepare this analysis, he added.


Thomas and OMB were satisfied with the agreement.


?Sen. Thomas is very pleased with the conferees? decision,? said Thomas spokeswoman Carrie Sloan. In a statement, Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Angela Styles, OMB?s point person on competitive sourcing, congratulated Thomas for his leadership.


As of late Wednesday, conferees were still working to reach a final deal on the omnibus spending bill itself, but the competitive sourcing issue had been settled in favor of Thomas and OMB. 


The provisions focused on numerical targets, the key to implementing OMB?s competitive sourcing initiative at federal agencies. OMB has told agencies to compete or directly outsource 15 percent of their commercial jobs127,500 jobs in allby October, although it has said that some agencies may fall short of this target.


The House-passed provision would have blocked any numerical targets for competitive sourcing. Thomas? provision, by contrast, blocks targets that are not based on ?considered research and past analysis.? Additionally, targets must be ?consistent with the stated mission? of agencies under Thomas? provision. 


Federal union leaders opposed Thomas? language. ?[Administration officials] acknowledge in the conference report that quotas are badexcept when they set them,? said Bobby Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. 


The deal comes as lawmakers are launching new efforts to halt competitive sourcing at individual agencies. On Tuesday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., introduced a bill that would classify air traffic control employees as ?inherently governmental,? putting them off-limits for potential outsourcing. Air traffic controllers, air traffic technicians, and flight service specialists would be protected from competition under the bill. It would also prevent the Federal Aviation Administration from holding a competitive sourcing study on 2,700 flight service specialist jobs, which would be the biggest job competition in government.


Lawmakers are also trying to stop competitive sourcing at the Army Corps of Engineers. The Senate version of the omnibus includes language that would prevent the Corps from privatizing, divesting, or transferring any civil works missions to other agencies. An OMB official said the measure is ?directly counter? to the competitive sourcing initiative, although it is unclear whether it would prevent the Corps from participating in the Army?s massive competitive sourcing program, known as the ?Third Wave.?


?With the third wave we?re not talking about missions, functions and responsibilities, we?re talking about the manpower,? Army spokeswoman Nicole Dowell said Tuesday. ?If [the provision] does become law we?ll obviously take a look at it and if we need to make adjustments in the execution of the Third Wave we will.?


Army planners are reviewing 32,269 Corps jobs for possible inclusion in the initiative, which could affect 154,910 civilian employees throughout the Army.
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Government Executive
February 12, 2003 
Tech Insider: Homeland security buying game 
By Shane Harris
sharris@xxxxxxxxxxx 

Whenever you travel to the front lines of the war on terrorismseaports where Customs inspectors scan shipping containers for weapons of mass destruction, airports where Immigration and Naturalization officers identify millions of visitors each year, cities where federal and local health officials are bracing for bioterror attacksyou find that technology is the engine and the arm of the Homeland Security Department. The military buys weapons to fight its enemies. The new department will buy scanners, detectors and intelligence software to do the same. 

One of the most difficult questions facing senior Homeland Security officials, who are just settling into their Washington headquarters, is how to buy that vast technological arsenal. It will require skills not usually taught to civilian contracting officials. 

At the same time, the department also needs to buy the mundane items of everyday office lifepaper, pencils and the like. And behind the scenes at Homeland Security, sources say, there?s a great deal of confusion over how to organize purchasing, so much that it?s kept some good candidates from taking management jobs in the operation. 

The issues officials are grappling with and the particulars of the law establishing the department are good indicators of where things are headed. They also show that technology will have significant influence on Homeland Security?s purchasing habits. 

Government purchasing falls into two main categoriesacquisition and procurement. The two terms often are used interchangeably, but shouldn?t be. Procurement refers to the contracting portion of purchasing. An agency issues a request for proposals, evaluates them and awards the contract. 

Acquisition, though, is a cradle-to-grave process. Acquisition officers have to figure out what an agency needs and the different ways to buy it, and then they must craft a strategy for making the buy. The military often uses this approach to purchase weapons systems. 

The Homeland Security Act lays out a major role for acquisition, and places many of those responsibilities in the hands of the undersecretary for science and technology, one of five undersecretaries in the new department. He has wide-ranging authority to establish funding priorities and conduct research, development, testing and procurement of technology. 

The undersecretary will set up a program to share security technologies with state and local governments; award contracts to the Energy Department?s national laboratories, which research and develop much of the government?s technology already; and manage the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, a tech shop that, presumably, will be modeled after the Defense Department?s R&D unit, which helped create the Internet and stealth aircraft. 

Additionally, the undersecretary will establish a centralized federal clearinghouse for technology ideas and proposals. It will seek proposals for what the department wants, then screen them. It will also coordinate its efforts with the Technology Support Working Group, a Defense clearinghouse for counterterrorism technologies.

This is acquisition work. It requires long-term planning, it?s focused on technologies that aren?t commercially available, and it relies on a broad understanding of program requirements and how a particular item is going to serve them. 

As for procurementthat comparatively banal brand of buyingthe law gives the undersecretary for management the final say. But the law lacks specifics about that official?s powers. It grants more precise responsibilities to the Homeland Security secretary than it does to the undersecretary, mainly to streamline purchasing in times of crises. This lack of legislative guidance doesn?t mean procurement won?t be a major force, but the real meat of the department?s buying strategies is spelled out in the section on technology acquisition. Sources close to the department report officials are considering whether to split the two practices, a prospect that has alarmed some observers. 

Many are asking whether separating procurement and acquisition would produce a better-managed department. Steven Kelman, the head of federal procurement during the Clinton administration, thinks that adding such a hefty acquisition component, or appointing someone to be a chief acquisition officer, as has been discussed for months, is unnecessary. He points out that the department will buy a wide range of goods and services, not just cutting edge technologies. It makes more sense, Kelman argues, to let agencies run their own acquisition strategies for their specific program needs, rather than to establish overly broad policies. 

Take the Coast Guard. Its needs are unique, and the agency already has a multibillion-dollar acquisition programknown as Deepwaterto replace its aging fleet and electronics systems. Does it really need a different policy? Adding a new acquisition layer to Homeland Security just creates a ?fifth wheel,? Kelman argues. 

On the other side of the debate are those who believe acquisition is essential to the department?s mission, because it helps government get the best buy. Such agencies as the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration have awarded creative, flexible contracts that have broken the mold of traditional government procurement. TSA?s purchasing is based on an acquisition model that puts responsibility for the contract?s success more on the vendor than on the agency. White House officials have heralded it as a model for Homeland Security. 

Yet acquisition advocates say the department would squander the benefits of the practice by confining it to the science and technology arena. While there?s been no decision, there have been suggestions that the administration might place a chief acquisition officer in the division, and that he would report to the undersecretary. Not giving the acquisition official broad authority over all the divisions would dilute his influence, some say. 

The advocates of a more straightforward procurement approach are supported by history. Many civilian agencies haven?t done well at acquisition, particularly in the IT area. Many of the agencies merged into the Homeland Security Department have run aground while attempting to use long-term acquisition strategies to build everything from networks to databases. Acquisition requires a different set of skills that have been institutionalized in the military, they say. 

Many observers have argued that Homeland Security ought to take on a military management style, at least in its first few years. It seems lawmakers and departmental planners agree, at least in principle. 

The next question, of course, is who will lead the charge? In January, President Bush picked Charles McQueary as his choice for undersecretary of science and technology. McQueary isn?t well known beyond Washington, and the White House won?t allow interviews with him until after his confirmation. But his background is more confirmation that military-style purchasing will hold much sway. McQueary is the past president of General Dynamics, one of the largest Defense contractors, and a former board member of the National Defense Industrial Association, a Washington-area trade group of more than 950 companies. 

Arguably more pressing matters, such as integrating databases of terrorist suspects and securing a Homeland Security budget, will take precedence over the debate on how to structure purchasing. But officials will have to settle the matter soon. The department?s ability to pursue the war on terror will depend largely on its ability to buy the technology with which it fights. Many weeks may pass until it?s all sorted out. Meanwhile, the kind of buyer the department will be remains to be seen.
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New York Times
February 13, 2003
Europe Proposes Rules on Phone Competition
By PAUL MELLER

BRUSSELS, Feb. 12  The European Commission proposed detailed new rules today meant to ensure that regulators in the 15 member nations keep careful watch over the business practices of the giant former state telephone monopolies that still dominate on the Continent.

The rules would require national telecommunications regulators, which are often accused of being too cozy with the former monopolies, to scrutinize 18 specific segments of the business to make sure rivals have a fair chance to compete. High-speed Internet access and mobile phone services, both extremely competitive, are included in the segments. The dominant telephone companies, for example, could be asked under the new rules to open their lines to rivals offering cheaper high-speed Internet services.

"Sector-specific intervention is indispensable, in particular for the development of broadband access," said Mario Monti, the union's commissioner for competition, at a news conference announcing the proposal. He said the union's normal competition rules would also apply to the market segments singled out for special scrutiny.

Erkki Liikanen, the commissioner for industry, said the new rules would apply regardless of the technology used to deliver each service. For example, the same rules governing broadband Internet service over telephone lines will also apply to comparable services using alternatives like cable and satellite connections when they are available.

The commissioners said that once it was clear that healthy competition existed in each of the 18 market segments, the sector-specific rules would be lifted.

The rules would oblige national regulatory authorities in each country to make sure that mobile phone operators do not collude to push up the costs of placing and terminating calls, they said. The commission is already investigating roaming charges, applied when a customer places a cellphone call while traveling outside the mobile phone company's home territory.

Unusually, Mr. Monti said today that the rules would hold national regulators accountable if they failed to prevent competition-squelching pricing practices  either artificially high rates that soak consumers or artificially low rates that deter competitors from entering the market.

"The new legal framework will stimulate new investment in communications networks and services, by both new entrants and existing operators," Mr. Liikanen said.

The rules would not cover one communications service  direct text messaging from one mobile phone to another.

ETNO, the trade association for the former telephone monopolies, reacted to the proposed rules with grudging acceptance. "We didn't believe broadband should have been included, because of the high risk and the large investment that new market entails," said Brooks Tigner, a spokesman. "Since broadband is included, we prefer that it is dealt with in a technology-neutral way." For example, he said, in countries like Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, where cable TV systems are well developed and offer broadband Internet connections and other communications services, the cable operators will also be covered by the new rules.
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News.com
Microsoft fights Sun's Java injunction 


By Declan McCullagh 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 12, 2003, 6:55 PM PT


WASHINGTON--Microsoft told an appeals court on Wednesday that a requirement forcing it to ship Sun Microsystems' version of Java is "unprecedented" and must be overturned. 
In an 83-page legal brief, the Redmond, Wash.-based company asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to toss out a Jan. 21 order from a Baltimore federal judge in an antitrust suit that Sun filed last year. On Feb. 3, the appeals court placed the injunction on hold while it reviews the case. 

"The district court improperly discounted the serious harm to Microsoft resulting from the must-carry injunction," Microsoft said in its brief. "Microsoft should not be forced to distribute with Windows a product created by one of its fiercest competitors." 


On Jan. 21, U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz ordered Microsoft to do two things: Distribute Sun's version of Java with Windows and stop distributing its own implementation. Motz agreed with Sun that Microsoft's conduct during the mid- to late 1990s violated antitrust laws by trying to squelch Java and that Microsoft's new .Net framework will complete the deed. 

"It is not necessary to use Windows to distribute software widely on PCs," Microsoft wrote. "Software companies have succeeded in distributing hundreds of millions of copies of their software on PCs without any assistance from Microsoft. Apple Computer Inc., for example, distributed more than 125 million copies of its QuickTime media player (which competes with the Windows Media Player component of Windows) in a single year by Internet download alone." 

To win a preliminary injunction in federal court, a plaintiff generally needs to prove that there is an imminent threat of irreparable harm and also that it is likely to win the case in the end. 

Microsoft argued the injunction should be denied because there is little chance .Net will best Java without it. "There was no evidence...that software developers believe that .Net 'will become dominant' or that interest in Java is decreasing," it said. "In 2002, three million software developers used Java. Sun expects this number to increase by 40 percent this year, to 4.2 million." 

While the appeal is ongoing, Microsoft said, it will begin to make Sun's version of Java available through its Windows Update mechanism and the Service Pack 1 upgrade.
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New York Times
February 13, 2003
Software Success Has India Worried
By SARITHA RAI

BOMBAY, Feb. 12  Is the United States going to start turning its back on outsourcing, the lifeblood of India's software and services industry?

The global economic downturn and possible war with Iraq are, of course, big concerns for industry executives, who are gathered here this week for an annual industry conference to meet with analysts, consultants and the chief information officers from American corporations, their most important customers. But the growing threat of a political reaction against outsourcing is the worry dominating the discussion.

So far, the only concrete signs of a reaction are in the public sector. After the eFunds Corporation of Scottsdale, Ariz., a contractor hired by the State of New Jersey to manage a welfare and food-stamp program, moved its customer-service operations to Bombay from Wisconsin, a New Jersey legislator, Shirley K. Turner, introduced a bill that would require that workers hired under state contracts be American citizens or legal aliens or they occupy some specialty niche that American workers cannot be found to fill. " `I say it's time to bring 'em back from Bombay,' Senator Turner said of the client service jobs currently based in India," a news release stated.

Connecticut, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Missouri have also begun considering such laws.

Though public-sector work directly accounts for only a tiny part of India's software and services exports to the United States, executives here are concerned about a chilling effect, with American customers reluctant to send work overseas lest it complicate dealings with government bodies.

The $10 billion software and services industry is hugely important to India. It has so far grown robustly despite the broader slowdown in technology spending, as more Western companies, especially American ones, cut expensive jobs at home and contract out software development and support, call-center operations and other functions to low-cost suppliers in India and elsewhere. By 2008 the Indian government expects the industry to account for about 8 percent of all economic output, up from 2.87 percent now.

More than half the world's top 500 companies, including General Electric and American Express, outsource work to India.

To supply the demand, Indian companies like the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies and Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services, or T.C.S., of Bombay, part of the Tata conglomerate, have been hiring by the hundreds, bucking the generally sluggish global trend. Revenue from software and services exports from India were $6.9 billion in the last three quarters of 2002, up 28 percent from the period in 2001, according to data released Tuesday by the National Association of Software and Services Companies. The association, known as Nasscom, organized this week's conference.

The legislation being considered in several states has software and services executives worried that American opposition to outsourcing in India is growing. They worry that regardless of whether such laws are enacted, the sentiment will spread. It may, they fear, slow companies' decisions to outsource  and perhaps even encourage them to send work to other countries.

India's exporters are divided over whether such legislation should be challenged at the World Trade Organization. "Legislation banning contracts from going abroad is a nontariff barrier, and we are exploring the possibility of countering this at the W.T.O.," Nasscom's president, Kiran Karnik, said.

But some leading companies with large American corporations among their customers said that the job loss issue was emotional and was best underplayed.

Even within Nasscom, a division was evident this morning at a session on global technology trends. When one panelist, E. Jeffrey Berg, executive director of Citigroup Program Management, brought up the proposed New Jersey legislation, Som Mittal, vice chairman of Nasscom and chief executive of Digital GlobalSoft, an Indian subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, cut in, saying that even a discussion would sensationalize the issue.

Nasscom has recently engaged the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to work with businesses and politicians in the United States to counter the opposition toward outsourcing to India and to increase the global brand equity of the Indian software industry.

While in the past there has been opposition in the United States to moving manufacturing jobs overseas, those moves primarily affected blue-collar workers. Now, the jobs of white-collar workers are on the line. "This is the vocal, articulate middle class who form an important constituency of every political party," Mr. Karnik said.

Nasscom said it was campaigning to show how Indian software and services exporters were helping the American economy to be more effective. In a letter to the governor of New Jersey, Nasscom said its preliminary data indicated that outsourcing to India gave American banks a 10 percent to 20 percent cost advantage over their European peers and resulted in an $8 billion savings for the banking industry in the last four years.

Nasscom is also talking to nearly 40 state senators in New Jersey in a campaign against the legislation, saying that state governments would have to burden their citizens with more taxes if they insisted that work be done in high-cost locations.

Despite the controversy, outsourcing deals are still being struck by Indian companies. Among them, the World Bank is scheduled to announce next week a $10 million to $20 million technology services deal outsourced to an Indian software company. "Backlash is a natural reaction even at the World Bank, but in this era of globalization, sustaining business and securing jobs is more likely to happen if projects are executed in the most efficient destinations," said Mohamed V. Muhsin, chief information officer of the World Bank.

Gartner Inc., the research firm based in Stamford, Conn., has prepared a note advising its Indian clients to promote the value of their services not just to customers but to the public. 

In the note, "How to handle backlash against offshore services," two Gartner analysts, Rolf Jester and Partha Iyengar, warn, "To ignore the problem, or to pretend it is not real, is to allow negative perceptions to fester, generating a climate of opinion in which selling becomes more difficult."
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Wired News
More Fallout Over Greek Game Ban  
02:00 AM Feb. 13, 2003 PT

ATHENS -- The government is standing by its controversial law banning electronic games in public, which Greek judges consider unconstitutional. But the European Union has warned Greece: Drop it or get hauled into court for hampering the free movement of goods. 

Designed to stop illegal gambling, the law casts its net too wide, the EU says, ensnaring innocent Internet café owners and computer game companies.

Greece ignored its first caution, an official letter sent in October. The EU will try to press its point again later this month. 

Like Pandora, the Greek government has opened an Xbox of trouble, which comes just as Greece assumes the EU presidency and prepares to host the World Congress on Information Technology and the Summer Olympics in 2004. 

The law -- dubbed 3037 -- passed quickly last July, fueled by scandal. A prominent politician was caught playing an illegal slot machine. 

"Parliament took this decision spontaneously, and under unbearable pressure to wipe out the 'cancer' of gambling," said Panos Livitsanos, a technology journalist. "As a result they voted one of the most excessive, unprepared and extreme laws ever enacted in Europe." 

Christos Folias, a Greek member of European Parliament, hopes his country will act without intervention from Brussels. 

"The government has done a half-baked job with this law," he said. "It's embarrassing to admit this, but it's the lesser of two evils." 

But politicians here show no sign of reconsidering -- an unending source of frustration for Greek gamers. 

"The government stubbornly refuses to see how wrong their acts are," said Bill Mitsis, co-webmaster of the site Gameland, where 19,000 people have petitioned to overturn the gaming ban. 

"(The government's) only 'success' so far was to harm the country's international image and make an important percentage of the population into outlaws." 

Greek entrepreneurial tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the easyInternetcafé chain and a handful of other "easy" businesses, agreed. "I hope the government will see the light and stop trying to enforce a ridiculous law," he said. "This is not the way to bridge the digital divide. EasyInternetcafé is very close to entering the Greek market and will fight this." 

Government spokesman Christos Protopapas defended the law: "The measure is a tough one, but it is the only effective one, as ordinary electronic games can easily be converted into illegal games by the owners of such facilities." 

The law's broad scope initially outlawed all gaming -- even at home. But an international outcry forced politicians to back down. They narrowed the ban to include only devices generating "any form of financial gain for players or third parties" at the end of September. 

Game importers and Internet cafés remain vulnerable. Police are cracking down on players of Counter-Strike, Age of Empires, and digital backgammon and chess. More than 50 people have been arrested and face up to three months in prison and 5,000-euro fines. 

A lower court in the northern city of Thessaloniki threw out the first case, declaring the law unconstitutional. Other district judges have followed suit. 

Such rulings are unusual, pitting the judicial system against the state. The results are chaotic, according to Nikos Kakayanis, spokesman for the Hellenic Association of Internet Café Owners. 

"In Larissa, the police arrested an owner and seized 10 PCs from his store," Kakayanis said. "Just five days after he was declared innocent by the court, the police arrested him again and seized another 20 PCs." 

A higher court -- which has no power to overturn the law -- will examine an appeal on Feb. 26. The case could take an additional 12 to 18 months to reach the Supreme Court of Areios Pagos. 

"By that time, there wouldn't be any Internet cafés left," Kakayanis said. Owners claim business has already been halved. 

Other companies are struggling, too, including JVH Hellas, which imported Photo Play consoles and knowledge games such as Trivial Pursuit. The company withdrew 7,000 machines from the market and estimates its loss at 2.9 million euros. 

"If the case goes to the European court, we will win," said Nikos Serdaris, the company's managing director. "The problem is that it will take time, and I don't think that we will survive."
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Mercury News

Linguists mixed on spillover effects of text messaging

MILWAUKEE (AP) - The text messages on Margarete Stettner's cell phone are filled with shortcuts -- ``G2G'' for ``got to go'' and ``LOL'' instead of ``laugh out loud.'' The 13-year-old sometimes even slips into text-messaging lingo in her homework.

``It does affect, sometimes, how I do my schoolwork,'' the girl from Hartland, Wis., said as she shopped in a mall, where cellular phones are as common as low-cut jeans. ``I do put, instead of a Y-O-U, I put a U.''

That alarms some linguists, who worry that the proliferation of text messaging -- where cell phone users type and send short messages to other phones or computers -- will enforce sloppy, undisciplined habits among American youths.

However, other experts believe it will fail to leave its mark on standard English, as have dozens of slang words before.

In June 2001, wireless phone users sent 30 million text messages in the United States, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, an industry trade organization. By June 2002, that number had increased to nearly 1 billion.

The method is most popular among teenagers, according to Upoc Inc., a New York-based firm that helps users of mobile devices share information on everything from the rapper Bow Wow to celebrity sightings. A study by Upoc in 2001 found 43 percent of cellular phone users ages 12 to 17 used text messaging, compared with 25 percent of those 30 to 34.

Those teenagers, hampered by limited space and the difficulty of writing words on numeric phone keypads, have helped create the text-messaging lingo.

Words become abbreviated (``WL'' for ``will'') and common phrases become acronyms (``by the way'' becomes ``BTW'').

There are even dictionaries to sort out exactly what ``AFAIK'' means. (``As far as I know.'')

``SOL'' can mean ``sooner or later'' or ``sadly out of luck,'' but if you're unclear on which was meant, simply message back a ``W'' (what?) or ``PXT'' (please explain that) for a clarification.

Jesse Sheidlower, principal editor of the U.S. office of the Oxford English Dictionary, said text messaging is going through the natural progression of language.

Much text-messaging lingo was first used in instant-messaging programs on personal computers, and some phrases, such as ``SWAK'' for ``sealed with a kiss,'' have been used for decades, Sheidlower said.

As text messengers discover and share new abbreviations and acronyms, the language becomes familiar to a growing population of cell phone users. And as more people use the lingo for text messaging, Sheidlower said, it is more likely to spill into speech or writing.

That worries American University linguistics professor Naomi Baron, who said text messaging is another example of an established trend in written communication.

``So much of American society has become sloppy or laissez faire about the mechanics of writing,'' Baron said.

Problems arise when people use the quick-casual language in other forms of written communication, such as e-mail, in which the sender may not receive the message for some time, or writings in which the reader may not even know the author, she said.

But other linguists said a simpler, more relaxed vernacular is acceptable for talking or text messaging.

``Language and languages change,'' said Carolyn Adger, director of the Language in Society Division of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington. ``Innovating with language isn't dangerous.''

And besides, Adger said, text messaging, like e-mail and instant messaging, is making it easier for people to communicate.

``I think that all of this stuff is really wonderful, because it's expanding the writing skills of people,'' she said.

Text messaging hardly appears to have hurt written language in Europe, where 10 billion text messages are sent each month, said Charles Golvin, senior analyst with Forrester Research.

In fact, as more adults began using text messaging in the United Kingdom and Germany, the lingo fell out of favor, said Alex Bergs, a visiting linguists professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Even teenagers use the language for only a while, he said.

As a cell phone store employee, Jeremy Rankin spends quite a bit of time using and working with wireless devices. The 18-year-old college student in Milwaukee admits he sometimes finds himself abbreviating when he types.

``I might do it by accident, but I don't think that's a problem as far as school papers go,'' he said. ``I proofread my stuff.''
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