Clips September 25-October 1, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

ARTICLES

Librarians to P2P critics: Shhh
Senate approves bill designed to curb junk e-mail 
Anti-Spam Web Pages Shut Down by Attacks
Judge challenges IBM in case filed by ill workers
Microsoft Critic Forced Out 
War declared on ID theft
With Site Finder, VeriSign Sparks Internet-wide Criticism 
U.S. Readies Program to Track Visas 
At Central Command, Death Gets an Online Demotion
Juvenile Arrested in Blaster Case 
Diploma mills insert degree of fraud into job market
Hacker Arrested in San Diego
India Bans Web Group, Blocks Yahoo Forums 
Hacker Arrested in San Diego
Women's Pay Tied To Fewer Work Hours 

*******************************
CNET News.com
Librarians to P2P critics: Shhh!
Last modified: September 25, 2003, 5:40 PM PDT
By Declan McCullagh 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

In a hotly contested lawsuit before a federal appeals court, two
peer-to-peer companies are about to gain a vast army of allies: America's
librarians. 

The five major U.S. library associations are planning to file a legal
brief Friday siding with Streamcast Networks and Grokster in the
California suit, brought by the major record labels and Hollywood
studios. The development could complicate the Recording Industry
Association of America's efforts to portray file-swapping services as
rife with spam and illegal pornography. 

According to an attorney who has seen the document, the brief argues that
Streamcast--distributor of the Morpheus software--and Grokster should not
be shut down. It asks the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the
April decision by a Los Angeles judge that dismissed much of the
entertainment industry's suit against the two peer-to-peer companies.

Among the groups signing the brief are the American Library Association
(ALA), the Association of Research Libraries, the American Association of
Law Libraries, the Medical Library Association and the Special Libraries
Association. The American Civil Liberties Union, in one of the group's
first forays into copyright law, has drafted the brief opposing the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA). 

A central argument of the brief is that the district court got it right
when applying a 1984 Supreme Court decision to the Internet. That
decision, Sony v. Universal City, said Sony could continue to manufacture
its Betamax VCR because a company "cannot be a contributory
(copyright) infringer if, as is true in this case, it has had no direct
involvement with any infringing activity." 

"The amicus brief will make the point that we are not supporting the
wrongful sharing of copyrighted materials," ALA Executive Director
Keith Michael Fiels wrote in an internal e-mail seen by CNET News.com. An
amicus brief is one filed by a third, uninvolved party that comments on a
particular matter of law. "Instead, we believe the Supreme Court
ruled correctly in the Sony/Betamax case. The court in that case created
fair and practical rules which, if overturned, would as a practical
matter give the entertainment industry a veto power over the development
of innovative products and services." 

The librarians' entry into the political fray over whether file-swapping
networks should be shut down or not may complicate the RIAA's public
relations strategy. The music industry group has been taking increasingly
aggressive legal action against alleged infringers and has told Congress
that "a significant percentage of the files available to these 13
million new users per month are pornography, including child
pornography." The RIAA could not immediately be reached for comment
Thursday. 

The ACLU said Thursday that the brief argues that peer-to-peer networks
are speech-promoting technologies that have many noninfringing uses. If
the MPAA and the RIAA succeed in shutting down peer-to-peer networks or
making them more centralized, the precedent could create undesirable
choke points that could be used to monitor Internet users, the ACLU said.

The RIAA and MPAA jointly filed the lawsuit in October 2001, launching
what has become the most widely watched Internet copyright case since
Napster. Their original complaint accuses Streamcast and Grokster of
earning "advertising revenue by attracting millions of users to
their systems by offering them a treasure trove of pirated music, movies
and other copyrighted media." 

The original compliant:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/20020913_mgm_summary_judgement.pdf
*******************************
Boston Globe
Senate approves bill designed to curb junk e-mail 
By Steve Leblanc, Associated Press, 9/25/2003 18:39

BOSTON (AP) Massachusetts Internet users may get a chance to fight back
against unwanted e-mail, better known as ''spam.'' 

The state Senate overwhelming approved a bill Thursday to require
businesses that send out commercial e-mail to put the letters ''ADV,''
for advertisement, in the e-mail's subject line. 

Anyone sending out sexually explicit or adult-oriented e-mail would be
required to put the letters ''ADV:ADLT'' in the subject line. 

Supporters say the move will give Internet users a chance to block e-mail
advertisements or only those of a sexually explicit nature. 

Skeptics say the bill will only help users block out legitimate
businesses and do little to prevent those intent on sending pornography
or perpetrating a fraud. 

The bill also makes an exception for e-mail from nonprofit groups or
political organizations and candidates. 

Sen. Jarrett Barrios, the bill's sponsor, said the measure is an
improvement over a new California law that bans all unsolicited
commercial e-mail sent or received in California and imposes fines of up
to $1 million per incident. 

''We choose not to go down that path but instead allow consumers to use
their technology so they can make up their own minds,'' said Barrios,
D-Cambridge. ''This legislation will allow consumers to fight back by
rejecting spam at their computers.'' 

The bill would also: prohibit the use of misleading information in
e-mails such as false sender addresses or misleading subject lines;
require all commercial e-mail messages to have a ''clear and conspicuous
notice'' about how recipients can delete their names from the list; and
make it illegal to use a third party's Internet address without their
consent. 

The bill would allow individuals to sue anyone who violates the law and
would impose a fine of $500 per message sent or $750 if the recipient is
65 or older. 

The legislation covers e-mails sent on computers in Massachusetts,
e-mails sent using service provider equipment located in Massachusetts
and e-mail messages where the sender knows or should know that the
recipient lives in Massachusetts. 

Attorney General Thomas Reilly, who also sponsored the bill, said the
measure won't completely solve the problem of spam but will curb the
amount of unwanted e-mail. 

''This legislation will provide Massachusetts consumers with the basic
tools to fight against deceptive and misleading commercial e-mails,''
Reilly said. 

Gov. Mitt Romney said he hasn't seen the legislation, but supports the
idea of giving Internet users more control over what e-mail messages they
receive. 

''I am a big believer in people having the right to their personal
privacy and also to being able to block messages they don't want to
receive, whether that's for unsolicited phone calls or unsolicited
spam,'' he said. ''We as users should have the ability to manage what
comes into our homes and our businesses.'' 

Gail Goodman, head of Roving Software, a Waltham-based firm that helps
other small businesses communicate with customers through e-mail, said
she is concerned that individual states may create a patchwork of
anti-spam legislation that would be difficult to follow. 

The federal government should create a level-playing field for all
companies doing business using e-mail, according to Goodman, who said she
supports anti-spam efforts. 

''It's difficult for everyone, but even more so for small business
owners, to know where their customers are located and which spam
regulations they need to follow,'' she said. 

The bill now heads to the House.
*******************************
Reuters
Anti-Spam Web Pages Shut Down by Attacks
Thu Sep 25, 8:44 PM ET
By Elinor Mills Abreu 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three Web sites that provide spam blocking
lists have shut down as a result of crippling Internet attacks in what
experts on Thursday said is an escalation in the war between spammers and
opponents of unsolicited e-mails.


Anti-spam experts said that they think spammers are behind the attacks,
although they have no way of proving it. 


The technological war comes as Congress considers a federal anti-spam law
and California adopts what is widely considered to be the toughest law in
the country. 


The California law, signed on Tuesday, allows people to sue spammers for
$1,000 per unsolicited e-mail and up to $1 million for a spam campaign.


"This definitely marks an escalation in the spam wars," Andrew
Barrett, executive director of The Spamcon Foundation, a spam watchdog
group, said of the recent Internet attacks on lists used to block spam.


"Before, it was a guerrilla war ... This is the first time we've
seen (spammers) employ such brazen tactics," he said. 


Anti-spam advocates maintain hundreds of spam block or "black
hole" lists, which are Web sites with lists of the numerical
Internet protocol addresses of specific computers or e-mail servers that
are unsecure or are known sources of spam. 


Network administrators and Internet service providers consult the lists
and block e-mails coming from those computers as part of their spam
filtering techniques. 


Two of those spam block lists have shut down after being attacked by
denial-of-service (news - web sites) attacks, in which compromised
computers are used to send so much traffic to a Web site that it is
temporarily taken down. The operator of another list shut down fearing a
pending attack. 


"There seems to be a methodical well-planned attempt to use
pre-assembled networks of zombie machines to create sustained denial of
service attacks (news - web sites) on servers where these block lists
run," said Barrett. 


'HANDWRITING ON THE WALL' 


Monkeys.com shut down on Monday following a three-day denial of service
attack over the weekend and an attack last month that lasted 10 days,
list operator Ronald Guilmette said in a posting to an anti-spam news
group. 


"The handwriting is now on the wall," he wrote. "I will
simply not be allowed to continue fighting spam." 


Spam block list operator Osiriusoft.com also recently shut down its list
after a denial of service attack, and on Tuesday the list maintained at
Tennessee Internet service provider Compu-Net Enterprises was taken down.


Bill Larson, network administrator at Compu-Net, said in an interview on
Thursday that he shut the list down because he was afraid it would be
targeted with a denial of service attack. 


The company was already being harassed, receiving complaints after
attackers sent spam that looked like it was coming from the company's
network and legitimate e-mails were getting bounced, he said. 


Experts have speculated that spammers are behind a computer worm, Sobig,
that surfaced earlier this year that can turn infected computers into
spam relay machines. 

   



"The black hole lists were incredibly effective until the Sobig worm
started going out," Larson said. 

While Guilmette complained that ISPs could do more to stop the attacks by
taking the attacking computers offline, Larson said anti-spam advocates
were considering other options to keep the lists going. 

They are talking about having lists that are distributed across numerous
computers like in a peer-to-peer network, he said. "That will make
it hard, if not impossible, to take them down," he added. 

However, the best solution to the problem is for people to just "not
buy the products mentioned in spam" advertisements, Larson
added.
*******************************
USA Today
Posted 9/26/2003 3:31 AM     Updated 9/26/2003 3:18
PM
Judge challenges IBM in case filed by ill workers
 From staff and wire reports

SAN FRANCISCO  IBM on Friday asked a California judge to dismiss a
lawsuit brought by three former employees and the survivors of one who
say IBM did not protect them from exposure to benzene and other
cancer-causing chemicals at a disk-drive factory. 
But the judge, who will issue a ruling next week on the motion,
challenged IBM's argument that the case was too weak to go to
trial.

About 250 former IBM employees in three states have filed health-related
suits against the company, but the cases of the four San Jose-based
workers is the first to near trial.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Baines said he would
decide next week whether to allow the case to proceed to an October
trial. But during Friday morning's hearing, he pressed lawyers for IBM on
their contention that the case should be dismissed.

"It seems that there is a trialable issue created," Baines
said.

Lawyers for IBM argued that there was no evidence that the computer giant
knew that the workers' health was being endangered by chemical
exposure.

"In this case there's lots of evidence, none of that goes to the
issue of whether IBM had actual knowledge of systemic chemical
poisoning," said David DiMeglio, a lawyer for IBM.

Lawyers for chemical suppliers to IBM, including Shell Oil, Dow
Chemical's Union Carbine and Fisher Scientific, have also asked the court
to dismiss the lawsuits.

Richard Alexander, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said a jury should be
allowed to weigh the evidence.

"The key point is that this is a horrendously intense factual
discussion," he said. "Just by the volume of factual
assertions, there are overwhelming facts to be analyzed by a jury and
they have to be heard by a jury."

The stakes are high for IBM and the tech industry, which is facing
growing numbers of lawsuits over chemical use going back decades. A loss
for IBM could spur lawsuits against others, legal experts say.

IBM sold the disk-drive factory involved in the case last year.

The workers say IBM knew employees were at risk. Among the evidence they
point to: a database kept by IBM tracking the deaths of more than 30,000
workers and retirees from 1969-2000 across IBM's many workplaces. The
database includes the cause of death and workplace location.

A Boston University epidemiologist, Richard Clapp, hired by the workers,
analyzed the data and found workers died of cancers at higher rates and
at younger ages than the general population. "By 1975, IBM must have
known their manufacturing employees had significantly increased death
rates due to cancer and must have known that through the next two
decades," he says in court papers.

IBM says the data were kept solely to pay survivors' death
benefits.

The first of the lawsuits against IBM was brought in 1996 on behalf of
employees at a New York chipmaking factory. Many such cases don't advance
far because of:

?Scientific hurdles. Proving that exposure to workplace chemicals
sickened a worker is not easy, says Nicholas Ashford, a law professor at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Courts look for evidence the
chemicals have been conclusively linked to illness and that the chemicals
weren't present outside the workplace. They also look for evidence that
other behaviors might be factors.

?Settlements. Cases often settle before a lawsuit is filed to avoid the
expense and negative publicity of a trial, says Sandra McCandless of law
firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. IBM says there have been no
settlement talks. Amanda Hawes, an attorney for the IBM workers, declined
to comment.
*******************************
Washington Post
Microsoft Critic Forced Out 
Firm Does Business With Software Giant 
By Jonathan Krim
Friday, September 26, 2003; Page E01 

A technology executive whose company does business with Microsoft Corp.
has been forced out of his job after he helped write a cybersecurity
report critical of the software giant, according to sources with
knowledge of the situation.

Massachusetts-based AtStakeInc., a computer security firm, said yesterday
that chief technology officer Daniel R. Geer Jr. is "no longer
associated" with the firm. A company statement added that Geer's
participation in preparation of the report was not sanctioned by the
firm, and that "the values and opinions of the report are not in
line with [AtStake's] views." 

Reached at home, Geer said he could not comment on his
departure.

Geer was one of several corporate and academic security experts who wrote
the report, which argues that Microsoft's dominance over
personal-computer operating systems and other software programs makes it
easier for malicious hackers to attack millions of machines and networks
at once.

The authors made it clear when the report was released Wednesday that
they were speaking for themselves, not the companies or organizations
they are affiliated with. They challenged policymakers to evaluate
Microsoft's monopoly, and its efforts to "lock in" users to its
programs by bundling them together, as the world grapples with an
alarming rise of crippling computer worms and viruses.

The report also suggests that governments and companies diversify their
software and use their purchasing power to force Microsoft to makes its
programs work better with competing products.

Some of the report's authors are longtime Microsoft critics, as is the
Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade group
that has been arranging publicity for the study but did not commission
it.

But those efforts were somewhat thwarted yesterday when a national
technology magazine rejected the group's request to distribute copies of
the report to its subscribers. 

The magazine, CIO (short for chief information officers), routinely
"rents" its subscriber lists -- for a fee -- to firms wanting
to distribute targeted advertising and marketing messages to its audience
of executives responsible for running corporate and government computer
systems.

After receiving the report so that it could be e-mailed to the subscriber
list, the magazine informed CCIA representatives that the paper was
"too sensitive" and turned away the business.

Karen Fogarty, a CIO spokeswoman, said the magazine always reviews
material that clients want distributed, and reserves the right to reject
it. She said the report "seemed to be too one-sided" for a
publication that prides itself on balanced reporting.

At the same time, the editor for the magazine's Web site posted a poll
asking readers what they thought of the report, which he linked to
through the CCIA Web site.

Microsoft advertises extensively in CIO, although Fogarty said she could
not specify how much the company spends with the magazine. She said the
decision not to distribute the report had nothing to do with advertising
concerns.

Microsoft spokesman Sean Sundwall said he could not comment on whether
the company had discussed the issue with CIO until he received further
information.

Microsoft has paid AtStake for software evaluation research, but Sundwall
said that "to the best of our knowledge, no one from Microsoft
contacted [AtStake] or Dan Geer regarding this report."

Lona Therrien, an AtStake spokeswoman, declined to discuss Geer's sudden
departure. She said the company had no conversations with Microsoft about
Geer or the report.

But Sundwall said that on Tuesday night, when notice of the report's
pending release was circulated, "Microsoft was contacted by
[AtStake] officials . . . expressing their disappointment in the report
and saying that Dan Geer's opinion did not reflect the position of
[AtStake] and its commitment to an ongoing relationship with
Microsoft."

Another AtStake official did television interviews yesterday to express
disagreement with the report.

Microsoft has said it disagrees with the substance of the report, noting
that the CCIA supports antitrust actions against the company in the
United States and Europe. And trade groups funded by Microsoft swung
quickly into action to denounce it. 

In a statement, the Computing Technology Industry Association said the
report is flawed by "myopically looking to technology (i.e., 'bad'
software OS) instead of addressing the underlying cause -- human behavior
-- for cyber breaches."

Edward J. Black, president of CCIA, responded that Microsoft's reaction
"if anything, underlines the importance and credibility of the
report and its authors."

One of the report's authors, John S. Quarterman, founder of Matrix
NetSystems Inc., called Geer's departure unfortunate, but said it does
not alter the substance or impact of the report.

"On the Internet, worms and viruses can do more harm in a
monoculture," he said. "This is not theoretical."
*******************************
Australian IT
War declared on ID theft
SEPTEMBER 26, 2003  
 
THE Australian Crime Commission (ACC) is to target identity crime,
Justice Minister Chris Ellison announced today.

Senator Ellison said a special intelligence operation into identity crime
would become an ACC priority. 
He said the decision to focus on identity crime followed a new ACC Board
determination this week to allow the ACC to use its coercive powers to
gather further intelligence on the serious organised crime issue.

"The ACC will work in collaboration with all the States and
Territories on the special intelligence operation into identity crime to
ensure intelligence on this nationally significant crime is gathered from
all available sources," he said in a statement. 

Identity crime involves the theft or illegal use of other people's
identity information including driver's licences, Medicare and credit
cards. 

The operation will also include intelligence gathering on card skimming
which is regarded as a form of identity crime. 

Card skimming involves copying of data off legitimate credit cards onto
counterfeit cards which can be used to purchase goods which are charged
back to the original card holder. 

Senator Ellison said the challenges of identity crime and card skimming
could only be overcome through close collaboration between government,
industry and law enforcement. 

He said the ACC would continue to refine its National Identity Fraud
Register, the first of its type in the world. 

"It is a national intelligence facility that captures and monitors
the use of fraudulent identities," he said. 

"Australia has made great progress in the fight against credit card
fraud and identity crime. Projects such as the ACC's Identity Fraud
Register are leading the world in understanding more about the impact of
identity crime and the use of new technology to facilitate this
crime." 

Senator Ellison said the commonwealth government had introduced a variety
of initiatives to combat identity fraud. 

That includes Customs' introduction of photo-matching technology,
SmartGate, in a trial at Sydney International Airport designed to combat
passport fraud. 

The Australian Federal Police are also heading a taskforce to investigate
identity related crime. 

AAP 
*******************************
Washington Post
With Site Finder, VeriSign Sparks Internet-wide Criticism 
Online Rivals, Technologists Oppose Service That Takes Advantage of
Users' Typographical Errors 
By David McGuire
Thursday, September 25, 2003; 1:47 PM 


VeriSign Inc.'s move last week to steer misdirected Internet queries to
its new search system was a technological success, lassoing millions of
Web users who otherwise would have landed on search pages operated by
other major online players.

Unfortunately for VeriSign, the launch of its Site Finder service also
placed the company at the center of a mounting debate over who really
controls one of the Internet's most vital resources.

On one side, VeriSign is taking heat from industry heavyweights like
America Online and Microsoft that stand to lose substantial Web traffic
-- and money -- to the VeriSign service. On the other stands a coalition
of engineers, Internet pioneers and regulators who say VeriSign's
surprise move threatens to "break" the Internet.

"This issue has become a sort of flashpoint for the industry. This
is all about who controls traffic on the Internet," said Mark Lewyn,
the chairman of Reston, Va.-based Paxfire Inc., which develops systems to
redirect Internet traffic.

"Traffic on the Internet means customers coming to your Web site and
customers equal money. It's as simple as that," he added.

With one flip of the switch last week, VeriSign's Site Finder service
isolated search pages operated by other companies, redirecting users who
enter incorrect dot-com or dot-net addresses (about 20 million of them
every day, by the company's estimates) to a search page that generates
revenue for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company. 

VeriSign was able to grab all that so-called junk traffic because it
operates the dot-com and dot-net portions of the Internet. Prior to the
launch of Site Finder, users who mistyped Web addresses would either get
an error message or, depending on what browser software they used or how
they accessed the Internet, they would be sent to a search page operated
by companies like Microsoft. 

Site Finder has been a big win for VeriSign. Before last week,
VeriSign.com wasn't among the top 1,000 most visited sites in the world,
according to Alexa, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that tracks Internet
traffic. As of Wednesday, VeriSign was ranked 23rd in Alexa's traffic
rankings.

The potential payoff is significant, and VeriSign has partnered with one
of the leading names in Internet advertising to profit from the new
search page. Pasadena, Calif.-based Overture, which is in the process of
being acquired by Yahoo Inc., is providing technology and advertising
support for Site Finder. The company was the first to develop technology
that allows advertisers to place their links alongside search
results.

Paid placements have become one of the Internet economy's most reliable
sources of revenue, said Mark Zadell an analyst with New York-based
Blaylock & Partners. "It's easy to do from both a consumer's and
advertiser's standpoint; it's measurable [and] it's accountable,"
Zadell said. "It's the digital version of the yellow
pages."

Businesses buy about $14.5 billion a year in yellow pages advertising --
fertile poaching ground for paid placement companies like Overture,
Zadell said. "It's not only a new market, but it's potentially
cannibalizing an existing market." Yahoo will rake in nearly $300
million from the paid placements on its search engine this year, he
added.

Paxfire's Lewyn said VeriSign could easily generate $100 million in
revenue annually from Site Finder by selling "sponsored"
results to search terms, something VeriSign is already doing.

What's good for VeriSign isn't good for other online players.
Orlando-based Popular Enterprises LLC sued VeriSign for $100 million last
week, claiming that Site Finder will drive it out of business. The
company operates the "Netster" search engine.

Meanwhile, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Go Daddy Software Inc., a company that
sells dot-com and dot-net Internet addresses, this week asked a federal
court in Arizona to put a temporary restraining order on Site Finder,
claiming that the service hurts competition in the domain name sale
business.

George Kirikos, an Internet entrepreneur in Toronto, Canada, said he
gathered more than 10,000 signatures for a petition objecting to Site
Finder.

Breaking the Rules


For technologists, the VeriSign action amounted to fundamental break with
an unofficial rulebook that has governed the Internet's operations for
decades. In the past, if a company or individual wanted to make a major
change to the way the Internet worked, they'd float the idea in the
"community" of Internet architects and eventually seek the
blessing of one or more global standards-setting bodies. 

VeriSign's preemptive move to send all mistyped dot-com and dot-net
requests to its own site rankled a group of technologists who see the
company as having a solemn responsibility to protect the resource it
oversees. 

"Clearly we have to be able to innovate on the Internet, but there's
got to be limits to that," said Karl Auerbach, a software engineer
who formerly served on the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) . "What VeriSign has done is has taken
advantage of its position and has just offloaded the cost of dealing with
it on everyone else."

Technologists blame Site Finder for problems experienced by some systems
designed to turn back the tide of unsolicited "spam" e-mail,
according to Paul Vixie, president of the Redwood City, Calif.-based
Internet Software Consortium, which provides the software used by most of
the world's Internet servers.

As part of their anti-spam arsenal, network administrators will block
incoming mail from Internet addresses that don't exist and were obviously
faked. The problem is that the Site Finder service makes it look like all
Internet addresses are real, rendering a key spam countermeasure
useless.

Reacting in part to such concerns, ICANN on Monday called on VeriSign to
shut down Site Finder, at least until a panel of experts can examine the
system and its effect on the Internet.

ICANN runs the global domain name system under an agreement with the U.S.
government. The nonprofit organization hands out contracts to VeriSign
and other companies to operate portions of the Internet.

While ICANN officials bristled at VeriSign's surprise launch of the Site
Finder service, VeriSign contended that the decision was well within its
power as the contractual steward of dot-com.

ICANN spokeswoman Mary Hewitt said the group is still mulling its options
to respond to VeriSign's refusal.

VeriSign said it would cooperate with the Internet community to fix the
glitches Site Finder was causing, but refused to disconnect the service,
setting the stage for a clash with ICANN, the closest thing the Internet
has to a regulatory body.

"Here comes the issue that [ICANN] was designed to solve and we find
that they are potentially toothless," said Auerbach. "It's very
unclear that ICANN has any authority to deal with this."

Vixie said Site Finder has kicked off a long-overdue debate over who
really owns dot-com -- the Internet's most populous neighborhood.
"If [VeriSign] needed permission then they should be in very deep
trouble right now and if they're the owners then we should all stop
whining and go home. There's going to be a policy debate from this that I
don't know if VeriSign anticipated," he said. "VeriSign kicked
the sleeping dog."

VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin said he welcomes the policy debate Site
Finder has spurred.

"It's a debate that should take place, because ultimately it will be
a debate on how, or if, the Internet is innovated," Galvin said.
"While the Internet has been used for innovative purposes over the
past decade, the Internet itself hasn't been innovated. Beyond Site
Finder there's a real question about whether we're going to continue
innovating the Internet."

That decision may ultimately end up in the lap of the U.S. Commerce
Department, which recently extended ICANN's contract to oversee the
Internet's addressing system.

"The Department of Commerce still retains power to turn off the
power and transfer the [dot-com] franchise to someone else,"
Auerbach said.

ICANN has scheduled an open meeting in Washington, D.C., next month to
discuss Site Finder. VeriSign, Internet engineers and all other concerned
parties will be invited to attend. 

Turning Off Site Finder


Some technology experts aren't waiting for the outcome of the
ICANN-VeriSign dispute.

Soon after Site Finder was launched, Vixie's Internet Software Consortium
released a software patch that network administrators can use to prevent
traffic from being redirected to the VeriSign search page.

"My phone started ringing at home, at night, after VeriSign put out
this [system] and it continued ringing until I put out a patch,"
Vixie said. "I've heard people shrieking in desperation for patches.
Everybody is up in arms about this."

Vixie won't say how many people have downloaded the patch, but a host of
Internet service providers and corporate network administrators have
taken steps to short-circuit Site Finder.

America Online, one of the most vociferous opponents of Site Finder, has
installed a version of the patch to prevent its users from being diverted
to VeriSign. AOL sends users who type incorrect addresses to its own
search page. VeriSign's move temporarily diverted AOL users to Site
Finder.

America Online spokesman Andrew Weinstein said the company still opposes
Site Finder on technological grounds.
*******************************
Washington Post
U.S. Readies Program to Track Visas 
By Anitha Reddy
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page E01 

The federal government is about to unveil a blueprint for one of its
largest information technology projects ever, a vast automated system
that will track every foreigner entering the United States with a
visa.

The program, which is designed to prevent terrorists and criminals from
obtaining visas, is likely to cost $3 billion to $10 billion, analysts
said.

Under the system, U.S. consular officials will fingerprint and photograph
visa applicants in their home countries and check their profiles against
terrorist watch lists and criminal databases. Border agents will
electronically scan travelers' index fingers to make sure their prints
match those on their visa documents. And a massive computer system
storing travel and visa data will automatically alert the government to
individuals whose visas have expired.

The Homeland Security Department plans to release details of the project
in November. Companies will then submit bids to design and build the
system. The department plans to award the contract in May and to begin
using the system to screen foreign visitors at the 50 largest land
crossings by 2005, though experts warn such ambitious projects often take
more time than expected.

The project, called U.S. Visitor and Status Indication Technology, or
U.S. VISIT, has a budget of $380 million this year, and the Homeland
Security Department has asked for $380 million next year for the
contract. Lockheed Martin Corp., Computer Sciences Corp. and Accenture
Ltd. each plan to lead a team of companies bidding on the project.

"I think it's safe to say for non-[Defense Department] programs this
is one of the largest efforts to integrate databases together," said
Dick Fogel, director of strategic initiatives for Bethesda-based Lockheed
Martin's transportation and security solutions unit. 

Civil rights advocates warn that a fingerprint system that can access so
much personal data could easily be expanded to target other groups.
"This will inevitably abridge the privacy of Americans, not just
foreigners," said Timothy H. Edgar, an attorney for the American
Civil Liberties Union. 

Homeland Security officials counter that the government needs a broad new
system to identify dangerous visitors, and they stressed that there are
no plans to screen American citizens.

Because immigration officials do not now record departures, they have no
way of knowing how many people have overstayed their visas. In the past
year alone, the State Department issued 5 million visas to foreigners for
short visits. The program would plug that information gap by monitoring
for the first time when people leave the country, said Robert A. Mocny,
deputy director of the program.

Skeptics say that collecting information about so many visitors is
pointless unless the government dedicates more money and agents to
finding and deporting foreigners who are a threat to national security.
In the past four years, 400,000 people ordered to leave the country have
fled before they could be deported.

"We have a very small number of people who want to kill us in large
numbers and close to half a billion that walk across our shores in any
given year," said Stephen E. Flynn, a former Coast Guard commander
and expert on border security. With so many resources focused on the
border, he said he fears the rest of transportation security could get
lost.

Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security's undersecretary for border and
transportation security, acknowledged those concerns but said that
intelligence analysts and investigators will review the data generated by
the systems. The department has requested $100 million to hire more
analysts and investigators next year.

"We need to handle the information that is created so we can follow
up leads," Hutchinson said in a phone interview from Brussels, where
he was meeting with European officials on sharing air-passenger
information.

Congress first ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to
develop an "entry-exit system" to check in and check out
hundreds of millions of noncitizens in 1996, after learning that
terrorists implicated in several plots, including the World Trade Center
bombing in 1993, went undetected after their visas expired. The program's
timeline was postponed in 1998 and again in 2000, as security fears waned
and concerns about reduced tourism and trade snarled its
progress.

The project regained urgency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when
investigators discovered that at least two of the hijackers were in the
country on expired visas. Congress moved up deadlines for including
biometric equipment, such as fingerprint scanners. By law, the Homeland
Security Department is required to fingerprint and photograph all
visaholders passing through airports and seaports by Jan. 1.

Because U.S. VISIT focuses on visaholders, it will screen only one in
five foreign travelers to the United States. Most visitors do not need
visas because they come from 27 countries, mostly in Europe, judged to be
a lower security risk. 

The system also cannot spot people who sneak across the border. "The
problem we're fixing may not be the al Qaeda problem," said James A.
Lewis, director of technology policy at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. Groups like al Qaeda could circumvent the system
by avoiding legitimate border crossings or sending in people with clean
records.

The system is also complicated by the same obstacles to sharing
information that have hampered other national security efforts. In this
case, the program will have to be able to access information from 19
separate networks designed to improve border security, such as existing
fingerprint databases and fast passes for workers who commute to the
United States from Canada.

The Homeland Security Department is also trying to persuade other
governments to open up their files to make the system more effective. For
example, if Germany does not share its files, American officials may
unknowingly wave through a man Germany considers a security risk. But any
discussions could get tied up in a knot of European privacy concerns,
experts said. 

"Information management will be critical to the success of the
program," said Ben Gianni, vice president of homeland security for
Computer Sciences. He said his company has a lot of experience uniting
incompatible systems for the government.

Industry experts, however, warn that glitches and budget overruns are
inevitable in an undertaking of this scope.

"Expect delays," said Jim Kane, a consultant to federal
contractors. He compares the U.S. VISIT contract to the
multibillion-dollar projects that brought the Internal Revenue Service
into the digital age and connected the Navy and Marine Corps. 

The latter project, known as the Navy-Marine Corps intranet, cost $7
billion. Begun in late 2000, the military initially thought the
electronic network would be finished by the end of this year. But it has
hit snag after snag as engineers have discovered that linking and
replacing thousands of older systems was much harder than they thought.
The Bush administration has pointed to the intranet as a model for the
technological challenges faced by the Department of Homeland Security, a
hodgepodge of agencies and responsibilities.

The company building the intranet, Electronic Data Systems Corp., has yet
to make a profit on the network.
*******************************
New York Times
At Central Command, Death Gets an Online Demotion
By ALEX BERENSON
September 28, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq  More than 300 American troops have been killed since
the war in Iraq began. According to Pentagon records, more than 160 have
been killed since President Bush declared on May 1 that major combat
operations had ended. At least 70 of those deaths have been the result of
hostile fire. 

Every week seems to bring more deaths. When the guns are silent, there
are fatal traffic accidents, fires, even electrocutions. 

But as the death toll rises, it is growing less visible, at least to
those who visit the Web site operated by the United States Central
Command, which controls American troops in Iraq. 

Until early September, the Central Command official site,
www.centcom.mil,
posted press releases of American military deaths at the top of its home
page, along with other releases. The result was a mélange of good news
and bad that reflected the gap between intention and outcome plaguing the
United States-led occupation here.

Earlier this month, for example, a visitor to the Web site would have
seen "Coalition Offers Help With Water, Jobs, Public Safety,"
topped by a reference to deaths in the First Armored Division: "Two
Soldiers Killed, One Wounded in Attack and 1AD Soldier Killed in
Helicopter Accident."

But about two weeks ago, the site began offering a different picture of
the occupation in which death assumed a far less prominent role.

In fact, the deaths of American soldiers were now nowhere to be seen on
the home page. To find them, visitors had to scroll to the bottom of the
page and click on a small link called "Casualty
Reports."

Central Command was not trying to hide the deaths of American soldiers,
said Maj. Michel Escudie, a military spokesman. 

It was done for clarity, he said. The change was made to help reporters
more easily distinguish between casualty-related releases and other
releases.
*******************************
Washington Post
Juvenile Arrested in Blaster Case 
By Mike Musgrove
Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page E01 


Federal authorities announced yesterday that they have arrested a
juvenile on charges of sending out a variant of the "Blaster"
worm that hit hundreds of thousands of computers in August.

Because the suspect is a juvenile, few details were released by
authorities, but the arrest was the second in the United States that
targeted authors of altered versions of the Blaster worm, which led
infected computers on an e-mail attack against Microsoft Web
sites.

The author of the Blaster worm itself has not been identified.

"It's an ongoing investigation. I can't give you anything
else," said John Hartingh, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office
in Seattle, referring to the statement his office released yesterday
announcing the arrest.

Hartingh's office said it has caught the person responsible for a Blaster
variation that experts had labeled "RPCSDBOT." Though there is
no international standard for naming computer worms and viruses, said Ken
Dunham, malicious code intelligence manager for iDefense, based in
Reston, the name is a compound of "RPC" -- shorthand for the
weakness that Blaster attacks -- and "SDBOT" a common family of
computer virus. 

The West Coast arrest may send a warning to other authors of SDBOT
viruses, Dunham said. It "might help to curb the activity of some of
the most prolific virus writers in the world," he said.

Dunham said there were several variants of the Blaster virus that
circulated on the Web after the appearance of the original worm.
"There were two or three after the first 24 hours alone," he
said.

In the statement announcing the arrest, John McKay, U.S. attorney for the
Western District of Washington, said that "computer hackers need to
understand that they will be pursued and held accountable for malicious
activity, whether they be adults or juveniles."

McKay also said his team is continuing its hunt for others involved with
Blaster and its variants, which hit as many as 500,000 computers,
according to computer security experts.

Two other arrests have been made in connection with the Blaster worm.
Jeffrey Lee Parson, a high school senior, was arrested earlier this month
in a suburb of Minneapolis on charges of having released a version of
Blaster. Parson, who pled not guilty to federal charges earlier this
month, faces a maximum 10 years and $250,000 in fines if convicted.
Parson, who is 18, was charged as an adult.

Earlier this month, a 24-year-old Romanian man named Dan Dumitru Ciobanu
was arrested for releasing a lower-powered version of Blaster that
appeared to be aimed at a university he had attended. Though Ciobanu has
admitted to releasing the worm, he told authorities it was an accident.
Under Romanian law, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Microsoft did not return a call seeking comment.
*******************************
USA Today
Diploma mills insert degree of fraud into job market
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
September 28, 2003

After Marion Kolitwenzew learned her daughter was diabetic, she took her
in 1999 to a specialist for care. He seemed impressive, with an office
full of medical supplies and a slew of medical degrees from
universities.

It turns out those diplomas came from degree mills, which are bogus
universities that confer degrees for little or no study. When the mother
followed his advice and took her daughter off insulin, the 8-year-old
girl began vomiting and died.

The North Carolina man who treated her, Laurence Perry, is serving up to
15 months in jail for manslaughter and practicing medicine without a
license. But questionable degrees aren't just being used by bogus
doctors.

Employees armed with academic credentials from diploma mills have held
jobs as sex-abuse counselors, college vice presidents, child
psychologists, athletic coaches and engineers. While some employees
simply falsify their résumés and make up degrees, others turn to diploma
mills. These bogus colleges and universities make it easier to pull off
the résumé charade because they provide fake diplomas and transcripts
that often seem legitimate. 

The use of diploma mills is exploding as the Internet makes bogus degrees
easier to get than ever before. More workers are buying these degrees
because they're looking for an edge in the competitive job market. And
with more legitimate colleges offering online degrees, the environment is
ripe for diploma mills to flourish, because it's harder to determine
whether a degree earned long distance is really legitimate. In addition,
many diploma mills adopt names that are similar to bona fide universities
or colleges. 

A federal investigation is underway to determine how many employees list
diploma-mill degrees on their résumés and whether tax dollars are funding
sham credentials. The investigation is only into diploma mills, not
outright résumé falsification. A 2002 probe by the federal General
Accounting Office found more than 1,200 résumés on a government Internet
site listed degrees that actually came from diploma mills. Some states
also are passing laws making it a crime punishable by jail time to use
fake degrees for landing a job or raise. 

Concerns about phony credentials have been mounting since June, when
questions were first raised about the academic record of the Homeland
Security Department's deputy chief information officer, Laura Callahan.
She's on paid leave while the department investigates whether her
degrees, including a Ph.D. from Hamilton University of Wyoming (which is
not affiliated with Hamilton College in New York or similarly named
colleges and universities), came from diploma mills. 

Diploma mills thriving

There are more than 400 diploma mills and 300 counterfeit diploma Web
sites, and business is thriving amid a lackluster economy  doubling
in the past five years to more than $500 million annually, according to
estimates kept by John Bear, author of Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees By
Distance Learning. He studies degree mills and gives tips to the FBI and
other federal agencies on detecting degree fraud.

Some fake schools in Europe have made as much as $50 million a year and
have as many as 15,000 "graduates" a year. The number of fake
accrediting organizations set up by con artists to provide diploma mills
an air of legitimacy has swelled from half a dozen 10 years ago to 260 in
2003. 

"(Diploma mills) used to be mom-and-pop outfits. It's now a
professional criminal operation," says Allen Ezell, a retired FBI
agent who investigated diploma mills in the 1980s. "It's gone
high-tech and global in nature. That's something we've never had to deal
with before."

Cases abound in almost every industry: 

? Patients trusted Gregory Caplinger, who told them he was going to
market a drug to treat AIDS and cancer. Investors trusted him, too, and
gave him money for his venture. But while Caplinger claimed he had a
medical degree from Metropolitan Collegiate Institute in Great Britain,
an expert witness for the government testified that a medical degree from
MCI could be bought for $100 with no study required, according to court
documents. He said he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in medicine by a
British hospital, which court documents say was merely a mail drop. The
North Carolina man was convicted of six counts of wire fraud and two
counts of money laundering, and was ordered to pay more than $1 million
in restitution as part of his 2001 sentencing.

One couple gave him $30,000 and sought his advice about cancer treatments
for family members. An actress who was HIV positive was treated at his
clinic. 

? And there have been some near misses. This year, the Broward County
School District in Florida offered a candidate a job as the head of
school construction. Then, school board members say, they learned the
applicant's undergraduate degree came from a diploma mill in Africa. He
resigned before he started the job.

"It was unfortunate it wasn't caught at the appropriate time,"
says Benjamin Williams, a school board member.

Class rings included

Almost every degree, from aviation to zoology, can be purchased. All it
takes is a credit card number and computer access. 

There are several types of scams:

? Many diploma mills charge a fee ranging from $50 to $5,000 for a
bachelor's, master's, Ph.D. or other such degree. Often, buyers only have
to provide money to get a professional-looking sheepskin and transcript
they can show potential employers. Other diploma mills require buyers to
complete cursory work, such as writing a short essay, before sending out
the degree.

The state of Oregon keeps a list of some of the institutions whose
degrees cannot legally be used in the state because they're not
accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or
the state
(www.osac.state.or.us/oda).

The list includes Columbia State University in Louisiana, which was
closed by court order (not affiliated with Columbia University in New
York or any other accredited colleges and universities that use the
Columbia name), Hamilton University in Wyoming, Great Britain's Hartley
University, Stanton University in Hawaii, Vancouver University Worldwide
and University of Wexford in Great Britain. 

To help maintain the smoke-and-mirrors image of legitimacy, some diploma
mills have phone operators who verify graduations to employers who call.
They will also send the transcripts directly to employers who request
them. A few even offer class rings and laminated student ID cards, even
though they have no physical buildings or campus.

Other diploma providers offer fake degrees that look like the real thing
from such established universities as Harvard, Arizona State University
or the University of Minnesota. Using high-tech equipment, the diplomas
include watermarks, encrypting and holographs. Some also provide
transcripts and toll-free numbers where employers can call and verify
graduation.

Some online operations offer a degree based on "life
experience." While there are universities and colleges with
recognized accreditation that might grant credit based on life
experience, the online scams that do typically charge hefty sums and
reward entire degrees. Buyers can get degrees in criminal justice,
divinity, education, psychology, nursing  even ethics.

Operators of such scams who've been convicted or charged include a
disbarred lawyer, a professional stage hypnotist and professional
criminals operating in such places as Romania, Israel and Africa. One
scam was run out of a federal prison cell. The schemes are
lucrative.

This year, Ronald Pellar, 73, was indicted on mail fraud charges.
Prosecutors say he ran a diploma mill, Columbia State University, from a
business office in San Clemente, Calif., that netted more than $10
million from 1996 to 1998. His trial date is set for Jan. 27.

Many buyers who pay for fake degrees want the pseudo-credentials so they
can trick an employer, but others are scammed. Diploma mill operators
often portray themselves as legitimate institutions and claim they're
accredited. The problem: The organizations they say have accredited them
are often bogus themselves. In the case of Columbia, prosecutors say
students were sent promotional materials, including a university catalog
with pictures of a fictitious building and were told the administration
was made up of Ph.D.'s and medical doctors. 

"There are people who are snookered," says Ezell, the retired
FBI agent. "I may want to believe it's real and that I earned
it."

That's what Stephen Corbin, 49, says happened to him. The Bakersfield,
Calif., architect has an associate's degree but wanted a
bachelor's.

"It was always a hole in my life," he says. 

When Corbin saw an e-mail offering degrees based on life experience, he
sent in about $500 and got a diploma and transcript. He didn't realize it
was a sham, he says, until a couple of months later, when he saw a
television program about diploma mills. 

"It wasn't worth anything," says Corbin, adding that he doesn't
use the bogus degree on his résumé or in his professional life. "I
learned it can't be worth having if you didn't earn it. I'd like to
retire and teach someday, and not having the degree would keep me from
that."

Using fake degrees

Others are putting their worthless degrees to work, and many employers
never realize they're being duped: Only 40% of companies regularly verify
degrees earned, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource
Management, and even then they might miss diploma mills. 

Since so many diploma mill operators change school names, there is no
complete list of all bogus schools. It's a gap job seekers and employees
are taking advantage of. 

"It could ultimately lead to a dangerous situation where someone is
hired for a sensitive position," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine,
who has been leading the federal charge to crack down on federal workers
with phony degrees. "It could result in a completely unqualified
person being hired."

One concern is that foreign terrorists posing as students could get visas
by getting into a legitimate school based on a diploma mill undergraduate
degree. 

The use of such diploma mills is expected to spread as more legitimate
universities and colleges turn to distance learning, which lets students
take classes and earn degrees remotely.

As online learning becomes more accepted, it becomes harder to identify
which institutions really require students to finish legitimate
coursework and which are diploma mills.

That's why officials are fighting back. Some states, such as Oregon and
New Jersey, have made it a crime to use degrees from diploma mills, and
others are considering such laws. Typically, it's a misdemeanor
punishable by a fine and up to a year in jail. 

At the federal level, the General Accounting Office, the investigative
branch of the government, is probing the use of bogus degrees by federal
employees to land jobs or promotions, and their query could be done in
early 2004. Last month, the Office of Personnel Management, the human
resources agency of the government, held seminars on how to spot diploma
mill fraud. Hundreds attended.

Some experts fear employees with counterfeit credentials could get
security clearances. Others worry that a loophole now lets federal
workers use tax dollars to take degree-mill courses that are
inadvertently reimbursed by the government.

"It's very serious," says OPM Director Kay Coles James.
"Individuals guilty of fudging academic achievements ... are a
security risk."
*******************************
Los Angeles Times
Hacker Arrested in San Diego
The security specialist could face 30 years for downloading from the
military and others.
By Tony Perry
September 30, 2003

SAN DIEGO  A computer security specialist who claimed he hacked into
top-secret military computers to show how vulnerable they were to
snooping by terrorists was arrested and charged Monday with six felony
counts that could bring a 30-year prison sentence.

Brett Edward O'Keefe, 36, president of ForensicTec Solutions, a start-up
company here, is accused of hacking into computers of the Navy, the Army,
the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and several private companies.

Before his arrest, O'Keefe told reporters that he had hacked into the
computers to drum up business for his fledgling company and to show that
the nation's top military secrets are not safe, despite pronouncements
that security has been tightened since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
2001.

"All I wanted to do was to show America how weak our computer
defenses are," O'Keefe said. "My hope was that, if I
embarrassed the government, they would tighten up their
precautions." 

But Assistant U.S. Atty. John Parmley said O'Keefe could have indicated
that the computers were vulnerable to hacking without going in and
downloading information.

"It's like going down the street and jiggling doors to see if
they're open," Parmley said. "That's one thing. But if you go
and start taking things, that's different." 

O'Keefe is charged with conspiring with two employees to gain
unauthorized access to the computers of government agencies, the military
and private companies and to obtaining information from those computers
for financial gain. The two employees of his company pleaded guilty in
federal court last week and agreed to assist the prosecutors.

Bruce Schneier, chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security
Inc., based in Cupertino in Northern California, said the ease with which
military computers can be hacked into is not a secret.

"The military uses the technology that everybody else does,"
said Schneier, author of the book "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly
About Security in an Uncertain World." Schneier called O'Keefe's
explanation "the classic defense" of the hacker: that he was
hacking into computers only to show how easy it is.

"While it's a kind of a defense, it doesn't make a lot of
sense," Schneier said. "Nobody asked these guys to do
this." 

O'Keefe said he and his employees had stumbled across the easy entry into
military computers while working for a private client. Among other
things, the three allegedly downloaded encryption information used by the
military to keep its computer transmissions from being intercepted by
hostile forces.

Parmley noted that the ForensicTec case is different from other hacker
cases because commonly the government has to investigate to find the
identity and location of the hacker. In this case, O'Keefe made his
exploits known through media interviews.

After being arrested, O'Keefe was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional
Center to await arraignment today in U.S. District Court.

O'Keefe's two co-defendants, Aljosa Medvesek and Margaret Ann Lauffer,
pleaded guilty to a single count each of unauthorized access to
governmental and military computers. A single count carries a possible
maximum sentence of five years; O'Keefe faces six counts.

Schneier noted that the San Diego case comes amid a crackdown on hackers
by federal authorities.

"The federal government is not amused by these cases and they
shouldn't be," Schneier said. "It's like coming home and
finding that a burglar has left a note on your refrigerator. You feel
violated."
*******************************
Associated Press
India Bans Web Group, Blocks Yahoo Forums 
Mon Sep 29, 4:25 PM ET
By S. SRINIVASAN, Associated Press Writer 

BANGALORE, India - A government ban on an Internet discussion group run
by an obscure separatist movement has ended up blocking access to
popular, unrelated Yahoo forums in nearly all of India. 


Over the past two weeks, India's dozens of Internet service providers
have been told by the government to block access to a Yahoo! Inc
(NasdaqNM:YHOO - news). discussion group called "Kynhun - Bri U
Hynniewtrep." 


The forum, which has about two dozen members, is run by a separatist
group called Hynniewtrep International Liberation Council. The
little-known organization says it represents the ethnic Khasi people and
wants their home region, a small slice of the country's northeast, to
secede from India. 


India's Computer Emergency Response Team, a section of the Information
Ministry that normally deals with hackers and virus attacks, ordered the
discussion group blocked in mid-September for "promoting
anti-national news and containing material against the government."


But for technical reasons, Indian Internet service providers were unable
to block just the Kynhun site  and had to shut down every Yahoo
discussion group. Other sections of the Yahoo Web site, such as its
Internet portal and news areas, were unaffected. 


"This is more like a dictatorship and goes against the concept of
freedom of speech," said Sushil Devaraj, a businessman who regularly
uses Yahoo discussion groups to discuss programming issues for a low-cost
computer called the Simputer. 


Efforts to contact the separatist group were unsuccessful. However,
Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for press freedom,
criticized the ban and called for it to be rescinded. 


"Blocking a few Web pages can result in the blocking of hundreds of
other Web pages that have nothing to do with the banned content,"
said Robert Menard, the group's secretary general. 


Web sites like Yahoo let users create and subscribe to electronic
discussion forums where members can exchange views. The groups are used
for everything from keeping in touch with friends to discussing politics
and home repair. 


The Indian government occasionally blocks Web sites it finds
objectionable, including one for a Pakistani newspaper during
India-Pakistan fighting in 1999. 


The newest ban has annoyed Indian users, who have found their favorite
groups suddenly inaccessible. 


"My students have a problem. I discuss my subject with them on Yahoo
groups. We have not been able to do it," said Rajeev Gowda, an
economics professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.
"This heavy-handed action has affected a variety of users who have
nothing to do with that group." 


The latest issue hinges on where Hynniewtrep International Liberation
Council's postings live in cyberspace. 


The group's discussion forum does not appear on the Web site of
Bombay-based Yahoo India,
http://in.groups.yahoo.com.
Instead, the forum resides on U.S. servers maintained by Sunnyvale,
Calif.-based Yahoo  at
http://groups.yahoo.com 
which can be visited by anyone with Internet access in India. 


The distinction is legally significant, said Mary Catherine Wirth,
Yahoo's senior corporate counsel for international issues. The content
may violate Indian laws if it were posted in an Indian Web site, but the
group's discussion forum is published on an American site and does not
violate American laws, she said. 


"If the block were directed at Yahoo India, we would certainly
remove it," Wirth said Monday. "But they're not complaining
about a local site violating a local law. They're complaining about a
U.S. site violating India's law." 


Wirth noted that Indian officials have not asked Yahoo executives in the
United States to restrict access to the U.S. Web site. 

   



Yahoo's U.S.-based lawyers have asked India's Department of
Telecommunications to direct its Internet service providers to narrow the
scope of their blocks to Hynniewtrep International Liberation Council's
site only. 

Internet service providers in India said they were indeed trying to
fine-tune their blocking mechanisms to allow access to other Yahoo
discussion groups, though none appeared to be successful late 
Monday
*******************************
USA Today
Record industry fires warning shot
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON  Faced with congressional scrutiny, the record industry
said Tuesday that it won't back off its plan to sue thousands of people
swapping pirated music on the Internet  but that it will start
sending out letters to warn them legal action is on the way. 
"That gives them an opportunity to settle" early or provide
information that might shed light on their cases, Recording Industry
Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol told a Senate
hearing.

Three weeks ago, the RIAA filed its first 261 lawsuits against people
accused of swapping copyrighted songs over peer-to-peer networks such as
Kazaa.

Many first learned of the lawsuits when they were called by reporters.
Among those targeted were a 12-year-old honor student in New York City
and a retired teacher in Boston whose computer was incompatible with the
swap service she was said to be using.

The RIAA announced Monday that settlements have already been reached in
64 cases, 12 of them involving people who had not yet been sued but who
had been warned by their Internet providers that their identities had
been subpoenaed. Though the RIAA didn't release the amount of the
settlements, news reports range from $2,000 to $7,500.

"I am troubled by a strategy that uses the law to threaten people
into submission," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chaired the
hearing. 

More than 2.6 billion music files are downloaded every month, as the
record industry waned from a $40 billion market in 2000 to $32 billion
last year, Bainwol said. Suing file sharers "was the last (weapon)
we had in our quiver."

Rap artists LL Cool J and Chuck D took opposing sides of the issue. An
actor and musician, LL Cool J said he felt cheated when an album or film
he makes is "shooting around the world for free."

But Chuck D, founder of music site Rapstation.com, considers peer-to-peer
sharing "a new accessible radio" that is not beholden to the
music industry: "I trust the consumer more than I trust those at the
helm of (music) companies." 

Coleman said he remained worried about the "heavy-handedness"
of the lawsuits, which carried fines of up to $150,000 for each song
shared from their hard drives. When asked whether the fines were
excessive, Bainwol said they got consumers' attention and established a
deterrent. "Public floggings would get attention, too, but we don't
do that," Coleman responded.

University of Virginia ethicist Jonathan Moreno testified the fines
"are way out of proportion," and laws need to be
updated.

Despite the lawsuits, attitudes may be tough to change. In a Gallup Poll
out Tuesday, 83% of teens said it's morally acceptable to download music
from the Net for free.
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New York Times
October 1, 2003
Cap on U.S. Work Visas Puts Companies in India in a Bind
By SARITHA RAI

BANGALORE, India, Sept. 30 - Prasad Tadiparti, global general manager of
human resources at MindTree Consulting, is working his way around what he
calls "a logistical nightmare."

He is trying to anticipate what skills his clients in the United States
may need in the next few years and match them with the profiles of his
approximately 1,000 software engineers and others. All this while
factoring in how many are willing to travel, how many hold valid visas to
work in the United States, and for how long.

The "nightmare" is a sharp drop - to 65,000 from 195,000 - in
the number of H-1B visas granted for skilled foreign professionals. The
change, effective Wednesday, is making the business environment tougher
for Indian software services companies like MindTree.

MindTree, which counts Franklin Templeton and Avis among its clients,
will be competing with others in the industry for the tighter number of
visas. If the visas are exhausted in the next few months, as some expect,
services companies say that their clients' delivery schedules and new
projects will be delayed.

H-1B visas are given each year to foreign workers whose specialized
skills are sought by American companies. During the technology boom, the
H-1B visa program, which allows foreigners to work in the United States
for up to six years, provided a gateway for thousands of Indians who came
to work in the United States, especially in Silicon Valley.

More recently, the number of visa applications has dropped. Last year,
petitions for H-1B visas dropped by 75 percent, to 26,659, according to
the American Electronics Association, a trade group that represents
technology companies. The lighter use of the visas reflected the downturn
in the dot-com sector and the elimination of technology jobs.

But critics now point to another visa, the L-1, that is used to bring in
cheaper foreign workers who may be replaced once they are trained.
Congress is also looking at the L-1, which has no quotas. The L-1 visa
has grown in use, rising nearly 40 percent, to 57,700, last year from
1999, and some say technology employers are switching to this type of
visa. 

According to an estimate by the American Immigration Lawyers'
Association, there are some 900,000 H-1B employees in the United States,
35 percent to 45 percent of them from India.

The H-1B program became an issue as the United States economy softened
and employment slumped. Critics of the program argue that American
corporations are replacing employees with less-expensive foreign workers
from places like India and the Philippines.

Some have even called for scrapping the H-1B visa program altogether, a
move seen as part of a reaction against the increasing trend of sending
technology and back-office jobs abroad.

Despite this antipathy and public outcry, American companies argue that
the program is essential to help maintain competitiveness in the global
economy.

In recent Congressional testimony, the chairwoman of the immigration
subcommittee of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Elizabeth Dickson
of Ingersoll-Rand, said the visa limit delayed the hiring of needed
professionals. ''We cannot afford to let arbitrary caps dictate U.S.
business immigration policy," Ms. Dickson said.

But with Congress keeping the cap at 65,000, Indian services companies
are scrambling to build teams of visa-ready people, said Laxman Badiga,
chief staffing officer at India's third-largest software exporter, Wipro.
Over 3,000 Wipro employees hold H-1B visas.

As Indian software services companies grapple with the vastly reduced
quota of visas, American companies will have to figure out ways to
collaborate with them to help manage a supply imbalance that is expected
to emerge as the economy improves, said Atul Vashistha, chief executive
of neoIT, an outsourcing advisory company based in Santa Clara, Calif.
''We are already advising our clients on how to manage this risk
scenario," he said.

For the Indian subsidiaries of multinationals like Intel, however, the
impact of the reduced limit is expected to be minimal. "We see this
as a bump in the road rather than something which will have a huge impact
in the long term," said Ketan Sampat, president of Intel
India.

But Mr. Vashistha's firm is urging clients like Cardinal Health and Exult
to look at increasing the number of expatriates to help bridge the gap.
''If foreign resources cannot be brought here, then take resources from
here to the offshore location," he said.

The reduced visa limit may gradually diminish the United States' ability
to attract the most talented workers, industry leaders contend.
"With U.S. baby boomers retiring, and the number of tech grads
declining, there will be an acute shortage of skilled talent in the
coming years," said Kumar Mahadeva, the chief executive of Cognizant
Technology Solutions, a software services company based in Teaneck,
N.J.

As the economy recovers, industry executives envision an even more acute
shortage of skilled workers. "If there are no visas to bring talent
to the U.S.," Mr. Badiga of Wipro said, "American companies
will eventually say, 'Let's go to India where the resources are.'
"
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Washington Post
Women's Pay Tied To Fewer Work Hours 
Study Says Men Also Travel More 
By Kirstin Downey
Wednesday, October 1, 2003; Page E03 

Women in the workforce are more educated than working men and more likely
to hold professional or managerial positions, but they are paid less
because they spend less time at the workplace and travel less frequently,
according to a new national study on the changing workforce. 

It also found both men and women working longer hours than they did in
the 1970s.

About 31 percent of working women have a four-year college degree,
compared with 27 percent of men, the study found. About 38 percent of
women are managers or professionals, compared with 28 percent of men. But
women are paid less as a whole because they work fewer hours -- 39.8
hours a week, compared with 46.1 for men -- and are more likely to work
in lower-paid administrative support jobs. 

They are also less likely to make overnight business trips than men,
which the report's authors note is "extremely important to
employers" and something they are likely to reward more than staying
around the office.

The study, which included interviews with 3,504 adult workers, showed the
differing expectations of men and women in how they work and what they do
at home, said Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work
Institute, which conducted the study. Women in dual-earner households
continue to carry greater responsibility for cleaning and child care in
70 percent of households, according to the study, with working women
spending about three hours a day on household tasks, or 15 additional
hours per workweek.

"That was a big 'Wow!' " Galinsky said.

But men are doing a lot more around the house than they did 25 years ago,
according to the study, which was conducted by Harris Interactive Inc.
between October 2002 and June 2003. Men spent 1.3 hours a day on
household chores in 1977 but now spend two hours a day, the study found.

Yesterday's report is the latest installment in a landmark survey
conducted at various intervals since 1977, making it a good snapshot of
changes that have occurred in the workplace in the past 25 years.

Barbara Gault, director of research for the Institute for Women's Policy
Research, said the study widens the understanding of work and family
pressures because it includes home life. She said that "unspoken,
long-standing gender-role stereotypes" affect men and women both at
work and at home.

Among dual earners, the workload at work and at home over 25 years has
grown to 42.8 hours a week for women and 51.3 hours a week for men, from
37.8 and 46.7, respectively.

Technology has been a mixed blessing, the study indicates. About 71
percent of workers reported they were able to use computers to attend to
personal issues at work and about 35 percent said they used computers at
home for job-related work. New technologies, including cell phones and
e-mail, allowed them to balance work and family better, according to
about 55 percent of respondents. 

But 61 percent of people who use such devices frequently to contact
friends and family said they were experiencing what the survey's authors
called "negative job-to-home spillover" -- lacking the time or
energy to do things with family and friends, feeling they were handling
things at home poorly and being unable to concentrate on family affairs
as they would like.

"The findings suggests that employees with more work-family/personal
tensions may rely more upon new communications technologies simply to
'keep their heads above water,' " the authors said.
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