Clips November 18, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips November 18,
2003

ARTICLES

Apparent Theft Of Democratic Memos Probed 
Fairfax To Probe Voting Machines 
Students fight e-vote firm's DMCA claims
Student pirates sentenced [Aus.]
Student pirates sentenced [Aus.]
China Eyes Its Own EVDs to Replace DVDs
Cooped-Up Palestinians Turn to Internet 
Labor board redesigns Web site
NJ tests threat database
Pa. reporting system speeds fight against hepatitis A 
Editor's Note: The New Rules of Storage [HIPAA]
Garage gadget wins digital copyright case
Net Group Tries to Click Democrats to Power
Police Computer System Gets $4-Million Update

*******************************
Washington Post
Apparent Theft Of Democratic Memos Probed 
Reuters
Tuesday, November 18, 2003; Page A04 

Congressional authorities began looking into what Democrats yesterday
called an apparent computer theft of staff memos critical of President
Bush's embattled judicial nominees. Democrats have blocked six judicial
candidates.

Democratic Sens. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) and
Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) wrote to William H. Pickle, the Senate's
sergeant at arms and chief law enforcement officer responsible for the
chamber's computer networks, asking for a probe into how confidential
memos got into the hands of the news media.

Staff memos published last week by the Wall Street Journal and the
Washington Times said Democrats on the Judiciary Committee conferred with
outside groups in opposing the most conservative judicial
nominees.

"To have one or two of the Democrats start to scream that somebody
stole [the memos] . . . is how they try to get around the
criticism," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah), adding that the materials may have come from a
"conscience-stricken" Democratic staff member.

*******************************

Washington Post
Fairfax To Probe Voting Machines 
By David Cho and Lisa Rein
Tuesday, November 18, 2003; Page B01 

Democrats in Fairfax County joined Republicans yesterday in criticizing
the performance of the county's costly new high-tech voting system,
saying that it may have disenfranchised voters in the Nov. 4
election.

The Democrat-led board of supervisors scolded the county board of
elections for minimizing problems with the touch-screen machines that the
county purchased this year for $3.5 million and asked County Executive
Anthony H. Griffin to investigate what went wrong before the machines are
pressed into service again in February for the Democratic presidential
primary.

Fairfax's 1,000 touch-screen voting machines, which resemble laptop
computers without keyboards, were supposed to simplify voting and
tabulating results. But in a debut that mirrored many of the problems
experienced last year in Montgomery County, some voters found the
machines confusing, and the reporting of vote tallies was delayed almost
a day.

Electoral board secretary Margaret K. Luca delivered an upbeat assessment
in a memo to the supervisors. "Overall, the new voting machines
worked well," she wrote. "We had almost 1,000 new machines
involved in an election for the first time, and only 10 of those posed a
problem."

But Supervisor Gerald E. Connolly (D-Providence), the incoming board
chairman, called Luca's assessment "cavalier." 

"To say that only 10 machines out of 1,000 did not work is simply
not correct," he said. Connolly noted that in his precinct two of
four machines were not working, causing long lines in the morning. He
also said the machine initially did not allow him to vote for at-large
School Board members.

On election night, Fairfax Republicans filed a lawsuit alleging election
irregularities after 10 machines from nine precincts broke down during
voting, were brought to the county government center for repairs and then
returned to the polls -- a violation of election law, they argued. Late
last week, the Republicans demanded that the county implement new
procedures for dealing with machines that malfunction.

At-large School Board member Rita S. Thompson, who narrowly lost
reelection, said she is considering a challenge because of problems with
voting machines. Voters in three precincts said in interviews that when
they attempted to vote for her, the machines initially displayed an
"x" next to her name but then, after a few seconds, the
"x" disappeared. 

Thompson has asked that electoral board staff members test every machine
to determine the extent of such problems, and she said she is considering
filing a lawsuit to force them to do so.

County election officials tried one of the machines in question and
discovered that the glitch occurred about "one out of a hundred
tries," Luca said. She added that she would take Thompson's request
"under serious consideration." 

Meanwhile, state legislators from both parties said they plan to raise
the issue of the voting machines' performance in the upcoming General
Assembly session. 

"We've just done an electronic Florida. That's what it looks like to
me at first blush," said Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax), referring
to the balloting problems in the 2000 presidential election. He added
that he was "shocked" when he heard that Thompson lost and
blamed the machines for taking votes from her.

"I don't think this is going to be a partisan issue. Anyone who is
running as a candidate is concerned about the integrity of the
process," he said.

Some supervisors complained yesterday that the machines had been set up
without being surrounded by curtains; thus, voters had no privacy. The
machines also were confusing to some elderly voters, said Supervisor
Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason).

Outgoing board Chairman Katherine K. Hanley (D) said she was disturbed
that the high-tech system failed to transmit full voting results until
the next day.

"We had a novel way of declaring a winner on election night,"
she said. "If you got a concession speech call, we declared you a
winner."

Luca responded that she would try to address the board's concerns. She
said she has called for a public meeting of the three-member board of
elections to go over the supervisors' requests at 5 p.m. today.

"I pledge that I will answer every question as soon as I possibly
can in the proper fashion," she said.

Fairfax election officials had confidently promised that their machinery
would work better than Montgomery County's had, citing a battery of tests
conducted before the elections. They also said the system would greatly
speed the reporting of results. Instead, it produced one of the slowest
vote tallies in memory.
*******************************
CNET News.com
Students fight e-vote firm's DMCA claims
Last modified: November 17, 2003, 5:21 PM PST
By Declan McCullagh 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

A federal judge in San Jose, Calif., heard arguments in a lawsuit brought
by student activists seeking to disseminate internal documents from
Diebold Election Systems, an Ohio company that sells e-voting software.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel on Monday spent about an hour on the
case, which attorneys for the students filed in an attempt to seek an
injunction against what they view as Diebold's abuse of copyright laws to
stifle criticism. Diebold asked that internal documents be removed and
said that hyperlinks to the documents violate copyright law. 

Fogel did not rule immediately on the request filed by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet
and Society. A decision is expected within a week or two, EFF said.

"He's considering the issues and understands the First Amendment
import here," said EFF attorney Wendy Seltzer. EFF argues that
Diebold's invocation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),
which permits copyright holders to notify Internet providers and demand
certain material be removed, violates free-speech guarantees. 

Diebold did not respond to interview requests. Diebold Election Systems
sells electronic voting systems used in states including California,
Georgia, Ohio and Texas. Its parent company, Diebold Inc., is publicly
traded and reported revenue of $1.9 billion in 2002. 

In the last few months, student activists worried about potentially buggy
e-voting software--and Diebold's ties with the Republican party--have
been busily making scores of copies of Diebold's leaked correspondence
available on the Web and asking others to join them in a kind of global
keep-away game. 

The wealth of Diebold e-mail, which totals about 11MB when compressed,
includes internal conversations that cast doubt on the company's ability
to sell secure software. Some messages note that lists of bugs were
"irrecoverably lost," while others complain of never having
been at another company that has been so mismanaged. 

Diebold gave at least $195,000 to the Republican party during a two-year
period starting in 2000, and its chief executive, Walden W. O'Dell, once
pledged to deliver Ohio's electoral votes for President George W. Bush.
Earlier this month, California started an investigation into whether
Diebold had improperly installed software into Alameda County's machines
that had not been certified. 

To Diebold, however, this is a straightforward case of copyright
infringement. The students cannot "excuse their wholesale use of the
stolen material as 'fair use,'" the company said in a court filing.
"Wholesale publication of unpublished, stolen materials, with no
transformation or creativity and nothing other than a request that others
download them in their entirety, is infringement, not fair use."

The case is unusual because it involves hyperlinking, which enjoys an
uncertain legal status. "An ISP with knowledge that hyperlinks on
its site direct users to potentially infringing material is not immunized
from liability," Diebold's filing said. "It is now well
established that hyperlinks directing users to Web sites containing
infringing material themselves infringe the underlying copyright."

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case involving the major movie
studios and 2600 magazine, said in 2001 that hyperlinks to infringing
material can be unlawful if they are created "for the purpose of
disseminating" the material. But that decision is not binding on
California courts. 

One employee of an Internet company in the Bay Area, who attended the
hearing, said: "I don't think he'll grant the injunction. But he may
split the difference."
*******************************
Australian Associated Press
Student pirates sentenced
Kate Mackenzie and Louise Milligan
NOVEMBER 18, 2003  
 
TWO Sydney students have been give 18 month suspended jail terms for
their part in Australia's biggest copyright infringement case.

Federal Court Deputy Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson said although the
actions of Charles Kok Hau Ng, 20, of Blacktown, and Peter Tran, 19, of
Canley Heights were serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence, their
sentences were suspended because they had made no monetary gain from the
MP3/WMA Land website, that illegally offered more than 1000 songs for
download. 
Ng and a third man, Punchbowl student Tommy Le, 21, were also given 200
hours' community service, while Tran received a three-year good-behaviour
bond and a $1000 fine because a bad back made him unable to complete
community service work. 

The case is believed to be the world's first successful criminal
prosecution of a copyright infringement case involving the distribution
of pirated music over the internet. 

Ng pleaded guilty to 22 charges of distributing and aiding and abetting
the distribution of copyrighted material, while Tran pleaded guilty to 17
copyright charges. Le pleaded guilty to 29 less serious copyright
charges. The offences each carry penalties of up to five years' jail and
a $60,500 fine.
*******************************
Australian IT
Democrats slam spam exemptions
NOVEMBER 18, 2003  
 
THE federal Government intended to allow religious and political
organisations to flood email in-boxes with spam and deny other groups the
right to respond, the Australian Democrats have said.

Proposed anti-spamming laws - barring unsolicited junk email - are due to
be debated in Parliament later this month. 

They exempt religious organisations, registered political parties and
charities on condition their spam messages contain only factual
information. 

Democrats information technology spokesman Brian Greig said this
selective advantage was likely to be exploited by the religious right.

"It is outrageous that fundamentalist church groups be allowed to
spam the entire country with campaign messages opposing such things as
abortion, contraception or homosexual law reform," Senator Greig
said in a statement.

"While family planning organisations, gay and lesbian lobby groups
or women's organisations would be prohibited from countering these
messages with an alternative view. 

"The government's attempt to legislate to ensure spam messages from
exempted groups only consist of factual information is farcical and
unworkable." 

Senator Greig said there should be no exemptions from the law. 
*******************************
Reuters
China Eyes Its Own EVDs to Replace DVDs
Tue Nov 18, 5:59 AM ET
By Benjamin Kang Lim 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China, the world's biggest maker of DVD (Digital
Versatile Disc) players, moved on Tuesday to create its next-generation
rival -- the EVD -- the first step toward creating a possible new
national industry standard.


Beijing E-world Technology Co Ltd, the corporate entity of a
government-backed consortium of businessmen and academics, and two DVD
manufacturers unveiled the indigenous, higher-definition Enhanced
Versatile Disc. 


"It's not a question of whether we walk the EVD path. It's a
question of how fast or slow we go," Hao Chieh, president of E-world
Technology which designed the new standard, told Reuters. 


But analysts doubt that EVDs would be widely adopted in the rest of the
world even if China were to adopt it. 


The move aims to reduce the drain of what domestic DVD makers consider
exorbitant patent royalties they must pay to a group of mostly Japanese
electronics conglomerates. 


It also aims to avoid over-reliance on foreign technology and could
transform China from a mere copier and global factory to an innovator in
audio visual technology. 


Hao is convinced domestic DVD makers will switch to EVD because royalty
payments totaling 2.7 billion yuan ($325.3 million) have eaten into their
profits. 


Talks are also under way between domestic DVD makers and the foreign
conglomerates to pay royalty for DVDs sold in China. 


But EVD may not knock DVD from its leading position just yet. 


The Ministry of Information Industry will set up a task force this month
to deliberate whether to adopt EVD as the new national industry standard,
a ministry spokesman said. There was no timetable for a decision.

DVD is the current unofficial national standard. More than 100 domestic
DVD makers produced about 30 million players last year, almost double the
2001 figure, state media said. 


DEVELOPMENT STAGE 

China exported 20 million players in 2002, accounting for up to 70
percent of the global DVD market. 

Reigning TV maker Sichuan Changhong is in the process of developing its
own format and still considering whether to shift production to EVDs,
company spokesman Liu Haizhong said. 


Only five of China's more than 100 DVD makers have signed up to make
EVDs. SVA Electronics, one of China's biggest DVD makers with annual
output of about five million, has started mass production, a company
spokesman said. 


Up to 1.8 million EVD players would be manufactured in 2004, Hao said.
Production would be boosted to three million in 2005 and nine million in
2006. 

An EVD player costs up to 1,900 yuan ($230) each compared with an average
of 800 yuan for a DVD player. 

The government contributed 10 million yuan, or one quarter of R&D
costs, in 1999 after nine electronic giants, including Sony Corp
(NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites) and Toshiba Corp, pressured Chinese
DVD makers to pay $9 in retroactive royalties for each player exported.

"The DVD dispute makes our enterprises truly understand the
implications of possessing our own intellectual property rights,"
Vice Minister of Information Industry Lou Qinjian said at the unveiling
ceremony. 

The consortium charges 500,000 yuan in licensing fees and $2 in royalties
for each player manufactured. 

"Even if China were to adopt EVD it seems unlikely that it would be
widely adopted in the rest of the world," said Helen Davis Jayalath,
a senior analyst with the London-based Screen Digest, a market research
journal on audio visual media. 

"For this to happen the Hollywood studios, which drive the world
video software business, would have to release their titles on EVD,"
she said.
*******************************
Ziff Davis
Sun Notches Linux Win With Chinese Gov't
Mon Nov 17, 7:30 AM ET
Peter Galli - eWEEK 

Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will announce a technology partnership
with two IT ministries in the Chinese government as well as the formation
of a new company, China Standard Software, to deliver a China-branded
software stack based on Sun's Java Desktop System.

Sun CEO Scott McNealy will make the announcement during his Monday
morning keynote address titled "Scaling Out: Sun Applies Innovation
to Volume Technologies" at the Comdex (news - web sites) trade show
in Las Vegas. 

The announcement comes just days after Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice
president for software at Sun, said the company was pursuing a new
"per citizen" pricing model for the upcoming Java Desktop
System, to allow government agencies to distribute the system to their
citizens. 

In an interview ahead of McNealy's keynote, Curtis Sasaki, vice president
of desktop solutions at Sun, in Santa Clara, Calif., told eWEEK that the
Chinese government is hoping to roll the solution out around the
beginning of next year. 

A Sun executive who asked not to be named told eWEEK that while the
current Java Desktop System is powered by SuSE Linux (news - web sites),
the Chinese deal will probably have a custom Linux Standards
Base-compliant Linux operating system that will be supported by the
Chinese government and its IT partners. 

But Sasaki was evasive when asked what Linux distribution will power the
Chinese desktop system, saying Sun's code is very portable. He did,
however, indicate that it may not be SuSE Linux, saying, "While we
are not wedded to any Linux distribution per se, we do have a partnership
and contract with SuSE." 

The Chinese agencies and their partners will provide all of the
infrastructure, support and marketing services around the offering, he
said, adding that the Chinese government already has a strong initiative
around Linux, and this makes it easier for them to get the solution to
market quickly. Microsoft Windows and Office are "just too expensive
for most ordinary citizens," he said. 

The new company, China Standard Software, will be funded by a couple of
existing Chinese IT companies as well as by two of the information
technology ministries within China, the Ministry of Science and
Technology and the Ministry of Information Industry, which were
responsible for setting the IT standard for the government and education
in the country. 

Sun has no investment stake in that company: "Our contribution is
really the IP and technology base," Sasaki said, adding that the
Chinese government is looking to deliver software that is affordable to
its citizens as well as create a standard for use in government and
education. 

Next page: Bridging China's digital divide.

"There is also a big digital divide between the western parts of
China and the eastern parts, which include Beijing and Shanghai, which is
a lot more technology savvy than on the west," he said. 

The Chinese government itself has a large initiative to bridge that
divide by building up infrastructure and delivering Linux-based solutions
to many of its citizens, Sasaki said, adding that the good news for Sun
is that it will now work with the Chinese government to deliver an open,
standards-based desktop environment. 

Sasaki declined to give specific details of the agreement between Sun and
the Chinese governmental agencies, but he did say it "is a revenue
generating opportunity for Sun. It is not a giveaway, it is for revenue,
but I cannot tell you the price as this is confidential. 

"But we do have a typical volume pricing deal that is structured,
and there are some significant numbers in that agreement. The key thing
about this partnership is that they will also have a significant number
of engineers to add value to the project for the Chinese market
specifically. It's not just about them shipping our code as is, but we
are partnering with them to add more value to the entire stack," he
said. 

Sun's Schwartz said last week that "per citizen" pricing could
see the price of that desktop solution plummet as low as $10 a user,
depending on the volume. "Those places with structural impediments
to spending large amounts of money on IT are the target market and offer
a huge opportunity for Sun," he said. 

Sun will be holding a press conference in Beijing the last week of
November with officials from the two Chinese ministries as well as with
ones from China Standard Software, Sasaki said. 

Microsoft is also vying with Sun and others for lucrative foreign
government contracts. In February, the Chinese government signed up for
Microsoft's recently announced Government Security Program, which gives
it access to Windows source code and prescriptive guidance on security
assurance. China joined the U.K., Russia and NATO (news - web sites) as
the first participants in the program. 

But that initiative did not stop Microsoft from losing a lucrative
desktop replacement deal with the city of Munich to IBM and SuSE Linux in
May.
*******************************
Associated Press
Cooped-Up Palestinians Turn to Internet 
Mon Nov 17, 9:19 PM ET
By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer 

DEHEISHE REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Cooped up in their communities for
most of the past three years of fighting, Palestinians have found a way
to escape: going online.


Internet use has risen sharply, putting the Palestinians ahead of much of
the Arab world. Business people use the Web to place orders with
suppliers, university students keep up with lessons and relatives
separated by Israeli closures stay in touch through chat rooms. 


"People are using the Internet a lot more for practical reasons than
their counterparts in other regions," said Maan Bseiso, owner of
Palnet, the dominant Palestinian Internet service provider. "The
political issue, as well as security issues in Palestinian areas, make
people use the Internet for business and information and news. It's not a
luxury thing. It's for practical use." 


The Ibdaa Cultural Center, home to Deheishe's first computer center,
typifies this electronic revolution. On a recent afternoon, giggling
schoolgirls could be found exchanging notes in electronic chat rooms.
Teenage boys surfed the Web, and young children were busy playing games.


Despite the apparent frivolity, the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict on the youngsters becomes clear at the cultural center, at the
entrance of a refugee camp where 11,000 people live in cinderblock homes
on less than one square mile near Bethlehem. 


In one large mural in a hallway at the cultural center, a young man
confronts an Israeli tank. Images of barbed wire and tents abound. A
tattered child's shoe, a reminder fighting five decades ago, sits in a
display case. And in the computer center, a painting of a man cradling a
bloody child looks down on the work stations. 


The giggling girls, it turns out, were chatting with pals in Chatilla, a
Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon best known as the site of a 1982
massacre by an Israel-allied militia. 


"My friend wants to know whether anyone has been arrested or
killed," said 13-year-old Maram Adel. 


The male teens were updating Ibdaa's Web site with information about life
under Israeli occupation. A 10-year-old boy played "Project
IGI," a violent spy-adventure game that its manufacturer recommends
for mature audiences. 


"They are a radical generation," said Ziad Abbas, co-director
of Ibdaa. "The children look for shooting. It reflects something
inside them." 


Abbas sees that as a problem, but says the children won't come to the
center if he doesn't let them play the games. His aim is to introduce
them to computers, then teach them more useful skills like sending
e-mails or surfing the Web. 


Ultimately, people use the Internet to keep in touch with relatives in
other countries  or even nearby cities  that they cannot easily
reach, Abbas said. Two students have recently gone on to study at
universities in Germany. 


"I learned how to throw stones before I could read and write,"
says Abbas, 39. "We want the children to struggle for their rights,
but they should learn other ways." 


By Western standards, Internet use remains low in the Palestinian areas.
The Madar Research Group, a research firm based in Dubai, says about 8
percent of Palestinians were online in JUNE. In comparison, about 40
percent of Israeli households have Internet connections, according to the
Ministry of Communications. 


Still, the Palestinian numbers are ahead of such countries as Morocco,
Egypt and Jordan, according to Madar. And the figures are much higher
than they were before fighting broke out three years ago. 


Mashhour Abudaka, vice chairman of the Palestinian chapter of the global
Internet Society, said only 2 or 3 percent of Palestinians used the
Internet before the uprising. 


Although some of the increase was "natural" it has been spurred
by Israeli crackdowns, Abudaka said. He cited surveys with Internet
providers showing many Palestinians use the Web to do business or
communicate with people in their local areas. 

"That's a strong indication that people have used the Internet to
break the siege," he said. 

The Internet has also brought the outside world to the Palestinian areas,
he added. He said international news sites, include The New York Times
and the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz, are popular with Palestinians.
"The Internet has made our local media a waste of time," he
said. 

Palnet's Bseiso noted Internet use spikes during the most severe travel
clampdowns by Israel. 

Ahmad Aweidah, a vice president at the Arab Bank, said the Israeli
crackdown has been a factor in the rapid growth of online services. While
still a tiny percentage of the overall customer base, the number of
online-banking customers has more than quadrupled this year to nearly
7,000, he said. 

The online learning program at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank
provides one of the most dramatic examples of the importance of the
Internet. The program, used by students who couldn't get to class, was
launched in response to an Israeli incursion that followed a deadly
suicide bombing in April 2002. 

Travel restrictions threatened to cancel an entire semester, said Marwan
Tarazi, director of the university's information technology unit.
"The Internet was the way out." 

By the next July, Bir Zeit had installed a rudimentary online learning
system allowing students and professors to share notes, assignments and
materials over the Internet. 

"To get to where we are now would have taken a few years under
normal circumstances," Tarazi said. "Ironically, need is the
mother of invention."
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
GPO names new chief information officer
BY Randall Edwards 
Nov. 17, 2003

The U.S. Government Printing Office announced today that Reynold
Schweickhardt has been tabbed to lead the agency's technological
infrastructure transformation as GPO's new chief information officer.

Schweickhardt moves into the CIO slot from his former position as GPO's
information resources management policy manager. As CIO, he will oversee
the agency's developing infrastructure for the government's future
digital information products and services.

Prior to joining GPO, Schweickhardt was director of technology at the
House Administration Committee. He guided the implementation of the
House's business-continuity/disaster-recovery infrastructure. He also
initiated a digital mail pilot program in response to the anthrax crisis
and oversaw the rollout of several emergency communication systems for
members of Congress, including RIM Ltd. BlackBerry communication devices
and Government Emergency Telecommunications Service cards.

Before he joined the federal government, Schweickhardt was a software
engineer and project manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.

"We like Reynold's blend of cutting-edge private-sector experience
coupled with his extensive knowledge of the federal government's systems
and requirements," said Deputy Public Printer William Turri, GPO's
chief operating officer. "He has the know-how needed to design and
operate the systems that will be required by a 21st century government
information processing and distribution organization."

In addition to his duties as CIO, Schweickhardt will also serve as a
member of GPO's Management Council, which establishes agency
policies.

GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information
products for the federal government. On the GPO's Web site, more than
250,000 federal document titles are available to the public.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Labor board redesigns Web site
BY Michael Hardy 
Nov. 11, 2003  

The National Labor Relations Board has redesigned its Web site at
www.nlrb.gov to make
it easier for the public to find information and interact with the
agency. The new site went live earlier this month.

The NLRB first went online in April of 1997. At that time, according to
agency officials, the site consisted primarily of static pages of
information. Since its original launch, the site has grown from roughly
100,000 hits a month to over 1.5 million.

NLRB Chairman Robert Battista and General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld said
that the redesigned site takes advantage of advances in Web technology.
The agency designed the new site for easier navigation. The site is built
on a Microsoft Corp. Windows 2000 server.

The site uses Active Server Pages (.asp) files, which allows the agency
to provide dynamic content, officials said. Board officials are inviting
the public to provide online feedback on the new design.

AT&T Government Solutions assisted in the design and is the site's
host, NLRB officials added.

The site includes a faster search engine, and search options that allow
users to broaden or narrow an inquiry as needed. It also includes
sections devoted to workplace rights, NLRB documents, electronic
government and news.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
NJ tests threat database
BY Dibya Sarkar 
Nov. 17, 2003  

More than 400 New Jersey first responders and federal authorities
participated this past weekend in one of the largest terrorist emergency
exercises ever held in the state. 

The Nov. 15 exercise  the culmination of three years of
planning  simulated an explosion in a cargo container involving
radiological and chemical weapons at Port Newark, which is one of the
leading destinations for international shippers on the East Coast and
third largest in the country.

Responders tested the Chemical Biological Response Aide, or CoBRA,
developed by Alexandria, Va.-based Defense Group Inc. (DGI). CoBRA is an
electronic reference library of chemical, biological, radiological and
explosives threat data, as well as government best practices and local
protocols for responding to incidents. The system includes software and
wireless-enabled, ruggedized laptops. 

Neil Cohen, DGI marketing director, said exercise controllers and
trainers would also use CoBRA as an evaluation tool. Normally, evaluators
collect data during exercises on paper. But DGI digitized and automated
the forms so data can be amassed and analyzed quickly and accurately
during and after the exercise. It's the second exercise that the system's
new evaluation application is being used, Cohen said.

More than 2,000 federal, state and local organizations use CoBRA,
including FBI-accredited state and local bomb squads, first responder
agencies, and several federal civilian and military agencies, Cohen said.
CoBRA has been used in about a dozen simulated exercises since it was
developed in the fall of 2001, he said.

Participants in the one-day, six hour exercise included the New Jersey
State Police, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the state
Attorney General's Office and Medical Examiner's Office, the state
Department of Environmental Protection, the Newark and Elizabeth police
and fire departments, Union and Essex counties' prosecutor's offices, the
Homeland Security Department, the FBI, the American Red Cross and the
Salvation Army.
*******************************
Government Computer News
11/18/03 
Pa. reporting system speeds fight against hepatitis A 
By Trudy Walsh 

A public health reporting system is turning out to be good medicine for
Pennsylvania health officials battling an outbreak of hepatitis A that
has killed three people and sickened hundreds more. 

On Friday, Oct. 31, an emergency room doctor in Pittsburgh called the
state?s Health Department. ?He had seen several people with the same
symptoms,? said Michelle S. Davis, deputy secretary for health planning
and assessment. Department officials checked Pennsylvania?s National
Electronic Disease Surveillance System (PA-NEDSS) for similar cases (see
GCN story). 

Sure enough, the Web-based public health reporting system indicated a few
other cases in the area. Health officials soon found the common thread
among everyone with the illness: They had all eaten at a Chi-Chi?s
restaurant in Monaca, Pa., about 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. By
Nov. 2, officials at Chi-Chi?s Inc. of Louisville, Ky., announced that
the Monaca restaurant would stay closed for at least 60 days. 

PA-NEDSS helped mobilize the state?s health workers to begin inoculating
citizens with hepatitis A vaccine. The vaccine must be given within two
weeks after exposure for maximum protection. Within a few weeks, the
department had inoculated more than 10,000 people against the virus.

?PA-NEDSS helped us perform the epidemiological investigation,? Davis
said. ?We needed to interview everyone who got sick and people who were
possibly exposed to the virus.? 

The reporting system consolidated all the informationnames, symptoms,
contact informationin one secure site. ?PA-NEDSS really helped us manage
all this,? she said. 

The system is also helping the department determine the exact source of
the virus. 

?We?re having to go through the entire Chi-Chi?s menu and do a
statistical analysis of every item,? Davis said. 

Although raw scallions were the culprit in a similar outbreak in
Tennessee in September, Pennsylvania officials have not yet pinpointed
the exact cause, she said. 

Hepatitis A symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea,
abdominal pain and jaundice, a yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes.
The incubation period ranges from 15 days to 50 days. As a result, cases
of secondary exposure could appear in people who were infected by someone
who had the virus and didn?t know it, Davis said.
*******************************
Computerworld
Editor's Note: The New Rules of Storage [HIPAA]
[an error occurred while processing this directive] 
New regulations have IT managers scurrying to make sure their storage
systems comply. 
Opinion by Mitch Betts 

NOVEMBER 17, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - It's clear that data storage is
more important than ever. Take a look at these factoids (surely headed to
a PowerPoint slide near you): 

Globally, there was a 30% increase in stored information (of all sorts)
from 1999 to 2002. Storage on hard disk drives rose 114%. (Source:
University of California, Berkeley) 

"Storage is the fastest growing capital cost within the data center
and in many enterprises." (Gartner Inc.) 

Data centers will double their storage needs every 18 to 24 months.
(Gartner) 

Federal regulators have discovered IT storage, big time.
(Computerworld)
Actually, government agencies such as the IRS have been concerned about
records storage since the dawn of the Computer Age. What's new is the
accelerating pace of records management laws in the past few years. Not
only are there the well-known Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act and Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but the Food and Drug
Administration also heavily regulates record keeping in the drug, medical
device and biotech industries. And the SEC continues to require
broker-dealers to use "non-rewriteable and non-erasable"
storage technology [QuickLink 38369
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,81117,00.html].

The general trend -- described in the special report that follows -- is
that the new laws require companies to store more data, for longer
periods of time and in a form that can't be tampered with. 

But don't take my word for it -- or the word of storage vendors that see
the new laws as a great sales tool. Instead, work closely with your
company's legal department to find out how your storage infrastructure
needs to adapt to the new rules of the game.

Storage Special Report:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/report/

*******************************
USA Today
Garage gadget wins digital copyright case
By Mike Robinson, The Associated Press
Posted 11/17/2003 10:27 AM

CHICAGO  In a closely watched technology lawsuit, a federal judge
has ruled that a garage-door opener designed as a replacement for a model
made by a rival manufacturer does not violate the nation's digital
copyright law. 
"Consumers have a reasonable expectation that they can replace the
original product with a competing universal product without violating
federal law," Judge Rebecca M. Pallmeyer said. 

Pallmeyer's 10-page opinion came Thursday in a lawsuit filed by
Chamberlain Group, with offices in suburban Elmhurst, Ill., against
Skylink Technologies of Mississauga, Ontario. 

Chamberlain claimed Skylink garage-door openers that can interact with
Chamberlain's digital security technology violated the 1998 Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. 

The dispute has been closely watched because there have been few court
decisions to date that outline the limits of protections the digital
copyright law affords manufacturers, said Gwen Hinze, an attorney with
the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

"This is one of the first cases that has actually looked at the
language of authority" given to the manufacturer by the law to
prevent consumers from using a so-called aftermarket product, she said.

Andrea B. Greene, attorney for privately held Skylink, said a ruling in
favor of Chamberlain "would have had serious consequences for all
kinds of consumer products." 

"This was an attempt to expand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
to where it had never gone before," she said. She called the ruling
"very good news for consumers." She said she did not know if
Chamberlain would appeal. 

Chamberlain attorney Karl R. Fink did not return a message left at his
office. 

Pallmeyer likened garage-door openers to television remote controls.

"Consumers of both products might have to replace them at some point
due to damage or loss, and may program them to work with other devices
manufactured by different companies," she said. 

Attorneys said the other federal court major case being watched for clues
as to the limits of the digital copyright law is an effort by Lexmark
International Inc. of Lexington, Ky., to bar Static Control Components
Inc. of Sanford, N.C., from selling computer chips that match
remanufactured toner cartridges to Lexmark International printers.
*******************************
New York Times
November 18, 2003
Net Group Tries to Click Democrats to Power
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY and JENNIFER 8. LEE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17  When Wes Boyd walked into the New York offices
of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, in September he was not
sure why he had been invited.

Mr. Soros quickly made it clear. He and another philanthropist, Peter B.
Lewis, wanted to donate millions of dollars to MoveOn.org, the Internet
group that Mr. Boyd and his wife founded five years ago. For Mr. Soros,
already a generous contributor to Democratic causes, it was another way
to meet his goal of defeating President Bush next year.

"I like what they do and how they do it," Mr. Soros said.
"They have been remarkably successful; I want to help them be even
more successful."

The gift of up to $5 million instantly drew new attention to MoveOn.org,
which has used the Internet to mobilize its 2.4 million members to sign
online petitions, organize street demonstrations and donate money to run
political advertisements.

Democrats have embraced it as a new model of political organization,
while Republicans have attacked it, saying it is making an end run around
campaign finance laws. On Monday, the Republican National Committee
complained to campaign finance watchdog groups that Mr. Soros's grants
were questionable. Ed Gillespie, the committee chairman, called on the
likes of Common Cause to increase their scrutiny of groups that are
raising millions from big contributors like Mr. Soros, saying the
reaction by public interest groups is "not exactly the blowing of
the whistle by the referees that we have seen in the past."

Since its founding in 1998 to protest the impeachment of President Bill
Clinton, MoveOn.org has grown from its founders' anger into a bottom-up
organization that has inserted itself into the political process in ways
large and small, using just seven paid employees working out of their
homes  only one of them in Washington. This year alone, the group
has mobilized hundreds of thousands of Internet-savvy Americans to
protest the invasion of Iraq, fight the Federal Communications
Commission's stand on media deregulation and lobby against judicial
nominees.

Some political scientists say that MoveOn.org may foreshadow the next
evolutionary change in American politics, a move away from one-way tools
of influence like television commercials and talk radio to interactive
dialogue, offering everyday people a voice in a process that once seemed
beyond their reach.

The group's style and tactics have even caught the eye of Al Gore, who
called Mr. Boyd out of the blue several months ago seeking a forum for
what became Mr. Gore's first major speech since he announced that he
would not run for president. For that speech and another on Nov. 9, both
of which were highly critical of the Bush administration's handing of the
war against Iraq, MoveOn.org members packed the auditoriums. 

"I would personally like to give the MoveOn.org tutorial class to a
host of my Republican colleagues," said Larry Purpuro, the managing
director of Rightclick Strategies and the coordinator of the Republican
Party's e.GOP Internet project in the 2000 election. 

For all of MoveOn.org's efforts, its record is mixed: Mr. Clinton was
still impeached; the Bush administration invaded Iraq; Gov. Gray Davis of
California was still recalled; Republicans still pushed through the Texas
redistricting. Only one in three candidates it supported in the 2000 and
2002 elections was elected.

"I think it remains to be seen what their impact is," Mr.
Gillespie said. "We're doing a lot of the same things, using the
Internet, sending out e-mails, reaching out. But the challenge for us,
and them, is to translate it into voter registration and voting. It's too
early to tell."

But Mr. Boyd, 43, a software developer, and his wife, Joan Blades, 47, a
lawyer, insisted that elective and policy victories were not necessarily
the way to measure the success of a group like MoveOn.org. The intent of
MoveOn, Mr. Boyd said, has always been to get more people involved so
that alternative views can be heard. 

"The reason this is happening is because our traditional system has
come to a dead end," he said. "The model has led to an arms
race in fund-raising and saturation of broadcast with very simplified
messages, and it has led to broad cynicism."

Mr. Boyd and Ms. Blades, who together built a company that produced the
famous flying-toaster computer screensavers, never imagined they would
become so immersed in politics. 

Yet drawn in by their anger over the impeachment, they turned the guest
house of their hillside home in Berkeley, with a view of the Golden Gate
Bridge, into the operational headquarters for MoveOn.org.

After the impeachment votes, the group formed a political action
committee to defeat the House impeachment managers in the 2000 elections.
After most of them won re-election, Mr. Boyd said, the couple intended to
return to their previous lives, with a plan to design educational
computer software.

"The year 2000 was such a big setback for us," Mr. Boyd said,
alluding to Democrats who lost with MoveOn.org's support and the showdown
in Florida that produced Mr. Bush's victory over Mr. Gore. "We made
mistakes; we didn't mobilize our base. But it was so close that I thought
the wheels would turn, the outcome would be fair, and democracy would
work."

MoveOn.org organizers say they are filling a vacuum left by the
Democratic leaders. The organization's e-mail list is larger than the
Democratic Party's 1.5 million and the Dean campaign's 500,000, although
the Republican Party e-mail list may be greater than the three of those
combined. 

Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, met
Mr. Boyd in April to discuss MoveOn.org's strategies. The party has also
expressed interest in buying MoveOn.org's e-mail list, an offer Mr. Boyd
rejected as a violation of members' privacy.

In August, the Democrats essentially copied (with MoveOn.org's
permission) a MoveOn.org e-mail message asking supporters for money to
fight the Republicans in the Texas redistricting conflict.

Now MoveOn.org has decided to take on Mr. Bush on behalf of its members.
In the three weeks since the MoveOn.org Voter Fund was begun, $5 million
has been raised from 86,000 donors. The goal is $10 million. 

But if MoveOn.org succeeds in helping unseat President Bush, it would
mean an unfamiliar territory for an organization that has been defined
more by what it is against than what it is for. 

Some wonder if MoveOn.org would be able to make that transition. Jonah
Seiger, a visiting fellow at the Institute for Policy, Democracy and the
Internet at George Washington University, said: "There is something
to be said about fighting losing battles. At least you are keeping your
constituency together."

"One of the things that killed the civil rights movement," Mr.
Seiger added, "was getting what they asked for."
*******************************
Los Angeles Times
Police Computer System Gets $4-Million Update
 From Times Wire Reports
November 18, 2003

The city's police have become as fast as the click of a mouse with the
implementation of a $4-million update to their computer records system.

The new, fully integrated system was a three-year project, and makes the
police agency the first in California to be this well-connected, said Lt.
Phil Clarke. 

The system allows officers to use their in-car computers to map a
location, get information on suspects, look at previous crimes that
occurred in an area and file their reports instantly, among many other
things. 

Under the old paper-based system, it took days for a report on a call to
be routed to supervisors, then passed on to detectives, officers said.
Now it will all happen immediately.
*******************************