Clips January 12, 2004

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips January 12,
2004

ARTICLES

ELECTION 2004
Students' Data on Web, and N.Y.U. on Defensive
Michigan's Online Ballot Spurs New Strategies for Democrats
Survey: Internet Grows as Campaign News Source
Support swells for livestock ID system
ICANN calls for redundant Internet name servers
Camera phones don't click at work
U.S. to Push Airlines for Passenger Records 
Batteries Can't Keep Up 
Congressional leaders promise action on tech

*******************************
Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, Jan. 08, 2004   
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD   <ebolstad@xxxxxxxxxx>
ELECTION 2004

New system no easy touch for 134 voters in Broward Today's recount in the
House District 91 race is likely to raise questions about electronic
voting, including whether paper records are necessary. 

Three years after helping render punch-card voting systems obsolete,
Broward County voters have proven that no election system is foolproof.

In Tuesday's special election to fill state House seat 91, 134 Broward
voters managed to use the 2-year-old touch-screen equipment without
casting votes for any candidate.

How so many happened to cast nonvotes remains a riddle. Unlike with punch
cards or paper ballots, there's no paper record with electronic voting
that might offer a clue to the voter's intent.

The percentage of nonvotes -- 1.3 percent -- is modest compared to the
days of ''hanging'' and ''pregnant chads.'' But in Tuesday's race, every
vote was crucial. In a seven-candidate field, Ellyn Bogdanoff beat Oliver
Parker by just 12 votes.


''These were the new machines,'' said Chas Brady, a spokesman for
Parker's campaign. ``This was not supposed to happen.'' 

Bogdanoff had a ready explanation for the mystery. She theorized that
some of the people who cast nonvotes were among the county's true-blue
Democrats who were appalled to find a ballot with only Republicans.


''That would make a heck of a lot of sense if you were looking for a
Democrat on the ballot,'' she said.

PUSH THE `VOTE'

Election Systems & Software, maker of the $17.2 million system in use
in Broward, believes that some voters failed to push the ''vote'' button
at the conclusion of the ballot -- akin to hitting the ''send'' button to
dispatch an e-mail.

The company says voters might have been confused by the ballot's
''review'' screen, since there was only one item on the ballot to review,
said Broward Mayor Ilene Lieberman, who talked to ES&S officials
Wednesday.

When voters hit the ''send'' button after failing to select a candidate,
the touch screen gives them a warning. But it doesn't prevent them from
voting anyway or, in this case, nonvoting.

That's probably what many did, suggested Gisela Salas, the former
Miami-Dade deputy elections supervisor who now works for newly appointed
Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes.

''It happens in every election,'' Salas said. ``There are people who make
the choice not to select any candidates.''

Brady, spokesman for Parker, the second-place finisher, doesn't buy that
theory, since there's just one page on the ballot.

''It's not as though they're on Page 5 and are tired of voting,'' he
said.

And Lieberman, a Democrat, believes that anyone who would take the time
to go to the polls for such a small election would want their vote to
count.

''It's incomprehensible that 134 people went to the polls and didn't cast
votes,'' said Lieberman, who served on the canvassing board that oversaw
Tuesday night's count. ``We need to find an answer to this
question.''

ADD PRINTERS 

Lieberman has advocated adding printers to the touch-screen machines to
create a paper record of each vote cast. Voters would be able to see the
printout to verify it before they leave the machine, a type of technology
that many states are beginning to consider.

Lieberman has asked ES&S, which also manufactured Miami-Dade County's
voting machines, to provide some answers on the nonvotes by 1:30 p.m.
today, when the canvassing board meets for a state-mandated
recount.

None of this would have drawn much notice had the race to fill the
District 91 seat in Northeast Broward not been so breathtakingly close,
said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, who
survived her own recount in 2000 after designing a controversial
''butterfly'' ballot.

''We always pray for large margins,'' she said.

Herald staff writers Beth Reinhard and Karl Ross contributed to this
report.
*******************************
New York Times
January 10, 2004
Students' Data on Web, and N.Y.U. on Defensive
By KAREN W. ARENSON

Three years ago, when Brian Frank entered New York University, he signed
up for intramural basketball, providing his name and his university
identification number, which was also his Social Security number.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Frank, who is now a senior, learned from N.Y.U.
that these details had been posted on the Internet. He was among about
1,800 N.Y.U. students who received the same e-mail notification from the
university. In some cases, students' phone numbers were posted,
too.

"I'm furious," he said in a telephone interview from his home
in Parsippany, N.J., where he is spending his winter break. "It is
an egregious violation of student privacy."

Mr. Frank said that in an age of growing identity theft, he was concerned
that unscrupulous people might have found his personal information and
tried to use it.

N.Y.U. officials said the information was posted on an Internet page run
by Brian Ristuccia, a computer technician in Massachusetts who found it
on N.Y.U.'s Web site in a list of students interested in intramural
sports. The university said it was considering taking legal action.

"We regret the concern that this may cause our students and former
students who were on the list, and we apologize to them," John
Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman, said yesterday.

He said that the university's own Web site is better protected now, and
that the information has been removed from Mr. Ristuccia's Web
site.

For his part, Mr. Ristuccia said he had removed the information on
Thursday "mostly because N.Y.U. had notified the affected students,
and that was the goal of my endeavor."

Computer privacy experts said that Mr. Frank had good reason to be
concerned.

"The students are at risk for identity theft," said Beth
Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit
consumer advocacy organization based in San Diego. "Who knows how
many individuals got access to their names and Social Security numbers?
Just by putting this information on a so-called protected page, N.Y.U.
was exposing these students to risk."

She added, "This is not the first time I've heard about personal
information being posted on an internal Web site that is then tapped into
by someone who has no legitimate right of access."

Mari McQueen, associate editor of Consumer Reports, who led an
eight-month investigation into identity theft that was published in the
magazine's October 2003 issue, said that many universities used Social
Security numbers for student identification, and that the practice opened
the students to potential financial problems and fraud.

"It is a very common practice, and one that needs to be curtailed,
given the abuses," she said. 

She said that it was a particular problem for college students, because
they have no control over the use of the information.

"If you want to attend the university," she said, "you
don't have any choice."

Mr. Ristuccia, a 25-year-old computer system administrator for a private
company that he declined to identify, said in an interview that he
learned in late November about the information being available on
N.Y.U.'s Web site. He said a friend told him about it after finding his
sister on the list. 

He said that he sent an e-mail message to N.Y.U.'s system administrators
in early December to tell them about the problem, but that it was
anonymous because "it is very common for an organization faced with
a security problem to blame the person that discovers the
problem."

He said that he also made a copy of the information - he called it a
mirror - "so that it would be difficult for N.Y.U. to claim that the
information never existed." 

Mr. Beckman said the material had been accessible to people outside
N.Y.U. because an athletic official failed to activate the appropriate
security mechanisms. But he said the university had received no previous
notification of the problem. He also questioned why Mr. Ristuccia had put
the information on his own Web site. "That sounds like a
self-serving excuse to me," he said. "If you were really
concerned about the privacy of the students, you would not post their
information on your Web site."

He said that Mr. Ristuccia had also not responded when the university
first tried to reach him, but waited until the university followed up
with letters from its legal office.

Mr. Ristuccia, who has posted a commentary of the episode at
http://osiris.978.org/brianr/nyu-publication/,
said yesterday that he did not think he had broken any laws.

"There is a class of people who make a hobby of breaking into other
people's computer systems, but I don't advocate that type of thing,"
he said. "And that is not what I did. The information was available
with a search engine."

He said that N.Y.U. had erred by putting such information where it was
accessible.

Some computer advocacy experts said that problems like this are a clear
illustration of why universities should not use Social Security numbers
for student identification. 

"A lot of universities have moved away from it," said Marc
Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington. "It was probably a mistake to use Social
Security numbers to identify students and to make the numbers accessible
online. It is not quite like publishing the number. But if someone was
able to access it without too much work, it is like publishing it online.
But this other person doesn't have clean hands, either."

Mr. Beckman said that N.Y.U. has been studying the feasibility of using a
different student identification system for more than a year, and would
probably make that change in the next couple of years. He said the wide
use of the numbers made changing the system a complex
undertaking.

Mr. Beckham said he did not know if this episode would prompt N.Y.U. to
speed up the conversion. 
*******************************
New York Times
January 10, 2004
Michigan's Online Ballot Spurs New Strategies for Democrats
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

DETROIT, Jan. 7  The virtual ballot box has arrived in Michigan.
Democrats in this state are the only voters in the country who have the
option of voting online in the presidential primaries this 
year.

Since New Year's Day, voters have been allowed to apply for ballots and
vote by mail or Internet in advance of the Feb. 7 caucuses. Or, on Feb.
7, they can go to one of 576 caucus sites and vote the old-fashioned way.
By Thursday night, 11,000 people had applied for ballots, three-fourths
of them over the Internet, according to the Michigan Democratic Party.
About 100 people had voted so far, 90 of them online.

Mark Brewer, executive chairman of the party, said he had promoted the
Internet option as a way to make voting easier and increase turnout.
"Polls show that this is very popular, particularly with young
people, and they have one of the worst rates of participation," Mr.
Brewer said. "If this helps them, that's terrific."

When Mr. Brewer proposed online voting last year, none of the candidates
objected. But when Howard Dean started climbing in the polls, they had a
change of heart, fearing that his Web-surfing followers would have an
inherent advantage.

Seven of the nine candidates  all but Dr. Dean and Gen. Wesley K.
Clark  joined a challenge to the process initiated by Joel Ferguson,
a Lansing businessman and member of the Democratic National Committee.
Their brief, filed with the national committee, which oversees the rules
for states, said that major security problems had not been resolved and
that online voting discriminated against low-income blacks and Hispanics,
less likely than whites to be computer-literate.

But the national party agreed to the Michigan proposal, and now, with the
rules set, the candidates have embraced the process, devising innovative
ways to track their supporters and prompt them to vote online.

Dr. Dean's campaign, for one, is not relying just on supporters who are
Internet-savvy. Its union backers are taking laptop computers into
workplaces to help members apply for ballots and vote. They also make
house calls. Some of the unions backing Representative Richard A.
Gephardt are doing the same.

General Clark's campaign is using the Internet to encourage rural voters
in northern and western Michigan to vote online.

"A lot of those places don't even have movie theaters, and the
Internet is their way to connect and be part of the world on a real-time
basis," said Jonathan Beeton, a spokesman for General Clark's
Michigan campaign. "With the Internet, it's much easier for us to
mobilize a field operation without devoting a huge staff and resources to
cover vast areas of the state."

Senator John Kerry's supporters are flooding college campuses with
newspaper advertisements encouraging students to vote online. Almost all
the candidates have links on their Web sites to allow Michigan voters to
apply online for ballots. Voting is a two-step process: applying for a
ballot, then either returning it by mail or using a password to vote via
the Internet.

But the effort to extend Internet voting beyond the young and affluent is
transforming Michigan into a state that is more reliant on organization
than it has been in the past. In this respect, it is more like Iowa than
anyplace else, because candidates need deep networks to get supporters to
the caucuses..

Dr. Dean's campaign is perhaps the most advanced in bringing the virtual
ballot box to voters.

Local 79 of the Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed
Dr. Dean, bought 20 laptop computers and this week began carrying them
into the work sites of its 17,000 members in Detroit. The local has more
than 1,200 members at the Detroit Medical Center, which allowed
organizers in to help members apply for ballots on Wednesday. 

The organizers sent out word that union members could drop by during
their lunch breaks. Alicia Robertson, 29, a dietary aide, was one of
several who requested a ballot, with John Switalski, an organizer,
guiding her on the keyboard.

"Sure," she said of the next step, voting via the Internet,
"if all I've got to do is what he just showed me."

Patsy Bell, 54, a janitor, stopped by before lunch and applied for a
ballot. Ms. Bell has a computer at home and said she was comfortable
voting online. "It won't take but a second," she 
said.

Others were not ready to make the leap. Chris Butler, 62, a cook, said
she would probably vote by mail, though she applied online for a
ballot.

"With the Internet, they have so many problems," Ms. Butler
said. "I don't want to take a chance. I'll probably do it by mail
because I like to take my time."

In any case, they all planned to vote for Dr. Dean. "I trust
him," Ms. Butler said. "I like what he's offering, especially
the health care."

Jerry Morrison, directing the union's online effort, said the Internet
option combined with the five-week time period for voting offered
tremendous advantages for campaign organizers.

"Instead of having one day and one way to deliver all your votes,
we've got five weeks and three ways to vote," Mr. Morrison said, and
that is likely to increase turnout. 

But those who challenged the process said it was unfair. Their brief to
the Democratic National Committee noted that the digital divide involved
not just race but also income, age and education. In households earning
less than $25,000 a year, only 39 percent have Internet access, while in
households earning more than $75,000 a year, 94 percent are wired. The
federal Department of Commerce reported that 55.6 percent of Michigan
homes had Web access in 2001, slightly above the national
average.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Democratic candidate for president, called
Internet voting "a high-tech poll tax." "If someone can
vote in the warmth of their living room, but a grandmother has to go down
four flights of stairs and out into the cold, that's not an even playing
field," Mr. Sharpton said in an interview.

That is not the only concern. Because the caucuses are run by the party
and not state officials, the ballots are not secret. They have a personal
identification number to make sure voters do not vote more than once.
Beyond that, party rules allow unions and other special interests to help
people use the Internet, raising the possibility of influence or
coercion.

The Democratic National Committee overrode such objections and allowed
the Michigan Democrats to proceed with Internet voting, as long as the
party also offered mail and in-person voting and increased the number of
caucus sites.

Mr. Brewer, of the state party, asserted that voting online was no less
secure than voting by absentee ballot. As long as the party offers other
methods of voting, he said, he sees no problem with allowing those who
want to vote online to do so. As for the lack of secrecy, there is no
pretense to secrecy, he said, though as a matter of practice no one
bothers to check to see how people vote.

Many analysts say that Internet voting is the wave of the future and that
Michigan is taking an important step. It follows an online voting project
in the Democratic presidential primary in Arizona in 2000. But that was
not a competitive race, and the voting was limited. Arizona Democrats are
not using it this year.

The Defense Department is preparing pilot projects in which people from
51 counties in seven states can vote online in November if they are
United States citizens who are overseas. Polli Brunelli, director of the
Federal Voting Assistance Program, which is running the pilot projects,
said the Pentagon had developed an elaborate encrypted system to guard
against fraud, but she said of Michigan, "You're trying to
enfranchise as many people as possible, so you have to start
somewhere."
*******************************
Internet Reports
Survey: Internet Grows as Campaign News Source
Sun Jan 11, 4:04 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internet has emerged as an important source of
presidential campaign news for many Americans, on par with weekly news
magazines and television talk shows, according to a survey released
Sunday. 

   

While television remains dominant, the audience for broadcast news shows
is shrinking in the face of competition from cable TV and the Internet,
according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a
Washington nonprofit group. 


Some 42 percent of those surveyed said they learned about the campaign
regularly from local TV news, a decline of 6 percentage points from the
last presidential election in 2000. Nightly network news programs and
daily newspapers suffered a larger decline, according to the survey.


Cable news networks commanded a growing audience share, with 38 percent
of the 1,506 adults surveyed saying they learned about the campaign from
networks like CNN and Fox News. 


Internet news sources posted the largest relative gain, as 13 percent of
those surveyed said they regularly went online for campaign news and
another 20 percent saying they did so occasionally. In 2000, only 9
percent said they regularly turned to the Internet. 


Younger Americans said they relied less on traditional news sources,
turning instead to cable news, the Internet and comedy shows such as
Saturday Night Live for campaign news. 


But Americans overall know little about the campaign or many candidates.
Only one-third said they had heard about 2000 Democratic candidate Al
Gore (news - web sites)'s endorsement of former Vermont governor Howard
Dean (news - web sites), and fewer knew that Wesley Clark (news - web
sites) served as an Army general. 


Those who get their news from the Internet tended to be the most
knowledgeable, while those who rely on comedy shows and late night
broadcast television tended to be poorly informed, the survey found.


Americans are more likely to perceive the news media as biased than they
were several years ago. In 1987, 62 percent said they thought campaign
coverage was free from bias, but that figure fell to 39 percent.


The survey was conducted between Dec. 19 and Jan. 4 in association with
the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an affiliated nonprofit
group.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Support swells for livestock ID system
U.S. to speed project in wake of mad cow find in Washington state
BY Florence Olsen 
Jan. 12, 2004

Agriculture Department Secretary Ann Veneman recently signaled a strong
commitment to finish developing the program, which the department's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has been developing for the
past 18 months.

Despite some resistance within the livestock industry, cattlemen, dairy
farmers and others have long seen the need for such a program. The USDA
program would eventually track livestock, poultry and other food animals.

The USDA's plan is similar to Canada's mandatory system, under which
every animal is tagged before it leaves the farm or ranch where it was
born. U.S. animal health officials say that a system is needed here that
lets officials act quickly  within 48 hours  to trace the
origins and movements of a diseased animal. No such capacity exists
today. Some of that livestock information is computerized; some of it is
kept in shoeboxes. 

Even before mad cow disease, other animal disease scares had convinced
many government officials and industry groups that a computerized system
for animal tracking was needed. "The foot-and-mouth disease outbreak
in the United Kingdom made us all realize real fast that we needed to be
able to trace animals very quickly because of the speed with which that
disease moved," said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin
Agriculture Department. 

Different livestock numbering systems have grown up in the past around
specific animal diseases such as brucellosis, scrapie and tuberculosis.
Some farms and ranches use several numbering systems at once, and those
systems would have to be merged into a single system of unique ID
numbers, USDA officials say. The department has proposed using the same
numbering system that Canada uses.

Because of widespread agreement that a national system is needed, many
groups are more optimistic that one can be created despite the technical
difficulties, the concerns of producers and the cost. But producers must
first find a way to overcome the shortcomings of the data entry
technology that has been proposed for the system. That technology, which
uses radio frequency transponders, has practical limitations. 

"You get a hundred animals moving down a corral, individually
reading each tag with radio frequency is not like reading a bar code off
a package by the [parcel] delivery guy," said Neil Hammerschmidt,
animal identification coordinator for the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service.

Despite its limitations, the use of radio technology is more efficient
than reading numbers on a metal ear tag and copying those numbers
manually into an electronic database, Hammerschmidt said. Canada plans to
introduce radio frequency identification technology into its mandatory
identification system early this year, he said. 

Resistance to a national tracking program from some livestock producers
has been an obstacle in the past, but that resistance has weakened.
Producers are worried that more incidents like the mad cow scare could
further harm the industry. 

Before the mad cow incident, animal producers had "questions about
sharing of data and who would have access to it," said Bob Ehart,
animal and plant health safeguarding coordinator for the National
Association of State Departments of Agriculture. "Those are probably
still issues that need to be resolved. But they are not ones that will
stand in the way of developing a program that can be implemented, and I
think probably fairly soon." 

In addition to overcoming producers' resistance, agriculture and industry
officials say they still must find a way to pay for the system. In a
preliminary report, the U.S. Animal Health Association recommended a
public/private partnership to pay for the project's substantial cost. The
association's members are state and federal agencies, universities and
industry groups.

Cost remains a concern for cattle producers, said Michele Peterson,
speaking for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, a trade group.
"The largest issue would be that our cattle producers remain
profitable through the implementation of such a program." 

One financing possibility is a direct appropriation from Congress.
"No one has mentioned a dollar value, but the latest thing that
we've seen coming out of USDA is that there will be funding
available," Ehart said.

Creation of a national livestock identification program is by no means
ensured until money can be found to pay for it. But livestock producers,
states and consumer groups have a vested interest in establishing such a
program. Most states recognize the need for a national program. Beginning
this month, Wisconsin, for example, is looking for volunteers among dairy
producers in the state to test its new animal identification system,
which is based on the Canadian model. State officials are hoping the
Wisconsin system will help accelerate adoption of a national system along
lines that would satisfy both state and national needs.

***

Mad cow management 

A national animal-tracking system based on radio frequency
identification, or RFID, technology might work like this:

1. A newborn calf gets tagged in the ear with an RFID chip encoded with
an ID number, which specifies where it was born. 

2. The animal goes to market, where its chip is read and the data entered
into the national database.

3. The animal goes to a slaughterhouse where, again, its RFID chip is
read and that data is automatically entered into a national
database.

4. If disease is found, the laboratory contacts animal health and food
safety authorities, who can trace the origins of the animal back to its
original farm. 

Source: Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium
*******************************
Government Computer News
ICANN calls for redundant Internet name servers 
By Joab Jackson 
January 12, 2004

The organization that oversees the Internet Domain Name System wants
top-level domains such as .gov and .mil to double up on their DNS
servers, placing them on different networks and in different locations.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has issued a DNS
infrastructure recommendation to clarify server architectures for root
and top-level domain services. DNS requires that zone administrators run
two independent servers to answer domain name queries, so that if one
fails, the other can still deliver information. The new recommendation
stipulates that each server be in a different location and on a separate
network for better security. 

The General Services Administration, at
www.nic.gov/index.html,
manages DNS servers for the .gov domain. The .mil domain is managed by
the Defense Department Network Information Center,
http://www.nic.mil.
The .us domain, used by most states, is managed by NeuStar Inc. of
Sterling, Va. 

These servers respond to queries from the Net?s 13 root domain name
servers, at
http://www.root-servers.org.
U.S. federal offices operate three of those servers: the Army Research
Laboratory, the Network Information Center and NASA?s Ames Research
Center. The University of Maryland also runs a root server. ?The thing
that triggered this recommendation was a review of the procedures the
[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] was using when it received a
request to change an entry in the root zone,? said Steve Crocker, who
chairs the ICANN security committee. 

ICANN, a not-for-profit corporation, administers the Internet name and
address system. IANA oversees IP address allocation.
*******************************
USA Today
Camera phones don't click at work
By Stephanie Armour
Posted 1/12/2004 1:59 AM

Some major employers are banning camera phones on the job amid growing
fears the high-tech gadgets pose serious threats to workers' privacy and
company secrets.
The phones, which average about $150, allow users to take pictures and
transmit them globally.

Companies fear employees will use the phones to send images of new
products or other company information, or else to take pictures of
unsuspecting co-workers in locker rooms or bathrooms.

A growing number of employers are cracking down:

? At DaimlerChrysler, a policy drafted in September bars employees and
visitors from bringing camera phones into any company building. 

? Employees and visitors to General Motors' product development plants
can't bring in camera phones. Also, the company won't supply employees
with cell phones that have a camera feature.

Employees entering those research areas must "surrender camera
phones and reclaim them when they go out," says Chris Preuss at
General Motors. "It's for security reasons."

? Employees at Texas Instruments can bring their camera phones to work
but are forbidden to take pictures. 

Bans have also affected the public. At the Oakland County Courthouse in
Pontiac, Mich., posted signs warn that camera phones aren't allowed. The
policy was adopted in November.

"Our concern was the photographing of jurors and witnesses, such as
undercover agents," says Chief Judge Wendy Potts. 

Some labor lawyers are fielding more questions from companies grappling
with the new concerns. "What makes the technology worrisome to
employers is it has the ability to capture and transmit images so
fast," says Scott McDonald, a labor lawyer at Littler Mendelson in
Dallas. "In the old world, you would take a picture with a small
camera and smuggle it out."

It's an issue overseas, too. In Munich, BMW spokesman Jochen Frey says
the company has signs in the lobby of its technical center banning
cameras and camera phones. In South Korea, Samsung bans camera phones on
the job.

Camera phones made up 4% of global handset sales in 2002, according to
Boston-based Strategy Analytics. By the end of 2005, more than a quarter
of global handset sales will be camera phones. "A policy on camera
phones is going to be standard," says Eddie Tapiero, an analyst at
Strategy Analytics. 

He and other analysts say demand for the phones is so strong that such
policies should not hamper sales.

Contributing: David Kiley
*******************************
Washington Post
U.S. to Push Airlines for Passenger Records 
Travel Database to Rate Security Risk Factors 
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Monday, January 12, 2004; Page A01 

Despite stiff resistance from airlines and privacy advocates, the U.S.
government plans to push ahead this year with a vast computerized system
to probe the backgrounds of all passengers boarding flights in the United
States. 

The government will compel airlines and airline reservations companies to
hand over all passenger records for scrutiny by U.S. officials, after
failing to win cooperation in the program's testing phase. The order
could be issued as soon as next month. Under the system, all travelers
passing through a U.S. airport are to be scored with a number and a color
that ranks their perceived threat to the aircraft. 

Another program that is to be introduced this year that seeks to speed
frequent fliers through security lines in exchange for volunteering
personal information to the government.

The two new initiatives will augment a system introduced last week to
fingerprint and photograph millions of foreign visitors on arrival in the
United States.

Privacy and consumer advocates worry that both programs could be
discriminatory because they subject airline passengers to different
levels of scrutiny. Certain travelers, such as non-U.S. citizens, could
face additional questioning under the program known as CAPPS 2, or the
second version of the Computer Assisted Passenger PreScreening Program,
some organizations say. Business travelers who typically pay high prices
for their seats will likely get an easier pass through security in the
"registered traveler" program. 

Privacy advocates say they are most concerned about CAPPS 2, which would
replace the airlines' existing computer screening system. The TSA
believes the current system is based on old assumptions about terrorists,
flagging passengers, for instance, who paid with cash or bought one-way
tickets. Passengers targeted for additional screening commonly find an
"SSS" or "***" designation on their boarding pass.

The TSA said the new computerized system is to provide a more thorough
approach to screening passengers. It will collect travelers' full name,
home address and telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary.
The information will be fed into large databases, such as Lexis-Nexis and
Acxiom, that tap public records and commercial computer banks, such as
shopping mailing lists, to verify that passengers are who they say they
are. Once a passenger is identified, the CAPPS 2 system will compare that
traveler against wanted criminals and suspected terrorists contained in
other databases. 

The two-step process will result in a numerical and color score for each
passenger. A "red" rating means a passenger will be prohibited
from boarding. "Yellow" indicates that a passenger will receive
additional scrutiny at the checkpoint and a "green" rating
paves the way for a standard trip through security. Also factored into
one's score will be intelligence about certain routes and airports where
there might be higher-rated risks to security.

Although it is unclear how many passengers would fit into each category,
the TSA said its best estimation is that 5 percent of the traveling
public will be flagged yellow or red, compared with an estimated 15
percent of passengers who are flagged under the current version of CAPPS
1.

The registered traveler program, also known as "trusted
traveler," has been a favorite of the airline industry since the
terrorist attacks in 2001. The first leader of the Transportation
Security Administration declined to pursue the idea, saying he worried
that terrorists in "sleeper cells" could establish themselves
as trusted residents over a period of years and later exploit their
status to hijack planes. 

Now under new leadership, the TSA is to begin testing the program at
selected airports with $5 million in Congressional funding. Officials say
the program could enhance security because the pool of those who need to
be assessed would be reduced by the background checks each passenger
would undergo. The agency declined to say how the program would work
except that it would be voluntary and that registered passengers would
not skip security screening altogether. 

"It's not as though the person who goes through the checkpoint won't
be going through a basic level of screening," said David M. Stone,
the TSA's acting administrator. 

But privacy experts are skeptical. Registered traveler is "going to
create two classes of airline travelers," said Barry Steinhardt,
director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil
Liberties Union, an organization that opposes both programs. Registered
traveler, he said, "has no security benefits." Terrorists will
learn one way or another how to "game" the system, he said.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security started a visa-tracking
program that the ACLU and other groups also deemed discriminatory.
International airports and ports began digitally fingerprinting and
photographing foreign visitors from certain countries in the Middle East,
Asia, Africa and South America when they enter the country on a visa,
although most European countries are exempt from the program.

"These kinds of dragnet systems are feel-good but
cost-inefficient," said Richard Sobel, a privacy policy researcher
at Harvard Medical School. "The government would do much better
using resources to better identify people and deter people who might
cause some harm than to use resources devoted to the 99 percent of people
who are innocent." 

Under one proposal advocated by the major U.S. airlines, passengers who
submit an application to the TSA would receive a special card or other
identification, if they're approved. At the airport, they would show the
card at the security checkpoint or ticket counter and submit to a
handprint or fingerprint to verify their identity. Then, the passenger
could walk through a checkpoint area dedicated to members of the
program.

The airline industry argues that a registered traveler program would not
create a class system but would simply reduce wait times for all
passengers. "The thing that really frustrates people is not the fact
that someone goes through [the security line] more quickly," said
Jim May, chief executive officer at the Air Transport Association, the
airline industry's lobbying organization. "It's the people who don't
prepare themselves and go through security and tie up the whole line.
They're the people who really aggravate those people who are trying to
catch a plane."

In the push forward on CAPPS 2, U.S. officials said the TSA is to soon
begin forcing the airlines to turn over their passenger reservation
lists. No airline responded to the agency's initial request for the
documents last fall. U.S. carriers have been reluctant to turn over the
data because of negative publicity association with the 
program.

The TSA's first airline partner to test CAPPS 2, Delta Air Lines, backed
out of the agreement after privacy advocates put up a Web site
encouraging passengers to boycott the airline. The European Union, whose
passengers would also be rated and screened, have said the system would
violate EU privacy laws, but it has allowed the TSA to use passenger data
for testing purposes.

The final blow came in September last year, when JetBlue Airways was sued
in several states by passengers after the airline admitted it had turned
over passenger data for a military project related to aviation security.
The TSA has since been unable to find an airline to help the agency test
CAPPS 2 and might now have to resort to coercion to get the reservation
data. 

Homeland Security officials said some elements of CAPPS 2 and the U.S.
VISIT program for fingerprinting and photographing foreigners will
overlap because both systems compare passengers against the same
terrorist and criminal watch lists. The U.S. VISIT also aims to ensure
that visitors do not overstay their visas. U.S. officials said they are
considering merging the two programs.

Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the chief privacy officer at Homeland Security,
said if the databases are merged, the government would impose strict
rules about which agencies can use the passenger information and how it
could be used.

"We want these programs to be efficient to the extent it makes them
more efficient to have them rolled together, we will be looking at
that," Kelly said. 

But Kelly acknowledged that there will be several hurdles to clear. The
U.S. government has not said how long it will keep data on U.S. VISIT
travelers. Information on most passengers screened by CAPPS 2 can be held
only for "a matter of days," she said.
*******************************
Washington Post
Batteries Can't Keep Up 
By Mike Musgrove
Sunday, January 11, 2004; Page F07 

Lithium ion batteries, the battery type most commonly used inside laptops
and the flashy gadgets that early adopters of new technology lug
everywhere in their pockets, are the most lightweight, powerful and
low-maintenance batteries around. They're even more environmentally
friendly than other choices.

But they have one drawback: a limited lifespan. Lithium ion batteries are
particularly susceptible to aging; as soon as one leaves the
manufacturing line, its countdown begins. A typical lifespan is two to
three years, whether it is ever used or not -- as some disgruntled owners
of Apple Computer Corp.'s iPod found when their digital music players
suddenly went dead. A huge hullabaloo ensued.

Despite that limitation, gadget makers say they are using the batteries
in more and more products because their compact size means they can be
used to build the slicker and thinner devices that attract
consumers.

"To get cooler industrial design, you can only do it with these new
[lithium-ion] batteries," said Jeff Hastings, president of digital
music player company Rio Audio. Though Rio offers players with both
replaceable and built-in battery options, Hastings said that most
consumers care more about a player's looks than its onboard battery
lifespan when comparison shopping.

Some gadget makers have programs to replace batteries when they've worn
out, some don't. Apple eventually agreed to set up a battery-replacement
program for the popular digital music player (iPod owners can now have
their batteries replaced for $99). Handheld maker PalmOne doesn't have a
program in place to replace the batteries of old handhelds; PalmOne's
vice president of hardware engineering, Gregg Zehr said that most users
choose to upgrade to a new handheld when the battery wears out.

There isn't much that users can do to make the batteries last longer. For
example, some older battery technologies survived longer when users fully
discharged them before loading them up with a fresh charge. That's not
the case with lithium ion batteries; it makes little difference if users
let the batteries run down or keep their gadgets "topped off"
by plugging them in every night or two.

That built-in battery in your digital music player or personal digital
assistant will typically survive 500 complete recharge cycles. After so
many visits to the power outlet, that battery will still retain 80
percent of the charge it could originally hold, but it's at the beginning
of a pretty steep downward curve in performance.

If there's anything that lithium ion technology doesn't respond to well,
it's heat. Heat ages these batteries rapidly by accelerating the chemical
reaction that eventually kills them. If you aren't going to use that
battery-using gadget for a long period, the best thing to do is to store
it in a cool place with about a 40 percent charge, said Isidor Buchmann,
author of a book on batteries and founder of Cadex Electronics Inc., a
British Columbia-based battery-charger company.

Buchmann said gadgets should come with a birth date stamped on the side
"like a loaf of bread" so that consumers will have an idea of
how long they can expect a gadget to last.

Though battery researchers boost the performance of lithium ion
technology about 10 percent every year, Buchmann said, the lowly battery
still tends to be the most expensive and least reliable component of a
portable device.

It's a fact of life that electronics makers are all too familiar with.
"It's been vexing that batteries have not been keeping up with
Moore's law," observed Zehr at PalmOne, referring to the
computer-industry maxim that computer chips will double in complexity and
power every 18 months or so. "We keep making all these improvements
[to PalmOne's handheld line], but it's basically the same battery you
bought in 1999. . . . Batteries have just not kept up."
*******************************
CNET News.com
Congressional leaders promise action on tech
Last modified: January 10, 2004, 11:30 AM PST
By David Becker 

LAS VEGAS--Federal lawmakers are ready to help the technology industry
solve its problems--at least some of the issues. 

That was the consensus from eight U.S. senators and representatives
gathered Friday for a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Congressional leaders vowed concerted action on some hot-button tech
issues, but warned attendees not to expect too much. 

Some of the most vigorous debate focused on trade policy, with speakers
describing a balancing act between encouraging free international trade
and preventing an exodous of U.S. jobs to overseas locations. 

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said misguided concerns about jobs are setting the
agenda now. "What we're seeing is a continuing assault on free
trade," he said, adding that some lawmakers "want to punish
companies that do business offshore." 

"We've been in defense all year," Davis said. "The AFL-CIO
is out there--they're taking book on this." 

But Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., warned that fellow free-trade Republicans
shouldn't make the mistake of thinking the jobs issue isn't real.
"There's some realities out there that hurt Americans," he
said. "There's a beginning of the erosion of the middle class in
this country." 

Debate was more unified on intellectual property issues, with lawmakers
saying that while Congress will continue to support strong copyright
protection, media industries need to come up with their own solutions to
file-swapping and other issues.

Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., joined others in criticizing the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) for suing alleged music swappers,
calling the RIAA's legal tactics heavy-handed and against the intent of
U.S. copyright laws, including the controversial Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA). 

"The fundamental problem with the approach of the RIAA took is that
it was based on legislation that created special property rights,"
Sununu said. "Suddenly, you had a private entity that's able to
issue subpoenas, which is unprecedented." 

"That's not what the DMCA was intended to do," he said.
"We can't be writing legislation that gives holders of certain types
of intellectual property special rights...We can't carve out special
legislation to give special powers to certain types of content."

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said it's up to content creators to come up
with business models that accommodate modern technology and attitudes.
"I don't agree you're going to get teenagers and young people to
believe they're doing something immoral" in file swapping, he said.
"The industry has to decide on a different model." 

Lawmakers also spoke in support of moratoriums on taxing the Internet,
with Sen. George Allen, R-Va., saying lawmakers need to be vigilant
against efforts by state and local authorities to grab a chunk of
broadband service fees. 

Sununu said those same force are hungry to take a bite out of the
emerging market for Internet-based telephone service. "I think the
most important policy issue we'll be dealing with over the next few
months is voice over IP," he said. Sununu said Congress' job is
"to try to protect it from taxation, to define it as an information
service, so the technology can grow."
*******************************
Wired News
Errant E-Mail Shames RFID Backer  
By Mark Baard
02:00 AM Jan. 12, 2004 PT

The companies and organizations behind radio-frequency identification
tags are scrambling to improve their image by promising to protect the
privacy rights of consumers, after they were caught trying to dig up dirt
about one of their most effective critics. 

The companies also said they are developing devices to disable RFID tags,
which they are placing on everything from shampoo bottles to suit jackets
in the United States and Europe.

RFID tags may eventually replace bar-code labels on all consumer goods.
When exposed to radio signals, they transmit a unique serial number for
individual items and help manufacturers, distributors and retailers keep
track of every item in their inventory. But privacy groups, led by
Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (or
CASPIAN), fear that businesses and governments can use those signals to
track individuals' movements inside stores and in public places.

One organization may have been shamed into soliciting CASPIAN's advice,
however. The Grocery Manufacturers of America this week inadvertently
sent an internal e-mail to CASPIAN suggesting it was looking for
embarrassing information about the group's founder, Katherine Albrecht.

The e-mail, written by a college intern at GMA, reads, "I don't know
what to tell this woman! 'Well, actually we're trying to see if you have
a juicy past that we could use against you.'" 

The intern earlier had asked Albrecht to produce her personal biography,
"as part of an RFID research project," and became frustrated
when Albrecht asked what GMA planned to do with the information,
according to GMA spokesman Richard Martin. 

But the research project had a limited scope: Albrecht was the only
person contacted by GMA, Martin admitted. 

GMA, which represents the interests of RFID backers Coca-Cola, Procter
& Gamble and Gillette, is working on privacy guidelines for adopters
of RFID tags and the Electronic Product Code, the industry standard
governing how RFID tags are used with consumer goods. 

And now the GMA says it wants Albrecht's advice. 

"We are interested in maintaining a dialogue with consumer advocacy
groups like CASPIAN as we move forward in rolling out EPC and RFID,"
said Martin. 

This represents an about-face by many RFID backers, who have often played
down their plans to tag individual items and accused Albrecht of
exaggerating the threat the tags pose to consumer privacy. 

Wal-Mart, which tested RFID tags and readers in at least two of its
stores last year, said it would adhere to the RFID privacy guidelines
published by EPCglobal, the EPC standards body. The guidelines require
companies to publicly state how they plan to use data collected from the
EPC tags. 

"We understand and care about the concerns that some of our
customers have about privacy and, as always, we put our customers' needs
first," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark. 

Wal-Mart and other retailers say they plan to place RFID tags only on the
pallets and containers in their supply chains. 

But Germany's largest retailer, Metro Group, says it plans to tag every
item in its stores with RFID. It said it is working with IBM to develop a
device that would disable RFID tags as customers left Metro stores.

CASPIAN's Albrecht said she welcomes tag-killing technologies, as well as
the overtures by RFID users who want to work with her. "I just hope
they're looking for a real dialogue about the implications of this
technology," she said, "and not simply trying to appear
concerned."
*******************************