Clips January 26, 2004

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips January 26,
2004

ARTICLES

Plans for Wireless Directory Raise Concerns About Privacy
E-mail scam taps antiterrorist push, says FDIC
Microsoft Settles with Teen Over Web Site
Extradition Hearing for Alleged 'Screener' Pirate
Microsoft hops on the RFID bandwagon
How the Mint uses enterprise architecture
States to get $500 million for election reform 
Pentagon stands behind Internet voting system for troops

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New York Times
January 26, 2004
Plans for Wireless Directory Raise Concerns About Privacy
By LISA NAPOLI

fter last year's campaigns against spammers and telemarketers, lawmakers
on Capitol Hill are poised to tackle the next privacy frontier: the
nation's 150 million wireless phones.

As a group of carriers quietly works to create the first wireless white
pages, legislation is in the works to protect consumers concerned about
the privacy issues of those numbers going public. Privacy advocates say
the proposed protections are not strong enough.

The Wireless 411 Consumer Privacy Act was introduced in both the House
and the Senate before the holiday recess. The bill would require existing
customers who want to be listed in a national database of numbers to
"opt in," or specifically say they want to be listed, while new
wireless subscribers would have to "opt out," that is, choose
not to be listed. 

The proposed legislation also insists that consumers not be charged a fee
for keeping their numbers private, a practice that generates $50 million
in revenue for land-line companies each year.

"It is important for Congress to clearly articulate a pro-consumer
privacy policy for wireless 411 information before the industry
implements a 411 database," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a
Massachusetts Democrat who is the ranking member of the House
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. "Otherwise,
wireless consumers may be on the receiving end of an industry-designed
service that results in privacy invasions, an increase in unwanted calls,
or new charges simply to retain the current level of privacy." Mr.
Markey introduced the bill with Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of
Pennsylvania.

Industry insiders say that for years the wireless carriers did not think
a directory would be useful or desirable. Since last year, though, with a
decline in demand for traditional directory services, carriers have been
discussing the idea of such a service. 

The complexities are formidable, but the payoff could be great: analysts
say the mobile directory assistance business could yield $3 billion in
revenue a year. 

The creation of a master database of mobile phone numbers requires
competing carriers to work together. An alliance of those carriers,
working under the trade group Cellular Telecommunications Internet
Association, has been meeting to determine the particulars of such a
service.

A handful of independent businesses, like Flatwire Inc., based in
Carrabassett, Me., have been working to develop a directory assistance
service for the mobile industry, too. Jeffrey L. Strunk, a former game
developer who started the business in 1998, said there was "a huge
opportunity for high volume" as long as privacy issues were
addressed. 

Travis Larson, a spokesman for the trade group, said he expected a
directory - it would not be printed, but available only to those who
called for the service - to be ready some time this year. "Each
carrier will go forward on its own schedule," he said. "There's
no official industrywide date or time. Consumers might discover this
organically, if you will."

Ultimately, Mr. Larson said, the carriers will set their own prices and
privacy policies for the services. He said that he saw no need for
Congressional regulation of the planned directory and that consumers were
already protected by laws that ban telemarketing calls to wireless
phones.

In addition, Mr. Larson said, wireless subscribers are eligible to
protect their phone numbers further by listing them on the Federal Trade
Commission's do-not-call registry.

"We don't see why the competitive wireless market needs to be
regulated," Mr. Larson said. "It's as if computers existed
unregulated for 20 years and someone invented laptops, and someone else
said, 'Stop! We have to hold hearings.' "

But some industry analysts say that if Congress had not started looking
into privacy issues involving wireless, the carriers might have quietly
started exercising their right to publish wireless numbers. 

"Almost everyone has signed a contract," said Kathleen Pierz,
an analyst who has published a treatise on wireless privacy. "Right
in the tiny print you give permission to include yourself in a database.
People are so totally unaware of that. If you just simply put people in a
wireless directory, you will not only have a mass revolt, you will have
the federal government, the F.C.C., breathing down your neck, and for
good reason."

But Ms. Pierz says that what the government has proposed may weaken the
value of a wireless directory, because the bill's requirement for
existing customers to opt in if they want to be listed could make the
task of amassing a majority of numbers difficult.

"If you don't have 50 percent of all numbers in the database, it's
not efficient," Ms. Pierz said, because callers to the service may
become frustrated by inquiries that do not generate the information they
are seeking. "I argue that opt-out is best - opt-out with privacy
protection. That's the key." 

In a survey conducted last year by the Zelos Group, a research firm based
in San Francisco, just 2 percent of consumers said they would agree to
list their wireless numbers if there were no privacy protections. That
jumped to 51 percent if privacy protections were guaranteed.

Privacy advocates also take issue with the government's plans, although
for different reasons. The very existence of a wireless directory is
going to shatter the existing "sanctuary" of the cellphone,
said Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He
said of the proposed rules: "We would want it to be stronger, would
want it to be opt-in across the board. Opt-out is generally not
effective. It's only effective when there's widespread public knowledge
of the facility to opt-out, as in the do-not-call
registry."

All sides of the debate agree that as the migration to the wireless phone
becomes more pronounced - some 7.5 million people already rely solely on
a wireless number, according to the cellphone trade group - the need for
a directory will also grow. 

There are millions of numbers no one knows how to get access to, said
Michael Dorian, director of wireless industry relations for NeuStar, the
Sterling, Va., company that administers wireless numbers. "It's a
really big thing to figure out. Obviously it's a big market opportunity.
It's important to make wireless work."
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CNET News.com
E-mail scam taps antiterrorist push, says FDIC
Last modified: January 23, 2004, 3:29 PM PST
By Robert Lemos 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the national insurer of U.S. bank
accounts, warned Americans on Friday that a convincing e-mail scam is
making the rounds. 

The fraudulent e-mail claims to be from the FDIC and informs recipients
that their bank account has been denied insurance as a result of an
investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into
"suspected violations of the Patriot Act." The USA PATRIOT Act,
which was passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, gives broad powers to law
enforcement to combat terrorism. 

"Someone really did their homework," said David Barr, a
spokesman for the FDIC, adding that the letter is mostly free of the
grammatical and spelling mistakes that usually act as a sign that the
message is not genuine. Moreover, citations of the little-understood
antiterrorism law, whose acronym stands for "Uniting and
Strengthening of America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to
Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism," lend the message a dire tone.

"The Patriot Act is an actual act out there. It's done through
Homeland Security, and it's used to block the flow of money," making
the fraudulent e-mail seem at least plausible, Barr said.

The FDIC sent out the advisory after being inundated with complaints from
consumers, who were worried that their bank accounts wouldn't have the
$100,000 protection historically guaranteed by the FDIC. 

The scheme is only the latest attempt to get personal and financial
information through fraud, a criminal activity known as
"phishing." Similar messages have targeted customers of
Citibank, Wells Fargo, PayPal and other financial companies, but haven't
cited the USA PATRIOT Act. 

The latest letter states that unless recipients confirm their personal
information by going to what looks like an FDIC Web site, then their
account will lose its protection. The link to the Web site provided in
the e-mail message leads to a server in Karachi, Pakistan, CNET News.com
has discovered. Moreover, the link is formatted to take advantage of an
Internet Explorer flaw that allows an attacker to hide the true
destination of the link; in this case, the address bar in Internet
Explorer displays
"www.fdic.gov,"
while the actual Web site is at a different address in Pakistan.

The IE issue is more than a month old and has yet to be fixed by
Microsoft. 

"Microsoft is taking this vulnerability very seriously and is
working to develop a patch to fix the problem," a company
spokesperson said. "We will release this patch as soon as the
development and testing process is complete." 

Microsoft is directing users to a Knowledge Base article for more
information. 

"The FDIC is attempting to identify the source of the e-mails and
disrupt the transmission," the agency's advisory stated. "Until
this is achieved, consumers are asked to report any similar attempts to
obtain this information to the FDIC by sending information to
alert@xxxxxxxx."
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Internet Reports
Microsoft Settles with Teen Over Web Site
Fri Jan 23, 8:12 PM ET

SEATTLE (Reuters) - In the end, it paid to be Mike Rowe. 
The 17-year-old Canadian teenager who caught the attention of Microsoft
Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) lawyers by registering
www.mikerowesoft.com,
agreed on Friday to give up his Web site in exchange from some perks from
the world's largest software maker. 


"We believe he's a bright young man with great potential,"
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said, reading from a prepared statement.
"Mike will soon decide on his new name and Web site and we have
agreed to help redirect any traffic to his new Web site to ensure he does
not lose any business." 


In exchange, Microsoft will pay for Rowe's expenses, the cost of
switching over to a new site, provide training for certification on
Microsoft's products, a subscription to Microsoft's developer program Web
site, and an Xbox (news - web sites) video game console with games, as
well as an invitation to bring his parents along for a visit to
Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters for an annual technology
fair. 


The catchy Internet address, which the company felt sounded too similar
to "Microsoft" to leave in the hands of the budding Web
designer, will eventually stop redirecting traffic, Desler said.


Rowe, who lives in Victoria, British Columbia, more than 50 miles
northwest of Redmond, could not immediately be reached for comment.


"All along I just wanted to prove a point that the small guy can win
against the giant corporations," Rowe wrote on his Web site earlier
this week. 


Microsoft initially took a hard line against the Canadian teenager,
offering to pay him only $10 for the incidental cost of giving up his
site instead of the $10,000 that he had he demanded.
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Los Angeles Times
Extradition Hearing for Alleged 'Screener' Pirate
 From Times Wire Services
January 26, 2004

A hearing is set in Chicago federal court today that could decide if
Russell Sprague, arrested last week on suspicion of helping illegally
post Oscar "screeners" on the Internet, should be transferred
to L.A. for trial.

Sprague, 51, was charged Friday with violating Hollywood studio
copyrights. Prosecutors contend he violated copyrights on "The Last
Samurai," "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the
World" and "The Matrix Revolutions." 

Sprague's case marks the first time anyone has been arrested and charged
in the pirating of so-called screener copies of films supplied in advance
to Academy Award voters, the FBI said. Sprague denies violating any movie
copyright. 

The Motion Picture Assn. of America last year banned the distribution of
screener DVDs and videotapes over concerns about bootlegging, but eased
the ban after complaints from filmmakers, producers and independent
production companies.
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Washington Post
2nd Rover Opens Eyes To Wonders Of Mars 


By Kathy Sawyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A01 


PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 25 -- The U.S. rover Opportunity settled safely
inside a small Martian crater over the weekend and opened its eyes on a
dark, brooding landscape unlike any previously seen on the planet,
complete with the first outcropping of bedrock ever encountered
there.

Flush with their second successful robotic landing in three weeks and
mesmerized by their first glimpses of this surreal new face of Mars,
scientists were left groping for words to describe the revelations
pouring in from 124 million miles away.

"I will attempt no science analysis because it looks like nothing
I've ever seen before in my life," Steve Squyres of Cornell
University, lead rover scientist, told the rapt flight control team as
Opportunity's first images began to parade across large projection
screens in mission control here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at 4:15
a.m. Sunday.

He was seeing in some directions a relentlessly smooth surface, darker
than any seen by other landers and lacking the typical rocky rubble.
There were disturbed areas of somber red -- possibly spots where the
rover bounced and removed the overlying dark material, he said. The
powder was so fine in spots that it held the imprint of the airbag seams.
Then there were the prized outcroppings of light-colored, layered rock --
apparently in the rim of the crater -- which, he said, should serve as a
kind of rare history text revealing the evolution of Mars.

"Holy smokes!" he interrupted himself as he glimpsed a
particularly intriguing view. "Opportunity has touched down in a
bizarre, alien landscape. . . . I'm flabbergasted. I'm astonished. I'm
blown away."

The landing of a second U.S. rover within three weeks -- both times
without a hitch -- brought NASA's Mars team full cycle through what
several described as a wild and exhausting roller-coaster ride. They had
experienced the jubilation of the Jan. 3 landing of Opportunity's twin,
Spirit, followed by more than two weeks of progress at the first site, in
Gusev Crater. Then came Spirit's sudden crippling failure Wednesday, with
the possibility it would never recover, followed by engineers'
increasingly promising effort to resuscitate the 384-pound,
golf-cart-size robot.

"Just yesterday, there was a good chance we'd be fighting a war on
two fronts," said rover deputy manager for surface operations Matt
Wallace, before dawn Sunday. "Instead, we got the best party in
town."

Swaddled in airbags, Opportunity landed at 12:05 a.m. on an equatorial
plain called Meridiani, on the opposite side of Mars from
Spirit.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former vice president Al Gore and a raft
of other present and former elected officials and VIPs on hand to offer
congratulations, team members whooped and shouted repeatedly as the first
images and telemetry confirmed the relatively sedate bounce down and
deployment of vital systems well inside the targeted landing zone in what
scientists believe may be the smoothest region on Mars.

As he had for the Spirit landing, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe popped
a bottle of champagne at a late-night celebration in the packed Jet
Propulsion Laboratory auditorium and praised the team as "the best
in the world." For luck, he said he had worn the same clothes for
both landings.

"As the old saying goes, it's far better to be lucky than good, but
you know, the harder we work, the luckier we seem to get," he
said.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Charles Elachi told the crowd:
"You have been observing exploration exactly as it happens, with all
its joy, its frustration, its glory" and hard work.

Said landing manager Rob Manning, who drew raucous cheers from his peers:
"The talent in this room is phenomenal. It's scary, and it
represents a wonderful cross-section of our country. . . . It's the
people who have an incredible curiosity about the way our world
works."

With the delivery of the two rovers, at a combined cost of $820 million,
scientists for the first time have two mobile laboratories on Mars. The
1997 Pathfinder mission, much less sophisticated, was the first roving
machine on Mars. The Viking landers of the 1970s were
stationary.

"We resurrected one rover and saw the birth of another," said
NASA's chief space scientist Edward Weiler. Before these successes, Mars
had defeated two out of every three international attempts to land there,
but he noted that the U.S. tally now stands at five out of six.
"That's an 87 percent batting average."

The ailing Spirit was still regarded as being in "serious"
condition, project manager Pete Theisinger said Sunday afternoon, but
"I think we've got a patient well on the way to
recovery."

He said the most popular diagnosis is that the problem lies in file
management software, not hardware, and engineers are pursuing a solution
that could put the rover back on the road in two or three 
weeks.

Spirit and Opportunity bring the total number of spacecraft operating on
or around Mars to five, with two U.S. and one European orbiting
spacecraft.

Opportunity apparently came down in a small crater about 66 feet across
and maybe seven feet deep, Squyres said.

It settled on its side rather than with its bottom down, as Spirit had,
engineers reported. This meant it had to right itself as it unfolded its
flower-like petals, which have enough torque to lift an
automobile.

The rover is pitched slightly nose up, with its landing deck no more than
16 inches off the Martian surface, said mission manager Arthur Amador.
Facing north by northeast, it seems perfectly positioned to roll off the
main exit ramp in careful steps over the next week or two, he said, and
should be unfettered by the bunched airbags that slowed Spirit's progress
onto Martian soil.

The stream of early images from a relatively blurry navigation camera --
and a trickle of sharper ones coming later from Opportunity's panoramic
camera -- depicted geological enticements beyond the geologists'
dreaming, they said.

"The beauty of bedrock is that you know where it comes from,"
Squyres said. "It removes an enormous number of uncertainties."
It also has discrete layers, he said, so that the rover's tools can
determine the relative age relationships.

By contrast, the Connecticut-size crater where Spirit rests a half a
world away is covered with dusty debris, loose rocks and boulders
presumably washed in through river channels or churned and redistributed
by various forces over the eons.

The fine-grained, dark and possibly talcum-like material that covers much
of the terrain around Opportunity is what attracted the team to this
site. Scientists believe it contains rich quantities of hematite, a
mineral that usually forms in association with liquid water.

The goal of both rovers is to hunt for evidence showing whether Mars ever
had water in liquid form long enough for life to evolve.

Squyres noted the presence nearby, revealed in images taken during
Opportunity's descent, of a larger crater almost 500 feet wide, which he
said seems to be reachable by the rover.

The robots are not capable of digging very deep, but in craters excavated
by violent impacts, scientists said, nature has done the work of exposing
layers of rock that represent steps far back in time.
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CNET News.com
Microsoft hops on the RFID bandwagon
Last modified: January 26, 2004, 4:19 AM PST
By Marguerite Reardon 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Microsoft on Monday announced new software designed to help small and
midsize companies better manage their supply chains wirelessly. 

The company has added Radio Frequency Identification technology, which
combines silicon chips and radio frequency technology to track inventory,
to its Microsoft Axapta Warehouse Management software.

Microsoft has been testing the new RFID software with KiMs, a Danish
snack food company, since December 2003. KiMs, which was already using
Axapta, is using the new software to monitor pallets or cartons of
finished goods as they move out of production and into a third-party
warehouse. The company said that the new software provides much greater
knowledge of the exact location of products at various points in its
supply chain.

RFID has been lauded by manufacturers and retailers for its ability to
provide better information about inventory and other data across the
supply chain, which can increase product availability and help businesses
reduce costs by trimming inventory levels. 

Several major companies have already announced RFID initiatives. German
retailer Metro Group has asked its top suppliers to begin attaching the
special microchips to shipments. Wal-Mart and the U.S. Defense Department
have also begun big RFID projects with the expectation that the
technology will help prevent goods from being lost or stolen. Companies
like Gillette and Procter & Gamble are experimenting with using RFID
systems in stores to prevent shoplifting and to monitor stock on the
shelf. 

Microsoft's software will now allow smaller companies to take advantage
of the innovative wireless technology.

The way it works is that RFID "tags," which contain a special
radio frequency-emitting microchip, are attached to each carton or box of
goods. The microchip wirelessly broadcasts information about itself, such
as its location and its origin. Each tag has a unique number, or
electronic product code (EPC). The tags are monitored during storage,
loading and shipment, and the data is fed back into Microsoft
Axapta.

Microsoft has made several moves to support RFID. Earlier this month, the
software maker said it would be creating tools, using the company's .Net
Web services framework, that will allow retailers to interact with
customers, improve operations management and incorporate RFID. 

Other companies are also introducing RFID products. IBM and Dutch
electronics maker Philips announced on Monday that they are working
together on an RFID product. Philips' semiconductor unit will make the
radio chips that can be stuck on items, and IBM will provide the computer
services and systems.
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Federal Computer Week
How the Mint uses enterprise architecture
BY Diane Frank 
Jan. 26, 2004

U.S. Mint officials are developing several tools based on their
enterprise architecture to help the agency's business units have better
control over their information technology investments.

- A portfolio management tool was scheduled to be in place by December
2003, first for the business units and then for the support offices
within the agency. 

- A baseline architecture view of existing programs and investments has
been completed. 

- A tool for developing and reporting business cases for the annual
budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget will be ready in
March or April. 

- A target architecture will be completed by September. 

The first phase of the architecture will be implemented in 
December.
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Government Computer News
States to get $500 million for election reform 
By Wilson P. Dizard III 
01/23/04 

Congress has appropriated $500 million in the catchall spending bill now
awaiting President Bush?s signature for grants to states to improve
voting technology. 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004 states that the
half-billion-dollar grant kitty will assist state and local efforts to
improve election technology and administration of federal elections.

The appropriation is authorized by Section 257 of the Help America Vote
Act of 2002, which Congress passed in the wake of the disputed 2000
presidential election. 

HAVA affects every part of the voting process, from voting machines to
provisional ballots, registration and poll worker training, the League of
Women Voters has said. The act mandates federal requirements for
provisional ballots, statewide computerized voter lists, second-chance
voting and disability access.
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Government Executive
Pentagon stands behind Internet voting system for troops
 From CongressDailyAM 
January 22, 2004

An Internet-based voting system for U.S. citizens in other countries that
was developed by the Pentagon is so vulnerable to attacks that it should
be scrapped, security experts said in a report released
Wednesday.

But the Pentagon is backing the system, which could be tested Feb. 3 in
South Carolina's primary election, the Associated Press
reported.

Four computer security specialists said the Secure Electronic
Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE, could be penetrated by
hackers. The hackers could alter votes or collect information about
users.

"Internet voting presents far too many opportunities for hackers or
even terrorists to interfere with fair and accurate voting, potentially
in ways impossible to detect,'' the computer experts said.

A Defense Department spokesman said the Pentagon was confident the system
is secure. "We knew from the start that security would be the utmost
concern," he said. "We've had things put in place that
counteract the things they talked about."

The four experts are among 10 the Pentagon asked to study the SERVE
system and look for vulnerabilities. The other security experts decided
not to issue a report, he said.
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