Clips February 11, 2004

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Although, I have greatly
enjoyed my time working in the ACM Policy Office on emerging IT policy
issues, I will be leaving this position at the end of the month.  I
have accepted an excellent opportunity with the Electronic Privacy
Information Center.  The last clips sent by me will by on Friday,
February 13, 2004.  My position in the policy office has not been
filled, consequently there will be an interruption in the e-clips. 
Providing clips on IT policy news is not an official function of my
position, but something I did for myself and made available to others who
wanted to receive them.  If you would like to see the clips
continue, please inform Jeff Grove, Director ACM?s Policy Office of your
interest via e-mail. 
Jeff_Grove@xxxxxxx.

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

Clips February 11, 2004

ARTICLES

Bush, Adviser Assailed for Stance on 'Offshoring' Jobs 
Online politics should remain largely unregulated, report says
This Time, Fairfax's Touch-Screen Machines Meet Challenge
Study: Spammers turning blind eye to the law
MyDoom author may be covering tracks
DARPA looks to develop low-power data transmissions
Government releases guidelines for governmentwide smart cards 
Secure IT Deploys Specialists For Top Federal Contractors 

*******************************
Washington Post
Bush, Adviser Assailed for Stance on 'Offshoring' Jobs 
By Jonathan Weisman
Wednesday, February 11, 2004; Page A06 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30194-2004Feb10.html

Democrats from
Capitol Hill to the presidential campaign trail lit into President Bush's
chief economist yesterday for his laudatory statements on the movement of
U.S. jobs abroad, seizing on the comments to paint Bush as out of touch
with struggling workers.

"They've delivered a double blow to America's workers, 3 million
jobs destroyed on their watch, and now they want to export more of our
jobs overseas," said John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator and
front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. "What in
the world are they thinking?"

Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) called for the resignation of N. Gregory
Mankiw, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and
a prominent Harvard University economist. Manzullo said industrial state
Republicans are furious.

"I know the president cannot believe what this man has said,"
Manzullo said. "He ought to walk away, and return to his ivy-covered
office at Harvard."

As Mankiw released the annual Economic Report of the President, he said
Monday that the "offshoring" of U.S. service jobs is only
"the latest manifestation of the gains from trade that economists
have talked about" for centuries.

"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade,"
Mankiw told reporters. "More things are tradable than were tradable
in the past and that's a good thing."

The report itself, under Bush's signature, offered similarly encouraging
words, asserting that "when a good or service is produced more
cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than make or provide it
domestically." It also said growing competition with China has not
been an important factor in U.S. manufacturing job losses.

The White House tried to take the political sting out of the issue
yesterday, emphasizing the funding Bush has sought for job re-training,
community colleges and "personal re-employment accounts," which
laid-off workers could use any way they see fit to find a new job.

"The president's view is that American workers are the best workers
in the world, and he is committed to free and fair trade. He is committed
to a level playing field," said White House spokeswoman Claire
Buchan, "and believes we have to prepare workers for the economy of
the future."

Bush's 2005 budget request does increase spending on his new proposals,
as well as job training under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. But
other programs face cuts or elimination, such as one-stop career centers,
youth opportunity grants and migrant worker training. 

The statements on "offshoring" only fueled attacks on Bush's
job-creation record from Democrats who have made economic nationalism a
centerpiece of the campaign season. One Senate Democratic aide promised
the words would become staples for every Democratic campaign this fall.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) opened a meeting with
reporters by offering his critique of Mankiw's economics.

"This is actually now the position of the White House that they
support outsourcing of jobs, jobs going abroad, saying that that's good
for our country," he said. "Well, you tell that to the 9
million Americans who are out of work."

Mankiw faced the criticism in person when he appeared before the
congressional Joint Economic Committee to present the economic report.
Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (Calif.), the panel's ranking
Democrat, told him, "Bush stands idly by as jobs continue to take
flight from the U.S., and now we know why. It's part of his economic
plan."

Mankiw and the president's report contend that the U.S. economy
ultimately will benefit when the production of goods and services finds
its way to the nation that can render them most efficiently. 

Mankiw acknowledged the pain that trade-related dislocations can have for
individuals.

"We need to help workers find jobs and make sure to create jobs
here," he said. "But we shouldn't sort of retreat from the
basic principles of free trade."
*******************************
USA Today
Online politics should remain largely unregulated, report says
By Anna Oberthur, Associated Press
Posted 2/10/2004 11:54 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-02-10-net-politics_x.htm

SACRAMENTO 
The Internet has spurred innovation in campaigns, and California
lawmakers and regulatory agencies should protect and enhance political
participation through the Internet, not regulate it, said a report
released Tuesday by a state commission. 

The Bipartisan California Commission on Internet Political Practices
report recommends protecting voter education Web sites and online media
from regulation as political campaigning on the Internet grows. 

The commission's report comes after a series of hearings, surveys and
research projects conducted over more than a year. A 2000 law called for
creation of the 12-member commission to look into how online political
activity should be regulated. 

Liane Randolph, chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices
Commission that reviewed the report Tuesday, said it "makes
excellent recommendations about the importance of furthering public
communication without regulatory interference." 

Because of its ability to mobilize people, the Internet should be treated
as a possible remedy to an ailing democracy  not haphazardly
regulated by the government, said commission chairman Geoffrey Cowan,
dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for
Communication. 

"Widespread cynicism and substantially decreasing voter
participation echo the overall disengagement in political and public life
by our nation's citizenry," Cowan said in a statement. "In the
end, the benefits of engaging citizens in the democratic process through
the Internet will far outweigh any potential dangers." 

In the report, the commission recommends the state protect Web sites that
are designed for voter education, ensuring that sites such as those by
the nonpartisan Project Vote Smart and the California Voter Foundation
aren't regulated. 

To support online grass roots political activity, the report recommends
protecting from regulation so-called fan and parody sites supporting,
criticizing or parodying a candidate or initiative. 

"Our concern is that it's (campaign finance law) open to
interpretation," said Matt Grossmann, research director for the
commission. "We want the FPPC to make it clear that these kinds of
things will not be regulated." 

Commissioners also want to make sure search engines that link
Internet-users to candidates stay unregulated. The fact that an online
directory connects a user to a candidate's Web site should not be
considered a contribution in favor of the candidate, Grossmann said

But the state needs to act, Grossmann said, because even if the state
doesn't regulate something it needs to act "to ensure that
activities are allowed to flourish." 

The report acknowledges certain challenges, such as how many people don't
seek political information online and the risk of deception, which the
Legislature has labeled "political cyberfraud."
*******************************
Washington Post
This Time, Fairfax's Touch-Screen Machines Meet Challenge 
By David Cho
Wednesday, February 11, 2004; Page A17 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30353-2004Feb10.html

Fairfax
County's new touch-screen voting machines behaved well throughout the day
for yesterday's Democratic presidential primary, and most precincts
succeeded in quickly transmitting vote tallies electronically once the
polls closed last night. 

By 8:15 p.m., 167 of 223 precincts had reported voting totals, nearly all
of them electronically, officials said.

"I'm delighted. . . . In the old days, you would just be beginning
to get results by 8, 8:15," said a relieved Margaret K. Luca,
secretary of the county electoral board.

Electoral board officials had been criticized after November's general
election, when machines malfunctioned and vote tallies weren't known
until 21 hours after the polls closed because of a software problem. The
outcome of some county School Board races was in doubt until the next
day.

All precincts that had the capability of filing electronically had done
so by 9:30 last night. Phone lines at nearly 70 precincts are not yet
equipped to do so. 

Yesterday afternoon, Luca and other elections officials said they were
encouraged that November's problems appeared to be solved after more than
two months of testing, fixes made by the manufacturer and an extra cadre
of technicians on duty. 

"Everything has been really terrific," she said, adding that
technicians were able to quickly fix virtually every problem that
arose.

Just two voting machines of more than nearly 900 proved to be so balky
that they could not be returned to service -- a far better average than
in November, when malfunctions created long lines at some 
polls.

Bob Ambrogi of Fairfax echoed the sentiments of several voters outside
Woodson High School, calling the voting process "very
easy."

"I think the [voting machines] are the latest technology, and that's
what we need. That hanging chad is gone from history forever, I
hope," added Ambrogi, referring to the confusion surrounding
punch-card ballots in the 2000 presidential election.

In November, at least 154 machines crashed or had power or printing
problems; 10 others broke down altogether, county officials have said.
Fairfax paid $3.5 million for the new system.

Over the following two months, county elections officials conducted two
mock elections to test the machines and asked the designer, Advanced
Voting Solutions of Frisco, Tex., to fix a number of hardware and
software glitches. Yesterday, a room full of technicians were on call
throughout the primary.

In Alexandria, new electronic voting machines debuted to mostly good
reviews, although some voters said that the devices were more confusing
than the paper ballots used in past elections, according to registrar Tom
Parkins. He added that he had expected some negative feedback.

"Any time you make a change, there are going to be some people who
are unhappy," he said. 

Whether voters are happy with the new system is moot, elections officials
frequently point out. States are required by the federal Help America
Vote Act to replace all paper, punch-card and lever machines by 2006. The
change was sparked by the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential
election. 

The city paid $750,000 for 225 machines from Hart InterCivic of Austin
last year, Parkins said. Before the purchase, Alexandria officials tested
two types of machines: the Advanced Voting Solutions devices being used
in Fairfax and the ones made by Hart.

Arlington elections officials said their touch-screen machines -- which
debuted in November -- performed reasonably well. A few machines did
crash, said Donna Patterson, deputy registrar. 

Unlike Fairfax elections officials, those in Arlington decided to call
results in the traditional way -- by phone -- rather than rely on modems
and servers, Patterson said.
*******************************
CNET News.com
Study: Spammers turning blind eye to the law
Last modified: February 10, 2004, 11:42 AM PST
By Stefanie Olsen 
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5156629.html?tag=nefd_hed

Only a fraction
of the unsolicited e-mail slipping into in-boxes complies with a federal
antispam law, according to new research. 

Only 3 percent of bulk commercial e-mail includes a valid U.S. postal
mail address and a valid link to opt out of future messages, according to
data released on Tuesday by MX Logic, a maker of mail-filtering software.
Those requirements are part of the Can-Spam Act, short for Controlling
the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing, the nation's
first federal spam law. 

What's more, the amount of spam has continued to grow since the law went
into effect at the beginning of the year. As much as 60 percent of the
e-mail sent in January was spam, up from 58 percent in December,
according to San Francisco-based Brightmail, one of the largest
spam-filtering companies.

"We're seeing more spam than ever," said Ken Schneider, chief
technology officer at Brightmail, which fields between 3 billion and 4
billion e-mail messages a day. 

Yet direct e-mail marketers are beginning to comply more often with the
law, and many others are still attempting to understand its effects,
Schneider said. "It's a little bit early to see huge amounts of
compliance, but we are seeing people start to comply," he said.

Some legal antispam rules are still being worked out. In recent weeks,
the Federal Trade Commission, which is charged with enforcing the
Can-Spam Act, proposed a rule that would require senders of adult-related
e-mail to include the phrase "Sexually-Explicit-Content:" in
messages. That way, recipients would be able to recognize and easily
filter such e-mail before viewing it. Schneider said that more e-mailers
are already including the tag "ADLT."

Scott Chasin, chief technology officer at MX Logic, said that the Denver
company is seeing more e-mail that originates overseas--as much as 60
percent in January, up 1 percent from December. Spam attacks from
"zombie machines," or hijacked PCs, are also on the rise, he
said. 

To conduct its survey, MX Logic analyzed 10,000 random pieces of
commercial e-mail over a 30-day period ending in February to detect a
valid postal address and an opt-out link. In the first week of January,
it surveyed 1,000 messages similarly and found that only 1 percent of
e-mail complied with the law.
*******************************
USA Today
Dakota County posts jail information on Web site
Posted 2/10/2004 3:50 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-02-10-online-inmates_x.htm

HASTINGS, Minn.
(AP)  The Dakota County sheriff has posted to the Web the names, mug
shots and partial booking information of everyone in his county jail in
an initiative that could be first of its kind in Minnesota. 

Sheriff Don Gudmundson said he decided to start the site after reading
about a similar effort in Washington state. He expects other sheriffs
will start similar sites. 

He said he hopes the site will provide information to the lawyers,
boyfriends and bail bondsmen who routinely call the jail. He said he
wasn't aware of another jail in Minnesota posting similar information
around the clock. 

Gudmundson said he hopes the site will also improve public safety.

For example, an officer searching for a burglary suspect may notice
someone held in the Dakota County jail for a similar string of burglaries
and then solve the crime. 

In another example, told by Cmdr. Mike Scott, Eagan residents saw a
neighbor led away by police and wondered what happened. When he returned
home, he explained it was a mix-up involving his brother and a financial
matter. 

Not exactly, said Scott, who oversees the 235-bed jail. The man was
wanted for criminal sexual conduct. 

The Web site is part of a growing national trend to help the public learn
more about those accused and convicted of crimes. Law enforcement
officials say posting information is good public relations and saves
staff time by reducing the dozens of daily telephone inquiries, but
defense attorneys question whether it should be so easy to check on each
arrest. 

"A lot of people do call to find out if their husband is in jail, if
their son is in jail, because they haven't shown up at home," Dakota
County Sheriff Chief Deputy Dave Bellows said. "We are just trying
to make this department a little more user-friendly." 

The free site allows people to check on a particular inmate or see
everyone in custody on a particular date. The site includes inmates'
names and ages, mug shots, bail amounts, arrests and charging
information. The site is updated as inmates are booked. 

The public, however, doesn't necessarily distinguish between an arrest
and a conviction, said public defender Anthony Ho. While Ho said the Web
site would help him keep track of whether his clients are in jail, he's
concerned about landlords and employers making decisions based on an
arrest or a charge. 

"Once somebody is charged, a lot of people tend to presume the
person did it, which is obviously ironic given they are supposed to be
presumed innocent," Ho said. 

Gudmundson said he doesn't want landlords and employers to use the site
to discriminate against applicants. 

"Our position is we are complying with the state Data Privacy Act.
We are putting out information that is available to the public. ... I
encourage and continue to encourage business people to take a chance on
people who have been in custody. I know of literally hundreds of
incidents where people made some mistakes in their life and are now doing
wonderfully for businesses and cities."
*******************************
CNET News.com
MyDoom author may be covering tracks
Last modified: February 10, 2004, 4:05 PM PST
By Robert Lemos 
http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5156836.html?tag=nefd_top

A worm that
started spreading on Sunday places the source code for the original
MyDoom virus on victims' hard drives, an action equivalent to planting
evidence, antivirus experts said Tuesday. 

The worm, Doomjuice, spreads to computers that have already been infected
by either the original MyDoom virus or the MyDoom.B variant, and among
other actions, places several copies of the source code for MyDoom.A on a
victim's computer. 

The author may be using the tactic to create a crowd of PC users in which
to hide, or the author could be spreading the code in hopes that other
virus writers will create variations on MyDoom, said Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant for antivirus company Sophos. 

"If he has spread his code around the Net onto innocent computers in
an attempt to hide in the crowd, then he's more sneaky than the average
virus writer," Cluley said in a statement. 

Doomjuice is one of two opportunistic programs--the other dubbed
Deadhat--that started spreading this week. Both viruses infect computers
that have already succumbed to either of the two MyDoom viruses.
Doomjuice also attempts to direct any re-infected PCs to attack
Microsoft's Web site. 

Doomjuice's possession of the source code for the original MyDoom virus
suggests that the creator of the worm is also the writer of the original
virus. A word in both MyDoom viruses--the name "andy"--has
already suggested to some researchers that the original MyDoom and the
MyDoom.B variant were created by the same person or group. 

Other antivirus researchers agree that the latest hostile program could
be intended to confuse investigations into who created the viruses.

"It stands to reason that the author might be hiding his
tracks," said Craig Schmugar, virus research manager for Network
Associates. "He might be trying not to get caught." 

The SCO Group and Microsoft have made separate offers of $250,000 for
information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or group
that started spreading the MyDoom.A and MyDoom.B viruses, respectively.
If the viruses were created and released by the same person or group, it
could result in a $500,000 payoff.
*******************************
Government Computer News
DARPA looks to develop low-power data transmissions 
By Dawn S. Onley 
02/11/04
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24921-1.html

The Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency has hired seven contractors to develop
techniques for reducing the amount of energy required for data
transmission. 

Yesterday, DARPA jump-started its Connectionless Networks program, which
teams the agency with a handful of contractors to offer
more-energy-efficient data systems. 

?As much of the world is shifting to an IP-centric approach for
communicating data digitally, we realize the inherent inefficiencies that
the IP headers create for sending small amounts of data,? said Preston
Marshall, DARPA?s Connectionless Networks program manager. 

In the first phase of the program, DARPA is paying the contractors a
total of $4.6 million to spend the next 12 months studying innovative
technologies. 

The contractors include: BAE Systems North America of Rockville, Md.,
$891,483; BBNT Solutions LLC of Cambridge, Mass., $851,427; GE Global
Research of Niskayuna, N.Y., $802,113; General Dynamics Decision Systems
of Scottsdale, Ariz., $199,955; HRL Laboratories LLC, of Malibu, Calif.,
$859,846; Raytheon Co., $798,848; and Wescomm LLC of Ann Arbor, Mich.,
$192,884. 

Contractors will study innovative technologies, such as new protocols and
low-power transmitters, Marshall said, and ?look at ways to exploit a
radio?s inherent multicast capability to efficiently transmit and
communicate a few bits of data at a time.? 

Ultimately, DARPA hopes to develop technologies that increase the
percentage of data bits relative to total packet bits while decreasing
the power used by radios to deliver the data bits. 

After the first phase concludes, DARPA plans follow-on phases and will
solicit industry participation.
*******************************
Government Computer News
Government releases guidelines for governmentwide smart cards 
By William Jackson 
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24919-1.html
2/10/04

The Federal Identity and Credentialing Committee has released guidelines
for developing interoperable federal identification systems based on
smart cards. 

The government has adopted a policy for establishing a common Federal ID
Card, which could be used for both physical and logical access control.
Individual agencies would issue and manage the cards, but the cards would
interoperable across agencies. 

?The FIC is to be used as the identity and basic authentication
credential ? within the issuing agency,? the guidelines note. ?It will be
the basis of identity and basic authentication when visiting other
domains within the federal government enterprise.? 

The committee is promoting smart cards as the platform of choice for
Federal ID Cards as agencies replace existing badge and ID systems.

The Office of Management Budget chartered the committee, which is a
consolidation of two other groups: the Federal PKI Steering Committee and
the Smart Card Interoperability Advisory Board. Members include federal
smart-card managers, PKI managers, human resources managers, physical
security managers and officials from the National Institute of Standards
and Technology. 

Each agency relying on the common card would be responsible for verifying
cards issued by other agencies and would establish its own physical and
logical access policies. 

The guidelines lay out minimum requirements for smart-card credentials:
Standard electrically readable format for data 


Tamper and counterfeit resistance 


Support for three means of authentication, such as passwords, credentials
and biometrics 


Automated use monitoring for audit trails 


Digital certificates on each card for identification, encryption and
digital signatures 


Ability to be updated after issuance 


Certification of applications carried on the cards. 
The committee encouraged agencies to design smart-card systems that can
support biometrics and comply with standards from the major federal and
international standards bodies. 
*******************************
Washington Post
Secure IT Deploys Specialists For Top Federal Contractors 
Monday, February 9, 2004; Page E05 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24431-2004Feb8.html

Secure IT plans
to hire about 50 people in the next three weeks. Bob Merkl, president and
chief operating officer, talked with The Post's Andrea Caumont. 

Q What does your company do? 

A We link the people that can provide IT talent and who have the right
security clearances to the companies that are doing that work for the
federal government. We're an intermediary between the demand and supply
in the federal space. We don't really compete with anyone. We try to help
people on both ends. We're almost like a headhunting company in some
ways. We place people in a variety of positions, both full-time permanent
positions as well as part-time or temporary hourly positions. We're
primarily an IT staffing company. Secure IT's parent company, Comsys, has
been in business for over 30 years and has 2,800 colleagues out in the
field and 31 offices nationally. Comsys had been doing a lot of federal
work over the past 30 years but hadn't really focused on it. Secure IT
was a focus for Comsys on the federal market.

What do you think your employees would say were the best reasons for
working at your company? 

Our employees can work for different companies. We provide services to
almost all of the big sellers to the government including Lockheed
Martin, Northrop Grumman and SAIC, for example. We supply the IT talent
to the people that do work for the government on very vital
defense-related IT initiatives. There's a great variety of the kind of
work that our employees do as well as a variety of locations they work at
because we're a national company. We have an attractive benefits package
as well.

Who owns your company? 

We're a privately held company, owned by a combination of employees and
outside investors.

What sense of stability can your company offer job candidates? 

I would say that at any one time we've got several hundred open
requisitions and we're finding that as people rotate off of work
assignments, it's very easy to get them immediately working at a new
assignment. Secure IT is an alternative that people should look at who
want to transition to the government or who are able to get or already
have security clearances. The most common security requirement is your
basic secret clearance, but we have security requirements that go all the
way up through top secret and into the black world, which is Department
of Defense lingo for working on something so secret that if I told you
about it I'd have to kill you.

What are the demographics of your company? 

We are 33 percent female and 34 percent minority, both company-wide and
within the management team. Our parent company Comsys is also 33 percent
female and 34 percent minority.

What positions do you have available and what level of expertise do you
want? 

Our requirements run the spectrum from program and project managers to
business architect experts, subject matter experts, software programmers,
systems integration and network engineers all the way down to help desk
people. There's hardly anything out there that we don't need.
*******************************