[no subject]

One challenge for investigators is that many people in developing countries
like Pakistan get Internet access through public places like cybercafes, which
do not necessarily ask customers for identification or keep the logs of
Internet activity that service providers in the United States typically do.
With help from the F.B.I., Pakistani officials ultimately recovered copies of
the e-mail on a computer belonging to a suspect arrested with two others in the
case. It is not clear whether the messages were sent through a dial-up account
or from an Internet cafe.

Getting cooperation from Internet service providers in other countries can also
be a hurdle, although operating outside the reach of American laws regulating
how Internet communications may be monitored presents some advantages. "If it
comes down to it, we would do a black-bag job on an I.S.P.  literally, kick in
the door in the middle of the night," said Mark Rasch, an expert on cyberlaw in
Reston, Va., who formerly headed the Justice Department's computer crime unit
and is now a vice president at Predictive Systems (news/quote), a security
firm. 

Mr. Rasch noted that within the United States, wiretaps for intelligence
purposes face a lower threshold for approval, the assent of a secret
three-judge panel. Wiretaps in criminal investigations, on the other hand, are
approved in the regular courts and require a showing of "probable cause." 

But even with relaxed laws, gathering intelligence, particularly without a
suspect or lead, involves collecting and analyzing mountains of data. And
government monitoring systems may not be quite as developed as some have
speculated.

One of those tools, DCS-1000, generally referred to as Carnivore, can be
installed at Internet service providers to monitor e-mail traffic  the digital
version, essentially, of a wiretap. On a worldwide level, the National Security
Agency operates a satellite network called Echelon (news/quote) in cooperation
with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand that monitors voice and data
communications. Privacy groups have raised concerns about its use, but there is
debate about whether in practice Echelon is very effective.

"Echelon as described doesn't exist," Mr. Rasch said. "The idea that the N.S.A.
has a program that captures every international phone call and analyzes every
word and phrase isn't true. One of the biggest problems is there's just so much
noise and so much traffic."

Such monitoring systems can in principle be programmed to look for certain
keywords, like bomb or target, within messages they capture. But given recent
international events, such language is probably not uncommon, leaving
investigators to determine which communications may represent serious threats.

"Is it that everybody in the country hates the U.S., or is it directed
terrorist activity?" said Mark Seiden, a computer security consultant based in
Silicon Valley. "I don't know if we have the resources to make that
distinction."

There is some indication that plotters are aware of such keyword sniffers: Mr.
Seiden, who reviewed the e-mail from Mr. Pearl's kidnappers, is among those who
suggest that the suspects in that case deliberately misspelled words to avoid
detection  for example, using "Amreeka," "terrarism" and "Pakstan."

Those messages were written in English, but foreign languages present another
challenge. Mr. Lang of Veridian acknowledged that digital forensics teams
accustomed to tracking down criminal suspects in the United States had
undergone a "crash course" in foreign language analysis since Sept. 11, with
help from companies that have re-engineered forensics tools to work with Arabic
and other languages not based on the Roman alphabet.

As an example, Mr. Lang described data-mining software that relies on
link-analysis techniques to determine relationships between messages. "Say you
want to see everything in these e-mails that has `Washington D.C.' and
`terrorist' or `bomb' within 10 spaces of each other," Mr. Lang said. "It will
show you all the e-mail content that has that relationship and where it came
from and where it went to."

Of course, deciphering coded messages is another matter. Although some reports
have suggested that members of Al Qaeda may be using steganography  hiding
communications within seemingly harmless information like an image or audio
file  security experts said they knew of no evidence of its use, pointing out
that there are much easier ways to disguise communications.

It is clear that the terrorist network is using encryption: The Wall Street
Journal has said that two computers purchased by one of its reporters in Kabul,
Afghanistan, were apparently looted from a former Al Qaeda office and contained
files protected by encryption. One document provided instructions for
encrypting files, The Journal reported, while others contained evidence that
seemed to link Al Qaeda to Richard C. Reid, the man accused of trying to ignite
a shoe bomb on a flight from Paris to Miami in December.

The Journal was able to decipher the files because they relied on an older
version of encryption. Stronger encryption is much more difficult to crack.

Both the e-mail in the Pearl case and the computers containing Al Qaeda
documents came to investigators' attention by way of news organizations. Far
less is known about other evidence collected by military and intelligence
personnel. In recent weeks government officials have acknowledged intercepting
e-mail communications among Al Qaeda members that apparently originated in
Pakistan and have cited at least three Web sites they were monitoring, but few
details have been made public.

One of the three Web sites cited, www.newjihad.com, is registered to an address
in Lahore, Pakistan, but is no longer online. Another, www.azzam.com, is
registered to an address in London but uses a New York company's host
computers. The third, alemarh.com, is registered to an address in Pakistan and
has a Nevada company as host. 

Locating Web sites that terrorists may be using to communicate is in some ways
more difficult than monitoring e-mail traffic, which can be intercepted.
Although software tools can be programmed to search the Web for pages with
certain characteristics, they are by no means foolproof. And even if a
particular site raises a red flag, finding out who runs it is not always
simple. The contact information provided when a person registers a Web address
can easily be faked, and the host of the site may not even know who is
publishing the pages. 

Often a host company will take a site offline after being contacted by
investigators. Such a response highlights the delicate balance that
intelligence agencies face in trying to root out terrorists who may be
communicating by the Web.

"If we shut down sites we don't agree with, we're really subverting the values
that we're fighting for," said Mr. Cottrell of Anonymizer.com. He and many
other security experts say they doubt that even the most sophisticated
surveillance system can catch everyone trying to slip through the cracks.

"That's kind of the irony in this," he said. "For the honest good citizen,
privacy is extremely endangered and tracking is ubiquitous. But I don't see a
sign that we've ever been able to build a system that criminals with serious
intent haven't been able to circumvent."

**************
New York Times
As the Web Matures, Fun Is Hard to Find

GLENN DAVIS, the founder of the once-popular online destination Cool Site of
the Day, used to be so addicted to the Web that he called it his "recreational
drug." 

He started Cool Site in 1994, after discovering the thrill of happening upon an
especially interesting Web site and telling his friends what he had found.
Within a year, more than 20,000 people a day were visiting the site, and Mr.
Davis became a Web celebrity, giving interviews to online magazines and fending
off gifts from Webmasters who were desperately seeking his recommendation of
their sites. 

Today, Mr. Davis has not only kicked his Web habit but also almost completely
given up the medium. The Cool Site of the Day still exists, but it is no longer
run by Mr. Davis, who has also lost his enthusiasm for trolling for new pages. 

"We lost our sense of wonder," he said. "The Web is old hat." 

Just 11 years after it was born and about 6 years after it became popular, the
Web has lost its luster. Many who once raved about surfing from address to
address on the Web now lump site-seeing with other online chores, like checking
the In box. 

What attracted many people to the Web in the mid-1990's were the bizarre and
idiosyncratic sites that began as private obsessions and swiftly grew into
popular attractions: the Coffee Cam, a live image of a coffee maker at the
University of Cambridge; the Fish Tank Cam from an engineer at Netscape; The
Spot, the first online soap opera; the Jennicam, the first popular Internet
peephole; the Telegarden, which allowed viewers to have remote control of a
robot gardener; and the World Wide Ouija, where viewers could question the
Fates with the computer mouse. The Web was like a chest of toys, and each day
brought a new treasure. 

"I remember sitting there for hours thinking it was so neat," said Jason Gallo,
an office manager in Washington who discovered the Web in 1994. He said he
would often get lists of favorite sites from his friends, which he called
"quirky islands of fun." 

"I don't see that anymore," he said.

Lisa Maira, a computer network administrator at the University of Buffalo,
designed the Mr. Potato Head site with colleagues in 1994 (the name was later
changed to Mr. Edible Starchy Tuber Head to avoid trademark infringement). It
allowed viewers to dress up an online version of the toy. The site attracted
thousands of visitors and a dozen "best of the Web" awards.

"It was just amazing," Ms. Maira said. Now, not only has the site fallen into
disrepair, with broken links and missing game pieces, but many of the sites
that gave it accolades are also out of business. 

That kind of Web activity "doesn't impress people anymore," Ms. Maira said,
adding that she counted herself among the disenchanted.

The problem facing the Web is not that some of these particular sites have come
and gone  there are, after all, only so many times anyone can look at a
coffeepot, even online  but that no new sites have come along to captivate the
casual surfer. 

Bob Rankin, the co-editor of Tourbus, an electronic newsletter, frequently sent
his readers to innovative pages. Now the newsletter is more likely to provide
information about online charities and antivirus software. "I have a harder
time finding the oddball sites that I like to highlight," Mr. Rankin said. 

The lack of compelling content may be contributing to a decline in the amount
of time that people spend online. In March 2000, according to a survey by the
Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, people averaged 90 minutes
per online session. A year later, when the same people were polled, that number
had dropped to 83 minutes. According to the report, those polled said that they
were using the Web more to conduct business than to explore new areas, aiming
to get offline as quickly as possible. The toy box has turned into a toolbox. 

Web sites also face stiff competition from other online services. Music
programs like Morpheus, a Napster alternative, allow people to download files
using a piece of online software instead of clicking from one site to the next.
Instant messaging has grown exponentially, and many users say they would rather
chat with their friends than spend their time surfing the Web. 

Even without new technologies crowding the spotlight, the Web today seems to be
less than inspiring. About half of Internet users in 2000, for example, said
the Internet helped "a lot" in enabling them to learn new things. A year later,
when the same group was polled, only 39 percent made that claim. 

"For fun Internet activities, users report little or no growth in having gone
online for hobbies, game playing or just to seek out fun diversions," the Pew
report said. 

Even for newcomers  those who might be most likely to surf around for kicks 
growth is tepid, the report added. 

There are other signs that all is not well in Webville. For the first time, the
number of expiring domain names outnumbers those being registered or renewed,
according to SnapNames, an industry research company in Portland, Ore. Although
the SnapNames report theorizes that many of the expired domains were simply
unused placeholders for existing companies, like those who wanted a .org
version of their .com site, there is no counterbalancing rush to build new
sites. 

In addition, researchers at several online measurement companies have found
that the rate of growth in new sites and unique visitors has slumped in recent
months. And about 20 percent of public Web sites that existed nine months ago
no longer exist, according to a sample studied last week by the Online Library
Computer Center, a nonprofit library group in Dublin, Ohio. Separate research
shows that of the sites that are still operating, a large number have been
taken over by pornography. 

How did the Web arrive at this juncture? Some people say that the rush to make
money, in which profits mattered more than passion, was a significant driver.
Mr. Davis, for instance, said he did not design Cool Site of the Day with
profit in mind. The site, which was housed on servers at Infinet, the Internet
service provider for whom Mr. Davis worked, was taken over by the company when
he left in November 1995. In 1998, Infinet sold the site to Mike Corso, a
businessman in Chappaqua, N.Y., who charges $97 to those who submit a site for
"priority express" consideration, plus $19 a month if the submission is
selected and added to the archives. 

The Web's commercialism dismays many longtime surfers. "Everywhere you go
someone is jumping on you to buy something," said John Walkenbach, an author in
San Diego, who has written books about software. "It's like walking down the
streets of Tijuana." 

Other users say they are less inclined to hunt for innovative sites because
many of them require plug-ins or browser updates that force users into
bothersome downloading. Entertainment sites, for example, usually require a
program like QuickTime, and even if Web surfers take the time to download a
copy, they are likely to be cajoled later into downloading an updated version. 

There are still islands of innovation and creativity on the Web. For example,
iFilm .com shows eclectic video clips posted by Web users. Among longtime Web
surfers, personal online diaries, known as Weblogs or blogs, are often cited as
the last bastion of interesting material. 

Lee deBoer, former chief executive of Automatic Media, believes that the
downturn in the Web is temporary. In the summer of 2000, his company bought
Feed and Suck, two popular online magazines, and started Plastic.com, a Web
site that allows users to filter interesting Web content for one another. After
just a year, Mr. deBoer's company was forced to close its doors, killing both
magazines and relinquishing Plastic.com to a group of investors. (The site
still exists, run almost entirely by volunteers.) 

Even after the bruising taken by his company, Mr. deBoer is not prepared to
declare the Web dead. "We've taken a pause," he said, citing a tough
advertising climate, a lagging economy and a seriousness that has infused
society since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "But I don't think it's much more
than a pause." 

Mr. Davis said he believes that the Web's malaise is more permanent. He is
building an online gaming company that uses the Internet but bypasses the Web. 

"I'm a frontiersperson, and the Web is not a frontier anymore," he said. "It is
simply a place."
**************
New York Times
Don't Point, Just Think: The Brain Wave as Joystick

THIS is a case of monkey think, monkey do.

A rhesus macaque monkey at a Brown University laboratory can move a cursor on a
computer screen just by thinking about it  playing a pinball game in which
every time a red target dot pops up, the monkey moves a cursor to meet the
target quickly and accurately.

The monkey doesn't do this trick with a mouse or a joystick. It plays the game
mentally, controlling where it wants the cursor to go by thinking. (The simple
pinball video game the monkey played can be viewed at
donoghue.neuro.brown.edu/multimedia.php.)

But this is not the story of a psychic monkey, or of a research project
designed to teach monkeys how to play mental pinball. The project is the latest
in a series of serious research efforts in brain-machine interfaces, a field in
which researchers eavesdrop on the brain as it plans motion and then write
programs that can translate those thoughts into specific movements.

Researchers hope that such programs will one day help some paralyzed people use
their thoughts to control the functions of robotic limbs, or to command cursors
on a screen to write e-mail or navigate the Internet.

The experiment, which was reported this month in the journal Nature, was led by
Dr. John P. Donoghue, a professor of neuroscience who leads the brain science
program at Brown.

"Researchers have long known that people think about where they want to put
their hands before they move them," Dr. Donoghue said. "We've tapped into that
part of the brain."

In the experiment, performed on three monkeys, the team implanted a tiny set of
100 miniature electrodes in the motor cortex, the part of the brain just under
the skull that commands how the arms will move. Then they threaded the wires
from the electrodes through a hole in the skull and connected them to a
computer.

When the monkeys played the pinball game, their brains made characteristic
signals that were recorded as the neurons fired near the electrodes. The team
wrote a program that paired the spiky patterns the neurons made as they fired
with the related trajectories of the monkeys' arms as they moved the cursor.

Then they were able to substitute a signal that translated brain-wave data into
joystick output, so that when the monkey thought about a move, the cursor
actually made that move.

Dr. Donoghue said that the electrodes tapped up to 30 neurons, and that only
three or so minutes of data were needed to create a model that could interpret
the brain signals as specific movements. 

In the experiment, the pinball game was switched intermittently by the
researchers from hand to brain control. It took slightly longer for the monkey
to succeed in hitting the red dot with brain control, but the difference was
negligible, he said.

Related experiments by other researchers, Dr. Donoghue said, have required
extensive training for the monkeys to bring a cursor under their mental
control. "In our work, we had immediate substitution of the program for hand
control," he said.

The experiment demonstrates the plasticity of the brain in adapting itself to
new jobs, said Dr. William Heetderks, director of the neural prosthesis program
at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, one of the
agencies financing the work at Brown.

Dr. Heetderks said he expected the animals to learn to control the cursor
mentally. "But the speed and quality with which the monkey learned to control
the movement of the cursor was a surprise," he said. "It was minutes, not
weeks."

He added: "The brain seems to be very flexible at making that transition 
moving an artificial arm or cursor instead of moving an actual arm. It is very
encouraging for future use, especially with paralyzed people."

Dr. Heetderks believes that the path to long-lasting implants in people would
involve the recording of data from many electrodes. "To get a rich signal that
allows you to move a limb in three-dimensional space or move a cursor around on
a screen will require the ability to record from at least 30 neurons," he said.

Dr. Donoghue and colleagues have founded a company, Cyberkinetics, and they
hope to test their prosthesis on a human within the year. Such testing requires
the approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

Only one of the pioneers of neural prostheses has tested his interface on
people in the hope of adding to the range of their movements: Dr. Philip
Kennedy, head of Neural Signals, a research and development company based in
Atlanta. Dr. Kennedy said he was now training a nearly immobile person to use
the cursor on a computer screen. He has modified his two-electrode system and
plans to report the results soon, he said. "The key thing is to have a robust
signal that endures for the life of the patient and records sufficient signals
to control the prosthetic," he said.

Much of the research on brain-machine interfaces is going into systems that a
human being could use for decades, said Dr. Richard A. Andersen, who leads a
research team in neural prosthetics at the California Institute of Technology. 

Dr. Andersen said that the longevity of such interfaces could be extended by
planting chips directly in the brain that can do the necessary processing and
transmit the results wirelessly so that people are no longer tethered to
machines.

Dr. Mohammad M. Mojarradi of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,
is one of the researchers working on miniaturizing the hardware that may find
its way into implantable chips. Current electrode arrays, he said, can be
jarred out of place and lose the signal. They can also gradually wear away the
tissue on which they sit. He wants to eliminate the electrodes and their wires,
replacing them with implanted wireless chips.

Dr. Heetderks said that such devices would ultimately be essential for
long-term use of neural prostheses. "But the key thing to remember here is the
potential of the brain itself to re-allot tasks," he said. "The advances we are
seeing are inherent in the way the brain is organized."
**************
New York Times
A Tracking System That Calls Balls and Strikes

BASEBALL fans who watched major league games on Fox's cable stations last
season may remember seeing a kind of instant replay, generated entirely by a
computer, showing the path of selected pitches. 

Three years ago, while watching a televised game in Boston, Paul Baim saw an
early version of that computer-generated replay. At the time, Mr. Baim was the
director of software engineering at the Atlantic Aerospace Electronics
Corporation, which builds systems that help the military track troop movements
and missiles. He saw that the replay system, like many a rookie player, had
some problems but also lots of potential. 

"I said, that's the kind of thing we have the technology to do, and do pretty
well," he recalled. "It looked like a lot more fun than what I was doing." 

Mr. Baim contacted QuesTec Inc. (news/quote), a small company based in Deer
Park, N.Y., that had been trying to get wider attention for its pitch-tracking
system. A partnership was born, and Atlantic Aerospace helped QuesTec overhaul
its technology, bringing a bit of military intelligence to the ball field. 

The PitchTrax system was installed at Shea Stadium last July, and it will go
back into operation there and at 18 other ballparks nationwide when the season
opens on Sunday night. Its replays will also appear on regional broadcasts. 

The system's eyes are two cameras perched high on the rim of the stadium, one
on either side of the diamond. The cameras send video feeds to a standard Dell
PC at the QuesTec command post in a windowless room near the Mets clubhouse.
The PC is equipped with special software that analyzes frames of the incoming
video looking for a baseball-like moving object while ignoring pigeons and
flying hot-dog wrappers. 

Using the video data and some quick trigonometry, the system fixes the ball's
position in three dimensions. The principle is similar to that of depth
perception in the eyes and brain, said Mr. Baim. 

"What we do is we use two cameras instead of eyeballs, and we place them a few
hundred feet apart, so it's like you have a head that is a few hundred feet
wide," he said. 

PitchTrax gets 12 to 16 fixes on the ball from successive video frames, from 10
feet in front of the pitcher's mound to about 3 feet from home plate. The
ball's position when it crosses the plate is extrapolated from the earlier
data, Mr. Baim said. The data is available almost instantly, allowing the
computer to create a broadcast-ready, 3-D reconstruction of the ball's path
before a human has time to set up the video replay. 

The graphics have advantages over video. They can show clearly the meanderings
of a quirky curveball from several angles, or highlight a pitcher's strategy by
overlaying a series of pitches on the same screen. Data can be stored for use
in video games and transmitted over the Internet or to wireless devices. 

QuesTec's expertise helped the company win a five-year contract with Major
League Baseball to provide the Umpire Information System. Baseball officials
pushed last season to stick more closely to the rule book when calling strikes,
saying that the strike zone had changed over the years. They saw QuesTec's
system as a way to let umpires evaluate their own performance. It is now
installed in 10 stadiums. 

The umpire system, which is separate from PitchTrax and more accurate, creates
a detailed record of each called pitch, with graphs of the ball's path, a
snapshot of the player's swing with the strike zone indicated and a video clip.
A grid shows the umpire's call and the computer's verdict for each pitch. The
game data is burned onto a CD-ROM with copies going to QuesTec, the umpire and
Major League Baseball.

QuesTec officials say that many umpires, especially the younger ones, are
excited about the new feedback. But the system appears to be a sensitive issue
with the umpires' union. Joel Smith, a lawyer for the union in Baltimore, said
the union viewed the system as little more than an experiment so far. 

"This is a wholly new technology, introduced to a group of people who have been
doing a certain job a certain way for many, many years," Mr. Smith said. 

Ed Plumacher, founder and chief executive of QuesTec, said he doubted that
something like his company's system would ever be used to resolve disputes over
umpires' calls because human quirks are part of the game. 

"You've got an entire history there," Mr. Plumacher said. "If you change the
process, do you put an asterisk next to all the stats that come after? But if
you can help create better umpires that make better calls, that helps the
game."


**************
BBC
Hi-tech kit tracks rowers

Global positioning technology will be used for the first time in Saturday's
Oxford and Cambridge boat race. 

Hi-tech satellite navigation equipment has been fitted on both crews' boats to
pinpoint their position and determine their speed. 

The kit will also check the length of the course, something that has not been
measured accurately for 150 years. 

The technology is similar to that installed on Harrier jumpjets to allow them
to land automatically on a moving aircraft carrier. 

It has been developed by QinetiQ, a commercial spin-off of Dera, the UK
Government's defence research and development organisation. 

Trial and error 

Dr Peter Aves of the Hampshire-based company joked that there was no danger of
the crews getting lost on the River Thames. 

He told BBC News Online: "In the past, a lot of these traditional races have
been timed with men with flags and stop watches. 

"In some instances, the people watching the timing lines can't even see the
lines because they're obscured by, for example, parts of the bridges - so
there's a guess there. 

"Everybody knows it's a compromise and what we're trying to do is add some
technology to improve the accuracy and take away that element of trial and
error." 

Global positioning equipment uses radio signals from a global network of
military satellites to give an accurate location of where somebody is on a map.
In this case, it will be used to track the exact position of the moving boats. 

It will also determine velocity, timing and each crew's stroke rate. The
information will be broadcast to the riverbank and will be used in the
commentary of the event. 

The 148th university boat race starts at 1410 GMT on Saturday, 30 March.

**************
BBC
Robo-reporter goes to war

A robotic war correspondent that can get to places even veteran correspondent
John Simpson cannot reach is being developed in the US. 
The Afghan Explorer looks like a cross between a lawnmower and a robotic dog
and has been designed to travel to war zones to provide images, sound and
interviews from hostile environments off-limits to human reporters. 

Since the early 1990's the US has barred field journalists from war zones. 

Fed up with the grainy war coverage shots sent back from the conflict in
Afghanistan, director of the Computing Culture Group at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Chris Csikszentmihalyi came up with the idea of Afghan
Explorer. 

His inspiration came after watching Rambo III. 

"After 11 September my interest in Afghanistan grew. I rented Rambo III from
the video store which shows the other side of the story," he told BBC News
Online. 

"The US pumped $3.7m into weapons for Afghanistan and I didn't trust the media
accounts of what was happening." 

Four-wheeled reporter 

The robo-journalist he hopes will give a truer picture of what is happening in
the wars the United States engages in. 

"It is a personal media device for independent news agencies that can't afford
hundreds of editors and reporters," he explained. 

Afghan Explorer has been modelled on Nasa's Mars Explorer. It travels on four
wheels, derives its energy from the sun and finds its way about using a GPS
navigation unit. 

Its brain is a laptop computer that connects remotely by mobile phone to the
internet to allow journalists to operate it. Its movements can be controlled
and a live interview can be conducted via satellite phone. 

It has a video console mounted on a neck with two web cameras for ears to give
it a human face. 

No hard feelings 

Mr Csikszentmihalyi's first mission for his robot-journo will be to send it out
into the field, possibly in Afghanistan, stopping to explore areas of interest,
photograph events and conduct interviews with people along the way. 

Robo-journo has one big advantage over its human counterparts. There will be
no-one back home worrying about its safety. 

"They can imprison it, shoot it. I don't care. It is just a robot, its feelings
can't get hurt," said Mr Csikszentmihalyi. 

Human reporters need not worry about their jobs just yet though. There are some
things that robo-journo just will not be able to achieve. 

"The job of a human journalist can never be replaced. They can offer empathy
and sensitivity which the robot cannot," he said. 

BBC correspondent Gavin Hewitt agrees. 

"Machines can't replace humans. It is very rare to have black and white facts.
The crucial thing is how you interpret facts and pictures. Central to reporting
is the sense of being there," he said. 

Freedom fighter 

Whatever its role in the field, Afghan Explorer is striking a blow for press
freedom says its creator. 

"There has been a startling reduction on journalists' movements in the field.
In Afghanistan there was no battlefield footage," said Mr Csikszentmihalyi. 

"The huge disparity between the US services account and the people being
killing forced me to develop the technology to see what was really happening." 

The Afghan Explorer may find that the reaction from the US military is even
more hostile than from the local population. 

"It's hard to say who is going to shoot it first," said Mr Csikszentmihalyi.
**************
BBC
TV link to violence

Children who watch more than an hour of television a day during their early
teens are more likely to be violent in later life, according to new research. 
The findings show the extent of the violence, including fights and robberies,
increases further if daily TV watching exceeds three hours. 

Researchers studied more than 700 people from two upstate New York counties
over the course of 17 years to discover if there is a link between television
and aggression. 

"Our findings suggest that, at least during early adolescence, responsible
parents should avoid permitting their children to watch more than one hour of
television a day," said Jeffrey G Johnson of Columbia University and the New
York State Psychiatric Institute. 

"The evidence has gotten to the point where it's overwhelming." 

Sexes 

Mr Johnson believes this is the first research into the link between the amount
of TV watched and the effect on children's behaviour. 

"I was surprised to see a five-fold increase in aggressive behaviour from less
than one hour to three or more hours," said Johnson, ahead of his study being
released in the journal Science. 

The findings show that of children who watch less an hour of television a day
at the age of 14, only 5.7% turned to violence between the ages of 16 to 22. 

For those who watch between one and three hours, this number jumped to 22.8%. 

The rate went up again to 28.8% for those who watched more than three hours a
day. 

Unsurprisingly, the effect was more evident in boys than in girls. 

For girls who watched more than three hours TV a day the number who became
aggressive after the age of 16 was 12.7%, compared to boys at 45.2%. 

Avid viewer 

Mr Johnson said the increase in aggressive behaviour associated with higher
television viewing held true both for people who had previous violent incidents
and for those who had not had shown earlier aggression. 

That means the findings are not merely the result of people already prone to
violence being more avid viewers. 

Mark I Singer of the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in
1988 researched behaviour in youths who watched more than six hours of TV a
day. 

He has welcomed the new report, calling it an important study which covered a
significant period of time and took into account outside influences. 

He said one of the most important findings was the relationship between the
sexes and their television habits and the likelihood of them turning to
violence. 

In a commentary accompanying the report, Craig A Anderson and Brad J Bushman of
Iowa State University said the findings were "important evidence showing that
extensive TV viewing among adolescents and young adults is associated with
subsequent aggressive acts". 

The effects are "not trivial" and suggest it may be worthwhile to restrict the
viewing time of adolescents, they add.
**************
BBC
Virtual lab to link Arab scientists

Arab researchers are aiming to help revive science in the Middle East by
setting up a computer network linking universities, governments and businesses.

They plan to use technology to create a virtual lab, where scientists from
across the region can meet, work together and share ideas. 

It is hoped the network will not only increase co-operation and the sharing of
ideas within the Arab world but beyond. 

"It will link the Arab scientific community to a global one and allow
scientists to share with other scientists in the West, India, China and across
the world," said Dr Ali Assam, managing director of KnowledgeView, the UK-based
company behind the idea. 

"It will provide organised dialogue with the West which is important for better
understanding between nations," he told the BBC programme, Go Digital. 

Catching up with the West 

A thousand years ago Arab science was leading the world. Middle Eastern
scientists were busy making advances in algebra and astronomy while Europe was
floundering in the Dark Ages. 

Now Arab nations spend just 0.15% of their gross domestic product on research
and development compared to a world average of 1.4%. 

"The Arab world is starting from a lower level in terms of spend on science and
research," admitted Dr Assam. 

"The aim of this network is to encourage science and innovation and allow
scientists to exchange ideas," he said. 

As part of the project, there will be a virtual lab. In this 3D environment,
scientists and students will be able to wander around and discuss ideas. 

Scientists can even impose their own faces on the digital characters
representing them in the lab. 

Economic pressure 

The rich Arab nations realise that money from oil will not last forever. 

So one of the driving forces behind the knowledge network is economic
necessity. 

This is pushing hitherto insular Arab nations to open up to the internet, said
Dr Assam. 

"Pressure for economic integration across the world and the importance of the
internet in this has forced many governments to open up their societies to the
internet," he said. 

Despite this, some Middle East countries retain a tight rein over access to the
web. 

Research into solar power and water management are two important on-going
projects in the Middle East and Dr Assam hopes the network will improve links
between scientists and businesses. 

"Local and global businesses can take advantage of it. It will provide
information about innovations that can be applied in both Arab society and
externally," he said. 

Educational role 

Another key role of the network is to enable Arab science students to learn
without having to leave their countries. 

Currently many Arab students spend at least some of their time studying in the
West. 

But some believe that it may be more difficult for scientists from Muslim
countries to find university places in Europe and the US following the 11
September attacks. 

"The network will cross geographical boundaries," said Dr Assam.
**************
BBC
Church grapples with hi-tech dilemma

The Archbishop of the Italian city of Salerno, Gerrardo Pierro, is asking his
congregation to abstain from text messaging on Good Friday and concentrate on
meditation instead. 

It could be no easy task as text messaging becomes ever more popular. 

In February in the UK alone, 1.2 million text messages were sent according to
figures from the Mobile Data Association. 

Youngsters are particularly keen, with 91% admitting in a recent survey
conducted by mobile phone operator Orange to texting someone in another part of
the house rather than speak to them in person. 

In the UK city of Manchester, a 24-hour church has recognised the importance of
texting to young people and is calling for them to contact the church via text
messages if, for example, they are in a club with a friend who has taken too
many drugs. 

'Opportunities for evangelisation' 

As technology becomes ever more prevalent among the young, churches of all
denominations are being forced to look at new ways of maintaining and growing
its flock. 

The Pope himself has recognised the power of the internet and will pontificate
on the value of the web in a speech to be made in May. 

He sees the net as a new forum for proclaiming the gospel. 

"The internet can offer magnificent opportunities for evangelisation if used
with competence and a clear awareness of its strengths and weaknesses," the
speech reads. 

"It is important that the Christian community think of very practical ways of
helping those who first make contact through the internet to move from the
virtual world of cyberspace to the real world of Christian community," it goes
on. 

However he also notes that the ephemeral and factual nature of much of the
content on the net could also be attacking spirituality in the new millennium. 

"The internet offers extensive knowledge, but it does not teach values; and
when values are disregarded, our very humanity is demeaned," he said. 

Church online 

The Church of England has some sympathy with members of the clergy who want to
keep holy days technology-free. 

"The issue is to do with celebrating the day of rest as a time to set apart for
the worship of God and as a day of recuperation for mankind," said a Church of
England spokesman. 

Like the Catholic Church, it has a pragmatic approach to technology,
recognising it can work for good as well as for bad. 

"The Church of England has a website and it gets about a quarter of a million
hits each week. That shows that people within the church are happy to use
technology and find it useful," said the spokesman. 

In Spain, one priest has become so fed up with mobile phones ringing during
mass that he has installed a jammer in his church in Moraira.
**************
Government Computer News
NASA looks for a new desktop outsourcing metric 

Four and a half years into desktop outsourcing, NASA has become adept at
keeping tabs on contractor performance. Now the agency wants to find a way to
measure how well its Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA supports the
agency?s mission, CIO Lee Holcomb said. 

?The bigger question is, how are we doing with the business of the agency??
Holcomb told a breakfast meeting today of the Armed Forces Communications and
Electronics Association Bethesda, Md., chapter. He said that if a new
mission-related metric can be identified, NASA would consider modifying the
contract to emphasize it. 

NASA?s 11 regional centers have outsourced their desktop computing resources to
three ODIN contractorsACS Corp. of Rockville, Md., Lockheed Martin?s OAO Corp.
and Science Applications International Inc. of San Diego. Users can have Apple
Macintosh, Microsoft Windows or Linux machines. 

Currently, Holcomb said, the contractors are measured monthly against metrics
for cost, availability of service, customer satisfaction and delivery of what
he termed a ?bag of services.? The bag includes how fast downed seats are
restored, whether tech refreshes and software pushes meet schedules and how
quickly new or relocated seats are installed. 

Holcomb said that on average, the vendors meet their bag-of-service metrics 98
percent of the time. But in a given month, they miss one or more metrics at
three of the 11 centers.
******************
Government Computer News
PKI Steering Committee chooses signature app 

The General Services Administration?s Federal Public-key Infrastructure
Steering Committee, in a significant move toward adopting a governmentwide PKI,
is finalizing plans to purchase 150 licenses of an electronic-signature
application. 

Six months ago, GSA was skeptical about using ApproveIt Desktop from Silanis
Technology Inc. of St. Laurent, Quebec. Officials weren?t sure if the signing
tool, which works via a browser, would work with the Defense Department?s PKI. 

But after a November analysis of ApproveIt, the Defense Department?s Joint
Interoperability Test Command said the software was interoperable with its
proprietary system. 

The test showed that any agency using the software could accept DOD
certificates, and verify the status of the certificate maintained in DOD
databasesincluding certificate path-building and processingand certificate
revocation lists of invalid DOD certificates. It would also work in DOD?s
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, the analysis found. 

GSA expects a rollout next month of ApproveIt and will use its own Access
Certificates for Electronic Signatures digital certificates and become its own
certificate authority. 

Barry West, deputy director in GSA's Office of Electronic Government, said he
can see the benefit of the software but warned of potential interoperability
problems. 

"I stress the importance of coordination among program leads, CIOs, network
architects and others in bringing these types of solutions together if a full
PKI is planned or already in place," West said.
****************
Government Computer News
NIST CIO Mehuron will retire 

William O. Mehuron, CIO of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
and director of its IT Laboratory, will retire April 3. ITL deputy director
Susan Zevin will serve as acting director of the Commerce Department laboratory
until a successor is appointed, a NIST official said. 

The laboratory develops computer security standards and guidelines for the
federal government and conducts research to make systems more usable, scalable,
and easier to measure and interoperate. 

Mehuron had worked as director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration?s Systems Acquisition Office from 1995 to 1997, and then as
acting deputy undersecretary of NOAA until 1998. 

Earlier, Mehuron worked as director of research and engineering at the National
Security Agency. He held senior management positions in private-sector IT
organizations before entering the government.
*****************
San Jose Mercury News
Grocery surfing
SAFEWAY, ALBERTSON'S PRESENT MIXED BAG OF SHOPPING EASE, TECHNICAL SHORTCOMINGS

Safeway and Albertson's both launched online grocery shopping services in the
Bay Area earlier this month that are easy to use and reasonably affordable,
although shoppers must push through a number of small obstacles.

I'll be cautiously optimistic, however, and assume the two big supermarket
chains will quickly fix the shortcomings to create home delivery operations
that will endure -- unlike the late and much-lamented Webvan and Peapod.

After testing online shopping three times from Safeway (www.safeway.com) and
twice from Albertson's (www.albertsons.com), I've got a house overflowing with
food and an inclination to use the services regularly in the future.

Here's how it works:

You start by going to either Web site and setting up an account, which requires
giving little more than your name, street address, e-mail address and having a
major credit card on hand to pay for purchases.

Then you fill a virtual shopping cart by navigating through on-screen menus to
find the specific items you need.

When you've run through your entire shopping list, you select a delivery time
for the next day -- if available -- or any later time. Safeway offers two-hour
delivery windows, while Albertson's delivery window is 90 minutes.

At the designated time, a delivery van pulls up to your door and the driver
carries your order to the doorstep in plastic crates.

You pay the same prices as the two supermarket chains charge in their stores,
plus a flat $9.95 delivery fee. Albertson's also lets you pick up orders at
selected stores for a flat fee of $4.95.

Here's how it worked for me:

I started with Safeway, which launched delivery to most Bay Area homes on March
11.

The Web site, at first, was hard to understand. You have to click a
``Departments'' button on the left side of the screen to go through various
categories and sub-categories with confusing names.

I happen to like It's-It ice-cream sandwiches and found them in ``Adult
Novelties,'' which sounds like a category where you'd find something much
racier than vanilla ice cream surrounded by chocolate-covered oatmeal cookies.

Safeway also presents an awkward two-step process for putting items into your
virtual shopping cart. You first have to enter the quantity of a specific item,
then click an ``Add to Basket'' button. I kept forgetting to click Add to
Basket as I moved from one page to the next, then having to backtrack.

The process got much easier, however, the second time I placed an order. I've
been a regular Safeway shopper for years, and always use my Safeway Club card.
On my second visit, I discovered Safeway had created a ``My Favorites'' list
showing everything I've ever purchased at the store, some 213 items.

Now, some people might find this creepy. Safeway knows or could infer a lot
about me -- the kind of salad dressing I like, the fact that I own a dog and am
the father of a toddler. But My Favorites was a big help for online shopping. I
now had a single long page where I could check off the items I needed, and only
had to click Add to Basket once. There were only one or two items on my second
and third order that weren't already listed among My Favorites.

The delivery side of the experience was a mixed bag. The delivery times I
wanted were always available, and each time the truck arrived within the
promised two-hour window.

But each of my three orders was incomplete. On the first order, the bananas I
requested were missing -- even though bananas were listed on the register
receipt given to me by the driver. I called Safeway's customer service center
and was told the computer system was down, making it impossible to process my
refund request. The person took my phone number and promised to call back, but
never did. I had to call again the next day to ask for a credit of $1.91. The
service center then had to call the store in Sunnyvale which had assembled my
order, and have a clerk write out a refund receipt that was mailed to me.

I later asked a Safeway spokesman about the refund hassle, and he told me the
company is working on a streamlined process, where refunds will be handled
directly by the service center and will be immediately credited to customer
accounts.

When the second order arrived, I asked the driver to wait while I checked to
make sure I'd gotten everything. This time, four items were missing -- two
bottles of club soda, a package of Ivory soap bars and a tub of cream cheese.
All the missing items were on the truck, however, and the driver was able to
promptly fetch them.

The third order was brought to my door by two deliverymen. Two items were out
of stock, which they told me up front. But they declined to stay while I
checked the order for other missing items, telling me to call the service
center if there were any problems. I did a quick check after they left and
found everything I'd ordered.

Albertson's, which started home delivery to most of the Bay Area on March 20,
has a much easier Web site to navigate.

There are drop-down menus for finding items by either category or name, a much
quicker solution than waiting for successive pages to load on the Safeway site.
Also, Albertson's let you check available delivery times before starting to put
together an order, while Safeway doesn't let you view delivery times until
check-out -- an oversight Safeway is working to fix, according to a spokesman.

Most items on the Albertson's site are also accompanied by a small picture,
making it easier to make sure you're getting the correct product. Safeway has
no pictures.

Not that Albertson's was perfect. The search function didn't always work
properly -- when I entered ``Cool Whip,'' I got several frozen dessert toppings
that weren't the Cool Whip brand. I subsequently found Cool Whip by navigating
to the ``Frozen Whipped Toppings'' category.

Also, ordering produce and meats was confusing on both sites. It wasn't always
clear whether I was ordering items such as apples or chicken breasts by
quantity or weight.

I picked up my first Albertson's online order at a store near my home. When I
arrived, a clerk promptly pushed up a shopping cart filled with the order and
told me two items were out of stock. Otherwise, the order was complete. There
was one problem, however: The clerk couldn't find the complete receipt, so I
didn't know the exact total cost for the order.

I placed my second order with Albertson's on a Sunday night and was stunned to
discover all available delivery slots for the following Monday and Tuesday were
taken. An Albertson's spokeswoman told me online delivery has drawn a bigger
response in the Bay Area than anticipated and said Albertson's is rapidly
adding delivery capacity.

The second order arrived on schedule the following Wednesday morning, and was
complete. But, once again, the receipt was missing, making me wonder if
Albertson's has some behind-the-scenes issues to work out.

After going through all this, I came to some obvious conclusions: Safeway needs
to revamp its online presentation, borrowing ideas generously from the superior
Albertson's site. And both companies should instruct their employees to invest
the small amount of time required to check orders for completeness at the point
of delivery.

Otherwise, I found both online shopping services to be genuine time savers. If
you don't mind spending the extra $10, you avoid the hassle of driving to the
store, parking, trudging up and down aisles and having to haul your groceries
home.
**********************
San Jose Mercury News
PC price hike possible
ASIAN FIRMS ROLL OUT PRODUCT INCREASES

When Apple Computer hiked prices by $100 on its new iMacs last week, some folks
wondered if other computer makers would follow suit.

That could happen in coming weeks and months as PC makers across the industry
are dealing with a sudden spike in prices for memory and liquid crystal
displays, which are used in notebook screens and the flat-panel monitors that
are growing in popularity.

News out of Asia this week put NEC Computers, Fujitsu and IBM Japan on the list
of companies that are either rolling out price hikes or planning them as early
as next week.

Dell Computer, chief instigator in the recent PC price wars, is not simply
raising prices across the board. Instead, Dell is cutting the perks to entice
people to buy PCs.

Just a few months ago, Dell, Apple and other PC companies were doubling
customers' DRAM memory for free. Some also offered to upgrade regular CD-ROM
drives to CD-burners for free. Such deals are now harder to come by, as PC
makers try to pinch more pennies to protect profit margins.

Roger Kay, director of client computing with high-tech research group IDC,
noted that price hikes surrounding memory would likely have short-term effects
and wouldn't create a big problem for PC makers, who can easily halt the free
memory upgrade promotions.

``They can pull 256 MB and make that the standard,'' he said. ``They can offer
the extra 256 as an option that you pay for.''

But the LCD price hike could have longer-lasting effects, he said.

All of this makes for tough decisions for the executives at Gateway, who
recently promised to sacrifice profits for market share. The company has no
immediate plans to follow others in price hikes and remains committed to
offering high-end machines are bargain prices, including a PC with a Pentium 4
chip and a flat-panel monitor for $999, a company spokeswoman said.

Kay says Gateway really can't afford to raise prices, given the business
strategy.

``This is a strategy that Gateway will have to stick with,'' he said. ``If they
change strategies again that would be a bad thing. People won't know what
business they're in. I don't know how they'll do it.''
*******************
MSNBC
FBI to reveal more Carnivore details

March 28  Privacy advocates have won another round in their fight to gain
access to more information about the FBI?s Carnivore e-mail surveillance
system. A federal judge this week ordered the FBI to expand its search for
records about Carnivore, also known as DCS1000, technology that is installed at
Internet service providers to monitor e-mail from criminal suspects. The court
denied a motion for summary judgment and ordered the FBI to produce within 60
days ?a further search? of its records pertaining to Carnivore as well as a
device called EtherPeek, which manages network traffic.

THE FBI HAS defended Carnivore by assuring the public that it only captures
e-mail and other online information authorized for seizure in a court order,
but the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has voiced concerns over
potential abuse. EPIC sued the FBI, the investigative arm of the Justice
Department, in July 2000 under the Freedom of Information Act so it could
examine Carnivore-related documents.

       EPIC ?has raised a ?positive indication? that the FBI may have
overlooked documents in other FBI divisions, most notably the offices of the
General Counsel and Congressional and Public Affairs,? U.S. District Judge
James Robertson wrote in his order.

       The court order marks the latest chapter in EPIC?s ongoing legal battle
with the Justice Department. The lawsuit could have significant implications
for the government?s tactics of monitoring Internet use in federal
investigations. 

       According to the order, the FBI had completed its processing of EPIC?s
FOIA request, producing a search of 1,957 pages of material but releasing only
1,665 pages to EPIC. The privacy group claimed those records were inadequate,
saying they only addressed technical aspects of Carnivore, not legal and policy
implications. 

       EPIC General Counsel David Sobel said the FBI and Justice Department
have been ?very grudging? about the Carnivore information they are willing to
release. 

       ?A new court-supervised search is likely to result in the release of a
lot of significant new information, particularly because the information that
we?re likely to get now is material dealing with the Justice Department and the
FBI?s assessment of the legal issues raised by the use of Carnivore,? Sobel
said. ?I think nowespecially after Sept. 11 when these kinds of techniques are
likely to increase in useit?s even more important that information be made
public and how the techniques are being used and how the Justice Department
sees the legal issues.?

      In September 2000, the Justice Department commissioned IIT Research
Institute, an arm of the Illinois Institute of Technology, to undergo a review
of Carnivore. Two months later, the institute released its findings, saying the
technology ?protects privacy and enables lawful surveillance better than
alternatives.? The report said Carnivore provides investigators with no more
information than is permitted by a given court order and that it poses no risk
to Internet service providers. 

       The Justice Department and FBI could not be immediately reached for
comment.
*****************

Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 507
1100 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036-4632
202-659-9711