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Cost of the War in Iraq
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Saturday, February 08, 2003
Justice Department
Drafts Sweeping Expansion
of Anti-Terrorism Act
Center Publishes Secret Draft of 'Patriot II' Legislation
The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act that will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2003, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text. The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol.
To read the full report and documents, visit Public Integrity, or you can download the document.
(Declan McCullagh's comments) "Note the draft legislation creates a new federal felony of willfully using encryption in the commission of a felony. "No more than five years" in prison plus a hefty fine. This seems at first glance to be remarkably similar to what was in the SAFE bill years ago. Here's a Politech message from 1998, before the politechbot.com archives."
"Question: When encryption is omnipresent in everything from wireless networks to hard drives to SSH clients, might the basic effect of such a law be to boost potential maximum prison terms by five years?"
"Second question: Peer-to-peer piracy is arguably a federal felony under the NET Act. If a future peer-to-peer network uses encryption (as it should), does that mean that copyright-infringing users would be guilty of a double felony? That's just one section of a 120-page bill. The rest is worth reading." (/comments)
Forwarded from Center for Public Integrity.
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post by vasco on 11:45 PM
Just so You Know
Practically every dollar to pay off that deficit is going to come out of YOUR taxes. That's 300 billion dollars of YOUR money that won't go for education, or pollution cleanup or improving air quailty or building low income housing for the poor or elderly or helping to pay for winter heating for the poor or elderly or to help pay for prescription drugs for those that can't afford them.
300 billion dollars pissed away by that elastic sack of shit named George W Bush, and his toadies in Congress.
YES! YOU DO HAVE TO KNOW THIS! There WILL BE a test in two years.
Posted by THE NIGHTSTALKER @ Cult of Dead Cow blog.
post by vasco on 7:03 PM
Chipping Away at
The New Deconomy
By Steve Mann
I call this deconomics -- sabotage economics. My favorate example of the New Deconomy is licensed seating. You don't buy the chairs. You instead buy the seating. The chairs are free (on loan with certain restrictions) but each time you want to sit down, you slide your credit card into a slot on the chair to download a "License to Sit". My wife and I have six chairs at our kitchen table. Suppose that we buy a two-seat floating license. That means we can sit at whichever two places we wish, but when we have friends over, we need to buy additional "seats". See seat sale system.
Each chair has an array of spikes that retract when a seating license is downloaded. (Assume that Use at A forbids the use of circumvention tools like boards, pillows, or kevlar pants.) From a deconomic viewpoint, it makes sense, e.g. you pay only for the seating you actually use. Likewise, "pay per wear" clothing can also save money. Deconomics makes economic sense. So much sense that it's ridiculous
If you look at this on purely economic grounds with cold calculations you're missing the human element. Deconomics also provides for chip implants. Those without implants remain standing indefinitely.
McCullagh's photographs could also be deconomized. Simply set up a pay-per-view display system. Prior to viewing, each viewer signs a contract where they agree to never describe the photograph. You could also have a deconomic wall clock with a built in camera that can see how many people are looking at the clock to see what time it is. Billing is based on how many times and how many people look at it. As part of the "chipping away of freedom and humanity" each of us cattle agree not to tell anyone else what time it is. So next time you ask someone "have you got the time", they might have to bind you under NDA before being able to tell you.
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post by vasco on 6:29 PM
Bush Signs Order
Authorizing Cyber-Attacks
President Bush has signed a secret order allowing the government to proceed with developing guidelines on circumstances under which the U.S. could launch cyber-attacks against foreign computer systems. The directive signals Bush's desire to pursue new forms of potential, warfare -- already the Pentagon has moved ahead with development of cyber-weapons that could by used by the military to invade foreign networks and shut down radar, disable electrical facilities and disrupt phone service. (AP 7 Feb 2003)
more @ Associated Press.
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post by vasco on 5:24 PM
Reporter Perpetrates
Web Hoax On
Fellow Journalist
Although it violates journalistic ethics for a reporter to misrepresent his identity, freelance journalist Brian McWilliams (whose work has appeared Salon and Wired News) used a fake Web site and phony to deceive Computerworld's Dan Verton into believing that he was a Pakistan-based terrorist who unleashed the recent Slammer network worm on the world. Computerworld published, then quickly retracted, Verton's story. McWilliams says he wanted to teach reporters "to be more skeptical of people who claim they're involved in cyber-terrorism." Computerworld editor-in-chief Maryfran Johnson says, "I couldn't believe a journalist could do this to another journalist," and Verton says, "I feel like I've been had, and that's never an easy thing to swallow. So, I'm left here scratching fleas as the price you sometimes pay for sleeping with dogs." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Feb2003)
more @ Sillicon Valley.
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post by vasco on 5:15 PM
Boston College Student
Indicted for
Online Vandalism
Boston College computer science major Douglas Boudreau has been indicted for hacking into dozens of campus computers and using stolen identities to charge food, books, and services to the accounts of other students. An assistant attorney general said that the scheme "required technical aptitude and an enormous amount of time." Boudreau, who has been suspended from school, is being charged with wiretap violations, hacking and larceny. (Boston Globe 7 Feb 2003)
more @ Boston Globe.
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post by vasco on 5:01 PM
Sales Taxes Creep
Onto The Web
Internet sales traditionally have been exempted from sales taxes, providing the buyer lived in a different state than the e-tailer they purchased from. But a collective push by states to institute Internet sales taxes is gaining momentum, and several big-name retailers -- including Marshall Fields, Target and Wal-Mart -- are cooperating. The retailers say they're simply streamlining bookkeeping to accommodate situations where customers purchase on the Web and then return or exchange those items at their physical stores. But according to washingtonpost.com, the retailers have ulterior motivations. In return for collecting the taxes, "38 states and the District of Columbia agreed to absolve the retailers for any liability for taxes not previously collected on Internet sales." And while the stakes are high for states -- a University of Tennessee report estimated that states could collectively lose more than $45 billion in Internet sales tax revenue in 2006 -- there's no groundswell of opposition from consumers. Jupiter Research yesterday released a study that indicates most online shoppers are indifferent to the issue, with most online shoppers unaware that they can shop around on different sites to avoid the extra charge, and some respondents saying they wouldn't choose one retailer over another just because there was no sales tax. (Washington Post 6 Feb 2003)
more @ Washington Post.
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post by vasco on 4:55 PM
Korean Group Says Microsoft
Liable for Slammer Damage
With support from more than 3,000 broadband subscribers, a South Korean group called the PSPD (People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy) may file a product-liability class-action suit against Microsoft, alleging the company didn't "perform its duty to the fullest" to prevent the extensive damage caused in South Korea by the Slammer worm that exploited known vulnerabilities in Microsoft SQL 2000 servers. Slammer is also known as the Sapphire worm and SQLExp.(Cnet News.com 6 Feb 2003)
more @ Cnet News.
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post by vasco on 4:45 PM
Linux Certification vs.
Windows Certification
Red Hat, which sells Linux software, has developed a training course that academic institutions can use to teach Linux and certify their graduates as skilled Linux technicians. Red Hat says that "the costs and legal burden of proprietary [read: Microsoft] software are becoming unsupportable," and so believes that their courses will be very competitive against Microsoft's MSCE training program. The Red Hat instructional program will allow students to gain certified experience in subjects such as system administration, network engineering, C or C++ programming, databases, Web development, PC repair, and forensic computing. (The Inquirer 4 Feb 2003)
more @ The Inquirer.
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post by vasco on 4:34 PM
US Grants ICANN Extension
of Global Domain Powers
By Kevin Murphy
ICANN, which manages policy aspects of the internet's domain name system, is to be granted a three-year extension of its powers to manage the world's country-code domain names, ComputerWire has
learned.
The US Department of Commerce last week quietly published a document detailing its decision to "sole-source" the contract for the so-called IANA function to ICANN, as opposed to opening the contract for competitive bidding.
ICANN and a spokesperson for the DoC's National Telecommunications and Information Administration both confirmed the extension, although ICANN general counsel Louis Touton added that no contract has yet been signed.
IANA is responsible for maintaining the definitive list of which organizations, individuals, and domain servers are associated with approximately 240 country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs), such as
.uk, .us, and .fr.
The decision will cause concern to some in the international community, particularly those concerned in the policy aspects of the ccTLD industry. Some ccTLD operators had considered a counter-bid for
the IANA contract before its March expiration.
A statement buried six clicks into a Federal web site heavily suggests that the ICANN-DoC Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the IANA contract are essentially inseparable, and that ICANN is the only party fit to run IANA.
The NTIA document said that ICANN, having assumed "key resources and associated privatization responsibilities under the MoU" is therefore the "only responsible entity that can continue to provide seamless performance of the IANA functions".
As a further link, the three-year IANA contract will come up for renewal at periods of six months, one year, one year, and six months - paced to coincide exactly with the times the MoU comes up for renewal, Touton and the NTIA said.
ICANN's Touton added that the decision was made because of how closely linked the policy-making functions of ICANN are with the policy-implementing functions of IANA, and that it "wouldn't make
sense" for a third party to take over IANA.
ICANN has been accused in the past of using the IANA function to further its own ends. One of the Herculean tasks in the MoU requires ICANN to sign stable operating agreements with each of the ccTLD operators, but this has proved difficult.
In the majority of the cases when ICANN has signed such an agreement, it has coincided with the re-delegation of a ccTLD to a new operator. The most recent such deal was with the new government of Afghanistan.
Last October, a number of ccTLDs, disgruntled with their treatment by ICANN over the four years of its existence, said they would consider mounting a bid to take over the IANA function, being the groups most affected by its decisions.
But the current international political climate would have made the US venturing outside its borders for a contractor unlikely. Recent denial-of-service attacks against the DNS root servers has created a
mindset among some where the DNS is a US national, rather than international, resource that must be protected against "terrorism" like any physical target.
(blog opinion) It's a real bad news. U.S. is treating the world as its own litle colony pissing anyone who cares about the future of communications rights or objects. The news' sender made some remarks: "This information may be of real interest and show the importance of the dot-root test bed if we want to keep a stable, secure and innovative network in a relaxed atmosphere."
"Please note the last paragraph and the total misunderstanding of the nature of the DNS. The DNS is technically ruled by no one else than the users - either as domain name registrants or domain name "resolvants". The DNS is served by the root administrator(s). dot-root is to permit (among many others things) the users to experiment and chose "the ultimate introduction of new architectures that may ultimately obviate the need for a unique, authoritative root" (ICP-3)."
"Please note that networks "architectures require community-based approaches, and are not compatible with ... [national] efforts to gainproprietary advantage" (ICP-3). (/opinion)
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post by vasco on 3:59 PM
Friday, February 07, 2003
Microsoft Says Its
Business Model Is
Threatened By Open-Source
In its quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Microsoft writes: "The popularization of the open-source movement continues to pose a significant challenge to the company's business model... The company's revenues would be unfavorably impacted if customers reduce their purchases of new software products or upgrades to existing products because new product offerings are not perceived as adding significant new functionality or other value to prospective purchasers." Not surprisingly, Microsoft also asserted its belief that "the commercial software development model offers superior consumer value compared to the open source model" because of its "powerful incentives to develop innovative software that is useful, reliable, and compatible with other software and hardware." (InfoWorld 5 Feb 2003)
more @ Info World.
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post by vasco on 2:40 AM
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Mauritius Constructs
New Cyber City
Mauritius, an island paradise in the Indian Ocean, is catapulting itself into the 21st century with the construction of a "cyber city" just a few kilometers outside its capital, Port Louis. "Technologically speaking, the cyber city is a state-of-the-art facility," says Devendra Chaudhry, CEO of Business Parks of Mauritius. "It will provide a world-class telecommunications network, through both satellite and the fiber-optic cable that links Portugal and Malaysia via South Africa and Mauritius. It will provide computing on demand, an Internet data center to back data and servers for Web-hosting, e-commerce and financial transactions." More than 30 projects are planned, including a 12-story business tower, a hypermarket conference center, and a cyber village to house visitors. In addition, the country plans a major boost in education, from the primary grades to the university level, complete with a Cyber Caravan, which is making daily rounds to villages, providing computer study classes for housewives, children, unemployed people and the disabled. Much of the work is being done by Indians, following on that country's success with high-tech hotbeds like Bangalore and Hyderabad. (BBC News
4 Feb 2003)
more @ BBC News.
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post by vasco on 1:25 AM
Internet Worm
Took Only 10 Minutes
To Cause Global Havoc
The "SQL Slammer" worm that slowed Internet traffic significantly last week managed to infect computer servers worldwide in about 10 minutes, making it the fastest such virus seen, according to a University of California at San Diego team. "At its peak, achieved approximately three minutes after it was released, the worm scanned 55 million Internet hosts per second. It infect ed at least 750,000 victims, and probably considerably more," says one team member. The SQL Slammer worm was only the third of its type seen on the Net, and managed to spread nearly 100 times faster than the Code Red infection 18 months ago. (The Independent 4 Feb 2003)
more @ The Independent.
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post by vasco on 1:12 AM
Pact Prevents
Wireless Interference
With Military Channels
The U.S. Defense Department and a group of high-tech manufacturers have struck a deal aimed at preventing future interference with military radar from next-generation wireless devices. Under the compromise, wireless device makers will build in technology to detect and actively avoid military radars that operate on similar frequencies. In return, Defense officials will support proposals to nearly double the amount of wireless spectrum available, particularly that used for "Wi-Fi" computing. Ed Thomas, chief engineer for the Federal Communications Commission, called the pact "good for the Department of Defense and good for the industry." (Wired.com 3 Feb 2003)
more @ Wired.
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post by vasco on 12:58 AM
War Economics 101
Are Flagan
Not being an economist, but intrigued by the buried news that Iraq linked its oil trade to the euro at the expense of the dollar in late 2000, I looked around for some truth to this story. Sure enough, in October of 2000 the UN opened an Iraq account in euro, after Iraq had indicated that it would cut its oil supply if this was not done. (The mere threat resulted in soaring oil prices, as Iraq accounts for 5% of the world's supply.) At the time, the euro was weak in relation to the dollar, and the move cost Iraq an estimated $270 million. Hussein, however, had proclaimed the dollar an enemy currency, and switched all trade to the euro through the UN escrow account. Jordan quickly joined Iraq and announced that its non-UN sanctioned trade with Iraq would be in euro, or another european currency. Iran has mumbled about the same move.
On January 15 this year, upon the announcement that 11 empty warheads had been found by the UN inspectors, oil prices rose to a two-year high, with the fear of war looming. At the same time, the dollar hit a three-year low against the euro, weighing in at $1.06 (versus $0.82 back in 2000). If more countries decided to fix their oil price against the euro and accept payments in euro, the dollar's role as the world reserve currency would be seriously threatened, there would be a flight from the dollar, long-term asset portfolios would move toward the euro, the cost of the US trade deficit would loom, and the stock market would seriously deflate along with the dollar -- together they would most likely collapse.
There are many complex angles to report on this, and nowhere did I find an article that covered it in detail, but suffice to say that the US imports 59% of its oil, that a dollar crash in the current climate would effectively be the end of the US as we know it, and that a long-term rise in oil prices would quickly wipe out reserves, with roughly the same effect.
I think the euro link, even if it is somewhat misconstrued from my non-economist point of view, brings home a useful perspective on "Showdown Iraq."
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post by vasco on 12:36 AM
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Supercomputer for a day
Thousands of computers across Canada have been interconnected to create a supercomputer that only operated for a day.
The 1,360 processor strong supercomputer was used to tackle a problem in computational chemistry that would otherwise take years to complete.
Linked together, the computers briefly formed the world's fifth largest supercomputer.
The technique could be used in the future to tackle other tasks that demand the application of huge amounts of computer power.
The virtual supercomputer ran for 24 hours on 4 November, accomplishing the equivalent of 3.54 years of computer processing.
The creation and operation of the Canadian Internetworked Scientific Supercomputer (Ciss) was being co-ordinated by Wolfgang Jäger, Paul Lu and Jonathan Schaeffer from the computer science department at the University of Alberta.
The computer was used to model the interaction of two molecules in 20,000 different positions and measure the energy bonds this bringing together creates.
If run on a single desktop computer, the modelling would have taken more than six years to crunch through.
The 1,360 computers making up Ciss were spread across more than 21 separate sites.
more @ BBC News.
post by vasco on 4:14 PM
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Rapid Dominance
Strategy of War
Warfighting Systems and Concepts
One of the major challenges confronting the Secretary of Defense is not only planning for the future, but also making the successful transition from today's force and capability to the one needed in the new century. Experimentation will be a key element in this transition and planning process. In this context, Rapid Dominance has considerable merit.
Rapid Dominance is a construct and concept for applying force with the principal and overriding objective of affecting, influencing, and controlling the will and perception of a potential adversary through the use - or threat of use - of shock and awe. Shock and awe arises from the successful application of Rapid Dominance, a concept that has four characteristics: total knowledge, control of the environment, rapidity, and brilliance in execution.
The explicit use of shock and awe as a tool represents a singular extension of current strategic frameworks and operational concepts such as Joint Vision 2010. The basics of Rapid Dominance have previously been described in the publications, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, published by National Defense University in 1996, and Rapid Dominance: A Force for All Seasons, published by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in 1998. Most recently, a plan for further developing the Rapid Dominance concept was included in a 1999 report prepared for the Office of the Net Assessment under the Secretary of Defense. This plan is entitled, Rapid Dominance: A Strategic Roadmap for Fielding and Testing an Experimental Rapid Dominance Force.
Rapid Dominance exploits the entrepreneurial nature of America and the dynamically changing commercial-industrial technical sector from which many of the new information, computer, electronic, materials, and related technologies and systems will come. With an appropriate research and development plan, initial capabilities for this Rapid Dominance force could be fielded in perhaps five years and the full force obtained in fifteen years.
The Rapid Dominance Study Group has outlined a first cut Rapid Dominance force for fighting and winning a major regional conflict. That force design consists of roughly 250,000 personnel and would be employed in five waves. These waves can be brought to bear at any point in the peace, crisis and conflict continuum. The first wave of a Rapid Dominance capability could strike anywhere on the globe, within 30 to 40 minutes of being ordered, regardless of whether U.S. forces were already deployed in the crisis region. The subsequent waves would continue to deploy power relentlessly on the adversary to affect his will and perception through imposing a regime of "shock and awe." The final wave could include deploying a heavy corps or expeditionary force for physical occupation of territory.
The Rapid Dominance Study Group has prepared a roadmap for further developing the Rapid Dominance concept. The general approach of the roadmap is to generate and evaluate as many ideas as possible for effecting Rapid Dominance, turning the best of these ideas into operational concepts for use by a Rapid Dominance Force. These new concepts will involve information management, non-lethal demonstrative weapons, improved precision-delivered ordnance and more sophisticated command control capabilities. There will also be an important training and educational component of Rapid Dominance to take full advantage of the capabilities being provided. The Rapid Dominance Force developed through this process will be used for full-scale testing and experimentation, leading to ultimate integration of a Rapid Dominance capability into the President's national security tool box.
To improve the framework of understanding and to test the operative tools for affecting, influencing and controlling will and perception, the Rapid Dominance Study Group intends to conduct a series of net assessments. These assessments will involve taking five illustrative situations, applying the Desired Operational Capability (DOC) process and then evaluating the results within the Rapid Dominance framework. The DOCs selected include: Decisive Operations/Coercive Campaigns; Nodal Analysis and Attack; Precision Simultaneous Attack; Information Operations/Strategic Deception; and Seizing, Occupying or Controlling Territory. Each assessment will further explore and define how the four characteristics of Rapid Dominance are likely to affect, influence and control the adversary's will and perception on strategic/political, operational and tactical levels. Lessons will be learned concerning how to bring Rapid Dominance power to bear on an adversary.
Beyond these net assessments, the Rapid Dominance Study Group's program is geared to achieving three main goals. First, the group intends to further develop operational concepts for the Rapid Dominance Force, filling in the details of force definition, research and development objectives, doctrine and tactics. Second, the group will develop the details of the Joint Experimentation program necessary to place an experimental Rapid Dominance Force into the field. The experimentation construct would explore three variants of a Rapid Dominance Force: a stand-alone force, a joint experimental task force and a virtual force. Finally, the group will identify the planning and execution steps necessary to employ a Rapid Dominance Force in order to achieve shock and awe. Successful completion of this three-phased program will provide the necessary impetus for turning the Rapid Dominance concept into an instrument of national power.
(my coments) The privatization of war is growing in US, and Defense Goup Inc. is on this boat. Rapid Dominance force, a kind of Shock and Awe warfare, sounds like a perfect strategy to be used in war on Iraq. It's sold like a clean and fast war operation. World becomes creep with war business. (/my comments)
Found @ Defense Group Inc.
post by vasco on 4:35 PM
The Wireless
Commons Manifesto
We have formed the Wireless Commons because a global wireless network is within our grasp. We will work to define and achieve a wireless commons built using open spectrum, and able to connect people everywhere. We believe there is value to an independent and global network which is open to the public. We will break down commercial, technical, social and political barriers to the commons. The wireless commons bridges one of the few remaining gaps in universal communication without interference from middlemen and meddlers.
Humanity is on the verge of a turning point because the Internet has transformed the way humans relate with one another. All communication can be traced to a human relationship, whether it's lovers exchanging instant messages or teenagers sharing music. The Internet has given us the ability to communicate faster and more cheaply than ever before in history.
The Internet's value increases exponentially with the number of people who are able to participate. In today's world, communication can take place without the use of antiquated telecommunications networks. The organizations that control these networks are limping anachronisms that are constrained by the expense and physical necessity of using wires to build their networks. Because of this, they cannot serve the great mass of people who stand to benefit from a wireless commons. Their interests diverge from ours, and their control over the network strangles our ability to communicate.
Low-cost wireless networking equipment which can operate in unlicensed bands of the spectrum has started another revolution. Suddenly, ordinary people have the means to create a network independent of any physical constraint except distance. Wireless can travel through walls, across property boundaries and through a community. Many communities have formed worldwide to help organize these networks. They are forming the basis for the removal of the traditional telecommunication networks as an intermediary in human communication.
The challenge facing community networks is the one limiting factor of wireless communication: distance. The relationships that can be formed across a community wireless network are limited by their physical reach. Typically these networks are growing to the size of a city, and growth beyond that point requires coordination and a strategic vision for community wireless networks as a whole. Without this coordination, it is hard to see how the worldwide community of wireless networking groups will ever merge their systems and create a true alternative to existing telecommunication networks.
There are many barriers to the creation of a global network. So far, the focus has been on identifying the technical barriers and developing methods to overcome them. But technical problems are the least of our worries, the business, political and social issues are the real challenges facing community networks. Hardware and software vendors need to understand the business rationale for implementing our technical solutions. Politicians need to understand our requirements for universal access to open spectrum. The public needs to understand that the network exists and how to get access. Unless these problems are identified and addressed, the community wireless movement will never have influence beyond a local level.
Most importantly, the network needs to be accessible to all and provisioned by everyone who can provide. By adding enough providers to the network, we can bridge the physical gaps imposed by the range of our equipment. The network is a finite resource which is owned and used by the public, and as such it needs to be nurtured by the public. This, by its very nature, is a commons.
Becoming a part of the commons means being more than a consumer. By signing your name below, you become an active participant in a network that is far more than the sum of its users. You will strive to solve the social, political and technical challenges we face. You will provide the resources your community consumes by co-operating with total strangers to build the network that we all dream of.
Please take a moment and read the community wireless definition and tell us what you think. You can see the full list of signatories or sign it yourself.
(my comments) The manifesto is signed by people like Cory Doctorow, David P. Reed, Lawrence Lessig, Jon Lebkowsky, Oxblood Ruffin, Howard Rheingold and Michael Hardt. The best people that you can find in the web world. You can be proud to have your name in the same place. Since the logo world put the hands on Internet, they are trying to enclosure it like a pay-per-view pasture to suckers. Wireless movement is a direct action answer from multitude to broadband entertainment corporation's wish to made the web becomes hollywood's hog house (/my comments)
more @ Wireless Commons.
Found @ Interactivist Info Exchange.
post by vasco on 1:39 PM
High-Tech Group Batles
Hollywood on Copyright
The Alliance for Digital Progress (ADP) -- a new Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group whose members include Microsoft, Dell, Motorola and the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) -- will fight Hollywood's positions on access to digital music, movies, and books, and the entertainment industry's efforts to require anti-copying technology in digital entertainment devices. ITAA president Harris N. Miller says sarcastically that Hollywood leaders "would have organized the monks to burn down Gutenberg's printing press, if they were alive during that period of rapid change and innovation." (AP/USA Today 24 Jan 2003)
more @ USA Today.
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post by vasco on 1:00 PM
Man Arrested for Selling
Opium Poppy on E-Bay
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has arrested a Sacramento CA man for selling opium poppy pods on Internet auction site eBay, where he advertised them as "decorations"; each pod is the size of a golf ball and is at the end of a two-foot high stalk. An eBay executive said, "We check the site frequently for any illegal or illicit items and we remove them as fast as we find them," and he said that trying to use eBay to sell illicit drugs online "might be one of the dumbest things you can do." (AP/San Francisco Chronicle 31 Jan 2003)
more @ San Francisco Chronicle.
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post by vasco on 12:39 PM
Hollywood Threatened by
Content-Cleansing Soft
The entertainment industry is taking aim at new technology that has spawned a growing business dedicated to cleaning up movies and TV programs. On one side are a chain of video rental stores and a number of software companies that cater to an audience sick of gratuitous sex, violence and foul language in today's Hollywood offerings. On the other are film studios and the Directors Guild of America (DGA). The two groups are at legal loggerheads over software, such as MovieMask and ClearPlay, which filter out objectionable content, either by skipping certain frames entirely, or by substituting new dialogue, or in some cases by clothing naked actors or turning steel swords into light sabers.
Last August, the owner of a Colorado "CleanFlicks" video store, which rents sanitized video tapes, fired the first volley by suing the DGA and asking a federal judge to declare the editing practices protected under federal copyright law. The following month, DGA filed a countersuit against CleanFlicks as well as the software companies that do the editing. Eight Hollywood studios have now joined DGA's fight, alleging that the companies violated trademark law when they rent or sell an altered movie in the original packaging. Meanwhile, moviemakers warn that the same software used to sanitize content could also be used to spice up G-rated fare. "It's a double-edged sword," says Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America. "If there are people who want to do it for benign reasons, that's one thing. But they can take 'Spider-Man' and make it into a pornographic movie, and that's a problem." A hearing on the CleanFlicks case is scheduled for Feb. 14. (AP 3 Feb 2003)
more @ Associated Press.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news. To subscribe, send email to NewsScan@NewsScan.com and in the subject line type "subscribe". Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 11:55 AM
Cyber Attacks Down,
Vulnerabilities Way Up
The level of cyber attacks dropped for the first time in the second half of 2002, falling by 6%, according to Symantec's Internet Threat Report. But at the same time the number of vulnerabilities shot up significantly, with 2,524 new vulnerabilities reported in 2002, 81.5% over 2001.
Power and energy companies saw the highest level of hacking and cracking attempts over the last six months of last year, with financial companies second. South Korea was cited as the source of many of the attacks, both because of the increased use of broadband Internet access in the country, as well as its usefulness as a hopping-off point for hackers. Hacking incidents from South Korea grew 62% between July and December last year. (The Register 3 Feb 2003)
more @ The Register.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news. To subscribe, send email to NewsScan@NewsScan.com and in the subject line type "subscribe". Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 11:13 AM
The Network
Is the Battlefield
The Pentagon's aim is to meld weapons systems and people into a whole, called network-centric warfare, that's greater than the sum of its parts
On Nov. 21, U.S. Air Force officials got their hands on the ultimate global video game. Thanks to a system upgrade by defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT), flyboys (and girls) could hop onto a special Air Force network from any PC equipped with a Web browser and special military encryption and authentication software. Once on this network, they could call for air strikes, direct reconaissance planes, or plot the movements of the most powerful flying force on Earth -- all from their laptop in a café (or, more likely, at a secured facility). "All you need is Internet Explorer," says Doug Barton, the director of technology for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, based in Gaithersburg, Md.
This technology has a typically clunky military name -- the TBMCS C2 Air Combat system -- that belies its power. In fact, it isn't a game at all, but the latest in a series of developments that's moving the Air Force into the era of so-called network-centric warfare, or NCW. The goal is to weave weapons systems and people into a network whose whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Among other things, the system should make it easier to track and attack military targets, and provide a command structure that's more resilient and damage-proof. "If you network a [military] force, it can do things at a speed that is unimaginable," says John Garstka, an associate director of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation and a leading theorist in the area.
more @ Business Week
post by vasco on 1:47 AM