The E-Mail Mess
Will the Election Be
Hacked?
The distrust people feel toward paperless touch-screen
electronic voting systems is turning into a national movement,
fueled by audits from RABA Technologies, Johns Hopkins, and
others that uncovered serious flaws in machines from Diebold
Election Systems--flaws that not only raise the ...
[read more]
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1980s Technology Propels
Mars Exploration
The twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are equipped
with 20-year-old microprocessor technology that offers greater
tolerance to radiation and extreme temperatures and vibrations
common to space exploration. BAE Systems used an early version
of IBM's PowerPC chip running at a speed of ...
[read more]
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H-1B Training Program to Be
Axed
The White House is calling for the cancellation of the H-1B
Training Program in its proposed budget for fiscal 2005,
claiming that the effort has not proven successful at
improving the skills of American workers in specialized
professions. Under the program, Americans are trained to fill
...
[read more]
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IT Salaries Picking Up
Momentum
Dice CEO Scott Melland reports that the modest 2 percent
rise in technology salaries over the past year, recorded in
the Dice Salary Survey Report, indicates a resurgence for tech
professionals who have suffered wage drops over the 18 months
or so. Government and defense salaries experienced the ...
[read more]
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Robot Dogs Get Social
Conscience Installed
Yale University mechanical engineer and computer scientist
Natalie Jeremijenko has spearheaded the creation of "feral"
robotic canines programmed to scan for the presence of toxic
materials in public areas; the robot dogs also exhibit pack
behavior and a social conscience. The robots, ...
[read more]
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Privacy Reduction's Next
Act
Declan McCullagh finds considerable fault with the recently
introduced Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act, which he
describes as an attempt by the government to penalize domain
name holders who withhold contact information from the Whois
database, even when such anonymity is protected ...
[read more]
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ACM Professional
Development Centre Expands Learning
Opportunities
ACM's Professional Development Centre, launched in 2002, is
about to expand its course offerings. On Tuesday, February 17,
the number of courses accessible from the Centre will climb
from 250 to over 300; all are free to ACM members. New topics
will ...
[read more]
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Linux Security on the
Ropes
The perception among Linux fans is that the open-source
operating system is more secure than Windows, but others argue
that Linux will prove to be less secure than Windows if it
acquires more market share and thus becomes an even more
attractive target to hackers and virus writers. Illuminata ...
[read more]
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Cyberinfrastucture Poised
to Revolutionize Environmental Sciences and Other
Disciplines
The potential impact of a national "cyberinfrastructure" on
environmental sciences and other disciplines will be the
subject of two sessions of the AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle
on Feb. 13, 2004. Two directorates of the National Science
Foundation (NSF), which has become increasingly involved ...
[read more]
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Lofty Goal: Computers
People Can Talk With
Making computers capable of understanding natural language
to the degree that human beings can converse with them as if
they too were flesh-and-blood is a long-term goal of the
National Science Foundation (NSF). Thus far, research and
commercial development of computer-language ...
[read more]
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Neural Software Could
Become Soldier's Best Friend
A real-time advice system for soldiers and other government
agents in the field is being developed at Sandia National
Laboratories, using neural-network software. The researchers'
goal is to build a virtual mentor that can counsel people
engaged in vital operations within a ...
[read more]
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The Virus
Underground
The year 2003 was a banner year for malware, with the
release of network worms that spread with increasing rapidity
and insidiousness, and such events are putting elite virus
writers on the spot. Even though many top virus and worm
authors have not technically transgressed any laws and ...
[read more]
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Save Your Software!
Recycle
Grant Larsen, an engineer at IBM's Rational software
development tools division, believes the Re-usable Asset
Specification (RAS) for recycling software code is edging
toward standardization. RAS, which is expected to be ratified
in July following its review by the Object Management Group,
...
[read more]
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Great Taste, Less
Privacy
Driver's licenses are being used for more than just
identification, given the type and amount of information
stored on the cards' bar codes and magnetic strips. The
scanning of such licenses is usually a security
measure--restaurants and bars do it to spot underage drinkers
with fake ...
[read more]
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Can E-Mail
Survive?
Email reform is desperately needed, not only because of the
convergence of spam and viruses, but because email is also
threatening to collapse from overload. Legislation alone will
not solve the problem: Laws such as the recently passed
CAN-SPAM are unlikely to significantly reduce spam because ...
[read more]
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Reasoning on the Web With
Rules and Semantics
The European Commission, as part of its sixth Framework
Programme, will launch REasoning on the WEb with Rules and
SEmantics (REWERSE), a research "Network of Excellence" that
will include 27 European research and development
organizations designed to bolster Europe's expertise in Web
...
[read more]
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Return of the
Supercomputers
The ascendance of Japan's Earth Simulator to the ranking of
world's fastest supercomputer has spurred calls among U.S.
computer scientists and government officials for greater
investments in fundamental, next-generation supercomputing
research. "It's a technological race, and ...
[read more]
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Rushing Toward
Chaos
In his book "It's Alive," Nerve founder Christopher Meyer
diagrams the American IT's economy progression over the next
decade, outlining the transition of companies to a biological
evolutionary model that focuses on the "adaptive enterprise,"
spurred by rapid advances in biotechnology and ...
[read more]
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Smart Robot Pet
Tricks
Sony's AIBO robot dog comes with a set of preprogrammed
behaviors, but after a period of resistance, Sony issued
software developer tools that allow programmers to modify and
customize the dog's behavior, partly in the hopes of making
the toy a research platform for artificial intelligence and
...
[read more]
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The E-Mail
Mess
Some states have strict laws against spammers, with some
laws focusing on deceptive email and others trying to stop
spam before it starts, but the new federal Can-Spam Act will
hinder many of those laws. The federal legislation strengthens
the rights of Internet users in states that lack ...
[read more]
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