Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the June 10, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week. For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this service, please see below. ACM's MemberNet is now online. For discussion (and voting) forums on current industry issues and the latest on ACM activities, visit http://www.acm.org/membernet Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ACM TechNews Volume 4, Number 359 Date: June 10, 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by Compaq (http://www.compaq.com/smbcatalog) Compaq is the premier source for computing services, products and solutions. Responding to customers' requirements for quality and reliability at aggressive prices, Compaq offers performance-packed products and comprehensive services. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Monday, June 10, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Old Code in Windows Is Security Threat" "2 Tinkerers Say They've Found A Cheap Way To Broadband" "India-U.S. Business Group Seeks Broader Base" "Study: Software Piracy Up for Second Straight Year" "Nearly 2-Decade-Old Effort Seeks to Teach Computer Common Sense" "No Need to Worry, Your Computer Isn't After You or Your Job" "The Code of Life as a Paint Set" "U.S. Commerce Department is Bullish on Nanotechnology" "Living in a Wireless World" "Researchers Demo Self-Assembling Nanowires" "Lab Taps Universe to Test 'Data Mining'" "DoS Hole Has Some DNS Servers in a BIND" "Patent Office Seeks to Go Paperless by 2004" "Fortress America" "Intel Rethinks Its InfiniBand Strategy" "Esther Dyson: Living the Networked Life" "Deep Vision" "The Beltway Bandits" "Environmental Policy" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Old Code in Windows Is Security Threat" Last week, a Finnish researcher reported a security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer that revolves around Gopher, a hyperlinking protocol that predates the Web and could leave PC users vulnerable to attacks. Microsoft's director of security ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item1 "2 Tinkerers Say They've Found A Cheap Way To Broadband" California software engineers Layne Holt and John Furrier are taking aim at cable and phone companies by using the 802.11b, or Wi-Fi, standard to make consumer broadband access available widely and cheaply. Their company, Etherlinx, has built a cheap ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item2 "India-U.S. Business Group Seeks Broader Base" Silicon Valley's South Asian networking group, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), is looking to expand its reach overseas and across ethnic and gender barriers. Since its founding in 1994, TiE has linked together venture capitalists, business minds, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item3 "Study: Software Piracy Up for Second Straight Year" The Business Software Alliance on Monday announced that for the first time in seven years software piracy around the world has increased for two straight years. BSA says its members lost $11 billion in sales to pirated software last year, and the music, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item4 "Nearly 2-Decade-Old Effort Seeks to Teach Computer Common Sense" The Cyc database lies at the heart of an ambitious effort to teach a computer common sense by feeding it millions of facts and general assumptions about life. The public has also been encouraged to download and add to Cyc through an effort initiated ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item5 "No Need to Worry, Your Computer Isn't After You or Your Job" For almost three decades, experts such as Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle of the University of California at Berkeley's philosophy department have remained skeptical that computers will one day become super-smart and conscious. Such assumptions have been the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item6 "The Code of Life as a Paint Set" In the Friday issue of Science, six chemists will disclose a "dip-pen" nanotechnology that enables DNA molecules to be painted onto a surface, a breakthrough that could have significant ramifications for developing a nanostructure assembly method and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item7 "U.S. Commerce Department is Bullish on Nanotechnology" At a Thursday meeting, Phillip Bond, chief of staff to Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, announced that the commercialization of nanotechnology is a high priority. He noted that the White House's decision to significantly boost the budget of the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item8 "Living in a Wireless World" Technologists and futurists anticipate a world where everyone has always-on wireless access to the Internet, a development they say will have profound effects on all aspects of everyday life. Already, technology innovations are converging to make this ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item9 "Researchers Demo Self-Assembling Nanowires" Scientists at Denmark's Aarhus University have succeeded in creating a molecular template for making nanowires, a first crucial step in the development of self-assembling nanotechnology and nanocircuitry. Researchers want to try to find a way to make ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item10 "Lab Taps Universe to Test 'Data Mining'" Astronomers and scientists studying global warming are both using Sapphire, a data-mining technology developed by Chandrika Kamath at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The four-year-old program is still being refined, but is unique in its scalability, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item11 "DoS Hole Has Some DNS Servers in a BIND" A June 4 warning has been issued about a newly discovered vulnerability in versions of ISC BIND 9 that have not been upgraded to version 9.2.1, which is used for DNS servers. The Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT) ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item12 "Patent Office Seeks to Go Paperless by 2004" The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office expects to reduce processing times for applications by adopting electronic technologies. Electronic filing could save the office as much as $500 million in costs, said James Rogan, the agency's undersecretary for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item13 "Fortress America" Congress is currently working through several cybersecurity initiatives that would bolster information sharing, increase research budgets, and require risk assessments from agencies. Two of the bills contain measures that worry officials in the IT ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item14 "Intel Rethinks Its InfiniBand Strategy" Intel has decided not to ship InfiniBand chips next year, but industry observers say this will have little impact on the InfiniBand market. Venture capital is abundant, and the Yankee Group projects that InfiniBand-enabled servers will account for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item15 "Esther Dyson: Living the Networked Life" Technology author and former ICANN Chairwoman Esther Dyson is busy organizing the PC Forum conference, publishing the newsletter Release 1.0, managing investments in over 40 tech startups, and sitting on the board of U.K. advertising firm WPP. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item16 "Deep Vision" The Cave Autonomic Virtual Environment (CAVE), first developed by computer scientist Thomas A. DeFanti and colleagues at the University of Illinois in 1991, and related virtual reality technologies are breaking out of academia and into other sectors, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item17 "The Beltway Bandits" Whether the technology industry is lobbying for broadband deployment, intellectual property, or international trade in Washington, D.C., one thing is clear: The general consensus is that the government should let industry be responsible for its ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item18 "Environmental Policy" In order to maintain productivity and competitive advantage, a company's business processes need to be continually upgraded, streamlined, and added to. Managing them effectively is beyond the capabilities of current software architectures and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0610m.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0607f.html -- To visit the TechNews home page, point your browser to: http://www.acm.org/technews/ -- To unsubscribe from the ACM TechNews Early Alert Service: Please send a separate email to listserv@listserv2.acm.org with the line signoff technews in the body of your message. -- Please note that replying directly to this message does not automatically unsubscribe you from the TechNews list. -- To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact: technews@hq.acm.org -- ACM may have a different email address on file for you, so if you're unable to "unsubscribe" yourself, please direct your request to: technews-request@acm.org We will remove your name from the TechNews list on your behalf. -- For help with technical problems, including problems with leaving the list, please write to: technews-request@acm.org ---- ACM TechNews is sponsored by Compaq.