Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the July 12, 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 372 Date: July 12, 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by Hewlett Packard Company ( ) HP is the premier source for computing services, products and solutions. Responding to customers' requirements for quality and reliability at aggressive prices, HP offers performance-packed products and comprehensive services. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Friday, July 12, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "New Pessimism On '02 Revival Is Pervading Silicon Valley" "Cybersecurity-Research Bill Stalls in Senate" "Recycling Law Could Mean Costly PCs" "A New Code for Anonymous Web Use" "Pirates on the Web, Spoils on the Street" "Battle is Brewing over Tech Visas" "Lawmakers: Keep Your Tunes to Yourself" "Security Flaw Afflicts Popular Technology for Encrypting E-Mail" "Promising Prospects Dim for Bluetooth" "UK Lab Creates What Companies Imagine" "China Wakes to New Destiny" "A War of Robots, All Chattering on the Western Front" "Beware the Gotcha in the New Intel Feature" "Creating the Poor Man's Supercomputer" "Computer, Heal Thyself" "Approximating Life" "Experts Predict Major Cyberattack Coming" "Core Reality" "Six Degrees of Speculation" ******************* News Stories *********************** "New Pessimism On '02 Revival Is Pervading Silicon Valley" The optimism Silicon Valley business leaders had for a mid-2002 economic recovery is weakening as executives and analysts observe that the projected upturn in electronics sales is not yet happening. For example, Advanced Micro Devices has downgraded ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item1 "Cybersecurity-Research Bill Stalls in Senate" Legislation calling for increased computer network security research has encountered a roadblock in the Senate. Provisions calling for federal agencies to adopt computer-security standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item2 "Recycling Law Could Mean Costly PCs" European environmental laws will soon be enacted requiring PC manufacturers to recycle discarded computers, a move that could cause PC prices to rise, experts warn. The enforcement of the directives could cost British industry more than 3 billion ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item3 "A New Code for Anonymous Web Use" Hacktivismo, a political offshoot of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker group, is planning the release of new peer-to-peer software protocol that will enable anonymous Internet use. Although current techniques for veiling one's identity online ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item4 "Pirates on the Web, Spoils on the Street" Internet piracy continues, despite major busts such as the raids conducted to flush out the members of the DrinkorDie ring, some of whom have earned jail terms for illegally copying and distributing software, games, and movies online. Pirates such as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item5 "Battle is Brewing over Tech Visas" The H1-B visa program is being roundly criticized by opponents who want it scaled back or eliminated altogether. They argue that the annual cap of 195,000 new visas for foreign-born tech workers is excessive, adding that the economic slump has produced ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item6 "Lawmakers: Keep Your Tunes to Yourself" This month will likely see the introduction of a proposal from Reps. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) that restricts Americans' copying of digital content and clarifies the legal rights of Webcasters. The bill, which the authors drafted ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item7 "Security Flaw Afflicts Popular Technology for Encrypting E-Mail" A programming flaw in the highly popular Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) email encryption standard could give hackers the ability to commandeer users' computers as well as decrypt sensitive emails. The flaw, which eEye Digital Security researchers uncovered weeks ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item8 "Promising Prospects Dim for Bluetooth" Bluetooth's future is being called into question by several new studies, while mixed signals filled the air at the recent Bluetooth Congress in Amsterdam. The technology's rapid, high-volume penetration into the mobile phone and automotive ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item9 "UK Lab Creates What Companies Imagine" Companies across the nation are finding the University of Kentucky Center for Robotics and Manufacturing's rapid prototyping lab useful for product design, software installation, and boosting plant efficiency. The lab can translate simple ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item10 "China Wakes to New Destiny" China's future seems inexorably linked with technology. Foreign companies are increasing their investments there, spurred by China's recent entry into the World Trade Organization, the growing domestic demand for technology, the global IT slowdown, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item11 "A War of Robots, All Chattering on the Western Front" Future battles could be waged by robot drones that communicate via a wireless network that mimics the human brain; determining the building requirements of such a network is the goal of a five-year, $11 million project from the Office of Naval Research. http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item12 "Beware the Gotcha in the New Intel Feature" Intel is working on technology that could be used to limit personal use of digital content. One example is the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), a technology designed to ensure secure e-commerce transactions that Intel is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item13 "Creating the Poor Man's Supercomputer" A researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory has written a better message-passing program for supercomputers created from PC clusters. David Turner's MP_Lite program helps different nodes communicate more reliably and effectively, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item14 "Computer, Heal Thyself" Christof Teuscher of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) believes that biological systems can revolutionize computing. "Looking at computing from a biological point of view gives us an entirely new perspective and opens the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item15 "Approximating Life" Alice, the brainchild of computer programmer Richard Wallace, is an artificial intelligence program so lifelike that some people who interact with it mistake it for a real person. It is based on the theory that human conversation is simpler than most people ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item16 "Experts Predict Major Cyberattack Coming" Former senior intelligence and security officials postulate that a terrorist-coordinated cyberattack against America's networks and businesses is inevitable. Experts are expecting terrorists to first launch a physical attack against a private U.S. firm, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item17 "Core Reality" Some physicists indicate that quantum physics may have hidden depths, since theory alone is a matter of predicting probable measurements rather than certainties. People are attempting to find a "hidden variable theory" that most physicists dismiss as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item18 "Six Degrees of Speculation" In the late 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram popularized his theory that there are an average of six intermediate people--"six degrees of separation"--connecting any two individuals chosen at random. Some mathematicians claim ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0710w.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 Hewlett Packard Company.