Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the July 31, 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 380 Date: July 31, 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 Wednesday, July 31, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "FCC Chief Cites Internet Weak Spot" "States Spar Over Stalled Software Act" "Ailing Valley Searches Its Soul" "White House Sounds Call for New Internet Standards" "IT Professionals Feel the Pressure" "Virtual Real Estate Is a Buyer's Market" "ACLU Pushes for Open Access" "Humpty Dumpty Restored: When Disorder Lurches Into Order" "Tiny Device Traps Electrons for Quantum Computing" "Quantum Net for Atom Angling" "Wi-Fi Honeypots a New Hacker Trap" "Bill Would Allow 'Ethical' Hacking to Track Copyright Theft" "Tabletop System Generates Extreme-UV Laser Light" "Anemone of the Smart People" "Dot-Org Decision Looms Large for Noncommercial Speakers" "IT Pros May Face Background Checks" "Building America's Anti-Terror Machine" "Small Wonders" "Breaking the Mold" ******************* News Stories *********************** "FCC Chief Cites Internet Weak Spot" Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell told the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday that he might not be able to stop WorldCom from shutting down its Internet backbone service, UUNet. Although Powell was confident of his ability to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item1 "States Spar Over Stalled Software Act" At this week's annual meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), representatives plan to address several amendments to the controversial Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA). The amendments ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item2 "Ailing Valley Searches Its Soul" Residents of Silicon Valley are questioning what role their culture played in the current economic crash and the euphoria that led up to it. Whereas foreign countries previously sent delegations to come study Silicon Valley, much of the country now ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item3 "White House Sounds Call for New Internet Standards" White House chief cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke said on Tuesday that the 20-year-old protocols supporting the Internet may need to be upgraded in order to address the potential security vulnerabilities of increasing numbers of wireless ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item4 "IT Professionals Feel the Pressure" IT professionals are as vulnerable to the mental pressures of work-related stress as any other worker, and a survey of 5,174 IT employees in InformationWeek's 2002 National IT Salary Survey finds that more than 50 percent note an escalation of stress in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item5 "Virtual Real Estate Is a Buyer's Market" In the past, cybersquatters made millions from domains like business.com, wine.com, and WallStreet.com, but today both sex247.net and PopeOnline.net are being hawked on GreatDomains.com for just a few hundred dollars. Companies have ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item6 "ACLU Pushes for Open Access" Open access between rival cable companies' broadband networks is essential if people are to enjoy wide availability of online content, according to consumer advocacy organizations who conferred at a town hall meeting on Monday. "Without open ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item7 "Humpty Dumpty Restored: When Disorder Lurches Into Order" An experiment that Australian researchers reported in the current issue of Physical Review Letters apparently violates the second law of thermodynamics, demonstrating that molecule-scale machines may run backward. Scientists at Australian National University ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item8 "Tiny Device Traps Electrons for Quantum Computing" A single electron transistor devised by University of Wisconsin scientists snares individual electrons for quantum dot semiconductors, a breakthrough that could be a significant step toward quantum computing. The quantum dots are composed of one ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item9 "Quantum Net for Atom Angling" Roberto Diener and fellow researchers at the University of Texas at Austin report that physicists should be able to trap exact numbers of atoms from Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) using a device called a quantum dot. Up to now, they have used scanning ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item10 "Wi-Fi Honeypots a New Hacker Trap" A new defense against Wi-Fi hackers, a wireless honeypot, was launched on June 15 by Science Applications International (SAIC) under the aegis of the Wireless Information Security Experiment (WISE). WISE head Rob Lee says the purpose of the initiative is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item11 "Bill Would Allow 'Ethical' Hacking to Track Copyright Theft" Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) seeks to outlaw peer-to-peer (P2P) file swapping of copyrighted materials by introducing a bill that would grant copyright holders the right to legally hack into P2P networks, a proposal that has sparked protest among digital ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item12 "Tabletop System Generates Extreme-UV Laser Light" Researchers at the University of Colorado have reengineered a $100,000 commercial laser into a device that upconverts visible laser light into the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) spectrum and could be used to directly image nanostructures. "What this technology ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item13 "Anemone of the Smart People" Robots, sensory enhancement, and augmented reality illustrated the theme of human-machine interaction at the Emerging Technologies Exhibition--a featured highlight of the 2002 ACM SIGGRAPH conference in San Antonio last week. MIT Media ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item14 "Dot-Org Decision Looms Large for Noncommercial Speakers" Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, says the .org domain is one of the few spaces online devoted to non-commercial speech, which makes the selection of the next .org operator extremely important. "If [.org] were to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item15 "IT Pros May Face Background Checks" Corporate IT and other employees in critical industries could be subject to background checks, if a panel convened by the Bush administration has its way. The panel will be set up to establish guidelines for "necessary background checks for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item16 "Building America's Anti-Terror Machine" Information technology can be a critical component of homeland security, but furnishing a decentralized electronic network that can function as a nationwide central nervous system for emergency response efforts will involve an unprecedented, collaborative ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item17 "Small Wonders" Nanotechnology advocates have championed nanotechnology as the building-block for the next-great everything, and even if this expectation does not materialize fully, the government-backed National Nanotechnology Initiative still expects that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item18 "Breaking the Mold" Researchers such as C. Grant Willson of the University of Texas are investigating the commercial potential for nanofabrication techniques. Taking a cue from previous research on how the flawed nickel mold for a CD-ROM consistently produced the exact ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0731w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0729m.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.