Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 2, 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 the latest on ACM activities, member benefits, and industry issues, 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 429 Date: December 2, 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 Monday, December 2, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Black Market For Software Is Sidestepping Export Controls" "Hollywood, Tech Become Wary Partners Against Piracy" "Listening to the Internet Reveals Best Connections" "Total Info System Totally Touchy" "Fishing for Data" "From Darwin to Internet at the Speed of Light" "Don't Write Off Existing IT Skills" "Biology May Help Shrink Electronic Components at NASA" "DARPA Looks to Quantum Future" "The Rogue DNS Phenomenon" "Purdue Panel Maps Safer Wireless World for United Nations" "Future Security" "Coding with Life's Code" "Seething over Spam" "The Making of a Policy Gadfly" "Software Doesn't Work. Customers Are in Revolt. Here's the Plan." ******************* News Stories *********************** "Black Market For Software Is Sidestepping Export Controls" Export restrictions are in place to bar the sale of scientific and engineering software to rogue nations such as Iraq or North Korea, but such countries can acquire these technologies easily through a black market. Worse, clamping down on this market is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item1 "Hollywood, Tech Become Wary Partners Against Piracy" Executives of entertainment companies hope that partnerships with technology companies will better their chances of curtailing the digital piracy of music and movies, and are making efforts to overcome long-term animosity between the two sectors. Fox Group ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item2 "Listening to the Internet Reveals Best Connections" Chris Chafe of Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics has developed a way to check the quality of Internet connections by converting latency variations into a musical format. The conventional method of assessing an Internet ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item3 "Total Info System Totally Touchy" The Total Information Awareness System proposed by the Pentagon's Office of Information Awareness will require new database mining technologies that leave many in the industry unsettled. The project, which has received $137 million in funding for 2003, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item4 "Fishing for Data" As the amount of digitized information created continues to increase, ways of extracting needed data are struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, researchers are also working on ways to accommodate wireless computing technologies, such as a project at ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item5 "From Darwin to Internet at the Speed of Light" The European Space Agency (ESA) is pursuing integrated optics technology as a way to detect Earth-like planets through the Darwin project and the ESA/ESO Ground-based European Nullifying Interferometer Experiment (GENIE); such research could also be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item6 "Don't Write Off Existing IT Skills" New research published in vnunet.com's sister publication Computing concludes that demand for basic IT skills still exists, but many professionals are in danger of devaluing them and casting them aside too quickly because of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item7 "Biology May Help Shrink Electronic Components at NASA" Researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center are working to construct electronics that are many times smaller than current components using proteins that are genetically manipulated to self-assemble into nanoscale structures. Principal project ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item8 "DARPA Looks to Quantum Future" The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is using its High Performance Computing Systems (HPCS) program as a vehicle for making progress on quantum computing. DARPA has asked five vendors (include Cray, Hewlett-Packard, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item9 "The Rogue DNS Phenomenon" ICANN's cancellation of elections for ICANN board seats was unpopular among Internet users, most of whom do not realize that there are alternatives to dealing with ICANN. ICANN governs the servers that transform domain names like various .com names into ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item10 "Purdue Panel Maps Safer Wireless World for United Nations" Addressing the security of wireless networks is critical, especially for developing countries hoping to enter the Information Age without taxing their limited financial resources, according to a report that Purdue University's 2002 Wireless ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item11 "Future Security" Software vendors know that the market is overcrowded with information security products, while enterprise customers are clamoring for applications that are designed for security up front and that offer real-time system monitoring and rapid response to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item12 "Coding with Life's Code" Various projects in the emergent field of DNA computing--which postulates that biological processes are defined by computational algorithms--are testing whether DNA molecules can carry out computations and can be applied to the design of nanotechnology, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item13 "Seething over Spam" There is a diverse array of tools and services on the market designed to block junk email, or spam, thus saving companies money and improving productivity. Joyce Graff of Gartner recommends that small- and medium-sized businesses outsource spam ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item14 "The Making of a Policy Gadfly" Princeton University computer scientist Edward W. Felten is part of a growing number of academic researchers who are opposed to legislation that seeks to regulate digital technology, a move that reportedly threatens important scientific research and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item15 "Software Doesn't Work. Customers Are in Revolt. Here's the Plan." Software developers are striving to make software compatible amid customers refusing to invest in more products because they have yet to realize returns on existing systems, which are often non-interoperable and result in added implementation costs--for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.html#item16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue (there was no issue on Friday, November 29 [day after Thanksgiving]), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1127w.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.