Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the March 3, 2003 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 5, Number 464 Date: March 3, 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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, March 3, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "IETF Creates Antispam Research Group" "Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation" "Pentagon Spy Database Funding Revealed" "Securing a Digital Lock" "German Copyright Levy on PCs Worries Many" "NIPC Leadership, Protocol Questioned" "Senator Seeks Full Copyright Disclosures" "Way to Control Electron Spin with Electrical Field" "Is Vigilante Hacking Legal?" "Cerf's Upbeat on Net's Future" "Overclocking Poses Risks to PDAs" "To Trap a Superworm" "DOD Deploys High-Tech Arsenal" "Civil Liberties and Combating Terrorism: Legal Principles and the TIA Program" "The Net Comes Home" "Think Tiny, Think Big" "Flash Drives Arrive" "Computer Security's Early Warning Systems" ******************* News Stories *********************** "IETF Creates Antispam Research Group" Finding new ways to stem the growing tide of unsolicited junk email, or spam, will be the task of a new panel organized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) will operate under the aegis of the IETF's Internet ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item1 "Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation" The debate between copyright owners' right to protect their products and researchers' need to disassemble such products in order to improve them and invent new products was the theme at several California conferences that took place this past weekend. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item2 "Pentagon Spy Database Funding Revealed" The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Thursday forced John Poindexter of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to disclose a hefty document detailing some 26 grants awarded to academic and private-sector research projects ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item3 "Securing a Digital Lock" Researchers at the University of California Davis Computer Security Lab (SecLab) are working on a number of solutions to protect computer systems from external Internet-borne attacks and internal security breaches. However, senior researcher Jeff Rowe ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item4 "German Copyright Levy on PCs Worries Many" German copyright holders' society VG Wort is fighting for a levy on new PCs that manufacturers say would unfairly raise the cost of new units without adding value. Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Germany's largest PC maker, is lobbying the German Patent Office, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item5 "NIPC Leadership, Protocol Questioned" The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) moved from the FBI to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) on March 1, but not everyone whose job ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item6 "Senator Seeks Full Copyright Disclosures" Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) feels that vendors of products equipped with anti-copying safeguards should alert customers to such restrictions by clearly labeling such items as copyright-controlled. Wyden believes that informed consumers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item7 "Way to Control Electron Spin with Electrical Field" David Awschalom of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Jeremy Levy of the University of Pittsburgh have made a significant breakthrough in the field of spintronics by being able to manipulate electron spin using electrical fields, rather ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item8 "Is Vigilante Hacking Legal?" Attorney Curtis Karnow said Feb. 27 at the Black Hat Security Briefings summit in Seattle that federal nuisance laws might be extended to legally allow counterattacks to halt Internet hacking. "It has a lot of promise...if we can get the court to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item9 "Cerf's Upbeat on Net's Future" Internet pioneer Vint Cerf offered a generally positive outlook on future Internet developments at a recent function organized by the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, Australia. He acknowledged that Internet content is a combination of junk and useful material, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item10 "Overclocking Poses Risks to PDAs" Wibble-wobble.com and Revolutionary Software Front are offering handheld users a cheap way to ratchet up the performance of their personal digital assistants (PDAs) by boosting processor clock speed beyond the vendor's specified rate. However, analysts and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item11 "To Trap a Superworm" The threat of superworms jumped from theory to reality with the release of Slammer in late January; more virulent than earlier worms such as Nimda and CodeRed, Slammer exploited weaknesses in Microsoft SQL database products to launch buffer overflow attacks ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item12 "DOD Deploys High-Tech Arsenal" Battlefield tactics are being transformed by information technology developed over the last decade in order to give American forces an edge and minimize casualties. The cost and reliability of IT have respectively fallen and risen since ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item13 "Civil Liberties and Combating Terrorism: Legal Principles and the TIA Program" Research on developing the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project and new technology for the anti-terrorism program should continue, even though some members of Congress have expressed concerns about its potential impact on individual privacy in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item14 "The Net Comes Home" The Internet 0 project at MIT's new Center for Bits and Atoms aims to create an open-source standard for a building automation network connected by electrical cables. The network would offer the simplicity, reliability, and elasticity of a global Internet ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item15 "Think Tiny, Think Big" Under the aegis of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), federal scientists and industrial and academic researchers are forging ahead to develop new technologies that have the potential to revolutionize advanced materials and manufacturing, computing, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item16 "Flash Drives Arrive" By taking advantage of the ubiquity of the universal serial bus (USB) connector, sales of USB flash drives surged from $39 million to $125 million in 2002, according to Web-Feet Research. "This was one of these markets that's been pulled through by the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item17 "Computer Security's Early Warning Systems" To combat the threat of more sophisticated hackers exploiting unknown or unpatched network weaknesses, a cadre of vendors and research groups are implementing early warning systems to give network administrators a heads up hours or even days before an ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0303m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.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.