Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the March 7, 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 466 Date: March 7, 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 Friday, March 7, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Silicon Valley Reels Under Job Losses" "Spectrum Allocation Draws Intense Debate" "E-Mail Flaw Tests U.S. Safety Net" "Analysis: Warnings About Cyber-Terrorism Are Overblown" "Net Speed Record Smashed" "Getting to Know All About You" "White House Launches Technological Peace Corps" "Disorder in the Court" "Internet Vulnerabilities Caught in BIND" "Who's Minding the E-Store?" "Swimming With MIT's Virtual Fish" "Andreessen: 'The Valley Is Going to Save the Valley'" "Tech Firm Alliance, Not Group of Pols, Can Defeat Pirates" "Toshiba Unveils Innovative Fuel Cell" "Unjaded and Jubilant at TED" "Tomorrow's 5G Cell Phone" "Tag, You're It" "The Man in the Middle" "Look Ma, No Hands!" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Silicon Valley Reels Under Job Losses" Thousands of technology workers shaken out by the Silicon Valley job implosion, now in its third year, are re-evaluating their career prospects, while thousands more are hoping to re-enter the tech market by beefing up their resume and interviewing skills. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item1 "Spectrum Allocation Draws Intense Debate" Industry officials, academics, and policy makers hashed out ideas on radio spectrum allocation at a recent Stanford University conference. Participants advocated auctioning off spectrum, opening it for public use, leveraging new technology, and a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item2 "E-Mail Flaw Tests U.S. Safety Net" The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used a recently disclosed security hole in the Sendmail email transfer application as an opportunity to test its cybersecurity early warning system, according to the SANS Institute. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item3 "Analysis: Warnings About Cyber-Terrorism Are Overblown" Computer security experts are increasingly skeptical about terrorists or sympathizers hacking into sensitive computer infrastructure and causing major catastrophe in the United States. Although there seems to be no shortage of such groups ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item4 "Net Speed Record Smashed" Particle physicists at Stanford have tested the fastest-ever Internet transmission, sending 6.7 gigabytes of data from Sunnyvale, Calif., to Holland's Amsterdam in just one minute. The 6,800-mile length was traversed at 923 megabits per second, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item5 "Getting to Know All About You" Robotic design now involves not just mechanics, sensors, and computers, but also a study of how humans and machines interact with one another. While previous generations of robots were preprogrammed and designed physically for specific tasks, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item6 "White House Launches Technological Peace Corps" The White House on Tuesday announced the creation of the Digital Freedom Initiative, a three-year pilot program that will send technology and financial industry volunteers from U.S. companies to developing countries around the world in an effort to improve ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item7 "Disorder in the Court" A U.S. District Court in California has created an exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) that could jeopardize online companies' immunity to actions taken by individual users. The CDA was written seven years ago, making ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item8 "Internet Vulnerabilities Caught in BIND" The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) on Monday released BIND 9.2.2, a new version of the BIND domain name server. ISC first said on its Web site that the release is "a maintenance release, containing fixes for a number of bugs in 9.2.0 but no new ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item9 "Who's Minding the E-Store?" Federal government law enforcement agents often seize property involved in alleged crimes whether the property is a drug dealer's speedboat or a hacker's hot-rod desktop, and now government agents also are seizing domain names under the same ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item10 "Swimming With MIT's Virtual Fish" MIT students plan to line the floor and walls of the institute's famous Infinite Corridor with screens displaying computer-generated tuna and pike that can seemingly move in three dimensions and respond to visitors' movements via sensor ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item11 "Andreessen: 'The Valley Is Going to Save the Valley'" Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen has had less success with subsequent ventures such as Web hosting company Loudcloud and data-automation software firm Opsware, which trades now at $2 per share. Andreessen says the dot-com recession is affecting ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item12 "Tech Firm Alliance, Not Group of Pols, Can Defeat Pirates" The Alliance for Digital Progress (ADP) President Fred McClure says the solution to digital piracy lies in industry collaboration, not politically mandated technological solutions. Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) last year introduced legislation ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item13 "Toshiba Unveils Innovative Fuel Cell" Toshiba has created a prototype fuel cell designed for use in mobile devices that delivers better performance than current lithium-ion batteries. By using the water by-product of the fuel cell to dilute the methanol fuel, Toshiba engineers were able to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item14 "Unjaded and Jubilant at TED" The Technology, Entertainment and Design conference (TED) is a bellwether technology conference for the technology elite that flourished in the 1990s and predicted the eventual adoption of cell phones and PDAs before it happened, and focused on DNA ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item15 "Tomorrow's 5G Cell Phone" Next-generation cell phones could be cognitive radios (CRs), a term coined by Mitre computer scientist Joseph Mitola to mean software radios that learn from users and act on their behalf. Mitola says his vision is still about five to 10 years from ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item16 "Tag, You're It" Slowly but surely, enterprises are finding it easier and cheaper to track and manage assets through radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, in which products and other items are equipped with electronic tags containing ID data that can be read ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item17 "The Man in the Middle" In an interview with Roll Call, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Bush administration could consider a short-term stimulus package, increasing exports, free-trade agreements, and funding more research and development as strategies for stimulating the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item18 "Look Ma, No Hands!" The year 2003 will witness the market debut of business-productivity telematics applications designed to enhance in-car electronics. Delphi Automotive Group is readying a Bluetooth-based multimedia and off-board navigation system called ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0307f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0305w.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.