Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the August 11, 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 531 Date: August 11, 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, August 11, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "The Bandwagon to Fight Spam Hits a Bump" "Jolted Over Electronic Voting" "Radical Geeks Launch a New IT Revolution" "3-D Printing's Great Leap Forward" "Single Slow User Can Throttle Wi-Fi Network" "Linux on a Mission" "This Is One Case Where You'll Want the Little Guy to Lose" "Neural-Network Technology Moves Into the Mainstream" "GPL May Be Unenforceable Under German Law" "Should E-mail Still Be Free?" "Online Forms Standard Gets a Push" "Robot Challenge: Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work" "The Internet Security Demon That Won't Die" "Glove Won't Speak for the Deaf" "Animation Lets Murder Victims Have Final Say" "Out, Out, Damned Spam" "Sourcing Linux" ******************* News Stories *********************** "The Bandwagon to Fight Spam Hits a Bump" The latest congressional wrangling over proposed anti-spam measures revolves around Sen. Charles E. Schumer's (D-N.Y.) bill to deploy a do-not-spam list modeled after the do-not-call registry the FTC started implementing in June. Jerry Cerasale of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item1 "Jolted Over Electronic Voting" Some U.S. states are having second thoughts about replacing their old voting machines with electronic systems because of a recent Johns Hopkins University report that calls the machines' security into question. Report co-author Avi Rubin, technical director of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item2 "Radical Geeks Launch a New IT Revolution" Programmers and engineers are exerting their political influence online as a way to fight for civil liberties and other pressing issues. The leaders of these pushes have become cyber-activists because they have the money and the means to do so--Wes Boyd, for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item3 "3-D Printing's Great Leap Forward" The development of rapid prototyping devices or 3D printers is about to advance with the development of machines that can print out moving components. Although RP devices can print out objects from metal, starch, plastic, or paper using a 3D blueprint as a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item4 "Single Slow User Can Throttle Wi-Fi Network" Researchers at the Institut d'Informatique et Mathematiques Appliquees de Grenoble have determined through the study of Wi-Fi network performance that a single person with a slow wireless link can reduce data transfer speeds for everyone using the same ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item5 "Linux on a Mission" The Centibots, whose development was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), were put through their paces at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, where they were tasked to navigate a maze in order to locate a stuffed penguin. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item6 "This Is One Case Where You'll Want the Little Guy to Lose" SCO has filed a $1 billion suit against IBM for allegedly including elements of its copyrighted Unix code in the free Linux operating system, and is threatening to sue all Linux users for as much as $700 each. Lee Gomes writes that SCO appears to have ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item7 "Neural-Network Technology Moves Into the Mainstream" Neural-network technology, which is modeled after the synaptic architecture of the human brain, is being developed as a tool that enables computers to record information as patterns, and use those patterns to solve problems in much the same way human ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item8 "GPL May Be Unenforceable Under German Law" Legal expert Gerald Spindler warns that the open-source General Public License (GPL) is not valid in Germany, mostly because that country's law demands some type of liability or warranty from distributors or developers. Spindler wrote a 123-page study for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item9 "Should E-mail Still Be Free?" In response to Vipul Prakash's observations and suggestions about spam control, Barry Shein finds fault with his position that there should be no per-message charging for email. Shein writes, "charges should be incurred to help pay for the resources being ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item10 "Online Forms Standard Gets a Push" The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has finally published its specification for creating Web forms. Initially scheduled to be released in March, XForms 1.0 uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) to bring greater flexibility to current documents based on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item11 "Robot Challenge: Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work" Grace, the robot built in response to a general challenge by the American Society for Artificial Intelligence, is now preparing for more ambitious missions. Formally named the Graduate Robot Attending Conference in Edmonton, Grace successfully registered ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item12 "The Internet Security Demon That Won't Die" The vulnerability of the Internet is a lingering problem, and security experts concur that private industry must lead the charge to improve Net security. "Internet security is...about teaching people that there is a lot more to security than buying ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item13 "Glove Won't Speak for the Deaf" Some hearing-impaired people have conflicting feelings about technology designed to translate American Sign Language into spoken and written speech, the latest example being Jose Hernandez-Rebollar's AcceleGlove, a sensor-laden glove that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item14 "Animation Lets Murder Victims Have Final Say" German researchers have developed a 3D graphics program that can help forensics experts in their efforts to reconstruct faces from the skeletal remains of dead people found by the police. The graphics system of Kolja Kahler and Jorg Haber of the Max Planck ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item15 "Out, Out, Damned Spam" Lauren Weinstein was on the receiving end of the first spam ever--an email from Digital Equipment--in May,1978, while involved in work to develop an early version of the Internet. Today, junk email accounts for 49 percent of network traffic, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item16 "Sourcing Linux" SCO Group's $3 billion lawsuit against IBM for allegedly incorporating patented Unix code into Linux has ignited a flurry of speculation on whether the open-source development process is in need of serious revision. Some IT analysts are advising ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0811m.html#item17 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0808f.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