Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the September 12, 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 544 Date: September 12, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, September 12, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Feds Search for Cybersecurity Solutions" "IT Workers: Fewer Jobs, Mo' Money" "Hackers Threaten Power Grid" "Beyond Voice Recognition, to a Computer That Reads Lips" "Nanotech Forum Reflects on Technology's Mission" "E-Voting Critics Point to Security Hole" "Smart Software Makes Sense of Rough Sketches" "Beyond Biometrics: New Strategies for Security" "Getting More From a PC's Spare Time" "Say Goodbye to Your Mouse, Keyboard and Phone Number--Voice Control Is Finally Taking Over" "Vint Cerf Hears VoIP Calling" "Just Say No to Viruses and Worms" "Display Brighter Than Film" "Has Linux Eclipsed Open Source?" "Battle for the Big Screen" "The Underground Internet" "Hack in Progress" "Voices" "'Who's Who' in High Performance Computing: TOP500 Celebrates 10th Anniversary" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Feds Search for Cybersecurity Solutions" A dozen witnesses testified on cybersecurity solutions at a hearing before the House Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Census on Sept. 10, but only three alluded to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item1 "IT Workers: Fewer Jobs, Mo' Money" The average information technology worker earned $65,000 in 2002, or about 8% more than in 2001, according to the Sage/SANS/BigAdmin Annual Salary Survey. "The solid growth exceeded my expectations, because my expectations were low," says ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item2 "Hackers Threaten Power Grid" Eric Byres, a computer security researcher at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, warns that hackers are probing weaknesses in the computer-security protections of power plants and said electricity infrastructure is an attractive target for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item3 "Beyond Voice Recognition, to a Computer That Reads Lips" Enabling a computer to read lip movements could significantly improve the accuracy of automatic speech recognition even in noisy environments, and researchers at IBM, Intel, and elsewhere are working on such a capability. IBM's Chalapathy Neti says a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item4 "Nanotech Forum Reflects on Technology's Mission" Former Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize honoree Shimon Peres told attendees at the recent World Nano-Economic Conference in Washington, D.C., that science and technology--nanotechnology in particular--could be used to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item5 "E-Voting Critics Point to Security Hole" Fueling critics' allegations that electronic voting systems are vulnerable to tampering and abuse is a March 2002 primary in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., in which the results of absentee votes were apparently posted on a Web site operated by voting ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item6 "Smart Software Makes Sense of Rough Sketches" MIT researchers are developing intelligent software that can interpret what rough, unpolished sketches represent using Bayesian analysis techniques. The software is designed to recognize hand-drawn objects that correlate with the user's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item7 "Beyond Biometrics: New Strategies for Security" Security experts predict new biometric security applications will be necessary in the future to secure e-commerce and prevent identity theft. AMS vice president Jeffrey Z. Johnson says the industry has so far done a poor job of selling the concept of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item8 "Getting More From a PC's Spare Time" Millions of computer users are putting the time they spend away from their PCs to more productive use by volunteering to participate in distributed computing projects, in which idle processing power is collectively tapped to generate simulations ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item9 "Say Goodbye to Your Mouse, Keyboard and Phone Number--Voice Control Is Finally Taking Over" In an overview of speech technology, Lawrence R. Rabiner of Rutgers University's Center for Advanced Information Processing predicts that speech recognition and voice control technology will render keyboards, remote controls, and phone numbers archaic ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item10 "Vint Cerf Hears VoIP Calling" Internet pioneer Vint Cerf is reluctant to predict the next radical shift in the Internet itself, but he says that voice over IP (VoIP) is an evolutionary Internet application that will transform telecommunications. Cerf currently serves as MCI's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item11 "Just Say No to Viruses and Worms" Lawmakers this week convened computer security experts to discuss ways to better secure the nation's IT infrastructure. The technology subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform listened to testimony from law enforcement, security ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item12 "Display Brighter Than Film" Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in computer screens usually boast a dynamic brightness range between 300 to 1 and 800 to 1, compared to the 10 million to 1 range of the human eye. However, researchers at Canada's York University, the University of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item13 "Has Linux Eclipsed Open Source?" The prevalence of the Linux operating system seems to contradict the spirit of the open-source movement, which is designed not to favor any one OS. Open Source Development Lab director Tim Witham notes that more people are using Linux than the other ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item14 "Battle for the Big Screen" Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma panels are poised to battle over the large-screen market, and the possibility exists for LCDs to dominate thanks to their continuously evolving technology. LCDs are currently the screen of choice for consumer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item15 "The Underground Internet" With the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and copyright holders threatening to go after file-swappers that make unauthorized copies of digital content, many traders are going to underground "darknets" in the hopes of keeping their activities ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item16 "Hack in Progress" Ethical hackers such as Ryan Breed of Unisys function as security consultants, and they use a variety of tools--many of them freely available online--to test the cyber-defenses of the companies that hire them. Such tools include Ethereal, a network protocol ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item17 "Voices" Former White House Cybersecurity Adviser Richard Clarke says the Homeland Security Department has fallen short in its effort to fortify the computerized infrastructure of the U.S., and cites its failure to establish a national cyberspace security ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item18 "'Who's Who' in High Performance Computing: TOP500 Celebrates 10th Anniversary" The TOP500 list does more than just rank the world's fastest supercomputers: It outlines high-performance computing (HPC) trends characterized by rapidly changing computer architectures and steady, predictable growth in performance levels; the biggest ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0912f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0910w.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