Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 5, 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 579 Date: December 5, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, December 5, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Help Fix Cyber-Security or Else, U.S. Tells Industry" "Symposium to Promote Voting Machine Clarity" "IT Stymied in Terror War: Panel" "Analysis: Nano Bill Promises Real Results" "NSF Seeks Theoretical Limits of Computation" "IT Careers That Will Bounce Back" "Open-Source Practices May Help Improve Software Engineering" "Linux Security Expert Defends Debian" "Duke Researchers Will Reap Benefits From Cluster Farm" "With Roadside Data, Better Forecast for Snow Removal" "New Electronics Recycling Method Converts Gray to Green" "Deadwood Finds an Eternal Electronic Life on the Web" "North American ISPs Trial IPv6" "ITU and ICANN Clash May Be Delayed" "The Guts of a New Machine" "New Weapons of Information Warfare" "Bioinformatics Moves Into the Mainstream" "The Superheroes of Technology" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Help Fix Cyber-Security or Else, U.S. Tells Industry" Tech companies were warned by top homeland security officials at yesterday's National Cyber Security Summit that they will face government regulation unless they make a major commitment to improving the security of the U.S. cyberinfrastructure. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item1 "Symposium to Promote Voting Machine Clarity" A Swarthmore College voting machine and electoral transparency symposium on Saturday will bring together top-thinkers from across the nation, according to organizer and Swarthmore student Steven Bhardwaj. The symposium comes after two Swarthmore ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item2 "IT Stymied in Terror War: Panel" The Markle Foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age second annual report on homeland defense concludes that acrimonious debates about privacy and civil liberties are preventing the U.S. government from fully ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item3 "Analysis: Nano Bill Promises Real Results" President Bush's Dec. 3 approval of a four-year federal commitment of $3.7 billion for the research and development of nanotechnology is being heralded as a revolutionary development by nanotech advocates. "It makes nanotechnology the highest ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item4 "NSF Seeks Theoretical Limits of Computation" The National Science Foundation (NSF) is launching a new effort to discover the theoretical limits of computation and network data transfer, and is seeking grant proposals for the $32 million the agency has allocated for the work. That money would be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item5 "IT Careers That Will Bounce Back" IT jobs that utilize vertical industry expertise or important creative skills are going to grow in demand, according to industry analysts who say that companies are focusing more on value creation after years of paring back costs. Though jobs ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item6 "Open-Source Practices May Help Improve Software Engineering" Open-source software development has many advantages over by-the-book corporate software development, according to university researchers. UC Irvine Institute for Software Research senior research scientist Walt Scacchi says open-source ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item7 "Linux Security Expert Defends Debian" Linux expert Jay Beale defended the response of Debian Project leaders to a security breach that shut down three Debian servers and stopped open development activities. Debian is a Linux operating system variant popular with Linux enthusiasts. Most of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item8 "Duke Researchers Will Reap Benefits From Cluster Farm" Duke University is building a cluster supercomputing farm that will alleviate the administrative burdens of its researchers, as well as provide extra computing resources when necessary. Researchers at Duke commonly rely on computer clusters, which ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item9 "With Roadside Data, Better Forecast for Snow Removal" The state of Iowa was sufficiently impressed with last winter's trial run of the Winter Road Maintenance Decision Support System to carry out a second round of tests this winter using an upgraded version. The software system integrates specialized ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item10 "New Electronics Recycling Method Converts Gray to Green" Purdue University industrial engineering professor Julie Ann Stuart has developed a software method to make electronic recycling operations more efficient and profitable by refining plant scheduling. E-cycling efficiency will be critical as about ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item11 "Deadwood Finds an Eternal Electronic Life on the Web" In spite of the Internet's power to present data quickly and often, the World Wide Web is glutted with "deadwood"--sites abandoned and highly outdated. A recent study by Perseus Development found that of the 3,634 surveyed Web sites and Web ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item12 "North American ISPs Trial IPv6" U.S. ISPs are starting to test services that support IPv6, but it may take until 2007 before U.S.-based multinationals are prepared to deploy production IPv6 networks, say advocates of the protocol. IPv6 offers an enhanced 128-bit addressing scheme, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item13 "ITU and ICANN Clash May Be Delayed" The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is holding a meeting next week at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva and is expected to form a consensus on Internet governance, with international governments adopting a Declaration ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item14 "The Guts of a New Machine" Since its market debut two years ago, Apple's iPod portable digital music player has become the company's highest-volume product, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs credits its ascendance to iconic status to its seamless and simple design. The iPod ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item15 "New Weapons of Information Warfare" Self-aware computer attack programs will overwhelm and out-maneuver current computer defenses in the near future, writes information warfare expert Paul Strassmann. The October 2003 issue of Communications of the ACM contains an article by robot ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item16 "Bioinformatics Moves Into the Mainstream" The enormous amount of data being generated by bioinformatics projects such as gene mapping and proteomics research is driving a shift away from project-specific software and toward more commercially available products. "Researchers need smart ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item17 "The Superheroes of Technology" Supercomputers are employed to carry out enormous calculative operations for diverse fields such as weather forecasting, genome decoding, nuclear blast modeling, and astrophysics, and their movement toward a clustered architecture is being driven by the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.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