Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the October 6, 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 554 Date: October 6, 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, October 6, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Spam Fighters Turn to Identifying Legitimate E-Mail" "With Software Jobs Migrating to India, Think Long Term" "Vote, With No Confidence" "EU Directive Could Spark Patent War" "Buggy Software Taking Toll" "Becoming a Security Guru Without Breaking the Law" "Pushing Peer-to-Peer" "Advanced Chip Opens Door to Software Choice" "Researchers Say They're a Few Years Away From Self-Healing Electrical Grid" "Playing With Technology" "Q&A: Congressman Explains His Opposition to H-1B Visas" "Huge Computing Power Goes Online" "Innocent File-Sharers Could Appear Guilty" "Online Registries: The DNS and Beyond" "Fighting Talk" "DHS Initiates Real-Time Cybersituation Project DHS Initiates Real-Time Cybersituation Project" "Outwitting Spammers" "Ruling Over Unruly Programs" "Rethinking Software Testing" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Spam Fighters Turn to Identifying Legitimate E-Mail" Many email experts think that a system to identify legitimate email rather than spam will be a more effective strategy for controlling the spread of unsolicited commercial messages. This would entail the development of an email version of caller ID ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item1 "With Software Jobs Migrating to India, Think Long Term" Computer guru Ed Yourdon's performance as an IT job forecaster has been marked by peaks and valleys: In his 1992 book "Decline & Fall of the American Programmer," he prophesied that American programmers will lose their jobs to cheaper Indian professionals, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item2 "Vote, With No Confidence" Electronic voting systems, such as the touch-screen machines that will replace traditional punch-card machines in California for the Oct. 7 recall election and the 2003 presidential primary, are problematic for several reasons: They lack a printed audit trail ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item3 "EU Directive Could Spark Patent War" The Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions recently approved by the European Parliament contains several amendments that Gartner states could create significant disparities between European and American software patenting ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item4 "Buggy Software Taking Toll" Software is increasingly pervasive in modern products, as are the glitches that inevitably show up in growing pools of code. Unlike relatively lithe programs that operated computers years ago, many of today's software programs have millions of lines of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item5 "Becoming a Security Guru Without Breaking the Law" Computer security is a hot area for students, especially those looking for a lucrative career after they graduate. There is a wealth of courses and resources offered by higher-education institutions for the prospective IT security expert: Agnes Chan ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item6 "Pushing Peer-to-Peer" Peer-to-peer networking is a powerful concept that has never really taken off on the Internet, even though the Internet itself was originally intended to be peer-to-peer; instead, most of the Internet uses a client/server architecture that is simpler to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item7 "Advanced Chip Opens Door to Software Choice" Intel recently announced plans for Vanderpool, a next-generation computer chip that will be capable of running multiple operating systems simultaneously. System crashes are typically the result of conflicts between several operating systems running on the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item8 "Researchers Say They're a Few Years Away From Self-Healing Electrical Grid" Software designed to anticipate future electrical power consumption by analyzing patterns of past electrical usage is undergoing testing at Argonne National Laboratory, where researchers believe such technology would be a cheaper and better ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item9 "Playing With Technology" Iowa State University held an open house to show off some advances in human-computer interaction (HCI). Faculty, staff, and students attending the open house were able to personally experience HCI, take a quiz by pointing lasers at a large screen ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item10 "Q&A: Congressman Explains His Opposition to H-1B Visas" The issue of immigration reform has put Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) at odds with the Republican Party. Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, in early July introduced a bill that seeks to repeal H-1B visas for temporary ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item11 "Huge Computing Power Goes Online" A new computer project by the Cern labs in Geneva could have a profound impact on the world of computing in the years to come, Cern says. Cern will link computers from 12 countries around the world in an effort to test the Big Bang theory, a scientific ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item12 "Innocent File-Sharers Could Appear Guilty" Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks might be vulnerable to attacks in which an unsuspecting party is tricked into downloading copyrighted files, according to computer experts, who were responding to "Entrapment: Incriminating Peer to Peer Network ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item13 "Online Registries: The DNS and Beyond" Esther Dyson has completed a report examining ICANN and the DNS in relation to all the developing active registries in the digital sphere, and a CircleID piece highlights some of the report's findings. Dyson contends that registries offer the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item14 "Fighting Talk" The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is credited with the creation of the Internet, NASA, Stealth aircraft, and other technologies and services originally designed for military use that have had a huge impact on civilian life as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item15 "DHS Initiates Real-Time Cybersituation Project DHS Initiates Real-Time Cybersituation Project" The National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is leading an effort to create a national cybersituation-awareness system capable of real-time analysis of cyberattacks, according to DHS executive Sallie McDonald. She ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item16 "Outwitting Spammers" The growing spam glut is a source of frustration for enterprises, which lose precious productivity in order to deal with unwanted emails. Spam filters are a popular anti-spam tool, but they come with their own drawbacks: Keeping networks up-to-date with the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item17 "Ruling Over Unruly Programs" Sandstorm Enterprises CTO Simson Garfinkel writes that technical rather than legal issues make it theoretically impossible to write a program that can analyze any given suspect program to ascertain whether it contains friendly or unfriendly code. He ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item18 "Rethinking Software Testing" Buggy software, products that fail to function as they are supposed to, and lost profits are the result of developers not testing their software until very late in the development process, and rushing through testing in order to get products out ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1006m.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review the Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.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