Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the November 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 568 Date: November 7, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, November 7, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "W3C Criticizes Antirobot Tests" "Could Antivirus Apps Become Law?" "Despite Lack of Chads, Touch-Screen Voting Systems Drawing Fire" "New Measure of Success Cited for Statistical Prediction" "Virginia Tech to Offer Supercomputer in a Box" "Tech Prepares for Worldwide Contest" "The Many Shapes of Tomorrow's PC" "Computer Glasses Can Boost Memory" "Passphrase Flaw Exposed in WPA Wireless Security" "Study: Salary Gloom Ahead for IT Workers" "A World of Opportunity for Tech" "Making the U.S. Safe for Spam" "Lab Rat: Swapping Gets Legit" "Experts Debating Future of IT Careers" "Indiana University's Advanced Visualization Lab Develops, Licenses, Deploys 'John-e-Box' Stereo Display Systems" "Face-off: Should the U.S. Govt. Do More to Keep IT Jobs for Citizens?" "Developing IT Skills 'To Go'" "Open Source Everywhere" ******************* News Stories *********************** "W3C Criticizes Antirobot Tests" Visual verification tests employed at popular Web sites such as VeriSign's Network Solutions, CNet's News.com, and Yahoo! and Microsoft's free email services are designed to thwart software robots trying to register accounts and amass data for spamming ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item1 "Could Antivirus Apps Become Law?" Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) suggested at a Nov. 6 congressional committee hearing that the nation's critical infrastructure could be bolstered by a federal mandate for all U.S. computer users to deploy antivirus software on their PCs. His proposal was sharply ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item2 "Despite Lack of Chads, Touch-Screen Voting Systems Drawing Fire" California's decision on Nov. 4 to postpone the certification of an upgrade to software used in Diebold's touch-screen voting machines is seen as a triumph for academic researchers, computer scientists, and grass-roots activists who claim the systems are ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item3 "New Measure of Success Cited for Statistical Prediction" University of California-San Diego researchers have found new insights into the well-known Good-Turing estimator used to decode German encryption during World War II. Variations of the estimator created by I.J. Good and Alan Turing is used in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item4 "Virginia Tech to Offer Supercomputer in a Box" Virginia Tech is expected to release its groundbreaking off-the-shelf supercomputer architecture as a "supercomputer kit" once licensing and patenting issues are addressed, according to a school representative. With the assistance of 165 faculty ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item5 "Tech Prepares for Worldwide Contest" The Association of Computing Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest takes place Saturday at Radford University, where programming teams will compete against each other in one of 30 regional competitions worldwide. Teams of three programmers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item6 "The Many Shapes of Tomorrow's PC" PCs have shrunk in size and grown in power, but their architecture and design methodology is relatively unchanged, as is their chief uses of word processing, graphic presentation, and spreadsheets. However, PC manufacturers will likely approach ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item7 "Computer Glasses Can Boost Memory" Memory glasses are spectacles outfitted with computer screens to serve as memory recall aids, and MIT researcher Rich DeVaul says a commercial product based on this concept could emerge within a few years. "Just about anyone could benefit from this system, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item8 "Passphrase Flaw Exposed in WPA Wireless Security" Bob Moskowitz of TruSecure's ICSA Labs has written an online paper describing security flaws that could permit hackers to breach the WiFi Protected Access (WPA) wireless cryptography protocol through dictionary attacks, and he urges WPA users to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item9 "Study: Salary Gloom Ahead for IT Workers" Overall starting pay in the IT sector is set to fall an average of 1.6 percent next year, but that certain in-demand areas such as IT security and systems audit would experience gains, concludes a new report from IT staffing firm Robert Half ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item10 "A World of Opportunity for Tech" Information technology use and its global importance will be the theme of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society in December, and David Kirkpatrick writes that all tech companies should support the conference and send executives to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item11 "Making the U.S. Safe for Spam" Despite the media buzz surrounding the Senate's recently passed Can Spam Act, the spam situation in the United States is unlikely to improve any time soon. The bill, which is expected to reach the House floor soon, allows legitimate commercial spam as long ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item12 "Lab Rat: Swapping Gets Legit" The much-maligned peer-to-peer (P2P) methodology may finally gain legitimacy with corporations employing it to facilitate the exchange of data across distributed networks as researchers throughout the United States attempt to boost the security of P2P ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item13 "Experts Debating Future of IT Careers" Richard Ellis of Ellis Research Services is one of a group of experts arguing that the offshoring of entry- and mid-level technology jobs has led to a permanent reduction in demand for IT professionals in the United States. He adds that although the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item14 "Indiana University's Advanced Visualization Lab Develops, Licenses, Deploys 'John-e-Box' Stereo Display Systems" Recent innovations in off-the-shelf equipment including digital projectors, PC processors and graphics cards, and open source software tools are incorporated into the John-e-Box, a portable ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item15 "Face-off: Should the U.S. Govt. Do More to Keep IT Jobs for Citizens?" Matthew Biggs of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers reports that globalization is eroding the dominance of U.S. high-tech industries and destabilizing the security of high-tech and IT companies and their employees. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item16 "Developing IT Skills 'To Go'" November will see the launch of the National Information Technology Apprenticeship System (NITAS), which seeks to build skills and credentials in at least seven IT tracks, and six NITAS pilot programs administered by the Computing Technology Industry ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item17 "Open Source Everywhere" Open source is growing very popular among scientists and innovators because it allows challenging problems to be addressed with democratic principles, and its long-term promise is more efficient and accelerated innovation across many fields. One of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1107f.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.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