Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 17, 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 Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion magazine, Ubiquity, at ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ACM TechNews Volume 5, Number 584 Date: December 17, 2003 Top Stories for Wednesday, December 17, 2003: "Bush OKs Spam Bill--But Critics Not Convinced" "Scientific Research Backs Wisdom of Open Source" "Execs Beg Nanotech Funding" "Open Source Takes on Hardware Biz" "The Spies Who Come in Through the Keys" "Head of US Delegation Talks Shop" "'D' Is for Disputes That Shape Our Lives" "Supercomputers Let Scientists Break Down Problems in Reverse for Better ˙Quake Models" "World's Biggest 'Virtual Supercomputer' Given the Go-Ahead" "XML--Rodney, Are We There Yet?" "Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site" "Military Eager to Use Technology for Gathering Data" "IPv6 Fears Seen Unfounded" "Wrapping Up Web Presence" "Web Services Put GIS on the Map" "Strong Signals: The Ultranet" "Nanotechnology-Enabled Sensors: Possibilities, Realities, and ˙Applications" "Problems Persist With U.S. Visas" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Bush OKs Spam Bill--But Critics Not Convinced" The addition of President George W. Bush's signature to the Can-Spam bill on Dec. 16 has not silenced critics, who doubt that the new law, which supercedes many individual state anti-spam measures, will be an effective deterrent against the tide of junk email currently flooding the in-boxes of˙ ... "Scientific Research Backs Wisdom of Open Source" Researchers at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of California, Irvine, are united in their opinion that open-source software development is far more advantageous than closed corporate development in terms of quality, speed, and cost.˙ "Free and open-source software˙ ... 2 "Execs Beg Nanotech Funding" The message of the Nanotechnology and Homeland Security Forum on Dec. 15 was that nanotech can significantly bolster the United States' critical infrastructure, but only if the federal government provides a solid foundation for the private sector to develop new defensive nanotech˙ ... 3 "Open Source Takes on Hardware Biz" The mission of the OpenCores.org consortium is to promote hardware design via the open-source development model, and consortium founder Damjan Lampret's latest attempt to spread the organization's message was the announcement of a system-on-a-chip microprocessor devised from open-source˙ ... 4 "The Spies Who Come in Through the Keys" Snoopware--software that can be installed surreptitiously on victims' computers and record their keystrokes, emails, passwords, chatroom postings, and Web site visits without them knowing--is thought by security experts such as Earthlink VP Matt Cobb to be "the next big threat" to both˙ ... 5 "Head of US Delegation Talks Shop" IDG News Service spoke recently to David Gross, head of the American delegation at the three-day World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.˙ On several of the summit's main issues--Internet governance, financing for Internet growth in developing nations, and software and˙ ... 6 "'D' Is for Disputes That Shape Our Lives" Canada in 2003 was a hotbed of headline-grabbing technology law developments, which Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa recounts to illustrate the wide variety of subjects they covered.˙ The Canadian Parliament considered--and failed to pass--two separate anti-spam bills.˙˙ ... 7 "Supercomputers Let Scientists Break Down Problems in Reverse for Better ˙Quake Models" Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center researchers earned the Gordon Bell Prize in November for their earthquake simulation experiments, which among other things yielded insights about subsurface geology based on the study of surface motions--in other words, determining˙ ... 8 "World's Biggest 'Virtual Supercomputer' Given the Go-Ahead" On Dec. 16 the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) approved funding for the construction of GridPP2, a gigantic "virtual supercomputing" grid that will eventually be incorporated into a larger European grid to process the vast amount of particle physics data yielded˙ ... 9 "XML--Rodney, Are We There Yet?" The dot-com bust left XML with few ardent supporters and little respect; however, XML's fortunes have now turned as major software vendors have either already included support for the standard or plan to do so in their next upgrades.˙ Though XML began as a simple improvement on HTML, it now is˙ ... 0 "Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site" The Pool is a collaborative online environment created by the University of Maine's Still Water new media lab where creative work including images, video, music, texts, and programming code is available to all.˙ "We are training revolutionaries--not by indoctrinating them with dogma but by˙ ... 1 "Military Eager to Use Technology for Gathering Data" The Defense Department's Total Information Awareness project was scrubbed because of public outcry over its potential to allow the military to monitor and mine the personal data of the American citizenry in an attempt to root out terrorists.˙ Nevertheless, Sue Payton, deputy undersecretary of˙ ... 2 "IPv6 Fears Seen Unfounded" Contrary to conventional wisdom from the Internet engineering community, the transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is proceeding more easily and less expensively than projected, as indicated by good notices about Defense Department and academic IPv6 implementations at last week's˙ ... 3 "Wrapping Up Web Presence" In a discussion about whether Web services will fuel a transformation in enterprise collaboration, InfoWorld Test Center lead analyst Jon Udell and senior analyst P.J. Connolly argue about how presence awareness can--or cannot--apply to this equation.˙ Udell reasons that Web services will spur˙ ... 4 "Web Services Put GIS on the Map" Web services technology is popularizing third-party geographic information system (GIS) information, even at companies that maintain their own internal GIS databases and systems.˙ Commercial developer Edens & Avant uses GIS Web services to create quick overlay maps of prospective shopping˙ ... 5 "Strong Signals: The Ultranet" RFID technology is the first step toward an entirely new mesh networking architecture where capacity grows in line with the number of connected nodes, writes Cap Gemini Ernst & Young chief technologist John Parkinson.˙ Unlike traditional networking models such as Internet Protocol and the Web,˙ ... 6 "Nanotechnology-Enabled Sensors: Possibilities, Realities, and ˙Applications" Sensor design is en route to improvements--in efficiency, power requirements, sensitivity, and specificity, among other things--thanks to advances in the field of nanotechnology and its convergence with information technology and biotechnology.˙ Technical and economic˙ ... 7 "Problems Persist With U.S. Visas" Foreign students are thinking twice about enrolling in U.S. universities while foreign researchers are reconsidering their participation in U.S.-based conferences because of the many security procedures and protocols they must endure in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.˙ The situation˙ ... 8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit -- To visit the TechNews home page, point your browser to: -- 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by AutoChoice Advisor ˙˙ Looking for a NEW vehicle?˙ Discover which ones are ˙˙ right for you from over 250 different makes and models. ˙˙ Your unbiased list of vehicles is based on your preferences ˙˙ and years of consumer input. < > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -