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walktalker · 01-10-01, 02:55 PM

Will It Be Cash, Check or Finger?
Fingerprints, long stigmatized by their association with crime scenes and police stations, may get an image boost when people start using them to pay for everything from Big Macs to groceries. That's the philosophy behind Indivos, an Oakland, California, firm that has invented software that uses fingerprint scanners to process electronic payments. "We're putting this in front of the mainstream consumer," said Indivos spokesman Frank Pierce. "You won't need cash or cards to pay for anything. All you need is your finger and you never leave home without it."
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47127,00.html

Another Thing to Fear: ID Theft
It's the largest police investigation in history, with a few thousand sleuths hot on the trail of just 19 suspected hijackers, and about 500 people already in jail. But the FBI said in a statement on Thursday that "attempts to confirm the true identities of these individuals are still under way." The bureau released 19 grainy snapshots of the men it believes conducted the Sept. 11 attacks, and Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed Americans to join a "national neighborhood watch" that might give the Feds any more info on the terrorists.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47201,00.html

Virtual Baggage, Real Bucks
Anxious for a competitive edge, or just too lazy to do the work themselves, hardcore gamers are paying $1,000 or more for characters and equipment in online multiplayer games. Sword and sorcery games like Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest, Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo II and Funcom's sci-fi-themed Anarchy Online generally require players to collect equipment, dispatch opponents and advance through new levels. But because they require an investment of vast amounts of time, some players are taking the easy route by buying items such as shields, weapons and spells that would normally have to be earned, found or fought for.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47181,00.html

Defense to Give New Life to Tech Industry
The military buildup, just beginning in the wake of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, is going to be bigger than most people think. Indeed, it could be comparable to the great defense buildups of past decades -- during the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the Reagan years -- that set a direction for the whole U.S. economy. The defense budget for fiscal 2002, which begins Monday, already includes added funds authorized last year. Now more additions are being made for the war on terrorism. That could take defense spending to $360 billion in fiscal 2002, up 16% from the previous year, and on to $400 billion in 2003.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology

Cell Phones on Campus Advocated
Hannah Yi sometimes stashes hers in a pocket. Gina Murry daringly carries hers in her hand, crouching behind hallway pillars to use it. Sarah Santos hides hers in a bag or backpack, afraid of teachers who would confiscate it. Escaping detection is an everyday game for these lawbreakers at James Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley -- and students like them across the country. Their contraband is not drugs or weapons but cell phones and pagers, illegal since a fear of campus drug-dealing led most states to ban them in the mid-1980s.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology

Group would bolster communications after disasters
Sen. Ron Wyden watched as people struggled to communicate on phones and computers after the airplanes struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Should disaster strike again, the Oregon Democrat wants to avoid that by setting up a National Emergency Technology Guard — a NET Guard — ready to take action after emergencies, similar to the National Guard. The task force would be made up of people from the government, high-tech companies, nonprofit organizations and the military.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t.../net-guard.htm

Tiny microscope views rat thinking
Scientists working to understand the way the brain works have built a tiny microscope which looks inside a rat's brain as the animal moves around. Previous studies have seen scientists examining rat brain tissue or even live rats kept in one place under anaesthetic. But now it is possible to see inside a rodent's head as it behaves more normally. "The brain is the organ that controls behaviour and to study the process of controlling behaviour, you have to do this in a situation where the animal can behave - perform tasks, move around and take decisions," Winfried Denk told BBC News Online.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1569257.stm

Distorted bolt holes may delay ISS mission
The discovery of elongated bolt holes on the space shuttle Columbia has left NASA considering whether its sisted shuttle Endeavour is safe to launch, or must be taken apart for safety checks. The next shuttle mission to the International Space Station could be set back from November 2001 until early 2002 after the suspect connection joints were found. The distorted bolt holes are located at the point where two engine pods are joined on to the shuttle. They are used for manoeuvring while in orbit. The defects increase the chance that the join could fail under stress.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991354

New Theory Exposes Cracks in Laws of Friction
"It is one of the dirty little secrets of physics," writes David Kessler of Bar-Ilan University today in Nature, "that while we physicists can tell you a lot about quarks, quasars and other exotica, there is still no universally accepted explanation of the basic laws of friction." Indeed, one particular conundrum involves the amount of force required to overcome friction and slide a solid object across some surface. As counterintuitive as it may seem, Coulomb's law of friction states that this force varies with the compressive force pushing the object and surface together — and not with the amount of contact area between the two. Traditionally, physicists have explained the puzzle as follows: because no two surfaces are in reality flat — they are rough on the atomic scale — the amount of contact between them is much smaller than it appears.
http://www.sciam.com/news/092001/2.html

Doctors examine art
Physicians should be more like Sherlock Holmes," says Irwin Braverman. His new research suggests that art-appreciation classes could teach medical students the sleuthing skills they need: trainee doctors' diagnoses improve after they have learnt how to look at the whole picture. Medical students often miss the details that clinch a diagnosis, says Braverman, of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. In an effort to overcome this observational blindness, he teamed up with the Yale Center for British Art to give first-year students a fine-art class.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010913/010913-11.html

Bush Stumps For Increased Law Enforcement Powers
President Bush late last week urged Congress to pass anti-terrorism legislation proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. "I'm asking Congress for new law enforcement authority, to better track the communications of terrorists," Bush said in his weekly Saturday radio address. "I will also seek more funding and better technology for our country's intelligence community." Drafted by the Justice Department, the sweeping administration proposal would expand federal electronic surveillance powers; broaden the ability of law enforcers to obtain the phone, computer and business records of suspected terrorists; and stiffen rules surrounding the detention of immigrants.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170694.html

Lobbying Group Protests Copyright-Protection Proposal

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) last week wrote to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., to air its concerns over Hollings' proposal to require computer and electronics manufacturers to include copyright protection technology in some of their products. "As Congress considers legislation with respect to the use of copyrighted works on the Internet and in other digital and electronic contexts, we urge you to recognize that there are many legitimate uses of technology that would be impaired by additional copyright-protection measures," the ACM letter said. Hollings' proposed legislation is known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). In a recent interview with Newsbytes, a Hollings staffer said that the senator has been "floating around" the idea, but has introduced nothing specific.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170692.html

Security Firm Warns Of Bogus Nimda 'Fix'
Computer security company SecurityFocus is telling network administrators that it has nothing to do with an e- mail and file attachment that claims to be a fix for the recent Nimda worm. Instead, the attachment appears to be repackaged version of a older Trojan program designed to spy on those who run the software, says the San Mateo, Calif., clearinghouse for information on such security threats.. In a message posted to the company's own "Incidents" mailing list Sunday night, SecurityFocus said it had learned that a message claiming to be from it and anti-virus company TrendMicro "is being used to deliver what looks like a Trojan horse to unsuspecting users."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170691.html

Lawmakers Put Brakes On Expanded E-surveillance
In the days after Sept. 11, the Bush administration scrambled to write a tough new anti-terrorism bill, with the public squarely on its side. Polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly favor stronger police powers, even at the expense of personal freedom. But Congress is gently applying the brakes. Since its introduction a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the administration's anti-terrorism package has run into strong bipartisan resistance, reflecting broad concern about its implications for the Constitution as well as lawmakers' desire to protect their role as a check on executive branch power.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170665.html

‘We will not give in,’ Giuliani vows
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, widely praised for his handling of the World Trade Center search and rescue effort, addressed the annual United Nations plenary meeting Monday, vowing before delegates that New York “will not give in.” The first mayor in nearly 50 years to address the General Assembly, Giuliani called the Sept. 11 attacks “a direct assault on the founding principles of the U.N. itself.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/627989.asp

In call before attacks, Bin Laden told mother to expect ‘big news’
Osama bin Laden called his mother two days before the Sept. 11 terror attacks and told her, “In two days you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while,” NBC News has learned. Word of the phone call came as President Bush reported “good progress” in the battle against terrorism, saying authorities around the world had frozen $6 million in assets linked to terrorist activities and arrested or detained “about 150 terrorists and their supporters.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/633205.asp

We've cracked into bin Laden's bank - UK hackers
A group of British hackers has claimed to have broken into the systems of banks in the Sudan, and extracted information on accounts related to Osama's bin Laden terrorist network. Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terror (Yihat) claims to have obtained data on accounts held by members of Al Qaeda, including bin Laden, held at the AlShamal Islamic Bank. Yihat, which is fronted by millionaire ex-hacker Kim Schmitz, told Newsbytes that the information obtained has been turned over to the FBI, but this remains unconfirmed and details of the hack are sketchy.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/21966.html

More news later on

01-10-01, 02:55 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Will It Be Cash, Check or Finger? Fingerprints, long stigmatized by their association with crime scenes and police stations, may get an image boost when people start using them to pay for everything from Big Macs to groceries. That's the philosophy behind Indivos, an Oakland, California, firm that has invented software that uses fingerprint scanners to process electronic payments. "We're putting this in front of the mainstream consumer," said Indivos spokesman Frank Pierce. "You won't need cash or cards to pay for anything. All you need is your finger and you never leave home without it." http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47127,00.html Another Thing to Fear: ID Theft It's the largest police investigation in history, with a few thousand sleuths hot on the trail of just 19 suspected hijackers, and about 500 people already in jail. But the FBI said in a statement on Thursday that "attempts to confirm the true identities of these individuals are still under way." The bureau released 19 grainy snapshots of the men it believes conducted the Sept. 11 attacks, and Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed Americans to join a "national neighborhood watch" that might give the Feds any more info on the terrorists. http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47201,00.html Virtual Baggage, Real Bucks Anxious for a competitive edge, or just too lazy to do the work themselves, hardcore gamers are paying $1,000 or more for characters and equipment in online multiplayer games. Sword and sorcery games like Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest, Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo II and Funcom's sci-fi-themed Anarchy Online generally require players to collect equipment, dispatch opponents and advance through new levels. But because they require an investment of vast amounts of time, some players are taking the easy route by buying items such as shields, weapons and spells that would normally have to be earned, found or fought for. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47181,00.html Defense to Give New Life to Tech Industry The military buildup, just beginning in the wake of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, is going to be bigger than most people think. Indeed, it could be comparable to the great defense buildups of past decades -- during the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the Reagan years -- that set a direction for the whole U.S. economy. The defense budget for fiscal 2002, which begins Monday, already includes added funds authorized last year. Now more additions are being made for the war on terrorism. That could take defense spending to $360 billion in fiscal 2002, up 16% from the previous year, and on to $400 billion in 2003. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology Cell Phones on Campus Advocated Hannah Yi sometimes stashes hers in a pocket. Gina Murry daringly carries hers in her hand, crouching behind hallway pillars to use it. Sarah Santos hides hers in a bag or backpack, afraid of teachers who would confiscate it. Escaping detection is an everyday game for these lawbreakers at James Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley -- and students like them across the country. Their contraband is not drugs or weapons but cell phones and pagers, illegal since a fear of campus drug-dealing led most states to ban them in the mid-1980s. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology Group would bolster communications after disasters Sen. Ron Wyden watched as people struggled to communicate on phones and computers after the airplanes struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Should disaster strike again, the Oregon Democrat wants to avoid that by setting up a National Emergency Technology Guard — a NET Guard — ready to take action after emergencies, similar to the National Guard. The task force would be made up of people from the government, high-tech companies, nonprofit organizations and the military. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t.../net-guard.htm Tiny microscope views rat thinking Scientists working to understand the way the brain works have built a tiny microscope which looks inside a rat's brain as the animal moves around. Previous studies have seen scientists examining rat brain tissue or even live rats kept in one place under anaesthetic. But now it is possible to see inside a rodent's head as it behaves more normally. "The brain is the organ that controls behaviour and to study the process of controlling behaviour, you have to do this in a situation where the animal can behave - perform tasks, move around and take decisions," Winfried Denk told BBC News Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1569257.stm Distorted bolt holes may delay ISS mission The discovery of elongated bolt holes on the space shuttle Columbia has left NASA considering whether its sisted shuttle Endeavour is safe to launch, or must be taken apart for safety checks. The next shuttle mission to the International Space Station could be set back from November 2001 until early 2002 after the suspect connection joints were found. The distorted bolt holes are located at the point where two engine pods are joined on to the shuttle. They are used for manoeuvring while in orbit. The defects increase the chance that the join could fail under stress. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991354 New Theory Exposes Cracks in Laws of Friction "It is one of the dirty little secrets of physics," writes David Kessler of Bar-Ilan University today in Nature, "that while we physicists can tell you a lot about quarks, quasars and other exotica, there is still no universally accepted explanation of the basic laws of friction." Indeed, one particular conundrum involves the amount of force required to overcome friction and slide a solid object across some surface. As counterintuitive as it may seem, Coulomb's law of friction states that this force varies with the compressive force pushing the object and surface together — and not with the amount of contact area between the two. Traditionally, physicists have explained the puzzle as follows: because no two surfaces are in reality flat — they are rough on the atomic scale — the amount of contact between them is much smaller than it appears. http://www.sciam.com/news/092001/2.html Doctors examine art Physicians should be more like Sherlock Holmes," says Irwin Braverman. His new research suggests that art-appreciation classes could teach medical students the sleuthing skills they need: trainee doctors' diagnoses improve after they have learnt how to look at the whole picture. Medical students often miss the details that clinch a diagnosis, says Braverman, of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. In an effort to overcome this observational blindness, he teamed up with the Yale Center for British Art to give first-year students a fine-art class. http://www.nature.com/nsu/010913/010913-11.html Bush Stumps For Increased Law Enforcement Powers President Bush late last week urged Congress to pass anti-terrorism legislation proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. "I'm asking Congress for new law enforcement authority, to better track the communications of terrorists," Bush said in his weekly Saturday radio address. "I will also seek more funding and better technology for our country's intelligence community." Drafted by the Justice Department, the sweeping administration proposal would expand federal electronic surveillance powers; broaden the ability of law enforcers to obtain the phone, computer and business records of suspected terrorists; and stiffen rules surrounding the detention of immigrants. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170694.html Lobbying Group Protests Copyright-Protection Proposal The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) last week wrote to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., to air its concerns over Hollings' proposal to require computer and electronics manufacturers to include copyright protection technology in some of their products. "As Congress considers legislation with respect to the use of copyrighted works on the Internet and in other digital and electronic contexts, we urge you to recognize that there are many legitimate uses of technology that would be impaired by additional copyright-protection measures," the ACM letter said. Hollings' proposed legislation is known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). In a recent interview with Newsbytes, a Hollings staffer said that the senator has been "floating around" the idea, but has introduced nothing specific. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170692.html Security Firm Warns Of Bogus Nimda 'Fix' Computer security company SecurityFocus is telling network administrators that it has nothing to do with an e- mail and file attachment that claims to be a fix for the recent Nimda worm. Instead, the attachment appears to be repackaged version of a older Trojan program designed to spy on those who run the software, says the San Mateo, Calif., clearinghouse for information on such security threats.. In a message posted to the company's own "Incidents" mailing list Sunday night, SecurityFocus said it had learned that a message claiming to be from it and anti-virus company TrendMicro "is being used to deliver what looks like a Trojan horse to unsuspecting users." http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170691.html Lawmakers Put Brakes On Expanded E-surveillance In the days after Sept. 11, the Bush administration scrambled to write a tough new anti-terrorism bill, with the public squarely on its side. Polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly favor stronger police powers, even at the expense of personal freedom. But Congress is gently applying the brakes. Since its introduction a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the administration's anti-terrorism package has run into strong bipartisan resistance, reflecting broad concern about its implications for the Constitution as well as lawmakers' desire to protect their role as a check on executive branch power. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170665.html ‘We will not give in,’ Giuliani vows Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, widely praised for his handling of the World Trade Center search and rescue effort, addressed the annual United Nations plenary meeting Monday, vowing before delegates that New York “will not give in.” The first mayor in nearly 50 years to address the General Assembly, Giuliani called the Sept. 11 attacks “a direct assault on the founding principles of the U.N. itself.” http://www.msnbc.com/news/627989.asp In call before attacks, Bin Laden told mother to expect ‘big news’ Osama bin Laden called his mother two days before the Sept. 11 terror attacks and told her, “In two days you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while,” NBC News has learned. Word of the phone call came as President Bush reported “good progress” in the battle against terrorism, saying authorities around the world had frozen $6 million in assets linked to terrorist activities and arrested or detained “about 150 terrorists and their supporters.” http://www.msnbc.com/news/633205.asp We've cracked into bin Laden's bank - UK hackers A group of British hackers has claimed to have broken into the systems of banks in the Sudan, and extracted information on accounts related to Osama's bin Laden terrorist network. Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terror (Yihat) claims to have obtained data on accounts held by members of Al Qaeda, including bin Laden, held at the AlShamal Islamic Bank. Yihat, which is fronted by millionaire ex-hacker Kim Schmitz, told Newsbytes that the information obtained has been turned over to the FBI, but this remains unconfirmed and details of the hack are sketchy. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/21966.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies