Why Liberty Suffers in Wartime
Anyone worried about the fate of civil liberties during the U.S. government's growing war on terrorism might want to consider this Latin maxim: Inter arma silent leges. It means, "In time of war the laws are silent," and it encapsulates the supremacy of security over liberty that typically accompanies national emergencies. Consider this: During all of America's major wars -- the Civil War, World War I and World War II -- the government restricted Americans' civil liberties in the name of quelling dissent, silencing criticism of political decisions and preserving national security.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47051,00.html
This Hack's Sites Set on AIM
Users of America Online's popular Instant Messenger Service may actually be communicating with malicious hackers. Hackers say it's easy to take over AIM accounts and pose as the user whose account has been commandeered, using several hacking programs that are in wide circulation on the Internet. America Online's Instant Messenger program allows users to send instant text messages and transfer files to each other. Most AIM users create a "buddy list," a personal directory of their friends and family who use the service. Hackers who take over an account have full access to that account's buddy list.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47072,00.html
Taliban Threatens U.N. Techies 
The Taliban have threatened to execute any U.N. worker who uses computers and communications equipment in Afghanistan, forcing a near halt to the remaining relief work in the country, U.N. officials said Monday. The militia raided U.N. offices in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership is based, during the weekend and sealed their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from use, according to U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker. "They warned our staff that if they use these things they will face execution," said Gordon Weiss, the spokesman for UNICEF in Islamabad.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47074,00.html
NASA Probe 1, Comet 0
NASA probe Deep Space 1 defied scientists' expectations Saturday by surviving a dangerous rendezvous with a comet just inside the orbit of Mars. Mission planners had predicted that Deep Space 1 would be destroyed by dust and debris hurtling at 36,900 miles per hour as the probe raced through comet Borrelly's gaseous outer layer. But Deep Space 1 managed to snap dozens of black-and-white pictures of the comet's nucleus, take infrared spectrometer readings and measure the magnetic field and plasma waves around the comet --# and live through the encounter. The data from the flyby will be made available to the public on Tuesday, after the information has been fully downloaded 137 million miles away, back on earth.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47067,00.html
GPS Races to Speeders' Rescue
There have been two opposing forces in automobile history: drivers who lust for speed and the people who try to slow them down. The arsenal of gizmos on either side of the law enforcement equation has grown increasingly sophisticated, with cops and drivers trying to outwit each other with the latest jamming and detection devices. But a British company has pushed the feud to a new front with technology that pinpoints the location of stationary cameras used to catch speed demons by using the Global Positioning System. Morpheous' Geodesy uses a constellation of 24 satellites orbiting Earth to map out the position of the speed cameras relative to the client's car.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,46677,00.html
Oracle boss urges national ID cards, offers free software
Broaching a controversial subject that has gained visibility since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is calling for the United States to create a national identification card system -- and offering to donate the software to make it possible. Under Ellison's proposal, millions of Americans would be fingerprinted and the information would be placed on a database used by airport security officials to verify identities of travelers at airplane gates. "We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card,'' Ellison said in an interview Friday night on the evening news of KPIX-TV in San Francisco.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/ne...llsn092301.htm
Terror Cripples Anti-Globalization Movement
At first blush, it seemed like one of those town meetings staged for Dateline: about 35 people, sitting at neatly arranged desks, explaining how they first reacted to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The answers were somber and heartfelt. The emotions -- rage, fear, sadness -- were familiar. Except that these weren't generic middle Americans. They were left-wing activists, meeting in a classroom at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And when they talked about rage and fear, they weren't only referring to the terrorists. They were also referring to their rage at the U.S. government, and fear at its likely response.
http://www.tnr.com/100101/cohn100101.html
Calls for Microsoft investigation
A trade body representing some of Britain's largest companies has asked the UK government to investigate Microsoft's new software pricing policy, which could double costs over the next four years. The Infrastructure Forum (tif), sent a letter on Friday to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, asking the government to refer Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), a tif spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. Tif represents the technology interests of companies like GlaxoSmithKline, BP, Shell and Marks & Spencer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/bus...00/1560267.stm
Some See 'Ghost' of Towers at Night
For many New Yorkers, the Twin Towers are legendary. But for some, there is now talk about the buildings, the kind that sometimes spurs urban legends. Some residents of the Lower East Side, who for decades have had an unobstructed view of the majestic 110-story towers simply by glancing down East Broadway or Madison Street, say they see the outlines of the two destroyed buildings. "It was amazing," said Mike Atta, who works at a grocery store at Rutgers and Madison streets. "It was a light, a straight light going up into the sky. It actually looked like the Twin Towers." Atta said many people have stood outside his store on evenings to admire the "ghost" and have spoken to him about it. "Some people say it's just a light," Atta said. "Some people say it's an amazing thing." Whether it's a light that rescue workers are using to illuminate Ground Zero as they dig for survivors or an inexplicable phenomenon, people say they do not fear what they see.
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedi...=ny-news-print
Scientists looking for ways to prevent terror in the skies but remote control from ground leaves pilots unimpressed
The recent terrorist attacks have sparked the imaginations of aviation visionaries, who are seeking high-tech ways to prevent such tragedies in the future. They include a high-tech scheme that would allow ground controllers, in the event of a hijacking, to remotely control an airplane via wireless computer transmissions. That way they could fly the plane to a safe landing, even if every last person on board is disabled or dead. The remote-control scheme "is technologically feasible" and under study by aircraft manufacturers, although no decision has been made whether to implement it, said Air Force Gen. John Douglass, retired, president of the Aerospace Industries Association.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...24/MN24120.DTL
Dolly scientists target biomedical research
Dolly the sheep might never have been created if current attitudes to genetically modified food had prevailed in the 1990s. The pioneering Roslin Institute, which made the famous clone, says public hostility towards GM food in the UK has forced it to reassess its research goals. It intends to focus on biomedical applications of cloning technology rather than pure agricultural research like that which led to Dolly. "An institute likes ours can no longer sustain itself entirely on agricultural research," Professor Grahame Bulfield told BBC News Online. "We have decided we need to build on our strengths by developing products for use in the biomedical industry," he added.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1560870.stm
Experts Issue Warning On WTC Worm
A destructive new mass-mailing Internet worm with an anti-American message is in the wild and spreading rapidly, virus researchers warned today. The worm, which experts have named W32.Vote.A@mm or simply the Vote worm, targets Windows computer users and arrives in an e-mail with the subject line "Fwd:Peace BeTweeN AmeriCa and IsLaM!" and bearing an attachment named wtc.exe. An an apparent attempt to trick users into running the program, the message body reads "Is it a war against America or Islam. Lets Vote to live in peace." If run, the attachment places and runs two Visual Basic scripts on the computer, ZaCker.vbs and MixDaLaL.vbs, according to a description of Vote from Symantec Corp.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170438.html
Hotline Out Of Money? Network's File-Sharing Lives On
The Canadian company behind popular peer-to-peer file sharing software known as Hotline Connect is apparently so short on cash that it has laid off most of its staff at its Toronto, Ont., offices. Reports that Jack Kay, appointed a year ago as chief executive officer of Hotline Communications, had terminated all but a handful of staff were circulated on discussion boards Friday. However, Kay has yet to respond to Newsbytes' request to confirm the reports. Still, any financial problems at Hotline Communications aren't expected to bring an immediate end to the swapping of music and video files - and other software - as long as users continue to fire up their freely available Hotline Connect programs.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170436.html
Facial Recognition Systems Mulled For U.S. Airports
Government and aviation officials are poised to begin using facial recognition systems to scan airport terminals for suspected terrorists, possibly including Reagan National Airport when it reopens, according to people involved in deliberations about how to improve security. A government committee, which was appointed by Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to revamp airport security, received a briefing Thursday from the inventor of a leading facial recognition system, who said equipment could be installed and operating within a few weeks. Joseph Atick, president of Visionics Corp. of Jersey City, N.J., described to the committee how his FaceIt system could be linked to cameras at security checkpoints and transmit information about suspected terrorists to government officials via the Internet, creating what he called a "nationwide shield."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170410.html
FBI Ill-Equipped To Predict Terror Attacks
Grimaldi, Washington Post. The FBI in the past decade has tripled its spending to stop terrorism, quintupled the number of intelligence gatherers and revamped its bureaucracy to share information about terrorists across the government. None of it was enough to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history. Long before Sept. 11, the urgency was growing: In the past two years, the CIA cabled to the FBI names of about 100 suspected associates of Osama bin Laden thought to be bound for or already in the United States. An Aug. 23 cable bore the names of two, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. The FBI sought the men, but failed to locate them before they boarded the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170402.html
Copy-control Senator sleeps while fair-use rights burn 
Picture a future where distributing Linux is a crime punishable by a hefty fine and a prison sentence. If that sounds ridiculous, then you haven't run into the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act. It's the very latest - and most bizarre - word in political back-scratching from one of South Carolina's U.S. senators. And he'd rather not talk about it, thank you very much. It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security systems standards adopted under section 104. This is the heart of the new Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), a draft of legislation proposed by U.S. Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21830.html
Terror's first victims: women
Feminists and human rights activists have been concerned about the Taliban's oppression of women for years, and in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks they might be expected to be having a "We told you so" moment. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, warned three years ago of the potential danger to the rest of the world of Taliban fanaticism, demanding, in a petition organized with a coalition of feminists, that the U.S. government not recognize the Taliban government because of its treatment of women. (The United States, owing in part to this pressure, never recognized the Taliban government.) Smeal and her supporters were not merely complaining of sexism, but insisting that the oppression of women in Middle Eastern Muslim countries is a sign of a greater fanaticism that could be expected to use terrorism to attack its enemies.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/200...men/index.html
The greatest TV benefit show ever
Last week, a day after the World Trade Center fell in New York, the band Weezer went ahead with a scheduled concert in Oakland, Calif. The band would have canceled, they said, but they didn't know how to do anything except play music. That's part of what made Friday night's unprecedented celebrity telethon so good. None of the musicians pretended that they had made any sense out of the attacks -- they just played their songs. Television and movie actors read surprisingly understated and tasteful tributes to those who had died and singled out heroic teachers or friends or firefighters or cops who acted with courage and grace. The two-hour show, put together in just days, was flawlessly conceived, directed, edited and produced. It played without commercials on 31 television and cable networks in 161 countries.
http://www.salon.com/ent/music/featu...hon/index.html
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