The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

I'm feeling a little down today. Must be the onion I ate on dinner

Wall Street is back to business
The stock markets reopened Monday with a moment of silence and the strains of "God Bless America" as New York police officers and firefighters rang the opening bell, a sound that hasn't been heard in a week since last Tuesday's terrorist attacks. The Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq both suffered early declines, which analysts noted was normal considering historical reactions to catastrophes and given that international markets have fallen anywhere from 5 percent to 10 percent since the attack. The Dow opened lower, stumbled to the lows of the day, trading down 639.49 points to 8,966.02 at 11:00 a.m. PDT. The Nasdaq slumped 99.42 to 1,595.95 after falling more than 100 points earlier. The stock markets had their longest closure since World War I, when the New York Stock Exchange was shut down from July through mid-December of 1914.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

HP packing PCs with Windows XP
Hewlett-Packard on Monday plans to debut new PCs loaded with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. The company plans to begin shipping the systems next week. In a move following Gateway, HP also will take preorders on custom-configured systems starting Sept. 21, with anticipated delivery as early as next Monday. The company also expects to begin selling new Windows XP systems in retail stores on the same day. Microsoft has cleared PC makers to begin selling new Windows XP desktops and portables starting Sept. 24, about one month before the new operating system's Oct. 25 official launch.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Open source rocked by patent dispute
The Free Software Foundation on Friday took aim at RTLinux and FSMLabs, the company that distributes it, claiming that FSMLabs has used a patent license to violate the GNU General Public License. The issue revolves around an FSMLabs patent for real-time interrupt handling using a software emulation layer for interrupt masking, so that interrupts can be prioritized. The Free Software Foundation claims that Victor Yodaiken, the CEO at FSMLabs, has used the patent to impose restricted terms on distribution of this program. "Yodaiken has attempted to use the patent to impose restrictive terms on a GPL-covered program [Linux, the kernel used in the GNU/Linux operating system]. These terms conflict with the GNU General Public License, and imposing them is a violation of the GPL," Foundation spokesman Bradley Kuhn said.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Companies fear wave of cyberterrorism
Corporations are taking steps to protect computer networks after this week's strikes on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, fearing that the next attacks might be launched online, experts said. Although many companies were in shock, some executives did not waste any time in preparing for possible cyber attacks, which often follow closely on the heels of international conflicts, experts said Friday. In a recent example, there were numerous defacements of U.S. Web sites after the April 1 collision between a Chinese jet fighter and a U.S. surveillance plane. "A lot of people are concerned about cyberterrorism since the attacks," said Joel Pogar, director of information security at Calence Inc., a computer network consulting firm in Phoenix.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Time to crack down on Internet content?
HowStuffWorks.com is a fascinating Web site where people can learn how televisions work, or what a surprisingly small amount of gold exists in the world. The Web site also has informative sections like "How airport security works" and "How much fuel does an international plane use for a trip?" There's no reason to believe that the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Tuesday used Web sites like HowStuffWorks in their plotting. And there's no evidence that HowStuffWorks even contains the level of detail that could compromise security. But in the aftermath of Tuesday's tragedy, the presence of such information on the Internet raises an important question: Will the terrorist attacks have a chilling effect on what is available on the Internet, out of fear that terrorists could use the medium to launch future attacks?
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Bush calls for justice "at any cost"
President Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" and warned Monday of American casualties in the gathering war on terrorism. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to shore up the economy as the nation grappled with the aftermath of the worst terrorist strike in its history. "We will win the war and there will be costs," the president said in a midday visit to the wounded Pentagon, where military planners were readying call-up orders for 35,000 reservists. He said he was confident the armed forces were prepared to "defend freedom at any cost." The president spoke as Attorney General John Ashcroft called on Congress to help authorities track elusive terrorist networks such as those that carried out last week's destruction of the World Trade Center twin towers and attack on the Pentagon.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7163858.html

Islamic clerics to rule on extradition
The supreme leader of Afghanistan's Taliban will let a grand council of Islamic clerics decide whether to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States, Taliban-run radio said Monday. Mullah Mohammed Omar's announcement, read by a broadcaster on Radio Shariat, came after a day of meetings with a Pakistani delegation that included the head of the country's secret service. The Pakistanis were in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to press Omar to deliver bin Laden as a way of avoiding a U.S. retaliatory attack. Bin Laden, a millionaire Saudi exile who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996, is the prime suspect in last week's attacks in New York and Washington.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7203980.html

Ashcroft urges stricter anti-terrorism laws
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that numerous federal agents would be flying on commercial jetliners to help guard against further terrorist acts, as he pleaded for Congress to enact new anti-terrorism laws this week. Ashcroft called for expanded wiretap authority and stiffer penalties for those who harbor terrorists to further the global investigation of Tuesday's attacks. "We need these tools to fight the terrorism threat which exists in the United States and we must meet that growing threat," said Ashcroft.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7196996.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201...html?tag=tp_pr

Why the E-Free-Speech Debate Matters
When it comes to aiming a blow at a contentious copyright protection law, using a Russian hacker as your hammer doesn't seem like the best way to go about it. But opponents of the law that programmer Dmitry Sklyarov allegedly violated, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, see his very public arrest in July as a good opportunity to bring attention to the DMCA's deficiencies. And while the issue is extremely complex and his case seemingly cut and dry, these opponents from library, programmer, and civil-liberties groups, have good reason to keep the case in the public eye. At first glance, the facts don't seem very contentious.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...10912_1569.htm

Amazon fixes daylong hardware glitch
Amazon.com suffered a "hardware failure" that crashed several of its departments for about 24 hours, including the area where the company was accepting donations to help victims of Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Amazon's Auctions, Z-Shops and Marketplace areas went down about 10 p.m. PDT Saturday, said Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith, and were back up by late Sunday night. The glitch also shut down Amazon's Honor System, a payment method that allows Web sites to solicit small donations from Amazon customers. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and New York's World Trade Center, Amazon began using its Honor System to receive donations on behalf of the Red Cross.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

WTC search yields wireless signals
Technicians have confirmed that dozens of wireless signals have originated from the wreckage of the World Trade Center since Tuesday's attack as they deploy technologies in hopes of finding survivors, officials said Saturday. "We do have 50-plus open cases where we have had signals detected at ground zero since the attack," said Kark Rauscher, who is heading up a coalition of wireless companies helping look for survivors. "We realize that we may be the only hope that some people have, so we're going to do everything we can," said Rauscher, Lucent Technologies' director of system reliability.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Standards body pushes accessibility online
Advancing its initiative to make the Web more accessible to people with disabilities, a major standards body has issued draft guidelines for designing browsers, multimedia players and other Web-based user interfaces. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is nearing the completion of its tripartite system of recommendations as making the Web accessible becomes an increasingly urgent task for site creators, authoring tool makers, and browsing software vendors. Federal Web sites, for example, must conform to Section 508, a 1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act that requires technology procured by the federal government to be accessible to people with disabilities. The section also states that Web sites maintained by U.S. departments and agencies must be accessible.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

News, federal sites flooded during attacks
The most visited Web destinations during the week of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were news and government sites, as people turned to the Internet for the latest developments. After hijacked airplanes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last Tuesday, major news Web sites were flooded with Internet traffic, leaving many extremely slow or inaccessible. Keynote Performance, which measures Internet traffic, said ABCNews.com, CNN.com and The New York Times on the Web were inaccessible between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. PDT on the day of the attacks as people attempted to view the sites.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

Geeks Gather to Back Crypto
Rob Carlson is worried about something that most Americans would consider entirely obscure: the future of encryption technology. Carlson, a 21-year-old programmer who typically sports a floppy, pin-studded safari hat, fears that the U.S. Congress, in the wake of last week's bloody attacks, may vote for anti-terrorism legislation that also threatens privacy. "There's nothing as permanent as a temporary restriction," he says. In an announcement distributed online Friday, Carlson suggested that like-minded geeks gather at the University of Maryland's Baltimore County campus on Saturday and Sunday "in order to get the word out about the importance of civil liberties" and prepare for the worst on Capitol Hill.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46900,00.html

E-Tickets Get New Restrictions
"Your airport taxi's late. Bridge traffic is backed up for miles. And the line at the airline ticket counter stretches out to remote parking. There are only minutes to go until your flight, and although already ticketed and toting a carry-on bag, you need a boarding pass. What to do?" This familiar scenario, described on an IBM website, recommends using IBM's self-service kiosk technology to easily print out a boarding pass. Many of the major airlines have implemented such technology in airports in the United States and around the world. But Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the United States drastically changed airline safety procedures. Airlines are still using the technology, but additional security measures have made the process less carefree.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46806,00.html

Online Donations Set Records
The outpouring of aid in response to last week's terrorist attacks hasn't just been in New York's hospitals and disaster zones. The Sept. 11 events have sparked a surge in online charity as well. The Web's biggest players, including AOL, Yahoo and Amazon, have turned their focus to helping the cause. Established aid organizations, such as the Red Cross, are receiving record levels of Internet donations. And smaller charity groups, strangers to the Web until last Tuesday, are now accepting online gifts from around the world.
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,46876,00.html

Antispam Laws: Where Are They?
Nearly 6 million people in 24 states have registered to have telemarketing calls blocked under new do-not-call laws. But that doesn't mean similar laws for spam could ever pass ... or be effective, antispam experts say. "The idea of having a do-not-e-mail list is totally hopeless," Tom Geller of the SpamCon Foundation said. "Some e-mail addresses have hundreds of people, and some people have hundreds of addresses. It's impossible to build such a list, and no one is going to obey it anyway."
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,46371,00.html

Hijackers May Have Accessed Computers at Public Libraries
Investigators are looking into the possibility some of the suspected hijackers in last week's deadly attacks on Washington and New York may have communicated with each other by using computers at public libraries. At least one South Florida librarian has told authorities she recognized the name of a suspected terrorist on one of her computer sign-in sheets after the FBI released the list of hijackers' names Friday. Library officials in Fairfax County also said today FBI agents Thursday requested the computer lab sign-in lists from the Sherwood Regional Library in the Mount Vernon area.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Sep16.html

Spy satellites search for Bin Laden
US spy satellites have been given new instructions to concentrate their attention on Afghanistan and the search for Osama Bin Laden, and groups associated with him, sources have told BBC News Online. So-called Signal Intelligence (Sigint) satellites, designed to intercept radio and mobile phone traffic, have been "retasked", as have two "Big Bird" satellites that take high-resolution images. The use of Sigint satellites marks a departure from normal procedure, as they are not usually used to gather intelligence about dissident groups.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1548860.stm

Assessing Net’s structural integrity
Every day as the sun rises above the large cities of the world, a wave of Internet data traffic begins to build. In the United States, the traffic pattern builds first in the eastern part of the country and then moves steadily west as the rest of the country starts to wake up. Businesses and consumers collectively send billions of bits of data across this interconnected mesh of networks spanning the face of the planet. Greater bandwidth and faster speeds have always been the central issues and themes for the Internet. And the Net will have to improve in order to provide the levels and types of services — like voice and video — that businesses will invest in. To understand the magnitude of this growth, consider that global Internet peak traffic increased by approximately 83 Gbps from year-end 1999 to year-end 2000.
http://msnbc.com/news/625010.asp?cp1=1

BT ponders bacterial intelligence
BT is hoping the living habits of bacteria will bring order to future communication networks. Researchers working for the company are studying bacterial colonies to help develop communication networks that will self-organise and self-configure. They believe that soon many people will be carrying around or using so many small, smart devices that they will not have the time to do their own configuration. Self-organising systems will then be essential to keep networks running. Simulations of the bacteria-based system have already shown that it can keep a network of a few thousand devices running.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1542539.stm

FBI Warns Of Increased Activity By ‘Patriotic Hacktivists'
The FBI is predicting a surge in “patriotic hacktivism” as crackers begin targeting Web sites of groups believed to be connected to last week’s terrorists attacks on America. The FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) issued an alert on Friday warning system administrators to be prepared for an upswing in online vigilante hacking activity. “Political hacktivism by self-described 'patriot' hackers targeted at those perceived to be responsible for the terrorist attacks,” the agency said. “The NIPC has already received reports of individuals encouraging vigilante hacking activity.” The agency also said it has seen precursor attacks, such as the renaming of old viruses to monikers that reflect recent events.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170172.html

Musicians Respond to Tragedy
In the wake of this week's terrorist attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh, members of the music community have expressed their sorrow, sympathy and anger with their fans via their official Web sites. Here are some of their words.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/new...14595&afl=mnew

Music Publishers, Labels Forge Tentative Web Pact
Music publishers and record labels are close to an agreement for the licensing of music on the Internet, a deal that would be a breakthrough for the labels' planned online subscription services, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. According to people with knowledge of the matter, a tentative agreement was reached in a conference call Friday between record executives and publishers. Those people caution that the deal isn't final, and could still snarl in details before a written version of the pact is finalized early this week. The tentative pact, which comes after months of negotiations, would remove a major roadblock for the major record companies' new Web initiatives, which are called MusicNet and pressplay.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28994,00.html

MP3.com Loses Founder, Settles With Britney Spears' Record Company
Michael Robertson, one of the architects of the digital-music revolution, stepped down Thursday (August 30) as head of MP3.com. Robertson resigned as CEO to head another start-up, Lindows.com, which will try to popularize the Linux operating system, an MP3.com spokesperson said. MP3.com president Robin Richards will replace Robertson. Robertson started MP3.com in 1997, and took the company public in 1999. Two years later, after millions of dollars in lawsuits by record companies and artists alleging copyright infringement — most of which were settled out of court — MP3.com was acquired by Vivendi Universal. Robertson will stay on as an adviser to Vivendi CEO Jean-Marie Messier, the spokesperson said.
http://www.sonicnet.com/news/digital...448574&index=0

Can't we all just get along?
A military bombing is the worst thing that America could do in response to Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, says historian and Boston University professor emeritus Howard Zinn. "[Bombing] can only inflame more hatred against us," he says. "It can turn angry people into fanatically angry people and fanatically angry people into terrorists." Zinn isn't alone. As the Bush administration plots a military response to what the president has repeatedly declared an "act of war," and receives from Congress $40 billion to fund an anti-terror campaign, an emerging chorus of activists, professors, intellectuals and peace and justice organizations have begun to sound together for a nonviolent response to the terrorist attacks.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...cks/index.html

Nostradamus called it!
| The kooks are coming out of the woodwork. On Friday, four days after the attacks on New York and Washington, the bestselling book on Amazon.com was "Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies." Books about the 16th century prophet also placed at 4, 5, 11, 12 and 25 on the list. This sudden interest in Nostradamus can be directly pinned to the "prediction" that has been zipping across the Net in the wake of Tuesday's tragedy: "In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two Brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb. The third big war will begin when the big city is burning." The Nostradamus-attributed "prophecy" of the World Trade Center disaster was swiftly proven to be a hoax, but no matter: The Net loves a good conspiracy theory, and even while the country mourned, the morbidly curious could also track any number of bizarre theories and observations online about Tuesday's tragedy. Nostradamus and his apocalyptic predictions were just the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...oks/index.html

FBI chief: 'No warning signs' of terrorist attacks
-- FBI Director Robert Mueller said there were "no warning signs" of last week's terrorist attacks and disputed reports suggesting that at least two of the suspected hijackers gained entry into the United States despite being on watch lists. Speaking at a Monday news conference with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Mueller rejected suggestions that the agency had dropped the ball and that at least two suspected hijackers had managed to get in the country despite being on "watch lists."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/17/inv...ion.terrorism/

Free videoconferencing offered to victims
With thousands of people left stranded by a halt in air travel across the United States following last week's terrorism attacks in New York and Washington D.C., some videoconferencing providers are reporting a surge in use of their services, while others are responding by offering free videoconferencing to those affected by the tragedy. Although limited travel resumed in parts of the United States on Thursday, some conferences and meetings have been canceled here and abroad in the wake of the four hijackings and subsequent plane crashes on September 11.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industr...idg/index.html

Did US air emergency procedure aid suicide hijackers?
During last Tuesday's suicide attacks in New York and Washington, the US Department of Defense (DoD), the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), and US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would have declared an emergency situation which, depending on its severity, would have invoked one of two little-known regulations governing air emergencies in North America. These regulations include provisions which appear not to have been put into effect, but which might have impeded the attackers and rendered their crimes less destructive on the ground.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/57/21709.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Can I have a copy please... thank you!

- tg

[walktalker]

teehee

[campingman]

Thanks Newsman Great Job

First Post

[Dawn]

Originally posted by campingman
Thanks Newsman Great Job

First Post

Yay! A first poster!

Hurry up and post more so you can catch up with me

[walktalker]

You're posting in the Napsterites' Forum ? Geez, talk about putting your sanity at grave danger

Welcome and, please, post a new thread so I can archive this one and write a new paper