The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

Lethal worm spells double trouble
A computer worm that spreads to both servers and PCs running Microsoft software flooded the Internet with data on Tuesday, but the FBI said that, as of yet, it sees no link to last week's terrorist attack. Known as "Nimda" or "readme.exe," the worm spreads by sending infected e-mail messages, copying itself to computers on the same network and compromising Web servers using Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) software. "It is extraordinary how much traffic this thing has created in a couple of hours," said Graham Cluley, senior security consultant for antivirus company Sophos. "As far as we can see, it doesn't seem to be using any psychological tricks because it's all automated."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Attacks silence privacy concerns
Last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon marked a significant turning point in the debate over computer and Internet privacy, giving new weight to calls for broader government surveillance powers. Law-enforcement agencies in recent months have found themselves on the defensive over wiretapping and other intelligence-gathering technology, with Congress and the courts increasingly backing demands for greater accountability and restraint. But last week's terrorist assaults, the worst in U.S. history, may have instantly reversed that trend. Political leaders last week rushed to assure Americans that civil rights and privacy laws would be upheld in the search for the perpetrators. Yet proponents of strict limits on the powers of law enforcement could face a powerful, lasting shift in public opinion over the balance of individual rights and national security.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Ashcroft: Relax surveillance laws
Associates of hijackers who crashed jetliners into U.S. landmarks last week may be at large in the United States, Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Monday in pressing Congress to expand powers to wiretap telephones, conduct searches and seize assets. "Associates of the hijackers that have ties to terrorist organizations may be a continuing presence in the United States," Ashcroft told a news conference at FBI headquarters. He cited "this current threat assessment" in urging that Congress approve new anti-terrorist legislation that would make it easier for the FBI to tap suspects' telephones, including mobile phones, and to track suspicious movements of money.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Hackers lash out at Islamic sites
Hackers have begun attacking Web sites connected to Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and to other Islamic nations including Iran, prompting the FBI to issue warnings to system administrators everywhere to tighten up their security. On Monday, hackers outraged at the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center defaced the Web site belonging to the Iranian government's ministry of the interior. The site, at www.moi.gov.ir, now carries the message "Owned ! Ya biatch !" and several graphics, one of which includes a picture of the Saudi Arabian dissident named last week by the US government as their prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, with two guns to his head and the caption "Osama die".
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Deadline extended for Microsoft filing -- again
For the second time in a week, Microsoft and the government received an extension in an important court filing. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has reset the deadline for a joint status report originally due Sept. 14. That deadline has now been extended until Thursday, and a hearing originally scheduled for Friday will take place on Sept. 28. Both Microsoft and the Justice Department are apparently grappling with the effects of last week's devastating attacks in Washington and in New York. Government buildings in the nation's capital were temporarily evacuated following Tuesday's attacks, and the Justice Department increasingly has been focusing resources on the manhunt for additional terrorists and for accomplices to the 19 who crashed hijacked aircraft into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Attacks put new light on Web services
The terrorist disaster last week could prompt businesses to turn toward outsourcing more of their technology needs to ensure their information is safe, analysts say. Outsourced services, such as Web hosting, e-mail and Net infrastructure management, have seen a lack of demand in the past year as corporations spent more carefully amid the U.S. economic downturn. But fears brought on by recent terrorism, and the related potential for lost data, may spur businesses to turn to companies such as Exodus Communications, Digex, Loudcloud, Critical Path and other Internet services firms. "The gravity of the situation is such that it brings home to lots of companies that if you have information you want to protect you need to have it backed up in multiple locations," said Laurie McCabe, a hosting industry analyst and vice president at Summit Strategies.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Did Bin Laden make a profit on attacks?
Osama bin Laden and those managing his multimillion-dollar fortune are sophisticated enough to have possibly profited in the markets from last week's attacks, U.S. experts said Monday. Financial regulators around the world have indicated they are investigating whether organizers of the attacks sold short shares of companies they expected would lose value afterward. Selling short is a way of profiting from falling share prices. "Based on what we know about how bin Laden handles his money through different organizations, he probably is sophisticated enough to do something like that," said Kimberly McCloud, research associate at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Nintendo sells 300,000 GameCubes
Japanese video game maker Nintendo said Tuesday that about 300,000 of its new GameCube consoles were sold in the first weekend after launch, disappointing some analysts who had expected the shipment to sell out. Nintendo had targeted initial shipments of 500,000 consoles for its Sept. 14 launch in Japan but said delays in production and transportation forced it to come up 50,000 short. The unit is scheduled to go on sale in North America on Nov. 18. Despite the hiccup, the Kyoto-based game maker said everything was going according to plan. "We are satisfied with the sales figures; they are right on target," said a Nintendo spokesman.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

New text messaging comes with a catch
Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia on Tuesday launched a service for telecommunications operators that would allow subscribers to send and receive enhanced text messages using existing GSM phones. One catch: You'll also need a computer with Internet access. Nokia said as of the fourth quarter that operators could offer subscribers with current GSM mobile phones the chance to send and receive multimedia messages -- enhanced versions of the existing text messages which include graphics and sound. But as GSM phones do not have the capability to display the high-tech messages, GSM users will only get a Web page address and a password.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

U.S. citizens back encryption controls
A poll in the United States has found widespread support for a ban on "uncrackable" encryption products, following proposals in Congress to tighten restrictions on software that scrambles electronic data. The survey found that 72 percent of Americans believe that anti-encryption laws would be "somewhat" or "very" helpful in preventing a repeat of last week's terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates on Sept. 13 and 14, reveals that the question of banning encryption tools without "backdoors" for government interception is under serious debate in the United States.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

The hidden revolution
China winning membership in the World Trade Organization may influence the IT industry more decisively than any other event in the first decade of the 21st century. The effects just won't be dramatically obvious. If, as the WTO expects, China receives membership formally at its general meeting in November, the event will have varied and complex effects, few of which will become clear immediately. China's leaders have long committed not just to integrating China into the global economy but also to making it a fierce competitor. WTO membership will accelerate the process. But it could thereby widen internal political rifts caused by a quarter-century of economic reforms, such as tensions between richer cities and the poorer countryside and between the weaker but still powerful central government and the regions growing in power and wealth.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201...html?tag=cd_mh
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Net travel firms feeling airline-industry woes
The online travel industry is bracing itself for waning demand for airline tickets after last week's terrorist attacks, which already have dealt a severe blow to the nation's airlines. Analysts foresee an American public more apprehensive about flying. But others say it is too early to tell what the calamity's effects will be on the $14.5 billion industry. According to Internet research group PhoCusWright, online sales of airline tickets make up about 10 percent of total tickets sold. Several of the online travel agencies reported Monday that bookings of airline tickets were up slightly compared with last week's dismal numbers.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Researchers build Web archive of attacks
Web archivists are working to preserve Web sites, pages and links related to last week's catastrophic terrorist assaults that destroyed the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. "The Web is ephemeral; it disappears before our eyes," said Steven Schneider, associate professor of political science at the SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome, N.Y., and director of WebArchivist.org. "But it's important for historical record. It's increasingly a part of the fabric of society, and if we don't capture it, we lose it." WebArchivist.org is working with the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive on the project. Other efforts are under way to create a lasting electronic record of the events of Sept. 11.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7215828.html

Tech leaders form relief initiative
A week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the technology industry has brought its disparate private relief efforts under one umbrella. Software giant Microsoft, networking heavyweight Cisco Systems and online notables AOL Time Warner, Amazon.com, eBay and Yahoo on Tuesday announced the American Liberty Partnership, an Internet-industry initiative that is using the Web to connect people who want to help to the different companies' relief organizations. On the partnership's Web site, visitors will find ways to support these organizations, as well as general information about how the relief effort is progressing and what needs might arise in the future.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

great job but the neverending bad news about privacy sucks as always.

- js.

[walktalker]

Radio Sings Self-Censorship Tune
Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." They are rock classics, heard on radio stations across the country for more than two decades. But now they're on a list of about 150 songs that a group of radio programmers deemed too offensive to play on the airwaves in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks. Executives within the radio division at Clear Channel Communications -- one of the nation's largest radio conglomerates -- denied any list had been developed. But sources familiar with the situation said an informal list of songs -- with lyrics and/or themes that might seem inappropriate to some -- had been delivered throughout the music industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46925,00.html

What Future War Looks Like
President Bush has warned of a "different type of war" on terrorism. Wired News asked Stephen Sloan, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, what a 21st century war might mean. Sloan's books include Simulating Terrorism and the Historical Dictionary of Terrorism. He has also served as a consultant to the U.S. military.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46915,00.html

Robots Scour WTC Wreckage
Dozens of experimental search-and-rescue robots are scouring the wreckage of the World Trade Center's collapsed twin towers. At least two separate teams of roboticists are at Ground Zero operating up to two dozen experimental robots, which are being used to probe the rubble and locate bodies. This is the first time robots have been used in a search-and-rescue operation. Bristling with sensors, bright lights and video cameras, the robots are designed to find disaster survivors. Unfortunately, at this late stage, no one is likely to be found alive. The robots include marsupial machines that spit smaller robots out of their "stomachs" and shape-changing robots that can flatten themselves to crawl through tight spaces or rear up to climb and look over objects.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46930,00.html

Creating New, Sky-High Power
Looking somewhat like a huge, upturned golf tee, it would be the highest man-made structure on earth. It would also provide electricity to as many as 200,000 homes. If built, a proposed 200-megawatt "solar chimney" for rural Australia would become the most daring application yet of a quirky form of generating alternative, renewable electricity. While the engineering would be biblical in scale, the concept itself is simple. A circular greenhouse with an upward sloping roof toward the center would draw heated air through electricity-generating turbines before allowing it to escape through a central "chimney." The hitch? The greenhouse would cover six square miles, and the chimney would stand more than a half-mile tall.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46814,00.html

Controlling encryption will not stop terrorists
US government hopes of curtailing terrorist communications by controlling the use of cryptographic software have been criticised by computer scientists. Law enforcement groups have suggested that the terrorist groups associated with devastating attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon used encryption to communicate securely over the internet. Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has already called for the government to be given backdoors into all encryption products. In a speech just days after the strikes, Gregg said that software companies "should understand that as a matter of citizenship, they have an obligation" to include backdoors in their applications.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991309

Palm respond to terrorist tragedy
While millions turn to television, newspapers and the Internet for the latest on America's new war, many are looking to take info on the go with the latest Palm programs. In fact, a few swift Palm developers have already created and published free downloads related to last week's terrorist tragedy. The following are the first of what will likely be a cavalcade of programs to help those cope, communicate and keep informed, as the nation struggles to make sense of the recent attacks. Town Compass's "Disaster Relief Pocket Directory Database" is a free, downloadable database highlighting a number of relief agencies and organizations spread throughout the United States.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/0...ack/index.html

Increased security on oil, gas pipelines and nuclear power plants could have long-term costs
Increased security at nuclear power plants, refineries and along thousands of miles of pipelines is likely to have long-range impact on the nation's energy systems, industry officials say. The cost of the additional security measures -- from hiring more guards at power plants to more intense monitoring of nearly 400,000 miles of pipeline -- remains unclear. But federal regulators have advised they are ready to approve requests for electricity rate increases if energy producers request them. Meanwhile, the Bush administration expressed its hope Monday that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would take steps to avert supply shortages and keep prices stable. The OPEC ministers are meet Sept. 26 in Vienna, Austria, to decide on production levels.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...330EDT0459.DTL

Religion's misguided missiles
A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston. That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Ar...257777,00.html

Fujitsu opens up Linux-based humanoid robot
The electronics giant is releasing details of the internal architecture of the Hoap-1 to help programmers write their own code. Fujitsu is poised to release technical details on Tuesday of a humanoid robot that can walk on its own two legs. The company began selling the automaton, called Hoap-1, last week. The 48cm-tall robot is shaped like a humanoid, weighs 6kg and has been designed "for wide applications in research and development of robotic technologies", according to the Japanese manufacturer. Engineers from Fujitsu Laboratories will disclose the internal architecture of Hoap-1 at a meeting of the Robotics Society of Japan, which will be held at Tokyo University. By revealing some of the secrets of the robot, the scientists hope to encourage users to write original programs for it.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2095408,00.html

Teens Peer Ahead
Parents, a Moscow-based organization is enlisting your teens in a covert communications network that eludes most teachers and authority figures. Members download their instructions via the Web and pass messages among themselves using wireless handheld devices. Okay, Cybiko, Inc. isn't exactly the KGB. And its objective is to promote sociability, not socialism. Partially funded by AOL Time Warner, it makes Cybiko Inter-Tainment Computers that let teens meet, engage one another in multi-player games and blip instant messages back and forth over the 900-megahertz radio band.
http://www.techreview.com/web/hogan/hogan091801.asp

Internet Poses No Challenge To TV In Wake Of Attacks
During the terrorism crisis last week, probably the biggest single news story in more than a generation, the Internet did not pan out as a primary source of information, according to a new survey. Instead, a Pew Internet and American Life survey indicates, it was television that most Americans gravitated to while coming to grips with the terrorist strikes that destroyed the World Trade Center, severely damaged the Pentagon, Va., and appeared to unsuccessfully target the White House. However, the Pew survey said, while the Internet was not the first information or communication stop for most Americans during the first days of the crisis, e-mail and instant messaging proved a valuable supplement for many Americans, and the World Wide Web was also a valuable news source for many.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170194.html

Internet Now Part Of American Life
Usage patters suggest the Internet increasingly is becoming a part of everyday life for Americans, according to a new study. The study of the most popular Web destinations during the month of August, by Internet measurement company Jupiter Media Metrix, found Web surfers flocked to education sites and destinations related to the National Football League - largely due to the impending start of school and football season, respectively. Stephen Kim, senior vice president at Jupiter Media Metrix, said while it might seem intuitive that kids and parents would gravitate to education sites at this time of year to enroll in classes or do research on schools in preparation for filling out admissions applications, the most important thing is they are using the Internet, rather than other sources.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170192.html

German TV Hackers Crack Bank Server - Lawsuit Possible
HypoVereinsbank, one of Germany's largest banks, is considering legal action against a popular consumer high-tech TV show that hired hackers to break into the bank's online banking servers, according to a bank spokeswoman. Cornelia Klaila, a spokeswoman for HypoVereinsbank in Munich, told Newsbytes: "It is illegal what they did. It is very illegal." The "they" she is referring to is a TV show called Technical Adviser, which is produced by ARD, one of Germany's two public TV networks. Technical Adviser hired some young hackers in August to break into HypoVereinsbank's online banking servers and download information about customer accounts. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170191.html

Life will never be the same
| For what was already beyond words, we've begun running out of sentences. The more we parse and learn -- about a hijacker's apartment, about heroic sprints up smoky stairwells, about weeping calls to loved ones from the 105th floor -- the closer we get to closing our mouths for a very long time. In the interim, almost like a final, reflexive twitch, we've cobbled together a few mantras: How could this have happened? God bless America. Nothing will ever be the same again. It's that last one that resonates longest, rattling around even after the TV's off. Nothing will ever be the same again, we repeat, and yet we can't begin to say what will be different. For now, we linger in the practical and certain: There will be policy changes.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/200...ter/index.html

Why can't Uncle Sam spy?
What's wrong with American intelligence? Not surprisingly, it's a question that is being asked everywhere in the wake of last Tuesday's horrific terrorist attacks. There is no simple answer, say former law enforcement officials and experts in intelligence. But they point to three things: excessive bureaucratic oversight, which ties intelligence agencies' hands and prevents them from responding quickly; an over-reliance on high-tech surveillance and a corresponding failure to develop on-the-ground operations; and poor coordination, both between the FBI and the CIA and between those agencies and their foreign counterparts. Efforts to address the first problem -- cutting through the bureaucracy that tangles intelligence operations -- have already begun.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...oks/index.html

New York's most disliked building?
They jeered when it went up. They cried when it crashed down. During its nearly 30-year residence at the southern tip of Manhattan, the World Trade Center's twin towers lived an unusual, contradictory city life. Built, according to its chief architect Minoru Yamasaki, "as a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace," the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists in a devastating act of war. The towers were acknowledged as a wonder of modern engineering, yet were riddled with quirks, like the way pencils rolled off desktops on the top floors when the wind began to gust. Real estate developers in the '60s and '70s derided the World Trade Center as government-sponsored folly. Yet this past summer the twin towers morphed into the most valuable piece of privately run real estate in New York.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...bit/index.html

Online military recruiting surges
A Web site run for U.S. military personnel and veterans has seen visitor traffic more than triple since last week’s attacks on New York and the Pentagon, with many looking to sign up for the U.S. armed forces and reserves, the site’s operators said. Recruiting is very big, both in terms of active duty and with veterans looking for reserve options,” said Anne Dwane, vice president of Military Advantage, the San Francisco company that operates Military.com. The commercial Web site links visitors to armed forces recruiters, provides news and information on veterans benefits and sells military paraphernalia.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/630539.asp?0dm=C14QT

More news... hum... later on

[walktalker]

My paper goes down too fast

[Dawn]

Sorry dear, looks like it was open season on Dawn day.

Thanks for the news. I haven't posted lately about it, but I do read it.

[TankGirl]

Thanks for the newspaper, WT!

Originally posted by JackSpratts
great job but the neverending bad news about privacy sucks as always.

- js.

Ditto. There were enough pressures against online privacy already before the terrorist attack, and many commercial and political players are likely to try to utilize the confused and security-seeking post-attack atmosphere for their own Internet agendas.

- tg

[rebel_mom]

sadly an already suspicious world is now beyond that gone are the days when your kids can even play outside safely anymore sad indeed.