The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

[walktalker]

Microsoft, government still can't agree
The government and Microsoft have failed to settle their landmark antitrust case before the first deadline imposed by a federal judge, sources said Friday. The two sides also appear to have been unable to agree on a mediator for the remaining discussions, indicating that a deep gulf of differences could separate the parties. Lawyers representing Microsoft, the Justice Department and 18 states delivered the news in a conference call Friday with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, said sources familiar with the call. If the parties did not submit a mediator for the judge's approval, she could assign one or allow the process to continue without third-party oversight.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Apple, HP oppose W3C patent plan
Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard have both submitted statements to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) urging the organization not to adopt a policy that would permit the charging of royalties for technologies used in approved standards. The W3C works with developers and others to come up with standards. It has been considering whether to adopt a new policy that would allow companies to patent technologies used in standards, and then charge royalties for using those technologies. Representatives from both HP and Apple are listed among the authors of the proposal, and both companies are members of the working group discussing the issue.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Cell phone messaging increasing in U.S.
People in the United States are using their cell phones more often to send terse 160-character messages to other cell phones, a trend already wildly popular overseas. There are 750 million of these cell phone messages sent each day worldwide, nearly all by wireless users outside the United States, according to the GSM Association, a wireless industry group. Teenagers in Japan send so many messages that they have learned to touch-type on a cell phone's cramped keypad. In Ireland, beer-maker Guinness raises messaging to an art form by sponsoring contests for poetry composed on cell phones.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Takeover talk focuses on EMC
In an industry where executives like to name their products Thunder, Lightning and Shark, competition has always been treacherous. But predators may be particularly keen on circling EMC--the largest independent provider of storage systems and a company once thought to be immune to recession. Some storage veterans are betting on a deal linking EMC and IBM -- longtime rivals whose executives revel in insulting each other. While there is no consensus among analysts or industry executives that EMC is bound to be part of any merger -- either as a buyer or a seller -- the storage industry is facing the type of downturn that often results in significant consolidation.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Senate OKs bill -- it's tech vs. terrorists
The Senate late Thursday passed a White House-backed bill to expand the powers of law enforcement to allow wiretapping of suspected terrorists, sharing of intelligence information about them and subpoenas of their e-mail transmissions. The House of Representatives is expected to approve similar legislation Friday. Differences between the two will then be resolved before a final bill is sent to President Bush to sign into law, possibly next week. Bush praised the Senate for moving swiftly.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Home videos star in online attack coverage
On the morning of Sept. 11, David Vogler saw the first jet airliner slam into the World Trade Center and started to run. The graphic designer would later join the streams of dazed New Yorkers leaving the scene, but for the moment his destination was closer by. Returning with a digital video camera from his Battery Park apartment, he hit the "record" button. About an hour later, his clips of the disaster, seen from street level just blocks away, were online.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Judge puts brakes on .biz addresses
In the latest setback for efforts to expand the Internet address system, a state court in California has temporarily blocked the activation of some new domain names ending in .biz. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction against domain registry NeuLevel, pending a lawsuit charging that some .biz domain names were assigned through an illegal lottery. NeuLevel said the injunction covers less than 20 percent of the domain names registered to date and that it expects to send all uncontested addresses live Oct. 23 as scheduled.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Legislators renew push for privacy rules
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Friday presented an outline for a national consumer-privacy bill, just days after a federal agency downplayed the need for such a law. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.; Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; and Billy Tauzin, R-La.; endorsed a draft of standards designed to protect consumers' privacy online and offline. The framework for legislation would add teeth to voluntary self-regulation efforts, which currently encourage but do not require companies to provide notice and choice about their data-collection practices, Boucher said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Hijackers may have sent coded messages on Internet
As White House officials warned that Osama bin Laden may be sending secret coded messages to his followers through videotaped statements, federal investigators are checking into the possibility that the Sept. 11 hijackers did the same thing on the Internet. Law enforcement specialists say that terrorists have been using hidden messages in computer files for years. In past investigations, encrypted messages have been ferreted out from files deep within password-protected computers.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...2/MN204183.DTL

Hoax e-mail warns of mall attack
At a time when Americans are plagued by a generalized fear of an invisible enemy, the latest urban legend from the Internet warns specifically of a terrorist attack on a mall on Halloween. The e-mail message, which began circulating Oct. 5, describes a story the author heard from a "friend of a friend'' whose Afghan boyfriend stood her up on a date Sept. 6. On Sept. 10, the e-mail message says, she received a letter begging her not to get on any commercial airlines the next day and not to go to any malls on Halloween. After Sept. 11, the message said, she gave the letter to the FBI.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/ho...ack/045342.htm

IBM's new chips slash power consumption
IBM is coming out with a new line of PowerPC chips that will consume less power by shutting down parts of the chip that aren't in use. The PowerPC 405LP will contain circuitry that will turn sections of the processor off and on as needed, similar to the Banias chip coming from Intel in 2003. Combined with existing power-management features such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology and copper wiring, the new on-off features could lead to a chip that uses one-tenth as much power as predecessors.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Publishers license jingles for cell phones
A major agency that represents songwriters said Thursday that it had begun a program to license the jingles that play on cell phones, a move to claim a share of what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar market. At issue is the use of ring tones -- digitally delivered music files that play melodies for up to 30 seconds in length when consumers receive incoming calls on cell phones. The tones allow people to personalize their phones with their favorite songs and are already hugely popular in Europe and Asia, said Gary Churgin, chief executive of the Harry Fox Agency, a licensing agent for more than 27,000 music publishers who represent more than 160,000 songwriters.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Attacks ground Windows XP's "Fly" ads
Microsoft will kick off the advertising campaign for its upcoming Windows XP operating system next week with the slogan, "Yes You Can," after "Prepare to Fly" was scrapped in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, company executives said Thursday. Microsoft's ad blitz is part of a four-month, $200 million marketing program around Windows XP, the latest version of the software giant's flagship product. Many in the PC and software industries are hoping Windows XP will breathe life into the sectors, which have been hammered by the slowing economy and sagging consumer confidence.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

SirCam Ready to Drop Payload
I send you this article in order to give you advice: SirCam, the annoying e-mail worm that simply won't go away, will turn feral Oct. 16. According to analysis of SirCam's code, every year on Oct. 16 the worm will delete all the files and folders contained on the hard drives of randomly selected SirCam-infected computers. Those who have clicked on a file attached to an e-mail that reads, in part, "I send you this file in order to have your advice," have a few days to make sure the worm is not lurking in their computers.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47476,00.html

New Anthrax Case Reported at NBC
An NBC News employee was infected with the skin form of anthrax after the network received mail containing a suspicious powder, authorities said Friday. The anthrax is not the inhaled form of the disease, which killed a Florida man a week ago. The NBC employee is being treated with antibiotics and is expected to recover, the network said. Barry Mawn, head of the FBI office in New York, said authorities "see no connection whatsoever" to the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The FBI is checking to see if there is a link to the Florida case, but "preliminarily I do not see that," Mawn said.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,47542,00.html

Terror Bill Limits Gambling, Too
Osama bin Laden is not, according to news reports, a terribly big fan of Western vices. Nor has there been any reliable confirmation that last month's suicide-hijackers, who completed the bloodiest terrorist attack in American history, were habitual gamblers. But that didn't stop the House Financial Services committee from voting 62-1 on Thursday for an "anti-terrorism" bill that limits Internet gambling.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47518,00.html

Anthrax Still Music to Some Ears
Despite its album titled "Spread the Disease," the heavy metal band Anthrax wants people to know it has nothing to do with terrorists or terrorism. The band, which owns the anthrax.com domain, has seen a surge in traffic to its website since three people were discovered to have been infected with anthrax in Florida. On Thursday, Anthrax felt compelled to explain the origin of the band's name since so much attention has been focused on anthrax the bacteria.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47513,00.html

Bert-Osama Site Taken Down
A website which reputedly first brought together children's television icon Bert of Sesame Street fame and the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has been shut down by its creator. The site, operated by a Dutchman who identifies himself on his site only as J-roen, carried the following message on Friday: "Due to the great amount of comments (both positive and negative) since a picture from this website was recently featured in a collage poster, I have decided to take this section of the site offline." The author did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47532,00.html

Dream of Clean Desktop Gets Messy
While working on Microsoft's newest operating system, Bob Graf, the engineer who heads the company's user interface team, discovered something surprising -- if not "revolutionary," as he describes it -- about the way most people use computers. " I visited 50 or more people in their homes," he said, "and I was asking each of them to name the seven applications that they use most often. And the thing is, most people, when they sit down to think about it, they can only come up with three or four applications they use. And I was just amazed at that."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47517,00.html

Mars Engulfed by Massive Storm
The entire surface of Mars is covered with the biggest dust storm the planet has ever seen, NASA researchers have reported. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Global Surveyor now orbiting the planet show dust covering virtually the entire surface of the red planet. "A veil of hazy, reddish dust," is blanketing Mars, Jim Garvin, head of NASA's Mars exploration program, said Thursday at a news conference. Because of the storm, NASA engineers are considering slight changes in the flight path of a spacecraft scheduled to land on Mars in less than two weeks.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47511,00.html

Anti-Secrecy Website Pulls Sensitive Information
An institution dedicated to blowing the lid off national security secrets has removed about 200 pages worth of data from its Web site out of concern that the information could compromise the safety of government buildings. "Like everyone else we are trying to understand the events of Sept. 11. Unlike everyone else, we have a large inventory of information online concerning national security policy and technology," Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy said today. "Against that backdrop we find ourselves in the unfamiliar situation of withholding certain categories of information ourselves," Aftergood said.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171058.html

Phone hub security sought
Saying terrorist attacks against telecommunications hubs could shut down banks, broadcasters and financial markets, Verizon Communications wants tougher security in phone-equipment buildings. "If you really want to create panic, take down the telecommunications facilities," says Larry Babbio, vice chairman of Verizon, the USA's No. 1 local phone company. Verizon has told Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell of its concerns. And the FCC, which regulates the issue, is encouraging companies to come forward with proposals, it says.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...b-security.htm

240 Miles Up, Seeing Tragedy
Space station commander Frank Culbertson and his two crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, were working through another busy day in orbit 240 miles above the Earth on Sept. 11 when a flight surgeon in Houston radioed word of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. "It's difficult to describe how it feels to be the only American completely off the planet at a time such as this," Culbertson wrote the next day in a letter to friends, family and, ultimately, the nation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Oct10.html

Agencies censor sites deemed useful to terrorists
Federal agencies are scrutinizing their Web sites and striking any information they believe terrorists might use to plot attacks against the nation. The move is quickly reversing strides the government has made over the last decade toward providing public information online. The review of the government's Web sites is wide in scope. It is unclear whether a specific guideline has been passed down about which types of information should be removed.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...govt-sites.htm

Network Associates puts PGP up for sale
Network Associates plans to sell off its PGP desktop encryption and Gauntlet firewall product lines. It's a surprise move that reflects weakness in the encryption market that has hit other major players, such as Baltimore Technologies. Up until Network Associates can find a buyer, development will cease on those products (though support will continue) while the rest of the PGP Security products and technologies will be integrated into the firm's McAfee and Sniffer product lines.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/22186.html

New net domain 'fiasco'
Up to a quarter of the early registrations for the new .info domain name could be bogus. A study of 11,000 registrations has shown a failure of the steps taken to stop people winning control of domains they do not have the right to run. Legal experts have called the whole process a fiasco, and said the company administering the .info domain could face legal challenges from those denied a chance to apply for some generic .info domains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1593396.stm

Outcry Over Pinky And Yellowy
Scientists have developed the first pig with a fluorescent yellow snout and trotters using jellyfish DNA. Researchers in the US say the work is a step towards growing animal organs for transplants - which could save thousands of human lives. But opponents have said the work is a freak show and a perversion of science.
http://www.skynews.co.uk/skynews/sto...032139,00.html

PCs talk personal
It's easy enough to distinguish between a human voice and a computer-synthesized one. Yet people still hear personality in computer voices, a new study suggests, and are more readily influenced by ones that mirror their own character. The findings may help Web marketers pitch their sales-talk. Extroverted listeners prefer an 'extroverted' computer voice which is loud, fast and varied in pitch, communications expert Clifford Nass and his colleagues at Stanford University in California found.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/011004/011004-3.html

More news later on

[walktalker]

Former Mobster Takes A Hit In Domain-Name Dispute
Some 4,500 arguments over the rights to Internet addresses have wound up in a dispute-resolution process established by domain-name authorities nearly two years ago. And of the 4,500 stories behind those spats, the oddest of all - until this week - was the story of pro golfer Skip Kendall and the one-page Web site operated by his sister's husband. But, this week, the tale of how the pro golfer who has won more than $500,000 on the PGA tour this year is alleged to have stiffed for $10,000 his own sister - who then complained about it at SkipKendall.com - had to take a back seat to the one about the two New York mobsters who moved to Georgia, found religion, and then accused each other of stealing either, a) the other guy's domain name, or b) the other guy's life story.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171099.html

New Service May Open Net As Promotional Avenue For Music
Internet media-delivery company RealNetworks today unveiled a new service designed to allow content owners to distribute promotional samples of music on the Web. The Real Broadcast Network (RBN), RealNetworks' content delivery network division, says the "Track Promo Service" is built on the RealSystem Media Commerce Suite, which is used for digital rights management by the company's MusicNet service. Jenny Sorensen, a RealNetworks spokeswoman, said the content owner can control the way users are able to access the songs they want to promote.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171097.html

Allegedly Hacked Bank Denies Bin Laden Connection
A Sudanese bank that allegedly was hacked by anti-terrorist vigilantes denied that Osama bin Laden was ever a founder or shareholder of the bank and said accounts connected to the terrorist leader were closed several years ago. According to a statement entitled "Who Owns Al Shamal Islamic Bank" and posted on the bank's Web site, bin Laden was not among a small group that invested $20-million in 1983 to establish the bank, which opened in 1990. Nor is bin Laden among the 13 Saudi and Sudanese individuals and organizations listed as the bank's main shareholders, according to the statement from Mohamed S. Mohamed, general manager of the bank.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171091.html

Alleged Jihad Internet Terrorist Pleads Not Guilty
A 43-year-old London chef and operator of a "Jihad" Web site has pleaded not guilty to two charges under the British Terrorism Act. Sulayman Balal Zainulabidin was originally arrested on Oct. 5, the same day that the Sakina Securities Web site. Scotland Yard's press office says that Zainulabidin appeared at Belmarsh magistrates court this morning, where he was charged under Sections 54(1) and 54(3) of U.K.'s Terrorism Act. He is in custody until his next appearance on Nov. 9, a police spokesperson said, adding that Zainulabidin has additionally been accused of offering training in terrorist activities.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171085.html

Napster Claims Antitrust Violations By Record Companies
Perhaps testifying that the best defense is a good offense, lawyers defending Napster are attempting a dramatic turn-about in their battle with record companies who say the music- sharing company has contributed to copyright infringement on a massive scale. Although Napster tried out a variety of arguments in a crucial federal-court hearing this week, reports suggest that among those not quickly dismissed by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel was a claim that new online music-distribution services backed by the record companies amount to a monopoly that is at least as dangerous to the marketplace as Napster's peer-to-peer network.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171082.html

RIAA: Piracy Seizures, Arrests Way Up
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says that its anti-piracy efforts in the first half of the year led to record numbers for seizures, arrests, and convictions, Billboard Bulletin reports. The trade group assisted in seizing 1.26 million illegal recordable CDs (CD-Rs) in the first six months of 2001, up 133% from the first half of 2000. It also aided in 1,762 arrests and indictments for selling illegal CDs or CD-Rs, an 89% increase. Online anti-piracy efforts also were stepped up in the first half, as 8,716 online auctions offering illicit recordings were removed from Web sites, a 418% increase from mid-year 2000. However, the number of notices sent to Internet service providers about infringing sites was down from the same period last year.
http://www.billboard.com/billboard/d...ent_id=1076156

Food convoys returning to Afghanistan
UN food aid shipments into Afghanistan are increasing, with almost 100 trucks currently ferrying in aid from neighbouring countries - but deliveries will still fall way short of the target for October. The World Food Programme had suspended all ground-based deliveries of food on Sunday, following the first missile strikes on Afghanistan. This was because truck drivers refused to enter the country. "But when a convoy that was already on its way to Kabul got there safely and returned with no harm, they agreed to go back," says WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume. Convoys from Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan resumed from Tuesday.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991425

Why the U.S. is losing the propaganda war
Even as a deluge of bombs dropped on strategic targets inside Afghanistan this week, American forces simultaneously strove to win over the hearts and minds of the beleaguered Afghan population. In addition to cluster bombs and cruise missiles, a barrage of food packets, explanatory leaflets and portable windup radios that pick up only one frequency, broadcast by the U.S. military, showered down. It's difficult to tell whether the humanitarian aid is having any impact, although so far there has been little word of widespread anti-American uprisings among Afghans themselves, while far more hostile demonstrations are taking place across the border in Pakistan.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...nda/index.html

A thousand and one e-mails
In July 2001, the Taliban banned the use of the Internet by Afghan citizens. "We are not against the use of the Internet, but we are against the broadcast of obscene and immoral material, and material on the Internet that is against Islam," said Taliban foreign minister Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil in a statement. By late August, the Taliban added computer disks to a growing list of official "un-Islamic" products, including nail polish, neckties and wigs made out of human hair. Border officials were to confiscate contraband disks and turn them over to the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Twenty-six million people with one lousy Internet connection?
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...net/index.html

Arafat's bin Laden nightmare
When Palestinian security forces fired on Palestinian demonstrators brandishing portraits of Osama bin Laden on Columbus Day, it was a clear signal to American policy makers, who have long assumed that Yasser Arafat's basic attitude towards the radical factions of the Palestinian constituency was to turn a blind eye. Although the Palestinian leader opposes the fundamentalist fanatics of Hamas and Hezbollah, he is also a shrewd opportunist, and he was loathe to undermine his popularity within Palestinian ranks by attacking these powerful groups or their supporters directly -- until now. Bin Laden, that horrifically effective spearhead of pan-Arab resentment, could well turn out to be the gravest challenge to Arafat's particular brand of pragmatic nationalism.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20.../index_np.html

Baseball warms up to technology
When Aaron Sele of the Seattle Mariners takes the mound in Cleveland Saturday, the hometown Indians will be licking their chops. Back in August, they rang him up for eight hits, five runs and two homers in a dramatic comeback win. How did the Indians manage to master Mr. Sele? It was easy. They cloned him. With the 2001 playoffs under way, many of the teams still in the chase for the World Series are quietly warming up to technology.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/641946.asp?0dm=C14RT

The world will end tomorrow - official
US inboxes have recently been infected with various strains of the 'Klingerman virus' email. It warns people not to open any blue envelope they get from 'The Klingerman Foundation'. If you do, you're dead - inside is a sponge saturated with an unknown, killer virus. Laughable nonsense, or is it? Sadly, it's the very scale and scope of the net - it's great strength - which makes it the ideal platform for the rapid dissemination of disinformation and conspiracy hysteria. And for every hoaxer there are a thousand gullible people willing to believe.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/22200.html

All right -- good weekend everyone !!!

[walktalker]

Bump

[TankGirl]

One copy please, thank you!

Once again you provided an excellent news package for the weekend, Mr. Newsman. Please tell my greetings to that funny bird of yours.

- tg