The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

Ahhh, news time !!

RIAA: We'll smother song swappers
The recording industry is experimenting with new technology it hopes can smother online song swapping by targeting music traders' computers directly. The record, movie and software industries have long pursued a controversial campaign that identifies people trading large numbers of songs though services such as MusicCity, OpenNap or Gnutella. Once the people are identified, the groups attempt to persuade Internet service providers (ISPs) to shut down those individuals' Internet connections. But copyright holders, including record labels, are now experimenting with new ways to cut down on copyright infringement.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Novell: Microsoft to retract marketing claims
Novell Inc., which makes software for corporate networks, said on Monday that rival Microsoft Corp. had agreed to retract marketing material containing what Novell argued were false claims about its flagship NetWare product. Novell filed a lawsuit against Microsoft on Oct. 1 and had asked a federal judge in Utah to issue a restraining order to prohibit the software giant from claiming that Novell NetWare software would become obsolete and prove costly for companies to maintain.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

SirCam's back? Playing the dating game?
The highly destructive SirCam worm has been programmed to return on its three-month birthday, and Europe will be a prime target for the attacks. The network-aware computer worm will attempt to destroy data on one in every 20 computers that it infects, say experts. "When an infected computer starts up today, there is a 5 percent chance that SirCam will start to delete all files on the C drive, and remove all files in sub-directories," said Andre Post, senior researcher at antivirus firm Symantec. "It will then try to fill up the hard drive with a fake file, and will expand and take up the full hard drive space." But the file-deleting payload is only programmed to infect PCs configured with the D/M/Y date format.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Report: Internet attacks on the rise
The number of Internet attacks reported by companies looks likely to double in 2001, a government-funded security response group reported Monday. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordination Center, the group that administers the myriad CERTs around the United States, counted nearly 35,000 attacks and probes in the first nine months of this year. While the increase in such incidents may indicate more intruders attacking, much of the increase is due to the growth of the Internet, said Larry Rogers, a senior member of the technical staff at the CERT Coordination Center.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...098301,00.html

W3C debate invites open-source views
The World Wide Web Consortium has invited representatives from the open-source and free-software communities to join a working group debating the use of patents in industry standards. The W3C is charged with developing industry standards for Web technologies. It's been debating a new policy that would allow the use of patented technologies in those standards and permit the companies that hold the patents to charge royalties for their use. The proposal has met with harsh criticism, particularly from supporters of open-source software development and free software. They say that allowing companies to charge royalties will stymie innovation and create significant legal hurdles for developers.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Shareholder denounces HP-Compaq union
A major investor in both Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard is urging the companies to scrap their merger because it believes the chances of the two pulling off a successful union are slim. Matrix Asset Advisors, which manages the top-rated Matrix Advisors Value Fund, sent a letter last week to the boards of directors of both Compaq and HP advising them to abort their proposed merger, valued originally at $25 billion but now standing at $19.7 billion. David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix, said his company is usually a silent investor -- "99 percent of the time" -- but added that the Compaq-HP merger "pushes the envelope for us."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft buttresses employee security
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday that the software giant was boosting security measures after six employees were exposed to a letter that had tested positive for anthrax. "Obviously, like all companies, we are beefing up the various things we do to try and keep our employees as safe as possible," Gates said at a news conference here. Six Microsoft employees were exposed to the anthrax-tainted envelope sent to the Microsoft office in Reno, Nev. from Malaysia. All six have received a clean bill of health, but the United States remains on edge after anthrax-contaminated envelopes were sent to media offices in New York and Florida.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Amazon to stream prereleased music
Amazon.com is offering to plug customers into new music before it hits store shelves, according to streaming media company Speedera Networks. The Web superstore is expected to announce this week that it has hired Santa Clara, Calif.-based Speedera to digitally stream the entire contents of prereleased CDs to customers after they order the physical CD from Amazon, Gordon Smith, vice president of marketing for Speedera, told CNET News.com. Amazon said digital streaming will improve the shopping experience.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_pr

AOL unveils 7.0 as competition mounts
Internet giant America Online announced the availability of its AOL 7.0 software Tuesday, an upgrade that comes as competitive pressure from Microsoft heats up. As previously reported by CNET News.com, the changes in the software are mainly cosmetic, including more high-speed Internet features and local content on the welcome screen. Other changes include faster loading of the software, minor tweaks to AOL Instant Messenger's buddy list and a media player that lets members play audio CDs and downloaded music files. The release comes a day after Microsoft announced its own sweeping upgrades, dubbed MSN 7, set to take effect Oct. 25 in conjunction with the release of its new Windows XP operating system.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Yahoo sells ring of community sites
Yahoo said Monday that it has closed its sale of community network WebRing and is notifying members to transfer to a new site. The Web portal said it sold WebRing to Tim Killeen, one of the early engineers who created the system. WebRing consists of communities of Web sites featuring related content, allowing people who share interests to reach one another. For instance, a Web site on grizzly bears would provide links to other sites with relevant information. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

A Room With an Apocalyptic View
Ed Peden is sitting on a gold mine. He's the best known of a small group of people in real estate who specialize in the sale of underground, Cold War-era Titan I and Atlas missile bases. And interest in these properties, built to weather a nuclear attack, has, well, skyrocketed since Sept. 11, attracting attention from anxious families and corporations. So Peden stands to cash in, if he can keep quiet the bases' past -- a legacy of modern crime and atomic age debris.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47577,00.html

Media Lab: Big Plans, Slow Funds
Ireland is to become the headquarters for a new venture that will launch startup companies emerging from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab and its spinoff, Dublin's MediaLabEurope. Research groups at MediaLabEurope (MLE) suggest that areas of commercial development could include computers that respond to touch or are controlled by thought processes rather than mouse and keyboard; always-on communication environments that let people thousands of miles apart interact; computer agents that go to work for computer users in spontaneously created networks; and portable devices that help people achieve physical and mental fitness.
http://www.wired.com/news/exec/0,1370,47565,00.html

Speaking of Voice Recognition
If companies like Microsoft, Intel and Cisco have their way, future cellular phones, PDAs and television sets won't come with any buttons. Instead, people will navigate using their own voices --twangs, impediments, accents and all. "Speech will become the primary interface, especially in mobile computing," said Intel VP Howard Bubb, at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View. "The (computer's) processors are becoming tailored to human interaction." Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Comverse, Philips and SpeechWorks are working together to develop speech-enabled software that will let users call up any website on any device without having to click a button.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,47545,00.html

Lots of Genes, Lots of Theories
Researchers from all over the world are reporting their findings on HIV-resistant gene mutations, language ancestry, gene patenting and more this week at the American Society of Human Genetics' 51st annual meeting in San Diego. Among the findings: A genetic mutation that provides complete resistance to HIV infection may have also protected individuals from the plague 700 years ago, said a researcher at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Individuals who inherit the mutation -- called the "CCR5-delta 32 deletion" -- from both parents are completely resistant to HIV infection. Onset of the disease is delayed by an average of three years in those who receive it from just one parent.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,47586,00.html

EU 'threat' over download sites
The European Union could block major record labels from setting up their planned music download services, according to reports. Some politicians fear that the two services, Pressplay and MusicNet, would be anti-competitive and unfairly dominate the market, The Sunday Times says. Concerns that the two services would restrict opportunities for independent download sites were voiced at a conference to discuss EU policies on music in Brussels on Saturday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ent...00/1600064.stm

Humans Doomed Without Space Colonies, Says Hawking
The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before this millennium is out unless it starts to colonize space, top British scientist Stephen Hawking warned on Tuesday. Hawking's comments came as the United States teetered on the brink of panic over possible germ warfare after anthrax-laced letters were delivered in the capital Washington and the states of New York, Nevada and Florida. "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet," Hawking told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/r...0011016_9.html

Russians put advert on space station
The two cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have placed an advert for photographic company Kodak on the outside of the orbiting platform. It is not the first time that the Russian space agency has ventured into advertising. "Pizza Hut had their advert on the side of a rocket which carried one of the components of the space station into orbit," David Wade, senior lecturer in space technology, satellite systems engineering and engineering design at Kingston University, UK, told BBC Radio Five Live.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1602075.stm

How the terror trail went unseen
Investigations into how the terror attackers managed to evade detection are producing the unusual situation that statements from the FBI have become more trustworthy than those in the press. In two successive briefings, senior FBI officials have stated that the agency has as yet found no evidence that the hijackers who attacked America used electronic encryption methods to communicate on the internet. But this has not prevented politicians and journalists repeating lurid rumours that the coded orders for the attack were secretly hidden inside pornographic web images, or from making claiming that the hijacks could have been prevented if only western governments had been given the power to prevent internet users from using secret codes.
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9751/1.html

Inside.com and Brill's Content to Close -- This Time They Really Mean It Not them too !
Brill’s Content and Inside.com, the church lady and swinging single of the myopic media world who got hitched in April, have been closed, victims of terrible publishing and Web economies and a strained relationship between Steven Brill and his major backer, Primedia. The moves come as part of an announcement that Brill Media Holdings and Primedia, which owns 49 percent of the former, were unwinding their complicated relationship. Brill’s Content will cease publication immediately. Inside.com, which Brill Media Holdings has sold to Primedia, will live on in name only, becoming a portal for the Media Central publications like Folio:, Cable World and Inside Book Publishing Report.
http://www.inside.com/product/produc...B-4D91DCB3EB38

Darwinian Selection of Satellite Orbits for Military Use
Charles Darwin could not have known he might one day improve cell phone communications and help win wars. But a new computer-based "genetic algorithm" based on Darwin's ideas about how the fit survive may do just that. The algorithm, created by researchers at Purdue University, created ideal satellite orbits with the help of hours and hours of computer processing time. The orbits were designed to help overcome a basic conundrum in satellite communications: The highest flying satellites, at some 22,000 miles, can see half the Earth and, while orbiting at the same speed as Earth, be in constant touch with a ground station.
http://www.space.com/news/darwin_satellites_011016.html

Saintly identity of holy relic supported by DNA analysis
DNA analysis of an ancient skeleton held in the Basilica of St Justina in Padua, Italy, supports claims that it may indeed be that of St Luke, as traditionally believed. According to historical texts, Luke was born in Antioch, Syria and died in Greece in about 150 AD. His body was moved first to Constantinople, now Istanbul. Then, some time before 1177, it was moved to Padua. But some historians suspected that the body could have been switched for another while in Greece or Turkey. Guido Barbujani of the University of Ferrara and his team isolated DNA from two teeth taken from the skeleton when it was exhumed in 1998.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991434

US Net user saves Brit trapped in shed
Police rescued a Blackburn man locked in a shed after receiving a tip-off from a Net user in the US. The man - who has a PC and Net connection in his shed but no phone - posted a message on an user group early Friday morning claiming a gang of yobs had locked him in. In a short posting he said: "This is not a hoax. I am trapped in my shed with no phone. Help please." An unnamed Net user from the US read the posting and contacted police in Blackburn. They went round to the man's house and let him out. A number of the postings on the newsgroup appear to cast doubt on the validity of the cry for help.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22230.html

More news later on

[walktalker]

Consumers On Low Heat For Wireless Apps
Most consumers are still looking for security and convenience in wireless devices, but fewer people are turning up their noses at them when it comes to planning trips, checking stocks and other uses, an Andersen survey has found. Advanced applications are being held in a more positive light now than a year ago, said Chris Isaac, Anderson's North American managing partner for the wireless industry.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171177.html

Lawmakers Unveil Bill To Boost Math, Science Education
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have unveiled companion bills that aim to boost math, science and high-tech education by providing grants to universities that offer undergraduate programs in those areas. "The best thing we can do for the future of this country is increase our investment in basic science," Ernie Blazar, a spokesman for Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., said today. Bond is a co-sponsor of the Senate bill. Called the "Tech Talent Bill," the legislation would earmark $25 million for tech-education grants in 2002.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171176.html

Firm Hoisted By Own Misspelling Petard In Domain Dispute
A retailer who regularly misspells the name of its own product in order to squeeze it into an easy-to-remember telephone number has failed in a bid to unseat an alleged "typo squatter" from the Internet domain Matress.com. For Dial-A-Mattress Operating Corp., the decision under a dispute resolution procedure of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) extends a rocky record of attempts to secure its trademarks on and off the Internet.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171175.html

Microsoft Rallies Industry Against Bug Anarchy
Pushed to the brink by recent Internet worm outbreaks, Microsoft hopes to rally the computer industry against those who improperly publish information about security vulnerabilities. In an editorial at Microsoft's site, Scott Culp, head of the company's Security Response Center, announced the initiative against what he called "information anarchy." According to Culp, the damage caused by worms such as Code Red and Nimda can be blamed in part on computer security professionals who discovered the software flaws exploited by the malicious, self-propagating programs.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171173.html

Anna K. Virus Author Files Appeal Against Sentence
The author of the infamous Anna Kournikova worm has lodged an appeal against the court-imposed penalty of 150 hours of community service. The worm, which 20-year-old Jan de Wit coded using a simple virus creation kit, raced around the world earlier this year. The worm was delivered as an e-mail attachment identified as risque pictures of tennis star Anna Kournikova. De Wit turned himself in to authorities in February, just days after seeing his creation propagate wildly. He later told reporters he was amazed that the virus had spread so quickly.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171171.html

Salvaging Electronic Last Words Of Sept. 11
The e-mail to his buddies was sent from the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center. The subject line: "Tuxedo for wedding." The time stamp: 8:41 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001. In the brief note, Peter Christopher Frank reminds them to get their measurements taken for the upcoming event. "Tuxedos for my groomsmen will be supplied by Zeller Tuxedo. Zeller has locations all over the tri-state area. . . . The account's under my name. Thanks, Pete." That was the last time the outside world heard from the 29-year-old financial analyst before he disappeared into the rubble of his former office building.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171145.html

Red Tape Hurdles In Australian Net Gambling Ban
Australia's Internet Industry Association (IIA), an industry lobby group, has given an indication of how complicated the Australian government's ban on Internet gambling will be in practice in a posted notification of scheduled filters and procedures for Internet service providers (ISPs) to use to block gambling sites. It proposes that ISPs "will, as soon as reasonably practicable for each person who subscribes to an ISP's Internet carriage service," provide scheduled filters "at a charge determined by the ISP." The proposal also provides for a machinery of registration, either online or by disk.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171138.html

Anthrax fears close Senate offices
Authorities closed an entire wing of an eight-story Senate office building Tuesday and began testing and treating hundreds of people for possible anthrax exposure after tests confirmed the presence of the bacterium in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Word of the finding came as public health experts fanned out to test new sites for possible contamination after two new cases of anthrax infection were diagnosed. Fears of contamination continued to spark reports of suspicious pieces of mail or powder in unexpected places.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/638169.asp

Robot cat let out of the bag
Japan’s biggest toymaker pioneered the world’s first virtual pet, the Tamagotchi, and the nation’s most famous electronics maker rolled out the number-one robot dog, Aibo. Now one of its biggest makers of automated factory systems, Omron Corp, has weighed in with a robot cat: NeCoRo. Like most household cats, it doesn’t respond to commands or perform tricks. Nor can it walk, but Omron officials said it does what is most important: purring contentedly when stroked, and otherwise giving cuddly emotional feedback to its owner with feline sounds and movements.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/643554.asp?0dm=B12OT

News sites flourish after attacks
Reflecting the public's insatiable hunger for news following the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the most-visited sites on the Web last month were news sites, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. News sites experienced a jump in activity last month as the public scrambled to keep abreast of breaking developments after terrorist attacks rocked New York and Washington, D.C. More than 50 million people visited news sites in September, spending significantly more time online than in the previous month, Jupiter reported.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/interne...idg/index.html

Anthrax hoaxers very difficult to stop
Hoaxers around the world are exploiting public fears about anthrax attacks, but there is little that can be done to prevent them, say psychologists. Although there have been no confirmed anthrax attacks outside the US, discoveries of "suspicious white powder" have led to the evacuation of buildings around the globe. These include the offices of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, government buildings in Australia and Canterbury Cathedral in England. The "ripple effect" of an incident like the first US anthrax attack on the American Media office in Florida can spread wide, says Gerard Bailes, a UK consultant forensic psychologist.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991436

Lieberman Urges Focus on Hussein
Sen. Joseph Lieberman urged the Bush administration to expand its war on terrorism by supporting democratic opponents to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The Connecticut Democrat said the White House should eventually turn its attention to Iraq as a state that is suspected of supporting and harboring terrorists, as "phase two" of the U.S. response to Sept. 11. "As long as Saddam is there, Iraq is not just going to be a thorn in our side, but a threat to our lives," Lieberman told reporters Monday outside a conference of the New Democratic Network, an organization that raises money for centrist Democratic candidates.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,36579,00.html

Man on Doomed Jet Said, 'Nobody Move,' Cockpit Transcript Shows
In the minutes before an airliner sliced through one of the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center, ground control heard a voice from the cockpit ordering passengers not to move because they were heading back to the airport. The voice apparently belonged to one of the hijackers who had taken control of American Airlines Flight 11. The announcement, published Tuesday by The New York Times, was caught on taped communications between pilots and air traffic controllers.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,36597,00.html

Madison School Board Removes Pledge of Allegiance Ban in Schools
In another example of the country's bustling wartime patriotism, the Madison School Board reversed on Tuesday the decision it made last week to ban the Pledge of Allegiance. Starting Wednesday, students in Madison schools will begin every morning with their hands over their hearts, facing the American flag and pledging their commitment to what it represents. The 6-1 vote was made to comply with a state law that requires a daily display of patriotism -- and to pacify furious Madison residents.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,36576,00.html

Feds Announce Indictment in One of Several Terror Hoaxes
If hoaxsters thought they could get away with exploiting the chaos spawned by the Sept. 11 terror attacks, then Attorney General John Ashcroft had a warning for them Tuesday. Calling faked anthrax attacks "grotesque transgressions of the public trust," Ashcroft said at a news conference that such hoaxes would be prosecuted as federal crimes. He also announced the first arrest, that of a Connecticut man who seemed to be playing an office joke.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,36614,00.html

How green is your PC (disposal policy)?
Another day, another survey proving how crap companies are in dealing with disposal of unwanted computer hardware. The results are mostly predictable: current disposal of obsolete corporate IT equipment is badly done; many companies are unaware of upcoming legislation targeted at this issue; and few use refurbished goods. The survey, undertaken by computer company Selway Moore, reveals that 34 per cent of companies currently scrap unused IT goods, a policy that raises environmental concerns (CRT monitors, for example, are especially poisonous, with high levels of cadmium and mercury).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/22273.html

More news later on

RIAA: "We'll smother song swappers".

Then don't be surprised when we smother you.

- js.

[TankGirl]

Thanks WT, an excellent news package!

This story was particularly interesting:

Originally posted by walktalker
How the terror trail went unseen
Investigations into how the terror attackers managed to evade detection are producing the unusual situation that statements from the FBI have become more trustworthy than those in the press. In two successive briefings, senior FBI officials have stated that the agency has as yet found no evidence that the hijackers who attacked America used electronic encryption methods to communicate on the internet. But this has not prevented politicians and journalists repeating lurid rumours that the coded orders for the attack were secretly hidden inside pornographic web images, or from making claiming that the hijacks could have been prevented if only western governments had been given the power to prevent internet users from using secret codes.
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9751/1.html

From the story:

Throughout the period, US intelligence did track bin Laden's satphone. They heard him talking to the Taliban about heroin exports, and even monitored him chatting to his mother. Tracking data based on the position of his phone was used in 1998, when President Clinton authorised the launch of cruise missiles intended to kill him. But he wasn't logged on, and survived. And he never logged on again.

Although politicians have rushed to blame new technology, intelligence experts say that the real problem has been getting agents inside the terror groups. They say that the CIA has been inexcusably lazy by failing to recruit and run agents who were willing to risk dirt, disease and death by joining the terror teams at their training camps. But without the information from such sources on who and what to look for, America's vast global arsenal of satellites and listening centres, like the giant satellite spy base at Menwith Hill near Harrogate, England, and Bad Aibling, Bavaria, were blind and deaf.

British foreign secretary Jack Straw's suggestion that the inventors and promoters of computer security now regret what they have done also appears misleading. One of the most famous of these experts is Dr Whitfield Diffie from California, who jointly helped invent the system now used as the foundation of internet business. Speaking at a security conference in Ireland last week, he said "the internet is so valuable as a communication mechanism that people and corporations cannot afford not to use it ... it's only cryptography [secret codes] that makes it safe."

The evidence so far is that, when communicating, the terrorists used simple open codes to conceal who and what they were talking about. This low-tech method works. Unless given leads about who to watch, even the vast "Echelon" network run by NSA and GCHQ cannot separate such messages from innocuous traffic. The problem, says Dr Gladman, is that "the volume of communications is killing them [the spy agencies]. They just can't keep up. It's not about encryption."

"Events have vindicated our position", adds Ian Miller, a computer security specialist and one of the experts whom Mr Straw has accused of being "naïve". The attacks, he said, worked because they had "none of the hallmarks of clandestine activity the intelligence agencies normally look for. They did nothing suspicious - until they did something abominable".

- tg