The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

[walktalker]

Pentagon backs off on Net ID tags
A Defense Department agency recently considered -- and rejected -- a far-reaching plan that would sharply curtail online anonymity by tagging e-mail and Web browsing with unique markers for each Internet user. The idea involved creating secure areas of the Internet that could be accessed only if a user had such a marker, called eDNA, according to a report in Friday's New York Times. eDNA grew out of a private brainstorming session that included Tony Tether, president of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the newspaper said, and that would have required at least some Internet users to adopt biometric identifiers such as voice or fingerprints to authenticate themselves.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-966894.html

IBM lines up customers "on demand"
IBM has lined up several companies to offer their software to customers on demand using new Big Blue technology. The tech titan's new "computing on demand" program, launched last month, is intended to allow companies to buy information technology the way they purchase electricity, paying a monthly bill for services. Earlier this month, IBM announced a program to help its resellers and software partners get on board. The company said Friday that on-demand applications for human resources, accounting and marketing are now available from HRSmart, Intacct and Onyx.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-966861.html

Researchers: Pull plug on battery attacks
A team of computer scientists is working to prevent new types of denial-of-service attacks aimed at battery-powered mobile devices. Tom Martin, a professor at Virginia Tech's electrical and computer engineering department, has received a grant for more than $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to devise a way to protect battery-operated computers from security attacks that could drain their batteries. Although the researchers concede that such kinds of attacks are extremely rare, the proliferation of notebook computers, personal digital assistants, tablet PCs, networked cell phones and other devices could make them alluring targets.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-966886.html

Tech, entertainment take on copyrights
Technology and entertainment lobbyists will sit down at the negotiating table Friday to seek a resolution to the long-running political spat over digital copyright. About 20 lobbyists are expected to meet at the Eye Street offices of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), just two blocks from the White House, to try and find common ground before the new Congress starts in January 2003. The companies and trade associations represented at the closed-door meeting include Microsoft, Verizon Communications, the Business Software Alliance, AOL Time Warner, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Fox Entertainment Group.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-966833.html

Online dating's new love: IM
Instant messaging is becoming a popular aphrodisiac in the world of online dating. In recent weeks, software company PalTalk introduced a personals service for people on its instant chat network, allowing would-be sweethearts to get to know each other with greater speed than through e-mail. Other matchmaking Web sites such as Match.com and DateCam.com have unveiled instant chat services for those looking to find dates online, but with anonymity. Yahoo, the online hub for personals advertisements, attests to IM's allure. At least half of its Personals couples had around 25 IM conversations, but exchanged only five phone calls and up to 10 e-mails in the first three weeks of meeting, the company said. Yahoo set the stage for better communication among subscribers with new IM features this summer.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-971030.html?tag=fd_top

Microsoft: Xbox Live is living large
Microsoft announced Friday that it has nearly sold out of its initial shipment of 150,000 starter kits for Xbox Live, the new online service for its video game console. The software giant introduced Xbox Live a week ago amid heady expectations that the service would finally set the Xbox apart from competing consoles made by Sony and Nintendo. Xbox Live allows Xbox owners to play supported games against each other over the Internet. The service requires a high-speed cable modem or DSL (digital subscriber line) Internet connection and the $50 Xbox Live starter kit, which includes a one-year subscription to the service, a headset microphone for voice communication, and demo versions of two games.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-966909.html?tag=fd_top

Identity thieves strike eBay
When Deborah Fraser's credit card number was stolen, the thief didn't use it to buy a new car or a high-end laptop. Instead, the number was used to buy something potentially much more valuable -- a domain name with the word "ebay" in it. In Fraser's case, that was the domain name "change-ebay.com," a scam Web site where an unknown number of eBay users may have been tricked into handing over their eBay username and password. "Somebody fraudulently used my credit card (Thursday) to buy the domain name that ended in 'ebay,'" said Fraser, a pharmacy technician in Lockport, N.Y., who until midday Thursday was listed as the registrant and administrative contact for the domain.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-966835.html?tag=fd_top

Assembling the Digital Sky
Scientists in the United States, armed with a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation, are building a National Virtual Observatory (NVO) that will make the world’s huge store of astronomical data available to anyone with a Web browser. “History has shown us that the greatest leaps forward have occurred not when you observe the universe through just one window, but when you compare the views of the universe obtained through different windows,” says Ray Norris, deputy director of the Australia Telescope National Facility in Epping, New South Wales, Australia. “The NVO will enable any astronomer to do this easily, combining all available data on one object or one region of the sky, or perhaps even using data-mining techniques to look for subtle correlations between the properties of a class of objects when viewed through different windows.” The hope is to dramatically advance this computational approach to astronomy.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...ssex112202.asp

South Korea's gaming addicts
South Korea is one of the most wired societies in the world. More than half the population has access to the internet, and there are more than 25,000 cyber cafes - known here as PC Bangs - which are open 24 hours a day across the country. The country is a global leader when it comes to number of people who can access broadband, or high speed internet services, with the number of broadband subscribers exceeding 10 million. It is a paradise for online gamers, who come from all over the world to play in South Korea.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2499957.stm

Report calls for nanotech laissez-faire
Nanotechnology's potential benefit to society is so great, a new report says, that governments should take a hands-off approach to regulating the developing science, despite concern over possible dangers. Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular level, could revolutionize everything from computing to medicine to warfare. But some say that if hypothetical nanomachines escape from the lab and reproduce in the wild, they could wreak havoc on the planet. Nevertheless, the governments of the United States and other countries should adopt a regime of "modest regulation, civilian research, and an emphasis on self-regulation," says a report released this week by the free-market Pacific Research Institute, a California think tank.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966766.html

Group tackles OpenOffice desktop spec
A group of companies working on Web services specifications is calling for a new standard to handle desktop application documents. Members of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) have formed a working group to develop an XML file format specification for the OpenOffice project. OpenOffice, an office productivity software package, is an open-source project, meaning it can be modified and distributed for free. Versions are available for computers that run the Linux, Windows, Solaris and Mac operating systems. And companies, including Sun Microsystems, have distributed their own flavors of it.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966691.html?tag=cd_mh

Report: ISPs must learn from Sept. 11
The Internet sustained relatively little damage during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when the collapsing World Trade Center destroyed lower Manhattan's communications networks, according to a new report. The National Research Council's report, however, warns that Internet service providers must prepare for future emergencies. The attacks have forced businesses and government agencies to reevaluate how they structure computer networks, data backup centers and links to the Internet. Telephone service was greatly affected in parts of lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, while cell phone service suffered more widespread congestion problems, according to the report. Nearly one-third of Americans had trouble placing a phone call on the day of the attacks.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-966681.html?tag=cd_mh

Wi-Fi joins broadband access debate
Souped-up Wi-Fi networks have elbowed into the debate over how to spread broadband Web access to small cities and rural areas, a debate that until recently focused solely on cable modems and digital subscriber lines. U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and George Allen (R-Va.) say wireless networks should be considered as well. The two intend to introduce a bill called "The Jumpstart Broadband Act," which is meant to spur development of more powerful and cheaper long-range wireless networks that can be enlisted to bring broadband to the masses. The Boxer-Allen bill asks the Federal Communications Commission make available more free-to-use spectrum in a bandwidth strong enough to send signals for miles at a time. The bill also would set "rules of the road," so the transmissions won't interfere with other users of the bandwidth, which include the military, the two senators wrote to colleagues on Wednesday.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-966667.html?tag=cd_mh

Government agency pulls Web site
The Department of Energy closed the online research database Pubscience after receiving complaints that it competed too closely with commercial efforts. The Web site, a searchable database of more than 2 million documents on physical sciences and energy-related research, was closed in recent weeks after the government department was pressured by the private sector to reassess its value in a marketplace where commercial interests were at stake. A handful of privately owned sites let researchers pull up abstracts of scientific research documents, as well as buy the full-text documents of thousands of technical periodicals. Proponents of the site's closure said the move fell into line with a federal law that forbids the government to compete with the private sector in business.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966824.html?tag=cd_mh

RIAA: Madster flouting court order
Record labels say file-swapping service Madster is violating the terms of a recent court order and should be shut down or fined until it starts blocking trades of copyrighted music. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked a Chicago federal court on Wednesday to hold bankrupt Madster -- formerly known as Aimster -- and its founder Johnny Deep in contempt of court. Deep has made no effort to comply with a court order issued last month that required the company to block trading of music belonging to the major record labels, the trade association said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966800.html?tag=cd_mh

CipherTrust wants your spam
E-mail security company CipherTrust wants your spam. The company is calling on surfers of all stripes to help it wage a fight against spam by sending their unsolicited mass e-mail to its new Web site, Spamarchive.org. The idea is to create a vast public repository of spam, so makers of antispam tools can test their algorithms on the latest mass-messaging trends. "It's kind of like donating your spam to science," Paul Judge, director of research and development at CipherTrust, said. The company is hoping to differentiate its spam database from others by making it both large and public.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966768.html?tag=cd_mh

Auctioneer to play Napster's last waltz
Computers, furniture and memorabilia from failed music-swapping company Napster will go up for auction next month. Dovebid is hosting the auction, which will be Webcast on Dec. 11. Beyond the standard hardware, which includes routers from Cisco Systems, computers from Apple Computer and Dell Computer, and Hewlett-Packard printers, there are hats, shirts and mousepads featuring the company's logo. Napster's peer-to-peer technology allowed music fans to swap files, in what some have claimed was an illegal manner. Although its service was wildly popular, the company never did develop a winning business model.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966686.html?tag=cd_mh

Specs to ease CD, DVD data retrieval
An optical-storage standards group has taken a step forward in efforts to improve compatibility between PCs and consumer electronics devices. The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) on Thursday released MultiPhoto/Video (MPV) 1.0, specifications that aim to make it easier to retrieve data on CD and DVD players from discs created on PCs. The new specs expand on OSTA's MultiPlay standard, which offers a uniform way to organize and display the contents of an audio disc created by a PC's CD burner. The standard helps ensure that discs created on a PC can be played back on CD players and other home electronics devices.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-966891.html?tag=cd_mh

LG Philips sees its screens on TV
LG Philips says it wants to see its liquid crystal displays on television. The company, a joint venture of LG Electronics and Philips Electronics formed in July of 1999, makes LCDs for companies such as Dell Computer and other resellers that sell computer monitors to consumers. But at this year's Comdex Fall 2002 trade show, the company has revealed a new goal: To see more of its screens appear in televisions and on the seat backs of cars. "We're No. 1 in the market for PCs, and we want to be No. 1 in the television market," said Bruce Berkoff, executive vice president at LG Philips. The company is the market leader for 10-inch and larger displays for desktop flat-panel monitors, according to research firm DisplaySearch.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-966745.html?tag=cd_mh

ATI releases Linux graphics software
Graphics chip maker ATI Technologies released on Thursday a new Linux version of the software that's necessary to make its graphics cards work. The Unified Linux Driver -- available for download from ATI -- is a collection of "drivers," software that tells a computer's operating system how to interact with hardware components. A scarcity of ready-made drivers has been one of the most significant factors against adoption of the open-source Linux operating system for desktop PCs. Serious Linux hobbyists will write their own drivers for PC components and swap homemade drivers with other Linux boosters. The new ATI driver collection supports all recent versions of ATI-manufactured graphics boards, from the Radeon 8500 to the company's current speed demon, the Radeon 9700.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-966731.html?tag=cd_mh