The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

[walktalker]

May things like this never happen again

Senator calls for encryption crackdown
The horror of Tuesday's coordinated attacks on the commercial and military centers of America has prompted the U.S. Congress to call for a global ban on "uncrackable" encryption products. Speaking in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, Senator Judd Gregg proposed tighter restrictions on software that scrambles electronic data and often hinders a government's ability to obtain valuable criminal intelligence. "This is something that we need international cooperation on, and we need to have movement in order to get the information that allows us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and in Washington," said Gregg, according to a report obtained by Wired.com. Reports this week have suggested that the FBI believes sophisticated encryption techniques were used to coordinate the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Networks boost security against attacks
An FBI warning has administrators of the nation's corporate networks double-checking -- and double-locking -- their systems in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. But despite the federal Terrorist Threat Advisory, which calls for IT professionals across the country to "implement appropriate security measures -- both physical and cyber," experts say corporate America is a long way from ready, or safe. Security service provider RedSiren Technologies Inc. spent the days after the terrorist assaults advising clients to take down all noncritical external Internet connections, including remote access and instant messaging capabilities. The company followed its own advice, shutting down its external Web site in the wake of the attack.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Technology could stop future terror attacks
The next time a terrorist aims a jet at a building, maybe the plane should say no. From computers that could steer airliners away from skyscrapers to face-recognition devices already used to spot card counters in casinos, technology could provide ways to make the skies safer, but at a cost, experts said. Current technology, which focuses on weapons searches, was bested by terrorists armed with knives and box cutters who crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon this week. To prevent this, new security systems could be buttressed with devices that look for terrorists before boarding and ones that keep the plane safe, experts said.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Anna virus writer's trial begins
Jan de Wit, the 20-year-old who wrote the Anna Kournikova virus, went to trial on Thursday, but the prosecutor asked for a relatively light sentence with no jail term -- 240 hours of community service. Public prosecutor Roelof de Graaf also asked the court not to return de Wit's computer, and a CD-ROM containing computer viruses. De Wit was charged with spreading data through a computer network, with the intent to cause damage. The maximum penalty for the offense is four years' jail and a fine of up to 100,000 Dutch guilders (U.S. $41,130).
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Wall Street braces to open Monday
.S. stock markets will remain idle for the fourth and possibly final day on Friday with Wall Street's work force battling heavy rain, numbing sadness and uncertainty over the future after an attack crushed the world's financial heart and killed perhaps thousands. The world's most powerful stock exchanges -- the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market -- assured investors they would reopen for business Monday if a slew of tests over the weekend were successful. But some investors wondered if such a resumption would be possible just six days after hijacked planes toppled the twin
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...pt=zdnn_nbs_hl

Bush to call up 50,000 reserves
President Bush on Friday gave the Pentagon authority to call 50,000 reservists to active duty for "homeland defense" and other missions in response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. A brief Pentagon announcement said the military services have thus far identified requirements for 35,500 reservists: 13,000 in the Air Force, 10,000 in the Army, 3,000 in the Navy, 7,500 in the Marine Corps and 2,000 in the Coast Guard. No further breakdown was provided. The Pentagon did not say exactly when the reservists would be put on active duty.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7163858.html

Online chat ranges from hate to sympathy
Like many other Arab-Americans, Walid Besharat went online this week to help make sense of Tuesday's horrific suicide hijackings, an attack widely believed to have been masterminded by the militant Islamic fringe. What he found was both comfort and fear. On America Online chat boards, interspersed between expressions of sympathy and intense discussions of the meaning and cause of the tragedy, Besharat said he saw many people venting anti-Arab hatred. "It's really disturbing to see that," said Besharat, a Christian born in Jordan 43 years ago. The U.S. goverment's attempts to find the perpetrators have so far focused on Arab terrorist groups, and that has led some people to lash out at all Arab-Americans.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7165025.html

Recovery uneven as Bush vows victory
With the nation on maximum alert against future threats, President Bush is pledging a global campaign to whip terrorism and the likes of Osama bin Laden as Americans are grieving over attacks that claimed thousands of lives in New York and Washington. "Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation," the president said Thursday as he mapped a military response, consulted with world leaders and consoled the wounded in the wake of coordinated attacks Tuesday on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. The fight against terrorism, Bush said, "is now the focus of my administration."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7163000.html

Tech world mourns loss of employees
In the days following terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, companies across the nation are mourning the loss of employees. Among those on the four planes hijacked Tuesday were employees from technology companies Cisco Systems, Oracle, Applied Materials, Compaq Computer, Akamai Technologies, Metrocall, MRV Communications, Netegrity, eLogic, Raytheon Company, Sun Microsystems, NextWave Telecom, BEA Systems, Vividence and 3Com. Cisco said Thursday that executive Suzanne Calley was among those killed when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Calley, 42, was in strategic marketing for the networking giant and was in the midst of a business trip.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7132225.html

Hackers divided over response to terrorism
Groups of online vandals and hackers are split over how to respond to this week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with some Internet vigilantes calling for an assault on perceived terrorist sites and others pleading for calm. More than 60 self-styled "computer security enthusiasts" have banded together to strike out against Palestinian and Afghani sites, according to a statement released Thursday by admitted online vandal The Rev and a group calling itself The Dispatchers. "We, as a group, of individuals, have taken a stand, armed with technology...to disable our target in every method possible," the group said in the statement. "As of September 11th, 2001, we have united to fight back and to show that we will not tolerate...this anymore."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Working to restore Manhattan phone service
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy, communications companies such as Allegiance Telecom, Verizon Communications and Sprint are attempting to reconnect customers by working around damaged networks and call center facilities in the area. A major phone-switching facility, where communications equipment is housed and from where calls are routed, was damaged by falling debris after Tuesday's terrorist attack, carrier executives said. As businesses and employees return to work in the coming weeks, an unenviable task faces many phone companies. Thousands of companies have been cut off from telephone service. Carriers are attempting to restore phone service as quickly as possible.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

IBM employee charged in bomb hoax
An IBM employee from New Zealand was sent in for psychiatric assessment in Singapore on Friday after being charged over a hoax e-mail that claimed a bomb was aboard a Singapore Airlines plane bound for South Africa. The alleged threat -- made just a day after Tuesday's devastating terror attacks in the United States -- delayed flight SQ 422 from Singapore to Johannesburg for six hours. The man, 35, was charged in court with transmitting a false or fabricated message. He is due to appear again on Sept. 28. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in jail and/or a maximum fine of nearly $29,000 (50,000 Singapore dollars).
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Video game makers to try not to offend
Leaders of the video game industry, long accused of promoting violence, say they will take pains not to offend a public shocked and grieving after Tuesday's terror attacks in the United States. "I think that our industry like any industry has a responsibility to look at what we do and assess whether tragedies like this should in fact influence how we approach making the products that we make," said Doug Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), which represents 90 percent of the entertainment software industry. On Friday, Microsoft said it would remove the World Trade Center from the New York landscape in its upcoming "Flight Simulator 2002" game.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

The kamikaze factor
There was nothing high-tech about Tuesday's attacks, and that is one of the many reasons they were so profoundly unnerving. What ultimately matters isn't how these conspirators communicated but what they were prepared to do. The single most important fact about them is not technological but psychological, and it is something Americans continue to be in deep denial about: These people were willing, even eager, to die. That -- not any trouble monitoring their e-mail -- is what blindsided us, and that's something the United States is simply ill-prepared to face.
http://salon.com/tech/col/rose/2001/...aze/index.html

Day of infamy: Surviving the Terror
I was one who wanted a better look. I wanted to get closer. And the price I paid was leaving my shoes in the middle of a pile of suffocating bodies. At the Wall Street train stop, people were covered with papers. A plane crash. That's what everyone said. Then a boom. Everyone ran. I ran to my office a few blocks away and called my brother in the Midwest. I wanted to be closer. At the corner of Church and Broadway, I angled my way through a large, packed crowd to get the best view. We talked about people jumping. The police stood behind the yellow tape. Minutes later, there was a boom. I thought it was a bomb, so I crouched, but people ran, so I ran...
http://www.business2.com/articles/we....html?ref=cnet

More and better news later on